Damsels in Distress (2012)

Damsels in Distress (2012), directed by Whit Stillman, 4 stars

Be prepared to leave reality behind when you enter the world of Seven Oaks College.  Like the fog-bound characters of “Brigadoon,” students enrolled there give off a familiar scent (and some also have an overdeveloped sense of smell to go with it), but there’s scarcely a whiff of reality about them.  They range from smarter than smart to dumber than dirt, especially the residents of DU, one of the many campus fraternities that use the Roman rather than the Greek alphabet to identify their organization.  They’re all as delightfully eccentric a collection of characters as has ever been assembled in an institution—at least one of higher learning.  Greta Gerwig as Violet together with her floral band (Heather, Rose and Lilly) are involved extracurricularly in saving fellow students from suicide or worse—leaping from the second story of an academic building and simply seriously hurting themselves.  They do this with a dash of psychoanalysis and a serving of donuts, and they are actually very good at what they do.  Their advice may not always be the best, but it comes from the best of intentions.  And, besides, nobody dies.  Greta is also interested in starting a dance craze, the Sambola, but in this she is not nearly so successful.  Nor does she do as well as she would like in her relationships with men, which are inspired by her desire to elevate the most inferior of the species to more exalted status.  As they stroll about the campus, which they only seem to do at dusk, the distressed damsels emit an angelic, golden glow.   During their magic hour meanderings, Violet and friends maintain their focus on the positive changes they are attempting to make.  The film is less of a narrative than a sequence of somewhat related vignettes that follow both their perils and progress.

I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to reveal that the film’s denouement features a dance sequence to the lovely and much under-appreciated Gershwin tune, “Things Are Looking Up.”  I suppose IMDB might file this under trivia, but (I think) it’s worth pointing out that this song originated in a classic 1937 Fred Astaire film, the most singular “A Damsel in Distress.” Clearly writer/director Whit Stillman knows his RKO musicals, and he has created an equally contrived yet clever screenplay, at least in some small part as an homage to the original.  (On a related note, there’s also a particularly bad tap dancer who has adopted the name, Freak Astaire.)  And like "Brigadoon," another musical which I mentioned earlier, I can easily fantasize reentering this world 100 years in the future and be just as enchanted by it as I was this time.

Rango (2011)

Rango (2011), directed by Gore Verbinski, 4 stars

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

-- Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces

As complacent as any character at the start of a Hitchcock film, our protagonist, an excessively histrionic, windmill-tilting lizard undergoing a major identity crisis, realizes that what is lacking in his undeveloped life is conflict arising out of an unexpected turn of events.  Immediately, this missing piece presents itself.  An oncoming truck causes the car in which he is being conveyed to swerve suddenly, ejecting him and his idyllic aquarium from the vehicle.  To the melody of “Ave Maria” he rises In slow motion, only to fall with a crash and slide on a piece of glass until finally coming to a rest on the blacktop.  His umbrella bursts into flames and the water in the aquarium evaporates immediately under the scorching heat of the sun.  He is alone.  The adventure begins.

I was not expecting to like “Rango” nearly as much as I did.  I saw trailers for the film at the time of its theatrical release and, despite the presence of Johnny Depp, the whole thing looked pretty silly and self-indulgent to me. Well, I was wrong, at least in part.  The film is indeed silly, but it's also very smart. Johnny Depp’s acting has always been of the highest caliber, and he has once again put his heart and soul into the character of “Rango.”  Visual consultant, Roger Deakins, known best (at least to me) for his long association with the Coen Brothers, no doubt contributed to the film’s rich texture and lighting, as he did earlier on “How to Tame Your Dragon.”  The dialogue and accompanying soundtrack are witty and draw shamelessly and with true affection from earlier Westerns (“High Noon” the films of Sergio Leone spring immediately to mind) and other genres.  (There are inspired homages to such films as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Star Wars,” and “Apocalypse Now” just to name a few.)  A gloom and doom Greek chorus of mariachi performers composed of four owls attempt to but never quite accurately anticipate Rango’s fate.  However, a Sancho Panza-like armadillo gets it right.  We are nothing without enlightenment, he tells Rango, who is too angry at the time to pay heed to the armadillo’s aphorism.  It takes a while, but Rango eventually comes around.


The folks at Industrial Light and Magic together with seasoned director Gore Verbinski ("Pirates of the Carribean") have produced a real treat: lots of good clean (and, yes, very silly) fun for the kids and a refreshingly clever screenplay for adults.  Both a hit and a myth!

The False Magistrate (1914)

The False Magistrate (1914), directed by Louis Feuillade, 3 stars

 “The False Magistrate” is the fifth and final film in Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas series, but as [possible spoiler] the criminal mastermind makes his by now anticipated escape at the end, one may well wonder whether or not the filmmaker really intended this to be the elusive villain’s last screen appearance.

The film begins with a prologue during which a financial transaction goes terribly wrong.  The Marquis de Tergall’s current financial difficulties necessitate that he sell his wife’s jewelry.  The Marquis expects a cash transaction, but the buyer brings a check instead.  The buyer agrees to be locked inside a hotel room with the jewels while the Marquis leaves to cash the check.  When the Marquis returns, the buyer opens the bureau where the jewels should be, and, voila, they’re gone.  When the police arrive, they move the bureau and discover a hole in the wall leading to the adjoining room.

Meanwhile, Fantômas is serving a life sentence in a Belgian prison (which looks remarkably like the French prison where he and others did time in earlier films).  His arch rival, Inspector Juve, is not happy about this.  Not only is he chagrined by the fact that the Belgian police have done between films what he hasn’t been able to accomplish in the preceding four, he wants Fantômas executed, not merely imprisoned.  To address both his humiliation and his sense of justice, Juve devises an unusual plan to help Fantômas escape.  The plan works, but once set free, Fantômas quickly eludes the French police who are tailing him.  Soon after, he has a chance encounter with a man in a boxcar.  Fantômas kills him, rummages through his wallet, and learns that the man is a magistrate.  More mayhem and dastardly deeds follow as the master of disguise assumes the identity of the dead man (hence, the film’s title), with no one, including those who knew the man, any the wiser.

I include more narrative elements here than I typically do to emphasize once again the motifs that recur throughout Fantômas series.  The plots defy logic and stretch probability to the limit.  Who could have predicted that the buyer of the Marquis’ jewels would bring a check or store the jewels in the bureau, much less at the exact spot the hole had already been punched through?  What are the odds that Fantômas would encounter a magistrate in a boxcar and, stealing his identity, be able to pass for him even among those who knew the man?  In the world of Fantômas, these things just happen; the whys and wherefores are irrelevant.

Unlike the other films, this is the only one in the series that focuses almost exclusively on Fantômas.  I don't think this works very well.  Fantômas needs a nemesis.  Without Juve or Fandor or someone in hot pursuit, there is no sense of danger; no wondering whether what Fantômas has planned will come to pass.  With no one to pit his wits against, his actions are almost effortless.  No one challenges him.  Although he is quite capable of killing, most of what Fantômas is able to achieve occurs merely by the force of his personality.  Seasoned criminals bear their souls to him.  Aristocratic women tremble in his presence.

The most noteworthy aspect of this film is its bell-tower sequence, which struck me as so remarkable that I feel compelled to describe it shot by shot.  For a few minutes, it actually feels as if we’re watching footage produced by a completely different filmmaker for a completely different film.  The jewels stolen in the film’s prologue are hidden in a bell, a good 20 feet above the highest floor in a church steeple.  The platform extends only to about a third of the horizontal space.  Below the bell, there is no flooring. While Fantômas tilts the bell and holds it at an angle, his accomplice lifts a long ladder precariously onto a small crate.  The top of the ladder extends into the inner body of the bell.  At first, the two men appear in a medium long shot working together with rope and ladder.  Next, we see the full view in an extreme longshot.  The two sides of the screen are black, and in the middle third of the frame, the two men now appear almost as miniature figures at the bottom left.  High above them, we can now see the bell, which is canted toward them with the top of the ladder being maneuvered carefully until it rests within the inner lip of the bell.

The camera remains there as Fantômas’ accomplice begins his climb.  It then cuts back to a long shot of the man climbing.  As he ascends, the camera ascends with him on an unseen elevator, rising until the man’s upper body disappears into the bell.  This is truly a marvelous shot, and it underscores the precariousness inherent in the climb. The camera then cuts back to the framed extreme long shot showing a very small Fantômas holding the rope and ladder at the lower left corner of the frame and his accomplice at the top of the frame standing on the ladder with only his lower body visible.  This stunt is for real.  The camera cuts once more to a long shot of the man in the bell, this time extracting the jewel case and dropping it on the platform.  

In the final shot, once again from an extreme distance, Fantômas picks up the jewel case and lets the ladder fall, leaving the man’s legs dangling from the bell and the man (we imagine) holding on for dear life to the clapper.  (A little later, we actually see him doing this in a medium, extreme low-angle shot in which he is very plainly wearing a safety harness.)  This is the best directed, best edited, and most exciting sequence in the entire series.


Unfortunately, several sequences in "The False Magistrate" are lost—at least at present.  The version I saw of the film is from “Fantômas, The Complete Saga,” a three-DVD set distributed by Kino, which does a reasonable job of making up for the gaps by using newly inserted intertitles to summarize the missing footage.


Now that I’ve seen all of the Fantômas films in the series, I’m actually a bit sad that I have no more to look forward to.  I guess I liked them better than I thought.  The good news is that there are two commentary tracks by David Kalat on the DVD set that I haven’t listened to yet.  I can still look forward to them.  Also, I just stumbled across the Fantômas Lives site as well as David Bordwell’s appreciation of the series.  And, of course, there are still 30 plus  Fantômas novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain to read.

The Last Laugh, 1924

The Last Laugh, 1924, directed by F. W. Murnau, 4.5 stars

Murnau’s “The Last Laugh” is considered by many to be the very model of a major silent film, perhaps, the greatest ever made. It is certainly a superb example of a completely silent film, by which I mean, there are absolutely no intertitle dialogue cards.  In fact, there is only one intertitle in the entire film, which, because it announces the final act (or, more accurately, perhaps, the epilogue), is particularly jarring--not only because of its apparently self-conscious insertion, but also because of the ensuing, unlikely events it purports to explain away.

Emil Jannings stars as an elderly and over-sized hotel doorman who, unbeknownst to him, is seen by a manager taking a momentary, unscheduled break away from his post.  When he arrives at work the next day, he is surprised to see a younger and fitter individual manning the door.  Conducted into a manager's office, he is handed a letter informing him that he has been transferred to the hotel washroom, and he is then ordered to remove and return his doorman's uniform.  Stunned and humiliated by this seemingly inexplicable turn of events, he is literally unable to move, and a fellow hotelier must doff the uniform for him.  Unable to face his friends and family, he steals his uniform before leaving the hotel, wearing it proudly one last time at an all-night gala wedding reception in honor of his niece.  Of course, the ruse cannot last.  The next day he is found out, at which point his unrelenting downward spiral begins in earnest.

Murnau and his gifted cinematographer, Karl Freund, are able to capture the full range of emotions experienced by the doorman through the use of unusual angles, point-of-view shots (including hand-held camerawork), filters, lighting, and claustrophobic set design.  The camera glides effortlessly through doors and windows, up and down stairs, and through city streets and hotel corridors.  Like the doorman, most things in his world appear larger than life.  Characters glare, glower, gasp, gape, or grin.  Their gestures are grand and absolutely unambiguous; seldom does anyone move their lips to speak.  The exaggerated aspects of the film are absolutely appropriate.  They reflect (sometimes in mirrors) the overblown self-image of the main character, so pompously self-absorbed when clad in his hotel finery, and so woefully self-obsessed as he steadily descends into total despair.  This film is cinema at its purest, and the high quality of the preserved print contributes to making it a pure pleasure to watch as well.

The Penalty (1920)

The Penalty (1920), directed by Wallace Worsley, 3 stars

“Long before there was Jigsaw there was Dr. Ferris.”  Alright, though that might make a good tag line for “The Penalty,” better certainly than any of the ones listed on IMDB, it is a bit misleading.  Yes, Dr. Ferris, whose malpractical surgery sets “The Penalty” in motion, does precede the villain from “Saw” by 80 plus years.  And yes, limb removal plays a pivotal plot point.  But that’s really it.  Dr. Ferris, a freshly-minted sawbones, faces his first serious case; he must save the life of the young victim of a traffic accident.  He couldn’t possibly have known that his bias for action would “mangle the poor child for life” and lead to the legless lad growing up to become a king of the underworld—not to mention a megalomaniacal anarchist (shades of Fantômas).

Twenty seven years later, Lon Chaney as Blizzard reigns supreme in San Francisco’s notorious red light district dubbed the Barbary Coast.  His henchman are everywhere, and they keep him informed of everything of import, including the whereabouts of the now revered Dr. Ferris and his lovely daughter, Barbara, a budding artist.  Blizzard learns that she is advertising for someone to model for her sculpture of Satan.  To ensure that he is chosen, he orders his thugs to drive away all other contenders.  Having done this, he now has easy access to the most precious possession of the man on whom he has been seeking revenge for nearly 30 years.

Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, came into his own in this film with his portrayal of Blizzard, a character crippled both in body and in mind.  Chaney's ability to effortlessly maneuver with his crutches and swing himself up a ladder and down a pole using only his arms is truly astonishing.  These feats are further enhanced through the ingenious and apparently very painful use of an apparatus Chaney designed and then wore to complete the picture.  He darts about on his knees, the lower part of his legs wrapped tightly behind him and hidden under a long coat.  The result is an absolutely convincing portrayal of a man with two missing lower limbs.

“The Penalty” also has a few moments that prefigure two of Chaney’s later and better known films: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Phantom of the Opera.”  All three feature women who are sympathetic despite the deformity of Chaney's character ([mild spoiler alert] though only in “The Penalty” does the guy get the girl).  In addition, like the Phantom, Blizzard is at his best when he’s tickling the ivories, and like the Hunchback, he’s extremely energetic and agile—almost graceful—despite significant physical handicaps.

Even though I've only seen a handful of his films, I consider myself a big Lon Chaney fan, and I wholeheartedly recommend "The Penalty" to anyone who is unfamiliar with his work or has only seen his more popular films.  It's available on DVD from Kino and for free from the Internet Archive (though not the greatest print).

Rio Rita (1929)

Rio Rita (1929), directed by Luther Reed, 3 stars

A mysterious bank robber known as “The Kinkajou” has been robbing banks along the Mexican border.  Captain Jim Stewart of the Texas Rangers, masquerading in faux Mexican sartorial splendor, arrives in secret with orders to bring the criminal to justice.  Another recent arrival is Chick Bean, accompanied by his lawyer, who has come for a very different purpose:  to obtain a Mexican divorce.  Mayhem ensues with musical accompaniment and justice is finally served in the end.

If you’ve ever seen the 1929 version of “Rio Rita,” you’d probably never guess that it was a huge hit, RKO’s biggest according to Wikipedia until “King Kong” came along four years later.  Of course, it was also one of newcomer RKO’s very first and most expensive films, so it had very little competition.  By modern standards, the film would certainly strike most viewers as static and stilted, but not pre-depression audiences.  The recent addition of sound technology was irresistible, and the public flocked to movie houses to experience the novelty of actors talking and singing.  If films like this were for all practical purposes merely Broadway productions restaged for the camera, that alone was more than enough to attract audiences that would otherwise never set foot on the Great White Way.  Similarly, “Rio Rita” provides audiences of today a window into what Broadway musicals looked and sounded like in the 1920s.

This is fine for historians, social scientists, and aficionados, but why should the rest of us watch this film?  Well, like everything else, I guess that depends.  For me, another draw was the fact that it features the first screen pairing of two under-appreciated comic performers, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, who made ultimately more than 20 films together for RKO between 1929 and 1937.  Often remembered incorrectly as a vaudeville team turned film duo, they were actually cast independently and performed for the first time together in the Ziegfeld-produced Broadway production of “Rio Rita” two years earlier.  Wheeler and Woolsey were the only members of the original cast brought to Hollywood to reproduce their roles on film.  Other members of the film's cast include John Boles (“Frankenstein”), Bebe Daniels (“42^nd Street), and Dorothy Lee, Wheeler’s love interest in this and nearly all of the pair’s subsequent films.

I was also drawn to the film because I knew that the final act was shot in two-strip Technicolor.  After seeing Wheeler and Woolsey in all of their other feature films exclusively in black and white, the prospect of seeing them perform in color was too enticing to pass up.

Finally, I’ve always wanted to screen the film because, up until recently, it was nearly impossible to see.  MGM remade "Rio Rita" in 1942 with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and when they did, they pulled the original print from circulation.  (They would do  the same thing a year later with "Girl Crazy" (1932), another RKO feature starring Wheeler and Woolsey.)  Things that are scarce are perceived to have value--in some cases more than they deserve.  "Rio Rita" may not be the lost treasure I hoped it would be, but despite its faults, I enjoyed it for what it is (or was).  And we should all be glad that contemporary audiences did as well.  If it weren't for the money they shelled out for tickets, the fledgling RKO studio may never have gone on to produce and distribute so many certified cinematic masterpieces (including "Citizen Kane").  Who would have thought we'd have Wheeler and Woolsey to thank for that?

The Shooting (1966)

The Shooting (1966), directed by Monte Hellman, 3 stars

I’ve most often heard the expression “they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore” applied to classic Hollywood films, by which I mean, studio pictures featuring the likes of John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart or Marilyn Monroe, etc.  Well, they don’t make films like  this one either.  The disaffection of the late 60s and early 70s took cinema in a different direction.  Things could go well for the hero right up until the end and then, wham, a bad thing happens, there's a brief pause or fade out, and the credits start to roll.  Characters are either propelled or proceed aimlessly from scene to scene with little if any motivation beyond a fatalistic submission to whatever comes next.  In “The Shooting,” what lies at the end of the trail seems less important than the journey itself.

Bounty hunter turned prospector, Willett Gashade (Warren Oates), leaves behind a trail of flour as he makes his way to the site of a mine where he expects to meet up with his brother.  When he gets there, he finds a recently dug grave, a young and very skittish, Coley Boyard (Will Hutchison), and no sign of his brother.  Apparently, the dead man was shot from a distance so Boyard didn’t see the killer.

Soon after, a disheveled young woman (Millie Perkins) wanders into camp and offers to pay Gashade to act as her guide and take her to a nearby town.  Although she never identifies herself or gives an explanation for being so far away from civilization on her own, Gashade agrees, and Boyard eagerly tags along. On the way, but close to camp, they discover that she has shot her horse, even though all signs point to it having been hale and healthy at the time.  As they proceed along the trail, she inexplicably shoots her pistol at random.  The sound turns out to be a signal to gunfighter, Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson), whom she apparently has also hired to accompany her on the journey and has been hanging back for reasons unknown.

This no-account narrative quality permeates the film, infecting all of the characters to some degree with a clear case of existential angst.  Young Coley, the film’s most sensitive character, displays the most pronounced symptoms:  nervous and jerky behavior combined with an incessant compulsion to blather.  But Coley is not the only one so afflicted.  The woman descends to near hysteria on several occasions when obstacles present themselves or the trail runs cold.  Gashade doggedly pushes himself on despite the heat, the deteriorating condition of the horses, and the group's lack of water.  And Billy Spear is obsessed with showing his facility with a gun, whether that means shooting a friend or a foe.  The film turns into a hunt for a mysterious character who is always several steps ahead of his pursuers, a very loosely fashioned action-oriented version of “Waiting for Godot,” except that instead of waiting, these characters are absolutely determined to track and hunt him down.

I don’t profess to understand the film, though I think it was designed more to be experienced than understood.  Like its dissonant, jazz-tinctured score, the film does not resolve, so if you like your Westerns served up more traditionally, this cut is not for you.  However, if you’re okay with the possibility of confusion at the conclusion, then there's a good chance you’ll find this film more to your tastes.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind  (1984), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, 4 stars

“Nausicaä” is the first film the renowned Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki both wrote and directed.  Based on his previously published manga (graphic novel), the film was so successful in his native Japan that its proceeds allowed Miyazaki to finance the creation of Studio Ghibli, which was quickly to become a highly-regarded production powerhouse of animation.

Miyazaki’s signature themes are evident from the film’s first sequence.  A lone man whose face is obscured by a gas mask rides on an animal wearing similar protection through a wasteland termed in Japanese the “sea of decay” and in English the “toxic jungle.”  The time is 1,000 years after the collapse of industrialized civilization, and plants exude poisonous spores that kill quickly if breathed for even a short period of time and more slowly over a lifetime of indirect exposure.  No sooner does he gently pick it up from the ground then a doll crumbles in the man’s hands.  Miyazaki’s films have a strong environmental sensibility, and nothing good can result from a state in which man and nature are out of balance.

Fortunately, a custodian of the environment soon appears.  It is the film’s heroine, Princess Nausicaä, sensitive to the world around her, fearless in her pursuit of what she believes is right, fiercely protective of her subjects, and quick to come to the aid of anyone or anything in distress.  Strong women play a critical role in Miyazaki’s films.  Like men, they are skilled fighters and are fearless leaders.  Unlike men, however, Miyazaki’s heroines can also display vulnerability and a far wider range of emotions than is available to traditional male protagonists.  Although the director has often been labeled a feminist, it could be that he is drawn to women simply because they provide him with a larger palette from which to draw when responding to the challenges they invariably face in his films.

And when it comes to challenges, Princess Nausicaä has more than her fair share.  Her father is killed by enemy soldiers during a siege as they attempt to recover cargo from an airship that has recently crashed nearby.  Although there are no human survivors, the ship contains the remains of the last of a race of terrible ancient warriors.  Outnumbered and outgunned, Nausicaä, now the leader of her people, has no choice but to surrender.  She spends much of the remainder of the film attempting to seek peace, not only between warring kingdoms, but between humans and the plant and animal inhabitants needed to preserve the fragile ecosystem increasingly laid waste by man.

The version of the film I saw was dubbed by Disney in 2005, and it features the voices of Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamill, Chris Sarandon, and Alison Lohman as Nausicaä.  I usually prefer to watch foreign films in their native language with subtitles, so I was initially put off by the English voices which sounded forced and artificial—at least at first.  Eventually, however, I got used to them, and one major advantage of dubbing, at least for an animated feature, is that it allows the audience to concentrate fully on the visuals, which in this as in Miyazaki’s other films, are simply brilliant.  If you can, see it on the big screen.

Pina (2011)

Pina (2011), directed by Wim Wenders, 4 stars

This film is a tribute to choreographer Pina Bausch using movement and, to a lesser extent, words she inspired in her large and extremely talented dance troupe.  I know very little about dancing, less about ballet, and I must admit, I’d never heard of Pina Bausch prior to seeing this film.  But I had heard of the film because it had been nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary in 2012, and I decided to watch it for that reason—that and to get at least a slightly better understanding of and appreciation for an art form that I’m embarrassed to say I have almost none.  I'm very glad I did.

The film alternates between dancers performing to Pina's choreography and their musings on what it was like to work with her.  The performers are shot mute.  Their dialog is superimposed on the soundtrack, and they seem to be listening to their words along with the viewer, sometimes acknowledging a particular thought with a subtle facial gesture.  A few dancers simply appear without saying anything.  The way they move speaks for itself.  And as if to make just that point, after each commentary, whether stated or implied, the camera cuts to a choreographed segment in which the previous “interviewee” is a featured performer.

The combined creativity of the artists is dazzling.  The dance segments are filled with unexpected twists and turns.  Dancers interact with each other and with just about any item in the environment, from doors to chairs to piles of dirt to a jolly hippopotamus.  Dances are staged within a theater and on city streets, in public transportation and at the rim of a rock quarry, on one stage spread end to end with a layer of dirt and on another completely saturated with water.  The environment is integral to the choreography, and the dancers respond with emotions that exude everything from extreme joy to shattering sadness.  They interact with each other with complete vulnerability and trust, passing at one point through an increasingly tall and teetering tower of chairs, and at another, falling face first inches from the ground before being caught and raised up again

Although the film was shot in 3D, the version I saw was projected conventionally so I can only imagine what it must be like to see the dancers perform cinematically in all three-dimensions.  The camera has virtually unlimited access to the performance space, so a 3D viewing of the film would be a truly unique experience, certainly different from mine, and more different still from a live theatrical production of the same choreographed routines.  However, judging from my brief introduction to her ouevre, my guess is that you can’t go wrong encountering the work of Pina Bausch in any form.

The Extraordinary Voyage (2011)

The Extraordinary Voyage (2011), directed by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, 3.5 stars

With the critical and box office success of “The Artist” and “Hugo” in 2011, one a silent film and the other a fictional account of silent film pioneer George Melies, there is currently a growing interest in the overlooked and underrated early years of cinema--at least temporarily.  As I write this, it’s April 2012, and the release of “The Extraordinary Voyage,” a documentary on the painstaking restoration of a hand-colored version of Melies’ 1902 film, “Voyage dans la Lune” (aka “A Trip to the Moon”), couldn’t have been better timed.

The restoration began in 2001, a few years after the rediscovery of a nearly 100 year old reel of film containing Melies’ work.  Unfortunately, the nitrate print had solidified on the spool, so a chemical bath was used to facilitate separation of the celluloid in layers.  Frames were delicately removed a few at a time, but even so, many of them were damaged before they could be subsequently hand-scanned onto a computer.  Each frame took about two minutes each to process, so if my math is correct and the film ran at a typical 24 frames per second, the time to digitally reproduce one second of film was 48 minutes at the very least.  The actual time taken to scan the film in its entirety was 14 months.

So poor was the quality of the print that it sat for nearly 10 years until computer technology improved sufficiently to allow frames from the best extant black and white print to be suitably inserted and then digitally matched for color.

George Melies made approximately 500 films in all, and then he burned them in a fit of pique later in life after interest in them waned.  Fortunately, prints of 300 or so have been discovered through the years, so much of the innovative work of this magician turned film pioneer and special effects wizard is with us still.  And now, joining their ranks is a digitally restored version of Melies’ original hand-colored work, containing one of the most well-known images in all of film history:  a spaceship lodged in the eye of the man in the moon.

This tribute to Melies and the restoration of “A Voyage to the Moon” is a well-deserved homage to an ingenious man whose legacy will last as long as moving images continue to entertain and delight us.  Both the documentary and the restored film are well worth a look.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), directed by John Madden, 4 stars

This film, based on the novel, “These Foolish Things” by Deborah Moggach, tells the story of an odd assortment of elderly, underloved, British retirees who all serendipitously stumble upon the same targeted ad for a resort known as the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  This Indian inn purportedly caters to the special needs of the elderly, and the individuals comprising this singular group of social outliers certainly fill the bill.  But this seasoned band of seniors also ventures to India for all sorts of reasons unrelated to the hotel, and these range from sex to surgery.  In the final analysis, though, like Humphrey Bogart's Rick who came to Casablanca for the waters, this group was similarly misinformed. It turns out that the resort is for all intents and purposes a ruin.  Despite its poor condition, however, it is being valiantly and, for all intents and purposes, single-handedly run by Sonny (Dev Patel from "Slumdog Millionaire"), an incredibly upbeat and persuasive young man who manages the hotel badly and its finances even worse.  He is the youngest of three sons, and his mother, the Indian equivalent of a helicopter mom, is dead set against his chosen profession, preferring instead that he follow in the footsteps of his two elder brothers, both of whom are wildly successful at their chosen professions. Unlike them, Sonny has no money, and he won't make anything from elderly patrons whose first impulse upon seeing the hotel is to flee. That they decide to stay is a testament to his incomprehensibly unshakable optimism which allows him to put a positive spin on everything.

Even if the plot is somewhat predictable, the dialog is snappy, and the editing is wonderfully brisk (if your mind wanders even for an instant, you risk missing something).  The acting is spot on, but how could it not be with a best of breed ensemble consisting of the likes of Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, and Maggie Smith.  And I must not omit the critical role played another character that, once introduced, is on an-screen presence from that point forward: the landscape of India.  Despite the pervasive poverty that seems to encircle the hotel, the people who walk the streets and inhabit the nearby buildings provide a vibrant and colorful cultural backdrop, ultimately enlivening and, to some degree, rejuvenating those elderly visitors who allow themselves to be touched by it all.  As Sonny says to alleviate any concerns expressed by his guests: “everything will be alright in the end, and if it isn't alright, it isn't the end.”  Well, the film is a lot better than just alright, and I for one didn’t want to see it end.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), 2011

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), 2011, directed by Tom Six, 1 star

For the sake of completion, I decided to watch “The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence).”  After agonizing over my viewing of its predecessor, “The Human Centipede (First Sequence),” I had no doubt that doing this was a bad idea.  Nevertheless, what drove me to watching the sequel through to the end was an unrelenting curiosity to know just how bad it could get.  I found out, and I got what I deserved.

Martin is a car park attendant.  He is also a mute, asthmatic, dwarfish, balding, morbidly obese, and socially inept monster.  How anyone could have hired this guy is beyond my understanding.  He never actually does a lick of work.  All he does in the car park office is repeatedly watch the earlier film.  I imagine that director/writer/producer, Tom Six, who honchoed both projects, must have thought this plot point terribly clever.  Well, maybe it is, but one idea does not sustain a 90 minute film.  So here’s another.  What if Martin is able to entice one of the actresses in the original film to play a part in this one by pretending to be an agent for Quentin Tarantino?  Not bad.  But I think I like best the idea that a fictional character is probably the original film’s biggest fan, and it makes sense that anyone imagined in that way would also be imagined as a repugnant, psycho, copycat killer just waiting to take his obsession to the next level.

For a while, the high contrast, black & white, cinematography, the gritty sets, and a menagerie of menacing characters who share screen space with an unusual looking, sociopathic protagonist, reminded me of the films of David Lynch.  But once the first head got smashed by a tire iron, I changed my mind.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the director chose black & white to reduce the impact of all of the subsequent bloodshed.  This film is nothing like its predecessor with respect to exercising restraint.  Quite to the contrary, it oozes and spews gratuitous violence.  Bodies are beaten, teeth are extracted, muscle sinews are sliced, cheeks are stapled, and more—all with a set of filthy tools and no anesthesia.  Martin may not be a meticulous surgeon or have access to the latest technology like Dr. Heiter from the earlier film, but his creation certainly outdoes that of his mentor.

Although I believe there are some films with nothing at all to recommend them—and if this isn’t one of them, I’m not sure what is—there are always those who disagree.  As evidence, I offer this sampling of user review titles from IMDB:  “Surprisingly it works,” “Shock cinema at its finest,” “Much better than the first,” and, the one I like best, “Tom Six is a genius.”  There must be a sufficiently large, like-minded constituency out there, because I understand that there’s a third “Human Centipede” in the works.


Note to self:  I was force to wait a bit before being able to watch the final half hour of the film.  The Netflix site was partially down as a result of a denial of service attack launched by the "hacktivist" group Anonymous, this in response to the company's creation of a political action committee (FLIXPAC) that allegedly supports SOPA legislation.  Netflix has denied the charge.

Fantômas vs. Fantômas (1914)

Fantômas vs. Fantômas (1914), directed by Louis Feuillard, 3 stars

This fourth installment in Louis Feuillard’s series of Fantômas films is based on the novel, "The Thug Policeman." Like its predecessors, the source material comes from the combined pens of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, who jointly authored more than 30 books featuring the exploits of Fantômas between 1911 and 1913. 

The film begins with a bang.  Poor Juve, consistently unable to bring his nemesis to justice, is accused by the press of incompetence.  The police follow up this accusation with one of their own.  They attribute his lackluster performance--Juve's inability to capture Fantômas--to the fact that he is Fantômas.  Although they produce no evidence on which to base this claim, they lock him up just the same.  And not just anywhere.  They send him to the same jail where Fantômas was imprisoned in the first episode.  He's also in the  same cell where the unlucky painter, Jacques Dollon, was strangled by a prison guard.  (It’s either that or else Feuillard’s film schedule and meager budget forced him to reuse the same prison set.)

With Juve out of the picture, you might think that Fantômas could proceed on a crime spree pretty much unfettered, and you’d be mostly right. Juve’s hapless sidekick Fandor isn’t quite up to the task of taking on Fantômas alone, much less bringing him to justice and proving Juve’s innocence.  However, he does become suspicious of an American detective, Tom Bob, who turns out to be Fantômas’ in disguise.  Fandor watches through a hole in the floor, and we see what he sees:  Bob removes a floorboard, places his booty in the space below, and then replaces the short, wooden plank.  Then, upon leaving the building, Bob locks the door behind him trapping Fandor inside.  Within minutes, Fantômas’ band of brigands arrive to collect their share of the loot. Fandor must find a place to hide or most surely they will kill him.

But for me, the highlight of the film is a masked ball sequence during which Fantômas arrives in his trademark black-hooded cloak and cape only to find two other guests identically attired. Per the film’s title, an altercation ensues, and a faux Fantômas, a policeman in disguise, is killed by the real killer. Fandor, the third member of the disguised trio, proves ineffectual once again and allows the real Fantômas to escape.

With this film, director Feuillard seems to have really hit his stride.  The film feels lighter in tone than its predecessors, and the vignettes, more charmingly than alarmingly baffling, now seem to flow with less effort and greater continuity from one scene to the next.

My thoughts on Feuillard’s fifth and final Fantômas film will have to wait until I get my hands on the DVD set once again.  The discs were due to the library today, and I wasn’t able to watch the final film before returning them.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence), 2009

The Human Centipede (First Sequence), 2009, directed by Tom Six, 1.5 stars

Don’t ask me why I decided to watch what I would characterize as probably the most perversely incomprehensible film I’ve ever sat through.  I didn’t like it at all, and at several points, I actually stopped watching.  But I kept coming back, sometimes only for a few minutes at a time, because I just had to see how bad things could get.  As it turns out, they get exceedingly bad, and then they go from bad to worse to an absolutely worst case scenario.  I must have an obsessive-compulsive streak when it comes to watching movies, because once I begin, I feel the need to sit through to the end, no matter how bitter or agonizing the experience.  I can’t explain why I do this, nor, I expect, will I fare any better in my attempt to explain the film.  It is what it is, and for those who seek out and enjoy this sort of thing, I hope their reasons don’t include the need to engage in like-minded behavior for real.  (Oops, I think I just gave away the plot of the sequel.)

“The Human Centipede,” like other torture porn cut ‘em ups, shows that there are virtually no limits when it comes to humans imagining ways to inflict the most intense pain on one another.  The American cinema has produced more than its fair share  of malevolently mad doctors and scientists over the years, many of whom use their formidably fertile genius toward destructive ends.  What distinguishes this film from the others is its lack of even the most threadbare or eccentric of character motivation.  Horror has become existential.  It needs no inducement.  It simply is.  Or, perhaps, extended isolation in an excessively tidy, labyrinthine, woodland home would by itself be sufficient to unhinge even the sanest of us.  No matter.  The recluse, a  once near-great, now merely insane, Dr. Heiter, is capable of doing little else than fixate on a most ghoulish successor to Nazi German surgical experimentation.  Like his real-world predecessors, his brutal procedures would make Hippocrates himself swear and forsake his oath.  Probably, the best that can be said about him is that although he makes a very poor host, he helps make quite a compelling case for bottled water.

Obviously, one would do well to stay away from Dr. Heiter, but Lindsay, Jenny, Katsuro and a few other misbegotten souls either stumble upon his doorstep or are targeted by him as experimental fodder.  This monomaniacal man has but one end in mind: the creation of a human centipede.  His design for this creature requires grafting the mouth of one human being onto the anus of another.  After drugging these poor unfortunates (see note re: bottled water above), he uses them as the raw material for an organic sculpture whose beginning, middle, and end are interwoven in a shared nightmare from which there is no awakening.

One of the film’s surprises is its lack of gore, gratuitous or otherwise.  Much of the violence takes place off screen or during an ellipsis of the narrative. Perhaps, this mercy was driven by budget constraints, but it may also have been a conscious directorial decision.  Just the thought (compounded ultimately by the sight) of three human beings stitched together sequentially butt to face produces quite enough queasiness.  And while I'm bordering on being nice, I should also give a nod to the film's moody HD cinematography.  Except for a few overlong and unnecessary close-ups of the damsels in distress, careful attention looks to have been paid to camera placement, lighting, movement, etc.

But form cannot stand alone, and this film contains lackluster content at best.  Don’t look for motivation.  Don’t look for characters you care about.  Don’t look for logic. In fact, don’t look for this film at all, and if you should happen upon it, run the other way.  If the characters in the film had heeded this advice, things might have worked out better for them, too. 

Don’t Expect Too Much (2011)

Don’t Expect Too Much (2011), directed by Susan Ray, 3 stars

“Don’t Expect Too Much” is a documentary that looks back at the making of a student film, “We Can’t Go Home Again,” that Nicholas Ray directed and subsequently pieced together as a faculty member at Harpur College in the early 1970s.  Obsessed with the definitive assemblage of myriads of film canisters, Ray spent much of that decade trying to piece together this work in a meaningful way.  The documentary includes interviews with alumni of the Harpur film program who look back after 40 years on their experience working with Ray.  In addition to the student interviews, director Jim Jarmusch weighs in briefly on an seminal encounter he had with Ray, as does editor Walter Murch, who mistakes Ray for a street person when he sees him in the company of director Francis Ford Coppola.

All of the students interviewed considered Ray a passionate artist and a man with a unique talent for ferretting out the best from the people with whom he worked.  One clear example occurs in the original film during a scene in which a character shaves his beard.  In the documentary, he explains that he did this because he had been beaten up by rednecks on his way back from Florida.  Shaken by the experience, he decided then and there that he would sacrifice his personal appearance rather than risk further violent confrontations in the future.  The tears he displays are real, and they pour out of him under Ray’s gentle direction, which can be heard on the soundtrack.

Despite the documentary’s many insightful moments, I still came away feeling that I knew far less about the film and filmmaking process than I would have liked.  I want to learn more from the students about their (or Ray’s) original intent, what it was like to develop the script(s), and how it was determined what would be shot.  To hear the students tell it, Ray rarely shared his thoughts with them. One wonders, given the huge amount time the students spent on their class project, where they found time to study for other courses.

“We Can’t Go Home Again” and “Don’t Expect Too Much” are very much companion pieces; they are meant to be seen together and in that order.  Susan Ray has done an excellent job assembling a cross-section of cast members and getting them to talk openly about their experiences.  But what “We Can’t Go Home Again” really needs in my opinion are subtitles (the dialogue is often poorly recorded and, therefore, difficult to understand) and a commentary track—maybe more than one—performed individually or as a group by the student filmmakers Susan Ray interviewed for her film.  “Don’t Expect Too Much” does provide quite a few insights, but I can’t help thinking that there remains quite a bit more that can be learned by further encouraging the student filmmakers, now 40 years older and wiser, to weigh in in more detail on their experience working with Ray during that seminal period of his and their lives.

We Can't Go Home Again (1976, 2011)

We Can't Go Home Again (1976, 2011), directed by Nicholas Ray, 2.5 stars

In the early 1970s, Nicholas Ray spent his retirement years no less busy than he did in his youth as classical Hollywood director.  Hired by Harpur College (now SUNY Binghamton) in 1971 to teach filmmaking, he and his students created scads of footage for a class project that turned into this little known, unique, and surrealistic experiment that is both fascinating to watch and difficult to sit through.  More a series of loosely coupled vignettes than a narrative of any discernible kind, the film consists largely of multiple images in multiple formats (35mm, 16mm, 8mm, and early digital) projected simultaneously on the screen.  The audio is so poor and badly looped in so many spots that I couldn't tell if the dialogue in the simultaneously projected scenes overlapped or not.  But I get the sense that none of this mattered very much to Ray or to his students.  His aim was to teach and theirs to learn, and they all apparently took turns contributing to the film both in front of and behind the camera.  This includes Ray, who likewise participated fully, not only behind the scenes, but on screen as well.  His role was that of an aging Hollywood director who winds up teaching a film class to make the very film we’re watching.  It’s as if the student film and a “making of” documentary were mysteriously stitched together to form a crazy quilt of moving images.

If the film has no real story, it does create a fragile mosaic of disaffected youth during the early 1970s.  It begins with police beating demonstrators at the Chicago democratic convention of 1968, and it makes occasional reference to a larger political landscape that looms beyond the communal cocoon that Ray and his students have created, perhaps, subconsciously, to help them pretend the outside world doesn't really exist.

Initially released in 1976, Ray was never completely happy with the film and reportedly tinkered with it up until his death in 1979.  The version I saw was restored by his widow, Susan, and premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2011.

For a greater appreciation of this film, I strongly recommend its companion piece, “Don’t Expect Too Much” (2011), a genuine behind-the-scenes documentary featuring interviews with the Harpur student filmmakers forty years on.  I can’t say that I liked “We Can’t Go Home Again” very much, but I can say that I'm glad I saw it.

The Murderous Corpse (1913)

The Murderous Corpse (aka The Dead Man Who Killed), directed by Louis Feuillade (1913), 3 stars

This is the third film in the Fantômas series, and though I liked it, I also found it disjoint and a bit confusing. I attribute my difficulty in following some parts of the plot to the print:  It was missing the requisite opening montage featuring the characters in their various disguises. Without this foreshadowing of information, which was provided in both previous series entries (and presumably all of them—at least at one time), it was hard at times to figure out who was who and, as a result, what was what.

Like its predecessors, this film is divided into fairly distinct episodes, this time with Juve and Fandor acting separately to outwit Fantômas as his crime spree continues to grow otherwise unabated.  Miraculously, they have both managed to escape the explosion that ended the previous film, “Juve vs. Fantômas” (1913), though that is not immediate clear.  Fandor, bandaged and bedridden, his distraught as he reads that his colleague’s body was not recovered from the wreckage.  Juve presumed dead, but if the disguise montage had been included, I would have known immediately that this was not so.  He appears in the very next shot, but in disguise that makes him unrecognizable.  Impersonating a simple-minded tramp named, Cranajour, Juve has begun infiltrating the world of Fantômas by hiring himself on to a fence for stolen goods.  Meanwhile, Fantômas drugs painter Jacques Dollon in his study, and when the artist awakes, he finds a baroness dead in a nearby chair.  Unfortunately, things are fated to get even worse for Dollon.  After being locked up for the murder of the Baroness, he is strangled by a guard in his holding cell, vanishes, and then reemerges as the death-dealing character from whom the film derives its name.

A couple of things of minor note:  Before being led to his doom, Dollon is fingerprinted by the police.  I’m guessing that this was a process unfamiliar to the general public in 1913, because the camera painstakingly records each and every finger on both hands, and this takes quite a bit of time.  But Dollon’s fingerprints do figure prominently later in the film, so it may be that the Director also took his time because wanted to indelibly imprint this memory in the mind of the viewer in advance of the upcoming scenes.

Another interesting moment occurs when Cranajour (alias Juve) spies a fully recovered Fandor scaling a nearby rooftop.  What follows is an early use of the subjective camera. Cranajour grabs a pair of binoculars and points them in Fandor's direction.  At that point, the camera cuts back and forth between shots of Fandor in the distance, framed by a black, binocular-shaped mask, and Cranjour peering at him through the binoculars.  The editing is clearly meant to convey to the audience that we are, for a short time, observing Fandor through Cranajour’s eyes.  This type of cross-cutting is a common technique today, but it was not in 1913.  Nearly all early films were comprised of a series of static shots with the actors moving in front (and instead) of the camera--as in the rest of this film.

Finally, one last item I found mildly amusing: Poor Princess Danidoff, who falls victim to Fantômas within the opening minutes of the first film, is robbed of her jewelry yet again here.  Unlike lightening, this criminal is clearly capable of striking twice.

The Girl Who Played with Fire: Part 2 (2009)

The Girl Who Played with Fire: Part 2, directed by Daniel Alfredson, (2009), 3.5 stars

The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy: Extended Edition, now available on DVD and Blu-Ray (and currently via Netflix streaming as well) contains significantly longer, televised versions of the Swedish films, which are themselves based on Stieg Larsson extremely popular Millennium series of books. The films were also quite popular, but they necessarily omitted quite a bit of background that, I believe, would have clarified things quite a bit for viewers who had not read the novels prior to seeing them on the big screen.  When released theatrically, “The Girl Who Played with Fire” ran 129 minutes.  In TV form, each book is divided into two 90 or so minute segments.  With a total runtime of approximately three hours, the TV version of this book contains nearly an hour of additional footage.  Although more slowly paced than the film, the extended edition it is much richer in character development, and it also allows for plenty of time for additional, intricate plot elements to unfold.

Having seen the theatrical release once just under two years ago, I don’t remember it well enough to say how it is different in any specific way from the extended release.  If you’re interested, others have already weighed in at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216487/faq#.2.1.1 and http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=363928 and probably many more places as well.  What I can say is that unlike “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which I enjoyed quite a bit, I didn’t like the sequel very much upon first viewing.  I was disappointed, perhaps, as much by the plot as by the film.  My reaction may be partly due to the fact that I hadn't read the book prior to seeing the movie, but that can't be the whole reason.  After all, I liked the first film and I hadn't read that book before seeing the film. 

Watching "Fire" this time was very different; I thoroughly enjoyed it at its new length.  Perhaps, my revised opinion was due to the addition of new material.  Perhaps, too, it was impacted by my having just finished the book, which I liked. Regardless, I knew what was coming, and that allowed me to notice differences between the book and its screen adaptation.  None of them really bothered me.  For instance (and I hope this doesn’t give anything away), unlike in the book the film version of arch-criminal Alexander Zalachenko gets around reasonably well.  Also, Lisbeth’s guardian, Holger Palmgren, is far further along on the road to recovery in the film than in the novel.  These are quibbles.  And there’s actually, in my opinion at least, one change for the better in the film: the decision to short circuit the encounter between journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the ever-so-scary villain, Ronald Niedermann.

For those who enjoyed the Swedish films during their theatrical run, I wholeheartedly recommend seeing them once more in their extended form.  For those who thought the originals were already too long, stay away from these versions.  And, just for the record, despite being a big fan of all of David Fincher’s films (including “Alien 3”), I enjoyed both the long and short Swedish versions of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” much better than his American remake.  I’m glad his film turned a profit and received the critical acclaim it did, but only because I hope that will get more people to see the original Swedish series.