Dogs Bark

Donut In A Waitress Shop - - Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) - - 23 November 2012

Strongly recommended.  Here’s a fact. According to the critics polled by Rotten Tomatoes, Martin Scorsese hasn’t made a drama better than Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore in twenty years (Good Fellas at 97). I wish he’d think about that since I’d like to see how he would approach a similar story at 70. Alice was shot in the New Mexico and Arizona and was Scorsese’s first studio picture. Both he and Ellen Burstyn (Requiem For A Dream, The Exorcist), in her one and only Oscar-winning performance, unsuccessfully fought for a more realistic ending. Feminism is only signified by the crappy choices offered suddenly-widowed, singer/waitress and single mom, Alice Hyatt. Strong support is given Burstyn from new actor Kris Kristofferson (Blade), Harvey Keitel (Mean Streets), Diane Ladd (Rambling Rose) and a pre-Taxi Driver Jodie Foster, providing a younger female POV and the classic tag, “You’re weird. You’re even weird for Tucson”

Worn Well Trail - - Old Joy (2006) - - 16 November 2012

Recommended. It is such a pleasure to see a movie that is underplayed. A movie that simply records a human feeling in a simple story with a minimum of tricks . . . a minimal story. Old Joy director Kelly Reichardt (Meek’s Cutoff, Wendy and Lucy) has made a career of such movies, along with Gus Van Zant defining a “Portland school” of damp, soft focus, lingering shots, and birds substituting for self-absorbed soliloquies. Perhaps the connective tissue is producer Neil Kopp who produces many of Reichardt’s films and Van Zant’s Paranoid Park. Whatever . . . the point is that you know, Mark and Kurt, the characters of Old Joy. Or more likely, you are Mark, the one who settled down in a humble marriage and new baby,slowly losing touch with your more-restless friends and old days. It’s a short journey, barely an hour and fifteen minutes in the Oregon Cascades, but leaves a lingering poignancy.

An Angel Of Our Better Nature - - Lincoln (2012) - - 17 November 2012

Strongly recommended. ‘Tis altogether fitting and proper that in this cynical hour of our Nation we receive Steven Spielberg’s new picture, Lincoln. Why? Because the movie reminds us that great things can sometimes come out of petty and dirty politics. That’s the message. The medium is a masterful performance by Daniel Day-Louis (There Will Be Blood) as the titular angel. Right from the opening, rain-drenched conversation with two Union troopers, this is the most accessible Abraham Lincoln ever filmed. Strong supporting performances from Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathorn, Sally Field, and particularly, the wonderful trio of James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Lee Blake perfectly frame Day-Louis. John Williams’s Copland-esque score is less garish than past efforts with a lovely, subdued photography (Janusz Kaminski, Saving Private Ryan).  The dialogue, written by Tony Kushner (Munich), is intelligent and complex, evincing a welcome respect for the audience. This is an important movie.

Casbah Rocking - - Outside The Law [Hors La Loi] (2010) - - 2 November 2012

Not recommended. It’s hard to not recommend a movie that is as heartfelt as Outside The Law but that’s the sometimes ugly duty of a critic. The story concerns the struggle for independence of Algeria but it does not document that struggle in the style of Pontecorvo’s essential film The Battle Of Algiers. Rather, it tells the story from the perspective of three brothers who have immigrated to France. The fact that they are not actually in the literal battle shifts the focus and requires that their characterization become symbolic of the struggle. And there’s the rub. I didn’t feel it, although the acting of Jamel Debbouze,  Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila was perfectly fine. For one thing, at two hours and 18 minutes the film was too long and diluted the acting. Writer/director Rachid Bouchareb is no rookie although this is the biggest movie he’s made. Perhaps too big?