Where the Truth Lies

Yet another example this year of a good director making a mediocre film with a lot of promise. This time the director is Atom Egoyan and his pseudo film noir expose' of showbiz reality circa 1957 and 1972, centers around a comedy team not unlike Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. It has that trashy-elegant joy of revealing the seedy underbelly of Hollywood ala L.A. Confidential or Mulholland Drive, though is vastly inferior to either film. Egoyan's distinctive traits in this film are his distinct period recreations which reminded me of some scenes in his Felicia's Journey, also in his depiction of sexual interplay that's only slightly erotic and mostly a window into the characters. The plot centers around a murder mystery surrounding the duo and a young reporter searching for the truth and the tell-all sensationalism of anyone who will talk. The performances by the leads, Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, and Alison Lohman are all strong, and each seems to fit the character. However, I was never compelled by the complex murder mystery on which the film hinges. It never managed to draw me in. I was never bored, but never involved. What keeps it going are the performances and Egoyan's atmospheric period recreations.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

A near great suspense film from director Ernest B. Schoedsack and producer Merian C. Cooper, who would team up the next year to make the great King Kong. Actually, Kong seems to have virtually reproduced many of the shots in this film as well the same sets. Based on the classic short story, world famous hunter, Joel McCray is shipwrecked on a remote island inhabited by Count Zaroff and his Cossack servants. Zaroff too is a hunter, but of a different kind of animal -- human of course. As Zaroff, Leslie Banks, oozes half-British charm, half-sinister madman. Fay Wray is the damsel in distress as she would later be in King Kong. The film is well paced and often rather suspensful. It also features some impressive, expressionistic camerawork. It's a near great, classic film that prepares the way for the greatness of Kong.

Beware of a Holy Whore

The title of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film is telling because it is a film about filmmaking, and those behind the camera. Like Godard's Contempt and Truffaut's Day For Night, Fassbinder turns the camera on himself, and it becomes a film about Fassbinder making a film. Unfortunately, it is a lesser work than either Godard or Truffaut's film. He shows the conflicting personalities and utter confusion of a movie set, and even stars in the film as an assistant director type character. It seems to be a very personal film, I just wish it was better.

my final thoughts on Salo

Many of the truths I found in the film seem self-evident, perhaps even embarrassingly so. Evil is bad. Compassion/love/mercy is good. Exploitation is wrong. Yet it is because these truths are self-evident that they are so profound. Many of the greatest truths are so obvious that we tend to miss or even ignore them. And it is because they are self-evident that we so often and so badly need to be reminded of them. If film is an art form and capable of revealing truth, then Salo is the purest reminder I know. But then again, I can only speak for myself.

Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom

Oh God, I beseech You, have mercy on us sinners. Everything that you've ever heard, feared, hoped, or thought about this film is true. It is utterly grotesque, completely appalling, mentally tortuous and an absolute masterpiece, a true work of art. Controversial Italian filmmaker, Pier Paolo Pasolini adapted the novel by the Marquis de Sade and sets it in fascist Italy where four dignitaries round up a group of virginal teenagers and lock them up in an elegant country villa, where for 120 days they inflict every conceivable form of degradation on their victims (and themselves). In between spats of orgies and rape, they discuss philosophy amongst themselves and conclude that it is better to be the torturer than the tortured, better master than servant, better victimizer than victim. But in order to be master, one must have victims, and those victims must live in order to be victimized. Much has been made (correctly so) of the endless perversions executed in this film including, rape, homosexuality, masturbation, drinking of urine, eating of feces, and more all in the name of sexual gratification for the fascist masters. The film has been criticized for desensitizing an audience to these atrocities, when in reality it serves to resensitize those who treat evil with a casual indifference (I might, sadly, place myself in this category). Part of the horror of the film (and brilliance) is not merely the actions performed, but in their casual execution by the masters. In other words the real horror is not the existence of evil, but the failure of anyone to acknowledge it as such. The victims are dehumanized to the point where in once scene they are all naked, and crawling around the floor on all fours with leashes around their necks, forced to bark like dogs and fight over scraps of food. It is in the exploitation of the victims where the political metaphor is made, in that the poor are exploited and victimized by the capitalist ruling classes (Pasolini was an avowed Marxist). While it's political message may be weak, I will forever be careful in how I treat others. No form of sexual fetish is left untured, but for most of the film the victims do not exist to be tortured so much as the indulge the perversions of the masters. It is not until the horrifying final scene in which all of hell's sadistic fury in unleashed on the victims. The best description of this film that I have read says that it is impossible to watch and essential that it exists. I will echo that, and take a controversial step forward by saying that in film history, this is one of the few films that I believe absolutely must exist. It reminds us of the realities and true atrocities of evil and the human capacity for evil -- how, apart from God, we a ruled by our lusts and desires. This is the one film, or work of art I should say, that even the most jaded film goer might find impossible to walk away from undisturbed. It is not exploitation, nor is it at all pornography. Its degradation is in service of an honorable statement. It is a powerfully humanist work of art. I might make a gross overgeneralization by going so far as to say that every Christian should see this film, though I will never recommend it. It is a masterpiece that I hope I need never again watch. I feel indebted to Pier Paolo Pasolini, that wretched Marxist, homosexual, atheist. Oh Lord, may I never sin again.

The Wicker Man

You've gotta respect that honest hedonistic moralizing. Or maybe not. A straightlaced, religious police sergeant is sent to a mysterious Scottish island to investigate a missing girl. At first, the inhabitants seem like peaceful, solitary British folk, until he starts seeing people copulating outdoors in the middle of the night. As he begins uncovering the mysteries of the island, things start getting stranger and stranger until he finds himself in the middle of an ancient pagan rite involving flaunted sexuality and human sacrifices. This is a horror film that will no doubt defy any expectation one might have about the genre, beginning with the opening titles which has a Celtic folk song playing over it. And then there's Bond girl, Britt Eckland dancing naked through her room and singing another folk diddy. Best of all is Christopher Lee as the leader of the island cult. It manages to create a strange atmosphere where you start to give up trying to guess what's going to happen next. The ending is memorable, and once again unexpected. For a movie that's so indulgent, it seems to be strangely moralistic. Particularly for the first half, it's the kind of film that has you chuckling to yourself for its wreckless abandon while at the same time leaving you to constantly ask yourself what the hell is going on from one scene to the next. I guess I can say that I have strange respect for this film, yet I don't think it's any good.

Delicatessen

The first film from Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro is something of a marvel of that macabre, surrealist, sub-Terry Gilliam farce. The delicatessen has a menu of human flesh thanks to the post-apocalyptic setting. It mostly takes place in a ramshackle apartment complex with an eccentric array of characters including the neighborhood butcher. One of the more inspired sequences involves the inhabitants of the complex all performing various tasks in rhthym with a couple's love making. It is often darkly funny, but it never achieves the level of sheer enjoyment that might come from the best of Terry Gilliam (whose style, Jeunet and Caro borrow liberally from). The climactic deluge of broken water mains is also memorable.

The Panic in Needle Park

This mostly forgotten gem of the 1970's plays like Days of Wine and Roses with heroin addicts instead of alcoholics. Street hustler, Al Pacino meets college girl, Kitty Winn. He's a charming heroin addict, and she's not... yet. The crudity of Jerry Schatzberg's direction proves to be both naive at times and at other perfectly suiting the material with an unusual efficiency. For scenes involving elements of the story he will cut into the scene, have a character quickly speak a single line of pertinent dialogue, and then quickly cut to the next scene. He then dwells on the "inconsequential" scenes, such as those involving the process of separating and distributing the drug or the graphic scenes involving taking of the drugs (if you have an aversion to needles, this may not be the film for you). Of course, life goes downhill for our characters and you never know what they'll do next to satisfy their addiction. The streets scenes have that gritty, documentary feel -- in fact, I'm fairly certain that often the filmmakers would hide across the street, zoom in, and have the actors walk down the street with no one around even aware that a movie is being made, lending a kind of New Wave realism to the surroundings, the situations, and the performances. Pacino has always had incredible depth as an actor, but it's Kitty Winn who surprised me with her unimpressive, yet beautiful features and the kind of naturalness to her performance that almost breaks your heart. Like many films of the era, it manages to capture something real, yet still manages to escape true greatness.

Tartuffe (1926)

Perhaps the most dull of F.W. Murnau's films is this adaptation of Moliere's play of the same name. When an aging miser decides to leave his fortune to his underhanded housekeeper, his grandson shows up in disguise and shows them a film version of the Moliere play. The play itself is about a similar situation and the grandson hopes to use his film to expose the housekeepers plot to his grandfather. The film within the film takes up most of the running time, and seems largely uninspired, at least compared to the grandeur of Faust or the passion of The Last Laugh. It is interesting, however, to watch as Murnau uses cinema and his images to literally expose the truth, perhaps this has something to say about his feelings towards art. But one does have to wonder why adapt a play for a silent film?

JLG/JLG

This autobiographical, self-portrait of Godard by Godard is one of his most interesting, honest, and touching films of the last 25+ years. At just over an hour in length, it doesn't outstay it's welcome, as it is filmed exclusively in Godard's home in Switzerland. Much of the time we see him in shadow or silhouette as he reflects on his life, the nature of film/art, European history, and even some politics. Of course, one can't mistake this for a documentary, because Godard is as concerned as ever with aesthetics and the meaning of film which has always made his films a little bit difficult to classify. At one point he hires a blind editor to cut his film, which almost seems to be a statement about his films are instinctual rather than carefully planned and arranged. But amidst his compendium of ideas, a glimpse of humanity and a glimpse of Godard the man rather than Godard the radical filmmaker comes through, making this an unusally moving work. This would likely come across as unmoving, boring, and confusing to those unfamiliar with Godard or his work, but to understand his movies is to understand the man, which is what makes this a great film.

Shoeshine (1946)

Vittorio De Sica's film was one of the first landmarks of what would become known as Italian neo-realism. The film takes the point of view of two street boys and best friends, Giuseppe and Pasquale. The two of them will do anything from shoeshining to black market deals to make enough money to buy a horse. When they finally do buy the horse and ride it together through town, one feels a brief moment of elation for the boys. But this is not a happy film. Soon they get implicated for one of their shadier deals and sent to a brutal, boys house of detention where they are separated in different cells. Every environment in which they find themselves from the streets to the prison are harsh and unforgiving. Ultimately, they find themselves betraying each other which leads to a tragic finale. As all neo-realist films are, it is first of all humane and socially conscious. The films focus is on the external factors of post war Italy that has led to the poverty, despair, and hopelessness of these two innocent boys. It's an excellent film, though I may still prefer Bunuel's similarly themed Los Olvidados. As can be expected, the filmmaking is spare and the actors non-professionals, leading to an authenticity almost never found in today's cinematic climate. And for his first major film, De Sica, who is usual the most sentimental of the neo-realists, finds an uncompromisingly tragic, though still lyrical tone for the film.

Once You're Born You Can No Longer Hide

Marco Tullio Giordana's socially conscious Italian film is broken up into two distinct parts. The first begins as the story of ten-ish year old boy who is the son of loving and compassionate, well to do parents. Towards the beginning, he is confronted by a seemingly homeless man who mutters something to him in an African language. We witness the boys everyday life until he and his father rent a yacht to go sailing. The second part begins when the boy slips overboard one night while his father thinks he's tucked safely in bed. After drifting for awhile, he is rescued by a boat stuffed full of refugee's on their way to Italy and captained by a couple of mercenaries. Here is where the films heart takes over as we and the boy witness the plight of the refugee's. He befriends a brother and sister from Romania. Fortunately, Giordana allows for complexities within his compassion as a darker side is revealed on some of the characters. And eventually we even learn that those mysterious words spoken by the homeless man at the beginning actually translate to the title of the film. It's difficult to describe, and is no masterpiece, but it is directed by a steady hand and a big heart that doesn't overpower its brain.

Domino

Tony Scott seems to have develped this kind of manic, everything-including-the-kitchen-sink, uber style that has a way of either attracting or repelling an audience (sometimes both at the same time), that is if it isn't sending them into seizures. That said, his latest film isn't bad -- it's not especially good, but what it does have in abundance is energy and interestingness (if that's a word). Much of that, I suspect, is thanks to Richard Kelly's script which takes more than a few liberties with the life of real bounty hunter, Domino Harvey, who by now you all know is the daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, who turned her back on a life of wealth to become and bounty hunter. Keira Knightley turns in a convincing, down and dirty performance as Domino, and somehow one never tires of seeing Mickey Rourke or Christopher Walken in a film. Kelly's script twists and turns in every direction, but never does it feel like he's cheating with it. To try and explain it would be futile, but there are some memorable bits including a wonderful scene that takes place on the Jerry Springer Show and a subplot involving the mob and the DMV! It's downfall occurs towards the end once Tom Waits shows up as a Messianic figure and parts of the film devolve into cheap, simple minded sermonizing. Tony Scott is a stylist first and foremost, not a speaker of important truths. Can I support this kind of filmmaking? Probably not. Can I appreciate or even occasionally enjoy it? Maybe so.

Nothing But a Man

This little seen film is often regarded as one of the first honest portrayals of African American life in America. Made in 1964, it's an independent, understated, realist film -- it feels like life. Duff is a railroad hand in the South who falls in love and marries preachers daughter. It's not a film that offers easy solutions, in fact it's not even a film that points out problems (racially speaking, that is), it merely presents the lives of its few characters and the everyday struggles that they face, some of which are racial. Duff is a proud, stubborn man with a troubled family history, who equates his job with his masculinity. So when he loses his job for insinuating the idea of unionizing, he finds it difficult to get a new job which sends him into a kind of depression, because he is the man and must provide for his family. In it's own, understated way, the film presents the struggles of the family as a combination of personal and societal, which leads to a lovely, little conclusion. I consider this to be one of the best films of its kind because of its honesty and integrity, while not resorting to anger and simplistic, liberal solutions to problems which turn out to be more complex than one might at first notice.

How Awful About Allan

The early 70's were the golden era of made-for-TV movies. Curtis Harrington directed this psychological thriller starring Anthony Perkins and Julie Harris. Perkins is partially blind after a house fire that took the life of his father, and has been recently released from an institution in the care of his sister. Soon, he begins thinking that someone is trying to kill him, or is it all in his head? The movie is brief, well paced, and features some bold visuals considering it's for television.

Faust (1926)

F.W. Murnau has often been described as the visual poet of the silent era -- a title he richly deserves. And in this adaptation of the age old legend recorded by Goethe, he unleashes some of his boldest imagery. The opening seems similar to the book of Job where God and Satan are making a wager over the soul of an individual. The Satanic figure, Mephisto, releases a plague on a small village where Faust, an elderly, God-fearing alchemist resides. Mephisto offers Faust a trial run for evil powers, which quickly have Faust so seduced by power that he sells his soul for youth and power. He courts an innocent, young girl who also falls in love with him. The temptations and seductions of evil are demonstrated in broad strokes and with visual potency, leaving some scenes with an unusual power such as when Faust finally recognizes his error and throws himself into the flames that are consumming his love, and holds her. It would certainly have been interesting to see if Murnau's gifts could survive the transition to sound, had he not died around the time when the medium was changing.

A Perfect World

This film may be for director/star Clint Eastwood, what Fearless was to Peter Weir -- the long forgotten masterpiece. Well, maybe it isn't quite a masterpiece, but it is a near great film that may in some ways surpass even the greatness of Eastwood's Unforgiven and Mystic River. And it is forgotten, at least I hadn't even heard of it until I decided to watch it. It concerns two men on opposite sides of the law: Kevin Costner is butch who has just escaped from prison and has taken to the roads of 1963 Texas. Clint Eastwood is the aging Texas Ranger on his trail. Now before you start thinking to yourself that you probably know where this film is going, let me assure you that you don't (unless of course you've seen it). Soon, Butch takes a hostage of sorts -- an 8 year old boy. He's not treated like a hostage, more like a partner and friend. The child is the father of the man, is the quote that I seem to have heard somewhere. Butch isn't a bad guy, nor is he simplified to the poor, misunderstood criminal. The boy isn't the cute, precocious movie kid, nor is he the comic foil to hardended criminal. Eastwood refuses to simplify his characters into stereotypes, he makes them human beings. Like many of his films, it is about violence, but it is not violent (most of the violence isn't even shown). Instead, what he does here is observes the violence from the perspective of the boy -- the fatherless boy who simultaneously admires and is frightened by the criminal. Perhaps better than in any of his other films (besides, perhaps, Unforgiven) there is a sense of pain and disappointment in the past that haunts both Costner and Eastwood's characters. It's not about winning or losing, or escaping the long arm of the law, it's about surviving and ensuring the next generation. Also of note is John Lee Hancock's screenplay which provides the depth of character and feeling that only an old hand like Eastwood could appropriately translate to the screen. It's a beautiful little film.

El (aka This Strange Passion)

I find this to be one of Bunuel's more disappointing endeavors. Not that it's a bad film or even a bad idea, but it seems he made it at the wrong time in his life. It is about an aristocrat who becomes obsessed with a woman he sees in church. He seems level headed, and in fact everyone is convinced that he is normal, but he is a paranoiac. After he marries the woman, he quickly becomes suspicious of everyone. It all culminates in a wonderful scene in church where he thinks that the entire clergy and congregation are maniacally laughing at him. It's a haunting a surreal scene in the most Bunuelian sense of the word. However, this tale of obsession and sexual domination might well have been a masterpiece had he made this film 20 years later, when those became some of his signature themes. In 1952, though, this seems very out of place with the spare and poetic films that represent his period in Mexico. It's a film that he just wasn't ready for yet.

Point Blank

Lee Marvin plays the quintessential anti-hero in this stylistic, cult gangster film. He's an ex-con looking for the man who betrayed him and demanding $93,000 from "the organization" that stole it from him, and nothing is going to get in his way. Director John Boorman throws out every trick in the book (at that time, anyway), reminding me of the kind of film Tony Scott might have made in 1967. Boorman is a bold director, and unlike many of his films, this time his stylistic excesses seem to perfectly compliment the film. Take for instance, the scene in which Marvin throws John Vernon off the side of a building naked, or when Angie Dickinson repeatedly hits Marvin and he doesn't even blink.

42 Best Films

Thanks to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy we all now know that "42" is the answer to the universe, so then what better number to group together the best films that I've seen. Well, I guess it's a combination of what I consider to be the best films and my favorites, with an emphasis on best. So, while a film like Raiders of the Lost Ark may be one of my favorite films of all time, it didn't quite make this list. It's a strange balance to strike, and one that will no doubt continue to shift back and forth in my mind as I see new movies and change my mind about old ones. Anyway, I thought that it would be worth posting just the same. So here you go...

1. Star Wars (George Lucas)
2. Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, George Cuckor, et al)
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
4. The Searchers (John Ford)
5. The Decalogue (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
6. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
7. Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman)
8. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer)
9. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
10. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
11. Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson)
12. Persona (Bergman)
13. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese)
14. Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa)
15. Intolerance (D.W. Griffith)
16. The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky)
17. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
18. Masculin Feminin (Jean-Luc Godard)
19. The Three Colors Trilogy (Kieslowski)
20. A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes)
21. Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
22. Come and See (Elem Klimov)
23. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg)
24. City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
25. Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
26. Manhatten (Woody Allen)
27. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
28. F For Fake (Welles)
29. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)
30. Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski)
31. The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut)
32. Mouchette (Bresson)
33. Winter Light (Bergman)
34. My Life to Live (Godard)
35. How Green Was My Valley (Ford)
36. The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky)
37. Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
38. Red River (Howard Hawks)
39. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
40. Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah)
41. Nashville (Robert Altman)
42. The Up Series (Michael Apted)

42 Up

The most recent of Michael Apted documentary series, though apparently 49 Up is in the process of completion for release this year (or next, perhaps in the U.S.). It's difficult to write about the individual entries to this series because it is, above all, a series, a continuation -- the most profound look into humanity and the cycle of life that cinema has yet attempted and accomplished. As an individual film, however, this is probably the weakest entry (whatever that means). Now in their 40's the subjects seem to have more perspective on life, especially since Apted has been kind enough to document it for them. Life goes on and people change, but not nearly as much as they stay the same.

The Mummy (1959)

Hammer horror films have a charm that is distinctly their own. Even the worst of their films (that I've seen), have a quality that make them worth watching. Even if this isn't a great film, or even the greatest version of The Mummy, it is still compulsively watchable. Part of that could be due to the presence of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee who never get old. Part of it could be the lush use of widescreen and saturated Technicolor to a genre that was typically black and white. The story is familiar, and probably more inspirational to the recent Brendan Fraser version, than was the Universal film with Karloff. It's not a great film, especially while watching it, but it's one that lives on in my mind, and that's kind of fun.

Gloria

Ever since I watched this, I've been trying to figure out what I think about this unusual John Cassavetes film. Unusual, because it's distinctly plot driven and because it contains one of those overly sentimental premises. Gena Rowlands plays a woman with a mysterious past, which we soon learn is her involvement in the mob, who takes in the eight-year-old son of a neighbor whose family just got eliminated by the mob. She's a tough talking dame who doesn't like kids and he's a tough Puerto Rican kid. It is also unusual because at time it verges into the territory of the action film, which I would have never envisioned from Cassavetes. The saving grace of the film is that despite his plot conventions, he still manages to allow the kind of visual and emotional freedom that makes the viewer think that they are peering into the lives of real people. I'm not sure what I think about the unorthodox casting choices of Rowlands as a gun totting mob mistress and John Adams as the boy. Part of it just feels wrong and another part of it feels like vintage Cassavetes. Any other director and the film would undoubtedly devolve into cheap sentimentalism, but while it doesn't fail in that regard, it can't succeed because ultimately Cassavetes just isn't a plot driven filmmaker.

Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?

Once again director Curtis Harrington brings in Shelley Winters to play a crazed woman in this retelling of the story of Hansel and Gretel. She is the generous patron to an orphanage and during one of her annual Christmas party's takes a liking to a young girl and her brother, because the girl reminds her of her dead daughter. To be honest, even as she was supposed to be getting creepier and creepier, I maintained a healthy level of sympathy for the woman, despite the literal skeleton's in her closet. Mark Lester and Chloe Franks are almost angelic presences as the children, and they both turn in good peroformances.

Detective

During a forced break in the shooting of Hail Mary, Godard decided to make this film in order to raise money to complete the other. Actually this feels like a mostly passionless exercise in detective fiction. The story line is very convaluted and I'm not really sure I picked up on everything that was going on. A detective trying to solve a two year old murder, a couple and a boxer, and a few other things. Ultimately one of the more forgettable Godard films of the 80's.

What's the Matter With Helen?

The problem with casting Shelley Winters in a role like this is that she seems a little bit nuts to begin with, so when it is finally revealed that she has actually gone off her rocker, you're never overly surprised. Many have identified this film with the wave of "crazy lady" horror film that began with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and continued with Hush... Hush Sweet Charlotte. Director Curtis Harrington doesn't really bring anything new to the subgenre in terms of thrills and chills, but he does bring with him a love of 1930's Hollywood and an eye for period detail. Winters and Debbie Reynolds play a couple of high strung mothers whose sons were both arrested as murderers. To escape the scandal, the two of them pack up and head off to Hollywood where Reynolds teaches dancing and Winters plays the piano for aspiring young starlets (Shirley Temple young). While Reynolds escapes into the world of glamor and begins dating a millionaire, Winters escapes into a private world of guilt and religious fanaticism (is there any other kind?). Probably the most memorable scene in the film is when Winters attends a revivalist service and begs the (priestess?) played by Agnes Moorehead (whom Winters listens to on the radio) to forgive her. Moorehead insists that she's already forgiven, but Winters refuses to believe it. Of course guilt leads to madness and soon she begins murdering bunnies and a few people. Harrington seems clearly at home with the era, which is probably his strength, but I was never really provoked to suspense and certainly not fear. Nevertheless, and interesting, though forgotten entry into the genre.

Serenity

Thanks to television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, writer/director Joss Whedon has burst onto the big screen with an already established auteur status (one of the few from television). That's not to say that he's an established or serious artist yet, but a few films down the line with a more mature aesthetic, it's not beyond the realm of possibility. Whedon's primary strength, which is formidable, lies in his dialogue which crackles with more humor, wit, and sarcasm than any I've heard in a film in years. Based on the short lives series, Firefly, the begins and proceeds as if its world and characters have already been established -- perhaps a flaw in the film's design in that if one has not seen the show, then most of the characters come off as cleverly wise-cracking though superficial. Nathan Fillion is Capt. Mal Reynolds, a roguish scoundrel in the vain of the early, mercenery Han Solo. He's a principled atheist whose ethic consists of shooting first and asking questions later (if at all). He leads the crew of the space ship "Serenity" against the Allies -- an Imperial force with misguided, utopian dreams, as expressed by the film's interesting antagonist known as "The Operative", a self-professed ruthless murderer who crimes in the name of a better future. Also of note is River Tam, a young psychic girl who doesn't always have everything together (mentally speaking), though on ocassion bursts into martial arts moves the likes of which leave the entire patrongage of a local bar unconscious on the floor. It's a space western, that's easily one of the most enjoyable films of the year, or last couple of years for that matter. Ocasionally, Whedon shows some visual flair in his direction, but the film is rarely carried by its visuals, and mostly carried by its dialogue and interesting band of characters. I now want to go back and finish Firefly to see if adds to my appreciation of the film.

Oliver Twist (2005)

Roman Polanski directed this classy, elegant, and seemingly faithful adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel (I haven't read it). It's a very satisfying film, though seems strangely impersonal considering the director. I can't fault the filmmaking, nor the acting -- Ben Kingsley's Fagin is particularly compelling -- but unfortunately it manages to remain just this side of greatness. I'm at least relieved that the film was not at all disappointing as so many other films this year from noteworthy directors have been. Polanski's film neither disappoints nor transcends, it is a faithfully satisfying literary adaptation.

Cattle Queen of Montana

This film earns points for me merely from the fact that it is a studio era, Technicolor western. I suppose then it's too bad that it's really not a very good film, despite some good ideas. Director Allan Dwan remains one of the lesser semi-auteurs of the studio era whose greatest film was The Sands of Iwo Jima which is not only a great film, but remains one of the very best films about WWII. This film stars Barbara Stanwyck who seems out of place in her surroundings as she makes a better femme fatale than cattle barroness. Soon she finds herself bullied by a local rancher who wants her land and cattle. Ronald Reagan isn't at the top of his game as one of her few friends, and Jack Elam will be forgotten here and always remembered in Once Upon a Time in the West. Where it succeeds, however, is in the sensitive treatment of the complex relations between whites and Indians at the time. Dwan reveals misunderstandings and treacheries on both sides leading to those conflicts which would come to tame the West. Still, you've gotta love that Technicolor landscape, even if he isn't the artist of say John Ford with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

To Live and Die in L.A.

This is probably William Friedkin's best post-Exorcist film. After watching it I debated with myself over how much I really liked it. Part of me thinks that it's a mostly well executed, though routine cops and robbers film, and another part of me thinks that it's actually a landmark cops and robbers film with more to it than meets the eye. I am now leaning towards the second, though not fully. It's about a Secret Service agent in pursuit of a ruthless counterfeiter (well played by a young Willem Dafoe). The agent, as played by William Peterson, borders on anti-hero status as he abuses his authority, uses dubious methods, and mistreats those around him, particularly a female informant with whom he is having an affair and threaten to revoke her parole if she is stops informing/sleeping with him. There's a spectacular chase sequence in the film that rivals Friedkin's own The French Connection. One can also recognize Friedkin's obsession with realism in the performances and in particular a scene in which we watch Dafoe actually make counterfeit bills (apparently with the unofficial support of an ex-con). It's roots are firmly planted in the 80's, which may not be a bad thing, but it is clearly dated. Also of note is the somewhat unorthodox and unexpected ending that somehow makes more sense than most films of its type.

Sorcerer

The idea of remaking Clouzot's Wages of Fear seems like both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it is quite likely that not many in the audience will have seen the former, and a curse because it is next to impossible to top the suspense of Clouzot's film. Wages of Fear has three or four of the most suspenseful and nail-biting scenes in film history, and the best director William Friedkin can hope for is to match them using very similar circumstances. The story involves four men in a small, South American village who our down on their luck. But fate steps in, in the form of an American oil company who offers top dollar to four men who will drive two trucks of cargo through the jungle to one of their sites. The serious catch is that their cargo is nitro glycerine, and they must drive the unpaved, unpredictable roads through the jungle without it so much as shaking. They drive over rickety rope bridges that I wouldn't walk across, along mountain roads, through water and mud. There are some pretty intense scenes, but the best ones are the ones that most closely resemble the original film. It's a good film and it works, but see Wages of Fear it's better.

Tristana

Fernando Rey always seems to be the perfect choice to play the alter-ego of his director, Luis Bunuel (as Mastroianni was to Fellini). In this case he plays an aging aristocrat who seems to be a mess of contradictions -- a bourgeois socialist, a devout atheist who makes his company with priests, and a moralist who has no qualms with seducing women. When her mother dies, Rey's character becomes the guardian to the ever lovely Catherine Deneuve, and he quickly develops a perverse relationship with her that varies between father and lover. He steals her innocence and later in life, she hates him for it with a vengeance. While it may lack the wit and gleeful surrealism (with the exception of Rey's reoccuring dream of his severed head being used to ring the church bell) of Bunuel's finest films during the 70's, I am never let away from the thought that I am watching an intensely personal film. Typical Bunuel themes such as the sexual domination of a younger woman by an older man would be much more disturbing had he not injected his images with the fragments of his own tortured soul.

Le Gai Savoir

After Weekend, but before he joined the Dziga Vertov group, Godard made this distinctly non-narrative political exercise. It's not as sophisticated, nor quite as interesting as his later experiments, but watching it, you know there's only one filmmaker who could have made it.