stephenksmith Reviews

Dersu Uzala (1975)

modern man meets his primitive self

[10/10 · 20 November 2010]

Kurosawa is first and foremost, a story-teller. Through his stories we see much of ourselves--who we are, can be, the limits of our ethos and preconceived notions of who we are or capable of. Kurosawa amazes us with his range. Stories set in contemporary Japan. Ancient Japan. From businessmen to detectives to .... a strong little man living alone in the most desolate land on earth--Siberia. It is based on memoirs? of a Russian Army Captain who encountered Dersu at the end of the 19th century, when Russia was still mapping what it was--something that George Washington did when our country was unexplored. The story, of course, cannot avoid the necessary comparison of modern man with paleolithic nomadic man. What is good, evil, the measure of men specific to one's time. What senses have we lost or have been dulled by living in cocoons of civilization, warm houses and shared responsibility for warding off cruel nature and the creatures who inhabit the shadows outside the firelight. How important are fire, salt, matches, ammo.... all precious things that should be husbanded and even left in forest shelters for those who might need them in times of privation and soul lost wandering. Dersu says, "You bad man!" and "You very good man." and sometimes to the same man! He sees that no man is either all good or evil, but is capable in each moment of becoming either. We see men whose"normal" lives in civilization were shattered, and they went out into the wilderness to die or live, and let the gods determine their fate. I fell in love with this movie. And I laugh at many of us--the most modern and out-of-touch with nature: nature as beauty and as cruel harvester of our bodies when we can no longer push headlong into the dark blizzard. Now, so many of us dishonor the remaining tigers, bears, apex predators and a world seemed too green and gauzy and nonthreatening to so many. Why not go for a jog in the Colorado mountains? How many are killed, eaten by mountain lions, because they didn't respect nature as she is. Bears, wolves--why they won't hurt you if you but sit and gaze upon them with zen-like concentration--I fear you not, my brother. Yet this movie shows that we need not hate what ultimately comes to take us away to that land from in no traveler returns. The tiger is a god. And when one cannot kill him, clean and swift, and he runs away, then the gods say you will die soon. Not just a pretty creature to aim one's camera or rifle at and sigh. Or that fool in Herzog's "Grizzly Man". Anyone who knows the out of doors and the power nature still has over us, can only laugh at the idiot who pranced and danced amongst the grizzlies. Well, joke's on you, mister. It just so happened your hubris and modern sensibilities and lies you've told yourself about nature came around to bite you..... et' you.

Dersu Uzala is the divine opposite of Herzog's either ironic or stupid "Grizzly Man". Nature was neither a winter playground or an ugly place at all. For Dersu reveled in the smells, sounds and cornering winds that made the fire become something different with each poke of an ember reddened stick. Where life is now in the living. And nature is neither Disneyland nor a living hell, but is the relentless earth, moiling and seething, buckling up and taking one finally, in the end.

A superb movie that should be seen by many many more folk.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)

ridiculous old biddies shimmer in false feminist film

[3/10 · 24 June 2003]

Ya Ya Ya Ya.. Yuck. Maggie Smith ought to be ashamed of herself, but hey, yah gotta pay the rent. Smarmy, lousy directing, every scene a parody of the South that never was. Negroes dancing in a funeral band to a birthday party of an old, priveleged drunk of a white woman... yezz'ma'am... we sho' do love youse and how you abused us on dee plantation! Bad script. Sandra Bullock hung in there and so did Ashley Judd, but the old women were horrid. Hard to make those actresses stink, but the script and director did. It was contrived, gauzey, florid and untrue. I wish the two male characters in the story would have walked away down dee lane, leaving these silly southern sisters to molder in their fantasies... let me give you a taste of the absurdity of the script... suppose, just suppose that you are premiering a play on broadway (the writer), and your mother's friends (the Ya Yuck sisters) take you out on the town, put a date-rape powder in your drink, and somehow fly you, comatose, (but, first class) to the bayou to confront your mother at all costs! I would have them arrested, sentenced to the looney bin, and get my buns back to NYC to my waiting director and actors. But not her. She "deals" with Moe-mama and her dear biddies.

Don't rent it. Don't watch it. Start a campaign to melt the videos into slag.

Most Sincerely, Stephen K. Smith

Gummo (1997)

Dirty little rednecks slum-it through life

[6/10 · 24 June 2003]

Boys hunt cats with BB guns and sell the dead meat on the road-kill restaurant black market. Sleazey little teen queens with marginal IQs put black tape on their nipples and rip it off, hard, to see if it makes their nipples grow! A boy/creature with a dirty set of pink playboy bunny ears walks around, urinates off interstate overpasses. The BB gun boys find a grandma who's in a redneck coma, and they shoot her in the toe with a BB gun to see if she'll react.

It's so bad, it's good. You'd better be "into" irony and sleaze. If you liked Pink Flamingos, you'll go for this. It's less a coherent movie than an expressionist post card from the depths of low-class, redneck America, and for once, it's not set in dee south. It's supposed to be Xenia, Ohio.

Actually, the scene that made me the sickest was when Gummo, our water-headed pre-teen was taking a bath in the dirtiest water you've ever seen. His sleazey little mother put a board over the old tub and began to feed him a plate of spaghetti, a big glass of milk, and a chocolate candy bar that moments before she'd bought at her front door from two African-am. kids who were pretending they were selling it for charity but laughed in private at the suckers who'd given them so much money. Anyway, back to the tub... for some reason (maybe because it was just after MY dinner), seeing this little sleazey greazer eating and schlorping the pasta and sucking on the milk in a cheap plastic tumbler with Momma jutting her hips to the side.... I don't know... it was a magic moment and turned my stomach.

See it if you're really really hip and really really cynical and really really in need of something twisted and different for an evening. Oh, if you're a cat lover, hang on for dear friggen life.

Steve Smith

Secretary (2002)

a dark comedy layered with nuanced social and personal commentary

[13 April 2003]

What is the path to love? For every person, it's different. The superficial circumstances are similar... you meet someone at work, at school, in a singles bar. And, usually, the emotional pathways are similar. Eyes meet. We talk. We dance. We communicate about ourselves to each other. Then begins the sexual part, so we parry and thrust, take signals from each other, and, over time, we feel each other up together. But what about the path to love through the back door (so to speak)? What about a love story where she's a young, neurotic woman, just out of a mental hospital back to a family where Dad's a serious drunk and Mom's a serious nervous fruitcake. And what about a man, an attorney, who's emotionally closed off and can only get in touch with orchids, inserting long stainless-steel tools into their waiting organs. Yes, these two find each other in one of the most bizarre cinematic love stories ever.

I loved this movie. I pilgrim around, searching through books and movies for secret pathways to and circumstances of the human heart. This movie transcends its gentle S&M to reveal yet another way to love.

Our heroine, the fresh-faced (and magnificently moon-like) Maggie Gyllenhaal is brilliant as the new secretary to a lawyer who goes through so many secretaries, he has a "secretary" vacancy sign he lights up outside his office. As our heroine tries to re-enter the world by getting her first job with this man, it becomes apparent that the boss is anything but normal. He is demanding yet insistent that his new charge break away from her stifling past and be herself. But what or who is she? And who in the hell is he?

The movie is sexy. There's no denying it. Gyllenhaal is radiant and sinuous, and we feel that she's truly experiencing the wonder of it all for the first time. Spader is type-cast a bit, but his world-weary sexiness fits well with Gyllenhaal's naiveté. And, let's face it, Gyllenhaal is grippingly sexy, and we see her in hose, panties, tight skirts and in the nude. And as far as I'm concerned, she's fabulous, darling. And in one of the movie's sexiest, most endearing scenes, we see Spader carry her off in her urine-soaked wedding dress as he finally assumes his responsibilities as her loving "dom". She is totally tired, subservient and radiant in total surrender, rescued from a voyeurizing world. What a hunk of sexy cinema that was with her arm languidly draped around Spader's neck as he carried the bride over the threshold to love and dominance. Wow.

This movie explores and explodes sexual myths. The director has successfully created a dark comedy layered with nuance in a stew of social commentary. This movie is not for everyone. Stay away if you're conventionally wrapped, conservative, or lacking in a certain joy of exploration. But if you're ready for a most untraditional-traditional love story, Spader and Gyllenhaal give Oscar worthy performances... but of course the subject matter nixed that.

Sunshine State (2002)

we need a story and fewer characters and solliloquies

[26 January 2003]

Sushine state has great acting, a colorful local, colorful locals, every stray character actor one would need, a good writer/director... but... no story. Poor Mr. Sayles bit off way more'n he could chew. Too many characters. Great performances, but too many characters to develop. Tim Hutton sleepwalks through this one. Even Edie Falco is beside herself--not because of her character, but because she barely has enough time to do anything. This movie could have been a great one if Sayles had snip, snip, cut, tucked and added a story. I lived in Florida for many years. I totally agree with the director's take on development, etc., but one needs more than a didact's megaphone and every character actor in creation. Where's the script... where's the script.

In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

sex and death and cain't get enough in olde Japan

[18 January 2003]

Have you had enough? No, no, no... Enough yet? No, no, I need to play with your weiner and sleep with it and eat it and never ever ever let it go. You smirk at me. You are a Japanese male. I am obsessed and very high-voiced. I am Japanese female. Why did you rape the old Geisha woman? She was rolled up like an anchovy around a caper, your caper, your tiny little Japanese male caper. Can I borrow your penis again? Now! AGain. Can't get enough of that overbearing stuff. I won't let you up, ever. Ever. Yum. Yum. I walk the streets holding you in my hands and I weep for what to do with you, what dogs I attract, what vermin trail after me. My Lord is dead, but I keep him alive in my memory. The code of Bushido. There is no dishonor in death, only in non-devotion, and I am devoted to your body, your penis, eating you forever, and when I am become death, I am totally devoted to you (Olivia Newton Japanese John). Oh, why do my eyelids not have creases?

The Guest of Honor (2001)

don't miss a short, fun, sexy film with the lovely Eileen Grubba

[26 August 2002]

Eileen Grubba stars in this wonderful short film about identity, class and con. Ms. Grubba plays a rich woman who receives a rich man into her life via the classifieds. Both are handsome, perfect, or so it seems. But why would two beautiful, rich people need to resort to the personals? The sexual tension builds, but something is amiss. What? Eileen Grubba is sensational as a woman looking for love and sex and money and indentity. She's a dynamite actress who brings a mature beauty and raw sensuality to her work. She has a knowing vulnerability that challenges the audience members to take her in. I highly recommend this short film with a twist. And Eileen... wow... you knocked me out weaving your silver-screen fantasy. But we need more, so much more from you! This is a talent that needs broader exposure!

The Majestic (2001)

old fashioned Kapra-Korn, well-done

[6/10 · 6 August 2002]

Jim Carey is a man who literally re-defines himself in the mold of the small-town hero. A recently black-listed Hollywood screenwriter, Carey, is leaving Tinseltown on a feel-sorry-for-yourself drunk drive and winds up washed up (literally and figuratively) on a beach having suffered amnesia. He's taken to a picturesque coastal California town and is mistaken (or is he?) for one of their boys lost in WWII. And what a boy he was--handsome, caring, talented... and engaged to the local Drs. daughter. Carey's character is confused and taken in by the love given by this town for their supposed returning war hero. But is he that man? Will he marry the girl "he" left behind? Will the commie chasers from J. Edgar Hooverland find him and make him face the music? Who is he, really! This is a throw back to the Kapra-Korn of earlier years. This is a movie that unabashedly creates a small town America that never was so polished and gleaming. But despite the cornball-ity of the whole thing, the sincerity of Mr. Carey's acting along with a fine ensemble cast pulls it off. It successfully explores the questions of just who are we, as inviduals and as a society? Can we measure up to the ideals that we hold for ourselves and for our nation? When is expediency--discretion, the better part of valor? Is there a nobility in self-sacrifice and in the angels of our naive and better natures? I like movies (and books and things) that ask questions and explore territory that is often neglected in this fast-cut, MTV film't age. Sure it's corny. More than a bit unrealistic, but the sincerity of script and cast pulls it off. What is the greatest generation? Any one where enough of us face the music... and dance.

L.I.E. (2001)

through the muck and tawdry mire, we still yearn for our humanity

[9/10 · 6 August 2002]

L.I.E. starts out and shows us a troubled teen and late-middle-aged man who wants to have sex with him. Oh, oh, we say to ourselves. I suppose I'm going to have to suffer through a couple of hours of tawdry cinema. But, no... from the grizzled pupae of the beginning of this masterpiece emerges a lovely butterfly of hope.

It's New Jersey. Our hero, a young teen boy, wanders aimlessly through suburban East Coast life, doing petite thefts and hanging out with losers. His best friend is a budding piece of "rough trade" who sells his body on the turnpike for a few bucks. Our "hero" has a dad who's a crooked contractor. His mother is dead. He lives in an expensive, expansive house with no heart or soul (metaphor America?). And as things get worse for our hero and his father, a middle-aged retired Marine appears and tries to insinuate himself into the boy's life. He drives a "cool" muscle car that appeals to young boys. He offers food and a warm home. And our hero needs some warmth. But we sit and cringe, wondering if the pedophile will drive our boy even further into disillusionment and hopeless through meaningless sex acts.

But no, this film does not go there. I won't ruin it, but I can tell you that whoever wrote this sees in humankind, always, the potential for caring and kindness... that things can mutate toward the good rather than always sink into the tawdry and banal. I was pleasantly surprised. And the man who plays the pedophile, our Marine, was up for an Academy Award. He well deserved that nomination, for he had to play a character complex enough to feel and pursue his desires while at the same time having a conscience and heart that finally win out in the end.

Super movie. Hang in there for the payoff.

Amélie (2001)

a character study on le gran Parisian scale

[7/10 · 6 August 2002]

A lonely little girl grows up to be an isolated lovely young woman who is trying, through bizarre actions, to insinuate herself into life. Amelie' is a very un-french film, something that is happening these days in French cinema. No more aimless plots and new wave cinema. No more verite'. This film is a deep character study on a character who is very very lonely & lovely and holds the camera lens in her vice-like grip. The film is good-natured and kind, although unsparing in its spotlight on the soul's search for its own humanity. You can't help but fall in love with this bosomy, leggy gamine on her pilgrimage to normalcy.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)

a surreal documentary about a German American who needs food and flight

[8/10 · 6 August 2002]

Werner Herzog again explores the psyche of a man. In "Little Dieter...", we meet an effervescent, brilliant man who survived the war in Bavaria seeing starvation and strange sights, moved to the U.S. and fulfilled his dream of being a flier. War, food, death, survival, hoarding, planes, heads coming off... how one American is born. Herzog again sees madness as plane of existence and the surreal blends with the poignant as Herzog himself narratives this psychic travelogue of a German becoming an American who flies prop planes in a late 20th century war where the culmination of technology, pilgrimage and eating out of garbage cans with spoons is melded with constant optimism into a man redefined into American. As always with Herzog we are faced with florid madness, brilliance and what is man in the face of his own excesses, societal and personal. We laugh and cringe and are amazed at this man. Where else for this man but America?

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

one of the greatest black comedies of all-time

[10/10 · 6 August 2002]

Dr. Strangelove is one of the greatest black(and white) comedies of all time. It explores with humor and spine-chilling grace: will mankind survive its own madness? or are our collective flaws so great that we will wink out in an evolutionary instant? But these questions are explored in a farcical, dark work that, I suspect, will live for quite a long time in film history. Terry Southern's dark vision mixed with Shakesperean bawdiness of Peter Sellers et al makes for fascinating and delicious humor. Although this was produced at the height of the cold war, what makes this work of art a timeless classic is that it transcends its immediate theme and prompts in us in our time to view our collective madness. Do we depend too much on our technology and think-tank rationalizations to propell us in directions we would never go as a rational individuals. Do we rationalize to life shibboleths that will propel us into immolation? What a movie that asks these questions of us, ourselves, and at the same time entertains us, makes us gut-laugh and cry at the on-screen farce. Wow. Shakespeare and B-52's. Crazed generals with phallic cigars stickying jauntily out of mouth. Pentegon brass calling on secure phones to their paramours. And Peter Sellars. This is a tour d'farce for him. His multiple portrayals of the president, a British miilitary attache and Dr. Strangelove are comic masterpieces. This is a movie for the ages. If you haven't seen it, bring your brain and your tears, for you'll laugh and cry as your intellect is entertained, and that's really sho-biz, folks.

Autumn Tale (1998)

Eric Rhomer's gently sexy autumnal romp through the countryside of France

[5 May 2002]

"Autumn Tale" is a friendly, rambling french film. Beautiful visuals. And, as always, the french have a realistic, sanguine approach to female and male beauty, where the women of the film are not hollywood-ized, but their natural beauty is enhanced by the french countryside's autumanl splendor. One middle aged woman plays matchmaker for her friend, but does not tell her she's placed an ad in the personals. Someone else plays matchmaker, and then threads of story lines appear and vanish like possible lovers come and gone. Rhomer is not a natural storyteller, but this film is not terribly amibitious or weighty, but a golden, good-natured romp through french womens' psychees and sweet taut clothing. The female leads are compelling and edible, again, because the french love to present beauty through the lens of reality and possibilty. Tasteful lust. Realistic. Wild, dionescian hair on the earthmother, tilted uterus'd owner of the winery. Tres elegante is her friend living a bit vicariously through her man-hunt. Fun film but don't expect a great story here. But, oooo la la, what curves and sex have the women of middle-aged france.