SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II (Deborah Brock, 1987)

It begins with Courtney (Crystal Bernard), the younger sister of Valerie, the two survivors of the first film, who helped kill the murderer, now in high school herself, dreaming about the boy she has a crush on.  If you've seen any slasher films you know this can't be a good thing.  Sex and sexual desire are things to be punished in these movies and, sure enough, just as the dream is closing in on physical contact, we get a collection of both flashes from the first film and some of the horrors that are to come in this film.  Cut to breakfast and we hear Courtney's mother (Jennifer Rhodes) telling Courtney that "Dr Watts says that it is perfectly normal to dream about it again from time to time.  After all, dreams are one way our mind help us deal with frightening experiences."  She goes on to indicate that Valerie has not been able to come to grips with these events which is why she remains institutionalized.  Courtney says she understands and doesn't need to see the therapist because it is "just the same old dream."  Courtney returns to her room and we see her remove a photo album from under her mattress.  The traditional hiding place of pornography contains instead, newspaper clippings detailing the events of the first movie's murders.  The forbidden excitement and titillation of porn is replace by daily reminders of the horrors that continue to disturb her subconscious and the "dangers" of sexual awakening.  On the way out she encounters one of those horrors directly in the form of a dead bird, the image of which we have just seen in her nightmare. She stares at it, trance like, mesmerized by this portent of death until her friend Amy (Kimberly McArthur) pulls up to give her a ride.

On their way to school they encounter Matt (Patrick Lowe), the boy of Courtney's dreams.  Amy encourages Courtney to talk to him as she knows Courtney likes him and has heard that the attraction is mutual.  They have a pleasant exchange that ends in Amy and Courtney inviting Matt to watch their band play after school.  Refreshingly there is absolutely no creepiness in Matt's desire for Courtney; he seems genuine and mature at all times.  Matt shows up to the practice and is invited to a weekend at "Shelia's (Juliette Cummings) dad's place."   After she convinces her mother that she should be allowed to go on the weekend (another scene of remarkable amiability and understanding), Courtney is seen talking to Matt on the phone, expressing her wish that could he could come earlier on Saturday.  She hangs up to go to bed and is again plagued by violent nightmares that include Matt, as well as a message from her sister to not "go all the way."  Generally punishment for sexual desire in slashers manifests in the form of a physical threat, i.e. the killer.  What distinguishes Slumber Party Massacre II is that the threat is completely internalized.  Courtney's traumatic experience in the first film and her sister's institutionalization have created in her a fear of her burgeoning sexuality, which is expressed in the nightmare warnings.  As Courtney gets closer to a relationship with Matt or encounters anything sexually related (a book that Sally [Heidi Kozak] has, the noisy coitus of Shelia and T.J. [Joel Hoffman]) these nightmares not only increase in severity, but become waking hallucinations as well.

As they become more intense, Courtney's interaction with the hallucinations expands as well; what was originally just a set of feet, a maniacal laugh and a series of seemingly random images, begins to take the shape of a demented rocker.  Think part Elvis, part Andrew Dice Clay, wielding a guitar with a gigantic, phallic drill bit.  Despite her collection of clippings about the murder and her own memories of it, Courtney's dream version bares little resemblance to the killer of the first film, with the noticeable exception of the drill.  Here though, it is not simply a drill but is attached a demonic looking guitar.  Courtney is the guitarist in the band and the "killer" is not only out to punish her sexual desire but to steal from her those things which form the basis of her identity and pleasure.  When Courtney confronts him in a hallucination, accusing him of killing Valerie, the killer dismisses it and tells Courtney that, "I am you, and you are me, until we go all the way."  Unless she confronts her fears, she will never be free of this "killer."  Despite his increasing menace, the killer is not in every hallucination.  Just prior to Matt's finally arriving at the house, Courtney hallucinates the death of Sally (Heidi Kozak) and the killer is not a part of it, though she still evokes him when relaying the story, stating that she believes that he is "somewhere in this house."

Her friends, for the most part, are extremely understanding and compassionate about the whole thing.  Sure, the douchebag character continues to act like a douchebag, but everyone else is genuinely concerned.  Matt goes as far as to call the police who, not surprisingly, don't take Courtney's account of Sally's face exploding to seriously, despite the fact that Sally hasn't been seen since.  They are of course right to be skeptical, given the lack of physical evidence and the fact that Sally shows up part way through the statement.  The scene is important as the cops will now not respond when the group inevitably calls again while in actual danger.  The rest of the group decide to take off for a bit so Matt can try and calm Courtney down.  They retire to her room where Matt brings her a birthday cake, complete with burning candles.  Where did it come from?  Who knows, but it is in keeping with the narrative (Courtney mentions earlier that her birthday is this weekend) and with the theme of maturation.  This momentarily lightens Courtney's mood but soon she is crying again and telling Matt that "she doesn't know if she's going crazy or what" and that he "must think she is the weirdest person in the world."  Matt, continuing to be one of the nicest men in slasher films, says "No, I think your a very sensitive person who had something bad happened when you were little and all the excitement from your crazy friends brought it back for awhile today."  Besides being a spot on analysis of Courtney's mind state this also relieves Courtney of the burden of this secret (the rest of her friends don't know anything and think her sister went off to college).  Turns out Matt's parents were friends with...ah it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that Matt knows and Courtney acknowledges that she and her sister killed the murderer.  He acknowledges as well and confirms what she already knows: the killer is dead.  He did not survive the previous confrontation and can pose no threat to her or anyone else.  It's the affirmation she needs and it allows her temporary reprieve from her anxiety.  As the rest of the group returns downstairs, Matt and Courtney begin to make out.  As they get closer to consummation, Courtney tries to tell Matt that she is a virgin but when she begins the phrase "I've never..." it is the killer that finishes "gone all the way."  Any comfort Matt provides for her is not enough to stave off the years of fear and anxiety connected to the previous murders and her growing sexual desire.  He promptly drills a hole through Matt's chest.  Courtney, scared but with a new sense of understanding, tells the hallucination that "he is dream," to which he picks up Matt's severed arm and asks "does this look like a dream to you," throwing it on the cake and extinguishing both the candles and any remnants of Courtney's innocence. Courtney runs out and downstairs.

This time, when she finds her friends, they see that she is covered with blood, and when the killer comes down the stairs, they see him as well; attempting to fulfull her sexual desire has caused Courtney's nightmares to manifest in reality.  Thus begins the standard slasher third act, where the characters are executed one by one while making incredible bad choices along the way.  What is great about this scenario though is that it doesn't make a difference what choice they make.  Normally we would grown at how easily the killer catches up to the victims and admonish them for going down a dead end or into some other easily avoidable trap.  Here though it is consistent with the dream logic that the film establishes. So they run and scream and die, while the killer just laughs and (literally) pops up wherever they are.

Eventually every one is dead but Courtney, who races through a half finished subdivision, the open walls a reminder of how she can't hide from a pursuit that originates in her psyche.  What do you do when you can't run or hide anymore?  You attack.  Courtney finds a welding torch and, with a maniacal laugh of her own, turns it on her tormentor.  His own laughter turns to screams as he is ignited and falls off the roof.  Fade to a beatific sunrise.  Courtney stands outside the previous set as police scurry about.  She stops paramedics as they wheel out a body.  Courtney pulls down the sheet to look at Amy, the last to die.  Abruptly Amy opens her eyes and starts to laugh with the giddy laugh of the killer.  Cut to: Courtney startled awake in bed next to Matt.  She grins and leans over to kiss him awake.  He begins to reciprocate but we see the hand of the killer rise to embrace her.  She pulls away but he holds her, saying "I love you."   Courtney screams as the camera pushes quickly in to her open mouth, then pulls back out again.  The scene has changed; we are now in the room of the mental ward where we had previously "seen" Valerie.  Courtney looks around and, recognizing her confines, screams more.  This would seem like the end of the film, with Courtney's reality being that she is the patient of this mental ward.  However, director Deborah Brock adds one addition shot to make the whole thing more disturbing.  It is a wide shot of the room.  We continue to hear Courtney's terrorized scream but then we see the drill pierce the floor, its phallic danger taking up the foreground.  Cut to black, roll credits.

As if an existence living in a mental hospital isn't horrible enough, at least that would provide a measure reality, regardless of how unbearable it is.  But no, what Brock does is even more insidious; she leaves Courtney with the "curse of eternal waking," a never ending series of nightmares within nightmares that makes here reality as unreliable as what we have witnessed for the last 75 minutes. What appeared to be about a puritanical fear of sex, the most common of slasher themes, is in reality a story of post traumatic stress, a less common but for more interesting slasher theme.  What Brock did in 1987, was create a self-aware slasher flick without the winking at the camera that would accompany movies like Scream a decade later, as well as one of the better "dream logic" films you're likely to see.  This is one smart flick.

LAWLESS (John Hillcoat, 2012)

Oh, Shia LaBeouf, how hard you try to sink this movie.  It's a tremendous effort and there were, at times, real concerns that you'd be able to pull it off.  Not the least of which is the unbearable narration.  I know it is not entirely your fault (writer Nick Cave is a bit lazy), but still your delivery doesn't help.  What saves your performance is the fact that your character, Jack Bondurant, is supposed to be a little on the slow side.  Your ability to act dim witted is the most natural thing you've ever done.  Nice try though, better luck next time.

Back to that narration; is there any need, when the image on screen is clearly 20s era and we see men removing crates full with bottles of clear liquid, to tell us that it the prohibition era and that we are dealing with bootleggers?  Are you worried we might assume their just Culligan delivery guys?  It's clear that much time and money has been spent in making the image look authentic, why distract from that with the obviousness of this narration?  Such striking imagery offset by such unnecessary exposition.  It's a real shame but, unfortunately, it's not the most egregious thing the screenplay does.  For that you have to look at the center piece where Tom Hardy's Forrest Bondurant has his throat slit and his recent love interest, Maggie Beauford (Jessica Chastain is...well, something happens to her.  Or maybe not, at the moment when the assailants grab her and indicated that they are going to "have some fun," Hillcoat cuts away.  The next time we see her it is as Forrest is waking up at the hospital.  There is no visible sign that anything happened to her.  This in and of itself is not a big deal.  I've loved many a dramatic cut in my time.  The problem occurs when the moment is finally addressed near the end of the film.  It's as if Cave forgot about the earlier scene and realized he had to deal with it.  So we get a quick confrontation between Forrest and Maggie, where she tells him that it was her that saved his ass and he asks if she encountered the assailants.  She admits to seeing them but adamantly denies that anything happened.  That's it.  Forrest accepts this and goes off to the films final showdown.  What else could he do really?  He'd already had his revenge, one that was not in the least bit motivated by what they might or might have done to Maggie.  It had already been established that she was a working girl in Chicago and had left to get away from, well something.  The absence of physical abuse leaves little room for speculation; she must have volunteered her body in exchange for her life (at that moment she didn't know the fate of Forrest, whom she hadn't yet noticed bleeding to death behind his truck).  Okay, fine.  I'd probably do the same if it meant not being killed or horribly maimed, but her sacrifice means nothing to the film.  When Maggie tells Forrest that she came back and found him he is surprised, he thought he walked to the hospital.  When he asks if she saw the perpetrators, she denies that anything happened.  When he becomes more emphatic, she denies through tears but that's it.  It's the last we hear or see regarding the truth of that night.  It's annoying; the original ellipsis teased the promise of future purpose, making us believe that it would come into play, in some way be significant (which it should be).  To leave it as an afterthought is insulting to the audience and to Maggie.

While the screenplay may have its issues, there is much to praise about Lawless.  Since resurfacing with (he made a single feature in both the eighties and nineties) with 2005's superb The Proposition, Hillcoat has shown that he is a gifted stylist.  While neither The Road nor Lawless have the narrative success of The Proposition, both show a visualist worth keeping an eye on.  There are stunning moments in Lawless that feel unique despite the films heritage of prohibition era films.  This makes the deficiencies of the script all the more upsetting.  If Hillcoat and Cave could just find some symbiosis with regards where they are going with the film, the strange narrative turns wouldn't feel so jarring.  The situation with Maggie is not the only occasion where the script lets us down.  Gary Oldman plays Floyd Banner and after one of the better character introduction you're likely to see this year, he virtually disappears from script, popping up a couple of more times mostly to show the "growth" of LeBeouf's Jack.

The cast almost saves this film.  With the exception of LeBeouf, everyone is tremendously solid in their roles, with two especially good performances.  One comes from Hardy who plays another variation on the brutes that he has played in Bronson, Warrior, and this past years The Dark Knight Rises.  While it isn't as good as what he accomplished in Bronson, it is the strongest of the remaining.  His mumbling, cigar chomping, brass knuckle wearing alpha male is truly scary.  However, with very little affectation, Hardy is able to expose a vulnerable side to Forrest as well; a look here, a gesture there, the absence of a word when you might expect one, all this adds a lot to what could have been a very one dimensional character.  But the real revelation here is Guy Pearce.  Pearce has been good in many movies (including Hillcoat's The Proposition) but I've never seen him as terrifying or focused as he is here.  He plays "special deputy" Charlie Rakes, a vicious but cowardly lawman brought in to help out with the bootlegging problem.  Like many a power drunk lawman before him, Charlie has basically slipped into the role of serial killer.  Under the guise of doing his duty of course.  He struts into town like he's above these pathetic hicks but soon discovers that they are more formidable than he might have believed.  He then preys on the weakest of them until his violence inevitably comes back to him.  He is one of the slimiest characters I can remember and Pearce owns him from the first moment we see him.  He's reason enough to see the film.

Flawed but interesting, Lawless proves that Hillcoat isn't a fluke.  It's a improvement over The Road though it still can't come close to The Proposition.  It went virtually unnoticed during it's theatrical run and the "awards season" isn't giving it any love (despite Pearce giving possibly the best performance I've seen all year).  Take some time and check it out.  It's worth it.

SHAME (Steve McQueen, 2011)

Here we have what must be the most disappointing film of 2011; Steve McQueen's sophomore effort, Shame.  McQueen made one of the most powerful debuts in recent history, 2008's Hunger.  Both films star Michael Fassbender (we should probably just be calling him The Ubiquitous One) and both employ a languid style, though for different reasons.  Here it's employed as a mirror of Brandon's (Fassbender) listless existence.  Listless that is, except for in regards to his sex life.  In that, he's anything but.  In that, he's a junkie.  Sex addict would be the term.

McQueen sets this up early by showing us a typical Brandon day.  This can be summed up as: wake up, shower and masturbate, ignore phone message from pleading sister, take train to job, take train home, and have sex with someone you either picked up or payed for.  He does this all with a stoic ease that either marks his complete indifference or a deep seeded sadness.  I present this 'either or' scenario because it is one of many.  In fact, the entire film is basically one big 'either or.'  Well, it wants to be.  McQueen and co-writer Abi Morgan attempts at ambiguity aren't nearly as clever or ambiguous as they intend to be (or think they are).  The majority of this forced ambiguity lies in the relationship between Brandon and the pleading sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan).  After she gets tired of Brandon ignoring her phone calls, she shows up at his door.  For whatever reason, she needs a place to stay.  Brandon reluctantly agrees and so begins the constant intimation that, perhaps, Brandon and Sissy have had an incestuous past.  Every scene they have together is marked by this undertone.  It's unfortunate really; had the film came out and said, one way or another, what their past was, it would have been much more effective.  By forcing this ambiguity on the viewer, the filmmakers have cheapened the film and diverted attention away from the seriousness of Brandon's dilemma.  Instead of focusing on Fassbender's fine and nuanced performance, we're constantly being made to wonder whether he fucked his sister.  But again, if we're paying attention, there isn't much to wonder about.  The film gives us one line, spoken by Sissy, that tells us all we need to know.  Late in the film she and Brandon are having an argument and as things calm down she turns to him and says, "We're not bad people Brandon.  We just come from a bad place."  So there you have it; fucked up childhood, most probably involving incest in some form.  Now we know (but, you know, not really because the film is SO mysterious).  What's next?

Not much.  Like the sex addiction, the incest isn't really explore in any kind of serious way.  It's just there to tantalize and make us wonder.  Really, it's not even there at all.  So we get more lovely shots of Brandon's slow spiral into self-loathing, and with the incest not really being addressed that leaves the cause of his shame simply his promiscuity.  It's a puritanical load of crap if you ask me.  Brandon's not a bad person.  He doesn't rape women, he doesn't drug them, as far as I could tell, he doesn't even lie to them.  Does he use them?  Yeah, but they always know what's going on.  He's damaged (assuming we disregard the incest angle), not because of what he does, but because of the way society looks upon what he does.  Put bluntly, Brandon doesn't have anything to be ashamed of.  We might though, if we think that we're somehow better than he is.

Despite my dissatisfaction with the movie I must admit it has a rather intense, cold beauty to it.  McQueen is a director with a great eye and serious talent.  There were moments, individual shots, that I found quite stunning.  A run through New York that follows Brandon with a tracking shot brought back memories of a thousand romantic films, and squashed there simplistic notions of love and happiness in a few mere moments.  There is also the only bit of a Carey Mulligan performance that I didn't find unbearable; at a restaurant  she sings a rendition of "New York, New York" that made me realize what a sad song was lingering behind that joviality normally associated with it.  In all other moments she continued to be unbearable, unfortunately.  There is also an extended sequence where Brandon is on a date with a co-worker.  It is clear that they not only get a long, but that Brandon really cares for her.  When they inevitably end up in a bedroom, Brandon can't perform.  He's spent his entire adult life using sex for sensation and the idea of using it for actually human connection is to much.  They part and she is never seen again.  It's a segment of the film to good for the rest.  It should have been the apex of the film but instead it's just an interlude.  Like a movie within the movie; it's just to bad it's a better movie then what we get.  In fact, that sequence is so good that it cast a glaring light on just how lazy the writing of the rest of the film is.  When Brandon's spiral finally puts him at bottom, McQueen's decision to express this through Brandon have a homosexual encounter cheapens the film to an almost embarrassing level.  The real shame here is so much talent and potential wasted.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (Ti West, 2009)

I give it a little extra love for employing Tom Noonan whose calm, measured voice coupled with his large stature, always makes him seem simultaneously inviting and menacing.  The movie itself is slow in a way that wants to invoke Kubrick's The Shining, but really just invokes boredom.

A young student, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue),  needs money so she decides to take the creepiest babysitting job in history.  She agrees even after being stood up by Tom Noonan's Mr. Ulman, getting driven into the middle of nowhere by her best friend Megan (Greta Gerwig), and finding out that the job isn't actually for a child but for Ulman's elderly mother.  Ulman assures her that she won't have to do a thing.  His mother is still able-bodied, he just wants Samantha there in case of an emergency.  Sure, sounds like a great gig.  She does need that money though, so whatcha gonna do?  So she accepts and sends Megan, who thinks she's nuts, on her way.

Anyone wanna guess if Samatha sits and watches TV like she tells Megan she's going to?  If you said yes, you're way off.  Instead, Samantha: dances on the furniture, breaks a vase, and starts snooping through the house at an alarming rate.  Eventually she snoops her way into finding the old lady she's supposedly "babysitting."  Well sort of.  She also finds out that the Ulman's have, or at the very least had, a son.  The end result of all this snooping and disrespect?  Samantha tied to a pentagram, soon to play host to "Mother's" rebirth.  I wonder what would have happened if she just sat there watching TV.  Would the Ulman's eventually just burst in?  'Ah, we expected you to be a little less respectful.  Sorry, could you come lay down in this back room for us?  Mother's getting really old and really ugly and could really use someone who looks like Margot Kidder, via Black Christmas, to inhabit.'  Samanatha doesn't go quietly but escapes her bonds and makes a break for it, but not before being force fed some of "Mother's" blood.  You know that's never good.  Somehow, though the film doesn't really take the time to explain, she seems to realize and understand what's going on.  Despite regurgitating much of the blood it's clear Samanatha isn't going to win this battle over "The Devil."  She actually does the right thing once she knows that she can't stop what's happening to her; she blows her brains out.  The film cuts to black right after the gunshot, and if it had ended there, on that image, I might have forgiven its other faults.  Unfortunately director Ti  West can't refrain from one more shot, ostensibly inserted to create an ambiguous ending but ending up feeling more like a cop out.

Perhaps if the film wasn't so lazily written I would find the visualization more compelling.  West has seen a lot of good horror films but rather than incorporate those influences into something distinct and unique he ends up with a pale facsimile, full of perfunctory scenes that numb instead of excite (or, heaven forbid, scare).  I haven't seen any of his other films but with a little more confidence in his own voice he may be able to stand out in a horror world that is saturated by "found footage" films, and even more egregiously rehashed plots and ideas.  I would certainly be more interested in West's future work over the next half-assed remake of a slasher film.  Still, it's hard to recommend The House of the Devil.  If it weren't for Noonan I'd say skip it and wait for West to grow a little but his scenes are enough to make it worth a look, if you've nothing better to do.

DRIVE (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

It's easy to see why a lot of critics (particularly the American ones) are a bit gaga for Nicolas Winding Refn's noir/western/gangster flick Drive.  In today's Hollywood, so saturated with CGI heavy action films that might as well be cartoons, Drive is an anomaly; a star studded film concerned more with character and atmosphere than extravagance.  The latter it does masterfully, creating a cool retro eighties vibe while still make it clear that the film is set in the present.  As for the former, it does a decent job, better than most modern genre films, but no where near as good as it does with it's setting and atmosphere.

That atmosphere is established immediately with a cold opening that clearly positions the film as coming from The Driver's (Ryan Gosling, who never gets a name) point of view.  Like him, the film is cool, detached, and professional, with enough confidence for three leading characters.  During this opening, we see The Driver (do I need to specify that he's a getaway driver?) pick up a couple of crooks who have just robbed a warehouse.  As he takes them away from the heist he is simultaneously listening to a police scanner and a basketball game.  He moves casually through the streets and we think that he has gotten away clean.  Soon though we hear the scanner indicate that his car was spotted and police are on the look out for a Monte Carlo (the most popular car in California we're told in a brief flashback).  He knows that he blends in and never breaks a sweat.  Where you would most often expect, from a Hollywood film, some spectacular car chase where everyone's catching air and sparks are flying, you get instead a precisely edited scene where The Driver speeds only when absolutely necessary and we discover that he isn't just listening to the game because he's an avid fan and is just that cool but because he's been planning his disposal of the getaway car to coincide with the end of the game so he can make an easy escape by blending in with the crowd.  It's a brilliantly executed sequence and it sets a high standard for the rest of the film.  One that unfortunately, it falls just short of measuring up to.

It maintains the atmosphere, but the effect wears off.  The characters simply aren't developed enough.  There's been much talk about Albert Brooks and his turn as gangster Bernie Rose, and it is a good performances that Brooks eats up in his limited scenes (4, maybe 5).  Everyone else is more or less just a face.  Bryan Cranston plays Shannon, The Driver's mentor of sorts, and gets a fair amount of screen time.  He doesn't really do anything though, outside of the requisite exposition that gives a little of the background between him and The Driver.  Ron Pearlman, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks (who doesn't have a line if I'm recalling correctly), and Kaden Leos round out the cast who seem to have been cast for their faces.  Great faces all, but it would have been nice to have a little more character there as well.  No, I didn't forget about Carey Mulligan.  She plays Irene, The Driver's neighbor, and continues on her endless campaign to bore me to death.  She is one of the dullest, most one dimensional actresses around and her success baffles me.  But I digress.  The two meet and he is enamored by her (and her young son, Benicio).  A relationship seems like it might develop but then we, and The Driver, learn that her husband Standard (Isaacs) is about to be released from prison and come home.  Here Refn again wisely goes against our expectations; instead of a big confrontation between the husband and The Driver, they end up forming a tentative friendship.  Eventually, Standard's criminal past catches up to him and he is forced to do a job to try and relieve a debt that he incurred in prison.  Because of his affection for Irene and Benicio, The Driver decides that he will help Standard with the job, unbeknownst to Irene.

This of course marks the beginning of the end, as these things never go well in movies of this type.  A heist is planned, and is botched with Standard getting killed.  As it unravels we learn that the only players involved are all the characters that we've been introduced to, with Pearlman's Nino at the top of the pyramid.  It's the kind of situation generally reserved for stupid comedies or "Three's Company," where a simple conversation could probably fix everything in ten minutes.  Alas, that doesn't happen.  Instead we get a series of scenes with escalating violence with Nino trying to clean up the mess by sending a variety of goons to kill everyone off.  It's pretty Standard stuff.  Excuse me, standard stuff.

Through it all The Driver remains stoic, almost.  There were three instances that I thought I saw Gosling letting The Drivers feelings show, and they're all telling.  The first is actually a series of instances in itself; it's the interactions Gosling has with kid.  They get along and The Driver smiles at him, something I don't think he did once to Irene.  There is almost a hint of jealousy in The Driver's face when he looks at Benicio.  A longing to return to a more innocent time.  The Driver's next emotional outpouring comes during his escape from the botched hold-up.  Once he realizes things are out of hand, he and Blanche (Hendricks) take off and are pursued by another car.  What exactly this car was doing or who sent it, I didn't quite get.  I know they weren't cops.  It was a double cross of some kind I think but it's not really important.  During this chase The Driver gives a couple of looks of frustration and anger at the rear view mirror.  He seems genuinely pissed that someone is able to keep up with him.  That's it.  Outpouring over.  The final moment, and the most telling, comes when he stomps a man's head to pulp in an elevator.  Refn shoots The Driver from below, focuses on his face as he continues to stomp on his assailant long after he's dead.  In his face we see not just the psychopathic rage that he's manage to hide (even when committing other acts of brutality) but also a bit of glee buried in there as well.  Irene recognizes it immediately and steps away.

The rest of the film continues to follow The Driver as he eliminates the rest of the remaining players.  It's all fairly conventional despite the occasions mentioned (and perhaps a few others) where Refn deviates from our expectations.  That's all fine.  I enjoy genre filmmaking and  have embraced the amoral characters at the center of noirs, westerns, and gangster films.  So it was disheartening to see (technically hear), after so much that was good about the film, College's song "A Real Hero," used to close the film.  Refn gives us a close up of The Driver and we hear the refrain from the song  "...real human being, and a real hero..."  Now, I've been done with irony for sometime now but if ever there was a moment when it was need, it's this one.  Instead, Refn seems deadly serious; he really wants us to consider this guy some kind of hero.  Why, because he stood up for the woman?  Because he left the money on the ground after his final murder?  If he had just driven away, covered in blood, without the awful song force feeding us, the film would have been an undeniable success.  Instead, it's a well made, well acted, enjoyable ride, with a completely disingenuous ending that spits in the face of its audience.  Refn has enormous potential and this is an improvement over the misstep that was Valhalla Rising (2009).  I hope he can find the edge that he had in his best film to date, Bronson (2008), and doesn't become sanitized by the Hollywood machine.

Revamping

Not that anyone's paying attention, but I recently stripped the blog of most of it's reviews.  I left the few that I thought were decent.  I've also eliminated categories and tags as they just seemed to make things more confusing.  I'm going to attempt to do a post a least once a month but we'll see.  Two little ones make it hard to find the time (especially since I need time to actually watch the flicks).  Thanks to anyone who might actually be reading this.  Hopefully I'll have something new for you soon.  Peace.

GREENBERG (Noah Baumbach, 2010)

I'm not director Noah Baumbach's greatest fan.  Let's just get that out of the way right up front.  I am, however, a fairly strong supporter of Ben Stiller's dramatic work.  His breakout dramatic performance in David Veloz's Permanent Midnight (1998) was a revelation and I had hoped it would mark the beginning of something great for Stiller. Well, it didn't exactly do that.  While he did attempt more drama, in Neil LeBute's Friends and Neighbors (also 1998) and Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), he has mostly stuck to the broad comedies that most associate with him.  So I was excited and dismayed when I heard he was collaborating with Baumbach; excited that he would be doing something other then being a Focker and dismayed that it might be wasted on a director I feel is, at best, decent.

I am relieved to report that Greenberg is a good film and that it's Stiller's best work since Permanent Midnight.  He plays a misanthrope in his early forties who recently got out of a psychiatric institute.  He lives in New York but has left to crash at his brother's in Los Angeles (where they grew up) while he and his family go on a vacation.  He starts a relationship with the family's assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig).  Actually that's a bit of an overstatement.  They meet, he calls her out of the blue and goes over to her house with the intention of going out to a bar.  They have an awkward conversation.  He asks if she has anything to drink and says the bars will be filled with the "tunnel crowd" anyway, or at least L.A.'s version of the tunnel crowd.  More awkward conversation.  An awkward kiss.  A little awkward cunnilingus.  And there you have it, the beginnings of an extremely awkward relationship.

These are damaged people.  We don't actually see the damage or even get to hear much about it (she just got out of a long relationship and he lives with the guilt of breaking up his college band right at the moment when they were about to get a record deal), but we see the way they act and interact and it's not a hard determination.  He's worse off then her.  Though he's made a successful career out being a carpenter he can't get over the guilt he feels for letting his friends down.  Of course this isn't what he tells himself or the people in his life, but his actions betray.  The first person he contacts in L.A. is Ivan (Rhys Ifans), one of those former band mates who has now found himself living "a life he never imagined."  Roger attempts to renew the friendship as if the past doesn't exist and Ivan, very amiable, goes along despite the fact that his personal life is in shambles as well (he's going through a trial separation).  The more Roger tries to mask his regret the with his misanthropy, the more transparent he becomes, until everyone (other band members and an old flame also live in L.A.) is talking about the past and wondering what could have been.

With his past friendships either worthless (he also has an old flame who rejects him played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), Roger turns more and more to Florence, the one person who he knows in L.A. who doesn't share his past.  He is attracted to her but there time together is more about him not being with the other people he knows then really caring for her.  Why Florence would have any interested in this guy is beyond me.  From the beginning he has pretty much treated her like a servant, which is after all the function she serves for the family.  Not that she's the greatest catch in the world.  Beside having just had a bad break-up Florence is not the worlds most desirable person; she's meek, flighty, naive, and kind of a bore.  Some might think her sweet but I was mostly annoyed with her.  Which is not to say that it's a bad performance.  Gerwig (who I'd never seen before) hold her own with Stiller, who almost all her scenes are with.

Baumbach does a nice job of balancing the two main relationships in the film; Roger and Florence and Roger and Ivan.  As the older relationship falters the new one expands until finally, on a single night, Roger and Ivan "break up" and Roger pours his heart out to Florence (albeit in a very long voice mail).  It seems it may be time, finally, for Roger to let the past go and move on to something new.  The film is wise enough not to give us a happy ending but allow it to remain ambiguous as to the future of this rather strange couple.

While I'm still not sold on Baumbach, I think this is his most mature and accomplished piece.  His previous film, Margot at the Wedding, was an awful slog of a movie that attempted to hard to simulate the aesthetic of the French New Wave.  Greenberg dispenses with that aesthetic and replaces it with one more akin 1970s American filmmaking; I was reminded on more then one occasion of Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces.  Stylistically it felt much more appropriate to the types of stories Baumbach seems to gravitate towards and for once it left me wondering what he might do next.  (As it turns out that will be an adaptation of The Emperor's Children by Clair Mussud.  The story of overprivileged  youths whose lives and attitudes are shaken by the events of 9/11).  If he's able to incorporate his influences in an organic way, as he's done in Greenberg, there might be some hope for him.

BLACK SWAN (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)

I'm going to try and write this without using the word lurid.  Awe hell.  Well, to late.  I guess I'll just jump on board with the 90% of reviewers who made sure to bust the word out in the first paragraph of their reviews.  It's not a very insightful comment but it is accurate.  You see, the thing about be lurid is that its kind a hard to miss.  Luridness is all surface.  What I don't understand is why so many critics seemed surprised by this aspect of the film.  Aronofsky is not exactly known for his subtlety.  His films bludgeon, they assault.  They are films about people on the edge and they reflect that anxiety visually.

In Black Swan the person on the edge is Nina (Natalie Portman), a  ballet dancer who has been relegated to small parts her entire career.  She has skill in abundance but lacks, for director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the passion of a true artist.  She's a technician and though she longs to get the lead in Leroy's "re-imaging" of Swan Lake, he seriously doubts that she can pull of the devious Black Swan, though he knows she's perfect for the White Swan.  This set the stage for the backstage drama that structures the narrative.  It's familiar ground that anyone who's seen All About Eve (which should be everyone) will recall.

The setting really isn't that important however, and the heart of the film involves Nina's quick descent into madness.  Or maybe that's a slow descent, or maybe she's mad from the beginning.  Whatever, either way things are not good in Nina's brain.  Like so many a suffering heroine before her Nina's troubles stem from sexual repression.  In this case the repression is due to the isolation that has been imposed on Nina throughout her life by her mother, Erica (a very good, very unnerving Barbara Hershey).  Isolated doesn't quite cover it.  Nina has been sequestered, made to care only about what her mother cares for, ballet.  A failed dancer, Erica lives through her daughter.  She's a stage mother.  A really creepy stage mother.

Leroy gives her the part despite his reservations and because, in the grand tradition of (fictional) choreographers/directors, he has a massive ego and thinks he can transform her himself.  Oh, if he only new how fucked up she really is.  Though he's a cad and has a long history of getting involved with his dancers (he must have spent his youth watching All That Jazz over and over), Leroy's treatment of Nina is surprisingly tender.  Okay, so he forces his tongue down her throat in one scene but he really is doing it for her.  I can't believe I just wrote that sentence but it is the truth.  You see, Leroy is one hundred percent right about Nina.  She is bottled up.  He sees it in her dancing but we get to see its root causes, the aforementioned mother.  What neither he nor Erica know is that Nina isn't just repressed but is suffering a psychotic break.  Aronofsky visualizes this psychotic break by having Nina continually seeing herself in other people.  No that's not right.  Not in other people but as other people.  This first occurs randomly with a stranger whom she passes on the street but soon she is seeing her own image in place of all the other women in the film: her mother, the previous prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder), but mostly in Lily (Mila Kunis), the new girl fresh of the bus from San Fransisco.  As is necessary in these kinds of stories, Lily is everything that Nina is not: a free spirit, passionate but not obsessed with perfection, and most importantly sexually free and uninhibited.  She attempts to befriend Nina and for a moment it seems like she may be the one who helps Nina come out of her shell.  Then, after a late night of parting with Lily (probably her first night out ever), Nina arrives late for rehearsal to find Lily filling in for her.  She's enraged and assumes immediately that the whole previous night was an attempt to make her late and thus steal the part from her.  Despite assuring her that Leroy made her the back up and that there was nothing she could do about it, Nina still feels betrayed.  Whatever progress might have been started for Nina's psyche is abruptly halted and her sickness is forefronted from then on.

This may make the film seem like it is primarily a "back stage" tale like the aforementioned All About Eve or Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls.  While that element is there and it is of some importance, it is not at the heart of the film.  Another frequent comparison is with Roman Polanski's Repulsion, another tale of a sexually repressed young woman who goes mad.  It's a fair comparison but for me neglects to account for just how good Natalie Portman is in the role of Nina.  There is in Nina a sadness that is missing from Carol (Catherine Denevue) in the Polanski film.  This quality creates a point of empathy for Nina and elevates the material beyond the melodrama and horror elements that the film uses.  Rather than just being a showbiz film or a horror film, Portman and Aronofsky turn it into a film about the fragility of identity.  I was reminded most of another film I viewed recently, Robert Altman's underrated Images.  Thinking of Images made think of the film that inspired it, Ingmar Bergman's Persona and it is that film that serves as the foundation for Black Swan.  Like Bergman, Aronofsky isn't afraid to tackle challenging subject matter.  Both films are consumed with questions of identity:  how do we form it, what does it mean, and basically, who the hell are we.

Bergman was also capable of exuberant style, as Persona clearly shows.  Underneath that style, as is the case with Aronofsky, is a tremendous humanity and compassion for his characters and the audience.  I'm not trying to say that Aronofsky is on par with Bergman.  Bergman is one of the finest filmmakers the world has ever seen and while I've liked all of Aronofsky's films thus far, it's still to early to say just how good he might become.  He does though, like Bergman, seem compelled to ask the "big" questions.  Whenever an artist, particularly it seems film artists, tackle these questions and take it seriously, there will always be those who side step it with criticism that focus on (perceived) weaknesses of the artist.  So be it.  If you want to focus on the sensationalism, or the use of cinematic stereotypes that's fine, just remember that those things are tools just like the thousands of others employed by filmmakers every day, and if you don't look at what they end up constructing...well, you're only seeing a portion of what's there.  There's a myriad of critics who seem to take this approach; who spend more time calling Aronofsky names then discussing the work.  I've liked him since I first saw Pi and I named Requiem for a Dream the best film of the first decade of the new millennium.  Black Swan isn't as good as either of those pictures but it shows again that Aronofsky is unafraid of grand topics and grand style.  In the current American cinematic climate that, for me, makes him one of the best and boldest of directors.

Ultimately Black Swan is a sad film.  Behind all the special effects and horrific imagery is the story of a talented young woman who really is very sick.  In the end we realize that none of what we've seen (i.e. what Nina has seen) has any basis in reality.  Leroy only wants her to be great, Lily just wants to befriend her, and her mother is equally sad, having given up her chance at greatness (or even mediocrity) to raise a child, only to smother that child to the point where she has no idea who she is outside of the identity her mother's prescribed for her from birth.

IMAGES (Robert Altman, 1972)

In between the genre busting classics McCabe and Mrs. Miller (western) and The Long Goodbye (noir), Robert Altman took the time to make the little seen, under-appreciated Images.  Influenced, by the director's own admission, by Bergman's Persona (1966), Images is an attempt to "visualize the schizophrenic mind" and it is in these moments that the film is most effective.  Altman said that the initial idea for Images center around a scene that sprang to mind one day while he was eating lunch.  In it a man in woman are have a discussion/argument, the woman is in a bedroom and the man is moving in and out of an enjoining bathroom.  At one point during the conversation the woman looks up and the man appears as someone she has never seen before.  It's a creepy idea and when it happens early in the film, it sets the psychological tone for the whole film.  It's also one of my personal favorite cinematic moments.

As the narrative progresses we discover that Altman didn't use his original idea completely; the man who suddenly replaces the woman's husband is not a stranger but a former lover of the woman, Cathryn, played by Susannah York.  She is schizophrenic and has a variety of symptoms including her husband suddenly appearing as someone else.  During the entire film some variation of this is taking place.  Either she sees her husband as someone else or she sees that someone else in the same room as her and her husband.  Altman was wise and intuitive enough to throw in some other symptoms as well (though he claims he did no research for the film, relying on instinct), like Cathryn suddenly not liking the taste of an apple and having an irrational fear of a local dog.

We never learn anything about Cathryn's history; has she been in therapy, been violent before, when did the symptoms first originate, was there a stressor involved?  Personally I think the film is better off not bringing up these questions.  Instead, we're left to decode the reason(s) for her break based on what Altman gives us.  As far as I can tell the primary reason for her psychotic break is guilt over her own infidelity; we are given evidence of two affairs and, I believe, a third is hinted at.  This guilt is coupled with the almost constant presence of her husband Hugh's (Rene Auberjonois) camera.  Altman uses the camera to symbolize Cathryn's paranoia and to create a sense of the inescapable.  No matter where she goes the camera seems always to be watching her, as if the eyes of her cuckolded husband.  Simultaneously Altman allows the camera to stand in for the Cathryn's lonliness and the very reason she cheated in the first place; it represents one of the many distraction that keep Hugh from giving Cathryn the attention she needs.  Though he seems to care for her, Hugh spends more time with the camera, hunting, or (seemingly) at his job, then he does with Cathryn.  It's an interesting case of dual representation that mirrors Cathryn's state of mind.

The film was shot by the great, great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and was the second of three collaborations with Altman (The aforementioned McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye being the other two) and for my money it's the best looking of the three.  Shot in Ireland in the winter, the film has a damp and foggy look to it, perfect for it's subject matter.  It looks both natural and oneiric in a way that is specific to Zsigmond's work in the 70's and early 80's (he worked with many of the great directors from the period).  Very beautiful.

One can't talk about images without mentioning the amazing score by John Williams (yes that John Williams).  Williams had the brilliant idea of hiring Stomu Yamashta to created unique sounds to incorporate through out the film.  Make no mistake though, the score belongs to Williams, who wrote in ever instance of these sounds in his original score.  It's a really remarkable piece.

Ignored at the time of it's release (despite being nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes), Images has yet to get the attention it deserves.  It's by know means a perfect piece (Altman even admits that it can be a bit heavy handed at times) but there is so much that is interesting that it easily overcomes it's flaws.  You wouldn't think that a film from a master like Altman, originating in his most productive and innovative years, could fly under the radar for so many decades but here it is.  Hopefully more people will find it, it's worth it.