Knight at HOME at the Movies
Four Fabulous Films...

All from different genres, all fascinating, funny, and all highly recommended.
One of 2006’s most powerful documentaries was Amy Berg’s Deliver Us From Evil.  
Through a series of rather interesting circumstances (detailed in
my interview with Berg),
she found herself with unfettered access to a defrocked priest who had been convicted
and jailed for years of sexual abuse.  
Berg’s film intersperses this rather benign seeming
man (he appears to be the embodiment of the traditional Irish priest) as he talks frankly
and easily about his horrific crimes, the emotional pain still consuming his victims and
their families, and, of course, the whitewash by the rightly besieged Catholic Church.  The
DVD, from Lionsgate, has a wealth of additional material that offers even more proof that
this shattering documentary justly deserves the attention (including an Oscar nomination)
that it received.  Perhaps the most chilling bonus is a short scene in which the ex-priest
gives a deposition re-enacting the method that he would use to gain the trust of a child
before raping them.  The gleam that comes into his eye when asked to “perform” is
almost nauseating (something commented on in the audio track by Berg and her co-
editor).  It’s also terrifying and heartbreaking at once.  With this kind of placid, gleeful
evil loosed upon unsuspecting children and trusting adults – what defense can there be
for them in any quarter?


Also disturbing – in a much different way – is the haunted world created by the Quay
brothers.  Stephen and Timothy Quay, two identical twins from America began making
their exactingly detailed short films in the early 80s and quickly won acclaim.  I distinctly
remember the night I first saw an example of their work.  Incongruously, I was in my
usual watering hole late at night watching the video monitors when the VJ suddenly began
showing “Street of Crocodiles,” perhaps the most renowned of all the short films by the
Quays.  The film featured stop motion animation, was shot in sepia tone and seemed to
take place in a world concocted by Franz Kafka or David Lynch.  An evil looking man/doll
snuck around the rusted, broken down dust cluttered factory like environment of the film,
exploring deserted workrooms by the half light coming from a skylight above, opening
drawers, watching metallic screws of various sizes and shapes spinning and whirring.  
Obviously, this was dream imagery and it was mesmerizing (even set to the throbbing
dance beat that was playing)  Later, after viewing the film with the accompanying score by
Lech Jankowski (their frequent collaborator) the 21-minute piece from 1986 was even
more affecting.  After that I went on to explore several of their other works and have
found their work fascinating.

Now Zeitgeist Films have collected these short pieces in the 2-disc
Phantom
Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers.  For casual fans and those
knowledgeable about the duo, this set is a must have.  The world the movies create is
hard to explain yet never fails to put a spell over me.  Their influence on other
filmmakers cannot be overemphasized – from the eyeless dolls in
Toy Story to the stop
motion animation pictures of Tim Burton – the Quays have obviously made an impact.  
The discs include the aforementioned “Street of Crocodiles” which remains the summit of
their work for me and other highlights that include everything from their debut piece,
1984's “The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer” to 2003’s “The Phantom Museum.”  A haunted,
melancholy pervades all their work and matches the simultaneous beauty and ugliness
portrayed in the films – perhaps the key reason why these films have been so influential
within the Goth movement.  These are art films, literary and exquisitely crafted and often
difficult to discern, and not really for the casual viewer.  But for those willing to take the
journey, they are rewarding aesthetically in a way that is deeply pleasurable.  Highly
recommended.


Okay, time for an abrupt change of pace.  After the intensity of
Deliver Us From Evil and
after reveling in the stop motion animation of the Quays what better than the supreme
silliness of
Music and Lyrics, the daffy and sweet comedy with Hugh Grant and Drew
Barrymore?  A romantic comedy that trades on the current 80s nostalgia, the movie is a
sublime waste of time that utilizes the potent star wattage of its two stars (Grant is
particularly arch and Barrymore particularly daffy yet earnest).  As I noted in
my original
review, the movie expertly plays on 80s stereotypes and has a likeable supporting cast to
help put it across.  The disc, from Warner Home Video, has a nice assortment of bonus
features – a making of doc, additional scenes, a gag reel, and the complete 80s video of
“Pop! Goes My Heart,” the perfectly realized parody that begins the film.  A nice
divertisment.


Even more diverting is
Peter Pan: the Platinum Edition, the recently released 2-disc
version from Walt Disney that includes an eye-popping digital restoration of the 1953
classic and a batch of extra material on the second disc.  I know the death knell has
sounded for cell animation – with 3-D and the like now the new barometer – but having
just seen both
Meet the Robinsons and Shrek the Third and then this new restoration of Peter
Pan
, I can safely say that I’m not ready to let single cell animation go the way of the
dinosaur.  There’s a painterly quality to
Peter Pan, a lush darkness to the images that
adds a distinct frisson to the movie that I have yet to see digital get even close to.  The
flatness of the images gives them more the look of paint on canvas and augments the
fantasy setting of the film.  And has any film ever captured a starry night quite like the
London of Disney’s
Peter Pan?  The movie is so locked in time and place that it's like a
perfect time capsule of when it was created (the early 50s) AND the time period it portrays
(it also makes me again urge Disney to release
Song of the South and let it speak for
itself).

In addition to the magical film, the set also includes that second disc – packed with
games and diversions for the kiddies (including a sneak peek at a forthcoming Tinker Bell
film) and a raft of vintage behind the scenes featurettes.  I look forward to the next two
in these excellent Platinum Editions from Disney –
The Jungle Book and especially 101
Dalmations
.