Dogs Bark

Her Story - - House of Tolerance (2011) - - 29 June 2013

Recommended. This film is sometimes listed as House Of Pleasure. Whatever the name of la maison, what it contains is the oldest item of commerce.  And that’s about it; there’s not much story here. The Belle Époque brothel is going broke, as Paris - - and life - - adapts to the new century. The ladies labor under the spectrum of oppression attendant to their trade, including physical abuse, disease, opiates and crushing indebtedness. None of this will improve when the house shuts down. If there’s a story, it’s centered on Madeleine (Alice Barnole), disfigured by a client and Pauline (Iliana Zabeth), a 14-year-old, country girl, breaking into the trade. Both actresses are excellent newcomers, along with much of the cast. French director Bertrand Bonello (The Pornographer) seems more intent on creating a point-of-view than a film, a view rarely seen. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is the closest comparison I can recall . . . high praise.

Undertowed - - The Impossible (2012) - - 25 June 2013

Not recommended. This is tough. The Impossible is a well-made movie, with astonishing special effects and very good acting; however, here’s the test. If you were watching this with your Indonesian or Thai friends, would you feel uneasy? 136,000 of them perished in the 2003 Indian Ocean tsunami, the subject impossibility. This is not political incorrectness. The lack of any local, non-European element to the story is so, distracting, as to undercut the drama. In addition, the screenplay (co-written by real life survivor, Maria Belon) is self-consciously manipulative enough to put this viewer on full emotional guard. I instinctively ask:  to what purpose I am being choked up?  But Naomi Watts (21 Grams) and particularly young Tom Holland as her eldest son are very good. Spanish director J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage) seems talented and others liked The Impossible. If these problems are my own . . . I can live with that.   

Cries and Ultra-Vixens - - Onibaba (1964) - - 19 June 2013

Recommended. This is a very cool movie that I just discovered. The story concerns a mother and daughter-in-law living in the midst of a sort of grass jungle in warring 14^th century Japan. A man arrives who served with - - and gives them the bad news about - - their husband and son who’s not coming home. He then seduces the widow and sexually insults the mother. This is like a movie directed by Bergman and written by Russ Meyer, a formidable achievement.  It is actually helmed by Hiroshima native and master of the Japanese ghost genre, Kaneto Shindô (who directed his last feature, Postcard, at 98.)  The acting (Nobuko Otowa as Mom, Jitsuko Yoshimura as the Daughter and Kei Satô as their object of desire) is highly mannered but if this doesn’t bother you, enjoy the weird eroticism of the story, compounded by a demon and a deep pit full of bones.

Justice, Blind, Deaf and Dumb - - The Central Park Five (2012) - - 13 June 2013

Recommended. Back in 1989, shortly after the subject crime occurred, I was dining with a group of nominally rational friends. I called out the stupidity of Trump the Chump, beating the bloody drum of vengeance. Amazingly, no one present except me - -Juror #8 (12 Angry Men) - - doubted that the Donald and the cops had it right. I was literally shouted down; however, much like those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the mob was once again disastrously wrong.  In this award-winning documentary, Sarah Burns, father Ken and husband, David McMahon, teach a harrowing lesson on the evil of trying cases in the court of Rupert Murdoch. Different from the usual Burns documentary, here we have to look at current pictures of the, now middle-aged, men whose youth was lost to prison. The Central Park Five is a story with happy endings for the wrongly accused  . . . but tragic implications for American justice.

Trivia question: What was Henry Fonda's real name in 12 Angry Men?

Invasive Procedural - - Fantastic Voyage (1966) - - 30 May 2013

Recommended. I’m not sure why this is never shown on television; I hadn’t seen it in years and years. And I am pleased to say it holds up well, despite all the stories of remakes (James Cameron, Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum), etc.). I think of this movie as a precursor to another great scientific fiction procedural, The Andromeda Strain. The thing that separates it is the fantastic part - - the miniaturization - - which obviously violates all kinds of physical sense. But I liked that the plot just gets over it . . . the point is the voyage. I also like that the movie only obliquely uses Rachel Welch’s (Legally Blonde) anatomical gifts, despite the ads. The Oscar-winning special effects (Art Cruickshank, Planet of the Apes) are quite beautiful, complimented by Ernest Laszlo (Airport) camerawork and a great Leonard Rosenman (Barry Lyndon) score. Richard Fleischer (Soylent Green) directed this total coolness.