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.

by ·Comments Off on Secrets & Lies (1996, Mike Leigh)

After her foster mum’s death, Marianne Jean-Baptiste consults compassionate social worker Lesley Manville about finding her real mum. Lesley gives her some options, says this should be handled delicately, and of course don’t just show up at mum’s doorstep, but Marianne is out of patience and does exactly that, getting to know Brenda Blethyn (Keira K’s mum in Pride & Prejudice and Keira’s boyfriend’s mum in Atonement) and remaining her “work friend” to the rest of the family until all the titular secrets get blurted out at a birthday party.

Brenda’s brother is Timothy Spall, his wife who nobody likes is Phyllis Logan, and mum’s other daughter (and birthday girl) is Claire Rushbrook of Adler’s Under the Skin, who brings along her boyfriend Paul. Poor Paul seems nice enough, has nothing to do while caught in this massive unloading of grudges, and when the fourth family secret within 15 minutes drops, he makes a facial twitch that justifies his entire existence in the film. As for Blethyn, she and the movie won top prizes at Cannes in a stacked year (Crash, Fargo, Breaking the Waves, Three Lives, Drifting Clouds). She’s excellent throughout, but one line delivery in particular, which I won’t detail here because I’m trying to stop thinking about it, had me upset all week. I planned to catch up on a few Mike Leigh films – maybe Meantime or High Hopes – before watching MJ-B’s comeback Hard Truths, but maybe stacking these in a single month would be overwhelming.

Josh Lewis: “So funny to make a movie as nihilistic and troubling as Naked and then immediately follow it up with Timothy Spall in this who is a contender for the nicest, warmest character in the history of movies.”

by ·Comments Off on Vanya on 42nd Street (1994, Louis Malle)

Relaxed film, supposedly a full rehearsal of the Chekhov play in a disused theater, director Andre Gregory and the small audience only seen at the beginning and during act breaks. Camera crew is onstage, so it’s an immersive drama that doubles as a distancing experiment. Everyone loves the important professor, come to his country home with hot new wife Julianne Moore, but as the days go on, all the men fall for Julianne and lose respect for the professor, who plans to repay their years of work on his estate by selling it off and making them homeless. Local doctor who never seems to go home is Larry Pine, the professor in Q, and thankfully I didn’t recognize this movie’s professor as the Police Academy commandant because that would have been so distracting. MVP Brooke Smith (the girl who puts the lotion in the basket in Silence of the Lambs).

Wallace Vanya with Moore and Lynn Cohen:

by ·Comments Off on La Haine (1995, Mathieu Kassovitz)

Expertly choreographed steadicam movie. I put off watching this, thinking it was about nazi youth or something, but it’s three smalltime criminals, not such bad guys (“the only good skinhead is a dead one”) who get into a spot of bother when one of them gets a gun (they all die). Unexpected Vincent Lindon appearance towards the end. The director went on to have an undistinguished career, the three guys ended up in (1) The Constant Gardener, (2) Three Kings & John Wick 3, (3) Irreversible & The Shrouds. Won best director at Cannes the year of Underground.

by ·Comments Off on Pickpocket / Xiao Wu (1997, Jia Zhang-Ke)

Obviously I should now rewatch Unknown Pleasures, in which Xiao Wu reappears, but I didn’t love it the first time. He’s a good character, the oldest of a gang of thieves, prickly and annoying, avoided by family and friends, bad with women, finally arrested and publicly shamed.

Josh Lewis:

Unlike Bresson who takes an interest in the tense procedural craft of his titular pickpocket (as well as the protagonists spiritual and existential crisis), Jia focuses almost entirely on the wandering weariness that comes with the knowledge that the only thing you’re good at is destined to alienate you from civilized society. My man just wanted to smoke, drink, play pool, and sing karaoke with a beautiful woman, and he gets ruthlessly humiliated and punished for it.