Dogs Bark

Bébé Fatale - - Hard Candy (2005) - - 24 July 2008

Recommended. “Who the hell are you?” howls Jeff (Patrick Wilson) at a tense moment in Hard Candy, the interesting but disappointing movie that spiked Ellen Page’s spectacular trajectory. The script (Brian Nelson) responds with a predictable and unsatisfying answer but, unfortunately, this central question of the movie remains unanswered. Page plays a pretty-pink, Anton Chigurh, expertly tracking her victim with unrepentant deliberation. But, as she clarifies for the record, Jeff’s actually the stalker and it’s her motivation that’s worth our pursuit, not her clichéd target. Although I accepted her anger and implausible huntress skills, where does her rage come from? So then, we come to Ms. Page herself - - a profound acting talent, as I said after Juno. The expressive abilities of her face are astonishing for someone so young.  With a more challenging script and an answer, she could have made this a great movie. 

All That She Needed - - Gilda (1946) - - 9 July 2008

An essential. It is interesting that, even now, Gilda, the character, is presented as a femme fatale and Gilda, the movie, as a romance noir. It’s neither . . . but, like a real fatale, it only uses what's freely given. The fact that this needs to be explained at all suggests that things haven’t changed much since 1946; we still damn women who treat sex as something fun and frothy, in short, the happy slut.  Gilda’s dialogue leaves no ambiguity about her lack of malice.  It seems that using her body heat to destroy a man or murder him, like Catherine Tramell or Phyllis Dietrichson, is more acceptable than a woman who just likes sex.  Rita Hayworth is astonishing in this movie but claimed she never understood the attraction of the character. Maybe she was playing a different Gilda than most of us saw? 

Crystallography - - The Salton Sea (2002) - - 6 July 2008

Not recommended. The real Salton Sea is a toilet - - an error of the Southern California irrigation system that now captures the effluent of Mexicali and routinely poisons migratory waterfowl.  And the movie, The Salton Sea, has sat below the surface of my Netflix queue, like the bloated body of a dead pelican, for almost a year.  Despite universal critical dismissal, my hope was that the outré images and performances, particularly Vincent D’Onofrio, might have a grotesque appeal. However, this is another film that cynically uses the cranked up life, not really giving any insight into that vile cesspool except . . . meth messes you up. There’s a news flash. Val Kilmer is revealed halfway through as A Man On A Mission, as improbable as that is, but he enables more suffering than he avenges and loses any claim to a higher purpose. Just like the movie.