Welcome to The Penny-Pinching Cinephile, a weekly spotlight of the best free flicks on the web. ‘Cuz sometimes you gotta eat.
1.) Benny’s Video
Before either version of Funny Games, Michael Haneke made an even chillier portrait of a teenage killer, the seriously disturbing and disturbed Benny’s Video. The opening images of the film presage the horror to come: a grainy video captures a muddy landscape where a farmer wrangles a large pig, holds an bolt pistol up to the animal’s head and fires. Still in close-up on the video, the image rewinds and in slow-motion we watch the killing again, focused on the intricacies of its mechanics: the pistol, the pig’s head, the muffled explosion of the cartridge and the animal beginning to crumple. It’s a pervasively disturbing opening–creepily voyeuristic and yet, curiously, all the more enticing for its unanswered questions. Who is watching the video? Why are they watching it? Who are the people in the video? What significances does this image have on the subsequent narrative? These questions are answered in no short order, but Benny’s Video is far from a neat and clean A-to-B-to-C narrative. To reveal more of Benny’s lifestyle–one which revolves around surveillance and incessant, obsessive viewing of video tapes (paging Patrick Bateman!)–would spoil the film’s delicately, but inescapably dark, unfolding plot. Like all of Haneke’s films, Benny’s Video isn’t for the faint of heart, but in my opinion, ranks among the director’s greatest films.
2.) Time Bandits
AKA the Terry Gilliam movie with all the dwarfs, Time Bandits is an absurdly fun jaunt through alternative history (and probably, totally, the inspiration for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure). A young boy with an active imagination, Kevin is just your average kid until he’s magically whisked away through time (and presumably space) by a motley crew of thieving dwarfs. Traveling from Sherwood Forest to Ancient Greece and beyond, Kevin meets Napoleon, Agamemnon, Robin Hood and Michael Palin in this rollicking, absurdist adventure. Young Kevin also discovers that there’s a battle raging between The Supreme Being and Evil and the dwarfs hold the map that’s the key to restoring balance in the universe! A fun movie for kids, and featuring a lot of humor for adults, Time Bandits was Gilliam’s breakthrough movie in the U.S. and paved the way for darker, more adult fantasies like Brazil and 12 Monkeys.
3.) The Grifters
The filmography of British director Stephen Frears is a little uneven at times, but certainly among the highlights is 1990’s The Grifters, a juicy slice of pulp crime starring John Cusack, Annette Bening and Anjelica Huston. The Grifters‘ noir antecedents are mighty: adapted from a novel by crime writer extraordinaire Jim Thompson and scripted by Donald E. Westlake (creator of Parker), the film warrants serious consideration as one of the best neo-noirs of the past 30 years. Lilly (Huston) works the long con and has a regular job grifting at the race track; her son Roy (Cusack) only does small-time grifts, the last of which almost got him killed. Myra (Bening) is Cusack’s girlfriend, an expert manipulator of men and a master con artist. The three thieves collide in some spectacular double and triple twists. Featuring fabulous performances from all three leads and snappy direction from Frears, The Grifters ends with a bang (one you won’t see coming, I guarantee!). To say more would spoil the intricate deceptions and cons-within-cons in this film–one that definitely deserves repeat viewings.
4.) Lord of the Flies
If this year’s numerous re-releases and celebrations of certain films’ 50th anniversaries tells us anything, it’s that the early 1960s were a remarkable time in film history. Fifty Years Ago… is the subject of this week’s Criterion’s Hulu page, highlighting a diverse array of pictures released in 1963. My pick of the litter is Peter Brook’s childhood trauma-inducing Lord of the Flies. Shot in stark black and white, William Golding’s novel of moral calamity and group psychology is brought to vivid–and disturbing–life in this first (and best) adaptation. The naturalism of the child actors is due to minimal scripting and much of the dialogue being improvised on the spot. The result is a film that feels both fresh and frightening, as if the British school boys are discovering their inner monsters moment-to-moment; you can see the resulting horror and awe in their faces as clear as day. Those who have read the novel know the story and for those who haven’t, it’s best not to say anything and receive the film knowing as little as possible.
5.) Side by Side
Keanu Reeves, acting as writer/director Christopher Kenneally’s narrator/interviewer alter-ego, acts as a sort of industry “in” to the raging conflict of digital vs. film currently gripping Hollywood. Having worked with a number of the filmmakers interviewed in Side by Side, Reeves’ calming monotone dampens the rather alarmist attitudes of film bloggers and anxious cinephiles who seize up every time another director announces he’s ditched 35mm for digital. Even the film’s title seems to suggest a harmonious relationship between the two media. Among the interviewees, only Christopher Nolan and DP Wally Pfister hold steadfast to film, do or die. Even beloved old-timers like Martin Scorsese have embraced digital as the future of filmmaking. The doc itself is surprisingly less interested in a media showdown, presenting both the history of photochemical and digital film with an even-handed approach, getting into the nuts and bolts of how individual cameras work. It’s actually pretty charming. In the end, Side by Side‘s even-tempered tone seems a bit anti-climactic, even disappointing. Those looking for a bloodsport showdown between film and digital will have to look elsewhere for their cinematic sensationalism.
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