Dogs Bark

Screw ‘Em If They Can’t Take A Joke - - The Last Seduction (1994) - - 25 July 2012

Strongly recommended. The cult following for The Last Seduction represents Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino, Men In Black, Dogma) as the ultimate femme fatale. I can go with that but it oversimplifies the true genius of this part, as written by Tucsoño Steve Barancik (Domino) and directed by John Dahl (Red Rock West). No doubt, these three unique talents coalesced like the Halloween Nor'easter of 1991, resulting in similarly lethal consequences for anyone in Bridget’s path, as she rips off her husband’s (Bill Pullman, Independence Day) $700,000 and uses a lust-smitten doofus (Peter Berg) to cover her tracks. But the movie only works if you can take perverse delight in unapologetic evil, a girl who snubs her cigarette out in Grandma’s apple pie . . . literally. Note that she always gives warning not to fuck with her.  The always-brilliant J.T. Walsh (A Few Good Men) plays the uncommon male who notices Bridget’s rattle.

 

Bored of the Flies - - Battle Royale [Batoru Rowaiaru](2000) - - 20 July 2012

Not recommended. What a huge letdown Battle Royale turned out to be after the incredible hype and controversy - - both in 2000 when it was released in Japan and this spring when it finally came to America. I didn’t expect a better-made movie; it always sounded like pure japloitation. And I was ready for copious gore. But I did not think it was going to be so BORING. Although there’s plenty of cornball backstory about each of the ninth graders pitted in a Hunger Games-style death match, I couldn’t keep the numerous characters clear and slowly lost any emotional investment. The ‘battles,’ with the exception of a decently Rodriguez-like shoot-out among the pom-pom girls, were no more thrilling than squashing cockroaches and totally without humor. With "Beat" Takeshi (Zatoichi) and Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill: Vol. 1) in the cast I expected more fun but Battle Royale was a battle spoy-aled.

Little To Say - - We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) – 16 July 2012

Not recommended. The only thing shocking about Lynne Ramsey’s We Need To Talk About Kevin is that the director of Morvern Callar, a very good movie, could have popped out this totally repulsive spawn. We Need To Talk About Kevin feeds off of the common fear of any mother that perhaps my off-beat parenting, slightly clueless husband (John C. Reilly, Carnage) and hypersensitive child could combine into the perfect storm of a murderous psychopath. Yeah, right. This irrational fear is forgivable; amping it up with such a clumsy and pretentious film is not. Tilda Swanton’s actiing was critically acclaimed but her character is so anemic that you long for a little bloodletting. Kevin (Rock Duer, Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller) is such a completely repulsive child that he destroys any credibility or empathy. There is no point, Kevin smirks and all I could think was, you got that right, kid.

Endocringe - - Bullhead [Rundskop] (2011) - - 11 July 2012

Recommended. The Belgian entry for Best Foreign Film this year, Bullhead, is not a movie ‘fueled’ by testosterone . . . it’s all testosterone. So male is this movie that even a heifer’s birth is avaginal, a penetrative caesarean delivery. A small-time gangster, Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts), is addicted to steroids and illegally selling growth hormones to Flemish cattle growers. An affectless voice-over presents Jacky as a bulked-up brute - - an ox, dumb, violent and resentful. We soon learn why and are turned 180 degrees. This is a movie that begins rage-addled, inchoate, pieced together from a series of petty details that turn out not arbitrary. A police officer says that coincidences only happen to lazy thinkers. Unfortunately this narrative device is a bit clumsy in the unpolished hands of writer/director, Michael R. Roskam; Bullhead is, by turn, brilliantly and exhaustingly obscure, attenuating its thunder. The saving grace is Schoenaerts sneaky, finessed performance. Remember his name.

Close Makes The Man - - Albert Nobbs (2011) - - 6 July 2012

Recommended. Albert Nobbs comprises an intriguing concept, assembled by some excellent performances, into a not entirely successful movie. Glenn Close (The World According To Garp,) returns to her roots to play a woman disguised as a butler in a Dublin hotel. This legerdemain, which she composed on stage many years past, won Close an Oscar nomination. But despite playing opposite another undercover female and pursuing a third, her Albert Nobbs is more than just 19^th century lesbian cross-dressers. The story, told with a bit too much melodrama, transforms into a much deeper mediation on society and gender.  I think this was scripter (with John Banville) Glenn Close’s intent, who also wrote the lyrics to the end theme. The other female key characters are also very well played by Janet McTeer (Tideland) and Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre), revealing the talent of TV helmer Rodrigo García (In Treatment, Six Feet Under, Carnivàle).

Girl Most Likely to Secede - - Young Adult (2011) - - 30 June 2012

Strongly recommended.  While watching Young Adult, I was cycling back to Bridesmaids, a movie I didn’t gush over. Both Diablo Cody (Juno) and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids) are youngish, scripter/sky rockets, with a twisted skew on their gender and no shyness about public goofiness.  And both scripts also riff on the darker neuroses of prom queens, presenting in Young Adult’s Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) as alcoholism, trichotillomania, clinical depression and varsity bitchiness. That’s the magic of this Jason Reitman (Juno, Up In The Air) helmed movie, that he, Cody and Theron create a true and sympathetic anti-heroine. A huge contribution also from supporting actor Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille), who makes a crucial plot twist work seamlessly. All of the supporting acting is great, no doubt thanks to Reitman. But it’s amazing Charlize - - as the girl you hate, adore silently in your bedroom, and ultimately, pity - - that nails this movie to the floor.

It’s Got Everything: Sex, Drugs, Homicidal Scots - - Shallow Grave (1994) - - 29 June 2012

Not recommended. Those of you who wondered where Danny Boyle got his stomach for impromptu amputation need go no further than Shallow Grave, his 1994 big-screen directorial debut. Lots of severed arms in this one, mate, and more of the Edinburgh underbelly he so brilliantly lit in Trainspotting. We also get some of his surreal sequences, a sheep’s stomach of Gaelic cursing and a wee bit of voice over. But despite this foreshadowing of the Boyle oeuvre, I found Shallow Grave extraordinarily hard to like, thanks to some very shallow scripting (John Hodge, Trainspotting). Both Kerry Fox (Bright Star) and Ewan McGregor (The Ghost Writer) were working way too hard as two of the criminally insane flatmates and Chris Eccleston (The Others) seems hardly working at all as the third and nuttiest. There’s no wall outlet on me to plug these characters into and things got very boring, very fast.