Rubbish title, rubbish poster, great film. 'Candy' is an erratic yet achingly cool adaptation of Luke Davis's semi-autobiographical novel about a young Bohemian couple in love (fine performances from Abbie Cornish and the late Heath Ledger) whose lives are destroyed by Heroin in three easy steps (considerately subtitled 'Heaven', 'Earth' & 'Hell'). Theological allusions aside, though it's obvious our protagonists are a latter-day Adam & Eve with Geoffrey Rush's smack head chemistry professor as a not-so-bad Satan, Poet Dan (Ledger) and artist Candy (Cornish) seem to be having lots of fun in the Aussie sun, but as anyone who's ever seen a drugs picture in their life will know; it's only a matter of time before it all goes balls up. 'Heaven' is a strong opener as we build an immediate connection with Dan & Candy, though the somewhat excessive nudity reminds you of how a film like 'Down In The Valley' (2005) conveyed the same emotional impact in a more restrained and artistic manner. For love scenes, in both literature & film, are always awkward and rarely work as well as the creators had hoped, especially in the modern era where we've seen it all before. Directed by Sydney theatre's Neil Armfield, the film has an arresting visual quality that brings out the best of Australia: from Sydney to Melbourne, cinematographer Gary Phillips ('Catch A Fire', 'The Monkey's Mask') uses natural light and scenic locations to give 'Candy' a look that many films (including, bizarrely, Judd Apatow's 'Superbad' and 'Knocked Up') try to achieve through the noticeable use of filters. It was a great idea to have this film mark the Ledger / Rush reunion (they first worked together in Gregor Jordan's underrated 'Ned Kelly') for just a Penelope Cruz acts better in Spanish, so too was Heath Ledger visibly at ease in his own accent & dialect, in fact, Dan is the most instantaneously believable character Heath played since an early role as hapless robber Jimmy in 'Two Hands' (1999). Surprisingly, and though I doubt it was intentional, there's a great line where Ledger contemplates becoming a rent boy, but ultimately decides that he'd "...be hopeless with the gay stuff". Abbie Cornish also gives a fearless and affecting performance as the titular Candy, though her descent into the 'Hell' of prostitution seems more like a minor inconvenience than the sickening physical & spiritual nadir we hit with Jennifer Connelly in 'Requiem For A Dream'. A little 'Leaving Las Vegas', a dash of 'Drugstore Cowboy' / 'Blow' and a lot of 'Requiem For A Dream', 'Candy' just about manages to squeeze itself into an overcrowded genre and features one genuinely horrific scene that almost rivals 'Trainspotting' in its unflinching depiction of meconophagist despair. Not as flippant as 'Spun' or 'The Doors', 'Candy' is, as James Joyce might've put it: a jocoserious treatise on the corrosive nature of dependence. And yet one can't help but think it would've been better suited to emulate its closest thematic cousin; the excellent 'Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas'. In which substance abuse of bad gear was a narrative metaphor for the decline of society through government misrule, and addicts were intellectual, post-Beatnik heroes; using as a means to escape societal ignorance, a self inflicted wound to protest the weakness and selfish ineptitude of the masses. The moral of this story, in case you hadn't guessed, is simple and simply stated by Geoffrey Rush's character: "When you can quit, you don't want to", he rasps, "...and when you want to quit, you can't". Sound advice in anyone's book. 'Candy' is an intriguing, little seen, competently made, well acted picture, and whilst it may not be the best film about the subject ever made, it's still an undiscovered gem that's defintely worth a look. Sweet.
In "Portrait of Jason," filmmaker Shirley Clarke trains her camera on Jason Holliday, a down-and-out hustler in 60s Los Angeles, who has led a particularly rough life -- he's gay and black, and thus especially well placed to speak about prejudices of various kinds. Jason is a flamboyant, street-wise hustler, and the entire film places him at its center, swilling liquor, talking incessantly, and even at times launching into impromptu performances. This alcohol-soaked portrait reels and spins with its subject, veering wildly from one hilarious anecdote to another, even as beneath the bluster and the chatter, Jason's inner sadness begins to leak inexorably through. This is a deeply moving and humanistic film, a powerful portrait of the fate of the outsider in American society, and the unique challenges faced by one such outsider.
Werner Herzog's "Wild Blue Yonder" repurposes footage from some of the most extreme and obscure places on Earth into a hybrid of documentary and sci-fi narrative. Brad Dourif plays an alien traveler who's been stranded on our planet, and who is increasingly bitter over his failure to establish himself on Earth. He's also nostalgic for his home planet, a watery world where the people used to live in cities constructed beneath an icy atmosphere. The bulk of the film consists of Dourif's stories, in voiceover, about this planet, while Herzog's images purport to show the journey of some Earth astronauts to explore the world being described by the alien. Of course, the images are really no such thing -- they include footage from space shuttle missions and, when the spaceship supposedly arrives at the distant galaxy, some stunning underwater footage taken beneath the ice floes of Antarctica. Herzog's film thus takes imagery of the Earth itself and makes it alien, highlighting the strange and wondrous quality of our planet by pretending that it is an alien world. The footage Herzog includes from Antarctica is some of the most stunning imagery imaginable, and it does feel like the camera is exploring a truly foreign space, floating in the ethereal blue light of this underwater kingdom. These images are accompanied by an equally otherworldly score, performed by an ensemble Herzog assembled himself: an avant-garde cellist, an African vocalist, and an Italian religious choir. This oddball combination creates some hauntingly gorgeous music, a perfect complement to the unsettling beauty of the pictures. This is a transcendent film experience.
From the very first episode to the penultimate installment, this American series is a master class in characterization, and therefore an anomaly in American television. Rarely has a television show encompassed the scope and breadth of ideas on display here. What you get is a mixture of hilariously bleak humor, sustained tension and uncomfortable familial interplay often cut with fairly graphic violence. It is sometimes shocking and challenging material that can make for uncomfortable viewing. The main protagonists are amoral and have virtually no redeeming qualities. But despite this the series is mesmerizing and you will find yourself going back to this box set many times to peel back the layers of the immigrant Italian american dream.
"Holiday" is the delightful pinnacle of the underrated director George Cukor, who throughout the 30s and 40s made a series of smart, sophisticated, complex comedies with undercurrents of sexual and social experimentation. This film celebrates, as so many of Cukor's films do, the adventurous spirit of the iconoclast, here embodied by Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, Cukor's favorite onscreen couple. At the beginning of the film, the working-class Grant is engaged to Hepburn's sister (Doris Nolan), and thus stands to marry into their rich family and lifestyle. But of the family's children, only Nolan accepts their wealth and privilege; Hepburn feels constrained by the society pomp and emptiness that goes along with their status and social class. From the moment Grant first meets Hepburn, it becomes obvious that she is a much better match for his iconoclastic free spirit than the dry, dour Nolan, who fell in love with Grant for his good humor and fun-loving spirit, but winds up looking down on him for the more outre expressions of his bon-vivant persona. He is an aspiring entrepeneur who wants to earn enough money to be free and travel the world with no constraints, but Nolan and her father want him to settle down into a life of business. The film is, consequently, about compromise and the importance of remaining true to oneself, and Cukor beautifully captures the developing rapport between Grant and Hepburn. The film's climax is a deeply moving and amusing New Year's Eve party in which Grant, Hepburn, and the other free spirits gradually retreat from the dull society ball to form their own intimate gathering in an upstairs room, complete with acrobatic feats, a puppet show, and a generous spirit of fun and warmth. This spirit infuses the film as a whole, making it Cukor's most impassioned outcry for the importance of individuality.
David Lynch's labyrinthine "Inland Empire" is a powerful culmination of his themes of identity fragmentation, Hollywood satire, and the treatment of women in contemporary culture and media. Laura Dern is the star and center of this film, playing multiple layered roles, with the boundaries between her different identities not always clear. She is a Hollywood actress taking on a challenging part for her comeback, a married Southern belle conducting an affair, a Los Angeles street prostitute, and an abused wife telling her story to a shadowy man whose goal is unclear. All these identities tend to overlap and blend into each other, and furthermore to bleed into yet another story concerning a murdered prostitute in turn of the century Poland. The film is hallucinatory in its structure as well as its imagery, and the crisp digital quality of the images only contributes to the strangeness and terror of the film. It's a series of disconnected horrific sequences, with each one inducing a feeling of creeping dread even when the source of this fear is totally unclear. The film uses the visual language of a horror movie while almost entirely abandoning narrative conventions, and the result is a harrowing and enveloping experience that lingers in memory long after it's over. This one-disc version is missing some of the great extras that truly enhance the film, so it's not as highly recommended as the two-disc version. But for those who just want the film itself without any frills, this one is certainly a worthy buy.
"The Apartment" is one of the best examples of director Billy Wilder's genius for crafting hilarious comedies with a darkly acidic core. In this case, the acid is directed at corporate culture and the draining effects of enforced conformity on the corporate employee. Jack Lemmon is both hysterically funny and poignant as a poor worker drone at a big company, who hits on the idea of getting ahead by lending out his apartment for the company bigwigs to use for romantic trysts. This turns out to be a great idea for his career, but it wreaks havoc on his life, which becomes and endless routine of waiting, walking the city streets, and meeting the demands of others while his own life is increasingly empty and meaningless. Even his attempts to woo the office elevator girl, Shirley MacLaine, are disrupted by his nearly non-existent private life -- as well as by the fact that she's already spoken for by Lemmon's womanizing boss, Fred MacMurray. Wilder's satirical eye savages the corporate environment that replaces love with ambition, and the film is both a riotous comedy and a surprisngly moving ode to the victory of individual emotion over corporatized emptiness.
Once Were Warriors (1995) is intensely gritty and somewhat breath taking in its portrayal of a violent and abusive household. A dysfunctional Maori family try to survive with a work shy and abusive father and overly tolerant mother.
Rena Owen (Beth Heke) and Tamuera Morrison (Jake Heke) have a dynamic onscreen chemistry as husband and wife; this along with superb performances from both principle and supporting cast, builds on the characterisation and the storyline to its eventual traumatic conclusion.
Whilst revealing of some of the socio-economic/historic struggles and prejudices within the Maori community , the issues being dealt with in this film are primarily universal and in the harrowing stakes are parallel to and contend with "Nil by Mouth" (although "Nil by Mouth" was released four years later).
The climax of "Once Were Warriors" gives the viewer a much needed sense of vengeance whilst also allowing for the idea that there is hope for the future.
If you enjoy films that take you on an emotional rollercoaster, then "Once Were Warriors" is definitely worth a watch.
If you like vampire and supernatural shows, this is a must have. The show is about Vicki Nelson (played Christina Cox) is a ex cop turned PI, she is forced out of the police due to her failing eye sight & Henry Fitzroy(played by Kyle Schmid)a 450 years old vampires who write graphic novels. The show is set and filmed in Toronto and is based on Tanya Huff blood books.
The show is excellect can't wait for the DVD boxset so I can watch the whole thing again.
"Wheel of Time" is a deeply moving and fascinating documentary about the Buddhist faith, told through the filtering aesthetic of German filmmaker Werner Herzog, who has always been interested in issues of faith and belief. He's chronicling the celebration of an important Buddhist ritual at Bodh Gaya, India, said to be the place where the Buddha achieved his enlightenment. In contrast to many of his other documentaries, Herzog maintains an objective distance from the material, simply capturing what these people do in order to demonstrate their faith. Herzog has captured some of the most compelling real-life imagery of pure religious faith. No one who's seen the remarkable sight of Buddhist pilgrims making their excruciatingly slow progress to Bodh Gaya, bowing and prostrating themselves flat on the ground in between every single step, can doubt the intensity of their religious conviction. The actions of these people, unable to take even a step without being compelled to humble themselves upon the ground, could only suggest a truly deep well of spirituality. More than a simple document of a particular ceremony, this is a moving chronicle of the power of faith in general.
"Crimes and Misdemeanors" contrasts two very different stories, both dealing with morality and the necessity of individual choices. In one story, Judah (Martin Landau) plots to murder his mistress (Anjelica Huston) who is threatening to expose him and blackmailing him with his financial secrets. In the other, less serious tale, Cliff (Woody Allen), a struggling documentary filmmaker, must deal with his lack of success in comparison to his phony, shallow brother-in-law (Alan Alda). These two stories exist on entirely different planes, but both confront questions of morality, religion, death, and differing philosophies about life, and they come together in the contemplative closing scene, in which the two leads finally meet. This film is the pinnacle of Woody Allen's turn to serious drama, one of his most fully realized philosophical films. Although there are moments of real humor, and Woody's nebbish persona is as awkwardly funny as ever, this is mostly a darker film of great depth and intelligence with a strong moral core.
All you ever needed to know about the men, equipment, and tactics of some of the most pivotal battles of the second would war. Fantastic stuff.
"Night On Earth" is one of Jim Jarmusch's multi-story films, this one loosely constructed around the conceit of the taxi cab, which figures importantly in five different stories set in five cities. In Los Angeles, Winona Ryder improbably plays a gum-snapping cab driver who drives around the glamorous movie exec Gena Rowlands. In New York, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, and Armin Mueller-Stahl hilariously cycle around the city in a cab as their crisply written dialogue hilariously probes at issues of racial and ethnic confusion. In Paris, the contrast between the black cab driver Isaach de Bankole and his blind white passenger Beatrice Dalle is similarly charged with racial tension, of a less comedic but very awkward variety. The Italian segment of the film is possibly the best, with Roberto Benigni turning in one of his funniest performances as an over-the-top, perverted cabbie with a penchant for sheep and vegetables. Finally, the Helsinki sequence is a melancholy coda, with Matti Pellonpaa exchanging sob stories with a handful of drunken local lads. In all five stories, Jarmusch maintains a balance between humor, social commentary, and poignant humanity. It's a funny, moving, and always intriguing film.
David Cronenberg has made a great number of disturbing films in his career, but perhaps none more viscerally affecting than "The Brood," a horror film that aims not so much to scare you as to turn you inside-out, to make you squirm and recoil in disgust. "The Brood" is a film of tremendous physical impact. Its climactic horror scenes elicit none of the jumpy, jittery scares that most horror films resort to in order to provoke reactions, but Cronenberg's horror is no less physical, no less manipulative. It's a creeping, crawling psychological horror, enhanced by the fact that he keeps his little beasties off-screen for so much of the film, and when they finally appear, their awkwardness only accentuates their basic wrongness. These monsters are the mentally-generated spawn of Nola (Samantha Eggar), who is being counseled by the controversial psychologist Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), who believes that negative emotions can be channeled out of the body and manifest themselves in physical form. As it turns out, he's right, and Nola's anger grows into a brood of vicious "children" who respond to the vagaries of her mood by turning on the people she's angry with and killing them. The film reflects a man's fear and distrust of feminine bodily processes and the uniquely privileged mother/child relationship, which is here warped into a nightmarish mockery. The horrors of childbirth, in particular, are explored in brutal detail in the final sequence, which is one of the most bracing and stomach-turning scenes in cinema. Cronenberg admits that the film was directly inspired by a rather nasty divorce battle with his ex-wife, and consequently it's a film about the scars, mental and physical, imparted on us by our families and loved ones. This is a primal fear, a childlike horror that the ones we love the most are exactly the ones who are out to hurt us. Cronenberg makes this abstract fear terrifyingly tangible, and the result is one of his most effective and extraordinary horror films.
In "Quai des Orfevres," French director Henri-Georges Clouzot uses the trappings of a murder mystery to explore, in obsessive detail, the worlds of both the police department and the Paris theatrical scene. Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair) is a nightclub singer with a jealous pianist husband, Maurice (Bernard Blier), who she loves and is faithful to despite his periodic jealous rages and his constant suspicion (not to mention his general frumpiness, a stark contrast to her luscious pin-up beauty). Jenny is also ambitious, though, and she accepts the attentions of the lascivious movie mogul Brignon (Charles Dullin). She naively believes that she can attain fame without giving in to the producer's notorious penchant for bedding his stars. Obviously, things go badly awry, and on the night Brignon turns up dead, both Jenny and the jealous Maurice have been at Brignon's home at different times, with flimsy but convoluted alibis to cover up their activities.
This murder mystery provides the film's impetus, but Clouzot chooses to focus much more on the world of the entertainment industry and the small Paris clubs that these characters perform at. Clouzot's interest in this milieu is almost anthropological, developing an entire bustling world of singers, dancers, and oddball performers, like a troupe of gymnastic dogs. An early scene traces the development of Jenny's signature song, with a fluid montage that shows her performing the song in informal practice, club auditions, an on-stage rehearsal, and finally, glamorously dolled up, belting out the number as she shakes her hips before a live audience. Just as importantly, Clouzot is interested in the troubled but genuinely loving domestic relationship between Jenny and Maurice. Maurice is a balding, stocky little loser, sloppy-looking with his perpetually wrinkled clothes and his gloomy stare. He's a miserable man who somehow earned the love of a vivacious, sexy woman, and his knowledge that he's with a woman far above his level has seemingly only made him more miserable. He's consumed by jealousy, and even the most innocent chatter with the old men around the club inflames his rage.
This world is explored mostly through the eyes of Antoine (Louis Jouvet), a glib but effective police inspector who provides a way into the story and a filter for Clouzot's observations. The mystery itself mostly takes a backseat to character and world-building, and the film is rich in detail and nuance, as well as emotional complexity. This is a beautiful and moving examination of love, fidelity, and the cost of jealousy, with an ending that restores the film to the healthy balance of its opening happiness.
With their second collection of the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Artificial Eye has once again gathered some of his finest works into one place. "Veronika Voss" is a dazzling tribute to Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," as well as to the legacy of German expressionism with its lurid black-and-white visuals and melodramatic stories. The story of a doomed and aged ex-actress, hooked on drugs but still able to seduce a much younger man with her glamorous aura, is tailor-made for Fassbinder's distinctive aesthetic, and this is one of his finest films. "In a Year of 13 Moons" is equally strong, a heartfelt biography of a transvestite whose desperation for love and acceptance crosses all gender borders. A harrowing and deeply moving tale, it was shot by Fassbinder himself with a fragmentary style that scatters light and mirrors all over the screen in a blinding display of visual ingenuity. "The Third Generation" is one of Fassbinder's most bitingly satirical films, a bitter condemnation of faux-radicals and the absurdity of what passes for political dialogue in modern societies. Made in 1979, this was ahead of its time and remains strikingly relevant today with its harsh and hysterical parody of media culture. Finally, "Germany in Autumn" was a political film made by a number of German directors together, with Fassbinder providing the stark and confrontational opening half-hour. This is another great packaging of some of Fassbinder's greatest masterpieces, thankfully now more widely available for modern audiences to appreciate his vision.
This excellent collection gathers together three wildly different films from maverick German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, presenting a cross-section of his career and thus a perfect starting point for curious viewers daunted by the number of films this prolific director has made. "Martha" is a darkly comic melodrama about a passive woman (Margrit Carstensen) whose marriage to a domineering businessman (Karlheinz Bohm) turns into a horrorific game of manipulation and psychological violence. Fassbinder brilliantly captures the claustrophobic feel of the story, amplifying the intensity until it's unclear whether Martha is in genuine danger or merely trapped in the imaginings of her own mind. "Lola" is perhaps Fassbinder's most visually stunning film, another look at manipulation with the gender roles reversed. Barbara Sukowa is radiant as the title character, a prostitute who aims to improve her social position by seducing the seemingly incorruptible new local building inspector Von Bohm (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Fassbinder rigorously color-codes the screen, shifting between Lola's bright pinks and reds and Von Bohm's sparkling blues, culminating in a scene where Von Bohm, seduced by Lola's charm, steps out of the clarity of his blue lighting and into the hazy red light of passion. Finally, "Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?" answers its title question with a harrowing portrait of urban mediocrity and the stultifying boredom of working-class existence, all leading towards the explosive climax.
This set presents these three very different films along with a great feature-length documentary about Fassbinder's life and work, with most of his cast and frequent collaborators commenting and giving interviews. There are many other great Fassbinder films, but this box provides a near-perfect introductory overview, and should be essential viewing for both devoted fans and newcomers alike.
George Cukor's The Philadelphia Story is an epitome of stylish wit and charm, evincing Cukor's characteristic concern with class and life decisions. Katharine Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, a society heiress with a long history as a tabloid gossip mainstay, especially in regards to her angry divorce from C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant). The opening scene perfectly captures the antipathy between these two, in a quick and wordless evocation of the end of their marriage: Hepburn breaks Grant's golf club over her knee, and Grant palms her face and shoves her backwards, after first feigning a punch. But when Tracy plans to get remarried, to the nouveau-riche George Kittredge (John Howard), Dexter returns into her life, dragging with him a pair of gossip-rag journalists who he plans to introduce as friends of his. From then on, the film is a game of appearances and realities, with nothing ever quite what it seems. Dexter is seemingly out for revenge by showing up at the wedding and bringing sleazy journalists with him, but he actually has more altruistic motives in mind. And the journalists, Connor (James Stewart) and Liz (Ruth Hussey), must maintain their facades while gathering information about the Lord family. Meanwhile, Tracy sees right through her ex's ruse immediately, but is forced to accept the journalists as friends anyway, due to a blackmail plot by the tabloid's editor. Obviously, the stage is set for some hilarious madcap comedy in the classical Hollywood tradition, and Cukor doesn't disappoint in that regard. The film is a riot, even if it's less frantic than some other screwball comedies. But he also provides much deeper pleasures, in the subtle characterization that slowly brings these people from broad caricatures to complex, fully developed individuals. The emotional weave of the film culminates in a lengthy drunken conversation between Hepburn and Stewart, who develop a languid and uncertain (but no less charming) screen chemistry that provides a great contrast to the witty, fast-paced repartee between Hepburn and Grant. This is a funny, smart, and surprisingly moving film that digs deep at issues of class, and the importance of being happy in one's own skin.
John Ford's Fort Apache is a wonderfully rich and complex character study masquerading as a Western adventure, in which Ford examines the taming of the American West and the ways in which history whitewash the past and tell stories wholly unconnected to historical truth. The film's central conflict centers on the differences between Henry Fonda as the egotistical fort commander who just wants to advance his own career, and John Wayne as his heroic and intelligent second-in-command, who is more concerned for the fate of the Apache Indians they're supposed to be fighting. Fonda is essentially a General Custer type of figure, a gloryhound with little understanding of Indian culture, and consequently little respect for it, while Wayne's complex view of the Indians makes him a much better strategic fighter, while also increasing his respect for their way of life and right to coexist. This conflict is largely dramatized through a series of vignettes from the daily life of Fort Apache, which Ford presents with genuine affection and a strict attention to details. Even the smallest characters get their moment to shine, while the mundane details of running the fort, officer dances, training new recruits, and even interior decoration, are caught by Ford's roving eye. The result is a portrait of the American frontier spirit that's sympathetic and complex, even as it acknowledges the darker subtext of violence and native suppression that runs underneath this bright exterior like a river of blood.
Man of the West was director Anthony Mann's last great Western, and possibly even his best film in a career filled with hard-edged, tough, and beautifully shot films. Gary Cooper plays Link, a former outlaw who unwillingly returns to his old gang when he's left stranded after the gang robs the train he's on. It's a classic Mann story, dramatizing the internal tensions of a man teetering between good and evil. Link has made a new and better life for himself, marrying, having kids, and living in an intimate farming community. But his reintroduction to his old gang, led by the sadistic Dock Tobin (Lee Cobb), forces him to confront his violent past and the possibility that he could go that way again. This is a fierce, uncompromising film, in which Cooper's stoic face hides the potential for great upheaval, finally let loose in the stunning scene where he beats and strips a gang member as revenge for the gang's sexual humiliation of the saloon singer Billie (Julie London). Mann's touch is visible in every widescreen frame of the film, which is beautifully composed, with Cooper's square jaw standing out dramatically against the wide Western vistas. This visual brilliance is most apparent in the taut, suspenseful closing showdown, in which Cooper and two bandits form a loose triangle on screen as they approach each other, guns drawn and ready. This is a powerful, viscerally exciting, and thematically complex Western, the peak of the genre and of this particular director's work.
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