Film Roundup #1

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me *
David Lynch, 1992

Totally bizarre. I thoroughly enjoyed the opening featuring Lynch, Chris Isaak, and Kiefer Sutherland as forerunners to Kyle Maclachlan's Agent Dale Cooper. Beyond that, High school student Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) looks older than the twentysomethings starring in The O.C. It's certainly terrifiying in places, as well as terrifically sexy. Weirdly enough, Phoebe Augustine looks exactly like Jennifer Love Hewitt. I spent a significant portion of the movie trying to calculate how old JLH would have been at the time of the film, then decided I'd have to search through the credits anyway. Laura's friend, Donna (Moira Kelly), is both incredibly appealing and heartbreaking in her seeming willingness to throw away her life to follow Laura to her inevitable, sleazy, morbid fate.

Fire Walk with Me turns up the intrigue and tragically submerges the charm that, to me, made Twin Peaks so successful. Of course you have to see it if you're a Lynch fan, but otherwise it's mostly a freaky and unsatisfying diversion.

The Long Goodbye ***
Robert Altman, 1973

Elliott Gould, via Altman, has been like a revelation for me. David Thomson suggests that a large part of Gould's appeal is his gentleness. He exudes that same unassuming, almost lackadaisacal aura in M*A*S*H, California Split, and The Long Goodbye. Among those this is his only solo starring role, perhaps the key to why it's also my favorite. You can't talk about this movie without mentioning the opening scene, in which Gould and Altman take ten minutes of screen time to make an elaborate but ultimately futile attempt at feeding Philip Marlowe's finicky cat.

Yes, the detective from The Big Sleep, among other Chandler adaptations. In the commentary Altman mentions that a big theme here, besides friendship, is that of Marlowe's outdated moral code insinuating itself into the drugged out, hippie-infested 1970's. It's hard to tell from here, thirty years on, but that moral code may also be a part of Gould's counter-cultural appeal. The ending, in which Marlowe shoots, well, somebody important, is both a complete surprise and completely reasonable given that he's a private eye. There's a lot more going on here than when Humphrey Bogart chain smokes and orders his women around. Note Gould's obsession with his character striking a match for his cigarette on any and all available surfaces, although it's really so obvious I don't need to mention it other than cigarette-lighting is a running theme throughout several noir films, see esp. Double Indemnity.

Other extraneous pleasures: Sterling Hayden (The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing) plays the enormous, bellowing drunken writer dominated by the tiny, creepy Dr. Veeringer (Henry Gibson). The Governator makes his screen debut as a muscle-bound hood and David Carradine makes a very brief cameo as Marlowe's cell-mate when he's jailed for abetting his friend, a suspected murderer. The stylistic repetitions of the musical theme is interesting, though perhaps ultimately not all that meaningful. It's impossible to forget the permanently wasted-and-topless yoga-obsessed hippie chicks next door, though, again, it's tough to figure out exactly what's going on there other than setting up Los Angeles in the seventies.

Capote **
Bennett Miller, 2005

I guess this won best film from the National Society of Film Critics. Grim, sad, perhaps a little thin or narrowly focused? Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.) looks like a lot either like Johnny Cash or Joaquin Phoenix playing Johnny Cash. I'm sure the period hairstyle doesn't hurt. I think there's a lot that Hoffman and Miller want to suggest about Capote that doesn't come out explicitly, but for some reason I feel no compulsion to see this again or really spend much time contemplating his maniacal selfishness. Not exactly sure why, but something here just failed to click for me. PSH maintained my undying admiration and respect, of course. If Hoberman's criticism is to be believed, the fault (if any) lies with the director for not providing us with anything other than wall-to-wall Capote.

J. Hoberman review

Jesus of Montreal ***
Denys Arcand, 1989

Saw this first last summer. The 80's-scarred guitar on the soundtrack is still an embarrassment, but the humor and soul remain. The symbolism to the life of Christ, although very explicit, in neither overbearing nor too direct, allowing for a number of different interpretations for many of the events. Definitely see this if you either went to Sunday School as a youth or enjoyed The Barbarian Invasions. I'm guessing if you've seen anything else directed by Denys Arcand, including Decline of the American Empire, you're probably already onboard.

The Lady Eve ***
Preston Sturges, 1941

Saw this first when I showed it, upon request from Carol Donelan, at Film Society. Watched it tonight at Kate Stalker's house with a number of other recent Carleton graduates. Barbara Stanwyck is still delicious, Henry Fonda's still a lovably dopey bonehead, and the supporting cast is still as colorful as ever.

The introduction to Thomson's New Biographical Dictionary of Film, in a poll of his friends and associates, names this and His Girl Friday and their two most favorite films of all time. Both are utterly delightful and provide a nice gender balance, as it's really hard to say whether Stanwyck's Jean Harrington or Cary Grant's Walter Burns is the more cruelly manipulative. Of course I'd have included To Have and Have Not, Lauren Bacall's single great performance, but you can't have everything.