Deep Cover (1992)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Deep Cover (1992) – B. Duke

Laurence Fishburne, in his first starring role, plays a rebellious cop who goes undercover, deep under cover, to infiltrate and destroy a drug syndicate operating in southern California.  His DEA superior (played smarmily by Charles Martin Smith) encourages him to violate the law as he insinuates himself higher and higher up the food chain.  His first break is winning the respect and then loyalty of a slimy lawyer (played with gusto by Jeff Goldblum) who hopes to make it big by selling designer drugs to the cartel.  As a team, they become extremely profitable selling crack cocaine but remain under the thumb of an evil middleman (Gregory Sierra). Things get increasingly out-of-control and violent.  Fishburne narrates the story in voiceover, giving a film noir flavour to the proceedings that could have starred Mitchum or Dick Powell in an earlier age.  Except this movie takes place squarely in a black community suffering from a drug epidemic, an epidemic funded by people from outside the community (Latin America) who are supported by high level American officials (George H. W. Bush is referenced!).  Fortunately, black heroes are on hand, not just Fishburne’s undercover agent (who struggles mightily with the moral ambiguity of his role) but an ordinary cop (Clarence Williams III) who prays for the dealers as well as the victims.  Director Bill Duke keeps things moving at a good clip to a rap/hip-hop soundtrack with some interesting experimental touches (jump cuts like a record being scratched).  It doesn’t all hang together perfectly but this is a far-better-than-average thriller.  

Messiah of Evil (1973)

☆ ☆ ½

Messiah of Evil (1973) – W. Huyck & G. Katz

Strange from the get-go, when a non-sequitur murder leads directly into the opening credits (complete with out-of-place torch song), which bring us to an isolated gas station in early seventies California.  There, our heroine Arletty (Marianna Hill) witnesses a strange Albino in a pick-up truck as she fills up en route to the dead end beach town of Point Dune where she hopes to find her artist father. When she finds his studio empty and only addled and frightening diary entries from him, she sets out to find out what happened.  The local art gallery points her in the direction of a wandering man (Michael Greer) in seventies suit and his two “travelling companions” (Joy Bang and Anitra Ford) who are investigating a mysterious tale told by an old vagabond (Elisha Cook, Jr.) about a time when the moon turns blood red and a mysterious stranger returns to the town.  After that, I lost my place.  Eerie bonfires on the beach draw our heroes’ attention but they separate and discover that the townspeople are slowly turning into zombies (rummaging through the meat section of the supermarket).  A couple of grisly but low budget killings later, the moon does turn red and the mysterious stranger does return.  There is much that is inventive here, especially the art direction and cinematography -- and the directors claimed to be influenced by Antonioni – but I’ll admit that things seemed pretty disjointed throughout.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) – N. A. Oplev

Grim and ugly.  The original Norwegian title apparently translates to “Men who Hate Women” which seems apt for a film that is filled with sexual violence.  This is not the sort of content that I prefer to watch -- and indeed, we turned off the Fincher remake a few years ago during a rape scene.  However, following further, the horror and sadness evoked by seeing these experiences of women is (only somewhat) allayed by the presence of a heroic and self-sufficient (if not fully empowered) female character, Lisbeth Salander (played by Noomi Rapace).  She takes revenge on her rapist and also helps to solve the 40-year old mystery of the murdered teenager that drives the plot.  Lisbeth is a goth girl with the dragon tattoo and numerous piercings, under government-ordered guardianship, and a hacker by profession.  Her hacking job involves profiling investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (played by Michael Nyqvist) for a rich industrialist who happens to be the uncle of the murdered girl, now in his eighties.  He hires Blomkvist to solve the murder that the police could not, in a frozen and remote part of Norway.  Most of the family members are suspects.  Blomkvist and Salander are given enough backstory to feel like real people but the mystery itself (from Stig Larsson’s novel) seems to conclude rather abruptly (despite the film’s lengthy running time).  All told, I’m not sure I needed to see this – but Lisbeth Salander seems a valuable feminist hero to add to the canon (perhaps helping to inform the later zeitgeist that resulted in the “me too” movement).

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) – J. Clement & T. Waititi

Ha, ha – the Kiwi sense of humour is droll but ridiculous.  Think about “Flight of the Conchords” – hilarious, right?  But what’s the formula?  Silly, but intelligent.  Rarely crass (which seems to be the flavour of much American humour).  Willing to poke fun at themselves.  Perhaps whimsical at times.  Now take all that and apply it to the situation of three vampires living as flatmates in Wellington; that is, think about the problems that all flatmates face and then make them vampires.  Then pretend there is a documentary team following them around as they engage in their usual routines (which include nightclubbing and hunting for victims).  NZ superstars Taika Waititi (director of Boy, 2010, and Thor: Ragnarok, 2018) and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), co-directed and co-star alongside Jonny Brugh and a few other familiar Kiwis (Rhys Darby appears as a werewolf).  You probably need to be in the right mood for this but I enjoyed it and laughed (there are some great bits).  Of course, even at just 86 minutes, you start to feel the material get stretched out – the concept can only be pushed so far, perhaps.  That said, I understand that the movie has spun off a TV series already. Worth a look!

The Professionals (1966)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Professionals (1966) – R. Brooks

Lee Marvin leads a small group of adventurers into Mexico to rescue Texas railroad man Ralph Bellamy’s wife who has been kidnapped by Mexican rebels (formerly fighting for Pancho Villa).  The wife is Claudia Cardinale and the chief rebel is Jack Palance (both playing Mexicans).  The “good guys” are Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Woody Strode, and Robert Ryan.  I felt as though I had seen this before (but I don’t think I had).  Perhaps Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), another all-star affair with Robert Ryan, was coming to mind.  Lee Marvin’s other epic action films mostly take place in WWII (not in Mexico); he’s as stony as ever here though.  Burt Lancaster seems to be rollicking through the film, as though he was still in a 1950s costume drama, half grinning at the predicaments they find themselves in.  Strode and Ryan have less to do and their characters are less developed (if any of these characters are actually developed). At any rate, I pondered whether there was still an audience for this sort of tough guy adventure film (the kind that has a fair amount of sexism thrown in, just because), the sort of uncritical Dad film of the days gone by, resting easily on shorthand and schematics in order to stitch the action sequences to the plot.  The action sequences aren’t too bad, some suspense is built, and things blow up.  Naturally, there is also a twist: the band doesn’t quite honour their contract with Bellamy – but they do stand for honour as a principle. 

  

Tommy (1975)

☆ ☆ ☆

Tommy (1975) – K. Russell

I have to admit that I’m not overly familiar with The Who’s concept album, Tommy – but listening to it now, I have to declare that the band’s original versions of these songs are (for the most part) far superior to the movie’s remakes featuring Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Elton John, Jack Nicholson, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, and even Roger Daltrey.  As expected, director Ken Russell (Women in Love, The Devils, Altered States), an apt choice, brings the excess.  Ann-Margret’s (Oscar-nominated!) performance as Tommy’s mother is particularly over-the-top.  The album/movie tells the story of a boy who witnesses the murder of his returning serviceman father by his mum/stepdad which leads him to become psychosomatically deaf, dumb, and blind.  Eventually he becomes a pinball superstar and then a messiah of sorts (after he is awakened).  I’ll admit that my attention wavered at times but the sounds and images were seemingly more important than the plot, at least to Russell.  The Who obviously fully sanctioned this version and appear as themselves or in character parts throughout the film; however, the music is often created by others, corrupting the band’s sound.  Nevertheless, Elton John’s version of Pinball Wizard was apparently a hit at the time and the staging for the movie is pretty bizarre.  Of course, the band smash their instruments at its conclusion.

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018) – M. Neville

This documentary to accompany the (Netflix) release of Orson Welles’ last completed film (so far), The Other Side of the Wind, is cleverly edited together, featuring clips from across Welles’ oeuvre as well as footage from sets and interviews, as well as past and present talking heads.  The director is Morgan Neville who also directed this year’s doco about Mr. Rogers.  I’m a big Welles fan and have a few books about him, including Peter Bogdanovich’s interview book “This is Orson Welles” (1998; 2^nd edition) and Jean-Pierre Berthomé’s excellent Orson Welles at Work (2006; from Phaidon).  The former is referenced both in this documentary and in The Other Side of the Wind itself, where Bogdanovich’s character discusses his attempt to publish a book-length interview with fictional director Jake Hannaford (played by John Huston) that obviously echoes the real Bogdanovich-Welles relationship.  And I guess that is what I took away the most from this film, the fact that many of the TOSOTW characters were closely modelled on film personalities (such as critic Pauline Kael or producer Robert Evans), something I didn’t quite catch onto when I watched it, and the fact that Welles might have been pointedly critiquing some of his friends (as well as himself).  Was betrayal a key theme across his films? I’ll have to think about it. Beyond that it is always entertaining to see the charismatic and humorous Orson, even if the narrative attempts to portray him as sad due to his difficulties financing his films and even if many of the clips used (stolen from F for Fake, 1973, for example) are used “out of context” to add the illusion of snappy repartee.  It’s a light confection overall, without too much new to say, but very entertainingly put together.