It’s been pushing 90 degrees up our way, weather that calls for some quality indoor time. When it’s already 78 at 530am, you’re in for a nasty day. Because I can’t bear movie theaters, despite the air conditioning, I hit the Richmond DVD store.
A Face in the Crowd (1957) – The purposefulness and lack of subtlety I associate with Kazan is here, though there are many fine touches in this cautionary tale that makes On the Waterfront look like the work of a hack. Only Andy Griffith could have played Andy of Mayberry’s evil twin so well. His anguished cries of “come back” falling over a deaf New York night provide one of filmdom’s most satisfying endings.
Vera Drake (2004) – The long shot of Imelda Stauton’s face when the police interrupt the engagement party at her home is worth the price of a hundred theater tickets. While Mike Liegh skips the ideology, you can’t escape that in a world where men have the power and only the rich have choices, Vera Drake gets 30 months in prison. This is the best of films: it doesn’t ask for viewing, but demands participation. (as a side note, there’s something unnerving about seeing a period piece set in the decade I was born)
Catch-22 (1970) – Mike Nichols and Buck Henry give the Heller novel a good shot, but you don’t get very far into it before you realize it isn’t going to work. Bringing it to the screen was ambitious, and the hard trying is everywhere. Far too much playing for the laughs. The novel’s structure must have been daunting, but I’m wondering if Henry wasn’t too overwhelmed by it.
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) – Jim Jarmusch pulled something off here, and what it is, I have no idea. Which is not important. Did he decide to master the film school film genre? If you let go of the idea that a movie is supposed to mean something, then this one starts to mean something. Everyone seems to have had a good time putting on the show, and that almost always works for me.
>Vera Drake gets 30 months in prison
Of course- in the real world she was bound to have caused serious death and injury- and taken some money for it too. That film was pilloried by critcs Right, Left and Centre for its loaded dice- but there's always a huge market for that kind of feel righteous movie.
Coffee and Cigarettes-
Jarmusch is an imposter: whatever he is, he is not a film director.
Posted by: Aibrushed by the Commissars at July 17, 2005 03:52 PM