The Decomposing Drive-in

Milk (2008)

2010-09-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

Having already seen the wonderful, Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, I was excited to see Gus Van Sant's more succinctly-titled Milk when it was in theaters two summers ago. I remember thinking that it was possessed of an intense realism, and the film does indeed include many actual locations and persons from Milk's life. There are many great performances besides Penn's, most notably Emile Hirsch's, who was just "good" in Into the Wild the year before but superb as Cleve Jones, who is still to this day an important figure among AIDS and LGBT rights activists. As a biopic, Milk is a great achievement. And until the final, anticipated tragedy, borne of so much fear, hatred and, perhaps, junk food, it's funny as hell.
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The Wrestler (2008)

2010-05-24T15:56:00.001-07:00

While reading about how director Darren Aronofsky successfully fought back against studio pressure to cast Nicolas Cage instead of Mickey Rourke, I had to wonder how many films have been ruined over the years by horrible casting decisions that were forced upon directors by studio executives. I have nothing against Nick Cage, despite his large body of crappy work (that sits alongside a smaller body of exceptional work) but Rourke was most definitely the perfect choice for this role. And the story of the unglamorous life of the professional wrestler is one that needed telling, even to those of us who consume hours of this often bizarre entertainment on television. It's nice to see Aronofsky get back to real storytelling after 2006's intriguing but ultimately pointless feature-length music video, The Fountain.
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Zombie Strippers! (2008)

2010-05-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've always been a big fan of the genre and I do like the concept a lot. Zombie Strippers has its moments but I really can't justify recommending that anyone spend 94 minutes of their free time watching this film. Since it features both Jenna Jameson and Robert Englund, of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame, you would think that it might be considered required viewing for fans of porn and horror alike. But as Enid from Ghost World might say, (if anyone tried to bestow "so bad it's good" status on it) this is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again. Still, the scene where the stereotypical tough Mexican from East LA threatens the zombie almost makes it all worthwhile. "What are you staring at, dog? You know me?"
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Double Indemnity (1944)

2010-05-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

It's incredible that a film more than 65 years old is still more intense, more suspenseful and more brilliantly crafted than 99% of all the thrillers Hollywood has ever produced. In 1945 the Academy demonstrated its irrelevance by nominating Double Indemnity seven times but awarding it nothing. Perhaps they weren't ready to come to terms with the fact that a picture about people misbehaving could somehow be more significant than a Bing Crosby musical.
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Apocalypse Now: Redux (2001)

2010-02-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

If you feel like revisiting "the horror", and it's probably worth doing at least once every 5-10 years, then you might as well watch the "Redux". If you've never seen the original, then start there. Also, if you've never seen the original, then you must be totally insane, or at the very least your methods are unsound.
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The Good Shepherd (2006)

2009-10-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

DeNiro is certainly a heavyweight when it comes to film in general, and his previous directorial feature, 1993's A Bronx Tale, was a classic piece of storytelling. But without decent material, I get the feeling that the actor/director/producer wouldn't be able to do much more than stare blankly into space. A reporter covering the Tribeca Film Festival once asked him how he thought aliens landing in New York would react to the event and all he could say was "I'm not good at questions like that". Anyway, there is decent material here, but it makes for somewhat less than compelling cinema. In fact, Francis Ford Coppola was originally slated to direct but dropped out, complaining that he couldn't relate to the characters and found them unemotional. I like a slow burner as much as the next person, but this one would work better as an abridged dinnertime story told by your uncle instead of a nearly-3-hour epic.

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Grey Gardens (1975)

2009-10-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

I probably would never have sat down to watch this if my wife hadn't wanted to see it again after being reminded of it at a Rufus Wainwright concert. He sang his song of the same name and made a comment about how Santa Barbara (where we were living at the time) was, like Grey Gardens, also inhabited by crazy rich people. The documentary is loved by many because Little Edie and her mother say a lot of strange and amusing things in front of the camera. Complaints have arisen over the years about how the Beales' lives may have been exploited for the film but the two seem to have been quite proud of the whole project regardless. My overall feeling is that there are probably thousands of eccentric recluses who are, at this very moment, wasting away in old, decaying homes all over the world and muttering funny things. These two just happen to have been related to Jackie O.
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Joyeux Noël (2005)

2009-09-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

I can't recall when I was last so disappointed by a film. I had been looking forward to seeing this for a long time, as it had been generally well-received by critics and nominated for some pretty big awards. I realize now that the Christmas Truce of 1914 on the Western Front is a very nice thing to read about, but it should never constitute the entire plot of a film. And if someone insists that it must, then they should seriously consider toning down the sentimentality, adding an interesting sub-plot or two and including some multidimensional characters. I really can't say it any better than Nathan Rabin from The Onion: "Though a painless time-passer, Joyeux Noël ultimately contributes little to the venerable anti-war genre beyond its curious message that to some degree, war is hell because it prevents soldiers from making really neat friends and pen-pals from different countries."
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Man on Wire (2008)

2009-09-06T21:22:00.000-07:00

During the 2009 Academy Awards I had a great big smile on my face while watching Philippe Petit (the "Man on Wire") balance the Oscar on his chin. What he and his team pulled off in 1974 was perhaps the most insane, illegal stunt in history. Many viewers complain that there is no video footage of the actual tightrope walk. I couldn't care less about that. Because it's the idea of the whole thing that really inspires. By the way, he didn't just walk across a tightrope from one World Trade Center tower to the other. He spent 45 minutes walking back and forth, dancing, lying down, and taunting police who threatened to "pluck" him from the wire using a helicopter. And Petit may have a tendency to prattle but you have to give him credit for simply stating at one point that "there is no why".
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Death at a Funeral (2007)

2009-08-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

I've learned to take it with a grain of salt when people tell me that they nearly died laughing while watching this or that film. Death at a Funeral has a few good jokes that are introduced early on and then get beaten to death for the rest of the running time. Director Frank Oz is certainly no lightweight, but, although I don't necessarily believe that it's inevitable for any director to ever be "past his prime", I kind of feel like he is way past his prime. Many people would submit the "poo" scene as evidence that this is one of the funniest movies of all-time. This scene didn't have much of an effect on me, not because I found it disgusting, but because it didn't feel original or clever in the slightest. It was a modified version of so many things that have come before it, most notably certain scenes from There's Something About Mary. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the only people who are writing fresh poo jokes these days are the "South Park" guys. The other problem I had with the film is that it just becomes exhausting watching everyone stall for time during the funeral over and over while trying to deal with ridiculous situations behind closed doors. It might work for a sitcom, but not for a 90-minute feature.
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Surfwise (2007)

2009-06-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of surfing legend Dorian Paskowitz and eight of his nine children, whom he "home-schooled" with his wife, Juliette. They became famous as the "first family of surfing" and spent years traveling up and down the coast, renouncing material possessions (besides some surfboards and used camper vans) and living on barely any income at all. For a couple of decades they seemed to be more or less genuinely happy, and while watching the first half or so of the documentary it's fun to imagine what growing up in such a family would have been like. The obligatory bummer portion of the documentary reveals that most of the kids weren't very happy with their father upon discovering, as young adults, that getting out of the water and enrolling at Stanford was not an option.
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Gattaca (1997)

2009-04-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

I liked the style of this film a great deal. It feels very much like the not-too-distant future, and with a minimum of effects and gimmicks. According to the IMDB trivia section, "When Gattaca was first released, as part of a marketing campaign there were adverts for people to call up and have their children genetically engineered. Thousands of people called". The story deals with Ethan Hawke's character's attempt to fake his genetic makeup in order to be selected for a space flight mission to Saturn. This involves an elaborate plan where he assumes the identity of a man with a more favorable genome (played by Jude Law) as well as lots of naked scrubbing scenes in which he removes all the incriminating dandruff. If you were wondering where they got the title, as I was, the name "Gattaca" is composed of the four letters in the DNA "alphabet", and the order that they appear in has some further significance that isn't worth going into here. I enjoyed Ethan and Uma (they first became a couple during filming), Jude Law, Alan Arkin and even good old Gore Vidal. But in the end I couldn't help but feel like it was a somewhat bleak and sedated version of something that could have been a little bit cooler.
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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

2009-04-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

As I write this an updated version of the film, starring Denzel Washington, is about to be released in theaters. And I can't help but wonder why. And I can't help but think that if I were a big-time movie director, like Tony Scott, I could find a better project than a remake (that's already been crappily remade for TV with Edward James Olmos!) where John Travolta hijacks a subway car. But the original is a decent film and it's what Quentin Tarantino borrowed the color code-names thing from for Reservoir Dogs. Walter Matthau plays a memorable transit detective but the rest of the characters, made-up of psychotic bad guys and a cross-section of citizens of New York, are ultimately forgettable. In case you were wondering, 1:23 is the time that the train leaves Pelham (Pelham Bay Park in The Bronx) which gives it its temporary designation. Anyway, Mr. Scott, after you're done ruining The Warriors for us, why don't you try something completely different for a change?
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Broken Rainbow (1985)

2009-03-28T08:31:00.000-07:00

"In the Navajo tongue there is no word for relocation. To move away means to disappear and never be seen again." There is too much to explain here. Although this documentary won the Oscar in 1986, it's difficult to find much information on the subject online. The Wikipedia article, for example, is only a stub with a few links to things like "Navajo Native Americans", "Arizona" and "Martin Sheen" (narrator). In 1974 over 10,000 Navajo were ordered to relocate from their homes in northern Arizona. Many resisted and over the next decade the government proceeded to systematically destroy their way of life. What were the reasons? Coal, oil, natural gas and uranium. Anyone who says differently, like the late Barry Goldwater did (John McCain's scumbag predecessor), is not to be trusted.
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The Point (1971)

2009-03-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

Narrated by Ringo Starr and scored by Harry Nilsson, it features the voice of Mike Lookinland as Oblio, a kid who was born without a pointy head in a kingdom where everything is required by law to have a point. My first question was "why in the world don't I remember a great name like Lookinland after watching the Brady Bunch (he played Bobby) for so many years?" I guess I didn't pay as much attention to credits back then. Anyway, I found The Point very charming for a while, but once Oblio is banished to The Pointless Forest it starts to feel too much like Yellow Submarine. Still, it's required watching for any fan of Ringo, Bobby Brady or the "Coconut" guy.
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What About Bob? (1991)

2009-03-02T22:57:00.000-08:00

I first saw this movie at the local playhouse in the summer of '91. I remember laughing at Bill Murray and loving all the clever one-liners. But seeing it again as an adult made me realize that it's really Richard Dreyfuss's superb performance that makes the whole thing work. Murray is great too, of course, but it's watching Dr. Leo Marvin deal with being tormented by Bob that's truly enjoyable. Catching up with What About Bob? after all these years reminded me (as Napoleon Dynamite also did) that you can make a great comedy without including sex, violence, drugs, feces or bad language. Not that there is anything wrong with having those things in your film, but too often it seems like the only formula that any comedy writer is using anymore.
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Michael Clayton (2007)

2009-03-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

The premise is somewhat reminiscent of Erin Brockovich and although it's not based on a true story, the characters and events portrayed in this film feel closer to the truth than whatever it was that I was supposed to get out of watching Julia Roberts stick it to the man for 130 minutes straight. This time the evil corporation goes to even more extreme lengths in order to cover things up, taking out a contract on a man's life. I sometimes wonder how often things like this actually happen in this country (everyone knows that they happen abroad with the tacit approval, if not complete support and participation, of certain corporations) but if they go down the way they do in the film then there is very little chance that we will ever find out about them. This was my pick for Best Picture in 2007.
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eXistenZ (1999)

2009-02-17T12:37:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the Judeo-Christian-Zen-Buddhist-sci-fi epic The Matrix as much as everyone else did, but I think some of the performances were actually quite shabby, and parts of the script are just beyond lame. eXistenZ uses a similar gimmick, but in the form of a multi-player virtual reality video game. And instead of waging a kick-ass proxy war against some evil, real-world force while humanity hangs in the balance, the players explore some of the more nuanced issues that come up when dealing with ultra-real virtual worlds, and the question of whether what we are seeing at any given moment is really happening or not (and what that question even means) becomes increasingly difficult to answer. This turns out to be a lot more fun than watching Keanu Reeves learn Kung Fu. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Allegra Geller, the impossibly attractive video game designer who guides Ted Pikul, a marketing trainee played by Jude Law, through the mysterious plot of the game. They have great chemistry and writer/director David Cronenberg somehow manages to make the act of hooking themselves up to the game something that is strangely erotic. As much as I want to play a game like eXistenZ (strange casing because "isten" is the Hungarian word for God) or hang out in the holodeck from Star Trek, I seriously doubt the technology will ever get that far. But if it does, then I hope no one ever has to ask: "Hey, tell me the truth... are we still in the game?"
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Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

2009-02-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

You've probably heard this before so I'll keep it short: predictable, contrived, derivative, and entertaining as all hell. Seinfeld may be right about how "awards are stupid" but I still want this to win.
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Matewan (1987)

2009-02-03T16:40:00.000-08:00

This film was extremely well-received by critics at the time of its release, but there were a handful who complained that the historical Battle of Matewan was painted too black and white for their sensibilities. I can't even begin to describe how misguided that notion is. When we're dealing with the corporate greed of a coal-mining company in the early 1920s, whose workers were most definitely getting screwed on a daily basis, how can they say that the most important conflict in this story is not right versus wrong? I'm not saying certain things weren't sensationalized, or that in real life all the workers were heroes and all the company men villains, but it's incredibly disrespectful to the history of organized labor to say that it's just a lot of idealistic melodrama. But why am I bothering to defend a movie that most viewers enjoy? Because it's the mindset of people who don't get it that is a major cause of suffering in the world. The union leader Joe Kenehan, played by Chris Cooper, says that he didn't go off to the war because all he could see in it was "workers fighting workers". Even today that's an extremely controversial idea, and not one that you can try to apply to the so-called "good wars" without being laughed at, unless you work it into a nice little film like this.
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L'Auberge Espagnole (2002)

2009-01-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

For the most part I did enjoy Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the other film I saw this year that was set in Barcelona. But I was a little surprised when it won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) because I really didn't think it was anything special. Parts of it come off like a tourism video that you might grab on your way out of the public library, which suddenly made a lot of sense when I found out that the city of Barcelona actually picked-up the tab for production costs. Anyway, In Bruges is a lot funnier and more complex, and, getting to the point, so is L'Auberge Espagnole. It's an honest look at the experience of crowded apartment-living with a diverse group of people, but about a thousand times more worthwhile than any similarly-themed American sit-com. The city itself is an important character, introduced to us in a completely natural way, not with narrated scenes featuring famous landmarks. Xavier is an enjoyable protagonist with some legitimate drama, but it wouldn't be enough without his delightful flatmates, whom at first he wants desperately to be accepted by, in part because: "It was like I'd always lived in this mess. Their bickering was like the constant drone in my head since childhood." There are some touching moments but it never fully devolves into sentimental stuff about the international languages of friendship and love, thankfully.
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The Godfather: Part II (1974)

2009-01-13T22:12:00.000-08:00

It's great, but the ending is one of the biggest downers of all-time. It's just as intense as the first one, but not quite as legendary. Sure, it has the "you broke my heart" scene and a few other memorable ones, but everyone knows that all the classic lines appear in part one. Best Picture that year should have been Blazing Saddles, and I am only half kidding about that, or maybe not at all.
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The Godfather (1972)

2009-01-11T19:05:00.000-08:00

The IMDB trivia section for The Godfather is so long that I couldn't read it all in one sitting. Among the items listed is the body count in the film: 18 including the horse, which was an actual dead horse (well, the head) that was procured from a dog food factory. Another interesting bit is the fact that Mario Puzo, who didn't speak Italian, either got the use of the title "Don" wrong, or decided that he was going to start a new trend. Since, even in those days, addressing someone as "Don" in Italian was a little like addressing them as "Uncle" in English, you would say "Don Vito" instead of "Don Corleone". Anyway, what else can I say that hasn't been said already? It's still one of those films, like Star Wars or The Princess Bride, where thinking it's not one of the all-time best is tantamount to treason. If you were to announce to a bar full of drunk college kids that you hated Citizen Kane, most likely none of them would care. But I wouldn't recommend trying the same thing with The Godfather.
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Joy Ride (2001)

2009-01-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

I don't get it. This was widely praised by critics as a terrifying, entertaining, popcorn thriller. I didn't much care for any of the actors and I never felt even the slightest bit scared. I'll grant them that the film had a nice look to it, but the sadistic trucker on the CB just didn't do it for me. When they first start messing around with the radio one of the brothers says "This is like some kinda prehistoric Internet". Yes, prehistoric! That's exactly right! It's from the days before recorded history, when guys would prank each other by poorly disguising their voices and pretending to be very attractive females who wanted to meet-up at motels, and then often be murdered for taking the joke too far. The descendants of the survivors would later make bad movies about it.
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The Plague Dogs (1982)

2009-01-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

My wife made a crack about how this is Thelma & Louise for dogs. I laughed, but then I realized that she was absolutely right. Except that's backwards, as this adaptation of Richard Adams's novel appeared almost a decade earlier. In The Plague Dogs, Snitter and Rowf, who are best friends, manage to escape from a research laboratory and proceed to get into a lot of trouble, not all of it their fault. They manage to upset a lot of sheep herders and local authorities, and cause the lab scientists to suspect that they are infected with bubonic plague, so naturally their days are numbered. As in Thelma, the real villains are men who mistreat them and force them to act desperately. Featured voice actors include John Hurt and Patrick Stewart. I'll leave it to you to figure out what the canine version of driving off a cliff would be.
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Snatch (2000)

2008-12-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

When the Coen brothers make a film with no plot all the critics compare them to Mark Twain ("Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted...", etc.) but when someone like Guy Ritchie does it they call it a waste of time. I first watched this with some neighborhood kids while home on break from college. We were drunk and we thought it was the greatest thing ever made. Watching it again today, I don't quite feel the same way, although it's still entertaining. Sure, the plot is all over the place and half of it is shot like a music video, but it's got some good writing and some fine acting. And that adds up to enjoyable characters. I hope the Coens have some in their next film.
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Grandma's Boy (2006)

2008-12-11T13:01:00.000-08:00

This movie was mercilessly trashed by all kinds of critics. And it's actually pretty hard to argue with most of them since it is, after all, extremely silly with virtually no story line. The only real conflict develops from Allen Covert's character's poor decision to write a new kick-ass video game all by himself and directly onto a CD, with no backup copies or proof that it's his work, which gets stolen by another jealous employee of his software firm. In my book, that actually wins this film some points for not being afraid to contrive the hell out of the plot. Anyway, the characters are funny enough to make it worthwhile, and there are many things that made it stand out for me when compared to more mainstream comedies of late. For example, there's this one joke that involves semen, and they manage to pull it off without actually having to show the semen! Now that's refreshing.
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Office Space (1999)

2008-12-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

After almost 10 years of nearly everyone I know endlessly praising and quoting Office Space, what is there left for me to say about it? Well, not much. But I am going to go ahead and predict the following: never again will there be a comedy where every last member of the cast just knocks it out of the park like this. Gary Cole (as Bill Lumbergh) and John C. McGinley (as Bob Slydell) deserve Academy Awards. My favorite scenes are still Peter's bad dreams, and I can vividly recall my uncontrollable laughter the first time I saw the oiled-up Lumbergh. "You can just go ahead and move a little bit to the left. Yeah, that's it. Great." And then, of course, "I hereby sentence you, Michael Bolton and Samir Na...Ananajibad...to a term of no less than four years in federal-pound-me-in-the-ass-prison."
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The Last House on the Left (1972)

2008-11-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

This was Wes Craven's directorial debut. The plot is ludicrous, as Maude Lebowski would say, but the film appeals to that deep, dark part of our psyches that wants to see campy torture porn followed by sweet, sweet revenge. I never got around to seeing the cult classic I Spit on Your Grave, and proably never will at this point, but I assume that it was inspired at least in part by Last House. A few good bits of pop culture trivia came up while I was researching this one. David Hess, who plays the leader of the Manson-esque gang and also scored the film, recorded a version of Otis Blackwell's "All Shook Up" just months before Elvis Presley did. Martin Kove, who plays the idiot cop, later played the evil sensei from the Cobra Kai Dojo in The Karate Kid (versatile!). It's worth sticking around until the end to see how the mother of this poor girl gets back at her daughter's killer. Here's a hint: she pretends that she's going to do him a certain kind of really special favor, but then she bites his penis off instead.
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Occupation: Dreamland (2005)

2008-11-15T09:18:00.000-08:00

There's nothing brilliant about the way this film was put together, but the raw content itself makes it worth watching. The most disturbing thing about it is seeing the terrified women and children huddle against the wall while coalition troops conduct house raids and arrest suspected insurgents. Most of it was filmed in Fallujah before the first siege of that city, which took place about a year after the invasion of Iraq. We get to meet lots of American soldiers, and surprisingly, their political views are all over the map. But even most of those who support the war are upset about one thing or another regarding the way it's being waged or the way they are being treated by their own government or the local population. Highlights include a presentation to the troops about re-enlistment, where the gist of the message is "Come on, who else is gonna hire you? You'll have to live with your mom if you quit", which actually doesn't sound that bad to some of them. And the weekly public relations meetings, where the gist of the message is "Hey, sorry we have to act like assholes, but people are shooting at us. See you next week if we haven't arrested or killed you by then."
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Barack Obama (1961)

2008-11-04T21:14:00.001-08:00

Oh thank Christ.
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The Wings of the Dove (1997)

2008-10-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Helena Bonham Carter is great as always. It begins as a nice period piece about social class friction and forbidden love. That stuff is always entertaining. But then it devolves into an unconvincing portrayal of an unlikely and unexciting love triangle, and that's when I started falling asleep. Since we're on the subject of HBC movies, I am really looking forward to seeing her play the Red Queen in Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. I won't spoil the surprise about who's rumored to be cast as the caterpillar.
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Frantic (1988)

2008-10-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

I was getting really into this movie during the first 20 minutes, which is more or less devoid of action. A married couple arrive in Paris and check into a hotel, make a few phone calls, and lounge around. But the attention to detail reminded me of my favorite Roman Polanski film, Rosemary's Baby. That one keeps you wondering what will happen until the last frame, but in Frantic all the cards are laid out pretty early on, and they will make you yawn. They include drug dealers, terrorists, a make-believe component of a nuclear device that is small enough to hide in your luggage but important enough to kill people for, and a cute French girl for Harrison Ford's character to team-up with and try to sort it all out. Maybe there was a time when this formula worked, but most filmmakers working today know that you have to add comedy, romance, martial-arts, or at the very least a clever twist. The world has changed, and for any half-intelligent viewer just getting the bad guy, by itself, will never be satisfying again.
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Persepolis (2007)

2008-10-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons that I wanted to watch Persepolis is that I know so little about the Islamic Revolution. Maybe an animated biopic is not the best source for such information, but it's difficult to find any films at all that deal with the subject (that Sally Field doesn't star in). I suppose the history of Western meddling in the affairs of Iran, which in the end helped to produce such an undesirable result, is one possible reason for this. Persepolis has only a brief mention of the British helping Reza Khan seize power in 1925, and then later a vague reference to the Shah having "friends in Washington". I couldn't help but feel that the filmmaker had missed out on an opportunity to educate her audience. But in fairness, that's not really what the movie is about. Most of it focuses on the time she spent in self-imposed exile in Europe, and how she handled xenophobes, friends who took their care-free lives for granted and, of course, the opposite sex. These are certainly important issues, but I found the scenes depicting the chaos of the revolution and the horror of urban warfare to be much more engaging. And I wonder if some of the praise that the film has received has more to do with its uniqueness than with its actual content.
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Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)

2008-10-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

Even if you wholeheartedly support the War on Terror(ism), you'll probably find it difficult to watch this film and not arrive at the conclusion that the government needs to seriously reexamine its policies regarding the detainment and interrogation of suspects. It's also difficult to make the case that international scandals, like Abu Ghraib, and other unfortunate incidents, like the death of the innocent Afghan taxi driver pictured here, had a singular cause of "a few bad apples" getting carried away. Shortly after 9/11, Dick Cheney told the late Tim Russert that "A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful." Those methods include extreme humiliation and torture, and anyone who still claims otherwise is kidding themselves to an absurd degree. President Bush has said that language in the Geneva Conventions is "very vague". Perhaps. But look at these photos, watch the footage, listen to the stories of the former military interrogators who speak freely about their experiences, and then ask yourself: if these are not "outrages upon human dignity" then what the hell would be?
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To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

2008-10-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

I've only seen a few of them, but this is my new favorite William Friedkin movie. I was obsessed with The Exorcist as a young kid, mostly because I had never seen anything like it before. The French Connection was surely groundbreaking, but I'm very skeptical of anyone who says it still blows them away almost four decades later. Besides, its car chase scene is put to shame by the one in To Live and Die in L.A. (a good deal of which takes place on the wrong side of a freeway). Willem Dafoe and John Turturro, at fairly early points in both of their careers, are as good as ever. I didn't immediately recognize William Petersen (above) but he's done a few movies and a lot of television work since his excellent performance as the loose cannon Richard Chance. This cop story is anything but formulaic, and with not an ounce of melodrama. I was very surprised to hear Chance's partner mutter "I'm getting too old for this shit" at the beginning of the film, more than a year before Danny Glover ever does! Did all four Lethal Weapon films include that line as an homage, or was it outright theft?
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Old Joy (2006)

2008-10-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Under the Netflix rating system I would have given this 4 stars because I "really liked it", but I can't justify putting it in the "see it eventually" category if only because it has a pretty limited appeal and your time might be better spent actually going into nature instead of sitting on the couch watching others do it. In the film two old friends who don't have much in common anymore get lost and become slightly annoyed with each other while trying to find some hot springs, but they end up having a pretty good time. That's all. Many viewers will be bored to death, and some have even (unfairly) compared it to The (infinitely more pointless) Brown Bunny. But the film had an almost magical calming effect on me. And it really captures that wonderful feeling we've all had when you finally arrive somewhere very beautiful after a very uncomfortable journey. Kurt (the great Will Oldham, left) describes their eventual destination as a place that has this "other-worldly peacefulness to it". At the time he says it his friend Mark, along with the viewers, is thinking to himself "you silly hippie". But then we finally get there and it's like "Damn, he was right!"
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Burn After Reading (2008)

2008-10-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen The Ladykillers or Intolerable Cruelty and not a single person has ever suggested that I do so. Which means I can be fairly certain that I've seen all the great Coen Brothers films. This is not one of them. It's not a bad film, but it suffers from a serious lack of sympathetic characters. I don't object to the notion of a plot that goes absolutely nowhere (like Lebowski), as long as we can enjoy spending time with the characters. But the only ones that I felt were worthwhile were J.K. Simmons and David Rasche's CIA Superior and CIA Officer, and they are relatively small parts, although their scenes loosely frame the whole story. I felt like everyone else was trying a little too hard, except perhaps for the writer/directors. A missing CD? That could never be as funny as a missing briefcase.
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Tropic Thunder (2008)

2008-10-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

I laughed my ass off during the first 30 or so minutes. After that, things get a little repetitive and the film becomes as unoriginal as the kind that are ridiculed in the phony trailers (which are almost as funny as the ones in Grindhouse) in the opening scenes. Robert Downey, Jr. is as good as everyone says he is, but the joke that is his character doesn't have quite enough life for the full length of the movie, although his eventual epiphany is pretty great. Jack Black's character is one of the weakest, if only because a slapstick portrayal of drug addiction could never come close to capturing the bizarre hilarity (of the lighter side) of the real thing. Tom Cruise didn't score any points with me. The character was probably well-written, but I think he overdid it a bit. And if anyone needed to know if the whole old-white-guy-dancing-to-hip-hop thing has suddenly become funny, the answer is no.
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In Bruges (2008)

2008-10-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

In Bruges is another film that I stayed away from while it was in theaters, after being a little turned-off by a trailer that features Colin Farrell's character beating up a dwarf (this one prefers to be called a dwarf and the term "little person" isn't mentioned at all, although "midget" is used a lot). I was being a bit prejudiced in thinking that Jordan Prentice was put in the film to get cheap laughs out of morons, because his character is very important for this clever story and he does a fine job with it. And I would guess that hitmen with hearts of gold are pretty rare in the real world, but they are usually entertaining on film and Farrell and Gleeson are perfect for these roles. Despite containing plenty of sex, drugs, and midget beatings, this movie is somehow not as crude as so many mediocre comedies that overrated American directors have been churning out lately. And it's a lot funnier. If you're like me and you're constantly disappointed when someone tells you to go see some movie that, sure enough, makes you laugh a few times, but is otherwise pointless, then In Bruges may be the cure. It has moments of pure genius, and delivers a brilliant pay-off, never once threatening to half-ass the ending, which seems to happen all too easily whenever guns are involved.
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The Counterfeiters (2007)

2008-10-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

They will never stop making films about WWII or the Holocaust, so hopefully at least some of them will not require battles and explosions or scenes of unbearable cruelty. The Counterfeiters is one such film, and while its characters may be mostly fictionalized the events depicted are more or less historically accurate. Karl Markovics gives one of many fine performances as Sally, the infamous counterfeiter who suddenly finds himself being forced by the Nazis to use his skills for far more terrible purposes than he is accustomed to, with the aim of toppling the British economy and eventually cracking the American dollar as well. The story presents an interesting moral quandary: do you protect your mates by aiding the Nazis in the war effort, or do you stick to your principles and accept certain death? After all, you might be risking an evil empire's global domination just to save your miserable life, but as Markovics's Sally reminds us, "our miserable lives are all we have".
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The Wind in the Willows (1983)

2008-09-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is no more a children's film than is Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, another excellent and intelligently-crafted claymation adventure. It's a beautiful story about friendship, honor, courage, reckless driving, outsmarting evil-doers, and the ins and outs of the human/animal penal system. One thing I love about this kind of animation is that even today you know that they can't fake it with high-tech tricks. These characters really existed in the physical world and to make them come to life like this in a feature-length film was truly a labor of love. One interesting bit of trivia is that Guillermo del Toro was slated to make an updated live-action/CGI version of the film, but things went sour when he realized the studio execs just didn't get it: "It was a beautiful book, and then I went to meet with the executives and they said, 'Could you give Toad a skateboard and make him say, 'radical dude' things,' and that's when I said, 'It's been a pleasure...'"
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Hearts of Darkness:A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)

2008-09-24T21:19:00.001-07:00

The long and painful ordeal that was the making of Apocalypse Now will probably be the closest that Francis Ford Coppola will ever come to knowing what it's like to give birth. And I've enjoyed the finished product over the years on a number of levels, but there will always be something about his attitude towards his art that doesn't quite sit right with me. Here's what he said about the experience: "The film wasn't about Vietnam, it was Vietnam." Let's see...jungles? Check. Explosions? Check. Illicit drugs and general insanity? Checkaroo. Several million deaths during filming? Not exactly. Imagine if one of the presidential candidates uttered something similar: "You know, I had a troubled upbringing. In fact, I often refer to my childhood as The Vietnam War." I'm pretty sure it would mean the end of his campaign. Mostly I just think it's amusing, and I would never let something silly like a pretentious director ruin my enjoyment of a good film. But after watching this fascinating documentary I have to ask myself: where would Apocalypse be today without Martin Sheen's legendary performance? And is there any other actor whom I could tolerate in a nearly three-and-a-half hour "Redux"?
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The Fisher King (1991)

2008-09-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

I remember seeing Dead Poets Society when I was about ten years old and thinking it was a great film, and then sometime shortly after that deciding that I had had enough of Robin Williams. But looking back I can't quite put my finger on what it was exactly. Maybe it was Hook or Mrs. Doubtfire that was the last straw, but I don't think I ever watched more than 10 minutes of either. Whatever it was, it also happened with Steve Martin and Billy Crystal. Anyway, The Fisher King is a good film, but despite Terry Gilliam's uniquely weird perspective on some of his favorite subjects (knights, urban decay, mental illness) there are few surprises and it feels overly long and contrived at times. Gilliam is at his best when his stuff is completely unpredictable. Sometimes it becomes frustratingly incoherent but I still think he's one of the most interesting directors around.
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Genghis Blues (1999)

2008-09-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

The late, great physicist Richard Feynman once said to his audience during a lecture "...I saw a car with the license plate ARW357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!" It's probably about the same chance that the American musician who wrote the Steve Miller Band hit "Jet Airliner" would ever win an award in a Tuvan throat-singing competition, in Tuva. I quote Feynman because he was largely responsible for the western interest in this obscure republic of southern Siberia. This is all explained in the documentary, and it's one of many things that make this story, which might otherwise have been better-suited for a heartwarming news segment about cultural exchange, particularly interesting. Whether or not you enjoy the sound of throat-singing, you can't help but be impressed by Paul Pena's career, as well as the beauty of the landscapes and the people of Tuva, which he was unable, sadly, to see.
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The Bank Job (2008)

2008-09-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

Jason Statham may play the same character in every movie he's in, but he plays it very well. The fearless, bad-ass joker role is just perfect for that face. When this film was in theaters I avoided it completely because its unimaginative title reminded me of The Italian Job, a mildly entertaining but idiotic heist flick in which all the action revolves around Seth Green's character being able to control the world with his laptop computer and supernatural hacking skills. The Bank Job is not about the kind of high-tech, ultra-professional thieves who make it all look so easy while setting up a nice twist ending/practical joke for whomever they're robbing. One reason for that is it's somewhat closely based on the true story of the Baker Street robbery, which was carried out on September 11, 1971 in London. The filmmakers have their own theories about why British authorities suppressed news coverage of the event, and why the case file of one of the owners of a ransacked safety deposit box will remain classified until 2054. If you watch the featurette on the DVD you'll learn that depending on whom you talk to these theories are either wild speculation or "not beyond the realm of possibility". But conspiracy theories aside, the film is well-cast and well-paced, and it's a fascinating story even without the imagined bits.
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Bottle Rocket (1996)

2008-08-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

It's hard to say whether Bottle Rocket is as strong a film as Rushmore, but I love them both and they are the only two Wes Anderson movies that I've ever cared to watch more than once. This will probably always be my favorite performance by either of the Wilson brothers. I wasn't surprised to read that the film had the lowest test scores in Columbia Pictures history when it was first screened, because the humor in it is anything but mainstream. It's that kind of goofy loser humor, but these guys are also depressed and a little dangerous. Anthony (Luke) explains why he had to spend time in a mental asylum before joining Dignan's (Owen's) team of amateur criminals:

One morning, over at Elizabeth's beach house, she asked me if I'd rather go water-skiing or lay out. And I realized that not only did I not want to answer THAT question, but I never wanted to answer another water-sports question, or see any of these people again for the rest of my life.

That cracks me up every time. But for some people it just doesn't do very much, which is fine because I like my favorite cult classics to stay offbeat and cultish.
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Castle in the Sky (1986)

2008-08-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

Castle in the Sky is the story of Pazu, a young boy who works in a coal mine, and Sheeta, who is a descendant of a legendary people who controlled magic crystals on their now lost, floating home-world. Several different parties try to kidnap Sheeta in order to learn the secrets of the crystal. Everybody has lots of firepower and air power and as a result a good deal of the film consists of explosions and acrobatics and the two kids yelling "Paaaazuuuu!" or "Sheeeataaaa!" It's a nice story but I don't think it's of the same caliber as other Miyazaki films like Spirited Away or Naussica of the Valley of the Wind. But I've also learned that Miyazaki's fans' favorites differ almost person-to-person. So don't take my word for it since you might as well just watch them all.
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Barry Lyndon (1975)

2008-08-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

Let me see if I have this right: You call yourself a Stanley Kubrick fan but you still haven't seen Barry Lyndon? You really ought to do something about that.
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Back to the Future (1985)

2008-08-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. Is that how Robert Zemeckis made the greatest movie of all-time? I suppose the fact that I just asked that means I'm not a serious film buff. But if serious film buffs are not allowed to say that Back to the Future is a true masterpiece while keeping a straight face, then that's the last group I need to be a member of. Time travel will never have such style ever again. And there is hardly an unnecessary frame or a line that is not perfectly written and delivered (OK, maybe there was no good reason for the bad guys to be Libyans, but we'll let that slide). Everything is thought-out so carefully. In the movie Einstein the dog is the world's first time traveler. As a kid watching it I found that amusing, but you realize what a nice touch it is once you learn a little bit more about Einstein the theoretical physicist. Wait, what do you mean, you've seen this? It's brand new.
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Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

2008-08-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

In all honesty the fact that Javier Bardem's character has sex with three beautiful women in this movie (and sometimes with two at once) is not the main reason I went to see it. But I was slightly disappointed to learn upon arriving at the theater that it was only rated PG-13. Anyway I thought it was a very strong film that was extremely well-cast right down to the smallest of roles, except for one. Although I'm not against the use of a narrator in principle, I did find this one a little distracting and overused. Was it really necessary for him to tell us that a guy in Vicky's class was checking her out when he was very clearly executing the clichéd glance across the aisle during a lecture? And would it have been too subtle for the audience if he hadn't constantly been pointing out that large amounts of good Spanish wine were being consumed? As tired as I am of Morgan Freeman voice-overs, at least if he had done it certain scenes wouldn't have reminded me of sex-ed videos in health class. But that issue aside, it's a funny film.
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The Proposition (2005)

2008-08-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Proposition wastes no time in setting up its very simple premise: Charlie Burns enters into a deal with Outback law enforcement wherein he can save his gentle and most likely innocent younger brother from the gallows by killing his older brother, who happens to be a vicious bastard. But the film has a lot more on its mind, as they say, than just catching the bad guy or how being involved in such a task affects the mind of Charlie, played brilliantly by a barely recognizable Guy Pearce. It's fairly violent and brutal, perhaps gratuitously so, but then again I don't know much about what settlers or Australian Aborigines were up to in the 1880s, so for all I know it's completely accurate. The screenplay was written by Nick Cave, and it's very impressive for a guy who is first and foremost a great songwriter. He also teams up with Warren Ellis to write the score, like he did later for The Assassination of Jesse James. I think of The Proposition as a nice companion piece to that film, both set in the 1880s but halfway around the world from each other, and both worth watching even for casual fans of the genre.
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The Big Blue (1988)

2008-08-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not particularly interested in scuba or freediving, mostly because both activities terrify me, but I was absolutely mesmerized by this film. Jean Reno, Jean-Marc Barr, and Rosanna Arquette are all fantastic. Watching Le Grand Bleu I got the feeling that the movie was made by an alien culture that posseses some sacred knowledge of the sea. It's like a beautiful dream about friendship, love, extreme sports and dolphins.
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Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

2008-08-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

I think this is Gus Van Sant's and Matt Dillon's best work. I picked up the original novel a while back in my local public library but I didn't check it out because I realized that there's very little difference between it and the screenplay, which makes perfect sense for a story that is really more interested in conversations (The Big Lebowski also comes to mind) than the incidental action. And there is no better druggie writing out there than James Fogle's perfect dialogue, which I can only believe was inspired by actual conversations occurring under the influence that he remembered or misremembered. This kind of dark humor makes me happier than almost anything else that happens on film.

"Well, to begin with, nobody, and I mean nobody, can talk a junkie out of using. You can talk to 'em for years but sooner or later they're gonna get ahold of something. Maybe it's not dope. Maybe it's booze, maybe it's glue, maybe it's gasoline. Maybe it's a gunshot to the head. But something. Something to relieve the pressures of their everyday life, like having to tie their shoes."
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Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)

2008-08-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

It won a boatload of awards at film festivals all over the world. Many friends told me that they loved it or thought it was amazing. As long as I live I will never understand why. I'm familiar with the phenomenon of the movie that you either love or hate for mostly inexplicable reasons, but this one really baffles me. If I think about it too much I'll get the urge to light my hand on fire and go stare into somebody's window, which is what John Hawkes' character does in the first few minutes of the film for some reason. I think there's about the same chance that I am not intelligent enough to understand this film as there is that all the critics and viewers who celebrate it are afraid to admit that they don't get this pretentious piece of garbage either. And let's not forget the little kid in the chat room saying "You poop into my butt hole and I poop into your butt hole... back and forth... forever." It's not funny or fresh or "real". It's just stupid. I hate this movie.
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Three O'Clock High (1987)

2008-08-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

"You and me, we're gonna have a fight. Today. After school. Three o'clock. In the parking lot. You try and run, I'm gonna track you down. You go to a teacher, it's only gonna get worse. You sneak home, I'm gonna be under your bed."

God I love this movie. It's the only one I can think of, but I still want to say that this is the ultimate after-school fight film. I'm not sure how I managed to see it a few dozen times on TV in the late 80s when other people my age missed it completely. Maybe I should've been doing more extracurricular activities, but as we learn from the film's protagonist, Jerry, too many extracurriculars can get you into trouble, which is what happens when he is asked to interview the new transfer student, Buddy Revell (pictured above, making the only face he ever makes), for the school newspaper. Jerry makes the mistake of giving him a friendly pat on the back, but everyone knows that you don't touch Buddy Revell.
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The Orphanage (2007)

2008-08-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

Despite a few plot holes or at least questionable elements this was a very clever film, and one that made me shiver more than a few times. Sitting alone in a mostly empty, air-conditioned theater may have had something to do with it, but there were moments for me that were downright traumatic. Produced by Guillermo del Toro, its style is very similar to his own excellent orphanage story, The Devil's Backbone, but the director includes several decidedly un-del Toro (and perhaps unnecessary) scenes where a "medium" and a group of poltergeist experts try to substantiate claims of supernatural activity. Despite all of that we are left in the end to wonder how much of the damage might have been caused by only a child's imagination, although at one time there were definitely some very evil things happening in that house.
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The Descent (2005)

2008-08-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

The reason that I liked this film a lot is also the reason that it's ultimately forgettable: It's straight-up terror in a cave. It doesn't bother with any contrived details about how the creatures evolved or what they do for fun, they're just there, and they're not friendly. There is at least one character who is not one-dimensional, and her story ties the whole film together nicely. It's also a nice change of pace for the action to take place where the monsters live (that's what attractive girls get for spelunking in strange places!) instead of having them crawl out of the caves and attack Boy Scouts.
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Transamerica (2005)

2008-08-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

It's rare that I would give a universally well-reviewed, award-winning and Oscar-nominated film such a low rating, but besides the fact that it received so much attention I just didn't think there was anything all that special about it. Felicity Huffman's performance was overrated, and seems to be inspired by Frasier's wife Lilith from Cheers. They did a good job of making her unattractive for the role, (But why does she look so good on the poster? Inner beauty, I guess.) but that wasn't enough to convince me that she was an M to F transsexual. After all, there is a difference between those two things. And it's unfair of me to single out Transamerica for this, but when are people going to learn not to leave their keys in the car so that any sketchy character who wanders into the film can just hop in and take off? At least they gave Maude her own magic key for that.
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Stand and Deliver (1988)

2008-08-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

I had a very deep fondness for this film even before I became a high school math teacher, and even before I ever took a calculus class. The Hollywood clichés and the "reach for the stars" stuff may be overkill at times, but it has many truly great performances. I probably have more respect for Edward James Olmos for what he does with this character than I do for the real Jaime Escalante for what he accomplished (which was moving mountains) with those kids so many years ago. But it could also be because he delivers one of the funniest lines in all of cinema, which I won't spoil here, to Andy Garcia as one of the Educational Testing Service agents who accuse his students of cheating. And today the only real problem with this movie is that it prevents me from taking Olmos seriously on the new Battlestar Galactica, which people seem to like.
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Open Your Eyes (1997)

2008-08-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

If you've already seen the American remake Vanilla Sky, then the original Spanish film Abre Los Ojos probably won't have quite the same effect on you as it did me, but it's a masterpiece in its own right that's still worth watching. So much is accomplished in this film with so little in the way of effects and only a clever variation on a very old plot device. Eduardo Noriega and Penelope Cruz are excellent together. Certain scenes gave me chills like I had never felt before. They weren't the kind you get when you are simply frightened, but rather something you might feel when you discover that the reality you have clung to for your entire life has suddenly vanished with no hope of ever being restored. But then it's just a movie, so isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? I honestly can't say. All I know is that I am really, really into this flick.
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Gonzo: The Life and Work ofDr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008)

2008-08-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

This crazy bad-ass aiming the gun wrote of San Francisco in the middle sixties: "We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...so now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." Damn, that's good writing. The documentary is well-made and thorough. But it almost doesn't matter because the source material is gold and the interviewees are able to recall so many vivid memories. Thompson's eventual burnout and suicide make for a downer of an ending, especially after revisiting some of the wildest adventures of all-time, but it's an ending he had had in mind for decades.
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Igby Goes Down (2002)

2008-08-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

Even though I couldn't care less about the latest celebrity junk-food news or gossip, for some reason I am fascinated by movies about wealthy, dysfunctional families, especially those that take place in New York and whose main characters are precocious teenagers. Kieran Culkin is excellent as Igby, and everyone else is in their element here too, especially Ryan Phillippe as his jackass older brother. Not pictured above is Claire Danes as Igby's love interest Sookie Sapperstein, who wants to know what kind of name "Igby" is. Igby explains that it's "the kind of name that someone named Sookie is in no position to question."
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The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)

2008-08-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

If you've only ever watched SpongeBob on TV for a few minutes and then decided that it was idiotic you are not alone, for a great many people have made the same mistake. And if you are a SpongeBob fan already and you haven't seen this yet then I can tell you that it's probably as funny as any of your favorite episodes. It's an eminently quotable adventure for the whole family with a wonderful message:

"No amount of mermaid magic...or managerial promotion...or some other third thing...can make me anything more than what I really am inside: a kid."
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Feed (2005)

2008-08-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

According to the filmmakers everything in this movie is based on "behaviors occurring between consenting adults...right now." I'll take their word for it because I'm not very familiar with the phenomenon of "feeders" and "gainers". The guy holding the fast food bags is the feeder (and the webmaster) and the woman on the bed is obviously the gainer. Needless to say, this is a fairly disgusting movie, but that's not the reason why I didn't like it. It has the same problem as the first of far too many Saw sequels. It gets bogged down with exploring the philosophy and motivation of the killer, neither of which make much sense, and turns a movie that should be a lot more fun into a pseudo-psychological thriller that's difficult to buy-into. It also has an endless amount of cheesy computer hacking scenes whose purpose is to show us that our protagonist cyber-crime cop is more or less omnipotent with the mouse and keyboard, except for not being able to break through that last layer of security into the "administrator files". But don't worry, he'll figure out the password in two or three guesses.
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Cries & Whispers (1972)

2008-08-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

In the original trailer for John Waters' twisted film Pink Flamingos, no actual footage is shown, but only the audience's reaction upon leaving the theater. One young man says "...it's better than Cries and Whispers!" So I had to find out why anyone would compare one of John Waters' films to one of Ingmar Bergman's. And while there are some mildly shocking scenes in Cries and Whispers, I now realize that he had simply chosen a critically acclaimed film from the same year, perhaps as a joke, or perhaps to make a statement about the relative values of two completely different movie-going experiences. Bergman's film is dark and depressing. Watching slow, agonizing deaths, self-mutilations and descents into madness is not my favorite way to spend an evening, but the more I thought about it afterward (OK, the more I read about it) the more things I found in it that I admired.
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Encounters at the End of the World (2008)

2008-07-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

It turns out that parts of Antarctica are not quite as pristine as you might think. This seems to come as a surprise to director/narrator Werner Herzog, as if he expected that modern scientists and eccentric wanderers would still be living and working in simple cabins or igloos. Maybe I half expected the same thing, but if we can put a man on the moon then we should be able to put an unattractive science station with a bowling alley and a fitness center on our least hospitable continent. I consider myself a fan of Herzog, and the way he always tells us exactly what's on his mind, or what he thinks about the people he finds at the "end of the world" is at times hilarious. But some of those people are more interesting than others and although most of what's above and below the ice is indeed beautiful, I don't think the ultra-holy a cappella music adds a whole lot that you can't get from the Discovery Channel.
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To Live (1994)

2008-07-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

I just don't understand how a human being could watch this film and not be completely blown away by it. I realize that there is no accounting for taste, but you would have to be lacking curiosity about this planet's history and the human condition to an absurd degree in order not to appreciate this masterpiece. Hero was a lot of fun, but I usually find Zhang Yimou's non-martial arts films a lot more interesting, and this one is my favorite of all. Gong Li's performance is beautiful as the wife and mother who wishes for a "quiet life", which is made impossible by many things including the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution. To Live evoked many emotions for me, but when it was over I just felt happy that films this good get made from time to time.
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Citizen Ruth (1996)

2008-07-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

I enjoy Alexander Payne's work but I don't think he's made anything that's been truly great since Election and Citizen Ruth (I won't go into why I think Sideways was so overrated). Laura Dern plays Ruth Stoops, who finds herself being manipulated by both pro-life and pro-choice activists in order to further their causes, after she becomes pregnant and makes it known that she is considering an abortion. The film deserves a lot of credit for satirizing both groups equally as well as finding great comedy in such a troubling (and common) dilemma. It explores issues that recent movies dealing with pregnancy have more or less shied away from, and I think it's refreshing and even funnier for doing so. I only really knew Laura Dern from David Lynch's world, and I always liked her, but she is absolutely perfect here and I would really like to see more of her. I just wish it were not going to be in Jurassic Park IV.
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The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

2008-07-26T00:23:00.000-07:00

I agree with many reviewers that there are some things in this movie that are incredibly lame, like a scene in which Dr. Scully is desperately trying to save a young patient with a rare disease by googling "stem cell therapy". But anyone who says it's not as entertaining as an average episode, even from one of the earlier seasons, is kidding themselves about the former greatness of the series. I felt that some parts were miscast but Billy Connolly is very good as the psychic pedophile priest. I didn't mind that it was lacking special effects and government conspiracies, unlike the first feature film, which was more stylish and fun. But how many times can you spin a tale about abductions, cover-ups or alien viruses and still have it seem fresh? Reading all the negative reviews of the film I am reminded of what Anton Ego finally admits at the end of Ratatouille: "...in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." I Want to Believe is not junk, but it is certainly average. Any review that criticizes the film for not dazzling or being suspenseful enough is certainly missing the point. And if it includes a joke about how the reviewer "wanted to believe" that the movie would be good, then it is certainly an average piece of junk.
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Cry-Baby (1990)

2008-07-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

I think this will be the last John Waters film I see for a good long while, until I decide it's time to watch Polyester again. This was earning points for style early on, and I like Johnny Depp and Amy Locane (not pictured) a lot in it but there is really no story here at all, besides a little Romeo and Juliet thing, Square and Drape style (that's what they called Socs and Greasers in 1950s Baltimore). Characters like Hatchet Face (left) and Ramona Rickettes are bizarre and seem a little out of place in a movie with a generally mainstream feel. I fell asleep sometime during the 10th dance number or when the Drapes were breaking Cry-Baby out of jail or causing a riot somewhere, I can't really remember. Anyway, this is no Hairspray.
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Wordplay (2006)

2008-07-20T23:43:00.000-07:00

You might guess that crossword puzzles and the people who create and obsess over them wouldn't make for intriguing documentary film subjects, and for the most part you'd be right. By the end of it I definitely felt like taking a look at a crossword puzzle, if not actually spending many frustrating hours trying to finish one, but through most of the film I was sort of hoping that Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds would show up and scare them all away. Although I respect the kind of mind that it takes to consistently finish the puzzles in astoundingly short periods of time, these people just aren't quite interesting enough to warrant an entire movie. Not so for the young people who were profiled in the documentary Spellbound. Those kids had me in stitches and tears and that film should be required viewing for all parents and teachers. This one has its cute moments but I would call it optional even for crossword aficionados.
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Pink Flamingos (1972)

2008-07-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Roger Ebert refused to give a star rating to this film and said that "It should be considered not as a film but as a fact, or perhaps as an object." I give it one star not because I think it is worthless or insignificant, but because there is really no reason for anyone to see it, even fans of John Waters' later work. Of all the weird and disgusting stuff you have seen or heard about on the Internet, most of it doesn't even come close to what you'll find in Pink Flamingos. There might be another film out there with a higher gross-out factor (I haven't seen the Jackass films) but for reasons I don't really want to go into I am certain that there will never, ever be another one made that's quite like this one.
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The Dark Knight (2008) (a re-review)

2008-07-19T12:01:00.001-07:00

Now that I've seen the film I need to take back some of what I said earlier. I thought most of The Dark Knight was very cool but it is hardly a perfect film, which many critics and fans have been calling it. But what you've heard about Heath Ledger's performance is true. It's brilliant and I loved every second of it. I wanted this film to be a masterpiece, but sometime during the last thirty minutes or so I found myself not really caring about the new Bat Sonar technology or the latest group of Gotham citizens to be taken hostage. From there the film devolved into melodrama over Batman's questionable role as protector of the city. And now I find myself agreeing with the critic from Newsweek who sounded so uptight when he said "This is Batman, not Hamlet."
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The Dark Knight (2008)

2008-07-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

This film is mankind's greatest achievement to date. It's an outrage that The Godfather and The Shawshank Redemption still lead it on IMDB's list of the top 250 movies of all time. I'll have more to say later since I haven't actually seen it yet.
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Return to Horror High (1987)

2008-07-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

I don't think this photo is from the set, but this is pretty much what he looks like before he is killed by the character in the cloak pictured here in the first few minutes of Return to Horror High. And that is probably the most significant thing about this film, besides a goofy performance by Maureen McCormick (Marcia from "The Brady Bunch") who, I have to say, looked gorgeous at 31 despite a lot of unhealthy habits earlier in life. This was part of a six-pack of campy horror movies that also included Sleepaway Camp, so I had high hopes for it but it fails on just about every level. I do have to wonder if Wes Craven borrowed anything from it for Scream (for starters that mask and cloak deal) since it's a self-conscious horror film that satirizes other horror films and the business of making them. But while the format may be somewhat original, it's just not very clever or funny.
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Death in Gaza (2004)

2008-07-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

There is some amazing footage in this documentary and the filmmakers were able to get very close to many people who are directly involved in the conflict, close enough for Israeli soldiers to shoot and kill the director during a night raid. But despite being very sympathetic towards Palestinian children and other innocent victims, they seem to pin most of the blame on the paramilitaries, as if they are just naturally bloodthirsty and suicidal. There are many statements in the narration of the form "The Palestinians have been doing A, so Israel must respond with B." Really? Didn't anything important happen before A? Just look at the poster: Militants, Suicide Bombers, Innocent Victims. Can you think of anything that's missing from that list? The film is full of disturbing and depressing scenes. Masked men teach 12-year old Achmed how to hold a rocket launcher, Ahmed's friend Mohammed tells us that he hopes they are both martyred at the same time, and young girls discuss the impossibility of peace with Israel under any circumstances. Certainly, much of this behavior and this kind of talk is to be condemned. But let us also condemn any government that believes it can stop terrorism with brutal and indiscriminate retaliation.
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Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

2008-07-11T23:58:00.000-07:00

Many reviewers have written things along the lines of "it's not a great film, but it's a lot of fun, etc." I couldn't disagree more. It is a great film and incredibly creative and original for a high-budget, wall-to-wall action flick. Sure, the writers owe a lot to J.R.R. Tolkien, but then so does almost every fantasy writer. For example, why do the elves in Hellboy II live forever as long as they are not slain with a blade? Well, because Tolkien said so. But Guillermo Del Toro and Mike Mignola add a certain amount of weirdness to these films that I felt was lacking throughout most of the LOTR trilogy, but which is a necessary ingredient for fantasy. Peter Jackson is a master of the epic battle with millions of men, elves and goblins. But I prefer the smaller-scale and more bizarre action sequences in Del Toro's work, not to mention the comic relief. And at the end of the day I'd much rather have a Tecate with Hellboy than stand around and act like a proud warrior with Aragorn and Legolas.
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Watership Down (1978)

2008-07-10T20:51:00.000-07:00

This one recently made it onto a Babble.com list of the 26 Most Disturbing Family Films Ever. There is a brief explanation of why each film is on the list but for Watership Down the author just writes "I don't want to talk about this any further." So naturally I had to see what that was all about. Its rating is PG (I can't think of another animated film about furry animals that's not rated G) and besides being animated there's nothing in it that would suggest it was ever meant to be a family film. It's incredibly bloody and violent and it has more scenes than I can count of various animals mauling each other to death. Anybody can tell that it is highly allegorical, but I am probably too ignorant of the historical and classical themes involved to fully appreciate that angle. I liked the style and the epic feel of the film but I got a little tired of all the running and hiding and killing. Still, there is something appealing about this trippy rabbit movie that I can't quite put my finger on, which makes me want to check out Richard Adams's original novel.
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A Dirty Shame (2004)

2008-07-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

I accidentally bought a copy of "The Neuter Version" of this movie in a thrift store in New York recently, and if it hadn't been so terrible I might have considered giving the unedited version a chance. I love John Waters but I don't remember laughing even once during A Dirty Shame. Waters is a very funny guy in person but the golden age of his trash movies has definitely come and gone. He's on to bigger and better things with two Broadway adaptations and boatloads of money. Anyway, I agree with Roger Ebert that one of the flaws of the film is that it's too encyclopedic. It amounts to not much more than a list of fetishes, some real and some made-up. When Waters does his occasional stand-up routine and comes out against adults wearing diapers or guys telling their families that they are "bears", it's funny. But there is nothing funny about a bunch of hairy guys sitting around going "grrrr, we're bears!" Yeah, I've heard of bears, now where's the punchline?
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Sleepaway Camp (1983)

2008-07-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

As adolescents my friends and I would suffer through countless hours of very bad movies because they promised lots of gore and nudity. When I watched Sleepaway Camp the other night, it was mostly for the same reason, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it offered very little of either and that it actually has many entertaining sequences, most of which are just related to normal summer camp stuff. Considering that this is an early-80s horror movie, some of the performances are downright Oscar-worthy. The murder scenes are relatively creative and it has one of the most delightfully bizarre endings of any film of its kind.
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WALL-E (2008)

2008-07-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

WALL-E is a very cool movie. It may be unfair to compare it to Ratatouille, which I felt was a masterpiece, just because they come from the same animation studio, but I wonder if some of the praise that it's receiving from critics is not at least partly due to Pixar's excellent reputation and previous successes. Anyway, the story is a good one and the animation is literally incredible. Sometimes I honestly couldn't tell that WALL-E the robot was animated at all. I was a little disappointed by the fact that so much of the running time is spent showing us how cute robot emotions can be, and I got a little tired of chaotic sequences with hundreds of robots racing around and crashing into each other, but I really enjoyed the film and appreciated its message.
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The Cats of Mirikitani (2006)

2008-06-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Wow. I really didn't expect this documentary about a homeless artist living in New York to completely blow me away. But it did. I don't want to say too much about it, because the film is just one nice surprise after another. But I'll tell you that it made me wonder how many other lost souls out there could have their lives completely restored with a little help from a friend.
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Fool's Gold (2008)

2008-06-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

I swear that I only watched this because I was on an airplane. But I admit to sitting through the entire thing, despite how awful it made me feel. It's primarily an action/adventure movie but it also features three unfunny jokes every minute. Half of them are about how great Matthew McConaughey's character is in bed. I would expect McConaughey and Hudson to be involved in crappy projects like this, but Donald Sutherland should be ashamed of himself. And guess what...they find treasure at the end! Loads of it! They accomplish this by teaming-up with other white people, who were previously competing with them, and killing some black guys who stand in their way. Or maybe they just beat them up. I can't remember. But the main bad guy definitely fell out of a helicopter and I'm pretty sure he died. This movie is retarded.
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Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

2008-06-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

"Everything's the same here, it's just a little worse." Patrick Fugit's character, Zia, says this about the place that is the afterlife for people who kill themselves. It's a place where you still have to "live" and work, eat and sleep, but everything is slightly uncomfortable and everyone is a little pissed off all the time. Fugit (the guy from Almost Famous) is pretty perfect in this role, and Shannyn Sossamon (from The Rules of Attraction, a kick-ass flick by the way) is also great as the hitchhiker who is looking for the "people in charge" because she thinks she ended up there by mistake. This is the funniest indie film I've seen in a long time.
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Teeth (2007) (A re-review)

2008-06-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've come under intense criticism from several parties for my enthusiastic review and 5-star rating of Teeth. Apparently I underestimated the incredible influence that this blog has on the DVD rental activity of the average American family. I may have acted a little bit recklessly by giving this one top scores. After all, who really needs to see the vagina dentata movie right now, or ever? But I still think it's a very funny film. And because 99% of horror movies are so bad, especially those that make it into theaters, I find movies like this that make fun of the genre and take things to such an absurd extreme to be very refreshing. And I wouldn't include garbage like Scary Movie in this category, which is cheap and easy parody of other popular garbage, as opposed to more intelligent self-parody like Re-Animator or Evil Dead. Most viewers should have a pretty good idea of whether or not they will enjoy Teeth, as long as that idea is based on whether or not they think the concept is a funny one for a satirical movie, and they are not expecting to be terrified by the toothed vagina.
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Mongol (2007)

2008-06-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Mongol was directed by a Russian filmmaker, shot mostly in China (in Inner Mongolia), financed by companies in four countries, and was Kazakhstan's official entry, for which it received a nomination, for Best Foreign Language Film in the 2007 Academy Awards. It is the first film in a trilogy and tells the story of Temudgin's (Genghis Khan's) early days from boyhood to when he first becomes Khan of all Mongols. Some Mongolians are understandably turned off by the fact that he is played by a hip Japanese actor, and that his main rival is played by a Chinese actor, but most non-Asian viewers will probably not notice or care. There are certain points in the film when you just want him to hurry up and take over the world already, but for the most part it is visually stunning and engaging. Although the historical accuracy of many details is suspect, it does a decent job of representing the motives of perhaps one of the most misunderstood historical figures. Because a very strong case can be made that he did not make the world a more savage place, but actually a more civilized one.
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Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)

2008-06-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

Fans of the band will like it, but if they are honest they will admit that there is a little too much recycled material here, and the Tenacious D: Complete Masterworks short films are infinitely funnier (first disc only, the second one is unjustifiably disgusting).
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Dear Frankie (2004)

2008-06-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Frankie is a very touching story about a woman who leaves an abusive husband along with her son Frankie, when he is very young. Later she starts writing letters to Frankie, full of stories about adventures his father has while sailing around the world, and signed with his name. Things come to a head when the ship that Frankie's dad is supposedly on happens to dock in their little Scottish town. Enter the handsome stranger who is willing to play the part for a few days. Predictably, he is like, the perfect guy, and they bond. Emily Mortimer's character is understandably a little bit cold and untrusting, but somehow she is still lovely. Maybe it's because I liked her so much in Lars and the Real Girl. Also, Frankie is deaf, which is not just a gimmick but is significant in several ways.
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Unbreakable (2000)

2008-06-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

It seems like there are a lot of "users" (as opposed to critics) out there who loved M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense but were disappointed by the slow pacing and lack of thrills in his following feature, Unbreakable. I waited almost eight whole years to see this or any other M. Night movie because I became so sick of the dominant consumer culture's obsession with "I see dead people" jokes and the idea that a movie is brilliant just because it has a twist that very few viewers see coming. I still remember an ex-girlfriend of mine and her mother, who had already seen The Sixth Sense once before, watching me closely in the dark theater and whispering "Did you figure it out yet? Did you figure it out yet?" No, I hadn't, but thanks for making me feel stupid. That Unbreakable also has a twist ending is a fact that is disclosed very early in the film, and it's a little easier to guess but a lot easier to swallow than the notion that a guy could be fooled into thinking he's not a ghost for sixth months because people just happen to open the door when he's coming. I'm planning on watching the rest of M. Night's films in the near future, and with amateur and professional criticism all over the map it's really difficult to guess what I'm in store for. But Unbreakable really made me smile, from the disorienting opening text about comic book statistics to the last, utterly perfect line. And what it lacks in dead people it more than makes up for with heart.
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King Corn (2007)

2008-06-13T00:42:00.000-07:00

When I was in elementary school our class had a field trip to the science museum to see a 3-D IMAX film called We Are Born of Stars. While that title may ring true on a cosmological scale, a more localized version of it might have been called We Are Born of Corn. What the industry has done to the growing process and to the grain itself is seriously mind-boggling. You have probably heard a lot of this before, but there are many questions that still need to be answered, and here the answers are pursued quite earnestly. The Fisher Price stop motion animation is overused, to say the least, and Ian and Curtis spend an enormous amount of time staring blankly at whoever happens to be answering their questions or helping them grow their acre, but hey, it's not bad for two recent college grads who are composed of mostly corn and corn products.
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The Great Debaters (2007)

2008-06-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

On the surface this is an extremely well-made film with some really nice performances. But it's highly predictable and has very few unexpected notes. I have mixed feelings about the decision to swap-out USC for Harvard University in the final debate (even though the USC debaters were the reigning champs at the time). Is USC just not as photogenic as Cambridge? Or does the Academy ignore movies with conclusions that are set at non-Ivy League schools?
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Boxing Helena (1993)

2008-06-07T11:37:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't put Boxing Helena in the "so bad it's good" category, but it definitely has the feel of a late-night Cinemax skin-flick that might easily suck you in if you have nothing better to do. Over the years it's been recommended to me by various people and is usually described as a story about a guy who cuts off a girl's arms and legs and keeps her prisoner in his house, which is a little misleading. We don't actually get to see any cutting and there is nothing gruesome in the film at all. I think the screenplay is probably a decent one but a lot of the cinematography and editing is laughable and Julian Sands' overacting is often excruciating. Sherilyn Fenn is decent in this but I admit I'm biased because I loved her Audrey from Twin Peaks. Art Garfunkel is probably the best actor in this film, which, I should add, was directed by one of David Lynch's children.
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Ma Vie En Rose (1997)

2008-06-02T23:47:00.000-07:00

A hunting buddy of mine lent me a copy of Ma Vie En Rose last week and I finally got around to watching it tonight. It's a very nice film about a 6-year old boy who desperately wishes he were a girl. The comedy is a little darker than you would probably imagine. His behavior causes some serious problems for his family and the intolerance of nearly their entire suburban community manifests in some mildly disturbing ways. I kept thinking about what the American remake of this movie would be like. Young Ludovic would be played by Damon Wayans or Adam Sandler, and the cross-dressing would be part of an elaborate scheme to protect a family fortune. That or they would have him get beaten to death or hit by a train while fleeing from bullies to give it a nice tragic and Oscar-worthy ending.
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Sunshine (2007)

2008-05-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

It was really about time somebody made a movie about a mission to the Sun. My 4th grade teacher once told us that a NASA scientist had suggested one, and when his colleagues laughed at him he said "no, no, we'll go at night!" That's basically what happens in Sunshine, only it's not night but a period of solar winter, and not because it's set 5 billion years in the future, but because some meddling theoretical particle or field of some kind has been messing with the Sun. There are some really beautiful scenes in this movie and I was really into it for most of it, but it more or less devolves into Armageddon by the end. It doesn't spoil anything to tell you that yes, they succeed in the end and there is at least one scene of someone bravely sacrificing themselves for the future of mankind. And that's fine, but for some reason in the middle of this I decided that I really wanted them to fail. For once I'd like to see a big budget movie about the dangerous mission to save humankind that doesn't succeed. They miss the target, everyone dies, Earth is screwed. Now that would be an ending.
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Intacto (2001)

2008-05-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

This is a very creative idea for a film but I just didn't find the final product all that thrilling. It's basically composed of various scenes of contests designed to identify the luckiest person in a group, in a world where luck is something that can be gained, lost, stolen and gambled. There aren't any likable characters in it and although each contest is more interesting than the last I started to care less and less who the final winner would be.
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Female Trouble (1974)

2008-05-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

Female Trouble has many moments of genius but it is definitely, definitely not for everybody. Originally X-rated, and now NC-17, it's loaded with violence, bad language, full-frontal nudity, and extremely disturbing situations. If you enjoyed the original Hairspray, also directed by John Waters, then that says almost nothing about whether or not you will like this one. It's a little like trying to predict how you would react to Saw based on what you thought of Weekend at Bernie's. Please don't go in unprepared. Start with the much tamer Pecker and then move on to Polyester, another crude and disturbing masterpiece. By then you'll know if you're a Waters fan, and whether or not you are worthy of the film that answers the question "who wants to die for art?"
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Fantastic Planet (1973)

2008-05-26T21:29:00.000-07:00

The French animated film Fantastic Planet won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. I'd be willing to bet that most of the judges were under the influence of some kind of psychotropic substance at the time. I probably should have been too. It's a little like Yellow Submarine but with a lot more carnage and a darker, trippier soundtrack. Not pictured above are the Traags, gigantic aliens who make pets out of tame humans and try to exterminate wild ones. Seriously, only watch this if you are a recreational drug-user.
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

2008-05-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

If the movie had been a little better I might have considered spending another thirty dollars and buying the Indiana Jones Lego set that the crystal skull pictured above belongs to. Before I rant let me point out that on this blog three stars means "it has some merit." I'm not telling you to see it but neither am I telling you to stay away. Besides, if you loved the first three movies as I did you will go see it no matter what anyone says. Without giving anything important away, here are the thoughts, in order, that ran through my mind while I was watching it: the opening scene is pointless, nice ambush scene though, the CGI prairie dogs are lame and remind me of Jar-Jar Binks, I love Cate Blanchett and her accent is decent but she is not a very good villain, Shia LaBeouf is a weird name, you would never survive an atomic blast like that, getting scrubbed down afterwards wouldn't help that much, the skull doesn't really match the style of the rest of the series, the driving off a cliff and feeling confident that you'll land safely in a tree scene would be better in an SNL skit, this plot is completely contrived, the alien skeleton chamber is cool, (and finally) I really hope that's not the last line of the film.
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When Father Was Away on Business (1985)

2008-05-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

It turns out that I've seen three other films directed by Emir Kusturica besides this one. The first, Underground, is also set in the Balkans beginning sometime during WWII and I think watching it on drugs is probably an equally weird experience as watching it sober. The second is Arizona Dream, in which Johnny Depp plays a young man who somehow ends up living on a ranch in Arizona with a dysfunctional family and trying to build a flying machine. The third is called Black Cat, White Cat and I don't remember a single thing about it except that it takes place somewhere in Eastern Europe. When Father Was Away on Business has a much more accessible and linear story than the others. Like many films it made me ask myself if foreign actors are inherently more talented than American actors. Maybe some cultures are better at living than we are, and by extension are better at pretending to live in front of the camera. Or maybe it's just because I don't understand Serbo-Croatian and can't tell the difference. So you have some idea what it's about: father doesn't actually go away on business, but complications arise because his loyalty to the party is questioned.
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