August Overlook

Someday this blog will have a sidebar which alphabetizes my posts, rescuing them from the tyranny of chronology. But until that day, some entries will continue to get lost in the shuffle. Now that August is coming to an end, and with it the summer, I'll take a moment for reflection. I present you the first of what promise to be monthly Overlooks: five posts which didn't seem to get much attention, but which I trust you will find interesting on this late occasion, hopefully enough so to comment and get the ball rolling. Consider yourself invited to the as-yet-nonexistent discussion; dates have no meaning around these parts and I'll be happy to respond no matter how many weeks have passed. And don't stop with what I've suggested - explore the whole blog and drop a line here, there, and everywhere. Because, really, you've got nothing better to do, right?

1. Silent Ozu: "...So I'm not knocking Ozu or cinematic transcendence by saying that the two really don't have anything to do with each other."

2. Twin Peaks in Context: "Oh, and as an aside, what's your favorite Twin Peaks moment? Mine...is probably Donna sitting in the Roadhouse, softly mouthing the words to Julee Cruise's ethereal song."

3. 2046: "Wong's films weave a web of seductive grace, leaving you too bedazzled to resist the narcotic bite of the director. He has us at hello, or rather, at the moment Nat King Cole beckons in his honeyed voice and Zhang Ziyi casts a fleeting, teasing glance in our direction."

4. Blue Velvet: "It does have the appearance of a nightmare, but a kind of sickly, feverish nightmare, not one that taps into the collective unconscious. Put another way, the movie is far more Freud than Jung."

5. Farewell, termite: "I'd say that the most fascinating termitic activity is when the bugs are swarming all over elephant dung that a lumbering white pachaderm left behind (there's an image for you). Perhaps film is at its finest as a scavenger's art, eating away at the detritus of its own pomposity."

As for the detritus of my own pomposity, pretty popular were A dirty dozen and its follow-up Another dirty dozen (see the Holy Grail for a round-up of those who participated); also well-attended was my review of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. This was definitely the month of "Twin Peaks" - and a couple days ago I noted the impact on the series whenever Lynch sits down in the director's chair. Politics, which is popping up again in the national consciousness right about now, reared its lovely head in discussions of Iraq in The War Tapes and Why We Fight, a revisiting of The Dark Knight (favorably contrasting its viewpoint and approach to Iron Man & The Matrix), and even The Incredibles. At one point not so long ago, I noted some similarities between a few masked vigilantes; T.S. was intrigued at the prospect of understanding Batman through the KKK, but few others seemed to take the bait. Here's a hint: it's never too late...

(And don't forget Brian Dennehy as a sheriff square dancing with prostitutes, the tube's very own take on Buford Pusser...)

Ignore the "Read More" link as for once, there's nothing after the jump. Enjoy your Labor Day.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Broken Blossoms

After the grand folly of Intolerance, D.W. Griffith turned out a number of features in succession, many about the Great War that America had just joined. His most notable picture was Hearts of the World, a very pro-French testament to German barbarism, albeit with some of Griffith's antiwar sentiments stirred into the mix. Supposedly, that is. Hearts of the World is not available on Netflix, nor are the half-dozen other films that followed Intolerance. Since I'm using the online service as my guide, that brings us to 1919, three years later, and to the great director's most acclaimed work, following Intolerance and The Birth of a Nation.

Broken Blossoms couldn't be much more different from those lavish, ambitious epics. It is a quiet, poetic film, focusing on the plight of two individuals. It's about half the length of those earlier features, and does not contain an ambitious structure or massive themes or dozens of innovations. Broken Blossoms presents a director firmly in control of his craft, yet unwilling to show off. Much of the movie, especially the first half, unfolds in rather long shots, taking in the grimy surroundings of its two protagonists as they drift within its bounds (the film's one ambitious touch is its detailed sets, recreating London's poverty-stricken Limehouse district). The crosscutting is toned down here; it's used to heighten suspense but we're seldom as conscious of its effects as in Birth or Intolerance. If the latter film was the explosive work of a precocious but childlike sensibility, full of broad strokes and massive scale, Broken Blossoms exhibits a melancholy maturity.

Twin Peaks: Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer

SEASON 1, EPISODE 2
("Twin Peaks" reviews start here)

directed by David Lynch
written by Mark Frost & David Lynch

"Through the darkness of future past,
The magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds:
Fire, walk with me."

When David Lynch directs an episode of "Twin Peaks," idiosyncrasy rules. The show is certainly quirky to begin with, but that quirkiness occasionally takes on a familiar tone, as if we could understand and even be wryly amused by the town's eccentricities. With Lynch at the helm, that comprehension drops away. On the first official episode of "Twin Peaks," series editor Duwayne Dunham delivered a crisp, efficient, polished 45 minutes of television, which veered deftly from tone to tone, balancing the comedic with the ironically maudlin and the genuinely tragic. It also contained one masterful moment of shock which exposed an irrational, dreamlike realm beneath the show's mystery. Lynch's episodes tend to revisit that realm and stretch that moment out until it encompasses most of what we see onscreen.

Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood: The Bad and the Beautiful

[Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood is a series revisiting those classics of the early 1950s which turned a withering gaze on the American film industry. Whether due to the blacklist, the decline of Hollywood's Golden Age, or America's more generalized postwar anxiety, Hollywood's screenwriters and directors were suddenly driven to lift the curtain from the dream factory and take a closer look at what went on behind the silver screen. Be warned: these reviews will contain spoilers.]

The Bad and the Beautiful, released the same year as Singin' in the Rain, steps that film's good-natured satire up a notch. Where the sunny musical pokes and prods the stars - the easiest and safest target of public ridicule - Vincente Minnelli's melodrama dares to criticize a big-shot producer for his hubris and ruthlessness. Singin' in the Rain punishes its protagonists with bruised egos, while The Bad and the Beautiful doesn't stop short of personal betrayal, sexual manipulation, and even death. One film heaps its ridicule on the absurdities of silent cinema, a period safely in Hollywood's past, while the other takes the action right up to the world of 1952, basing its characters on figures still prominent in "the biz." All in all, it would appear that The Bad and the Beautiful launches a serious attack on Hollywood's mores and myths, that it is a scathing indictment, while Singin' in the Rain is a good-natured roast. Yet in truth, The Bad and the Beautiful - in its own unusual way - is just as much a celebration of the Hollywood system as Singin' in the Rain - perhaps more so.

Silent Ozu

Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu - Three Family Comedies

I Was Born But... (click on the title to see my review)
Passing Fancy
Tokyo Chorus

Though this isn't necessarily the best place to note it - an analysis of the director's later work might be more fitting - Yasujiro Ozu has been somewhat misclassified. Namely, he has been grouped with Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson under the heading "transcendentalist cinema," by Paul Schrader and others following in his wake. Truth is, Ozu has probably authored some of the least transcendent films of all time. Don't get me wrong; he was one of the masters of the art form, even in his youth. And, on the other hand, I love transcendent film experiences - it's why I became a movie lover in the first place. So I'm not knocking Ozu or cinematic transcendence by saying that the two really don't have anything to do with each other.

Not having read Schrader's book, perhaps I'm misunderstanding its thesis; but as I see it Ozu does not offer transcendence in his studies of family life (whether in a comedic or tragic context). He offers stoicism, often through good humor, occasionally through sacrifice and repression - but always a sense of human beings, aware of their futility, coping with their situations. They savor the moments of happiness and often lash out in frustration when things don't go their way, but Ozu's conclusions usually find them making their peace with the realities of their lives. Call this philosophy what you will, but transcendence it ain't.

Perhaps where Ozu comes closest to transcendence is in the indelible, uncanny naturalism of his early style. These three films demonstrate that quality with remarkable aplomb.

The Holy Grail

Yes, I know it seems like a cop-out, but I've been hoping for a few days now to do a follow-up post to Another dirty dozen. Besides, there are a number of entries in gestation. I could write up Ozu's Passing Fancy, but I want to include it in a review of the whole Silent Ozu series along with I Was Born But... and Tokyo Chorus, which I'll watch tomorrow. Also forthcoming is an analysis of the most daring and provocative "Twin Peaks" episode yet, along with new additions to the ongoing series The Auteurs and Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood.

So, defensiveness out of the way, I'd like to give a hat tip to all those who participated in my (still continuing) list-making venture. After the jump are all the blogs who've offered up their take on the "Holy Grail" meme (12 unavailable-on-Netflix movies you'd like to catch for the first time on the big screen). This will be continually updated so keep 'em coming. If I left anyone out, please include your blog and its link in the comments section. Though it's all a bit of a tease, many of these films do play in retro screenings and it's my hope that these lists can be used as a reference by any of us lucky enough to reside in (or visit) one of the big cities. Or, if the movie sounds compelling enough, perhaps we'll try to track it down in whatever other-region/VHS/ bootleg version we can find. (Also, believe it or not TCM has been known to screen some of these from time to time - I'm looking at you, Abel Gance.)

Without further ado, the brave crusaders in their quest for the holy grail...

Pineapple Express

Though I keep up a pretty steady pace on this blog, I'm not actually writing about every movie I see. Some get lost in the shuffle, often because I'm not sure what to say or else there just happen to be other things I want to discuss at the time. Last Friday, I went to see Pineapple Express on the big screen (my first such venture to the multiplexes since The Dark Knight a month ago). I laughed, enjoyed it, but never got around to doing an entry on it. Instead, I did another Twin Peaks episode, a reflection on Buster Keaton, and a last-minute entry in a blog-a-thon/kick-off for my own series. But I did respond to the Mad Hatter's review of Pineapple Express and, intrigued by my comment, he came to this site looking for my full-length write-up. Well, a few days later, here it is.

Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood: Singin' in the Rain (MOVIES ABOUT MOVIES BLOG-A-THON)

(The is the first entry in Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood)

In the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, Singin' in the Rain will be both my last-minute entry in goatdogblog's Movies About Movies Blog-a-Thon and the inaugural film in my Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood series. A couple recent reviews of In a Lonely Place (on Movies et al and MovieZeal) got me thinking. In the early 50s, something caused Hollywood to turn a spiteful gaze upon itself. Maybe it was HUAC and the blacklist, destroying careers and relationships across town. Or perhaps the breakup of the studio monopoly, heralding the eventual demise of the system. It could've just been part of the Cold War/Atomic Age national malaise, a self-doubt and weariness consuming the public once they no longer had a Depression or World War to distract them from their existential crises.

Whatever the reason, a number of screenwriters and directors spat out self-loathing classic after self-loathing classic in the years between 1950 and 1954: Sunset Boulevard, In a Lonely Place, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Barefoot Contessa, A Star is Born. And smack in the middle of them all came the breeziest and sunniest of the narcissistic, self-critical fare (which makes it a good picture to start with): the comic musical masterpiece, Singin' in the Rain. This movie is often considered the pinnacle of the musical genre, and like many pinnacles it's actually something of an aberration.

Our Hospitality

Ever deadpan, Buster Keaton shakes the hand of the imposing figure who, moments earlier, was ready to kill him. Most Keaton films focus on the plucky, athletic little man's battles with his environment and in a sense, Our Hospitality is no different: Keaton's increasingly dangerous and often death-defying stunts include straddling train cars, riding rapids without a boat, falling from a cliff face into the water far below (while tied by rope to another man), and hanging from a log which is halfway over a giant waterfall. Yet at its heart, this 1923 classic pits Keaton not against the elements, but against society, or at least a bizarre offshoot which heightens society's propensity for both violence and manners to an absurd degree. Keaton plays a Southern boy come home, the last of his clan marked for death in a family feud of which he had no prior knowledge. To make matters worse, he's fallen in love with the daughter of his enemy brood. Only the hospitality of her kin, who refuse to shoot a guest in their own home, keeps him alive...as long as he doesn't walk out their front door.

Twin Peaks: Traces to Nowhere

SEASON 1, EPISODE 1
("Twin Peaks" reviews start here)

directed by Duwayne Dunham
written by Mark Frost & David Lynch

"It's like I'm having the most beautiful dream and the most terrifying nightmare all at once."

Actually, I could have chosen several memorable quotes to lead this entry. There's Cooper delicately sipping his morning cup of Joe and declaring with characteristic brio, "You know, this is - excuse me - a DAMN fine cup of coffee." Or grinning as he advises a fellow FBI agent (shortly after discussing the autopsy of a brutally murdered teen) to check out a local diner because "they've got a cherry pie that'll kill ya!" And who could forget Pete Martell barging in on his guests (as they sip freshly poured coffee) to warn them that, "It's the damnedest thing...there's a fish in the percolator!" Sliding further into camp, we have a dreamy flashback of Laura with James as she asks him why she's so happy, and he speculates: "Because your skin is so soft and you smell so good?" If it's the creepy-yet-campy mood you're going for, why not that bizarre freeze-frame of Laura's face in the home movie, as a voice on the soundtrack moans, "Help...me!" And for unmitigated creepiness and terror, we could go with Laura's mother's incantation, "I miss her so much!" repeated five times before her eyes widen in terror and she sees...wait and we'll get to that. Anyway, it's Donna's line to her mother which I chose, because it best sums up the hard-to-pin-down mood and tone of "Twin Peaks," a quality that only makes the show more fascinating.

THE AUTEURS: D.W. Griffith - Intolerance

As I noted last week, D.W. Griffith professed astonishment at the controversy surrounding Birth of a Nation, his 1915 epic. He followed it with another epic, even more lavish, this one devoted to the theme of intolerance in order to prove what a swell ol' guy D.W. was. This film had enormous sets, a cast of hundreds (thousands?), and a ludicrously ambitious structure and concept - the telling of four separate stories, in four different historical periods, cutting between them all so that they unfolded simultaneously. The movie came out in 1916. Think about that. This Herculean follow-up to his masterpiece was executed and delivered a mere year later; that should tell you something. Griffith directs Intolerance with the bravado of a drunken genius, as if he couldn't take the time to sort everything out neatly and just tackled the material on the wit of his whim. Consequently, his sheer enthusiasm makes the unwieldly, potentially overstuffed picture work. As someone who often has several books sitting by my bedside because I can't settle on just one, I have to say I dig the ambition.

Another dirty dozen

It's time for another annoying list - this one occurred to me during Piper's 12 Movies Meme. Over at Out 1, James Hansen selected L'Amour fou and admitted he was doing so because he hadn't seen it and would love the opportunity to do so. My own list included many of my all-time favorites, but this different approach started the wheels turning. So now I propose a new list-making venture for all of you reading this: imagine that you can screen 12 hard-to-see movies that you've personally never viewed before. And since all memes need a catchy name, call this the "Holy Grail" list.

Here are the rules: