Paramount Summer Classic Film Series: Killer of Sheep

The best thing about summer in Austin is the annual Summer Classic Film Series at the Paramount Theater.  Just about everyday, they're showing double features of great classic films.  It's a chance to get out of the heat and watch a couple of movies you wouldn't otherwise get to see on the big screen.  All for less than the price of a regular movie ticket.  Tonight's double feature consisted of John Cassavetes' Shadows and Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep.  I missed Shadows, unfortunately, but I did get to see Killer of Sheep.  

It follows Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) and his wife, played by Kaycee Moore in their daily lives.  He works at a slaughterhouse, then comes home to help her fix up the house and raise the kids.  It's an interesting film in a lot of ways.  Not the least of which is that there isn't a straightforward plot line.  In a series of seemingly unconnected scenes, Stan goes to work, comes home, sees his friends, tries to go to a race on which he has placed a bet (his friend gets a flat tire and they don't make it).  The kids go to school, play, get bullied, witness a theft.  But nothing really happens; it doesn't go anywhere.  And yet, a lot of things have happened.  Lessons have been learned and decisions made that will potentially have an effect on the family's lives that they can't even fathom yet.  So, we as viewers can't either.  It just looks like any other day.

Because the scenes are edited that way, it also feels a lot like a documentary, even though it's not.  In some ways, it reminded me of Yakuaya, the silent documentary I saw at Cine Las Americas this year.  The scenes in the slaughterhouse were particularly reminiscent of that film for me.  Other scenes felt like Frederick Wiseman's High School.  Only, you know, less Wisemany.  I think it felt that way because Wiseman's style was to observe without commenting, which is pretty much what was going on here.  I read that the scenes in which the children are playing were completely unscripted, so it makes sense that they would have a documentary-type feel to them.  It's interesting to see what kids will do to entertain themselves.  These kids didn't have a lot of toys, so they played with things they found lying around: rocks, Halloween masks, whatever.  

I think my favorite thing about it, though, was the music.  And not just because it primarily consisted of jazz and blues music, which I happen to like a lot.  I've always appreciated how powerful music can be.  it can make a bad day into a good one, help purge negative feelings, make a mundane task fun.  In this film, it added grace and beauty to otherwise grotesque slaughterhouse scenes, brought out the romance in the relationship between Stan and his wife, and added a sense of calm to a scene in which a child is injured while playing.  It's absence had an impact too.  We expect a film to have a score, something playing in the background to help set the tone of each scene.  So when it's not there, the scene is automatically a little less comfortable, a little harder to watch.  You might not even be able to put your finger on why that is right away, but it makes a big difference.  In this case, it feels a little less like you're watching things happen in a movie and a little more like you're watching in real life, peeking around a corner to see what's going on over there.  You almost feel guilty for not helping that kid who's getting picked on, until you remember that it's just a movie.  

I enjoyed it.  I don't think a lot of people would though.  It's not anything like the movies you'd see in theaters now.  It doesn't seem to be trying to be entertaining.  It's more of a realistic look at a part of American culture that those of us who haven't lived that way, in that time, wouldn't otherwise know anything about.  I think it's fascinating.  I'm glad I managed to get out and see it.  I hope I'll get to a lot the Classic Film Series.  This year's line up is really great.  Check it out.      

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: A Good Year

With everything going on with the theatre company and trying to get ready for my vacation, I missed Wendy and Lucy before it was removed from streaming, so I've put it at the front of the line in the dvd queue and gone back to the original watching order.  Which brings us to A Good Year, which I don't remember why I put in the queue in the first place.  It's innocuous and predictable, just like I thought it would be.  

Russell Crowe plays Max Skinner, a successful banker in London, who must go to his uncle's chateau in France after said uncle passes away, leaving no will, hence the entire estate goes to his only living relative, which just happens to be Max.  Following a flashback of a moment between young Max (Freddie Highmore) and his uncle Henry (Albert Finney), the movie spends about twenty minutes demonstrating that Max is greedy, self-absorbed, cold, and just an all around asshole.  It doesn't take that long.  Casting Russell Crowe was enough.  He treats people poorly, objectifies women, and has a pompous attitude that probably comes from his being so successful at his job.  He learns that his uncle has passed away after orchestrating a stock exchange that makes him and his associates a lot of money.  He immediately decides to sell the property, and goes out to France to appraise it.  Turns out, it needs some fixing up before it can be sold, so Max is going to have to stick around for a while.    

Enter Fanny (Marion Cotillard), a pretty French girl who had her heart broken and has since not let any man get close to her.  I saw where this was going from the moment Max almost runs her over in his rental car and carelessly keeps driving.  They don't get to it right away, though, because Max also has to deal with Christie (Abbie Cornish), an American girl who claims to be Henry's daughter.  Which would make her the rightful heir to his property.  In the end, Max gives Christie the property, quits his job, and moves to France to be with Fanny, all after spending a week with these people.  Like most romantic comedies, A Good Year doesn't really take the time to actually explore the relationships between the characters before getting to its predictably happy ending.  

In short, it's ok, for what it is, but there's nothing special about it, and these actors could do much better than this.  Marion Cotillard went on to win an Oscar for her performance in La Vie en Rose, Abbie Cornish had a much more complex role in Candy, and Russell Crowe had previously won an Oscar for Gladiator, and was nominated for A Beautiful Mind and The Insider.

Up next: Brokeback Mountain.

Weird Wednesday: The Apple

Greetings from South America!  This post comes to you all the way from Lima, Peru, where I am staying with my cousin all this week.  

The Apple (1980) is absolutely RIDICULOUS.  That's right.  All caps.  Set in the futuristic world of 1994, the story follows Bibi, a young ingenue,  on her path to pop super stardom.  And, it's jam packed with music, dancing, glittery costumes, and a hero who takes himself way to seriously.  But don't just take my word for it.  See for yourself.

There is also this scene, in which Bibi is lured into the world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Rounding out the story is a hippie commune, which Bibi joins after she flees from her recording contract.  The company catches up with her, though, and they show up with the police, who have a warrant for her arrest.  Just when it seems that there is no way out for Bibi, they are visited by a deity who arrives in a transparent flying car to take Bibi and all the hippies away to start a new universe.  

Yeah, you read that right.  Deity.  Flying car.  New universe.

Despite the silliness of the story, the production value on this one is actually pretty good.  And much better than a lot of Weird Wednesdays.  Which means, of course, that someone spent money on that.  Lots of money.  I couldn't quickly find box office information on it, but I always wonder about that when I watch things like this.  It's fun though, if you're into the whole crazy/campy/ridiculous thing.  And if you are, it's available for streaming on Netflix.  

The next Weird Wednesday I'll be in town for is The Black Six, the "story of an all-black Vietnam Vet biker gang who take on a rival gang of racist rednecks. The Black Six are all played by NFL stars, and while none are polished actors they are loose and likable and when it's time to throw an unwise user of the N-word through a wall, they execute the playbook flawlessly." (Lars)

Should be a good time.

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: Metropolis

I know I said A Good Year was going to be next, but I this one is about to be removed from Netflix instant, so I decided to bump it up.  

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) is a silent science fiction epic set in a futuristic urban dystopia in which a class of workers who live underground slave away for ten hours a day while a pampered wealthy class lives in a beautiful city above them.  The two sides are ignorant of one another until one day Freder Frederson (Gustav Froehlich), son of a wealthy businessman, meets Maria (Brigitte Helm), a beautiful girl from underground.  Freder is immediately taken with her, and shocked to learn of the underground workers and their situation.  He decides to leave the comforts of his home to go below in an attempt to help the workers.  To learn more, he seeks out Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), the mad genius of the underground, while Maria rallies the workers together with a message of hope for a better future.  She predicts that a mediator will come to join the underground society with the above ground one. 

Rotwang throws a wrench in Freder and Maria's revolution by kidnapping her and transferring her likeness onto a robot that he controls.  Robot Maria then goes back to the workers and convinces them to indulge themselves in all manner of fantasies.  Despite the excellent crazy eyes Helm used to distinguish Robot Maria from Real Maria, none of the workers notices anything amiss, except Freder.  The workers don't believe him when he protests Robot Maria's message of destruction (the exact opposite of Maria's original message), and continue to follow Robot Maria.  Eventually, the workers realize that they have been tricked, but not before their city is destroyed in a giant flood caused when the workers stopped the machines they had been slaving over at Robot Maria's bidding.  The real Maria escapes from Rotwang just in time to rescue all the workers' children, who were left in the city when their parents stormed out under Robot Maria's spell, from drowning in the flood.  Finally, Maria and Freder are reunited and Freder becomes the mediator Maria predicted.  

Is that complicated enough for you?  Because there's actually more to it than that.  And it can be hard to follow because, after it's release, it was re-edited and censored by various distributors, resulting in the loss of roughly a quarter of the film.  In 2008, a print of Lang's original was discovered in Argentina and restored with the original score.  Twenty five minutes of footage thought lost was put back in.  Some frames are still missing though, and where those would be, they put in title cards to explain what happens in the story.  I watched the restored version, and it was still a little hard for me to keep up with it.  I'd seen it once before, which helps, but I was also trying to work on other things while watching it, which doesn't.  Especially with a silent film.  

Visually, it's stunning.  It's part of the German Expressionist movement, which is known for it's distinct visual style.  It's purposely theatrical, and revolutionary in it's use of the technology available at the time.  Some films used unique and avant-garde camera angles and played with light and shadow.  Others used special effects in new and innovative ways.  Metropolis is one of the latter.  In terms of special effects, it is way ahead of its time.  In the scene in which Maria's likeness is transferred onto Robot Maria, Robot Maria is surrounded by light rings that move up and down around her as though they are scanning Maria's features onto the robot.  In another scene, as Robot Maria dances provocatively in front of the workers, their eyes suddenly fill the screen.  Freder's fever dream after he discovers Robot Maria with his father is a whole sequence of impressive special effects.  It's a great spectacle, even if the story doesn't always make perfect sense.  See for yourself.

That, by the way, is not the score in the restored version.

I don't think the confusing nature of the story is necessarily a bad thing though.  I think it adds to the experience of watching the film.  It's more of a challenge to the viewer because it's not always comfortable.  And I don't think it was meant to be.  It doesn't seem like it's supposed to be easy.  It puts the viewer in the same position as the characters-trying to figure out what's going on in the midst of spectacle and chaos.  Which makes it more engaging to me than a lot of the contemporary films it inspired.  

Up next in the queue is Wendy and Lucy; another one I had to bump up due to limited streaming availability, but it's one I've been looking forward to seeing for a while.

 

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: Brick

This second entry in my little project is Rian Johnson's Brick (2005), a detective story set in a high school in modern day California that gives a nod to the novels of Dashiell Hammett and the older crime noir films those novels inspired. 

At the film's opening, our hero, Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), discovers his former girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) murdered at the mouth of a mysterious-looking dark tunnel.  We then flash back to three days earlier, when Emily reached out to Brendan for help.  The call is cryptic.  It seems she has "screwed up real bad," but before we learn how, the call is interrupted.  A suspicious-looking black car speeds past the phone booth in which Brendan took the call from Emily, and someone flicks a cigarette butt out the window at him.  Presumably, Emily is in the car, about to be killed.  So, Brendan sets out to learn what happened to Emily.  Of course, he gets much more than he bargained for; it turns out she had gotten involved in the school's drug ring and was murdered over a brick (hey, that's the title!) of heroin.   

I found the noir style a bit jarring at first.  Maybe it was hearing that language in a modern setting.  Maybe it was because the characters are all high school students.  I think the combination of those two things made it feel a little like a bunch of kids were playing at being Bogart and Bacall.  Maybe it was because I don't think I've ever seen a noir film that was that bright (lots of scenes that happened outdoors at midday).  Or maybe it was a little bit of all three.  After a few minutes, though, I got over it and thought it was good fun.  It has all the characters you would expect to see in a crime noir film: the gumshoe, the informer, the kingpin, the muscle, the police captain, and the tough dame.  It also has the complex plot line of a classic noir thriller, with Brendan chasing after leads that come to some unexpected conclusions.  And, if you missed anything along the way, it's all wrapped up at the end for you in a scene in which Brendan reveals all that he has learned throughout his investigation.  

Overall, a pretty good time.  Up next, the first movie to come from the dvd queue, A Good Year.

I have a bad feeling about this.

   

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Hey, look! It's a post related to the actual reason I started this blog!  And it only took me a week and a half to do it.  At this rate, it will take me 21 years to complete this project.  I'm going to have to pick up the pace.

Anyway, first up in the queue was Alfred Hitchcock's The Man who Knew too Much (1934), starring Peter Lorre, Leslie Banks, and Edna Best.  Banks and Best play Bob and Jill Lawrence, respectively, a couple vacationing in Switzerland with their young daughter, Betty (Nova Pilbeam).  Their vacation is interrupted when their friend Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) is killed in the middle of a dinner party.   His last request to them is to find a note that he has hidden in his room and take it to the British Consulate.  In their attempt to grand their friend's last wish, the Lawrences find themselves caught up in a plot to assassinate a foreign dignitary. As if that wasn't complicated enough, when the assassins learn that the Bob and Jill are aware of the plot, they kidnap Betty to keep them quiet, and the Lawrences must try to save their daughter's life at the same time as they try to prevent the assassination.

I hadn't seen this movie before, but Hitchcock is one of my favorite filmmakers, so I knew I was in for a treat.  I wasn't disappointed.  I like the he builds the story, and how he uses lighting and camera angles.  There is a scene in which Bob finds himself fighting the would be assassins in a large hall.  There is a lot of chair-throwing.  For this scene, Hitchcock cut between wide angle shots and close ups, lending a sense of chaos and confusion.  It's hard for viewers watching to fully grasp what is happening until a wide shot at the end of the fight which shows the extent of the destruction it caused.  It's great.  I couldn't look away from it.  And I'm pretty fidgety, so that doesn't happen all the time, even with movies I like.

I liked the acting in the movie too.  One of my favorite things about watching old movies in general is seeing how acting styles change from one era of film to the next.  It wasn't too long before this film was made that sound was first introduced, so sometimes you still get some of the bigger gestures and facial expressions that were common in silent films, but not so much in later eras.  And it's a vastly different style from what you see in contemporary films.  Jill especially has a few moments that, if I didn't know any better, I'd say would be more at home in a melodrama than a thriller.  I don't mean that negatively, it's just one of those stylistic differences that might look foreign to a contemporary film audience.

This was a good way to kick off the project.  Up next, a contemporary take on film noir.

Plays: The Pavilion

"In the middle of life, we find ourselves alive.  Disoriented, lost; but alive." This line, delivered by the narrator, opens the second act of the play, and succinctly sums up a lot of what the play is about thematically and where all the characters find themselves at the time of the action.  Beautifully written by Craig Wright, The Pavilion, presented by Penfold Theatre Company finds Peter and Kari, who were voted cutest senior couple at the time of their high school graduation, at their twenty year reunion, where they are forced to confront their past and the culmination of the consequences of their life decisions, both big and small.  Also known as their present lives.

Spoiler alert: when they were seventeen, Peter got Kari pregnant and then took off for college without so much as calling her to say goodbye.  She had an abortion, stayed in the town where they grew up and married a golf pro named Hans, with whom she is bored and unhappy.  Peter moved to the Twin Cities (the play is set in Minnesota, by the way) and became a psychologist whose own personal life, ironically, is a mess consisting of a string of romantic relationships that were doomed before they even began because he never got over Kari.  From the action, it would seem that this reunion is the first time Peter and Kari have spoken in the last two decades and the first time either of them have faced the effect their situation has had on their lives.

The play begins with a monologue by the Narrator, played by Kim Adams, about time, the formation of the universe, and all the things which have led up to this moment.  Peter (Zach Thompson) and Kari (Nancy Eyermann) are introduced, and the Narrator morphs into many different characters, by turns playing a friend of Peter's and then a friend of Kari's, as Kari tries to avoid having to talk to Peter.  Eventually, they do talk to each other, in an explosive scene toward the end of act one in which Kari reveals what happened between them.  Peter's arc takes a little longer to reach his peak, coming in a climactic scene in act two in which he desperately tries to restart the universe for a chance to go back to age seventeen and do the right thing by Kari, to correct his mistake.  This is, of course, impossible, which makes Peter look pathetic, shouting at the top of his lungs trying to start over again.  But it's appropriate for the character in that moment, and works within the world of the play.  And with all of it out in the open, they can finally begin to heal.  Kari realizes that she doesn't want to start over, because to do so would mean that she would lose all the moments in her life when she was truly happy.  And Peter finally accepts things as they are.  It's as if both of them have been wandering through life, lost, until this moment, and now they begin to find their way.  Eyermann and Thompson's performances convey their characters' stories well, if a little over the top for my taste at times.  For the most part, though, the characters are believable and genuine, and a pleasure to watch.

I haven't talked much about the Narrator, but Adams' performance definitely deserves some attention.  She brought a great deal of comedy to the piece, and seamlessly switched from one character to the next and then back again.  Each of her seventeen characters had his or her own voice and physical presence.  No easy feat for an actor, and an impressive performance indeed.

The play left me feeling contemplative, perhaps because my own ten year high school reunion is right around the corner, and I have been in the same place as some of the characters in the play lately; looking back at what I have done and the choices I have made in the last ten years and reflecting on the difference between where I expected to be and where I am.  Given the chance, would I do anything differently?  Would the potential gain of changing something be worth losing what I have?  How did I wind up in such a wildly different place than my seventeen-year-old self expected?  I don't know, and I probably never will.  I can only, like Peter and Kari, learn from the past and look forward.  Try to change the things I'm unhappy with and hold onto the things and people in my life that I love.  

I'll wrap up by saying that, if you have the chance, go see this play.  It runs through May 13th at Hyde Park Theatre.  Even if your high school reunion isn't happening this year, the stories it tells and the philosophies it presents will give you a lot to think about.

Weird Wednesday: Emanuelle in Bangkok

If you live in Austin, you probably already know what Weird Wednesday is.  But just in case you don't: it's a film series they do at the Alamo Drafthouse (my second favorite movie theater, after the Paramount). Every Wednesday night, they choose an old, weird movie and show it for a dollar.  The movies are usually pretty bad, but it's fun.  And, hey, it's only a dollar.  Here is the Weird Wednesday page on the Drafthouse website.  A lot of them are seventies skin flicks.  Emanuelle in Bangkok is one such movie.  It is one of a series of Emanuelle movies which stars Laura Gemser as Emanuelle.  The first in the series is called Black Emanuelle, the Italian take on the French Emmanuelle films.  This film actually has more of a plot than a lot of the Weird Wednesday movies, which isn't saying much.  Emanuelle is a freelance journalist who goes to Bangkok on an assignment to get photographs of the king.  At first, she seems to be having a good time in Bangkok, but she runs into trouble when her hotel room is broken into and her camera and passport are stolen.  So she has to go see the consulate in order to get a temporary visa so she can escape to Casablanca, where her lover awaits her.  But she also falls in love with the consulate's daughter during her efforts to escape.  And, of course, has sex at the drop of a hat, to a wildly inappropriate score.  The theme song in this movie vaguely reminded me of the theme song from Disney's Robin Hood.  Seriously.   Though, actually, it wasn't as graphic as I was expecting from the description given before the movie, or as graphic as others they've shown at Weird Wednesday.

That's about all I have to say about that one. In a couple of weeks, they're going to be showing this:

Oh man.  It's going to be ridiculous.