Arbitrage (Nicholas Jarecki, 2012)

To pinpoint the moment Arbitrage ceases to be plausible is to assume it ever established any kind of suspension of disbelief at all. And when Richard Gere fails from the start to make his billionaire hedge fund manager, Robert Miller, look remotely in his element with business talk, the commentary Nicholas Jarecki wishes to tie to his evil money-handler does not work. Hell, Gere's utter ineptness is but one of several early giveaways of the lack of care paid to the film. Unconvincing as a hedge fund guru, Gere is equally out of place with his family, with whom he has an unironically loving relationship yet looks like a total stranger around them. Perhaps that can be explained by his affair with an Italian artist, who enjoys the financial support of her lover yet lives in a flat that looks like an IKEA showroom.

Like the privileged child of a 1990s movie, the mistress throws a fit when Miller gets caught in a meeting and misses her important exhibition. After she gesticulates for a bit, the two head out and Miller passes out briefly at the wheel, leading to an absurdly oversized single-vehicle accident that leaves the woman dead and Miller terrified. Or maybe just extremely annoyed. Hard to say. Jarecki uses this involuntary manslaughter as a fatuous analogy. The man covers up his company's books to keep up appearances as the great hedge fund scheme implodes with exponentially increasing speed, and now he has to cover up his physical crime. This is an obvious, and common, method of tying more abstract, technically legal financial chicanery to that which people universally consider a violation of the law, and ostensibly it should make Miller seem doubly a villain.

Capsule Reviews: Lockout, Fixed Bayonets!

Lockout (James Mather, Stephen St. Leger, 2012)

Filmed in oxidized green-grays, Lockout has an agreeably dingy look to it, something both exacerbated and subverted by the directorial style built on top of it. Wearing its "Like Escape from New York, but in space!" pitch on its sleeve, Lockout wrings a great deal of immaculately sloppy fun out of its well-worn material. Guy Pearce shines as Snow, a framed CIA agent whose trip to prison turns into a recruitment to save the president's daughter, taken hostage during a humanitarian trip to this cryogenic space jail gone horribly awry. Speaking solely in Plissken-esque, macabre quips, Pearce has a ball on his own. But that's nothing compared to his double act with Maggie Grace as the naïve but sharp daughter; Andreas brought up It Happened One Night and now I can't not think of that. I was hooked from its literally punchy opening.

Fixed Bayonets! (Samuel Fuller, 1951)

Released hot on the heels of Fuller's other 1951 Korean War film, the geographically compressed The Steel Helmet, Fixed Bayonets! expands the field of battle but retains its compatriot's focused character study. Its surveyed platoon, abandoned to cover the rear in the dead of bitter winter, lose themselves to psychological contemplation as the cold threatens them as much as the encroaching Chinese. Lest you think that the voiceovers turn the film into some kind of reverie, however, Fuller here nails down the pulp-prose-poetry visual style that would make him such a distinct filmmaker. Indeed, Fixed Bayonets! offers a host of striking, idiosyncratic shots and tics that say more than even the bluntest dialogue.

The tremble of the camera when a mortar round explodes, both prefiguring the rise of shaky cam visceral "realism" and transcending its inherent thrill ride with more static, observational framing. The almost religious procession of the rest of the regiment (complete with Gregorian-esque chant) as they leave their comrades behind. The cacophony of Chinese bugles calling troops to arms but also containing the mournful last notes of "Taps" to further rattle the Americans. The amusing, fraternal scene of the men in a circle rubbing their frostbitten feet together until one of the sergeant's good-natured ribbing turns to horror when he realizes the cold, numbed foot he grabbed is his own.* Most gripping is the scene of Corporal Denno going to save the other sergeant stranded in a minefield, his own cowardly desire not to have to lead in the man's stead ironically compelling him to bravery. Fuller wrings tension out of a series of close-ups of Denno's boots, twinkling with melted snow as if the shoes themselves are sweating in nervousness as he takes each ginger step forward. It's all gorgeous and harrowing, as aesthetically thrilling as it is morally grounded in the complexities of respect and regret for its characters.

*As Gene Evans' sergeant tells the others, "Only three things you gotta worry about the infantry: your rifle and your two feet." As the grandson of a vet whose feet never fully recovered from winters in Korea, this tossed-off line carried a lot of weight and understanding.

Vamps (Amy Heckerling, 2012)

A lightweight vampire parody that mercifully pokes at the deeper lore rather than just taking potshots at Twilight, Vamps starts rough and ends an unexpected delight. Using the true age of Alicia Silverstone's vampire to make fun of her being behind the times, Amy Heckerling also mocks the faded relevance of their previous, iconic collaboration, Clueless. That gives the goofy jokes more (forgive me) bite, and it eventually leads to an emotional breakthrough for its characters that hints at some of the same care that marked Heckerling's best film.

My full review is up now at Spectrum Culture.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter Hunt, 1969)

In time for Skyfall's release Friday, I looked back at possibly the best entry of the franchise, the unfairly maligned and forgotten On Her Majesty's Secret Service. When I watched these films as a kid, I did not respond much to this entry, by that point so used to Connery and Moore that I did not pay attention to this usurper. Yet no film in the franchise has grown so much in my estimation, and returning to it now after several years, I was struck by the beauty of its cinematography, the visceral impact of its editing and how both of these enhance the story to the point that its infamous ending, for all its cruel abruptness, naturally flows from the rest. One of a precious few installments in the franchise that can stand proudly on its own.

My full piece is up now at Spectrum Culture.

Detention (Joseph Kahn, 2012)

Joseph Kahn's Detention is a film so scatterbrained that it cannot even begin before getting distracted, introducing a secondary character before moving onto the protagonist. Kahn links the two with mirroring shot setups and mise-en-scene. The first is Taylor Fisher, the most popular girl at Grizzly Lake High School. Her room is lit as if reflected off her perfect, bleached smile, and she rises out of bed fresh-faced and with perfect hair. Turning the word "bitch" into an inspirational acronym, Taylor Fisher rattles off a set of offensively vacuous rules by which to live life as she sporadically swears at her family and rejects all the boys who call her after she hooked up with them for homework help or just on a whim.

The other girl, Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell), exists at the opposite end of the spectrum, socially and, as Kahn twists the same basic shot setups, aesthetically. Where the sun seems to rise with Taylor, Riley groggily rolls out of bed, having passed out with a plate of ketchup-soaked French fries that now soil her clothes. Her posters promote vegetarianism  a cause she takes to less out of belief than to have something that keeps her separate from most others. Her dialogue matches The only thing that truly links them is the casual prescription drug abuse of both. Well, that and the ax-wielding, costumed killer that comes for them both. The killer gets Taylor easily, abruptly cutting short her "arc" before it begins. As for Riley, the killer is just one of many horrors she must face over the course of the feature, none so daunting as regular high school life.

Viewing Log: October 2012

Theatrical Screenings

Argo: Solid, if uneven, thriller. Affleck both growing and stagnating as a director.
The Birds: Second, big-screen viewing made all the difference. One of Hitch's purest works.
Killer Joe: Friedkin, working with Tracy Letts' words, is operating at the top of his game.
Lawrence of Arabia: Fathom Events never pulled off a live event this good. A masterpiece that can only be fully appreciated on a big screen.
Looper: Above-average sci-fi movie with fine performances and showy, but never wowing, direction. Already fading from the mind; perhaps my younger self is changing our fate as we speak.
The Phantom of the Opera (1925): The scale of the sets is jaw-dropping, and the mixture of longing and animalism in Lon Chaney's eyes adds levels of danger and savagery foreign to those (like me) raised on the the musical version. Seen live with an organ accompaniment. Heaven.

Screeners/VOD

Butter: Lame, condescending satire confirms every notion of Hollywood's elitism held by those it seeks to lampoon.
Nobody Walks: Ugh. Just, no thanks.
The Revisionaries: Compelling, occasionally sidetracked documentary about the creep of politics into every aspect of life, and whether that's inevitable.
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning: Just about a masterpiece of the action genre. Simultaneously purifies the genre down to its essence and shatters it.
Vamps: Delightful, touching film grows out of too-cute anachronistic jokes. Full review forthcoming.

New Viewings

Cactus River: One of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's several new shorts. Enigmatic even by his standards. Still mulling over its evocative, fluid imagery.
Death and the Maiden: Polanski said this was his hardest movie to film, and even though he later made a film more directly about his WWII experiences, it's not hard to see why he said that of this movie.
Detective: Godard goes New Wave for old times' sake, has a ball.
The Devil's Rejects: A great movie, and that is not a statement I expected to make during its first 20 minutes.
Dionysus in '69: Full review coming later this month. Spotty but fascinating early experiment for De Palma.
Frantic: It's never not enjoyable to watch Roman Polanski put a character through the ringer, especially when it makes a deadpan, unresponsive actor like Harrison Ford LOSE it.
Hard Target: Oh, John, and Jean. Let's just move on, shall we?
The Heartbreak Kid (2007): Almost as good as the original. No, really, I talk about both here.
King Lear (1987): New favorite Godard. I need a rewatch and some research before I can write my review.
Knife in the Water: Roman Polanski lived and breathed cinema even from the start.
Macbeth (1971): Brilliantly, brutally pared down take on Shakespeare's play. Makes you wonder why anyone would go to all that grotesque trouble to be king.
Marnie: Like The Birds, this is Hitch at his most "come at me, bro."
A Perfect Getaway: One of the best Hollywood thrillers of the last few years. Just grand.
Pola X: Carax stripped down and dolled up. Successfully subsumes his stylistic flourishes into a more static no less less overwhelming upheaval. This is a master, people.

Red Line 7000: The brutal machinery spinning underneath Hawks' oeuvre. The usual Hawksian group is made sluggish and ultimately asphyxiated by the car fumes. A raw variant of Only Angels Have Wings' abstract on the precariousness of the director's usual characters.

The Tenant: Polanski's self-martyring, and self-lacerating, Apartment Trilogy capper. One of his finest.

They All Laughed: One of the best films of the '80s.

Unfaithfully Yours: Does for screwball what Monsieur Verdoux did for slapstick. As black as black comedy gets. I'm really coming to adore Preston Sturges, even if I still don't lose my stuff for The Lady Eve or Sullivan's Travels.

We Own the Night: James Gray is a modern treasure and he should be treated better.

What's Up, Doc?: "I'm a doctor." "Of what?" "Music." "Can you fix a hi-fi?" "No." "Then shut up."

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?: Frank Tashlin, where have you been all my life?

Repeat Viewings

Death Proof: A deconstructive masterpiece. Until Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino's best.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The same suffocating darkness that makes it such a daring kid's movie also lures me more than its saccharine qualities. Felt better about this viewing (on the new, excellent Blu-Ray) than I did for any other, including when I watched this as a child.

I'm Not There: One of two major opinion reversals I had with a rewatch this month. Helps, may even be essential, that I know now enough about Dylan to follow along.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Its racism still offends, but the audacity of its technical craft rates it among the director's finest aesthetic achievements. So torn, though I'm much more positive and appreciative of what it does well than in this old review.

Magic Mike: Stand by this rave from earlier in the year.

Prince of Darkness: See this review? Ignore every last word of it. I was wrong: this is one of Carpenter's best directed, most focused works of pure, unnerving dread. Honestly don't know how I missed the mark so badly on it the first time, but it's never to late to set things right. Possible new review may be forthcoming.

Young Frankenstein: Honestly, if you don't like this, there's the door.


Total Films Seen in 2012: 346
New to Me Films: 239
Theatrical Viewings: 34

Capsule Reviews: A Perfect Getaway, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Marnie

A Perfect Getaway (David Twohy, 2009)

David Twohy's A Perfect Getaway is a lean, juicy thriller with a twist so good that not even an hour's worth of teasing it saps its effect. "Nothing bad ever happens in Hawaii, right?" says one character during the film's placid opening, though even then his voice betrays doubt, and Twohy's sweeping panoramas of lush forests and beaches communicate remoteness and isolation as much as postcard-ready beauty. Steady long takes let the murmurs of a double murder on a neighboring island sink into the frame visually, casting shadows on its small but dynamic cast of newlyweds and lovers who come to fear for their safety. The actors do their part too, with Steve Zahn's nervously darting eyes suggesting first humorous discomfort, then mounting dread, and Milla Jovovich getting the best opportunity outside one of her husband's films to show off her enigmatic poker face reactions. Perhaps best of all is Timothy Olyphant, almost endearingly arrogant as a "man in full" (as his girlfriend calls him) When the other shoe drops, Twohy's stately, patient direction obviously shifts into a higher gear, but this only shows off other facets of his skill. A chase through the forest is subtly propelled further by comic-panel-like screenwipes that elide over a few steps to give the sequence even more momentum. The final showdown manages to consolidate even the characters' relationships into its tense payoff. (A sidenote: stick with the streamlined theatrical version over the director's cut, which adds most of its extra time to a key flashback, nice and nasty in the original version but overlong in extended form).