this cab is off duty

another installment of queue de grâce has come to an end and was a roaring success, if i do say so myself. once again, i extend a heartfelt thanks to my curator, miss cabby lawry.

don't let her kid you. she's not that sweet. kind of a cowardly move to hit me with that patrick dempsey business and then get on a boat headed for the safety of international waters, if you ask me. enjoy your cruise, chump!

here's the full rundown of what i saw this week:

when harry met sally (1989)
how to kill your neighbor's dog (2001)
sleepers (1996)
capturing the friedmans (2003)
the fifth element (1998)
lock, stock and two smoking barrels (1998)
amélie (2001)
a perfect world (1993)
the beach (2000)
aimée & jaguar (1998)
return to me (2000)
the pledge (2001)
the dark crystal (1982)
big (1988)
the garden (2008)
JFK (1991)
loverboy (1989)
the hudsucker proxy (1994)
billy elliot (2000)

the only one on her list that i didn't get to this time was up (2009). i have seen it before, though. here's the short version: i thought it was incredibly well done and much more for adults than children. how many kids (besides me) would be into sepia tone nostalgia and airships? and how many children can grasp the notion of the loss of a life-long love (which is what the movie was about)? pixar perfected their formula with that one. and i cried once, at the end.

if you are completely in the dark as to what i am rambling on about, feel free to go back and start at the beginning.

as always, i welcome any and all who would like to participate as curator for the week. just let me know you are interested, i will add you to the list in the order you request was received. the line right now is about ten deep so i will be doing these more often. my friend caroline is next up and we will be doing that some time in the middle of april, so stay tuned. in an exciting bit of news, my friend thomas is the first one bold enough to take up the queue de grâce challenge and i am formulating a list for him as we speak. i will let you know where you can keep up with his exploits as soon as his reports come across the wire. thanks for following along, everyone. talk to you soon.

attack of the cab monster: day seven

day seven comes just in time. many more days like yesterday and you might find me jellyin' up the sidewalk. fortunately, it's a new day and this is the sweet baby that's going to put us back on top.

i love the coen brothers' the hudsucker proxy (1994) more every time i see it. this viewing confirmed for me that it belongs in what i consider to be the top tier of their output. looking back, those first seven films were an incredibly strong way to begin a career, with this one being the dark horse. it has all of the hallmarks that made me fall in love with their work - the incredibly specific devotion to language, the dizzying camerawork, the playfully omniscient and wise narrator, the oddball sense of humor - and, for the first time in their career, it adds to that a layer of screwball comedy and movie magic the likes of which hadn't been seen in about forty years. even the opening credits promise something grand and the coens do not fail to deliver. the opening pan across the city is beautiful. everything in the boardroom gleams. even charles durning's suicide is majestic (and momentarily hilarious when he wipes his eye). the homages to preston sturges, katharine hepburn, et al. are loving and sharply executed. the film took a lot of heat upon its release for not having any heart but it seems that these critics never took into account the fact that this is satire. as for it being pastiche, sure, there's some of that. i wonder, though, why demonstrating a thorough knowledge and love of a certain genre from the thirties and forties is unacceptable when these same critics have multiple orgasms every time quentin tarantino cobbles together some whizbang nonsense in which literally every scene can be traced to an (often superior) antecedent from the golden age of the drive-in? hardly seems fair. ah, well, pay them no mind. the years are going to continue to be kind to this one. i'll stake my pulitzer on it. any time someone bemoans the state of filmmaking in our life and times, whenever you think to yourself "they just don't make 'em like they used to", remember this film. it's a pip.

we ring down the curtain on this edition of queue de grâce with stephen daldry's billy elliot (2000).

i guess this is a fine enough, feel-good way to go out this week. it seemed to me like just another in the long recent line of scrappy upstarts overcoming grim conditions in the UK. echoes of everything from the commitments (1991) to brassed off (1996) - my favorite of the lot, thanks primarily to the late, great pete postlethwaite - to the full monty (1997). and, like monty, this has spawned a musical in its wake as well. what makes this film special is obviously the kid. jamie bell does a fantastic job as billy. there's a character in his face that belies his tender years. he strikes a fine balance between the hard-won wisdom of someone who has seen their fair share of tough times and the perplexity that comes with adolescence, sometimes communicating the subtle difference between the two with just his forehead. i would recommend it based on his performance alone. otherwise, you've seen the story a dozen times.

round two is now in the books. thanks for reading along. i am now off to reclaim my television.

attack of the cab monster: day six

day six started off strong with scott hamilton kennedy's documentary the garden (2008).

it chronicles the bitter struggle between a group of south central los angeles farmers maintaining a 14 acre urban garden, the largest is the u.s., and a shady cabal of land developers, lawyers and ethically challenged local politicians. the garden itself was a result of community programs meant to enrich impoverished areas in south central in the wake of the rodney king riots and more than a few people have a vested interest in this plot of land. about 350 families are responsible for the food that is grown on the property and it feeds a few thousand in this section of los angeles' latino and immigrant community. they depend on it to eat and it is an oasis in the middle of a part of the country in which there is little comfort to be found. it is sacred to them. the owner of the property strikes a backroom deal with a local councilwoman and a corrupt community activist (referred to in the film as a "poverty pimp") that is the impetus for him to reclaim his property from the farmers and evict them. i am sure they expected little resistance from this group of farmers and expected to be pocketing a windfall as easily as they had on a previous deal to build a soccer facility in the area. man, were they wrong. the farmers organize, get legal representation and mount a furious opposition. the struggle plays out in the courts, the farmers up one minute and down the next. internal strife besets the garden. protests, fundraisers and community outreach programs are set in motion and the lawyers go at it hammer and tong. there is a pesky question of entitlement that runs underneath this whole thing. it is the owner's land after all, and he is within his rights to do what he wants with it. had he handled it honorably, in an above board fashion, i don't think you could quibble with the decision. it was his land. he allowed farmers to use it for fourteen years but now it was time to do something else with it. had that been the case, it would have been sad, even tragic, but not wholly unreasonable. but when you start looking at the soccer field that was built you begin to wonder. $4.7 million dollars allotted to it and it looked like about five grand had been spent on it. a dirt field with one porta-potty and a chain link fence around it leaves a few million floating around in someone's pockets. when the community gets wind of a secret deal being struck that will oust them and exploit the community even further they dig in their heels. they are not going to be your underclass to be trampled today, buddy. they are going to be your worthy adversary. it's a riveting portrait of a community making sure its voice is heard.

we go from fuckery on the community level to the international stage with our next film, oliver stone's JFK (1991).

ok, gang, here's the deal. we're never going to know. even the truth, if we have heard it, is going to seem like just one more scenario that anyone can debunk with ease. there are loonies on every side of this case. i look at this film more like a really good magic act. there's diversion, some excellent sleight of hand and some moments of wonder that seem to reveal something true but, in the end, none of it is necessarily real. it's great to look at it, with stone using a variety of techniques and film stock, foreshadowing a style that he would take to its manic terminal point a few years later with natural born killers (1994). and i know it might be a little odd to say about a film that is 205 minutes long, but i think the editing in this film is its greatest achievement. in almost three and a half hours i don't feel like the energy ever flags and there are a couple of scenes, particularly donald sutherland's centerpiece, in which the rhythms of the film just pull you along whether you want to go or not. just relax and let oliver take you for a ride, back and to the left, back and to the left...

which brings us to a piece of film capturing acts more heinous than anything abraham zapruder saw in his worst nightmares, joan micklin silver's loverboy (1989). i would have rather watched this on a loop for 98 minutes.

i don't even know where to start, so i am just going to skip to the end first. after coming home from college for the summer, patrick dempsey ends up working as a prostitute, servicing a coterie of deranged beverly hills trophy wives for two hundred dollars a pop to raise tuition so he can get back to school to be with his true love. yeah, you read that right. true love comes to visit and he attempts to explain how, in the span of a few weeks, he has become a morally bankrupt manwhore.

"it sorta just happened."

yeah, you read that right.

i knew i was in trouble from the outset with the delightful eighties cartoon credits. how fun! it didn't help matters when the opening dorm room "punk rocker" party scene segued from edie brickell right into the escape club. the movie wastes no time in introducing us to the quite obviously insane barbara carrera who will become dempsey's de facto pimp. other repulsive characters include his best friend who boasts with great pride "i come onto every girl that walks", and his dad, who is chiefly involved in the film via a wacky subplot revolving around the misunderstanding that his son is "a fruit". stop! oh my sides! e.g. daily speaks in some language that is mostly squeaks whenever she is on screen and carrie fisher makes a surprise return appearance this week, adding cigarettes to her provocative mélange of desperation, maybelline and liquor stink. as if all this wasn't enough, in a hilarious oedipal twist, our casanova is hired to bang his mom. oh no he di'n't! actually, he doesn't. unable to deliver that pizza, he instead offers his mother up to a miniature-stallone, exchange student date rapist (one of two date rapists featured prominently in this cast). oh! the hijinks! well, i know you're wondering, and yes, his plan to sleep with forty-three women during the course of a summer does eventually get him back in his girlfriend's good graces - she's not crazy - so everyone lives happily ever after. cue the dance number and the smooth saxophone over the closing credits!

one odd note: in an eerie echo of apocalypse chelsea: day six, today also had a disturbing rendition of "great balls of fire" sung in a car, this time by vic tayback and his amazing toupée.

i can only think of one way this could have been redeemed. as dempsey is spinning his true love, and future sharer of his stds, around the dance floor, a sound begins to invade the music. a high pitched beep insistently pushes through as the dance scene fades out and we fade in to dempsey being hustled down a hospital hallway on a gurney. turns out, when he took that corner to talk to the redhead that kicked off this mess, he was plowed into by a dumptruck. this whole thing was just the final vision of a horny, stupid clown making his way into the light while he lay crumpled and broken in an intersection strewn with anchovies. how's that for a mcdreamy sequence? time of death? the moment some moron green-lit this abomination. call it.

cabby, the next time i see you i am kicking your ass for this.

tomorrow has got to be better, right? lord, just give me some kind of sign.

whew. thanks, buzz.

attack of the cab monster: day five

the forecast for day five is fair. nothing really knocked me out or raised my hackles all that much today. first out of the chute was sean penn's the pledge (2001).

it begins with a disheveled and disturbed jack nicholson drunkenly mumbling, completely incoherent. fade from that to an earlier, more composed nicholson as a police detective who is attending his retirement party when a call comes in about a young girl who has been the victim of a horrific murder. he has six more hours left to his career and, being decidedly of the old school, he goes out on the call. thanks to the bungling incompetence of other officers on the scene it falls to him to inform the girl's parents. her mother forces him to swear upon a cross that her murdered daughter made that he will find the person who did this, the titular pledge, and that hooks the thread that eventually unravels the man. he continues to work the case on his own when his instincts tell him that the suspect they picked up on the day of the crime, who subsequently committed suicide, was not the killer. it's this middle third of the film that i enjoyed the most. what started as a competent, average police procedural begins to grow into something else. this man, now retired, buys a gas station in the middle of nowhere, as it lies in an area between where two other crimes occurred that he attributes to the same killer. he is setting a completely improbable trap. the film forgoes the usual tropes of the obsessed detective coming apart at the seams and downshifts for the entire second act as he gambles on this longshot and bides his time. in the meantime, he takes up with a local barmaid and, along with her daughter, they begin to forge an unlikely family. the film is at its most effective in this section because where we would typically see the cop who just can't let it go poring over reports with crime scene photos tacked to the walls we instead get nicholson reading bedtime stories and shopping for flea market furniture. the case is always in the back of his mind but only when we get to the finale do we truly wonder about how much of his retired life was devoted to angling for this killer rather than a stringer full of fish and domestic contentment. thanks to a fiery crash, he never gets his man and his idyllic new home is torn asunder. that tends to happen when you use someone's daughter for serial killer bait. all in all, good not great. it doesn't hurt that a number of my favorite actors turn up in smaller roles - mickey rourke, helen mirren, benicio del toro, the particularly effective vanessa redgrave - but it's not enough to make this more than mostly average with a good second act. a demerit for making me look at aaron eckhart's weasel face.

i think this picture is from when he was in bon jovi.

here we make a 180° turn and delve into frank oz and jim henson's bizarre puppet epic fantasy, the dark crystal (1982).

the story itself is completely unremarkable. it is a standard quest by "the one" who has been prophesied to restore good in a land blighted by evil. he faces various perils, narrowly escapes and saves the day in the eleventh hour amidst some mystical mumbo jumbo. what is completely remarkable is the previously unheard of puppet and animatronic work on display here. i remember when this came out and what a great hue and cry there was about the direction oz and henson had taken. where were the muppets? why the hell is everything, including the hero, creepy and weird? what have you done with the cute?!? well, i am glad they stuck to their guns because it resulted in a daring and complex world inhabited by puppets the likes of which filmgoers had never seen. the production design is overflowing with detail while remaining completely true to the dark, sometimes ugly aesthetic. their biggest crime was simply so thoroughly confounding people's expectations. if you had no foreknowledge of the muppets or sesame street, i suspect this would have proved intriguing rather than upsetting. it's a shame the story is so rote and pedestrian. at times it is so boring it makes it hard to stay interested in the revolutionary puppetry. you don't achieve the mona lisa through painting by the numbers. this one fights itself to a draw.

finally, we have penny marshall's big (1988).

i'll say this right up front - i have never liked this movie. i know, i am a monster. it just does nothing for me. there are a couple of laughs but, to me, it just plays like an episode of amazing stories that has been padded out to feature length. almost without exception, body switching stories are the bunk. i suppose that stems from my finding zero sympathy for people who wish they were someone/something else. do the work, clowns! to be fair, there are one or two elements that i think are effective and accurate when it comes to putting the inner life of a kid onscreen. the fact that the kids find it much easier to accept the transformation than adults seems like it would be true. it requires imagination and adulthood tends to quash that (again, i refer you to day one, film one). the best joke in the film is the subtle exchange immediately after josh convinces billy of the truth of his predicament. "you look terrible", billy says. "i know", replies josh. it's probably the best line reading tom hanks has ever given. but for every time they get it right they go and do something distracting like the "got it, need it" baseball card bit in the beginning or the "shimmy shimmy coco bop" routine. i thought this was set in 1988, not 1958. maybe after school they can race home in time to see kukla, fran and ollie. the iconic piano scene gets away with it because piano lessons have been the same for the last four hundred years. i give it kudos, as well, for being the first film directed by a woman that grossed over $100 million. i am sure that opened a lot of doors and created a lot of opportunities that might not have been there for women otherwise, so i appreciate that. without it, debra granik might not have had the opportunity to make winter's bone (2010). who knows? viewing it in a vacuum, though, just tells me that women, too, are capable of making sentimental claptrap aimed at those for whom cinema is easy escapism and not much else. congratulations?

ho hum. don't worry. tomorrow might get my hate tank rolling again.

yeah...might.

attack of the cab monster: day four

the halfway point of our experiment this week finds us halfway around the world and all the way annoyed.

yes, leo, i was equally horrified. in the wake of becoming king of the world in 1997 and the hearthrob of choice for a legion of adolescents pining for seven minutes in heaven in steerage class (were there titanic moms too?), leonardo dicaprio took a few left turns. i think he should at least be given credit for not falling back on his doomed romantic laurels and cashing in by starring in a series half-assed romantic comedies/period pieces. that being said, it doesn't mean danny boyle's the beach (2000) was a good choice. for anyone. exhibit B this week in my case against rave kids making movies. if what is missing in your life is a stoner version of "lord of the flies" at 120 bpm, then step right up. everyone else would be better off leaving this alone. in what had to be a huge stretch for him, leo plays a smug, spoiled american who, while vacationing in thailand, gets wind of a legendary beach that is paradise on earth. he talks two french tourists into going with him in search of the island - there are two reasons for this. one, he wants to have sex with the girl behind her boyfriend's back and two, he lacks the backbone to do anything alone without whining about it, either onscreen or in voiceover - and they find it, much to my chagrin. it turns out the island is split between a gang of marijuana farmers and the most annoying mutlicultural commune you have ever laid eyes on. they maintain a precarious truce as long as conditions remain beneficial for both sides. well, guess what. leo makes sure things don't stay that way because he has neither common sense nor impulse control. he has sex with the french girl right away and they begin a relationship that has all the passion and fire of a magazine layout, a pack of sharks make for a mild diversion and then the last third of the film descends into a morass of video game graphics and leo doing his best colonel kurtz impression.

hint: his best is not good. still can't fathom why scorsese has put all his eggs in leo's basket. i suspect he will always look like, and have the skills of, a little kid wearing grown-up clothes. watch it if you want, but don't say i didn't warn you.

you know you're having a tough round of viewing when a holocaust film makes you feel better. max färberböck's aimée & jaguar (1999) did just that, though.

this has been on my list of things to see for a long time, so i was very pleased to see that cabby had chosen it and i was not disappointed. leo could afford to take copious notes from these women when it comes to telling the story of an ill-fated love. it's the true account of lilly wust and felice schragenheim, two women living in nazi germany at the height of world war two. lilly is a soldier's wife, casting about for something to give her life meaning and felice is a jewish woman living under an assumed name and working for the underground. felice is the thing that finally wakes lilly from the somnambulance that her life has been until now and the two begin a tender and loving affair that shows them both gilmpses of a life they had never previously thought possible. it would be easy for the choice of love over survival to veer into maudlin, melodramatic territory but that fortunately never happens here. perhaps that is so because of the backdrop of the holocaust. under those circumstances, the audience would have to be blind to not constantly be aware of the potential of the tragic ending. either way, these women are very real and they put a very real light in one another's eyes. you get a true sense of the power love has, through the hope it creates in people, to whittle the impossible down to the merely improbable. of course, sometimes improbable is also insurmountable and this story ends in heart-rending fashion. on what might be the best day of their lives, the nazis capture felice and she is shuttled off to the gross-rosen concentration camp. it is believed that she died on a forced march from there to bergen-belsen. maria schrader and juliane köhler do such a fine job essaying these characters that i was immediately struck by the urge to get erica fischer's book, which contains a number of photos and letters, and get to know these women better. this is the best thing i have seen this week. it's going to be hard for the rest of the list to compete. you never know which time you kiss someone is going to be the last time. make the most of it.

we wrap up our day with bonnie hunt's throwback of a romantic comedy, return to me (2000).

my feelings about the quality of this film will probably vary depending on the day you ask me about it, but right now i lean towards sweet rather than saccharine. it's one of those unlikely scenarios that test my patience right from the beginning. david duchovny's wife dies, minnie driver is in need of a heart transplant, minnie gets david's wife's heart, minnie and david fall in love only to discover this connection they have that threatens to ruin what was otherwise perfect. that nonsense earns you strike one and two. on paper, awful. fortunately, there are plenty of things in the film that transcend this ridiculous premise. for one, this cool dog:

two, set in chicago. alright, film, i am now inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. what else you got? robert loggia and carroll o'connor? ok, we can be friends. in general, it's just refreshing to see material handled this way in a contemporary romantic comedy. no one has to be sexy, sassy or snarky. it's populated with characters that you'd actually like to get to know. yes, it's polite. yes, all the rough edges have completely been sanded down. in this day and age, though, it's almost a bigger risk to simply be nice. it's definitely a bigger risk to be genuine with your heart than to buy into ironic games that hedge your romantic bets. i also enjoy that duchovny and driver seem to be in no hurry with things, another pitfall of the current crop of edgier romantic comedies. this could just as easily have been made in the thirties or forties, so you know i'm in favor of that. i probably wouldn't watch it again and there may be some days i am rougher on it than others. in the context of today's selections, though, i am willing to see more of the good. for the dog.

i get the feeling that tomorrow i might not feel so charitable.

see you then.

attack of the cab monster: day three

day three finds us in old blighty, greeted by warm, friendly faces...

guy ritchie's films are distinguished mainly by the fact they're derivatives of derivatives, in this case, like danny boyle and quentin tarantino had a baby and had the gall to name it michael caine. his kinetic, highly stylized debut feature film, lock, stock and two smoking barrels (1998), was somewhat of a surprise success upon its release and i seem to remember vaguely enjoying certain parts of it when i saw it over a decade ago, but i'll be damned if i can remember what those were now. what it looks like when i watch it now is ritchie taking a genre i love, the UK gangster/heist film, and just being cute. i watch these four lads bumble their way through this knockabout farce and i find myself whispering a little prayer, asking for terence stamp to show up and kick them until they piss themselves. unfortunately, that never happens. vinnie jones is the only man in the film with the credentials and personality to lay a legitimate claim to the distinguished lineage of UK film criminals. it takes style, wit and a limitless capacity for violent mayhem. this is too enamored of its own cleverness to be bothered with all that. visual tricks cribbed from trainspotting (1996) and plot tricks cribbed from pulp fiction (1994) all aimed at the readership of maxim UK just don't do it for me. there were one or two beautifully edited sequences but overall i didn't feel like i was watching a heist movie. i felt like i was watching a heist cartoon. this also gets a demerit for clearing the way for a tidal wave of films trying to capitalize on its success by imitating its look and feel. derivatives of derivatives of derivatives. thanks for nothing, ritchie. take your alimony and buy some gravitas.

let's cross the channel and see if things are any better in paris.

much better, as it turns out. jean-pierre jeunet's amélie (2001) is one of my favorite fairy tales and a perfect antidote to what i find toxic about films like when harry met sally (1989). the introduction to the film is all you need to know that you are a world away from the rote, set-them-up-and-knock-them-down "humor" prevalent in those other films. we meet the cast of characters, celebrating their idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, fostering an appreciation for the infinite chain of coincidences that place us at so many of the crucial intersections of our lives. it immediately underlines how unique we can be rather than relying on the safety of sameness and it does exactly what it's supposed to to me. i immediately fall in love with this girl. i fall in love with her attention to odd details, her clunky shoes, her willingness to dispense mischievous justice, the rocks she carries in her pockets, that i see the faces of people i have loved in her face, everything. i love that instead of lazily regurgitating some lame "everywoman" that they take such great care to help you understand that there is no one else like her. in fact, that there is no one else like anyone. this movie always makes me feel a little bit better about all of our chances. everything about it seems encouraging. the color palette, with its predominant greens, makes it seem like everything is constantly growing, like every element of her universe is natural and thriving. family is also crucial. over and over again, in practically all of his films, jeunet demonstrates to us that nothing is quite as fulfilling as family, either our biological families or those that we construct out of the random assortment of people we are lucky enough to meet along the way. his work with marc caro will probably always remain my favorite, primarily because it's a bit more sinister, but even in this confection there is room for darkness. death plays a big part in the film and i think it only makes it that much more beautiful because it doesn't shy away from mortality. it lets you know there's room for everything and when you've worked out the dark and difficult that you should proclaim your joy.

we end the day with a bit of a surprise, clint eastwood's a perfect world (1993).

set in texas in 1963, it tells the story of a man who escapes from prison in huntsville and takes a young boy hostage. he's pursued by a righteous texas ranger while he and the boy form an unlikely bond. i actually enjoyed this a great deal. i am no fan of kevin costner and how he can only play kevin costner - he'll never be better than in bull durham (1988) - but he acquits himself admirably enough this time. the real standouts here are john lee hancock's screenplay and eastwood's sure-handed direction. hancock's story unfolds just like it ought to but not like you might expect it to, especially as the chase is brought to an end by a most unlikely circumstance. and i have said it before, and i will say it again, clint eastwood is our generation's john ford. yes, he may be a little sentimental at times but i will be damned if i can ever think of a better place to put the camera than where he puts it. there are one or two missteps here - the FBI agent is crudely drawn and some of the music cues are pedestrian at best - but eastwood tells a solid story in a fashion that compels you to keep watching. the relationship between costner and the boy, which only spans a few days on the road, feels authentic. halfway in, when costner is talking about going to alaska, i found myself having to stop and think about whether or not this boy might just decide that was the life he wanted from now on and they would just continue as father and son. it's not the last time you're going to see the theme of the elastic nature of mentorship show up this week, but i think this might be the best. a very pleasant surprise, indeed.

i am going to enjoy this good feeling while i can. you never know what tomorrow may bring.

actually, i do know. it brings leo in the real world: thailand!

attack of the cab monster: day two

queue de grâce begins day two with a pair of ruminations on the elusive nature of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

the first movie on our list today is barry levinson's sleepers (1996). based on lorenzo carcaterra's autobiographical source novel, it tells the story of a group of four childhood friends growing up in hell's kitchen in the late sixties. they're just regular neighborhood kids, like you've seen a dozen times, and we pick up with them shortly before the terrible accident that changes their lives irrevocably. after running out of things to do to stave off the boredom of another new york summer day, they settle on a prank scamming a hot dog vendor out of free lunch. they swipe the cart but their scheme goes awry and they end up almost killing a man. in the aftermath, they are sent to a correctional facility for boys whereupon they are subjected to a seemingly endless cycle of physical, emotional and sexual abuse by a group of sadistic guards led by kevin bacon. flash forward over a decade and two of the boys, now full grown gangsters, stumble across bacon having dinner at a pub one night. they exact their revenge by emptying their revolvers into him and are put on trial for murder. the remaining pair of friends, including one who is the assistant d.a. now prosecuting the case, put together an elaborate scheme to ensure the boys walk while simultaneously exposing the vile practices that went on at the institution that left this black mark on their souls. the linchpin in this whole plan is the parish priest, played by robert de niro, who is asked to lie to provide the boys with an unassailable alibi and help them obtain some measure of justice for the horrific crimes they suffered at the hands of the guards.

i am divided on this one. as a film, it is obviously technically competent. the hell's kitchen segments in the sixties are as evocative and nostalgic as they should be. the kids are normal, funny and flawed but not delinquents, so you pull for them. they serve as a sobering reminder that the only thing that stands between the kids in the sandlot (1993) and hell on earth is one bad decision. de niro doesn't really get the chance to work at full power but half a de niro is better than a lot of other whole actors. had i known nothing about about the source material, i would say this is a good, not great, film and leave it at that.

the problem is i am too familiar with the controversy surrounding the veracity of carcaterra's book and it causes some problems for me. it proved distracting while watching the film. i don't necessarily doubt the recollection of abuse. i am well aware of the monstrous things that have gone on in institutions like that and the things you find in the darker corners of human nature ceased to surprise me long ago. the problem comes with the second half of the film and novel. murder trial transcripts are readily available public records and yet not one investigator/reporter was able to turn up evidence that this trial ever happened (and, in 1995/6, a lot of people were looking). so i have to wonder, why do something as irresponsible and damaging to your credibility as claim an elaborate revenge fantasy as a true story when it undermines your overall aim? i don't know why you would go to the trouble to concoct this thing, put your real name on it, and then dilute the power of exposing these animals by amending the story with what you wish would have happened positing it to be a "true story about friendship that runs deeper than blood". it just doesn't add up to me and it took away from the impact of the film. de niro's priest also strikes a bit of a false note with me. not the performance, but the motivations and final actions of the character. he seemed far too much of a pragmatist to lie just to free a pair of boys who would doubtlessly kill again, and soon, no matter how much he cared for them. he seemed far too reverent to violate the sanctity of his office with this lie. he seemed far too even-handed to think that murder and abuse are equivalent crimes. i applaud carcaterra's dedication to kicking over rocks and shining a light in these places, i just question his execution.

we don't have to stray too far from this territory to get to our next film, andrew jarecki's excellent documentary, capturing the friedmans (2003).

what began as a documentary about children's entertainers in new york evolved into an entirely different project when jarecki began to notice something disturbing in the interviews with david friedman, a prominent birthday party clown. there were hints of something dark in his family history and it turns out that was a child pornography, incest and sexual abuse scandal that occurred in the eighties. david's brother jesse and father were imprisoned for it, his father dying there, but was it a clear cut case or was it a bit of a witch hunt? there is compelling evidence just about everywhere you look but none of it points to the same conclusion. the father, arnold, did possess child pornography. no one disputes that. in an autobiographical story he wrote in the late eighties, he claims to have experimented with sex with his younger brother. both his and jesse's statements were amended and recanted more than once. i did this. i didn't do this. i didn't do this but i said i did because i thought it would be better for my dad/son. in their defense, jesse raises a legitimate question about why a kid who claimed to have been the victim of 31 instances of sexual abuse during one season's computer class would sign up for a second season. just when you think you have a fix on the answer, the documentary shifts under your feet and you are faced with a new conundrum. on a gut level, the ample amount of home video footage that this family created over the years strikes me as odd. in fact, everything about them does. they are obviously dysfunctional but it's not just in the usual ways. it's a way that, had i ever had occasion to visit that house as friend of one of the sons, i would have never gone back. too much noise, too much filming, too much instability and peculiar need. you just get a vibe from some people and the friedmans have that vibe in spades. this is not to say, however, that it makes them all criminals. obviously, the father was, at least with the child pornography. the molestation charges and their extent, though, i still have reservations about. overall, it is a fascinating document about what we regard to be true and not true in the people we love and how sheer force of will can swing that pendulum, regardless of evidence. i highly recommend it.

can't say the same for this:

jesus, i hate the fifth element (1997). how in the world did luc besson convince anyone to spend 90 million dollars on this self-indulgent, cacophonous mess that hadn't advanced, philosophically, beyond when he first started writing it at age sixteen? oh, to be a fly on the wall in that pitch meeting - "it's like demolition man (1993) on ecstasy!" sounds great! when do i get to shoot myself?

thanks, gary. just make it quick.

what a mess. it steals from any number of superior science fiction films before it and strains out everything pure until all that's left are the annoying drippings. bruce willis might as well be wearing a shirt that says "i'm just cashing a check". oldman's arms-dealing, inverted hitler is only notable because of his neck-and-neck competition with ian holm to see how much talent can go to waste. cheap latex-masked catfish orcs mug to the camera when they get hit on the head. i half expected little birdies to fly around. the keystone cops are subtle next to the mangalores. the plot, such as it is, is completely unfocused. and glowsticks in the police car? now you are just trying to piss me off. i didn't freeze the frame because i was afraid if i had there would also have been whistles and pacifiers hanging from the rearview mirror. rave kids simply shouldn't make movies. it may not be the worst science fiction film i have ever seen. there are plenty of sprint-to-video titles that qualify for that. it is, though, without a doubt, the single worst 90 million dollar science fiction film i have ever seen. bad sets, bad special effects, a remedial, yet sometimes incomprehensible, plot and horrible acting. and this:

OHMYGODKORBENDALLAS!! OHMYGODKORBENDALLAS!! OHMYGODKORBENDALLAS!!
there, now you don't have to watch any scene this insufferable clown is in. you're welcome.

usually i can find at least one good thing to say about a film and in this case it is that besson shows the proper reverence for girls with freckles. that's it. and, in case you were wondering, i consulted the periodic table on this to see just what the fifth element is.

boron. exactly.

whew. that one took it out of me but i shall prevail. i have it on good authority that tomorrow france is sending an emissary to apologize for luc besson.

i accept your apology. oh, france, you know i couldn't stay mad at you.

attack of the cab monster: day one

queue de grâce begins anew today. if you're late to the party, go here for a brief introduction to our game. i'll wait...

good. now that everyone is up to speed, let's get this thing underway. right off the bat, cabby is going for the throat.

i know, meg. i can hardly believe it myself. without even a moment to catch my breath, i am saddled with rob reiner's when harry met sally (1989). apparently, this is "the last great romantic comedy". who knew? this just straight up depresses me for all kinds of reasons, the biggest one of which is what its near-universal acclaim says about us. it makes me feel sorry. for me. for you. for us. i don't know how many ways i can say it. the things they pass off as true just don't apply to me. and i don't think they apply to you, either. if they do, then we're in worse shape than i imagine. it means we have simply abdicated all of our intellectual responsibilities for the reflex ease of "it's funny because it's true, har har har har". so many bad lessons i don't even know where to start - the major impetus for getting married is not having to date anymore. all men want to leave thirty seconds after sex is over. all women want to cuddle all night. there is no compromising this and there is certainly no way each could find themselves anywhere along that spectrum of behavior at any given time other than their rightful spot at opposite ends. it's worth a bad relationship because "at least you can say you were married". all men love wagon wheel coffee tables. blah blah blah.

bullshit, all of it. it's ok to be alone, america. it's ok to be alone and an individual. it's very simple. make your list of guy things and girl things. again, i'll wait...

when you examine that list and realize that the ones attributed to your gender that you actually engage in enough to be what you would call defining characteristics are actually in the distinct minority of what defines you then we can all stop the nonsense. then, when you happen to notice that there are actually aspects of your personality that might be more at home on the opposite gender list, we can, with any luck, throw the last shovel of dirt on these "truisms". the only list you'll have left is the list of things you do, and you will just happen to be a man or a woman. then, maybe, we can actually begin to talk about these things in a way that's not quite so lazy. we'll get better movies out of the deal. i have other crazy ideas too, like getting married because you consider someone a true partner and you make each others' lives better, but we can go into that some other time. there's something else that's bugging me.

hmm...now where have i seen that before?

oh yeah, that's it.

as if the abhorrently lazy gender stereotypes weren't enough, the whole thing plays out like a third-rate mishmash of woody allen. from the extremely palatable jazz/unadorned typography of the credits to the unmistakably new york backdrops to the sitcom versions of neuroses on display, it's like junior varsity annie hall (1977) (except woody didn't feel the need to cop to the happy ending). just make sure you take out any kierkegaard references and replace them with some sharper image product placement and you're in business. don't even get me started with the karaoke butchering of "the surrey with the fringe on top".we okies take that shit very seriously.

other observations:

billy crystal as a womanizer? this whole thing hinges on an irresistible attraction to billy crystal? we are through the looking glass here, people. his character is introduced with a kiss/camera move lifted straight out of the thomas crown affair (1968) except i am pretty sure steve mcqueen didn't have to stand on a crate we he did it.

i imagine carrie fisher smells overwhelmingly like makeup and gin.

it wasn't all a total loss, though. it's never a total loss when you have bruno kirby around. and, in sally's defense, she did eventually graduate from going with paul henreid to staying with humphrey bogart in casablanca (1942). her khaki shorts/knee socks/sweater ensemble from the first scene does certain things to me and the line "don't fuck with mr. zero" never ceases to be funny. the presence of that single laugh raises it from F to F+.

oh, one last thing. but first, allow me to present my card:

those adorable couples recounting tales of decades of their lives spent chasing, wooing and loving one another? actors. all of them.

next we have michael kalesniko's how to kill your neighbor's dog (2000), a strange titular parallel with chelsea's choice of how to be a serial killer (2008) in our first go-round.

i liked it, but probably mainly because it appealed to the curmudgeon in me. kenneth branagh and robin wright penn play a couple with sharply divided opinions about just how much they need a baby in their lives. he is the misanthropic playwright, she the instructor keeping her biological clock at bay by teaching classes of young girls to dance. the spanner in the works is the new neighbor kid, amy. before long, branagh warms to the idea of having a youngster around, and he begins to help her confront some of the challenges that are a result of her mild cerebral palsy. i know, i know. sounds like a by-the-book tugger of the heartstrings, but it really isn't. you get the sense that the the message isn't the hallmark, "all children are miracles" variety but, rather, that greatness, or, more accurately, goodness, occurs in children in about the same ratio as adults and this just happens to be one child whose goodness merits our attention. it's a pleasure to see the selfishness in the desire to have children be honestly addressed for once in a film and branagh and wright penn provide a nice balance for one another, especially in the pivotal scene where branagh verbally demolishes the girl's mother for her selfishness and wright penn rightly grills him in return about how little his outburst would ultimately help. unlike in the film mentioned above, you get a nice sense that this a real couple, with a real partnership, who just happen to be at loggerheads about a difficult question. when they look at each other, they are seeing the redeeming qualities in one another that make their problem one worth solving. they aren't seeing cartoonish abstractions of a hopeless battle of the sexes. the film works best when is it some combination of them and the girl. it loses a little steam when it visits the theater where branagh's new play is in production or when he meets up with his stalker/doppelgänger on his insomniac strolls. to counter that, there is a tensely hilarious "wake up, los angeles"-type morning show interview segment and the seemingly inexhaustible well of comedy gold that is the ol' prostate exam.

exactly how i felt during when harry met sally, strangely enough.

ok, a rocky start, but we pulled out of our initial dive and have leveled off. there is darkness on the horizon but it is a challenging, rewarding darkness and when those clouds part, i believe we will find a light that never goes out.

or at least one that never shuts up. peace!

queue de grâce returns

the second installment of queue de grâce is on the horizon. ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself for the...

the bar was set so incredibly high by miss chelsea george during apocalypse chelsea that i was afraid there would be the inevitable letdown. not to worry, though. our second guest programmer is a badass in her own right.

in case you missed it the first time around, here is how queue de grâce works: for one solid week i turn over complete control of my streaming netflix queue to someone. during that week (excluding visits to actual theaters) i will only watch content curated by one of you guys and report back daily as to how i am faring and give the good citizens of vitagraph, american the lowdown on your cinematic proclivities.

in the on-deck circle this time, we have cabby lawry. say, hello to cabby, everyone.

cabby hails from columbus, ohio these days and is the guiding light behind outloud columbus, a great resource for columbus' LGBT (and friends) community, providing an informal gathering place for folks to explore all aspects of LGBT culture and history via art, discussion and activism. she and i go back a lot of years together as veterans in the kitchen wars. having been in the trenches with her, i am well aware of her ingenuity and craftiness. hence, i am very excited about what she has in store for us. the attack of the cab monster begins on 2.1.11 and runs through 2.7.11. i guarantee a good time.