The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things Review

We begin this story with a young Jeremiah being gleefully reunited with his estranged biological mother after years in foster care… Well, maybe gleefully is a bit of a strong term. How about cautiously content... No, I’m not quite there yet am I? Ok, he was terrified, and with good reason as we find out in the next 97 minutes of this feature directed by and starring Asia Argento. You see, unfortunately for Jeremiah, his mom makes Courtney Love look like mother of the year. She controls him with a cocktail of mental, sexual, physical and substance abuse. His pitiful fate is pretty much sealed.

There were a few things I liked about this movie. As disturbing and disgusting some of the scenes were, I was actually suspecting much worse having read some of the other reviews. In one scene, Asia Argento actually plays the part of her son pretending to be her. I don’t really think this was purely an artistic decision. I have a feeling that this was also serving the purpose of saving what little innocence the Sprouse twins had left. Thankfully the most graphic of scenes were simulated rather than shown. I’m not sure if I could have choked this one down if it had been much worse.

The acting by Asia Argento was pretty good here. It wasn’t great but some of the scenes that showed the desperate logic and rage that clouds the mind of a junkie were done really well. I also got a kick out of some of the cameos. Peter Fonda, Winona Rider, Michael Pitt and Jeremy Sisto are all in this film in very small portions.

Unfortunately for this film, there were just too many things I disliked and a few that I outright hated for this to get a good review from me. I will probably be the first reviewer to mention this but, I was thoroughly disgusted with that afro that Argento had in a headlock. Of all things in this film, this could have been the most unnerving and completely unnecessary. I mean, come on, I’ve been to some dive strip bars in my time, but I have never thrown down a dollar for a dancer who looked like she had just given Bigfoot a noogie.

CAUTION – SPOILER ALERT

The biggest problem this movie had was that it quite simply had no soul. It was filled with antagonists and victims. You wait through the entire 97 minutes waiting for someone with a heart to come and save this poor kid from his life. But alas, no such person exists. Even to the very end of the film you feel as though it can’t be over. There isn’t even a light at the end of the tunnel. You are left with a sense that what awaits will just be more of the same, only worse. I really just can’t get behind a movie like this. I’m really not sure even what I just watched. It was far too intense to be a melodrama. There were far too many implausible things going on to call it any sort of realism. And a tragedy will always at least give you some sort of closure in the end. This film lacks those crucial elements that allow the audience to get any sort of satisfaction.

Dead Man's Shoes Review

This film is about a soldier, Richard (Paddy Considine) who returns home to his small town in the Midlands of England to take revenge on the group of thugs, led by Sonny (Gary Stretch) that, years ago brutalized his mentally challenged brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). He starts out with a carefully calculated plot designed to terrorize the group. But soon enough, he ups the ante, picking them off one by one in a fashion that leaves the remaining few begging for mercy.

As the story unfolds we learn piece by piece, the events that took place those many years ago that lead to Richard’s rage.

I can’t really say anything bad about this film as a whole; I fully enjoyed it and was very surprised at how well the scenes were put together on a seemingly limited budget. It seemed to pay homage somewhat to Taxi Driver (disillusioned veteran in green jacket goes on killing spree) while still staying true to its own story.

The acting was outstanding, especially in the case of Paddy Considine, who co wrote this story with director Shane Meadows. I don’t think I’ve seen him in anything since his superb performance in Jim Sheridan’s In America but I will be looking for his work in the future. Much like Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, Considine pulled off a performance that not only was menacing and haunting, but still loveable and identifiable. Toby Kebbell, who played Richard’s mentally challenged brother, also put together a very believable act. These two characters shared the majority of the screen time with a supporting cast of thuggish drug dealers who were who were also portrayed adequately.

This film is full of flashbacks which are all done in black and white. In this way, the format was similar to American History X. I didn’t find the black and white to be particularly elegant or artsy. I think it was just though of as the best and more distinct way to separate the ongoing story from the background. The camerawork I was more impressed with were in some of the more intense scenes leading up to the killings. I’ve read a few reviews of this film that painted to be a bit more “stylish” than I think it was but none the less, the cinematography was quite sufficient to help create some very thrilling scenes.

Possibly, the most fundamentally important aspect of this film was the character development of Richard. This was what created the bond between the story’s main character and the empathy of the audience. This was done wonderfully. There is no question, from this film’s opening narrative of: “God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven……….. I can't live with that.” to its dramatic finish, that Richard’s anger is completely justified. You will most definitely find yourself cheering for the monster throughout.

Double feature of the week: Dancin' Fools

My favorite movie of last year, Black Swan came out on DVD/Blu-Ray today. If I can find the time, I will be posting my full, spoiler filled review of that film later so make sure you watch it check it out. In the meantime, I thought I could whet your appetite for with a double feature of a couple of different dancing movies.

Last year’s Black Swan shares some similarities with the Michael Powell/ Emeric Pressburger Technicolor masterpiece “The Red Shoes” (1948) based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. Moira Shearer stars as ballerina Victoria Page, a very ambitious dancer, destined for stardom. Her disciplinarian director Boris Lermentov demands total devotion to the dance and gets great results from his borderline tyrannical methods. Then Page falls in love with the composer of the ballet that was to seal her destiny for fame and prominence. Making her bed is easy. Finding comfort and solace in it proves to be the real challenge.

Quit acting like you don’t love Herbert Ross’ fancy free classic “Footloose” (1984). Nobody’s that cool…. Not even me. Kevin Bacon (awesome) John Lithgow (way cool) and Chris Penn (brother of cool) star in a small town story that may very well be the greatest analogy of the American Revolution ever told. This film is about religious repression, freedom, love and denim. The main character’s name is Ren. That red squiggly line from the spell-checker proves his irrefutable coolness. If that’s not what the founding fathers were fighting for, we all might as well start bowing to the Queen of England, caring about soccer and watching “Doctor Who.” So pop this VHS in and ‘Let’s Hear It For The Boy.’

Enjoy.

Double feature of the week: Just Like Clockwork

This week’s double feature should, if nothing else, illustrate the fact that I’m probably running out of ideas for double features. So let’s talk about a couple of movies that feature big-ass clocks… Great Scott!!! That’s a fantastic idea….. Or at least it’s a new idea.

Our first film this week is the lesser known Orson Welles classic, “The Stranger.” (1946) This film stars Edward G. Robinson as a special investigator searching the nation for Nazi officers that have slipped through the cracks. He has tracked the notorious Franz Kindler to a small town in Connecticut where he believes he is hiding his identity. Orson Welles plays Professor Charles Rankin and Loretta Young plays his new bride. If you haven’t seen any Orson Welles directed films, this is actually a pretty good one to start with. It’s a pretty simple story that he manages to pull the maximum amount of tension out of.

Next up, we have one of my least favorite films by the Coen Brothers. Just to be clear, my least favorite Coen Brother’s film is kind of like my least favorite day off, or cake… or midget…. It’s still pretty damn awesome. Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Newman star in “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994), a comedy about a naïve business graduate and the countless unsuccessful forces out to get him. He has an idea, “..you know… for the kids..” and nothing will stop him. The board’s sabotage attempt, an investigative reporter and some scary guy that likes to scratch names off of office doors all try. It’s a really fun movie that provides a great ‘Coenesque’ ending.

Enjoy.

Double feature of the week: A Touch Of Class Warfare

Bicycle Thieves and Gosford Park

Our double feature this week will explore the use of class warfare in film. Again, there is nothing new about this as a literary device. Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens were masters of this theme. So it goes, as film became it’s own art form, common literary devices and themes began to manifest themselves onto celluloid. This happened very early as a matter of fact. 1925’s “Battleship Potemkin” by Sergei Eisenstein was a propaganda tool used to unite the proletariat. And of course there have been many film incarnations of “Robin Hood” and “Pride and Prejudice”….. probably a few too many.

Post-WWII ravaged Rome is the setting for our first film this week. Vittorio De Sica’s “Bicycle Thieves” (1948) tells the story of a young father who finally finds work pasting Rita Hayworth posters on buildings. This new employment represents the only glimmer of hope the family has seen in a very long time. The job requires a bicycle, which is promptly stolen on his first day. The rest of the film, we follow the man and his son in heart breaking desperation attempting to get the bicycle back. This film marked the beginning of the Italian Neo-realism movement. Everything is shot on location with a lot of untrained actors and extras. This gives the film a feeling of authenticity that had been completely unseen at the time, especially from Hollywood. The plot may sound familiar, but I guarantee you, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” has nothing on this foreign classic.

Flash forward a little over fifty years and we find that the theme is still very much intact. My favorite of all of Robert Altman’s films is his period drama/comedy “Gosford Park” (2001). Several different story lines unfold from as many narrators in this English mansion on a weekend shooting party. The two classes, the servants and the served are separated physically by a staircase. The audience is a fly on the wall, both upstairs and downstairs as we uncover the mystery behind both scandal and murder. I love the way this film is made. Many times, we are simply listening in to several conversations at once, all of which hold pertinent information to the plot at hand.

Enjoy.