JFK

In the film "JFK", Kevin Costner plays Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who so far is the only man ever to bring a case of the JFK Assassination to trial, however perhaps a more accurate account would be Costner plays the mouthpiece for the people who believe there was a conspiracy.

When "JFK" was released in 1991, it was a controversial potboiler. Many critics denounced the film for being outlandish and for skewering the truth behind the JFK assassination. Time has now simmered the once notorious film, and while revisiting it I found it to be extremely entertaining and engrossing.

In the film, Costner's Jim Garrison begins his search for the truth behind the assassination of JFK. After the apprehension of lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Played here uncannily by Gary Oldman), Garrison becomes convinced Oswald couldn't have acted alone. His investigation leads to Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), a legitimate businessman in New Orleans who has been linked to Oswald. Garrison has gathered enough evidence to at least bring Shaw to trial, although one might say that it's mostly circumstantial or here say. Most of his witnesses are not reliable, and it becomes clear, Garrison's case doesn't have a leg to stand on, but it wasn't really a case to convict Clay Shaw, but a case to show there was indeed a conspiracy and for that it was a success.

"JFK" is a film about conspiracies, but it's also about the injustice of feeling lied to by the government. The film was directed by Oliver Stone, a man who is at his best when he seems to be dealing with his own lost generation. With "JFK", Stone seems to be trying to get a few things off his chest not just about the cover up, but about how America in general became shaken by the assassination. There are many times when Garrison says he's in over his head and he can't believe how far the conspiracy goes. The thought of governments lying to the country was nothing new to Oliver Stone, he seems to revel in corruption, it sparks something inside of him that makes him inspired. He has rallied against Vietnam, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush to name a few.

With "JFK", Stone is unloading on his audience a certain injustice, the conspiracies act as sort of a collage throughout the film, they all meld together. Sometimes it's difficult to remember all the events or all the people connected with the assassination, but it all doesn't seem to matter in the end. This is just Stone's way of creating some sort of dialogue, he's trying to show that sometimes atrocious was covered up in America's history and his angry about it.

But "JFK" works as just a wonderfully entertaining piece of filmmaking, it's a potboiler, sort of like a more sensationalistic approach to "All the President's Men". It gets to the point where Garrison gets in too deep where he fears for his own safety and is paranoid about who's watching him. The investigation itself just seems fascinating, and Stone seems so passionate about his subject, the film can probably be accused with feeling over stuffed, and with a running time of nearly three and half hours, it's not hard to think that way.

There are moments where Stone's sincerity gets in the way of his story telling, Garrison's impassioned speech to the jury at the end of the film is overlong and wrought with sentimental cliches it doesn't ring true. There is also the half-hearted subplot of Garrison's home life, where we get too many obligatory scenes with him arguing with his wife about how he hasn't spent enough time with his family.

But despite those set back, the big picture works beautifully, Stone keeps things moving, and he gets some great performances from his all star cast. Tommy Lee Jones in particular is effective as Shaw, the main villain of the piece, as is Joe Pesci who play Dave Ferrie a man who is connected with both Shaw and Oswald. Then there is Donald Sutherland as the mysterious man only known as X. Sutherland has a long winded scene with Costner where he seems to spew out every government conspiracy in the record books. Sutherland has that sort of voice you listen to, even if you can't fully comprehend what exactly he's saying, in a way there's an undertow of humour in his performance I appreciated.

For his part, Costner is ideally cast as Garrison, where his role is mostly to listen and react to the information. Costner is a stand in for the audience, he takes it all in, and must make a moral choice to stand up for the truth. In the end, "JFK" is about the righteous search for the truth, I respected its sincere convictions even though they seemed rather naive. It has as much to do about John F. Kennedy as it does about the feelings of Oliver Stone; he wanted to make clear how he felt about being lied to. In my opinion, Stone does seem to have simplistic political views, he is a man with an agenda. He seems to succeed when he's able to get you on his side, "JFK" does so by shear passion and style.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy was a great tragedy for America, I'm not sure there has been a film yet to be made that has actually dealt with it in a true and honest nature. "JFK" is still a work of fiction, it's a collage of "what ifs", it's cathartic for people who have been searching for the truth, and haven't been given any straight answers. It's one man's obsession taken to the extreme in hopes of at least communicating his frustrations with trying to solve a puzzle that can't seem to be solved.

Cat People

"Cat People" works like a fever dream, it's a film that draws you in by the power of suggestion, by making you think you saw or heard something on the screen, but perhaps you didn't. It is technically a horror film, yet unlike what the title might suggest it's not a freak show, it is in fact mostly psychological, it remains a metaphor for a failed marriage, a fear of intimacy, and a fear of oneself.

When it was released, no one really thought much of "Cat People", it was a film which was given a small budget and a b-movie title. It was created by the people at RKO as a quick cash answer to Universal's horror movie lexicon which contained titles such as "Frankenstein" and "The Wolf Man". But what the head honchos underestimated was the talent behind the film.

The history of "Cat People" is the history of Val Lewton, a Producer who started out as a protege of David O Selznik. Lewton was given a chance to produce a series of horror films for RKO, only he wanted them to be something special. He was a student of classic literature and stories, he even used to write pulp fiction novels before becoming a producer. With "Cat People" he was given a crummy title and a small budget, but that meant basic free creative control.

Through the guidance of Lewton and director Jaques Tournier, "Cat People" became the story of Irena (Simone Simon) a young woman from Serbia living in New York. She meets a man Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) and the two fall in love and get married. But something is haunting Irena, a story from her homeland has her convinced she comes from an ancestry of people who worshipped the devil and being intimate with her husband will cause her to turn into a fabled cat person and killing him.

Because of Irena's superstitions, their wedding night is spent apart, time goes by and they grow more and more isolated in eachother. Oliver takes solice in his co-worker Alice (Jane Randolph) who loves him. This sparks jealousy in Irena and she begins to act even more dark and brooding. Later Oliver advises Irena to visit a psychiatrist (Tom Conway) to help her cope with her feelings. The doctor however only tries to seduce Irena causing her to become more repressed and aggressive.

This is really Irena's story, she is the loner of the film, the outcast, she doesn't seem to fit in, it's about her fears of becoming isolated from the man she loves and losing him to another women. It's also about her sexual repression, re-watching it, the film reminded me much of Roman Polanski's own horror masterpiece "Repulsion" which was also about a woman dealing with her own repression. The tragedy of "Cat People" is seeing all of Irena's horrors come true, she does lose he husband, and she does unleash the animal within her, but the beauty of this film is how it is left ambiguous.

"Cat People" could've become silly very quickly if they chose to show a woman turn into a cat, but it's much too smart for that. The horror is done by not showing, but only implying. This is done through the isolation of sound, the use of silence, and images which seem to be hidden in shadow. There aren't many scare moments in "Cat People" but when they do happen it's to great effect. Take the moment where Alice believes she is being stalked. We the audience see her being followed by the footsteps of Irena, but soon those footsteps disappear, but we still feel Alice is being followed, the climax of this sequence is one of the most famous of its kind.

Then there is the moment where Alice again feels like she is being stalked, this time in a swimming pool. There are faint echoes of sound surrounding her, and images against the shadowy wall, but again we aren't sure what if anything is there.

These little pieces of creative filmmaking is what makes "Cat People" endure as a classic of subtle horror, but it's Irena's story that still interests me the most. Her horrors are real and they manifest into something super natural, it touches on our own fears of loneliness, isolation, even death. Irena seems to be in a waking dream, on one level it doesn't seem to make much sense, we don't quite see everything, yet we feel like we have. It's a film of the subconscious, that primal level of the mind that is able to connect with these feelings on some level.

"Cat People" isn't so much a monster movie in the same way "Frankenstein" or "Dracula" are. It's more ambiguous where you're not sure who, what, or where the monster is. The story of Irena teaches us that even though we can resist it for as long as we can, the monster will appear, and the horror is knowing it could be inside us.

Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule Seasonal Quiz

) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release.
Of what I've seen "The Fly"

2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences?
"The Return of Dr. X"

3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David?
Don't know of them.

4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you.
"The Haunting"

5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre.
James Whale

6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele?
Barbara Steele

7) Favorite 50’s sci-fi/horror creature.
The Martians from "War of the Worlds"

8) Favorite/best sequel to an established horror classic.
"Bride of Frankenstein"

9) Name a sequel in a horror series which clearly signaled that the once-vital franchise had run out of gas.
"Alien Vs. Predator"

10) John Carradine or Lon Chaney Jr.?
John Carradine

11) What was the last horror movie you saw in a theater? On DVD or Blu-ray?
In Theatres: "Let Me In" On DVD: "The Horror of Dracula"

12) Best foreign-language fiend/monster.
Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu

13) Favorite Mario Bava movie.
Haven't seen one

14) Favorite horror actor and actress.
Actor: Boris Karloff Actress: Vivian Leigh

15) Name a great horror director’s least effective movie.
Sam Raimi "Drag Me to Hell"

16) Grayson Hall or Joan Bennett?
Joan Bennett

17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t?
I think I just recently realized I was a fan of horror, thanks mostly in part to early Roman Polanski movies. his "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby" are two films I've seen only for the first time over the past few years and I found them totally engrossing. Since then I've come to appreciate more horror films even though they aren't my favorite genre.

18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie.
HAven't seen one.

19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about.
"Mad Love"

20) The Human Centipede-- yes or no?
Never.

21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”?
Not one I've seen, but I have heard of films who's very concepts turn me off.

22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film.
"Apocalypse Now", "Taxi Driver"

23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott?
Don't know them

24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged her/his finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on reading/watching all this morbid monster/horror junk?” How did you reply? And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied?
My reply was a grunt to that person and I continued watching it. I would've liked to have replied by going into great detail that what I was watching was art, and it was effectively made, and I would've gotten on my pretensious highhorse to defend it.

25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre. Kim Morgan, mostly for pointing me in the direction of "Repulsion" among others.

26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie.
As a boy it was probably seeing Vera Miles finding the remains of Mrs. Bates in "Psycho", or Quint squirting up blood as he's being eaten in "Jaws". Lately it's the hands grabbing out from the walls in "Repulsion", and the naked old woman kissing Jack Nicholson in "The Shining".

27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie.
It was my first viewings of "King Kong" and "Frankenstein". They brought the fun out in horror for me the first time.

28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past 20 years (1992-2012)? Why?
"The Descent" which is probably the one horror film I've seen that actually felt like an experience, and didn't rely on gimmicks or hoky slaughter. It was a frightening story that got under my skin.

29) Favorite Dr. Phibes curse (from either film).
Can't say I've seen one.

30) You are programming an all-night Halloween horror-thon for your favorite old movie palace. What five movies make up your schedule?
For my first festival it would be more of an outing from the classic period involving

"Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein"
"The Invisible Man"
"The Mummy"
"Nosferatu" (1922)
"Mad Love"

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I remember "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" from childhood. I remember feeling like I was watching a foreign film, it seemed so mysterious and weird, and I was astonished to see one of the main characters speaking mostly french. I thought of how little dialogue there was in the film, yet I always knew what was going on. I remember the lights in the film, not just the ones caused by the UFOs, but the whole motif of the it all; the flashlights, the car headlights, and the helicopters flying towards the people who thought they were seeing the UFOs. I remembered the music, that little five note piece performed by the humans in order to contact and communicate with the aliens. That piece always felt like the start of a children's lullaby to me.

Today "Close Encounters" is still a wonderful film, I have seen it over and over again, I'm amazed at how simple the story structure is, yet how brilliantly a piece of film it really is. It pulls you in at the very beginning as we hear an ominous sound of music at the beginning during the opening credits. We hear it growing louder and louder until it crescendos into the first shot of a dessert windstorm, and we see the first lights of the film coming from a jeep pulling up towards the frame. We are introduced to a group of scientists or government officials headed by a Frenchman named Lacombe. They are investigating the mysterious re- appearance of a group of fighter planes thought lost from the 1940s.

Elsewhere we see Barry (Cary Guffey) a little boy who awakes to find his toys going berserk in his room. Barry isn't frightened by these happenings, he's more inquisitive. He runs off into the night as if following something, while his frantic mother (Melinda Dillion) goes after him.

Then there's Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) a family who goes out the same night to investigate unexplained power outages. It's with Roy we get the first glimpse of a UFO as it hovers over him with a big bright light which cause him to get a sunburn. Later Barry and his mother see UFOs too, which Roy tries to follow as best as he can until they escape into the night sky.

After this encounter we see Roy becoming obsessed with what he saw, his wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) thinks he has gone nuts. He begins seeing strange mountainous shapes all over. He meets up with Barry and his mother later on, and we learn that they are seeing the same shapes. This all leads to a quest for Roy, he doesn't know what it all means, but he knows it's important, and he has to figure it out at all costs. This causes him to alienate his family, virtually abandoning them in order to discover this truth.

So what is "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" really about? In a way it's a little science fiction story about this first communication with benevolent aliens from another planet. On another level it's about one man's obsession which causes him to completely leave his family. It's also about this search for some greater truth, almost a religious experience one might feel towards something, it remains unexplained but we know it's important.

But "Close Encounters" is also a film about music and light, and using those elements in telling a compelling story. There isn't much plot in the film, it's all leading to a very simple conclusion, but it's shrouded in mystery, and the way we are drawn into the story is what's so unique about it. The spaceships in the film aren't really shown in their full glory till the climax, what we get leading up to their appearance are moments containing brilliant light. Sometimes the light can fill up the screen, sometimes there are shreds of it coming through cracks in the door or through a kitchen window.

The music plays an important part as well, it breaks the language barrier between the aliens and the humans. Nothing is ever spoken between the two different beings, but an understanding is met. The ending of the film comes with the beautiful melding of music and light as the alien mother ship comes down, and the language becomes symphonic, we don't know what is being said, but we don't have to, it's all there on screen.

This film was directed by Steven Spielberg, it was his follow-up to his hugely successful "Jaws", but with "Close Encounters" he takes his story telling skills leaps and bounds forward. Spielberg is often mistaken as only a talented craftsmen, but you can sense a young boy genius becoming an auteur with this film. It's with "Close Encounters of the Third" where we first become aware of what is Spielberg cinema. It's a film he made when he was still young and ambitious, he had his own theories about film, and was able to make them both personal and popular.

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" came out in the summer of 1977, it was a blockbuster, but it could still be thought of as an artistic achievement. By comparison with today's nonsensical blockbusters, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is quiet, ominous, it doesn't show its cards till the end, but it keeps you intrigued, emotionally invested, and touched. Most blockbusters have given up on giving us an experience as joyful, and innovative as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", they rely on loud explosions and special effects rather than sublime story telling. These films move like muddled sounds all mixed together that hurt the senses, where as "Close Encounters" moves like an orchestra of music and vision which fit perfectly for the movie screen.

Mouchette

"Mouchette" is one of the saddest movies I've ever experienced. It's a bleak film about a young girl's futile life where in it she is left caring for her dying mother, and her newborn brother. Her father is a drunk and a criminal who bullies and beats her. She must go to school in tattered clothes, and over sized clogs for shoes. Later, she is raped, and townsfolk accuse her of being a slut, she cuts her life short by throwing herself in the river.

What does Mouchette's life add up to? This can be what is so horrible about our existence, that something like this can happen. In the beginning of the film we see pigeons get snared in traps, and we see them struggle, one bird looks to have died from a broken neck after struggling to escape the snare. Later before Mouchette's suicide, we see rabbits surrounded by hunters as they shoot at them. There is nowhere for them to run, the rabbits are shot. For me, these are horrible scenarios, seeing innocent creatures pitted against the cruel world. But despite the despair, Mouchette depicts, does it have a sense of grace?

This is the question I keep trying to answer in this film as well as life itself. "Mouchette" was directed by Robert Bresson, who's filmography I've seen little of, yet of the films I've seen, I would say he's a master. Bresson was known to cast inexperienced or unprofessional actors in his films. He remains minimal with the performances by rehearsing scenes over and over until they depict zero emotion. Their faces remain in a neutral stance, and it works. For the young actress depicting Mouchette, her face shows nothing but sadness, anger, and contempt. There is one scene where she is allowed to smile as she is given money to go on a bumper car ride and she is able to flirt with a young man. Her happy dream is taken from her by her father who strikes her before she gets a chance to talk to the boy.

Bresson is the kind of director who's not afraid to show suffering, although he's often thought of as spiritual. Bresson challenges us with "Mouchette", he doesn't find any easy answers, even I'm left to question what the point of it all is. Mouchette's suicide has been thought of as an act of grace, we don't actually see her fall into the river, but we hear the sound of a splash as she roles towards it. The final image is the ripples of water floating back and forth, and the white dress Mouchette was wearing which was supposed to be used as a shroud for her dead mother. It might seem to most that Mouchette had left this cruel plain for a more enlightened afterlife...perhaps.

To be honest I didn't quite read into any spiritual conclusion when I revisited this film, what I saw was an innocent thrown to the wolves, perhaps hoping that the next life couldn't be as bad as this one. But I'm drawn to this question, and Bresson is perhaps struggling with the answer himself. He has come to the conclusion that life can be cruel, and for someone like Mouchette who looks and acts like someone who has never known any kind of happiness, it's unfair. Why should a child like Mouchette live? What hope is there for her? There must be another plain for this child to be happy, if there isn't than what's the point? Bresson to me must've been a humanist, he had empathy for his characters, he paints a bleak world, but he's able to transcend its hopelessness. To me he gives Mouchette hope only in death, it's her release from the snare, it's the only thing we could hope for her.

"Mouchette" is sad, but I don't find it depressing, to me it's like a prayer, in fact the first scene we see Mouchette's mother in church addressing the camera. She says what sounds like a prayer, wondering what will become of her children without her. The rest of the film, we get to see what happens to Mouchette, it isn't pretty, but we are able to see those moments of grace and maybe hope. There is a beautiful image of Mouchette crying holding her baby brother in her arms feeding him. We see the tears from her face drop on her hands as she is holding the child, for me, it did seem like a religious experience, as if something divine was happening within the frame.

"Mouchette" is a film that saddens me, even enrages me, but it's a challenging film, it's philosophical, it begs the question, is this all there is? Can we hope for more?, Is there something beyond all this suffering we put upon ourselves? Robert Bresson doesn't spell it out for us, I'm not sure he had an answer himself. In the end "Mouchette" becomes a fine balance between despair and faith, a place I'm sure most of us have found ourselves in more times than not, it's a film where we hope there is more than the life given to us, and for people like Mouchette, I sincerely hope there is.

Rear Window

The first thing you see in Alfred Hithcock's "Rear Window" are curtains rising in Jimmy Stewart's apartment as the credits role up. This is a nice little wink as to what the movie is about. "Rear Window" is a movie about the movies, the window curtains are like the ones you see on a movie screen. Jimmy Stewart is an audience member, he's stuck in a wheel chair due to a broken leg, and he spends his time looking outside his window at the lives of other people. He can't help himself, he becomes somewhat involved with these little stories happening outside. It's the same feeling we get when we go to the movies.

"Rear Window" was the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw, I was in my teens and back then Jimmy Stewart was my hero; he was the actor I loved to see because there was something about his gangly, likable persona I could always identify with. I saw "Rear Window" for the first time on a hot summer day not unlike it was in the film. It was the perfect summer movie for such an occasion, it was fun, frivolous, and involving. I didn't really think of "Rear Window" as much more than great entertainment after that first time, but as years past, I found myself revisiting it over and over.

On one level "Rear Window" does work as frivolous entertainment, Stewart plays L.B. Jefferies, a photographer who after risking his life for a photo is confined to a wheelchair. He spends his days looking out at the neighbours. His two constant visitors are his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) and his gorgeous socialite girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly). There is much drama unfolding in Jefferies backyard including a newlywed couple, a lonely woman looking for love, a sexy sociable ballet dancer, and music composer. Inside the apartment is a funny little romantic comedy as Jefferies must decide wheather or not to marry Lisa who is madly in love with him, but he wants to keep his independence.

Everything comes to a tipping point when Jefferies suspects his neighbour Thorwald has killed his wife. Together Jefferies, Lisa, and Stella become amateur sleuths as they try to figure out what happened to Thorwald's wife. All in all, these nice little elements makes "Rear Window" one of the most entertaining Hollywood movies ever made. It may be a murder mystery but it remains a light one, in fact after revisiting the film again, I was amazed at how Hitchcock takes such such dark subject matter and turn it into such a lively entertaining picture.

But "Rear Window" is more than this, it also could be thought of as the way we view movies, and a way we could view Hitchcock films in general. Jimmy Stewart for us is the audience within a movie, he sees something outside his window, whether it's a murder or two people kissing and he reacts to it, as we do when we are watching a film. In short, it's the basic primal instinct we all get when we are watching something from a distance. We are all observers in one sense or another, sometimes we feel guilty about it, sometimes we think nothing of it, but it seems to be in our DNA to know what's going on around us. Isn't this why we go to the movies in the first place? Movies are meant for us to empathize with a person or a situation, they can even make us feel like we are living different lives.

"Rear Window" does have an out of body experience for me, where I sometimes get the feeling I'm inside Jimmy Stewart's apartment, experiencing what he's experiencing, and in a way that's the ultimate escape, that's what movies can do even more than plays or books, there's something about seeing moving objects reflected in front of us that makes it all the more real.

When I watch "Rear Window" I actually don't want it to end, I know there's some point where they are getting close to the figuring out the murder, but I know once they do, the film will be over, and I will be sad. This is why people still watch Hitchcock movies, and why even people who don't usually watch classic films still watch Hitchcock movies because he knew exactly what people wanted. Basically in movies we want to be involved in some way or another, you can take away all the computer generated special effects from today and if you are not involved then there's nothing there, there's nothing to remember.

Maybe that's why movies sometimes feel like a memory or a dream, we look at them as if they are from another life we lived before. We were lifted out of our stupor or mundane ordinary life and experienced something unexpected or exciting. I know when I go to the movies, I sometimes feel more alive in a movie theatre than I do in real life, if that makes any sense.

"Rear Window" is among Hitchcock's top three or five greatest films, he was a master at what he did because he understood what cinema could do, how it could be felt, and how it could be experienced. His films are the kind of films that remind me why I fell in love with the movies, and why they continue to haunt me. In some ways they are as an entertainment, but they touch something far more primal and personal in me that has become such a big part of my life.