My Week in film (11/23 - 11/29)

Winners and Sinners (1983)
(Directed by Sammo Hung)

So funny. Sammo and his buddies go to jail for a bunch of really dumb crimes (the best might be that Sammo himself tries to rob a house while they're throwing a surprise party for Sammo Hung the actor ). Then these dudes become friends in jail and form a cleaning company. Jackie Chan also pops up throughout playing a cop who constantly screws up and the best we see of him is at this one supremely 80s rollerskating competition where has to chase down a robber and cause one of the greatest pileups in movie history. Anyway, the cleaning company somehow get caught up in a counterfeiting majigger and there's lots of hilarity there, but there's just as much time devoted to the group's pursuit of one of the member's sister or to one of them thinking that he can become invisible. Really silly stuff, but done oh so well.

★★★1/2

Eastern Condors (1987)
(Directed by Sammo Hung)

I've never seen The Dirty Dozen but apparently I should since this film apparently rips it off quite a bit. But, whatever. I've never been really into action movies. I think they're kind of boring. But seeing Sammo and Yuen Biao, dudes who I've come to appreciate from their other movies, do this kind of movie is awesome. Basically, a bunch of convicts are taken to Vietnam to destroy a forgotten US artillery thingie before the Vietcong can discover it. There's virtually no character development or any of that crap, just violent awesomeness. And the violence isn't disgusting like I found it to be in Rambo, maybe cuz I like Sammo and not Stallone. racism. Anyway, it's just no-frills efficient but then it throws these fucked up touches like the dude at the end with the fan. So brilliant.

★★★1/2

My Lucky Stars (1985)
(Directed by Sammo Hung)

This "sequel" to Winners and Sinners is such a disappointment. Mainly because the original film left it open to have more adventures. In this film, it more or less scraps the first film entirely and just sort of gathers the cast back together but not really. Sammo isn't really even the same character that was in the first film, which is a shame cuz that character went through a great arc and was gonna get married and become a cop! The film also gives away the film's best parts to Jackie Chan who is in the beginning and the end of the film, I guess to give it more star power or something. SAMMO IS ENOUGH. The middle part of the film basically concerns the group's attempts to get closer to the chick, including this one creepy part where they all pretend to rob the place so one of them can be tied up with the girl. It's weird and creepy and it goes on for too long. Maybe the best part of the film though is when Jackie Chan dresses up like the girl from Dr. Slump and goes through this really cool haunted house. It's got some great design and the gags and the fights in it are inspired. But, sadly, the rest of the film isn't as inspired and it's mostly just a rehash of the same jokes that were much funnier in the original film. BUMMER.

★★1/2

Pedicab Driver (1989)
(Directed by Sammo Hung)

wow, I didn't expect this at all. At first, it's so lighthearted and sweet and funny but then it turns bitter-as-fuck hardcore dramatic and I ate up every little second of it and even teared up a bit cuz of how deftly certain scenes were handled and then the fucking brutality piles up like a ton truck or something and just devastates the fuck out of everything and then those chases and sweet but perverted jokes are left in the dust and that's left is pain and sweet fucking riddance to the most evil son of a bitch (that dude from Winners and Sinners, the glasses one!) of ALL TIME. Sammo, you can do anything.

★★★1/2

Kicking and Screaming (1995)
(Directed by Noah Baumbauch)

oh, white collegiate youth! I'm kinda like you, but not really! Lots of talk about talk and about things and about What Happens Now, which is all good, and I guess is where I'll be in six months or so, so that should worry me or something. Instead, what I do is just not even talk it away for there's no one to talk to but go deeper into the Sammo universe to tease out his directorial style and then write several long blog posts regarding his mise en scene and his thematic concerns. Then I will be able to kill myself. And then I'll be able to laugh along with Chris Eigeman and the other people who are white and who I recognize but not as much Chris Eigeman, for he's kind of a God and the way he talks is saintly or heavenly or dainty or something, but it gets to me where it counts. And I dig the kind of muted look of everything. Life is depressing. Let's just admit this and namedrop Kant and come up with meaningless aphorisms and then drink up because this is what life means. Oh, it's also funny.

★★★1/2

Mr. Jealousy (1997)
(Directed by Noah Baumbach)

Funny stuff. Kinda cringe-inducing sometimes and Chris Eigeman plays a more refined version of his usual character, one who's more grown up or something or something or something or something or something or something or something. There are surprisingly dark moments in there about things which don't matter to me and Chris Eigeman has a beard and that's okay and the film has a narrator that lends the film a short-story/literary quality which is fine, I mean some movies can do that and get away with it. There's a place for it even though it means nothing, just like this movie. Although it's also funny. Except not really. Well, mostly. roujin does not approve of this review. he's off over there with those fucking bitches.

i was dreaming of the past
and my heart was beating fast
i began to lose control
i began to lose control

★★★

Gerry (2002)
(Directed by Gus Van Sant)

eh, didn't get much out of it. Appreciated the commitment to the concept and the sound design was really good, that wind! Once in a while the textures of a certain scene really blew me away, but most of the time I guess I was just bored which I forgive if I take it to be a part of the movie's design or whatever, but I don't know. I wish these dudes had barely talked to each other. I was totally cringing throughout that Thebes part and whenever else they talked, crap, I just totally gerried what I was going to say. Whatever. There was that one shot that was totally out of Satantango with the wind blowing and all that stuff. Dunno. Mostly I just wanted to watch The Brown Bunny again.

★★1/2

Safe (1995)
(Directed by Todd Haynes)

Why don't people like this movie? I guess cuz the first half of the film is intensely uncomfortable, creepy and distanced. And I guess it's no fun watching Julianne Moore coming apart as she walks across the rooms of her house. Seriously, the first half of this movie is amazing. I think it becomes harder to pin down in the second half, as it loses the claustrophobic thing and it moves toward an attempt at self-recovery. Of course, nothing is that simple and maybe the reason why the 2nd half of the film is so undramatic and sometimes boring is because it's all just full of shit and there is no cure, or maybe it's just a worse type of illness than being fucked up and not knowing yourself and feeling lonely with all that decoration and teal couches. Maybe it's worse. Just another form of self-inflicted illness. Or "illness" as skjerva will say That ending, jeesus. Maybe it's true, maybe it's fake, maybe it's the final way out, the only redemption. The world is killing me ★★★1/2

Black Narcissus (1947)
(Directed by The Archers)

Uh, why do people bother using color after this? Doesn't make any sense. Let's just say it: this is probably the most beautiful color movie ever made. And I think it has to do with the rampant artificiality inherent in the film's design. The paintings-as-backgrounds, which should be used more, they're so fuckinng rad, the "painting with light" nonsense, the pure sensualness in the film's images is out of this world; and if I didn't already know that these dudes could do it with The Red Shoes, I'd be fucking blown away by it even more. I really gotta watch that movie again. It's also the film's setting: this monastery-looking thing atop a cliff with all these incredible murals and the wind blowing all the time and that bell and just the geometry and the COLOR and Sabu and Jean Simmons doing that dance and the repressed sexuality coupled with the whiteness and then the foreignness and then that dude who has his shirt off and those ridiculous ponies. Movies are good. This feels better.

★★★★

My Darling Clementine (1946)*
(Directed by John Ford)

Words, words, words! What is there to say? What can be said? It just is!

★★★★

35 Shots of Rum (2008)
(Directed by Claire Denis)

Man, what better way to spend Thanksgiving than with a movie that perfectly captures the essence of family and captures the essence of an everyday quotidian life except it's the movies so it's transcended and every gesture and glance between family members or whatever becomes something more, something truer, something even more real than actual reality. Or not. I just know that Denis/Godard's images still have that sensuous quality that makes them breathe and live but this time that ability is applied to everyday household appliances and routines and I guess that's more important to me than elliptical mindfucks across three continents or whatever. It's the easiest of Denis' films to love and it is officially now my favorite of her films. I should watch Ozu or something. He seems like a great man. But this is something else. This is something else.

★★★★

Imitation of Life (1959)
(Directed by Douglas Sirk)

Utterly devastating. I know these films are all supposed to be subversive and all that stuff and that's why I'm "supposed" to like them but fuck even without all that stuff, this is pitch-perfect melodrama, with all of its reflections, complications, masterly cinematography/framing/everything and the kitchen sink, too. Sometimes it's a little too on the nose but then it shocks you with a moment that you didn't expect. The scene in the screengrab above is so freaking heartbreaking and that damn ending. I don't have words. I'm suffering from overload today. This is what happens now. It actually shocked me from its complexity and in the ways that it developed and the overwhelming amount of emotion it managed to wrangle out of me and that damn song that's sung at the end ("I'm going home to live with my Lord") just kills me and it's like the definition of emotional catharsis. I'm so tired.

★★★★

The Class (2008)
(Directed by Laurent Cantet)

Obviously not as good as Season 4 of The Wire but, hey, what is? Still, I really enjoyed this and maybe I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if I didn't see many of my own experiences working with students that are around this age (older, probably). It's funny. Why the hell would I want to watch a movie that reminds me of my job? Anyway, I really dug the give and take of the film and how it's all centered on playing with language and although it tips its Socratic hand at the end of the film, it still doesn't feel cheap. I mean, I seriously had some 15-year-old kid asking me to help him figure out a passage from The Republic. That was a good day. The film kinda assumes a documentary mode in trying to do all of this and it works, sure, and I felt engaged throughout and it felt pretty true to my own experience, especially with the digressions and how I always feel we never get enough done or whatever. Whatever. Life's tough. I got some helmets and a nice hourly rate.

★★★

Stagecoach (1939)
(Directed by John Ford)

Pretty good. Feels like a blueprint for a bunch of films to come which is always cool to me for reasons unknown and strange and probably scary. Anyway, John Wayne is pretty damn charming and kickass and I dug the moral division between the passengers and how that's thrown out the window by film's end. Those stunts are pretty cool, too. Feels like people are getting hurt Poor horses though. Dunno, it was pretty fun and even the inevitable plot stuff was handled pretty well, especially the ending: those silent moments and then that triumphant stuff which makes me kinda swoon for several seconds before I realize that I've left my food in the microwave for too long and it's kinda way too hot now and I have to wait longer to eat it because if I don't and I try to touch, even by the sides, it'll burn my dainty little roujin fingers, and no one wants that, not even my worst enemies. Frankly, I think I need a nap. But empires weren't built on napping roujins. Things like these don't just happen. Oh, let's watch that intro to Magnolia. Where are you, my sweet prince?

★★★1/2

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)
(Directed by Ernst Lubitsch)

What a weird movie. Marriage as cruel blue balls manipulation. It's pretty funny. Gary Cooper plays as a rich-as-fuck dude lounging in the Riviera who meets Colbert and basically woos her by buying her out. Then they get married or something and there's stuff about money and marriage settlements and there's all kinds of stuff that's kind of wacky and David Niven is pretty hilarious when he's drunk and hit twice in the face. There's a joy in seeing this near-wacky quarreling. It brings out the best in the holiday. You know these things, of course. And I love Edward Everett Horton, he might be the greatest actor ever. Well, not really, but I can't help these type of roujin-type exaggerations. How else can I keep myself interested in this world controlled by dead Brazilian street urchins? HOW?

★★★1/2

They Live (1988)
(Directed by John Carpenter)

Looking past the fist fight and the one liners, this still kicks all kinds of ass. Carpenter moves deftly between modes, negotiating the more badass moments with the funny stuff in pretty economic ways. And, yes, this movie is really funny. I mean, those one liners are hilarious. When The Piper is at that convenient store and starts insulting that old lady, I was ing pretty hard. What else can one do, really? Nothing, that's right. Just accept these words and accept THE ADVERTISING because you are COMPLACENT and something and something and not even South Park could dilute the manly-as-fuck poetry of two grown ass men beating the shit out of each other. These are the dreams I live for. These are the lies I tell myself. duder may be right. There exists happiness out there, just not here, there are only lies. Beautiful celluloid lies.

★★★1/2

Repo Man (1984)
(Directed by Alex Cox)

Too easy to pay attention to the subversive stuff like the religion and the food cans and all that stuff. Means shit. It's the spirit! That's all that matters. Gleefully skewering everything and everybody that feels like something that a dumbshit would like or do, it's all about that! Ordinary people or something. Well, let's face it. We're ordinary or something so that means nothing, but in the movies, fuck, anything's possible! Hence why Estevez can just say "fuck that" and the entire world makes sense. My world's nothing like this but then, well, maybe it is. I'm just not paying attention to anything. The words don't even make sense anymore. I've given up trying to make them. It just hurts to look at things that aren't 80's pieces of shit. FUCK YOU.

★★★★

Streets of Fire (1984)
(Directed by Walter Hill)

Man, this movie could've been a roujin-level perfection machine but sadly it never reaches that pinnacle. Some parts do. There are little snatches here and there where everything coheres for me and all the different things actually work for me, but it doesn't work enough of the time and the narrative and characters and the lead actor aren't good enough for me to forgive such shortcomings and stuff because, frankly, they're kind of idiotic. The lead actor is extremely terrible and I didn't like McCoy either so there wasn't much for me to do but just stare at Diane Lane and make fun of Rick Moranis' adorable douchiness and hope for Dafoe to show up again. I really like the idea behind this movie and the execution in some places is really fantastic and there are certain shots and certain parts that are fantastic and the songs are fantastic (tonight is what it means to be young!) but, I don't know, I think I'm just a hateful guy. Yeah, well. Crap.

★★

Manhunter (1986)
(Directed by Michael Mann)

Not as great as Heat or Miami Vice but belongs in the same ballpark. This thing is just a bunch of sleek modernity draped in this weird solemnity and creepiness scored to this awesome 80s synths shit and all these fucking awesome songs all climaxing with that "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" song, except Shriekback's "The Big Hush" is even better and this is a thousand times better than Red Dragon and probably The Silence of the Lambs, too, except I don't remember that movie too well. God, this is so sleek and coldly perfect like I woke up and just realized that life was meant to be lived this way. Some kind of abstract perfection and the identification with the killer stuff is done really well and it's so damn moody in its own way and it succeeds without breaking a sweat in a way, just so cool and detached but passionate, too, just doesn't show it. What are you Becoming, roujin?

★★★★

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
(Directed by William Friedkin)

Wang Chung! Parts of this film are surprisingly excellent. The car chase is pretty great and it's connected to William Petersen's distorted views on masculinity and adrenaline (you pussy!) and all that stuff and the high he gets from base jumping and basically being a gigantic douchebag. He is the shit. Well, he thinks so, at least. And then there's Willem Dafoe, who is fantastic. I really dig the way he talks in this role and his random eccentricities that are never really explained, like why he burns up pieces of art and the way he seems frailer and more dainty than everyone else but is still a badass. Petersen's partner plays it way too broad. His moans or whatever they are when Petersen is all having orgasms about how much of a badass he is are really stupid as is his transformation at the end. Didn't you learn the lesson, kid? You're gonna get it in the face. "emotionally raped masculinity," ha!

★★★

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
(Directed by John Carpenter)

whoa, really, really good. Very taut and lean, nary a shot wasted even though it's actually pretty slow and deliberate and the setup takes a long, long time. But I didn't mind. Those moments in the beginning are really good in their own way and that scene with the ice cream truck is incredible. It's expected but still so goddamn brutal and shocking. The rest of the film is damn mean. I liked the escalation of the conflict and the camaraderie that does and does not develop between the people inside. There is a cold brutality to the film which is hard to describe, a no nonsense way in which it goes about kicking ass and being awesome, it's cool. Unlike me.

★★★1/2

Jhon's Movie of the Week is... My Darling Clementine