Buffalo '66.

Review #2341: Buffalo '66.

Cast: 

Vincent Gallo (Billy Brown; John Sansone as young Billy Brown), Christina Ricci (Layla), Ben Gazzara (Jimmy Brown), Mickey Rourke (The Bookie), Rosanna Arquette (Wendy Balsam), Jan-Michael Vincent (Sonny), Anjelica Huston (Jan Brown), John Rummel (Don Shanks), with Kevin Pollak and Alex Karras (TV sportcasters), Kevin Corrigan (Goon/Rocky), and Bob Wahl (Scott Wood) Directed by Vincent Gallo.

Review: 

"I’m really a controlling person. I don’t want somebody else to do the cinematography, I don’t want somebody else to do the poster - I did the poster. I don’t want somebody else to do the trailer - I did the trailer. I don’t want somebody else to do the casting - I did the casting. I don’t want somebody else to produce the movie - I produced the movie. I did the music, I designed the shoes, I controlled everything. Even if you look at the credits where it says costume person - I did the costumes. No one made any decisions on Buffalo 66, no one physically did anything unless it was my concept, my plan, my idea. That felt really good. Am I a filmmaker? No. A control freak and a hustler is what I really am."

Sure, it might be a bit strange to have curiosity for a film mostly because of its title, but it probably isn't as strange as the winding road of Vincent Gallo as a director. Honestly, the reason I became aware of Gallo was, um, his appearance in an ESPN piece about his hometown Buffalo Bills that I stumbled onto a few years ago. Anyway, Gallo was born in Buffalo, New York in 1961 to a family with parents he once described as "dishonest people" (food for thought: his mother, a noted superfan of the Bills is credited as a producer while a song his father Vincent Sr. sung is featured in the movie). He apparently worked for the local mafia in the city at the age of 12 in jacking cars and shoplifting but was eventually convinced to After graduating high school, he ran away to New York City. From there you might bat an eye at his pursuits: hi-fi guitar shop worker, Formula II motorbike racer, painter, model for Calvin Klein and above all else, musician and actor .He acted in a wide variety of shorts and films, ranging from his debut in the "No Wave" film The Way It Is or Eurydice in the Avenues (1985) to a small part in Goodfellas (1990) and lead roles in Palookaville (1995) and Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997). Gallo has released two films as a director since the release of Buffalo '66 while basically doing whatever he felt like doing, ranging from stoking controversy with his film The Brown Bunny (which premiered in 2003 to furor before an edit was released in 2004) to making a film in Promises Written in Water (2010) that was shown in two festival screenings and has not been available for anyone to see since to go along with occasionally acting such as Tetro (2009) and composing music (to take what he says on his website completely seriously, specifically selling himself to women aside from shilling his music, would be a joke unto itself).

According to Gallo, he wrote the first version of Buffalo '66 in 1989 that dealt with a character trying to win a big part in a film. Of course, the loss of the Bills in Super Bowl XXV in 1991 played a part in the idea to re-think the script. He re-wrote the film with Alison Bagnall, who obtained a co-credit on the screenplay while Gallo claimed she "really was my typist for a couple of weeks" (she has since wrote or directed three films on her own). Monte Hellman had originally set it up for himself to direct, but the apparent desire by the producers to wait for snow (well, the film was shot in Buffalo) to go along with Gallo's desire to shoot it right away (on reversal stock, no less) led to Gallo deciding to do it himself, which was done for roughly $1.5 million in the city of Buffalo (the house Gallo grew up in is the one you see in the film). Whatever one thinks of Gallo (provocateur, hustler, psychopath, genius, take your pick), I will say Buffalo '66 is a curious experience, one that defies you to call it "self-indulgent" (the director-writer-actor-musician Gallo once claimed that he designed most of the film's cinematography rather than Lance Acord, who he said had "no aesthetic point of view"), particularly for a film with basically an emotional hustler for a lead (his look apparently served as the basis for the 2011 video game Catherine, which clearly makes this a weird world indeed). It is a movie for the strange one in all of our hearts: compulsive, foolish, insecure, vulnerable, but most of all: being a creature of nature (whether as part of it or as bystander). In short: sincerity is a long hard road to actually reach, no matter how one calls themselves. It is a disorientating type of movie that rolls along with a nail-line belief in things that would make Blast of Silence (1961) blush in all of its hang-ups (real or imagined) that I can't help but appreciate in its twisted vision. It is the kind of honesty you could only find when coming back home to the old neighborhood, where a sight of the pavement could remind you of nightmares long past, or, for some, nightmares that pervade on anyways.

Ricci (for probably obvious reasons) did not particularly enjoy her time on the film with Gallo, but she does quite well here, managing to balance the tight rope that comes with basically being a puppet or circumstance. Puppet or whatever you call it, there is something about the way she approaches a scene with her mannerisms (call it "the time when Gallo isn't running his mouth") that is endearing in the strangest sense of the word. Consider the photobooth sequence in just looking at these people when it comes to "take photo" mixed with "spanning time". Far from kindred spirits, they just happen to be creatures of varying ideas of what love sounds like (I'm reminded that some people do take what they see on TV and implant that as an expectation). The funny thing is that the supporting presences are each fascinating in selling moments on the timing of a noir. You've got Rourke having two minutes in a chair that is strangely amusing more than just being a bit. Huston (and a wig) and her lunacy practically hits the movie with the commitment level of a 2x4 that goes hand in hand with the slimyness of Gazzara, who in one scene lip synthesis to a song to Ricci (consider that the song was one originally sung by "Vincent Gallo Sr."). Corrigan didn't want to be credited at the time, but his wallowing disposition is immediately effective. The movie builds in curiosity despite all odds that seem against it (murky, strange and building to a climax that could only come from immaturity in motivation) because it just...goes for it all in transgressive energy. What one sees in the scene that ends the film (as compared to the one that starts it) leaves the viewers with the idea that maybe, just maybe, one can exorcise at least one hang-up in their mind. Call it unflattering, call it a strange city movie, call it whatver, but you can't call Buffalo '66 a wasted effort on anyone's time or place, and I'd say that is the ultimate victory possible for the acerbic person responsible for it.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Yes, at last I finally get to this one. Honestly, I had this movie in mind for a number of years if the Buffalo Bills were in striking distance of a Super Bowl. Four years ago [the last January before I started New Directors Month, point in fact], in the leadup to the AFC Championship, I reviewed movies from 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993 to match, well, Buffalo winning the AFC in those seasons.

Movie Night, and by that, I mean myself, have an affinity for teams like the Bills in wanting to see them (and the city) happy as New York's only pro football team. With that in mind: Go Bills!

Safe (1995).

Review #2340: Safe.

Cast: 

Julianne Moore (Carol White), Peter Friedman (Peter Dunning), Xander Berkeley (Greg White), James LeGros (Chris), Martha Velez (Fulvia), Susan Norman (Linda), Kate McGregor-Stewart (Claire), Mary Carver (Nell), Steven Gilborn (Dr. Hubbard), and Peter Crombie (Dr. Reynolds) Written and Directed by Todd Haynes.

Review: 

"There’s a history of inexplicable illnesses, that established medicine can’t confirm as absolutely physiological, that have affected women. I think they are diseases of identity that force you to see that identity is a fragile and basically an imaginary construct that we pretend to carry around. The more unexamined it is, the more vulnerable you are."

Admittedly, it took a few years to get to a director who actually started his career with a movie involving Barbie dolls. Born in Los Angeles, Todd Haynes studied art and semiotics at Brown University and yet had been influenced by his high school teacher, who taught him a lesson about reality "can't be a criterion of judging the success or failure of a film or its effect on you". Haynes made his first short film in 1978 but it was his work on a short in 1987 while studying at Bard College that garnered considerable attention in more ways than one: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) was a chronicle (43 minutes) of the life of the pop singer but with Barbie dolls as actors (with, well, one being chipped away gradually to reflect anorexia) to make for an "experimental film" to go along with archive and stop motion footage that had music from The Carpenters...which generated controversy from Richard Carpenter because the music was not licensed for the film. The result is that one can only see the film in bootleg form. Haynes' feature debut with the sci-fi drama horror movie Poison (1991) had its own brand of scrutiny, because its partial funding by the National Endowment of the Arts stoked controversy because of certain moments in the film ("explicit porno" is an actual phrase used by the babies who complained at the time). Haynes wrote the script for Safe fairly quickly after Poison but it took time to raise money ($1 million) for the film, which among other inspirations, found interest in "environmental illness". In over three decades, Haynes has directed eleven films (and one TV miniseries), which has included such movies as Far from Heaven (2002), Carol (2015), and his most recent movie, May December (2023).

It is interesting to hear "The Yellow Wallpaper" mentioned. As one might know from say, high school reading, that short story was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. That's the short story where a husband imposes a "rest cure" to his wife because she is afflicted with something after giving birth (okay, the disease in that story is basically what people know now as postpartum depression but stay with me), with Gilman being influenced by her own experiences of having been in a "rest cure" Think how that woman is gradually revealed to, well, have various descriptions of the wallpaper of the room that basically imprisons her. Now think about a movie that took inspiration from Louise Hay's self-help books that once had a quote saying that "almost anything can be healed" if one is willing to do the mental work for a narrative (set in 1987, at the height of a certain disease that obviously led to plenty of questions about therapy and recovery treatments, gay person or not) that involves a married woman with a family that finds something has afflicted her. The film starts in a place where one really sees the bare minimum of nature and manages to burrow further in that basically serves as facsimile of the conventional movie. It strikes to the core with a lead character that Haynes once described as having "the most vulnerable part of identity, the most uncertain and fragile part of myself." Time has seemingly made the movie seem even more prescient when it comes to that weird thing that arises in modern society when it comes to what "safe" really is in a land of hollow people that repress themselves (this especially leans politically, where I am reminded of how many people seem to believe things were just better in the old pictures/movies they seem to revere as gospel). Whether it involves psychotherapy, or New-Age mumbo jumbo, people just use something to strike at being "alone". Moore pretty much plays the role with a weightless type of quality in voice and approach that basically dominates the movie in a way that is beautifully horrific, as if she was a ripped wallpaper trying to get back to some sort of wall. Her vulnerability at the uncertain grasp that comes with identity and community is one that leaves you at a curious distance that has us examine ourselves for what we think about when it comes to the cycle of illness and what we think about in "recovery" through the lens of burden or strength. We see the sick, but do we actually hear them? Whether by circumstances of their own control or through the cruel nature of the unknown, the world we live in makes for a very strange process to see people and communities. It's interesting to see the contrast between her interactions with Berkeley (totally staid for the hollow-men, as one sees from the sex scene from above) as compared to Friedman and his ideal persona of feel-goodness. It is a slow burn of unsettling strangeness that leaves one at the very least unsettled at what has been sprung on them for its climax in terms of defining love in the eyes of oneself. In the end, we all yearn to be "safe" from something, where we wrap ourselves in a bubble and just believe in that decision in the face of all things. Whether taken as melodrama or horror, what we have here is a well-done film in the art of isolation and the delusions that come with misplaced beliefs and burdens that all come to roost at some point in our very lives.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Sunday night: be ready and Go Bills.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Review #2339: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Cast: 

Carmen Maura (Pepa Marcos), Antonio Banderas (Carlos), Julieta Serrano (Lucía), María Barranco (Candela), Rossy de Palma (Marisa), Kiti Mánver (Paulina Morales), Guillermo Montesinos (the taxi driver), Chus Lampreave (the Jehovah's Witness portress), and Fernando Guillén (Iván) Written and Directed by Pedro Almodóvar.

Review: 

"I was trying to talk about abandonment, about misunderstanding between women and men. The idea came from The Human Voice, a play by Jean Cocteau from 1930, but in a very free way. I often start writing with an idea of my own, or someone else’s, and in the process discover something else I really want to write. The first idea disappears – but it has an important place because it’s the thing that pushed you."

It's funny to consider the number of filmmakers who went against the wishes of their parents. Born in Calzada de Calatrava in Spain to a winemaker and transcriber, Pedro Almodóvar actually was sent to a religious boarding school as a child because they wanted to put him on the road to being a priest. However, he instead developed a love for the cinema, with a key influence being Luis Buñuel. His upbringing led him to a deep appreciation to the women around him. He moved to Madrid against the wishes of his parents in 1967 but had to teach himself when the National School of cinema got closed by the Franco dictatorship. He worked a variety of jobs, most notably as an administrative assistant with the Spanish phone company Telefónica. He did work in the theatre scene and wrote for newspapers before making his first films in 1974 with a handful of short films made through a Super-8 camera. Through the help of several followers of his work for funds, he made his first feature with Pepi, Luci, Bom in 1980. He steadily made features all throughout the decade before forming his own production company with his brother in 1986. But it was this film (known in its native Spain as "Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios"), his seventh as a filmmaker that he received considerable attention beyond his country; he cited the screwball comedies of the 1940s/1950s as key to the origin of the film, which had him garner his first Academy Award nomination. Incidentally, while the film had some inspiration from the play The Human Voice, the influence of the play was already present in Almodóvar's previous film Law of Desire (1987). Over his career (which still goes on even at the age of 75), the two-time Academy Award winning director has made over two dozen films in a wide variety of genres, once describing his cinema as one of "mixed genres" (calling his films camp is kind of funny, since apparently "camp" isn't even a word in his native Spain).

There is something fascinating in the lurid ways one can make a melodrama feel so alive and so dazzling. The energy and passion on screen is quite palpable, particularly for those who like to experience screwball movies that moves along with a spring in its step for 89 minutes with plenty to enjoy in screwy people where the strangest things really can happen suddenly. Complicated people are as weird as you and me because melodrama is present wherever you can look in the pageantry of life, complete with a considerably colorful set with the apartment that dominates most of the setting. This was the last of a string of movies Maura made with Almodóvar (the two had a falling out for years during production), which I'm sure is quite interesting for those watching at the end of that rope. At any rate, she makes for a curious performance when it comes to frantic commitment that rolls along with the other people in strange situations devoured by passion and missed connections. Her weary nature at the growing absurdity (escaped nuts, secretive lawyers, you get the idea) is a funny one to see play out with commitment in the art of suffering and nerves, suffice to say. You've got a couple of upstarts with Barranco, Banderas and de Palma (the former had a few TV productions and shorts behind her, the middle got his start with Almodóvar's Labyrinth of Passion [1982] and the latter had two other movie roles) that do inspire a number of laughs in the charm that arises quickly in their wandering nature that they play right to the point that arises when one knows people that can't help but bring you right into strange chaos when you actually say it aloud. Serrano is usefully deranged to help the contrast between our lovable goofballs and, well, other nuts (to say nothing of Guillén, who pops in and out with exquisite cad energy). The chase sequence near the climax is especially amusing in that delightful sort of manner that comes in frantic energy and timing that even has a good punchline to close it all out in moving on. There are just a handful of lines that just bounce with the disposition of someone who has a pretty good idea of the foibles that come with hang-ups and hanging on that is endearing in all of those chuckles. As a whole, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a pretty fun farce, managing to roll along with curiosity and humor that goes through the eyes of a woman with refreshing commitment and insight for a good time.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Repo Man.

Review #2338: Repo Man.

Cast:

Harry Dean Stanton (Bud), Emilio Estevez (Otto Maddox), Tracey Walter (Miller), Olivia Barash (Leila), Sy Richardson (Lite), Vonetta McGee (Marlene), Richard Foronjy (Arnold Plettschner), Susan Barnes (Agent Rogersz), Fox Harris (J. Frank Parnell), Tom Finnegan (Oly), Del Zamora (Lagarto Rodriguez), Eddie Velez (Napoleon "Napo" Rodriguez), Zander Schloss (Kevin), and Jennifer Balgobin (Debbi) Written and Directed by Alex Cox.

Review:

"Nuclear War.  Of course. What else could it be about?  And the demented society that contemplated the possibility thereof.  Repoing people’s cars and hating alien ideologies were only the tip of the iceberg.  The iceberg itself was the maniac culture which had elected so-called “leaders” named Reagan and Thatcher, who were prepared to sacrifice everything — all life on earth — to a gamble based on the longevity of the Soviet military, and the whims of their corporate masters."

Admittedly, it isn't every day you get to cover a director who basically used up Hollywood for a few movies and then got shuttered into independent work in the span of a decade. Cox was educated at the University of Bristol in film studies and got a scholarship to UCLA with its School of Theater, Film, and Television. Repo Man came about when Cox approached two UCLA friends about producing a film (since they were doing commercials), having failed to get a script about a World War I deserter off the ground. Cox wrote a script about nuclear blast veterans and thieves that was thought of as too expensive, so he then went on a script that was based on "my own personal Los Angeles horrors" along with a neighbor that happened to be a repo man. A key influence was also a script called "Leather Rubberneck" that had been written by an acting student named Dick Rude that had insight about punk culture (incidentally, Rude plays a minor character in this film). Eventually, "Repo Man" attracted enough attention to get Universal Pictures to do distribution, although the studio dragged its feet in actually releasing the movie for a time (to the point where the soundtrack probably had more to do with the movie getting out than anything). The movie was a light success at the time it was released in 1984. His second venture with Sid & Nancy (1986), a loose biopic of Sid Vicious and his relationship with, well, Nancy Spungen, has become a cult curiosity in recent times. Straight to Hell (1987) wasn't exactly a commercial hit (he elected to make it rather than Three Amigos), but any movie that tries to play Spaghetti Western with cameos that revolve from Dennis Hopper to the Circle Jerks can't be all bad. And then there was Walker (1987), a movie released by Universal Pictures that was filmed in Nicaragua during the Contra War loosely based on the life story of William Walker (a "president of Nicaragua") that received polarized reviews and got Cox on a "blacklist" from the major studios when it came to distribution. Cox could not find a job in Hollywood because of the failure of the film and also because he was blacklisted from the Writers Guild because of his work on scripts during a strike in the late 1980s. Cox persisted on with productions that would be made in a variety of places such as Highway Patrolman (which premiered in its native Mexico in 1991), Liverpool productions in Revengers Tragedy (2002), "microfeatures" in Repo Chick (2009) or crowdfunded ventures with Bill, the Galactic Hero (2014). Overall, Cox has directed thirteen films (with plans for a movie of the novel Dead Souls possible, even in his seventies) while also serving as a professor in film production and screenwriting at the University of Colorado at Boulder for a number of years.

For a feature debut, this is a pretty slick movie. It will vary a bit in how much time it takes to really get into its satirical bent, but it ends up delivering a few good laughs with a worthwhile atmosphere that seems strangely in-tune to the times of now when it comes to the wide variety of characters one sees in the film that range from working men with habits (read: speed) to punks to strange travelers that wander in and out of the plot while one can see packages of food or drink with generic labels (evidently there was a time when one really could just buy generic-brand stuff at a market). Basically, it is the kind of movie that would fit right in being paired with Suburbia (1983) or a Roger Corman type of feature, complete with abject paranoia built right in. The days of living by codes or standards are flying by the wayside so one might as well live with the chaos that reigns free in "society among us". Estevez achieves that tightrope that arises in detached timing that sells the disillusionment that comes in growing youth and seeing hucksters all along the path that makes for a few good amusing lines, mostly because he sells the trip in actual commitment to what a punk looks like without just being a mug. Stanton has the disposition of a guy ripped out of a Western that he sells for a grizzled sense of charm and, well, humor in causal intensity, one that actually has a quote about hating ordinary people, which, well, it does kind of ring true for a certain type of working man. The rest of the cast is comprised of a few good kooks that range from Harris and basically being a man of both the background and foreground (consider where the movie jumps after the start) or the wide expression in Walter. The 92-minute runtime coasts along with confidence for its quirky characters and blend of genres for a fun time to think about when it rides off to the climax. Cox had an idea for a sequel in the late 1990s but never got to do it the way he wanted. Named "Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday", it was adapted into a graphic novel in 2008. In general, what we have is a pretty decent comedy that runs the gamut in punk flavor for expressing a howl at the times one is living in when it comes to consumerism and the presence of nuclear war in the face of all absurdities for a strange little fable.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Might as well update you with the upcoming stuff ahead as we march onto the last few days of New Director Month:

Pedro Almodóvar - Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown 

Todd Haynes - Safe (1995). 

However, I have a special surprise coming up on Sunday, after not being able to do so last January. Be ready.

The Wages of Fear.

Review #2337: The Wages of Fear.

Cast: 

Yves Montand (Mario), Charles Vanel (Jo), Folco Lulli (Luigi), Peter van Eyck (Bimba), Véra Clouzot (Linda), William Tubbs (Bill O'Brien), Darío Moreno (Hernandez), and Jo Dest (Smerloff) Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Review: 

Time really does mean some directors and films stand tall after death. Henri-Georges Clouzot actually attended Naval school before his myopia made his interests turn elsewhere. He studied political science and eventually found work in writing, which soon led him to work in a Berlin studio involving translation and writing (with his first short film coming in 1931). He was fired from his studio job with the rise of Nazism in 1934 and soon became plagued by tuberculosis that had him sick for several years. He eventually found himself in a precarious place where Continental Films was his own place to get work in France...a German-operated company established after Germany invaded France. Clouzot wrote for the studio. He made his directorial debut with The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942). His second effort was Le Corbeau (1943), loosely based on an actual case of strange letters sent to people, and it managed the strange feat of being scrutinized by both the Vichy regime and anti-Nazi resistance members that led to Clouzot being fired from Continental. When France was liberated, Clouzot was tried as a "collaborator" that initially had him banned from filmmaking. A few years later, he was allowed to direct again, and he returned with Quai des Orfèvres (1947). Clouzot's reputation had peaks and valleys that really happened with both The Wages of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955). Marred by health problems and a few public critiques from filmmakers of the "French New Wave" that he took to heart, Clouzot made just one film after 1960 with La prisonnière (1968). Clouzot died at the age of 69 in 1977. The Wages of Fear is based on the 1950 novel Le Salaire de la peur by Georges Arnaud Clouzot co-wrote the screenplay with Jérome Geronimi. The novel has been adapted a handful more times: Howard W. Koch's Violent Road (1958) took inspiration from the book without saying as such, while William Friedkin made his own adaptation of the novel with Sorcerer (1977). In 2024, a Netflix "film" was released, as directed by Julien Leclercq.

It really is a gripping time to watch tension play out in slow burning essence. The 153-minute runtime basically feels like a gliding motion, one that looks upon its four leads in all the nerves possible for a trip through hell. There are four pillars of doom one eventually sees all get dropped into a figurative board that seemingly favors nothing but random chance.  They are comrades only in the sense of being united in an insane mission that is grinded away by the immovable hand of fate, complete with a capable quartet to carry the film along in grimy patience of warped sensibilities in some way. Singer-turned-actor Montand is particularly effective in selling the sorrow that comes in too much time for leisure in a dead-end space. Vanel and his illusory bravado that comes with an actor confident enough to let the role breathe without turning it into false pity that is undeniably gripping in the same sense that arises with seeing him and Montand when compared from the first half of the film to afterwards. Lilli and van Eyck might seem normal when compared to those two, but their warped sense of self is still pretty easy to see through just seeing them as either a buffoon or machine-like efficacy that only makes their pursuit all the more curious. Incidentally, this was the last film for Tubbs, who died in 1953 from a heart ailment at 45; he pulls off a worthwhile performance in blithering American type of grime that works with such a tight amount of screentime. One can cite quite a few sequences fit for feeling that tension firsthand, such as the timber platform sequence or the scene with explosive rocks or that illuminating (in more ways than one) scene in the oil. By the time the movie closes itself out in an ideal type of way when it comes to the price of fears and fearlessness, one has seen a pretty good experience in terms of tension.  Admittedly, trying to compare the film with Sorcerer is pretty futile, mainly because both are pretty interesting movies in distinctive visions for the source material that one won't go wrong with watching either movie in terms of tension. As a whole, what you get here is a worthwhile film on the unravelling nature of fear in a journey of terror that makes the most of its atmosphere and tension for quite the curiosity. 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Cape Fear (1962).

Review #2336: Cape Fear.

Cast: 

Gregory Peck (Sam Bowden), Robert Mitchum (Max Cady), Polly Bergen (Peggy Bowden), Lori Martin (Nancy Bowden), Martin Balsam (Mark Dutton), Jack Kruschen (Dave Grafton), Telly Savalas (Charlie Sievers), and Barrie Chase (Diane Taylor) Directed by J. Lee Thompson.

Review: 

Yes, even British directors can fall in and out of "social realism" films to do some adventures. Actually, I had assumed I had covered a film by J. Lee Thompson before, but as it turns out, Thompson's wide variety of films had slipped thought the cracks. He actually had an interest in plays before becoming a screenwriter with at British International Pictures (after spending time in the Royal Air Force in World War II). He had worked as a dialogue director on a handful of films (one included Jamaica Inn [1939]) before finally becoming a feature director with Murder Without Crime (1950). Thompson's most noted effort of the first few years probably was Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), which dealt with a failing marriage. However, he became an action guy with Ice Cold in Alex (1958) that saw him reach a peak with The Guns of Navarone (1961), which came about because Alexander Mackendrick got replaced late. Described as a director who "sort of sold out", Thompson would work in a variety of film and TV that ranged from directing the fourth and fifth film of the Planet of the Apes series to other fare like Happy Birthday to Me (1981) and nine Charles Bronson vehicles that closed his career with Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989). Thompson died in 2002 at the age of 88. At any rate, Cape Fear is adapted from the 1957 novel The Executioners, as written by John D. MacDonald in 1957. Peck and his production company had purchased the rights to the book not long after it came out, and the experience he had with Thompson on Navarone got him to hire him to direct the ensuing film (it was Peck that suggested the film title, apparently believing the book title was a "turn-off", where upon he looked up places on the Atlantic coast and found the Cape Fear region in North Carolina). The movie was written by James R. Webb, the writer for various screenplays such as Vera Cruz (1953) and The Big Country (1958). Naturally, a remake was done in 1991 (by Martin Scorsese, no less). Interestingly, both film adaptations are distinct in their freewheeling from the book that ranged from the time spent in jail (13 in the book, 8 in this film, and 14 in the 1991 movie), the nature of Bowden's relation to Cady (one as a witness to Cady's crime during wartime, a witness as a prosecutor, or as a defense attorney to Cady). Peck, Mitchum, and Balsam also made small appearances in the remake.

For whatever reason, audiences of the time seemed to be a bit weirded out at the rough-and-tumble elements of a thriller movie because, uh, even a movie that doesn't say the word "rape" could be thought of as a tough sit. Nowadays, one just sees a movie filled with impending terror that makes the best of its Hitchcock ambitions (why else would one have Bernard Herrmann for the music) for a pretty neat thriller. Peck may be a bit overshadowed here, but he maintains the general dignity that comes with trying to maintain a grip on one's principles (so not a saint but clear in his motivations). His onscreen family with Bergen and Martin sell that shaky dynamic that arise in growing ugliness that one is exposed to that is sold well. Balsam and the others are relatively on point in filling the edges in the growing claustrophobia (incidentally, this was released the same year that a relatively young Savalas was nominated for an Oscar for Birdman of Alcatraz [1962]).

Undeniably, Mitchum is the star here, and it was said that he took the role only when he was gifted a bottle of bourbon (his other best known role in malice is probably The Night of the Hunter [1955], incidentally). You can just feel the malice ooze from him in each scene he appears in, mostly because his contempt for Peck shines ever so brightly in general menace. He maneuvers around like a snake awaiting a target to strike with its fangs that perhaps is just as unnerving in his maneuvering that dominates the first half of the film, whether it involves the legal system or, well, people. You just have to experience the slime for yourself, particularly the sequence with the eggs. The sequence he shares with Peck prior to the climax involving the extent of where one would go in single-minded pursuit is especially a standout. The climax is relatively fine when it comes to setting up the entrapment for a queasy mood, albeit within the confines of what you might expect from its era. As a whole, it is a fairly tight thriller that hits most of the beats required in rough enjoyment with star value and a worthy look to accompany it in thrilling execution. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Woman in the Dunes.

Review #2335: Woman in the Dunes.

Cast: 

Eiji Okada (Niki Junpei), Kyōko Kishida (the widow in the dunes), and Kōji Mitsui (the village elder) Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara.

Review: 

Did you know the first Asian director to be nominated for an Academy Award was actually Hiroshi Teshigahara? Born in Chiyoda in Tokyo as the son of Sōfū Teshigahara (a founder of ikebana school Sōgetsu-ryū, which deals with flower arrangement), he went straight to working in film after graduating from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, starting with documentaries and shorts before his first feature with Pitfall (1962), which was an adaptation of a television play by Abe. With this film, Abe wrote the film as based on his own novel of the same name, which had been published to considerable attention in 1960 (which you can interpret in places such as this). The movie had two different versions: a 147-minute version and a 124-minute trimming that was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director (strangely, those nominations were a year apart from each other, which is how one loses to Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow one year and Robert Wise directing The Sound of Music in the next year); the next Asian to be nominated for Best Director wouldn't be for another 20 years. He ultimately directed a handful of films and documentaries (which included two further adaptations of Abe works) until 1992 while also keeping busy as an artist (such as ikebana and calligraphy). Teshigahara died in 2001 at the age of 74. 

Admittedly, calling the movie a peculiar experience is an understatement. You might as well call it a movie where insects lie in the sand that makes you feel each and every minute stuck in rawness. You feel every grain of sand and every bit of trapping in trauma that grinds away perhaps just as much as life grinds one to either work to survive or to survive to work. To live is to entrap oneself somewhere, and it really can come down to just big one chooses to dig for themselves in the guise of identity. Escape might as well just be a word that translates to "futile". The movie relies so much on the dynamic between Okada and Kishida in all of the conviction required in selling the illusion of what matters most of flight and punishment (okay, I'm paraphrasing from the sentence that precedes the book in there being no joy in flight without threats of punishment, but I think you get it). One craves meaning and will look anywhere to get that meaning, whether that involves passion drenched in sand or otherwise. Is it damnation or salvation that one experiences with a film all about form? At a certain point with these two, they might as well be thought of as one entity among themselves that is within a space of illogic logic (one wonders if they would be so lucky to experience such breathtaking visuals that occur here, naturally). Kishida sells that tragedy of living in the pit of all pits with efficiency.  Sure, one might call themselves free with what they do (or don't do) compared to others, but everyone is grinded up the same way in the end no matter how many paths they try to take for themselves. The music contributed by Tōru Takemitsu only lends further curiosity into how one could craft such an unnerving time for anyone to experience for themselves. An "avant garde" movie through and through, what you get here is a pretty intense movie. It hits most of the notes required for a movie you just have to experience in the realm of elusive claustrophobia that will surely stick in one's senses for time to come.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Well, I assume it is a good time to list an upcoming slate of reviews in the coming days: J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Wages of Fear and Alex Cox's Repo Man.

Blast of Silence.

Review #2334: Blast of Silence.

Cast:

Allen Baron (Frank Bono), Molly McCarthy (Lorrie), Larry Tucker (Big Ralph), Peter H. Clune (Troiano), Danny Meehan (Petey), Howard Mann (Bodyguard), Charles Creasap (Contact man), with Bill DePrato (Joe Boniface), and Lionel Stander (Narrator) Written and Directed by Allen Baron.

Review: 

Admittedly, some movies are picked not so much for their great status but because you have to admire the tenacity to get something done in the hopes that somebody, anybody, could watch it and either be entertained or learn something different in perspective. It is the work of a man who directed just three other movies but was never too far without work. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he dropped out of high school at 16 to look for work. Three years later, he studied at the School of Visual Arts and later worked in freelance art and cabdriving. Evidently, an invite to visit onto a Paramount sound stage in 1951 interested in filmmaking. When working, he was approached into working on a low-budget film with some friends...in Cuba. One can only wonder what type of omen comes with that movie being Barry Mahon's Cuban Rebel Girls (1959). But Baron had such an interesting time (well, if "accidentally firing a shotgun and getting arrested before escaping Cuba" is interesting) that he ended up wanting to do his own independent film. Gradually, with the help of taxi-driving and the help of acquiring equipment (such as "short ends" of film at discount price, or, um, going back to Cuba to recover equipment), a movie eventually came into focus. Baron was basically forced to star in the movie (starting with the test footage) when he could not get his summer stock friend to appear (Peter Falk, interestingly enough). Shot in guerilla fashion in New York City for about $50,000 (as shot and produced by Merrill Brody), the movie even managed to find a place for release with Universal Pictures. The movie actually had its climax filmed during a hurricane (in late September 1960, the East Coast got hit with a storm, strangely enough). While Baron wrote the film, Will Sparks was a "story consultant". The narration for the film was provided after production, as written by Waldo Salt and narrated by Lionel Stander. Both were not given proper credit due being on the blacklist (Salt would later recover and win two Academy Awards for his scripts on Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home while Stander settled in Europe for many years and maintained work). Baron directed three other films, Terror in the City (1964; also known as "Pie in the Sky"), Outside In (1972), and Foxfire Light (1982), but he maintained a much steadier career with hundreds of episodes on TV, most notably with The Love Boat and Charlie's Angels. In steady retirement from filmmaking for many years, Baron apparently paints regularly into his nineties.

There is something quite fascinating in the gloomy skies that come from such a raw movie presented here. It is a swiftly black-hearted movie that grinds 77 minutes in the strangest ways possible for a noir that really is in a strange place when it comes to "the times". It features a shell for a lead character to follow to go with, well, not the greatest performances to back that up, but it has a strangely alluring sense of self in terms of urban loneliness and a captivating narration that seems to engulf the viewer each time words get uttered, one that finds terror in the awakening of old haunting grounds to see, complete with a Christmastime setting to stick the knife in further. The movie starts with a scream and ends with the stench of death that makes for a cut-and-dry metaphor of someone who just couldn't handle being a man with people to think about beyond who goes in the box next. Baron may not have been a force of nature for acting beyond a particular cadence fit for small-time gangster roles, but you can still see a curious performance mined in the realm of desperation. This is a man grinded into being a certain type of tool that can be used and disposed of just as quickly as another can take one's place in the great circle of relevancy. Anybody could be a cog to be thrown away into the dustbin to a quiet disposal, really, but it is especially apparent to see it play out with a movie that does not lend much to its own proceedings. Of course, Tucker and his unsavory timing fit the movie to a T in invoking visceral malaise (interestingly, he would later become a screenwriter, co-writing such works as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice [1969]). McCarthy is fine as a mere ordinary pawn, one who differs from the creature we see in the film as our lead. As a whole, the sum of the parts makes for a curious result here, with Baron and company having crafted a raw and gloomy feature that endears itself to the ones who encounter it for the blunt execution that comes from its result of a man who can only be seen by others as either death or just a face in the crowd that gets whacked with fate just as everyone.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

High Fidelity.

Review #2333: High Fidelity.

Cast

John Cusack (Rob Gordon), Iben Hjejle (Laura), Jack Black (Barry Judd), Todd Louiso (Dick), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Charlie Nicholson), Lisa Bonet (Marie DeSalle), Sara Gilbert (Anaugh Moss), Chris Bauer (Paul), Lili Taylor (Sarah Kendrew), Joan Cusack (Liz), Tim Robbins (Ian "Ray" Raymond), and Joelle Carter (Penny Hardwick) Directed by Stephen Frears.

Review: 

“I liked the idea of it being in America. It had a sort of, this sort of more optimistic way in which Americans live, seemed to me to add something to it, rather than taking it away. So it lost some of its stoicism and became slightly more romantic.”

Yes, movies from the new millennium are soon to turn 25 years old, so it seemed apt to cover a movie just as much a result of the writers as it is the director. In 1995, essayist Nick Hornby (probably best known already for his 1995 memoir Fever Pitch), had his first novel come out to the frenzied attention of British audiences who apparently found something in themselves with a setting at a London record shop and a distinct inner monologue. There were rumblings of doing a film as soon as the book came out, with plans ranging from having a draft script done by Scott Rosenberg set in Boston or having Mike Newell involved as a director. Eventually, it was sprung to have John Cusack take a crack at writing a film screenplay, one done in collaboration with D. V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink, who each had worked on Grosse Pointe Blank (as released by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution in 1997). It was through Hornby's permission that they could change the setting to Chicago. Basically, Cusack and Pink/DeVincentis would each go through the book and write what they structured from the book and eventually edit what they saw by basically approaching it as "a checklist of things we need to get done". Cusack suggested trying to approach Stephen Frears to direct. He had actually studied law at the University of Cambridge before electing to work as an assistant to Lindsay Anderson at the Royal Court Theatre (he also worked as an assistant to Karel Reisz as well) and he soon honed his skills for British television. He became a feature director with Gumshoe (1971), but he became a name with My Beautiful Launderette (1985). Hornby was apparently quite satisfied with the adaptation, mostly because a good deal of the dialogue addressing the audience is basically straight from the book. In 2020, a television adaptation of the book came out that lasted one season.

There is something strangely comforting about a comedy that doubles as a sort of male confessional. It is the kind of movie made for people who besides having a certain interest in music maybe, just maybe, need to grow up. The love affair one can have with music in all of its meaningful depths and reaches is palpable with the people we experience in the film that actually end up feeling like people we know in some way or form. Maybe we don't all make top five lists, but we sure do stew on something in the great book of lists and hang-ups. Strangely, it reminds me of Annie Hall (1977), which also handles the anatomy of a breakup through a lead that likes to address the audience (of course, one actually feels the pulse of a tolerable human being in terms the direction and in the acting with High Fidelity, so chew on that). From the jump, it is quite understandable to see Cusack at his most curious and possibly his most effective role. He corrals the movie with a certain kind of slacker (one can operate a store and still slack) charism that really does come through in a manner that we follow along with in ways that a lesser actor would've simply just made a muddled mess. I posit that while some people are self-absorbed, we call them friends anyway because there is a difference between terribly behaved people and people with terrible behavior (i.e. the type that needs to hear "shut up!" once in a while), and some movies win out with weirdos like this. We chuckle and recoil at what we see and hear of a person in all of his bewildering aspects because Cusack just happens to have the voice to carry that drumbeat of weirdness to finding something to do besides just looking back. Of course, it just so happens that there is a pretty capable cast right behind Cusack to make things work beyond just a grandstand for music. Black and Louiso are a dynamic pair of amusement because each just happen to have their own distinct type of humor that connects from the jump in terms of timing and general energy for the material that is palpable in more ways than one. Hjejle goes along with the proceedings that arise from being presented in the prism of one-sided weariness that works in parts. There are a few other little surprises to be found in small moments to see someone such as Robbins take one on the chin in one particular scene of imagined confrontation or one particular cameo to raise a chuckle. I like the overall mood of the film, one that doesn't just dally to conventional means to try and say something about weird hangups or the people you see along the way, and doesn't overstay its welcome at 113 minutes. In general, what we have is a film made by people who clearly had an interest in making a confessional for the hang-ups in all of us that has a distinct love for Chicago and enough charm to make one mix themselves into seeing it play out.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Alice in the Cities.

Review #2332: Alice in the Cities.

Cast: 

Rüdiger Vogler (Philip Winter), Yella Rottländer (Alice van Dam), Lisa Kreuzer (Lisa van Dam), Edda Köchl (Angela), Ernest Boehm (Philip's editor), Sam Presti (Car Dealer), and Lois Moran (the Pan Am booking agent) Directed by Wim Winders.

Review: 

"The most pure is still definitely Alice in the Cities because it was my discovery of my own turf and my own territory which was the road, and the first film I made on the road and the first time I had discovered storytelling as a very free gift and not as something with a lot of rules."

It occurred to me that I haven't covered too many German directors recently, and it only seems appropriate to finally get around to a Wim Wenders movie, complete with a pivotal one for a director at a crossroads of what he should do. Wenders was born in Düsseldorf in Germany, and he actually had an interest in still photography as a youth. He actually studied medicine and philosophy before trying his hand at painting. It happened to be that his obsession with cinema (such as the works of John Ford) led him to try his hand at filmmaking; he failed entry test at France's national film school but found a studio office back in his hometown to work and eventually studied at the University of Television and Film Munich while also working as a film critic. He made his first short films in school before graduating with his feature debut in Summer in the City (1970), which had influence from a "great hero" of his in John Cassavetes. He then made his next film with The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972), a West German-Austria co-production that evidently took influence from Alfred Hitchcock. His dissatisfaction with the German/Spanish co-production of his next assignment with The Scarlet Letter (1973) led him to consider a different line of approach. Incidentally, that movie features Rottländer and Vogler in small roles. Wenders was inspired by the experiences that Peter Handke (a writer on three of Wenders' films) had as a single parent and probably just as inspired by Handke's 1972 novel Short Letter, Long Farewell, which was about an alienated writer making a journey across America. He also took inspiration from the Chuck Berry song "Memphis, Tennessee", which was about a man trying to re-connect with his daughter. However, he almost did not do the movie at all because he happened to come across the release of Paper Moon (1973) because, well, it coincidentally felt similar to what Winders had in mind for his movie. However, he was persuaded by none other than Samuel Fuller to convince to not give up. Taking inspiration from the photography of Walker Evans (famously known for his large format photography during the Great Depression), the movie was filmed in sequence from North Carolina to the eventual result in Europe as an improvised shoot (as shot by Robby Müller on 16mm rather than 35mm because of budgetary constraints, but the movie was framed for it the way they wanted to, which helped for a subsequent restoration). The film is considered as the first of a "Road Trilogy" crafted by Wenders, likely because his next two films with The Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976) each dealt with the road and had Vogler as star. An active director and photographer for over a half-century, one can find numerous highlights of Wenders such as Paris, Texas (1984), Wings of Desire (1987), the documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and most recently, Perfect Days (2023).

What we have here is a wandering piece of curiosity, one that captures a special type of feeling that arises from being unable to do anything other than take photographs in the guise of trying to "craft a story". There is a loneliness that arises in the imagination one can have with this film, since it has plenty of breathing room with its double act of Vogler and Rottländer that just vibes on its own terms in crisscross neatness. The journey is one of absorption rather than finding some sort of meaning to it all, and it probably is noteworthy to say that Winders "felt like a fish in the water" when it came to making the film, one where he could go into an adventure with drifters that sure find "something" in the eyes of travelling with one's eyes rather than seeing it, if you will (a half century later, consider how far one has come since the Polaroid SX-70 in "instant photographs of things"). Rottländer appeared in a handful of films as a youth before moving on to costume designing and eventually a medical doctor. She arrives in the picture not too long into its trappings (110 minutes) and basically snatches the show with her spry energy, one that seems quite natural in expressing the free quirks that come with both the road and becoming an actual person beyond the imagery of oneself. The character played by Vogler has been said in some circles as being the alter ego of Winders in his time and this works out for a worthwhile performance in the drift towards burning in for responsibility rather than burning out into oblivion, particularly when matched with the enigmatic Kreuzer for a few scenes. One hits the road of uncertainty with reasoned assurance with a duo that maneuver the countryside (sometimes with a choice music cue) with absorbing grace that could only come from a filmmaker wanting to let a movie breathe in being an image of the street rather than just capturing it, which works just as well for the ending in closing right on the point needed. As a whole, this is a movie wrapped in the glow of a journey worth taking in feeling and seeing the images for oneself.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

We begin 2025 with the fourth edition of New Directors Month, which you might remember had started with Metropolis for 2024. Through the month of January, we'll feature over ten filmmakers (Shigehiro Ozawa, Stephen Frears, just to name a few) that Movie Night hasn't managed to talk about in the previous fourteen seasons. Onward.