Humpday

A movie that begins with a couple not having sex, and ends with another couple not having sex, so what's in between? People who learn to talk to each other by talking to themselves, that's what. And a brief bit of sex, which is cut short when they start talking about it and realize they misunderstand each other.

Good to see Island Video getting some cameo love, but really...was it just too obvious to casually mention the greatest video store in the world?

Downfall

You've seen the parodies ... or ... have you? If not, time to do some catching up. One of my favorites is when Hitler finds out his so-called "friends" aren't going to Burning Man after all.

But have you seen ... the movie? There are about 150 other minutes of film you could catch up on.

I saw the DVD on the rack as I scoped out the one-last-dying-breath Hollywood Video, and yes, I found it hard to watch the fateful scene of hubris personified without cracking up and thinking of poor Hitler being banned from XBox Live.

You probably read about it in the papers already, so I'm not spoiling anything (and hopefully prepping you and the kids) by pointing out that nearly everyone in the Third Reich's inner circle ends up being shot, killed and murdered onscreen ... except for Hitler. He is given respectful privacy when he reaches the end. Kinda ironic, wouldn't you say?

Vibrator

This one is a Japanese-language inappropriate workplace behavior tale (cf. Secretary), but this time the workplace is a semitruck out on the road. Whoa.

She has issues: Check. She's afraid: Double check. He's ... uh... WTF is his story again?? Triple check!!!

Unlike Secretary, there is no safe haven for her trust, so no intimacy develops.

Sometimes that happens in real life. Sometimes it gets translated to film in a way that isn't quite gentle or endearing, but the soft edges of self-discovery are what we remember most.

Sometimes we find those films at the library for free.

A Night At The Opera

Some elaborate set pieces from the slapstick kings:

A stateroom the size of a coat closet is stuffed with a shipful of stowaways, and staff, and all their accoutrements.



"Is it my imagination, or is it getting crowded in here?"

The backstage ropes of an opera house become a jungle gym.

For a change-up, a musical interlude features Harpo playing (guess what) harp and piano.

The opera? Oh yeah, that. It's Il Trovatore. What, you thought this movie was about an opera?!?!

When You're Strange

The PBS "Independent Lens" series brought to my living room this first-ever Doors documentary, with all the bad words bleeped and naughty bits blocked out. I could tell, despite Congress' best efforts, that those were the best parts.

It's a straight-up, here's-what-happened-next story, without any current "no-here's-what-I-remember" statements to compare/contrast. The wealth of concert and studio footage is what makes it worthwhile. Robbie Krieger shoots a perturbed look while he's trying to work; Ray Manzarek takes a deep drag and gives it a try; John Densmore is a friggin' hero; Jim sure looks cute and deranged. Then someone takes some still photos that end up in a courtroom, and they didn't even show the best parts, and PBS couldn't show them if they wanted to.

One good thing about this uneven but revelatory film: It will reset your Doors queue, so you can restart with the familiar or check back with something you've taken for granted. Like "Spanish Caravan," or "Crystal Ship," ... or "Light My Fire"...

There were some pseudo-Jim scenes created with backstory in mind -- really, when's the last time you saw someone dressed like that, in a car like that, pulling up to a gas pump that looked like that, and handing cash to someone dressed like that? I give that a big ten-four, good buddy.

But those scenes were a sideshow, not the main attraction.

Big up to the producers for getting Jim Ladd on board as the voice of Jim Ladd on the radio. I remember during Roger Waters' "Radio KAOS" tour, going up to the DJ booth on the floor to see Jim Ladd in action. Great voice to guide you through, like always.

In The Bedroom

What I like about the DVDs I've seen of films directed by Todd Field (other than the direction, pacing, acting, story, etc) is that there are no commentaries. No "Making Of" documentaries, no interviews ... nada. I'm a big fan of all the extras, but those still lead back to seeing a film.

When you go to a movie theater, you don't get any of those extras. You get a movie, and you figure it out for yourself after the lights go up and you leave the room. If seeing the DVD and figuring it out for yourself isn't enough, he's not going to spend the better part of an hour jabbering about it. That's what bars and cafés next to movie theaters are for.

Field is a disciple of Stanley Kubrick (and was cast as the overly gabby piano player in Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut"), and Kubrick made some of the most enigmatic blockbuster films that you couldn't explain if you tried, which makes you want to watch it again.

So check out a Todd Field film next chance you get, and if the studio made someone sit for an interview or record a commentary, do yourself - an honest hard-working film nut - a favor and skip it.

Gigi

"Thank Heaven For Little Girls" is a tune I remember (for some reason) from my childhood, and seeing this movie for the first time made me realize Maurice Chevalier certainly was a dirty old man, wasn't he? In a charming, French sort of 1950's way.

Words and music by Lerner and Loewe, directed by Vincente Minnelli, no wonder it won 9 Oscars:

Best Picture
Director
Adapted Screenplay
Art Direction
Cinematography
Costume Design
Film Editing
Scoring of a Musical Picture
Original Song (no, not "Thank Heaven..." Not even for "I Remember It Well." It was for (doy) "Gigi." I don't remember that one from my childhood at all.

Hmmm, no acting awards ... not even for Maurice Chevalier! Guess he wasn't all that.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Yeah, Michael Moore is a demagogue.

He also has a pretty good point.

Teza

The story of one man's journey from Ethiopian idealist to exile and back, and the third of three films in my day at the Columbia City Cinema.

"Teza" isn't quite an epic but over a couple-plus hours it covers a LOT of ground. The Fascists (note to Tea Partiers: here be real Fascists). Haile Selassie. Gangsters, Communists, butchers, and exile in Germany. In Germany, FFS!

And taboot, when's the last time you heard of a historical-political personal journey drama coming out of Ethiopia? That alone makes it worth your time.

I walked out of the Columbia City Cinema after having spent most of the day inside it, and the streetlights perfectly illuminated the drizzle on Rainier Avenue, a quietly theatrical ending to a day spent at the movies.

Date Night

The second film in my all-day Columbia City Cinema Fest, and a charming comedy relief between two Very. Serious. Films.

It doesn't really make it as an action film -- I don't think anyone expected it to -- but plenty of little moments are there for the taking. The reason we're pulling for Phil and Claire is not necessarily because we identify with them, but because we see how they identify with each other, which is much more important. We see Phil come home and slouch into himself without acknowledging his wife, but we also see them entertaining each other at a restaurant when Claire, at Phil's request, makes up outlandish imaginary conversations between nearby strangers.

The idiosyncrasies and personal flaws of others, which we sometimes carry as boredom or annoyance, are also the very key to our connections with each other, and as demonstrated here, a source of comfort when the rest of the world is going to hell.

Plus, I would crawl over melted, Ebola-infected shards of glass atop an undersea oil gusher, just to see Tina Fey deliver lines like this:

"If we're gonna pay this much for crab it better sing and dance and introduce us to the Little Mermaid!"

The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski is a confessed child rapist who should just own up to the punishment he ran away from three decades ago. Whew, I put off writing about this film for almost two months because I wasn't sure how to begin. Now that THAT'S out of the way...

Roman Polanski is also a brilliant filmmmaker, and "The Ghost Writer" is suspenseful and loaded with terrific acting, pacing and mood. Germany had to stand in for Martha's Vineyard because ... well, you know ... and Germany was up to the task.

Jim Belushi, Timothy Hutton, Eli Wallach and the always amazing Tom Wilkinson surrounded Ewan McGregor's unnamed "Ghost" with all the depth needed to keep the story moving. A story, it should be noted, of an accused criminal in hiding, the unnamed protagonist hired to tell his story, and the politico-media frenzy which surrounds them. The accused criminal in question is a Prime Minister dealing with issues of terrorism, war and national security. And hardly anyone, it seems, gave *him* a free pass....

Unlike some of Polanski's supporters in the film industry, I don't believe that making great films lets him off the hook for his personal life. I also don't think his personal life should disqualify me from seeing what he does with film.

This was the first of Three In A Row, an entire day spent at the Columbia City Cinema doing some catching up.

Secretary

A good old-fashioned mental health breakdown / inappropriate workplace behavior / BDSM love story, made completely charming because of the freakishly adorable Maggie Gyllenhaal as first-time job seeker Lee Holloway.

She presents, to put it politely, some major issues. But so does Mr. Grey (James Spader), who needs someone to get his coffee, and to type every word correctly, and to spank.

Spader chews some scenery (but only after the job interview, a treasure trove of ill-appropriate questions in a tightly measured manner). It's Gyllenhaal's fractured attempts at connection and disconnection that carry it. And the physical comedy: her dumpster-dive is pure comedy gold.

Lee Holloway already knows pain. She has all-too-willingly inflicted it upon herself in attempt to feel something. Mr. Grey only knows what makes his own self tock, and doesn't really think about how to please Miss Holloway, or anyone for that matter. He's like this all the time.

Surprisingly, the heroine and anti-hero are the ones who develop a true intimacy. Discuss:

There's a conventional rom-com love story here, but the conventional love story is not what's handed to us, because she wants to feel hurt but also to know it's normal to feel that.

When she's folding laundry with her conventional love story boyfriend (the one you would think you're supposed to root for because he's not an evil clown of a boss), she can't even bring herself to say the names of body parts without embarrassment. And to no one's surprise, they develop no intimacy.

After they have sex, he asks meekly, "Did I hurt you?" When she pauses and sighs, "nooo...," her disappointment fills the screen.

Back at work, she is given strict orders, disobeys to push the boundaries, tests her own limits ... and is accepted and loved for who she truly is.

And we witness true intimacy.

And also, Maggie Gyllenhaal's naughty bits. Happy Shiny Couples, beware.

Garbage Dreams

New tag: "Almost"!

I almost made it to the closing credits before nodding off. It isn't because of the subject matter - the Zabbaleen, an Egyptian underclass, has found a method of survival by voluntarily recycling all of Cairo's waste that they can lay hands upon. I've been doing that for way too long myself.

I just naturally nod off about twenty minutes before the credits, is all. Then I rent, borrow, or buy the film so I can see what I missed.

It's happened with Truffaut's "The Green Room" and Brando in "The Fugitive Kind" when they were on a local movie network. It happened with this film too, but I got the gist of it.

Pepe Le Moko

The Casbah as seen from the French point of view, in which the natives are to be scorned. For an opposing POV, there's The Battle of Algiers. But that's a different sort of art film.

Jean Gabin once again is the heroic bad guy whom you immediately relate to no matter what his past. He had this pattern down in the 1930s and '40s, and Bogey owes him one. He was a bad guy not because he wanted to be one, but because he had to be one. And we loved him for that.

Notorious

And another thing about the Friends of the Library Sale! You never know what you'll find until you go there and find it. Wait, I just said that.

Be still my beating heart -- I found a long out-of-print edition of "Notorious" at a cost of

One.

Freaking.

Dollar.

at the most recent FOSPL sale.

True, there's no insert, no original case, and SPL stickers all over what's there, but still...{heart goes pitter-patter}

The crane shot that starts at a wide angle over a ballroom, then falls closer to a two-shot but then it keeps on going, until it focuses close-up on the wine cellar key in her hand. I like that shot.

And although this isn't really the longest kiss in film history -- it isn't even one kiss, and it's far less than three minutes -- still ... {heart goes pitter-patter}

Dreams, aka "Akira Kurosawa's 'Dreams'"

I probably don't need to explain that I go to the twice-yearly Friends of Seattle Public Library sale not for the books, but for the DVDs. And like everyone else, I never know what I'll find there until I find it. The sale isn't just an outlet for the Seattle Public Library to offload their surplus material. Anyone can donate whatever is in their personal collection and at some point it'll probably show up in a cardboard box in Magnuson Park's Building 30.

Which is the best way of explaining how I found a homemade copy on DVD-R of this film, in a clear plastic slimline case, and oh yeah it was Sunday (half-price day) so it cost me fifty cents instead of a dollar. And there was a second DVD-R of a film called "Four Rooms" in the same case. I've since given each of them their own slimline.

The video doesn't skip exactly, but it jumps around as though the player is trying to catch up, or the video isn't able to keep up. There are no subtitles. It's on a standard single-layer (4.7 GB) disc rather than a dual-layer disc.

So now thanks to some anonymous donor who made something less than an ideal bootleg but something more than a coaster, I have a sampler of this Kurosawa dream-journal, and the Seattle Public Library has fifty more cents to help ease their budget woes.

If I had a dream about walking through a van Gogh painting, I don't think my dream-van-Gogh would be the only character who speaks perfect English. Or that he would be played by Martin Scorsese. But lacking subtitles, I thoroughly enjoyed that Kurosawa's dream-van-Gogh did exactly those things.

A Colt Is My Passport

Out of all the movies I've seen this year, this one has, by far, the best title.

A hitman is caught in a trap between two rival gangs. Sounds simple enough.

You know it's hardboiled when the following line:

"All that's left for me is dust, and the smell of men and gasoline"

is spoken by a woman.

Love the in-dash 2-way radios. Bond's got nothing on these guys.

The Lives Of Others

Ulrich Mühe, who played the East German Stasi bugger whose job is to listen in on a famous (and loyal) playwright's life because his boss has a thing for the playwright's lover, auditioned for the part by showing up with a copy of his own personal dossier kept by the Stasi.

So I'm not giving away the ending by pointing out that the film's Stasi lapdog has a change of heart, and gets a reward for it. Not a reward that improves his surroundings or history or future... but it means something to him, nonetheless.

Children of Men

A war movie not about territory (a bridge, a beach, airspace) but about: a baby. A person.

There won't be any abstract "victory" by moving forward or holding the line. Either the baby makes it, or not.

This movie reminded me of "Cloverfield," which is just about one of the most territory-centric war movies in recent memory. It had a similar up-close, in-the-street, lookout-for-that-exploding-car feel that kept up the pace and tension, even during the sequences that merely set up some later scene.

All the way up to the final shot, whether the baby makes it is an open question, no matter how much territory they've covered.

High Society

A musical remake of "The Philadelphia Story" with an all-star cast including Grace Kelly's final screen appearance, the first pairing of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, a Cole Porter score and Louis Armstrong getting into the act as well.

So why, after seeing this, did I have the feeling that it just didn't have that something that can grab me and hold on? Maybe that first paragraph holds the key. It's a lot of work to make that many things work well together. The production is superb, but focusing on the story has its advantages. Maybe I just need to see "The Philadelphia Story" to get the proper perspective.