Since his acclaimed 1995 debut KICKING AND SCREAMING, writer/director Noah Baumbach has made a name for himself in indie circles but is probably still best known for his two screenwriting collaborations with friend Wes Anderson on the latter's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004) and FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009). I've always found Baumbach the more interesting filmmaker, often coming off like the dark side of Anderson, though I realize I'm in the minority by not buying much of what Anderson is selling. Baumbach got a lot of attention for his devastating THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005), but his next film, MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (2007) proved too caustically abrasive for most audiences to handle, and though it features a career-best Nicole Kidman performance, it's almost unbearably uncomfortable at times, which is why it might be Baumbach's masterpiece. 2010's GREENBERG followed along those same lines, though the uncharacteristically dark Ben Stiller vehicle was stolen by co-star Greta Gerwig. Gerwig, generally considered the face of the indie "mumblecore" movement, brought out a more uplifting side to Baumbach's filmmaking that really resonates in the director's latest film, FRANCES HA, which Baumbach co-wrote with the actress.
Drawing inspiration from the French New Wave and Woody Allen, the black & white FRANCES HA is also a sort-of mumblecore ANNIE HALL, though comparisons to the HBO series GIRLS would probably be appropriate (Gerwig isn't the provocateur that Lena Dunham is). Frances (Gerwig) is a 27-year-old college graduate and aspiring dancer in NYC who can't seem to get her act together. Her shaky semblance of stability falls apart when she can't commit to moving in with her boyfriend, which ends the relationship, and then her best friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Sumner, Sting's daughter) decides to move to Tribeca, an area Frances can't afford. Unable to pay the rent on her own, Frances jumps from one temporary living arrangement to another, starting with two platonic male friends, Lev (Adam Driver) and Benji (Michael Zegen), who share a $4000/month loft with apparent help from a parental allowance (unemployed Benji spends his days penning unsolicited scripts for SNL and a third GREMLINS movie), and moving on to a dance academy acquaintance (Grace Gummer, Meryl Streep's lookalike daughter). Frances often behaves erratically and seems emotionally stunted, and especially can't handle Sophie getting serious with boyfriend Patch (Patrick Heusinger), since she always felt the two of them were like "an old lesbian couple that doesn't have sex anymore." Sophie is ready for adulthood and Frances is not (one of Lev's friends tells Frances "You look a lot older than Sophie, but you act a lot younger"). Unlike past Baumbach protagonists, Frances seems to have his sympathy and even when she's frustrating and obnoxious, which is a lot of the time, Gerwig makes you like this character. She's struggling to find her place and like many of her friends, she's been coddled her entire life. Very few of these people have jobs that can support their lifestyles (for a far more bitterly misanthropic look at this very NYC phenomenon, check out the Williamsburg hipster/trust-fund-kid-eviscerating THE COMEDY). Perpetually irresponsible Frances impulsively flies off to Paris for two days--spending the bulk of it sleeping off the jetlag--simply because she got a new credit card in the mail. But she means well. Gerwig brings out the sweet side of Baumbach, never one to shy away from depicting people at their ugliest. She's an actress who can be off-putting when you first experience her style, but she's very good at balancing the charming and grating elements of a character's personality, and she does it without being "quirky." There's a lot of funny lines--Frances complaining about being poor and Benji telling her "You calling yourself poor is an insult to poor people," and Frances, allowed to smoke in Lev's apartment, quipping "This makes me feel like a bad mother in 1987"--but FRANCES HA (the title doesn't make sense until the very last shot) is perhaps a bit on the overrated side. It's a good film, but I'm just not sold on it being a great one. I'm not sure it's worthy of already being a Criterion Collection release, though that could be Baumbach's association with Criterion darling Anderson. (R, 86 mins, also available on Netflix streaming)
I DECLARE WAR (Canada - 2013)
Mixing elements of STAND BY ME with LORD OF THE FLIES and the 1994 cult film WAR OF THE BUTTONS, the Canadian indie I DECLARE WAR offers an inventive concept and some disturbingly subversive imagery but eventually belabors its point into heavy-handedness. It's an interesting film, but I'm just not sure there's enough there to carry it to feature-length. Directed by Jason Lepeyre and Robert Wilson, and scripted by Lepeyre, I DECLARE WAR has a group of kids playing Capture the Flag in a wooded area. As if putting the viewer in the mindset of the kids, the directors show them firing guns and blowing each other away, but they're alive again after they count to ten. We know they're just playing with sticks and branches, but in their heads, they're using weaponry. Lepeyre's script also has them using war-movie jargon that's intermittently broken up by things like "Wanna come over after War?" One side is represented by the strategy-obsessed P.K. (Gage Munroe), a military history fanatic whose side has never lost. His opponent is Quinn (Aiden Gouveia), who's overthrown and "killed" (with a red water balloon "grenade") in a coup engineered by the angry Skinner (Michael Friend). Skinner takes P.K.'s best friend Kwon (Siam Yu) as a prisoner of war to lure P.K. to their base. Skinner uses "enhanced interrogation" on Kwon and clearly has a personal beef with both Kwon and P.K. and uses this day's game of Capture the Flag to exact his vengeance.
I DECLARE WAR showcases some fine young actors, all of whom are excellent, even if a major subplot about the one tomboyish female participant, Jess (Mackenzie Munro), is a bit hazy and not very fleshed-out (she has a crush on Quinn, imagining herself spending the afternoon with him as he appears as a "ghost" to her because he's "dead"--he actually just went home after Skinner "killed" him). But even when the script stumbles, the cast have a natural screen presence that's often quite remarkable. While they may not always succeed with their story, Lepeyre and Wilson did an outstanding job of picking their actors (Munroe is excellent as P.K., the kind of kid who bores all of his friends by making them watch PATTON when they come over to his house). There's a lot of strengths to I DECLARE WAR, but it's an allegorical story that would probably play much better as a short story than as a 90-minute film where, once the central conceit is established and you're over the shock of seeing kids mowing one another down in a "game," it just starts to feel overly contrived and keeps spinning its wheels to a certain degree. (Unrated, 94 mins)
Criterion's Eclipse Series has been a great way for the company to release its various acquisitions in bulk/themed sets without all the extra features, as not everything under the Janus Films banner is worthy of its own super-deluxe edition. Eclipse sets have made it possible to see long-buried treasures by the likes of Samuel Fuller and Roberto Rossellini, and the early works of Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa, to name a few. The latest Eclipse package is devoted to four sci-fi/horror films from the prestigious Shochiku Films, the highbrow Japanese production company that was home to the venerable likes of Kenji Mizoguchi (THE 47 RONIN) and Yasujiro Ozu (LATE SPRING). While other major Japanese studios like Toho, Daiei, and Nikkatsu had their genre specialties, Shochiku waited for quite some time before belatedly going for commercial genre fare and abandoning it quite quickly. Their sojourn into the world of sci-fi/horror lasted just four films over a two-year period, and they're all included in this new set, from gothic-tinged ghost stories to laughably cheap kaiju, almost as if they dabbled in a little of everything to see what worked. As it turns out, none of them inspired the studio to continue, but at least a couple of these films have attained major cult status and are, for the first time ever, widely available on legit DVD.
THE X FROM OUTER SPACE (Japan - 1967)
Shochiku's attempt at a kaiju resulted in one of the cheesiest of the post-GODZILLA giant monster flicks. A space mission to Mars led by Capt. Sano (Shunya Wazaki) encounters a UFO that comic relief crew member Miyamoto (Shinichi Yanagisawa) describes as "looking like a half-cooked omelet." Sano and the rest of the crew--Dr. Shioda (Keisuke Sonoi) and biologist Lisa (Peggy Neal)--also inadvertantly bring back with them a radioactive alien life form that soon mutates and turns into a giant beaked monster called Guilala and commences the mandatory rampage across Japan. Made at a time when Toho's kaiju were getting their budgets slashed as the films were in the process of becoming total kiddie fare, THE X FROM OUTER SPACE probably fits more in line with the cheapies of the 1970s rather than the relatively serious examples from the 1960s, even if it lacks an annoying kiddie protagonist (though the endlessly clowning Miyamoto comes close to sufficing). Director/co-writer Kazui Nihonmatsu, a longtime Shochiku journeyman, clearly isn't interested in this assignment and the film is rather sloppily assembled: he cuts away from Guilala's first rampage and goes immediately to the day after. And unlike the detail-oriented suits crafted for Toho productions (at least until apathy and penny-pinching soon kicked in), Shochiku's rubber suited monster is clearly an extremely rubbery suit (watch the way Guilala's feet bounce whenever they hit the pavement). But that's part of the whole package when it comes to most of these, even though they did begin as (and would occasionally return to being) largely serious films. Guilala is ultimately sent back into space but returned decades later as the star of the 2008 kaiju spoof MONSTER STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT. One scene dealing with the early-stage Guilala bleeding through a table and the floor beneath it seems awfully close to a scene in Ridley Scott's ALIEN 12 years later. Also featuring HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR star Eiji Okada, clearly slumming as the scientist in charge at mission control, plus an awesomely catchy theme song, THE X FROM OUTER SPACE was given an English dub but skipped US theaters and ended up as part of an AIP-TV syndication package, where it went into regular rotation on Saturday afternoon Creature Features and late-night TV. The Criterion Eclipse version is presented in Japanese with English subtitles, with a rarely-seen 2.24:1 aspect ratio. (Unrated, 88 mins)
GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL (Japan - 1968)
The completely bonkers GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL has become a major Japanese cult title over the decades since its release. The insane yet coherent story has the survivors of a plane crash dealing with a crazed hijacker (Hideo Ko) possessed by aliens and transformed into a vampire, killing them off one by one. An alien race calling itself Gokemidoro has come to the conclusion that the people of Earth don't really deserve to live, what with all the death and destruction going back to the atomic bomb in 1945. The Gokemidoro have pretty much had enough of our warmongering ways (there's a lot of timely yet heavy-handed references to Vietnam as well the alarming number of assassinations, presumably referring to JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr). GOKE gets a little too snotty with its preaching at times, but it's an ambitious and furiously misanthropic piece of work with no shortage of startling, arresting imagery: a gash splitting open Ko's forehead and the bridge of his nose, through with the gelatinous, blob-like Gokemidoro ooze into his body and take control; the hellish red sky of the opening scenes that conveys a clear Mario Bava influence; the glowing UFO; the Gokemidoro victims immediately turning to dust in the wind as they die; the reveal of one corpse that's an obvious nod to a famous shot near the end of Hitchcock's PSYCHO; and birds splattering against the plane's windows before the crash. Unreleased in the US until 1979, when it was dubbed, had the "GOKE" dropped from its title, and was paired up with the 1965 Italian horror film BLOODY PIT OF HORROR for a grindhouse double bill. The Criterion Eclipse version features the original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles, presented in its 2.35:1 aspect ratio. (Unrated, 84 mins)
THE LIVING SKELETON
(Japan - 1968)
The vividly atmospheric THE LIVING SKELETON is, according to IMDb, not just the only film directed by Hiroshi Matsuno (credited here as "Koki Matsuno"), but his only movie credit at all, though critic Chuck Stephens' accompanying essay mentions Matsuno being a veteran assistant director who went on to a lot of TV work in subsequent years. Shot in black & white in a very widescreen 2.50:1 aspect ratio, THE LIVING SKELETON is the most distinctly "horror" of this Eclipse set, owing a bit to old-fashioned ghost stories and gothic Italian horror of the 1960s, but with some modern amenities like fleeting profanity and brief topless nudity. In a sparsely-populated fishing town, troubled Saeko (Kikko Matsuoka) is still coping with the death of her newlywed twin sister Yoriko (also Matsuoka) and her husband Nishizato (Ko Nishimura) on the ship Dragon King at the hands of modern-day pirates three years earlier. Saeko was taken in by the kindly local priest (Masumi Okada) and does odd jobs around the church. While out scuba diving with her fisherman boyfriend Mochizuki (Yasunori Irikawa), Saeko encounters the sunken ruins of the Dragon King surrounded by the chained-together skeletal remains of the other victims. When the ship actually appears in the fog-shrouded harbor, she boards it and encounters what appears to be the ghost of Yoriko, who promptly possesses Saeko to carry out her vengeance on those responsible for her death. THE LIVING SKELETON bogs down a bit in its second half after an improbable plot twist is revealed, coupled with further batshittery thrown about in the home stretch, but when it sticks to the eerie simplicity of a vengeful ghost story, it's often quite brilliant and certainly an obscure gem worthy of rediscovery. Briefly released in US theaters in 1969 in its original Japanese with English subtitles, which is how Criterion Eclipse presents it here. (Unrated, 80 mins)
GENOCIDE
(Japan - 1968)
For most of its duration, GENOCIDE is a pretty tepid, endlessly talky affair that focuses too much on the relationship of ne'er-do-well islander Joji (Yusuke Kawazu) who neglects his devoted, pregnant wife Yukari (Emi Shindo) while carrying on a clandestine affair with leggy American entomologist Annabelle (Kathy Horan, an expat American actress who was also in GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL). The needlessly convoluted story involves Annabelle masterminding a plot to wipe out humanity via poisoned insects, and her efforts dovetail with some local buffoons involved in germ warfare. When some American soldiers are killed after their plane, carrying a hydrogen bomb, was brought down by a swarm of insects, Dr. Nagumo (Keisuke Sonoi, from THE X FROM OUTER SPACE, also directed by this film's Kazui Nihonmatsu) and Dr. Komura (Reiko Hitomi) are the only ones who believe the account given by the crazed lone survivor Charly (Chico Roland). This goes on and the pace drags badly, but tough it out because GENOCIDE gets a lot better once the atomically-enhanced bugs launch their attack, leading to one of the most astonishingly nihilistic finales you'll ever see in the disaster genre. The post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki rage that propelled GODZILLA in its original, pre-Raymond Burr GOJIRA form and was a major element of GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL is absolutely off the charts here (likely the contribution of Susumu Takaku, who co-scripted both films). America is represented by the bitchy femme fatale Annabelle, whose reasons for her misanthropy are handled rather heavy-handedly and tastelessly by Nihonmatsu, and the arrogant Colonel Gordon (Ralph Jesser), who has no problem nuking Japan again if need be. But everybody's pretty much an asshole here except for Yukari and the two doctors: despite his eventual redemption, Joji is a shameless, selfish philanderer, Yukari's sleazy boss tries to have his way with her on multiple occasions, and that same boss is a casual racist who refers to the black Charly as a "savage." Given what transpires in the end, most of these characters have it coming. The last 20 or so minutes of GENOCIDE are so great that it almost makes you think you saw a better film than you did. Presented in Japanese with English subtitles (very distracting in the scenes with just American characters), at an unusual 2.47:1 aspect ratio. A dubbed version was released in the US in 1969 as WAR OF THE INSECTS, which was the version skewered by Cinematic Titanic, the live mockery touring unit featuring MST3K vets Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, and Mary Jo Pehl. (Unrated, 84 mins)
Typical of the Eclipse sets, there's little in the way of bonus features: nothing on the discs themselves, but each film, packaged in its own slim case, contains an informative essay written by film critic and Japanese cinema expert Chuck Stephens, who has contributed to previous Criterion releases like Masahiro Shinoda's PALE FLOWER (1964) and Nobuhiko Obayashi's insane HOUSE (1977), as well as the earlier Eclipse Series 28: THE WARPED WORLD OF KOREYOSHI KURAHARA. Particularly with THE X FROM OUTER SPACE, Stephens doesn't sugarcoat it when the films aren't particularly "good," but he does his usual solid job of exploring the underlying themes of the more serious entries and where they fit into the big picture of Japanese cinema. None of these films are perfect and a couple aren't even very good, but they all have their immense charms, making WHEN HORROR CAME TO SHOCHIKU a must-have for fans of Japanese cinema and cult movies in general.
Charles Chaplin's 1925 masterpiece THE GOLD RUSH is treated to an expectedly exhaustive, extras-packed Criterion package, complete with two HD restorations: the original (or as close to it as possible) 1925 silent version, and Chaplin's 1942 re-edit, with added descriptive narration and Chaplin reciting the characters' dialogue. Chaplin wanted to revamp the film for the sound era and considered the 1942 cut the definitive edition. At 72 minutes, the 1942 cut runs 17 minutes shorter than the 1925 version, due to some cuts, subplot alterations, the removal of the intertitles, alternate camera angles or different takes, and the fact that it's running at the standard sound speed instead of silent. The 1925 version fell into the public domain in 1953 after Chaplin, then preoccupied with immigration battles with J. Edgar Hoover, resulting in a permanent move back to his native England, neglected to renew the copyright. The 1925 version of THE GOLD RUSH has been available in various forms over the decades, in prints, VHS, and DVD editions ranging from OK to completely unwatchable, but the complete, original version, as it was released in 1925, became an essentially lost film. That is, until enough surviving elements were found--largely from a private collector who had a print of it in his collection--and restoration gurus Kevin Brownlow and David Gill painstakingly restored it in 1993 to something very close to its original version. That restoration is given an HD upgrade here. It utilizes different sources and has numerous instances of skipped or missing frames and jumpy editing, but for a 88-year-old film long ago abandoned, it looks very good.
As good as the 1925 cut looks, the 1942 version looks even better, with darker blacks and greater textural detail. Call me a purist, but despite the 1942 cut being Chaplin's preferred version and it being the better of the two transfers here, I think it's the 1925 cut that holds up better. I don't recall ever seeing the 1942 cut before now, though it has appeared on TCM. When I saw THE GOLD RUSH in college, it was on VHS and I'm almost certain it was a pretty beat-up and incomplete print of the 1925 version. While the 1942 cut was a concession to sound audiences at the time (the first sound films appeared in 1927 and had become the standard by early 1930, when only a few stray silents wandered into theaters before vanishing completely; Chaplin was the last silent holdout and didn't make an all-sound feature until 1940's THE GREAT DICTATOR, by which time he'd finally embraced the talkies), today it seems superfluous and pandering. Silent comedy spoke for itself, and the comedy of THE GOLD RUSH is timeless: the Thanksgiving dinner of boiled shoe with spaghetti laces; the dance of the dinner rolls; the cabin dangling off the mountain; the complicated timing and choreography of the Lone Prospector (Chaplin), Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain), and escaped fugitive Black Larson (Tom Murray) trying to close the doors of the cabin during a blizzard. THE GOLD RUSH doesn't need Chaplin narrating and reciting dialogue synched to the characters' lip movements. Just playing devil's advocate here, but is it possible that as the years went on, Chaplin preferred the 1942 cut simply because, due to the copyright lapse, it was the only version from which he and his family could profit? Yes, he was an artist, but who doesn't like money? Watching them back-to-back, the 1925 cut is clearly the superior version. Both were included on Warner's 2005 DVD, but this new Criterion set, on DVD and Blu-ray, must be considered the definitive home video edition, with numerous documentary featurettes, four trailers, a booklet with an essay by critic Luc Sante and a reprint of Andrew Sarris' Time review of the 1942 release, plus a commentary on the 1925 version by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance. (Unrated, 1925 version: 89 mins/1942 version: 72 mins)
SHALLOW GRAVE (UK, 1995)
I remember working at Blockbuster in the mid '90s and SHALLOW GRAVE being one of those offbeat gems that everyone on the staff loved. Danny Boyle's debut feature also marked his first collaboration with producer Andrew Macdonald and writer John Hodge. This team would go on to worldwide fame with 1996's TRAINSPOTTING, would work in together in various combinations on other projects, though the three haven't teamed since 2000's ill-fated THE BEACH. It's probably been at least a decade since I last watched SHALLOW GRAVE, and it's held up quite well. Memorable images and bits of quotable dialogue hit me like I just saw the film last week. Boyle, already nearly 40 at the time, had done a lot of TV directing and shows a remarkable sense of style throughout. The way the camera fluidly snakes through the large, spacious Edinburgh flat is almost hypnotic. Equal parts Hitchcock and BLOOD SIMPLE, with dashes of giallo and Dario Argento thrown in, the unrepentantly mean-spirited SHALLOW GRAVE is the twisted, dark-humored story of three thoroughly unlikable flatmates--doctor Juliet (Kerry Fox), accountant David (Christopher Eccleston), and tabloid hack Alex (Ewan McGregor, in his second film)--looking for a fourth roommate. Cruelly dismissing everyone not up to their standards (most memorably Colin McCredie's much-abused Cameron), they finally settle on mysterious Hugo (Keith Allen), who claims to be a novelist and flashes huge wad of cash. The next day, they find Hugo naked and dead from a drug overdose. Under his bed is a suitcase full of cash. Deciding to leave the cops out of it, they dismember Hugo's body and bury it in the titular spot in the woods. Almost immediately, paranoia sets in among the three friends. With the money in the equation, they no longer trust one another. David stops going to work and moves to the attic, drilling holes in its floor so he can keep constant watch on his roommates, and two thugs (Peter Mullan, Leonard O'Malley) come looking for Hugo and the money, followed closely by the cops. Terrific performances not just from the three leads, but even down to the smallest supporting roles, with the standouts being McCredie as the hapless Cameron, and Ken Stott's dry and subtly hilarious performance as the utterly incredulous Inspector McCall, who doesn't for one moment buy what these three smug roomies are trying to sell him.
SHALLOW GRAVE, made for the US equivalent of $2.5 million, looks absolutely brilliant on this Criterion Blu-ray edition. Beautiful colors, crystal clarity, perfectly-defined imagery--this film has never looked as good as it does here. As usual, it's filled with extensive supplementals: two commentaries (one with Boyle, taken from a 2009 UK DVD release, and a new 2012 track with Macdonald and Hodge); new interviews with Fox, Eccleston, and McGregor (on his character: "He's a wanker, really"); a 1993 behind-the-scenes doc directed by Macdonald's brother Kevin, who went on to make THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND; a 1992 video diary of the team trying to sell the script at the Edinburgh Film Festival; and an essay by film historian Philip Kemp. In short, as is customary with the Criterion Collection, this is pretty much the last word on SHALLOW GRAVE, and the ultimate edition for fans of this smart, dazzlingly-shot thriller from the heyday of the 1990s indie explosion that's held on to become one of the top cult films of its era. (R, 93 mins)
CERTIFIED COPY (France/Italy/Belgium, 2010; US release 2011)
Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami's first film outside his homeland garnered much critical acclaim and has been released by Criterion, but I'm not feeling the magic. In Italy, an antique shop owner (Juliette Binoche) attends a lecture given by British art historian James (opera singer William Shimell, in a role originally intended for Robert De Niro). Much to her surprise, he agrees to spend a leisurely Sunday afternoon with her before catching his train that evening. They drive to a small village and discuss art, culture, philosophy, and life, and when a cafe server mistakes James for her husband at about the 50-minute point, they decide to roll with it. For the remaining hour of the film, they role-play as a couple celebrating 15 years of marriage. So, much like their art talk of the value of "real" vs "copy," we're meant to question which of these halves is accurate: are they strangers spending the day together or are they a married couple at a crossroads, and the first half was role-playing? If there are any answers, Kiarostami's not interested in them. Instead we get a lot of facile symbolism involving mirrors, windows, and reflective surfaces (oooh..."real" vs "copy"...the duality!). Binoche's character has a young son who exits the film early on--is this their son and is he even real? Looking back, no one other than James seems to see him or acknowledge him. Are she and James a couple who drifted apart after an overwhelming tragedy? Who knows? They pontificate on art, emotions, meaning, memory, reality, but assuming for a moment that they really are strangers, are we to believe that a world-renowned figure like James would play along with this woman who would seem to grow increasingly unhinged over the afternoon? This drew a lot of comparisons to BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET, but honestly, as bizarre as the "they're strangers" side of it is, it wouldn't take much tweaking to turn it into a riff on MISERY. And hey, I know if I had a chance to spend an afternoon with one of my favorite writers, I'd expect them to indulge me and role play so I can work through my psychological hang-ups and foibles. CERTIFIED COPY is pompous, pretentious bullshit. (Unrated, running time: endless)
BEYOND (US, 2012)
It's nice to see Jon Voight in a lead role again, but aside from his presence, there's not much to recommend about the bland, boring BEYOND. A kidnapping thriller with supernatural overtones, BEYOND casts Voight as a veteran Alaska detective who's the go-to guy for missing children cases. Nearing retirement (of course), this sort-of Abduction Whisperer is called in to help find the police chief's (Dermot Mulroney) missing niece (Dharbi Jens). Voight suspects everyone, including the squabbling parents (Teri Polo, Ben Crowley), the babysitter (Skyler Shaye), and even a famous TV psychic (Julian Morris) who claims to have visions of the missing girl. The paranormal angle is just a dead-end distraction and the final revelation straight out of an uninspired LAW & ORDER episode. Director Josef Rusnak (who made the underrated 1999 sci-fi film THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR, but lately has been doing stuff like the dreadful IT'S ALIVE remake) establishes an impressively cold, barren look throughout the film with wide open interiors and the snowy terrain of Alaska and gets an appropriately grizzled, grouchy performance from Voight, who's still got it at 73, but as a thriller, BEYOND is a pretty stale affair. (PG-13, 90 mins)
CONTRABAND (US/UK/Iceland, 2012)
Icelandic actor/director Baltasar Kormakur starred in Oskar Jonasson's 2008 thriller REYKJAVIK-ROTTERDAM and steps behind the camera for this remake. Mark Wahlberg takes over Kormakur's role, bringing his finest "say hi to your mother for me" schtick to his role as a now-legit ex-smuggler brought back into the game for One Last Job. Now running his own New Orleans security company, Wahlberg is forced to bail out his loser brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) who botched a drug run and is on the hook for $700,000 to dirtbag drug lord/Cajun meth-head Giovanni Ribisi. Ribisi, totally over the top, has no problem making overt threats to Wahlberg's wife (Kate Beckinsale) and kids, so she takes them to stay with Wahlberg's best friend (Ben Foster), who really can't be trusted, since he's played by Ben Foster. Wahlberg and some pals get work on a container ship captained by J.K. Simmons (cast radically against type as "J.K. Simmons") in order to smuggle in some counterfeit bills from Panama, but there wouldn't be a movie if the plan didn't turn to shit. Before long, the plot involves a psychotic Panamanian crime kingpin (Diego Luna), bricks of cocaine, a priceless Jackson Pollock painting, and Ribisi threatening to shoot Wahlberg's kid at his Little League game. Plausibility isn't CONTRABAND's strong suit, but it's sufficiently entertaining. Kormakur thankfully avoids annoying trends like shaky-cam and in the latter part of the film, with the help of Clinton Shorter's synthy score, he actually gets a very Michael Mann vibe going before a wrap-up that's just far too conveniently neat and tidy. Diverting while you're watching it but forgettable soon after, CONTRABAND will have a long life on cable but isn't anything special, though it's highly recommended for fans of Giovanni Ribisi scenery chewing. (R, 110 mins)
Directed by Mario Monicelli. Written by Age-Scarpelli (Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli) and Mario Monicelli. Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, Gabriella Giorgelli, Folco Lulli, Bernard Blier, Francois Perier, Vittorio Sanipoli, Mario Pisu, Kenneth Kove, Giampiero Albertini. (Unrated, 130 mins).
Famed Italian director Mario Monicelli (BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET) was never identified with the Neorealist movement but was occasionally on the periphery, usually as a script contributor on films like THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US and BITTER RICE. But Neorealism's influences can be seen in THE ORGANIZER, released this week in beautiful DVD and Blu-ray editions by Criterion.
THE ORGANIZER (Italian title: I COMPAGNI, or The Comrades) wears its socialist politics on its sleeve with the story of a late 1800s strike at a Turin textile factory. The workers, worn down by 14-hour work days with one 30-minute lunch, revolt when an aging, exhausted worker loses his hand in a machine accident. Uneducated and with a good number of them illiterate, their initial attempts at dealing with management--first with the glad-handing, manipulative supervisor (Vittorio Sanipoli) who keeps trying to convince them that he's on their side and he's "one of them," and then with the openly condescending manager (Mario Pisu)--get them nowhere. But one day, a grubby-looking stranger calling himself Professor Sinigaglia (Marcello Mastroianni) arrives in town and immediately latches himself to their cause. But who is Sinigaglia? He has a friend in schoolteacher Mr. DiMeo (Francois Perier), and may be on the run from police in Genoa. He may even be a con artist. But he's a natural, charismatic leader, and he inspires the factory workers to stand up for themselves and helps them put together a strike from the planning stages to implementation. Their demands? A 13-hour work day with a one-hour lunch break, and accident insurance But the factory management, and the old, angry owner Mr. Luigi (Kenneth Kove) aren't about to play ball.
While the subject matter is serious and the finale a grim, powerful gutpunch, complete with a brilliant final shot that's cynical and heartbreaking, Monicelli and co-writers Age-Scarpelli (the name used by the writing team of Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli) spend a lot of time with these characters, allowing us to know them and their backstories (Mastroianni doesn't appear until 30 minutes into the film) and this establishes a feeling of warmth and familiarity with the workers. And there's a lot of humor as well. It's often very funny but never slapsticky, and the filmmakers do a magnificent job of balancing the humor with the serious drama in a way that feels natural and compassionate and never stoops to screaming "Message!" The script got a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination after the film's 1964 US release, losing to the Cary Grant film FATHER GOOSE. Giuseppe Rotunno's black & white cinematography makes for a stunning HD presentation in 1.85:1. Extras include a booklet with a short essay by longtime Village Voice critic J. Hoberman and a 2006 introduction by Monicelli, who committed suicide in 2010 at 95 years of age by jumping from the window of his room at a hospital where was being treated for prostate cancer.
Criterion have done their usual masterful job with this acclaimed-in-its-day but now somewhat forgotten film whose rediscovery in the US seems perfectly timed with today's economic and political concerns. Highly recommended.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder doing philosophical, dystopian sci-fi is quite a proposition, and the long-lost WORLD ON A WIRE, shot for German TV, is a fascinating experience. Restored and given a very brief theatrical release in 2011, WORLD ON A WIRE (WELT AM DRAHT) is based on the 1960s sci-fi novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye(also the basis of the 1999 film THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR). Fassbinder's film draws obvious inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), as well as Jean-Luc Godard's ALPHAVILLE (1965) and Andrei Tarkovsky's SOLARIS (1972), in addition to the works of Philip K. Dick, while prefiguring later works like the Dick-based BLADE RUNNER (1982), THE LAWNMOWER MAN (1992), EXISTENZ (1999), THE MATRIX (1999), and the more recent THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (2011), among others, while feeling right in line with classic '70s paranoia thrillers. And it does so with minimal special effects, utilizing the cold, desolate, low-tech environments of early 1970s office buildings, which manage to display a distinct lack of humanity just fine on their own.
The plot is a labyrinthine maze, exemplified by Fassbinder's strategic use of mirrors and reflective surfaces, involving a top-secret project at the Institute for Cybernetics and Futurology, one that involves a computer program that creates an alternate world of "identity units" inside the computer, one that the scientists can enter via ominous-looking VR helmets. The creator of the program, Prof. Vollmer (Adrian Hoven) has gone insane and dies in a mysterious accident. His assistant, Fred Stiller (Klaus Lowitsch) suddenly finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy, being followed, talking to people that others insist don't exist. No one is who they seem and it's never certain what's real or imagined. It's a twisty story that exists on multiple levels of reality, and it's difficult at times to keep everything straight, especially at 213 minutes, which might've worked as a two-part TV-movie, but as a feature, it could definitely be whittled down. You'll figure out the mid-film twist at least an hour before Stiller does, but it's still essential viewing for any Fassbinder or sci-fi fan, or, if nothing else, students of hideous 1973 fashions. Lots of eccentric Fassbinder humor on display as well, like Stiller's complete non-reaction to a pallet of bricks--intended for him--being dropped on an innocent bystander, and the strange way Stiller and Cybernetics head Siskins (Karl-Heinz Vosgerau) have a meeting while playfully spinning around in their swivel chairs.
Criterion does the best they can with the restoration, but it's a TV-movie shot in 16mm. Blown up to 35mm, with this new digital transfer supervised by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (who went on to shoot numerous Hollywood films, including several for Martin Scorsese), it can only look so good, and some scenes have inherent flaws that simply couldn't be eliminated. Mind you, it's as good as it can look, but don't expect the crystal clear image you usually get from Criterion. The 1.33:1 aspect ratio makes the film seem a little cramped. Indeed, at times, some of those expansive office scenes and long corridors seem to be crying out for at least 1.78:1, but it was shot for 1970s TV, so 1.33 is how it was made. Most of Fassbinder's stock company of actors have roles here: Gunther Lamprecht, Margit Carstensen, Gottfried John, Kurt Raab, Ulli Lommel, and Eddie Constantine in a cameo. Ultimately, WORLD ON A WIRE is good, but not great Fassbinder, a film with brilliant ideas and images but often too slow, repetitive, and simply too long. The obsessive cinephile or sci-fi enthusiast will get much more from this than the casual viewer. Extras include a 50-minute documentary directed by Fassbinder Foundation head Juliane Lorenz, an interview with German film historian Gerd Gemunden, and a booklet with an essay by critic Ed Halter. (Unrated, 213 mins)
ANATOMY OF A MURDER (US - 1959)
Otto Preminger's courtroom classic caused quite a sensation in 1959 with its controversial use of graphic language such as "intercourse," "sperm," "panties," and "girdle." But it's as enthralling as ever, as jazz-loving small-town lawyer James Stewart defends an Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) who killed the man who allegedly raped his wife (Lee Remick). Nothing's black and white in this case, as Stewart and big-city prosecutor George C. Scott duke it out in a series of back and forth spats (my favorite is Scott intentionally standing in Stewart's line of sight during a cross-examination of a defense witness). As great as the film is, it's definitely a product of its time, and the notion that a judge (played by McCarthy hearings judge Joseph N. Welch) has to warn courtroom spectators not to giggle over the word "panties" seems patently ridiculous today. Courtoom dramas were all the rage during this period, with movies like 12 ANGRY MEN and the popularity of PERRY MASON on TV, and ANATOMY OF A MURDER still stands with the best of them, and it looks better than ever with Criterion's HD restoration, filled with such detail that you can make out textures of decor in a room and the fabric on clothing. The depth and detail is astonishing, and again shows why Criterion continues to set and raise the standards. Packed with numerous supplements and packaged with a 29-page booklet with essays, interviews, and photos. This is the definitive presentation of an American classic. (Unrated, 161 mins)
THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI (Japan - 1964)
While not quite on the level of Akira Kurosawa's legendary samurai pictures, Hideo Gosha's THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI is an excellent genre offering, especially in this beautiful new transfer. In critic Bilge Ebiri's essay in the package's accompanying booklet, he draws numerous parallels between Gosha and Sam Peckinpah, most notably their origins in television. THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI was a prequel offshoot of a popular Japanese TV series of the same name that debuted a year earlier. Gosha and his three stars (Tetsuro Tamba, Isamu Nagato, Mikijiro Hira) made an impressive move to the big screen with this B-level samurai film that lacks the epic scope and the artistic touches of a Kurosawa offering, but is thrilling, often savagely-violent entertainment nonetheless. The story is familiar: wandering samurai (Tamba) encounters a group of peasants who have abducted the daughter of the local magistrate to protest their taxation and their poor living conditions. With nothing better to do, he decides to help them by offering the intelligence and fighting skill that they lack. Two other samurai, one a cold mercenary who's all about money (Hira) and an affable, almost comic-relief troublemaker (Nagato), are hired by the magistrate to lead his men on a rescue mission. In the first of many changing alliances, Nagato ends up joining Tamba and the peasants. And since the show had already been on for a year, it's a given that Hira eventually ends up switching sides. Gosha, whose work hasn't been widely seen in the US, makes an impressive move from TV to film, using every bit of the 2.35 frame with inventive shot compositions and strikingly fluid camerawork. Excellently-staged action sequences and fine performances by the three leads make this required viewing for fans of samurai cinema. Few things look better than glorious, crisp black & white when done right in HD, and this is no exception. (Unrated, 93 mins)
