Theory of Obscurity: A Film about The Residents (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

Theory of Obscurity: A Film about The Residents (2015) – D. Hardy

The main reaction I had to this documentary about The Residents is a wish that the band had made the film themselves.  But, of course, they may have, because director Don Hardy appears to have had access to a lot of presumably unseen footage from the early years of the 40-year-old band and members of the Cryptic Corporation (that oversee the business dealings of the band) were actively involved in editing and in front of the camera.  Of course, we still don’t know who the Residents actually are – but some of the old guys being interviewed sure seem to know a lot about their history.  My regret is not really with the content shown (which is often truly weird) but instead with the rather formulaic approach taken here – this is really just another one of those music docos where you’ve got talking heads (including with fans/accomplices) interspersed with short clips of the band playing.  There are some great clips but they never show you enough.  Why can’t the makers of these types of documentaries understand that fans would really want to see an entire song?  Especially in the case of the Residents where the visual and multimedia aspects of their show are so astonishing!  There are a couple of songs from the Commercial Album played on the 2013 fortieth anniversary tour that do run their full (short) length but that tour seems stripped down in comparison to earlier tours.  Of course, if the band’s output really is 60 albums (plus all sorts of other ephemera), then no single 90-minute film is going to be able to do justice to any one aspect of their career.  But we do learn a lot about those eyeballs.  Check their records, folks!

  

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) – Y. Lanthimos

Yorgos Lanthimos’s movies are exceedingly strange, partly because they tend to feature highly stylized sometimes affectless acting, partly because they are staged and shot in a chilly clinical way, but mostly because the plots hold things back, gradually offering up unusual events or “underlying principles” as though they were normal when clearly they are not.  His previous film was The Lobster (2015) which featured a world in which it is illegal to be single (and if you cannot find a spouse you are turned into an animal of your choosing).  That one starred Colin Farrell, as does The Killing of a Sacred Deer.  Here he plays a surgeon who has a friendly relationship with a teenage boy that he seems to be keeping from others. Later, we discover that the boy’s father died on the operating table, so the friendship seems to be Farrell’s way of expressing sympathy (or reducing guilt).  The boy (played by Barry Keoghan) seems friendly toward Farrell, if not a little needy (as is his now single mum).  That is, until he places a curse on Farrell’s family.  The rest of the film shows the family (including wife Nicole Kidman) coping with this predicament, which unlike the characters in previous Lanthimos films, they don’t accept as matter-of-fact but instead take a long time to come to grips with - and the movie sort of lopes along as they struggle.  Sure, there are lots of weird and inappropriate moments (particularly odd sexual disclosures) that make this more than your usual family-menaced-by-evil-outsider flick but it isn’t entirely out-of-this-world – instead everything is basically made as mundane as possible, so it’s our world but somehow off-kilter.  The alien soundtrack and unusual camera choices add to the effect.

The Assassin (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Assassin (2015) – H.-H. Hou

Absolutely beautiful to look at, with an impressively subtle use of colour (layered gauzy overlays on images shot through fabric), the film takes place in 8^th century China with lavish costumes and settings of that era.  The plot, however, is rather difficult to follow.  A young assassin (Qi Shu) is sent back to the province of her youth in order to kill a rebellious lord, who turns out to be her originally destined husband, until she was betrayed and sent away – to study to be an assassin with a fearsome nun.  At least that is what I think was going on.  But regardless, the movie can be enjoyed purely as a visual artwork (it is far too slow to be an action film, with little actual fighting).  Director Hsiao-Hsien Hou from Taiwan won the Best Director Prize at Canne but, apart from its majestic visuals, this probably isn’t his best film.  I haven’t seen them in ages but I really enjoyed The Puppetmaster (1993) and A Time to Live and A Time to Die (1985); his more recent films, perhaps not as much, though there are many I’ve not seen.  He has been making films very infrequently now so this may be his last. 

In Which We Serve (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

In Which We Serve (1942) – N. Coward & D. Lean

Entertaining WWII propaganda piece that shows the Brits keeping a stiff upper lip as they fight the Germans at sea.  Noel Coward wrote and co-directed (with first time director David Lean) this gritty look at the crew of the destroyer H. M. S. Torrin as they ship out, fight numerous battles, and eventually get sunk.  The title correctly tells viewers that the film is really about the ship (her birth, life, and death) and the sailors who serve in her do give a large number of speeches about her worthiness.  Much of the story is told in flashback, as the first scenes we see are the bombing of the ship and the “abandon ship” decree from Captain D. (played by Coward himself).  The cast cling to a lifeboat as the camera shows their faces in turn and cuts to their lives just before shipping out, showing the people whom they love (and for whom they are fighting the war).  The action sequences feature real wartime footage and ships, along with studio work.  John Mills plays a key role, as does Bernard Miles, and there is a good bit part for Richard Attenborough.  Celia Johnson is strong support as Coward’s wife.  With ANZAC Day tomorrow, it seems important to remember the sacrifices that some made and to hope that they won’t be needed again.

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

☆ ☆ ½

The Andromeda Strain (1971) – R. Wise

Perhaps in 1971, soon after the Moon landing, this was astounding.  Just thinking about possible viruses brought back from outer space must have been scary (and author Michael Crichton capitalised on that fear with his book).  But now in 2018, the film just seemed long and drawn out and dull.  Director Robert Wise spends a lot of time on the procedures that need to be undertaken to identify, understand, and counteract the virus – the science of it all – which is normally a good thing but it isn’t gripping cinema here.  (A few rats and monkeys die to help humans, but apparently this was carefully staged – remember this was the age of analog). Still, the film did win awards for its set design and it is very futuristic, if you can buy the green-text computer screens.  The cast of unknowns probably doesn’t help matters although at least they aren’t all men, as was the case in the book, apparently.  Of course, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that we will all be killed by a new and deadly virus and perhaps a president (this president?) would consider nuking an American town to eradicate it.  But let’s hope our science has improved in the past 50 years to offer a better solution.

Cold in July (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆

Cold in July (2014) – J. Mickle

I saw this on a list of recent “neo-noirs” and checked it out, despite the DVD box looking (and advertising) like a 90s Tarantino rip-off.  So, I went in cold, as it were, barely knowing who Michael C. Hall is (wondering half the time whether he had once been in The Breakfast Club).  He plays a not particularly bright picture framer who kills a prowler in self-defence and then has to deal with the prowler’s just-out-of-jail father (played menacingly by Sam Shepard).  A good deal of tension is created just out of this situation, as Shepard stalks Hall and his family.  But soon the police move in and the threat is removed…until Hall realises that all is not as it seems.  Soon, he’s partnering with Shepard and private eye/pig farmer Don Johnson to take the law into their own hands.  Things get very dark, so much so that I would say that the film crosses the line into tawdry (sordid and unpleasant) and risks invoking some bad shit without enough heft to the plot to justify it.  That is, the subsequent pay-off to the film and the exploration of the characters just seems to go flat at the end with no attempt to investigate their psychology or a more literary theme about fathers and sons that falls away just out of reach.  It isn’t a complete write-off: the tension remains high throughout and the inevitable ultra-violence is well-staged (for that sort of thing) plus the film takes place in the ‘80s with period detail to match (I gave a little shudder).  But my recommendation is to give this a miss.   

  

The Lost City of Z (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Lost City of Z (2016) – J. Gray

Although the material seems perfect for a film – an explorer travels the uncharted border between Brazil and Bolivia along the Amazon River in the early 20^th century – somehow the execution lets things down.  Perhaps it is the “Masterpiece Theatre” treatment that keeps things stately and stodgy?  A quick comparison with Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) which admittedly placed its Amazonia voyage a few centuries earlier, shows how dynamic and real-seeming this sort of film could be (cue Klaus Kinski and spider monkeys).  Instead, director James Gray somehow reduces the tension within the film, despite the physical challenges faced by the explorer, Percy Fawcett (played by Charlie Hunnam), and the moral/political conflict between him and the establishment.  Of course, some of the problem could be due to the rather earnest style of acting by Hunnam and others which comes across as stylized or phony – only Robert Pattison, playing Fawcett’s aide-de-camp, seems natural and charismatic.  Yet, the story of Fawcett, who ended up disappearing in 1925, is interesting enough that I looked him up on Wikipedia later.  And the cinematography by Darius Khondji does offer some beautiful shots in beautiful locations.  But the film is over-long, misuses Siena Miller (as Fawcett’s suffragette wife), and squanders whatever chances it had for something really special.  Too bad.