by ·Comments Off on Through the Olive Trees (1994, Abbas Kiarostami)

Part one was a straightforward drama, part two was a reenactment of events that took place after filming that drama, and part three is a reenactment of the filming of part two, whew.

It spins off into a side drama, as the actors cast as And Life Goes On‘s newlyweds know each other – Hossein wants to marry Tahereh, her family says no, and she won’t say anything at all. After filming he follows her and… something happens in extreme-wide-shot which I simply couldn’t make out on the VHS when I first watched this, but seemed clearer now, before Godfrey Cheshire further complicated it.

Or possibly all three Koker movies were made to explore AK’s deep interest in homework, and we’d more accurately call it the Homework Quadrilogy.

Watched all the box set extras. The included Cinema de Notre Temps episode is fantastic, a precursor to 10 on Ten. Crew follows him around as he drives familiar routes and looks for people he knows and interacts with random pedestrians. He finds the Friend’s Home kids yet again, catches up with the star of The Traveler, and teases them all about their acting… talks about truth and fiction, philosophically and in the specifics of his films.

by ·Comments Off on Soldier (1998, Paul W.S. Anderson)

Little-mustached Col. Meekham brings his new genetically-enhanced soldiers to Gary Busey, who commands unenhanced soldiers raised by the military from birth, and the new guys win, so Kurt Russell, damaged and decommissioned, is dumped on a waste disposal planet which for some reason has breathable air, and gains a conscience when the locals who helped him recover start dying when their planet is used as a super-soldier training grounds. Admirably little dialogue, making the soldiers rarely speak pays off.

Lodge 49‘s Wyatt Russell plays Young Kurt, of course, and Kurt’s rival (“Caine,” of course) is Jason “Scott” Lee of Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision. Mustache is Jason Isaacs, who I just saw in A Cure for Wellness. Absolute bonanza of foreground stuntmen vaulting through the air while something explodes behind them. No opening credits, but if you explained to me over the final scenes that Paul W.S. Anderson directed this between Event Horizon (space mission gone badly wrong) and Resident Evil (a company soldier takes revenge upon her creators) I’d reply “shhh, I’m watching the movie.”

by ·Comments Off on Life and Nothing More (1991, Abbas Kiarostami)

A city filmmaker is driving post-earthquake with his kid – per the commentary this is a re-enactment of a trip the director made with his son in the days after the quake – talking to his son with more patience and respect than young Ahmed ever got in the previous movie. For the first half hour they don’t give away the reason for the trip, then he finds a guy from Koker and shows a picture of Ahmed.

So we’re in a new fiction film responding to real events that involve the previous fiction film – but it gets more complicated. “A film has its own truth.” They find the guy who played the slow hunchback in part one, now playing “himself” with his house still standing after the quake, but he breaks character and calls this his “movie house,” says his real house was destroyed and he lives in a tent.

The kid, not understanding the scope of the situation, wants to buy a coke then complains that it’s warm. Later, to a mourning mother: “your daughter’s lucky she died – she’ll never have to do homework.” But the kid getting distracted from his dad’s trip and wanting to hang with some locals and watch soccer gives the movie its title: “The World Cup comes once every four years, and life goes on.”

One of the blu extras opens with an admiring quote from the other AK. Kiarostami made some 200 advertisements before working on features, and he supervised road repairs, which makes a lot of sense.

by ·Comments Off on Fireworks (1997, Takeshi Kitano)

It’s been a minute (twenty years) since I’ve seen this. Officer Kitano lives a depressing life in forced retirement with his sick wife, one friend dead, another crippled and suicidal, and loansharks after him. So he robs a bank, funds the suicidal friend’s new painting hobby, and takes his wife to the beach, fighting off the gangsters and capitulating to the cops.

Won the top prize at Venice, same year as Ossos, Chinese Box, The Tango Lesson, and 4 Little Girls. As usual, Josh Lewis gets it.

by ·Comments Off on A Moment of Innocence (1996, Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

Re-enactments upon re-enactments! A decade after watching Kandahar, I’m on a new Kiarostami kick but still haven’t seen most of Makhmalbaf’s work. I’m assuming the meta-cinema ideas came from A.K. via Close-Up, though Makhmalbaf had made a semi-autobiographical feature before then, and a couple of cine-referential features since.

The online synopses say the director tracked down the policeman he’d stabbed as a teenager, but the movie opens with the policeman coming to Mohsen’s house. After a casting call the two men select their young selves, tell the young actors their own stories, then figure out how to stage the big event, leading to the big final freeze-frame which became the movie’s poster and original title (Bread and Flower).

by ·Comments Off on The Daytrippers (1996, Greg Mottola)

Family goes on a trip to the city to investigate Hope Davis’s husband’s goings-on, finds him smooching another man, as was all the rage back then. In a movie full of 90s darlings, it turns out Ben Stiller’s mom is the best actor around.

by ·Comments Off on Heat (1995, Michael Mann)

Hadn’t seen this in a while. I think I bought the blu (cheap!) to rewatch when the book came out, but given my current books backlog, by the time I get to Heat 2 I’ll have to rewatch the movie again (with pleasure).

Al’s wife is Diane Venora, queen of the Claire Danes Juliet and the Ethan Hawke Hamlet, and Bob’s new girl is Amy Brenneman, who starred with Al in 88 Minutes. Danny Trejo is their driver who gets no lines or closeups until his big death scene. Disastrous new teammate Kevin Gage (May‘s dad) has a side gig killing prostitutes. Kilmer gets away.

Gage with stalwart 90s actor Henry Rollins:

by ·Comments Off on Nowhere (1997, Gregg Araki)

Polishing off the Criterion set, and it’s another horny ensemble movie with Argento lighting, the music good as ever. Group of kids dying off one by one, from murderous lizard alien or homi/sui/cide. “Our generation is gonna witness the end of everything.”

by ·Comments Off on Galaxy Quest (1999, Dean Parisot)

Never seen this before! Rock monster digi-fx are bad, the muppet fx and the acting all hold up, especially V-Mars’ dad as the lead alien. I liked that Justin Long’s hopeless sci-fi nerd is named Brandon, and enjoyed seeing Sigourney’s curse word get blatantly PG-13’d. Twenty years later Parisot made the very good Bill & Ted 3.