Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Here's your pitch: restless dad sees UFO, chases UFO, boards UFO. Sounds like a blockbuster, doesn't it?

Not to poo poo, but how do you root for the dad when he's leaving his wife and kids behind to hitch a ride with aliens? Maybe this is why Steven Spielberg doesn't write his scripts anymore.

Legend has it that this is the loudest film in cinematic history. Might be. My speakers are not the loudest in the world, let alone the county, so I have to take Wikipedia's word for it. There's plenty of sound and fury going on, climaxing with a righteous keyboard jam between a scientist-musician and the Mothership (which is not only loudest but also the biggest mother-loving spacecraft of them all); throw Frank Zappa in there and it could be a concert album.

Still, even at the beck of sweet, maximum decibel electronica, dad comes off as an anti-hero. He leaves his family behind to explore the stars without so much as saying goodbye. This is unusual for a Spielberg film, who ordinarily gives us a fleshed-out but scrupulous protagonist. Remember Schindler's weepfest, or Indiana Jones tsk-tsking government meddling? We don't get that here, and I can't decide if it's a good thing.

One thing's sure: you would never see that happen now. At the very least his wife and kids would be there for a hug session. They might even go with him, setting the stage for the sequel: Earth Parents are Easy, Close Encounters 2: Parent Harder, or the crossover smash of the century, Indiana Jones and the Musical Mothership, in which an elderly Indy takes to the stars on the ultimate rescue mission that leads him to discover the source of the music of the spheres.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Not to be confused with The Killing of a Chinese Wookiee...

If you've never seen a John Cassavetes' film, this is a good start. Many of his pictures are brilliant, though other Cassavetes classics like A Woman Under the Influence and Husbands meander and test a viewer's patience; Killing stands out for its straightforward narrative. The long takes and seemingly-extemporaneous dialogue (Cassavetes' films are tightly-scripted, the actors only appear to be improvising), rough edits, natural lighting, and selective use of music overdubbing are all here, guerilla filmmaking at its best.

The documentary aesthetic inserts you right into the action and gives the story of Cosmo Vitale a raw immediacy. He is paying off a mob debt when the film opens, only to go out with the most beautiful dancers from his strip club and get in over his head again. Things develop and he cannot so easily pay off his debt this time: the mob wants him to pull a hit on the competition, a local Chinese wookiee... sorry, bookie.

It isn't the plot that sets this film apart; it's the presentation. Ben Gazzara plays the lead to devastating effect, all swagger when confronting his girls but once away from them cycling through levels of existential despair provoked by urban realities crashing around him. He rebounds from one threat to another with painful intimacy, the camera like a cosmic eye capturing this mortal at his worst, yet the film is not so much concerned what he does as it is with how and why.

Center of the storm is Cosmo's strip club, a macabre joint closer to a saucy circus than anything truly raunchy -which, in the gritty context, is surprising. The dancers are coy, putting on airs and costumes, as an MC right out of vaudeville sings them from Paris to Potterdam. Mr Imagination serves as a kind of moral compass, in a pivotal scene fed up with the lack of appreciation he's getting because, let's face it, he's a freak.

No, Cosmo argues, you're not a freak, but Mr Imagination isn't having it: he's a freak and by inference so is Cosmo.

Part of what makes the film so great is Cassavetes' ability to carry this scene. Even in writing it down, I can't deny it sounds weird, but in the context of the film it becomes something truly beautiful. In calling his protagonist a freak, we hear the echo of Nietszche, saying not "freak" but "human, all too human". Which is a subject so rarely tackled in film anymore, the burden of simply being a man.

Audition

"Sneaky" Miike, director deluxe of transgressive film, delivers one of most restrained visions of horror with Audition. Generally known for his lack of subtlety in films like Ichi the Killer (which a video store clerk introduced to me by promising to clap if I made it to the end) and Visitor Q, Takashi Miike is a prolific powerhouse, producing up to 4 movies a year in his native Japan. The level of quality varies, and he has made some stinkers; when he hits the mark, it is always a bullseye.

The premise is Hitchcockian, which is to say deceptively simple: a widower's film producer friend sets up auditions for his new wife, which lead him to meet a beautiful woman with a mysterious past. During their first date, he is naturally curious to know more about who she is, to which the woman responds, "If I told you the truth, you might think I'm a heavy woman."

His producer friend has a bad feeling and warns the man to stay away. "What's wrong with her?" asks the hapless suitor, whom we know by dint of movie logic must pursue the woman no matter how dangerous she appears. "Something chemical," answers the producer.

This is as fitting a description for Miike films as I've heard: there is something chemically wrong with them. Initially I thought they were weird because of a cultural gap, that his work was so "Japanese" that I as an occidental was excluded from its finer aspects. Having watched a bounty of his films, my conclusion is that even Japanese must find these stories disturbing and alien. They are endowed with a wicked chemical imbalance that gets under your skin and pollutes your blood, reaching your brain and exploding with dream-like urgency.

Audition is no different. It is presented with uncharacteristic restraint, which lends it a hypnotizing allure. Nevertheless, this is a film I recommend with strong cautions for those with sensitive stomachs.

Planet of the Apes

What a preachfest! Charlton Heston arrives on Planet Ape like the second coming of the Ugly American. Mark that; he's bigger than his country of origin, as displayed by his laughter at the US flag marking the rough gravesite of a fallen comrade. This is the Ugly Human in all his notorious glory.

Beholding mute humanoids foraging in green fields, Heston preens and declares, "In six months, we'll be running this planet." Earlier he complains that there has to be something in the universe better than man. "Has to be," he says, chomping on the bitter end of a shrunken cigar and manfully adjusting the bandanna tied around his neck, as if anticipating his coming slavery at the paws of the planet's true masters.

Which are we to believe, that he wants a better world or to run it? Rather than delve that deeply into his character, the screenplay is content to tantalize us with broad assertions from the Ugly Human.

Don't think he's heartless. Heston tells his mute love interest, a brunette bombshell in the latest style of revealing fur sash, "Lots of lovemaking, but no love. That was the world we made." You can hear the ache in his throat as he realizes this painful home truth. Better, if you ask me, that he had taken the advice given later at an otherwise comical ape funeral: "Weep if you must, but make an end of sorrow."

A poignant moment in this classic science fiction film which has nevertheless aged gracelessly is Heston's attempts to write a note to his ape slave masters. Cornelius, head scientist of the ape colony and all-around grump, sees the note and takes it for himself, reading it when no one else can see. How fortunate that he can read English, since Heston's written cry for help is legible enough to him that Cornelius promptly disposes of the note.

"Maybe he's intelligent," Cornelius says of Heston, "but he's also crazy!"

Planet of the Apes was made in the 1968, at the height of countercultural fervor, and this mood permeates the film. In a moment of self-reflection, Heston asks rhetorically (the Ugly Human only speaks in rhetoric), "If man was superior, why didn't he survive?" This line is played for pathos but comes across now as dated and self-pitying from a figure who lacks the depth of character to come up with a satisfactory answer. Which is too bad, because Charlton Heston was a civil rights activist and boldly stood up against the Establishment before it was popular to do so: to see him reduced to this thuggish and preachy misanthrope is a real shame.

Fight Club

Tyler Durden is the gonzo messiah.

Psycho

This weekend we finally figured out how to hook up my laptop to our TV. Hundreds of movies are available online with our Netflix subscription, but we've never really taken advantage this feature because who wants to watch a movie on a laptop? Well no more.

Thus we embarked on an old-school horror spree with three classic films: The Fly (1958), House on Haunted Hill (1959) and Psycho (1960). The first two films (both starring Vincent Price) were entertaining in a classic B movie sort of a way, but neither of them could hold a candle to Psycho. Perhaps that is why Psycho is the only one of the three that appears on The List.

One of Alfred Hitchcock's most famous movies, Psycho stands the test of time as one of the best movies ever made. One of the film's highlights is Anthony Perkins' brilliant performance as the seemingly innocent yet disturbed Norman Bates. I find the very last image of the film, of Norman's creepy smile into the directly into the camera, to be particularly memorable and unsettling.

And of course there is the cinematography. So much as already been written on this subject that I will not dwell on it here. Suffice it to say that from the infamous shower scene to the creepy shots of the old Bates house on the hill, Psycho masterfully keeps the viewer in suspense to the very end of the movie.

Footlight Parade

Greetings from your 1930s film reviewer, Jonathan Shaw! I'll be covering the '30s films from the "1001 Movies You Must See" list. There are 87 of them, so this should keep me busy for a while. As we find ourselves in the first depression since the 30s (no one's calling it a depression now, but you can guarantee they'll use the term eventually), I thought it'd be interesting to explore the films from the last depression.

So, Footlight Parade (1933) takes a little getting used to. James Cagney's explosive, high-velocity speaking cadence is often impossible to follow. After I switched the subtitles on, though, I was generally able to keep up. Even still, there are jokes that were inexplicable. And there are expressions that a web search yields nary an insight into ("oh nerts!" for example.)

Sprinkled throughout the film are references to changes afoot in the entertainment industry at the time. The Hays Code -- a set of film censorship guidelines -- was in effect, but wasn't fully enforced until 1934. Footlight Parade pokes fun at all this via a character who's a bumbling on-set censorship "cop," appointed by nepotism, announcing himself with a comical double-clap, and easily seduced by the scheming Vivian Rich ("I was just showing Miss Rich what you can't do in Kalamazoo," he explains weakly when the two of them are caught in an amorous embrace.)

After a half hour or so, I found myself pulled into the plot. James Cagney's character, Chester Kent, is a partner in a broadway production firm who's trying to cope with the shift to talking pictures. His idea: musical on-stage prologues that show before films. You can't help but feel sympathetic for him after you learn that his other two partners are siphoning off all the firm's profits (through some "creative accounting") while he's working himself ragged to produce truly crowd-pleasing fare.

One of these ideas is a "prosperity unit" -- which, again, a web search taught me nothing on -- but what I inferred was a sort of "be optimistic and remember the good old days of the booming 20s" song-and-dance routine. Cagney espies a group of girls rehearsing for a prosperity unit and he intervenes: "this is a prosperity unit! Show some life and some pep! *Dance* on your feet, don't die on them!" He then takes the opportunity to show them how it's done (the dude has some serious energy..)

But, casting a glance at their fretful dance instructor, one of the dancers counters "how can we look 'prosperity' when he's got depression all over that can of his?" And they decide to switch gears -- to the absurdly comical (cat-themed performances) and an absolutely over-the-top waterworld fantasy (right) with suggestive nymphs frolicking, smiling, and swimming in a variety of undulating geometric formations.

You get a sense, then, of what Americans in 1933 -- contending with a staggeringly high unemployment rate of 25% -- wanted to see in their films. They didn't want preachy "prosperity units" (whatever those were), and they didn't want imbecilic censorship rules (but those started getting enforced anyway, in 1934).

What they got in this film, instead, was an extravagant escape fantasy, brimming over with courageous defiance (Cagney stands up to his corrupt partners), sexual innuendo, and savvy commentary on the times. I finished up the film feeling hopeful and happy. No wonder people ate it up in 1933.