The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2005)

Every year, the list seems to be getting longer. The sentimental issue with 2005 was that a list of the Worst Films of 2005 was my very third blog post ever on here, so unlike the previous years, I've written quite a few venomous words about the films below (I was pretty hostile when I started writing this blog). So for both your and my pleasure, I've selected some really mean and/or smart-ass "pull quotes" from what I had to say about these, the worst films I saw from 2005.

On The 40-Year-Old Virgin: "The 40-Year-Old Virgin is essentially a bunch of laughless sketch appendages (the worst involving foul-mouthed Eastern Indian coworkers), branching from a thin backbone of a lifeless romance." On Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma: "Amnesia ends up being an idea film with nothing to say and Langlois a lousy psychological researcher who’s happy enough to just to ask the questions instead of looking for the answers." On Dirty Love: "That this film presumes we’re going to care about a woman who flops around a supermarket looking for tampons to stop her Shining-size bloodbath of a menstrual flow is not only dead-wrong, but also rather insulting."

On Fratricide: "There’s grittiness and then there’s absurdity, and Arslan can’t figure out the difference." On Happy Endings: "Happy Endings’ mix of nastiness and earnestness is like water and electricity… when you’re in the bathtub." On Hard Candy: "Hard Candy is one of those films you could see someone handing into their teacher as a genre assignment. Everything is "fine" about the film, if you consider "fine" to be hitting all the points of a job or assignment. Or if "fine" simply means passionless."

On Havoc: I quoted my friend Mike on this one: "About as sharp and edgy as an oval-shaped blanket full of kittens." On Lower City: "Merely a collection of reminders of better films." On Me and You and Everyone We Know: "Weaving a bunch of quirky moments (involving setting hands on fire, a cuuuuuuuute little boy wanting to shit in a woman’s ass, a goldfish in peril, and tag-team fellatio from a duo of sassy teen girls, among other things) into a sloppy motion picture, Ms. July created the “indie” groan of the year."

On Monster-in-Law: "Setting women back nearly fifty years with this one, Jane Fonda returns to the screen, opposite the sweet-as-pie, stripped-of-race Jennifer Lopez. It’d be one thing for this film to just be unfunny… but it’s a two-hour-long cat fight, turning women into caddy, selfish, backstabbing cunts." On Pretty Persuasion: "Siega has accomplished the feat of making his film the only thing more despicable than [teen edge queen Evan Rachel Wood's protagonist]." On The Puffy Chair: "Do I really want to choose to join in on the roadtrip when I hate the people I'm traveling with... and don't really care where we're going?"

On Sorry, Haters: "Allow me to introduce you to the 9/11 exploitation film." On Transamerica: "The tolerance that Tucker does expect from us is even more offensive than a sweet "trannies are people too." He expects us to continue with his annoyingly familiar film because of Felicity Huffman." On Walk the Line: "When Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) proposes marriage to the love of his life June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), he asks her to come up with a fresh answer. Strange, we as an audience were asking the same thing out of this film."

- The 40-Year-Old Virgin - d. Judd Apatow - USA
- Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma [Amnésie: L'énigme James Brighton] - d. Denis Langlois - Canada
- Antibodies [Antikörper] - d. Christian Alvart - Germany
- The Aristocrats - d. Paul Provenza - USA
- Backstage - d. Emmanuelle Bercot - France
- The Cabin Movie - d. Dylan Akio Smith - Canada
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - d. Tim Burton - USA/UK
- The Civilization of Maxwell Bright - d. David Beaird - USA
- Diary of a Mad Black Woman - d. Tyler Perry - USA
- Dirty Love - d. John Mallory Asher - USA
- Don't Tell [La bestia nel cuore] - d. Cristina Comencini - Italy/France/UK/Spain
- Eighteen - d. Richard Bell - Canada
- Evil [To kako] - d. Yorgos Noussias - Greece
- Feed - d. Brett Leonard - Australia
- Fratricide [Brudermord] - d. Yilmaz Arslan - Germany/Luxembourg/France
- Happy Endings - d. Don Roos - USA
- Hard Candy - d. David Slade - USA
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - d. Garth Jennings - UK/USA
- Havoc - d. Barbara Kopple - USA/Germany
- King's Ransom - d. Jeff Byrd - USA
- Lemming - d. Dominik Moll - France
- The Longest Yard - d. Peter Segal - USA
- Lower City [Cidade Baixa] - d. Sérgio Machado - Brazil
- Madagascar - d. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath - USA
- Manuale d'amore [Manual of Love] - d. Giovanni Veronesi - Italy
- Me and You and Everyone We Know - d. Miranda July - USA
- Monster-in-Law - d. Robert Luketic - USA/Germany
- The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green - d. George Bamber - USA
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith - d. Doug Liman - USA
- Nanny McPhee - d. Kirk Jones - UK/USA/France
- Pervert! - d. Jonathan Yudis - USA
- Pretty Persuasion - d. Marcos Siega - USA
- The Producers - d. Susan Stroman - USA
- The Puffy Chair - d. Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass - USA
- Queens [Reinas] - d. Manuel Gómez Pereira - Spain
- Remedy - d. Christian Maelen - USA
- Robots - d. Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha - USA
- Sorry, Haters - d. Jeff Stanzler - USA
- Stoned - d. Stephen Woolley - UK
- Transamerica - d. Duncan Tucker - USA
- Walk the Line - d. James Mangold - USA/Germany
- The Wedding Date - d. Clare Kilner - USA
- Where the Truth Lies - d. Atom Egoyan - Canada/UK
- Witches of the Caribbean - d. David DeCoteau - USA
- Zerophilia - d. Martin Curland - USA

Blow Out the Candles; Plus More from Toronto

R.I.P. John Hughes, who died of a heart attack today at the age of 59 today. His contributions to cinema were a mixed bag at best (Curly Sue, Dennis the Menace and fuckin' Baby's Day Out), but he certainly captured something special in his better offerings (Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Making overnight stars out of the likes of his teen stars, most notably (for me) Molly Ringwald, it's hard to say whether he really chronicled a generation; I guess it depends on who you ask, as I've heard the same unqualified claim about Bret Easton Ellis. Whether it's cheap nostalgia or not, his (good) films certainly have stood the test of time. In other news, Toronto announced another eleven titles, including new films from Mika Kaurismäki (L.A. Without a Map, Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made), Ana Kokkinos (Head On, The Book of Revelation), Jan Hrebejk (Beauty in Trouble, Divided We Fall) and Harmony Korine, as well as an omnibus Paris je t'aime-esque portrait of Bangkok from Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Last Life in the Universe, Ploy), Wisit Sasanatieng (Tears of the Black Tiger), Aditya Assarat (Wonderful Town) and Kongdej Jaturanrasamee (Midnight My Love, Spasm).

Contemporary World Cinema

- Beyond the Circle - d. Golam Rabbany Biplob (On the Wings of Dreams)
- Blessed - d. Ana Kokkinos - w. Miranda Otto, Frances O'Connor
- Giulia Doesn't Date at Night [Giulia non esce la sera] - d. Giuseppe Piccioni (Light of My Eyes) - w. Valeria Golino
- Heiran - d. Shalizeh Arefpour
- The House of Branching Love [Haarautuvan rakkauden talo] - d. Mika Kaurismäki
- Por vida [For Life] - d. Alan Jacobs (American Gun, Nina Takes a Lover) - w. Danny Glover, Snoop Dogg, Elizabeth Peña, Emily Rios
- Rabia - d. Sebastián Cordero (Crónicas) - w. Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Àlex Brendemühl
- Sawasdee Bangkok - d. Wisit Sasanatieng, Aditya Assarat, Kongdej Jaturanrasamee, Pen-ek Ratanaruang
- Shameless [Nestyda] - d. Jan Hrebejk
- Slovenian Girl [Slovenka] - d. Damjan Kozole (Spare Parts)
- Tanner Hall - d. Francesca Gregorini, Tatiana von Furstenberg - w. Amy Sedaris, Chris Kattan, Anne Ramsay, Tom Everett Scott

Visions

- Between Two Worlds - d. Vimukthi Jayasundara (The Forsaken Land)
- Gaia - d. Jason Lehel
- Hiroshima - d. Pablo Stoll (Whisky)
- I Am Love [Io sono l'amore] - d. Luca Guadagnino - w. Tilda Swinton
- Lebanon - d. Samuel Maoz
- To the Sea - d. Pedro González-Rubio
- Trash Humpers - d. Harmony Korine

The Decade List: Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Los Angeles Plays Itself - dir. Thom Anderson

Likely to never see an official release due to the surplus of copyrighted film footage used within the film, Thom Anderson's fascinating Los Angeles Plays Itself is simply one of the best examples of films about film to emerge this decade. Consisting of a surplus of movie clips, with examples as varied as Double Indemnity, Zabriskie Point, the original Gone in 60 Seconds, Blade Runner, Body Double, Swordfish, Night of the Comet and the landmark gay porn from which it takes its name L.A. Plays Itself, Los Angeles Plays Itself is Anderson's filmic essay on the fallacies the history of cinema has projected upon the city he calls home.

Described as "the most photographed and least photogenic city in the world." Anderson's observations, which are sardonically narrated by Encke King, never strive for a sense of objectivity, hence the nasty jabs at a quintessentially New York filmmaker like Woody Allen or the question as to whether geographical continuity errors are inherent of lousy films like Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. With sections of the nearly three-hour-long film based around Chinatown, Double Indemnity, William A. Wellman's Public Enemy and John Boorman's Point Blank, Anderson examines the various ideas that the respective filmmakers convey (or don't convey, in the case of Public Enemy in which Los Angeles substitutes for Chicago) about the city.

Certain notions presented in the film sound overly generalized, and some of the repeated clips are questionable (The Replacement Killers shows up on numerous occasions). Nevertheless, three hours couldn't fully address all the ways in which over a hundred years of cinema has perpetrated illusions about the most recognized movie-making town in the world, and what Anderson does confront in the Los Angeles Plays Itself is absolutely compelling.

Narrator: Encke King
Screenplay: Thom Anderson
Cinematography: Deborah Stratman
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Submarine Entertainment

Premiere: 7 September 2003 (Toronto International Film Festival)
US Premiere: January 2004 (Sundance Film Festival)

Awards: Best Documentary (Vancouver International Film Festival)

She, The Fox, Reckless in the Warner Archive

Warner Bros. added a few notables to their Archive Collection for August. As of yesterday, you can now get your dirty hands on Robert Day's not-so-classic epic She, co-produced by Hammer Films and starring Ursula Andress in the title role of She, Who Must Be Obeyed; Hammer staples Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are also in it. As of the 4th, you can also pick up James Foley's Reckless from 1984 with Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah as star-cross'd high school footballer player-and-cheerleader lovers.

On the 18th, they'll release Mark Rydell's adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's The Fox about a pair of lesbians on a chicken farm. A handful of silents will also become available that day, including William Nigh's Across to Singapore with Joan Crawford; William A. Wellman's The Boob also with Crawford (I love the idea of Joan Crawford in a film called The Boob; juvenile, I know); Nigh's Desert Nights; Roy William Neill's The Viking; and Edward Segwick's West Point, again with Joan Crawford.

And finally, a pair of comedies from Mervyn LeRoy are set for the 18th as well. A Majority of One, with Alec Guinness and Rosalind Russell, based on the play by Leonard Spigelgass, and Mary, Mary with Debbie Reynolds. You can find the Warner Archive Online via this link.

Whoopsidaisy

Shortly after Venice announced their 2009 line-up, Toronto added another 8 titles, and while I took a mental note of it at the time, I forgot to post them here. The titles include World Premieres of the new Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Jason Reitman films, as well as Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen's North American Premiere. Also, Dagur Kári's English-language The Good Heart, which reteams Brian Cox and Paul Dano from L.I.E.

Gala

- The Damned United - d. Tom Hooper - w. Michael Sheen, Colm Meaney, Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent
- Dil Bole Hadippa! - d. Anurag Singh
- Micmacs [Micmacs à tire-larigot] - d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet - w. Dany Boon, Dominique Pinon, Yolande Moreau, André Dussollier
- What's Your Raashee? - d. Ashutosh Gowariker (Lagaan, Jodhaa Akbar)

Special Presentations

- The Good Heart - d. Dagur Kári - w. Brian Cox, Paul Dano, Isild Le Besco
- The Hole - d. Joe Dante
- Soul Kitchen - d. Fatih Akin
- Up in the Air - d. Jason Reitman - w. George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, Melanie Lynskey, Danny McBride

My Eyes!

Dear Criterion,

While I quite like the cover artwork for Monsoon Wedding, could you limit the orange-and-yellow combination to one release per month?

Thanks!

Atom Egoyan's Latest Among the Latest Unveiling for Toronto 09

While I knew the homegrown titles had yet to be announced for this year's Toronto International Film Festival, another round of additions to the line-up kinda makes you (really) wish everything had come in one big swoop. Atom Egoyan's Chloe, which stars Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried and sounds an awful lot like Anne Fontaine's awful Nathalie... [correction: it is a remake of Nathalie..., as if I couldn't be any less excited about a new Atom Egoyan film], will make its world premiere in the Gala section. Xavier Dolan's J'ai tué ma mère, which everyone expected to play considering the accolades from Cannes and because, well, it's Canadian, will play in the Special Presentations section, and Jean-Marc Vallée's The Young Victoria, with Emily Blunt as Queen Victoria, will close the fest, even though it already hit the DVD market in the UK last month. The titles are listed below. (Sorry for some of these bootleg-lookin' pics I found, but they were the best I had to work with).

[additional note: I'm too tired to fix the redundant use of "latest" in the title.]

Gala

- Chloe - d. Atom Egoyan
- Cooking with Stella - d. Dilip Mehta (brother of Deepa) - w. Don McKellar
- The Immaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - d. Terry Gilliam

Special Presentations

- Cairo Time - d. Ruba Nadda (Sabah) - w. Patricia Clarkson, Alexander Siddig, Elena Anaya
- Defendor - d. Peter Stebbings (directorial debut) - w. Kat Dennings, Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Sandra Oh
- Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel - d. Brigitte Berman
- J'ai tué ma mère [I Killed My Mother] - d. Xavier Dolan
- The Trotsky - Jacob Tierney (Twist) - w. Jay Baruchel, Saul Rubinek, Colm Feore, Jessica Paré, Genviève Bujold

Contemporary World Cinema

- A Gun to the Head - d. Blaine Thurier
- Cole - d. Carl Bessai (Emile, Mothers&Daughters)
- Excited - d. Bruce Sweeney (Last Wedding)
- High Life - d. Gary Yates
- Passenger Side - d. Matt Bissonnette - w. Adam Scott, Robin Tunney
- Suck - d. Rob Stefaniuk - w. Malcolm McDowell, Dave Foley, Henry Rollins, Jessica Paré, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Moby, Paul Anthony

Canada First!

- Year of the Carnivore - d. Sook-Yin Lee (Shortbus actress)
- All Fall Down - d. Philip Hoffman
- Crackie - d. Sherry White
- George Ryga's Hungry Hills - d. Rob King
- Machotaildrop - d. Corey Adams, Alex Craig
- The Wild Hunt - d. Alexandre Franchi

The Rest...

- La donation - d Bernard Émond (La femme qui boit) [part of the Masters section]
- Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould - d. Peter Raymont, Michele Hozer [part of the Reel to Reel section]
- Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands - d. Peter Mettler [part of the Reel to Reel section]
- Reel Injun - d. Neil Diamond [part of the Reel to Reel section]
- Carcasses - d. Denis Côté (Les états nordiques) [part of the Vanguard section]
- Leslie, My Name Is Evil - d. Reginald Harkema [part of the Vanguard section]

The Decade List: Albums/Singles (2005)

Keeping with the new structure of 2004's Music post, I've organized 2005 in the same fashion. First, there's the albums; this year there's 10. Then the stand-out jams, of which there are 20 this time around, followed by 55 additional tracks. After releasing what would be my second favorite album of '04, Sufjan Stevens said goodbye to the overtly Christian themes of Seven Swans on Illinois, a phenomenal listen from beginning to end and the second in his planned series of albums about the fifty states. It would also be the second time my favorite album of the year alligned with Pitchfork's choice (which will likely happen at least one other time as we go along).

The rest of the album list consists of an English group whose members widdled down to two in 2005, a Japanese experimental metal trio, a transgendered Brit with an angelic voice, a Parisian based pair of American sisters, a Canadian supergroup making their last (so far) recording, a hip hop-stress of Sri Lankan descent, a French electronic shoegaze-r, a group of post-rockers from Iceland and a Norweigan electro-duo, respectively. They are in descending order.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Broadcast - Tender Buttons
Boris - Pink
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
CocoRosie - Noah's Ark
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
M.I.A. - Arular
M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us
Sigur Rós - Takk...
Röyksopp - The Understanding

Assorted Jams from the Year 2005

The task of preferentially ordered year lists is laborous enough by itself, but when you make the split between albums and songs, the inevitable problem of "Do I claim the best album and song are by the same artist within a given year?" arises. I guess in film terms, the best analogy would be at an award ceremony where one must decide if the best film of a given year was also the best directed. I don't think when the top spots are from different artists that it means the same thing as when the Academy Awards split the Best Picture and Director... but who knows. As tough a decision it was to decide, I had to go with Sufjan Stevens' painfully gorgeous anthem to the rapist and serial killer in clown make-up.

While there are only a few "blast down the freeway" jams in the top section, most of the songs generally fall into two categories: slow and wistful or bomastic and ornate. A few move from one category to the other (like "Hope There's Someone," "Glósóli," "In the Cold I'm Standing," "Will You Smile Again?"), and others sit near the middle ("In This Home on Ice," "Shake It Off"). As usual, they are in vague order of preference.

The Top 20

Sufjan Stevens - "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." [from Illinois]
Antony and the Johnsons - "Hope There's Someone" [from I Am a Bird Now]
Boris - "Farewell" [from Pink]
Sigur Rós - "Glósóli" [from Takk...]
Broken Social Scene - "All My Friends" [from EP To Be You and Me]
Broadcast - "Black Cat" [from Tender Buttons]
Röyksopp featuring Karin Dreijer Andersson - "What Else Is There?" [from The Understanding]
CocoRosie - "South 2nd" [from Noah's Ark]
M.I.A. - "Galang" [from Arular]
M83 - "In the Cold I'm Standing" [from Before the Dawn Heals Us]
Animal Collective - "Grass" [from Feels]
Broken Social Scene - "7/4 Shoreline" [from Broken Social Scene]
Moonbabies - "Ghost of Love" [from the War on Sound EP] (it's a shame I can't find this anywhere)
Gorillaz - "DARE" [from Demon Days]
Mariah Carey - "Shake It Off" [from The Emancipation of Mimi] (not kidding, at all)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "In This Home on Ice" [from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah]
Cansei de Ser Sexy - "Art Bitch" [from CSS]
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - "Will You Smile Again?" [from Worlds Apart]
The Radio Dept. - "I Don't Like It Like This" [from This Past Week EP]
Goldfrapp - "Ooh La La" [from Supernature]

Les autres

M.I.A. - "10 Dollar" [from Arular]
The Legends - "He Knows the Sun" [from Public Radio]
Dengue Fever - "Tip My Canoe" [from Escape from Dragon House]
Bloc Party - "Banquet" [from Silent Alarm]
Lou Barlow - "Home" [from Emoh] (Couldn't find it)
Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx - "Gold Digger" [from Late Registration]
Sufjan Stevens - "Casimir Pulaski Day" [from Illinois]
Antony & the Johnsons featuring Rufus Wainwright - "What Can I Do?" [from I Am a Bird Now]
The Game featuring 50 Cent - "Hate It Or Love It" [from The Documentary]
Wolf Parade - "Modern World" [from Apologies to the Queen Mary]
Lil' Kim - "Shut Up Bitch" [from The Naked Truth]

Ladytron - "Sugar" [from Witching Hour]
Roísín Murphy - "Ruby Blue" [from Ruby Blue]
Doves - "Black and White Town" [from Some Cities]
Piano Magic - "Deleted Scenes" [from Disaffected]
Colder - "To the Music" [from Heat]
Missy Elliott featuring Ciara and Fat Man Scoop - "Lose Control" [from The Cookbook]
Broadcast - "I Found the F" [from Tender Buttons]
Tiefschwarz fearturing Tracey Thorn - "Damage" [from Eat Books] (All I could find were remixes)
Arcade Fire - "Cold Wind" [from Cold Wind / Brazil EP]
Madonna - "Get Together" [from Confessions on a Dance Floor]
Queens of the Stone Age - "Little Sister" [from Lullabies to Paralyze]

Spleen - "Lost" [from She Was a Girl] (I could only find a live version)
Jenny Wilson - "Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward" [from Love and Youth]
Coldplay - "Fix You" [from X&Y]
CocoRosie - "K-Hole" [from Noah's Ark]
LCD Soundsystem - "Tribulations" [from LCD Soundsystem]
Wolfmother - "Woman" [from Wolfmother]
!!! - "Take Ecstasy with Me" [from Take Ecstasy with Me EP] (all the versions of this Magnetic Fields cover I found were of terrible quality)
Junior Senior - "Can I Get Get Get" [from Hey Hey My My Yo Yo]
Sufjan Stevens - "Chicago" [from Illinois]
Broken Social Scene - "Hotel" [from Broken Social Scene]
Sean Paul - "Give It Up to Me" [from The Trinity]

Piano Magic - "Disaffected" [from Disaffected]
Antony and the Johnsons featuring Lou Reed - "Fistful of Love" [from I Am a Bird Now]
Boris - "Just Abandoned My-Self" [from Pink]
Fiona Apple - "Not About Love" [from Extraordinary Machine]
M83 - "Teen Angst" [from Before the Dawn Heals Us]
Fischerspooner - "Never Win" [from Odyssey]
The National - "Secret Meeting" [from Alligator]
The Pussycat Dolls featuring will.i.am - "Beep" [from PCD]
Röyksopp - "Triumphant" [from The Understanding]
Jamie Lidell - "Multiply" [from Multiply]
Goldfrapp - "Ride a White Horse" [from Supernature]

Doves - "Snowden" [from Some Cities]
Efterklang - "Kloy Gyn" [from Springer] (No dice)
Cansei de Ser Sexy - "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above" [from CSS]
Boris - "My Machine" [from Pink]
Broken Social Scene - "Canada vs. America" [from EP To Be You and Me]
Gorillaz - "Dirty Harry" [from Demon Days]
Sambassadeur - "Ice & Snow" [from Sambassadeur]
M83 - "I Guess I'm Floating" [from Before the Dawn Heals Us]
Sufjan Stevens - "Decatur, Or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!" [from Illinois]
Gorillaz - "Demon Days" [from Demon Days]
Mariah Carey - "We Belong Together" [from The Emancipation of Mimi]

The Decade List: The Tulse Luper Suitcases (2003-2004)

The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story - dir. Peter Greenaway
+
The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea - dir. Peter Greenaway

[Edited from an earlier post]

As my interest in the world of film (and, really, everything else) has been going in and out of periods of remission, fancy my surprise that a director I’d “written off” could give me a much needed jump-start. Thanks a marathon on The Sundance Channel, I got to witness Peter Greenaway’s three film entries in his epic, confusing multimedia project The Tulse Luper Suitcases (none of the films have been released theatrically in the US or even on DVD anywhere outside of Russia and Spain, still to this day). Might I suggest that the trilogy—the first titled The Moab Story, the second Vaux to the Sea, the third From Sark to Finish—is a dizzying array of brilliance.

With the combined efforts of 8½ Women, Nightwatching and, to a lesser extent, The Pillow Book, Greenaway shifted from a primary obsession of mine to a director I’d pegged as “losing it.” The Tulse Luper Suitcases encompasses all the good things about the aforementioned films and expands upon his examination of cinema and its boundaries. In short, the films depict the life of 20th century collector/traveler Tulse Luper who is better known as Greenaway’s alter ego and has received mention in other of the director’s work. The films contain sixteen “episodes,” each of which surrounding Luper’s imprisonments, both physical and metaphysical.

In episode four or five (forgive me, I can’t remember which except that it happens in Vaux to the Sea), it becomes more clear that The Tulse Luper Suitcases are to Greenaway as Histoire(s) du cinema are to Godard. It’s a quite literal comparison as this segment focuses on Luper’s confinement in a cinemahouse in France which plays The Passion of Joan of Arc and Boudu Saved from Drowning, among others. Here, the cinema becomes a reflexive look at the newly shaped world for Luper, ever advancing through each stage in his own personal reflection. Greenaway even introduces Joan of Arc and Boudu as characters into the series with character numbers; all of the expansive cast of individuals receive a number and their name in text upon entering the films. However, it isn’t simply the cinema that is the mode of Greenaway’s examination, as history itself reveals itself as the catalyst for the understanding of both man and Luper himself.

The band news, unfortunately, comes in the final film, From Sark to Finish, a confused, unpolished and rushed conclusion to Luper’s adventures. Gone are the glorious fascinations of narrative and visuals, the latter of which is, at times, completely astounding particularly in Greenaway’s use of frame-on-top-of-a-frame. Even the original Luper, JJ Feild, is replaced briefly by Stephen Billington and later by Roger Rees, who plays the aged Luper/double in Vaux to the Sea. Missing too are the recognizable faces, from the wonderful Isabella Rossellini to Steven Mackintosh to Valentina Cervi as Luper’s mistress Cissie Colpitts (a name you should recognize from Drowning by Numbers). However, most damning is that, perhaps through budgetary constraints, episodes are glossed over; one, which depicts Luper’s homoerotic relationship with one of his former captors, doesn’t even include any filmed footage. It’s a sad conclusion to a remarkable experiment, albeit one I won’t soon forget.

The Moab Story

With: JJ Feild, Valentina Cervi, Steven Mackintosh, Jordi Mollà, Tom Bower, Scot Williams, Caroline Dhavernas, Raymond J. Barry, Drew Mulligan, Yorick van Wageningen, Jack Wouterse, Naím Thomas, Debbie Harry, Michèle Bernier, Isabella Rossellini, Molly Ringwald, Keram Malicki-Sánchez, Ana Torrent, Nigel Terry, Patrick Kennedy, Francesco Salvi
Screenplay: Peter Greenaway
Cinematography: Reinier van Brummelen
Music: Borut Krzisnik, Eduardo Polonio
Country of Origin: UK/Netherlands/Spain/Luxumbourg/Italy/Hungary/Russia/Germany
US Distributor: N/A

Premiere: 24 May 2003 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 12 April 2004 (Philadelphia International Film Festival)

Vaux to the Sea

With: JJ Feild, Valentina Cervi, Isabella Rossellini, Roger Rees, Raymond J. Berry, Franka Potente, Ana Torrent, Steven Mackintosh, Jordi Mollà, Ornella Muti, Maria Schrader, Scot Williams, Francesco Salvi, Anna Galiena, Marcel Iures, Gaspard Ulliel, Keram Malicki-Sánchez
Screenplay: Peter Greenaway
Cinematography: Reinier van Brummelen
Music: Architori, Borut Krzisnik, Eduardo Polonio
Country of Origin: UK/Netherlands/Spain/Luxumbourg/Italy/Hungary
US Distributor: N/A

Premiere: February 2004 (Berlin International Film Festival)

DVD Release Update - 2 August

More titles for October from IFC (including one of their theatrical releases!: Fear(s) of the Dark), Il divo on DVD and Blu-ray from Music Box Films, some Blu-ray releases and date changes all below. Note: I have a pretty strong feeling that Fox's Blu-ray release of James Toback's Two Girls and a Guy will be the R-rated edit, not the NC-17 version with Robert Downey Jr. giving more explicit oral sex to Heather Graham. If I'm wrong, I'll be sure to let you know.

DVDs

- Away We Go, 2009, d. Sam Mendes, Focus Features, also on Blu-ray, 29 September
- Blood: The Last Vampire, 2009, d. Chris Nahon, Sony Pictures, also on Blu-ray, 20 October
- Il divo, 2008, d. Paolo Sorrentino, Music Box Films, also on Blu-ray, 27 October
- Fear(s) of the Dark [Peur(s) du noir], 2007, d. Blutch, Marie Caillou, Jerry Kramski, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire, Michel Pirus, Romain Slocombe, IFC Films, 27 October
- Medicine for Melancholy, 2008, d. Barry Jenkins, IFC Films, 27 October
- Sauna, 2008, d. Antti-Jussi Annila, IFC Films, 27 October
- Taylor Chain 1 & 2, 1980, 1984, d. Jerry Blumenthal, Gordon Quinn, Kartemquin Films/Facets, 27 October
- The United States of Tara, Season 1, 2008, Showtime/Paramount, 27 October, w. Toni Collette
- Harmony and Me, 2009, d. Bob Byington, Liberation Entertainment, 24 November, w. Justin Rice, Kevin Corrigan, Pat Healy
- Island Etude, 2006, d. Chen Huai-en, Vanguard, 24 November

Blu-ray Releases

- Amadeus, 1984, d. Milos Forman, Warner, Director's Cut, 15 September
- An American Werewolf in London, 1981, d. John Landis, Universal, 15 September
- Wolf, 1994, d. Mike Nichols, Sony Pictures, 13 October
- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, 1989, d. Jeremiah S. Chechik, Warner, Ultimate Edition, 27 October
- Two Girls and a Guy, 1997, d. James Toback, 20th Century Fox, 3 November
- My Brilliant Career, 1979, d. Gillian Armstrong, Blue Underground, 24 November

Date Changes

- Drag Me to Hell, 20 October
- Moonlight Serenade, 8 December
- Not Forgotten, 3 November
- Outrage, 19 January

The Decade List: Clean (2004)

Clean - dir. Olivier Assayas

[Edited from an earlier post]

Someone over at the Internet Movie Database, a horrible source for user activity and input, has decided to throw around the word "cliché" on the subject of Clean as if it were... yes, going out of style. A drug-addicted mother (Maggie Cheung) has to straighten out her life before getting custody of her son. Yeah, we’ve seen it before, which always begs the question as to whether we need to see it again. No, we really don’t need to. Yet, this “reviewer” (or "reviewers") never really wants to question the intention or whether or not, with these said clichés, the film works.

Well, it does. Approaching melodrama the same way he did with the various genres at work in demonlover, Assayas doesn't wish to breathe new life into tired notions but to find meaning within those confines. Clean's tale is a familiar one, build on pre-established motifs of stylized drug sequences and/or cinema vérité rawness, both problematic in their usual depictions. In cautionary tales of addiction, stylized drug sequences tend to glamourize the lifestyle they wish to condemn. By now, cinema-vérité has become something of a filmic decoration, a spurious creature that no longer suffices. Clean is not a medium between these two, but a longing and observant alternative. Nothing is magnified, glamorized, or exploited; Clean is level-headed and intimate, without sickening us with its closeness or getting so close as to hit the characters, or us, with the lens.

Cheung's performance, which won the Best Actress prize at Cannes, is exactly what you don’t expect it to be. This is not to say she doesn’t cry or stare pensively into the distance, because she does. The magic, however, of her performance is not because of this, but because we don’t register it as a “performance.” It's maybe significant that between Assayas and Cheung's two collaborations, the other being Irma Vep in 1996, the pair had married and divorced, giving their cinematic relationship a separate meaning altogether. Was Clean the last thing the former spouses had to give to one another? Cheung would retire from acting after a double-showing at Cannes in '04 with this and a brief reprisal of her role in Wong Kar-wai's sequel to In the Mood for the Love, 2046. It's been rumored that her scenes in Quentin Tarantino's upcoming Inglourious Basterds were cut (we'll know for sure later this month), so if Clean is in fact Cheung's swan song, I couldn't have hoped for anything more.

With: Maggie Cheung, Nick Nolte, James Dennis, Béatrice Dalle, Jeanne Balibar, Don McKellar, Martha Henry, James Johnson, Rémi Martin, Joana Preiss, Tricky, Dave Roback, Metric
Screenplay: Olivier Assayas
Cinematography: Eric Gauthier
Music: Brian Eno, David Roback, Tricky
Country of Origin: France/Canada/UK
US Distributor: Palm Pictures

Premiere: 21 May 2004 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 18 March 2005 (Rendez-vous with French Cinema)

Awards: Best Actress - Maggie Cheung, Technical Grand Prize - Eric Gauthier (Cannes Film Festival)