Anthology films. Why are they littered with talent, usually the greatest directors of that particular time, but still generally come out empty or with middling results at best? Part Two of our look at omnibus films continues. Part one is here.
“Paris, je t’aime”
The gist: “Paris, je t’aime” was a warm, unwieldy collection of short films about the City of Light by 21 directors, each segment roughly broken down to a coincide with Paris’ administrative districts. This conceit actually adds a lot to the project, and makes it a lot more successful than most other omnibus films — we get the emotional of the city as well as its geography. Gus Van Sant, Joel and Ethan Coen, Walter Salles, cinematographer extraordinaire Christopher Doyle, French animator Sylvain Chomet, Alfonso Cuaron, Olivier Assayas, Tom Twyker, Wes Crave, and Alexander Payne are among the filmmakers, who tackle everything from mimes to the Paris’ rigid class divide to Oscar Wilde’s grave to Steve Buscemi getting beat up in a subway (which is one of the highlights)
Best Segment & Best Is Kept For Last: “14e arrondissement (XIVe arrondissement)” by Alexander Payne. This strange, oddly affecting segment from the director of “Sideways” closes out the movie, and lets it end on a high note (plus it has that really lovely and bittersweet Feist song): it’s from the point of view of an overweight American woman (Margo Martindale) overwhelmed with the beauty of Paris and butchering the French language with her effusive voice-over that’s both humorous and touching. It goes to show you that no current American filmmaker understands middle America like Payne, even if he’s in another country.
Worst Segment: “Tour Eiffel (VIIe arrondissement)” by Sylvain Chomet. The director of the beguiling “Triplets of Belville” decided to turn the “whimsy” dial up to the breaking point, with this wordless tale of mimes in love. It’s just cloying and saccharine and visually underwhelming. Even more frustrating is that his district is the one that contains the Eiffel Tower. Also not great is Luc Besson’s vampiric segment with Elijah Wood.
Notable: This film is memorable if only for its high ratio of pleasant segments to absolute stinkers. A lot of the time, the filmmakers are just riffing on what they do best (Cuaron’s is framed around a single long shot; Twyker’s is all about destiny and love; and Gus Van Sant’s is a gay romance).
Summary: “Paris, je t’aime” is a lovely little movie, with a few lulls, but generally more hits than misses.
Watch: Alexander Payne’s “14th Arrondissement”
“Boccaccio ’70” (1962)
Directors: 4 of them, but during the theatrical version, Mario Monicelli’s “Renzo e Luciana” was cut. Vittorio De Sica (“The Raffle”), Federico Fellini (“The Temptation of Doctor Antonio”) Luchino Visconti (“The Job”)
And The Point Was? Ostensibly, four short films attesting aspects of love and morality in modern times, vis-à-vis the style of Boccaccio (Italian poet and Renaissance humanist often known for witty and licentious tales), but putatively more of chance to work with hot chicks.
The Best: Compared to anthology films of this age, most of these are favorable, though there is no real stand-out. De Sica’s tale of the town voluptuary (a bountiful Sophia Lauren; her cup doth spilleth over) lusted over by the town horndogs at the local shooting gallery where she works is engaging. Visconti’s examination of a shallow decaying couple is lush and detailed, but perhaps more notable for just how gorgeous and elegant the magneticly exquisite Romy Schneider is both as a character and actress. And Fellini’s comically bawdy chronicle of a conventional doctor so infatuated with a billboard model that comes to life (featuring the pendulous assets of Anita Ekberg), he is reduced to a panting and randy skirtchaser is silly, but at least entertaining.
The Least successful: Though it didn’t deserve the axe (and it was restored on DVD) Monicelli’s short about a couple hiding their marriage so a jealous boss won’t find out was the film’s most unmemorable vignette.
Summary: Minor works from everyone, but in relation to other ’60s and ’70s portmanteau film, it’s a least mildly diverting.
Watch: Fellini‘s “The Temptation of Doctor Antonio”
“Twilight Zone: The Movie” (1983)
Directors: 4 of them; John Landis (Prologue and Segment I – “A Quality of Mercy”), Steven Spielberg (Segment II – “Kick the Can”), Joe Dante (Segment III – “It’s a Good Life”), and George Miller (Segment IV – “Nightmare at 20, 000 Feet”)
And The Point Was? For four influential genre directors to tackle their favorite stories from the influential Twilight Zone television series. All but one section was a remake of a classic television episode, and even that “original” segment was a loose blending of two original episodes. The project was put together by Spielberg, who loved anthologies so much that, two years later, he launched his cruelly underrated anthology television series “Amazing Stories.”
The Best: It’s a real toss-up between Joe Dante’s deeply unsettling “It’s a Good Life” and Miller’s go-for-broke remake of the immortal “Nightmare at 20, 000 Feet,” this time replacing the fretting William Shatner with an even-more-on-edge John Lithgow. Dante’s may take the cake, for sheer surrealist audacity.
The OK: John Landis’ segment is still only okay, and this is taking into consideration that on the set of the film, Landis was responsible for the beheading of lead actor Vic Morrow and two small Vietnamese children, when a helicopter stunt went horribly awry. The incident resulted in one of the most sensational trials Hollywood had ever (and has ever) seen. (He was ultimately found not at fault.) Also, his prologue and epilogue are pretty “OK.”
The Worst: Hands-down, Spielberg’s segment. Holy shit. We think this may be my least favorite thing the guy’s ever done (and, yes, we’re taking into consideration “Always”). He finds himself falling into all of the overtly sentimental tropes he had managed to gracefully sidestep during his heyday, resulting in a dull, saccharine and emotionally void tale of old people returning to childhood for just one day. It’s almost unbelievable that this came from the same guy that gave us “Jaws,” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” In Spielberg’s defense, he had originally planned for a more horror-oriented story, but felt that, after the tragedy that befell Landis’ segment, that he should do something gentler and more uplifting. And we all paid the price.
Scene: Joe Dante’s “It’s a Good Life”
“Grindhouse” (2007)
Directors: 5 of them; Quentin Tarantino (“Death Proof”), Robert Rodriguez (“Planet Terror” and “Machete” trailer), as well as Edgar Wright (“Don’t” trailer), Rob Zombie (“Werewolf Women of the S.S.”), and Eli Roth (“Thanksgiving” trailer).
And the Point Was? To have influential genre directors recreate a semen-crusted, sleazebag-filled evening at the Grindhouse theater, a kind of dilapidated indoor drive-in, an experience that is no longer available today (many of which were in New York in the ’70s and were places you took dates to get handjobs). They achieved this by replicated everything about the experience, including imperfections in the film and faux movie trailers, though Quentin inexplicably bailed on the conceit midway through.
The Best: On the bigger movies side of things, Tarantino’s sly, 80-minute reinvention of the slasher genre “Death Proof,” embroidered with feminist subtext and profane banter, easily trumps Rodriguez’s more straight-forward take on the horror genre, but it’s also mind-numbling talky and Tarantino is not the clever verbalist he thinks he is nor is he as attuned to female sensibilities as his hubris suggests (the longer version is even more patience testing). On the fake trailers end, it’s no question for the deliciously violent and campy trailer for “Machete” starring Danny Trejo. Whether it can stand on its own two feet as a feature though is entirely a different story.
The OK: “Planet Terror,” though the mood, music and atmosphere is spot-on.
The Worst: None of the other trailers were particularly good (Wright’s “Don’t” is typically unfunny British “humor”), but Rob Zombie’s forced “Werewolf Women of the S.S.” trailer is especially bad. All the trailers were phony, but this was the only one that rang false. Not only was it too obscure a sub-genre to connect with large audiences, but it wasn’t outrageous enough. Not even Nic Cage, showing up as Fu Manchu, could rescue this mess. Thank god it was over in a couple minutes.
Summary: Not exactly an anthology film, but we threw it in here cause we can.
Watch: All the fake trailers in “Grindhouse”:
“Tokyo!”
The gist: Composed of a triptych of films, each about crazy Tokyo, the films are by Frenchmen Michel Gondry and Leos Carax (“Merde”) and Korean Bong Joon-ho. Each riff on an element of Tokyo life, with Gondry looking at the notoriously closed living quarters, Carax doing a hilarious parody of monster films, and Bong Joon-ho looking at the psychological implications of the city’s geographic activity (and strange Japanese sub-cultural behavior). While produced by the same team behind “Paris, je t’aime,” “Tokyo’s” lack of star power, both in the filmmakers and the films themselves, kept this one from gaining any noticeable attention.
Best Segment: Bong Joon-ho’s measured “Shaking Tokyo,” about a man who confines himself to his home, paralyzed by fear of Tokyo’s frequent mini-earthquakes. He has stacks and stacks of pizza boxes in his apartment, and his world is quite literally shaken when a delivery girl faints inside his apartment, throwing his whole world out of whack. This segment is beautifully photographed, elegantly put together and, psychologically acute. “Shaking Tokyo” is yet another example of why Bong is one of the greatest filmmakers around today.
Worst Segment: Gondry’s goofball “Interior Design,” about a woman that turns into a chair. Yep. That’s what it’s about. At some point, Gondry’s imagination got away from him and he stopped remembering how to tell stories. He should have been a natural for this format, crafting some of the most unforgettable short form music videos and commercials of all time. Alas, something went wrong here.
Notable: Carax’s segment, which translates to “shit,” is a riotously entertaining, sociopolitical take on “Godzilla’s” rampaging monsters, which is funny as hell and sharp and notable for being a new Leos Carax movie, which is a rarity these days. The main character (Denis Lavant) is one of the most disgusting, yet funny shitbags we’ve seen on screen in ages (it’s a great comedic performance).
Summary: With two genuinely strong segments (and BJH’s that’s stellar) and one that should have been replaced, “Tokyo” is an unfairly maligned anthology film that deserves more credit than it gets.
Watch: Leos Carax’s “Merde.” You can’t embed “Shaking Tokyo,” but part 1 is here (with the other parts linked therein).
— RP and Drew Taylor