In The Company Of Glenn

There's a joke here somewhere and it's on me, or, Welcome to My Nightmare.

Here's a view of a section of my apartment I've renamed, in homage to Don SIegel and Ida Lupino, "Private Hell 36."

I know what you're thinking: "OK, it's a bit messy, but it doesn't look that bad. And that's a sweet-looking plasma thingie you got yourself there.'

And there's the rub. That sweet-looking plasma thingie is the white elephant of the deal.

NYFF: Opening Night

I know people like to rag on Central Park's Tavern on the Green, but I'm often a sucker for its simulation of old school New York charm. It's entirely possible that the fact that I've never once paid for a meal there contributes to my benevolent view of the joint, but never mind. Last night's mild weather made the Tavern's garden, festooned with hanging lamps, a particularly magical spot as the restaurant hosted the opening night party for the New York Film Festival, celebrating Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. I've rarely felt quite so comfortable in a tuxedo. Physically, I mean.

That's right, I'm a bit old school myself: when I get an invite that says black tie, I take it seriously. You never know. If you try to attend a black tie screening at Cannes and you're decked out in evening wear and your tie is a necktie rather than a bow, you're out. I think Picasso got away with not wearing a tie, once. But even then they had to sneak him in through the back or something.

The mother of all "Last Supper" parodies.

Trolling around some non-movie-related portions of the blogosphere, as I am wont to do, I see via Roy at alicublog that former movie reviewer Rod Dreher is displeased with an ad for some sorta leatherfest that parodies Leonardo's painting of you-know-who's last supper. Roy links to both Rod and the prolific Dan Savage, whose post features more Last Supper lampoons than I dreamt of in my philosophy, the tackiest for my money being the one presided over by Marilyn Monroe. "Where's the outrage?" Dan asks, as he well might, apropos these non-controversial sendups. Nothing's shocking anymore.

Of course, back in the early '60s, when director Luis Bunuel had his rampaging poor folk pose in attitudes suggesting The Last Supper in his magnificent Viridiana, there was outrage to spare.

I'm sure this image wasn't the only reason Franco wanted all prints and the negative of the film destroyed (as the extras on the Criterion DVD of this film show, he very nearly got his wish), but it helped! When accused of blasphemy for concocting this image, Don Luis—who, like many athiests of his particular stripe, knew Catholic dogma like the back of his hand—averred that there was no blasphemy whatsoever, as Leonardo's work, while depicting a religious scene, is in fact a secular one and not a sanctified object. (Compare and contrast Andres Serrano's Piss Christ, which if I understand correctly does pass the blasphemy test.) In the highly entertaining book of Bunuel interviews Objects of Desire, the director shrugs: "I don't understand the indignation. The beggars are eating and by chance form the same composition as in Leonardo's painting...they are believers, but at the same time they take liberties with religion. That is very Spanish."

In other Bunuel news, I just got the Facets/Cinemateca DVD of Bunuel's 1951 Mexican melodrama, Una Mujer Sin Amor (A Woman Without Love) and am relieved to report it's a pretty good-looking disc. I had reason to dread, as Facets is a label whose exceptional taste is trumped by its often execrable practices in DVD transferring. The dual-label tag tells the story—Spanish-language purveyors Cinemateca made the disc, and Facets is distributing. The less-good news is that the movie itself is no great shakes; as Tomas Perez Turrent tells Bunuel in Objects, "[It i]s the only film of yours in which I find nothing of interest." To which Bunuel replies, "Me neither. It's the worst one I made." However, Cinemateca has two very good Mexican Bunuels on tap—Susana, his adaptation of Devil in the Flesh, and El Bruto, starring a very feral Katy Jurado. I'll report on those when I get them.

NYFF short notes: 'Stellet Licht,' Go Go Tales,' 'Leave Her to Heaven'

What the hell is going on with me? Blogging from film festivals away from home is a fairly simple task, but for some reason I'm falling egregiously behind on covering the home team, e.g., the New York Film Festival, which has in fact been a source of not inconsiderable delight for me. What's my excuse? Or excuses? Okay: Houseguests. My office: there's stuff to do there. The Kingdom. (Ugh.) Darjeeling Limited press day. (Yay!)

Quick notes, then, so you know I'm still here, or there, or somewhere: Glad to catch up with Carlos Reygada's Stellet Licht (from which the above image derives), which I missed at Cannes. Some debate here as to whether the proper translation of the title is Silent Light (which is what it's being called) or Still Light, which is more accurate. Say some. The imagery of the picture is such that it reminded me of something Charlie Haden once said about his approach to playing bass, that is, he wants "every note to be beautiful." Also, if they gave out Oscars for Best Deliberate Use of Lens Flares, this pic would win in a heartbeat. I was pleasantly surprised that the film's Dreyer lift actually worked and didn't grate. (In Reygadas' picture it's more a matter of human generosity than religious faith, as it happens. Sorry to be cryptic here, but rather that than drop a one-word spoiler.)

Ferrarra's Go Go Tales has a ramshackle, shaggy-dog charm that's hard to resist, but by the same token I'm not quite sure why so many critics are turning cartwheels over it. I'm reserving my cartwheels for the beautifully restored print (check out the threads on Ray Collins' suit in the opening scene) of John Stahl's 1945 Leave Her to Heaven. Every frame of this film (okay, maybe not the ones wherein Chill Wills sings) is tinged with an expressionist delirium, and Gene Tierney's ravishing turn as the ultimate Woman Who Loves Too Much ain't the half of it. The completely unreal climactic courtroom scene, with Vincent Price portraying a Torquemada of forbidden love, is one of the dizziest sequences ever.

More soon.

Monday Morning Foreign-Region DVD Report: 'Les Espions'

Here's the venerable Sam Jaffe, sporting the most humiliating headgear since his extended Harpo Marx wig in The Scarlet Empress, submitting to a very old-fashioned psych test in Henri Georges Clouzot's 1957 black-comic thriller Les Espions. Clouzot was coming off a roll when he made this—his three prior films were The Wages of Fear, Les Diaboliques, and The Mystery of Picasso. Les Espions isn't nearly as, shall we say. flashy as those three, returning Clouzot to the French provincial setting of 1942's great Le Corbeau. But this is French provincial life in the post atomic age, or maybe we should just call it the Cold War. Down-on-his-heels sanatorium proprieter/physician Malik (Gerard Sety) gets an offer he can't refuse from a mysterious Colonel Howard (Paul Carpenter, later to play another Colonel in, um, Call Me Bwana): put up a super-secret "patient" for a few days and earn five million francs. The work, for Malik, will be dealing with all the espionage agents sure to descend upon his town and his facility. Malik's life is soon to become a theater (of war? sure...), and he's not sure if the play enacted thereupon will be tragedy or farce.

The really great thing about this picture, at least until it goes all sincere (justifiably, some might argue) near the end, is its dominant climate, which is some kind of ideal mix of Samuel Beckett and Graham Greene weathers. It's encapsulated, I think, pretty well in the screen capture below, part of a tracking shot over which Soviet agent Kaminsky (a reliably dry Peter Ustinov) points out to Malik that all these macs hanging out at the bar are there for the same reason.

One of the film's other delights is its international cast, not an uncommon sight in a European film from this era. What's different is that everybody speaks his own French: Jaffe (in a very funny and creepy turn as a U.S. agent whose cover is as a schoolteacher), Ustinov, Curd Jurgens (as the mystery guest), Carpenter, et.al. Other highlights of the cast include the director's wife Vera as a mostly mute inmate and Last Year at Marienbad's preternaturally thin Sacha Piteoff as an ill-fated operative. Domestic Amazon's got some dealers selling this Region 2 U.K. disc for about 30 bucks, about ten bucks less than you'll pay getting a new copy from Amazon U.K. Either way, it's not cheap. But it's a treat.

NYFF: 'Blade Runner: The Final Cut'

So here's Ridley Scott, once again making like Cezanne going into the Louvre to do a few touch-ups, or something, and promising with his title that THIS IS IT: this no voiceover, Joanna-Cassidy's-face-seamlessly-digitally-superimposed-on-her-stunt-double-in-her-death-scene, two "Too bad she won't live" version closes the book on Blade Runner, and in December we'll have a briefcase of five DVDs to prove it. Now I know a lot of people roll their eyes at this seemingly endless tinkering with the 1982 sci-fi classic, but I look at it rather like Bunuel's Simon contemplates the act of blessing: it's amusing, and harms no one. And it was fun to see the picture again under the optimum projection and comfort conditions the Walter Reade Theater provides.
As with almost all cinematic visions of the future (the notable exception is Lang's Metropolis, which is so irrational it can't date), the older Blade Runner gets, the more a product of its times it seems. The big hair on female leads Sean Young, Darryl Hannah and Cassidy is enough to place the film in a very specific zeit. Also, Leon would have never made it into the Tyrell Corporation headquarters carrying a piece today, so it's rather difficult to believe he will be able to do so in 2019. Also, the shot of Deckard leaning against the window of the electronics shops foreground's the film's failure to predict flat-screen televisions. And those computers in the cop cars! Imagining the future, indeed...

Then there's all the indoor smoking. Of course, that's endemic to the film's mix of sci-fi and noir, which sometimes plays better than others. M. Emmet Walsh's "Talk about beauty and the beast—she's both!" line is still chortle-worthy; on the other hand, the Harrison Ford's fey act, impersonating a "morals" investigator while pursuing Cassidy's replicant, is an apt and funny homage to the Bogart/Malone bookstore pas de deux in The Big Sleep. It's also a sorta sad reminder that Ford, once upon a time, actually seemed to enjoy being a performer. (I noticed something interesting about Ford's character, Deckard, for the first time here: he can't hold his liquor. One cocktail and he's drunk dialing Young's Rachel.)

Of course it all looks great, but I'm gonna leave it to bigger experts to parse exactly what's what in this restoration. (I'm sure said experts will be bountifully represented on the DVD supplements.) I've never been of the gratest-thing-since-sliced-bread school on this movie, but hell, it's a big part of our post-modern mythology and a constant source of visual dazzlement. If the powers that be want to make an event of reviving it every few years, it causes me no pain.

A career tip for young actors from Mr. Malcolm McDowell.

"I tell you this: if you start your career by showing your dick, you're gonna be stuck with that for the rest of your life."

So Mr. McDowell observes in one of three—three!—commentary tracks on the new three—three!—disc "Imperial" edition of the infamous Caligula. Mr. McDowell, of course, knows whereof he speaks, having got his kit off in his very first film, ...if, and undergone similar exposure in A Clockwork Orange. Perhaps he and Ewan McGregor could commiserate some time.

I didn't think there were any forces on earth or in heaven that could compel me to sit through the mess that is Tinto Brass' 1979 film, but the promise of commentaries from not just McDowell but Queen Helen Mirren herself roused my curiosity. (The third commentary is by writer Ernest Volkman, who, in one head-spinning observation, observes that Penthouse mogul Bob Guccione, the film's backer and defining figure, was prone to being taken advantage of by "hustlers." Bob Guccione.) The troika provide their observations on a non-hardcore, "alternate pre-release" version of the film, I suppose in the interest of dignity maintainence. Mirren's commentary is on the polite side, although at one point early on she compares her experience making the film to an acid trip. Master raconteur McDowell, on the other hand, really lets rip. During the scene pictured above, discussing working with the "game" "sweetheart" Teresa Ann Savoy, the actor recalls, "I do remember though, after one of these orgy things, opening my eyes, and literally her vagina was on my nose."

The whole package is curious, fascinating. Liner notes by one R.J. Buffalo have an almost Video Watchdog-like obsessiveness to them, breathlessly detailing potential alternate versions, passionately advocating a full restoration that might not be possible, and meticulously cataloging gaffes before pausing to observe "A reasonable question is, why bother?" It's as if the movie—a famed "disaster" that actually did make money (although who got to keep the dough is probably anybody's guess)—had become the object of cargo cult worship or something. As such, this package is an essential item for anyone assembling a home library of cinematic anomalies.

After dipping into this mammoth thingie, I spent a little time with the new DVD of Cruising. I always thought that when Paul Sorvino asks Pacino, "Lemme ask you something: Have you ever had your cock sucked by a man?" it would have been great had he answered "When do I start?" Thinking of this, I chortle, and My Lovely Wife asks from the kitchen, "What are you watching?" A typical Friday night in the Kenny household.

LOL 'From Beyond'

Festival duties and such have kept me from properly catching up with what's pretty much a bushelful of new horror DVDs from MGM, including Stuart Gordon's more-than-respectable followup to the admitedly untoppable Re-Animator, 1986's From Beyond. Ah, those halcyon days, back when Barbara Crampton (pictured) bid fair to reign as the thinking pervert's scream queen. [Calm down, G., you're starting to sound like Jeffrey Wells...—Ed.] Gordon had a picture at Toronto this year that I managed to miss, but I was one of the few critics who happened to think quite a bit of his recent adaptation of David Mamet's Edmond. I'm also big on his way messed-up 2003 King of the Ants, which was in competition at the Seattle Film Festival when I was on a jury there. If I recall correctly, my fellow jurors liked it a lot too, but we declined to award it anything on the grounds that it was so strong it didn't need our help, or something. I see now that it only ever got a region 2 DVD release and is currently out of my price range. Hmmm.

I see my man Dave Kehr's given the seal of approval to the new, presented-as-it-should-be version of the much-hacked and re-scored Witchfinder General, another title in the MGM cache. I hope to have time to delve into these treasures further before, say, Halloween...

Nice try, Richard Kelly. UPDATED

I see in the L.A. Times that Southland Tales director Richard Kelly is still bitching and moaning about the people who didn't "get" his overbaked would-be magnum opus, and is now pulling an ageist card.

"The movie was made primarily for a younger audience," Kelly added, "people who watch 'South Park,' read the Onion, watch 'The Daily Show,' 'The Simpsons,' read graphic novels. And we were taking it to the toughest audience in the world, much older and kind of snobbier. But it was an honor to be there, to be included, so with the honor you take the punches to the face."

Okay, I'll sign up for that test.

1) "Younger audience"? Damn. I just turned 48. It's not looking too good.

2) "Watch 'South Park'"? Own every season out on DVD. So, yeah.

3) "Read The Onion"? Yeah. Worked with its head writer (least he was last time I checked) Todd Hanson once, too. Do I get extra credit, asshole?

4) "Watch 'The Daily Show'"? On occasion.

5) "Watch 'The Simpsons'"? See question 2.

6) "Read graphic novels"? Not regularly. I'm a bit more old school. Those Jack Kirby DC collections coming out now are boss, as the kids say. I know Watchmen. Do the Persepolis books count?

Sounds like maybe I pass. And yet—yet!—I still believe Southland Tales is a pile of know-something-ish dogshit, and doubt that cutting it by all of 18 minutes and making Justin Timberlake redo his narration ala Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now (or, rather, whatever approximation of Martin Sheen Mr. Timberlake is capable of) is gonna fix it. I'd say you clearly didn't take enough punches to the face, sir.

UPDATE: A slightly younger film critic who shall not be named here adds, in conversation: "Not to mention that a single 'South Park' episode does more in about a half-hour with cardboard and paste than Southland Tales does in its entire two-hours-plus running time."

New York Film Festival: 'The Darjeeling Limited'

There's something simultaneously generous and withholding about Wes Anderson's new film, his fifth feature, a riotously colorful journey across India by train, via which three kind-of orphaned brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman) seek to reconnect after a long estrangement.

While not quite as fanciful as Anderson's prior feature, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zisou (what with its cutaway sets, animated sequences, and whatnot), The Darjeeling Limited is still a contraption of meticulous design and construction. One might as well face it—this is the kind of movie that Wes Anderson makes, and critics who profess to admire Anderson's talent and wit while simultaneously suggesting that he ought to consider emulating, say, the Rossellini of Open City, should really save their breath or ink or pixels. I'll need to see it again to nail this down, but I believe those who complain about the emotional indirectness of this film, that its carefully controlled visual style sterilizes material that would be better served raw, kind of miss the point. Withholding the prospect of a direct connection between the viewer and the brothers is evidence of Anderson's larger purpose—this movie is as much, if not more, about the construction of fictions as it is about its ostensible plot. Wilson's Francis, trying to put his life back together after a suicide attempt, constructs the India trip, with its laminated itineraries, as a happy ending of sorts to his own family saga. Brody's Peter seeks a continuance of the narrative of his late father (the last time the brothers all saw each other was at his funeral) by furtively, obsessively, hanging on to the patriarch's old possessions. Schwartzman's Jack actually is a writer, of short stories—stories which he insists are "entirely fictional." Much of the film's subtext is devoted to both peeling away and reinforcing that claim. Which is why I think Anderson and Fox Searchlight are mistaken in not including Hotel Chevalier, the ten-minute short that bills itself as "Part One of The Darjeeling Express" in its theatrical release—it's being screened for press and will be included on the DVD. The piece, aside from being lovely and funny in and of itself, sets up Darjeeling's subtler theme beautifully. Without it, Darjeeling remains a beauty, but with it, the feature gains stronger legs.