Ghosts... of the Civil Dead

Ghosts... of the Civil Dead - 1988 - 93 minutes - Directed by John Hillcoat
Starring David Field, Mike Bishop, Chris DeRose, Kevin Mackey, Dave Mason, Nick Cave

Ghosts... of the Civil Dead is a dark, harrowing pre-cursor to Hillcoat's later work, utilizing documentary style techniques to illustrate the devastation wrought by and against prisoners in an Australian maximum security prison. The film is unwavering in its depiction of such brutal events that the audience is stunned by both Hillcoat's willingness to bring us into this filthy, unsympathetic world of disgust and exploitation, as well as his ability to bring beauty to its cold and menacing exteriors. The prison itself is a monument to progress, at least to the 1980's idea of progress, the only thing more commonly shown than clunky digital read outs is the rampant pornography, the constant need for sexual release abated by continuous stimulation. The prisoners are drunk on what is one of their few remaining outlets, and as the powers that be remove their possessions, their access to media, and their drugs, they become startlingly sober and aware of a world that has been crafted specifically against their better interests.The system's intentions have been corroded so deeply and so thoroughly that it now instigates violence through a combination of deprivation and aggravation, mixing the general population of the prison with the psychotics, no better exemplified than by Nick Cave's Maynard, a sickening racist psychopath whose singular trait is an abrasive need for attention, exercised so repeatedly that he drives other inmates into a frantic state of paranoia. While the film has no traditional protagonist, we can feel Hillcoat's sympathy is blatantly on the side of the prisoners and the guards, the pawns in a power struggle occurring far from the film's setting. Manipulation is evident in every frame of the film, from the system's outrageous demands which applies enough pressure as to force the general population to fragment, forming assassination squads and carrying out various misdeeds.

Hillcoat's take on the prison system is a remarkable one for its breadth, he (along with co-writers Cave, Gene Conkie, Evan English and Hugo Race) approaches the inherent corruption of authority with an understandably bleak perspective, one which refuses to allow any wiggle room for the difficulty of the prevailing political climate. In Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, he submits to the belief that the political machinations behind all systems of government are selfish, morally bankrupt institutions which are more malicious than the worst criminals Australian society has to offer (Australia here working quite well as a stand-in for every nation where justice is tied in with profit). As the film progresses this vision becomes increasingly harrowing and those elements which begin the film as untrustworthy or as unstable are soon out of control, chaotic representatives of a damaged whole.

The film's mise-en-scene is particularly striking, Hillcoat striving for singular images which stick out in the mind as opposed to completely naturalistic sequences. His usage of surveillance footage combined with documentary style close ups combine to advance his thematic concerns, and while this style can put quite a strain on the narrative, Hillcoat side-steps this obstacle by developing an almost intuitive rhythmic balance, alternating between the visibly artificial and the wholly realistic. Where the film fails, however, is in its approach to the more climactic sequences where tension is amplified considerably with the threat of violence, violence which largely appears explosive. Although we get a sense in at least two sequences of the kind of vulnerability those who are confined are subject to, this vulnerability is never combined with the more frantic scenes, nullifying what could've been a powerful effect on certain centerpiece action scenes.For a first feature Ghosts... of the Civil Dead is exemplary of the kind of innovative cinema which I relish, the perfect usage of the kind of freedom few filmmakers have once establishing their reputation. While not as stunning or as cohesive as The Proposition, nor as relentless and eloquent as The Road, Ghosts... of the Civil Dead is powerful filmmaking from a very confident, sure-footed young director. At no point does the film seem indecisive, or even remotely cautious. Hillcoat refuses to play it safe, and when dealing with such a divisive issue this is often the best approach. Ghosts... of the Civil Dead works for several reasons, from Hillcoat's strong composition to the universally excellent acting (accentuated by the multitude of performances from real ex-convicts, prison guards and the like), from the exhaustive dialogue to the mish-mash of visual styles. An eclectic mix but one which is more than effective.
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Ghosts of the Civil Dead at Amazon.

Michael Shannon on My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done

"This is not a guy who would have a very sophisticated point of view. I mean, he ran a sword through his mother’s chest."
-Michael Shannon

The Road

The Road - 2009 - 112 minutes - Directed by John Hillcoat
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Michael K. Williams, Robert Duvall, Garret Dillahunt, Guy Pearce

John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's award winning novel The Road is about as excellent a film as that equation suggests. What is lost of McCarthy's sparse, almost indifferent prose is something which lies between the narrative and the dialogue, something more abstract and immaterial than could be transferred to the screen. Luckily, Hillcoat recognizes the loss of the poetics and compensates the viewer with his own visual take on the source material, never really deviating in structure from the book thanks to its already strong plotting, but delving into the extremely bleak and disheartening material with no hesitation. While Hillcoat's reliance on flashbacks have been questioned by some, I found the contrast between The Man (Viggo Mortensen) and The Boy's (Kodi Smit-McPhee) existence before their Wife/Mother (Charlize Theron) left to be vastly different comparatively and ultimately the flashbacks serve to illuminate the crux of The Man's personality; he is dead without The Boy. The flashbacks are often presented as dreams, cutting to and fro between reality and memory with a dramatic opening of The Man's eyes, and once the Boy admits to having bad dreams The Man encourages this, saying that he only has to worry when he begins to dream of good things, such as their life prior to his wife's abrupt departure.Much had been made during the months leading up to the film's production of the abundance of wonderful actors who would be joining the cast, from the protagonist of Hillcoat's previous film The Proposition (and one of the most underrated films of the 00s), Guy Pearce, to the charismatic Robin Hood figure from The Wire, Michael K. Williams, all the way through to the masterful character actor Robert Duvall. Speculation was rampant that the characters that they played would have enlarged role, at least one of them taking on co-star status. These reports are proven false by the film's wise and carefully designed adherence to the novel, keeping each character who drifts into the father and son's lives as a minor one, easily left behind with no attention paid to their stature or abilities. Hillcoat's ability to disengage from the star power of his actors is an incredibly important one, and it pays off thanks to the commendable efforts of the cast. Michael K. Williams in particular stands out as a lonely thief haunting the beach on which the pair settle on, eventually left naked on the side of the road weeping for his lost belongings.

Although the film is utterly post-apocalyptic and steeps itself in the imagery of a world as foreign to us as any we could imagine, a primal universe where the only remaining morality lives in the hearts of children and old men, we are -as McCarthy intended- never given reasons behind the grim fate which has taken hold of the Earth. While the novel hints at environmental concerns, the film eschews some of the more aesthetically pleasing gestures (such as the breathing masks) which the book contained in order to heighten the mystery and the bleakness. Thus The Man and The Boy are left wandering the road after an unnameable and unidentifiable catastrophe has struck the Earth, heading for the sea with nothing but the hope that they remain 'the good guys' and the fire they carry inside of them. This lonesome situation leaves room for endless iconography which Hillcoat supplies in the most creative fashion possible under the circumstances. Whether as silhouettes on the horizon or huddled together in close up, the two central characters provide awkward but strangely graceful movements for the camera to capture.Approaching the morose, harrowing and unforgiving plot of The Road with none of the cheap sentimentality that usually accompanies Hollywood adaptations is a feat of much gravitas, but it ultimately makes for a much more effective and striking picture. Of course this atmosphere of oppression and survivalism would be nothing without superb acting from Viggo and Kodi, the two carry the picture with great ease making it look painful and exhausting as they trek through the devastated wasteland. In one of the film's most touching sequences, the two explore a house until The Boy shrieks with fright. The Man rushes over to his side to find a mirror, the Boy having been startled by his own reflection. "We look skinny." The Boy says. "We are skinny." The Man replies. This diagnosis is confirmed by a scene where the two bathe, Mortensen's vertebrae protruding like knuckles along with Smit-McPhee's ribs.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is its fluidity despite a series of severe changes in action, from long lulls where the two walk alone through fields and discuss minor differences between them to the feral charge of their encounter with several survivors' captives. In a world populated by cannibals and the amoral, it is difficult to find hope anywhere, yet Hillcoat manages to maneuver the protagonists through danger and back to safety, only to be so vicious as to plunge them back into the darkness almost immediately. Like a drowning victim popping up for air less and less frequently, The Road is harrowing in its persistence, the more muffled screams and gasps we hear the less we hope for the best. Though the film is a frantically dark one, it is an eventful one, emotionally if not in plot.The Road accomplishes something that few Hollywood epics ever do, especially ones that are so large in scope; it appears unglamorous and lived in. The pair's clothing looks old and rotten, their faces are marked with dirt and weariness, their gestures are slow as if weighted. The environment is drab and ugly, and the few products peppering the film's cold landscape appear dusty and ugly but irreplaceable; as the book referenced Coca Cola, we would hardly be as affected by these scenes of hope in products were they to be unfamiliar to us; to ignore one of the plagues of our times would be to ignore the reality of what our civilization would leave behind were it to be destroyed; a whole lot of brand names. Hillcoat and McCarthy make an unlikely great pairing, and thanks to the former's brilliant source material and the latter's unrelenting control (not to mention his eye for casting and his ear for scoring) we are left with an unrelenting film which will divide audiences and critics alike.
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The Road at Amazon.

Holiday Quiz

I don't really do quizzes all that much, much less on my movie blog, but I saw this on Only the Cinema and decided to give it a go. It's a holiday quiz from the fellas behind Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

1) Second-favorite Coen Brothers movie.
I'm not the Coen Brothers fan that most of my peers are but I do like Miller's Crossing and The Big Lebowski, so I guess I'll go with the latter.

2) Movie seen only on home format that you would pay to see on the biggest movie screen possible? (Question submitted by Peter Nellhaus)
Damnation.

3) Japan or France? (Question submitted by Bob Westal)
Japan, if only for Kurosawa. Sorry, Renoir.

4) Favorite moment/line from a western.
The moment went John Wayne burns down his house in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

5) Of all the arts the movies draw upon to become what they are, which is the most important, or the one you value most?
Composition. Poor composition sinks ships.

6) Most misunderstood movie of the 2000s (The Naughties?).
Spider (2002, Cronenberg) should've been a massive hit or at least a beloved cult film. Now most people consider it the beginning of Cronenberg's (nonexistent) downward spiral.

7) Name a filmmaker/actor/actress/film you once unashamedly loved who has fallen furthest in your esteem.
George Lucas. When I was a kid, Star Wars was the be all and end all. Now I don't even own a copy.

8) Herbert Lom or Patrick Magee?
Herbert Lom!

9) Which is your least favorite David Lynch film (Submitted by Tony Dayoub)
Dune

10) Gordon Willis or Conrad Hall? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)
Willis' work, even in Godfather III, is pretty amazing. Hall is much less consistent.


11) Second favorite Don Siegel movie.
The Killers by a hair.

12) Last movie you saw on DVD/Blu-ray? In theaters?
On DVD: Waydowntown, In theathers: The Road.

13) Which DVD in your private collection screams hardest to be replaced by a Blu-ray? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)
Well I always think I should get a blu-ray player to watch The Searchers on.

14) Eddie Deezen or Christopher Mintz-Plasse?
Have to give it to Eugene!

15) Actor/actress who you feel automatically elevates whatever project they are in, or whom you would watch in virtually anything.
Michael Shannon. I'd watch the dude in anything.

16) Fight Club -- yes or no?
No.

17) Teresa Wright or Olivia De Havilland?
Teresa Wright, if only for Shadow of a Doubt.

18) Favorite moment/line from a film noir.
"He was some kind of a man... What does it matter what you say about people?"

19) Best (or worst) death scene involving an obvious dummy substituting for a human or any other unsuccessful special effect(s)—see the wonderful blog Destructible Man for inspiration.
I have a soft spot for the weirdly artificial body that explodes with cancer in Videodrome.

20) What's the least you've spent on a film and still regretted it? (Submitted by Lucas McNelly)
4 bucks on The Strangers was pretty pitiful.

21) Van Johnson or Van Heflin?
Van Heflin.

22) Favorite Alan Rudolph film.
Pass.

23) Name a documentary that you believe more people should see.
I, Curmudgeon by Alan Zweig. Nothing like seeing a whole lot of people try to figure out their own negativity in variable levels of articulation.

24) In deference to this quiz’s professor, name a favorite film which revolves around someone becoming stranded.
Hell in the Pacific.

25) Is there a moment when your knowledge of film, or lack thereof, caused you an unusual degree of embarrassment and/or humiliation? If so, please share.
Every time someone asks me about Boondock Saints II and I have to explain why I don't like the first one.

26) Ann Sheridan or Geraldine Fitzgerald? (Submitted by Larry Aydlette)
Geraldine Fitzgerald. I love Dark Victory, I love The Pawnbroker.

27) Do you or any of your family members physically resemble movie actors or other notable figures in the film world? If so, who?
No, not really. Maybe Oliver Platt.

28) Is there a movie you have purposely avoided seeing? If so, why?
Twilight. Vampires don't glitter in the daytime, I'm sorry, they just don't.

29) Movie with the most palpable or otherwise effective wintry atmosphere or ambience.
Careful!

30) Gerrit Graham or Jeffrey Jones?
Jeffrey Jones has his moments now and again.

31) The best cinematic antidote to a cultural stereotype (sexual, political, regional, whatever).
Ikiru counteracts the stereotype that life after a certain point is hardly worth living. *sigh*

32) Second favorite John Wayne movie.
Oh dear God that's tough. If Liberty Valance is number one, then... I guess Rio Grande. Or maybe Rio Bravo. Ugh, that's difficult.

33) Favorite movie car chase.
French Connection set the bar, and no one has ever surpassed it.

34) In the spirit of His Girl Friday, propose a gender-switched remake of a classic or not-so-classic film. (Submitted by Patrick Robbins)
In terms of upsetting the balance (and theme) of a film, consider a remake of The Wages of Fear where Mario (Yves Montand) was played by a woman and Jo (Charles Vanel) remained the same.

35) Barbara Rhoades or Barbara Feldon?
Pass.

36) Favorite Andre De Toth movie.
Crime Wave.

37) If you could take one filmmaker's entire body of work and erase it from all time and memory, as if it had never happened, whose oeuvre would it be? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen)
I may dislike a whole lot of directors, but that doesn't mean I want other people to stop enjoying them. I'll just continue to be confused why they like them.

38) Name a film you actively hated when you first encountered it, only to see it again later in life and fall in love with it.
Mulholland Drive. When I was 16 I thought it was college "art" that someone made to prove they were smart. Then I grew up, saw Blue Velvet, and re-evaluated.

39) Max Ophuls or Marcel Ophuls? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen)
Max, I suppose.

40) In which club would you most want an active membership, the Delta Tau Chi fraternity, the Cutters or the Warriors? And which member would you most resemble, either physically or in personality?
I guess the Delta Tau Chi, I still have a fondness for John Belushi. And pass on the resemblance.

41) Your favorite movie cliché.
The horror cliche of the old man warning the younger folks of the doom they've stumbled into.

42) Vincente Minnelli or Stanley Donen? (Submitted by Bob Westal)
Donen, easy.

43) Favorite Christmas-themed horror movie or sequence.
There's that one sequence in Scrooged with the huge creepy Ghost Christmas Future that oddly resembles death. That was vaguely horrifying, and I still love it.

44) Favorite moment of self- or selfless sacrifice in a movie.
When Doctor Bock sacrifices his future with Barbara Drummond for the sake of his hospital in The Hospital.

45) If you were the cinematic Spanish Inquisition, which movie cult (or cult movie) would you decimate? (Submitted by Bob Westal)
Probably the Saw franchise.


46) Caroline Munro or Veronica Carlson?
Veronica Carlson.

47) Favorite eye-patch wearing director. (Submitted by Patty Cozzalio)
JOHN FORD, easy.

48) Favorite ambiguous movie ending. (Original somewhat ambiguous submission---“Something about ambiguous movie endings!”-- by Jim Emerson, who may have some inspiration of his own to offer you.)
Cache.

49) In giving thanks for the movies this year, what are you most thankful for?
Tarr. Always Tarr.

50) George Kennedy or Alan North? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)
George Kennedy.

The Return

The Return - 2003 - 105 minutes - Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev
Starring Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko, Natalia Vdovina

Andrei Zvyagintsev's 2003 debut feature, The Return (alternatively known as Vozvrashcheniye), is about as painterly a film as has been produced in the last ten years, the director's affection for the environment bleeding through into every frame. This compelling and consistently striking imagery is made great use of thanks to the director's courageous fluidity with which he uses the camera, long sweeping shots melt into quick shaky ones, but we never get the sense that Zvyagintsev is afraid to try anything unconventional. On what has been reported as a shoestring budget (less than $500,000) Zvyagintsev released a haunting portrait of adulthood in Russia which is as effective as it might have been were its budget three times the size. The Return seems to be proud of its ability to become almost uncomfortably intimate, intruding on its protagonists' universe with ease and nonchalance, whether displaying an insignificant moment of childhood weakness or a seminal turning point in the movement towards adulthood, Zvyagintsev is willing to approach the subject matter from head on, never shying away from what may have been ignored in another --less intuitive-- director's hands.Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) and Andrey (Vladimir Garin) are brothers who have suffered from a lack of discipline for as long as they can remember, the only patriarchal figure in their life is a dusty photograph of their father they keep hidden in a book in the attic. After a playful sequence in which Zvyagintsev allows us entry into the bond the two have constructed in place of a father, we watch as the younger brother Ivan is overcome by cowardice and finds himself unable to leap from a tower into the water causing his older brother Andrey to taunt him as a chicken. Ivan quickly stands up for himself, contending that he is hardly a coward for disliking heights, but his brother continues and so the two begin a physical altercation which ends with the pair racing for their mother, attempting to twist the fight to their own benefit. Upon arrival they realize that their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) has returned home after 12 years away. While their dad's mysterious past is a motivating factor for much of the conversation between the two children, it is proven irrelevant by the events of the following week.

After their first supper with their long lost relative, Dad offers to take them on a fishing trip. Their mother acquiesces to this request and the three set out promptly, their relationships almost immediately solidifying; Ivan is dismissive and hateful of his father, Andrey is openly submissive while their father clearly has some sort of alternative motive for taking them on the trip. Ivan's defiance becomes more and more prevalent and their father continually reacts poorly to it, leaving him behind on a small bridge for several hours when he complains about the lack of fishing on their trip. As the journey continues and the boys become more and more attached to their father, the dad becomes more demanding and irritated as the boys disobey what he deems to be easily understood orders. The long gap in which the father's absence became a more dominant figure than his presence ever could be is soon understood to be insurmountable as Andrey appears to latch onto the father, agreeing with almost everything he says and attempting to make him proud. Ivan, on the other hand, becomes more and more wary that the father will soon be on his way and that they are being exploited for unknown purposes, eventually threatening that if the father were to become violent he would happily commit murder.The Return is light on drama but well paced, the plot slowly emerging from the murky depths of oedipal impulses, contradictory emotions and hidden agendas as the boys attempt to understand the meaning of their father's reappearance. With slow, methodical and thoughtful cinematography from Mikhail Krichman, a man capable of making singular images both iconic and enigmatic, masterfully revealing inner conflict with little indication of external drama. Krichman is Zvyagintsev's most useful asset in the film, continually proving his worth by evoking the painterly landscapes we came to expect from the great Andrei Tarkovsky, albeit without the impressive patience that master constantly displayed. The combined strength of the cinematography and the direction is enough to push this film into the pantheon of contemplative cinema, slowly evoking the kind of simmering emotions that are ever-present yet never over the top.

Staggering at points, and at others quietly meditative, The Return is exactly the kind of film that Russia is renowned for producing. Audiences can expect to be impressed not only by the knowledgeable camerawork and the rigidly structured narrative, but also by the standout performance from Ivan Dobronravov as the youngest member of the family, his tortured psyche evident at all points but in a believable and childlike fashion. That his counterpart Vladimir Garin remains restrained in terms of the kind of provocative displays of emotion that Ivan often expresses is both an testament to Garin's abilities as a selfless actor, but also to Zvyagintsev's intuition in keeping their relationship lop-sided, making the film's violent climax that much more poignant and emotional. That, in the end, Ivan is the one who is really left in need of his father is revelatory, stripping his reserved facade and replacing it with the immediacy of an injured childhood.
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The Return at Amazon.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - 2009 - 121 minutes - Directed by Werner Herzog
Starring Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit, Fairuza Balk, Michael Shannon, Brad Dourif, Jennifer Coolidge

Herzog is one of the most unlikely choices for director for the type of film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was originally positioned to be. His anachronistic style of filmmaking, coupled with his knack for getting uniquely disturbing performances from his actors has never been considered a perfect fit for a traditional crime thriller, especially one which was initially envisioned as a remake of the Catholic guilt fest that was the original Bad Lieutenant. But when Herzog is given free reign, even on something as ostensibly traditional as Bad Lieutenant, the results will almost always be compelling and original. In this case, the film turned out interesting on every possible level, from the powerhouse centerpiece performance from the bizarrely effective Nicholas Cage to the shocking narrative interruptions that Herzog indulges in, wherein he delves into a reptilian motif so thoroughly he sees fit to actually film a scene from a lizard's point of view. This diversion might seem haughty and pretentious in another director's film, but here it seems to fit because Herzog, well, he seems to actually just be interested in the reptiles.At the core of the film is a set of partnerships, each involving newly promoted Lieutenant Terence McDonagh (Nicholas Cage) in one way or another. The first is his partnership with fellow police officer and all around vicious human being Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer), whose utterly sober and vicious side is so much more out of control and dangerous than the drugged out, selfish and motivated McDonagh's survival based violence. McDonagh, a man so wholly self-obsessed that his only interest in other people is what they can give him (or, primarily, what he can take from them), seems almost altruistic when juxtaposed against someone as primal and sadistic as Pruit. His relationship with Pruit is a relatively simple one in which both men attempt to do evil, but McDonagh holds back on the unmotivated, blind sadism of ruthless murder or lazy negligence. As he takes the position of figurehead within his partnership, so he does in his leadership of his family. His father, an admitted alcoholic who struggles from day to day to drag himself to AA meetings, gives off no real sense of power, but rather emits a kind of odd impotence, unable to maintain his dog's health during his transition to sobriety.

McDonagh's relationship with his prostitute/girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes) is the most fascinating of the movie, and it is the kind of push-pull dynamic that occurs in most, if not all, unhealthy relationships. They are both drug addicts, using eachother for drugs/protection and sex/a sense of responsibility respectively. Frankie's first words upon meeting with McDonagh are often related to his procuring of drugs, but this never sours him as he is an openly manipulative person, utilizing her occupation as a prostitute to supply him with a seemingly endless line of criminal low-lives on which to prey upon. When one of these events turns ugly and ends up with a powerful enemy demanding $50,000 from McDonagh, he quickly deposits Frankie with his father and his live-in girlfriend, a drunken hypocrite named Genevieve (Jennifer Coolidge). This intrusion of his current lifestyle, one where he openly does drugs, engages in ugly, harsh and exploitative sex on the street, and commonly blackmails people he respects, upon his childhood home where he admits he imagined entire worlds of utopian piracy, worlds where treasure was everywhere, even deep in the dirt in his backyard, where he finds a sterling silver spoon. This spoon is later discovered to not be silver, but to be old and rusted, in an effective portrait of lost innocence and the inherent corruption of the criminal.

Herzog's view of this rather pathetic abuser of power is one of empathy and indulgence, he is overjoyed when Terence threatens a gangster (Xzibit) and his bodyguard with death and then cackles loudly before intoning "Til the break of dawn, baby." These endearing touches enrich McDonagh's character and do much to explain his odd charisma despite his abusive nature. The fact that the film ends in a fashion which does little to resolve McDonagh's inner conflict but goes to great lengths to dispel his external ones, especially in a phantasmagoric sequence of events where every little thing seems to go McDonagh's way, alludes to a world where crime does pay, a twisted world where the criminals are systemically integral, and that the hallucinatory cowboy streak of McDonagh's is nothing compared to the sober exploitation of Pruit. This is an oppressively dark but funnily realized vision of contemporary society, seen through the eyes of one of cinema's most distinguished and notorious outsiders.As a cohesive whole, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a well-oiled machine, each scene working towards the same ends even though it may be doing so in a thoughtful but erratic manner. The film is brilliant at times and simply entertaining in others, but Herzog never condescends to believe one is more important than the other. Herzog knows the power of entertainment, being a man who openly admits to watching wrestling, and his latest effort is another excellent entry in a devastating body of work. Featuring two small appearances from Fairuze Balk and Michael Shannon that are almost worth the price of admission alone, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans does well on every level large and thematic or small and experimental. In particular, the minuscule but nevertheless affecting performance by Michael Shannon as Mundt may be indicative of the quality of their next collaboration, the much anticipated My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done? but for now it serves to enhance an already intriguing and powerful film.
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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans at IMDB.

I, Curmudgeon

I, Curmudgeon - 2004 - 94 minutes - Directed by Alan Zweig
Starring Alan Zweig, Harvey Pekar, Bruce La Bruce, Fran Lebowitz, Andrew Currie, Joe Queenan

I, Curmudgeon is structurally similar to the majority of partisan documentaries, from the floating heads passionately informing the masses on their point of view to the close ups of aged photographs while speaking of days gone by, its surface is hardly subversive in any manner. Apart from its presentation, however, the film is remarkably unique in content, as it takes an unfamiliar subject and approaches it through a mixture of humorous anecdotes, seemingly endless rants, and poignantly sad revelations. The topic is the negativity of the filmmaker Alan Zweig, and it is the second part of what he calls his 'mirror' trilogy, in which we frequently witness Zweig talking to the camera through his reflection in the mirror, camera and all. I, Curmudgeon tracks his journey to becoming a (slightly) more positive person, meanwhile exposing the convoluted existences of several other notable curmudgeons including the likes of comic icon Harvey Pekar, author and sardonic commentator Fran Lebowitz, movie critic Joe Queenan, filmmaker Andrew Currie and homosexual columnist, filmmaker, and porn star Bruce LaBruce. >The film is centered around a singular event in Zweig's social life in which he found himself at a party where a Nike commercial featuring William Burroughs was being discussed and regarded as 'cool', a reaction which he responded to with vitriol. This approximation's hyperbolic reaction caused several of the partygoers to comment on Zweig, expressing the opinion that "it's just a commercial." an idea that Zweig took to heart, perhaps too much so, while the interviewees tend to ridicule it. The Nike commercial is a fractured reflection of an earlier event in Zweig's life when he witnessed Bob Hope's old, lifeless material being delivered to the troops of Vietnam and Zweig came to realize that he was actually more upset at Hope's lack of originality or importance than at the war in general. "Though the big bad things in the world fuel my negativity here and there, the little bad things in the world are the true engine."

The film seems to be of some cathartic use for Zweig, but he is unable to pass on this therapeutic lesson to the others he speaks with, most of them having trapped themselves in their existences long ago. Alan never passes judgment on them, even the ones who refuse to exercise, watch their weight, watch their health, or even leave their homes due to an unfocused and unbridled disgust with almost all things man has encountered thus far. Most of these characters come off as both charismatic as well as lonely, separated from humanity due to their own uncompromising willingness to isolate themselves for the good of their well-being. And we come to see that those who are comfortable in their own microcosms appear healthy, unique, engaging individuals whose negativity is held at a distance, keeping them from truly being eaten away at by their philosophy. Others are miserable and unable to escape because of their utter remoteness, their complete separation from the joys of human existence. These are the people whose energy is focused on the minor inconveniences they suffer at the hands of other people, as one bemoans the use of jet skis and others pick apart commonly used phrases with no real meaning.Zweig, for the most part, is both compassionate and understanding towards his subjects, mostly because we can see the kinship he feels with them. Although he views his life as passing into the final of his transitory stages, one removed from negativity or at least from an obsession with the aforementioned negativity, we glean that the truth may be that this may not be a viable desire for a man of his vitriolic wit and candor. And worse yet, he enjoys the miserable comments and the snide remarks that make him stand out as an individual both for being bold and upfront but also for being clever and witty. His wit is matched throughout the film with several others' remarkable wits (Bruce LaBruce) while at least three of the remaining interviewees are more inclined to try and devalue everything that Zweig is attempting to hold onto (Harvey Pekar). In this way we are introduced to the dedication the curmudgeon feels for his obsessively pessimistic views and mannerisms, and we learn that this can be channelled in a plethora of different fashions.

The film itself is a joy to watch, sometimes excruciating as the loneliness of central figures comes through their speech and their helpless, dire gestures of almost complete and total submission. These moments of utter despair are contrasted with the generally upbeat tone of the film, and despite the subject matter Zweig has managed to produce a fairly positive, optimistic picture that neither sugarcoats existence nor shies away from the larger issues at hand. I, Curmudgeon acknowledges the predominant factors which lead to a curmudgeonly existence, but also includes the positive features of this lifestyle, refusing to kowtow to the general public's preconceptions about these loud-mouthed figures. The director's colloquial, friendly tone and open-ended questions make for great conversation starters and it seems he is able to keep every interviewee at ease throughout, questioning them gently and without rancor, yet still cutting to the bone of the issues he wants to deal with. Considering one of his earliest questions we can see how insightful a simple lead-in can be, the response being both comic and abrupt; "I don't mean this as like psycho analysis just how far back do you remember..."
"Hating everything?"Detailing the immense scale and "awfulness" of loneliness and "the godless universe", I, Curmudgeon makes a point of refusing to revel in misery for too long, allowing speakers to have moments of truth, humor, and insight without ever becoming preachy or dry. While dissecting entertainment in general one speaker mentions 'the fundamental human need to zone out,' and its responsibility for the way the general populace live their lives without passion. Unable to find a place amongst this majority, those who subscribe to this negative and questionable lifestyle sustain themselves through an unfaltering need to be individuals, decrying the hypocrisies and failings of our social order, even if they make no motion or effort to alter them. The consensus appears halfway through the film where it is revealed that the average human being is just 'waiting to die', and that therefore the human race is 'simply waiting to die.' This conclusion is in part arrived at by the documenting of those people who run solely on ambition, lives without purpose beyond pushing forward, and that the real difficulty of life is to lure humans away from their nature, out of their comfort zone. The analysis may seem pessimistic, and in a way it is, but Zweig's ingenious presenting of the material makes for an extraordinarily entertaining documentary, even if it is a tad on the conventional side in terms of aesthetics.
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I, Curmudgeon at IMDB.