What classics did you watch this week? (1/18-1/24)

The Knack ...and How to Get It (Richard Lester, 1965) - Following right on the heels of A Hard Day's Night and Help!, The Knack ...and How to Get It won the Palm d'or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. It's certainly one of the weirdest films to ever win that award, and probably one of a small handful that a lot of people don't feel hold up too well. I guess it depends on how much tolerance you have for goofy '60s stuff. Personally, I loved it. I love the era, the fashion, the milieu, the humor. It is, though, aggressively weird, even moreso than the two preceding Beatles films. Michael Crawford stars as a young man who wishes he had the womanizing skills of his housemate, Ray Brooks. Meanwhile, Rita Tushingham, a newcomer to swinging London, arrives and wanders around the city innocently. About halfway through the film, she runs into Crawford and he and Brooks battle it out for her affection. Mostly, the film is plotless, just a bunch of weird gags strung together. There's a ton of great wordplay - I'm sure I missed a lot of it, too, not being British - and visual gags, and a lot of weird editing. A lot of the final act of the movie involves Tushingham wandering around the city jokily accusing Crawford and Brooks of raping her - the word "rape" is uttered so often in this part of the film that it just sounds like nonsense (there's also the line "She wants to be raped, so you go in there and rape her!"). It's all so bizarre and certainly not to the taste of, well, probably the vast majority of people. It worked for me, anyhow. 9/10. YES.

BMX Bandits (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1983) - Incredibly moronic, but kind of the perfect type of film for a bad movie night. It's best remembered as Nicole Kidman's film debut, you know, the old Nicole Kidman from Dead Calm, with the pug nose and the big, curly red hairdo. Along with her two, wisecracking, charisma-less male co-stars (Angelo D'Angelo and James Lugton), the three are a BMX gang who discover a cache of awesome walkie talkies that they steal and sell to neighborhood kids. Two bumbling crooks (David Argue and John Ley) chase after them in their boat-ish automobile, but the BMX riders have the advantage of being able to do low-level stunts. If you take it seriously, you're going to lose a few IQ points, but it's a good, laughable time if you don't. Kidman shows talent right off the bat despite having to deliver terrible dialogue. 6/10. mixed.

The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer & Anonymous, 2014) - Joshua Oppenheimer's follow-up to his brilliant debut, The Act of Killing. There's a lot of great stuff here, but I'm not quite sure if it accomplishes anything more than The Act of Killing already did. The Act of Killing famously allowed war criminals, now national heroes, to describe the atrocities they committed back in 1965, and they recount them with glee. Oppenheimer infamously did not offer any counterpoint, though sometimes the subjects would reflect and wonder if maybe they went too far. The Look of Silence kind of adds a counterpoint with Adi Rukun, whose older brother was killed in the mass extermination (Oppenheimer even has footage of his killer bragging about it). The idea of this film was to have more of the victims' point of view, and I'm just not sure it added much. It's still an exceptional film. Forget an Oscar, give Joshua Oppenheimer a Nobel Prize. 8/10. yes.

Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014) - Fantastic post-WWII drama from Germany. Nina Hoss plays a Jewish singer from Berlin who has survived Auschwitz. Having been shot in the face in the last days, she has reconstructive surgery. The doctor makes her look as much like she used to as possible, but it's a little bit off. Hoss returns home to collect her inheritance before moving to Palestine, but she has another agenda: to find her husband (Ronald Zehrfeld), who may or may not have betrayed her to the Nazis. She wants to know. When she finds him, he thinks she looks like his wife, but doesn't think it's her. She uses this to get closer to him to see if she can discover the truth. While there's nothing frankly unrealistic here, the whole thing has a bit of a dreamy or surreal quality. This is a gripping film throughout, but the ending is particularly brilliant. 9/10. YES.

The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015) - Pretty but empty, i.e., Hou doing his usual thing, even if this isn't his usual thing. Add to his usual schtick complete incomprehensibility and you have a fairly worthless picture. Hou regular Qi Shu stars as an assassin. That's about as much as I got, plotwise. Some of the action sequences are interesting, but Hou clearly doesn't want them to be "good" in any traditional way. I knew it would be like that going in. 4/10. no.

A Little Chaos (Alan Rickman, 2015) - I have to admit upfront, I very rarely like costume dramas. It's a genre that generally makes my eyes gloss over. I can't say I followed this film's plot all that well, but I think I got the gist of it. Kate Winslet plays a landscaper hired by the court of King Louis XIV to design an outdoor amphitheater at Versailles. Her plans run counter to chief landscaper Matthias Schoenaerts' plans for the grounds of Versailles as a whole, but eventually her artistic vision wins him (and the King, played by Alan Rickman himself) over. Oh, and they bone. Winslet and Schoenaerts, that is, not Winslet and Rickman - or Rickman and Schoenaerts. Stanley Tucci is there, too, and he's not involved in the boning, either. Winslet is good, as always, and Rickman raises the energy of the film whenever he's around (as does Tucci). I find Schoenaerts a complete bore, however. He's a total mimbo, just a stud with no personality. As a costume drama, the film looks great. As should be obvious, the story never captured me. There is a flashback to the death of Winslet's husband and daughter that is unintentionally hilarious. I didn't think it was that bad as a whole, though. 6/10. mixed.

Sleeping with Other People (Leslye Headland, 2015) - One of the best romantic comedies in recent years. Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie both have major relationship problems - he goes through women like Kleenex and she can't stay faithful, addicted to her married ex-boyfriend (Adam Scott). The two lost their virginity to each other in college, but quickly parted and never ran into each other again until the present. They become quick friends, but decide to keep it platonic (they figure they screwed each other up for life the first time, and a sexual relationship could only spell disaster). The two protagonists here are some of the best written characters in the genre, and Sudeikis and Brie are wonderfully lovable and charming. The film is funny, sexy and genuinely romantic. I do think the film stumbles in its final act, unfortuantely (SPOILERS follow). I think it could have been one of the all time greats had Sudeikis and Brie parted with their relationship having made them better people. It hits this ending, but then goes a little further, with Sudeikis and Brie eventually coming back together. I liked the bittersweet ending much better. 8/10. yes.

Son of Saul (László Nemes, 2015) - The Holocaust from over the shoulder of a single prisoner of a concentration camp. Géza Röhrig plays Saul, a Jew who survives by doing the nastiest grunt work for the Nazis in the showers and ovens. One day he witnesses the death of a young boy. It is his son, or so he believes, and something in him snaps. He must see the boy buried according to proper Jewish customs, and to do so he must search the camps for a rabbi. He must risk his neck at every turn, and his determination is also a danger to everyone around him. No matter what one thinks of the story of the film, the actual filmmaking is beyond reproach. It is laser focused on Saul, and through him (as I say, over his shoulder) we experience all the horrors, often just off camera or slightly out of focus. Sometimes the film doesn't even need visuals - the sounds are extraordinarily vivid. The film is sometimes hard to follow, but, of course, Saul himself doesn't always know what's going on (a lot of context is necessary here; this wouldn't be a good film for, say, a high school class learning about the Holocaust to watch). Needless to say, this is unpleasant, but it's obviously great. 9/10. YES.

What Happened, Miss Simone? (Liz Garbus, 2015) - I was pretty much completely unfamiliar with Nina Simone before this movie. I'm very happy to have learned about her. She was amazing and lead a very interesting life. This doc is excellent. I like it almost as much as Amy, which I'm assuming is the frontrunner for the Oscar. 8/10. yes.

I gotta apologize to some bitches. I'm forever changed by what I've seen here.

The Knack should be one of those 1960s movies that don't work anymore but it now seems like a quaint artifact of a long ago era. I think its quirkiness works in its favor. It's so bizarre that you can't help but enjoy the ride.

I was on the fence about The Assassin and your review confirms what I suspected. I'll probably just skip it but I hope to get to Son Of Saul this week.

In ancient Egypt, cats were worshipped as gods. They have never forgotten this

Well, if you don't remember, I've always hated Hou Hsiao-hsien. I know you've liked some of his work (I have, too, particularly Flowers of Shanghai). I thought maybe this film's visual beauty would be enough for me, but I was extremely bored.

I gotta apologize to some bitches. I'm forever changed by what I've seen here.

First Time Viewings

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). Introduced to a handsome young man during a stay in Italy, an insecure widowed US actress fights back her knowledge that the gentleman is just a gigolo in this Tennessee Williams adaptation starring Vivien Leigh in her penultimate big screen performance. Suffering from real life marital problems at the time, Leigh provides a performance with an air of vulnerability that rings true, but even better is Lotte Lenya of From Russia with Love fame, cast here as the conniving 'countess' who introduces Leigh to her young suitor. Rambling on about the virtues of love and companionship, Lenya seems like a benevolent force at first, but as the film progresses and we see just how hell-bent she is on gaining financially from her matchmaking, she eventually seems almost as sinister as her better known Bond villainess. Promising as all this might sound though, the film is let down by never really igniting romantic sparks between Leigh and Warren Beatty as the young gigolo. Leigh never seems less than delusional to believe that he really loves her and Beatty only ever seems opportunistic. Beatty's awkward performance does not help matters though. He certainly looks the part, but with a faltering Italian accent, he never feels real whenever he opens his mouth. The main sell point of the film though is surely the dark and deliciously ambiguous ending. One exits the film really feeling like Leigh has suffered a personal blow and the uncertainty of her eventual fate is pitch perfect as she herself is unsure what the future holds for her by the end of the movie. -- #40 (of 50) for 1961, between Invasion Quartet and The AbsentMinded Professor. (first viewing, TCM)

Topaz (1969). Set in the weeks leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, this Hitchcock thriller details the attempts of the CIA and France's intelligence agency to work out what Cuba is planning to do with their reported missiles. With a basis in real life events, Topaz sounds interesting enough, however, the film was apparently a very troubled production full of scene rewrites, and this uneasiness is very visible. Calling the plot 'muddled' would be an understatement as the screenplay awkwardly tries to weave in espionage intrigue (what does the codeword 'topaz' mean?) with all the tension regarding Cuba. The most disappointing aspect of the film is, however, the characters and performances. There is not a single likeable character who is engaging or interesting to follow around. Hitchcock reportedly disliked how two dimensional the antagonists in the source novel by Leon Uris were, and to his credit, John Vernon comes off relatively well as a Fidel Castro type, oozing danger yet never a caricature of evil, however, the fact Vernon is far more fascinating than protagonists Frederick Stafford and John Forsythe never feels right. The film is not, however, quite as worthless as some of its dissenters claim. There are several tense moments throughout, with a clear highlight being an exciting sequence in which the French try to get hold of a red briefcase full of secret documents; the opening defection is also nail-bitingly intense - but these solid bits are few and far between as the film relies far too heavily on dialogue for a movie where the characters are secondary to their actions. -- #74 (of 94) for 1969, between Marooned and Eye of the Cat. (first viewing, Blu-ray Disc)

Laurence Anyways (2012). Coming out as a transsexual proves challenging for a high school teacher in this French Canadian drama directed by Xavier Dolan and starring Melvil Poupaud. He undergoes predictable trouble at work (though curiously from his colleagues - not his pupils who respect his courage) and ends up losing his job. His parents also expectedly reject him and he has trouble dining in public without someone making some comment about his looks. Not so expected though is Poupaud's long term girlfriend's decision to stick with him throughout his ordeal, and Suzanne Clément is superb as the young lady in question who, despite all doubts, claims to still need his "forearms". Set over a ten year period, the couple's relationship is tested at several points but their connection is absolutely undeniable and there is a potent scene in which they encounter another trans couple who claim that "gender is shallow" and it is "the person" who matters. Truer relationship advice may have never been said, but it is to the film's credit that it is does everything to challenge this, highlighting how difficult is for one to achieve happiness in a world full of societal expectations and heavily drilled norms. At nearly three hours long, the film runs a little long and is never quite as intense at it could be. The extra runtime allows Dolan to experiment with some neat stylistically touches though as things fall on the actors in slow motion to the tune of serene music. This in turn gives the film a dreamlike quality - rather fitting for a film about a human being realising his/her dreams beyond gender stereotyping. -- #15 (of 51) for 2012, between Compliance and Hitchcock. (first viewing, DVD)

Like Father, Like Son (2013). Learning that his biological son was swapped at birth and that his six-year-old son is not actually his own, an affluent workaholic is torn between whether or not to swap sons with the other family in this Japanese drama from Hirokazu Koreeda. While it is hard to understand why both families would be in favour of a swap, the whole situation works well as wake-up call for our protagonist, played by Masaharu Fukuyama, to realise the importance of spending quality time with his son away from work. He is also humbled in his outlook on the world. Initially, Fukuyama is deterred by the other family's working class background and their desire to make a small fortune out of suing the hospital, but as the film progress, both us as viewers and Fukuyama come to realise that the other father, played by Rirî Furankî, is fun-loving very caring. In fact, his initial interest in getting rich is soon (awkwardly) pushed to the side. There is, however, room to wonder whether the film would have benefited from more focus on the boys themselves and their perspective on what is happening, though there is admittedly an interesting irony at play in how Fukuyama keeps saying that he would be able to provide better for both boys (he even shockingly considers taking both at one point) and yet he never really thinks about the real impact on the two children. Whatever the case, everything spirals towards a powerful dénouement and while the ending might seem happy on face value, there is a bitter-sweetness to it too. Will any of them ever be the same after their experiences? -- #26 (of 53) for 2013, between Nymphomaniac: Vol. II and Philomena. (first viewing, Blu-ray Disc)

L'Image Manquante (2013). "A picture can be stolen - a thought cannot" states the narrator of this documentary about the atrocities committed by Khmer Rouge in late 1970s Cambodia. While not actually narrated by him for reasons unknown, the script for the film is written by director Rithy Panh, a survivor of the atrocities, in an usual touch, Panh uses clay figures to depict incidents he experienced but for which no archive footage exists. Going back to that earlier quote, the film stands up as a testament of the human mind to recall personal horrors in great detail as one's thoughts can never be stolen. The clay figures are remarkably detailed and especially effective in a moment when Panh recalls drinking mudded water while watched by seemingly stunned local herds. Unique as the film may be though, it outstays its welcome long before it is over. The narration is extremely repetitive and as the film keeps focusing on emotions that its director personally felt, it crosses the border into maudlin territory while ultimately becoming less a document of the times and more the faded memories of a single man. The film is very deliberately paced too so one really needs to be in the right mood to appreciate it. The clay work is, however, never less than remarkable and as the film takes time to focus on Panh also creating all the models, sculpting then painting them, it is hard not to admire the care and consideration put into them. This was clearly a very personal film for Panh and the fact that the film makes one want to read up more about the Khmer Rouge horrors certainly says something. -- #41 (of 52) for 2013, between The World's End and Only Lovers Left Alive. (first viewing, Blu-ray Disc)

Jauja (2014). Nearly impossible to review without spoilers, the bulk of the narrative action occurs in the final half-hour of Jauja. The first hour and a quarter is almost deceptively different from the final 30 minutes as it spins a rather simple tale of a soldier searching for his daughter in the wilderness after she elopes with one of his lieutenants in the middle of the night. Things change towards the end though as he discovers spoilers a cave inhabited by an elderly women who (through her unusual questions) we come to realise is his daughter, grown up. As he has not aged, it soon becomes apparent that he is a ghost - a restless spirit who kept wandering even after death until he finding his child. The final fifteen minutes are even stranger though, and whether one takes it as his dream of a life of richness for his daughter (for whom he said never really knew a real home) or something else - is entirely open to interpretation. Fascinating as all this might sound though, the film is never especially engaging with its twenty page script expanded to a film close to two hours in length. Some of the lethargic shots that bask in the natural vistas are pleasant enough, but why so long is spent merely watching lead actor Viggo Mortensen get dressed or watching his daughter sleep for minutes on end, is a mystery. Tension invariably dissipates with so little happening on screen, and powerful though the twist might be, it would have certainly been even more effective in an intense short film less half its length. If one has the patience though, it is admittedly a thought-provoking ride. -- #25 (of 33) for 2014, between Maps to the Stars and 4:48. (first viewing, Blu-ray Disc)

The Editor (2014). When the lead actor in a horror film that he is working on is murdered, a film editor has to contend with an egotistical replacement actor, a wife who takes too much interest in his work and a detective who thinks that he is guilty in this weird mix of horror, comedy and mystery elements. Co-director Adam Brooks is great as the jaded, ageing editor in question who claims that he has trouble distinguishing between movies and reality, and its best, the film blurs this line. There are several points where something grisly occurs and it takes one a while to work out whether it is 'actually' happening or just a part of the film being edited. There is also a neat homage to Videodrome late in the piece - Cronenberg's iconic film about a network programmer unable to separate hallucinations from reality. For the most part though, The Editor is just odd. The story does not make much sense with some uncanny supernatural elements and some unexplained bizarreness in which Brooks actually seems to enter the reels of the very film he is editing at one point. The final twist at the end is baffling too. Brooks is, however, the only actor who plays his part in a down-to-earth manner and with everyone else overacting, turning it up to 11, it seems evident that the film was intended to be a comedy first and foremost. If one does not focus on deciphering the plot too much, the film does in fact have several funny bits and pieces. The dialogue of the film within the film is hilariously bad, and then there is a replacement editor who insists that The Battleship Potemkin was edited by Albert Einstein! -- #27 (of 33) for 2014, between 4:48 and Non-Stop. (first viewing, SBS)

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). Set in a fictitious Iranian town, this independent horror movie focuses on a seemingly helpless young woman who harbours a dark secret while wandering the streets alone at night. The film deserves full points as stylistic achievement, filmed in luscious black and white with heavy shadows and low lighting. It also rather remarkably manages to transform the Islamic chador (traditional female dress-wear) into a sort of vampire-like cape, rendering the female protagonist a foreboding presence. When one considers the western outlook of female repression in Iran, this becomes all the more interesting as, with her dark secret, the girl is quite clearly the most powerful character in the film. The film additionally benefits from a remarkable audio design wherein it becomes indistinguishable whether what we are here are eerie sound effects or simply disquieting music. Promising as the film may sound from all this though, there are many lags in the action and the limited dialogue gives us precious little insight into the characters. The movie is based on a short film that ran for less than ten minutes and it feels like it too with everything slowly building up to a rather formulaic ending that invariably underwhelms. And yet, while not the most satisfying film out there, there is enough that is remarkable about A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night to make it worth the watch. Especially haunting is a part where the girl pulls a young boy to the side and grills him on whether or not he has been good. Her finger-kissing scene also needs to be seen for itself. -- #21 (of 33) for 2014, between A Most Violent Year and Life After Beth. (first viewing, DVD)

Run All Night (2015). Chased by both mobsters and the police after killing the son of a local mob boss, a former mob hitman finds a chance to bond with his own estranged son (who the mob also want dead) in this Liam Neeson action thriller. The plot has several similarities to Road to Perdition with a wayward mob boss son, a mob boss whose loyalties are tested (Neeson's childhood friend here) and a father and son on the run who both come to indelibly appreciate one another, however, the film is nowhere near as classy as Road to Perdition and the dynamic is not quite as interesting with the son fully grown. Ed Harris is effective in the equivalent of Paul Newman's role in Perdition, but he never quite gets the screen time he deserves considering how much of the plot hinges on his friendship with Neeson. An uncredited Nick Nolte is also solid, but Neeson shines the most here, bringing a weariness not seen in his previous collaborations with Unknown and Non-Stop director Jaume Collet-Serra. Neeson projects regret, sorrow and disenchantment - reminders of what a capable dramatic actor he was before Taken made him an actor star. That said, the claims of this being Neeson's finest action film seem out of line. The characterisations may be decent here, but the plot offers nothing new and none of the action scenes are all that remarkable. Of course, the case could be argued that this is a positive since the film is surprisingly story-driven and down-to-earth, but it is more engaging than Unknown or Non-Stop for that? One's mileage is likely to vary. -- #18 (of 22) for 2015, between Focus and Jupiter Ascending. (first viewing, DVD)

Most people think I'm mad. At least I know I'm mad.

Beatty is obviously a very intelligent and talented man but as an actor I find him either really good - e.g. Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo - or out of his depth - e.g. Bugsy, Reds. Unfortunately, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone falls into the second category.

The middle section of Topaz contains the only good things in the movie, notably John Vernon. Maybe Hitchcock should have built the movie around his character. It could only have been better.


"He was a poet, a scholar and a mighty warrior."

Well, I guess you know how much I love this documentary by now.
It's interesting that until we had streaming it was very hard for most of us to get documentaries at all.
In reading your review, I became interested in seeing Amy.
I can't see that it is streaming yet but there is a lot of interest in it: http://www.bustle.com/articles/109619-when-will-amy-be-on-netflix-the-musical-doc-cant-come-soon-enough

In fact, Netflix produced What Happened, Miss Simone? and one other of the Best Documentary nominees, and have done at least one of the other nominees for the past few years.

I gotta apologize to some bitches. I'm forever changed by what I've seen here.

Warren Beatty has a screen presence that I always enjoy, and I am looking forward to him returning to the screen with his Howard Hughes movie, set to be released later this year - however, I don't know if I would regard him as a particularly brilliant actor. Bulworth is my favourite performance of his, and certainly one of his most dynamic roles, but otherwise films like Kaleidoscope and Mickey One are fun - but not necessarily for him. And The Parallax View is a great film - but that's all about Pakula and Willis.

I grew up knowing John Vernon as the driven-bonkers dean in Animal House. Whoever thought he would be the highlight of a Hitchcock movie? Yep. Agreed totally there. I didn't find any of the other characters fascinating in the least, and while I wouldn't label Topaz as Hitchcock's weakest effort, Under Capricorn is overdue for a revision, so it's quite possible that it may end up at the bottom of my Hitchcock list some time in the future.

Most people think I'm mad. At least I know I'm mad.