While we love Werner Herzog in spirit and are pretty much always rooting for him, his narrative track record (especially without Klaus Kinski) can be spotty see — “Invincible” and “Rescue Dawn,” which we didn’t hate, but was a mild rendering of his documentary, “Little Dieter Needs To Fly”.
2009 has not been kind to the filmmaker. While containing some amusingly loony situations and absurdist laughs, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is far from a brilliant picture and a bit of a mess (advanced ironists looking for nothing more might love it though).
Even less successful was his psychological horror, “My Son My Son What Have Ye Done,” which we saw at TIFF and it plays like an dull, inert parody of a David Lynch film (ironically enough, it’s a Lynch produced project) and or as if the filmmaker was doing a cover-version of one of his movies.
Well, the film is now getting a release, but it appears to be a very small one. It’s being distributed by Absurda (who? Lynch’s production company) and will play at the IFC Center in New York on December 11. That’s it so far, but Anne Thompson says other cities will follow. This sounds like a pretty microscopic release, so if it somehow rolls into your city, count yourself lucky. Presumably L.A. will get it too, but deeper than that? Remains to be seen.
The picture stars Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Udo Kier, Grace Zabriskie and Michael Pena and is a flashback laden tale about a psychotic man (Shannon) holding someone hostage after he has killed his own mother (Zabriskie) with a baseball bat. Dafoe and Pena play the detectives on the scene trying to negotiate with the madman and Sevigny plays his distraught fiance. The picture is a headscratcher that’s rather tepid and unintentionally funny.
Here’s the trailer if you missed it.
Born in Chile, raised in Canada, now living in Brooklyn, NY, Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2007. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, MuchMusic, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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