Danica
Curcic and Astrid Grarup Elbo in Darling
(2017) in 1080hd
Curcic
Elbo
Priscilla
Luciano and
Lisseth Candia Encina in Downhill (2016) in 720p
Luciano
Encina
Kari
Wuhrer in Hellraiser:Deader (2005) in 1080hd
Alexa
Davalos in And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
(2003) in 1080hd
Could there be a better choice to
play Pancho Villa than Antonio Banderas? After all,
both men are non-actors who have managed to create a
movie career by playing themselves. It could easily
be re-titled And Starring Antonio Banderas as
Himself. On the other hand, Banderas did face a
difficult challenge since the real Pancho Villa had
more than one facial expression!
Kidding aside, Banderas really did a remarkable job.
So did the filmmakers.
I've argued in the past that a "true" story has to
abide by the same rules as a fictional one - it
still has to provide an interesting story, good
character development, and either entertainment or
education - preferably both. In fact, I think it is
reasonable to argue the following:
A. The greater the man or woman, the
more details of his life a film must ignore,
because the more difficult it is to fit all the
important things into two hours.
B. A historical picture has to be MORE
entertaining than a fictional one, because
everyone already knows how it comes out. Where's
the suspense in Star 80 when we know Dorothy
Stratten will get killed? In a fictional story,
the cinematic hook is that the audience wonders
where it will lead. Since the audience knows where
a biopic's road will lead, it must provide even
better roadside attractions to hold our attention.
For this story, however, I am willing to make an
exception to Rule B, because it is in another
category of reality altogether. It is reality that
is wilder than anything you can make up. In fact, if
this story were made up, nobody would believe it,
and critics would damn it for its unrealistic
storyline. This movie provides great appeal simply
by its premise alone, simply by the fact that things
really happened this way, and the viewer just can't
believe it. That sense of wonderment, coupled with
curiosity, provides a unique kind of movie-going
thrill. I found myself barely interested in the
story, but fascinated by the very fact that it was
true. I was continually amused as the script threw
ever more implausible details at me.
Most of the major details are accurately recounted.
D.W. Griffith did send one of his men to make a deal
with Pancho Villa, paying the famous Mexican
Revolutionary $25,000 and 20% of the gross for the
privilege of filming a real revolution in action.
Some time later, Mutual Film Company paid Villa
again to make a biopic which consisted of dramatic
re-enactment mixed with actual battlefield footage.
Villa himself appeared in the battlefield scenes,
and also in a fictional dream sequence in which he
saw himself in the future, as the President of
Mexico, delivering a stirring speech to the crowd.
Villa made some remarkable concessions in order to
co-operate with the filmmakers, including an
agreement not to attack at night (which he
subsequently and wisely ignored), and a decision to
change his battle plans in the siege of Torreon so
he could attack from a direction which permitted
optimal filming conditions! The deal was beneficial
for both parties. Mutual Films obtained footage
which was truly unique, and Villa received some
positive publicity to counter the daily lambasting
he received from the far right wing American papers
owned by the Hearst Corporation, who pictured him as
an anarchist and a terrorist.
Sadly, the real footage from the Villa films is now
presumed lost.
When this movie concentrates on Villa, played by
Antonio Banderas, and the things that really
happened, it is absolutely fascinating. The script
goes to great pains to show the very best and very
worst aspects of the legendary warrior. As shown
here, he was a complex man. He could be generous and
compassionate. He was an idealist who truly believed
in his cause. He was a great master of the horse and
pistol, but also a soulful man and a favorite of
children. He also had a wild temper and killed
indiscriminately, including innocent foreigners and
women who angered him.
On the other hand, when the film adds in some layers
of fictional embellishment - heart-warming orphans,
a sappy love story, and so forth - it fails, simply
because that critical sense of jaw-dropping
amazement is lost to us when we know we are watching
bullshit. The only part of the fictionalization that
I enjoyed was when screen veteran Alan Arkin was on
screen as a world-weary mercenary.
There are also some parts of the movie which hover
somewhere between truth and fiction. There are real
characters portrayed inaccurately for some reason or
another. Take, for example, the character of William
Christy Cabanne, the man who directed the real Villa
biopic. He is played by Michael McKean as a
middle-aged sissy who breaks down weeping and faints
when Villa plays a nasty prank on him. The real
Cabanne was 24 when he made the first Villa film, 26
when he made the second. I don't know if he was a
complete pussy, as portrayed here, but his IMDb bio
states that he graduated from Annapolis. If that's
true, the pussy angle is out of the question. To be
fair, there are some obvious inconsistencies in the
IMDb biography. It says that he was born in April,
1888, graduated from Annapolis, served in the U.S.
Navy for several years, then left the service in
1908. Based on that, assuming a minimum five year
hitch, he would have had to enter the USNA at about
11 years old. Something is wrong. His birthdate
seems genuine - there is a picture of his
tombstone online - so I guess the alleged
Naval service is a bunch of baloney, likely a legend
which sprung up from the fact that Cabanne once
wrote and directed a movie about Annapolis. Perhaps
Cabanne himself spread that legend. But I'm
speculating. I was unable to confirm or deny his
Naval record. Whether he was a total wimp or not,
the fact remains that Cabanne was not in his 50s or
60s at the time, but was a very young man when he
made the two Villa movies. He continued to make
(grade B minus) movies for another 34 years after he
left Villa in Mexico - and even then he was only 60
when he retired from the industry!
HBO, as always, went to the wall to deliver the
product. You already know they got a major star to
play the lead. They also hired a director who has
directed a Best Picture (Driving Miss Daisy), and
has been nominated as Best Director (Tender
Mercies). They hired the head writer of TV's
M*A*S*H, who has also been nominated for an Oscar
(Tootsie). They gave the film a $25 million budget -
then a record for a non-theatrical film. The DVD
transfer is their usual excellent job, and it
features a "behind the scenes" featurette as well as
a full-length commentary by the screenwriter.
A couple of observations about some sloppy elements
in this film. I liked what they did, but for $25
million, they should nail details like this:
1.A newspaper story, as pictured in the
film, is about Barry Bonds. Not sure how he fits
in to the whole Mexican revolution. Why didn't
they just use a real newspaper headline from the
era?
2. What are overhead wires doing at point A in
rural Mexico in 1914? And how do they mysteriously
disappear at point B? Since there is no sag in the
wires, I guess that just to the right of point B
there was a telephone pole or some other form of
support which was airbrushed out, along with most
of the wires which stood out against a bare sky. I
guess further that the airbrusher just decided
"fuck it" when he got to the hard stuff on a
multicolored, multitextured
background.
OK, I guess I've made my point, and I don't mean to
detract from the film's obvious merits - an
incredible story to begin with, professional
production values, and a portrayal of a charismatic
man by an equally charismatic actor. Well worth a
look, if the subject interests you.
Ariadna
Gil in Belle Epoque (1992) in 1080hd
The thing I admire most about the
filmmakers of Spain is that they seem to have the
ability to present a highly developed aesthetic
sensibility without descending either into maudlin
sentimentality or pretentious, arty bullshit. They
just work the art into the story. Francisco Trueba,
the director of La Belle Epoque, is a perfect
example. One of his other films, The Girl of your
Dreams, is one of the most consciously styled films
I've ever seen, practically a 1930's stylistic wet
dream, yet it uses the art only to support the
characters, and never allows the aesthetics to
overpower the humanity of the story.
This movie, Belle Epoque, which is also about the
1930s, is not as stylized, but it uses a consistent
green and gold palette, and is just as effective as
The Girl of your Dreams in blending the aesthetics
with the storyline. Similar in joyful hedonism to
"Sirens" and "Stealing Beauty," it is an ode
to a special hopeful time in Spain, the brief
Republican dream that stirred the imagination of the
entire world in between the death of the Spanish
monarchy and the rise of the fascists.
"La Belle Epoque" means "The Beautiful Age", and
usually refers to the peaceful time of artistic
flowering which took place in France at the end of
the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the
period in which the modern world of art began.
Spain's Belle Epoque was a shorter one. The republic
lasted only from 1931 until 1939, but it gave
Spanish intellectuals hope that the old bastions of
repression, the Church and the monarchy, would
finally lose their joint death-grips on Spanish
thought. During that period, many celebrated their
ability to cast off the repression, to think as they
chose, to embrace sensual lives, to choose
agnosticism, and to speak their convictions freely
in public. This film uses one large, intellectual,
free-thinking Spanish family to show how the new
attitudes in Spain affected various lives.
Jorge Sanz plays a deserter who ends up in the
countryside home of an elderly painter. When the old
man's four daughters arrive, they all compete for
the attentions of the handsome and eligible
stranger. In a sense, they all succeed. Even the
lesbian! The best part of the lesbian episode is
that the director actually found a way to make that
sexual encounter believable, by letting it occur
during a masquerade party in which the lesbian is
attracted to the man because he is quite an
attractive woman in his costume. The lesbian sister
dances the tango with him, she dressed as a soldier,
he as a maid, her leading of course. Then, aroused
by her command of the situation, she forces him to
get on his back, and mounts him.
This film is a pure pleasure to watch from start to
finish. It made me feel good while I watched it, and
for hours afterwards. American filmmakers seem to
have to choose between humanity and art, and their
films seem to have one or the other, never both. The
most "artistic" films of America seem to renounce
life, not celebrate it. They could learn a lot from
this film, and from director Fernando Trueba.
Jodie
Foster in Catchfire (1990) in 1080hd
Jodie Foster is kind of the Joe DiMaggio of
acting, in the sense that both have an unchallengeable
aura far beyond anything actually related to their mere
mortal achievements.
To hear DiMaggio's proponents describe him, you'd think
he was faster down the line than Mantle, a better
fielder than Mays, and a better hitter than Ted Williams
and Babe Ruth combined. DiMaggio was, of course, a great
ballplayer, but nowhere near as great as the legend that
has sprung up about him. Between ages 27 and 32, a
baseball player's theoretical prime, he averaged 22
homers and 102 RBI's per year, and hit .303 over that
span. During his famous 56 game streak, he didn't hit as
well as Williams hit for that entire season. He stole
only 30 bases in his life, and fielded only .978. His
lifetime batting average was .325. Per 550 at bats, he
averaged 29 homers.
Fine numbers, but I'll bet you thought he was much
better than that, right? Everybody does.
And the same is true of Jodie Foster. She made Backtrack
during the absolute zenith of her acting career,
1988-1994. That period started with her best actress
Oscar for The Accused and concluded with her nomination
for Nell. In the middle was her signature role in
Silence of the Lambs, which won her yet another Oscar.
There you go, three best actress nominations in six
years.
This film was made in that period, and offers no
evidence to support either her script judgment or her
acting abilities. It's a mediocre film, with often
illogical, even incomprehensible plot twists, and poor
character development. Jodie is not especially good in
it, and is even responsible for some of the problems.
She isn't awful, but she shows none of the spark and
imagination that you'd expect if you hired the best
young actress in the world, which many people considered
her at the time.
Dennis Hopper and Jodie play a hit man and his intended
victim who end up in love despite their obvious
incompatibility, and end up fleeing from the mob and the
FBI and heaven knows who else.
The movie irritated me, frankly. Here are some
especially irritating moments:
Jodie is calling Hopper a rapist after he offers her a
choice - die or give her life to him. OK, fair enough,
but there is one scene where he asks her to put on some
garter belts and similar paraphernalia, and she is
humiliated, and still in her "you rapist" mode.
She is dressing in front of him, at his insistence, but
obviously making ironic comments and still trying to
trick him ("maybe it would be better if I tied you up,
baby"). The scene cuts to someplace else, and when we
rejoin Foster and Hopper, she is punching him playfully
in the morning, and telling him to put down his
newspaper and come back to bed. HUH? Was there something
in between? How did that happen? Their relationship is
the point of the movie, yet we don't see why it
develops.
The very highest ranking law enforcement guys apparently
spend their lives in a trailer listening to phone taps,
and only work on one case at a time. Hopper makes a call
to arrange a meeting with the mobster who wants him
dead. The FBI is listening at that very moment,
including Fred Ward, the senior guy on the case, and
they immediately shout stuff like "let's roll", and head
to the rendezvous point. Fred obviously has nothing
better to do than to listen to the phone calls of a
low-level mobster dailyfeb18/7.
Jodie confesses to a weakness for pink Hostess
Snowballs. Hopper goes to a little rinky-dink country
convenience store, and comes back with several hundred
two-packs. This kind of store probably wouldn't carry
Snowballs. The odds are against it, because there are
many alternate snack cake suppliers, and most stores
would not have this in their assortment. But even if
they did carry them, I'm going to guess that the highest
volume c-store in the world would not have that many on
hand. In fact, I'll offer you a bet. Name anyplace in
your city that sells food. Name Sam's Club or the
highest-volume Safeway, I don't care. I'll bet that you
could not find several hundred two-packs of pink
Snowballs in any location which you select.
At one point, Hopper and Jodie manage to escape some
mobsters by driving up an old dead-end road to where a
helicopter is waiting conveniently. The chopper is not
manned or guarded, and starts right up for Hopper. He
also happens to know how to pilot one. That is one
versatile hit man. But that's not what irritated me.
That came next. Hopper and Foster fly away from the
thugs, and another chopper is on their tail within
seconds, filled with mob guys wearing black suits and
fedoras, firing machine guns. No exaggeration. Of
course, Hopper out-maneuvers the other pilot and tricks
him into crashing into a butte.
In fact, the finale is even sillier. Hopper and Foster
agree to meet the mob at a refinery, where they are
wearing some of those metallic-looking fire suits. They
set some fires, escape in their suits, and within a
short time, the entire refinery explodes. Cops circle
the place, credits roll. A couple minutes later, during
the credits, we see Hopper and Foster sailing somewhere,
and he is playing a saxophone. Run the last credits over
a black screen.
And this is the fully-restored director's cut! Imagine
how irritating the theatrical release must have been,
because the studio cut out 21 minutes of footage, and
wouldn't release it in the USA at all. In fact, Dennis
Hopper, who directed, disowned it, and it ended up being
credited to the ubiquitous "Alan Smithee."
More angles of skater Gabriella Papadakis's wardrobe
malfunction
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