Oh glorious day, Only Lovers Left Alive is out today for your home viewing pleasure. What a fantastic film this is!
The great Jim Jarmusch reminds us that vampires are, after all, quite grown up and cool. His casting helps. A wonderful Tilda Swinton joins Tom Hiddleston (not too shabby himself) as Eve and Adam, vampires hanging around Detroit. Only Lovers Left Alive is a well thought-out film, a unique twist on the old tale, filled with dry humor, exquisite visuals, and wonderful performances.
And while you’d be wise to chase that with any Jim Jarmusch film, if we have to pick a favorite, it would be 1999’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. This hypnotic urban poem on masculinity, violence and wisdom may be Jarmusch’s most likeable picture – as funny and dark as anything Tarantino has ever filmed, but with a surreal, dreamlike quality and a soul full of integrity. It’s a work of art, perhaps Jarmusch’s masterpiece.
French horror films are not for the squeamish. Hell, even Belgian and Canadian horror seems affected by the French flair for bloodshed and discomfort – the Grand Guignol, as they might say. And those crazy frogs may be making the very best in the genre right now. In celebration of this week’s live Fright Club, the brilliant and horrifying Calvaire (in 35 mm!), we count down the other 5 best French language horror films.
5. Sheitan (2006)
The fantastic Vincent Cassel stars as the weirdest handyman ever, spending a decadent Christmas weekend with a rag tag assortment of nightclub refugees. After Bart (Olivier Barthelemy) is tossed from the club, his mates and the girls they’re flirting with head out to spend the weekend at Eve’s (a not shy Rosane Mesquida). Way out in rural France, they meet Eve’s handyman, his very pregnant wife, and a village full of borderline freaks. The film is savagely uncomfortable and refreshingly unusual. Cassel’s performance is a work of lunatic genius, and his film is never less than memorable.
4. Martyrs (2008)
This import plays like three separate films: orphanage ghost story, suburban revenge fantasy, and medical experimentation horror. The first 2 fit together better than the last, but the whole is a brutal tale that is hard to watch, hard to turn away from, and worth the effort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbct9qWBSME
3. Irreversible (2002)
Gaspar Noe is perhaps the most notorious French filmmaker working in the genre, and Irreversible is his most notorious effort. Filmed in reverse chronological order and featuring two famously brutal sequences, Noe succeeds in both punishing his viewers, and reminding them of life’s simple beauty. There’s no denying the intelligence of the script, the aptitude of the director, or the absolute brilliance of Monica Bellucci in an incredibly demanding role.
2. Them (2006)
Brisk, effective and terrifying, Them is among the most impressive horror flicks to rely on the savagery of adolescent boredom as its central conceit. Writers/directors/Frenchmen David Moreau and Xavier Palud offer a lean, unapologetic, tightly conceived thriller that never lets up. Creepy noises, hooded figures, sadistic children and the chaos that entails – Them sets up a fresh and mean cat and mouse game that pulls you in immediately and leaves you unsettled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Djvi1-k0s
1. Inside (2007)
Holy shit. Sarah lost her husband in a car crash some months back, and now, on the eve of Christmas, she sits, enormous, uncomfortable, and melancholy about the whole business. Were this an American film, the tale may end shortly after Sarah’s Christmas Eve peril makes the expectant mom realize just how much she loves, wants, and seeks to protect her unborn baby. But French horror films are different. This is study in tension wherein one woman will do whatever it takes, with whatever utensils are available, to get at the baby still firmly inside another woman’s body.
Give writer/director Jorge Michel Grau credit, he took a fresh approach to the cannibalism film. His Spanish language picture lives in a drab underworld of poverty teeming with disposable populations and those who consume flesh, figuratively and literally.
In a quiet opening sequence, a man dies in a mall. It happens that this is a family patriarch and his passing leaves the desperately poor family in shambles. While their particular quandary veers spectacularly from expectations, there is something primal and authentic about it.
It’s as if a simple relic from a hunter-gatherer population evolved separately but within the larger urban population, and now this little tribe is left without a leader. An internal power struggle begins to determine the member most suited to take over as the head of the household, and therefore, there is some conflict and competition – however reluctant – over who will handle the principal task of the patriarch: that of putting meat on the table.
We’re never privy to the particulars – again giving the whole affair a feel of authenticity – but adding to the family’s crisis is the impending Ritual, which apparently involves a deadline and some specific meat preparations.
Grau’s approach is so subtle, so honest, that it’s easy to forget you’re watching a horror film. Indeed, were this family fighting to survive on a more traditional level, this film would simply be a fine piece of social realism focused on Mexico City’s enormous population in poverty. But it’s more than that. Sure, the cannibalism is simply an extreme metaphor, but it’s so beautifully thought out and executed!
The family dynamic is fascinating, every glance weighted and meaningful, every closed door significant. Grau draws eerie, powerful performances across the board, and forever veers in unexpected directions.
We Are What We Are is among the finest family dramas or social commentaries of 2010. Blend into that drama some deep perversity, spooky ambiguities and mysteries, deftly handled acting, and a lot of freaky shit and you have hardly the goriest film ever made about cannibals, but perhaps the most relevant.
Hollywood is captivated by bank robbers: John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Patty Hearst, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid…
And John Wojtowicz, aka the Dog.
Not familiar? He’s the inspiration for the 1975 Al Pacino movie Dog Day Afternoon.
The Gateway Film Center is showing the latest of three documentaries on Wojtowicz, The Dog, starting Friday, August 22nd—the 42nd anniversary of the day Wojtowicz robbed a Chase Manhattan bank in order to finance his partner’s sex change operation.
The documentary offers the perspective of the progressively ailing Wojtowicz as well as those of his “wives” (both female and male), mother, eye witnesses, hostages, reporters, and gay rights activists. Directors Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren position Wojtowicz in the context of the burgeoning gay liberation movement, reminding the viewer how eye-opening this event was to many of the television viewers and local bystanders who watched the robbery and subsequent hostage negotiation unfold live. The Stonewall Riots had only happened three years previously.
Wojtowicz gave a good performance during the robbery—threating to beat up police for calling him a faggot, visiting with his adoring mother, having pizza delivered to the bank, throwing thousands of dollars out of the door, and French kissing a man at the bank threshold while still holding hostages. Wojtowicz was primed for theatricality; he went to a screening of The Godfather to psych himself up for the robbery.
And Wojtowicz, gives a good performance here. He describes himself both as a “romantic” and a “pervert” and narrates events leading up to the robbery and his life in its aftermath with a jovial demeanor that often jars with his subject matter. Several times I had to blink and process what just happened. (Is he narrating a butcher knife suicide attempt while smiling and wearing a puffer coat? Did he just offer a blowjob to a walrus?)
Berg and Keraudren leave it up to the audience to form their own conclusions about Wojtowicz. Romantic, willing to face prison to make his partner’s dream come true, as he maintains? Controlling, chauvinistic, sex addict, as interviews with his partners make it seem? A man clinging to his 15 minutes of fame? An ex-con with limited options, making a buck off the crime that prevents him from following his preferred career path in finance?
His story is indeed captivating and probably worth giving him another 15 minutes of fame.
I don’t know how productive you’ve been this week, but Woody Allen finished three more screenplays before lunchtime on Tuesday.
The man just keeps cranking them out, which is good, because the sooner there’s another charmer like Midnight in Paris, the sooner we can just forgive the dud that is Magic in the Moonlight.
Allen continues the world traveling we’ve seen in his recent scripts, setting the latest in France near the end of the roaring twenties.
Master illusionist Stanley (Colin Firth) has agreed to help his old friend and fellow magician Howard (Simon McBurney) in the quest to expose a scam artist. A young cutie named Sophie (Emma Stone) has been passing herself off as a clairvoyant, completely captivating a rich American family living on the French Riviera.
It seems Howard has observed Sophie’s “gift” in action, and hasn’t been able to pick up on the tricks she’s employing, but Stanley, full of smug conceit, is confident he’ll expose her in no time.
The rest goes pretty much as you’d expect, which would be fine if the film delivered even a hint of what the title promises. There’s no magic here, regardless of how hard Stone and Firth try to muster it.
It’s more contrived than charming, more forced than fun. Character development is kept to the bare minimum, apparently to leave more room for banter that snaps loud and says very little.
Throughout his storied career, Allen has often played with different genres and styles of filmmaking, and even when the results fall short, the ambition is commendable. Magic in the Moonlight is his attempt to marry the wit of Noel Coward with the inspiration of George Bernard Shaw.
OK, worthy idea, but the result feels like he lost interest half way though.
This week offers several excellent options for your queue, but the best among them is Locke. So let’s all get geeked for the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road by taking in a couple of flicks from one of this generation’s most explosive, most talented actors, Tom Hardy.
A masterpiece of utter simplicity, Locke tags along on a solo road trip, the film’s entirety showcasing just one actor (the incomparable Hardy), alone in a car, handling three different crises on his mobile while driving toward his destiny. It may sound dull, and it certainly can be challenging, but it may just restore your faith in independent filmmaking.
While you’re queuing up, look for the film that best encapsulates the ferocious talent that is Tom Hardy, Bronson. Director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) chose a path of blatant, often absurd theatricality to tell the tale of Britain’s most violent, most expensive inmate. In Hardy’s bruised and bloodied hands, Bronson can be terrifying and endearing inside the same moment. Hardy finds a way to explore the character’s single minded violence, pinpointing the rare moments of true ugliness. The rest is just a guy beating his chest against his own limitations. But when this guy beats his chest, it’s usually with the bloodied stump of what was once a security guard or four.
The shocking news of Robin Williams’s sad death brought back a flood of memories for the countless fans he entertained since the 1970s.
Most anyone you stopped on the street would have no trouble rattling off some of their favorites: Mork, Garp, Good Morning, Vietnam, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Birdcage, Aladdin, Dead Poets Society, the Oscar-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, the list goes on and on.
From movies to TV to standup to epic talk show appearances, Williams was such a unique, versatile talent that his absence just doesn’t seem possible.
He’s always been there, hasn’t he?
In a resume littered with hits (and, like any performer, some big misses), here are some highlights you may have missed:
The Face of Love (2013)
Williams plays a lonely widowed neighbor with a crush. Annette Bening is the object of his admiration, but she’s gotten herself into an odd relationship with Ed Harris. Though the writing isn’t strong, Williams and his veteran co-stars offer wonderful performances.
The Night Listener (2006)
Inspired by a true story, Williams is riveting as a radio host who becomes intrigued by the story of a young fan, only to find himself caught in a dangerous game of deception.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-GUf9lLD4o
One Hour Photo (2002)
Speaking of dangerous, Williams gives a haunting performance as a lonely photo lab employee who becomes obsessed with a family that frequents his store.
Insomnia (2002)
2002 was the year Williams went dark. In this smart, tense thriller from director Christopher Nolan, Williams goes head to head with Al Pacino as a murderer drawing a famous cop into a cat and mouse game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OY5J11CWrE
The Fisher King (1991)
Williams’s zany brilliance is fully realized in director Terry Gilliam’s eccentric story of a suicidal man (Jeff Bridges) trying to atone for a mistake that forever altered the life of a homeless man (Williams).
Peanut butter & jelly. Chips and salsa. Sharks and baseball. Some things just go together. Yep, it’s the second week of August,and that means two things: the Little League World Series and Shark Week. It’s our favorite time of Cable TV year, and we’re celebrating with some equally Cable-ready flicks of a similar flavor.
Super Shark (2011)
Eventually, the best of the worst mutant animal films leap not from the big screen, but from SciFi network, and few things leap as well as a Super Shark! John Schneider tarnishes his reputation (yep, it’s that bad) in a film that pits a flying, hopping shark against a tank with legs. It kicks the shark. That’s worth seeing.
The Sandlot (1993)
“You’re killin’ me, Smalls!”
Okay, so young Scotty Smalls isn’t exactly a little league phenom, but when he moves to a new neighborhood, the local baseball star takes Scotty under his wing. Soon, he’s learning the game, enjoying plenty of teen adventures, and fearing the huge baseball-eating dog that lives behind their sandlot field. It feels like a summer version of A Christmas Story, but director/co-writer David M. Evans delivers a sweet, entertaining slice of nostalgia, especially for anyone who grew up playing sandlot sports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QDq-e1GbjE
Sharktopus (2010)
This is the one film on the countdown most likely to quench the thirst left by Sharknado. Roger Corman – the producer responsible for most of the films on SciFi, and quite possibly most of the worst films ever made – gave us this epic tale of a killing machine that’s half great white, half giant octopus. It’s enormous, unrealistic, and it brings an insatiable hunger for bad actors.
Sugar (2008)
Filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) offer an insightful tale about Dominicans chasing their dreams of playing Major League baseball and, in the process, deliver a quietly powerful take on immigration.
Open Water (2003)
Chris Kentis’s 2003 foray into terror is unerringly realistic and, therefore, deeply disturbing. It is easily the only excellent shark film since Jaws. From the true events that inspired it to one unreasonably recognizable married couple, from superbly accurate dialog to actual sharks, Open Water’s greatest strength is its unsettling authenticity. Writer, director, cinematographer and editor, Kentis clarifies his conception for this relentless film, and it is devastating.
The Bad News Bears (1976)
Buttermaker, Lupus, Tanner, Englepuke – aah, they’re all priceless. The least politically correct baseball film on this list, perhaps ever made, is a kids’ movie. It needs to go in a time capsule. Dozens of films from The Mighty Ducks to Hardball – plus two sequels and one reboot – have followed and failed because they can’t leave the redemption angle alone. What’s genius about this movie is that the level of redemption is not one spark grander than is absolutely necessary. And it manages to be the ultimate underdog kids’ baseball movie without ever being cute.
“He can make me dig this stupid hole, but he can’t make me pray.”
Aah, adolescence. We all bristle against our dads’ sense of morality and discipline, right? Well, some have a tougher time of it than others.
Back in 1980, Bill “We’re toast! Game over!” Paxton directed the short music video Fish Heads. Triumph enough, you say? Correct. But in 2001 he took a stab at directing the quietly disturbing supernatural thriller Frailty, with equally excellent results.
Paxton stars as a widowed, bucolic country dad awakened one night by an angel – or a bright light shining off the angel on top of a trophy on his ramshackle bedroom bookcase. Whichever – he understands now that he and his sons have been called by God to kill demons.
Whatever its flaws – too languid a pace, too trite an image of idyllic country life, Powers Boothe – Frailty manages to subvert every horror film expectation by playing right into them. We’re led through the saga of the serial killer God’s Hand by a troubled young man (Matthew McConaughey), who, with eerie quiet and reflection, recounts his childhood with Paxton’s character as a father.
Dread mounts as Paxton drags out the ambiguity over whether this man is insane, and his therefore good-hearted but wrong-headed behavior profoundly damaging his boys. Or could he really be chosen, and his sons likewise marked by God?
Brent Hanley’s sly screenplay evokes such nostalgic familiarity – down to a Dukes of Hazzard reference – and Paxton’s direction makes you feel entirely comfortable in these common surroundings. Then the two of them upend everything – repeatedly – until it’s as if they’ve challenged your expectations, biases, and your own childhood to boot.
Paxton crafts a morbidly compelling tale free from irony, sarcasm, or judgment and full of darkly sympathetic characters. It’s a surprisingly strong feature directorial debut from a guy who once played a giant talking turd.
OK, not much gray area in that title, but it does sound fun.
It could have been, but producer Michael Bay and director Jonathan Liebesman can’t find a balance between Saturday morning sensibilities and adult superhero action.
There’s a serious origin story, as we see how the four massive turtles (and their wise sensai, a rat) come to live under the streets of New York City, battling a crime syndicate known as the Foot Clan.
Young TV reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) catches a glimpse of the secretive vigilantes in action, and instantly knows that unmasking them is the big story that will propel her career.
The turtles themselves still love pizza and make wisecracks, but these moments of silliness and self-aware humor seem meant for a different film. The plot that surrounds the young ninjas is full of cartoon obviousness played overly straight, with no hint of the tongue-in-cheek attitude it sorely needs.
In short, where’s the fun? The tech-savvy, 3D action sequences may be big and loud, but they’re also dull, confusing and instantly forgettable. It isn’t long before this film feels too long.
The idea of a big-budget TMNT reboot works, both on a nostalgia level and as a business model aimed at today’s kids.
Maybe it should have stayed an idea, because it lands on the big screen with a big, green, slimy thud.
