Thief dir: Michael Mann 1981

OK!!! OK. Alright. Oh god this movie has my number so hard. It’s summertime you guys and if you’re in the US you know that we are in the middle of a heat wave that keeps threatening to turn into massive thunderstorms. Shit is hot and humid and the only reasonable thing to do is grab some popsicles, open the windows, point a fan at yourself and watch a movie.

James Caan is a thief (hence the title) who wants to complete one final job that will allow him to retire to the suburbs like a “normal” person. All he needs is a girl to agree (Tuesday Weld) a house in the burbs, a child and to get his father figure (Willie Nelson) out of prison.

WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?! James Belushi? check. Dennis Farina playing a henchman? check. Crazy synth soundtrack by Tangerine Dream? check. Wet streets, nighttime, James Caan strutting around in tight jeans, cowboy boots and a leather jacket paired with a gold chain and no shirt? CHECK! A cameo by the Green Mill cocktail lounge in Chicago? Oh yes, check.

I really love Michael Mann. After spending years working on television this was his first feature and he came out swinging. The style and attitude of this movie is strong as hell.

It’s got bad ass and cool down pat and I was consistently surprised by the dialogue,  which is incredible. There’s a beautiful scene in a coffee shop between James Caan and Tuesday Weld where he’s trying to convince her to be his suburban wifey. “often cited as the film’s high point, Caan has long considered the scene his favorite of his career” (wikipedia).

Every search I’ve made for this movie also brings up Drive (2011) and people have referenced it as though it’s a remake or homage and although there are some tonal similarities and referential shots they are not terribly similar. You will not go wrong having a double feature night with these two movies.

Katie Jarvis was discovered on a train platform having a fight with her boyfriend. As Fassbender tells it on the podcast for the Museum of the Moving Image, when the casting director approached her she told her to ‘fuck off’.

Which is perfect.

She plays Mia, the 15 year old animal-girl spending her days pacing back in forth in an urban cage (drink every time she shares a frame with bars, gate, any kind of barrier) until her mean, slutty mother brings home a kind and hot boyfriend.

It’s just beautiful.

The rest of this is obnoxious and vaguely spoiler-y.

AND (pardon me) Andrea Arnold provides a great fucking new perspective to the sexist and gross fantasies that are so celebrated in literature, film and pornography. The lolita, step daughter, daughter’s friend, teenage next door neighbor etc. You know that classic story of the broken, older man who has maybe lost himself but is basically good maybe finding redemption in the arms (pussy) of a younger woman? For the male character to be sympathetic the girl needs to not have much of an internal life of her own and exists solely to tempt him/teach him something about himself. He just can’t help it! Isn’t that exhausting and boring? Why not just make everyone a human being? A complicated, sometimes awful, sometimes wonderful human being?

It made me want to hate watch American Beauty. Side thought: If she hadn’t been a virgin he would have boned her. Because you can’t taint something that’s already dirty. How is his restraint seen as heroic? God that movie is so condescending.

The main point of conversation is definitely the Mia/Connor plot line but I also adored the relationship she had with her younger sister. These are people with deep emotions for each other who do not have a language beyond rage and hate to express it.

Blah blah blah - I have feelings, just watch it! It’s good!

Last weekend Aggie and I went to see Jane Eyre and we loved it. For me it inspired a Friday night spent indoors obsessively googling the Bronte sisters. Did you know that Charlotte may have died from contaminated water runoff from the nearby cemetery? Be still my morbid heart. Seriously. Be still.

In any case it was an excellent adaptation and even if it hadn’t been it would be worth watching because its SO BEAUTIFUL. (Also, Fassbender! Be still my Byronic heart.) My searches eventually led to my new favorite lady, Cary Joji Fukunaga, the director. I couldn’t wait to see her other movies but guess what? There’s a Bertha in the attic. Turns out Cary is a 33 (cute) year old dude with only one other feature length film to his credit, Sin Nombre.

Similarities: gorgeous landscapes, amazing contrasts in color, tight closeups, the absence of makeup, main characters weeping beautifully in the pouring rain.

Differences: everything else

It’s two stories, a Mara (aka MS, MS-13, Mara Salvatrucha) gang member initiating his very young protege and a family from Honduras trying to sneak over the US border. The stories converge about 40 minutes in and then its all escalation. 

A great surprise, totally worth watching, I’m excited to see what Cary is working on next.

PS: A picture of the main character at sundance in a zip up sweater under a blazer. This fashion choice is SCARIER THAN HIS FACE TATTOOS IN THE MOVIE!

Somebody likes Joyce Carol Oates … and I think its Deborah Kampmeier …

A festival movie for sure. It’s clean and academic in a way that disconnects it from the subject matter. At no point do we believe that any of these people are poor much less treating each other in an uncivilized manner. Piper Laurie is stuck playing a Carson McCullers version of the mother in Carrie, the ever capable Dakota Fanning spends the whole movie unwittingly auditioning for The Runaways and Jill Scott makes a bizarre appearance as Big Mama Thornton inexplicably dressed exactly like she did on this television show in the 50s:
 

To its credit it succeeds in feeling like a Southern gothic novel without becoming a b movie but we all know what the big deal is about this and its got nothing to do with the gothic tradition. This is the movie where Dakota Fanning gets raped. There’s no two ways around it; you can watch it and try to forget but you know what’s coming. It doesn’t help that she’s hyper sexualized throughout this movie - I don’t know what Deborah Kampmeier was trying to prove or if she thought it was brave to be a female filmmaker owning the ‘male gaze’ by turning it on a child but yuck.

The worst thing is that there’s no real point to any of it. Towards the end of the movie Dakota calls her friend a nigger to which he says “no you are” (and I’m paraphrasing) because that word applies to anyone who is hurt by other people. Kampmeier! Come on! It was one of those moments where I look around my empty living room doing the “whaaa? am I the only one seeing this?” face and gesture and it often turns out that yes, I AM the only one seeing this.

Anyhow, after that confrontation her friend invites her to stand in the spot where Jill Scott was earlier in the movie and give the worst rendition of Hounddog in history.

This movie is shouting at the viewer about childhood, racism, sexuality, adulthood, parenting, religion, oppression, etc but I’m not sure what’s its saying.

Skip it and read Bastard out of Carolina, Ballad of the Sad Cafe and First Love.

                                            A few spoilers ahead:

Give me a break.

Based on watching Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville my impression is that despite the pious way he usually portrays them, Lars von Trier has a deep hatred of women. He delights in the unrelenting torture, sexual humiliation and destruction of his females. And for what? Seriously, for what.

In any case, Antichrist. Jesus. Give me a break. We’ve moved from soft tortured saint to a ball bursting (yup) maniac totally at the mercy of her feelings (ew!), would rather fuck than be a mother and who in the course of writing a paper on gendercide (gynocide) realizes that women are basically evil. The movie works it’s ass off to prove this last point.

I think that Lars and Catherine Briellat should collaborate to make the most punishing, pessimistic movie about women of all time.

Charlotte Gainsbourg is fantastic. I liked the title cards and chapter breaks. The whole thing looked beautiful but who cares about the scenery when Willem Dafoe is jazzing out blood.

PS - In the first 20 mins there’s a doe with a dead deer-baby hanging out of its womb. Be more obvious and GIVE ME A BREAK!

tylercoates:

My synopsis of the first six minutes of The Seventh Seal, which I watched on Netflix streaming after drinking what I assume was about fifteen beers and three glasses of wine:

Max von Sydow is wearing chain mail. He wakes up on a beach in Sweden. He looks up and sees Death. Death is like, “Hey, what’s up?” Max von Sydow is like, “You can’t have me yet. Wanna play chess? Someone set it up for us.” Death says, “Yeah, OK.”

FIN.