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Barry Lyndon,
and a few more films

Eve's Bayou (1997)

NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#262  [archive]
MAR. 18, 2024

This is heavy drama like a soap opera, focused on one black family in 1950s Louisiana. Samuel L Jackson is cheating on his wife, but golly he still loves her and the kids.

Everything in the movie looks stylish, but it feels antiseptic and oddly artificial — hammy performances in upscale, tidy, almost Merchant-Ivory settings. Every actor poses perfectly for every close-up, and delivers all their lines like it's a stage play and they want their Tonys. The artificiality left me restless with boredom, and my attention wandered into the kitchen for a sandwich.

And voodoo, man. It's part of Louisiana culture, yeah, but that doesn't mean I have to respect it when people talk about it as if it's real. This movie's plot consults not one but two voodoo fortunetellers, and baby sister has second sight, too, and when there are allegations of child molestation, extra sensory perception is how we to decide what really happened. Just, no. ESP and voodoo and supernatural stuff belongs in scary movies, not in a film that's trying to be taken seriously. 

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Ex Machina (2014)

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson, from About Time, but now without the accent) is a low-level dweeb at a giant high-tech corporation, who wins a company lottery where the prize is a week with the billionaire owner at his super-secluded Fortress of Solitude in the mountains. I'd bring a gun and a fork and eat the guy, but Caleb is nicer than me.

When he arrives at the underground mansion, the billionaire (Oscar Isaac) reveals that he's made an artificial woman with artificial intelligence. Caleb's assignment is to give the contraption a one-week Turing test, to see whether it could pass as human. At least, that's what Elon Bezos Zuckerberg says, but there's something else going on.

Of course, you'll know where the story's going once it's revealed that the AI entity is a Hollywood gorgeous woman (Alicia Vikander).

"One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa."

It plays like an episode of Black Mirror, with a bigger budget. I kinda liked the Turing on Turing tests I'd probably fail, and there are some conversations that seem 50% more intelligent than most movie dialogue, but it's obvious that one writer wrote both halves of the philosophical debate. The cocky bastard CEO is amusing, as he tries to be polite but can't pull it off, so he's always at least lightly insulting.

It's disappointing that in a movie with a rich, conceited CEO as one of the principal characters, and peppered with heady philosophical conversations, there's no questioning the morality of one man owning a compound the size of Connecticut.

Written and directed by Alex Garland, this is his first try at the helm. He'd previously written 28 Days Later, which was rendered unwatchable by bad direction, and the more successful but still partly cloudy Sunshine, as well as several other titles unseen by me.

This one's about as close to intellectual as Hollywood gets, which isn't all that close, but you could do worse.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Exam (2009)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

There's a job opening at some giant conglomerate, for a high-paying, upper management gig. Eight applicants are gathered in a room, and each is given a questionnaire to fill out. A mysterious man lays out a few ground rules — you have 80 minutes to fill out the questionnaire, and you can't leave the room, etc. Once the clock is running, though, we see that the questionnaires have no questions. Hmmm.

The whole movie takes place in one room, while the job applicants try to figure out what's going on. One of them is an obnoxious alpha male who takes charge of the situation, but they're all candidates for a high-level job so there's no shortage of obnoxiousness. Everyone insults and interacts with the others, trying to figure out what's the answer for the questionnaire, and also what's the question.

If dramas that lock people into a room are a genre, it's a genre I like — Cube, Das Boot, The Breakfast Club, The Man from Earth, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, 12 Angry Men, etc. And indeed, Exam is an interesting film. The characters are stereotypes (which the film acknowledges), and it's more about the fun of solving the puzzle than the human condition or anything. Solving the puzzle, though, is enough.

The first half is tight, then it droops a bit and seems unlikely, but it rallies at the end, makes sense. Pencils down, I don't regret spending an hour and a half on this Exam

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Barry Lyndon (1975)
Streaming free at YouTube

As a 17th century Irish teenager, Redmond Barry has the advantages of being born to a white and genteel family that's not rich, but clearly not poor.

Unlike most literary protagonists, he is neither downtrodden nor born to great wealth, and also not a prodigy always destined for greatness. He's just a schlub. When he gets into a battle of insults, he'd be unarmed if not for wisecracks discretely fed to him by a friend. He's even unsure what to do when his pretty cousin declares herself open for sexual escapades. 

He's brash, though, and when an English officer pursues that pretty cousin, the boy takes great offense, provokes a duel, and in the aftermath he must flee the countryside. Thus begins a progression of events that finds him in the British, then Prussian armies, then becoming a spy.

He'll do whatever's necessary to be seen as a 'gentleman'. He doesn't want to be a gentleman, mind you, but it's important to be seen as one.

Eventually, renaming himself Barry Lyndon and pursuing a noble title, the uncertain boy of the first few scenes becomes such a fancy man he needs two employees to assist him with shaving.

This flick is better than I'd expected, and it's written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, so my expectations were high. 

Even describing it, Barry Lyndon is better than whatever you're envisioning. It's a costume drama, certainly, but the military uniforms and lord-of-the-manor's ruffles and all the stilted speaking is counterpointed with arch narration that, to my tender eye and ear, suggests the pretense of aristocratic life. Curiously, the narrator usually tells you what's about to happen, which allows you to look around and enjoy the magnificent views.

And it's beautiful. Dang near every shot looks like a painting in a museum, except that a painting just sits there, while this scenery crackles with tension and there's a grand story unfolding.  

"You can put down your hands now, Mr. Barry." 

"Starring Ryan O'Neal," the screen announces, which seems like an obstacle, but Kubrick uses his leading man's limited acting ability to the film's advantage. O'Neal brings no charisma, and sometimes seems blank as an epic movie happens all around him, but that fits the character's often-accidental finding of good fortune, despite being frequently in over his head.

The movie is more than three hours long, but when I paused it to pee I was amazed that only twenty minutes remained. I was into it all the way, and by the end it was one of the rare movies that left me wishing there was someone to have a cup of coffee with, and talk it over.

It ends with this on-screen epilogue: "It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now." When I first read that, I thought Kubrick was saying there's equality in death, that paupers and the wealthy are both destined to be eaten by the same worms. 

A few minutes later, freezing the frame to type those words, the sentence jumped at me from a different direction. Maybe he's saying that this story was from an earlier era, but that now, in our allegedly enlightened times, all men and women are of the same status before man and god. Yeah, I think that's what he's saying, and being no dummy Kubrick is of course saying this sarcastically.

Based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, this took Oscars for John Alcott's cinematography, as well as set direction, costume design, and the music by Leonard Rosenman (who later wrote my favorite Star Trek score, for Star Trek IV). For Best Picture, script, and direction, Barry Lyndon lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which is a movie I like quite a lot, but it's frankly ordinary compared to this.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
Streaming free at YouTube

Art is beautiful, and 'art' is a scam. That's my takeaway from this fluffy profile of Thierry Guetta, aka street artist Mister Brainwash.

When the movie starts, Thierry is a very financially secure Frenchman living in Los Angeles. He owns a high-end boutique, and probably has other assets unmentioned, because instead of working or worrying about the boutique, he spends all his time carrying a camera and filming whatever he sees.

When Guetta sees people clandestinely painting and postering sidewalks and buildings, he films them, and begins buddying around with some of L.A.'s more famous street artists, including Space Invader and Shepard Fairey.

This eventually leads to a connection with Banksy, the anonymous celebrity artist, who appears in this film (if it's really him) in shadows and with his voice disguised. He's also billed as the film's director, which is certainly bullshit, but what's he gonna do about it? Can't sue without unmasking himself.

Meanwhile, Guetta keeps filming everything, leading these artists to believe he's making a documentary, but in reality he only films because he likes holding a camera, and he's quite possibly a little hollow in the head. He never looks at the video footage, though, never edits it, just stores it in boxes, and he has no idea how to make a movie. 

So he puts his camera away and decides to re-invent himself as one of the famous street artists. He uses his considerable wealth to stage a huge show of his art, and it's a laugh watching the hierarchy of street art respond, as Guetta christens himself Mister Brainwash, and a new star is born.

Narrated by movie star Rhys Ifans, the film is an unintentional exposé of the art scene. At a baseline every piece of street art is a prank, and I do love a prank, plus many of the works are good.

Pinch yourself and get real, though: Famous street artists like Banksy or Mister Brainwash have agents and connections and un-cited sources of income that make everything possible. They're famous artists because they're rich, having fun with their free funding and time, but nothing created by any of these celebrities is inherently 'better' (and most of it's probably 'worse') than the work of artists you've never heard of, and never will.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Exotica (1994)
Streaming free at YouTube

It's complicated. Take notes. I did.

Francis (Bruce Greenwood) frequents an exotic dance club, where he's mesmerized by Christina's feigned underage strip show. Christina (Mia Kirshner) used to babysit for Francis's daughter, who's missing and presumed dead. His niece Tracey (Sarah Polley) is the babysitter now, and Francis has whispered too-adult conversations with her, and pays $20 p/hour.

Thomas (Don McKellar), meanwhile, runs an exotic pet shop, where the real business is smuggling and incubating exotic birds' eggs. He's developed a deep appreciation of ballet, and the boys who accompany him there, but he's intrigued by Christina too, although not for the same reasons.

In this maze of unsavory characters and sleazy motivations, director Atom Egoyan makes some unexpected turns, but knows where he's going. 

One thing I'm skeptical about is that in the strip club where much of the movie takes place, there's little stripping or nudity. And the club has a DJ, played by hairy Elias Koteas, who talks over loudspeakers during the dances, announcing to the crowd how sexy each particular dancer is, and egging clients to buy private lap dances and et cetera. I am not a regular as such places, but if I'm ogling pretty ladies someplace the DJ is like hairy Elias, I'll be gone as soon as he starts talking.

Be forewarned that even with brief nudity and adult themes and the strip club and all, none of this is particularly sexy. If you're looking for that, look elsewhere. 

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Extract (2009)

From Mike Judge, maker of Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill and Office Space, this is a live-action comedy set in a bottling plant. They bottle flavor extracts, hence the movie's title.

Joel (Jason Bateman) is the boss, hot for an untrustworthy new hire (Mila Kunis) but reluctant to cheat on his wife (Kristen Wiig). To solve this problem, he hires the world's dumbest gigolo to seduce his wife, a fuck he imagines will free his conscience and allow him to pursue the new hire.

The movie has some laughs, but it's featherweight compared to Judge's best work, and actually kinda lowbrow. Bateman's Joel is the only character in the film who isn't a dimwit.

The best part of Extract is Joel's next-door neighbor, who's in only a few scenes. He's like my flatmate Dean — he always wants to talk, but has nothing interesting to say, and there's no escape but slamming a door in his face.

Verdict: YES.

 3/16/2024  

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

The Face Behind the Mask (1941)
A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Faces (1968)

Fallen Angel (1945)

The Fallen Idol (1948)

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 
 
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Bob and the driver

Riding the bus back from breakfast on Saturday, a man stepped aboard carrying two black garbage bags, and talking loudly, but I couldn't make out a word.

Another head case, obviously. The primary purpose of public transit seems to be getting the mentally ill to their destinations. The fare is $2.75, but it's (unofficially) free for bums, and indeed, the man didn't pay.

He said something to the driver, loud enough that everyone on the bus could hear it, but there was no understanding what he said. Loud gibberish, that's all.

The driver replied, "How you doin' today?" and the bum said something unintelligible back. It was loud, not the soft-spoken muttering of most bums, and It might've not even been English.

The bus hadn't moved yet, but the bum nearly stumbled walking to an empty seat. So he's drunk, I assumed, or high. The driver waited until the new passenger was settled with his bags, then said, "You doing OK?"

The bum replied with seventeen syllables that seemed to mean 'yes'.

Then our ride was underway again, and I studied the bum, at an angle so he wouldn't know. Mostly he was quiet, but every couple of minutes he again burst into words, or caterwauling.

His garbage bags had no ties, so he held each by the neck to keep their contents from spilling. This meant he couldn't grip a rail or the seat in front of him when the driver applied brakes at a traffic light, so like Charlie Chaplin the bum slid all the way off his seat, his butt landing on the floor.

He started his almost-hollering again, and sounded angry, which means the same — he'd sounded angry since he'd climbed the stairs and not paid his fare. 

The driver apologized for the hard braking, and watched in the rear-view mirror, waiting for the bum to get back into a seated position.

Bus drivers see bums all day, of course, and it must be frustrating, but the apology sounded sincere. It wasn't the first time this particular bum had been on this particular driver's bus, I decided.

The bum started making his bum-noises again, sounding like a two-year-old, never forming words that I could tell.

Some rows behind him, a young black woman watched, and looked nervous. Most bums are quiet on the bus, but this guy would let out bursts of crazy sound, then silence, then more sound. Me being big and male, a shrug, but her being small and female, the bum probably seemed a worry.

When she glanced at me looking at her, I flashed an 'OK' face, nodding quickly and semi-smiling. Whatever the situation, the driver wasn't simply ignoring it as they sometimes do, so the danger felt minimal, probably nil. If she saw my signal the woman didn't acknowledge it, so my slight good deed was probably for naught.

On we went, the bus jittering and the bum being loud, then quiet for a block or two, and then hollering undecipherable inanities again, and then quiet.

He was five feet from me, so my mind couldn't wander out the window, and instead I pondered the impossibilities of mental health in America. Everything about the USA seems designed to manufacture crazies, but even people with health insurance usually aren't covered for mental health. And if you are, you can't get an appointment for months. This bum couldn't get an appointment, ever.

He rang the bell to get off, and loudly spewed another twenty seconds of loudness. And then, something unexpected, something O Henry. The bus slowed, the bum stood and carried his bags of whatever to the front door, and the driver said, "All right, Bob, you have a good one."

'Bob' turned and gave the driver another burst of unintelligible loudness, then stepped off the bus. The driver gently accelerated, and we were almost to my house so I rang the bell to get off. Standing for the last half-block, I said to the driver as he slowed, "You knew that guy, huh?" 

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Drive a bus, you get to know everybody." He opened the door so I said no more, but all my walk home, I wondered about it. 

3/17/2024   

Eraserhead,
and a few more films

Entr'acte (1924)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Was this the birth of avant garde cinema? Probably not, but it's the first film directed by René Clair, it's 22 minutes, and it's remarkable.

My vocabulary of art-words is limited, so maybe it's surrealism, or possibly dada? Clair uses every trick of photography, not to tell a story — none of that here — but just to keep things popping and interesting.

There's a wild ride on a wooden roller coaster, and a big crowd of overdressed people slow-motion silly-walking and then silly-running after a hearse. A ballet is danced on glass, with the camera underneath, so it's the invention of the upskirt, and then the camera pulls back and we can see that the dancer is a man with a beard. And as they say in the infomercials, much, much more.

This would be well worth watching, even if it was new. That it's a hundred years old makes it history, but more importantly, it's still well worth watching.

NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#261  [archive]
MAR. 16, 2024

And hey, the musical score is by my man Erik Satie, his only original work created for the cinema.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Equinox (1969)
Streaming free at YouTube

The opening is classy but nicely unsettling, with eerie music and imagery of clockworks. It got my hopes up that the movie might be something special. Soon as the movie gets underway, though, it's clearly a very amateur effort. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Four college students are called to a meeting with their professor at his home, but when they get there the home has been demolished. There's suddenly a castle across the valley, where there'd been no castle the day before, so they decide the professor must he in the castle, and make their way toward it. But first, they stop in a cave, where a laughing madman gives them a mysterious book that smells like rotten eggs.

As a sci-fi effort, this is an un-assembled jigsaw puzzle. There's the potential for a decent story, but the script is clumsy, and the acting is — well, they tried.

There aren't many effects, but they're definitely better than the film deserves, including some brief stop-motion, matte paintings, mixed exposures, and monster costumes. It got me curious enough to check, and the effects are credited to three men — David Allen, who went on to a career of schlock movie effects, Jim Danforth, who worked on They Live and Supertrain, and Dennis Muren, who followed this with an A-list career of effects work on flicks like Jurassic Park, The Abyss, Terminator 2, and the sucky Star Wars sequels. 

Some other crazy credits — sci-fi author Fritz Leiber (Our Lady of Darkness, The Wanderer) plays the professor. Frank Bonner, who played Herb on WKRP in Cincinnati, plays one of the four students, quite badly. Sci-fi superfan Forrest J Ackerman (Famous Monsters of Filmland) is the voice on the tape recorder. Ed Begley Jr is credited as assistant cameraman.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Eraserhead (1977)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

"14 years ago I had an operation on my left arm here. The doctors said that I wouldn't be able to ever use it. But what the hell do they know, I said, so I rubbed it for a half hour every day, and slowly I could move it a little, and use it to turn a faucet. Pretty soon, I had my arm back again, and now I can't feel a damn thing in it. All numb!"

This is David Lynch's first feature film, and it was the wildest movie I'd ever seen, when I first saw it, circa 1980. Eraserhead made me a huge fan of strange movies.

Lynch went on to make The Elephant Man, a pretty good Dune, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, etc. And sure, Lynch has fallen short with some of his more recent work, but Eraserhead still amazes.

It's a vivid black-and-white nightmare, filmed on location inside Mr Lynch's mind. No further summary could do it justice, and I'll offer no airy philosopharting about what it means, but if you've seen Eraserhead you remember it, and if you haven't seen it you should.

"In Heaven, everything is fine. In Heaven, everything is fine. In Heaven, everything is fine. You've got your good things, and I've got mine."

In the closing credits, numerous people are given "special thanks," and one of them is Sissy Spacek. For decades I've wondered about that, and thought it was likely a joke. Now it can be told, because Lynch has explained: Eraserhead was mostly made with a grant from the American Film Institute, but when the money ran out, Spacek and her husband (of now 50 years), production designer Jack Fisk, were among the people who put up some needed funds to get the film finished.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Before pressing 'play', there was some skepticism. I enjoyed most of Steven Spielberg's early work — Duel, Jaws, Raiders, and especially Close Encounters — but E.T. left me cold when I saw it in '82. It's like Nolan Ryan in his prime tossing horseshoes instead of fastballs. Leaving the theater, my thought was, "That wasn't much."

Yet this was Spielberg's hugest hit, and "a cultural phenomenon," as idiots say. All through the summer of '82, people would not shut up about it. My mother, who only sees Christian movies, went to see E.T. and told me she loved it. My girlfriend wanted to see it, so I sat through it a second time, grumbling — and she adored it. Everyone adored it. 

Over the decades since, several people have told me it's their favorite 'science fiction', and I cringe. Neil Diamond, Carole Bayer Sager, and Burt Bacharach wrote a schmaltzy pop hit about E.T. — and the studio sued them over it. At the box office, this piece of cotton candy passed Star Wars as the biggest money-making movie of all time.

Flash forward to 2024, and a coupla weeks ago, my brother brought his grandson to our bi-weekly breakfast. The kid's 7 years old, cute, unvaccinated because his mother's insane, and he said he'd just seen E.T., "and it was sooo great! Did you see it?"

"Nope, never saw it," I lied.

"Well, you gotta," he explained, and went on and on about it, so now I gotta. Maybe I'll eat my words after I've finally learned to love the long-fingered glow-in-the-dark cuddly space alien, so here goes...

—PLAY—

… Oh, jeez, that was worse than I'd remembered. The cuddly space alien is all big-eyed and cloying, and every frame of the film and every noise on the soundtrack is calculated to make you say, Awww. Every outside shot looks like a foggy Van Gogh, and there's always a dog barking way off in the distance. Soon as Henry Thomas turns on the sink to wash dishes, a yard-wide wall of steam rises up photogenically. The music matches the movie's dullness and stickiness, and it's the worst score John Williams ever wrote. And there's more product placement than in a grocery store: Reese's Pieces, Coca-Cola, Pez, Yoplait, Skippy, Coors, V-8… and that's just in the first half of this, before I clicked it off.

Watching E.T. made me impatient, restless, grumpy, and a little nauseous. It's Spielberg at his most saccharine-syrupy.

I am unemployed, and have nothing better to do than watch old movies, but there are ten thousand better old movies to watch. I will never understand why so many million frickin' adults were rhapsodied by this gloopy mess.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Soul (2004)

Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) meet impossibly cute, have an affair, move in together, and then break up. It's a painful split, so Clementine hires a service to have her memory wiped — she'll never be able to remember Joel, and that's what she wants. Hearing about this breaks Joel's already broken heart, so he goes to the same company to have his memories of Clementine removed.

Unless it was supposed to be symbolic of something, the company's methodology for these memory wipes is troubling. Joel goes home with the memory-wipe technician, spends the night in a coma on his couch, while the technician gets high and gets fucked, and tells friends about Joel's memories while he's deleting them? HIPAA rules should apply, please.

Winslet, especially at the movie's start, is an impossibly manic pixie dream girl, but her character and performance gets better as the movie goes along. Carrey is quite good in his first strictly dramatic role, and the visual crumbling of his memories is presented beautifully. As the technician, Mark Ruffalo is too much the nerd stereotype, with ruffled hair and glasses. Kirsten Dunst, as often happens, plays a pretty plot device.

Charlie Kaufman wrote the script, and he wrote Being John Malkovich, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Synecdoche, New York, so this has to be good, right? But he also wrote the insufferable Human Nature, so his name is not a guarantee.

If you're still in love with an ex who's dumped you and then erased you, would you erase your ex from your mind in retaliation? Not me. I'd go to the grocery store where she shops, 'bump into her' again as a stranger, and start all over.

That said, the movie's ending is damned near perfect, and watching Eternal Sunshine several years ago, it struck me as profound, a beautiful romance that ends ugly, followed by a smidgen of well worked-out science fiction.

Watching it again tonight, a scent of hooey filled the air, and the movie only sporadically held my interest. Was I right a few years ago, loving it, or right tonight, scowling and shaking my head? Honestly, I don't know.

The first time I saw this I was happily married. Now I'm a widower who's alone about 340 days a year. It's the same movie, and I'm what's changed, so I'm recusing myself from deciding whether it's as good as it probably is.

Verdict: UNDECIDED.

♦ ♦ ♦  

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn (2017)

This is a weird movie, full of weird characters acting weirdly. It's never genuine weird, though — meaning, it's not about weird characters who could exist, like you and me and the people I see on the bus.

Nah, this is stuffed with the much easier but less interesting kind of 'weird', where the writers toss random 'weird' at the script, and the director instructs everyone to be sure their performances are weird, too.

Aubrey Plaza stars, with Maria Bamford, Jemaine Clement, Emile Hirsch, and Craig Robinson. Robinson's dialogue is largely confined to grunts, Hirsch impersonates Jack Black, and everyone in the cast has at least one weirdness going on.

The elusive plot has Not Jack Black stealing money from his brother-in-law, so his brother-in-law keeps popping up to demand his money back. Aubrey is fooling around with Clement, and eager to see grunting Robinson's night club act as 'Beverly Luff Linn'.

The most enjoyable moments are an argument over whether 'Beverly' is a man's or a woman's name, some ridiculous dancing in a night club, and a hairy fat guy fucking another fat guy in the arse. 

Ms Plaza is always good on screen, and she's the most interesting thing here, but unfortunately it's an ensemble show, and everyone else in the cast flails.

In the closing credits, 13 corporate logos float by after the cast. First time I can remember seeing such a large flock of logos after a movie, and I usually do watch the credits. 

Verdict: NO.

 3/16/2024  

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Eve's Bayou (1997)
Ex Machina
(2014)
Exam
(2009)
Exit Through the Gift Shop
(2010)
Exotica
(1994)
Extract
(2009)

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twenty-plex, you're missing out.

To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:

AlterCineverseCriterionCultCinema ClassicsDocsVilleDustFandorFilms for ActionHooplaIHaveNoTVIndieFlixInternet ArchiveKanopyKinoCultKino LorberKorean Classic FilmChristopher R MihmMosfilmMubiNational Film Board of CanadaNew Yorker Screening RoomDamon PackardMark PirroPizzaFlixPopcornFlixPublic Domain MoviesRareFilmmScarecrow VideoShudderThoughtMaybeTimeless Classic MoviesVoleFlixWatchDocumentaries • or your local library

Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.

— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 
 
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There's a lot going on in the news, very little of it good. That's the way it always is, but you and I and everyone knows it's gotten worse. Not as bad as it's going to get, though.

CRANKY
OLD FART'S

BROWSER
HISTORY

#409  [archive]
MAR. 15, 2024

Elections are coming in the US, and fascism is polling quite strongly.

Climate becomes crueler, and crop failures seem not merely possible, but likely. Imagine empty store shelves, not for a week due to supply chain issues, but long-term because there's not enough food to stock the shelves.

The ocean currents are well out of whack already, and getting worse.

Russia vs Ukraine.

Israel killing Gaza.

Experts tell us the economy is doing well, and it is, if you're rich.

Artificial intelligence, and less of the real thing.

Are we ready for another pandemic, while the last one's still hitting us?

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

And I'm not joking. Like never before in human history, we live our lives atop a house of cards while the wind is blowing. When one or two things go wrong, everything's going to collapse.

Will that be this spring? In the summer? Seems entirely possible. Or, maybe we'll be lucky and the world we're accustomed to will last into the next year, or the year after. However long it lasts, it's only a matter of time. Our days are numbered, and the number is dwindling. 

My strategy for survival is, I'm old and hope to be dead before everything is ruined. For the generation after me, though, and the generations after that, there's nothing that'll save them.

In states with laws targeting LGBTQ issues, school hate crimes quadrupled
    Again, this isn't an accidental side effect. This is the whole point — Republicans want gay, bi, and trans kids dead... and gay, bi, and trans adults, too.

In community after community, US hospitals are closing
    That's how capitalism works, when health care is run for profit. 

Lyft and Uber say they will leave Minneapolis after city council forces them to pay drivers more
    Excellent. If a company's business model is built on paying less-than-livable wages, that company shouldn't be welcome, or even allowed to exist. 

Texans scramble for VPNs after adult sites go dark: Here are some great ones.
    With or without porn, any VPN is a good idea for those who prefer privacy.
    An unpaid plug: I use Mozilla’s VPN. It’s about $60 p/year, installs with two clicks, and it simply works.

Deadspin is sold, to be gutted
    Deadspin wasn't the finest in news, but it was in the top few dozen. If there still are a few dozen.

In a first, Vice President Harris tours Minnesota clinic that performs abortions
    This is the first sorta smart move I've seen from the Biden campaign. It signals which party might give a damn about women's rights.
    On the downside, of course, the clinic Harris visited will undoubtedly be firebombed soon. 

AI could pose 'extinction-level' threat to humans and the US must intervene, State Dept.-commissioned report warns  

Without informing you, automakers are selling data on your driving habits to your insurer 

Mississippi Governor to pardon all simple marijuana possession charges 

Republican nominee for North Carolina schools superintendent shared violent fantasies about killing Biden over masks and televising Obama execution 

Right-wing weirdos are eager to buy TikTok after House votes to force Chinese owners to sell it 

Facebook is killing misinformation analysis tool, as election nears 

Musk sits for interview with Twitter's Dom Lemon, then fires him 

Why the world cannot afford the rich 

Amusing, Interesting, Outrageous, or Profound
    AIOP is my Lemmy page, for anything that's (in my opinion) amusing, interesting, outrageous, or profound. It's mostly a rough draft of this page, but you're invited to stop by.

♫♬  MUSIC  ♫ 

Aerobique — Richard Simmons 

Everything I Own — Bread 

In Spite of Ourselves — John Prine with Iris Dement 

Outsider — Chumbawamba 

Time After Time — Cyndi Lauper 

⚰️  OBITUARIES  ⚰️

Percy Adlon
moviemaker, Bagdad Cafe

Paul Alexander
polio survivor 

Brian Ashheim
forgotten man 

John Barnett
aerospace engineer, Boeing whistleblower 

Ron Busniuk
hockey player, Thunder Bay Twins 

Eric Carmen
rock'n'roller, "All By Myself" 

Joe Camp
moviemaker, Benji

Michael Culver
actor, The Empire Strikes Back

Connie Eaves
cancer researcher 

Ernie Fields Jr
session player, saxophone 

Jerry Foley
director, Late Show With David Letterman

'Protest' Bob Hansen
homeless advocate 

Molly Holzschlag
"fairy godmother of the open web" 

Herbert Kroemer
physicist, semiconductor heterostructures 

Doris Ann Ladner
civil rights activist 

Roberto Leoni
screenwriter, Santa Sangre

Gerald Levin
🖕 merger maniac, AOL-Time Warner 

Jim McAndrew
baseballer, New York Mets 

David Mixner
gay rights advocate 

Bill Plummer
baseballer, Cincinnati Reds 

Pete Rodriguez
boogaloo, "I Like It Like That" 

T.M. Stevens
session player, bass 

Misha Suslov
cinematographer, Black Moon Rising

Karl Wallinger
rock'n'roller, World Party

3/15/2024      

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited. 

Tip 'o the hat to the AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Chuff, Dirty Blonde Mind, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Lemmy.world, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, Miss Miriam's Mirror, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.

Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo emeritus, Jeff Meyer, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.

Cranky Old Fart
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The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,
and a few more films

Elephant (1989)
Streaming free at YouTube

"For some of us, 'the troubles' is the elephant in our living room."

Welcome to Northern Ireland: Some guy walks into a rec center, spots a janitor cleaning up a shower, and shoots him dead. Then the killer leaves the building, crosses the street, enters a convenience store, and immediately kills the clerk. The film continues, and the guy continues killing people, seemingly at random.

Then it's someone else with a gun, killing more people at random.

Then it's a third guy, a fourth guy with a gun, killing people in their homes, their offices, on the sidewalk, at a gas station.

Then the movie is over, about half an hour and 18 corpses after it started.

NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#260  [archive]
MAR. 14, 2024

There's no dialogue, no explanation, no plot. What it means is for you to figure out.

Claude tells me this Elephant was partially the inspiration for the 2003 Elephant I reviewed a few days ago, and the resemblance is unmistakable.

The difference is me — I came into the more recent Elephant familiar with its subject matter, American school shootings. With this Elephant, I was mostly ignorant about 'the troubles' in Northern Ireland, so the moviemakers' lack of an opinion leaves me stumped.

All I know (correct me if I'm wrong) is that Ireland is its own country, but Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, and some/many in Northern Ireland wanted to ditch the UK and reunify with Ireland.

There was terrorism and bloodshed for 30 years, but did one or both sides send gunmen to kill people at random, as shown here? Or is the gore allegorical? The movie shows none of the victims for long enough to know their politics, so to me, it's just a half-hour murder spree.

It's absolutely a success as a horror flick, though. It literally gave me a nightmare.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Elephant Man (1988)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

With only one feature film to his name (Eraserhead), David Lynch was hired by Mel Brooks, who handed him an all-star cast and a big-time budget to make this film. Of course, the combination of Brooks and Lynch sold me a ticket to see The Elephant Man when it came out, and it did not disappoint, either then or on a rewatch tonight.

At a circus freakshow, Dr Frederick Treves finds and is fascinated by John Merrick, a man painfully deformed and disabled. Treves, a teacher of medicine at the university, brings the man to class, lecturing about his physical maladies, and moves Merrick into a room of the hospital.

This is based on the true story of Merrick and Treves, as described in Treves' memoirs. What's more grotesque than Merrick, of course, is how everyone treats him — even Treves, at first, sees Merrick more as a lesson for his class than a man, so bringing him to the hospital is just a move to a higher class of freakshow. And then there's us in the audience, watching this film for a chance to gawk at the freak.

The Elephant Man is not quite Eraserhead, and some of the story makes no sense to me. I don't understand why, after Treves and Merrick become friends, Merrick doesn't tell Treves that gawkers are breaking into his hospital room to paw him and laugh at him.

That's petty nitpicking, though. The movie is a moving and effective think piece that'll get you thinking, plus it offers beautiful black-and-white cinematography by Freddie Francis.

Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, and John Gielgud star, with John Hurt wrapped in prosthetics as Merrick. Hurt, of course, went on to stardom on Doctor Who

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦   

The Emperor Jones (1933)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Here's an almost-all-black cast, led by Paul Robeson, in a story based on a 1920 play by Eugene O'Neill. 

Brutus Jones (Robeson) is a Pullman porter who visits a gambling hall, gets into a fight, and kills a man. It looks like self-defense to me, but he's imprisoned. Then he escapes from a chain gang, takes work on a steam ship, and jumps overboard to swim to a tropical island. On the island, he enters into a business deal with an unscrupulous white trader, pretending to be his slave but soon maneuvering to become his partner. After that, Jones takes control of the business, then uses an unlikely ruse to make himself ruler of the island's black population — so he's Emperor Jones.

That's enough plot for three movies, and we're only about 1/3 of the way through. 

"For a little stealin', they puts you in jail; for big stealin', they makes you emperor." 

The Emperor Jones was progressive when it was written, but it's sometimes awkward a century later. The film opens with Africans in full traditional or stereotypical gear doing a native dance, then jump-cuts to blacks in an American church, arranged in a similar circle and singing a gospel hymn. And it closes — spoiler alert — with the Emperor slipping toward insanity, his comeuppance for being uppity and thinking himself so clever. In between, the script has Robeson speaking faux black syntax, and everyone uses more n-words than a Quentin Tarantino double feature. 

Other than that, though, this is powerful stuff, and it's remarkable toward the end. Robeson has a hell of a presence, and makes an almost thoroughly modern antihero.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
Streaming free at YouTube

Werner Herzog goes south until there's nowhere further south to go — Antarctica. He settles in for a few months at McMurdo Station, an American outpost run by the National Science Foundation, where a thousand or more people live.

I'm guessing this was intended as a nature film when the Discovery Channel commissioned it, but in Herzog's hands it becomes something different, and more personal. It's about the voluntary Antarcticans who've come there to stay, and they're an interesting bunch.

They tell their stories against a beautifully filmed backdrop in a frozen hell that would kill you in ten minutes if you aren't wearing the right gear. Mostly scientists, they share their passion for their particular field of study. When a few of them ramble too long, Herzog says so in his voiceover, and tells a shortened version of their story instead. That's editing, baby.

Wenders narrates, in English through a perfectly understandable German accent, and he's thoughtful, sometimes witty. Listening, it occurs to me how rare this is. A German accent has become cinematic shorthand for evil — it's always a Nazi or a criminal eager to chop you to pieces. Obviously a decent, kind man, hearing Wenders is almost a civil rights statement.

An ear-piercing choir occasionally sings oohs and aahs as musical accompaniment, like we're in church instead of the bottom of the world, and that's annoying, but there's only five or ten minutes of it. The rest of this is a beautiful study of humanity, and you'll wish we had more humans like Herzog and the people he's talking with.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
a/k/a Every Man for Himself and God Against All
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Another from Werner Herzog, this time a drama instead of a documentary. It's based on the true story of Kaspar Hauser, a teenager found on the streets of Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to walk or speak. He was carrying only a Bible and a mysterious, unsigned letter, which explained that he'd spent his life until then imprisoned, shackled in a cellar, never allowed outside.

Some of the townsfolk take him in, and teach him to read and to write, which makes me think Kaspar must've been a genius — it's supposed to be very hard to learn to speak after childhood. Soon he's playing the piano, but seems happiest around horses and cows. He's unlikely to ever learn a trade, so eventually he takes work in a circus. 

"Mother, I am so far away from everything."

Rereading what I've written, Enigma sounds similar to Lynch's Elephant Man. Both are based on real people, but the key difference is that Lynch's film is unhappy, while Herzog's carries a whiff of optimism.

Kaspar is played by Bruno S (from Stroszek, a film I gotta see again), and there's a magic about Bruno. Like Kaspar, he was severely abused as a child, and Bruno was raised largely in mental institutions, until Herzog saw a documentary about him, and decided to make him an actor.

That's a strange story that deserves a movie of its own, but Herzog was right — Bruno is entrancing and charismatic on screen. There's simply no mistaking that he's having a good time playing Kaspar. You know something's wrong with the man, with both Bruno and Kaspar, but you also know something's right.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Enter the Ninja (1991)
Streaming free at Tubi

From the standard movie cookbook, here's an action flick made by a very familiar recipe, with cheap ingredients.

Let's see, the good ninja wears white, the bad ninja wears black. The gorgeous blonde is allergic to buttons on any of her blouses. Leading man Franco Nero is a walking smirk. Surprises add up to zero.

"You have won with honor. Allow me to die with honor."

This was filmed on the cheap in the Philippines, but the leading ninja, best buddy, best buddy's wife, and bad guy are all white. The fight scenes are thoroughly fake, with highly-edited quick cuts. The non-ninja bad guy triggers my gaydar, and it's not subtle, but nobody mentions it.

The movie delivers some unintentional laughs, if you fast-forward through the brief cockfighting scenes.

Verdict: MAYBE.

 3/14/2024  

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Equinox (1969)
Eraserhead
(1977)
E.T.: The Extraterrestrial
(1982)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Soul
(2004)
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
(2018)

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twenty-plex, you're missing out.

To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:

AlterCineverseCriterionCultCinema ClassicsDocsVilleDustFandorFilms for ActionHooplaIHaveNoTVIndieFlixInternet ArchiveKanopyKinoCultKino LorberKorean Classic FilmChristopher R MihmMosfilmMubiNational Film Board of CanadaNew Yorker Screening RoomDamon PackardMark PirroPizzaFlixPopcornFlixPublic Domain MoviesRareFilmmScarecrow VideoShudderThoughtMaybeTimeless Classic MoviesVoleFlixWatchDocumentaries • or your local library

Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.

— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 
 
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