The Kent M. Beeson of Western Civilization

She Gave Me The Golamine Beads: Ishtar (1987, Elaine May)

SHE GAVE ME THE GOLAMINE BEADS: ISHTAR (1987, ELAINE MAY)

(For the 4th Annual White Elephant Blogathon, hosted by Paul Clark at Silly Hats Only)

Not to make any excuses, but there’s a reason the last entry in this blog was last year’s White Elephant entry. In case you didn’t know, I am now the father of not one, not two, but three kids. That’s right, I now have a three year old and two eight month old babies, and things like blogs just aren’t in the cards these days. So the following isn’t quite the entry I want to write, but the only entry I’m capable of writing at this time. 

So: Have people actually seen this film? Granted, it’s not a hidden masterpiece, but the idea that this is some kind of comedy nadir is absolute rubbish, especially since Ashton Kutcher is still making movies. (May’s MIKEY & NICKY is the hidden masterpiece, but that’s an entry for a day that’ll never come.) There’s a number of theories as to how ISHTAR got its poisonous reputation (mostly dealing with star Warren Beatty’s battles with the media), but it dovetails with my personal philosophy: everything that isn’t the film — the publicity, the gossip, the interviews with the cast and crew, hell, even the poster — all of that is completely irrelevant. All that matters is the first frame, the last frame, and everything in between. Everything you need to understand (and if you wish, judge) a film is there, and all you have to do is look.

The following is less of a look then an extended glance — it’s not like I’m getting paid for this — but I think there’s enough there to suggest that there’s much, much more to ISHTAR then as the punchline to an ignorant joke. 

(Since ISHTAR is unavailable on DVD in America… er, what I’m saying is, pardon the crappy resolution and Swedish subtitles.)

Evolution of a song and a friendship. Through a series of cuts, we see the process by which they, paradoxically, create a truly awful song and come to gain respect for each other. “Shit, man, when you’re on, you’re on,” says Hoffman about Beatty’s terrible couplet. The first act is jumpy, jittery, a New York state of mind. Not only is a night of songwriting conveyed in a less than a minute through cuts, but this is actually part of an extended flashback. It feels very modern, and interestingly, this aspect completely disappears once the film relocates to the Middle East. 

There’s a Woody Allen quality to the first act, a bit like a late 70s Allen with the aggressive editing of an early 90s Allen. This is a particularly moody shot that wouldn’t look out of place in INTERIORS or (if it was in black & white) MANHATTAN. Here, New York is associated with gloom, the dark, broken relationships and broken dreams. When the story moves to North Africa, the style changes — the quick editing disappears and the colors brighten. Ishtar may be a dangerous place, but like its namesake, it’s also a place of fertility — rebirth.

(It should be noted that I’m still not sure if the fictional Ishtar is supposed to be a city or a country or what.)

Check out this great composition, like a widescreen Buster Keaton. Hoffman is planning to jump, and he’s got a cops to the right and above him, and his parents to the left. Fitting that, at Hoffman’s lowest point in the first act, the film’s palette drops down to about three colors (blue, brown-grey, and black). (That red thing in Hoffman’s hand is a pillow, and he’ll get rid of that quickly.) Compare that to the multicolor of the market, below. Also compare it to the desert shots of the impending helicopters below, as well.

For a brief moment in Morocco, the two worst singer/songwriters in the world become stars. (See reaction below.) In a sense, it’s a sham — this audience is hungry for any entertainment, and any rendition of standards, delivered with gusto, is going to be received warmly.  I think ISHTAR would win over most people if given a chance, and I think its secret weapon is its sweetness. Rogers and Clarke are dumbasses, and they’re terrible singers and songwriters, but they’re way too passionate about music to hate. They aren’t in it for the money, they aren’t con artists. They’re deluded, sure, but who among us isn’t? Point is, they’re bringing joy to the audience, and themselves, and it’s hard to dislike them. 

And yet, there’s a saltiness along with the sweet. These people aren’t Moroccans. (Except for maybe that waiter.) Clearly there’s a critique of imperialism (cultural and otherwise) going on here, with this audience having traveled thousands of miles to gobble up an entertainment they know by heart, and paying for the privilege. The film is overtly critical of American intervention in the Middle East, but for me, this is the moment that really works, where the film does two different things — get us to empathize with Rogers & Clarke and critique what it is that they’re doing — at the same time. 

Here’s the introduction of Charles Grodin’s character. Guess who he’s works for. Go ahead, guess. That’s right, he’s a spook, and you can spot him a mile away. Smartly, in the very next scene, the film has the character come out and tells Hoffman’s character that he works for the CIA. What’s interesting is that in a movie about shifting and hidden identities (Rogers & Clarke are mistaken for tribesmen, Isabelle Adjani disguises herself as a boy, the talent agent becomes a peace broker, etc.), the two characters that are unambiguously static — the CIA agent and the emir — are the bad guys. 

Hey look! It’s Matt Frewer!

(Also, Fred Melamed is supposed to be in the film somewhere, but I don’t think I’d recognize a 29 year old Sy Ableman.)

This is the reaction of an assassin after he accidentally shoots his own teammate. It’s a brief shot, maybe a second long, but it’s both funny, this spontaneous gesture of regret in (what I presume) is a hardened killer, and another indication of May’s generosity towards her characters, even the unnamed ones. 

I haven’t seen A NEW LEAF or THE HEARTBREAK KID, but I wonder if May doesn’t get enough credit as a composer of images. Along with that great composition for the suicide attempt, here’s three stills from the big chase sequence. The various factions down on the street have just discovered that the rolled up rugs they think contain Hoffman and Beatty are empty, while the two are actually escaping above them. 

May effectively splits the screen, a lower level and an upper level, and the action runs simultaneously. It must have been a bitch to pull off, but the effect is genuinely exciting. 

A different angle, this time with the frame split horizontally, Hoffman and Beatty running across the roofs while the commotion commences on the ground. This sequence alone reveals the sham that is the Michael Bay/Paul Greengrass run-and-gun style of cinematography.

A smaller action moment, but one that is just as effective. In a single take, Hoffman and Beatty see the American helicopters coming over the dunes to kill them, and they get ready to face them. This durational shot is the kind of thing that film can do that other art forms can’t, and we lose something when we edit it down to half-percieved one-second images. 

It’s probably a stretch to correlate this horizontally-focused, limited-palette composition, one about impending death, with the suicide attempt earlier in the film. But to hell with it, consider it correlated. 

“We didn’t need a pencil!” Probably the emotional highlight of the film, and my favorite bit — as certain death looms, they sing the song they composed earlier while dying of thirst in the desert, giddy at not having forgotten it. The friendship has been tested throughout the second act, with Hoffman thinking Beatty’s a Communist spy and Beatty thinking Hoffman’s an American one (that shifting identity thing again), but now that friendship has been renewed, strengthened.  

Do they survive? Watch the film to find out.

I’ve only scratched the surface of May’s (at this writing, final) film. I hope this post acts as a trail of golamine beads for some future writer, leaving a glowing trail out of the desert of neglect and towards the bright lights of critical re-evaluation. 

Well, if golamine beads were real, that is.

Maybe I need a new metaphor.

Happy White Elephant Blogathon, everyone.

Amsterdamned (1988, Dick Maas)

Some background: when I arrived in Arcata to begin my first year at Humboldt State, there were two theaters, the Minor and the Arcata (known to the students as the Major). The Minor, IIRC, had three small theaters; one “big” one with a balcony, and two shoebox ones, not unlike Seattle’s Grand Illusion. I was told that the cavernous Arcata used to be a bowling alley; I don’t think that’s true, but it isn’t hard to imagine. (If you know that one screen at the Crest — that weird one off to the right of the snack counter — imagine that, only ginormous. And Art Deco-y.)

Anyway. Those days, double-features were all the time. ALL THE TIME. Seriously, it made studying — you know, the reason for going to school — very hard, since you paid for the second movie, you just gonna walk out? It was a fucking awesome time to be young and a cinephile, but holy shit, I spent a lot of money at those theaters. Don’t even get me started on RESERVOIR DOGS — I think I saw that like five times, dragging someone new to it each time. (And then there was the PULP FICTION/RESERVOIR DOGS double feature.)

So yeah, the very first movie I saw, days before starting my freshman year, was DIE HARD 2 at the Arcata. Pretty sure I’d seen it already in Modesto; it was a bit of comfort food in a new town, on my own. The second feature? Something called AMSTERDAMNED.

I love this movie, and this long, nostalgia-flecked intro is there to suggest my love is likely wrapped up in issues unrelated to cinematic worth. However, part of why I love it so is that it’s obviously a remake of JAWS, with a crazy knife-wielding scuba diver in place of a shark. (Same thing, right?) Is there a Hoopery scuba expert to assist our policeman? Yes there is. Is there a “Don’t look back, Charlie!”-type scene? Yes there is. Does the killer stick his knife up out of the water like a shark’s fin? You betcha. If it has one thing over JAWS, it’s a pretty good boat/car chase sequence through/along the river Amstel. It’s probably not great, it’s very 80s (“Dick Maas” is Dutch for “Rowdy Herrington”), but it doesn’t deserve to get lost on Vestron VHS.

(You know, I can’t help but think Bong Joon-Ho was thinking about this movie when coming up with THE HOST.  Maybe it’s just the geography of the films — cities with rivers running through them — but there’s a definite similarity of feeling in them.)

On The Air (1992, David Lynch, et. al.)

The first — six, I think? — episodes of Lynch’s TV show after the cancellation of “Twin Peaks”. I recall during the original broadcast a monumentally hilarious bit involving a live TV gaffe, and the rest being uncomfortably bad. I didn’t stick around during the dubbing to verify.

The Penguin Pool Murder (1932, George Archainbaud)

So apparently back in the day, they used to run these hour-long mini-features as part of a doubleheader or what have you, and a number of them featured detectives. (I know the name of one of them off the top of my head — The Falcon, played by Val Lewton regular and George Sanders’ bro, Tom Conway.) This one’s with Miss Hildegarde Martha Withers, and I bet you, the first image in your head is exactly what she looks like. I’ve seen this, and I think she’s a schoolteacher who gets involved in murder investigations. (In the parlance of my mother and grandmother, fans of “Murder She Wrote”, it’s a “Nosy Old Bitch” story.)  I remember it as entertaining but inessential; its only (unearned) distinction is that it was made in the thirties.

The Woman in Black (1990, Herbert Wise)

I was told — by my mother, of all people — that there’s a supremely scary part in this movie, so I hit record and turned off the TV.  (Okay, that’s not 100% true. I caught enough to get the visual gist of it — BBC TV, that cold and glassy feeling.) Later, my mom told me that she finally got around to seeing it and the scary part wasn’t all that — she was going off secondhand info ‘bout the alleged scariness. So I don’t even know what the hell to think.

Your Own. Personal. Netflix Suggestions. Your Own.

About an hour ago, my wife emailed me with an urgent request: a co-worker needed horror movie recommendations!  Never one to slack on my purpose in the world, I threw on my cape and came to the rescue. Here’s what I sent back:

ZOMBIES

Dawn of the Dead (original 1978)

Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake)

The Return of the Living Dead

The Evil Dead

ADDED: Dead Alive/Braindead (thx Jose!)

SLASHERS

Suspiria

Black Christmas (original 1974)

Halloween (1978 original)

Terror Train

GHOSTS/HAUNTED HOUSES

The Haunting (original 1963)

The Ring (either original or remake)

Poltergeist

BIG MONSTERS

The Host

Cloverfield

Tremors

Q — The Winged Serpent

Jaws

VAMPIRES

Martin

The Return of Count Yorga (might be unavailable)

Near Dark

Scream Blacula Scream

Lemora — A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural

WEREWOLVES

Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps 2

An American Werewolf in London

JUST PLAIN WEIRD

Phantasm

The Brood

The Thing (1982)

PEOPLE GETTING TORTURED AND WHATNOT

The Devil’s Rejects

The Last House on the Left

The Hills Have Eyes (2005 remake)

Hostel I & II

Texas Chain Saw Massacre (original 1974)

These aren’t intended to be ranked in any way, other than the order I thought of them.I don’t think all of these films are necessarily good, per se, but I do stand behind them as something worth seeing in that category. I fully expect to hear more suggestions, disagreements, j’accuses, etc. in the comments below.  
(Also: yes, I threw on a cape to write an email.  It worked for Homer Simpson.)

The Night Visitor (1970, Laslo Benedek)

At the time, this was the only film I’d reclaimed that looked even remotely professional.  Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman will do that for you.

Best “Phantasm” Review Ever.

steveosteve:

…The film moves not with the standard American nightmare pacing, with fright and shock leaping out of every corner, but with the dreamy half-speed motions of a first-rate Eurohorror. Narrative sense is subsumed to atmosphere and a sense of reality irrevocably altered. Coscarelli obviously doesn’t have a big budget with which to work, but he does manage to project a rough-hewn elegance to certain images (like Jody disappearing into the pale glow of an ice-cream van’s headlights)….

The Green Slime (1968, Kinji Fukasaku)

This movie isn’t any good, despite having that great Japanese SF look and a dependable plot hook (alien spore reproduces on space station, spawning monsters, hilarity etc.).  In fact, if I were to make a Top 20 of horrible movies I’d love to remake, this would be up there (along with this beauty).  The only thing that gives The Green Slime any historical importance at all is that it inspired Tom Wham’s classic board game The Awful Green Things From Outer Space.