unclefestering Blog

Under discussion:

Clean  (2004)

Clean (2004)

Directed by Olivier Assayas.

Starring Maggie Cheung, Béatrice Dalle, Nick Nolte, Don McKellar, Jeanne Balibar.

Clean stars Maggie Cheung as Emily, a junkie and the lover of a rock star, Lee (James Johnston)  who overdoses on heroin, who must overcome her own addiction so that she can regain the love of her son. The child is living with his father’s parents while Cheung serves a jail sentence for drug possession and abetting in her lover’s death.

Once she gets out of jail, she meets with the grandfather, Albrecht (Nick Nolte). He knows that she isn’t going to be able to care for the child and prevents her from visiting. Free and on her own she moves to Paris, where she comes to realize that her friends don’t really like her, they only tolerated her in order to care for Lee when he was alive. Vernon (Don McKeller), the formare band manager, especially makes it clear that all they old friends blame her for Lee’s death.

Jeanne Balibar plays Irene, who used to co-host a rock show with Emily. Like her other “friends” she no longer has much time or use for Emily any longer. She seems to be there mainly as a contrast for Albrecht. While he doesn’t like Emily, he actively encourages her to get her life back together so she might be able to reconcile with her son.

Nolte and Cheung are both the highlights of this movie. Both of them try to present the depths of the characters they inhabit.

Director Oliver Assayas skirts the Lifetime movie of the week syndrome with this movie. He doesn’t have any of the moralizing shots of long nights sweating and crying and screaming. However, he fails to fill that void with anything else. Assayas depends on the powerful cinematography to fill in for the missing deeper questions. The soundtrack is laden with particularly haunting Brian Eno songs.

Cheung manages to play the Yoko One **** Courtney Love Emily stoically. But sometimes I just wanted to see her burst out with some deeper reserve of vitality from the character. Sometime it seems like she just hangs in there because the plot demands it. Nolte is strangely affecting as the substance-free grandfather who is encouraging Emily down the road to sobriety. But despite this, the movie feels somewhat ham-fisted in its attempts to show that everybody deserves a second chance.

Under discussion:

Conan the Barbarian  (1982)

Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God  (2006)

OK. Let's face facts, I'm not expecting this to be the Godfather of sword and sorcery movies, but I was hoping to be at lest mildly entertained by Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God. That was too much to ask, apparently.

 It was less entertaining than watching a bunch of people playing the game at a card table on a Wednesday night. As a matter of fact, I almost had the feeling that the actors were spending their time between shots reading the role playing manuals. Beside the stiff acting, the leaden dialogue, the cardboard swords, this movie also features mediocre special effects and bad accents.

Rent Conan instead.

Under discussion:

Tom Jones  (1963)

Tom Jones is a brilliant, lusty fun romp of a movie that maintains much of the novels savage sense of satire. Albert Finny is perfect as the title character, a foundling raised by one of the few examples of a noble aristocrat, who is more interested in sport than learning and suffers many a misadventure along the way. Susannah York is perfect as nice and proper Sophie Western, the ultimate object of Tom’s love.

Tom is raised by the kindly and upright Squire Allworthy. Also in the household is the Squire’s nephew, Mr. Blifil, played by the always sour David Warner. Although Blifil pretends to be pious and worthy, hew is actually greedy and jealous. Tom is the favorite neighbor of Sophie’s father, Squire Western, a squalid, drunken fool who enjoys spending time with his hounds and the milkmaids. When Sophie declares her love for Tom, instead of the more socially acceptable Blifil, she causes trouble for both. At the same time, Blifil manages to embroil Tom in the troubles of a local tavern girl.

Tom gets sent away from the Allworthy household to make his way in the world. Tom finds himself embroiled in one trouble after another on his way to London. He is as quick to defend the honor of the women he meets as he is to go to bed with them. The most famous of which is the lusty eating scene with Mrs. Walters, Joyce Redman. They tear into chicken and lobster sucking meat from bone and shell in a lascivious frenzy and then rush upstairs. Eventually he ends up in London with the man who was accused of being his father, but isn’t. He finds out that Sophie has also run away to London and spends the rest of the movie trying to reunite with her, no matter how many bedrooms he has to crawl through on the way.

The best scenes are the ones that are dialogue free, such as the funny and lewd dinner scene. Tony Richardson has a way of ratcheting up the speed of a scene gradually until the actors are moving like Keystone Kops. But he always makes time for Albert Finney to give the audience a lusty wink to let the viewers know that he is always in on the joke.