Amoeba Music

I've never been one for politics, nor do I understand the “politics” of many things—especially the politics which apply to motion pictures. So many wonderful films will be lost to the generations that will follow our own. Sometimes a movie's unavailability might be due to music rights, or other business-related issues, and as years pass, there are fewer people who are aware of its existence. To say that The Saint of Fort Washington fits into this category would be a slight exaggeration; the film is accessible on previously owned VHS, Laser Discs and  European DVDs, and is now available domestically from Warner Bros. It features early performances by Matt Dillon, Danny Glover, and Ving Rhames—performances which, in my honest opinion, are their best by far. But for some reason, the movie was just swept under the carpet. I've yet to meet another person who saw it in the '90s, and its Box Office figures were laughable; it's safe to say that it never had a fan base. I'll never understand why, but I would guess that it has something to do with its heart-wrenching realism. It is by far one of the most important dramas about homelessness, mental illness, and religion. Everyone who lives in a large city or has something to say about our country's issues with poverty and the homeless should see it.

In it we find Matthew (Matt Dillon), a young schizophrenic man who is made homeless overnight. A slumlord has leveled his building without permits, which means that collecting his government check is impossible because he no longer has an address for them to send it to. He takes to the streets and by nightfall he's directed to the Fort Washington's Shelter for Men. While in line he sees a man nursing a wounded knee. He takes out his camera, the only thing of value that he has, and snaps a picture. The man, Jerry, (Danny Glover), becomes outraged and tries to damage the camera until young Matthew shows him that there's no film inside. Though Jerry is baffled at how someone could be a photographer without film in a camera, the two seem to have an understanding of one another. While in the shelter, Jerry tells him how the place works and what/who to avoid; what the thugs steal first while you're asleep and who, of the hundreds of men you lay your head next to, is a threat. The ringleader in terror at the shelter is Little Leroy (Ving Rhames), a man who'll stop at nothing to oppress everyone in the shelter and kill whoever gets in the way. By morning Jerry, a willful Vietnam veteran, is back on the streets hustling. Young Matthew can't help but shadow him and feed off his wisdom and street smarts.

Films that are adaptations from novels can be a delicate experience. For those who are diehard fans of certain books, it can sometimes seem like a betrayal to watch films inspired by them. Perhaps betrayal is a strong word to use, but many have high expectations for these kinds of films. My review of Wise Blood, an adaptation of Flannery O' Connor's acclaimed novel, is not to disregard the high standards that people hold it to. Rather, it seems that works from two different mediums should be held to completely different standards. Any storyteller will inform you that it is, for lack of a better word, easier, to develop a character on a page. But if a director can create something new on the screen while paying their respects to its source, what's there to complain about?

Wise Blood is the story of a discharged soldier named Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif) who returns to a desolate town in the hopes of finding his purpose and having a sort of spiritual adventure. He has no attachment to his status as a veteran and sheds his uniform quickly to make room for a suit and a large black hat. Folks around town say that he looks like a preacher, and he's quick to shoot back that he doesn't believe in anything. Through flashbacks, we establish that he was raised to be God-fearing. In his childhood, he sat petrified in the pews or close to the preacher, who made everyone feel as though they were “not clean” and needed to be redeemed. As a result, he believed the preacher and would inflict pain on his body whenever he felt touched with sin, similar to Christian flagellants.

If you've yet to see Todd Solondz's film Happiness and you plan on seeing it, I suggest you watch this film afterwards because it is a sequel of sorts and would therefore spoil much of the movie's plot. As with Palindromes and other movies, Solondz has revived characters from a previous film with an entirely different cast and a different agenda. In Life During Wartime we find the Jordan family in an aged distress. Set in Florida, where the bulk of the family has now migrated after their experiences with divorce and heartache, the movie follows their path of forgiveness as they try to forget and/or interpret what went wrong in their lives.

In Happiness, the film ended with the entire family sitting at a table. The three sisters, Joy, Helen and Trish, were more or less sulking with their parents who were on the brink of separation. Joy was a humanitarian who wanted to make a difference, Helen a disillusioned housewife, and Trish a vain author. Helen and Trish played matchmaker to Joy, the black sheep, and Trish offered to set her up with her neighbor Allen, who enjoyed calling women from a phone book to sexually harass them. In Life During Wartime, Joy (Shirley Henderson) works with ex-cons instead of refugees and is now married to Allen, who confesses that he still makes lewd phone calls to women. Feeling betrayed, she goes to Florida to visit her sister Helen (Ally Sheedy) in the hopes that she can help her put her life in order.

Theism has always been a dominating and polarizing subject in philosophy. For the late philosophers who were atheists, their argument against God's existence often clashed with the popular arguments of reason that suggest we all have a soul. The question of whether or not this soul needs salvation cannot ever be answered. Léon Morin, Priest has a character that goes as far as to suggest the need for uncertainty in religion. Without it, the priest claims, there wouldn't be a cause for faith. As in love, he compares devotion to God as merely a “leap of faith”--a belief held by many theists and philosophers. But for Barny, his latest attempt at conversion, one cannot compare the loves of the flesh with that of a Holy spirit.

Following the Italian occupation in France during WWII, a small village is now met with the hostility of Nazi Germany. As the German troops move in to capture and deport Jews, many townspeople scuffle to prove their allegiance to Christ. Children are given hasty baptisms in large numbers and the widows of men lost in battle try desperately to stay true to France while deceiving the Nazi regime. Barny (Emmanuelle Riva) is one of these women. Husbandless and with a young daughter, she decides to visit the Catholic church to seek advice. Though she's an atheist, the village leaves no other options in charitable good will. Of the two priests available to speak to she chooses Léon Morin (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a 26-year old man from a modest family. She expects to be met by a man who blindly lays claim to God but is surprised at his complex outlook on faith and his willingness to tolerate her absence of it.

Arvid (Dejan Cukic) is a pushover who can't seem to find his way in life. He works at a bank and lives with his girlfriend, Hanne. The two get into an argument over breakfast because Arvid donated 800 crowns to a church fund—money that Hanne wanted to use for shopping. As he tries to move past the dispute unscathed she makes him out to be a boring purist who's trying to save the world.

We then jump to Richard (Lester Wiese), a traveling American who settles into a seat at a bar and has a mysterious meeting with Arvid at noon. The bartender and a patron start to chat with him. With two hours to spare until Arvid's arrival, he recaps the recent series of events that have put Arvid in a delicate situation—a man who up until 12 days prior Richard had never heard of.

With films that have been or are currently banned in their country of origin comes an instant intrigue in me. Apparently this film was banned for “exposing the harsh realities of East German society,” but that statement, seen on the back of the DVD cover, is a little ambiguous. While watching the film you do get a vague understanding of the politics and lack of justice in the judicial system of 1960s Germany; you begin to understand that the film's “anti-socialist” message could have come as a great threat. However, there is a lot left unexplained—a lot that you have to go and research on your own, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Somehow you don't mind being led into a haze because the film's heroine, a blacklisted 19-year old, is an astounding portrait of the system's failure. Her will to overcome the setbacks of an “opportunist” and unjust society gives you hope. It's that hope of something better and more democratic that could have been contagious, and was therefore silenced. Still, The Rabbit is Me is hailed as one of the most important New Wave films to come out of Germany.

In the film we find a 17-year old Maria (Angelika Waller) at the end of her high school education. Like all of her peers, she's exceptionally bright and a strong-willed young lady. She and her brother are orphans who live with their aunt (Ilse Voigt), and just before graduation, two officers come calling. They inform the broken family that their brother/nephew, Dieter (Wolfgang Winkler), is being charged with inciting subversive material, which could lead to a 3-year prison sentence. They try to appear at his trial but are removed on questionable grounds from the courtroom. Young Dieter loses the trial. Before being locked up he's able to see his family, and he warns his sister to be wary of two people. The prosecutor and the judge who put him away, Paul Deister.

Tangents are something I try to avoid, but this film brought to mind a certain phenomenon that helped me relate to and understand its energy. When a person gets their first tattoo or piercing, especially when they're young, they'll often be met with a patronizing lecture from an elder. The question, “Do you want that on your skin when you're old?” is usually the first of the interrogation, the second being, “Is what the tattoo means really that important?” Like many youngsters, I got my first tattoo and felt marked and personalized at the time. I was an individual who saw herself devoted to certain things; I wanted to carry them with me always. A few years passed and I became less outspoken and devoted to other things. By early adulthood, my piercings had been removed, my hair was no longer tousled and my subversive literature was donated to the Goodwill. There wasn't a loathing for the tattoos—the only thing I couldn't get rid of and the only thing linking me to my past self. The feeling towards them was more fascination. I learned to wear the markings with pride, though it had nothing to do with the symbols or what they represented. They have crystallized many feelings that I used to have; aggression, radicalism, passion, and overpowering self-love. I look at them to be reminded of that.

What to Do in Case of Fire is the story of punk anarchists who grew up and, for the most part, carried on lives that would have been considered "selling out" in their youth. The year was 1987, and a group of young people were fed up with their unsuccessful riots and the obscurity of their homemade propaganda films. They decided to make one final film, How to Make a Homemade Bomb, and, using chemicals, feces, and a cooking pan, they tell their non-existent audience how to assemble the bomb, dispose of the evidence and leave it in an abandoned building. The bomb didn't go off, though.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America is a rock 'n' roll road movie that pulls inspiration from various classic Western rock movements while observing forced democracy and musical ambition along the way. A Finnish polka band called The Leningrad Cowboys, sporting winklepicker oxfords, black suits and exaggerated pompadours, are trying to make a name for themselves. In their village they perform for a producer and are told that they have a lot of talent. The producer speaks to their manager, Vladimir (Matti Pellonpaa) and advises the group to take off to America and seek fame. The manager makes some calls and sets up a show in Manhattan, claiming that the band is very good and speaks perfect English, which they don't. One of their bass players has recently passed away and they place him in a bizarre coffin, set on taking his corpse with them to America. Stalking them is Igor, (Kari Vaananen) a village reject who wants to join their band and intends on following their course abroad.

While in the air they brush up on their English and are ordered by Vladimir to stop speaking their native language for the time being. Upon arrival the club owner in New York asks them to play for him before he agrees to let them perform. After hearing the band he informs them that their music is just not what he was looking for. He gives them the address of his cousin in Mexico who needs a band for his wedding. According to him, their 10-piece band and ensemble of instruments would do well there, but not in America, where rock 'n' roll is the music of choice. Without a place to go and only $700 between them, they buy a Cadillac and start a road tour across America with Mexico as their final destination.

Who knew that you could use extraterrestrials to make a bold statement about racial conflict and immigration? Seems all too easy when you think about it, but John Sayles did it here with a surprising amount of brilliance.

It's been years since I've seen the film, and one of the joys of revisiting a classic movie is being able to finally understand its message through the humor and irony of the plot. In the movie we find an alien with African-American features (Joe Morton) who ironically crashes his spaceship at the Ellis Island Immigration Center. He hobbles around injured and observes the foreign surroundings before healing his wounds with a simple touch. Though he's unable to speak or make vocal sounds, he can understand every language on Earth and has other abilities that could be compared to that of a psychic superhero. The first that we observe is his ability to touch inanimate objects and hear the pain and anguish from spirits that used or were around the object. The only physical feature that sets him apart from others, besides the fact that he's black, are his three oversized toes as feet, which he keeps covered, of course.

Dennis Hopper has always played the person who unsettled me the most in a movie. There was something about the naturalness behind his screwy, brutish characters that made me feel as though the role was more personal therapy than acting. But I must say that I've always been captivated by his roles, and I try to see as many as possible because they do have such a strange effect on me. That being said, I've yet to see Easy Rider, which he directed, nor was I even aware that he directed it and several others, including this film. Many of the details in Out of the Blue seemed familiar; the womanizing husband, as seen in several Cassavetes films; the youngsters from broken homes, like in The Outsiders; the robotic, forced, and sometimes unnatural dialogue in David Lynch films. This familiarity turned me off at first, and I must admit that the overall feel of the movie didn't grab me the way I thought it would. What ultimately kept me focused and quite pleased was Dennis Hopper and his young co-star Linda Manz.

In the movie we find Cebe (Linda Manz), a 15-year old girl who's searching for someone to look up to. Her father (Dennis Hopper) is at the tail end of a 5-year stretch in prison after accidentally driving his semi into a school bus full of children. Her mother (Sharon Farrell) is a heroin addict who tries to find security and a good time with different men. Cebe aspires to be a punk rocker and often recites phrases and philosophies made popular by Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. She also enjoys listening to and dressing up like Elvis. Her attachment to their music is a catalyst for the film, and because they're dead and gone, she tries to find direction and excitement in local punk bands. Her aggression, and that of her small group of friends, is what often saves her from the perverts and lowlifes in her town.