Iraq has degenerated to a point where it's become nearly hopeless. American intelligence has issued a starkly pessimistic assessment of the country's prospects. And insurgents are gaining strength by the day. Civil war is now a high probability, while hopes for a functioning democracy have been completely snuffed out.
There's a fascinating interview on Fresh Air yesterday with Christopher Dickey, the Middle East bureau chief for Newsweek, who's been on the ground in Iraq. Dickey appeared eminently fair and deeply knowledgeable, and his assessment of Iraq's future is just as dire. Iraq is the most dangerous place he's has ever worked from, and other war correspondents he has spoken to agree. And the depressing thing is the increasing lack of interest in Iraq from the American public, who understandably want to turn away from the daily carnage unfolding in our occupied territory to more diverting news.
But one can't. It's the biggest operation the U.S. has engaged in since Vietnam -- easily the single most important decision made by an administration in my lifetime -- and as citizens, we have a duty to keep informed and hold politicians accountable for their actions. Imagine all the folks in the world who want to vote Bush and his cronies out of office but can't. This election, more than any other, the vote is power that other people only dream of.
Besides the usual sources, there are two blogs that really give you a sense of what's happening in Iraq. Juan Cole, professor at U of Michigan (one of my old stomping grounds), blogs about the Middle East almost exclusively. It's the single best source of Iraq information I know. Nearly as valuable is Iraq'd, a TNR blog written by Spencer Ackerman, covering the politics and policies shaping the place. He's got new info that over 3,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since April of this year. And he's got the best line I've seen recently in describing the Bushies (in comparing Bush to Wolfowitz): "In fact, three years after September 11, they are exactly alike in both program and intellectual style: dogmatic yet adrift, and relentlessly deceitful."
If you want to check out a blog kept by an Iraqi in Baghdad, there's (the now infrequently updated) Baghdad is Burning.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Apologies
Two posts down, in remarks about the new movie Sin City, I see that I passed up a golden opportunity to use the word "jejune." This was a gross oversight, and I'm sorry for being so neglectful to my dear readers.
Can't TIFF enough?
I hadn't realized that J. Robert Parks, whom I met last year, is writing an extensive TIFF journal for online film mag Flickerings.
Also, check out the Daily Greencine blog, which is like the Slashdot or Agonist for movie news.
And at roughly the halfway point of Tiffing, the view from the outside:
The Still Promising
Desplechin's Kings and Queen still sounds totally awesome. Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle (link is to a video teaser) reportedly kicks mucho ass. Rosetta-wanna-be Keane has received strong notices. Even the anti-Godard Skander liked the new Jean-Luc tract. And I really want to see lesbian buzz item /fest breakout hit My Summer of Love.
The Less Promising
Mixed word on Zhang's crowdpleasing House of Flying Daggers and Kore-eda's Nobody Knows (Victor and Scott Tobias dug it). Denis' Level IV "tone poem" elicited a collective "what the fuck?" And worst of all, reports on the new Lucas Moodyson death spiral makes me yearn for the comparatively bubbly Mike Leigh flick. Yuck.
Among the Young Indie turks...
David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees looks terrific; Sideways, from Election helmer Alexander Payne, is being touted by many as the Movie of the Year (I didn't think the trailer was all that hot); word is that Todd Solondz is up to his old tricks again in Palindromes, if with a cool That Obscure Object of Desire conceit; and David Gordon Green's Undertow sounds like the work of a man who desperately needs to get past the Terrence Malick fixation.
Also, check out the Daily Greencine blog, which is like the Slashdot or Agonist for movie news.
And at roughly the halfway point of Tiffing, the view from the outside:
The Still Promising
Desplechin's Kings and Queen still sounds totally awesome. Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle (link is to a video teaser) reportedly kicks mucho ass. Rosetta-wanna-be Keane has received strong notices. Even the anti-Godard Skander liked the new Jean-Luc tract. And I really want to see lesbian buzz item /fest breakout hit My Summer of Love.
The Less Promising
Mixed word on Zhang's crowdpleasing House of Flying Daggers and Kore-eda's Nobody Knows (Victor and Scott Tobias dug it). Denis' Level IV "tone poem" elicited a collective "what the fuck?" And worst of all, reports on the new Lucas Moodyson death spiral makes me yearn for the comparatively bubbly Mike Leigh flick. Yuck.
Among the Young Indie turks...
David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees looks terrific; Sideways, from Election helmer Alexander Payne, is being touted by many as the Movie of the Year (I didn't think the trailer was all that hot); word is that Todd Solondz is up to his old tricks again in Palindromes, if with a cool That Obscure Object of Desire conceit; and David Gordon Green's Undertow sounds like the work of a man who desperately needs to get past the Terrence Malick fixation.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Sneak peek at Sin City
Tipped by the estimable Bryant Frazer, here's a must-see trailer for a movie that looks like nothing you've ever seen before: Robert Rodriguez's adaptation of Frank Miller's adolescent pulp-graphic novel Sin City (5 minute video -- be warned), starring Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson (both looking super-hot), Josh Hartnett, Benicio Del Toro, and a host of other luminaries. The trailer has the feel of perfume-porn, but it sports an astonishing high contrast look and spare sets that are a perfect match for Miller's blocky, abstract style (simple thick lines, heavy-inks, and a geometric approach to figure rendering). What you find is a half-dazzling, half-overcooked display of retro-noir expresionism, two parts Jacques Tourneur to one part Luc Besson. The look promises to be one-of-a-kind, but the movie might very well be a turkey for the ages. Why? You can already get a taste of the embarrassingly purple pulp dialogue. Then, there's the creative force behind this thing. Miller's unshakeable alpha-teen-boy sensibility[1] (his stories are filled with brooding, boozing anti-heroes, ninjas, and scantily-clad, utterly shallow femmes fatales) coupled with the often peurile more-chic-than-thou stylistics of Robert Rodriguez promise a synergy that make send shivers down the spines of ComiCon nerds. For those with less caffeinated inclinations, this is recipe for bad, over-stylized nonsense.
But I'm so there. And my cousin Doug is gonna spurt in his pants when he sees this.
[1] Miller's done some good stuff, foremost among them his Daredevil run and The Dark Knight Returns. But he's strictly a poet for 16 year-old fanboys, a guy who reinvents hoary superheroes for a darker, "edgier" era, not a genius like Alan Moore. Sin City is a pretty poor piece of pulp storywise -- it's an exercise in dark graphic style with nary a compelling theme or character to hook on to. As such, it doesn't approach the level of a dense good yarn like pulp comic series Stray Bullets, not to mention a master novelist like, say, Donald Westlake.
But I'm so there. And my cousin Doug is gonna spurt in his pants when he sees this.
[1] Miller's done some good stuff, foremost among them his Daredevil run and The Dark Knight Returns. But he's strictly a poet for 16 year-old fanboys, a guy who reinvents hoary superheroes for a darker, "edgier" era, not a genius like Alan Moore. Sin City is a pretty poor piece of pulp storywise -- it's an exercise in dark graphic style with nary a compelling theme or character to hook on to. As such, it doesn't approach the level of a dense good yarn like pulp comic series Stray Bullets, not to mention a master novelist like, say, Donald Westlake.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Go Tiff Yourself (updated)
I'm not going to the Toronto International Film Festival this year. There, I've said it.
It's an unpleasant reality to confront for a big movie nerd like myself. In the last two weeks, I've been evading the issue the way I avoid baseball highlights when the Red Sox are on a losing streak. I kept hoping that maybe my schedule will free up that will allow me to take a five day trip to Toronto (and another week to Ohio and New York in October -- a trip I'm almost certain to take). But as work piled up, TIFF became unfeasible. So I just blocked out the reality that I'll be missing the fest this year, one of my favorite annual events, and barely skimmed through all correspondences/internet postings with TIFF as the subject matter. But now I've recovered. And it still hurts, man, lemme tell you.
That Wong's still-being-recut 2046 will not be screened kinda soothes the pain. (Update: For Wong fanboys and those with an interest in graphics, check out the official 2046 Web site.) But then check out what I'll be missing out on:
Most regrettably, I'll be shucking Kings and Queen, the new autobiographical film from Arnaud Desplechin, the man who made one of the greatest navel-gazing French wankfest of all-time, My Sex Life...Or How I Got Into an Argument (but maybe I'll be able to catch it at NYFF?)...
Next is L'Intrus, by Claire Denis, perhaps the most intriguing filmmaker in the world right now, after...
Olivier Assayas, whose Maggie Cheung-starring Clean will be a painful movie to miss...
Then there's Eros, comprising of three featurettes directed by Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michaelangelo Antonioni riffing on the titular theme...
Tomorrow We Move, wherein Chantal Akerman deconstructs the screwball comedy...
3-Iron, from Theater of Cruelty master Kim Ki-Duk, who recently found religion (and is already generating good notices)...
Old Boy, the ultra-violent Cannes sensation...
Other appealing Cannes also-rans playing include The Holy Girl, Nobody Knows, and especially Apichatpong's mysterious Thai flick Tropical Melody...
Two festival buzz items are D'Angelo fave Primer, a supposed head-scratcher, and Depardon's 10th Chamber...
9 Songs, Michael Winterbottom's porn movie, sounds pretty awesome...
And of course the new Ozon, Godard, the Hou, the Jacquot, and the usual Miike and Miike rip-offs, etc., etc., etc.
But more than the movies, nothing really beats comraderie with my fellow movie nerds, all those schlubby guys you see wearing "Ichi the Killer" t-shirts with notebook in tow. Oh, what I wouldn't give for some scintillating discussions about Bruno Dumont's methods (and madness), whether School of Rock merits a 67 or 68 (on the retarded 100 point scale), the size of Vincent Gallo's schlong, the Junior Achievers' collective insanity, and arguments about arguments made in the movie nerd internet discussion group in 2001.
Too bad for all those nerds that they will be missing out on my dandy shirts and smokin' knee-high scarves, but they're probably not missing my predictably enthusiastic responses ("check out that psychological acuity, bro!") to any French relationship flick that offers some ingenue nudity. It's all about the nuanced exploration of paradoxical emotional states, buds.
So I won't be there, but many of my buds will be. And if you're interested in instantaneous (or in some cases, lengthy retrospective) write-ups of the festival, this is your one-stop link source. Check out:
* Mike, who will inevitably deflate your expectations about that movie you've been dying to see, unless that movie also happens to be told backwards or announces the profound theme that dog is god backwards;
* Scott, who will revive some of your hope with with a sure-to-be-superbly-written essay at the end of the fest;
* Waz, who will use the word dialectic at least twice in his insanely rigorous capsules;
* CStults, who will invariably rate movies with titles like Sexual Dependency and Vibrator a grade higher than would you or me (and who would have been the most reliable evaluator of Eros, had he been planning to see it...um, you know, him being a Soderbergh and Wong fanboy and all);
* Missy (great to have you back) will no doubt jot down some insightful words on her popular blog;
* Then there are my two former TIFF roommates: El Chuck shoots out short and sweet capsules, and Erik "Mr. Eccentric" Gregersen may finally revive his dormant site to hype some random Thai cowboy movie or some retro-silent experiment.
* Speaking of dormant sites, here's to hoping V-Mort, whose last movie seen is the dreadful Photos People In Dallas Can See, will finally post some new thoughts;
* Don "Dude from Nickelback" Marks, Private Joker, and the Movie "Mr. 55 movies in 2 1/2 days" Martyr will probably all update quite frequently; the redoubtable Alex Fung will not.
* And finally, when you get a chance to see these movies and need to make sense of them, head over to Theo, whose exhaustive and sharp TIFF reports should be collected and studied by movie nerds in future generations to learn how it's done.
* If you're lucky, you'll get something by Josh Rothkopf in Time Out New York two weeks hence. Dan Owen and Omar Odeh have no sites, and so they are not hyped. And another bud stopped posting his snarky commentary long ago, nor will he have a short in the fest this year. But some random girl in a Baja Fresh on Sunset tells me that the script to Pretty Persuasion is excellent.
Check 'em all out. But anybody who cares probably already does.
It's an unpleasant reality to confront for a big movie nerd like myself. In the last two weeks, I've been evading the issue the way I avoid baseball highlights when the Red Sox are on a losing streak. I kept hoping that maybe my schedule will free up that will allow me to take a five day trip to Toronto (and another week to Ohio and New York in October -- a trip I'm almost certain to take). But as work piled up, TIFF became unfeasible. So I just blocked out the reality that I'll be missing the fest this year, one of my favorite annual events, and barely skimmed through all correspondences/internet postings with TIFF as the subject matter. But now I've recovered. And it still hurts, man, lemme tell you.
That Wong's still-being-recut 2046 will not be screened kinda soothes the pain. (Update: For Wong fanboys and those with an interest in graphics, check out the official 2046 Web site.) But then check out what I'll be missing out on:
Most regrettably, I'll be shucking Kings and Queen, the new autobiographical film from Arnaud Desplechin, the man who made one of the greatest navel-gazing French wankfest of all-time, My Sex Life...Or How I Got Into an Argument (but maybe I'll be able to catch it at NYFF?)...
Next is L'Intrus, by Claire Denis, perhaps the most intriguing filmmaker in the world right now, after...
Olivier Assayas, whose Maggie Cheung-starring Clean will be a painful movie to miss...
Then there's Eros, comprising of three featurettes directed by Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michaelangelo Antonioni riffing on the titular theme...
Tomorrow We Move, wherein Chantal Akerman deconstructs the screwball comedy...
3-Iron, from Theater of Cruelty master Kim Ki-Duk, who recently found religion (and is already generating good notices)...
Old Boy, the ultra-violent Cannes sensation...
Other appealing Cannes also-rans playing include The Holy Girl, Nobody Knows, and especially Apichatpong's mysterious Thai flick Tropical Melody...
Two festival buzz items are D'Angelo fave Primer, a supposed head-scratcher, and Depardon's 10th Chamber...
9 Songs, Michael Winterbottom's porn movie, sounds pretty awesome...
And of course the new Ozon, Godard, the Hou, the Jacquot, and the usual Miike and Miike rip-offs, etc., etc., etc.
But more than the movies, nothing really beats comraderie with my fellow movie nerds, all those schlubby guys you see wearing "Ichi the Killer" t-shirts with notebook in tow. Oh, what I wouldn't give for some scintillating discussions about Bruno Dumont's methods (and madness), whether School of Rock merits a 67 or 68 (on the retarded 100 point scale), the size of Vincent Gallo's schlong, the Junior Achievers' collective insanity, and arguments about arguments made in the movie nerd internet discussion group in 2001.
Too bad for all those nerds that they will be missing out on my dandy shirts and smokin' knee-high scarves, but they're probably not missing my predictably enthusiastic responses ("check out that psychological acuity, bro!") to any French relationship flick that offers some ingenue nudity. It's all about the nuanced exploration of paradoxical emotional states, buds.
So I won't be there, but many of my buds will be. And if you're interested in instantaneous (or in some cases, lengthy retrospective) write-ups of the festival, this is your one-stop link source. Check out:
* Mike, who will inevitably deflate your expectations about that movie you've been dying to see, unless that movie also happens to be told backwards or announces the profound theme that dog is god backwards;
* Scott, who will revive some of your hope with with a sure-to-be-superbly-written essay at the end of the fest;
* Waz, who will use the word dialectic at least twice in his insanely rigorous capsules;
* CStults, who will invariably rate movies with titles like Sexual Dependency and Vibrator a grade higher than would you or me (and who would have been the most reliable evaluator of Eros, had he been planning to see it...um, you know, him being a Soderbergh and Wong fanboy and all);
* Missy (great to have you back) will no doubt jot down some insightful words on her popular blog;
* Then there are my two former TIFF roommates: El Chuck shoots out short and sweet capsules, and Erik "Mr. Eccentric" Gregersen may finally revive his dormant site to hype some random Thai cowboy movie or some retro-silent experiment.
* Speaking of dormant sites, here's to hoping V-Mort, whose last movie seen is the dreadful Photos People In Dallas Can See, will finally post some new thoughts;
* Don "Dude from Nickelback" Marks, Private Joker, and the Movie "Mr. 55 movies in 2 1/2 days" Martyr will probably all update quite frequently; the redoubtable Alex Fung will not.
* And finally, when you get a chance to see these movies and need to make sense of them, head over to Theo, whose exhaustive and sharp TIFF reports should be collected and studied by movie nerds in future generations to learn how it's done.
* If you're lucky, you'll get something by Josh Rothkopf in Time Out New York two weeks hence. Dan Owen and Omar Odeh have no sites, and so they are not hyped. And another bud stopped posting his snarky commentary long ago, nor will he have a short in the fest this year. But some random girl in a Baja Fresh on Sunset tells me that the script to Pretty Persuasion is excellent.
Check 'em all out. But anybody who cares probably already does.
Bush's real campaign video
Vote for Bush because he says so, courtesy of the Daily Show (via One Good Move). As usual, it's better than anything produced by the anti-Bush forces.
Didn't bother with Repug convention, but from the coverage I've witnessed, it's like the Stephen Glass Fan Club, a gathering of shameless fabulists trying desperately to mythologize a pathetically poor commander-in-chief and lying about Kerry's record. It almost worked, too...if it weren't for you damn kids and that stoned dog!
Der Ahnold's full of lies...I mean, self-mythologizing fibs that contradict history, Benito Giuliani distorts Kerry's votes time and again, keynote speaker Zig-Zag Miller channeled Atilla the Hun (then Aaron Burr in challenging Chris Matthews to a duel), Pataki did some clever revisionism by spinning Bush's total disregard for the threat Al Qaeda posed pre-9/11 on Clinton, who, uh, at least tried to bomb Bin Laden and mentioned him as a threat on public record.
Pathetic, really, if these lies weren't actually effective, as we learn time and again.
The only thing I saw was about ten minutes of Dubya's speech. Not a bad speech, from what I saw. But where's Osama bin Laden again?
Didn't bother with Repug convention, but from the coverage I've witnessed, it's like the Stephen Glass Fan Club, a gathering of shameless fabulists trying desperately to mythologize a pathetically poor commander-in-chief and lying about Kerry's record. It almost worked, too...if it weren't for you damn kids and that stoned dog!
Der Ahnold's full of lies...I mean, self-mythologizing fibs that contradict history, Benito Giuliani distorts Kerry's votes time and again, keynote speaker Zig-Zag Miller channeled Atilla the Hun (then Aaron Burr in challenging Chris Matthews to a duel), Pataki did some clever revisionism by spinning Bush's total disregard for the threat Al Qaeda posed pre-9/11 on Clinton, who, uh, at least tried to bomb Bin Laden and mentioned him as a threat on public record.
Pathetic, really, if these lies weren't actually effective, as we learn time and again.
The only thing I saw was about ten minutes of Dubya's speech. Not a bad speech, from what I saw. But where's Osama bin Laden again?
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Oldies recently viewed
California Split (Altman, 1974) -- B+/B
You got them purists, then you got them non-purists. The purists are like what the name says. They like their auteurs pure and unfiltered. Purists think California Split is a doozy, and it's not hard to see why: this is Altman with the pulp strained.
California Split is essentially about the thrill of living life in the moment, of the goofy fun in masquerading as cops to scare off a transvestite, of betting everything on a longshot, winning, then blowing your loot. No plot to speak of, no character arc -- just the thrill of living and improvising in the moment. It's film as free jazz, with Elliot Gould doing Ornette Coleman and Altman on the rhythm section going crazy on sound design and indulging in his most cynical instincts. In other words, it's really about about the Altmanesque life lived -- the existential condition -- and not much of anything else. Don't get me wrong: it's a fine, admirable work, but in the end, I'll gladly exchange it for The Long Goodbye, which also features an inventive Gould turn, jazzy rhythms, an existential outlook, but is held together by Chandler (who provides the ur-text...the chords for Altman to riff off of).
It comes down to aesthetic sensibility. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I prefer my auteurs to express their style while wrestling with formidable material. I like The Sweet Hereafter more than Speaking Parts. I'd choose Twelve Monkeys over Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Mulholland Dr. ahead of Fire Walk With Me. Fear Eats the Soul as opposed to Katzelmacher. Age of Innocence over Casino. Out of Sight rather than Schizopolis. And so forth. Not that I don't admire many of these "pure expression" works that I compare unfavorably here. Those films are often more risky, challenging, and groundbreaking. At the same time, they're typically more undisciplined and mannered, with little thematic resonance or content beyond their auteurial concerns.
The Long Goodbye is hardcore Altman grounded in genre; California Split is hardcore Altman without a net. Preferring one over the other likely reveals where you stand on the purist scale.
The Cincinnati Kid (Jewison, 1965) -- C+
Spent a good fifteen mintues fantasizing about being in the middle of a Tuesday Weld-Ann Margaret sandwich. Otherwise mediocre: An indifferent McQueen, clumsy direction, but helped by a killer stud show down at the end between McQueen's Kid and Edward G. Robinson, whose presence adds half a grade to anything. Another flick where precious brain cells are wasted figuring out what Theo was smoking.
Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian, 1932) -- A
The best Lubitsch flick Lubitsch never made. This surreal musical romp boasts some of the most dazzling sequences of the era -- the opening montage, "Isn't it Romantic", and hilarious sight gags done using over and under-cranking -- along with a fountain of sparkling double-entendres, and enhanced by the elegant waltzing camera of Mamoulian. Myrna Loy's a hoot, and even Chevalier's okay. Overall, the most purely enjoyable movie I've seen all year.
A Farewell to Arms (Borzage, 1932) -- B-
A two-hander given poignancy by Hemingway's terse, muscular prose, the same story becomes an overwrought tale of transcendent love in the hands of Grade-A sap Frank Borzage. To be sure, Borzage's an unassailable image-maker: a two-second establishing shot can pulsate with feeling, and certain shots here (the last scene, for example) have the mystical spell of a William Blake painting. But the man is also an incorrigible sentimentalist. His films often falter because they're deeply sincere but also sincerely dumb and sappy, and no great feat of auteurist rehabilitation can make it otherwise. Kent Jones won't say it, but I will: Borzage's spiritual nephew Anthony Minghella is a much better filmmaker, and an unfashionable Oscarbait like The English Patient at least grapples with the wages of romantic narcissism. Borzage hasn't even thought about it, too caught up in his belief that love conquers all. (The best romantic filmmakers understand that it is precisely that love doesn't conquer all that makes love so tragic.) Also, not helped by an unsteady Gary Cooper. Helen Hayes was very good, but the mousy thespian is not my idea of the alluring Catherine Barkley. Too bad Carole Lombard wasn't famous yet. Moving and beautiful in parts, but way sappy.
Hold Back the Dawn (Leisen, 1941) -- B+
In Conversations with Wilder, Wilder expressed disappointment with this and other Leisen pictures written by him and Brackett. He shouldn't have been. This is a picture ahead of its time, a moving tale of desperate immigrants, showing how far people will go to get inside the American border. Witty and elegant, like all the Leisen/Wilder/Brackett collaborations, with a fiendishly charming Boyer. Best is a vulnerable yet layered performance by Olivia de Havilland, whom, with her estranged sister Joan Fontaine, own a patent on the portrayal of the Woman Who Loves Too Much, the kind of timid spinster too eager to hand over her heart to an obvious scoundrel. This de Havilland "victim" turns out to be tougher than she appeared, which makes all the difference.
Burn! (Pontecorvo, 1969) -- C+
If Battle of Algiers was the tactical manual of the anti-Colonialist insurgency, Pontecorvo's follow-up, Burn!, is the socio-economic treatise. As with Algiers, Pontecorvo shows himself to be a highly sophisticated radical. He understands the political and economic precepts behind colonialism, and he's fair enough to depict both the Colonialists' conflicting viewpoints (Colonialists are smartly demarcated into different factions with different goals, some economic, others political) and the native people's deficiencies (inability to exploit their cash crop for value). Brando's complex, morally ambiguous British sabateur is probably his best performance of the Sixties, the weird accent notwithstanding. Some fascinating politics, but the movie's sadly a complete mess, bearing evidence of a brutal studio chop job and too much revolutionary sentimentality. Nice score by Morricone, though.
You got them purists, then you got them non-purists. The purists are like what the name says. They like their auteurs pure and unfiltered. Purists think California Split is a doozy, and it's not hard to see why: this is Altman with the pulp strained.
California Split is essentially about the thrill of living life in the moment, of the goofy fun in masquerading as cops to scare off a transvestite, of betting everything on a longshot, winning, then blowing your loot. No plot to speak of, no character arc -- just the thrill of living and improvising in the moment. It's film as free jazz, with Elliot Gould doing Ornette Coleman and Altman on the rhythm section going crazy on sound design and indulging in his most cynical instincts. In other words, it's really about about the Altmanesque life lived -- the existential condition -- and not much of anything else. Don't get me wrong: it's a fine, admirable work, but in the end, I'll gladly exchange it for The Long Goodbye, which also features an inventive Gould turn, jazzy rhythms, an existential outlook, but is held together by Chandler (who provides the ur-text...the chords for Altman to riff off of).
It comes down to aesthetic sensibility. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I prefer my auteurs to express their style while wrestling with formidable material. I like The Sweet Hereafter more than Speaking Parts. I'd choose Twelve Monkeys over Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Mulholland Dr. ahead of Fire Walk With Me. Fear Eats the Soul as opposed to Katzelmacher. Age of Innocence over Casino. Out of Sight rather than Schizopolis. And so forth. Not that I don't admire many of these "pure expression" works that I compare unfavorably here. Those films are often more risky, challenging, and groundbreaking. At the same time, they're typically more undisciplined and mannered, with little thematic resonance or content beyond their auteurial concerns.
The Long Goodbye is hardcore Altman grounded in genre; California Split is hardcore Altman without a net. Preferring one over the other likely reveals where you stand on the purist scale.
The Cincinnati Kid (Jewison, 1965) -- C+
Spent a good fifteen mintues fantasizing about being in the middle of a Tuesday Weld-Ann Margaret sandwich. Otherwise mediocre: An indifferent McQueen, clumsy direction, but helped by a killer stud show down at the end between McQueen's Kid and Edward G. Robinson, whose presence adds half a grade to anything. Another flick where precious brain cells are wasted figuring out what Theo was smoking.
Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian, 1932) -- A
The best Lubitsch flick Lubitsch never made. This surreal musical romp boasts some of the most dazzling sequences of the era -- the opening montage, "Isn't it Romantic", and hilarious sight gags done using over and under-cranking -- along with a fountain of sparkling double-entendres, and enhanced by the elegant waltzing camera of Mamoulian. Myrna Loy's a hoot, and even Chevalier's okay. Overall, the most purely enjoyable movie I've seen all year.
A Farewell to Arms (Borzage, 1932) -- B-
A two-hander given poignancy by Hemingway's terse, muscular prose, the same story becomes an overwrought tale of transcendent love in the hands of Grade-A sap Frank Borzage. To be sure, Borzage's an unassailable image-maker: a two-second establishing shot can pulsate with feeling, and certain shots here (the last scene, for example) have the mystical spell of a William Blake painting. But the man is also an incorrigible sentimentalist. His films often falter because they're deeply sincere but also sincerely dumb and sappy, and no great feat of auteurist rehabilitation can make it otherwise. Kent Jones won't say it, but I will: Borzage's spiritual nephew Anthony Minghella is a much better filmmaker, and an unfashionable Oscarbait like The English Patient at least grapples with the wages of romantic narcissism. Borzage hasn't even thought about it, too caught up in his belief that love conquers all. (The best romantic filmmakers understand that it is precisely that love doesn't conquer all that makes love so tragic.) Also, not helped by an unsteady Gary Cooper. Helen Hayes was very good, but the mousy thespian is not my idea of the alluring Catherine Barkley. Too bad Carole Lombard wasn't famous yet. Moving and beautiful in parts, but way sappy.
Hold Back the Dawn (Leisen, 1941) -- B+
In Conversations with Wilder, Wilder expressed disappointment with this and other Leisen pictures written by him and Brackett. He shouldn't have been. This is a picture ahead of its time, a moving tale of desperate immigrants, showing how far people will go to get inside the American border. Witty and elegant, like all the Leisen/Wilder/Brackett collaborations, with a fiendishly charming Boyer. Best is a vulnerable yet layered performance by Olivia de Havilland, whom, with her estranged sister Joan Fontaine, own a patent on the portrayal of the Woman Who Loves Too Much, the kind of timid spinster too eager to hand over her heart to an obvious scoundrel. This de Havilland "victim" turns out to be tougher than she appeared, which makes all the difference.
Burn! (Pontecorvo, 1969) -- C+
If Battle of Algiers was the tactical manual of the anti-Colonialist insurgency, Pontecorvo's follow-up, Burn!, is the socio-economic treatise. As with Algiers, Pontecorvo shows himself to be a highly sophisticated radical. He understands the political and economic precepts behind colonialism, and he's fair enough to depict both the Colonialists' conflicting viewpoints (Colonialists are smartly demarcated into different factions with different goals, some economic, others political) and the native people's deficiencies (inability to exploit their cash crop for value). Brando's complex, morally ambiguous British sabateur is probably his best performance of the Sixties, the weird accent notwithstanding. Some fascinating politics, but the movie's sadly a complete mess, bearing evidence of a brutal studio chop job and too much revolutionary sentimentality. Nice score by Morricone, though.
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