Our Program Will Resume Tomorrow
The other day I was discussing with a friend the importance of keeping one's blog promises only to, of course, break my own blog promises. We shall return tomorrow.
8.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
I saw L.A. Confidential in my home town theatre when I was maybe seventeen. I wasn’t that versed in noir at that point, I had seen a few of the obvious – Chinatown, Double Indemnity, Touch of Evil – but hadn’t gotten into the nitty-gritty yet, and I’m really still doing that now. I remember seeing it with my older younger brother, and both of us loving it, particularly the juicy/literate tough guy patter, the performances of Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Danny DeVito, Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, James Cromwell (everyone really, even future TV-pretty boy Simon Baker makes an impression in a brief bit), and the well-staged, occasionally startling bursts of gunplay. I’ve revisited L.A. Confidential several times throughout the years but it had been awhile, and I wanted to see if my few years of writing and more serially watching movies had changed my view of it. The answer ... continued
7.
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
It’s nice that Otto Preminger now seems to be seen as the filmmaker he clearly was: a deft producer who also happened to be an excellent director who frequently snuck subversive attitudes and jabs into his pictures. Anatomy of a Murder is probably my outright favorite Preminger picture: it has a brilliant Jimmy Stewart performance that’s, in its way, every bit as wily as his work in Vertigo, potentially career best work by George C. Scott as Stewart’s rival, and a confident tone of barely checked survival-of-the-fittest anarchy. The joke of Anatomy of a Murder, which follows Stewart’s nearly retired attorney as he defends a murder suspect (Ben Gazzara) who is clearly guilty, is that the folksy, old-school lawyer is the calculating slickster, and that the villain, primarily personified by Scott, is, by default, the hero, not that either seems to much care who happens to be in the right. ... continued
6.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
Watching Jeff Bridges shamble, bearded and bellied, through Crazy Heart a month or so ago reminded me of Kris Kristofferson in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, which in turn reminded me of one of the most beautifully “right” song placements in director Martin Scorsese’s career: of Alice (Ellen Burstyn) and her son Tommy (Alfred Lutter III) driving down the road listening to Elton John’s “Daniel” on the car radio. I had remembered this as traditional shorthand: of a pop song emphasizing a moment of quiet empowerment for characters that were, until this point, stuck. It turns out that I had remembered it somewhat incorrectly, as Scorsese was a little more original and truthful: alternating between silent medium and long shots of the lonely, quiet, desert road and close shots in the car with the song playing. Most directors would allow us a more omnipotent perspective so we could seamlessly enjoy ... continued
5.
Internal Affairs (1990)
Internal Affairs plays by the formula rules: everyone who is supposed to die dies; and everyone who is supposed to live lives, and the good guy and his wife end up more or less where they should be. But this picture has a caged-animal tension that takes it beyond the usual business. It's a B-movie cover of the part in Othello that everyone remembers: of Iago driving Othello nuts with jealousy, revealing considerably unpleasant inner doubts and resentments. That plot has been re-purposed here as a duel between two cops, Raymond Avilla (Andy Garcia), who’s Internal Affairs (and therefore always introduced with contempt among regular cops) and Dennis Peck (Richard Gere), a sergeant of considerable intelligence and reputation who seems strangely content to remain on the same rung in the bureaucratic law enforcement ladder. There are typical bits – clueless wives, murdered white-collar schmucks and low-class druggies, alcoholic cops and so ... continued
4.
Sideways (2004)
Alexander Payne had been working toward Sideways throughout his previous three pictures – Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt – all of which alternated moments of well-oiled SNL caricature with messier, more tender, more ambiguous bits and pieces of uncertainty and longing. Payne is up to the same thing in all pictures, and his aim is so (sadly) unusual and admirable that I admit that I’m tempted to overrate him for intentions alone: he’s interested in making mainstream comedies populated by actual people; that are embraceable by all audiences without making impersonal concessions. Payne has been compared to Sturges, but that strikes me more as writers wanting readers to know they’re familiar with Preston Sturges. Payne’s heart is clearly at least partially in the 1970s (thankfully he doesn’t shamelessly ape 1970s aesthetics, one of the more dispiriting trends in acclaimed American movies these days), and a clear inspiration is Hal ... continued
3.
Isle of the Dead (1945)
Shutter Island inspired me to recently revisit the Val Lewton / Boris Karloff Bedlam, which (due to the nature of the two-movie-per-disc packaging of the Lewton set) also allowed me to revisit Isle of the Dead, another of the producer’s collaborations with actor Karloff (the other being The Body Snatcher). Bedlam is a bit awkward: the traditionally wonderful, economically suggestive Lewton production design (the insane asylum has an eerie, claustrophobically minimal vibe that recalls the climax of Freaks) is somewhat undone by the overtly preachy tone. Isle of the Dead, which was my first Lewton picture (seen somewhere in the neighborhood of my thirteenth year) holds up more effectively: the designs are, once again, incredibly suggestive with incredibly little, and the titular isle has a creepy diminished quality – we feel as if the entire cast is sitting in one another’s laps – which magnifies the dread of a picture ... continued
2.
The Untouchables (1987)
The Untouchables is one of those happy accidents where two interesting talents, looking for a paycheck, actually did pretty damn great work. The idea of the picture, an update of who-knows-how-many-books and the popular TV show, is simple: Treasury Officer Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) wants to destroy Al Capone’s (Robert DeNiro) murderous criminal empire, and Al Capone wants to kill Ness and his crew of “untouchables” for wanting to destroy his criminal empire. It’s an easy bullet-riddled good guys versus bad guys story, and the talents in question – screenwriter David Mamet and director Brian De Palma – were already very well established, and had proven themselves more than capable of such an assignment; they could clock in, clock out, deposit the check, and begin work on the next Sexual Perversity in Chicago or Blow Out in relative comfort. And, unless I’m dramatically misunderstanding or misreading something, that’s about how The ... continued
1.
Stand by Me (1986)
Stand by Me was possibly my first favorite movie. I caught it on ABC one night when I was seven or eight, and quickly hinted to my mother that it might be pretty ok if I were to get it for my next birthday (which, if my memory is to be trusted, wasn’t far off). My mother was happy to oblige – unaware that the ABC cut and the full, theatrical version are two different animals; and one isn’t especially ideal for a seven or eight year-old. The ABC version is a fairly traditional cover of one of our favorite bits of hooey - the “one summer everything changed”. The theatrical version is the same hooey with an unusually high (for the genre) amount of profanity – unheard of in today’s insistence of ultimate PG-13 sanitation. I wasn’t afraid to return to Stand by Me, which I hadn’t seen since I ... continued
Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
Or: Your Writer Promises to Have an Early Mid-life Crisis
March something marks the 3rd anniversary of Bowen’s Cinematic, an endeavor that has, perhaps sadly, given my life some sense of having a point. Since writing for BC, I’ve discovered a number of writers who’ve changed my approaches to movies, discovered not-sure-how-many movies, and have added some focus to what was once just passing time disguised as a pipe dream. To commemorate the occasion, I’m going to revive a one-a-day gimmick in March, deliberately similar in structure to my “31 Days of Horror” of a few years back. The theme this time is a return to movies that I haven’t seen in at least five years (though I may cheat once or twice). That measurement of time isn’t quite as randomly assigned as it sounds: I’m now thirty, and have found that my movie-consciousness has altered/evolved quite a bit since I was jobless out of college a few years ago. ... continued
