by ·Comments Off on Mondovino (2004, Jonathan Nossiter)

Second-and-a-halfth time I’ve seen this. Next time I’ll have to find the longer (miniseries?) version.

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Still my favorite wine documentary. Unnervingly unsteady handheld digital camerawork, wandering obsession with wine people’s pets, sudden shifts from one country to another, and interviews that give subjects plenty time to make their views clear or to make fools of themselves.

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Movie starts (but does not end) in Brazil, which is apparently a difficult place to make wine. For the most part, the ol’ stickler traditionalists come out looking good (Mondille family, the guy below), the big-money company owners come out looking not so good (Michel Rolland, Mondavi, Antinori), and some other characters add flavor and remain neutral (critic Robert Parker, new york distributor Neal Rosenthal).

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I read a great magazine interview with Jonathan Nossiter – was it in Cinema Scope? Will have to find that again. I love how idiosyncratic the movie is – the way the camera restlessly looks around instead of watching the interview subjects, the inclusion of scenes and dialogue that the subjects probably thought (knew!) would be thrown out, the rich v. poor, worker v. owner and globalization arguments stated or implied in every scene.

Katy liked the movie, I think.

by ·Comments Off on Sideways (2004, Alexander Payne)

Finally the hype has died down enough that I feel safe watching Sideways (still 2 more years to go for LA Crash, and at least that long for Babel).

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Giamatti is a schlub with a bad novel, an ex-wife, a wine obsession and a poor social life. His buddy Sandman is a womanizer but about to get married this saturday. Road trip! Out to wine country to golf and drink and fuck strangers! Enter oscar-nominee Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh to complicate things. Sex ensues, and Sandman gets his nose broken and goes and gets married even though he’s an ass and P.Giamatti ends the movie getting back together with V.Madsen.

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Extremely not-bad, but never great in any way. I mean, I love watching Paul Giamatti do things, and nudity is fun and drunkenness is funny and relationships are hard, but the movie’s saying big ol’ nothing and seems a step down from Election (though I forgot About Schmidt came in between). Guess I could go back and read those hundred thousand reviews and discussions about Sideways posted online in 2002 and 2003, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of movie worth going on and on and on about either, god it’s less exciting than Little Miss Sunshine.

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Katy likes it, and kickball said it was crappy.

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by ·Comments Off on Phantom of the Paradise (1974, Brian De Palma)

This movie, are you kidding me? 100 percent awesome. Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, split screens, mobile long takes and a shower scene with a knife. It could only be Brian DePalma’s parody-tribute to Phantom of the Opera.

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Winslow Leach is writing a rock cantata of Faust and auditions it for Swan, the hugest most important record producer in the industry. Swan steals Leach’s cantata and adapts it for his new theater (Paradise), auditions some girls (Leach meets one briefly, Phoenix, falls in love, thinks she has a perfect voice for his songs, etc), then gets Leach falsely arrested and sent to prison, where his teeth are removed and replaced with metal ones for some reason I forget.

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Leach escapes, returns as the Phantom of the Paradise, and kills the dude hired to sing his stuff (“Beef”). But Swan finds Leach and signs a lifetime deal with him to keep writing stuff that Swan will produce… a bad deal for both of them, I guess. After a life/death struggle for creative control and the love of the girl, they both end up dead dead dead.

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Good music, good story, great movie. What in the world happened? Why have I never heard of this before? Why haven’t my coworkers heard of it?

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Best part: the phantom stabs himself in the heart, but can’t die because he’s still under contract.

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by ·Comments Off on Raising Cain (1992, Brian De Palma)

The missing link between Bonfire of the Vanities and Carlito’s Way.

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Movie’s chugging along fine for a half hour, then helloooo awkward voiceover. Something must’ve gone wrong in the editing process, or maybe test screening audiences were confused.

John Lithgow:
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I love how De Palma keeps trying to make artful tributes to Psycho, then Gus Van Sant just up and remakes Psycho, the dummy. Killing the female lead 40 minutes in… check. Same shot in the police station from Dressed To Kill, also in a police station. Characters named Dante and Cain, heh. With the knife to the hand, the wig/dress costume, the elevator scene and the multiple personalities, this thing has Dressed To Kill written all over it. De P. is referencing himself more than Hitch this time around.

John Lithgow:
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The fun is to figure out which characters are John Lithgow and which aren’t (spoilers: his twin brother and the kid at the restrooms are, his dad is not). Whole movie is worth it for the awesomely choreographed long-shot slow-motion finale at a hotel.

John Lithgow:
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DVD box says: “When Jenny cheated on her husband, he didn’t just leave… he split”. But he was split from the start, and the cheating only got him to try to blame her new guy for one of Lithgow’s murders (it only stuck for about 10 minutes).

John Lithgow:
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Looked for a second opinion but it’s (the only one?) missing from Reverse Shot’s De Palma discussion page. Maybe I’m alone, but I think it’s a real cool movie.

aaaaand John Lithgow:
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by ·Comments Off on The Blob (1958, Irvin Yeaworth)

“this has never happened before… what am i gonna wear?”

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Starring Steve(n) McQueen as a 28-year-old teenager, with his 25-yr-old teenage girlfriend.

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Awful dialogue and delivery, low budget sets, long talky parts, nothing-special cinematography, inept sound editing, really it’s near-mst3k fare minus McQueen’s capable lead and a cool premise and neat creature. I suppose the criterion commentary’s gonna go on about how symbolic the thing is (note: no, just talking about the making-of, giving a little context). Weird movie for them to release… is it “important” or is it just a cool sci-fi movie with a big star to which they could secure the rights? Website says it was an indie movie (unusual for the 50’s) but can’t help throwing in that the blob was “comparable to if not incarnating the growing consumerism of 1950’s America). Probably not a must-see… the 1980’s remake will do fine.

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by ·Comments Off on Cabin Fever (2002, Eli Roth)

“That guy asked for our help and we lit him on fire”

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Wasn’t until the party-man cop arrived that I realized this was a comedy, not just a horror with some funny parts. Was the torture-porn Hostel a comedy? Maybe I’ll see Hostel 2 with my funny hat on, and I’ll enjoy it more than part 1.

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Kids go off to cabin in rural town after graduation for weekend of sex and drugs and hunting and confessing long-held crushes. But! Local hunter gets crazy skin-rotting disease and goes off to die in the water supply. One kid gets skin disease, then another then another. Awesome fuckin high-kicking kid in town bites one of them, gets sick, his dad and buddies come rippin’ after the kids. Then the cops come, and shoot up the place. But wait, also total stoner dude (played by our fearless writer/director) gets eaten by his crazy dog, which then terrorizes our kids. Kids have no chance, do not escape, last one dies in the river upstream of the big town festival, where some cute girls are selling lemonade made from river water. Kinda like Pirahna but funnier.

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Not totally paying attention cuz I was working on the last 20 entries for this here journal, but it dragged me in by the second half. Full of your obvious horror references (even has your Night of the Living Dead ending) but with plenty of original / unexpected bits and Slither‘s sense of humor. Well shot, nothing special there, and better than usual writing. Had no idea I’d like it this much.

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by ·Comments Off on Brain Damage (1988, Frank Henenlotter)

“You fucking named him elmer??”

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Opens with 80’s-sounding music over shots of african masks to set spooky mood. Katy would be pleased. Movie wastes no time setting an utterly bizarre tone, with a very looney looking old couple trying to find their escaped brain-eating creature which has already attached itself to Brian (soap actor Rick Hearst). Creature looks like something between the brain stems from “fiend without a face” and a penis.

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Movie sets off making howling sex and drugs references, using hilarious puppetry and video effects. When Brian gets juiced by Aylmer, he hallucinates hysterically. Climbs into an empty junkyard and parties to the lightshow coming off the cars that only he can see. In exchange for the trips, Aylmer gets to kill people and eat their brains. Brian finds out and tries to kick, but his brain juice addiction is too strong and he comes crawling back. Aylmer eats Brian’s girlfriend via french kiss on the subway (which is nothing compared to the blowjob scene earlier, which I am not surprised was cut from theatrical release). Movie has a kickass ending, with Brian overdosing on brain juice as the old couple return and squeeze Aylmer to death.

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Along with the African mask bit, I love the movie’s understanding of homeless people. Brian passes a dirty homeless guy who spends his time under a fire escape drinking and crying.

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I liked it. Very recognizably eighties, but still a psycho good time… weird enough and good enough to see again sometime.

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by ·Comments Off on El Topo (1970, Alejandro Jodorowsky)

Feels appropriate that I watched this over the course of a week, since it’s pretty episodic. Apparently (according to scraps of the commentary track that I checked out) it’s about the gradual enlightenment of Jodorowsky’s title character. The dude could use some enlightenment, too, what with his woman issues, his murderous obsessions, his strange attraction to people with deformities, and his tendency to kill animals on-camera.

El Topo, riding across the desert dressed in black, abandons his son in favor of some woman. The woman demands he prove himself by defeating the four gun masters of the desert. Somewhere along the way they pick up an evil hot woman who talks like a man and I don’t know what that’s about. Anyway, Topo tricks and murders all four masters: blind guy; digs a hole in front of him, fall, fire… guy who always hits heart; ash tray in front of heart… guy who lives for love; distract him by crippling his wife… and crazy guy with no possessions, no gun, nothing; shoots himself to prove he has left no material desires!

Okay, but woman leaves him for the other woman, and they shoot him all up on a rickety bridge (give him the five wounds of christ, as a.j. immodestly explains on the commentary), then some mutants drag him into a hole, the end.

No! He wakes up 30 years later all white-bearded. The cripples and deformed have kept him alive as a god, and now he must leave the cave, go to the town and get help so they can all be free. Of course he does this by bringing a short woman with him and performing awful vaudeville routines for money to afford dynamite. Long story short, they free the cripples, the townsfolk mow them all down, and Topo duels his now grown son.

I had not-great memories of this one… remember most of it taking place inside the mountain (hardly any of it does!) and the picture and sound being bad, bad bad. New DVD looks miraculous… the desert sky so bright and blue. Movie not nearly as dull and drab as I remember it (and as recent restoration reviews have been saying), it’s totally watchable, and its horrible weirdness makes it worth watching.

Is it a GOOD movie then? Well it’s got some style (love the bridge scene, the rides through the desert) and it’s weird enough to recommend (most movies could stand to be weirder). I liked it more than I didn’t, so yeah, why not?

by ·2 Comments

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Sooooo bleak. Not the normal kind of resistance movie. Their struggle is necessary but hopeless. Movie opens with our main guy escaping from a camp, then having the guy who ratted on him killed. Many small triumphs and large defeats later, we end with the gang shooting one of their own then driving away as the titles tell us how each of them later got killed in the struggle.

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Hardly any non-diegetic music, superbly shot, dark and dreary but not in a tiring way, more of a matter-of-fact “this is how things are” straightforward way.

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These are not heroes in the regular movie sense of the word. Theirs is not a glorious fight… it’s hardly a fight at all, more a struggle for survival. The problem is that it would be easier to survive by living ordinary lives, by cooperating with the nazi regime, by ratting on their fellows, by doing any of a number of things they refuse to do, by giving in. The movie is about how much it can suck to be moral, to stick to your convictions. While those in the resistance who survived the war can’t have much to be proud of… unlike most residents of their country, they also can’t have much to be ashamed of. A great, great movie. Nice contrast to the portrait of resistance to nazi occupation in Black Book this year.

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