Watched on DVD, had seen it once, previously, in the theater. Bought if mainly because it looks cool - Robert Richardson did a nifty job with the colors and the creative-looking angles. (I'm looking forward to watching 'Snow Falling on Cedars' on DVD, as I've not yet seen it and hear it looks really pretty). I guess I also bought it because I subscribe to the theory that no great director deserves to have any one of his films snubbed for any reason. And watching it again I really enjoy it. I actually have to take back my reservations about it's narrative composition and say that I like the scenes between the three acts (separated by different ambulance drivers : John Goodman, brooding and funny; Ving Rhames, half-crazed and really funny; and Tom Sizemore, completely bonkers and the funniest). The scenes I was really worried about, the ones that take place in a high-rise apartment and involved drugs - don't go on nearly as long as I expected. This time it felt like a nifty profile of a job that is not usually the focus of attention (however cliched, it's still somewhat "in-your-face" - I'm unable to drop the facetious tone). My opinion didn't change much. I'm glad I bought it. I hate DVD's with Entertainment Tonight - ish interview segments. But I'm still glad I bought it.

Had been putting this off (for no other reason than to see it with my brother - who loved it so much, he ended up watching it a second time in the same 12 hours). Not so much because I appreciated it or depreciated it any more or less, but since I had viewed the Oscar screener just shy of a month and a half ago - and the film needed some time to cool down. This time we noticed that it was so much comedy and such a nice commentary on celebrity followings/pretention and twisting fate to really do damage; we were happy to go back through the portal (a nice, really line to end on, right?).
the original review

a second look at Being John Malkovich

I made the dumbass mistake of renting 'The Searchers' before I had watched this one and Summer, my fiancé, called me on it. She remembered that I hadn't seen 'Stagecoach' yet. I know I should be on my knees thanking somebody that I have a girlfriend who would "call me on" something like this....but nevertheless....I wanted to watch 'The Searchers'. Turned out I liked this one almost as much. It starts out just sitting around evolving from the silent acting (want to see one that runs with this technique? John Ford's 'The Informer') and becomes something of a watchable soap opera. Ford is one of the first pioneers of full-on mise-en-scene and since this was only the second film I'd seen by him, I was still relatively wet behind the ears in awe of his style. His editing is kinetic! The scene where the politically incorrect Injuns attack the obnoxious white people in the stagecoach is really something. Anyone curious where 'Ben-Hur' borrowed the look of it's (oft-worded) 'thundering!' chariot race - it's 'Stagecoach' (also heralded as the film Orson Welles watched over and over and over again to pick up "the knack" before making 'Citizen Kane').

Okay, it's a really awesome film. The scenery (reeking of monument valley's big pillar), the acting...all the usuals are impeccable. I feel like finding flaws. Why is it the film is all set to end, and goes on that ridiculously long tangent regarding Jeffrey Hunter and Vera Miles. Just once (besides 'Unforgiven' and 'The Wild Bunch'), I'd like to see a western that's just plain bloodthirsty. No romance. No frilly shit. Just John Wayne shooting at Indians and changing his decade-long search on a dime when he realizes that Natalie Wood is brainwashed into an Indian. He wants to kill her. About that time, all the gears start clicking. Wayne's Ethan Edwards is a complex and wonderful character. All brash and grunt...but underneath, bearing a code that's as black and white as it's is bendable. Ford's film may not be perfect or "more than what it is" (Spielberg/Scorcese - whatever.) - but it's a damned engaging tumbleweed. And that DVD transfer makes it look like it never needed a movie screen to blast into our consciousness.

This is one of those rare instances when, from afar, I can tell that it's going to be pseudo-Hitchcock (but brilliant)....and it's so absolutely something else. 'Charade' is an early entry into the genre that included the birth of the James Bond films, the strange and unloving (there's a pun buried in there) Cold War spy flicks and the even stranger spawn of just plain Sixties conservative-but-wacky films. It's also strangely psychic in it's execution : it's goofiness nearly mocks the genre it's boosting. That's a nice touch. It's compounded with great scenes : the slamming door funeral scene of surprising character introduction, Cary Grant's many many identities, Hepburn's almost blatantly sexual come-ons and Grant's sweetly romantic acceptance and of course, but of course, the genius of the plot which isn't as involving as something Hitchcock would've thrown together in his spare time - - but is certainly twisty enough to come back to center with a wink. The Mancini score and the Saul and Elaine Bass-esque titles are a really nice touch as well. It's not just wonderfully entertaining - - it's a quality piece of filmmaking, too. Caused me to rent Donen's 'Singin' in the Rain' on DVD. 'Charade' was a Criterion release and you could feel it in every second.

Opened up at The Colonial, which I had been eagerly checking upon for weeks and weeks since I saw the poster at the theater when I saw 'Princess Mononoke'. For a second time, it rocked. It shows exactly how exciting Shakespeare can be without losing any of the great literary patterns, tricks or rewards the Bard excelled at. It's a film that is as visually exciting as it is a guilty pleasure to watch. I smile when Titus exacts his revenge. I love to see the blood gush. And you know what? The kid : annoying or not  - - Julie Taymor earns that last shot with every minute prior. Beautiful, rapturous filmmaking. Glad I had the opportunity to see it a second time.
the original review

I liked 'Waiting for Guffman' a whole lot more. Sure, Christopher Guest pulled together the strings to make a really nice mockumentary and sure 'This is Spinal Tap' is very much like a couple of episodes of 'The Simpsons' strung together - but it's by no means airtight. And for an 87 minute film, it drags and feels quite long in spots. It's a dated film, as well.

But it is very, very funny. And it's innovative. And it's got enough "slap-yourself-on-the-face-IT'S-THAT-DUMB" jokes to keep you interested.

But even with all it's might - it's still just average.

Noticed watching this for the umpteenmillionenth time that the editor seemed to be grasping onto some sort of beautifully strung together comic timing that shuffles between the actors. The coincidence of a tiff between main actor R. Good and J.Lawrence is played well into a story that has no real details and an excised ending. All in all, you can see a growing filmworks mind inside the ideas and complicated seams of this film. Further exploited in crap like 'Acres of Heck', 'Staminated.' and 'Blame it on the Honkey'.

Jean Cocteau, the DVD case told me, was a "poet of cinema". This, the first of his films I've seen, is nothing shy of poetry - but not the earth-shattering kind, merely the 'skim-through-it-to-find-the-quotable-stuff' kind. It's got some terrific moments (most of them between Beauty and her father or any of the fantasy setpieces inside and around the Beast's mansion). It's also a dragging foot in most of it's period scenes. The film, though somewhat awe-aspiring in it's gentle yet assured ambition, is entirely too slow for it's ninety-four minute length. The original plot twists that will vary greatly from the Disney retelling are interesting - but not nearly as useful or "entertainment value" wielding as that version (odd that I've taken to both praising and bashing Disney this week). I was happy to find out where Peter Murphy lifted the french snippets from for the song "All Night Long". I guess he just skimmed through the film and found a proper quote, too.

Pure entertainment. There's no other way to cut the cards. The Bruckheimer /Simpson revolution (which few know was responsible for both 'Top Gun' and 'Crimson Tide') continues in this, one of the most outlandishly-plotted, rollercoaster-conceived action films ever attempted. The mere fact that it's actors are all vying for complete control of the scenery chewing is proof that everybody was instructed to entertain, entertain, entertain (it's directed wisely and somewhat tongue-in-cheek by the short attention span hopeful Bay). I think watching it this time, my third viewing, I liked Ed Harris the best (none of them have ever been start to finish - even my theatrical run found me asleep from the pulse pounding exhaustion the blistering explosions exude). He's the beautiful epitome of the most embarrassingly by-the-book marine in recent film history. It's a pleasure to watch him take his military seriously - as he commits mutiny. And it doesn't hurt that Connery runs around in perpetual old-man-cum-action-hero land, Nic Cage close at his heels with young-man-cum-whoops! syndrome. It's a valid and extremely fun motion picture - and I just might re-watch 'Armageddon', just to see if it was the fact that I was seeing it third row, Carmike Cinemas Pottstown that turned me off to it's fun quotient.

Every single Scooby Doo episode (even the banal ones with Scrappy) owe a gigantic dowry to this wonderfully full of itself Haunted House vehicle. Listen to this : It's the night of the big will reading for all the heirs to a crazy old man's fortune (when he was alive, he felt like a canary in a cage when their greed machines turned on - and turned him insane). Everyone arrives, the distant-most member receives the money - but must spend the rest of the night for a doctor to examine her to make sure she's not bonkers. Meanwhile, there's a second envelope, and if she is bonkers, the money goes to that person. And also there's an escaped lunatic from an asylum on the loose. And there's a really disturbed looking nanny who cares for the old man's ghosts and says things like : "I don't need the living ones". Her name is Mammy Pleasant.

It's that fun and creepy looking from start to finish. And there were dozens of times when I said : "I saw this on Scooby Doo". Not out loud, of course.

This Harold Lloyd film starts out nice and compact with an uncle planning to spook an heir out of a fortune when her stipulation is that she must live in the dead father's house for a year (and get married). The best part is when Lloyd, fearing he's missed his chance to marry her, attempts to kill himself in a number of different ways. But once we move into the main plot - the comedy isn't that clever and it's not really very inventive, either. Funny how watching the true genius of slapstick and all other forms of comedy, Buster Keaton, just sorta makes everyone else seem like water. Watch for the undeniably racist scene where intertitles are written in pidgin English, preceded and followed by stereotypical and, just plain unheard of (in our time) African American shaming. A decent introduction to the man who hung from the clock, but just sort of ordinary.

Though I've only seen two films by Kurosawa (this one and 'Rashomon'), I'm convinced he can do no wrong. As 'Yojimbo' started, I think my mind felt a little betrayed at how fresh this looked in comparison to it's two knock-offs, 'A Fistful of Dollars' and 'Last Man Standing'. The betrayal was in my wish that I'd seen this one first. What an amazing film. Kurosawa blends the joy of watching the classic ultra strong character with a complex portrait of scurrying rats and their allegiance to conflict. It's no mystery why Kurosawa, so sure of his main character (huge accolades to Toshiro Mifune, looks and feels the part to the letter), rips a gigantic hole in this strangely timeless film when he introduces a character that bears a pistol. Here's this town, fighting like fools and Mifune enters with all the prowess and know-how of a samurai, ready to take all of their money in a complex and violent confidence game - and there's a gun involved. It's strangely obvious that the gun is used to accentuate the samurai's power (if he can beat a gun without one, he is unstoppable, right?) - but also the flurrying idea that Kurosawa is pushing on us that war is, no matter who holds what weapon - and idealization of death defined. The black and white scope photography is beautiful (I pity anyone without a DVD player on this one - - Ding! Ding! - - Criterion strikes again!) and the score, playful and sometimes just plain off-the-wall, is dead on. This is a satisfying masterpiece.

Another DVD purchase made ages ago but consummated only now, after a dry evening at my job, calling for color - desperately. Not nearly as elegant and entertaining as 'Amadeus', but just as episodic (but not too episodic as to be clumsy - like 'Man on the Moon') - Larry Flynt starts out as a biography and erupts into a full-blown American Flag convention. As blunt as the film is - and as much as the script cuts corners (in fact, it's almost innovative to remove the conclusions from nearly every scene - almost), perhaps it's Forman's firm grounding of the film in comedy that saves it's ass from being ordinary. Woody Harrelson (and his troupe of 'smut peddlers') are portrayed as utterly simple folk, whose dedication to resurrection of the free love movement of the sixties brings their passion to a head - and watching passionate people create, fight and just generally interact with the general populous is extremely satisfying. Wonderful performances all around (especially the indispensable Edward Norton, who gets lost in the crossfire of Harrelson's flamboyance and Love's far too realistic junkie). Perhaps the greatest achievement of a film this transparently full of it's message is that, even if the inclusion of such a potent message is kind of overbearing - it's execution is so eloquently rendered, it nearly apologizes for itself after wowing us.

And finally, for God's sake - a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Poor, poor VHS folk. I pity thee. I really do.

Imagine how good a film has to be to upend the expectation set by it's label "musical". Imagine how many scenes of sheer brilliance must occur and how damned entertaining it must be. Sure, films like 'Evita' are good - and the music and choreography are more than good - but when the dictator starts singing, the huffish "it's-only-a-musical" mood sets in. That's the genius of 'Singin' in the Rain' and why it's very legend has lasted so long. It's a hoot. One of the most fun films I've ever seen - it's dialogue is rapid fire, it's dance numbers blow your mind and the songs are clever without being cutesy. It takes place in Hollywood, which appears all the more strange as it is saturated by some real talent (Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly set a new standard, all kidding aside). Sure, the technicolor is awash with greenish hue and the picture looks posterized and painterly - and sure, some of the dance scenes are almost too extravagant to take in with one viewing - but isn't that really the charm of the film? 'Singin' in the Rain', more than any film I've seen recently, is timeless. It's a film that doesn't need to be deeper than a wading pool or, in any way, tinkered with. It's a perfect film and will undoubtedly stand repeated viewings. There's no moment like the one where Gene Kelly is at true peace with himself and starts "dancin' and singin' in the rain". Unless it's the one where Malcolm McDowell rapes Adrienne Corri in 'A Clockwork Orange'. Viddy well, Debbie Reynolds, viddi well.

Unfortunately I just looked up the director in my Videohound (in part because he has a cool name) and was unbelievably let down to find that he also directed the brilliant and maniacally, almost better than 80's romp 'Better Off Dead'. There's some wit and charm in this regulation and obviously purposefully episodic teen summer flick. Not nearly enough to go around, though. It's specialty seems to be oddball characters - of which it stocks in spades. Cusack is lovable as always and Demi Moore, cute and somewhat pudgy, is interestingly low-key and likable for the girl who went on to be such a whiny and annoying failure (while her ex-husband is having the greatest success of his life). A funny, completely whimsical and just plain dumb film with a few decent belly laughs. Savage Steve Holland, indeed. Ha!

Eight vignettes from the master's dreams - some absolutely spellbinding, enchanting and near perfect, one or two that defy brilliance and some that are environmental warnings dressed up in pretty art direction and ancient storytelling. Very briefly : 1) a boy witnesses the marriage ceremony of foxes under protest of his mother : nice because the foxes are real people with masks enshrouded by giant trees and lush, green scenery. Kurosawa is clearly pinpointing the moment when fantasy is real within the confines of childhood innocence. 2) the same boy is chastised for his parents' destruction of a peach orchard (this time by festive humans dolled up as....dolls) : this one shows the Japanese performance art as a hallucinatory experience as the boy sees the peach orchard come out of the dolls' re-enactment of nature. 3) Four men caught in a snowstorm nearly die, except that one has an experience with a fairy who restores his life and shows him to his camp : a fairy tale of the higher consciousness of intense stress and emergency. Brilliant use of sound. 4) A soldier walks through a tunnel only to be confronted by infantrymen who died under his command : Kurosawa confronting the haunted conscience that grows out of war. 5) An asian painter meets Vincent Van Gogh and steps into some the Van Gogh's famous works : Scorcese is Van Gogh and 'What Dreams May Come' clearly borrowed heavily from this one, which is 'painterly' to say the very, very least. 6) An apocalyptic nuclear meltdown in which three people witness the cloud of cancer producing radioactivity by color as it drifts towards them : an extreme warning dressed up as one of Kurosawa's dreams. Pretty sly. 7) The aftermath of the nuclear winter shows demons and gigantic dandelions and chooses to show the horrible side of being infected with manmade poison : Visually striking and just kind of chilling. Finally, 8) A man visits a village where nature and life are celebrated and in return, everyone lives to be obscenely old : Kurosawa confronting his mortality and his place in respect to the world around him. Humbling and very, very serene. From watching 'Akira Kurosawa's Dreams', I can see a lot of the poetry of 'The Thin Red Line' coming out of the work of Kurosawa. Which just goes to show that he influenced everyone. Needless to say I'm addicted to his films now.

The first film by the master is a wonderful headlong trip uphill in the direction of a great career. Some really inventive and early Kurosawa film styling as well as a nice (and nicely told) story regarding a samurai (which would become the trademark of the director). There's a great 'passage of time' sequence in which a rickshawman's shoe is left in the street and travels through the seasons and into the river. Also, the final showdown between Sanshiro Sugata and his arrogant opponent, a fight to the death, is set in an endless field encompassed by the moon's light. The sequences and, for the time, the sound, are dead on. This is a nice stepping stone for a director who would be lauded and deified for decades and decades to come.

No scolding necessary as I still feel like this is the birth of a natural born filmmaker - as much as, in recent years 'Hard Eight' or 'One False Move' or dozens of other first timers have been - this is a film that shows where a director is headed (interesting that I'd follow 'Sanshiro Sugata' with this one). Since I've seen this film about a dozen times in the last eight years, I don't need to pay attention to the dialogue anymore - my mind is free to wander into other aspects - like why is Harvey Keitel so interested in his hair being perfect or the "that's why that is" revelation in a wide screen edition when you can see all the characters - instead of being minus one or two. And like 'Larry Flynt' and 'Bringing out the Dead', I bought it on DVD and just got around to watching it now. And it looks pretty - very pristine, sharp and that framing - it's right out of every seventies cops and crooks flick. The film has a feel from that era I'd not realized as much before. Maybe that's why we blaspheme and take films like this for granted : we're scared when viewing after viewing, they can still reveal to us something fresh and new about them - they even reveal things we'd never noticed before. Like, say, four coffins and a hearse in the morgue turned warehouse that acts as the rendezvous.

Funny the way the sincerity I once felt towards this patriotic (for the Scots, not for us petty Americans - offspring of the English) epic dwindled so lo these three years since I've seen it. Having seen this monster entertainment machine three times on the big screen and two more on the small screen (without the advantage of widescreen, as it were) - - one could safely say I had a raging hard-on for it. Now, watching the letterboxed copy I received for my seventeenth birthday, the one I had yet to watch; I find the film to be little else besides rapturously beautiful to look at, completely Hollywood-ized (no kidding, I'm talking martyrdom the likes you ain't seen since 'Spartacus' or, say, Jesus) filmed candy. Interesting this week that I saw two extremely 'give-me-the-paycheck- and-back-off' Brendan Gleeson performances (the other being his indispensable throwaway part in 'M:I -2'). It's also one of those lovingly American revenge-o-centric films. You know, the kind where it makes it okay for a protagonist to kill as long as it's for a good reason : that reason being revenge, you know? Love the Scottish accents, love the bloody gore, really love the scenery (and I guess the sappy James Horner score) : still laughing about how ridiculous Mel Gibson looks in that role.

Here's one that's meant to be a full-on goofball. Tim Burton has great fun with the Headless Horseman tale. It's violent, it's terrifying and a kid gets beheaded. But it's also riotously funny in a campy (okay, you got me, a "hammer") kinda way. The scenery is the real saving grace, since the film does have a superfluous Scooby Doo plot that lasts way too long and gets way too involved. And as I've said before and will say again (and you can quote me on this) "Every shot is perfect. Every shot is perfect. Every shot is perfect". The commentary is just about flat-out boring. Mostly a few and far between audio track thanking everyone and everything from the fog technicians to the guys who build the sets to God for creating Spanish horses (which Burton nearly has an orgasm over). It alternates between that and Burton repeating himself over and over again : This is like a silent film. I'm so glad I got to work with all these great British actors. This is like a hammer film, etc, etc, etc. The only really entertaining bits are when Burton tells us about the kid's beheading scene and Jeffrey Jones' wig. For a guy with one of the most actively consistent and astonishing imaginations in the business, Burton is asleep at the wheel when asked to comment on it.

Since I wasn't expecting this movie to be an absolutely thrilling experience - I mean, 'take-your- f'n-breath-away' at spots.....it was also a really nice surprise. Like 'Arlington Road', it operates from the idea that you can rotate as many of the same gears as you want as long as you lay on a fresh coat of oil. Felt like something John Dahl would have made, especially his earlier works ('The Last Seduction' and 'Red Rock West'). It's got a "cable" feel to it, in so much as it's story isn't all that ambitiously wrought - but it's also got what 'Duel' had : a hardcore, loud-ass-dragging sense of it's own style. And trucks. And good gosh, it really is everything 'U-571' could never be. There's no sense of anything dragging it along besides it's craftiness, it's tactical detailing and how high it can turn up the tension by it's conclusion. It's Kurt Russell (the best he's been) in a role that's so easy to make ordinary but so tough to make vulnerable. And in Mostow's sure-footed thriller - defying heights is done constantly and stylishly. A great film.

Wow. First of all, let me fire off a standard issue issue : 'Throne of Blood' is one of the greatest films I've ever seen; certainly the best Kurosawa film I've seen; and byfar the best 'Macbeth' adaptation I've seen (of the three I've seen, Welles and Polanski included). Not just for the creative way he snags onto things like a labyrinthine forest that appears to move towards a castle, an ending that just seethes with passion and anguish (the way Kurosawa builds to it is masterful) - but for the little things: the gentle voice of the witch who foretells Wachizu's prophecy, the galloping sounds of horses (which never sounded so "ominous") and the savage but eerily and serenely beaten performance of Toshiro Mifune. His face, his growl and that wonderful motion of his samurai stance gives the role (Shakespeare patterned into the bold irony of weak but strong) the shot in the arm to end all shots in the arm. I was so engaged and enthralled by the very scope and genius of it. Not only does Kurosawa make the tweaks that seem so right and true (and bring the story back to it's original scent beautifully, even though it's set in feudal Japan), but his visual adaptation of Shakespeare's dialogue, his sparing use of verbal expression - he's the master of sound, but also the master of it's restraint. This is a film of enormous power and vigor. This is Kurosawa at full tilt.

Here's the thing about this one : I obviously would never have rented it if Bruckheimer weren't remaking it with Nic Cage. So, it was a territory I was, in a way, wandering into without a map or a disguise. For it's participation as a genre film (a sixties' car fiesta - released in the 70's), it's instantly forgiven all the rough edges - which explains about half of it's charm as well as it's fun. The brown-wooded interiors, flat-out awful acting and decidedly convoluted jumping off point called a plot - basically meant to serve a spectacle consisting of "93 cars destroyed in 40 minutes!"; these are all moot points from the first frame. This is a film that knows it's place and moves it's pieces so, as quickly and fast-paced as possible, it can get to that place. We learn enough about the car business from it's main character, Maindrain Pace to know he's a professional - and has standards. Then and only then can the film use nearly half it's running time to brace the viewer with a crackerjack ambition comparable to Moses parting the Red Sea. We watch as Pace maneuvers his car, which is gradually becoming softer in shape, through every pitfall known to man. And then some. It's high-speed pursuit, countless cars and damages and stunt driving at it's best. Sure, the entire film is a vehicle, but - - get it? Vehicle?

Somehow it had to be that I'd see this one again. And just as I predicted, it's beautiful honesty, sharp wit and incisive attention to deeper realities unexplored in cinema to date tended to rival my opinion that 'The Virgin Suicides' is the best film I've seen this year. "Wow, Rob Gordon. The Rob Gordon", chuckles the watchable Catherine Zeta-Jones into the phone ear of John Cusack, whose Rob Gordon surely deserves that italicized status : he is as mythic as Cusack's own Lloyd Dobbler of 'Say Anything'. The first time I saw the film, my attention was dead-center on it's sympathetic portrayal of material fetishists - of which yours truly is far too guilty of in far too many areas to be economically healthy. This time around, all the touches of the cinema came alive for me in a different way. The film is funny - but it's also such a sponge, soaking up our consciousness to create such realistic fantasy and such a fantasy of realism that we become warped by it's spell, unable to break from how surefire it is and how damned easily we can relate. It's so, so, so much more than a Cusack vehicle. It's a pagemarker. Is that too strong a statement to make after only a short release? Is it suicidally presumptuous of me to expect this movie to not only achieve a greater cult status than the unfocused book it dwarfs, but to become as beloved and grandly received in it's shelf life as 'Say Anything'? Have I made one too many of these lofty statements? (THE SNOB sneers and exits stage left)
the original review
>third viewing occurs in JULY 2000 chronicle