Dogs Bark

Sacramento Valley Girl - - Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (2017, USA, Color, 94 min) - - 26 December 2021

Recommended. After burying her husband, screenwriter John Gregory Dunne (The Panic in Needle Park), and her daughter over two years, Joan Didion (Play It As It Lays) survived alone until last week. Didion's death suggests a viewing of nephew Griffin Dunne’s (After Hours) documentary about her. After her loss, Didion might be trivialized as an intellectual version of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. But no serious thinker tries to generalize grief; there’s no vaccine. In any case, this documentary tries to encompass the how of Didion’s confrontation with tragedy. As a member of the Writer’s Guild in the 60’s and 70’s, Joan went to the Laurel Canyon parties, interviewed the Manson girls, and never shrank from honest reporting. Interesting fact: her ancestors came to California with the Donner Party. When the leaders took the short cut, Didion’s great-great-great-grandmother's party stuck to the trail . . . spending a comfortable winter. That’s the California that Joan represents.

 

It’s A Jet All The Way - - West Side Story (2021, USA, Color, 156 min) - - 25 December 2021

Strongly recommended. Let’s make one thing clear about Steven Spielberg’s (ET) ‘remake’ of West Side Story. Exactly like the 1961 movie and original musical, it’s not a political statement. If you want to view it that way, write your own review. West Side Story, like Shakespeare (Romeo And Juliet), is primarily about the tragic impetuosity of young love and young violence . . . and not much else. And to this point, Spielberg’s reinterpretation is incandescent. Rachel Zegler is perfectly cast as Maria, with a complexion, voice, and accent that convinces. Tony award-winner, Justin Peck’s (Carousel) choreography is different, interestingly, not as balletic as Jerome Robbins (Gypsy) despite Peck’s training. But it’s Rita Moreno (West Side Story, 1961) that truly steals the show, as Valentina . . . a character replacing Ned Glass’s (Charade) dour shopkeeper, Doc. Her evocative agony foreshadows the ending, informing the character with her original performance. A second Oscar is arguably deserved.

Hard Boiled - - Detective Story (1951, USA, B/W, 103 min) - - 10 December 2021

Strongly recommended. Detective Story is one of William Wyler’s (Ben-Hur) lesser-known pictures, despite four Oscar nominations, including himself as Best Director. This one’s a rarity . . . a play noir! But seriously, Detective Story is a hard-as-nails story, one about an angry, neurotic man who keeps making the same, sad mistake. Anyone plagued by male anger issues and anyone who has had to suffer under these issues - - the other half of the population - - knows the truth of Kirk Douglas’s (Spartacus) characterization of bitter cop, Jim McLeod. The counter is provided by the wonderful Lee Grant’s (Shampoo) Oscar-winning and compassionate performance. But others need mention . . . yeoman Horace McMahon (Naked City) as McLeod’s boss, Mrs. McLeod, Eleanor Parker (Sound Of Music), William Bendix (Lifeboat) as a sympathetic colleague, and Joseph Wiseman (Doctor No) as a psycho thief. A splendid cast! And the film was shot by Marlene Dietrich’s (Morocco) cameraman Lee Garmes (Shanghai Express).

Every Boy Has A Dog - - Nightmare Alley (2021, USA, Color, 150 min) - - 17 December 2021

Recommended. It’s important to know that director/screenwriter Guillermo del Toro (The Shape Of Water) did NOT intend to remake Tyrone Power’s (Blood And Sand) version of this story. You’ll note that nowhere in the credits is the brilliant 1947 film noir mentioned . . . only the original book by William Lindsay Gresham. Judge this on its own merits. And on that basis, Nightmare Alley is a good film, one of the bleakest stories ever screened. Del Toro seems committed to this. It’s only a film noir because of the sordid characters and their fate, not style. Bradley Cooper (Silver Lining Playbook) has made a career of moral ambiguity. Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) does another of her Jessica Rabbit impressions. Some other miscasting is scattered about but not Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine), as Bradley’s first and forewarned chump. Despite this, Nightmare Alley is mostly - - like it's hoodwinking hero - - just easy on the eyes.

Buck Henry Was Busy Elsewhere - - Shampoo (1975, USA, Color, 110 min) - - 9 December 2021

Strongly recommended. One of the greatest movie satires of an era of amazing movie satires, with a cast of 70’s legends. For two days in November of 1968, a Beverly Hills uber-stylist (Warren Beatty, Bonnie And Clyde) juggles beautiful client/lovers (Lee Grant, Detective Story, Julie Christie, Doctor Zhivago, and Goldie Hawn, Cactus Flower) as Richard Nixon is elected president and the Summer of Love devolves into a discarded condom. Grant won her only - - shocking - - Oscar, herein and Jack Warden (Heaven Can Wait) one of his only - - even more shocking - - two nominations. Many believe the Beatty character to be based on Manson victim and Hollywood hairdresser, Jay Sebring. More likely, stylist Richard Alcala was the coxswain . . . . since Alcala had dated cast member and film-school pal of the director (Hal Ashby, Harold and Maude), Luana Anders (Easy Rider). Score by Paul Simon (The Graduate) and cinematography by Laszlo Kovaks (Five Easy Pieces).     

Pas Si Bon Voyage - - Week-End (1967, France, Color, 105 min) - - 12 December 2021

An essential. Perhaps you find Jean-Luc Godard (Band of Outsiders) to be oppressively didactic . . . many do. But if you like radical 70's movies, you might want to know to whom they homage. Godard revolutionized movies twice, amping up the French New Wave with Breathless and world cinema - -  literally - - with Week-End. Regardless . . . if you look past the soon-to-be, Godard-pervasive, radical title cards, Week-End has two iconic sequences. The plot concerns a bourgeois and French couple heading off for a motherly homicide. During the drive, we are subjected to a famously long tracking shot of the worst traffic jam ever. A lot of bloody corpses seem to be scattered about the roads but the violence and cannibalism is mostly off screen and clearly figurative. It's materialistic greed that Godard wants to execute. Mireille Darc (The Tall Man with One Black Shoe) plays the wife and, Jean Yanne (Indochine), her savory mate.