Death Proof: (2007. dir: Quentin Tarantino) Kurt Russell deserves an Oscar just for the moxie it took to tackle this role. In fact, Stuntman Mike might, in another film, one that's interested in character, be very intriguing indeed. Death Proof is not that film. In fact, as a piece of cinema, I doubt that it rates highly on anyone's scale. As an homage to a cinematic era gone by, however, it's a little slice of genius. From that opening screen they used to show before all the drive-in movies to the editing glitches he inserts to mimic the hiccup between scenes that happened when they changed the reels and complete with old-film scratches, it's like stepping back in time. If only I had tinny old speakers to hang from my window-frame. He even caught the sound quality just right, although I don't know enough about the mechanics of audio to know why it seemed that way.
It's got the "id"-heavy plot that's short on sense but wallows in sordidness, which is very satisfyingly as it should be. Structurally, it's too loose and involves characters too adolescent to be truly engaging, but it's nonetheless got moments of utter, jaw-dropping fascination. My own favorite is the record-geek bit in the car as the doom-bound girls ride to their date with destiny, pleasantly drunk, all grooving to a perfect song and talking about Pete Townsend, oblivious to the autobeast hunkered and waiting, headlights off, just around the bend. Those early, creepy shots of Stuntman Mike's deathmobile at rest, too, are very effective, particularly when the girl goes out for a smoke and you can almost feel the car leering at her from its shadow in the rain.
It's too long, with a doubled plot, and the Tarantino-speak conversations between the girls don't have the zest and buoyancy of his best work, but it'll leave you feeling a little soiled (in a good way), just like those old bottom-of-the-barrel Russ Meyer double features did in the old days.
Dollhouse, the season wrap-up: (2009. creator: Joss Whedon) As promised in the wake of the initial disaster area of the first eps, I stuck with it through the end of the season. For those of you who didn't, it got good from the sixth through the ninth episodes ("Man in the Street", "Echoes", "Needs" and "Spy in the House of Love"), then put it on autocruise for the tenth ("Haunted"). The season enders ("Briar Rose" and "Omega") which apparently earned the show at least another season's reprieve from the chopping block from those mad headsmen at Fox, were wildly ambitious and very disappointing, largely due to one very important casting choice (I won't spoil it, but it's somebody we Joss-heads love playing a hithertofore unseen character we've been building up to all damn season long, and playing it underwhelmingly). In its favor, even the bad episodes have interesting things in them, and the best make good use of the unexpected in that wonderful old-time Joss way (like the revelation about Ben and Glory in the fifth season of Buffy, or Spike getting his soul back).
the New World (Massive Extendo-Version): (2005. dir: Terrence Malick) Even a devoted Luddite finds things about this new techno-age to cherish, and one of the best for me is that a movie can keep morphing long after its initial release. A few years ago I had a beautiful dream that Coppola would keep re-releasing Apocalypse, Now! every third year with a different shape and focus. It's possible that wasn't the best idea I've ever had, but here, in consolation, is another of my all-time favorites in a whopping new package. This ran 149 minutes at the theatre, the initial DVD was a petite 135, but all lovely things come to those who wait, and now we have the Big Monster Godzilla version, clocking in at a gorgeously self-indulgent two hours and 52 minutes. I accept, although I can't really wrap my mind around it, that even at its shortest it was too long for some folks' taste. However, for those to whom sensuality and the numinous are huffed up from the same feedbag, this new version is a three-hour retreat chock-full of spiritual rejuvenation.
It holds some surprises. Malick is notorious for shooting hours and days of an actor only to leave his entire performance on the cutting-room floor* (rumor has it that Viggo Mortenson, Martin Sheen, Bill Pullman, Gary Oldman, Lukas Haas and Mickey Rourke were all originally in the Thin Red Line). In this long version, Michael Greyeyes sees a great chunk of his role restored, and who knew Roger Rees was in it at all? Ben Chaplin, poor fellow, is still just a guy pulling an oar in a longboat, and we can only guess what his role originally entailed. The most important alteration is in Pocahontas' recovery from her grief over Captain Smith's supposed death at sea. In the old cut, we see her crazed with sorrow and then, apparently with the passing of time, she finds solace in good work and then John Rolfe casts his eyes on her and her salvation is complete. In this one, she is grief-stricken for a very long time and given up for hopeless by society. She decides to commit suicide but experiences a very beautiful and supremely Malickian moment of grace and her salvation rises up, crucially, not from the favors of John Rolfe, but from her own relationship with the divine. It seems so vital to the lifeblood of the story that I'm surprised Malick allowed it to be cut in the first place. No matter. It's back now, amid all manner of beauty else.
* Kills me that the cutting-room floor is only metaphorical now. I love to think of that little closet-like, windowless room with a pale, tireless person hunched over a Moviola and the floor crunchy with filmstrips.
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