A RIVETTE-ING FILM RETROSPECTIVE

Unfettered film fans in Los Angeles (and there is rumored to be a few of those flitting about) have the AFI Film Festival running through Sunday to occupy their schedules. But as retrospectives go, it’s hard to beat the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York, which is featuring an unbeatable one indeed, The Complete Jacques Rivette, which begins tomorrow night and runs through December 31. News like this may do little for those stuck in places other than New York and unable to attend fabulous events such as these, although there are a few Rivette films available on Netflix, including Gang of Four (1988), La Belle Noiseuse (1991), Secret Defense (1998), The Story of Marie and Julien (2003), Va Savoir (2000) and Wuthering Heights (1985). The availability of these titles will make you thankful for Netflix all over again, but the MOMI retrospective includes all of them PLUS lots of stuff still unavailable on DVD. If I were able to spend this holiday season in Astoria, New York, here are the tickets I’d buy:

Céline and Julie Go Boating(1974) (which is available on a region 2 PAL DVD.
Saturday, November 11, 6:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 12, 4:30 p.m.

Jean Renoir, The Boss (1967) Made for the series Les Cinéastes de notre temps, Rivette’s documentary portrait of the great director includes a conversation between Renoir and actor Michel Simon, who discuss The Rules of the Game.
Sunday, November 19, 2:00 p.m.

Up/Down/Fragile (1995) Rivette’s whimsical homage to MGM musicals.
Friday, November 24, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 25, 6:30 p.m.

L'Amour Fou (1968), which will be introduced by Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. “You emerge from it changed,” Rosenbaum once wrote of the film. “It’s a life experience as much as a film experience.”
Sunday, December 3, 4:30 p.m.

And if that’s not Rivette to keep you riveted, The House Next Door comes through again with a link to this wild 1998 interview with Rivette, conducted by Frederic Bonnaud and translated by Film Comment’s Kent Jones, in which the cranky elder statesman of les politiques des auteurs holds forth on various movies, directors and actors, particularly Sandrine Bonnaire in the director’s 1998 Secret Defense. The interview is structured as commentary on various film titles, and I can’t resist giving you just a taste:

On The Night of the Hunter: “The most seductive one-shot in the history of movies. What can you say? It's the greatest amateur film ever made.”

On Vincente Minnelli: “He was meticulous with the sets, the spaces, the light...but how much did he work with the actors? I loved Some Came Running (1958) when it came out, just like everybody else, but when I saw it again ten years ago I was taken aback: three great actors and they're working in a void, with no one watching them or listening to them from behind the camera.”

On Bunuel and That Obscure Object of Desire: “More than those of any other filmmaker, Buñuel's films gain the most on re-viewing. Not only do they not wear thin, they become increasingly mysterious, stronger and more precise… François and I saw El when it came out and we loved it. We were really struck by its Hitchcockian side, although Buñuel's obsessions and Hitchcock's obsessions were definitely not the same. But they both had the balls to make films out of the obsessions that they carried around with them every day of their lives.”

On Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me: “The craziest film in the history of cinema. I have no idea what happened, I have no idea what I saw, all I know is that I left the theater floating six feet above the ground.”

On Paul Verhoeven, Starship Troopers and Showgirls: Starship Troopers doesn't mock the American military or the clichés of war - that's just something Verhoeven says in interviews to appear politically correct. In fact, he loves clichés, and there's a comic strip side to Verhoeven, very close to Lichtenstein. And his bugs are wonderful and very funny, so much better than Spielberg's dinosaurs… But I prefer Showgirls (1995), one of the great American films of the last few years. It's Verhoeven's best American film and his most personal… Like every Verhoeven film, it's very unpleasant: it's about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that's his philosophy. Of all the recent American films that were set in Las Vegas, Showgirls was the only one that was real - take my word for it, I who have never set foot in the place!”

Wait till you hear what he has to say about James Cameron and John Woo (not to mention Kate Winslet and Stanley Kubrick). The comments column for Matt Seitz’s post on this Rivette interview is well worth checking out, particularly Matt’s response to Rivette’s characterization of Kubrick. After reading the piece, you may feel like adding a comment of your own. Feel free to do so either there or below.

(Keith Uhlich has more on the retrospective from The House Next Door.)

DRIVE-IN TRAILER PARK: SEXPLOITATION!!!

The Drive-In Trailer Park theme of the day is Sexploitation, and the three ads featured in this post give a nice overview of some of the stuff an innocent underage filmgoer could be exposed to if his parents (or grandparents) subscribed to the right newspapers at the right time. One of the things that I love about ads like the one for the Magdalena/Crazy for Love/Tread Softly Stranger double feature (the ad is dated from 1960) is the mantle of seriousness bestowed upon the movies by the exhibitor, as if to ward off any accusations of pandering (while, of course, at the same time, emphasizing the “adult” nature of the program):

“Notice form the management: We wish to advise our patrons that Magdalena is a drama best understood by adults. Therefore, please comply with our policy of ADULTS ONLY.”

I love the euphemism “best understood.” And I also like the plea to keep the kids at home. It doesn’t say anything like “no one under the age of…” will be admitted. So if you were a potato-headed parent circa 1960 and felt that Magdalena was something it was okay for your six-year-old to be in the presence of, the box office attendant might wag his finger at your decision, but he’ll still take your money. My, how things have changed!


The Babysitter double bill is vintage 1975, a superb Crown International night at the movies that is very typical of the stuff I saw advertised, and also some of the stuff that was actually still playing when I was old enough to see them for myself (I saw Van Nuys Blvd. and a double feature of The Van and The Pom Pom Girls in Eugene, Oregon drive-ins, all courtesy of the good folks at Crown International. But none of the drive-ins where I saw any of these T-and-A classics was ever so aptly named as the one showing The Babysitter and Weekend with the Babysitter. Where else could one indulge one’s appetite for smut and edifying content so completely than at a drive-in called the Wak-Art?


Finally, you absolutely must love the guy who put together the bill for the Turnpike Drive-in in Albany, New York. Here’s a guaranteed cigar-chomper who undoubtedly figured that any movie with the word “virgin” in the title or the advertising must be pretty racy. Going in reverse order, “revealing hit #3” is Virgin Island, a comedy-drama starring John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, with the provocative tag line (provided by the exhibitor, undoubtedly), “Alone… on an island of love!” Unfortunately, the movie itself seems to be something different—it is described by one IMDb user as a movie “for those who love fairy tale, Field of Dreams-type movies-- a "Must-See." Well, that doesn’t sound too racy…

Adult Shocker #2 , The Last Paradise, or as it is known in it’s country of origin, L’ Ultimo Paradiso, turns out to be some kind of Italian documentary which probably promised the occasional glance at a denuded native girl, but was also probably a whole lot less provocative that its tagline (“The Virgin Paradise of Ten Thousand Thrills!”) would have you surmise.

But, as any good showman would, I’ve saved the best for last. The come-on reads like a promise of the nastiest bit of pulp you’ll ever encounter: “Certain essential scenes in this film should be seen only by adults. They are not suitable for younger, more impressionable minds. We strongly recommend this film for adults only.” Unbelievable that they missed the opportunity to let on that the film in question comes from that hedonistic hot spot known as Sweden. So what is steamy Adult Shocker #1? It’s called The Virgin Spring (Yeah? Mmm!) and it stars Swedish hottie Birgitta Pettersson (Yeah? Uh-huh?)… and it was directed by that well-known Swedish pornographer Ingmar Bergman (Sound of air escaping overly engorged balloon…)

Who needs the drive-in’s in-car heaters with this much raw sex being projected onto the big screen? I wonder how many requests the management got for refunds based on lack of erotic stimulation after sitting through this triple feature! I’d have been pissed too—but not so much that I wouldn’t have inquired about the drive-in’s “popular bear club.”

In keeping (sort of) with today’s theme, here’s two offerings that have unique takes on the subject of marriage. First, from the land of Russ Meyer, comes his 1967 classic Common-Law Cabin (Don’t forget— in lieu of cold statistics, we offer you Sheila!):


And finally, here’s the British “restricted” trailer for a beautiful story of the unassailable bonds of marriage, bonds that can survive infidelity, incompatibility, and even one spouse’s transformation into a carnivorous slug from another world. Oh, how I wish I’d seen this one before doing up my Underrated, Ignored or Forgotten Horror Movies list last month…


Hearing Air Supply sing "You're Every Woman In The World To Me" will never sound the same... and a big "amen" to that! Have a great weekend!

IT AIN'T CALLED SEESAW III, FOLKS...

What would Andy do?

Here’s yet another account of idiot parenting that would be even more remarkable if there weren’t the nagging feeling while reading it that this kind of thing happens a lot more often than many of us are even aware. Today’s edition of the Burbank Leader features a movie review written by voice-over artist and character actor Matt Bellner for Saw III, certainly not a movie anyone is likely to mistake for Flushed Away or Open Season. Yet Matt felt compelled mid-review to interrupt his enthusiastic comments with this grim observation:

”This is one of the hardest R-rated movies I've ever seen. The biggest shock of my movie-going life, however, was seeing the family next to me sitting comfortably with their 3-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. Watching those poor kids sit through this type of entertainment was much more appalling than witnessing the violence in this film. Don't be an idiot. Keep your kids at home.”

One might reasonably think that such a plea wouldn’t be necessary, that any sane, rational grown-up, parent or not, would realize an auditorium screening Saw III was no place for a seven-year-old child, and especially not a child four years younger even than that. I’ve seen moms and dads with three or four underage children padding their way into Saving Private Ryan and Kill Bill Vol. 1, both a considerable stone’s throw from the Blue’s Clues universe, and both rated “R” for a good goddamn reason. Yet these selfish, potato-headed parents, treating their kids as pull toys to be dragged along to whatever occasion, either won’t (or can’t) pony up for a baby-sitter, or won’t wait for the movie to be released on DVD—they’ve gotta see it now, and if it means branding hard-core images of torture and humiliation into the brains of kids who are already exposed to far more than previous generations ever were at their age, and are “growing up” too damn fast as a result, then whatever, dude. If I saw a mother or a father pounding away at a child in a grocery store, I would either intervene or call for store security, in the name of the child’s safety. Is it such a reach to think of taking a three-year-old to see Saw III as a form of child abuse that might warrant similar intervention? (Some theaters, like the Mann chain, claim that no child under the age of five will be allowed admittance to anything harsher than a flat "PG," but I seriously doubt that policy is strictly enforced, and I can’t say other chains have similar restrictions.)

I’m not trying to condemn Matt Bellner for not saying something to these parents—on the contrary, I commend him for using his opportunity to review Saw III to even mention how horrified he was. But as a parent of two daughters, ages four and six, I’m finding it harder and harder, especially if I’m within a seat or two, to refrain from at least asking the mom or dad in that situation, “What the fuck are you thinking bringing those kids in here?”

Or should I just shut up, eat my popcorn and enjoy the gore that I paid to see, just like the Addams Family sitting next to me is trying to do? What would Andy Griffith do? What would you do?

POST-ELECTION "ADJUSTMENTS"

For some reason, I feel like going home, having a beer and watching Joe Dante’s Homecoming tonight. And good riddance to Bad Donald too.

DRIVE-IN TRAILER PARK: WHITE TRASH REDUX

Today’s is a very abbreviated edition of the SLIFR Drive-in Trailer Park, thanks to those good old standbys, life and work, making their petulant little demands!

(Image courtesy of Charles Bruss. Click on image to enlarge.)

This was always one of my favorite movie page exploitation ads, the come-on for a disreputable piece of junk entitled Poor White Trash Part II. As the copy suggests, “In the tradition of The Godfather Part II and Part II Walking Tall…” The only problem (besides the fact that Part II Walking Tall doesn’t really fit the mold of a sequel outstripping the original in quality or popularity) seems to be that, despite voluminous research done by various cinema think tanks, no one can actually verify that that there was ever a Poor White Trash part one!

What the hell! Instead of worrying about whether or not the lack of a "part one" would make "part two" too confusing, you could always amuse yourself by packing your car trunk with all your degenerate buddies and trying to outwit the "special uniformed police" busily suprervising admissions to the show. (And while you're gazing at this great ad, make sure to take time and luxuriate in the glow of those co-features.)

Elsewhere, check out this movie ad courtesy of John McElwee at Greenbriar Picture Shows in which the exhibitor takes a swipe at that nasty old local movie critic! Like I’ve said before, the movie pages just aren’t this much fun anymore. Thanks, John! (This one came by way of Andy Horbal. Thanks, Andy!)

Finally, we’re done with horror for a while, but the prospect of the “ladies man” featured in this trailer has a whole different fear factor built into it.



Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll try to enjoy your weekend too (whilst keeping close tabs on my own, of course!)

IS BORAT DAY IN U.S. AND A.!

Well, now we can finally see for ourselves what is all the hoohah surrounding Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, for today the film has been unleashed on screens everywhere in the U.S. and A. (Not as many as originally intended, as some Fox suits began to wonder if the movie would play as well all over the country as the early reviews, from Cannes through Toronto, all suggested it would.)

Anne Thompson at Risky Biz indicates that, as of today, the movie has maintained an unusually high 95% approval rating with the keepers of the flame at Rotten Tomatoes. But, of course, no movie, no matter how widely hailed, could possibly be universally acclaimed—Armond White dons sackcloth and ashes in his Borat review, and Anthony Lane can be heard sniffing from a high-rise in deepest, darkest downtown Manhattan, well safe from being victimized by one of Baron Cohen’s ruses (so far, anyway!)

David Edelstein goes for Borat-- up to a point—in his New York magazine piece entitled “So Funny It Hurts,” but Manohla Dargis in the New York Times and J. Hoberman in the ever-eroding Village Voice are squarely in Baron Cohen’s corner, and as such have turned in two of the most enjoyable reviews I’ve read in a long time. (Hoberman adds a query that has been on my mind since seeing Cohen on late-night TV this past week as well as in some of the original Borat segments of the Ali G DVDs: “How does Baron Cohen keep a straight face? If ever there was a movie that demanded a documentary devoted to its making, it's this one.”)

But most enjoyable, in an keenly interactive sort of way, is Jim Emerson’s response to both White and Lane in his Scanners post "They No Like Borat”:

To Lane, Sacha Baron Cohen is a guy who "adopts fictional personae and then marches briskly into the real world with a mission to embarrass its inhabitants." That may be Punk'd (or Candid Camera) but that's the least of what's going on in Borat, which presents these improvisations in a fictional narrative context that give them meaning (and, consequently, humor). To White, Borat is "anti-American propaganda," that "primarily consists of genital humor, scatological humor and jokes about deformity and mental retardation" -- while any praise of the film is "a bit seditious" and amounts to "evil criticism." OK, that movie doesn't sound funny to me, either. But that movie is nine shots of Armond White with just a splash of Borat Sagdiyev.

Lane is baffled by Borat. White goes off on a comically crude and incoherent rant against Madonna, Andy Kaufman, Neil LaBute, Madonna (again), 9/11, George W. Bush, Michael Moore, Emir Kusturica, the "angry Left’s vicious temerity" and the "self-loathing" of "Borat’s ass-kissing film critics." Yes, in White's six-paragraph review he spews more bilious imagery -- "pits," "sewer gas," "flatulent," "odious," "evil," "stench," "Ethnic-Cleansing" -- than the feature film he's accusing of low blows. (And for some people, inexplicably, everything will always be about Madonna.)

White, an increasingly self-conscious provocateur who, as Jim correctly states, often writes for attention, here gets a bit more:

In his second paragraph, White writes: "As Borat Sagdiyev, Cohen pretends to document the habits of fly-over America; his red state debauch ultimately pandering to Liberals’ worst instincts." He lumps together the "trio of middle-aged feminists" with "an etiquette club’s dinner party, a gang of ghetto rap boys, Pamela Anderson fans, any group that might be perceived as voting conservative." What makes White assume all these "groups" he's describing might be perceived as voting conservative? Middle-aged feminists and Pamela Anderson fans? Southern aristocrats in a mansion on or near Secession Blvd. and "ghetto rap boys"? Does he honestly think the film has the same attitude toward them all? (White thinks the movie too afraid to poke fun at "N.Y./L.A. media-centers" and exploits cultural confusion to divisive ends; I think Borat's a social-liberal populist disguised behind a giant moustache, who shrewdly identifies with blacks and gays because he doesn't want to risk causing truly divisive offense. )

And finally, here’s part of what Jim has to say regarding Lane:

There is none so provincial as a patronizing New Yorker who's spent too long in his solipsistic media-center bubble. White claims Talladega Nights was "derisive about the Midwest’s auto-racing subculture" (but at least he thought it was funny, though he doesn't mention it co-starring Sacha Baron Cohen); Lane writes, "This defense of Borat as an unwitting scourge of the reactionary—unearthing Midwestern beliefs no less parochial than those he left behind in Kazakhstan—is sound as far as it goes." No acknowledgment that, after a brief Kazakhstan introduction, the whole second section of the movie takes place in New York City, and the last act in Los Angeles and Orange County. Borat's route goes from New York through Washington, D.C., then into the South, and through Texas and the Southwest on the way to the Pacific coast. But to these guys, anything west of Jersey is "The Midwest." Borat's not that insulting.

I’m tempted to just repost Jim’s entire piece, it’s that sharp—and I haven’t even seen Borat yet (my wife and I plan to make it part of our 13th wedding anniversary festivities this weekend). But know that what makes Jim’s approach to the topic valuable is not only that he provides direct rebuttal to (unfortunately fairly typical) reactionary reviews from these two critics. The discussion also gives Jim a chance to deal directly with the whole concept of what is funny and why it is funny, a much more complex topic than we often allow for or even care to deal with when thinking about comedies ("Is it funny?" is usually as far as the inquiry goes), and a seemingly illuminating one when dealing with as an apparently incendiary, unapologetically satirical project as Borat.

Jim also helps those “confused about the difference between the fictional Kazakhstan, homeland of Borat Sagdiyev… and the former Soviet Socialist Republic in Central Asia” by making available both ”Official Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan” and “Official America Web Site”. Thank you, Mr. Emerson!

And to get you started on your weekend, he’s also alerting readers to a rare four-star Friday on RogerEbert.com, where all four movies under consideration-- Borat, 49 Up, 51 Birch Street and (yea!) Old Joy all get the highest rating.

Call me crazy, but even with all the TV appearances and reviews and think pieces that have been available since May on Borat, I feel like I’ve managed to avoid seeing too much, getting tired of Baron Cohen in that wild hair, dirty suit and Harry Reems mustache (good one, Ms. Dargis) or even, heaven forbid, getting my hopes up too high for the final result. All the discussion has certainly kept the subject a lively one, and I look forward to getting a chance to see the movie for myself. And I will bring an aspirator, just in case I threaten to self-execute from laughter.

WHEN IN HOLLYWOOD, VISIT...

Trey Parker and Matt Stone star in the comedic masterpiece BASEketball, released by Universal Pictures in 1998


This just in from the good folks at Metroblogging Los Angeles (Well, not exactly just in. It was posted two months ago and centers around a 10-year-old piece of film, but as NBC used to love to say, if I haven't seen it yet, it’s new to me!):

”When Edgar Bronfman Jr gained ownership of Universal Studios he got into some odd marketing campaign practices.

One of which is this rare, employee orientation video that enlightened people about how things were going to change under new management.

It was comissioned to be written and directed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and it was, and Jr. didn't like it, so they scrapped it.

UPDATE: Zap2it posted an interview with Trey Parker: ‘Parker said that he and Stone were paid by Universal Studios to create Your Studio and You in 1996, shortly after the studio had been purchased by Seagrams. ... At that time, Parker said, both he and Stone were complete Hollywood unknowns and were sleeping on the floor of a friend's apartment. In fact, it would be a few months before most of the world would see the duo's immensely popular cartoon The Spirit of Christmas which featured a fight to the death between Santa Claus and Jesus and ultimately led to the South Park cartoon on Comedy Central and the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut."

There are some pretty big names involved in the shenanigans here, and it all makes for a pretty hilarious 14 minutes. Thanks to my pal Haruka for passing it along to me so I could do the same for you.