Delicatessen (December 10 at 9:20 p.m. and December 11 at 8 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

I was recently wondering what the year 1991 was good for (most of the early 90s, for that matter). Oh yes, I started with an interesting new movie-review publisher – who immediately went out of business. Later, I found out they had started up again and neglected to tell me. When I finally tracked them down and re-introduced myself, the reaction was more or less, “yes, you still work for us. We’ve been waiting to hear from you - what took so long?” Believe it or not, they weren’t even a Cleveland publisher, despite that management style, a bit too familiar in my flatlining career.

But 1991 also stands out, for many other moviegoers, for when the international release (pushed heavily by Terry Gilliam; I remember the Cleveland International Film Festival premiering it here) of the French science-fiction satire hit DELICATESSEN. It brought to wide attention the filmmaking duo of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, who went for some time simply by the tandem credit Jeaunet-Caro, with their Tim Burton-esque (or Gilliamesque) eye for grotesque fantasy, but in a mildly European fairy-tale/fantasy vein, mixing menace with whimsy and a hint of the unspeakable in a recipe that is all their own.

Far From Men (now on video)

All hail Viggo Mortenson as the American answer to Max Von Sydow, that is to say, a serious and thoughtful-seeming actor who can go from all-star escapism and fluff such as HIDALGO and the LORD OF THE RINGS films to way off-the-beaten-track foreign fare, personal projects and “art” films. Now watch, Mortenson will show up as a cartoon bad guy or cape-wearer in a Justice League movie, shaking his fist and saying “I’ll get you Wonder Woman!” and I will be begging Bob Ignizio to take down this posting. Or at least put his own by-line on it. I’m so sick of comic-book movies.

The multi-lingual Mortenson stars and co-produced (for iconic French studio Pathe) the French- and Arabic-language drama FAR FROM MEN, which represents director David Delhoffen’s decent expansion of the Albert Camus short story “The Guest,” on which generations of high-school students such as I had been weaned (to all my fellow former high-school French students, anyone found any jobs out there? I’m still looking).

Unlike similar attenuations of short-story material, this one doesn’t feel terribly padded, even if it does bring some sex and more violence into the tale than Camus did.

Breathe (December 3rd and 4th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[BREATHE screens Thursday December 3rd at 8:55pm and Friday December 4th at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

There have been any number of films about how difficult being a teenager can be, and the often prickly nature of youthful friendships, particularly between girls. BREATHE (aka Respire) is one of the best.

The film’s protagonist is Charlie (Joséphine Japy), a smart, reasonably popular seventeen year old. Things at home are a bit dysfunctional as Charlie’s parents often fight, but on the whole her life is pretty good. Then a new student arrives at school and attaches herself to Charlie, and everything changes.

Horsehead (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

This, un film de Romain Basset, was conceived under the working title "Fever" - which is much more apt for the feverish stream of surreal horror imagery, seemingly in tribute to yesteryear's hallucinatory Italian "giallo" cinema exemplified by cult-darling directors Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Michele Soavi (especially) and the father-son team of Mario and Lamberto Bava.

Only here there's even less of a solid plot, if possible. 

Out-and-out horror films are a rarity in French cinema, to the point that a lot of the genre's Gallic fear-fests default to surrealist Jean Cocteau and his ORPHEUS and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 

Well, HORSEHEAD isn't near that good, but one can at least see a certain influence in the thin plot, most of which appears to be a string of nightmares. 

Eastern Boys (June 24th at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[EASTERN BOYS screens Wednesday June 24th at 6:45 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

It's been a recurring complaint of mine that I get assigned an inordinate amount of gay-themed movies to watch. More than my share, I do believe. I've long complained about it elsewhere; no need to go into gory details here.

But just know that if any paying media outlet had actually, after this long, long, "Cleveland Rising" (yeah, right; not for me) employment drought, genuinely, truly rehired me and told me my first assignment was to see JURASSIC WORLD, I'd probably freak out. Like so:

"You can't fool me! It's another GAY movie! There it is, right in the title! The word `ass!' The real name is probably YOUR ASS IS MY WORLD and the marketing people at Universal just misheard it. And presumed there were dinosaurs in the plot. It's really one of those BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN type man-on-man romances: "Your ass is my world," yes, probably taken directly from the dialogue. I can hear that becoming the catchphrase when this winds up a Best Picture nominee, the gold statuette personally handed over by Neil Patrick Harris and Jodie Foster. I need a break from the damn gay movies!..."

Well, I didn't get rehired anywhere, didn't get to see JURASSIC WORLD. I did, however, make a few bucks seeing the French film EASTERN BOYS. To paraphrase Ellen Degeneres, yep, it's gay.

Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque (November 12th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[HENRI LANGLOIS: PHANTOM OF THE CINEMATHEQUE screens Thursday November 13th at 6:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

The original title of this lengthy 2004 French documentary translates literally as "The Phantom of Henri Langlois." For some reason, when it came here the distributors at Leisure Time Features seemed to think the subtitle PHANTOM OF THE CINEMATHEQUE had a nice ring. I have no idea if money changed hands with the  Cleveland Cinematheque or any of our lobbying civics groups with lots of cash from Columbus to spend, or not. There are, after all, a number of other places around called `Cinematheques.' So the coincidence could have been perfectly innocent. But if Jacques Richard's nonfiction feature shows up at the Cleveland Cinematheque this week with a fresh subtitle: HENRI LANGLOIS: GO CAVS! LEBRON WILL TAKE US TO THE CHAMPIONSHIPS AND MAKE CLEVELAND TRY TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT ITSELF A LITTLE, FINALLY, SO BUY YOUR SEASON TICKETS NOW, then you know that somebody's been a real French whore.

Repost: Cousin Jules (May 3rd at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[COUSIN JULES screens Saturday May 3rd at 5:15 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

There's a name you don't hear enough in movies, unless you're deep into cinema-verite documentaries: David Sutherland. The fellow makes intimate portraits, sometimes covering many years, in the lives and travails of rural Americans - farm-country and cattle-ranch folk, the sorts of honest, real people whom Hollywood either generally ignores or patronizes in widely scattered awards-bait dramas such as A THOUSAND ACRES. Sutherland's features, such as OUT OF SIGHT, THE FARMER'S WIFE and KIND HEARTED WOMAN are typically aired on PBS as docu-miniseries, showing what "reality-TV" could be if done well and unscripted.

But in today's high-speed days of NSA terrorism, "twerking" Disney starlets, Browns coach firings and economic death spirals, WHO HAS THE TIME??!! to get absorbed into a David Sutherland-style narrative. The Cleveland Cinematheque has an answer to farm-cinema, with a rediscovery of French filmmaker Dominique Benicheti's 1972 COUSIN JULES.

Cousin Jules (February 22nd and 23rd at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[COUSIN JULES screens Saturday February 22nd at 5:15 pm and Sunday February 23rd at 6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

There's a name you don't hear enough in movies, unless you're deep into cinema-verite documentaries: David Sutherland. The fellow makes intimate portraits, sometimes covering many years, in the lives and travails of rural Americans - farm-country and cattle-ranch folk, the sorts of honest, real people whom Hollywood either generally ignores or patronizes in widely scattered awards-bait dramas such as A THOUSAND ACRES. Sutherland's features, such as OUT OF SIGHT, THE FARMER'S WIFE and KIND HEARTED WOMAN are typically aired on PBS as docu-miniseries, showing what "reality-TV" could be if done well and unscripted.

But in today's high-speed days of NSA terrorism, "twerking" Disney starlets, Browns coach firings and economic death spirals, WHO HAS THE TIME??!! to get absorbed into a David Sutherland-style narrative. The Cleveland Cinematheque has an answer to farm-cinema, with a rediscovery of French filmmaker Dominique Benicheti's 1972 COUSIN JULES.

Beginning his film shoot in 1968 and covering several years, Benicheti eavesdropped on his octogenarian cousin Jules Guiteaux, dwelling as a farmer in the French countryside. The resulting film compresses the agrarian existence of Jules and his wife Felicie into just 91 minutes.

La Petit Soldat (October 17th and 18th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[LE PETIT SOLDAT screens Thursday October 17th at 6:45 pm and Friday October 18th at 9:35 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I could get to learn to like this Jean-Luc Godard person. I must confess, the first time I saw BREATHLESS, in the context of a college film class, when I was still young enough to be stupidly optimistic about things, my reaction was that of an unimpressed disciple of the Lucas/Spielberg generation. So this is the great Godard I've heard so much about? This is BREATHLESS that shook the film world? Security-camera-like BW cinematography? Ragged editing? No sound or crude audio in long bits? Little evident budget (Eiffel Tower in the background...so what? These guys lived there anyway). Godard's French New Wave masterpiece just left me cold. 

Un Flic (October 4th, 5th, and 6th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[UN FLIC screens Friday October 4th at 9:25 pm, Saturday October 5th at 7:30 pm, and Sunday October 6th at 4:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Picture's called UN FLIC, huh? So it took the French to make a whole movie about the sidekick from A CHRISTMAS STORY? It figures, Paramount having just laid off every employee not in the public domain. That LONE RANGER bomb is bringing everyone down. I think it's gotten more people laid off than Obamacare.

No, UN FLIC (AKA DIRTY MONEY) is, rather, a terse 1972 cops-and-robbers picture by ace French director Jean-Pierre Melville, a specialist in no-nonsense crime dramas. He also took the last name `Melville,' in tribute to the great American novelist Herman Melville, which is worth mentioning as perhaps the last nice thing any French person had to say about an American who wasn't Jerry Lewis or Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Repost: The Well Digger's Daughter (January 4th and 6th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE WELL DIGGER'S DAUGHTER screens Friday January 4th at 7:30 pm and Sunday January 6th at 4:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Watching THE WELL DIGGER’S DAUGHTER gave me the mild suspicion that under the guise of an ultra-serious foreign drama I was watching a subversive satire of ultra-serious foreign dramas, one that was going right over my poorly paid head. It’s happened to me before. I won’t give exact circumstances, but it was a Russian import, and local filmmaker Laura Paglin could tell you all about my mistake in not getting the joke.

THE WELL DIGGER’S DAUGHTER is a remake of a 1940 French picture of the same title (LA FILLE DU PUISATIER) from revered filmmaker Marcel Pagnol (1894-1974). Monsieur Pagnol specialized in rural or seaside dramas, set well outside perennial locale Paris, depicting life, love, infidelity and family stuff amidst the rustics. And while he is well-remembered by cinemaphiles, a common interpretation is that he was part of the stodgy old guard of visually unimaginative French filmmakers against whom the young upstarts of the New Wave like Godard, Truffault, Chabrol etc. openly rebelled.

The Well Digger’s Daughter (October 20th and 21st at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE WELL DIGGER'S DAUGHTER screens Saturday October 20th at 7:25 pm and Sunday October 21st at 4:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Watching THE WELL DIGGER’S DAUGHTER gave me the mild suspicion that under the guise of an ultra-serious foreign drama I was watching a subversive satire of ultra-serious foreign dramas, one that was going right over my poorly paid head. It’s happened to me before. I won’t give exact circumstances, but it was a Russian import, and local filmmaker Laura Paglin could tell you all about my mistake in not getting the joke.

THE WELL DIGGER’S DAUGHTER is a remake of a 1940 French picture of the same title (LA FILLE DU PUISATIER) from revered filmmaker Marcel Pagnol (1894-1974). Monsieur Pagnol specialized in rural or seaside dramas, set well outside perennial locale Paris, depicting life, love, infidelity and family stuff amidst the rustics. And while he is well-remembered by cinemaphiles, a common interpretation is that he was part of the stodgy old guard of visually unimaginative French filmmakers against whom the young upstarts of the New Wave like Godard, Truffault, Chabrol etc. openly rebelled.

Unforgiveable (October 13th and 14th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[UNFORGIVEABLE screens Saturday October 13th at 7:20 pm and Sunday October 14th at 4:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Having just seen a documentary about the legalized system of corporate bribery that is campaign finance, I no longer have any faith in US presidential elections or candidates. North Korea or Cuba could boast a more “honest” system of choosing a leader than America. But just suppose, in science-fiction fashion, that Romney or Obama really were concerned about the issues. Then I would call for one or both of them to take a courageous stand and demand…the immediate criminalization of marriage.

The benefits of banning marriage are manifold. Wedding horrors like that fatal brawl in Philadelphia would be a thing of the past. So would countless instances of spousal abuse and homicide flooding our crowded penitentiary system. O.J. Simpson would certainly second me on this. So, I imagine, conceivably, would Danny DeVito. All those "Bachelor/Bachelorette" stupid reality-TV shows would no longer be viable. And best of all, a Constitutional amendment making marriage illegal across the boards would GET THE DAMN HOMOSEXUALS TO STOP WHINING.

La Jetee and My Life to Live (September 22nd and 23rd at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[ "La Jetee" and MY LIFE TO LIVE screen Saturday September 22nd at 5 pm and Sunday September 23rd at 8:50 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

The Cleveland Cinematheque has double-teamed these two French alt-cinema classics from 50 years ago, apparently to prove that, way back in 1962, avid moviegoers had much more to choose from than CGI-heavy-superhero-comic-book adaptations or CGI-heavy-horror-sequel-reboot-remakes. Oh, and offscreen there existed a widely admired President Kennedy, good jobs and a strong economy. Even in Cleveland. So I've been told. Strange concepts indeed.

The Fairy (June 28th and 29th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE FAIRY screens Thursday June 28th at 7:45 pm and Friday June 29th at 5:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Every two months when the Cleveland Cinematheque's printed schedule (on paper! Google it, kids) comes out, I await with some trepidation program director John Ewing's sidebar essay. Ewing sometimes tells tales from behind the scenes that make it sound like running a hip indie destination movie house is not always fun. His latest describes an irate patron declaring she was done with the Cinematheque because of its showing Jean-Luc Godard's WEEK-END, one of the great transgressive features of French cinema.

Okay, here's where the Cleveland Movie Blog is partially at fault. I should have had a review of WEEK-END posted in time to warn the public, but somehow that title got past me. WEEK-END, from 1967, is a nightmarish, angry, even proto-punk take on modern civilization, in which an upscale French couple drive into the countryside for a weekend idyll, only to get caught up in an endless one-lane traffic jam, sometimes with burning vehicles and dead/dying bodies still lying around in a landscape of industrial-nihilist horror. When they leave their vehicle, the protags somehow get caught up in a kind of takeoff on Alice in Wonderland, except there's hints of kinky sex. I forget how it ends. I'm not sure Godard was much into endings at that stage. Yes, WEEK-END is not a crowd-pleaser. In fact, I can't even call myself a complete fan of it; if you're not part of the beret-wearing, gauloise-smoking leftist-intellectual crowd, pic's vibe could be summed up as the world's best bad student film. As a lot of Godard could.

Lancelot of the Lake (April 21st at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[LANCELOT OF THE LAKE screens Saturday April 21st at 5:15 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Now that LeBron James has left, the only thing significant about Cleveland, as we all know, is the Armor Court at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Armor Court is a Ridley Scott movie-fan's dream come true, all those gleaming suits of authentic European chainmail, armor, swords and headpieces, hundreds of years old, in a world-class collection. Feeding the King Arthur and St. George fantasies of generations of museum-goers, the Armor Court lacks only Scooby Doo and Shaggy hiding in a couple of the suits to escape, I dunno, the Egyptian mummy the next couple of corridors over.

If there was an "Armor Court! The Motion Picture," it would sure look like LANCELOT OF THE LAKE, or to those of you non-Ohioans who don’t believe in “Freedom Fries” (look that one up online, you kids; yes, we’ve had some real winners as politicians here in Buckeye land) Lancelot du Lac. It’s a dour 1974 dramatization of the end of Camelot, as interpreted by French filmmaker Robert Bresson.

L'Argent (March 10th and 11th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[L'ARGENT screens Saturday March 10th at 5:15 pm and Sunday March 11th at 6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]


Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I just happened to watch (because I found it in a free giveaway bin, or the trash or something) a VHS of previous generation's awful "steamy erotic psychothriller" entitled FINAL ANALYSIS with Richard Gere. Maybe I shouldn't even have told you the title. Point is, Uma Thurman and Kim Basinger play troubled sisters. Get this: Uma Thurman is supposed to be the ugly one. No, there's no Rick Baker or Stan Winston or Westmore family makeup magic to hag her up, it's young Uma Thurman all right. And she's supposed to be the ugly one. The Kim Basinger character has an affair and gets naked with forensic shrink Richard Gere, which is very brave, because he's so ugly too, you know. I'd have to check the gossip offscreen, but I think Gere was married at the time to the very ugly Cindy Crawford.

It's a personal choice, I suppose (probably governed by whether one has a lifetime pass to the Cedar Lee or something), if one watches Hollywood high-kitsch like FINAL ANALYSIS just to take a break from excellent world cinema like Robert Bresson's L'ARGENT or if watching L'ARGENT makes a home remedy after sitting through a FINAL ANALYSIS. Either way, the message is, check out L'ARGENT, if you can, just to remember that not all movies are car chases, CGI and Uma Thurman cast as the homely one.

Love Crime (opens in Cleveland on September 30th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre))

[LOVE CRIME opens in Cleveland on Friday September 30th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I don't know for sure what goes on in all those tall office skyscrapers in downtown Cleveland. Not all of them are deserted. I have seen well-attired people go in and out who actually do hold some sort of elite positions. I imagine it's either dirty schemers plotting nonstop downsizings and layoffs, or HR drones feeding my many submitted resumes into the paper shredder. Of course, I exaggerate wildly... No business here wastes valuable shredder-wear-and-tear on your resume. They just toss them out the window. Smiley-face emoticon! :)

The Names of Love

[THE NAMES OF LOVE opens in Cleveland on Friday September 16th exclusively at the Capitol Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Maybe it's society's fault, or maybe it's just my extremely limited intellectual repertoire, but these days when I watch a new French comedy feature le mind de Charles Cassady pretty much splits it two ways: Is this French movie one of those that's going to get a lame PG-13 remake from Hollywood in a matter of months, or is it not? If it's too "French" and won't translate to an LA/NY locale, then out go my wisecracks about possible casting decisions. Jennifer Anniston in the Catherine Deneuve role, Tim Allen in the Gerard Depardieu lead. It'll be crap-tastique, mes amis! And that's, like, half the review right there.