Dogs Bark

Angel Of The Subterrain - - In Darkness [W Ciemności] (2011) - - 23 June 2012

Recommended. In Darkness was Poland’s entry for an Oscar this last February, losing to A Separation. Acclaimed Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa) had wanted to dramatize the story of the Warsaw Ghetto and was beat to the punch by Roman Polanski’s The Pianist. So here she settles on another story, rising from the Lvov understructure. For a price, Polish sewer worker Leopold Socha has hidden away a remnant of the ghetto, rescuing ‘his Jews’ from the death camps. Other true stories, such as Defiance, The Diary Of Anne Frank come to mind and the story, despite the remarkable hardships portrayed, isn’t surprising. Yet the humanity of the characterizations is worth the lack of plot twists and 2+ hour length. Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz), like Schindler, is really not a nice guy and Wieckiewicz’s talent clarifies his painful duality. Performances by Maria Schrader, Benno Fürmann and Agnieszka Grochowska are also notable.

No Goyas For This Spectre - - Goya’s Ghost (2006) - - 12 June 2012

Not recommended. There’s nothing outrageously wrong with Goya’s Ghost; it’s just not worth the trouble. I’m not sure why so few Spanish actors were used as leads. I didn’t get a very authentic feeling for either Stellan Skarsgård (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as Goya or Natalie Portman (Black Swan) as Inez, his model (where was Penelope Cruz?). Portman plays both mother and daughter in a gimmick more confusing than interesting. Javier Bardem is, of course, Spanish but the quirkiness that was so effective in No Country For Old Men is less than useful here. And Randy Quaid (Independence Day) as King Carlos IV is just weird. But Iberian Javier Aguirresarobe’s (The Others, The Road) sepia photography is beautiful and the production values (Patrizia von Brandenstein, Amadeus, The Untouchables) are sumptuous. Milos Forman’s (Amadeus) direction results in a brisk, interesting story . . . he just needed different actors to tell it.

Kill The Beast! Cut His Throat! Spill His Blood! - - Carnage (2011) – 9 June 2012

Recommended. Wasn’t I just posting stuff on my Facebook page about electronic incivility? Carnage follows my lead, combining the sardonic, claustrophobic wit of Roman Polanski with Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play, ‘The Gods of Carnage,’ creating the blackest of comedies. The camera watches two couples attempting to resolve a dispute between their 11-year old sons. Things go very wrong. The cast of four, Christoph Waltz, Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly, works perfectly together. Foster, in this and Inside Man, demonstrates her artistic maturity in a marvelous show of self-mockery. Reilly and Winslet also delight in making fun of their screen personas. Waltz works in his own a world as a high-pressure lawyer, full of ugly cynicism. Polanski riffs on Buñuel, as Winslet and Waltz keep trying to leave the apartment but just can’t get into the elevator. The actual end of the movie is a joke on everybody.

Son of Bride of Frankenstein - - The Skin I Live In (2011) - - 6 June

Strongly recommended. I could write several pages about this astonishing movie, a strange brew of Vertigo, Eyes Without A Face and maybe a soupçon of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that comes from the laboratory of Pedro Almadovar (Volver, Talk To Her), reestablishing him as quite the auteur. The plot of The Skin I Live In is so tightly woven that I can’t say anything without spoiling it. I can only applaud the gloriously perverted way Almadovar casts the nature-nurture question and, perhaps . . . his own self-image. Elena Anaya (Mesrine: Killer Instinct), who intriguingly resembles Penelope Cruz, Almadovar’s one-time protégé, expertly plays the enigmatic Vera Cruz, suggesting profound discomfort in her own skin. Antonio Banderas, as Vera’s Pygmalion, gives his most muscular performance in years. The score, by Alberto Iglesias (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) perfectly sets a mood of distasteful dread. This movie may make you queasy - - it won’t bore you.

No Worries, Walt - - Snow White And The Huntsman (2012) - - 3 June 2012

Not recommended. I tried soooo hard to like this movie, giving up about two thirds in. It sounded so cool: a very dark and feminist Grimm story . . . food for your inner Joe Campbell. The visuals and camera work (Greig Fraser, Let Me In) are magnificent, mostly the shots dissolving and reassembling the lethal beauty of Charlize Theron’s (Monster) Evil Queen. But Snow White And The Huntsman isn’t the sum of these few parts. The dwarves are amusing, all very nifty Brit character actors (Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Ian McShane), but turning them into lit’le Cockneys sorta creeped me. Ultimately, it’s the spectacular miscasting of Kristen Stewart (Twilight) as Snow White that bites the poison apple. There’s zero chemistry between her and The, also miscast, Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, The Avengers). But Stewart’s final, implausible fight with Theron is the real fairy tale - - the little lady and the tigress.

The Girl Won’t Help It - - . . . And God Created Woman [Et Dieu. . . Créa La Femme] (1956) - - 3 June 2012

Recommended. There are films worth seeing simply because of their place in history; . . . And God Created Woman is one of them. Writer/director Roger Vadim’s (Barbarella) soft-core porn movie launched the American career of his wife, Brigitte Bardot (Contempt). Her literal exposure, despite the crap story, paved the way for the French New Wave several years subsequent. One imagines a younger Don Draper sneaking into an ‘art house’ to catch a peek of Bardot’s backside, which is all she ever shows. More subversive was her character’s total lack of propriety, the way she coldly exploits her sexual power without shame or even pity. The scene where she dances to the calypso band, both Curt Jurgens and Jean-Louis Trintignant transfixed by brain-numbing lust, brings to mind Draper’s sales pitch for the XKE, “At last . . . something beautiful you can own.” But no one ever owned Bardot, not then or now.

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2012/03/bardot-201203