Girl Detective

This week’s selection for Take-Up’s Monday Night Noir series at the Parkway was Sam Fuller’s Underworld U.S.A., which is not available on DVD. Though his film’s aren’t widely known, Fuller is often included on lists of “auteur” directors:

From Wikipedia:

In film criticism, the 1950s-era auteur theory holds that a director’s films reflect that director’s personal creative vision, as if they were the primary “auteur” (the French word for “author”).

Auteur theory has had a major impact on film criticism ever since it was advocated by film director and film critic François Truffaut in 1954. “Auteurism” is the method of analyzing films based on this theory or, alternately, the characteristics of a director’s work that makes her or him an auteur. Both the auteur theory and the auteurism method of film analysis are frequently associated with the French New Wave and the film critics who wrote for the influential French film review periodical Cahiers du cinéma.

In the film, a 14 year old boy, Tolly Devlin, sees the silhouette of a man beaten to death by four men. His father was the victim, and he declares he’ll seek vengeance on the killers. He soon becomes a criminal himself, and bounces through the correction system, until he stumbles on a way to take his revenge on the men, who have become national crime bosses. The adult Tolly, played by Cliff Robertson, works both with the mob and the government, and plays them both for his own ends. Ultimately, though, he is the doomed hero of a noir movie, without hope of redemption either from a mother figure, or his lover. Shot, he collapses underneath a “Give Blood Now” poster.

Unlike most noir films, Underground, U.S.A. doesn’t have a femme fatale. Tolly’s lover is a hooker with a heart of gold, instead. Even though it was made about a decade later than most classics of the genre, it contains the noir theme of an ethically wavering man whose future is menaced by threats from the past. Fuller’s film is full of bitter humor and images. Most interesting, I thought, was the plot point that the mob opened espresso shops, not bars, as fronts for drugs and prostitution. The audience found this hilarious each time it was mentioned; perhaps it was the foretelling of Starbucks, et al.

Next week’s noir at the Parkway is Monday February 4, 2008 with Our Man in Havana. It is written by Grahame Green and directed by Carol Reed, the same team responsible for The Third Man. It is also not available on DVD; revival screenings like this one are rare treats.

GQ lists the ten best “guy” films “you” haven’t seen (quotaton marks, mine, and link from A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago.) I felt rather smug that I’d seen the first four on the list: Rififi, Croupier, The Limey and The Matador. One of the remaining five, Point Blank, was given to my husband, G. Grod, for Christmas, so we’ll see it soon. Of the other five, though, I was abashed to find I hadn’t heard of three: The Last Detail, The Sand Pebbles and The Beat that My Heart Skipped.

Interestingly, Rififi, The Limey and The Matador were all three recommended by my friend The Big Brain, a guy. Croupier, though, was recommended to me by my gal pal Rock Hack, who said she thought I’d like the lead actor, some guy named Clive Owen. It was a good call, both on the film and on Clive.

I loathed the 2007 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, shown on PBS’s Masterpiece theater as part of The Complete Jane Austen. Dr. Who’s Billie Piper is miscast as Fanny Price, whose characterization seems to consist almost entirely of her chasing wildly after someone or something, or pouting at or about Edmund. Austen’s Fanny is ethical to a fault, self-effacing, and quiet. Piper’s voluptuous blond prettiness would be much more suited to the role of Harriet Smith in Emma. The movie’s 90 minutes condenses Austen’s complex story to a caricature of itself, leaving out many critical plot points, like Fanny’s return to her family at Portsmouth. This adaptation glosses over much of the subtleties of Austen’s humor, while the scene at the end when Edmund realizes his love for Fanny is played so broadly that I cringed.

I’ve enjoyed the two other adaptations in the PBS series–Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. Persuasion was distinguished by the tense pauses in conversation that conveyed much of what had to go unsaid because of the conversational conventions and constraints of the time. Northanger Abbey did an excellent job of portraying Catherine’s romantic imagination, and alluding to the timelessness of teenage hormones. It did a good job with Austen’s sense of humor and propriety. Both these adaptations weren’t as good as their sources, but reminded me fondly of the books, and made me want to read them again.

Mansfield Park (2007), though, made me want to flee to the book, if only to get away from such a poor representation of it. Read the book, or rent the Patricia Rozema adaptation. It takes some broad departures from the text in Fanny’s character; this earned the scorn of ardent Jane-ites. But it is a well-made, well-cast film that does more justice to what many consider Austen’s most complex novel. The learned ladies at Austenblog didn’t care for Rozema’s Mansfield Park, so on that we’ll have to disagree. But they’re a wonderful resource for all things Austen if you want to learn more.

I’ve set out to learn more about film noir, so I watched Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum as smart detective with flexible morals who gets stupid around Judy Greer’s femme fatale. Kirk Douglas shines as an oily criminal.

Time Out Film Guide says it’s “once seen, never forgotten.” It’s beautiful and haunting. I hoped for Mitchum’s escape, even while knowing, as his character did, that he was doomed.

My husband and I were surprised to see the original of a scene we’d just watched in episode 2, Gnothi Seauton, of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In Out of the Past, Mitchum fights with his former partner, then Judy Greer shoots him. Mitchum asks why she did, and she replies, “Because you wouldn’t.” This scene appears almost verbatim in the Terminator episode, between Sarah Connor, who had been threatening an old acquaintance, and Summer Glau’s Cameron, who shoots him. I’ve submitted this trivia to IMDB, and will wait to see if it’s accepted.

A reminder: Semicolon hosts the Saturday Review of books. I found this through Mental Multivitamin, and I enjoy the community of reviewers. It’s interesting to read differing and similar views of books I’ve read, and check out reviews of books I want to read.

Robert Fulford, at the National Post (link from Arts and Letters Daily) skips the whole religion is bad/good dichotomy in defense of art. Loving great art does not make you good, neither does creating it, he notes. So, he asks,

What, then, does it guarantee? Those who give it their time and love are offered the chance to live more expansive, more enjoyable and deeper lives. They can learn to care intimately about music, painting and books that have lasted for centuries or millennia. They can reach around the globe for the music, the images and the stories they want to make their own.

Fulford’s is a short piece, and he’s probably singing to the choir. Yet it’s a good reminder to give a piece of art more than a few seconds of your time. Really look at it, don’t just take a picture or videotape it to consider it later. Read a book, then read another book related to it; come at things from a different angle. Do the same with a film. Listen to music and don’t do anything else. Put aside multi-tasking for the moment. As the author of Mental Multivitamin continually exhorts us, “Read, Think, Learn.”

Oscar Nominations were announced earlier in the week, though they’ve been somewhat eclipsed by Heath Ledger’s untimely death. Note to young Hollywood: Just say no. Sheesh.

I’ve seen only two of the best-film nominees–Juno and Michael Clayton. Both were excellent. I have several more to see, though, if I’m going to feel at all informed about the competition. It was an Oscar season of years past, probably the one after Drake was born, that inspired me to start my annual film challenges. I’d seen none of the films; I’d seen no films in a long time. I’d allowed a baby to keep me from one of the things I love, so I rearranged my priorities, set myself a challenge, and have seen lots and lots of films since.

I use the Oscars as a guide, not a list. There are lots of good movies that don’t get nominated for Oscars, and plenty of mediocre movies that do. The foreign and documentary films seem to have an especially poor selection process.

I had a few “wherefore art thou” moments going over the nominees. The Bourne Ultimatum was a very good film. It should have been considered for bigger awards. Knocked Up had some of the funniest writing this year, and newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse stole all his scenes in Superbad.

My plan this year is to see There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Persepolis, as soon as I can. They’ve been the best reviewed films and ones I think I will enjoy. Sweeney Todd, Into the Wild, and I’m Not There also sound worthwhile. All these films also sound as if they’re good as a whole. Many of the others boast good aspects, like a performance or the cinematography, but not enough holistically to draw me. I’m curiously indifferent about Atonement; it feels like a film calculated to win awards.

From Oscar.com:

80th Academy Awards - Nominations

LIVE Telecast: Sunday, February 24, 2008

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie in “Away from Her”
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”
Laura Linney in “The Savages”
Ellen Page in “Juno”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”

Achievement in directing
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, Julian Schnabel
“Juno”, Jason Reitman
“Michael Clayton”, Tony Gilroy
“No Country for Old Men”, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
“There Will Be Blood”, Paul Thomas Anderson

Best motion picture of the year
“Atonement”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”

I’m with Tom and Lorenzo of Project Rungay on this one: Christian was robbed. Yes, he made the same 80’s era shrunken jacket, but he did the most with the most. The jeans, especially with the sleeve detail, were more impressive to me than Ricky’s or Sweet P’s, though both of theirs were probably more retail-able.

My favorite moment was Jillian’s weird meltdown where she whimpered, “I’m bleeding everywhere.” Rami came over and said, “I don’t see anything,” then Sweet P told her to hold it together till midnight. Her “breakdown” was barely above a whisper.

Readers at A List of Things… hijacked a comment thread till they got their own.

Has anyone else noticed that Heidi Klum is dressing as if she’s hiding a bump? Any rumors out there that’s she’s pregnant?

I caught Road to the Runway, the prologue to Season 3, and was interested to see Simone, Jillian and Steven auditioning. Were they Season 3 also-rans, I wonder, or did circumstances prevail against them?

Paprika, a Japanese anime film from last year, is wild and visually stunning. I wanted to like it, but the more I think on it, the more it bothers me. Ultimately it’s a fanboy fantasy, and a feminist nightmare.

In the near future, psychotherapists have technology to record and enter dreams (think Until the End of the World, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). The team responsible is headed by an attractive but buttoned down woman and a gluttonous geek boy. The woman’s alter ego in dreams is the Paprika of the title. Someone steals and subverts the technology, and dreamworlds collide, then intrude disastrously into reality. My favorite part of the film is the parade of dreams–the color, image and music all combine for a walloping sensory experience. What happens to the female doctor, though, is beyond apology for me.

She is threatened multiple times by men who say they are going to play rough with her. One tries to rape her, and submerges a dream hand inside her, then rips off her skin from the inside, so she is naked and unconscious when another character rams tentacles down her throat. Later, she becomes a child, and drinks the dark dream stuff spread by the huge, nude male villain , which I found too close an allusion to fellatio. Finally, she rebels against her dream self and rescues the glutton-geek, declaring her love for him, then later saying she’s going to marry him and take his name.

The plot is murky and while the images are provocative, too often I found them offensive.

I recently finished The Woman in White and Wide Sargasso Sea. The paperback editions of each had dreadful covers of television or movie adaptations. How, I ask you, am I supposed to take books seriously that look like this:

or this:

?

I think I’m to be commended that I recognized the value of both books in spite of their covers. I’ve only seen one photo tie-in cover that I ever liked, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje:

I watched Lady from Shanghai last year on TCM, but it is much better on the big screen. In noir tradition, there is a big lug of a guy with dodgy morals (Orson Welles), the femme fatale (Rita Hayworth), the smart, irritating man (her husband), and an incomprehensible plot. No matter, for the style is mesmerizing, as is the closing scene in the house of mirrors. Welles was married to Hayworth at the time. Is the movie a metaphor for his powerlessness in the wake of her beauty and fame?

My old book group had Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys on their “to read” list for ages, and it never was selected. I’ve been meaning to read it since I first read Jane Eyre a couple years ago, and finally have. Rhys has imagined the backstory for the character of the first Mrs. Rochester. It’s a slim, deceptively difficult novel to read. Set in Jamaica, the narrative has the vagueness and heat of a fever dream. Many things are mentioned as matter of fact, and I had a continued unease that I didn’t understand the text, or they wouldn’t be explained, though nearly all of them were further into the book.

Antoinette is the daughter of a former slave owner and his beautiful Creole (white West Indian) second wife. The unrest in the islands leads to early tragedy in her family that never loses its hold. She is the narrator of the first section.

Seeking security, her family marries her off to young Mr. Rochester, new to the islands and barely recovered from fever. He narrates most, but not all, of the second section–though I haven’t seen this noted in most analyses, there is one departure that is told from Antoinette’s point of view. He is the second son of a wealthy English family, so he has no prospects of fortune of his own. He receives a large dowry, and the marriage starts off well enough. Rochester is young and paranoid, though, and the gossip about his wife and her family history make an impression on him. The marriage falters through several ugly incidents, until Rochester plans to leave.

The third section is narrated again by Antoinette, who Rochester now calls Bertha, because he likes the name. She is a prisoner in his home, and drifts in and out of lucidity as she moves toward her place in the narrative of Jane Eyre.

This is not an easy, or enjoyable, read. It is often hard to follow and understand. It is haunting, though, as well as provocative, disturbing and tragic. It looks at unpleasant truths about family, slavery, sexism, and racism. I will read this book again; I feel certain that it will yield more the second time around. Next time, I will read the annotated Norton Critical edition. I’d like to find out more about the history and world politics of the time.

Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White is another link in my book chain that’s followed The Thirteenth Tale. Along with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, Woman in White is mentioned several times. Like T13T, WiW is a fun, engaging thriller, with many odd and humorous characters. A young art teacher helps a woman one night, and finds himself tangled up in her destiny, which has a wide reach. There’s thwarted love, mistaken identity, dire secrets, and one of the best, most entertaining villains I’ve encountered in a long while, and he doesn’t even appear until 200+ pages in. Count Fosco, as he would undoubtedly tell you himself, is an astonishing character. Villainous, hilarious, and so fascinating to imagine that I wouldn’t want him to be dramatized in a movie–a real actor could not do justice to the many descriptions and characteristics of this vain, vile, large and tall man.

The tale is told in sequential narratives by different characters. This is done very well–events are not repeated, but expanded on from the point of view of another character when they overlap. The narratives are all well distinguished in the voice of their character. The mystery and its resolution unfold up to the very end, and I was happily engaged with this book for its 600+ pages.

At some passages, I raised my eyebrows:

The rod of iron with which he rules [his wife] never appears in company–it is a private rod, and is always kept upstairs.

Indeed. Ahem.

Other passages, especially ones by villains or lesser characters, made me laugh out loud:

Creaking shoes invariably upset me for the day. I was resigned to see the Young Person, but I was NOT resigned to let the Young Person’s shoes upset me. There is a limit to my endurance.

By the end, in fact, I was rather bored with the two main characters; they were comparatively dull, and largely overshadowed by the larger, more complex and entertaining cast. I think, though, this was intentional. In all, it was a “thumping good read.” I tried and failed to confirm the origin of this phrase (is it the book award?), but it means a book that is enjoyable for its story more than for its literary art, much as I felt about The Thirteenth Tale.

I enjoyed the new version of Persuasion on PBS last weekend. It kicked off The Complete Jane Austen. My enjoyment, though, may be because it’s been some time since I’ve read the book. Additionally, I never saw the 1995 version that many book bloggers, like Book Moot, champion. I thought Sally Hawkins was realistically pretty. And while Rupert Penry-Jones can’t really be called realistically handsome, I am able to overlook that in an Austen leading man. Heh heh. The story was shrunk very small to fit into 90 minutes. I didn’t care for Anne Elliott’s meaningful looks to the camera. I did very much enjoy Anthony Head’s turn as Anne’s vain father, though.

I plan to seek out the 1995 version after I’ve re-read the novel, most likely in the summer, when PBS’s spring of Jane has finished.

The first of Take-up’s Monday Night Noir series, So Cool So Cruel, at the Parkway was Double Indemnity, one of the best early film noirs. The style or genre of noir is American, and got its name from the series of French translations, Serie Noire, of American writers such as Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, and Dashiell Hammett.

Fred MacMurray’s slick insurance salesman is seduced by the sultry Barbara Stanwyck into plotting her husband’s demise. Some of Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler’s excellent dialogue is so dated that the audience can’t help but laugh, which is too bad, because we miss the next zinger. MacMurray’s sexual banter with Stanwyck is exhilarating, but more intriguing are his interactions with his co-worker, the claims investigator he’s trying to fool. Terms like love and close friends are tossed about as if they’re ironic, yet with an emphasis that points to something more real.

If you plan to check out other films in the So Cool So Cruel series, go early. The lines for tickets and popcorn were long and labyrinthine. The movies and theater I recommend, but the popcorn–not so much.

January 21, 2008 The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

January 28, 2008 Underworld U.S.A. (1961)

February 4, 2008 Our Man In Havana (1959)

February 11, 2008 Night and the City (1950)

Semicolon hosts the Saturday Review of books. I found this through Mental Multivitamin, and I enjoy the community of reviewers. It’s interesting to read differing and similar views of books I’ve read, and check out reviews of books I want to read.

Today is the birthday of M. Giant, the author of the very funny Velcrometer. Almost six years ago, M. said to G. Grod and me, “Hey, I started a blog. Check it out.” I did, and thought, “Hey, I can do that. Not nearly as hilariously, but still, it probably won’t completely suck.” So if you occasionally enjoy this weblog, you have M. Giant to thank for it. And if you hate the blog, well, I really don’t understand why you haven’t clicked away by now, but don’t blame M. All responsibility accrues to me for that.

I noted earlier this week that M Giant wants us to pre-order his book from amazon to spike his rating. I’m off to do just that. Happy birthday M, and happy weekend, all.

I don’t have much time to devote to last night’s show, “On Garde.” There were a few surprises, one of them the designer who was auf’d. Also, how is Ricky’s teflon butt escaping being kicked out each week? Mostly, though I’m left with the question of whether Jillian and Victorya have one emotion, between them? They’re not women, they’re FEMBOTS! The only time I saw V. look animated was when Team Fierce won, and it was almost as if her processor told her, “You are human, yet must be a good loser. Look happy when others win.”

Why did she look happy then, and as if she were sucking lemons the whole rest of the time? And why did the design seem so much of J, and so little of V?

Oh, how I wish I’d been on the couch chez Project Rungay.

Your Personality is Very Rare (INFP)

Your personality type is dreamy, romantic, elegant, and expressive. Only about 5% of all people have your personality, including 6% of all women and 4% of all men You are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving.

Link from Pages Turned. SFP is the vile temptress who lured me to this quiz.

OK, I’m in for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Lena Headey is Sarah, filling the huge shoes of Linda Hamilton from Terminator 2. She seems a little too pretty and fine boned for the part, but I heard no trace of her English accent, and she did a more-than-capable job–believable and likable right away. The music was straight out of Battlestar Galactica. Thomas Dekker as John is a little more of a problem. Not necessarily the actor, but his meek, mother-smothered character. Do I really believe that this is the kid that the delinquent of T2 turned into? Not sure.

According to the press, the show takes place after T1 and T2, and T3 is largely ignored. Like many a dodgy sequel, T3 isn’t factored into continuity. The premiere of T:TSCC was a huge hit, though it’s not like it had any significant competition, given the strike. The pilot was a good, solid show. Entertaining, and a decent segue from T2 to TV.

I hope that Dean Winters as her former boyfriend sticks around. He was entertaining on both Rescue Me and 30 Rock as Dennis, the Pager King. But he’s not listed in the cast on imdb, so either I’m mistaken that it was him, or he’s certainly not sticking around.