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© 2004-2008  by John Varley; all rights reserved

Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Galigari) (Germany, 1920) Unfortunately, we got a wretched copy of this from the library ... and it still knocks your socks off, visually. I can’t think of any movie that shows a vision of insanity more imaginative than this. Everything is skewed, topsy-turvy. Walls and houses loom, streets meander crazily, rooms are made of random trapezoids. The story is pretty silly, even with the framing device that the original writers didn’t want, but you’ll never forget the images. IMDb.com

Keeping Mum (2005) Forty years ago a sweet and pretty young woman killed her husband and his lover, stuffed their dismembered bodies into a steamer trunk, and boarded a train for the seaside, blood leaking from the trunk into the baggage car. She's judged insane, but now she's paroled, and working as a housekeeper for the distracted vicar (Rowan Atkinson) of Little Wallop (pop. 57, but it looks like a lot more) and his sexually unsatisfied wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), who's thinking about having an affair with the swinish but buff golf pro (Patrick Swayze). Maggie Smith is the dotty old lady. This aspires to be like an old B&W Ealing comedy, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets, but it doesn't have that light, ironic touch. In fact, it takes itself too seriously, which is deadly for this sort of thing. Everything is a moral lesson, in a way, in that dotty housekeeper solves all their problems for them, from schoolyard bullies to a barking dog. It should be either much more antic, as Arsenic and Old Lace, or a lot edgier, as in any number of recent dark comedies involving murder. One or the other; you really can't have it both ways, and throw in sentimental treacle as well. IMDb.com

The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002) One of the most fascinating Hollywood biographies ever made. Robert Evans was a wonder boy brought very, very low, and he narrates his rise and fall. Wonderful movie. IMDb.com

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003) I have never been so conflicted about a movie. We passed on it on the big screen, and kept putting off renting it, looking at it like a visit to the dentist; something you gotta do but you don’t look forward to. You got to see it because Quentin Tarantino is an amazing filmmaker ... but such an annoying one. Pulp Fiction, outlined and organized in the regular way, would have been nothing special at all. But that’s not the point is it? I don’t think so. A movie is not a novel (I say it again), and does not even have to have a story at all. A two-hour film is actually 172,000 pictures that usually tell a story of some kind, but some of the most stunning movies of all time were nothing much more than a series of images: Un Chien Andalou, Koyaanisqatsi, Baraka, Winged Migration, Russian Ark. Pulp Fiction fascinated by the way it was told, by the weird situations, and by the snappy dialogue. One thing I would never dispute is that QT is a master of dialogue. (Another is that he always picks the right music; his tastes and mine in gut-bucket rock and roll are pretty much identical.) But what QT and I don’t share is his enthusiasm for B movies, slasher pics, and Hong Kong and Taiwan kung-fu potboilers. My tolerance for such stuff is soon exhausted, and Kill Bill was touted as the ultimate. So I was dubious. I still am ... but I was awed. He is probably the most visually exciting director working today. I can always tell a Hitchcock film from his camera work, the way he makes the editing and the angle tell the story. I can always tell a Kubrick film by his incredible use of light; nobody lights a scene like Kubrick did, in films like Barry Lyndon, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket. QT will use anything that comes to hand to tell his story, including a section in anime here, and most especially his fracturing of time. The first person Uma Thurman kills as The Bride (and twice when her name is said, it is bleeped) is the second one on her list; we see that one name is already crossed off. He always keeps you aware that you are watching a film, he wants you to be aware of the camera, like the Coen Brothers often do. As for story here ... it is about as basic as a story can be. The pregnant bride is slaughtered with her entire wedding party by Bill and his minions, a group she is or was a part of. But she survives, and sets out to kill them all. That’s it. We don’t know why; maybe Part 2 will tell us. An astonishing amount of gore is splattered on everything in sight, but most of the way I didn’t care, it was pure comic-book stuff, done with such stunning visual flair that my jaw was dropping. It only got dull at about the same point most of these films get dull, during the climactic battle in the Japanese disco where The Bride takes on about a hundred swordsmen single-handed, killing them all. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief that far. But even that was handled with flair. God knows I wouldn’t recommend this to anybody with a weak stomach, but if you are really a student of film, you have to see this, love it or hate it. IMDb.com

Kill Bill Again (2004) Actually, Kill Bill Vol. 2, but who’s counting? As I said above, I went to see KB1 reluctantly. It was so astonishing that I was really looking forward to KB2. And what I got was a deflating balloon. A very severe disappointment after the pyrotechnics of the first one. There are good things here, especially the character of Darryl Hannah and her fight with Uma, but overall it is slow and unconvincing. The only way to make material like this work for me is to move along so fast, at such a relentless pace, that you don’t have time to think about how stupid it all is. This one gave me entirely too much time to think. To think that having a "special" sword is bunk. To think that there is no such thing as the "five fingers of death," or whatever they called it ... and you know, when you first hear of this special Kung-fu move, that it is how she will kill Bill. That sort of predictability is deadly, and not what I expect from QT. That people do not sit around and discuss things in a civilized way when they are about to attempt to kill each other. Basically, the whole 4-hour marathon fell apart whenever Bill showed up. I simply didn’t believe in him. And I thought the ending was a total bore. IMDb.com

King Arthur (2004) Interesting idea. We know that King Arthur and all that Lady in the Lake, Holy Grail, Merlin the Magician stuff is legend, not history ... but what if it’s legend based on history? So that in the year 452 there really was an Arthur, a Guinevere, a Lancelot, and all the other usual suspects?

That’s the premise here, and it looks good. Talk about your Dark Ages. Rome is falling and pulling out of Briton in the face of Saxon barbarian invasions. Arthur and company are sort of indentured knights fighting for decadent Rome. Nobody asks the Britons themselves what they want, of course, they seem mostly interested in harvesting filth and painting themselves blue ... and you know, it’s just not possible anymore to go over this ground without being reminded of that masterpiece, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I kept expecting a couple of the serfs to get into a discussion something like this:

Sorry, I just couldn’t help it. Anyway, it is the muddiest film I’ve seen since Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, but that’s good. I don’t suppose 452 was particularly clean, especially if you were a anarcho-syndicalist peasant being oppressed by a foreign dictatorship. The look of the film is quite nice, and it’s fun to see the story unfold. However, it is a Jerry Bruckheimer film, and that means a lot of extended action scenes. No problem with that, this is a story of war. But they go on too long for me and Lee, and there probably aren’t enough of them for real action movie addicts. The one at the end seems to take forever, and isn’t very believable. I must say, though, that even Lee liked the middle battle which took place on a frozen lake that was cracking beneath the warriors’ feet.

It was a cold night when we watched this, and believe me, I had a hard time watching the horribly under-dressed people out in the snow and blowing wind. Then I find out it was actually filmed in Ireland, during one of the hottest summers on record! All that snow and ice was Styrofoam and CGI. The actors were probably sweltering in their furs. The movie business is an odd one, no question about it. IMDb.com

King Kong (2005) First, it’s very, very good in most respects. The effects are stunning, the story is a bit deeper than the original, and Andy Serkis as Kong is so good that the Academy will almost certainly ignore him for his work again, as they did for his portrayal of Gollum, because they can’t imagine that there’s a real actor behind the CGI performance. He studied gorillas for months to get the behavior right, and his Kong is totally a gorilla, instead of just a big ape. Eventually they’re going to have to realize that work like this is no different from an actor in make-up, and when has that ever turned off an Academy member?

Second, it’s way, way too long. Three hours, for a simple story like this? Come on. Recall that Fay Wray was never less that totally terrified by Kong’s attentions, which strikes me as a completely sane response. I loved the scene where Naomi Watts dances for her life, bonding with the Big Guy, but after that, making her an actual advocate for Kong, putting herself in danger, struck me as over the top. The story has been described as the love story of a woman and a 24-foot ape, but to me it’s a story of a boy and his dog. Kong clearly likes her, and I can believe that. But he likes her because she can do fun tricks. My take: he’d eventually tire of her and find a new toy.

More drawbacks: Let’s face it, Adrien Brody is a stiff. I’ve seen hat-racks with more of an emotional range. It was pure fluke that he landed the perfect role for himself, a man so deep in hiding that he barely speaks at all through a long and grueling movie, The Pianist, that won him the Oscar. And though I love Jack Black, he was wrong for this movie. This one belongs to Naomi Watts and the brilliant Andy Serkis. IMDb.com

King of the Corner (2004) Produced, directed, written by, and starring Peter Riegert. Obviously a labor of love, and it’s quite a nice little trifle, sort of like the films Woody Allen used to make without quite so much angst. The hero, Leo, is basically having a mid-life crisis (ho-hum) but he doesn’t rant and rail about it. You’ll be reminded of Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman, but with a happier ending. The writing is good, and there are some first-rate actors in it. Best of all is Eric Bogosian as a free-lance rabbi who delivers a painfully honest eulogy that finally gets Leo to stand up and face some things about himself he’s put off for too long. IMDb.com

The Kingdom (2007) Second feature at the drive-in with We Own the Night. IMDb.com

Kingdom Hospital (2004) Stephen King’s adaptation of a Danish or Swedish TV mini-series by Lars Von Trier. Looks like there were about a dozen episodes of this version; now out on DVD with 3 episodes per disk. It’s a real stinker. I only lasted 20 minutes of the first installment. This guy was running down a country road when he got hit by a van whose driver was trying to keep his dog from getting into a cooler full of meat in the back seat. It sounded familiar. That’s because the incident was described in minute detail in King’s last Dark Tower book. And that’s because it’s precisely what happened to him.

Get over it, Steve. IMDb.com

Kingdom of Heaven (2005) I think it’s a genetic thing. If you have the DNA for being a movie director, the irresistible urge to film a big cavalry charge goes with the territory. For the guys, anyway. Some real good guys have done a cavalry charge. Laurence Olivier put one of the best ever in the first movie he directed: Henry V. Michael Curtiz and Tony Richardson did it 24 years apart in movies called The Charge of the Light Brigade. Then there are the others, the ones who didn’t actually have to gather 1000 horses together but could use 100 and multiply them 1000 times in a computer, like Wolfgang Peterson with the regrettable Troy and Oliver Stone with the execrable Alexander. Stanley Kubrick spent more than 30 years trying to get his version of the life of Napoleon made, and I’ll bet that would have been the best one, given his superb battle scenes in Spartacus. Lately, the best by far was by Peter Jackson in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. What’s next? How about a cavalry charge in the next Woody Allen film? It happens in Central Park and the horses and warriors are deeply conflicted about the whole thing and retire to Elaine’s to talk it all over. Or Martin Scorsese, wise guys on horseback charging through Hell’s Kitchen.

Anyway, here’s Ridley Scott, the great director of masterpieces like Alien, Thelma and Louise, and Black Hawk Down, with a story of the Crusades. But ... not really. Those incredibly stupid wars are really just the background here. Jerusalem has been in Christian hands for 100 years, and the occupiers are living more or less in harmony with Muslims and Jews in the “Holy City.” But politics and greed, not religion, are driving the Christians and Muslims toward war. The King of Jerusalem is a peaceful man, and a leper, and he’s dying. Troublemakers from the Knights Templar (and those assholes are still with us) are fomenting trouble. Enter Balian the blacksmith, from France, who is fleeing a murder charge and has just learned he is the bastard son of a nobleman ... well, this part of the story is flat-out unlikely, and I have no idea if it is historically accurate. Probably not, it just screams of human interest, a standard frame to hang the politics and war on.

But the larger story is very interesting, and surprised me several times. The great Muslim leader Saladin (played by the stunningly powerful Syrian actor, Ghassan Massoud) brings his mighty CGI army to the walls of a town and—hurray!—Balian the blacksmith leads his troops in a suicidal charge ... and is taken prisoner. That’s not how it usually happens. Then the King arrives, two mighty armies are drawn up ready to fight. Okay, here comes the bloodshed ... only, it doesn’t. The King rides out and makes an offer to Saladin, Saladin accepts, and both armies retreat. How often have you seen that happen in a movie? It happened often enough in real life, there were leaders here and there who were willing to negotiate rather than send their troops into needless slaughter, but you don’t see it much in a movie epic.

But eventually Saladin comes to besiege Jerusalem, with excellent cause, and Balian rallies the troops to The Cause. Christianity? No, their homes and livelihoods. The battle begins, and it is terrific, with all the ghastly machinery of catapults of burning oil and siege towers and flights of arrows. The Dark Ages didn’t need gunpowder to shock and awe. The walls are breached, it gets down to hand-to-hand combat ... and then everybody pulls back, the issue still far from settled. Balian goes out to talk to Saladin, who guarantees no reprisals, and safe passage out of the Holy Land. And ... Balian accepts! He surrenders Jerusalem. And Saladin keeps his word. Not what I expected.

The human story is fairly flat, I have to say, but I still liked this thoughtful epic as well as I’ve liked any since Spartacus. Neither Christian nor Muslim is portrayed as either very good or very bad. I think just about anyone can agree that the Crusades were a terrible idea, one we’re still paying for today in the streets of Israel and Palestine. This is maybe the first movie that has pointed that out. And there was a little coda. Back in his village Balian intends to become a blacksmith again (after he’s been a king? I doubt it, but it serves its moral purpose), when who should come riding up but ... Richard the Lionheart. He’s on his way to re-capture Jerusalem. I’m reminded of a song by Bob Dylan, who is leaving America with Captain Ay-rab:

IMDb.com

Kinsey (2004) I had an unusual perspective on this film. I recently read The Inner Circle, by TC Boyle, which covers almost the same ground. It was fun to compare, and what was immediately obvious was that Boyle and Bill Condon, the writer/director, used the same source material. Some scenes might almost have been lifted from Boyle’s book, but I assume they came from other works written by or about Alfred “Prok” Kinsey. In particular there was a disturbing scene of an interview with a man who claimed almost 10,000 sexual contacts, including 26 species of animal, 600 preadolescent boys and almost as many girl children. That must have come from The Kinsey Report.

Kinsey is portrayed the same in both media: maniacally focused, relentless, single-minded, domineering, energetic, a real asshole at times ... and yet able to inspire a cult-like devotion in those who worked for him.

It is almost impossible for most of us to realize not only how repressed we were in the 1930s, when Kinsey began his researches, but how profoundly ignorant, and even worse, how criminally misinformed about sex. Books were written and accepted as gospel with absolutely insane assertions. People were put in jail not only for homosexuality but for adultery, fornication, and oral sex. No kidding!

Though he is almost forgotten today, or dismissed because we’ve become so sophisticated at the sort of thing he pioneered, in my opinion he has had an effect on Western society as profound as that of Freud, who, also in my opinion, got a lot of things wrong but forced us to look at our minds. Kinsey forced us to look at our bodies, and literally began the “sexual revolution” single-handed ... so to speak. (Masturbation was sure to be deadly, according to popular “authorities.”) There are plenty who wish he’d never done so. Some have a point (more than half of marriages today end in divorce) and some (those who would like to put gay people back in the closet, or better yet, into the concentration camps) are beneath contempt.

His chief failing was in being unable to deal with the emotional side of sex. He himself was bisexual, and came to regard that as the norm to be desired. Boyle devotes his book to the tragic sexual experiments he put his associates through ... and I’m sorry to say it’s his least effective book. His protagonist (not Prok, but a feckless assistant) was hopeless, and when I can’t feel much sympathy for the narrator it’s hard for me to like a book. Kinsey is much more a traditional biopic, following traditional structure, but works very well. The liberties it takes are those of compression and generalization, and are forgivable in my mind. I recommend this movie highly. IMDb.com

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) If you try to take this seriously for even a moment, it will all fall apart. And that is probably the movie's greatest weakness, in that from time to time it does seem to be taking itself seriously. But try to get past those moments. This movie exists mostly for fun, and when it's on target, it's a great deal of fun indeed. It is sardonically narrated by Robert Downey Jr., who constantly shatters the fourth wall by backing the film up, making marks indicating what he's talking about, and just generally acting foolish. There are chapter headings, and they're all titles of books by Raymond Chandler, which makes it an obvious homage. But this is not Chandler's Los Angeles, even though the script is based on a novel by Brett Halliday, the prolific pulp novelist of the '50s and '60s and creator of P.I. Mike Shayne. Remember all those sexy old paperback covers? The people in this movie read those books, too. The dialogue varies between wisecracks and drollery.

What I liked best is that I was constantly being surprised. I would be set up to expect one thing, and something else would suddenly confound me. Just one example, and I'll insert a SPOILER WARNING so that if you'd rather be surprised, you can stop here. Downey and Val Kilmer are trying to wring information from a man down on his knees. The dude won't talk. Downey gets a bright idea. He empties the shells from a revolver, puts one back in, and spins the cylinder. Points it at the guy's head. You wanna take your chances, punk? How lucky do you feel? Dirty Harry would fire and the guy would wet his pants and start babbling. Downey pulls the trigger and, to his horror, blows the guy's head off. "What were the chances of that?" he wonders. Eight percent? No, you asshole, 16%. I laughed out loud. And again when he's trying to recover his severed finger for the second time ... Okay, it sounds brutal, but it's a lot more fun than your standard thriller. As far as plot? Hell, we don't need no stinkin' plot. Not one that makes any sense, anyway. I hardly noticed that I seldom had any idea what was going on. IMDb.com

Kitchen Stories (Salmer fra kjøkkenet) (Sweden/Norway, 2003) In the early 1950s the Swedish government conducted studies of housewives to find ways of making their work more efficient. They liked the results so much that, for some reason known only to the bureaucratic mind, they decided to study the kitchens and work habits of Norwegian bachelor farmers. You know, the guys who grow the wheat that’s used in Powdermilk Biscuits, which give shy people the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. (Heavens, they’re tasty, and expeditious!) It’s like anthropology. Guys go out into the snowy countryside with tiny trailers to live in (no fraternization allowed), and sit up on ridiculous high chairs to record every movement. They are not even allowed to speak.

The situation is wonderfully hilarious. The basic insanity of the situation builds and builds for scientist Folke, and farmer Isak, and Folke eventually can’t resist “going native,” as anyone but a total monster would.

Very funny, and also touching. IMDb.com

The Kite Runner (2007) I haven’t read the book, but I knew this was not about the All-Afghan Kite Tournament. Which is a little odd, because apparently the two young Afghans who are featured in the first part of the movie were under the impression that it was something very like that. And why not? Many of their scenes involve kite flying. Trouble is, in addition to having no sense of humor and no tolerance for blasphemy, most Muslims won’t tolerate criticism of … well, pretty much anything. So when the government banned the film, lots of people worried the kids could be in big trouble if they went back to that hell on Earth known as Afghanistan. So now they’re being raised in the United Arab Emirates, with Paramount footing the bill. As they should.

Good grief, Afghanistan. It’s a hard country to like, or even tolerate. It spawned the most vicious religious extremist government I’ve ever heard of. I know many religions are anti-fun … and why is it that so many “devout” people of so many religions fear the very idea that somewhere, someone might be enjoying himself? … but the Taliban, as a group, were and still are clinically psychotic, by any rational measure. We all know the main cash crop is opium—and the crop yield has improved greatly in volume since we went over there and tried to stop it!—but I’d have to say a close second would be rocks, and they also produce a fine harvest of dust and various grades of grit. I’ve seen several films set in Afghanistan (and yes, I know few of them were actually filmed there, but they picked landscapes that could pass for Afghanistan; this one was done in China) and I cannot recall ever seeing so much as a blade of grass in any of the shots. Of places on the globe I’d like to visit, this shithole would have to be near the bottom. But everyone seems to love his native soil, barren and forsaken though it may be.

Back to the movie … the title might as well have been Atonement, but that was already taken. A young boy behaves in a cowardly manner, and then does something truly nasty in an illogical attempt to expiate his guilt. Doesn’t work. Many years later he gets the chance to atone for his craven act, takes it, and succeeds. Not really a lot more to be said. It’s very well done, though a little slow in places. And for the life of me I don’t know why the Afghan government doesn’t want its people to see this. It is as nasty a portrayal of the Taliban as I’ve ever seen, though no one film could ever capture the full horror of those execrable pig-fuckers. I’d think this film would help remind the populace of how truly hellish life was under those bearded, cowardly thugs. And cowardly is the perfect word. Men who beat women (and these men stoned them to death) are yellow-bellied cowards. And when the Northern Alliance swept down on them … they ran like the spineless fuckers they are. Damn them all to eternal hell.

Sorry. It’s hard to criticize this film as a film. My opinions on the setting and culture keep getting in the way. IMDb.com

The Knack (1965) See Top 25 Favorite Movies. IMDb.com

Knife in the Water (Nóz w wodzie) (1962, Poland) I put this title in red though it is well known to film buffs. The Criterion edition should clue you in that it's worth your time, but still, it is fairly obscure. I first saw it in about 1967, at the Michigan State Film Society, and was blown away. I'd never seen anything like it ... and I wasn't quite sure what it was that was so different.

All these years later I'm a lot more sophisticated about film, and I can spot many things I wasn't consciously aware of back then. Mostly it's the incredible B&W photography. This was Roman Polanski's first feature, and the only one he made in Polish. (The interview with him on the DVD shows why he left his native country. The nit-picking ways of cultural bureaucracies can be so frustrating and stifling.) But he managed to get this made with almost no interference. And it bombed in Poland, but did very well everywhere else.

Anyway, watch for the deep focus, the composition, and ponder the difficulties of making a film set almost entirely on a very small yacht with a very low budget, for a director who, to this day, abhors the "shaky-cam." The camera somehow always manages to be steady and to show you exactly what Polanski wants you to see. He has an incredible eye for detail, and he works well with actors.

There are only three people in the entire film: A middle-aged macho man, his younger wife, and a young man. They are all in a small space, both men have something to prove, and the sexual tensions escalate in small, precise stages. You expect an explosion, you expect a thriller, but it's a lot more than that. If you want cheap and easy resolutions, this isn't for you. But if you want something thoughtful, rent it. IMDb.com

Knockaround Guys (2001) An overlooked gem. Lowlife gangsters, most of them dumb as dirt, try to recover some money in a small town in Montana. Vin Diesel and Tom Noonan are very good. IMDb.com

Knocked Up (2006) Second feature at the drive in with Ocean's 13. IMDb.com

Kontroll (Hungary, 2003) Odd little film. It’s filmed entirely in the subway system of Budapest, and begins with a stiff guy reading a disclaimer on a clipboard, saying he had been criticized for allowing the filming to go on because it didn’t reflect well on transit workers. Who is this guy? Is it a put-on? Maybe Jodie Foster could have had a flight attendant deliver a similar statement before Flightplan and thus avoided the incredibly stupid boycott the union called for.

Anyway, it begins well enough, but then pretty much stalls in its tracks. The Budapest transit system is like Portland’s MAX trains: You don’t have to buy a ticket to board, but inspectors board at random and if you don’t have one, you pay a hefty fine. Transit roulette. This is about the scruffy guys who do that job and don’t get no respect. They seem to have virtually no real authority, they are laughed at and assaulted. Could have been a good comedy, but it can’t seem to decide where to go. There’s probably some deep existential message here, but I didn’t care. IMDb.com

Koyaanisqatsi (Hopi, 1983) The Hopi word for "Life out of balance." The first of a mini-genre that has no plot, no dialogue, nothing but images that wash over you like a hurricane. It has music by Philip Glass, which fits it perfectly. Much of it is stop-action scenes of nature and cities. I suppose it has a message about the destruction of the environment, but I prefer to see it as pure eye candy. See Baraka. IMDb.com