Perfect Love (Catherine Breillat, 1996)

Francis Renaud and Isabelle Renauld in Perfect Love

Cast: Isabelle Renauld, Francis Renaud, Laura Saglio, Alain Soral, Michèle Rème, Alice Mitterand, Tom Rocheteau, Delphine De Malherbe, Marie Lebée. Screenplay: Catherine Breillat. Cinematography: Laurent Dailland. Production design: Françoise Dupertuis. Film editor: Agnès Guillemot. 

Catherine Breillat is a kind of anti-pornographer; her films are almost enough to turn one off from sex entirely. Or anyway, from any notion that sex is an expression of, as the title ironically suggests, Perfect Love. Breillat often seems to suggest that we are just animals trying to dress up our instincts with highfalutin labels. That occurred to me during the scene in which the naked Christophe (Francis Renaud) gets out of the bed he's sharing with Frédérique (Isabelle Renauld) and, for reasons known only to him, climbs the scaffolding outside her window. He looks like a particularly awkward monkey, and he inspires neither passion nor amusement in Frédérique, but rather deepens the contempt that's growing in her. The growth in their mutual alienation is the subject of the film, which begins in the aftermath of Christophe's unspeakable assault on and murder of Frédérique. The plot is simply a flashback that shows how their relationship developed and disintegrated so horribly. Of course, being French, they talk about it at length, narrating their own disaffection. I found it a curious misfire, a movie that's based in part on the disparity in their ages -- she is supposed to be a generation older, a twice-married woman with two children, including a daughter somewhat closer in age to Christophe than she is. Yet the actors cast as Christophe and Frédérique were born only a year apart; both were in their late 20s when the film was made, and they look it. I can respect Breillat's attempt at portraying the difficulties of a relationship and admire the commitment of her performers, but nothing in the characters seemed to justify the outcome. Nor can I deny the boredom that settled on me as the film proceeded. 

Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1987)

Boguslaw Linda in Blind Chance

Cast: Boguslaw Linda, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Boguslawa Pawelec, Marzena Trybala, Jacek Borkowski, Jacek Sas-Uhrynowski, Adam Ferency, Irena Byrska, Monika Gozdzik, Zygmunt Hübner. Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski. Cinematography: Krzysztof Pakulski. Production design: Andrzej Rafal Waltenberger. Film editing: Elzbieta Kurkowska. Music: Wojciech Kilar. 

A man races to catch a train that's pulling out of the station. If he catches it, his life goes in one direction. If he doesn't, it goes in another. But the binary choices of life are not as simple as that, Krzysztof Kieslowski demonstrates in Blind Chance. Witek Dlugosz (Boguslaw Linda) catches the train, and he winds up allied with the political powers-that-be. Then Kieslowski shows us what happens when Witek doesn't catch the train, and he winds up with the political opposition. But there's a third possibility: What happens if he's just a little slower in his race to catch the train, missing it by a second or two longer? In the film, he winds up choosing a non-political career in which he decides to remain neutral. But Blind Chance is not all about politics -- though that was a central obsession in life in Poland in the 1980s. It's also about sex: In each of the three versions of Witek's life, he ends up with a different woman, and that makes another important difference. Authors love to play God, and Kieslowski, a true auteur, is no exception. He's a cruel God, as the film demonstrates at both beginning and ending, and the cruelty is more shocking because of the appealing performance of Linda as the man in the hands of fate. 

A Fish in the Bathtub (Joan Micklin Silver, 1998)

Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller in A Fish in the Bathtub

Cast: Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Mark Ruffalo, Jane Adams, Missy Yager, Paul Benedict, Doris Roberts, Louis Zorich, Phyllis Newman, Val Avery, Bob Dishy, Pamela Gray. Screenplay: John Silverstein, David Chudnovsky, Raphael D. Silver. Cinematography: Daniel Shulman. Production designer: Deana Sidney. Film editor: Meg Reticker. Music: John Hill. 

Joan Micklin Silver's A Fish in the Bathtub has some funny lines, but an overall shrillness makes it not as much fun as it wants to be. The scene in which Sam (Jerry Stiller) yells "Shut up!" repeatedly at Molly (Anne Meara), his wife of 40 years, at a card party where their closest friends are gathered is a touch too painful. The rest of the film is a slow and sometimes awkward process of reconciliation after Molly decides she's put up with too much -- including the large carp that Sam has inexplicably brought home and keeps in the spare bath -- and moves in with their son, Joel (Mark Ruffalo), and his wife, Sharon (Missy Yager). Joel and Sharon have  been having their problems, too: She wants another child and he's not so sure, plus he's indulging in a flirtation with one of his real estate clients -- an unnecessary subplot. The actors are all pros, and they do what they can with the material, but the movie feels like an overextended TV sitcom episode. 

The Beast Must Die (Román Viñoly Barreto, 1952)

 

Cast: Narciso Ibáñez Menta, Lara Hidalgo, Guillermo Battaglia, Milagros de la Vega, Nathán Pinzón, Beba Bidart, Ernesto Blanco, Gloria Ferrandiz, Humberto Balado, Josefa Goldar. Screenplay: Román Viñoly Barreto, Narciso Ibáñez Menta, based on a novel by Cecil Day-Lewis. Cinematography: Alberto Etchebehere. Art direction: Mario Vanarelli. Film editing: José Serra. Music: Silvio Vernazza. 

The Beast Must Die is a well put-together version of a murder mystery written by Cecil Day-Lewis under his pseudonym Nicholas Blake, a fact that gets an ironic resonance in the story because the protagonist's name, Felix Lane, is also a pseudonym, used to conceal his identity as he plots to murder the man who killed his son. Narciso Ibáñez Menta gives a suave, cool performance as Lane, who has recorded his lethal intent in a diary. The victim, Jorge Rattery (Guillermo Battaglia), is a real nasty who terrorizes his family, any one of whom has a motive as compelling as Lane's for doing away with him. The film starts with the murder, then flashes back to reveal the motive. Some of the subtlety of the ethical dilemma Lane faces when the murder is pinned on the wrong person gets lost in the film, and there's some scenery-chewing acting along the way, but on the whole it's suspenseful and atmospheric -- though the atmosphere is more that of Argentina, where it was made, than of the England that the names of some of the characters, like Nigel and Rhoda, evoke. 

I Like It Like That (Darnell Martin, 1994)

Desiree Casares, Luna Lauren Velez, Jon Seda, and Tomas Melly in I Like It Like That

Cast: Luna Lauren Velez, Jon Seda, Tomas Melly, Desiree Casares, Isaiah Garcia, Jesse Borrego, Lisa Vidal, Griffin Dunne, Rita Moreno, Vincent Laresca, Elvis Nolasco, Sammy Melendez, Jose Soto. Screenplay: Darnell Martin. Cinematography: Alexander Gruszinski. Production design: Scott Chambliss. Film editing: Peter C. Frank. Music: Sergio George.  

I Like It Like That is a lively, noisy dramatic comedy about a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. It has just enough grit and nuance to keep it from looking as stereotyped and formulaic as it really is. 

The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)

Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday

Cast: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Dave King, Bryan Marshall, Derek Thompson, Eddie Constantine, Paul Freeman, P.H. Moriarty, Stephen Davies, Brian Hall, Alan Hall, Paul Barber, Pauline Melville. Screenplay: Barrie Keeffe. Cinematography: Phil Meheux. Art direction: Vic Symonds. Film editing: Mike Taylor. Music: Francis Monkman. 

The Long Good Friday ends with mobster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) being held at gunpoint by a character listed in the credits only as "1st Irishman." It provides a tour de force moment for Hoskins, as he registers a series of emotions -- fear, disgust, resignation, defiance, hope, and whatever the viewer can find there -- using only his face. Only the fact that the Irishman is played by Pierce Brosnan, making his film debut in a tiny role, distracts today from the moment, the still conclusion to an often explosive performance by Hoskins. He's beautifully supported by Helen Mirren as his mistress, Victoria, and a well-chosen cast. Only the rather too heavily laid on score by Francis Monkman feels like a flaw in this solid and entertaining British noir. 

Belle Époque (Fernando Trueba, 1992)

Miriam Díaz Aroca, Maribel Verdú, Penélope Cruz, and Ariadna Gil in Belle Époque

Cast: Jorge Sanz, Fernando Fernán-Gómez, Maribel Verdú, Ariadna Gil, Penélope Cruz, Miriam Díaz Aroca, Gabino Diego, Agustín González, Chus Lampreave, Mary Carmen Ramírez, Michel Galabru. Screenplay: Rafael Azcona, José Luis García Sánchez, Fernando Trueba. Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine. Film editing: Carmen Frías. Music: Antoine Duhamel. 

A sexy romp with a body count, Belle Époque is perhaps most remembered today for the speech director Fernando Trueba gave when he accepted the Oscar for best foreign language film. "I would like to believe in God so I can thank him, but I just believe in Billy Wilder. So thank you, Billy Wilder."  What Trueba's film has in common with Wilder's oeuvre is a certain cynical edge. Even Wilder's funniest movies, such as Some Like It Hot (1959), get their edge from a recognition of the violence underlying comedy -- that film's cross-dressing protagonists, after all, are fleeing for their lives after the St. Valentine's Day massacre. And so the sensuous idyll that takes place in the Spanish countryside starts with the deaths of two policemen arresting the protagonist, Fernando (Jorge Sanz), during a period of comparative peace before the full outbreak of the Civil War. It continues with Fernando making love to Clara (Miriam Díaz Aroca) on the riverbank at the very spot where her husband drowned. And it reaches its conclusion just after the suicide of a disillusioned priest. Sex and death have rarely been more closely linked in what is intended as a romantic comedy. Trueba is not as skilled as Wilder was at maintaining the lightness of tone necessary to fend off the darkness, but he's pretty good at it. 

Coogan's Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968)

Susan Clark and Clint Eastwood in Coogan's Bluff

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, Susan Clark, Tisha Sterling, Don Stroud, Betty Field, Tom Tully, Melodie Johnson, James Edwards, Rudy Diaz, David Doyle. Screenplay: Herman Miller, Dean Riesner, Howard Rodman. Cinematography: Bud Thackery. Art direction: Alexander Golitzen, Robert MacKichan. Film editing: Sam E. Waxman. Music: Lalo Schifrin. 

If it weren't that it has the hard, garish, overlighted look of most movies in the 1960s, Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff could almost be called a neo-noir. It has the genre's requisite unlikable but determined tough guy protagonist, willing to use sex and violence and flouting the law to achieve his goal, even if it means getting beat up several times. There's something masochistic about Clint Eastwood's Coogan, a deputy sheriff sent from Arizona to Manhattan to recover a fugitive. The screenplay gives him no backstory to explain his headlong relentlessness, but then there's nothing much to the screenplay beyond setups for action. It's an almost cynically mindless movie. 

The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971)

Kitty Winn and Al Pacino in The Panic in Needle Park

Cast: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint, Richard Bright, Kiel Martin, Michael McClanathan, Warren Finnerty, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Raul Julia. Screenplay: Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, based on a book by James Mills. Cinematography: Adam Holender. Art direction: Murray P. Stern. Film editing: Evan A. Lottman. 

The Panic in Needle Park doesn't have much in the way of character arc: Bobby (Al Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn) end up pretty much the way they began, in search of a fix. What it does have going for it is immersiveness, a determined effort to plunge the viewer into the midst of some lost lives. That this perhaps isn't enough to make for an effective movie is, I think, signaled by some of the tricks screenwriters Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne pull, to heighten the viewer's emotional connection to the characters, which at one point involves the sacrifice of a cute puppy. But the movie is effective, largely because it's so well acted. It gave us one of our first looks at Pacino at his most hyperactive, as well as one of our rare looks at Winn, whose performance deservedly won the best actress award at Cannes. They're surrounded by a superb ensemble. 

Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995)

Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls

Cast: Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, Gina Ravera, Lin Tucci, Greg Travis, Al Ruscio, Patrick Bristow, William Shockley. Screenplay: Joe Eszterhas. Cinematography: Jost Vacano. Production design: Allan Cameron. Film editing: Mark Goldblatt, Mark Helfrich. Music: David A. Stewart. 

Since the near-universal critical reaction that made Showgirls a byword for bad movies, attempts have been made to reevaluate it as a satire on Vegas or the entertainment business or the marketing of sex or something. Perhaps it was the double-edged cleverness of director Paul Verhoeven's next film, Starship Troopers (1997), that inspired some critics to find the same in Showgirls. So I conscientiously tried to watch it with that in mind. But no, it's just tawdry and tedious, with none of the wit or ironic distancing that would signal satiric intent. For example, just watch Kyle MacLachlan try to hide his embarrassment at some of the things he's supposed to do or say.