Greetings, and welcome to another edition of Five Cool Things, the bi-weekly article where I talk about all the fun, interesting, and cool things I’ve discovered since the last time. This week we’re talking about Jean-Luc Godard’s debut film, a new BBC thriller, a terrific British film noir, an early Oliver Stone film, and a creepy collection of Japanese horror stories.
Let’s get to it.
Breathless
In the last Cool Things, I talked about Nouvelle Vague, the Richard Linklater film about the making of Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard’s debut film, so of course, I later sat down and watched that film. I had forgotten how both shaggy and thrilling this film is. Watching Linklater’s film gives you a real sense of how rough the shoot for Breathless was. Godard wanted to make something new, and in doing so he completely defied convention. He didn’t have a real script. He wasted shooting days. He shot with a camera that couldn’t record sound. He pissed off nearly everyone on the set. And yet it worked. Breathless did forge a new path. It demonstrated to countless others that you could break the rules.
Buy Breathless (Criterion Collection)Admittedly, it does look rough. There are rocky edits, the sound doesn’t always match, and it often looks like a home video. But man, is it electric. It helps that his leads are played by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, two of the coolest people to have ever graced celluloid.
I don’t think the plot really matters. Those two actors teamed with this director at this point could have told just about any story, and it would have been groundbreaking, but the story of Breathless is actually quite fascinating. Belmondo is a young, brash criminal on the run after he impulsively kills a cop. Seberg is an American student living in France. They recently had an affair and reconnect in Paris. Mostly, they just hang out, run around, and talk. There is a long scene in the middle of the film where they lounge about in this tiny apartment and chat. But it is mesmerizing. Everything about this film is exciting. It still feels fresh all these decades later.
The Cage
Two down-on-their-luck casino workers, Leanne (Sheridan Smith) and Matty (Michael Socha), have both been stealing from the till and forging the numbers. What they don’t know is that the owner of the casino, Gary (Barry Sloane), has been using the place for his drug-smuggling business. He’s been keeping secret numbers (as he uses the joint to launder his drug money). What he doesn’t know is that the cops have been onto him for some time.
The plot of this BBC series gets overly complicated and a little silly at times. A different drug dealer gives Matty a sack full of drugs to hold for a while, but his daughter, thinking her dad is back to using again, throws it in the river. Leanne has an unwell mother. Gary starts hitting on Leanne and asking her on dates even though he’s married. He owes money to some bigger gangsters, etc. It can be a bit much, but Sheridan Smith and Michael Socha kept me watching. She’s terrific as a middle-class mom just trying to hold things together, and Socha makes you care for Matty even though he’s such a sad sack and can’t for the life of him make a smart choice.
It is a series that doesn’t quite rise above to the level of fantastic, but it is an enjoyable watch, and occasionally thrilling, and the two leads make it well worth your time.
Hell is a City
This British film noir stars Stanley Baker as Harry Martineau, a street-wise copper who gets word that a nasty criminal, Don Starling (John Crawford), whom he put away a few years back, has escaped from prison. He figures Sterling will be headed back to Manchester for revenge. The higher-ups disagree, figuring Starling will try to flee the country, so they assign Harry to a seemingly unrelated robbery/murder case. Naturally, it is Starling who is behind the whole thing.
Buy Hell is a CityIt is pretty standard-issue crime drama stuff. There is lots of shoe leather, plenty of asking questions, and the like. There is a nice mix of characters (including Donald Pleasence as a fast-talking cab stand owner), and some thrilling action. I love this sort of thing, and it is done really well here. My only complaint is that Harry’s nagging wife constantly complains that he’s never home. It is a one-note character, and it does nothing but annoy. But otherwise this film is aces.
Salvador
This incendiary film from Oliver Stone had the misfortune to come out the same year as Platoon, Stone’s Oscar-winning film about the Vietnam War. Platoon is the better film, but don’t miss out on watching Salvador. James Woods gives the most James Woodsian performance of his career as Richard Boyle, a veteran photojournalist who has utterly screwed up his career and life with booze, drugs, women, and an attitude that pisses pretty much everyone he comes in contact with off. When his wife leaves him, taking their son with her, he decides his only chance at redemption is to go to civil-war-torn El Salvador. He cons his buddy Doctor Rock (a never-better Jim Belushi) into going with them. They drive Boyle’s beat-up jalopy down from California to El Salvador, meet some women, do some drugs, and get into a lot of trouble.
Buy SalvadorThe film is equal parts Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-style gonzo comedy and classic Oliver Stone fiery treatise against the industrial military complex. The U.S. is backing a rather horrible, violence-prone dictatorship because they are anti-communist. Stone’s film is decidedly on the side of the left-wing revolutionaries. The plotting gets a big messy, but Woods and Belushi are terrific. Woods was made for this kind of chaotic, self-righteous, passionate role, and he absolutely nails it. Woods has become kind of a ridiculous figure over the last several years, but man, when the guy wanted it, he could really dive into a role.
Moan by Junji Ito
Several cool things ago, I mentioned how my daughter had gotten me into manga, especially the works of Junji Ito. After that initial purchase, I’ve grabbed several more, and every time I’m checking out, the person behind the counter makes a very positive comment. Though Ito has been very popular in Japan for decades, his work has only recently been translated into English, and apparently he’s made big waves in the manga community.
Buy MoanI can see why. His books are strange, vividly drawn, and full of grotesque body horror. While they aren’t exactly kid-friendly, they aren’t gore-filled either. Or at least not in a way that I find all that disgusting (and as someone who has been watching horror films since I was a kid, maybe I’m not the best judge of this). The best part about his stories is how surprising they are. They go in directions you simply aren’t expecting. They take you on wild, stylistic journeys that are imaginative and wonderful.
This book is a collection of six short stories. They range from a high school supernatural club discovering a boy with actual powers, to a family full of clean freaks who find something monstrous living in their pipes, to a village full of vampire children, and so much more. The stories range in length from relatively long to actually quite short, but all of them are deeply strange and utterly memorable.
Dolly Parton (1946-2026)
The beloved singer, actress, and philanthropist died this past week at the age of 80. It was amazing to see the outpouring of love for the superstar from every corner of the world. Country fans, rock stars, conservatives, and liberals all made posts sharing their love for Dolly. Even Donald Trump, who somehow always makes his in-memorial posts about himself, said something nice about her. That’s an inspiration. Live a life where even the worst of people can’t find anything bad to say about you.
