Sunset Gun

Roman-Romantic-Comedy: Cul-de-Sac

A rare screening of Roman Polanski's Cul-de-Sac shows tonight at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theater. In honor, a re-post of of one Polanski's best and most underseen pictures.

Roman Polanski emerged from the womb understanding the art of filmmaking. Or, rather, understanding the art of wombs -- diseased, depraved, disordered wombs. Cruelty, violence, twisted sexuality, madness, absurdity -- all of Polanski's hallmark obsessions -- are almost always confined to one space. The director loves nothing more than  trapping his characters in devil worshiping apartment buildings, phallic, knife-wielding boat trips and unhappy, unsound houses. And water continually means something. The superb Cul-de-Sac (1966) is his bats in the belfry, bat shit crazy house picture, and what weird, sexy, subversive, screwy fun it all is. Party at Polanksi's? I'm there. Even if Shelley Winters is invited.

And yet, Cul-de-Sac is so under-seen. (When will it be released in the United States on DVD?) A precursor to themes he would continually dabble in: tortured relationships, bizarre blonde behavior, infidelity, cross-dressing, even film noir, via the  stalwart, gravel voiced Lionel Stander, alas, best known to some for his role in Hart to Hart ("Mrs. H, she's goooorgeous!") but who should also be remembered as the blacklisted, veteran hard-boiled American character actor, Cul-de-Sac (considered minor by some), is stunningly, at times, brilliantly  unhinged, while being, decidedly Pinteresque. But this is pure Polanski.

Donald Pleasence plays an odd fellow (a grand understatement) who lucks out (or not) with a gorgeous, beguiling wife (the ever poignant Francoise Dorléac; sister to Catherine Deneuve, and an actress who left the world too soon), whom he keeps  in an enormous, isolated house on a tiny island off the northeast coast of Britain. Playing like an especially kinky Desperate Hours, the couple will be forced to host two escaped criminals (Stander and Jack MacGowran) after the thugs land at their nutty abode. And then things get...really interesting. But it's not just crime and entrapment that make the story compelling, it's all of the Polanski touches, particularly when he observes the idle activities of Dorléac.

Dorléac is cheating on her husband (who takes to wearing ladies clothes a la Roman's tortured Tenant Trelkowski), she's also perpetually bored, stuck in the house like a more spirited, extra primal Virgin Suicide sister, and engages in childlike activities to amuse herself. She tears around the house barefoot, applies exaggerated eyeliner (or helps her husband with his), messes with rifles and, the best, most hilarious, lights a sleeping Stander's feet on fire with burning pieces of newspaper between his toes ("It's called a bicycle" she taunts). Oh...you just don't do that to Lionel Stander. Or perhaps, you do. Between these two mismatched misfits, it's disarmingly sexy. These characters don't establish things like "safe" words nor do they understand the concept of such a thing, so the perversity, stark beauty, the isolation, the bleakness, the menacing sexuality and the insanity make the whole experience a strangely good time. A romp, in fact. A Roman romp.

Brick & Deeper: Sundance Shorts Awards

With such wonderfully eclectic, innovative, moving, funny, disturbing and beautifully crafted shorts to choose from, Sundance jury duty was not an easy task.

But it was an exciting and thought-provoking task, and one that I, along with fellow jurors Sara Bernstein (Vice President of HBO Documentary films) and Barry Jenkins (Director/Writer, Medicine for Melancholy) were honored to be a part of. And we had a lot of fun too. Many thanks to everyone at Sundance for allowing us to judge -- we were mesmerized by so many pictures.

So last night, with much anticipation and happiness, we took to Park City's Jupiter Bowl (and it really is a bowling alley) and ambled on stage (me, nervously so) to hand out the awards. First came the honorable mentions. The impressive, diverse group of shorts included Choke, by Michelle Latimer (Canada), Diarchy, by Ferdinand Cito Filmomarino (Italy), The External World, by David O'Reilly (Germany/Ireland), The Legend of Beaver Dam, by Jerome Sable and Eli Batalion (Canada), Out of Reach, by Jakub Stozek (Poland) and Protoparticles (shown above), by Chema Garcia Ibarra (Spain).

The Jury Prize in International Short Filmmaking went to Ariel Kleiman's Deeper Than Yesterday (Australia, in Russian), a haunting, gritty, mysterious, gorgeously crafted depiction of a lonely Russian submarine crew that was both horrifying and touching and then, something like a fairy tale. It was a film that left us in awe -- the acting, the actor's faces, the story and the absolute assuredness of big screen filmmaking. It's an unforgettable picture.

Matt Piedmont's irreverent, inventive, charmingly Mandom-esque, animated (with dolls) short, Brick Novax parts 1 and 2 nabbed the U.S. Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking, a short that we hope to see extended into a series. We yearned to know more of Brick's past adventures (from folk singer to slacks designer) and we hope Piedmont gives everyone the chance to experience one of the coolest men in the world. Never mind he's a doll.

Below is the video of the event. Congratulations to all of the filmmakers!

In the Pinks: Two-Lane Blacktop

  "If I'm not grounded pretty soon, I'm gonna go into orbit."

-- Warren Oates A.K.A. GTO

It feels almost too easy applying the term “existential” to Monte Hellman’s mysterious Two-Lane Blacktop, (and Mr. Hellman has always insisted that the picture is not “existential”) but I think the alienated, ambiguous, weirdly funny and, at times, desultory cult car classic deserves the appellation. A work of stark Sisyphean power, the picture brilliantly combines automobile allure and the expectations of the race with a sparer saga of the road -- a road that should be free but isn’t free at all.

This may sound rather joyless for a car movie, and indeed for the greatest car movie ever made, but the picture is so inventive, so austerely beautiful, so unexpected and so gorgeously auto-centric, that it’s a singular wonder. With a then much discussed script by Rudy Wurlitzer, the movie came heaped with an interesting amount of hype. The screenplay managed the honor of being featured on the cover of Esquire Magazine before the film was made, something that was unheard of at the time, and something that made the movie’s lack of box office more of a disappointment. Naturally, it’s been a cult favorite ever since.

Leading this gear-head mediation through its long stretches of lonesome highway are characters stripped down to their basic handles -- James Taylor is known only as the “Driver,” Dennis Wilson the “Mechanic,” Laurie Bird the “Girl” and the late great Warren Oates, in one of his most unforgettable roles, is “GTO.” The stoic Taylor and Wilson work a seriously souped-up '55 Chevy that's all muscle and speed, no frills, while a garrulous Oates rolls a yellow 1970 Pontiac GTO -- something Taylor scorns as right off the lot. All players endlessly drive, seemingly to challenge other cars and race cross country, but who knows what they’re really seeking. When somewhat challenged on the matter -- that all the speed will burn him up -- the Driver famously replies “You can never go fast enough.” And the picture doesn’t spare this feeling on the viewer as the continual purr and hum of the engine places you at one with the car -- a oneness that has become the character’s very identities.

Two-Lane Blacktop was probably supposed to be a youth movie, but there’s nothing young about it. Taylor, Wilson and Bird, though certainly not adults (in the conventional sense of the word) nevertheless carry a heavy amount of resigned cynicism within their cipher, stoic, underfed, frames. Had the movie been made in the 1960s, we might have gotten that kind of hip-swiveling, gone daddy-o, Psych Out energy (think Mimsy Farmer tripping on drugs in Riot on Sunset Strip) but Two-Lane isn’t working on that tip -- these people, whether they know it or not, are representative of their era -- their specifically 70s era. The rather glamorized late 60s -- the so-called free, hippie-flower-child-dancing, politically motivated and finally, tragic decade crashes directly into this Lane, where inspiration comes not from changing the world but from … cars. Which makes perfect sense to me -- if you can control one thing during such chaotic times (and if you desire anything to represent freedom) -- it’s your automobile. 

As such, these gear-heads aren’t driving for show, they’re not trying to pick up chicks (though Bird casually crawls into their car, which they barely acknowledge) -- they’re simply driving (and driving), with uber serious, monk-like intent. Interestingly, it’s overly energetic Warren Oates who represents the “youth movement” an ultimately lonely and dissipated man who thinks that maybe he can understand the kids but is frustrated by their abilities (He doesn't appreciate being crowed through two states by a couple of two bit "road hogs" he complains to the boys). He’s full of half truths, or flat-out- fantasies, and we wonder about his life  -- did he dump a middle class existence and family to head out for the open road, like those all those hippies he’s seen cruising the streets or traipsing around those acid-soaked youth movies? What's with this guy? Is he having any fun? Not really. As such, he’s something of a freak -- not some older road tripping cool guy, but in the end, a mournful man (though looking at his bad-ass GTO now only makes me pine for the days when cars like that really did roll off the lot, instead of these modern suppositories). And we come to pity him, even care about him -- more than the other characters. After all, they have youth on their side. But there's that idea of "youth" again. Does their youth really matter? Though conformity may represent the soul sucking void to them, it’s possible that getting lost isn’t what it’s cracked up to be either. Gaspar Noe could have titled this film, because these "kids" are enterting it.

But this isn’t to say the picture’s depressing, it’s also quite funny and in its subtle moments, charming (Oates, whom I revere in every movie he’s ever made, displays a fantastic amount of mysterious weirdness and pitch perfect comic timing). Two-Lane Blacktop is, no question, a work of enigmatic significance and auto-erotic gorgeousness.

Unlike any other car picture (and I love a lot of them) Two-Lane Blacktop sits or, more appropriately, drives in a class by itself. It zooms far past those three yards a drawling James Taylor spits out before a racing challenge, but his assuredness matches the perfection of the movie: “Make it three yards motherfucker and we’ll have ourselves an auto-mo-beel race.” A race that never ends. Which, car or no car, just might be the ultimate challenge.

Two-Lane Blacktop plays tonight, at 7:30 at LACMA. Monte Hellman will be there to discuss his masterpiece.

His Girl: Happy Birthday David Lynch

In honor of David Lynch's birthday, a repost of his best movie: Mulholland Dr.

David Lynch gets America. America the beautiful, America the bizarre. We can discuss how "weird" he is, how inscrutable his movies can be, how much he loves oddly conceived babies, oddly shaped humans, oddly pale-faced Robert Blake, oddly obsessed Crispin Glover and his "lunch!", but the man gets what drives our subconscious, our sweet dreams, our nightmares.

So naturally, Lynch understands one of the oddest cities on earth -- Los Angeles. With his brilliant, labyrinthine Mulholland Dr., a movie that started out like a jilted starlet (it was an axed TV pilot) he digs underneath our peculiar Hollywood system -- a system that pedals dreams, desire, sex, money, magic -- dreams that have the ability to spread like a celluloid sickness all over America (especially during the 2000’s. Did he know how prescient he was going to be?). Through the bright-eyes of innocent Betty (Naomi Watts, in a career defining performance), a starlet seeking fame in La La land, he presents a twisted, romantic, funny, terrifying and deeply emotional mystery involving a gorgeous amnesiac, a monster behind a diner, a persona altering box, a pair of elderly folks who slither under doors, and a director who answers to a dwarf, a mobster and a cowboy. And let’s not forget Coco.

Hauntingly beautiful, poignant, funny, subversive, dark, meditative, sexual (Lynch is one of the few American directors who can actually create inspired, erotic and yet intensely emotional sex scenes) and more, Mulholland Dr. poses many questions, but offers few answers, reflecting life in all of its enigmatic complexities. And if you think it’s weird that a box might be responsible for transforming a promising young actress into a suicidal starlet, rubbing herself in a tragic masturbatorial rage, then you need to spend a little more time in Los Angeles. Or on reality television. Or in your girlfriend’s living room after you ditch her. Or in a director’s chair. Or simply walking up and down Hollywood Blvd. between Western and Normandie.

Speaking personally, I can say that living in this city long enough, Mulholland Dr. does not seem that out of the ordinary. And this realization came to me quickly. Directly upon moving here, the very first apartment I looked at, (recommended to me at the noodle joint across from Jumbo’s Clown Room at 2 AM by a weathered, drunk L.A. native waxing nostalgic about seeing Patty Duke perform her mournful "Don't Just Stand There" on Shindig!) was, unbeknownst to me, that very same apartment Miss Watts inhabited as sad, suicidal Diane. I’ll never forget the creepy familiarity while walking through the grounds, searching for a landlord and knocking on a stranger’s door only to be answered by a stern faced woman who treated me like a suspicious intruder. A lovely place, but, when it hit me just where I was standing, I resisted a possible rental application. I realize it’s only a movie but, no. Living there seemed tantamount to beginning my new life in Roman Polanski’s digs from The Tenant.

That’s how powerful the picture is -- it just gets under your skin and into your bones and bubbles with your blood. It may be notoriously tough to decipher, but truly, Lynch captures the city, its vibe, its ragged romanticism, its cruelty, its impenetrable dysfunction and its absurdity (Billy Ray Cyrus is the pool cleaner. And that makes perfect sense) with his distinct brand of warped clarity. Our country’s often freakish, surreal desperation to emulate or ponder the “glamour” of Hollywood is just as weird and just as affecting and just as relatable as...Winkie’s dream. Mulholland Dr. is a masterpiece. “This is the girl” indeed.

Dream, Baby, Dream ... Suicide Style

Forget Christopher Nolan and all of that silly Inception nonsense.

Alan Vega and Martin Rev are the real architects of sleep. They crawl into my brain and perform my lucid dreaming for me. They'd influence me to float in a hallway, wrapping people in wire, ski towards a snowy bunker and sign off a company from my ailing father. Or something more spectacular. Like make hot Joey Heatherton re-emerge to find my perfect Serta sleeper, clad in sexy pant-suit and dance routine, directly after we go back in time, forcing her ex Dallas Cowboys husband Lance Rentzel to not commit that act of indecent exposure on a 10-year-old girl. 

And then there's the great Fassbinder, whom I dream about frequently (or dream of being), who had the taste and beautifully warped sense to get on Suicide's 1977 "Frankie Teardrop" for his 1978's In a Year of 13 Moons. Unlike, Nolan, Fassbinder understood dreams. Or rather, he knew how to properly not understand them.

And "Dream Baby Dream" ... I will dream. A sweet and sinister dream -- a dream in which I awake wondering why I feel like I was sweetly rocked to beddy-bye by Laird Cregar in I Wake Up Screaming. It feels so good and so ... wonderfully wrong.

This is all a compliment to the sublime Suicide, of course.

Happy Birthday Elvis: Wild in the Country

Here's an easy proclamation: Hot damn I love Elvis Presley.

I know. Everyone loves Elvis -- and especially today, his birthday. But in an age when hype often supersedes talent or charisma, loving the astoundingly magnetic Elvis makes sense.

Truly, if someone claims to not like Elvis, not even one song, one performance, one moment of Elvis-ness, I can only think they're big, fat liars who yammer on and on about how they’d rather listen to The Beatles (“they wrote their own music!”). That tired argument, one that's receded with time (I hope). As someone who likes The Beatles, I'll just state the obvious: one can revere both Beatle and Elvis -- it’s entirely possible. After all, The Beatles loved Elvis. So does Bob Dylan. Ditto for the late, great, gritty “Rumble” rocker Link Wray who I watched perform a heart wrenching version of Elvis’s “I’m Free” years ago in some Portland shit-hole. Witnessing one of my idols bring down the house with another idol’s song rates as one of the biggest highlights of my life.

So again, in terms of Elvis, if you don't love this:

.... you're probably dead or stupid or just a contrary pain in the ass. 

With my never-ending Elvis worship, it's no surprise I've watched nearly all of the King’s movies -- George Sidney's Viva Las Vegas being the most viewed. They vary in quality, of course, and his performances range in effectiveness (King Creole directed by Michael Curtiz, Flaming Star directed by Don Siegel, Blue Hawaii directed by Norman Taurog are some terrific stand-outs), but whether it be Spinout or Change of Habit or It Happened at the World’s Fair, I always find enjoyment and substance and artistry in them -- even while feeling cheated by Colonel Parker's insistence on keeping Elvis firmly planted in squaresville. But one Elvis picture that’s not discussed enough (and one I've written about here before but am returning to) is his highly underrated Wild in the Country.

Still considered another of the King's so-so efforts, Wild in the Country is much more complex an achievement than given credit for. Notable for its screenplay (from J.R. Salamanca's novel, who also penned the novel Lilith) written by the serious and sometimes brilliant theater and film writer Clifford Odets (The Big Knife, and my favorite, the genius Sweet Smell of Success -- I know very little about how Odets regarded this movie) -- the picture may look to some snobbier cineastes as something of a sell-out for Odets. And perhaps it was -- but the picture remains intriguing nonetheless.

A dramatic and soapy (with a captial S) entertainment a la Peyton Place or a slicked up Tennessee Williams wanna-be effort, Wild in the Country is also convoluted, strange (Christina Crawford appears in it), and deliciously racy, pulsating with adult themes that feel naughty for a 1961 Elvis vehicle. Another "serious" turn for Presley (which he could always handle and I wish he'd done more of), Wild in the Country nicely casts the singer in a role we like seeing him in -- as a juvenile delinquent. It also features the beautiful and beguiling talent of Tuesday Weld as a lush who's a little too young for her world-weary ways. Weld wasn't even out of her teens when she made this film -- she also had on off-screen affair with Elvis which the shifty Colonel quickly ended. Young Weld was apparently too rebellious for Elvis's image -- yet another missed opportunity for Presley. Elvis needed to shake things up in 1961, and talented hellcat Tuesday was just the girl for the job.  Alas, not to be. The Colonel's control continually frustrates and angers.

But the movie remains a wild affair. Directed by Philip Dunne, Wild in the Country finds Presley playing Glen (Glen?), a troubled country boy who's sent to live with his shady uncle. Of course. His hell-raisin' ways land him a psychiatrist -- the very pretty Irene Sperry (Hope Lange, who co-starred in Peyton Place) -- and she’s not like any shrink you'd be likely to meet. She sees a strong literary talent in this hunk of dysfunction and finds herself falling for him, to the ire of her suitor and the gossip-mongers of the town. The ensuing melodramatic battle is interesting for an Elvis vehicle: Irene wants Glen to go to college. But Glen's got other problems to contend with. Chiefly, and naturally, two other Elvis craving gals: his sexy cousin Noreen (Weld) who wants him to stay bad (Viva La Tuesday!), and the oh-so-boring Betty Lee (Millie Perkins), his square childhood sweetheart.

Fights, scandals, attempted suicide, murder and of course singing (four songs!) crash-land to a rather ridiculous though weirdly engaging courtroom scene that manages to feel entirely plausible within the Elvis universe. Elvis, extraordinarily sexy here and often poignant in his moments with Lange, does right by Dunne's colorful, campy and juicy direction and he spews Odets dialogue with surprising ease. It’s actually a bit frustrating because you see how much more Elvis could achieve as an actor while still being well ... hot as sin. And for me, next to Jailhouse Rock and Viva Las Vegas, this is one of Elvis's hottest movies. Like saucy Ann-Margret shaking it in Viva, Tuesday Weld certainly helps.

Well, wait a second. Wild in the Country was one of Elvis’s hottest narrative movies. If we count his ’68 Comback Special as a movie (it was televised but it really should be released on the big screen) and his  1970 concert picture, Elvis: That's the Way It Is, then I’ll have to re-think which of the King’s performances makes me feel (as Baby Doll’s Carroll Baker would say to Eli Wallach's Mr. Vacarro) “kind of hysterical.” 

That’s a hard decision. But one thing I do know -- a little “Polk Salad Annie” contains potent magical powers.

 

More Movie Memos, More Meeker Mania

It's been reported today via Roger Ebert's Journal at the Chicago Sun Times that I will be contributing to this Shindig.

No, not this one, though that would be the biggest thrill of my life:

This one -- Roger Ebert's newest incarnation of "At the Movies," called "Roger Ebert Presents: At the Movies" hosted by Christy Lemire of The Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of Mubi.com.

I'll be on hand from time to time to discuss classic films and hopefully, other rarities. I'd love for even more to discover and look for the wonders of Jack Garfein's Something Wild starring Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker, Alan Arkin's Little Murders starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd (on DVD, thankfully), Fritz Lang's woefully underseen You and Me starring George Raft and Sylvia Sidney (which I'm currently writing about), or Big House U.S.A. with ... Meeker.

I'm a bit obsessed with Ralph Meeker (really?). But Big House U.S.A. also stars Broderick Crawford, Lon Chaney Jr., William Talman and a young Charles Bronson. And Bronson suffers the fate of getting his face blow-torched off. Sorry, "blow-torched off" may be a grievous grammatical error (or not?), and I guess revealing the melting of Bronson's mug is what people in these parts call a "spoiler" but, what the hell. Just make an attempt to watch the movie.

Enough about Meeker (for now) ... here's more about the show:

"Christy Lemire of The Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of Mubi.com will be the co-hosts of "Ebert Presents at the Movies." The two experienced and respected critics will also introduce special segments featuring other contributors and the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Roger Ebert.

"The new weekly program debuts Jan. 21 on public television stations in 48 of the top 50 markets, representing more than 90% national coverage. It will be produced in Chicago at WTTW, where Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert began taping "Sneak Previews" some 35 years ago."

Read more here. Thanks to everyone involved.