Following are reviews of a handful of films that are, in this reviewer’s opinion, well worth your time. Aside from the first one, I tried to focus on older titles viewers might not be aware of – films that slipped through the cracks in their own time and have remained obscure since. These kind of hidden gems seem increasingly rare now, as the internet scours our cultural past for every last kernel worth popping. But not every good movie has the good fortune to find its champions, so without further ado, let’s get to some championing:
Motherless Brooklyn (2019) – You’ve probably heard of this one but ignored it, and I suspect that 30 years from now it’s going to be forgotten too, so consider this a pre-emptive critical strike. Edward Norton’s second directorial effort is a sweeping, old-fashioned, heavy-handed prestige film made for the big screen, with all that entails: a nearly 2 1/2-hour running time, daunting production values, literary pedigree and A-list cast. In other words, a bit of an anachronism in the straight-to-video age.The film is based on a 1999 novel by Jonathan Lethem, a detective story concerning some shady doings at New York City Hall, in which the lead private eye has Tourette syndrome. As much as I love private eye stories, I avoided this thing when it first popped up on Redbox. Something about the prospect of a celebrated actor directing his own passion project (replete with an Oscar-bait tic like Tourette’s, no less!), while surrounding himself with noted scenery chewers Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe, and Bobby Cannavale put me off. Then it turned up on Hulu and – freed from a $1.87 investment and coincidentally having 144 minutes to kill – I gave it a try and was instantly glad I did.
Every aspect of this film’s anatomy is designed for maximum entertainment value – the sets, the photography, the clothes, and especially the magnificent orchestral score. Even the Tourette’s gimmick turns out to be a smart play, adding a layer of comic relief that dependably keeps the proceedings from feeling too long or plot-heavy. The story takes place in the late 1950s, so it has that handsome period-piece vibe, and coupled with the first-rate acting, hard-boiled story, and glossy production values, it bears more than a little similarity to the new Perry Mason reboot, which has been a big critical hit for HBO. Helping matters immensely are a cracking jazz excursion performed by Wynton Marsalis and a fantastic supporting turn by Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar on The Wire – always great so see that dude turn up in a movie). The novel was set in the 1990s, but Norton apparently wanted to recast the story’s villain as a thinly veiled version of Robert Moses, the famous NY power broker who worked behind the scenes to build much of the Big Apple’s mid-20th century infrastructure. This works for a while, until it doesn’t, and it must be said that the plot is ultimately the weakest element of the film. It seems unlikely a character like Moses would go to such ridiculous lengths to cover up what turns out to be a pretty minor scandal. I think Norton could have easily cut 30 minutes from the running time too, but these are quibbles in the face of the film’s many strengths, which remind viewers why filmmakers bother to take such home-run swings in the first place.
Climax (2018) – I guess you’d call Climax a musical-mystery-horror film, and how many of those can one even name? (Sorry, Rocky Horror fans; there’s no campy comedy here). Climax was written and directed by Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noe, who’s best known for 2009’s Enter the Void. That film was a hallucinatory, experimental tale about a drug dealer who has an out-of-body experience after he’s shot by police. I didn’t dig Void as much as most people, but I found Climax – which deals in some similar themes – far more cogent and engrossing. It begins with a knockout dance sequence that plays like a live, ambitious music video in the vein of a 1950s musical number, only with techno music in place of big band swing. That sequence goes on for some time and it’s pure exhilaration. After that, there’s no more music, and we settle into the plot. Giddy with the successful completion of a particularly challenging rehearsal, a French dance troupe decides to spend the night inside their studio to celebrate. Things go awry when someone spikes the sangria they’re drinking with a powerful hallucinogen (the production notes say it’s LSD, but I don’t know any kind of LSD that can produce the jaw-dropping effects depicted in this movie). The vertiginously deteriorating group dynamic that follows is pure terror, as the youthful bonhomie of a sweaty slumber party fades into bloodcurdling dread and a grim reckoning with reality. The film is carried along by the kind of psychedelic head trips that Noe specializes in, and by the stubborn mystery of exactly who spiked the punch and – more importantly – why. I won’t go into too much detail, but if you like your horror dirty and out-of-control, and find the tepid offerings of the Blumhouse era more somnambulant than scary, this is the movie for you.
The Saddest Music in the World (2003) – Another weird trip worth taking is 2003’s The Saddest Music in the World. I was drawn to this film by its irresistible title, only to be thrown for one hairpin turn after another by a style and tone that make David Lynch seem like Cecil B. DeMille. The story takes place in Canada in the 1930s, in the depths of the Great Depression, where the legless beer baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) has offered $25,000 to the winner of an Olympics-style contest to find the nation that produces the saddest music in the world. We soon learn that Port-Huntley shares a personal history with some of the contestants, and might have ulterior motives. The ensuing plot features timeless themes of tragedy worthy of the titular music, including murder, child death, and unrequited love.There’s a sort of perverse whimsy to this film – serious content played with a light touch and constant aesthetic distractions. It’s shot in a weird, soft-focus, fisheye kind of view that’s meant to evoke the glamour of black-and-white movies in the 1930s, then refract that gloss back at the audience like a funhouse mirror. You get used to it, I suppose, and viewers sometimes have to work to find the pathos that should be right there on the surface. But I happily went along for the ride, grateful to be seeing something so original and full of feeling expressed obliquely and not through the usual Hollywood manipulations. The film occasionally stops for the musical competition, which is compelling of course, but it left me wondering what a real such contest would sound like. What is the saddest music in the world? Something classical – Chopin’s ”Funeral March”? Something tribal, rarely heard by ”civilized” ears? Some might vote for ”Taps” … or perhaps ”Nearer my God to Thee,” as played by the band on the Titanic while the ship was sinking? I can think of a few Neil Young songs that might fit the bill. It’s such a wonderfully evocative question. Music itself is so subjective, though, I think the saddest music in the world is really just whatever happens to be playing when our own personal tragedies occur.
Director and co-writer Guy Maddin was clearly aiming for cult status here, and 17 years later I think it’s fair to say that no such cult exists. Accordingly, this is a very hard film to find. Sure, you can order it on Amazon, but at last report Jeff Bezos was worth $188.5 billion, and I believe every American has a constitutional right to deny him even one penny more. Ayn Rand thinks this guy has too much money. I recommend investigating every thrift store that remains open in whatever state you live in, until you find a used DVD or VHS copy for sale. Time-consuming? Sure, but … you know, Bezos!
Mirage (1965) – Mirage is a far more conventional film — a late-era film noir from 1965, which makes its continued obscurity a little puzzling. Even the esteemed Gerhard Popwell has somehow neglected to include it among his frequent noir exhumings. The movie stars Gregory Peck and Diane Baker, with supporting roles for Walter Matthau and George Kennedy. It was directed by that redoubtable workhorse Edward Dmytryk, and offered a jazzy score by Quincy Jones. So why haven’t you heard of it? Well, my best guess is it falls into a sort of in-between land that also explains its underwhelming box office performance. It’s a noir, sure, but it’s also part psychological thriller and part anti-nuclear treatise. Perhaps audiences felt they’d had enough of the latter after Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe both came out the previous year. And its best feature – its hard-boiled black-and-white cinematography – was also going out of style by the mid-’60s.Which is not to say that Mirage is some kind of lost masterpiece. It isn’t, but it’s a cracking entertainment with a decent mystery story at its core and some lovely B&W images of New York City at height of its urban heyday. Peck plays an accountant who’s working in his office near the top of a Manhattan skyscraper one night when the power goes out, so he decides to walk to the street below via the stairs. He meets a mysterious woman in the stairwell, and soon finds that a man has fallen (jumped?) to his death from the same building. Furthermore, he finds himself suffering from amnesia and a handful of well-dressed thugs keep trying to kidnap him. Mirage is one of those movies where the audience doesn’t know any more than Peck does, and we follow his harrowing journey to get to the bottom of the mystery and save his skin at the same time. It has obvious Hitchcockian overtones, with North by Northwest being the most obvious, and also shares some elements with the Twilight Zone episode “Perchance to Dream.” Mirage‘s narrative mechanics and social commentary might not amount to much in the end, but that certainly hasn’t prevented other noirs from acquiring critical praise. I think it’s worth seeing for the gorgeous opening blackout scene alone – ideally on disc or on TCM someday, (although YouTube has a pretty nice print available.)
Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995) – The early 21st century is often called a golden age for documentaries, and that might be true, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a documentary that stayed with me as much as 1995’s Trinity and Beyond. Exploring the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program from 1946-63, the film is built around military footage of the bomb tests that was newly declassified at the time. It’s also narrated by William Shatner (more on that later).Most people are familiar with the first nuclear detonation in New Mexico and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Trinity covers that ground briefly, but the story really picks up in 1946, with World War II in the rear-view mirror and the U.S. preparing to stage a series of nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean’s Bikini Atoll, ostensibly to learn what kind of damage these new weapons would cause to naval vessels. The first bomb exploded in the air over the ocean and produced unsurprising results, but the second blast occurred underwater and was far more powerful than anyone thought, laying waste to Navy warships and contaminating surrounding sea life. Undaunted, military officials were anxiously planning a second underwater blast even as fish were floating by with two heads, before President Truman mercifully stepped in and called a halt to the madness.
Such restraint proved short-lived, however, and the Atomic Age was soon off and running. Over the next 18 years the United States conducted no fewer than 332 nuclear tests – matched or exceeded by the Soviet Union. Think about that number … hundreds and hundreds of atomic and hydrogen bombs detonated in the Earth’s atmosphere and under the seas. And while these tests took place in areas that were ”safely” cleared of human habitation, no such precautions were taken to spare non-human life. This means that for the vast majority of life on this planet, the prospect of the nuclear holocaust that’s haunted our collective psyche for the past 75 years has already happened.
Trinity lays out this history with an unbending neutral tone. There’s no pulling on the heartstrings, no proselytizing; just the facts. It’s a powerful choice, because the horror and hubris on display here need no amplifying. As exhibit A, consider the vintage clip of Admiral William Henry Purnell Blandy, who commanded the joint task force in charge of the Bikini Atoll debacle, explaining in a perfect bit of The Gentleman Doth Protest Too Much that he is not ”an atomic playboy, as one of my critics labelled me, exploding these bombs to satisfy my personal whim.” Or the bloviating Edward Teller, father of the H-bomb and a man who makes Donald Trump seem humble. As our guide through all the terror, Shatner proves a revelation. Dispensing with the staccato, dramatized voice patterns that have earned him such defining ridicule, Shatner lends a remarkable gravitas to the proceedings, matching the film’s somber but objective tone with all the vocal skills of a magnificent actor and not one iota of pomp or pretense. Captain Kirk is AWOL here.
What really makes Trinity sing, though, is the invaluable footage of the tests themselves. Here, director Peter Kuran does engage in the kind of manipulation absent in the rest of the film. He presents these detonations in a way that dares us to turn away, scoring each blast with rousing classical music composed by William T. Stromberg and performed by the Moscow Symphony. The mushroom clouds bloom with their awesome potency in rhythm to the swells and peaks of the orchestra, and the effects are simply mesmerizing – a lava lamp on steroids. I think Kuran is trying to implicate viewers here, forcing us to come to terms with the awesome beauty of this destructive power and ask ourselves, if we were given carte blanche to play with these toys and told that doing so was a moral imperative to preserve world peace, would we act any differently?
Trinity belongs to history now: The U.S. and Russia ended atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests in 1963, confining future tests to underground sites. Russia officially halted those in 1990 and the U.S. did the same in 1992, shortly before this film was released. But thousands of nukes remain in the hands of at least nine nations, and even though the Atomic Age has long since faded from memory, many of the test sites are still uninhabitable today, and will remain so for decades. Such is the awesome power of this technology… matched in its way by the power of this unique film. (And make sure to stay tuned for one helluva surprise ending: Like the rest of Trinity and Beyond, it won’t be forgotten any time soon.)
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