Lowering the Stakes: Hangout Heists

 Over the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, there's often some conversation among film nerds about what to watch. There are a few holiday staples like Planes, Trains and Automobiles or Blood Rage but the turkey day cinematic offerings just aren't nearly as rich as Halloween or Christmas or even Independence Day. This has led to lists of "feast" themed movies or cannibal films and some brave souls even delve into the cavernous depths of Hallmark movies to fill the hours over a long weekend. I would like to propose an alternative that has little or nothing to do with the holiday itself (which has dubious origins at best) but offers an enjoyably comfortable milieu to slip into during the break: The Hangout Heist. I love a good heist movie and I believe the best of genre feature impressively skilled professionals applying their trade at the highest level in immaculately detailed set pieces - the mechanics are fascinating, the tension is white knuckle, the twists are breathtaking. These are not those movies. This is a list of movies that retain some elements of true heist movies but rely far more on relationship dynamics, the innate charisma of the performers, and the overall atmosphere. After a day of cooking or consuming your bodyweight in gravy, with sodium and alcohol coursing through your veins, these movies take the suspense down a few notches while still offering appealing characters and interesting situations to invest in. Even if you don't watch any of these over the holiday, they're worth keeping in your back pocket for any occasion that requires low-key yet compelling fare - hangovers, Sunday afternoons, sick days - the Hangout Heist might be just the trick.

Breaking In (1989) - In many ways this is the film that inspired my list in the first place. Burt Reynolds plays an older professional thief who takes on a young apprentice played by Casey Siemaszko. Taking place in Portland, the two rob grocery stores and bowling alleys but more importantly develop a kind of father/son relationship that resolves in unexpected ways. It's got a shagginess that I appreciate and the performers are endearing - unsurprisingly it's directed by Bill Forsyth (and penned by John Sayles!) who is exactly the right person to handle this material. It's bittersweet, it's funny, and it's become one of my favorite Reynolds performances. 

Going in Style (1979) - Not the 2017 remake, but the original Martin Brest helmed film featuring George Burns, Lee Strasberg, and blog favorite Art Carney. The tale of three septuagenarians drifting through their golden years with little to do and not much to show for it until they decide to rob a bank. I truly believed this would be a much sillier film when I first saw it years ago and I was shocked by how earnest and melancholy it turned out to be. There are certainly laughs but the robbery piece wraps up relatively early in the film and it becomes this heartfelt exploration of aging and mortality. The leads are all excellent and the film is filled with some beautifully quiet moments that counterbalance the gags. Art Carney singing "New York Ain't New York Anymore" while washing dishes has always stuck with me.

A Man, a Woman and a Bank (1979) - I have long thought that I've been overrating this rom-com/heist mash up but having recently revisited it, I still find it totally worthwhile. Donald Sutherland and Paul Mazursky play two overlooked and underappreciated computer experts who hatch a plan to use their hacking skills to rob a bank that's currently under construction. Things become complicated when a photographer played by Brooke Adams takes Sutherland's photo as part of a marketing campaign for the new bank. Sutherland pursues Adams and the two begin a romance though Sutherland is keeping his criminal plans a secret from her. It's a funny movie without being hilarious, the drama never feels urgent, and the suspense doesn't reach too high of a pitch - and yet it totally comes together for me. I love the location work - mostly in Vancouver but also in Macao - Adams and Sutherland are slightly aloof but in a believable way as two somewhat guarded people who are genuinely falling for each other. It's definitely a movie I think should be in front of more eyeballs.

How to Steal a Million (1966) - If the above suggestions are too sad-sack for you, then Million should address anyone's desire for effervescent 60s charm. Featuring the absolute powerhouse charismatic duo of Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole set against a backdrop of a mod fantasia Paris, there is a significant heist sequence but this is largely about the two of them being delightful as they attempt to rob an art museum. Hepburn is very much the "good" girl but William Wyler isn't afraid to let her be sexy too. O'Toole is absurdly disarming and it is notable that he was several years Hepburn's junior which is a nice counterpoint to her being romanced by the likes of Fred Astaire or Humphrey Bogart. Hugh Griffith (who I generally love in everything) has a great supporting role as Hepburn's art forger father and Eli Wallach is solid as a pushy American millionaire. At just over two hours, the length might be pushing it but Million offers such a feast for the eyes it's hard to complain.

Thieves Like Us (1974) - Robert Altman's naturalistic evocation of 30s America subverts expectations to such a degree that it might be considered an anti-heist movie. The criminal activity happens almost entirely offscreen in favor of automobile trips, dinner table conversations, and predominantly a tender and heartbreaking romance between two of Altman's favorite actors - Keith Carradine and Shelly Duval. I actually rankled seeing this one for the first time as I was so looking forward to an Altman helmed bank robbing film and instead got extended, quiet sequences of Duval and Carradine sitting on the porch or lying in bed. Having re-appraised it, I find these moments beautifully rendered and Carradine's and Duval's performances are profoundly touching. There's a lot of technical craft on display that isn't overt, but Altman's use of real Mississippi locations, period radio recordings, and non-actor extras builds this believable world of the Depression era Southern US. In many ways, this is the most challenging film on the list but I think if you know what you're getting into, you'll find a lot to appreciate here.

Best New-to-Me: October 2023

 My favorite month and favorite season has come and gone and now I'm beginning to better understand the people I know who start transitioning into October mode somewhere in mid-August. There's so much to do and so much to see that you can literally run out of time to experience as much as you'd like. We didn't decorate as much as we have in years previous, jack-o-lantern carving got left by the wayside, and my October-themed hot sauce production has been nudged into November. Still, we traveled to Salem this year and that packs an awful lot of Halloween into a couple of days. I was also able to attend a mini-marathon/spook show which I wrote about here. I've been trying to fit at least 31 horror movies into October for years now and sometimes follow along with prompts from "official" challenges and more often follow my own whims. Regardless of how I pick my movies, I have been participating in Unsung Horrors "Horror Gives Back" charity effort for a few years now where you collectively donate money with other horror fans based on the number of movies you watch. They raised over $2400 (even more with some employer matching) for Best Friends Animal Society this year and I can't encourage you enough to join in next year. I spent a lot of time in their Discord channel talking horror movie selections and had a blast.

I got an early start this year because I knew I would be busy and it was still one of my shorter lists. You can view the entire thing here and, per usual, I'll review the ones that really stuck with me below:

Massacre at Central High (1976) - I'm sad to say that Central High was another film I avoided for far too long under the assumption that it was just another dumb slasher movie. I was able to see the trailer in front of a different repertory screening and thought I needed to add it to my watch list immediately. In reality, it's a revenge/exploitation film with an engaging take on power dynamics and corruption. The melodrama is at times incomprehensible, there is abundant nudity, and the offing of high schoolers is positively ruthless. I imagine it absolutely destroys with the right audience and might make a good double feature with Rolling Thunder. Not much of a horror movie but one I'm glad to have made time for. 

Devil Story (1986) - I didn't follow any specific guidelines this year (no official prompts and no rules like everything had to be a first time watch), but was intentional about adding some French films into the mix. That can be a little weird as France doesn't have the strongest horror movie tradition but it's all worth it if you land in the arms of Devil Story. Sometimes a film holds your attention because of its compelling plot or genuine emotional core, Devil Story had me totally entranced because I literally could not predict what would happen from moment to moment. It's braindead low budget insanity at its least coherent and I was there for it. The idea that someone was able to convince people that this needed to be shot on film, that stunts had to be performed, or that any of this needed to happen at all is a testament to the creative force in us all. This one is highly polarizing so consider yourself warned.

The Ghost of the Hunchback (1965) - This came to me via a recommendation from Samm Deighan (you should sign up for her patreon if you like awesome curated lists of films among other wonders) and despite being a Japanese production, felt very much akin to the Italian gothics. From the director of Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell, Hunchback is a kind of haunted house movie crammed with dark family secrets, madness, and pure October moodiness. There are copies floating around online but I think I'll have to add the Mondo Macabro disc to the collection.

Don't Deliver Us from Evil (1971) -  All I knew about this was that it was initially banned in France and that it was the other film based on the Parker-Hulme murder case (Heavenly Creatures being the more famous of the two). None of that could prepare me for the kind of ferocity Writer/director Joël Séria would bring to bear. It should be said that this film is loosely inspired by Parker-Hulme and not in any way a recreation of those events. It is a bold condemnation of the church but it also leans all the way into exploitation territory in sequences erotic, cruel, and genuinely mean. I think Séria manages to pull it off with enough artistry to carry the viewer through the depravity and the final act left me with my mouth on the floor. Easily one of my favorites of the month.

Living Skeleton (1968) - Part crime story, part modern gothic, all impeccable October vibes. There's some bats-on-strings 60s goofiness involved but that only added to the coastal haunted house aesthetic for me. Multiple dummy drops, too.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973) - I was patching up some Jess Franco holes in my personal filmography and this was likely my favorite of those. Psyched out, surrealist jams from Uncle Jess. A young, affluent woman returns to her family estate following the death of her father only to discover her remaining family are also ghosts or zombies or draculas or something. Nudity, occult strangeness, Howard Vernon, and poignant evocations of grief follow. Plot takes a hike. It's worth noting that there's a lovely copy on the Internet Archive and if you want to read a real analysis of the film, here's a terrific article Gentry posted recently: https://mimsyfarmerfanclub.com/2023/10/23/a-virgin-among-the-living-dead/

Mad Mutilator/Ogroff/Ogroff the Mad Mutilator (1983) - Holy Balls. 97 minutes of nearly dialogue free, super-8 murderdrone perfection that's clearly not meant for consumption by normal people. In many ways the spiritual sibling to Devil Story, but somehow crazier and more strictly entertaining. I found this legitimately enjoyable but also can't help but just be thrilled that these oddballs were able to commit their singularly insane vision to film and now it exists in the world for the rest of us. However, you may not wish to watch this unless you're under the influence of paint fumes or a recent brain injury. Proceed with caution.

The Monster of the Opera (1964) - I like to try in fit in at least of few Italian gothics every year and Polselli's Monster was definitely notable. However many dance numbers you think this movie should have, there are in fact more. The opening nightmare sequence is absolutely wild and because the movie is set in an old theater there is this cool blending of stage-y, theatrical horror imagery and actual horror. You're never sure exactly which one you're seeing. Things do get fairly muddled at points but the sheer horniness of the film and a solid finale carry the day.

Night of the Devils (1972) - I absolutely adore Ferroni's Mill of the Stone Women and had high hopes for what could possibly be an even more unhinged vision from him. Devils starts strong with an impeccable opening salvo of disjointed nightmare imagery but settles into a slow burn of a satisfying if unsurprising folk tale terror. There are still some great visuals and I loved the music but I probably would have preferred something more overtly gothic or full-on exploitation indulgence. Totally worthwhile even if it never reaches Mill's heights.

Asylum (1972) - What's October without an anthology film? Asylum sits in rarified air where not only are the stories all pretty satisfying (Robert Bloch penned them), but the wraparound delivers as well. It's not overflowing with gruesome detail but it is finely acted (Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Charlotte Rampling, etc) and produced and really was the perfect thing to watch with a sampling of Halloween candy.

Theatrical Screenings!

Besides the Spook Show I mentioned earlier and the 16mm Horror Showcase I wrote about last month, I did manage to make it out to a couple of other things.

Messiah of Evil (1973) - I'm not sure what I can say about one of my all-time favorite horror movies that hasn't been said already. Part psychological terror, part zombie film, and part body horror with a Lovecraftian edge to it. Huyck and Katz manage to channel Romero at times, Antonioni in places, and through their vision and production insanity manage to deliver this wholly original slice of strangeness. I had been champing at the bit waiting for my new edition from Radiance films only to see that Tim programmed the restoration as part of his Cinema of the Macabre series. It was unreal to see it restored in all of its cinemascope glory on the big screen and especially to see what I consider the most iconic horror movie theater sequence in an actual theater. I did receive the Radiance edition about a week later and while I haven't rewatched the whole film, the special features and booklet are superb. That edition is sold out but they are taking order for a standard edition that will feature a lot of the same great stuff. I highly recommend seeing the restoration if you can and I would recommend watching any version you can find in the original aspect ratio. However, I implore you not to watch the random, terribly cropped versions that are all over streaming services. It's already such a weird movie and missing out on the cinematography as intended really hurts the experience.

Cemetery of Terror (1985) -  Another Cinema of the Macabre screening. I'm actually not a huge fan of Cemetery of Terror and not the biggest Ruben Galindo Jr. booster out there either, but sometimes you want to go out to a damn horror movie and maybe run into some friends. Those things totally happened! An audience did not significantly improve my impression of Cemetery but the last 20 minutes are still pretty fun and I was happy to chat with some people. Totally solid October activity.

Spirits Rise, Screams Fill the Theater, and a Dead Body Finds a New Home - The Super Spook Show Spectacular 2023

 Things have been a little quiet on the blog front but that's only due to things being anything but quiet on the life front. It's October which means I'm watching at least 31 horror movies (and contributing to Horror Gives Back), there are no shortage of seasonal spooky activities, and we decided to finally make the pilgrimage to Salem which is essentially the Halloween capital of the US and therefore the Halloween capital of the universe (we had an amazing time). Increasingly, October is also the season for horror movie marathons. There are some legendary ones like the Exhumed Films 24 Horror-Thon in Pennsylvania, The Music Box of Horrors in Chicago, and even our very own Trylon Cinema Horrorthon - now in its seventh year. I love the excitement that these events generate but I confess that the long/overnight nature of them has held me at arm's length for the most part. I'm a veteran of many a double or triple feature and my keister has proven itself up to twelve hours of movie marathon-ing, but I just can't deal with overnights. So I was thrilled to learn that Tim and Cinema of the Macabre were holding a shorter event with four secret films and assorted surprises, swag, and giveaways. 

I had the sense from CotM's social media posts that The Super Spook Show Spectacular was definitely leaning into the Midnight Ghost Show/Spook Show/Monster Show vibes for this event and that was evident as soon as I arrived at the theater. Some spooky decorations adorned the outside and inside and I was greeted by a friendly nurse and given a promotional vomit bag filled with fun stuff including a fright insurance certificate. It was not a sold out show but I bought tickets late enough that I had to park myself either in the first or second row. Luckily Emagine Willow Creek has fully reclinable seats (positively luxurious compared to some of the creaky theater seats I've endured for longer events) and I would be closer to the spook show action once things kicked off. There was already some fun, thematic stuff playing on the screen that I think was from one of the Something Weird discs, essentially advertising classic Ghost/Spook Show offerings like the monsters loosed on the audience or decapitation of the staff. Eventually Tim took the floor as the afternoon's Ghostmaster and we launched into the first movie. 

Tourist Trap (1979) - I had a fleeting moment of dread when I saw the Full Moon Productions logo flash on the screen but that gave way to audible enthusiasm from the crowd when we realized we were going back to an early Charles Band production. I adore Tourist Trap and it had been a few years since I'd last watched it. Chuck Conner's unhinged performance is what I always remember most about it but I was struck at both how unhurried the pacing is for such a bonkers movie and how fantastic Pino Donaggio's score really is. I don't tend to find psychic psychopaths terribly scary but the roadside wax museum (courtesy of Texas Chainsaw art director Robert. A. Burns) is such an intensely weird and creepy setting and director David Schmoeller allows for time to let the space and that creepiness permeate everything. In a clue that felt tailor made for me, internet nightmare fuel Tara the Android made a brief cameo appearance in the pre-show and I referenced her specifically in my Tourist Trap Letterboxd review from a few years back.

The Black Cat (1989) - I new exactly what we were in for when Tim mentioned that this film would be more nonsensical than the first and it was ostensibly based on a work by Edgar Allen Poe. Speaking of the American master of the macabre, he was invoked and joined us for a moment to address the fidelity of Luigi Cozzi's adaptation. This was my favorite bit from the event and I could listen to Poe expound on the virtues of Taylor Swift all night. Cozzi's Black Cat is a piece of dream programming for me. It may be the apex of 80s Italian nonsense filmmaking and 80s Italian nonsense sequel-ization. It is somehow a spiritual sequel to Suspiria/Inferno, an actual entry into the legendarily convoluted Demons series, as well as (not really) interpreting Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Cat. It offers a phantasmagoric mess of primary colors, slimes, exploding torsos, lasers, Bang Tango jams, and a few nice shots of cats. A friend of mine in attendance had actually seen Bang Tango perform and we were all terribly jealous.

Spider Baby (1967) - Have I seen Spider Baby many times before? Yes. Have I seen Spider Baby in a theater in October before? Also yes. Does this in any way diminish my appreciation for it? Hell no. It's just too damn good. The opening song is amazing, Lon Chaney Jr. is so wonderful and gives this genuinely humane performance, and the kids - played by baby Sid Haig, Beverly Washburn, and Jill Banner are both incredibly fun and tragic. Also, Jack Hill can shoot the hell out of a movie with very little budget to work with. This was a perfect choice for the spook show vibe and also led to a bit where mad descendants of the Merrye family ransacked the theater in the dark. Great stuff.

 

Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) - The final entry opened with some audience participation as an impromptu screaming contest was held. I get very nervous in front of crowds and am not much of a screamer so I very much commend the brave souls who went for it (and they got cool stuff!). The final film of the day was one I had never seen before which made me happy. I went in completely blind and Slumber Party Massacre II not only had me questioning my own sanity but also my recollection of Slumber Party Massacre which I watched both on late night cable and revisited some years back. I don't love it when a sequel plays the greatest hits from the previous entry to set up the action, but SPMII makes the baller decision to play back events before the movie that definitely did not happen in the first entry. Instead of a more pedestrian maniac killer with a drill, SPMII introduces a quasi-Krueger rockabilly maniac with a drill guitar who appears seemingly at will and terrorizes a new group of kids. There are some excellent physical gore effects, an abundance of 80s meets 50s rock n' roll numbers, conspicuous product placement, and no rules that I could comprehend to any of it. I probably never would have picked a movie like this to watch on my own and that's the joy (and occasionally suffering) of these secret screenings.

Everything wrapped up with a raffle and some seriously cool stuff was given away. The number adjacent to mine was called and I experienced momentary heartbreak, but I was also really stoked for the winners. As advertised, someone did leave with a dead body. I'll keep some mystery around the details but know that The Super Spook Show Spectacular delivers on its promises. I thought this was a terrific event. It ran smoothly, the programming was excellent, and the crowd was into it. Huge thanks to everyone who helped put this together. The Emagine theater is very comfortable and you got TEN glorious minutes between each film so there was considerably less panic to hit the bathroom, get a drink, say hi to people, grab a smoke, etc. I very much appreciate the horror movie events that focus on all-film formats or extra-spooky venues, but this event was truly highlighting fun and it showed. I do not know if this will happen next year, but I will prioritize attending if it does and would absolutely encourage you to do the same. I always tell people how ridiculous the cinema scene is in the Twin Cities compared to the size of the metro and I hope we just added a new tradition we can look forward to.

Best New-to-Me: September 2023

 I'm running a little late this month and I think that speaks to the fact that it's October and we're fully into spooky season festivities. It's a time of year I absolutely love where the weather becomes bearable again, my schedule becomes increasingly crowded with fun activities, and everyday tasks like walking around my neighborhood or going to the store are enlivened by Halloween-y stuff. Still, I'm here to talk about September which (besides being unseasonably warm) still involved a lot of bike rides, local festivals, and some damn fine movies. I've had a bit of a 90s fixation this year and definitely indulged that in some of my picks for the month. I also wrote some fairly extensive reviews for Neige and La Garce which I encourage you to check out if you haven't already. I also noticed a significant uptick in traffic on the blog - some of which can be attributed to referral bots of some sort but some of which seems legitimate. I probably don't say it enough, but thanks so much for taking the time to read this. 

Q & A (1990) - This is definitely one of those films that I'm surprised I didn't catch as a younger person. I have to imagine if Christopher Walken or Harvey Keitel had managed their way into the already excellent ensemble cast, Q & A would have joined the ranks of the myriad crime dramas that tended to come home with me from the local video store every week. At the same time, I've been known to trawl the new releases for anything resembling hard boiled genre cinema so what a gift to discover something this good in 2023. Nick Nolte delivers a positively electric performance as a swaggering, snarling, intensely physical corrupt cop who will seemingly stop at nothing to cover his tracks and maintain his grift. This bears all the hallmarks you might expect from a Lumet crime epic - racism, homophobia, corruption, brutality, and a universal pessimism about "the system" Timothy Hutton's white hat D.A. might be oversimplified but I appreciated the more diverse characterizations of both police and criminals reflected admirably by Luis Guzman, Armand Assante, and maybe especially Charles S. Dutton. I think the length possibly deterred me from checking this out earlier but I was glad to get the nudge from the Pure Cinema Podcast.

Trust (1990) - I wound up watching seven Hal Hartley movies during September. Some re-watches but mostly new-to-me. I knew Hartley was a big deal in American Indie Film by the time I was 18-19 but his films never showed in my smaller hometown. I was working in an art house theater when Henry Fool was released but I had largely missed Hartley's ascendency and never really pursued his back catalogue too assiduously. I've actually been meaning to go through his filmography for some time now, but a lot of his earlier films seemed to have scant availability online and (while I'm sure they're worthwhile) he sells physical releases of them on his own website for steep prices. All this is to say I jumped immediately back on Criterion when I saw that they would be streaming most of his films. I'm happy to say that I thoroughly enjoyed most of what I watched and couldn't help but admire the rest of it. I picked Trust out of everything to highlight here because I thought it was both an insanely good distillation of Hartley's style and I think it captures the spirit of the 90s indie wave in ways that the movies people often associate with that period do not. Hartley's casts from this period are fantastic and both Adrienne Shelly and Martin Donovan are incredible as moody, complicated outcasts who find some solace in each other. This kind of oddball romance was probably only second to the oddball crime story for narrative frameworks of the time, but it never feels cliche to me in Hartley's hands. The dialogue is arch but marvelous, the melancholy score harmonizes the mood beautifully, and while the majority of the film comprises of scenes of people talking - there are moments of pronounced surrealism that are genuinely striking. I love that Hartley threw this together as quickly and cheaply as possible following his early breakout success mostly because he wanted to work with Shelley again. That's the kind of gritty, passionate, collaborative work that I like to remember about film during that decade.

Henry Fool (1997) - So this is a cheat, but I hope you'll bear with me. As I mentioned earlier, I did see Henry Fool upon its release. I recall liking it if not being totally taken with it and my friends/co-workers with more Hartley exposure didn't think it was his strongest work. Now, having gone and watched/re-watched his films leading up to Henry Fool, it resonated much more strongly with me. It was easily his most ambitious work at that point and it builds on so many of the themes and moods from his shorter films - working class outsiders, generational violence, crime, and (naturally) punishment. It's also an incredibly evocative statement on the transformational nature of art and everyone who suffers for it. The prescience around politics and technology seems shocking now but it felt timely then - I think Hartley did have incredible cultural insight but I think it also illustrates how our problems can be cyclical. I definitely will make an effort to watch the films of Hartley's I've missed that follow Henry Fool but this truly did feel like the end of a chapter and capped off my viewing rather nicely.

Chan is Missing (1982) - For some reason I've been dragging my feet getting around to this and now having seen it I can't understand why. It's a wonderful take on the very American detective pulp story but bursting with both a tangible sense of place and one of community. I confess a certain weakness for this brand of no-budget 80s indie film as well. I am rarely put off by non-actors or amateur actors and pretty much everyone in this is a charmer, Wood Moy who plays the main taxi driver turned gumshoe was a legit actor and even a playwright and his performance is just the right level of polished to help anchor the piece.

TOTALLY F***ED UP (1993) - I very much recall watching Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation when it came out on video and much like his preferred brand of industrial rock music - it was art I could appreciate without being terribly moved by it. I have to say that I found F***ED UP (I think I prefer the title with asterixis) to be more my speed.  I was happy to trade in some campiness and gore for some genuinely heartfelt representation of queer kids in California. The John Waters influence is never hard to see in Araki's movies but I also wonder if he was ever exposed to James Robert Baker's positively ferocious Blonde Death.

Hot Pepper (1973)  - I love Les Blanks' wider examinations of disappearing Creole and Cajun culture in the rural south but I found it especially easy to enjoy this more focused look at Zydeco musician Clifton Chenier and the music scene he sprung out of. As much as I'm a fan of roots music and Americana, there's an awful lot of wholesale animal slaughter in other films like Spend it All. Some of that remains in Hot Pepper, but it's a lot more juke joints, jam sessions, and some absolutely smoking concert footage. 

Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974) - Diving into Juliet Berto's Neige earlier in the month inspired me to finally tackle this conspicuous absence in my personal filmography. Again, this is one that I've largely avoided due to length and ultimately hoped I could catch it theatrically at some point. In fairness, it didn't pull me in the way it does so many others. At least not right away. I could immediately engage with the charm and presence of Berto and Dominique Labourier, I was particularly taken with their respective "stage" scenes, but my attention did wander a bit. Like with many things, I got more out of it once I put more into it. There is a wealth of great writing about Céline and Julie and it's place in Rivette's work. I really would like to watch it again some day but I think a cinema setting is the way to do it.

Night Games (1966) - This seems to be a fairly polarizing one and I suppose I can see why, but I found myself entranced by Night Games. Perhaps I'm misreading the text, but the dour performances combined with the surreal situations gave off an element of camp to me instead of humorlessness. Zetterling is tackling childhood trauma and being intentionally provocative about it and maybe she's not saying anything profound enough to justify that, but I didn't have an issue with it. Aesthetically, it's impeccable and I am sometimes overly enamored with stylists who appeal to my sensibilities. Perhaps my recent dalliances with Blier have blunted my sensitivity!

American Dream (1990) - An absolutely heartbreaking portrait of how labor is exploited in this country and how any societal gains made in the mid-Century were so thoroughly dismantled by the 1980s. I drove past Austin, MN (the location of this Hormel strike in 85-86) not long ago and was sorely tempted to stop through and take a look around. This was another Brian Sauer recommendation from the Pure Cinema Podcast and I did not expect it to feel so appropriate in the current news cycle. 

Theatrical Screenings!

The Plumber (1979) - Such a delightfully weird and smart take on what could have been delivered more obviously and far less interestingly (I'm looking at you, Pacific Heights). Manages to combine class conflict and gender dynamics with a distinct 60s hangover - Max's inscrutable plumber bears the the trappings of a real progressive but hasn't internalized any of it. Jill's own liberal leanings compel her to seek solidarity with a tradesman, but ultimately she leans into her privilege and class allegiance as the situation becomes more fraught. There's real tension and mystery throughout The Plumber, but it's also genuinely funny in surprising ways. The whole dinner/bathroom scene with the doctors was so great. Glad to have finally caught up to this and it screened really well at the theater for a made-for-tv film.

Phenomena (1985) - Back when I worked at a local pizzeria, I would frequently play Phenomena's blistering soundtrack of Claudio Simonetti, Iron Maiden, and Motorhead jams. My co-workers would naturally ask me about the film and when I attempted to explain the plot details I got a lot of blank stares. For such a positively bonkers combination of sleepwalking, insect mind-control, suicidal winds, murderous tykes, and razorblade wielding chimpanzees, Phenomena felt like a surprisingly slow burn with an audience. The last 15 minutes opens the throttle all the fucking way up though. so glad to have finally caught this on a big screen.

Deathdream (1974) - Also know as Dead of Night, this was shown as part of a 16mm Horror Showcase from local heroes, the Cult Film Collective. I haven't seen it since a Netflix dvd pick up I made after reading about it in Rue Morgue magazine. Bob Clark was on a tear in the 70s and Deathdream holds up beautifully. Poignant, funny in parts, and just horrifically bleak in others. An easy recommendation for anyone looking for October viewing suggestions. 

Larceny on the Open Road - Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

(This was originally published on an older blog of mine in 2019) 

Michael Cimino had some early success working on the screenplays for Silent Running and Magnum Force which was enough to land him in the director’s chair after selling his Thunderbolt and Lightfoot screenplay to Clint Eastwood’s production company. What followed was something combining a heist movie and a road picture featuring Jeff Bridges as the young drifter (Lightfoot) and Eastwood’s veteran thief (Thunderbolt). 

There’s nothing necessarily slow about this film—the opening erupts with a shootout and a car theft—but there’s a definite hangout vibe that permeates the action. Cimino isn’t afraid to take his time and let us wander with Eastwood and Bridges across the open landscapes of Idaho and Montana as they move from one jam to the next. The men pursuing Thunderbolt—George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis—are former partners who believe they were on the receiving end of a doublecross after their last heist. After a brief physical confrontation with Red (Kennedy), Thunderbolt convinces the two to bury the hatchet and work together.

The four decide to attempt the same job again where they rob a Montana bank using an anti-tank gun to blow through the vault walls. To collect information and funds to pull the caper off, they all move in together and work odd jobs—including Lewis hilariously as an ice cream man. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot has a definite streak of eccentric comedy running through it. The funny bits sometimes come in big moments like when the pair is picked up by a crazed driver with caged racoon in his passenger seat and a trunk filled with rabbits.  There are also lovely understated details like Lightfoot’s ice cream slowly melting in his hand while being made to freeze at gunpoint. 

Despite the comedy the overall feel of the film is bittersweet. This melancholy lends Thunderbolt and Lightfoot more of a meditative quality and particularly colors the film’s finale . The main performances are excellent (Bridges earned an Academy Award nomination for his) and the supporting cast is filled with character actors and notable 70s screen presences—Catherine Bach, Gary Bussey, Jack Dodson, Burton Gilliam, and Dub Taylor—just to name a few. There are several Eastwood regulars in the cast and crew, including Dee Barton who contributes a fantastic score. Paul Williams’ original song for the picture—“Where Do I Go from Here”—conveys a wandering sadness that’s a perfect accompaniment to the film.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is not a perfect picture. It’s a little loose and some of the gags have not aged very well. However, the shagginess is part of the appeal and there’s a certain warmth and subtlety in the film’s best moments. I think heist fans will appreciate the film but it’s especially easy to recommend to New Hollywood fans and/or Eastwood fans. 

I decided to republish this review because Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was just released on 4K from Kino Lorber: https://kinolorber.com/product/thunderbolt-and-lightfoot-4kuhd

Poetry of Place - Neige (1981)

 There's nothing in my heart but the fear of dying old

The denizens of Juliet Berto's Neige may not fear personal death, but their lives are tinged with anxiety over loss - loss of friends, loss of family, loss of liberty, and (for many) loss of the fix they need to transcend their immediate surroundings. Neige chronicles a few days among a loose conglomeration of musicians, dealers, drug users, sex workers, and an assortment of characters living and hustling on and around the streets of Pigalle. While ostensibly focused on a barista, Anita played by Berto, the looseness translates to the narrative of the film as well. The plot contains straightforward crime story landmarks but the film prefers to wander through the streets along with its characters. Conversations feel overheard, the music is purely diegetic and provided by peep shows, café bands, record shops, and from the headphones of Bobby - a young street dealer played by Ras Paul Nephtali. Anita feels some maternal responsibility towards Bobby, and she tries to caution him as the heat from the police intensifies in the neighborhood. Bobby's youthful confidence and perhaps a misunderstanding of the sermons from Jocko, a charismatic (if not particularly pious) pastor, lead him to believe he cannot be caught. When the cops do finally close in on Bobby, it ends in violence. Deprived of their main conduit for heroin (snow/neige), the neighborhood starts fraying at the edges. Anita encounters Betty, a trans cabaret performer and addict, coming down hard in the street. Betty's habit is severe and she begs Anita to find her a fix. Despite their relative inexperience with heroin and the drought conditions in the neighborhood; Anita, Jocko, and Anita's boyfriend Willy all set out to score so that they can keep their friend alive. Their pursuit forces them out of their familiar enclave and onto a collision course with the authorities. 

Neige was Berto's first directorial collaboration with Jean-Henri Roger. The two would go on to direct another atmospheric genre picture, Cap Canaille, two years later. Berto was primarily known then (as she is now) for her acting; particularly for her work with Godard and Rivette. Neige is an incredibly assured debut film and Berto's experience in cinematic story telling and exposure to non-traditional narratives is evident. There are sufficient story details to cling to but the principle concern of Neige is to create a portrait of Pigalle and its inhabitants. In some ways, it invokes other significant street-life films from the era(Variety, Angel, Smithereens) but the genre elements are even further abstracted in Neige and it's less focused on a single character. It does bear some connective tissue with Luc Besson's Subway in its presentation of an environment and the characters that populate it (as well as a shared  interest in music). Much like Besson's film, Berto and Roger show you people and places but offer very little in the way of context or biographical details. You learn about the characters through their interactions and reactions in present time. Unlike Subway's hyper-stylization, Neige has an immediate, almost documentary feel to it. This inherent vitality relies heavily on the stunning photography from veteran cinematographer, William Lubtchansky, who also worked with Godard, Rivette, Agnes Varda, Nadine Trintignant, and others. The filmmaking on display here is highly attuned to the rhythms of Pigalle - lingering in brasseries, hurtling through streets, and moving through crowds everywhere from burlesque performances to creole religious services. While their personal histories go unexplained, the interconnectedness of the characters is obvious. Anita claims to have helped raise Bobby, Jocko freely lends (gives?) money to Willy, Loulou the bartender hired all his musician friends to work at Mr. Chat's club, a writer friend is willing to part with a packet of speed to help Betty, and Anita and Co. don't hesitate to scour the city for drugs when Betty is ailing. In contrast, institutions of authority are viewed with a deep suspicion and pessimism. The narcotics police are agents of brutality looking to bust small time players in the dope trade while failing to examine the root of the issue.

 Neige is currently being offered as part of a set from Fun City Editions along with La Garce/The Bitch which I also reviewed. Ultimately, I think I slightly preferred Neige though I found it more difficult to write coherently about. The Bitch is taking genre conventions and doing something really subversive with them in the text while Neige is a more expressionistic take on noir stylings. To watch it is to become wholly immersed in the sights and sounds of the Pigalle of that era - a carnival of neon, reggae, cigarette smoke, and wounded souls. I couldn't get enough of it and I think it's perfectly matched to Fun City's gritty, urban catalogue. Many of my favorite first time watches over the last year or two have been French films from around this era and I'd love to see even more StudioCanal and Gaumont properties ported over to US releases of this quality. 

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Pulp Provocation - La Garce/The Bitch (1984)

Christine Pascal's twisty (and at times twisted) detective thriller, The Bitch, leads with its 1940s noir influences on its sleeve. A young woman is abruptly ejected from a car on a rainy night. She's picked up by a taciturn stranger who turns out to be a police detective. The night city is visible in the car windows via rear projection as jazz lilts through the score and they exchange halting information and probing glances. Finally they stop at the canal waterfront, invoking shades of Le Quai des brumes, and the suspense of what will happen next hangs heavy in the air. The nostalgic fantasy is violently torn asunder as the detective suddenly proceeds to rape the girl on the hood of his car. The encounter becomes cryptic as the girl eventually appears to welcome his embrace and the initial violation turns towards the erotic. The girl, Isabelle Huppert as Aline, is revealed to be only 17 and she and her adopted family press rape charges against the detective, Richard Barry as Lucien Sabatier. The prologue concludes with a brief sentencing sequence and Sabatier, disgraced, goes to prison for the next six years.

Pascal, known largely for her work in front of the camera in this country, wrote and directed a handful of films; never shying away from challenging subject matter. In The Bitch, Pascal adopts conventions of American film noir as well as French poetic realism while simultaneously interrogating them and pushing them nearly to the point of breaking. This feels in sharp contrast to the mode of film policier that was so prevalent in French popular culture in the late 70s and early 80s. The tone of the film takes a shift towards modernity following the opening, but The Bitch is still brimming with classic cinema references: private detectives, doppelgängers, double crosses, wayward daughters, family secrets, gangsters, and (most prominently) the femme fatale. While her use of these tropes was derided by critics at the time, it's hard not to see The Bitch presaging the wild narrative structure of the erotic thrillers that would rise in popularity shortly after its release. Rather than retread familiar plot devices, Pascal and her talented cast are able to lean into genre expectations, subvert them, and produce something both more ambiguous and provocative as a result.

Following his imprisonment, Lucien reluctantly takes a job with a detective agency run by former policemen he worked with before he assaulted Aline. While his old friends seem willing to bring him back into the fold, his family has left him and his wife has remarried. The P.I. work consists mostly of adultery cases until a potentially wealthy client representing a fashion designer asks specifically for Sabatier to investigate a rival. Sebatier ventures into the heart of Le Sentier - Paris' textile district at the time and historically a Jewish enclave - where he runs into his friend and former cellmate, Rony. Sebatier explains that he's looking for Édith Weber and Rony attempts to warn him away, explaining that Weber is some kind of untouchable in the Jewish community. Sebatier persists only to discover that Édith Weber is the adopted identity of Aline Kaminker, the girl he raped 6 years ago. This discovery drives Sebatier to uncover the mystery of what happened to Aline while he was imprisoned, the fate of her adopted family, and who set him on Aline's trail in the first place. Sebatier's path causes him to collide with Aline's former boyfriend; and underworld figure, Max Halimi (Vittorio Mezzogiorno); and the three comprise an uneasy and volatile love triangle.

The scaffolding holding The Bitch in place is that of a thriller, filled with intentional nods towards noir, but the execution is firmly in the French arthouse tradition. In American film noir, crime is always punished and desire is nearly always fatal. In classic French permutations of the genre, love and honor are legitimate even for crooks, but doom is pervasive and inescapable. In The Bitch, desire is certainly risky but it's also complicated and mercurial. Crime sometimes has consequences and other times it's a mere detail. There's an investigation that drives the plot forward but the real mystery is whatever's going on behind the inscrutable faces of its characters. The entire cast is able to maintain that mood but Pascal is especially fascinated with Aline. There are multiple close ups lingering on Huppert's face as her expression shifts just enough to reveal profound depths of intelligence, emotion, and enigmatic motivation. Huppert's performance in The Bitch is incredibly strong and of a similar caliber to her roles in The Piano Teacher or Elle. As the premise of the film is so provocative, it's crucial to have such a fascinating character at the heart of it. While I cannot begin to fully comprehend what motivates Aline, I (like Pascal) can't take my eyes off of her. 

Largely unseen and unavailable for decades (in the US, at least), La Garce/The Bitch has been restored and released via Fun City Editions as part of a two film set - Fatal Femmes. Special features include an excellent essay from Alexandra Heller-Nicholas as well as an audio commentary from the always fantastic Samm Deighan. Fatal Femmes includes another French crime flick, Neige, directed by another female actor/director: Juliet Berto. I've been such a fan of FCE's output and French crime cinema will forever be celebrated here, so I couldn't grab a copy fast enough. I recommend you do the same. 

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