Chicago's Burning

CB 097:  Hal Ashby’s “Harold and Maude,” 1971.

Harold:  I haven’t lived. I’ve died a few times. 

Yahoo! Answers:  ”You know the movie ‘Harold and Maude’?  Did they get it on?  Your opinions requested.  Would you have sex with Maude?”

CB 096:  Oren Moverman’s “Rampart,” 2011.

Joan Confrey:  Why is staying a cop the most important thing?

Dave Brown:  Because I’m a hard-charging dutiful motherfucker, and I want to explicate the LAPD’s somewhat hyperbolized misdeeds with true panache, regardless of my alleged transgressions.  Capiche?  In other words, I have nowhere else to go, so if I get canned by the Department I swear to God, I’ll study for the bar this time, and come back here and work as your token facist.

Rampart isn’t perfect but Moverman and cinematographer Bobby Bukowski construct some striking portraits along the way.

CB 095:  Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy,” 2010.

James Miller:  I’m afraid there’s nothing very simple about being simple.

CB 094:  Asif Kapadia’s “Senna,” 2010.

Sid Watkins:  …and that’s when I said to him, “You’ve been three-times World Champion, you’re the fastest man in the world, and you like fishing; so why don’t you quit, and I’ll quit, and we’ll just go fishing.”

As the onboard camera follows Ayrton Senna on his ill-fated final lap at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, my pulse raced perceptibly.  His teammates’ account of the lead up to the crash, as well as any announcer commentary ceases, and you’re left with an objective record—albeit somewhat grainy and muffled—of what the it must have looked and sounded like to be on board.  I wasn’t familiar with Senna’s life (or his death) before this film.  I’d never scrutinized his crash, so I flinched at each corner, bracing for an uncertain impact.  It was this not knowing that made Senna so enjoyable and engrossing.  Some people have had years to digest the career arc of a sporting hero, but for the uninitiated it’s a 90 minute opportunity to discover an international Lance Armstrong or Tiger Woods-caliber icon for the first time.

CB 093:  Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” 1985.

Horst:  That was rude of you, Paul.

Paul:  I don’t know what came over me.

Horst:  Lack of discipline.

Paul:  Possibly

Modern conveniences have robbed future generations of zany, Paul Hacket-style misadventures.  A 2012 remake of After Hours is just a 5 minute short where Paul pays for various things with a credit card.

CB 092:  Isao Takahata’s “Grave of the Fireflies,” 1988.

Seita:  September 21, 1945 … that was the night I died.

Coincidentally, the same day this arrived at my apartment the AV Club published an excellent Primer on Studio Ghibli, the renowned Japanese animation studio that did the production for Grave of the Fireflies; pegging it #2 on their list of essentials after My Neighbor Totoro.  Author of the Primer Sam Adams notes, “Where Totoro uses animation to envision a world that doesn’t exist, Grave uses animation to tell a story that would be unbearable in a more realistic medium.”  Regarding it’s place in film history, Ebert writes, “Yes, it’s a cartoon, and the kids have eyes like saucers, but it belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made.”

I first read about Grave in a different, considerably less sunny AV Club article entitled, “Not Again:  24 Great Films Too Painful To Watch Twice.”  I’d advise against using that list as a sequential viewing guide.  I recall throwing 4 or 5 of them in a row into my queue … that was a bleak couple of weeks.  I just stared blankly at a wall, eating nothing but cottage cheese for about a month afterwards.

CB 091:  Paddy Considine’s “Tyrannosaur,” 2011.

Hannah:  Did you love her?

Joseph:  Mm hmm.  And I hated her as well.  She was a simple lady.  Had this naive faith in people.  Would forgive anyone for anything, which would drive me fucking nuts.  So full of forgiveness and love.  And I stomped all over her.  I’m not proud of it.  I thought she was dumb, but she wasn’t, she was beautiful.

No matter how many excellent films Paddy Considine makes about British working-class miserablism, he’ll always be one half of the The Andy’s in Hot Fuzz to me.

CB 090:  Jason Reitman’s “Young Adult,” 2011.

Buddy Slade:  It sucks, what happened to Matt.  That poor guy suffered so much just for being gay.

Mavis Gary:  He’s not actually gay.

Buddy:  Yeah, I’m pretty sure he is.

Mavis:  No.

Buddy:  Didn’t you call him a theater fag all the time in high school?

Mavis:  ”Theater fag” is an expression, Buddy.

Hitting the pause button to cringe is the ‘dark comedy’ equivalent of yelling “Don’t go into the room!” during a horror film.

CB 089:  David Cronenberg’s “eXistenZ,” 1999.

Yevgeny Nourish:  Spores!  No!  No, spores!  Deadly spores!

Deadly spores are the worst kind of spores.