An Update!?
From best to worst, here's what I've seen since my last update:
Passing Fancy (1933, Yasujiro Ozu; Japan) ****
From what I've seen, this is second only to I Was Born, But... in Ozu's silent filmography. The narrative is ingenious, gradually and subtly switching focus from a lazy but loving fathers' brief infatuation with a young woman to the relationship between he and his son. Complex and interesting characters find each other, move along, and re-appear, and Ozu always finds the right words and gestures to connect them. Watching these Ozu 30s silents exposes how profound the rift between Japanese and American cinema style was at the time, and even remained throughout much of the century. Not that one is better than the other, necessary, just that they seem to have evolved on completely different planes, and are only now beginning to intersect in the interest of the techno-horror genre. Odd.
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970, Elio Petri; Italy) ****
Gian Maria Volonté plays the unnamed police chief whose ego inflates to the point that he's compelled to commit a murder, leave plenty of evidence of his guilt, then continue on his outspoken leftist political tract all while heading up the investigation of the murder himself... just to see if he's truly above suspicion. The result a violent, propulsive political satire. Petri's camera is always roaming, zooming, tracking; exploring rows of faces and piles of paperwork and bustling hallways. Maybe not even "exploring" as much as cataloging the busy-ness of government, the back-patting, and the deluge of information in constant flux. For a satire, there's very little real comedy here, but it's so damn entertaining, smartly-written, and electrifying that it hardly matters.
A Summer at Grandpa's (1984, Hou Hsiao-hsien; Taiwan) ****
Maybe the complete opposite of Petri's hustle-bustle politics, Hou's static-cam, locked-down mastershots of a quiet country summer are certainly reminiscent of Ozu, even though his more distanced approach to emotion lacks the simple spiritual grace of that master. There aren't many directors that can make a movie like this and succeed. It lacks any real plot and has little in the way of dramatic incident. But it's completely great and filled with quiet, observant detail and likable characters. Hou smoothly introduces and tidily ties up easy-to-swallow motifs and metaphors about life and death without letting his messages interfere too much with the ebb and flow of the lives. Great stuff, but admittedly not for everyone.
Try and Get Me! (1950, Cy Endfield; USA) ***½
Not as good as the mother-of-all angry mob movies, Fury, but not much is. This is nevertheless a taut and involving look at the lengths to which desperation will drive a person. Frank Lovejoy is damn good as Howard, a down-on-his-luck husband and father searching in vain for any job he can find when he stumbles upon Jerry (Lloyd Bridges, chewing up all the goddamn scenery he can get his teeth around), a dim-witted petty thief with big aspirations. The two head downhill, as expected, but I liked this more for the variety of interesting supporting characters than the story. When Katherine Locke's character shows up a ways into the film -- semi-virginal, middle-aged and wrinkles-a-showin' -- the oddity of her coy attempted courtship with Howard is so singularly compelling it saps momentum from the story, but ends up making the movie feel more delicate and layered anyway. The ending is powerful as much for what it doesn't show as for what it does.
The Paradine Case (1947, Alfred Hitchcock; UK) ***½
Not notably exceptional in Hitchcock's long list of whodunits but still satisfying, what this is especially awesome as is a textbook on how to shoot serpentine, shadowy beauty. Playing an accused murderess, the generally sorta ho-hum Alida Valli is so utterly transfixing in this movie that the frame around her seems to melt into an inky nothingness when she's onscreen. In deep contrast to her light skin, she's usually dressed all in black and lit from above, and her cheekbones cast pitch-black shadows down her face. Her glistening eyes -- eyes almost always on the verge of tears -- seem to glow and radiate something from deep within. Many of the slow push-ins to this otherworldly face had my jaw on the floor. Wow. Hitchcock knew close-ups like no one else. Alida Valli, c.1947, please marry me.
Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937, Sadao Yamanaka; Japan) ***½
A rather dour Japanese drama with wonderful performances and writing. It feels naturalistic even by comparison to the stuff Ozu was doing, which was already far more natural than most cinema out there at the time. I wish the surviving prints were better, because the cinematography looks like it's really something great but is hard to appreciate through all the murkiness. This is one of only three surviving films that Yamanaka directed, and his story is one of the supreme tragedies of world cinema. Not only was he killed at only 29 in the war, and at a time when his talent seemed to be reaching a peak, but more than twenty of his movies didn't survive the war either. What a shame. I like his 1935 comedy Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo a little more than this one, but there's no doubt that this is probably more refined and polished. Who knows what he could've accomplished had he lived longer.
Girl Shy (1924, Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor; USA) ***½
My first experience with the silent comedy star Harold Lloyd wasn't too far from what I'd figured it would be -- entertaining all the way through with hints of greatness, but still a third-placer after the works of Keaton and Chaplin. Newmeyer and Taylor's style isn't nearly as brilliant as Keaton's deadpan framings and absurdly long tracking shots, nor is Lloyd himself as winning as Chaplin. Because Lloyd is more a typical every-man, this ends up feeling more like a contemporary romantic comedy than a relic of the silent era, and I guess the modernity is impressive in its own way.
Primer (2004, Shane Carruth; USA) ***½ [Second Viewing]
I think the problems people are having with understanding the third act stem more from poorly drawn characters than from obtuse storytelling. I don't want to spoil anything, but lots of the late-film developments are easily understood when motivation is properly placed in relation to personality. Problem is, Carruth didn't draw the characters nearly as finely as he seems to have thought he did, based on the commentary at least. So confusion ensues. Still, this is one fuck of a movie. Really. It astonishes me that most of the takes were done the first time out since almost all the line-readings seem to have something very unique about them. A miracle for $7000, basically, but lets see what Carruth can come up with next time.
Happiness (1998, Todd Solondz; USA) *** [Second Viewing]
Palindromes (2005, Todd Solondz; USA) ***
Todd Solondz doesn't let you look away when you want to. As a cinema of humiliation, his movies are unmatched -- no filmmaker forces the audience to endure so much unflinching depression. But he's not a cold filmmaker; at least not cold to those who populate his movies. As morose and troubled as they are, there's the presence of a passionate, rolling catharsis that relieves duress, and all the characters are waiting for it. The catharsis doesn't necessary have to be a positive one in Solondz world, just one that works for that particular character. I'm thinking of the opening scene of Happiness, in which a tight shot on Jon Lovitz's face expresses such a pathetic sadness we're almost unable to watch it -- he's been dumped by Joy Jordan. He cries. But by the end of the scene, in telling Joy how he feels, Lovitz has passed the pain onto her, and now she must wait for her relief. Palindromes finds Solondz working on a more transcendental level than he has in the past, exploring the desire of a girl to be a mom, to have a child, which seems to stem from her soulful desire to connect, in a filthy world, with another human being on a completely pure level. Solondz doesn't always hit (Storytelling? ouch), but his ability to take emotional turmoil to thudding lows rather than screaming heights, like a Douglas Sirk or Rainer Werner Fassbinder film on suicide watch, makes him unique amongst his peers.
Dallas 362 (2003, Scott Caan; USA) ***
Why didn't this get a wider release? I mean, even a wider limited release? Coulda done pretty good. It's a solid movie with a premise that plays out often in the real-world, but is rarely explored in movies: two close high-school friends find their lives taking different directions as they grow into adulthood. Each of the four major characters seem to subvert clichés at every turn. The "prick psychiatrist" isn't really a prick at all, and really does want to help. The "needy mother" really does want what's best for her son, not just what's best for her. The "stupid jock" isn't completely vapid and does possess a brain and conscience. Etc. Scott Caan, go make another movie, you talented, big-necked motherfucker.
An Inn in Tokyo (1935, Yasujiro Ozu; USA) ***
Certainly the lesser of the two Ozu's I've watched lately, but not without its own merits. Was funny to watch the actors who played the father and son in Passing Fancy play basically the same roles here, just with a far heavier, darker touch, and it really brought to light the brilliance of the earlier film. Overall, it seems that I like optimistic Ozu more than pessimistic Ozu, but as Ozu got older, his movies became less definable as optimistic or pessimistic and incorporated the broad range of human feeling into each film.
Safety Last! (1924, Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor; USA) **½
See review for Girl Shy. I wasn't as impressed as much by this one, even though this is the most well-known Lloyd film. The big last stunt seems too arbitrary to last so long.
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2005, Asia Argento; UK) **
I watched this a couple weeks ago and really don't remember much about it. I had originally given it 2.5/4, but realizing that it hasn't remained in my memory enough for me to even give it a few words in a capsule review, I downgraded it a bit. I do remember liking some of Argento's more trippy drugged-out sequences. That's about it.
Dear Wendy (2005, Thomas Vinterberg; Denmark) **
I wish I could say that a foreign-made film beats an American film at its own game, and that this is a far more lucid and telling work about the gun culture in the United States than Lord of War, but I can't. Jesus is this movie dumb. It's got plenty of side-splitting one-liners like, "In fact, "killing" was such a dangerous word for us that we called it "loving" instead." Of course, when the shit hits the fan later, this provides another tidy follow-up line with: "It truly was a season for loving." [Cue corresponding song]. It has a very "outside looking in" vibe to it with an ugly mishmash of images from American pop culture and history trying to find a common thread. Never happens. And what happened to von Trier's voice-over writing abilities since Dogville?
Lord of War (2005, Andrew Niccol; USA) *
A movie that exists for no other reason than to be a political statement and oh what a stupid political statement it is. Wow -- the United States provides weapons to countries that use those weapons to kill innocent people and even sometimes eventually use those weapons against us? No way, buddy. And wait a minute, back up there... guns kill people?!?! You're shitting me! No, we're not. That's about it. The trailers push it as an action movie, but it definitely ain't that, and the drama is tired and boring. Cage's incessant voice-over provides us with information that could've easily been conveyed through the story to much less annoying effect. The more I think about this movie the more idiotic it becomes. Fuck this movie, basically.