In Sight/ Cinema & Arts: '70s gumshoe; courtroom Kimura; spiritual journey; original 'Grindhouse'

BY PHILIP BRASOR, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Critical consensus says that Robert Altman's best movie was either "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (1971) or "Nashville" (1975), but over the years "The Long Goodbye" (1973) has become a contender.

Published in 1953, "The Long Goodbye" was Raymond Chandler's attempt at literature, a mystery in which the tortuous plot was less important than the book's moral landscape. In the novel, Chandler's great private eye, Philip Marlowe, is punished for his famous ethical code. Altman and screenwriter Leigh Brackett (who co-wrote the script for Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep," the other great Marlowe adaptation) relocate the Los Angeles detective to the early '70s without changing him. Marlowe (Elliott Gould) wears a cheap suit, while everyone else sports post-hippie couture. He chain smokes, while others partake of health food. He even drives a 1948 Lincoln.

Marlowe is a pathetic anachronism. He has only two loyalties, to his cat and to his friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton), a gambler and part-time hood. This loyalty is challenged after Lennox flees to Mexico and is sought for murder. Marlowe gets roughed up by both the police and a New Age mobster (Mark Rydell) because of this loyalty, and in the end is made to look like a fool.

When the movie was first released, Chandler fans were outraged at what they saw as a sacrilegious parody, but "The Long Goodbye" has since been recognized as the adaptation most faithful to Chandler's outlook. A year later, "Chinatown" reclaimed the Los Angeles private eye movie by returning it to its classic 1930s milieu, but by wittily subverting the genre, Altman ended up having the last word.

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A more conventional hero is the protagonist of "Hero," though his appeal is supposed to be how unconventional he is. Kohei Kuryu, played by J-pop idol Takuya Kimura, isn't your usual prosecutor. He has long hair and wouldn't be caught dead in a suit and tie, even in court.

In other aspects, he toes the line, which might make him an unusual "hero" to Western audiences used to rooting for the underdog in courtroom dramas. Prosecutors represent the establishment, while defense lawyers usually take the side of the little guy. The little guy here is a security guard who beats up a young salaryman, putting him in a coma. The guard confesses, but once under the wing of his defense team, led by a wily ex-prosecutor (Koshiro Matsumoto), he retracts the confession.

Courtroom dramas are not as common in Japan as they are in the United States, probably because it's difficult to draw believable tension from a legal environment like Japan's, where the conviction rate is almost 100 percent. The movie doesn't pay that idea any mind, and the mystery is entertaining, but the reason "Hero" dominated the domestic box office last fall was its star. Anything Kimura is in, including the TV show on which "Hero" is based, is automatically a pop culture phenomenon.

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Abel Ferrara's "Mary" (2005) addresses a more spiritual mystery. A director (Matthew Modine) makes a controversial movie about Jesus Christ that presents Mary Magdalene as a 13th disciple. The actress (Juliette Binoche) who plays Mary has an epiphany during the filming and afterward journeys to Jerusalem.

Later, a TV talk show host (Forest Whitaker) plans a special program on "the historical truth about Jesus" and invites the director and the actress to discuss the topic on his show. No one has seen the actress in a year, but the talk show host's mistress (Marion Cotillard), also an actress, says she knows where to find her.

The atmosphere is all shadows and ominous music. At times the melodrama is difficult to appreciate, but as with all of Ferrara's movies ("Bad Lieutenant," "The Funeral") the story is less important than the changes the characters go through, and here we have three Oscar winners--Binoche, Whitaker and Cotillard--making the most of those changes.

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Moviegoers outside of North America didn't get a chance to see the original "Grindhouse," a three-hour double feature consisting of Quentin Tarantino's car chase movie "Death Proof," Robert Rodriguez's zombie flick "Planet Terror" and assorted trailers for non-existent B-movies. The whole package was meant to recreate the experience of going to a sleazy neighborhood movie theater in the 1960s or '70s.

Overseas markets got each movie released separately in a longer version. Both these separate versions and the full double feature package are available in the new box set, but it may be difficult to recreate the "Grindhouse" experience in your living room. You might want to spill some Coke on the floor and get your friends to come over and talk during the movie.

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"The Long Goodbye" 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 3,990 yen.

"Hero" (with English subtitles) Fuji Television/Toho/J-dream, 3,990 yen.

"Mary" Geneon Entertainment, 3,990 yen.

"Grindhouse, Complete Box" Geneon Entertainment, 9,975 yen.(IHT/Asahi: March 28,2008)