Not a Review

BLOSSOM HAS BEEN OUT ON DVD SINCE JANUARY.

Mayim Bialik guest-starred on an episode of Saving Grace.

= Heaven.

Possible review to come: Away From Her, a dvd I just bought for 5 bucks. Directed by Sarah Polley, starring Julie Christie. Looks wrenching.

Capsules!

I have seriously neglected my movie reviews. I've been too excited to be living back in America to attend to my blogging duties. So, in brief, here are the movies I have seen in the past month:

Equinox Flower and Late Autumn, two Japaneze movies directed by Yasujiro Ozu that are already blurring together in my mind. That sounds like a bad thing, but it isn't. Ozu had a tendency, like Cassavetes, or Almodovar, or any other smart director, to use the same actors over and over, in similar roles. That causes the movies to run together in my mind, but insofar as they become larger than the sum of their parts: Ozu has created a bittersweet, wry, thoughtful portrait of Japanese postwar familial crises and the rising role of the modern, independent woman. My guess is that watching more of his late movies would only enrichen that portrait, without feeling redundant.

Nothing could stray farther from Ozu than Live Flesh, a tradmark Almodovar drama. The plot is so fantastic I can only tell you the first five minutes: A boy is born on a bus during a harrowing night in Madrid in 1970. Fast forward 20 years. He loses his virginity to a junkie; she makes a date with him. He calls her and she breaks her date. He confronts her and they tussle and he accidentally knocks her out. A neighbor, hearing the noise, calls the police. The cops are arguing and the driving cop is dead drunk (problems with his wife). They arrive on the scene, while in the meantime the boy has confiscated a gun from the junkie and, terrified that he'll get in trouble, takes the junkie hostage. The sober cop tries to talk him down, while the drunk cop antagonizes him. Finally the drunk cop attacks him to wrestle the gun away. The sober cop pulls the junkie towards him and away from the fight, and you can tell she's fallen in love with him at first sight. The boy and the cop tussle; the gun fires; and the sober cop is shot.

Then the story REALLY starts, and involves quite a few twists, as usual, with gorgeous cinematography and sensual liaisons and high drama in that way that Almodovar does so well. I loved this movie so much that instead of watching it for half an hour and going to sleep like a responsible person on a weeknight, I had to stay up for the whole thing and was exhausted at work the next day. It was worth it.

A comedy that rather surprised me was Role Models. I watched it because it was on in the living room and I had nothing better to do. I ended up laughing consistently throughout the movie. Paul Rudd is so, so funny, mostly because he is such an asshole in this movie. I'm not a huge fan of Sean William Scott (Stiffler! Ugh. American Pie.), but I love the boy he mentors in the movie. "Fuck you, Miss Daisy," is now one of my new favorite movie quotes. I highly recommend it, because it's got some really good jokes, and because it's part of this bizarre genre of movies that seems to be ever more popular, the bromance. I find them fascinating.

One movie I haven't seen since I was a child is The Gods Must Be Crazy. It is still so good! I can't believe this movie isn't more of a cult classic. I've never met anyone else who's seen it. I highly, highly recommend it. It's slapstick and mockumentary and delicious irreverence, long before Spinal Tap. It's a political satire of African postcolonialism and the malicious encroaching of modernity, with lots of Chaplinesque falls and sightgags. I laughed so hard at such timeless gags.

I re-watched An Affair to Remember. I can never see this movie too many times. I don't know how I'm so in love with Carey Grant, but I am. I can't tell if it's because he had great taste in picking roles or if he just makes all his roles that memorable, but I can't think of a movie where I haven't thorgoughly enjoyed him. I just love the sassy exchanges between him and Deborah Kerr. I also love that this movie is a truly High Romance. Directors like Almodovar reinterpret High Romance in their own kooky ways, but this is original. This is essential. It must be seen, if only for the moments when the two leads are inspecting their respective soon-to-be-insignificant-others as their boat pulls into port. It is priceless.

Lastly, I re-watched Magnificent Obsession. Rock Hudson. Jane Wyman. Less fabulous than All That Heaven Allows, but still agonizing if you don't know how it ends, and merely touching and beautiful if you do. I recommend watching All That Heaven Allows first, then seeing Magnificent Obsession for healthy comparison. Also has Agnes Moorehead, looking strange and forbidding as usual.

The Fisher King

I think I enjoyed watching The Fisher King, but I felt really...disappointed by the end. I guess one of the things I expect and perversely enjoy about Terry Gilliam movies is getting trumped out of a happy, well-resolved ending. I was surprised to find a sappy, happily-ever-after finish to a satisfyingly weird plot. Why would Mercedes Ruehl's character take back that schmuck (Jeff Bridges)? Why was Lydia okay with finding out Parry (Robin Williams) was a clinically insane hobo? The ending really jumped a plot point or two.

That said, I rather enjoyed all the performances, but especially Mercedes Ruehl. What a sass machine she is. I always seem to enjoy Mercedes Ruehl, and every time I see her in something, I remember I need to re-watch Lost in Yonkers, which I haven't seen since I was 9. I have a feeling I'll enjoy it more this time around. Amanda Plummer was quite convincing as Parry's weird, unfriendly love interest. Robin Williams didn't irritate me to death. I rather like Jeff Bridges, even when he's playing a sleazy character like this one. Of course, in any Gilliam movie the minor performances are the scene stealers. In this one it's Michael Jeter as the homeless, faggedy, cross-dressing cabaret singer with a death wish. He was marvelous. And Tom Waits has a cameo as a legless, philosophizing bum. In fact, if you ignore the saccharine mess of a plot this becomes and just focus on the homeless guys, this movie becomes an ode to the eccentric fabric of bums that carpets New York City.

Gilliam is not to blame for my problems with this movie. He does his trademark job with fisheye lenses and disorienting flights of fancy, and does it well. The problem rests with Richard LaGravenese's retarded screenplay manipulations. He's the guy who brought us that impossible-to-watch-without-cringing Living Out Loud and the load of sap that is Bridges of Madison County. He's also the reason why I have to cover my eyes through half of The Mirror Has Two Faces, and that's got Babs in it! Someday I'd like to meet this bloke just to shake my fist at him and ask him, "where are your balls, dude?"

The Diva Series

I watched a sort of Diva Series last week with my dear chum Brandi: Coal Miner's Daughter, What's Love Got To Do With It and Sweet Dreams. Though Brandi and I love love LOVE divas and the biopics that tell their oft-tragic stories, I had issues with Sweet Dreams. The other two were superb.

Coal Miner's Daughter is remarkable mostly for Sissy Spacek's incredible portrayal. That was some obsessive mimicry, and while her voice could never match the timbre of the real Loretta, her singing was sensational! The movie hooked Brandi and me in immediately, and casting Tommy Lee Jones--whom we both consider to be creepy in just about every role--as her husband was eerily convincing. Because the movie was made with Loretta's collaboration, and using her biography, we had to assume that the horrifying wedding night rape scene and subsequent violent and outrageous behavior exhibited by said hubby were true. The movie certainly made us uncomfortable, and made us yell at the screen like we should. Even though she's not exactly sassy, wacky, and sharp-witted like most divas, we agreed that Loretta is a diva in terms of making savvy business deals and being a self-made sensation. Also, her singing costumes are DIVINE. I approved of this as a well-made drama, a convincing biopic, and a substantial portrayal of a country legend near and dear to my heart, which does, I'm sorry to admit it, Loretta, have a tendency to come home a drinkin' with lovin' on my mind. I hope you can forgive me.

We had both seen What's Love Got To Do With It before, and it was so amazing that it was worth watching again. Talk about a self-made sensation: Tina not only had overcome adversity to make it in a racist, sexist recording industry, she had to kick her abusive, controlling husband to the curb. Lawrence Fishburn was another eerily convincing casting choice. He gives us both the creeps in real life, and that was quite necessary for you to hate Ike as viciously as we do. Angela Bassett SHOULD have won an Oscar for this stellar, heart-stopping performance. I say that, but I'm a hypocrite, because that particular Oscar went to Holly Hunter, and anyone who's met me knows how much I love The Piano. That said, Angela Bassett poured her soul into this role. My only qualm with this film--and believe me, it's silly--is that Angela Bassett is so fucking ripped she could have beat the shit out of Ike. She is literally so ripped that it pushes the limits of plot plausibility. Also, it's too distracting for a lesbian to watch a woman that ripped and still be emotionally engaged in the film. (my spurious criticisms are another backhanded compliment: I can't find anything actually wrong with this movie)

Sweet Dreams, on the other hand...ugh. Brandi liked it, even though she only got to watch the first half, but I watched the whole damn thing and I gotta say, it does not do ANY justice to Patsy. We both noted how odd it was that the girl who plays Patsy's sister looks much more like Patsy than Jessica Langue. Yes, I know an actress doesn't have to look exactly like the icon she portrays--but it certainly helps! Babs may not look like Fanny Brice, but they've both got funny, striking faces. Langue did not feel much like the Patsy I've seen in old footage, nor did the film's portrayal of her career rise seem at all accurate. Patsy was much more in control and cavalier about her recording career, whereas the biopic made it seem like it sort of just happened to her, and that she was constantly distracted by her marriage to Charlie Dick. Her marriage is my other big beef with the film--from all I've read, they had a pretty solid marriage, and nobody could push Patsy around. She was a beast. I did not get the feeling that the movie did that marriage justice. She said Charlie was the love of her life, and she said that after a failed marriage and a long-term affair left her feeling pretty desolate. I believe her over the movie, and I doubt she was such a victim. Also, there was an awesome twist to the tragic story of her death that was not even used in the movie! You'd think a dramatic interpretation of somebody's life would use some of the best foreshadowing to ACTUALLY HAPPEN. It is recorded that Patsy had several premonitions of her death, and even started giving away lots of her stuff to friends (including Loretta Lynn, whom she mentored). Why would that not be included in the movie? It just seemed like a weak movie in many ways, although Brandi had to note that Ed Harris is a hottie pachotch of hubby casting. I'll have to trust her on that.

Hiroshima, mon amour

I have no idea why I hadn't seen this movie before. I feel like an idiot, always telling my people, "You haven't lived if you haven't seen this movie!" because I must not have lived myself.

During the viewing, I constantly compared the film to Shadows and Fog and Last Year at Marienbad, two other experimental films directed by Alain Resnais. The trio of films concerns trauma, and the aftermath of trauma. Shadows and Fog is a shattering documentary-poem that discusses the holocaust while panning over photos of the atrocities intercut with the present-day sites, already disappearing under fresh greenery.

Last Year at Marienbad, a baroque narrative, is as hollow as Shadows and Fog is laden with endless meaning. The Holocaust will always be the heaviest weight in cinematic depiction (and the easiest Oscar win), whereas Last Year at Marienbad concerns a mere encounter that may or may not have happened two the two characters the year before. Last Year often seems as though it will become laden with meaning, but that never happens. The dialogue is oblique and repetitive, constantly referring and accusing while relating little humanity, always hopelessly general, no matter how particularly they revisit each detail of their encounter: the color of her dress, his way of standing by a statue, a walk through the gardens. I think of Last Year at Marienbad as a wanky cinematic exercise that doesn't quite stand the test of time, except for wanky cinema nerds like myself who enjoy killing themselves reading Deleuze's interpretation and re-watching the film.

Hiroshima, mon amour seems to straddle both these films. The narrative, while oblique, is sensible: two lovers meet in Hiroshima. Both are laden with trauma: the Japanese man is, like any Japanese at the time, scarred by Hiroshima, emotionally and spiritually, if not physically; the French woman is wounded by the death of her German lover during the liberation. We witness the now-trademark Resnais technique of layering poetic musings over montages of places laden with trauma. I experienced real anxiety as these lovers met and parted, met and parted through the night. They are both "happily married" and I had no idea what I wanted the outcome to be--is there any "happy" outcome for such a film? I doubt it. No ending is entirely happy for anyone who has survived such horror as Hiroshima, an unspeakable loss.

My favorite thing about the film is probably how the synecdochic theme is wrapped-up in the last few lines of dialogue. Throughout, he describes his experience of her in relation to her birthplace, Nevers, and she describes her experience of him in relation to what she knows of Hiroshima, what she remembers of 1945. In the last few moments of the film, she says, "Hiroshima. Your name is Hiroshima." "My name is Hiroshima. And you, your name is Nevers. Nevers, in France."

Those last lines were just so good! They re-iterated how these characters will never be able to separate themselves from the synecdoche of their tragedy: he will always, in a way, be the horror of Hiroshima; she will always, in a way, be a bout of madness in Nevers.

So now I can say I've lived because I've seen this movie. I hope this kind of humbling happens often.

Isn't It Romantic?

This post is only tangentially related to film. This morning I opened the almost-floor-to-ceiling-windows of my tiny Parisian apartment to one of these. It was so darling and unexpected. The couple waved to me when they saw me leaning on the railing and smiling, and as I looked about, I noticed others doing the same in their cramped Haussmanian high-rises. Then I noticed the street-cleaners with their bright green, imitation plastic straw brooms, and women shaking out tablecloths on their balconies, and other Parisians going about their daily business, and was reminded of one of the most delightful movies I've ever seen, Love Me Tonight. Specifically the opening scene.

You think things like that aren't real, but they are! At least, they are in Paris. What a place to be in Springtime!

Suddenly, Last Summer

At this point I know I am enormous fan of Tennessee Williams, but I have never seen one of his plays, only film adaptations. Each film adaptation seems to trump the last. I liked A Streetcar Named Desire well enough. I only watched it once. Then I saw Night of the Iguana and was blown away. Then I watched Suddenly, Last Summer and I thought, "why do people make fun of Elizabeth Taylor? She's such a fantastic actress. She can act as kooky as she likes, for all I care. She's earned it." Then I watched Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and I FELL OFF THE COUCH. You think I'm exaggerating. Hmph.

At this point I can't even give any sort of coherent criticism because these movies are all just SO AWESOME. I could write essays, I suppose, on the constructions of fragile masculinity and the crazy homophobia and the strange sexless female characters and the skewed angular cinematography and how incendiary the feminine archetypes are when pitted against each other...but that's not necessary at the moment. Here is my list of awesomeness:

1. Night of the Iguana
2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
3. Suddenly, Last Summer
4. A Streetcar Named Desire

So why is A Streetcar Named Desire the movie everybody sees? They're getting gypped. Seriously. Reevaluate your top ten lists, fellas. Consider how epic John Huston was. Imagine Ava Gardner in a wet t-shirt. Crippling sexual tension between Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, for chrissakes! Katharine Hepburn playing a crazy faghag mother! Watch all these movies and tell me I'm wrong. I don't care if you disagree, but you've got to see them all.

Note: I still haven't seen The Glass Menagerie, but when I do, I will modify this list. And I'm pretty sure Jane Wyman won't disappoint if she's half as good as in a Douglas Sirk movie.