Blurbing For The Weekend 12/13/24

The Criterion Channel would be a great place for me to expand my understanding of global cinematic history and possibility, assuming I had the discipline to avoid mediocre old horror movies and revisiting Coen Brothers films I last saw on VHS. But I sure haven't recently. My ratings scale for stuff on streaming is explained here.

Miller’s Crossing. A mob middle-man in an anonymous prohibition-era gangland does his best to deftly play those above and below him on the foodchain. Crossing is one of the least “quirky” Coens flicks of the 20th Century, with only their taste in mis-en-scene to distinguish it from similar mob capers. This formal restraint might be why fans of gangster cinema consider it one of their finest, while the less gun-happy can’t figure out what the big deal is. This Libra here has it both ways, finding the experience enjoyably minor, like one of Steven Soderbergh’s late-period potboilers. Gabriel Byrne is casually terrific as lead Tom Reagan, deftly letting the other actors deliver the fireworks.  Albert Finney is powerfully matter-of-fact as an Irish underworld legend, only clueless when he can afford to be. Jon Polito plays his Italian rival as a proto-Soprano, loudly choking on his psychotic fury when he’s not trying to ingratiate. John Turturro’s Jewish bookie undercuts the cliche of a self-destructive fool (think Robert DeNiro in Mean Streets or Eric Roberts in Pope Of Greenwich Village) by violently despising those who pity him. Marcia Gay Harden, while smart enough to play the moll frustrated by Reagan’s refusal to either go big or go home, isn’t lustrous enough to justify her position in the intrigue. But the only bad performance is, fittingly, a cameo: mis-en-scene compatriot Sam Raimi as a nervous, gun-toting cop leading a raid. POPCORN CLASSIC.

Barton Fink. Turturro and the Coens returned a year after Miller’s Crossing with this tribute to legendary authors who whored themselves out to Hollywood in the factory era. Turturro’s titular lead is a young, ambitious playwright who strives to capture the agony and the ecstasy of lower-class fishmongers and such, but has no context when asked to write a Wallace Beery wrestling picture by Michael Lerner’s boisterous Hollywood executive (capturing the paper-thin pretensions of industry monsters from Mayer and Selznick to Weinstein got Lerner an Oscar nomination). What follows is a mix of tinseltown parody and Lynchian horror that’s very, very 1991. Turturro and John Goodman (Fink’s gregarious powderkeg of a neighbor at Hotel Weirdsville) are fun to watch, but the Coens don’t let us know whether their vanities are earned or hollow, undercutting both the comic and tragic possibilities in the material. I have to wonder if the Coens, still in the early years of their career, hadn’t sussed out their vanities either. FOUR BAGS OF POPCORN.

Christine. Stephen King’s tale of the vintage automobile from hell, brought to the screen with indifferent aplomb by John Carpenter. The director was smarting from the critical and commercial failure of The Thing, and took the gig despite thinking Evil Herbie was a stupid idea. This might be why the actors are sensitive, the set-pieces are fun, and the light shines off the chrome nicely, but nobody seems to know why the fuck any of this is happening. The book has young nerdlinger Artie (played by former DePalma muse and current TV director Keith Gordon) possessed by the spirit of a ’58 Plymouth’s abusive original owner, but the film’s opening sequence suggests this car had a body count before it even hit the lot. Artie’s turn from dink to douche thusly feels arbitrary, sympathetic lead John Stockwell mostly grimaces in a hospital bed, and Alexandra Paul seems like she should find a third guy to care about. Though Harry Dean Stanton and Robert Prosky are welcome as adults who rightly don’t trust that gleaming car, my favorite character was William Ostrander’s Buddy, who looks way too mature to be a teenage hoodlum, and carries himself like he’s painfully aware. It’s like if Travolta’s thug survived Carrie but got held back for five years. FOUR BAGS OF POPCORN.

Curse Of The Werewolf. An Oliver Reed werewolf movie should be a lot more fun that this. Most of the movie is actually about the class struggles and magical coincidences that led to a werewolf being born in 18th-century Spain, and is not without interest. But when the little orphan who settles for eating live sheep if he can’t be loved finally grows up to be Reed, it’s clear the delayed, but inevitable return of lycanthropy will be treated as tragic more than horrific, let alone entertaining. Reed’s simmering, almost comic intensity is fully formed in this first starring role, but his character is so wrapped in pathos he doesn’t show any release or sinister fulfillment when he transforms. It’s truly just a curse. THREE BAGS OF POPCORN.

The Big Sleep. A Robert Mitchum remake of a noir classic with Oliver Reed should be a lot more fun than this. Released in 1978, Mitchum plays detective Philip Marlowe, the story moved to modern London from ‘40s Los Angeles (oddly, Mitchum did a period and location accurate Marlowe movie just three years earlier). The expatriate is asked by a crippled General (James Stewart) to find out just how much trouble his extremely horny and downright certifiable daughters have gotten themselves into. The answer is “a lot,” with various pimps and pornographers showing up dead and/or asking for money as the ladies try to get Marlowe to bed them. Despite this promising premise, and women (including Joan Collins!) either naked or leering at the eternally magnetic Mitchum, the film never accrues energy, just characters. The veneration of Stewart’s sadsack Daddy is a real drag, too. Despite all the vice, the only thing more interesting than Reed’s pronunciation of “soldier” is the sound editing. Every bullet loudly ricochets, and I swear they loop the same shriek three times when Marlowe blows away the biggest bad. THREE BAGS OF POPCORN. 

All enthusiasm, and outrage - or even suggestions of classier Criterion fare! - can be shipped off to anthonyisright at gmail dot com.