The-MacMahonian Reviews

Fargo (1996)

Why Don't They Leave Things Alone?

[10/10 · 11 November 2020]

Fargo was the 6th feature film directed by the Coen Bros, silver screen demiurges extraordinaires of meta and post irony pathos who first and last graced these pages a propos their 17th feature (Hail Caesar!, incidentally, not one of their best) back in May 2016.

Fargo tells the story - claimed in the opening credits to be true until Joel Coel disclosed, some 20 years later, it was only true it was a story - of car salesman Jerry Lundegaard's (William H Macy) circumvoluted plan to kidnap his wife Jean (incidentally Fargo, North Dakota native Kirstin Rudrüd) with the assistance of hired "operatives" loquacious Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and icily reticent Gaear Rimsrud (Peter Stormare) in order to collect ransom money to address financial difficulties, a plan that unsurprisingly turns sour and sours further at Jerry's every clumsy attempt to straighten it, leading to the hilarious demise or perdition of practically everyone involved as 8-month pregnant local policewoman Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) investigates and solves the case with the same deadpan workday matter-of-factness with which she buys the groceries.

Fargo has a plot Donald Westlake would have killed to write, dialogue Elmore Leonard would have stolen to steal, and comes wrapped in enough "Minnesota nice" and Northern Plains colloquialisms to keep you in stitches throughout. Dialogue example (from memory) (scene: Marge interrogating local hooker with whom Carl slept): hooker: "he was funny-looking"; Marge: "how so?"; hooker: "just funny-looking"; Marge: "can't you be more specific?" hooker: "(pause) I don't know, just funny-looking (pause) more than most people, even".

In my book, Fargo is 4th in a string of masterpieces in the Golden Age of the Coen Bros' canon, which stretches from Miller's Crossing (1990) to Intolerable Cruelty (2003). Chronologically, that is. Overall, I am not completely decided, but it might make the top 5, which, this being the Bros, is VERY high.

The King of Staten Island (2020)

Born to Lose

[8/10 · 13 September 2020]

The King of Staten Island is the 5th feature film directed by Judd Apatow, singular and sparse sex comedy author whose previous Trainwreck (2015) was reviewed in these pages August 24th 2015.

The King of Staten Island tells the story of Scott (Pete Davidson, who also co-wrote the reportedly semi-autobiographical script), 24 and still living with Mom in the eponymous borough, a loser of Lerean proportions hell-bent on living up to Bart Simpson's "underachiever and proud of it" motto, wasting time away with a group of outcast nerd friends - or what for Staten Island standards might actually be perfectly normal people - and half-noncommitting to nice girlfriend Kelsey (Maude Apatow, the director's daughter, remind me sometime to expand on nepotism in Hollywood). Scott does have ADHD and Crohn's desease, which he uses both as excuse and badge of honour to dodge even the remotest opportunities to "straighten up".

The Staten Island connotation may not register fully outside the Big Apple. Think sub-suburban no man's land, a 15 minute ferry ride to Manhattan but for all you know you could be in North Dakota. Apatow, to his credit, brings it to life, or rather lets it live, as he does Scott, who carries on with aloof and amused indifference to all who don't realise there is nothing wrong with him being who he is. Similarly, the film flows Proustian to nowhere, affectionately portraying the characters till (spoiler alert) half-expectedly a Capraesque open ended happy end offers closure.

The Knack... and How to Get It (1965)

Lessons in Love

[5/10 · 29 August 2020]

The Knack... and How to Get It was the 4th feature film directed by Richard Lester, American director indelibly connotated with 60's Britain, as his 1st 5 films, including the present Cannes Palme d'Or winner effort and the 2 celebrated Beatles vehicles A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965) were filmed in the UK and became part and parcel of Swinging London iconography. Ever the virtuoso jester, Lester subsequently returned to the USA for further box-office success directing comedies and light adventures, including a three instalment Musketeer series (1973-1989) and two Superman sequels (1980-1983). As conjurer of Tinseltown thrill and entertainment, Lester is in a league of his own, matched only occasionally by the likes of Richard Donner (who btw penned the 1st Superman and co-directed the 2nd with Lester), Roger Donaldson or John McTiernan.

The Knack... consist of a Commedia dell'Arte-type quadrangle, the 4 sides of the square being young celibate school teacher cum landlord Colin (Michael Crawford, appropriately inadequate), his tenant insufferably successful womanizer Tolan (Ray Brooks, appropriately insufferable), accidentally stumbled-upon love interest of both Nancy (Rita Tushingham, bless her but for the love of me I can't see what Col and Tol saw in her) and Irish soon-to-be also-tenant looker-on Tom (Donal Donelly, if ever there was a name more Irish) who comments on the proceedings for comic relief, everyone carrying on with bizarre silliness or, as was back then probably intended, whimsical zany antics.

Few films merit the adjective "dated" as The Knack... does. Photography and costume design to the T (not that it should have been particularly difficult to faithfully portray 1965 fashions in 1965...) notwithstanding, and the incongruity of including the film in a Free Cinema retrospective ditto (admittedly no fault of the film but rather of the retrospective's curators excessive historical amplitude) what strikes the contemporary viewer the most is that Lester certainly didn't intend his directing virtuosity to go unnoticed, flaunting a Frank-Tashlin-meets-Jean-Luc-Godard-gone-mod framing and editing style that certainly might have looked like the cat's pyjamas back in the day but ultimately drowns the film in decorative affectedness, which on second thoughts is not a totally bad thing, as it also distracts from the vacuity of the proceedings.

But this showing also showed there is still hope in cinephilia: the room was full (COVID19-full, that is, meaning abut 40%) comparing very favourably with current "commercial" venues' occupation rates, more on which soon.

The Hater (2020)

The Boy With the Thorn on His Side

[6/10 · 18 August 2020]

Sala Samobójców. Hejter is the 4th feature film directed by Jan Komasa, Polish director whose work, dealing mainly with the traumas of Poland's historical past and the dissonances of Poland's present, has been regularly featured in Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Venice and the like.

(...) Hejter ( presumably phonetic Polish for "hater", which anyway is the film's English title) tells the story of Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski), thrown out of Law school for plagiarizing, and, being of an extremely sensitive nature, allowing this setback to compound his other several social and personal insecurities, turning him into a sort of young Hannibal Lecter, using his subsequent job as troll in a sleazy internet PR company to manipulate and harass every representative within reach of the social order which he feels mocks him, with (spoiler alert) murderous consequences, which not only go unpunished but are ultimately rewarded. (...) Hejter's suffers from a somewhat heavily allegoric script, amply compensated, however, by overall great acting - or, in the protagonist's case, overacting, combining icy stare and stiff upper lip - as well as by an entertainingly tortuous plot and an appropriately chilling ending.

Intendedly or not, (...) Hejter tilts too much to the Brechtian side to be as gripping as a bona fide psycho thriller it won't be, but the slightly formulaic morality play does provide for a penetrating portrayal of contemporary Polish society.

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Trap House

[8/10 · 11 August 2020]

El Angel Exterminador was the 22nd, and penultimate Mexican feature film directed by Luís Buñuel.

It tells the story of an upper-class dinner party where the guests find themselves unable to leave the premises, virtue of a sort of unexplained volitive force field, and of the ensuing degradation of health and manners of the guests and host, till (spoiler alert 1) the curse is lifted as mysteriously and unexpectedly as it set, and the relieved escapees order a Mass in celebration, only to (spoiler alert 2) find themselves stuck again inside the church for the same reason, or lack thereof.

El Angel Exterminador is an unsubtle critique of the social, political and cultural powers that be, or were. Although produced in Mexico, the jab is presumably meant mainly at Franco's Spain, at a time when the film could not have possibly been shot there. The film is usually referred to as surrealist; absurdist might be more accurate, although Buñuel's iconography, from sheep roaming through palatial corridors to a disembodied hand later plagiarized, consciously or not, by the Addams Family, is unmistakable. Typically for Buñuel, the sometimes farcical tone doesn't diminish the suggestive power, pulling oneiric to punch political.

Rebel Highway: Jailbreakers / Rebelles (1994) Season 1, Episode 8

I Fought the Law and the Law Won

[7/10 · 5 August 2020]

Jailbreakers was the 18th feature film and 3d television film directed by William Friedkin, whose directorial debut in one of the later The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episodes, in 1965, reportedly earned him a scolding by Hitch for not wearing a tie on set, and who later earned major notoriety with The French Connection(1971) and The Exorcist (1973), the latter virtually reframing the horror genre for the next half century. His subsequent work, often as good if not better, never gained comparable acclaim, very undeservedly so, as Friedkin's cinema evinces a primal energy matched only by the likes of Raoul Walsh or Samuel Fuller.

In Jailbreakers the emancipating young woman is cherubic cheerleader Angel (Shannen Doherty) who falls for drug-dealing high school dropout Tony Falcon (Antonio Sabàto Jr), both subsequently engaging in a series of ill-advised crimes and misdemeanors which relentlessly drive them to perdition, the only feasible escape seeming to be the standard Hollywood lumpen golden exile, Mejico, at which border (spoiler alert) Tony comes undone.

Jailbreakers is easily and by far the best instalment of the Rebel Highway series. The plot is as formulaic, if not more, as all the others, but William Friedkin's approach to the overarching theme of the series - how to grow up and fit in in the 50s, as codes of conduct, social hierarchies and sexual politics convulse - dodging socio-politics and going instead for 300 kph melodrama, culminating in a final consummation reminiscent of White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949), is a total winner.

Transit (I) (2018)

Road to Nowhere

[9/10 · 2 August 2020]

Transit is the 8th feature film directed by Christian Petzold, connoted against his will with the Berlin School of contemporary German directors. On evidence of his previous 2 efforts, Barbara (2012, about the loves and escape attempts of an 80s GDR medical doctor) and Phoenix (2014, about a Holocaust survivor returning to Berlin after the end of the war turned her unrecognisable after face surgery, played in both cases by Petzold muse Nina Hoss), Petzold's dramatic style is individual and intense, but sadly burdened, like that of many of his contemporaries, with the compulsion to convey deep and worthy statements about modern German historical guilt or something.

In Transit, Petzold turns vice into virtue by telling the story of Georg (Franz Rogowski, more on whom below) who in the face of impending German advance flees Paris for Marseille, where he seeks transit visas for Spain and the US so he can get to Mexico, his desired final destination, whilst simultaneously having successive chance encounters and subsequently a sort of fling with a mysterious woman (Paula Beer) who we soon learn (spoiler alert) is none other than the wife (actually widow, but she doesn't know it yet) of Weidel, a writer friend of Georg's who died on the escape voyage from Paris to Marseille, dozens of plot twists too intricate and intriguing to explain ensuing, with everything ending up (no spoiler here) making perfect logical sense. It's sort of like Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) if scripted by Kafka and directed by late Hitchcock.

So it's a WWII film, you might think. Well, not quite, as, although "Germans" and "fascists" advancing are mentioned a few times, the film's setting is contemporary (1990s at the earliest) and several references are deliberately anachronic, like Georg's profession ("radio and TV engineer" - he stresses and, apparently implying some sort of novelty or distinction) or the maestro lining up for a visa in the US Consulate whose claimed field of expertise is Luigi Nono. But in this alternative, or parallel, modern world there are no TVs, computers or smartphones to be seen and the international means of transportation of choice seem to be train and ship. The incongruity sustains the film's permanent sense of unease, the "past as lesson for the present" and "plight of the refugee" subtexts obvious but mere background for the transience in which Georg, Maria, (that's the mysterious woman's name) and all others egress.

Not to mention making The MacMahonian entry title finding task unprecedentedly easy with its closing credits soundtrack, Transit is an impressive dramatic and atmospheric tour de force, and if the director must take main credit for this, Frank Rogowski's spectating blankness as Georg is a masterpiece within a masterpiece. If ever anyone decides to adapt to de screen The Metamorphosis or Molloy, they've found their leading man, a Buster Keaton for the 21st Century, standing on the screen as if, to quote the author of the latter, a man "beneath a sky without memory of morning or hope of night".

Pauline at the Beach (1983)

Tainted Love

[9/10 · 2 August 2020]

Pauline a la Plage was the 9th feature film and arguably the last bona fide master piece directed by Eric Rohmer, older generation Nouvelle Vague stalwart whose unique style (truth be told, no more or less unique than that of his most renowned compagnons de route) was at once theatrical, natural, artificial and lo-budget. Rohmer insisted in making films for potentially small audiences and never accepted, even when given the chance, big budgets. A sort of French Woody Allen, but much better.

Pauline a la Plage tells the story of Pauline (Amanda Langlet), out of late puberty and into early adolescence witnessing and coming to terms during the Summer holidays with the vulnerabilities and duplicities of grownup love life, as family friend Pierre (Pascal Greggory) carries a torch for Pauline older cousin and self-persuaded über-hottie Marion (Arielle Dombasle), who however prefers to chase unscrupulous womanizer Henri (Féodor Atkine), as he flirts with her and simultaneously carries on with local beach vendor girl Louisette (Rosette, no, really), dalliance which brand new Pauline boyfriend Sylvain (Simon de la Brosse) half-heartedly assists in dissimulating, with slightly adverse consequences for self. Only the spectator gets the whole picture, but Pauline, the one clear-eye character of the movie, guesses enough.

My writing makes it seem more complicated than it is. Rohmer, almost Brechtean in delivery if not quite Lubitschean in cruelty, excels here in his uncanny ability to mix the utterly romanesque with the seemingly naturalistic, Nestor Almendros' photography in no small measure assisting in the final result.

Joker (I) (2019)

You're So Happy (You Could Kill Me)

[9/10 · 2 August 2020]

The Joker tells of the early days of the eponymous arch-enemy of Batman (Joaquín Phenix, over the top, btw that´s a compliment) and why he turned out the way he did, somewhat like Maleficent (Robert Stromberg, 2014, btw there´s a sequel on the way) did for the eponymous wicked fairy-godmother. The Joker´s problem, or at least the main of many, is that he suffers from a mental condition that causes him to laugh hysterically and uncontrollably when faced with stress, which, compounded by a discontinuation of the respective psychotropic medication due to social security cuts (the film is set at a time when Reaganomics was spreading misery across that iconic mix of the Big Apple and the Windy City: Gotham), leads to a chain of predictably irreversible adverse events.

Appropriately released by Warner Brothers, a studio which from the 1930s on championed the thesis of the criminal as victim of society in many a seminal gangster and orphanage movie, The Joker arguably inaugurates the psycho thriller/social drama genre - although with a possibly unconscious nod to White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949) - and does it in an unusually unvarnished way, at least for the standards of a major Hollywood production, sporting impeccable late 70s/early80s period detail which only close to the end we manage to date precisely, as the Joker walks by a movie theatre showing Blow Out (Brian de Palma): 1981, long after the creation of the comic character but before the start of the current Batman film franchise, when the Joker made his first appearance, impersonated by Jack Nicholson, in 1989.

The best and most succinct praise for The Joker that occurs is that its viewing substitutes without loss the reading of the abundant literature available on identity politics (including the very recent Identity, by Francis Fukuyama, btw brilliant diagnosis but lame prognosis, but I´ll let you be the judge of that). On the other hand, you may never like Batman again.

The Front Page (1931)

Guns Before Butter

[7/10 · 2 August 2020]

The Front Page was the 12th, and 9th credited, feature film directed by Lewis Milestone, Russian Jewish emigré born in what is now Moldova in 1895 whose directing career spanned from the end of WWI to the early days of the Beatles, thus the core of the XXth Century. A director of moderate talent, Milestone enjoyed disproportionate renown in his day, directing everything from screen adaptations of Brodaway comedies, inter alia the effort under review, and musicals, to prestige literary adaptations such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, for which he won an Oscar for best director, which, helás, didn´t make him a better director...) or Of Mice and Men (1939), graduating in the 50s to big budget productions like Les Misérables (1952) or Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). Fun factoid: he also directed the original Ocean´s 11 (1960) the first film to feature the full Rat Pack.

The Front Page adapts to the screen an eponymous play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, about a group of hardboiled Chicago newspapermen bent on scooping on the imminent execution of a presumed subversive agitator (George E Stone), mandatory love interest provided by the scheduled wedding of journalist Hildy Johnson (Pat O´Brien, much more at ease playing Irish priests and the like) to fiancée Peggy Grant (Mary Briant), event which conflicts with the professional duties, interests and urges of Hildy.

The Front Page was one of the first films to use the rotambulator, an ancestor of the dolly, which allowed for a few press room sequences with dialogue shot in circular motion, not unlike similar scenes in much later efforts by Quentin Tarantino (viz Reservoir Dogs, 1992), providing for some relief for what otherwise comes across as excessive, undestandably in a stage adaptation and an early talkie, talkyness. The remaining relief comes from Ben Hecht´s delighful dialogue.

Supplementary sort of interest for contemporary viewers is the political and sexual innuendo, both verbal and physical, that pre-code comedy allowed. For all this, in 2010, The Front Page was included in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in consideration of it being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

All aforementioned qualities nothwistanding, the films lives of script and dialogue mostly, and direction is often unimaginative and delivery wooden. Onliners do save the show. A favourite: Hildy´s boss Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou, best on screen) to Hildy, trying to persuade him not to folllow Cupid´s ephemeral lure and stay in the newspaper business: "Yes, I know, I too was in love once, with my third wife...".

Vice (I) (2018)

Working with Fire and Steel

[7/10 · 2 August 2020]

The political thriller is a very delicate art, the line between civil scrutiny and populist antagonism, public accusation and personal insult, good intentions and variable outcomes being thin indeed. This dilemma is perhaps best exemplified by the work of Greek-French director Konstantinos Costa-Gravas, who all but defined the genre starting in the early 70s, mostly end up shot by both sides: the right accused him of bringing subversive ideas to good ole´ entertainment, the left of disparaging important issues with Hollywood formulas. A dilemma on which, reviewing Vice, The MacMahonian will now expand.

Vice is the 8th feature film directed by Adam McKay, author of low comedies, viz the Anchorman series, who got serious in 2015 with his previous effort The Big Short, which sought to denounce the iniquities of bank and stock exchange regulation shenanigans leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.

Vice tells the unvarnished, unflattering, and unverifiable story of the rise and rise of Dick Cheney (Christian Bale, inflated to greatness on what seems to be his quest to become the Lon Chaney of the 21st Century), reputedly the most powerful Vice-President in US history, according to the film by virtue of an understanding to that effect with President George W Bush, portrayed here (by Sam Rockwell, to the T) as a political lightweight pliable to the Machiavellian manipulations of Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carrell, ditto). The film flashes back and forth through the personal life and political career of Cheney, shown as an unscrupulous, intellectually mediocre deadpan schemer whose political ambition was fuelled by a mixture of alcoholism, spouse pressure and overcompensation for precarious vascular health, joining hands with like-hearted and minded Rumsfeld to make US foreign policy the instrument of big oil and big business interests, the rest being contemporary history.

Vice falls squarely, if belatedly, in the Farenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004) tradition of well-meaning if unevenly engaging films denouncing the sub-prime crisis and/or the Second Iraq War and their fallout. 15 years on, whatever else you might say about it, one thing this school of film making did not accomplish was to prevent Donald Trump from entering the White House.

If anybody sleeps easier if they think the world would be a better place if the likes Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld weren't such scumbags, it's their privilege, but it's also our problem. Trying to address it is far beyond the direct purview of The MacMahonian, so let us concentrate on Vice's cinematic merits: lively and effective, if, or perhaps because, Manichean, the film left me thinking if Adam McKay, who also wrote the script, were to be tasked to do the same for House of Cards (full disclosure: I watched about 20 minutes of the first episode, found it lame and pretentiously silly, and fell asleep) it might have been a much better series.

Winter Sleep (2014)

Forever the Same

[8/10 · 2 August 2020]

Kis Uyukusu was the 7th feature film directed by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Kis Uyukusu reportedly and adaptation of a short story by Chevkov (The Wife) which I never read, with one of the subplots of Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, which I don't remember, thrown in, tells the story of Aydin (Haluk Bilginer, too close for comfort) a well-off former actor, landlord and hotel owner in Cappadocia, who procrastinates through life in the midst of unfulfilled plans and good intentions, which pave a well-known path, illustrated by his dealings with his frustrated bored younger wife's (Melissa Sözen) attempts at charity, his bored bitter divorced sister's (Demet Atbag) sharp tongue, a family of indebted poor tenants comprised of a young boy (Emirhan Doruktutan) who throws a stone at Aydin´s car, breaking a glass window and setting the film´s plot in motion, his ex-con angry father (Nehat Isler), the Imam brother of same's (Serhat Kiliç, just as impressive as Haluk Bilginer) attempts to patch things up, the release of a wild horse - arguably the only good deed in the film to go unpunished - and the burning of an envelope full of 100 Turkish Lira bills, to name but a few.

Ceylan is the only director I know who can film prosaic morceaux de vie and lengthy dialogue scenes with an elegiac sense of fable. To paraphrase WWI veterans description of war as long periods of tedium interspersed by occasional moments of terror, in Kis Uyukusu life is portrayed as much ado about nothing interspersed with moments of bemused regret.

Philip Larkin once wrote: "all we have done not mattering". Kis Uyukusu puts this verse to film.

Imitation of Life (1934)

African and White

[8/10 · 2 August 2020]

Imitation of Life tell the story of young white widow Bea Pullman (Claudette Colbert, characteristically sprightly) trying to make ends meet for herself and her little daughter Jessie, and in the process semi-accidentally taking in black housekeeper Delilah (Louise Beaver, in the first major role awarded to a black woman in Hollywood, except for all-black efforts like King Vidor's 1929 Hallelujah) and her mixed-race fair skinned daughter Peola, only to discover Delilah has an uncanny talent for baking delicious pancakes, which go wonderfully with the maple syrup of dear departed Mr Pullman's company Bea had been unsuccessfully trying to continue to manage, inspiring Bea to take the unconceivable, but ultimately rewarded, commercial risk of opening a pancake franchise, using Delilah's name but relieving her from the burdens of ownership or management, leading the four women straight to the then much fantasized Easy Street, living the good life and socializing with swells, naturally with each one in its rightful racial place, a particular stress factor for Peola, who is made to feel in her bones that being black is a social construct more than a skin colour, and understandably repudiates the whole business to her mother's stoic, loving and accepting but ultimately unbearable distress, the prodigal daughter retuning sadly late. Meanwhile, there's a love interest subplot between Bea and histologist (don't ask) Stephen Archer (Warren William) otherwise the film wouldn't sell.

From the opening shot of a rubber duck in a bathtub zooming out from a toddler's bath it's clear that Stahl is remarkably handy with the camera, more so as he never bothers to flaunt his talent. Single mothers of only daughters with absent, due to demise or flight, and unnamed fathers in a seemingly matriarchal world would have given Freud a field day, particularly when Stephen comes in and an ambiguous relation with Jessie develops (he is entrusted by Bea to entertain Jessie while mum's absorbed by her business life), but Marx wouldn't complain either, as the mechanics of post-1929 crash capitalism and racial politics are spelled out as clearly here as in anything Bertolt Brecht ever wrote. There's a mild scholarly debate over which Imitation is the better. To no detriment of our much-beloved Douglas Sirk, The MacMahonian holds with those who favour this one. And they probably didn't run quote of the year contests back in 1934, but if they did this Imitation features a strong contender: Dellilah to Bea, trying to assuage her from Peola's bitterness and cruelty toward her mother on account of her race: "let her be, Mrs Pullman, it aint her fault, and it aint yours either. It aint mines either. Truth be told, I don't knows whose fault it is. It caint be the Lords...". And then to the camera: "it sho' got me puzzled".

Rebel Highway: Motorcycle Gang (1994) Season 1, Episode 3

Dirty Back Road

[7/10 · 15 July 2020]

Research for an online version of Motorcycle Gang produced only one result: a German-dubbed version. After briefly pondering the purist dilemma, I decided to go ahead and view and review anyway. The MacMahonian has to draw the line somewhere, but right now it is decided to draw it at pan&scan. Viewing was irksome, though, due to generally flat delivery and the frustration of second-guessing one liners.

Anyway, I´ll do my best.

Motorcycle Gang was the 8th feature film, fist TV film and last film to date directed by Jonh Millius, New Hollywood fellow-traveler who, besides having written the script for Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979), earned a reputation between the mid-70s and early 90s for gritty action films with an earnest whiff of Fordian pathos, the best being possibly the surf drama Big Wednesday (1982).

Motorcycle Gang tells the story of typical Milius hero family man Cal Morris (Gerard McRaney, more than adequate) driving across the USA with his wife Jean (Elan Oberon) and daughter Leann (Carla Gugino) for the double purpose of fulfilling a time honoured American script device and of making Leann the object of desire of driving by motorcycle gang leader Jake (Jake Busey, typically typecast) who, with the assistance of his gang members, proceeds to kidnap Leann, there ensuing the expected chase and dispute opposing stand-up family man Cal and wanton youths Jake & friends.

Motorcycle Gang departs slightly from the Rebel Highway formula of loosely revisiting 50s B subgenres - or rather, subject matter commonly associated thereto - to portray the social transformation of the 50s through boy-meets-girl dramas - or rather, nice middle class girl-meets-bad boy, e.g. rocker, greaser, jailbird or even (shock, horror) Mexican - in which said girl will be, for better or worse, released form patriarchal tutelage to pursue a life of freedom. In Motorcycle Gang, rather typically for Milius, the patriarch is the good guy and his authority vindicated. In this sense, this episode is uncharacteristically auteurish.

Interestingly, Motorcycle Gang is reportedly John Milius's favourite own film. A judgement vastly unfair to himself, thinks The MacMahonian, although the film is entertaining and gripping, even in German.

The Ridiculous 6 (2015)

Young Dumb and Full of It

[2/10 · 15 July 2020]

Of course, we always had The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960). Well, not always, but since 1960. More recently, Quentin Tarantino gave us The Hateful 8. As everyone knows, The Three Musketeers (some 25 film versions, of which Fred Niblo's 1921, Alan Dwan's 1939, George Sydney's 1948 and Richard Lester's 1973 are the MacMahonianest) were 4, John Ford gave us Two Rode Together (1962) and Lazlo Benedek The Wild One (1953). I don't know what happened to 9 and 10 (Blake Edwards, 1979) and The Ten Commandments (Cecil B de Mille, 1923 and 1958) don't really count, for this purpose. But anyway, now we do have 6. It's ridiculous.

The Ridiculous 6 was the 9th feature film directed by Frank Coraci, director of 2nd to 3d rate light comedies et pour cause frequently behind the camera in Adam Sandler vehicles.

The Ridiculous 6 tells the story of the eponymous, offspring sired by ageing bank robber Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte, in autopilot) from 6 different mothers and consisting of a former Abraham Lincoln bodyguard who needed to go to the bathroom for a moment while in the theatre with Abe, in the course of which digression he actually gave directions to Abe's theatre booth to John Wilkes Booth, thus nursing a guilt complex the size of US history (Luke Wilson), a round-faced droopy mustachioed sombreroed half-Mexican (Rob Schneider), a Neanderthal fur-catcher (Jorge Garcia), a somewhat incongruous hillbilly dimwit (Taylor Lautner), a black man (Terry Crews) and Adam Sandler. The ridiculous are on a quest to procure 50.000 USD to pay off dad's robbing debts, thus embarking in a series of low-brow comedic endeavours and accidents.

The history of the moronic western comedy, at least of the deliberate variety, goes back at least to the Three Stooges (Goofs and Saddles, Del Lord, 1936), or, if one wants to stick to feature length efforts, to Abbot and Costello (Ride 'em Cowboy, Arthur Lubin, 1942). But long doesn't mean illustrious, and The Ridiculous 6 gives the impression of not even trying to escape the curse. Gags and puns are low and lazy, and one wonders how Nolte and Sandler ever consented to be involved in the project.

Everyone has to earn a living, I guess.

Rebel Highway: Confessions of a Sorority Girl (1994) Season 1, Episode 2

Bad to the Bone

[6/10 · 9 July 2020]

Research for an online version of Confessions of a Sorority Girl, produced only one result: a DVD burn published in 2 installments in Daily Motion, for some reason in reverse, with lettering running from right to left. Not being a purist, or rather, being one, but no so much that I'd rather not watch a film than watch an "impure" version, I decided to view and review this dysphoric version. I therefore can only speculate what difference it could have made had I seen the "pure euphoric" one. Right now, I believe not much, but I can´t be sure. On the other hand, it did lead me to wonder what effect could there have had watching, say, North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) or Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948), to name but 2 famously "geometrical" films, as it were, "backwards". Maybe someday I´ll find out. Right now, on to Confessions of a Sorority Girl.

Confessions of a Sorority Girl was the 8th feature and 4th TV film directed by Uli Edel, German director renowned for Christiane F (1981), a biography of a teen heroin addict which inter alia gave David Bowie´s Heroes a second run at the tops, and, more recently, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008) and accomplished reenactment of the story of the infamous German terrorist group, misguidedly, in The MacMahonian´s view, vilified for purportedly glamourizing them, much as Arthur Penn was vilified for purportedly glamourizing Bonnie and Clyde in Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

Confessions of a Sorority Girl tells the story of rich girl Sabrina Masterson (Jamie Luner) sent to a college where her older sister was once sorority president, position she yearns for, along with best friend´s boyfriends and good marks in French without studying, stopping at nothing and stooping to everything to get all of the above, including plotting, scheming, slandering, blackmailing, luring, deceiving and even attempting murdering.

Confessions of a Sorority Girl is slicker than the previously reviewed installments of Rebel Highway, and the plot, perhaps partially due to co-authorship by Debra Hill, much tighter, and more hi soap than 50s B. Smoothly and effectively directed - a bit of a stylistic departure for a somewhat grungy director - the film´s best asset is, however, and validating once again Hitchcock´s dictum to the effect that a film is only as good as the bad guy is bad, Jamie Luner´s Sabrina, maybe 3d in an überbitch ranking I just came up with that places Rosita Quintana in Susana, Demonio y Carne (Luis Buñuel 1951) in the 1st place and Jeanne Simmons in Angel Face (Otto Preminger, 1953) in 2nd.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)

A Song for Europe

[6/10 · 9 July 2020]

Eurovision Song Contest: the Story of Fire Saga is the 8th feature film directed by David Dobkin, comedy/drama author of whose previous output I (now realize I) saw Shanghai Nights (2003), Wedding Crashers (2005) and The Judge (2014, also wrote story, but not script), the 1st being excellent and the other 2 very good.

Eurovision etc tells the story of the eponymous Icelandic pop duo, composed of Lars Ericksong (Will Farrell, who also co-wrote), whose life dream is to participate in the Eurovision song contest ever since he watched Abba win with Waterloo in 1974, and Sigrit Ericksdóttir (Rachel McAddams). Fire Saga happen to be extremely bad, even for Eurovision standards, and manage to qualify only after all other Icelandic contestants die in a fire at a local after party (turns out, set by the President of the central bank of Iceland, who feared an Icelandic win, which would mean they would have to host the following year´s contest, would bankrupt a small country of modest financial means...) and so off they are to Edinburgh (the film was shot before this year´s contest was cancelled because of COVID19) where Lars hopes to vindicate years of parental humiliation by his father (Pierce Brosnan, with a grumpy mock-Icelandic accent, stealing the show whenever on screen) if only Fire Saga can beat the all-European competition, which includes Russian mega star Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens, stealing the show whenever on screen, which he never shares with Pierce Brosnan, who stayed back in Iceland) who is also the putative 3d side of a love triangle involving Lars and Sigrit, Alexander luring Sigrit with promises of Fabergé eggs and private jets, as if he didn´t know wholesome down to earth Icelandic girls do not care for such things.

The film goes for easy laughs both by caricaturing Nordic stereotypes (Eurovision shall hold the eternal wardrobe Oscar for wool knitwear) and for making fun of Eurovision songs, which is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, except this is accomplished with a series of songs which would fit very easily in a real life Eurovision selection and nobody would have noticed.

Escapism, they use to call it. Not simply, I would argue, and nothing wrong with it anyway.

Baby Driver (2017)

You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

[8/10 · 5 July 2020]

Old DC and Marvel superheroes, you may recall, used to have space age/cold war sci fi explanations for their powers. Superman fell from another planet and Earth atmosphere gave him superpowers, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, and so on. There was one exception: Batman. No radioactivity, no alien forces, no nothing. His excuse was childhood trauma. Baby Driver is not a superhero, except when behind the wheel, but in that respect he follows the Batman school.

Baby Driver is the 5th feature film directed by Edgar Wright, he of the famous, entertaining but otherwise unremarkable Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy (2004-2013), here revealing unsuspected talent.

Baby Driver tells the story of Baby (Ansel Elgort, showing promise as heartthrob) ace (understatement of the decade) driver who suffers from tinnitus since childhood, when a car accident killed his quarrelling-when-driving parents and left him as sole survivor. He exercises his near-superhuman driving skills whilst listening to an impressively comprehensive pop/hip-hop soundtrack, since he also developed lip-reading skills, so one could say he is at all times both aware and aloof. For vague but dramatically sufficient reasons, he is being blackmailed by bank-robbery mastermind Doc (Kevin Spacey, par for the course) into being the getaway driver in a series of jobs, which he performs half-reluctantly till he finds, guess what, True Love, in the person of diner waitress Debora (Lilly James, adequately endearing), compounding on his reluctance and ensuing that (spoiler alert) the expected obvious happy end doesn't quite materialize.

Baby Driver may not be the first attempt of film language at visual dub/R&B/rap/hip hop, but it is surely one of the more seamlessly accomplished, pace here or there superfluous twirling camera movements. More relevantly, both as drama and as thriller, its heart is in the right place, namely, all over the place. Baby´s tinnitus is an obvious metaphor for the way he interacts with the world, obvious but nonetheless unobtrusive as it devolves us the way we interact with the moving image.

David Bowie, I might have quoted in the past, famously wrote: "do you wonder sometimes about sound and vision?". Yes, sometimes.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Loving the Alien

[8/10 · 5 July 2020]

There are 3 types of sequels/prequel/remakes: those which seek to bank on the success of a given film and reproduce it, with fair to dismal results. That´s about 80%. Example: Cat People (Paul Schrader/Jacques Tourneur, 1982/1942); those which dig out some obscurity and spin it to greatness, or at least interest. That´s about another 19%. Example: The Fly (David Cronenberg/Kurt Newmann 1986/1958). And finally those which take an icon of popular culture and remake/remodel it to match or even top. In the approximative MacMahonian arithmetic, that's seldom. Example: Alien Covenant (Attentive readers please appreciate I abstained from mentioning Howard Hawks).

Alien Covenant is the 24th feature film directed by Ridley Scott, who is currently probably elated in jubilee and apogee, as the film under review and Blade Runner 2049, of which more on this pages soon, attest.

Alien Covenant, as franchise fans will know, is a sequel to Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012) which in turn is a prequel to the original Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). It reinstates without dramatic novelty but renewed effectiveness and tension the cat and mouse war between the as ever unnamed predator/incubator/parasite and man, or as often in the series, woman, Katherine Waterston close to par as Danny, precursor/successor of Sigourney Weaver´s Ripley, and Michael Fassbender unsurpassed as David 8/Walter 1, ditto of Ian Holm´s original Ash, Fassbender joining Henry Fonda in the very short list of actors who is as good as good guy as as steely-eyed bad guy.

The first Alien was an early classic of the current age of SciFi film, which The MacMahonian postulates started in 1977 with Star Wars (George Lucas) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg), brought forth by the emergence of post-modernist New Hollywood and the quantum leap in FX enacted singlehandedly by Industrial Light and Magic. Alien came at the height of the FX euphoria, then a novelty, and shares with Star Wars, beside the prequel-sequel mishmash, the characteristic of having had several installments penned by directors departing from the style and vision of the original authors - in this regard Alien´s track record (James Cameron, David Fincher) being more illustrious than Star Wars´ (only JJ Abrams can compare with those two) - to finally return to the origins, in true wheel of life form.

Seldom in recent times has viewing been so gripping as Alien Covenant affords. So much more remarkable as Ridley Scott dared to revisit his two most iconic films some 4 decades later in one single go and make a tour de force of both.

The Favourite (2018)

Play to Win

[7/10 · 5 July 2020]

Of my many projects, one of the least likely to ever see light of day, is a chronological History of the World compiled from feature films. If it does, however, The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) just ensured a prominent entry with The Favourite.

The Favourite is the 7th feature film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Greek critic darling with a distinct surrealist/absurdist style whose recent efforts (The Lobster, 2015, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, 2017) have been showered with prizes and nominations. The Favourite covers different territory but is set to top its predecessors in terms of recognition, I suspect (not having seen the aforementioned films) deservedly.

The Favourite tells the true story of Abigail Hill ( Emma Stone), an impoverished young lady of gentry extraction, and of how she finds her way into service in the kitchen of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and thence eventually and very eventfully into her favour, to the dismay and aggressive opposition of the previous favourite Sarah, Duchess of Malrborough (Rachel Weisz), the background being, as mentioned above, the War of the Spanish Succession and the fights of the pro-war Whigs and anti-war (as the landed gentry they represented bore the brunt of the financing) Tories for the kings ear, often though the favourites´ voices.

If memory serves, George Clooney´s The Men who Stare at Goats, (2009) started with a caption that went something like "more than you think of the following actually happened". I bet that applies to The Favourite, the many pleasures of which include a seamless blend of 18th Century English palatial courtesies and double entendres with crass sexual profanities, although I suspect the otherwise perfect script still errs on the side of pudency in this regard. Other (pleasures) include the high drama/black comedy register Lanthimos chose for this period piece, his first, in many aspects reminiscent of Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975, the luscious asphyxiated baroque interiors, the pervasive clavichord soundtrack, the stuffy wigs and makeup of men and women, more on this below) with a (mercifully) slight whiff of Fellini (members of the royal household making it an afternoon´s entertainment of throwing ripe tomatoes at a naked wigged man, he cavorting in slow motion like a hairy oversized Botticelli cherub trying simultaneously to dodge the tomatoes and hide his privates) and a perhaps unconscious nod at Fritz Lang (women with facial scars, but maybe that´s just me). And not least the high octane histrionics of the main characters, a perfect schoolgirl triangle in an adult (well...) world. Bette Davies and Joan Crawford in their heyday wouldn´t have topped Stone and Weisz, and no Golden Age parallel occurs for Colman, but her heartbroken half-demented disease-ridden tantrum-prone Queen Anne doesn't steal the show (the other two don´t allow it) but adds to it much more than its share.

The Favourite is a rollercoaster ride of Shakespearean proportions, its power like that of the aforementioned Barry Lindon, deriving from the very same proposition: what it takes to go "up", or back "up", in life in a cripplingly stratified society.

Cool World (1992)

Cool like Dat

[5/10 · 5 July 2020]

Almost 10 years after Fire and Ice, Ralph Bakshi came back from semi-retirement to direct his 9th and to date last feature animation: Cool World.

Cool World tells the story of WWII vet Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) who, after accidentally having caused his mother's death in a motorbike crash, somehow finds himself in the eponymous World, a cartoon fantasyland where he is now a flatfoot defending law and order, which in toonland means inter alia that toons (here called doodles) are never to mate with humans (here called 'noids) there unfortunately ensuing that not only Frank's love affair with doodle singer Lonette shall remain unconsummated but also that he has to spend an inordinate amount of time resisting the advances of Holly Would (voiced and impersonated in 'noid version by Kim Basinger) who craves mating with a 'noid to become a 'noid herself. Luckily for Holly, into the Cool World comes ex-con and cartoon designer Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) much less chaste and much more deluded than Frank, thereby Holly getting her way with potentially apocalyptic consequences, since, as everyone knows, once a doodle consummates the unspeakable act with a 'noid, she or he will be turned to a 'noid but will nevertheless be subject to occasional fits of doodleness and vice-versa, thus compromising the cosmic balance of the four-dimensional universe or something. Fortunately (spoiler alert) all ends well and eventually Frank goes doodle and lives happily ever after with Lonette.

Cool World is a slicker production than usual in Bakshi's work, an apt Faustian and Pinocchian pinnacle to Bakshi's animation/live-action universe, with a relatively tight plot and little cartoon indulgence, save for frequent doodle spectres and minions cavorting about, commenting on the action or distracting from it, in what otherwise appears to be an attempt to underline, as if underlining was necessary, the doodleness of the proceedings.

If it can be said that most of Bakshi's previous feature output, whatever other merits or demerits it had, was ahead of its time, Cool World comes uncharacteristically and derivatively behind the curve, the path to real world/fantasy world transmigration and people/toon cohabitation having been already blazed by Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen, 1985) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis, 1988), respectively. Nonetheless, Cool World is an appropriate final act for Ralph Bakshi's feature

The Gentlemen (2019)

All Mod Cons

[6/10 · 5 July 2020]

A very late start for the reviewing year, for no particular nor excusable reason. Since we start late, let's start coeval: The Gentlemen.

The Gentlemen is the 12th feature film directed by Guy Ritchie, who beside penning the last two films of the Sherlock Holmes franchise virtually singlehandedly developed his own personal subgenre, namely the Italian Job (Peter Collinson, 1969)/Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971) spinoff mockney comedy caper thriller, which he inaugurated back in 1998 with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, reaching in The Gentlemen its till now baroquest peak.

The unimaginatively titled The Gentlemen tells the unsummarizable unimaginative irresistible story of dope (as in cannabis, didn't know such a kind still existed) mega-dealer Mickey Pearson's (Mathew McConaughey) attempts to sell the business and leave the Life, unleashing intricate manoeuvres implicating the Jewish and Chinese mobs, and also brit toffs as sort of stationary mules (you have to see it to understand it), told mostly in a series of flash backs by private eye turned wannabe hustler Fletcher (Hugh Grant gone gay, stellar) to Pearson's right hand man Raymond (Charlie Hunnam) in the course of what has to be the most convoluted attempt at a shakedown in film history.

Critical reception has been mixed, and the film can be said to be self-indulgent, self-referential, vapid and/or mercenary, but who in the name of rhyming slang cares? The Gentlemen is not a guilty pleasure, for the enormous pleasure does away with the guilt long before the first reel is through (films don't come in 10 minute reels anymore, and they haven't for decades, I know, I just like to write like this). The script is so jam-packed with one-liners I am seriously considering starting an online petition to have it published in book form (already seen a couple of hints in this direction in online chatrooms). Oh and there's Colin Farrell giving Hugh Grant a run for his money for best performance as MMA coach Coach (that´s not a typo, it´s what he is called). And also a soundtrack the 20th Century Englishness of which stands, if memory serves, unmatched, including inter alia Roxy Music's 1973 In 'Every Dream Home a Heartache' and the Jam's 'That's Entertainment', to name but two tracks I hadn't listened to in decades but recognized instantly (although it did take my brain some 20 seconds to reset from the delusion that the latter track was by XTC).

So I can't wait for the sequel, titillating insinuations to which were included in the current effort, and would dear to suggest Guy Richie commits his formidable dialogue-writing talent to the script, commissions directing to Shane Meadows and casts Michael Caine and the Kemp bros.