Thieves Like Us (1974)

Thieves Like Us (Robert Altman, 1974)
It seems like every problem I had with Dillinger (John Milius, 1973) is effortlessly overcome in Thieves Like Us, even though they are very different films with different intentions.  The bank robbers in Altman’s film are not famous but they do gain recognition that eventually hinders their ability to operate.  The seeds of envy will be sown as Elmo begins to be frustrated with recognition the young Bowie receives in the papers.  They see how myths are woven to add pizzazz and fear for readers but they aren't intelligent enough to understand it.  It just confuses them.  When the paper nicknames him Elmo "Tommy Gun" Mobley, Elmo confesses: "I only had a machine gun once in my life.  I didn't even get to fire it.  I just...held it."  

T-Dub reads what the paper says about their jailbreak.  "Not a whole lot about us, is there?"  But the myths are there to justify their eventual violent downfall.

There are moments of such strange pathos and naturalism, as when a nervous Bowie talks to a stray dog to try and calm himself down.

There is a workmanlike notion these characters have about being bank robbers (“This will be my 35th bank…”), a sense of pride in a job well-done, a sense of relief in having something to fill their time.  Altman never treats their bank robbery as anything exceptional.  He only goes inside the bank with them once toward the end.  Likewise, no one talks about the Depression, but poverty is felt in little moments like the insistent mother making sure her kids eat all the food from their plates or the relish with which Lula shows off the outfit T-Dub bought her in New Orleans.  Or take the subtle changes in the robbers' clothing over the course of the film, going from recent escapees to established robbers with reputations and money.  They have to keep out of plain sight but they find their own personal flourishes with their wardrobe.  It isn't ostentatious, but it is real.

The radio is omnipresent, adding a thick atmosphere where fantasy and reality are strangely on an equal plane, where the pursuit of the robbers seems nearly as detached as the adventures of The Shadow. It also works as a unifying device similar to the loudspeakers in M*A*S*H.  (The radio becomes a winking commentary in Bowie and Keechie’s love scene.)  There is pathos and humor in Altman’s human universe, and those two are often inter-woven.  I love the scene where Bowie misses his rendezvous because he couldn’t tell if the pickup at the crossroads was flashing his lights (as planned) or if they were simply shorting out. It is the sort of plain, uneventful human misunderstanding that most movies simply don't have the time for.  

Before we ever see them rob the bank in Yazoo City, we see them set up an enactment to practice what they will do.  Is this truly for their benefit or for the strange sense of joy they get by playacting?  The children are game but Lula fights T-Dub the whole time.  Elmo becomes frighteningly immersed.

T-Dub relishes the moment.  Bowie is more passive.  But, rather than make him innocent, Altman has made him the most naturally gifted bank robber of the group.  Even Bowie himself can't think of anything he could do as well if he were to quit.

Shelley Duvall was always best in Altman's films.  Somehow he knew best how to use her unique physicality and off-kilter vocal delivery, her natural quirk and charm.  She fills the roll of Keechie with such naïveté and longing, but a determined acceptance of her lot in life that makes her far from passive.  It is easy to see why Bowie falls for her.  There is a sweet and unassuming nature to her that Duvall plays perfectly.  The early scene with the two of them flirting on the porch, remembering growing up is so honest and revealing as they try and hide behind their stories.  John Schuck, Bert Remsen and Keith Carradine are all great too with their naturalistic rapport.  Three people who could only have met in prison and thereby have a strange union that even they don't completely understand.  "They've never seen three like us," T-Dub exclaims.  But does he really believe that or just tell himself that to add dignity and uniqueness to their otherwise working class existence?

Altman perfectly utilizes Duvall's charm and natural casualness to connect us with her character and make her and Bowie's relationship the vital one of the film, differing strongly from the cordial gentleman's agreement of the three robbers.

The last shot of Thieves Like Us highlights the ordinariness of the characters we have just witnessed and its broader connection to the American south.  Keechie has determined to leave, moving to Dallas to have her baby.  Amazingly, despite her romanticism, she harbors no sympathy for her now dead husband.  "He crossed me up once too often, lying.  He doesn't deserve to have no baby named after him."

Then there is that strange phrase that pops up from time to time: "people like us" or "thieves like us."  It sets the robbers, in their minds, in a category by themselves, a group with a special purpose, personality and function that can only be properly understood by other people like them.  Altman lets them talk that way, but spends his whole movie presenting them as sad and a bit lost.  It's hard not to see this also as a fairly apt comment on the American South.  For Altman, what makes them extraordinary is in just how ordinary they are.  

Judging Oscar: 1975

For previous Oscar assessments, check out 1973, 1980 and 1996.

BEST PICTURE

WINNER: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
One of the quintessential anti-establishment pictures, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is able to capture the frustration, rage and bewilderment of being trapped in a system that seems to be a benefit only to realize that walls and bars are not so bad: it is the people who smile calmly at you while taking everything from you that should terrify us most.  It is wonderfully written and performed while Haskell Wexler’s cinematography tries its hardest to avoid shadows inside the hospital, lighting everything as evenly as possible until we get to those night scenes.  Avoiding the pat functionality of every character “representing something,” Forman is able to carefully chart the growing relationships within the group of patients and how their awareness of the world and each other is slowly affecting them.  Forman also maintains a consistent point-of-view, never leaving the patients to present the world outside the hospital or in the doctor’s conferences.  This not only endears us to the patients (and McMurphy in particular), but also adds to our growing frustration as we see the institution seemingly create some of the diseases it offers to cure.

The Long Goodbye (1973)

The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)
Few people can do genre revisions like Robert Altman.  
Probably because Altman doesn't really care either way; he's just making a film.

Underneath the palm trees and drug-induced hangover of the West Coast in the early 70's is a rotting corpse.  Marlow just happens to still live there, like a fish permanently out of water that must now learn how to breathe in the air.  He will, Altman suggests, by the end.

Mysteries are everywhere but the most pressing ones involve people and guns and money. 
Lots of people ask questions.  
Do they get the answers?  I can't remember.

Marlow's cat.  Marlow's neighbors.  
Marlow's apartment building.  Celebrity impersonation guard.
Altman includes these things and they become the fabric that is both essential and non-essential.  
Narratively, they are not very important.  Cinematically, they are what must be.
Altman has a way with those things.  

By the end, we have witnessed the end of an era and the beginning of another.
A bit like McCabe & Mrs. Miller in that way, but slightly hopeful about the possibility of adaptation.  Marlow has changed by the end.  
He is simply tired of it all.  
Tired of being used.  Tired of allegations.
Tired of plots and subplots.
Tired of lies.  Tired of distrust.
It may not feel radical, but it is.

And then there is that stare.  The look on Marlow's face as he listens to Terry explain it all.
No epiphany; no a-ha moment.  
Only the cold heart of man staring back at the walking dead.

film journal entry: 04.22.2013

1973 Cii Movie Awards

Top 10 Films of 1973
1.  The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman)
2.  Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich)
3.  Electra Glide in Blue (William James Guercio)
4.  Badlands (Terrence Malick)
5.  Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg)
6.  The Sting (George Roy Hill)
7.  American Graffiti (George Lucas)
8.  The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice)
9.  Westworld (Michael Crichton)
10.  World on a Wire (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Honorable Mentions: Sleeper (Woody Allen), O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson), Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese), Fantastic Planet (René Laloux), Charlotte's Web (Charles A. Nicholas & Iwao Takamoto), The Last Detail (Hal Ashby)

Films are about emotions...

Roger Ebert speaks to an audience in Savannah, GA in 2004, during his 3-part scene-by-scene
analysis of Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941).  I am in attendance (though not pictured).

Roger Ebert (1942-2013)
I'm flipping back through The Great Movies after hearing about the passing of Roger Ebert.  It was a book that introduced me to a bunch of (now obvious) classics/favorites -- Aguirre the Wrath of God, McCabe & Mrs Miller, A Hard Day's Night, A Woman Under the Influence, Manhattan, Sweet Smell of Success -- while also letting me know it was okay to love Oliver Stone's JFK, to seek out a copy of Hoop Dreams, and to immerse myself in the generally held canon of world film classics while not feeling beholden to it.

In his essay on JFK, Ebert recounts an argument Walter Cronkite had with him after Ebert had praised the film: "I am a film critic and my assignment is different than his.  He wants facts.  I want moods, tones, fears, imaginings, whims, speculations, nightmares.  As a general principle, I believe films are the wrong medium for facts.  Facts belong in print.  Films are about emotions."

I have gone back and forth on my opinion of JFK over the years, just as I have on Roger Ebert.  The Great Movies seems so obvious to me now, so canonical.  Yet, I do remember a time when I didn't know there was a film director named Werner Herzog who was making extraordinary films and I didn't know Robert Altman wasn't the obvious answer for best American filmmaker of the 1970's.  Ebert was an essential voice.  I read his reviews and would be pushed to think more deeply about the films he rated favorably if they left me more cold, challenged to defend (to myself) the movies I liked that left him cold.  When I was reading him regularly in the late 90's, his top 10 lists often championed films that were not being championed by other critics (Eve's Bayou, Dark City) and pushed me to branch out and see what unchampioned works I could find on the fringe.  

As cynical as I could be, it is obvious to me that he really did love the movies he wrote about in The Great Movies.  There are plenty of canonical classics he left out, several "unsuspecting" films he brought in.  And ultimately he did what a great film writer or critic should do: he made me want to watch films.  He helped me engage with and understand some difficult works, helped me articulate what I responded to and strongly disliked in movies and helped fuel a passion to take in and enjoy the diversity of the medium fro mall over the world.  So, I could dismiss him as populist (as I have done in the past).  He worked for a major newspaper.  So what?  I would take one Ebert essay over a thousand Armond Whites and their forced contrarianism.  I could dismiss him as sometimes having shallow observations.  So what?  He was engaging a broader audience and has written about hundreds of movies over the course of his life.  

But I come back to that quote.  "Films are about emotions."  I didn't understand that much when I read it then, I'm sure.  But it is where I live now.  It is why I loved JFK when I couldn't reconcile all that JFK said or seemed to say.  It is why I still love JFK.  And Herzog.  And Altman.  And McElwee.

At the end of the day, Roger Ebert helped me love film more.  Beyond me, he was a formidable voice to a generation of film viewers who were given a video store full of cinema history and didn't know what to do with it all.   I can only hope there is someone who, in an age of irony and cynicism, can stand in his place and passionately entice future generations to seek out the old paths and to love the medium for what it is, not what it symbolizes.  

Goodbye, old friend.  

PS: I still need to see Last Year at Marienbad, Lawrence of Arabia, Pandora's Box and The "Up" Series.  After that, I will have seen all The Great Movies.

2001 Cii Movie Awards

This list and awards compiled March 8, 2013

                      For the criteria of choosing the awards, click here.

Top 10 Films of 2001

1. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson)
2. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
3. Ali (Michael Mann)
4. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
5. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg)
6. Domestic Violence (Frederick Wiseman)
7. What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang)
8. Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
9. Electric Dragon 80.000 V (Sogo Ishii)
10. Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)

Honorable Mentions: In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai), Gosford Park (Robert Altman), Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón), The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel Coen)

Best Actor
* Gene Hackman – The Royal Tenenbaums

Jack Nicholson – The Pledge

Will Smith – Ali

Billy Bob Thorton – The Man Who Wasn’t There

Tom Wilkinson – In the Bedroom

Best Actress

Halle Berry – Monster’s Ball

Maggie Cheung – In the Mood for Love

Catherine Keener – Lovely & Amazing

Audrey Tautou – Amélie

* Naomi Watts – Mulholland Drive

Best Supporting Actor

* Jim Broadbent – Moulin Rouge!

Steve Buscemi – Ghost World

Jude Law – A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Ian McKellen – Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Tony Shalhoub – The Man Who Wasn’t There

Ben Stiller – The Royal Tenenbaums

Best Supporting Actress

Jennifer Connelly – A Beautiful Mind

Cameron Diaz – Vanilla Sky

* Illeana Douglas – Ghost World

Frances O’Connor – A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Gwyneth Paltrow – The Royal Tenebaums

Maribel Verdú – Y Tu Mamá También

Best Director

Robert Altman – Gosford Park

Claire Denis – Trouble Every Day

* Peter Jackson – Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

David Lynch – Mulholland Drive

Steven Spielberg - A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Best Screenplay

Electric Dragon, 80.000V (Sogo Ishii)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Frances Walsh, Phillipa Boyens & Peter Jackson)

Memento (Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)

* The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson)

Best Cinematography

* Ali (Emmanuel Lubezski)

Electric Dragon, 80.000V (Kasamatsu Norimichi)

In the Mood for Love (Christopher Doyle & Mark Li Ping-bin)

LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring (Andrew Lesnie)

Mulholland Drive (Peter Deming)

Best Editing

Ali (William Goldberg, Lynzee Klingman & Stephen E. Rivkin)

Black Hawk Down (Pietro Scalia)

Memento (Dody Dorn)

* Mulholland Drive (Mary Sweeney)

Trouble Every Day (Nelly Quettier)

Best Film Score

* Amélie (Yann Tiersen)

In the Mood for Love (Mike Glalasso & Shigeru Umebayashi)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore)

Mulholland Drive (Angelo Badalamenti)

Best Production Design

* A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Amélie

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

The Man Who Wasn’t There

The Royal Tenebaums

Best Ensemble Cast Performance

Gosford Park

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Memento

The Pledge

* The Royal Tenenbaums



2001 Films Seen (49 features as of 03.08.2013)

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
Ali (Michael Mann, 2001)

Amélie (Jean-Pierre Juenet, 2001)

American Pie 2 (J.B. Rogers, 2001)

Baby Boy (John Singleton, 2001)

Bandits (Barry Levinson, 2001)

A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard, 2001)

Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott, 2001)

Blow (Ted Demme, 2001)

Bridget Jones’ Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001)

Domestic Violence (Frederick Wiseman, 2001)

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

Electric Dragon 80.000 V (Sogo Ishii, 2001)

Frailty (Bill Paxton, 2001)

Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)

Hannibal (Ridley Scott, 2001)

Hearts in Atlantis (Scott Hicks, 2001)

Heist (David Mamet, 2001)

Hell House (George Ratliff, 2001)

I Am Sam (Jessie Nelson, 2001)

In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001)

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2001)

Iris (Richard Eyre, 2001)

Jurassic Park III (Joe Johnston, 2001)

Life as a House (Irwin Winkler, 2001)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)

Lovely & Amazing (Nicole Holofcener, 2001)

The Majestic (Frank Darabont, 2001)

The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel Coen, 2001)

Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2001)

Monsters, Inc. (Pete Docter, David Silverman & Lee Unkrich, 2001)

Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

Monster’s Ball (Marc Forster, 2001)

The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, 2001)

The Pledge (Sean Penn, 2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)

Schlock!  The Secret History of American Movies (Ray Greene, 2001)

The Score (Frank Oz, 2001)

Scotland, PA (Billy Morrissette, 2001)

Shrek (Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson, 2001)

Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001)

Training Day (Antoine Fuqua, 2001)

Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)

Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001)

Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001)

What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001)

Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)

1993 Cii Movie Awards

This list and awards compiled March 1, 2013

                      For the criteria of choosing the awards, click here.

Top 10 Films of 1993

1. The Fugitive (Andrew Davis)
2. Carlito's Way (Brian De Palma)
3. Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee)
4. Short Cuts (Robert Altman)
5. The Firm (Sydney Pollack)
6. Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg)
7. Three Colors: Blue (Krzystof Kieslowski)
8. The War Room (Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker)
9. In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen)
10. Addams Family Values (Barry Sonnenfeld)

Honorable Mentions: Sleepless in Seattle (Nora Ephron), Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis), Dazed & Confused (Richard Linklater), Demolition Man (Marco Brambilla), Cliffhanger (Renny Harlin)

Best Actor

Harrison Ford – The Fugitive

Daniel Day-Lewis – In the Name of the Father

Bill Murray – Groundhog Day

Liam Neeson – Schindler’s List

* David Thewlis – Naked

Best Actress

* Juliette Binoche – Three Colors: Blue

Laura Dern – Jurassic Park

Patricia Arquette – True Romance

Anjelica Huston – Addams Family Values

Meg Ryan – Sleepless In Seattle

Debra Winger – Shadowlands

Best Supporting Actor

Ralph Fiennes – Schindler’s List

* Jeff Goldblum – Jurassic Park

Gene Hackman – The Firm

Tommy Lee Jones – The Fugitive

John Malkovich – In the Line of Fire

Sean Penn – Carlito’s Way

Best Supporting Actress

* Holly Hunter – The Firm

Penelope Ann Miller – Carlito’s Way

Julianne Moore – Short Cuts

Christina Ricci – Addams Family Values

Lily Tomlin – Short Cuts

Best Director

Robert Altman – Short Cuts

Andrew Davis – The Fugitive

* Brian De Palma – Carlito’s Way

Ross McElwee – Time Indefinite

Sydney Pollack – The Firm

Best Screenplay

Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis & Danny Rubin)

In the Line of Fire (Jeff Maguire)

Short Cuts (Robert Altman & Frank Barhydt)

Sleepless In Seattle (Nora Ephron, Jeff Arch & David S. Ward)

* Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee)

Best Cinematography

Carlito’s Way (Stephen H. Burum)

* The Fugitive (Michael Chapman)

The Scent of Green Papaya (Benoît Delhomme)

Schindler’s List (Janusz Kaminski)

Three Colors: Blue (Sławomir Idziak)

Best Editing

Carlito’s Way (Kristina Boden & Bill Pankow)

* The Fugitive (Dennis Virkler, David Finfer, Dean Goodhill, Don Brochu, Richard Nord & Dov Hoenig)

In the Line of Fire (Anne V. Coates)

Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee)

The War Room (Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker)

Best Film Score

* The Firm (Dave Grusin)

The Fugitive (James Newton Howard)

In the Line of Fire (Ennio Morricone)

Jurassic Park (John Williams)

Schindler’s List (John Williams)

Best Production Design

Addams Family Values

Demolition Man

The Fugitive

Jurassic Park

* Schindler’s List

Best Ensemble Cast Performance

Dazed & Confused

The Fugitive

Philadelphia

Schindler’s List

* Short Cuts

1993 Movies Seen (58 features as of 03.01.2013)

Addams Family Values (Barry Sonenfeld, 1993)

Beethoven’s 2^nd (Rob Daniel, 1992)

Being Human (Bill Forsyth, 1993)

Body of Evidence (Uli Edel, 1993)

Carlito’s Way (Brian De Palma, 1993)

Cliffhanger (Renny Harlin, 1993)

Coneheads (Steve Barron, 1993)

Cool Runnings (John Turteltaub, 1993)

Dave (Ivan Reitman, 1993)

Dazed & Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)

Demolition Man (Marco Brambilla, 1993)

Dennis the Menace (Nick Castle, 1993)

Fearless (Peter Weir, 1993)

The Firm (Sydney Pollack, 1993)

Free Willy (Simon Wincer, 1993)

The Fugitive (Andrew Davis, 1993)

Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)

Heaven & Earth (Oliver Stone, 1993)

Hocus Pocus (Kenny Ortega, 1993)

Homeward Boung: The Incredible Journey (Duwayne Dunham, 1993)

Hot Shots! Part Deux (Jim Abrahams, 1993)

In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Peterson, 1993)

In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan, 1993)

Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

Kalifornia (Dominic Sena, 1993)

Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993)

Mrs. Doubtfire (Chris Columbus, 1993)

Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993)

The Pelican Brief (Alan J. Pakula, 1993)

A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood, 1993)

Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)

Rising Sun (Philip Kaufman, 1993)

Rookie of the Year (Daniel Stern, 1993)

The Sandlot (David M. Evans, 1993)

The Scent of Green Papaya (Anh Hung Tran, 1993)

Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

The Secret Garden (Agnieszka Holland, 1993)

Shadowlands (Richard Attenborough, 1993)

Short Cuts (Robert Altman, 1993)

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (Bill Duke, 1993)

Sleepless in Seattle (Nora Ephron, 1993)

So I Married an Axe Murderer (Thomas Schlamme, 1993)

Son In Law (Steve Rash, 1993)

Son of the Pink Panther (Blake Edwards, 1993)

Super Mario Brothers (Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel & Roland Joffé, 1993)

Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993)

The Three Musketeers (Stephen Herek, 1993)

Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee, 1993)

Tom and Jerry: The Movie (Phil Roman, 1993)

True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993)

The War Room (Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker, 1993)

Wayne’s World 2 (Stephen Surjik, 1993)

We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (Simon Wells, Dick Zondag, Ralph Zondag & Phil Nibbelink, 1993)

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (Lasse Hallström, 1993)