The Grouchy Editor » Category » Books, Movies, TV & Web

28Feb

Repulsion (1965)

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Oldies | 1 Comment

Some people you should never leave alone.

Poor, beautiful Carole is one of those people. When Carole peers into the hallway of the apartment building where she lives with her sister, she sees one example of the sort of life she herself might one day live: her elderly neighbor, a pudgy battleaxe who likes to walk her dog – and spy on fellow apartment dwellers. When Carole instead looks out her bedroom window and across the street, she sees another possible future: the cloistered, celibate nuns at a nearby convent. When she is older, Carole will likely become an eccentric dog-walker or a nun. This much is certain: Carole will not live a typical life, because Carole is batshit crazy.

She is sexually repressed, lord knows why, and painfully shy. She is repulsed by men, which is easier to explain: the construction workers who ogle her as she walks to her job as a manicurist; her sister’s boorish boyfriend, whose takeover of Carole’s bathroom space she finds unforgivable. And then there are the horror stories older women at the beauty parlor relate about the beastly behavior of males.

Carole is stunningly good-looking, but she is also quite insane. When her sister and the boyfriend go on holiday, leaving her alone for ten days, what on earth will she do?

Roman Polanski, at his obsessive and stylish best, pulls the audience along as Carole descends deeper and deeper into madness, utilizing a master storyteller’s grab-bag of tricks: distorted lenses, a ticking clock, the girl’s obsession with cracks, the distracted way in which she keeps brushing at her face.

Catherine Deneuve, the ravishing French actress, is a revelation in Repulsion. Her Carole is mousy most of the time, but when she gets a certain gleam in her eye ….

Some of this 1965 film’s shocks are no longer very shocking. Others hold up quite well. But it’s Deneuve’s performance and Polanski’s direction that make Repulsion such a superb psychological thriller. Grade: A-

Director: Roman Polanski Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Yvonne Furneaux, Patrick Wymark, Renee Houston, Valerie Taylor, James Villiers, Helen Fraser Release: 1965

Watch the Trailer (click here)

24Feb

My Life and Hard Times

Posted in Books, Books, Movies, TV & Web | Leave a comment

by James Thurber

Thurber is a revered American humorist, but I thought this autobiographical collection of essays was hit-or-miss. Some of the stories (“The Day the Dam Broke,” especially) were laugh-out-loud brilliant; others ranged from mildly amusing to forgettable. Thurber, like a turn-of-the (20th)-century David Sedaris, chronicles the comic misadventures of his oddball family members, but too many of the stories simply end, with no real point or punch line.

21Feb

Being There

Posted in Books, Books, Movies, TV & Web | Leave a comment

by Jerzy Kosinski

Kosinski published this amusing dissection of pop culture’s influence on American life in 1971, back when remote controls and TVs in limousines were considered state-of-the-art luxuries. But there is nothing dated about Kosinski’s novella Being There, which chronicles the fallout when a simple-minded gardener’s simple-minded pronouncements – many of them influenced by what he sees on television – are repeatedly mistaken for philosophical genius.

You have to wonder what the Polish-American Kosinski would make of “reality TV” in today’s world. Chance the gardener, the author’s blank-slate antihero, would probably feel right at home on Big Brother.

21Feb

The Housemaid

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Movies | Leave a comment

The Housemaid promises to deliver the mother of all Korean catfights. It doesn’t quite come through, but watching the four female leads as they lie, scheme, and shift loyalties makes for some ticklish good fun in director Im Sang-soo’s remake of a 1960 Korean classic.

At the heart of all this estrogen-fueled enmity is, naturally, a man. When innocent young Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is hired as a nanny by a wealthy pregnant woman, it isn’t long before the woman’s lascivious husband (Lee Jung-Jae) is bedding the girl. Complicating matters is an older housekeeper (Youn Yuh-jung), an embittered woman who takes an instant dislike to Eun-yi.

The illicit affair between husband and housemaid is soon uncovered, and at this point the movie gains momentum, spinning an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse between servants, the wife, and the wife’s mother. There are shades of Hitchcock here – Rebecca and Notorious, in particular – and the proceedings are imaginatively photographed, with cameras gliding in and out of elegant sets.

Unfortunately, that hoped-for catfight doesn’t really materialize. Instead, Sang-soo gives us a denouement that strives to be shocking but is instead melodramatic and unsatisfying. One character is singled out for revenge, but it’s the one female in the house who’s guilty of no wrongdoing. Grade: B

Director: Im Sang-soo Cast: Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Jung-Jae, Woo Seo, Youn Yuh-jung, Park Ji-young Release: 2010

Watch Trailers (click here)

18Feb

Waiting for “Superman”

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Movies | Leave a comment

I don’t have kids, so I suppose I could argue that I don’t have much at stake when it comes to the education of young Americans. After all, they’re your kids, not mine. Don’t I already pay enough taxes for their schooling?

But of course, nothing is that simple. Your kids are going to cost me more in taxes or less in taxes, and they will directly or indirectly affect my quality of life in myriad ways, whether I like it or not. Add to that this moral question: Isn’t a quality education for all kids simply the right thing to do?

Waiting for “Superman,” like any good student (or teacher), asks a lot of provocative questions about the decline of public schools in America. Should we send children to pricey charter schools, seven days a week and during the summer months? If we don’t spend more on education now, will we wind up spending more later on bigger and better prisons?

As I write this, teachers in neighboring Wisconsin are protesting their governor’s efforts to scale back the clout of teachers’ unions. Those protestors face an uphill battle, because much of the recession-weary public is in a sour mood, and movies like this one make it clear that teachers’ unions have a major public relations problem. Director Davis Guggenheim tries to make a distinction between teachers, whom he depicts as (mostly) noble warriors, and their unions, which seem intractable and corrupt. But aren’t those unions composed of … well, teachers?

If Waiting for “Superman” has a flaw, it’s that it tries to tackle too many complex issues in less than two hours. But it has stirred up public debate, and that can only be a good thing for the kids. Grade: B+

Director: Davis Guggenheim Featuring: Geoffrey Canada, Michelle Rhee, Bill Strickland, Randi Weingarten, Bill Gates Release: 2010

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

16Feb

The Room (2003)

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Guilty Pleasures | Leave a comment

The expression “so bad it’s good” is overused. Usually, the movie in question is just plain bad. Not this time. Filmmaker extraordinaire Tommy Wiseau’s The Room is so magnificently rotten that it’s wonderful – bust-a-gut, pee-your-pants hilarious.

In the vain, irrepressible Wiseau, the spirit of Ed Wood lives again. Wiseau writes, directs, produces, distributes, and stars in this labor of love, so there is no doubt about who deserves credit for this monument to schlock. (Wiseau’s achievement is so enviable that, according to Entertainment Weekly, a script supervisor is now battling him for a directing screen credit.)

Wood, patron saint of the bad movie, would be proud of this film, because its flaws are legion: continuity errors, drunken editing, abysmal acting, awkward love scenes, incomprehensible storytelling – it’s all here. If Wiseau falls short of Wood’s standard, it is only because, unaccountably, the cinematography isn’t awful. And the soundtrack isn’t bad. But please don’t let those virtues stop you from enjoying this film.

I suppose a plot summary is in order. Nah – there’s no point. The story has something to do with lovable, long-haired Johnny (Wiseau), whose fiancée (Juliette Danielle) is cheating on him with his best friend. I won’t say more, partly because it might spoil the story, and partly because the story makes absolutely no sense. Grade: F

Strange But True: The deleted scenes on the DVD are much better than the actual film. In fact, if you just saw the outtakes, you might be led to believe that The Room is a pretty decent film.

Director: Tommy Wiseau Cast: Tommy Wiseau, Juliette Danielle, Greg Sestero, Philip Haldiman, Carolyn Minnott, Robyn Paris, Mike Holmes, Kyle Vogt, Greg Ellery Release: 2003

Watch the Trailer (click here)

15Feb

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Posted in Books, Books, Movies, TV & Web | Leave a comment

by Washington Irving

I’ve often noticed while reading old books (pre-20th century), that two themes appear again and again: travel on the high seas, and anything pertaining to food. We tend to forget, in our modern supermarket lives, just how much of human history was devoted to the pursuit and preparation of something to eat. But when we read these old books we are reminded.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” – along with “Rip Van Winkle,” Washington Irving’s most celebrated work – is a case in point. Its depiction of Ichabod Crane’s ill-fated courtship of the maiden Katrina and the attack of the Headless Horseman is justifiably famous, but what struck me were the author’s loving, nearly idolatrous descriptions of food. It’s notable that although the plot ostensibly concerns Crane’s efforts to woo Katrina, Irving’s most vivid passages are about her father’s table – and not the girl herself (although even she is described as desirably “plump,” as though she would look good beside the turkey on a platter). Vegetarians must hate this story.

13Feb

The Secret Adversary

Posted in Books, Books, Movies, TV & Web | Leave a comment

by Agatha Christie

When I think of Agatha Christie, what comes to mind is an old English estate, with a murder or two, and a middle-aged (or elderly) sleuth on hand to unmask the villain. In other words, I think of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. With Christie, what I do not think of are wild motorcar chases on country roads, gun battles on city streets, and government papers that could trigger war. That’s Alfred Hitchcock material, or an Ian Fleming plot. And that’s part of the problem with The Secret Adversary, Christie’s second novel. The story is out of her comfort zone, not so much a mystery as a frantic spy thriller.

There is a reason that Christie’s young protagonists in this and four more books, “Tommy and Tuppence,” never attained the popularity of Poirot and Marple. They are an amusing couple, but their adventures are wildly improbable, they enjoy amazing good luck, and they happen upon extraordinary coincidences. There is action galore – but too few “little grey cells.”

11Feb

I Spit on Your Grave

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Movies | Leave a comment

“A vile bag of garbage named I Spit on Your Grave is playing in Chicago theaters this weekend. It is a movie so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it’s playing in respectable theaters.” That’s critic Roger Ebert back in 1980, explaining the repugnance he felt for a low-budget horror film that has since gained notoriety and a cult following.

Fast-forward to October 2010. Our man Roger finds himself reviewing yet another sexploitation movie, which he decries as a “despicable remake of the despicable 1978 film I Spit on Your Grave.” Poor Roger. He didn’t seem to learn much. You’d think that after being so traumatized by the original, he might have known to avoid the remake.

Both Graves have the same plot, in which an attractive, “uppity” city girl named Jennifer is brutally gang-raped by country hooligans and then wreaks bloody vengeance on all of them. As Ebert points out, the first half of the new film, with its prolonged sexual assault, is by far the more realistic part of the story. Actress Sarah Butler (as Jennifer) is degraded in every imaginable way: She is patted down by a leering sheriff, forced to fellate a bottle, has a gun barrel poked against her crotch, is anally raped, and then raped again. Butler is shown nude during the assaults and again as she wanders dazedly through the woods. Director Steven R. Monroe’s camera eschews modesty in favor of gratuitousness, focusing on Butler’s small breasts, bare buttocks and, in at least one fleeting close-up, her pudendum.

When it is time for Jennifer’s revenge scenes, however, Monroe preserves the male actors’ dignity. There isn’t much nudity from the men – not even during a scene in which Jennifer uses hedge clippers to castrate one of them. These scenes are standard gore-movie stuff, and the audience will be thinking of plaster, putty, and fake blood – certainly not about social statements. Jennifer is not so much an empowered feminist as she is a credibility-stretching psychopath. The frail-looking girl manages to physically overpower all of the beefy young men, and then devise Rube Goldberg-like contraptions to torture and dispatch them.

How does all of this compare to the infamous original film? The first one was so cheap and so poorly acted (excepting Camille Keaton, who played Jennifer) that it was almost like watching a home movie. In a way, that rawness made it even more disturbing. The new film has much better production values, acting, and direction. Otherwise, they are basically the same story.

Neither movie is what I’d call “horror.” They are both fetish films, designed for people who enjoy seeing their rape fantasies enacted on screen. Jennifer’s revenge scenes are simply an attempt to fend off social-minded critics like Roger Ebert. Grade: C+

Director: Steven R. Monroe Cast: Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard, Daniel Franzese, Rodney Eastman, Chad Lindberg, Tracey Walter, Mollie Milligan, Saxon Sharbino Release: 2010

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

07Feb

True Grit

Posted in Books, Books, Movies, TV & Web | Leave a comment

by Charles Portis

I almost never read Westerns. I think this is because some of the elements of Western life bore me. I don’t really care about the difference between a Winchester and a Mauser, nor am I all that interested in horses, homesteads, and hangings. But I’m beginning to think this oater aversion of mine is a mistake, because some of the best books I’ve read – in any genre – are Westerns.

I am referring to Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, and I am referring to this book. In both novels, the hook is the characters. In True Grit, it’s the voice of one character in particular, 14-year-old Mattie Ross, who narrates the story. Mattie, who never met a contraction she would not like to flatten, is a bible-thumping delight as she interacts with some of the roughest characters of the old West. One critic said True Grit “captures the naïve elegance of the American voice,” and I think that sums up the humor Portis mines so well, using the indomitable Mattie as his catalyst.