Criterion

MY BRILLIANT CAREER (1979)

May 13, 2021

(Criterion/HBO MAX/VOD) I previously recommended Gillian Armstrong’s OSCAR AND LUCINDA but, apart from her 1994 adaptation of LITTLE WOMEN, she’s perhaps best known for her first feature film MY BRILLIANT CAREER, an adaptation of Miles Franklin debut novel of the same name.

MY BRILLIANT CAREER stars Judy Davis (she’s been in everything from BARTON FINK to NAKED LUNCH to FEUD: BETTE AND JOAN) as Sybylla Melvyn, a rather immature, somewhat naive, headstrong young woman in late 19th century Australia who wants to create, to impress herself on the world, and certainly doesn’t settle for simply getting married and settling down, even when she finds herself enamored with Harry Beecham (Sam Neill in one of his earliest film appearances).

MY BRILLIANT CAREER was released midway through the Australian New Wave film movement and, while it’s Armstrong’s first feature, it’s a remarkably well-executed film — she clearly knew what she wanted to do with it — and Donald McAlpine’s involvement as cinematographer lends a rustic, but striking atmosphere to the film, ably switching from pristine upper-class interiors to dust-enveloped farms.

Yes, Sybylla can be a bit much and maddening at times, but her journey is a worthwhile and rewarding one, without being treacly.

THE THIRD MAN (1949)

April 16, 2021

(Criterion/IndieFlix/VOD) Yes, another film with Orson Welles, albeit directed by Carol Reed (who had previously directed the stellar noir ODD MAN OUT). It’s not just one of my favorite noirs but one of my favorite films period. For example, I snuck in excerpts from the soundtrack it into my wedding playlist. (I’ll note it was the dining playlist, not the dance playlist.)

While I love everything about it — the zither-centric soundtrack, the clever use of post-wartime occupied space, the amazing chiaroscuro work and canted angles supplied by Reed’s go-to cinematographer Robert Krasker, Holly Martins’ (Joseph Cotton) writerly self-deprecation, and obviously Welles as Harry Lime and the marvelous scene construction of the cuckoo clock scene — I came to it far later in life than I should have. While other films have liberally borrowed from it — notably BRAZIL with its zither use and own Harry Lime — and while it’s widely considered one of the greatest British films ever made, I have the impression that it’s a film that is rarely watched by anyone apart from cinephiles and noir nerds like myself. It’s not a film you hear friends say ‘Oh, I saw that with my mom (or dad)! They absolutely loved that film. Let’s watch it again!’ Casual filmgoers don’t seem to speak of it with the reverence they would of, say, CHINATOWN.

Perhaps it’s because Cotton lacks the enigmatic charisma of Bogart, even though I can’t see Bogart as Holly Martins. Perhaps most people hate zither music. Perhaps I’m wrong, and youths organize weekly watch parties for it. Regardless, it is rich and substantial, and a film that folks should see far earlier in life. It captures a very specific time in a way that few movies do, and the fact that it has a complicated male relationship, an exceptional villain, and a thrillingly extraordinary chase scene, should be more than enough to merit anyone’s attention.

Or, perhaps I’m entirely wrong about all of the above and maybe it has aged terribly, now considered to be completely overrated. Watch and see for yourself. All I know is that I’ll never stop loving it.

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.

UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (1991)

March 19, 2021

A warning: today’s entry is a bit more personal and deals with death. My apologies.

(Criterion/YouTube) There are better respected Wim Wenders films than UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD, but it’s long been one of my personal favorites of his. I have yet to see the recent director’s cut — like JUSTICE LEAGUE, like DUNE, folks have been endlessly clamoring for his four-hour edit of this film, which is featured in the new Criterion edition of the film — but the theatrical cut still features all of the hallmarks of quintessential Wenders films, including emotional ennui, distanced communication, and road trips but, atypical for Wenders, it’s contained in a sci-fi neo-noir coating.

It’s one of the first films I recognized as ‘an international affair’, which means that Wenders finagled funding from more than a few countries to realize his vision. It has a lot of people, a lot of odd events, and a lot of languages but, despite all of that, and despite the ramshackle plotting, despite the fact that it takes place in a very prescient future 1999, it’s a very challenging, very soulful and melancholy meditation on technology, humanity, and memories.

Ah, but I’m burying the lede. This movie was one of the first films I bonded over with my college friend Nick. We both loved the high-concept nature of it and, both of us being goths, were enraptured with the soundtrack, especially the contributions from CRIME & THE CITY SOLUTION, Nick Cave, and Julee Cruise.

While we grew in parallel as we aged — over the years we shared a lot about esoteric bands, cooking, the cosmos, and computer science — we always had this film as a touchstone. He’s someone I could always reach out to and instantly reconnect with.

He passed away in his sleep on March 3rd. He was one of the nicest, most accepting people I’ve ever known and, if you were his friend, he always had your back. I’m not exaggerating when I say he saved my life at least once — I was a naive college youth and he was a weathered post-grad — and I’m heartbroken that I was unable to return the favor.

I really miss him and just want to hold those memories close.

MIKEY & NICKY (1976

March 9, 2021

(Criterion/HBO MAX/kanopy/tubi/VOD) Elaine May’s exploration of two desperate NYC mobsters (Peter Falk and John Cassavettes) trying to save themselves while using each other is as good as any take on weathered, toxic male friendship as you’re going to get on film.

There are two versions of it out there, but the one streaming is May’s director’s cut which is streamlined, but far more ramshackle (see: https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2020/06/mikey-and-nicky-liner-notes/ for more details). Watch whichever one you can wrangle!

SMOOTH TALK (1985)

March 1, 2021

(Criterion/DVD/BR) Unfortunately it’s currently not available to stream, but Criterion recently released a newly restored edition of SMOOTH TALK, a very dark coming-of-age tale from documentarian/director Joyce Chopra based on Joyce Carol Oates’ short story WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? It’s vintage 80s, very sun-kissed, featuring Laura Dern in one of first roles, plenty of mall shopping, bangles, and teen girl sexuality.

It’s also worth noting that the new Criterion release also contains a copy of Oates’ short, well-worth reading after watching the film, if you haven’t read it already. (Or you can read it here.) I simply love it when Criterion does this sort of thing. For instance, my Criterion copy of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK has a bundled copy of the source material.

CLEAN, SHAVEN (1993)

February 26, 2021

(Criterion/VOD) A character profile of a man suffering from schizophrenia by writer/director Lodge Kerrigan (also the co-creator of Starz’s adaptation of Soderbergh’s THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE). Immaculate sound design, a strained, soulful performance from Peter Greene (PULP FICTION’s Zed) and a dearth of dialogue really make this film shine but, despite all of that, I’ll never forget it because of one scene featuring fingernails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aInRjIwjpU

F FOR FAKE (1973)

February 21, 2021

(Criterion/HBO MAX/VOD) It’s undeniable that Orson Welles — the man who faked an alien invasion via a radio play — is a trickster, but his ‘cinematic essay’ F FOR FAKE is perhaps the apex of his trickster skills. It’s not just an examination of art forger Elmyr de Hory, not just a profile of Clifford Irving’s illicit and fabricated Howard Hughes biography, but also a deep dive into the nature of authorship, authenticity, intent, and narrators. Despite how heavy that sounds, the film’s extraordinarily playful, staying true to Welles’ trickster self.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twlA_yzagXo

SORRY WE MISSED YOU (2019)

February 18, 2021

(Criterion/kanopy/VOD) Ken Loach’s SORRY WE MISSED YOU is a slow-motion car crash of a financial horror story about a family trying to get by while giving all of their spare time to low-wage gig jobs. The husband Ricky (Kris Hitchen) has just sold his wife Abbie’s (Debbie Honeywood) car to purchase a delivery van in order to delivery Amazon packages and the like around the U.K., and Abbie is now forced to bus around to her nursing jobs. Both of them are out of the house for twelve hours a day, which results in their teenage son’s troublemaking escalating and their young daughter being the one waking her mom and dad up when they fall asleep in front of the television. Bills mount up, fees spiral out of control, and it looks like there’s no way out.

While their debt and stress casts a pall over the film, Paul Laverty’s (who penned Loach’s prior film I, DANIEL BLAKE) script inserts enough kind and sweet moments, such as one afternoon when Ricky takes his daughter along delivering packages, and there’s a poignant scene between Abbie and one of her ‘clients’ where they share family photos. The client pointedly shows off pictures of her in her old union job.

That one scene, where Abbie’s client talks about her old union job as ‘the good times’, is the only explicit commentary that Laverty and Loach insert, but ultimately the entire film is a plea for a return to the age of unionization and workers’ rights. They make sure to hammer home the simple fact that the gig economy is a return to pre-union times: a return to the company store, a return to being nickeled-and-dimed, a return to job inequality, a return to inexistent worker protection.

Near the end of the film, the daughter yells “I just want to go back to the way things were before!” and, while she’s too young to realize that the ‘before’ wasn’t necessary significantly better, she realizes it’s far better than the stressed-out hell everyone is dealing with now. She deserves better. We as a society deserve better than this.

THE NAKED CITY (1948)

February 10, 2021

(Criterion/HBO MAX/VOD) THE NAKED CITY tries to be a lot of things: a detective story, a portrait of New York City and its citizens, plus an attempt at bringing a neorealism aesthetic to the silver screen. Despite its reach, it succeeds wildly with all of its aspirations.

Directed by Jules Dassin (who would make the underrated noir NIGHT AND THE CITY before being blacklisted), it’s just as much as producer/narrator Mike Hellinger’s film. Prior to being involved with film, Hellinger was a New York journalist and short story author, and you can see his background peppered through the entirety of THE NAKED CITY. (In fact, Hellinger was still giving notes about the film’s post-production on his death bed.)

THE NAKED CITY revels in the fact that they shot on location in New York City, and they even brought on infamous crime photography Weegee — who had a well-known photo book of NYC named NAKED CITY — to consult during production. (Despite Weegee’s involvement, it doesn’t revel in matter-of-fact violence the way Weegee’s photos were known for.)

Lastly, in a world before DRAGNET, THE NAKED CITY made the effort to detail the police procedural process, mostly via character actor Barry Fitzgerald as the head homicide detective. The end result intentionally veers away from overt sensationalism, often feeling more like a drama than a detective story — at least when the narration isn’t being too cheeky — but it is all the better for it.