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One of the most iconic of the decade, Uma Thurman's bed-smoking and sexy stare on the dime store book cover-designed poster for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction
Two well-dressed, quarrelsome middle men gangsters are out to reconquer a suitcase for their boss. A couple in love get ready to rob a diner. And Butch the boxer wants to escape with his French girlfriend.
Pulp Fiction is written and directed by Tennessean master filmmaker Quentin Tarantino (My Best Friend's Birthday (1987)), whose 3d feature it is. Roger Avary (Odd Jobs (1997, TV movie)) contributed story elements.
The chronologically out of order plot drifts forward strangely, but it is brilliantly devised and collected in what is certainly one of the best pictures of the 1990s.
A lustrous line of stars appear and unfold phenomenally in Tarantino's extremely well-sounding version of (movie world) Los Angeles: John Travolta (Primary Colors (1998)), Samuel L. Jackson (Shaft (2000)), Harvey Keitel (Saturn 3 (1980)), Maria de Medeiros (Mar (2018)) and especially Bruce Willis (Last Man Standing (1996)) are terrific. Willis' Butch is among his best performances.
Pulp Fiction is long but not too long. It is an electric masterpiece.
[Pulp Fiction premiered 21 May (Cannes Film Festival, main competition) and runs 154 minutes. It was Miramax's first film after the company was bought by Disney. Willis was paid 800k $ for his performance; Travolta 150k $; Uma Thurman (Vatel (2000)) 300k $. Shooting took place from September - November 1993 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #1 to a 9.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed #1 for another weekend and then spend another 3 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#4-#4), grossing 107.9 mil. $ (50.4 % of the total gross). Miramax reportedly spent 10 mil. $ marketing the film in North America. It was nominated for 7 Oscars, winning for Best Original Screenplay. It lost Best Actor (Travolta) to Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump; Supporting Actor (Jackson) to Martin Landau in Ed Wood; Supporting Actress (Thurman) to Dianne Wiest in Bullets over Broadway; Director to Robert Zemeckis for Forrest Gump; and Editing and Picture also to Forrest Gump. It also won 2/9 BAFTA nominations, 1/6 Golden Globe nominations, was nominated for a César award, won 2/3 David di Donatello nominations, 3 National Board of Review awards, the Palme d'Or in Cannes, and many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. IMDb's users have rated the film in at #8 on the site's Top 250 list, sitting between The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Tarantino returned with ER (1995, TV-series), Four Rooms (1995, segment) and theatrically with Jackie Brown (1997). Travolta returned in White Man's Burden (1995); Jackson in The New Age (1994); Willis in North (1994); and Thurman in A Month by the Lake (1995). Pulp Fiction is certified fresh at 92 % with a 9.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Matt Dillon's titular culprit stares ominously past us through a plastic curtain on this poster for Lars Von Trier's The House That Jack Built
Jack carries on a conversation with a mysterious man named Verge about some perhaps pivotal, perhaps randomly elected murders he has committed during a 12 year period as a prolific serial killer.
The House That Jack Built is the 14th film, (depending on how you count them), from Danish master writer/director Lars Von Trier (The Idiots/Idioterne (1998)), with Jenle Hallund (Melancholia (2011), script consultant) contributing story elements. In terms of music, digressions, structure, style, themes and tone, the film is classic Von Trier, who has stated that due to his failing health, it may be his last. It is packed with references and wry, pitch black humor, which, however, caused almost nil amusement on my part, simply because the macabre context kills the tasteless stabs at comedy here. The film does not aim to enlighten with a psychological portrait of its titular serial killer; rather it opens up to an insight into him through a series of killings, which he talks about to Bruno Ganz (In Order of Disappearance/Kraftidioten (2014)), playing classical Greek literary figure Virgil. A recent, great serial killer film that does the opposite thing, namely probing a serial killer objectively through his formative years, prior to his murderous misdeeds, is Marc Meyers' My Friend Dahmer (2017), which I recommend for those who can stomach such intensely disturbing fare. The House That Jack Built begins relatively light on the violence scale but later catches up with gruesome depravities that will make most stomachs turn, and which makes the film unfit for consumption for most average moviegoers. SPOILER The special effects are top notch, as we are used to from Von Trier's works, and particularly the offing of two kids and subsequent dealing with their corpses shocks and repels. SPOILER Jack is a nasty bugger, a compulsive, sadistic, narcissistic, arrogant misogynist-psychopath-megalomaniac, and it is not exactly a pleasure to get to know him. It is clear that Von Trier has created him with care and sympathetic insight, which only makes the film more questionable. SPOILER Von Trier has ordered the film as a descent into hell for Jack, who thereby, as the advanced audiences will gather early on, may escape worldly punishment but gets his due eventually. SPOILER The idea seems to be that all the wrongs in the world, which Von Trier present through Jack, are redeemed through the fact that he eventually is dropped into the fiery depths of hell. - The last scenes which make up the hell section of the film are its best and somehow most tolerable part, I think, but still I cannot really condone the film, its logic or the general experience of it. Matt Dillon (Tex (1982)), whose skeletal facial structure somehow seems tailor-made for Jack, is eerily authentic here, and the various ill-fated actresses are all good, although it is impossible to envy their jobs here. Unpleasant and possibly immoral, The House That Jack Built is cerebral, technically astute and not a Von Trier film I can immediately come out in favor of. In fact it may be a few years before I know for sure what to think about it.
Cost: 9.9 mil. $ Box office: 0.5 mil. $ and counting = Too early to say [The House That Jack Built premiered 14 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, out of competition) and runs 155 minutes. The project was originally envisioned as a TV-series but later changed into movie format. Von Trier has described it as a celebration of life as "evil and soulless". Shooting took place in Sweden, Denmark, including Copenhagen, Italy and England from March - May 2017. The premiere in Cannes provoked walkouts from reportedly 100 audiences and critics, followed by a 6-minute applause, and the US release has also been crowned with controversy, as ratings authority MPAA has threatened distributor IFC Films with sanctions due to a screening of the unrated director's cut of the film without a waiver. The film has premiered to a predictably small reception in Von Trier's native Denmark, where 8k have bought admission so far. The film's current gross includes grosses from the US, France, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. Its gross needs to explode inexplicably for it to avoid becoming a box office disaster, (which is normal for Von Trier's artistic, critically lauded works.) Von Trier has announced that he will return with a series of short films called Études. Dillon returned in Running for Grace (2018). The House That Jack Built is fresh at 63 % with a 6.4/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of The House That Jack Built?
This is a review of Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 and Nymphomaniac: Volume 2, as they play in Copenhagen these days, in a cut version to suit international markets, as two two-hour films with a ten minute break in between. I saw them in a jam-packed theater last night and had a very intense experience with Danish master director Lars Von Trier's latest magnus opus. If the films should be reviewed individually, - which they seem to welcome themselves, being parted with credits, and released (perhaps) in America as two individual films this spring, - I would rate them as follow: Nymphomaniac: Volume 1♥♥♥♥♥ Nymphomaniac: Volume 2♥♥♥♥
Incredible group photo of most of the stars of Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac
Nymphomaniac is about a middle-aged woman, Joe, who is found battered down in an alley by an elderly gentleman, Seligman. He takes her to his apartment, where she begins to tell him her life story, which is the story of a nymphomaniac. For those unaware of the diagnosis, a nymphomaniac is also what is known as a sex addict. Joe has an unhealthy obsession with sex and sexual stimulation in all its forms, and this dictates her life and makes her live a life of seemingly unavoidable disasters. Volume 1 is surprisingly warm and humorous, given Trier's previous films and person. Joe's friendly conversation with Seligman lends the film a charming narrative device, and Stellan Skarsgård (Breaking the Waves (1996)) has one of his best parts ever, and puts wonderful life to his character. We quickly go through Joe's childhood play with her sexuality to her youth as a frivolous searcher and soon fanatical sex enthusiast. The only really dubious acting performance in the film unfortunately comes from Jens Albinus (The Boss of it All (2006)), who gets serviced by the young Joe. And this part is only on the screen for a minute or two. Otherwise, a highlight of Volume 1 is the scene with Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003; 2004)), who plays with an electric emotional intensity that wells out into the theater and fascinates. A great, great scene:
Uma Thurman is one of the actors, who deliver incredibly fine work in Nymphomaniac
The only real discomfort I suffered in Volume 1 was during the hospital scenes, in which Joe's father dies. He is played by Christian Slater (He Was A Quiet Man (2007)). As most of the audiences, I left the theater for the break high on the film and excited and a little anxious to see Volume 2.
The second volume leaves out Skarsgård's calming Seligman-figure for most of the runtime. Instead we are introduced to Joe's escalating sex mania, as she becomes a mother and choses her addiction over her family and delves into different fetishes. Her great tragedy is that she has overused her vagina to an extent where it becomes numb and later disfigured. By and by she cannot cover her regular job anymore and gets a new job that relies on her moral plasticity and sexual knowledge. She is introduced to new levels of depravity and tragedy and continues her long journey of addiction and extreme loneliness with no other alternatives in her sight. Needless to say, Volume 2 is discouraging with a vengeance. If some of us saw Volume 1 and thought for a while optimistically that Trier had lightened up, Volume 2 clearly shows that he hasn't, and that he was just fooling us, perhaps so as to tramp us down even further in a muddy, black hole of despair in the film's second half. Volume 1 is fine to show anywhere, in my opinion, for grown-ups mind you, but in Volume 2, lavish amounts of explicit sex and violence made me feel sick in my stomach, and the film still sits like a dark cloud around my head. The ending makes all the difference, and, without spoiling it, I will say that Trier goes to new pessimistic lengths with the ending of Nymphomaniac, which can best be described as utter hopelessness. This deprives the film of great praise from me, since my favorite Trier-film still is the amazing, cathartic masterpiece Breaking the Waves (1996), - perhaps his only film to end on a hopeful note. At the same time, Nymphomaniac is an amazing piece of cinema and totally unique. It is a crazy cornucopia, which could only be made and realized by Trier, and although I had hoped that he would have mellowed and served a less tangy, stomach-turning piece of pie, it still comes from an exquisite pie.
As noted earlier, Nymphomaniac is embellished by several great acting performances: Besides those already saluted, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist (2009)) is phenomenal as the older Joe. Jean-Marc Barr (Europa (1991)) has a memorable scene. Young model Mia Goth does well in her shocking scenes with Joe. Willem Dafoe (The Boondock Saints (1999)) plays the only really evil character in the film, a near-satanic man, and he is a specialist at such roles and does great. Shia LaBeouf (Eagle Eye (2008)) plays his part as Jerôme, Joe's love, with great sensibility and grace. Young actress Stacy Martin (The Clown, upcoming) is impressive as young Joe, and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot (2000)) is fierce and believable as a sadist practitioner in some very lengthy, almost unbearable-to-watch scenes, in which Joe (and us as audiences) are slapped, beaten and whipped harshly. It certainly is (upliftingly) difficult to imagine Bell returning as Tintin after this... Nymphomaniac is a sprawling tale filled with digressions, which was part of Trier's design and idea for the film, for it to be more like a great novel than a film. This only partly succeeds: In Volume 1, the digressions are mostly Seligman's, as he informs Joe and us of points on numbers, fish, literature, knots etc., and mostly these digressions are humorous and welcomed by audience interest. In Volume 2, most of the digressions are Joe's, and they are mostly poorly disguised outlets for Trier's own opinions on this and that. Because Trier has not permitted himself to speak in public any more, (since the debacle at Cannes with his previous, apocalyptic Melancholia (2011), in which he said he sympathized with Hitler, and was subsequently kicked out of the festival, and later questioned by Danish police), Trier takes the chance with Nymphomaniac to speak in VOLUMES. About democracy, political correctness, pedophilia, hypocrisy and other issues dear to his heart. Joe is the speaker of these ideas. And most of them are well-founded and reasonable, - especially the thoughts on pedophilia where meaningful to me, - but there are just too much of it, and it doesn't brighten up the already heavy tonnage in Volume 2. It also doesn't levitate that the final scenes are the lengthy conclusion to the conversation between Seligman and Joe, in which they both seem close to falling asleep. Nymphomaniac is packed with a heady mix of pop, rock and classical music; it is technically superior and thematically charged. It makes Steve McQueen's celebrated, good film Shame (2011) look like a meek parenthesis on the subject of sex addiction. Nymphomaniac is the definitive cinematic work on the issue and will probably remain so for decades to come. It is taboo-breaking, depressing, funny, riveting, terrible, crazy and wild to see: Trier still knows how to develop a female lead that comes to totally own the audiences, even if she's mostly bad, and we suffer greatly because of it. The film is set to come out in America in March and April, respectively, and I am curious to see how that will play out, and in how many countries the films will finally land. They are bound to become controversial and could result in downright hysteria and bans. I predict Nymphomaniac will be called racist, blasphemous, dangerous, illegal, incestuous, satanic, misanthropic and other dubious 'distinctions', even if I don't think either of them really fit. But it does walk on a fine line on many of these accounts. How to judge Nymphomaniac? As a morality tale, or rather an immorality tale? As a film about sex? A drama? A literary film? The third film in Trier's trilogy of depression, (which also includes Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011))? I think the most correct and crediting way is to view it as a film about sex addiction, about being a nymphomaniac. Seen in this light, Nymphomaniac is the bleakest of views, showing no feasible way out or solution to the strongly motivated addiction, which only results in continued avalanches of calamities in the film's universe. For this reason, and because Trier has been better before, - often when he has confined himself more and been less indulgent than is the case here, - I cannot totally embrace Nymphomaniac. But I will still recommend it to every one, who is up for it. And I consider it Trier's best film since his hilarious dark comedy The Boss of It All (2006). Related posts:
Budget: 4.7 mil. $ Box office: 10.2 mil. $ so far = Still not possible to say Are you going to see Nymphomaniac? If you already have, then share your thoughts, please
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