Celluloid #47

In Theaters

Ms. 45 (1981) Ferrara - A mute woman is raped twice in one day. She fights back against the second rapist...killing him and cutting his body into little pieces. She takes his gun to use for protection to begin with, then to protect other women, finally evolving to an all-out male killing spree. Exploitation-style black comedy. 4/5

In Home

Coup de Grace (1976) Schlondorff - Sophie lives in a small town during wartime. Her soldier brother returns with some of his troop, including a lieutenant named Erich. Sophie claims to love Erich, but he rejects her advances, signalling the start of her sexual rampage and openness about her Bolshevik leanings...an unpopular stance in a place where Reds and Red-sympathizers are a murder target. 3/5

Dolls (2002) Kitano - Three stories about tenuous love. 1.) A young man is set to marry his boss' daughter, but on his wedding day, he learns that his ex-fiance has attempted suicide, leaving her with some form of brain damage/amnesia. 2.) A yakuza boss remembers his old lover from his factory days. She promises to bring him lunch every Saturday as her way of awaiting his return. 3.) A pop star with obsessive fans gets in a car accident, and one particular fan goes to visit her. 4/5

the Last Wave (1977) Weir - A white lawyer who normally handles corporate tax cases, decides to take on a criminal case involving Aboriginal men. The film focuses a lot on tribalism, weird spiritual things (to the point of fetishism), and dreams. Truthfully, it's pretty boring considering how "weird" it gets at times. 2.5/5

Sisters (1973) de Palma - Danielle Bretton takes a man back to her apartment, but he ends up murdered in her living room the next morning. Danielle has a twin sister, Dominique, and the two were conjoined until recently. A reporter, who lives across the way, witnesses the whole event, but the police refuse to take her seriously. Both Danielle and Grace (the reporter) end up in a mental institute run by Danielle's ex-husband. Campy horror fun. 4/5

Spider Baby (1964) Hill - A family is afflicted with a rare disease that causes them to age backwards after the age of 10 until they becomes scary pre-human creatures with cannibalistic tendencies. Also, Virginia likes to play "Spider" where she wraps someone up in a net and stabs them to death. Some visitors stay at the house, only to get attacked when Bruno, the guardian, is away. Sufficiently creepy, but far from Jack Hill's best. 3/5

Ten (2002) Kiarostami - Looks like a home video filmed entirely within a car. A divorced Irani woman drives around Tehran picking up various passengers. These characters include her son, her sister, a prostitute, an old religious woman, and two rejected brides. Obviously an examination on women in Iran; the variety and ways in which they relate to each other. 3.25/5

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) Aldrich - Baby Jane was a child stage star. Later on, her sister Blanche, becomes the bigger star as a movie actress. Blanche tries to include Jane in her success, but Jane becomes increasingly jealous and loopy. Jane becomes Blanche's caretaker after Blanche is paralyzed in a car accident. However, Jane's version of caretaker includes cruelty and serving dead rats for dinner on the occasion. Such a ridiculous films full of outrageous performances from Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in particular. 4/5

Zodiac (2007) Fincher - I had already seen this film, but Jon rented it on a whim. Robert (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a cartoonist for the SF Chronicle when the Zodiac killer begins his rampage around the Bay Area. Robert is obsessed with figuring out the mystery of the serial killer's identity; a puzzle that to this day has not been resolved. A good-looking and entertaining film that easily keeps one engaged despite its length. 4/5

Celluloid #46

In Theaters

Il Divo (2008) Sorrentino - This film is a crash course in Italian politics of the last several decades. The parenthetical title is "The Spectacular Life of Giulio Andreotti" and this prime minister is a very interesting person. He explains himself as a person who dabbles in evil (corruption, mafia ties) for the greater good of the country. In his eyes, lovers of truth are only asking for disunity and problems. Despite his wrongdoings, Andreotti still appears to possess a lot of charm, wit, and intelligence. The rock song soundtrack heightens what is already a very stylish film, but one that could have used a plot line...instead it feels like a bunch of clips about random events during his twenty years in office. 3.5/5

WOMEN ON THE VERGE DOUBLE FEATURE: Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1971) Schatzberg & Play It As It Lays (1972) Perry

The first selection featured a very crazy Faye Dunaway, and if you like Mz. Dunaway, you will be pleased that you pretty much get to see her on screen constantly. She starts out as a high fashion model who bones a number of dudes that she really doesn't care about, her career peaks and she stops being the "it" girl, and becomes suicidal. Lacking in any subtlety, we must see "Lou" screaming and writhing about in an insane asylum at least five times. Schatzberg also decided to do some pretty amateur pseudo-arty things with the camera, namely a variety of out of focus shots and silly extreme close-ups. Lastly, this film feels much longer than the 110 minutes it really is.. (3/5)

However, Play It.. doesn't even have Faye Dunaway or her outfits, but instead has Tuesday Weld and her bad hair and perhaps even less subtlety than the first film. Maria is a small time actress with a director husband. She is fed up with Hollywood and the facades it puts forth. In the course of the film she gets a divorce, has an abortion, and watches her friend commit suicide. As a book, I thought this wasn't bad, but I think Didion is actually a pretty decent writer...this is just a crappy movie with an infuriating parting shot. (1.5/5)

In Home

Brand Upon the Brain (2006) Maddin - A bunch of orphans live on an island where their brains are being drained of youth-giving "nectar." This is a Guy Maddin film where silent movie aesthetic once again meets B-movie themes. This time around there is teenage lesbian love and crazy science experiments, but while it sounds really silly, this film is the right mixture of beautiful and weird. Also, Isabella Rossellini narrates! 4.5/5

In the Soup (1992) Rockwell -Aldolfo (Steve Buscemi) has written a 500 page script. Joe (Seymour Cassell) wants to help him make his movie. Joe has some pretty wild schemes to get money and meanwhile Aldolfo has a thing for his neighbor. Really stupid, cliched ending. 2.5/5

Lilya 4-Ever (2002) Moodysson - Lilya's mom leaves for America with her boyfriend, abandoning teenage Lilya whose own aunt even takes advantage of her. This takes place in the former Soviet Union where everyone seems like they are suffering economically, taking desperate measures to make money. Lilya is left with little option other than to prostitute herself. There is glimmer of hope when she meets a nice boy who promises to take her to Sweden, but that hope is soon dashed away. 4/5

Open Hearts (2002) Bier - A couple gets engaged, then the boyfriend gets paralyzed in a car accident. A doctor (who is also the husband of the woman who was driving the car) tries to console the girlfriend, and the two start having an affair. While the characters don't often do what you would hope, they are extremely human. This film is part of the Dogme 95 series. 4/5

She's Gotta Have It (1986) Lee - Spike Lee's debut film exceeded the expectations I had for it. While the cover art always features cheesy neon flair, this film is actually black and white and not much of a comedy. Nola is seeing three men who each know about the others, but each still wants to be her only lover. She seems to be looking for something or figuring herself out. The acting is a little weird at times, especially during the monologue scenes. 4/5

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) Park - Ryu's sister needs a kidney. After a failed attempt at acquiring one on the black market, he and his girlfriend decide to kidnap a girl for ransom...Needless to say, the kidnapping does not go off as planned, jump starting a devastating sequence of events. 4/5

Celluloid #45

In Theaters (the theme this week is: People with face tattoos are bad news)

Sin Nombre (2009) Fukunaga - Sayra (a Honduran girl), her dad, and her uncle are travelling North to get to New Jersey. Meanwhile, Willy aka Casper is part of a violent gang, but has become increasingly frustrated by his role and his life. Circumstances cause Willy to commit an act of revenge which leaves him on a train full of immigrants including Sayra and her family. Another installment in the New Neo-Realism trend in independent films --featuring some crazy scenes considering most of the film takes place on top of the train, but some fairly predictable plot points. 4/5

Star Trek (2009) Abrams - A fun, campy, modern-day B-movie. Exactly what you would expect from a summer movie: some action, some style, and good-looking people (Spock is cute!). I really wish J.J. Abrams would get off of his time travel/alternate reality kick; I think he's exhausted most of his ideas surrounding that theme on both "Lost" and "Fringe". Other than that, I enjoyed the multiple father son dilemmas and that nobody seemed to be taking themselves very seriously. 3.5/5

In Home

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) Scorsese - Alice lives a life controlled by men. Her abusive husband dies and sends her on a journey to recapture the happiness of her childhood in Monterey. On the roadtrip with her 12 year-old son, she gets a job as a singer in a nightclub and later as a waitress. She also gets involved with two men: one who hits her and one who hits her kid. This film seems like it wants to put forth a strong female character, and perhaps even an overall feminist slant, but eventually falls back into typical attitudes towards women and their inability to survive without a man. 3.5/5

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1961) Reisz - Arthur works at a factory and has an ongoing affair with a married woman whom he gets pregnant. He's also seeing another young lady and spending much of his free time playing pranks. Arthur desires a life of nonconformity, but finds it hard to break from standard expectations. Stylish film that was part of the "Angry Young Man" film movement, aka the British New Wave. 4/5

the Son (2002) Dardenne - A carpentry teacher for a boys' vocational school becomes obsessed with a new student. We learn early on that this student is connected to the death of the teacher's own son several years earlier. A tense film full of incredible dialogue scenes, confrontations, and occasional attempts at redemption. 4/5

Celluloid #44

I also watched SpaceGodzilla this weekend, but since my friends and I pretty much talked through the entire second half, it doesn't warrant a real review...

In Home

Cafe Lumiere (2003) Hou - A young woman discovers that she is pregnant while she is conducting research about a Taiwanese composer. Her boyfriend runs a bookstore and records train noises. That's about it. Honestly, I think I need to take a break from the slow-paced films of Thailand and Taiwan. This film was pretty, but still barely containing a narrative...something I don't always have problems with, but for now fails to capture my interest completely. 3/5

Capturing the Friedmans (2003) Jarecki - A documentary about a father and his youngest son who are accused of child molestation in the late 1980s. Arnold, the father, has a history of collecting pedophilia magazines and a bit of a sexually sorted past. However, this story is interesting because we are never really sure whether Arnold committed the crimes (and it seems mostly unlikely that Jesse, the son, had much if anything to do with the charges). On one hand a community enters a state of hysteria and coercion (some parents of alleged victims felt that they were bullied into joining the "witch hunt" by other parents), lack of physical evidence, and cops and judges on a mission. On the other side is an undoubtedly dysfunctional family, but perhaps one that doesn't deserve the punishment bestowed upon it. Full of lots of video taken by the Friedmans personally. 3.5/5

Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003) Tsai - So I consider myself an extremely patient person when it comes to "boring" films. Long shots. Deliberately paced scenes. Quiet atmospheric visuals. I'm cool with all of that....but I could hardly sit through the 80 minutes of this film. The first dialogue occurs somewhere around the 45th minute, and we are hardly given any additional lines for the duration of the film. This is a film about an old movie theater that is about to close. Sometimes we are just watching scenes from the old movie playing on screen. Other times we follow around the crippled caretaker woman as she cleans. Mostly, the scenes are so incredibly dark as they are focused on the sparse audience of the theater. It seems safe to assume that the director is trying to evoke emotions about the death of the theater-going era, but really I couldn't be bothered to care. 1.5/5

Year in Film Retrospective: 2003

The second installment of Top Tens from years gone by...

10.) Documentary Bloc: the Fog of War (Errol Morris) & Afro-Punk (James Spooner)
9.) Good Bye, Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker)
8.) Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho)
7.) Elephant (Gus van Sant)
6.) the Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (Takeshi "Beat" Kitano)
5.) Young Adam (David Mackenzie)
4.) Oldboy (Park Chan-Wook)
3.) Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino)
2.) All the Real Girls (David Gordon Green)
1.) Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)

Check out Filmspotting's lists here...once again feel free to post your own Top 10 in my comments section.