Podcasting Them Softly

The world of cinema was shocked by the tragic passing of Mr. Demme at the end of April.  In honor of his memory, this week Kyle and Ben discuss Something Wild, his underrated romantic thriller that has been given a stunning blu-ray release by the Criterion Collection.

BEN: As I delve into the world of cinema, I come across films that are so mind-bending they stop me dead in my tracks.  As the film opens, we meet Charlie Driggs played by a very roguish Jeff Daniels in a café.  We don’t know why at this point, but there is something fundamentally wrong with this relatively successful finance wizard and he makes a decision that attracts the attention of a very dynamic Lulu, played by Melanie Griffith.  From this opening frame, we can tell that Demme, whose shooting style would be considered “open,” is going to have fun with the audience.  After a rather humorous confrontation, Lulu encourages Charlie to get into her car, where she takes him on a ride of debauchery and mayhem.  Along the way, they steal, they abandon; Charlie comes to terms with his rebellious side and falls in love with Lulu, who has a dark secret in the form of Ray Sinclair played by a very young and vibrant Ray Liotta in his second theatrical role.

KYLE: One of the things that instantly grabbed me upon revisiting this was how colorful it was.  Demme uses a bohemian aesthetic that’s both distinct, and somehow….normal?  I read in an article that Demme and the crew handpicked the bulk of set decorations and props.  It’s an intimate story and you can feel Demme’s deep affection for it in every frame.

BEN: This is going to sound cliché, but E. Max Frye’s Edgar Award-winning screenplay is typically 1980s:  the young successful banker is looking for an escape from his successful life, falls in love with his sinful, polar opposite with a secret past which eventually results in a murderous ending coupled with the ultimate 1980s bad boy who spells trouble for the young lovers.  With Demme’s deft direction, solid acting, and the fun atmosphere created by Frye’s screenplay, it works.

KYLE: I love how it’s this neo-Odyssey by way of the cliché road trip.  You can see Ray being the cyclops and Lulu in her three different personas reminded me of the Sirens, luring Daniels away from safety and into harm’s way that would ultimately lead to a greater understanding of self.

BEN: Daniels was the perfect young actor to play the yuppie seeking freedom while Melanie Griffith plays to her sinful strong suits.  Ray Liotta comes into himself as the violent, aggressive type.  The three leads lent such credibility to their roles that they were all nominated for Best Actor, Actress and Supporting Actor at the 1987 Golden Globes, respectively.

KYLE: I could not believe that this was Liotta’s second role.  He’s completely magnetic from the instant his character enters the story.  I really enjoyed his chemistry with Daniels and Griffith.  It has this sophisticated, but primal quality that I think is essential for the tonal changes in the second half.  I really enjoyed how Demme was sort of playing on the expectations of the audience with respect to 80’s rom coms and essentially pulls a bait and switch and ends up with something resonant.  It’s about confronting the dangers of the world in the name of love and Demme uses his trio of talent along with some outstanding technical work to bring his bloody, but beautiful valentine home.

BEN: As I mentioned at the beginning, very few movies stop me in my tracks.  Driggs’ comment at the end of the movie hit home the most:  “It’s better to be a live dog then a dead lion;” a common theme to movies of the era, but it serves also as a warning to future generations:  live a little.  Perhaps we could all heed Driggs’ sage advice.

KYLE:  Highly Recommended for me.

BEN: We are in agreement!

Bitter, subversive, and violently fierce all throughout its super-lean 80 minute running time, Doug Liman’s Iraq war thriller The Wall operates as both a minimalist genre exercise ala Phone Booth and Buried, while angrily commenting on American foreign military involvement. And it serves as a reminder that Liman, who certainly got bit by the blockbuster bug (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow), can still drop a down and dirty little gem that delivers a smart gut punch. The Wall is short and sweet so I’ll keep my comments the same, as the less you know about this nervy picture the better. I’ve long been a big fan of Liman’s varied technique and it’s exciting to see him switching gears and taking on a gritty quickie like this; he’ll be back on screens later this year with the drug running crime film American Made with Tom Cruise.

Dwain Worrell’s ultra-focused screenplay was the first spec script purchased by distributor Amazon Studios, with the plot centering on two American soldiers, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena, who become trapped by an Iraqi sniper near a small compound and partially destroyed cement wall. When Cena is hit, it’s up to Taylor-Johnson to save himself and his partner, all the while contending with the enemy combatant who has hacked into their radio, remaining unseen for the entire film, and clearly enjoying his close yet hidden proximity. Taylor-Johnson is very effective as the panic-stricken soldier who is also dealing with a potentially life-threatening bullet wound, Cena spends most of the narrative with his face down in the dirt but is still quite strong, and the calm yet chilling voice-over performance of Laith Nakli understandably makes you anxious.

The Wall hugely benefits from Roman Vasyonov’s exceptional and jittery widescreen cinematography (the film was shot on 16mm film stock), while Julia Bloch’s no-fat editing keeps the pace lightning quick without ever sacrificing any of the fired-up dramatics. The solo location keeps things intense and claustrophobic despite being set outside, and the lack of a traditional musical score keeps the film all the more tense and unnerving. The ending is startling and exactly as it should be. The Wall was released last weekend to a questionable Rottentomatoes score of 62% (if the Marvel logo were attached it’d be in the 90’s), and practically non-existent box-office returns. To be fair, I doubt many people are aware of this movie, which is a huge shame, as smart and ruthless thrillers like this are in small supply, especially during the increasingly empty-headed summer movie season.

Tim Hunter’s brutal and unforgettable drama River’s Edge is one of the most unflinching looks at dysfunctional teen life ever put on screen, and serves as a grim reminder of how powerful true-crime based cinema can be when properly handled. Inspired by a real murder that took place in 1981 in California, Neal Jimenez’s hard-hitting script never soft pedaled any of the scary, emotionless nihilism that permeated a group of kids who were all tangled up in thoughtless killing, with an amazing cast of then-young actors doing sensational work, including Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Roxanne Zal, Josh Richman, and Crispin Glover, with Dennis Hopper providing his usual brand of sinister character acting from the fringes of this chilling film. With evocative cinematography by Frederick Elmes and a haunting score from Jürgen Knieper, this is one of those absolutely harrowing efforts that once you’ve seen you’ll never forget, and despite shining a light on some very unsympathetic characters (Larry Clark must love this film!) who are all caught in a deadly scenario, Hunter’s steely direction keeps the film from ever becoming cloying or sentimental, as he stressed the inherent cruelty and sadness of the story without over doing it.

Next up on Did You Have Any Idea This Was Made And Released? is the confident and excellent 50’s-set drama Indignation, from producer/writer/scholar James Schamus, who made his directorial debut with this adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel of the same name. Schamus has, for the last 20 years, been Ang Lee’s main creative collaborator, and also found time to run Focus Features; it’s no surprise that he’d choose an intelligent and classy piece of material such as this for his first foray into full-fledged feature filmmaking. Logan Lerman, again excellent after strong work in Perks of Being a Wallflower and Fury, makes a commanding impression as a young Jewish college student, the son of a Kosher butcher, who leaves New Jersey for Ohio, and immediately has problems settling into campus life. The early scenes project a wonderful sense of time and place, which then fluidly leads into the rest of the story.

His bumbling roommates aren’t a good fit, he’s got an overbearing Dean of students (played by the tremendous and invaluable Tracy Letts), his parents are a mess, the Korean War is escalating, and he catches the eye of a sexually forward and potentially troubled female student played by Sarah Gadon (very pretty but a little dramatically flat) who changes his life forever after a very saucy (especially for the time) first date. The societal humor that’s on display during the various sexual entanglements is often very, very funny. But just you wait until the film’s dramatic centerpiece arrives in the form of a one on one confrontation between Lerman and Letts; this staggering bit of acting between the two thespians runs for close to 15 minutes and becomes nearly overwhelming by its conclusion. With rat-a-tat dialogue and the two performers heatedly reciting their lines, it’s hilarious, smart, stinging, and hugely entertaining to observe.

So why didn’t Indignation, which was “released” by Roadside Attractions and Summit Entertainment in the head-scratching summer movie season last year after being acquired at Sundance, have any sort of visibility in the marketplace? Beyond the fact that it’s a film that would likely appeal to a narrow audience (especially these days), I can’t figure out why the distributors didn’t even TRY to do something with this strong piece of cinema; it wasn’t even worth a fall release date as opposed to be being buried in late July? Because it should have grossed way more than the $3 million domestic that it did, and it’s much better than its 82% Rottentomatoes score (if the film opened with the Marvel logo it’d be in the 90’s). This should have been aggressively marketed to upscale audiences, with a simultaneous push onto VOD platforms at the time of its theatrical release.

All of the craft contributions were splendid, with period-fantastic art direction and production design by Derek Wang and Inbal Weinberg respectively; painterly cinematography that stressed dark hues from Kelly Reichardt’s favored director of photography Christopher Blauvelt; patient editing by Andrew Marcus which allowed various scenes to unfold at a smart pace for maximum dramatic impact; and a superb musical score by Jay Wadley that tied everything together.  But because the film didn’t have massive stars and nobody showed up in superhero spandex, nobody saw it, or has even heard of it. Schamus demonstrated a natural hand as a storyteller with this project, and I hope it’s financial failure doesn’t dissuade him from working again in the helmer’s chair. The title of this film is very fitting for the themes explored within the emotionally tricky narrative, and for how I feel about the direction that cinema in general is currently headed.

Heat

1995.  Directed by Michael Mann.

Recently re-released with a stunning 4K transfer, Michael Mann’s acclaimed L.A. crime saga Heat is arguably not only one of the greatest films in his formidable filmography, but also the pinnacle of full throttle storytelling.  Featuring a duo of searing performances by screen icons Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, Mann’s trademark urban visuals, and one of the greatest action sequences ever filmed, Mann’s epic treatment of professional thieves and the dedicated lawmen who hunt them transports a Samurai mindset into the modern world in a hail of bullets.

Neil leads a crew who takes down high profile scores.  After a job goes wrong, Neil is put into the crosshairs of Vincent Hanna, an obsessive detective whose life is dedicated to the pursuit, that culminates in a daring day time heist and a subsequent shootout in which no one is safe.  Expanding upon his script from a failed TV pilot, Mann builds a straightforward world of good and evil before pulling the lines uncomfortably close.  Packed with memorable dialogue and unforgettable confrontations, Heat dances around the inevitable showdown of its two leads before annihilating any sense of predictability in the climax.  The diner scene between Pacino and DeNiro is remarkable, forgoing the ease of tension by focusing on the basic similarities between two souls who are mirrored, yet set apart only by circumstance.

This is the brilliance of the film.  Mann weaves an outstanding ensemble across multiple storylines, some of which are purposefully left hanging to give the viewer a grounded sense of the playing field, complete with sidewalk demons and lost souls looking for meaning from friends, family, and personal ethics.  Discipline and the adherence to code, both tangible legalities and metaphysical ideals, are the marrow of Mann’s exposition.  Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, William Fichtner, Henry Rollins, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, Dennis Haysbert, Tom Noonan, Jon Voight, Diane Verona, Amy Brenneman, Hank Azaria, Jeremy Pivens, and Xander Berkely fill out the supporting cast, but it is Natalie Portman who shines with a handful of scenes.  Her performance is the ultimately casualty, the real world consequences for the actions of those who live beyond the law and those who are consumed by it.  Relationships are a key component, given an ample amount of time to establish that both sides of the coin are people, despite their choices, adding an undercurrent of humanity that strengthens the narrative by presenting the characters as flawed, but genuine souls with dreams waiting to be shattered under the LA sun.

Eliot Goldenthal’s score, combined with a fantastic soundtrack musically narrate the drama, using Mann’s patented masculine deconstructionism to create an entity unto itself.  Moby’s God Moving Over the Face of the Waters in the finale is both beautifully tragic and perfectly applied, an auditory summation of the ultimate neo-tragedy that Mann has created.  Deborah Lynn Scott’s costume design has a vintage, minimalist quality, presenting both cop and robber as natural affixtures to the world on display.  Heat is a free range compound where killers and flawed saints play cat and mouse games while reality perseveres, unaware of the dangerous stakes being sought out and the way that each character is perfectly accessorized is a welcomed conspirator.

Dante Spinotti’s cinematography has a wonderfully layered quality, capturing the moments between the action with Mann’s trademark blue hues and fevered close ups.  Los Angeles is portrayed as a metropolitan Gemini, a twinned persona of complicated domesticity and unrelenting violence.  This idea is constantly explored, but the payoff is in the legendary shoot out that begins the final act.  There has never been a more technically proficient display of gunplay ever committed to film.  The sound design and mixing are a blessed mixture of panic and fury.  The actors, particularly Kilmer’s unrestrained focus, show military tactics that are perfectly executed in a manner that affects the viewer on a base level.  These are dedicated experts of their trades, challenging one another over a lifetime of personal devastation in the name of said commitments and the result is simply unforgettable.

Ultimately, Heat is a stalwart member of top tier American cinema. The new release is available on Amazon for less than eight dollars and is without a doubt worth every cent.  Heavy on exposition, grandiose on the action, this is everything a crime thriller should be.

Highly.  Highly Recommend.