Behn Zeitlin's immensely moving coming-of-age story (of sorts), set in the fringes of civilization in Southern Louisiana in the most environmentally vulnerable place in the region, is an experiential film about youth stylized with the same kind of dreamy realism as the more accessible and admittedly on-the-nose 'The Tree of Life'.
Expensive – who cares? Egotistical director – who cares? At the end of the day, what miraculously rises from the ashes of time is the superlative cinematic splendour of Cimino’s picture. Heaven’s Gate is the comeback picture of the last 30 years and a terrible cinematic injustice now vindicated with its glorious high definition restoration by the Criterion Collection, and before that an open vault festival screening at the Venice Film Festival.
Even by Brian De Palma standards — a man whom critics and audiences continually fall in and out of love with — the collective reaction to his adaptation of the revered Tom Wolfe novel about the evils of '80s capitalism was vicious. But comparing the nuanced social critique of Tom Wolfe's prose to Brian De Palma's wholly unique and bold cinematic recipe requires a different set of expectations. I hope critics and audiences these many years hence who may not have the novel so clearly in their heads can re-watch and enjoy the film for what it is: a bold socio-political farce told through the eyes of a cinema master renowned for visual ingenuity and obsessive cinematic references.
Like the 30 lbs of muscle Tom Hardy apparently gained on top of an already ripped body to play the brutish Bane character, Christopher Nolan applies this mentality to every aspect of filmmaking for 'The Dark Knight Rises'. The result is a gargantuan monster of a film, a breathless and sometimes exhaustive experience.
A cinematic Moby Dick of sorts, Ang Lee’s celebrated adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel is indeed an incredible high seas adventure film of one man's battles against the power of the ocean and a beast. The technical achievement of rendering the isolation and conflict between an Indian boy and a hostile Bengal tiger aboard a lifeboat on the Indian Ocean is out of this world and worth the price of admission. Bringing this boat down, though not sinking it, is the sloppy and awkward bookend scenes in the present, a storytelling challenge which unfortunately Ang Lee and all the money given to this film just couldn't solve.
Despite the mostly unanimous praise and monetary success for this picture, Catch Me If You Can works best as a counterpoint to most of the films on Spielberg’s filmography - a tepid light-as-air crime comedy, mildly charming, mildy funny and mildly suspenseful, a kind of cinematic modesty rarely seen in any of his films.
Catch Me If You Can (2001) dir. Steven Spielberg
Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Tom Hanks, Martin Sheen, Amy Adams,
By Alan Bacchus
Spielberg finds his hero in the real-life figure of William Abagnale Jr (Di Caprio), a kid caught in the middle of his parents' divorce. He witnesses the self-destruction of his father (Walken), who is failing as a parent, husband, entrepreneur and in the American dream. Running away from home, Abagnale never desired to become a conman, and almost by accident he discovers ways to cheat the financial system and exploit the welcoming nature of American citizens for his own benefit. Soon Abagnale finds himself forging cheques, faking identifications of airline pilots, lawyers and doctors, and at his worst deceiving his fiancée (Amy Adams).
In writer Jeff Nathanson’s attempt to constrict the actions of William Abagnale Jr. within a two-hour script, the film comes off as a scattered montage of his life, a difficult narrative method to make work. Nathanson only partly succeeds. The depiction of Abagnale’s schemes are fun, executed not so much in the procedural detail of a crime film but with a soft swagger of a '60s sex romp. What doesn’t quite land is the plotting of the chase - that is, the character of Carl Hanratty (Hanks), the FBI agent hot on his tail.
Despite the aggressive pursuit of Abagnale, Spielberg’s tone is so pillowy-soft we feel that if he ever goes to prison it’ll be the Shawshank Redemption kind, full of charming personalities and old-boy flavour. It's part of Spielberg’s desire to retrofit the film into a Wilder-esque '60s farce, completely separated from any kind of real-world danger. The Frank Sinatra crooning show tunes hit this on the head too hard for me, a surprisingly uncreative, played-out device. The naivete and ease with which the fanciful girls succumb to Abagnale’s charms is obviously the main attraction of the film, and certainly Mr. Spielberg turns Di Caprio into a boyish playboy with ease. But it’s this artifice which props up the film.
Abagnale’s core internal struggles, his identity issues and desire to run away from his domestic conflicts, are obvious metaphors to Spielberg’s well-documented childhood and career-long affectations. That said, the casting of Christopher Walken, who acts more like Christopher Walken than an emasculated underachieving absentee father, is a distraction. I understand Mr. Walken’s unique voice cadence and now iconic persona please most viewers, but to me he’s a scene-chewer who distracts us from the important emotional relationship in the film.
Looking back on Leonardo Di Caprio’s career, before Django Unchained this was the last time he’d attempted comedy. His boyish affability is a natural for the character’s innocent charms and unassuming, and thus manipulative, nature. The rest of his career would see him wallow in self-despair and heavy, brooding tortured characters, choices perhaps made in an attempt to distance himself from his roots as a child actor in television comedy and the Titanic burden of being a teen mag sensation.
But now, 10 years later, what’s most important is how this film sits on Steven Spielberg’s filmography, admirably next to his other anachronistic and unambitious pictures such as Always and The Terminal.
***
Catch Me If You Can is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures.
Its excellence in spectacle cinema notwithstanding, as long as the Middle East is in conflict, Lawrence of Arabia will be a relevant and timeless film. As Arab states battle against their Israel neighbours today, David Lean's lauded and legendary epic follows the plight of the Arabs in the days of WWI through the eyes of T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who sought to unite the separate Arab tribes of the region against Turkish oppressors, sometimes in the name of the British King, sometimes in the name of his egotistical ambitions.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) dir. David Lean
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle, Alec Guinness
By Alan Bacchus
While there isn't a single female in the film — it's three hours and 42 minutes of masculinity — the romantic feeling is strong. A romance of the windswept Middle Eastern deserts, the spiritual connection to the rigors of the untamed environment and the exotic culture of the Arabic peoples. Cinematographer Freddie Young's unrivalled 70mm photography translates marvelously to high definition Blu-ray. Each shot is so rich, detailed and classically precise that, at times, it looks as if we're viewing a Jacques-Louis David Neoclassical painting.
As cinematically epic as the visuals are, the marvel of the film is Lean's ability to create intimacy within his broad canvas. Peter O'Toole's iconic performance as Lawrence is still as marvellous, delightful and mysterious as ever. It's hard to imagine anyone else's striking blonde hair or piercing blue eyes on the screen. Lean elegantly weaves in the political narrative with Lawrence's ascendance as a military officer. Like his Arab compatriot, Lawrence is inextricably linked by the independent, vagabond lifestyle. Lawrence never fits in anywhere; he's uncomfortable in the starched British officer's uniform and is never fully accepted wearing the Arab attire given to him by the people he's trying to save. O'Toole's off-kilter performance is lyrical, poetic and, at times, grating and abrasive.
Some of the most memorable visual moments in the film are the smallest: the introduction of Omar Sharif, emerging from a mirage, is always discussed. However, a smaller but equally significant moment is Lawrence's decision to take Aqaba, the port city protected by massive Turkish guns. The decisive moment is visualized by two Arab minions who accidentally hit him in the back with a rock. For days they had been sitting in agonizing contemplation of how to turn the tide of war. The seemingly insignificant and accidental action becomes the plan to cross the un-crossable desert and attack Aqaba from behind. The pay-off is one of the greatest sequences and shots in cinema history. The Aqaba attack sequence is brilliantly choreographed with thousands of extras and horses in real time and space, mixing intense on-the-ground close-ups with awe-inspiring wide shots from the hillside. It's capped off with a superlative long take of the camera panning over the army of horses running through the Aqaba village, ending on those heavy artillery guns looking out towards the sea.
Still, as much as the film is beloved, some issues remain. Despite the casting of Omar Sharif, we still have to endure Brits and Americans, such as Sir Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn and Jose Ferrer, playing Arabs and Turks with fake noses and dark face. And it's impossible not to feel the lack of narrative momentum after the intermission — there's no doubt the film's best moments are in the first half.
The Sony Blu-ray comes in two options: a massive box set and a cheaper but still impressive two-disc set. The smaller edition contains two new featurettes for the HD release: a comprehensive discussion with Peter O'Toole reflecting on the film and his creative collaborators, and an interactive featurette that incorporates tidbits of production and historical information into the film. Archived featurettes range from documentaries dating back to the '60s and '70s, material from its restoration in the early '90s and material created for its DVD release in the '00s.
I like Alien 3. I always have. Although, the opening is especially depressing and frankly shameful to the throughline of the series. For me, this illogical choice is the only bad stain on this film - a new flavour for the series, but consistent to the franchise's trend of experimenting with a new tone and visual style with each successive film. It may be a minority opinion, but Alien 3 succeeds admirably.
Alien 3 (1992) dir. David Fincher
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Paul McGann, Brian Glover
By Alan Bacchus
After the harrowing narrow escape by Hicks, Newt, Ripley and the severed body of Bishop at the end of Aliens, the producers of Alien 3 open up the movie killing off all but Ripley while in hypersleep. Perhaps Michael Biehn didn’t want to come back for another film, or perhaps no one wanted him back. As for Carrie Henn, Aliens was her only role and then she left the business. Either way, there’s no problem writing them out of the movie, but killing them off just after they escaped from the last picture robs the characters of their narrative purpose in this big-picture cinema reality.
But it’s Hollywood, and we shouldn’t be looking back at these other films as sacred, right? That’s debatable. To the filmmakers’ credit they did give appropriate screen time to Ripley’s grieving of their losses, as well as a decent funeral and a fantastic eulogy by Charles S. Dutton’s character, Dillon.
If you can get over the loss of Newt and Hicks, Alien 3 makes for a rather enjoyable chapter in the saga. As mentioned, we join up with Ripley after he has recovered from her derelict spaceflight by a ragtag group of space prisoners, incarcerated on a planet not unlike the island prison of Alcatraz or Australia for that matter. Ripley suspects an alien was on board, which caused the havoc, but an autopsy of Newt proves negative. But what about Ripley? She has had a funny feeling in her chest lately...
Meanwhile on the prison planet her female presence is unwelcomed by certain inmates who have taken a vow of chastity and found God in penance for their crimes of rape and murder. Ripley finds friendship in the kind and soft-spoken doctor, Clemens (Charles Dance), and the inspiring people’s leader cum gospel orator, Dillon (Dutton). Of course, yes, there was an alien on board, and yes he’s run amok again killing the prisoners one by one. Ripley assumes leadership and uses the resources of the decrepit prison to evade the creature and hopefully kill it for good.
This was David Fincher’s first feature, and the on-set conflict has become widely known, something which is honestly addressed in the fine making-of documentary on the Alien Legacy Blu-ray Box Set (though it’s the same feature from the 2003 DVD release). And so, knowing Fincher’s track record of great films since this one, there’s even more value looking back at his artistry in this film. His music video look is more apparent here than in anything he’s done since. I mean, just look at the camera angles, 75% of which are shot from the ground looking up at his characters. It’s a stylized look, which tends to wear out its welcome over time.
The design of the new alien is fresh though. This new beast is more nimble and fleet of foot than aliens of the past. The final chase sequence is a terrific set piece, highlighted by the great point-of-view shots of the alien scurrying over the floors, walls and ceilings of the cavernous tunnels.
Three great characters anchor the emotion of the film. Charles Dutton is simply marvelous whenever he says anything. The cadence in his voice is soothing and dramatic and inspiring. Charles Dance is a delightfully warm character, a tortured soul and we can see why Ripley so quickly hops into bed with him. Yes, Ripley gets laid, and by god, it’s about time. After all, it’s been about a hundred years!
SPOILER ALERT... Sadly, the film ends with a terrible sequence involving Ripley committing suicide by falling into a pit of molten metal in slow motion while an alien rips her heart out of her chest. Like the fate of Newt and Hicks, I begrudgingly forgive this silliness in order to enjoy the rest of the film.
***
Alien 3 is available on Blu-ray in the Alien Legacy Set from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
I admire Tony Gilroy’s desire to depart from the Paul Greengrass methodology, that is the hyper-intense speed-fueled filmmaking which made the last two Bourne movies so memorable. Though both films were written by Mr. Gilroy, as director he opts for a consciously morose and patient style of film. Impatient audiences expectating the Greengrass thrill ride will be uncomfortable with the languid opening act, 35 minutes or so of quiet CIA-speak between politico-heavies and the sparse action before the rip-roaring finale.
The Bourne Legacy (2012) dir. Tony Gilroy
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacey Keach
By Alan Bacchus
The lengthy opening act features very little action, instead establishing Jeremy Renner’s character, Aaron Cross, as another agent, like Bourne brainwashed by another black-ops mission to be a stone-cold killer. Instead of the amnesia-induced Treadstone operation, Renner is brainwashed through a series of ‘chems’ – drugs which control his emotions, temperament, intelligence and fighting skills. And while Bourne runs amuck in the previous films, Gilroy doubles back to show how the CIA wonks move to dispose of the other assassins who might just go wild like Bourne. Of course, when Renner’s character is targeted he fights back and embarks on his own globe-trotting adventure.
Cross moves from the desolate and zen-like serenity of Alaska to Washington where he saves Rachel Weisz as Mart Shearing, a chemist who supplies him with the chems, from assassination. He then moves on to Manila where he and Shearing seek out the manufacturing plant of the chems to save Cross from shutting down into death. The baddie orchestrating the action from afar is Edward Norton, commanding the action much like Straitharn in the previous films from the ultra high-tech CIA surveillance rooms at home.
On the ground Cross is missing a main foe, other than the roll call of counter-assassins that attempt to take him down. Late in the film the introduction of an Asian super-assassin, another chemically enhanced soldier, attempts to create a climactic showdown, which unfortunately materializes into nothing particularly dramatic. Gilroy and company keep the action quick and sparse, saving his energy for the final 20 minutes, a superbly choreographed motorcycle and running chase scene through the streets of Manila.
There’s no doubt Tony Gilroy’s overtooled plotting fails this film, and the potential of having this Jeremy Renner film run parallel to the previous two Matt Damon films is intriguing. Unfortunately it never works, or it is never fully realized. In fact, the brief appearances of characters from the previous films, specifically Joan Allen’s character Pamela Landy and David Straitharn’s Noah Vossen, as well as Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine, Albert Finney and Corey Johnson, only distract us from the main action.
The Bourne Legacy is not a bad film, and without knowledge or preconceptions based on the previous three films, under any other circumstances this would be a terrific stand-alone thriller. Unfortunately, we do have expectations and inevitable comparisons we can’t get out of our minds – such is the nature of tentpole sequel filmmaking. But I do believe there’s still potential for the series with Renner as the figurehead. The producers just need to engage us with the pace and intensity of the Liman/Greengrass films.
The Bourne Legacy is available on Blu-ray from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
A lesser John Ford is still an upper tier Western on anyone else’s filmography. It’s an odd choice really to give this film the Blu-ray treatment when there are currently so few Ford films available in glorious High Definition.
The Horse Soldiers (1959) dir. John Ford
Starring: John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers
By Alan Bacchus
This Civil War epic is as big a film as Ford has ever made, a rousing adventure wherein John Wayne plays a Union Colonel commanding his cavalry troop deep into Southern territory to capture and destroy a Confederate railway station. It’s a classic men-on-a-mission set up, but as executed by John Ford, the film moves through all the high and lows of the dramatic cinema, the light and affable to the bloody tragic and deadly serious.
The key conflict in the film comes from William Holden’s character, a physician assigned to the troop. Due to a deep-rooted hatred, Wayne’s character, Marlowe, resents the presence of the peaceful doctor, who prefers to save lives then destroy them. Of course, the arc of the story ensures that by the end the two men would eventually find common ground and mutual respect for each other’s professions.
The superstar pairing of Holden and Wayne is not lost on us. Wayne is Wayne, the grizzled and stubborn leader, but also a man of honour and pride. Wayne exercises his thespian muscles in a dramatic drunken confession scene when he tells the story of his dying wife who received ill advised brain surgery. It’s a dramatic moment of painful reflection we don’t often see from the big man. Holden, as the equally confident surgeon, conflicts with Wayne’s military mentality and fight-to-win attitude. Holden’s easy-going congenial nature perfectly represents the humanism of the character and the historical resonant qualities of the picture as a whole.
As usual there’s not much female representation, but Constance Towers holds court admirably against the star heavies as the Confederate tag-along gal who at first tries to subvert the actions of Marlowe but then comes to side with the motivations of the Union men.
It’s not all shits and giggles here though. The often obscene tragedy of the brutal violence of the Civil War is given deserved attention. At one point as the Union approaches their destination, the Confederates use a troop of boys to defend Marlowe’s army.
Ford fans will marvel at the brilliant widescreen colour cinematography. We’re also treated to the familiar Fordisms, which earns The Horse Soldiers the distinction of being 'a John Ford film’. There are plenty of awesome, perfectly composed wide-angle shots of the cavalry moving elegantly through the landscape. There is also plenty of action, including a raucous gun fight in the town of Vicksburg. And when required, Ford lays on the frontier sentimentality, which allows even the most hardened of male filmgoers to shed a tear without guilt.
***
The Horse Soldiers is available on Blu-ray from MGM Home Entertainment.
For about 5 years The Sound of Music was the highest grossing film of all time. It was a phenomenon back in the day, besting the box office record held for 25 years by Gone With the Wind. It’s still a touchstone film and a treasure of pop culture moments. I hadn’t actually seen it in full from beginning to end until the last few years, yet I seemed to know the story intimately. I even knew the lyrics to most of the songs. Such is the penetration of this movie into our public consciousness.
The Sound of Music (1965) dir. Robert Wise
Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer
By Alan Bacchus
It’s an elegant heartwarming family film, one of the best 'Disney' movies Disney never made. Based on the real story of the Austrian von Trapp singing family of seven children, their father and their stepmother who escape their Nazi-infested homeland. But the actual escape is really just a suspenseful climax to an endearing story of family, motherhood and love between two polar opposite people.
The matriarch of the von Trapp is Maria (Julie Andrews), whom we see in the opening as an absent-minded nun who’d rather spend time singing songs on top of the glorious green hills around her quaint village in the Alps than be on time for her prayers. Her fellow nuns recognize her infectious personality is not really suited to a nunery. Instead she gets assigned as the new governess (an elaborate term for ‘nanny’) to the aristocrat and recent widower Captain Georg Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). The rub is that Captain has seven children whose aggressive activities have scared off all other previous candidates.
Of course Maria is resolute and warm and makes a great impression despite the children’s attempts to break her. Captain is different though. The death of his wife has hardened him and he had reverted to a military-like authority within the house. But Maria warms him up too with song and dance, and eventually they fall in love. When one of Captain’s colleagues discovers the musical talents of the children, he books them to perform at a local concert, something which Captain continues to forbid. But as the Nazi’s encroach on their lands, Captain realizes his country and lifestyle are in danger and he engineers a daring and risky escape at the concert.
Andrews exhibits such magnetism. It's that Shirley Temple, Natalie Wood and Julia Roberts type of magnetism that lights up a room, or in this case, a cinema. Christopher Plummer is a fine actor too, and he has a different kind of stage presence. Captain von Trapp is characterized rather obviously as a stuck-up old widower with a pickle up his ass, and Plummer's change to a smitten love-struck young man is a great transition. Though a born Canadian, he wears the skin of an Austrian aristocrat with a British accent so well. And he can sing. Who can forget the romantically patriotic Edelwiess song he plucks away during the final concert in the faces of the nasty Nazis in the front row?
As mentioned, these songs, which feel like a Hollywood national anthem of sorts, are so familiar: Edelweiss, My Favouite Things, So Long Farewell, Do-Re-Mi and, of course, the opening ditty in which we see Ms. Andrews belting out, "The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Music!". In fact, I can’t think of a grander introduction to a character on film than Ms. Andrews' introduction in this moment. It comes after Robert Wise’s long helicopter journey takes us across the impossibly beautiful mountaintops of the Alps before finding Maria on top of her grassy hill singing her heart out.
On Blu-ray Ms. Andrews looks amazing and so does Wise’s absolutely perfect compositions. The real-world on-location scenes shot in Austria, Bavaria and other fabulous places in Europe ring out with great authenticity. And remember this film was shot on 70mm as well, making everything extra crisp. You don’t even need to go past the first song to see the pictorial perfection. Just watch the clouds in the background, the formation of which are pastoral, exquisite and just the right shape to create the perfect composition complementing the green mountaintop and Ms. Andrews’ position on it.
Next to a 70mm big-screen revival, the Blu-ray makes for the next best reason to watch this film once again.
****
The Sound of Music is available on Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
I admire Tiny Furniture and some of Girls, but the art-brat characterizations and New York hipster conflicts of the Lena Dunham world arguably overstay their welcome in episodic form. But in cinema her voice is most effective. As written by Dunham, this quiet and seemingly trite and trendy indie picture surprisingly turns into a deft examination of the powerful force of female sexuality and the fallibility of the male libido.
Nobody Walks (2012) dir. Ry Russo-Young
Starring: Olivia Thirlby, John Krasinski, Rosemary DeWitt, Justin Kirk
By Alan Bacchus
Martine (Thirlby) is an attractive gal, a film director working on her own massively pretentious B&W art film about insects. Her work is less important than her demeanor. Early on when she arrives in L.A. we see her flirting with her seat partner and then vigorously making out with the stranger in the parking lot. She denies his desires for a quickie and goes on her way.
This scene, and the whole film for that matter, is shot with an observational, realist style which admirably misdirects to the very strong thematic statement, the idea of the four women in this film representing four stages of a woman’s sexual awareness, and the exploration of the powerful psychological effects on libidinous ID-powered men.
Martine arrives at the guest house of Peter (Krasinski) and Julie (DeWitt) and their two kids to live and sound edit her film with Peter. Martine’s unconcious sexuality is an immediate attraction to Peter, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Julie. Though while acting as a therapist for an egotistical film director, (Kirk) Julie herself is on the receiving end of sexual advances from her client. It's the same with Julie’s 16-year-old daughter Caroline, who is taking Italian lessons from a brazenly forthright Italian tutor.
The plot turns when Peter gives into Julie’s coy advances and has sex in the house. For Martine it’s just some casual sex, quickly forgotten. But for Peter it’s more, which causes his rational mind to unravel. Meanwhile, the events of Julie and Caroline run parallel to Peter and Julie’s issues, as the feminist themes admirable connect all these characters.
Director Russo-Young establishes a quiet and anti-dramatic tone early using familiar indie aesthetic tools. The film features grainy but rich and textured super 16mm format, grab-it-and-go b-roll footage of Los Angeles, and a melancholy ambient soundtrack by Fall On Your Sword (Lola Versus, Another Earth). While many of these American-indie relationship dramas, including Dunham’s own Tiny Furniture trend towards the esoteric and introspective to the conflicts of the characters, Russo-Young and Dunham leave us with a surprisingly bold feminist statement and a film which resonates as deep as any of the post-Mumblecore pictures.
Curiosity seekers interested in this picture because of its hyped-up reception at Cannes, as well as descriptions by smitten critics such as ‘exhilarating’, ‘completely bonkers’ and ‘balls-to-the-wall crazy’, will likely be disappointed. That is unless you’re willing to completely give in to Leos Carax’s exercise in inane randomness. But from these eyes, the general acceptance and praise of this film must have Mr. Carax laughing his ass off, having fooled overly analytical critics into thinking that Holy Motors is any good.
Holy Motors (2012) dir. Leos Carax
Starring: Denis Levant, Edith Scob, Kylie Minogue, Eva Mendes
By Alan Bacchus
There’s much in common with David Cronenberg’s Cannes inclusion, Cosmopolis - the idea of a man driving around the city in a limousine and engaging in deliriously surreal encounters with minimal overt purpose. There was a semblance of a narrative, theme and purpose in Cronenberg’s film, but in Holy Motors the joke seems to be on us.
As much as I could gather, Oscar (Denis Levant) seems to be some kind of actor or Lon Chaney ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ whose agenda for the day includes nine appointments, each one a surprise to him and us. As such, it’s an episodic work, a film divided into these nine or so (I didn’t really count) scenes.
Driving him around the city is an older woman, Celine, who serves as some sort of shepherd for Oscar, aiding and serving him in his duties. Going by the title, there’s a religious metaphor at play with Oscar perhaps being some kind of angel moving in and out of people’s lives.
Each of the sequences is like a random mélange of writing. Early on we see Oscar turn himself into an old bag lady, panhandling on the street. Nothing becomes of this scene. For his second appointment he turns himself into a troll out of The Lord of the Rings, runs amuck stealing and eating flowers from the gravestones of a cemetery, and then invades a fashion photo shoot, bites the fingers of an innocent bystander and kidnaps Eva Mendes, taking her to an underground lair to show her (and the audience) his erect penis. Nothing pays off from this scene either. Later on, Oscar turns himself into a domestic family man, seemingly returning to his home to be with his wife and child. Only later do we realize his family is a pair of chimpanzees.
Holy Motors fails for me not because of the obliqueness of the big picture connection (this I can accept) but because the individual scenes are impenetrable, each one a free association of inane cinematic rambling. Even David Lynch at his most beguiling can satisfy his audience with individual set pieces or moments of drama and cinema.
The only two vignettes to cherish in this picture are the motion capture interpretive dance sequence featured in much of the publicity and advertising of the film, and the inspired intermission musical sequence featuring Oscar and a band of accordion players filmed in one long take. Everything else is a bore of monumental proportions, the Cloud Atlas of European art films.
Rajesh Ji is like a growing number of regular citizens in Kolkata, India, plying his trade as a private detective, which due to an ineffectual police force, has seen a boom. Our first impression is that Rajesh, a bumbling, slightly chubby family man, has no business serving the law, except for the fact that he's a fearless adventurer with delusions of grandeur and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. He makes a fascinating first-person case study, which in the most entertaining and easy-going manner, enlightens us to the state of policing, pop culture and private enterprise capitalism in modern India.
The Bengali Detective (2011) dir. Philip Cox
Documentary
By Alan Bacchus
Philip Cox follows Rajesh through three key cases: a grisly homicide involving three seemingly innocent youths caught in a complex web of familial betrayal; the infiltration of a counterfeit shampoo branding operation; and a salacious and sexy case of adultery. When he's not in the field or managing a staff of investigators, he's angling to become the leader of the next great dance crew, moonlighting as the captain of a troupe in search of reality TV stardom. Yes, this is a real world documentary.
Rajesh is portrayed with the affable intensity of The Office's Michael Scott and the naive charm of Inspector Clouseau. Add in the strong sense of showmanship and false bravado, like the goofs in This Is Spinal Tap, or the zany terrorists in Chris Morris's Four Lions, and the effect is oddly humorous and tragic in equal measure.
I suspect there may have been some fudging of details or recreations of certain sequences, but the film is as much about the construction of its titular character as it is about Rajesh's investigations. The theme of celebrity runs strong throughout. We all know the idolatry of cinema and celebrity in Indian popular culture, and Rajesh and his colleagues' awareness of the camera actually aids in the overall kookiness of this picture.
Cox captures a unique tone, moving naturally from the unintentional hilarity of Rajesh's demeanour and the emotionally complex, downright tragic nature of his clients. Though Fox Searchlight has apparently been developing a dramatic version of this story, this is truth far stranger than fiction, which is the film's main attraction, and thus any dramatic version would lose all this wonderful irony.
I like Alien 3. I always have. Although, the opening is especially depressing and frankly shameful to the throughline of the series. For me, this illogical choice is the only bad stain on this film - a new flavour for the series, but consistent to the franchise's trend of experimenting with a new tone and visual style with each successive film. It may be a minority opinion, but Alien 3 succeeds admirably.
For about 5 years The Sound of Music was the highest grossing film of all time. It was a phenomenon back in the day, besting the box office record held for 25 years by Gone With the Wind. It’s still a touchstone film and a treasure of pop culture moments. I hadn’t actually seen it in full from beginning to end until the last few years, yet I seemed to know the story intimately. I even knew the lyrics to most of the songs. Such is the penetration of this movie into our public consciousness.
