Pulling a Heist with Martine

THE BANK JOB is a terrific entertainment, a heist movie that makes no bones about what it wants to do and pulls it off extremely well. Maintaining an expert consistency of tone throughout, it pulls off being smart, funny, suspenseful and exciting. It never falls into the trap of being overly convoluted like these things become sometimes and yet the crisp quality of its storytelling never allows it to fall into dumb-dumb land. It’s tough to tell how these things are going to last sometimes but I walked out of it totally satisfied. While it may not be much of a thing to say in March, right now it’s the best film I’ve seen so far in 2008.

With a plot inspired by an actual occurrence in London in 1971, Jason Statham plays Terry Leather, a small-time bookie and car dealer in desperate need of money to pay off some mobsters coming after him. Approached by ex-girlfriend Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) with a unique idea for a bank heist, he brings in several mates who are also on a small-time level to work the job with them. What none of the men are aware of is that she has recently been arrested by Mi5 on a drug charge and the whole thing is merely a plot she has been roped into engineering to recover what are believed to be incriminating sex photos of a member of the Royal Family.


Like it should, THE BANK JOB assembles its pieces in an appropriate amount of time then moves on to the heist and never looks back. The setup has an obvious resemblance to SMALL TIME CROOKS, but even when things get mildly funny it’s never enough to rob it of its credibility so it’s not too much of a shift in tone when things become more serious in its second half. Filled with unique and interesting characters, it’s more of a thriller than an action movie and remains gripping throughout, never becoming dull. I can believe there’s a few heist movie fans out there who have been waiting for one that pulls it off as well as this one does. The early seventies-setting, pulled off in a matter-of-fact fashion, manages to be convincing yet never overwhelms the story.


Jason Statham is excellent in the lead and while it’s not really a Statham vehicle like the TRANSPORTER movies, he’s ideal as the leader of this group and proves that he’s one of a few really believable tough guys working today. I know I’ve seen Saffron Burrows in something before, not that I can remember offhand what it is, but she’s never made an impression on me before like she does here. Beautiful, enigmatic, she resembles Charlotte Rampling but very much has her own things going on. As the wonderfully-named Martine Love (actually, there are a lot of really good character names throughout) she’s a femme fatale who isn’t fully bad, she’s just scared and fearful of her own precarious situation. It’s a tricky character and one that another movie would possibly insist on shading her as the bad girl, but THE BANK JOB knows that there’s more to its cast of characters than by making things so simple. The whole film is excellently cast down to its smallest roles, with some of the other standouts being Daniel Mays as Dave Shilling, the member of the group who has dabbled in porn acting, Keeley Hawes as Statham’s wife, whose resemblance to Susan George makes her ideal casting for the period and David Suchet as the porn kingpin the gang manages to unwisely cross.

THE BANK JOB sets up what it wants to do and sticks with it, refreshingly treating its audience with intelligence and never succumbing to a dumb action climax simply because that’s what is expected these days. That’s not to say it’s not exciting—the way the tension ratchets up as the characters get deeper and deeper works very well and is not boring for a second. It’s easily director Roger Donaldson’s best film since NO WAY OUT back in 1987. How it holds up over time is something I’ll have to wait to find out. For now, it’s very much an extremely entertaining genre piece. We should always be so lucky.

Pay the Two Dollars

I can remember realizing one day that screenwriter Peter Stone was responsible for both CHARADE and THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE and, my head spinning from that realization the the same person was responsible for such dialogue and plotting, I thought about the possibility of maybe contacting the man. I could tell him what a fan I was of his work, of his place in film history and maybe in conversation I could learn a little about how he did what he did, maybe pick his brain a little. I think there was a brief period around 2000 where this was actually possible through certain people I knew but I never took advantage of that opening, to my everlasting regret. He died in 2003.

These thoughts ran through my mind while watching THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE at the Aero on Thursday night. Last fall I wrote a lengthy tirade against the impending remake and maybe part of the reason I went was not just to enjoy the rare occurrence of seeing it in a theater again but maybe to savor that one last time when I wouldn’t have to refer to it as the ‘the original’. The lousy remake for ABC in ’98 couldn’t accomplish that but there’s nothing I’ll be able to do against the firepower of Tony Scott and Denzel Washington. Nobody’ll be able to hear me over all that noise. So for this one final time I could go to a theater, thanks to the American Cinematheque, and experience the 1974 classic as simply PELHAM ONE TWO THREE.


And I got Hector Elizondo, alias Mr. Gray, alias Joe Welcome, in person for a Q & A after the movie (surprisingly, the evening at the Aero was not directed by Garry Marshall). No great revelations emerged from the talk—he talked about how most of the film was shot in an abandoned subway station in Brooklyn, how intimidating the intelligence of Robert Shaw was, that they played ping pong during down time on the set, pointed out the total lack of graffiti on the trains in the movie per Transit Authority insistence (hijacking and murder was, presumably, acceptable). Elizondo seemed most engaged when asked specific questions about his approach to his craft, from saying how he had to approach Mr. Grey as a person with no scruples whatsoever to talking about some of his extensive stage work in New York back in the 60s and 70s. While he obviously looks back fondly on those days in New York, he’s of course better known now for roles in many, many Garry Marshall films and while allowing that he misses New York he mused, “Not liking L.A. is like not liking ice cream.” If he didn’t get that line from Marshall, maybe it’s at least it’s a good indication of why they get along so well.


A fitting thought considering the Santa Monica location we were viewing PELHAM in was as far removed from the New York 70s as you can get. It may not be one of the best movies of 1974, or of the 70s overall, but it is one of the most enjoyable. It feels like it simply nails the tone of what that New York was just at the cusp of my conscious memory, a place which is now far in the past. It nails the attitude, it nails the sarcasm. Matthau is incredible but so for that matter is the entire cast, down to the smallest roles. And the most dynamic, propulsive parts of David Shire music are some of my very favorite moments in all of film scoring.

I don’t want to hear about the remake. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to acknowledge it. And since this is my blog, not a goddamn democracy, to steal a line from Deputy Mayor Warren LaSalle, that’s the way it’s going to be. It’s the least I can do for Peter Stone and the inspiration he’s provided me.

“Screw the goddamn passengers! What the hell do they expect for their lousy 35 cents, to live forever?”

Fifty Bucks Never Killed Anybody

Over on Ken Levine’s excellent blog he recently posted a review of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN written by BACK TO THE FUTURE co-screenwriter Bob Gale, who took the opportunity to not just voice his disapproval of the film, but to tear it apart from top to bottom, letting it be very clearly known how much he despised the Oscar winner. Unless, of course, it was meant as satire, which I really don’t think it was. He states that the film, written and directed by the Coen Brothers, from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, makes “no sense” and goes through the whole film beat by beat criticizing it, mostly from a writing standpoint, in such detail that it becomes open to question that the very idea of it offends him and nothing anyone argues would convince him otherwise. I suspect that he maybe have been expecting more of a traditional thriller, maybe similar to something directed by John Dahl in the mid-90s (films I like, by the way) and had an allergic reaction to a story which offered a little more ambiguity to it. And by the time he began one thought with the phrase, “Meanwhile, Tommy Lee is pontificating about nothing with some crippled fucker in the middle of nowhere,” I pretty much found myself throwing up my arms wondering why I’d spent so much time reading this.

I like BACK TO THE FUTURE. A lot. The swiss watch-like precision remains so entertaining that I’m not the least bit surprised it’s held up as a model of the form. But as great as it is, as I get older I can’t help but look at it as a shallow piece of work. And it’s not because it’s a comedy, because there are plenty of comedies which are very defiantly not shallow. And it’s not simply that I could think of a few story flaws in BACK TO THE FUTURE that go far beyond saying, “A DeLorean can’t really travel through time!” (but hey, if he’s going to nitpick, why does it need to go at 88 mph. anyway?) It has to do with the film’s own comic tone which sometimes feels divorced from the reality of recognizable human behavior building up to it’s case of an ending which is happy at least partly because the hero now has a new truck. Reading the review I flashed on a memory from the audio commentary for the film where Robert Zemeckis talks about this ending of the film, musing about how it plays as so representative of the 80s now with its acquisitions of objects by Marty McFly seen as such a victory and how no critics at the time pointed it out. Gale points out, “Hey, he’s got a truck now,” but Zemeckis argues, “Yeah, but they’re material things,” and while they almost immediately move on to other topics it occurred to me that maybe Zemeckis had matured into a different realization of what the film he had directed may have been saying. Gale, as far as I could tell, hadn’t and that made me wonder about what sort of person he was and why he may have had the response he did to NO COUNTRY. Does he fundamentally object to a genre piece which aspires to say something more? Was he upset that it wasn’t what he thought it was going to be? Does he object to films that take a different approach from what he believes screenplay structure should be? Sometimes when a film character does X instead of Y, it’s not a case of that person being badly written but an example of how the individual might be reacting to something in a way unique to that person. And I get the feeling that Bob Gale believes that all characters should behave in ways which are in accordance to his own screenwriting beliefs. I suppose he’s entitled to feel that way, but it seems like such an uninteresting way to approach writing screenplays and the characters within them.


When we reached that scene with the “crippled fucker” played by Barry Corbin in my first viewing of NO COUNTRY, I found myself sinking in my seat as I began to realize what this movie was really about. It wasn’t about the money and it wasn’t about the excitement of the brilliantly executed suspense sequences as Javier Bardem is chasing Josh Brolin and it wasn’t about plot of the Mexicans and what have you. It was really about something much deeper, something I was relating to in my own life and no, I’m not going to get into what that is. It’s too personal and it’s my own business. But those thoughts didn’t suddenly come from nowhere—they had to do with the effect the movie was having on me.

This realization is something which will lead me back to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN numerous times and I look forward to that. Any shallowness I get out of BACK TO THE FUTURE will cause it to diminish over time in my head. Sometimes it can be difficult to put into words what are those extra elements of flavor, of substance, of life that can go into certain films. And it’s not limited to genre, considering the amount of comedies, action and horror films which have thrilled me over the years and have enough substance to allow me to continually evaluate what those movies are. Maybe a film can offer an idea of what its director (and, by extension, writer) is like as a person and from that you may think “I’d like to sit down and have a conversation with this person about life” or “I’d like to sit down, have a beer and watch the game with this director” or, in the case of Michael Bay, “I never want to be anywhere near this person for the duration of my life.”


More than BACK TO THE FUTURE, the Zemeckis-Gale production which really holds up these days is their 1980 comedy USED CARS. Crass, vulgar, politically incorrect, excellently performed by its cast and consistently hysterical, it’s the film of theirs which should be taught in classes and is a true example of how brilliantly a comedy could be constructed. And, of course, it gave immortality to the phrase, “Fifty bucks never killed anybody.” On the off chance that you’ve never seen it, I can’t recommend it more highly. Within that humor is a feeling of creative minds saying something unique about its characters and the world they live in. Part of what can be so addicting about films is discovering these creative views given to us, whether by the Coen Brothers or the team of Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale. I still like a number of the films that Bob Gale has his name on, but I’m not sure of the opinion I now have of that creative mind which contributed to making them.

If Only for an Hour

It’s strange to say, but Idina Menzel kind of creeps me out. Not because I find her unattractive or untalented, because it’s definitely not that. In some bizarre kind of way, I almost strangely find her a little too attractive. To be more blunt about it, to me she essentially comes off as a genetic amalgam of every woman that I’ve ever been attracted to yet have never had much interest in me. Okay, maybe a few others who did actually have some interest as well. And her role as Vera Rivkin in the film version of ASK THE DUST only serves to emphasize that feeling. As films about the struggle of writing in Los Angeles during the first half of the twentieth century go, it’s no BARTON FINK and doesn’t fully succeed in translating the essence of Fante’s prose onto the screen. There’s also the problem of leads Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek who never fully mesh together and even separately never seem to be fully inhabiting their roles. It’s not that they seem disengaged from the piece—like the film itself their work is well-meaning but it falls short. I’m glad that Robert Towne was able to make it, but I wish it were better.


These misgivings do not come into play whenever Menzel is onscreen. She appears fairly deep into the film and really only appears in two sections (more than just scenes) playing her entire role opposite Farrell. More than a few times now I’ve stumbled across the film on cable during her first section and found myself waiting around to view the rest of her role. As Vera Rivkin, a young woman working as a housekeeper bearing scars both physical and emotional, in her brief screen time she believably goes from comical to annoying to crazy to ecstatic to sad and ultimately heartbreaking. The true effect her character has on Farrell’s Arturo Bandini and his character’s journey is felt mostly when she is not even onscreen and that manages to give the film what power it does have. Much of her dialogue actually comes directly from author John Fante’s text in the original book but what she is able to get across just by her very presence shows that she understands the fear and sadness of the character more than she ever gets the chance to say. As crazy as she might very well be, the hesitant yearning clearly in her voice when she talks about reading Bandini’s story for the first time makes it hard for me not to fall for her. And it makes me want to be a better writer. A moment like that makes it seem like ASK THE DUST would be a lot more interesting if Bandini would forget about Salma Hayek’s Camilla and stay with this much more compelling wounded flower.

I never saw RENT on the stage, but I thought the movie was a crock. She’s fine in ENCHANTED but the movie isn’t very interested in her character and she’s clearly there more as a reference point to her musical background anyway. The songs from her album heard on her MySpace page don’t interest me, nice as her voice might be, she seems more interested in the stage than films and she’s also married to Taye Diggs. I definitely can’t compete with that. Her fanbase seems to be mainly teenage girls and gay men which means that her career aspirations clearly lie in a different demographic path than I tool around in.


So I’ll take her brief role in ASK THE DUST and hope for maybe another look at her talent and beauty at some point in something else that I would actually want to see. Her attractiveness has a soulful feel of depth and intelligence to me, to a much greater extent than certain popular actresses who are way overexposed these days. There’s something in Idina Menzel’s face, in her eyes, that I can’t ignore. But I won’t tell her that it kind of scares me too. I’ll keep it secret.

No Joke

The other night I had a dream that I was watching LOOSE CANNONS. Or maybe I dreamed that I was watching LOOSE CANNONS, but in that dream sort of way, it wasn’t really LOOSE CANNONS. Or maybe I dreamed that I was actually in LOOSE CANNONS. I’m not sure. But why was I dreaming about Bob Clark’s LOOSE CANNONS? I looked up the date of Clark’s tragic and untimely death to see if it was somehow the one-year anniversary, but that’s not for over a month from now. So I don’t have an answer. Can’t I dream that I’m in something directed by Howard Hawks or maybe a Jacques Demy film where I understand French? I mean, LOOSE CANNONS? Really?

I saw it in the theater. How many people can make that claim? I’m not sure there’s ever been a worse film given a wide release in theaters, at least not one that had such an impressive pedigree. Bob Clark directing, Richard Matheson was one of the writers, Gene Hackman and Dan Ackroyd in the lead roles and an impressive array of character actors lending support, there’s gotta be something there, right? Right?

I popped in the DVD last night to take a look at some of it. Yes, that’s right I own the DVD. Sometimes, I need to remember that this thing exists. I didn’t get very far but in its own way the film manages to be interesting due to how spectacularly uninteresting it is. A comedy which doesn’t contain a single real laugh, it runs only 90 minutes and change yet has just about the most sluggish pace imaginable, with scenes that feel like they’re going on and on, with no real point or shape. Even those that last under a minute manage to feel this way. Vincent Canby’s review in The New York Times comments, “LOOSE CANNONS runs only 94 minutes but goes on for hours and hours and hours.” He was right.

Gene Hackman is Macarthur Stern, a Washington D.C. vice squad cop assigned to homicide where he is teamed with Dan Ackroyd’s Ellis Fielding, a forensics expert who is mentally unstable and continually lapses into other identities at inopportune moments, giving Ackroyd chances to do lots of pop-culture impressions like Dirty Harry, Captain Kirk, Popeye, the Cowardly Lion, etc. The pair is investigating a series of murders which leads them to porn king played by Dom DeLuise and get mixed up in a plot which somehow involves a porno film starring Hitler. These are the jokes, folks.

With no real consistent tone or laughs or excitement or even a single believable moment, LOOSE CANNONS maintains some kind of weird hypnotic effect, maybe because it’s a reminder of a time when R-Rated buddy action-comedies shot in full Panavision were more the norm. There’s also some extensive location shooting in Washington D.C. and Manhattan (the unexciting climax is at Grand Central Station) so this obviously wasn’t a cheap movie even though every fiber of its being somehow feels like it was one. I haven’t seen every film Bob Clark ever directed so I can’t say for sure that this is the worst, but it’s hard to watch this thing and believe that he was once responsible for a few very well-made movies.


The film was shot under the title THE VON METZ INCIDENT, which sounds like it should go with something actually compelling. Production began in the summer of 1988 (LICENSE TO DRIVE can be seen on a marquee in Times Square) just after Hackman had filmed his Oscar-nominated performance in MISSISSIPPI BURNING, but the final product didn’t turn up in theaters until February of 1990, when it was tossed into release by Tri-Star. Hackman, who gets to say dialogue like “Safe sex in the 80s is no joke” and “You should write a book—‘Me and My Lobotomy’”, certainly made a few movies for the paycheck in his career but why this one? Did he lose a bet? Did he really want to appear on screen with Dom DeLuise? What makes it so odd to watch is that it’s hard to imagine at what stage it could have been thought to have any potential whatsoever. It’s not a good idea, it’s not well-written or directed or anything at all. Ackroyd’s impressions are second-rate (it’s easy to imagine they tried to get Robin Williams) and Hackman, whose character is in a good mood way too much of the time, is off in his own world, probably well aware that he’s not going to lose his reputation over this thing.

Among the many familiar faces are Ronny Cox, Robert Prosky, Dick O’Neill, David Alan Grier, Tobin Bell, Nancy Travis with a bad Israeli accent, Nancy Parsons from PORKYS in a short scene at the end and a pre-LAW & ORDER S. Epatha Merkerson.

I freely admit that this is the kind of bad movie I’m drawn to. Not the so-bad-it’s-good stuff, but the type of film that while it comes from professionals is so mired in the realm between mediocrity and wrong-headedness that all I want to do is assemble a roomful of people to get them to sit down to view this thing and marvel at its very existence. Drinking will be allowed. I just don’t understand why I can’t dream I’m in an alternate version of some other movie, like a THUNDERBALL which focuses on Martine Beswick’s Paula Caplan. Or maybe I could get a co-starring role in a prequel to BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA which stars Barbara Bouchet’s character. Instead I get LOOSE CANNONS. This is my life.

There's Your Balance

Lines of communication need to remain open. That’s the only way it can work in what I do every day but sometimes people forget that. So that’s why I’m sitting here right now thinking, when should I have my first drink? Did the day really have to go like this? Would Karen Crowder have allowed this sort of thing to happen?

Making the call that Tilda Swinton was going to win Best Supporting Actress for her role in MICHAEL CLAYTON had to do with the quality of her work in the role which has stuck with me all these months but also a sixth-sense feeling of the way the wind was blowing. For once, it’s also a genuine supporting performance, not an extended cameo and not a big star appearing as part of an ensemble. Maybe my own attempts to will the award to actually happen had something to do with it as well.

Swinton’s Karen Crowder is first seen in a bathroom stall, breathing heavily as she takes notice of the sweat stain showing through her underarm in her presumably expensive clothing. The amount of time we see Karen Crowder preparing herself, rehearsing herself always makes us think back to this beat, contrasting the hard-faced businesswoman who barks down George Clooney’s Michael Clayton in the scene where they first meet with the person rehearsing herself in the mirror as we spot that chunk of flesh under her bra. The character has allowed herself to become so morally compromised that she can no longer be thought of as in over her head. She’s an intelligent person who has allowed herself to become a hateful bag of nerves in this world of ours. And yet, in those private moments we’re given a peek behind the curtain to see the human being that is still trying to peek through.

It’s one of the successes of the film that she is playing essentially “the bitch” but the movie is too smart to ever see her in such a simplistic way. Part of it is definitely on the page in Tony Gilroy’s script and part of it is also in the way she carries herself every instant she’s onscreen. She addresses the issue of balance in life and work as if it were a purely intellectual concept, rehearsing her own spontaneity of the answer as she comes down on the work side of the equation concluding, “There’s your balance.” It’s a brilliant little moment in both script and performance. Her entire role, a good chunk of it played alone, is filled with moments like that and Swinton earns the private moment her character receives near the end. I wouldn’t have anything to say to Karen Crowder if I ever met her and I’m fairly certain she would treat me with total disdain. It doesn’t prevent me from finding her completely and continually fascinating.

Double Giallo

Friday night at the Egyptian you could see the giant tent being erected in front of the Kodak Theater for the Oscars several blocks down. The American Cinematheque was showing GONE WITH THE WIND in the main theater, a fairly ideal choice to be screened the weekend of the event and it looked like swarms of people were heading in there. Naturally, I was going into the much smaller Spielberg Theater to attend the maiden night of their new Cult Cinema Club for which two films, titles unknown going in, would be screened on DVD via digital projection. Both unavailable otherwise and, safe to say, relatively unknown in this country.

I could try to write out a synopsis of DEATH LAID AN EGG but it would be a lost cause. Directed by Giulio Questi, it defies true description and pretty much defies valid criticism. In some ways it resembles what Godard may have done with the Giallo form if he’d made the attempt in 1968. The plot, best as I can make out, involves a love triangle between a husband (Jean-Louis Trintigant), wife (Gina Lollobrigida) and the husband’s mistress (Ewa Aulin) at a recently automated chicken farm which the wife inherited. Double crosses, prostitutes and murder come into play but so does, more surprisingly, a plotline involving mutated chickens born without wings or feet. DEATH LAID AN EGG honestly feels like a mutated chicken itself through not only its fractured method of storytelling, but the nature of how some of the shocking plot developments are presented in the most casual way possible, leading one to think, “Um, something did just happen, didn’t it? Is the movie aware of it? Am I being hypnotized? What the hell just happened now?” Adding to its use of flash-frames and a music score so harshly discordant that atonal doesn’t begin to describe the nervous vibe it gives off. The fascinating nature of certain giallos from this point in time sometimes give the feeling of a film aimed at the art house (mainly an Antonioni influence) criss-crossing into a mad killer storyline and an extremely odd, sleazy one at that. DEATH LAID AN EGG feels like it’s willingly ripping itself apart while straddling that line and flinging itself off in both, and perhaps other, directions. Sometimes you’re forced to deal with how a film may not in fact be “good” but you have to admit that it has the pull of a mad, delirious dream that you’re not entirely certain if you actually want to remember. It has headless chickens, disturbing flash frames and a considerable amount of nudity. It’s that kind of movie.


After the insanity of the first film, almost anything would have been a retreat back towards normalcy and Maurizio Predeaux's DEATH CARRIES A CANE filled that bill, serving as a more traditional giallo, if traditional is in fact the right word. While photographing her visiting aunt and uncle a woman (Susan Scott) witnesses a girl being stabbed to death by a black-clad maniac. The only thing she can be sure about the killer is that he limps, using a cane. She then finds herself pursued herself, suspecting various people around here and…that’s about it for plot points that could be easily clarified. The film is not without potential and there are some interesting ideas there but even the best scenes feel like they could have been executed with a lot more skill by certain other directors (Maybe Argento thought so as well, since a few things did seem a touch familiar). There are a few effective moments throughout which is good, along with some oddly out-of-place comedy, which is not so good. There’s also a fair amount of nudity, which is to be expected. More mediocre than outright bad, the film manages to feel both overly familiar and more confusing than seems to be necessary.


Since I’ve never seen these films before, it’s tough to tell just how much my response to them is affected by the way I saw them. As it is, the overall strangeness of the two DEATHs, even considering what is expected from the giallo, makes me feel like I viewed them while either half-asleep or drunk and I promise you I was neither. Oddly, that’s how I often find myself viewing these things at home (god bless that two-buck Chuck). For now, I’m a little flummoxed. And yet, I’m absolutely glad I saw them. In that fantasy world where the Cinematheque shows a 35mm print of DEATH LAID AN EGG, I’ll definitely be showing up for that screening.

Make Art

I know that no one will believe this, but some point late last week I started thinking “Tilda Swinton to win” and mentioned it to a few people. I don’t think they listened. The way I see it, between that, the win for ONCE and Jon Stewart’s genuinely funny monologue, I was perfectly happy. And from the moment where we saw Gary Busey verbally assault Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet, followed by Busey basically groping Laura Linney and Jennifer Garner, I knew that it wouldn’t be an entirely boring night. And circulating among the unasked-for presence of Miley Cyrus, GREY’S ANATOMY cast members and crappy songs from ENCHANTED there were enjoyable moments of interest. But I couldn’t help but notice that the lame “What would JAWS be like without this music?” routine during the Best Score presentation came in a year when the Best Picture winner, a film containing masterfully done suspense sequences, features next to no music? What would NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN be like without a score? Well, it’d still be a brilliant film that won Best Picture, that’s what! My point is that nutso contradiction is nothing new when it comes to the Oscars. Why would it suddenly change?

Some thoughts:

Stewart’s monologue was genuinely funny, moreso than he was the last time he hosted and he stayed in good form throughout the evening. It seems that no matter what the Oscar host always falls away somewhat in the back half of the show and that was the case again here. But while there was maybe no huge do-you-believe-that moments or Ferrell/Black musical hilarity there were enough laughs throughout and Stewart seemed to bring just the right Johnny Carson relaxation-vibe to his presence. He’ll be seen on that stage again.

I enjoyed quite a bit of the show while watching it, now I’m reading these bad reviews and agreeing that, yeah, there were some issues. What was the deal with these presenters? Will they realize now that they didn’t help the ratings at all. They had Julie Christie there. Julie Christie! And never seemed to think to invite her on stage for any reason. If anything, some of the continuous montages served to remind us of the history of the event and that was appreciated by me…but it also would have been nice to get a few examples of that history in the flesh. I mean, there are a few people out there who are alive.

What was that cheesy video game montage thing they did to open the show?

Hey Regis, look! It’s Xavier Bardem!

At least we never, ever have to use the phrase “the Academy Award winning NORBIT.”

Which reminds me of the good news that we don’t ever have to say “the Academy Award-winning TRANSFORMERS” either. I wasn’t in an Oscar pool but if I had been, I would have figured on TRANSFORMERS taking the tech prizes it was up for. I’m glad I was wrong.

The clip used for Ruby Dee was, what, half of her screen time in the movie?

Seconds before Marion Cotillard was announced as the winner I was sitting there going, “It’s gonna be Marion Cotillard.” I swear! Boy, she is gorgeous. And seems like a beautiful person in every possible way. I have to see LA VIE EN ROSE now. And I know she doesn’t look like that in the movie. I don’t care.


The “Periscope and binoculars” montage was sold by using just the right cheesy-inspirational music behind it. See, you need logic to make these jokes work sometimes.

Did Jennifer Hudson wake up five minutes before going out on stage?

Is Cameron Diaz just a total ditz or am I being unkind? She can’t pronounced cinematography and makes a snarky comment about SUNRISE, one of the greatest movies ever made (probably written by someone else, but still). Not charming, not cute. Has she ever heard of SUNRISE? Does she care? I have to remind myself that I’ve liked her in a few movies.

Wesley Snipes was there with Spike Lee?

Yeah, Katherine Heigl, we get that you’re nervous. Why are you presenting again?

Whose picture was shown to represent “Roderick Jaynes” during the editing category? And what would the Coens have done if Jaynes had won?

No Charles Lane in the Montage of Death. No Charles Lane!

Snarky comment: I guess we’re never going to get rid of Diablo Cody now. Okay, sincere comment: I liked JUNO and don’t have a really bad thing to say about it but never thought it was THAT good. However, the genuine emotion that came from her in her moment was hard to ignore. And good for her for thanking the writers in her speech. I honestly got the impression from her that she seems genuinely honored and aware of her good fortune to be included in such a group. If I ever see her at the New Beverly I’ll congratulate her for winning the Oscar and also for getting a prominent Dario Argento reference into that script that won the Oscar.


And I’ll admit: I couldn’t bring myself to pay attention to four of the song nominees. I was either in the bathroom, making food or on the computer. At least two of the ENCHANTED songs were deliberate Disney parody-type things—cute in the movie, torture when watched out of context. The other two songs I just couldn’t take. The performance of “Falling Slowly” was nice, but encumbered by needless orchestration. This was the moment for Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and the camera swoops over to Bill Conti for no reason? Fortunately, this was amended not just by their win and Hansard’s acceptance speech, stressing “Make Art”, but doubly so by the touching words that Irglova was allowed to return to the stage to say. Immediately it became one of my favorite Oscar moments ever. From a sincere, touching film, came these similarly touching words from an artist not just happy to be there, but ecstatic at being given the gift to express herself the way she does. It’s moments like this, provided by someone who genuinely earned the right to be standing up there, which the producers of the ceremony need to remember.

The Right Words

I’m feeling weirdly disconnected from the Oscars this year, so the thought of making predictions doesn’t really interest me. Yes, there are a few nominees that I hope win that may very well win and while the Best Picture winner may indeed be a film that I love, my expectations for the evening are still pretty low. I hope Jon Stewart does a great job, I hope something wildly unexpected happens. But I don’t have much of an investment in any of it. Maybe these days I’m interested in watching too many films that would never be mentioned at the awards. Maybe it has to do with ZODIAC not receiving a single nomination, which has to be a true embarrassment for the Academy. On the other hand, I spent some of the other night looking at the new DVD of MICHAEL CLAYTON, which reminded me of how much I love it and that got me a little excited for the awards ceremony again. Then I received an email from someone I know telling me he didn’t think much of it at all, but I’m not going to apologize for what I thought of it. That’s just the way things go.


On the subject of another film I recently revisited, last fall I was restrained, unsure in my praise of THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. Now I’ve finally been able to take another look at it to feel more assured of my feelings on the matter. And to admit the honest truth, you could hold my hand to the fire and maybe there might be an outside shot that I’ll admit to a few small issues with the film. Maybe. If I did admit such a thing, then they’d mostly be confined to sections of the first hour, where it’s possible the film feels like it’s wandering a little too much. But to argue this point with myself, that feeling might be necessary since we do need a little bit of time to drift into the film, to get a hold of its rhythm, to allow what it’s doing to begin to wash over us. It wouldn’t be quite correct to call the 160 minute film a marathon; more appropriately, it’s like a long, slow swim through a very deep body of water. And we do need to acclimate ourselves to that environment. And when I do, I find the film to be not just aware of the cinematic possibilities in its very stillness, it seems to speak to the very yearning we sometimes have in our lives to achieve a glory which may be forever beyond our reach and certainly beyond our ability to express.


I think of not just the use of Brad Pitt here and how his own persona informs the film, but also his own unpredictability in portraying the legendary outlaw who may be even more dangerous in ways he doesn’t understand then he himself realizes. It’s the best work of his career. There are many things I can say about Casey Affleck’s work here, but most of all I think of what the actor does in that long, slow silent moment at the dinner table after Robert Ford lists off a bunch of facts about Jesse James to the man himself. There’s a mixture of envy for Jesse, hatred of Jesse and hatred of his own self which wash over his eyes during this moment and it speaks volumes for anything we ever need to know about Robert Ford. I think of the continued glares of pathetic madness that come from Sam Rockwell as Charley Ford. The look on Mary-Louise Parker’s face the last time we see her. I think of the score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and how it seems to tap into just the right kind of sorrowful uncertainty of what the characters can never say. I think of the beauty of Zooey Deschanel’s appearance near the end and how the effect it gives off feels like a hoped-for benediction which is never quite allowed to occur. I think of the final half hour and how hauntingly perfect it is. I think of how this film was allowed to die on the vine by Warner Bros. who treated this work of art, this work of cinematic beauty, with pure disdain and while its existence will be noted in two nominations at the ceremony (unlike ZODIAC) it won’t be what it deserves. But the movie does exist, it will exist and I know that there are others out there who feel the same as me. And I think of that day, years in the future, where there will be some sort of anniversary screening at the Motion Picture Academy and people will react with astonishment at this film that was allowed to get away. For me, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD is the best film of 2007. That’s about all I have to say.

Italian Women Being Leered At

Opening night of Eli Roth’s festival of favorites at the New Beverly, titled “The Greats of Roth”, started late which was no surprise, but not as late as may have been expected, so that in itself was a pleasant surprise. Spotted in the crowd were John and Clu Gulager, who were seated in the front two rows ahead of me, Edgar Wright Wright wandering around somewhere and Roth himself, who showed up with his parents.

But more than the chance to attend the festival, I was there to see the first film on the double bill, Sergio Martino’s TORSO aka I CORPI PRESENTANO TRACCE DI VIOLENZA CARNALE which translates as THE BODIES BARE TRACES OF CARNAL VIOLENCE. More titles like that should be on marquees these days. A giallo directed by Sergio Martino, the version of TORSO that we got to see was an old grindhouse print currently owned by Quentin Tarantino. I’d seen the movie before on DVD, probably the longer version but remembered next to nothing about it. Fortunately I’m a little better schooled in the genre by now so the chance to revisit the movie was something I didn’t want to pass up.


A fairly simple plot of a mad killer in a mask who uses a red and black scarf to strangle beautiful co-eds, TORSO is very seventies, very Italian and has many of the expected elements of the giallo— the sleaze, the girls, the violence, the black gloves, the red herrings, the bottles of J&B—except that it’s storyline of students and professors automatically excludes the beautiful, vapid rich who usually populate these movies. Because of this total lack of jet-set vibe it helps to give TORSO the feel of a slasher movie as well. But a very skillfully done, if completely depraved, slasher movie. There’s very little in the way of story outside of the simple plotline, no detailed backgrounds of the characters, there aren’t any large sums of inheritances ever at stake. Instead it focuses on the extreme sleaze, whether in its several lesbian love scenes or certain murder scenes which take things surprisingly far in tone and nudity. Every male character, staring ominously at one of the girls at one time or another is presented as an obvious suspect. Even some of the male extras seem to do little more than leering and drooling at the girls. Of course, the girls are all something to look at anyway.


The most recognizable of those girls is probably Suzy Kendall of Argento’s BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE who is basically the lead and also the “final girl” of the piece—I recalled one of the others from THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS, but I don’t know how “recognizable” that makes her. But this overriding feeling of illicit gazing at these girls carries over into the very nature of the film itself, with the way the camera roves around somehow implicating us in the treatment of its female characters. And maybe, since I’m Italian, I just realized that I would be an automatic suspect in this film as well. Maybe this overriding feeling which holds throughout gives it the feeling of being the rare movie with slasher elements that actually feels honest about what it’s trying to do. Even if that is a reach, TORSO has to be one of the sleaziest giallos from the early seventies produced during that time. Naturally, that makes it irresistible. Suzy Kendall is pretty amazing in it as well.

The shape of the print was pretty ideal. Nothing much seemed to be missing and the scratches that were there gave off the right grindhouse vibe. Yes, there was plenty of laughter from the audience but once the stuff in the isolated villa begins to take shape you can’t deny how truly suspenseful it is. You could feel the electricity building in the New Beverly during this section and the single biggest jolt of the film, which is a work of beauty, received a wave of applause from the crowd.

The second feature on the bill was PIECES. Sorry, but I went home to get some sleep.