Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat.
1.) Five Easy Pieces
The previous year’s Easy Rider may have brought Jack Nicholson to film audiences’ attention, but it’s Five Easy Pieces that made him a star. As Bobby, a shiftless oil rig worker rebelling against his upbringing as a classical piano prodigy, Nicholson bristles with a barely checked rage that comes from…where? An American blue collar variation on cinema’s “Angry Young Man,” Bobby is a selfish bastard, an aimless smartass searching for something he can’t put into words, and then messing everything up when he gets it. His girlfriend (played by the late, great Karen Black) bears the brunt of Bobby’s aggressive sarcasm, taking solace in the wisdom of Tammy Wynette (“Stand By Your Man”). The film’s best known scene is probably the one pictured above, where an increasingly frustrated Nicholson tries to order a side of wheat toast at a truck stop diner–watch it here.
2.) Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
The subject of Errol Morris’ singular documentary, Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. is a small, mild-mannered man with a strong New England accent and large, thick eyeglasses. He is the unlikely embodiment of the American death penalty, as a manufacturer and technician of execution equipment. Leuchter’s fetishization of the electric chair is an astounding insight into the truly banal face of evil. Morris’ stomach-churning, indefatigable gaze into Leuchter’s world of death contrasts sharply with the soft-spoken man’s precise and technical explanation of an electrocution gone wrong where the inmate’s skin began to slough off “like a roast chicken.” It comes as little surprise, then, that in addition to Leuchter’s death fetish, he is a renown Holocaust denier, having testified that the gas chambers used to extinguish over six million Jews didn’t actually exist. Morris deals with this revelation as matter-of-factly as one of Leuchter’s explanations of the mechanics of execution. The total result of the film is one of sick wonder–of how such a man could exist and be so…normal.
3.) Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?)
On the totally opposite spectrum of documentaries with long titles, we have this music doc about the legendary (but criminally overlooked) singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. If you don’t recognize the name, you probably know the music: “Coconut” (as famously appeared at the end of Reservoir Dogs) or “Everybody’s Talkin'” (as famously appeared at the beginning of Midnight Cowboy). Nilsson is unique in his success, having never playing concerts or touring; he was more a musician’s musician (and a favorite of The Beatles). The film chronicles Nilsson’s divorce and drug and alcohol abuse, but like many music docs, what Who is Harry Nilsson really does best is (re)introduce the man’s brilliant discography to an audience who otherwise might not recognize or appreciate his wide-reaching influence on pop music.
4.) A Room With A View
Merchant Ivory’s blithely romantic adaptation of the EM Forster novel, A Room With A View is one of those movies that immediately after you watch it, it becomes an instant classic. Everything about the film is so darn likeable, from the lush photography to the beautiful locations (those Italian and English countrysides!), to the fleet and witty scripting, all topped off with a stellar cast of England’s best actors (Judi Dench! Maggie Smith! Daniel Day-Lewis!). The film concerns Lucy (a baby-faced Helena Bonham Carter), a free-thinking young woman who falls for the handsome George Emerson (Julian Sands) while on holiday in Florence but remains engaged to a snobbish stuffed shirt in England (Day-Lewis). Oh, yes, we all know how this one’ll turn out but the plot really isn’t the concern here. The pleasures of the film are like those of a jaunt down a country lane, or an impromptu trip to a foreign country, or a really divine cup of tea. James Ivory’s direction keeps things moving at a fair clip and the script’s humor and the brilliant ensemble make for a wonderfully entertaining cinematic diversion.
5.) Léon: The Professional
The film that spawned a million Hit-Girls, Luc Besson’s cuddly-assassin-adopts foul-mouthed-prepubescent-girl movie may be one of the most influential action films of the last twenty years. Like a little Nikita, Jr., Natalie Portman (in her screen debut) smokes, swears, and shoots with the best of ’em. After her entire family is massacred by a corrupt DEA officer (Gary Oldman, chewing the scenery all the way), Matilda (Portman) is taken in by Leon (Jean Reno), a “cleaner” whose lack of pop culture knowledge is more than made up for by his love of milk (or something). The film itself makes little sense; its character quirks belie a rather lazy script and an over-maudlin sentimentality. Oldman, for his part, seems to be so bored with the film, he’s decided to make up his own–at least he’s fun to watch. Besson’s own original script was much creepier than the final product (he intended for Leon and Matilda to become lovers!); thankfully, we were spared such romantic pedophilia, although the residual “sexual tension” between characters is icky enough as it is. Besson wisely decides to end the film with a bloody shoot-out and a gigantic explosion. Violence is much less distressing.
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