Asylum (1972)

☆ ☆ ½

Asylum (1972) – R. W. Baker

One of many portmanteau films from Amicus (an also-ran competitor for Hammer in England back in the 1960s and 1970s) but not a patch on the great original horror anthology, Dead of Night (1945) from Britain’s Ealing Studios.  These films always have a framing device to hold their separate stories together and Asylum’s conceit is that a young psychiatrist visiting the titular institution needs to decide which of the patients is actually the head clinician, now an inmate.  The missing doctor could be male or female, young or old.  The four stories are told in flashback by the various patients and suggest why they went insane.  A couple of the stories are quite spooky.  The first, in which a husband kills his wife and cuts her up into pieces that then come back to attack him and his mistress/the patient, is eerie enough.  So, too, is the third where young Charlotte Rampling is “assisted” by Britt Ekland in dealing with her domineering brother and her addiction to pills.  There are other stars here too (Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom) but their stories are less spooky if not without a creepy moment or two.  Of course, there is a “trick” ending to bring things together again.  Amicus made six or seven of these anthologies and really they aren’t a bad way to spend your Halloween, which was always going to be a mixed bag of tricks and treats anyway.  

Carol (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

Carol (2015) – T. Haynes

Stately and slow drama from Todd Haynes, set in the early 1950s and looking gorgeous.  It is in fact an exquisitely realized “coming of age” story or perhaps I should say a “coming out” story except the two women here are only barely out of the closet and even so they experience a world of stigma and discrimination.  Cate Blanchett transforms herself (again) and provides a subtle portrait of a wealthy older woman who risks losing her four-year-old daughter in order to live an authentic life and to love who she wants.  Rooney Mara is the younger woman awakening to the possibility of same sex attraction. The script provides breathing room for the development of their affair but it does move very slowly, probably too slowly.  The fact that the law allowed a “morality clause” to be used to prevent LGBT parents to have custody of their own children is shocking but it is downplayed here in favour of the relationship dynamics.  Haynes has often been seen in the light of his fondness for Douglas Sirk (similarly to Rainer Werner Fassbinder) but here he seems to avoid the amplified melodrama of these masters, perhaps to make certain the characters and issues are treated seriously and not with any distortion or campiness. From an autobiographical tale by Patricia Highsmith.

  

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) – R. Linklater

Linklater calls this a “spiritual sequel” to Dazed and Confused (1993) and others note that it picks up just where Boyhood (2014) left off, as a kid starts his first year of college.  True that.  Here we have another crop of unknowns (mostly), starring as college baseball players (though we rarely see them play), living in a frat house environment and acting basically as you would expect young men freed from parental authority might act.  The time is Fall 1980 and Linklater brings the period music, clothes, and attitudes.  It’s part nostalgia and it’s part philosophical exploration of male competitiveness – and a whole lot of seemingly authentic talk (indeed there are only a few bum notes in the script).  Linklater is really a master director at this point and he is able to create real characters who we feel warm towards – there are no “bad” characters here, despite some rivalries and some at whom he affectionately pokes some fun.  But this is a dude’s film about dudes who are always on the prowl for girls, although it doesn’t feel exploitative like a Porky’s variation would – again this is Linklater’s talent to bring some humanity to the reality.  The central character, Jake, played by Blake Jenner, is perhaps the dullest of the lot but he’s also the nicest guy, perhaps signalling Linklater’s own values.  It is what it is – lighter fare with a ingénue cast – but entertaining all the way through.

The Forbidden Room (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Forbidden Room (2015) – G. Maddin

I wanted to love this and on one level, I really do.  Guy Maddin’s latest is a triumph of style over substance, perhaps his most eye-popping feature yet.  The screen bubbles and melts and exudes raw colour in a variety of cinematic fashions (silent, old technicolor, sixties schlock, etc.).  Things are typically outlandish, silly, and sometimes gruesome or sexy.  The high concept here is that Maddin decided to recreate some lost films based on surviving descriptions or scripts alone, films that Maddin himself really wanted to see (but obviously could not).  After all, he is also a film historian of sorts (with interesting pieces in Film Comment that I am half-remembering now).  So, 4, 5, or 6 films have been sliced and diced and welded together to make a deranged feature film (apparently to secure funding that the shorts could not).  The result is largely incoherent as a sum of parts but there are so many wild vibrant moments across the 2 hours – and thinking of this as an experimental film really helps matters.  Probably though it is not for the uninitiated and there are other easier entry points to Maddin’s oeuvre (My Winnipeg, 2007, is my favourite thus far, of those I have seen).   But really, just wow. 

The Producers (1968)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Producers (1968) – M. Brooks

Apparently shocking at the time of its release but sadly Mel Brooks’ comedy has lost its ability to shock…or perhaps I am unshockable at present.  But with the magic of the mind, you (or I) can imagine what it must have been like to be stunned by comedy making fun of Hitler (although Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be (1942) did take a very funny stab at the Nazis concurrently with WWII – later remade by Brooks himself).  The result isn’t laugh out loud funny, the way that Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles can be, but it has some charm, even if there are some dated jokes and sexism.  I watched this (for the first time) to commemorate Gene Wilder’s death – I salute him – he has a way with gestures and underplaying the comedy that contrasts well with Zero Mostel’s brasher moves.  They play the titular producers who determine that securing one million dollars in investments for a cheap Broadway play destined to flop on the first night will leave them sitting pretty and flying down to Rio.  Choosing “Springtime for Hitler” seems to be the perfect choice (acknowledged to be in bad taste) but alas the comedy plays well for the masses – and so much so that Brooks was able to create a Broadway show and then a movie remake in recent years.  There’s enough here to enjoy but I confess to being underwhelmed compared to my expectations.

  

Weiner (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Weiner (2016) – J. Kriegman & E. Steinberg

I guess I needed to expose myself to even more political self-immolation. Or perhaps expose isn’t the right word in this context.  And that’s the sort of joke you get in this documentary about Anthony Weiner, former congressman from New York and subsequent mayoral candidate for the Big Apple. In a frankly unbelievable performance (made available to us because Weiner himself allowed the filmmakers access to his life), the candidate bravely continues his campaign despite apparently having an ongoing sexting habit.  So, viewers get to bear witness to his strange unwillingness to stay out of the public eye despite widespread derision – is it masochism? Narcissism? He seems to be self-aware enough about people’s opinions (perhaps unlike a certain presidential candidate).  The filmmakers keep things lively for 90 minutes, despite the scandal hitting in the first half-hour; they focus the “plot” in on the tension between Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, who is in fact vice-chair of Hillary’s presidential campaign (and they announced their separation just this month after yet more sexting).  But ultimately, we don’t really get inside of Weiner, nor Abedin, and we don’t know whether this is a tragedy because of his really solid ideas (he seems to be a fighter for the middle class) or a farce because of his unsuitability for office.  The filmmakers don’t really take sides.  So, it’s a bit like watching a trainwreck as you pass by in your car without ever learning enough about how or why it happened…

The Kingdom II (1997)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Kingdom II (1997) – L. Von Trier

I watched the first series of Lars Von Trier’s The Kingdom, a surreal horror comedy set in a Danish hospital, in the late ‘90s.  I couldn’t remember too much except that it ended with a baby being born with the giant head of Udo Kier on it and also that it was pretty all over the place in its wacky horror tropes (voodoo, ghosts, severed heads).  St. Elsewhere on acid, I guess.  So, when I finally ran across the second series (filmed in 1997), I wasn’t too concerned about returning to the plot close to twenty years later.  I figured I would let it just wash over me again.  Fortunately, there was a minute of “recap” at the start of the fifth episode – just enough to remember some of the characters – and then the over-the-top nonsense continued.  More or less, the denizens of the hospital are fools for denying the supernatural/spiritual/alternative side of reality, particularly because the hospital is beset by demons (led by Udo Kier himself).  With a low budget, lots of jump cuts, and more restraint than you might expect, Von Trier manages to create a compelling multi-character soap opera that wants to take itself seriously at the same time as it does not.  You have to take the good with the evil, as he says at the end of each episode (he’s the host, a la Hitchcock).  The most shocking thing of all, however, is that the series ends with another set of cliff-hangers and, as it turns out, Von Trier never got to make the third series as some of the lead actors passed away.  So, instead of finding closure for the open narrative that I left hanging a decade or two ago, I’ve now got a loose end that will never ever get tied up.

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

☆ ☆ ☆

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) – P. Sasdy

One of the better Dracula sequels from Hammer Films (and there are a number of bad ones).  Christopher Lee was apparently reluctant to return – and he doesn’t have too many lines here (simply “the first”, “the second” and “the thirrrrrrrd”) -- but he is still a magnificently evil presence.  The plot revolves around three businessmen (in the early 1900s) who seek to experience thrills in this life, even going so far as to be willing to sell their souls to the devil.  Of course, when the ritual actually occurs they wimp out – the reconstituted blood of Dracula does not seem too palatable to drink (and a prelude to the movie shows us how it was obtained).  The grown children of the businessmen, two young women and two young men, add romance to the story but Dracula soon has the girls under his sway (‘natch).  As usual, Hammer’s production values are ace, lending spooky period atmosphere to the proceedings.  Worth a look if this is your thing.

  

A Nous La Liberte (1931)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A Nous La Liberte (1931) – R. Clair

At first, it’s a prison flick with all the inmates singing about the freedom they don’t have.  We see two of them plot their escape – but only one of them makes it.  He manages to work himself from street busker to factory owner in a quick montage.  His factory makes phonographs.  When his old cellmate appears working on the assembly line (later ripped off by Chaplin, although he settled the lawsuit without admitting it), the boss thinks he is about to be blackmailed. But instead, his friend just wants help winning the girl of his affections.  It doesn’t work and soon a gang of crooks really do appear to blackmail the boss.   In a twist that might only work in the France of the time, he abruptly donates his factory to the workers, let’s his money blow away in the wind, and hits the road as a tramp with his friend.  So, this makes it something of an anti-capitalist piece but blink and you could miss it.  Renoir’s The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936) hits the nail more squarely on the head.  But Rene Clair’s earlier film is an early talkie that still contains some of the lyricism and wowing art direction of the silents but I think I prefer his Le Million (also 1931). 

The Talk of the Town (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Talk of the Town (1942) – G. Stevens

Comedy with serious undertones and nicely observed characters from George Stevens – who seems to be channelling Frank Capra with Jean Arthur in the lead and a story about “the law” and how it needs to serve the people rather than lofty principles.  Cary Grant stumbles into Jean’s life and the cottage she is about to rent out to Dean of the Law School Ronald Colman, he’s on the lam after escaping prison, falsely accused of burning down a factory.  The factory owner has the town in his back pocket and he’s railroading the case with a handpicked judge and jury.  Grant and his lawyer lean on Colman to assist, but he’s too principled to get involved in a local case…until his fondness for Grant and Arthur both win him over and he shaves off his beard and gets his hands dirty.  It works because we too grow fond of these characters, even if the larger themes are a bit garbled; Capra handled complicated issues better by ramping up the sentimentality and distilling the arguments to their simplest points, also throwing in quirky supporting players.  Stevens hits it right down the middle which is satisfying but it doesn’t go out of the park.   

The Warped Ones (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Warped Ones (1960) – K. Kurahara

Although it may have been luridly eye-opening to the Japanese society of 1960, Koreyoshi Kurahara’s delirious new wave drama leaves a bad taste in your mouth.  After getting caught stealing, Akira, a psychopath, spends time in a juvenile detention centre.  Upon his release, he picks up where he left off, stealing a car with his buddy and a prostitute friend, and then he relentlessly targets and harasses the journalist who caused his earlier arrest and his artist girlfriend.  Akira loves jazz (Chico Hamilton style) and the movie is edited to a hep feverish rhythm but its stylishness can’t overcome the brutal content.  With no moral sense, perhaps not even an understanding of what is right and wrong, Akira moves from one situation to another, always doing the wrong thing, the wicked thing – but yet he grins all the way through.  The central action involves rape and its consequences and the film ends without punishment for Akira nor any real commentary on his actions or even a comment about the society (or world) that could produce such a person.  Everything is laid out to shock viewers but I wouldn’t recommend this except for its historical value; a better take on the same ideas is Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth (also 1960).   

  

Joy (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

Joy (2015) – D. O. Russell

There’s no denying that David O. Russell is a master filmmaker and he brings his craftsmanship to this picture too.  However, the story about the woman who invented the “miracle mop” and rose to prominence on the early shopping channel, QVC, doesn’t attain lift.  This is probably more the fault of the screenplay (by Russell himself) than the acting (featuring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Isabella Rossellini, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd, and more).  Perhaps we’ve seen too many rags-to-riches “American Dream” stories by now and, well, they just aren’t believable anymore.  In fact, they seem almost wrong-headed in the way they might lull people who deserve to be starting a revolution into wasting their time trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps within the system.  Joy (the title character) certainly does face a lot of setbacks, but to the accompaniment of just the right music, with her badass shades on and a confident walk, she wins out over the bastards.  The fact that this is based on a true story doesn’t make it any less of a (hollow) fantasy. 

  

Wild at Heart (1990)

☆ ☆ ½

Wild at Heart (1990) – D. Lynch

David Lynch cranks out gruelling sex and uber-violence and disconnected Wizard of Oz references in an overblown yet somehow languorous (and too long) version of the titular book (which I haven’t read).  Sailor (Nic Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern) are young lovers on the run from her mother (Diane Ladd; yes, really her mother) and the strange thugs she hires to kill him (Harry Dean Stanton, Willem Dafoe included).  Not much makes sense (as usual) but something is missing here from the Lynch films that “work” – perhaps his feel for the mysterious has been sacrificed for a hysterical metallic sheen? There are some arresting images (including some that you can’t “unsee”), fleeting cameos, and puzzling inserts but it doesn’t carry you along as Lost Highway does (despite its own failures) and it doesn’t resonate with unearthed themes as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive do.  Cage and Dern got a raw deal, despite their willingness to go all the way.  This reminds me why it took me a long time to warm up to Lynch.  Give it a miss.