Monday, July 31, 2006

Tarnation (2004)

Not much to say about this, except that I wasn't bowled over. The frenetic style was too much; I expected it to settle down to a more realistic pace after the hectic opening, but it continued relentlessly and confusingly for the entire film.

Tarnation is directed by Jonathan Caouette, a New Yorker (but native Texan) who filmed himself and his family from a young age and made this documentary about it. The story contains some fascinating and disturbing elements: His mother was subjected to electric-shock therapy that sent her spiralling into a lifetime of severe depression and mental illness; Jonathan had a bad drugs experience as a child that left him with a depersonalization disorder; there's a great story to be told here, but it's all told so badly. I decided to listen to the commentary in the hope that I could understand better where the director was coming from, but it felt like the commentary was telling me all the things that should have been told in the film itself.

Caouette put together the film, for the most part, on his AppleMac, using iMovie. I read somewhere he used every single gimmick and effect the programme offered, and I have no trouble believing it.

My rating? * * * * * (2/5)

The End

50 greatest movie endings of all time at FilmCritic.com. Nice analysis. (Spoiler warning!)

Saturday, July 29, 2006

RIP Paul Gleason

I was surprised to discover today (a little late) that actor Paul Gleason died back in May. The guy was just something else as Principal Richard Vernon in The Breakfast Club.

Paul Gleason. 4 May 1939 - 27 May 2006.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

The greatest vampire film ever made

There is one vampire film to which I return time and again and find new things to appreciate each time. This is Terence Fisher's Dracula (1958, aka Horror of Dracula), Hammer Studios' first foray into the Dracula myth. And it is a fabulous film in every way.

Universal's 1931 film became a legend solely on the basis of its star, Bela Lugosi. It is a beloved classic because Lugosi was unforgettable in the title role - but as a film, the final two thirds are pedestrian after a haunting, deftly crafted first third. With Hammer's version, however, every element works, and the brilliance is sustained until the very end.

The Hammer film opens with the foreboding image of a stone eagle mounted on a pillar of Castle Dracula. James Bernard's pounding main theme adds to the sense of dreadful anticipation as the camera descends past the castle entrance and into Dracula's crypt, where blood splashes onto the tomb of the eponymous vampire.

It is hard, 50 years on, to appreciate the freshness of Hammer's vision. For one thing, this was the first time Dracula had been seen in colour. But Fisher admitted he had not gone to the 1931 film for inspiration, and yet the image of Lugosi had dominated the public's conception of Dracula for almost three decades. Imagine, then, the sense of unease when Jonathan Harker (John van Eyssen) steps not into a dank, cobwebbed, haunted castle, but into the palatial, almost exotic surrounds of Hammer's castle, designed by Bernard Robinson. (His designs for the castle were so radical, Hammer considered firing him; fortunately, he went on to work with the studio for another fifteen years.)

The first section of the film, in which Harker arrives at Dracula's castle, is full of surprises which are perhaps lost on modern audiences, or at least on those who (like myself) have watched the movie dozens of times. One of the earliest is the arrival of Dracula himself. Like Lugosi, Christopher Lee arrives sinisterly at the top of a staircase (with jarring cymbal clash), but we are disarmed after the initial shiver of fright. He descends the staircase swiftly and steps into the light, where he welcomes Harker courteously and with charm. He is not Lugosi's strange and dusty creature, but a young, dashingly handsome host.

The next surprise is when Harker writes in his diary, and reveals that he is already fully aware of the truth about Dracula, and is on a mission to destroy him and "forever end his reign of terror". There follows the scene in which Harker ventures into the library, where a young girl begs him to save her from the clutches of the Count. In one of the film's most terrifyingly fantastic images, Dracula appears in the doorway, his mouth dripping with blood, and instantly these two formerly elegant creatures become feral monsters, hissing and encircling each other like animals fighting each other for their lives.

By the end of the first third of the film, we have been introduced to two of the film's greatest assets: Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, who now makes his arrival as Van Helsing. This was not their first pairing; they were co-stars in the previous year's The Curse of Frankenstein, but this was the film that was truly to make Lee's name.

The rest of the film is awash with more fabulous and mesmerizing imagery, thanks largely to the lighting and camerawork of Jack Asher, and Bernard Robinson's designs. Over the course of the next hour we will witness Dracula's mysterious and sensual appearance amid swirling autumn leaves outside the bedroom of his female victim; we will watch him cross the castle moat, his cape flowing majestically behind him; we will watch him ascend the staircase toward the camera, and we will watch as he seduces his victim with kisses before disappearing out of view to feed on her flesh.

At the end of the film, we will see the most enduring images of all, as Count Dracula meets his demise in rays of morning sun. Here Lee's performance not only captures Dracula's demonic rage, but evokes a certain pathos, with an unforgettable sadness in his eyes as his last breaths leave his rapidly decaying body. It was not often Lee was given the chance to give a performance of this magnitude.

And it was perhaps never again that Hammer would combine all the elements of a production - script, acting, direction, music, camerawork, design - so perfectly. The Devil Rides Out (1968) might come close. And I cannot think of a film before or since that brings the imagery of vampirism to the screen with such mastery.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Grand Canyon (Lawrence Kasdan, 1991)

Life is an unpredictable adventure in which our own wills are just one of one of many forces conspiring to shape us and steer our course. Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon is a beautifully crafted celebration of the process.

Released in 1991, the film most definitely bears the hallmarks of its era, especially in James Newton Howard's distinctly eighties, but surprisingly catchy score. The story interweaves several smaller narratives of lives converging in modern LA, in a way that prefigures the more complex Magnolia (PT Anderson, 1999) - but then, by the time Magnolia was made, didn't everything have to be cleverer and more sophisticated? Not to put down Magnolia, a film I love; but Grand Canyon is from an earlier period when narratives were simpler.

The movie opens at a basketball game, an ironic setting in which the coming together of black athletes with white spectators belies the racial divisions that exist on the streets outside. On the way home, Mack (Kevin Kline) takes a short cut through a run-down neighbourhood rather than battle traffic. Predictably (this is where Howard's score falls down), his car stalls, and he finds himself stuck in hostile streets waiting for a tow-truck. Owner of the truck is Simon (Danny Glover), who arrives just in time to save Mack from a gun-wielding teenage gang. This meeting is the first of a trail of coincidences that propel the characters' lives: Mack's friend, Davis (Steve Martin), a director of violent Hollywood movies, is robbed at gunpoint and shot in the leg; Mack's wife, Claire (Mary McDonnell), finds an abandoned baby while out jogging.

Mack and Simon strike up an unlikely friendship when Mack insists on going back to find Simon and thank him. These two performances are the finest of the film, although it must be said this is an ensemble effort, in which there really is no weak link.

The Grand Canyon is a double metaphor for the characters' formation and for the gulf of race and class that separates the two main characters, although it is the former element that Kasdan presses. Does he push it too hard? I don't know. If it was heavyhanded, I was willing to overlook it, for in every other respect I felt this was such a heartfelt, moving picture, put together with much love and care and personal attention. Kasdan isn't a slave to realism, and freely delves into fantasy at some points, a sensibility that I enjoyed.

My rating? * * * * * (4/5)

Sunday, July 23, 2006

In Memoriam


RIP Jack Warden, 1921-2006.

And earlier this month, Red Buttons, 1919-2006.





Saturday, July 08, 2006

Jean-Pierre Leaud & Kim Novak

I put together a couple videos of two great stars. Enjoy!