Jump 4 Jay

I evidently like my films a bit on the quirky side. Bagdad Cafe, directed by Percy Adlon, is a modest, charming indie film that’s set in a remote truck-stop cafe/motel in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The film starts out when a German tourist has a fight with her husband while driving across the desert. They part ways, and the German tourist, Jasmine, happens upon a diner run by a tough, short-tempered female owner, who herself is trying to keep everything (her family, her diner) together after her own husband leaves her high-and-dry. Jasmine has a quiet ability to empathize with the motley crew of eccentrics she meets at the cafe, and she gradually, gently transforms the diner and its inhabitants for the better.

The soundtrack for this film, by the way, is exquisite.

I’m a sucker for Brian De Palma. It should be noted though, that I’m talkin’ old Brian De Palma – pre SNAKE EYES. I admire his visual verve, and his obvious command of the technical aspects of directing. I enjoy his split screens, and the gloss of his films. By and large, they’re just slick. One of my favorite guilty pleasures is DRESSED TO KILL, starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon. A mysterious blond woman brutally murders a psychiatrist’s patient, and she’s now after the high-class hooker who witnessed it. This movie has it all: steamy love scenes, bloody kills, a female lead we end up sympathizing with only to have that particular rug pulled out from underneath us (a la PSYCHO), and a certain degree of wtf! sleaze. And Angie Dickinson is a true revelation in the film – her wordless sequence in an art museum is a stroke of brilliance.

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