Junta Juleil's Culture Shock: February 2017

Sunday, February 26, 2017

R.I.P., Bill Paxton

Man, this is tough. Paxton had such an irrepressible joie de vivre, this endlessly manic and goofy energy, that it was nearly impossible for me to watch him do his thing without having a grin plastered on my face the whole time. NEAR DARK, TRUE LIES, THE VAGRANT, you name it. He's a legend. The man battled a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator, for godssakes. And he could do serious roles, too, like NIGHTCRAWLER, A SIMPLE PLAN, and APOLLO 13. He had dimension. As a director, his major output is comprised of the FISH HEADS music video and the religious thriller, FRAILTY. I suppose what I'm saying is that Paxton contained multitudes... whether he was rockin' leather pants and saying "Hasta...whatever!" in BOXING HELENA, making the frame story watchable in TITANIC (with a pirate earring), servin' stache in TOMBSTONE, playing a proto-Cannon Films punk in THE TERMINATOR, forever claiming "Game Over" as a Paxton-ism in ALIENS, under-fivin' it in COMMANDO, sizing up the PREDATOR (2), reviving an old catchphrase in SPY KIDS 3-D, promoting the Battle of the Bills (a.k.a. Paxton vs. Pullman) in BRAIN DEAD, or turning in one of the zaniest, most smart-assed performances of all time in NEAR DARK, a movie where he exclaims "Finger lickin' good!" after drinking a redneck's blood. Damn. Here's to you, Bill.

Posted by Sean Gill at 4:48:00 PM 5 comments:

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Labels: Bill Paxton, R.I.P.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Only now does it occur to me... FEDORA (1978)

Only now does it occur to me... that Billy Wilder, in his 1978 film FEDORA, simultaneously peels back the veneer on the more ghoulish aspects Old Hollywood and sends a nostalgic love letter to the studio system. Suffice it to say, there's a lot going on in this film, but I'll make it quick.

In a story told largely in flashback, William Holden plays a washed-up, elderly Hollywood producer named "Detweiler" (which sounds a lot like "Wilder" in passing conversation)

who travels to Greece in hopes of turning up "Fedora" (Marthe Keller), a reclusive Garbo-esque screen icon who resides on an island villa, along with her sleazy plastic surgeon (José Ferrer), a macabre Polish Countess (Hildegard Knef), and her bizarre housekeeper (Frances Sternhagen). Fedora has been in a state of seclusion since a nervous breakdown on her last film shoot (after a short-lived love affair with Michael York––played with good humor by Michael York).

There is more to "Fedora" herself than meets the eye, and it soon becomes apparent that she is probably being held prisoner by this menagerie of knockoff CLUE characters.

Aha! It was... the Housekeeper in the Bedroom with the Hidden Wall of Michael York Photos!

Without revealing the main payoff (which comes about an hour earlier than it should), I'll say that FEDORA often feels like a watered-down, latter-day Hitchcock/early De Palma flick, and its primary motivation seems to be a postmodern critique of Hollywood through a postmodern distortion of Billy Wilder's own SUNSET BOULEVARD. All of this is relatively interesting.

I wouldn't call it a failure by any means, but I also wouldn't say that it's particularly enjoyable. Perhaps it's only overdue for a campier remake by John Waters.

With Kathleen Turner as the Countess?

Anyway, the entire basis of this post is a hilarious moment where William Holden's character is lamenting the end of the studio system, by (playfully?) attacking the rising generation of young American filmmakers, the so-called '70s "movie brats," as the reason why he can't make movies anymore. He says,

"It's a whole different business now––the kids with beards have taken over! They don't need scripts! Just give 'em a handheld camera with a zoom lens!"

By "the kids with beards," he is surely referring to Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, et al., and while it's not a particularly vicious critique, it's interesting to see a contemporary (and possibly facetious) reaction from Wilder to a Hollywood he barely recognizes.

Posted by Sean Gill at 11:05:00 AM No comments:

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Labels: 70's, Billy Wilder, Film Observations, Frances Sternhagen, Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Michael York, William Holden

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Only now does it occur to me... OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE (1967)

Only now does it occur to me... that Jack Clayton should certainly be in the running for "greatest ever director of child actors." Anyone who has seen THE INNOCENTS cannot fail to be impressed by the child leads (Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin), who infuse their roles with a spooky maturity and an uncanny depth that almost make you wonder if the children have been possessed for real. [I've already reviewed THE INNOCENTS (1961), and conclude that (alongside THE CHANGELING) it's probably the greatest "ghost story" film ever made.]

Clayton further demonstrated his proficiency in working with child actors in the (flawed, but interesting) adaptation of SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983) and the (Harold Pinter-penned) domestic drama, THE PUMPKIN EATER (1964). I just finished watching OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE (1967), and I have to say he sort of outdoes himself, at least as far as the directing is concerned.

I wouldn't quite call OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE a horror film, but it's more macabre than your usual drama; between its atmosphere and pedigree, I think I can safely shoehorn it into my "Melancholy Horror" genre, which I've described at length here. It has an overcast, oddly unsettling pre-autumn color palette

that carries a "back to school" nostalgia alongside a kind of bleak-hearted English emptiness.

In its own way, I'd call it a minor influence on everything from CARRIE to THE BEGUILED to THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE.

The initial set-up (without getting too spoilery) is that a deeply religious mother has been living from her sickbed, trying to raise seven children of varying ages. Consequently, they have become quite self-sufficient but have developed a complicated socio-political structure, a structure whose key anchor is their daily religious instruction, ominously called "Mother Time."

When Mother dies, the children see little reason to alter the makeup of their insulated household, and therefore decide to bury her in the backyard garden without telling anyone. What follows is a sort of domesticated and more introverted version of LORD OF THE FLIES, filled with unexpected happenings and power struggles and séances and matriarchal cults––it's top-notch wacko melodrama, and I mean that as highest praise. That any of this works at all is a testament to Clayton and his talented child actors. Of course, one of the standouts is THE INNOCENTS' Pamela Franklin,

who seizes a mantle of power and is overwhelmed by deep, pubescent insecurities. The role requires her to run a gamut of human emotion that even lifelong devotees of the craft would find daunting. She is phenomenal.

Also, Dirk Bogarde is in this, too. I won't tell you under what circumstance he appears, but he knows this film belongs to the children and he does not attempt to upstage them.

(He has top billing in this movie, simply because the true stars are little-known child actors.)

In short, if you have an interest in morbid 1960s melodrama, a master's class in child acting, or what I term melancholy horror, OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE is a curiosity worth seeking out.