Least and Most Favorite Movie of the week

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Last week I saw four movies, three of them interesting. Let's start with the least of these. Before James Caan and Robert Duvall appeared together in The Godfather, they appeared in Coppola's earlier movie The Rain People. And before they appeared in that, they both appeared in the early Robert Altman film Countdown. The movie shows little of Altman's later virtues: when he wanted to have his characters talk over each other, his superiors turned the idea down. They also removed the less hopeful ending. Infinity Pool is another movie from Brandon Cronenberg. I liked Possessor when it came out, but like most movies from 2000, I only have a vague idea of its content. This movie certainly has a fascinating concept: what if the Ustashe still ruled Croatia, but made it into a tourist paradise? As it happens, the regime has an interesting idea of how to punish tourists when they commit crimes, like manslaughter. Well not to give away too much, it certainly puts Alexander Skarsgard in an unpleasant situation, while showing Mia Goth to be treacherous and promiscuous. Certainly disturbing, perhaps it needs another look to see just how worthy it is.

The Seventh Continent was the first of Michael Haneke's films, and this story of what happens to an apparently ordinary middle-class Austrian family foretells the some concerns that critics have had with Haneke's later films, culminating in the cruelty of (both versions of) Funny Games. Although one can argue whether the motivations for the family's actions have any real social basis other than Haneke's sadism, I am going to give this a slight thumbs up, and suggest that it does relate to a larger reality. Perhaps it would be worth it to rewatch Cache again. Finally there is the movie of the week: Do not Expect too much of the end of the World. For the first two hours of this nearly 2.75 hour long movie, we appear to be watching three movies: a black and white movie which makes up most of it where we see the female protagonist work a 15-18 hour day driving around Bucharest trying to line up potential subjects for a workplace safety film the foreign (Austrian) film. At times we see color footage where the woman uses a filter on her cell phone to appear as a man who makes outrageously obscene and misogynist comments. Finally, we see color film that we later learn is an actual movie in the early eighties about a female taxi driver in Ceausescu's Romania. Supposedly when the director slows it down we can see damning details that the then communist regime would prefer to hide, although that was not clear to me when I first saw it. Regardless, it does provide an indelible portrait of both precarious work and the ineffective and self-serving hypocrisy of EU "good wishes."

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Last week I saw three movies. What can you say about The Cheat? What can you say about a movie about a woman who embezzles money from her charity, blows it all, and then makes a deal with Sessue Hayakawa, who goes all yellow peril when he seeks to collect the debt? That it shows Cecil B. DeMille's talent for crowd-pleasing demagoguery? That the best thing you could say about Hollywood is that Hayakawa wasn't lynched after the movie was made? The Beast is the movie of the week, from the same director of and the strange sense of imagination as Nocturama. It helps on watching this unsettling movie knowing that it involves both virtual reality and AI (that should be evident), but also reincarnation as well (that is less obvious, though you need to realize this to understand the movie's final kick.) Lea Seydoux is very good (she's in virtually every scene) and her strange relationship with actor George MacKay (best known as the protagonist in 1917) does offer some genuine chills.

Sweet Charity has a number of virtues. Shirley MacLaine gives an energetic performance. There is at least one successful standard from the movie. There are a couple of effective dance numbers, one of which La La Land pays a nice tribute to, the other successfully used in a video for the ELO hit "Don't Bring me Down." There is a certain style and alienation effect that director Bob Fosse would put to better use in Cabaret and All that Jazz. The main question about the movie, and alas it's a fatal one, is what is the point of remaking Nights of Cabiria? Aside from the money. The former was already a great movie, in my view Fellini's best. Moving it to New York only removes it from a specific time and place (Italy after the war and sort of but not quite in its economic miracle) to a more generic one. Also, while the ending, or almost the ending, is kind of heartbreaking, the audience is kind of relieved that MacLaine doesn't end up with a drip like John McMcartin

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Last week I saw three movies, none of them really successful. Breathless and Mame share being remakes of two much more famous movies. The first was one of the greatest movies ever made, the second was a respected oscar nominee. The new Breathless came out the same year as Hollywood insisted on making a sequel to The Sting without either the original director or any of the stars. It also come out the same year that Hollywood presented a sequel to Saturday Night Fever which did more damage to its star than to its director. As such Breathless Mark 2 asks what if we got the director of David Holzman's Diary to make a conventional remake of the revolutionary classic? Well the beats are much the same, with Richard Gere given a love for Jerry Lee Lewis and the Silver Surfer where Belmondo liked Bogart in the original. Also, someone got the idea of playing "Message of Love" at a point where Gere and his girlfriend are being chased. The other changes are much more underwhelming. I can understand why the producers were at a loss with the long conversation Belmondo and Seberg have in the original. But replacing it with sex and nudity is hardly an inspiring choice. And at key points, such as the shooting that inspires much of the action, the reason Valerie Kaprisky betrays Gere, and the fact that Gere doesn't actually die in the end, the movie consistently chooses the safer, cuddlier, response.

Mame got a BOMB rating from Leonard Maltin. I think this is too harsh. It's certainly less annoying than the other two widely disliked seventies musicals TCM showed last month. Admittedly, there is little reason to watch a version of Auntie Mame just sixteen years after the original movie, with a less inspiring actress than Rosalind Russell. And if you were going to have musical numbers, Angela Lansbury, who starred in the musical version on Broadway, seems a much better choice. But Lucille Ball isn't that bad a choice, and in retrospect many of the complaints about her seem ageist. (And given how since then many male stats have played roles much older than her with less complaint, a bit sexist as well.) And Bea Arthur and Robert Preston are more memorable than their Auntie Mame counterparts. In retrospect, I don't think I was the right audience for You Hurt My Feelings. Having Julia Louisa Dreyfus star as an essayist and writer who is wounded overhearing her husband's lack of enthusiasm for her latest work just reminded me of Elaine Benes and Selina Meyer. So it's hard to see her character as anything other as grievously flawed, and when one finally realizes we're supposed to show her some sympathy, it's too late to care.

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A reminder that I rewatched Castle in the Sky last week.