Every once in a while something really astonishing and fresh comes along and Thunder Road is both astonishing and fresh. It blew my mind! Jim Cummings deserves every accolade and more for this wonderful little micro-budget indie film. I'm a sucker for a good movie about mental illness. If you add in an element about parent/child bonds, family, or parenting alone then you've got me and I'll watch that movie. Thunder Road tackles loss, addiction, mental illness, masculinity, family bonds, and the stress of being a single-working parent, and yet somehow is a hilarious comedy. And it does all this without ever laughing at Officer Jim's mental breakdown. This film is filled with earnest love and pain and it balances all the feels and tackles tricky issues effortlessly. This is not a cringe comedy, it's all heart and soul. 5/5 MUST SEE! |
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Barfly is some kind of masterpiece. A thing of legends. Charles Bukowski wrote the screenplay. He wanted Sean Penn to star but Penn insisted Dennis Hopper direct it, and eventually it was sent to Barbet Schroeder. I've seen Barfly 3 times, but I finally saw a good clean copy and it made 900 million worlds of difference. It's rather ridiculously difficult to find due to North American licensing. For the first time, I was able to appreciate Robby Mueller's cinematography (that was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award). His work is all but lost on ancient VHS rips; you miss all the drunken swooping and swaying. Meanwhile, Schroeder is an interesting director who's made some very impressive documentary films including one on Koko the gorilla, and one on Idi Amin. He also made Single White Female... In terms of performances, WOW. Mickey Rourke at the height of his career--not long after Rumble Fish--and Faye Dunway at the moment her career is beginning to wane--this is many moons after Chinatown and Bonnie and Clyde. She was nominated for a Golden Globe. Rourke fully inhabits the slithery salty Henry with such zeal. But, don't get me started on Bukowski (the key figure in a documentary also by Schroeder), I find him problematic at best. 5/5 There's a lot to say about Colors. Colors is a mid-80s, Pre-Rodney King LA, gang-themed police procedural starring Sean Penn, Robert Duvall, Don Cheadle, and Damon Wayans. Wayans is playing it all In Living Color against Cheadle's earnest portrayal of Rocket, leader of the Crips. Super weird. Colors is also Dennis Hopper's return to directing after being blackballed twice in Hollywood. This is his first film since Out of the Blue (1980). This is a very stylized movie, expertly shot by Haskell Wexler. I fully appreciated the use of South Central LA's murals, the rawness of the hand held camera shooting on the streets, and all the real people crammed into the frames--Hopper hired real gang members and non-actor residents as extras. Two of the gang members were shot dead, during the course of filming in 1987. I wasn't sure what to expect and thought this would be pretty cheesy and dated. It is dated, but it also is a fascinating movie. It's slightly quaint in it's depiction of the relationship between gang members and the cops. There is a surprising sub-plot where a white cop accidentally shoots and kills an unarmed black man. It's treated quite seriously. Of course, I think it's prudent to take this in context as pre-Rodney King LA. I was also surprised by all the scenes Hopper gives to the two gangs apart from the two cops. While the Herbie Hancock synth score is one of the more dated aspects of the film, the pared down use of score, especially in the scenes where you might expect the score to play heavily, was stunning and well-played. Instead of empathic score buttressing the emotions, Hopper offers sirens and dogs barking. Check it out. 4/5 |
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