Opening
The Big Trail (US, 1930) John Wayne had his first starring
role in this western, which has just been restored. Cleveland Institute
of Art Cinematheque. At 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8. Cleveland Institute of
Art Cinematheque.
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story (US, 2009) A portrait
of Disney’s sibling songwriting duo, Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman,
the guys responsible for the tunes in Mary Poppins and Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 5
p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8.
Carry It On (US, 1970) Arrested by federal marshals after
dodging the draft, peace activist David Harris was the rare radical who
could speak eloquently about revolution and heroism. No wonder folk
singer Joan Baez, his wife at the time, was drawn to him. This film
documents the Baez’s concert tour in the wake of his arrest. Singing
staples like “We Shall Overcome,” Baez was as articulate as her husband
when it came to speaking about social change. The film collects
numerous performances as well as behind-the-scenes footage of Baez at
home and preparing to go on The Joey Bishop Show. What the film
lacks is a clear narrative: It comes off as a haphazard collection of
old home movies, albeit ones that feature several inspiring musical
performances. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m.
Wednesday, August 5. ** 1/2 (Jeff Niesel)
Departures The surprise winner of this year’s Oscar for Best
Foreign Language Film, Yojiro Takita’s tale of yuppie redemption is a
lot better than expected. When his symphony orchestra goes belly-up,
newly unemployed cellist Daigo (the likable Mashahiro Motoki) takes a
job as assistant to the local mortician (Tsutomo Yamazaki, terrific).
Because of Japan’s cultural stigma about working with the dead, Daigo
is soon ostracized by friends and even abandoned by his social-climbing
wife (Ryoko Hirosue). Despite its frequently overbearing soundtrack and
a few too many strained sitcommy gags, particularly in the
exposition-heavy first half, the film is ultimately quite touching and,
yes, life-affirming. As the formerly callow Daigo learns the tools of
his new trade, he finally grows into manhood, even making peace with
the father who abandoned him as a boy. Since an American remake is all
but inevitable (starring Zach Braff, perhaps?), it’s probably a good
idea to check out the award-winning original version first. Cedar Lee
Theatre. *** (Milan Paurich)
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb (Britain, 1964) During the depths of the Cold War, director Stanley Kubrick wanted to make an anti-nuke doomsday statement that would blow away
films with similar ambitions but which had come across as solemn,
stodgy, geopolitically correct dramas. Kubrick and writer Terry
Southern cleverly bought rights to a serious novel, Red
Alert, and repurposed the whole nightmare scenario of
global thermonuclear war into black comedy. Paranoid American general,
Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) flips out and orders USAF bombers to
vaporize Russia. His trembling British RAF colonel hostage, a wimp U.S.
president and a mad ex-Nazi Pentagon advisor (all played by Peter
Sellers) try to find solutions before the unseen but understandably
angry Reds launch a world-ending counterstrike. Sellers dearly wanted
to play a fourth character, a cowboy pilot aboard a heavily armed
flying fortress, but the iconic part went to Slim Pickens instead. Even
with the fall of the U.S.S.R., Kubrick’s satire has lost none of its
bite in the era of the Bush Doctrine and pre-emptive strikes as
official policy. The perfectionist filmmaker did ultimately shoot a
colossal pie fight, but it seemed too flippant for the climax. The
title character of Strangelove, the wheelchair-bound mad doctor who has
to beat his one-gloved hand from snapping into the Hitler salute, was
said for ages to be based on nuclear think-tank strategist Herman Kahn,
but the late, great conspiracy author Robert Anton Wilson has written
that Henry Kissinger was actually the model. Cleveland
Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7, and 3:15 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 9. (Charles Cassady Jr.) ***
G.I. Joe Reviewed at clevescene.com.
Hausu (Japan, 1977) This Japanese horror movie was made more
than 30 years ago, and while it’s now become a cult classic, Nobuhiko
Obayashi’s film doesn’t hold up. Even by B-movie standards, the special
effects are cheesy and the acting is generally shoddy. The story
surrounds Oshare (Kimiko Ikegami), a young Japanese schoolgirl who
recruits six screeching friends to go on vacation with her to her
aunt’s house in the countryside. Of course, the place turns out to be
haunted, and it’s not long before an angry ghost comes after them. The
ghost chops off one girl’s fingers when she plays the piano and and
hurls pillows at another girl, suffocating her. The campy film is more
strange than scary and shouldn’t be confused with all the contemporary
Japanese horror movies that have received much-deserved stateside
attention. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m. Friday, Aug.
7. ** (Niesel)
A Perfect Getaway Reveiwed at clevescene.com.
Surveillance (US, 2008) Given that Jennifer Chambers Lynch’s
last movie, 1993’s Boxing Helena, was so severely dismissed by
critics, it’s not surprising that it took her 15 years to follow it up.
The grisly, often-offensive Surveillance isn’t likely to
jumpstart her career. The film takes place in a small desert town where
corrupt local cops half-heartedly try to apprehend a serial killer.
Things take a turn, however, when a couple of FBI agents (Bill Pullman
and Julia Ormond) roll into town and take over the case. They proceed
to interview their witnesses, yet it’s not long before even the
dim-witted cops realize the FBI agents aren’t quite who they claim to
be. Ormond and Pullman are solid as two shady FBI agents, but the rest
of the cast is forgettable, and the entire film seems like a bad
imitation of a movie by Lynch’s father, David Lynch. Cleveland
Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 9:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 8.
** (Niesel)
Tulpan (Germany/Kazakhstan/Poland/Russia/Switzer-land, 2008)
Ethnography never tasted as sweet as it does in first-time feature
director Sergey Dvortsevoy’s charming fable set against the
otherworldly backdrop of Kazakhstan’s forbidding Hungersteppe. After
being discharged from the Russian Navy, twentysomething Asa (Askat
Kuchinchirekov) moves in with his married older sister, her taciturn
husband and their three young children. Determined to become a proper
herdsman and find himself a wife, Asa begins courting headstrong local
beauty Tulpan, who rejects him out of hand because his ears are too
big. The anecdotal narrative is highlighted by some astonishing
sequences featuring livestock, including the real-time birth of a baby
lamb. Yet the most remarkable aspect of the film is not how alien Asa
and his family seem, but how recognizably human they are, even to jaded
western audiences. Winner of the top prize in the 2008 Cannes Film
Festival’s Un Certain Regard section. Cleveland Institute of Art
Cinematheque. At 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7, and 1:15 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 9.
*** (Paurich)
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2009.
