The Grapes of Death

1978 French zombie movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Elisabeth is traveling on a train to meet her fiance and befriends a fellow passenger. When her new BFF excuses herself, a guy with a gross neck wound comes and sits by her. She later discovers that her BFF dead in the bathroom and flees the train in terror. She wanders around a nearby town and finds a lot more people with gross wounds who all chase her slowly.

This is all atmosphere and very little story and has its own sort-of incoherent dream logic that can be frustrating, but this isn't a bad cheap little movie. There's a dreamy fuzziness that's either the result of the low budget or an attempt to dreamify this unfortunate woman's story, and a lot of shots are just out of focus. If that's intentional, it might be a lousy idea. Some gory scenes in the middle of all this wandering around--one features an ax and a girl nailed to a door while another has a pitchfork and a rubbery abdomen--are shocking detours, and there's a fantastic scene where a guy makes out with a severed head if you're into that sort of thing. And why wouldn't you be? Being a French zombie flick, you're bound to get a scene where a woman freely disrobes in order to prove that she's not infected. Guy One watching the unplanned strip tease tells her, "You didn't have to do that" and Guy Two shoots him this great look. Also, since this is French, I'm just going to go ahead and assume that it's all lesbian symbolism. Check out that title, by the way. It's a good one, sure, but is that the correct translation? I don't speak French exactly, but I'm pretty sure this one's actually called Mort's Raisins.

Hugo

2011 movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: An orphan living in a train station tries to repair a robot that his father found in storage at a museum. He befriends the daughter of a crotchety old toy shop owner and tries to avoid being caught by the station inspector while he keeps the train station's clocks running.

Just a stunningly beautiful work of art and a lovely ode to silent cinema, especially the work on a director I won't mention even though it doesn't seem to stop anybody else who writes or talks about the movie. Now the big surprise in this was already spoiled for me because I'd read Brian Selznick's beautiful novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Knowing the story's secrets didn't ruin it for me, and I still teared up, probably because of Ben Kingsley's wonderful performance as that director whom I will not mention. This is a touching movie with plenty of humorous bits, mostly provided by Sacha Baron Cohen's station inspector. The movie's got whimsy and heart, and it's also gorgeous. France is France, but I also loved the way the camera maneuvered around the clock gears or the people packing the train station. I also really enjoyed the recreations of the early films, too. This is a great adaptation of a very cool young adult book and a movie seemingly made for fans of movies.

Buster and Chaplin footage is in this, and Django Reinhardt also makes an appearance. Well, an actor playing Django Reinhardt.

The Station Agent

2003 movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The oddly-named Finbar McBride becomes the titular station agent after his only friend passes away and leaves him a tiny bit of land and an abandoned train depot. He clearly wants to be left alone but reluctantly befriends a hot dog vendor who sets up his stand in the weirdest place imaginable and a female artist who almost runs him over twice. Oh, and the guy's a dwarf. I forgot to mention that part.

All three of these characters and the performers who play them are extremely likable. Peter Dinklage is so good as the main character. He displays every single emotion that the script calls for, mostly without having to say a single word. It's really good seeing him in a starring role, and watching his character grow (Oh no he didn't!) is a rewarding experience. Bobby Cannavale brings an enthusiasm as the gregarious purveyor of hot dogs, and Patricia Clarkson is really good as a secretly complex character. Great cast. If there's a problem, it's that the characters don't have enough to go on here. They've got their back stories and their share of unspoken issues, but what we see on the screen isn't a whole lot of story. Still, as a quirky character study, this works really well. I like these movies where you have these characters who need each other, especially if they don't really understand how or why they need each other. I would have liked to have seen more of Paul Benjamin actually, but this movie wouldn't have made much sense if he lived more than ten minutes into things. A sweet little movie that is almost exactly what it needs to be.

Bound for Glory

1976 biopic

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Woody Guthrie has to ride the rails after violently disrupting Uma Thurman's wedding. Along the way, he becomes a folksinging sensation and a voice for the common working man. But will his past come back to haunt him as Uma is hot on his dusty trail in her efforts to get her revenge and. . . Kill Woody!

So here's David Carradine as Woody Guthrie. He's really solid, especially when he's got a guitar, although I'm not sure I always buy him as a down-home kinda guy. I'm not sure if it was director Hal Ashby's intention or not, but Carradine stands out so much from the rest of the people on screen. And then at the same time, he doesn't quite stand out enough. Anyway, I like Carradine as the titular folky. Bound for Glory is a very good-looking movie, adequately filmed through a layer of dust for the scenes in the Dustbowl and a layer of grime for the train scenes. I like movies with lots of train action, and although there was a lot of time devoted to Woody's time hobo-ing it around, I really really likes those parts, probably because of my secret dream to someday be a hobo. Ashby and Carradine do a good job of illustrating Guthrie's importance to the folk without really getting into his importance on music in general, but that's likely because this is all based on Woody's autobiography. And because of that, you wonder how much of this you can really believe and how much of it is self-bloating. Ashby's version of Guthrie's story moves along languidly which gives somebody interested in this sort of material a chance to really absorb the setting and its characters, but I'd imagine this would get a little boring for a lot of viewers. Randy Quaid, by the way, plays a migrant worker. Why do I always assume that guy is much younger than he actually is. I just looked up his filmography and noticed that he was a Klansman in Birth of a Nation! A good look at the life and times of an American icon.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: The Sunset Limited

2011 conversation

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A black guy stops a white guy's suicide by train and takes him to his apartment to discuss their philosophical differences. Black (that's his name--check the credits!) is a reformed criminal with a firm belief in a higher being; White (seriously, they don't get real names!) is a nihilist who sees the world as an unhappy place that he should just escape from.

I kind of liked this, but I didn't like-like it. Samuel L. Jackson is really terrific, giving a powerful performance as White. Or maybe he was Black. I don't know; Gene Siskel's ghost and I were arguing about that. Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed, isn't bad exactly, but he's kind of overshadowed by what Jackson (or maybe Jackson's character) is doing. The conversation, a darker My Dinner with Andre-esque stream of words, is philosophically interesting, but it lacks cohesion and doesn't make me feel like I've actually gained anything by eavesdropping on the two for an hour and a half. The biggest issue is it never really feels like an actual conversation as opposed to a couple actors sitting down and exchanging scripted verbosity. Yes, that's precisely what it is, but it should still feel natural, right? The problem might be that the two actors are so recognizable. Still, this is worth watching if you've got the time. I just wouldn't recommend it in the lobby at the motel where I work at 4:00 AM when you're already depressed because somebody took your couch away.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Unstoppable

2010 train mayhem

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Earl's brother from the Hey! I'm Earl television sitcom screws up and loses his train, a locomotive hauling a few cars with some deadly-dangerous stuff that, if it spills off the track in some Pennsylvania town like they think it will, could potentially destroy the earth. Thank God for Denzel Washington, a train conducting veteran who, with the help of an arrogant young buck, is there to save the day.

This is the best tall tale that has both a black guy and something to do with trains since John Henry! I halfway enjoyed half of this movie. It's predictable as an action movie. There are also too many scenes with people doing work which reminded me that I was supposed to be doing work and nearly ruined the good time that I was having there on the Urine Couch with the late Gene Siskel. My mind started wandering a bit as jittery action sequences started bleeding into more jittery action sequences which bled into quiet reflective scenes where Denzel and the kid talk about their lives. I started wondering if I'd be able to take care of business if the motel started to move, gaining momentum as it merged with traffic on 465. Would I be able to stop the thing? And would some of our weekly guests be considered toxic? Like, if we tumbled off 465 into traffic on 65, would we explode in a cloud of cocaine and filth, forcing Indianapolis inhabitants to evacuate the city in a search for cleaner air? Regardless, I bet we'd make the news. We'll likely make the news soon enough anyway. Our rivals down the street did after their manager, another Indian guy, was beaten to death and thrown in a dumpster. I can definitely see that happening at my place. What are the chances of two Indiana Indian hotel managers being murdered within a couple weeks of each other? I hope angry customers don't try to beat me and throw me in a dumpster. Or if it happens, I hope Denzel Washington pops out and saves my life, all with really jerky editing and multiple camera angles showing him ripping stop signs from the concrete and swinging them at the bad guys. I love that in movies like Unstoppable, by the way. It's like the director Tony Scott said, "Look, everybody. I've done a lot of these action movies and wasted a whole bunch of planes when doing Top Gun because the cameraman's thumb was in the shot or the explosion didn't look explosiony enough or whatever. We've only got so many trains and cars, so we've got to make this count" and then set up about fifty cameras to shoot the same shot of a huge train crashing into some cars. Then, he looked at the footage and said, "You know what? This is all good! We can't waste any of this shiznit!" and decided to use it all. All the shiznit. Seeing the same train-crashing-into-car scenes from the same angle, sometimes in slow motion, adds about thirty minutes to the movie. Without those extra camera angles, you'd be forced to either tell this story in about sixty minutes or add a lot more scenes of Denzel and the kid talking about life. Anyway, a lot of cardboard to chew through with this one.

Make Way for Tomorrow

1937 weeper

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Bark and Lucy Cooper, the elderly parents of five children, get those ingrates together and announce that they are losing their home. None of the children will take both parents in, and Bark and Lucy are forced to live apart for the first time in many many years. Things don't work out so well, and eventually, he's on his way to live with another one of his offspring in California while she's on her way to an old folks home. They get together for one final afternoon and evening and celebrate their lives together while dreaming of a time when they can share a home again.

Not much in the first half of the movie grabbed me. I liked the two central characters fine as 1930's characters. The children were all about the same, selfish and ungrateful. The interactions between the characters were depressing and even a little uncomfortable. Things developed dismally and then proceeded to get even more dismal. The movie wasn't terrible, but something was missing. Then, at about the halfway point, it became magical. What was missing was apparently face-to-face old people interaction. The scenes during the second half of the movie where they're spending time together are nothing short of beautiful, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried a little bit. That second half of the film is packed with touching moments, my favorite being where the Coopers break the fourth wall, interrupting a kiss to glance back at me crying on my bed. The film's structure--the movie throws out the main conflict right away with little background or character development and saves revelations about the protagonists for the end of the film as they discuss their lives together--creates this startling contrast. Especially troubling is the juxtaposition between how they're treated and talked about by their own children and their experiences with a car salesman and a hotel manager. I imagine the uncompromising conclusion wouldn't be satisfying for every viewer, especially one looking for a bright and shiny 1930's Hollywood ending, but it works as a saggy exclamatory mark at the end of a beautiful and touching movie.

Ripley's Game

2002 psychopathic character study

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Tom Ripley, an American with "too much money and poor taste," likes games. After being insulted at a neighbor's party, he discovers that the Jonathan, the insulter, is dying from cancer and figures that he's the perfect teammate for his latest game. A former associate comes to Ripley because he needs a guy killed, and he gives him Jonathan's number. A follow-up murder is then required because, just like you can't eat just one potato chip, you can't kill just one person. Ripley fights to remain in charge of his game.

At times, this seems to have the production values of a made-for-cable movie. And the characters' motivations are either far too complex for my weak mind to comprehend or just nonsensical. It's probably the former. I'm not Tom Ripley, ya know! But despite its flaws, this movie just works, mostly because it rests on the shoulders of John Malkovich, a guy who was born to play just this sort of psychopath. It's sexy stuff! Ray Winstone's also very good playing just the sort of character he's really good at playing. There's some great dialogue in this ("Hold my watch because if it breaks, I will kill everybody on this train."); I'm not sure if it's the writing or the delivery that makes the lines so much fun. But it's the dialogue and the performances that help you forgive the flaws in this movie. There's a great scene on a train (and I'm a sucker for great scenes that take place on trains!) that is both violent and comical. The movie even threatens to turn into an adult Home Alone movie near the end. It's amazing to me that this was essentially a straight-to-dvd release because John Malkovich really needs to be seen on the big screen. His eyes are too small for a normal-sized television.