clemsnide Reviews

Walk the Line (2005)

Acting makes the movie

[6/10 · 10 January 2006]

The script for this movie is familiar (at least to Johnny Cash fans) and somewhat pedestrian. The acting, however, is superb. Perhaps the best decision James Mangold made is to have Phoenix & Witherspoon doing their own singing. Witherspoon does a better job approximating June's high, playful twang, but Phoenix's performances make you forget that he sounds very little like Cash. Being a Johnny Cash fan for almost 30 years now, I didn't expect Phoenix to be able to convince me. I was wrong.

This isn't a great movie. There are no new insights into the man (then again, Cash always was an open book). The photography is pretty, but unremarkable. Walk the Line is, however, great entertainment, primarily because of the work of Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, and Robert Patrick. Definitely worth seeing.

Deep Blues (1992)

The real stuff

[7/10 · 9 January 2005]

Anyone who was left cold by the 2003 "The Blues" miniseries (or, for that matter, anyone who really liked it) should seek out this documentary. This is the real stuff, not archival footage, that was happening right in front of the cameras. And while the modern blues we see on the festival circuit is a celebration of tradition, this is the thing itself.

Most of Deep Blues is shot in Northern Mississippi hill country, where Fred McDowell is the figurehead of local tradition (as opposed to the Mississippi delta, where Charlie Patton & Robert Johnson are the deities). Impovrished and isolated, the blues lives there in a form mostly untouched by the Chicago sound and it's bastard son, rock & roll. Because of this purity, Deep Blues is, at times, like a window back into the original blues era.

Robert Palmer has that sort of goofy music critic presence that some find annoying, but I can't think of any one else who could have done it any better.

This is perhaps the best blues documentary that I have ever seen. And, as an interesting side note, Deep Blues was instrumental in launching a record label (Fat Possum) that brought many of the stars of this movie to a much wider public; R L Burnside and Junior Kimbrough in particular were saved from obscurity by Deep Blues and Fat Possum Records. Do yourself a favor: if you like blues uncut, check this out, and look into Fat Possum's catalogue.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

Don't expect Tarantino

[8/10 · 5 January 2005]

It seems to me that most people who disrespect this movie have a problem with what it isn't (i.e., Tarantino, or yet another noir update) more than what it is. It is not a movie that is meant to actively engage the viewer either emotionally or intellectually . . . a sort of minimalist cinema, I guess. In that respect, Ghost Dog is a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Like 2001, it is considered slow, numbing, and overly stylistic. And, like 2001, I watch this movie over and over again. It has an almost narcotic effect.

To those who complain that the movie is all style and no substance, I would point out that the style *is* the substance, in much the same way that it is in Stranger Than Paradise, another (early) Jarmusch film. Here, the dialogue is superb (Tarantino, as good as he is, could learn a little about economy from Jarmusch) but holds the viewer at a distance. The acting is, from top to bottom, as good as any movie ensemble I can remember. RZA's soundtrack stands as a minor classic, right up there with Ry Cooder's Paris Texas soundtrack. The movie is beautifully shot. But . . . this is not a movie which strives to be a classic in any traditional sense.

Don't watch this expecting profound philosophical insight: the Eastern philosophies are stage props only, and don't stand up to scrutiny. Don't watch this movie for the action: while the action scenes are very good, they tend to get swallowed up in the ambiance of the movie. And, while the movie is hilarious at points, it definitely isn't a comedy. Above all, don't watch this movie if you want spectacle, because that is exactly what it is not. To enjoy this movie, you need to be able to get lost in it the same way you can get lost looking at a painting, or a photograph, or a landscape (uh, if you haven't guessed by now, it's an art flick . . . if you have no tolerance for art flicks, run away screaming).

If Jim Jarmusch has made a great movie, I haven't seen it. This is a very good one.