Rath's Rep Rec of the Day

(or RRROD, Kate)

Here's something I was going to do on January 1st, but since I'm bored and at my girlfriend's house updating her iTunes, I figured, what the hell.

Every day, I'll be recommending a film that I like. It may be a recent movie that I saw and really enjoyed. It may be something you're sick of hearing about. It could be a movie that I saw for the first time, despite being late to the party on it. It might be a movie that, in the parlance of our time, needs more love. Some of them may also be movies that I started threads about that got no responses.

The common linking feature is only this: I dug it, and I think you might, too.

I don't expect comments on every movie, but hopefully, this will highlight some interesting features, and provoke some cool discussion. We'll see how it goes.

MONA LISA (Neil Jordan, 1986)

This is Neil Jordan's breakthrough 1986 film, and one I'll be revisiting for my Criterion project. I'm excited to revisit it, as I wasn't sure what to make of it when I saw it in the first time in 2006. Here's what I wrote:

I thought that it was very atmospheric and well-directed. Jordan did an excellent job of highlighting the differences between George's world and the world of his high-class hooker, as well as the places which they meet. Hoskins was very good--I love how so much of his performance is wordless, and at the end when he says the key line, 'I've sold myself for a couple of dykes', you really feel the lonliness and heartbreak in it. Robbie Coltrane did a good job of playing the best friend, and Michael Caine could be pretty scary as the mob boss, especially near the end. It also wasn't that obvious--I couldn't figure out the twist, even though I did think it was kind of lame.

However, I thought that we never really got past knowing the hooker at a superficial level--the very fact that I can't remember her name is a pretty good sign of it. I know that's the point (as indicated by the use of the song), but I really didn't think that the actress playing her was all that great. I also didn't care much for the ending--I really thought George's character was going to die in the final shoot-out. (That shoot-out was very well done, though.)

In short, I wouldn't put it up there with some of the other crime thrillers from Britain I've enjoyed, but it's still very good. Anyone interested in Hoskins or Jordan should check it out.

Today:

OCTOBER COUNTRY (2010, Michael Palmeri and Donal Mosher)

Hey, since you've got all those gift cards from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, why not throw a little cash towards one of the best and most underseen movies of 2010? The odds are pretty good that if you didn't have IFC or lived in a major city, you've missed this documentary about a lower-middle class family in upstate New York. A wonderful companion piece to WINTER'S BONE, the film also draws comparisons to the work of the Maysles Brothers, as it's very hands-off in hits approach.

When it came out, The New York Times compared it to a Joyce Carol Oates novel, although it's comparable to any short story writer whose topics include life in dying industrial towns/lower middle-class life, from Raymond Carver to Wells Tower.There's a lot of talk about how every family has its ghosts (and one of the participants is a witch!), and using that as a theme works better than you'd think, especially when the movie gets into how the women in the family have shitty taste in men. It's not a film of big revelations, although you learn more about the family as the film goes on. There's also some pretty awesome cinematography/direction and music.

You can buy this shit from Amazon.com here:

http://www.amazon.com/October-Countr.../dp/B003Q9IPWW

And now a "motherfuck slush and people in NYC who can't handle their buisness when 18 inches of snow gets dropped on them" two-fer:

THE ART OF THE STEAL (2010)

Another decent documentary, this one is also on Netflix Instant. Like a lot of films this year, it's about the collision between art and commerce, in this case, tourism. It uses the story of the Barnes Collection, a multi-billion dollar collection of early 20th century art (Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne) outside Philadelphia, and how the Philly establishment -- going all the way up to Governor Ed Rendell -- rewrote and subverted Barnes' will to move the Barnes to downtown Philly, which would allow them to bring in more tourist dollars.

The documentary is very obviously in the pro-Barnes camp, but it at least makes the effort to note which individuals declined to be interviewed for the film. (And as a local paper said, "This is a story where David gets the shit kicked out of him by Goliath, so David needs a megaphone.") It's told quite well, tracing the story from the development of the collection all the way to its eventual fate in Philadelphia. What I liked about it was the way your loyalties shift through the story -- one of the directors of the collection who took it on tour (against the will's wishes) doesn't look like such a bad guy at the end. However, there are some major dick moves here, like invoking a KKK law over a zoning issue.

However, one of the biggest issues about art v. commerce is barely touched on, and that's "Barnes paid for this art, so he should get to decide what he wanted done with it." That notion is mentioned in passing, but the idea isn't explored more thoroughly.

In thinking about this film since I saw it last, it also occurs to me that one of the big unspoken issues of the piece is about race as it relates to class and culture. One of the reasons the Philly/PA establishment seems to be all gung-ho about getting control of the Barnes collection is that Barnes left control to a lower-income HBC, and there's the implication, it seems, that the administration there wasn't able to handle the collection on an intellectual level. This is also sort of backed up by the fact that Julian Bond, former head of the NAACP is interviewed in the film as a friend of Barnes, and one of the former directors of the Barnes was an African-American. This issue makes me want to give the film another look.

And:

BRIGHAM CITY (Richard Dutcher, 2001)

Spoilers:

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, the girlfriend is a big fan of these Mollywood pictures, which are, for the most part, family-oriented films made by the Mormon film community based in Utah. The lack of swearing and positive social themes are par for the course with these movies, which makes BRIGHAM CITY kind of an outlier. Richard Dutcher, who writes and stars as well, is one of the "fathers" of Mormon filmmaking, and later became disillusioned with the whole industry after BRIGHAM CITY didn't do to well. I have to admire Dutcher, because as low-rent as this movie is at times, it's also a great little crime thriller about life in a small town Mormon community. This is a movie that stands on its own, removed from the curiosity of Mollywood, and it's one that I think most people around here could get a kick out of.

Also, diabetus spokesperson and Mormon Wilford Brimley dies a horrible, upsetting death.

There's a lot of that, yeah, but there's also some interesting things they do with animation and graphics. I was entertained. It's not going to revolutionize the form, but it's a solid docu.

Yesterday's:

NIGHTFALL (1957, Jacques Torneur)

Tourneur, having written the playbook for noir with Out of the Past, changes it up here. Large chunks of the movie are set during the day, and the action moves from sunny California to wintery Wyoming. The chance encounter that sets the plot in motion is very reminicent of A Simple Plan, and there's more than a couple of times I went "Gee, I bet the Coens watched this for Fargo." Aldo Ray is earnest and sympathetic, but I've got to give it up for the two heavys, Brian Keith and Rudy Bond. Bond is a gleeful sadist in the Widmark mode, but he's got some great zingers and a real deadpan delivery. Anne Bancroft is also quite good as the female lead.

Worth it for the cinematography alone. Discovering this on the big screen was one of my favorite pleasures of 2010.

Two behind again. Both these films are a challenge to see, but are among my favorite theatrical experiences of 2010:

THE PROWLER (Joseph Losey, 1951)

As you all know, I'm a big film noir geek, and I love being blown away by a movie from decades before my birth. One of the reasons I dig noir is probably because I'm perpetually surprised at just how much these films were able to get away with under the Production Code. Because the classic structure of a noir allows 90 percent grey morality just so long as the bad dudes are punished in that last 10 percent, there's some pretty subversive stuff going on in some of these movies.

Which brings us to THE PROWLER, a little-seen gem I caught at Film Forum this year. From what I've read, it's one of James Ellroy's favorite films, and that makes sense, because this movie is psychologically FUCKED. Van Heflin plays a cop who became a cop simply because he's a bully, and that's how he do. When Evelyn Keyes reports a prowler, Heflin falls for her/becomes obsessed/vice versa. Thus begins a weird psycho-sexual game that takes up most of the picture. Oh, and there's a baby.

Even though I don't remember the plot points of THE PROWLER, its sleazy as hell vibe still knocks me out and makes me grin. The other thing that makes this movie memorable is the use of voice-over. V.O. is a film noir staple/cliche, but here, it's personified by Keyes' husband, a radio DJ. I loved this use throughout the film, and it lends the film a haunting quality at all the best times, and in all the right ways. I need to own this film. I need to see it again.

Still two behind, so here's one you're probably sick of me talking about. Too bad, because the thread on it had three replies. Here's what I said before, and here's what I'll say again:

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945)

Goddamn, Miss Tierney, you so crazy.

It's hard to talk about this movie without getting into massive spoiler territory, and since this is one that I don't think a lot of people have seen, you should all see it and then come talk to me about it. If you can get past the first thirty five minutes or so, which are really slow, then you are treated to an absolute killer performance by Gene Tierney, and a pretty good one by Cornel Wilde. As a special added bonus, the last ten minutes of the movie are basically Vincent Price tearing the shit out of the scenery and leaving a giant wreck in his wake. It's awesome.

I wasn't hot on the cinematography at first, because it was so lush, and so bright, but it actually winds up working very well. As the movie gets progressively darker, the movie doesn't actually get darker with it, but maintains its bright and cheery colors, which makes the stuff on screen all the more disturbing. One of the things I've loved about discovering these classics is how they still manage to affect me, 60 plus years down the line. The end of Laura, for example, had me yelling at the tv, and there's a scene in this that really unnerved me. Well, two scenes.

Another note, this thing was made in 1945 but you can already see how Hitchock's influence was affecting the film community of the time. There are definitely some scenes in here that seem very Hitchcockian, and I definitely think there's a Rebecca-esque tone to some of the plot.

I will say, though, that between this and Bunny Lake is Missing, this is the second classical noir that hints at incest as a plot device. Are there other movies where this happens? Was this a common theme?

And another great one with some pretty stellar cinematography that was a joy to see in '10. Real fast:

RAW DEAL (Anthony Mann, 1948)

It's a prison break movie that becomes a dude on the lam movie that's also a revenge thriller that's also about the crushing inevitablity of fate. It's got gorgeous cinematography, a haunting last shot, and a deeply scary and awesome performance from Mr. Raymond Burr. It's kind of funny that people think of him solely as Perry Mason, because he had a nice career there playing bad dudes who like to kidnap presidents there. I want to see this again to confirm, but the main character has a total Betty/Veronica complex.

It's a good one.

Yesterday's:

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010, Lisa Cholodenko)

Annnette Bening and Julianne Moore are both considered to be among our finest actors, but I also think it's time we remind everyone that Mark Ruffallo is, too. He's a national treasure, and this movie plays to all his strengths. Just give him an Oscar already. Give Bening one, too. While THE SOCIAL NETWORK's script and dialogue is brilliant, I also found myself wishing desperately that this will win for Best Original Screenplay. I may have more to say this later, but for now, the rec of the day is what is probably my favorite American film of 2010.