Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
The Seattle International Film Festival is finally winding down, but reviews are still trickling in. First up is a double-header of cult items, one of which I’ve seen and didn’t dig (VERSUS) and one of which I’m still dying to see (MAY). Let’s see what this guy thought:
Harry,
I have never sent a review into AICN before, because I didn't think I could accurately express my feelings about a film in print. However, I have seen two films at this years Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) that were so good that they forced me to write reviews.
The first film is Versus, a Japanese movie directed by Ryuhei Kitamura.
This film combines Yakuza and Zombie films, throws in a dash of mysticism, mixes it all up and spits out a great film that is more than the sum of its parts.
The plot is pretty simple. Yakuza go to cursed forest, there are dead bodies in the forest, dead bodies come back to life as zombies and the Yakuza fight the zombies. Then the movie throws a twist into the plot, having to do with fate, reincarnation, and an attempt to open a doorway to another world. This part of the story is handled very well, giving the audience just enough information, but not trying to explain too much, a mistake many supernatural films make.
This is a film where a character finds a dead body that is wearing a black leather trench coat. The only reason for this is so that the character can put it on and look cool for the rest of the film. He does look cool and this film is just plain cool. The acting is uniformly good, the action sequences are thrilling and violent, and the cinematography is great.
To sum up: Beg, borrow and steal to see this movie.
The second film is May, written and directed by Lucky McKee. I didn't have any expectations for this film (and neither did anyone else, as the theater was only half full) and it completely floored me. This is a brilliant piece of film making, one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, as a lot of the enjoyment of the film comes from watching the characters develop and the story unfold.
The film is the story of May (played by Angela Bettis), a young woman who grew up with a ridiculing mother, a lazy eye that lead to her being teased by other children and a doll as her only friend. As a grown up, she is emotionally immature and has very few social skills. She works as an assistant at a veterinary hospital and she falls in love with a mechanic (played by Jeremy Sisto) who works near by. They start up a tentative relationship that is fueled by her infatuation and his fascination with how unusual she is. The relationship doesn't last and May is devastated. She starts another relationship, this time with a women (played by Anna Faris) who works in the hospital with her and this relationship ends badly as well. This leads May to decide that if she can't find the perfect friend, then she will make one, using the best parts from different people.
The movie has plenty of VERY black humor and a good amount of blood. However, it plays most of the heavy, emotional scenes straight, which lets you feel for the characters and understand their motivations. The entire cast is wonderful, but special notice needs to go to Angela Bettis. Her portrayal of May's awkwardness and her devastation when her relationships fall apart is both wonderful and heart breaking and as a result you understand why she does what she does.
To sum up: Sell your soul to see this movie.
Thanks,
Brian
This next review is enormous, but I’m pleased to be able to publish it, since I’m a big fan of CALIFORNIA SPLIT, one of Robert Altman’s least frequently discussed movies, and one of the films that I think he got most right. This is from his mid-‘70s fertile period that also produced the masterful NASHVILLE and MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (out on DVD in the next few weeks, I believe, and well worth picking up if you haven’t seen it before) and THE LONG GOODBYE. I wish I’d had a chance to see this one on the bigscreen, but this review does a good job of summing the experience up:
Hey Harry,
I'm writing from up here in Seattle where amidst the hoopla and droopla of the SIFF there is a Salute to the Seventies mini-festival showcasing such glories as Five Easy Pieces and Badlands. These are great films and the opportunity to see them up there on the big screen (well, not so big screen of the Grand Illusion cinema which is sponsoring this Salute) is one that I truly cherish. All in all this would be pretty cool news but what noses this into ultra-cool news is the film I was privileged to see last night. I have been aching to see Robert Altman's "California Split" since I first got into Altman and read about this film when I was about 16 or 17. However, in what is one of the worst cinematic oversights of this kind, this film is NOT AVAILABLE on VHS or DVD. When I saw it on the roster of films, I freaked. At long last my opportunity to watch this "lost" masterpiece. Altman made this one in 1972 during his peak years from MASH up to Nashville. This streak also produced McCabe & Mrs. Miller (shown earlier in the Salute to the Seventies series) and The Long Goodbye. What a streak that was. We got Altman's take on the war film, the western, the Raymond Chandler detective story and with California Split, the gambling movie. After seeing it last night I would say it is THE gambling movie. I thought The Gambler with James Caan from a script by James Toback was end-all-be-all but I give Altman enormous credit for not ever once soapboxing and moralising, turning the plight of the gambler into an allegory of modern man's need to prove himself in a world made for convenience. On the other hand, he doesn't shy away from the depravities of this underworld the way a film like Rounders does.
The film is, above all, a character study, like all the great Altman films. It follows Billy and Charlie, two compulsive gamblers played by George Segal and Elliot Gould who were never better than they are here and are SO GOOD here that it makes you wonder how they didn't transcend the 70's the way some of their contemporaries like Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman did. I have always loved the Elliot Gould of the seventies. He created a very distinctive leading man for that era, somewhere between a soul brother and a hippie with an equal measure of Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart thrown in. You can see why Altman used him in so much, even bringing him in for a cameo as himself in Nashville. Gould's Charlie in California Split is one of my favorite fictional creations. He's not a gambling jock genius like Damon's character in Rounders and he's not hell-bent on destroying himself like Caan's character from The Gambler. I was reminded more of Sidney from Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight, except without the dark past and hardened wisdom. Like Sidney he knows all the angles because gambling is his profession, he knows the rythms of the games, one quick look at a table full of card sharks and he can nail their personalities onto their tired faces. But Gould's Charlie has a loose, ambling electricity that he can't help to exude. Its like the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan hitch-hiked to Vegas put down his guitar and picked up a deck of cards. A guy like this could only come out of the wonderful world of 1970's film.
Although Charlie, or rather his personality, is the main thrust of the film, the story centers on George Segal's character Billy. Now Billy is a sort of closet gambler up until he meets Charlie. He has a day job working for a small independent weekly newspaper in L.A. and he just kind of skirts on the very edge of the the really sleazy side of gambling. There is an attraction but Billy has a certain amount of common sense that the film does not overlook. You might call him the straight man of this buddy picture. After the two men are held up by a sore loser outside a casino they buy each other drinks and make bets about who can name all the seven dwarves. Billy ends up crashing at Charlies place which he shares with two part-time prostitutes who pour Fruit Loops for the guys and apply hot shaving creme to their bruises. This first half of the film is all play as Billy gets sucked up gleefully in Charlie's orbit and fantastical bets are made and won. Its such a knock-out high that when the chips finally fall for Billy half-way through its quite a jolt of reality. Bookies come to collect on serious debts and Charlie has skipped out of town without a word. The cold, drab under-belly of compulsive gambling flops out of the pants of the film and puts a big pinch on the excitement. Altman now turns to the real work of the life, the little penny-ante games in dingy backroom parlors or basements of some guy's house while his kids are watching cartoons in the living room. Trying to hustle up the necessary dough, walking out all haggard into the morning from playing all night and still thousands of dollars short. There is a big trip to Reno at the end, a last final gasp at glory and the way Altman handles this out to its final conclusion is so low-key and adept, ending on not so much on a somber note as one of clarity or maybe even just resignation.
Favorite Altman touches include Gwen Welles as one of the prostitutes in her zip-up kiddie pajamas, Charlie's reaction to having his nose bloodied, the reaction of an innocent bystander in a toilet stall during the fight that leads up to that bloody nose, the poker video that Charlie watches at the beginning of the film that we hear over the crowd and the games during the rest of this sequence. And I must comment breifly on the sound in this picture. We all know what a pioneer Altman was with sound, having dialogue over-lap and I'm told this is the film on which he first recorded with an 8-track, capturing every nuance of conversation and background noise and filtering it into the scene just perfectly so that we always concentrate on what is important but we are also free to wander around with our ears just as we are free to wander around with our eyes. The film just teams with life, it is so vivid, every scene is brimming with personality and the feeling of actually being there watching that roulette spin and hearing that guy down on the left side of the screen with the big handle-bar mustache cough into his hand before he crosses his fingers on the bet.
California Split is the best movie I've seen all summer. I know that's not really fair but, to most film-goers this film is practically new anyway, having been unavailable for so long. I am so blessed that there is a really cool and aware film community here that would sponsor such a festival and showcase a hard-to-find gem like California Split. I fell in love with this movie last night. It is my favorite Altman film alongside McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Although I am a great fan of the directors I haven't been very excited by anything he's done lately. Cookie's Fortune, Dr. T & the Women were mere mediocrities, enjoyable but half-assed. Gosford Park was just one of many of the highly over-rated films of last year. Uniformly praised and awarded, I felt slighted. It was nothing more than a mediocre retread of Rules of the Game. It was a bore. There was none of good old subversive social criticism and barbed Altman wit that the critics promised. I was on bad terms with Altman lately. But man oh man, California Split shocked me with how effortlessly great a film can be. Just seamless, a pleasure from beginning to end. And a distinctively Altman pleasure.
Well, I've rambled far and wide across this film. I don't know if you can use this but if you've read this far thank you for your time. I just had to share my experience with someone whom I thought might dig. If you have any sort of connection or bargaining power or even the meakest little voice that you can throw into the right camp that would get this film onto vhs or dvd I would make all sorts of outrageous promises that I would never be able to make good on (but would try my damndest). I can't wait to see this again but the last showing was last night. Now its gone.....pfft.....back into the oblivion it has been subjected to all these years. It is more than a sham its a shame. If you do decide to use this or any part of it, call me William Miller.
Thanks, everyone, for continuing to do such a good job of covering the full range of diversity of what’s showing at that festival. Great job!
"Moriarty" out.
