Thursday, November 07, 2013

Motor Trends

Decasia (2002)
directed by Bill Morrison
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library

The Sitter (2011)
directed by David Gordon Green
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO

Phantasm III (1994)
directed by Don Coscarelli
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Of course there is beauty in the physical decay of film, although I don't understand Morrison's decision to manipulate the film stock digitally. Is Decasia more abstract than Lyrical Nitrate, made in 1991? Morrison drew from a larger archive than that of the Netherlands Filmmuseum, but only part of Lyrical Nitrate is online.

The circle is the prominent visual metaphor in Decasia, but according to Dave Kehr, Morrison constructed the movie to accompany Michael Gordon's symphony (not the other way around), and frankly it feels that way. Nothing here is ever entirely repurposed as something new; I couldn't help but think of the absorbing alien world of Lessons of Darkness, but I think about Lessons of Darkness a lot. Which is only to say that the hyperbole on Morrison's site is well-intentioned but somewhat out of proportion to the product.

I watched The Sitter on Tuesday night and found this recent quote from David Gordon Green yesterday at work: "I don't ever want to stop having nightmares about Magic or to stop finding The Blues Brothers funny or to be bored by a Béla Tarr film." I always let Green (or "D. Green," per the Eastbound & Down preview panes on HBO) off easy because he's a Thunderbolt and Lightfoot fan and because he doesn't apologize for directing stupid comedies instead of doubling down on Terrence Malick knockoffs like George Washington (and I like George Washington!).

But couldn't The Sitter or Your Highness be better? They could! It isn't that Green is indifferent to the quality of an innocuous comedy about Jonah Hill and three funny kids, but that he should be capable of directing a Thunderbolt and Lightfoot of his own. Sam Rockwell is terrible in this movie. The gang gags are groan-inducing. Isn't there that rule about the five-year window a director earns himself after a successful picture?

Pineapple Express was 2008 but the money well isn't dry yet. I don't want to see Prince Avalanche and I don't believe that Nicolas Cage's beard in the Joe production photo on IMDb is real. But still, a Larry Brown adaptation? Who else is doing that? But Green's next movie stars Al Pacino and is called Manglehorn. Manglehorn! Ugh.

Phantasm III went straight to video and the copy I watched didn't include the "Lord of the Dead" subtitle anywhere. Phantasm is one of my favorite movies but I truly admire Don Coscarelli's commitment to his original cast in the sequels. These men are not professionals; Universal forcibly replaced A. Michael Baldwin in Phantasm II, but Coscarelli made it a point to bring him back in III (presumably one of the reasons the film didn't get a theatrical release). The sequels aren't particularly scary or involved, but they are fun. Isn't the Phantasm franchise sort of what I want from a guy like D. Green?

An ongoing joke in Phantasm III is Reggie Bannister's efforts to "make it" with the beautiful traveler/nunchaku specialist Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry) that joins his vengeance squad to fight the Tall Man. Bannister was a bald, pudgy guy with a ponytail pushing 50 in 1994 and no one--not the orphan he picks up, not Rocky, not me--thinks he's going to score. And he doesn't, except in a dream in which Coscarelli gives the audience what the audience wants, which is Rocky without her shirt on. The best that in-movie Reg gets is a brief hug.

Like Green with Stevie Janowski or Bust-Ass, Coscarelli clearly feels genuine affection for the Phantasm regulars, and he prioritizes that camaraderie, and shares it with you and me. Phantasm III is much, much better than The Sitter, which commits so many sins of inattention. But the point stands. Reg prowls the countryside in a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda and DGG won't even let poor Jonah Hill steal a good-looking car.