Review – Frances

Imagine The Snake Pit redone as a golden-age-of-Hollywood biopic and you’ve got some idea of how the folks who made this movie saw the life of Frances Farmer. Jessica Lange surprised a lot of people – including me – by doing a decent job in the title role. After Kong, I wouldn’t have thought she could act her way out of a paper bag. But she really puts some feeling into poor Farmer, the onetime Hollywood starlet who ran afoul of the studios and ended up spending a chunk of her life being brutalized in insane asylums. Worth seeing

Review – Anamorph

My initial impression of this movie was “oh boy, another Seven rip-off.” And though some aspects of the production turned out to be a little cooler than they initially appeared, the story is severely hampered by lack of originality. Willem Dafoe plays a semi-retired cop who thought he caught a serial killer with a fetish for artistically arranging his crime scenes. But when a “copycat” starts committing similar crimes, our hero is drawn back into the fray. At first I thought the corpse sculpture theme was cheap, but as the plot progressed it sort of grew on me. If nothing else, I appreciated the references to actual art history mixed in with the art director’s conceits. If only the script had been as interesting as the visuals. Mildly amusing

My eight favorite soundtrack albums

Say “soundtrack” and the names that come most readily to mind are folks like John Williams, composers of big, dramatic music for big, dramatic movies. While such scores are perfect compliments for their productions, they aren’t the sort of thing one would generally load into a CD player and just listen to. They need to work with flashy special effects, gun battles, romantic moments and the like.

The discs on this list, however, represent the best of both worlds. They fit well into their movies, but they also stand alone as music.

Sliver – This record leads off with UB40’s synth-heavy cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” The “synth-heavy” thing then turns into a motif throughout. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but Aftershock’s “Slave to the Vibe” and The Young Gods’ more metallic “Skinflowers” stand out from the pack. It also includes two tracks from Enigma, the ultimate erotica-in-a-box group for a movie full of neatly-packaged sex.

Escape from LA – This is one of those “Music from and inspired by” records in which songs that actually appear in the movie are joined by other stuff from bands the media conglomerate is trying to market. Normally I think that’s cheating. But here the set is consistent enough that I’ll let it slide, partly because “Escape from the Prison Planet” by Clutch is one of the better entries despite not appearing in the movie (at least not that I noticed). Besides, even the songs that actually are in the picture often show up for only a few seconds. A movie-specific rendition of “The One” by White Zombie is an exception, running in its entirety over the end credits. I should also note that I’m fond of the John Carpenter’s teched-up revamp of the theme from the first one, but you have to buy the actual soundtrack album for that.

A Clockwork Orange – Around the time Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel went into production, advances in music technology were allowing composers and musicians to produce new sounds. One of the trends that emerged was performance of classical music using synthesizers. Wendy Carlos puts this to particularly good use here, producing soft, haunting renditions of Beethoven and other composers. The music is simultaneously familiar and alien, not unlike the dystopian future of the movie itself.

1984 – In general turning a soundtrack over to pop musicians is a risky proposition. It can go south in a hurry. But occasionally it really pays off. The Eurythmics do an outstanding job of adapting the popular sounds of the real 1984 to the dreary tyranny of Orwell’s Oceania. This disc is worth it for “Julia” alone.

Repo Man – Despite containing a fair amount of off-the-rack stuff, these tracks function well as a set. Alex Cox’s brilliant little punk-yet-not-punk production needed music that would fit the characters and their environments without turning the thing into a punk-exclusive cult picture. Mission accomplished.

Local Hero – Of all the soundtracks on this list, this is the most “soundtracky.” Veteran soundtrack composer and Dire Straits front-man Mark Knopfler put this whole thing together specifically with the movie in mind, and it fits the light, low-key mood of the picture to a T. On the other hand, it’s also one of the few such soundtracks that makes pleasant listening by itself even without the movie.

Passion (The Last Temptation of Christ) – I’d listen to Peter Gabriel’s music for this Martin Scorcese stinker a thousand times before sitting through the movie again. The picture makes a mess of the Gospels, but on the soundtrack Gabriel employs his talent for exotic rhythms to produce something somehow subtly erotic. Fans of his work with Genesis and his early solo stuff may think this is a little weird, but take it on its own (without the movie it came from or the composer’s previous work) and it’s worth a listen.

Koyaanisqatsi – For as “minimalist” as Philip Glass’s music is supposed to be, it sure tends to intrude on movies when he writes a soundtrack score. If anything, that should be extra true for a movie without dialogue or indeed any sound at all other than the music. Perhaps it’s specifically because he isn’t fighting with the script that Glass is able to settle down and make music that compliments the breathtaking cinematography. This is about as far from John Williams as you can get, but that’s entirely appropriate for the movie at hand.

Review – Richard III (1955)

Try as I might, whenever I watch a “traditional” performance of this play I just can’t shake the Richards in the Monty Python sketch being treated for chronic over-acting. Of course Shakespeare’s characterization of his antihero is so cartoonishly evil that at least a little over-dramatization is probably in order. And in Laurence Olivier’s defense, he could have been much farther over the top than he was here (though I could have done without the nose makeup). As usual with Richard III, I was able to enjoy the machinations of one of the dastardliest villains in English history despite the unavoidable self-parody of a character so ridiculously rotten. Mildly amusing

Review – The Specialist

This documentary edits footage from Adolf Eichmann’s trial together with spooky music to paint a portrait of “the banality of evil.” I could have done without the extra drama, as if the calm discussion of mass extermination of human beings wasn’t creepy enough without added sound effects. However, the portrait of the man that emerges from the unadulterated footage is fascinating. Eichmann sticks so fervently to the “I vas chust vollowink ordars” line that it’s almost enough to make one wonder how a normal person would react to such an insane situation. But the testimony also exposes the man’s (and his society’s) obsession with organization, as if genocide was nothing more than an interesting challenge of the proper arrangement of rail transport schedules. And every once in awhile the defendant slips up and reveals a little of the “real Eichmann,” such as the notorious “remorse is for little children” line. Though I thought that the film-making tricks were unnecessary, I found the rest of it fascinating. Worth seeing

Review – Off Limits

Funny how a combination of the Vietnam War movie and the murder mystery can end up working as a representative of neither genre but still have at least a little entertainment value. Willem Dafoe and Gregory Hines play Army detectives investigating crime in Saigon in 1968. They end up on the trail of a serial killer who’s slaughtering prostitutes, but their investigation starts hitting dead ends as it becomes more and more apparent that the culprit is a high-ranking American officer. Though the Vietnam angle is fraught with clichés and the mystery elements are likewise weak, the production does a few things right. The hot, sweaty, noisy milieu of the city is skillfully captured. The stars and supporting cast (including Scott Glenn, Keith David and a host of other familiar faces) do a solid job. And if nothing else, at least the relationship between Dafoe’s character and a novitiate nun doesn’t blossom into a vow-busting romance. Mildly amusing

Review – The Master of Disguise

Dana Carvey and Adam Sandler must really hate each other. Because Sandler must have agreed to produce this picture only if it turned out to be a humiliating waste of Carvey’s talent, and in turn Carvey must have done his level best to make the movie as dreadful as possible to make sure Happy Madison lost as much money as possible on it. I can think of no other explanation for a movie as bad as this. Carvey plays Pistachio, the lackwit scion of a long line of disguise masters. Bad guys kidnap his parents, setting him off on a quest with all the intellectual maturity of Spy Kids but not the cleverness or even the kid orientation. Instead the entire plot is a relentless parade of offensive ethnic caricatures, fart jokes and similar “comedic” moments that seem less “that’s offbeat enough to be clever” and more “aw, quit being a jerk.” Especially the Turtle Club scene. On the avoid-this-movie scale, this resides somewhere between previous Carvey waste Opportunity Knocks and previous Happy Madison travesty You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Wish I’d skipped it