jürgen fauth’s muckworld

I’m behind the curve on David Cronenberg’s Russian mobster tale of sin and redemption, so I’ll make this short. At any rate, I can’t discuss the narrative slights-of-hand I admired most without spoiling the film — so let’s just say that the acting by Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl is top notch, the violence and spilled bodily fluids are uniquely Cronenbergian, and the script is a wonder of tightly wound efficiency. You can tattoo that on your kneecaps.

Eastern Promises. David Cronenberg, 2007. ****

• Eastern Promises on Rotten Tomatoes
• Jordan and Kerry on David Cronenberg
• The trailer

Bonnie and Clyde are the names of the cats we’re currently staying with, so there was no way around rewatching Arthur Penn’s 1967 classic. The film is still horrifying and hilarious in its casual depiction of murder, love, and grand theft Ford Model T, and it’s this last part I found most curious: Bonnie and Clyde provides the blueprint for a gazillion crime-spree romances to follow, and the car already occupies a central role, as if American lawbreaking in the 20th century wasn’t even possible without the automobile — even when there weren’t roads to drive on. You know Ms. Parker and Mr. Barrow are doomed when their escape vehicle is hit by a hand grenade, and the final machine-gunning riddles not just their bodies but also their “death car” with bullets. This movie has led to many ruthless but gentle mock machine gun executions of our feline friends.

Bonnie and Clyde. Arthur Penn, 1967. *****

• Bonnie and Clyde on Wikipedia
• Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow on Wikipedia
• Bright Lights on Pauline Kael and Bonnie and Clyde
  
• A review of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, Lester D. Friedman (ed.)
• Bonnie and Clyde on All Things Considered
• Greenbriar Picture Shows on the film’s 40th anniversary (via)
• Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg: Bonnie & Clyde

A computer-animation from Norway featuring a junkie elephant, a gang of rabid animal rights activists, hapless stoners, and the Lappish mafia on choppers, with the voices of Simon Pegg, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, and Kyle MacLachlan? Sure, I’ll go see that. Too bad that everything that’s even remotely funny or interesting about Free Jimmy was contained in the previous sentence.

For an irreverent, free-wheeling comedy that wants to shock and amuse by breaking taboos and letting ‘er rip, the only shocking thing about Free Jimmy is that it’s almost entirely devoid of jokes. The mirthless CGI characters are uniformly ugly, and the voice talent is woefully underused. Samantha Morton, as an exaggerated cliché of the annoying vegan, only gets to mope and whine.

In the best sequence of the film, the tragically addicted elephant faces heroin withdrawal with the help of a friendly moose, but a few minutes later, he’s shot dead for one last misguided, cynical attempt at humor. A truly miserable time at the movies.

Free Jimmy. Christopher Nielsen, 2006. *

• The trailer

After transforming the bucolic English countryside into a site of horror with the nasty revenge tale Dead Man’s Shoes, Shane Meadows turns to Maggie Thatcher’s England with a skinhead coming-of-age story. This is England starts out as well-acted and superbly designed mid-eighties time-capsule but degenerates to a formulaic conclusion that cheapens everything that went before.

This Is England opens next Friday. Read the rest of my review at About.com.

This Is England. Shane Meadows, 2006. ***

Watch the trailer:

The grandchildren of Mengele and Coca-Cola run amok in old Heidelberg. I used to think I was too squeamish for this German horror flick that promises “terror, violence, gore, sexuality and language” on the warning label, but after Taxidermia, I was ready for anything. Franka Potente plays a medical student who uncovers nefarious goings-on in the anatomy department. Corpses on metal slabs, deadly hypodermic needles, slashing scalpels, and real-life Visible Men abound, but Anatomy isn’t nearly as bloody as the title suggests, and a lot more entertaining than you’d expect from a German slasher movie.

Anatomie. Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2000. ***

Fuckin’ awful. Misguided, unfunny, overlong. Let’s count the ways in which this movie blew:

1. There aren’t any jokes. Well, maybe one genuine joke every fifteen minutes. The rest of the “hilarity” is supposed to come from a) knowing winks about genre conventions (ie, the “montage” montage ) But just pointing out that you know about conventions doesn’t make it funny yet. b) cursing. Big fucking whoop. c) juxtaposing puppets with violence and sex. None of this is actually funny. I snickered when they blew up the pyramids, and the “AIDS” musical number was slightly humorous, but that was about it.

2. It’s offensive right-wing crap. Yeah, I know Parker/Stone’s bread and butter is “being offensive.” They probably think it’s “extreme satire.” But it’s not satire unless you actually have a point. If I understood this movie correctly (we fastforwarded the second half) then the real villians are actors (F.A.G.s, get it?) and the likes of Michael Moore because they’re pussies and it takes balls to deal with terrorist assholes. Well, isn’t that what the President has been saying all along? So either Parker/Stone are a bunch of neocon dickweeds who are happily making Rove’s propaganda for him (Moore as suicide bomber…?), or they’re just profoundly misguided. Either way, they should stay the hell away from political satire.

I found the way the real-life actors were treated and dispatched especially offensive. It’s admirable, in fact, that Sean Penn went to Iraq–so where’s the joke in having him repeat that? Janine Garofalo is a courageous citizen, actress or not, and to blow the top of her head off for laughs is simply vicious.

If I’d paid any money whatsoever for this movie, I’d be genuinely upset… but I suppose Parker/Stone would count that as a victory because they “pushed my buttons.” Yeah whatever. The sad truth is that if it weren’t for the button-pushing, they wouldn’t know how to make anything that’s not utterly, devastatingly boring.

And now I’m deleting whatever South Park I had left on the DVR.

Team America: World Police. Trey Parker, 2004. *