Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
With an array of new releases that are easy to forget exist, I had to pull a number of figures out from them to highlight this week, picking one film from three individuals and two films from a fourth, one of which is going to be a strange selection since I didn’t find it to be a very good movie overall thanks to its uneven tone, but it bears mentioning because it’s stuck with me more than any of his other films recently. The four individuals we’re looking at are Jim Belushi and Diane Ladd, who both appear in Gigi & Nate; Francois Ozon, who directs Peter von Kant; and Kevin Smith, whose Clerks III is releasing this weekend, several years after the prior entry was in theaters.
Chinatown (1974)
I’ll freely admit that I’m not as familiar with Diane Ladd’s filmography as I should be. Although her daughter Laura Dern and husband Bruce Dern seem to be working overtime right now in largely good material, Ladd appears to be struggling to find good films to participate in. Although she’s been acting on the big screen since 1961, she had a pair of celebrated films that released in 1974, though her participation wasn’t the key to their successes. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is one of the two films in which she plays the cantankerous waitress Flo (played with more broad familiarity by Polly Holliday in the TV series based on the film). Yet, it’s the other 1974 film I’ve chosen to highlight here simply because it’s far more impressive.
Director Roman Polanski is a frequently overrated director. His films aren’t as emotionally engaging as I want and, as such, I struggle to get invested in them. The most egregious example was The Pianist, but this film also suffers a bit as a result. Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway top the cast and they are the only characters we are genuinely invested in. Sure, Ladd’s character provides a pivotal lead to Nicholson’s detective, but it’s a pretty thankless role that might have been played by Thelma Ritter if this neo-noir had been made in the 1940s. While I don’t find the film to be the quintessential classic a lot of people do, I still recognize the quality and importance of the production and it might well be the best film Ladd has ever been in.
No Original Review Available
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Another smaller role makes its way onto this list for Jim Belushi (credited more often by his full first name, James). Belushi has a cameo appearance in this Frank Oz film adapted from the hit off-Broadway musical of the same name: Little Shop of Horrors. The musical was based on a Roger Corman picture with the same title about an alien species that plans an invasion of earth by masquerading as house plants. The carnivorous plant convinces a schlub of a florist (Rick Moranis) to kill on his behalf. Caught between a rock and a hungry mouth, Seymour becomes a celebrity in his own right when his magnificent, unique plant becomes a national sensation. Belushi plays an exec from a multinational botanical conglomerate offering to buy the rights to sell the plants worldwide. It wasn’t much of a part, but he did his best, though it would have been more smashing if Paul Dooley had been available for re-shoots for the role.
The film co-stars Ellen Greene as the abused Audrey who works at the flower shop and on whom Seymour is sweet, Vincent Gardenia as the shop owner, Steve Martin as Audrey’s abusive dentist boyfriend, and Levi Stubbs of the Four Topps as the voice of the plant. Only Howard Ashman could sell lyrics like these alongside songwriting partner Alan Menken, long before they became sensations for their Disney revival song scores. This film is bright and colorful, uses a three-woman girl group as a type of Greek Chorus, and genuinely delights as often as it frightens. It’s a great entry to musical theater for young audiences, which is probably why it’s enjoyed a healthy run of high school stages across the country with the actual downbeat ending, which the film rewrites.
No Original Review Available
Dogma (1999)
While Kevin Smith came to fame based on the success of his Clerks film, my personal favorite of his efforts is this outlandish religious comedy about two fallen angels played by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon who have been kicked out of heaven and are searching for a way to regain their places. A church rededication provides them with their best chance at this and they set off on their quest. The twist is that a devout abortion clinic counselor (Linda Fiorentino) is called upon to find two prophets (Jay and Silent Bob) and get them to help her thwart the formerly angelic pair from re-entering heaven to overrule God’s word.
After the success of Good Will Hunting, Affleck and Damon were rising stars and while this might seem like a road bump, it gave both of them a chance to prove themselves in the comedy milieu. The whole film is one sacrilegious moment after another and if you’re easily offended by people who don’t take religion seriously, this isn’t the film for you. Yet, in its own way, it makes a case for a place for religiosity in society as long as it’s not taken too seriously. It’s also worth catching just to see who they managed to cast as God. Unless you already know, you won’t see it coming.
No Original Review Available
Swimming Pool (2003)
Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier star in Francois Ozon’s 2003 erotic thriller. While I debated including his mesmerizing musical feature 8 Women from the year before, I thought I should spread the wealth around a bit and gave this film the nod. Swimming Pool is a fascinating drama about a writer’s-blocked English author (Rampling) who avails herself of her publisher’s (Charles Dance) French country house to get away and try to complete her next novel. A young woman (Sagnier) arrives claiming to be her publisher’s illegitimate daughter seeking her own refuge from work troubles. The younger woman is a perpetual flirt moving from one tryst to another. The older is more reserved and frustrated with the constant parade of men through the house.
Ozon’s film is deliberately vague. Is Rampling imagining these events as she writes them for her novel or are they actually taking place. Is Sagnier real or a concoction of the writer’s imagination. This mystery is a secondary one to the one we see on film, which involves the murder of one of the young woman’s reticent lovers. With the fantasy elements filmed realistically, a debate over what’s real and what’s imagined helps keep perspectives of the film fresh and a delightful distraction for the world to puzzle through, an interpretation that even I don’t think I made when I originally saw or reviewed the film. Another great reason to highlight the film in an effort of rediscovery.
Red State (2011)
This is the film I’ve mentally debated including in the list for some time. Smith’s rebuke of small-minded, religious fanaticism is a cinematically uneven picture, splitting itself into two seemingly, but not unrelated segments, those scenes set amongst the cult-like church services and those that follow. A lot of what makes the film interesting requires the discussion of plot details better left unrevealed if you intend to see the film at a later date. My recommendation is to check out the film before reading this short blurb as I will be discussing that element in enough detail to give away some of that suspense.
On the surface, Red State seems like a fairly prototypical horror film. A group of teenagers is seduced and drugged before being strung up in a remote rural church where a cult of fanatics are enacting their warped sense of entitled and blind moralism. They slowly and meticulously murder the teens in an effort to rid the world of its wickedness and thereby absolving the teens of their sins through their merciful act. These indoctrinated monsters are the villains of the piece. The film makes no bones about it. Where the film goes off the rails is when one of the teens gets free and finds that an armed stand-off is in the making outside the compound. This is where the tone shifts and becomes something of a bloodbath without a satisfactory conclusion. Ultimately, the reason I’m including it now in spite of my tepid initial reaction to the film is this: the figures who are so firm in their beliefs may seem like outlandish over-the-top creations, but people very much like them are becoming radicalized by a disgraced former president and his cult of personality. It’s a cautionary lesson on how these kinds of people can become so deeply entrenched in their beliefs that they can’t see past them even if they are unbelievably wrong and based on lies and misinformation.
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