Tank Girl - 1995

"Tank Girl" - 1995
Dir. by Rachel Talaley - 1 hr. 44 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I can't help but think that if "Tank Girl" had been the exact same film that is, but with a credit that read "directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky," it might have been received rapturously, and praised as a surrealist masterpiece.  The reason I say this is that, having seen "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain," some of the content of "Tank Girl" isn't that far off.  The only real misstep here is that there's a little too much traditional story, and not quite enough insistence that the experience of taking in this film is going to have to be enough narrative for the audience to live with.  For a film that's regarded as a disaster and a bomb, re-watching "Tank Girl" for the first time in at least a decade was somewhat of a revelation.

"Tank Girl" is based on a comic book by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett (probably better known for providing all of the visuals for the "Gorillaz" project, with Blur's Damon Albarn).  In the film, we're in the year 2033, and the world's in the middle of a decade-long drought.  Water & Power, controlled by Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell), runs everything.  Rebecca, A.K.A. Tank Girl (Lori Petty), is part of a band of squatters who have been diverting water, and are raided by W&P's troops.  Pretty much everyone is killed, including Rebecca's boyfriend, with the exception of her, who is captured, and a young girl named Sam (Stacy Linn Ramsower), who is auctioned off.  Rebecca refuses a job with W&P, and instead vows to break out and save Sam from whatever trouble she's ended up in.

"Tank Girl" is a very weird film.  I don't have any doubt as to why people responded to it in the manner that they did.  1995 was definitely before Hollywood knew what to do with comic book material.  One could argue that they still have difficulty with idiosyncratic material (of which the comic definitely is), but this didn't stand a chance.  But what resulted is so unbelievably 1995, kind of in the way that "Repo Man" or "Heathers" are like the 1980's, or the aforementioned Jodorowsky films couldn't have come from any time except the 1970's.  "Tank Girl" is 200 proof, triple distilled 1995 on a DVD.  At the time, people might have shrugged and moved on; removed from it's context, this film is insanity.  Part of that has to do with the soundtrack, which is a rock solid representation of what that period in time sounded like.  But when factors like popularity or trendiness are removed, things get really weird.

Imagine, if you will, a strip-tease scene set to a Bush song.  You don't remember Bush?  They were that British band that everyone hated because they sounded like Nirvana, but then everyone secretly bought the album anyways.  That's a pretty weird soundtrack to a seduction that includes safety scissors.  Maybe you'd prefer to imagine a world where people have to work in a coal mine (or whatever), but they have to do it while listening to Hole.  You know, Courtney Love?  But not the cleaned up, smoothed out, radio-friendly Hole that had hits like "Malibu," the weird baby-doll dress-wearing, screaming, bereaved widow Hole.  Can you imagine if you had to work in a place like that?  It's Hell.  Literally Hell.  Demoralizing, soul-devouring Hell.  Never mind that there are tons of scenes here that also look like an underpopulated Burning Man (and one is soundtracked by a Sky Cries Mary song).  I'm old enough to remember the context that these songs existed in originally, but enough time has passed that I know how weird this world sounds out of that context.

There's also an entire, separate essay that could be written on how "Tank Girl" portrays the messed-up sexuality of the early 90's.  I won't get that deeply into it, but it's how you get things like a "shower scene" with Rebecca (where she's fully clothed, and is doused with de-lousing powder instead of water), or a scene where you have an entire brothel doing a Busby Berkeley song-and-dance number to a Cole Porter song.  "Tank Girl" isn't a de-sexed film, but nearly all sexuality portrayed is either a threat or is undercut by Rebecca's girlishness (there is a reason they are called riot grrrls, not riot women).  While "Tank Girl" is rated R, it's strangely dicey in this department.

One word that you could use to describe "Tank Girl" is "frenetic," which is both its charm and its failing.  Lead actress Lori Petty is probably doing the female equivalent of a Pauly Shore character here, which works for this movie, but is also unlikely to endear "Tank Girl" to like eighty-five percent of movie-goers.  Director Rachel Talalay also throws pretty much everything at the wall, including a hallucination scene and animated transitions between segments.  It's a visually-rich approach, but can be overwhelming if you're not prepared for it.  And the entire film is built on shaky legs; the story is pretty stock (TM Lars Ulrich).  It falls into a no-man's land; not rich enough to be interesting on that merit, and not non-linear enough to really build on the strengths of this film (which, to be clear, are Petty's energetic performance, a surrealist streak, and being so 1995 that it's at one hundred twenty percent of capacity).  "Tank Girl" is not a great movie.  It is a weird movie, an interesting one, a crazy one, and that's more than enough if you're not going to make a big deal out of it's flaws.

3.5 / 5 - TV

I Heart Huckabees - 2004

"I Heart Huckabees" - 2004
Dir. by David O. Russell - 1 hr. 47 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

"I Heart Huckabees" is a very weird movie.  And that's valuable to know going in - either you have a tolerance for deliberate weirdness or you don't.  If you don't, this film is probably going to be the sort of thing you might want to pass on.  But if you don't mind talky films that take a while to coalesce into something resembling a plot, this is a lot of fun.

Albert (Jason Schwartzman) is the leader of Open Spaces, an activist group that aims to preserve undeveloped land in urban areas.  He goes about that by doing things like planting trees in the middle of mall parking lots and accompanying everything he does with a poem.  Due to a series of coincidences, Albert comes across the services of Vivian (Lily Tomlin) and Bernard (Dustin Hoffman), existential detectives, whom he enlists.  Soon, his work rival, Brad (Jude Law), hires them too.  Another client, firefighter Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), gets paired with Albert, and they soon decide to follow the teachings of Caterine Vauban (Issabelle Huppert), who believes in cruelty and meaninglessness.  There's a lot more that goes on, but honestly, the plot isn't the point in "I Heart Huckabees."

So what's the point?  Part of the point is the sharp, yet elliptical writing.  Part of it is absolutely awesome casting (in that the actors involved are not only perfect for the role, but their personas add to the characters). Jason Schwartzman does what only he can do: be conflicted and confused, sympathetic, but also kind of unlikable at the same time.  Jude Law is a dick, in the way that a confident, good-looking man in a suit can be a dick.  Mark Wahlberg does confused and on the verge of violence better than anyone during ordinary circumstances.  Here, he's the chaos that a bunch of philosophers can't quite explain or contain.  And if this film didn't exist, someone would have to create it so that Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman could do exactly what it is that they do here.  I'm not sure you could pick two better people to embody just what it is that a pair of married "existential detectives" are.

As for the story, it's more or less about pairs, and the relationships between them.  Hoffman and Tomlin exist as a unit, a crazy-ass, impenetrable unit that baffles everyone.  Albert, at different times in the film, is paired off with either his rival, his manipulative guru, or with Tommy, exploring "truth" together.  Ultimately, the real question is what do these relationships mean; it's as if all of the people populating this film have either never understood or have entirely forgotten what relationships mean and are for.  This film is less dry than that might sound; anyone who explores philosophy will come to understand the humor inherent in trying to understand what things really mean.  And this film downright hilarious at times, confusing at times, very awkward at times, but it's never a chore to watch.

"I Heart Huckabees" is a bizarre, weird, unique film.  If you were a fan of 90's indie films, that's a good reference point to start from here.  You can enjoy the round-about way the plot turns in on itself (and it does make sense, if you're paying attention), or you can just enjoy a bunch of committed weirdos trying to find some answers and happiness.  As Mark Wahlberg's character keeps saying, it's important to ask these questions.  You might not find any answers (especially the answers you might hope for), but one's curiosity about what's happening around them is important.

3.5 / 5 - TV

J. Edgar - 2011

"J. Edgar" - 2011
Dir. by Clint Eastwood - 2 hrs. 17 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

At this time of the year, it seems like most of the movies turn very, very serious.  Part of that is the Oscar-bait strategy (as in, no one remembers what came out in January).  "J. Edgar" is no exception to that strategy.  It's a very serious biography (of a sort) film of the man who brought legitimacy to the FBI.  I have to admit that, while I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I think that I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't staring down the prospect of two months of ultra-serious, heavy films, placed primely for awards.  That might not seem fair to director Clint Eastwood or "J. Edgar," but no film exists in a vacuum.

Depending on how much you know about J. Edgar Hoover (and the opinions that you might hold of him, based on how much you know), you might be surprised with the restraint that Eastwood shows here.  Hoover was, to put it simply, a complicated man.  He was also a driven man with few friends, and was highly successful in taking the FBI from an organization with a lowly reputation to one of the most highly-funded organizations in all of government.  He was an early pioneer of finger-printing and forensic science as crime-solving tools.  One of the aspects that this movie captures is that Hoover didn't do that through straight-up means; he held secret files on many notable Americans, and didn't seem shy about using the dirt contained within to extract favors from whomever he wanted to.  And also, the movie speculates on why Hoover didn't trust much of anyone, and why he never married over the course of his life.

This is a pretty well-rounded portrayal of a man who may not have deserved as much empathy as this film offers him.  There many times where Hoover toes or crosses lines to get done what he wants done, and he comes off like a petty tyrant at times.  At the same time, it's clear that he truly believed in what he was doing, which is probably why he was willing to go to the extremes that he did.  If you despise being lied to by politicians, your stomach might curdle as some of the things that Hoover did as an un-elected official.

The best traits of this film are exactly what you'd think they might be going in.  Leonardo DiCaprio does a good job with the character, humanizing someone who has become a bit of a caricature in history.  Clint Eastwood's direction is also outstanding, implying and nudging the story along without hitting you over the head.  It's a movie that asks you to pay attention, and rewards you for doing so with details that really enhance the story.  And the central figure to the movie, J. Edgar Hoover, is a compelling, secretive figure that could use a little light shed on.

And if you really enjoy historical biography films, this is going to be right up your alley.  It's quality through and through, another hit for Clint Eastwood.  It's not his finest work, but it's also pretty damned good for something that's not in a director's top tier of work.  I don't want to short-change that in any way.  But in a larger sense, it also feels like the beginning of a season of films that take themselves very seriously.

3.5 / 5 - Theatre