Class is in session ... again

If you thought spring break was going to be, well, a break -- then you obviously do not attend class at Dennis Cozzalio's Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, where vacations mean another hearty film quiz. Mr. Cozzalio has done this a few times before (he recently posted some of the best answers from his last quiz), and each time I was conspicuously absent. But this week I was in my seat and even turned in my results early, so take a look and by all means take Professor Iwin Corey's Foremostly Authoritative Spring Break Movie Quiz for yourself! Related: I am happy to announce that Dennis will be gracing this site with his presence for a future Friday Screen Test, stay tuned.

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1) What movie did you have to see multiple times before deciding whether you liked or disliked it?
I saw Eyes Wide Shut on three consecutive nights when it first came out. Each time I walked out with a different impression of it, and it wasn't really until my fifth viewing when I really wrapped my head around just what I it worked so well and what Kubrick was trying to say with it.

2) Inaugural entry into the Academy of the Overrated
The Blob (1958)

3) Favorite sly or not-so-sly reference to another film or bit of pop culture within another film.
There's a scene in Gremlins 2 of Leonard Maltin reviewing the movie Gremlins only to be attacked by gremlins. This attack is supposed to be happening during the time period of Gremlins 2, which raises way too many questions: Why was Leonard Maltin taping a review for a movie that came out six years ago? In the Gremlins 2 universe, was Gremlins actually a documentary, since the characters in it exist in Gremlins 2 and obviously lived through the original movie? Did the events of Gremlins 2 inspire a similar documentary? Why didn't any of the characters in Gremlins 2 simply say 'didn't you see the movie Gremlins?' when trying to explain the monsters?

4) Favorite Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger movie
'I Know Where I'm Going!'

5) Your favorite Oscar moment
Elizabeth Taylor groaning before announcing that The Silence of the Lambs had beaten out Beauty and the Beast for Best Picture in 1991.

6) Hugo Weaving or Guy Pearce?
Even though I've been mightily impressed by Pearce's recent roles, I have to go with Hugo: He's Nigerian, he has The Eyebrows, he has The Voice, he's Nigerian.

7) Movie that you feel gave you the greatest insight into a world/culture/person/place/event that you had no understanding of before seeing it
Boys Don't Cry, I had never actually believed that people lived in Nebraska.

8) Favorite Samuel Fuller movie
Underworld U.S.A.

9) Monica Bellucci or Maria Grazia Cucinotta?
N/A

10) What movie can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Thankfully this is a long list for me, and it includes: The Royal Tenenbaums, The 'burbs, Ride the High Country, Ghostbusters and This is Spinal Tap.

11) Conversely, what movie can destroy a day’s worth of good humor just by catching a glimpse of it while channel surfing?
Any movie completely lacking in joy or creativity, this list is always headed by Last House on the Left, though thankfully I've never seen it on TV.

12) Favorite John Boorman movie
Point Blank, one of my all-time favorites.

13) Warren Oates or Bruce Dern?
Wow this is a tough one, but I'll have to go with Warren Oates because I've almost seen his entire body of work, while I have quite a ways to go with Dern. I also loved how Oates worked his whole career as a background character until Sam Peckinpah finally found a leading role that suited him perfectly ...

14) Your favorite aspect ratio
I wish I had a preference on this, but as long as it's not panned and scanned I'm happy.

15) Before he died in 1984, Francois Truffaut once said: “The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it.” Is there any evidence that Truffaut was right? Is it Truffaut’s tomorrow yet?
I don't think that future is possible, nor has it ever been because films for a long time have been born from a wide variety of influences and rarely exhibit any more than a sliver of who is truly making them.

16) Favorite Werner Herzog movie
Fitzcarraldo by a nose over Aguirre: Wrath of God.

17) Favorite movie featuring a rampaging, oversized or otherwise mutated beast, or beasts
Well, I know that Troll 2 is certainly my favorite movie featuring 'monstrous beasts.'

18) Sandra Bernhard or Sarah Silverman?
I've never appreciated anything Sandra Bernhard has done, although seeing her drop into a vat of molten gold in Hudson Hawk came pretty darn close.

19) Your favorite, or most despised, movie cliché
I despise the cookie cutter that previews for the last two decades or so have all been put through. There used to be a creativity at work in previews (especially teaser trailers) that has long been pushed to the side in favor of the same tired formula for each genre (this may require its own post someday).

20) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-- yes or no?
Absolutely yes. It was the first real movie I ever watched and I will always hold it in high regard partly because of that. It's possible that I've seen it more than any other movie, and I will continue watching it around once a year until it becomes unpractical.

21) Favorite Nicholas Ray movie
They Live By Night

22) Inaugural entry into the Academy of the Underrated
The Blob (1988)

23) Your favorite movie dealing with the subject of television
Robocop

24) Bruno Ganz or Patrick Bauchau?
N/A

25) Your favorite documentary, or non-fiction, film
American Movie, each laugh it elicits is multiplied at least 3x when you realize it's 100% true.

26) According to Orson Welles, the director’s job is to “preside over accidents.” Name a favorite moment from a movie that seems like an accident, or a unintended, privileged moment. How did it enhance or distract from the total experience of the movie?
In the VHS version of Pee Wee's Big Adventure there is a strange gaffe that we see as the result of it being filmed in open matte. During PeeWee's drive down the careening road, we see crazy signs whizzing past him on the dark road and in the matted widescreen version that was seen in theaters this was all fine and dandy. But for VHS, it was open matte so we see that the signs are actually on rails being pushed past the camera. This was unintended, but on some level it actually works with the camp level in the film and the celebration of Hollywood cliches at the climax.

27) Favorite Wim Wenders movie
The End of Violence

28) Elizabeth Pena or Penelope Cruz?
N/A

29) Your favorite movie tag line (Thanks, Jim!)
'Nine men who came too late and stayed too long...' -- The Wild Bunch

30) As a reader, filmgoer, or film critic, what do you want from a film critic, or from film criticism? And where do you see film criticism in general headed?
Film criticism: To treat each film like they should treat their readers, with some respect.

FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: Alan Lopuszynski

A former member of The Industry, Alan Lopuszynski has traveled far beyond the reaches of Hollywood (present whereabouts: somewhere in Western Pa.) to give us Burbanked, where he dishes on all the muck and melancholy of popular culture. At Alan's site, you won't find mere movie reviews -- but pleasing skewery of trailers, one-sheets and all that's fit to broadcast. Alan writes with the authority of someone who has been there, which give his posts a bit more punch than most. As someone who has always gobbled up trailers, it's easy for me to feast on Alan's teaser takes (loved this one on the upcoming crapfest Perfect Stranger, and his classic take on Terminator's is dead-on).

SNEAKY GOOD: 'I can tell you about four dozen reasons that Sneakers is a dumb, hacky, contrived movie where it looks like every person in it is slumming for a paycheck; what I can't tell you is why I love it so. There are few things as ridiculous as the idea that 4'2'' Ben Kingsley, holding a gun that looks like a big shiny toy in his hand, would look threatening, but I just dig the hell out of it. Silly.'

LET'S GO TO WORK: 'Having worked int he movie industry, it was a requirement to go see everything, all the time. This functioned not only so that I could be up to date on the good stuff that everyone was talking about, but also to inform me as to what was bad so that I was duly equipped to crush my enemies. These days, moviegoing is not based on compulsion, but rather on what I want, what I'm interested in, what I can make time for and what is truly meaningful to me as a human being. That means I go about one-eighth as often as I'd like.'

OH NO YOU DINT!: 'My brother spoiled the ending of The Empire Strikes Back for me, and after I watched it I wouldn't have minded having a group discussion with him and my fists and his breadbasket . . . that movie probably was one of my earliest subjects of film discussion with friends. All of us had cut our teeth on Star Wars and this rather soundly rocked our worlds.

YESTERDAY NEVER DIES: 'I was too young to see a lot of the groundbreaking movies of the '70s in their original theatrical runs -- A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Sergio Leone -- but in the spirit of time travel, I would choose to go back and see the original Terminator in the theater. Watching it for the first time late at night on a crappy dormitory TV was fun and all, but it must have been pretty exciting on the big screen, and I wouldn't mind getting that first time back.'

WELCOME TO THE MATRIX REPULSION: 'I did think that the Matrix backlash was more harsh than it needed to be. I agree that Reloaded and Revolutions have the kinds of problems that only a self-hating gender-bending filmmaker could conjure, but at the same time I think that all three Matrix movies as a whole represent something rather extraordinary, unlike anything we had seen before. Ultimately, the trilogy is a pretty amazing cinematic achievement if we can remove ourselves from the hype and the expectation and our own sense of "what it should have been."'

SEARCHING FOR SOME SCARES: 'I seem to be craving a lot of horror lately, and I've been playing catch-up on recent films like the Saw series, as well as older stuff like the original TExas Chainsaw Massacre. I think the remake/reimagine surge of the past couple years has sent me searching for surprises, for shocks and the unexpected, but I've not been entirely successful at finding them.'

LIKE A STEEL TRAP: 'I use movies all the time to help improve my memory. Like when I wonder why Hollywood keeps announcing remake after remake I can remember how it's done well when I watch John Carpenter's The Thing. That one is also useful in helping me remember John Carpenter. And I have a whole bunch of movies that help me remember olden times before Hannibal Lecter became a cartoon character, and before James Cameron stopped making movies that were fun to watch.'

ROYALLY IMPRESSED: 'I hoped [Casino Royale] would be good, but I was not prepared for how amazed and thrilled and giddy it made me feel. Bond movies haven't held surprises or human drama for a long time, and whoever had the thought to just strip this character down and see how he handles himself deserves to be given a warm frothy beverage of some kind. Or maybe a hug.'

FAVORITE MOVIE?: 'I always think I can do this -- and I usually fall back on Raiders of the Lost Ark being the first and foremost movie that informed my young blah blah blah -- but the truth is that any combination of mood, circumstance, heartache, anger or fear can trigger the desire to rewatch a favorite movie, and the thing that meets those needs today may not hit the spot at all the next time. That having been said, I'm just about never in the mood to watch Driving Miss Daisy.'

Contact DVD Panache if you are interested in contributing to Friday Screen Test.

Analog Nation

Watching Zodiac, it's hard not to feel wistful about that age when information was a highly regarded commodity -- it was not at our fingertips, but usually at the library or in an encyclopedia. Much attention has been paid to David Fincher's brilliant portrayal of the limits of pre-Internet crime work (Matt Zoller Seitz and Jim Emerson have great posts about this topic) and how it may have helped one of the most notorious killers slip through the cracks, but the scenes that really fascinated me were those which portrayed the San Francisco Chronicle offices of the 1970s. Although I loved the movie, the selfish newspaper man in me wanted Fincher to show more of the wonder of following such a glamorous case in the primitive print age before computers.

Thankfully Fincher lets us spend a great deal of time in the Chronicle newsroom, which except for computers replacing typewriters is probably exactly how the Chronicle looks today (newsrooms are like grocery stores -- they're all different, but the same -- every daily newsroom has mostly wall-less workspaces with tons of flourescent lighting). One detail I loved really showed how Fincher did his homework: did you spy the pneumatic tubes in the background of the newsroom? I can't imagine how cool that would be to use those in a frantic environment like that, and I was praying that Fincher would give us a shot of Greysmith or Avery getting some urgent message through the pneumatic tube.

But back to what Fincher didn't show, and what I've been imagining ever since I saw Zodiac. The methods newspapers used to put their product together back then is as dead as the dinosaurs -- even the small weekly in Santa Claus, Indiana has upgraded to today's modern plating and printing technology. Before the digital age of newspaper production, things were harder, but also more romantic and artistic -- and if you want a good idea of how it was done, watch the opening credits sequence in the 1974 Billy Wilder classic The Front Page. That movie took place in the 1920s, but the methods and technology that the Chronicle used in the 1970s virtually the same.

(I realize I'm getting away from anything relating to film, but stay with me, I'm building to something ... I think)

My favorite newspaper line of any movie is in Superman: The Movie when Perry White says to Jimmy Olsen, 'take this to composition!' Back when Superman was made, there was actually something called the composition department, but now if you walk into a newspaper and ask for this area, you will only get blank stares. The composition department represented what today is handled with a single mouse, and in the early 20th century it utilized the linotype -- which some call one of the most complicated machines ever invented, and in the 70s had evolved to the more high-tech phototypesetting.

For a newspaper junkie like me, I immediately connected the technological brick walls the various police departments in Zodiac were smashing into, with the similar 'impairments' that Graysmith, Avery and co. had to hurdle at their day job inside the newspaper. Just as detectives today would go apeshit having to ferry from precinct to precinct in search of one file folder, today's reporters and copy editors would be lost inside the Chronicle newsroom of the 1970s. This is why I was quietly hoping for a quick scene in the primitive composition department for a shot of the next day's Zodiac headline before it went to print.

Zodiac takes us back to a time when the value of information was peaking, and it was anyone's for the taking -- be it police or journalists. It's a police movie first, but I would have loved to see more of the newspaper side -- possibly the pressure of the Chronicle wanting Avery's stories to remain exclusive, without the other Bay Area dailies being tipped off or the Associated Press jumping in.

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Something along these lines had been stuck in my head even before I saw Zodiac -- do we take for granted the pleasures that the pre-Internet age offered? What about in regards to movie watching? It's hard to imagine life without IMDB.com, endless reviews and the film blog community. I would say that the Internet has enhanced my film tastes, because I've been turned on to so many movies that I wouldn't have ordinarily discovered. Also, you can't underestimate how much the Web has enhanced the buildup for movies, since we have knowledge of productions seemingly when they're just a concept on a wall. I've debated how a blog-a-thon on this subject could work, but I'm still narrowing down just what the exact topic would be. Stay tuned.

FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: Joseph B.

If you, like I, hunted around New Year's for the best 'year end' blog post, then you may have stumbled upon It's a Mad Mad Blog, where Joseph B. submitted 40 of his favorite 'moments' (not movies) of 2006. It's a fantastic entry and Joseph followed it up with a nutritious Top 20 of 2006. Such surprises are not uncommon at Joseph's blog, where he routinely writes on intriguing, original topics -- his latest gem is an exploration on the similarities between 'The Big Lebowski' and 'Cutter's Way,' a wonderful connection that I never made during my multiple viewings. Joseph also submitted one of the best entries to the Lovesick Blog-a-thon at 100 Films, where he took on The Most Romantic Movie You've Never Seen.

T&A & CONVERSATION: 'I can remember watching "Wild Things" with a bunch of friends one night. About 3/4 of the way through (in an incredible scene by the pool) someone hit the pause button and we immediately began talking through the plot points and just how in the hell did we arrive at this point? Always fun when a film fucks with a group like that.'

DEAD AND LOVING IT: 'For straight up gore something like "Demons" or "Dead Alive". But if I want something to really crawl under someone's skin, I'd toss up Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Pulse" that builds up an unbearable sense of dread. Also, any one of Matthew McConaughy's recent flicks like "Failure To Launch" does the trick.'

JACKPOT: '"Casino" 1995 by Martin Scorsese. A near perfect film in every respect.'

WE'RE ALL NERDS IN HERE: 'I do a very nerdy thing and keep a list of all the films I see in the theaters throughout a given year. As of January 5, I'd seen 136 films on the big screen in 2006. If you add to that the revolving door known as Netflix, that number triples. I'd guess I watch 5-6 movies a week, interspersed with some fantastic TV watching.'

IT'S ONLY A MOVIE: 'The first film that I remember seeing as more than just a "movie," but something with an intellect behind the whole affair, staging the action and arranging the camera moves, was Scorsese's "Good fellas."'

TRUE ROMANCE: 'I've had a major affinity for director Tony Scott for years now, and I can't figure out why. I once wrote a 3000 word essay analyzing and dissecting his films (in the late 90's I believe, sadly lost 2 computers ago and a message board now floating in cyber space). So, when films like "Domino", "Enemy of the State" or "Deja Vu" creep up on my favorites lists, it always baffles some people. And I have a hard time justifying that these films are more than popcorn action flicks.'

YOU BETTER RECOGNIZE: 'I went into "A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints" with little expectations, simply because there were very few words about the film floating around the internet or print outlets. I knew it starred Robert Downey Jr. which is usually enough to gain my money. I left the theater amazed and shocked by how searing and truthful the entire film felt. It quickly became one of my favorite films of last year and earmarked the director, Dito Montiel, as a wonderful prospect to follow. I can't gush enough about this one.'

MOTHER!: Hitchcock's "Psycho." I think it'd be fascinating to observe the ripple effect of controversy (both socially and cinematically) that this film had on that time period.

ART HOUSE CONFIDENTIAL: 'I consider myself a fan of the "art house" fare, so when critically celebrated filmmakers such as Bela Tarr, The Dardenne Brothers or Apichatpong Weerasethakul (to name three) produce a film that wrangles the attention and admiration of almost every respected film critic in the country, what am I missing? I loved the 3 hour film called "The Death of Mr. Lazarascu" released last year, but have yet to make it all the way through any one of Bela Tarr's long snoozefests. How different can these two 'demanding' art films be? That's always dumbfounding to me.'

Contact DVD Panache if you are interested in contributing to Friday Screen Test.

Linklater, with fries

Director Richard Linklater has grown an amusingly varied and at times bewildering body of work. On one side he's the maker of such small-budget classics as 'Slacker,' 'Dazed and Confused,' 'Before Sunrise' and 'Waking Life' while some of his other credits appear to be that of a director-for-hire: 'Bad News Bears,' 'The School of Rock' and 'The Newton Boys.' At the same time, Linklater made his name by making quality, no frills movies from meager budgets but now he is known as the pushing-the-envelope artist who invented his own style of rotoscoping for 'A Scanner Darkly' and 'Waking Life.'

In the middle of all this is 'Fast Food Nation,' released this week on DVD. Though it did not receive the acclaim of some of his better known films, FFN broke through some significant filmmaking canons on its way to becoming a memorable movie. It is based on the 2001 best-selling book 'Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal,' a non-fiction, heavily-researched history and examination of the industry. Here is where Linklater's novel approach comes in: though it is based on the book, FFN is fiction and while it is designed to educate and inspire viewers against the unseen evils of the food industry, it is far from a documentary.

This may be why FFN flew under the radar upon its release, because it could have been easily confused as just another documentary like 'Super-size Me' or 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' Nope, FFN is a weaving narrative that takes elements of the global fast food machine and shrinks it down to the human level -- mostly confined to a small Colorado town. Before entering Cody, Colo., we meet Don Henderson, a sharp but naive executive at Mickey's, a national fast food chain that competes with McDonald's and Burger King. Mickey's CEO puts Henderson on assignment after a group of college students found alarming amounts of fecal matter in Mickey's hamburger patties.

Henderson sets out for Cody, where Mickey's primary meat supplier is located. It is here where FFN blossoms and we meet a variety of characters who are connected to Mickey's in various ways: a handful of recent illegal immigrants who are employed at the meat plant, teenagers who work at the local Mickey's, a rancher who knows the bullying ways of the plant and college students who think they can fight the plant's evils. Linklater could have taken his movie in a 'Traffic'-like direction of quick cross-cutting between stories, pausing long enough to deliver another message, but instead we spend a surprising amount of time away from the industry -- getting to know the characters during their real life hours.

FFN wisely strays away from characters spouting statistics and relies on imagery and storytelling to show how dangerous life in the meat cutting business can be, and how bleak life is at the very bottom of the totem pole. Since they're illegals, the meat plant workers know they're readily replaceable and brutally brave their horrific jobs (Linklater plays his hand masterfully here, holding his killing floor trump card until it will have the most emotional impact). On the other side are the Mickey's teenage workers, who put no value on their jobs, since the only way to go is up.

Those hoping for the shock of modern documentaries, with a narrator who holds our hand through the horrific truths may be disappointed by the film's surface. Taken as a whole, FFN paints a disturbing picture of a vicious cycle where the various sides cannot see or affect each other. Linklater's boldest stroke speaks volumes about his abilities as a filmmaker: FFN's most lasting image is not inside a restaurant or meat plant, but actually a sedentary cattle range where -- despite being apparently freed by young activists -- the cows glumly stay put, unwilling and uninterested in whatever exists beyond their fences.

The DVD
'Fast Food Nation' arrives in anamorphic widescreen with a good set of extras. The highlights of the special features have to be the series of slick Webtoons that educate on the horrors of big business meat manufacturing. In the three prong 'The Meatrix,' we follow Leo (a pig) from his small family farm to "the real world" as presented to him by Moobeus, which includes de-beaked chickens and cows who never see a sliver of sunlight. The cartoons are well made and deliver some cold facts in an entertaining but upfront manner (see www.themeatrix.com). 'Manufacturing Fast Food Nation' is a 55-minute documentary about the making of the film that should have been around 20 minutes. Most of the running time is taken up by un-narrated behind the scenes footage that rarely rises to anything worthwhile. The meaty bits of the docu include Linklater and friends, explaining the process of their unorthodox adaptation (a producer explains that they literally "threw out" the book after taking the title and general theme). Linklater and screenwriter (and author the book) Eric Schosser provide a commentary, that is typical of the laid-back friendly style that graces other Linklater DVDs. And like Linklater's other commentaries, it is easy to listen to, but rarely provides any dramatic insights.

This review is also published at TalkingMoviezzz.com

Black Snake Groans

In his coming-out movie, Hustle and Flow, writer/director Craig Brewer provided one of the year's best scenes. The bare-bones creation of music -- starting with the lyrics, gradually getting a beat, then a melody, until finally a song was born. I think I watched that scene three times in a row, and each time I was amazed at how Brewer was able to give the sequence a natural progression, showing that when creative minds are put to good use, new art can be born in a matter of minutes. I look at Black Snake Moan as a similar exercise, but this time it's a tribute to blues music -- a genre Brewer shows needs much more than simply lyrics and a melody, but for the artist to use their emotional extremes as an instrument of its own.

When it all comes together, in a crumbling but still lively blues hall somewhere in Tennessee, Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) lights up the place with a hard, menacing number that contains all the strange amounts of anger, strength and salvation he had felt in the past week. It's a scene that almost makes you want to get up and dance in the theater aisle, or at least yell the profane lyrics along with Lazarus. Black Snake Moan shows hints of the sex/race exploitation movie that commercials and promos make it out to be, but it's ultimately about redemption through a microphone -- not a chain locked to a radiator and a delicate waist.

Those last three elements are what get the most face-time in the previews, but they take a backseat to Lazarus and his guitar. Lazarus is a stubborn Tennessee farmer, whose favorite line is 'ain't no way you're gonna move me!' The key word in that quote is 'you,' because Lazarus is intent on solving problems on his own, or through the Bible. Yet there aren't many words in the Bible to explain what to do with a beat-up, sex-starved, half-naked floozie who is dropped near Lazarus' house as if from above. What Lazarus does know is that according to the Bible, there's no reason why Rae (Christina Ricci) should hunger for sex like a hummingbird for nectar. His controversial solution is to put Rae on a rehab program with no Britney Spears-walk-out clause: chain, radiator.

It's in this device that Black Snake Moan will win or lose with the audience. To me, it seems to function more for visual means than anything within the story, while others might see it as Lazarus' way of making Rae experience a normal sex drive. The chain scenes weighted the movie down too much for me, and I had to strain to find anything engaging Rae's plight after the first few minutes. Ricci, looking nothing like the curvy sprite of her early career, does a fine job as Rae -- but it's hard to find too much to like about her. Lazarus sees her as a soul capable of salvation, but do we? Rae kissed her boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) goodbye to Iraq in the film's early moments, but it's never apparent what their love is, besides satisfying Rae's appetite (Ronnie is seldom onscreen, and given little to do besides furrow his brow).

It's Lazarus that's easy to root for, as he was once a blues showman in this desolate place, and shows an occasional flare of being the town's troubled hero. Unfortunately, possibly for Brewer's need to 'pulp-up' his movie, Lazarus is given baffling moments such as telling us about losing his virginity to an overweight second cousin, and moments of cruelty that seem out of place with his character. Black Snake Moan's finest moments are when we see Lazarus as a bluesman, such as playing Rae a tune while lightning crashes outside and the power goes in and out, or the aforementioned club scene.

When Lazarus belts out that last song and is on top of his game again, it's easy to chant along with him, but it's hard to feel the sense of his journey because Rae is still largely the same person. Even more troubling is the fact that Lazarus brutally imprisoned Rae, but after the first few hours she appears resigned to the situation and becomes the Harold to Lazarus' Maude rather rotely and unremarkably. Brewer tries to juice up Rae by dropping in a cold subplot about her mother and possibly explain her sickly condition, but it ends up feeling forced mainly due to the lack of script space devoted to it (Rae's confrontation with her mother ends cheaply with nothing resolved). Lazarus' performance is the highlight of the movie, but we arrive there by slogging through an album of songs whose choruses never seem to end. In a movie powered by music, Black Snake Moan only has a single to show for its efforts.

Note: This review is also published at TalkingMoviezzz.com

FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: David Lowery

Please do not judge David Lowery. Yes, he lives in that idyllic American Bohemia known as Austin, Texas where he makes his way as a filmmaker. And since he is a filmmaker, that puts him a few spots ahead of all of us who maintain that if given the chance we would produce a film at least on par with Uwe Boll. But David has been nice enough since 2004 to chronicle his film journey (and criticisms) on Drifting: A Director's Log. What sets Drifting apart from other blogs is that it allows readers to view his movies digitally. David's movies are stylish, original and are a window into the mind of an artist clearly trying to pave his own creative trail, not follow in the footsteps of others. While watching the nearly word-less The Outlaw Son, I found myself moving closer and closer to my monitor, as I (correctly) smelled a satisfying payoff on the horizon of its short running time. My favorite work of his is Some Analog Lines, an essay film that charts his earliest days of a filmmaker and ponders (among other things) the different mediums of filmmaking and how they are viewed by the artist and the viewer.

STOP THE PRESSES: 'I need to stop reading reviews and watching trailers. That said, I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Stranger Than Fiction. I went in expecting to be mildly entertained by Will Ferrell yelling loudly and obnoxiously at that omniscient narrator, and left feeling genuinely moved. It's not a perfect movie by any means, but the ratio of expectation to satisfaction made for one of my favorite moviegoing experiences this past year.'

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP: 'Watching six movies a day at a film festival makes up for those rare weeks where I won't see anything at all. Generally speaking, and factoring in my completely irregular sleeping schedule, I'd say the average is something close to 1.5.'

TRUST GRANDPA SETH: 'I've always loved good bad movies, especially in crowded theaters at midnight. I used to watch an old Plan 9 From Outer Space VHS all the time, and in junior high even attempted to stage my own take-off of it with a borrowed video camera, paper plate flying saucers, a giant homemade octopus and a few smoke bombs that landed me in hot water with the parents. But I digress. I just learned of a film called Troll 2 that is apparently the best bad movie of all time. I'm going to see it on the big screen later this week (at the stroke of twelve, of course) to confirm.' (Faithful readers know of my affection for Troll 2, read David's account of his midnight screening here -- Ed.)

YOU SEEN THIS ONE BEFORE?: 'I would love to be in the audience for the premieres of The Thing or Frankenstein, just to witness all the people screaming and, even better, fainting. But I'd probably stick with sentimental thrills and go with the first screening of Star Wars at the Mann's Chinese on May 25, 1977. Also, taking a jump into the future, I'd like to attend a screening of one of my own films with temporary creative amnesia, so that I could experience it completely objectively.'

HEY, WANNA SEE SOMETHING REALLY SCARY?: '... things that scare me don't tend to have the same effect on other folks. They usually laugh at me. At which point I show them Cannibal Holocaust out of spite. But yeah, I get scared really easily (and angry at the filmmaker when those scares turn out to be all too cheap- shame on them for exploiting my willingness to be legitimately shaken!), so it's hard to judge. I think Todd Browning's Freaks is always a good choice - it may not be scary, per se, but it has maintained an uncanny ability to really unsettle people.'

BEGINNING OF THE END: 'It was during the first semester of my sophomore year in high school, when I realized the joy of going to see a movie and then going out with friends to an all- night coffee shop to discuss it afterwards.'

KILL YOUR TV: 'On the worst day of my life, I don't think I'd watch a film; I'd probably just listen to music. I'd want to underscore my woe, but not escape from it. Writers (and, I suppose, by extension, some filmmakers) have a tendency to catalog every experience and every emotion in their lives for future use. Misfortune is a writer's stock in trade, and I've found that music has a way of adhering to my own and crystallizing it in my memory. A film would just dilute it.'

BEGINNING OF THE END, PART II: 'I've been in a myopic pursuit of the same career since I was seven years old. Of course, it was a movie that set me on that path, so I suppose the question could be rephrased as "Has there ever been a movie that made every other possible career seem entirely unappealing?" And the answer, as it would be for so many others in this line of work, would be Star Wars.'

AFFLICTED WITH HEINSBERGEN SYNDROME: 'There sometimes comes a certain sort of downcast day when nothing sounds better to me than The Royal Tenenbaums. I think it's the use of the Charlie Brown Christmas music that really does it for me. It makes me happy to be sad.'

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Once Upon a Time in The Burbs

Joe Dante has a way of placing his movies in a world that exists just outside reality. Dante's worlds are like our memories of past decades where only the good moments remain, and their shortcomings are just a little too hazy to recall. Gremlins is in a quaint winter town -- soon to be invaded by devlish creatures. Explorers exists in the childhood realm where everything is possible -- even spaceflight. Even Gremlins 2, which is designed to look like today's corporate landscaped is just slightly twisted because the movie Gremlins exists in this world -- but so do the characters who were in that 'movie.' The Dante door I would choose leads to the street where Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Rick Ducommun, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman and (occasionally) Dick Miller all live. Watching The 'burbs for the first time in probably a decade, the outlandish expectations my memories heaped on it were fully met, reaffirming my long-held thinking that it is one of the most well-crafted comedies ever made.

The movies that stay in our memories longest are the ones with the least to remember -- that is, the simplest of stories. The 'burbs is wonderfully simple: three neighbors in the dog days of summer trying to convince themselves that the streets newest inhabitants are up to no good. But there's hardly ever any sense of dread surrounding the characters, because they WANT to find trouble, because the other option is going back to their everyday routine. The true genius of The 'burbs, though, is that it walks the sometimes impossible line between camp and horror, while carrying an overflowing fishbowl of funny. Too much one way or the other, and it doesn't work -- even when we think it's going to topple over into true camp and throw away any horror intentions, Dante balances the delicate load. In the midst of this beautiful genre amalgam is quick but steady pacing and a script that holds its cards close to the vest until the final act.

Unlike many of his other movies, The 'burbs contains next to zero pop culture references -- allowing it to age seamlessly. In fact, the most prolific pop culture references made in the movie lie in its genre winks: a nod to Rio Bravo here, a glance toward Sergio Leone there, and most prominently, a tribute to the The Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street. Dante obviously was a Twilight Zone fan after lending his talent to the 80s revival of the series as well as the Twilight Zone movie, and The 'burbs' theme of suburban boredom-cum-paranoia is a clever takeoff on one of the series' best episodes. Inside this classic framework is The Street: the small strip of a neighborhood in Anytown, U.S.A. that serves as the lone setpiece.

Since there's never a moment when our characters are outside of The Street, The 'burbs has a way of drawing the viewer in and making them feel at home with the cast. We gain a gradual familiarity with this area, which is the quintessential suburban utopia of green lawns, open doors and friendly neighbors. My feelings have always been like Feldman's character, who says multiple times: 'God, I love this street!' In this way, The 'burbs resembles many Westerns, most notably Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo. Hawks' masterpiece essentially gave us one stretch of a dirt town and a few buildings ... and it was more than enough to hold the gigantic movie happening within its walls. The real nod to Rio Bravo, though, is in our core characters -- played by Hanks, Ducommun and Dern. In Hawks' Western, the trio of John Wayne, Walter Brennan and Dean Martin all functioned as one unit throughout the film, with each having a distinct skill set but one ultimate goal. Wayne was the unquestioned main character and star of the bunch, but the script never forces him to carry the story. Much is the same with Hanks, who appears by himself on the one-sheet but never goes too long on screen without either of his sidekicks nearby.

This last aspect is what puts The 'burbs on another level. The three leads all have different comedy styles, and none of them get the spotlight to themselves for long. The script perfectly caters to each of their skills as well: we get Hanks' annoyed house husband ('I've been blown up, take me to the hospital'), Ducommun's pestering stand-up skit that served him well in his brief moment of comedy fame ('Now they know that we know that they know that we know') and Dern's patented hard-ass humor ('Smells like they're cooking a goddamned cat in there'). All three are in their natural elements and are allowed to play off each other, never once feeling like they're passing the mic off to one another.

But the laughs are hardly limited to the big three. Like all Dante pictures, we are treated to a visit from Miller (an original that guy), this time in the guise of a garbage man. Dante wisely drops Miller into the scene that is perhaps the film's comedy centerpiece: starting with oddball touches of two garbage men picking apart the fabric of society with one curiously sporting a rainbow patch (never explained), moving on to a half-shaven Dern and insanely driven Ducommun rifling through the trash and ending with my favorite line of the movie:

Miller: 'Who's going to pick up all this garbage?'
Dern: 'Well you're going to pick it up, because you're -- the garbage man!'

It doesn't hurt that there's not one weak link in the tidy cast. In addition to the aforementioned, Dante also serves up Henry Gibson, Gale Gordon (best known as Mr. Wilson) and even a cameo from Nicky Katt as the 'lame-o in the yard' (Katt is best known as Mr. 'Isaac Fucking Newton' in 'Dazed and Confused'). Given a long leash on his infrequently-seen comedic skills, Dern lets loose and becomes the rascally crazy middle-aged man he was born to play. Hanks is also in a natural role as the lazy, indifferent and skittish Ray Peterson, but smartly reins in his sometimes dominating presence as the lead funnyman in an ensemble of comedians. The wild card is Ducommun, who was at the absolute apex of his career and would never have more than a bit part. Around the time of The 'burbs, Ducommun was a fixture on HBO, whether on his two standup specials on the cable network or in the obscure John Travolta movie The Experts, which the channel overplayed. The role of Art was perfect for the Canadian comic, who used his unapologetic flab and odd voice to great effect.

I had been holding out for a more suitable DVD of The 'burbs, but as part of the Tom Hanks Comedy Favorites Collection, it was too good to pass up for only $15. It's clearly the star when paired with Dragnet (which is more of an Aykroyd vehicle) and the clunker The Money Pit, and you even get an amusing alternate ending, which wouldn't have made anyone mad if it was left on.

FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: Paul Martin

At Melbourne Film Blog, Paul Martin presents an objective eye toward Australian cinema, as well as beyond. Not only is Paul able to take in the wonderful programming of the Melbourne Cinematheque, but he also serves on the theater's committee -- a position that led him to the world of film criticism. Paul's inaugural review -- of his favorite movie, Lost Highway -- was distributed among the audience for a twin bill of Lost Highway and Eraserhead. Paul's Lost Highway review is a must-read for any Lynch fan, as it's a movie that often falls through the cracks when talking about the director's best. Paul also tackles a lot of Australian films (and no Adam, neither Mad Max or Picnic At Hanging Rock are among his favorites, but you had to ask, didn't you?), and some -- like Em 4 Jay (his favorite 2006 movie) -- are rarely distributed outside the country.

WE'VE MET BEFORE, HAVEN'T WE?: 'There are about fifty that would compete for second place, but only one that is a clear favourite – Lost Highway. No film has ever affected me like this one, and I don’t know if any film could ever do it again. Pure mind-bending magic!'

HOW DID YOU GET INSIDE MY HOUSE?: 'The first film to really overwhelm me with a desire to discuss it with others was Lost Highway. I pestered my significant other that night, and the following two days discovered the power of the internet by researching it online. This was also the first film that I wrote a significant review on, which was only relatively recently.'

IT'S BIG, IT'S FAT AND IT'S CHEESY!: Fat Pizza (2003), One of Paul's guilty pleasures.

I WANT IT ALL: 'I see just about every contemporary film that comes out that I want to see.'

ALL ABOUT ALMODOVAR: 'I’ve seen every Almodóvar film since All About My Mother, and none of them have particularly overwhelmed me. When I saw Volver, I started to understand what it is that I don’t like about his films. I’ve since taken up watching all his films starting with his first, Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980) and am currently up to High Heels (1990). I’ve never felt so compelled to like someone’s films that have so many things about them that I don’t like. I can’t explain it. But I still think his films are not particularly good.'

WATCH THIS: Takashi Miike's Audition -- Paul's go-to horror movie.

FILM CAFFEINE: 'It doesn’t matter how tired I am, a good film will wake me up.'

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Bicycle Thieves: The Criterion Collection

My first viewing of Bicycle Thieves remains one of the most memorable for me. I saw it, like many it seems, in a college class -- and the film didn't immediately shake me, but as I walked back to my dorm it was all I could think about. Gradually I started to take in the story, characters and themes as a whole, and was able to penetrate it more easily. Finally, as I explained Bicycle Thieves to my future wife I simply broke down in tears when I got to its famous, heart-wrenching climax. The emotions in Bicycle Thieves may catch you off guard because you are not watching acting, and it doesn't feel like a documentary -- it is the definition of neorealism and everything that genre strove for.

The Criterion Collection version of Bicycle Thieves arrived on shelves last Tuesday, giving it the elite treatment it so well deserves. In what is likely the best DVD of the young year, Criterion serves up a new transfer, three documentaries and an assortment of essential essays. But the biggest change of all is made up of two words: Bicycle Thieves. Until this DVD, the film was known in North America as The Bicycle Thief, whose singularity is factually incorrect when relating to the movie. Each title will give first-time viewers a different prejudice of the film, with the singular acting as somewhat of a spoiler since it must be referring to the main character (Damian at Windmills of My Mind has a great post devoted to this topic).

The extras appear on the surface to be light by Criterion's standards (no commentaries or galleries), but the biggest gems of the lot are housed in the companion booklet. Included is an essay written by Bicycle Thieves screenwriter Cesare Zavattini during the height of neorealism. In describing the challenges posed to neorealist filmmakers, Zavattini remarks that in an American film there might be a two minute scene depicting a woman buying a pair of new shoes -- whereas in neorealism that would be a two hour movie. Zavattini isn't bluffing either, he maps out just how he would go about making this shoe purchase movie, and it explains the brilliance of Bicycle Thieves beautifully: taken on its own, the plot is nothing. French film critic Andre Bazin expounds on this idea in his essay: 'the whole story would not deserve two lines in a stray dog column.' This is why Bicycle Thieves has endured through generations and remains just as relevant in any culture today. We have all lived this movie -- a seemingly simple pratfall which cannot truly be explained to someone who has not lived it.

It's too easy to compare neorealism to today's reality television. Neorealists used non-actors and worked exclusively on location, but they also crafted stories that were neither fantastical, spectacular or exploitive. With Bicycle Thieves, the story is a crime that means nothing to the thousands of other poor Italians walking Rome's streets, but it is a journey the viewer takes with Antonio and Bruno that feels coldly realistic because of the absence of film canons. There are no motives that can be questioned or reactions that can be doubted.

Contrary to the film's style, the making of Bicycle Thieves seems all Hollywood. Director Vittorio De Sica held large auditions to find the perfect any-persons for his roles, yet found none of the main cast by this method: Enzo Staiola (Bruno) was a 'clown-faced' boy trying to catch a glimpse of the production, Lianella Carell (Maria) was a journalist trying to get an interview from De Sica and Lamberto Maggiorani had brought his son to audition for the role of Bruno. In all these cases, it is reported that De Sica instantly knew he had found his characters, and this is how the genius of a neorealist works. In Maggiorani, he saw a beaten but hopeful man who had been through the wild highs and lows that his character experiences. Staiola's clownish face and awkward build made him perfect for the young boy whose childhood never existed. Maria looked capable of projecting the pain of an Italian wife and the love of an Italian mother. All of these 'actors' would not be asked to act, but simply live their parts as they would live their own life.

De Sica was renowned for his ability to work with children, and this is best apparent with Bruno -- perhaps the film's most memorable character. We see Bruno as a man, not a boy, who provides for his family just as his father does. When Antonio brings home the bicycle that ensures him a job, Bruno is fast at work mending and polishing the bike, and even makes jabs at his father for not noticing a dent. Bruno -- probably six years old -- has some kind of job on the street, and he barely glances toward his father when he hops off the bike and gets right to work. Bruno lives in a world where he is not allowed to be a child, and he takes great pains to not act like one. Bicycle Thieves reaches new heights when Bruno's adult facade starts to wear away and begins to naturally act his age -- his response to 'how about a pizza?' is too natural to be called acting and is possibly the film's greatest moment.

Antonio is a man who understands the weight of this terrible day, when reclaiming his bicycle will make him the father and husband he strives to be, while coming home empty-handed takes him back to the despairs he felt only one day prior as a penny-less provider. The more dead ends Antonio finds, the more driven he becomes in his quest, and the more he realizes that there is no way out of his existence. The circle Antonio finds himself in starts with the police who can't try to care about his problem and ends with the thief community that vigorously supports their own and makes their members nearly invincible by providing infinite alibis. Antonio finds himself retreating to the one place where he is allowed to exist -- his home -- before trying in vain to get in a desperation punch to the world that robbed him, and failing just the same.

********
The new transfer of Bicycle Thieves is a richer, crisper image than previous incarnations, easily handling the chaotic rain sequence and showing the movie's deep focus well. The mono soundtrack is about as good as it can be, and an English dub is now available.

The extras on Disc 2 include 'Working with De Sica,' an assortment of recent interviews with surviving Bicycle Thieves collaborators, presented in anamorphic widescreen. Included in this bunch is none other than Staiola, who recounts the shock of being selected by De Sica, and screenwriter Suso Cecchi d'Amico, who talks vividly about how the ending was her original idea. 'Life as It Is: The Neorealist Movement in Italy' works as a near-lecture from genre scholar Mark Shiel, who gives rich insights on the history of the art, and how it affected the world cinema. While this feature is interesting, it is also somewhat disappointing to have Shiel being the only participant. 'Cesare Zavattini' is the most impressive of the DVD extras, it is a 2003 Italian-made documentary on the life of the Bicycle Thieves screenwriter. Many of the heavyweights of Italian (including Bernardo Bertolucci) weigh in on Zavattini, and we learn about his life from beginning to end. As a whole, the three digital supplements are impressive not only for their individual insights, but also in the fact that their information almost never overlaps.

The accompanying booklet (lavishly bound and printed) is a fascinating collection of contemporary analysis, period theory and remembrances from cast and crew. Zavattini's writings on neorealism provides a look at the genre from an individual who was driving it, and Bazin's exploration contains a wealth of keen talking points, including this knockout: 'It is our intelligence that discerns and shapes it, not the film. De Sica wins every play on the board without ever having made a bet.' The final entry is a collection of memories from those involved in the film, ranging from De Sica himself to none other than Sergio Leone -- who at age 16 (!) played one of the German priests in the rain scenes and also helped behind the camera. All of the collected memories were originally published in the 1997 Italian book Bicycle Thieves.

All in all this is another home run from Criterion, which continues to raise its high standards and gives this treatment to a monumental and timeless film.

FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: Edward Copeland

Good will can be hard to find on the Internet these days, but I can safely describe Edward Copeland as a blogger philanthropist. How else to put in words his epic Oscar surveys? For the benefit of everyone, Copeland began last year with a wide-reaching survey for the best and worst of the Best Picture winners, presented wonderfully with his own editorial combined with the surveyed's (survees?) comments. Copeland followed that up this year with a best and worst poll for Best Actress. These two projects have left readers of Edward Copeland on Film with but one question: can 2008 hurry up and get here already so we can have our best and worst Best Actors survey already?? But there is more to Copeland than the Oscars, as he writes on a wide variety of topics cinematic and entertainment -- even taking us back in time occasionally (his 1989 review of a show called Baywatch is fun, and his 1993 River Phoenix eulogy is a somber reminder).

WAKING LIFE: 'There are certain films that if they are on, and nothing else is worth watching, they can soothe me even if I doze or wake up, such as Die Hard, Groundhog Day and Jaws.'

SPELLBOUND: 'I've always had great fondness for Julien Temple's Absolute Beginners, so much so that I've been afraid to ever revisit it for fear it might break the spell. As for the opposite, I'm not dumbfounded as to why I dislike them as much as I am as to why others like them (say, Dr. Zhivago or The Thin Red Line).'

IN GOOD COMPANY: 'The insane praise that Babel has received has frustrated me, though at least I know there are plenty who agree with me about it.'

10 AND (BARELY) HOLDING: 'I can only narrow [the best] down to 10: Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Dr. Strangelove, Goodfellas, Nashville, Network, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Rear Window, The Rules of the Game and Sunset Blvd.'

FILM BLOGGERS DO IT EVERY DAY: 'About 1 a day, maybe more on weekends. Also depends on the time of year. Right now, it's the busy season.'

STILL KICKING: The Dead Girl -- the movie that most recently surprised Edward.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM, BUUUDDDDY?: Guaranteed to scare -- 'the scene in Bio-Dome when Stephen Baldwin chews off Pauly Shore's toenails.'

ADMIT ONE: 'I would have loved to have been able to have seen Psycho in a theater before everyone knew its secrets so the shower scene would have been a surprise.'

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Peckinpah's Valentine

Note: This post is part of the Lovesick Blog-a-thon at 100 Films.

I had read many descriptions of Straw Dogs prior to seeing it, and all of them played it up as 'Dustin Hoffman goes mad, ruthlessly kills his enemies, Bloody Sam Peckinpah at his bloody best!' (which is admittedly an attractive plot), but none of them spoke of the complex study of marriage and love contained in it. Like many of Sam Peckinpah's films, the intriguing story was ignored by the public in favor of the bloodshed and violence contained in it. And while Straw Dogs is indeed violent and graphic, it uses these elements to convey a message of the sacrifices that must be made in a marriage and what becomes of love once that is the only thing two people have in common. Peckinpah shows that marriage can full of unrealized violence, that to co-exist for most of a lifetime, two people must sometimes treat each other like enemies.

Dustin Hoffman and Susan George (perhaps never more beautiful) are David and Amy Sumner, who are in the early stages of settling in Amy's hometown -- a decaying, ruthless rural English community. It could be interpreted that the couple left Vietnam War-embroiled America for a place where their pacifist views could be more widely accepted, but it also makes sense that Amy wanted to live in an environment where she could become the dominant figure in their marriage. David explains that they are living in the town so that he can finish some kind of grant-sponsored math study.

Right off the bat we can see inside the character of Amy -- as she is proudly walking through the streets in a thin sweater with no bra. The town is exactly how it was when she left, complete with a population of drunk and immature men, at least one of which has a sexual history with her (and he is not shy about reminding her of that fact). It is clear that the Sumners are now on Amy's turf -- a strange place where she knows the rules of the land, and knows that she is the object of affection for every male eye.

David is uncomfortable in this new place and perhaps regrets their decision to move. He soon finds out that life in the town is simply a series of tests of will between the men, and he witnesses one inside the bar -- with the lone constable seemingly rolling his eyes and the long-beaten characters (the barkeep) offering not even a thought of resistance. David is a pacifist at heart, who keeps to himself and simply wants a little peace and quiet while he slaves at his blackboard with equations. Since he is passive, David gets his way with Amy by exerting his intelligence on her and treating his wife like a child. Amy reacts like a child because her defense mechanism is her sexuality -- which is mostly useless against David who is always buried in studies. We see that though the Sumners exude an air of sophistication, their hearts have much growing to do and they live in a dysfunctional marriage.

David and Amy are only able to express their passion when they let down their guard and act like children -- such as the early bedroom scene that devolves from a lesson in chess (an attempt by Amy to appeal to David's intelligence) to an under the sheets whirlwind of junior high giggling. During this scene, the Sumners are spied on through the window by a few townsfolk who see this act as novelty, since it is so different than their buttoned down way of life where emotions are seldom seen or welcomed.

The Sumners' fragile relationship begins to slowly fray because of outside forces -- starting with Amy's old chums who are now employed to finish a roof on their garage. They eagerly watch as Amy gets out of her car in a dress, and accidentally flashes her panties. Amy is clearly disturbed by this event and their reactions, but it is also a discovery of where she can find the emotions so clearly lacking at home. She takes this a step further by walking near a window topless, explicitly letting them see her body. While Amy delights in the attention being paid her body, she is also unknowingly opening a door to the violent sexual hunger of the men, who see her act as an invitation.

As Amy is unwisely stoking the men's libido, David is being slowly ground down by the goons -- who use his pacifist tactics against him -- demonstrating that they can get into his house by stealing Amy's panties and leaving their dead cat hanging in the closet. The men trap David into one of the town's violent rituals of testing his tolerance, setting a precedent by seeing how far they can go before he snaps. A similar act is happening in the Sumners' home, as Amy is basically daring David to do something about the dead cat -- knowing full well that he is incapable of any retaliation. By calling her husband's non-shot, Amy has gained the upper hand in their marriage that she so desired. In her native land, she has the advantage over David, and is damn well going to use it.

David tries to win over his wife by agreeing to go hunting with the men, but in doing so only enables the final part of their plan: leaving Amy home alone. Amy's old flame Charlie sneaks away from the hunting group and tries to make like old times inside her house. Amy resists his advances, but is powerless against his brute strength and is conflicted because she probably realizes how in this environment it is actually her fault because she was asking for it by exposing herself to Charlie and his friends. Equally conflicting to Amy is that she is finally receiving the lust and physical passion she has been begging for since she and David moved to England. For a moment we see Amy semi-enjoy Charlie having his way with her, and then it is gone as she tries to process the emotions and feelings she is experiencing.

The American in Amy wants to tell David about the rape, but her upbringing tells her to forget it -- since it was partially her fault. Meanwhile, shooting a shotgun during the hunt seems to have energized David, who fires Charlie's men for abandoning him on the hunt. Things come to a boil when David tries to harbor the village black sheep Henry (David Warner), who accidentally suffocated the young granddaughter of the town's drunken patriarch. The young girl probably mirrors Amy of years ago, as she struts around in skimpy clothing through the streets of an environment not made for her. After trying to find attention from the town's men, she goes after Henry -- who is mildly retarded and serving a lifetime of penance for a previous advance on a young girl.

David knows the mob will kill Henry, and keeps him safe while plotting a plan to exact his revenge on all of them -- and in effect his wife, by showing her what he is capable of. During this process, David and Amy enjoy a fleeting moment of shared passion as Amy begins to see her husband as the kind of man her town produces, and is obviously turned on by it. In the end, David's pacifist ways come to an end, but so does his marriage, as in 'winning' the war within he and Amy's relationship -- he has only found the door to escape.

Thanks to Movie Screenshot blog for the excellent screenshots.

FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: DVD Guy

DVD Guy has been writing movie reviews on the Internet longer than most of us have been ... um, watching reality shows? A founding member of the Online Film Critics Society, DVD Guy has penned content for a variety of sites, but now focuses most of his attention on his blog The Watercooler, where in addition to film reviews you'll find the fruits of his intensive You Tube surfing and many other pop culture tidbits that you'll rarely find anywhere else. The Watercooler has a vast reserve of content that goes far beyond movies, including remarkably candid accounts of his career stops -- including a fascinating read about his time at a failed HD television network.

THE GHOST AND MR. DVD GUY: 'I thought the Blair Witch Project was sufficiently creepy, with creepy vibes given off that would last for quite some time after the initial viewing.'

SEE YA, PSYCHLO: 'Battlefield Earth made me quit Scientology.'

THE 10 CENT CONCESSIONS AREN'T BAD EITHER: 'I'd love to experience the 50s and 60s sci-fi/horror movies in a theater with that era's crowd.'

ROCK OF AGES: 'I recently watched The Family Stone over the holidays with family. I fully expected to hate the thing but it wound up being the best film I'd seen all year.'

THE LOST WEEKENDS: '[I watch] one or two films during the week. 3-5 on weekends. Sometimes more during the summer or outside of football season.'

LISTEN HERE, YOUNG WHIPPER SNAPPER: '12 Angry Men, The Ox-Bow Incident or Ruggles of Red Gap' -- movies DVD Guy would show to someone who hates anything not in color.

AQUA LUNG! Anchorman never fails to rise DVD Guy's spirits.

BE NICE: 'Road House' . . . 'awesome cheese.'

WELL, ALLOW ME TO RETORT: Pulp Fiction is DVD Guy's easy answer for all-time favorite film.

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Cut to The Chase

One of the first posts I imagined myself writing when I started this blog was an expansive essay on Vertigo. After picturing the myriad of messages, images and oddities my complete Vertigo essay would need -- not to mention sections on composer Bernard Herrman and his themes -- I became a little intimidated by my own expectations and backed off. Recently I compromised on a post that would try to list all the things I loved about the movie, but as that list evolved it became clear that one entry would be enough for one whole post, which I present today.

Vertigo enters my mind more frequently than any other movie. There's so much to like that I often find myself humming Herrman's Love Theme or just imagining the cemetery scene. It all comes back to The Chase, as I think of it: beginning with Scottie's first encounter with Madeleine at Ernie's and ending with the McKittrick Hotel scene. The chase sequence epitomizes what a cinematic experience Vertigo is and the decisions Hitchcock could make to brand his films so otherworldly and so uniquely his. The sound, the images, the story -- I'm in heaven when I watch it, and I'm going to try and explain everything that's perfect about it:

Ernie's
The Chase begins at the restaurant Ernie's, where Scottie is supposed to meet his mark, Madeleine. Ernie's is a great example to how committed Hitchcock was to making a complete environment in the Vertigo world: the restaurant set doesn't have much screen time and is not central to the plot at all, yet it becomes one of the most beautiful scenes in the most gorgeous movie of all time. The swanky Ernie's is covered rich crimson walls (looks almost like velvet) and filled with well-to-do San Franciscans. Ernie's is crowded, and yet when the camera pans into the dining room our eyes can't help but be drawn to the woman in the corner wearing a dark green dress. Her back is to the camera, but we all know it's Madeleine. She isn't even centered or focused on, yet because of the contrast in colors, it's apparent who we're supposed to be looking at.


Start your engines
No small detail is left to chance in Vertigo, including the cars of choice for Scottie and Madeleine. Scottie is driving a white DeSoto Firedome, while Madeleine is behind the wheel of a sea green Jaguar Mark VII. Watching Hitchcock, it's clear he was a car guy, as the automobiles in his movies are characters of their own (as I observed in The Birds, which features one of the rarest cars of its era). The Jaguar is a Union Jack touch in a movie that otherwise celebrates America, and also serves to set Madeleine apart while on the road, since almost all the other cars seen have nowhere close the elegance of her Mark VII. Scottie's DeSoto suits him similarly, as he's driving an obscure brand that would be dissolved only three years after Vertigo was released.

The early driving scenes lead us to a hallmark sequence of the film, as Madeleine turns off into an alley. The decision to have Madeleine enter from a backdoor in the alley not only serves to convey that she has done this quite a few times, but also enables Hitchcock to present a surprising reveal: Scottie opening the door from the dark alley to see a vibrant flower shop. This short scene of Scottie watching Madeleine purchase a corsage gives us two inventive techniques. First, the new DVD transfer of Vertigo allows us to better appreciate a subtle, yet brilliant bit of cinematography: there's such a contrast between the foreground characters and the floor, as well as from the foreground to the multiple planes of focus in the background, it's almost like a cinematic Where's Waldo. If you fix your eyes on the floor of the flower shop, it appears that it is the principle focus of the camera -- it appears sharper than anything else in the frame. This effect adds to the dreamy nature of The Chase, and is enhanced by the multiple planes of background that are still slightly in focus enough for us to observe their details. The other bit of brilliance in this brief scene is when we see Madeleine turn towards our (Scottie's) viewpoint -- we think she's spotted her pursuer, yet as the angle changes we see that she's actually admiring herself in a mirror. In this angle we see both characters looking at each other, even making eye contact, without Madeleine knowing he was there (or did she?).

See you in church
Throughout The Chase, Bernard Herrman's epic score has been pulling us through a variety of themes -- similar to how a silent movie score would, in that its many variances serve to further the story. As Scottie follows Madeleine into a church, we get a sort of Herrman/Hitchcock 'wink' through the score. When Scottie enters the church, the score suddenly switches to an organ playing a slow hymn -- the first reaction is that church is in session and the organist is playing, yet a split second later we see that save for our characters the church is dark and empty. What was originally presented as music in the story is revealed to be more of Herrman's atmospheric score -- a hymn whose ending note is played just as Scottie exits. I believe this maneuver to be a nod toward classic silent cinema, when the music would mirror where the movie was taking place (i.e. a maritime tune for a boat scene, a youthful jingle for children).

Scottie's exit of the dark church becomes another bold transition, as he finds himself in the adjoining cemetery, with blaring colors and gravestones that seem to glow in the light. Hitchcock uses the many flowers in the cemetery to play with perspective -- one such example is when Scottie is hiding behind a wall, when he begins walking again the camera pans with him and suddenly a rose branch comes into the frame right in front of the camera, and perfectly in focus. The Chase is so mysterious and suspenseful, Hitchcock's playful 'gotcha' jabs adds to its atmosphere.


Things only get more mysterious at the museum, where Scottie sees the resemblance between Madeleine and Carlotta. One aspect I recently noticed is how not only Madeleine mimics the painting, but also Scottie. Watch as Scottie turns to find the museum worker, at one point his face and eyes are in the exact same pose as Carlotta in the painting.

The lady vanishes
The Chase concludes at the McKittrick Hotel, home to the most vexing scene in the movie. The hotel itself fits right in with the rest of Vertigo's locations, as its dark gothic appearance looks out of place in the glowing streets of San Francisco. Madeleine's ghost-like exit is enhanced during Scottie's last glimpse of her in this scene, as he sees her raise the curtain in her room -- brightening up the grim exterior, resulting in a glow-like appearance for her. Hitchcock plays with perspective again here, as when Scottie is on the ground floor with the manager, the hotel interior seems small and narrow -- yet when he goes upstairs it suddenly looks grand and expansive, perhaps another minor jab at Scottie's fear of heights. We find Madeleine's room locked and undisturbed, despite the fact that we had just seen her open that curtain. It's a strange scene that doesn't really make sense even after later events occur, but it's a fitting conclusion to one of the most fascinating sequences ever seen.

FRIDAY SCREEN TEST: Piper

At Lazy Eye Theatre, Piper gives readers his own unique programming. The posts often come fast and furious, with Tuesdays reserved for original Top 5 lists (Top 5 Pantiless anyone? How about Top 5 Missing Digits?). Piper recently published a generously-detailed ranking of his favorite montages (some may cry foul over The Karate Kid's low rating), and his clever Plot Farm posts are worth revisiting. If you're still not sold, try reading about what movies changed Piper's DNA -- to see what he's really made of.

WHEN CAN YOU START? 'Get Shorty ,Goodfellas and The Godfather all make me want to be in the mob. High Fidelity makes me want to own a record store. La Femme Nikita makes me want to be a professional assassin' ... 'All those films and many more make me want to be a film-maker. But the truth is, I love my career right now.'

IF YOU'RE GONNA SHOOT, SHOOT -- DON'T TALK: 'I sat downwith a friend and spoke for hours about Mulholland Drive. And I mean HOURS. I saw A Clockwork Orange way before I was old enough to and I think I talked with my buddies about that all night. Probably more about the sex and violence than what a good film it was. I rarely sit down and write about a
film. I'm not the best reviewer. I'm a much better talker.

TIME ENOUGH AT LAST: 'I am a husband and father of two so I don't get away to the theatres as much as I want. I probably watch 2 to 3 movies a week. And not always new movies as I am an avid re-watcher of my favorites.'

IN THE END, THERE CAN BE ONLY FIVE: 'I love so many different movies for different reasons. If I pick one over the other, it's like I'm picking one kid over the other. I can give you my top 5. The Royal Tennenbaums, Out of Sight, Fight Club, High Fidelity and Goodfellas. And now I feel guilty because I've left out so much.'

THE KID'S ALRIGHT: 'Seven Samurai is a bit long, but you watch it and see how so many current movies have borrowed from it. Even my eight year old loved it.'

THE FRIGHTENERS: 'Watch Halloween and The Thing and Hell Night and more recently, Malevolence. If [you] weren't scared by those, [you] are not living. Going to movies is about having fun. It's not a dare or a chore. You have to want to be scared. It's no fun otherwise.'

PLEASE VENTURE TO SHUT UP: 'I bought the first season of Venture Brothers on DVD and I can't quit talking about that show. Everybody hates me because I always talk about it and how funny it is and subtle and brilliant.'

HUGHES IT OR LOSE IT: 'Last year my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer (she is cancer free now). Those first few days were some of the darkest I have faced and all I wanted to do was watch John Hughes movies. Ferris Buellers Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science. Movies that made me feel young again when I didn't have to worry about all the shit I do now.'

AWFULLY GOOD TASTE: 'There are some who probably think Re-Animator is awful, but I love it for everything that it is. Or Phantom of the Paradise. Or Roadhouse, which I might argue might be one of the best action movies out there and I know a lot of people who think I'm crazy for saying that.'

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