Movie Loner

Writer/Director Steve Kloves is responsible for one of my all-time favorite films. I’m not going to tell you what it is because I’ll review it here in the future. I’m such a tease. Kloves knows his craft because Flesh and Bone is pretty damn good. It’s another film that was inexplicably overlooked by audiences. Here’s my attempt at redemption.

Dennis Quaid stars as Arlis Sweeney, a Texas vending machine stocker with a permanent scowl etched across his weathered face. He lives a mundane existence preferring as little human contact as possible. Arlis has been carrying around a haunting memory for almost thirty years. He watched his burglar father (James Caan) murder a family, leaving a crying baby as sole survivor.

Arlis’s quiet life is disrupted by Kay (Meg Ryan), a wayward young woman who joins him on the road after splitting with her freeloading husband. Kay provides a much needed bolt of energy to Arlis’s dull life. Two lonely souls, they soon become involved. Their brief happiness is compromised by a knock on the hotel door in the middle of the night. Arlis’s estranged father, Roy, returns with nothing but trouble. A stunning revelation brings Arlis and Roy to an abandoned farmhouse. The same farmhouse where thirty years before a family was murdered.

Flesh and Bone is just a great story. Kloves wrote a strong set of characters. Quaid gives one of his better performances, and Caan steals the movie as the cold-blooded Roy. Gwyenth Paltrow, in an early film role, also stands out playing a snake-eyed grifter who likes to steal from the dead. This is a movie that stayed with me for couple days after seeing it. I have no idea why it slipped through the cracks, but it shouldn’t have.

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I usually don’t go for road movies. Thelma and Louise makes me cringe. However, I love to be surprised. Aberdeen was a definite surprise. I stumbled upon this little gem a couple years back on Sundance Channel. You might recognize its star, Lena Headey, if you are a fan of the FOX series The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Headey plays Kaisa, a young London lawyer who enjoys drugs and random sexual encounters. One morning she gets a call from her mother requesting she fly home to Aberdeen, Norway. Kaisa is less than thrilled, especially when she learns her estranged alcoholic father (Stellan Skarsgard) is tagging along. Her father shows up at the airport drunk and gets them both booted from the flight.

They end up traveling by car (it is a road movie) and a long, uncomfortable journey begins. Father and daughter don’t see eye to eye on anything. Their damaged relationship needs major repairs, and their time together proves to be a perfect remedy. Eventually, they arrive in Aberdeen. Kaisa’s mother is waiting with a secret to reveal.

Headey makes this movie for me. She plays Kaisa with a suit of emotional armor. As the film progresses, her vulnerabilities are stripped, leaving a scared little girl in need of a father’s love. A touching scene near the end between her and Skarsgard seals the deal. Aberdeen is one of those unknown movies that deserves an audience. Hopefully, it will find one.

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Occasionally, I’ll use this forum to discuss an older film that younger audiences might not be familiar with. Night of the Hunter is perfect for this site because it was overlooked by critics and ignored by moviegoers when it was released. Today it’s regarded as one of the most gorgeous examples of black and white cinematography put to film.

Robert Mitchum plays Harry Powell, a menacing criminal who gets pinched for stealing a car. While in jail, he meets Ben Harper, a man condemned to die. In their conversations, Harry learns Harper stole $10,000 and stashed it away. Harper is executed before he can tell Harry the money’s whereabouts. Once released, Harry travels to Harper’s home town, the hamlet of Cresap’s Landing in search of the stolen cash.

He arrives in town pretending to be a Preacher and immediately begins pursuing Harper’s widow, Willa (Shelley Winters). He seduces her with bible thumping sermons until she agrees to marry him. Once married, he refuses to touch her, claiming sex is a sin. When he’s not browbeating Willa, he interrogates her children, John and Pearl, who both know where the money is hidden. Frustrated by his lot, Harry resorts to murder. The children escape down river in a boat. Singing hymns, astride his horse, the Preacher follows. His evil shadow never far behind.

Charles Laughton, famous for acting in movies like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, directed Night of the Hunter. Due to its poor reception in 1955 Laughton would never direct again. What a waste. This film is visually stunning. Its images are like moving paintings. In my opinion, it looks better than Citizen Cane.

Then there is Mitchum’s creepy portrayal of the Preacher. He’s my favorite screen villain of all time. Forget Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter. This guy seduces widows, menaces children, and tattoos ‘love’ and ‘hate’ on his knuckles. If that doesn’t define “bad guy”, I don’t know what does. Please watch Night of the Hunter and tell me what you think. It has always had a spot on my Top 10 list.

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John Travolta has made a select few what I would call good films.
Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, hell, I’ll even throw
in Face/Off. Blow Out is one you might not be familiar with, but it’s
one of his best.

He plays Jack Terry, a special effects sound editor, who one night
while recording ambiant sound, witnesses a car blow a tire and veer off
the road. The wreck kills a presidential candidate. A cover-up ensues.

While playing back his sound recordings, Terry discovers that the tire may
not have blown on accident. He thinks he heard a gunshot. Proving his
theory to be correct, he begins asking questions, which brings him
unwanted attention from some bad people.

Blow Out is a solid mystery. It was an attempt by Travolta to shed the
song and dance man reputation he earned on Grease and Saturday Night Fever.
He’s very convincing and plays the character with the right amount of
intelligence and paranoia.

Brian DePalma, one of my favorite directors of the 70’s and 80’s, uses
his Hitchcock influenced eye and ear to create a story where sound,
more so than picture, becomes the key cinematic element. Praise should also
go to John Lithgow, who creepily shines as the villain.

Blow Out works for me because it reveals some of the technical magic that
goes into filmmaking. The silent film era produced excellent movies, but
the advent of sound on film added more tension to an already compelling
medium.

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One of the main reasons I started this blog was the opportunity to write about movies that affected me as a teenager. Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty is one such movie. I was 16 when it was released, preoccupied with learning to drive and trying to get a girl to notice me. It was one my favorite films of the 1980’s and still hits me every time I see it. Although it received acclaim through River Phoenix’s Oscar nomination, I don’t think it was appreciated as being a great film.

In 1971, Arthur and Annie Pope blew up a napalm lab to protest the Vietnam War. An innocent bystander was killed in the blast and the FBI has been after them since. Flash forward 15+ years, the Pope’s have two sons. They change identities and residences to avoid being caught. Danny, the eldest son, played by Phoenix, is a gifted pianist. He practices on a cloth keyboard given to him by his mother Annie, superbly portrayed by Christine Lahti.

Danny’s dream is to attend Julliard. His father, played by Judd Hirsch, is vehemently opposed, fearing a family split-up would expose them to the authorities. Annie realizes Danny’s talent and is willing to sacrifice her safety to let him go. She even asks her father, whom she hasn’t seen in over 20 years, to take Danny in. This scene, between Lahti and Steven Hill, is one of the best pieces of acting I’ve ever witnessed on film. Raw and emotional, it stands out in a movie packed with powerful performances and scenes.

Running on Empty is about family. It’s an unbreakable bond, a bond that shares joy and pain together. We sacrifice for those we love. Not because we want to, but because we have to. That’s what it means to be human. Sidney Lumet has directed a lot of great movies, but none better than Running on Empty.

The trailer for Running on Empty:

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A detective story in a high school setting. Kind of a reach, right? Not in the hands of director Rian Johnson. Wow. This movie really impressed me. I was never a Third Rock from the Sun fan, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt needn’t worry about slumming in the sitcom world ever again. He plays Brendan, a confident loner who delves into the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend. With assistance from a kid aptly named The Brain, Brendan uncovers a secret drug ring being run by a mysterious fellow referred to as The Pin. That’s as far as I’ll go with the plot, any further and I’ll ruin a very clever story.

Amazingly, Brick was made for under $500,000. Proof you don’t need a Hollywood budget to produce a lasting film. It might not seem a big deal but most $50 million movies blow. Writer/Director Johnson deserves credit for working around budget limitations and pulling off a minor masterpiece. He also does a fine job channeling the gumshoe genre of the 1950’s with abrupt dialogue and a hero who constantly gets his ass kicked.

Speaking of hero, Gordon-Levitt is the real discovery here. He plays Brendan with a quiet toughness, outwitting his peers every step of the way. He’s relentless in his pursuit and cares little for those he damages. A lesser actor would’ve left Brick with no guide, and no heart. It’s hard not to root for Brendan. He takes his lumps but keeps pressing.

I’m amazed this movie didn’t get more pub. It’s small, but shouldn’t have been ignored. I recently caught it again on HBO, so be on the lookout.

A scene from Brick:

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I have to thank Quentin Tarantino for this find. He brought director Wong Kar Wai’s brilliant film to the states through his Rolling Thunder Pictures video releases. I put this in the Obscure category because Wong Kar Wai is a relative unknown in the U.S.

The movie is about two lovelorn cops in Hong Kong. One falls in love with a drug dealer, the other with a girl who works at a lunch stand. Shot in a vibrant palette of color, Kar Wai captures Hong Kong’s inherent beauty and mystery. The city comes alive, as if it were another character. The camerawork is fast, hand-held, often choppy, which works, but it’s when Kar Wai slows the image that makes ChungKing Express special. His use of long, steady takes deftly reveals the characters’ sadness. Amidst all the loneliness there is hope, embodied in the young, playful Faye (Faye Wong). There is a knowing glint behind her innocent eyes.

Her naive sense of wonderment and angelic face crack Cop 663’s (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) bitterness. Heartache is not permanent. The hope of love is sometimes all a wounded soul needs.

This is one of the few movies I watched again right after it ended. I couldn’t take my eyes off its images. Wong Kar Wai is a truly gifted filmmaker, an expert at creating atmosphere, which isn’t easy to do in movies. One last note; memorable use of “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and the Papas.

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