TRANCE

A good friend once commented that THE DA VINCI CODE existed for the sole purpose of making stupid people feel smart. "Well, it's got Da Vinci, and he's smart, and it's about a code, and I figured it all out, so I'm smart! Wa-hey!" I can not speak to the accuracy of this assessment of THE DA VINCI CODE, and yet I feel, having seen Danny Boyle's TRANCE, that I have experienced the exact movie my friend was describing.



The movie is as empty as the frame held above by Vincent Cassel. For all its games of dress-up in the complexities of the human psyche and entry-level art history, TRANCE has nothing to offer us. No credible, dimensional characters (the leads are revealed to be as shallow and duplicitous as the multi-ethnic but otherwise interchangeable thugs that make up the cast); no reason to give a damn about the fate of the missing painting that serves as the movie's MacGuffin; no real plot on offer that isn't driven by the schemes of these shallowly drawn and uninvolving characters. The truly lovely cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and brisk filmmaking do their damnedest to make something look like it's going on, but it very carefully explains every stray image, sealing everything so neatly that even the most dense viewer is sure to not be left behind. If after seeing this you have a desire to go again to catch the details you've missed, then you've been conned, and are a suitable target for the anti-human disdain this smug motion picture oozes from every scene.

the DARK SHADOWS trailer

I'm less than pleased with the clip above, which is shattering since I've been looking forward to this film for a couple of years. I'm quite surprised that this gaudy comic mishmash is the movie that Burton and Depp chose to make from the series, considering the decades each has spent nursing their affection for it. A friend quite reasonably reminds me that a trailer can't be counted on as a concrete indicator of what a film will be like, and one does wonder if the studio marketing department (who surely cut this trailer) were put off by stranger moments in the film and settled on the cutesier, more saleable stuff.

And yet the fact that so much of the latter seems so evident in the trailer is cause for concern. I'm not blind to the camp value that many ascribe to DARK SHADOWS (indeed, I've reveled in some of the show's more enthusiastic outbursts myself). And yet the craziness of the show was an outgrowth of its ambitious creative process, not a deliberately winking wackiness, and to play the story of Barnabas Collins and family mainly for yuks is an easy out that I'm disappointed to see Burton and Depp taking.

But even if they are going for something more interesting and varied, this trailer sets us up for a campy laff riot. Which is so much less than what the series offered, even amid the technical screw-ups and blown lines. I stand by my definition of the show as "the craziest community theatre in your town doing a short Gothic horror play EVERY SINGLE DAY" - the result of this approach is, just as often as camp, an atmospheric shudder delivered creatively on the cheap, and occasionally inspired romance (not to mention time travel and parallel worlds). The Burton/Depp film may yet provide these, and though the trailer gives me no hope, I admit I'll be heading out the second weekend of May to see for myself.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Solicitor, widower, and single father Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is perpetually in mourning. His distraction has been noticed by his supervisors, who give him one last assignment to prove his worth. He sets out to a remote northern town to straighten the legal affairs of Alice Drablow, the owner of the foreboding Eel Marsh Manor. Amid the gloomy environs of the house (and beset by local residents who want him gone), Kipps encounters a ghostly figure responsible for the deaths of the town's children, and a mystery that threatens to shatter his already fragile psyche.


I quite wanted to like this, a Hammer horror film playing by old school rules, emphasizing atmosphere over gore. But as gorgeous as it often is, it kept disengaging me at every turn.

Daniel Radcliffe makes a valiant go of it, but he was ultimately too young to fully convince - I could somewhat buy the harried solicitor/investigator, but Radcliffe didn't project the grief that would have fully engaged me with his story. (I use a personal pronoun here, because at least one commentator of my acquaintance had no trouble accepting Radcliffe in the role.) The supporting cast do a great deal of heavy lifting here, and Ciarán Hinds & Janet McTeer are very solid indeed as a married couple whose lives have been touched by the title character.

Much has been made of the film's atmospherics, but as if as a sop to modern viewers, the film is loaded with unnecessary shocks that dispel the atmosphere. I'm not sure the modern viewer really needs such rollercoaster effects to hold their interest; indeed, the group I saw it with became unusually quiet as the movie progressed, and none of us needed the steady shocks to hold our interest. Indeed, such scare tactics only undermine the narrative - if the Woman in Black is a lurking presence that rarely makes herself known, why does she insist on saying boo every so often to Arthur (and, by extension, us)?

But that's not the most frustrating thing about the film. (heh. film.)

The most frustrating thing about watching THE WOMAN IN BLACK was seeing it, as I suspect many saw it, in digital projection. A quick look at its technical background shows that it was shot on 35mm film, but how many people will see it in that format? And yes, the death knell of 35mm film has been sounded, but the real test of digital projection is precisely films like this, that call back deliberately to an earlier era in film history. The film's gorgeous settings are rendered beautifully malignant by ever-encroaching fog, water, and darkness, but the effect is lost thru the deadening effect of the digital transfer. It is certainly possible to make effective period pieces with digital cinema technology, but the mandated transfer to digital undermines films like this, that would be more effectively served by the warmer, more haunted images that film provide.

oscar.

I liked liked Plummer's acceptance speech, Spencer's speech, the A SEPARATION win, the presence of a couple of Escovedos in the band, and that IN MEMORIAM mentioned Bingham Ray and George Kuchar. The rest was too predictable and shallow. When Meryl Streep getting an Oscar qualifies as an upset, you know your awards are too campaigned, bought, and paid for to mean anything.

You know what I wanna see at the Oscars? I want to see an A-list actor come out and say, "yes, though this is Hollywood's greatest night, there are a huge number of worthy and brilliant films every year that get no nominations. Though they won't come away with statues tonight, each one was someone's favorite film of last year, and we pause for a moment to honor them." And then you get a montage, compiled by an Oscar-winning filmmaker, a respected critic, and an expert editor, of clips from great non-nominated films. This year's montage could/would have included MYSTERIES OF LISBON, YOUNG ADULT, FAST FIVE, OF GODS AND MEN, THE TRIP, THE GUARD, 50/50, BELLFLOWER, AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE, WIN WIN, and a bunch of others. Michael Mann, J. Hoberman, and Walter Murch would rock this assignment, and the clips would generate more interesting conversation than THE ARTIST's multiple wins.

The Oscars feel less and less like a celebration of film every year, and more and more a capitalistic exercise in preserving the value of certain films. As my girlfriend observes, it's the only night that cinema is given the same exposure as football, and I really wish I felt like it meant something.

Monday, Monday

It can all be a bit much. 2012 is looking to be an apocalyptic year indeed for cinema - the death of 35mm film exhibition is reported to be imminent, with even so active a proponent of classic film as Eddie Muller talking as if this year's Noir City festival will be the last in its current form.

I'm somewhere between the rabid 35mm diehards and those longing for the death of it and the dawning of a new, digital age. Actually, the embrace of digital filmmaking technology by some of my favorite filmmakers speaks well at least to the future of moviegoing (mine at least). And the huge number of rep cinemas in my area ensures that I'll probably be enjoying classic film in its original format for a little while longer than most. But I realize that this is a privileged position, and that the nature of the marketplace means that most filmgoers are having this choice made for them. And I can't help but feel like we're going to lose much in this transition, and that much of our cinematic history will simply be lost in the shuffle.

Add to this brew of uncertainty the far-from-welcome news that San Francisco Film Society director Bingham Ray has died while attending the Sundance Film Festival. The man had brought some fantastic films to American screens, and that he should die so young (and soon after accepting the mantle of the SFFS) is insanely cruel (compounded by the fact that he was hired to replace the fondly remembered Graham Leggat, who died mere months ago). One can't put the sadness of those who never knew him over that of his family and friends, of course, but the fact remains the cinema has lost one of its real champions. I never knew the man personally, but reading lovely tributes like this make me wish I had, and make me mourn his passing all the more.

And I notice a feeling of restlessness as I look at the local film schedules - the various rep houses and film festivals are engaging in fantastic programming, and there are the usual conflicts (the Castro Theatre screens 35mm prints of THE FRENCH CONNECTION and YEAR OF THE DRAGON the same day that the Mostly British festival shows GUMSHOE and STORMY MONDAY, for example). Already a difficult choice for some cinephiles, but made more so with questions of the future of 35mm looming over our heads. All of these films exist on video, of course, but the choice of which movie to see is strongly colored by the knowledge that this may be the last shot at any of them in a theatre.

But even those who don't live and die by their local rep schedules are going to be affected by the imminent changes to our cinemascape. And so we wait.

NOIR CITY rundown

The wrap-up of the annual Noir City festival leaves this writer with mixed emotions. The festival's customary gaudy, self-aggrandizing showmanship continued unabated, which may be an inducement to a number of the festival's loyal, diehard fans, but has always left me cold. I have no interest in winning prizes, in the stale jokes surrounding this (or any) year's Miss Noir City, or in the tired, TIRED wisecracks of the hosts. As dire as a more po-faced presentation would be, I can't help but feel that the irreverence with which Eddie Muller and co. continue to approach the films they purport to love so much only diminishes them, and stokes the unfortunate tendency of the Castro Theatre audience to regard the films in a campier light than necessary (though it seems I'm not alone in feeling so - one patron, during a screening of SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR... made my day by yelling in response to the titters that were steadily streaming through the audience, as did the woman who meekly offered: "I concur.")

That said, my consternation with the Film Noir Foundation's self-congratulation (and the same they cultivate in their audience) doesn't blind me to the nobility of their mission, or the quality of the films they present. There is a thrill that comes with these particular films unrolling during the usually cold month of January (among other things, it's nice to see Anita Monga, ousted years ago from her position as the Castro's programmer, bringing her curatorial intelligence back to its screen). The festival's balancing of classic noir (such as Otto Preminger's ANGEL FACE) with recently restored classics (like festival-closer THE HUNTED, starring actor/ice skater Belita) is as knowing and strong as ever, and the chance to catch up with favorite films and take in new films to the canon is, indeed, precious.

What I saw, briefly:

GASLIGHT - less a noir film than a murky period drama, the film of Patrick Hamilton's play benefits from solid characterizations, including one of my favorite performances from Joseph Cotten, believably smitten and, unlike Holly Martins, able to do right by the film's embattled heroine. I'm probably alone in wanting to see James Wan remake it.

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT - cheap but credible Republic Gothic, with a returning WWII soldier tracking down his lady pen pal only to become enmeshed in the increasingly insane schemes of her mother (a gloriously unhinged Helen Thimig). Beautifully paced and packed into 56 suspenseful minutes by director Anthony Mann, but where similar stories would end with a house on fire, the danger of this one culminates with a painting falling on somebody. Beautiful.

THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS - For reasons I don't understand, Muller apologized for this one in advance. But Humphrey Bogart is completely believable as a conflicted, artist-blocked painter, as is Barbara Stanwyck as his increasingly concerned and endangered spouse. The reveal of the portrait is a truly unsettling show-stopper - I wonder what became of the actual painting.



MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS - made the name of director Joseph H. Lewis, and it's easy to see why. If it's too similar to GASLIGHT (the setting of the "madness" theme for the festival resulted in a few cases of deja vu), its inversion of the amnesia storyline makes for some powerful suspense.

SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR... - sorry to hear of the backstage conflicts between Fritz Lang and his creative team. If it's less visually ambitious than even the weirdest of his Hollywood films, it remains an assured and creepy take on the Bluebeard myth, with a lovely, dreamy Joan Bennett confronting the inner demons of perfect stranger Michael Redgrave. This one ends in flames. Muller and crew's insistence that the film is "incomprehensible" demeans it and them - the psychological throughline is completely credible, and its mirror to actual events in architectural history is fascinating (and I hope D., my fellow fancier of fetish and film, will sound off on these elements in the comments).

BLIND ALLEY - a very intriguing early Hollywood foray into the Freudian realm, with hostage psychologist Ralph Bellamy probing the psyche of desperate gangster Chester Morris.

ANGEL FACE - attractive but innocent fall guy: Robert Mitchum. Alluring but deadly femme fatale: Jean Simmons. Obsessed and overbearing filmmaker: Otto Preminger. Feeling that Mitchum is just utterly, completely fucked: Check. In some ways a by-the-numbers noir, but each of the tropes is so beautifully, even realistically realized that it just carries you down its spiral. The unhappy ending so often promised by Muller finally, gloriously manifests here.

THE HUNTED - there's something charming about how, in Monogram's grab for respectability after its rebirth as Allied Artists, the studio put so much faith in ice skater Belita as an A-lister. She's paired here with Preston Foster as the tough but smitten cop who sent her to prison. Though I couldn't really buy Foster in this role (he's fine as a cop, but too old and too grizzled to carry a torch for anyone for quite that long), there's something about Belita's not-quite-A-list looks, something real about her charms that carried me along. And the obligatory ice-skating sequence is just charming.

On balance, I'm pleased that Noir City continues, and I'm glad I got to see a third of the festival's total offerings. And yet for the first time we saw signs that the future is catching up to the venerable fest. The night he introduced THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS Muller mused that in addition to being the first time many of the audience had seen the film theatrically, it will more than likely be their last. Whatever my issues with Mr. Muller, I happily acknowledge that he's closer to aspect of the film exhibition game than I, and to hear such an enthusiastic proponent of film preservation and exhibition so tentative about the future of the festival in particular and exhibition in general does give one pause.

But hey, as long as the Film Noir Foundation continues to fight the good fight in keeping these films in the public eye and up on screen, I'll happily go see them.

The Last Douchebag on Earth

Your proprietor had been looking forward to tonight's screening at the Clay Theatre - two films starring Vincent Price: THE LAST MAN ON EARTH and THE TOMB OF LIGEIA. The latter film in particular was a bit of a prize, since the last time we'd seen that name on a San Francisco marquee the film print had been lost in transit, by a shipping company I decline to name.

So I was pleased to see local impresario and curator August Ragone get another shot at screening it. I wasn't looking forward to THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, which had been aired on late night television numerous times and hadn't captured my interest, but whatever.



TLMOE remains a low-budget oddity, marked by low production values and very uneven acting, but seen theatrically, in its proper Cinemascope ratio, it does become more than I had expected, with some fine moments of Price at his most despairing and two or three genuine chills as Price, the final survivor of a plague that has turned the human race into feral vampires, struggles to preserve a life he's no longer sure is worth living.

The film wasn't the problem. The audience, comprised mainly of hipsters or others who should Just Fucking Know Better, were the problem: snorting audibly at the admittedly hackneyed dialogue, not turning their cell phones off in advance of the movie, coming in mid-movie and kicking the seats in front of them. I switched my seat several times during the film, each time confronted by a different latecomer who sat near me, unengaged, giggling at (not with, crucially, but at) the film.

Those who know the film may note a weird commonality between the struggles of Price and the proprietor, being a lone man struggling to avoid aberrant behavior until he's no longer sure what he's fighting for or why. When at the film's end (SPOILERS, obviously) Price is finally killed by a society of half-human survivors, the message is rendered clearly and painfully: Price is the monster, having annihilated several members of this new race who are only trying to survive.

Thus chided by the film I was trying so earnestly to give a chance, I left the theatre as soon as it had finished. Not sure if I'll ever get another shot at LIGEIA projected, but I live in hope. I have returned to the House of Sparrows to enjoy a brownie and a glass of milk, and watch tonight's EASTWICK in lieu of this elusive film.

That said: If you've snorted at a movie through its running time, you don't get to pat yourself on the back by applauding at the end.

Let that be the epitaph of your proprietor, The Last Douchebag On Earth.