May Movies, Or 3½ Seasons of The Wire

I'm calling May my "free" month. I had my second foot surgery, was out of work for weeks, was out of the movie theater for just as long, and upon my return from Milan early in the month, I was glued to DVD after DVD of The Wire. I was tempted to start beating myself up again for not seeing very many movies, but then, sparing myself from the abuse, I remembered: I watched over 35 episodes of The Wire in their place.

The late HBO series is one of my favorites for its slate of engaging characters, for the landscape in and around the city of Baltimore, for its narrative symmetry, sharp visual aesthetic, and of course, its devotion to real social and political issues. There is Frank Sobotka, above, from season two, clinging to that can like it's the last piece of his life as a Baltimore stevedore. He is one of my favorite characters in the whole series, and it should be said, it's hard to pick a favorite of anything in this show: everything is just so good. But the standout characters are the ones that makes us feel the most ambivalence towards them. Frank Sobotka could be downright cruel, was a corrupt leader, but as the story goes on, we see him as a simple pawn in a much larger societal game. For all of his initially perceived power, he is himself powerless, as the climax and denouement so tragically spell out in this season. As season three began Frank Sobotka, the ever-lasting working man, is practically forgotten. Maybe not forgotten so much as laid to rest in one of the many sedimentary layers of Baltimore life.

Funny, by season two I was entrenched beyond escape from The Wire. It was like I had been watching forever, but there were still three whole seasons of stories and character trials to go! I really powered through, faster than I did with any TV show before. The crew from Entourage came along at a good clip, but they bored me with their surface endeavors and base motivations, and I never did venture past season four's finale. Lo and behold, great things happen when a great show falls onto your platter: you forget all about your social life. It's a fair and enjoyable sacrifice, and one I'm tempted to revisit again for old times' sake. Yeah, I got sentimental about it. I didn't cry. I try to save my tears for the stories themselves these days. It's best not to waste them on the fact that a series is over, like some weird modern postpartum affliction or something.

With The Wire, the power of the show lies in the details: the change of the opening credit montage and the new rendition of the theme song with each successive season; multiple lead characters overlapping each other with separate actions or lines of dialogue in a single shot; subtle notes on serious social issues like gentrification, articulated with a simple cut linking two scenes from the interior of a real estate showing (where wealthier prospects scope the home) to the exterior (where a couple of blue collar workers exit in economic defeat); and most exciting of all, the use of real figures from Baltimore--from police department officials to former drug runners. These characters are wonderfully integrated for an added, unspoken layer of verisimilitude, which reaches its spooky apex in seasons four and five with Marlo's sidekick Snoop (Felicia Pearson). Now she's an actress I want to know more about. She gives a simply amazing performance that paralyzes you with fear.

That's where I'll end my talk of The Wire for now. Let's move on the the May movie list!



La Notte - (1962) - DVD
Seen: Friday, May 8, 2009

Mmm. With this, I almost conclude Antonioni's trilogy of films on modern malaise. La Notte, the second in the series was too academic for me to truly enjoy. I'd be in brighter spirits by the end of the final film, L'eclisse (see below), which is mesmerizing.









Pursued - (1947) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, May 10, 2009

Random movies sometimes fall into my queue and this, Raoul Walsh's Pursued (1947), is one of them. It's a little noirish, mostly a western, and all Robert Mitchum as a grown adopted son who marries his own sister. They're not related by blood, of course, but isn't there something odd about these kinds of romantic setups? Anything odd about that because they only seem to happen in the movies? And I am sorry to be so curt, but Pursued was an otherwise unremarkable movie. In times like these I end up pondering how society would react to a woman and her adoptive brother getting hitched rather than the movie itself. In any event, I have a tender place in my heart for Robert Mitchum, and I considered this a warm-up for the next Mitchum flick in my queue...


The Night of the Hunter - (1955) - DVD
Seen: Thursday, May 14, 2009

Now there's my Mitchum! Here's a little write-up I posted on Scarlett Cinema.











Spring in a Small Town - (1948) - DVD
Seen: Saturday, May 16, 2009

There was some talk at GreenCine about Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town awhile back. Figuring I was already overdue to see it, I did. It's a wonderful meditation on love and unrealized emotions, or at least of those emotions that creep up on you later when life makes them too complicated to deal with simply.








L'eclisse - (1962) - DVD
Seen: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Alain! Just look at him. Look at him! It is fair to adore Monica Vitti, too, I'll concede, but Alain Delon is breaking my heart these days. Watching him in Antonioni's final film in the L'Avventura/La Notte/L'eclisse series, well, that breaks it. This is bordering on obsession now. I can't take my eyes of him as it is--no matter what the movie--but you place him in this lovely, dreamy Roman landscape filled with floating emotions of love and lust and the sense that they are all so tenuous, brittle really, and could scatter into nothingness with a lazy turn of a street corner? Forget it. I'm mesmerized. Can I call in sick for that? "Hi boss, I'm at home in a dreamy daze about modern Rome and an irrational affection for an actor who is more than forty years my senior. I don't think I can come in today." Think it will work? Damn, me neither.


I Could Never Be Your Woman - (2007) - DVD
Seen: Friday, May 22, 2009

Robert Cashill at the Between Productions blog (also at Cineaste mag) tipped me off to this minor piece of Amy Heckerling filmmaking, that perhaps gets that title via self-fulfilling prophecy: is it a minor movie because it doesn't have the wit of a Clueless (1995) or a Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), or because it recieved absolutely no marketing and went straight to DVD? I'll offer it's a bit of both, leaning towards the no-marketing line of thought. It's a cute and clever story in the way Clueless is--lots of throwaway lines, quirky character traits, and um, Paul Rudd's dreamy set of baby-blues. It also features a fantastic soundtrack (80s music fans will swoon. Read: The Psychedelic Furs!), which Heckerling never seems to skrimp on. It's poppy and bright and colorful, and as Cashill points out, Michelle Pfieffer gives a surprisingly rich comic performance. Check it out.


Win or Lose: A Summer Camp Story - (2009) - DVD
Seen: Monday, May 25, 2009

Newbie director Louis Lapat made a really good movie. He contacted me out of the blue offering up a screener copy in return for a review. Well, the review is written, but not yet up. I've got plans for it once his movie makes its debut on PBS later this year. Until then, it is safely stowed on my hard drive.

I recommend you contact your local PBS station and request that his film be shown. Programming is tricky, and not always the same from city to city. So if you're ever going to get a chance to see this, give them a ring and say, "Hey, I want to see Louis Lapat's Win or Lose!" It's a neat little documentary feature about a Wisconsin summer camp for boys who duel it out for championship trophies from the (in)famous "Collegiate Week." The 'Week is when teams of very nonathletic boys soldier up for a series of competitive sporting events and brace themselves for a lot of testosterone-fueled yelling from their coaches. It's practically the essence of of "male" movie (you won't find many women lingering in the shots), but it reconciles all of that rough-and-tumble hostility with sweet character profiles, clever animation vignettes, and a tender hearted voice over narration from the filmmaker himself.


The Girlfriend Experience - (2009) - Film
Seen: Tuesday, May 26, 2009

I enjoyed this for my time in the theater, but somehow as the days of have passed since, my affection has worn off. Perhaps I'll articulate it better later. Suffice it to say for now that it never really hurts to watch a non-Hollywood Soderbergh film, even if it doesn't pan out as a personal favorite. The shots are so damn beautiful!