Spinal Tap
The granddaddy of mockumentaries, “This is Spinal Tap” follows the musical and emotional vicissitudes of a motley (and imaginary) British rock band whose aging members are touring America, shedding their few remaining brain cells along the way. This trailblazing parody really stood out in its day — 1984 — and holds up better than many a stadium rocker has.
“Spinal Tap” has never been released in France until now, and it’s reasonable to assume that for those who are not native speakers of English, some of the humor may be too subtle to survive the homogenization of subtitles. Then again, the delusional behavior of not terribly good rock bands is universally understood. Forget Esperanto — mediocrity honed to a science is a lingua franca that transcends both borders and language.
In pop culture observer mode, it’s interesting to note that Rob Reiner’s directing debut, “Spinal Tap,” came out the same year as Jonathan Demme’s “Stop Making Sense,” the brilliant concert film of a genuine band, the Talking Heads. It’s not often audiences can enjoy a sublime example of a genre (the rock film) and a destined-to-be-classic parody of the same thing in the same year.
Nowadays, more often than not, the parody is contained in the straight performance, only nobody seems to notice. I mean, what possible excuse was there for the worse-than-run-of-the-mill songs sung at the Olympic opening ceremonies by the likes of Olivia Newton John and Tina Arena? What is the point of strenuously applying one’s vocal talents to a song not worth singing?
If you knew a billion people were going to be watching, would you say to yourself, “What this calls for is one of those stunningly mediocre songs from the June-soon-moon-balloon school of rhymes embedded in a tepid and unmemorable alleged melody,” or would you aim a little higher? The songs in “Spinal Tap” suddenly sound less ludicrous when compared with much of what today’s recording industry has to offer. By the way, look for my forthcoming album, “I’ve Got Rants in my Pants,” on the Curmudgeon label. (Nov 1)
The Yards
An American tragedy full of actors Acting, “The Yards” is melancholy and intense in a manner that was common in Hollywood pictures of the 1950s through the 1970s (think “The Godfather”) but has gone out of style. James Gray, the writer-director of 1995’s even more haunting “Little Odessa,” pulls out all the stops in this drama of family and professional loyalties stretched to breaking point after a routine shady deal in the New York subway and rail yards, goes lethally sour. Although the milieu is unsavory, Joaquin Phoenix, James Caan, Mark Wahlberg, Faye Dunaway, Ellen Burstyn and Charlize Theron chew the scenery in a way that makes it look tasty. (Nov 1)
Snatch
A high-octane caper film full of seamlessly outlandish performances, “Snatch” proves that writer-director Guy Ritchie (who garnered some attention as the father of Madonna’s second child two years after fathering “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”) has talent to burn. “Snatch” is bloody and irreverent, which makes it, in the vernacular, bloody irreverent.
The nominal narrator is a small-time London boxing promoter named Turkish (his parents, having met after they both survived a plane crash, named him for the airline). We watch a creative jewel heist in Antwerp that yields a rock only slightly less imposing than Gibraltar. The 84-carat dazzler is to be delivered to New York via London by a courier with a gambling problem, Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro). Other crucial characters — in a three-branched torrent of sustained lunacy positively brimming with characters — include gypsy bare-knuckle boxer Mickey O’Neil (Brad Pitt in a scruffy turn, with a delightfully unintelligible accent) and Brick Top (Alan Ford ), head of the unlicensed boxing world and an authority on exactly how to dispose of corpses by feeding them to pigs. (Who says violent movies can’t be educational? The pigs in the audience were giving each other the porcine equivalent of high-fives when they heard just how good they were at obliterating stray bodies.)
Although all this may not sound terribly droll, Damon Runyon would certainly enjoy the way these mugs express themselves. This is also the picture that brings us a dog that squeaks and a lactose-intolerant car.
Ritchie has the same kind of talent that mothers of 12 children must have: He’s mastered lots of little tricks for telling his brood apart, which makes it easy for viewers to just sit back and enjoy the mayhem without ever going “Huh?” The result is a real standout in the annals of complicated stories populated by competing unscrupulous underworld lowlife scum wreaking havoc in London. (Nov 15)
Bill Plympton
You can spot the sardonic animation of Bill Plympton a mile off, but you should make a concerted effort to get closer than that, which will be possible starting November 22 when “Mondo Plympton,” a collection of his short films, hits Paris. Plympton is a sort of post-modern caveman. He’s in thrall to women but mystified by them. Thriving on the physical extremes to which his pen leads him, he’s never met a visual or conceptual exaggeration he didn’t like. Plympton’s special brand of laconic nastiness is front and center in “Push Comes to Shove,” in which two men duke it out as only cartoon characters can. “Nosehair,” a whimsical line-drawing odyssey, gives new meaning to the phrase “splitting hairs.” “How to Kiss” and “25 Ways to Quit Smoking” are full of guffaws, as is “Surprise Cinema,” a sort of demonic “Candid Camera” whose clean-cut host makes devilish modifications to everyday objects.
All 11 shorts offer wacky bursts of creativity, but the whole series is worth sitting through for just one sublime moment in “Sex and Violence” in which a man who has misplaced his keys improvises a radical method for locating them. (Nov 22)
Liberty Heights
Having written and directed their own distinctive films for decades, John Waters (“Pink Flamingos,” “Pecker,” “Cecil B. Demented”) and Barry Levinson (“Diner,” “Tin Men,” “Avalon”) are the twin bards of Baltimore. Levinson’s latest, “Liberty Heights,” is simply terrific. There’s not a dud performance or unresonant setting in this funny and involving semi-autobiographical look at one year in the lives of a Jewish family in the 1950s. The cars were gorgeous, rock’n’roll was about to transform teen life, anti-Semitism was standard practice among the country club set and the prospect of interracial dating was in the air, to name but a few of the broad developments from which Levinson has molded his exemplary and funny slice of American life circa 1954. (Nov 15)
Free movies in English
As a penniless new arrival to Paris with a serious filmgoing habit to finance, I would’ve killed for the perk that now comes with each paid membership to the Centre Pompidou: free admission to the film series that are under way year round. This means that for roughly 250F a year, you can waltz into the center’s permanent collections and temporary exhibits at will AND enjoy a choice of up to six films per day at no extra charge. “Typiquement British,” a fab lineup of movies from the UK, continues
