This list (Take 2) was compiled July 5, 2013. Take 1 is available here.
For the criteria of the Cii Movie Awards, click here.
Top 10 Films of 1996
1. Lone Star (John Sayles)
2. A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
3. Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma)
4. Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh)
5. Drifting Clouds (Aki Kaurismäki)
6. The People vs. Larry Flynt (Milos Forman)
7. Fargo (Joel Coen)
8. Get on the Bus (Spike Lee)
9. Six O'Clock News (Ross McElwee)
10. American Buffalo (Michael Corrente)
Honorable Mentions: Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas), Kansas City (Robert Altman), Mother (Albert Brooks), Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe), Scream (Wes Craven), Stealing Beauty (Bernardo Bertolucci), Waiting for Guffman (Christopher Guest), The Rock (Michael Bay), Flirting with Disaster (David O. Russell), La Promesse (Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
Friday, July 5, 2013
Thieves Like Us (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. |
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.
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?
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.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
The Big Mess (1971)
An aptly-named, hyper-collage, hyper-conceptual satire on capitalistic expansion, Kluge’s film feels like a strange d.a. levy poem about space travel written on a wall in a gas station bathroom. One’s ability to enjoy this film is directly related to one’s ability/willingness to follow the conceptual tangents Kluge is weaving throughout. Particularly of note are the themes of industrial monopoly and industrial scrap. Considering that the special effects in the movie are basically appropriated pieces of trash, Kluge is painting the great cosmic expansion as a pursuit where the largest companies are making insanely massive, state-of-the-art spaceships that are simply floating scrap ready to be bought and refurbished into new floating pieces of scrap not long after being launched. None of it seems to matter to the companies so long as they maintain control.
Many of Kluge's effects have been cheaply rendered, though not without considerable time, effort and imagination. But his appropriated trash also conceptually serves his thematic interests. |
The two accumulators go through their budget. Even though they act as the system acts they do not have the system's permission to act that way and thereby are a threat to the system. |
The irony for Kluge is that his movie is like the accumulators in the film: charming and imaginative but ultimately doomed because the galaxy is already owned by the big boys.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
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.
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.
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