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rawlinson -> RE: Cult Countdown (23/4/2012 4:33:26 PM)
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[image]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k241/worldsgreatestsinner/BelledeJourCult.jpg[/image]
Severine (Deneuve) is a bored, repressed housewife. She has secret fantasies of being dominated and degraded, as seen in the startling opening sequence where she imagines being tied up by her husband Pierre (Sorel), stripped, whipped, and left for his servants. We don't realise at first that this is merely a fantasy, and the cut to the real Severine and Pierre, in their separate beds, is still startling, as is the chaste kisses between the two and her rejection of his sexual advances. Severine's fantasy life is wilder than her real life will allow. But soon she discovers a high class brothel and takes employment there, working strictly in the afternoons. After a nervous start, Severine becomes liberated because of this opportunity to act out her fantasies, but an obsessed client may soon spoil her newfound freedom.
One of Bunuel's many masterpieces, it's also one of the most sensuous films ever made. You don't have to share Severine's fantasies to understand the erotic pleasure she finds in them. The first time I saw the film I was a little surprised at the lack of explicit onscreen sex. There was this reputation surrounding the film that suggested it was a shocking film. The controversy around it isn't really deserved if you're basing solely on explicitness, because it's a far more discreet film than its reputation might suggest. It's sensual and it doesn't shy away from depicting fantasies, but it's not really that explicit, at least not when compared to films that have come later. At the same time, it's difficult to imagine the impact this must have had at the time, with Bunuel daring to acknowledge that women can have fantasies every bit as extreme and as complicated as men and allowing the beautifully glacial Deneuve to act them out on screen. It's an incredibly sexy film though, especially as Deneuve's icy demeanour begins to melt through her work at the brothel.
Bunuel plays with the audience, slipping between fantasies and reality until you're often unsure which is which. Bunuel also plays with the sexual repression of the bourgeois, and the secret fantasies hidden behind polite society. The downright oddness of so many of the men's fantasies bringing a comical element to the proceedings, especially when she is paid to be a corpse by a grieving, wealthy man. He also punctures the patriarchal view of both female sexuality and prostitution through Piccoli's character, a family friend who desires Severine until he discovers her day job.
Probably the film most likely to convert Bunuel sceptics, Belle de Jour is a masterpiece by any standards, and one of the greatest films of its era.
Just one question. What the hell is in that box?
- Rawlinson
[image]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k241/worldsgreatestsinner/DontDeliverUsFromEvil.jpg[/image]
French teenagers Anne and Lore are best friends who attend the same Catholic boarding school. They rebel against their environment to such an extent that they become each other's whole world. During a summer holiday spent together, the two swear a pact to worship Satan, a pact that includes sexually teasing every man they encounter, random acts of arson, and eventually murder. Based on the same true story that inspired Heavenly Creatures, Don't Deliver Us... is an often uncomfortable look at two girls driven to evil, seemingly by the banality of life around them.
- Rawlinson
[image]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k241/worldsgreatestsinner/DuckSoupCult.jpg[/image]
It's fair to say that the films of the Marx Brothers could be a little sloppy, especially in comparison to the films that contemporaries like Keaton and Chaplin were turning out, even the madness of Stan and Ollie felt slightly better contained than any of the Marx Brothers films. But I've never understood how this can be held as a criticism against them, surely part of the reason for the success and lasting love for the Marx Bros was their sense of anarchy? The nature of anarchic comedians means that they're difficult to contain within a conventional plotline without smothering their creativity. Duck Soup is the one time in their career where their anarchy was harnessed into something beyond a conventional plot rather than being restrained by it. Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo play the same roles they always did - Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo under different aliases. The plot sees Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) becoming the dicatator of a small nation known as Freedonia. During Groucho's inaugaration he announces his plans to start a dictatorship and pretty much bankrupt the country, but his people still accept him as leader. Eventually Groucho takes Freedonia to war with neighbouring Sylvania over a meaningless insult. Duck Soup may be unsophisticated but it still manages to make some strong points about war. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's the greatest antiwar comedy ever made. Dr. Strangelove is often held up as the pinnacle of war satires, but the truth is that Duck Soup was funnier and more daring and it was made thirty years earlier. It spoofs facism, war-movie heroism, political leaders, patriotism, religion, blind faith in anything at all and pretty much all elements of respectable society at a time when America was in a depression and the world was between wars. It was a brave film, far braver than it's often given credit for, and that bravery translated into a depressing commercial failure and a slow decline in the quality and the anarchy of the future films from the brothers.
- Rawlinson
[image]http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k241/worldsgreatestsinner/TheUsualSuspects.jpg[/image]
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. Roger 'Verbal' Kint (Kevin Spacey) walks out of the police station with a gold lighter and watch in hand. At the same time, US Customs officer Dave Cujan (Chazz Palminteri) discovers an oddity at the office bulletin board: many of the details look awfully familiar. Suddenly it dawns to him, and he drops the coffee cup in his hand and runs out. The bottom of the coffee cup reads "Kobayashi", the name that Verbal gave the mysterious lawyer (Pete Postlethwaite) in his twisted story. As the words of the story run side by side through Kujan's head, he races out of the police station in search for Verbal, who suddenly starts walking like a normal man, and not like the cripple he has pretended to be. Verbal lights his cigarette with a straight hand, and enters a nearby car. The driver is Kobayashi. The two of them drive off just in time to escape the grip of Kujan, who searches aimlessly for the man he has just discovered is Keyser Soze. "And like that, he's gone". Welcome to The Usual Suspects.
If there is one scene that should never be rewritten or left on the editing floor, it is the ending of this crime classic. Plot twists had existed in movies before this one, but never before had such a shock hit the audience in the final reel. Though I had the secret revealed to me beforehand, I must still admit to how bone-chilling it is to watch, even on repeated viewings. It is not just what happens, but how it happens; how it is edited, directed, written and played out. It is simply perfect. Rare is the occasion where anyone would want to hear the answer to a riddle again and again. It's not that person you keep asking has the best secret in the world. It's just that his delivery is like a seasoned pro. What's even more interesting about the ending is that it is slightly ambiguous. Theories of Kobayashi being Soze have surfaced, and though that is not as chilling as the most popular take, it is a credit to the movie that it can still inspire such discussions, 13 years after its release.
Watching The Usual Suspects reminds me of something: watching criminals on screen used to be cool. Not because of what did or how they acted, but because you felt like you were one of them. Nowadays criminals are just scum or written in 2-dimensional ways that are nowhere near as interesting as the characters in this movie. Even when they're fighting, you can feel the presence of a camaraderie that began long before the story opened. Sure, they doesn't talk so much as excessively swear, but hey, that's part of the charm, right? Much of the credit for this empathy is of course caused by a terrific cast. As Dean Keaton, Gabriel Byrne is simply mesmerizing, playing the exact right notes of a man who thinks he is slightly above his peers, even when he knows that anyone observing them would think he was just a small-time crook. The interplay between Stephen Baldwin and Kevin Pollak is equally mesmerizing, but the show-stealer here is Benicio Del Toro as Fenster. Realizing that there was no purpose to his character other than to die (and simultaneously force the suspects to go ahead with the plan), Del Toro quickly assembled one of the most unforgettable characters ever to grace the sideline of a movie screen. His looks, his voice, the fact that it is Pollak the actor and not the character who says "what did you say?" (because of his incompressible speaking pattern), every detail is just... perfect. Even before his days as a Oscar-winning actor in Traffic, Del Toro was already showing signs of coming stardom.
But this is Kevin Spacey's show, who rightfully took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (even though he played the leading role). Of course, Spacey was having a career-best year in 1995, also showing flair as John Doe in David Fincher's Se7en. It is not without reason that I stopped watching second-rate crime series on TV. After all, if you think the killer is Kevin Spacey, there's a 50% chance you will be correct, even if he's not really playing any of the parts. I may have stopped shouting "it's Kevin Spacey!" at movie screens, but there is still that suspicion in my head: I know it's him, even if he's not in the movie. Charming, deceiving, tragic, sympathetic, Spacey ticks the boxes like a child stealing candy and then lying about it. It is certainly an actor's role, and he was just the right actor for the part. It is shame that he has not managed to live up to it (he has come close several times, most notably for American Beauty), because he has certainly still got it in him.
Rarely has "head-scratching" and "cool" been proper adjectives for a movie, but both are certainly a lock for me when reviewing The Usual Suspects. Twisting, funny, thrilling; it is a key movie in the crime-renaissance of the 90's that should be watched by anyone. Hell, even my mum loves it!
- Dantes Inferno.
I still love this – the story of five criminals (Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Steven Baldwin, Kevin Pollack, and Benicio del Toro) who come together by "coincidence" and decide to take on a job together, but end up on a twisting road towards almost certain death - a lot, no matter how many mistakes there are in it. Sure, there are moments of hamminess in the acting, the script doesn't always hold up under the pressure of clichés, and Singer's input – although impressive – is clearly that of a debutant. But, I have to say, this is still one of the most entertaining crime films ever made. But what sets it apart is that it also has something going on upstairs. It's winding plot and clever characterisation makes "the Usual Suspects" worth watching again and again and again, and the little moments that you may have missed the first time all come clear on the second. The acting is still sublime, particularly from Kevin Spacey, whose mysterious, smart, and smarmy Verbal Kint is one of the greatest cinematic creations that America produced in the 1990s. Benicio del Toro puts in solid work in a character that was clearly only ever created to die, and the rest of the suspects – Pollack, Byrne, Baldwin – put in what are either career bests or very close to that. Also look out for Pete Postlethwaite, who has never been better than as the stoic faced lawyer Kobayashi. But what's best is the twist, which holds up time and time again. Even if I have seen this film over ten times, I still find the goose bumps appearing in the final montage, and watching it with friends who have never seen it before (like the person I watched it with tonight) is a thoroughly rewarding and pleasing experience. One of the very best film of the last twenty years.
- Piles.
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