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DVD Naked - Criterion Collection
In between his breakthrough film (Life Is Sweet) and his world sensation (Secrets and Lies), filmmaker Mike Leigh created his most abrasive and daring film, Naked. This "Angry Young Man" for the 1990s follows an acidic wanderer (Cannes award winner David Thewlis) who observes a corrosive Britain. An intellectual, bitter film filtered with debauchery and black humor, Naked follows the bemusing Johnny as he crosses in and out of doorways, drifting into old acquaintances and new lost souls. It is more of a character film than sheer entertainment and thus it can be hard to watch, but it offers one of the great performances of the 1990s. Thewlis would have been an Oscar shoo-in if he'd worn a tuxedo and repressed his emotions. He didn't, and his brilliant work went unrecognized in mainstream America. --Doug Thomas
Brilliant Character Study in Exceptional Film by Mike Leigh...
Mike Leigh generates the ideas for his films through intense reflections on an original idea that interests him. Through his cerebral process and in corporation with the cast, he fleshes out the characters and the story around the conceptual idea, which brings both filmmaker and cast together into an enlightening experience. Before shooting the film, both Leigh and the cast can identify themselves with the characters to the very essence of their being, which offers a deeper and more meaningful character. Thus, Leigh centers most of his film on himself, as the idea originates within him. This is also the case with Naked.
The title that Leigh applied to his 1993 cerebral mesh of cinematic cynicism does tangibly imply the notion of self-exposure. Even though it might, and does, suggest a physical display of the human anatomy, the title, more accurately, provides an allusion towards the complete revelation of the character, Johnny (David Thewlis), in the film. Naked offers an absolute exposure of Johnny's thoughts, values, and other accumulated information both assimilated and adapted throughout a lifetime. Nothing is too sacred, or secret, in Leigh's film, which viciously displays Johnny's contempt for society as a whole. The contemptuous mood of the film filters through Johnny's personal confessions with strangers and outsiders, which seemingly rests within the highly intelligent, but mutilated mind of Johnny. In a sense, this confessional approach of telling the tale of Johnny, functions almost like a personal purging of Leigh's own implacable characteristics.
A dark and secluded alley strikes the audience's retina in the initial scene. The sporadic light in the alley exposes some of the bare red brick and a little of the dirty cement underneath. The camera shakily and swiftly advances through the narrow alleyway accompanied by the intensifying sound of carnal lust. A rapid succession of frames moves the audience closer to a man and a woman that, at first, seem to express their shameless desires for one another, when suddenly the man turns violent and grabs the woman's throat and wrist. He continues his repeated hip thrusting motion while the woman begins to whimper and begs him to stop. Abruptly, the man ceases his defilement of the woman, which gives the woman an opportunity to escape. This man is Johnny.
From the brief, yet disturbing opening, the audience quickly discovers the dark side of Johnny, as he truly becomes the antihero. Most viewers will deem Johnny after his actions, as a spineless beast without moral fiber that deserves the worst possible punishment. This is a notion that Johnny seems to be highly aware of, as he consequently steals a car and escapes the possible repercussions of social shame and the possibility of severe punishment. However, what trigged Johnny to commit this vile act nourishes the curiosity, as he does have a strong sense of what is right and wrong.
The lengthy cinematic rationalization of Johnny begins when he seeks refuge in London, where an old girlfriend becomes his last opportunity for temporary sanctuary. Antagonistically, Johnny thrusts his hostile and negatively skewed perspective of life on all that enter his existence such as the ex-girlfriend, Louis (Lesley Sharp), her roommate (Katrin Cartlidge), Brian the Nightwatchman (Peter Wight), a Scot with a severe tick problem (Ewen Bremner), and the sadistically misogynic Jeremy (Greg Cruttwell). Everything from childhood trauma with his mother's sinful occupation to religious debates eventually leads into existentialism in regards to predetermined existence exposed by Nostradamus to the big bang theory. Eloquent criticism oozes out of Johnny's spiteful mouth with intentional scornfulness that forms cerebral depositions in regards to the misery humanity faces. All of these lengthy viewpoints should be revered and cherished, as Johnny emerges with a conviction similar to Achilles' faith in his own invulnerability. It gets to the point where Johnny's ridicule of the society becomes intriguingly entertaining while his supreme ego crushes all verbal opposition with articulate and depressing gibberish.
Within the strong conviction of his own intelligence an immediate weakness surfaces in Johnny, as he always sees the glass as half full. One of his strongest and self-supporting comments, "...you might already have had the happiest moment in your whole life and all you got to look forward to is sickness and purgatory." In essence, Johnny's depressing cognitive skills seem to prevent himself from climbing out of the deepest of intellectual pits, as he always pushes himself down with his own negative perspectives while always assimilating newly acquired information to his already pessimistic life philosophy. Johnny is that kind of person that brings darkness and sickness into the existence, which so many attempt to escape with self-help books and expensive shrinks. However, Leigh seems to be painfully aware of this notion, as he exuberantly dives into this project to pull out something extremely dark within himself by exorcizing his own cerebral demons by fully exposing himself.
Naked opens with a despicable scene, an event that most could never see themselves accomplishing. Through this scene, Leigh captures self-hatred through Johnny's existence in darkness, shadows, and an environment from which people strive to escape. Nonetheless, Johnny seeks out these depressive times and places both physically and cerebrally, which the script and mise-en-scene so powerfully displays. David Thewlis' performance is straight-out spectacular, as he embodies physically, intellectually, and spiritually the archetype for gloominess. It is a performance that went under the Oscars radar most likely due to its negative content, but nonetheless, Thewlis mesmerizes, antagonizes, and amuses any viewer in any continent. Lastly, Naked provides a cinematic canvas upon which Leigh freely reveals the darker parts of personal self-reflection, which offers humanity a chance through understanding and deeper contemplation beyond the mere glumness of existence.
"look back in anger" for the 90's
Powerful powerful film.
Fantastic acting...and a bold film...there seemed to me to be nothing like it at the time.
Criterion DVD's are great...but expensive!!
"Are you with me?"
I first saw this in a little run-down art house theater. The auditorium was empty except for an old woman and two strange men who, lured by the title and the fishnet stockings on the original poster, had obviously come expecting a different kind of movie than the one they got. There were times during the screening when I almost felt as if the theater had become part of the movie.
This is a film that's fascinating, but, damn, it's a bit of a ride. I'm frequently catching it late at night, on IFC, and even just a few moments almost always wear me out -- definitely a movie that brings to your attention when you need to go to bed. I appreciate "Naked," as a filmic experience, and it is indeed an incredible one, but I have to wonder if this is what movies are supposed to do.
Still, it does what it does and what it does is unlike anything else you could want to find.
David Thewlis may have made a mistake starring in this because he is so brilliant, so engaging, so horrifying, so smart, so black that to this day, I still have a hard time seeing him as any other character -- whether he's in "Gangster #1" or "The Prisoner of Azkaban." It's great work. He'll make you laugh, he'll make you cry, he'll make you carsick.
I'd also like to nominate the scene between Johnny and the security guard -- their discussion of time, and space, and barcodes and apocalypse and Dadaist nuns -- to be elected to the office of the great scenes of the 90s, and to take a place on the larger list of the great cinematic moments altogether.
In The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, director Wes Anderson takes his familiar stable of actors on a field trip to a fantasy aquarium, complete with stop-motion, candy-striped crabs and rainbow seahorses. And though Anderson does expand his horizons in terms of retro-special effects and a whimsical use of color, fans will otherwise find themselves in well-charted waters. As The Life Aquatic opens, Zissou (Bill Murray), a self-involved, Jacques Cousteau-like filmmaker, has just released a documentary depicting the death of his best friend Esteban, who was eaten by some sort of sea creature--possibly a jaguar shark. Zissou’s troubles also include his waning popularity with the public, and a nemesis (Jeff Goldblum) who hogs up all the grant money. Hope arrives in the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Wes Anderson DVD Release Date: Released the 10 May 2005 Usually ships in 6 to 11 days
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Walker (Lee Marvin) strides through Los Angeles with the steel-eyed stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting or return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (remade by Brian Helgeland as Payback), set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed, and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lee Marvin - Angie Dickinson Director(s): John Boorman DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Film noir is such a rich cinematic zone that second-tier specimens compel nearly as much fascination as the classics. At a glance, Volume 2 of Warner Bros.' (ever-expanding, we hope) Film Noir Collection is a distinct step down from Volume 1--inevitable when you've launched your series with five landmark titles, including three outright noir masterpieces (The Asphalt Jungle, Gun Crazy, Out of the Past). But linger beyond that first glance, because the second set is a flavorful mix of sleazoid iconography (two vehicles for B-movie bad boy Lawrence Tierney), an offbeat outing for a major director (Fritz Lang in his Howard Hughes RKO period), Poverty Row production circumstances that encourage aggressively peculiar, verging-on-radical filmmaking (the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claire Trevor DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Val Lewton's name is synonymous with the subtlest, most mysterious brand of horror filmmaking in Hollywood's golden age, and the nine horror classics he produced at RKO between 1942 and 1946 constitute the most remarkable cycle of creativity in B-movie history. (For the record, the Lewton/RKO legacy also includes two non-horror entries, Youth Runs Wild and Mademoiselle Fifi.)
Before becoming a film producer, the Russian-born Lewton was a prolific writer of pulp fiction, nonfiction, and a couple of pornographic novels. He also worked for years as assistant to David O. Selznick, a legendary producer with a distinctive personal signature--and a flair for grandiosity Lewton himself never emulated. It's ever so revealing that, on Selznick's Gone With the Wind, it was... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Boris Karloff DVD Release Date: Released the 04 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Otto Preminger expanded his vision in the 1960s with a whole series of ambitious, expansive dramas with huge casts and big themes. Advise and Consent (1962), an examination of deal making, party politics, and congressional diplomacy in Washington's legislative halls (based on the novel by Allen Drury), is one of his best. Preminger broke the blacklist with his previous film, Exodus, and it rings through in this drama about a controversial nominee for secretary of state (a confident, stately Henry Fonda) accused of being a Communist. The nomination process becomes the center ring of the political circus, with fidgety accuser Burgess Meredith in the spotlight; devious, silver-tongued Charles Laughton cracking the whip as a southern senator with a grudge against Fonda; and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Henry Fonda DVD Release Date: Released the 10 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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