BUG (2007)

Easy to see how effectively Tracy Letts’ scary thriller might work on stage.  Even with a cast of five, it functions like a classic ‘Lost Souls’ two-hander.  Or does till Letts swerves into Body Horror in the last act.  Creepy stuff with sadder-if-not-wiser waitress Ashley Judd meeting up for the night with shaky military vet Michael Shannon.  The two something of a match: she’s being stalked by violent ‘ex’ Harry Connick Jr (excellent); he’s stalked by demons in his head.  Her monster corporal/his a manifestation of bug infestation.  Yikes!  Their deteriorating psychological condition visually climaxing in a last act coup de théâtre opening curtain.  All dutifully recreated by director William Friedkin in this low-budget, yet technically immaculate film transfer.  But any effect doomed without the possibility to think Shannon’s bug paranoia might be real.  And Shannon, repeating his stage triumph, is far too obviously paranoid schizophrenic, even with those nasty skin bruises, to let us imagine they ain’t self-inflicted.  Judd also too busy working the sensitively angle.  You see what they’re all trying to get across, but the modest result is predictable.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  CHILD’S PLAY/’72;  SLEUTH/’72 & 07; DEATHTRAP/’82; the list of stage thrillers that went flat on film is a long one.  Though there’s always Alfred Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER/’54 (which hardly changed a thing) and George Cukor’s GASLIGHT/’44 (which changed a lot).  Go figure.  (Look up most of these in our SEARCH BOX - upper left corner.)

THE FLYING ACE (1926)

All-Black ‘Race Film,’ the credits tout an ‘Entire Cast Composed of Colored Artists,’ but that’s in front of the camera.  ‘Behind’ is led by White producer/director Richard E. Norman.  And probably the rest of his crew at this ‘Pop-Up’ Florida studio.  Lots of unusual elements here, good ones, starting with it being what we’d now call a dramedy.  Most race films, made for bookings on the Black Film Circuit or as a Special One-Night Screenings in non-race houses, were either comic burlesques, educational, or for social/religious uplift.  This one’s just entertaining, especially once the action gets up to speed in the third act.  (Even more unusual, it’s come down to us in good physical condition.)  Classic cops & robbers stuff, it opens when a handsome young payroll man for the railroad comes to town a day early with $25 thou in cash, and without his usual guards,  Overheard by three shifty locals: a layabout; a corrupt cop; a high-flying bootlegger (literally high-flying, he does his rum-running by plane).  But, after stopping to see the railway station master, the one with the pretty daughter, he and the payroll go missing and the station master is blamed.  Enter the Flying Ace, a World War One hero, back on his old job as chief railroad investigator.  A regular Sherlock Holmes at figuring out crimes, he’s also not afraid to use his fists or his skills in the air when that booze smuggler takes off with the station manager’s daughter and tries to rape her while flying in his two-seater.  Yikes!  And no auto-pilot!  Double Yikes!  Naturally, payroll is saved, station master & courier cleared, now only the daughter must choose between two upstanding men.  This touch of romance cleverly shot by Norman who holds on their legs; a neat bit of mise-en-scène.  And not the only one in here.  One qualifier, the use of the lightest skinned actor in the film as the WWI hero.  Was it noted by Black audiences at the time?  On the other hand, a more welcome idea sees his assistant, played by a War vet amputee, a one-legged wonder who uses his crutch as a weaponized limb.  Bashing bad guys, pedaling his bike, making instant U-turns, and more or less stealing the pic.

LINK:  Here’s the excellent high-def Library of Congress restoration:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSE-WksQwIg 

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Other than a bit of Schubert at the end, the film score has been skillfully arranged from classic film music cues from the late silent era.  Hear them on ’The Pioneers of Movie Music’ on CD and many music streamers.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN (2025)

Third of the Rian Johnson KNIVES OUT murder mysteries; all with Daniel Craig as dapper Deep South free-lance detective Benoit Blanc, now with less accent.  It’s the darkest yet.  Not dark in tone or topic, but in lighting.  Interiors: murky church naves; clubby lamp-lit offices.  Exteriors: dense moody woods; twilight excursions.*  Elsewise, more or less the same Agatha Christie manqué, Johnson even showing us a typed list of literary inspirations for this ‘impossible crime’ knock off.  And if it goes on a little longer than it has to, it’s mostly good fun when a controversial priest gets knocked off mid-mass, and his acolytes are the suspects..  (Never-mind the Pop religious philosophizing.)  A game cast eagerly gnawing the scenery with displays of bravura acting include Josh O’Connor, new young priest under hard-nosed fanatic Father Josh Broslin.  With Glenn Close, spinster church manager; Thomas Haden Church, church property caretaker.  Plus church-going regulars Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner; local Police Chief Mila Kunis, many more.  And you won’t drift off during the extended investigation (the murder is ‘solved’ multiple times), because Johnson appears to have had movie stars of his film going youth in mind for the major characters.  See if you can spot his substitutes for Gene Hackman, Cloris Leachman, Nick Nolte, George Segal², Diahann Carroll and (maybe?) Steve McQueen.  It’s more inetersting than solving the obfuscated, but oddly simple murder.

ATTENTION MUST BEPAID:  *The crepuscular cinematography would look infinitely better on the big screen.  With an arc-lamp projector running actual celluloid film stock.  But even in digital, only KNIVES OUT/’19 had a proper theatrical release, grossing well over 300 mill.  GLASS ONION, with but a token release nudged 20.  And WAKE UP?  Only a brief award qualifying vanity release that totaled one & a half million before it went online.  The NetFlix financial model obviously working for someone, just not the vanishing film going public.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  GLASS ONION’s tag ending teased us with a peek at Hugh Grant as Craig’s significant other, suggesting an obvious sequel with the pair doing a Nick & Nora Charles routine on the next case.  What a missed opportunity!

CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY (1951)

Published in 1948, South African writer Alan Paton’s novel put apartheid, his country’s policy of strict racial segregation, in the political conversation as few books had.  A near miss in its first theatrical incarnation (the 1950 Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson musical LOST IN THE STARS*), then quickly followed by this film.  Later, two more straight adaptations; on tv in 1958/another feature in ‘95, with the musical filmed in ‘74.  None come off, they’re ‘worthy’ and slightly afraid of what they’ve gotten themselves into.  But at least this 1951 attempt, a passion project for director Zoltan Korda, has real South African verisimilitude going for it, which helps counter the stiffness.  Canada Lee, remembered from Alfred Hitchcock’s LIFEBOAT/’44, only made five films, staying mostly on B’way.  (Orson Welles directed him in NATIVE SON.)  Here he’s a rural minister on his first trip to Johannesburg, where people go, but never come back.  His brother, sister and son all lost there one way or another.  Mostly his son, whom he tries to find with help from a 24-yr-old Sidney Poitier, a fellow minister, but savvy to the ways of the city.  (Watching these two, we might be witnessing a passing of the torch.)  But once they do find the son, it’s worse than they could have imagined.  A prominent anti-apartheid progressive murdered, a man whose family lives not far from the minister.   By this point, the film has gained a fair amount of power and passion, somewhat overriding the dirge-like tone Korda holds to.  Paton c-wrote the script, which may explain some of the problems.  But the film still deserves a look, and not only for historical reasons.

LINK:  *Here’s the title track from the original cast album of LOST IN THE STARS.  Anderson with an aching lyric to match Weill’s genius.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygkCMrC5t0Q

PARIS, TEXAS (1984)

While not immune to the usual post-passing downturn in critical reputation, this Sam Shepard item (self-adapting his own story) remains a loving/haunted human comedy under director Wim Wenders’ patient hand and knack of finding just the right location.  Especially as shot by Robby Müller, perfect down to the grain in the film stock.  No surprise to see Shepard with a tale of two brothers, though no rivalry here, instead a Prodigal Brother (and wife) fable.  Older brother Harry Dean Stanton, a lost soul stumbling toward a small Texas town (today’s audiences might assume he’s ‘on the spectrum’), a victim of personal rot as becomes increasingly clear when ‘good’ brother Dean Stockwell flies in to bring him to his home in L.A.  (It’s a Road Pic so detours along the way inevitable.)  There, Stockwell and wife Aurore Clément have been raising Stanton’s eight-yr-old boy for the past four years so there’s a period of adjustment.  But a quickly improving, Stanton is soon determined to find missing wife Nastassja Kinski who's somewhere back in Texas.  And he's thrilled in his undemonstrative way to find his son wants to come with him.  The last act plays out in a different style, less interested in making every step believable or even dramatically justified.  But Shepard can only find his satisfyingly logical conclusion by flipping Stanton from helpless inarticulate to being psychologically articulate as hell.  As if William Inge had been brought in for a rewrite.  (BUS STOP, anyone?)  Meantime, Wenders over-indulges in onanistic Americana quirkiness.  But the film is endearing enough and strange enough, so you go with it even when you (as well as Wenders & Shepard) know better.  Its magical grace worth it.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Apparently the script didn’t originally treat Stockwell & Clément in quite such a cavalier manner.  They deserved better.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK:  Shepard, helped by his high public profile (actor, craggy good looks, glam marriage) no doubt got him more than his fair share of film adaptations.  At his most persuasive, with off-the-charts cool factor, in THE RIGHT STUFF/’83.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-right-stuff-1983.html

NORA PRENTISS (1947)

A stable upper-middle-class husband (wife, two kids, good job/good pay, two-level colonial with garage, cabin in the country) casually gets involved (then entwined) with a younger woman, succumbs to passion and loses everything . . . including the mistress.  An oft-told tale, notable here because of how closely it follows the pattern of Theodore Dreiser’s SISTER CARRIE.*  Or does for the first half.  After that, running amok with melodramatic tropes, plot-driven coincidence and a series of convenient crimes of opportunity.  Ann Sheridan’s penultimate film under Warners contract, she’s the object of desire, a nightclub chanteuse working for gentlemanly club owner Robert Alda, who meets-cute with Dr. Kent Smith after a traffic accident brings her to his office and reminds him what’s missing in his life: passion.  The promise of divorce hovering, but always out of reach.  Then the death of a patient brings swapped identity, bank withdraws, a move cross-country, another promise of divorce, a life in hiding (first for her/then for him), misery, boredom, madness, plastic surgery . . . the works.  Not without its amusing OTT moments of gloom & doom, but with also-ran director Vincent Sherman in charge (often assigned to escort fading stars on their way off the lot) the movie can’t make the stylistic turn it must between the mundane and stark melodrama.  Still, nice to see Warners giving good roles to B-Listers: Kent Smith’s doctor on the mark when he doesn’t have to hit extremes (he also looks a bit like Laurence Olivier who took the equivalent role in William Wyler’s CARRIE - see below), Alda, as mentioned, and a typically excellent turn from reliable Bruce Bennett, the carefree bachelor partner at Smith’s doctor’s office.  Sheridan, who rarely got roles worthy of her talent (Warners execs blinded by the va-va-voom rep they first gave her), handles this Lana Turner-esque role with ease.  But a chance to make something more than claptrap is squandered.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *As mentioned, William Wyler’s CARRIE/’52 covers all the bases on this wandering husband storyline with stunning precision. Even for those allergic to Jennifer Jones’ studied charms.  While Olivier never did anyting better on film.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/carrie-1952.html

LA GRANJA / THE FARM (2015)

Exceptional, if exceptionally depressing cross-section of Puerto Rican Lower-Depths, told thru multiple stories put together like an interlocked wooden puzzle to form an ensemble portrait of have-not society.  Puerto Rican born writer/director Angel Manuel Soto, whose fast rise took a hit after the poorly received BLUE BEETLE/’23 (not seen here)*, proves just the guy to handle the mobile structure and difficult subject matter.  A barren hospital midwife, working intensive natal care, takes desperate action to ‘save’ an infant for herself.  A promising young boxer and his elderly trainer, picking up small change in the same ring used for lucrative cockfights.  The boy encouraged to bring the same cutthroat tactics to his fights as the killer roosters.  Highschoolers negotiating sex-for-drugs meet-ups, while the cool kids flirt, gossip, put out for the physically attractive and mete out rough justice for those trying to break in to their cliques.  The unlikely sympathetic loner, a bullied fat kid (‘Piggy’) who spies on his sister having sex, steals the camera the boyfriend used to photograph them in action, reads books (!), and swallows condoms of drugs to cart past police check points as a bike riding ‘mule.’  Pretty much everyone dancing to the tune of the aging, but ruthless smalltime neighborhood crime boss.  Soto’s direction, plainspoken, but not without style, perfect for his purpose; emotionally gripping yet letting action speak for itself.  A film natural.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  We’re not so far from Luis Buñuel’s early Mexican post-Neo-Realist masterpiece LOS OLVIDADOS/’50.  Just don’t go looking for any surrealism,    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/03/los-olvidados-aka-forgotten-ones-young.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Soto apparently back in good graces with the just released/well reviewed buddy/buddy action comedy THE WRECKING CREW/’26.  (not seen here)

FOLLOWING (1998)

Writer/director Christopher Nolan never went to film school, but you’d never guess from this zero-budget feature which looks, talks & acts like a graduation project from the smartest kid in class.  A beginner’s film noir pastiche, it might be afterglow off the ‘80s Neo-Noir revival.  (Perhaps unnoticed because the over-saturated color & formal set-ups of those films gets replaced by mournful monochrome & handheld jitters.)  Jeremy Theobald is physically right as a failing young writer filling his days aimlessly following strangers, hoping to find a story.  Instead, one finds him.  Alex Haw, as a deceptive fellow who just may be following him. Or does he want to get caught in one his burglaries, swiping sellable goods from apartments when he hopes no one is home.  Soon, these two are partners in trade and romance.  You thought Nolan would leave out the classic femme fatale (Lucy Russell)?  But who has the upper hand?  Who’s leading whom?  What’s being staged for effect and who’s being set up to take the fall from the small fortune in cash hidden in an office safe?  Nolan giving this story his preferred non-linear timeline treatment; counting on that approach to add depth, complexity and a puzzling vibe.  (Succeeding at only one of the three.)  Something that’s proved to be an Achilles Heel in about half of Nolan's subsequent films. 

DOUBLE-BILL:  A very short double-bill: Nolan’s apprentice short DOODLEBUG/’97 (it’s included on the Criterion edition of FOLLOWING), playing like some TWILIGHT ZONE episode (or is it ONE STEP BEYOND?), but reduced down to its essence at less than three minutes.  (The disc also holds an alternate ‘Linear Cut’ of FOLLOWING - not seen here,)

FLESH AND BLOOD (1922)

Typical Lon Chaney vehicle from 1922; ten films that year, moving him up from support to top-billed.  (Mostly, naturally his Fagin in OLIVER TWIST puts him below child phenom Jackie Coogan’s Oliver.}  This one something of a template for much of Chaney’s career: Wronged years ago by some powerful man, he nurses a grudge before returning in disguise for his chance at revenge.*  Here, framed by a wealthy businessman via forged signatures, he finaly breaks out of prison after hearing of his wife’s serious illness . . . too late!  He watches from afar as her coffin is carried out of a tenement apartment before spotting his daughter, now a young woman who has no memory of him.  Complications?  ONE: the entire police force on the hunt for the escaped prisoner, so he’s forced to hide in plain sight disguised as a twisted cripple, sheltered by Chinatown Tong Lord Li Fang (Noah Beery!) while hunting down the true guilty party, that businessman.  Complication TWO: his daughter is about to be engaged to the son of that very man, the villain Chaney plans to take down.  Yikes!  Alas, three major obstacles hold the film down.  ONE: Chaney’s oddly ineffective disguise as a cripple with twisted legs and crutches.  (Likely more uncomfortable for Lon to play than for us to watch.)  TWO: Irving Cummings’ duller than dull direction.  (Cummings peaked in the ‘40s with light fare at 20th/Fox.)  And THREE: sadly subfusc surviving picture elements.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  *Chaney was one of the fortunate few who went to M-G-M and was paired with a series of truly outstanding, visually oriented directors..   Tod Browning, George W. Hill, Benjamin Christensen, Herbert Brenon (far better in silents than in Talkies) and Victor Seastrom whose HE WHO GETS SLAPPED/’24 (co-starring Norma Shearer, John Gilbert, Tully Marshall) is a paradigm of the standard Chaney narrative formula.