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Reviews
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Where Have You Gone, Mrs. Ouspenskaya?
Not recommended. As evidence for how unimpressed I was with director Sam Raimi's (The Evil Dead, Army Of Darkness) Drag Me To Hell, part way through I flipped over to a ten-year-old episode of Frasier and found it much more shocking and funny. Oh where to start? Although Alison Lohman was super in Matchstick Men, she cannot carry this lead weight and Justin Long, as her boyfriend, is similarly plumbiferous. Lorna Raver was great as a repulsive old gypsy woman but she was never scary; only one jump shock caught me. The send up of previous movies (The Exorcist, Amityville Horror, Poltergeist) only showed me how much fun we were missing. I was gulled by the final plot twist only because, in rapt inattention, I ignored the first rule of set decoration. But so many people did like this movie that I wonder . . . what gypsy cursed them?
Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003)
Boo Radley's Bad Check
Strongly recommended. I would ruminate, based on close examination of my late grandmother, that there's a ragged wound in the center of all white Southerners still oozing over the unrepentant evil of slavery. Nowadays, that would manifest as what Jim White calls in 'Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus,' "a loneliness for God," a vague dread that nothing can ever really be made right in this world. Add to this, the muttered self-loathing of all rural, poor America, stumbling the parapet between fundamentalism and crystal meth. The South is just more lyrically insane than Nebraska. To this special purpose, some call the songs of White, Johnny Dowd, and Brett and Rennie Sparks (all whom perform splendidly in the movie) 'Gothic,' but Amazon files it under 'Americana,' with Twain, with Bierce, and with Gee's Bend, Alabama, an appellation more honest and, in the end, the proper place for this movie.
The Long Goodbye (1973)
The Simple Art of Storytelling
Recommended. As was famously expounded by Steven Marcus, the hard-boiled detective story is basically a morality tale. In a world robbed of all formal honor, the lone PI must mete out justice as best (s)he can. Robert Altman's take on this twice-told-tale is unique, as always, and mostly successful. The rumpled world of Elliot Gould's Phillip Marlowe, is not the one of Bogart, Powell, or even Mitchem and reeks of 70's ambiguity. Overlapping dialogue, with accentuated background sounds -- Altman's signature -- contributes a distracting, edgy jabber. Sterling Hayden, in a splendidly incoherent take on Hemingway, further muddies the water. The final scene nicely quotes The Third Man, the best movie ever on the morality of friendship. My main quarrel, a serious one, is the ending, where Altman lost the scent. The art of murder may sometimes be baroque -- but the intent must be simple.