Why I Love "Indulgent" Films

I’m not one of those writers who likes to fuss over his phrasing, and I’m definitely not one of those writers who likes to come up with what he’s going to say ahead of time (in fact, I’m more the opposite – the kind of writer who comes up with something interesting to say long after he’s already filed his review), but years ago I came up with an expression I really hoped I could one day use in a review. It was inspired by some of the initial reviews coming out of Cannes about Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046. They all seemed to suggest that the film was: 1.) gorgeous and 2.) impenetrably indulgent. I hadn’t seen it, obviously, but for some reason these words flashed across my brain:

I Guess Kathy Griffin Really Wants an Oscar…

This alarming image comes from Paolo Sorrentino’s upcoming This Must Be the Place, starring Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, and (um) Judd Hirsch. One of a number of films screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it sounds utterly insane: Penn basically appears to be playing an aging rock star-cum-potential Nazi hunter. Advance word suggests though that the film is closer in feel to the director’s breakthrough film The Consequences of Love -- which is a masterpiece, but a very understated, mournful one.

Tribeca Comes Out of Its Wilderness

The Tribeca Film Festival started last night, and I must say, it promises to be a good one -- I watched a sizable number of the films playing for this piece about the 25 Films to See at the Festival, which I collaborated on for Vulture.

A Trick of the Mind: Superman vs. Batman vs. Superman

Remember them?

(File this under “Stuff I don’t give a shit about, but for some reason still feel the need to comment on.”)

Amid all the noise about Sucker Punch (especially after its collapsing box office) there’s been a lot of talk regarding Zack Snyder’s impending “reboot” of the Superman movie franchise. And almost always embedded in there is some kind of dismissal of Bryan Singer’s 2006 Superman Returns as a failure.

He Lived by Night: RIP Farley Granger

They are all equal now.

Farley Granger, who starred in the magnificent Nicholas Ray film that gives this blog its name, has died, at the age of 85. He also starred in a whole bunch of other great films, of course, including Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Strangers on a Train.

As it so happens, I've been working on a blog post about Visconti's Senso, perhaps Granger's greatest film. So, more on this marvelous actor, and all he represented in both America and Europe, later.

But for now: I've been reading James Kaplan's pretty great biography Sinatra: The Voice, and there is, as you might imagine, a lot in there about the naked power of male vulnerability (or seeming vulnerability), which Sinatra perfected and wielded with the efficiency of a laser-guided missile. So maybe it's just on my mind, but Granger had a similarly magnetic delicacy. But his never felt manipulative, never felt aimed. Even when his characters were using it specifically as a manipulative tactic (Senso is actually a perfect example), there was something very honest and raw about it. Here, you thought, was a guy who really was wounded, and not just playing at it. He maybe wasn't the most technically adept actor, but there were few performers who were just so damned compelling. Rest in peace.

"We Are Most Alone When We Are With the Myths": Alexander Revisited

Another link I’d hoped to put up earlier: A couple of weeks ago, the estimable Dennis Cozzalio of the blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule did a pretty great interview with Oliver Stone about Alexander Revisited, the director’s revised, ultra-extended cut of his ill-received 2004 Alexander the Great biopic. The interview was meant in part to publicize a screening and Q&A at the Museum of the Moving Image of this cut of the film. I couldn’t attend the screening, but I did sit down and watch Alexander Revisited at home. This took some doing, as I mostly despised Alexander when I first saw it in theaters. What did I think of it this time around? I’ll tell you, in a bit, but first, here’s Dennis, making a compelling case for the film in his introduction to the Stone interview:

Giving Last Tango Another Whirl

I had meant to send up this link last week, but, some other stuff got in the way. At Slant Magazine early last week, Ed Howard and Jason Bellamy participated in a lengthy and quite interesting back and forth about Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. The film, which recently debuted on Blu-Ray, was already on lots of people’s minds thanks to the untimely death of Maria Schneider this past February. Their conversation is lengthy, fascinating, and well worth the read -- and it prompted some further thoughts of my own, which I'll share below.