Category Archives: Male Bonding

Drama, Heist Caper, Male Bonding, Neo-Noir

Blu-ray reissue: The Man on the Train (****)

August 21, 2023 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posed on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 19, 2023)

Man on the Train (KL Studio Classics)

There are a handful of films I have become emotionally attached to, usually for reasons I can’t completely fathom. This 2002 drama is one of them.

Best described as an “existential noir”, Patrice LeConte’s relatively simple tale of two men in their twilight years with disparate life paths (a retired poetry teacher and a career felon) forming an unexpected deep bond turns into a transcendent film experience. French pop star Johnny Hallyday and screen veteran Jean Rochefort deliver mesmerizing performances. There was a 2011 remake…but frankly, I don’t see the point, because this is a perfect film.

Kino skimps on the extras (just a theatrical trailer). While Kino’s high-def transfer is an improvement, the unusually high graininess and muted color palette that I had chalked up to a quality control issue with the Paramount DVD remains; so I’ll make an educated guess that this was a creative choice by the filmmaker (he wanted a ‘twilight’ vibe, perhaps?).

Male Bonding, Neo-Noir, Road Movie

Tribeca 2023: He Went That Way (**)

June 17, 2023 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 17, 2023)

Or, as I have dubbed it, He Went Every Which Way but Loose. Jeffrey Darling’s heartland noir (set in 1964) gets its kicks on Route 66. An animal handler (Zachary Quinto) is on the road to Chicago with his BFF…a celebrity chimpanzee named “Spanky”. At a truck stop café, he offers a ride to a wary hitchhiker (Jacob Eldori), little suspecting that he’s picked up a vicious serial killer. While all the elements are in place for a tension-filled “killer on the road” thriller, the film never quite gels as such. The two leads are game (like Michael Madsen before him, Eldori takes full advantage of his angular James Dean countenance with a suitably twitchy and squint-eyed performance) and the scenic vistas are well-photographed but vacillating tonal shifts in the narrative ultimately drag the film down.

Con Game, Drama, Male Bonding

SIFF 2023: Midnight Cowboy (****)

May 14, 2023 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 13, 2023)

“I’m WALKIN’ heah!” Aside from its distinction as being the only X-rated film to earn Oscars, John Schlesinger’s groundbreaking, idiosyncratic 1969 character study Midnight Cowboy (one of three special archival presentations at this year’s SIFF) also ushered in an era of mature, gritty realism in American film that flourished from the early to mid-1970s. The film was Schlesinger’s first U.S.-based project; he had already made a name for himself in his native England with films like A Kind of Loving, Billy Liar, Darling, and Far From the Madding Crowd.

Dustin Hoffman has seldom matched his character work here as Ratso Rizzo, a homeless New York City con artist who adopts country bumpkin/aspiring male hustler Joe Buck (Jon Voight) as his “protégé”. The two leads are outstanding, as is the supporting cast, which includes John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes and a teenage Bob Balaban. Also look for cameos from several of Warhol’s “Factory” regulars in a memorable party scene.

In hindsight, the location filming provides a fascinating historical document of the seedy milieu that was “classic” Times Square (New York “plays itself” very well here). Schlesinger won an Oscar for Best Director, as did Waldo Salt for his screenplay.

Art world, Drama, Male Bonding

Blu-ray reissue: Heartbreakers (****)

August 22, 2022 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 20, 2022)

Heartbreakers (Fun City Editions)

Earlier this year, I posted my picks for the top 10 1980s “sleepers”, lamenting about how several of them remained criminally unavailable on DVD or Blu-ray. I was quite surprised (and delighted) to see this 1984 gem finally making the cut.

Writer-director Bobby Roth delivers an absorbing character study about a pair of 30-something pals going through transitions in their personal and professional lives. Peter Coyote is excellent as petulant man-child Blue, a starving artist who specializes in fetishistic female portraiture (his character is based in part on artist Robert Blue).

Blue is nurturing a broken heart; his long-time girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold), tired of waiting for him to grow up, has dumped him. Blue’s friend Eli (Nick Mancuso) is a quintessential Yuppie who lives in a dream bachelor pad boasting a lofty view of the L.A. Basin. Despite being financially secure, Eli is also emotionally unfulfilled. With his male model looks and shiny toys, he has no problem with hookups; he just can’t find The One (yes, I know…how many nights of empty sex with an endless parade of beautiful women can one guy stand?).

Just when the commiserating duo’s love lives are looking hopeless, they both meet The One. Unfortunately, she is the same One (Carole Laure). The plot thickens, and the friendship is about to be tested. Formulaic as it sounds, Roth’s film is a keenly observed look at modern love (and sex) in the Big City. Max Gail (best known for his role on the sitcom Barney Miller) is great here, as is Carol Wayne (sadly, this is her last film).

Fun City used a newly restored 2K print for the transfer (DP on the film was longtime Fassbinder collaborator Michael Ballhaus, and his work here is gorgeous). Extras include new interviews with the director, as well as stars Coyote and Mancuso, and a booklet with several new critic essays.

Drama, Gangsters, Male Bonding

Blu-ray reissue: Mikey and Nicky (***)

July 15, 2019 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 13, 2019)

Mikey and Nicky – Criterion Collection

You could call Elaine May’s 1976 mob drama the anti-Godfather. In fact, its verité-style portrayal of two mobbed-up pals in a desperate quandary is so workaday that it even makes suburban dad Tony Soprano look like some stylized hoity-toity version of a “gangster”.

May’s film is “a night in the life” of Nicky (John Cassavetes), a low-rent bookie who has used up all the good graces of some very serious made guys and now fears for his life. Holed up in a cheap hotel room and on the verge of a breakdown, he calls on his pal Mikey (Peter Falk) to help him brainstorm out of his mess. A long dark night of the soul lies ahead.

The loose, improvisational rawness in many scenes may grate on some (especially those unfamiliar with Falk’s previous collaborations with Cassavetes; the pair had by then developed a unique shorthand and that takes some acclimation). Ned Beatty is on hand as an exasperated hit man.

The new 4K scan of the film looks true-to-life (much of it was photographed using available light).

Cult Movie, Culture Clash, Male Bonding, Western

Blu-ray reissue: Dead Man (****)

August 13, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 11, 2018)

Dead Man – Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Rhymes with: “deadpan”. Then again, that could describe any film directed by the idiosyncratic Jim Jarmusch. As far as Kafkaesque westerns go, you could do worse than this 1995 offering.

Johnny Depp plays mild-mannered accountant and city slicker William Blake (yes, I know) who travels West by train to the rustic town of Machine, where he has accepted a job. Or so he assumes. Getting shooed out of his would-be employer’s office at gunpoint (a great cameo by Robert Mitchum) turns out to be the least of his problems, which rapidly escalate. Soon, he’s a reluctant fugitive on the lam. Once he crosses paths with a semi-mystical Native American named Nobody (the wonderful Gary Farmer), his journey takes on a mythic ethos. Surreal, darkly funny, and poetic.

Criterion’s 4K digital restoration shows a marked improvement over a previously released Blu-ray from Lion’s Gate (showcasing the late Robby Mueller’s stunning B&W photography ). Extras include footage of Neil Young working on the soundtrack, a new interview with Farmer, and an entertaining Q & A produced exclusively for Criterion, with Jarmusch responding to inquires sent in by fans.

Drama, Family Issues, Male Bonding, Rock 'n' Roll

SIFF 2018: The Drummer and the Keeper ***

May 27, 2018 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 26, 2018)

Irish singer-songwriter Nick Kelly’s debut feature is a touching drama about an “odd-couple” friendship that develops between a troubled young drummer with bi-polar disorder and another young man with Asperger’s Syndrome. While it initially borrows liberally from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Rainman, the film eventually establishes its own unique voice, and thankfully avoids the cloying sentimentality of, say, I Am Sam. An infusion of that dark, dry Irish humor helps as well.