I Spit On Your Grave (2010)

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Steven R. Monroe
    Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard,
    Daniel Franzese, Chad Lindberg, Tracey Walter
Whether the movie-watching world wanted or needed a remake of "I Spit On Your Grave" is questionable, but here one is anyway. Once again, a young woman (Sarah Butler) goes to an isolated cabin in the woods to write a book, and spends the first half of the movie being assaulted and gang-raped by a bunch of psycho rednecks. The second half of the movie she spends getting even. There are a couple of new twists in this version: an additional member of the gang, whose presence and position in the community make what happens to the woman even more horrifying, and an ambiguity about the second half that leaves it unclear whether the woman exacting the payback is a survivor or the angel of death. Either way, the guys all get what's coming to them, each in a way that reflects his particular role in the assault. As a measure of how exploitation movies have evolved since 1978, the nudity in the remake is more discreet, while the violence is more extreme. Some will find it reprehensible. Some won't. Chances are, you already know which side you come down on. Proceed accordingly.

Labor On the Douro River (1931)

LABOR ON THE DOURO RIVER  (1931)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Manoel de Oliveira
Manoel de Oliveira's first movie, a silent documentary about life on Portugal's docks. It's an exhilarating, point-blank look at the dirty, dangerous, back-breaking work of the men and women who haul goods to market and load and unload the ships (and not much of that work was mechanized then). The director was in his early 20s when he made it, and you get a real sense of this kid who's got a great new toy, a movie camera, still figuring out all the cool stuff it can do.  A nice print of the movie turns up on a DVD with "The Strange Case of Angelica", which de Oliveira shot almost 80 years later, close to the same locale.

The Strange Case of Angelica (2010)

THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA  (2010)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Manoel de Oliveira
    Ricardo Trêpa, Pilar López de Ayala, Adelaide Teixeira
This movie was made in Portugal. It's preoccupied with death. It moves real slow. Most of it was shot with a stationary camera. The story's about a photographer who's hired to take a few pictures of a woman who's died. Through the lens of the camera, and then in the prints he makes later on, he imagines the woman coming to life. He becomes obsessed with her. Sometimes he sees her out on the balcony and they fly off together. He's a strange guy. It's probably not a movie that'll keep you awake if you watch it late at night. For a lot of it, people just talk and not much happens. But here's the thing: Manoel de Oliveira, when he directed it, was 101 years old. Maybe when you're that old, you are preoccupied with death. Maybe time does slow down. Maybe at that point, a breakneck narrative is not what you're after. If anybody else out there makes it to 101, let the rest of us know.

Angel Face (1952)

ANGEL FACE  (1952)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Otto Preminger
    Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Herbert Marshall,
    Mona Freeman, Barbara O'Neil, Leon Ames, 
    Kenneth Tobey, Jim Backus
An ambulance driver gets involved with the daughter of a burned-out novelist, a dark-eyed beauty who stands to inherit a fortune when and if her stepmother passes on. What distinguishes this film noir is that the protagonist, played by Robert Mitchum, isn't really being duped. He can see what the femme fatale is up to, and tells her to her face. But she's played by Jean Simmons, and when a girl like that is crazy, it can make you crazy, too, and not in a way that's likely to lead to a long and happy life. Watch out any time somebody in this movie puts a car in reverse. 

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA  (2005)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Tommy Lee Jones
    Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, 
    Julio César Cedillo, Dwight Yokam,
    Melissa Leo, January Jones, Levon Helm
With a nod to "The Trouble With Harry", and fragments lifted from "Lonesome Dove" and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia", Tommy Lee Jones logs in as a director with a macabre piece about a body that won't stay buried. Jones plays a West Texas cowboy on a quixotic mission to keep a reluctantly made promise: to see his best friend laid to rest in his home village in Mexico. The plot turns continually on what people think they know, but don't. Barry Pepper plays the unlucky Border Patrol agent Jones kidnaps and drags along on his quest. Levon Helm does a funny bit as a blind hermit. Much of the humor revolves around the desecration and decomposition of a corpse. Not everybody will find that amusing. But Jones does, and he knows that for comedy to work, it has to be played straight. Even when you're siphoning antifreeze to embalm a rotting cadaver, or setting a dead guy's head on fire. Maybe especially then.

Levon Helm

(1940-2012)

Indiscreet (1958)

INDISCREET  (1958)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Stanley Donen
    Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman,
    Cecil Parker, Phyllis Calvert
A very light comic romance set in London, about the love affair between a famous actress and a dashing diplomat. There's almost nothing to this, but the stars give it plenty of class. Donen puts Technicolor to good use, and Grant cutting up on the dance floor is a highlight.