Not So Secret Santa Review Swap - Live Flesh (1997)

As long time readers know, I'm a "director" guy. When I find a director that I like, I will follow their filmography from the Oscar-buzzy to the Razzie-worthy.  The rest of you can have your actors.  I'll go directors every time.

Which isn't to say I don't have director blind spots.  I've only seen 1 percent of Woody Allen's output (and that's likely with rounding).  I have barely touched Billy Wilder's oeuvre.  It's not that I do not want to; I just have not gotten around to it yet.

That's my long way of introducing the fact that Pedro Almodóvar has been criminally ignored by me.  He's a director I've wanted to catch up with, but have just never found the time.

Which is why I loved seeing that Live Flesh was the film I was gifted in The CK's Not So Secret Santa Review Swap.

Live Flesh is one of Pedro Almodóvar early directing efforts. It follows a man named Victor, a naive pizza delivery man who tries to follow up with Elena a girl he met the previous weekend.  She was high and doesn't remember him.  They argue.  The police are called.

Two detectives, David and Sancho, are dispatched to the scene to find Victor has taken Elena's gun and is now holding her hostage to escape the situation.  The younger David seems to have successfully defused the situation when Sancho suddenly pounces on Victor.  They wrestle for the gun.  A shot rings out.  David goes down.

Fast forward four years. David, paralyzed from the waist down, is a professional wheelchair basketball player and has married Elena.  For her part, the former party girl Elena now runs a children's shelter. And Sancho, who had been suspicious that someone was sleeping with his wife Clara when last we saw him, seems to be in a better place in his relationship (minus the occasional domestic abuse).

Into all of this reemerges Victor, recently released from prison.  His deceased mother has left him a dilapidated house.  He goes to the cemetery to pay his respects and bumps into Elena.  

And from there, one of the more bizarre "revenge" plots I have seen begins to unfold.

There's a lot of story and plot contrivance here (professional wheelchair basketball player with his own billboard?), but you hardly notice because of the strong character work. Javier Bardem plays David in the film and exhibits all of the qualities we love him for.  He seems to effortlessly turn from charming to authoritative to caring to menacing throughout.  You never doubt for a moment that Bardem is paralyzed.

I love the slow turn the plot makes as protagonists and antagonists switch from scene to scene.  The character arcs oddly reminded me of the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with the three male characters nicely fitting the archetypes established in that film.

I'm thrilled to have seen Live Flesh and very appreciative of my "gift." If this is lesser
Almodóvar I cannot wait to see what else he has to offer.

Horse Feathers (1932)

Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Starring The Marx Brothers
Produced by Paramount Pictures

There's a college and a football team and a plot to steal another school's players and...frankly, I'm not going to bother.

You either like the Marx Brothers brand of comedy or you don't.  I don't.  There's no progression or escalation.  It's simply variations on the same jokes I did not like in every other movie.

There is nothing for me to say about Horse Feathers that I haven't said before.  If you want to know what I think, read any of these.

Will I watch the last couple of Marx Brothers films? Yes, but only to get through it.  As it stands, these are the movies I dread watching from each year.

*1/2 out of *****

Que Viva Mexico! (1932)

Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov
Produced by the Mexican Picture Trust

NOTE: There's no final star rating from me on this one.  Eisenstein started filming in the early 1930s, but went over budget and the film was never finished as he envisioned.  Several versions have been released over time, but none is what you can consider definitive. As such, it seems unfair to judge this on the traditional scale.

Que Viva Mexico! opens as though awakening from a dream.  Eisenstein's camera captures an ancient temple, each shot bringing us closer until we are no longer focused on the structure, but on the stone statues that decorate the edifice.

Then suddenly, there are people here as well standing or sitting motionless, as though they too have always been part of the landscape.  They have always been here and are the creators and characters in every tale.  Every story in Mexico ceases to exist on its own and becomes the continuation of one grand tome stretching back through the ages.

It's an effective, evocative prologue that as reflected through the prism of this film grants the country a timelessness.  Sadly, once the opening ends, we get the rest of the film and it is almost universally dull.


How much of that is Eisenstein's fault is impossible to say.  Eisenstein never completed the film so he never got to make the final cut.  And the director's signature montage approach to filmmaking is almost entirely dependent upon editing to bring the movie to life.

The film was originally intended to be four episodes bookended by the remarkable prologue and an epilogue.  Only three of the episodes were actually filmed.

"Sandunga" follows an engagement and wedding, complete with a gold necklace as dowery.  The images remain striking, but there's a feeling of repetition that sets in.  The monotonous approach extends into the next chapter "Fiesta," which details a religious celebration and bullfighting.

The final stanza "Maguey" is by far its best.  There is a compelling story centered around a villager who sees his bride abused by his boss (with a rape implied).  The villain holds the girls and throws her husband from the hacienda.  He then conspires with his friends to get revenge.

Their effort goes poorly.  The boss kills most of the men and captures the rest, including our hero.  The prisoners are buried up to their shoulders in the desert sand, then the bad guys ride onto their heads with their horses.  It is brutal in a way few films even today can be.

The fourth episode would have focused on the Mexican revolution, but it was never filmed so we move directly into the epilogue focused on how Mexicans treat death with mockery.  Children celebrate the dead by eating skulls made of sugar.  In its final shots, Que Viva Mexico! shows us characters from the film's episode wearing skull masks.  And when they pull of the masks, they reveal only their actual skulls underneath.

There are ideas here.  There are compelling images.  But is there a good movie in it all? Que Viva Mexico!'s final product reveals itself exactly as it was executed: half-finished thoughts scribbled in an unfinished script.

Singing Poorly and Rambling...

And now for something completely different...

Over the last couple of months, I have started a new podcast endeavor with fellow blogger Nick Jobe of Your Face called We Sing Poorly. It's a monthly show in which we review movie musicals... in song.  That's right! You can listen to the dulcet tones of yours truly as he reviews movies like Les Miserables and West Side Story.

Just in time for the holidays, we have released our latest episode based on The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Give a listen and let me know what you think below.

And finally, just a reminder that I am still rambling on the Rambling Ramblers Movie Podcast with Justin Gott of Man I Love Films.  Episodes are available over on our Wordpress page.  In the latest episode, we tackle Kevin Smith. Not literally, he's a big dude...

If you get a moment please leave a review on the iTunes pages for The Rambling Ramblers and We Sing Poorly. Short of donating a kidney, it is the best way to help the shows out.

As always, thanks for listening and reading.

The Heart of New York (1932)

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Starring George Sidney, Joe Smith and Charles Dale
Produced by Warner Brothers

The Heart of New York is about an inventor named Mendel who uses every cent he can scrounge together to feed his wild ideas.  He is threatened with eviction and may even lose his family because of his compulsion to create and build.

Things look dire until one of his inventions, a dishwasher, actually works.  It works perfectly.  After a life of dreaming Mendel has it made.

And I am certain there are lessons here about the dangers of fame and fortune.  Lessons about the value of family over money.  Lessons about how to properly wash dishes.

I can only assume all of the above happens because I spent all 73 excruciating minutes of this film hating every character.


The setting for The Heart of New York is a Jewish neighborhood.  And every character here is aggressively, unmistakeably Jewish in the most trope-filled possible ways.  Every person who walks into the frame talks like Jackie Mason.  Even the women.  Some may talk faster.  Some, slower.  But the entire affair sounds like the annual convention of Dr. Zoidberg impersonators.

Now imagine over an hour of that and only that.  Now you get the picture.

This would be okay if the characters' ethnicity and religion were integral to the plot.  At least it would give the stereotypical portrayals something resembling a purpose.  Sadly that's not the case.  In fact, near as I can tell, it's only there to be mocked.  Which degrades it from annoying to incomprehensibly ugly.

I could talk about the direction (or lack of it) in the film.  I could talk about the relatively good production design that gives Mendel's neighborhood the feeling of a real, tactile place.

But why? Then you may seek this out and I don't want to do that to you.  So I'll simply leave you with this:

The Heart of New York is a film that will make you wonder whether or not you can place a cotton swab into your ear far enough to pull it out the other side.

1/2 out of *****