Tag: Kim Basinger

L.A. Confidential: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

  
The finest Los Angeles film noir to ever come out of Hollywood, Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential is a serpentine wonder, a two and a half hour parade of hard boiled detectives, sultry dames and shady dealings, all wrapped up in a multiple murder story that kicks everyone’s arc into gear, taking you places you didn’t think you’d see some of these people go. ‘Triple homicide at the nite owl’, barks the headline of a gossip rag run by a sleazy Danny Devito, and indeed the crime scene has everyone buzzing, from the shirt tuckers in the highest ranks of the LAPD, to the burly brass knuckle wearers on the brutish task force. Something is amiss with the case, and Sgt. Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) is a dogged straight arrow with a nose for corruption. He isn’t quite the formidable force needed to barge down certain doors or break certain bones though, and that’s where Det. Bud White (Russell Crowe) comes into play. The two are initially at each other’s throats following a cleanse of many of the department’s corrupt officers, spurred by Exley himself. It soon becomes clear that they have no choice but to work together, in order to smoke out the evil source of the crime, which may be closer to home than anyone thought. Crowe and Pearce were not the stars they are now back then, but came up from the farm league in sensational style, barging onto the Hollywood scene in shotgun toting, shit kicking style. Kim Basinger won an Oscar for her poised, complex turn as a call girl who works for a pimp named Pierce Patchett (a glib David Strathairn), an eccentric who pays surgeons to deck his girls out to look like movie starlets. My favourite performance in the film comes from a diabolical James Cromwell as Captain Dudley, a dangerous rogue who you don’t want to cross for fear of his unpredictability. Kevin Spacey is all style and self loathing as Jack Vincennes, a media mogul of a cop who advises on TV shows and hogs the press limelight like a boorish politician. The supporting cast is all across the board, including work from Simon Baker, Graham Beckel, Tomas Arana, Ron Rifkin, Brenda Bakke, Jack Conley and an amusing cameo from Paul Guilfoyle as Mickey Cohen. Adapting a novel by the great undisputed king of LA noir, James Ellroy, Hanson weaves a deadly web of sensation, intrigue and steamy goings on that never follows a readily discernable pattern of narrative, and constantly has tricks up it’s sleeves. Remember Rollo Tomassi.

Cool World: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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Cool World is known, by those few who may be aware of its existence, as the ‘other’ film in which live action characters inhabit the same realm as cartoons. The more famous one of course is Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a glorious gem of a film that gets the acclaim, notoriety and long lasting attention, as it well should. (We won’t speak of a third one involving a certain moose and squirrel that really does earn it’s bad rap). Cool World is somewhat maligned as the black sheep of the two, and in some people’s eyes (Ebert laid a stern smackdown on it) downright hated on. It’s no doubt very different from Roger Rabbit, which is admittedly the better film and the easier one to like and relate to. But this one is brilliant in its own right, at least for me. I love the way it uses a sombre tone with its human creations to throw a unique light on them as soon as the Toons show up. It’s quaint and wonderfully inaccessible, with some scenes existing purely of a need to showcase a stream of consciousness type style that doesn’t so much halt the proceedings, as give them their own surreal flavor. Brad Pitt is Frank Harris, victim of a jarring post war tragedy and thrown headlong into the cartoon world, eventually finding himself a Detective in their realm. Outside in our world, lonely cartoonist Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne is a sly choice for the role) falls in love with one of his creations, a blonde bombshell named Holli Would (voiced and later played in the flesh by Kim Basinger). Holli is as devious as she is gorgeous, and works to use Jack’s attraction to her as a conduit to escape into our world. Pretty soon a deafening cacophany of cartoon creatures in all shapes, sizes and colours floods out of their dimension and into ours, creating quite the cosmic mess for Pitt to clean up. It’s fun without being too zany, the overblown fuss of the Toons contrasted by a glum human world, reeling from the war and unexpecting of such an event to unfold. Granted, the meshing of the two dimensions isn’t given the precise, big budget fanfare and cutting edge methods of Roger Rabbit, but the world building and special effects here are still pure enchantment and offer a dazzling level of entertainment. Pitt is stoic with flinty sparks of boyish charm, Byrne hilariously plays it dead straight, and Basinger is dead friggin sexy. She steals the show especially as Holli in human form, having a ball with the bubbly bimbo trying to keep a straight face in the real world. The Toons in general really are a diverse bunch, ranging from animals to inanimate objects to tiny little formless cutesy blobs and everything in between, filling their frames with a chaotic, detailed miasma worthy of Studio Ghibli. Lot of hate floating around for this one. You won’t find any from me, I love the film, and accept it for the adult friendly,  experimental oddity it is. Great stuff.

PTS Presents The Gary Young Special Episode 2: CHINATOWN, LA CONFIDENTIAL and TRUE DETECTIVE

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Podcast

For our second episode in the Gary Young Series, we sat down and discussed Roman Polanski’s CHINATOWN, Curtis Hanson’s LA CONFIDENTIAL and both of those films influences on the second season of TRUE DETECTIVE.  We had a blast, hope you guys enjoy!

Episode 8: Brad Bird’s TOMORROWLAND, Tod Williams’ THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR, Top Five Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Podcast

Episode 8 is now live!  We discuss the current theatrical release of Brad Bird’s TOMORROWLAND, and our feature film of the week, Tod Williams’ THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR as well as our top five performances of Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger!  Enjoy everyone!

 

 

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR 2004 Dir. Tod Williams – A Review by Frank Mengarelli

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Review

“Don’t ever, not ever, never, never, never, open the door in the floor.”

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            Simply put, THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR is one of the best films from the previous decade.  It is small, intimate and arousing.  Set in present day in New England, the film follows a young man, Eddie, who is set to graduate from a prestigious prep school, Exeter Academy, the same school where Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) went, and his two deceased teenage sons went as well.  The intent of Eddie’s summer is meant to be spent interning for Ted, Ted was a novelist who became a popular children’s writer, and Eddie is an aspiring writer himself.  As the summer moves along, revelations are made, tragedy, old and new are summoned, and a love affair between Ted’s wife Marion (Kim Basinger) and Eddie formulates.

This film is tough.  Pain, love, loss and isolation surface almost immediately.  Marion never got over the death of their two sons, and Ted has transformed the pain into raising their young daughter Ruth (Elle Fanning) and working on a new children’s book featuring his recurring characters, Thomas and Timothy which are hauntingly named after their two sons who died.

Film Title: Door in the Floor

            Jeff Bridges gives him most vicious and turbulent performance as Ted.  He is an alcoholic philanderer who emotionally uses people, and softly degrades them.  Basinger gives her finest performance as the broken and stoic Marion, who has never fully recovered from the loss of their two sons, and who uses Eddie sexually as a vessel to channel her pain.

There are few, but the scenes between Bridges and Basinger are absolutely beautiful.  These two characters are so broken, and everything they have been through together was only sustainable by their love for each other.  Even though it is not expressed physically, nor shown at all, you can feel how pure it is, how undying it is.

So many films are made about love, and very few can express it the way THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR does.  Pure love at times messy, filled with pain, and beautifully tragic and this film is an absolute visual and musical interpretation of that love.  The film is beautifully shot by Terry Stacey, and remarkably scored by Marcelo Zaruos.   The film’s score is as important as any other aspect of the film, it does not arbitrarily show up and is not easily ignored.  It is designed to provoke an emotional reaction in a scene of a film that is layered with joyous yet heartbreaking emotion.

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            The film’s title is taken from Ted’s most famous children’s book, which upon watching him read it to an audience, and seeing the dark drawings of the book (which Bridges drew himself), it is perhaps the most intense children’s book ever written.  The film begs a question to the audience.  Have you opened your own door in the floor?  Will you open your own door in the floor?  Will you face your own desires, your fears?  Will you come to terms with the realities of everything that you love, everything that you hate?  It is simple for anyone to open the door in the floor, but not many can withstand what comes through it.