Holy Rollers

Directed by Kevin Asch (2010) Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Bartha, Danny A. Abeckaser, Jason Fuchs

Sam Gold (Eisenberg) is a Hassidic Jew who works at his father’s fabric shop while studying to become a rabbi.  He wants to get married, but his hopes are stymied in the face of his family’s poverty.  When his neighbor Yosef (Bartha) gives him the opportunity to make more money by smuggling medicine in from Europe, he agrees, continuing with the trade even after its revealed that they are smuggling ecstasy.

Sam is contrasted with his friend, and Yosef’s younger brother, Leon (Fuchs), who drops out of the smuggling group when he finds out that they’re bringing back drugs.  Leon is posed as who Sam could be–he’s a better student than Sam and holds no moral qualms when informing their mother what Yosef is doing.  Unfortunately, this hurts the friendship, even more so when Leon gets the blessing to marry the girl who was previously engaged to Sam.  However, come the end of the film, its clear that Leon plays a very important role in Sam’s life, especially when smuggling the ecstasy becomes a crisis of faith.

 

Switching from a life that is determined in creating a separate, conservative religious community to the fast life of girls, drugs, and clubbing, it’s clear that Sam has been thrown into a difficult situation.  He’s strained between the easy money and fun he gets in the new job, while having to hide the details away from his family.  When he’s discovered, it’s complete shame and he is forced out of the community.  The community of his job– having fun with Yosef, experiencing a one-sided relationship with Rachel (Ari Graynor), and convincing others to join the organization– seems like a better option, at least money-wise.  However, when the crisis becomes too much, the most poignant scene is when Sam meets a Dutch Jew on the streets of Amsterdam and prays.

Holy Rollers has an unusual situation from the get-go as a religious minority, but the stresses of familial expectation and money woes makes Sam’s decision to continue understandable, but his eventual return to conservative faith makes for a fascinating watch.  Jesse Eisenberg gives an impressive performance as he leaves his safety zone of nerdy jerks to a character based off a true story.  He plays it honestly, and its a pleasure to watch.

The Hit

Directed by Stephen Frears (1984) Starring: Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Laura del Sol

Willie Parker (Stamp) has become an informant for the British police.  Ten years after putting a British mobster in jail, he is living peacefully in Spain when Mr. Braddock (Hurt) and his protege Myron (Roth) arrive to transport him to Paris, where he’ll be knocked off.  In The Hit, Stephen Frears creates a quiet thriller out of three–later expanded to four– characters on a car trip, knowing that in the end, one of them will be killer and the other will be killed.

What I noticed immediately– Frears plays with expectations for a thriller, just with the sound.  What is expected to be loud comes off muted, what should be ignored is the loudest noise in the scene.  It matches the tempo of the Spanish-inspired score well as the group makes their way across the Spanish desert.  The scenery is used to its best advantages, softly colored in white and beige, matching the clean suit of Braddock and Willie’s all-white outfit in the heat.  Only a few scenes have the color stand out– when the group is joined, reluctantly, by Maggie (del Sol) in an aqua dress, when they take a break by a lush waterfall, and when blood is splattered on a gas station’s window.

Willie takes his kidnapping in kind.  He expected as much, but also knows that the police will be following them.  Braddock, although a professional, has left behind a trail riddled with accidental murders.  Strangely, that doesn’t seem to be on Willie’s mind much.  He speaks calmly, saying that he’s already accepted death.  Often, he talks to the hot-headed Myron in a joking manner, even when Myron is urging Braddock to just do-in Willie in Spain.

 

Myron, young and on his first assignment, defers to Braddock’s judgment.  He follows his lead, wearing sunglasses to cop a cool attitude, although he is far from professional.  Myron comes off like he was just picked up off the streets, talking loudly and causing problems wherever they go.  However he is not a hard-criminal like Braddock, and spots some mercy for Maggie when she would have otherwise been killed.

Maggie proves to be more complicated than an accidental hostage.  She pretends not to understand English and manipulates Myron in order to stay alive.  Braddock recognizes that Maggie is smarter than she seems, while Willie acknowledges that she is not ready to die just yet.

The Hit is excellent, with a fabulously clear transfer, courtesy of Criterion.  Its an interesting crime pick, full of psychology for the four leads as they are trapped in and around a car.  Frears defies genre conventions, creating a beautiful criminal drama that made its mark in Britain’s film renaissance.

Double Feature: Joseph Cotton

Many moons ago, when I watched Citizen Kane for the first time, I wasn’t terribly interested by Orson Welles’ performance.  Crazy, right?  But it was another Mercury actor who caught my eye– the wonderful Joseph Cotton.  For this Double Feature, I figured that some of his best and earliest work makes for a great comparison between his various roles.

The Third Man (1949) Directed by: Carol Reed

The Third Man is considered to be one of the best film noirs out there, set in post-war Vienna.  Cotton plays Holly Martins, a writer of pulp westerns, who has come to Europe with the promise of a job by his friend Harry Lime.  Unfortunately, the day he arrives is Lime’s funeral.  While the police are willing to let go of Lime’s death as an accident, Holly digs deeper, becoming involved in Lime’s inner circle and learning about the mysterious “Third Man.”

There’s a lot about The Third Man which makes a wonderful film– the strong shadows, the famous ferris wheel scene, and the true nature of Harry Lime’s business affairs.  While Holly is the main character, the film is dominated by Lime.

In comparison, Holly Martins seems almost helpless– an alcoholic, out of work writer, who the side characters mostly push around with false leads or coddle him on and off.  Almost every time he sees the police Martins is convinced that it’s best for him to take the next plane back to the U.S. in the morning.  However, in contrast to Lime, Martins is infinitely likable, the last good guy in a post-war world.  His determination to exonerate Lime is echoed later with his desire to be close to Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), when the world wants to keep him in shadows.

Even if you’re not a big fan of Joseph Cotton, The Third Man is just one of those movies that is enormously fun to watch.  It’s a smart mystery penned by author Graham Greene and is character and plot driven.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Unlike the likable Holly Martins, Uncle Charlie is a  nihilistic serial killer.  He visits his family in Santa Rosa in order to escape from police.  Charlotte (Teresa Wright), the eldest niece, becomes the only one to know her uncle’s secret.

As one of Hitchcock’s earlier films, Shadow of a Doubt doesn’t have some of his usual signatures– no Bernard Herrmann score, no Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart, not even a cool blonde.  However, it does have a weird family dynamic, something green (in this case, an emerald ring), and vague psychology, all of which is evident in later films by Hitchcock.

Seeing Shadow of a Doubt is realizing just how good Joseph Cotton is at playing a villain.  Uncle Charlie is nihilistic, obsessive, and crafty.  The only love he seems to show is for the Santa Rosa- Family’s idyllic lifestyle, where everyone is busy.  It’s evident that he doesn’t care for anyone when he quickly turns on his neice.

If you’re ever in need of a Hitchcock fix, Shadow of a Doubt is one of the best.  The story draws a distinct line between Charlie’s big-city worldview and the idealized, small-town America applied to Santa Rosa, but each character is very unique while still fitting into the Hollywood mold.  The father’s favorite hobby is discussing various ways to commit murder with their neighbor and the youngest niece is a voracious reader who shows almost no care at all for anyone else in the plot.  The mother is sweet, but very flighty, although she seems to guess at her brother’s secret in one short scene before dismissing it.

Joseph Cotton proved early on that he was a versatile actor, able to perform good guys and villains, attracting the attentions of talented directors, big studios, and fellow actors.  Suffice it to say, I am looking forward to seeing some more of his filmography very soon.

The Long Goodbye

Directed by Robert Altman (1973) Starring: Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson

 

Philip Marlowe (Gould) agrees to take his friend to Tijuana, but discovers that his friend’s wife was murdered.  When his friend commits suicide, it seems like the case is closed, but Marlowe continues pondering it as he does a job for a novelist’s trophy wife.

My first thought: Altman sure loved his zooms back in the day.  The Long Goodbye is composed of moving camera shots, always with a zoom combined with panning or dollying.  It’s an interesting technique, to say the least, but I left Film Class blinking, imagining zooms wherever I looked.  However, it does age the film, perhaps just as much as the leisure suits.

The plot was cool in a neo-noir kind of way, set in the Hollywood of the seventies in all its glory.  It also relies on only two songs throughout the soundtrack: “Hooray for Hollywood” and different versions of “The Long Goodbye”, composed by John Williams and Johnnie Mercer.

I think our collective culture will always associate Chandler’s Marlowe with Humphrey Bogart, but Gould gives a great impression as the tough detective in The Long Goodbye.  This is a Marlowe shaped by a different environment, who has a very particular cat, and a whole host of one-liners.  He interacts so smoothly with everyone else in the movie that it seems like he knows he’s just a character within a larger plot.  It’s impressive and makes for a very sympathetic main character.

Other characters are plays against type, such as the suspicious doctor, whose role in the plot is relatively small; the smart, almost femme fatale wife Eileen (van Pallandt), married to Roger Wade (Sterling).  There’s Marty-the-Mobster (Rydell), who is equal parts dorky and horrifying.

Killing Emmett Young

Killing Emmett Young/Emmett’s Mark

Written & Directed by Keith Snyder (2002)

Starring: Scott Wolf, Tim Roth, Gabriel Byrne

Emmett Young (Wolf), a homicide detective in Philadelphia, gets the news that he is suffering from a mortal disease after a simple blood test.  He is given less than a month to live, but when he meets a stranger named Jack Marlow (Byrne), he decides to take death into his own hands and hires someone to kill him.  While in his last days, a violent homicide has absorbed his focus as his last deed.

Marlow, meanwhile, goes to an acquaintance Frank Dwyer (Roth), who is a down and out ex-cop currently working as a security officer.  Frank is unwilling to kill a man, but the need for money wins out.  He agrees, with Marlow belittling him along the way.

The process of Frank preparing to murder Emmett is matched with his investigation of the homicide.  Emmett becomes absorbed entirely in what he assumes is his final case.  He’s hoping he can wrap it up in the five days he’s given himself.

I gravitated more to the Frank Dwyer portions of the movie, really.  Emmett’s story holds up really well for fans of crime shows– anyone who’s a fan of Law & Order and its various spin offs will find an interesting story there.  Frank is more of a psychological study; we see him in his small apartment, going out on dates, glimpses of his past as a former police officer.

Killing Emmett Young is a fair enough movie about two men.  The washed out visuals and Philadelphia location makes for an intriguing urban crime story, as much about how mistakes in life can have larger consequences as about a hit.

The 39 Steps

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1935) Starring: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Wylie Watson

When an attractions show is interrupted by gunfire, Canadian Richard Hannay (Donat) is asked by glamorous spy Annabelle (Mannheim) to come with him.  She tells him that she’s a counter-agent, who must get a secret related to the 39 Steps before it leaves the country.  She becomes murdered during the night, launching him into a quest in Scotland while evading the police.

Robert Donat is charming as Hitchcock’s Wrong Man in this film.  He goes back and forth between cocky black humor and dead-serious action very well, fitting into the narrative well as the hero.  On the train, he makes an attempt of avoiding the police by kissing the first woman he sees–Pamela (Carroll), who doesn’t take kindly to the interruption.  They wind up connected in the third act after Hannay gives a hilarious forced political speech at a rally.

While The 39 Steps contains many themes that Hitchcock returns to over his career, the film is middling for the director.  The winning aspects are all in Donat’s performance and the climatic scene.

Death and the Compass

Directed by Alex Cox (1992; 1996) Starring: Peter Boyle, Miguel Sandoval, Christopher Eccleston, Zaide Silvia Gutierrez

Based on a story by Jorge Luis Borges

I’ve gotten used to the idea that all of Alex Cox films are going to be deeply weird, in some way or other.  In this case, a murder mystery-conspiracy drama, peppered with bizarre denizens, spins into the life of gumshoe detective Erik Lonnrot (Boyle).  Treviranus (Sandoval) opens the film, discussing the story from his office as the police commissioner.  He continues to pop in, providing the plot with a story-teller structure.

Our first introduction to the city, which is based on Buenos Aires but was shot in Mexico City, features a Blind Lieutenant Borges (played by Cox), shot down by the masked villain Scharlach.  It then moves into the narrative proper.  Why Cox decided to do this, I’m not sure, although it is an impressive scene.

Lonnrot is the sort of detective who intellectualizes his cases.  At the latest, a rabbi was killed in a hotel room, his last written words being “The first letter of the Name has been uttered.”  Lonnrot thinks this is related to a ritualistic murder, and he enlists an editor who knew the victim, Alonso Zunz (Eccleston), for help with researching the Name.

I read the story, and Cox gives a very loyal adaptation although his personal style is evident.  There is a strong color-pattern here, with Treviranus decked out in yellow while Lonnrot works in shades of blue.  Borges suggests labyrinths of the mind and labyrinths of rivalries, while Cox presents these mazes in gorgeous visuals.  The corrupted police department resembles a maze, and gives off a Brazil-ian energy of misused bureaucracy.

However, this stylization goes a little too far and diminishes understanding the plot.  It weaves in and out instead, inserting a level of politics into the story for Treviranus’s story sake, but it distracts from Lonnrot’s story.  It’s still an Alex Cox production, and I like his zeal.  His style is entertaining and he presents a very intriguing detective story.

Hot Fuzz

Directed by Edgar Wright (2007) Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Timothy Dalton, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall, Bill Bailey

For being overly exceptional at his job, Nicolas Angel (Pegg) is promoted and then transferred out of the London police to the seemingly safe village of Sanford.  While making arrests for minor offenses and being greeted by the overly friendly Neighborhood Watch, Nick is bothered by the lax atmosphere of Sandford’s police department and they are bothered by his by-the-book attitude.  Except for Danny (Frost), who finds Nick awe-inspiring.  He spends the start of their partnership asking him questions based on his collection of cop-action films, such as “Ever fired your gun in the air and yelled, ‘Aaaaaaaahh’?”

What’s great about Edgar Wright’s and Simon Pegg’s Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy is that (so far) the movies create an authentic tone for the genres they are parodying as much as they create the humor.  So there is an excellent Buddy-Cop film in Hot Fuzz just as much as there is the parody of a Buddy-Cop film.

Edgar Wright’s direction is very energized, especially in the quick editing department.  There are some beautiful edits here, such as when a murder happens while Nick and Danny are watching movies.  It gets across as very action-packed, usually for comedic effect.  I watched the timer during my second-watching, and the big explosively action ending lasts a good thirty minutes!  Excellent.

It’s endlessly quotable and visually stunning.  I’m not sure what technique Wright used for the mugshot scenes, but it looks excellent.  There’s an equal amount of visual gags as well as verbal ones, mostly caused by quick-cutting between scenes.  The characters are bad ass, hilarious, and comfortably domestic, making it feel like watching real people as much as watching over-the-top movie characters.

Shallow Grave

Directed by Danny Boyle (1994) Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor, Kerry Fox

When three flatmates interview for a fourth, he ends up dead the next morning with a suitcase full of cash.  While David (Eccleston) wants to call the police, Alex (McGregor) and Juliet (Fox) would prefer to spend the money.  All three decide to hide the body, but unfortunately two thugs are out looking for their stiff.

Shallow Grave plays out like a Hitchcock film.  The three flatmates are young professionals and close friends, who seemed to have only started interviewing for a fourth in order to play pranks on the interviewees.  Alex comes up abrupt, rude, and a serial slacker, constantly criticizing David for this high-strung tendencies.  Juliet mostly looks on coolly from above, often acting as a mediator between the two.

The reactions to finding the dead body is immediately shock, followed by greed once the suitcase is discovered.  From his position as a journalist, Alex knows how to hide the identity of a body through cutting off the hands and feet and destroying the teeth.  By drawing straws, David is assigned the gruesome task, but that seems to send him over the edge of sanity.

Boyle has created another psychodrama that pits young, intelligent people against a tough moral situation.  Moral roles for the characters become reversed and their actions become more desperate.  A few paranoid scenes with inspectors coming around create a very “Tell-Tale Heart” feel, while the structure of the apartment and the consistent discussion gives off more of a Rope-like atmosphere.

On the more shallow note, it’s fun to see these early-nineties fashions.  I mean, Mullet McGregor? Love it!  In a weird, weird way.