ups and downs

Robert Aldrich’s brilliant ULZANA’S RAID, is film about the disillusionment of all things religious, patriotic, or morally absolute. If I were to go along with Manny Farber’s feelings toward Robert Aldrich, I’d call this an anti-ideology film goaded by our futile involvement in Vietnam. U.S. abuses lead to Ulzana’s (Joaquin Martinez) escape, which leads to more abuse as violence and betrayal begets violence and betrayal, and on and on it goes. It’s also a film about insurmountable odds and unconquerable nature. It follows the naïve Lt. Garnett DeBuin (Bruce Davison), who is sent to stop Ulzana with the aid of a world weary scout named McIntosh (Burt Lancaster) with Ulzana’s wife’s sister’s husband also serving as a tracker. DeBuin’s Christianity is viewed as a tactically hazardous handicap in the midst of such reprehensible reality. Aldrich portrays the actions of the title marauder as horrific and unconscionable, though most of us know that the actions were perpetrated on both ends of the divide, most of all the scouts. Ulzana is treated with a fearful reverence, with a constant regret in his eyes. The violence is as horrendous as the heat and dust, the terrain as unforgiving and coldblooded as conditions in which these soldiers battle. It’s interesting to watch this film only a week after De Palma’s CASUALTIES OF WAR, a similar film of disenchantment also dealing with callous wartime brutality committed in front of a morally terrified military neophyte. One film wants us to share said rookie’s maddened headspace while the other seems content to observe atrocity with a battered but wise assessment of the nature of combat. Both acknowledge the tragedy while Aldrich seems spellbound by the honor amongst fiends in the midst of evil.



The niftiest trick that THE SPECTACULAR NOW pulls off is the Pavlovian response it’s able to induce at the sound of a flask being opened. At the same time, I find it hard to feel all that concerned for a so-called alcoholic teen that tosses a full red solo cup of beer out or lets a keg empty onto the ground (see party-in-the-woods sequence). This is one of my sad pet peeves, perhaps revealing, when characters half finish, dump, or leave a perfectly good cup/glass/bottle of beer behind right after ordering it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve left a beer on the table a couple of times, usually because I’m spent and I’ve got a good friend to take it to the dome on my behalf. But this kid just got to the party, hadn’t had a drink and is dumping a perfectly good cup on the ground. Obviously he isn’t the troubled kid I thought he was. He’ll be alright. Oh, and the rest of the movie is pretty good too. Tara loved it. I liked it. It’s got some nice moments, some tried and true insight, and it actually looks pretty spectacular from time to time. Pun intended.



THE AGE OF INNOCENCE drops us into the labyrinth of stuffy mannerisms that was Old bourgeois Victorian New York, a society on the brink of collapse following the First World War The suffocating norm in this cold war society is the overestimation of mummified ritual, the devaluing of honest human contact and romance in order to maintain a false sense of dignity and style. Like many of Scorsese’s films, it deals with social codes and consequences, in many ways this is his most brutal example of survival obedience. Unlike many of his films however, the protagonist falls as a result of his adherence to the code, he is cursed by his inability to overcome his cowardice and embrace his lack of inhibition. He rejects a true life, learns to accept a false one, and eventually finds kernels of joy within it with doubts forever needing to be silenced. It’s the price he must pay to exist within this structure/hierarchy, but for all of the undeniable benefits of being privileged there are laundry lists of stifling repercussions. Within this context Scorsese breathes some life into the fossilized world with his repository of cinema reference; Ophuls, Visconti, Welles, Sirk, Borzage, Cukor, and von Sternberg to name a few. For both Wharton and Scorsese, you sense a hushed elation at the destruction of this civilization, and it’s contagious.



WE ARE WHAT WE ARE squanders a unique premise by playing it safe and familiar. It’s about a rural family that upholds a bizarre religious ritual for no apparent reason, the classic “it’s our tradition” defense used in many households across the world. After the death of the matriarch (apparently cannibalism leads to a form of Parkinson’s) the eldest daughter must carry on the annual slaughter of her own kind. It reminded me of COUNTRY DEATH SONG by the Violent Femmes, but bland and humorless. It paints its eccentric characters in broad strokes. Dad is atypical cult leader asshole, daughters are like supporting characters out of THE SPECTACULAR NOW. The film falters on nearly every scene missing Michael Park. Every time a child asked daddy dearest a question I expected him to name drop the film’s title.