Ghost World

Year:  2001

Director:  Terry Zwigoff

Screenplay:  Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

Starring:  Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, Brad Renfro, Illeana Douglas

Running Time:  112 minutes

Genre:  Dark comedy, drama

In the bland suburbs of an unnamed American city, cynical teenage outcasts Enid (Birch) and Rebecca (Johansson) have just left high school.  However, a summer of wandering the streets, hanging out at kitschy diners and shops and tormenting people with their sarcastic quips and pranks is threatened by the fact that Enid has to take a remedial art class in order to graduate high school.  As the two slowly drift apart, Enid strikes up a friendship with eccentric, lonely middle-aged record collector, Seymour (Buscemi).

Ghost World started out as a slice-of-life comic series in writer-artist Daniel Clowes' Eightball between 1993 and 1997, before being published as a graphic novel in 1997.  Director Terry Zwigoff had previously made his name with the documentary Crumb, about controversial underground "comix" artist Robert Crumb.  Zwigoff shot the film in a deliberately flat, bland way, with very few extras in the streets, and the characters entered in the frame, to mimic the panels of the comic.  It also shows the alienation of the characters.  The streets are eerily quiet and empty all the time, and helps give the film it's odd, slightly surreal feel.  Thora Birch, who at the time was coming off the success of American Beauty (1999), gives a great performance as Enid, a character who is at the same time sympathetic, awkward, cool, sometimes cruel, disloyal and confused, and who wrecks havoc in the lives of her friends albeit unintentionally.  Steve Buscemi gives a very strong performance as the lonely record collector Seymour, who loves old ragtime music and collects odd old artefacts, and is mostly quiet and shy but still given to occasional fits of anger, and who the girls first encounter when he falls victim to one of their cruel pranks, but who Enid ends up developing. strong connection with.  Seymour could very easily have been very creepy character, but the way that he is written and the way Buscemi plays him, with a kind of naive sweetness, makes him a surprisingly likeable and sympathetic character.  The film marks the breakthrough role for Scarlett Johansson, who had previously gained some attention for her supporting roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and the Coen Brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001).  She gives a very good performance as Rebecca, Enid's friend, who is just as cynical and sarcastic as her friend, but is the more popular half of the duo, and unlike Enid has solid plans for the future.  The film is billed as a comedy, and some scenes are very funny, but it is a surprisingly dark film, and it all ends on a strange, ambiguous note. Although some aspects of it have dated in the past twenty years, it is still a strange and bracing look at what it means to be lonely and trapped in the bland modern world.

Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch in Ghost World

The Death of Stalin

 Year of Release:  2017

Director:  Armando Iannucci

Screenplay:  Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin, from a screenplay by Fabian Nury and based on the graphic novel La Mort de Staline by Fabian Nury and Thierry Roin

Starring:  Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Whitehouse

Running Time;  105 minutes

Genre:  Satire, comedy

The Soviet Union, 1953:  The country is in the grip of Premier Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) and his Central Committee, who themselves constantly live in fear of getting on the wrong side of Stalin.  When Staline suffers a cerebral haemorrhage and dies, the Central Committee is thrown into turmoil, as each member plots, schemes and manipulates their way to the centre of power.

Scottish writer, director and satirist Armando Iannucci has made a name for himself poking fun at the dark absurdities of British and American politics with his TV shows such as The Day Today (1994), The Saturday Night Armistice (1995-1999), The Thick of It (2005-2012) and Veep (2012-2019).  Here he turns his satirical gaze on the much darker historical absurdity of the Stalinist-era Soviet Union.  It depicts a world of absurd paranoia.  The film opens with Stalin ordering a recording of a concert, which hadn't been recorded, and so the orchestra and audience have to be hurriedly pulled back and the whole thing remounted.  Every evening Vyacheslav Molotov (played by ex-Monty Python member Michael Palin) gets his wife to list down everything he has said in Stalin's presence and note down which got good reactions and which didn't.  Following Stalin's death, there's a vying for power, while his funeral is prepared.  The comedy comes from the resulting backbiting, alliances and treachery, as well as the fact that whenever there is a big event to be organised, whatever can go wrong will go wrong.  There is also the fact that these characters are constantly in danger for their lives, the wrong word could get you name on a list which would mean death.  The threat of prison, torture and execution is constant throughout the film, but it doesn't really go to much into the atrocities of the Stalin regime.  It's. clever film, which is consistently amusing, although more witty than laugh out loud funny, and often the darkness drowns out the humour.  It also features a great cast of familiar comedy faces at the top of their game, each one of which has their chance to shine,         

The Death of Stalin

The Dead Don't Die

Year:  2019
Director:  Jim Jarmusch
Screenplay:  Jim Jarmusch
Starring:  Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Selena Gomez, RZA, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits
Running Time:  103 minutes
Genre:  Horror, comedy

The small American town of Centerville is experiencing a series of bizarre events:  It gets dark either far too late or far too early for the time of year, animals are behaving out of character or disappearing, and electronic equipment is behaving very erratically.  Things get much worse when the dead start to come out of the grave and feast on the flesh of the living. 

This marks the second time that acclaimed indie director Jim Jarmusch has entered horror territory, following acclaimed vampire movie Only Lovers Left Alive (2013).  This did not get the same positive reception on it's release.  The humour is very deadpan, police officers Bill Murray and Adam Driver seem to sleepwalk throughout the entire film even before the zombies appear, and is full of bizarre touches, such as Tilda Swinton as an eccentric, samurai sword wielding Scottish mortician (with a frankly extraordinary accent), and Murray and Driver's characters seem to be aware that they are characters in a film, and the film's theme song becomes a recurring in-joke throughout the film.  It's also full of references to other horror films.  This isn't really scary at all, and at times it is too self-consciously cool for it's own good, and the characters are too "hip" and quirky to really feel realistic.  it also hammers home it's political message a little too bluntly at times.  Personally though, I did find it consistently funny.  The zombies themselves are effectively designed, "bleeding" clouds of black ash, and drawn to the things that they loved when they were alive.  It boasts an impressive cast, who all seem to be having fun.

Bill Murray, Chloë Sevigny and Adam Driver face off against zombies in The Dead Don't Die

The Big Lebowski

Year of Release:  1998
Director:  Joel Coen
Screenplay:  Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring:  Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Running Time:  117 minutes
Genre:  Comedy

Los Angeles, 1991:  Jeff Lebowski (Bridges), who prefers to be known as "The Dude", is a good natured slacker, an ex-hippie who spends his time bowling and smoking weed.  One night two strangers break into his small apartment, mistaking him for a millionaire who is also named Jeff Lewbowki (Huddleston).  They leave after realising their mistake, but not before one of them ruins the Dude's rug.  Believing that the "Big Lebowski" owes him for his rug, the Dude finds himself unwitting drawn into a complex kidnapping plot involving an experimental artist, German nihilists, wealthy pornographers, a million dollars and a hungry marmot. 

This is a very funny shaggy-dog story from the Coen Brothers.  Influenced by the detective fiction of author Raymond Chandler, the story doesn't really make a lot of sense, but then, it's not supposed to.  the episodic narrative is packed with jokes and memorable characters:  Aggressive Vietnam veteran Walter (John Goodman), avant-garde artist Maude (Julianne Moore) who works naked flying on a swing, and flamboyant bowler Jesus (John Turturro).  The Coen Brothers have a real gift for idiosyncratic dialogue, and a strong ear for individual speech patterns.  It's sylishly directed, and visually striking, particularly the surreal dream sequences, and a great soundtrack of late sixties and seventies psychedelic rock.  Most importantly it is very funny, and full of quotable lines.  The film wasn't a big success on it's first release, but it has since become a major cult hit, to the point where some people pattern their lives on the film, there is even a semi-religion known as "Dudeism".  It's set against the backdrop of the first Gulf War, which is seen on TV sets and occasionally mentioned (in one scene the Dude hallucinates Saddam Hussein as a bowling alley employee) but doesn't really impact the characters lives at all, even the militaristic Walter is pretty much fixated on Vietnam, and these characters are living in the past, and are still stuck in the early seventies.  Their nostalgic worldview isn't criticised by the film, seeming to exist apart from the rest of the world, in a mythic Shangri-La for white middle-aged men, of bowling and weed.  The Dude's problems occur when he is forces himself out of his own world, but despite everything that happens, all he really wants is a rug.  Everything the Dude does in the film is because he has been pushed to do it, or talked into it by others, to the extent that he frequently parrots what people say to him to others, word for word, as if they are his own ideas, and he seems to think they are.  The Dude elevates laziness into an artform.  Everyone in the talented cast gives a good performance, and it seems like it was a lot of fun for all concerned.  While the Coes Brothers have definitively stated that there will not be a sequel, John Tuturro has written, directed and stars in a spin-off film called The Jesus Rolls which is due for release in 2020.

            Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi and John Goodman prepare to roll in The Big Lebowski

Reservoir Dogs

Year of Release:  1992
Director:  Quentin Tarantino
Screenplay:  Quentin Tarantino
Starring:  Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Micheal Madsen, Chris Penn, Laurence Tierney, Quentin Tarantino, Eddie Bunker
Running Time:  94 minutes
Genre:  Thriller, Crime

When a jewelry store robbery goes badly wrong, the surviving robbers retreat to their warehouse rendezvous.  It soon becomes clear that one of them was an undercover cop.  As suspicions and accusations pile up, the survivors are soon violently out of control.

This was the film that introduced the world, for better or worse, to Quentin Tarantino.  While this was a moderate success upon it's initial US release, it was an absolute sensation in Britain, where it was very controversial due to it's violence.  Denied a home video release in Britain until 1995, the film played pretty much constantly in late-night screenings for almost three years. 
The film opens with a pre-credit sequence set in a diner where the characters banter and kvetch about Madonna and the ethics of tipping, and then you're pretty much thrown into the action.  It takes place almost entirely in the aftermath of this botched heist, and unfolds in real time in this derelict warehouse, with flashbacks delineating the backstories of various characters and the events leading up to and immediately following the robbery (which crucially we never actually see).  It's well-written with Tarantino's typically profane, pop-culture fueled dialogue, and well-performed by a talented cast of notable character actors.  It's a violent, bloody film but not quite as violent as it's reputation suggests, the famous ear-slicing scene is never actually shown in all it's gory details.
It's a gritty, funny and genuinely exciting thriller.  Tarantino has made better films, but none of them have the stripped-down, muscular grit of this one.

Micheal Madsen, Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi in Reservoir Dogs 
         

Trees Lounge

Year of Release:  1996
Director:  Steve Buscemi
Screenplay:  Steve Buscemi
Starring:  Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, Mark Boone Junior, Anthony LaPaglia, Elizabeth Bracco, Seymour Cassel, Carol Kane, Samuel L. Jackson
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Drama, slice-of-life

In a tough, working-class neighbourhood of New York City, alcoholic Tommy Basilio (Buscemi) is a fixture at the local bar, Trees Lounge.  His girlfriend of eight years has left him for his boss and former best friend, Rob (LaPaglia).  Rob subsequently fired Tommy from his job as a mechanic for stealing money form the till.  In between drinking at the Trees Lounge, Tommy spends his time half-heartedly looking for work, eventually being given an ice-cream truck, following the death of the owner.  He also manages to form a connection with Debbie (Sevigny), the seventeen-year-old niece of a former girlfriend.

This is a downbeat, slice-of-life drama, very much in the John Cassavetes school of gritty realism, and features Cassavetes regular Seymour Cassel.  By and large the film sticks with Tommy, but it also deals with the lives of other Trees Lounge regulars, all of whom seem to lead pretty miserable lives.  Some crucial elements in the film are left ambiguous, not depicted on screen we are left to decide for ourselves what really happened from the often differing versions of events that the characters give us.  Not much happens in the film and, in keeping with the lives these characters lead, there are no real conclusions, despite glimmerings of hope it looks as if they will keep doing the same things over and over again.  This is a strong debut from Buscemi as a writer-director making largely unlikeable characters sympathetic and giving the film a strain of dark comedy.  The film has a strong cast full of recognisable faces from nineties independent movies.  The film's largely plotless nature and slow pace may put off some viewers but it is worth sticking with because it is a well-performed and well-written drama.  Buscemi scripted and directed one other film Animal Factory (2003) and has directed a number of TV episodes, but Trees Lounge really makes me which that he had done more as a writer/director because, on the evidence of this, he could have become a notable filmmaker as well as an actor.     

Steve Buscemi in Trees Lounge

Desperado

Year of Release:  1995
Director:  Robert Rodriguez
Screenplay:  Robert Rodriguez
Starring:  Antonio Banderas, Joaquim de Almeida, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin, Quentin Tarantino
Running Time:  105 minutes
Genre:  Action

This film is a sequel to Robert Rodriguez ultra-low-budget debut El Mariachi (1992), but is also kind of a remake with a much bigger budget, because, although it follows directly on from El Mariachi, and events from that film are referenced, it follows the plot of the first very closely, and several set-pieces form the original are recreated on a much grander scale.  The unnamed Mariachi (Bandreas, replacing Carlos Gallardo from the first film) is seeking revenge on crime boss, Bucho (de Almeida), for the death of his one true love.  With the help of his American pal (Buscemi), the Mariachi wanders from town to town with a guitar case full of guns pursuing Bucho.

Full of stylish action and violence, which is graphic enough to be appealing to action fans, but not too graphic to be too disturbing.  Antonio Banderas makes for a great action hero, and Salma Hayek, who made her breakthrough performance with this film, is good as the bookstore owner who helps the Mariachi.  There is also a fun cameo from Quentin Tarantino.  This is the kind of movie that is just a fun action packed romp.        

Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas in Desperado

Mystery Train

Year of Release:  1989
Director:  Jim Jarmusch
Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch
Starring:  Youki Kudoh, Masatoshi Nagase, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Cinque Lee, Nicoletta Braschi, Elizabeth Bracco, Rick Aviles, Joe Strummer, Steve Buscemi,
Running Time:  113 minutes
Genre:  comedy-drama

This film collects three separate but connected stories, all set during the same 24 hour period in Memphis, Tennessee, linked by a run-down hotel, a single gunshot and the legacy of Elvis Presley.  A teenage Japanese couple visit Memphis on a rock 'n' roll pilgrimage, Mitsuko (Kudoh) is crazy about the King, while Jun (Nagase) is more of a Carl Perkins man.  A young Italian widow, Luisa (Braschi), is stranded in Memphis during an unexpected 24 hour layover while escorting her husband's body back to Italy. A hapless barber, Charlie (Buscemi), is unwittingly involved in a liquor store robbery by his drunk, English brother-in-law (Strummer).

This is a slow, melancholy movie.  It's funny but it is comedy of the most deadpan sort.  Jarmusch once commented that he makes films out of the parts that other directors cut out, and this really feels like that.  It's a film full of long pauses, meandering conversations and long sequences of characters wandering around.  It is strangely affecting and haunting though.  The stories with the Japanese couple and the Italian widow capture the feeling of being in a strange city, far from home, and the story about the barber features one of the best scenes of drunkenness on film.  The story with the barber is probably the most mainstream segment, and is Tarantinoesque before Quentin Tarantino, including a conversation about Lost in Space that could almost have been written by Tarantino.  The stories are connected by scenes with Screamin' Jay Hawkins as the night manager of the hotel and Cinque Lee as a porter, who provide some of the film's funniest moments, with Hawkins being able to bring the laughs and express so much with just one look.  There are some great performances from Kudoh, Nagase and Braschi.  Buscemi's put-upon barber and Strummer's aggressive Brit are hilarious together.  Music is ever present in the film, Elvis Presley is referenced in all three of the stories, the Japanese couple are fascinated by American rock 'n' roll, and there are several musicians in the cast:  Soul singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Joe Strummer who was frontman for British rock group The Clash, and Tom Waits lends his gravely tones as the voice of a late-night radio DJ.  

Jarmusch's brand of cool, deadpan whimsy won't appeal to everyone.  It is slow and not much happens for a lot of the film, but it is one of Jarmusch's most accessible films and the epitome of American indie cool.  If you think you might have a taste for underground or more indie films, this is a good place to start.  It's also a haunting paean to American pop-culture which will resonate in the mind long after the end credits have rolled.

   Late Night Grande Hotel:  Cinque Lee and Screamin' Jay Hawkins in Mystery Train

Youth in Revolt

Year: 2009
Director: Miguel Artega
Screenplay: Gustin Nash, based on the novel Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp by C.D. Payne
Starring: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Jean Smart, Mary Kay Place, Zack Galifianakis, Justin Long, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Adhir Kalyan
Running Time: 89 minutes
Genre: Comedy, coming-of-age

Summary: Oakland, California: Nick Twisp (Cera) is a likeable, intelligent, geeky teenager who enjoys arthouse movies and has no luck with girls. He lives with his divorced mother, Estelle (Smart), and her deadbeat boyfriend, Jerry (Galifianakis). When the family are forced to move to a trailer park in a small town to escape some sailors who Jerry owes money to, Nick meets and falls madly in love with Sheeni Saunders (Doubleday), anh intelligent and unconventional teenager who loves all things French and is convinced that she will one day marry a glamorous French man named Francois. However, to be with Sheeni, Nick has to contend with her strongly religious parents (Place and M. Emmett Walsh), Sheeni's seemingly perfect boyfriend, Trent (Jonathan Bradford Wright), and the fact that Nick's mother wants to take him back to Oakland.
Sheeni promises to set up a job nearby for Nick's father, George (Buscemi), if Nick can get kicked out of his mother's house so he can live with his father near Sheeni. The problem is that Nick has spent his entire life being good and well-behaved and he doesn't know how to bad and reckless and so he creates an alternate persona for himself called Francois Dillinger (Cera again) who has a mustache, smokes and has an almost sociopathic personality. However, Nick finds it increasingly difficult to control Francois, and the course of True Love never runs smoothly.

Opinions: This movie is very much a quirky, semi-indie teen comedy, starring the undisputed king of quirky, semi-indie teen comedies, Michael Cera. Here he is once again cast as a quiet likeable nerd, the kind of role that he always plays well, but here there is an added bonus as he also plays the self-centered, charismatic, calm, but menacing Francois. The rest of the cast do well especially Portia Doubleday in her first major role as Sheeni, whom she makes pretentious, enigmatic and engaging. However, aside from Cera and Doubleday, none of the rest of the cast really have much time to make much of an impression, coming on and off stage like a series of extended cameos. By the way, Rooney Mara, who is soon to appear in the title role in David Fincher's film of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has a brief appearance as Sheeni's schoolfriend.
The movie is very stylised, including a couple of animation sequences, and initially I found the relentless quirkiness quite annoying, but after awhile I got used to the style and the movie won me over. It's no classic, but it is entertaining and amusing, with enough surprises and sharp gags to keep the interest.



Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday discuss Youth in Revolt