May 2003 Archives

Surreal. That's the only way to describe Jim Jarmusch's Western, filmed in a gorgeous, dream-like black and white. In a landscape filled with memorable characters, Johnny Depp's shy accountant gets wrapped up in circumstances WAY beyond his control, leading to even more adventures. It includes memorable appearances by such legends as Robert Mitchum, John Hurt and Gabriel Byrne, as well as names like Iggy Pop and Lance Henriksen who sound familiar but you just can't place! Complemented to an incredible degree by the guitar work of Neil Young, the movie has an atmosphere that you just can't shake, even long after the end credits have rolled by.

The movie starts out on a long train ride, with an ever changing lot of passengers around the bespectacled Depp. The crowd gets obviously rougher and rougher, and Depp pulls himself inward, as the train gets further west. Each scene is separated by shots of the wheels turning and the scenery going by, with haunting guitar notes being played. And it just gets weirder and weirder!

Depp gets involved in a shooting and flees, while Mitchum puts some of the most soulless, and odd, guns in the West on his trail. Depp runs into a mystical (or perhaps just babbling) Indian, who leads him even further west. And you never know what is going to happen next, from mystical conversations, to lyrical visuals, to high brow comedy, all punctuated with short yet harsh hammers of violence.

The DVD is a beautiful reproduction of the incredible blacks, whites and all the grays in between that Jarmusch and cinematographer Robby Müller work with in their palette. There's a small number of extras, including a really cool music video and about 15 minutes of outtakes and deleted scenes, most of which were best left on the cutting room floor, even if they do help explain some of the back story.

This is a haunting movie all around. It is really hard to shake, because it doesn't answer any questions. Heck, it hardly even poses any questions. It is a little slow going, but once you get its rhythm you are much rewarded. This is one I'm definitely adding to my "buy" list.

A seminal work in the thiller genre, Wages of Fear is a black and white French film from 1953, by the now almost forgotten director Henri-Georges Clouzot. It was later remade as Sorceror (I have no idea where the name came from!) by The Exorcist's William Friedkin. It is about guys who are more than just down on their luck - they long ago ran out of luck entirely. And are willing to hang it all out on the line for a few thousand bucks, just to escape their destitute South American village.

A very young and dashing looking Yves Montand stars as the out of luck Mario, who latches on to a confident and swaggering M. Jo. But there's no work to be had in this dusty South American town, and no way out. The local American oil company isn't hiring, until they need 4 drivers of 2 trucks to each bring a load of nitroglycerin up a twisting, bumpy mountain road, almost certain to blow them up. But if they make it, they get $2000 each, more than enough to escape their sweltering jungle prison.

It was an interesting movie, and once it got on the road, a very intense one as well. It took too long setting things up in the village, however. While it was nice getting to know the characters, the test of driving a highly explosive cargo across treacherous mountain roads is enough to keep you interested, without fully fleshed out (and then some) characters. And if you thought too much about some of the obstacles in their way and how they got around them, you would begin to see holes big enough to drive an explosive truck through (pun intended!). The ending was also all wrong and far too manipulative.

The DVD was nice, with a nice print and a pretty good job of sub titling. They didn't feel the need to subtitle the parts that were in English, which was nice (don't laugh - I've seen some movies that did - Lagaan for one), and there were very few times when the characters chattered on with a suspiciously short subtitle. All the parts were well acted, even if the woman as the love interest and the greedy heartless American boss got a little too close to caricature. There was an unexplained loss of courage for M. Jo, but the 4 drivers in particular were still well done. I'd encourage a rental of this movie, but you don't have to really pay much attention until they get on the road!

Lantana is a "a noxious and troublesome weed", according to the movie's official web site, and symbolizes the tangled web we weave, when relationships get weird. It bills itself as a "mystery for grownups", but it is as much about people as it is about the case getting solved. A fascinating look into four troubled marriages, this movie import from Australia was one of my favorites of this year.

Detective Leon Zat, played with astonishing intensity by Without a Trace's Anthony LaPaglia, is called in to investigate the myserious disappearance of psychiatrist Valerie Somers (Barbara Hershey). Zat is plagued by his own demons, the biggest of which is his guilt over cheating on his wife of many years, Sonja (longtime Australian TV actress, Kerry Armstrong), so he has a hard time staying focused on the possible crime. He immediately suspects Somers' husband (Geoffry Rush), and leans on him very harshly from the start.

Things get even more strained for Det. Zat when his lover (Rachael Blake) witnesses her friend and neighbor behaving in a very odd manner the very night of Somers' disappearance, and finally works up the courage to call her suspicions in to the police. Accusations fly, tempers flare, marriages crumble and, finally, the case gets solved. But all the relationships are strained to the breaking point, and the movie ends with lives in disarray.

Some have complained that the movie depended too much on coincidence, and there are several of them. But none of them are central to the mystery, they just make for some interesting and humorous twists to the story, like when Zat and his lover's ex-husband unknowingly bump into each other at a bar one evening, and talk about life, then later meet at her house. The serendipity of several of the meetings just adds to the wonderful spice of the movie, not detract from it.

The performances all around were standouts. LaPaglia was great as the tormented (admittedly by his own weaknesses) detective. Hershey was good as the psychiatrist who goes missing, and Rush as her forlorned husband, as they both struggled to overcome the murder of their young daughter many years ago, gradually drifting further and further apart. The two main female protagonists (Anderson and Blank) really play their roles with aplomb, as the suffering wife and the disaffected lover, roles that can be hard to pull off without being caricatures.

The DVD was pretty solid, with nice visuals, excellent music (a taste of which can be found on the web site), and some clever camera work. Not too many extras, just a little "Making of..." puff piece that at least adds some to the explanation of the movie and its actors. This is one library DVD that I'm definitely thinking of adding to my collection, as its portrayal of real people with real problems is watchable many times over.

Woody Allen's movie from 2001, Curse of the Jade Scorpion is something of an homage to the 1940s film noir and even screwball comedy movies. It has Woody playing a surprisingly successful insurance investigator for a big insurance company, who is getting pressured by the newly installed "efficiency expert", Betty Ann Fitzgerald, played ably by the reliable Helen Hunt. They unwittingly get involved in a number of high profile jewel heists, all the while hating each other's guts.

After clashing a few times in the beginning, they all head off to a birthday party, where Woody and Helen get hypnotized. Afterwards, they remember nothing, but the magician, ably played by David Ogden Stiers, calls Woody back, puts him into a trance, and sends him off to steal jewels from a house where he installed the alarm system! His knowledge comes in handy and he gets clean away. Of course, when Voltan calls him back and snaps him out of it, Woody remembers nothing. More hijinx follow, until the crime is solved and Woody goes away with Helen. We think.

In the end, it was a perfectly nice little film. For some reason, Helen Hunt never really seemed to comfortably inhabit her character. I'm not sure she's cut out to play the "tough broad", but rather the softer woman with the backbone of steel, like in As Good As it Gets or even Twister. Jade Scorpion also didn't have all that many good laughs, although there were a few. It was filmed in a real interesting tinted picture, very evocative of the 40s, without stooping to black and white. I wouldn't rush out and buy it, but it certainly will do the job as a rental on some rainy evening.

Jackie Brown is wunderkind director Quentin Tarantino's third effort, and the movie that proved he wasn't just a lucky two-timer. A solid followup to his smash hit Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown follows the exploits of a stewardess who is trying to con both the FBI and a ruthless gun smuggler in an attempt to stay alive, stay out of jail, and get away rich. A bright, intelligent, sassy movie, it has all the hallmarks of a Tarantino movie, yet is much more accessible than the ultra-violent and too cool for school Pulp Fiction.

Pam Grier, a blaxploitation movie veteran, has a brilliant turn as Jackie Brown, a down on her luck 45ish stewardess for a rundown airline, who is just trying to get by, when she gets pulled over by the FBI on her way out of the airport. There ATF Agent Ray Nicolette, played with twitchy seriousness by Michael Keaton and his partner discover (obviously tipped off) a package of cash destined for a gun smuggler by the name of Ordell Robbie. Robbie, played with typical panache and intensity by Tarantino favorite Samuel L. Jackson, is a vindictive crook who thinks nothing of popping anyone who gets in his way.

While in lockup, the Feds try to get Jackie Brown to turn Ordell in, or at least set him up. Jackie is caught between a rock and a hard place, knowing that Ordell murdered his last employee who was nabbed by the police. She resists their efforts, but knows that she has to do something.

Things get even more complicated when her bailbondsman silently falls in love with her. Max Cherry (Robert Forster in an excellent effort) sees her coming out of the jail and Tarantino lets us know he is on a Natural High (music by Bloodstone) at first sight. So he decides to help her out, at first unknowingly when she steals his gun, and then he gets totally enmeshed in her plot to break free.

Robert De Niro has a part to play in this, as Ordell's old friend, fresh from jail. He's going to help Ordell pull off one last smuggle, getting the rest of his $500,000 into the country from Mexico. It's a strange turn for De Niro, as he plays an addled brained ex-con who is just floating through things.

Jackie Brown has a lot of cool Tarantino touches. I am by no means a Tarantino groupie, having only seen Pulp Fiction once (horrors!), and never Reservoir Dogs, but I like his style. Sometimes it can get in the way of the movie, like I felt it sometimes did in Pulp Fiction, but he has a genuine love for the subject in Jackie Brown and it really shows. In many ways, it is a subtle and sometimes not so subtle salute to the blaxploitation films of the 70s, with a soundtrack rife with 70s soul music. Jackie Brown herself is still stuck with old fashioned vinyl, getting Max Cherry turned on to the whole era with songs like Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time by The Delfonics. Must be nice to have a big song budget!

Other cool things are the stuff he does with the camera. Sometimes it can get dizzying, but other times the shots make you go "Wow!". Like the time the camera was at one end of the couch, looking back on Ordell. As Ordell walked along the front of the couch, the camera gradually rolled along the back of it, really giving you a feel of being Right There.

Another part that deserves special mention is the sound, and I don't just mean the soundtrack. All the ambient sounds seem to just fit perfectly, from the clink of glasses to the background murmur in a bar. Crisp and sharp, but yet they never overpower the main action. Gun shots sound real (and there are plenty of shocking ones), but even the rustle of clothing and the crinkling of bags seems to be perfect. I really enjoyed listening to the sounds of this movie. I'm glad I took the extra effort of changing the default sound from Dolby Digital to DTS, as I've heard that DTS is a fuller experience. This would be a good test movie, to try it again in DD and listen for the difference.

It is also a really good transfer. He tends to play some games with lighting too, but the DVD really pulls it off. Extras on the DVD include a couple of featurettes, a music video and alternate scenes. But as Netflix makes you rent two movies for a two disc set, I haven't had a chance to check them out.

So I highly recommend you see Jackie Brown, especially if you have a warm spot for 70s soul music. But even if you don't, you'll get an excellent crime caper flick, with a perfect, real life ending. Pam Grier is a knockout in the title role, and I'm sure you'll agree.