A Simple Plan

My plan for Tuesday night was to see Pan's Labyrinth after a dinner out, in which case I would have been searching for a photo of Guillermo del Toro on the set, preferably with at least one person in the photo pointing (these are getting harder to find as film websites love to embed publicity materials inside flash animations, ugh--for The Queen I had to go their French website). Unfortunately, I arrived at the theater short on cash and confronting a sign that said "no credit cards or debit cards accepted" despite the fact that the box office was equipped with a PC connected to the internet and a little thermal printer that looked just like the ones used for printing credit receipts. It was colder than a witch's teat that night, so I didn't feel much like hunting around for an ATM, and I went home. So much for my getting back to the cinema-going rate of a hundred films a year.

For some suitable cold-weather entertainment I pulled out my DVD of A Simple Plan instead. I first saw this film in early 1999 and enjoyed it, but it wasn't until I received the DVD as a gift a year later that I realized how much I liked it. I've probably seen it at least seven times now--it's one of those films that creeps up on me how many times I've seen it, and while I may not laud it the way I do, say, Citizen Kane, 2001, or Lawrence of Arabia, those repeated viewings mean something to me the way they do for What's Up, Doc?, The Great Waldo Pepper, Diner, and Apollo 13.

What impresses me on repeat viewings of Simple is how it continues to induce stomach-twisting tension in me for such a high percentage of the movie--and I've seen it before! The plot may not be airtight, but it's believable enough to me every time I see it, I love the performances (I always cringe when Gary Cole makes his entrance), the score, and Tuesday night I was especially noticing the cinematography, and the way so many of the outdoor scenes have this quiet stillness about them; they look like little tableaus from Andrew Wyeth.

People praise thrillers in which characters don't do the usual stupid things that serve to move plots along; in Simple a lot of stupid acts are committed, but the viewer is sucked into a feeling of dread for the protagonists as things reach their inexorable conclusion.

I think the film would have received a lot more recognition if it hadn't been orphaned by its production company. Oh, yeah, that was the year Shakespeare in Love dominated the Oscars, remember?

And now Sam Raimi is Mr. Spider-Man....

Rental Quick Takes

First things first, Blockbuster is officially On Notice. I signed up for their online subscription a couple weeks ago, and things were running along smoothly until Werner Herzog's Stroszek came along. I noticed before I even put the disc in that it had a weird crack on the side of it, but it wasn't that big, and it was close to the edge, so I thought maybe everything would be OK.

Well, it wasn't, and with about 10 minutes left, the movie froze up, and I couldn't get it to play any further. I thought, what the hell, these things happen, and reported the disc as unplayable and sent it back. Three days later, I get Stroszek back in the mail and ... it's the exact same disc. Still cracked. Still doesn't play.

I sent them an email, and am awaiting a response. Better be good, guys.

Anyway...

Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Fun movie, in the sense that it's not really very good but knows how to push buttons and screw with your expectations. It's like Soderbergh's career all makes sense to me now.

Brief Encounter: As (almost) always, I was impressed with the efforts of the Criterion Collection for this movie, but honestly, the movie felt rooted in outdated attitudes and acting styles. I tried to put myself in the position of a conservative 1940s viewer but I couldn't really get there.

Reds: Here's one that was easy for me to put myself in the mindset of the contemporary viewer. This is because, despite the events in the world during the past 20 years, Communist paranoia is still alive and well in the fever swamps of American right-wing politics. This movie must have caused quite the stir back in 1981, but I thought it was a good reminder of just how great Warren Beatty can be. Also, interesting to watch Diane Keaton play someone I didn't hate.

Donnie Darko: Finally got around to seeing it (I rented the director's cut). I loved the first two hours of it, but felt cheated a bit by the last ten minutes. Incidentally, I really enjoyed this essay on the film buy RogerEbert.com's Jim Emerson, although it didn't really help me with the last ten minutes.

The Princess and the Warrior: Enjoyed it as much as I could, but I have to chastise Sony for their DVD. It seemed that it wasn't encoded for progressive scan, so there was an incredible amount of of digital artifacts, scan lines, etc. I fought through it the best I could, but it probably made the movie seemed longer, slower, and uglier than it actually was.

DVD Announcement of the Day

Here's a DVD announcement to be happy about - the very nice folks at Criterion are putting out Mathieu Kassovitz's Hate (La Haine).

I've never actually seen the film, but just by coincidence, I was browsing the IMDb's Top 250 this morning and noticed it there. I also noticed that there was no US DVD available. Well, problem solved.