THE HOST

The Host (2007) dir. Joon-ho Bong
Starring: Kang-ho Song, Hae-il Park, Du-na Bae

***

“The Host” is the biggest film ever to come out of Korea, a fun monster movie and a mixture of “Alien”, “Godzilla”, and all the Roland Emmerich-disaster films rolled up into one, with an unquestionably peculiar Korean spin to it.

The opening is clever: years before today, an American scientist at the U.S. Army base in Seoul instructs his Korean subordinate to drain a bottle of dusty, expired formaldehyde into the drain. The Korean man objects saying it will end up in the Han River harming the tepid waters. The scientist wonderfully typifies the environmentally unfriendly “Ugly American.” The Korean follows orders and proceeds to drain the bottle into the sink, but when the camera pans right we see there are hundreds of bottles to dispose of. This slap-in-your-face expository set up is a great send up of the B-monster-film genre.

Cut to present day, on the banks of the beautiful Han River, we meet the Park family operating a kiosk selling food and snacks to tourists. In the middle of the serene day, everyone’s attention is curiously drawn to an odd shape hanging underneath a bridge in the distance. When the shape falls into the water the quick glimpse reveals it’s a large creature of some sort. Several moments later it swims to shore and appears with great shock charging towards a group of tourists on the bank of the river. One of the rules of the monster genre is to hide the creature from full view of the audience until at least the second act, and in the case of Jaws, Alien and some others, the third act. But in "The Host" we dramatically see the alien in its full glory in this first scene. This is the first of many great shocks and surprises in this genre-send up film.

Hyeon-Siu Park, the daughter of the kiosk operator is sucked into the jowls of the beast and taken away. The remainder of the film portrays the family’s search to find the beast and rescue the girl. In addition to the scares Joon-ho crafts some great comic scenes, including a hilarious grieving scene for the victims of this first attack. Joon-ho sets up the family’s dysfunctionality when they start fighting with each other, while mourning at the foot of their child’s memorial.

The family provides the majority of the laughs, Gang-du is the father of Hyeon-Siu, but a real dimwit who takes the blame for letting his daughter go, his brother, Nam-il, is an unemployed university graduate and is self-conscious for his underachievements, and the sister, Nam-ju, is a famous archer, who feels shame for winning a ‘bronze’ in the latest world championships. The dynamic of these three fuels the film in between the monster moments.

But it’s the monster moments that make the film. The beast is truly scary and unique as well. It’s like a giant mutated piranha/lizard with dash of Alien and Predator thrown in. The special effects by New Zealand’s famed Weta Workshop (“Lord of the Rings” and “King Kong”) is top-notch and completely believable.

The send up of the SARS scare provides added poignancy and humour not to mention the not-so-subtle jabs at the anti-Kyoto, military-heavy American influence in the Korean culture. The result is a funny, scary and highly entertaining piece of pulp cinema. Enjoy.

CROUPIER

Croupier (1998) dir. Mike Hodges
Starring Clive Owen

***1/2

Guest Review by Blair Stewart

“Hang on tightly, let go lightly”

This motto applies to love and life for Jack Manfred, Clive Owen’s breakout performance as the feckless sociopath at the centre of Mike Hodges little-seen gem. A struggling writer, Jack fights his ingrained gambling gene inherited by his degenerate father and keeps his wet-blanket girlfriend at arm’s length from his true nature. Offered a job as a croupier in a tacky West London casino, Jack takes to it as potential material for his great debut novel, and ends up becoming ensnared with shifty characters and dodgy schemes.

A sneaky, deeply cynical take on the gambling sub-genre that has established itself over the past decade with the likes of “Rounders”, ”Hard Eight” and "Owning Mahoney", “Croupier” isn’t really concerned with turns of the card as much as the shifts its plot has on its characters, namely its star. Jack is dispassionate and objective enough throughout to make Ayn Rand proud, which is a nice way of saying he’s an opportunistic bastard playing all the angles. This is the Rosetta Stone for Owen’s future roles, a self-sufficient, intelligent man with a hidden smirk directed outwards against the world from his sympathetic performance amongst the chaos of “Children of Men” to his Oscar nominated turn as a predatory doctor with all the best lines in “Closer”. As the wild-card, the unspeakably sexy Alex Kingston (I have a thing for Alex Kingston) as the exotic mystery woman whose very presence should set off alarm bells and smoke detectors as she puts the story in motion.

Mike Hodges, a fixture in U.K. cinema dating back to the 60’s, re-introduces us to a character he’s dealt with previously in his original “Get Carter” with Michael Caine in the title role - a heartless professional who has a task to perform and does so wantonly and methodically and well.

“Croupier” is not a particularly striking film to look at, it does suffer from budget constraints in the same regard that I felt “American Psycho” did. What makes it a good film though is its commitment to the viewpoint of a true anti-hero, one who is memorable and highly quotable.

Is this a feel-good movie? Not really. But after a long hard day of traffic and bad coffee why don’t you blow off some steam spending the night with the company of a real mean son of a bitch. Who knows, Jack might even take that as a compliment. Enjoy.

Buy it here: Croupier

SYRIANA

Syriana (2005) dir. Stephan Gaghan
Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright

***

I’ve seen “Syriana” twice now and still I can’t say I understand the plot completely. It’s Byzantine, with politicians, agents, kings, princes, terrorists, lobbyists, and big businessmen all trying to find a way to milk money out of the Middle East. It’s a global free-market economy without global governance. All the players are fueled by their own self interests, they all have their own agenda, and unfortunately no one is in sync.

“Syriana” follows the interconnected stories of several characters to paint a picture of the complexities around Middle Eastern oil. Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) is a lobbyist investigating a merger of two American oil companies who’ve just signed a deal to drill and extract oil from Kazakhstan. Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) plays an energy-trader consulting for an unnamed Middle Eastern country (yep, it’s so fragile over there they couldn’t name a specific country). George Clooney plays an aged CIA Agent/hitman (Bob Barnes) hired to knock out the Prince of that unnamed Middle Eastern country. Of course, these are just the big Hollywood stars. Equally significant players include Alexander Siddig playing Prince Nasir an idealistic man who believes their oil can actually do some good in his country, Christopher Plummer, Jeffrey Wright’s superior who’s pulling more strings than he appears, and Chris Cooper as the head of one of the merging oil companies.

George Clooney’s character, Bob, is the soul and moral conscience of the film. We first see him brokering a deal with Pakistani rebels to buy a U.S. missile. When Bob discovers that the missile may be going into the wrong hands, he sticks with his conscience and attempts to track it down, but his superiors could care less for his opinion and dismiss his instincts. The world has changed for Bob, in the new technology-driven global landscape, Bob is just a soldier and a pawn. We feel sorry for him. He’s a cold war agent, rendered obsolete in the modern world. He can’t function properly at home, he’s got fresh ink on his divorce papers and his son wants nothing to do with him. When he’s given the job of whacking Nasir, it reinvigorates him; he’s back on the playing field and supporting his country. But when the job goes sour and he’s exposed, the CIA cuts him loose and makes Bob the scapegoat. “Leave no man behind” is supposed to be a motto of the military, but Bob is left behind, abandoned and discarded like old trash.

Disillusionment is widespread in “Syriana”. In a geopolitical world governments blur, borders blur and patriotism is a false word. It’s all very complicated and I don’t try to understand the details, nor do you need to. The politics of oil are too strong for one or a few people to manipulate or control – despite the best efforts of our three main characters to make a difference they will always be working for the man. Enjoy.

Buy it here: Syriana

DEAD RINGERS

Dead Ringers (1988) dir. David Cronenberg
Starring: Jeremy Irons, Genevieve Bujold

***1/2

“Dead Ringers” is a disturbing horror film that masquerades as mainstream. Cronenberg keeps the gore to a minimum, as compared to say, "Scanners", or "The Fly" and much of it happens off screen. But the film is the most disturbing of the Cronenberg’s oeuvre. It’s disgusting and horrific yet fascinating - like a tapeworm.

It’s the story of twin gynecologists, Beverly (a man) and Elliot Mantle (creepy names too). They are brilliant, but utterly maniacal and disturbed. They are both played by Jeremy Irons in, arguably, his finest role(s). Beverly is the shy, introverted and more responsible of the two, Elliot is the showman, the speechmaker and the Don Juan. Despite the closeness in genes, Elliot dominates Beverly, and coyly refers to him as his “baby brother. But together they make a perfect team both professionally and socially. They cruelly date the same women by posing as the same person. Elliot, with his charm and charisma, breaks the ice, and Beverly takes the seconds, which allows him to get laid without much effort. Professionally they are known as twins, but Beverly does the hard work and Elliot receives the accolades. They seem to have a functional system that has gotten them ahead in the world.

The armour starts to crack when Elliot beds one of their clients, an actress, Claire (a riveting performance from Genevieve Bujold). As before, they both date and sleep with her, but Claire catches on and confronts them about their misogynistic behaviour. They admit to defeat and Elliot has no problem letting her go, but Beverly has developed a deep love for her. Beverly decides to keep Claire for himself and not share her with Elliot. As their relationship develops so does a nasty mutual drug habit. Beverly is clever enough to think that he’s being exploiting for drugs (amphetamines and morphine), but he doesn’t mind.

Beverly slowly falls to pieces. Elliot soon succumbs to the trappings as well, and they both become addicts. Somehow they manage to maintain their careers during these tumultuous times. At Beverly’s most warped stage of his mind, he constructs a series of grotesque surgical instruments designed to operate on the bodies of mutated women (did I mention, this is not a date movie?). The design of the instruments is classic Cronenberg, a mixture of metal and organic body forms, part alien, part insect, part human. What they do with the instruments is truly horrifying and more disturbing than anything Cronenberg has done then or since. As I mentioned before, it all happens off camera, but the mere glimpse of the instruments conjures up every detail without showing it.

The film is about the insular world the twins live in and how their psychotic disorders combine to make them greater than the sum of their parts. Individually they could be regular people but together they are a nightmare. The final image is brilliant, two brothers lying together, the light and positioning of their bodies appear to have them intertwined or fused together like Siamese Twins - which is exactly what they wanted to be all along.

Like the tapeworm analogy, the film slowly and hypnotically seeps into your system before you realize you’re completely disgusted by it and when the film is over, even though you want it out of your system, it will linger and remain with you for a long time.

Buy it here: Dead Ringers - Criterion Collection

Unfortunately only one youtube clip exists. It’s in French:

THE LIMEY

The Limey (1999) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Terrence Stamp, Luis Guzman, Peter Fonda

***

The subtitle for “The Limey” should be “An Ode to Terrence Stamp”. The film is so simple in story that its purpose is to showcase the underused talents of Mr. Stamp. In the business it’s called a vehicle and there have been many star vehicles created by director devotees ie. “Jackie Brown” (Pam Greer) and “Hard Eight” (Philip Baker Hall). All the films have in common an aged character actor in a film that serves to bring them back into the limelight.

“The Limey” is the story of the singularly named, Wilson, an ex-con recently released from prison. He’s on a mission to find the murderer of his daughter, Jenny. That’s about as much plot as the film gives as it’s largely a moody, reflective film from the viewpoint of Wilson. The film’s narrative structure is unique. It moves straight ahead like a traditional narrative with flashbacks to Jenny’s backstory. But within each scene the film frequently cuts forward and back to the previous and forthcoming scenes. It creates a fractured view and gives the impression of someone telling a story and frequently going back and forward to flesh out the details. There’s no narrative purpose to it, as it rarely changes the perspective of the viewer, instead it’s really just an indulgence of the director to create a disjointed feel to the film.

The film is all about Terrence Stamp, a leading man in the swinging 60’s age of British cinema and a contemporary of the likes of Alan Bates, Tom Courtney, and Albert Finney. In his later years, he became a character actor and appeared in largely forgettable films. And for most people under the age of 40 he was General Zod from “Superman II.” But Stamp has an unforgettable face and voice. Wilson is light on chatter and instead shows his teeth with a steely eyed stare and expressionless face. Each wrinkle, line, pot mark and crevice tells a thousand words. At any given moment Soderbergh will cut to a close-up of Stamp at the most random times to remind the audience of Wilson’s unwavering mission.

The film leads up to a confrontation between Wilson and the big shot record producer and part-time gangster played by Peter Fonda. Along the way, with the help of his old flame (Lelsey Ann Warren) he comes to grips with his failures as a father to Jenny. This only fuels his despair and need for revenge. Fonda and Stamp make good adversaries. Both play former tough guys long on experience and big talk but short on the physical attributes and the irony of their real-life cinematic backstories are incorporated in to the film as well.

Unfortunately Terrence hasn’t exactly received the career renaissance as, say, Philip Baker Hall has. Perhaps he’s too good to play those character-roles. He’s a leading man through and through. Have look at his first screen appearance, 1963’s “Billy Budd”, his piercing eyes stand out of the crowd even then. Enjoy.

Buy it here: The Limey

Here’s a great scene, with the equally formidable, Bill Duke:

TOPKAPI

Topkapi (1963) dir. Jules Dassin
Starring: Melina Mercouri, Maximillian Schell, Peter Ustinov

***1/2

Jules Dassin is the unquestioned master of the heist film. In 1955 his classic French crime film “Rififi,” featuring a 28 min jewelry store robbery, became the benchmark for the procedural heist flick. Other great films have come after it but it was “Rififi” that set the bar for everything else. At the time Dassin was on the Hollywood blacklist and had to go to Europe to make his films. After many spoofs of Rififi, Dassin responded with his own spoof, “Topkapi” – an equally great film.

The target is a emerald-studded dagger on display at the famous Topkapi Museum in Turkey (yes, it’s a real place). The mastermind is the swinging 60’s-sexy figure of Europeon elegance, Elizabeth Lipp (Melina Mercouri – aka Mrs. Dassin). She forms her team of thieves starting with her former flame Walter (Maximillian Schell) who then recruits their other ‘usual suspects’ – a strongman, an acrobat, someone to smuggle the goods out of the country, a forger, a gadget-maker, and a driver. Peter Ustinov plays a foppish Greek tour guide who gets roped into driving the getaway car across the border into Turkey. Because of border restrictions, only he can drive the car in Turkey and as a result he becomes part of the mod squad.

This all sets up the mixture of the detail heist procedural stuff, Blake Edwards-type slapstick and comic misadventures of the grand plan. On their tail are the cops, who, with the help of Ustinov, keep a watchful eye on the prospective burglars. The trap is elaborate, but before it’s swung the team eludes the cops just before the heist begins.

The heist, of course, is the showcase piece of the film. Every detail of the setup, entry, removal, exit and getaway is shown in immaculate detail. Like “Rififi” most of the sequence in played in complete silence – no music, no sound effects. With Topkapi Dassin joins the esteemed list of Hitchcock, Eisenstein, Kubrick, and Antonioni as great directors stolen from by Brian De Palma. When you see Guilio hang and descend from the ceiling toward the glass enclosure you’ll recognize it as the same scene as Tom Cruise’s CIA heist in “Mission Impossible I.”

All the actors are at their best especially Maximillian Schell, the suave Danny Ocean-type and Peter Ustinov who bumbled his way to his second Oscar. It’s a classic role for him.

Made in 1964, it's a classic swinging 60’s romp – Exotic Euro locales, discussions of nymphomania, bright psychedelic hues, and a not-so-subtle homosexual subplot with the cops (the Turkish wrestling scene will raise eye-brows). It’s all in good fun, which allows Dassin to amp up the style to make the heist as glamourous and exciting as any of the "Ocean’s" films. Enjoy.

Buy it here: Topkapi

Unfortunately no youtube clips exist. But here a really bad trailer that doesn’t do the film justice: http://www.mgm.com/video_window.php?formatid=1040&videoid=460

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

An Inconvenient Truth (2006) dir. Davis Guggenheim
Starring: Al Gore

****

“An Inconvenient Truth” is a mesmerizing film – not just because of the incendiary information about the impending climate crisis but precisely because of the magnetism of Al Gore. The opening shot of Al Gore is from behind his back, a bright light off in the distance, he’s majestically silhouetted. If you didn’t know the film, it could be Bono running on stage before a concert. But it is Al Gore, the forgotten man and being in a culture that vilifies ‘losers’, Gore’s comeback is remarkable.

After losing the 2000 election partly because of criticisms over his cardboard/robot-like personality, Al Gore has turned himself into a political rockstar even more popular than Bill Clinton. Being up on stage on the Oscars for winning best documentary certainly beats out any State of the Union address any day. In hindsight, if Gore had a choice between being President of the United States during 9/11 and its subsequent aftermath (whether or not that included Iraq), or globetrotting doing PowerPoint presentations, hanging with Leonardo Di Caprio and winning Oscars, Gore likely wouldn’t change a thing.

Narrated by Gore himself, the film gives us the hard information of the impending environment crisis we, as citizen’s of Earth, face. But the key to the film isn’t the fact that we’re ruining in the environment. We’ve known that for a long time. It’s that the crisis is immediate and collapsible within our generation. Gore’s charts and graphs show the stats in the clearest, easy to understand and dramatic way. 15 years ago when the depleting of the ozone layer was the symbol of our bad environmental behaviour, the evidence was hard to see, we had to trust that the atmospheric projections were correct. But a picture tells a thousand words and it’s the before and after shots of the glaciers of the Himalayas and the diminished icecap of the Mt. Kilimanjaro that make the crisis real.

Intercut with the environmental story is a brief history of Gore’s background and his life from a young child through the origins of his environmental lobbying. Growing up on a tobacco farm, his family indirectly contributed to the death of thousands of cigarette smokers, including his sister. It’s tragic listening to Gore tell the story, but it’s also the perfect irony that connects his own life to the message he’s preaching. And it applies to more than just the environment. Gore applies the words of Winston Churchill, originally spoken about the impending World War, effectively to his own message: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences."

I have to admit, before the film came out, I was skeptical of listening to more environmental talk, especially in the theatres for $12. After all, we all grew up with David Suzuki and it was old news to me. But believe me David Suzuki is no Al Gore. It needs a charismatic orator to bring the hard truth to the people – someone they can trust, that won’t talk down to them, an everyman, a working class man and someone we feel sorry for. In fact, the timing couldn’t be more convenient – George W. Bush’s worst hour is Al Gore’s finest. Oh sweet revenge. Enjoy.

Buy it here (in an environmentally friendly package no less): An Inconvenient Truth

THE LOOKOUT

The Lookout (2007) dir. Scott Frank
Starring: Joseph Gordon Levitt, Matthew Goode

**

What a letdown. After reading critical ravings like or “an immensely satisfying suspense drama.”, or “it strikes me as an instant masterpiece” I’m in shock. Did I miss something? And the last quote came from a certain respected television reviewer from Chicago. I just have to ask, ‘what were you thinking?” “The Lookout” is made-for-dvd material at best.

Overpraised screenwriter Scott Frank gets his first crack at directing with “The Lookout,” a small noir thriller along the lines of “Blood Simple.” The film opens with a tragic car accident involving high school hot shot Chris Pratt. Four years later we see his life has done a complete 180, he bears scars from brain surgery which has rendered him with a skills and memory ailment. It’s not quite Memento-type memory loss, but kind of like a minor case of Alzheimer’s. Pratt has to write down his daily regiment such as showering with soap, locking the door, eating etc. It’s a gimmick/setup that never pays off. It frustrates Pratt because, despite his ailment, his high school heyday/prom king/local sports hero memories are still vivid.

Pratt works in a bank overnight as a janitor (huh?), and so he becomes an obvious target of a group of hoodlums looking to do a score. And for good measure he’s seduced femme-fatale-style beauty Luvlee, played by Mrs. Sacha Baron Cohen, Isla Fisher. After he’s rejected for a loan by his upper-class snobby parents, he decides to do the job. On the job Pratt is ‘the lookout’ – hence the title. They rob the bank, some people are shot and killed and then everything wraps itself way too nicely at the end.

The film is straight as an arrow and without a single twist, turn or bump in the road. Perhaps it’s a character film then - a showcase for the talents of former “Third Rock from the Sun” alum and “Brick” star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Unfortunately his character is as dull and uninteresting as a piece of dried tofu. He’s portrayed as a pathetic has-been who’s struggling to live his life on his own and make something of himself. I know he’s a little slow, that’s his character, but he decides to rob the bank that employs him after a couple minor defeats in his life. Come on! The holes in the film are as big as gunshot wounds. For example, Levitt rips off the bank and takes the money for himself. So his accomplices decide to take his roommate hostage and spend the night at Pratt’s house. I guess the policemen took Sunday off. The characters are laughably 2-dimensional and clichéd. First there’s Pratt’s best friend (Jeff Daniels), a wise-cracking blind man/comic relief, Pratt’s wealthy parents who pity him and treat him like an infant, the typical bumbling small town cop and the most laughable is the muscle of the heist crew – Bone – who looks like a reject from the Matrix auditions (he never takes off his glasses – even in the basement of his house!)

I can’t understand how some critics are calling the film a masterpiece or even enjoyable – perhaps they’ve been numbed by “Norbit” and “Wild Hogs.” I guess compared to them “The Lookout” is “Citizen Kane.” In reality its average pulp material and nowhere near the benchmark set by half a dozen other superior films, “A Simple Plan”, “Blood Simple”, The Last Seduction”, “Red Rock West” and “Bound”. It may be straight-to-video material, but even when it does show up on the shelf rent any one of those films first.

FAST FOOD NATION

Fast Food Nation (2006) dir. Richard Linklater
Starring: Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderrama, Bobby Cannavale, Catalina Sandino Moreno

***

Richard Linklater’s dramatic adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction book was unfairly disregarded by critics and theatre owners. Opening in the fall of 2006, the film received mostly negative reviews and quickly disappeared after only a week or two in limited release. It’s unfair because the film is quite good and worthy of the torch-passing from “Traffic” and “Syriana”.

“Fast Food Nation” is indeed like a third part of an unofficial trilogy of American big business vices. Like “Traffic” and “Syriana” it tells the story of a major widespread problem of middle America, in this case how corporate interests in the fast food business prevails over the health and well-being of the American people.

The film is set in classic middle America, a town called Cody, Colorado – the home of the meat processing plant U.M.D., that makes the hamburgers for the not-so-disguised McDonald’s stand-in “Mickey’s”. Greg Kinnear is perfectly cast as Don, the marketing exec who has come to Cody to investigate why unusually high amounts of fecal matter and e-coli have appeared in their “Big One” burgers. Greg is given a tour of the UMD plant and is shown the process of making the patties, only it’s clean and sanitary and trouble-free which causes Don to investigate deeper into the problem. Intercut with this are several other stories from the town – a group of teenagers working their jobs at Mickey’s with the boredom and who-gives-fuck attitude we expect from the people who serve us our food, and a group of Mexicans immigrants who have recently crossed the border illegally and now work the UMD meat processing assembly line.

Kinnear has two great scenes. The first is a meeting with a cattle rancher played by Kris Kristofferson. He informs Kinnear of the atrocities at the UMD plant – the use of illegal, untrained workers, an assembly-line that moves too fast for its workers at the expense of sanitation and safety and an unethical system of killing the animals. Kristofferson says to Kinnear, “they didn’t show you the kill floor did they?” This refers to the worst shift in the plant, the shift operated by the most desperate of illegal aliens, and which, for the malicious foreman (Bobby Cannavale), becomes a form of punishment for his employees. Kinnear is the wrong man for the job. He’s put in a situation where he is morally compromised. He could take the blindfold off the public’s eyes, or he could look the other way, go back to 9 to 5 and provide of his family. The choice is not that simple.

Ashley, one of the teenagers working the cash at Mickey’s, is given a great scene with Linklater’s pal Ethan Hawke. In a classic Linklater scene, Hawke playing Ashley’s activist uncle, muses on the middle-class attitude of playing it safe, going for money and living an anti-septic life of regret. The speech is perhaps out of place for the film but its great none-the-less and informs Ashley to quit her job and fight back against the man.

The storyline of the Mexican immigrants, Sylvia and Raul, is the heart of the film and played well by “Maria Full of Grace’s” Catalina Sandino Moreno and Wilmer Valderrama. They fight to get into the country for the chance to ‘live the American dream’, yet they ironically find themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire. The third act drops the weight of the American dream flat on their backs – Raul is involved in an accident at the plant which forces Sylvia to take a shift on the “kill floor.” The finale is disturbing and not for all viewers and will likely turn many people off meat for a while.

Together these stories paint a cynical picture of the industry. Perhaps not as dramatic as “Traffic” or “Syriana”, but the story is told in the Linklater way, through character and dialogue as opposed to action or suspense. The attitude of corporate America to the entire industry is summed up with Kinnear’s second great scene - a conversation with Bruce Willis’s character, a UMD’s liaison for Mickey’s. When confronted about the presence of fecal matter in the Mickey’s burgers, Willis succinctly sums it all up, “It’s a sad fact of life, Don, but the truth is we all have to eat a little shit every now and then.” Enjoy.

Buy it here: Fast Food Nation

THE CRANES ARE FLYING

The Cranes are Flying (1957) dir. Mikael Kalatosov
Starring: Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksey Batalov

****

No one can doubt the passion and grandeur of Russian cinema. The inspired and revered work of Eisenstein, Tarkovsky and Sokurov span the entire history of cinema. Mikael Kalatozov is a lesser-known name but a true artist who should be at the forefront of this list. And I’d argue “The Cranes are Flying”, winner of the Cannes Palme D’Or in 1957, as one of the greatest films of all time.

Boris and Veronika are blossoming lovebirds living in the bliss of new love, prancing around the streets with adolescent glee. But with the War around the corner the good times are not going to last. Kalatozov’s orchestration of this is genius. The scene of Boris and Veronika chasing each other up the staircase to her flat is marvelously dizzying - a bit of camera gymnastics that perfectly encapsulates their carefree whimsy.

When the declaration of war is announced, like most other young men, Boris wants to fight. Veronika remains in her love trance though, completely unaware of its effect on Boris. On the day Boris is due to leave, the couple miss their final rendez-vous and never see each other face-to-face. Upon hearing of the departure Veronika runs to the train station to stop him. Kalatozov is a master of emotional counter-point. The reveille of the farewell crowd counterpoints Veronika’s emotion-fueled chase to find her Boris. The scene is magnificent and a triumph of epic staging.

With Boris on the front lines, Veronika is forced to live out the war at home alone. But looking to make advances is Boris’ opportunistic cousin Mark. In an intense scene Mark attempts to rape Veronika while the city is in the midst of an air raid. Veronika gives in, and ends up marrying Mark, but her strength endures through the war and she refuses to let go of her love for Boris. She makes several attempts to discover his whereabouts and make contact with him. Boris dies on the front lines, but Veronika refuses to accept the reality. The ending of the war is not a cause of celebration for Veronika and the return home of the troops, like the departure scene, is again a painful counter-point to Veronika’s inner emotional turmoil.

No other country suffered more in WWII than Russia and that’s why Russian films about the War are so compelling. Going to war for a Russian soldier was the equivalent to a death sentence. Kalatozov uses unprecedented cinematic flair to put the emotions of the Russian people on screen. His deep focus and effortlessly fluid camerawork is a marvel and stands up to anything made today. The crowd scenes are staged with such authenticity it feels as if the movie being made is an afterthought to the events on screen.

“The Cranes are Flying” is one of a series of films from Kalatozov about passionate people trying to survive amongst harsh political conflict. Other films of his available to rent are “I am Cuba” and “The Red Tent”. A rare masterpiece, I’ve yet to see is “The Unsent Letter.” Hopefully this undiscovered treasure from the Russian master will also be brought back for the world to see. Enjoy.

Buy it here: The Cranes are Flying - Criterion Collection

PUNCH DRUNK LOVE

Punch Drunk Love (2001) Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson

***1/2

Guest review by Blair Stewart

What a profoundly weird movie experience this is, and what a thrill that P.T.A and Adam Sandler pulled this darkly lovely rabbit out of their hat on the general public. So this is what it felt like to be an American filmgoer in the unpredictable 70’s. I will always remember seeing this on opening night in a Vancouver megaplex in front of a packed crowd of Sandler fans and the horrified reaction as the end credits rolled with the Skittles tumbling out of everybody’s palms.
WHAT. THE HELL. WAS THAT?

Firstly, it is the very unconventional love story between virginal toilet plunger salesman Barry played by Adam Sandler with seething rage at the abuse he takes from his hectoring 7 sisters alongside the fact that he’s a virginal toilet plunger salesman and the mysterious red-dressed Lena played with saintly patience by Emily Watson as his romantic foil and likely savior. Secondly, it is Sandler and Anderson taking hammer and tongs to the caustic/sappy ‘Sandler’ persona of “Happy Gilmour’ and “Billy Madison” fame and to the entire ‘Romantic Comedy’ genre, adding art-house DNA of unpredictable violence and pathos to create this hybrid flower. Thirdly, it is an intense emotional experience for the viewer, its blinding florescent cinematography, disjointed soundtrack, tense acting and overall mood-tone enveloping you into Barry’s persona as he takes baby steps through self-inflicted danger towards the possibility of happiness. The film is blessed throughout with haunting beauty; a nighttime impromptu dance in the aisles of a grocery store, a sad close-up of a delicate character in peril that significantly raised my own heart rate to alarming levels, a silhouetted embrace that could be used as a visual definition of New Found Love.

Should Adam Sandler never veer down these odd side-roads again I will always admire him for the vulnerability and Travis Bickle-ish psychosis he displays in this role, with a supporting cast of Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman at his sleazy best and a superbly baffled Luis Guzman that assist his flowering as a performer. While Anderson will likely spend the remainder of his career making grand cinematic statements on par with “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia”, this I consider to be his best work for its subversive ingenuity. Now that I’ve praised it its up to you to view it, the mutant Adam Sandler project, the One That Got Away from the Hollywood Focus Groups, the $25 Million Romantic Comedy from Mars. Enjoy?

PS-Check out Philip Seymour Hoffman’s incredible stunt for the ‘Mattress Man Commercial” available on the DVD special features:



Buy it here: Punch-Drunk Love (Two Disc Special Edition)

MEMENTO

Memento (2001) dir. Christopher Nolan
Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie Ann-Moss, Joe Pantoliano

****

Director Christopher Nolan burst onto the Hollywood scene with one of the most ingenius and intelligent thrillers films ever made. The story is told backwards - from the point of view of a man with only his short term memory – we begin with the last scene in the film and work backwards to the beginning. I’ve seen it about 5 times and I still get confused.

Some time ago Leonard’s home was burgled and his wife murdered. The psychological shock caused Leonard to his lose ability to retain memories after the incident – this condition is called anterograde amnesia and is a real diagnosed condition. The Leonard of today is no longer a humble insurance adjustor, he’s a hardened vigilante in the midst of a complex and frustrating search for the killer of his wife. Without memories, the only way he can remember the facts is by tattooing notes to his body. These post-it notes to himself form the pieces of a puzzle for Leonard to find the murderer.

The device could have been just a gimmick, but in fact it’s a clever way to put an audience in the point of view of Leonard. It’s genius really. Like Leonard, with each new scene the audience is constantly in a guessing game as to where he is, what is going on and who the characters are. It’s disorienting but exhilarating and forces the audience to think and participate in the film.

Leonard is ruthless in his journey. The flashback scenes before the accident are very important to his character. The physical difference between Leonard the insurance man and Leonard the vigilante informs the audience of his transformation. Time is not a variable either, as there are no references to go by. We don’t how Leonard long has been searching for the killer, it could be weeks, it could be years.

Leonard’s last memory is the image of his dead wife’s lifeless eyes. This will continue to haunt Leonard for the rest of his life and so his journey, his tattoos and the other details of the search keeps him alive. When the puzzle is solved and the pieces fit together the film moves beyond a gimmicky suspense thriller into a piece of cynical nihilism. When he confronts the reality of his life, Leonard makes a choice to become the murderer – become the person he, himself, is looking for.

“Memento” is a great companion film to Nolan’s other masterpiece “The Prestige.” Leonard is much like Hugh Jackman’s Robert Angier, their obsessions become their demons and they both manage to destroy the moral sides of their existence. In fact, “Memento” is existentialism to the core. From the point of view of a broken man, Leonard is essentially in search for the purpose of life. Jean-Paul Sartre said that ‘values are subjective’ – meaning, there are no objective standards by which humans live their lives; it’s based on individual consciousness. Leonard’s new life cannot be judged or understood objectively by anyone but himself – but, as the audience, by working out the puzzle of his life backwards we become as close as possible to understanding the doomed man. Enjoy.

THE THIN BLUE LINE

The Thin Blue Line (1988) dir. Errol Morris
Documentary

****

No, this isn’t the Rowan Atkinson Britcom, it’s one of the best documentary ever made.

Errol Morris is one of the great all-time filmmakers – doc or drama and “The Thin Blue Line” is as scary any dramatic film. In fact, critics of Morris cited his dramatic recreations as more dramatic than documentary and therefore he was ruled ineligible for the 1989 Best Documentary Oscar. Morris would eventually win an Oscar for “The Fog of War” and he opened his acceptance speech with the apt line, “I can’t believe you gave me one of these.”

In 1976, Randall Adams, a wrong place at the wrong time drifter was arrested and imprisoned and put on death row for the murder of a police officer in Dallas, Texas. In 1987, while making a film on a judge with a notorious claim to fame of having sentenced the most people to death, Errol Morris discovered the case of Randall Adams. During his interview, he became convinced Adams was innocent. His Death Row documentary was abandoned and instead focused solely on Adams. Morris’ meticulously reinvestigated the case. The film interviews all the circus-like cast of characters and uncovers the comedy of errors that became the basis of the jury’s ridiculous verdict.

Morris’ interviews are one of his signatures. He invented a device through which the interviewees he’s talking to can actually appear to look straight into the camera when questioning them. The subject actually break the fourth wall with the audience creating a unique interactive experience. Intercut with the interviews are a series of highly polished and creative reenactments. But unlike bad dialogue with second rate actors, Morris shoots these scenes artistically, obscuring actor’s faces, using slo-mo and extreme closeups to create a dreamlike sensation. His technique has been copped by virtually every other documentarian, but even today, when Morris crafts a recreation he does it better than anyone.

Morris was one of the first filmmakers to use the brilliant composer Phillip Glass for his scores. His music for “Thin Blue Line” is magnificent and atmospheric and utterly creepy. It feels like a wave taking us further away into the world of the film, in this case, the seedy world of small town America.

But the stars of the film are the interviewees. Morris’s cast of oddball characters include, the pathetic Perry Mason-loving crime fighter couple who witnessed the murder to Adams’ inept lawyer and judge to the real murderer, David Harris, the real killer, whose awk shucks attitude toward the murder sends shivers down your spine. The facts and the evidence adds up to a shamefully botched police investigation and trial which resulted in an innocent man’s imprisonment for over 10 years.

Watching the legal system fail and topple like a house of cards is haunting and disturbing. The scariest moment of the film is the final taped phone conversation between Harris and Morris, for which, I think I held my breath during the entire 5 minute call. This is a must-see. Enjoy.

Buy it here: The Thin Blue Line

JFK

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