Chile Pages
AN ART THAT NATURE MAKES: THE WORK OF ROSAMOND PURCELL
This documentary looks at the career and process of acclaimed photographer Rosamond Purcell. Her work reveals her fascination with capturing both natural and man-made things in varying degrees of decay, as she shoots everything from junkyards to animal carcasses in ways that render her subjects abstract. Stephen Jay Gould and Errol Morris are among those who appear in the film to express admiration for her work. Not rated. 75 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Not reviewed)
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
This remake of the enduring French fairy tale La belle
et la bête from director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf ) has atmosphere going for it, and it may appeal to fantasy-loving tweens (there’s a whiff of Hogwarts about the Beast’s magical domain). But the heavily computer-enhanced visuals fail to capture the sense of mystery that infuses Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film, with its stark lighting, living statues, and magical smoke. Likewise, Vincent Cassel, who radiates intensity in darker material such as Read My Lips and The Crimson Rivers, goes soft here as the Beast, at least in comparison to the spellbinding Jean Marais. Léa Seydoux is spirited and vibrant as Belle, but she doesn’t invest the role with the unwavering passion of Josette Day in Cocteau’s version — probably no one else could. Not rated. 112 minutes. In French with subtitles. The Screen. (Jeff Acker)
BEING 17
Teenage boys are rarely portrayed on screen in a way that seems true. In real life, they’re often moody and uncomfortable, young enough to still be good at heart but too awkward to express even their best intentions — none of which makes for feel-good cinema. Being 17, however, is one of the most honest character studies of teenage boys in recent memory, and it is even more remarkable for the fact that it was co-written and directed by seventy-three-year-old French filmmaker André Téchiné. This coming-of-age romance centers on two boys (Kacey Mottet Klein and Corentin Fila) with absent parents who live in a mountain town dominated by the military and agriculture. The romantic interest they sense in each another manifests itself in schoolyard violence — for a time. Even when audiences know they likely will end up together, the plot still unfolds in satisfying fashion, thanks to their wonderful acting and the film’s lively, thoughtful editing. Sandrine Kiberlain deserves special notice for her empathetic performance as the mother to one boy and mother figure to the other. Not rated. 116 minutes. In French with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Robert Ker)
CERTAIN WOMEN
Rated R. 107 minutes. Violet Crown. See review, Page 39.
CREEPY
Not rated. 130 minutes. Japanese with subtitles. The Screen. See review, Page 41. There were slasher films before John Carpenter’s 1978 movie Halloween, but this was the one that sparked the genre that came to dominate multiplexes and overwhelm video stores in the 1980s. Jamie Lee Curtis, the original scream queen, showed enough acting chops to launch a career, and her stalker, the villain Michael Myers (Tony Moran, behind an expressionless William Shatner mask) became a celebrity in his own right. The film touched on a number of issues of the time, including Cold War-era paranoia, the isolation of suburban life, and a crumbling mental-health system. Due to its undeniable influence and the masterful use of suspense (with barely any gore or violence by latter-day standards), Halloween is not just one of the great horror movies in film history but is one of the great movies, period. Carpenter’s work as a music composer has enjoyed a rediscovery of late, and this film’s score is among his best. Rated R. 91 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Robert Ker)
INFERNO HALLOWEEN
Tom Hanks returns to play author Dan Brown’s wildly popular professor Robert Langdon of The Da Vinci Code once more. This time, Langdon wakes up in a hospital, suffering from amnesia that doesn’t hinder his extensive knowledge of history but affects his memory of the last few days. He teams up with Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) to solve a mystery involving Dante’s Inferno that could lead to countless deaths. Rated PG-13. 121 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
MULTIPLE MANIACS
Baltimore filmmaker John Waters’ little-seen 1970 feature film predates his cult breakout,
Pink Flamingos, by two years, but the aesthetic is fully in place — it’s a trashy, anarchic, irreverent slice of queer cinema that boasts ample amounts of sex, violence, comedy, and — of course — the larger-than-life drag queen Divine. She stars as a transgressive crime leader and jealous lover who murders and cackles her way through many adventures, including a churchset lesbian love scene intercut with a retelling of the life of Jesus Christ and a finale that recalls Hamlet, but with a giant lobster that resembles a 1950s sci-fi monster. To watch Multiple Maniacs now is to admire the endless possibilities of early independent cinema, where a bunch of outsiders could use cheap film stock and their ordinary suburban settings to gleefully invent entire new realities. Not rated. 91 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Robert Ker)
PHANTASM
Featuring an eye-dazzling palette of ecru, umber, amber, ocher, and taupe, this 1979 pinnacle of the Carter-and-Quaaludes-era of horror movies centers on a couple of gun-toting orphaned brothers (Bill Thornbury and A. Michael Baldwin), a badass ice cream truck driver (Reggie Bannister), a bunch of blondes with feathered hair, and a growling ’71 Plymouth Barracuda. Writer-director Don Coscarelli’s plot unfolds around a spooky funeral home where evil dwarves from another dimension stalk the grounds. The theme song will be stuck in your head for days afterward,
and if you happen to walk through the cemetery, keep an eye out for the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). Look for Santa Fe’s own Kathy Lester as the most diabolical blonde with feathered hair. Rated R. 88 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Jeff Acker)
TOWER
Mass shootings on college campuses are now a regular occurrence, but at one time, they were not a major part of American life. This documentary recounts one of the first such tragedies — the shooting on Aug. 1, 1966, when a sniper in the tower at the University of Texas killed 16 people and wounded dozens more. The event is relived through interviews, historical footage, and reenactments made using rotoscopic animation. Not rated. 96 minutes. Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
THE WOLF MAN
An American (Lon Chaney) returns to his ancestral home in England and falls prey to a werewolf (Bela Lugosi) who is suffering the tragic consequences of turning into a wolfman when the moon is full. Although time and modern horror techniques have dulled some of the edge of terror from this black-and-white chiller from 1941, it’s hard not to like. Director George Waggner, working from Curt Siodmak’s script, delivers some very atmospheric sequences involving fog-shrouded woods and graveyards. And given that it was considered a B movie at the time, what a cast: Besides Chaney and Lugosi, there’s Claude Rains, the beautiful Evelyn Ankers, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patrick Knowles, and the wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya as the gypsy woman who knows more than she lets on. Not rated. 70 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Robert Nott)