Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)

Incorporating many elements of Wes Anderson's previous films, Moonrise Kingdom might be seen, even approvingly, as the director going through the motions. It has the childhood focus of Rushmore, the dollhouse intricacy of The Royal Tenenbaums, the paradoxical criminal innocence of Bottle Rocket, the outdoor adventurousness of The Darjeeling Limited, even the documentarian angle of The Life Aquatic. To be sure, Anderson's latest instantly betrays its maker, the camera tracking and panning through an ornate, rigidly compartmentalized island home and its aloof, eerily formal child inhabitants. Set on the fictional New England island of New Penzance, this house and its surrounding locale suggest one of the director's most arch removes from the world around him, a self-contained universe of stunted genius and vague but overwhelming regret.

But these same shots also display a rough quality not even evident in the director's first film. Shot on 16mm, Moonrise Kingdom's thick grain serves two main purposes. First, it aesthetically matches the film's retro 1965 setting, casting Anderson's usual world of bright, sunny yellows in dimmer, fossilizing amber and making the buildings, which look like a model village from a contemporary train set built 1:1 scale, seem lived in and worn. Second, it adds a primal, visceral edge wholly foreign to Anderson's canon, a reflection of the emotional immediacy he attains with the movie's tale of young love in open opposition to the calcified bitterness that defines so many of Anderson's frustrated, self-imprisoning characters.

The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993)

My love of the handful of Jane Campion works I've seen inexplicably failed to get me to watch The Piano with any speed. Happily, I finally got the chance to rectify my error for Spectrum Culture, and now I'm kicking myself even harder for waiting so long. Like all the other Campion movies I've seen, this is fantastic, feminocentric yet universal in its scope and emotional resonance. Her direction should rank her among the all-time greats, and her marginalization post-Piano is outrageous. The Piano in particular turns the period piece on its ear, breaking up convention at every turn with her idiosyncratic, singular camera. Its anti-male gaze distance ironically affected me more than the usual intimate, forced wringing of emotional response. It's not my favorite Campion film, but I can see why it won the Palme D'Or.

My full thoughts are over at Spectrum Culture.

Brian De Palma: Wise Guys

After the veiled satire of Scarface and the open assault of Body Double, Brian De Palma finally caved to pressure and made the sort of film he'd spent the last few years tearing apart. It is unclear whether Wise Guys is the more devastating indictment of '80s mainstream cinema. No, that's mean: there isn't enough to Wise Guys to pick on one way or another. Everything about its concept and execution (not to mention the presence of Joe Piscopo during his brief flare-out in Hollywood) suggests it was one of the first films to deserve the critical shorthand "would have worked better as a Saturday Night Live sketch than as a full movie).

The premise is, admittedly, amusing: in the insular, self-contained underworld of the mafia, self-sufficiency must be such a priority than even worthless errands cannot simply be done by someone else without ties to the Family. Then again, enforcers and soldiers aren't going to waste time fetching the don's laundry or getting him groceries, so the poor schmucks assigned with these tasks must be so low on the totem pole they must be the part buried in the ground.

Taxi Driver

To commemorate the release of Taxi Driver on a downright essential Blu-Ray, I've reviewed the film at Cinelogue. Almost assuredly my favorite movie of the 1970s, Taxi Driver hasn't aged a day regardless of the vastly different condition of modern New York City. This is a film for the lonely, the hurt and the angry, which makes it as good a fit for millennials as it did the post-hippie burnouts.

I only briefly touched upon the extras included in the Blu-Ray, but everything you need to know about the movie can be found in its commentary track or the bevy of retrospective material. The A/V restoration makes the film come alive more than it already does, yet this gorgeous transfer does not take away from the dingy feel of the movie. It is already my to-beat disc for 2011.

You can read my review now at Cinelogue.

Taxi Driver

Though I've traveled abroad several times, I've only ever been to New York City once, and only for a three day high school band trip at that. Before I went, I made the mistake of re-watching Taxi Driver, one of my all-time favorite films. Why a mistake? For someone who had no idea what the Guiliani administration meant beyond September 11, my only knowledge of the city came from Scorsese's oeuvre, of mean streets and the good fellas who roamed them. Watching Travis Bickle's descent into madness amidst a dank, dripping den of fetid urban decay terrified me as deeply as it did the first time, though I still did not fully understand it at the time. Of course, now New York has been literally Disney-fied, the homeless swept out of sight and the streets so clean and vibrant that the whole damn place feels like an arty theme park.

It's such a stunning transformation that Taxi Driver now plays as a period piece, one not of nostalgia or revisionism but of paranoid horror. The streets, always wet to better reflect the lighting, look perversely filthier in the presence of water. That water does not cleanse but rests on top of the roads and sidewalks, as if the entire city were made of oil. As shocking and alienating as the film is, this style will make you believe that the city is indeed little more than a repository for scum, as Bickle says.

An honorably discharged Marine who served in Vietnam, Bickle applies his titular job because his insomnia keeps him up at nights riding buses and cabs to calm him, so why not get paid for it? Initially awkward but endearingly goofy, Travis' narrations betray a conflicted soul, one who sees the hopelessness of this city's downfall, one customer at a time. He gets along well enough with his fellow cabbies (look for the late, great Peter Boyle as the sage driver "Wizard"), his demeanor changes in the presence of black people. With unsettling slow-motion tracking shots, we see Travis shift from a grinning buddy to a visibly enraged racist, and his internal rants on the "scum" of the streets turns from a catch-all condemnation to a byword for blacks.

One person in the city catches his eye, however, a white-clad woman who strides through this town untainted by its influence. Without ever getting within a five-foot distance, Travis falls in love. Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) volunteers for the presidential campaign of Senator Charles Palantine (Lenoard Harris), and she notices Bickle spying on her. He finally musters up the courage to ask her out, and she finds his creepiness odd but intriguing, so she agrees, only for the socially inept Travis to take her to a porno film.

Understandably off-put, Betsy leaves, and a dejected Travis, who'd pinned all his optimism for the city's future on her, sinks into a full schizophrenic rage. He purchases a number of firearms and begins training himself for... something. Without a reason to acclimate into society, it's only a matter of time until Travis fully goes off the deep end. He finds his catalyst in Iris (Jodie Foster), a pre-teen prostitute bossed around by her pimp Sport (Harvey Keitel).

Both Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader cop to Taxi Driver being an urban remake of the John Ford masterpiece The Searchers, and twisted parallels to Westerns are numerous. The hero of the Western is always an outsider, someone who enters into society only long enough to cleanse it of its corruption or to defend it from attackers. Travis, a Vietnam veteran moves to New York to readjust to society, yet he soon finds he cannot. His idea of cleaning the streets reflects the Western philosophy of the gun, which dictates that the only degrees of justice are the caliber of your bullets. Scorsese and Schrader see through the fabricated nobility of these men and paint Bickle as a sociopath, one who perhaps has the right idea when he sees New York as an amoral wasteland, a modern Sodom, but his decision to take a gun into the streets to right the wrongs are insane. Alan Moore took a cue from the film when he applied the same revisionism to the comic book genre with Watchmen, in which the heroes are all uniformly unbalanced.

Later, he sports that infamous mohawk, a sign of his descent by way of a Native American haircut. Sport wears an Indian headband, so he becomes the Injun chief, and Travis must become savage like the tribe (in movie terms, obviously, not reality) to break into to save Iris. Iris recalls Ethan's kidnapped niece in The Searchers, though, unlike Ethan, Travis never expresses a desire to kill her for being "tainted."

Travis' third and final fixation is the politician, Palantine. By random chance, the senator winds up in Travis' cab near the beginning, and Bickle talks to him about cleaning the streets. Palantine tosses off glib bits of assertion while looking thoroughly uncomfortable in the cab of someone who even claims to be a supporter. Bickle notes this, and when he snaps after Betsy's rejection, he comes to view Palantine as the enabler who allows the city, the country, to decay. His plot to assassinate the politician, however, is the one hurdle of the film; as the film occurs from Travis' demented POV, it's hard to tell what motivates him to equate killing Palantine with saving Iris, or why he would shave his head and make him more noticeable. Occam's razor would say to just accept that he's crazy and move on, and that may be best. What I decided on this viewing was that because Travis saw the senator as the force that allowed the scum to thrive, killing him might wake up the populace to the stench around them.

I also believe that he would have tried to go after Sport and save Iris himself even if he had managed to kill Palantine. Obviously he would have been stopped there and then, but going after the senator first gave him a chance to fix the overwhelming problems which could trickle down and free Iris, while the Plan B attack on the pimps at least ensures that he can free one person. The final shootout is a thing of savage beauty, shot to perfection by Scorsese and edited with just the right frantic rhythm by Tom Rolf and Melvin Shapiro. Scorsese desaturated the color timing to pass the film with an R rating, but that, funnily enough, makes it all more disturbing as it lacks the softness of '70s color stock. It culminates with a remarkable overhead shot that tracks the aftermath of Bickle's rampage through the seedy hotel, which some have interpreted as Bickle's soul leaving his body.

I do not believe the epilogue, though, is his dying fever vision. Bickle recovers from the attack and is propped up by the media as a hero. Even Palantine hoists him up as an example of the people taking charge and blah blah blah. I think this redemptive coda gives the film an ironic twist as well as a point; if this is merely Travis' last thought, then the movie is nothing more than the profile of a psycho. If it is real, then it reveals America's return to conservatism that built to a head with Reagan's election. For the media to set up a psychotic as a folk hero for slaying a -- to be honest -- relatively nonviolent pimp and a corrupt cop demonstrates a need for Americans to find concrete heroes and villains in the post-Vietnam world.

I also believe that the coda is real because of its last shot, which I finally understood with this viewing. When Travis gets back to his job, Betsy rides in his cab one night. Maybe caught up in the notion that Travis is noble, maybe just wanting to hook up with a celebrity, she attempts to re-open their relationship, but Bickle simply drops her off and doesn't make her pay. As he looks at her in the rear view mirror, suddenly he notices something and tilts the mirror, which only reflects him, not the object in question. The camera suddenly cuts with a jarring noise to capture Bickle and his reflection dominating the screen. What I see now (and don't know how I didn't see it before) is Bickle's total rejection of society. Where Betsy/the good of society rejected him before, now he can drive away from it. When he tilts the mirror to look for the unseen object, we see only him: Travis has descended into a fully insular world of paranoia now, and it's only a matter of time before he does something no one could mistake for heroic.

To call Taxi Driver a masterpiece is a waste of words. It was hailed as one upon its release, and even though it launched the career of the most impressive filmmaker working today, perhaps the most talented American director since Howard Hawks, it remains Scorsese's best film. I've not even mentioned De Niro's performance yet because I find it so unnecessary. To watch him in this film is to see pure madness, but not the moustache-twirling kind of more facile works. No, Bickle may be a genuinely decent fellow, but his mental instability turns him from an awkward, almost Office-like character into a terrifying construct. That endlessly parodied scene of him in front of the mirror asking, "You talking to me?" not only recalls yet more Western tropes (it's a straight lift from Shane) but reveals his schizophrenia and insanity.

Just recently I finally watched the last few Scorsese films I had yet to see. I came to the conclusion that, of his 20 narrative films, a good 10 were classics (about five or six are masterpieces), another five were highly watchable and the rest were merely good. It may be errant fanboyism, but I never disliked a single one of his films even when I failed to see the point of, say, the totally unnecessary The Color of Money (other than raising money for his most personal work, The Last Temptation of Christ, so it was kind of worth it). His ability to use his mastery of technique to get inside his protagonists' heads and flesh out his worlds, fusing style and substance seamlessly, makes his projects always worth seeing, and his restlessness and willingness to step far outside his comfort zone and fall on his face even today (I liked Kundun, so you can all shut it) is only outclassed in audacity by Jean-Luc Godard's irascibility. With Taxi Driver, he placed his camera in the mind of a madman and became trapped, and the result was one of the most thrilling pictures ever made.

Who's That Knocking at My Door

Martin Scorsese's debut contains so many of the director's trademark themes that it's fascinating even in its flawed state. What started as a short student film in 1964 evolved into a Catholic-tinged romance by the time it debuted at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1967 under the title I Call First, where it was enthusiastically received by then-novice critic Roger Ebert, who almost single-handedly established the director as a talent to watch years before he followed through on that promise with Mean Streets. Even if it pales next to later works, the film is a thoroughly interesting introduction to a legend.

Scorsese follows J.R., your average Italian-American kid, as he passes the time on the streets of New York. He's played by Harvey Keitel, more fresh-faced than I ever thought possible; yeah, I know he was younger, but even in Mean Streets he had a bit of a grizzled appearance about him. He hangs out with his aimless pals as they hit up bars and have their way with loose women. Near the start of the film J.R. meets a young woman (Zina Bethune) in a train station, and the two discuss John Ford's masterpiece The Searchers, a film that will come to have many parallels with the story. The two hit it off, and soon they're a serious couple.

J.R. is so in love that he even plans to marry the girl, until she reveals to him a terrible secret: when she was younger, her boyfriend raped her. Unwilling to marry someone who isn't a virgin, J.R. rejects her and must figure out what he wants to do. The men of Scorsese's films often fear the sexual power of the female, and J.R. is no exception. Scorsese contrasts J.R.'s rejection of her impurity with an earlier montage of J.R. imagining himself bedding numerous floozies and whores. The men in society can screw whomever and whatever they want, but if a woman has sex--even against her will--it's her shame.

Likewise, Scorsese also deals with the subject of Catholic guilt that would define many of his characters. At one point we see J.R.'s mother fixing dinner for well-behaved children, only to cut to the seedy hangout in which J.R. and his buddies meet, complete with photos of nude women plastering the walls. When J.R. decides to marry the girl "anyway," she justifiably gets upset with him for being bothered not by the fact that someone violated her but that she's not a virgin. J.R. struggles with the way he was brought up and even calls her a whore. The film subsequently ends with a montage of shots of J.R. going to church for absolution, because of what he said but also because that's just what he does. As with the theme of male and female double standards, it's just too pronounced.

The influence and indirect homage of The Searchers plays out with the girl's confession. J.R. plays the role of John Wayne's character. Where Ethan held viciously racist views on Native Americans and accepted only the "purity" of the white race, J.R. places women into two categories: the nice girls and the broads. The girl fits into Natalie Wood's part: just as Natalie Wood was barely different after being assimilated into the Commanches, J.R.'s girlfriend is a "nice girl" who's just not a virgin.

I Call First became Who's That Knocking at My Door when exploitation producer Joseph Brenner agreed to distribute the film for wide release, under the provision that Scorsese added a sex scene, resulting in that fantasy sequence that looks so out of place. It's only another addition to a film established largely in a piecemeal format; not only were new scenes added in but different types of stock. Scorsese used both 16mm and 35mm film to make the movie, so some scenes sparkle while other look like the indie film that it is. It's somewhat of a visual approximation of the film's own disconnect between the obviousness of the themes and the brilliance inherent even in the director's first work.

For all its flaws, Who's That Knocking at My Door gets a great deal right, and it shows Scorsese deftly in control of his camera as it mingles with characters, jump cuts all over the place and just generally makes itself a force in its own right. Scorsese also shows his mastery with melding pop music with the visuals, making it that much more exciting. For all its heavy-handedness, I'd love to watch this again, something I didn't think I'd be able to say about the film from the outset. It trapped Scorsese in the exploitation market for a few years (he'd go on to make his weakest film, Boxcar Bertha, after this) before friend and indie pioneer John Cassavetes shook some sense into him and told him to get serious. The result was Mean Streets, and that's the place everyone should start with Scorsese, but die-hards can find a lot to love in this potential-laden offering.

Reservoir Dogs

Written and Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut caused quite a stir back in 1991. It, along with Richard Linklater's Slacker, paved the way with the independent film explosion in the mid-90s on the shoulders of films like Clerks and Tarantino's hit follow-up Pulp Fiction. Upon release, Reservoir Dogs established the former video store clerk as a bold new talent who had probably the most extensive knowledge of film of any director since Godard and used that knowledge to fill his films with endless references and quotations that fans could pour over for weeks. Yet for all the praise that was heaped on this film and all the people who still list it among their favorites, I never really connected with Reservoir Dogs.

The film is told out of sequence and mostly in flashback following a botched diamond heist leaves a six-man crew in disarray. Mr. Brown (Tarantino) is dead, Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker) is missing, and Mr. Orange is bleeding like a stuck pig. Meanwhile Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) fret over how they can get Orange to a hospital without the cops getting him, and the two come to the conclusion that someone in their midst is a rat.

Seems simple, right? Well it is. No matter how complicated the out of sequence editing makes the film seem, the fact is the plot gets summed up in about 2-3 minutes of dialogue. Even before a flashback reveals the undercover cop in their midst you can easily guess who it is. Yet the film ultimately succeeds despite this shortcoming thanks to Tarantino's justly lauded gift for dialogue.

The opening diner conversation that ranges from a critical analysis of Madonna to a debate on tipping remains one of the hallmarks of Tarantino's career. It tells you a lot about the characters and sets the stage for meaty, hilarious dialogues to come. From there we cut to the aftermath of the failed heist. This first act stands as the high point of the film, in which the events of the robbery are only alluded to in the dialogue, which the actors deliver at a frenzied pace without ever losing themselves.

Then we have to watch all this play out. Imagine if The Third Man's Harry Lime was not a person but the entire story, constantly mentioned and alluded to, then suddenly thrust onto the screen. This can work for a person, but not a plot. These flashbacks kill the momentum of the present timeline, in which the crazed Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) tortures a captured police officer in order to get the name of the rat.

The infamous ear scene might be Tarantino's most defining. Ask the average person to name a scene after Quentin Tarantino, and they're likely to name this one. Madsen's hulking shuffle to the beat of "Stuck in the Middle With You" as he moves in to slice the ear of the hapless cop horrifies even as you laugh in amazement at how outrageous Tarantino can be. The writer-director would cause a similar sensation (albeit much more intense) in the Zed sequence of Pulp Fiction.

And that's where the flashbacks kill everything. After this shocking, landmark scene that leaves us on the edge of our seats, we have to go through an extended flashback of Tim Roth's mission to infiltrate the crime ring, working out a cover story to get leader Joe (Lawrence Tierney) to trust him. We already know Roth's character is the cop, and frankly I don't care if he wormed his way into a well-organized band of thieves with a well-told story about how he carried marijuana for a friend. Honestly, it just raises questions about the level of secrecy and planning Joe claims to utilize.

Nevertheless, this is an entertaining film, if for no other reason than it introduced Tarantino's dialogue to the world. Indeed, the conversations in this film remain his most naturalistic. Some people maintain that Tarantino's dialogue works because it's how people actually speak, but I think by the time a vapid, self-absorbed DJ makes a Zatoichi reference we've moved somewhat away from reality. His dialogue remains inherently fascinating and brilliant, but this, along with about half of Pulp Fiction, remain his only work with dialogue that sounds like it could come from people. It's a fun enough movie, and I continue to rewatch it even now, but I'd much rather see any of Tarantino's other films on a rainy day. Except maybe Death Proof. Let's not get carried away.