The Untouchables: Season 1, Volume 1 (1959-1960) + The Scarface Mob (1959) – DVDs

June 20, 2007Posted in1950s, 1960s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Crime, Drama, DVD, Gangster, Television

THE UNTOUCHABLES: SEASON 1, VOLUME 1
Image B+ Sound B Extras D+
“The Empty Chair,” “Ma Barker and Her Boys,” “The George ‘Bugs’ Moran Story,” “The Jake Lingle Killings,” “Ain’t We Got Fun,” “Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll,” “Mexican Stake-Out,” “The Artichoke King,” “The Tri-State Gang,” “The Dutch Schultz Story,” “You Can’t Pick the Number,” “The Underground Railway,” “Syndicate Sanctuary,” “The Noise of Death”

THE SCARFACE MOB
***/**** Image A- Sound B Extras D+
starring Robert Stack, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Nichols, Pat Crowley
written by Paul Monash, based on the novel The Untouchables by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley
directed by Phil Karlson

by Ian Pugh I love Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables precisely for the self-consciously fictionalized varnish that curiously seems to have earned it disdain among the director’s devotees. Apart from its romantic, “pure cinema” thrills, however, its Hollywood gloss is the perfect complement to De Palma’s penchant for effortlessly transforming assaults on the body into assaults on the mind: an undercurrent of violence constantly threatens to erupt and destroy the gentle exterior of a make-believe 1930s Utopia dictated by fedoras and pinstripe suits. No such undercurrent exists in the original 1959-63 Robert Stack television series on which the 1987 film is ostensibly based–it, too, is pure romanticism, but of a sleazier, more straightforward breed. Corruption and greed are obvious and rampant in “The Untouchables”‘ world, and the violence that greets dissent is treated as an accepted fact of everyday life. Each episode of the series begins with a brief preview of the scene featuring the most gunfire (usually taking out some poor schmuck who crossed his superiors), which quickly establishes the down-and-dirty rules in play. The greatest aspect of “The Untouchables” lies in how these scenes incite both a visceral thrill and the soon-fulfilled desire to see justice served.

Shooter (2007) [Widescreen] – DVD

June 19, 2007Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image B Sound A Extras B-
starring Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Ned Beatty
screenplay by Jonathan Lemkin, based on the novel Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter
directed by Antoine Fuqua

Shootercapby Walter Chaw Think of it as the latest in the proud tradition of Walking Tall hicksploitation: a redneck Bourne Identity with a bleeding heart tacked to its sleeve by barbed chicken wire. Or, better, think of Shooter as a noble attempt to win back the Kansan-Tennesseean-Montanan wingnut demographic from the arch-conservatives who've made men buggering one another of greater concern than their farms going under and their children fighting indefensible wars declared by an impossibly wealthy aristocracy-by-coup. Sound extreme? Shooter is all this and more: a nihilistic exercise in Old Testament revenge that has more in common with such cult classics as Next of Kin than with cult classics like the suddenly-reserved-seeming Sniper. It makes no bones about its politics, assembling talking heads in the form of a venerable Red State senator (Ned Beatty) and a too-old-for-this-shit Colonel (Danny Glover, too old for this shit almost twenty years ago) to spout on endlessly about the lack of WMDs, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, and, for shits and giggles, the conspiracy behind the JFK assassination. No The Parallax View, the film mines the complex machinations of good guys being good and bad guys being bad: bad guys being politicians and military guys drunk on power and good guys being hillbilly guardsmen with access to the Internet and too many guns.

Breach (2007) [Widescreen] – DVD

June 11, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Biopic, Crime, Drama, DVD, Espionage, Thriller

***/**** Image B- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney, Dennis Haysbert
screenplay by Adam Mazer & William Rotko and Billy Ray
directed by Billy Ray

Breachcapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Breach is so good, you want it to be better; it's a tense, relentless, Alan-Pakula-in-marble chiller that sketches the schizoid ways of its real-life subject so effectively that you're eager to know more than the genre trappings can accommodate. This would be of greater cause for concern were Breach not already, as it is, much better written and light-years better directed than most of its brethren in the Washington-intrigue sub-genre. Make no mistake: it has an iron grip on the spine, and its refreshingly quiet approach eschews rapid montage for unnerving negative space. You hear every line instead of noticing the pictures, even as the pictures work overtime–and the aggregate is sweetly enthralling, if somewhat incomplete.

The Caine Mutiny (1954) [Collector’s Edition] – DVD

June 11, 2007Posted in1950s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, War

***/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray
screenplay by Stanley Roberts, based on the novel by Herman Wouk
directed by Edward Dmytryk

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover The Caine Mutiny is appallingly enjoyable. Stuffed full of two-bit psychology and capped by a hilarious pontificating monologue from José Ferrer, it shouldn't really hold you the way it does; the movie is pure bull, yet the more of it you watch, the more you want to see. Herman Wouk's Pulitzer-winning novel serves as the basis for a lovely exercise in self-righteous man-talk, and for those who can sate themselves on such things, it's a guaranteed good time. Although The Caine Mutiny is the Ur-text of the vastly inferior A Few Good Men, it's no contest: where that more recent film comes off as smug and conceited in its slam-dunk moralizing and courtroom grandstanding, this one seems rather humbly concerned with the fate of the crew of the Caine, doggedly buying into cheesy but gripping didacticism right down to the ludicrous "twist" near the finish line.

Overlord (1975) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

June 7, 2007Posted in1970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, The Criterion Collection, UK, War

***/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Brian Stirner, Davyd Harries, Nicholas Ball, Julie Neesam
written and directed by Stuart Cooper

Overlordcapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover If nothing else, Overlord has the distinction of inventing its own genre. A bold combination of fictional drama and found-footage assembly, it grimly blends the real and the imaginary to the point where you can't help but be a little affected by the actors' proximity to the real devastation of WWII. Long undistributed in North America and roundly-unseen on these shores except by those fortunate few who caught it on the late, lamented Z Channel, Overlord has acquired a cult mystique slightly disproportionate to its merit. Director Stuart Cooper and his co-scenarist Christopher Hudson only hint at the inner life of their hapless deer-in-the-headlights lead and don't quite sell the impending doom for which they so desperately reach. But make no mistake: this is a one-of-a-kind movie that should've opened new avenues for narrative filmmaking instead of dropping into the big black hole that it did.

The Bride and the Beast (1958)/The White Gorilla (1945) [Positively No Refunds Double Feature] – DVD

June 4, 2007Posted in1940s, 1950s, Adventure, Authors: Alex Jackson, DVD, Horror

THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST
***/**** Image B+ Sound B
starring Charlotte Austin, Lance Fuller, Johnny Roth, William Justine
screenplay by Edward D. Wood, Jr.
directed by Adrian Weiss

THE WHITE GORILLA
***/**** Image C+ Sound B
starring Ray Corrigan, Lorraine Miller, George J. Lewis, Francis Ford
screenplay by Jo Pagano
directed by Harry Fraser

by Alex Jackson It would be easy to dismiss The Bride and the Beast and The White Gorilla, sight unseen, as dated trash encapsulating the lamentable racist attitudes of the era in which they were produced. Both films belong to a sub-genre of pulp fiction in which great white hunters penetrate the jungles of darkest Africa and quickly conquer the continent’s great beasts, much to the awe of the childlike natives. Told directly and on the level, it’s possible for this material to have a raw, primal power–this is the stuff of myth, right? The hero slaying the dragon and bringing peace to the land. I don’t find the “White Man’s Burden” position nearly as offensive as I find films like Jungle Goddess, where the white saviour passively conquers an African civilization and then just as passively leaves it behind. Certainly, you should be able to have a romantic fiction without marginalizing an entire race of people.

Norbit (2007) [Widescreen] – DVD

June 4, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Eddie Murphy, Esoterica, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound A- Extras B-
starring Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding, Jr.
screenplay by Eddie Murphy & Charles Murphy and Jay Scherick & David Ronn
directed by Brian Robbins

by Walter Chaw I looked up George Carlin’s seven dirty words that you can’t say on television and, sure enough, there was the outline for the gags, narrative, reason for being, you name it, of Eddie Murphy’s Norbit: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Marvin the Martian-talking geek pastiche Norbit (Murphy) is an orphan abandoned on the doorstep of Golden Wonton Restaurant and Orphanage by unkind kindly Asian caricature Mr. Wong (Murphy again), who, in a moment that doesn’t feel like a joke but definitely feels full of rage, confesses that he traded his two-year-old daughter for a yak (in another, he reveals his dream to be a whaler, making him more Japanese than Chinese, but hey, a slant’s a slant). Not connected to anything like atonement or social/racial satire, Mr. Wong hovers there in the background as occasional wise commentary while Norbit loses his childhood sweetheart Kate (Thandie Newton) and marries the monstrous Rasputia (yes, Murphy). Norbit loathes fat people, Asians, women (note the two girls who really, really want to get turned out by Eddie Griffin’s pimp archetype), and black people most of all. I guess this is meant to soften the misanthropy, except it doesn’t really matter that the perpetrators of the screenplay are Murphy and his out-of-work brother Charlie–catching this coattail now after Dave Chappelle rolled up his–if the director is a white guy.

Shortbus (2006) [Unrated] – DVD

May 30, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Romance

***/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras A-
starring Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, Justin Bond
written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I put John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus on my Top Ten for 2006. This was perhaps more for intent than for execution: ’06 was a pretty lousy year for cinema, and I was just happy to see something from this continent that wasn’t completely asleep at the switch. Still, I think it’s too easy to write the movie off (as many commentators have) as pie-in-the-sky warm-fuzzies. What impressed me most about Shortbus was that its famous nudity and hardcore sex had not been severed from the rest of human experience. Mitchell may not be an aesthetic master, but he’s onto something that few of the would-be indie rebels are: that there is no separating the person from the body, and that sex is as much a social and personal experience as it is a physical one. As the social/personal body is very likely to be a morass of guilt, doubt, confusion, and fatigue, the upbeat ending suggests a covering for a core of despair.

The Twilight Samurai (2002) – DVD

May 28, 2007Posted in****/****, 2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Japan, Martial Arts, Romance

****/**** Image D Sound D Extras B
starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Rie Miyazawa, Nenji Kobayashi, Ren Osugi
screenplay by Yôji Yamada, Yoshitaka Asama, based on the story of Shuuhei Fujisawa
directed by Yôji Yamada

by Walter Chaw Unforgiven for veteran director Yôji Yamada and the jidai-geki genre of samurai pictures, The Twilight Samurai is quiet, assured, a masterpiece of contemplative understatement. Its connection to Eastwood's film is more than just cosmetic, though, more than just another "Old West" film about an aging, widowed warrior called into action for something so quaint as the honour of a woman. No, The Twilight Samurai seems an apologia for the romanticization of violence and, moreover, for the elevation of the cult of masculinity out of the mud of bestial muck–where it at least in some measure belongs–and into realms of ritualistic divinity. There's a scene in The Twilight Samurai more powerful than its commensurate moment in Unforgiven that emphasizes this point as unassuming hero Seibei (Hiroyuki Sanada), without comment, steps over the flyblown corpse of a rival assassin in silent pursuit of his own quarry. The romance of end-of-era pictures like this (and literature as well; The Twilight Samurai and Unforgiven heavily remind of Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing) is that they can be pulled into a discussion of the passing away of youth as a man goes from early manhood's heady intoxication with the concept of chivalry to the more sober appreciation that true grit comes with providing constancy for your children in a world forever tilting towards alien territory. Though Seibei's nickname, "Tasogare" ("Twilight"), is a jab at his rushing home after clerk-work to tend to his demented mother and two young daughters, there's poetry in it as a description of a liminal magic hour where change looks not only more possible, but weighted with a lovely, gilded melancholy besides.

Comedy of Power (2006) – DVD

May 23, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, France, Germany

L'Ivresse du pouvoir
**/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Isabelle Huppert, François Berléand, Patrick Bruel, Robin Renucci
screenplay by Odile Barski and Claude Chabrol
directed by Claude Chabrol

Comedyofpowercapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Things were going great. Two Claude Chabrols (The Bridesmaid and Violette Nozière) had made their way into my FFC goodie bag, both of them entirely worthy entries in his oeuvre. Maybe they aren't masterpieces, but they're nonetheless solid pieces of filmmaking that don't disappoint. So when Comedy of Power (L'Ivresse du pouvoir) arrived on my doorstep, I clasped it to my chest just knowing that the third time's a charm. Alas, no. Turns out the movie is the most routine Chabrol I can remember: smug, lacking in ambiguity, and possessed of some of the feeblest writing in the director's career. It's an obvious movie by the master of misdirection, a blunt knee to the groin by someone you can usually count on to go for the throat. Even as satire, it's nothing you couldn't get any day from Jon Stewart (with twice the panache and funny to boot).

The Bridesmaid (2004) – DVD

May 22, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, France, Germany, Italy, Romance, Thriller

La Demoiselle d'honneur
***/**** Image C+ Sound B- Extras A-
starring Benoît Magimel, Laura Smet, Aurore Clément, Bernard Le Coq
screenplay by Pierre Leccia and Claude Chabrol, based on the novel by Ruth Rendell
directed by Claude Chabrol

Bridesmaidcapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Comparisons of The Bridesmaid (La Demoiselle d'honneur) to Hitchcock are almost inevitable, not only because such assessments are the lazy default position of critics when referencing suspense yarns, but also because The Bridesmaid's director, Claude Chabrol, has carved out a career as the French heir apparent to the master's title. That said, the distinctions between the two filmmakers are probably more interesting than the similarities: Chabrol's overall style is considerably more relaxed than Hitchcock's, and his approach to character is finally less judgmental. Here, for instance, in lieu of assigning blame to the damaged femme fatale of the title, he notes the thrilling nature of her transgression and the unappetizing prospect of returning to normalcy after succumbing to her lethal charms. Chabrol has always put women in the driver's seat of perversity and sexual wilfulness–something Hitch never quite had either the guts or the sympathy to pull off.

Violette (1978) – DVD

May 21, 2007Posted in1970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Crime, Drama, DVD, France, Thriller

Violette Nozière
***/**** Image C- Sound C+
starring Isabelle Huppert, Stephane Audran, Jean Carmet, Jean-François Garreaud
screenplay by Odile Barski, Herve Bromberger, Frederic Grendel, based on the novel Presses de la Cité by Jean-Marie Fitere
directed by Claude Chabrol

Violettecapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Violette Nozière (or Violette, as inexplicably shortened by some cretinous American distributor) isn't highly ranked in the canon of Claude Chabrol. Reviews range from the mildly indulgent to Leonard Maltin's assertion that "Chabrol lacks his usual directorial flair"–a strange thing to say about a man whose style is famously relaxed. While I wouldn't place it in the company of Les bonnes femmes or La femme infidèle, I would say that Violette Nozière returns Chabrol to his preoccupations with women and class with lethal accuracy. Its tale of an amoral 14-year-old who robs, sleeps around, and attempts to murder both of her parents is perceptively half-in, half-out of her desire to escape the confines of a small world and a smaller bankroll. The protagonist is completely horrible, and yet we're just as completely trapped in her point-of-view. The film's total commitment to her awful behaviour subsequently makes the audience both judge of and accomplice to Violette's terrible, terrible misdeeds.

The Painted Veil (2006) – DVD; The Good Shepherd (2006); The Good German (2006) – DVD

May 21, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, China, Directors: Steven Soderbergh, Drama, DVD, Espionage, Mystery, Robert De Niro, Romance, Thriller, War

THE PAINTED VEIL
***/**** Image B- Sound A-
starring Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Diana Rigg
screenplay by Ron Nyswaner, based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham
directed by John Curran

THE GOOD SHEPHERD
**/****
starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, Alec Baldwin
screenplay by Eric Roth
directed by Robert De Niro

THE GOOD GERMAN
*½/**** Image A Sound A-
starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Jack Thompson
screenplay by Paul Attanasio, based on the novel by Joseph Kanon
directed by Steven Soderbergh

by Walter Chaw PaintedgermanshepherdOne of seemingly dozens of pretentious, self-produced vanity pieces from the Edward Norton grist mill, The Painted Veil, John Curran's adaptation of Somerset Maugham's story of colonial malaise, is a pleasant surprise. Naomi Watts and Toby Jones are fabulous (and Norton is steady); it's not terribly paternalistically racist despite being another Western film in which white people exert their magical influence in foreign lands; and even though it's all about prestige and hedonism, it manages now and again to actually be about prestige and hedonism. But like the simultaneously-opening Soderbergh noir The Good German, it's mostly interesting in the meta. What keeps this updating of the old Greta Garbo weeper from being literally better is the lack of immediacy in its tale of emotionally distant scientists and their flapper wives, adrift in the boiler pot of 1920s Shanghai. Not timeless in its remove but instead ineffably dated by it, it's an Old Hollywood production in both epic scale and lack of subtext, making the picture a lovely trifle not unlike other well-done bits of instantly-forgotten prestige (see: Philip Noyce's The Quiet American).

Tom Goes to the Mayor: The Complete Series (2004-2006) [Businessman’s Edition] + Anything But Love: Volume One (1989-1990) – DVDs

May 15, 2007Posted in1990s, 2000s, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Esoterica, Romance, Television

TOM GOES TO THE MAYOR: THE COMPLETE SERIES
Image A- Sound A- Extras A-
"Bear Traps," "WW Laserz," "Pioneer Island," "Toodle Day," "Rats Off to Ya!," "Porcelain Birds," "Vehicular Manslaughter," "Boy Meets Mayor," "Calcucorn," "Gibbons," "Pipe Camp," "Re-Birth," "Vice Mayor," "My Big Cups," "Bass Fest," "Jeffy the Sea Serpent," "White Collarless," "Wrestling," "Saxman," "Spray a Carpet or Rug," "Surprise Party," "CNE," "Friendship Alliance," "Zoo Trouble," "The Layover," "Couples Therapy," "Glass Eyes," "Undercover," "Puddins," "Joy's Ex"

ANYTHING BUT LOVE: VOLUME ONE
Image C Sound B Extras D
"Fear of Flying," "Deadline," "Burning the Toad (The Jack Story)," "Love and Death," "Dorothy Dearest," "This is Not a Date," "Ch-Ch-Changes," "Those Lips, Those Thais," "It's My Party and I'll Schvitz If I Want To," "Scared Straight," "Mr. Mom," "Just the Facts, Ma'am," "Bang, You're Dead," "Truth or Consequences," "It's Better to Have Loved and Flossed," "Hearts and Bones," "Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," "Breast of Friends," "Hotel of the Damned," "All About Allison," "Proof It All Night," "Three Men on a Match," "Partying is Such Sweet Sorrow," "The Ice Woman Cometh," "Hooray for Hollywood," "Robin Q. Public," "The Days of Whine and Haroses," "Thirty… Something"

by Ian Pugh Equal parts hilarious and repellent, "Tom Goes to the Mayor" boasts an intentionally ugly aesthetic typified by characters who consist of static, colour-drained photographs of their performers sent through Photoshop's "photocopy" function, their "animation" being the occasional change in pictures to depict a new facial expression. Frequently interrupting are live-action interstitials, usually mock commercials for restaurants or gift shops from a local cable network full of blurry star-wipes and awkwardly-superimposed titles. The show's devotion to these stylistic grotesqueries is not burdened by complex plots, its basic formula boiling down to the title itself: naïve doormat Tom Peters (co-creator Tim Heidecker) comes up with an idea to improve the tiny community of Jefferton only to be blamed for the disasters that occur when he submits his plans to the indifferent, self-absorbed mayor (co-creator Eric Wareheim). Of course, Tom's ideas are routinely terrible on their own (as evidenced by the moronic T-shirt slogans (1.5, "Rats Off to Ya!") and non-functioning toy calculators (1.9, "Calcucorn")), a fact which completes a trinity of exploration into an arena right alongside Saturday morning cartoons (recalling cheapo anti-animation fare like "Clutch Cargo" and "The Marvel Superheroes") and public-access television, where quality control is impertinent. Between Jefferton's overload of obnoxious tchotchkes and its smorgasbord of disgusting food platters, "Tom Goes to the Mayor" is uniformly disturbing and sometimes nauseating. In other words, it succeeds spectacularly.

The Messengers (2007) – DVD

May 14, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett
screenplay by Mark Wheaton
directed by Danny Pang & Oxide Pang

Messengerscapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Horror is not my area of expertise, but I'm fairly certain that The Messengers barely qualifies for the category. A two-bit riff on Ju-On and The Sixth Sense (themselves worth four bits at best), it's professionally shot and cleanly designed but fails completely to be at all scary or even marginally resonant. Those who recognize and revere the social relevance of genre entries from the '70s will be tearing their hair out at the film's hermetic sealing-away from anything beyond teen angst, with references to no less than the high foreclosure rate in farm country used purely as a plot convenience. (Inexcusable when you consider what sort of eldritch imagery might be wrung from a devastated agricultural wasteland.) What you get from The Messengers are some by-the-book jump-scares, "creepy" imagery that wouldn't damage the average eight-year-old, and a "surprise" ending that any thinking adult will see coming from miles away.

Major League (1989) [Wild Thing Edition] – DVD

May 9, 2007Posted in1980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Sports

**/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras C
starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen, Bob Uecker
written and directed by David S. Ward

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Major League doesn't have clichés, it is clichés. The film is a collection of sports- and slob-comedy riffs designed for maximum familiarity and a minimum of creative fat. What you see is what you get–and if you don't like what you see, there are legions of sports fans behind you who will, and have, to the extent of justifying a "Wild Thing Edition" DVD covered in Astroturf. Of course, sometimes we don't want anything beyond obvious underdogs obviously set up to obvious victory, and if you're in the mood for such faits accomplis then you could do a lot worse than to suckle at this comforting cinematic teat. But for the most part, lovers of cinema are warned to not get their hopes too high, while fans of crackling dialogue are advised to seek their kicks elsewhere.

To Catch a Thief (1955) [Special Collector’s Edition] – DVD

May 8, 2007Posted in1950s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Alfred Hitchcock, DVD, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

Tocatchathief

**/**** Image A- Sound B Extras C
starring Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams
screenplay by John Michael Hayes, based on the book by David Dodge
directed by Alfred Hitchcock

by Walter Chaw If Rear Window is Hitchcock's "testament" movie to that point in 1954 (post-North by Northwest, the term no longer has much meaning), then To Catch a Thief, appearing just a year later, recovers the only element missing from Hitchcock's black chest in Rear Window's exhausting exhumation: homosexuality. Note the way that Cary Grant's cat burglar John Robie is greeted by a former accomplice in scenic Nice: as Grant descends a staircase to an outdoor café run by all the reformed dregs of society once involved with Robie and now resentful that Robie appears to be back on the prowl, the head waiter pops a champagne cork in the first of several ejaculatory similes. I do wonder whether the entire film could in fact be read as a gay "reclamation"–its most famous sequence, the juxtaposition of the central seduction sequence with fireworks over Cannes, begins with Robie being teased for his asexuality, recalling an earlier flirtation with rival Danielle (Brigitte Auber) that ends with Robie asking her to cover her legs. More blatantly, Robie is approached by a muscle stud on the beach as Grace Kelly lounges in the background; and when offered on a picnic the choice between a "breast or a leg," Robie demurs, "You make the choice." Clever double entendres, no question, but what exactly is the second "understanding" that we come to in this series of innuendos? Moreover, what to make of the mother figure, reappearing at key erotic moments in body or direct reference (indeed, Kelly's Frances accuses Robie of thinking of her mother during their first kiss) and comprising the punchline of the picture as Frances threatens to make them a household of three (a literal "ménage a trios"–particularly given the film's setting). That kind of mother-love doesn't reach its apotheosis until Psycho five years hence, but there's something along the way to Hitch's complex Oedipal materphobia that suggests here a certain Freudian gay arrest.

You Are Alone (2007) – DVD

May 4, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD

*½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B-
starring Jessica Bohl, Richard Brundage
written and directed by Gorman Bechard

Youarealonecapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Sometimes skill doesn't count for much. Coming in the next issue of iViews is a review of Mike Reilly's Road to Victory, which by most technical standards qualifies as inept but still manages to get by on a raw rage that can't possibly be faked. Its commitment to its subject matter is so complete that it (sort of) makes up for a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium. You Are Alone is an altogether different beast: it's reasonably well-shot (by DV indie standards), has a decent understanding of structure and foreshadowing, is consciously plugged into its subject matter–and through sheer force of prurience turns all of those plusses into a big minus. I have no idea what brought writer-director Gorman Bechard to the subject of a teenage prostitute and her next-door neighbour, but the end product is less compassionate than creepy and certainly less insightful than risible by the time of its wannabe-shock climax.

Pulp (1972) – DVD

May 3, 2007Posted in1970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Thriller, UK

**/**** Image C+ Sound B
starring Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lionel Stander, Lizabeth Scott
written and directed by Mike Hodges

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Pulp is so determined to not work on any level that you almost admire it in light of the effort. It's neither a parody of nor a tribute to the pulp genre, neither comedy-thriller nor thrilling comedy–it's just a freak that repeatedly falls flat on its face, leaving you with no choice but to grasp it close like an idiot child. The first time I saw this film, I was mostly annoyed by its determination to short-circuit the fun that might have come from genre trappings, not to mention its refusal to offer genuine alternatives. With a second viewing, it looks a little better, and though not a success, it earned my admiration for being so far out of its depth that a bit of pleasure at its expense was unavoidable. It may have earned an extra half-star were it not also sexist and homophobic in dated ways that have risen to the surface like yeast.

Frankenstein Unbound (1990) – DVD

May 3, 2007Posted in1990s, Authors: Alex Jackson, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi

Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound
**/**** Image A- Sound A
starring John Hurt, Raul Julia, Bridget Fonda, Catherine Rabett
screenplay by Roger Corman and F.X. Feeney, based on the novel by Brian Aldiss
directed by Roger Corman

Frankensteinunboundcap

by Alex Jackson Dr. John Buchanan (John Hurt) is a brilliant scientist in New Los Angeles, circa 2031. One of his experiments fractures the space-time continuum, sucking him into nineteenth-century Geneva, where he meets Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia), who's busy conducting a few experiments of his own. In the meantime, the Frankenstein maid is on trial for the murder of Victor's brother. Nobody knows how she did it, though they figure it's witchcraft. Because he read the book (Frankenstein, of course), Buchanan knows that Frankenstein's monster (Nick Brimble) is the true culprit. Frankenstein is refusing to admit to his failed experiment, however, and would rather allow this girl to die than confront his crimes against God. Exasperated, Buchanan goes to Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda) for help. As for the monster, he's terrorizing Frankenstein and insisting that the scientist create him a female companion.