Criterion Revolt: The Last Days of Disco

The Criterion Collection has made heroes of some obscure, unproductive and lazy figures over the years, from Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers to the surrealist nightmares of Hiroshi Teshigahara, and finally the decades in the offing operas of Terence Malick, directors who produced very little over their lifetimes, and seemed obsessed with the same often disgusting and repetitive themes. It can be said that a true auteur only has one specific line of aesthetic inquiry, that the great ones simply are able to show varying swathes of humanity emulating their favorite themes. Some, however, choose to follow the same sub-set of society from age to age, location to location. When these directors are able to produce only a few films in their career, it seems that they are uncreative, difficult and washed up. So why celebrate their lesser films with lavish DVDs when I still can't get a decent copy of The Magnificent Ambersons?

Criterion sponsored a screening of The Last Days of Disco followed by a Q & A with Whit Stillman, his ex-lover Chris Eigeman and some lesser figures involved with the film (Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny, the film's leads, were unavailable for comment). Though it was released 10 years ago, Disco was the last film completed by Stillman, who reportedly has a "Jamaican music" project in the works. We'll see where that goes, but its hard to imagine Stillman documenting anything besides the venal and prolix conversations of over-stimulated and spoiled urbanites, whether at home or abroad.

Though The Last Days of Disco opens with some not-for-the-epileptic-crowd credits and the tongue in cheek title card reading "the very early eighties", it quickly settles into the well-worn territory of Metropolitan and Barcelona (and Eigemann starring vehicle Kicking and Screaming), witty New Yorkers riffing at each other with the rhythm of Shakespeare and the respect for standards of Oscar Wilde. Or so Stillman would hope we receive monologues on everything from social messages in Lady and the Tramp to a deconstruction of "to thine ownself be true".

A Stillman screenplay has a cadence and logic all its own, not unlike one penned by David Mamet or Quentin Tarantino. However, where those directors generally focus on a specific genre, crime or noir, Stillman thinks he is doing romantic dramedy a favor by gussying up its vocabulary. It is not the visual style, but rather the discours ebetween characters that make his films distinct. The problem is, he keeps turning the same trick. Film Comment editor Gavin Smith joked that this was not a "party movie" like Boogie Nights; in other words, The Last Days of Disco is not an immersive experience.

In Paul Thomas Anderson's film, we experience the highs and lows of the "very early eighties" firsthand, are swept along by sensuality and drugs until there's nothing left. While things are slipping away in Disco, the characters remain necessarily aloof, trapped in their own intellectualism to a fault, blind. David Schickler puts it best when he writes that the dialogue is funny to the audience, but all important to the characters speaking. The problem is, judging from his interview, Stillman doesn't seem to find this funny either. He and Eigeman probably did have wild nights in Studio 54 where they circle-jerked about subversive Disney movies and discussed which professions produced suitable companions. The problem then, and now, is that no one cared.

Summer Movies Orgy Part 8: Inglourious Basterds

A summer movie is always packed with expectations, especially when its a big-budget ensemble action picture. Throw in aging boy wonder Quentin Tarantino and world's biggest star Brad Pitt, you've got a recipe for disappointment once it comes to actually screening the thing.

Inglourious Basterds is a big rollicking heap of a movie, spilling over at every side with period detail. The center of this movie, ostensibly, is Pitt, who plays Lt. Aldo Raine, the leader of a troop known as the Bastards, who rove the French countryside, meting out vigilante justice on unlucky squads of Nazi troops. All the bastards under Raine are Jewish, that they may have fresh bloodlust to carry out their atrocities. What you will not expect, and what troubled me for most of the first half of the film, is the Bastards are just one third of the film.

Tarantino spends a great deal of time in another, significantly less pulpy plot line, about an SS officer known as the Jew Hunter (Christoph Waltz), and his obsession to catch the last remaining survivor of a raid we see in the opening of the film. Shoshana, his prey, ends up being intimately involved with a young Nazi war hero and gets drawn back into....the plots converge and some blood gets shed.

I can say without equivocation that Inglorious Basterds is Tarantino's most mature film. Sure, he still gets laughs out of scalping dead Germans and a Mike Myers cameo, but gone are the diatribes on "Like a Virgin", the masturbatory anime sequences and the references to schlocky 70s movies in the service of "art". He keeps his collage to a minimum, at one point going Film History 101 with a nod to The Searchers and, with a bit more subtlety, pays homage to Notorious. What may have used to annoy you about Tarantino is mostly gone. This is still a revenge film like Kill Bill, but with better actors and less absurd setpieces. Its altogether more believable.

That said, this film is not without weakness. Quentin still doesn't have a great handle on un-stylized human interaction, so a great deal of the setup of the Shoshana plot is deathly boring. Luckily, this drains out of the climax just in time for the right measure of blood, fire and liquor.

Grade: 88/100

Summer Movies Orgy Part 7: District 9

When I first saw the teaser and stills from Neil Blomkamp's District 9, last year's Cloverfield immediately jumped to mind, but in a good way. The film, a docudrama that features largely unknown actors, tells the story of a refugee population of aliens stranded in South Africa for twenty years, and the plans of a multinational corporation to profit from their advanced weaponry, while putting the displaced "prawns" in a concentration camp. Sound like an interesting premise? Made even more interesting by the "exclusive-breaking news" style of the production?

I must have decided District 9 was a can't miss and checked out of the marketing campaign a month too early. What Blomkamp and executive producer Peter Jackson deliver is at first inventive and engaging. As advertised, we watch a prime-time news documentary about the forced eviction of over a million aliens by functionary [we'll call him Joe, because he has some really weird Dutch-Afrikaner name] Joe. Joe is a great character who will remind some of Ricky Gervais' original British version of The Office, a highly unlikely central character for a science fiction movie with copious special effects. Promoted because he married the boss' daughter, Joe is totally outmatched by his task of overseeing a vast alien migration. Unfortunately, he's also unprepared for the "secret plan" of a few more intelligent members of the prawn community.

At this point in the pitch meeting, Blomkamp must have seen Jackson's eyes begin to wander with vague regrets of ever having his stomach stapled. He wanted a steak, but he couldn't possibly finish one after the surgery. The filmmaker wisely re-engaged Jackson by saying that, starting with the second act, District 9 would simply shed its audacious style and move into well-worn, running man, sci-fi action territory and pretty much never look back. I won't say exactly how, but "Joe" soon becomes the subject of a nationwide manhunt and has to use some really cool vaporizer, phasers and blasters to clear his name / keep 13 year olds interested in what this movie used to be saying about racism. Or something.

District 9 builds up such a head of legitimately engaging steam in the first 45 minutes, one spends the next thirty minutes confused as all get out, trying to figure out how and why the movie is introducing a bogus, Hollywood series of tropes and setups to justify the horrendous third act, in which Joe and a couple of buddies destroy a large portion of the refugee camp with a some conspicuously familiar technology (see Aliens, Terminator: Salvation, Transformers) in order to "take on society". It ultimately makes you wonder why a no name director and unknown actors are at the forefront of this picture; did this picture really offend Michael Bay and Ridley Scott that much?

If it had not started the way it did, movie might make a decent B or B+ showing as an interesting premise for a summer action movie. Instead, the change of gears rips the movie to shreds, making it feel an hour longer than it actually is. Its two movies, both good in their own way, destroying the good points between them.

Grade: 74/100

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

I like Terry Gilliam a lot. I also liked Heath Ledger. This does not look like its going to end well. This trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, in which Ledger is replaced by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, looks like a 5-alarm fiasco, a movie that will gross next to nothing and be career poison for everyone involved. And, Gilliam's next project is to revisit the Don Quijote fiasco. Depp is no attached,

Brit Noir: The Small Back Room

This month at Film Forum is Brit Noir month, a showcase of films from 1938 to 1960 which deal with English depression and malaise from the invasion of Poland to the perfection of socialism. Most filmgoers will be familiar with only one or two titles or directors in this series; even for the Forum, this is a slightly obscure theme. In terms of auteur cinema, only Carol Reed (The Third Man, Odd Man Out) may raise a flash of recognition, as well as today's entrants, Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell.

Though they made films throughout the period covered in the retrospective, P & P delayed a foray into the dark side of things until after their two theatrical epics, The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman. Being from the filmography of two of the world's most versatile filmmakers, The Small Back Room is hardly noir alone. It combines elements of several genres and styles to create a complete movie, one with comedy, drama, romance and adventure.

David Farrar plays a downtrodden research physicist working in the bowels of a enormous bureaucratic agency in London. He has two ailments: a tin leg, the origin of which is never explained, and alcoholism. Whether the latter led to the former we are only to assume. He carries on a grim affair with his loving secretary played by Kathleen Byron. Farrar shows little love or emotion of any kind, only an unpleasant sense that he will always be less than enough for Byron, and that things will end badly. The two must keep their relationship secret from Farrar's smooth talking politician colleague, Jack Hawkins (The Bridge on the River Kwai).

Of course, there is a war on. The thrust of the plot is Farrar working with military investigators to defuse a new weapon deployed by the Germans, harmless looking cannisters which explode not on impact, but only when picked up by unsuspecting civilians. The Small Back Room is a screenwriter's marvel, balancing three conflicts at once: the torrid love affair, the rising suspense of the bomb scares, and the protagonist's struggle to remain sober (or at least drinking beer instead of whisky).

This comes masterfully together in a trademark Powell and Pressburger fantasy sequence, in which Farrar imagines everything in the room around him to be bottle shaped in one way or another, while being attacked by a curvaceous bottle of spirits. It may more than remind us of Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend, but in the hands of these expressionists, the sequence is wholly unique.

It oddly appear in a film marked by realism. Though the oblique angles and claustrophobic settings make many of the scenes visually memorable in a heightened, cinematic style, the performances always keep the film grounded. In the climax, the tricks evaporate into a real-time, white-knuckle bomb defusal by a severely hungover Farrar. You won't be able to breathe. Though I've seen Powell and Pressburger change gears from film to film, I've never seen them do it so effectively within one piece as The Small Back Room

Edward Norton, 1969-2000

So I'm up late last night, like usual whenever I'm around a cable system that allows me unfettered access to dozens of movie channels, and I stumble across The Incredible Hulk, the re-boot/sequel of the DC comics classic previously butchered by Ang Lee. This movie stars academy award nominees William Hurt, Tim Roth and Edward Norton. Now, forget about William Hurt, who's had a great, lengthy career as father-types/Kevin Costner's alter ego, and Tim Roth, who's foreign birth and rat-like appearance will always delegate him to supporting roles or small films.

This is Edward Norton we're talking about here! Why on earth did this once coveted leading man get downgraded to this hacky garbage, while drug addict Robert Downey Jr. is riding windfall cash into the sunset on Iron Man 2? Anyone my age, or any fratboy about ten years older will remember loving Norton in adolescent treats like Rounders and Fight Club. They'll remember his "thoughtful", "intense" roles in films like 25th Hour and American History X. Why on Earth is Edward Norton picking up Eric Bana's leavings? Why is the guy who was supposed to be the next DeNiro now off the A-list? To be referenced on Entourage but never to appear, replaced by a Jason Patric cameo? Edward Norton has been lapped by bubble-gum Teen People heartthrobs like George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio. Why?

The slide probably began with Keeping the Faith, a romantic/religious comedy which posited: what if a priest, a rabbi and Jenna Elfman could hold an audience's attention for 2 hours and 8 minutes? Norton "directed", wrote and starred in this thing. Who wants to see a guy we know as a skinhead/violence addict play a priest? In a comedy? Okay, how about a sugary Christian children's show host who plays hippy songs and dresses as a rhinoceros? No? Am I getting warmer at least? Okay, okay, a con man who does a borderline offensive impression of a mentally handicapped person in order to steal a valuable scepter? And only after all that did Norton appear in The Illusionist.

Well, I'm here to posit a slightly different theory: Edward Norton has always sucked. At everything except sarcastic grins and scowling. He really knows how to scowl. If we choose to ignore American History X, he really doesn't have anything on Nicolas Cage. I mean it and I'm not taking it back.

30th Anniversary: Being There

American film in the 1970s was a playground of geniuses. As we saw with the recent entry on The Friends of Eddie Coyle, there were so many great films and directors, almost as many great films are forgotten from that era as are celebrated. One director who has been particularly lost to history is Hal Ashby, best known for his melancholy comedies, most famously Harold and Maude. Perhaps it was his premature death at 61, his relatively small body of work, or the difficult to categorize nature of most of his films, but few remember him.

In recent years, film scholars and critics have attempted to resurrect Ashby's reputation, and the film they most often point to is the media/political satire Being There, in which Peter Sellers plays a simpleton who has only experienced the world through television and working in his benefactor's garden. Sellers' Chance has never left the house until one day, his master dies, and he must find a new patch of land to nurture. He stumbles into upper crust home of Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas, who welcome his idiot manner as a sort of deep understanding. Douglas is a key advisor to the President, played by Jack Warden and well, you can imagine what happens from there.

Being There is a movie hurt by its reputation. It's a great idea for a movie, and the first hour is impeccable as we see Chance's daily routine. The simpleton who only knows human behavior through television, who cannot even read or write, and who constantly parrots the words "I understand" when the opposite is clearly true are all touching elements. However, bringing him to the seat of power is just too obvious a move, and a clumsy comedic tactic. As Chance goes on television and becomes integral to Warden's economic plan, the movie becomes less believable and less moving.

Ashby is largely forgotten because while he helmed some great screenplays, he did not realize them as fully as others of his generation. He gets a phenomenal performance out of Sellers, bu he has hardly the first to do so. There's no stylistic center to any of these films, and so aplying the title of auteur to any of them comes with some hesitation. We remember Harold and Maude as a more of a concept than a work of art as well. Being There is a fabulous idea gone astray.

Summer Movies Orgy Part 6: Moon

Sam Rockwell is one of the most underused and overlooked actors in Hollywood. He can usually only find leading roles in offbeat and unmarketable films. His latest, Moon, is no exception. Sci-fi indie is a rare combination because for budgetary reasons, and Rockwell's attachment to the project must have been essential to convince investors. That, and director Duncan Jones is the offspring of David Bowie.

Rockwell plays Sam Bell, a forlorn Tennessee Titans fan working for an energy company some time in the near future. Bell's work consists in collecting moon-dust that holds the sun's energy, and sending large parcels of it back to Earth for consumer use. Apparently, Lunar Industries has helped save the planet. Sam Bell has had to sacrifice three years of human contact, including his wife and daughter, whom he left as an infant. His everyday duties include dictating information into a database, driving a lunar rover, and pining:

As you can see from the clip, the film has a thick atmosphere, a lot of it due to the immersive score by Clint Mansell, who has leant his talent to the last few Darren Aronofsky films (viewers will be particularly reminded of the better portions of The Fountain). If you think you're going into another navel-gazing cosmic montage, however, think again. As much as Rockwell's solitary astronaut speaking to a kindly computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey, who apparently needed to cover his gambling losses) may seem like 2001, this is no 2001.

It's difficult to talk at length about Moon, however, to an audience that hasn't seen it; the film veers off in a direction it would be inappropriate to spoil about 25 minutes in. To summarize, Rockwell's isolation forces him to consider his identity and its nature. The pacing is excellent, the performance is top notch, and the movie leaves you wanting very little. It's frightening, touching and often funny. Moon is a Sundance movie which should earn a place among mainstream psychological thrillers. Now go see it.

Grade: 90/100

The Vault #30: Who's That Knocking at My Door

He was fresh out of film school looking to make his mark. Lost in all the "generation-defining" films of the sixties like from The 400 Blows to Easy Rider is Martin Scorsese's experimental, understated Who's That Knocking at My Door, a little film about nothing more than adolescence, the difference between girls and broads, and maybe a lil' roughhousing.

Harvey Keitel plays JR, a hoodlum with a penchant for Westerns, who likes to think of himself and his thug pals as displaying some of John Wayne's personal ethos. Most of the film follows his courting of a straight dame, a nice girl from the right side of the tracks, whose gentle ways are, in theory, showing JR there may be a softer way to live. Then her past comes up.

Who's That Knocking at My Door is generally short on plot, intercutting scenes of JR and his girl with endless streams of tough-guy chit-chat leading nowhere. It's probably the closest Scorsese ever came to making a Quentin Tarantino movie. Then one gets to the following sequence, and is struck by just how good a filmmaker Marty is:

It's moments like this that make Who's That Knocking incredibly entertaining, even if not all that deep. The film is montage wall to wall, a young man's recollection of his neighborhood, his first love and the movies he loved so dearly. If it isn't too reflective, then that's because Scorsese was barely out of college. Though the end of the film leads directly into Mean Streets, the seed of an entire career can be found within.