on AMC

On the plus side, in a sea of boring, routine cop and lawyer dramas littering the new season of television, a gory action drama about battling zombies is welcome entertainment no matter how derivative it is. The Walking Dead boasts awesomely gruesome and impressive makeup and effects and an extremely uncompromising devotion to making things as grim and violent as they want (another example that AMC answers to no one in their original series).

If you ever wondered exactly what shooting a zombie in the head would look like from every angle in slow motion, your days of wondering are over. You’ll get the chance to study the event over and over, starting with a young girl missing her lower jaw.

On the negative side, the pilot really didn’t add anything new to the worn out genre and called to mind other recent, more inventive zombie flicks like Dawn of the Dead and particularly the excellent 28 Days Later (only with an FX caliber hunk Andrew Lincoln rather than the handsome waif Cillian Murphy waking up in a hospital to utter destruction). Is there a strong central character with special skills that will help him survive? Of course. Are some of the only other survivors his wife and son? Yep. Does he find stoic fathers and kids wise beyond their years along the way? Sure thing.

Hopefully, with an entire season to expand on the story, which is based on the comic book series of the same name, the show can spread out and find new ways to tell a living dead story beyond the themes and characters we’ve learned to expect. And even if it follows predictable plot lines, I’ll still tune in – because it’s sure to be more fun than most shows out there.

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Posted on November 2, 2010

directed by Claude Chabrol (1978)

Violette opens with Isabelle Huppert dressed in black with thick eyeliner, red lips looking every bit the femme fatale. In a bar, she teases young men with intense stares, long cigarettes and indecent proposals. Soon, however, we see young Violette at home, where she is clean faced, seemingly obedient, looking years younger, eye battingly sweet and a pathological lair. She suddenly, in the skillful hands of Huppert, becomes more complex; recognizable as one of those sociopath teenage girls who longs for something more than her common, strict home life – a 1930s echo of all the girls that walk out of their houses in modest clothes and a lie about spending the night with a friend only to have a stash of makeup, revealing tube tops and mini skirts in her backpack for a tour of the mall. Except, of course, that this one has murder on her mind.

Based on a true story, Violette is a conniving teen – deeply passionate underneath a shockingly emotionless exterior. The murder, once it is revealed, is as mundane as it is disturbing. Her life outside the home is daring and dangerous. She meets with many older men, is a blackmailer, and even keeps a hotel room for her many trysts. Her parents, a struggling but happy train conductor and a gorgeous woman with a secret past – played by Chabrol’s wife and muse Stephane Audran, are poor (but never has close quarter apartment living looked so cozily French – save for 400 Blows maybe). They try their best to assure better for their daughter and the relationship and dynamics are tackled with subtly and the artful patience Chabrol is known for. This is not a fast paced film but a quietly fascinating one – partially for the cinematic beauty and partially for Huppert’s captivating performance.

Director Claude Chabrol passed away last week and was one of the most important forerunners of the New Wave movement in France. His career is vast and sadly less known than many of his contemporaries. His last work, Bellamy, comes to theaters this Fall.

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Posted on September 26, 2010

directed by Lawrence Kasdan (1981)

I was a little surprised to learn that the neo-noir Body Heat was not adapted from a 1940’s novel by Block or Woolrich but an original story written by director Lawrence Kasdan, who has in the middle of a career high with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Empire Strikes Back behind him and The Big Chill and Return of the Jedi about to come. The story is a pitch perfect steamy noir set in foggy, sweaty Florida with a charming ladies man lawyer and a sultry femme fatale as the players, with just one pesky husband in the way.

Also perfect is the cast. You may not know it if all you’re familiar with is her early morning cursing, but Turner has the kind of womanly venom of a bad girl with a great body that is hard to find in actresses today. She eats men alive, makes them thank her for it and think it was all their idea in the first place. One of her best lines in the film is “You’re not too smart are you? I like that in a man.” Which, as a side note, is what my friend Bill used to say fit my choice in Junior High School boyfriends.

William Hurt, who again if you’re only familiar with the past couple years of roles as concerned Presidents (Vantage Point) or some father figure in the other Hulk movie no one saw, might surprise you with his sexual affability and greasy charisma. In lesser roles, it’s nice to see Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke round things out.

This is a steamy affair with tons of sex scenes and Chandler-esque dialogue. Perfect for one of these heat wave nights and available from netflix instant.

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Posted on July 25, 2010

directed by Frank Perry (1968)

The Swimmer was filmed in 1966 and released two years later. In between then, The Graduate with its young, new, daring take on similar subject matter and inventive film techniques, made an indelible mark American film making.

Meanwhile this Burt Lancaster vehicle fell into, well, if not oblivion exactly, certainly near to that. Compared to where movie making was headed, The Swimmer, based on a short story by John Cheever (he of the big red book of short stories, which is first on my list to start reading on vacation) is a tad dated and seems, from it’s reviews of the time, to have already felt off kilter (in both a good and bad way) when it was released.

The acting can range from balls out fist shaking to unnatural, stilted theater like script reading. A melodramatic, score that underlines every emotional cue adds to the artificial feeling. Added in are some unusual editing gorgeous lens flare and arty film techniques, including double exposures –  but somehow the collected oddities work in harmony in the film’s favor. A very dark, hallucinatory, and paranoid piece of work emerges from the flaws.

This is a surreal and haunting movie and, for all its artifice and ham-handedness, there’s strong stuff here that sticks with you; I first saw the movie years ago and have never really forgotten it and I welcomed a chance to revisit it when it became available on Netflix on demand (one of life’s great pleasures).

Lancaster struts around as a suburban peacock who decides to swim home via neighborhood pools. Along the way we encounter the hung over, the angry, the bitchy, and the eccentric members of his community as well as witness some nudists, a fight over a hot dog cart, and a cameo by Joan Rivers.

It’s a fun movie to discover if you’ve not seen it, maybe especially for it’s lost gem quality and of course, the sixties suburban pool side styles of the time that will satiate any Mad Men fan.

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Posted on June 27, 2010

directed by Kathryn Bigelow (2008)

There’s not too much I can add to the dialogue about Kathryn Bigelow‘s little movie that could, The Hurt Locker. It’s won almost every critical award, including the Oscar for best picture and when I say it’s suspenseful, spare, intriguing, action packed, and phenomenal, I am sure a thousand other people have said it before me. Of course, the hype doesn’t make any of the praise any less true. It’s a great movie worthy of it’s reputation.

The only thing I can possibly disagree with is the surprise. Jim and I have always known that Bigelow knows how to direct action!! – her Point Break foot chase is one of the best chases put to screen. I was surprised however by the cast of cameos in the film who alongside the less recognizable actors fleshed out realistic human beings without the “character establishing” tropes of most Hollywood movies in place.

You’ve probably already seen it, but if not, it’s well worth your time.

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Posted on May 23, 2010