The Rare Review

Movies, books, music and TV

Going Plop: The Movie, “The Fall of the American Empire”

To Denys Arcand, the American empire must be a North American empire, which is to say Canada and the United States (not Mexico).  His film, The Fall of the American Empire (2018), after all, is set in Montreal, where there is as much hunger for ill-gotten money as in Chicago or Houston.

This movie doesn’t cut it, though.  For most of its running time it isn’t dull, but Arcand is an unsatisfying writer, The Barbarian Invasions notwithstanding.  It’s politically insignificant and artistically paltry.

(In French with English subtitles)

Too Much Livin’: ” A Rage to Live”

A Rage to Live (1965) is a soap opera with staying power. I haven’t read the John O’Hara novel from which it derives, but the movie is straightforward and entertaining. Addicted to physical closeness, Grace Caldwell (Suzanne Pleshette) worries her mother and brother with her potential sluttiness. She likes different flavors of men, but finally loves and marries the dapper Sidney (Bradford Dillman). Rough Roger Bannon (Ben Gazzara), however, tells her he has long been crazy about her, this being of course a threat to Grace’s marriage. So is a suspicious wife (Bethel Leslie). The big guns are aimed at Grace for her “rage to live.” What disappoints is a lack of true resolution at the end of this non-artistic lark.

Pleshette is cool—coolly restrained—and emotionally convincing. Dillman just goes through the motions, but Gazzara and Leslie are quite sapid.

Directed by Walter Grauman.

Mamet Inspired By The Headlines: “Phil Spector”

The Phil Spector in the HBO film, Phil Spector (2013), written and directed by David Mamet, is probably not guilty of even second-degree murder.  Mamet, indeed, has clearly imparted that his film is NOT “based on a true story”—period.  Spector here is a rich, drugged-out freak whom people want to be undisciplined enough to have taken the life of the hapless Lana Clarkson.  Mamet produces the implication that a society in which Ted Kennedy can get away with causing the drowning death of a young woman is just as easily one in which an offensive but innocent-of-murder eccentric can get hanged.

As ever, the artist’s dialogue impresses.  It’s intelligent and so is the direction.  Phil Spector is a good movie and Al Pacino, as Spector, is a great actor.  A remarkable Helen Mirren plays the record producer’s defense attorney, giving the character saltiness and smarts.

David Mamet at the premiere of Red Belt at the...

David Mamet at the premiere of Red Belt at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Fight Against Illegal Immigration (A Digression)

From the Dec. 2024 issue of National Review I’ve learned about the congressional Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). I do not know what a travel document is, but the article says that ICE has to have one from an illegal immigrant’s home country before the immigrant can be deported. Unsurprisingly, some countries (e.g. China) resist providing them. The INA permits the Homeland Security Department to pressure a country into sending a travel document or else visas to foreign nationals will be denied. Joe Biden’s admin never took these measures, and Kamala Harris wouldn’t have either. Donald Trump, on the other hand, did use this particular tool during his first term.

Offputting as it is that Trump picked Matt Gaetz for AG and Robert Kennedy Jr. for the health department, I trust Trump for immigration reduction.

Unlovely Appetites: “Love Story, with Cocaine”

One thing’s for sure: “Love Story, with Cocaine” (2011), a 29-page fiction by Tom Bissell, is not a sex story. Ken, a jobless “writer,” does not even kiss Maarit, though she wants him to. Though Ken is American, both persons are living in Estonia—and have one thing in common.

Maarit asks Ken what he does for a living. Preparing cocaine, Ken replies, “Right now, you’re kinda looking at it.” He’s a user and so is Maarit. In Ken, physical intimacy is no match for coke. This is not quite the case with Maarit. Both are debauched, even so, because Ken will visit prostitutes and Maarit is sexually promiscuous. There are no normal, traditional pursuits here. Much has been, or is being, consumed away. . . We’ve seen these characters before; it’s nice to read Bissell’s exploration of them. “LSWC” (from the book Creative Types) is a frank, not-dull winner.

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