CINEMA PURGATORIO<\/span>: Lots of quick film notes. I wish I had something more substantive to say about all of these, and welcome your thoughts.<\/p>\n The Comedians<\/span><\/span>: An all-star cast does Graham Greene\u2019s Haiti novel. Masks are what we have instead of command; masks are what we have instead of peace. Haiti is shocking and it isn\u2019t much prettified. (I don\u2019t know where this was filmed.) The Catholicism starts to feel strenuous\u2013even in Haiti, I\u2019m pretty sure you can invoke the Virgin without showing us part of a Hail Mary scratched into a prison cell wall and then talking about it<\/span>\u2013but the underlying conviction that this life is a dead-baby joke, and yet somehow, somewhere, things must be put right\u2026 that basic Catholic sense of the horror of justice<\/span> comes through. One of the points I wanted to make about Brown Girl in the Ring<\/a><\/span>, but forgot, is that justice is horrifying to watch no matter how much you want it and know it needs to happen (to someone else, but also to you, when it happens to you).<\/p>\n Anyway, I think the cruelty and absurdity of this movie, and its bone-deep conviction that this world is not enough, mark it as Greeneland. Recommended.<\/p>\n Brighton Rock<\/span><\/span>: One of the first (the first?) Greene adaptations for the silver screen. What\u2019s weird is that the novel is in some ways more cinematic than the movie. The novel\u2019s first and final thirds are both incredibly tense, suspenseful, freighted with obvious but still powerful theological weight. <\/p>\n The movie is way too quick at the beginning\u2013I went with someone who hadn\u2019t read the book, and basically just missed the essential ten-second shot and dialogue which explained the entire setup<\/span>\u2013and the movie is badly hurt by the cardboard placidity of its Final Girl. If her love for the Catholic-diabolist gangster Pinky doesn\u2019t make sense, then the whole movie suffers, because she serves as the audience identification character, I think.<\/p>\n The good news (so to speak!) is that Richard Attenborough, I am not making that up, is an amazing<\/span> Pinky. He is young and cruel and charismatic, and he\u2019s able to convey exactly as much depth as the story needs\u2013you can see him dipping his rosary into the Styx.<\/p>\n I think the gay couple who exited the movie ahead of me and my friend pretty much summed up the weaknesses\u2013and the weird, indefensible strengths\u2013of this otherwise studio-standard working-class noir: \u201cI really wasn\u2019t expecting all the Catholic stuff. That came out of nowhere\u2013it was really bizarre. I mean is that normal?<\/span>\u201c<\/p>\n Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/span><\/span> I don\u2019t know if there are points to be made (scored?) from reviewing this movie. Richard Burton was amazing in The Comedians<\/span>, and he surpasses himself here. Liz Taylor was acceptable in TC<\/span>, and gouges a handhold in my heart<\/span> with this performance. I like Albee anyway, but this is also good filmmaking: The long shots and the space<\/span> this movie takes up should let you know that dir Mike Nichols is making choices for a reason.<\/p>\n This is one of the movies I started playing, thinking, \u201cHey, it\u2019s basically dialogue. If it gets boring I can read something cheap while it plays.\u201d And I watched and gasped and whimpered all the way through.<\/p>\n Butterfield 8<\/span><\/span>: Taylor as doomed girl with damage. Soapy and gross and fatalist and really no fun (except for the bitchy neighbor lady). Suds gone wrong.<\/p>\n The VIPS<\/span><\/span>: Suds gone right! Absolute soap opera of various characters dealing with shifting power relations in their business and marital and extramarital relations, as they wait in the Heathrow VIP lounge in the sexy Sixties. Yet more Taylor\/Burton, and I loved both of them. (She was also great in Butterfield 8<\/span>. The fact that I hated that movie isn\u2019t about her performance, which was committed, and mannered in the good way.) This is unnecessary fluff, but utterly painless. And really, we all need soaping once in a while.<\/p>\n The Conformist<\/span><\/span>: Fable of Italian fascism. Astonishingly beautiful to look at. (There\u2019s probably a paper still to be written about the differences between aesthetic fascism and aesthetic anti-fascism.) The understanding of sex is Freud plus slut-shaming all sprinkled with holy water, so if you cringe when you see the name \u201cMaria Goretti,\u201d this movie will hurt. Similar issues w\/r\/t gay life. Still, it is stunning to watch.<\/p>\n