Excalibur

Excalibur (1981) dir. John Boorman
Starring: Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Paul Geoffrey, Cherie Lunghi

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Excalibur is both supremely awful and inspired at the time, arguably the most passionate, intense, gory and gothic romantic version of the legendary story of King Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin, Perceval, the Holy Grail and the Sword in the Stone ‘Excalibur’. This is John Boorman's adaptation with help from his creative collaborator Rospo Pallenberg and as per the credits, adapted directly from the Thomas Mallory writings on the legend.

I still marvel at the grandeloquent mix of operatic melodrama, supremely gory bloodshed and sexual activity, set to the best-ever use of Richard Wagner on film (yes, even better than Apocalypse Now). It’s also acted with subtly of a wart, featuring performances so wooden and atrocious, it’s no wonder we’ve never heard of any of these actors, save for Helen Mirren and small early appearances by Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, and Patrick Stewart.

Boorman begins with the story of Uther Pendragon, father of Arthur who uses the sword Excalibur to defeat his enemies and become King of England. Unfortunately his carnal desire for his best friend's wife overcomes him and he uses Merlin's magic to deguise himself and rape the woman Igraine (played by Boorman's own wife, ew!). Eventually Uther is killed, embeds the sword into the stone, years later to be unleashed by his own bastard son, Arthur. Using Excalibur's power Arthur unites the scattered knights of England forming the 'round table of Camelot'.

Peace doesn't last long when Arthur's #1 knight Lancelot, betray his own moral conscience and succombs to his lust of King Arthur's wife Guenevere. Meanwhile, Arthur's half sister Morgana plots revenge against Arthur by encouraging the conflict with Lancelot and eventually manipulating Merlin into disguising herself as Guenevere, man-raping Arthur and giving birth to Mordrid, his half-Nephew/son/heir to the throne and thus his soon to be mortal enemy.

Visually, it’s a stunning work of art, John Boorman’s ability to protray the rich pathos of this fantasy medieval period with glorious cinematography and perfect compositions. Stylistically Boorman employs the same soft hazy lighting scheme popular in the 1970’s and used to fine effect in Boorman’s own films, ‘Point Blank’ and ‘Deliverance’, and to lesser effect in bombs, ‘Zardoz’ and ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’.  The psychedelic embellishments rides a fine line between on laughable unintentional comedy and the right supernatural elements contained in the mythology.

Alex Thomson finds a unique visual design which blends the rich medieval period details with the pure storybook fantasy elements. Watch carefully the scenes in which the Excalibur sword is featured, Thomson subtly shines a cool green glow in the background or on the actor’s faces to remind us of the mysterious quality of the sword. And the wondrous lady of the lake moments seem to be pulled directly out of that awesome final shot of Boorman's own Deliverance.

As mentioned the immaculately designed armour worn by the knights gleam magnificently under Thomson’s lighting, especially in the wedding scene. It’s a distinctly glamour 80’s look, just stopping short of using a star filter to accent the reflections. I doubt that ever came up as an option, but it’s distinct to the decade in the best way possible nonetheless.

The finale is especially grandiose and operatic violent. The confrontation of Arthur and Mordrid, father and son who climax their oedipal relationship by stabbing each other through their plates of armour, spewing blood over their chests is so bloody grotesque and phallic. As preposterous and extravagant the scene is played, it fits like a glove to Wagner’s music. Well, that’s obvious because the bookending music is actually Parsifal, music from Wagner’s opera about the Arthurian legend.

If you understand and appreciate the connection to the opera and the tonal extremity where this film needs to reside in order achieve spiritual heights that is does, then you can look past the atrocious performances and the general silliness which critics and detractors oppose. Nigel Terry in particular as King Arthur, whom we see first as a meek squire and then grow to become King of England and die in that bloodbath ending is mostly unmemorable. Nicol Williamson’s Merlin could be seen a nasily sportscaster reciting faux Shakespearan dialogue, yet to me his giddy performance is representative of the tone of the entire movie and glues everything together. If you can't accept Nicol Williamson as Merlin, then you'll find yourself on the other side of that fine line between appreciation and repugnance.

Excalibur is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Entertainment

Slap Shot

Slapshot (1977) dir. George Roy Hill
Starring: Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Struther Martin, Lindsey Crouse

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

“Slapshot” is one of the more unlikely successes to come out of Hollywood. Though it takes place in the U.S. it’s a quintessential Canadian story of minor league hockey, a warts and all inside look into a unique sports culture. Yet, it took Hollywood’s brightest stars to exploit this story and tell it more truthfully and entertainingly than any Canadian could have.

First of all, who knew that Paul Newman could skate so well, and play hockey even with such skill and believability? And why would the Oscar-winning director of “The Sting” and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” want to make a movie about hockey?

Well, Newman was once a hockey player as a kid, so he had natural puck handling skills. As for Hill, the fact is Nancy Dowd’s well researched script is not only knee-slapping hilarious, it’s one of the most authentic sports scripts ever written – a fearless and unpretentious look into the sport. Like Bull Durham, one of the greatest baseball films ever made, minor leagues provides the point of view into the sport. The milieu of working class, semi-pro althetes, with the same worries, wants and desires as it’s audience, makes for a much deeper examination of sport, and the dedication it takes to win and make a living at it.

Slapshot tells the story of the Charleston Chiefs, a hapless minor league hockey team led by a player/coach Reg Dunlop (Mr. Newman). Dunlop's career is coming to an end, yet he remains on autopilot with his team. Winning or losing doesn't seem to matter until he discovers the manufacturing plant which drives the town will soon go under - the death knell for the entire team. When a prospective buyer in Florida expresses interest, suddenly the stakes in winning and entertaining are elevated.

The saviours of the team come from an unlikely trio of goons named the Hanson Brothers. Their physical play and unending enthusiasm for the game help them and the team become a league sensation. Unfortunately everyone's dreams of playing in comfort in Florida come crashing down when when Dunlop's dubious lies are revealed. With their final game at hand, the team decides to give their fans a crowd-pleasing extravaganza of entertainment on ice.

The inspriation for Dowd's script came from Dowd's own brother and his experiences playing minor league hockey in the 70's. The scene-stealing Hanson Brothers were based on a trio of real life hockey players who play versions of themselves as well. After the movie the trio continued to play hockey and in retirement make celebrity appearances at events and appear in the two shameless sequels which followed many years later.

In the United States Slapshot is generally considered a very good sports film, but in Canada, the characters, gags and comic set pieces are so revered they are memorized with the same obsession cine-geeks have for, say, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Dowd's politically incorrect and lewd dialogue has made this one of the naughtier sports films - a genre now dominated by saccharine comeback films. And so Reg's dishonest actions and irresponsibility represents the perfect antidote these antiseptic Disney films.

The Naked Prey

The Naked Prey (1966) dir. Cornel Wilde
Starring: Cornel Wilde, Ken Gampu, Gert Van Der Berg

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

One of the unique experiments of the 1960’s is Cornel Wilde’s ambitious parable of culture and conflict, “The Naked Prey”. A remarkably simple concept - a British game hunter is captured by African natives for torture, escapes and has to fight the harshness of the African environment while in flight from his pursuers. The result is a 90min chase film which comments on the fragile state of our civilization with the same irony as “The Most Dangerous Game”. "Lord of the Flies”, and “Planet of the Apes”. The film would also become the main influence for Mel Gibson to make his own version of the story, "Apocalypto".

The stripped down narrative and decidedly unheroic and matter-of-fact approach to the action runs counter to the Hollywood notion of popular entertainment. But it was made in 1966 and reflects the experimentation with independent filmmaking in the 60's.

In the opening act, we see a small group of British hunters gaming on the African plains, guided by armed African soldiers as they go about killing elephants indescriminantly. The stock footage used to visualize this is horrific, but effective in characterizing the foreigners as exploiters. When the group is caught by a rival tribe, the Africans are killed and the British mocked in an elaborately staged torture ritual. It features some of the most grotesque and demeaning torture I’ve seen on screen. At one point one of the officers is covered in clay, which after hardenening into a solid is baked like pottery on a spigot over an open fire.

In a role only named as 'the man' Cornel Wilde is stripped down and made to play a game of chase against the tribesman. Wilde manages to escape the compound and out into the wilderness where the chase would continue. The film is consistently raw and brutal. Wilde continually reminds us of the base themes of conflict and survival by intercutting the action with scenes of animals preying on each other.. The man fights off a number of assailants with brutal, uncompromising and realistic force, rarely showing emotion, relying on adrenaline and instinct to keep him moving forward.

Wilde trusts the innate drama of the situation to pull us through the entire film without dialogue or traditional melodramatic goals. I remember in "Cast Away" a similar film about isolation and survival Robert Zemeckis felt the need to add in an inanimate volleyball for Tom Hanks to talk to get some dialogue in. And even Gibson's "Apocalypto" needed to add a pregnant wife for the man to save to amplify the stakes.

In each of these cases, talented filmmakers refused to trust their audiences to believe in the situation. In "The Naked Prey" we never get the sense that the man will escape, or that we even want him to escape. The pursuers are never categorized as evil, only that the chase is the natural order of this world. And the final confrontation results in a small but truthful moment of respect between the two combatants.

The film was the brainchild of maverick producer/director/actor Cornel Wilde, a studio player in the 1940's who made the rare transition into producing and directing in the 1950's and 60's - a path not unlike the career Mel Gibson. "The Naked Prey" was the first of an unofficial trilogy survival, followed by his WWII set "Beach Red" (1967) and his near future apocalypse film "No Blade of Grass" (1970).

"The Naked Prey" is available through the prestigious Criterion Collection on DVD.

Rain Man

Rain Man (1988) dir. Barry Levinson
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Valeria Golino

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Rain Man survives well these many years, and having few legitimate contendors (remember it was the 80’s) it probably deserved the Best Picture Oscar that year. It’s chock full of Hollywood schmaltz, essentially a road movie, two characters with a predictable trajectory touching the soft doughy parts of our emotions but executed so well it’s difficult even for the most hardened art house cine-snob not to feel something from this movie.

Tom Cruise plays the same character we saw in his previous three films Top Gun, Cocktail and Color Money, Charlie Babbitt a cocky self-absorbed egomaniac who operates his own smarmy luxory automobile distribution business. It’s a typical character of the cutthroat capitalist 80’s, a man who chews up and spits out anything that comes in his path toward his entitled fortune.

But when Charlie discovers his estranged father has passed, he looks to have found his fortune instantly through a large inheritance. Unfortunately for Charlie the money has been put in trust of Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), his severely autististic brother he never knew about. Charlie kidnaps Raymond in hopes of ransoming him off for his share of the money. While at first Charlie finds Raymond’s idiosyncracies annoying and frustrating a genuine and bond of brotherhood grows between the two, thus finding the real family Charlie never had before.

Barry Levinson finds himself at the height of his career directing with complete confidence. He was arguably one of the top Hollywood directors of the 80’s, directing one memorable film after another from 1982 to 1991 including Diner, Young Sherlock Holmes, Tin Men, Good Morning Vietnam, Avalon, and Bugsy. His direction in Rain Man is unflashy yet efficient, letting his actors command the screen. Yet, he finds time to choreograph a number of iconic scenes and individual shots which have stayed in the pop culture public consciousness. First, the memorable long shot of Cruise and Hoffman leaving the grounds of Wallbrook, as seen by the Center’s director. There’s also Cruise and Hoffman’s slow descent on the Casino escalator, revealing both characters wearing identical grey suits, ready to beat the house.

While Hoffman won all the accolades, showcasing his talents in transforming himself into a mysterious yet sympathetic idiot savant, Tom Cruise deserves as much credit. On the surface his characterization of Charlie as a soulless bloodsucker comes off as histrionics, but Cruise goes through the largest and most profound transformation of the two characters. The irony that the meek, unassuming socially stunted man breaking down such a streetwise intimitading person makes for great comedy. And this couldn’t happen without Cruise’s reactions and comic timing to Hoffman's Oscar-performance.

Rain Man also survives intact despite an awful sense of fashion which permeated most other movies of it’s day. The movie admirably surmounts Tom Cruise’s pleated pants and polo shirt buttoned up to the top, as well as Valeria Golina’s awful comnbination of tapered jogging pants and converse high-tops.

Most impressive of all is that Rain Man survives Tropic Thunder’s pinpoint accurate scathing of these Oscar-baiting movies where famous actors 'go retard' shamelessly exploiting audiences sympathies.

Rain Man is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

When Directors Act (for Others)

By Alan Bacchus

Back in the day, directors stepping out in front of the camera to act was rare, saved for those iconoclastic directors who have a flare for dramatics. Or perhaps directors with the biggest egos, a little bit of both maybe. Orson Welles is the best example, directing and starring in his first film. His bombastic reputation was equalled by prodigious talent in front of and behind the screen.

His best and most well known performance directed by someone other than himself is Carol Reed’s post-war noir The Third Man. Playing the mysterious Harry Lime. He doesn’t appear until the second half of the film, only referenced numerous times as a dead man, and the reason why the film’s hero Holly Martins has come to Vienna. Lime’s and thus Welles’ appearance in the film comes as a great suprise. Welles’ self-written cuckcoo clock speech is deservedly a classic, same with Welles’ frantic chase through the sewers of the city, so dramatically shot by Reed.

The stories of director Otto Preminger's on set temper and tyrannical nature are legendary. His passion in life (he once had a relationship with burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee) matched his work on screen. Laura, The Man With the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder and Advise and Consent are some of his more famous works as director, but to many he's most recognizable as Mr. Freeze in the 60's Adam West Batman series. His greatest on role was no doubt in Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 as the ruthless comandante, a role that perhaps mirrored the terrifying presence he was on set of his own pictures.

Erich von Stroheim was also an early director who memorably appeared in other director’s films. Even more impressive than Welles perhaps, not only doing it inside and outside of Hollywood, but in two different languages. His performances as the artistocratic aviator in Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion is a classic, same with his iconic portrait as Norma Desmond’s butler in Sunset Boulevard.

The presence of John Huston in Chinatown has a similar effect as the presence of Welles The Third Man. He first appears as an old, deprepit and presumably innocent businessman questioned by Jake Gittes into the disappearance of Hollis Mulwray. Later Robert Towne, via Roman Polanski (another director/actor), reveals a darkness in his character no one ever could have predicted.

Sydney Pollack just has a great voice, if he didn’t direct he would have made a great character actor. His gruff smoker’s voice and midwestern accent, and strong screen presence made him an ideal white collar bureaucrat. His fine character work in Tootsie and Eyes Wide Shut added strong sense of credibility to his roles.

The casting of Francois Trauffaut in Close Encounters of the Third Kind is perhaps the most unlikely. After all, Truffaut barely spoke English, let alone having any association to the style of filmmaking associated with Steven Spielberg. Then again, maybe not, through his work with Cahiers du Cinema, Truffaut began analyzing auteurs in Hollywood, including populist directors such as Alfred Hitchcock. If he were still writing into the late 70’s, he might have been lauding the work of a young Steven Spielberg. His performance as the sympathetic French scientist Lacomb, was a large role, requiring a tender side which Truffaut brought in spades.

Nineteen Ninety-Nine was a great year for Spike Jonze. Months before his Being John Malkovich garnered him a Best Director Oscar nomination for his first feature film, he played one of key supporting principals in David O Russell’s high profile summer action flick Three Kings. The film actually should have been called Four Kings, because Jonze’s character Conrad has equal weight and stake in the hero’s journey. Despite the fine performance it would be Jonze’s only significant appearance as an actor in a feature film (thus far).

Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica may be lesser known in North America, but the two-time Palme D'Or winner had shown to have a wide range of acting talent, acting in English and French, in Neil Jordan's The Good Thief and Patrice Leconte's The Widow of St. Pierre, most notably his lead role in Christian Carion's acclaimed spy thriller L'Affaire Farewell alongside another actor-director Guillaume Canet.

In lesser roles, directors such as Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg have had fun and memorable cameo roles in other people’s films. Cronenberg's touching performance in Don McKellar’s Last Night for instance, or his cameo in Gus Van Zant’s To Die For. Cronenberg seemed to make regular appearances in other horror films, thus lampooning his own predalictions for the genre, but since the 2000’s he’s stayed strictly with directing. Scorsese first had a remarkable acting debut in his own Taxi Driver, but later adapted well for Robert Redford in Quiz Show, Irvin Winkler in Guilty By Suspicion and Akira Kurosawa in Dreams.

Outspoken and larger-than-life 90's directors such as Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino have tested the waters outside their own films without much lasting success. For Smith, recently he's branched our farther than cameos sending up his persona, in legitimate comic relief roles in Catch and Release and Live Free or Die Hard. For Tarantino there was his title role in the forgettable Destiny Turns on the Radio in 1995 at the height of Tarantino-mania. But the most memorable performance in the worst movie of all listed in this piece is Tarantino's brief appearance at the end of the fogettable relationship drama Sleep With Me, taking a page out of Orson Welles' book writing his own memorable speech, discussing the homo-erotic undertones in Top Gun.

Moonstruck

Moonstruck (1987) dir. Norman Jewison
Starring: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia, John Mahoney

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

It’s hard to imagine this film, so fluffy and light as air Italian-American romcom being the 6th highest grossing film of it’s year 1987. It was a huge hit. Then again, back in 1987 Cher was hot, Julia Roberts hot.

Moonstruck hits some of the same cultural buttons as My Big Fat Greek Wedding. A film set exclusively in the culture of NYC Italian-Americans, yet is so familiar to other second generation immigrants in other cities and countries around the world.

For Loretta Castorini (Cher), she’s so identifiable and sympathetic as a hero. She’s in her mid 30’s, widowed early in her marriage, but years later still unable to find a guy, or at least have a decent guy propose to her. Along comes Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), who seems to have his head on straight, Italian, grounded, with a decent job. But there just seems to be a spark missing. Loretta doesn’t mind, she’s pragmatic enough to know being married is better than living at home with her nagging parents.

The rub here is Johnny’s mother, whom he is completely submissive and beholden to. He can only marry Loretta when mom is dead, presumably after a trip to Sicily to say goodbye at her death bed. While away Loretta, in planning the wedding, meets the real love in her life, Johnny’s loose cannon brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage), an emotional spark plug if there ever was one. While this torrid affairs blossoms, so does two others, involves Loretta’s mother and father, all three of whom seem to be appeasing their own urges toward martial impropriety but in search of a different kind love.

While John Patrick Shanley’s script sings delightfully, as directed by Norman Jewison and acted with aplumb by his perfectly cast actors, the film elevates to dramatic heights of an Italian opera. In the first act, Jewison plays the drama with realism, setting up Loretta’s predicament naturally. We can easily see these characters in our own kitchen, bickering and squabbling. In the second act, with the introduction of Ronny, Jewison cranks up the melodrama. The introduction of Ronny alone, is drawn out to the maximum. Ronny is first seen in a sweaty wife-beater, shovelling red hot coals into a iron furnace which bakes the bread for the family business.

His first meeting with Loretta is a hailstorm of conflict, and dramatic flare – a hyper-emotional performance from Nicolas Cage full of all the histrionics which would define his unique career. And even though they’ve just met, we can easily see how they could fall in love instantly.

Loretta’s no pushover though, and she represents as much the foil as the match for Ronny. This is the stuff of best romantic comedies. Their passion fuels the second act wherein Jewison executes a number of wonderfully romantic moments, including the central opera set piece as well as Cher’s famous morning stroll through the street kicking the can across the road like young teenager with her first crush.

The potential infidelities and temptations exercised by Loretta’s mother and father in the b-story serve as a perfect counterbalance to the whimsical romance in story-A. Specifically Rose, Loretta’s mom, played by Olympia Dukakis. In her meeting with John Mahoney’s character, she moves on a similar path to Loretta, but with the years of experience she is able to look at the relationship with a more objective viewpoint. Under Jewison’s direction of these two fine performances he brings forth a different kind of uncomsumated romance.

Moonstruck deservedly won Oscars for Cher, Dukakis, and Shanley and is now available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Due Date

Due Date (2010) dir. Todd Phillips
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan

***

By Alan Bacchus

The perceived failure of this picture notwithstanding, Due Date is actually a pretty decent film. Perhaps the sleepy critical and audience reception stems from the fact that there’s very little we haven’t seen in this film that isn’t in all other road/buddy pictures which came before it. Much has been made of the similarities between this and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. And sure, perhaps this film is an unofficial remake of said John Hughes classic, but so what, it’s certainly not stale bread and is actually a lot of fun.

The Todd Phillips brand of broad physical comedy and a strong ‘heart’ binds this picture together. And certainly the affability of both actors (Galifianakis and Downey) make each of it’s scant 90mins easily watchable and entertaining.

I don’t know how much range Mr. Galifianakis has an actor, and perhaps his shelf life is limited in traditional feature films, but Due Date is the perfect vehicle for him. In The Hangover, he was the wild card, who had timing good enough to have his zingers stick. In Due Date, he’s one half of the film in what really is the exact same role as in The Hangover, by way of his online persona on the Between Two Ferns series.

The story goes like this, Downey plays a stuck up right-brained architect Peter Highman wh,o before a flight back to LA gets kicked off the plane for fighting with an obnoxious passenger, but in the melee loses his wallet, ID, money, credits and everything else. The only way he can make it to the birth of his child is by teaming up with the same person who got him kicked off the plane in the first place. This is Ethan Tremblay (Galafinakis) a doofus of extraordinary proportions who desires to move to Hollywood to start an acting career. All he has with him are his ludricrous headshots, a coffee can containing his father’s ashes and a french bulldog.

The actual gags are perfunctory speedbumbs along the road. Stuff like the comedy of errors with homeland security, Ethan’s masterbating dog and even dialogue like, “if you are allergic to waffles, don't eat them. Then don’t take me to a waffle house’, which was quoted in every trailer, isn’t really funny. And we know Ethan’s ashes will be mishandled and either consumed or bathed in at some point in the film. These are all rehashed gags from other comedies and are not the highlights of the film.

What works is the dynamic between Downey and Galifianakis, like the Steve Martin/John Candy relationship the trajectory from 100% conflict to sincere admiration and friendship for each other is surprisingly heartwarming and delightful. Todd Phillips saves us from the schmaltz of the Hughes movie, his trademark chaotic tone remains, and at 90+mins it’s not a minute too long.

The fact this movie was squeezed in between the two Hangover movies is evident. The movie seems rushed, and according to interviews with Phillips it seems as if the script was essentially rewritten as the film went along. But Phillips’ casting of the leads and the careful placement of a few key cameos, including a fun turn by Phillips himself, makes it all satisfying and a decent rental.

Due Date is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Warner Home Entertainment

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs (1992) dir. Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Reservoir Dogs seems like eons ago. At the time that movie was just about the coolest thing on earth for the 20 and 30 somethings. It’s almost 20 years later, and whether the film looks or feels dated or overexposed is moot, it's importance in the cultural zeitgeist assures it a sort of untouchable tenureship in cinema-history. Love him or hate him, the influence of Quentin Tarantino and this film in particular throughout the 90's and beyond was long reaching.

Reservoir Dogs premiered at Sundance 1992, played at TIFF in the Fall and was released later that year, but it wasn’t until it's video release did it catch fire. From the opening conversation Tarantino was announcing himself to the film world. We never heard a conversation like that – Mr. Brown’s graphic description of the meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” as well as Mr. Pink’s rant about not-tipping. Then the music kicks in, a little known 70’s track by god-knows-who which sounded so cool. Cigarette smoking, sunglasses wearing bank robbers walking in slo-mo. Whatever it was this was a cool movie so far. Then we see two of the same characters we saw in the first scene Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) who just committed a heist driving in a car, except Orange is bleeding like a stuck pig all over the pristine white interior of their car. The film just got even more intriguing.

As White and Orange convene in their agreed-to abandoned warehouse to figure out exactly what went wrong, the film flashes back to retrace exactly how each character got put on the job. With everyone accusing everyone else of being the rat, Mr. White defends Mr. Orange to the end and in doing so develops a fraternal bond with him.

Scene after scene bristles with originality in the post-modern way. Tarantino culled some of his favorite scenes and lines from his favourite films and mashed them together with his instantly trademark dialogue creating the first “Tarantino-movie”. Somewhere in the film are pieces of: “The Killing”, “Taking of Pelham 1,2,3”, “The Professionals”, “Point Blank”, “Do the Right Thing” even obscure Italian genre films Django.

Even the truncated time-shifting was fresh and soon to be copied everywhere. There was nothing formula about this genre film. Tarantino wasn’t concerned with the heist, or whether they get away with the diamonds, but the relationship of Orange and White. Tarantino even reveals to the audience midway through the film that Mr. Orange is actually the undercover cop who sold out the crew. But the main reveal is when Orange confesses to White. This is more powerful because we know the emotional pain this takes on both Orange and White. It still is a remarkably dramatic moment.

Has Tarantino changed over the years? Yes and no. He’s certainly gotten egotistical with his dialogue. In both Kill Bill and Death Proof, Tarantino could have used an assertive editor to challenge him into trimming and shaping his meandering conversations. Yet, in Inglourious Basterds, though equally long-winded every line seemed just right. And his films seem to get more anachronistic and insular. Death Proof was his least accessible film by far. Even Kurt Russell fans have to be scratching their heads. But each film is an impassioned personal piece of work, whether it’s a hit or a miss, Tarantino will never sell out and make someone else’s film.

His and Hers

His and Hers (2010) dir. Ken Wardrop
Documentary

***½
By Alan Bacchus

If you're in Toronto next Sunday, please come on out to the inaugural Toronto Irish Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox, celebrating a number of fine films the Emerald Isle has to offer. Specifically, Ken Wardrop's delightful heartwarming documentary ode to women and their relationships with men.

Wardrop is kind of a legend in short filmmaking with a dozen or so idiosyncratic shorts which have won numerous awards around the world. Now, with the chance to make the big leap to features, his creative ingenuity successfully translates to the longer form.

It’s a remarkably simple concept - Wardrop attempts to tell the general story of women’s relationships with men from every age group of womanhood, from birth to death. A series of unrelated interviews with women who don’t know each other or have no connection whatsoever remarkably makes for a profound existential experience with the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Wardrop’s sense of humour and overall light tone is evident from the very first interview with a 3 month old infant in a crib. Of course the baby can’t talk, but its just the first form of life when a female comes into contact with a man - her father staring down at her in her crib. The next set of interviews are with young girls aged 1, 2, and 3, responding to offscreen questions telling stories about their dad or brother which is surprisingly profound and engaging from their unique point of view.

We start to notice the pattern at this point and one by one Wardrop’s interviewees age slowly and surely. As the women age their stories change. The pre-teen girls talk about their bratty brothers or annoying fathers, the teenagers talk gossipy about their adolescent crushes and the twenty-somethings talk boyfriends and marriages. And at the age when most women start bearing children we become privy to the joyous bond between woman (as mother) and child (as son).

And suddenly we notice the types of stories doubling back on itself, seeing the perspective change from childhood to adulthood.

The personalities differ with each interview and though all common sense would say that to tell a good story - documentary or fiction - we need to attach and identify with the characters - strangely with each 2-3 min interview Wardrope manages to find a dialogue so identifiable to the audience that all we need is this short period of time to fall in love and get sucked in by their lives.

And by the end, when the last elderly woman reflects on her life as a woman in relation to her family which is below her age, I was reminded of that great children’s book “Love You Forever” by Robert N. Munsch about the child born and loved by her mother, then gradually grows up and has her own daughter to care for and eventually in elder age must be cared for and loved by her own daughter. Like Munsch‘s book ‘His and Hers’ is a great and profound story about this cycle of life, love and family.

I need to go and hug my mom, my wife and my young 17-month-old son now.

Dogtooth

Dogtooth (2009) dir. Giorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis

***

By Alan Bacchus

The opening scene is especially confusing, three siblings in a bathroom playing some kind of cryptic game, an endurance test to see who can hold their fingers under the hot water tap the longest before pulling away. It’s not so much the task at hand which is odd, it’s the language used. It’s in Greek, though the words they refer to just match up. Sea' becomes a 'chair', 'motorway' means 'strong wind' and 'carbine' means 'a white bird'? Just typos by the subtitler? Nope, this is just one part of the extraordinary and audacious subversion at play in Giorgos Lanthimos’ sick and twisted art house black comedy.

This film original premiered in Cannes 2009, winning the Prix En Certain Regard, but has seen public release in US or Canada until now, when it received an Oscar nomination of Best Foreign Language Film. If anyone doubted the Academy willingness to go dark and edgy and risky, they just need to watch Dogtooth.

This film perhaps sets new benchmarks for torture and brainwashing. None of the characters have names but it appears the five main characters in this film are a family, living in some kind of enclosed compound. Father (Christos Stergioglou) is leader, and the only one allowed to leave the compound, mother (Michele Valley) is allowed to make phonecalls and seems privy to what’s going on, but is still clueless. The three children, identified as son (Hristos Passalis) , eldest (Aggeliki Papoulia) and youngest (Mary Tsoni), live like captive slaves unaware of the social existence outside of what Father has fed them since birth – a wholly deranged experiment is domestication commanded by Father presumably over the course of 20+ years.

A staid and dead pan tone is established by the director early. We see long almost silent takes of the characters looking, reacting, observing without editorial manipulation. The awkward camera angles and wide angle lenses enhance the twisted nature of this domestic story.

Lanthimos’ objective, non judgemental point of view means we’re left to our own to infer what exactly is going in. After the first scene, wherein characters seem to be talking in a jumbled up version of their language, we slow figure out what’s going on. A cruel experiment by the father to shape or mould his children into a mutated social beings. Early on we see Father go to a dog kennel to check on the progress of his dogs who are being trained as attack dogs. At this point most of us will clue in to the metaphor. But the purpose of this bizarre game remains clouded in mystery.

Lanthimos moves quietly from scenes of surreal black comedy to shocking violence and depravity, with a consistent undercurrent of monumental existential tragedy and despair for these children. A life wasted on the deranged whims of a madman, and yet they are completely unaware of their plight.

The sexual development of the children is carefully handled. A young woman from the outside is pimped out by Father for the gratification of his son’s urges. The sex, of course, is immoral and cruel for the son, but it never feels like pure exploitation. On the other hand Father has also trained his family when in danger to go down on their hands and knees and bark like dogs.

As audacious and beguiling the concept, there’s a repititiousness which sets in. Like some of the great cinematic enfant terribles, Michael Haneke and Lars Von Trier Lanthimos pushes our buttons, pushing the audiences willingness to be in the point of view of pure madness, without a traditional dramatic arc to suspend our disbelief. In the back of my mind I was prepared for the film to cut to black and at any moment, leaving us shocked and wanting – the same effect I had at the end of The White Ribbon. Lanthimos is not quite as cruel as Haneke and he engineers a semblance of a third act, a glimmer of hope for the children to escape their prison.

Whether or not this film wins the Oscar is inconsequetial as the recoginition it will receive when announced as a nominee by some Hollywood celebrity on Sunday night will be monumentous. The film will thus attract an audience of curiosity-seekers, many of whom will experience something they’ve never seen before.

Last Tango in Paris

Last Tango in Paris (1973) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Massimo Girotti

****

By Alan Bacchus

Anyone familiar with ‘Last Tango in Paris’ can’t really say or hear ‘pass the butter’ without a least a slight pause, double-take, or smirk of recognition to the now infamous line of dialogue uttered by Marlon Brando near the midpoint of this film. Of course, it refers to the use of that smooth, spreadable substance used by Brando’s character to lubricate a certain orifice on the body of the character of Jeanne, as played by Maria Schneider. After the butter is passed the scene then plays out with Brando’s character climbing on top of Jeanne and performing an act sodomy which would inexorably split these two voracious lovers.

Could you imagine Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks or Leonardo DiCaprio or Matt Damon playing this scene and the effect on their image? Marlon Brando, on the other hand, had disdain for image, his role in pop culture and most of all of his celebrity endeavours. Marlon Brando, as soon as he came to Hollywood, achieved an instant fame, virtually unrivalled in the history of cinema – a persona shaped as much by his phenomenal acting talent as his rebelliousness. And so his role as Paul, the grieving widower who strikes up a torrid affair with said young Parisian girl, Jeanne, he’s shattering his image and daring his audience to hate him.

The character of Paul is one of the most self-destructive characters in cinema history. Like Nicolas Cage’s drunken death wish character in ‘Leaving Las Vegas’, without saying those exact words, is on a collision course with death. In the magnificent opening shot we see Bertolucci’s camera push in on Paul screaming in pain. We’ll eventually come to learn that his wife had recently and inexplicably committed suicide. As he wanders aimlessly through the fabulous Parisian portico a spry young girl (Maria Schneider) skips on by. He’s instantly attracted to her carefree innocence, and so when they meet coincidentally in an empty rental apartment the thick sexual energy hanging in the air cause them to break out into spontaneous fornication.

As directed by Bertolucci, the sex is rough, dirty, sloppy, Paul barely even taking his clothes off, feebly fumbling to ‘stick it in her’, and then falling helplessly on the ground after climaxing. Never had we seen sex on screen like that – so unromantic, so primal.

This is the energy which moves the film forward. With very little traditional plot, Bertolucci achieves a heightened state of emotional transcendence, a flow of feelings and gestures fuelled by the energy of the two characters as well as the energy of the city of Paris. Much of the dialogue between Brando and Schneider is improvised, and arguably, not even improvised very well. We can see Brando even struggling to find words to express his character’s feelings. Paul’s admonition to Jeanne against using names with each other for instance, is an awkward scene, but with a rawness that captivates as much as it confounds.

Outside the apartment, movement is important. We rarely see Paul and Jeanne together, but when Jeanne plays around with her filmmaker boyfriend (Jean-Pierre Leaud) or when Paul performs the tasks of closing off her wife's estate, the characters seem to be in perpetual motion. And in time with Bertolucci’s expressive camera, stylistically the film flows like a couple of dancers moving in perfect synchronicity.

In 1973 we find Bernardo Bertolucci and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro working together at the height of the creativity. Perhaps less so with Storaro whose career flourished into the 1990’s but for Bertolucci, who can argue against his command of the camera in both ‘The Conformist’ (1971) and ‘Last Tango in Paris’ as nothing short of perfection? Bertolucci elegantly moves his camera to enhance the emotions of the actors, which lives and breathes as much as his characters. His colour palette, aided by Storaro’s lighting and Philippe Turloe’s art direction, finds even more depth in the character’s lives. Take the costuming of Paul and Jeanne. In their first sexual encounter Paul is wearing a dark tan overcoat, which virtually blends into the colour scheme of the apartment while Jeanne’s white furry jacket in contrast stands out as a freshly bloomed flower in a world pain and suffering.

While ‘The Conformist’ was clearly a ‘director’s movie’, Bertolucci freely gives up “Last Tango in Paris” to Brando alone. As mentioned above, from the day Brando first set foot on either a theatrical stage or a studio stage he’s had an aura of innate talent for the art of performance. His talent is not so much in the characterization, or even emotion, but a screen magnetism which cannot be taught or bottled. Even in Brando’s worst movies – ie. virtually the entire decade of the 60’s was one bomb after bomb – he is captivating. In “Last Tango” he is at his most alluring. Bertolucci and his cinematographer maximize this star power for greatest effect. And so, even when Marlon Brando says ‘pass the butter’ then sodomizes Maria Schneider using we never hate him for it, but pity him and never cease to love him.

Last Tango in Paris is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, sadly coinciding with Maria Schneider's death just a few weeks ago

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) dir. Woody Allen
Starring: Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Gemma Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto, Antonio Banderas

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

There’s nothing to really dislike about this picture, but the fact it’s Woody Allen and another film in a mostly continuous string of forgettable features in the past 15 years or so, it's a mostly frustrating film to watch.

If Woody Allen’s name weren’t on this picture, I might have thought this was an extended episode of some HBO television show. Certainly nothing big screen worthy or even remotely comparable to his body of work in the 70’s and 80’s.

Woody’s warring couple in this one is Sally and Roy Channing. Sally (Watts) an underachieving art curator who’s recent got her foot in the door getting coffee and lunch for an esteemed Museum director (Banderas), Roy (Brolin), her hubby, is a self-centred failed author who desperately needs his latest book to find a publisher. There’s also Sally’s mother and father Helena (Jones)and Alfie (Hopkins), recently separately and both silently competing with the each other to move on with their lives.

As the title suggests, each of the characters will find new love, which will test the inner moral fortitude of each of the characters. For Roy, he becomes smitten with a young gal living in an adjacent building, Sally is tempted by the flirtations of her boss, Alfie starts dating a prostitute after showering her with lavish gifts and poor Helena, jealous of Alfie’s arm candy, finds the most promising love affair after drowning her sorrows in the false hope of a fortune teller.

This is a phoned-in film, Woody fails to truly put his characters through the ringer like he did in his far and away best picture in 15 years, Match Point, wherein Allen puts Jonathan Rhys-Meyers through excrutiatingly painful journey of love, sex and murder, Roy and Alfie only receive a light dusting.

It’s the usual whimsical tone of Allen here, dramatic conflict and humour in equal amounts, but light as air, and ultimately unexceptional and unmemorable. The best character is Roy, played with delight by Josh Brolin, who proves he can do just about anything right now. He’s a classic Allen character, egotistical but wholly juvenile and subject to the whims of his libido. His career trajectory provides a rather fun punchline to his shameless actions against his poor and suffering wife – a devious black comedic moment which reminds us of the only inspired moment of the past 15 years of Woody, the treachery of Rhys-Meyers in Match Point. If Woody mined the drama and suspense from Roy’s final moment he could have had a movie on par with Match Point.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

48 Hours

48 Hours (1982) dir, Walter Hill
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Nick Nolte, James Remar, Sonny Landham, Frank McRae

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Co-written by prolific action scribes/directors Steven E. De Souza, Roger Spottiswoode, and Walter Hill, this film acts like a template for 80’s action cinema. Buddy conflict 101 which begat other franchises such as Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys and lesser knock offs.

Here we have gruff cop Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) paired up with a wily and charasmatic con Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) hunting down a cop killer and recent prison escapee who’s made off with Reggie's car and a briefcase full of cash.

It’s the buddy cop formula par excellence, one black, one white with much racial conflict dividing the two; we also have Frank McRae as the vein-pulsating chief at odds with Jack’s hot dog style of policing spouting now cliched dialogue like “If you screw up, I promise you you’re going down” (that's direct quote) a role he'd later lampoon in John McTiernan's Last Action Hero. We also find a compendium of 80’s thematic fixtures, obscenely foul mouthed characters, high body count, mondo bullet squib work, misogynistic attitudes to women and some 80’s titties added for good measure. We can find strange admiration for these genre elements which started a long and successful trend in Hollywood, but what we can’t find humour in is the shameful racial conflict which fuels much of the humour in this film.

The N-word is flung around much too casually it comes off as embarrassing as Eddie Murphy's AIDS rant in his Delirious stand up routine. In particular, the redneck bar sequence wherein Jack and Reggie search out accomplices to their suspect. in this scene Reggie is looked upon as if he entered a KKK rally, and the n-word insults he endures for sake of comedy is atrocious. Of course Reggie has the last laugh as he single-handily disarms the entire bar. But it’s part of the general exploitation of racial stereotypes which permeates every part of this film.

What we can admire is the film's place in the filmography of Walter Hill’s, his most successful film. Hill was simply one of the best directors of action in the late 70’s through the early 90’s. Once a protege of Sam Peckinpah’s Hill brought the same tough Western sensibilities of Peckinpah’s to modern period films such as Johnny Handsome, The Driver, and Extreme Prejudice.

Look for some of Hill’s stylistic hallmarks, including strong nighttime photography (when much of this film takes place). The look fits in well with the prevailing visual style of the times: soft and well lit blueish backgrounds and rainwashed streets reflecting the coloured neon brings to mind Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, Michael Mann’s Thief and later Walter Hill’s own Streets of Fire.

Not only was this an early Joel Silver production, the film also featured an early score by James Horner (Aliens, Braveheart, Titanic). But instead of his now familiar orchestral melodies, Horner delivers a tough jazzy score using synthesizers and steel drums. Though it dates the film it represents the musical trends of the day in the best light possible.

Looking past the obscenities, 48 Hours serves chiefly as an Eddie Murphy vehicle, his first film outside of Saturday Night Live, and indeed it showcases his rapid-fire comedic skills and on screen charisma.

48 Hours is available on Blu-Ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment

Inside Job

Inside Job (2010) dir. Charles Ferguson
Documentary

***½

By Alan Bacchus

Though I work in the film industry and write this film blog, I actually have a degree in economics. From my very first econ course back in school we were aware of the concept of ‘deadweight loss’. This is a calculation of profit loss due to market inefficiency, which in real world terms means price controls and any other regulated markets in the economy. This was ingrained in our minds from high school all the way up to university.

This is also the heart of the problem with the collapse of the US (and thus, global) financial markets, which Charles Ferguson makes so clear in his incendiary, comprehensive and really, the last word, on this monumental financial disaster of recent years.

There’s a palpable sense of anger from Ferguson, a filmmaker, who must have poured though reams and reams of unintelligible figures, pages of dry research papers and really heavy university textbooks in order to understand what happened. As he questions and confronts some of the smartest and craftiest men in the world, we can hear Ferguson in the background admirably go toe to toe. And now his work is our benefit, and worth much much more than the $13.00 or less it will cost to see this movie.

I’ve seen many films and journalism news segments which attempted to explain the incredibly complex chain of events which caused the collapse, from 60 Minutes to Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story nobody seemed to get it straight. And no one’s really told the whole story. Remarkably Ferguson does this in spades.

His approach reminds me of Spike Lee’s comprehensive and final word on the Katrina disaster When the Levees Broke. Inside Job has the same desperate need and desire to find the truth and expose one of the world’s worst acts of conspiracy and criminality.

Ferguson applies a distinct cinematic approach to the film. It’s evident in the opening scenes. First a prologue telling the story of Iceland’s financial collapse, which occurred remotely on its own before the US collapse, a kind of warning sign not unlike the Easter Island parable to today’s current environmental crisis. Then there’s a lengthy credit sequence featuring freeze frames and soundbites of the numerous executives, government wonks, professors etc who will appear in the film.

This background and tonal build up is key to making sense of what’s to come.As narrated by Matt Damon, Ferguson systematically breaks down all the details of exactly what the fuck happened. All the way back to the 1930’s through the prosperity in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s to the series of collapses in the 80’s and 90’s which led to that fateful week of Sept 2008 when everything went bankrupt.

Despite Ferguson’s careful use of graphics and charts to help make clear, what the hell credit default swaps, or CDOs etc. There’s just so much information we have to process, it’s difficult to keep up even for an economics grad. But I was also reminded of Oliver Stone’s JFK, where the overkill of information actually helped prove his point of the complexity of government, business and wealth which helped effect the assassination of JFK.

We’re not meant to understand every detail in Inside Job, and it’s all there for those attentive and smart enough to understand it on the first go. But he never loses sight of the big picture, which isn‘t lost on the less-economically inclined. The recurring theme is simply - greed - the need for the individuals on Wall Street and Washington to grab that piece of deadweight loss and put it into their own pockets.

Many of the key players refuse to give interviews, all of which are noted as text in the film. Their silence speaks volumes though, which is how they managed to get away with it all. The villains he does manage to interview are typically smarmy and evasive, which furthers the frustration of the entire affair. These guys are so smart there’s actually little criminal activity going during this period. Which is the most frightening aspect, is that the collapse was all legal, which makes the title of this film absolutely perfect. This is fantastic film.

Inside Job is available Blu-Ray and DVD March 5 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment