The Realm Beyond Words

Every Blog Has Its Day

2008-01-07T13:19:00.001-08:00

Some not-so-breaking news: I've been invited to blog at a new website called ConversantLife.com, a self-styled "faith-based content and social media hub" that launched late last year. All are invited. Hopefully the change of scenery will do me some good, get me motivated to log my thoughts more frequently. If all goes well, maybe I'll stay on awhile.

To everyone who's been a faithful reader and/or occasional commenter, thanks. You've made this experiment in criticism worth the trouble. I hope to see your names pop up in the comments section of the new blog, which I've handily titled, "The Realm Beyond Words," just so nobody's confused.

I've also been writing lately for film critic Emanuel Levy, helping cover the L.A. movie scene for his mammoth website, emanuellevy.com. Check out my review of National Treasure: Book of Secrets HERE.

A very Happy New Year to all!

Willoughby Right Back

2007-12-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

Despite the scarcity of posts within this poor anemic blog, I'm going to self-administer a vacation. I recommend you all do the same.

I'll be back in January with some real news in tow. I can't say much right now, but there have been a couple of exciting developments, job-wise, in my life lately.

Please get yourselves to a theater and watch something good. If you've got strong stomachs, I recommend There Will Be Blood, which announces itself as an important American film, to be counted in the same company as Days of Heaven and even Citizen Kane. I don't think it quite deserves that distinction, but it's a helluva good try.

Not much wonder found in this 'Emporium'

2007-11-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

I've got a review of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium in the Daily News today. Let's just leave it at that.

Read all about it HERE.

Halloween Double Feature

2007-11-07T00:26:00.000-08:00

Saw two classy ghost stories at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica:

The Haunting

Seeing it projected, one is able to properly appreciate the ornately detailed art direction and full-bodied widescreen image. To enhance the feeling of omnipresent dread, director Robert Wise positions stone cherubs and statues within the frame as if they were observing the tiny cast, at one point even superimposing a close-up of a blank-eyed angel so it registers subliminally. The incredibly dense, intricately layered sound design is also impressive. The Haunting is that rare specimen: a psycho thriller that’s actually psychological, a horror film that truly horrifies. Julie Harris’s intense performance plunges you so deeply into the main character’s troubled conscience (with a risky but effective voice-over narration) you begin to partake of her paranoia. Nelson Gidding’s screenplay also finds room for sympathetic characterizations in Claire Bloom’s modish lesbian, Richard Johnson’s erudite doctor (who provides a bit of rationalism for balance), and Russ Tamblyn’s wisecracking rich kid. Quite brilliantly photographed in black and white by David Boulton, this stands tall as the Mount Everest of haunted house movies, with set pieces that linger long after the final fade out.

The Uninvited

Charming, witty, comical, but still sufficiently unsettling, this is one of the finest examples of the Hollywood ghost story. The seaside mansion and adjacent cliff are softly, dreamily photographed by Charles Lang, Jr., and the ghostly back story is carefully demarcated like a delicate mystery plot, with each crucial piece of information revealed at precisely the right moment. There are some wonderfully imaginative special effects, such as a bouquet of flowers that suddenly wilts in a haunted room; candles that mysteriously snuff out of their own volition; ubiquitous sobbing that comes from somewhere (and nowhere) in the house; the mysterious scent of mimosa signaling the presence of an restless spirit. Other points of interest include the subtle suggestion of a lesbian relationship, a plot structure similar to Hitchcock’s Rebecca (another classic ghost movie), and a sympathetic performance by Gail Russell as a put upon daughter. In fact, the whole cast is fine, including a droll Ray Milland, and the film makes one nostalgic for WWII movies in which the men wear suits and the women dress for dinner.

French Crime Double Feature

2007-10-26T20:42:00.001-07:00

Went to a double feature last week at Grauman’s Egyptian and took in a couple of French crime thrillers:

Sleeping Car Murder (1965)

This early Costa-Gavras film—his first—had a greater influence on the giallo horror movement than history lets on. The plot is pure horror Italiano: black-gloved killer eliminates witnesses to crime committed on overnight train. Lots of red herrings, each one more delicious than the last, are woven into an ingenious murder plot Agatha Christie would have smiled at. And why does reality seem more real in French films? The peachy cast includes Jacques Perrin, Simone Signoret, Michel Piccoli, Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and so on and so forth.

The Champagne Murders (1967)

Completely strange, disorienting Claude Chabrol thriller, filmed in that coolly distanced style that makes it impossible to fully engage with his characters. This one’s an American-French co-production, and all the voices are egregiously dubbed, furthering the sense dislocation. Maurice Ronet plays a champagne tycoon suffering from blackouts who thinks he’s being framed for murder by slinky business partner Yvonne Furneaux and her ne’er-do-well husband (Perkins). Many of the characters remain in a booze-induced fog, and watching the film is a little like being drunk, or as my friend Cameron Stallones quipped, “like walking through Jell-O.” Worth seeing for Chabrol’s supremely elegant camerawork (color cinematography by Jean Rabier), and for exotic Stephane Audran’s tricky performance as a female escort who isn’t quite who she seems.

Jindabyne

2007-10-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Thickly atmospheric Aussie adaptation of Raymond Carver’s frugal but ample short story, “So Much Water So Close to Home,” first seen onscreen in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts. Ray Lawrence (whose previous Lantana didn’t do anything for me) and screenwriter Beatrix Christian open up the story a bit by cutting away to the killer, who, for dramatic clarity, was previously kept off the page. This adds a dimension of suspense (certain shots are mindful of Deliverance) and a dimension of irony (the fishermen who find the girl’s body are scapegoated while the culprit remains at large). The decision to add an element of racial anxiety (the murdered girl was an Aborigine) is frustratingly beside the point. It dilutes, it obfuscates. Carver’s modest objective was to dredge up the underlying tension within a marriage. Lawrence can’t resist the lure of portentous symbolism, and the powerful emotions get lost in a sea of metaphor. Suitably grown up, though, with goodly acting.

Screengrab #12

2007-10-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

What I've Been Watching Lately

2007-10-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

Cockfighter

Warren Oates as a silent trainer of prizefighting roosters whose life has been swallowed up wholesale by his bloody trade. Monte Hellman’s subdued, relaxed tone is sneaky—the film’s a terrifyingly pessimistic character study about a reclusive loser living on the fringes of society. Nestor Almendros’s naturalistic cinematography captures the Georgia countryside in all its languorous beauty. A quintessential ‘70s film, with a near-iconic performance by Oates.

The Browning Version

Prim, well behaved, yet completely successful character piece from the most fertile period of English cinema (post-WWII). Based on Terence Rattigan’s one-act play about a dried-up schoolmaster whose life is turned around by a small act of kindness, this Anthony Asquith production takes its sweet time unfolding, the better to establish a realistic portrait of its anguished protagonist. Among other things, this is an uncompromising look at failure, regret, and expiation—it succeeds in crushing expectations to a bloody pulp before miraculously reviving them for an emotionally honest happy ending. The piece is held together by a masterful Michael Redgrave, who somehow manages to take a glassy-eyed, stiff-upper-lipped character and turn him into one of the most searingly sympathetic figures ever to suffer the silver screen.

The Great Garrick

James Whale, whose sense of humor was kept at a low boil in his Frankenstein movies, lets it all hang out in this enjoyable farce about a French acting troupe that stages an elaborate hoax in order to show up an arrogant English thespian. The complications are delightfully convoluted, and the whole enterprise resembles both a critique and a celebration of the art of acting.

Secret Ceremony

Bizarre gothic chamber piece about a neurotic child-woman (Mia Farrow) and her ostensible mother (Elizabeth Taylor), who mutually deceive, abuse, and manipulate each other in their tomb-like mansion. Robert Mitchum (wearing a joke-shop beard) shows up as a predatory uncle, and his presence is emblematic of the vaguely menacing tone achieved by the film. Directed by Joseph Losey with his usual flair for cold, stately compositions, it’s long overdue for cult status, and remains perversely amusing.

The Whisperers

Dame Edith Evans gives a shattering performance as an impoverished old lady who slowly loses her grip on sanity while subsisting on faded memories in her dreary Manchester flat. She retreats into a private world of fantasy as various lowlifes (and a few well-meaning social workers) take advantage of her senility, and the mistreatment she endures is difficult to behold. Bryan Forbes dilutes the power of this punishing parable by adding a last-ditch crime subplot, but all told this is a fairly successful stab at social commentary, atmospherically photographed by Gerry Turpin in a style that recalls the work of Eugene Atget.

Screengrab #11

2007-10-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

The Seventh Victim

Trade

2007-09-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

Two Wrongs Make a Movie

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

2007-09-24T22:56:00.001-07:00

Ken Loach’s Guernica, a vivid recollection of death, brutality, suffering, and helplessness, unalleviated by a happy ending. Its subject is the birth of the IRA, the unbearable emotional toll on the lives of those involved, and the price paid in blood. Incredibly manipulative, biased, and deterministic, it is also an accomplished piece of filmmaking. As is usually the case with Loach, the film somehow manages to take the broad view while keeping his human characters sharply in focus. Gradually, a theme of ruptured familial relationships emerges from the rubble. The roving, restless camera unites all the performers within the frame without emphasizing one over the other, so that the entire film resembles a tapestry or portraiture. And the seemingly improvisatory acting is invigorating for its ease and naturalness. (The difficult Irish accents are not attended by subtitles.) Excellent performances by Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney, and Orla Fitzgerald accompany this unashamedly tenacious polemic, though it is that very tenaciousness that tends to work against its success.

The Last Winter

2007-09-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

Set in the white wilderness of Northern Alaska, this hypnotically eerie independent feature from Larry Fessenden secures his position as one of the most creative and intelligent horror directors on the American scene. More concerned with creating tension within a group of tightly knit characters than proffering cheap shocks, Fessenden exhibits a Howard Hawksian appreciation for male camaraderie and Val Lewtonian love of the patient scare. Ron Perlman gives credence to the role of a grizzled captain of an Arctic drilling team who accidentally unleashes Mother Nature’s ghosts from the rapidly liquefying permafrost. If the plot sounds a little like An Inconvenient Truth by way of John Carpenter’s The Thing, think again. Fessenden’s main interest lies in the exploration of subjective reality, although the eco-conscious subtext allows him to simultaneously develop themes established in his previous Wendigo. The start realism is so patiently established that it almost feels like a cheat when the special effects finally arrive (unlike Lewton, Fessenden always shows his monsters), but this remains a compelling thriller with a strange aftertaste. Anton Sanko is responsible for the creepy ambient score.

(Twilight Zone) Screengrab of the Day

2007-09-20T14:19:00.001-07:00

"A Stop at Willoughby"

Amazing Grace

2007-09-16T00:41:00.001-07:00

Refreshingly old-fashioned biography of William Wilberforce, the English politician whose parliamentary campaign against the slave trade quietly rocked the free world. Beguiling in its celebration of victories both small (Wilberforce’s charming courtship of wife-to-be Barbara Spooner; his movingly articulate friendship with fellow abolitionist William Pitt the Younger) and large (the eventual assent of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, after nearly two decades of demonstration), the film remains sensually grounded in the struggles of its “ordinary” protagonists. Under Michael Apted’s calm, assertive direction, the largely British cast delivers more than its share of vibrant portrayals (Ion Gruffudd’s munificent Wilberforce, Benedict Cumberbatch’s subtly expressive Pitt, and Albert Finney’s stormy John Newton come to mind), and Steven Knight’s cogent screenplay renews faith in the possibility of social reform. Knight is less successful in laying out the chronology of events, but this only makes one eager to crack open the history books and see for oneself. A redoubtably handsome film, photographed in soft, milky tones by Remi Adafarasin.

Screengrab #10

2007-09-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

Mr. Bean's Holiday

2007-09-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

While American movie culture continues to trade on store-bought cynicism and trendy politics, Rowan Atkinson’s bourgeois comedies seem heroically square. Working with gags that are primarily visual, Atkinson avoids postdating himself. Many years from now Mr. Bean’s Holiday will be just as droll as it is today.

A full decade has elapsed since audiences first encountered the bug-eyed, elastic-faced English oaf in theaters, and time has done nothing to ossify his image. He still resembles a Martian trying vainly to adjust to the rhythms of human life. Mischievous yet essentially innocent (like his closest cinematic cousin, Stan Laurel) he is never far from trouble’s front door.

In a local lottery, Bean wins a modest vacation to the South of France. Camcorder in tow, his destiny collides with that of a ten-year-old boy (Max Baldry) whom Bean inadvertently separates from his father. Grimly determined to reunite the tyke with his distraught dad (Karel Roden), Bean accidentally sabotages the set of an egotistical film director (Willem Dafoe). This in turn leads to a serendipitous encounter with a beaming French actress (Emma de Caunes). All five characters converge at the Cannes Film Festival in a scene that resembles the climax of Buster Keaton’s classic silent comedy Sherlock, Jr.

This is featherweight stuff, yet many of the scenes are vividly conceived and executed with at least a modicum of good timing. Whether impishly dumping a plate of oysters into a woman’s purse or bicycling after a truck full of chickens, Atkinson is compulsively watchable. And though one can sense a dire kind of gallows humor encroaching on the material, the movie is generally bighearted and sweet in disposition—a sexless, G-rated alternative to the raunchy status quo.

Like the underrated Johnny English, Mr. Bean’s Holiday serves mostly as an opportunity to exploit Atkinson’s loose-limbed mugging (at one point he makes a pallid attempt to dance to Shaggy’s “Boombastic”), yet it narrowly avoids narcissism. The title recalls the French film genius Jacques Tati (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday) to whom Mr. Bean bears a superficial resemblance. And like Tati, Atkinson realizes that one of comedy’s grandest qualities is the power to heal. (It ends with a romantic, if unlikely, image of the entire multicultural cast united in song.)

In one of the final scenes, Bean, entranced by the sight of a scenic beachfront, walks across a series of perfectly placed automobiles. For a moment, we are reminded of how certain great comedians have a way of bending the physical world to their will. If this is truly Mr. Bean’s final public appearance, it’s a good one to go out on.

Disturbia

2007-08-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Because D.J. Caruso uses Rear Window as his template, this teen suspense flick has some built-in interest of its own, but the flattering comparisons stop there. The first half is a distracted mystery that involves a lot of snooping and sleuthing (camcorders being the notable addition to Jimmy Stewart’s tools of trade). The second half is a slickly manipulative house-of-horrors scare show. The overindulged suburban protagonists, it almost goes without saying, are distractingly vacuous (though not necessarily unappealing).

Bridge to Terabithia

2007-08-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

Walden Media finally got it right with this sensitive children’s story (based on a Newbery-winning book by Katherine Paterson) about two junior high pals who conjure up an imaginary kingdom in order to cope with the misery of middle school. The acting, especially among the kids, is uncommonly good (Josh Hutcherson’s dreamy introspection nicely compliments AnnaSophia Robb’s pert impishness), though the voices seem to have been tampered with in post-production. The plot takes a sharp turn toward pathos in the last act, and director Gabor Csupo handles the transition gracefully. The cinematography by ace technician Michael Chapman is very pleasant (admitting plenty of natural sunlight and leafy shadows), but the special effects seem like an overanxious bid to keep up with current trends. A more low-tech approach would have been appreciated.

1408

2007-08-30T01:36:00.000-07:00

Drawing stamina from a lean, terrifying Stephen King short story, Mikael Hafstrom’s semi-successful creep show dilutes the horror by dishing out the dime-store psychology, turning the titular haunted hotel room into a Freudian funhouse. John Cusack, one of the most sensible and straight-thinking actors of his or any generation, gives an anxious performance as a skeptical ghost hunter who suddenly finds himself face to face with a tangible evil. His swift downslide into psychosis (like Jack Nicholson’s trajectory in The Shining) provides plenty of rooting interest. This is more a snack than a full meal, but the few smatterings of imagination (such as the surreal scene in which the protagonist scales the hotel wall) are worth any horror maven’s time.

Breach

2007-08-28T15:47:00.001-07:00

Chris Cooper stars as Robert Hanssen, the wily spy who sold secrets to the Soviets and so became a modern day Benedict Arnold. Billy Ray’s factual, credible, even-tempered film keeps the suspense percolating at room temperature at all times. We are given just enough psychology to keep us alert (the tidbit about Hanssen’s aberrant sex life comes across as gossipy, his tortured Catholicism intriguing), but it brings us no closer to understanding the motives for his licentious behavior. The superbly scowling Cooper plays the unprepossessing Hanssen with gusto, and Ryan Phillippe and Laura Linney are both warmly believable as the bureaucrats who set out to trap him. This doesn’t provide much in the way of excitement, but as an exercise in people watching, it’s compulsively entertaining.

My 20-Year Plan

2007-08-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Penguin Classics has been called the greatest educative force of the twentieth century.

If I read one Penguin Classic a week, I'm confident I could finish their entire catalog (over 1000 titles, or half a million pages) in, say, 20 years (that's about 60 pages a day). By then I'd be 44 years old and ready to start a family, choose a career, open a savings account, etc.

Stroke of genius or tragic mistake?

Maybe I ought to skip George Eliot and save a couple of years...

Race to the Finish

2007-08-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

I am seriously considering destroying this blog at the end of the year. (But not before I replace it with something newer and better.) I simply haven't had the time or discipline to supply new content. Okay, okay. I've had the time, just not the discipline.

But before I move on, I think I'll glut this blog with reviews of current movies instead of waiting until December to reveal an end-of-the-year wrap-up. New movies are more fun to talk about because everyone has equal access. (Besides, I can't expect others to love British post-war cinema as much as I do!)

Some new stuff is forthcoming, so stay tuned.

Still Reading...

2007-08-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

Screengrab #9

2007-08-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

Screengrab #8

2007-08-04T00:27:00.001-07:00