Lost in the Temple: Movies

WE LIVE, WE DIE, WE DANCE

February 9, 2012, by 1 comment

Pina, 2011. Directed by Wim Wenders, conceived by Wenders and the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.

There are blessed and brief moments in human history where people gather to form an organic unit–a team, a company, a troupe–that performs wonders.  Often, the individuals didn’t know they’re special; often, they were not special, but thrived in the group, coming fully alive for the first time.

The 1927 New York Yankees. The Founding Fathers. The Mercury Theater performing Caesar, Macbeth, War of the Worlds, and finally, Citizen Kane.  Insert your favorite band here.

We watch, lucky to witness these spectacular convergences. And, oh, to actually be a part of one of these blessed aggregates! But that is too much to ask for, generally. So we must be content to bask in their sun-bright presence.

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A YEAR IN THE SILVER: MY TOP TEN MOVIE MOMENTS

January 2, 2012, by No comments yet

The end of every year sends movie critics scrambling to play the list game. You know, where we comb through that year’s titles for the privilege of allowing a select few a spot on on our “Top Ten” list. Those lists serve as a way of telling people “I love this movie!” as well as signaling our superiority by keeping certain flicks off . Because a guy who made exactly zero dollars on his film writing should be able to lord over Terrence Malick now and again, right?

I have a top ten list, but there’s a heavenly top fifty out there, all the great movies I know I missed this year simply because I didn’t have the time or the thing never made it to Minneapolis. This troubles me. So instead of the usual top ten, I’m going to make the list very personal, and reflect on my favorite moments watching movies, old or new. This is much different from the ten best of the year–for instance, R. Alverson’s masterful New Jerusalem, which I picked as my favorite movie of 2011, isn’t here, since I saw it on DVD, at home, by myself. The moment was memorable only because of the film (though you’ll see I have a DVD I watched alone as well.) This list serves as a sort-of thank you letter to the gods of cinema, to the people who made these events happen, to the good folks with whom I saw the movies in question, and perhaps it will inspire readers to think back on their happiest moments at the cinema this year.

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NOTHING BUT A SHAME

December 16, 2011, by No comments yet

Shame, 2011. Directed by Steve McQueen, written by McQueen and Abi Morgan. Starring Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale, and Nicole Beharie.

Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender) walks around his stylish, nearly empty, blindingly-white Manhattan apartment with no clothes on. He refuses to answer the phone when his sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), calls, desperate. He goes to work in his high-powered job and he’s good at making deals. Before work, during work, after work, and on weekends, he is fucking, either himself, a woman, women, or, now and again, a man.

That’s Shame, not in a nutshell, but pretty much the whole kit-and-kaboodle. If the preceding paragraph seems to lack detail, well, you’re not going to get a whole lot more in the film itself. For Shame is not about people. It is, like McQueen’s prior effort, the gorgeous Hunger, a performance piece, divorced from reality, the work of an artist who seems not to understand people, much less “sexual addiction.”

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THEY WERE BORN TO DANCE!

November 30, 2011, by No comments yet

Broadway Melody of 1940, directed by Norman Taurog, written (if you can call it that) by Leon Gordon and George Oppenheimer, with help from nine other writers (including Preston Sturges). Starring Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, weird George Murphy, and the always wonderful Mr. Matuschek, Frank Morgan.

What can you say about Broadway Melody of 1940? My first response is to wonder why there’s no “year” movies today–where’s the Glee-like Tap Dancing Teens of 2012? (Not that I would want to see that.) Instead of all these sequels, why not call ‘em Vampire Lovers of 2011? Trainwrecking Transformers of 2010?

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WORLD WITH AN END, AMEN

November 23, 2011, by 2 comments

Melancholia, 2011. Directed and written by Lars von Trier. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård, John Hurt, Stellan  Skarsgård, Keifer Sutherland, and Udo Keir as a wedding planner from Hell. Aren’t they all?

Lars von Trier’s new film, Melancholia, concerns the end of the world. Not “the end of the world as we know it”, but the literal end of the world–a planet that some scientist has dubbed “Melancholia”, that has been “hiding behind the sun” (do not even attempt to wonder if any of the astronomy is legit) has bounced free and is swooping near earth. Will it crash into us?

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THIS WEEK’S BIRTHDAY: ROBERT RYAN

November 10, 2011, by No comments yet

There he is, in Act of Violence, Joe Parkson, limping, gat in hand, desperate and obsessed with blowing away clean-living Frank Enley, maybe even taking Enley’s wife out in the process.

You can’t get that one out of your head, and then there’s Crossfire, and he’s Montgomery, the anti-Semite, a vile, vicious bully, who kills a man simply for being a Jew.

He was a womanizing projectionist with a mean streak in Clash by Night. The racist happy to beat a cripple in Bad Day at Black Rock, and the racist who’s just as eager to throw over his black accomplice in Odds Against Tomorrow. His men were cowardly, they were hateful, they were mean to kids, to women, to minorities.

But most of all, they seemed to hold a special loathing for themselves.

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ONLY THE TRUTH IS FUNNY*

October 25, 2011, by 1 comment

Hail the Conquering Hero, 1944. Directed and written by Preston Sturges. Starring Eddie Bracken, William Demarest, Ella Raines, Franklin Pangborn, Georgia Caine, Raymond Walburn, and the “Tacoma Assassin”, boxer Freddie Steele, playing the mother-obsessed Marine…

Was there ever a comedy as deeply honest as Preston Sturges’ Hail the Conquering Hero? The question is rhetorical. For here is a tale made and released when World War II was still white-hot, that skewers military worship and even the idolization of mothers, for gosh sakes. That makes people look like fools while acknowledging the genuine goodwill that exists in all of us. A picture about a small town gone crazy, while at the same time celebrating the inherent cozy joy of those little towns. A movie that is at once totally hilarious, then sends you reeling with its heartfelt emotion. In Hail the Conquering Hero, people are idiots, and thank God for those people. Without them, where would we be?

I’ll say this: Hail the Conquering Hero is a movie that should be remade for every war. I’ll also say this: there’s not a filmmaker alive who could remake Hail the Conquering Hero. It’s just too damned honest.

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DOWN AND OUT (IN NEW YORK AND MINNEAPOLIS)

August 1, 2011, by No comments yet

In a summer of endless clashes between spandex covered men and alien invaders, of comedies involving endless sex jokes and great buckets of shit, of children’s films in which the whiny echoes of spoiled brats reverberate off the walls of giant mansions, my favorite movies from this year come from the distant past.

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REMEMBERING THE MOVIEGOER

February 17, 2011, by No comments yet

For the Twin Cities film community, Terry Blue was a fixture at theaters around town. You couldn’t miss him: red haired, moving at clip that suggested he had important places to go (he would probably say that your theater was the most important place at the moment), he would come in, pay for his seat, head into the theater to save said seat (which was always the same), and then return to the lobby where he would proceed hold court over the crowds of people heading in, or his small group of friends. Terry usually bought a Coke; always had a maroon briefcase stuffed with papers of some sort (probably including notes for his Cobalt Blue List, his top 30 movies of the year); and he could be counted on to have opinions–strong, strong opinions–on any and all movies currently playing, movies from the past, movies you’d seen, movies you hadn’t seen, movies you hadn’t heard of.

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CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: THE WRECK OF ALVIN FITZSIMMONS

November 17, 2010, by No comments yet

Marty, 1953 (an episode of the Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse). Directed by Delbert Mann, written by Paddy Chayefsky. Starring Rod Steiger, Joe Mantell, Nancy Marchand, and Esther Minciotti

From the files of “street” critic Guy Fresno.

Did I ever tell you about my pal Alvin Fitzsimmons? A short, mealy little guy, nice guy, one of those squirts who does one thing really well and bumbles about in everything else. Actually, I take that back: Alvin did quite a few things well, really well. First of all, from a young age he showed a pretty God damn amazing talent at flower arranging. Seriously. Dude got himself a job at Roethke Flowers, well after the poet clan left it behind, and he was good. That’s all he did in short order–kid went from deliveries and pushing a broom to making bouquets for brides in just a few months. Too bad he thought it was “girly”. I’ll grant him that it didn’t pay anything, but he went and became an actuary.

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