Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat.
1.) Grosse Pointe Blank
Looking back, it seems the 1990s were a golden age for the quirky assassin-for-hire movie. Take, for instance, Leon: The Professional, Pulp Fiction, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai: no longer was it enough for thugs in cheap suits to plug ya for a couple bucks: now they were quoting Eastern philosophy and had lots of psychological damage. Psychological damage is the impetus for Martin Blank (John Cusack) to return to his Grosse Pointe, Michigan 10-year high school reunion–his therapist suggested it would be good to reconnect with his roots. Well, that, and he has a contract killing there, too. All the while, a rival hit man played by Dan Aykroyd (!) is trying to get Martin to join his assassins union, and Martin finds himself growing close to an old girlfriend played by Minnie Driver. Boasting a fantastic ’80s flashback soundtrack (The Clash, The Jam, The Specials, Pixies, The Cure), Grosse Pointe Blank is something of an unofficial prequel to Cusack’s album-obsessed neurotic in High Fidelity (2000). Neither Rob in that film, or Martin is this one, seem satisfied in their current life choices, opting instead to regress into state of perpetual mopey adolescence (albeit, flawlessly scored). Grosse Pointe Blank may not be as good as High Fidelity, but it does offer some quality laughs for those of us with a slightly warped sense of humor.
2.) Requiem for a Dream
Valentine’s Day is long forgotten; time to reinvest in watching soul-crushingly depressing movies. Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Day is here to help. I know a lot of people have told me they’ve put off watching this film because of its reputation as a total downer (certainly, a well-earned reputation), but now with its availability on Hulu, at least there are periodic commercial breaks for you to regain your composure. What is it, exactly, that makes Requiem for a Dream so hard to watch? I think it has to do with the casting of such good-looking white people (the stunningly beautiful Jennifer Connelly and Jared Leto, looking fresh as a dew drop) and then systematically stripping them of all freshness, liveliness, vivacity or dignity. Don’t do drugs, kids. But drugs just aren’t for kids anymore! Ellen Burstyn earned a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her performance as Leto’s diet pill-addicted mother. Although it remains to be seen how innovative (controversial?) Aronofsky’s biblical epic Noah will be, I can hardly imagine the director will ever make a film that has the shocking visceral impact Requiem for a Dream had when it was released, and continues to have whenever viewed for the first time.
3.) Coming to Light: The Edward S. Curtis Story
I first discovered the photography of Edward S. Curtis during a college course on the Western. Curtis spent the better part of three decades (from the late 1890s to the late 1920s) documenting the indigenous peoples of North America, including some of the most famous portraits of Native American leaders like Geronimo, and Princess Angeline, the daughter of Chief Seattle. However, far more important than his portraits are Curtis’ documents of the everyday lives of Native peoples during a period of rapid change in the early part of the 20th century. Coming to Light, which originally aired as a piece on the PBS series “American Masters,” is a unique project because it not only examines Curtis’ photography through a historical lens, but through the lens of personal history. Anne Makepeace, the doc’s writer/director, is of Native descent, and many of the interviews in the film focus on the ancestors of Curtis’ photographs and how they serve not only as a representation of a culture, but as the real, living history of a family. But the film doesn’t shy away from Curtis’ faults as an ethnographic photographer: he knew that working off a grant from the government would only get him so far (indeed, he died very poor), so he was careful to pose Native Americas in traditional clothing, performing tribal rituals that didn’t necessarily represent a typical day in the life of an indigenous peoples in the early 20th century. The tension between having to market “Indianness” and Curtis’ sincere desire to preserve American Indian culture is explored in detail, making Coming to Light a fascinating documentary about art and commerce.
4.) Capturing the Friedmans
Speaking of soul-crushing cinema…Capturing the Friedmans. There seems to be no shortage of depressing documentaries available out there (I’ve highlighted Dear Zachary in the past), and this Oscar-nominated 2003 doc by Andrew Jarecki certainly fits the bill. Certainly not for the faint of heart, Jarecki dives head-first into the Friedmans’ intimate family affairs, including, most pointedly, the criminal trial of father Arnold Friedman and his son Jesse, for the sexual abuse of dozens of young boys in their Great Neck, Long Island neighborhood. But, if it’s at all possible for sexual abuse allegations to be the least disturbing thing about a family, the Friedman family dynamic offer plenty of other options. Is it Arnold’s horrifying admission to owning and enjoying child pornography? Is it wife Elaine’s quiet resignation that her family is utterly insane? Perhaps what concerns me most is eldest son David’s career as a professional children’s birthday clown. What makes Capturing the Friedman‘s so compelling is the inconsistencies in the case against Arnold and Jesse–the fact that, although clearly disturbed people, they also might be innocent. Jarecki never gives both sides of the story (he clearly believes there’s enough doubt to clear at least Jesse’s role in the crimes), so putting together ‘the truth’ is a task left, frustratingly but rewardingly, up to the viewer.
5.) Drive
When Nicolas Winding Refn’s film Drive came out way back in 2011, many critics were hailing it as an immediate cult classic. And while it remains unclear to be how something can attain cult classic status upon initial release, I definitely understand where that sentiment comes from. There’s something about Drive which seems to have always existed; certainly its synthpop soundtrack, its neon-colored Los Angeles, its near-mute avenging hero–all of these genre elements have been well-established by filmmakers like Michael Mann and Jean-Pierre Melville. (Winding Refn wears his influences on his sleeve, so it’s not exactly a stretch to make these connections.) Ryan Gosling plays Driver, an unassuming stunt driver for movies by day and scorpion-jacketed getaway driver by night. He falls in love with his neighbor, played by Carey Mulligan (whose casting is one of the film’s few missteps) and volunteers to help her just released from prison husband (Oscar Isaac) pull off a jewelry heist. As you might imagine, everything goes tits up. Rounding out a stellar cast is Bryan Cranston as Driver’s mechanic/mentor, Christina Hendricks as a sexy jewel thief, and Albert Books as a ruthless mob boss. If you only caught Drive in theaters during 2011, it’s worth another look, if only for the perfectly lit L.A. night scenes and the evocative score by Cliff Martinez.
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