My Best Fiend: This documentary by Werner Herzog about his volatile relationship with Klaus Kinski -- who was, evidently, totally insane -- would have been even more enjoyable if I'd actually seen any of the movies they made together. Nonetheless, it's fascinating. My favorite part was when Herzog casually mentioned that at one point he'd drawn up a plan to firebomb Kinski's house, but was thwarted by Kinski's dog. The next scene is of Kinski and Herzog hugging at some film festival, and Herzog remarks coolly in the voice-over, "I was so happy to see him again, even though I had given up my plan to kill him only a little while ago." The whole movie is like that; this is the quintessential love-hate relationship.
The Hi-Lo Country: A low-key neo-Western by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity), starring Billy Crudup, my latest must-see actor, and Woody Harrelson as cowboy buddies in 1940s New Mexico. Pretty good; Harrelson is a lot better than I expected, and Crudup is always terrific. Unfortunately, Patricia Arquette plays the femme fatale; I never liked her, and I just can't see her as a woman men would fight over. Much of the plot hinges on Crudup's character being torn between Arquette and Penelope Cruz, and for me, there'd be no contest. I didn't buy the overwrought ending, nor one crucial violent encounter between Crudup and Arquette late in the film, which I thought was completely out of character for Crudup. But, overall, a nice little film about the power of friendship.
True West: This is more a filmed version of the Sam Shepard play than a real movie. John Malkovich and Gary Sinise play the lead roles, brothers Lee, a ne'er-do-well drifter and petty thief, and Austin, a screenwriter. It's a great chance to watch two terrific actors at work, although Malkovich's voice keeps changing from that annoying dumb-guy voice, like his Lenny in Of Mice and Men, to his lispy sneering, to sharply clear enunciation. The first part of the movie is intense and absorbing, but it degenerates into the brothers screaming at each other and trashing the house. If I were in the room with them, I'd leave, and that's how I felt watching the movie -- it was too claustrophobic and too far over the top.
Point Blank: A small, noirish film, starring Lee Marvin as Walker, a presumed-dead crook who's resurfaced to collect the $93,000 his partner in crime stole from him. Interesting jump cuts that remind me of The Limey, which no doubt took much inspiration from this movie. It's tightly focused, fast paced, and never stops moving, but it feels pretty dated -- one scene with Marvin in a disco is especially embarrassing. Pretty good overall, for its genre.
True Love: One of those "slice of life" type movies by Nancy Savoca, who tends to do thinking-women's chick flicks like Dogfight (a movie I love), about an Italian-American wedding. It won some awards at Sundance in 1989 and was named one of the 50 best independent films by Entertainment Weekly, but I'm not really sure why. It's a decent movie, but there's nothing outstanding about it. Annabella Sciorra plays the same Brooklyn Italian-American role she always seems to play -- at times I thought I was watching Jungle Fever -- and Ron Eldard is her lunkheaded fiancé. It's fairly good as a character study, but the question I wanted answered was never addressed, namely: What are these two doing together? During most of the movie, they're fighting, and though you assume they must love each other if they're getting married, you never see any kind of love expressed except when they're having sex.
Bullet in the Head: This is supposed to be the best of John Woo's Hong Kong films, but frankly, I didn't understand what the hell was going on. Nothing marks it as a Woo film, nor is it exceptional or even notable in any way. The beginning is so jumpy and fragmented that it seems like three different films spliced together haphazardly. The story finally gets moving and becomes more coherent, but it's just not interesting. And the subtitles are terrible -- they're so small that it's hard to read them; they're often superimposed on white backgrounds, making them invisible; and half the time, they're so poorly translated as to be almost nonsensical. Plus, there are entire stretches of dialogue that aren't translated at all. I didn't even finish watching it.
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