Recent Screenings

La Moustache (2005) - French writer Emmanuel Carrère directs his first fictional feature film based on his own novel by the same name. As with most current French thrillers, the back of the DVD calls it "Hitchcockian." Evidently, no other director ever made a psychological thriller. But Hitch never made a dreamy, non-linear film like this. The one movie that came to mind for a while was actually Gaslight, which was directed by Geroge Cuckor, but even that comparison breaks down as the story plunges further into surreal territory. In fact, I can't think of any film that really resembles La Moustache. All I know is that I really enjoyed it.

The film concerns a man named Marc, who casually asks his wife in the opening scene what she would think if he shaved off the mustache he's had for years. She doesn't think it would be a good idea. And, as it turns out, it's not a good idea. After he shaves it off, she appears to not even notice. This increasingly irritates him. When they have dinner that night with two friends, neither of them, nor their little girl, notice either. Finally, on the way home, he gets really angry with his wife for not saying anything. To which she, with a look of terror, tells him that he's never had a mustache.

And so it goes. His colleagues at work don't notice anything either. Is this a conspiracy of some kind? As it turns out, we learn from the dinner scene that the wife's honesty may be questionable. Is she gaslighting him? Are his colleagues in on it? He sees a recent photo of himself with his mustache, yet everyone tells me he never had one. His wife tells him to see a psychiatrist, and he does seem to be having some kind of breakdown. As things deteriorate, he overhears his wife and his business partner whispering about having him committed. He flees his home, and after going around the city for a while in a taxi looking for his mother's house, he decides to take a last-minute flight to Hong Kong. He travels back and forth on the ferry between the island and the mainland. He grows his mustache back, stays in a rundown hotel and seems at peace as some kind of expatriate. Until events turn again.

It's hard to describe La Moustache. I can tell you the plot - or what I can fathom of the plot - and you can read the synopsis on back of the DVD, and it doesn't sound like much. How can you base an entire film on a guy who shaves off his mustache? I asked myself that many times as I would pick up, then put back the DVD. But it works. Carrère uses the psychological thriller as a means of exploring issues such as identity and our conception of reality. (I think.) Yet, he keeps the film moving well, never fully abandoning the thriller genre for a slog through philosophical meditation. It's sort of a cross between the more poetic explorations of Claire Denis, where plot doesn't seem to matter at all, and the conventional structures of something like Gaslight. (Or Hitchcock!)

Vincent Lindon, who has worked with Caire Denis, does an outstanding job as Marc, and the wonderful Emmanuelle Devos (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) plays his wife Agnès. These two actors already have seven César nominations between them, and it's a pleasure to watch them at work here as a successful professional couple living in Paris who seem to love each other but may be going through a difficult time. There are some powerful and tender moments between them. You know, when she's not gaslighting him. If she is. Or when he's not freaking out and tearing through the garbage to show her the hairs he trimmed off. If he actually had a mustache to begin with.

If you want everything ironed out at the end, you will be disappointed in La Moustache. But if you just let go and go for the ride, you may be pleasantly surprised. This is a cool little journey through territories of cinema we rarely get to see.

RECOMMENDED for those who can live without plot resolution. If you're trying to control everything in life, you're not going to like this. Men with mustaches may feel uneasy.

Frost/Nixon (2008) - Frank Langella and Michael Sheen deliver great performances as Richard Nixon and David Frost. And though they didn't get much attention when the film came out, the key supporting actors also do very well, including Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon and Matthew Macfadyen. The screenplay is by Peter Morgan, who wrote the original Broadway production which garnered so many accolades. The story of Nixon and Frost's now historic series of interviews in 1977 is fascinating, not only for the mythic elements of a fallen king jousting with a pretty-boy journalist out to prove something, but also for the wheeling and dealing Frost had to do to even get the interviews on the air in the U.S.

So with all this excellent acting, a good screenwriter and a great story, why did I feel somewhat empty afterwards? Two words: Ron Howard. Is there any other director in Hollywood who can produce such competently made yet hollow films? They look good. They move well. They usually have actors delivering excellent performances. They're entertaining. Yet they never add up to much. Frost/Nixon may be his best effort yet. It's definitely worth seeing, especially for the acting. It's a good movie. Very good in some ways. But given this material and this cast, it should've been a profound movie. In the hands of another director, it could've been.

Swing Vote (2008) - This propaganda film disguised as a comedy is meant to encourage participation in our electoral system, but its obvious emotional manipulation, its condescending attitude towards its audience, and the participation of real-life figures like Arianna Huffington, Bill Maher, Larry King and others left me feeling more cynical than ever about the twisted and parasitic relationship between the media and our political system. The election of 2008 plays out like a repeat of Bush-Gore, with the fate of the country hinging on one poor, dumb drunk named Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) whose vote wasn't completed because of a technical glitch. (I did my best to get past that ridiculous set-up.) Both presidential candidates and their teams come to the small town - you know, "real" America, unlike the cities, where everyone's a fake - to convince Bud to vote for them. While Swing Vote is touted as a bi-partisan film, I found it interesting that both candidates are played by longtime Republican supporters, Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper. Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci play their campaign managers, and you can imagine from the casting what that's going to be like. Bud's daughter, who's miraculously intelligent and wise despite coming from two somewhat slow parents with substance-abuse problems, is the real heart of the story, and she's played well by young Madeline Carroll. She and George Lopez, as a local TV news producer, are the best parts of the film. Costner is okay, but he gets annoying after a while. There are some funny moments here and there, especially as the candidates change their platform positions to win over Bud, who doesn't even know what he thinks about anything, but you have to wade through a lot of bad writing for those little treats. It's hard to argue with the premise that every vote counts, especially after Bush-Gore, but after watching the cynical, self-serving media-political complex try so hard to convince me of that fact, my initial reaction is to skip the next election. The least one can do is to skip this film.

The Hallelujah Trail (1965) - This wonderful comedy western tells the story of an oncoming harsh winter and panic among miners in Denver because they've run out whiskey. The liquor distributor (Brian Keith), who's almost bankrupt, leads 40 wagons of precious cargo to Denver. Indians want to steal it. A temperance group wants to stop it. One group of cavalry is sent to guard the wagon train, another is forced to escort the temperance group to Denver. Meanwhile, Irish drivers on the wagon train threaten to go on strike. Burt Lancaster plays a cavalry commander and man's man battling the feminist-temperance leader, played with spark by Lee Remick. Despite his toughness, she continually outwits him, getting him to do more and more that he doesn't want to do. The film has a funny, well-executed meta-fiction element, with a serious-sounding off-screen narrator growing steadily confused as he tries to map out the story for the audience. And the big showdown, when all of the various groups collide in a raging sandstorm, belongs on a list of great comedy sequences in cinema. Under-appreciated director John Sturges (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral) keeps the action moving, and Robert Surtees delivers spectacular Technicolor cinematography of the glorious landscapes around Shiprock, New Mexico. RECOMMENDED.

Angel and the Badman (1947) - John Wayne stars in this somewhat unusual film that also marks his first effort (of 20) at producing. The movie literally opens with a bang, as Wayne has a shootout and then rides, wounded, for miles through the desolate west while the opening credits roll. By the time they stop, he collapses near an isolated ranch that happens to be run by a Quaker family. Nursed back to health by the lovely daughter, played by Gail Russell, he spends the rest of the film struggling between his love for her, curiosity about her funny Quaker pacifism, and his own desire to settle down on one hand, and his own gunslinging ways, a sheriff determined to hang him, and the hard realities of the west on the other. A little corny at times, but for 1947, it's a thoughtful look at violence, masculinity, and the tension between Christian ideals and the quest for power. It makes me wonder: How would Jesus have dealt with the American West?

Twilight (2008) - Yawn. A toothless vampire love story. Perfect for an uptight, prudish, adolescent-souled society that yearns for real passion. La Reina read the book (has anyone ever seen a man reading Twilight?) and thought the movie was okay but didn't capture the story as well. Pattison and Stewart have some chemistry, but it's mostly squandered. The movie won't kill you - it moves well enough and has some good moments, but it's ultimately forgettable. You want vampire passion, skip this and (re-) watch Herzog's Nosferatu.