My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument
Three hours long, filmed in black and white, Arnaud Desplechin’s highly watchable French comedy-drama (1996) about the sex lives of 30ish Parisian intellectuals and academics has been compared to everything from Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore to Reality Bites. For me, it’s a lot better than the latter and not nearly as good as the former. Desplechin undeniably catches something generational and poignant about the various relationships of a part-time philosophy teacher (Mathieu Amalric)–including one with a woman (Marianne Denicourt) who winds up getting engaged to his best friend. The influences here, by the way, are not only cinematic (the aforementioned Eustache) but also literary; novelist Philip Roth is the most overt reference point. Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Friday, August 15, 8:00; Saturday, August 16, 1:00, 4:15, and 7:30; Sunday, August 17, 8:15; Monday and Wednesday, August 18 and 20, 6:00; and Thursday, August 21, 8:15; 312-443-3737.
–Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): film still. Read more
This ain’t no buddy movie, claims the publicity, but that’s precisely what this crude, antihumanistic action comedy is. Like an updated Bob Hope romp, it offers plenty of cowardice and wild-eyed grimacing from star Chris Tucker, but there’s also a lot of blood and corpses to show how much hipper we are than those 1940s audiences of Hope’s. In line with its smirking sense of superiority, pornographic glimpses of guns, cars, and diamonds are at best equated with but generally valued over intimations of bare ass. Tucker plays a Los Angeles con artist who, falsely accused of leading a prison break, turns to a stuffy TV reporter (Charlie Sheen) to clear his name. A couple of OK action set pieces and goofy conceits (such as Tucker posing as the son of Vic Damone and Diahann Carroll) can’t make up for the overall cynicism and stupidity, unless cynicism and stupidity are what you’re looking for. Brett Ratner directed from a script by Joel Cohen (no connection to the director of Fargo) and Alec Sokolow; with Heather Locklear, Elise Neal, and Paul Sorvino. (JR) Read more
Based on a letter from Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac describing events in Denver in the mid-40s, this independent effort (1996) by writer-director Stephen Kay offers a moderate amount of beefcake (basically Thomas Jane as Neal), some overacting (by Keanu Reeves as a pool hall compadre), a lot of arty lighting, samplings of jazz records made during the 40s and 50s (to provide atmosphere rather than to be listened to, by us or the characters), and at least three dolled-up heroines (Claire Forlani, Marg Helgenberger, Gretchen Mol) who tend to swoon whenever Neal’s around. The period detail is heaped on self-consciously but not really felt, though the beat mystique as experienced through Cassady’s all-American euphoria actually gets evoked in spots, along with the sadness that usually goes with it. (JR) Read more
An adroitly acted though still quite minor Mike Leigh film, about two old college chums (Katrin Cartlidge and Lynda Steadman) meeting up in London after six years. As frequently happens in Leigh’s stories, each central character is accorded at least one hyperbolic personal trait: Cartlidge (who played very different roles in Naked and Breaking the Waves) moves in jerky, demonstrative gestures; Steadman’s character has a skin disease that renders her both tense and fragile; and Mark Benton, playing a fellow student who shows some interest in Steadman, stutters relentlessly. What’s most remarkable about the two lead actresses (assisted by makeup designer Christine Blundell) is how much they change over six years in physical appearance as well as modified personal style, a point underlined by periodic flashbacks. Though the film’s theme never comes into sharp focus, there’s still something agreeable about Leigh’s low-key approach, compared to the grandstanding of Naked and Secrets & Lies. (JR)
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The pits. Borrowing liberally and unintelligently from both Alien and Solaris, this space opera, set in 2047, follows a rescue mission near Neptune as it checks out the title spaceship, which has been missing for seven years. (It’s creepy to imagine that the same Hollywood stereotypes and plastic rock music will be with us 50 years from now.) It seems the mad scientist who designed the faster-than-light spacecraft created a black hole in the universe, unleashing some sort of onboard hell where everybody goes bananas; but the storytelling is so clumsy we can’t be sure of that. If you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill duke it out in a vat full of red paint, here’s your chance; personally, my idea of hell would be having to see this stinker again. Written by Philip Eisner and directed by Paul Anderson; with Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones, Jack Noseworthy, and Jason Isaacs. (JR) Read more
Irma Vep
Olivier Assayas wrote and directed this dark, brittle French comedy (1996), most of it in English, about a film company shooting a remake of Louis Feuillade’s silent Les vampires. An unexpected masterpiece, Irma Vep was assembled so quickly that it has an improvisational feel and a surrealist capacity to access its own unconscious–two sterling traits it shares with Feuillade’s 1916 serial. A once-prestigious French director of the 60s (Jean-Pierre Leaud) casts a Hong Kong star (Maggie Cheung) in the role of head villainess Irma Vep (an anagram for “vampire”), and his sexual infatuation with the actress is matched by that of the costume designer who escorts her around Paris (Jacques Rivette regular Nathalie Richard). The feverish pace of the shooting seems to unleash everybody’s bad vibes as well as their desire, and Assayas follows the delirium as if he were at the center of a hurricane. What emerges is not only a memorable look at contemporary life in general (and international low-budget filmmaking in particular), but also a mysterious set of notations on how Feuillade’s hallucinatory masterwork might be translated into modern terms. An absolute must-see; with Lou Castel and Bulle Ogier. Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Tuesday, August 12, 6:00 and 8:00, 312-443-3737. Read more
Flaming Creatures
Forget everything you might have heard about the late Jack Smith’s legendary bisexual, orgiastic, superlow-budget, experimental 1963 masterpiece–a lot more is going on here, artistically and otherwise, than either Jonas Mekas or Susan Sontag has ever suggested. This jubilant, celebratory 45-minute film holds up amazingly well; despite its notoriety and censorship during the 60s, it’s more than just an orgy of nude and seminude bodies–male, female, and transvestite. The camera and even the cheap, hothouse decor participate in the joyful free-for-all, suggesting both the privacy of a Josef von Sternberg wet dream and the collective force of a delirious apocalypse. But the simplest way to describe it is to call it a vision. Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont, Thursday, August 14, 6:00, 773-327-5252. –Jonathan Rosenbaum Read more
The exploitation title tells it all. New York underground filmmaker Joe Christ, appearing in the flesh, dares you to be interested. On the same program, some of Christ’s earlier short films, such as Sex Blood & Mutilation. (JR) Read more
A streamlined, sometimes affecting Hollywood studio version of a maverick independent script by the late John Cassavetes, this 1997 film offers a fascinating glimpse at what Cassavetes was from the vantage point of what he wasn’t. Sean Penn (his choice for the lead ten years ago) stars as a crazy low-life city brawler deeply in love with his pregnant wife (Robin Wright Penn). One of his jealous rages gets him committed to a mental asylum for ten years, and by the time he gets out his wife has married John Travolta (who’s the best reason for seeing this movie), had a couple more kids, and moved to the suburbs. Nick Cassavetes (John’s son) is the director, though without the luxury of final cut enjoyed by his father on all his own features, and the brassy in-your-face music and ‘Scope framing both seem antithetical to the father’s style. Most of the characters (also including Harry Dean Stanton, Debi Mazar, and James Gandolfini), irrational and ineffable, are recognizable denizens of John Cassavetes’s world, though the way they’re sometimes pressed into sitcom routines robs them of some of their potential density. Not really a Cassavetes movie, but worth seeing anyway. (JR) Read more
Though light years away from anything resembling political correctness, this 1932 horror thriller about a Chinese madman (Boris Karloff) threatening an expedition to the tomb of Ghengis Khan is often magnificent, imaginative stuff: bombastic pulp at its purple best. Charles Brabin directed this adaptation of Sax Rohmer’s novel; with Lewis Stone, Karen Morley, Jean Hersholt, and Myrna Loy as Karloff’s daughter. 72 min. (JR) Read more
Amiable hack and faux-naif sensationalist Nick Broomfield (Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam) turns his documentary lens on Pandora’s Box, a legal New York establishment offering sadomasochistic services without intercourse, and gets the dominatrices as well as the (almost exclusively male) clientele to rattle on about what they’re doing and why, often during their sessions. Interesting up to a point but also fairly obvious in many of its discoveries (such as the fact that many of the customers craving discipline work around Wall Street), this is the sort of thing you find on cable late at nighthalf education, half titillation, and not too bothered about which is which. (JR) Read more
The original title of Cedric Klapisch’s 1997 comedy is Chacun cherche son chat, a French expression literally meaning Everyone looks for his own cat. The searcher in this caseultimately looking for a boyfriend as well as a petis a young makeup artist (Garance Clavel) who shares a flat with a gay man (Olivier Py), leaves her cat Gris-Gris with an elderly cat lover (Renee Le Calm) when she goes off on holiday, and returns to find Gris-Gris missing. Vaguely reminiscent of the 60s English comedy A Taste of Honey, this minor but agreeable charmer offers a much more authentic look at a Paris neighborhood (Bastille in this case) than most French movies; it was enormously successful in France, and given its relaxed populist spirit it isn’t hard to see why. (JR) Read more
Three hours long, Arnaud Desplechin’s highly watchable French comedy drama (1996) about the sex lives of 30ish Parisian intellectuals and academics has been compared to everything from Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore to Reality Bites. For me, it’s a lot better than the latter and not nearly as good as the former. Desplechin undeniably catches something generational and poignant about the various relationships of a part-time philosophy teacher (Mathieu Amalric)including one with a woman (Marianne Denicourt) who winds up getting engaged to his best friend. The influences here, by the way, are not only cinematic (the aforementioned Eustache) but also literary; novelist Philip Roth is the most overt reference point. 178 min. In French with subtitles. (JR) Read more
Another intriguing piece of Australian self-hatred, this comic first feature with dashes of magical realism by writer-director Shirley Barrett, set in a desolate backwater of Queensland, focuses on two lovelorn sisters living together, aged 21 (Miranda Otto) and 26 (Rebecca Frith), whose lives are disrupted by a glamorous middle-aged disc jockey from Brisbane (George Shevtsov) who moves next door to them. According to the neofeminist presuppositions of this fable, men are wholly other: the glib, villainous disc jockey literally proves to be a fish and even the 21-year-old’s employer, a nudist in his spare time, is at best a sympathetic geek. I could have done without the wall-to-wall music as well as the thematic confusion that can’t always distinguish between romantic desperation and sexist exploitation (although, God knows, this story has plenty of both); still, this has a lyrical sense of place that carries one over some of the rough patches. (JR) Read more
Not the Berg opera but a 1995 Hungarian adaptation of the original Georg Buchner play, suitably grim and set around a moldering railroad yard. I can’t recall it very well, except for the fact that I preferred it to Werner Herzog’s previous version. Janos Szasz directed, and Lajos Kovacs plays the eponymous hero. (JR) Read more
