Un prophète: Jacques Audiard’s Thrilling ‘Ride’

Jacques Audiard’s Un prophète (A Prophet) is one of the most strikingly original French movies of recent release and in a country that regularly puts out superb films, that’s saying a lot. It’s also unusual in that its antecedents aren’t the typical art house fare that most current French filmmakers pay homage to and excel at. Un prophète (A Prophet) draws instead from the commercial prison dramas that have long been the staple of Hollywood and independent American cinema.

The film begins with a young fresh faced North African Muslim man, Malik el Djebena (Tahar Rahim, making his film debut), entering the rough French prison system. He’s been convicted of fomenting violence against the police – a charge which may or may not be true – sentenced to six year of jail and thrown into an environment that will see him used a pawn in a long running internecine and low level war between Arab and Corsican prison inmates. Both those groups have their grievances against the larger French society, within and without the prison walls. The Corsicans, whose country is technically occupied by France but given semi – autonomous status as one of the country’s 26 regions, are agitating for full independence, with the inmates from Corsica demanding to be treated as political prisoners. The Muslim prisoners and the community at large face the brunt of French discrimination and their own inability or refusal to fit into France’s secular culture and society. Malik, who is illiterate, begins in the film as an ‘innocent’ who likely will face a difficult time in the stir, but as the movie ends is revealed as a master manipulator and fixer. How he gets that way is the gist of this complex, ragged and intricate drama, which recently won the César award for Best French film at home and is up for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars on Sunday.

Tripping Down The Rabbit Hole: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Don't be afraid by the Disney logo preluding Tim Burton's latest film -- be worried knowing that the logo will try to leap off the screen in 3D. Burton isn't a stranger to Disney, nor is he a stranger to family friendly entertainment. After all, he had his start with Disney as an animator on films such as The Fox and the Hound (1982) and has found popularity with contemporary fables like Edward Scissorhands (1990), Big Fish (2003) and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005). On the other hand, grandiose 3D epics are new territory for him. So it comes as a bit of a shock that he would use the technology to neglect the hand-crafted set pieces which have become a more appealing staple of his usual style. Burton may want us to follow Alice through the rabbit hole, but instead of going on a marvelous exploration into the surreal, we find ourselves tripping along a path paved with only green screens. The problem Burton has isn't with Alice, it's in Wonderland.

Book: Stephen King's Under the Dome

There's an old joke about Stephen King: He sits at his typewriter, pounding out reams of pages for his latest book. He freezes for THREE SECONDS and then starts typing like mad again. "I hate writer's block," King mutters. Okay, I didn't say it was funny. Forgetting this joke about his prolific ways for a second (he's written/co-written over 65 novels, short-story collections or works of non-fiction since 1974 - I've read over 30 of them), I think that Stephen King is the Charles Dickens of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.

Both were/are successful populists, both wrote/write about societal ills (Dickens' set in a version of the real world of England; King's generally from within the horror or science fiction genres), both were/are always concerned with writing a good story that would appeal to the largest number of readers. Most of Dickens 20+ books have never been out of print and to date neither has King's. I predict in a century they will still both be widely read and studied. Why? If you want to understand the era these books were written in, I submit you will come away with a better understanding reading Dickens or King than trying to wade through most literary fiction or history books published at the same time.

New Maps for a New Land: Frank R. Rossiter's Charles Ives & His America (1975)

“The quest for identity runs through American music like a leitmotif,” writes music critic Veronica Slater. “Long before musical nationalism became an issue in Europe, native-born composers in the New World were trying to speak with a voice recognizably theirs and theirs alone.” Americans, according to Slater, rebelled against the rules in both politics and music for good reason. They were after an indigenous art rooted in their own experience of the new land, not what they inherited from the Old World. The map of that rebellion and quest is aptly provided in Frank Rossiter’s rare and illuminating study of American composer Charles Ives in his book Charles Ives & His America (1975).

Germs R Us: The Crazies (1973) (Part Two)

A scene from George Romero's The Crazies (1973).

Even someone who’s not exactly keen on the genre is likely to admire George Romero’s brand of horror. Along with the inevitable bloodletting, his work boasts an incisive social conscience. In 1973’s The Crazies, he made ordinary folks homicidal -- or, in some instances, just exceedingly goofy -- when their town water supply is contaminated by mistake with an experimental bio-warfare toxin. Nicknamed Trixie, it comes courtesy of the Army, which establishes a quarantine but never thinks to tell panicky locals to stop drinking from the tap.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: The Crazies (2010) (Part One)

*SPOILER ALERT* IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE CRAZIES, THIS ARTICLE GIVES AWAY THE ENDING.

One thing you can say about The Crazies (2010), it isn't trying to hide the fact that we've already seen our world at the brink of its own destruction many times over. It's also not particularly concerned with presenting a cautionary tale on how to avoid such a catastrophe. While there is definitely a running commentary rampant throughout the narrative, it's the same message we've been getting from many zombie films over the past decade. Films such as Danny Boyle's 28 Days (2002) and the grisly follow-up 28 Weeks Later (2007) both gave us a glimpse at military and government incidents which damn near brought the entire world to its knees. The politics at play have been dealt with more aptly in some of George A. Romero's earlier works from the late 60s and 70s (one of which this is a remake of) and in some of the apocalyptic thrillers churned out during the Bush administration. But once the tired (but timely) message is loose, the politics of the human spirit prove to be far more engrossing and this is where The Crazies finds its legs.

Five Reasons I Like Oscar: An Unfashionable View

Of all the many awards shows currently airing on TV, I only regularly watch one, the Oscars, which are trumpeting their 82nd edition on Sunday March 7. I don’t for a second consider The Academy Awards to be a benchmark for excellence, and all those film critics who regularly cite Oscar worthy performances ought not to be reviewing films. However, after suffering through the recent Grammy awards, which are supposed to honour excellence in music but are as mainstream as can be, I appreciate the virtues of the Oscars more than ever. Here are five reasons why.

Song: Family Snapshot

My colleague Kevin Courrier's analysis of Harry Chapin's "Sniper" put me in mind of Peter Gabriel's assassin song, "Family Snapshot", from his Peter Gabriel 3 LP; also known as the 'Melting Face' album. Where Chapin's song was an examination of sniper Charles Whitman, Gabriel's song, Family Snapshot is loosely based upon Arthur Bremer, who attempted to assassinate presidential candidate, George Wallace in May 1972. Gabriel was inspired to write the song after he read the published version of Bremer's diary, An Assassin's Diary (1973). Starting with a low-key piano and synth line, Gabriel sings:

The streets are lined with camera crews/
Everywhere he goes is news/
Today is different/
Today is not the same

Canada - Made in China

This is a slightly odd piece for Critics At Large, but I think it has relevance because what we are dealing with is the Vancouver Olympics and the promotion of Canadian patriotism through clothing. Except the things they want us to buy to make us feel good about ourselves and our country were not made here.

This issue began awhile ago with wine. Vincor, a major wine company that owns wineries such as Inniskillin and Jackson-Triggs, became one of the corporate sponsors of the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. They released their first commemorative Olympic wine about 18 months ago, and the shit immediately hit the fan.Instead of releasing a wine that was made with British Columbia grapes, they instead slapped the label on one of their "Cellared in Canada" wines. Cellared in Canada is a series of wines made by several Canadian wineries that allows them to import wines in bulk from countries such as Chile. The percentage can be anything from 70% in Ontario to 100% in BC. The only requirement is that the wines are indeed 'cellared in Canada', but contain little or no local wine. Long story short. When these commemorative wines were released, the wine press and regular media went into a frenzy, attacking Vincor for not releasing a VQA BC wine (VQA is Canada's appellation system that guarantees the wines come from the region stated) as their 'Olympic' wine instead.

Possession: Harry Chapin's Sniper

My good friend Adam Nayman and I were once discussing people who you always expect to miss the point. But we agreed that sometimes - maybe just once in their life - they got it right. That lead me to think about the late singer/songwriter Harry Chapin. Chapin was a composer of short-story songs and they often centered on society’s “little people.” Whether it was the poor sap wistfully remembering a lost love affair in “Taxi,” or the DJ who’s time has faded in “WOLD,” or (worst of all) the dad who doesn’t take time to pay attention to his growing son in “Cats in the Cradle,” Chapin was pop music’s Paddy Chayefsky. All everyone needed was love and attention and the world would be fine.

Right.

Drew Barrymore's Revelatory Performance: Grey Gardens

Maybe Drew Barrymore has her grandfather's (John Barrymore) acting chops after all. Over the years, I've avoided watching most of what she's appeared in because it was either lame rom-coms or outright trash such as the god-awful Charlie's Angels movies. So, when I first heard she would star as Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beal in a fictionalized version of the Grey Gardens documentary by David and Al Maysles, I cringed.

Grey Gardens (1976), the doc, tells the story of 'Little Edie' and her mother 'Big Edie', relatives of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis who lived as recluses in a decaying, filth-filled mansion in the Hamptons. Some called the documentary voyeuristic, while others were drawn to these two eccentrics as they lived for and off each other. Leonard Malton, in his yearly Movie And Video Guide (1993 edition) liked the film, but gently condemned it as shallow because he said we learned nothing about their lives prior to their retreat into hermitage. Grey Gardens (2009) the HBO-produced docudrama addresses these shortcomings.

Bad Moon Rising: Universal Studios' The Wolf Man - Then and Now

The one thing that director Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III) has actually improved upon from George Waggner's 1941 original The Wolf Man is that we're made well aware that the wolf man's transformation from man to blood thirsty beast is a gruesome and horribly painful ordeal (though let's be honest, 1981's An American Werewolf in London showed us first). The shame is that we no longer care about Talbot's struggle against the animal within.

Much has changed since the 1940s when the wolf man first prowled the moors of England, and this goes far beyond the aesthetics of his transformation. In 1941, Jon Chaney Jr.'s monster stemmed from the repression of his perversions. While his transformation from man to wolf involves but a few fades revealing the growth of hair on his legs, the turmoil ran far deeper than the pain he might have experienced in transit. This man's pain comes from the mayhem he knows he is capable of, and the harm he fears he'll bring upon those he loves. By contrast, Benicio Del Toro's wolf man appears to enjoy every act of carnality, or at least hopes we get a kick out of the spectacle he creates.

Memories of Miriam

Back when I was about nine, my family lived in the small suburb of West Rouge, Ontario (which used to be part of Pickering). Our house was located right down at the bottom of Island Road which overlooked the sprawling Rouge Valley. Our backyard was quite long and it connected to the backyard of the Fisher household on Rouge Hills Drive. One day, while I was playing out there, I saw this young black girl in the adjacent property. Since there weren't any black people that I recall living in West Rouge in 1963, I knew she was from somewhere else. When I went over to talk to her, she spoke only a little English and in an accent that I didn't recognize. But one thing I did understand perfectly was when she told me that her mother was a singer named Miriam Makeba.

My parents owned one of Miriam Makeba's albums having recently gone to see Harry Belafonte perform at the (then) O'Keefe Centre in downtown Toronto. (Makeba was one of the guest singers in his concert troupe.) She had one tune on her record that was referred to as the "click song." Coming from South Africa, Makeba sang in her native tongue which contained a sound that resembled a clicking in the back of the throat. I remember one time even putting my ear against my parents' stereo speaker so I could try and figure out what it was and how she did it. Now I saw myself having a chance to solve this dilemma and see her do it in person. So the girl invited me in to meet her mother. But I wanted to tell my folks first. So I went home and immediately informed them that Miriam Makeba was visiting just around the corner. Even though I wasn't prone to lying, my parents didn't believe a word I was saying. But I wouldn't back down. I insisted they phone the Fisher home and find out. When they did, we were told that she was indeed staying there during Belafonte's concert run and they invited us over.

Robert Richardson's Shutter

Salvador Dali isn’t available these days to craft a surreal dream sequence, as he did for Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound in 1945. But director Martin Scorsese had talented contemporary artists -- among them, cinematographer Robert Richardson -- to help him fashion the freakish cerebral terrain of Shutter Island. Each of those psychological thrillers is set in a mental hospital where the lead character arrives confused and eerie conspiracies abound. But it’s the stunning Vertigo, which opened in 1958, that seems aesthetically similar to the current film by Scorsese -- who has suggested that all of his work taps into much the same “sense of obsession” evident in Hitchcock’s oeuvre.

Produced and Abandoned: Ripley's Game

Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game (2002) is both a 'produced and abandoned' and an 'off the shelf' candidate. I've now watched it three times over the last five years, and this picture gets better with each viewing. Each visit to Ripley's world pulls back layer after layer after layer of what it means to be human. It is almost criminal that this picture was never released in North America, because Ripley's Game is everything Anthony Minghella's much-praised, but inferior, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) was not: disturbing, compelling, funny (in a rather sick way) and wonderfully acted. It also holds a mirror up to the rest of us and dares the viewer: Take a look. This, too, is humanity.

Scorsese's Labyrinth: Shutter Island

 

Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is less an adaptation of author Dennis Lehane’s mystery thriller than it is a virtual funhouse of the director’s favourite film noir tropes – only there’s no fun in it. As he did in his ridiculous re-make of Cape Fear (1991), Scorsese gets so absorbed invoking the work of various film stylists - including Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With a Zombie (1943), Vincente Minnelli’s The Cobweb (1955), Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor (1963) - that he can’t find a style of his own to take us inside the drama. Working from a dense but convoluted script (by Laeta Kalogridis), Shutter Island is a cluttered labyrinth that begins as an ingenious detective story but slowly shifts into a psychological character study. However, Scorsese gets so jazzed on creating a surreal atmosphere, aided by the atonal sounds of Ligeti, Penderecki and John Adams, that he clouds the clarity of the story. If it wasn’t for the good work by many of the performers, desperately breathing life into their stock roles, the picture would sink under the weight of the director’s B-movie fetishes.

Salty Dogs: Ewan MacColl & A.L. Lloyd's Handsome Cabin Boy

I’ve always loved sea shanties (much to the amusement of my friend David Churchill). Maybe this odd affection dates back to my childhood because the first record I ever owned was “Blow the Man Down.” But I’ve always been taken by their mournful melodies, the unusual tales they told (sometimes ghostly, often times weird) and the singers sounding like long, lost adventurers dead drunk on the sea.

Sea shanties would appear in odd places, too, like The Byrds doing “Jack Tarr the Sailor” on The Ballad of Easy Rider (1969), or Harry Nilsson performing the mock shanty “Black Sails” on Pussy Cats (1974). But my favourite sea shanty album is Blow Boys Blow (1960) by Ewan MacColl & A.L. Lloyd. This collection of classic tunes has a number of uproarious salty stories ("Do Me Anna"), sea adventures ("Banks of Newfoundland") and character portraits ("Old Billy Riley"). The most memorable song, though, is "Handsome Cabin Boy." The story in this tune falls into the category of strangely funny. A young girl finds her way onto a ship by disguising herself as a boy. The disguise works fine until, one day, she becomes pregnant. So...who impregnated the Handsome Cabin Boy? MacColl and Lloyd explore the dilemma with self-conscious bemusement and a crooked smile.

Deviation From the Norm: Irwin Chusid's Songs in the Key of Z (2000)

"You can't have progress without deviation from the norm," composer Frank Zappa once wrote. Glancing back on the history of popular music, it shouldn't come as any surprise that it contains a long list of deviators. Out of their time, and breaking and remaking all the rules, these innovators dauntlessly set out to change history. While gleefully altering our perceptions of the world, these artists deviate most from the norms we take for granted. American outsiders are the most compelling to watch since they tend to transform themselves along with their work.

In 1925, Louis Armstrong, already a major jazz performer, decided to turn the music on its ear with a series of masterful recordings with the Hot Five and Seven. By reconstructing jazz into a soloist's art form, Armstrong was conveying a secret to all Americans: It's more exciting to stand out from the crowd than it is to join it. A few decades later, a young saxophone player from Kansas City named Charlie Parker decided to answer Armstrong's invitation by breaking the rules of standard harmony. While riffing at lightning speed, Parker ingeniously played within the chords themselves. Soon after, a young truck driver named Elvis Presley walked into Sun Studios in Memphis and made the cocky claim that he sounded like nobody else. Within a few years, he effortlessly altered the face of American music.

Catch Us If You Can: An Appraisal of Having a Wild Weekend (1965)

Although The Beatles got all the credit for spearheading the British Invasion into America in 1964, the first rock band to literally tour the United States was The Dave Clark Five. Driven by a heavy sound that Time Magazine compared to an air hammer, The Dave Clark Five sold in excess of 50 million records and appeared a record 12 times on The Ed Sullivan Show. So, given these accomplishments, why didn't they reign supreme? First of all, musically the band was nowhere near as talented as the Fab Four. Their songs ("Glad All Over," "Bits and Pieces") were driven by a pounding Big Beat, but their timbre ultimately grew deeply monotonous. They were also a colourless group, indistinct in comparison to the madcap Beatles. "Sure they were crude and of course they weren't even a bit hip, but in their churning crassness there was a shout of joy and a sense of fun," wrote critic Lester Bangs in appreciation. Given that their greatest appeal was in that spirit of simple fun, it was a huge shock to discover that in their first movie, Having a Wild Weekend (1965), they would end up providing such depth. To borrow film critic Andrew Sarris's comparison: Having a Wild Weekend is to A Hard Day's Night (1964) what Sarris says Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) is to The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), an uneven, but emotionally richer experience than the former.

Lovably Loony: Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce

I said in a previous column that I would occasionally pull down a DVD from my personal collection, re-view it and see if it still deserves a place on my shelf. Today it’s Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985). The film is crackpot, insane, daffy, goofy, ridiculous and, what can I say, an absolute tub of fun. Bear with me as I try to describe the plot. It's breathtaking in its insanity.

The film begins as the space shuttle, Churchill (and no, I don't love the film because they named the space shuttle after me), is on a mission to Halley's Comet on one of its rare visits through our solar system. Within the comet's corona, they find a gigantic spaceship. Colonel Carlsen (Steve Railsback) and his team discover inside the ship two sets of apparently dead life forms: thousands of giant desiccated bat-like creatures and three seemingly perfectly preserved humanoids (one female and two males). They radio to Earth that they have collected the humanoids and will return with them. Then, radio silence. The Churchill returns to Earth, but nobody answers the hail. Another shuttle is sent up to investigate. They find the crew dead, Carlsen missing, but the three humanoids still aboard, untouched.