Adam Baran

Fedora - So that guy is not me by the way. I’m a little baffled that the trailer for this late-Billy Wilder movie isn’t up on YouTube, but genuinely more baffled by this guy posting this clip. And by the way - Fedora is his favorite movie? Of all time? It’s sort of interesting, but…favorite? Fedora is one of those kind of small-cult classics that fags tend to champion - the rarely seen, semi-interesting forgotten films with equally forgotten actresses. I first heard about it from when I interviewed the artist Francesco Vezzoli who also counts it as one of his favorites.

Here’s what it is - Billy Wilder’s second to last movie indeed does revisit Sunset Boulevard, with a slightly different twist and half the brilliance. William Holden (a holdover, no pun intended, from Sunset Boulevard) plays a down on his luck producer, who lands on a Greek Island to track down Fedora, the legendary movie star (Garbo Revisited) with whom he once had a fling, to try and cast her in his comeback film. If he can secure her, his career is made, however when he gets there, he finds her imprisoned by a creepy Countess, and kept under watch and key by a nurse and leering chauffeur (played by Fassbinder regular Gottfried John, who was easy to spot since I’d just watched Berlin Alexanderplatz weeks earlier). He tries to unravel the mystery, and finds himself trapped in the mucky muck of a tepid flashback structure that removes all the sense of dread and doom that Sunset Blvd. hinted at. It’s sort of 70’s, and sort of fascinating to discover, but it didn’t yield all the pleasures that it clearly did for others. It’s more interesting to describe it to people who never heard of it than to get them to watch it.

Solo Con Tu Pareja - This is an early (perhaps the first) film by Alfonso Cuaron. I start to worry with Criterion whether they really legitemately felt this movie was good enough to merit their brand. It’s a mildly diverting sex comedy about a macho player whose nurse one-stand-stand gets her revenge on him by sending his HIV test results back marked “Poz.” Creepy right? Not that funny, right? There’s great cinematography, but it’s all somewhat C-grade slapstick that must have seemed dated back in the 90’s when it was first released. I guess it is like Ira Glass says about needing a long incubation period to become good, because after seeing this movie, you would never ever think Cuaron could make a film as good as Children of Men.

The Bed of the Virgin - Gorgeously filmed experimental aka French piece about a Jesus-like figure wandering around these ruinous desert landscapes with a Mary-figure. So metaphorical and strange, I couldn’t begin to understand what it was all supposed to mean, if anything. I’m trying to research it still. It does have some of the most marvelous long tracking shots - one of the lead on a donkey goes for what seems like 15 minutes. It’s also got some great Nico tracks which it uses well, particularly Desert Shore.

Brand Upon the Brain! - Guy Maddin serves up another delirious helping of mashed up silent film melodrama, breaking the fourth wall a bit by showing the film with a live narrator and foley artists, and a man who it was claimed was a live castrato, but who people told me later was lip-synching. At my screening Lou Reed narrated, and couldn’t have seemed less interested in being there. But the film was great, a weird tale of a man remembering his treacherous history under the thumb of his maniacal parents who run an isolated island orphanage. I really like Guy because he’s one of those filmmakers who never really makes a perfect film, but each film builds upon the language of the first, so that - if it’s something you respond to - the body of work itself is the great achievement rather than any individual film. I think Almodovar used to be like this in the 80’s. If you look at his early films, most of them are quite imperfect, but it was the exuberance and energy and different way of looking at the world which caught people’s attention and I think that’s why he is today regarded as a very great artist (though both he and Guy are not without their detractors.) If you have the chance, I like Guy Maddin’s collected diaries “From the Atelier Tovar.”

Mutual Appreciation - I wanted to hate this, but I found myself lying in bed with a HUGE smile the whole time I was watching this. I couldn’t make it through Funny Ha Ha, but this one really works. It really really works. It’s very simple and you get into the rhythm of the dialogue and sparse story - about a indie rocker who moves to Brooklyn with not much money but actual talent that gets to shine halfway through the movie in a very glorious scene. I would watch this again, not faint praise from me.

Black Book (Zwartzboek) - Eh. Much as I like Paul Verhoeven (which is quite a bit, despite some of his super flops like Hollow Man) this one just didn’t do it for me. What was worse was having waited so long to see it, the only place it was playing was the Quad, which is filled with decrepit old people who see no reason why they shouldn’t talk throughout the whole piece, clarifying every moment for each other. I actually went off on a pair of yentas, but only after the movie, unfortunately. Anyway, as for the movie, I mean, if you’ve seen Army of Shadows, then…. It may be arbitrary to compare it to that, but it was hard not too, seeing as how that only came out last year and concerns the same undercover/double cross themes, and does them in a more realistic and interesting way. I know that Verhoeven was not trying to do what Melville did obviously, but it’s kinda like when those Truman Capote movies came out….whoever hits first, hits best. Or some such thing.

Les Vampires - Famous old 8 hour French serial from director Louis Feuillade about a gang of can’t be killed thieves called Les Vampires, who are led by Irma Vep, as played by the legendary silent film actress Musidora. I wanted to watch this because, after sitting through Out 1 in March, which was 13 hours, and Berlin Alexanderplatz which was 15, I figured this would be like a breeze. It was. Also Les Vampires is referenced quite a bit in Out 1 and in other Rivette films there are allusions. But it’s really great and the images are surreal and eerie. I watched it over several days but it would be interesting to see it all in one, I imagine it’d only make it seem weirder.

Irma Vep - Oliver Assayas made this crazy movie about a French director, played by Jean-Pierre Laud who wants to direct a remake of Les Vampires but for reasons none of his crew or production staff understand, casts Hong-Kong action star Maggie Cheung in the lead. There’s even more weird references to Rivette in this one - Jean Pierre Laud is the star, who also starred in Out 1, which featured, as mentioned, a fair amount of references to Les Vampires. And the character Jean Pierre Laud plays is supposedly based on Rivette. It’s a very strange movie, but fun and evocative. The clip above is the final reel of what survives of the film the Jean-Pierre Laud character tries to make. Most notably, the film rekindled my love for Sonic Youth’s Karen Carpenter song “Tunic (Song for Karen)” off Goo.

Clean - Maggie Cheung is supposed to be a rock star junkie who’s villified when her junkie hubby dies of a heroin overdose. Cheung won Best Actress at Cannes for her work, but I just never bought the whole story. It’s too maudlin and soapy, and I also never bought that Cheung could have been a rock star.

Bug - Sick and hilarious. One of my favorites so far this year. Ashley Judd is really amazing. I never thought that would be a sentence I would write, especially after doing impressions of her in “Double Jeopardy” for years.

Savage Intruder - Have already blogged extensively about this before, but had to post this YouTube clip. Love it.

Assault on Precinct 13 - Mega-boring. I don’t get what’s supposed to be so great about this B-Movie from John Carpenter. It was painful to sit through.

Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS - So wrong on every level, this is a famous Nazi-exploitation film loosely based on the true tale of Isle Koch, who made luggage out of the skins of Jews, and whose lust cannot be satisfied until she meets an American German prisoner who can hold out for hours on end, but of course, his plot to overthrow the camp is well underway. It’s fucked up, majorly, but kinda classic in it’s way.

Shock (aka Beyond the Door 2) - Mario Bava’s final film starring Daria Niccolodi, Asia Argento’s mom, as a woman who’s creepy son starts to get possessed by the spirit of a former lover who may have died under mysterious circumstances. It’s a very good scary film, with great homegrown effects. Sort of like an Italian horror version of The Exorcist. Loved it.

Best of the Month: Brand Upon the Brain!
Stinkiest: Clean
Best Use of Miriam Hopkins: Savage Intruder