THE BEST FILMS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN: THE MAN FROM ELYSIAN FIELDS (IN MEMORIAM GEORGE HICKENLOOPER)
Director of Casino Jack, Mayor of the Sunset Strip, the original short film Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade, Emmy winner for Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse…as is often said, the list goes on. October of 2010 saw the passing of George Hickenlooper, and this review of one of his most complex and thoughtful films is my year-end tribute to a writer/director that left us quite a bit too soon.
THE MAN FROM ELYSIAN FIELDS (2001)
Most dramatic movies about writers usually, let’s be honest, suck. (One that doesn’t is mentioned in the next paragraph. Perhaps you, dear reader, can comment upon some others and set me straight.) The rub here is that it is hard to get people on board for the plight of a struggling writer when it is treated dramatically (Throw Momma From the Train is another story altogether). We all have lives to lead, and some poor schnook who can’t hold down a real job and agonizes over formulating the proper sentence just doesn’t seem like anyone we can get behind.
The trick, then, if one is dead-set on exploring this territory, is to make the tale as universal as possible by weaving the writer’s whiny little plight into a more complex exploration of human need; and if it all comes unexpectedly full circle to illuminate what a writer’s life truly is, so much the better. And it is quite a bit better in The Man From Elysian Fields.
THE BEST FILMS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN (HOLIDAY ALTERNATIVES #2) – CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE
CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944)
Christmas movies do not come any more offbeat than this: a strange, primal and haunting pseudo-sequel to Cat People, the runaway hit film from 1942 that put RKO Pictures back on the map after the studio took a bath on Citizen Kane. Though B-horror movie producer Val Lewton provided coin for the RKO coffers, he was, in his own way, a tortured genius on a par with Orson Welles. {Read More}
THE BEST FILMS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN (HOLIDAY ALTERNATIVES # 1) – NOISE
NOISE (AUSTRALIA, 2007)
All the good Christmas movies are taken. Let’s face it, given the name of this column, it would be suspect, let alone irresponsible, to suggest you revisit It’s a Wonderful Life, or A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, Scrooged, Elf, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation…and so on. Therefore, the only way to fulfill the mission statement of this series is to dig deep for titles whose only claim to being Christmas movies is that they happen to take place around Christmas, yet in all other respects are not only decidedly off the beaten path, but—you should be forewarned here—not exactly uplifting, either. {Read More}
Here is the site where I park everything that is not The Dictionary of Sarcasm or my self-help parody persona Mr. Paul Maul. That means my dramatic short films, reviews of films I like, other writing, and my web series Rock Paper Scissors: A Dialogue. Thanks for stopping by.
