Drug Addicts, Nymphos, Tomboys, and Paul Verhoeven: 5 More Netflix Suggestions

A friend of mine who just finished school asked me if I could suggest some films for him to watch on Netflix Instant. Here are five more recommendations. Each of the films below were available on Netflix Instant in the USA at the time this was published.

Oslo, August 31st
Oslo, 31. august
2011, Norway
Joachim Trier

Joachim Trier's second film, following the marvelous Reprise (also available on Instant), readapts Pierre Drieu La Rochelle's novel Le feu follet (famously made for the screen by Louis Malle in 1963, as well as a little-seen made-for-French-television version in 1994), updating it to modern day Norway, chronicling roughly twenty-four-or-so hours in the life of recovering drug addict Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) who is given leave from rehab for the first time in what appears to have been a while to interview for a job. Intimate and heartbreaking without being too austere, Oslo, August 31st is an assured, exceptional sophomore effort from the distant cousin of Lars von Trier and certainly one of the better films of 2011.

With: Anders Danielsen Lie, Hans Olav Brenner, Ingrid Olavs, Øystein Røger, Malin Crépin, Tone B. Mostraum, Kjærsti Odden Skjeldal, Johanne Kjellevik Ledang, Petter Width, Renate Reinsve, Anders Borchgrevink, Emil Lund, Andreas Braaten

 

The Music Lovers
1970, UK
Ken Russell

The late, great Ken Russell's own description of The Music Lovers as a film about a homosexual who falls in love with a nymphomaniac does accurately summarize this loose biopic of Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain), but The Music Lovers is so much more. I was lucky enough to have seen a beautiful print of the film at the Castro Theater earlier this year, which is truly the ideal way to watch any of Ken Russell's films (up to a point), but don't let that stop you from watching it at home. Following Tchaikovsky and his wife Nina (brilliantly played by Glenda Jackson), Russell surrounds these two individuals with a number of impossible love affairs, each of them branching off their own doomed marriage, which was unsuccessfully consummated in a riveting sequence on a train. Along with The Devils, The Music Lovers is one of the finest examples of Russell's signature style: frenzied, operatic, dazzling, cinematic decadence (at its finest).

With: Richard Chamberlain, Glenda Jackson, Max Adrian, Christopher Gable, Izabella Telezynska, Kenneth Colley, Maureen Pryor, Sabina Maydelle, Andrew Faulds, Bruce Robinson

 

Starship Troopers
1997, USA
Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven has only made one bad film in his entire career, and that was Hollow Man. So if anyone says that Showgirls, RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, or Starship Troopers are bad films, rest assured that they're just plain wrong. Starship Troopers has everything you need in a film. It's enormously entertaining, weirdly erotic, intentionally hilarious (I've heard people try to say otherwise... again, they're wrong), kind of gross, and "secretly" really smart, which accurately describes all of Verhoeven's best work. Take for instance Rue McClanahan as an eye-patch-donning biology teacher, or Denise Richards as the good-girl brainiac Carmen Ibanez (all of the film's main characters come from a futuristic Buenos Aires where everyone is as American as they come, though still retaining Spanish names).

With: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Patrick Muldoon, Neil Patrick Harris, Jake Busey, Clancy Brown, Michael Ironside, Marshall Bell, Rue McClanahan, Seth Gilliam, Brenda Strong, Lenore Kasdorf, Amy Smart

Love and Death
1975, USA/France
Woody Allen

In my personal favorite Woody Allen film, Stardust Memories, Allen's character is hounded by a bunch of annoying fans, one of whom complains that they preferred his "older, funnier movies." Love and Death is the best of Allen's actual "older, funnier movies," a hysterical farce about a bumbling coward (played by Allen), in love with his slutty cousin (Diane Keaton), who joins the Russian army to try to defeat Napoleon. It's a great mix of visual humor, common in his early works, and the quick wit he's best known for.

With: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Olga Georges-Picot, Harold Gould, Tony Jay, Jessica Harper, Henri Coutet, Despo Diamantidou, Féodor Atkine, Alfred Lutter, James Tolkan

Tomboy
2011, France
Céline Sciamma

It's no easy feat trying to depict the essence of adolescence on film without seeming too distant or nostalgic. Céline Sciamma's Tomboy does a rather exceptional job capturing the spirit of being a child, somewhere on your way to puberty. The French have always had a knack for this, from François Truffaut (not my favorite filmmaker by any means, but I still admire the way he films "la jeunesse") to films like Jacques Doillon's Ponette. In Tomboy, ten-year-old Laure (played by Zoé Héran, who already looks like a haute-couture runway model), a tall, lanky, androgynous girl, moves to a new town where she is mistaken for a boy by the neighborhood children and decides to invent a new identity for herself as Mikaël. Tomboy is considerably more interesting when it shows the interactions between the children; both its story and its lesson, while neither of them as obvious as you may think, are secondary.

With: Zoé Héran, Malonn Lévana, Jeanne Disson, Sophie Cattani, Mathieu Demy, Yohan Ventre, Noah Ventre, Cheyenne Lainé, Ryan Bonbeleri, Jeanne Dison

Funny/Sad

Strange that the first thing I could think to write about would be the curiously compelling "failures" of a number of films I've viewed in the past week over the "yeah, yeah, it's good" crossing of Casablanca off my "why the fuck haven't I seen this?" list. Really, what is there to say about Casablanca anyway? It's superior on nearly every level, and yet the focus of this entry is on the (perhaps more interesting) oddities I found myself viewing.

El misterio de los almendros [The Mystery of the Almond Trees] - dir. Jaime Humberto Hermosillo - 2004 - Mexico

Here's a premise to befuddle even the most un-beffuddle-able: two rookie detectives (Alejandro Tommasi, José Juan Meraz) are assigned to a case of a missing painting, belonging to a wealthy family whose daughter had gone missing. The rookies pose as homosexual lovers to get a special invite from a widow (María Rojo), known for hosting weekend posh parties for societal outcasts, whose daughter may have been the lover of the missing girl. There's also a string of murders that happen to surround the whole affair. Where is this going, you might think. Strangely, it happens to be going in directions I'm not sure the director (famous for Doña Herlinda and Her Son and Esmeralda Comes by Night) was even aware of. At some point in the film, the whole premise goes up in smoke, and the director doesn't even seem to care! What's also notable about the film (aside from the fact that I don't remember there being trees or almonds anywhere onscreen) is that the film isn't lead astray by the director's alterier motives, but merely for the sake of just going where it wants. It's like an untamed animal, all coiffed up before destroying the dinner party. And yet, it's so compelling in its confusion that you, too, forget why the detectives are even at this woman's house, let alone posing as lovers, let alone engaging in the sort of devious activity they fall into. I'd probably deserve a prize if I could explain what actually went on during the film, but I'm just satisfied with the ability to still shake my head at a film which I can't resist being coaxed into.

The Life [Yo puta] - dir. Luna - 2004 - Spain

Oh, what to do with The Life? I have no knowledge of the production itself, so all I can do is merely speculate. On one level, the film is about a young anthropology student (Denise Richards... yeah, I know) having trouble paying her bills as her grant runs out. Her neighbor (Daryl Hannah) has a solution: become a whore like her! You see, Ms. Richards has never had a boyfriend, and she's a virgin (right, I know), so this could pose a problem. It apparently posed a problem for the film itself, as I think the two actresses clock in about 15% of the film's actual screen time. Intercut, you'll find weird testimonials from actual prostitutes about "the business," love and sex, and their first time, seemingly having little to do with Denise's unfortunate situation. The talking-heads aren't particularly enlightening (you can find about 1000 documentaries on sex workers out there), but I'll say: it's never boring. Not being boring is a lot more to ask than you can imagine for me lately, so kudos to director Luna (not J.J. Bigas Luna as Netflix has labeled the film). Watching The Life is like watching someone salvaging a film they tried to make and realized half-way through was utter crap. I wouldn't encourage every director out there to piece together their rotten, unused footage and throw it together in some tiresome essay film, but at least The Life can show you that sometimes you can find lovely things buried in your trash can (if that's indeed what happened).

Innocents [Dark Summer] - dir. Gregory Marquette - 2000 - Canada/USA/Germany

This film, with its wonderful cast and awful Photoshopped-boxart, had always taunted me at the video store. What was Connie Nielsen and Jean-Hughes Anglade doing in this film? (The answer was a bit more simply answered when it came to Mia Kirshner) Well, eventually, I had to find out... and I'm still not very sure, but in ways more surprising than if the film was just direct-to-video shit. It's certainly not that, but what it is, I'm also unsure. In some ways it's a gothic tale of Americana (filmed in Canada, of course) in which a cellist (Anglade) takes two sisters he barely knows (Nielsen, Kirshner) on a cross country road trip. But, oh shit, there's a murderer lurking on the freeway. Or are the sisters a part of these murders? The answer, thankfully, is that they aren't, and about midway through the tension, the director gives up on it realizing there would be no possible way for the cards to fall in such a way. Innocents (or Dark Summer as it was originally titled) is amusing unflinching in its cold (but somehow pulpy) violence and trickery. Its trickery, thankfully, is all on Anglade's head, not the audience's. The film exists solely to display conflict, both imaginary and played out, in a perversely sexual manner. I don't know if I'm happy with where the director went with it, but, like I said for the two previous films, I was never bored. At one point in the film, Anglade asks the real question that's boiling beneath the surface: why the hell is Mia Kirshner wearing an awful wig? I'm always for a movie where a line of dialogue reminds you that the filmmakers aren't nearly as clueless as you might think they are, especially when I was afraid the wig was just a cheap way to convince the audience that the strikingly different actresses could be sisters.

Agnes and His Brothers [Agnes und seine Brüder] - dir. Oskar Roehler - 2004 - Germany

For someone with very little interest in American Beauty, I was surprised to find how much I liked a film that could owe so much to that film (even five years too late). Not to give anything away for those concerned with spoilers, but Agnes and His Brothers lifts at least two notable scenes from its American predecessor... and I didn't even mind! I'm not really sure where my film taste is going right now, but I'm happy enough to just let it find its way. The film concerns itself with three brothers: Werner (Herbert Knaup), a politician of sorts who relates to his dog more than his family; Hans-Jörg (Mortiz Bleibtreu), the lonely middle brother who happens to work at the only library in the entire world where the only inhabitants are hot women (thus feeding his sexual addiction); and, of course, Agnes (Martin Weiß), a transsexual go-go dancer. It's rather typically funny/sad, but it amplifies both sides so well to points frequently hilarious/devastating. Though the film's aim is in a different direction, I can't help but wish something like Margot at the Wedding had a bit more Agnes in her.

Sugar - dir. John Palmer - 2004 - Canada

The business of adapting Bruce LaBruce would seem a difficult endeavor as director Palmer did with LaBruce's short stories in Sugar. It probably made it a lot easier considering that the stories in which the film was based have little in common with LaBruce's cinematic work (of which I'm a raging fan, as you should know). I don't have a lot to say about Sugar here as it's working beautifully into a longer piece I'm planning based on my New Queer Cinema blog from a few months back. In many ways though, Sugar works as a meta piece of the youngster growing up with the films of LaBruce and Gregg Araki, depicting a teenage boy's (Andre Noble) fascination and subsequent disgust with the darker side of first love in a rent boy named Butch (Brendan Fehr). Also look for (now Oscar-nominated!) Sarah Polley as a pregnant crack dealer.

Good Boys [Yeladim Tovim] - dir. Yair Hochner - 2005 - Israel

Like Sugar, I won't say as much as I'd like to about Good Boys, as it, too, will be worked into the New Queer Cinema piece. It's actually quite fascinating how Good Boys works opposite everything about contemporary "gay" cinema in its promise of nastiness and heart and the way it gives it to the audience. It's nasty, alright, but not in redeeming ways. In fact, it uses nudity in a most clever manner, de-sexualizing it to the point of digust and, thus, straying from the more beautiful forms of sexuality. It certainly works as a great counter-point to the post-NQC garbage of American cinema.

When too much is just enough

Wild Things - dir. John McNaughton - 1998 - USA

Inspired by a comment that my friend Brad made to me last night about a possible reteaming of Denise Richards and Neve Campbell, both in dire need of a return to the screen, in a film written by Stephen Peters, who wrote Wild Things, I've remembered the extreme fondness I had for the film when I was a wee lad. Wild Things is, above all else, a glorious parade of excess and trashiness. On nearly every level, we're given way too much, which strangely works in the film's favor. It never ceases to inspire a "no, they aren't going to... oh wait, they did" reaction. I could make a list that would go on for pages about everything that is taken to the fullest extreme here. The only thing missing was Denise Richards giving an unsimulated blow job to Matt Dillon. When a lesbian scene between two hot high school girls quickly turns into a bitchy cat-fight, when you get a full view of Kevin Bacon's obviously fluffed penis as he turns around in the shower, when you cast fucking Theresa Russell as Richards' gluttonous, slutty mother -- you know you're in for a treat.

The tentative title for the Richards/Campbell reteaming is Backstabbers, which might as well have been the subtitle for this film. The plot twists and turns appear to be typically Hollywood, but when they come in the droves they do in this film, you can't help but smirk. It's certainly problematic when a film is aware of its own campiness, but Wild Things is so genuinely appealing in its seediness that this doesn't hurt it at all. Richards is perfect in her token role, the rich, pouty-lipped bitch (I really can't think of anyone who pulls it off better than she does). Campbell is delightfully miscast as the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, but still pulls off the alluring cruelty. Bacon is a total sleaze, a pulpier version of his character in Where the Truth Lies. And Dillon plays exactly the person you'd expect that he would have become if his career tanked post-1980s. The only one truly out of place here is Bill Murray, as the lawyer, whose role solely requires him to make unfitting jokes and shoot looks of utter confusion and moritification at Richards. His faces are the exact ones we'd give her if we weren't in on the joke. And because he's not, he's useless here. It's actually most surprising that the film was directed by John McNaughton, whose Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was a starkly realist horror film. He made a campy women-in-prison film a few years prior with Anne Heche and Ione Skye (weirdly predicting both of their "coming outs" as lesbians) called Girls in Prison -- though I haven't seen it, I doubt it matches the tawdry brilliance that is Wild Things. The film goes so far over-the-top you can't help but be shocked at the fact that McNaughton decided to cut a scene of Dillon and Bacon naked in the shower together. Now, that's too much.