October 5 , 2004

It suddenly occurred to me last night, almost as a dream… the defining characteristic of the fall/awards movie season is not the biopic, but male anger. And I'm not talking about guys who are blowing stuff up, but of high end cinema.

I Heart Huckabees is loaded, from top to bottom, with bad relationships and seething undercurrents of rage, with the only peace coming from the existential detectives played by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin.

Bobby Darin's existential angst not only leads to split personality as a structural conceit for Beyond The Sea, but disconnected relationships with women from his grandmother to his mother to his wife. In fact, the first line for the "inner" Bobby is "That's bullshit!"

In The Sea Inside, Ramon Sampedro is gentle and funny, but is enraged by the confinement of his body, now quadriplegic. Even though he is aware and understanding of the lives of other quads who have found happiness he finds, even when faced with good things, more pain.

Miles Raymond, played by Paul Giamatti in Sideways, is a tense fist of seething rage, oppressed by the universe and trusting little other than a good pinot noir when we meet him at the start of the film.

Around The Bend follows a man, finally broken of the endless rage of his youth, forced to travel with his son - who is still red-faced with anger at the mere presence of the man who abandoned him as a child.

The Phantom of the Opera… well, his face is a mess, he's had his life taken away, and he is forced to sing Andrew Lloyd Webber songs… this is a pissed off guy. He's so angry that Sean Penn is almost convinced that he killed his daught… uh, sorry… mixing my angry WB titles.

But speaking of Sean, he is the bright red fired center of the emotional kiln in The Assassination of Richard Nixon, desperately to find another emotion to embrace, but unable to get there… trying… trying…

Alfred Kinsey was raised by a prig of a father, unkind to his son, his wife and anyone else who got in the way of his bitter view of the world. And he left his son, the title Kinsey, trying to break free, stuck in a clinical place.

In The Woodsman, a child molester tries to move forward, but the world is against him and the entire movie focuses on him clinging to suppression of his passions. Eventually, we see his rage emerge at someone who represents his lesser self.

There are a few exceptions to the rule. Jesus is not angry in The Passion of The Christ… though it could be said that all the rage around him is the heart of the film, but that is the core of debate of the film. Ironically, Almodovar's Bad Education, which involves damaging sexual events and child abuse is remarkably lacking is seething rage. Gael Garcia Bernal's other big fall movie, The Motorcycle Diaries, also is not a rage film… the events of the world do anger characters at times, but it is clearly a film about finding fulfillment more than lingering in anger. Ray, despite heroin use and adultery, is a pretty upbeat tale of a greatly gifted man overcoming the limitations of one of his senses being lost. And I am assuming that The Aviator, which focuses of the youthful days of Howard Hughes and not the long fingernails, drugs and endless screenings of Ice Station Zebra, doesn't linger in the fury.

Of course, without speaking to any one movie - so as to avoid spoiling any specific story - a majority of the "rage movie" characters noted above can only relieve their only pained souls by dying. One film doesn't kill the rage character, but someone else that allows the rage character to release the pain. Only two of the films can be said to have a semblance of a happy ending, though both are emotionally ambiguous enough that you could assume otherwise if you so chose. Likewise, the dead characters could, in a few cases, be said to have a happy ending in death, free of their lives of pain.

As Winona Ryder's character in Bran Stoker's Dracula, directed by FF Coppola and adapted by James V. Hart, said, "Take me away from all this death!"

READER OF THE DAY: LYNCHBURG LEMONADEwrites: "I would like to enter an alternate list to the 1981 you posted earlier. Though I agree to some degree with the posted list, some masterworks were sadly left out...

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (easy to argue for and against, but the last shot
was the most cynical of the year)
2. Thief (Michael Mann is too cool)
3. Mad Max: The Road Warrior (By far, the best of the three)
4. Das Boot (c'mon, that's easy)
5. Absence of Malice (another Oscar Newman should've won)
6. Body Heat (Turner was, um, hot)
7. American Werewolf in London (groundbreaking?)
8. My Dinner with Andre (because no one is abruptly killed, as in the
previous 7)
9. Southern Comfort (because a lot of people are abruptly killed)
10. Reds (because it's better than Chariots of Fire)"

CINEJIM writes: "Is "46 ON THE DOT" kidding when he assets that critics who fondly remember the 70's as the "Golden Age of Filmaking" forget all the crap that was made then?...and then lists THE MATIRX, BEFORE SUNSET and...OPEN WATER as the jewels??!! If the 46 in his/her name refers to either the age or the birthyear than he/she MUST have at least seen CHINATOWN, THE GODFATHERS, JAWS, STAR WARS, on and on and on. Was there crap released then? Sure, but I think it may be fair to say there is always alot of crap. Measure the best of that period against the best of the current crop and it seems the old farts win out."

FINE WEIN writes: "Let's hear it for 1971!

The Abominable Dr. Phibes - Vincent Price gets medieval on the doctors who let his wife die. Camp classic to the extreme!

And Now for Something Completely Different - Who cares if it's just like the TV show? It's Monty's first movie!

A Clockwork Orange - For my generation, this was one of those "movies are special, dummy" movies. It just never gets old.

Dirty Harry - Nothing like simplistic social commentary to add some relevance to your leeringly violent revenge flick. Fun stuff.

Duel - Easily one of the finest made-for-network-TV movies ever. (And the new DVD is pretty impressive too!)

The French Connection - A truly great cop flick, and not just because of the chase scene. Gene Hackman is a national treasure.

Harold and Maude - Proved to me at a young age that not all comedy movies are safe and formulaic.

The Last Picture Show - A wind-blown little masterpiece.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller - My favorite Altman film...by far. (Popeye is a close second.)

Play Misty for Me - Picture a non-moronic version of "Fatal Attraction"...

Plaza Suite - Sue me, I'm a sucker for Walter Matthau movies. ;)

Shaft - Dude, it's Shaft.

Straw Dogs - Mad, bad and dangerous to watch. One of Dustin Hoffman's best performances, and a movie that will stick with you for a while.

Summer of '42 - One of those 'nostalgia' movies in which the nostalgia actually works, and works exceedingly well.

Willard - Rats eating people = movie I like.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory - Captures that mild dangerousness that the best kids' material always has. Wilder is brilliant, the music rocks, and it's still a fun flick all these years later."

ONE L LONG OF A PAMPERS writes: "Hi, I was born in 1984 and here are my favorite movies of that year. I definitely haven't seen every one of all the movies that came out that year.

Top 3

3. 1984 by Michael Radford
Perfect transition of the bestselling novel to film. A great movie.

2. Dune by David Lynch
I just love this movie. Of course the novel is fuller in scope and characters but I just love those worms, the costume design, the production design and every single aspect of it. Call it a guilty pleasure. But it's really quality cinema.

1. Amadeus by Milos Forman
This is more the story of Salieri than Mozart, but I'm fine with that. Great actors. Great characters. The hatred of Salieri makes him one incredible villain. Also, great use of good music. The best movie of 1984"

THE GREAT AUNTIE EM adds: "you've got 4 years on me, but the list of films that came out the year I was born (1968) is quite impressive... "The Producers", "Oliver!", "Romeo & Juliet", "Night of the Living Dead", "Bullitt", "Funny Girl", "Rosemary's Baby", "Planet of the Apes", "2001: A Space Odyssey" & "Yellow Submarine"... It was a good year for movies & social / political unrest!"

E-ME: Are you going to spend an angry autumn?