A Bunch of Good Ones

Yet another week without much movie watching. Life is sad.

On to The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah’s classic starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine.

Let me be honest: I don’t like westerns. I have never enjoyed them because they are generally so much like morality tales. After watching The Wild Bunch, however, I now see that Westerns should be divided into two camps: the John Wayne camp on the one side, with its heroes and the white man’s triumph, and the Clint Eastwood camp on the other side, with its anti-heroes and struggles with honor.

I’m sure you know which side I like.

I’ll be honest again: I didn’t mean to get The Wild Bunch. I thought I was requesting The Wild One (1954) with Marlon Brando. I was upset when I got the movie but not after I began watching it. The Wild Bunch is far and away the best western I have ever seen. It’s high praise, yes, but keep in mind that I don’t really like westerns and haven’t seen very many of them. I plan on changing the now by requesting all of the Clint Eastwood westerns, the version of the western I like.

The Wild Bunch is far more than a Western. It takes place right after World War I, so there are a few cars, machine guns, even political maneuverings of the Mexican kind. Its setting sets it apart, first of all: the movie is set at the end of the West itself. There are no more Apaches to kill. Instead, there is a Mexican general name Mapache. The people who terrorize towns can no longer do so because the capitalists have the capital to fight them through any means necessary, which means hiring bounty hunters and getting people out of jail to hunt their old comrades.

Along with the end of the West comes the end of the characters’ way of life. They’re smart and they’re honorable, but they’re also endangered. One cannot be a smart, honorable anti-hero and get away with it anymore. The people in power—whether they be railroad capitalists or Mexican generals—will destroy whatever gets in their way, and that thing in their way seems to be the smart, honorable anti-hero. Forget trying to make their way in the world today, for that way of life has simply ended. What we see here is that the West is now a place of stark contrast, where the poor live in complete poverty and the rich live in absolute splendor. The two only meet when the poor serve the rich.

Besides the setting is the plot itself: aging gunmen flee their way of life in America while being pursued by an old comrade who now works for the railroad. They end up in Mexico, working for a general who is terrorizing the Mexican populations while fighting for power in his region. There is a poor resistance movement that enters the picture, as well, but we can’t expect that these aging gunmen will join them. All they want is to make money and stay alive. One doesn’t do that by joining the resistance.

So everything about this movie, including its scenery, brutish violence, and stark sexuality, set it apart from anything else I have seen before 1970. It’s an amazing story, and I can’t think of any way to make it better. Therefore, it receives my first 10 rating.

Grade for The Wild Bunch: 10

Is Kong Really King?

Don’t worry, everyone! I’m not going away for another few months like I did in November. Nope, I have just been a bit too busy to watch many movies. This entire past week, I have only watched one movie, and that isn’t nearly enough for my taste. If I had my way, I would watch one a night, at least. My wife would go crazy, but it would be worth it…

I haven’t watched Peter Jackson’s King Kong yet, but I decided to do some preparation by watching the original 1933 version with Fay Wray.

On the one hand, I completely understand why every director probably wants to remake this movie. It has everything! Special effects, large beasts, beautiful women, carnage, heroes, and even metacommentary on filmmaking. I want to remake this movie! It is probably the perfect movie in a way that James Cameron’s Titanic is a perfect movie. These perfect movies incorporate every possible plot into an end-product that is interesting, satisfying and appeals to everyone (as King Kong even points out through its own meta-narrative).

On the other hand, I see no reason why this film should be remade or why any self-respecting director would think that he or she could do it better. As a perfect movie, King Kong even incorporates great acting and amazing special effects. Sure, they pale in comparison to what can be done today, but man, those effects still look cool. You actually get to watch Kong crush people with his teeth and destroy overhead trains. And it looks pretty good, too. Okay, the special effects could be redone, but what does this really do for the movie?

Basically, I really wanted to see Jackson’s version, but that was before I watched the original again. Now I want to see it even more to understand why Jackson felt as if this was the movie he had to make. If it’s just an homage, there’s really no point. Just watch the original and get the same thing. If Jackson thinks the old one is flawed and needs updating, then the man needs to read Shakespeare on hubris. Lady Macbeth might have something to say about his big head, after all.

My question is this: What does Jackson do that makes a remake worth it? I haven’t seen the 1976 Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange version since I was a kid, but I don’t remember it being that spectacular. The only thing I can think is that Jackson felt that younger audiences needed to be exposed to King Kong. What young person is going to watch and enjoy a film from 1933? Probably none. I know I didn’t like it when I saw it many years ago. I thought it was hokey and slapsticky. Now I know it’s all a part of Merian C. Cooper’s genius.

After all, Kong is King, at least the original one…

Grade for King Kong (1933): 9

Coens Fail!

I love the Coen brothers. They are perhaps the best team of producers/writers/directors out there. Not everything they do is gold, but it’s always quality fun. Raising Arizona, for example, is my favorite comedy of all time. I laugh just thinking about that movie.

The Coens have always seemed to defy genre. Or perhaps they blend genres together. What is Fargo, for instance? Do we call it a comedic thriller? Or a thrilling comedy? And don’t ask me about O Brother, Where Art Thou? I have no idea what to do with that gorgeous monstrosity.

On viewing Ladykillers (2004) this weekend, I have now seen every Coen brothers film, and I can now confidently claim that they’re all, well, good. Not much more to say than that. Sadly, Ladykillers is the weakest of them all.

Ladykillers is a comedy wrapped in a heist film, but of course it’s not really a heist film at all, so I don’t consider it a part of that—my favorite—subgenre. It features Tom Hanks leading a group of robbers to the vault of a casino. They pose of Renaissance-era musicians to practice in an old woman’s basement in a small Mississippi town. Sounds like Coen gold, right?

No, not really. I don’t think I laughed at all during the whole movie. We get to watch Tom Hanks stumble over very stilted dialogue (purposeful, of course), but his character is interesting in theory and boring in execution. Not that Hanks doesn’t do a good job, for he is obviously a talented actor. It just isn’t really funny; when a character has a method of speaking that is odd, and he must keep that method up throughout the whole film, it must be continually funny and also completely necessary for that character. When Nicolas Cage does it in Raising Arizona, it works because it’s actually a funny way to go through life and H.I.’s way of speaking incorporates everything about the character. Here, it’s not funny, just odd. And he has to do it throughout the whole film. Sigh.

Ladykillers, is, though, a morality tale in true Coen brothers fashion. Who wins in the end? Well, Bob Jones University for one. You know, the one thirty miles from my home town. The school that didn’t allow black people to attend until the late 1970s, that maintained its “Biblically-based” policy against interracial dating until 2000 when the scandal broke over visits by prospective Republican presidential candidates, that doesn’t allow any kissing or hand-holding or anything else on campus or off, that doesn’t allow dates off or on campus without a chaperone, that doesn’t allow women to wear pants or anyone to wear shorts on campus.

I won’t tell you how this school wins, but the irony is strewn all over the place like Linda Blair’s vomit. I snicker when I think about it, but the movie’s execution of the scenario isn’t funny. Sure, the events are interesting and ironic, but they aren’t funny like I think they’re supposed to be. In fact, I think this film would make a much better hour-long TV episode of The Twilight Zone. As a movie, I’m disappointed.

So come on, Coens, go back to giving us something really good…

Grade for The Ladykillers: 6

The Symbology of the Feminine Fatale

Rating Femme Fatale and re-evaluating Brian de Palma wasn’t very fun. I like de Palma, you see, and I don’t want to downgrade his status from auteur to talented hack. But sometimes these things are necessary as directors let their talent slip.

I have never watched a Brian de Palma film looking for symbolism before, but I think I will have to from now one, because Femme Fatale included some of the most blatant symbolism I have ever seen. And frankly, I feel gypped by it.

Although we don’t quite grasp the importance of the symbolism until the end of the film, it’s all over the place. During one scene, I was really intrigued by the fishtank, which seemed to be overflowing. I couldn’t see the bottom of the tank, however, so I didn’t know if it was purposeful—if there was some kind of recirculating system or something. I kept wondering whether the fish wouldn’t just jump out. At the end, you see the same scene again, and it’s normal now: ah, I said, it was overflowing to show how different everything is in that reality. It also mirrors the bathtub, which was overflowing. And her emotions, which are... you get the point.

Then there are the posters all over Paris, which all include pictures of the main character, along with the words “déjà vu.” How bizarre, I kept thinking. I guess she’s famous (and she is, in the movie). But there’s more to it than that, which I can’t reveal without giving away a bit too much of the plot.

I love symbolism, but in movies like this it seems a bit too much. I remember my English teachers who would variously try to convince us that everything was symbolic of either God, gods, sex, or emotions, depending on which teacher I had. One teacher told us that the river in Heart of Darkness was female and the boat traveling on it was like the sperm trying to reach the grand, final place of the female to implant its imperial seed. We all tittered and made fun of her sexual preoccupations. But Joseph Conrad probably had something like that in mind, although probably not quite so blatant.

But movies aren't imagined in the same way that books are. When I read, I have to picture the characters and events in my mind, whereas in a film, the director has done that for us. Film is mimetic in a way that books are not, and the difference in symbolic effects lies therein.

Real life doesn’t include such symbolism, you see. As a reflection of an imagined reality, films fail to reproduce any semblance of reality when they include symbolism. I wish real life were that way, but it isn’t. I wish I could tell my wife were angry because she is wearing red, but she doesn’t wear red when she’s angry. I wish rivers were really metaphors for the turmoil of society, but they’re actually just rivers. Sometimes a rose is just a rose, sure, but it’s always that way in reality. In a poem, a rose can take on multiple meanings. In real life, it’s just a rose. Sure, we can imbue it with meaning by giving it to someone we love, but then it’s really just, “I love you, so I’m giving you this rose.” If we want to be poetic and score points with the women, we may make up some crap about how the opening petals represent our burgeoning love, but we all know we’re just making that up. It's really just a rose.

In a mimetic visual medium like film, symbols just don’t work as well as they do in books. I still like ‘em, though, and I’m thinking about changing my title to "symbologist." Maybe I can get my PhD in the field and go teach at Harvard…and go on adventures interpreting the sacred feminine...

The Rise and Fall of Brian de Palma

I have seen most of Brian de Palma’s movies, and I tend to enjoy them all. Whether I am watching one of his mobster films, such as Scarface, The Untouchables, or Carlito’s Way, or one of his horror thrillers such as Carrie, Sisters, or Dressed to Kill, I tend to like Brian de Palma. Even his bad films are well done. Mission to Mars and Snake Eyes are terrible films, but there are still entertaining parts to them. They attempt new things and, although they may not always succeed, they’re generally interesting to watch.

In continuation of my quest to see movies by famous contemporary directors, I requested Femme Fatale (2002) from the library. It wasn’t until I actually got hold of the movie that I realized that it was that movie. You know, the one you heard about with the gratuitous sex scene between Rebecca Romjin-Stamos and some other woman. I was let down, for I had heard the film was bad, but I was also piqued that I got to watch that movie.

Like all Brian de Palma films, there are interesting things here. The sex scene, for instance, while not quite as titillating as I was hoping, err, as I had read, is still rather interesting for such an actress. The good girl Romjin-Stamos, indeed, is no good girl here. She spends the rest of the film screwing people over, both literally and figuratively. It’s weird to watch because, well, this is ex-Mrs. John Stamos! They are divorced, aren’t they? Anyway…

De Palma even includes some interesting split screen shots, as he has done in previous films, but they’re only necessary here because the shots themselves are so boring. Watching the split screen was less exciting than watching one decent single screen.

So what’s redeeming about this film? It’s certainly not the story. That part of the movie is so convoluted that I can’t begin to explain it without giving away some major part. It’s all surprise, you see, but it isn’t really, because we don’t really care as we watch it. That’s the biggest problem here. When things unfold, I sigh. I don’t scream or gasp. Nope, I sigh. Okay, I say. That kind of makes sense. De Palma doesn’t make me care about these characters enough to care what actually happens to them. And that's a sure sign of weakness. It's like when Obi-Wan's master gets killed in Episode 1 of the new Star Wars films: frankly, I just don't care. It's a strong director that makes me care about the characters, and this movie didn't feature that strength.

So have I re-evaluated de Palma? Yes, I have. I still want to see his latest project, another crime thriller, but right now, I think he’s mainly just a really good hack. Yes, his movies are all well-done, and there are good parts to each of them, but they’re not stunning. Yes, I’m including Scarface and Carrie in here, too. They’re good, sure, but they’re basically good action and horror films. And let’s face it, Scarface gets boring in some parts. (I actually think Carlito’s Way is the better gangster film.). Carrie is a great horror movie, on the level of The Shining, but isn’t its greatness in large part due to its source material? Could any other director have done these movies? Maybe not any other, but with such good source material, the movies should have been good, nonetheless.

Grade for Femme Fatale: 5