Gangland

Film: The Cool World
Format: Video from The Magic Flashdrive on laptop.

When I started this blog three and a half years ago or so, I made the commitment that I’d write full and complete reviews of every film. While I’m certain there are a couple of films that have gotten short shrift, in general I put up 750 words or more on every film (sometimes a lot more). This causes problems when I come across a film like Shirley Clarke’s The Cool World. When I looked for pictures of this, most of what I found were shots of Dizzy Gillespie. For the life of me, I thought this was going to be an underground documentary on jazz. Now that I’ve seen The Cool World, I’d have rather watched jazz.

For this being an independent film, it’s actually pretty straightforward. A young kid in Harlem named Duke (Rony Clanton) wants nothing more than to get a gun from a man named Priest (Carl Lee). With this gun he hopes to take a leadership position in his gang, the Royal Pythons. His goal with the Pythons is to get them to start rumbling again.

Innocents Abused

Film: Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

If you’re of the “animation is just for kids crowd,” you’ve picked the wrong day to come to this website. Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies) is about as far from a kids movie as one can get. The film opens with the line, “September 21, 1945. That was the night I died.” You’re not going to get a happy ending from that. I knew going in that this was going to be a rough ride and even then, I’m not sure I was fully prepared for the emotional flensing that is Hotaru no Haka. Don’t for a moment think that this means it isn’t a great film. It is; it’s not specifically an enjoyable film, but it deserves to be spoken in the same sentences as films like All Quiet on the Western Front, Idi i Smotri, and Jeux Interdits.

What the opening means is that we know where this film is going. When we flashback to the effective start of the story (the bulk of the film is told in flashback) and meet our two protagonists, we already have a good sense of their eventual fate. Seita is a teenaged boy, probably about 15, who lives with his mother and his young sister Setsuko, who is four or five. Their father is a member of the Japanese navy and is fighting the war. The story opens at the beginning of an air raid, a massive firebombing of the city of Kobe. The kids’ mother heads to a shelter, but the kids are caught out in the bombing, but manage to get through it. Their mother, however, is horribly burned and soon dies.

Clothes Make the Woman

Film: Pretty Woman
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

There are two ways to look at Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman. There is the happy fantasy version and the unfortunate and sort of ugly truth underneath the happy, happy fantasy. Which view is the real one? My guess is that Garry Marshall’s intent was the first view, but I’m of the opinion that it’s impossible to get through the film without the second view.

Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) is a high-powered corporate raider who buys companies and destroys them by chopping them into pieces and selling off the bits. That he is the romantic lead and considered a hero is possible only in the Reagan/Bush era, but there you have it. Lost in Beverly Hills, he asks attractive prostitute Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) for directions to his hotel. Vivian, we have learned, lives with fellow prostitute Kit De Luca (Laura San Giacomo), who has the charming habit of spending the rent money on drugs. Once at his hotel, Edward decides to hire Vivian for the night to the tune of $300.

Off Script: The Legend of Hell House

Film: The Legend of Hell House
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I honestly don’t know why I’ve had such a difficult time writing about this film. I’ve watched it twice within the last couple of weeks. I watched it once fully intending to write up a review and simply didn’t. I watched it again a couple of days before now, and still, I just haven’t gotten down to writing it up. The problem with The Legend of Hell House isn’t that it isn’t a good film. It really is. The problem is that I just don’t know what I have to say about it more than a sentence or two.

Honestly, The Legend of Hell House can be summed up in a sentence or two. Ready? Here goes: Imagine The Haunting with more bodies and more sex. That’s pretty much it. There’s a little more to it than that, but really, there isn’t much beyond it.

Asylum Seeker

Film: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

When you spend enough time with a list like the 1001 Movies, you start to notice that certain people show up again and again. This isn’t coincidence. When you look at the great actors of any generation, they are considered great actors for a reason, whether it’s from being a great actor (likely) or simply choosing well over and over (also likely), certain actors simply have careers of legend. John Cazale, who went five-for-five with films nominated for Best Picture is the winner in this particular rodeo, but there are others who come to mind. Olivia de Havilland shows up a lot, as do Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, and many others. One of those others is Jack Nicholson, who is rightly the most celebrated actor of his generation. Even the greatest actor of his generation has a greatest role and a greatest film. For Nicholson, my vote will always be One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

This is a film that certainly summarizes well, but I’m not going to summarize it beyond the very basics. Randle P. McMurphy (Nicholson) is sent to the state mental institution from prison because it is believed that he might be mentally ill. This comes in part from the series of brawls he’s been in, his current charge of statutory rape, and his shirking of the work detail. Once there, McMurphy battles with Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) and bonds with the collection of variously insane men, slowly losing his sanity in the process, this in no small part because of the cold, sadistic nature of Ratched.

Tune In, Turn On, Czech Out

Film: Sedmikrasky (Daisies); Ostre Sledovan Vlaky (Closely Watched Trains)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.

Where do I begin with this one? Put in its most basic terms, Sedmikrasky (Daisies) asks what it would be like if there were two Bugs Bunnies and they were Czech women. Of course, the film is deeper than that, but on the surface, it feels like a modernized Buster Keaton film. It’s 72 minutes of insanity and randomness, food, chaos, unfulfilled sexuality, destruction, and girl power. I’m not going to go anywhere near a plot summary, because there’s no plot here to summarize. There are a bunch of actions that all point in a direction (sort of), but a summary beyond the most cursory is impossible.

Our two consistent characters are both named Marie. While completely different in appearance, they are otherwise completely interchangeable. They aren’t two facets of the same person, but two incarnations of the same personality. One Marie is blonde and generally wears a crown of flowers (Ivana Karbanova). The other is brunette and sports pigtails (Jitka Cerhova). And what do the two incarnations of this personality do? They eat. They are constantly eating, drinking, smoking, or more accurately, they are constantly consuming everything they can. A large section of the film is devoted to their convincing men to buy them endless amounts of food before putting the guys on a train and out of their lives, the men unsatisfied.

Nation Building

Film: Fahrenheit 9/11
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

If I’d had my druthers, I’d have never watched Fahrenheit 9/11 I’m not the biggest fan of Michael Moore mostly because his films eventually aren’t about the planned topic, but about Michael Moore. Every documentarian places his or her spin on whatever topic he or she is making a film on, but few are as blatant as Moore. But I’m a slave to the list. It appears, I watch. I should say in the interest of full disclosure that I swing politically to the left, particularly on social issues. I’m more an economic centrist. But a lot of Moore’s films should be right in my left-leaning social wheelhouse. They just aren’t.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is about September 11, 2001 and the aftermath as well as (and really, predominantly) the war in Iraq that followed 18 months or so afterward. And, as is typically the case, Moore creates a compelling argument for his point of view. Kind of. Actually, I think this film is in many ways less compelling than the arguments he puts forth in Roger & Me or Bowling for Columbine. The biggest reason for this is simply the scope. Rather than focusing on the aftermath of 9/11 or the war in Iraq, Moore takes on everything from the disputed presidential election that put George W. Bush in the White House through to the war and the non-existent weapons of mass destruction.