Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

Sat Oct 8th (cont.)

The Lusty Men (USA, 1952)
Three decades of home video releases and there are still excellent movies that have never been released on any format. I'm not referring to foreign films or independents, I'm talking about great Hollywood films from major directors, such as The Lusty Men from director Nicholas Ray (In a Lonely Place, Bitter Victory, King of Kings, Born to be Bad).
The Lusty Men is a gripping drama that takes place in the world of rodeo competitions. Robert Mitchum plays a veteran rodeo man who's broken one too many ribs to continue on the circuit. He retires and returns to the farm in the Texas panhandle where he grew up. He befriends Wes and Louise Merritt (Arthur Kennedy and Susan Hayward) and gets a farm job. Unbeknown to Louise, Wes dreams of fame and fortune as a rodeo man. Mitchum shows him the ropes and Wes has some success in a local meet. The once steady and stable Wes becomes blinded by ambition and the thrills of competition, as Mitchum and Louise draw closer emotionally. There are many subplots involving other death-defying rodeo men and their wives but The Lusty Men remains focused on the triangle established from the beginning. Magnificent cinematography by Lee Garmes, the Oscar-winning DP for Joseph von Sternberg and other notable directors. My gratitude to Turner Classic Movies for making it possible to watch this movie and many others not otherwise available.

Sunday October 9th

Uniform (China, 2003) Global Lens at Tower Theatre
This low-budget, independent feature was awarded prizes at the Rotterdam and Vancouver film festivals. It's the directing debut of writer Diao Yinan, who co-authored the hit film Shower. Uniform takes place in his native city of Xi'an. Wang, recently laid off from factory work, helps at her mother's small laundry shop. He attempts to deliver a policeman's uniform but learns the cop has left town. There's a sudden downpour and his clothes are soaked, so he puts on the cop's shirt. Gradually he realizes he gets respect from others and recognizes the potential benefits of impersonating a police officer. He gains enough confidence to woo a pretty girl who works at a music shop. Wang extorts bribes from motorists to take the girl out and pay for his ailing father's hospital bills. A motorist makes a complaint and an actual officer launches a search. Meanwhile, we learn that his girl also has a secret of her own.
Uniform was shot in Digital Video and has the immediacy and freshness of other DV films without the typical jittery, wobbly camera movements. It provides a look into Chinese daily life few films have offered, and the performances are naturalistic and unaffected. It's unusual given Diao Yinan's background that the film is better shot and directed than written. There are poblems with narrative clarity involving a subplot as Wang visits the factory where he used to work. There's labor unrest, a theft, and some thugs roughing Wang up because they think he is someone else, but it's all muddled into incomprehension. Moreover, the girl's character seems underwritten, particularly regarding what motivates her behaviors. These flaws do not detract from my overall positive impression of a film that offers a unique perspective and a window into a China rarely seen in commercial films.

Sun Oct 9th (cont.)

The Unknown (USA, 1927) on TCM
Tod Browning made many silents before his two sound masterpieces: Freaks and The Devil Doll, and his very good Dracula. The Unknown is one of a couple of his silents that's still available for our viewing pleasure, albeit not in complete form. A few minutes of the original have been lost, which accounts for narrative ellisions during the first reel. What remains (about 50 minutes) is a powerful, and weird story. A very young Joan Crawford is Nanon, the daughter of the owner of a Spanish one-ring circus. Nanon has an innate aversion to being touched by men. She's coveted by a strong man and Alonzo (Lon Chaney), an armless knife thrower willing to go to bizarre extremes to get her. Alonzo is assisted by a dwarf named Cojo, who faithfully guards Alonzo's secrets. Browning uses a technique called "gauze" that renders images as if viewed through a mesh, to great pictorial effect. I liked The Unknown more than I expected. Now I wish I had rented the dvd to watch it again while listening to the commentary track. Chaney is excellent, as usual.

Mon Oct 10th

Nada+ aka Nothing More (Cuba, 2001) dvd

A hodgepodge of a movie, mixing multiple disparate styles and tones, anchored by a clear protagonist: Carla. She's a postal worker ambivalently awaiting a visa to join her parents in Miami. Meanwhile, she entertains herself by opening and reading letters. One day, Carla spills coffee on one, then rewrites it mimicking the sender's handwriting. The amateur poet can't help to embellish the text. It turns into a routine, with good outcomes for sender and recipient, for Carla is a most talented scribe. But there's a new postmaster who hates her and suspects foul play, and someone willing to spy for her. There's also a cute letter carrier who warms up to Carla and tries to help her.

Co-writer/director Juan Carlos Cremata filmed in B&W, adding bright color to selected objects. Several characters here, like the evil postmaster, her cross-eyed spy, and Carla's pesky neighbor are vaudevillian caricatures. This is most definitely as planned, as there are scenes that are pure slapstick, even some that bear unmistakable comic-book influences.This material is interspersed with lyrical, even sublime moments of intense beauty involving the beneficiaries of Carla's poetic prose. Cremata brings forth a variety of devices_slow-motion, slurred time, unusual camera movements, time-lapsed photography, eye-of-God and upside-down shooting angles... you name it, anything goes.To say the tone is inconsistent and uneven is quite an understatement, but you'll never be bored and Carla is a likable, three-dimensional character who grounds the film and helps sustain one's interest.

Monday Oct 10th (cont.)

Hollow City (Angola, 2004) Global Lens at Tower Theatre
The simple fact that Hollow City was written and directed by an African woman (Maria Joao Ganga) is, by itself, reason to rejoice. Her film won a Special Jury Prize at the Paris Film Festival and continues to tour the festival circuit. N'Dala is one of several orphaned children transported to the capital city of Luanda from provinces ravaged by the Civil War. Upon arrival, the 11 year old runs away and journeys through the city. N'Dala meets an old fisherman who feeds him and gives him shelter. The next day he meets Ze, a 13 year old school boy rehearsing the role of a wandering boy, not unlike N'Dala, for a school play. Ze is good to N'Dala and means well, but he introduces the boy to the world of vice and crime that surrounds him. Meanwhile, a Portuguese nun who brought N'Dala to the city searches frantically for him. Hollow City chronicles N'Dala's voyage of discovery while providing a snapshot of daily life in Angola immediately after the war. This nicely observed film takes a low-key approach to narrative until, during the final 5 to 10 minutes, it succumbs to the perception that film audiences demand a dramatic climax.

Tuesday Oct 11th

Amo Tu Cama Rica (Spain, 1992) Import dvd
This romantic comedy co-written and directed by Emilio Martinez Lazaro (The Worst Years of Our Lives) played with its Spanish title at the '92 Miami Film Festival. It means "I Love Your Delicious Bed", which implies something more raunchy than what it is. It became a cult hit among Spanish youth because it's an accurate depiction of 20-somethings in Madrid circa 1990. Amo Tu Cama Rica was a breakout film for Ariadna Gil, who'd soon become known worldwide thanks to Belle Epoque. Here she plays a young veterinarian whose beauty, charm, and lack of inhibitions make her quite the boy-magnet. Gil is cast opposite Pere Ponce, as a not too handsome or successful guy who's smitten at first sight. Amo Tu Cama Rica traces the on and off relationship between them and effortlessly finds the humor in realistic situations. Cast includes a young Javier Bardem and other recognizable faces, but it's Ariadna Gil who carries this movie. Thumbs up to the Spanish company who put this out on dvd for including English subs. Thumbs down for "formatting" the film rather than using the original aspect ratio.

Tuesday Oct 11th (cont.)

The Seventh Day (Spain, 2004) Import dvd

His third film, The Hunt, was voted best Spanish film of all time by the Spanish Critics Association. He's won more awards at Cannes and Berlin than compatriots Luis Bunuel and Pedro Almodovar. He is Carlos Saura (Cria, Goya in Bordeaux), arguably Spain's greatest director. The Seventh Day is the 36th feature from the highly prolific Saura, whose filmography receives scant distribution stateside. It's based on a real event, the Sunday massacre at the village of Puerto Hurraco in 1992. What brought it on was a provincial feud between the Jimenez and Fuentes families, whose farms had common, poorly defined borders. As fictionalized in The Seventh Day, land was a minor factor in their mutual hatred. It all started with Luciana Jimenez being seduced then spurned by her Fuentes fiancee, who payed by being stabbed to death by Jeronimo Jimenez. Jeronimo was sentenced to 30 years and Luciana slowly descends into madness, and violence begets violence.

Most of the action is set in the early 90s, from the perspective of 15 year old Isabel Fuentes, as she tries, with the help of her boyfriend, to dig into three decades of family history kept secret by her parents. The excellent cast includes veterans Juan Diego, Victoria Abril, Jose Luis Gomez and Eulalia Ramon, and newcomer Yohana Cobo as Isabel. The Seventh Day exhibits high production values under the command of a filmmaker of prodigious gifts. However, as in the incident at Columbine High School, the explosion of violence is directed at a whole community. Consequently, it's a pity that the script by Ray Loriga (Almodovar's Live Flesh) fails to clarify and explore how the whole town came to ostracize one family and embrace the other.

Wed Oct 12th

Thumbsucker (USA, 2005) at AMC CocoWalk

Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (Mexico/USA, 1974) dvd
Director Sam Peckinpah earned the nickname "Bloody Sam" for his graphic use of violence, but it limits and distorts his legacy. For starters, Peckinpah made some very "gentle" movies, including Ride the High Country, Junior Bonner and Ballad of Cable Hogue. Most importantly, the fascination with the violence in his films obscures the fact that even his bloodiest pictures include significant moments that can only be characterized as lyrical or poetic. Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia is most definitely one of his violent ones (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs) and it's my favorite Peckinpah film.
Warren Oates plays Benny, a small time piano player making a living in a seedy club in a small town in Mexico. Benny decides to try to improve his fortunes when he learns that a tyrannical millionaire is offering a million for physical proof of the death of the man responsible for his daughter's pregnancy. He happens to be a former lover of his soulful girlfriend (Isela Vega), a cabaret singer he intends to marry. Oates and Vega are sensational. The oddyssey takes them around remote areas of Northern Mexico. Peckinpah captures the country with great fidelity and attention to detail, but the movie is centered on the characters, in their dreams, regrets and fears. It's a brutal and lovely film.

Quote:

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Originally posted by oscar jubis
Sat Sep 24th
Oseam (South Korea, 2003) dvd
Animated, loose adaptation of buddhist fable based on a novel by Chae-bong Jeong. A sentimental tale about an orphan "Dennis-the-Menace-type" and his blind sister who take shelter in a monastery. A plot contrivance or two result in the boy ending up alone on a mountain-top retreat where he attains nirvana. Animation is fine but not spectacular.

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But the art direction and choreography is great!
;)

Quote:

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Originally posted by oscar jubis
Friday Oct 7th

Eros (Hong Kong/USA/Italy, 2004) on import dvd
Equilibrium, written and directed by Steven Soderbergh, is the second part of Eros. It's set in the US in the 1950s. Equilibrium concerns a publicity man who seeks help from a psychoanalyst to interpret a recurring dream. (Spoilers) It's clever how it turns out the session with the shrink is a dream itself, just don't ask me what the point is because I don't have an answer.

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ha ha ha ... i agree ...
read my review here
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...highlight=eros

so, i am eager to know why some well known critics in United States like this segment instead of WKW's ... a surf of the web would indicate so ...

Thanks for your replies, hengcs.

*Oseam is not a bad movie but it most definitely suffers in the comparison with the best animated films of the decade. These are, in my opinion:
Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
Millennium Actress (Satoshi Kon)
My Beautiful Girl, Mari (Seong-Kang Lee)
Howl's Moving Castle (Miyazaki)
Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2 (Mamoru Oshii)
The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvain Chomet)

*I actually found that most "well-known critics in the USA" agree with you and I: Wong's segment is the best. These include Ebert, Rosenbaum (he actually likes Soderbergh's the least), and critics from The Village Voice, Washington Post, SF Chronicle, Boston Phoenix, Seattle Post and others. I only found one notable critic who prefers Soderbergh's and that is Christian Science Monitor's David Sterrit.

Quote:

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Originally posted by oscar jubis
*I actually found that most "well-known critics in the USA" agree with you and I: Wong's segment is the best. These include Ebert, Rosenbaum (he actually likes Soderbergh's the least), and critics from The Village Voice, Washington Post, SF Chronicle, Boston Phoenix, Seattle Post and others. I only found one notable critic who prefers Soderbergh's and that is Christian Science Monitor's David Sterrit.

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I can't recall now,
but Roeper was one of them ...

If only he could elaborate more
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/...=3&rid=1379243

It's Roeper anyway so it doesn't matter.

Thu Oct 13th

A History of Violence (USA, 2005) at Regal SoBe

El Delantal de Lili aka Lili's Apron (Argentina, 2004) Tower Theatre
Ramon gets laid off from his job as a restaurant chef, and can't seem to find anything that would allow him to make mortgage payments. His attractive, loving wife Lili tries to sell containers and other articles with little success. It becomes increasingly obvious she's mentally ill and deteriorating, so she agrees to spend some time with relatives in the provinces. The desperate Ramon ends up pretending to be Lili, and applying for a job as a live-in maid. He gets the job thanks to his cooking. The transformation is reasonably believable.
It's to Galperin's credit that for over one hour his film works to perfection, wild premise included. I can't forget to mention the absolutely stunning performances by Paula Ituriza and Luis Ziembrowski in the principal roles. Lili's Apron falls apart in the final 10 or 15 minutes when Galperin piles up the overwrought and fanciful plot twists. In Q&A after the screening, Galperin gave evidence he knows this by anticipating the audience's reactions and questions. It's a love story he stated, and as long as you believe the depth of feeling between Ramon and Lili, then I'm satisfied. I would ask, then why burden the love-story-in-time-of-crisis with incongruous, cheap-thriller elements? It would be an over-reaction to say the resolution ruins the film, but it does bring it down a couple of notches.

Fri Oct 14th

Fuse (Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2003) Global Lens at Tower Theater.
With the possible exception of Whisky, this film directed by Pjer Zalica was the best shown at the 2005 Global Lens. Fuse is set in Tesanj, a Bosnian town close to the Serbian border, two years after the civil war officially ended. Corruption and hatred are palpable and most townfolk are engaged in one type of illegal activity or another. Somehow, Tesanj becomes part of President Clinton's itinerary through the region; the town stands to benefit in the form of infrastructure improvements and investment opportunities. This would require hiding the vice and corruption from a visiting international team, and cooperation among enemies to organize activities. Fuse is a drama with strong satiric tones. Among the principals: Zaim, the former police chief who spends his days talking to the ghost of his deceased son and drinking; Zaim's other son is a firefighter whose girlfriend returned from exile in Germany and stepped on a mine; there's Velija, a smuggler/pimp/dealer of illegal substances, and his sensitive and sweet accomplice Pic. They are in cahoots with police chief Mugdin, whose border connections come in handy. The encounters between these characters and uptight international overseers are hilarious but there's plenty of pathos and poignance amid the laughs.
As the visit approaches, a children's choir learns "House of the Rising Sun", whores try on uniforms and learn show tunes, American flags are made, Bosnian and Serbian fire departments merge temporarily, and an artist paints a portrait of Clinton. But, will it be possible to hide entrenched traditions of crime, corruption and ethnic conflict?

Sat Oct 15th

Beyond the Rocks (USA, 1922) at Cosford Cinema
This film directed by Sam Wood is being billed as a "long-lost classic". Well, it certainly qualifies as long-lost. Lost for about 80 years as a matter of fact. It's been found and restored by the Nederlands Filmmuseum, shown in April in Holland, and given its American premiere at the NYFF ten days ago. A classic it is not, if you think of classic as synonymous with masterpiece. Beyond the Rocks is an entertaining romance/adventure, a globe-trotting narrative shot in Hollywood that unites for the first and last time the two most glamorous silent-movie stars: Rudolph Valentino (The "Latin Lover" who came from Italy and died at age 31) and Gloria Swanson (modern buffs are familiar with her Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.). Swanson plays a Dorset girl who marries an old millionaire to help her broke papa and Valentino is the young baron she truly loves. The new music score by Dutch composer Henny Vrienten is outstanding. The traditionalist in me is forced to admit that the ambient sounds added to the soundtrack are an enhancement. Did I just say that? Beyond the Rocks will play a few American festivals and museum screenings before a dvd release in 2006.

Vampyr (France, 1932) on TCM
Now, this is a classic, a masterpiece I've seen before and will see again.Vampyr was shot at an abandoned, decaying castle in the outskirts of Paris by Dutch master Carl Theodor Dreyer. The prevailing mood is one of dread and obsession, conjured via Rudolph Mate's avant-garde photography, understated performances by Julian West and Henriette Gerard (as the vampire), and Dreyer's slow but insistent pans. One of my favorite scenes in the history of cinema is shot from the point of view of a corpse inside a coffin with a window, during a funereal procession. Few films of the time utilized sound in such expressionistic, purposeful manner. Vampyr is of of those special films that affect me at a subconscious level.