This is a follow-up to my recent post, What I Saw in 1996 – 11/20 to 12/31. In 1996, I started keeping a record of films I saw. Initially, I wrote notes for each film expressing my reactions to them, but eventually stopped doing that. I wrote these just for myself and had no thought or intention at the time that they might one day be released into the wild. so to speak. These aren’t the only films I saw in ’97, far from it, but probably more than enough for this post.

As before, when I mention a Sony theater, those are now AMC theaters. Tape refers to VHS video tape. Except for minor edits, I’ve left these entries as they were originally, though I’ve added posters to make it more interesting.

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1/3. OUT OF THE PRESENT at Anthology Film Archives. Really neat German documentary about Russian cosmonauts in the Mir space station during the time when the Soviet Union collapsed. One astronaut, a guy named Sergei, who looks like Keanu Reeves, was up there for 10 months. When he went up it was the USSR; when he came down it was Russia. Some absolutely stunning photography, coupled with techno-pop disco instrumentals. Weirdly poetic moments. Really liked this. Directed by Andrei Ujica. Photographed by Vadim Yusov, DP for first three Tarkovsky films (IVAN’S CHILDHOOD, ANDRE RUBLEV, & SOLARIS).

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1/4. PORTRAIT OF A LADY at Sony Lincoln Square. Something doesn’t work, something’s missing. Haven’t read James’ novel, so can’t compare, though some reviews say Isabele Archer is a stronger person in the book. Physically it’s quite impressive, though a bit too much in the dark for my taste. Also, Campion uses a lot of closeups, though not as relentlessly as in THE PIANO. Anyway, they create a claustrophobic feeling for me, don’t allow enough breathing room. The main title sequence is pretty weird. On the sound track we hear a series of female voices describing their feelings about being kissed, while on screen we see shots, mostly black & white, with an almost documentary feel, of young women in modern casual clothing. It looks like they’re maybe at a weekend feminist workshop in the country. The credit sequence finishes in the 1870s period of the story, but what the hell was this about? Only thing I can come up with is that Campion is saying, “Look, this is a period story, but it’s about women today, too.” I don’t know. Kind of jarring way to begin. Another strange sequence is of Isabele’s round-the-world (apparently) travels, shot in silent movie style. Why? What’s the justification? I mean, it’s interesting as a change of pace and style, but I wonder why she did it that way. My biggest problem is with not understanding why she decides to marry John Malkovich’s character. We’ve seen her turn away a couple of suitors already, one a pretty reasonable candidate, and more or less declare that getting married wasn’t as important to her as leading an interesting life by her own choices. So then we’re introduced to this really slimey, totally offensive guy, and she swoons away. As presented here, it doesn’t make any sense, at least not to me. Of course, my reaction to Malkovich himself is probably getting in the way. I felt a nearly physical revulsion to him in this film. He has a reptilian, creepy quality anyway, and maybe I’ve finally overdosed on it. Sure pushes some of my buttons, but which ones, and why? Nicole Kidman is really beautiful. Barbara Hershey’s also very good in this, but it’s finally a pretty cold movie, a lot of distance between me in the audience and any emotion that might have drawn me closer.

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1/6. MOTHER at Sony Lincoln Square. Everything I’ve been seeing lately has been at this theater complex. It’s a nice place to see movies, but it’s like going to the same restaurant all the time. A change would be nice. Debbie Reynolds saved this one for me. Her character was much stronger than anything Albert Brooks could throw at her. Rob Morrow’s character as the “successful” son was just irritating. The scene with Morrow and his wife fighting over his reaction to his mother cancelling a weekend visit sort of stuck out, in that it opened the door on something that wasn’t really gone into. The brother gets really hammered by this movie. The Brooks schtick, which is basically unvarying from movie to movie, is getting a little old. He’s funny and clever, but it would be impossible to be around him for any length of time.

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1/17. METRO at 84th Street. Not bad, though not very good. Spectacular car chase, but you come to expect those in any action movie set in San Francisco. Eddie Murphy’s character was most interesting when he was playing it straight, but there were too many scenes that attempted to exploit his patented comedian schtick, as though the filmmakers couldn’t make up their minds who they wanted him to be. Michael Wincott was cool as the villain. Was refreshing to see him wearing short hair for a change. Usually, or at least in THE CROW and STRANGE DAYS , he had shoulder length hair, which I didn’t much care for. There were some interesting scenes between him and the guy playing his brother, who I know from  a couple of NYPD Blue episodes. The movie really broke down at the point at which Wincott’s character magically escapes from prison. Also, the character of Murphy’s girlfriend goes through all kinds of physical shit, and it doesn’t seem to effect her very much. Plus it’s irritating when a movie ends without any hint as to the consequences of something that’s happened, i.e. Murphy’s unauthorized appropriation of the jewels from Wincott’s heist that have been impounded, and the apparent subsequent destruction of those jewels when Wincott is blown up. The last scene we see is Murphy & girlfriend on vacation in Tahiti. So what, there was no fallout from all this? Or the hostage that got shot by mistake by the SWAT guy during the jewel heist? Not to attempt to resolve any of this stuff indicates to me that the filmmakers figure no one’s going to be involved enough to care, or don’t care themselves.

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1/26. THE UNKNOWN at Walter Reade Theater. Preceded by 1927 Disney cartoon Plane Crazy, which was released after Steamboat Willie, but made before. It has a sound track, but the Alloy Orchestra played live accompaniment. Very percussive music. THE UNKNOWN is a 1927 Tod Browning film with Lon Chaney & Joan Crawford (wouldn’t have recognized her if I hadn’t known it was her). Chaney’s an ostensibly armless performer in a gypsy circus traveling in Spain. He’s in love with Crawford, who has a phobia about men’s hands and being “pawed” by them. She’s repelled/attracted to the strongman. Turns out Chaney does have arms. He’s been running this hoax. Also has a double thumb on his left hand, which has baffled the police who’ve had murders in the towns where the circus has been. Anyway, Chaney gets the bright idea that the only way Crawford will accept him is if he’s really armless, so he has them removed. While he’s out of town recovering, Crawford’s overcome her hangup about being touched by a man, and has decided to marry the strongman. Chaney goes predictably nuts when he finds out. Browning has a thing with freaks and dismemberment, with sideshow people and horrendous revenge. The Alloy Orchestra score was great, very powerful. They were selling CDs of some of their scores in the lobby, but this wasn’t among them. Sort of wish I’d gotten one anyway.

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1/29. GRIDLOCK’D at Sony 84th St. Weird kind of comic drama with Tim Roth & Tupac Shakur as odd-couple junkies trying to get into a rehab and encountering nothing but bureaucratic roadblocks every step of the way. Tupac is especially good, which is made all the more poignant by the fact that he was shot & killed last Fall. I hadn’t realized he was this good of an actor; in fact, I’d always been put off by his rap artist image before, but I really liked him in this. There’s an almost Laurel & Hardy aspect to the two characters as they keep plugging away in the face of absurd adversity. The movie could’ve been better, but it’s a good first feature from actor Vondie Curtis-Hall.

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2/6. STARS WARS at Ziegfeld. Kind of disappointing seeing this again after so many years. There’s very little characterization of any depth, and the performances are pretty much one-note, with the exception of Alec Guinness. It’s interesting that it connected in some primal way with audiences, then became part of the culture. Found the “cuteness” of many of the alien characters & droids to be pretty irritating, actually.

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2/11. INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE on laser disc. Think I liked this more than I remember from seeing it once in the theater. Still feel some of the interest and energy goes out of it during the time Cruise’s character isn’t on screen while Louis & Claudia are in Paris, though the sequence when Louis sets fires in the Theatre of Vampires is pretty spectacular. Stephen Rea is totally wasted. In fact, from the time they get to Paris, the movie seems rushed, compared to the time it took in earlier segments. Pitt is a little too lifeless as Louis, while Cruise is quite good as Lestat. The music is good. Cruise’s sudden reappearance at the very end defies the logic of the film.

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2/14. ABSOLUTE POWER at Sony Lincoln Square. Liked this, even though there seem to be more than a few loose ends by the end. But Clint Eastwood is such good filmmaker, and a presence on the screen I’m really rooting for, and the rest of the cast is in some cases, mainly Ed Harris, exceptional. Gene Hackman is pretty much wasted as the bad guy president. Also, his transition from ugly sadist with the woman in the bedroom to confused drunk once she’s dead and his people have taken over doesn’t make sense. We’re told they were both drunk when they entered the bedroom, but I didn’t see that the way he played it. Another also, I’m not sure how it would have been explained had either of the guys sent to assassinate Eastwood when he meets his daughter succeeded in doing so. In the scene immediately following that sequence, when Harris has accompanied Laura Linley to her apartment, they both play it rather lightly, sort of awkwardly flirting. It’s like the scene at the outdoor restaurant, where Linley was nearly killed, never happened. In spite of all this and other stuff, I had a good time. It’s leagues above most other thrillers of this type. There were a number of interesting little scenes, almost throwaways, principally the one where Eastwood goes to the woman who sets him up with new identities, and obviously does this for a business. There’s a lot suggested that goes beyond the scene; it adds to the life of Eastwood’s character, makes it seem more real. Felt the climax, the ending, was a bit rushed. Things fall into place too quickly; we don’t see enough of what has to be taking place. Plus, though it’s been set up that E. G. Marshall’s character believes in an eye for an eye, his killing of Hackman just doesn’t wash. I felt cheated of something. I alse wonder what happens next, i.e. will the President’s involvement come out, or will there be another cover-up, and if so, how will Judy Davis’ & Scott Glenn’s & Dennis Haysbert’s involvement be explained? Don’t think I need to know the answers to all this, but would like more of a feeling that the life of this story and these characters will continue and not evaporate after the end credits.

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2/21. LOST HIGHWAY at Sony Lincoln Square.  Well, it’s no BLUE VELVET, which it sort of reminds me of. Don’t really know what to think of it. Have this feeling it’s really bogus, just doesn’t add up. Or, if it does add up, too much has been deliberately withheld from the audience for us, me, to see what it adds up to. Pretty creepy tone, though, I’ll give it that. The decor in Pullman & Arquette’s house at the beginning is like nothing nobody would live in, reminds me of the dream room where Agent Cooper sees the midget and Laura Palmer, all red tones. I guess I’m not sure what the point is, though maybe there isn’t one, but that seems pretty unlikely. Also, I’m convinced the projectionist switched two of the reels around, I think the 2nd & 3rd to last. Want to see it at another theater to make sure. Odd thing is, I don’t think it makes too much difference. As one review I read afterwards says, the movie has a kind of dream logic.

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2/22. BLOOD AND WINE at Sony Lincoln Square. I guess there’s always the hope that it’ll be FIVE EASY PIECES again with Rafelson & Nicholson, but that was then. There’s more than enough to recommend this, though doesn’t feel like I’ve learned anything, or felt much beyond feeling sorry for these characters. Nicholson’s good; he & Michael Caine have some great scenes together. Caine comes off particularly menacing. Judy Davis is also good. Wish her character had been around longer. Liked Stephen Dorff’s performance. I think his character is the one we’re supposed to identify with, or empathize with, or maybe that’s just because I did. Jennifer Lopez is a babe, which justifies her presence on screen, in my opinion. In the end, though, none of these people are to be trusted. The movie takes a dim view of people, doesn’t hold out much hope for honorable, or “human” behavior, which I guess links it strongly to noir tradition.

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2/23. LOST HIGHWAY at Village East. I was right! There were reels mixed up when I saw it Friday. And actually, it does make a difference, even though I’d joked that with this movie it probably didn’t. Even though it’s still impossible to make sense out of parts of it, the movie certainly flows more smoothly, and the overall effect is more disturbing. Glad I did this, even though I thought it might be a little obsessive. Of course, this isn’t over yet. I still want to stop at Sony Lincoln Square and make sure they know about this, though it’s unlikely they’ve continued to show it with reels out of order. Surely someone else caught this and told them, or they caught it themselves. It’s a little depressing to think otherwise.

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2/28. DONNIE BRASCO at Sony Lincoln Square. Liked this. Pretty downbeat and unglamorous for a gangster movie. Pacino and especially Johnny Depp are very good. Pacino is great in his final scene, just after he’s gotten the call that he knows will end in his death for having brought FBI undercover agent Depp into the mob. He tells his wife to go to bed, that he has to go out; then, alone, removes rings, watch, takes the crucifix from his neck and kisses it, takes his wallet and money, and carefully places these things in a drawer in the hall, which he closes, then as an afterthought pulls partly out so he knows his stuff will be readily found. There’s very little on-screen violence, but what there is is pretty horrific, mainly a big scene where Michael Madsen and his men, including Pacino, slaughter a rival faction who’d planned to whack Madsen etc later that night. Depp’s been left outside to watch the car, then is brought in to help chop up the bodies for disposal. Just realized that in a way similar to Henry Hill in GOODFELLAS, both protagonists are never seen getting their hands really dirty, i.e. killing someone. While the movie shows us the stress Depp’s undercover life puts on his “real” life as a husband & father, it doesn’t give much indication of what he really thinks about all this, other than to let us know that he really cares for Pacino, and another scene where it’s clear he regrets causing the beating of a Japanese man in a restaurant who’s insisted Depp and the others remove their shoes according to custom, but Depp can’t because that’s where his tape recorder’s hidden, so he has to work the others up to cover his ass. Actually, we see that apparently he always hides the tape recorder in the boot, which seems a little chancy. After seeing the movie I read Todd McCarthy’s review in Variety, which was mainly favorable, though he pointed out that Depp’s character had no history to indicate why he took the assignment, nor are we given much sense of what he thinks about it. So there do seem to be some missed opportunities here, but it’s still a very strong movie. I hadn’t realized until after that Mike Newell had directed FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, a decidedly different kind of movie.

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3/1. SMILLA’S SENSE OF SNOW at Sony Lincoln Square. Starts off well, but turns very bad. Julia Ormand’s character for the first half or so is very interesting, edgy, though I don’t know that I have a very precise sense of who or what she is. She has some nice flashback scenes with the little boy who’s freshly dead at the start of the movie. As the end credits were running, the guy next to me said to his date that he thought it was a good movie trying to break free of the constraints of more conventional dramatics. I understand what he meant, but I’m not sure there was ever a good movie there, though there are hints of one. The plotting becomes progressively less credible. The movie really lost me when she gets on the ship, the Kronos. Actually, shortly before that when she goes to the docked Arctic Museum boat and sees the blind audio specialist, then goes back to find him murdered and suddenly the boat blows up. By that point it was really just by-the-numbers movie-making. As we find out more about what’s behind the death of the boy it becomes increasingly like some James Bond movie, with a meteorite that falls in the opening scene in the 1850s, which we find out has somehow revived a prehistoric parasitic worm that’s caused the deaths of people in Richard Harris’ mining company. Along the way Julia Ormond becomes a kind of action heroine. A movie that starts out about an angry, lonely woman who makes trouble trying to find out the reason for the death of a child she’d come to love turns into this unbelievable cliched joke by the end. I liked her in the role, though, even though the several reviews I read after seeing the movie thought she was terribly miscast. I don’t agree there, it’s the movie around her that sucked. Didn’t see Billie August’s last film, HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS, though apparently it was a failure. In this one Gabriel Byrne’s character is a cypher. I always like seeing Robert Loggia, but he’s kind of shoe-horned into being Ormond’s father. There’s a line tossed off that he’s an American doctor who married an Inuit woman in Greenland and then they had Julia. There’s good material & performances in this, but that all gets buried by what’s not good.

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3/14. CITY OF INDUSTRY at 84th Street.  Good movie, but there’s no payoff, no real resolution, to justify all the effort. John Irvin is a good director, and handles this noirish, cynical material well, but the film doesn’t resonate with anything beyond just what it is. I guess it doesn’t necessarily have to, but I wish it had a stronger emotional and moral content that would give it a somewhat tragic (though that’s a heavy word) meaning. Keitel is more than up to this kind of role. He brings a lot to a movie just by his physical presence, and I guess he also brings our awareness of all his previous roles as well. But when he beats Stephen Dorff’s brains out at the end, I wanted it to be more than an act of vengeance. Dorff is pretty good, a really wired, unpredictable character, but he could use something to give him a more human dimension, though maybe the character doesn’t need that, I don’t know. There’s nothing, or not much, here to suggest any kind of spiritual loss at the end, or redemption, or the feeling of noirish Fate. But I liked all the surfaces of this movie, whatever that means.

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3/15. CAPITAINE CONAN at Walter Reade. New Bertrand Tavernier film. He was there to introduce the film and for a short q&a afterwards. I liked this a lot. As someone in the audience pointed out, it’s an anti-war film that also has some very exciting, stirring combat sequences, which is true. Tavernier said that if war was nothing but horrible, ugly events, then it probably wouldn’t happen, but that some people find excitement in the midst of it. Conan & his troops, who he says he recruited mostly from army brigs, are terrifyingly effective fighters, brutal animals. Twice in the movie Conan shouts “Kill ‘em all!” These guys don’t take many prisoners. Conan says that he and about 3000 men like him won the war, the rest just fought in it. It’s a movie that touches on a number of big subjects, i.e. justice, bravery, cowardice, etc, and does so through dimensional characters, mostly decent and honorable, who get caught up in all this shit and have to deal with it. Really powerful.

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3/16. THE RETURN OF THE JEDI at Ziegfeld. Well, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is far and away the best of the three as far as I’m concerned. Am kind of at a loss to understand how this series captured the collective imagination the way it obviously did. It’s never been away; there’s been merchandizing and books, etc etc during all the years since the original release. My mood probably kept me a little out of it today, too. Seemed like the bulk of the audience was really plugged in, cheering character’s entrances, etc. There was something ritualistic about the whole thing. I think Mark Hamill gives his best “Luke” performance in this one. There’s more emotionally at stake for him with Darth Vader having been revealed to be his father at the end of EMPIRE. The whole Ewok thing really hurts the credibility of the movie, I think. They’re so obviously designed for the toy shelf, cutesy little teddy bear aliens. Kind of similar to the running C3PO and R2D2 interplay, which is irritating to me in all three films. Of course, the series never was 2001, and Lucas was careful to cover as many bases as possible in making everything appealing and satisfying. Got to admit, at the end, when Luke sees visions of Obi-Wan & Yoda & his father, I felt a sudden rush of emotion, like I wanted to cry, so I guess something paid off.

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3/17. THE DEAD ZONE on tape. This is such a repeatable movie for me. Everything about it, the performances, the music, the overall tone, is really rich, has a strong emotional content. It has probably one of Christopher Walken’s best performances. There are minor points to pick at, i.e. the pov break when we see Martin Sheen and his henchman threatening the newspaper editor in his office. I think everything before and after has been from Walken’s pov, either directly or indirectly. Sheen’s campaign for the senate seems awfully skimpy, though this may be due to budget limitations. But it just doesn’t seem likely that he’d only have his thug, Sonny, with him all the time. I don’t like it that Brooke Adams comes to his house with her child when Walken’s father’s away and has sex with him, then when he asks if he’ll see her again, she says “Not like this.” Seems cruel. He’s still in an emotionally fragile state and she got his hopes up without being up front about how things were. This isn’t a problem with the movie; it’s about my personal reaction to that situation. Even though this is arguably a less personal film for David Cronenberg to have made, I think he brings a sensibility and sensitivity to it that few others would have. He treats the material with real respect; it’s a serious film. It’s may be one of the least extreme Cronenberg films, but I really love it. I wish it were available on laser disc, letterboxed. Maybe someday.

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3/21. CRASH at Regency. Found this pretty disappointing. Very difficult to relate to any of the characters. Didn’t seem to build toward a resolution, or climax, or ending. More like it just stopped. I was surprised when I realized it was over, when the camera began to crane up and the screen faded to black under the end credit roll. A strange omission is Vaughn’s car crash in which he presumably dies, though we don’t see any sign of him, other than the wrecked Lincoln. Why didn’t Cronenberg show us at least something of that? Maybe I don’t understand the movie. The characters are like sleepwalkers; nothing seems to touch them; they seem dead. Most of the sex is rear-entry; there’s a lot of rear-ending by cars. Is this supposed to mean something? Still, Cronenberg can create anxiety, a sense of dread and apprehension like no other filmmaker I can think of. He makes me anxious about what I’m going to see. What we see of the thick, twisted, vaginal healed wound on the back of Rosanna Arquette’s thigh is quite disturbing. Some reviews say Spader’s character attempts to fuck this orifice, though I didn’t get that. Another reviewer says flatly that there is no erotic connection between car crashes and sex, which invalidates the whole movie. I don’t know. There’s certainly a connection between car crashes and a death wish, but I’m not sure about sex, unless that’s also a death wish for some people. The movie has a disturbing tone, but it doesn’t add up. I think the lack of a comprehensible narrative structure doesn’t help, just like it didn’t help Lynch’s LOST HIGHWAY. They might make a good double bill, actually.

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3/29. Taped letterboxed THE ROBE off AMC earlier in the week; watched it last couple days. This was the first feature shot in CinemaScope, made in 1953. I remember how it really was made out to be a big deal. I remember the Vista Theater having to install a new screen. So seeing it then was really exciting. Interesting to see it now, and see that they didn’t make as much as they could have of the wider screen size. It obviously took a while to learn how to use it. There aren’t any close-ups in the entire film. Almost all “master shot” tableau compositions, and medium shots. The closest shot I remember is of Pilate washing his hands. We see just his hands and forearms, the wash bowl and table. The camera either quickly pulls back or cuts to a wider shot. Also interesting that Burton got a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this, because his performance doesn’t seem like anything special. I’ll have to check the year to see who he was up against. Have caught some of the pan & scan version AMC’s been also been showing. The image quality seems much sharper, better colors. DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS, the sequel, is being shown letterboxed tonight, so will tape that. I think Victor Mature was more suited to this particular kind of religious epic, ones with a DeMille aesthetic,  that were popular in the 50s than someone like Burton, which is probably why Mature was in more of them.

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4/11. GROSSE POINTE BLANK at 84th Street. Great movie! George Armitage really has the touch with off-beat subject matter, though not sure what he’s done since MIAMI BLUES years ago. John Cusack is wonderful in this. I liked the way the violence was backed away from, though the shoot out in the convenience store, with the clerk totally unaware as he was playing his violent video game, all the shots fired and no one hit, topped off by the explosion with destroys the store, all this was “movie-ish,” but Cusack stabbing the guy in the throat with the pen at the reunion certainly wasn’t. I like black comedy like this. There’s no way it was “real,” but it played out consistent with its own terms, if you know what I mean. Filled with many great detail touches about going “home,” reunions, etc. Nice to see a movie I don’t have to qualify, make excuses for, or think is any good in the first place.

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4/16. GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE at Film Forum. Great! This was wonderful. Directed in 1995 by Shusuke Kaneto on a $4.5 million dollar budget. First new Gamera picture since 1971 (there were seven Gamera films from 1965 – 1971). Kind of a weird detail is that Ayako Fujitani, who plays a teenage girl who’s in some sort of telepathic communication with Gamera, is Steven Seagal’s daughter. Lots of neat details, i.e. the military having to get the gov’t okay before they can use weapons to attack the monsters, etc. While it’s obvious when miniatures are being used, the effects are still pretty cool. Production values have definitely improved greatly since the heyday of the Godzilla et al films. As one reviewer pointed out, the movie’s strength is that it takes itself seriously, this isn’t camp or tongue-in-cheek stuff. The story starts at ground zero with the monster stuff; the previous Gamera movie history just doesn’t exist. There are many shots of Gamera, mainly when he’s squaring off against his foe, a huge reptilian monster bird, that are quite thrilling, stirring, etc. The first half hour or so, until the birds and Gamera are fully revealed, set things up in an almost documentary style, with a full music sound and titles that identify ships and organizational names, etc. The music score by Ken Ohtani is also quite good overall.

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7/5. CONTACT at Sony Lincoln Square. Pretty good, very good, actually, though there’s something off about it, but not sure what. Maybe because it’s at least two movies in one, and I’m not sure they mesh that well. The journey Jodie Foster makes is quite dazzling, and what happens at the other end wasn’t the let-down I was afraid it would be. John Hurt’s mysterious character and his involvement seemed a little out of place with the more reality-based tone of the rest of the movie. The integration of Bill Clinton with people in the movie recalls FOREST GUMP, but it’s a legitimate technique, and works pretty well. The music score is strongly reminiscent of the GUMP score at times, especially the piano, which I found distracting and a real mistake. The same guy, Alan Silvestri, did both scores. Just wished there hadn’t been those echoes.The little twist at the end when Angela Bassett tells James Woods that there was 18 hours of static on Foster’s video recorder, which would support her claim that the trip actually took place, raises the big question of why didn’t this info surface earlier during Woods’ investigation into what happened during the launch. But overall it’s a good movie with serious concerns. William Fichtner was really good as the blind scientist. Not sure the romance angle with McConaughey & Foster worked, but it provided another emotional layer. ** Have decided the Gumping of Clinton into the film just draws attention to itself, and probably negates any “reality” value it brings to the film. It very much worked in GUMP, but not here. McConaughey’s character adds nothing, at most very little, to the story. And John Hurt’s character is just from some other kind of movie entirely.

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7/12. THE KILLING & CRIME WAVE at Film Forum. Always great to see Kubrick’s THE KILLING, though the print was a little choppy in places, mainly during the robbery itself. Seemed like there’d been breaks in the print, and it’d been spliced back together incorrectly. Whatever. Hayden was really great in this, particularly his reaction at the airport when he knows it’s all over. CRIME WAVE, which I’d never heard of, was also pretty good. Directed by Andre de Toth, this was shot in ‘52 and released in ‘54, two years before THE KILLING. Hayden again, playing a really tough homicide cop. Notable for its location shooting. Early Charles Bronson role, here billed as Charles Buchinsky. Also Timothy Carey stealing every scene he’s in, yet another bizarre performance, very eccentric and fun to watch. The music under the main title is wrong for this type of film, but that’s the last we hear of it. According to Silver & Ward’s Film Noir book, shooting was completed in Dec of ‘52, but it wasn’t released until Jan of ‘54. Wonder why such a delay? I wish the story had been a little more developed, but this movie was a pleasant surprise. It’s a little clumsy how we don’t know until the end that Gene Nelson had left a note for the cops to find in his medicine cabinet, and that Hayden had found it when they searched the apartment. The happy ending, with Hayden’s change of heart and letting Nelson off the hook, is also a little abrupt, but I liked it. Would like to find this on video or laser disc. Also thought Gene Nelson & Phyllis Kirk were really good. Maybe it’s more the presence they had and how they were used in the film. Found Kirk to be especially attractive. She had a very “modern” look, short hair I liked. Don’t think either of them did much if any A-budget work. Have been looking through my reference books for any bio or career info, but nothing so far.

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7/27. AIR FORCE ONE at Vista Theater, Storm Lake, IA. Starts off well, but starts getting pretty unbelievable about an hour in. Harrison Ford is put into some fairly silly situations, like when the hostages are getting away by parachuting from a cargo ramp at the back of the plane and one of the terrorists fouls it up, and suddenly Ford is sucked out the back, but hangs on by his hands. This actually happens twice, at least. Then, after Oldman’s been dispatched, there’s no one left to fly the plane, a 747, and Ford takes that on. The earlier part of of the movie, when everyone thinks Ford got off the plane in an escape pod, and he’s actually lurking around killing off bad guys, is very reminiscent of any of the Die Hard movies and their clones, which this basically is. Still, Ford brings a lot of conviction and believable reactions to the movie. It’s just that he seems like such a real, and vulnerable, guy that when he performs some action hero stunt, it doesn’t quite ring true. Same thing in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER when he’s hanging off the helicoptor ladder. Gary Oldman was okay as the villain, but he’s really getting typecast in this kind of part. The woman who played Ford’s wife was good; so was the daughter. Otherwise, everybody was just sort of there, and that’s it. But the secret service guy who helped Oldman’s team get on the plane, what the fuck was his deal? After all the terroists are dead and the whole plan’s gone down the toilet, why does he suddenly start shooting people during that unbelievable midair rescue? What could it gain him? Well, whatever. Also getting tired of seeing nothing but CNN coverage simulated in movies lately. What’s that all about?

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7/30. REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN & TORTURE GARDEN at Film Forum. I’ve seen REVENGE quite a few times, and have it on laser disc, but not sure I’d ever seen it in a theater, plus this was advertised as a new 35mm print. Print quality was excellent. This is one of the best Hammer productions, and I think the best of their Frankenstein series. TORTURE GARDEN, on the other hand, was pretty much of a mess, one of those anthology horror films that was popular in the 60s & 70s. I’d seen this once before, but only remembered the final episode, with Jack Palance & Peter Cushing as Poe memorabilia collectors. Turns out Cushing has Poe himself down in the cellar. Not nearly as good as I’d remembered. Neat idea, though.

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9/20. THE EDGE at National Theater/film class screening. Anthony Hopkins is great, but hard to believe David Mamet was taking this seriously when he wrote it. I expected more, considering the director was Lee Tamahori. Since it was Mamet, however, a lot of the dialogue is really good. Too many credibility holes for me. They went at least 3 days without any food. It would have taken quite awhile to set up the bear trap, but didn’t seem like it. Apparently within a day after the bear’s been killed, they’ve managed to fashion clothing from the skin; how did they manage that? Wouldn’t it take time for the hide to dry out sufficiently in any event?

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9/27. MOTHER & SON at NYFF. German/Russian production, directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. Liked this in spite of the fact that nothing much “happens” in a traditional narrative sense. A man in a remote countryside where we see no other people takes care of his sick mother; she dies at the end. I know some people found this interminable, though it was only 73 minutes long, but for reasons I can’t explain I was fascinated by it, probably largely due to the nearly fantastic quality of the visuals. It has an almost impressionistic painterly look. The film has a heavy dreamlike feeling that’s disturbing and deathlike at times.

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11/23. ALIEN RESURRECTION at AMMI. Better than the third, not nearly as good as the first two. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley character is pretty interesting, but since Ripley is dead, this isn’t really Ripley. Yet I respond as though it is. Whatever. Also some unclear plot development. Seemed highly unlikely that the ship was only 3 hours away from Earth. The new alien hybrid creature that’s born at the climax is more or less ludicrous. Shots of the eyes made me think of a guy in a suit. Nonetheless, there are still some very striking scenes in this.

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Okay, that’s a wrap. Break for lunch. See you next time. — Ted Hicks

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