Category: reviews/opinions

Jay’s Take: The Thing Called Love

A revisionist movie review.

“You have a room where you go inside and you lock the door, and I’m not even allowed in! How come you get a room like that?”
“Well, I’ve lived here for a while, and I enjoy the space, I pay the rent…”

– Samantha Mathis, getting nowhere with River Phoenix about the whole “room” issue

How many of you knew there existed a River Phoenix “gotta be a country music star” movie? That was the primary reason I chose to watch “The Thing Called Love”, controversies aside: it’s a nightmare to find anything I would consider “general viewing” in my house (ie. my wife hogs the TV & often complains about my movie choices). She was a ranch-hand in another life, so to say my spouse is a fan of country music is like saying bananas have potassium. And for the first half of “The Thing Called Love”, I thought I had found a winner: a making-it-big-in-Nashville odyssey with Samantha Mathis (Daisy from the “Super Mario Bros” movie) directed by the “Don of the Down & Dirty” Mr. Bogdanovich (“The Last Picture Show”), with music that my wife actually knew the words to? To say, then, that finishing the movie was disillusioning is pre-emptive, since no one really talks about the film: either as a Phoenix movie (even though it was his last-completed before his death) or a Bogdanovich movie. But I’ll tell you why anyway. It’s hot outside.

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Jay’s Take: Vortex

A relatively spoiler-free movie review.

France’s resident moviemaker/troublemaker Gaspar Noé (“Enter the Void”; “that movie where Monica Bellucci gets raped for ten minutes”) has a new movie out called “Vortex” . It’s one of the best new movies I’ve seen in the last 10 years. That’s a mean feat. Discuss:

Vortex is about a small family – an elderly couple, living alone; and their son – dealing with the late-stage dementia of the matriarch. And while in many ways it – aesthetically & thematically – slides nicely into the controversial director’s filmography at this point in his life (he’s turning 60 next year), it’s also unique amongst his back-catalogue. In this way and others, it’s sure to draw comparison with Michael Haneke’s 2012 movie “Amour” (also about an elderly couple and their offspring dealing with the deterioration of the wife). With Amour, a well-known & incendiary director took his unique cinematic language and translated it successfully to a serious, contemplative “chamber piece”. I’ve always wanted to call a movie a “chamber piece” and now I can. Twice! Vortex is a “chamber piece”: a serious-toned character drama in-and-around one location.

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Jay’s Quick Take: Cabaret

A revisionist movie review.

“Cabaret”. It’s a classic, according to “industry experts”. It’s on every “Top 1000” / “See This Before You Die” list, and all the reviews on Plex have that little “tomatoe” icon. Director Bob Fosse is known for more than his four main theatrical features, from Cabaret-on, although at least two of those movies are actual, confirmed personal favorites (full disclosure: I haven’t seen “All That Jazz” yet). Shouldn’t “Cabaret”, then, be worth 5000-words-or-more? Surely? Meh. Surely it’s been done.

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Jay’s Take: On Deadly Ground

A revisionist movie review.

“You wanna know who he is? Try this: delve down into the deepest bowels of your soul. Try to imagine the ultimate fucking nightmare. And that won’t come close to this son of a bitch when he gets pissed.”

– Michael Caine re: Steven Seagal

Let’s talk. Aside from the man himself, do any of us REALLY KNOW Steven Seagal? Sure, NOW he’s the schlub who can disarm a pistol-toting goon faster than my Mazda can reach top-speed uphill in eco-mode – who has private “line readings” with his co-actresses (albeit allegedly) in expensive hotel rooms in cities whose elite still see the man as the mainstream movie star he was 40-years-ago – but just WHO is he? No one understands the “mythos” of Seagal better than Seagal himself. And for this review, it’ll be important that we make this distinction now, at the beginning, because -SHOCK- “On Deadly Ground” is up for re-evaluation, and (surprise!) it’s really, really good.

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