Monthly Top Five

I only saw 3 new-to-me films this month.

1. Y Tu Mama Tambien (Watched 9/28/2020) - Okay, so...part of me wasn't quite prepared for Y Tu Mama Tambien. Yes, in part due to the sheer amount of sex in the movie, but also because the film feels as genuine as it does where it concerns the coming of age story having to do with the two teen boys at the center of it. Tenoch and Diego are very compelling, vividly-drawn characters and it's highly engaging to see their relationship with each other and Luisa develop over the course of the film. Alfonso Cuaron writes them so realistically and gets such naturalistic performances out of the actors, that it really is easy to forget that you're watching a film sometimes. I also loved how he weaved in a political undertone to the movie concerning a social conflict going on in Mexico at the same time, but subtly so. In fact, it's there, but only acknowledged passingly -- which further puts us as the audience in the shoes of Tenoch and Diego. Cuaron also makes excellent use of a handheld shooting style that adds to the film's fly-on-the-wall quality, but not in a distracting manner. Additionally, he strikes a very fine balance in tone here. Yes, there are plenty of heavy-hitting dramatic notes throughout, but also lots of lighter ones that add to the coming of age quality and tap into the sense of adolescence that Cuaron is clearly so adept at capturing, and which Y Tu Mama Tambien such a strong piece of work.

Note, I saw a lot of good movies this month but very few "great" movies for the first time, most of this is in the 3-3.5 star range.  I'm also leaving 2020 movies off this time around.


5. The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
"At some point in the past I’m pretty sure I saw the (arguably) more famous sequel to this film, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, but I never saw the original doc which focused on the early 80s hardcore punk scene in Los Angeles. Among the bands profiled are Black Flag (pre-Henry Rollins), Fear, X, The Germs, The Circle Jerks, Alice Bag Band, and Catholic Discipline, and while I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of most of this music it is probably notable that I had heard of five of these seven bands previously and know them to be pretty important within this genre so Penelope Spheeris clearly did “get” this scene and was able to lay her finger on the acts and people that mattered and documented them while they truly were starving artists. The film is more about the scene than the individual band members though and seems to be taking something of an anthropological approach to examining the anger of the music and how it affects the disaffected kids in the audience. I actually might have liked a little less of the actual music (much of which is, to my ears, rather unlistenable) and more on what is making these pissed off fans tick. I will say that the movie is a bit weak in pushing back on the “nazi punks” that are occasionally seen in the audience, which perhaps dates the film a little as that is something a modern doc would be a lot less casual about. Still, this is a pretty influential doc that almost certainly inspired other “peak into a sub-culture” documentaries."

4. Lost in America (1985)
"I tend to find Albert Brooks’ movies a bit more clever than funny and that probably extends to his well-liked 1985 film Lost in America, which follows a couple of yuppie idiots who fairly spontaneously decide to go “off the grid” and wander the nation like the characters from Easy Rider, but instead of buying motorcycles they buy a giant Winnebago and have a largish nest egg I their back pocket to draw on. Clearly this whole “quest” is misbegotten and the two find themselves in pretty far over their heads. From there we certainly get some great moments, but some of the gags maybe go on a bit longer than they need to and I kind of expected a bit more of a road trip out of the film. That’s sort of the point, that the two are so inept that their big roadtrip doesn’t get much further than L.A. to Arizona before they’re derailed, but at the same time the film kind of feels a bit… incomplete. Individual early scenes go very long rather moving on to the next adventure. Still there’s a lot of amusing stuff here. A section of the film in Las Vegas culminates in a incredible bit of cringe comedy as Albert Brooks grovels to a casino manager to get lost money back. Julie Hagerty is quite strong here and the basic concept of poking fun at some of the gentrified hippy ideas floating around at the time does work."

3. The Birdcage (1996)
[Note, this was part of a series I'm writing trying to fill the gaps in my Mike Nichols knowledge as was sort of written in that context] "Regarding Henry had certainly been a critical disappointment and Mike Nichols spent much of the rest of the early 90s making a rather uncharacteristic film: a horror movie called Wolf starring Jack Nicholson. That movie was a bit misbegotten and suffered from a troubled production and large budget overruns. I’ve seen that movie, I don’t think it’s very good, but it is at least interesting and ambitious in a way that something like Regarding Henry or even a more successful if formulaic movie like Biloxi Blues isn’t and I think making that movie must have helped set him on the right course to some extent because starting in the late 90s he had a bit of a creative resurgence and the movie that kicked it off was one of his biggest commercial hits: 1996’s The Birdcage. The Birdcage was a remake of the popular 1978 French comedy La Cage aux Folles, itself an adaptation of a play of the same title and the inspiration for a Broadway musical in the 80s. This particular adaptation was written by none other than Nichols’ old comedy partner Elaine May (herself needing a bit of a comeback after the failure of Ishtar and a decade spent largely doing uncredited script doctor work), and I’m not really sure that there was much of an impedes for remaking this particular movie at this particular time beyond the fact that May and Nichols thought it could be a hit if done right and considering that the movie made $124 million domestically they were probably right.

Despite its French origins La Cage aux Folles was never really an “arthouse” movie and it actually made quite a lot of money in the United States. In fact it’s to this day the eleventh highest grossing foreign language film of all time without even adjusting for inflation, so there was already a pretty commercial comedy to be found in the material. There really aren’t a lot of major differences between La Cage aux Folles and The Birdcage; the story is basically identical and a lot of the comedic beats are brought over almost scene to scene. In a way Mike Nichols was almost approaching this like he would one of his stage productions as a lot of the challenge was bringing in a new cast and making sure they work well in tandem and this is where The Birdcage does have something of an advantage over its predecessors: star power. This is a film that managed to cast the genie from Aladdin and Timon from The Lion King as gay lovers and climaxed with Gene Hackman in drag, which is something that’s inherently going to have more impact as a sight gag than seeing the otherwise unknown French guy in the comparable role in the original.

Of course it would sort of be overlooking the elephant in the room to not bring up the fact that this was a Hollywood movie about homosexuality released in the mid-90s, when such things were relative rarities. It would be easy say that La Cage Aux Folles was the real groundbreaker and that this one was eighteen years late, but that’s being a bit willfully oblivious to the increased stakes of a piece of mainstream culture that will really reach into middle America. But does this representation hold up? Well, I’m probably not the most qualified person to say, but I’ve mostly heard positive things from gay critics who look back on it. It was of course a movie that was almost entirely made by straight people; Nichols and May were both straight, as was Robin Williams, and as far as I can tell so were the writer of the original play and the makers of La Cage Aux Folles. Nathan Lane seems to be the only actual homosexual involved, and he was closeted at the time. That probably would have been frowned upon today, as would the decision to have Hank Azaria play a Guatemalan also probably hasn’t aged well. All that aside I do think the basic message of “don’t let other people tell you how to live” does hold up. Were this a wholly original film rather than a remake I’d probably be even more enthusiastic about it, but it does sort of live in La Cage Aux Folles’ shadow, still it’s clearly a riskier work for Nichols and one that he mostly pulled off."

2. Star 80 (1983)
"This fifth and final film from director Bob Fosse was an account of the life and gruesome death of Dorothy Stratten, a Playboy playmate who was slain by her abusive husband/“manager” Paul Snider. This story was pretty well known within tabloidy spaces around the time it happened and had inspired an openly exploitative TV movie two years prior but has now been largely forgotten outside of its connection to the career of director Peter Bogdanovich (who Stratten was having an affair with, inciting her husband’s rage). The character inspired by Bogdanovich has a different name but the film is otherwise a pretty open adaptation of this story with Mariel Hemingway as Stratten, Eric Roberts as Snider, and Cliff Robertson as Hugh Heffner and it is not exactly what you’d call a pleasant watch. The film’s finale recreates the murder/suicide of Stratten and Snider pretty graphically and the film leading up to this is a somewhat disturbing depiction of the sleaze surrounding Playboy and Snider’s rather pimp-like management of Stratten. This likely would have felt like more of a necessary corrective in the early 80s when Playboy was more of a cultural force and its veneer of respectability was taken a bit more seriously. That said Bob Fosse, infamous womanizer and by all accounts terrible husband, was perhaps an odd choice to bring this expose of cultural misogyny to the screen. The film certainly condemns Playboy but it isn’t exactly shy about putting nudity on the screen itself and it also gives a whole lot of screentime to Stratten’s victimizer to the point where he’s basically a second lead which I don’t think would be considered the optimal approach today. The film is ultimately pretty well made if you’re interested in what it’s selling, but many people were not back in 1983 (the title probably didn’t help) and it’s not exactly a fun movie to watch."

1. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
"I consider myself to be a pretty big fan of Pedro Almodóvar and yet until now I somehow haven’t seen his breakthrough success Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown because of circumstance. Oftentimes a movie will act as a breakthrough simply because it’s one of a filmmaker’s absolute best films but other times it will be a breakthrough more because it’s a more palatable product for the masses that ease them into a filmmaker’s style and I think that might sort of be the case with this one. A lot of the usual Almodóvar themes are here: the plight of women, the use of farce, bold use of color, but they’re a bit less bold than some of the surrounding films like Law of Desire and it also seems a bit unevolved compared to what would come later in the filmmaker’s career. The film spends most of its rather short runtime watching its protagonist kind of screwball her way through a hectic day while dealing with heartbreak and it has a kind of dated sub-plot about invoking “Shiite terrorists.” It does however really pick up at the end with a fun confrontation and chase scene. I can totally see why this would seem incredibly fresh to international audiences in 1988 who hadn’t necessarily been exposed to Almodóvar’s earlier films and didn’t have the benefit of hindsight as to where he’d go later on. It’s definitely a good film but maybe not the career highpoint I was hoping to uncover."

Enola Homes I guess?  Then Bill and Ted, then some other stupid movie I dont remember the name of.

It was worth the chop busting.

I didn't watch much this October. So I guess my list is...

1. Haunt
2. Tremors: Shrieker Island
3. Jack-O
4. Hack-O-Lantern

Even Haunt wasn't that great, though it was leaps and bounds better than the other three. I also rewatched the 2018 Halloween and Sadako vs. Kayako to see if they still sucked. Yup. Sadako vs. Kayako sucks less though.

Godzilla got #1 after PG Cooper watched five billion movies last month.

Suck it, everything else.

1. One Cut of the Dead
2. Invisible Man
3. Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein

Worst: Jay and silent bob reboot

I'm doing a bit of a different approach this month.  There are a few trilogies that I've been meaning to watch and I thought I would finally start to plow through them.  Those consist of; Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, Red), John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy (Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande), Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy (Panther Panchali, Aparajito, The World of Apu) and Abbas Kiarostami's Koker Trilogy (Where Is the Friend's Home?, Life, and Nothing More..., Through The Olive Trees).  In November I decided to go with Three Colors and Cavalry trilogies and mixed a few other movies in there for variety.  Here's how I would break them down.

Three Colors Trilogy

Blue - Juliette Binoche stars as a woman whose famous composer husband and daughter are tragically killed in a car accident.  She copes with her grief by not coping with it, rather she cuts ties to anyone and anything that might bring her back into her previous life.  Before long though she finds that human connection is impossible and begins to invest herself in relationships once again and finds herself reconnecting to her past.  Watching a woman wallow in grief is never easy or fun to watch but Binoche finely displays a woman who's taking command of that grief rather than letting it overcome her, sometimes to a fault.  While I can't say I loved Blue it's a movie that I've come to admire.  It takes very somber themes and makes them the focal point of the character and we come to pity her character as she desperately tries to live her life on her own.  It's certainly a movie that could be watched again to glean more from her interactions or lack thereof but I don't think I would be anxious to do soon.  Still, I'm very glad that I finally made the time to view it.

White - Looking at some reviews of these films it seems as though White is the least popular of the series.  I can understand some of that sentiment as this film doesn't quite carry the emotional heft of Blue but personally I found myself really gravitating to it for what I think is a pretty simple reason; most men including myself have been in Karol Karol's position.  We watch Karol as he's embarrassed in a French divorce proceeding with his ex-wife Dominique while it's laid out that he's unable to 'perform.'  Broke and humiliated, he sneaks back into Poland and with the help of a shady associate and a little grifting he founds a successful business, becomes rich and uses his newfound wealth to exact revenge on Dominique despite the fact that he still loves her.  You can really get a sense of Karol's heartbreak and heartache as he goes through the next chapters of his life using Dominique as a motivation both in his success and in his revenge against her.  You see him work through all those emotions that people feel when they're rejected; sorrow, anger, a need to redeem and impress.  White certainly comes off as more straight forward than the other two films and I don't think would necessitate further viewings like Blue might but it's not without heart and it certainly wears on its sleeve some themes that many people, men especially, would be able to relate to. 
 
Also, early 90s Julie Delpy is 100% my speed.

Red - What's probably the most nuanced film in the trilogy, Irene Jacob plays Valentine, a student and model who meets a stranger, Kern, after hitting his dog with her car.  She learns that he's a judge who is listening to his neighbor's phone calls and after some conversation he's persuaded to turn himself into the authorities.  This also leads to a blossoming friendship between Valentine and Kern and they discuss things like love, destiny and chance.  The final scene of the film brings the subjects of the trilogy together in a way that I'm still kind of unsure how to interpret but while this was perhaps more metaphorical than the previous films it was still an easy movie to embrace as we watch Valentine juggle the relationships in her life, from the intimate but disinterested lover to the inadvertent friend to the distant observation.  

Cavalry Trilogy

Fort Apache - Henry Fonda stars as an Army Colonel who finds himself stationed at the remote outpost of Fort Apache along with his daughter played by Shirley Temple.  Employing strict Army regulations and following each rule to the tee he hopes that even at this barren station he can find glory and make a name for himself.  Unfortunately his quest for achievement ultimately leads to disaster for him and his men but his legend would be carried on in Army propaganda, albeit slightly altered.  Although top billed John Wayne is very much relegated to a supporting character in this film which features a gaggle of John Ford regulars.  Ford is known for his westerns and enormous set pieces and Fort Apache has its share of spectacle including a chase that ranks up there with the climax of his earlier Stagecoach.  It does however feel overlong with some obvious trimming points.  The movie also doesn't quite come into focus until the last half hour when Fonda shows his true colors and takes the lead of his doomed patrol.  The themes are very reminiscent of Ford's later and more polished film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and frankly it's the great third act that saves the movie from feeling like an average dated western.  A good watch even if it's uneven and a little bloated.

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon - Compared to Fort Apache this film is much more of a straight-forward adventure film.  John Wayne stars as Capt. Brittles, an officer days from retirement whose last patrol involves facing a united group of Native tribes just after Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn.  She Wore A Yellow Ribbon features much of the same cast as Fort Apache playing different characters by name but yet still quite similar.  Taking place over the course of a few days and almost feeling like a chase film, Ford keeps the tension by focusing on a patrol over the course of a few endless and suspenseful hours.  It also features a deeper performance from Wayne who's playing about twenty years older than his actual age.  He's a man who has reached the end of his military career and has presumably accomplished everything he's going to accomplish, his family has died, he's someone who is scared of what's next.  His meaning is in the cavalry and that's all he knows and cares for.  It's a more meaningful performance and developed role than others that are found in these types of films and it really elevates She Wore A Yellow Ribbon above the others in this trilogy.  Granted, the Native Americans in this movie aren't nearly as developed as they were in Fort Apache and they're relegated to the nameless, faceless threat that we might expect from a film of this era.  Still, it's an above average western that's carried by noteworthy lead performances.

Rio Grande - So something is really weird about this trilogy that made me even investigate using IMDb.  There are some characters here that appear by the same actor in different films like John Wayne as Colonel York and Victor McLaglan as Quincannon in Fort Apache and Rio Grande, but Ben Johnson appears as Tyree in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande even though John Wayne played a different character in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.  Maybe they're meant to be in the same universe and Wayne's York is elsewhere but that doesn't quite explain how Quincannon is supposedly killed in Fort Apache but he's back in Rio Grande.  I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason is to any of the continuity but I tried to put it out of my mind when these blips would appear.  

Anyways back to Rio Grande, the third movie in this trilogy might have been a more enjoyable movie had it been viewed on its own rather than in the context of its own unofficial trilogy because it's yet another John Ford/John Wayne cavalry movie that really doesn't distinguish itself from the previous two.  There's another dramatic storyline among the soldiers, this time involving Wayne's Colonel York who is now commanding his Westpoint flunk-out son and has his estranged wife (Maureen O'Hara in her first of many pairings with Wayne) show up.  While he's working on the personal and professional relationships between the two here come the Apaches to stir up trouble.  Wayne and Co. deal with them with relative ease and the movie buttons itself up with another happy conclusion after defeating nameless, faceless enemies.  Rio Grande would be perfectly fine for anyone wanting to watch a John Ford western but it doesn't do anything to distinguish itself from any number of similarly themed films.  

Other watches:
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
A Dog's Life (1918)
Elevator to the Gallows
The Magnificent Ambersons

1. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters: Well, I definitely feel underqualified to talk about this movie after just one viewing. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a biopic of the eponymous Japanese author framed by his last day alive (where he committed public seppuku), black-and-white flashbacks of his childhood through adulthood, and impressionistic recreations of three of his novels. I have never read any of Mishima's work and didn't really know much about his writing before going into this film. While the movie would certainly benefit from this kind of knowledge given how much of his art it draws on, the film is nonetheless incredibly rich even for a novice. It isn't just that Mishima's writing (or at least the snippets of it adapted here) are varied and interesting, but the man more generally led a fascinating life which is gripping to see unfold. Aesthetically, the film is also a triumph, with Schrader blending a realist presentation in the framing story, gorgeous black-and-white for the flashbacks, and incredibly lush primary colours in the adaptations (with each story having its own colour scheme). What's amazing too is that for as distinct as each section is visually, they all do start to blur together within your mind, which I think is essential. The film's modus operandi is to tell the life of a man through a mixture of his biography and his art, and the ways in which such elements become inseparable in the mind of the viewer is a perfect example of that.


2. Mysterious Skin: I knew I wanted to check out one Gregg Araki movie before they left Criterion Channel and I knew Mysterious Skin was the one I wanted to see. This is an often deeply uncomfortable look at child abuse and its long term effects as the victims grow into young adults and while certainly harrowing, it isn't the relentless slog of misery you might expect. Quite the contrary, the film has an oddly sweet quality. Araki clearly has a lot of affection for his characters, who are more than just victims. There is a real, beating humanity throughout. Araki also brings a number of interesting directorial flourishes to screen which really aid the storytelling while the performances are quite strong. The fell power of Mysterious Skin didn't quite hit me until the end, when the traumatic past is fully laid out in a scene which is heartbreaking but strangely cathartic, as if with that pain acknowledged and out there, the characters might begin to heal. It's a moment Araki renders with stunning simplicity and that final shot, coupled with Joseph-Gordon Levitt's narration stirred me in a strange way. Mysterious Skin is not a movie I would recommend lightly as there's some nasty and unpleasant stuff in it, but it's an adventurous bit of filmmaking I won't soon forget.


3. Water Lilies: The debut feature from Céline Sciamma and while it does feel like a first feature in some ways, this is not the kind of movie whose only value is catching the glimmers of the great artist to come. Certainly, there are hints of the understated longing that would fuel the burning passion in Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Adèle Haenel gives another highly compelling performance. But Water Lilies is also a damn fine drama in its own right, exploring the burgeoning sexuality and uncertain feelings of three teen girls whose desires crisscross. Much of the film's power comes from Sciamma's restraint, slowly developing its characters and absorbing the viewer. I was surprised by just how caught up I became in these characters' lives...which is also a shared trait with Portrait now that I think about it.


4. Girlhood: Girlhood is considered the end of a trilogy with Water Lilies and Tomboy, the three films exploring the coming age of adolescence. Interestingly enough, all three films are quite different, not only in there distinct protagonists, but also stylistically. Water Lilies is the most plot driven, while Tomboy had minimal plotting but still told a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Girlhood is different, more interested in its social critique of class, gender, and race in modern Paris as the protagonist drops out of school and joins a gang of girls (the source of the film's French title). I wouldn't even call the film a character study really. Vic is certainly an intriguing lead and I quite liked Karidja Touré's performance, but we don't get an especially in-depth insight into her personality. All the same I was fascinated watching the character grow over the course of the movie. Sciamma also seems to take the deemphasized narrative as an excuse to experiment formally. Girlhood looks beautiful, with vibrant colours (especially dark blue) and wonderful uses of music. I won't be forgetting that Rihanna scene anytime soon.


5. The Host (2006): If Parasite and Mother have taught me anything, it's that Bong Joon Ho is at his best when working in his primary language. Indeed, I'd put The Host firmly at third in my ranking of his movies (still haven't seen Barking Dogs Never Bite and Memories of Murder, mind you). It's a very fun creature feature with a cool monster and a handful of awesome scenes. I also quite liked Song Kang-ho's lead performance and while class themes aren't foregrounded to the degree they are in Snowpiercer or Parasite, they're definitely there. The movie is perhaps a bit long and I'm also not totally on board with Bong's humour here. The opening scene, which is in English, is also ridiculously over the top. I get that it's meant to be, but it also felt really out of place. Still, The Host is a really solid genre movie well-worth a look.