2009 January 03 • Saturday I watched a few movies in 2008. These were some of them.
I liked Hot Fuzz (2007) better than Shaun of the Dead, from the same people. Super cop from London is exiled to a sleepy village where his high-octane, zero-tolerance methods aren't especially useful, until …. Watching this made me feel like all those hours spent watching action movies hadn't been wasted after all.
Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (2007) is one of several recent Japanese movies I watched in 2008. The most interesting movies in the world now are being made in Japan, and they tend to be quiet and moving stories of people we usually call ordinary. In this one, Odagiri Jo — a great actor — plays a young man who hosts a radio sex talk show. His mother is slowly and painfully dying of cancer and as he takes care of her in her last days, we see in flashback how much she has sacrificed for him. This might sound heavy-handed and programmatic, but it's not. Its slice-of-life vignettes are never judgemental, even when dealing with Jo's blowing off the college education his mother slaved to give him or showing how Jo's father caused the family to suffer.
Nigel Kneale of Quatermass fame wrote the script for The Woman in Black (1989), a British TV adaptation of a novel by Susan Hill. It's one of the best ghost stories I've ever seen, and an excellent display of how to unleash terror after creating an atmosphere of suspense and dread. A young lawyer travels to a small town to attend the funeral of a client. While putting her estate in order, he crosses an angry spirit. I couldn't stop thinking about this for days (and nights) after I watched it.
Lelicek in the Services of Sherlock Holmes is a 1932 Czech comedy about a ne'er-do-well who becomes head of state. It's notable mostly because it seems to have been used as a template for Duck Soup (1933). Some of the scenes are almost identical and at least one gag — the feather pen that tickles your chin as you write with it — is the same. I didn't find Lelicek to be particularly hilarious, but probably a lot of Groucho's lines don't knock them dead when translated into Czech either ("How about the old maestro" etc.).
The Clock (1945) is a poignant and beautifully made World War II drama, shot almost entirely on location in New York City. Vincente Minnelli directed Judy Garland and Robert Walker as two strangers who are drawn closer and closer together after a chance meeting in Grand Central Station. Since Walker is a soldier who ships out again the next day, they try to get the most out of the hours they have. Interestingly, Agnès Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7 borrows quite a bit from The Clock.
I Love You Again (1940) was one of the best comedies I've ever seen. Myrna Loy can't stand being married to her dull, inattentive and stingy husband William Powell. After Powell receives a bump on the head, though, he remembers who he really is: a slick gangster who loves money, women and fast living. He returns home (in a scene that Preston Sturges might have stolen for his Hail the Conquering Hero, which came out four years later) literally a changed man and falls in love with his wife, who has already started divorce proceedings. This is about a hundred times better than The Thin Man.
Kidnap Syndicate (1975) is an Italian crime film and pessimistic revision of Kurosawa's High and Low. This time the rich kid and the poor kid both get kidnapped; the poor kid's father wants to do the right thing but the rich kid's father wants to haggle and hold out for a cheaper ransom. It's a bit agitprop, but I thought it was really good. Age of Assassins (1967) is a hallucinatory, free-wheeling action/comedy with a thrilling performance by star Tatsuya Nakadai (in a dual role), gorgeous widescreen black-and-white photography by Rokuro Nishigaki and a wonderful score by Masaru Sato. The plot has something to do with an insane asylum that doubles as an assassination bureau. There's also a chase for a fabulous diamond or something. I can't really remember. At some point the villain takes off his own hand and reveals that he has a machine gun for an arm underneath. Or something. This was one of the best movies shown at the Film Forum's Tatsuya Nakadai festival last summer.
Nine Queens (2000) is an Argentinian movie about two con men trying to sell fake rare stamps to a collector. The con men don't really know each other and are forced to work together, so there's a lot of anxiety about whether they can trust each other. Part of the fun of a movie like this is knowing, or at least assuming, that there's going to be more to it than what there appears to be. Sure enough, there are double crosses and triple crosses and so on. There's an American remake of this that is, according to one of my reliable sources, terrible (no surprise there).
The original 3:10 to Yuma from 1957 is perfect. It's one of the best written, most suspenseful and most satisfying movies I've ever seen. Why the hell did they remake it? (I haven't seen the 2007 version, but what I've read about it suggests I should stay away.) Van Heflin plays the rancher desperate enough to escort a notorious outlaw to a train, risking almost certain death from the criminal's gang, determined to free their boss. I'll probably end up watching this again in 2009. About a hundred times better than High Noon. Lady for a Day (1933) is a great Frank Capra movie about a destitute, alcoholic woman who has been claiming, in letters to her daughter, to be a glamorous member of high society. When the daugher finally comes to visit, accompanied by a prospective husband and his upper class parents, it's up to the local crime boss to put on a show of class convincing enough to fool everybody involved. There's a great billiards scene in this. Capra remade his own movie in 1961 with Bette Davis (A Pocketful of Miracles). Jackie Chan remade this as well, as Mr. Canton and Lady Rose (a.k.a. Miracles).
The Stranger Within a Woman (1966) was one of Mikio Naruse's last movies and it must be his strangest. The plot concerns a married man who kills his mistress during one of their frequent bouts of rough sex. That one sentence probably tells you more than you should know before seeing it. It's brilliantly photographed and edited and I suspect that Naruse was pleased to have a chance with this kind of material. Burnt Offerings (1976) is a surprisingly good haunted house flick directed by Dan "Dark Shadows" Curtis. Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis star as the unsuspecting summer tenants at a creepy house looked after by Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart. An early scene shows that the house actually likes to drink blood, so you know this isn't going to go well. There turns out to be a surprising revelation about one of the main characters near the end and the final moment of terror is hair-raising, even though you can see it coming and can guess what it is.
The Fourth Man (2007) is, I think, the only Serbian movie I've ever seen. While similar to Jason Bourne, the main character in The Fourth Man has heavier (and more plausible) baggage. Like Bourne, he has amnesia (also caused by bullet to the head) and used to be some kind of covert operative. He tries to pick up the pieces while wondering if his assassin will finish the job. The similarities with The Bourne Identity end here; when you get to the end of The Fourth Man, you'll realize that Bourne got off lightly.
Soylent Green (1973) is a movie that, like Psycho or The Crying Game, concludes with a shocking revelation that everybody now knows before they see it. So, yeah, I already knew that Soylent Green was made from people. After observing the overpopulated and resource-starved future depicted in the movie, though, my response was just to shrug. Why shouldn't Soylent Green be people? What else should they do with all those corpses? It seemed pretty reasonable to me and I suppose that's a shame.
Hancock perhaps stole its idea from Dainipponjin (2007), a Japanese movie about a superhero everybody hates. The treatment of the story here, though, is far from the Hollywood style. It begins as a documentary about an unassuming, not very interesting man who appears to be the very definition of unremarkable. When giant monsters attack Japan, he transforms into a giant and fights them. The fights are broadcast on television and he lives off the advertising revenue. His show is only on really late at night, though, and almost nobody watches it. Most people can't stand him; they vandalize his home and torment him. A very strange movie and I liked it.
The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) is about rebels posing as waitresses at a remote inn so they can assassinate a despotic official. It's directed by King Hu, though, which means that watching it brings the same kind of satisfaction as does watching a Jean-Pierre Melville movie. Every composition, every movement of the camera or of people in front of it, every cut will be perfect and balanced and unhurried.
Red Peony Gambler 3: The Hanafuda Game (1969) is one of the highlights of the yakuza genre. Not only did Tai Kato direct, but Takakura Ken co-stars with Junko Fuji and Tomisaburo Wakayama has a cameo. In the very first scene the Red Peony Gambler rescues a blind girl from being run over by a train. Later she learns that somebody is impersonating her and cheating at cards, damaging her reputation. Then the gang hosting her clashes with a dishonorable gang. The exceedingly honorable Takakura Ken is bound to the crooked gang by obligation and is thus forced to clash with our heroine. I would watch this again in 2009 but it will probably take at least another year to get through Red Peony Gambler 4 – 8.
The Gunfighter (1950) was another great Western, this one starring Gregory Peck as a famous outlaw and fastest gun/toughest guy around. I worried that Peck wouldn't be able to pull this off — he's not the outlaw type — but he's actually perfectly cast. His character desperately wants to escape his reputation and settle down with his family. Yeah, good luck with that. As in 3:10 to Yuma, there's a clock ticking all the while as a threat of death steadily approaches. Compare with the "Game of Pool" episode of The Twilight Zone. The Magic Hour (2008) is the latest from genius comedy writer/director Koki Mitani (Uchoten Hotel). The plot is the mirror image of Rough Cut. In The Magic Hour, a young man pretends to be a movie director so he can hire a washed-up B-movie actor to play a gangster in a movie he's not actually making. He's doing this because to save his own life he told the local gang boss that he's friends with a legendary assassin. So the actor comes to town as the hitman, thinking he's making a movie and hamming it up outrageously, while the real gangsters accept him as an actual (very eccentric) killer. Do you suppose that a certain amount of confusion follows? Might the real assassin get wind of this and show up?
Incubus (1965) is an Esperanto-language horror film starring William Shatner. Need you know more? Dominic Frontiere wrote the music, which is similar to his music for The Outer Limits. (The director and other people involved with Incubus also worked on The Outer Limits and what they do with a low budget is quite impressive here.) The movie's about a demon who tries to corrupt a virtuous person. Of course, a demon can be "corrupted" by virtue as well... |