Infinitely ambiguous work all to do with notions of acting. It opens with Rowlands and Cassavetes acting in a play, our view obscured by a theatre audience (it's fascinating to see how the inclusion of a fictional audience affects the otherwise harmonious reality of a film), and it unfolds in a continually episodic manner thereafter; it seems overlong, and the spiritualist turn of events midway through seems a bit naff, a mere plot device for Rowlands to have a breakdown (fighting with herself and throwing furniture at her imaginary friend), but it's easily forgivable in light of its overall lingering qualities. For one, it's a convincing, fantastic exploration of various relationships found in the cinema - actor-character, reality-metareality, actor-audience, audience-reality, author-audience, etc. The story, comprising the production of a stageplay and the interrelations of the cast and crew involved, is treated in a most elusive and liberating fashion, so that it becomes almost secondary to the performances (there's no exposition of who's who, no clarity given to how they know each other, and the play itself could be about anything, so sparingly are we given its scenes and details). If it loses its way somewhat in the final third, the final thirty minutes or so are unforgettable in their mystery and intensity: Rowlands and Cassavetes act on stage as in the opening scene, apparently ad-libbing outside the bounds of the script (or are they?), with the audience laughing at them (or with them?), and the writer, producer and director coming in and out of the theatre in either giddy excitement or helpless distress; there's something incredibly profound about this scene in particular, riveting as both a reality in itself and as a self-conscious deconstruction of all that has gone before it.
On Wiseman's Live Free or Die Hard (2007):
It's probably everything you expected it to be, and possibly more; if you thought it sounded naff, it is, and if you thought it sounded great, it is - naff because it's definitely a few stunts too far (there's a True Lies fighter jet scene near the end), great because Willis gives it his all. Patchy, yes, but certainly very good at times in a kickass sort of way, it's also quite clever in exploring where a franchise born in the 80s stands in today's technology based society, and how an old-fashioned, bad-mouthed cop might react when missplaced in his wrong kind of film. If action movies have moved on since the first film - one of the villain's henchman makes decorative use of the Parkour skills he showed off in French action film District 13, with McLane wondering whether he's up against a "fucking hamster" - then this effort readdresses that and the expectations which come with the genre (it's notably similar to 24, too). Incredibly silly, but all the better for it, and as a multi-stranded narrative of violent terrorist ass-kicking and exploration of the media and inadequacy of police procedure and the red tape that comes with such mumbo-jumbo, it might be the strongest since the first film.
On Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976): Patchy - probably due to length - but still very interesting, a comic thriller (it seems too bloated and verbose to be lastingly funny or thrilling, though) all about doubling and facades, capped with a wink to camera at the end. Some scenes are great in and of themselves - the tampered-with car going down the hill reminds one of Duel - and some of the shots are cleverly composed to have symmetrical colour coordination and there are always mirrors present too. Good stuff, and it would be reductive and perhaps obvious to say "not his best".
On Buñuel's The Phantom of Liberty (1974): His penultimate film, made on the back of The Discreet Charm's popularity, comprises a narrative deliberately more disparate and increasingly more surreal as it progresses, touching upon notions of true freedom of many kinds, the frustrating absurdities of social order and law and order. It looks amazing and is hilarious in its visual non-conformity and matter-of-fact timing: a man and wife invite four monks, a teenager and a damsel in distress to their hotel room, whence the couple take turns to visit the bathroom and change into S&M gear (it must be seen to be laughed at); a man we assume to be a pervert gives photographs to young children and tells them not to show their parents - later they are revealed to be shots of various European landmarks; and a missing girl helps the police to fill out the form describing her. A masterpiece.
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