USA Blu-ray debut for Alain Corneau's 1979 would-be cult film, SÉRIE NOIRE

Said to have been inspired by the Jim Thompson novel, A Hell of a Woman, the 1979 French film SÉRIE NOIRE was directed and co-adapted (with major help on the latter by Georges Perec) by the late Alain Corneau, a filmmaker whose work TrustMovies has usually very much enjoyed. While everything I've seen by this fellow would qualify as a good deal more than adequate, this film doesn't even come close to that.

Corneau, pictured right, evidently decided to filter Thompson's tale through the sensibility of dark comedy, if not outright farce, leading almost immediately and consistently thereafter to something very close to camp. Worse yet, unintentional camp.

The movie's star, the also late Patrick Dewaere (below), appears to have been given rein to go full-throttle. The result is rather like watching Nicolas Cage at his wildest and worst. In his too-short career, Dewaere was always threatening to go over the top. Here he does it in spades, giving the kind of what-the-fuck performance I should think might have caused the sctors working with him to run for the hills.

The story here involves a seedy salesman (Dewaere) who happens upon an elderly female client who has recently been cheated by another of the salesman's clients. She has a nubile, seemingly nympho neice (the also late Marie Trintignant, below, right) whom she rents out, and to whom our salesman takes an addled fancy. (Just about everything Dewaere does here is addled.)

Our salesman also has a nutty/slutty wife (Myriam Boyer) and a deadpan sleazebag boss (the-best-of-the-lot performance from Bernard Blier, below, right) and yet another client/friend (Andreas Katsulas) who is as crazy as everybody else. And that's a big part of the problem. Everyone is so busy being "out there" there very soon there's no "there" there, as Ms Stein, for other reasons, once surmised. I don't doubt that our world is full of reprobates and hypocrites, myself included, but Mr. Corneau's world here is more like an alternate universe with little of the fun or semi-logic that most of these provide.

You might indeed say that the filmmaker turns the conventions of noir on their head, subverting them into would-be comedy. Yet even by this standard, Serie Noire does not work, but instead takes its place as one of  the biggest major misfires in movie history: no suspense, no real laughs, no credibiity, no nuttin'. Oh, wait:  there is plenty of embarrassment.

"Name me one guy who's been as unlucky as me?" shouts our nitwit protagonist near the film's finale. After watching this far into things, the viewer may want to scream back at him, "Me!"  From Film Movement Classics, in French with English subtitles and running a lengthy 116 minutes, the movie hits the street -- in a fine Blu-ray transfer featuring some very interesting extras (yes, even if you disliked this work as much as I did) -- tomorrow, Tuesday, April 28 -- for purchase and/or rental.

This year's movie turkey for Turkey Day--the new Blu-ray of Merchant-Ivory's QUARTET

Hey, everyone's entitled to make a mistake, right? Even a producing/directing duo the likes of the award-winning combo, James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. Still, it takes something extra to prepare yourself for the increasingly tiresome, obvious and finally near-pointless depravations of the duo's 1981 endeavor, QUARTET.

That this movie stars Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, Isabelle Adjani, and Anthony Higgins, with a bunch more good people -- Suzanne Flon, Pierre Clémenti and Armelia McQueen -- in supporting roles, makes the whole affair even odder and sadder.

At the time of Quartet's initial theatrical release, certain critics commented on the oddity of finding filmmakers like Merchant/Ivory engaged with a set of characters who were mostly -- even though a few of these were wealthy -- among the low-end and very louche set. True enough, but a major change of venue can often prove as salutary for artists as for their audience. Not here. The creative team seems to sit just outside all the seaminess, observant and uncomfortable. All too soon, and continuing throughout, so are we.

The may well be due to the source material itself: Postures, the 1928 novel by famous British author Jean Rhys (shown above), published in the USA under the title of Quartet. Ms Rhys was a fine but dark writer, whose work may best be appreciated on the page. If its translations to screen so far are any indication, the results are only middling (Wide Sargasso Sea) to poor (the film at hand).

In this tale, a pretty young woman (Ms Adjani, above) falls in love with a rotter (Mr. Higgins, below) who is soon imprisoned. She is then taken in by a wealthy couple (Ms Smith, shown at bottom, and Mr. Bates, at left, two photos below) who use her, abuse her and toss her away. We see all this happening, all too slowly -- since we're quite aware of what's going on, and so, for that matter is our young heroine -- until the film's 101 minutes seem like an eternity.

Performances are as good as possible under the circumstances of a screenplay (by the usually on-the-mark Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, with some uncredited help from Mr. Ivory) that at best seems thoroughly mediocre and at worst borders on the obvious-tending-toward-ridiculous. You sit there waiting for something truly specific to emanate from the mouths of these characters, but all you hear is standard, paint-by-numbers stuff.

The background is sometimes interesting and fun, never more so than in a night club where Ms McQueen gets to perform a naughty number, but the foreground is consistently glum and glummer. As I say, everyone's entitled to a misfire, and Quartet is surely that film.

From Cohen Media Group's Merchant Ivory Collection, the movie made its Blu-ray and DVD debut earlier this fall and is available now -- for purchase and/or rental. A number of Bonus Features -- various interviews with Mr. Ivory -- are included on the disc, and the Blu-ray transfer itself is a decent one, if nothing special.

New Blu-rays from Cohen Media Group -- Bogdanovich's lovely Keaton paean, THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION, and Julien Landais' gorgeous but rather silly version of THE ASPERN PAPERS

Let's get the silly out of the way first: Julien Landais' adaptation (he is director and co-writer) of THE ASPERN PAPERS, the duly famous Henry James novella, is a goregeous misfire in numerous ways. Set in Venice in the late 19th century, the film is full of delightful sets, costumes and architecture (when, after all, is a movie set in Venice not eye-poppingly beautiful?). It's a pleasure to view, even at its dumbest, which is when Landais (shown below) sees fit to offer up a bunch of soft-core sex scenes showing us the supposed affair

that took place between the younger Juliana and the late and famous, if fictional, romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern. So far as TrustMovies recalls, nothing like this took place in the original novella nor in any of the several theatrical or movie adaptations.

These flashbacks (as below) are not only not needed, they simply move this movie ever closer to downright schlock. Yes, they're somewhat sexy and might slightly induce our younger generation to pay attention awhile longer, but they add nothing at all in the way of character building.

So we're left with our trio of well-known actors to do the heavy-lifting, two out of three of which come through as expected: Vanessa Redgrave (below) as the elderly Juliana, who proves uber-protective of the old love letter exchanged between herself and Aspern,

and Redgrave's real-life daughter, Joely Richardson (below, and the best thing in the film) as Juliana's middle-aged and lonely niece, Tina, who cannot help but grow hopeful and attached to the man who has come to their palazzo in the guise of a wealthy fellow who loves their garden but who only really wants to get his hands on those letters.

As played with but a single pained, uncomfortable expression by Jonathan Rhys Meyers (below), who usually is able to help carry the movies in which he appears, here the actor becomes a real pain to have to endure after only a short while.

And so we move, over and over, between present day scenes and past would-be hot sex and melodrama, with only the beauty of Venice, the costumes and sets, and the talent of Richardson and Redgrave to keep us occupied.

This might well be enough for some, particularly lovers of Venice and the Redgrave family. In any case, this new version of The Aspern Papers, via Cohen Media Group and running 90 minutes, arrived on Blu-ray, DVD and digital streaming last week -- for purchase and/or rental.

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Much better in every  respect is the new documentary THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION, also from Cohen Media Group, written, directed and narrated by Peter Bogdanovich, about the life, times and art of that great silent film comedian, Buster Keaton. Even if, I think, you know all or much of the films of Keaton, this documentary may still enrich and surprise you -- so well-constructed, lively, and full of facts and fun it consistently is. Bogdanovich, below, weaves archival footage and film footage of Buster in all his glory, along with talking-head comedians and filmmakers (such as Richard Lewis, in the penultimate photo below) who've been inspired by Keaton.

The end product is a keeper -- a movie that informs, entertains and burnishes to glory the reputation of one of cinema's greatest.

Bogdanovich's interesting mapping of Keaton's life and career seems pretty much standard, in that he moves ahead -- until he reaches the point of the 1920s and the comedian's most productive stage. He shows us this in a small dose, with the caveat that we'll be returning to that fertile period later on.

Indeed we do, and by then we've seen Keaton's entire career laid before us. Consequently, when we come back to those glory years and see these films in greater detail, this makes for an almost perfect conclusion to all that has come before.

Though I had seen Beckett's Film (as well as Ross Lipman's Not Film), I had forgotten about the work Keaton did at American International studios during the 1960s (Beach Blanket Bingo, etc.). Ditto many of the details of the performer's life.

Bognaovich's ability to give you so much information in such fine form will have you laughing and appreciating in equal measure. I can't imagine a better tribute to a titan of American comedy than this one.

Also from Cohen Media Group, and running 103 minutes, the documentary hit the street on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital last week -- for purchase/rental. 

Blu-ray/DVDebut for Olivier Assayas' genre-jumping jumble, PERSONAL SHOPPER

Yes, Kristen Stewart is always an interesting actress to watch, and after putting her through the paces -- and then some -- while helping her win a first-ever César award for an American actress via his remarkable Clouds of Sils Maria, French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (shown below) has collaborated again with Ms Stewart on a movie that, while never uninteresting, unfortunately never comes together in any genuinely meaningful way.

Instead, PERSONAL SHOPPER offers so much genre jumping -- from ghost story to murder mystery to fashion-plate parade to technology thriller to identity crisis to (no? yes!) a look at the French real estate market -- that by the time this film has come to its dead-halt finale, and the would-be ghost has answered the all-important question via a certain number of knocks, if you have not already given up in frustration or nodded off to dreamland, you're likely moan aloud, as I did, "Yeah, I figured as much. But so fucking what?!"

Now, M. Assayas has genre-jumped previously. Demonlover, in fact, is one of his most remarkable, ugly and joyous treasures. But here, as writer (of screenplay and dialog) as well as the director, he is working primarily in the English language, as he did in Clean and Boarding Gate, two of his least successful films. And he simply does not possess a gift for this. His dialog is too often ordinary and lifeless when it ought to be precise and probing.

Ms Stewart (shown above and below) is saddled with way too much of this tiresome dialog, and since she is a subtle but not particularly versatile actress, and since her character here is the most important thing in the film, that dialog ought to help her explore and deepen that character. It does not.

Rather, it allows the actress -- who relies to an awfully great extent to a single expression, or if we're lucky maybe two (to which all the stills above and below will attest) -- to simply "be herself" -- which is believable enough, all right, but not very interesting or meaningful in this case.

Her character, Maureen, has recently lost her brother to untimely death, and it would appear that his ghost may be trying to communicate with her (being a "medium" to the spirit world seem to run in their family).

So we get occasional "appearances" by this spirit world, and between shopping trips for her uber-wealthy client, someone/thing is also trying to reach her via cell phone. Because of this, we get rather lengthy texted conversations (M. Assayas proves better with texting dialog than with the speaking version).

Eventually Maureen discovers a dead body, the police are called in, and the murderer (there's really been only a single suspect here, so any "mystery" proves pretty paltry) is quickly caught. Then we're off to Africa for a bit more soul-searching. Trouble is, there just isn't much soul to search.

The movie is almost entirely comprised of Ms Stewart, and the actress is always a pleasure to watch -- even here, without much of a story to surround her. Nothing we see or hear seems all that substantial or even believable.

So I suspect that, in the case of this new film, Assayas was simply diddling or doodling away the time, trying to come up with a story, situation and character that will make his cobbled-together and rather goofy ideas cohere. He doesn't manage this, but he'll bounce back. He always does. (Summer Hours, for example, is one of the richest family/possessions films ever.)

Meanwhile Personal Shopper, from The Criterion Collection and running a too-long 105 minutes, arrives this coming Tuesday, October 24, on Blu-ray and DVD, for purchase and/or rental. 

On Video -- Ned Benson's THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: HER, HIM & THEM

TrustMovies may be selling this unusual compilation short, since THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY arrives in a single and complete package that includes all three versions: Her, Him and the one titled Them, which, I imagine, includes at least some of both the "her" and "him" stories. Because time is fleeting and I seem to have less and less or it at my disposal, I decided to view the Them version first, and then, if I liked it well enough, to move on to the two individual accounts. Not to keep you in undue suspense, Them -- which runs just over two hours -- proved tiresome enough to keep me from further viewing.

Written and directed by Ned Benson, pictured at left, who moves up from making short films to making a much-more-than-full-length one, the movie contains the kind of dialog that, despite the best attempt of a crack cast, often rings false, alternating between cliché and pomposity. Early on we're told that "Tragedy is a foreign country." Well, it ain't. Japan and Afghanistan are foreign countries (unless you happen to have been born and raised there, of course). Even taken metaphorically, the sentence can only remind of you of a much better one, "The past is a foreign country," from L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between (book and movie), which actually resonates on various levels.

Later in the film, à propos the death a very young child, the hero is told, "A shooting star lasts only a second, but aren't you glad to have seen it?" This is "poetic," all right, but it pretty much misses the entire point of the wreckage that occurs because of that death. And then there's "family": Notes mother to daughter at one point along the way, "I don't want you to take our relationship too personally."

Mr. Benson's dialog is full of this sort of nonsense, and given the excellent work of a fine cast -- including Jessica Chastain (above), James McAvoy (below), Ciarán Hinds, William Hurt (at left, two photos below), Isabelle Huppert (center left, two photos below), Viola Davis, Jess Weixler (at right, two photos below), Bill Hader and Nina Arianda (at bottom, left) -- the performances raise our enjoyment level, while keeping our minds off some of the sillier give-and-take.

Even the use of the old Beatles' Eleanor Rigby song for the movie's title and the lead character's name is good for a so-what joke about character history and little more. It's simply misjudged, like much else in this movie.

But there's another big problem, too. Everything here is finally about the death of that child. Unfortunately this seems to rule out the film's being about much of anything else, including character, history and the marriage in question. We learn so little else about these people that they remain attractive ciphers mouthing pompous proclamations. Everything is surface: employment, desires, relationships. Yes, a child's death is indeed major, but the environment that surrounds it must be brought to deep and meaningful life if we are to be made to care.

Perhaps the Him and Her sections solve this problem. I'm afraid I don't have the time to invest to find out. If you do, please watch and then advise me. Meanwhile, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby in all its incarnations -- from Anchor Bay Entertainment and The Weinstein Company -- hits DVD, Blu-ray and On-Demand today, February 3, after an early digital download window that opened up last month. With the Blu-ray and DVD, you can see all three versions for the price of one. 

Kevin Smith, an old-hand at humor, now tries mixing it with horror in the rock-bottom TUSK

As a long-time fan of the work of Kevin Smith -- from Clerks and Chasing Amy through Zach and Miri Make a Porno and Red State -- it pains me greatly to declare his newest film, TUSK, the worst movie I've seen all year, maybe several. How could this happen? Has Smith's sense of humor, crazy and transgressive as it is, utterly deserted him? Was it this venture into the world of crappy special effects-laden schlock that did him in? Or the use of a very hoary story, so thick with cliché (that he never manages to upend)? Or, worst of all, is it due to a certain very famous actor playing a character called Guy LaPointe (ostensibly playing himself and credited as such), who is so dreadfully unfunny as to stop the proceedings dead in their tracks (and then leave them there)? Tusk is, above all, the What-were-they-thinking? movie of the new century. This film is so bad that it will have you wishing the upcoming apocalypse would occur immediately, just to put you out of your misery.

Mr. Smith, shown clowning at left, apparently has lost all sense of what works and what doesn't for an intelligent audience, or even for one that just wants dumb laughs and/or scares. He's au courant, as usual, in his choice of the profession of his "hero" -- a podcaster, played by Justin Long, who specializes in the crass and crappy. Mr. Long, below, is an actor I have always enjoyed, and this is literally the first time I've seen him give a bad performance. He's rude, crude, ugly -- and loud as hell. Granted, he's playing a not very likable fellow, and considering what is going to happen to him in the course of the movie, we wouldn't want to find ourselves identifying with him much. Even considering all this, Mr. Long gives an utterly two-note performance: first playing asshole, then playing victim.

The filmmaker manages to telegraph just about everything that happens along the way, thus draining suspense and chills from the menu. (This is quite a sadistic movie, however, and that quality remains throughout.) While Long manages some chemistry with his leading male co-star -- a rather heavily weight-gained Hayley Joel Osment (below, left), playing his friend and business partner, he has absolutely none with his would-be paramour, played by Genesis Rodriguez (below, right, and at bottom).

The plot finds Long's character in Canada, tracking a story for his podcast that suddenly disappears, leaving him needing a new one -- which he finds via a handwritten letter posted on the bulletin board of a local bar. Heading to the story's source, he is confronted by a wheelchair-bound Michael Parks (below), another actor I always enjoy. Except here, where he brings the art of blathering to new depths. (When you find yourself several steps ahead of the story and cast in terms of plot and performance, things can really grow boring.)

And then, with the introduction of the main supporting character, that would-be private detective, Guy La Pointe, the movie simply dies right in front of you. This character -- played about as badly as possible by a famous actor, the identify of whom I will not give away -- is so poorly conceived and executed that what is clearly supposed to be funny dies on the vine. There's nary a laugh to be found. Instead, things grow thuddingly slow, repetitive and tiresome. (Perhaps the actor in question imagined he was creating some sort of bumblingly humorous character, the likes of which Peter Sellers might have played. Sorry, but no dice.)

Was Kevin Smith trying to make something new and different here? I expect so. The movie is full of idiot  flashbacks that are there to help make us care. We don't  And when the film goes for full-bore horror, the effects are so ridiculous that we laugh instead of gasp.Worse, I actually believe that Smith wants us to be moved a bit by our hero's plight in the final reel. This is really embarrassing. Watching a tear form in the eye of what Mr. Long's character has become proves one of the nadir moments in cinema history.

One enormous misfire, Tusk (released via A24) embarrasses everything and everyone it touches. The horror/fantasy genre would appear to be one in which Mr. Smith ought not to dabble. But if you crave a view of what utter failure looks like, you can see it tomorrow, Friday, September 19, at half a dozen theaters in New York City, and a bunch more in the Los Angeles area. And probably elsewhere, too.