Change Your Image
user54
Reviews
James Dean: A Portrait (1995)
A brief, touching portrait of an artist
This TV documentary is only 60 minutes in length, and doesn't go into much depth. It does contain some very interesting material, and it achieves its purpose as a short documentary that both enlightens and touches. The film is basically a quick walk-through of Dean's life. There is more to it than that, however, and along the way we find intriguing quotes from Dean's personal writings, some scenes from rare home movies, family photographs, some great screen tests, behind the scenes footage (some even filmed by Dean himself), examples of Dean's artwork, a general study of his acting technique, and even a homemade stop motion animation of a bullfight that was found in his possession after his untimely death (Dean was greatly enamored with the symbolism of bullfighting).
The film covers Dean's life very quickly, but the presentation is solid and you get a good, elementary feel for Dean from it: as an actor, artist and person. From Dean's writings we see that he was, in fact, not only innately talented but very intelligent. The factual portrayal is really a highlight when you consider how many presentations on Dean get caught up in his legend and mystique, thereby confusing the audience more than educating. There's no obsession with the legend here. The film states it simply: Dean had amazing talent as an actor. We see it here in the many selected movie clips and screen tests where Dean isn't even acting--he's literally, emotionally (perhaps even psychologically) become the character. That essence of his ability goes beyond compliment to become a simple fact. Dean was in Hollywood only 18 months but by the time his first film made it to theaters his name already received top billing.
Several people who knew Dean provide brief interview commentary of a personal nature: what he was like, things he said. These interview bits are interspersed mostly from obscure footage shot years prior to this documentary's production. They include Dennis Hopper on the set(?) of Easy Rider, Nicholas Ray and other cast and crew he worked with.
A clip from Dean's highway safety public service announcement is also included, and the irony is tragic. Dean briefly talks about his new Porsche Spyder and how the highways are even more dangerous than the race track. The accident is covered briefly but coherently (Dean was not at fault). In sum, it's a brief and touching portrait of an amazing artist, who had an astonishing impact on the world with only 3 films to his name, and who could have accomplished so much more.
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
No requiem for formulaic anti-drug films: they're alive, well & wearing a new skin
The reason people keep searching for meaning in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is that there isn't any deeper meaning to be found, aside from a message available in much earlier cinematic work, say, REEFER MADNESS. Whereas that is amusing and once effective propaganda, this is just hot air -- typical Aronofsky -- plenty of flashy style, zero substance. You can understand why he tackled the "drug issue": sensationalism and melodrama get attention for an aspiring auteur.
Or perhaps anti-drug films have gone undercover. What else could they have done to spread a message that is now laughed at (THE ROAD TO RUIN, REEFER MADNESS)? Perhaps their answer to the modern, cynical, jaded youth is a new style of propaganda evident in films like REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. As propaganda, this might work, despite the over-the-top melodrama. it's the surrealism, ironically, that sells it so well, as if to say, "We know our anti-drug evidence sounds preposterous. The reality IS surreal!" As art, however, it fails unequivocally, and REQUIEM is intended as entertainment, not education. Perhaps, though, this subconscious purpose to the film is what has inspired viewers to find meaning in REQUIEM. But let's stick to calling a film a film, and judge it on that basis.
At best, REQUIEM is an ignorant, inexperienced, preposterous, propagandized claim of the so-called evils of drug use. That is "at best" because propaganda can be so masterful it is worthy of artistic mention (e.g. Riefenstahl). REQUIEM, however, is so melodramatic, pointless, unbelievable, and desperate to attract adherents to its false mastery of invisible metaphor and allegory that it fails to even be successful as propaganda, something any after-school special or episode of GROWING PAINS can accomplish.
Nothing is new here in the treatment of the subject matter; nor, even, the style. TRAINSPOTTING brought stylistic surrealism into vogue for (anti-)drug films, and did so much more effectively and without losing all sense of reality and veering into the realm of melodramatic tripe like this. Beyond that, almost all "drug films" express the exact same message. I think it's been drilled into your head enough to forgo spelling it out. All REQUIEM does is scream out that message melodramatically, and then add a bit of surrealism to make like art cinema.
It wouldn't be so surprising if the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (office of the U.S. "Drug Czar") actually had a hand in this project, considering the fact that this film was produced in the heyday of ONDCP bribery of Hollywood (exposed by the online magazine Salon in 2000 -- just search for ONDCP TELEVISION SCRIPTS in your favorite internet search engine. America's favorite TV shows were edited and modified to contain anti-drug propaganda, courtesy of bribes amounting to tens of millions of dollars a year for the networks. If it was, I might be more forgiving to the filmmakers for producing such an annoying attempt at faux art.
Marcel Duchamp's prank exhibit and amusing statement (a urinal) for a 1917 art show didn't make it in, but, apparently, if he had written inside the urinal "the consequence of drug use" he would have won critical acclaim -- at least by the standards that this film has achieved high regard. The only potentially brilliant aspect of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is that the filmmakers may have realized that fact, and shrewdly succeeded with this project in terms of self-promotion. For art, however, I would rather stare at that urinal.
The Disco Dolls in Hot Skin (1978)
Great B-movie porno fun, but hardly 3-D and barely featuring John Holmes
Like many others, I saw this as a midnight art house rescreening. Naturally, one is hesitant to sit through two hours of bad 70s porn without being able to fast-forward, and with the potential lack of good scenes to fast-forward to.
But as it turns out, Hot Skin in 3D deserves more credit than that. I suppose this is the one pornographic film I've ever noticed playing at art houses for a reason. Rightfully, it's not a really fantastic movie-going experience. Too bad, there goes my dream of yuppies and soccer moms at the Angelika suddenly realizing pornography is suitable as mainstream entertainment.
The film has more campy plot than even most 70's porn. In fact, it's much closer to a real plot than any other porn film I've ever seen, although I'm not much of an expert. But compared to Behind the Green Door, Deep Throat, and Debbie Does Dallas, you can actually watch this movie without forgetting where the story's going. I'd really rather see this on the big screen than even The Devil in Miss Jones. As an often amusing campy B-flick and hardcore porno rolled into one, it's a good introduction to 70's porn. This film is actually an average campy B-movie even if you ignore the sex, although the sex itself is integral to the hilarity of the feature.
The film has some cool scenes designed for 3-D amusement, although not a great many of them. Unfortunately, it seems 3-D technology in 1977 was pitiful, and was hardly really 3-D at all. If you really try to pretend it's 3-D, you can get a little effect out of it, but it's more akin to watching a 3-D movie without the glasses.
Also, beware that this really isn't a John Holmes film. This was at the start of his career, so he's just a sex-extra in the movie for about a minute or two, in one group scene. His name does appears on the beginning credits [JOHN "THE WAD" HOLMES, which got quite a laugh], which may indicate he had achieved some fame shortly after the making of this film that the producers thought to take advantage of. Also, the film is often promoted as if he's the star. That's very misleading.
Zatôichi chikemuri kaidô (1967)
One of the most stylistic and gripping Zatoichi films
Shintaro Katsu's Zatoichi is such a memorable character not only because of his talent with a sword, but because he acts justly in an unjust world, even as a member of the yakuza "gangster" caste, an outcast of normal society, a nobody in status compared to a samurai; often, in fact, labeled a criminal. No one respects him for his honor, but only for his ability to kill. The world around him is based on fear, corruption and evil, and even the people that are good are invariably weak in the face of the strong and corrupt.
This Zatoichi story is unique. The blind swordsman is at a traveler's inn with a woman and her child when the woman dies. Her dying request is that Ichi take the boy to his father. Unfortunately the father is trapped in a plot to produce forbidden images on pottery and plates -- artistic renditions of women that are often hardly even suggestive, but in those days were outlawed. It is over pottery designs that much violence is to occur thanks to corrupt officials, evil yakuza, and the twisted justice of the government.
Zatoichi has often been juxtaposed with a costar acting as a foil. In ZATOICHI CHALLENGED that foil is a child on the road with Ichi. This pairing elicits just the right combination of emotion and personality from the blind swordsman, giving his character added depth and feel. It is very gratifying to see Zatoichi in a fatherly role.
Ichi deserves more empathy and respect in this film. The father-son story device, the twisted justice of the government samurai, and the stylistic energy of the film are the perfect background for what Ichi's character symbolizes. Here Ichi is complete; an excellent protagonist.
The final battle scene takes uncommon form -- the added effect of the snow alone makes it magical. It is more stylistically shot than most Zatoichi battles, it seems edited with emphasis on emotion rather than action, and it ends in a very atypical way. Here the action seems to be balanced well in benefit of the story and style of the film. This makes the action for its own sake all the more beautiful to watch.
Also see the father-son device used in another excellent samurai series, Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure Okami), starring Shintaro Katsu's brother, Tomisaburo Wakayama.