October Country (Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, 2009)

Jonah Hex (Jimmy Hayward, 2010)

Bad movies come out all the time. Some movies look good, but turn out bad – that’s a shame. No one likes being duped into sitting through a dud. Much more rarely, there are movies that look bad and turn out to be Ok, even good sometimes. That’s a nice treat. Most of the time, though, you can see a bad one coming and avoid it altogether.

But most frustrating of all is a movie that should, by all means, be good, but ends up terrible. Such is the case of Jonah Hex, a god-awful abortion of a movie if ever there was one.

When Jonah Hex was first announced, it ended up on my list of Most Anticipated Films of the Year. A Southern Gothic/Horror-Western hybrid about an obscure DC Comics character with supernatural powers kicking ass all over the post-Civil War South? Written and directed by the crazy fucks behind the Crank movies? Starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michaels Shannon & Fassbender, Will Arnett, and with a little guaranteed Megan Fox eye candy thrown in for good measure? With music from Mastodon? I was immediately on board. Seriously, how could this not rule?

Good Lord. Let me count the ways.

Neveldine & Taylor were smart to split. One of the best decisions they’ve probably ever made. I’d love to get my hands on their original script for the film (I remember reading a zombie army was involved - nice) to see what could have been. The film as it exists borrows liberally from several genre traditions. Actions and westerns, and to a much lesser extent, horror films, are referenced in style and more. Unfortunately, Jonah Hex appears to borrow exclusively from the shitty ones. The movie’s such a colossal clusterfuck that any interesting ideas (but believe me, there are few) are quickly pushed aside as we jump from one stupid scene to another.

This is the anti-A-Team, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Big dumb fun needs to actually be fun or it’s just, you know, big and dumb. Every cast member is wasted here. Brolin, hard as he tries, can’t carry a film this broken by himself. Malkovich is clearly phoning it in, his Southern accent fading in and out. Fassbender, one of the most interesting actors breaking out right now, had he been given more to work with may have conjured a villain of near-Joker badassery. He’s capable of it. However, the part is so threadbare that we’re left with a stupid Irish caricature who poses no real threat (brief digression: on the topic of ethnic characters, I take issue with the following: one, do we really need the ex-slave character saying “Jonah, you was never for secession or slavery. Why you keep fightin’ for the Confederacy?” or whatever. This information adds nothing to the character, except maybe we’re supposed to think he’s a good guy because he was against slavery? Maybe? Horseshit. And two, any goodwill you’re trying to get by giving Hex a Native American wife [who does nothing but looks pretty and gets murdered] is pretty much negated when the only other Indians you show are performing spooky ceremonies and smoking a peace pipe. I’m by no means a strictly PC kinda critic, but yikes, guys.) Will Arnett is laughably miscast. And perhaps worst of all, despite prominent billing and character name, for Christsakes, Michael Shannon has two lines, one of which is off-screen. At a merciful eighty minutes, whatever development his character had surely couldn’t have been the source of all the film’s problems. Someone get those deleted scenes online, ASAP.

Maybe worst of all, Jonah Hex commits the cardinal sin of this type of film: it’s dull. Painfully dull. It adds nothing to the Western or action genres. The action sequences pack no punch. A well-shot train hijacking is the best thing the film has going for it in terms of interesting set pieces, but it’s brief and quickly forgotten. And I mean c’mon: if the sight of Megan Fox in old-timey prostitute garb ain’t enough to get my blood pumping, you’ve fucked up. Big time.

And that’s a nice image to sum up the film, I think: Megan Fox in a corset. Ostensibly, this should be awesome. This should be the best thing in the world. But when it comes down to it, Hex, like Fox herself, is obnoxious, dull, and ultimately useless. Ok, maybe that’s a little hard on Megan. I actually don’t mind her that much (here, like in most films, she’s given so little to do that she’s almost a non-entity). But this movie sure sucks. I’ll be forever bummed by what it could have been.

Oh well. There’s always the eventual re-boot. [D-] 80min, 35mm

The A-Team (Joe Carnahan, 2010)

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

Splice (Vincenzo Natali, 2009)

Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, )

Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch, 1989)

Jim Jarmusch's movies are just so goddamn funny.

Mystery Train, his love letter to Memphis, is a blast and a half, utilizing his trademark dryer-than-dry humor and just a little bit of the absurd. Telling three or four seemingly unrelated stories that all intersect at a late-night hotel just outside of town, Jarmusch throws some fish out of water (in the form of two rock and roll-obsessed Japanese tourists, an Italian woman, and, uh, Joe Strummer) in one of America's most musically rich cities.

The results are enjoyable, if a little uneven. Starting strong with the teenage tourists, the film finds a great comedic rhythm early on. Unfortunately, by the time the three stories collide, some of the momentum is lost. Admittedly, Strummer wasn't much of an actor, and even the great Steve Buscemi can't do much to salvage their part, by far the blandest of the three.

But this doesn't keep Mystery Train from being a film worth seeking out. The 35mm print that screened at Wexner was in great shape, and I can only imagine Criterion's brand new Blu-Ray presentation of the film is top-notch. An entertaining flick full of humor and great music from one of America's true independents. [B] 113min, 35mm

Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat, 2009)

Of all the directors pushing the buttons of film-goers around the world, Catherine Breillat might be my favorite. Granted, I've only seen three of her films, but my respect for her was so firmly solidified after watching the first, 2001's remarkable Fat Girl, that even if 2007's The Last Mistress had been a disappointment, she'd still rank highly in my book.

Luckily it wasn't, and neither is her latest film, Bluebeard. Simultaneously recounting the fairytale of Bluebeard, the titular ogre who marries beautiful young women and kills them soon thereafter, as well as showing us two young sisters (the younger, more precocious of the two named Catherine – go figure) in the 1950’s who scare each other with the story in their attic. Clocking in at under an hour and a half, the film may seem slight to some viewers, but Breillat's packed it with enough of her trademark interesting ideas as to give her audience plenty to chew on.

The whole thing is vintage Breillat: long, quiet takes; minimal music; sudden and disturbing violence. Impressive performances are coaxed from the young actresses portraying dual sets of sisters. The relationships between the girls is a big part of the film; no surprise from the woman responsible for one of the most honest looks at adolescences and sisterhood, Fat Girl. Further questions of gender and class are raised, but never obviously.

The fairytale is pure horrorshow stuff. The scene where the ogre’s young bride disobeys him and opens the door to the room filled with his former wives' bodies hanging from the rafters, dripping pools of Argento blood below them is silently terrifying. Of course we know what's behind the door, just as our heroine does, but isn't that the fun of revisiting a favorite story? Breillat’s command over the macabre and the perverse, as well as her appreciation for the original, makes me want her to remake Passolini's Salo. But since that will never happen, I’ll gladly settle for more films like Bluebeard. [A-] 80min, video

Sanshiro Sugata (Akira Kurosawa, 1943)

Well, everybody has to start somewhere. Kurosawa’s first film plays like a dry run for his later historical fair, just, you know, not nearly as good. While not completely devoid of competence (it’s clear that Kurosawa was a master of the moving image very early on), the story of a young man learning judo and then fighting a bunch of people just isn’t very interesting. The fight scenes are pretty absurd, and the performances stock – there ain’t much worth liking here. However, it’s a mostly inoffensive affair, and I’m more than willing to forgive its rather dry eighty minute run knowing what Kurosawa would do very soon after making it. [C-] 80min, 35mm

Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa, 1949)

While I’m far from an expert, a little research as well as my own feelings on the film have led me to believe that Stray Dog is Minor Kurosawa. Regular stars Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura play a couple of cops in post-war Tokyo during one hot summer. When rookie Mifune’s gun is stolen, he’ll do anything to get it back. So begins a drawn-out police procedural with the standard twists and turns. The flick is unfortunately bogged down by its running time (early on, an extended silent sequence of Mifune infiltrating the underworld was all kinds of excessive), and frankly, a pretty silly plot. However, Kurosawa’s eye for location and the way he evoked a summer heat wave (I’m sweating just thinking about it), as well as a great performance from Shimura elevate the film. That said, High and Low is way better. [B-] 122min, 35mm

Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)

So, I finally get The Limey.

Steven Soderbergh's 1999 crime drama (one of my absolute favorites of his films) tells the story of a vengeful Brit trying to put the pieces of his daughter's mysterious death together. The director has stated more than once, including, if I remember correctly, on the audio commentary for the film, that John Boorman's Point Blank is one of his favorite films and a big influence on the story, visuals and editing for The Limey.

This makes sense. Boorman's film is similarly a 'man on a mission'-type flick, with Lee Marvin playing a wronged crook after his share of some stolen cash. Slickly shot (the 35mm print that screened was gorgeous, and absolutely begging for a Blu-Ray release) and well paced, Point Blank is certainly a cool movie.

But is it a very good one? I'm not so sure. Combining film noir and the French New Wave is a novel idea, and it works with varying degrees of success. The editing is excellent throughout, cutting from past to present with appropriately jarring effects, and it's no surprise why Soderbergh was struck by this. Where the film comes up short is in the acting and story departments. Lee Marvin isn't given much to do besides kick a lot of ask and yell about his money, and most of the supporting cast doesn't fare much better (but hey, at least we get Angie Dickinson looking all sorts of hot). And though the film moves along at a decent clip, the whole 'chasing the money' angle gets a little tedious towards the end.

Overall, is it a cool movie? For sure. An influential one? Definitely (though I prefer The Limey without hesitation). A good one? Meh. [C+] 92min, 35mm

The Two Minutes to Zero Trilogy (Lewis Klahr, 2003/2004)

Fuck it. I just have no patience for (most) experimental/avant garde cinema.

Granted, my exposure is limited to things I've seen in various films classes and those bullshit Andy Warhol movies at the Wexner Center exhibit last year, but if Lewis Klahr's Two Minutes to Zero Trilogy is any indication, me and the avant garde just ain't meant to be.

Described by Klahr as “a feature length narrative compressed 3 different times into 3 separate films of diminishing duration until the synoptic is synopsized,” the films are made up of 16mm footage of an old comic called 77 Sunset Strip and edited so quickly and unintelligibly that Klahr makes the Bourne films look like Russian Ark (note: obvious hyperbole). My point is this: you can't tell what the fuck is going on.

I get that this is experimental filmmaking and that narrative structure takes a backseat to...whatever else the point may be, but sitting through over half an hour of old comics cut up, shot funny, and set to musical pieces of varying degrees of annoyance, well, it just ain't for me. [-] 23min (Two Days to Zero), 9min (Two Hours to Zero), 1min (Two Minutes to Zero); 16mm

Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

Right before Shutter Island came out, I read an article that said Scorsese showed his cast and crew Jacques Tourneur's brilliant Out of the Past before they went into production. This makes sense: the two films have some thematic and stylistic common ground. They're also both awesome, but that might be more coincidental. Apparently, when the screening ended, Leo leaned back and said something to the effect of "That's the coolest movie ever!" to Marty.

Funny. I had pretty much the same reaction to the film the first time I saw it, last fall in my Intro to Film class. It's the same reaction I've had every time I've revisited it, including recently at the Wexner Center in a pretty awesome 35mm print. It really is one of my favorite films, and one of the best examples of the broad film noir genre I can think of.

Tourneur's film pairs two of the greatest cleft chins to ever grace the silver screen, Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, as a former private detective and a shady gambler, respectively. That's a whole lot of badass for one movie, and some of the best scenes are the two of them bouncing zingers off one another. Douglas' character hires Mitchum's to track down his woman who shot him and made off with thirty thousand dollars. He takes the job and, naturally, falls for the dame (considering she's played by Jane Greer, it isn't much of a stretch to figure out why) and things get tricky.

Tourneur, who made a name for himself directing low-budget horror films, knocks this one out of the park. Taking noir out of the city (for the most part) and transplanting it in Mexico and rural Nevada allows for some really interesting takes on the oft-lampooned genre. Mitchum is as cool as ever, and Douglas chews on every scene. The script (based on a novel awesomely titled Build My Gallows High) is clever throughout. Overall, it's one of my favorite takes on the "guy quits the life but gets pulled back in" archetype. Having recently revisited Cronenberg's A History of Violence, I was reminded a little of Viggo Mortensen's arch and the similar small town setting. The two would make for a cool double feature. If nothing else, we'd get another great cleft chin in there. [A] 97min, 35mm

The Carter (Adam Bhala Lough, 2009)

Lil Wayne is a madman.

I watched The Carter, the controversial documentary on the rapper, who nearly had the release stopped, more out of curiosity than respect or appreciation for the performer. I listened to some of "The Carter III" and thought it straddled the line between brilliant and unlistenable, but that's as far as my delving into Dwayne's oeuvre goes. Not surprisingly, I came out of the film with more curiosity and maybe a little less respect and appreciation for him. Watching the doc, it's no wonder he tried to have the release stopped; talk about getting a long, hard look at yourself. Jesus.

Lil Wayne is a mess.

And this film proves it. It's about as naked a look at the rapper as we're likely to ever see. Lough and his crew went old school, Pennebaker style, and they show it all: the highs ("The Carter III" selling a million copies in its first week; ecstatic live shows), the lows (Wayne's abuse of cough syrup is clearly a big, big problem, and the people closest to him know it), and the even lower lows (seeing Lil Wayne end an interview with a European journalist because he asks about jazz and poetry is one of the most disgustingly childish acts of an artist taking himself too seriously I've ever seen - it's pretty shocking).

Lil Wayne is a monster.

And that scene proves it. His forehead crack tattoo and declaration of "I'm Frankenstein!" proves it. His disregard for his own well-being proves it. The thing about great documentaries is this: you can love the film and hate the subject. Now, this isn't quite a great documentary, but I don't envy the filmmakers. They had their work cut out for them, and what they must have gone through to make sense of all the footage of the mumbling rapper feigning insight, I can't imagine.

Lil Wayne is a man.

Output be damned, I'm by and large unimpressed by the prolific Wayne. True, he's always "writing" (he says he doesn't write anything down, lest it be published after his death like Cobain's diaries - but you know what I mean), and he's always recording...but a lot of it is shit. Obviously, he doesn't think that, chuckling along at the most infantile pun. The so-called "Rebirth Sessions" are especially striking, as a strung out Wayne struggles to hit his auto-tuned notes and dicks around on an electric guitar. I wasn't this worked up while I watched, the film, but the more I think about it, the more impressed I am with the filmmakers for presenting an artist as a fallible, fucked up human being, and the less I'm impressed with Lil Wayne himself. I'm sure the latter part wasn't Lough & Co.'s intent. It's just a byproduct of the dissection they facilitated in making such a hugely unflattering film. [B] 75min

Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, 2007)

Let's get it out of the way: Persepolis is overrated. I remember that upon its release, critics were falling all over themselves to praise the film. Now, it is by no means a bad movie. In fact, it's actually a pretty good one. But is it deserving of its near-universal praise, its Oscar nominations and prize at Cannes, its Top Ten status? Eh, not really.

Maybe this is a reaction to the praise heaped upon it than the film itself, but during and after my screening, I felt a little underwhelmed. Persepolis' story is certainly an interesting one: Marjane Satrapi, author of the graphic novel of the same name on which the film is based, comes of age in Iran during the revolution in the late '70's, then spends some time abroad, dealing with issues of class, race, identity - all that good stuff. But I feel like something may have gotten lost in translation, or rather, in adaptation.

For an autobiographical film, we don't get much time alone with Marjane, so some of her struggles, while seemingly universal, are a little distant and hard to relate to. The color sequences of her at the airport don't work at all as a good framing device. Furthermore, while the dramatic bits are all mostly well-deployed and functional, some of the comedic elements in the film fall flat (the "Eye of the Tiger" sequence doesn't work at all and totally took me out of the movie).

But there are things to be commended as well. First and foremost, its a story that not only should be told, but needs to be told. We've seen American coming-of-age stories a million times over, and for me, at least, a lot of them are starting to feel a little stale (I'm looking at you, Adventureland). Now, stories about girls becoming women in post-revolutionary Iran? Those are a little less common. And beautifully animated ones? Even less so. Yes, Persepolis is a nice little film with some big ideas, which are handled with various degrees of success. It wasn't all it's cracked up to be, but I'm glad I finally saw it. [B] 95min, DVD (projected onto big screen)

The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940)

Give me Jimmy Stewart over Tom Hanks any day. Rear Window or Forrest Gump? Mr. Smith Goes To Washington or Cast Away? Vertigo or...fuckin'...The Terminal? Surely, these aren't real questions. The answers are way too obvious.

Stewart won his only Academy Award for George Cukor's The Philadelphia Story, one of the wittiest, most endearing films of its time, indeed, of all time. And Jimmy kills in it. As tabloid reporter Macaulay "Mike" Connor who goes on a weekend assignment to a wedding of some social elites, we get all Stewart firing on all cylinders. Whether he's playing drunk or really drunk, annoyed or enamored, it's a pitch-perfect performance. He's perhaps at his best playing against someone called Cary Grant. Have you heard of this guy? The kid's going places.

I don't think I could have had a more perfect introduction to the queen herself, Katharine Hepburn (if a somewhat embarrassing one: how I've never seen any of her films before this, I'll never know). To go from so-called "box office poison" to acquiring the rights to a film adaptation of Philip Barry's play of the same name, starring on Broadway and eventually the movie, it's just amazing. Her reputation reversed and the rest was history. You know that thing people say about "the role they were born to play." Yep. This is the one. It's really Kate's film.

This is the kind of Hollywood movie I can't get enough of: the vaguely slapstick prologue; the never-ending back and forth between characters; a quip at the end of every scene. The smile I had during the opening credits never left my face. How the hell has this not been remade yet? Seriously. The story is that classic, I can just see an update with Rachel McAdams and Matthew McConaughey. I'll give it a few years before I do it myself, I guess.

More than deserving of its six Academy Award nominations (and two wins) and decades of reverence. A true gem of classic Hollywood cinema. A perfect film. [A+] 112m, DVD (projected onto theater screen - not as cool as 35mm)

The Return

Alright, folks. Let's try this again.