pullquote

Service journalism

As a tie-in with its current Film Issue, Nerve.com's sex advice column this week reveals the wit and wisdom of video store clerks. Here's a clip, or you can read the whole thing here. Pervs.

Describe the sexual proclivities of a woman whose favorite actress is:

Angelina Jolie?
A few years ago, I would have said this person was a little freaky and interesting, but now it would probably be some nineteen-year-old suburban girl who wants to make out with other girls at bars. She thinks she's wild and hot, but lacks any real finesse.

Tilda Swinton?
I'm tempted to say lesbian, but I shouldn't generalize. "Open-minded."

Chloe Sevigny?
She used to be a dirty girl, but now she seems a little controlling. Very specific. "Only pee on me here, and not too much" and whatnot.

Kids these days.... Now, long ago, the cinetrix worked for a snotty well-regarded video store, but discretion prohibits her from confirming or denying any of these observations. She can offer you only this advice: Be kind, rewind.

Oh, and don't get lube on the pornos. Your mother does not work at the store, and no one else wants to clean up after you.

Hot fuss

You'll never guess who's been put up for a Pulitzer. Thanks to tipster CTB for this link to WWD:

The New York Times, for instance, seems to have caused a slight fuss this year by nominating co-chief film critic Manohla Dargis for criticism. As a rule, the paper does not discuss the Pulitzer process, but several Times sources confirmed that Dargis was nominated by management for the category, along with art critic Michael Kimmelman and architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. (The Pulitzer Board advises publications to nominate three or fewer candidates per category. Joseph Legaspi, who works with the board, said, "We put it in good faith that this is the best work from all over the country. That's why we ask editors to limit their selection.")

While Dargis has many fans at the Times, the nod surprised some colleagues there, particularly since respected critics with longer histories at the paper have yet to win the award — or even been named as Pulitzer finalists. (Chief theater critic Ben Brantley and Dargis' fellow chief film critic A.O. Scott were most often mentioned by sources. Scott was nominated by the Times at least twice, in 2000 and 2004; it is unclear how many times Brantley has been up for the award.)

"By no means do you ever hear that [Dargis] is the best critic [the Times] has," said one person who's worked with her there. "She's known for synopsizing and giving stuff away. You're not supposed to read her if you don't want to know what's going to happen."

...One colleague likened the Times' nominations of Dargis and Ouroussoff this year to backrubs for joining the team. "It's like the Yankees," he said, implying the Times was celebrating its gets.

Mrrrow! Followed quickly by, they've nominated Scott twice already? Oy gevalt.

What I wouldn't give for an arch George Sanders commentary as the politicking picks up.

This is no time for bravery.

A million thank yous and a salaam to all who made genre flick suggestions the other day. Would that I could design a whole class that'd encompass them all.

Instead, I punted. Pitching out the "what about a movie from 1986?"idea and admitting to myself there was very little I could teach the 18- to 23-year-old demographic about horror, I followed Horace Greeley's advice and went West.

Not Blazing Saddles. Not Johnny Guitar. Not even Derek's excellent [albeit late] pick, Dead Man. Nope, I went straight [if you'll pardon the pun] for the homosocial-est movie this side of Brokeback Mountain: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There's that great William Goldman script. The Burt Bachrach-scored chase montages. Katharine Ross at the height of her inexplicable fame. Long shots, vistas, shoot-em-ups aplenty. The ever-shifting notion of the frontier: this week, Bolivia; next week, Australia. Not to mention that film history-saturated, sepia-toned opening. Remember, we get an early actuality/newsreel introduction that'll come in handy once we tackle Kane next week. And it seems to have gone over like gangbusters, based on the youth's laughter.

In fact, one of my students keeps a blog, which the cinetrix, of course, surreptitiously reads. Wouldn't you? I leave you today with this kid's reaction to the Hole in the Wall Gang. Enjoy.

There was much concern yesterday in my Film class as to what we would be seeing later on that afternoon. Would it be another excessively long melodrama with Bette Davis? Would it feature Gene Kelly dancing his way through the plot holes? Would it have more to say about the fragile human condition of Algerian rebels...who also like to dance?

Horror of horrors...it was a Walker, Texas Ranger TV movie!

Just kidding, the movie we were regaled with was Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, which I'd seen bits and pieces of before but never the whole way through. It has now become my all-time favorite Western, and I'm not being sarcastic.

In a world where...

FOC Johnny Hong Kong imagines Terrence Malick directing Gummo. [With an assist by Werner Herzog.]

Wipe that face off your head, bitch.

"Well, alriiight," as Wooderson might drawl. Criterion is bringing out an edition of Richard Linklater's 1993 teen classic Dazed and Confused!

However, it should be noted that history has not been kind to some of those plucky Texan high school students. This weekend, the cinetrix and the Fesser finally saw Syriana [about which more later], which, improbably, is playing alongside The New World and, OK, The Pink Panther, in our local third-run theatre. Before the flick began, Dazed alums Milla Jovovich and Adam "No longer dating Christina Ricci/The Hebrew Hammer" Goldberg each appeared in trailers for the sort of fare that usually plays here: excrable, derivative, videogame-inspired horror flicks Ultraviolet and Stay Alive. It used to be that every time I watched Dazed, another alum had busted through the ranks and gotten famous. Now, not so much.

Speaking of which, what's up with Parker Posey in that Pepsi ad with Jimmy Fallon?

The heat is on

To rid ourselves of the lingering aftereffects of Walk the Line's formulaic schmaltz, the Fesser and the cinetrix engaged in a little homeopathic healing by liberally applying the cool blues of Michael Mann's Heat. So shiny and machined!

Round about the 2 hour and 10 minute mark, a drowsy Fesser observed, "It's like The Seventh Seal of heist movies. When does DeNiro play chess with Death?" And then fell asleep, leaving yours truly to white-knuckle it alone for the final 40 minutes.

Just one question: What happened to Val Kilmer? Answer either in terms of the film or in a larger sense, if you'd like.

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope.

OK, cinephiles, here's the deal. Ages ago when I was assembling the syllabus for the Intro to Film class I've been regaling you with tales from, I left the screening selection for the unit on genres open. My thinking was that I'd suss out the students and try to come up with something we'd otherwise not cover.

Since then, I've agonized over this choice so much that the Fesser has banned all discussion of it. So now I must turn to you. What should the kiddies watch next week?

Of course, there are some caveats. The text we're using singles out the following six genres [while allowing for hybrid genres and subgenres]: comedies, westerns, melodramas, musicals, horror, and crime. I know, it's ridiculous, but there you have it. So far, crime has been well represented at our screenings, and after Singin' in the Rain, I don't know if I can risk another musical without a revolt.

Also, I have tried to show films from the 1940s to the present, but the 50s are already overrepresented and the 80s and our current decade are underrepresented, so the film ideally would be made during either of those latter two periods. [And, in a perfect world, already part of our library's meager holdings.]

Finally, another prof is giving a genre class on sci-fi, in which some of my students are enrolled, so I don't want to overlap. Which rules out The Empire Strikes Back, Alien, Blade Runner, Brazil, The Terminator, etc.

Oh, yeah, and I'm a total wuss when it comes to horror, so although Aaron insists that I screen Halloween, there's the issue of maintaining my dignity in front of the young people to consider.

So, have at it, and remember, most of my students were born in 1986 or so.

I'm talkin' with my mouth

Stop the presses! The cinetrix has now seen one--count 'em, one--Oscar winner from the previous year: Reese Witherspoon as June Carter in James Mangold's paint-by-numbers Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. Of course, not having seen any of the other nominees' work, I'm in no position to judge whether her performance was somehow the best, but it was pretty sturdy.

Keep in mind, though, I'm a Reese fan of long standing, happy to evangelize heartily on behalf of her white-trash fairy tale Freeway to anyone who'll sit still long enough. Hell, I've suffered through Overnight Delivery and Sweet Home Alabama, people.

Even so, I have to think that when it came to playing the better half of country's dashing duo, Reese had the easier job. Playing a professional, determined [the chin!] spitfire is part of Witherspoon's M.O. Moreover, she's portraying a person who, while arguably far more famous than Johnny Cash when they met, is far less well-known now. Yes, there're the older folks back home to answer to on issues of fidelity, but she has far more latitude than Phoenix does here.

Speaking of fidelity, the Fesser raised an interesting question. When's the last time you saw a romance for the ages so clearly built on the foundation of adultery? Yes, you want June and Johnny to be together, and first wife Viv is a cranky bourgeois bitch, but there's one moment, beautifully played, that reminds us that their real life must have been a lot messier than Hollywood's "love conquers all" rush to couple formation would have us believe:

A good Christian woman, a fan of the Carter Family, castigates June--in the grocery aisle--for divorcing her first husband and marvels that her parents still speak to such a sinful child. June, shattered, manages a tiny, contrite "I'm sorry I disappointed you, ma'am" that proves the woman right: she has been brought up better than that.

It's a dagger through the heart of this love affair, and it's hard to imagine any actress brought up above the Mason-Dixon line uttering that line as convincingly as Witherspoon does. I just wish the rest of the film was as sharp and as deeply felt.

One sings; the other doesn't

Apologies for the ongoing lassitude around here. The cinetrix spent the end of last week limping toward--wooo--spring break, and she's devoted most of her vacation to conducting long-overdue excavations of the lair rather than lazing in front of the silver screen.

Did manage to watch one film that I'd been looking forward to, only to come away disappointed: Agnes Jaoui's Look at Me (Comme une Image). I had great expectations after enjoying the outsize talents of Marilou Berry in The First Time I Turned Twenty, and Berry is marvelous, but I found the film on the whole somewhat slight.

Here she plays Lolita, an aspiring singer and the unhappy, overweight daughter of French literary celebrity and raging egomaniac Etienne Cassard. Lolita is contemptuous of her father and of those who would befriend her to get closer to him, yet she yearns for his approval. It's a hell of a bind to be in. What she fails to see is that in her own way, she's become just as much of a raging snob as daddy, slighting the overtures made by his well-meaning trophy wife Karine and discounting the sincerity of her young suitor Sebastien's feelings because, well, everyone's on the make, right?

Well, yes. Thus, director Jaoui's film nicely sidesteps predictable transformations and resolutions. But these sidesteps are just as tidy as any conventional Hollywood narrative arc, and even the mixed motives the film's flawed characters display are scrupulously balanced.

In his Onion AV Club review last year, Scott Tobias nailed it:

Lively dialogue, unimpeachable intelligence and good taste, fine performances, and not a single unexpected or memorable moment. Look At Me is an appetizer without the main course, perfectly well-wrought yet determinedly minor, exactly the sort of movie that comes to mind when people think about typical French arthouse fare.

Now, a Comme Une Image/Caché mashup? That's something the cinetrix would like to see. Bring on the hot litterateur-on-litterateur action!

Let my Cameron go

Interesting look at the time-honored tradition of casting geezers as teens in today's LA Times. They manage to nail most of the usual suspects--Alan Ruck in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Gabrielle Carteris on 90210--but miss out on classics like Kathleen Turner in Peggy Sue Got Married.

So, who are your favorite geriatric screen teens?