Still behind on other work, and thus behind on posting, but before we hit the weekend I wanted to get some quick snapshot reviews up so that the final scorecard isn't so blatantly empty this week.
See after the jump for quick reviews of Enemy, No Blade of Grass, and Marlowe.
Enemy (2014) - I still absolutely intend to write a full review explaining my view of this film - which has taken a lot of thought and a second viewing to really put together. We're talking dreams, male angst, and the Hegelian dialectic. One commentator has suggested that the film is an exploration of living in a totalitarian state, and he nearly had me convinced, even though he acknowledges there are some gaps. I felt, however, that there were too many holes in the argument and too much important symbolism in the film that the author was unable to place within his analysis, and I struggled to bridge that gap. After thinking it over more, I have ultimately reached the conclusion that this film is about male angst in relation to women - an exploration of sexual compulsion, romantic love, and fear of commitment, all rolled into one big ball of doppelganger angst. I think. I might change my mind before I write the final review. Nonetheless, I love it when a movie spurs me on to thinking about it and stays with me, and this one did. It may be that the intellectual aspects of it aren't quite as completely drawn as one would hope, but raising questions is still worthwhile, even when the complete answers may prove elusive. It's also a pretty fun experiment in mood, even if you don't want to spend that much time thinking about it. I highly recommend this film. Screened in the theater.
No Blade of Grass (1970) - This B-movie directed by Cornel Wilde tells the story of the collapse of civilization in England as a disease spreads killing plant life around the world and leading towards mass starvation. When the government plots a holocaust to get the population down to a more manageable number to feed (right-wing conspiracy fantasy watch!), all hell breaks loose and society crumbles. Nigel Davenport and Jean Wallace play a middle-aged couple that takes their daughter on a journey across the country to try and find a fortified farm where they can hide out. They pick up a group of followers along the way and duke it out with various looters, a raping biker gang, paranoid farmers, and mutinous soldiers. You know, the concept is almost interesting enough that one would think Wilde and company can't completely fuck it up - but they pretty much do just that. Wallace - Wilde's wife - is absolutely awful, and when you stand out in this crowd of poor acting, it really says something. The dialogue is often cringe-worthy, characterizations are all over the place, and, to top it all off, the whole thing is insanely sexist. In short, the writing is bad, too. There's actually a point near the end where the band of survivors take on a lunatic biker gang in something that seems like it might have some interesting shades of Zulu, but in Wilde's hands it turns into the bikers riding around in circles for no apparent reason while the survivors pick them off. For apocalyptic movie completists only. Screened on Warner Archive Instant.
Marlowe (1969) - Four years. Actually, more like three and a half years. That's all that separated Marlowe, starring James Garner, and Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, featuring Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe. And yet Altman's film is so far advanced by comparison that it embarrasses the 1969 Marlowe into near irrelevancy. The film is obviously shot on a studio lot for the most part (although some nice shots of the Bradbury Building and Union Station) using hoary studio devices like fake plants that look fake and some pathetic rear projection when they hit the road. The film was directed by long-time TV director Paul Bogart and it feels like a TV movie - even with some long pauses and overly dramatic scene breaks that make you feel like a commercial is coming. The film tries to incorporate some "with it" themes - hey, there's kids high on pot - but the filmmakers obviously didn't quite know how to relate. This is the film of an old fogey system completely clueless in how to make a detective film that could still hit hard. It just can't quite break the Code mindset. It's the kind of film that has Rita Moreno doing a striptease at the end while she explains the mystery to Marlowe, but it's mostly shot in poorly focused long shots (is it a stunt double? did they have the wrong film stock?) and she's wearing an obvious body stocking in the closer shots. The film tries to be sexy but is afraid of sex. And even though Moreno brings the most heat of any of the female actors (by a long shot), she is almost entirely missing from the film until the end. As a noir mystery, there's never a moment of real frisson, so there's not much of a hook here. It also suffers in comparison to Garner's later work on The Rockford Files, where Garner nailed the role in better written material. A solid supporting turn from Carroll O'Connor is a highlight here. Bruce Lee also makes a small appearance that is interesting at first but that ends with an absurd scene where you can see what's coming a mile away, and you silently beg them to not go where they're going, but they do anyway. The film isn't offensively bad - it's just not nearly good enough to recommend. Screened on Warner Archive Instant.
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