Adventures In Netflix #7-Gabriel Ricard
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008Adventures In Netflix #7
By Gabriel Ricard
And that’s why I’m no longer welcome in the city of Denver, Colorado.
But I digress. For this is indeed still a movie review column.
Let’s keep it that way.
As of this writing, the generally pointless Oscars, the same ones I’m going to take far too seriously for the next few hundred words, are behind us by a little over a month. The ratings weren’t great, but that shouldn’t do anything to change your mind of the fact that this was probably one of the better years they’ve had. That’s at least how it felt to me. There was something comfortably even about the overall show this year. Nothing was particularly over the top, and nothing really sunk so far into the depths of what-the-fuck territory that I had to check my whiskey supply to make sure my drinking hadn’t accidentally gone out of control. Jon Stewart was just fine in his second go-round as host. And though the surprises were minimal, I found it strangely difficult to get annoyed about that. This was probably the first time in all my years of watching The Academy Awards where I was actually pleased with every major nomination. Yeah, there were the usual snubs (am I the only one who wanted to see J.K. Simmons pick up a nomination for Juno?). Yeah, the nominations for Best Song once again felt strangely like the old cliché of a Presidential election coming down to the lesser evil. But most of the ones who did make it to the show all deserved their shot in some form or fashion. It was a hard to be a cynic when virtually all of the acting nominees consisted of people I can honestly count amongst my favorite actors and actresses.
I suppose that’s why I did so poorly with my Oscar picks this year (nine right to fifteen wrong). It was just that difficult to call a clear winner in any of the major categories. I guess being a fan of damn near everyone might have clouded my judgment a little. I don’t know about the rest of you, but Best Actor was a nightmare for me this year. I wound up picking Tommy Lee Jones out of just the simple desire to see the guy take home the top acting category for a change. But even after I made my call, I still glanced at the other nominees from time to time and knew that I would probably be fine with any one of them winning. The same can be said for virtually all of the other nominations.
I liked that. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before, and it’s probably never going to happen again.
But it made for an interesting show.
And call me a morbid bastard, but the yearly Cavalcade of The Dead, Oscar’s tribute to those who passed on, is still one of my favorite features of the show. It was sad to see guys like Roy Scheider and Suzanne Pleschette up there. It was heartbreaking to see Heath Ledger at the end. And it was downright weird and a little surprising to notice that actor Brad Renfro was omitted from the tribute entirely. The only reason I can come up with is that they just happened to forget him. He wasn’t where he had been back at the start of his career. When he hit the scene in a big way with a memorable performance in The Client some fifteen years ago. He was still turning in good work though, moving through indie film projects and larger films with some pretty decent supporting actor performances. He was good enough to be one of those guys who could have turned it all around in a second with just one powerful comeback performance.
In the end though, drugs finished him off and made sure that whenever his name does come up, that’s likely going to be the first thing people talk about. They’re not going to mention his talent or any particularly impressive performance. He’ll go somewhere on the list of the top ten saddest child actor stories and probably not much further than that.
It’s a shame.
Much more than being left off some list of ghosts they pack into a television spectacular that’s already choking on entirely too many montages.
But I guess that’s just the way it goes.
Hopefully, we won’t see too many of those stories in 2009.
Moving along…
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen
Written by: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin
When the post-Oscar hype and the general love affair people have with the Coen Brothers dies down, I have a feeling this one is still going to be standing. Both as a powerhouse example of compelling filmmaking and proof that you can adapt a book faithfully and still make a good movie. This year’s winner for Best Picture, No Country For Old Men is quite possibly the definitive Coen Brothers film for this moment in time. A near-perfect combination of modern Western and the kind of blood and guts humanity and desperation that tends to mark many of the best characters from the best Coen Brothers films. It’s also at its heart a crime-gone-horribly-awry story; another territory that the Coens have torn through before with breakneck results.
Adapted from the 2005 novel by Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Cormac McCarthy (whose work was last adapted by Billy Bob Thornton in All The Pretty Horses to less-than-stellar results), most of us probably know the story by now. Josh Brolin, a good actor who has only recently started garnering some serious acclaim for his work, turning in a career-defining (and Oscar-nominated) performance as Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam vet who changes the course of his life forever when he happens upon a Mexican drug deal gone wrong and some two million dollars in a satchel. It wouldn’t be much of a movie if he didn’t take the money and therefore open himself up to a relentless onslaught of disaster and various parties who will do anything to get their hands on the money. Most of all a mysterious psychopath named Anton Chigurh (now an Oscar-winning performance from Javier Bardem), initially hired by the drug people but who quickly sets about killing them and everyone else who gets in the way of his own pursuit of the money and what it seemingly means to him. In the midst of all this is a small-town Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) trying to not only make sense of the case but also of the nature of a world that he feels is becoming more vicious, cruel and terrifying than he ever would have thought possible.
As you might imagine, the movie (and by the same token, the novel) gets its force from the way it tells the story. There’s more to it than just juggling the events of the film from three extremely different perspectives. What sets the movie apart from any crime/western saga in the badlands of America is the way it’s more of a story of three separate philosophies. Three men who are compelled and in some ways doomed by their principles and their devotion to those principles. The crime and the bloodshed that ensues are almost secondary to that. The movie takes place in 1980, but really, with the nature of the three main characters, it could take place anywhere and at any time. That’s what I think is the secret to the movie’s overwhelming success. There’s a timeless quality to its characters, to their thoughts and feelings on a world that’s becoming just a little too small for who they are and what they stand for. Capturing that in a book is a lot easier than capturing that in a film. But thankfully, the Coen Brothers have handled this sort of deal before. They knew exactly how to maintain the spirit of the novel and they were smart to do so. The story is a cosmic playing field of a story on a truly grand scale. While at the same time, a personal tale that beautifully portrays humanity at its most harrowing.
And it’s the incredible work of Bardem, Brolin and Jones that helps the film reach the level of characterization the novel established so wonderfully. Bardem as quite possibly one of the sanest insane psychopathic killer of all time and Brolin as the desperate hopeful well in over his head are the standout performances in this. But it’s Tommy Lee Jones that quite possibly deserves the most credit. He has always been a master of restraint and being able to tell the whole story through the expressions on his face. He of course delivers some of the film’s memorable lines. And as the sheriff, he serves as the narrator and link that ties everything together. The fact though is that he really doesn’t have to say a word at times. His face at times captures every detail the narration of the novel laid out. It’s staggering to see a times. Underrated as well. It’s this and his work from In The Valley of Ellah (released the same year) that’s reminded a lot of people of just how important an actor he really is.
The supporting cast deserves a lot of credit as well. Kelly McDonald, Woody Harrelson (another underrated talent) and Stephen Root haven’t gotten quite as much credit as the three primary cast members. But they should. Each of them plays perfectly off of the main cast in their own way. And each of them help give the film added depth because of that. The Coen Brothers have always had a pretty good eye for casting. The same goes for the terrific editing from the Coens (under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes) and cinematography from Roger Deakins. He captures the great endless sky and cemetery desert plains of the American southwest with a passion and eye for detail on a large setting that evokes the spirit of western film long gone. It takes a great filmmaker to continue a tradition while at the same time presenting something wholly original and worthy on its own merits. Joe and Ethan Coen have always proven themselves capable of this usually daunting task. The result is their best film in almost a decade. Forget about the fact that No Country for Old Men is probably going to enter overrated territory for a little while. This is a film that’s very much worth your time. It’s one of those rare Best Picture winners that actually deserved to win in the first place.
Zardoz (1974)
Directed by: John Boorman
Written by: John Boorman
Starring: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestleman
Don’t be fooled. Beneath a basic story that flies between the surreal and flat-out ridiculous so much you’re bound to get dizzy and Sean Connery in what has the be the most emotionally distressing outfit I’ve ever seen an action hero made to wear, there’s actually a pretty good movie to be found here. Connery does the best he can in one of his first post-Bond roles. As Zed, the leader of a warrior-class known as The Exterminators which rules over the remnants of a post-apocalyptic world whose pitiful inhabitants are known as Brutals, Connery manages to play through with a straight-face. In fact, he’s damn near impressive here with the amount of restraint he shows against what occasionally feels like a ninety-minute third season episode of the original Star Trek series. Especially when he shoots the man responsible for the god his people have been worshipping for the last couple of centuries. A god who has been appearing to them in the form of a giant stone head who shoots guns from his mouth and gives commands to grow wheat and kill every Brutal who doesn’t happen to belong to the Exterminator class.
Connery still keeps that restraint going when he rides the giant stone head right on into a secret society of immortals known as The Eternals (makes sense). A class of the world’s best and brightest who made it a point to shut themselves off from the rest of the world when the whole show went bad and safeguard all the really nifty stuff we got up to when the world was still in good shape (which is why sex and sleep were eventually done away with). They have been ruling the not-quite-as-lucky Brutals while slowly losing their minds to insane boredom at being ever since, so it’s not surprising that Zed’s arrival pretty much throws the whole carefully organized society into chaos. Which may or may not be the intention of some of the more particularly bored Eternals in the first place.
It might sound maddeningly awful on paper. But again, don’t let that trip you up. It’s entirely likely that Connery was desperate to shed his Bond character by this point and play something against the grain of what people had come to expect of him. Zed in Zardoz may not sound like a step in the right direction, but it was more than you might think. Connery would later prove himself to be an actor hero with some decent depth to him in better films. But you could go so far as to say he made his start here and to pretty strong effect. He does a good job fitting in with the film’s overall movements between surrealist social-satire and standard action-movie type stuff. He also seems to be having a lot of fun with a great supporting cast. Most of all Charlotte Rampling as the representative of The Eternals who want to kill him as soon as possible and Sara Kestleman representing those who want to figure out why there seems to be more to Zed than he’s letting on. And then there’s John Alderton as Friend. The closest Connery has to one in this world of God-like people who pray for death against an upper-class decadence that makes Rome look downright Amish by comparison.
It all plays a lot better than it has any right to. There’s a surprisingly infectious sense of humor in the dialogue and characters. Writer/director John Boorman clearly isn’t taking this parable too seriously here. The movie opens with and holds onto a sense of fun that’s hard to get mad at. It goes well with the gorgeous cinematography and appropriately odd score from David Munrow. Zardoz is an acquired taste that’s worth the effort. It moves a little slowly at times, but if you’re already watching, you’re probably going to be too busy taking the rest of it in to really notice.
THX 1138 (1971)
Directed by: George Lucas
Written by: George Lucas
Starring: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley
Before the days of Star Wars, George Lucas was just another up-and-coming film student intent on changing the world forever through film. When it came time to do his first feature-length film, he turned to an idea he had already done in short film format as a film student in the late 60’s. An ambitious science-fiction film steeped in the tradition of such books as Brave New World and 1984. A fascinating story with some great performances and visuals that manage to be absorbing on what was a fairly small budget. Robert Duvall goes for broke early and never lets go as THX 1138, a nuclear-production line worker for an underground society run by government control and personality-shaping drugs.
Eventually though, Duvall knocks the drugs off and winds up falling in love with his roommate LUH 3417 (some pretty good anguish by Maggie McOmie), which is something of a no-no in this cold, calculated paradise. Arrested for the crime of making love and separated from LUH in a bizarre limbo-like prison, THX falls in line with a programmer (Donald Pleasence at his manic best) and a disenchanted star of the hologram television shows that keep the populace entertained (Don Pedro Colley in a performance that almost steals the whole movie). The three of them elect to get the hell out of there for a while and make their way to the surface, with THX hoping to find LUH along the way and maybe even hold onto whatever it is he’s discovered since giving up the drugs. The first half is some pretty slow-paced stuff, but under Lucas’ young but assured direction it builds beautifully and makes the more action-packed second half a lot more interesting and meaningful.
The most compelling aspect of THX 1138 however is perhaps the opportunity it presents to watch a young Lucas in action. It proves that Lucas was capable at one time of maintaining his vision and ambition to tell the best story with the most striking visuals possible under the constraints of an actual budget and not just the bloated computer-enhanced spectacles that have haunted the latter Star Wars films with the kind of money that could conceivably turn Mexico into a super power (Although for this DVD cut Lucas did in fact go back and touch up certain scenes). There’s a lot of attempt at style in THX 1138, but there’s also some pretty noteworthy substance as well. The cast plays into that a lot, furthering the personal theory I have that Lucas is a director whose stories demand a cast capable of fleshing out his characters and ideas. But it’s not all them either. In the script and in the overall direction, Lucas manages to pack a lot of strange, beautiful, darkly humorous and rather haunting imagery and concepts into the movie’s ninety-minute running time. This one film established him right from the start as a director with potential to spare.
And though Lucas has in recent years come to represent a lot of the ideals that go against the sort of mindset that went into movies like THX 1138 to begin with, it’s never too late for him to take a step back from his most famous creation and try his hand at something worthy of a talent that has become buried under an ocean of digital effects and films that are often in danger of keeling over just from trying to keep itself together. With the Star Wars saga mostly all said and done (a couple of major projects are still slated to come down the line in the next few years), it will be interesting and very telling indeed to see what Lucas does next. Whether he takes a chance or just opts to sit back and rely on past glories. I like to believe he’s still capable of the first one. It’s just a question of if we’re going to see it or not. At the moment, it’s completely up in the air.
L.I.E. (2001)
Directed by: Michael Cuesta
Written by: Michael and Gerald Cuesta, Stephen M. Ryder
Starring: Paul Dano, Brian Cox, Billy Kay
Brian Cox reminds me of a rule Roger Ebert had once for Harry Dean Stanton and M. Emmett Walsh. The rule is basically that any movie with either one of those actors is incapable of being entirely awful (and he would be mostly right on that count). I would venture to say the same rule applies to Cox. At least, as far as I’m concerned. I tend to admire actors who are up for and are capable of just about anything as far as roles go. And for Cox, who has moved from Hannibal Lecter (Manhunter) to madhouse comedies (Super Troopers) to casual background character (Match Point) to modern-day action/spy-thriller (The Bourne Identity/Ultimatum), there really doesn’t seem to be any limit to what he’s capable of. Which makes L.I.E. such a startling and at times incredibly difficult to watch film.
For anyone whose exposure to his work has been limited to his broader, more mainstream movies, L.I.E. is probably going to leave you with your jaw somewhere around the floor by the time the final scene goes to black. Reportedly, Cox took this role against the advice of his agent and several colleagues. Be glad he did. Writer/director Michael Cuesta’s first feature is not a pleasant film. And Brian Cox as Big John Harrigan, a retired cop and local hero with a penchant for fucking little boys, is not a pleasant portrayal. But that doesn’t make it any less absorbing and absolutely unforgettable. This is the kind of role that can define an actor’s career and what he is capable of. And if that’s the case, then Brian Cox is an actor who just happens to be able to tackle anything. To create a monster like Big John Harrigan and then to force us to see him as more than just a pedophile is an incredibly difficult achievement for both Cox and Cuesta. It carries with it a million different pitfalls. The worst of it was that you run the risk of coming off sympathetic to chicken hawks. But Cuesta up for what had to have been a very daunting task. He manages to move both fearlessly and carefully in his depiction of a disenfranchised youth, Howie Blitzer and his efforts to carve a life for himself in his small, quickly crumbling world. The focus of the movie is really on a young boy and the fact that virtually all of his significant relationships are not what they’re supposed to be.
Paul Dano is nothing short of incredible in bringing this to the forefront of his character. He’s a talented actor who has also turned in some memorable work in films like Little Miss Sunshine and The Girl Next Door. If the world of an actor getting credit where it’s due has any justice in it at all, Dano is going to be someone we’ll continue to see a lot more of in the years and other excellent performances to come. His diversity in capturing the relationships with the people in his life is enthralling. His embezzler father (a stand-out performance from the always-reliable character actor Bruce Altman) is never home and his best friend Gary (Billy Kay in a performance that should have moved him on to more significant roles) is a petty criminal who elicits romantic feelings in Howie. To the point where he has no problem joining Gary and some of his other friends in robbing some of the other homes in the area. And this is how Howie meets Harrigan. Getting caught and forced into dealing with Harrigan on a daily basis. And it’s obvious from the get-go that Harrigan has intentions towards Howie.
Most movies would end there. But Cuesta was determined to knock expectations around. He accomplishes this in sharp and unflinching form. As Howie’s life continues to fall apart, it’s his strange and troubling relationship with Harrigan that becomes the one person he can rely on. Whether or not that’s good. And it’s not. The fact that Harrigan and Howie embark on a relationship whose nature and intentions change dramatically by the end of the film doesn’t erase what Harrigan is. It’s not meant to. You’re not going to be rooting for Harrigan by the end of the film. The idea again is to rattle your expectations and get you to walk away thinking it over. Cuesta set out to accomplish this and a lot more with this first feature-length endeavor. He nails the mark from the first scene and refuses to let go until the closing credits make their way over. Even when the movie loses its focus at times.
That this isn’t the easiest movie in the world to get through shouldn’t dissuade you at all. It might be a little uncomfortable and a bit disturbing, but that doesn’t change a thing towards L.I.E. being anything less than a must-see.
Umberto D. (1952)
Directed by: Vittorio De Sica
Written by: Cesare Zavattini
Starring: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
By 1952, there was a lot of political ground to cover for any ambitious Italian filmmaker looking to capture the essence of what the country was going through at the time. The fact that director Vittorio De Sica crafted a film whose social and political undertones are not obscured in the least by its heartbreaking and beautiful portrayal of an aging working-class man at the end of his rope only serves to prove just how remarkable a vision De Sica had with his films. Combining professionals with actors who had no prior experience, De Sica creates a series of performances that fashion a brand of honesty rarely found in films of any era. Italian or otherwise. Carlo Battisti, a university professor who made his film debut here, gives a performance marked with a quiet, awkward intensity that would have been noticeable if it had been a professional actor in the role.
You would notice that. But going into Umberto D., which scored an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story (now known as Best Original Screenplay)with the knowledge that Battisti had no previous experience and would only appear in one other film gives you the feeling of seeing a truly natural performance in the way he reacts to the constant battering of minor and major tragedies that plague his life. Umberto Ferrari is broken-down old-timer whose life is marred by an abusive landlady (a fantastically wretched Lina Gennari) who wants him gone, a pension that is being whittled down to nothing by an uncaring government, and the scraps of a life he is now forced to sell in even smaller pieces with the almost pitiful hope of raising enough money to be able to stay in what’s already a rotten place that he has no choice but to call home.
The only glimmer of hope Umberto Ferrari has in his life comes in the form of his friendship with a pregnant maid of the house he lives at, the dog he calls his best friend, and his own dwindling optimism that somehow everything will work out in the end. De Sica keeps our attention on Ferrari for the most part, on his pitiable shuffling through life and his ongoing passive struggle to keep his head above the quicksand of the world he barely inhabits. His world is that of cold stone buildings, a generation of youth far too wrapped up in their own world to pay him any attention, and his own generation just as bad off as he is or even worse.
In true Italian-cinema style, the movie moves between pathos and moments of warmth and humor with breathtaking ease. Some of it comes from Ferrari’s relationship with Maria, the pregnant maid (the lovely Maria-Pia Casilio in another of the film’s great performances). With Maria, Umberto is able to be something he is not in any other facet of his life. Vital. Needed in some way. It’s a great gift by De Sica that he is able to oftentimes just sit back and let the characters play off each other. It draws things out a little too long sometimes, but the dynamic of their relationship is one of the cornerstones of the film’s message of finding a glimmer of hope at the end of the line and holding onto it for everything you’re worth. Even more than that relationship however is the one Umberto has with his dog. Very few moments in film have been captured with the furious, sudden pacing that kicks in the moment Umberto returns from a hospital stay to find that his dog is missing. The film has already done a masterful job building up their relationship and established it as the single most important thing still in Ferrari’s life. And by the time we get to the moment when Umberto rushes to the pound in a last-ditch effort to find the animal before it’s destroyed by the city, our emotions are completely in De Sica’s control. But it never descends into the overdramatic. It maintains flawlessly and keeps right in the place when it comes to the moment when Ferrari has been stripped of nearly everything he holds dear. To the point where he is forced to come up with a way to get rid of his dog and see to it that he finds a good home. That’s the movie’s core, and that’s what gives those social/political elements all the more resonance over fifty years later.
The movie goes to the people on the most personal level possible, playing on the small details that any one of us can relate to. And by the time it’s over, the journey we take with Ferrari is probably similar to one we’ve heard before in real life or even gone through on our own. That’s the secret to Umberto D’s enduring appeal. That’s why it’s still as flawless in its attention to the human spirit and how it holds up in an increasingly hostile world as it was back in 1952.
And that’s going to knock off another edition of Adventures in Netflix.
Thanks for reading, and remember that any and all comments/death threats/marriage proposals/erotic stories featuring me and suggestions in general can be sent to magazine@feeltheword.net or in the neat comment box just a few spaces down.
Next month, I’ll explain why you haven’t truly experienced Dreamgirls until you’ve seen it with enough LSD in your system to kill every last hippie in San Francisco, California.
“I have seen the future and it does not work.”
-Tagline from Zardoz
