Reeling Backward: "King of the Hill" (1993)

"King of the Hill" is exactly the sort of picture a rising young filmmaker tackles for their third feature. In 1993 Steven Soderbergh had enjoyed his breakout with "Sex, Lies and Videotape," followed by the more esoteric "Kafka." For his third go-round, he went for a classic coming-of-age story about boy abandoned during the Great Depression.

These sorts of tales are so common they have gotten their own literary designation: "Bildungsroman," named for fairy tales in which a young person goes out into the world, encounters hardship and seeks to define themselves through their experiences. Though in young Aaron Kurlander's story, much of his journey occurs within the confines of the crumbling San Francisco hotel where he lives.

At first, it was the whole family crammed into that single room -- German immigrant father (Jeroen Krabbe), kind mother wracked by consumption (a luminescent Lisa Eichhorn) and scrappy, trouble-making younger brother Sullivan (Cameron Boyd). They were poor, along with everyone else in the Empire Hotel, where the mercenary bellboy Ben (Joe Chrest) acts as thuggish enforcer, locking people out of their rooms if they get too far behind on their bill.

But at least they were together. Father is fitfully employed as a salesman, but is a dreamer/schemer who always has a plan up his sleeve about finding a better gig. They decide to send Sullivan off to live with an  uncle to save a dollar a week in costs. Then mother's tuberculosis flairs up and she's packed off to the sanitarium.

Dad actually manages to land the job he boasted about selling watches for the Hamilton Watch Company, but it forces him to leave Aaron (who's about 12) alone for the summer in the apartment. He gives the hotel manager $17 (against a debt 10 times that) to hold him off, and arranges for one meal a day at a local diner. But Ben the bellboy has been tasked with strong-arming all the riff-raff out in favor of dance hall girls, and the diner worker was pulling a scam. So Aaron is left with an armful of dinner rolls and his instincts to make it through.

 Soderbergh's wonderful screenplay, which is based on a memoir by writer A.E. Hotchner, is filled with all sorts of authentic little details about life back in 1933. The people speak in the lingo of the times. Visually, the film is a sumptuous representation of the era, from the Model T Fords to the leather straps the children use to carry their books to school. Even the fat, corrupt policeman, who lives to pinch little kids' ears, wears a natty Clark Gable mustache.

Aaron is a bright boy, and even receives the top award at his school for the student who best represents the ideals of academia and good character. He has the former in spades, but has a penchant for lying. Asked to write an essay about his personal hero, he fabricates a tale of a personal friendship with aviator Charles Lindbergh. His supportive teacher (Karen Allen) sees it as fanciful initiative, but is more disturbed to learn Aaron has been lying about where he lives so he can attend the "rich kids" school district. She doesn't squeal on him, though.

Adrien Brody has a nice role as Lester, an older kid down the hall whom Aaron idolizes. His street smarts trump Aaron's book smarts, and he's constantly helping the kid out of scrapes or into ones -- like picking the lock on the hotel storeroom, where Ben has stashed all the belongings of former residents who got the boot. He eventually gets arrested for selling stolen hooch to the homeless people (they were called bums back then) living in the Hooverville catty-corner from the hotel.

One quiet, small moment with a lot of power is when Aaron barges into Lester's apartment looking for him. Lester never let anyone in, protesting that his sick mother needs her rest. Turns out Lester invented her, to conceal the sad, squalid little life he actually lived.

A young Katherine Heigl has a small role as a wealthy girl who spies Aaron stealing food off another kid's plate at school, and invites him to dinner with her family. Aaron is embarrassed when, at a big birthday party right before that dinner, his trail of lies catch up with him. He runs off, even leaving behind his school award medal, and holes up in his room, hiding from Ben and his box full of locks.

Interestingly, the film depicts most people in Aaron's community has being sympathetic and helpful. Even the hotel manager who wants to give him the boot does so at the behest of the bank that owns it. Ben and the abusive cop are the only true villainous figures in the movie. Instead, Aaron self-ostracizes himself through his shame at his lowly circumstances, and his many distortions of the truth.

I think the movie really shines in its portrayal of a tentative, furtive romance between Aaron and Ella, a slightly older girl who lives on the same floor, who never seems to leave their apartment. She's supposed to be unattractive and awkward, though in the finest cinematic tradition the girl (played by Amber Benson) is actually gloriously cute, simply hidden behind glasses and an unbecoming hairstyle.

Aaron is at first put off by Ella's attentions, stopping him in the  hallway to talk and inviting him over for a hot dog. He is at that age where boys begin to notice the female allure, but they're still held back by their little-kid notions of girls as The Enemy. He is horrified when she has an epileptic seizure while they're dancing, and beats a hasty retreat. But Aaron, to his credit, returns again to see her.

A few other elements don't quite get baked in to the pie. There's an on-again, off-again exchange with Mr. Mungo, the patrician gent who loves across the hallway. Played by writer Spalding Gray, Mungo is a formerly rich man brought low by the Crash, now content to eke out his last few dollars and his last few days as a wastrel prince lording it over the poor man's hostel. He dresses elegantly and keeps a prostitute (Elizabeth McGovern) around as a bored retainer -- her job, aside from some assumed sex we never see, is apparently to annoy and belittle him.

Ultimately, the physical journey in "King of the Hill" is rather small. Mr. Kurlander dreams of getting a better job so he can move his family out of the Empire Hotel and across the city to the Carlton Court Apartments, and in the end he does. It's a nice though hardly lavish abode in a better neighborhood. The Carlton is weightier in its significance than its trappings, though, as Aaron has grown and learned immeasurably in his time alone.

"King of the Hill," in tone and theme, reminds me very much of "Empire of the Sun," an  unheralded film from 1987 that remains my favorite directed by Steven Spielberg. The story is smaller in scope, as there is no world war in the backdrop, but the import approaches.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Splice"

"Splice" is unlike any cinematic experience I've had this year, or ever.

It starts out as clever science fiction with a strong bent of morality, as scientists break ethical barriers over human cloning. Then it turns into a horror film, briefly a sexual thriller, and it ends on a fairly standard action movie note. A final, unsettling coda gives the audience one last kick in the gut.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the part where it turns into a comedy. At least, there are some very funny moments, though I'm still figuring out if the movie was trying to do this, or was even aware of it.

All I know is I really enjoyed myself. Here's a mainstream film that truly dares to be daring.

"Splice" is a disturbing movie that takes chances and isn't just out to scare its audience -- it really wants to blow their minds. The audience at the advance screening was uproarious, screeching one moment and bewildered the next. One woman did not stop laughing for 10 minutes solid, even when the film had moved past its neck-whipping changeup and resumed serious-and-scary mode.

Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody play Elsa and Clive, two cutting-edge biochemists working for Newstead, a big pharmaceutical company. Their latest creation is a pair of larvae-looking things that produce proteins important to life-saving drugs the company hopes to get rich off of.

The pair have an insouciant edge, favoring studded black leather jackets, and are featured on the cover of Wired magazine. They're rock stars in lab coats.

When Newstead proposes to shut down their pure research lab in favor of something they can quickly monetize, Elsa suggests one last experiment combining human and animal DNA -- just to prove they can do it. They'll flush it before the fetus gets too far along.

Things go well -- too well. Before they know it, an ugly little two-legged baby creature is born. Clive favors killing it, but Elsa sees the child she always secretly wanted but protested they didn't have time for. Soon the creature grows into a slightly less ugly, more or less human-looking child they name Dren.

Dren seems to have near-human intelligence but can't talk, preferring a series of clicks and high-pitched hums. As she approaches her teen years in a matter of weeks, Dren starts showing signs of rebellion and a desire to escape the confines of the laboratory basement where the scientists have stuck her.

Elsa and Clive take her to Elsa's old family farm, where they lock Dren in the barn, and things start to get loopy. Growing quickly to adulthood, Dren is now played by Delphine Chanéac -- with a little assistance from CGI. She has a shallow channel that bisects her hairless head, eyes that are a bit too far apart and feral, and legs jointed like a dog's. Dren also has gills and ... well, some other accessories that will reveal themselves in time.

At this point I must cop out and decline to reveal anything further that happens, because this film's appeal is based entirely on continually surprising its audience. All I'll say is that there's a point where the movie is heading toward a place that makes one think, "They couldn't possibly really be going there" -- and then they go there.

As shocking, ridiculous and disturbing as this development is, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because the last half of "Splice" just keeps doubling down on sheer weirdness and plot twists that inspire laughter and terror -- often in equal doses, and simultaneously.

To be honest, I don't know for sure if director Vincenzo Natal (who is also a co-screenwriter) intended for the comedic parts in a schlocky way. Brody and Polley pitch their performances in a way that makes me think they're in on the gag, but I'm not entirely certain.

What I took away from "Splice" was a profound sense of discomfort that I really liked experiencing. This movie knocked me out of my comfort zone in a major way, kept me guessing nearly all of the time, and made me feel like my skin wanted to crawl away from my body.

Inserted amidst a summer of cookie-cutter plots and action-packed idiocy, "Splice" is an unnerving movie that I'll not soon forget.

3.5 stars out of four

Catching up with "The Brothers Bloom"

I'd seen trailers for "The Brothers Bloom" for what seems an eternity now, and wondered if the movie would ever come out. It looked delightful, a caper comedy about two con-men brothers who try to dupe a lonely rich girl out of some of her money.

It finally arrived in Indianapolis on Friday (less than 150 screens nationwide), and we caught it on Saturday night in a packed theater at Landmark Keystone Cinemas. It is pretty delightful, an engaging mix of laughs, sadness, expert games of confidence and hats.

I'm a big lover of hats, and own many, though I rarely wear them because it's hard to get away with wearing a hat in 2009 unless you're a character in a movie. Jean commented that it would be difficult for them to avoid getting caught during their many capers, since they stand out so much in a crowd.

Officer: "Did you see anything suspicious?"
Witness: "Well, there was this group of people who for some reason were all wearing 1920s-style bowler hats."

The cast is Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rinko Kikuchi -- an amazing collection of actors, all known for the diversity and quirkiness of their roles. (Astonishingly, the only one in the foursome who has not earned an Oscar nomination is Ruffalo. Brody and Weisz both have statues.)

Weisz is the real breakout as Penelope, a young heiress who lives alone in her isolated mansion. She's spent nearly her entire life alone, and is socially retarded to the point of barely being able to carry on a conversion. Penelope's chief enterprise is "collecting hobbies" -- she can play myriad musical instruments, speaks several languages, makes pin-hole cameras out of fruit and a thousand other odd, amusing but mostly useless skills. The one thing she can't seem to master is driving -- she crashes her car so often, she has identical yellow Lamborghinis delivered to her house like clockwork.

The brothers Bloom are Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) -- which begs the question of why they're called "The Brothers Bloom," since Bloom is the name of only half the team, and in fact Stephen is the leader and more dominant one. Imagine if "The Brothers Karamozov" were instead known as "The Brothers Dmitri." Whatever.

Stephen's cons are so elaborate that they are less like trickery than novels in which Bloom is the main character. In their minds, it's not so much about how much money you steal, but the grace and skill with which you do it. (They end up taking Penelope to the tune of $1.5 million, which is like spare change to her.) Their most common trick is to have Bloom romance a key woman, but Bloom yearns for a relationship that's not orchestrated by his brother, or preordained to end when the con does.

Soon Bloom and Penelope are engaged in a reluctant little affair. Stephan's last and greatest con -- for Bloom says he's quits after this -- involves revealing to their mark, Penelope, that they are con men. He calculates that Penelope will not be scared off, but see a chance for a romantic new life for herself as part of their gang.

Rounding out the group is Bang Bang (Kikuchi), the funkily-attired muscle who loves to blow things up. As Bloom relates it, Bang Bang just showed up one day and assumed her position within their little criminal organization, and they assume one day she'll disappear just as easily.

Stephan's philosophy is that the perfect con is one in which every party involves gets what he wants. That's not what happens at the end of "The Brothers Bloom," although writer/director Rian Johnson pretends that it is so.

Without revealing too much, it's a little too fatalistic and isn't supported by how the characters acted up till then. I also have to say that I guessed the ending before it happened, which, when you've seen as many movies as me, is bound to happen, but still leaves one lightly dissatisfied.

Still, but for a few flaws, "The Brothers Bloom" is a little gem that's anything but counterfeit.

3 stars