Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat. We hope you enjoy the movies.
1.) Serial Mom
John Waters’ hilarious satire of suburban politesse and courtroom celebrity, Serial Mom may be the funniest movie you’ve never seen. Starring a maniacally genius Kathleen Turner as middle class housewife Beverly Sutphin, the film purports to be the “true story” of her murderous rampage. The victims? Everyone who dares to disobey Beverly’s clearly defined set of wholesome, American etiquette. For example, the neighbor who doesn’t recycle and the boy who stands up her teenage daughter on a date. These people must be punished. Beverly’s depravity is hidden under a pastel palette of cardigans and pearl necklaces. Dubbed ‘serial mom’ by the local media, her murder trial becomes a feeding frenzy, spawning tell-all exposes and souvenirs sold on the courtroom steps. Ironically, the film debuted only months before the OJ Simpson trial captured the attention of the country. Waters’ film aptly mocks the gallows frenzy of the murderer-celebrity, reveling in the grotesque pleasure derived from these monsters we hail as pop culture icons.
2.) Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors
The film that put Korean director Hong Sang-soo on the international film map, 2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors is a black and white anti-romance that calls into question the fidelity of memory and the importance of perception in relationships. Like much of Hong Sang-soo’s work, this film plays with time, doubling back on itself like a Mobius strip to give us the entire story from a different point of view. Our lovers are a wealthy art gallery owner and a virginal screenwriter. He is frustrated that she refuses to have sex with him. She is reluctant to commit herself because he is so controlling. The couple battles it out in a series of five segments, each with its own miniature plots. The film then restarts, showing us the same events from a different perspective, shedding light on the couples’ disagreements and conversations. Ultimately, the film itself offers no answers, only possibilities for what could have occurred. Life, it seems to say, is never so concrete as to offer up a single, objective narrative.
3.) The Ruling Class
Featuring a blistering, Oscar-nominated performance from Peter O’Toole, Peter Medak’s scathing black comedy satire The Ruling Class takes a caustic shot at British social structure, while creating a truly terrifying portrait of mental illness. O’Toole plays the son of a Lord who inherits his father’s wealth, status and peerage when the old man hangs himself. The only problem is that O’Toole is a paranoid schizophrenic who believes himself to be Jesus Christ. Growing his hair long, wearing robes and hanging out on a large wooden cross all day seems to anger his uncle, who believes such behavior unfit for a man of his nobility. Forced to undergo electroshock therapy to cure him of his delusions, O’Toole no longer believes himself to be Christ–he believes he’s Jack the Ripper instead. As the film moves from lighthearted to pitch black comedy, it also becomes scarier and more violent. O’Toole’s performance hits a raw nerve, evoking the real horror of mental illness and a man out of control of his mind, body and soul. His primal scream of a purely tormented soul is as unsettling a moment as you’ll find in any horror film.
The story of a friendship between two degenerate gamblers (George Segal and Elliot Gould), Robert Altman’s California Split perfectly evokes the milieu of the gambling addict: smokey, shag-carpeted and relentless. The shiftless pair float from the poker room to the racetrack and back again, on a constant feedback loop of winning, loosing and breaking even. Their days are spent sleeping the previous night off. When not getting robbed of their winnings, the two friends hatch a plan to road trip it to Reno, where they can really strike it rich. Miraculously, they do, taking their winnings from high-stakes poker to the blackjack table and roulette wheel, finally winning big at craps. But the film ends on a bittersweet note, Segal’s character burnt out from all his shallow winnings. Such is the life of the gambler.
5.) A Matter of Life and Death
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s powerful paean to terrestrial love is also one of the most unusual courtroom dramas ever conceived. When an RAF pilot (David Niven) survives an impossible plane crash, Heaven investigates his mistaken survival. Only in the time it takes them to discover the pilot is unintentionally still alive, he has fallen in love with an American dispatch officer (Kim Hunter) and demands to remain so, against the orders of the men upstairs. Niven’s character is put on celestial trail in order to determine his fate. Heady material that deals with serious philosophical and spiritual matters, the Archers nevertheless navigate the film with down-to-earth wit and charm, helped tremendously by a likeable cast lead by Niven, Hunter and Roger Livesey. With iconic production design and brilliant Technicolor, A Matter of Life and Death is a dramatic fantasy unlike any other, a gorgeous piece of cinema and a heartfelt tribute to the universal power and appeal of love.
Watch on Archive.org
…
If you’d like to suggest a website or film that’s screening for free, leave us a comment below.
2 thoughts on “The Penny-Pinching Cinephile (5/28/13–6/3/13)”
The Ruling Class is epic delight.
Oh man… that’s some good stuff there. I totally recommend “A Matter of Life and Death” and “California Split” as essential works while “Serial Mom” is a fucking riot.