Gateway Cinephiles

Review: In Bruges

February 29, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Film Diaries - Teresa, Comedies No Comments

2007
Director: Martin McDonagh
Viewed: February 28, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

The somewhat misleading trailer for In Bruges promises a crime comedy in the vein of Guy Ritchie, albeit with a bit more arbitrary wackiness. The film’s promotion seems tailored to an audience that will be tempted by absurdist dialogue, hammy comedic performances, and cold-blooded violence—plus a sassy dwarf! What In Bruges actually delivers is an ambitious, relentlessly black comedy, cobbled together with doses of medieval moralizing and existential rumination for the arthouse crowd. It’s a pleasurable ride, and a promising feature film debut from playwright Martin McDonagh. Unfortunately, the gravity of In Bruges—which might have been substantial—is diminished by the film’s meandering exploration of too many thematic sidestreets, not to mention a plot that teeters on its improbabilities by the end.

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Film Diary: Across the Universe

February 26, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Film Diaries - Libby No Comments

2007
Director: Julie Taymor
Viewed: February 26, 2008
Format: Blu-ray - Sony (2008)

Film Diary: Becoming Jane

February 26, 2008 Teresa Film Diaries - Teresa No Comments

2007
Diretor: Julian Jarrold
Viewed: February 25, 2008
Format: DVD - Miramax (2008)

3-Minute Intro: The Bank Dick

February 26, 2008 Andrew 3-Minute Intros, Comedies No Comments

Screened: February 25, 2008
Format: DVD - Universal (2004)
Selected By: Roland

To say that Edward Cline’s 1940 absurdist comedy The Bank Dick is actor W.C. Fields’ best film is a bit misleading. Fields didn’t so much make movies as he strung together surreal, subversive comedy sketches into feature-length productions. That an actor such as Fields—or the indelible persona that he created—emerged from early twentieth century Hollywood and ascended to pop culture stardom is something of a minor miracle. Fields’ films crack and fizz with screwball contempt for everything that middle class America purported to value: marriage, children, pets, fidelity, modesty, thrift, and especially temperance. Fields’ defied the ethics codes of Hollywood censors and created hallucinatory comic microcosms where everyone is loathsome or foolish, and yet everything turns out happily in the end.

Unsurprisingly, given his flair for physical stunts and his skewering of American Puritanism, Fields first made his name in Vaudeville, where he toured internationally as a comedian and world-class juggler. He successfully moved to silent and then sound films at Paramount, although his career stalled in the mid-1930s due to his stubborn on-set temperament and alcohol-related health problems. Subsequent success as a radio comedian energized him for a film comeback at Universal, where he made The Bank Dick. Fields often wrote his own screenplays, and he was notorious for his loathing of studio interference. The misanthropic losers that he portrayed were beloved by audiences, but establishment Hollywood was often baffled by the stream-of-consciousness zaniness of his material.

The Bank Dick, like much of Fields’ work, is an absolute mess in terms of story or construction. Of course, the film has no interest in following the pattern of a typical narrative comedy. Fields’ Egbert Sousé stumbles through one ludicrous sequence after another, the scenes held together with the thinnest of connections—or none at all. Egbert is a miserable, horrible man, yet The Bank Dick succeeds as comedy due to the empathy Fields evokes. For our amusement he offers up his frustration with a bothersome world and a huckster’s glee at small victories. Fields’ reputation experienced a revival in the 1960s, but today his taste for black absurdism and repugnant characters probably finds its closest kin is the surreal animated comedies of the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.

Film Diary: Donnie Darko

February 25, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew No Comments

2001
Director: Richard Kelly
Viewed: February 24, 2008
Format: DVD - 20th Century Fox (2003)

Cosmic Injustice #3,475: Why the hell haven’t I ever woken up to find Maggie Gyllenhaal dressed as Elvira and sleeping peacefully on my leather recliner?

Film Diary: Red Road

February 24, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew No Comments

2006
Director: Andrea Arnold
Viewed: February 24, 2008
Format: DVD - Tartan Video (2007)

Red Road is a B-movie thriller shamelessly struggling to achieve something more profound and intricate than mere tension. It doesn’t quite make it there—let’s call it a B+-movie—but the naturalistic bent to its cool, shabby style serves its ambitions. Director Arnold presents crucial revelations with an elegant touch, and occasionally finds moments of sublime oddness. Unfortunately, these pleasures are few and far between. Most of Red Road is a tangle of competing themes: the British surveillance state, the nature of revenge and redemption, videographic perception versus knowledge, and so on. A little focus might have helped.