Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
How do you watch your DVDs?
It’s an important question, I think. How you watch is just as crucial as what you watch. If you’re watching everything on a laptop, I’m sure you’re enjoying stuff, but you’re not getting the full impact of it. I must admit, I’d gotten into the habit of watching films on my computer screen while I was working, one quarter of the window of my widescreen monitor filled by the movie while I had an open document window right next to it. Based on how my old office was set up, that was just the easiest thing to do while working.
When we moved last week and I approached the set-up of my new office, one of the things that was most important to me was how I was going to watch my DVDs. I’ve got a new set-up now. For the first time, I’ve actually put a TV and DVD and sound system into my office, and having that 35-inch razor-sharp picture off to my right while I’m writing, having the ability to crank it up in the dead of night if I want to now... it’s really made it a fresh joy to watch movies again. The front room is set up for friends to come over, and watching movies out there is more of a social thing. It’s so big and so loud that I can’t really do that while the rest of the house sleeps, but in my office... I’m able to do whatever I like without bothering anyone.
Since I put one of the five-disc changers I have in the house into my office (it used to be in our bedroom, but Toshi’s gotten into his push-every-button-seven-thousand-times phase, it can’t be in there where he can get to it), I’m putting in a platter at a time, and then letting the machine pick the order randomly for me. As a result, here’s the platter I watched yesterday, in the order things got spun...
One of the greatest tough guy movies ever made. Warner Bros. put this one out a year ago, at the same time as a number of their noir titles, but this isn’t really like any other crime film or noir film. Thanks to director John Boorman, POINT BLANK is one of the most experimental Lee Marvin films ever made, a near-total fetishization of the actor as icon. Marvin plays Walker, a one-named ass-kicking machine who is single-minded about his purpose in life. He is owed $93,000, and he’s willing to kill every single person on the planet if that’s what he has to do to recover his money. Thankfully, his spree of mayhem is a little more contained than that. It’s mainly just the members of the mysterious Organization that have to fear for their lives. Carroll O’Connor, Keenan Wynn, and Richard Vernon are just a few of the familiar faces that show up in Walker’s path, but nothing slows him down. The violence in the film is handled as brief, terrifying flurries of activity, and Boorman makes you feel it all. It’s also surpringly funny at times. I love how no one believes that all Walker wants is his $93,000. They’re convinced he’s got some elaborate endgame in mind, and no matter how many times Walker tells them the truth, they just don’t get it. There are so many things that jump out when I watch this film, little details that make the film so distinct: Lee Marvin walking down that long, long hallway and what he does when he finally gets to the end, or the scene where Angie Dickinson goes nuts and beats the living shit out of Marvin while he just stands there and takes it, never flinching. There’s a sensational commentary track here with Boorman and Steven Soderbergh together, revealing and entertaining, and there are a couple of vintage featurettes about the shoot using Alcatraz as a location, a big deal when it happened in ’67. It makes sense that Soderbergh would participate on the commentary, since you could argue that much of what he does in films like THE LIMEY or OUT OF SIGHT is a direct echo of the technique that Boorman used in this film.
I think the real reason to watch the movie, though, is Marvin. Lee Marvin is one of my favorite movie stars, and I think he was a fascinating performer. He wasn’t exactly a guy with range... he was too naturally intimidating for that. There was always a certain presence to Lee Marvin on film, but in this role, it’s like Boorman stripped him down to the absolute essence of who he was onscreen. The result is one of the classics of revenge cinema, and an essential title for any serious film fan’s collection.
MOVIE: Excellent.
DISC CONTENT: Good. The commentary’s so good that it doesn’t matter there’s nothing else to speak of.
DISC QUALITY: The print looks great, better than it’s ever looked before. Very good.
I admire and respect this film more than I think I actually liked it. It’s a solid debut feature from Neill Dela Llana and Ian Gamazon, who co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced and co-edited the film together. Llana is the cinematographer and, one would assume looking at it, camera operator, while Gamazon stars in the film as Adam, a young American who gets called home to the Phillipines to help deal with a family problem. He’s not prepared for what happens to him when he steps off the plane, though, as he’s plunged into a nightmare where he must do something horrible beyond comprehension or risk the lives of his family. In a lot of ways, this reminds me of EL MARIACHI. This is a low, looooooooooooooooooooooow budget feature, and although it clearly shows, that’s not a bad thing. I think Llana and Gamazon have made the most out of their evidently limited resources. They allow the location and the situation to carry the weight of the film. Technically, this is simple stuff. Once Adam steps off the plane, his cell phone rings and a voice on the other end begins to tell him what he has to do. They have his mother and his sister held hostage, and he hears them crying and screaming in the background. He’s told that he will have to perform certain tasks or they will die. What he doesn’t count on is that he’s going to be asked to do truly terrible things. He’s a Muslim, it turns out, and it appears that the people on the phone are also Muslim. They argue about the things they ask Adam to do, but there’s no real wiggle room. The voice on the phone is unforgiving, unrelenting, and absolutely will not negotiate. The most interesting reading of the film would treat that voice on the phone as Adam’s own Tyler Durden. It seems that the voice keeps an eye on Adam to an impossible degree, able to see him anywhere and always knowing what he’s up to.
If this film is supposed to be an externalization of the struggle that goes on inside anyone who has decided to do something terrible, then I think it works well. It’s an interesting way to give voice to that attempt at self-justification. If this is meant to be totally realistic, I’m not sure I buy it, but even so, I would recommend seeing the film. It’s an ambitious little film, and it’s a great example for no-budget filmmakers. There’s also a commentary by the directors which further explains the way these guys made the most of the very limited resources they had, as well as some deleted scenes. I wish the film had a stronger resolution, and that it didn’t let Adam off the hook as much as it does, but it’s still a provocative piece of entertainment, and I’m curious to see what these filmmakers do next.
MOVIE: Good.
DISC CONTENT: Decent, but nothing special.
DISC QUALITY: It’s probably as good as you can expect this film to look in any format.
Parody films like this have become so commonplace that it’s hard for them to stay ahead of the audience. As soon as you see the poster for this film, you see the aliens from WAR OF THE WORLDS, costumes from THE VILLAGE, the little boy from THE GRUDGE, and the puppet from SAW, and you already have a pretty good idea exactly what you’re going to see. The David Zucker SCARY MOVIE entries are far less repulsive than the Wayans entries, far less reliant on deviant sexual material. I found myself nauseous while watching both of the first two SCARY MOVIEs. It’s just too much, and it doesn’t strike me as even remotely clever. And while parody in general sort of wears me out quickly, Zucker and his writers Craig Mazin, Jim Abrahams, and Pat Proft (all very experienced at this sort of thing) seem to be pretty adept at weaving all these various parody threads into something that actually works as a coherent story. There’s a style that Zucker brings to this, the way he textures foreground and background humor, that really is the gold standard of this type of film. For me, it’s the non-sequiter stuff that is funniest, like when someone holds up Shaquille O’Neal’s thighbone and yells, “The aliens killed a dinosaur!”
This was shot on high-def with the Genesis camera, the same system used on SUPERMAN RETURNS, and it’s actually quite good looking. Also, special kudos must be given to the special effects team, who manage to accurately reproduce things like the WAR OF THE WORLDS tripods with surprising accuracy. This can’t be a giant budget film, but it looks like one. Anna Faris is still the MVP of the series, and the best overall parody actor since Leslie Nielsen in AIRPLANE and POLICE SQUAD. It’s funny to see Bill Pullman roast his own work in THE GRUDGE, and Craig Bierko gives everything he’s got, with his Tom Cruise roast in the last few minutes of the film turning out to be probably the highlight of the whole film. With commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers and more, this is a nice overall DVD package from the guys at Genius Products and The Weinstein Company. How much you love the film depends on how much you still find this sort of parody to be fresh and funny.
MOVIE: Okay.
DISC CONTENT: Well done.
DISC QUALITY: Nice. The high-def image is actually quite striking.
Mia Farrow’s father, John Farrow, was a fairly well-regarded director in his day, born at the turn of the century. Over the span of a 20-year career, he made movies of many genres, some of which are fairly well-known, like HONDO or THE BIG CLOCK. In the recent Warner Bros. noir box set, one of his films was included and it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to see it. Consider me a fan of this particular Farrow film, and I’m sure at least part of it is because of his outstanding cast here. Robert Mitchum plays a guy who finds himself at the center of an elaborate scheme involving plastic surgery, Mexican resorts, and Jane Russell’s tig ol’ bitties. This is a fairly crazy and silly film, but it works because the cast seems to believe it. In particular, check out Vincent Price, who plays an actor who gets a chance to be part of a real adventure here, and he’s hilarious in every single scene.
What impressed me is how this is a comic riff on film noir, but it works as a real noir as well. When it has to be serious, it is. Raymond Burr plays a gangster who has been deported from the US, and he’s determined to get back in. His plan is to lure a patsy down to Mexico, where he’s going to kill the guy and, using plastic surgery, steal his face and his identity so he can go back to the States. There are some great moments of tension and suspense, but there are also some great big laughs here. Howard Hughes was one of the producers on the film, and it’s as crazy as he is, and nearly as successful. I haven’t listened to the commentary by film historian Vivian Sobchack yet, but I’m hoping it goes into the tumultuous production history of the film as Hughes essentially reshot giant chunks of the film over and over, trying to recast until he found a villain he liked. It’s a solid print, but there’s some heavy scratching in places, and it looks like they cleaned it up as much as is physically possible.
MOVIE: Very good.
DISC CONTENT: Decent.
DISC QUALITY: Decent.
Last up in this particular platter was a film I missed in the theaters last December. THE MATADOR was written and directed by Richard Shepard, and not being familiar with his name, I sort of thought this was the guy’s debut. Not so. In fact, I remember seeing David Bowie in THE LINGUINI INCIDENT back in the early ‘90s, also written and directed by Shepard. He made OXYGEN, a thriller with Adrien Brody and Maura Tierney, as well as COOL BLUE, a verrrrry early Woody Harrelson film. He reminds me of Michael Davis, the guy who’s just finishing work on SHOOT ‘EM UP, the Clive Owen/Paul Giamatti thriller that comes out next year. Davis made stuff like EIGHT DAYS A WEEK and 100 GIRLS until now, and with one film, he may well redefine his career. Shepard certainly has, and I’m willing to bet he finds himself able to put together bigger films from now on. His next picture, SPRING BREAK IN BOSNIA, stars Jesse Eisenberg (ROGER DODGER, THE SQUID & THE WHALE), Richard Gere, and Terrence Howard, which The Weinstein Company will release sometime in 2007.
THE MATADOR is a simple duet for Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear, playing a washed-up hitman and a downtrodden businessman who collide during a visit to Mexico. The two of them fall into an unlikely friendship, and various shenanigans ensue. The film is frequently very funny, but what runs underneath the laughs is something more substantial, a story about guys who find themselves struggling with their place in life long after most people settle into a life. Brosnan is starting to feel the impact of all the terrible things he has done in his life, and Kinnear is starting to wonder if he’s doomed to always be a doormat by virtue of being “a nice guy.” They each are able to help the other step outside their perspective a bit, and by playing with chronology just a little bit, Shepard drops a few narrative time bombs in that pay off well in the third act. It’s a slight film, and anyone expecting some sort of epic reinvention of Pierce Brosnan (which is sort of how it was sold to me) will be disappointed. Instead, it’s a solid reminder of just how funny Brosnan can be when he doesn’t give a fuck about being cool or protecting his image.
Genius Products has put together a solid package featuring a great transfer, and the commentary with Brosnan, Kinnear, and Shepard is an entertaining one. Overall, this turned out to be worth the wait.
MOVIE: Good.
DISC CONTENT: Good.
DISC QUALITY: Very good.
This one ended up in the player tonight while I was working on this article, and I find that of all the music-on-DVD I have, this one probably gets the most play. I’m a pretty unabashed fan of the band, but more than that, I think they’ve worked with some great video directors over the years, and they’ve inspired some artists to do some pretty spectacular things. Revisiting the material covered on this disc also pretty much serves as a roadmap of my time in LA for me, since 1990 was the year I moved to town, and each of the albums that U2 released in the decade that followed found me in very different circumstances financially, artistically, and emotionally. That’s what I love about being a fan of any band over the years... the way their music gets tangled up in your memory with events, the things you bring to that song every time it plays.
I didn’t watch the whole disc while I worked tonight. I skipped around and watched select tracks, and I find that I almost always lean most heavily on ACHTUNG BABY material. Little wonder, though. That was a defining moment for them, a rebound after the aimless bloat of RATTLE & HUM, and they came out swinging. For many of the tracks from that album, there are two videos that were produced. I prefer Anton Corbijn’s “One” video to the one that Phil Joanou made, and I think Kevin Godley’s “Even Better Than The Real Thing” is one of the best videos of all time. I love “Lemon,” which I find totally meaningless and emotionally wrenching at the same time. U2’s sophisticated pop music sounds as radio-ready now as it did when these albums were released, a trick not many people manage.
The sound on this disc is pretty tremendous, whether played through the stero in the front room or through my Bose headphones in the office. That’s to be expected, I guess, but even the live stuff is flawlessly mixed. Godley’s “Until The End Of The World” is a nice record of how the band turned the intimate, moody theme song from a Wim Wenders film into an arena-ready shotgun blast. “Miss Sarajevo” is haunting in the way it plays dischordant sounds and images off of each other to startlingly beautiful effect. Pavarotti’s voice kills me every time I play the track, and so does the documentary war zone footage. As heavy as much of their stuff can be, there’s a wry sense of play to tracks like “The Fly” and “Numb,” and I especially like watching The Edge try to maintain his composure during the long uninterrupted take in which he’s slapped, tied up, poked and prodded. Again... this is a video that doesn’t feel dated at all. Considering how fast pop culture carbon dates, that may be the thing that keeps me coming back to this stuff time and time again.
MOVIE: Excellent, especially if you’re a fan.
DISC CONTENT: Great extras, and it’s fairly complete. Again, fans will feel satisfied.
DISC QUALITY: Excellent sound and picture.
I’ll be back later tonight or early tomorrow with a review of Alan Moore’s controversial new comic epic, LOST GIRLS, and I’ll be bringing you more DVD coverage as often as possible in the days ahead. For now, though...
"Moriarty" out.
