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Fantastic Mr. Fox
Farewell, My Lovely
A Farewell to Arms
Fatty Arbuckle
Femme fatale
La femme infidèle
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Fantastic Mr. Fox 2009 Wes Anderson 3.0 George Clooney as Mr. Fox, very amusing in his larcenous, lying, self-justifying, bull-shitting ways – he feels he has to live up to his name as the wiliest, smartest animal (i.e., “fantastic”); Meryl Streep as the somewhat up-tight, thunderstorm-painting mom keeping things respectable and under control; Bill Murray as sensible, unimaginative Badger; Wally Wolodarski as Fox’s skittish, not too intelligent sidekick and partner in crime; Michael Gambon as the evil Mr. Bean; Willem Dafoe as the guardian rat; Jason Schwartzman as Fox’s disrespected son Ash, who wants above all to be considered an athlete; Eric Anderson as Kristofferson, Fox’s able and cool visiting nephew – he is a good athlete, knows karate, and he meditates. Entertaining stop-animation film based on Roald Dahl’s book. Mr. Fox and his wife steal chickens; he goes straight at her insistence, and then relapses, endangering the whole animal community; the revenge of the three farmers is relentless, but of course the good guys triumph in the end. The strength of the film is not in the rather hackneyed plot. The characters are charming and amusing, particularly Mr. Fox, who puts all the animals in danger with his irresponsible actions – the farmers fanatically pursue them with shovels, guns, dynamite, back hoes, floods, etc. – and Kristofferson, who can do no wrong. The animation is not as smooth or convincing as ‘Coraline’ – the movement of the characters is often jerky, the eyes are made of glass or porcelain, Fox’s exposed teeth look like plastic, the animals spend too much time digging tunnels very rapidly, the scenery often looks flat and like paper cut-outs. But the expressions of the animal characters are real, even eloquent – mouth movements, hair bristling, ears turning as they scan the environment – and the voice performances draw us into the characters. Music is catchy and amusing –some rock, some Beach Boys, some country banjo strumming, and the child’s nursery rhyme about the farmers: Boggis and Bunce and Bean./One fat, one short, one lean. /These horrible crooks, so different in looks./Were nonetheless equally mean. The focus of the film is yet another Wes Anderson dysfunctional family: Will Fox give up his larceny act and be a good husband? Will Ash overcome his inferiority contest vis-à-vis Kristofferson? Will he be assured of his father’s respect and affection? The end of the film has order restored with the animals now living comfortably in the sewer instead of in their former tree and now provided with free (stolen?) food since they now have access to the farmers’ super market. Predictable plot drags a bit; otherwise delightful.


Farewell      2009      Christian Carion (France)      3.5      Guillaume Canet as low-key French industrialist living in Moscow about 1981; Emire Kusturica high level KGB administrator motivated to betray massively important secrets to the French (who will pass them on to the Americans) in order to bring down the frozen Communist system; Alexandra Maria Lara as Canet's wife, who puts great pressure on him to get out of the impromptu spy business; Fred Ward looing too young but doin an often hilarious impression of President Reagan; Philippe Magnan as Francois Mitterand; Willem Dafoe as dceadpan, deadly serious CIA higher up; Niels Arestrup ('Prophete'') as head os the French Internal Security agency that handles the transmission of the secret documents (the spy agency is inflitrated by the Soviets).  Thoroughly enjoyable, often suspenseful, realist, and sometimes slow-moving film about an affair that helped bring down the Soviet Union.  The official narrative is that Reagan's challenge, e.g., 'Star Wars', did it, but this film (based on a best-seller in France) opines that the sclerotic Soviet system was able to survive as long as it did only because it was able to steal industrial and technological secrets from the West (spying ate up 40% of its security budget!), and that the moment it lost its extensive network of agents, the system was doomed.  Kusturica is absolutely determined to bring down the system for the sake of his son Igor (Evgeniu Kharlanov), and he meets Canet in various public places to hand over to him photographed copies of inflammatory documents.  Canet is drawn somewhat reluctantly into the scheme, and he must deal continuously with the impassioned opposition of his wife, to whom he lies regularly.  An important side plot is Kusturica's affair with an office employee, who generates tension since we fear that she will go overboard emotionally and betray her boyfriend to the KGB.  Simple but effective outdoor scenes apparently not photographed in Moscow, but looking very much like it.  Denouement is a surprise: Canet is warned by his spying housemaid to leave ("partir" written in lipstick on the mirror), and after driving through an endless snowy landscape, the family with the two children is able to make it through the checkpoint at the Finnish border in an effective Hitchcockian moment as we kwait to see whether the guards will be tipped off (another example of "pure cinema" is the scene in the Moscow subway, where Canet is frightened by policemen coming in his direction [he has documents in his briefcase], but at the last minute they finger a woman next to him at the newsstand and hustle her off to prison).  Kusturica is arrested, tortured, manhandled, and he gives information only when Canet and his family are safe; he is then shot in the snowy woods (the scene with the shots reverberating through the hills is first scene at the very beginning of the film).  When Canet visits CIA agent Dafoe in Germany to ask for Kusturica's release, Dafoe informs him that the CIA itself turned Kusturica in so as to protect the CIA Moscow network; ends on disillusion with the Machtpolitik of the Great Powers handing over their greastest source with no moral compunction, but perhaps with the understanding that such underhandedness is necessary for a good cause.


Farewell, My Lovely 1975 Dick Richards 3.0 Robert Mitchum dominating the film as Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe; Charlotte Rampling mumbling a bit and looking a bit slight and washed out as supposed femme fatale Helen – she doesn’t live up to the precedent set by Claire Trevor in ‘Murder’; John Ireland as Marlowe’s buddy detective lieutenant; Harry Dean Stanton as hostile police detective; Jack O’Halloran as the big, hulking romantic Moose Malloy; Anthony Zerbe. Remake of 1944 Dick Powell ‘Murder, My Sweet’ that gets the Chandler business better than the original and certainly better than the incomprehensible ‘The Big Sleep’. Even though in color, the film captures well the dark streets and 40s interiors of the novel – excellent consistent art direction. Moose kicks things off demanding Marlowe to find “my Velma”, and his convoluted searches through the streets of LA begin; after many complications, the trail leads eventually to rich girl Rampling, who it turns out is Velma! When Moose discovers that his Velma has really double-crossed him, it doesn’t make any difference to him: Moose is either too faithful or too stupid to recognize the truth. Unlike other Marlowe-Chandler versions, the tricky narrative line is not too difficult to follow – we’re always just a little bit behind the eight ball but not so that the exercise is frustrating. Nice updated film noir – femme fatale, dangerous urban streets, story told in flashback, except that the protagonist is not dumb nor is he condemned by fate to failure. The success of the film depends mostly on Mitchum’s performance – laconic, relaxed, weary, cynical, sometimes a little hangdog as the persistent, honorable Marlowe; he told Moose he would find his Velma and he won’t rest until he does.


A Farewell to Arms 1932 Frank Borzage 3.0 Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, Adolphe Menjou. Adaptation of Hemingway novel that, as you would expect in a Borzage movie, puts most of emphasis on the love story between Cooper and Hayes. Does have a persistent anti-war theme, as we encounter in the hospitals and on the road ample evidence of the destruction of war; when the grand Italian victory comes, it is hollow with the implication that the cost is too great. Cooper does as well as he can with his obsessed romantic love with his awkward and taciturn delivery; he is at least tall, dashing and handsome. Hayes fares somewhat better as soft, beautiful, dedicated nurse, who falls hook, line and sinker for the beautiful Cooper; cf. moving camera scene where she follows him through the streets to witness his departure on the train. Menjou excellent as Cooper’s carousing buddy, who plots out of jealousy to block Coop’s and Hayes relationships without realizing that Hayes is pregnant (and perhaps secretly married), and then repents and partly makes up for it in the end. Hayes dies in end from botched childbirth. Best aspect of movie is Borzage’s direction – he conveys lovers being hostile to society and its corruption (mainly war), inhabiting its own space away from the troubles of the world, Hollywood version of “amour fou.” Close-ups extensively used with soft focus of Hayes (who doesn’t really need it). In end Hayes can die without fear, since she is convinced that their love will be eternal, and that Cooper will not ever forget her even though she is dead. Print is fair to poor; all outdoor shots are faked, undermining somewhat the believability of the film.


Fargo 1996 Coen Brothers 4.0 Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy, Peter Stomare (murderous), Herve Presnell. Totally delicious Coen confection. Black humor. memorable characters – Buscemi! especially Macy, and McDormand, but basically everyone. Almost vicious, sinful satire on upper plains culture – Norwegian accent, the snow, the hats, the flat characters, deliciously set off by the murderous characters. The little whore and their matter-of-fact gab! Excellent little thriller where more or less everything goes wrong; ends with many murders and capture of Macy who is despicable as usual. McDormand is moral center who just doesn’t understand why there has to be so much violence (about six dead!). Deadpan black humor that reaches its paroxysm with Stomare feeding Buscemi’s body into the wood chipper and not being phased by the red stain all over the white snow; also look at the wife’s shenanigans when she is kidnapped; she doesn’t know how to be terrified.


Fat City 1971 John Huston (writer Leonard Gardiner) 3.5 Stacy Keach as down-and-out alcoholic, former boxer living on skid row in Stockton CA; Jeff Bridges in early teenage role as clueless kid about to graduate from high school – he would like to become a fighter; Susan Tyrrell in high-impact role as expressive, insulting, motor-mouth alcoholic barfly who takes up with Keach when her steady boyfriend gets thrown in jail (AA nomination); Candy Clark in small role as Bridges' girlfriend, who pressures him to marry her; Nick Colusanto as manager of amateur boxers – he has a heart of gold although little success with his boys despite his devotion to them (he drives them all the way to Monterey and back for amateur matches). Memorable small film about dead-end poverty on skid row in Stockton Ca about 1970. Virtually all the film takes place in seedy bars and rooming houses (dirty windows, peeling wallpaper, trash strewn throughout the apartment, etc.) among the derelicts in a declining American city; boxing and back-breaking agricultural labor are the main activites. The film follows the fortunes of Bridges, who is a young boxer of mixed prospects and whose career is interrupted when Clark ropes him into a teenage marriage. Huston focuses more on Keach, who appears to be a hopeless alcoholic but who would like to get into shape and relaunch his career as a boxer. In the meantime, he takes up with Tyrrell, who does little else but complain and lie around in their run-down room drinking (she prefers cream sherry but will drink anything). He does win a tough fight at the end of the film with a Mexican boxer with serious kidney problems (we see him peeing blood into the toilet before the bout), but when he returns to his room, Tyrrell's old boyfriend is back; with decent politeness he hands him his belongings in a box. The Mexican, who never utters a word, arrives on a Greyhound bus in the Stockton bus station, loses the fight, and then wordlessly walks out of the venue. Walking down the street, Keach runs into the married Bridges, who tries unsuccessfully to elude him. They go into a community center for street people, where they have a cup of coffee together. The ending of the film is sensitively shot and edited: Keach stares at an old Asian server who can barely walk obviously thinking about his own inevitable destiny; as he looks at other bums playing cards at a nearby table, the film freezes with only Keach's eyes moving and blinking; when Bridges tries to leave, Keach pleads with him to stay and chat a little longer; he does, and the end of the film arrives after about a half a minute of the two sipping their coffee in absolute silence. Nothing to say, nothing to do. Keach is near the end of his cycle of poverty; Bridges doesn't realize yet that the future has the same fate for him. Film is realistic in textures and style, and sometimes moves slowly; Tyrrell's and Keach's performance are outstanding; and the ending is moving and true.


Fatty Arbuckle

The Bellboy 1918 R. Arbuckle 3.0 Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton.

The Butcher Boy 1917 R. Arbuckle 3.5 Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton. Both produced by Joe Schenck at Paramount. Among first pairings of Fatty and Buster Keaton. Arbuckle still definitely the star with BK in supporting role. Both about 25 minutes. A few verbal (title) jokes, but most are slapstick with pratfalls, fights between enemies and sometimes friends, quite a few acrobatics. ‘Butcher Boy’ a better movie; has flour fight in grocery store, routine with molasses (acting like fly paper), Fatty’s knife juggling routine (funny), putting on his Russian hat to go into the freezer, etc. and ends with forays into the girls’ boarding school to rescue his girlfriend – Fatty very funny dressed up in frilly dress and Mary Pickford curls. ‘Bellboy’ has good routines in the beginning, including shaving routine where Fatty turns Rasputin into Gen. Grant, Abe Lincoln and then into Kaiser Wilhelm II! Ends with less inspired, interminable bank robbery routine. Fatty is sweet tempered, baby faced, endearing, who does cause chaos but doesn’t mean to harm anyone. He likes girls and usually ends up getting the cutey.


Out West 1918 R. Arbuckle 3.0 Fatty and Buster

Moonshine 1918 R. Arbuckle 3.0 Fatty and Buster


The Hayseed 1919 3.0 Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton. Fairly amusing short film according to Fatty and Buster formula. Plot revolves around whether Fatty gets girl, and of course he does in the end. Keaton for once does not laugh. Incredible number of pratfalls and stylized, ritualized violence. Last dancehall scene is funniest, with manic dancing and one particularly long-suffering young woman dressed in dowdy clothes, and Fatty singing: he cracks everyone up with his very sentimental song, and then experiences rejection since he had eaten a lot of onions, which, according to BK, would strengthen his voice!


Fearless 1993 Peter Weir 2.5 Jeff Bridges doing the best he can as San Francisco architect who is transformed emotionally and spiritually following near death in a harrowing plane crash; Isabel Rossellini solid as his beautiful (snaggle-toothed?) wife who notices the difference and suffers the most from it; Rosie Perez looking like a teenager with a Puerto Rican accent – she is overcome with guilt because she lost her child in the crash; Tom Hulce using his Mozart mannerisms as hearse chasing lawyer who precludes every announcement about getting more money for his clients with “I know I am terrible, but…”; John Turturro in low-grade role as grief counselor hired by the airlines; Benicia Del Toro as venal husband of Rosie – all he cares about is getting money out of the accident. Curious film that does not focus on the accident, but on the psychological and spiritual aftermath in the souls of Bridges and Perez. Bridges did not receive a scratch and he looks fine, and yet his behavior and affect are transformed: he has a beatific smile, he says that he has faced death and is no longer afraid, he feels a kinship with the survivors (aside from Perez there is another woman and a small boy who returns to visit him because he says he feels safe with Bridges), and he wants to help them…. And that is the problem: the sensible thing to do would be to help them return to the loving embraces of their everyday lives (children, spouses, etc.), but Bridges, who is distant from his wife and son and who spends large amounts of time away from them doing such things as walking perilously on the ledge of a skyscraper, seems to revel in being distant in some sort of higher reality (reinforced visually by illustrations from Dante’s ‘Paradiso’) where one is alone, stands alone before God and does not need anyone else (Hieronymous Bosch’s explanation of Paradise). He develops a close relationship with Perez, which seems at first destined to be romantic, and yet it becomes a supportive friendship in which Bridges tries to free her from her guilt – for example, by driving a Volvo full speed into a brick wall to show her that there was no way she could have held on to save her son(!). In the end Bridges starts a reconnection with his wife and son after he has an allergic reaction from eating a strawberry; but the viewer’s confusion remains.… Terrifyingly realistic scenes of the airplane crash that are recreated at various intervals in the film. Some truly hackneyed scenes, e.g., Bridges and Perez go on a shopping spree in an Oakland mall to buy presents for their deceased loved ones – “I never gave my dad a present when he was alive”! The acting is good throughout. Weir however has largely missed the mark in his investigation of alternative psychological-spiritual states.


Femme fatale 2002 Brian DePalma 3.5 Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote. Wild and crazy cinematic ride peppered with trademark sleaze, bravura set pieces, clues that may or may not refer to anything, seemingly nonsensical plot twists – in sum, completely fascinating cinema with minimal concern for characters and plot! Wonderful set pieces: long opening sequence on the theft of an outrageously revealing gold and diamond studded serpentine top worn by a super model, and presumably lifted from her by Laure (Romijn) as they make lesbian love in the (clean!) women’s room at Cannes Film Festival; outrageous sexually seductive dance sequence featuring a near naked Romijn (DePalma is not afraid of frontal nudity!) and ending with copulation with Banderas; near suicide scene when Lily (almost?) commits suicide and we are nerve-racked as Laure watches (and she intervenes in second version of story). Also encounter between the large truck driven by French fellow with the prism hanging from rear view mirror: first version has him strike model; second version has him swerve, miss the model, and impale two bad guys on sort of fork lift contraption – blood spurts from bodies, mouth and eyes! Film studded with wondrous clues, which may or may not make sense: Catholic kids walking down the street like Madeleine following a nun; the prism; overflowing bathtubs, aquarium, and glasses; the black guy, when released from prison, is still wearing his bloody shirt from seven years before (!). Characters are pretty standard stuff; there isn’t much good acting – I prefer Romijn’s performance to Banderas’, who undoubtedly didn’t know what to do with the script! Plot is almost ridiculously inconsistent. In the end we are led to believe that Laure dreamed the whole “Seven Years Later” sequence as a sort of psychic prediction while she was submerged in the bathtub (near death?) – this part was extremely detailed and elaborate, and has Laure going to USA and returning with a ransom con to bilk her kind-hearted husband for $10 million (!); and the final sequence has the French double leaving and never coming back (what did Laure do in the ensuing seven years?), revealing to us that the model (who of course is not really dead) and Laure collaborated to bilk their fellow thieves of their necklace (also $10 million!), and the two of them shocked at the end at the death of the bad guys, and Laure willingly mating up with Banderas (she a loyal wife?). Perhaps movie, which opens with scene from Double Indemnity, plays best as parody of femme fatale sub-genre? Don’t think so. DePalma plays with doubles, dreams, etc., which are not extensively developed by Hitchcock. As Ebert says, observe “the glee with which De Palma manipulates images and characters for the simple joy of being good at it.”


La femme infidèle 1969 Claude Chabrol (France) 3.0 Stephane Audran. Michel Bouquet, Michel Duchaussoy. Completely minimalist film about a husband’s jealousy about his wife’s casual affair, his impulsive murder of the lover, and the aftermath. The most understated of the three big films of 1969-70. Bouquet and Audran don’t say much; you have to read the progress of the story in their eyes and facial expressions. The surface of the film is calm and ordinary as these members of the upper bourgeoisie pursue their apparently placid and perfectly modulated life in home, office, trips to Paris, Bouquet dropping his wife off for her appointments, parenting their child, amusing themselves with their friends in a boîte, etc. Both spouses are always impeccably dressed and coiffed. The camera often focuses on the front of the Norman-style mansion with its perfectly manicured park-like setting, and on the inside with its tastefully appointed (decorator executed) traditional rustic décor with olive green walls, and the sky blue headboard in bedroom against the brick red walls. Behind this façade lurks Audran’s boredom and Bouquet’s jealous passion that leads to murder: he does not however intend to murder the lover when he visits his Neuilly flat, but he snaps when he sees that his wife has given the lover an oversized cigarette lighter that Bouquet had given her for their 3rd wedding anniversary. Camera follows murder with understated matter-of-factness, and follows Bouquet’s disposing of the body in detail – perhaps a bit too much (the reluctance of the body to sink in the overgrown pond is an obvious tribute to ‘Psycho). The second perverse twist is that when Audran finally realizes what has happened and that her husband is responsible for it, she appreciates his act: she destroys incriminating evidence she discovered in his coat, gazes at him with loving affection, accepts his assurances of love for her when the police come, and then stands with her son on a hillock as he is led away. Contrast between placid, normal exterior and interior drama is very engaging. The connections between the two levels are perhaps a bit too subtle and understated for most people.