4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we pay tribute to the cinematic year of 2018. It’s time for
4 Shots From 4 2018 Films
Mandy (2018, dir by Pan Cosmatos)
First Reformed (2018, dir by Paul Schrader)
A Quiet Place (2018, dir by John Krasinski)
Mom and Dad (2018, dir by Brian Taylor)
Taxi Driver is 50 years old but it’s still one of cinema’s most definitive portraits of urban paranoia and societal detachment. Travis (played by Robert De Niro) obsesses on the city that he harshly judges even though he’s as much a part of New York as those who he wishes will be washed away.
This scene features Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Schrader at their definite best. I imagine that, for a lot of people, this is one of those scenes that solidified their opinions on New York City. For the record, the last time I was in New York, everyone was fairly pleasant. They weren’t exactly friendly but I also didn’t get my bag stolen. (Those of us who don’t live in New York tend to assume that we’ll get mugged as soon as we leave JFK.)
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today is the birthday of the one and only Paul Schrader! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Paul Schrader Films
Blue Collar (1978, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: Bobby Byrne)
American Gigolo (1980, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: John Bailey)
Cat People (1982, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: John Bailey)
First Reformed (2018, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: Alexander Dynan)
In 1979’s Old Boyfriends, Talia Shire plays Dianne Cruise.
A sociology professor (or so she claims at one point), Dianne is struggling with an unhappy marriage and trying to recover from a recent breakdown. After deliberately crashing her car, she leaves her husband and goes on a trip across the country. She sets out to track down three ex-boyfriends.
Jeff Turrin (Richard Jordan) was her college boyfriend, the one who asked her to marry him three times. Jeff is now working as a director. When we first see him, he’s shooting a commercial for a political campaign in which Sam the Fisherman (Gerrit Graham) complains that the current governor of Colorado is a “long-hair” who gets in the way of small businessmen like himself. Dianne shows up on the set. Sam hits on her. Interestingly, it takes Jeff a while before he recognizes her. (Jeff comments that Dianne used to have longer hair but still, it seems like Jeff should be able to recognize someone to whom he proposed marriage three times.)
After having an affair with Jeff, who is in the process of getting a divorce, Dianne tracks down Eric Katz (John Belushi), the aspiring musician who humiliated her in middle school by telling everyone that she was “easy.” Eric owns a formal wear store and he still performs with his band. (Belushi sings the Hell out of Jailhouse Rock at one point.) He mostly performs at proms. As he explains it to Dianne, most of his customers are teenagers looking for prom outfits so it only makes sense that he should perform for them as well as dress them.
Dianne’s third old boyfriend is Louis Van Til but, when Dianne arrives at his home, she is told that Louis died in Vietnam. Under the watchful eye of his mother (Bethel Leslie) and his psychiatrist (John Houseman), she starts an obviously doomed relationship with Louis’s sensitive younger brother, Wayne (Keith Carradine).
While Dianne travels around the country, Jeff continues to look for her. He even hires a private detective named Art Kopple (Buck Henry).
Old Boyfriends is a film that I had been meaning to watch for a while. (I first read about it in a biography of John Belushi.) A lot of talent went into making the film. The script is by Paul and Leonard Schrader. Director Joan Tewkesbury wrote the script for Robert Altman’s Nashville and indeed, there is an Altmanesque feel to the loose way that the film’s story unfolds. The cast is full of talented people. This was John Belushi’s first film after Animal House and Talia Shire’s first after Rocky. With all that talent, you would think that the end result would be more interesting than it actually is. The story is intriguing. The cast is impressive. But Old Boyfriends falls flat.
Why doesn’t the film work? A lot of it is due to Tewkesbury’s direction. She struggles with the film’s frequent shifts in tone and she always seems to be keeping a certain distance from the characters. Talia Shire is in nearly every scene but the film seems to be determined to just observe her as opposed to actually allowing the viewer to get into her head. Shire herself never seem to be particularly comfortable with the role and, as a result, none of her visits with her old boyfriends carry much of an emotional impact. (Unfortunately, they don’t carry much of an intellectual impact either.) Jordan, Belushi, and Carradine all give good performances but the film itself doesn’t seem to be sure what it wants to say about any of them.
It’s a disappointing film. It’s not awful but, while watching it, it’s hard not to think about how much better it could have been. One gets the feeling that Robert Altman, with his eye for quirky detail and his skill with improvisation, could have gotten something worthwhile out of the material. As it is, Old Boyfriends is an intriguing idea that doesn’t quite work.
Taxi Driver is nearly 50 years old but it’s still one of cinema’s most definitive portraits of urban paranoia and societal detachment. Travis (played by Robert De Niro) obsesses on the city that he harshly judges even though he’s as much a part of New York as those who he wishes will be washed away.
This scene features Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Schrader at their definite best. I imagine that, for a lot of people, this is one of those scenes that solidified their opinions on New York City. For the record, the last time I was in New York, everyone was fairly pleasant. They weren’t exactly friendly but I also didn’t get my bag stolen. (Those of us who don’t live in New York tend to assume that we’ll get mugged as soon as we leave JFK.)
I do worry about the future of New York, especially with the election that is being held today. To say I’m not a fan of either of the two front runners would be an understatement but, at the same time, it’s not my place to tell people in New York City how to vote. (I’m a big believer in not telling people in other cities and states how to vote. Whenever anyone from up north asks me why Beto didn’t win in 2018, I tell them the truth. A bunch of pro-Beto yankees came down here and got on everyone’s nerves right before they voted.) Instead of telling people what to do, I’ll just say that I sincerely hope that whatever happens will work out as well as it possibly can.
(That’s another reason I don’t endorsements. “Vote for the candidate who will work as well as he possibly can,” probably isn’t going to gets the cheers that some other slogans would.)
Today’s horror song comes the hypnotic soundtrack of Paul Schrader’s Cat People. This song was so good that it later showed up and was used to equally strong effect in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today is the birthday of the one and only Paul Schrader! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Paul Schrader Films
Blue Collar (1978, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: Bobby Byrne)
American Gigolo (1980, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: John Bailey)
Cat People (1982, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: John Bailey)
First Reformed (2018, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: Alexander Dynan)
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we pay tribute to the year 1982 with….
4 Shots From 4 1982 Films
Fitzcarraldo (1982, dir by Werner Herzog, DP: Thomas Mauch)
Poltergeist (1982, dir by Tobe Hooper, DP: Matthew Leonetti)
Cat People (1982, dir by Paul Schrader, DP: John Bailey)
King of Comedy (1982, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Fred Schuler)
Today’s song comes the hypnotic soundtrack of Paul Schrader’s Cat People. This song was so good that it later showed up and was used to equally strong effect in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
It took me a while to appreciate The Canyons.
In fact, it took me so long to appreciate this film that I’m writing a second review it. I initially reviewed The Canyons way back in 2013, the same year that it was released. I praised Lindsay Lohan’s performance as Tara, an actress who is living with a sociopathic producer named Christian (adult film actor James Deen, who was a bit of a celebrity when this film came out but whose star has dimmed considerably since). I complained that the film was too slow and that director Paul Schrader seemed to be trying too hard to find some sort of existential meaning within Bret Easton Ellis’s pulpy script. Though I didn’t really mention it in my initial review, I also felt that rest of the cast was rather dull. Lohan was great, playing a character to whom she could probably relate. Deen was stiff but oozed enough charm to be believable as the manipulative Christian. The rest of the largely unknown cast came across as being dull and somewhat lost.
Though I was nowhere near as critical of The Canyons as some critics, I still was not initially impressed. I thought of it as being a showcase for Lohan’s attempted comeback and little else. But I have to admit that The Canyons has stuck with me. It’s a film that I’ve rewatched more than a few times. While all of the flaws are still there, I have come to better appreciate the film’s languid decadence. I’ve come to see that there was a bit more wit to both Ellis’s script and Schrader’s direction than I initially realized. James Deen’s performance as Christian has grown on me. I like that he’s a neurotic sociopath. He’s evil but he’s needy and, though he’ll never admit it, he knows that he’ll be nothing if Tara ever leaves him. He’s desperate to be loved but he has no idea how to give that love back.
When I first saw the movie, I thought Nolan Funk, who played Tara’s ex-lover, was a bit dull in the role. Upon subsequent rewatches, I’ve come to see that his dullness is actually very important to the film. Ryan is written to be boring. That’s why Tara is drawn to him. His dullness provides some relief from Christian’s mood swings. But, because Ryan is so boring, he can also never truly take Christian’s place. In the end, Ryan still sells out his integrity, first to get a part and then to obsessively check in on Tara. Ryan and Christian are ultimately revealed to be two sides of the same coin. Ryan may be “the good guy,” but — in a typical Ellis and Schrader twist — there’s nothing likable or even that good about him. One gets the feeling that, if had Christian’s money, he would be just as bad.
You really do find yourself feeling sorry for Tara, who is basically trapped between two men who both want to control her. Lohan’s performance continues to be the strongest things about The Canyons. There’s a lot of courage to Lohan’s performance, courage that goes beyond taking part in the film’s sex scenes. Lohan reveals the vulnerability that’s at the heart of Tara. She’s someone who knows that she needs to escape but she also knows that she’s a creation of Hollywood. Hollywood is her home and her world and it’s hard to imagine her surviving anywhere else. Tara is interesting not because she’s trapped but because, in many ways, she would prefer to be trapped to being free.
The film’s flaws are still there, don’t get me wrong. The Canyons still has a lot of moments that don’t quite work. The opening scene, where Christian, Ryan, Tara, and Gina (Amanda Brooks, whose performance also improves on repeat viewing) have an awkward dinner, is almost laughably bad. (In that opening scene, James Deen delivers his dialogue like Dirk Diggler in Angels Live In my Town.) That said, this is a trashy and colorful movie that does stick with you. You might not want it to stick with you but it does! It’s portrayal of sexual decadence and neurotic Hollywood players is far more entertaining than it has any right to be. It may not be a great film but it is one that’s a bit more interesting than many originally thought.
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