BUG (2006)

April 2, 2021

(epix/VOD) One of the few screenings I was able to catch last year before lockdown was a special 35mm screening of William Friedkin’s BUG, featuring actor Michael Shannon and writer Tracy Letts for a post-film discussion. Before both became relatively big names, they worked together on Letts’ lurid, often horrific, small town stage plays, such as BUG and KILLER JOE. Both film adaptations arguably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Friedkin as, according to Letts, Friedkin hounded him to adapt BUG after seeing it on the stage, and Friedkin also volunteered to take on KILLER JOE, requiring that Letts write the screenplay for each film.

A quick summary: Agnes (Ashley Judd) is a troubled waitress who works at a gay bar in a small Oklahoma town who drinks and snorts away her loneliness. One night she meets a fresh face, Peter (Michael Shannon), who reluctantly says he’s a freshly discharged solider. The two get to bonding, and before long he’s crashing in her ramshackle hotel room. What follows is an expertly balanced grimy, disturbing tale about abuse, paranoia, mental illness, and co-dependence.

While I’d previously seen BUG a few times via DVD, and several years later I’d attend a production of it at Steppenwolf — Letts and wife Carrie Coon are members, and Coon played Agnes in that production — nothing compares to seeing a print of it in a sold out theater full of fans and fans who dragged their unknowing friends to it.

Friedkin ramps up the claustrophobia, leans more on the characters’ perspectives, and tightens the screws with some manic editing and montage work, making it far more effective on a big screen than viewing at home. Also, when watching a film as gonzo as BUG, the audience’s emotions roil through the theater, amplifying some of the more absurd moments the film throws at you. At the screening, after a particularly confusing array of images and sound that are followed by relative silence, someone simply shouted out ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ and the theater burst out laughing because how the hell else do you react to BUG?

Sadly, chances to view BUG under my 2020 conditions don’t roll around too often, so don’t wait as it plays just as fucked up on a small screen. Arguably, thanks to being in lockdown, the horror of it may play more effectively when one watches at home after a year of lockdown.

There’s a trailer and, while it doesn’t ruin anything exactly, it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible.

HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS (2010-Present)

April 1, 2021

(Discovery+/fubo/Science Channel)? This will definitely date me, but one of my formative memories is of being dragged out of bed by my father in the middle of the night to see Halley’s Comet. See, I loved reading about space, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. We drove out to the middle of nowhere — easily done when you live in Vermont — but, when he set up my telescope, I refused to look, scared of peering into the unknown. I was too young to have an existential crisis but, upon finally squinting through the telescope’s lens and seeing the burst of light in my telescope, well, it made me feel very small and very alone and very scared, but also in awe of the universe.

Now that I’ve technically grown up, practically every night I reinstill that cosmic feeling by letting this show lull me to sleep.

HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS features an assortment of cosmologists, astrophysicists, theoretical physicists, and other scientists (including Michio Kaku) who discuss the theme of the episode, say, about new discoveries regarding the moons of Saturn, or expound on neutron stars, but more often than not it’s concerned with black holes. While they’re excitedly chatting away about their life’s work, or while Mike Rowe is narrating some connective tissue to help viewers understand the concepts, the show throws a bevy of impressive space CGI at you.

It’s been running for nine seasons now, although a fair amount of the recent seasons consist of three pre-existing hour-long episodes wrapped into one, which makes it perfect for half-awake background viewing.

It’s worth nothing that there are a ton of smaller clips from the show available via YouTube. Science Channel has even conveniently assembled an entire playlist of them, which should make for quality background viewing for you, too.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (2018)

March 31, 2021

(Netflix) Back when Netflix was trying to court critical respect by restoring old films — yeah, that didn’t last long — they helped fund the restoration of Orson Welles’ final work: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. They also co-funded a documentary about the restoration of the film, but that’s a story for another day.

If you aren’t familiar with THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, it’s a surreal depiction of a master director (a perfectly cast John Huston) trying to complete a film that everyone believes has spiraled out of his control. Yes, indulgent, but it’s Orson Welles.

I poke a lot of fun at Orson (for instance, I watch THE CRITIC clips lambasting Welles with embarrassing frequency. “They’re even better raw!”) but he was certainly a genius. A flawed genius for sure, but his best pieces were always about fucked up geniuses, including THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND which is not so nakedly about him and his legacy. It helps that his longtime paramour Oja Kodar (who appeared in the previously recommended F FOR FAKE, and also appears in WIND’s film-within-a-film, rarely wearing anything) co-wrote and greatly influenced the production. She has been quite silent about the production and restoration, so it’s hard to say how much of her vision is on the screen but, given how unflattering the bulk of the film is, I can’t help but believe she contributed quite a bit. (That’s sheer speculation on my behalf.)

Given that only 45 minutes of this two-and-a-half hour long film was actually edited by Welles, what we’re seeing is more or less a fan edit, as opposed to the restored version of TOUCH OF EVIL where Welles expert Jonathan Rosenbaum aided in restoring EVIL based on Welles’ extremely detailed notes. That said, what’s passed off as WIND -feels- like a later Welles film, often coming across as something that could come unhinged at any point in time, but manages to reel itself in. It’s a fascinating film, one that — given Netflix’s history — may never again be screened in an actual theater (which is a shame, because it sings on the big screen) but watching it on a smaller screen is just one more compromise.

SLEIGHT (2016)

March 30, 2021

(Netflix/VOD)? Like LOVE & BASKETBALL, SLEIGHT also exits at the end of March so, sadly, you don’t have much time to watch it for free, but it’s definitely worth a digital rental fee.

J.D. Dillard seems to specialize in delightfully overstuffed films. SLEIGHT is about a young drug dealer named Bo (Jacob Latimore) that gets in way over his head with supplier Angelo (a somewhat ill-fitting Dulé Hill), but he’s also a street magician who idolizes Houdini, and he also has a crazy superhuman magnetic implant that allows him to pull off some amazing stunts. As he says in the film: “Anyone can learn a trick. Doing something no one else is willing to do makes you a magician.”

It also namedrops West Covina (yeah, I hear you fellow CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND fans) and features Cameron Esposito in a supporting role.

While it’s undeniably high-concept, Dillard keeps matters grounded. Bo’s magnetic powers are slowplayed, lending the film a far more human air than you’d expect, which is what I appreciate the most about the movie. Dillard could’ve cranked this up to 11 and I’m sure it would have been an entertaining film, but he did the opposite and it’s far more interesting because of that choice.

That said, it reads like Dillard was setting this up as a franchise, with Bo becoming some sort of Tesla-ish force of nature, but that never happened. Instead, he went on to write and direct the similarly high-concept SWEETHEART, and is now working on a STAR WARS film.

QUEEN & SLIM (2019)

March 29, 2021

(VOD) Fuck everyone that said this film was style over substance. Every scene here exists for a reason, and -just happens to be- stylishly shot.

Yes, this can be called a Black Bonnie & Clyde film. (Hell, it’s called out in the trailer linked below.) It’s the story of two strangers — Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) and Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith), magnetically thrust together, immediately pegged as criminals as they try to escape an unjust system while working their way through America by car for freedom.

The film runs the emotional gamut: it’s cruel, hard, emotional, romantic, sad, heartbreaking, violent, and worth your time.

GLAMOUR GHOUL – THE PASSIONS AND PAIN OF THE REAL VAMPIRA, MAILA NURMI (2021)

I don’t read many biographies, but this one interested me because, come on, it’s Vampira. If you aren’t familiar with Vampira, well, here. She was literally the proto-Elvira (more on that in a bit). However, Maila was also the nexus of a certain part of late 40s/50s Hollywood, something I didn’t know at all.

  • She was involved with Orson Welles shortly before he married Rita Hayworth and, allegedly had his child and gave him up for adoption. (I’ll note that there’s really no proof here regarding the kid.)
  • Disney hired her to be the visual ‘source material’ for Maleficent in SLEEPING BEAUTY
  • She had a very long, very complicated relationship with Marlon Brando
  • She was thick-as-thieves with James Dean
  • She struck up a friendship with — and maybe fucked — Elvis when he was in Vegas
  • She and Anthony Perkins had an intense hot-and-cold friendship
  • She wanted Patricia Morrison (SISTERS OF MERCY) to take up the role of Vampira when talk of restarting the Vampira show began
  • Elvira is the direct result of Maila spurning the Vampira reboot. Maila was supposed to hand-pick the next Vampira and they chose Cassandra Peterson without consulting her, and Maila then refused to sign the contract allowing them to use the name, so she became Elvira instead.

I knew this was a bio from a blood relative, from Maila’s niece Sandra Niemi, so I was skeptical as to some of these stories which, admittedly come from Maila’s own pen, but uh, there are plenty of photos and pre-existing proof. Maila knew misfit talent when she saw it — herself being similarly minded. While the bio is a bit clunky, it’s stuffed full of stories that entertain and enthrall, and paint the picture of a very complex woman, a woman with a brilliantly creative, often hilariously filthy, mind. Sadly, she was often mercurial, and her luck was rotten and, despite everything she gave to the world and her friends, she often lived in poverty, because it’s fucking Hollywood.

I do want to underscore that, despite all of the stars that pop up, it’s very much a story about deviants and misfits trying to get by in Hollywood. It’s a classic Hollywood tale, but not the classic Hollywood tale most want to hear. But hey, if you’re a goth and you want to know where your media roots stem from, you should read it.

https://bookshop.org/books/glamour-ghoul-the-passions-and-pain-of-the-real-vampira-maila-nurmi/9781627311007

THE TWILIGHT ZONE: COME WANDER WITH ME (1964)

March 28, 2021

(Hulu/Paramount+, S05E34) This episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE is rarely included in best of lists, which is fair — even if it’s the last-filmed ep and directed by Richard Donner — as its story is a bit strained, even by TWILIGHT ZONE standards. Floyd Burney, known as the “Rock-A-Billy Kid” (Gary Crosby), is on the prowl for a new song in a small, unnamed town. He overhears a woman singing and follows her voice as she repeats the refrain: “Come wander with me love / Come wander with me / Away from this sad world / Come wander with me”

The woman introduces herself as Mary Rachel (Bonnie Beecher) and is reluctant to part with the song, but Floyd is insistent. Matters escalate quickly as the rest of the song is revealed.

While the episode is a bit clunky, it’s the song that makes it memorable. -Come Wander With Me- is a brilliantly haunting ballad and, even though the song was never written or recorded in full, a number of musicians, such as Émilie Satt and British Sea Power, have covered it over the years.

Émilie Satt – Come Wander With Me:

British Sea Power – Come Wander With Me:

Hidden Highways – Come Wander With Me:

Original:

It’s worth noting that, for some inexplicable reason, the episode is titled ‘Come Wander With Us’ on Netflix.

PLAYTIME (1967)

March 27, 2021

(Criterion/kanopy/VOD) One of the first screenings I attended upon moving to Chicago was for Jacques Tati’s MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY at the Music Box Theatre. Sadly, it was in their sidecar theater and, if you think that room is ramshackle now, you should’ve seen it in the 90s. It was a matinee and, while I’d seen it before — I was introduced to Tati and MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY back when I was a Purdue student — I couldn’t wait to see it in a proper theater, even if the screen wasn’t much larger that one in a college classroom.

Sadly, in a predictably Tati-esque manner, the print burned and tore apart no less than twenty minutes into the film. So it goes.

But! I’m here to extoll Tati’s PLAYTIME, both his greatest film, and also the film that would doom him. Before PLAYTIME, he was a celebrated physical comedian who had directed several very visually clever and humorous movies, including MR. HULOT’s HOLIDAY. PLAYTIME was to be his magnum opus, and he sunk all of his money into a number of dazzlingly huge sets, all constructed to fuel his vision of satirizing modern urban architecture and mode of living.

The end result was an absolute marvel. At the risk of sounding pretentious, it’s pure cinema, each frame densely packed with revelations, but never overwhelming the viewer. It’s a marvelous onion of a work, one where you’ll see something new with each and every screening, jam-packed with gags, either with the blocking, a flourish of color, someone’s line of sight, but the film is always in complete command when it needs to draw your attention to one of the few plot-related setups.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. It’s one of the few films I’ll always make a point to catch when it comes to town. It’s an utter delight — one of a handful of films I consider ‘perfect’ — which is why it’s so sad that production overruns bankrupted Tati, then the film flopped upon release, and he never quite recovered from its failure.

COLUMBO: MIND OVER MAYHEM (1974)

March 26, 2021

(peacock/tubi) You may have heard that Jessica Walter passed away yesterday and, to celebrate her life, I’d like to draw your attention to one of her lesser known roles, that of Margaret Nicholson in COLUMBO’s -Mind Over Mayhem-.

Sadly, -Mind Over Mayhem- is not a classic episode of COLUMBO; it’s probably best known for featuring FORBIDDEN PLANET’s Robby the Robot as government robot MM7, and young Lee Montgomery as a boy genius pointedly named ‘Steve Spelburg’. (Steven Spielburg directed the early COLUMBO episode -Murder by the Book-.) Walter stands out as a young, brilliant, psychologist who happens to be the wife of the victim, Dr. Howard Nicholson (Lew Ayres), an older government chemist. José Ferrer is Dr. Marshall Cahill, the director of a government think tank, who ends up murdering Howard to protect his son (Robert Walker Jr.) from allegations of plagiarism.

Ferrer is a fantastic actor but he makes for a rather lousy villain when compared to indelible Columbo murderers such as Robert Culp or Patrick McGoohan. Ferrer’s cool composure simply doesn’t play too well with Falk’s rhythms. It doesn’t help that the murder itself is sloppier than most, resulting in a rather perfunctory game of cat-and-mouse.

However, even a substandard 70s-era episode of COLUMBO is still worth your time, and it features several amusing bits with Dog, Columbo’s dog, as well as predictably novel interplay between Columbo and MM7/Robby the Robot (including Falk antiquated pronunciation of ‘robut’).

While Waters isn’t featured as heavily as I would have liked, and she’s not playing the sort of boozy ice queen she’d become known for — she would have made a great Columbo murderer — she brings a sense of gravity to the role that gives the character more depth than it otherwise would have. She brought that ability to so many shows — including the previously recommended NAKED CITY and ROUTE 66 — and is one of many reasons why she had such a long and fruitful career.

LOVE & BASKETBALL (2000)

March 25, 2021

(HBO MAX/VOD) First things first: it leaves HBO MAX at the end of the month (March 2021) so, watch it while you can!

LOVE & BASKETBALL, written and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (THE OLD GUARD, BEYOND THE LIGHTS) is just perfect. Absolutely perfect. The opening scene, introducing us to young tomboy Monica and her future life-long love/combatant Quincy is perfect, even down to Monica sustaining a scar due to a heated game. The following scene, where Quincy is reprimanded by his parents not for saying ‘shit’, but for saying ‘can’t’ is perfect. The fact that Monica owns her scar, and the film never portrays her as an ugly monster, is perfect.

This is a film where the script is so lovingly overworked — overworked in the way that you know the author was like ‘I have one shot. I’m going to cram everything I want to say into this.’ — that you can’t help but laugh when it becomes a bit too predictable, such as a scene where Monica is taken out to a local dance with a college student. Her suitor asks: “Can I take your coat?” and she responds, straight-faced: “Oh, you’re cold?” And it still works!

I’d love to discuss the film in full, but if I did so we’d be here for days so, I’ll simply say: this is one of the best romantic dramas simply because Monica and Quincy start off with a mutual respect for each others’ talents, and that is a goddamn rare thing in fictional romances. They see each other as equals, and butt heads as equals. Even when they’re falling out of each other’s orbits, they still respect each other and are life-long friends. You simply don’t see that in modern romantic films.

The penultimate scene is astounding. “Double or nothing.”

Again, going to point you towards Caroline Siede’s notes about the film.

Trailer (although it’s kind of awful):