When the fog finally lift(ed)

Let's just start with the title of this fantastic P.T. Anderson take on Thomas Pynchon's novel: Inherent Vice. It is not at all a spoiler to say that "Inherent Vice" is a term of art in Marine Insurance that means the natural tendency of items being shipped to, let's say, self-destruct: chocolate melts, glass breaks, etc. If you know Pynchon, this is almost a philosophical outlook -- an ontology. Or not...

There is a range of qualities that make this film just...well...wonderful. It would take more than the space in this Blog post, and more than the average reader has the stamina to read to cover them all. So let's take a selection: the source material, the adaptation and the filmmaker. Oh, and some other stuff, like Joaquin Phoenix's note-perfect rendering of Pynchon's not-perfect stoner P.I., Doc Sportello.

Full disclosure: I am a lifelong Pynchon fan, and have been ever since I read V in college. I mean, just saying that is kind of cliche, but I haven't "grown out" of him. Hardly. I loved Vineland, and really, really loved Inherent Vice. So, when I found out one of my favorite film-makers was going where no filmmaker had gone before, and was ADAPTING a Thomas Pynchon novel, I was intrigued.

The novel Inherent Vice is a fascinating pastiche of loony-but-likeable characters (which reminds one of V), fast-rapping pop culture references and a plot that is so intricate Charles Dickens might be rolling in his grave. Pynchon has honed his craft over the years, taken the relatively compact story telling of V, the epic qualities of Gravity's Rainbow and now fashioned something that is part Elmore Leonard, part Charles Bukowski, with smatterings of William Burroughs. But all Pynchon. One particularly remarkable prose passage (from a scene not included in the film) describes the interior of a decrepit casino in Las Vegas - like a one-take scene in a...well, in a P.T. Anderson film. I'm thinking the roller disco opening in Boogie Nights, here.

Then there is the Adaptation. It is hard to say that with a straight face in this post-modern, Spike Jonez meets Nicholas Cage world, but it still matters who takes a work of real weight like this and tries to bring it to screen. Even a relatively straightforward Pynchon novel like Inherent Vice is a challenge, since his prose is so dense with pop-culture allusion. Here, Anderson is the screenwriter and director, and the material could not have been a better fit: Anderson seems to think somewhat like Pynchon does; and, the purported LA resident Pynchon is an eloquent chronicler of the region's vices and virtues.

And then there is Mister Anderson. All I can say about him is, well, you had me at Boogie Nights. Literally. Go back a few years and remember the year Boogie Nights came out. That same year we had David O Russell's stunning Three Kings, and David Fincher's equally stunning Fight Club. I shared an opinion with a number of "real" critics that that year was a watermark in American Cinema. None of these directors has let us down, and Anderson has really all along been my favorite. Perhaps in part because I spent most of my life in LA, and Anderson has chosen to make LA. itself the topic of all of his films: not just set his films in L.A. or use L.A. to represent other locations, but make films ABOUT Los Angeles. Or, about life, philosophy, culture, etc. viewed through the lens of L.A.

Inherent Vice concerns one Larry "Doc" Sportello, a pot-smoking private detective who seems not to have gotten the memo that the 60s died, and what was left was the 70s. To summarize the plot would really be futile, and really miss the point. For Pynchon (and to some extent Anderson), the narrative through-line of the story is incidental to the story-telling itself. In short, Doc is visited by an ex-girlfriend for whom he still pines, learns of the disappearance of a scum-bag L.A. real estate mogul, and, well, the rest is Pynchon. Evil corporate plots involving shadowy government agencies (with glancing references to Richard Nixon), coke-sniffing dentists, confusingly-named sanatoria, macho L.A. cops and robot-like FBI agents. You get the idea.

As mentioned, Joaquin Phoenix quite literally steals the show in Inherent Vice, with just the right amount of stoner disregard to avoid getting killed and to succeed solving the mystery. If you can say the "mystery" is ever really solved. Joining him on this jaunt is a great set of A listers: the nearly always great Josh Brolin as LAPD detective 'Bigfoot' Bjornson, Phoenix's Walk the Line co-star Reese Witherspoon as Doc's Assistant D.A./squeeze, Martin Short as the aforementioned drug-addled DDS, Benicio Del Toro in a marvelous turn as Doc's vaguely Latin attorney. The list could go on.

Joining these better-known actors is a brace of lesser-knowns and unknowns, and this is part of what gives the film its undeniable charm. Joanna Newsome plays the mysterious Sortilege, who also does the added voice-over narration. Two actors I had never heard of play the anonymous FBI agents, and perhaps that is the point. An actor we don't see a lot, Eric Roberts plays Mickey Wolfman, the a-hole about whom all the fuss is being made in the first place, and the lovely Jena Malone is Surf Sax player Coy Harlingen's abandoned wife.

As always with Anderson, the technical and other aspects of the film-making are near-perfect. As has been pointed out by critics, his warm, highly saturated lighting, combined with relatively straightforward shots and camera angles is distinctively Anderson, and suits the material well. And the material, here is not just the tapestry of characters but L.A. itself. Not the gorgeously-shot L.A. of Chinatown but the hyper-realistic L.A. of P.T. Anderson, which shows everything: the good, the bad and the ugly.

As is typical with Anderson, the music is exceptional. In fact, so good that it actually becomes part of the fabric of the film, the way Wes Anderson's intricate production design does. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood did the main score, and sprinklings of period music, including well-placed Neil Young snippets really help complete what is an extraordinary finished product.

Inherent Vice, ironically doesn't appear to have any of its own...vice that is. The title seems to refer to the sort of entropy that seems to enthrall Pynchon -- whom many consider to have been the first true "post-modern" novelist in English -- as a way of understanding the world; the center cannot hold, but let's enjoy watching it fall apart, in a very human way.

Enjoy.

Kirk Douglas Story

I seem to be on a bit of a Kirk Douglas kick right now. At least this is the second Blog post where I have discussed the still-living titan of American acting. I promise the next post will be about a recent movie, and one not starring Michael Douglas's Dad.

I sometimes write these posts thinking, "geez, these really great films, probably most of the people who read film blogs or are members of Google Plus communities have already seen these." Maybe you have, but if you haven't you really do have to check out "Detective Story". This 1951 classic directed by the nearly never bad William Wyler is nearly perfect in its organic unspooling of a story that made the long journey from novel, to Broadway hit (starring Ralph Bellamy) to, finally, the silver screen.

Douglas has rarely been better, and he is at his finest as the eponymous New York City detective working in a room full of his peers. Douglas and company handle the riff raff that walk, lurch and even stumble through a swinging wooden gate (a great touch, by the way) into the den of investigative prowess, moral judgement and bromance-ishness that the story asserts would be a mid-Century police detectives division.

While Douglas's Detective McLeod is not the leader of these not-so-merry men -- that role is superbly taken by actor Horace McMahon as the "L.T." -- he is clearly the engine that drives them. While "Story" plays as an ensemble piece, Det. McLeod has the arc that seems to be so often required to give a film its, what...meaning? Energy? Too, even though the narrative of the film involves several inter-connected sub-plots about suspects in custody, witnesses and others, the primary story line comes to concern Douglas and his treatment of a seemingly nefarious character: a doctor who it is implied has performed unmentionable acts on women 'in trouble'. It seems McLeod and the good doctor have a history, as the saying goes, and the doctor's lawyer appears in the squadroom to meet with the L.T., to prepare for his client's willing surrender for an unnamed crime.

What is revealed is the primary, and it turns out tragic truth about how McLeod and the Doc are connected in ways McLeod is unaware. Without spoiling the plot let me say that the brave script interrogates issues of women, sex, abortion and other tough topics in a way we might not expect of the Eisenhower era. And it doesn't exactly directly address these issues, but more like clearly implies them. Nonetheless, the result is gritty, dark and no-nonsense. Not qualities one would normally associate with Wyler, I don't think.

As stated, the acting, to a person, is superb. Eleanor Parker is a revelation as Douglas's troubled wife, and co-co-star William Bendix is perfect, that is to be expected given his many, many supporting roles. It is hard, though, not to think of Bendix as a "swabbie" out of Central Casting, he played in so many WWII movies set in the Pacific, or as Gangster Number three in an overlooked B noir. Wyler's direction is transparent, letting the acting and the story surface as they need to in this type of film, and Lee Garmes's camerawork is tight, as is the fairly seamless editing, which was I think typical of this era in American filmmaking.

You have probably already seen this noir-ish gem, but if not, might I recommend Amazon Prime? I support the writers in their effort to get fair pay out of Jeff Bezos's monster, and still I love the high quality of print and transfer (this one was in HD) we always get on the Prime-ster. Enjoy...

In the Heat of the Night

This post is about digital media (Google Play), female directors that kick butt and pure film craftsmanship (craftwomanship?). [SPOILERS below]

I had an interesting discussion last year -- with the man who inspired me to start my Blog -- about Zero Dark Thirty. I said it was definitely the Best Picture of the 2013 Oscar race, and he challenged me to say why. I said it was an expertly crafted film, extremely well made. He challenged me further, implying that this was kind of a canned response, he wanted to know WHY I thought it was so good.

Here's why.

ZD30 comes on like gangbusters, and never lets up. It is a terror train of images, music and human drama hurtling toward an inevitable, though problematic, conclusion, and nothing is going to stop it from the time you leave the station with questionable 'full rendition' techniques in a terrifying opening scene, to the not-so-morally-satisfying final image of the female (!) CIA analyst standing over the corpse of Public Enemy Number One. This is my IMPRESSION of the film, how I connect to it emotionally. The true artistry of Kathryn Bigelow's masterpiece is that it accomplishes this while telling the mundane, 'cold coffee and donuts at 2 am in the morning' truth about how hard it is to actually do the heroic work all the people involved in "The Hunt for Osama bin Laden" actually had to do. And, to add to that, the mind-numbing, Kafka-esque experience of trying to get the U.S, government to actually do anything.

That is the headline story. Underneath that is a top-notch script by Mark Boal, precision casting and workmanlike acting from the whole cast. Who knew Jessica Chastain had these kind of chops, although she was quite good in Terrance Malick's "Tree of Life". It was sad, as I re-watched this excellent thriller on Google Play (more on that, below) to be reminded of how great an actor we lost last year when James Gandolfini died. But we have his scene-chewing performance as the "CIA Director" to relish, and Chastain's interchanges with the dear departed are worth the price of admission. You get a real sense of how truly difficult it is to accomplish anything in our intelligence agencies, not just because of the important checks and balances in place, but also because of the mind-numbing politics involved in making a decision.

I could go on, but my other point about ZD30 is that it is a triumph of femininity, or of woman doing purported "men's jobs" up and down the line. Bigelow has been a lone standard-bearer for a woman in a man's game (directing big budget films in the U.S.) for years, and not only does she continue to evidence a unique vision here, but she stuck to her guns when idiots in Congress questioned her patriotism in showing scenes of torture that implied we actually used it to extract information -- which it is very clear we did. One of the functions of art, and film is most definitely an art form, is to raise difficult questions, and ZD30 does that in spades. And to focus on the female CIA analyst who worked so hard -- in reality, along with maybe dozens of others -- to track down the bastard was brave, and gives the film an emotional dimension we rarely experience in American cinema.

Somewhat unrelated to my relish of this film as my delight in using Google Play as one of my new digital media services. I have been using the Music service for quite some time, but I decided to experiment with the video service. I was not disappointed. I purchased the HD version of the film, on sale, and watched it over a crappy hotel Internet connection, using my HDMI out laptop connection to hook it up to a large HD TV. Brilliant, the picture quality was exceptional, and the video player performed very well under demanding conditions.

In whatever fashion you decide to watch this excellent film, please do. HD is really the best way to experience what the filmmakers were trying to do, but even DVD with a decent upscaler will be a nice experience. Please do not watch on a Smartphone, if you can avoid it.

Happy Viewing,

- Eric

What is it about Dana Andrews?

So, I still have not figured out how to wrap text around an image I insert in my Blog posting - like I somehow did successfully for the post on Moon.

Anyway...this is a short note, about a small, but pretty compelling oldie - Boomerang, with the always great Dana Andrews, along with Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt (Does Father really know best?) and an uncredited Karl Malden.

This well crafted true crime thriller is based on a true story, and really the relationship between the true story - as well as the docu-drama style of story telling that the director (Elia Kazan, natch) utlizes - and the film would be worth exploring. But short notes don't allow that. IMDB calls this dandy "chilling", and I would have to agree.

Strangely, Amazon (where I of course found Boomerang) categorizes it is Film Noir, among other things. Well, yes, based on the time-frame it was made, the fact that it is B&W...but it isn't really a thriller or mystery. Really this is a court-room drama par excellence, perfectly played by Dana Andrews. Perhaps the IMDB editors got this confused with Laura -- perhaps Andrews' finest role -- which is really the quintessential American noir.

The justice-denied, and then justice regained story is always a good one, and has the feel of an 18th Century French novel. Get thee to Amazon Prime. And don't worry, that really is the late, great Karl Malden as the hard-nosed detective. The crime is that apparently he didn't have enough juice to get his name in the credits.

Enjoy.

Pacino and DeNiro? Yeah, Right...

I have recently been on a Cold War era thrillers kick. I go on these...kicks, I mean. I also recently went on a 1970s Hunk Actor in a Paranoid Thriller kick, and watched Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View and All The President's Men in about a week's time. It is only slightly ironic that the latter is almost entirely a work of non-fiction - the scariest political thriller of the 1970s was based on one of the scariest actual political disasters of all time.

So, my Cold War era thrillers kick. Early cold war, not late, to clarify. I all of a sudden, one day got a hankering to see Seven Days in May, Dr. Strangelove and Failsafe. I watched the first and third, and will soon re-watch Kubrick's 'black humor' masterpiece. Although Failsafe - starring Henry Fonda as our Commander-in-Chief - is truly riveting, this oft-overlooked chiller with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster is a real potboiler. It is nearly impossible to spoil the plot, because the 'secret' - that a group of militarists and politicians are plotting a coup d'etat to overthrow the U.S. Government -- is laid bare in the first reel. The rest, is, as the saying goes, 'cutting to the chase'.

And what a chase it is. Let me see, what could be more thrilling than a multi-layered, ingenious plan to replace the President with the Speaker of the House, lead by a group of Hawks who believe negotiating with the Ruskies is, er, what would be the right phrase, "namby pamby"? The ways in which the coup plotters use the very protocols intended to ensure the security of our country to create a web of inter-connected events like the mechanism of a finely made watch clicking together is something to behold, and this cast of crazies is lead by the original He Man himself, Burt Lancaster. I keep thinking Lancaster's General is going to pull his uniform off and reveal Captain America underneath.

Set as counter-point to Lancaster's buttoned-up G.I. Joe is Kirk Douglas, who is outstanding as one of Lancaster's staffers - literally his attache (sometimes seeming like an attache case, he is so obsequious). It is Douglas' character who accidentally uncovers said plot, pieces it together, and must make a compelling case to a hard-to-convince president (played to perfection by Frederic March) and the rag tag coterie of staff members that he thinks he can trust. Add in the always great Martin Balsam and you have a recipe for political thriller heaven.

Why was I not surprised to be reminded that late, great John Frankenheimer helmed this gem? Oh he of Manchurian Candidate fame - the guy practically invented the political/cold war thriller. And let's think for a minute about the qualities that SDiM has in common with perhaps my favorite Black and White spine-tingler starring Laurence Harvey and Frank Sintra - well, the only one that fits that category. It starts - as Manchurian does - with a great story and script, and adds some damn fine actors. We've covered this ground already, but to my mind Douglas and Lancaster were two of their generation's most under-appreciated macho men (Tom Cruise, anyone?) and made many fine films in which their acting chops were on display. Think Ace in the Hole with Douglas, and The Swimmer with Lancaster, if you want to see them individually at their best.

Seeing these two on the screen reminds me of the long awaited re-pairing of DeNiro and Pacino - which at times has been great (think Heat) and at others, not so much (think Righteous Kill). It must have seemed as exciting to put these two titans together, and perhaps the sliver screen might not have seemed big enough to hold them both, but under Frankenheimer's sure hand the results are splendid. Cinemetography suits the tense nature of the thriller, using black and white to provide stark images of Pentagon war rooms and white house offices, and music and editing are also superb, as in other great Frankeheimer entries.

If you want to relive, or live through for the first time, real cold war era tension, get thee to Amazon Prime, where you will find an excellent transfer, available in full 1080p HD. You will not be sorry.

Moon Unit...Two?

Now you know I am completely "dans la lune" as the French might say. I've gone from serious documentary, to bigbudget sci fi...to indie sci fi?

Perhaps there has always been an "indie" sci fi genre, or at least a non-mainstream one. Think Solaris - not the excellent Stephen Soderbergh 'remake' but the original Russian classic. But "Moon" with the inimitable Sam Rockwell is just great.

I saw this film about a year ago for the first time, and remember really liking it. I used to see a lot of more obscure films on first viewing by discovering them on the rental shelf at Blockbuster. Now that the last great rental chain is dying a very slow death, what will I do? Anyway, a good test for a film is if you like it as much, or even more, the second time you see it, once the novelty has worn off.

Well, this Duncan Jones entry more than passes the test. It is almost incidentally a sci-fi flick, and more a thoroughly human drama. Or is it? OK, no plot spoilers here, but sufficed to say the thorough examination of what it means to be human is really what this well written, filmed and most of all expertly acted flim is all about. And, not since Kubrick's iconic HAL 9000 have we had a computer, er, assistant so creepily voiced, this time by that Horrible Boss himself, Kevin Spacey.

Twist ending stories, whether in print or on film, depend on other qualities to elevate them artistically, since the unexpected ending (quasi plot spoiler) is rather gimmick-y. What Jones does so well in Moon is start with a great story (idea, plot and writing) and leave the rest to Rockwell. And the latter does not disappoint. Although I am now convinced that in every film featuring Sam Rockwell, he seems to be always playing himself, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Rockwell is, to use a cliche, pitch-perfect as the sole inhabitant of a lunar mining operation who just might be losing his mind. Since his character's mind is the primary frame of reference for the film's narrative that creates a marvelous complexity that doesn't leave us until the big reveal in the end - and even then is left fittingly ambiguous.

I was reminded of very 70s era sci-fi drama, Silent Running, with another great character actor, Bruce Dern. Watching Dern fence with adorable little robot-critters as he attempts to salvage what is left of Earth's bio-mass on a giant floating ship was at times humorous and at times tragic. So too with Rockwell's tete-a-tete with Spacey's thoroughly corporate computer/armature/thingy.

If you love indie, sci fi and/or Rockwell, Moon is definitely for you.

I Love You, Amazon Prime

OK, well, this is a film blog, and not a Digital Media blog (although I have had occasion to post about that topic as well). But can I just say how in love I am with Amazon Prime? I went through one day to test how many "free" movies I had with my Prime subscription, and the answer is...well, I haven't answered the question yet. Apparently it is hundreds. Now, of course, if you have looked at online streaming sites like Netflix or Hulu you probably have come to the same conclusion I have - with regards to film, great, but no cigar. I mean Hulu has the very awesome Criterion Collection, but also has every film ever made by Casper Van Dein. And the collected later works of Rutger Hauer. Not so much...

Amazon Prime by contrast seems to have primarily decent, if not outstanding films included for the Prime subscription. I mean, they had Billy Wilder's perennially excellent "Sunset Boulevard". Need I say more?

I am a bit of a snob when it comes to the quality and format of the films I watch on my home screen, and I must comment that the print, and transfer used for this digital streaming version of Sunset was absolutely exceptional. It actually said it was in Hi-Def, which I understand for streaming services usually means 1080i, not 1080p but still, as the Aussies might say, "good on ya, Amazon".

One reason Prime is the answer to my prayers is that I had been looking for a copy of this film in my local Blockbuster, and through other means and had no luck finding a physical copy. Of course I could buy one online at Amazon, but in this case I just wanted to watch the movie, not buy it. Why did I lust for it? Because Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Eric Von Stroheim (Eric Von Stroheim?) and crew left an indelible mark on my cine-phile's counciousness when I first encountered them lo these many years past.

For some reason this film haunts me. Perhaps it is because I grew up not a couple of miles away from where it was filmed (albeit I grew up a couple of decades after it was filmed), and I think if it as a kind of 'local' story. Perhaps it is because the story is so creepy and romantic, in a postmodern way - I mean what could deconstruct romantic love more than an aging Hollywood starlet keeping a 'boy toy' in her hideway of a mansion, right on one of the most expensive streets in the world - the eponymous Sunset Boulevard. And that touches on one of the interesting aspects of this film for me - Sunset Boulevard is kind of a shadow character in the film. The fact that the street name is also the title of the film creates a sort of urban geography that circumscribes the action, as well as the moral issues the film seems to touch upon.

Having seen this film now three, or maybe four times, I am as convinced as ever that Billy Wilder was, hands-down, one of the greatest directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, or any other age; that Gloria Swanson was an excellent actress, and that Bill Holden, the lush that he was, could hold his own on the scren with just about anyone. The script, lighting, set design, everything about Sunset Boulevard is not just high quality, but exceptional.

May I be unironic for a moment and say that - unlike Norman Desmond -- Wilder's classic has aged well?

See you on Amazon Prime...