May Criterions and Paramount Catalogues in 2010!

Criterion announced their May titles earlier today, which includes a second volume of films by Stan Brakhage, and both collections on Blu-ray. In addition to that excitement, the Eclipse box set for May is Nagisa Oshima's Outlaw Sixties, including the films Japanese Summer: Double Suicide, Pleasures of the Flesh, Violence at Noon, Sing a Song of Sex and Three Resurrected Drunkards. With the Akerman and now Oshima sets this year, I'm more excited for the Eclipse box sets than the mainline releases it seems. Also in store for May are a remastered edition of Nicolas Roeg's great Walkabout (DVD and Blu-ray), John Ford's Stagecoach (DVD and Blu-ray) and Fritz Lang's M (on Blu-ray).

I also was doing some browsing on the IMDb and saw that on the page for Joseph Strick's maligned adaptation of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer that Olive Films Opus is listed as the DVD publisher for 2010. So I did a little more investigating, and it seems Olive Films have snatched up a number of Paramount's catalogue titles (kind of like Legend Films did in summer of '08. Aside from Tropic of Cancer, the other titles listed as upcoming DVD releases from Olive Films include Ingmar Bergman's Face to Face [Ansikte mot ansikte] with Liv Ullmann; Guy Green's adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough with Kirk Douglas, Melina Mercouri and George Hamilton; the Raquel Welch western Hannie Caulder; Stuart Rosenberg's WUSA with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Anthony Perkins; Otto Preminger's Skidoo, Hurry Sundown and Such Good Friends; William Dieterle's Dark City with Charlton Heston and Rope of Sand with Burt Lancaster; the Jean Harlow biopic Harlow with Carroll Baker; Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents; Edward Dmytryk's Where Love Has Gone with Susan Hayward and Bette Davis and The Mountain with Spencer Tracy.

In addition to those Paramount titles, it looks like they've also got the rights to some recent films from Scandinavia, including the gay neo-Nazi film Brotherhood [Broderskab], which won the Best Film prize at last year's Rome Film Festival, and Letters to Father Jacob [Postia pappi Jaakobille], Finland's Oscar submission from 2009. Way to go, Olive Films.

Doctor Zhivago, African Queen, Bergman in Spain: DVD Update 12 January

New DVDs. Another African Queen date change (but... cover art has surfaced, so things are looking more and more official). Scarcely few Blu-ray announcements. However, good news for Bergman fans: the Spanish studio Cameo has announced a Blu-ray release of Fanny & Alexander the mini-series (the UK BR from Palisades Tartan is only the theatrical version), as well as a Collector's Edition DVD of its sequel The Best Intentions [Den goda viljan], which is still MIA on DVD in the US, for 23 February. Written by Bergman, directed by Bille August, winner of the Palme d'Or in 1992, the Collector's Edition will contain both the theatrical version and the little-seen (outside of Sweden) 323-minute television version. This is, as far as I'm aware, the first release of the television version of Fanny & Alexander on Blu-ray, as well as the television version of The Best Intentions on DVD. Sadly, the discs only come with Spanish subtitles, but again, perhaps this is a good sign for an upcoming release in the US. The DVD and Blu-ray announcements below are in descending order of release, and the italicized ones are for date changes.

- The Box, 2009, d. Richard Kelly, also on Blu-ray, Warner, 23 February
- Easier with Practice, 2009, d. Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Breaking Glass Pictures, 2 March
- Where the Wild Things Are, 2009, d. Spike Jonze, also on Blu-ray, Warner, 2 March
- Pirate Radio [The Boat That Rocked], 2009, d. Richard Curtis, also on Blu-ray, Focus Features, 9 March
- Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, 2009, d. Lee Daniels, also on Blu-ray, Lionsgate, 9 March
- The African Queen, 1951, d. John Huston, also on Blu-ray, Paramount, 23 March
- Son of Man, 2006, d. Mark Dornford-May, Lorber Films/Kino, 23 March
- Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield, 2003, d. Lee Jun-ik, CJ Entertainment/Virgil Films, 30 March
- Separation, 1968, d. Jack Bond, Microcinema, 30 March
- Voice of a Murderer, 2007, d. Park Jin-pyo, CJ Entertainment/Virgil Films, 30 March
- Fighter in the Wind [Baramui Fighter], 2004, d. Yang Yun-ho, Cinema Epoch, 6 April
- Strictly Ballroom, 1992, d. Baz Luhrmann, Special Edition, Buena Vista, 6 April
- The Missing Person, 2009, d. Noah Buschel, Strand Releasing, 13 April
- The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, 2008, d. Olaf de Fleur Johannsesson, Here! Films, 20 April
- Big Heart City, 2008, d. Ben Rodkin, Vanguard, 20 April, w. Seymour Cassel, Shawn Andrews
- The Blue Tooth Virgin, 2008, d. Russell Brown, Here! Films, 20 April
- Crime of Passion [Delitto passionale], 1994, d. Flavio Mogherini, MYA, 27 April
- Dogora [Dogora: Ouvrons les yeux], 2004, d. Patrice Leconte, also on Blu-ray, Severin, 27 April
- Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight, 2009, d. Wendy Keys, New Video, 27 April
- Oresama, 2004, d. Marumo, Eastern Star, 27 April
- Pornô!, 1981, d. David Cardoso, Luiz Castellini, John Doo, Impulse Pictures, 27 April
- Sweet Teen [Frittata all'italiana], 1976, d. Alfonso Brescia, MYA, 27 April
- Without Trace [...a tutte le auto della polizia], 1975, d. Mario Caiano, MYA, 27 April
- Chelsea on the Rocks, 2008, d. Abel Ferrara, Empire/Hannover House, 4 May
- College Boys Live, 2009, d. George O'Donnell, Water Bearer, 4 May
- Doctor Zhivago, 1965, d. David Lean, 45th Anniversary Edition, also on Blu-ray, Warner, 4 May
- No Orchids for Miss Blandish, 1948, d. St. John Legh Clowes, VCI, 1 June

Blu-ray

- Versus, 2000, d. Ryuhei Kitamura, Tokyo Shock, 30 March
- A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984, d. Wes Craven, New Line/Warner, 6 April
- Class of Nuke 'Em High, 1986, d. Richard W. Haines, Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz, Troma, 27 April

The Decade List: Some Honorable Mentions for 2000

As time is not on my side, I probably won't get the chance to write about (or even view) all of the films I'd like to for The Decade List. To make up for this, I've singled out a few other notable films from the year 2000, most of which aren't likely to show up on the big list down the road. Some of them are annotated, others not. Of the films below, only five have been revisited within the past year. You can still expect a bunch of other 2000 films throughout the year. I'll probably continue to do this with other good, if not amazing, films from the past 10 years. The films below are in no particular order, though the annotated ones are listed first.

Seom [The Isle] - dir. Kim Ki-duk

A rewatch of the film that introduced me to Kim Ki-duk proved less satisfactory than I had remembered. Outside of its grotesqueness, Ki-duk conducts a breathtaking landscape, a dream/nightmare world of floating houses on a Korean river with dialogue at an absolute minimum. This setting/tone of a cinematic poem works a lot better in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, but on a visual level, The Isle is still quite lovely.

With: Suh Jung, Kim Yoosuk, Park Sung-hee, Jo Jae-hyeon, Jang Hang-Seon
Screenplay: Kim Ki-duk
Cinematography: Hwang Seo-shik
Music: Jeon Sang-yun
Country of Origin: South Korea
US Distributor: First Run Features

Premiere: 22 April 2000 (South Korea)
US Premiere: 2002 August 23

The King Is Alive - dir. Kristian Levring

Of the notable Dogme 95 films of the 21st century (which, I believe, Lone Scherfig's Italian for Beginners, Susanne Bier's Open Hearts and Ole Christian Madsen's Kira's Reason: A Love Story may be the only others), Kristian Levring's The King Is Alive always stood as my favorite, despite the handful of problems that lie within. The premise, in which a group of tourists get stranded in the middle of an African desert when their bus veers off-course, isn't remarkable. It's a classic pre-reality TV boom exposé of the dark side of the human condition, in which a group of strangers resort to greed and treachery as their hope diminishes, and it doesn't break new ground there. However, when meta psychdrama takes precedence over bleak survival drama, The King Is Alive becomes a lot more intriguing. Of the uniformly excellent cast, Levring provides his actresses with the best material, with Romane Bohringer as an Iago-esque French woman, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a seemingly vapid party girl, Janet McTeer and Lia Williams as women unsatisfied by their husbands. Though certainly contrived, The King Is Alive is rather beautiful when it's hitting the right notes.

With: David Bradley, Romane Bohringer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Janet McTeer, David Calder, Bruce Davison, Lia Williams, Chris Walker, Vusi Kunene, Miles Anderson, Brion James, Peter Khubeke
Screenplay: Kristian Levring, Anders Thomas Jensen, with inspiration from William Shakespeare's King Lear
Cinematography: Jens Schlosser
Music: Derek Thompson
Country of Origin: Denmark/Sweden/USA
US Distributor: IFC Films

Premiere: 11 May 2000 (Cannes)
US Premiere: 2001 May 11

Awards: Best Actress - Jennifer Jason Leigh (Tokyo International Film Festival)

Psycho Beach Party - dir. Robert Lee King

An amalgam of Frankie & Annette beach films, slasher pics and 60s Americana, Psycho Beach Party finds nothing new to say about its gender or sexual politics, but in such a rambunctious, vibrant package, it's hard to complain. The year 2000 was a strong one for Lauren Ambrose, whose hysterical performance as the spunky schizo Chicklet here and the lost teenager Frankie in Robert J. Siegel's somber Swimming would lead her to the amazing Six Feet Under the following year. Though Psycho Beach Party has a few casting missteps (Nicholas Brendan as Mr. Perfect?), Amy Adams, as the boycrazy Marvel Ann, is one of the bright spots.

With: Lauren Ambrose, Charles Busch, Thomas Gibson, Nicholas Brendon, Beth Broderick, Kimberley Davies, Matt Keeslar, Danni Wheeler, Amy Adams, Nick Cornish, Andrew Levitas, Kathleen Robertson, Nathan Bexton, Buddy Quaid
Screenplay: Charles Busch, based on his play Psycho Beach Party
Cinematography: Arturo Smith
Music: Ben Vaughn
Country of Origin: USA/Australia
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 23 January 2000 (Sundance)

Awards: Outstanding Actress - Lauren Ambrose (L.A. Outfest)

Trolösa [Faithless] - dir. Liv Ullmann

Ingmar Bergman screenplays directed by other people always lack the filmmaker's visual and emotional touch, but his frequent actress and former lover Liv Ullmann does an impressive job with Faithless, even if it does feel like something's missing. There's a strangeness about the unveiled disclosure of the screenplay, in which Erland Josephson, another regular in Bergman's troupe of actors, plays a character named Bergman, living on the island of Fårö, where many of the master's great works were filmed and where he'd later die. Ullmann keeps things ambiguous however, intertwining imagination and memory and keeping the narrative from feeling too confessional.

With: Lena Endre, Erland Josephson, Krister Henriksson, Thomas Hanzon, Michelle Gylemo
Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman
Cinematography: Jörgen Persson
Country of Origin: Sweden/Italy/Germany/Finland/Norway
US Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Premiere: 13 May 2000 (Cannes)
US Premiere: 2001 January 26 (Palm Springs International Film Festival)

Happy Times - dir. Zhang Yimou

Happy Times would be the turning point in Zhang Yimou's successful, if overpraised, career. His fascination with human drama ended on a high note with Happy Times before giving way to shit-fucking-awful martial arts epics Hero and House of Flying Daggers (as well Curse of the Golden Flower, which I never saw, and Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, a "return to form").

With: Zhao Benshan, Dong Jie, Dong Lifan, Fu Biao, Li Xuejian
Screenplay: Zi Gai, based on the novel Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh by Mo Yan
Cinematography: Hou Yong
Music: San Bao
Country of Origin: China
US Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Premiere: 31 December 2000
US Premiere: 2002 July 26

Erin Brockovich - dir. Steven Soderbergh

As wildly diverse as Steven Soderbergh's career may be, he found one of his best films, Out of Sight, under the Hollywood umbrella. While not nearly as good as Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich was, for this writer, the better of Soderbergh's offerings in 2000. Erin Brockovich's "empowerment" and sense of humor made for a much more enjoyable filmgoing experience than Traffic's "grittiness." Both could be thrown together as "message movies" about giant social issues, and while their insincerity comes from divergent reasons, Erin Brockovich never strives for anything bigger than its real-life subject does, and thankfully a few of those things are a tight-top, big hair, high heels and plenty of sass. All snark aside, Julia Roberts' performance is quite good, and her Oscar for it is certainly justified from a Hollywood perspective (though, of course, plenty of other actresses were even better with more challenging roles).

With: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart, Marg Helgenberger
Screenplay: Susannah Grant
Cinematography: Ed Lachman
Music: Thomas Newman
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Universal Studios

Premiere: 14 March 2000 (USA)

Awards: Best Actress - Julia Roberts (Academy Awards); Best Actress - Julia Roberts (BAFTAs); Best Actress, Drama - Julia Roberts (Golden Globes); Best Actress - Julia Roberts, Best Director [also for Traffic] (National Board of Review)

Dancing at the Blue Iguana - dir. Michael Radford

As a film, Dancing at the Blue Iguana isn't much, but as an acting experiment, which was how the film became what it is, it's fantastic. Surrounding the personal and professional lives of five strippers at the Blue Iguana, Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly and Sandra Oh deliver some of the best performances of their careers. All three tool around with their own expected cinematic personas (Hannah as the ditzy blonde, Oh as the introverted nice girl and Tilly as the fiesty vixen) with remarkable results. As one might expect from a film based around improvisation, Dancing at the Blue Iguana works better in individual scenes than as a whole. The most memorable occurs when Tilly, after finding out that she's pregnant, tries to smoke in the waiting room of the doctor's office and goes off on the irritating mom-to-bed next to her. Though neither Hannah nor Oh are physically believable as strippers (I always assume chest size is a pre-requisite for such a job), they make up for it in other areas. Dancing at the Blue Iguana is one of the few examples of a film that overcomes the fact that the sum of its parts greatly out-weight the whole.

With: Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly, Charlotta Ayanna, Sandra Oh, Sheila Kelley, Elias Koteas, Robert Wisdom, Vladimir Mashkov, Kristin Bauer, W. Earl Brown, Chris Hogan, Rodney Rowland, Jesse Bradford, Christina Cabot
Screenplay: Michael Radford, David Linter
Cinematography: Ericson Core
Music: Tal Bergman, Renato Neto
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Lions Gate

Premiere: 14 September 2000 (Toronto Film Festival)
US Premiere: 21 April 2001 (Los Angeles Film Festival)

Trasgredire [Cheeky!] - dir. Tinto Brass

Taken from my earlier review: Tinto Brass still makes films as if it were the 1970s. We open Cheeky! with our heroine, Carla (Yuliya Mayarchuk), strolling through a London park like Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can’t Help It to an amusingly high-cheese score, where it just so happens everyone around her is engaging in lusty sex. Everywhere she turns, there’s a woman uncrossing her legs to reveal she forgot to put her panties in the laundry that morning. Or there’s a couple in heat, appeasing one another’s sexual urges. Of course, Carla, looking like an Eastern-European streetwalker dressed up as Brigitte Bardot, joins in on the fun, wearing a see-through skirt and exposing her buttocks to passer-byers. There’s a story that follows involving Carla’s tight-ass boyfriend and her search for an apartment, but really this is only an excuse to introduce Carla to as many sexual partners as possible or place her in a situation where others are about to bang. The playfulness of Cheeky!’s sexuality is admirable and refreshing, even if the film is simply pretext for close-ups of Mayarchuk’s ass and sexual experimentation.

With: Yuliya Mayarchuk, Jarno Berardi, Francesca Nunzi, Max Parodi, Mauro Lorenz, Leila Carli, Vittorio Attene
Screenplay: Tinto Brass, Carla Cipriani, Nicolaj Pennestri, Silvia Rossi, Massimiliano Zanin
Cinematography: Massimo Di Venanzo
Music: Pino Donaggio
Country of Origin: Italy
US Distributor: Cult Epics

Premiere: 28 January 2000 (Italy)
US Premiere: 30 May 2006 (DVD Premiere)

Sordid Lives - dir. Del Shores

With: Beth Grant, Delta Burke, Ann Walker, Leslie Jordan, Bonnie Bedelia, Beau Bridges, Kirk Geiger, Olivia Newton-John, Newell Alexander, Rosemary Alexander
Screenplay: Del Shores, based on his play
Cinematography: Max Civon
Music: George S. Clinton
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: here! Films

Premiere: 2000 May 25 (Toronto InsideOut Lesbian and Gay Film Festival)
US Premiere: 31 May 2000 (Seattle International Film Festival)

Awards: Outstanding Soundtrack (L.A. Outfest); Best Feature Film, Best Actor - Leslie Jordan (New York International Independent Film & Video Festival); Best Feature (Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival)

Faites comme si je n'étais pas là [Pretend I'm Not Here] - dir. Olivier Jahan

With: Jérémie Renier, Aurore Clément, Sami Bouajila, Alexia Stresi, Nathalie Richard, Emma de Caunes, Johan Leysen, Ouassini Embarek, Bouli Lanners
Screenplay: Olivier Jahan, Michael C. Pouzol
Cinematography: Gilles Porte
Music: Cyril Moisson
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: N/A

Premiere: 2000 June (Avignon Film Festival)
US Premiere: N/A

101 Reykjavík - dir. Baltasar Kormákur

With: Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Victoria Abril, Hanna María Karlsdóttir, Þrúður Vilhjálmsdóttir, Baltasar Kormákur
Screenplay: Baltasar Kormákur, based on the novel by Hallgrímur Helgason
Cinematography: Peter Steuger
Music: Damon Albarn, Einar Örn Benediktsson
Country of Origin: Iceland/Denmark/France/Norway/Germany
US Distributor: Wellspring

Premiere: 1 June 2000 (Iceland)
US Premiere: 25 July 2001 (New York City)

Awards: Discovery Award (Toronto International Film Festival); Best Screenplay, Best Sound - Kjartan Kjartansson (Edda Awards, Iceland)

Mysterious Object at Noon - dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Cinematography: Prasong Klimborron, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
Country of Origin: Thailand
US Distributor: Plexifilm

Premiere: 2000 October 2 (Vancouver International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 2001 June 23 (New York City)

Dayereh [The Circle] - dir. Jafar Panahi

With: Nargess Mamizadeh, Maryiam Palvin Almani, Mojgan Faramarzi, Elham Saboktakin, Solmaz Panahi, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy, Fatemeh Naghavi, Monir Arab
Screenplay: Kambuzia Partovi
Cinematography: Bahram Badakshani
Country of Origin: Iran/Switzerland/Italy
US Distributor: Fox Lorber

Premiere: 6 September 2000 (Venice FIlm Festival)
US Premiere: 1 March 2000 (International Film Series)

Awards: Golden Lion (Venice); Freedom of Expression Award (National Board of Review)

O Fantasma - dir. João Pedro Rodrigues

With: Ricardo Meneses, Beatriz Torcato, Andre Barbosa, Eurico Vieria, Joaquim Oliveira, Florindo Lourenço
Screenplay: Alexandre Melo, José Neves, Paulo Rebelo, João Pedro Rodrigues
Cinematography: Rui Poças
Country of Origin: Portugal
US Distributor: Picture This!

Premiere: 8 September 2000 (Venice Film Festival)
US Premiere: 2001 June 2 (Seattle International Film Festival)

Awards: Best Feature (New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival)

June Is the Month to Beat for R1 DVDs

Criterion, at long last, announced Alain Resnais' masterpiece Last Year at Marienbad [L'année dernière à Marienbad] on both two-disc DVD and single-disc Blu-ray (please change the cover). The disc(s) will contain Resnais' short documentaries, Toute la mémoire du monde and Le chant du Styrène (and will hopefully start the ball rolling on some other Resnais films, like Providence and Mon oncle d'Amérique, which, if Charter is your cable provider, is available free on demand from IFC until the end of the month). Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal will hit both formats in a remastered transfer; the set will include the documentary Bergman Island, which can also be purchased separately on DVD for those not planning on making the upgrade. And, Louis Malle's My Dinner with Andre, which we knew was coming this month, will also hit shelves. Normally, I would gripe about three of the four Criterion titles for the month being films that have already shown up on the DVD market, but The Seventh Seal was in need of a better transfer and the lousy Fox Lorber versions of Marienbad and Andre have been out of print for a while. No Eclipse titles, unless they're announced later this week.

In other Criterion/Janus news, the third volume of Essential Art House DVDs (ie, Criterion films with the price slashed and without the special features) will be out on the 16th, and for the first time, includes a film that hasn't ever been released outside of the collection, Henry Cass' Last Holiday, which as you know was later remade into your favorite Queen Latifa/Gérard Depardieu film! The other films in Volume 3 are Ashes and Diamonds, Forbidden Games, The Hidden Fortress, Richard III and Variety Lights.

Koch Lorber (or, perhaps, Lorber Films) is releasing Jean-Luc Godard's Une femme mariée on 2 June (thanks Eric). Though I haven't gotten official confirmation on whether or not the 5 Warner titles have really been moved to 30 June or not (Amazon still has the June date), even without them June will still be the month to beat, especially as one of the cinematic landmarks of the past twenty years Anaconda will finally be out on Blu-ray on the 2nd.

Don't get them panties in a bunch!

I'm almost sure this is erroneous news, but DVDRama.com is claiming that Ingmar Bergman's elusive, never-released-to-DVD English-language film The Touch [Beröringen], starring Elliott Gould, Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow, is coming to DVD in March in France. I'm nearly positive that this is a mistake as Amazon.fr lists a completely different film with the title Le lien for a 24 March release date. However, this just begs the question as to why the powers that be are keeping us from seeing Elliott Gould act in a Bergman film. So, like I said, don't get those panties or false hopes up.

You're a whore, darlin'

Because you know they just love doing it, Entertainment Weekly made another list... this time counting down the 50 Sexiest Movies of All Time (you can find 1-25 here, and 26-50 here), most of which is pretty asinine, although I (sort of) applaud their choice of Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight at the number one, even though I'm not sure it's "sexiness" resonates throughout the whole film enough for it to be the sexiest.

Shame, however, should be brought onto the mag for even mentioning 300 (which falls at number 50), which I will always lovingly refer to as gay porn for soccer moms (I didn't coin that, and forgive me for forgetting who coined it), a slice of ham like The Notebook, a cheese-fest like Dirty Dancing, an unsalted cracker like Cruel Intentions and a turd like Ghost. Shakespeare in Love and Mr. & Mrs. Smith could have also been omitted, and don't get me started on their ridiculous placement of fucking Once at #11. But props of course are to be given for the inclusion of In the Mood for Love, Mulholland Drive (duh) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (and, of course, that impossibly sexy scene in Don't Look Now between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland)... If EW was so intent on choosing so many non-traditional "sexy" movies, where was Persona, which contains easily the hottest, fully-clothed, non-sex scene ever?

For a more inspired list, you can check out their 25 Least Sexy Movies of All Time, which goes from Showgirls to Batteries Not Included to Requiem for a Dream to Gone Fishin'.

Cliquot

Otto; or Up with Dead People – dir. Bruce LaBruce – 2008 – Germany/Canada
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Boarding Gate – dir. Olivier Assayas – 2007 – France
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Paranoid Park – dir. Gus Van Sant – 2007 – France/USA

A while back, I wrote a snarky post about Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, in which I likened my relationship with the auteur theory with those of close intrapersonal relationships. What resulted was a tongue-in-cheek mockery of my own cinematic solidarity. Do I relate with cinema more than I do with real life? It’s a scary thought, but certainly not one that hasn’t crossed my mind before. I also alluded to a particular experience in which the film Amèlie “clouded my nihilism and filled me with a destructive sense of idealism and romance.” Said experience was no exaggeration, and yet as I’m contemplating my current personal state, particularly in relation to the films I’ve viewed recently, three films, from director’s who’ve thrilled me in the past, have sincerely moved me, in ways completely unexpected and unprecedented (maybe).

Let’s start with the sleaze. Who would have thought that “reluctant pornographer” Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or Up with Dead People and deconstructive Eurotrash artist Olivier Assyas’ Boarding Gate would have swelled up my insides (in the good, non-sexual way)? With Otto, LaBruce sets aside his usual fetishism for skinheads and infuses the film with the gentler side of a zombie film. Otto (Jey Crisfar) is discovered by Medea Yarn (Katharina Klewinghaus), who could best be described as a science experiment meshing Gudrun from The Raspberry Reich, Maya Deren and Anne Rice gone wrong. Really, Otto; or Up with Dead People is LaBruce’s remake of his own Super 8½, his self-serving satire of a porn star named Bruce (played by himself) and the documentary filmmaker (Stacy Friedrich) who’s embarking on a “Brucesploitation film” about his rise and fall in the porn industry. With Otto, LaBruce steps away from himself, instead focusing on Medea’s intended exploitation of Otto, a lost, homeless boy who believes (whether it’s true or not) that he’s a zombie, for the purpose of her political zombie porn epic Up with Dead People.

To say that LaBruce is for an acquired taste would be an understatement, but there’s a central issue in understanding why he detracts so many people. On the surface, his explicit, unsimulated (gay) sex would be a deterrent for most audiences, but there’s also his political agenda, fiercely leftist and patronizing. The leftist “activists” of his films take their agenda as if they were on the right, using tactics of violence and manipulation to overthrow the government which has bred their wrath. It is here, in LaBruce’s depiction of these individuals (and really all others that appear in his films), where audiences just can’t penetrate (sorry for the pun) why LaBruce’s films piss them off so much. LaBruce works under the similar guise as Gregg Araki, masking appreciation with condemnation that makes his films that much more “radical.” LaBruce admires, champions, scorns and criticizes the individuals that fill his screen. For Otto, LaBruce has made evident that his take on the zombie film is best understood as a visual metaphor for consumerism and political ambivalence. Yet where Otto hits home is in the way Otto stands for so much more: the crippling ennui, disillusion and de-habilitation of the contemporary youth. Not to stretch things too far, but Otto’s conception as a zombie (to his credit, LaBruce never reveals whether it’s in Otto’s mind or not) recalls the silence of Liv Ullmann in Persona or the escapism of Juliette Binoche in Mary (two films I’ve already compared). And, strangely, Otto becomes more heartbreaking than I could have expected.

Olivier Assayas continued to send chills down my back with his latest Boarding Gate, a film, not unlike Otto, that’s proved to part audiences and critics alike like the Red Sea (there’s your Charlton Heston reference, it’ll be your last). As Otto proved to be parallel to Super 8½, Boarding Gate serves as the mirror to Assayas’ own demonlover, the salacious, Sonic Youth-scored corporate thriller that brought attention back to the director, five years after Irma Vep. I think Boarding Gate is best understood in the context of Assayas’ recent career than it is stand-alone; in fact, most of Boarding Gate’s detractors have no clue who the director is or what he stands for. Many were struck with the amoral attitude of demonlover, in which hot women (Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny, Gina Gershon) in the business world delved into the underground, backstabbing, murdering and deceiving to climb that ladder. In many ways, the women’s active roles were as fetishized as the women in a Russ Meyer film, but I can’t say whatever Assayas was doing didn’t work. The director raised eyebrows with his follow-up Clean, a stark melodrama without the forced sentiment about a woman’s (Maggie Cheung) grappling with kicking drugs and rekindling her relationship with her estranged son. Clean had heart but didn’t wear it on its sleeve. Instead, it worked more as Assayas’ examination of humanism, in all its imperfections. Thus, Boarding Gate stands as the medium of demonlover’s glossy amorality and Clean’s unsentimental humanism, blending itself surprisingly well.

Sandra, played by your favorite screen siren Asia Argento, needs to pick up the pieces of her life. Her relationships with businessman Miles (Michael Madsen) and a contract killer (Carl Ng) have crumbled, and like Otto, she seems to have entered a state of detachment, unsure of herself or her own place within her understood world. I may be a little harsh on Ms. Argento from time to time, but her style of acting (mumbled dialogue, hazy-eyed, pain killer-fueled) is the true haunting aspect of Boarding Gate. It’s her gameness for shedding clothes while shielding the inner-self that keeps the film on its rails. Where the human and moral aspects collide is through her, because unlike Connie Nielsen’s Diane in demonlover, Sandra actually has a conscience. Diane’s freak-out after murdering someone is more a result of her shock than it is her morality. Sandra, instead, actually reacts to what she’s done with a flicker of a soul, as seen through Argento’s misty eyes.

The big difference between Paranoid Park and the other two is the placement of the emotional resonance. Paranoid Park doesn’t have an Otto or a Sandra, it has an Alex (Gabe Nevins), a teenaged skateboarder who accidentally kills a security guard while train-hopping. Though I didn’t go into detail on the other two, Paranoid Park is flawed just like the others, but the other two films’ faults seemed out of the way of my general appreciation. With Paranoid Park, it took two sittings to look past Van Sant’s poor casting decisions. Enlisting teenagers from Myspace, the film reeks of amateurishness, something that Van Sant likely wanted to convey as youthful awkwardness and naturalness. It didn’t work, and perhaps the lousy performances from the cast, particularly Nevins, make the film’s reverberation shift elsewhere. Though Boarding Gate and Otto both reflected a personal change in their directors, Paranoid Park did the best job of illuminating the man behind the camera.

Though I usually don’t care what he thinks, Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman perfectly remarked upon the separation Paranoid Park has between Van Sant’s Death Trilogy in stating, “it’s the first of Van Sant’s blitzed-generation films in which a young man wakes up instead of shutting down.” It’s within this understanding that Paranoid Park cut deep inside me. Aided by Christopher Doyle’s dazzling cinematography, Paranoid Park is a mood piece, both grainy and sublime, but most of all, buoyant. It becomes a strange case of auteurism when three respected (and personally affecting) filmmakers expose their growth in humanity through their latest films, all within the same year. Back to my Bergman reference, the glimmer of hope shone through his later films, particularly Fanny & Alexander, opening up, in a sense, his entire career. I hope none of the three films I’ve spoke about mark the end of any of the filmmakers’ respective careers (I doubt it will), but I can’t speak higher of these men’s profound impact on my own self at this time, shrugging away ambivalence and ennui in lieu of the startling emergence of significance.