Praise of Folly

Coepit Vespertiliovir

As discussed previously in the Encomium, Mrs. E. has a bit of a thing for comic-book movies. So Erasmus sees a bunch of them. Last night, we caught Batman Begins which is quite good by the standards of the genre.

Erasmus is familiar with the original Batman origin story, and was happy to see a couple scenes paying homage to it. A secondary element with ninjas being trained somewhere in China by a Tibetan with an Arabic name was new to Erasmus, but it was well-executed, the ludicrous premise aside (more or less a capsule critique of all comic-book films there).

The movie was quite long but moved well enough that Erasmus was not conscious of its length. The only two major directorial quibbles Erasmus could muster were that the fight scenes were shot too closely and edited too rapidly to be entirely coherent and that the tone of the movie was a bit too even, all grim solemnity with very little to leaven it.

The cast was fine. Liam Neeson and Michael Caine were in the spirit of the thing; Christian Bale wasn't bad, though didn't set the world on fire. Poor Katie Holmes, about the state of whose mind (and soul) Erasmus worries these days, has been treated fairly harshly by the critics, but Erasmus found her fine, other than two scenes in which she was shot very unflatteringly: one in which her face looks oddly skull-like and asymmetrical, and another in which she looks dramatically cross-eyed. Erasmus finds it odd that they couldn't find better angles of a basically pretty leading lady. Gary Oldman is as low-key as Bale & Holmes as Sgt. Gordon.

Perhaps Erasmus's favorite detail of the movie was its using Chicago instead of New York as exteriors for Gotham. Erasmus prefers Chicago's architecture, in general, to New York's. And Erasmus was very entertained to see a 1940s-style slum rising across the Chicago River from a building in which he used to work. Erasmus had thought the Merchandise Mart was over there, but Mrs. E., true to her comic-book-movie fondness, suggested it had been a grand illusion like that hiding the hotel in The Shadow. Also, Erasmus hasn't seen such automotive carnage wreaked on the Chicago Police Department since The Blues Brothers.

Erasmus's expectations were low but amply exceeded.

Placet.

Flame On!

Hmm, Gustate, whisper to Erasmus what you really think about Fantastic Four. Highly recommended review. Hilarious and surprisingly historical take on the cinematic history of Fantastic Four adaptations (Erasmus knows, he wouldn't have thought that appealing either); a very acute point about Batman (ditto, Erasmus doesn't really do comics); and some encomia Spielbergi.

Per usual, Stephanus Prædator holds a diametrically opposed opinion to Dominus Superus, though allowing that the movie has plenty of flaws, in a review that's entertaining, though not as good as Gus's.

Caveat spectator, as always, kids...

Gratias 'Trici!

In honor of the Cinetrix's restoration of the Encomium to her "Fellow Travelers" list, Erasmus will drop the 411 on a couple flicks he and Mrs. E have taken in recently.

• Most recently, Mr. & Mrs. E. caught a second-run showing of Sahara which did not blow nearly as hard as Erasmus believed it would. Erasmus swore off the Dirk Pitt books after one or the other (they tend to run together) had Mr. P and a company of Confederate Civil War reënactors with muskets repelling bad-guy commandos with automatic weapons who were attempting to board their paddle-wheel steamship. Even Erasmus's legendary ability to suspend disbelief foundered upon that ludicrous scene.

  Nevertheless, Sahara was a decent popcorn picture, though pale in comparison to, say, Stephen Sommers' Mummy. Matthew McConaughey is a genial, if somewhat blank, Pitt (whose body hints at hours in a gym "toning," rather than years of diving and salvage work). Steve Zahn is criminally underused as Al Giordino, his sidekick (and inserts an unnecessary syllable in his last name). The rest of the cast is unremarkable, including Penelope Cruz as a W.H.O. doctor written into the screenplay (which had at least three major versions from the credits, never a good sign).

  It's dippy and riddled with fortunate coincidences but at least they pronounce "Tuareg" correctly. The strangest thing about the movie is the soundtrack, a genuinely bizarre mixture of mid-'60s Bond-style jazz horns and Monster Rock Hits of the '70s (Grand Funk Railroad, Skynyrd, the ubiquitous Steppenwolf "Magic Carpet Ride," et cetera). Both styles date the movie strangely and incompatibly.

  Anyway, if you're in the mood for a brainless action movie, you could do worse, but critically speaking non placet.

• Similarly, King Arthur is a revisionist take on the standard legend with Arthur as Arthorius, a Roman Briton, and his knights Sarmatian military slaves. Erasmus loves the idea of the great horsemen as Turkic sons of the steppe (DNA evidence ties the Sarmatians, not entirely conclusively, to the modern Kazakhs). On the other hand, the only surviving language tied to Sarmatian is Ossetian, which gave Erasmus a bit of a chill thinking that a distant kin of "Lancelot" might be Osip Mandelstam's "broad-chested Ossete." Erasmus doubts the filmmakers know any more about Sarmatians than they do Pelagius, whom they paint as a heretic executed for championing free will and freedom against a Church opposed to them. Pelagius was not executed, nor was free will the crux of his heresy.

  Returning to the movie, Erasmus enjoyed the battle scenes very much, and Keira Knightley was memorable in them as a ferocious Avenging Blue Battle Dryad. Still, outside of the battle scenes, the movie was a bit lugubrious and aspired to greater depth than it could muster. Non placet autem bella multum placent.

• Layer Cake was terrific, though Erasmus could have used more Sienna Miller (not that her character was particularly interesting; as longtime readers know, Erasmus is a big Keen Eddie fan, in which Miss Miller did some very nice comedy). Plot, plot, plot, but some interesting, oblique looks into character as well. It's the best crime movie Erasmus has caught in a while, and though it occasionally veers close to glib, Tarantian superficiality, it generally avoids the pitfall. Multum placet.

• Finally, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is as good as everyone says. Erasmus suspects a deeper understanding of the profundities of commitment and marriage might have benefited the characters (and scenarist) and wonders if Kate Winslet's character's borderline alcoholism might pose a deeper problem than the script lets on, but these are quibbles. The movie has a rare intellectual depth married with genuinely compelling emotion, terrific acting, a brilliant script, and fine direction. Jim Carrey's performance is fantastic, and Kate Winslet's is even better in the sense that you don't even notice her acting (or her American accent). Erasmus, following Josephus Bobbus Pontis, says, "Check it out." Ave.

Wentworth Go-Worthy!

Erasmus hasn't yet seen it due to the pesky constraints of the space-time continuum; but he recommends that anyone who can, go and see Wentworth by the gifted young director Stephen Suettinger.

Ah so des' ne!

Erasmus just put together that Miss Veronica Mars and Master Napoleon Dynamite have a friend in common.

That is all.

The Kennel Murder Case

Erasmus may be away from the Encomium for a while, so he'll leave you with a quick recommendation for a divertissement. The Kennel Murder Case (1933) is a distinct, if dated, treat. If you have any interest in Golden Age detective stories, you'll know S.S. Van Dine's sleuth Philo Vance, here portrayed by a very restrained William Powell, and if you know early-century cinema, you'll know Kértesz Mihály, the nice Hungarian boy who came to Hollywood and made a few good flicks, like this little-known gem.

The Kennel Murder Case is a locked-room mystery (that has only tangential connections to the eponymous kennel) and has that genre's strengths (wow, cool puzzle!) and weaknesses (oh, inherent let-down in the solution; shallow characterizations). But the movie is quite modern, in the high-modern, 1930s sense of the term. Particularly tickling Erasmus's fancy were the rapid sideways pans whenever anyone makes a phone call, and the 1930s version of a high-tech communications network. One could do an entertaining piece connecting the techno-thriller aspects of Stoker's Dracula, this flick, and, say, C.S.I., though Erasmus finds this movie's coroner the most entertaining one he's seen in a while. Quincy, Schmincy.

The Kennel Murder Case is a bagatelle, but one well worth indulging in, if you're in the mood for old-fashioned, high-style entertainment. And maybe the craziest dog attack Erasmus has ever seen on screen. Yowza! That dog is the Yakima Canutt of maulings.

Placet.

"Genius-Level Junk," Civitas Peccatorum

So, as predicted, Erasmus & Mrs. E. headed down to the googolplex to check out Sin City. As usual, Erasmus's favorite film critic, Stephanus Prædator, and Gustatus Superus of the Daily Standard are right on the money.

You might say this is contradictory, in that Mr. Hunter offers a qualified rave:

You could call this a pure product of the American death cult. It celebrates revenge of the most violent sort, it features heroes who not merely kill but mutilate, then torture to death their enemies, its view of women is primeval (they be all gun-toting 'ho's), it draws the energy of titillation from breathless examinations of the most profane human behavior (cannibalism, child molestation, rape, ambush-murder), it values toughness above everything, and damn, it's really good.

While Mr. Last is disappointed:

Which just about sums up Sin City: Great gimmicks, but not enough of a payoff.

They both agree, however, on the technical mastery of the film, and the depravity of its content. Hunter, however, enjoys the ride, while Last doesn't think the adaptation carries the weight of the gimmickry.

Erasmus concurs with both, and finds Hunter's phrase, "genius-level junk," to be the most apposite description of the flick he's come across. The phrase resonates with Erasmus because the main question the movie raised to him—other than Deus meus, is Carla Gugino more gorgeous with or without clothes?—was why?

Why did this movie come about? The source material is clearly the gritty true-detective stories of the '30s through '60s (similar to the gialli that Bava brought to the screen), which were pretty worthless to begin with, the lowest of low-cultural product, the cheapest, dullest stuff that could be jammed into a 15¢ paperback. Miller clearly thought them worthy of homage, while sanitizing them of their frequent and ugly misogyny (indeed, adding a weird meretrix-feminist slant), and Rodriguez thought Miller's work worthy of a big-budget, big-screen adaptation.

There's little uplifting, or even particularly true, in any of this, other than the repeated plot that Hunter drolly summarizes as:

It's the one about the tough guy -- he may be a cop, a thug or a killer -- who meets a frail and she touches his heart, gives him something to believe in on this crummy ball of crud we call the planet Earth. But then something happens to her, see, so he goes all righteous with wrath and fury, even at the cost of his own life, fighting the sleaze and the corruption and the cesspool and the depravity and the slime and the muck and the goop and the darkness and the creeps and the scum and the IRS and the -- okay, not the IRS.

So, instead of Nazi doctors sadistically torturing women, we have antiheroes sadistically avenging them. Progress of a sort, perhaps, and a visceral, pagan sort of honor-killing satisfaction, but ultimately one that civilization has to reject. The reader may protest that Basin City is intentionally constructed as uncivilized: all power is corrupt, only one policeman stands as decent, etc. And, indeed, this is a convention of many modern neo-noir films. But the true, fascinating dilemma of classic noir is: what does the good man do in an evil millieu? Only one of the stories approaches this dilemma, and it concludes with a hero's self-sacrifice, and the one (depressing) glimpse of decency in the entire film. The other two protagonists are killers who, do good, sort of, by killing men worse than they. But this is not heroism, but vendetta.

Erasmus doesn't know what it says about modern culture, if anything, that gifted artists like Miller and Rodriguez consider these themes worthy of prolonged meditation and æstheticization, but he doubts it's anything good.

Oh, and the Tarantino scene Erasmus worried about? Quite good. The only genuine bit of (morbid) levity in the film, and a lovely use of color.

As far as the performances go, I echo Mr. Last's praise for Alexis Bledel as the blue-eyed scorta and traditrix, and Bruce Willis is good as Hartigan. And in the words of the late, great Otis Redding, "Ooh, Carla..."

Erasmus finds it hard to rate the film, because although he was disappointed in the plot(s) and theme, he'd probably go again tomorrow if he could to look at all the visuals again. A Mario Bava for the new century? Could be.

So, Erasmus chooses to divide his rating: Imagini, ave; fabulæ non placent.

Constantine

Eh. Non placet. Rachel Weisz is her usual luminous self, Tilda Swinton plays a (""half-breed"?) angel Gabriel who looks ripped from a Botticelli mural, and there's the tiniest bit of an interesting thought in Gabriel's motivation. Otherwise, kinda slow and underwritten. Not a lot of drama. Wait for the DVD, even if you're a fan of this sort of stuff. (Though Mrs. E, a fan of this sort of stuff, had a good time.)

Ah, but it did provide Erasmus to finally see the trailer for Sin City on the big screen. It still looks impressive; the CGI's a little more obvious in a theater, but still, hellacool, in the words of Eric Cartman. Whether the movie is wretched or terrific, however, remains to be seen...

Mario Bava: Master of the Macabre

Erasmus just caught this documentary about Italian director Mario Bava, a cult favorite. It's very much worth seeing, if you have a serious interest in cinema or the horror genre.

At the risk of wandering into the Cinetrix's territory, Erasmus generally regards a lot of film criticism as puffery. The medium is so relatively new that, if every "master" acclaimed as such were really the genius his promoters (often needing a Ph.D. thesis subject) argue, it'd be the most brilliant group of artists ever to exist in a medium—or all media— within 100 years.

So Erasmus is not inclined to buy into such claims lightly, and to its credit this documentary, while ranking Bava as a great artist, also includes his more modest claims for his work (like these) along with the encomia of family, friends, co-workers, and those inspired by his work.

Erasmus's judgment is that Bava was a genuinely gifted cinematographer and creator of images. (As well as a consummate technician; his effective visual tricks were often created out of little more than a few pieces of glass and an intimate understanding of the mechanics of film.) As an auteur, however, he can't be ranked, as he seems to have had even less concern with performance than Hitchcock and virtually no concern with scripts. Bava was a genuinely gifted man who mostly made schlock, a fact he was well aware of. (Indeed, his Danger: Diabolik was effectively MST3K'd in that series' finale.)

Bava was quite a versatile director, ranging from '60s spy stuff like Danger: Diabolik, swingin' sex comedies (Dr. Goldfoot & The Girl Bombs, sword-and-sandal epics, spaghetti westerns, a bizarro '70s sex Rashomon (Quattro volte… quella notte), a couple Hercules movies, and even some Viking flicks.

That said, his most effective work was in the horror genre. His genius for imagery often came through most viscerally in nightmare imagery, and some of his films often play more like nightmares than linear stories. The directors who acknowlege his influence most directly are horror film makers (Dario Suspiria Argento, Joe Gremlins Dante, John Halloween Carpenter, etc.). Tim Burton, in his incoherent way, argues that the unreality of Bava's images at the intersection of sexuality, violence, and fear are somehow more real for their unreality. They're visceral. Or archetypical. Or something. Burton acknowledges that the imagery of his (underrated, in iudicum Erasmi) Sleepy Hollow owes a great deal to Bava. Most connoisseurs of horror film rate his Maschera del demonio as a masterpiece, one of the finest films of its type produced anywhere.

Bava is also credited with inventing the giallo genre, so-called because of the yellow covers on the sensationalistic novels which it adapted. The giallo is the direct precursor of the American slasher film (the documentary particularly cites the Friday the 13th films as almost-remakes of Reazione a catena), and here again Bava's influence, however sub-cultural, is genuine. Even more impressive, the screenplay to Ridley Scott's Alien is apparently heavily, heavily indebted to Bava's Planet of Vampires (Terrore nello spazio).

Bava himself seems to have been a genuinely joyful, cheerful man who seems not to have taken his work with much more seriousness than it deserved. Still, whatever one thinks of the greater cultural ramifications of horror flicks, gialli, and so forth, Mario Bava deserves to be well-remembered as a man who did much with very little and who possessed an exceptional visual sense.

Genius? No. Artist? Sometimes. Artifex imaginarum? Præstet.

Mario Bava: Master of the Macabre. Placet. (For horror fans, ave. De gustibus.)

Civitas Peccatorum Erratum

Apparently the Rodriguez-Miller directorial dyad of Sin City isn't necessarily trying to "out-Tarantino Tarantino" as Erasmus guessed in the previous post. No, the vendor videorum emeritus himself is involved. Or so said the ad Erasmus just saw on TV. That's right, Special Guest Director: Quentin Tarantino. Erasmus begins to get a whiff of the terminally hip and his money clings more firmly to the inside of his pocket. One hopes that something better than the Coens' lame "take the f— elephant" carnival sequence in Darkman is the result.