Buh-Bye 2016!

I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that 2016 was a super-huge dick this year. When 2016 wasn't chopping down what felt like an inordinate amount of classic film notables like Alan Rickman, Marni Nixon, Haskell Wexler, Gene Wilder, and the double-whammy of Carrie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds, it was busily shooting up nightclubs, and saddling us with the tacky, infantile reign of one Donald J. Trump.

Like many of you, I often find solace from the cold, hard world in the flickering of an old movie, so to insure that you start 2017 off right, here are my Top 5 Films I Saw in 2016:



The Boys in the Band (1970)

For years I had been hearing about this movie. Whether lauded or reviled, Boys is seen as a landmark in gay film history. Adapted from the stageplay, it chronicles the goings-on in a New York apartment when a group of gay friends gather together to celebrate a birthday. Like an all-gay Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, booze and pot cause the party to spiral out-of-control, and when an old friend of the host's shows up, secrets (and the host) come out.

This may not sound like much of a plot now, but in 1970, gay issues were just starting to be discussed in national forums. The Stonewall Riots of 1968 ignited a public movement and gays and lesbians were not going to be quiet anymore. Boys works so well because while that spirit of revolution is evident in the film, the underbelly of shame and masculine overcompensation are still there- reminding us that coming out of the closet is only the first step in a long march to equality and acceptance from others and ourselves.

While some have been critical of the gay stereotypes and the fetishization of gay life as tragedy portrayed in the film, (director William Friedkin would court gay controversy again in his movie Cruising (1980)), I was surprised how timely this film felt. Issues of femininity, self-loathing, and how to define gay couples are still active debates in our culture.

I've heard scathing ripostes about looks and love like the ones between Michael and Donald at many a party from people who weren't even alive when the film came out. This movie could be made today, and with a cast that would include Matt Bomer, Neil Patrick Harris, Jim Parsons, Chris Colfer, Tituss Burgess and Drew Droege, people would go see it.

The only thing absent is the haunting presence of AIDS, which wouldn't make national headlines for another ten years. Five of the original cast members would succumb to the dreaded disease, however- a bitter reminder how AIDS would shape the gay community for decades to come.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

When Tilda Swinton isn't in a fight with Maragret Cho about Asian invisibility in Hollywood, she is one of the most interesting actresses in film today. Like a more punk version of Cate Blanchett, Swinton adds beautiful complexity to her roles making us feel the emotional immediacy of her characters' dilemmas. Swinton's dilemma in Kevin is gut-wrenching and everytime some jackass commits some heinous act of barbarity in the world, I think of this film and Swinton's desperate, empty gaze.

I wrote about Kevin after recuperating from the flu, but I've never recovered from this movie.

Repulsion (1965)

If you're thinking of staying in alone this New Year's, read my review of Repulsion and get out of your apartment before the walls start sprouting arms. Roman Polanski is a master of psychological horror, and Repulsion set the stage for his later masterwork on women losing it in apartments, Rosemary's Baby (1968).

Two for the Road (1967)

New Year's is all about the passage of time, and no film handles time and our memory of it quite like Two for the Road. Many people like this movie for its refreshing leads Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, but I was really taken away by director Stanley Donen's editing, which made the concept of life seem so fleeting and circular. It's important in these times to remember a life is more than just this moment- so instead of dreading Trump's next tweet, read my review of Two for the Road.

Madame Satan (1930)

This New Year's I hope you have a great party full of friends and wine and little nibbly bits- but I guarantee no matter how fabulous your party, it won't compare with the dirigible masquerade party in Cecil B. DeMille's Madame Satan. I can't stop thinking of the sheer decadence and visual over-stimulation of the last half of this movie. It's like an Adrian costume collection disaster movie. What better way to ring out the old than by pushing it out of a blimp?

To all my Lance's Werthwhile readers, I wish you the most movie-filled 2017!

Can You Handle the Scandal?

So this little movie you may have heard of called The Birth of a Nation (2016) is opening today. Back in January when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Birth was immediately pegged as the antidote to #Oscarssowhite. Nate Parker's telling of the Nat Turner slave revolt quickly swept the festival and had critics ooh'ing and ahh'ing into their columns.  Parker was praised for his directorial debut, the film was snatched up by Fox Searchlight for a Festival record $17.5 million, and Oscars were predicted.

Then the news  came to light that Parker had been involved in a rape case whose victim had committed suicide back in 2012- and all hell broke loose. Boycotts, accusations of Hollywood racism, and Twitter wars have made the story about Birth of a Nation less about the movie- and more about its director and star. The question now is not just whether this is a good movie- but if going to see it (and liking it) somehow is tacit support of Parker and his past.

This story is as old as the Hollywood Hills.

Here are my Top 5 famous filmmakers whose lives got in the way of their movies:

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle 

You knows those times when you have a spectacular party in a hotel with lots of wine, women, and song and one of your drunk guests gets really sick and dies? Well, that's what happened to popular silent comedy star Fatty Arbuckle in 1921.

Arbuckle was relaxing with friends in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco following a grueling shooting schedule when one of his groupies, Miss Virginia Rappe, became very ill. But the party was in high gear so the hotel doctor gave her some morphine and went on his way. Two days later Rappe went to the hospital where she died of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder.

This sad circumstance turned into a full-on media circus when wild rumors were told to police about Arbuckle raping Rappe with a Coke bottle- or the massive star bursting her inner organs by being on top during lovemaking. Press moguls like William Randolph Hearst had a field day playing up the "hedonistic Hollywood star" angle and Arbuckle was arrested for manslaughter and put on trial. It took three trials to finally gain Arbuckle's acquital- but the damage was done.

The image of the goofy fat guy morphed into a hulking sex-hungry rapist and the public turned on Arbuckle. His films were banned and in some cases burned. He became a Hollywood pariah who could only find work as a director- and only if he used a pseudonym (William Goodrich). Arbuckle became one of the poster boys for Hollywood excess and religious organizations whipped themselves into a frenzy decrying the movies and the people who made them- ultimately leading to the rise of Will H. Hayes, the author of the code that would shape movies for decades to come.

Arbuckle would die at age 46 never able to fully resurrect his film career. It's a shame. His early silent comedy shorts are classic and are sometimes spoken of in the same breath as Charlie Chaplin's. He also proved to be a deft director- one of my favorites being the The Red Mill (1927), starring Marion Davies (ironically, W.R. Hearst's mistress). But Fatty was never able to live down that infamous party.

Leni Riefenstahl

This Nazi propagandist/apologist didn't start off as a director. In fact, until she was approached by Hitler in 1933 to direct a documentary about the fifth Nuremberg rally, Riefenstahl was known more as an actress and had only directed one film, 1932's The Blue Light. But thanks to Hitler, Riefenstahl would direct two influential documentaries, and go down in history as the Third Reich's most famous director.

Triumph of the Will (1935), which documented the 1934 Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, was a huge success, and gained Riefenstahl international attention during a time when Hitler was still just that kooky, screaming European guy. When Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics, Hitler asked Riefenstahl to document the glory of athletics (hopefully German-dominated athletics) and her footage became Olympia (1938).

Riefenstahl came to America to promote Olympia in November of 1938, and things went well for her until a little thing called Kristallnacht happened. Once Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Riefenstahl and her films were perosna non grata outside of Germany, and after the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed, Riefenstahl had, as they say. "a lotta splainin' to do." In four trials after the war, she denied being an active propagandist for the Nazis and was never formally convicted of anything. But one look at her work and it's difficult to make the argument that this fanatical perfectionist was unaware of what was going on. The Nazi cloud hung over her the rest of her life and Riefenstahl would make only two more films: Lowlands (1954) and the documentary Underwater Impressions (2002)- which critics seemed to like- perhaps because it was about fish and not German dictators.

I finally forced myself to watch Triumph and Olympia, and I have to say, they are visually stunning. Riefenstahl's grasp of the power of perspective and scope and early technologies like slow-motion filming and tracking shots is impressive. She turns the human body into a visual artwork, whether clothed or nude, singular or massed together- creating the image of the greatness of our human selves. The problem is, it's all Nazi propaganda. And that's a crime that should stick.

Elia Kazan

 Elia Kazan's list of stage and screen successes is awe-inspiring. With the premiere stagings of such classics as The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Kazan was revered on the Great White Way. Film successes like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Gentlemen's Agreement (1947) (Best Director Oscar), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954) (another Best Director Oscar), and East of Eden (1955) made him equally bankable on the West Coast.

But in 1952, Kazan was called in to testify in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities- HUAC if you're nasty. The atmosphere in the theater community in New York and the film colony in Hollywood during the McCarthy Red-Hunting was thick with fear. Naming people you believed were Communists could sink the careers of fellow artists and friends, but not naming them could get you put in jail. Those who hoped not to make that awful Sophie's Choice just prayed that they wouldn't be called to testify.

But Kazan was too big a fish to avoid the pan, and once he was in it, he wound-up naming eight former members of the Group Theater including playwright Clifford Odets. His defense was that he didn't name anyone the Committee didn't already know about- but many saw his testimony as the worst kind of betrayal. It was a stigma that lasted as late as 1999 when Kazan accepted an Honorary Oscar- and some in the audience refused to stand or clap.

Kazan keenly felt the shade from many in the theatrical community after his testimony and in Waterfront, took the opportunity to address his critics. Marlon Brando's character Terry is tormented by the knowledge of how the crooked union-boss (the wonderfully belligerent Lee J. Cobb) has been using murder and manipulation to keep control of his dock turf. Terry has the opportunity to squeal to the authorities- both moral and legal, but should he do it? The film seems to say, yes squeal- but you are going to pay for it. Kazan's career didn't necessarily pay for his naming names, but it is an issue that haunts his work. I, for one, could never boycott Kazan's Streetcar, Waterfront or A Face in the Crowd (1957). They're just too damned good.

Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski can't not be fucked-up. The famous director survived the Krakow ghetto in WWII as a child and then, as an adult, lost his wife and unborn child to the vicious knives of Charlie Manson's murder gang. But even before the tragedy of the Manson killings, Polanski's films like Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary's Baby (1968) (Oscar-nommed for Best Director) reflected a dark sensibility- an acceptance of violence, deception, and delusion as a part of life.

Then in 1977, Polanski was arrested for having sex with a 13 year old girl. There is no question about guilt in the matter. He pled guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor" as part of a plea bargain. But when Polanski got wind that the judge on the case was going to sentence him to fifty years in prison instead of psychiatric evaluation and probation, Polanski jumped on a plane to Europe and he's never come back. He currently lives in Paris and is fighting an ongoing extradition battle.

Polanski has made eleven films since his departure from the U.S. The Pianist (2002) won him a Best Director Oscar, but like Kazan, some in the audience did not stand to applaud. Conspicuous was old friend Jack Nicholson who remained seated. But in all honesty, his post-exile work can't hold a candle to his earlier films. It's hard to make Hollywood films when you can't set foot in the country I guess.

I know some people give me side-eye when I talk about how much I love Polanski's earlier films, but I can't help it. Repulsion, Rosemary, and Chinatown (1974) are brilliant- despite the fact they were made by a justice-dodging sex offender.

Woody Allen

Nothing can spoil a dinner/cocktail party faster than bringing up the personal life of Woody Allen. The two camps are pretty clear- and pretty righteous. Either you believe that Allen is a child molester or he's the victim of his vengeful ex. But no matter what camp you reside in, it doesn't change the fact that Allen is one of the best American film directors ever. Ever.

I could spend all day talking about my favorite Allen films: Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Another Woman (1988), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), and Midnight in Paris (2011). And those are just my favorites of the ones I've seen. I'm curious about whether I'll like Interiors (1978), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Match Point (2005) and anything he's put out after Blue Jasmine (2013).

I would write a blog post about my Top 5 Woodys if it was possible for me to do so without having to either defend or condemn him. I don't intend to engage in that conversation- well at least not until I've had a couple glasses of chardonnay. Let's just say that in this case, I am separating the artist from his art. And if there's a room in Hell for me for doing that, I hope it's full of Arbuckle, Kazan, Polanski, and Allen movies.

The Insanity of Roman Polanski

Let me start off by saying if you are hoping for a blog post about Roman Polanski's personal life, I will be a huge disappointment to you. I apologize ahead of time, and assure you it is not the first time I have disappointed someone... ask some of my exes.

What I want to talk about instead is Polanski's cinematic triptych about decaying sanity called his "Apartment Trilogy": Repulsion (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968), and The Tenant (1976). Although made a little over ten years apart, and based on different source material, these three movies have very similar elements that make watching them together a trip down a bizarre rabbit hole of Polanski's twisted design.

Let's start with Repulsion. This dark little number was Polanski's first English-language, full-length film. Set in London, it follows young manicurist Carol (a luminous Catherine Deneuve) who has a case of man trouble. The trouble is, she doesn't want them around. She blows off (not literally) a date and is grossed-out by her sister's boyfriend's razor being left in her toothbrush glass.

When the noise of her sister screwing wafts through the wall of her bedroom, it's all she can do to keep from pounding on it and telling her to knock it off. So when her sister takes a vacation to the leaning Tower of Pisa, you would think it is a good opportunity for Carol to get some alone time. The problem is, Carol's not alone.

Carol hears noises outside her bedroom door, and the walls start to crack. Soon men are appearing in her room, raping her. She can no longer concentrate at work, mutilating rich, white cuticles as she stares into space.

Polanski films these episodes so that we know Carol is hallucinating- but it is so skillfully done that we can't help but join Carol in her first-person madness. The problem intensifies when real men show up in the apartment and Carol is assaulted. The imagined men are joined by the corpses of real ones.

Polanski uses Carol's homespace as a representation of Carol's headspace. The claustrophobia of the apartment mirrors Carol's stifling fears of men. The gaping cracks in the wall are cracks in reality. The decaying food a symbol of the rotting away of Carol's mind.

What is so interesting about Repulsion is that the focus is less about explaining why Carol goes off the tracks, and more about the visualization of madness- the creating of an atmosphere that makes us experience Carol's downward spiral rather than explain it. The film closes with a close-up of a picture of Carol as a child creepily standing out from a family portrait. Apparently she was just born that way.

Repulsion was a very successful independent import, and it turned out to be an excellent dry-run for Polanski's first high-profile Hollywood project, the controversial Rosemary's Baby. Based on the popular Ira Levin best-seller, Rosemary is the story of young New York City newlyweds Guy (John Cassavetes married to Gena Rowlands at the time) and Rosemary (Mia Farrow getting divorced from Frank Sinatra at the time) who move into a new apartment to start their lives together. After a visit  from their kooky next-door neighbors (Sidney Blackmer and Oscar-winning cutie patootie Ruth Gordon) Guy's acting career takes off, and Rosemary gets a bun in her oven.

The American dream sours, however, when Rosemary sickens and suspects that there's something not right with the bundle of joy growing inside her. Add to that she fears her neighbors are more than just herbal supplement enthusiasts. And why is Guy always defending them? Are they in cahoots?

As with Repulsion, Rosemary focuses on the question of sanity. Are Rosemary's wild suspicions about Satan worshipers and visions of being raped by the Devil real, or is she losing her mind?

The questions of sanity go from affecting a single woman as the target of men's advances (poor Carol's dilemma) to a young wife bearing the burdens of motherhood both physical and social. Polanski's surreal shooting and editing styles create absorbing, visual madness, making us doubt Rosemary and what we ourselves have seen.

Here too, the apartment is a centerpiece for depicting this internal conflict. The apartment is isolated by the dark, decrepit hallway, and Rosemary hears strange, unintelligible whispering from the other side of her bedroom wall. It's as if the apartment is set aside from reality. Rosemary has to try and discern what's going on outside the walls of her own perception.

In the end, Rosemary discovers the truth by finding a secret passageway that leads her from what she thinks she knows in her apartment to the secrets enshrined in the world next door.

Rosemary was a huge hit and made Polanski a hot director in Hollywood. But a year later, he would experience his own real-life horror movie when his wife and unborn child were murdered by the Manson Clan in their home. (I guess it's hard to avoid Polanski's f-ed up personal life.)

In 1976 after getting an Oscar nom for Chinatown (1974), Polanski returned to the theme of apartment insanity with The Tenant. In this film Polanski cast himself as Trelkovsky, a man who snags an apartment in Paris because the former occupant, Simone, jumped out the window. Feeling guilty for getting an apartment because of someone else's misfortune, Trelkovsky visits Simone in the hospital, only to find her encased in a body cast unable to speak.

She lets out a big scream and croaks, though, when Stella (Isabelle Adjani) arrives. This doesn't prevent Trelkovsky and Stella from going to the movies and fondling each other.

Trelkovsky's stroke of real estate luck goes south as his neighbors and the concierge (the eternal Shelley Winters) begin to nag him about the noise from his apartment. He begins watching his neighbors through windows- seeing their forms and their shadows- a voyeur of the outside world instead of a part of it.

He is absorbed in the grungy apartment, finding a hole in the wall that contains a tooth, and Simone's dress stuffed in a cupboard. Paranoia morphs into personality incoherence as Trelkovsky begins to believe he is Simone- dressing up like a woman; gushing over shoes and realizing, "I think I'm pregnant,"; and finally jumping from his window mimicking Simone's fate.

The film's spiral into weirdness is only heightened by the fact that Polanski is the main character. He is the director of two previous films about women going insane who then directs himself as a man who turns into a woman who goes insane. The final scene with all of the neighbors watching his meltdown as if he is on a stage leaves us with the feeling that Polanski was struggling with the very public exposure of his work and tragic private life.

His life had become a must-watch horror movie, so he blurred the lines between his life and his art- by literally inserting himself  into the surreal visions that he had depicted in his earlier films. It's one of the strangest descents into madness by a character (and perhaps a director) in film.