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The Negotiator – F. Gary Gray (1998)

I don’t watch popular Hollywood action films very often and after watching “The Negotiator” I remember why. The promising cast with Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse, J.T. Walsh, etc. was no guarantee for an enjoyable film. The story is standard: ‘negotiator’ Jackson is set up by his colleagues for missing money and the murder of his partner. Normally trying to talk hostage-takers out of their actions, Jackson takes people into hostage himself to prove his innocence. This does not go as planned, which is an opportunaty for some action-scenes. Spacey is called in to talk Jackson out of his actions, he develops a sympathy for Jackson’s situation and after an ‘surprising’ scene, all ends well. Not the most entertaining film. Not that the acting is bad, but the story and the way things are worked out are too 15-in-a-dozen.

Natural Born Killers * Oliver Stone (1994)

For a few euros I bought the “director’s cut” DVD with “over an hour of extra footage” and I know what extras. It must have been a long time since I saw this film. I really wonder why it became so popular. It is extremely strange and most of all, extremely violent. Strange in the sense of comics mixed in the film, strange images on the background, unusual colours, rediculous scenes and a vague sense of humour.

As you will know “Natural Born Killers” tells the story of the two lovers Micky (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) who drive across the USA killing people and making love. Heavily drug-influenced and completely insane. The media turns them into heroes and there is major interest in the trial and interviews. In the end of the film the two escape.

Anyway, a great film and if you see the cheap DVD somewhere, don’t hesitate!

National Treasure * Jon Turteltaub * 2004

Here we have a mix between “Indiana Jones” and Dan Brown (“Da Vinci Code”, etc.). A not too exciting Hollywood mystery, action, thriller that I only wanted to see because I was curious how much ‘hidden history’ was put in this film. Well, the film opens with an awfull story about a treasure of the Knight Templars and the Freemasons. Then you get some valid information about the Masonic roots of the American society, but the rest of the film is filled up with unlikely or even impossible clues leading to the biggest treasure of the world. A few things are historical facts, the large part is invented for the film. What I find strange is that the makers of this film totally neglected the Masonic elements in the map and architecture of Washington city. Oh well, people who like Dan Brown’s books and don’t take the information such books and films like this too serious, may enjoy “National Treasure”. I just feel sorry for Nicholas Cage who deserves better films.

Naked Lunch * David Cronenberg (1991)

About a year ago I was visiting friends in Canada. In the nights we watched a few Kenneth Anger films and this one (among others). Me and my girlfriend were still suffering from a serious jetlag even though we had been in America for a week, so consequentally we fell asleep during every film even if we found it enjoyable. “Naked Lunch” we watched in two parts, one at night and one in the morning. Now a year later we got a our own copy in order to watch it without jetlag.
I am not too fond of David Cronenberg, but I really need to get his other masterpiece “Videodrome” on DVD some time too. Like that film, “Naked Lunch” has the weirdest atmosphere. Peter Wellers marvelously plays Bill Lee, a bug exterminator who gets addicted to the usuage of the powder as drugs. Then Lee pops in and out of a strange world with the weirdest hallucinations. With his poker-face and too low voice, Wellers tells what he experiences when running into taling typewriters and intergalactic secret agents. The film shows the imaginary world of Bill Lee, sometimes mingled with ‘the real world’. Strange creatures, superb dialogues and the oddest atmosphere makes this film a must-see for anyone who likes strange films with curious atmospheres. -14/11/05-

Naboer * Pål Sletaune * 2005

next door

“Naboer” (“neighbour”, but the English title is “Next Door”) is a strange Norwegian horror in which a young man gets manic over the leaving of his girlfriend. Or did she leave because of his mania? Naboer is a claustrophic and slightly Videodrome-like sex-and-violence film with here and there a Japanese atmosphere. The result is not groundbreaking, but alright with some good scenes and a nice atmosphere. -20/12/06-

My Little Eye * Marc Evans * 2002

I had never heard of this film, but decided to rent it after getting curious by the back of the box. The film is not too original or surprising in story, but worked out well. “My Little Eye” shows the last week of three young men and two young women who have lived in a remote mansion for six months. It is some kind of internet Big Brother kind of experiment with cameras all through the house. When they manage to stay six months, each gets a million dollars, but when one person quits, everybody looses. “The organisation” starts to make things difficult by no longer sending food, refering to the participants pasts and bluntly scaring them out. This is done with a very good Blair Witch like atmosphere in which the suggestion makes the tension. Around the end the story starts to twist and turn towards a not too surprising end.

A not too great film, but especially the atmosphere makes this film a suggestion to anyone who likes gloomy thriller/horrors.

Mulholland Dr. * David Lynch * 2001

Is has been a long wait since Lynch’s last ‘Lynch film’ “Lost Highway” (1997) which is one of my all-time favourites. Two years ago there was Lynch’s one ‘normal’ film called “The Straigth Story” and then it was as usual quiet for a few years around mister Lynch on the film field. He probably worked on other projects on the field of sculpting, painting, music or something else.

“Mulholland Dr.” had it’s official Dutch premiere at the filmfestival of Rotterdam two weeks ago, and it has played in two cinemas before the ‘public premiere’ the day before yesterday. Also the German version has been playing in Germany for about a month now, which is pretty strange. Rather sad is that this film was supposed to be another TV series, but the producers thought that it was better to cut it to a film, which eventually came to last 2,5 hours. The open end can suggest that Lynch wants to keep the possibility for a series open…

Anyway, in more than one aspect, “Mulholland Dr.” is like “Lost Highway”, especially in the beginning. The way of acting, two of the same kinds of policemen. Furtheron there is another ‘mystery man’, changing characters/ personalities and the not knowing whether what you see is ‘real’, dreams, visions, flashbacks or whatever.
Where “Lost Highway” had mainly two different stories that can be either told after eachother or synchronous, “Mulholland Dr.” has more different stories that are either or not told throughout the whole film, either or not have something to do with eachother or again, either or not to have happened after eachother or at the same time.

The film starts with a scene in which Camilla Rhodes/Rita (Laura Harring) sits in the back of a limo (that seems to have a special significance in the film) and when the driver stops to have her shot, the limo is ran into by a racing car full of teenagers. Camilla staggers out of the limo and towards the lights of the city, where she eventually ends up in the empty appartment that will be inhabited by the beautiful, but dumb Betty Elms (Naomi Watts).
In the beginning there isn’t anything really ‘wrong’. Stories about two guys telling eachother about the accident, one killing the other in a brilliant and violent scene. The two women meeting in the appartment, becoming friends and trying to find out who Rita really is and eventually falling in love with eachother. Then there is a story about the young and hot director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) who sees his latest project falling into the hands of a rich Italian and loosing his sayso about the main character in his own movie. Angry as he gets he drives home where he finds his wife in bed with the pool-cleaner (another great scene) and flees to a cheap motel downtown. A guy with a disturbing nightmare. Etcetera.
After this things get more confusing. Rita is also a body that the two women find, but this body is also Betty who seems to have gone mad when Rita dumped her in favour of the film-director. The transition to this part of the film comes in typical and extremely dark and impressive Lynch scenes with disturbing events, vague camera-work, dark sounds and strange images.

These lines can only tell a glimpse of what is really there. I have seen “Mulholland Dr.” once now and I think that just as with “Lost Highway” it will take a view or four before some things will be clear and links seen. Also just as “Lost Highway” there is no easy ‘solution’ for the impossibilities in the stories and again the film is not made to be understood or correct.
I wonder -therefor- why “Lost Highway” was slain by the press and called “an ununderstandable monstrosity” while “Mulholland Dr.” gets only raving reviews.

My one opinion for the time being? A bit too much like what Lynch already did. There is a bit too much “Lost Highway” and even Twin Peaks with Michael J. Andersson as a strange character in a room with curtains against the walls (he was the dwarve in Twin Peaks’ Red Room). Still, “Mulholland Dr.” is visually impressive and with a magnificent dark atmosphere like only David Lynch can make it. Just go and see it a couple of times.

– – – – – – –

So yesterday I went back to the cinema to see it again. Amazing, “Mulholland Drive” has been shown for a month and still it is sold out almost every single time!

Did I see anything new watching it for the second time? Only small things it seems. Some people come back on a few moments in the film which made me feel like the story of Rita ending up in Betty’s appartment is part of the ‘real story’, also that Betty falls in love with Rita/Camilla, and Rita with Adam the director. Betty can’t cope with that and goes crazy. A large part of the film seems to be Betty’s visions/nightmare in which characters play that she saw in her ‘real life’ at one point or another. The scene in which Rita and Adam say there are getting married would then be a ‘real scene’, the one in which the two women find the body a ‘dreamt scene’. But of course things are not so easy with Lynch.

Rita/Camilla appears to be an actress who would play the main character in Adam Kesher’s latest film. Somehow some rich Italian brothers take over the finances and therefor sayso about the film and they try to kill Rita (opening scene) and replace here by Betty who at one point also seems to be Camilla Rhodes (the scene in which Betty accidentally ends up on the set of Kesher). I don’t know the relation between the Castigliane brothers and Kesher and/or Betty, but there are on Kesher’s party while first they had the biggest fight. The limo still seems to be of special significance, but I don’t know what. It is the limo in which Rita/Camilla has her accident, but also the limo of the Castigliane brothers (this could be, since they probably wanted Rita dead) and the limo that picks up the hysterically laughing old people.

Betty ‘becomes’ Diane Selwyn in the end, who is the dead body and apparently a friend of Rita/Camilla and it is also Diane who goes nuts after being put aside by Rita, so is the Betty story a dream or the Diane story?

Also it is strange that the Cowboy says to Adam that if he does right (by choosing Camilla Rhodes as lead actress which is Betty on the photo) he would see him only once, and if he does wrong, he would see him twice. The Cowboy appears in the film twice more, but Adam did choose Camilla. One time the Cowboy turns up in Betty’s appartment (who just turned into Diane) and there is no Adam present. Hmmm.

Stylistically then. I remember being highly impressed by certain scenes the first time I saw the film, yesterday I was looking forward to the “theatre of illusions”-scene, but I don’t know what I was so impressed by the first time! It is only at a few moments that things get rather dark. Maybe I was watching details too much?

Still too many questions. What is the meaning of the scene of the hitman shooting a friend for a blackbook with numbers? Who is the Twin Peaks dwarf exactly? He seems to be a powerfull being having control over the filmindustry and it seems that he wanted Rita dead and Betty as main character, but what are all these other people have to do with him? He probably represents a dreamstate again, like in Twin Peaks.
The hitman is later hired by Betty to kill Rita, but the blue key telling that things have been taken care off, appears in the film earlier.
And what are that blue box and the monster?

It almost seems like Lynch wanted to keep leads open for in case it is allowed to make the series of Mulholland Drive like he wanted. I sure hope so!

Mujeres Al Borde De Un Ataque De Nervios * Pedro Almodóvar * 1988

women on the verge of a nervous breakdown

In the local library my eye fell on a box of Almodóvar films, three and including his most recent film “Volver”. Coming home it appeared to be a four-DVD box, but the DVD with “Volver” isn’t there… So in the coming days you will probably see three Almodóvar films, but not the one that I wanted to see most. Anyway, “Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown” is a magnificent film. It may be a bit of a women’s film, but I laughed my ass off. The film has an atmosphere and the humour of “Eight Femmes”, but then it is not a musical. A few women are portrayed, not in the best parts of the lives. As the film continues the stories get weirder, the style more hectic and the women are loosing their minds. Brilliantly played, great montage, good humour and a magnificent story that gets more and more crazy. Inspite of its age, surely a recommended film.

Moulin Rouge * Baz Luhrmann * 2001

Speaking of pre-premieres! I saw this movie at 5:00 in the morning and it ‘premiered’ in Europe that evening!
The long anounced and much advertised for musical with Nicole Kidman and Ewan MacGregor (best known of “Trainspotting” and “A Life Less Ordinary”). Actually a pretty amusing piece of film which is about a musical-house with weird people and a musical itself as well. Kidman is a new-born star in the “Moulin Rouge” and MacGregor a poet who is writing his first musical. The two fall in love, but because some count will only give the needed financial injection in trade of Kidman, nobody can know. Much well-known song pass the revue in musical-versions and the scenery is wonderfull, as is Kidman by the way.
This is going to be the Christmas movie for the coming years I guess. Entertainment for the entire family.

Monroe: Class of ’76 * Ashley Pearce * 2005

This is a film in two parts, or otherwise, a miniseries with two one hour episodes. Robert Carlyle is Tom Monroe. When investigation the apparent suicide of a man, he runs into strange events that happened in the past in a small village. Those events have their results still. “Class of ’76” is a nice ‘supernatural thriller’. Fortunately not like “Millenium”, “Charmed” or “Medium”, but more with a suggestive extra layer, such as in some X-Files. The atmosphere goes from just a crime film to very dense and dark horrorish scenes. The story is not too hard to figure out, so I won’t say too much about it. The first 105 minutes are really well, the finale is rather poor unfortunately. These series are available on DVD, so no reason for not reviewing them (I saw them on the Belgian public television).