Repo Man, 1984

Written and directed by Alex Cox 
Starring Emilio Estevez, Harry Dean Stanton, and Tracey Walter

This is the kind of movie that made me start this blog in the first place: it came out a while back; it has its flaws, but it's completely delightful in its own goofy way; it's not the kind of movie that most people think of when they think of a movie from its time; and yet it has its own special place in movie history. (Also, Mike Nesmith of the Monkees produced it, and the first entry here is Head.)

Yes, it's got a pretty flimsy plot. Yes, there is some not-top-shelf acting. Yes, it's decidedly low budget. Still, Tracey Walter's speech about time travel and space aliens is like nothing else (except, perhaps, Bill Murray's Dalai Lama speech from Caddyshack). Harry Dean Stanton's performance alone is worth the price of admission. The music completely captures something of that time. And the scene with the gift-wrapped money on the highway has a certain something that is both completely, frustratingly entertaining, and also exactly exemplifies what is such a pleasure about this movie. Also, the generic everything.

"Couldn't enjoy it any more, Mom. This is swell."

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The Public Enemy, 1931

Directed by William A. Wellman
Written by Kubec Glasmon, John Bright, and Harvey F. Thew
Starring James Cagney, Jean Harlow

Not just the movie that made Cagney, but a gangster classic. It's a little stagey, which isn't surprising given its vintage, but it takes a little getting used to. The framing has a disingenuous feel to it ("For your own good, you need to see these bad people doing bad things."), but maybe that let them be a little less sentimental (but it has a dose of that already). It looks great, most of the performances are right on. Plus, when you next see the image of the grapefruit, it won't just look iconic -- you'll see what a jerk Cagney's character is being.

Just a little malevolent.

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Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones
Written by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
Starring the same

This is a movie that I cannot think of without smiling. From the first of bit of overly serious music under the Swedish-themed credits to the intentionally and unbelievably successfully irritating ending, it is relentless. This is the kind of movie for which it is hard to pick only a few things to praise. Given that, here are more than a few:

• Guido Le Whopper and "I told him we've already got one"
• Sir Robin's minstrels' song about what he does not fear
• "Huge tracts of land" and "What, the curtains?"
• "That's easy!"
• "You're foolin' yourself. We're living in a dictatorship."

and of course the utter absurdity and aggressive iconoclasm of King Arthur repeatedly crying "Jesus Christ!" in moments of panic.

Yes, we've all heard "I'm not dead yet," "Tis but a scratch," "She turned me into a newt," "Ni!," and "The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow" over and over, but they're still really funny.

Of course it's in The Pantheon. And there's also this.

Oh, those credits.

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2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
Starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and Douglas Rain

I saved this for last in my Kubrick retrospective. It was not an entirely satisfying conclusion. I'll just assume that anyone reading this has already seen the movie, or at least knows its story, so be prepared for spoilers.

The part of this movie about the Jupiter mission (culminating with Dave shutting down Hal's higher functions) is a fantastic short science fiction film. I thought that everything with Dave, Hal, and Frank is great. The section on the moon, just before that, is also quite compelling, though it builds to something that was ultimately, for me, unanswered and unsatisfying. The opening section, at the "Dawn of Man," makes for an interesting faux documentary, but I can't say much about it as a piece of narrative film, except that Kubrick presented what I think is a one-dimensional and rather stark view of aboriginal human nature; to me, that seems limited. I found the ending incomprehensible. Unfortunately, that it makes hard to piece the whole film together.

I could say that, like the dark, blank screen at the beginning and end of a film, Kubrick's obelisk throws us back upon ourselves. It is our task to piece together the meaning of humanity and our own lives from our inception to our ultimate destination, and the obelisk represents that demand, which is different from, but related to, the void of space. This is the purpose of the obelisk, and it is also the purpose of film, and all art. Yes, I could say that, and it might even be true. As I consider it, there may be something to it. I just wish his point of view were more explicit and less oblique. I'm not looking for cowboys in white hats killing cowboys in black hats, but something that had a little more in common with Paths of Glory or even Barry Lyndon or The Killing would be more approachable.

Who would have thought that a light could be so frightening?

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A Clockwork Orange, 1971

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick, from the novel by Anthony Burgess
Starring Malcolm McDowell


I watched this again as part of my Kubrick retrospective, and it's been one of the hardest to sit through -- and not always for the intended reasons. The violence is so sadistic that it's almost unbearable. I actually stopped watching it during the "Singin' in the Rain" scene, and then made myself get through that so that because I knew that the worst was almost over. Another difficult thing about this movie is that parts of it are intended as comedy. For example, the principal guard in the prison, played by Michael Bates, is a character who exists often for comic purposes, but there's something incongruous and forced about having this kind of a caricature in the midst of such scathing commentary.

At the same time, the social commentary is astonishing. As a small example, in the scene where we see the demonstration of how Alex has been allegedly cured, the applause for the actor and model who demonstrate the cure -- and their bowing to take credit -- are chillingly perfect.

From another perspective, Malcolm McDowell's Alex is a kind of modern, unrepentant Richard III. Kubrick wants us to share in his delights and miseries with great sympathy, and that's perhaps the most successful and intentionally disturbing aspect of this movie. Like Richard III, we're fascinated and drawn in by the protagonist, but his immoral nature never fades from view. Alex is smart, charismatic, and occasionally sympathetic (primarily when he is the evident victim of his so-called treatment), but, in the end, I found a gap that Shakespeare manages to bridge with Richard or Iago. It's not that Shakespeare makes us like these monsters, but Shakespeare is psychologically revelatory in a way that Kubrick is not. It makes me want to see Malcolm McDowell play one of those parts; if he could bring to it what he brought to this, under the direction of someone such as David Cromer, it would be phenomenal.

In the end, I found this movie somewhat unsatisfying -- or perhaps I could say I had qualms about it. While it is -- as usual -- visually spectacular, I have doubts about the end it's serving. Similarly, for what it intends, the music (primarily by Wendy Carlos) is perfect; and, again, I'm have concerns about what's intended.


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The Shining, 1980

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson 
Starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd

This movie is amazingly well put together, though that doesn't necessarily mean it's pleasant. As someone who is not a big horror movie fan, I really only wanted to see this (again) because it's Kubrick. That being said, it's pretty astonishing to watch. From literally the first short, it has a disorienting effect and disturbing effect. Kubrick's kind of going wild with the shots -- not that he doesn't always -- but those famous tracking shots following Danny (Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall's son) as he rides his speedy little tricycle around the hall are famous for a reason.

As for the acting, there is a reason why this is one of Jack Nicholson's iconic roles. First, he does all those things that have almost become caricatures of him, except this is one of the movies where he set the pattern, not where it became a gag; take a look at his "It's okay. He saw it on the television." moment for an example. There's also a moment when the camera simply holds on him staring off into space, and it's completely chilling. While we often think of him as a celebrity or an image, the man can act.(Shelley Duvall is good, though I was wondering what it's like to have your role primarily to be terrified and scream a lot -- it's not as much as Fay Wray in King Kong, but it's a lot.)

Also, I don't usually go for listicles, but I enjoyed this one. I was reassured to know that Danny Lloyd (the boy playing Danny) didn't know that he was in a horror movie. Also, there a pointer to The Timberline Lodge in Oregon, which Kubrick used for some shots of the hotel itself; for establishing shots (such as the disorienting one that opens the movie), he used Glacier National Park in Montana.

There's something so Kubrick about having
the incongruous dropped ceiling in that scene.

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Bringing Up Baby, 1938

Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde
Starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant


This is such a fun movie. It's really loopy -- it's starts silly, and stays silly all the way to the end.

Hawks is clearly having a ball, Katherine Hepburn gets to break all the rules about her persona, and Cary Grant -- who I think is underrated as a physical comedian -- gets to do all kinds of schtick. Basically every character in the movie is out there, which adds to the fun.

There's also a reference to The Awful Truth: when Katherine Hepburn is explaining that they're in the Leopard Gang, she says that Cary Grant's nickname in the gang is "Jerry the Nipper"; he exclaims that this is from a motion picture that she saw. And it's The Awful Truth, in which Irene Dunne claims that Cary Grant's nickname is Jerry the Nipper. (I've never heard a quote about this, but I am sure that Hawks loved The Awful Truth, both from this reference and from his casting of Ralph Bellamy as the odd man out in His Girl Friday.)

One of the older members of The Pantheon.

Jerry the Nipper and Swinging Door Susie

 

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