the intruder Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The greatest space captain ever turns 78 today. Oh, sure, some of you will argue for Edward James Olmos as Admiral Adama in Battlestar Galactica, which just concluded its run, but I say that man cried too much. James Tiberius Kirk never cried, at least, not as played by William Shatner. Shatner as Captain Kirk embodied the ideal symbol of authority: strong, decisive, and smart. Yet he also had a delightful sense of humor, valued his longtime friends, and was something of a ladies' man.

Shatner has fielded plenty of criticism for his supposedly stiff manner and his distinctive, rat-a-tat style of delivering dialogue, which has made him an easy target for imitators and detractors. On the other hand, one of his best performances came in Robert Meyer Burnett's Free Enterprise, in which he played himself -- or a fictional variation of "Bill Shatner" -- as a lonely soul, a ladies' man gone to seed, with impossible dreams of mounting a six-hour rap musical version of Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar.

In recent years, I never missed an episode of Shatner as Denny Crane in Boston Legal -- he and James Spader had a chemistry rarely seen on TV -- but I've missed seeing him on the big screen. I've always heard great things about Roger Corman's The Intruder. Are there other hidden gems in his movie career awaiting discovery?

Getting back to Star Trek, what are your favorite Shatner performances as Captain James T. Kirk? I favor the traditional even-numbered ones, but do you think Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is ready for reevaluation? Should Bill have gotten some kind of role in J.J. Abram's upcoming Star Trek?

When you go to see a Claire Denis film, you don't go expecting to be spoon-fed a lot of information, and The Intruder is no exception. This hauntingly visual, dream-like film blends together a narrative storyline with dream sequences, abstractions, and maybe-prophetic moments. Denis, who said in an interview with Senses of Cinema that she "doesn't make highly intellectual films"  and that The Intruder is like "a boat lost in the ocean drifting,"  makes you work to piece together a narrative out of seemingly obscure and unrelated bits and pieces. While you're never quite sure if you've got it all figured out, you leave feeling it was a swell ride anyhow. Seldom have I seen a film that inspired so much intense discussion in the bathroom and lobby after the screening; people were clustered in groups, going over snippets of film like clues to a murder mystery dinner party, long after the film ended.

Shockingly, this weekend might actually be sunny here in the Puget Sound. If you're like me, you'll be out and about soaking in some rays that don't come from a lamp, but that's okay. Once the sun goes down, you'll still be wanting something to do, though --  and as always, Seattle has your movie fix.

UW Film Club 

This week brings us the 5th Annual Native Voices Film Festival. Check out the schedule - all events are free, so if you don't want to spend $20 to go see something at the multiplex, this might be a good option.

If Claire Denis wants to make films that push character and linear plot to the side and focus on something else, then she's welcome to it, but she can't have her cake and eat it too. The Intruder is a film that has a plot - one that is selfishly hidden from the viewer. I think the story is about a man who commits a murder, leaves the country, and spends his time on the run trying to track down a long lost son, all while recovering from a heart transplant. But I couldn't tell you who the murder victim was or whether or not we ever meet the son. By the end of the film key characters have come and gone without ever being clearly introduced, confusing dream sequences have been pigtailed together with the real story as well as shots from other French films, and the main character has spoken less than five or six pages of dialogue. All of these demerits could be praise, of course, if the imagery of the film told a story of its own or spoke to us in a unique language. But if that's what it's doing, then I just don't speak the language.