Machete (2010), directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis.

Machete is one mean bastard. A former member of Mexico’s elite Federales, he’s handy with gun, with boot, with fist and forearm, and, of course, with the giant knife from which he’s taken his name. I might add that it seems that “Machete” is his name, as opposed to a nom de plume, for we see that his superiors, his family, his friends, hell even the FBI and INS (including their computer database), refer to him by the titular blade. Fortunately for the world, Machete is on the side of good, trying to bust drug dealers and murderous thugs who, for instance, shoot and kill pregnant Mexican women as they try to cross the border. One of these thugs is a Republican State Senator from Texas who’s trying to erect a wall to keep Hispanics from crossing over into the United States and… wait one second. Are we saying that Machete, Robert Rodriguez’ long-awaited Grindhouse follow-up, the one with the nude women, funky music, and buckets of gore is… a political film?

If there’s one thing that my father and I used to like to do together, it was watch movies. We didn’t see enough of each other to catch whatever dropped into the local cineplex–rather, we had an intense sort of competition, a desire to seek out and find great, great movies to recommend to one another. My Dad lived in North Carolina, I lived in Minnesota, and we’d call now and again and brag about seeing, say, Children of Men or Buena Vista Social Club for instance. We’d argue, cajole, laugh, complain about this movie or that, and that was wonderful. It was our way of talking, of sharing a moment. These conversations enriched our lives… and the movies.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), directed by Miloš Forman.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a classic. There’s no question about this right? With my Dad, I had seen it in high school and by myself in college, and loved it. This story of R. P. McMurphy’s rage against the machine is meant to fill one not only with righteous indignation, but with a sense of hope. It succeeds.

Cuckoo’s Nest is funny and touching. Everyone’s got a favorite scene: mine is, of course, McMurphy’s longing to watch the World Series. It helps that director Milos Forman and producer Michael Douglas assembled one of the greatest ensemble casts of the 1970s, and Jack Nicholson’s performance as McMurphy is legendary. Oscar-wise, it’s one of the few times Hollywood really got it, handing out awards for Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay to this film that dared to take on the establishment. The tagline summed it up: “If he’s crazy, what does that make you?”

Sadly, watching it again all these years later, I have to admit that what it makes me feel like is that I’m a sane man who didn’t rape a child and try to kill a woman, as McMurphy does in the film. Because for whatever reason, now I see that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is brilliantly acted, brilliantly directed, brilliantly written.. and one hell of a mean and nasty movie.

Inception (2010), directed by Christopher Nolan,
and,
The Builder (2010), directed by R. Alverson.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of… –Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5, 169-170

Does Christopher Nolan dream? One must assume that the Brit sleeps, and when he does his waking life warps and darkens as it does for the rest of us. But maybe I’m being presumptuous–maybe he cannot sleep, maybe he cannot dream. Maybe Mr. Nolan has to read about dreams, and maybe he thinks that movies are dreams. There has to be something to explain the utter lack of imagination on display in his lauded Inception. For Inception is a film about dreaming… that hasn’t a single dreamlike frame in its 148 minutes.

Toy Story 3 (2010), Lee Unkrich.

Is it fair to criticize a very good movie because it fails to live up to nearly impossible standards? Case in point: Toy Story 3. Look at Pixar’s last six years. The Incredibles. Cars. Ratatouille. Wall*E. Up. Excepting Cars, you’ve got four of the best movies a studio has put out probably since Paramount hit the jackpot with Robert Evans in the mid 70s. I would argue it exceeds anything Disney has ever done in a six year stretch of time, and would go so far as to say that those four are better than any four of Walt’s films ever. So with this in mind, I ask again: is it fair to say that Toy Story 3, unquestionably the finest film this summer, and exciting and at times touching movie, pales in comparison? That I expect more from Pixar? Or is this critic spoiled?

Bad Company (1972), directed by Robert Benton.

Last summer, when The Hurt Locker was garnering all sorts of praise and little box office, some film critic, whose name I don’t recall, noted that the current slate of war films was unique in history. This fellow noted that until this war, films critical of war, or deathly realistic, simply didn’t come out while the war was still being fought. The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, and their ilk were all released after the Vietnam War, and of course there were few, if any, movies critical of World War II or Korea. Perhaps this is attributable to the fact that we were, as a nation, very much in support of WWII and Korea, and at the start of Vietnam, while the “police action” raged and had moderate support, crap like John Wayne’s The Green Berets did stellar box office. This war’s films, however, have yet to find an audience. Why, I wonder? Could it be… because we don’t have a draft? Consider the past… and Robert Benton’s Bad Company.

Mid-August Lunch (2008), directed by Gianni Di Gregorio.

I once heard a critic say that the outrageous spectacle of Avatar is what movies are all about. Well, I have to say I think that’s a load, and not just because I think Avatar is a load, and definitely not because I think outrageous spectacle is a load. Inglorious Basterds, Flash Gordon, and the forthcoming The Good, the Bad, and the Weird are all ridiculous spectacle, and I love them for it.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), directed by Kim Jee-woon.

Oh, so you want a blockbuster do you? Lots of noise, explosions, some crazy plot that takes you through the air and to the most remote and exciting parts of the globe? How about a decent plot, character development, a touch of humor now and then? Yes, I know, I know you don’t always need that–any number of sequels, not to mention the whole Mission: Impossible franchise speaks to that. This summer’s not even really begun and the probably woeful Iron Man 2 had pulled in nearly $200 million. Next there’s Braveheart 2: Robin Hood, followed by yet another Shrek (I’ve lost count how many of those awful movies have been made), and the list goes on and on.

How do you narrow down the mystery that is Orson Welles? Like trying to make a disc of the greatest sounds of the planet earth, really, it’s fairly impossible to do, yet fun to try. We can bask in the warm glow of Citizen Kane and marvel that it was made; gnash our collective teeth at the wonton destruction of The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, Lady from Shanghai, or shake our heads at the brilliant lunacy of F for Fake. Oh, yes, and in-between, there’s Shakespeare films, and somewhere, floating between here and the Shah of Iran is his last movie, the Other Side of the Wind.

All That Heaven Allows (1955), directed by Douglas Sirk.

From the files of “street critic” Guy Fresno.

All notes found scribbled on both sides of seventeen pages of RC Cola stationary, and included with a packet of photographs of the first meeting of the “New Underground Detroit Cinema Society That Tells Mike Ilitch to Go Fuck Himself and His Expensive (and Discrimanatory [sic] Against Homeless) Fox Theater”.

These are blurry shots of a Douglas Sirk film festival that Guy curated in the basement of the abandoned Michigan Central Railroad Station. Also included was a bill, for $52, payable for a copy of the lost Barbara Loden script about Ida Lupino. All of which came packed in a greasy Dunkin’ Doughnuts box that had been wrapped, like a cocoon, in cheap packing tape.

Pay attention, now, because it must be known about Douglas Sirk. You wouldn’t think an old bike-riding, half-homeless man such as myself would dig a button-down freak like Douglas Sirk. Douglas Goddam Sirk, who was one of the fucking best, the best, a director who knew what emotion was, and more, he knew how to be a zombie and how not to be a zombie. Like All That Heaven Allows. That’s a zombie movie, and it’s more terrifying than any of that blue-faced, vein-chomping crap that Romero shits out every few years.