The Kid

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1921)

I must confess that I never saw a Charlie Chaplin film until The Kid, his first full-length feature—he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in it. He also composed the score, something I didn’t know silent movies had; I guess I assumed organ players picked their own music to accompany films in those days. It’s a small miracle that The Kid made it out in one piece, as its production faced some financing difficulties (http://about.bankofamerica.com/en-us/our-story/making-of-charlie-chaplins-the-kid.html#fbid=eIQZsBMJxKN) and its release was entangled in Chaplin’s divorce proceedings and studio double-dealing. It was a huge success, becoming the second-highest grossing film of 1921 (http://www.filmsite.org/1921.html) (http://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Kid_(1921_film) ). It’s easy to see why.

I enjoyed The Kid more than I expected. I was taken aback at how well this film, nearly a century old, works even by today’s standards. It’s a beautifully executed story with elements that seem way ahead of its time. A penniless unmarried woman (Edna Purviance) abandons her illegitimate newborn in the back seat of an expensive Model-T type limo parked in front of a mansion. Two gangsters who steal the limo pull over and dump the baby among some trash in an alley when they discover him crying. The tramp (Chaplin) happens upon him. After a few failed attempts to pawn off the baby on someone else, he finds a note inside his blanket, begging whoever finds him “to love and care for this orphan child.” The tramp takes him in, names him “John,” and raises him as his own in the tenement where he lives.

Five years pass. The tramp has taught John (Jackie Coogan, who later in life would play Uncle Fester on The Addams Family) how to help him eke a living off a window repair scam. By now, the woman is a rich performer who does charity work to help the poor. She crosses paths with John, but of course doesn’t realize who he is. The tramp calls a physician (Jules Hanft) when John gets sick and unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that threatens to separate them when child welfare authorities take custody of John to place him in an orphanage.

The Kid may very well be the first “dramedy” ever; the opening card (this is a silent picture) gets that out up front, revealing it to be “[a] picture with a smile—and perhaps, a tear.” Chaplin’s trademark slapstick is a prominent ingredient, but he infuses serious drama into the story. The opening sequence that tells us about John’s parents is tragic, but it doesn’t compare to the scene in which the child welfare authority agents take John away from the tramp: the kid is in tears, desperately reaching out of the truck for the tramp to rescue him. Soon, the tramp is running after the truck in an intense rooftop chase and ultimately gets to it, pulling John out of the back. You feel every rush of emotion the characters do—amazing considering it’s accomplished without sound or words. Chaplin and Coogan adeptly convey feelings with simple body movements, facial expressions, and their eyes. Even the mundane parts of their day—like making breakfast and getting dressed—ooze a tenderness that emphasizes their bond.

I picked up on a few themes, but two struck me in particular. The first is religion, though I’m not entirely sure how to interpret it. Much of it comes from the hospital at the beginning and the notorious weird dream sequence the tramp has toward the end of the film—I found this scene curious because I’m not sure how it fits into the whole picture. The point could have something to do with a number of things: mercy, the golden rule, resurrection (this film has a few examples of rebirth and reinvention), salvation, hypocrisy, or something else altogether. The second theme is urban poverty; Chaplin is obviously making a statement about it in the way he shows authority figures—cops, child welfare agents, the doctor who turned him in—barging in on his low-status life and throwing it into turmoil.

The Kid is interesting not only for the autobiographical elements Chaplin incorporates, but also for the time period it depicts. The restored print I saw was luminous and crisp, vividly showing details from the sets (bricks on the buildings, dust in the streets, the tramp’s shabby furniture), the textures of the characters’ clothing, and even the skin tone and hair quality of some of the actors. It’s simultaneously cool and mildly creepy. The exteriors, shot mainly in Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles, remarkably capture the look and feel of a grimy Victorian city. An extra bonus was a live organ player at the screening I caught.

Speaking of Los Angeles, many of the filming locations still exist. Here’s a great blog that shows them today: https://silentlocations.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/how-charlie-chaplin-filmed-the-kid-2/.

The Kid is more complex that it looks. It’s thoroughly satisfying on multiple levels: narrative, visual, social, and historical. I’m thrilled I had an opportunity to see it on the big screen.

In 2011, the United States Library of Congress deemed The Kid “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

68 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) A

Full movie (with sound):

 

Harold and Maude

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1971)

“And if you want live high, live high;
And if you want to live low, live low;
Cuz there’s a million ways to go, you know that there are.”

—Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out”

 

“Dinner at eight, Harold. And do try and be a little more vivacious.”

—Mrs. Chasen (Harold’s mother)

 

“I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are this, yet allow themselves to be treated as that.”

—Maude

For a double date night, we caught a screening of Harold and Maude at Chicago Tribune film critic Mark Caro’s series, “Is It Still Funny?” I was astonished to learn that this film was a box office bomb. Indeed, many respected critics, Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby among them, were not impressed when it originally came out (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/harold-and-maude-1972 ) (http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990CE7DF1138EF34BC4951DFB467838A669EDE ). Maybe its morbid overtones and absurdist deadpan black humor put people off. Maybe, like some of the authority figures in the film, the idea of the title characters “doing it” grossed them out. Maybe they couldn’t see beyond the obvious to get the point of the whole thing. Whatever it was, they clearly missed the beauty here. I don’t know, but Harold and Maude is one of my all-time favorites.

Young Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) is obsessed with death, probably because he’s not particularly invested in his own privileged life. He stages elaborate and often gruesome suicides to distress his wealthy, prim, socialite mother (Vivian Pickles). He drives a hearse. He hangs out in cemeteries. He crashes random funerals. One day, Harold crosses paths with Maude (Ruth Gordon), a crazy old lady he saw scarfing down an apple and sneezing loudly at a burial just a few days earlier. She approaches him in church during a funeral mass, and afterwards drives off in the priest’s car. Harold doesn’t know what to make of her. Maude is wacky and carefree with a rebellious streak. She lives in an old train car. She talks incessantly about life. She used to “liberate” canaries from pet shops, and now she enlists his assistance in rescuing a tree from a city sidewalk. Maude takes Harold on something of a roller coaster ride, going on adventures and showing him life’s many pleasures: art, music, dancing, flowers, just being alive. After he sabotages his mother’s attempts to find him a wife through a computer dating service, Harold decides to marry Maude. Their relationship culminates with a surprise party he throws for her 80th birthday—and a surprise she gives him.

Harold and Maude, which started out as a masters thesis that screenwriter Colin Higgins wrote at UCLA, easily could have slid into a mawkish mess. It doesn’t, though: it’s deceptively deep, and director Hal Ashby strikes an inimitable balance of sweet and weird. For one thing, he keeps things simple and lets them unfold naturally. Harold and Maude are both odd, but not in a forced or creepy way; they’re tender, relatable, and even adorable despite the fact that they make an unlikely match and cause discomfort to everyone around them. Their chemistry, like this entire film, has an easiness to it. Cat Stevens’s breezy soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment—I can’t imagine anyone else’s music here (Ashby originally approached Elton John: http://mentalfloss.com/article/69546/10-perfectly-paired-facts-about-harold-and-maude ). The story is interesting far beyond a formulaic romantic comedy; it maintains its edge with biting and macabre humor—fake suicides, dates gone horribly wrong, sessions with a psychiatrist, Harold’s fake murder of Maude, and that hilariously ghasly denouncement from a repressed priest (Eric Christmas). Pickles is flawlessly uptight and understated, and watching her is a delight in every single scene she has. Tom Skerritt (he’s the cop) in a small early role is a bonus. The tone and look both grow cheery as Maude pulls Harold out of his shell and he starts making his own choices.

This film has so many moments that still give me chills, not the least of which is Harold’s cry when he learns what Maude has done on her birthday. The hospital scene is wrenching for so many different reasons. The conversation in the daisy patch that pans out and turns into a graveyard (a la Arlington National Cemetery) and the momentary glimpse of the tattoo on Maude’s arm are subtle but jolting. Harold’s metamorphosis is the best part: standing on top of a cliff holding his banjo, he walks away playing “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.” It’s one of the few happy endings to a film that I truly love.

In 1997, the United States Library of Congress deemed Harold and Maude “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

91 minutes
Rated PG

(Music Box) A+

Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1991)

“Brooke Shields. Dawber, Pam. Personality of Spam. Christie Brinkley. Brosnan, Pierce. Bland and boring, something fierce. Wilson Philips love to sing and wreck the cover of a magazine. Daniel Quayle’s brain is gone. Debbie Gibson gives good yawn.”

—Medusa, “Vague”

 

“You don’t understand. If I use a smaller penis it would be compromising my artistic integrity.”

“Come on, suck my toes in my documentary. Nobody’s done that yet!”

—Medusa

Made for Showtime, Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful is comedian-turned-MTV “personality” (not the late ’80s hipster V.J. with the identical name) Julie Brown’s scathing spoof of Madonna’s Truth or Dare (https://moviebloke.com/2016/08/26/truth-or-dare-in-bed-with-madonna/)—not to mention the icon herself. The whole thing is juvenile, mean, and absolutely hilarious. At just under an hour, it’s over right before the joke is.

Brown is Medusa, a bratty, self-obsessed, controversial, overhyped, oversexed, and very much untalented pop star. She’s making an explosive “no holds barred” documentary of her Blonde Leading the Blonde World Tour, a sordid affair that relies on sleaze and controversy to hide the fact that her work is so…well, vapid. Did I mention the tour takes place over five days?

Lifting sets, costumes—including conebras, that fluffy pink negligee, and the I Dream of Jeannie clipon ponytail—and dance routines right out of Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour, Brown doesn’t miss a beat; she nails the overdone hamminess Madonna exhibits throughout Truth or Dare. Masturbating on a red velvet bed? Check. Visiting a deceased family member at the cemetery? Check—although here, it’s a pet cemetery where a dog whose name she can’t remember is laid to rest. Totally ragging on a celebrity who compliments her performance after a show? Check—here, it’s Bobcat Goldthwait. Giving head to an inanimate object? Check—here, it’s a watermelon, not a bottle of Evian.

Gay dancers (Sergio Carbajal, Thomas Halstead, Stanley DeSantis) fawn all over her, she screams at her manager (Chris Elliott) and her crew, and ex-husband Shane Pencil (Donal Logue) can’t deal with her antics. Kathy Griffin plays a backup singer. Plus, Brown gives us dead-on song ripoffs like “Expose Yourself,” “Like a Video,” and “Vague.” Fucking brilliant!

According to Wikipedia, Madonna sent Brown a gift after she saw this—a half-finished bottle of warm champagne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa:_Dare_to_Be_Truthful).

51 minutes
Not rated

(YouTube) B+

Holy Hell

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

In “The Blank Stare,” a two-part installment of Amy Sedaris’s classic TV series Strangers with Candy, Jerri Blank joins a cult. “I’m gonna sit at the welcome table,” she sings along with its members, holding flowers in the back of a van in one scene and squat-walking around like a chicken in another. “I’m gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days, Hallelujah!” The whole thing is ridiculous—I was stunned to learn that the song is real and has some interesting religious and social history. I guess I hoped Will Allen’s Holy Hell, a documentary of his days with the Buddhafield, a Los Angeles “spiritual group,” would dispel the kooky image a cult conjures up for many—i.e., me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

Juxtaposing old footage he took back in the day with current filmed interviews of former members, Allen puts together a vivid picture of what life in a cult is like. Some of it is silly—one member discusses making fruit arrangements—but most of it is at least mildly interesting. Allen’s focus is decidedly on the group’s mysterious leader, Michel, an uncomfortably odd and almost permanently shirtless guy from Latin America. Michel, who looks like he was plucked fresh from a Pierre et Gilles photo, resembles an early ‘90s gay porn star with his perfect tan, well-developed abs, Speedos, and sunglasses. He used hypnosis, “therapy,” and ballet as a means to spiritual enlightenment. Perhaps it’s not surprising that this man they all called “teacher” was nothing like he seemed—to the group’s members, at least.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

It took almost 20 years, but Michel became increasingly demanding, vain, psychologically abusive, and creepy as he got older. He insisted that members not have sex, and even went out of his way to sabotage budding relationships. He got women in the group to have abortions when they transgressed his “no sex” policy. He convinced members not only to pay for his plastic surgery but also undergo their own. This was all self-serving, we learn—big shock. Many but not all of his followers lost faith when an email sent to Buddhafield members revealed that Michel, who actually did some porn in the past, had been sexually using many of the group’s young men—the ones he selected to personally “serve” him—for years.

It’s crystal clear that Michel’s actions hurt his flock, and you can’t help but feel for some of them. A lot of tears and anger surface here. Considering the subject matter, maybe it’s not fair to expect objectivity. Nonetheless, my issue with Holy Hell is that it seems to avoid painting the whole picture—a lot of detail is conspicuously missing. It isn’t a probing piece, either on a personal level—Allen’s own story of what led him to join—or on a grander scale. I don’t find Michel to be a decent person, but the story would have been far more compelling had Allen shown more than former member after former member repeating how Michel ruined his or her life. If the takeaway is that Michel is a bad guy—I didn’t need to sit through the whole film to figure that out.

The story could have benefitted from some distance and a little more audacity. A confrontation with Michel in Hawaii, where he relocated to start over, toward the end of the film hints at a great climax. It’s not—it’s a dud of an ending. No one really confronts Michel or gives any revelation about their own role in what played out. Frankly, I’m at a loss as to how any of them could have taken him seriously in the first place. Sadly, Holy Hell comes off more as a sensationalist Dateline exposé than an unbiased or informed account. Nothing about Michel or his group’s members surprised me, and I walked away with no more insight about cults than I had when I sat down to watch it. Buddhafield doesn’t seem very different from Safe Trap House, the cult in the aforementioned Strangers with Candy episode.

103 minutes
Not rated

(CNN) C-

http://www.holyhellthedocumentary.com

The Bride [La novia]

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Spain 2015)

I love a Latin melodrama, and The Bride definitely delivers. Adapted from Federico García Lorca’s 1933 tragedy Blood Wedding, it has all the elements of a telenovela: hopelessly beautiful characters with secrets and family drama, caught in a torrid love triangle that comes to a catastrophic head at a wedding.

The Bride (Imma Cuesta) has been involved with both the Groom (Asier Etxeandia) and Leonardo Felix (Álex García)—the sole character with a name—since the three were kids. She has a past with hunky Leonardo, who left her to marry her cousin (Leticia Dolera). By circumstances not entirely clear in the film, the Bride ended up with the Groom and is marrying him for less than noble reasons. Woefully, the Bride and Leonardo are still into each other. An ever-present apparition (María Alfonsa Rosso) warns the Bride early on not to marry the Groom if she doesn’t love him. Leonardo and his wife (and their baby) attend the wedding, and shit unravels.

Director Paula Ortiz makes some interesting choices. She’s coy about time and place, casually throwing together cars and clothes from various decades of the first half of the Twentieth Century while nothing appears to be powered by electricity. Leonardo gets around almost entirely on horse. The dusty vacant desert setting evokes an old Western film, though it could just as easily be the Middle East or Mars as Turkey (where The Bride actually was filmed). The time sequence is out of order, jumping back and forth between past and present. The whole thing moves like a dance, which I took to be a kind of nod to García Lorca’s poetry.

Luisa Gavasa is downright amazing as the Groom’s grim, venomous mother—she has the audacity to wear black to the wedding, if that says anything. Cuesta and García make a hot couple, and they have an extended sex scene worthy of a porn, complete with a flash or two of dick. Miguel Ángel Amoedo’s dreamy, sun-bleached cinematography is so gorgeous, it literally elevates the story. Shigeru Umebayashi’s score is equally gorgeous. This is a very sensual film.

The Bride has its problems, though. The scenes of the Bride’s hallucinations are pretty—lots of floating glass, ice-like daggers, and a big white moon—but they’re distractingly cheesy. The opening scene, which is actually the end of the story, comes off as superfluous; in fact, the time-jumping mechanism doesn’t add a thing. Worse, Ortiz seems to sacrifice depth for decoration. I haven’t seen or read Blood Wedding, but I’m familiar with García Lorca’s work. The Bride is dramatic but superficial—the symbolism is there, but it only hints at the weighty themes García Lorca explored. The focus is clearly on the story—not what’s behind it. So much more could have been said here: I see glimmers of statements on gender, class, mental illness, self-will. Ni modo.

96 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B-

http://cineuropa.org/f.aspx?t=film&did=296362

Hell or High Water

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

“I’ve been working here since 19 and 87. Ain’t nobody ever ordered nothing but a T-bone steak and baked potato. Except one time, this asshole from New York ordered a trout. We ain’t got no goddamned trout.”

—T-Bone Diner waitress

I must admit: I got good and liquored up before I saw Hell or High Water. Fortunately, my buzz did not ruin the movie—or vice versa.

Hell or High Water is a richly layered, rather cerebral Western heist film. Two brothers, cool and brooding Toby (Chris Pine) and impulsive ex-con Tanner (Ben Foster), systematically hold up various branches of Texas Midland, a bank in rural west Texas. Initially, the series of robberies comes off as a mindless crime spree for two punk cowboys in ski masks and a shitty car. It turns out to be much more complicated: Toby has a week to come up with thousands of dollars to pay off the mortgage on the family ranch, or shady Texas Midland will foreclose on it. The brothers attract the attention of sheriff Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and his partner, Alberto (Gil Birmingham), who follow their trail patiently and methodically with good old-fashioned horse sense.

Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay is thoughtfully tight and complex, loaded with plot turns and moral questions. He raises provocative points about capitalism and the American finance system. All of his characters are flawed but sympathetic, making Hell or High Water more than a simple good-versus-evil story. There is no real hero here. Director David Mackenzie maintains a really nice balance of tension, drama, and humor without relying on gunfire and chases (though both of those are in the film). The acting is superb—I can’t think of a single performance that isn’t stellar. The multitude of minor characters—waitresses (Margaret Bowman and Debrianna Mansini), townsfolk, bank employees (Dale Dickey and Joe Berryman)—give the film its color. Hell or High Water has a major Coen Brothers vibe to it—think Blood Simple or No Country for Old Men. The pace is painfully slow at points, but it works. Giles Nuttgens’s sunbleached cinematography is nothing short of stunning, and it beautifully captures the ominously vast and barren landscape that seems to suffocate everyone in it.

102 minutes
Rated R

(ArcLight) B+

http://www.hellorhighwaterofficial.com

Desperately Seeking Susan

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1985)

“Yeah, well, fortunately for everyone, I’m here and I’m thinking.”

—Susan

Promoted as “the Madonna movie” when it came out just before the Virgin Tour kicked off in the spring of 1985, Desperately Seeking Susan is an ’80s time capsule: the story revolves around personal ads, the style is big hair bows and junk jewelry, the score is all synth, and of course there’s that catchy dance track “Into the Groove”—a deliciously raw demo, at that. It might seem unlikely, but this film has held up over time and has turned out to be an interesting little gem.

Desperately Seeking Susan is light and fun, but it’s not a fluff piece. Loaded with mistaken identities, missed connections, double reversals, and loopbacks, the plot is clever and tight even if it isn’t terribly complicated. Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) is a lonely, unfulfilled housewife from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Neglected by her husband, Gary (Mark Blum), a hot tub salesman, she reads the personals for diversion and becomes obsessed with a recurring one between Susan (Madonna) and her boyfriend, Jim (Robert Joy). Roberta steps out to the City to spy on them when Jim summons Susan to Battery Park one afternoon. A series of finely timed events, including the exchange of a jacket with the Eye of Providence on the back of it and a nasty bump on the head, literally pulls Roberta into Susan’s wild life.

Director Susan Seidelman executes the whole thing nicely. The vibe is scrappy and energetic. The story is packed with great characters, and the actors all bring it to make them interesting and believable—even Madonna playing a far less ambitious version of herself. The standouts are Arquette; Laurie Metcalf, who plays Gary’s sister as a neurotic shrew; and Aidan Quinn, who plays projectionist and knight in shining armor Dez with the right amount of gruffness and sexiness. Notable small roles are John Turturro as Ray, the owner of the Magic Club; Steven Wright as Gary’s dentist; and Richard Hell as Bruce, the guy Susan leaves in a hotel room in Atlantic City. The best character, though, is New York City itself; all the exterior shots are fabulous if only for the fact that they capure a city that no longer exists. C’mon, I’m waiting!

104 minutes
Rated PG-13

(Home via iTunes) B

http://www.mgm.com/#/our-titles/524/Desperately-Seeking-Susan

Paris Is Burning

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1991)

“Opulence. O, P, U, L, E, N, C, E, opulence. You own everything. Everything is yours!”

—Junior LaBeija

Before The Crying Game and Transamerica, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, and Scissor Sisters’ “Let’s Have a Kiki,” there was Paris Is Burning. I first saw it at a screening on my college campus, I think, when it was fairly new—I remember a double feature with Madonna’s Truth or Dare, so it had to be summer or fall 1991. I’ve since seen it countless times. It’s one of the films I quote most. I love it, even as it turns 25 years old. It is, in two words, fucking fabulous!

Shot in 1987 with a short check in three years later, Paris Is Burning is ostensibly a documentary about the Harlem nightlife ball culture (pronounced “boo-wall” by most here). The film takes its name from one said ball, a rather clandestine affair held in a shabby party hall somewhere near Lexington/125. A world unto itself, ball culture was loaded with costumes, wild dancing, attitude, hierarchy, and tons of rules. There was blood, sweat, tears, and fighting—but there was also community and (for some) glory. As one subject, Willie Ninja, informs us, the balls may have been long and drawn out, but they were never boring. Amen! This is clear.

Much to her credit, director Jennie Livingston goes—excuse how this sounds—beyond the balls, getting into the daily challenges not only gay men and drag queens faced, but also actual bona fide transgender women. This was probably the first exposure I had to that. I mean, being gay in the Reagan Era was bad enough: if you weren’t destined to live a long and lonely life in the closet, you were going to get AIDS. Either way, the only thing straight about you was your road to hell. Transgender was…something else altogether. America was not ready for it when Paris is Burning came out, which makes it all the more remarkable.

Paris Is Burning is a big middle finger to all that thinking. While not everyone subscribed to that view, Paris Is Burning was the first film to show a lifestyle like this in a positive light. It was effective; it showed how fun and liberating it could be to walk a ball, fake tits or not. Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side. Damned fun! No wonder Madonna co-opted vogueing and snagged two Xtravaganzas for her tour.

Although there are undertones of sadness throughout, every person in this film is a hero. They were courageous simply living their lives how they did, when they did. The key was a mix of self confidence and major guts. Dorian Corey gave me a crash course on reading and shade. Pepper LaBeija showed me that living the good life takes more than money. Venus Xtravaganza showed me that life is a negotiation. Whatever category you choose, you better work it!

Sadly, the era and the players of Paris Is Burning are long gone, but their spirit doesn’t just live on—it thrives. Paris Is Burning and its subjects are legendary.

Side note: everything has its dark side. This is a perfect example: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dorian_corey_the_drag_queen_had_a_mummy_in_her_closet

In 2016, the United States Library of Congress deemed Paris Is Burning “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

71 minutes
Rated R

(Home via iTunes) A

http://www.jennielivingston.com/paris-is-burning

Truth or Dare [In Bed with Madonna]

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1991)

“I do not endorse a way of life but describe one, and the audience is left to make its own decisions and judgments.”

“Even when I feel like shit, they still love me.”

“Yeah. It ain’t all fucking hunky-dory.”

“I know I’m not the best singer and I know I’m not the best dancer, but I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in pushing people’s buttons, in being provocative and in being political.”

—Madonna

In Richard Linklater’s Slacker—released the same year—an Austin, Texas, townie (Teresa Taylor) hocks a jar she claims is a “Madonna pap smear,” talking it up as an item “closer to the rock god than just a poster.” Up close and personal, that’s essentially what Truth or Dare is: a Madonna pap smear, figuratively speaking.

Truth or Dare is Madonna showing us all how cool she is. It encapsulates an exceptionally interesting time—the best time for her to do something like this, as proven by her later tour documentary, the painfully dull I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, in 2006. Certainly no run of the mill performer, it’s only fitting that Truth or Dare is no run of the mill concert film. Shot at the zenith of her career during the Blond Ambition Tour in 1990—a banner year for an artist with a long track record of controversy and success—Madonna allows director Alek Keshishian unprecedented (though not complete) access behind the scenes, and he in turn gives viewers a lot of juicy nuggets to feast on. For fans, Keshishian shows that Madonna really is—or was—all that, and more: she’s snappy, saucy, snide, mischievous, rebellious, witty, tough, and through it all ridiculosly entertaining (and I imagine a lot of fun if you’re on her good side).

The live stuff is superb. Keshishian picks all the showstoppers from Madonna’s most iconic tour: “Express Yourself,” “Holiday,” “Vogue,” a what-the-fuck version of “Like a Virgin” inspired by an ancient Egyptian orgy, and my favorite despite its unfortunate truncation, a Bob Fosse meets A Clockwork Orange take on “Keep it Together.” Views from both the floor and onstage present the show in all its over-the-top glory. Using color in an otherwise black and white film makes the live pieces all the more special.

The backstage shots on tour—the nightly prayers, the stress and snafus, the post show parties—are even better. The shade Madonna thows at other celebrities—Oprah Winfrey, Belinda Carlisle, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and of course Kevin Costner—is uncalled for but hilarious, sometimes uncomfortably so. Personal events like her spat with Warren Beatty before the Dick Tracy opening in Orlando (she calls him an “asshole”), a phone call with her father to arrange tickets for a show in Detroit, meeting a childhood friend, even attending Pedro Almodóvar’s party in Madrid all uncover multiple sides of Madonna.

But Keshishian goes deeper (and deeper): for every cringeworthy contrived scene that rings hollow—like visiting the cemetery to see her mother’s grave—is an honest one revealing the flawed and complicated person Madonna is. My favorite moments in Truth or Dare are the small events that show her human side. She’s generous with her dancers and her family—the scene where she sings “Happy Birthday” to her father onstage is precious. Her conversation with Sandra Bernhard where she admits she’s bored is illuminating and oddly relatable. I still find her comment that “everyone talks about how fame changes a person, but they never talk about how fame changes the people around them” her most poignant statement—and Keshishian demonstrates what she means. Often, Madonna doesn’t have it all under control: it rains on the Asian leg of her outdoor tour, her headset keeps shorting out during a concert, the police pop up to arrest her at her show in Toronto, her brother Martin doesn’t show up at her hotel suite when he’s supposed to, her throat gives out, a member of her entourage is drugged and assaulted, a dancer (Oliver Crumes) goes AWOL. These scenes stand out because they reveal a lot about how Madonna handles tough situations—and she’s not always good at it. Moreover, she doesn’t have everything she wants: phone messages, Antonio Banderas, Slam and Gabriel, to name a few.

Madonna has admitted she was shady and a horribe brat in Truth or Dare (http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/07/madonna-truth-or-dare). What makes it richer and more thorough, though, is that the focus is not solely on her. Madonna’s dancers are given ample space to show who they are and let some of their stories come out. Bringing out their homosexuality, especially during the age of AIDS, is a bold move that points to the topics and issues that clearly color(ed) her work. Truth or Dare got me to see Madonna more as a performance artist than a pop star.

There are loads of truly fun moments here. Plus, we get to see a flash of her boobs. In the end, Madonna shows us a good time but still leaves us asking, who’s that girl? It’s a strategy that’s served her well throughout her career.

120 minutes
Rated R

(Home via iTunes) A-

http://www.miramax.com/movie/madonna-truth-or-dare/

My King [Mon roi]

Link posted on by moviebloke

(France 2015)

No one makes films about bad relationships better than the French, and Maïwenn’s My King is a fine if not entirely original example. Attorney Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) and restaurateur Georgio (Vincent Cassel) are two upper middle class Parisians who probably never should have gotten together despite their chemistry and affection for each other.

After crossing paths in a nightclub, Georgio invites Tony (short for Marie-Antoinette) and her entourage—her brother Solal (Louis Garrel) and his fiancée Babeth (Isild Le Besco)—to his apartment for breakfast after last call. Solal and Babeth fall asleep on a couch, but Tony and Georgio hit it off. He’s dashing, smart, and full of ideas for cool things to do. It’s not long before they’re emotionally and carnally involved—and Georgio, the smooth guy that he is, is assuring Tony that her vagina is magnifique. As hooked as Tony is, something isn’t quite right from the outset: Georgio has a penchant for escape, whether through wine, his friends, or his ex, cover model Agnes (Chrystele Saint-Louis Augustin), who is all too present in his life, sometimes summoning him to her place in the middle of the night for emergencies. Things get complicated when Tony gets pregnant.

WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead!

My King is less about the events that occur onscreen than its characters and what makes them tick. Tony’s insecurities don’t mix with Georgio’s restlessness, the latter of which manifests itself in his buying stuff, drug benders, pool parties, and even renting his own apartment down the street from her and the baby. She loves him, but he brings out the worst in her. The story is told through flashbacks as Tony goes through rehabilitation after a skiing accident, ultimately suggesting that maybe she hurt herself on purpose. As Tony gets stronger in rehabilitation, she opens herself to the other patients—most of them younger and more relaxed men who are less sophisticated but nicer than Georgio. It’s not clear where she’s headed, but let’s hope it’s somewhere healthier.

Maïwenn’s directing is competent, but she takes a rather pedestrian approach here. The dramatic tension is a bit uneven, particularly the scenes of Tony in rehabilitation. The screenplay itself is okay but nothing special—I’ve seen this movie before. What really makes My King soar is its players, especially the leads. Bercot and Cassel are expressive, engaging, and raw. They’re totally convincing and sympathetic, and watching them interact is a treat. This would be a forgettable film without them.

124 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B-

Mon Roi