Category: Rapid Response

Rapid Response: Freaks (1932)

Tod Browning’s “Freaks” may only have ever been made in that twilight period of the movies where sound pictures were still in their infancy and the Hays Production Code had not yet been established. And yet this cult, horror classic seems both ahead of its time and repulsively dated.

The film is a love story between a collection of sideshow performers in a circus, and “Freaks” is so strikingly notable because Browning, coming right from the traveling circus himself, successfully cast individuals with actual disabilities and deformities. There’s the two lovely Siamese twin girls, a half man/half woman, a man without legs, another with only a torso, a bird lady, an armless woman and the Pinheads, the latter of which are simply horribly deformed.

The central characters however are two dwarfs, Hans and Frieda (actual brother and sister Harry and Daisy Earles), who are engaged to be married until Hans develops a crush on the ravishing trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova). She uses Hans for his money and laughs at him behind his back with her lover, the circus strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). The two try to poison Hans, and the circus freaks collectively get their vengeance by murdering and mutilating the two normals. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Freaks (1932)”

Rapid Response: Rififi

Jules Dassin “Rififi” is the basis for the modern heist movie and helped to inspire the French New Wave way ahead of its time.

The word rififi, in the film of the same name, refers to toughness, style and cred on the streets, and Jules Dassin’s 1955 movie has plenty of it.

“Rififi” is a stylish, sultry, sexy and shadowy noir that laid the groundwork for the modern heist film. It tells the story of the washed up crook Tony “The Stephanois,” (Jean Servais) who is just out of prison, isn’t needed anymore, isn’t trusted by his poker buddies and is ultimately a lonely, tragic film noir figure.

He joins a group of three other hoods with a goal to rob the biggest bank in Montmartre. Their initial plans are simple: smash the windows and grab the jewels in the display for a handsome haul. But Tony proposes to go for the big bucks. The thing is, he has no reason to truly do this job. He’s got no ambitions for what to do with the money, whereas his three companions all have admirable home lives. He’s cruel to his former lover Mado (Marie Sabouret), and with no cares in his life except for his godson, he can do nothing but be vicious to himself and those in his life. “A man’s gotta live,” Tony says, but his job is near suicide. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Rififi”

Rapid Response: Aliens

What is a greater hell for Ellen Ripley? Watching your entire crew be slaughtered by a near invincible alien being or having to suffer through the bureaucratic bullshit of humans who don’t believe her story?

In some ways, it seemed more appropriate to watch “Aliens” after seeing “Prometheus” than “Alien” itself, mainly because both “Aliens” and “Prometheus” are action films rather than a horror movie. But while both films are special effects titans for their times, it’s embarrassing how badly cliche “Aliens” is in comparison to Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi epic. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Aliens”

Rapid Response: Babe: Pig in the City

My relative Pat Graham’s capsule review in the Chicago Reader in 1998 for “Babe: Pig in the City” is elegant, bizarre and wonderfully written. He described it to me as a sort of faux-poetry, an alternative approach to reviewing a distinctly alternative film. You can read his whole review here.

And yet Pat said it best to me in person what George Miller’s movie is about. “You watch it, and the film says, Look at this! Look at this! Look at THIS,” he said pointing in every which direction.

I watched it, and sure enough I said, “What’s that? What’s that! What’s THAT?!”

“Babe: Pig in the City” is about as surreal a children’s film as you will ever see. It’s absurd, madcap and overwhelming, and yet the film has an operatic, poetic quality about it that doesn’t fit in the slightest.

The resulting film is a beautiful disaster. It’s colorful, yet cold and disconcerting. It’s chaotic, but not a predictable, boring maelstrom of action. It’s teeming with animals all with dopey dubbed lips, and yet there are so damn many of them that you watch in awe of how much effort this must’ve taken. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Babe: Pig in the City”

Rapid Response: Notorious (1946)

“Notorious” is Alfred Hitchcock testing his limits as a story teller and evolving a new approach to suspense.

Notorious

I must sound like a broken record whenever I write about an Alfred Hitchcock movie and say it’s one of his best. “Notorious” took me two viewings to realize its greatness, and now I see it as a sharp-nosed film that combines romance and espionage on a razor thin blade. This isn’t like “To Catch a Thief,” where the only draw is the romance between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly and it happens to have a good suspense story and great cinematography worked in.

No, “Notorious” uses its romance as the driving force behind the spy thriller. Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is enlisted by the American government to infiltrate the home of the German smuggler Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains). However, Alicia is in love with her American contact, known only as Devlin (Cary Grant). Because Alexander suspects their infatuation, Alexander forces her to prove her loyalty to him through marriage. Because all three characters are emotionally involved and complex, we care little about the ramifications of Alexander’s misdeeds but how the events of the plot will affect their tortured love triangle.

It’s a romantic and yet gripping and even surreal film. “Notorious” is Hitchcock testing his limits as a story teller, a director capable of cinematic bravado and an artist evolving a new approach to suspense. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Notorious (1946)”

Rapid Response: Dazed and Confused

I have fond memories of the long evenings as a freshman driving or walking around with nothing to do, looking for a party and a cup of beer so we could continue to stand around at that party with nothing to do, that is until we left and continued looking to do nothing.

The cult high school stoner comedy “Dazed and Confused” is just that; it’s a film about feeling out of place, feeling drunk, feeling adventurous, feeling awkward, feeling anxious and yet feeling loved. Some would say that just about sums up the complete high school experience, and Richard Linklater does it in one night.

“I did the best I could while I was stuck in this place,” says one character near the end of the film, which is about all you can ask of a teenager, and possibly all you can ask of a teen comedy. It follows a group of incoming freshman students and incumbent seniors in the twilight hours after their last day of school. The year is 1976, the only shirt with writing on it says Adidas, the drive-in is playing Hitchcock’s “Family Plot,” every kid’s bedroom has a “Dark Side of the Moon” poster on the wall, and Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” is playing in the night club. Those were the days. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Dazed and Confused”

Rapid Response: Heaven Can Wait (1943)

As Henry van Cleve reaches the end of his life in “Heaven Can Wait,” his dream of swimming through a sea of whiskey and soda with a blonde bombshell leaves a smile on your face and yet a tear in your eye as he shares this bittersweet moment with us.

Andrew Sarris wrote that this quality was true of all Ernst Lubitsch’s films, saying, “A poignant sadness infiltrates the director’s gayest moments, and it is this counterpoint. between sadness and gaiety that represents the Lubitsch touch.” Continue reading “Rapid Response: Heaven Can Wait (1943)”

Rapid Response: Boogie Nights

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights” is a hilarious movie about sexuality while also being an interesting take on a genre picture.

When Hollywood struggles because YouTube thrives, so does the porn industry suffer as anyone can film themselves having sex. Not every porn star can be Sasha Grey and find work with Steven Soderbergh.

Strangely enough then, Paul Thomas Anderson’s breakout film “Boogie Nights” has renewed significance. It’s the story of the rise and fall of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) as the veteran porn stars struggle to stay hard and horny as video tapes take movies out of the XXX theaters.

“Boogie Nights” isn’t really about porn, it’s just more open about its sexuality. (“Jack says you have a great big cock. Can I see it?”) The one-off joke is that this coming-of-age story of stardom and struggle is just the same even with a grindhouse quality filter. Anderson’s whole goal is not to make a genre picture but to make an art house movie that looks and feels like a genre picture. He did much the same thing with romantic comedies in “Punch-Drunk Love.” And it’s the reason why in “Boogie Nights’s” second half, the whole story seems to go off the rails when it becomes so drenched in painful and melodramatic self parody. The end belongs to another movie, and PTA finally acknowledges that shift with a 13-inch nod to “Raging Bull.”

Anderson wonderfully mixes style and kitsch here. The film has a vitality in its disco score that permeates the campy, referential ’70s vibe and carries through to the more depressing moments all bathed in jaded melodrama and cynicism.

His camera moves in ways that don’t intrinsically make sense, but they draw your eyes and your mind. Watch the camera crop out Burt Reynolds’s character to show Julianne Moore staring admiringly at the young, nervous Dirk. He doesn’t return the glance even though the camera does the same for him, and this is not necessarily a clue to her motherly infatuation with Dirk. But we’re captivated by the moment. The camera itself is alluring and sexy.

The early moments of the film are also plain funny as hell. Wahlberg was overshadowed by Burt Reynolds’s Oscar nominated performance (he turns into a sort of George Lucas of porn, and he’s capable of conveying a vision of porn that is simultaneously idealistic and perverse), but it’s refreshing to see Wahlberg when he was still the young Marky Mark posing for Calvin Klein. He’s been typecast in so many tough guy roles lately that it’s impossible to imagine him playing anyone like Dirk anymore.

John C. Reiley and Philip Seymour Hoffman are also riots. Hoffman especially is playing off type as an overweight, closeted gay man with an attraction to Dirk. As for Reiley, the camera stays put and lets him work. His best moment is when he asks Dirk how much he can squat, only to up Dirk’s ante by an absurd 150 pounds.

In the way you could argue we don’t have movie stars like Cary Grant and John Wayne anymore, we don’t really have porn stars like Dirk Diggler anymore. And for that matter, we don’t have other directors in America making movies the way Paul Thomas Anderson does anymore.

Rapid Response: Dangerous Liaisons

“Dangerous Liaisons” knows just how ridiculously soapy, ridiculous and steamy it is, and Stephen Frears’ movie works better than the play.

What’s great about “Dangerous Liaisons” is that it knows just how soapy and ridiculous this all is. It’s set in stuffy, aristocratic France, but everything about this story is sex, love and revenge all the time. It’s absurd, but here, it works.

I saw an adaptation of Christopher Hampton’s play of the same name (he’s also the screenwriter) and think it’s a lot better as a film. The play is all talk and gossip. It’s bogged down under names and archaic language. The elaborate web of steamy fucking becomes impossible to follow in that setting. Here however, Frears’s cross cutting does the story wonders. He jumps from bed to bed, drawing room to drawing room and keeps the many liaisons, dangerous or not, in check. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Dangerous Liaisons”

Rapid Response: To Catch a Thief

“To Catch a Thief” is not Alfred Hitchcock’s best thriller but his best romance with the grace and lushness of Old Hollywood.

Could it be that all modern romances draw not from the tender love scenes in “Casablanca” and “Gone With the Wind” but from Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief,” which contains a moment so lovely to look at and so passion filmed that it’s hard to believe Hitchcock could ever have filmed it?

The scene in question is in a darkened hotel room along the French Riviera, with fireworks in the background and the glorious Grace Kelly beckoning in a stunning white dress to a resistant but suave and certain Cary Grant. She’s desperate to inflame his passion and his weakness for jewelry and beauty, and with each mysterious and aloof remark to pull himself away, she draws him back in with her infectious and seductive understanding of him. The orchestrations are sprawling, the lighting is soft, and the image is perfect. Continue reading “Rapid Response: To Catch a Thief”