So, we're close to three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, great swathes of the country are still under shelter-in-place orders, and everybody's getting a little stir-crazy, including the entertainment industry. There's a good reserve of already filmed and completed content being carefully parceled out by various platforms, and many news and talk shows have made adjustments so that hosts can film from home, or with carefully socially-distanced skeleton crews. John Oliver and Charlie Brooker have adapted particularly well. However, everyone wants to work, even with limited resources. This has lead to various talented folks doing their best to produce content, by thinking outside the box.
First, a few thoughts on Zoom, which has become the leading online chat and videoconferencing app practically overnight as so many people have transitioned to working from home. In the future, the Zoom interface is almost certainly going to be the common visual shorthand for the year 2020, along with face masks and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Media being produced with Zoom and other videoconferencing technology are suddenly all over Youtube and mainstream outlets. Everyone has gotten used to seeing videos with screens divided into multiple boxes, streaming up to nine video feeds at a time. This allows some measure of interaction among the participants, enough to stage some amusing skits for "SNL" and for Disney to throw together some quick "Family Sing-a-long" specials.
Because we're in the middle of a national crisis, we've had the usual charity concerts and celebrity telethon-type stunts, including the marathon eight-hour "One World" fundraiser. The big, virtual graduation ceremony with President Obama's commencement address got a lot of press. However, because the crisis is so extended, there have been more of-the-beaten-path types of media getting the spotlight. A ton of celebrities are reading books for kids online, including a star-studded new version of "James and the Giant Peach," or participating in virtual jam sessions. Zoom lends itself well to reunions, with its ability to conference so many people at once, so we've seen a lot of specials for charity popping up, often reuniting TV show or movie casts. Josh Gad started up a web series called "Reunited Apart" to check in on the stars of "The Goonies" and "Back to the Future." "Parks & Rec" did a reunion special based around all the characters being in a Zoom calling tree. My favorite so far has been the "Community" table read, which nicely ties into the webcast/podcast that Joel McHale and Ken Jeong started, "The Darkest Timeline."
What's especially fun about the reunions, is that everyone is available for just about everything. Since even the most high profile, busy actors are stuck at home with all their projects on hold, and travel distance is no longer a consideration, suddenly it becomes very feasible to schedule virtual playdates for the scattered casts of "The Office" or "The Nanny" or even the wacky old NBC soap opera "Passions." Suddenly, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt are pitching in skits to "SNL." Suddenly, Robert Downey Jr. is dropping in on a "quarantine watch party" for "Avengers: Endgame." Suddenly Cameron Diaz - who has been retired since 2014 - is throwing down in Zoe Bell's all-girl virtual fight video.
And then there's John Krasinski, who whipped up his own short-lived webseries called "Some Good News" to counter the gloom and doom of the early weeks of the pandemic. He threw a virtual prom, got himself ordained to marry a couple online, and even persuaded Oprah and Malala to join in the fun. His efforts seemed to best embody the sentiment that these projects are about fostering a sense of togetherness in tough times, and providing some welcome distractions. Unfortunately, his decision to license the show to CBS All-Access with a different host suggests otherwise. Is anyone going to want to want to watch this kind of content when things get back to normal? I doubt it.
Not all of these efforts have gone well - see Gal Gadot's well-meaning but tone-deaf "Imagine" video, but I've enjoyed more of these stuck-at-home projects than I expected to. There's something charming about a familiar celebrity showing up in these videos, with their crummy production values and severely limited camera operation, knowing that they're in the same situation as everybody else. And there's a strange, intriguing ephemerality to the videos that have been produced. Shelter-in-place restrictions look to be slowly coming to an end, and we'll no doubt be back to our regularly scheduled mass media soon enough. But for now, during uncertain times - well, standards for entertainment are different. And I really do appreciate everyone's efforts to keep us distracted.
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Saturday, May 30, 2020
Thursday, May 28, 2020
"Charlie's Angels" and "Terminator" Post #Metoo
There's been a spike in female ensemble films lately, mostly due to the recent success of "Wonder Woman" and "Captain Marvel." Many of them are also being spun as projects addressing the criticisms of the #Metoo movement, putting more women onscreen in more empowering roles. What this has meant in practical terms is remaking a lot of older films that featured women originally, including titles as disparate as "Black Christmas" and "Little Woman," but with more modern, more feminist messaging. Two of the more prominent examples have been action franchise films "Terminator: Dark Fate" and a new "Charlie's Angels" reboot.
"Terminator: Dark Fate" has the distinction of being the best installment of the "Terminator" franchise since "Terminator 2: Judgement Day," with James Cameron finally returning as a producer, and "Deadpool's" Tim Miller directing. More importantly, Linda Hamilton is back as Sarah Connor, still a hard-living vigilante, and still hunting down killer androids from the future after all this time. Arnold Schwarzenegger's back too, though I won't say in what capacity to preserve the story surprises. Just the presence of these two actors goes a long way towards connecting "Dark Fate" directly to the early "Terminator" movies, and helping us to forget the lows, and very lows of the franchise's past few misfires.
Sarah Connor joins forces with a cyborg soldier from the future named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), who is trying to protect a young woman named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) from a Terminator called the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna). We learn that Connor successfully defeated Skynet after the events of T2, but another AI called Legion ended up sparking the machine uprising instead. The new characters are solid, especially the enhanced human, Grace, who is central to most of the fight and action sequences in the early running. Hamilton gets a fantastic re-introduction here, but she's in her sixties and Arnold's in his seventies, and the special effects can only compensate for so much when it comes to the action. And boy, the "Dark Fate" action sequences are something to see, directly riffing off of famous sequences in "Terminator 2" with considerable success. Rev-9's big gimmick is that it's a liquid metal Terminator with a hard metal skeleton, and both components can act independently. This makes for some very cool visuals. "Dark Fate" is worth a watch for the spectacle alone.
As for the story, it's serviceable but not great. I expect some fans will be upset that the franchise abandons Skynet and much of the series' existing mythology. However, after so many convolutions of the timeline in previous movies, it's a relief to see them going in a new direction and bringing in some fresh blood. Sarah Conner was always central to the franchise - one of the few action heroines of her era - and it feels very fitting that "Dark Fate" gives us more female characters in the same vein. The girl power messaging is obvious, but I didn't find it overbearing. There's also a lot of evoking of present day social issues - we start off in Mexico with several Spanish-speaking characters, one major scene takes place in a border detention facility, and another on a factory floor that's automating parts of its workflow. There's no direct commentary about these elements, so "Dark Fate" couldn't be called remotely political, but the movie's sympathies are pretty clear.
More explicitly and self-consciously a product of the #Metoo era is the new "Charlie's Angels," which sees its central premise reworked to expand the operations of "Charlie" and his Townsend Agency, which employs the Angels as private investigators. Now there are multiple Bosleys, recruiting and managing multiple teams of Angels around the world, who have access to all kinds of high tech gadgets and weaponry and other resources. The Angels are now more or less secret agents, righting wrongs that nobody else can. The movie focuses on two Angels, wild child Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and no-nonsense Jane (Ella Balinska), helping an engineer named Elena (Naomi Scott) stop her shady corporate bosses from weaponizing her latest invention. Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Honsou, and Patrick Stewart play various Bosleys handling most of the exposition and plotty bits.
Like the previous "Angels" movie series, this is an action-comedy, heavy on the fantasy wish-fulfillment. The ladies quip, tease each other, and enjoy themselves as they're saving the world. So while the girl power elements are much more prominent here, including an opening title montage literally showing little girls doing cool stuff, the messaging is also very lighthearted and accentuates the positive. While Elena gets talked over and minimized by her awful bosses (Nat Faxon and Sam Claflin), she's quickly recruited to go on secret missions and hang out with much cooler people. Nobody dwells on the misogyny of the villains, or puts the Angels in the position of having to explain or justify themselves. They just go and kick ass, and have some fun along the way. There's less camp and silliness than there was in the previous installments, but still plenty of energy and verve and snazzy spycraft.
It helps that this is a very appealing set of characters. Kristen Stewart is clearly having a ball being the loose cannon, Naomi Scott's bloody adorable, and Elizabeth Banks has just the right amount of world weary cynicism and maternal toughness. I like that the viewers get their backstories in bits and pieces, and are left to connect many of the dots themselves. I like that the leads have real chemistry with each other, and the banter actually works. I can't remember the last time I saw one of these girl-power action movies where the banter actually works. And there's still room for a little sexiness and glamour too.
Elizabeth Banks wrote, produced, and directed the movie, and deserves the bulk of the credit for its successes. This is a big step up from her work on "Pitch Perfect 2," and I hope she makes more films like it.
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"Terminator: Dark Fate" has the distinction of being the best installment of the "Terminator" franchise since "Terminator 2: Judgement Day," with James Cameron finally returning as a producer, and "Deadpool's" Tim Miller directing. More importantly, Linda Hamilton is back as Sarah Connor, still a hard-living vigilante, and still hunting down killer androids from the future after all this time. Arnold Schwarzenegger's back too, though I won't say in what capacity to preserve the story surprises. Just the presence of these two actors goes a long way towards connecting "Dark Fate" directly to the early "Terminator" movies, and helping us to forget the lows, and very lows of the franchise's past few misfires.
Sarah Connor joins forces with a cyborg soldier from the future named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), who is trying to protect a young woman named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) from a Terminator called the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna). We learn that Connor successfully defeated Skynet after the events of T2, but another AI called Legion ended up sparking the machine uprising instead. The new characters are solid, especially the enhanced human, Grace, who is central to most of the fight and action sequences in the early running. Hamilton gets a fantastic re-introduction here, but she's in her sixties and Arnold's in his seventies, and the special effects can only compensate for so much when it comes to the action. And boy, the "Dark Fate" action sequences are something to see, directly riffing off of famous sequences in "Terminator 2" with considerable success. Rev-9's big gimmick is that it's a liquid metal Terminator with a hard metal skeleton, and both components can act independently. This makes for some very cool visuals. "Dark Fate" is worth a watch for the spectacle alone.
As for the story, it's serviceable but not great. I expect some fans will be upset that the franchise abandons Skynet and much of the series' existing mythology. However, after so many convolutions of the timeline in previous movies, it's a relief to see them going in a new direction and bringing in some fresh blood. Sarah Conner was always central to the franchise - one of the few action heroines of her era - and it feels very fitting that "Dark Fate" gives us more female characters in the same vein. The girl power messaging is obvious, but I didn't find it overbearing. There's also a lot of evoking of present day social issues - we start off in Mexico with several Spanish-speaking characters, one major scene takes place in a border detention facility, and another on a factory floor that's automating parts of its workflow. There's no direct commentary about these elements, so "Dark Fate" couldn't be called remotely political, but the movie's sympathies are pretty clear.
More explicitly and self-consciously a product of the #Metoo era is the new "Charlie's Angels," which sees its central premise reworked to expand the operations of "Charlie" and his Townsend Agency, which employs the Angels as private investigators. Now there are multiple Bosleys, recruiting and managing multiple teams of Angels around the world, who have access to all kinds of high tech gadgets and weaponry and other resources. The Angels are now more or less secret agents, righting wrongs that nobody else can. The movie focuses on two Angels, wild child Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and no-nonsense Jane (Ella Balinska), helping an engineer named Elena (Naomi Scott) stop her shady corporate bosses from weaponizing her latest invention. Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Honsou, and Patrick Stewart play various Bosleys handling most of the exposition and plotty bits.
Like the previous "Angels" movie series, this is an action-comedy, heavy on the fantasy wish-fulfillment. The ladies quip, tease each other, and enjoy themselves as they're saving the world. So while the girl power elements are much more prominent here, including an opening title montage literally showing little girls doing cool stuff, the messaging is also very lighthearted and accentuates the positive. While Elena gets talked over and minimized by her awful bosses (Nat Faxon and Sam Claflin), she's quickly recruited to go on secret missions and hang out with much cooler people. Nobody dwells on the misogyny of the villains, or puts the Angels in the position of having to explain or justify themselves. They just go and kick ass, and have some fun along the way. There's less camp and silliness than there was in the previous installments, but still plenty of energy and verve and snazzy spycraft.
It helps that this is a very appealing set of characters. Kristen Stewart is clearly having a ball being the loose cannon, Naomi Scott's bloody adorable, and Elizabeth Banks has just the right amount of world weary cynicism and maternal toughness. I like that the viewers get their backstories in bits and pieces, and are left to connect many of the dots themselves. I like that the leads have real chemistry with each other, and the banter actually works. I can't remember the last time I saw one of these girl-power action movies where the banter actually works. And there's still room for a little sexiness and glamour too.
Elizabeth Banks wrote, produced, and directed the movie, and deserves the bulk of the credit for its successes. This is a big step up from her work on "Pitch Perfect 2," and I hope she makes more films like it.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2020
About that Harley Quinn Movie
When I was a kid, and liked to watch action and superhero cartoons, I noticed that there was always that episode that was designed to feature the show's female characters as the leads, often battling female villains. TVTropes calls this the "Girls' Night Out" episode, and in fact the animated '90s "Batman" series literally had one of these episodes titled "Girls' Night Out."
This is what "Birds of Prey" feels like to me, that one outing where the folks in charge of the DC Universe movies have decided to turn over the franchise to its female characters, to remind us all of how awesome they can be. And "Birds of Prey" occasionally has that same sort of feel of heavy pandering, self-conscious messaging, and deeply contrived circumstances that the old cartoons did. Note that despite the movie taking place in Gotham City, Batman and the Joker are nowhere in sight - though Joker is constantly namechecked, because he sets the events of "Birds of Prey" in motion by breaking up with our leading lady, Harley Quinn.
Harley (Margot Robbie) is in full anti-heroine mode, suddenly being pursued by a laundry list of enemies when the Joker's protection is withdrawn. She becomes involved in a messy situation where a young pickpocket, Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) has stolen a diamond from the crime boss Black Mask (Ewan MacGregor), and now there's a price on her head. Also in the mix are a police detective, Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), Black Mask's reluctant nightclub chanteuse/driver Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smolett-Bell), and a mysterious assassin who keeps showing up to snipe people with a crossbow (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Harley's initially only interested in saving her own skin, but discovers playing nice with others has its advantages.
The best thing I can say about "Birds of Prey" is that it occasionally got me to forget about Batman entirely. Margot Robbie energetically throws herself into the role of Harley, who serves as our very unreliable narrator, happily telling the story all out of order, going off on wild tangents, and keeping the film at a level of hyperactive zaniness we haven't seen in the "Batman" film universe since Joel Schumancher was in the director's chair. And this time around, it mostly works, because the film really commits to its campy madness, but is also deft enough to keep everything coherent and entertaining. If you're not a fan of Harley Quinn, this probably isn't a movie for you, because she dominates the narrative and comes on very strong. However, I like that the movie lets her be an R-rated villain and pain in the ass on her own terms.
The film also boasts strong action scenes, an array of fun performances, and a noticeably different take on a lot of familiar characters. The Gotham of "Birds of Prey" is a grungier, more eclectic place, populated by a more diverse cast. It recognizably shares DNA with parts of present day New York City, as Harley fetishizes bodega breakfast sandwiches, and lives above a sketchy Chinese takeout place. However, this is still a comic book movie and the filmmakers happily indulge in all the wild set design, garish costuming, and impossible fight choreography they can. So, you've got Ewan MacGregor in full sleazebag mode, wearing a shirt with a print of his own face on it, Harley weaponizing canisters of colored powder and glitter, and a hyena named Bruce in the mix. The finale takes place in an abandoned amusement park, of course, with action set pieces designed around carnival and funhouse visuals.
The movie is too much - too raucous, too whimsical, too aggressive and too silly. However, it's also much more fun than I was expecting. I've heard some complaints that "Birds of Prey" shouldn't have been R-rated because its target audience of Harley Quinn fans is mostly comprised of teenage girls. However, I like that the movie is harder edged and more mean-spirited than the mainstream "Batman" media right now. It helps the film feel just a little more transgressive and rude and biting in all the right ways. At the same time, director Cathy Yan keeps all the violence and abuse from slipping into more troubling territory.
Harley pines after Mr. J, but only up to a point. When the time comes to kick ass, it's gratifying that she doesn't hold back. And yes, the movie is a "Girl's Night Out" episode at its core, but it's also one of the few high points of the modern DC film series so far.
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This is what "Birds of Prey" feels like to me, that one outing where the folks in charge of the DC Universe movies have decided to turn over the franchise to its female characters, to remind us all of how awesome they can be. And "Birds of Prey" occasionally has that same sort of feel of heavy pandering, self-conscious messaging, and deeply contrived circumstances that the old cartoons did. Note that despite the movie taking place in Gotham City, Batman and the Joker are nowhere in sight - though Joker is constantly namechecked, because he sets the events of "Birds of Prey" in motion by breaking up with our leading lady, Harley Quinn.
Harley (Margot Robbie) is in full anti-heroine mode, suddenly being pursued by a laundry list of enemies when the Joker's protection is withdrawn. She becomes involved in a messy situation where a young pickpocket, Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) has stolen a diamond from the crime boss Black Mask (Ewan MacGregor), and now there's a price on her head. Also in the mix are a police detective, Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), Black Mask's reluctant nightclub chanteuse/driver Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smolett-Bell), and a mysterious assassin who keeps showing up to snipe people with a crossbow (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Harley's initially only interested in saving her own skin, but discovers playing nice with others has its advantages.
The best thing I can say about "Birds of Prey" is that it occasionally got me to forget about Batman entirely. Margot Robbie energetically throws herself into the role of Harley, who serves as our very unreliable narrator, happily telling the story all out of order, going off on wild tangents, and keeping the film at a level of hyperactive zaniness we haven't seen in the "Batman" film universe since Joel Schumancher was in the director's chair. And this time around, it mostly works, because the film really commits to its campy madness, but is also deft enough to keep everything coherent and entertaining. If you're not a fan of Harley Quinn, this probably isn't a movie for you, because she dominates the narrative and comes on very strong. However, I like that the movie lets her be an R-rated villain and pain in the ass on her own terms.
The film also boasts strong action scenes, an array of fun performances, and a noticeably different take on a lot of familiar characters. The Gotham of "Birds of Prey" is a grungier, more eclectic place, populated by a more diverse cast. It recognizably shares DNA with parts of present day New York City, as Harley fetishizes bodega breakfast sandwiches, and lives above a sketchy Chinese takeout place. However, this is still a comic book movie and the filmmakers happily indulge in all the wild set design, garish costuming, and impossible fight choreography they can. So, you've got Ewan MacGregor in full sleazebag mode, wearing a shirt with a print of his own face on it, Harley weaponizing canisters of colored powder and glitter, and a hyena named Bruce in the mix. The finale takes place in an abandoned amusement park, of course, with action set pieces designed around carnival and funhouse visuals.
The movie is too much - too raucous, too whimsical, too aggressive and too silly. However, it's also much more fun than I was expecting. I've heard some complaints that "Birds of Prey" shouldn't have been R-rated because its target audience of Harley Quinn fans is mostly comprised of teenage girls. However, I like that the movie is harder edged and more mean-spirited than the mainstream "Batman" media right now. It helps the film feel just a little more transgressive and rude and biting in all the right ways. At the same time, director Cathy Yan keeps all the violence and abuse from slipping into more troubling territory.
Harley pines after Mr. J, but only up to a point. When the time comes to kick ass, it's gratifying that she doesn't hold back. And yes, the movie is a "Girl's Night Out" episode at its core, but it's also one of the few high points of the modern DC film series so far.
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Saturday, May 23, 2020
What Bothers Me About "Evil"
After being recommended CBS's supernatural crime procedural "Evil" multiple times by multiple people, I watched the first two episodes. And I came to the conclusion pretty quickly that they were pretty good and absolutely not for me. I understand why people thought this would be a show I would like. I'm a big "X-files" fan and I'm an especially big Agent Scully fan. The main character of "Evil" is the outwardly similar Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), a forensic psychologist and working mom who is recruited by the Catholic Church to investigate claims of supernatural activity such as possessions and miracles. She works with a priest in training, David Acosta (Mike Colter), and an atheist technical expert, Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi).
On a surface level, the show tries to balance the views of the skeptics and the believers. More often than not there's a rational explanation for supernatural activity in each week's case - technical glitches, medical anomalies, and plenty of human error and wishful thinking. The first episode's possible demon possession is being faked by the episode's baddie. However, much like "The X-files," it's made very clear that this is a universe where the supernatural exists and actively affects everyday people. Kristen experiences disturbing night terrors where she's visited by a chatty demon named George (Marti Matulis). The show's real world big bad is Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), a cartoonishly evil psychopath who is guided by demons to enable others to follow their worst impulses. And by the second episode he's already wormed his way into the District Attorney's employ to wreak havoc on the justice system.
It's ironic, but the show's overtures toward even-handedness are what's putting me off the most strongly. I have no issue with religious supernatural shows featuring demons and angels. I have no issue with crime procedurals. I do like that sometimes the culprit is just regular old social ills, bad mental health, or human prejudice. However, I feel like "Evil" is being coy and trying to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability about its supernatural themes that is misleading. I mean, "The X-files" was always clearly on Mulder's side, and Scully's skeptical explanations were mostly a storytelling device to further along Mulder's theorizing about the Flukeman or Shroomdude of the week. "Evil" showing that sometimes science does have the answers just seems to emphasize that sometimes science doesn't, which strikes me as a troubling message. If you're going to be a fantasy show, just embrace being a fantasy show.
Part of my negative reaction is also due to me having watched these episodes right after seeing Netflix's "Horse Girl," which had a great parody of a supernatural crime procedural, not too unlike "Evil." The heroine of "Horse Girl" was obsessed with the parody show, and it fed into her growing inability to tell reality from fiction as she experienced a mental break and destructive downward spiral. I'm not trying to suggest that the creators of "Evil" have any particular nefarious aims in making a program that puts forth some themes of scientific skepticism. However, it does bother me that the show maintains such a paranoid atmosphere and puts so much emphasis on questioning rational systems of inquiry, while clearly not being all that scientifically rigorous. It makes the whole thing feel a little disingenuous and distasteful.
To its credit, "Evil" is a very well made piece of genre television. Episodes are fun and exciting, with content that pushes at the usual restrictions of network television. There's some real intensity to the shocks, disturbing themes and outcomes, and the pilot features George cutting Kristen's fingers off in a dream sequence. The leads are tremendously appealing - Katja Herbers has no trouble selling all the contradictory parts of Kristen, I'm so relieved to see Mike Coulter in something so high profile after "Luke Cage" ended, and Michael Emerson in anything is always a treat.
Part of me wishes I could just turn off those nagging parts of my brain that keep seeing the problematic parts of the show, and just enjoy the slick, goofy melodrama for what it is. However, there's an awful lot of television out there, and plenty of other wacky demon horrors if I'm in the mood for them. Speaking of which, I'll be trying the adaptation of Stephen King's "The Outsider" next.
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On a surface level, the show tries to balance the views of the skeptics and the believers. More often than not there's a rational explanation for supernatural activity in each week's case - technical glitches, medical anomalies, and plenty of human error and wishful thinking. The first episode's possible demon possession is being faked by the episode's baddie. However, much like "The X-files," it's made very clear that this is a universe where the supernatural exists and actively affects everyday people. Kristen experiences disturbing night terrors where she's visited by a chatty demon named George (Marti Matulis). The show's real world big bad is Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), a cartoonishly evil psychopath who is guided by demons to enable others to follow their worst impulses. And by the second episode he's already wormed his way into the District Attorney's employ to wreak havoc on the justice system.
It's ironic, but the show's overtures toward even-handedness are what's putting me off the most strongly. I have no issue with religious supernatural shows featuring demons and angels. I have no issue with crime procedurals. I do like that sometimes the culprit is just regular old social ills, bad mental health, or human prejudice. However, I feel like "Evil" is being coy and trying to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability about its supernatural themes that is misleading. I mean, "The X-files" was always clearly on Mulder's side, and Scully's skeptical explanations were mostly a storytelling device to further along Mulder's theorizing about the Flukeman or Shroomdude of the week. "Evil" showing that sometimes science does have the answers just seems to emphasize that sometimes science doesn't, which strikes me as a troubling message. If you're going to be a fantasy show, just embrace being a fantasy show.
Part of my negative reaction is also due to me having watched these episodes right after seeing Netflix's "Horse Girl," which had a great parody of a supernatural crime procedural, not too unlike "Evil." The heroine of "Horse Girl" was obsessed with the parody show, and it fed into her growing inability to tell reality from fiction as she experienced a mental break and destructive downward spiral. I'm not trying to suggest that the creators of "Evil" have any particular nefarious aims in making a program that puts forth some themes of scientific skepticism. However, it does bother me that the show maintains such a paranoid atmosphere and puts so much emphasis on questioning rational systems of inquiry, while clearly not being all that scientifically rigorous. It makes the whole thing feel a little disingenuous and distasteful.
To its credit, "Evil" is a very well made piece of genre television. Episodes are fun and exciting, with content that pushes at the usual restrictions of network television. There's some real intensity to the shocks, disturbing themes and outcomes, and the pilot features George cutting Kristen's fingers off in a dream sequence. The leads are tremendously appealing - Katja Herbers has no trouble selling all the contradictory parts of Kristen, I'm so relieved to see Mike Coulter in something so high profile after "Luke Cage" ended, and Michael Emerson in anything is always a treat.
Part of me wishes I could just turn off those nagging parts of my brain that keep seeing the problematic parts of the show, and just enjoy the slick, goofy melodrama for what it is. However, there's an awful lot of television out there, and plenty of other wacky demon horrors if I'm in the mood for them. Speaking of which, I'll be trying the adaptation of Stephen King's "The Outsider" next.
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Thursday, May 21, 2020
"Locke & Key," Year One
I've always had a penchant for the lost causes, and I guess "Locke & Key" is the latest one. The beloved comics series penned by Joe Hill has been on the verge of being adapted as a film or series for nearly a decade. It came very close twice, before Netflix finally got a ten-episode series produced. However, this clearly isn't the adaptation many of the comic's fans were hoping for. Instead of a gloomy horror piece, "Locke & Key" is now a teen-centric adventure series.
The Locke family consists of mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), older teenage son Tyler (Connor Jessup), teenage daughter Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and precocious younger son Bode (Jackson Robert Scott). They're uprooted from Seattle after the traumatic death of the Locke patriarch, Rendell (Bill Heck), to move to the Lockes' old homestead, Key House, in Massachusetts. Bode quickly discovers that Key House is full of magical keys that convey all kinds of magical powers. The Anywhere Key can open a door to any location. The Ghost Key can let you leave your body and become a phantom. However, there's also a lurking, nasty presence, who Bode dubs "The Well Lady" (Laysla De Oliveira), who wants to get her hands on the keys and use them for her own ends.
There's a lot of tonal clash from the outset. Bode's fun to watch as a curious kid who jumps headfirst into all the magic and danger of experimenting with the keys. Unfortunately, he's not the main character most of the time. We also have Tyler and Kinsey grappling with adolescent angst and relationship troubles, while their mother digs into their father's secretive past. Depending on what scene you're watching, "Locke & Key" feels like "Harry Potter," a CW supernatural teen soap, or a Lifetime mystery thriller. And then there's a villain who is too powerful and too far ahead of the game than anyone else. And the frustration of the Lockes consistently failing to communicate important information to each other.
I like the premise fine, and there are a lot of interesting ideas and mysteries to pick apart. However, the narrative isn't constructed well, and feels amateurish and sloppy in ways that can't simply be chalked up to the story being adapted for a younger audience or to fit a lighter tone. A big problem is the pacing, which doggedly insists on introducing one or two keys per episode, and spending endless scenes with Kinsey reluctantly getting to know budding filmmaker Scot (Petrice Jones), or Tyler cozying up to a girl named Jackie (Genevieve Kang). The teen melodrama wouldn't be so bad in smaller doses, or if it were tied into the plot more, but the high school material often feels like filler, designed to stretch the series out to ten episodes. I noticed multiple scenes with a lot of dead space and extraneous dialogue, and I suspect that you could cut about ten minutes out of each episode without anyone noticing. And dear god, some of the teen blather is so deadly dull, it made me miss Joss Whedon and his crew something fierce.
And it's a shame, because Netflix clearly committed some serious resources to "Locke & Key." The set design is great, and Key House looks amazing. The individual keys have been lovingly designed and do suitably fantastic things involving all sorts of fancy effects work. My favorite is the Head Key, which allows the holder to enter the minds of people as if they were physical places - Bode's mind is designed like a funhouse, and Kinsey's looks like a shopping mall. However, the series also commits one of the classic blunders - it has all these magical concepts set up and never uses most of them in any meaningful way. The finale is full of glaring plot holes and convenient Macguffins that make all the characters involved come across as forgetful idiots. As a result, the basic thrills and chills never really work.
It's hard not to wonder how "Locke & Key" might have fared in other hands. Then again, the existing version isn't unsalvageable. In fact, it's so close to being something good and compelling, it's irresistible to want to nitpick all the little flaws and wrong turns that it makes. And the show is entertaining in fits and starts, and Petrice Jones is charming as hell. This one clearly should have stayed on the drawing board a lot longer, but I'm glad the creators took their shot. It's a miss, but it's a well-intentioned miss.
---
The Locke family consists of mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), older teenage son Tyler (Connor Jessup), teenage daughter Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and precocious younger son Bode (Jackson Robert Scott). They're uprooted from Seattle after the traumatic death of the Locke patriarch, Rendell (Bill Heck), to move to the Lockes' old homestead, Key House, in Massachusetts. Bode quickly discovers that Key House is full of magical keys that convey all kinds of magical powers. The Anywhere Key can open a door to any location. The Ghost Key can let you leave your body and become a phantom. However, there's also a lurking, nasty presence, who Bode dubs "The Well Lady" (Laysla De Oliveira), who wants to get her hands on the keys and use them for her own ends.
There's a lot of tonal clash from the outset. Bode's fun to watch as a curious kid who jumps headfirst into all the magic and danger of experimenting with the keys. Unfortunately, he's not the main character most of the time. We also have Tyler and Kinsey grappling with adolescent angst and relationship troubles, while their mother digs into their father's secretive past. Depending on what scene you're watching, "Locke & Key" feels like "Harry Potter," a CW supernatural teen soap, or a Lifetime mystery thriller. And then there's a villain who is too powerful and too far ahead of the game than anyone else. And the frustration of the Lockes consistently failing to communicate important information to each other.
I like the premise fine, and there are a lot of interesting ideas and mysteries to pick apart. However, the narrative isn't constructed well, and feels amateurish and sloppy in ways that can't simply be chalked up to the story being adapted for a younger audience or to fit a lighter tone. A big problem is the pacing, which doggedly insists on introducing one or two keys per episode, and spending endless scenes with Kinsey reluctantly getting to know budding filmmaker Scot (Petrice Jones), or Tyler cozying up to a girl named Jackie (Genevieve Kang). The teen melodrama wouldn't be so bad in smaller doses, or if it were tied into the plot more, but the high school material often feels like filler, designed to stretch the series out to ten episodes. I noticed multiple scenes with a lot of dead space and extraneous dialogue, and I suspect that you could cut about ten minutes out of each episode without anyone noticing. And dear god, some of the teen blather is so deadly dull, it made me miss Joss Whedon and his crew something fierce.
And it's a shame, because Netflix clearly committed some serious resources to "Locke & Key." The set design is great, and Key House looks amazing. The individual keys have been lovingly designed and do suitably fantastic things involving all sorts of fancy effects work. My favorite is the Head Key, which allows the holder to enter the minds of people as if they were physical places - Bode's mind is designed like a funhouse, and Kinsey's looks like a shopping mall. However, the series also commits one of the classic blunders - it has all these magical concepts set up and never uses most of them in any meaningful way. The finale is full of glaring plot holes and convenient Macguffins that make all the characters involved come across as forgetful idiots. As a result, the basic thrills and chills never really work.
It's hard not to wonder how "Locke & Key" might have fared in other hands. Then again, the existing version isn't unsalvageable. In fact, it's so close to being something good and compelling, it's irresistible to want to nitpick all the little flaws and wrong turns that it makes. And the show is entertaining in fits and starts, and Petrice Jones is charming as hell. This one clearly should have stayed on the drawing board a lot longer, but I'm glad the creators took their shot. It's a miss, but it's a well-intentioned miss.
---
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
My Top Ten Films of 1967
This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.
The Graduate - And here's to you, Mike Nichols and Buck Henry, for giving us Benjamin Braddock, hero of the post-grad Boomers in crisis, grappling with the unknown future and tricky generational divides. And for giving Dustin Hoffman his first major screen outing. Fifty years on, it's still hard to quantify the sense of preppy West Coast satire, outsider ennui, and black humor that make this such a striking piece of work. Back in 1967, it was exactly the right movie for exactly the right moment, but it still hits a nerve today. It's become such a part of the culture, I can't imagine where we'd be without it.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? - The film's attitudes toward race and its kid-glove treatment of the too-perfect interracial couple were already considered retrograde at the time of the film's release, and some critics weren't too kind to the film. However, I find it impossible to not be moved by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn's final appearance on screen together. The movie simply would not work without their inimitable presence and their history. And while I don't think Katherine Hepburn really deserved that Oscar win, I'm glad that it propelled her to many better roles.
Dragon Inn - One of the classics of the Wuxia genre from King Hu, a feature that beautifully juggles multiple characters, many different action and suspense sequences, and makes great use of its iconic location. "Dragon Inn" has been remade twice over the years with far more elaborate productions, but the original remains a touchstone because of its strong core story and conflicts, fuelling the dazzling action. All the different versions are worth watching, since they all manage to find a different take on the material. I'm stunned that no one has tried reworking this one as a Western yet.
Playtime - The most ambitious film project that Jacques Tati ever pulled off, involving some of the most complicated and large scale comedy sequences ever filmed. Essentially an entire city, "Tativille," was constructed for this purpose, allowing Tati's whimsical and stylized design choices to ascend to new heights. The film itself is really a series of sketches, some of them packed with multiple stories and sight gags all unfolding at once. The nightclub sequence runs fifty minutes by itself, nearly the entire second half of the film. It's a comedy that fully embraces spectacle, and it's magnificent.
Le Samourai - Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece, a character portrait of a peculiar hit-man who operates by his own personal code of behavior and morality. It's a film full of silences and ellipses, spinning its mysteries with spartan sets and Alain Delon's minimalist performance. It's also a film of great precision, each element perfectly chosen and executed to create an atmosphere of rising tension and anticipation. Our hero, Jef Costello, is an icon of cool, with his flawless gangster image and perfectly neutral detachment. There have been many imitators, but nobody quite matches the original.
Samurai Rebellion - Masaki Kobayashi is a lesser known Japanese director, though his films, especially his samurai films, rival any of his contemporaries. Here he casts Toshiro Mifune as his aging hero, a loyal samurai driven to rebellion and insurrection in the wake of cruel injustices to his family. Despite the title and the amount of bloody action, this is a film driven by its characters' domestic struggles and family relationships. Much of Kobayashi's work had anti-establishment themes, and here he pits the demands of family loyalty against those of a rigid social order, to fantastic, moving effect.
Wait Until Dark - It's a long, slow build to get to the thrills and chills, but when the climax comes, it's a real scream. Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who is being targeted by a trio of menacing criminals, resulting in one of the tensest home invasion films ever made. I love that it's totally a genre film, not particularly concerned with character depth or plausibility. Hepburn is the goodiest of goodies, Alan Arkin is the nasties of baddies, and director Terence Young takes full advantage of the film's conceits - particularly the famous blackout sequence - to bring the audience to the brink.
Two For the Road - And on the other opposite end of the spectrum we have another Audrey Hepburn film, this one a bittersweet melodrama about the end of a couple's relationship juxtaposed with its beginning. The non-linear narrative and travelogue format were unorthodox storytelling choices at the time, but it's the psychological complexity of the characters and the performances that are really a break from form. Stanley Donen ensures that "Two For the Road" looks like the typical, beautiful Hollywood picture, but the love story that he tells is something truer to the real world.
The Young Girls of Rochefort - Jacques Demy's tribute to the big Hollywood style musical is an effervescent, colorful confection that tracks the stories of multiple young people looking for love. Michel Legrande's music is jazzy and impossible to get out of your head. Catherine Deneauve and Francoise Dorleac are the perfect, carefree leading ladies. Gene Kelly doesn't look a day older than when he made "An American in Paris." The scale of the production is occasionally too much for the filmmakers, but they also pull off some truly memorable feats of cinema.
In the Heat of the Night - As a detective story, "In the Heat of the Night" is well executed, but nothing special. As an examination of race relations and a showcase for the talents of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, it's clear to see why this one left an impression. From the Quincy Jones arranged soundtrack to the Haskell Wexler cinematography, this is a film that is determined to subvert the accepted way of doing things and establish its own voice. At the same time, director Norman Jewison ensures that it's such a crowd-pleaser that the strident social messaging actually works in its favor.
Honorable Mention
Bonnie and Clyde
---
The Graduate - And here's to you, Mike Nichols and Buck Henry, for giving us Benjamin Braddock, hero of the post-grad Boomers in crisis, grappling with the unknown future and tricky generational divides. And for giving Dustin Hoffman his first major screen outing. Fifty years on, it's still hard to quantify the sense of preppy West Coast satire, outsider ennui, and black humor that make this such a striking piece of work. Back in 1967, it was exactly the right movie for exactly the right moment, but it still hits a nerve today. It's become such a part of the culture, I can't imagine where we'd be without it.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? - The film's attitudes toward race and its kid-glove treatment of the too-perfect interracial couple were already considered retrograde at the time of the film's release, and some critics weren't too kind to the film. However, I find it impossible to not be moved by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn's final appearance on screen together. The movie simply would not work without their inimitable presence and their history. And while I don't think Katherine Hepburn really deserved that Oscar win, I'm glad that it propelled her to many better roles.
Dragon Inn - One of the classics of the Wuxia genre from King Hu, a feature that beautifully juggles multiple characters, many different action and suspense sequences, and makes great use of its iconic location. "Dragon Inn" has been remade twice over the years with far more elaborate productions, but the original remains a touchstone because of its strong core story and conflicts, fuelling the dazzling action. All the different versions are worth watching, since they all manage to find a different take on the material. I'm stunned that no one has tried reworking this one as a Western yet.
Playtime - The most ambitious film project that Jacques Tati ever pulled off, involving some of the most complicated and large scale comedy sequences ever filmed. Essentially an entire city, "Tativille," was constructed for this purpose, allowing Tati's whimsical and stylized design choices to ascend to new heights. The film itself is really a series of sketches, some of them packed with multiple stories and sight gags all unfolding at once. The nightclub sequence runs fifty minutes by itself, nearly the entire second half of the film. It's a comedy that fully embraces spectacle, and it's magnificent.
Le Samourai - Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece, a character portrait of a peculiar hit-man who operates by his own personal code of behavior and morality. It's a film full of silences and ellipses, spinning its mysteries with spartan sets and Alain Delon's minimalist performance. It's also a film of great precision, each element perfectly chosen and executed to create an atmosphere of rising tension and anticipation. Our hero, Jef Costello, is an icon of cool, with his flawless gangster image and perfectly neutral detachment. There have been many imitators, but nobody quite matches the original.
Samurai Rebellion - Masaki Kobayashi is a lesser known Japanese director, though his films, especially his samurai films, rival any of his contemporaries. Here he casts Toshiro Mifune as his aging hero, a loyal samurai driven to rebellion and insurrection in the wake of cruel injustices to his family. Despite the title and the amount of bloody action, this is a film driven by its characters' domestic struggles and family relationships. Much of Kobayashi's work had anti-establishment themes, and here he pits the demands of family loyalty against those of a rigid social order, to fantastic, moving effect.
Wait Until Dark - It's a long, slow build to get to the thrills and chills, but when the climax comes, it's a real scream. Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who is being targeted by a trio of menacing criminals, resulting in one of the tensest home invasion films ever made. I love that it's totally a genre film, not particularly concerned with character depth or plausibility. Hepburn is the goodiest of goodies, Alan Arkin is the nasties of baddies, and director Terence Young takes full advantage of the film's conceits - particularly the famous blackout sequence - to bring the audience to the brink.
Two For the Road - And on the other opposite end of the spectrum we have another Audrey Hepburn film, this one a bittersweet melodrama about the end of a couple's relationship juxtaposed with its beginning. The non-linear narrative and travelogue format were unorthodox storytelling choices at the time, but it's the psychological complexity of the characters and the performances that are really a break from form. Stanley Donen ensures that "Two For the Road" looks like the typical, beautiful Hollywood picture, but the love story that he tells is something truer to the real world.
The Young Girls of Rochefort - Jacques Demy's tribute to the big Hollywood style musical is an effervescent, colorful confection that tracks the stories of multiple young people looking for love. Michel Legrande's music is jazzy and impossible to get out of your head. Catherine Deneauve and Francoise Dorleac are the perfect, carefree leading ladies. Gene Kelly doesn't look a day older than when he made "An American in Paris." The scale of the production is occasionally too much for the filmmakers, but they also pull off some truly memorable feats of cinema.
In the Heat of the Night - As a detective story, "In the Heat of the Night" is well executed, but nothing special. As an examination of race relations and a showcase for the talents of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, it's clear to see why this one left an impression. From the Quincy Jones arranged soundtrack to the Haskell Wexler cinematography, this is a film that is determined to subvert the accepted way of doing things and establish its own voice. At the same time, director Norman Jewison ensures that it's such a crowd-pleaser that the strident social messaging actually works in its favor.
Honorable Mention
Bonnie and Clyde
---
Sunday, May 17, 2020
My Favorite Jean-Pierre Melville Film
Jean-Pierre Melville's work was an important precursor to the French New Wave, with his love of film noir and his coolly stylish sensibilities. Heavily influenced by American gangster pictures of the 1930s and 1940s, he became France's greatest director of hard-boiled crime dramas. He was even known to dress the part, often seen in raincoats, a Stetson, and obscuring dark glasses. In his early days he acquired a reputation for being a filmmaking maverick, working independent of the French studio system, preferring amateur actors, and using unorthodox filmmaking techniques, like using natural lighting and shooting on location.
Over time, however, as Melville found greater success and embraced larger budgets and mainstream acting talent, a strong sense of lyricism and stylization emerged in his work. Nowhere was this more apparent than with "Le Samouraï," one of Melville's later films. The opening scenes contain no dialogue, simply looking in on the apartment of the hero, Jef Costello, played by Alain Delon. He has an American name and a preoccupation with the Orient. You understand his psyche just by looking at his environs: minimalist, quiet, spare, and exact. The palette is all cool blues and grays. The delicate notes of a lilting main theme and chirps form his pet bird, however, make it clear that Costello is also very much in possession of a romantic soul, one hidden beneath a placid exterior and a long history of violent deeds. We soon learn that he works as a hit-man, executing his jobs with careful skill and precision, but his life unravels when he's betrayed by his employers.
Jef Costello is an extraordinary film character, a criminal employed by the underworld, and yet also a man of consummate professionalism. The image he presents to the world is perfect, never a stitch out of place nor a movement wasted. We first see him smoking in bed, not resting, but simply waiting. His handsome face barely expresses any emotion, and yet it's hard to take your eyes off him. Costello's actions speak for him, his detached demeanor and his coldly flippant exchanges of dialogue with other characters. It's fun to watch him play cat and mouse with the cops, including a vociferous police inspector who is as impassioned as Costello is aloof. The film follows its protagonist's lead, meticulously observing how he carries out his work, step by step. Later, the same care is taken in showing us how the cops set up surveillance and bug Costello's apartment.
The pacing is deliberate, but never slow. There's some violence, but far more tension, slowly escalating from scene to scene. And while the usual trappings of a gangster picture are all present and accounted for - the cops, the girlfriend, the chases, and the complicated double-crosses - the primary conflict is totally internal, playing out in Delon's silences and the ellipses of his performance. Perhaps the most shocking action he undertakes is the simple act of a man putting on a pair of gloves. Costello has a loyal girlfriend, Jane, played by Delon's wife Nathalie, but their connection appears to be tenuous - perhaps only convenient. It's his relationship with the elusive dark-skinned pianist, played by Cathy Rosier, that dominates the narrative. She evokes all his guilt and compassion, perhaps representing another outsider he feels kinship for, or simply a line that his personal code will not allow to be crossed.
The original ending of the film had Costello finally show emotion, but Melville nixed it because Delon had previously made a film with a similar resolution. I'm glad that he did, because so much of the power of Jef Costello is the ambiguity of his nature and the mystery of his motives. Only an opening quote from a fictional Book of Bushido hints at his internal philosophy and state of mind. Over the years, "Le Samouraï" has influenced a fair number of imitators and homages, and they've almost all made the mistake of making their heroes more relatable to the audience, and their reasons for their actions more explicit. Jef Costello, however, remains one of cinema's most intriguing enigmas.
So Melville's gangster films were love letters to American cinema, but only up to a point. In reflecting their director's spiritual and poetic aims, I find most of them very French films. And still wonderfully vital ones at that.
What I've Seen - Jean-Pierre Melville
Les Enfants Terribles (1950)
Bob le Flambeur (1956)
Léon Morin, Priest (1961)
Le Doulos (1963)
Le Deuxième Souffle (1966)
Le Samouraï (1967)
Army of Shadows (1969)
Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
---
Over time, however, as Melville found greater success and embraced larger budgets and mainstream acting talent, a strong sense of lyricism and stylization emerged in his work. Nowhere was this more apparent than with "Le Samouraï," one of Melville's later films. The opening scenes contain no dialogue, simply looking in on the apartment of the hero, Jef Costello, played by Alain Delon. He has an American name and a preoccupation with the Orient. You understand his psyche just by looking at his environs: minimalist, quiet, spare, and exact. The palette is all cool blues and grays. The delicate notes of a lilting main theme and chirps form his pet bird, however, make it clear that Costello is also very much in possession of a romantic soul, one hidden beneath a placid exterior and a long history of violent deeds. We soon learn that he works as a hit-man, executing his jobs with careful skill and precision, but his life unravels when he's betrayed by his employers.
Jef Costello is an extraordinary film character, a criminal employed by the underworld, and yet also a man of consummate professionalism. The image he presents to the world is perfect, never a stitch out of place nor a movement wasted. We first see him smoking in bed, not resting, but simply waiting. His handsome face barely expresses any emotion, and yet it's hard to take your eyes off him. Costello's actions speak for him, his detached demeanor and his coldly flippant exchanges of dialogue with other characters. It's fun to watch him play cat and mouse with the cops, including a vociferous police inspector who is as impassioned as Costello is aloof. The film follows its protagonist's lead, meticulously observing how he carries out his work, step by step. Later, the same care is taken in showing us how the cops set up surveillance and bug Costello's apartment.
The pacing is deliberate, but never slow. There's some violence, but far more tension, slowly escalating from scene to scene. And while the usual trappings of a gangster picture are all present and accounted for - the cops, the girlfriend, the chases, and the complicated double-crosses - the primary conflict is totally internal, playing out in Delon's silences and the ellipses of his performance. Perhaps the most shocking action he undertakes is the simple act of a man putting on a pair of gloves. Costello has a loyal girlfriend, Jane, played by Delon's wife Nathalie, but their connection appears to be tenuous - perhaps only convenient. It's his relationship with the elusive dark-skinned pianist, played by Cathy Rosier, that dominates the narrative. She evokes all his guilt and compassion, perhaps representing another outsider he feels kinship for, or simply a line that his personal code will not allow to be crossed.
The original ending of the film had Costello finally show emotion, but Melville nixed it because Delon had previously made a film with a similar resolution. I'm glad that he did, because so much of the power of Jef Costello is the ambiguity of his nature and the mystery of his motives. Only an opening quote from a fictional Book of Bushido hints at his internal philosophy and state of mind. Over the years, "Le Samouraï" has influenced a fair number of imitators and homages, and they've almost all made the mistake of making their heroes more relatable to the audience, and their reasons for their actions more explicit. Jef Costello, however, remains one of cinema's most intriguing enigmas.
So Melville's gangster films were love letters to American cinema, but only up to a point. In reflecting their director's spiritual and poetic aims, I find most of them very French films. And still wonderfully vital ones at that.
What I've Seen - Jean-Pierre Melville
Les Enfants Terribles (1950)
Bob le Flambeur (1956)
Léon Morin, Priest (1961)
Le Doulos (1963)
Le Deuxième Souffle (1966)
Le Samouraï (1967)
Army of Shadows (1969)
Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
---
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