Thursday, December 28, 2017

Aaron's Top "Dark Movie" picks on Hulu!

I would like to take a moment, before I get into my latest movie list and talk about Dark Movies; what that term really means to me. Dark Movies most always have certain things in common: the characters are  flawed and multi-dimensional in their imperfections; the plots are often situations where these flawed characters are trapped in some sort of way – there's a desperation as we the audience root for our characters and try to figure out how they'll escape their trap or traps; the best Dark Movies also question our morals and values as humans – they ask deep questions and don't shy away from uncomfortable shadows in shady alleyways. I have always loved Dark Movies the best, all genres of them: drama, horror, westerns, comedy. Here is a list of my dark favorites that are currently streaming on Hulu.



1. Talk To Her  - (2002)
Talk To Her is a drama but such a strange one that it borders on bizarre melodrama. The film centers around two men who meet at a hospital while each are caring for a comatose woman. Marco's woman is his girlfriend who got injured in a bullfight. Benigno is a male nurse who has fallen in love with his patient, a woman he has only known while she has been in a coma. Fascinating viewing!

2. Winter's Bone - (2010)
 Before she was an X Men, before she rocked Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence gave her breakthrough performance in Winter's Bone as Ree Dolly, a tougher-than-nails poor-as-dirt Ozark Mountain girl who journeys through the treacherous mountains as she tries to track down her drug-dealing father and encounters the dregs of a forgotten yet frighteningly menacing society.


 3. Dark City - (1998)
Roger Ebert says of Dark City that it is "not a story so much as an experience, it is a triumph of art direction, set design cinematography, special effects - and imagination." I include this quote because like Blade Runner, or Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the special effects and set design service the film and not the other way around. You will get hooked on the mysterious workings of the story as well.
                                     
 
4. Paranoid Park - (2007)
 Alex is a young skateboarder in Portland, Oregon who accidentally causes the death of a security guard while riding a freight train. The movie is disturbingly hypnotic as it follows Alex, who cannot tell anyone about what happened. Paranoid Park will keep you glued to the screen with beautiful cinematography, great acting, excellent music, and a profoundly upsetting story.

5. Flatliners - (1990)
 Flatliners  gives us a classic eighties/nineties all star line-up: Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt, as five medical students who experiment with "near death" experiences, bringing each other back to life right before they fully check out. Suspense and chills that hold up well despite being made in 1990. Or maybe it's better because of that.
                                

6.) Blue Velvet - (1986)
Writer/director David Lynch has experienced a resurgence as of late with his return to Twin Peaks (2017) - the beloved series that made television history in 1990. Blue Velvet put him on the map as far as most movie-goers are concerned. The film is mesmerizing, bold, and unbelievably daring (even by today's standards). It is a mystery, a tragedy, and for those who look for it, a film laced with some very dark comedy.



7. The Talented Mr. Ripley - (1999)
Mat Damon plays Tom Ripley, a poor young man with a talent for impersonating people and stealing their identities. Ripley cons his way into the lives of the well-to-do Dickey (Jude Law) and Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) with intentions that become more and more sinister as the crafty plot evolves. Look for a spot-on supporting role by Philip Seymour Hoffman.



8. 10 Cloverfield Lane - (2016)
 I went into this movie thinking it was about one thing and then I began to think - "Wait this isn't about that at all, it's about this other thing". I changed opinions and viewpoints about three times before it was over. That rarely happens to me in a film. I had no idea what to expect until the film's last twenty minutes. Now, that is exciting!

9. The Orphanage - (2007)
Guillermo del Toro served as Executive Producer on this creepy little gem of a film. The Orphanage tells the story of Laura (Belen Rueda) and her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) who are raising their son in an old house that once was an orphanage where Laura was raised. It isn't long before their son begins talking to an "invisible friend" and the scare-factor cranks up from there.

10. The Professional (also known as Leon: The Professional) - (1994)
A hitman, Leon (Jean Reno) saves a young girl Mathilda (Natalie Portman) after her family is brutally murdered in the apartment next to him. As they form a unique father/daughter bond, Leon teaches the 12 year-old Mathilda how to be an assassin. This was Natalie Portman's debut role. Gary Oldman also delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as a psycho detective hot on Leon's trail. 


11. In The Mouth Of Madness - (1994)
 I enjoy horror movies  I have fun with them and jump and scream like everyone else, but rarely do they actually scare me.  This movie actually scared me. In The Mouth Of Madness deals with the subject of insanity and demons that come from the mind and then materialize in the flesh. It raises the question: what if you are going insane, but what if this horror is also really happening? 




 

Monday, July 17, 2017

Aaron's Ten Summer Netflix Picks!

Summer is in full swing! Record breaking heatwaves here in Las Vegas, and I still have not switched to iced coffee. How do I beat the heat then? I go from air-conditioner to air-conditioner and I watch movies. So here is a top ten list of cinematic gems to celebrate this sweltering hellfire summer and although the films are numbered, they are not arranged by priority or preference. Enjoy friends!

CURRENTLY STREAMING ON NETFLIX!

1.) CHEF - (2014)
Jon Favreau (also the writer and director) is Carl Casper, a head chef in a trendy L.A. restaurant. Through a series of horribly hilarious events, Casper finds himself starting over and driving a food truck. One of Favreau's many talents as a writer/director is setting the stage for other talented actors to shine. Sophia Vergara, Robert Downy Jr., Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson, and John Leguizamo are among the all star cast.


2.) Nightcrawler - (2014) 
Jake Gyllenhaal lost thirty pounds to play the bug-eyed sociopath Lou Bloom, who films tragedies at night and sells them to a news channel in the morning. Gyllenhaal succeeds in making Bloom both terrifying and genuinely charismatic. Writer/director Dan Gilroy fills the movie with lush night shots of L.A., complementing the dreamy music and dark comedy undertones of the story. The supporting cast is spot-on also. Look for Riz Ahmed in his breakthrough role as Bloom's naive assistant.

3.) Mulholland Drive - (2001)
David Lynch received a Best Director Oscar nomination for this surreal film noir masterpiece. Like a twisted dream that ventures into nightmare territory, Mulholland Drive is everything at once: a love story, a mystery, and a slowly unfolding drama of confusion, that all only makes sense in dream-logic. Mulholland Drive put Naomi Watts on the map and she creates a character here unlike any other I have seen in Hollywood films.

4.) Sunset Boulevard - (1950)
 Continuing my Los Angeles theme, I would be amiss to not mention Sunset Boulevard. Gloria Swanson is a washed-up silent film starlet who traps a screenwriter (William Holden) in her Hollywood mansion, hoping that he will write her next big film. Director Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot ,Double Indemnity, Stalag 17) combines brilliant humor, solid melodrama, and masterful suspense in this sordid tail of loss and obsession. 


5.) Man Up - (2015)
 There just simply aren't many intelligent romantic comedies anymore; leave it to the British to provide us with one. Man Up stars Simon Pegg as Jack. Jack is supposed to meet a girl on a blind date, but meets the wrong girl. Lake Bell plays Nancy (the wrong girl), who goes through with the date pretending she is someone else.  I like this film because it made me laugh without hitting me over the head with obnoxious one-liners or comedy that is trying too hard to be clever.

6.) Million Dollar Baby - (2004)
Clint Eastwood's film about a retired boxing coach and the young white-trash girl who pesters him into training her, is so much more than a boxing movie. The characters in Million Dollar Baby are fatally flawed, heartbreakingly vulnerable, and amazingly tough. Eastwood nabbed a Best Director Oscar for Million Dollar Baby and Hillary Swank won Best Actress.

7.) Heathers - (1988)
Heathers is two things: a quintessential 80's film and the best dark comedy on my list next to Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Director Michael Lehmann and writer Daniel Waters take on high school cliques and social elitism, using a hot outcast couple (Wynona Ryder and Christian Slater make the best on screen "Bonnie and Clyde" duo since...well, Bonnie and Clyde) who kill the popular kids and disguise it as suicide. High school social pressure, young love, murder, and suicide. Now that's comedy!


8.) It Follows - ( 2014)
There is a deadly curse that follows teens around and is passed from one to the other through sexual intercourse – yes this plot sounds ridiculous and I'm not sure how the writer/director David Robert Mitchell pulled it off but he knocked it out of the park. Truly Creeeeeeeepy and scary in the best possible way. An independent film that uses unknown actors and good writing instead of stars and special effects. Watch it with the lights on and phone a friend...



9.) Midnight In Paris - (2011)
Owen Wilson plays Gil, a writer who is visiting Paris with his fiancee Inez (the always wonderful Rachel McAdams). Gil begins taking a series of midnight strolls through the city and each time, he inexplicably finds himself transported through time to the 1920's where he meets Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, and many other icons from the Gatsby/jazz era. The funniest bits of comedy occur when a confused Gil must return to his regular life during the day and attempt to go about his normal routine.

10.) Inglorious Basterds - (2009)
All Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill 1 and 2) films are an event and Inglorious Basterds is no exception. This movie is seemingly about Nazis and WW II but the three intersecting plots that emerge only use this as a back drop. What we get is an entertaining film with fresh dialogue, surprisingly infectious humor, unforgettable characters and bizarre violence that all culminate in an extraordinary final act.  Christoph Waltz won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal as Nazi "detective" Col. Hans Landa.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Alfred Hitchcock – The Unrecognized Genius




The word unrecognized certainly sounds odd when used in a sentence with one of world's most well known directors. The name Alfred Hitchcock brings to mind so many films: Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Rear Window (and many of your own favorites), as well as his successful TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents . Still, for the longest time, and even today, Hitchcock is associated with entertainment rather than serious film making. He was much more: Hitchcock was a brilliant visual director who planned each shot and camera lens; he sketched designed the wardrobes for his leading ladies, which are still featured in fashion magazines; he fussed meticulously over his set designs; he hashed out the screenplays with his writers until they were perfect. What interests me the most are the themes his films explored, themes that were so ahead of their time a new name had to be invented: a term many film enthusiasts refer to as Hitchcockian.

 



In Rear Window (1954) Hitchcock brings us into the world of voyeurism. James Stewart stars as L.B. Jefferies, a photographer who gets laid up with an injury and is confined to his apartment in a wheel chair. Out of boredom he begins spying on his neighbors.  Jefferies is soon joined by his girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) and his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter);innocent voyeurism gets complicated when the three of them believe they have witnessed  a murder in one of the other apartments.

James Stewart and Grace Kelly in Rear Window

With Rear Window Hitchcock creates four dimensions of action in one location. The camera often starts in Jefferies' apartment, then pans counter-clockwise over the apartment complex (three buildings surrounding a center courtyard, and the biggest set Hitchcock ever created), stopping on a chosen window to pop in on the action going on there, then captures people either walking in from the street or walking out into it, which we can see from an alley between the apartment buildings. There is a cafe across the street which is constantly functioning throughout the film and serves as the fourth dimension we see.  So, even though all of the action is witnessed from Stewart's window, there are many characters and several atmospheres. The economy of this is amazing.


Vertigo(1958) centers around the themes of obsession, deception, and mistaken identity (a Hitchcock favorite). James Stewart is private investigator Scottie Ferguson hired by his old friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) to follow his wife Madeleine Elster (Kim Novac). Gavin Elster claims that his wife is becoming so obsessed with the painting of a dead woman named Carlotta, that Carlotta's ghost might be inhabiting Madeleine. Ferguson reluctantly follows the wife and he himself becomes obsessed with the dead woman, in the process falling in love with Madeleine because she has transformed herself into a mirror image of Carlotta. 

James Stewart and Kim Novac in Vertigo.

Hitchcock not only deals with obsession here but necrophilia; Ferguson is essentially in love with a dead woman. Hitch uses colors in Vertigo to create the landscape of a surreal dream. Red surrounds Madeleine the first time Scottie Ferguson sees her, symbolizing both the instant passion ignited and a warning of the danger that lay ahead. There is also a famous shot when Kim Novak, dressed as Carlotta, emerges from a hotel bathroom. She appears from a light green haze that then fades into the green glow behind her, which is being cast from a green neon sign outside; the colors here suggest a spell that she has cast on Stewart, the crazy obsession that has now taken him over completely.  Martin Scorsese said of Vertigo (I am paraphrasing): "The plot doesn't always work, it doesn't make sense completely, but that doesn't matter. What we are experiencing is something like a surreal dream." Hitchcock, as a young man was very influenced by German expressionism and considered himself and expressionist director: he was much more concerned with the visceral than the plausible.


Psycho(1960) explores the duality of human nature; the camera shows us this by constantly framing the actors in mirrors and reflective surfaces.  Hitch also explores voyeurism again but with a darker approach than Rear Window; we the audience are the "peeping toms" this time, Hitchcock's camera the avatar for our salacious appetites. The first shot of the film establishes this, as it pans from a city-scape, through an open window, and into a seedy motel room.  Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and her lover (John Gavin) are in an embrace of sexual afterglow, she wears a bra and a slip and he is bare chested.  Its as if we are James Stewart in Rear Window, watching from across the way with our telephoto lens.

                                                       
Alfred Hitchcock directs Janet Leigh in an iconic scene.




Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates.



 We follow Marion Crane, who's one bad decision in the film's first few minutes leads her down a dark path that then leads to Norman Bates(Anthony Perkins) and the motel he runs with his mother.  Norman is quickly established as unstable and sinister but Hitch does something bold: he makes us empathize with Norman by establishing a connection between he and Marion. This is a wonderful trick Hitchcock uses throughout the film: shifting point of view. This was Hitchcock's 47th film and his last film in black and white, which he exploits for deep contrast with bright whites and shadows of deep black. Shot on a modest budget (that he put up himself) with the crew he used for his television show, Hitch wanted to make a non glamorous film that had not been made before. His vision was realized. Psycho traumatized audiences and became his most successful film. To this day it still his most famous work.

 

Hitchcock's films have influenced both classic and modern filmmakers widely diverse in style and approach: David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club), Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, This Boys Life), Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore), Ridley Scott (Alien, American Gangster), Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street). The more I study Hitchcock the more I find the origin of the scenes from many of my favorite films. But to get into the examples would be another blog. Perhaps next time. Until then I encourage you to explore the master and find these hidden gems for yourself. Happy movie watching! 

  

FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO DIG DEEPER: 



 



In 1962 French New Wave Filmmaker Francois Truffaut conducted a series of interviews with Hitchcock that became a legendary book Hitchcock/Truffaut (published in 1966). The 2015 documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut combines excerpts from these interviews with new interviews from directors influenced by his work. It is a must see for film buffs and anyone interested in Hitchcock's work.

 All three of the films I discussed are available on Blu Ray in beautiful restored form. There are commentaries available on each disc as well as excerpts from the Hitchcock/Truffaut interviews. 
 I found the commentaries invaluable and encourage you to check them out as well!
Psycho commentary by  Stephen Rebello, author of  Alfred Hitchcock: The Making Of Psycho 
Rear Window commentary by  John Fawell aouthor of Hitchcock's Rear Window: The Well-Made film
Vertigo commentary by director William Friedkin

Also check out the following:

 Film critic Roger Ebert http://www.rogerebert.com/ 

Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/