From: Eric Baker
To: Sam Hallgren, Adam Kempenaar
Subject: A Tribute, and a few fine films of 2002
I just watched a masterpiece. After finally reading "In Cold Blood" over the holidays, Truman Capote's 1965 masterwork recounting the brutal murder of a Kansas farm family and subsequent tracking, trial, and execution of the killers, I had to see the film version which was done two years later by Richard Brooks in the very same Holcomb, Kansas where the crime occurred. Ultimately intended as a statement against the death penalty (maybe Illinois Gov. Ryan read it over the holidays, too) because six people died in cold blood, not just the family farm of four murdered on that cool November night in 1959, Capote's work stands as the standard-bearer for a genre. It established true crime drama as we know it and its popularity legitimized the currency of the literary journalism movement taking shape in the 1960s. Anyone preparing to become a journalist needs to read it, even though Tru (I'm one of his friends, he let me call him that) played fast and loose with the facts on occasion. Ebert gives a much better review of the film than I ever could, and puts a few somewhat current events concerning Robert Blake, the lead actor, in context. So why does any of this matter? Because this film marked a watershed period for a cinematographer in 1967, a guy named Conrad Hall who died on Jan. 4 of this year. I'm surprised Adam didn't comment on this, but the more I see of Hall's films, he strikes me as a guy with a vision. His camerawork and lighting have a trademark almost. 'In Cold Blood' was the third Oscar of many nominations for Hall, and Jeffrey Wells over at Movie Poop Shoot is convinced he will win posthumously this year for 'Road to Perdition.' For all the shortcomings I found in that film, I have to admit the shots were pretty magnificent. His resume is vast and varied, but just his films that received Academy nominations include: Saboteur: Code Name Morituri (1965), The Professionals (1966), In Cold Blood (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969, for which he won the Oscar), The Day of the Locust (1975), Tequila Sunrise (1988), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), and American Beauty (2000, for which he won another Oscar).
Like Adam, a lot of these films will probably be kicked off my list once likely Oscar nominees like 'The Pianist' and 'The Quiet American' are given wider release, but duty demands a list:
10. Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg) - I've pretty much said it all already. It could have been 'Chicago,' but I didn't like that one as much as 'Moulin Rouge,' or maybe more to the point, 'Dancer in the Dark.' Some critics have complained that it is overly long, but compared with 'A.I.' and 'Minority Report,' they should be happy that Stevie limited himself.
9. The Good Girl (Miguel Arteta) - I think I actually saw this one with both Sam and Adam in the same theater, something of a rarity for our so-called 'club.' The writing (Mike White, of 'Chuck and Buck' fame) was uproarious, and although the ending was unfulfilling, the acting of Jennifer Aniston and Zooey Deschanel is of a high caliber. It's pretty much a movie about people getting shat upon, but with some tender moments, and of course John C. Reilly and Jake Gyllenhall reprising the same roles I complained about in my last post.
8. Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (Shohei Imamura) - A laugh-out-loud adventure film from master Japanese director Imamura wherein a sad-sack and sacked Tokyo businessman travels to a small town looking for a valuable statue he heard about from a street bum and discovers a woman with gushing orgasms instead. How's that for a one sentence run-on exegesis? Just watch it, trust me.
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