The list of films I saw, in reverse chronological order.
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Live Forever
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Wants to be the definitive document of the Brit Pop phenomenon of the
mid-90's, but although it has the goods -- some intriguing cultural
links, interviews with all of the principal participants, a cheeky
sense of humour and a knack for enhancing an interview with the perfect
location -- Dower's film lacks focus, failing to sum up the spirit of
those times as anything more than a feeling that was in the air. It's
better at analyzing the genre's inevitable downhill slide, documenting
Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker's palpable disgust at becoming part of the
celebrity machine he had always aspired to, Blur leader Damon Albarn's
wounded reticence in talking about his time in the spotlight and Oasis'
Gallagher brothers' continuing reign as the clown princes of irrelevant
retro rock. The inclusion of Oasis tribute band Wonderwall is an
inspired choice, reflecting the phenomenon on a smaller, more manageable
scale. Even their beer-soaked bickering sounds less mythic and more
like ordinary squabbling than the Gallaghers' infamous dust-ups.
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Feel Neil
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Real Life Kitsch: The cult of Neil Diamond. Sarich quickly squanders
his colourful topic's inherent appeal by taking a rambling,
structureless, bargain-basement approach to cataloging Mr. Diamond's
unglamourous number one fans and the impersonators and tribute bands
who trade on his past career. In other words, with one exception, I
did not feel the people who feel Neil. That exception: San Francisco
band Super Diamond, who somehow manage to take Neil's cheesy arena
pop and make it even bigger. Their's is the only concert clip that
doesn't come across as desperate and second rate. In attendance:
Sarich, noting that he decided not to seek out Diamond's opinion
on this phenomenon because he wanted to present the voice of Neil's
fans.
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Beauty School
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Real Life Kitsch: Dog grooming school. Laughs largely come from
participants revealing their stupidity or squareness as Nicholson
redefines the word insubstantial. In attendance: Nicholson herself,
who made it clear she was going for comedy over insight.
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Echelon, The Secret Power
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Korn-Brzoza's hushed, 'ooh-scary' tone grates, but his documentary
nevertheless manages to confirm your worst paranoid fears -- yes,
They (enemies, allies, even your own country) are listening, using
satellite and radio receivers to intercept as much unencrypted
communication as they can manage to suck down from the heavens. What
was once a system of cold war surveillance has now become an essential
tool for winning the economic wars of the 21st century. It might have
been worthwhile to see some discussion of the technology's place in
our society, but such absence backs up the film's central point:
champions want to keep the programme secret, unknown even by government
leaders, meaning that potential opponents don't even know that it
exists.
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Wheel Of Time
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Notable for putting you there, Herzog's respectful and patient but
nevertheless curious camera positioned right in the thick of things
at the infrequent Buddhist initiation ceremony known as the Kalachakra,
but in a physical as opposed to emotional sense. Herzog can't shake
(and perhaps didn't intend to) the sense of being an outsider looking
in. The best he can do is catch a hint of the inner journeys being
undertaken, finding serene confidence in the faces he chooses to linger
on. In attendance: Herzog himself, unsurprisingly unafraid of the recent
SARS scare in Toronto and revealing himself to be an eloquent, confident
speaker.
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Rally 'Round The Flag, Boys!
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As a sex farce, McCarey's film works in fits and starts (and when it
does, it's largely due to Joan Collins' game performance as the predatory
other woman -- who knew?), but as a portrait of 1950's suburbia, it's
never less than jaw-dropping, presenting the often idealized small-town
bedroom community experience as a seething hotbed of sexual frustration
soothed only by copious amounts of alcohol, the basic intimacies of
human relationships consistently thwarted by the demands of bringing
home the bacon, raising ill-tempered offspring and making a positive
contribution to one's community, albeit not necessarily one's country.
It all comes to a head when the sleepy town's NIMBY distrust of the
military's secret plans for a local site erupts in a surreal Fourth
Of July pageant that plays like a Brady Bunch episode beamed in from
Bizarro World, with Indians (played by the townsfolk, natch) sinking
The Mayflower and Pilgrims (the military) retaliating by burning down
every teepee in sight. Invented Slang Dept: 'boojum' (or shortened,
'boo'), an apparently clean amalgam of 'pussy' and 'sweetheart', as
in "How are we going to get any boojum in this small town?", "Man,
don't you know that small towns are full of boojum.", "You guys
better stay away from our boojum!" or, in the film's most priceless
moment, a romantic ballad entitled "You're My Boojum".
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Ruggles Of Red Gap
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If it's possible to overact without changing one's facial expression,
Laughton manages it here, but he's a game sort and handily carries
this rather predictable clash between pretentious, uptight high
society and less refined but honest folk until it comes time to ladle
on the American Dream propaganda good and thick. The best jokes,
though, have less to do with Ruggles than with his former employer,
the charming, dotty, drunken, lecherous Earl Of Burnstead. "Do you
believe in love at first sight?" "No." "Neither do I, so I hope
you don't mind if I stay a while."
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Make Way For Tomorrow
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Seemingly lacking in character as McCarey initially flits between
family-centered comedy and the more sticky elements of relationships
between parents and their grown children, but it all comes together
beautifully in the film's final quarter with tender, aged romance in
full bloom, wickedly sarcastic barbs landing directly on target and
the fully felt heartbreak of hope being sacrificed to the hard
necessities of reality.
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Wrong Again
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You can bring a horse to the drawing room, but can you make it stand on
the piano? Laurel & Hardy can, it appears. There's not much here
gag-wise other than that one indelible image, but it's so hilariously
imaginative that it counts for a hell of a lot.
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Duck Soup
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In the past, I've thought that the Marx Brothers could use a dash
more order in their glorious chaos -- the boys are funny and all, but
they sometimes seem horribly out of tune with the straighter elements
of the films they're contained within -- but upon re-witnessing the
last reel of Duck Soup, I realize that it's just the opposite, that
it's the films themselves that often fail to match the Marx's
inherently anarchic qualities. McCarey gets it right, finally
throwing out narrative continuity to bring about a surreal corker
of a climax, ensuring that an emotional bomb of a subject like war
doesn't come close to trumping the film's comedic mission.
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Perfect Day
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Laurel & Hardy take the gals on a picnic ... but never get past the end
of the street. It's not the stand-alone gags that are particularly funny
(in fact, they're rather haphazardly timed), but the way they
unexpectedly kick off other gags, often ones we've seen before.
In other words, no matter what happens during L&H's attempt to repair
their car, you can bet that the guy with the cast on his foot will be
the ultimate victim.
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Marion Bridge
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Very Canadian. Even with the potential melodrama of deep, dark family
secrets at its heart, Marion Bridge remains remarkably restrained.
Much like the three Nova Scotian sisters who populate its borders, it
appears content to take a step back from loaded family issues even as
it quietly works its way through them. In other words, there are no
big shouting matches -- just the odd "shut up", a bit of bitchiness
and some playful stealing of the remote control -- but before you know
it, the emotional power of the story has completely snuck up on you.
Call me a sap, but the final sequence blind-sided me, leaving me a
blubbering wreck.
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House Of 1000 Corpses
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Much like Zombie's music: shrill and loud, wallowing in the trappings
of horror without really engaging the viewer/listener through the
genre's strengths. In other words, it's all about the surface qualities
of fashion, not the depths of emotion. With every nod to superior
films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Zombie confirms the
devolution of the horror flick from something that once genuinely
got under the audience's skin to nothing more than a catalogue of
visual references and sadistic violence.
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An Affair To Remember
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Worthy mostly for illustrating just how different a remake can be from
its source, even when they share the same director and a near-identical
script. It's not just a case of familiarity breeding contempt: the
excitement of true romance has been rendered static and lifeless,
subtleties have been made blunt and the minor differences between the
two films speak volumes about the priorities of the eras in which each
was made. Deborah Kerr is perhaps more traditionally beautiful than
her counterpart Irene Dunne, but she lacks Dunne's oddball charm, her
loopy humour and, most importantly, her streak of independence. In
other words, Kerr's character is a woman meant to be kept, not a woman
who is set on making her own way. Sure enough, it's Grant -- more
befuddled than charming on this occasion -- who suggests that the
potential couple wait six months for him to establish his career rather
the double-edged agreement of the original film. Along the way, we
must suffer through Kerr's breakup (needlessly torturing her over
presumed infidelities and ultimately turning the reflection of the
Empire State Building from a beacon of hope into a reminder of
tragedy) and then watch in horror as the young music students of
Love Affair turn from adorable little rugrats singing about
following one's dreams into a moralistic mob lecturing their peers
on the importance of listening to their conscience. Proving that
practise doesn't necessarily make perfect, the finale of this
distorted carbon copy showcases McCarey succumbing to the cheap
melodrama he so deftly avoided on his first stab at the material.
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Prodigal Son
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An already great film chock full of astounding martial arts set pieces
becomes even more exciting when augmented by this live dual-DJ soundtrack,
an aural overlay that provides a fluidly rhythmic backdrop for the many
kicks and punches, slyly plays culture-clash comedy by overdubbing a
Cantonese opera sequence with a shockingly appropriate rap number and,
finally, cutting in a perfectly timed sample of Run DMC's "King Of Rock"
to match Yuen Biao raising his fists in triumph.
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Hukkle
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The true star of Palfi's portrait of Hungarian village life is its foley
artist, impressive sound design forcing the tiniest elements of everyday
life into the foreground, giving them rhythm and presence, making them
the ostensible focus of a project that contains a larger narrative ready
to be teased out the details.
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Love Affair
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Expert on just about every level. Highly controlled, chock full of
visual commentary regarding the tenuous situation of would-be lovers
Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, yet never mechanical thanks to McCarey's
way of letting scenes breathe, of allowing two people to get in synch
with what the other is thinking, even when it doesn't quite match what
they're actually saying. Most amazingly, McCarey completely side-steps
the big melodramatic event at the centre of the script, taking the
mountain Dunne has made of her situation and eroding it until all that
remains is the ecstatic joy of love renewed capped with a
characteristically oddball quip.
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Distant Thunder
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Strong stuff, built on acute, even-handed observation and a dearth of
melodrama, rising above its potential to become a parade of misery by
choosing to delve into the tenuous position occupied by a small village's
new Brahmin. In the days before the man-made famine of India 1943 has
fully taken hold, the Brahmin Gangacharan appears content to play his
role of spiritual leader as if it were part of some elaborate game,
happily fleecing his villagers of money in exchange for performing
rituals he knows full well are less important the sound medical advice
he weaves into them. When people begin to die, however, the rules of
the game have changed, and he becomes increasingly uncomfortable
accepting food from those who cannot spare it but continue to do so
because of their respect for his lofty position. Perhaps the only
thing more horrific than facing death by starvation, Ray observes,
is choosing not to.
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Tamala 2010
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There's a scene towards the end of this unholy synthesis of Hello Kitty,
Phillip K. Dick, Fleischer Brothers cartoons and Thomas Pynchon (with a
dash of Oscar Wilde and Colonel Sanders thrown in for good measure) where
a professorial type unleashes a five-minute lecture on just what the
hell is going on only to be confronted with his audience's utter
incomprehension. Such matters of narrative confusion are endemic to
Tamala 2010, an animated piece of anti-consumerist agit-prop that just
might be about how its rebellious title character doesn't realize that
she's become a corporate logo. I stress the word "might", however, since
the film's meandering opacity, a product of the hive mind of arts
collective t.o.L., doesn't really lend itself to clarity. (t.o.L.'s
soundtrack for the film, on the other hand, is perfectly fine collection
of Japanese pop compositions.) Its details are occasionally mind-blowing,
but as the structureless film drifts into repetition, it quickly wears
out it's welcome. You know you're in trouble when ground this
potentially fertile has to rely on cute profanity and random violence
for its laughs.
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Bru Ha Ha!
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Skronky, squiggly line jazz.
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Post Mark Lick
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About Schmidt
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Might the tonal flatness of Payne's latest film be a reflection of
the filmmaker's own ambivalence about his native midwestern roots?
There's no doubt that Payne is satirizing middle America, but the
way he plays his cards close to his vest despite their transparence
means that the film often portrays elements of its target culture in
a fashion that is similar to reality. Case in point: the Dan
Fogleberg song "Longer" used during the wedding sequence, an example
of hilariously bad taste to some (including myself), but not something
that is wholly uncommon in my experience.
Or consider Schmidt (Jack Nicholson, restrained, but in many ways still very much his old self), a perfectly content, self-obsessed cog in the wheel of middle-class America suddenly cut loose by the transformative power of retirement and bereavement. Removed from his traditional role, he embarks upon a cross-country search for a sense of belonging that proves elusive. Payne uses everyday elements of American life and its seemingly empty culture to illustrate Schmidt's outsider status; he doesn't connect with the world outside his head in any meaningful way, and as irritation begins to creep into his view of things, the more judgmental of us (again, myself) come to hope for the character to evolve, to see this milieu and its people for what they are.
But even at his daughter's wedding, where Schmidt finds the perfect
opportunity to either viciously give voice to his growing disgust
or eloquently come to terms with the same, he merely falls back on
the sham of expected sentiments. (With this scene, Payne may be
suggesting that if acceptance is impossible, artifice is preferable
to honesty.) In the end, it is a kitschy device with the potential
for a similar level of triteness -- a child's drawing -- that not
only brings Schmidt back into the fold, but also unexpectedly
introduces a sense of emotional transcendence into a picture that
had heretofore played things much lower-key. In other words,
judge Schmidt if you must, but perhaps his life isn't so empty
after all.
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Catch Me If You Can
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Solid entertainment, an epic biopic of a historical footnote, suffering
only from Spielberg's desperate attempt to clearly spell out the
reasons behind Abagnale's behaviour, offering four such explanations
instead of synthesizing them into something more satisfactorily murky.
Nonetheless, it's a treat to see the film offer up some hard truths
about the (North) American dream, namely how one's profession defines
one's status within society and how that status can be a powerful
aphrodisiac. Impersonating a pilot brought Abagnale sex, impersonating
doctors and lawyers brought him sex, love and respect, but impersonating
a rich playboy only made him the mark in the sexual con game of
high-class prostitution.
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The Glass Key
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Far superior to the other Ladd/Lake noir of 1942, largely due to
its tighter, cynical, Hammet-derived story of civic political
corruption and Heisler's ability to milk the starring duo's considerable
chemistry for all it's worth. Ladd's a cool customer, patient,
willing to let a situation play out until he has found the perfect
moment to make his move. The sequence where he confronts a drunk
William Bendix is dripping with uncertain tension, the volatile
Bendix calling Ladd his pal one moment and threatening to knock
his teeth out the next. Ditto the scene in the country house,
where Ladd lets the newspaper publisher's wife come on to him in
hopes that the fallout will change the course of events in his
favour. Or perhaps he just believes that she's about all he
deserves -- his constant denial of his attraction to Lake is as
much based on his belief that their separate worlds are incompatible
as his wish not to interfere with his best friend's crush on the girl.
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This Gun For Hire
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Satisfactory noir, the steely Ladd and always sexy Lake raising the
film above its Frankenstein monster of a plot, at least until the
whole thing runs off the rails in the last 20 minutes or so. Typical
of the story's very visible stitching, it's structured so that there
is never any doubt that Robert Preston will end up with Lake even though
Ladd's considerable chemistry with the lady has the audience rooting for
him instead.
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Steamboat Bill, Jr.
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Typical Keaton feature: an expanded running time yields an extended
set-up period for a larger plot, both of which tend to mute the comedy
with excessive mundanity, destroying the wild and free qualities that
are in evidence in Keaton's best shorts. A few good bits -- notably
Keaton's attempt to break his Dad out of jail with the old 'file in
the bread' trick -- keep the affair moving until the final reel, which
in this case is more awe-inducing than funny, driven by stunts and
effects as much as comedy.
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The Scarecrow
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Typical Keaton short: 20 minutes, several imaginative set pieces (the
highlight being the one-room house in which Keaton and his room-mate
make maximum use of limited space), inspired physical comedy. What
more could you ask for?
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The Boondock Saints
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Or, Things To Do In Boston When You're A Talentless Hack. Artless,
tactless, obvious, pointless, trite, needlessly profane and, worst
of all, presumably believing itself to be taking a hard look at
tough moral issues. Features possibly the worst performance of
Willem Dafoe's career as a mincing, openly gay FBI investigator.
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The Leather Boys
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Young marriage, British kitchen-sink style: motorcycle enthusiast
Reggie (Colin Campbell) hopes his youthful new bride will fill a
traditional wifely role, but all Dot (Rita Tushingham) is looking
for is a free ticket out of her mother's house. Thankfully, the
ensuing bickering is matched by some marvellously tender moments
that underscore the union's potential, if not its actuality. The
biker club setting jazzes the whole affair up a tad, but the true
point of interest surfaces once the couple's crumbling marriage
has driven poor, confused Reggie into the company of his best mate
Pete, whose strong, unrequited feelings for his friend play out in
a series of longing looks and jealously protective actions. This
being 1964, there can be no on-screen happy ending for Pete, but
the way the film's major emotional moments are crafted through body
language more so than dialogue means that the finale can be read as
Reggies's lack of faith in Pete as much as Pete's betrayal of Reggie's
trust. As demonstrated, these kinds of situations leave no winners,
just broken hearts. Things I Learned From The Movies Dept: All sailors
are gay.
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Gas Huffin' Bad Gals!
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Hard not to admire the imitative brio behind this Russ Meyer-riff,
but ultimately the entire package fails to find the right tone,
with both the director and the amateur actors trying way too hard
for the piece to succeed as either camp or parody.
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March 2003 |
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Notes: If the feature film listed is less than four years old, the year
that accompanies it is the year of its release in Toronto. If the feature
is older or if it has not been released in Toronto, the year listed
is derived from the IMDB. In the latter case, the year is preceded
by the characters 'nr'. TV movies are listed by year of first broadcast
and are preceded by the characters 'tv'. Years for short films
are retrieved from wherever I can find information.
Legend:
Confused by my idiosyncratic 5-star rating system? Here's an explanation.
tv = I saw the movie on television
video = I saw the movie on videotape
dvd = I saw the movie on dvd
ld = I saw the movie on laserdisc
infl = I saw the movie on a plane
instl = I saw the movie as a gallery installation
net = I saw the movie streamed on the internet
vp = I saw the movie projected from a video source
qba = print/video quality below average
r = repeat viewing -- I had previously seen the movie sometime in my adult life
pre = pre-release viewing -- I saw the movie in advance of its release to Toronto theatres
tiff = I saw the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival
fest = I saw the movie at a film festival other than TIFF
ot = I saw the movie outside of Toronto
orig = I saw the original-language version
dub = I saw the English-dubbed version
tntv = tentative grade; I was considerably distracted during the screening or missed significant sections of the film
zzz = I slept through a considerable portion of the film, so take my
grade with a grain of salt
| My Scale | What It Means | Letter Grade | 4-Star Scale | Pro/Mixed/Con |
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| 5 / 5 | All-time great | A+ | 4 | Pro |
| 4.5 / 5 | One of the year's best | A | ||
| 4.25 / 5 | Damn good | A- | 3.5 | |
| 4 / 5 | Very good | B+ | ||
| 3.75 / 5 | Quite good | |||
| 3.5 / 5 | Good | B | 3 | |
| 3.25 / 5 | Decent | |||
| 3 / 5 | Ok | B- | 2.5 | Mixed |
| 2.75 / 5 | Almost, but not quite | C+ | ||
| 2.5 / 5 | Has its moments | C | 2 | Con |
| 2 / 5 | Not good | C- | 1.5 | |
| 1.5 / 5 | Very bad | D | 1 | |
| 1 / 5 | Dire | F | 0 |
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