Sunset Gun

Chaos Reigns: Happy New Year

It’s that screwy, depressing time of year again. The holidays. And they are almost over -- thank God, Satan, Lars Von Trier, Werner Herzog, whomever. I'm sticking with Lars. I despise New Year's Eve parties, so I’m all set for the New Year, 2010 -- safely tucked away in a sleeper car on the train. I'll be ringing in the new decade somewhere in the middle of Mount Shasta. 

So, rather than ponder the year ahead, I'm looking at movies -- those celluloid dreamscapes that offer fantasy, reality or a potent mixture of the two (or just that depressing party hat). And with eight pictures, we have some memorable New Year’s moments -- moments many of us can relate to, become inspired by, feel disturbed over, dream, yearn, love, desire, kill or…give our brother a big kiss, particularly if he’s named Fredo. Chaos reigns.

Bitter Moon (1992)

Roman Polanski’s (oh, Roman, you were a big part of my life this year) boozy, bitter, sexually manic ode to demented dysfunction remains one of the most underrated, misunderstood pictures in his brilliant career, a movie that makes one laugh as much as it horrifies, titillates and illuminates. It’s also a movie one can identify with (either literally or one hopes, allegorically, though that's not always the case in life) which might be part of the reason so many viewer’s were turned off by it. Which couple do you relate to? The “nice” couple is Hugh Grant and Kirsten Scott Thomas, a handsome, respectable British pair, enjoying a cheesy cruise, making the most of whatever excitement is left in their marriage. The twisted duo is a failed and rather hacky novelist (an inspired Peter Coyote) and his French, mysterious, sex-bomb of a wife (Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s real life wife) whose story becomes Grant’s main obsession as he listens to Coyote describe every detail of his relationship. And I mean every detail (barnyard sex stuff, urination, etc.). As a result, Grant falls for Coyote’s wife, and so makes his somewhat pathetic play on (yes) New Year’s Eve. During the boat’s party, Seigner dances with almost obnoxiously seductive abandon ensnaring not Grant (whom she rejects as he ridiculously prances towards her) but in the picture’s twist, Grant’s wife. It’s a wonderfully exciting moment of Sapphic sensuality, but one that’ll lead to shocking tragedy. I don’t want to ruin the entire surprise, so I’ll just say --  the New Year comes in with a big, double bang.

Il Posto (1961)

Italian Neo-Realist filmmaker Ermanno Olmi displays those little heartbreaks that lead people to inspiration or desperation with a beguiling combination of warmth and melancholia. An auteur whose attention to the small details of everyday life created quiet character studies of tedium, irony, hilarity, and sadness, he had a marked quality of making the hum-drum almost fantastical. Reality depends on how you look at it, and his aggressively common depictions also contained an element of Kafkaesque torture. So what better day than New Year’s Eve will we see the most touching blend of the director’s strengths in his masterful Il Posto, a film that observed a job (“Il Posto" means "The Job") through the eyes of a teenager (the saucer-eyed and languid non-professional actor Sandro Panseri) entering the work-force. After conforming at his job, it’s at a New Year’s Eve party that the teen will let loose, surrounded by the dreary commonality of his future. Though he hopes to meet the pretty woman he’s smitten with, he instead enters this rather flavorless party, and shares a table with an older couple. As the evening opens up and revelers have downed some liquids, the shy young man lets himself go while dancing, smiling, resigned to his sure night of single-dom. The fact that he's momentarily happy, widening his usual placid face with toothy grins and jumping in a circle with other party-goers, makes the sequence all the more heartbreaking. Especially since the New Year brings a new position, as well as a potentially endless life of staring at a co-worker's head in front of him.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Though the New Year’s Eve moment in Roman Polanski’s (yes, more Roman) classic horror movie is brief, it provides an important transition for lead character Rosemary and her attempts towards personal freedom. Those attempts will be in vain of course, but at least she tries which, again, makes her situation incredibly sad (again, “demonized” Polanski makes one of the most touching stories about a woman). You know the story -- young mother-to-be Rosemary (Mia Farrow) has been impregnated with the child of Satan after her husband, Guy (John Cassavetes) strikes a deal with their eccentric, Devil worshiping neighbor’s The Castavets  (Sydney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon). Rosemary’s been on board with all of the Castavet’s pregnancy tips, even agreeing to switch to Dr. Sapirstein (played by a condescendingly evil Ralph Bellamy), resulting in an unusual painful pregnancy. At the Castavet’s New Year’s Eve party, Rosemary informs Sapirstein of both her intense pain, and unknowingly, the horrible situation she’s innocently stumbled into:  “It’s like a wire inside me getting tighter and tighter.” After assuring her she’ll be fine, Roman Castavet rings in the New Year with this frightening exclamation: “To 1966! To Year One!” Cut to Rosemary catching herself eating a piece of raw meat in the kitchen and thinking, something is very, very wrong here. But as I always say (when making any decision) what will Dr. Saperstein think? Poor Rosemary, her year will only get worse.

The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning dark comedy laid the groundwork for the running-to-your-beloved scene copied in later films like When Harry Met Sally and later, Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire. Here, it’s lovable, squirrely Jack Lemmon receiving the run-to-you treatment, and he deserves it. As the too-nice office worker attempting to climb the corporate ladder, while being used by his sleazy bosses for his apartment (they cheat on their wives in his cozy bachelor pad), nice guy Lemmon falls for one of the “other women” (Shirley MacLaine) --  a flawed but ultimately warm human being who deserves to be treated with much more respect than cad Fred MacMurray is giving her. It’s during an especially depressing New Year’s when she comes to terms with how much of a heel MacMurray is and (duh) how sweet Lemmon is.  Running out of her New Year’s celebration, she pulls the iconic movie moment of rushing to Lemmon’s apartment (where he sits alone) with smiles and tears in her eyes – she’s done the right thing. And it’s blissfully powerful -- especially when MacLaine's response to Lemmon's affirmation of amour is simply “Shut up and deal.”

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

There are certain critics (no, not all, but there are some...) who believe Billy Wilder was cruel towards his characters, even blithely contemptuous of them, but I say he was merely a realist about the human condition. And as such, he was sympathetic towards his creations -- warts, scars, cigarette burns and all. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his masterpiece, Sunset Boulevard, and especially during its important New Year’s Eve sequence. It’s here where we manage to feel sorry for both of the potentially despicable protagonists.  Washed up silent screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) with her deranged, desperate attempts to re-enter pictures (for all "those wonderful people out there in the dark") has brought forth a younger, struggling screenwriter-turned hustler Joe (William Holden) and he’s become her kept boy -- living in her rambling, ultra bizarre mansion (but gorgeous) off Sunset Boulevard. He kids himself that he’s something of a writing partner, but he realizes the depth of his situation on New Year’s Eve, when his grand party turns out to be a waxed dance floor consisting of…Norma Desmond.  This “sad, embarrassing revelation” -- that he’s the lone guest causes him to flee from a night in which he feels “caught like the cigarette in that contraption on her finger.”  He runs to a “regular” party, with people his own age and excitedly makes the decision to leave Norma but… he learns that she’s attempted suicide. With pangs of guilt, he returns, telling her, “You've been good to me. You're the only person in this stinking town that has been good to me,” which is unspeakably sad. When we hear “Auld Lang Syne” and she says “Happy New Year, darling”…oh he really made the wrong decision. 

The Godfather Part II (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola’s legendary sequel to The Godfather finds favorite son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) expanding the family business, spreading it into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba. But expansion comes at a cost – particularly to one’s conscience -- and Michael’s New Year will reveal his new ideas concerning family and business. At this point Michael’s already alienated wife Kay (Diane Keaton), but Kay isn’t blood and one would think (at least deceased Godfather Vito Corleone would think) that blood is thicker than….knowing Hyman Roth or Johnny Ola. Not so for Michael, who after learning troubled brother Fredo (a superb John Cazale) has lied to him, makes his deadly decision. In the midst of a New Year’s Eve party, Michael faces Fredo at the stroke of midnight, grasps his head tightly and plants the kind of kiss no one wants to ring the New Year in with -- the kiss of death. In one of cinema’s most famous moments, Michael says: “I know it was you Fredo; you broke my heart.”  Though Fredo’s days are numbered after this coldly threatening, though weirdly touching exchange, it is Michael who’ll suffer the most; the decision will linger in his soul until his last breath.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

In terms of big budget, bloated, all-star movies in which boats meet disaster ridden, screaming-passenger consequences, The Poseidon Adventureis the Mac-Daddy of them all. And the deed goes down on New Year's Eve. So how in the hell did I almost miss mentioning this one? I must have been so transfixed by re-watching Roman Polanski's wife's body in that blue dress, writhing on the dance floor, that I managed to blank out my other enormous object of lust, Gene Hackman, TCB'ing on the U.S.S. Poseidon. So... The Poseidon Adventure...cheesy? Sure it is. Kind of ridiculous? You bet. Filled with stereotypical characters? Yep (and in the case of Ernest Borgnine, double yep). But, then, so is Titanic, which some might consider the more serious cinematic boat catastrophe. Fine. But, hey The Poseidon Adventure was nominated for eight Oscars -- and it won for best song, the infinitely less-annoying-than-Celine-Dion ballad “The Morning After.” The story sets sail when, quite suddenly, an underground earthquake flips over the luxury liner that should be enjoying its New Year’s cruise. The last group standing is an interesting bunch of disparate types who’ll have to work together in order to climb their way upward through the ship. Not easy. Especially with Shelley Winters involved. Leading the crew is not the ship’s captain (a pre-Airplane!/Naked Gun Leslie Nielsen  whom you can’t watch with a straight face) but a preacher played by, oh yes, Gene Hackman. Hollering at people has always been one of Hackman’s fortes, and his talent is utilized to great, hilarious effect as he corrals the rest of the bunch and screams at them to get their butts in gear to…live! Dammit!  Like most Irwin Allen produced extravaganzas the cast is filled with stars -- old and new -- including Borgnine as a cranky cop, Stella Stevens as a former prostitute (who continually riles her hubby Borgnine), Carol Lynley as a freaked-out singer, Roddy McDowall as a waiter (one wonders who talked him into the role of waiter), Eric Shea and Pamela Sue Martin as the requisite kids, Red Buttons as the requisite oldster and Winters and Jack Albertson as an old married couple. With deaths galore (and a few pretty mean ones at that), some impressive visual effects and a general feeling of chaos, The Poseidon Adventure, surprisingly holds up well through time. And I love it when Stella Stevens quips, “I'm going next. So if ole' fat ass gets stuck, I won't get stuck behind her.” Ah, Happy New Year!

Holiday (1938)

George Cukor’s blissfully exultant movie is also curiously sad -- sad because you get the feeling that all of the explorative dreams its lead character, Johnny Case (a joyous Cary Grant) has, well, they might not work out in the real world. With that, it’s the perfect New Year’s movie, filled with fresh starts, all night parties, dreams and happy revelations -- those things we make lists about before the clock strikes midnight and usually ditch a few weeks into the month. And a large portion of the movie does indeed take place on New Year’s Eve, during a society family’s party where Johnny is set to announce his engagement to wealthy Julia (Doris Nolan). But he’s falling in love with her luminous, down to earth sister Linda (a rapturous Katharine Hepburn) who digs his rather counterculture desires. The movie works subtly and elegantly, infused with an almost startling blend of comedy and pathos. As Johnny and Linda clearly fall for each other, even literally tumble for one another (in a jubilant scene, the two stars perform a beautiful bit of acrobatic talent) they leave us buzzed and charged up for something ourselves. But what? Is it possible to ever feel elation like that? Is it? I guess I can always hope for next year but…doubtful. We can always do as Cary Grant does and try a little blind faith. Blind faith can get you through the night.

Happy New Year!

If You Want Blood: Top Movies of 2009

Finally. The top ten list. And not in order. (Well, except for the top three.) After that, it's a free for all and stop counting and... where is Mike Tyson? He graces the almost there. So, once again, here's my top ten of 2009 -- an interesting year for movies. And no, I haven't seen Avatar yet. I've seen Antichrist...

Inglourious Basterds

Though critics either praise or denigrate Quentin Tarantino’s obsessive, swirling with references motion picture amour as the core to his pictures -- their very pulsating, battered and bloody heart, it’s not that simple. Truly. Even as he amped up the references  fifty fold by Kill Bill, a stunning mélange of spaghetti western, giallo, Kung Fu and more, something had shifted by the naughts for the controversial auteur, something deeper, something more personal. Death Proof aside, nearly gone were the Royale With Cheese speeches, or the Buddy Holly waiters,  and in came a kind of filmmaking that sat on the precipice of mad hatter movie love insanity, making the director even more culturally significant, artistic, and surprisingly, powerfully mysterious. Inglourious Basterds is the crowning achievement for QT’s newer phase, a World War II picture that’s a gorgeous, hilarious, uber- violent, brilliantly acted (Christoph Waltz is a revelation), genre-blending gut puncher, that, indeed, scalps a whole lot of “Gnatzies” (as Brad Pitt's hillbilly Aldo Raine memorably intones), but also shunts the viewer into the German film industry under Goebbels and the struggles of an escaped French Jewish woman (Mélanie Laurent) who survives by, naturally, running an independent movie theater.  Basterds may have angered those who found QT’s fantastical revisionism offensive, but really, he was being honest. You want pulpy Nazi hunting set to the music from “White Lightning?” You got it. You want to feel the complexity of how we process that violence? You got that as well.  Historical, personal, empathetic, vigilant, erotic (yes, erotic, never for one second does QT think we’re not gonna get our rocks off here), Basterds is an aesthetic and thematic wonder. Filmmaking that doesn’t just break the rules by daring to be old fashioned and modern all at once, but filmmaking from another dimension.  A work of visceral, violent, voluptuous beauty, QT roared and he rampaged, and we left the theater like Beatrix Kiddo:  with “bloody satisfaction.”

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

With his un-hinged, gloriously debauched, hilarious, and uniquely gorgeous Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Werner Herzog is dazzlingly in synch with his subject --  the portrait of a man, a crooked cop (a brilliant Nicolas Cage) rotting and raving in a decimated land.  That’s post-Katrina New Orleans, a place that well covers Herzogian themes -- the violence, the beauty, the destruction of nature, the iguanas, and the warped passion of a fanatical man. Cage’s Terence McDonagh -- drug impaired, dishonest, abusive, and yet, often kind and certainly conflicted is a jangly, imbalanced creature of inspired madness. What’s brilliant here is that Herzog, not one to create a standard police procedural, places Cage in something like that:  there’s a an internal affairs investigation, a murder mystery and strangely sweet complications with a prostitute (Eva Mendes) and a drug dealer (Xzibit). There’s also gambling and drug addiction, inappropriate pat-downs, lucky crack pipes and relations with his impaired dad and stepmother, that recalled a Flannery O’Connor story or Rip Torn visiting his pill addicted mother in the brilliantly brave Payday. And like Mr. Torn, Cage is absolutely fearless in his approach to character. Throw out all the rules and just be. Be crazy.  But be real. He's true to his own style -- that of Nicolas Cage -- but Herzog must cast magical spells on actors because as the movie goes along, Cage begins to resemble a Nosferatu or an Aguirre -- he even walks with a slight hunchback. And then, he tops it by throwing in some giggling Richard Widmark Tommy Udo and snarling Edward G. Robinson Little Caesar. It's a diabolically mythical performance.  To describe his rhythms and humor and in the end, his humanity isn’t easy -- Cage is almost musical in his approach, and he stirs mysterious,  complicated emotions that will yes, make many people laugh. At him, with him, and with the very things that make him laugh. When we are looking at iguanas from the perspective of the animal and the perspective of drugged out Cage considering the animal, the hallucinatory power borders on hilarious and yet, remains honestly poetic (it reminded me a bit of the chicken at the end of Stroszek). Which comes to the question: what kind of movie is Bad Lieutenant? It’s a noir, it’s a comedy, it’s a character study, it’s a southern gothic, it’s a police story. Yes, it’s all those things. But really, it’s a Herzog picture. Real, unreal, maddening, inspiring and utterly sincere.

Antichrist

Under-the-skin psycho sexual genital smashing sensory overload good stuff. A movie that makes your heart and soul bleed. I don’t know what Lars Von Trier was up to (well, wait a second, I do know what he was up to...I think), but it’s quite possible he reads my diary. As I have stated, this is a movie I have a hard time writing about -- it’s personal. All I can do is attach how much more I wanted to talk about it.

Observe and Report

Where have all the Travis Bickles gone? Quick answer -- the shopping mall.  And if you got behind (me Satan), or rather, director writer Jody Hill's subversive, hilarious, weirdly poignant and almost horrifyingly timely Observe and Report, you'll see Travis, not only as a power-hungry security guard in the form of a schlubbier Seth Rogen, but also as a regular Joe consumer. He might be traversing the food court or staring at the ice skaters in the center rink or wondering if he can afford a flat-screen TV while making his mortgage payment, but he's there, facing down all of that cheaply made fast food, recycled air and overpriced merchandise. He's killing time and, to become even more of a downer here, he's killing his soul. Yes, he's killing his soul at...Cinnabon. It's funny and yet it's not. It’s heartbreakingly sad. And weirdly joyful (especially in a heroin moment. That’s right, a shooting-up heroin moment). It was also one of the bravest, most underrated movies of the year. One day it will be considered a classic.

A Serious Man

When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joys within you dies, don’t you want to somebody to love? Yes, you do. And you want answers. Lots of answers. Why is all of this happening? To me? But you won’t find them -- definitive answers, anyway. You’ll find a lot more questions. This is just part of the power and mystery to the Coen Brother’s personal, spiritual, grim, funny, wonderfully acted masterstroke A Serious Man. The key? It’s like the Korean father says: "Accept the mystery." The last shot is one of the most hauntingly beautiful of the year.

The Road

The Road got beat up because it wasn’t Hollywood enough. It was pretentious. It was too much like the novel, but without the interior nuances of Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed book. Nothing happened. That’s not true. Plenty happens. Perhaps I’m taken with a starving father and son navigating their way through a post apocalyptic landscape, enduring their own fears and emotions and inner demons, and not to mention cannibals, but The Road (directed by John Hillcoat) was one of the most powerful and beautiful movies I saw all year.  Viggo Mortensen, wounded, vulnerable, tough and tender is a heartbreaking vision of walking life and death. He so fits into the wasteland (perfectly grim and strangely spectacular), that he feels an organic part of this ragged, twisted wilderness. Though the singer never graces the movie, I could hear Ralph Stanley’s beautifully broken voice echoing "O Death" throughout every frame. That's a potent experience.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

This is a Wes Anderson movie. And I’m not surprised by this, as some are, merely because he went into the realm of old school, stop motion animation. Mr. Anderson likes things old school. He likes the feel of  a rotary phone, he likes the crack and pop of a vinyl record, he likes natty suits, and he likes foxes -- be them animals voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe and Bill Murray, or a fur jacket sad Margot Tenenbaum would pass through her closet before settling on that iconic mink coat. The devil and the heart are in the details here -- those meticulous, gorgeous details Anderson suffers grief for (it’s his signature -- and it’s beautiful and I won’t hear another word about it) -- details that aren’t shallow, but emotional. You can feel love in every frame of film, in every musical cue, in every painting on the wall -- and sometimes a powerful aesthetic is more moving than an actor breaking down on screen. Taking the Roald Dahl classic, Anderson crafted a bittersweet movie that, like Dahl, understands not only the complexity and joy of this idea -- we are not always sweetness and light -- even if we're charming -- we’re often destructive and filled with varied feelings we can’t easily come to terms with. And yet, sometimes you have to accept that your tail might not grow back. And that’s OK.

Broken Embraces

For some reason Pedro Almodóvar’s moving, vibrant, beautifully acted Broken Embraces gets the admiration, the "Oh Penny and Pedro" gushing but then, not enough love. Why is this? The perfectly modulated melodrama, the gorgeousness, particularly regarding creativity (and cinema) is a complicated, funny, mature, deep and moving work. And his muse, the transcendent Penelope Cruz is absolutely brilliant.

The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (written with screenwriter and journalist Mark Boal) is a heart-stopping, tense, at time, beautiful and touching movie about men in war, and one that puts the audience right in the action. Following three very different American soldiers (Jeremy Renner's James, Anthony Mackie's Sanborn, and Brian Geraghty’s Owen) during their last few weeks in Iraq, the picture focuses primarily on Renner’s James, a master detonator/adrenaline junkie whom we follow through the movie on the edge of our seat, observing him do his job --detonating bombs and trying hard not to blow up into a million pieces. Taut, yet messy, The Hurt Locker, entertains while it maddens. Told from the soldier’s point of view, it never preaches but still, we’re left with the feeling that, yes, we’re proud of these guys and their intelligence and bravery regarding their their job, but please, can they just go home? And yet, as experimental, modern and low budget as the picture is, it feels more like a classic war picture, not making an obvious statement for or against the war, but actually allowing the audience the intelligence to consider this for themselves . A perilous, entertaining thriller and a bold, thought-provoking war film.

Thirst

Park Chan-wook’s Thirst was more than its sensational subject matter, and that can’t be easy. The hero is, after all, a Roman Catholic priest and a vampire. Like Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, it’s a horror movie, of sorts, with lots of blood and crazy killings, but it’s also a weirdly beautiful movie about mad love, sex, and family. The great Sang-hyun (so terrific in in Bong Joon-ho’s The Host) is the suffering  Priest and he gives a tender, touching, funny, human, searching performance filled with sexual lust, guilt and a believable desire to do the right thing -- even with this especially troublesome affliction.  Once the mousy Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin) enters the picture and he falls for this sweet woman, the movie turns into a domestic drama of epic proportions. Mousy no more, Kim becomes a powerhouse of murder, mayhem and blood lust. Again, like Antichrist, Thirst seems a bit terrified by female sexuality, but then, strangely fascinated and exalted by it as well. The result shows how interesting women can be -- even if sometimes horrifying -- and then, ultimately, sympathetic towards the struggle between man and woman and...blood. Real blood. So much blood this year. 

Also there: Tetro, World’s Greatest Dad, Moon, Watchmen, Where the Wild Things Are, The International, Tyson, Orphan

Did not see but certain it would make my list: 35 Shots of Rum

A Sunset Gun Christmas

Santa Claus. Elvis Presley. Black leather jackets. I'm traditional that way. May you all have a red, green, gold, silver and in this case, blue Christmas. Happy Holidays!

Satan's Got A River: Antichrist

I saw Lars Von Trier's Antichrist in July. I've watched it twice since then. It cut me deeply. That is not a pun. The movie burrowed into my subconscious, directly where my anxiety lives, and continues to reside in my frangible little hurt locker.  I've argued about it. I've defended Mr. Von Trier's look at women. I've pondered his study of grief, his complicated depiction of love, happiness, hate, sexuality. I know he has panic attacks -- real panic attacks. I've thought about his seriousness, his humor, his compassion, his beauty, horror and gore; his conflicted take on therapy and religion, specifically, behavioral modification and if any of these methods help a person toward enlightenment.

He's a clever trickster, but I believe his claims to have made the film in a demented, depressive state -- when the comforting haze of benzodiazepines have worn off and the nerves are so raw and fragile and exposed that one can only sublimate their problems through the cine-dreams enforced on Serge Gainsbourg's daughter. When one's power animal is a ridiculously literal talking fox explaining the order of things to a past Jesus.

This makes sense to me. I've become wildly personal about the thing. I flailed my arms about the picture. I realize it's only a movie. I realize it's not for everyone. But it’s certainly for me. And yet, I haven't been able to write about it. I can only think of this song.

Dolly and Porter get it.

Bobcat's Feral Family Values

It was headlined by mega star Robin Williams. It was about a loving father. It was a comedy. It was a family comedy, a clever, poignant, wonderfully dark family comedy. It featured Bruce Hornsby. Many audiences weren’t even aware of the auto-erotic asphyxiation plot twist. So why was World’s Greatest Dad, one of the year’s best movies, so woefully underlooked?

Here's something you don't hear every day: Sir? Madam? Your child. He is not a blessed miracle of God sent from heaven above. He is not full of promise. He is not underneath all that back talk sass, a smart kid, a pussycat, an angel. No. He is, in fact, a mouth-breathing brat, an uncommunicative cipher, a selfish unappreciative loafer, an aggressively stupid misfit and a foul-tongued, futureless creep. You don't have to like him. But, please, love him. Never stop loving him.

And I do mean love -- without sarcasm. As does writer director Bobcat Goldthwait with his trenchant, wonderfully touching and tenderly acted World's Greatest Dad, a movie that bravely subverted the sub-genre of "family comedy" by not only daring to offend (and offend for a reason), but daring to break your heart. This is not an easy task which, I’m thinking, made it a tough movie to market. No, Robin Williams does not wear a dress, become an Old Dogs tea party puppet, or awaken Robert De Niro from a decades-long coma. He does attempt to awaken his son out of pornography induced torpor, but that’s just one part of the story. And don’t pretend you can’t relate. 

Goldthwait, most famous for his gloriously off color Shakes the Clown (a movie that's now a cult classic, a picture ahead of the politically incorrect curve...and was smart about it then) and the underrated Stay is clever and genuine enough to pull off such the task of “offense” with substance without being smirky or glib or self satisfied about it. Refreshingly, never once did I feel like the director was trying to "shock" me. But perhaps that's because the movie is so genuine. Kids do say the darndest things like for instance (and this is one of my favorite retorts): “Movies are for losers and art fags.” They also say a lot of other things, far worse things I can't repeat lest I offend your delicate sensibilities or, worse, ruin the humor and surprise of, guess what? Something your child might be saying or ogling or doing at this very moment. That's correct -- somewhere, your child is making a rude remark about a girl's genitalia, and if he's creepy enough, directly to her face.

Here that son is the unpleasant Kyle (Daryl Sabara), a kid of no particular genre (not a nerd, not a jock, certainly not popular), a child who, like most teenagers, masturbates, but one who fancies autoerotic asphyxiation, custom pornography, and even the pleasure of watching an old, overweight pack rat neighbor undress. He's not normal-sex obsessed, he's going through his depraved phase (if it’s a phase). His father is a sweet, struggling novelist and high school poetry teacher Lance (Robin Williams), a single dad trying his best to communicate with his mysterious, mind suck of a son (and his son is mysterious -- enough for us to wonder if there's something deeper lurking underneath his disagreeable attitude). Dad also really wants to get published, a desire that comes into play once the movie veers into a very dark and very surprising and very subversive place -- something I won't reveal here since the movie’s twist (of sorts) is such a ballsy one.  

The entire movie, which spins into a monumental lie that reveals fakes are worse than liars (when you see the movie, you'll know what I mean) was probably too real, too close to the bone than studios thought audiences could take. Who knows?  Audiences aren’t given enough credit for what they can handle (but then, audiences steered clear of another one of this year’s greatest movies, Jody Hill’s brilliant Observe and Report). Bobcat’s picture pleases two parties: Those without kids, specifically, those sick and tired of hearing their friends drone on and on about all of the various wonders of their (ahem) unexceptional children. And those parents enduring a teenager they can barely stand to look at, to listen to, or in the most contemptuous state, even watch drink a glass of milk without disgust. As stated earlier, not all children are miracles. Sometimes they’re just there, answering an interest as: “You wanna know what I like? I like looking at vaginas.” (Hey, at least he admits to liking something).

With this kind of plain speaking crassness and touching paternal frustration, Goldthwait crafted a work of startlingly honest power -- the kind of movie that feels like the book before the movie was made (even though World’s Greatest Dad was not a book). Goldthwait offers the picture modulations in tone that flow from funny to jarring to sweet to purely emotional  -- he isn't making a blanket statement claiming all kids are shit-heels. Clearly, to him, some are in fact quite nice. Some stand up for a girl's honor. Some appreciate a warm gesture from a paternal figure. Some will say thank you for a new computer. Some will watch a zombie movie with their surrogate. But, some will also be mawkish frauds, ridiculously dramatic and annoyingly vapid. And parents and adults can be self absorbed jerks, irresponsible drunks and passive aggressive windbags, too. And that balance, coupled with a gentle, yet clever and simultaneously duplicitous and decent performance by a beautifully understated Williams makes the picture wholly unique.

If Bobcat Goldthwait had any modern influences (Terry Zwigoff? Wes Anderson? Todd Solondz?), he has spun this movie into his own creation. And really, Mr. Goldthwait has always been doing this, starting with his comic persona, something many either forgot about or view as a one-shtick novelty act. I never thought so. I always saw something deeper underneath Bobcat. Even as a kid, I sensed something inherently true in his primal animal/child -- angry and frustrated one second, scared and neurotic the next.

A creature who stumbled over words, his voice rising with hysteria and lowering with insecurity, Bobcat's feral act always touched me on some mysterious level, and I felt weirdly protective of him. Channeling the funny, yet creepy, repressed boy/man (and often forgotten) silent screen genius Harry Langdon, Goldthwait could be a wounded child and then, verge towards violence -- letting loose the id of an inarticulate man wrestling a multitude of unknown demons. When he famously set a couch on fire on "The Tonight Show," it was cathartic, funny, scary, embarrassing and weirdly real. Which sums up World's Greatest Dad perfectly.

This movie deserved better. It deserved more screens. It deserved more press. It deserved more praise. It deserved more viewers to watch, writ large, that crappy little kid finally say something clever: “Diving's not really a sport, it's falling.” Find it on DVD.

And look back at Goldthwait’s act. You won't be surprised that the man, cinematically speaking, excels at such shifting passions. A movie concerning the harshness and delicacy of adult and adolescent frustration is not a stretch for the once shaky voiced, furiously stuttering, fire-starting Bobcat. Struggling to find the balance between the appropriate, adult thing to do or say (and usually, hilariously, failing miserably), he was already an early master.

*This just in -- John Waters agrees. For his Art Forum top ten, he names World's Greatest Dad the fourth best film of 2009, asking: "Why, oh why, wasn’t this blackest of comedies a hit?"

To Be Perfectly Frank

"He's the only man in town I'd be afraid to fight for real. I might knock him down, but he'd keep getting up until one of us was dead."

--Robert Mitchum on Frank Sinatra

I almost forgot entirely. Bing might be the personification of Christmas, and Dean may have passed on that very day, but Frank was born with Christmas tunes ring-a-ding-dinging through his tiny fontanel. That's Frank, as in, Francis Albert Sinatra, born Dec. 12, 1915. The famous birthday came to me after spending two solid days listening to Gram Parsons, Kris Kristofferson and Neil Young, realizing I was slipping into an alt-country music coma from which I might never recover. Enough. Needle and the damage done. Not that I don’t love the above artists (Young's "Pocahontas" is a song will, like, the Bad Lt. make my soul dance even after I've left this earth...), but after moping through “Love Hurts” and “The Silver Tongued Devil” like a brown turtleneck, jean-jacketed sad sack -- I needed a change. In went a movie, up came the croon "If they asked meeeee, I could write a book..." and I was no longer in the rust-tinted musical state akin to sitting in the back of my mother’s pine green station wagon after she signed the divorce papers. I was now swathed in furs and jewels and crying in my Eggplant Parmigiana, preferably from Patsy's, one of Sinatra's favorite joints.

Coveting Frank Sinatra is nothing new. We all witnessed the early ‘90s retro embracing of Ol’ Blue Eyes by younger fans, mostly genuine but for some with a Tiki Torch irony that grew as tiresome as Bettie Page bangs and China Doll wigs. But one can’t allow hordes of obnoxious cigar bar patrons laboring over the malt of scotch ruin the party. Frank is timeless. If you don't get it, you don't get it. And if you don't get it, I don't get you. Nothing can cease my warm memories of Sinatra. There's my stoic dad singing “My kind of town, Chicago is my kind of town” while rolling in his powder blue Caprice Classic. There's the time I stayed home "sick" from school and caught A Hole in the Head on channel 12 (oh, the excitement of happening upon an old movie as a kid). And then there was the day I actually saw Sinatra at a State Fair -- it was the only way I could see him (and I convinced an older boy to drive me up there. He was annoyed but, after putting down  his Bukowski poems and watching Frank sit center stage, singing "One for my Baby," weaker, but still oozing with soul, he became a Sinatra devotee. He can thank me for that.). To top it off, a fantastically ribald and still gorgeously leggy Shirley MacLaine (the "mascot" as the Rat Pack called her) opened for him. This is a show I'll never ever forget, with, among other highlights, Frank singing "Mac the Knife" replacing Mac with himself. And when Frank Sr. sternly instructed Frank Jr. to start the orchestra all over again after he flubbed. But that was then and this is right now as I watch Pal Joey -- a movie that just saved me from sewing a rainbow patch on my Levi’s or thinking far too long that Jim Croce needs closer consideration. Or reading anything about the Manson family.

Humphrey Bogart once said of Frank Sinatra: "Frank's a hell of a guy. If he could only stay away from the broads and devote some time to develop himself as an actor, he'd be one of the best in the business." Bogart's opinion of his friend's screen talent was on target, but I can only think, thank God Sinatra never took the time, or rather too much time, to "develop himself as an actor." He didn't need to. Studying the craft could have stultified the magic he displayed in some of his most memorable performances.

When it came to acting, Sinatra was a natural. Like Dean Martin, Sinatra was one of those fabled one-take wonders who preferred his freshest read, to tackle his magic head-on. But he wasn't necessarily against rehearsal or research, especially for meatier roles. For Otto Preminger's The Man With the Golden Arm, Frank actually studied the frenzied state of drug withdrawal to play his heroin-addled jazz drummer Frankie, (one has to assume he knew a few junkies as well) and a more complicated Frank graced other impressive films including John Frankenheimer’s classic The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer told me he would not allow a one take), Vincent Minelli's masterpieces Some Came Running and Fred Zinnemann's moving, sexy, wonderfully overwrought From Here to Eternity, which earned Sinatra an Academy Award for his downtrodden little guy Maggio.

All of those performances were excellent, but there were other actors, gifted actors, who could have performed a few of them (though Sinatra did bring something special and un-matched). Eli Wallach was set to play Maggio (and he’d probably have done an equal job...but maybe not), but because of either the oft-told Mafia legend or his own talent, Sinatra landed the plum part. And then, Sinatra was in the running for Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy in Elia Kazan's groundbreaking On the Waterfront -- this could have been interesting but certainly not as brilliant, not in the I coulda been a contender way (and let's not forget the erotic scene with the glove). I adore him, but regardless of Sinatra's chops, he couldn't have matched the raw, soulful intensity of Brando. But then, in another instance, Brando couldn't entirely do Sinatra -- as witnessed in their shared screen musical Guys and Dolls. Brando, gorgeously cast as gangster Sky Masterson is an almost crazy experiment, so when he sings "Luck Be A Lady Tonight" all mysterious, sexy and quirky, he gives the song an intriguing, bizarre-o, Brando edge (I actually love Brando's languid, strange version). But come now. Truly, the song was tailor-made for Sinatra.

Proof positive was when Sinatra later recorded the song -- he not only sang the tune, he grabbed it by the hair, (as he probably wanted to with Brando's face), dragged it to the bed, tore off all of its clothes and attacked it. With his witty, gritty, punctuated and smooth singing style, Sinatra still sends shivers by singing the lyric, "A lady doesn't wander all over the room and blow on some other guy's dice." You can practically feel the cocked eyebrow through the vinyl of the recording.

But perhaps Sinatra's greatest role was one that didn't involve a beat down a la Maggio, or require the harrowing pain of drug dementia a la Frankie. No. To return the movie flickering in front of me, a movie I've watched numerous times, one of Sinatra's best role was as the gigolo lounge singer Joey Evans in the underrated (though overly scrubbed) screen adaptation of John O'Hara's epistolary novel and subsequent Rodgers and Hart stage musical Pal Joey. For those who prefer Sinatra after his crooning bobby-soxers days, and before the disappointing Duets project, Pal Joey is quintessential Sinatra. I love Frank a little older, a little filled out, and with that hat. Oh, he wore it well.

The definition of lovable cad, Sinatra's Joey Evans is all swagger and crass class. But he's talented, and the ladies cannot resist his goomba, plain speaking charms. When he's hired at a San Francisco nightclub, he beds nearly all of the girls on the chorus line (he calls them "mice") with the big (very big) exception of the luscious, mysteriously melancholic Kim Novak (even when she smiles, the lavender lady is sad, nearing the mournfulness of Chet Baker with her wrist-slitting take on "My Funny Valentine"). Sad or not, she is, as he puts it "the mouse with the built." Feminists may not revel in Joey's tomcat antics, but they might at least feel vindication for his stereotypically female role: Joey uses his voice and body to milk older gals for money. In this case, the still beautiful Rita Hayworth whom he's hustling for a club he'll christen "Chez Joey."

But since the movie version is something of a fantasy, Frank's cad is more than a mere smooth operator, he's a bona-fide musical genius, which goes a long way when when wooing a mouse like Rita Hayworth. And so, with his rendition of "The Lady Is a Tramp," he drops a musical masterpiece on the woman, giving viewers one of the sexiest on-screen musical sequences ever filmed. Singing to Hayworth in a closed nightclub, Sinatra sits at the piano and casually begins his song, tossing it out there as easily as he instructs Novak's dog to get out of his drawer (he says "Off! O-R-F"). He snubs out his cigarette and kicks the piano back (all in wonderful punctuation to the tune) and builds the song towards full tilt Frankness. Skulking across the stage, he crafts the tune so brilliantly, and with such amazing timing, that near the finale, he ends the regularly sung lyric "she broke, but its oke," with "she's broke..." and...no words, just a casual shrug of his shoulders. We don't need to hear if she's O.K. or not. She, he, anyone, would certainly be "oke" by then.

It's just so glorious -- slinky and earthy, nasty and sweet, stern and cool. Blue-eyed devil mean (and those eyes could look mean) and then joyously, shout it to the rooftops soulful (those eyes could also look so poignant). And so goddamn Frank. No performer at any time could have played and sung this scene with the genius of Sinatra. In Pal Joey. Sinatra is rascal, cheater, charmer, lover...a man whose philosophy was to treat a "lady like a dame, and a dame like a lady" -- which still works today. I’m certain that Kris Kristofferson would have to concur.

The Love Song of D. Samuel Peckinpah

I blame Warren Oates. Or rather, his white suited, blood spattered beautiful loser named Bennie. This is the man who ruined me for all others -- romantically, sexually, heroically, pitifully, existentially, all of it -- throw in the filthy kitchen sink soaking a seeping red sack.

I may never find a romantic paramour as powerful as Oates’ Bennie, or by extension, Sam Peckinpah, the man who blasted my brain with such wild-eyed, gritty grandeur, bleeding sweaty passion and maniacally sincere poetry. This movie, one of the only pictures Peckinpah had total control over, isn’t just personal, it’s fucking personal. For Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia isn’t merely declarative for those seeking the headless bounty, but for those demons rattling around Peckinpah’s near nihilistic noggin.

I say near nihilistic because the movie isn’t as hopeless as many perceive it to be and Peckinpah isn’t the mean-spirited misogynist he’s painted as. Like Bennie, he’s a fighter and a lover, dammit.  Though the picture begins with a Mexican land baron violently extracting the name of the man who seduced his daughter, it remains oddly sensitive, even as the girl is stripped and beaten. You feel for her. And in the end, Bennie feels for her. And you feel for Oates’ Bennie, the piano playing drifter hired to collect the million dollar bounty.  Bennie’s desperate determination to make a better life for himself and his lovely, seasoned girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega) who just happens to be a whore (and is all the stronger for it), can be summed up in his assertion: “Nobody loses all of the time.” No, they do not, particularly when they’ve experienced love, no matter how doomed, and happiness, no matter how fleeting.  Maybe in a world filled with insensitive one-nighters, phony thinkers, blood-sucking scumbags, casual rapists and reprobate renegades, these two supposed lowlifes are deluding themselves, and maybe they know it.

But really, who the hell isn’t?

And yet, their love isn’t a delusion. In one small moment that moves me more than a hundred sweeping melodramas, Bennie senses Elita’s sadness as she take a shower. It’s soon after she was nearly raped, something he harshly convinces himself: “She can handle it better than I can.” Opening the curtain, tough Elita sits wet, vulnerable, sad-eyed, and Bennie simply, movingly says, “I love you.” Stated with such empathy and gentleness, this is all she needs to hear. This is all I need to hear.

It makes me realize just how much this critique of capitalistic greed, this ingenious, viscerally violent orchestration of madness and dread, is at its heart, a love story. So when Elita is killed, it makes perfect sense that Bennie goes nuts, finds Alfredo’s rotting head and, with a perverse sort of respect, drives around with it, talks to it, swats at the flies swarming around it and stops to cleanse and ice the foul cranium. Bennie bonds with that head, the head of his dead lover’s ex, possessed by a crushing nostalgia for his girl, a gleefully gruesome bloodlust for her killers and a passionate, single-minded self destruction for himself, that’s as ruinous as it is valiant as it is romantic and it is just...so...beautiful.

Forget “We’ll always have Paris.” What gets me to the core is Bennie repeatedly shooting a dead man and exclaiming, “Why? Because it feels so damn good!”  Yes it does. Over-the-moon crazy love dripping crimson romantic damn good -- which is how it should always be. Damn you Warren Oates.

Originally written for GQ.

Christmas With Crosby, Bing

Bing Crosby always reminds me of Christmas. And not just because of his famous movie and song, White Christmas (of which Otis Redding brilliantly covered), but because he encapsulates everything about Christmas -- the dreams, the hopes, the sentiment, the lights (linger on...your pale blue eyes, Bing), the well meaning and the holiday, and yet, the haunted quality of tradition -- the Shining like reminder of times gone past. Like Christmas, Bing carries eerie memories and an underlying dysfunction. And in real life, Bing was no saint.

But what a brilliant performer. And what a man of many talents. And (maybe because he wasn't a saint) what a...strangely erotic man. (I get why Grace Kelly chose him in High Society -- as much as I revere Frank). And what a pal for teaming with his later competition -- Sinatra. There’s a wonderful moment in the musical High Society during which Crosby and Sinatra sing an especially rousing version of Cole Porter’s “Well, Did You Evah!” Midway through the charming, inebriated song, in which two “swellegant” party pals swap banter, dish on guests and form a dipsomaniacal camaraderie, Crosby croons to Sinatra with his distinctive “ba ba ba boom” and Sinatra jokes, “Don’t dig that kind of crooning, chum.” “You must be one of the newer fellows,” Crosby answers back.

The idea of Sinatra being one of the “newer fellows” is amusing since, in 1956 (when the picture was released), the big-band, and balladeer musical style of crooning was already on the wane. Sinatra was well on his way to becoming the elder-statesman Chairman of the Board, Elvis would be anointed the King of Rock ’n’ Roll and Bing would be...Bing.

Not that anyone would ever forget Bing Crosby. The crooner, born in Tacoma, Washington, had been cinema’s number one box-office draw from 1944 to 1948 and was an enormous, multi-talented star -- radio, recordings and motion pictures all earning him legions of adoring fans. And like another famous crooner who would count him as an influence (Dean Martin), Crosby had his own cinematic comedy team, making the frequently funny (and underrated) “road” movies with wise-acre Bob Hope. He even won an Academy Award (for Going My Way) and received another nomination for his alcoholic role in The Country Girl.

There’s no denying that Crosby was and is big time. And yet...why does he feel just a little slighted through the years? Like the only moment we enjoy his music is once a year, when we roll out “White Christmas” from our holiday collection of old standards? This seems a damn shame.

Perhaps it’s just how antiquated his music sounds today -- beautifully, mysteriously antiquated, like something emerging from a dream...or a nightmare. In either moody reverie, when listening to the brilliant baritone sing “Pennies From Heaven,” “Ol’ Man River” or “Swinging on a Star,” you feel the music form around you, as if you’re riding on an ethereal echo chamber of air coming from a million miles away. It’s spacey, creepy and charming all at once. Which perfectly explains how effective the song “Mairzy Dotes” becomes in David Lynch's Twin Peaks, when daughter-murdering, Bob-haunted Leland Palmer crazily sings it in the midst of his meltdowns. And then there was that pairing of the two Thin White Dukes -- Bowie and Bing dueting “Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy” -- ideal.  These were two sexy space aliens keeping Christmas a little bit Christian and a little bit...pagan. As much as I love Frank Sinatra, this kind of cross generational extraterrestrial-ness could have only been created with Crosby.

All of these elements of Crosby are so marvelously powerful, that his music remains (particularly his earlier recordings) ever haunting, ever romantic and, in some instances, ever celestial. As musicologist J.T.H. Mize put it, Crosby could “melt a tone away, scoop it flat and sliding up to the eventual pitch as a glissando, sometimes sting a note right on the button, and take diphthongs for long musical rides.” In short, Crosby could send you. He still can. And not only at Christmas time.

Traummovie: Eyes Wide Shut

Before 2009 comes to a close, I'm dipping into my archives to consider ten years of Eyes Wide Shut. One of Stanley Kubrick's most underrated pictures, and a movie that in terms of love, sex, death, fuck, fear and träume remains timeless. It's also a great Christmas movie...

In Stanley Kubrick's cinematic universe reality, dreams, order and insanity progress on distinct, intersecting planes. Whether he was depicting an absurd, chillingly real war room in Dr. Strangelove, the disturbing but oddly sexy ultra violence of an Orwellian future in A Clockwork Orange, the siren call of insanity in The Shining, the hyper fantastical yet authentic Vietnam War in Full Metal Jacket, or the irony and powerlessness among such transcendent opulence in Barry Lyndon, life was a surreal work in progress -- an ambiguous joke that veered from hilarious to sexy to terrifying, sometimes within seconds. Attempting to understand order, or how any system designed to make our universe more rational or safe seemed fruitless. Think Sterling Hayden approaching such a predicament at the end of Kubrick's The Killing. He watches his life literally fly away on an airport tarmac and bitterly spits one of cinema’s greatest final lines: “Eh, what’s the difference?”

Which brings me to the final line of Kubrick’s frequently misunderstood Eyes Wide Shut in which Nicole Kidman states rather flatly, “Fuck” -- as in, that’s the answer, that’s what we need to do. A movie I’ve defended since its release, it’s a picture that deserves closer inspection and a worthy finale for the enigmatic auteur.

The controversial movie (some thought it silly, some, un-erotic) Eyes Wide Shut found the director once again studying the perplexing nature of dreams and reality, this time exploring them in a more personal and private arena: sexuality. As he did with Lolita, Kubrick created more than a film about sexual desire; he created a film about bitter romance, troublesome marital bonds, societal contradictions and, significantly, the fear of death.

An updating of the 1927 Traumnovelle (Dream Novel) by Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, the picture remains an unsettling blend of antiquated garishness and modern transgression -- an alternate sexual universe haunted by ghouls of the past, present and future.

In this universe “live” the healthy, handsome walking dead -- Dr. Bill Harford (an impressive Tom Cruise) and his wife, Alice (a slinky, wonderfully creepy Nicole Kidman), a glamorous, rich couple who appear the picture of storybook perfection. But like most supposed perfection, there are cracks in that portrait, and in their case, it’s the usual: they want to screw other people (or at least they think they do). At a sumptuous party given by Bill's obscenely wealthy friend Victor (Sydney Pollack), Bill almost strays upstairs with two models while Alice flirts with a bizarre Hungarian man who looks like one of the cadaverous party-goers from The Shining. The next evening, in a fit of jealousy over Bill's near indiscretion (he ended up contending with a beautiful, naked drug overdose instead of a debauched roll in the hay -- though the way her body sits in this shot is disturbingly erotic), Alice confesses that she’s had thoughts of cheating and, even worse, reveals that if things had been different, she would have thrown her entire life away for one flight of sexual fancy.

Unmasking something that should remain one of those deep, dark secrets you never confess to your significant other, Alice deftly rattles Bill's perception of her fidelity and the strength of their marriage in a speech that makes his mind spin out of control (Kidman's performance here is superb). After this confession, Bill is abruptly called away to confirm the death of a patient and keeping in tune with the love/death/sex of the picture, the daughter of the deceased makes a pass at him. The grief stricken but, considering the circumstances, kinky gesture aids in Bill’s decision to not immediately return home. Instead, he wanders the streets of New York and embarks on a sequence of actions that, though not as outwardly comic, somewhat resemble those in the Scorsese movie After Hours: He discovers a surreal sexual underworld that he’s both attracted to and repelled by.

A prostitute, a piano player, a bizarre costume-store owner and his Lolita-esque 14-year-old daughter lead Bill to the film's infamous ritualistic orgy sequence, during which participants are cloaked and masked, and naked women are used as sacrificial sex lambs. The gothic, terrifying yet titillating feel of this sequence walks a fine line between horror and parody and true to Kubrick’s genius, manages to cross into both camps. The magnificent, exacting camera work and unrelenting music compel us to look, no matter what happens, and though I was actually a little scared the first time I saw this moment, I found myself highly amused --laughing even. If ever a person was out of place in a Bohemian Grove-like orgy, it is Tom Cruise’s Dr. Bill. And yet, I was absolutely hypnotized, watching these moments like a waking dream and investing it with multiple meanings. What the hell is going on here besides a bunch of silly old rich men getting their jollies with beautifully breasted, long legged Helmut Newton models? And further, what do all of Bill’s adventures mean? Are Bill's encounters simply nightmares that will damage his marriage beyond repair, or are they mere titillating fantasy -- fodder for a closer relationship and better sex with his spouse?

Well, I can’t answer that. Given the picture's ominous tone, however, there is something definitely rotten within its slinky, Christmas-lit loveliness. Like the impeccable environment of The Shining, the aura of Eyes Wide Shut is one of beauty ready to be defiled, sexuality ready to be slaughtered, lovely exteriors that reek of formaldehyde. The pall that hangs over this picture is fear: fear of the unknown; fear of yourself or of others; and fear that if sex can lead to freedom, it can just as easily lead to death.

In fact, the picture can be viewed as a commentary on sexual attitudes in the last few decades -- a time when meaningless indiscretions can lead to horrifying blood-test results. It is no surprise, then, that Bill is a doctor and that throughout the film, he flashes his physician's ID as a police detective would his badge. "I'm a doctor," he constantly says, for both reassurance and intimidation. In a profession that requires intimate investigation of flesh that may well be on its way to the morgue, sex is serious. These unsettling references to AIDS, necrophilia and forbidden sex (not to mention Kubrick's own death upon bringing the film to completion, une petite mort of sorts) permeate the picture like one giant prick tease. In today's world, sex is still there for the taking, but at what cost and for what gain? Kubrick's frustrating, brilliant coda neither answers nor ignores its own questions. Rather, it leaves us in a mysterious, contradictory mishmash of dream and reality, where not only are our eyes wide shut, but our legs are too.