The Movie Loony

Soylent Green Is...Related?

2012-02-12T12:21:00.006-05:00

Some things are easy to identify as coincidences. Some aren't.

In watching Richard Fleischer's 1973 eco-policier Soylent Green today, I got the chance to reacquaint myself with Edward G. Robinson's lovely performance as the wistful but pessimistic Sol, who both rooms with and helps Charlton Heston's heat-weary detective, Thorn.

My grandfather had actually met Robinson many years ago, and their amiable exchange has become part of family lore.

My grandfather's name: Sol.

I thought about this today while watching Soylent Green and wondering whether the similarity was a coincidence. Possibly. I'd like to think it wasn't.

But I can appreciate the film--and Edward G.--all the same.

Guess 'Cahiers du Cinéma' Got It Wrong, Huh?

2012-02-10T09:53:00.003-05:00

Next time I see another TV spot touting a film as coming "from the producer of" such-and-such a movie, I'm going to light another mental candle to honor François Truffaut.

Without producers, we wouldn't have movies, and the existence of many masterpieces, such as Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha, can be chalked up to the faith of those who supported these films, financially and otherwise.

But is the image of the producer really greater than the image of the director?

I'm not suggesting the application of a loftier ideal to marketing materials for high-concept cinematic dross. This kind of practice often seems to be the province of ads touting spectacle or thrills derived from a source known for similar content.

The director, however, should still be the one credited for such work...or, perhaps, deemed responsible for it. I don't think we've come to a point--even in the age of CGI--where everything is all laid out like a connect-the-dots book, requiring just a pen to link everything together.

An outlook is essential--it's the voice of a great film. And that's what a good director provides.

Wouldn't you be drawn to a film "from the director of Ivan the Terrible, Part I"?

Sigh.

What the Dickens? Where Are the Film Classics?

2012-02-07T11:17:00.005-05:00

The festivities celebrating Charles Dickens' 200th birthday have led me to wonder why the cinema hasn't seen more great adaptations of his works.

The standards, in my opinion, are David Lean's Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. No other adaptation on the silver (or Technicolor) screen approaches the quality of these works, which, though streamlined, are masterpieces of acting, directing, editing and cinematography.

I know the much-vaunted Hollywood versions of A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield are held in high regard, and Carol Reed's Oliver! won a Best Picture Oscar. But when I think of films of Dickens novels, I think of the Leans, not the Reed, which I believe lacks the impact of the 1948 Twist.

Scrooge is fun, but its impact has waned on multiple viewings. I'm not going to put Little Dorrit in Lean's company, either; I found the film rather static and uninvolving. And to date, no one has made even a serviceable film of Nicholas Nickleby, despite a definitive stage adaptation from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

So why aren't we seeing any more masterpieces that can compete with Lean's behemoths? It's not that we don't have directors talented enough to put his works appropriately on screen or that his novels are too labyrinthine to translate to film.

My feeling is, Dickens' characters are so vividly cut that only expertly cast actors and actresses can fit the bill. I can't think of his books without picturing in my mind what the players are like. And if a performer doesn't live up to those images, I consider the movie a failure.

It may well be that I am the issue here, not the filmmaker--that my expectations are too rigid. But why not expect something along the lines of Lean's adaptations? Why settle for the mundane or the ridiculous?

Viewers shouldn't need to take Nurse Ratched's pill when it comes to movies. We deserve top-notch quality, especially from top-notch sources. I don't believe we'll never get another great Dickens movie, but to do so, we need a commitment from the creators that the material--as well as the audience--will be trusted.

And when that happens, of course...what larks!

Punting on Pigskin Pictures

2012-02-05T18:48:00.006-05:00

Sorry, but Knute Rockne All American isn't exactly Breaking Away.

Earlier this evening, I charged myself with thinking of great football-themed films that, if viewed prior to tonight's Super Bowl, would provide an excellent context to the Big Game while encapsulating the beauty of the sport itself.

Strangely, the only movie I could think of that best represents the gridiron was a Marx Brothers send-up, the hoary but still hilarious Horse Feathers.

Something's wrong with this motion picture, right?

Perhaps not. Football, for some reason, doesn't translate to the big screen like baseball does--in part, I believe, because the Heroes of Winter haven't dug their cleats into the lexicon of American lore as much as the Boys of Summer. Yet I think there's another factor: a strange inability of the game itself to register as much with viewers in terms of suspense as other sports.

Football fans, please feel free to swear at me in protest. I realize movies like North Dallas Forty and The Longest Yard, to a certain extent, inform our perspective of the game. But I don't think they're an inextricable part of our cinematic fabric the way The Pride of the Yankees is. Heck, I was a lot more concerned about the results of the tennis match in Strangers on a Train than I was during any scene in Robert Aldrich's Yard.

It may be just a coincidence that football hasn't spurred a cinematic masterpiece the way baseball has. I'm wondering, though, whether there's something on the green diamond that trumps the snowy gridiron innately on the silver screen. Or maybe it's the idea of "outs" rather than a clock that makes things more cinematic--that a limited number of lives is somehow more critical than a limited amount of time.

I don't think they're the same thing. On film, there's a difference. It's odd in a way, because to many a casual viewer, baseball can be static, while football is almost constantly in motion. One would think football would leave baseball in cinematic stardust.

As evidenced by films such as The Natural, however, there are a lot more sparks in the ninth inning than the fourth quarter.

Swordfish.

The Power of Throwaways Compels You

2012-02-03T12:11:00.010-05:00

To borrow (and then wreck) a line from Wallace Stevens, I don't know which to prefer, the beauty of a primary plot device or a throwaway line.

I've started to mull this minor musing after revisiting John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre last night, which I watched specifically for a few scenes in which Humphrey Bogart's no-goodnik bum asks a well-to-do gentleman on no less than three separate occasions for money. For some reason, I find these exchanges hilarious, as it points to the knee-jerk freeloader quality of Bogie's character...but it also doesn't seem to drive the narrative. Instead, it's just an aside--a bit of texture that helps make the film.

I guess I'm in love with these little throwaway moments.

Oftentimes, I mark the finesse of a movie by the inclusion of such character development. Some other examples:

North by Northwest: Cary Grant's Roger O. Thornhill has an incredibly natural exchange with his mother over the phone after his arrest by a policeman. When Thornhill tells his mother the sergeant's name, Emile, there's a slight pause, and then the amused ad executive says, "No, I don't believe it, either." No further explanation...but none needed. Just funny.
WarGames: Two techies in a computer lab are reviewing some information Matthew Broderick's hacker character, David Lightman, passes along for opinions. One of the techies, played by expert character actor Maury Chaykin, chastises the other with these immortal words when the fellow gets out of line: "Remember you told me to tell you when you were acting rudely and insensitively? Remember that? You're doing it right now." Where did this come from? It doesn't matter; it adds tang to the script...and suggests a history that these two have. Brilliant.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Ken Murray's usually intoxicated Doc Willoughby is summoned to determine whether Lee Marvin's cruel Liberty Valance is really dead. "Whiskey, quick," the good doctor says, receiving it. But instead of giving it to Liberty, he takes a swig. Then he kicks Valance. "Dead," he says casually. Just wonderful--a bit of comedy that suggests the morality of the doctor's character...as well as the disdain he has for Valance.
Time Bandits: "Mm?" queries the musician, as he is given unfamiliar sheet music by Charles McKeown's beleaguered theater manager, who is being pressured to provide adequate entertainment for Napoleon. The musician then proceeds to play--dreadfully--"Me and My Shadow." Probably the tersest throwaway moment in this list, but one of the most hilarious.
Kagemusha: After witnessing the massacre of his clan's army, commanded by the rash Takeda family heir Katsuyori, Nobukado Takeda, portrayed superbly by Tsutomu Yamazaki, observes his defeat in a quick, short frame. The dismay and waste are conveyed so totally in this snapshot that we don't need any words. Yet another great moment from a great director, Akira Kurosawa.

Hobbit 'Journey' Bound to Be Good as Expected

2012-02-01T16:43:00.012-05:00

Thank goodness we don't have to call Ralph Bakshi's 1978 Lord of the Rings "definitive" anymore.

We live in a golden age. We've got Peter Jackson to give us endless LOTR installments. And now, this December, we're getting Part I of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

I saw the trailer. Holy Gollum, this looks good.

Too bad we can't get the entire adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's book in one fell swoop. I'd like to see how Jackson & Co. bring the dragon Smaug to life.

But I'll have to wait. With this kind of quality forthcoming, I don't mind at all.

Please! Just Stay in Front of the Camera!

2012-01-30T15:50:00.003-05:00

I wouldn't mind looking like George Clooney. But I'd mind directing like him.

Take The Ides of March. Well, actually, don't take it, because I wouldn't.

I'm not sure why so many actors insist on helming movies. It's like they want to reinvent themselves, when their own, well-honed personas are good enough. Clint Eastwood's another I'd mention. Laurence Olivier, too.

At least "Larry" had a vision for his interpretations of the Bard. In reviewing Eastwood's work, I'm not sure his is so defined.

I know all professionals want to do what interests them, and many don't want to be pigeonholed into certain roles. But we know Eastwood's capable of turning in a good performance. Same with Clooney.

Is being recognized as a good actor not enough? Or does one have to be an auteur to be respectable?

I think you can be respected for what you do well and, to paraphrase Robert Frost, that can make all the difference.

The Sacred Space of the Originals

2012-01-28T15:13:00.003-05:00

I often think I like a movie better if it follows its source material faithfully.

But I might be looking through silver-colored glasses. In revisiting The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King last night on TV, I noticed that I still enjoy this film immensely, despite the tweaks to much of the dialogue found in J.R.R. Tolkien's book. There's at least one precedent: I also love David Lean's brilliant Great Expectations, though the movie's end, in which Pip tears away the curtains hiding Estella from the world, is nothing like the novel's finale.

So why am I fine with the changes in these adaptations...yet horrified by the ones in Garth Jennings' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

I know--I'm comparing two masterpieces to a misfire. It's not fair. But I'm trying to find a pattern, and the only one I can see is a significant difference in quality, resulting from better direction, scripts, editing, and other elements.

Could that be it, then? Could I like something that, theoretically, could be completely different from its source material if it's just done well?

I'm not going to discount that. I'll have to mull it for a while. Maybe I'm not the purist I think I am. Or maybe I'm a purist just with movies.

I know that if it's good, I'll like it. Maybe I'll just go by that.

Yes, Let's By All Means Admit Impediments

2012-01-26T15:46:00.009-05:00

Are we sure no one else but Meryl Streep would've fit the bill as Margaret Thatcher?

I'm a little befuddled by these casting choices--though I recognize the need for star power.

But Meryl Streep? What's next, Dustin Hoffman as Charles de Gaulle?

It might be another Oscar this year for Streep, considered by many to be one of America's greatest actresses...though I often find her performances forced and mannered. I'm wondering, though, whether this kind of portrayal also takes the spotlight away from less well-known, though more deserving actresses, such as Rooney Mara and Viola Davis. Streep seems to be specializing these days in historical impersonations, which sometimes appear to be judged on how close they are to the real thing rather than how much they work within the context of the films.

I'd like to see someone else get recognized for a less showy role. Maybe this year's Academy Awards will accommodate. I'll be cautiously optimistic.

Go Gently into that Good Night, Will You Please?

2012-01-23T19:17:00.009-05:00

It's high time a number of film franchises were retired.

Transformers, head to the hills. Chipmunks, get outta Dodge.

And Final Destination, let this be your last slaughterfield.

This void should not be filled, because, as Woody Allen remarks in Love and Death, it's an "empty void."

What needs to arise is a spate of quality sci-fi and fantasy pictures.

Sorry, Conan, you don't fit the bill--not until your script's as strong as your biceps. But I'd like to see some escapism in a similar vein, from great source material.

A smattering of Isaac Asimov. A dose of Ray Bradbury. Slices of Theodore Sturgeon.

There's a surplus of content out there. Why aren't we seeing more of it...and I'm not talking about travesties such as I, Robot? Faithful adaptations that trust the viewer. Where are they?

We can update these stories so they're even more relevant, without losing their "heart." And we've got all the CGI we need to lure eyeballs.

Let's lure the brains, too. We're primates, not chipmunks.

Bridging the Cinematic Divide

2012-01-20T07:26:00.006-05:00

I'm at a loss. Trudi and I like different movies.

OK, we're of one mind on some films--mostly those directed by Billy Wilder. And we're in agreement on the Marx Brothers, though she doesn't care for The Cocoanuts. (Consternation! Uproar!)

But almost anything else released after 1929...pffft.

I admire Trudi's taste. It's impeccable. But I wonder why I was so enthralled with The Damned and she wasn't. Or why I can't convince her that Throne of Blood is one of the best interpretations of Shakespeare on the silver screen. Or why, for that matter, any flick featuring a battle scene lasting more than 10 minutes isn't something to avoid.

Or why I struggle through the Jennifer Aniston oeuvre and she embraces it.

I've decided this can't be chalked up to purportedly innate differences in taste between the sexes. I like some "chick flicks." Really. For example: Stolen Kisses.

I provide crummy examples.

Fine, so I prefer a great epic. A drawn-out drama. That's not for all viewers, though Trudi at one point admitted to me that it's hard for her to watch the Lord of the Rings movies, as she needs to absorb each in its entirety rather than piecemeal, as I tend to watch things on TV.

So my feeling is, she probably has an inner jidai-geki.

Perhaps we're destined never to cross this divide. I've tried, though--I've watched Mad Men. I've sat through Ryan Reynolds comedies. And to her credit, Trudi has tried, too. She sat through most of Kwaidan. I give her many props for that.

I just think now that taste...I can't believe I'm writing this...may be subjective.

What an admission.

An Unexamined Battle Scene Is not Worth Viewing

2011-02-12T06:35:00.004-05:00

The biggest problem with cinematic battle scenes today is that they don't have a perspective.

Gladiator is the film that most comes to mind. Also Braveheart, and the abysmal Troy and Alexander. In these movies, the primary purpose of the staged conflicts seems to be a Peckinpah-esque revelry in blood and guts, as well as an "isn't it cool how that guy killed the other guy" sensibility catering to the Grand Guignol set.

In other words, a lot of posing and yelling, but little substance. That contrasts greatly with the best cinematic battle scenes, which always have something to say.

Mind you, such commentary doesn't have to be anti-war. In fact, oftentimes, it isn't. Alexander Nevsky's frozen fight is exhilarating. So is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's massive (and beautifully directed) orc-a-thon, which incites viewers to cheer against the forces of evil. And Kwaidan's otherworldly boat contest in which the Heike clan meets its doom is like some gorgeous scene from a Kuniyoshi print.

All of these movie battles provide superb direction, varying camera angles and beautiful cinematography. That's not to say that they encourage viewers to enjoy the splattering of blood; instead, they make you care, involving you in the decisions and the developments leading up to them.

Here is my list of the greatest battle scenes in film, in no particular order:

Alexander Nevsky: Still the top, owing to a combination of logistics and sheer cinematic skill
Ran: perhaps the greatest anti-war battle scenes ever depicted on film; confusing, sad and powerful
Chimes at Midnight: brutal, anti-war banging of maces in the mud--terrific Wellesian comment
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: CGI used in the best possible way
Kwaidan: like a painting, both gorgeous and disturbing
Kagemusha: you don't really see the fighting in the climactic battle, but you do see the results. Brilliantly anti-war; an assault on the waste of life
Red Cliff: nicely handled direction of a popular tale, with a bit of preternatural powers thrown in to support the good-versus-evil thrust

Do I Have to Watch the Oscars This Year?

2011-02-08T07:16:00.005-05:00

I still have nightmares about that dreadful "dance" number en hommage to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen on the Academy Awards so many years ago.

Did we really need to see people in fancy dress fall all over themselves--literally--for the sake of "comedy"? And the movie wasn't that broad, was it?

It's the prospect of viewing travesties such as this that makes me wary of turning on the Oscars later this month. Another factor is the thought of seeing great films not get the attention they deserve. (That's right: I still haven't gotten over why Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Picture.)

Sure, there are delights to be noshed on, such as Akira Kurosawa's speech after winning an honorary Oscar more than 20 years ago. But I'm not sure it's worth getting through the dross to find the diamonds.

Heck, I liked The King's Speech a lot, but is it really a Best Picture-type of movie?

Then again, is Braveheart?

I'm just hoping there's no pseudo-period "dancing."

In Classical Music We Cineastes Trust

2011-01-23T07:28:00.008-05:00

I'm starting once more unto the breach with The King's Speech, but this time from an angle that I forgot to cover in my previous post.

One of the biggest reasons Colin Firth's speech at the end of the film was so successful, in my opinion, was that it was tied to a bit of music from the old Ludwig van: specifically, the brooding second movement of his Seventh Symphony.

Of course, the segment was edited superbly, cut to convey a tenseness that helped drive the scene. But without that second movement, would it have been so great?

I don't think so. Which leads me to think about other films that have been so inextricably tied to masterpieces of classical music.

You've got to start, methinks, with Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II. That's kind of like cheating, though--Eisenstein brilliantly melded Prokofiev's sublime scores to his films, which were a perfect fit right off the bat.

But what about something like "Il Mio Tesoro" from Mozart's Don Giovanni being used in Kind Hearts and Coronets? I can't think of that film without thinking of the aria, which threads the flick like a serpent. Or the ominous use of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out, which sets the tone as two of James Mason's cronies wait in a "friend's" living room before being betrayed?

These moments are just as important to the contexts of these films...and wouldn't have been so without the help of certain masterpieces of classical music.

We can always go back to 2001: a Space Odyssey, with its famous use of music by two Strausses. But again--that's kind of easy; those works, though not expressly created for the film, are now nearly impossible to think about without it. And composer's biographies are out, too--especially any Ken Russell bizarre-o-thon--owing to the natural link of the music to the movies.

I guess what I'm talking about are the more unheralded, but no less vital, choices. The use of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana in the opening of Raging Bull and the final scene of The Godfather, Part III, for example. Or the Ravel chamber music in Un Coeur en Hiver. Or the use of the prelude to Act I of Wagner's Lohengrin in The Great Dictator, where Chaplin plays with the world.

Were these pieces made for these films without actually being made for them? Did the directors have the same aesthetic sensibilities as the composers?

I wonder if they were all part of each other in previous lives.

Speaking the 'Speech,' Firth, Rush Shine

2011-01-16T08:57:00.004-05:00

Even though I knew The King's Speech would be entertaining, it wasn't a movie I was jumping to see.

Part of the problem was the subject (not the king's, ha, ha, but the movie's), which seemed, to my mind, rather a strange, trivial focus. It was almost as if the filmmakers were homing in on minutiae, rather than the important elements of the period (such as World War II), while producing what appeared to be an Oscar-targeted picture featuring components generally regarded as being agreeable to voters (kings, an early 20th century setting, fine British actors, etc.).

What I didn't know--and I chalk this up to my own ignorance--was that the speech impediment so painfully navigated by Britain's King George VI (portrayed with literal tripping on the tongue by Colin Firth) played such a large role in the political and social climate of wartime England. This was evidenced by Firth's climactic, halting but well-paced radio speech at the end, which established a confidence in me that I supposed was mirrored in the confidence of British listeners at the time. That's not just cosmetic; it's a resonance that I expect served to inspire.

And oh, yeah: The good guys won that war.

Directed by Tom Hooper, the film suggests that the king's impediment wouldn't have been soothed without the help of one Lionel Logue, a not-at-all-board-approved speech specialist played by the Geoffrey Rush with deft charm and sensitivity. I was somewhat disappointed that there wasn't more time spent on the "unorthodox" methods employed by Logue on the King, and that the movie seems to emphasize their sessions less than their results. The chemistry between the two actors, however, is wonderful, beautifully conveying the awkwardness of a commoner-king relationship that is absent in the romantic pairing of the king's brother (Guy Pearce, good as usual) with the not-very-royal (or demure, for that matter) Wallis Simpson (a strong but underused Eve Best).

Speech, to its credit, conveys all of these politically charged developments without resorting to facile pageantry, though I can't call the film a masterpiece, despite the deceptive nature of its scope. It's just not innovative or risky enough, and certain scenes felt clipped, as if the viewer wasn't getting everything. Still, after watching it, I didn't ask myself, "What was the reason for seeing this," as I'd do after a typical Coen Brothers movie. The strength of Rush's and Firth's portrayals, among others, drives the film, and this helps it last in the memory. That's a far-reaching achievement, and come Oscar time, it may help this picture move to the forefront among voters.

You Don't Have to See a Movie to Hate It

2010-12-11T08:04:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I feel like the character in Metropolitan who pretentiously notes that he doesn't read literature--just literary criticism.

I'm confronted with this realization following incessant exposure to advertising for Little Fockers, which I predict will be one of the worst films of the year.

And no, I don't have to see it to believe this.

I've already suffered through the first two installments of this trilogy: Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, both incredibly junky, cynical "comedies" predicated, in part, on jokes relating to the protagonist's nearly profane surname and his supposedly effeminate profession as a nurse.

This is the kind of humor that makes Jerry Lewis look like Moliere.

So far, I haven't yet read a review for LF, but I will...and I'm hoping whatever I read will corroborate my sentiments. I'd also like to think I can discern a reviewer with "taste" from a reviewer without it. You know--someone reliable.

Someone who can verify my belief that I don't need to see this flick...ever.

For the record, I don't surround myself with "yes-reviewers" or newspapers that only share my opinions. But I know that a good review of a bad movie will provide a reader with a feeling of support that people often relegate to therapy sessions or Sunday dinners with the folks.

"You're not alone," a good review conveys. "We're in your foxhole, too."

And that's what makes good criticism: total, unabashed obsequiousness. Maybe that's what that character in Metropolitan initially liked. Before he changed, of course, and started reading literature.

Yeah, I'm still not gonna see LF.

Will We Ever Have 'Kind Hearts' Again?

2010-10-31T09:54:00.003-04:00

The most significant mark of a good film, in my opinion, is its capacity to show the watcher something new on every viewing.

Robert Hamer's savory classic Kind Hearts and Coronets fits that bill. I must've seen this movie about 50 times, and yet every time I review it, I notice elements I didn't see before.

On my most recent screening, however, I didn't observe anything new. I just enjoyed it. I think I'm at that stage where the film has become so satisfying for me that it's like a plate of cassoulet: very familiar, yet always tasty...despite the lack of novelty associated with it.

There's no doubt in my mind that this is a great film--the ultimate black comedy, in which the viewer is forced to side with a surprisingly scrupulous fellow who, nevertheless, decides that the best and quickest way to earn his rightful inheritance is to terminate all other potential heirs of the dukedom to which he aspires. The doubt in my mind stems from whether we'll see such a great film again.

Of this type.

I'm not a big fan of the negative comedies of today. They often seem forced and extremely poorly written, such as Gus Van Sant's lamentable "satire" To Die For, which was as dull as a potato sandwich. It's a hard genre to fit into, and even more difficult to be successful at. Which is why it's so amazing to me that KHAC ever got produced.

So will we see another one like it again? My feeling is that it's like asking if we'll get another Mozart. The product of a special time and social context cannot be replicated, though we may see further tries. The wit of KHAC, like the delicacy of Mozart, is inimitable, a historic anomaly.

I'm disappointed by this idea, but I think I should embrace it. It makes the art unique, unquenchable.

Maybe I should just be content with its greatness rather than its duplication.

Remaking Foreign Films in a Lowbrow Image

2010-08-01T11:54:00.003-04:00

It's summer time, and you know what that means, right?

Time for the usual spate of unoriginal movies to come our way.

The current crop includes a very high-profile remake: the Jay Roach-helmed Dinner for Schmucks (I can't believe they included that word in the title!), which recreates Francis Veber's The Dinner Game for American audiences.

Why? I ask. Why not leave well enough alone?

I do like DFS stars Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, two talented comedians who turned in hilarious performances in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But I'm skeptical that they can turn their latest collaboration into comedy magic.

The reason? Roach directed two of the worst movies in recent memory, in my opinion: Meet the Parents and its horrid sequel, Meet the Fockers, both of which were squirm-inducing "comedies" of embarrassment that made Jerry Lewis' oeuvre seem highbrow. Popular they were, however, as are velvet paintings and elevator music.

I realize I'm in the minority here. But are we really expecting "the Lubitsch touch" here?

Veber's a talented director and writer who specializes in slick, amiable comedies that smack more of Louis de Funes than Moliere (such as the charming Les Comperes, remade in the States as Father's Day), and he seems to have a new career as a font of inspiration to American directors looking for source material. Still, I'm a bit perturbed at this trend...it suggests original ideas for screen comedy are limited, and the need for an instant hit trumps the need for uniqueness.

I don't think we have to be worried about a remake of Jules and Jim coming to our shores anytime soon or anything. I do, however, think that there's a pattern here, and it's one to be concerned about...especially if the new films don't do the originals justice.

And so to bed...with this argument.

Now I've Seen It: The Worst Movie of All Time

2010-06-27T20:22:00.005-04:00

All right, so that might be an overstatement. But I don't think it's by much.

Remember how, back in October of last year, I lamented the then-forthcoming issuance of another Tim Burton "vision," his dreaded reimagining of Alice in Wonderland? I wrote then that "I'm worried. I know it's gonna be horrible."

How right I was. Don't say I didn't warn me.

To be fair, I went into the viewing of this cinematic massacre with a completely closed mind, aided, of course, by the wonderful Trudi, who sat through the entire film with me. Together, we gasped at the ludicrous back story (what seems to be a specialty of director Burton these days), tittered at the dreary dialogue, grumbled at the overly ominous lighting and smirked at the obtrusive CGI that squeezed out and discarded any vestige of inspiration produced by Alice author Lewis Carroll and illustrator John Tenniel in the original tale.

And then there was Johnny Depp. As the Mad Hatter, no less.

It would be an understatement to call his performance "excruciating."

One of the peculiar things about this film was its dogged insistence on making Wonderland a sad, broken place...and Depp's Hatter some kind of tragic figure, who, like the other inhabitants of this creepy world, has found his joys and desires bound with briars by the e-vile Red Queen (played screechingly by Helena Bonham Carter).

Hey, we know the Red Queen's off her rocker and is totally, thoroughly unjust. But isn't the real fun of Carroll's world the same as that of, say, the Freedonia of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup...that nobody gives a damn?

I mean, this is a Mad Hatter, for crying out loud. Not Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men.

Then there was the problem of turning this wretched piece of celluloid into an action movie. Didn't work, Timmy. You know why? Well, there's this issue called character development that the film completely skirted. Makes it damned hard to care about anyone when the script is as tight as tapioca pudding.

Honestly, I would've thought the thing was ad-libbed if it hadn't been for that expensive CGI...which, shockingly, looked cheap and rather unrefined, despite what appears to have been an unconscionable number of labor-hours involved in the generation of such effects.

Perhaps the headline of this post is hyperbole. There are plenty of bad movies out there that might top Alice, such as Manos: The Hands of Fate and nearly anything by Oliver Stone.

But Alice is definitely up there. And that leads me to one final thought.

I've indicated in at least one previous post that a remake of a classic has to differentiate itself substantially from its predecessor(s), and I'm not going to take that back. But I will add that if you're going to put your own spin on a masterpiece, you might want to run it by people of taste before launching it into the crowd.

My feeling is, if it ain't frabjous, don't make it. Not nowhere, not nohow.

Weighing the Love for 47 Loyal Ronin

2010-06-20T07:54:00.008-04:00

I'm going to say it flat out: I'm not the biggest fan of Hiroshi Inagaki.

I don't count the Samurai series of films (I, II and III) as among my favorite jidai-geki. So I wasn't too thrilled about the prospect of sitting down to watch Chushingura, Inagaki's 1962 treatment of the famous Japanese tale of the loyal 47 ronin (masterless samurai). It was one of those things where I felt like I should see it, despite my reservations.

Well, I saw it. And although it was well made, it was typical Inagaki.

I say this somewhat contemptuously, because I feel Inagaki's cinematic "voice" has got to be one of the slickest, least critical ones in Japanese cinema. In Chushingura, the director fashioned a handsome-looking, straightforward version of the classic story, in which 47 ronin, whose lord is executed unfairly by corrupt officials, avenge their master against incredible odds...despite their inevitable fate: death. It's a story about love and unequivocal fealty, and the 47 ronin involved reflect the highest samurai standards, and are worthy of admiration through their sacrifice--a point made at the end during the samurai's long walk through the town after beheading their prime target.

Can you imagine how Kurosawa would've tackled this subject? Someone would've made a crack somewhere, I'll bet.

Inagaki's treatment is reverential, to say the least. He peppers the tale with a complex cast of characters but doesn't spend enough time on most of them for us to become too involved. That's all right, though--this is an all-star type of film with luminaries such as Toshiro Mifine and Takashi Shimura playing small but important roles. I'm OK with this kind of movie.

I'm not OK, however, with the lack of a perspective.

That is what most struck me about Chushingura...and it's what I least like about Inagaki's films. It's a traditional, spectacle-oriented treatment--without much social commentary. You're supposed to hate the corrupt official (played with expert nastiness and no redeeming qualities by Chusha Ichikawa) and applaud the ronin's dedication, though this loyalty even extends beyond family. The values of note are the traditional ones, not the new ones, and one cannot question a samurai's dedication to his master, even at the expense of his wife or children, whom he must leave to avenge his lord and, consequently, commit ritual suicide.

Don't you think Kobayashi would have something to say about this?

I don't think all films have to be critical, and there's something to be said for going "by the book" when adapting classic stories. But I do think Inagaki missed something in Chushingura, and that only affirms my belief that he was not one of the world's top directors. One of the ingredients that makes great cinema so special is vision, and only a few people have it. There has to be a reason for making a film of a well-known tale that differentiates the new version from others that preceded it.

This is, by the way, a systemic issue in cinema that's not solely relegated to Inagaki's canon. We do need more movie visionaries who aren't just purveyors of slo-mo and 3D.

I know you're out there.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

2010-06-10T07:16:00.003-04:00

...and that is the subject of publication (sorry, no movies today). Two of my short stories are slated to appear in July: one in Golden Visions Magazine, and the other in Beyond Centauri magazine, a print publication for younger readers produced by Sam's Dot Publishing. This is a first for me, and I'm very excited. Both publications offer a wealth of quality content. Golden Visions' online site will be down for about a week at the end of June while it reformats, and the print issue won't be available for purchase until after the first week of July, but there should be both print and PDF versions of the issue after that.

Anyhoo (I hate saying that, but I do it anyway), I will try to post more when the issues come out. 'Til then...

Altman's 'Goodbye' Proves Long in Tooth (& Script)

2010-05-23T07:45:00.005-04:00

That's it. I'm done with Robert Altman.

Having attempted, for the 4,637th time, this weekend to get through an entire film from the director's 1970s heyday, I have now resolved to avoid all further Altman flicks. The catalyst for this decision: 1973's The Long Goodbye, an Elliott Gould-fest disguised as a Raymond Chandler mystery.

I made it about halfway before I left the room to manage my fantasy baseball team.

Trudi didn't get much further into the film and finally became disgusted with it during a scene in which a hood brutalizes his mistress.

I, of course, had become disgusted with it much sooner.

The fact is, when a Serious Movie spends the first 15 minutes or so documenting the protagonist's efforts to feed his finicky cat, there's something wrong.

And I don't care if this is this is un hommage to Chandler, cats or quirky characterizations. It's not interesting. By the time the film got somewhere near a plot, I'd already given up on it.

Oh, and then there was the mumbling. Overlapping mumbling. A Robert Altman specialty that seems to typify his work.

As Mad Magazine's Alfred E.Neuman might say, "Ecch!"

Look, I like a bit of overlapping dialogue here and there. It worked perfectly in the original, 1951 The Thing from Another World. But Altman-directed actors always seem to be performing as if they are conversing with friends in their living rooms. Please, for the love of Ethel Merman, PROJECT!!!

Of course, that wasn't the only thing wrong, in my opinion, with the film. I though the cinematography, by the usually reliable Vilmos Zsigmond, was too murky and uninteresting, and Altman's lack of closeups made the movie cold and distant. It was hard to care about the characters, and this is a "quality" that, to my mind, informs other Altman pictures.

So you can count me out of the viewing of any further Altman extravaganzas. I know he was a much-loved director of the '70s, but I'm just not in that corner. Give me The Thing any day. Or Ethel Merman.

Dreyer's 'Passion' Fuels Faith in Silent Cinema

2010-05-16T07:11:00.006-04:00

Sometimes, you just wanna sit back and watch a good ol' silent movie.

I did that last night when I checked out Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, a film I'd heard about for years but hadn't yet seen (for no apparent reason). I chose to watch it without the accompanying musical score, as I wanted to know how good it could be in a soundless state.

Well, it was good, all right. Typical Dreyer: deliberately but not slowly paced, with a focus on faith and emotional details...though one of the surprising aspects of the film was how timeless it seemed--with its quick cuts, stark closeups and curious camera angles, Passion would be difficult to place in a particular time period if I hadn't known it came out in 1928.

Unlike, say, anything by the incredibly overrated D.W. Griffith.

Yeah, let the hate mail come in. I'm ready.

Dreyer's attention to detail and focus on facial expressions were superlative and reminded me a bit of the Eisenstein classic Alexander Nevsky. I wonder if ol' Sergei had seen Passion. I wouldn't be surprised if he had. Dreyer's less well known but almost as great a director, and the two shared, I think, many sensibilities.

As well as sterling silent-film credentials.

OK, so Rouen's cathedral doesn't look like the one in Passion. Big deal. There was greatness in the movie that transcended reality. And it was such a simple subject, too.

Not easy filmmaking, and not for the novice. This is a world that requires strong faith in the director.

But I think I have it.

'Bad' Bridges Mumbles to Imperfection in 'Heart'

2010-04-25T20:25:00.007-04:00

How I hate movies about down-and-out, once-popular performers who've hit the bottle as they've hit bottom.

Didn't we get enough of that type of thing (played for laughs, of course) in This Is Spinal Tap? I mean, do we have to go once more unto the breach with this plotjerker in Crazy Heart?

It's so easy, methinks--a device that never fails to win accolades. Which it did, of course, for Jeff Bridges, who landed an Oscar earlier this year for his mumbling, muttering performance as boozin', womanizin' country "music" has-been Bad Blake.

Oh, he's bad all right. Bad to the bone. And that's just a description of Blake's songwriting.

Which, to be fair, isn't Bridges' fault. Scott Cooper, CH's director, pads out this rather thin film with interminable musical interludes that slow down the pace greatly and provide little insight into the man, the myth that is Bad Blake.

And yet, this character's so uninteresting, I hardly care that we aren't seeing how the great genius got to be where he was...though we do get glimpses into his lying-semi-prone, half-naked-with-booze-and-a-guitar creation process.

Yeah, a regular Mozart at work, that.

The problem with CH is there really isn't much new here. Blake calls the son he never knew and is rejected by him. He hasn't written a song in years...but he does by the end of the movie.

If this doesn't get your dreary buttons blinking, I don't know what will.

Through all the cliches and uninspired music, there is some decent acting here. Old pro Robert Duvall, who apparently helped produce this flick, provides crusty support as, well, a crusty bartender. Who's seen a lot of life...or something. And Maggie Gyllenhaal is her usual reliable self as Blake's new, single-mom flame. Even Colin Farrell steps in as a new-breed singer mentored by Blake, though his character is dropped halfway through the movie, only to reappear at the end singing one of Blake's unmemorable tunes.

The movie, however, meanders too much...just like its subject. It's episodic, with a rather threadbare plot. And as Blake, Bridges is almost incomprehensible at times, summoning Marlon Brando and Tom Skerritt in a performance worthy of asking the question, "Is the TV on too low, or is this dialogue too garbled to understand?"

Not that it was interesting enough to warrant a quick rewind. The film does pick up a bit as it lopes toward the end, but by that time, it's too late. Maybe CH gets better with a few shots of moonshine, but I'd say, don't waste it.

Save it for Amadeus.

Tacky 'Titans' Takes 1D to New Low

2010-04-04T09:37:00.005-04:00

Before Trudi and I entered the movie theater to see the remake of the 1981's cheesy Clash of the Titans, a cinematic travesty of Greek mythology if there ever was one, I wondered aloud if the newest version would be worse than the old one.

We agreed. Sure, it would.

Oh, we realized that was setting the bar really, really low. But it had to be done, ya know? The old version, which had the wooden Harry Hamlin battling antiquated-looking Ray Harryhausen special effects, hardly had anything going for it...which led me to wonder why anyone would want to remake it in the first place. I mean, was there anything worth remaking?

My feeling is that someone thought, "Hey, let's update this with a lot of CGI and put Liam Neeson in as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes in as Hades, and maybe do a little research in Bulfinch's Mythology"--(Editor's note: "A little research" means "almost none at all")--"and then almost completely refrain from following the original story and make it 3D, because that's what folks like these days, right?"

Yeah...I think it went something like that.

The funny thing was, I went into the film with such low expectations that I didn't completely hate it. It was trash, sure, but at least it was short...though the dialogue was interminable, making some scenes (especially ones dealing with "back story," a now-overused Hollywood treatment that is applied to classic tales as one applies mustard to a corned-beef-on-rye sandwich) excrutiatingly tedious.

Though not as tedious as almost every bit of conversation in Nixon. That's the top tier, there, methinks.

Still, I'm a little miffed that for all the CGI and chase scenes in 2010's Clash, there was not one bit of excitement. The reason? A combination of poor direction, editing, cinematography, and perspective, plus the most important missing piece of all: caring about the characters. Not that I was expecting Charles Dickens, but any development was nil. So what we ended up with was less than a trifle. It was a pittance.

CGI chase and/or battle scenes done right are tough to do, though I believe the greatest example of this was exhibited in 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. But that was rather judicious in its treatment. Clash felt like it was rushed to the theaters in the hopes of making a Friday night showing.

It did that, all right. And how.

Whether anyone will be back, however, is another story.

On Life, Liberty and Publication

2010-02-27T07:17:00.004-05:00

The unthinkable happened to me the other day.

I was notified one of my science-fiction short stories was accepted by a magazine, and I was too excited to watch one of my favorite films that was being shown on TV: John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Of course, I have seen that movie about 20 times. But it requires concentration to enjoy it fully--especially if I wanted to introduce it to Trudi (now my official fiancee).

And I just couldn't concentrate.

But no matter; it'll be on again, and Trudi and I will have the opportunity to watch it. We've been viewing quite a few pictures recently, ranging from the superb (Sanjuro) to the painful (Bread and Chocolate) to the horrendously overrated (Doctor Zhivago). Post-acceptance, however, it has been difficult for me to get into "movie mode." I'm thinking about my story and how happy I am...as well as how long it took to get here.

I'll get back in the cinematic groove soon, to be sure. And then, perhaps, Valance will be on the shortlist.

Just like I was.

A Funny Thing Happened After I Saw 'Precious'...

2010-02-06T08:34:00.006-05:00

Imagine seeing Gabourey Sidibe and Gay Talese in the same room together...and then hearing the veteran journalist ask her an interesting but excruciatingly long-winded question relating to a recent op-ed he read in the paper.

As old-time broadcaster Mel Allen might say, "How about that?"

How about it indeed. Strangely, this improbable coincidence (or at least, that's the way it seemed) occurred after a regular showing of Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire at a movie theater down on 42nd Street, which I attended. The proceedings started when someone "took the mike" and announced that actress Sidibe, whose astounding performance in the film was the movie's bedrock, would be appearing after the film to discuss it and answer questions.

I think my companions and I were all thinking the same thing: Good thing we didn't see From Paris with Love tonight, huh?

On a more serious note, I had wanted to see Precious for a while because I knew it would be a very well-made film...though I was worried I wasn't going to be able to watch most of it owing to the horrifying subject matter, which concerns the agonizing physical, sexual and verbal abuse of an obese teenager (played by Sidibe) living in 1980s Harlem by her brutal mother (a magnificent Mo'Nique) and vile rapist father. And although I did keep my hand over my eyes for about half of the film, I'm very glad I saw it. The direction by Lee Daniels and the performances are astounding, especially Sidibe's, whose character's life seems to have permanently crashed around her, and Mo'Nique's, portraying--against type--a terror who ranks among the great screen villains of all time and makes a speech at the end that has to be seen to be believed. Although the film is a bit long and is almost impossible to watch at many points (the scenes of abuse will, I guarantee it, shock and infuriate you through your tears), it is alleviated with moments of humor and hope that imbue it with great humanity. A finely crafted film.

And of course, there was Gabby at the end to top it all off.

Wonderfully, the affable Ms. Sidibe discussed her role in the film and answered questions for about a half hour following the movie--including an inquiry from me about how much improvisation she and her co-stars did in the film. (As part of her answer, she noted that about 75 percent of the film was scripted, and much of the classroom material was improvised from the capable ensemble.) Then Gay Talese, dressed to the nines in a vibrant suit, asked Sidibe in an exceedingly tiresome fashion about whether she'd want to write a letter in response to an op-ed piece in a very well-known New York newspaper that called attention to the film's social context. Sidibe responded very well (especially off-the-cuff) to this rambling question, suggesting that the issues in Precious were universal.

No, this wasn't staged, my friends. It was a true New York moment.

Anyway, it was an extraordinary end to an extraordinary evening, and as the Oscars approach, I know whom I'm going to be rooting for.

It won't be the cast from From Paris with Love, that's for sure.

In Slicing Nobility, 'Harakiri' Hones Unkindest Cuts

2010-01-17T08:31:00.003-05:00

After watching Masaki Kobayashi's brilliant film Harakiri (aka Seppuku) recently, I'm starting to wonder why this director isn't better known.

This guy was, at his best, as visionary as Akira Kurosawa, and as much of a technician as Kenji Mizoguchi. Kobayashi has a distinct style (which includes telling camera zooms and pictorial, static images), as well as a critical voice. And nowhere is that more pronounced than in Harakiri.

This 1962 masterpiece tells the story of a ronin (masterless samurai) who visits the house of a great noble family with the intention of committing ritual suicide (harakiri or seppuku) there. Only problem is, the clan is suspicious because it had forced another such ronin who appeared on their grounds with the same intentions to do the gruesome deed, owing to the group's belief that all that individual wanted was a handout--not a "spectacular" death.

Bad move, clan dudes.

Harakiri has Kobayashi's magnificently choreographed fight scenes and beautiful cinematography, as well as an aesthetically gory ritual suicide scene, but the real highlights are the tense dialogue that carry the action, as well as an infusion of bitter irony that, to a certain extent, mirrors negative masterpieces such as John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (also 1962). Kobayashi's film seems to suggest that for some people, there's no way out of a prescribed fate--and the reason for that is a sense of duty and the rigidity of enforced code. And, like Valance, Harakiri suggests that there's a backstory to every person that determines his or her character. This is heady stuff for a chambara film...but of course, this is no ordinary chambara film. It's a movie made by one of the strongest individual talents in world cinema, who should be better known.

And better appreciated--at least, outside the circle of those who understand his genius.

Wonder of Wonders: 'Avatar' Delights

2009-12-27T13:21:00.003-05:00

As if I needed further proof of how wrong I can be about movies.

Avatar turned out to be quite a good show. Solid sci-fi, though the dialogue here and there was a bit expository and sometimes downright silly. And yes, it did appear to "borrow" elements from other films and literature, including Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and the Wachowski siblings' The Matrix, as well as proto-eco-pictures such as Silent Running.

Who cares, though. I had a jolly good time.

I didn't see it in 3D, in part because I wanted to see if the movie was good enough to stand on its own. It was. The theme of reality and whose it is was intriguing, and the world director James Cameron created on the fictitious moon Pandora, where Avatar was set, was straight out of the most brilliant, detailed sci-fi imaginations. Surprisingly, most of the script was on point, and the performances, especially Sam Worthington's, were strong. I kind of wanted to hate this film, but I couldn't. The world was too vivid. The themes were too prescient.

And I was just too wrong to dismiss it before seeing it. Silly me.

Yes, I Will Be Gnashing My Teeth at 'Avatar'

2009-12-19T08:40:00.004-05:00

After all these years, I'm still not sure why I force myself to see movies that offer "spectacle"--and little else.

I have a big feeling that James Cameron's forest-fest Avatar is going to be just that. Granted, it does have an interesting subtext (the question of reality and who "owns" it) inherent in the story about the paraplegic soldier who has another, alien persona, his "avatar," while sleeping. That's the stuff of which good science-fiction is made.

Unfortunately, I'll bet a whole box of CGI effects that the script will leave a lot to be desired.

OK, so sometimes I like Cameron's style. His 1986 actioner Aliens, I believe, surpasses the original (which, in my opinion, had too much Tom Skerritt-style mumbling, despite the frightful atmosphere). And of course, 1984's The Terminator is a classic of low-budget, high-impact film making.

I think we can safely say Avatar is not cut out of that same low-budget mold.

I just worry. I worry it's going to waste a good idea and present us with woefully stupid dialogue and situations. I worry the leads are going to be wooden and uninteresting, never mind sympathetic. And I worry that the CGI effects will overwhelm the story.

I'm sure it'll be something to see. But when I see it--and that's a when, not an if--I'm sure I'll come out griping.

What else is new?

What a Surprise: Pixar's 'Up' Didn't Let Me Down

2009-12-12T09:12:00.002-05:00

It's possible that the first 15 minutes of Pixar's latest triumph, Up, are the saddest of any animated film in history...and that includes Bambi and Watership Down.

This is no ordinary kids' movie. In fact, it's really a movie for adults disguised as a cartoon.

But it's really more than that, anyway.

Up, directed smoothly by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, is the story of an elderly widower (voiced by the amazing Ed Asner) who takes his house on a balloon trip to South America, where he yearns to see his childhood fantasyland, Paradise Falls. A significant suspension of disbelief is required when viewing this film--more so, perhaps, than any other Pixar film, even Ratatouille, which convinced me, despite my desire to resist, that rats could become great French chefs--owing to the extraordinary circumstances in the widower's life that somehow mesh together in the everyday. Still, this is a small challenge to take on...the film's rewards are much greater.

And they are myriad. A gigantic female bird named "Kevin" who squawks threateningly at anyone it dislikes but is loyal to a T. An army of "talking" dogs that serve (and eat) dinner whilst speaking in bizarre complete sentences. And, of course, the animation, as gorgeous as always, and yet highly stylized...which is part of the reason why I'm in awe of this film. This relatively "unrealistic" animation generated a movie that was much more moving than Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf or most other cartoons attempting a more fluid realism.

I'm not sure why that is, but I'll tell you: I think it has something to do with Up's initial 15 minutes.

Unpretentiously, without resorting to bathos or sentiment, this small segment tells the tale of the widower's life...and perhaps gives good reason not to judge anyone in real life by his or her cover. It's spare, sublime storytelling--much of which is done without dialogue but edited, like the great silents, with precision.

And it beats Beowulf by a mile.

I don't think Up is as structured as earlier Pixar films such as Ratatouille or Monsters, Inc.; it does feel a bit as if it's been "made up along the way" (though I suspect that's far from the truth). But its powerful sentiments and brilliant touches make it spellbinding, and I'm glad I spent the time to watch it.

I just rue the fact that I didn't bring any hankies.

Excesses Aside, 'Vikings' Proves Good Fun

2009-12-06T08:13:00.006-05:00

Richard Fleischer's 1958 Odin-fest The Vikings should have been a piece of Hollywooden trash.

Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis as Norse half-brothers? Hardy-har-har. Ernest Borgnine as a Viking leader? Excuse me while I laugh into the recesses of my horned helmet.

But lo--a funny thing happened while Trudi and I were watching this film last night: It actually was...believe it...entertaining.

To a certain degree.

Yea, verily, Trudi fell asleep during the epic castle siege toward the end...probably the best-mounted scene in the flick, though it did appear to "borrow" quite a bit of the imagery and techniques from Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, which still, in my opinion, has the greatest battle sequences in the history of film. But then again, Trudi doesn't like battle scenes. Boring, she says.

I agree...if you're watching snoozers such as Troy or Alexander.

Look, The Vikings is no great film. It's not exactly The Seven Samurai in terms of characterization. There's too much forced rowdiness from Kirk and the gang, and some of the dialogue--especially the Christian-pagan love scene between Curtis and (supposedly) English princess Janet Leigh--is a wee bit silly. Plus, the plot, which revolves around the rivalry between the slave Curtis and the Viking heir Douglas, is convoluted to the point where it diminishes the capacity to care for the characters as much as one should.

But I was kind of surprised by the excellence of the production design, as well as some of the photography (though some murky night shots were slightly off-putting). And despite the fact that some of the costumes probably weren't around in the Dark Ages (hey, Kirk, is there any film in which your sleeves aren't cut off?), there wasn't a horned helmet in sight.

At least they got that right, huh?

Anyway, most of the time I had fun watching this movie--it was spirited entertainment, and I didn't take it too seriously. Trudi, on the other hand, had a different kind of experience, as she was able to catch some Zs during the proceedings. I can't say I blame her, however; a masterpiece this wasn't. But for some good, old-fashioned, ludicrous fun, I'd say this was a good pick.

Onward and upward...

'2012' Demolishes the Grandeur that Was Earth

2009-12-02T06:38:00.004-05:00

Sometimes it seems Hell will freeze over before Roland Emmerich learns to focus on one character in his films.

2012, Emmerich's the-warnings-were-wrong-and-now-we're-screwed eco-disaster flick, is the most recent example of the director's tendency to think big and overlook the really, really important. Like a good script, for example. Or subtle performances.

Ah, no matter. That's not what you go to a disaster film for, right?

To be fair, 2012 wasn't as horrible as I expected...though it certainly wasn't good. It had all the usual stereotypes: the divorced dad who really cares for his family and somehow winds up back together with them (played with little nuance by John Cusack in his patented likable mode); the scientist (portrayed ably but thanklessly by Chiwetel Ejiofor) who really cares for humanity and doesn't want to see them wiped out by a bad script, er, the world turning into a puddle of lava and seawater; the President (interpreted with irritating bathos by Danny Glover) who decides to remain and die with everyone else, like that's gonna happen; and the evil fundraiser (!) who basically wants everyone to die so he can, er, live or something (represented by the slumming Oliver Platt). And the special effects--the film's selling point--were generally impressive, though a few screens, uh, seams appeared to show here and there, which mitigated the impact somewhat.

But oh, the script. 'Twas yucky. And the focus, or lack thereof, on multiple characters made it impossible to care about anyone. That was a problem Emmerich faced in movies such as Independence Day, though that picture had a bit of character to go along with all the jingoistic nonsense. I'd like to see a disaster film that, for once, homes in on one protagonist, rather than a multitude.

I know, however, that'll probably only happen when Hell freezes over. I'm fine with that--I can wait.

At Least 'Ruins' Had Some Nice Scenery

2009-11-28T08:15:00.004-05:00

When a good movie tells me the world is flat, I believe it.

When a bad movie tells me the world is round, I don't.

Such was the case with My Life in Ruins, director Donald Petrie's dreadful Nia Vardalos vehicle from earlier this year--perhaps the most disingenuous film I've seen in 2009. Certainly, it had all the ingredients for an enjoyable flick: a breezy cast (including the effervescent Vardalos, who was so terrific in 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as well as Richard Dreyfuss and a host of other character actors), a glorious setting (the lovely streets and architecture, old and new, of Athens) and a potentially charming little plot (wannabe college professor Vardalos works as tour guide for crummy company and finds love in a surprising place).

Unfortunately, nothing worked. And I think I figured out why.

Vardalos didn't write it.

Perhaps that would've made all the difference, as it did in the cute MBFGW. Because the biggest problem with Ruins is its flat, cardboard script, generated by someone named Mike Reiss. The laughs are minimal; the bathos is apparent. Worst of all, the flick descends into what I call the "friends syndrome," an ailment that usually affects bad romantic comedies by providing the protagonists with supposedly empathetic friends who do little but support their buddies during their amorous adventures. In the case of Ruins, this job falls to Dreyfuss, playing a crude, obnoxious widower tourist with a big heart and a lot of cheesy advice on love that trickles out of him like butter oozing from chicken Kiev.

As Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman would say, "Ecch!"

Sadly, Reiss and director Petrie paint Dreyfuss' character, as well as the others, in two dimensions rather than three. I just didn't care, and the purported development--in which Vardalos discovers the wisecracking Duddy, I mean Dreyfuss, to be suffering owing to his wife's recent demise--rings fake. This becomes especially appalling when the film enters The Bathetic Zone, after Dreyfuss' alter kocker is hospitalized (presumably for overacting) and then is visited by his entire tour group.

Come on, folks. Does every lousy romcom have to descend to this purportedly "dramatic" madness?

Oddly enough, the film Ruins most reminded me of was the dismal With Honors, another disingenuous flick that encouraged us to care about its tiresome, unpleasant characters while providing a Doomed Wise Man (in WH's case, played in the most over-the-top manner by Joe Pesci) as a dramatic crutch. Same treatment, different setting.

And I guess that was the element that elevated Ruins to a height just above the usual dreck. Trudi and I enjoyed watching the shots of Greece and figured if the movie comprised solely that, it would be a much greater film.

Maybe we should've just watched the Travel Channel. Eh bien.

On Family, Loss and 'Mother Night'

2009-11-21T08:17:00.002-05:00

I think my cousin's matured into a fine filmmaker.

That was my reaction after seeing Mother Night, director Keith Gordon's adaptation of the eponymous Kurt Vonnegut novel. Gordon, an auteur who these days works primarily in TV, is a director whose works have intrigued me for some time--dating back to his interesting 1988 adaptation of the Robert Cormier book The Chocolate War.

Of course, there's another reason why his films have been on my radar. He's my cousin...although, admittedly, one I've never met.

Strangely enough, my ex-wife once admitted having a crush on Gordon during his days as an actor, when he starred in movies such as Christine and Back to School. Not sure if that has something to do with the distinctive visages so prevalent on my mother's side (the area of the family whence Gordon came), but I thought it was an interesting aside.

What's more interesting, however, is the talent that Gordon has summoned up--both internally and externally--for Mother Night, a film I wasn't prepared to like.

The story, concerning an American playwright (played superbly by Nick Nolte) who is recruited during World War II as a double-agenty spy in an effort to transmit code disguised as anti-Semitic rants from Germany to the United States, has a fascinating subtext: that of lost identity, and the ingratitude following anonymous service. Gordon films the proceedings sumptuously, in painterly tones, switching to black-and-white at times a la Lindsay Anderson's If..... The ironic quality of the tale is enhanced by some excellent, solemn music by Michael Convertino that seems to echo Javier Navarrete's score for Pan's Labyrinth. But the real star is the script, adapted wonderfully by Robert B. Weide from Vonnegut's work. It's a dark, melancholy screenplay, negative but not inhuman, and cognizant of the inextricable forces that bind people within unwinnable situations. It's very nicely done.

Which is not to say that there aren't any issues with the film. It's not completely clear why Nolte's character, Howard Campbell, takes the spy role in the first place, as he admits to being a man without politics. And Gordon sometimes gets a bit too fancy with his direction, especially in a scene between Campbell and his recruiter in which the camera circles the duo as it did in Hitchcock's Vertigo...albeit with less intrigue. (I have to admit: I'm not a big fan of the ever-popular camera-circling technique, as I feel it generally detracts from the goings-on in the scene.)

Still, Mother Night is a distinctive, unusual work and deserves to be better known. I'd say my cousin has grown up a lot from his days in Back to School. But that's what happens with talent: It matures with age. Now we have to see where it goes from here.

'Rififi' Proves Me Wrong Once Again

2009-11-17T19:22:00.003-05:00

This might be the 2,000th time I've been off base about a great movie.

For some reason, I was under the mistaken impression that the downbeat ending of Jule Dassin's 1955 jewel-heist thriller en francais Rififi would make for gloomy evening viewing.

Boy, was I wrong.

What a masterpiece. Just brilliant. I had last seen it many years ago and remembered the daring half-hour robbery scene that features no dialogue and only incidental sound, but that was only one part of this terrific film...though it was as extraordinary as ever. The frank dialogue, vivid characterizations and ugly realism were striking, and the wonderful music (by Georges Auric, who also did the superb score for Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete, among others) and gorgeous, stark black-and-white photography (by Philippe Agostini, whose shots reminded me of Robert Krasker's stunning lenswork in The Third Man and Odd Man Out) augmented the picture. And yes, the ending was downbeat, but warranted within the context of the film; instead of having a negative effect, it had a positive one...like all great movies do.

And that's the purpose of watching a good movie, isn't it? To be uplifted?

A bad movie makes me feel, well, bad. A good movie makes me elated.

Rififi did just that.

So next time, I think I'll ignore any inner voice that tells me to avoid a great film just because of its ending. The path that gets me there is worth the cost.

And I'm all about the road that should be taken.

Lock Up Your Baubles: 'Rififi' Is Up Next

2009-11-15T17:47:00.003-05:00

Here it is, the original jewel-heist-gone-awry movie...and I just can't bear to watch it.

Yes, Jules Dassin's 1955 classic Rififi has landed, en Francais, at chez Butler, fresh from the halls of Netflix. I haven't seen it in years, though I remember it with a fondness, especially the fabled "no talking" theft sequence.

The trouble is, I also remember the ending, which is a real downer. Warranted in the context of the film, of course, but not happy.

I don't wanna see "not happy" tonight.

OK, so I've been slumming a bit. Last evening, I saw a bit of Mark Lester's 1985 squib-fest Commando, which happened to be on cable and was one of the films that required the least amount of thought at 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. There were no concerns about the amount of melancholy in that flick--especially since I didn't care about the characters enough to worry about whether things would turn out all right in the end. (Not that it matters.)

That was then, however. This is...now.

UPDATE: Trudi has just informed me that she wants to see Rififi. Looks like we're gonna watch it tonight. I'll keep you posted.

Dialing 'S' for 'Stagy'

2009-11-13T06:55:00.003-05:00

When will everyone start to realize that Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 thriller Dial M for Murder just isn't the classic that it should be?

Sure, it has Grace Kelly, luminous as always. Sure it has a terrific murder scene featuring a strategically placed scissors. Sure it has some great camerawork and quintessentially Hitch angles (such as the "I'm Looking at the Action from Above" perspective).

But unfortunately, the film never works for me--perhaps because it's derived from the eponymous play by Frederick Knott (who also wrote the script). And I can't get past the fact that the action in the film almost always seems stage-bound, as if all the tricks in Hitch's book couldn't make the goings-on cinematic.

One thing I noticed on my most recent viewing of DMFM is that there are some interesting long takes that feature a heckuva lot of talking. And I mean a lot. This is a Hitchy-like thing to do as well; after all, he featured it in 1948's Rope. But Rope seems like more of an experiment, while DMFM just makes the impression (at least on me) that it's a misfire. It's too stagy, too confined. It seems the actors aren't allowed to breathe like they often do in the Master's greatest films.

And yet--although I don't have the statistics to prove it--DMFM seems to come up on TV more frequently than The 39 Steps or The Lady Vanishes...two Hitchcock classics that use dialogue in the best, freest way possible, are completely cinematic (despite some camera trickery used to convey location) and are among the director's best films.

Something's rotten in the state of TV, methinks. But what else is new?

Settling Down with Wallace, Gromit

2009-11-07T06:51:00.006-05:00

Revisiting animator Nick Park's extraordinary Wallace and Gromit shorts is like watching a great Bugs Bunny cartoon for the first time since your childhood.

You marvel at the subtlety of the animation: the movements, the camerawork. You relish the fine characterization that makes the flick come alive.

And you wonder why you ever stopped watching the thing in the first place.

That's how it was after re-viewing Park's triumvirate of terrific W&G shorts with Trudi: A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave. These beautiful films, which I had seen for the first time in the 1990s at Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation in New York, are little masterpieces--classic romps in which the cheese-obsessed, slightly dotty inventor Wallace and his faithful dog, Gromit (one of the greatest, most expressive silent characters in film, in my opinion...on a par with Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati, despite the dog's animated aspect) visit the moon, take in a paying (penguin) guest and explore the world of sheep rustling, respectively.

If you haven't experienced these worlds before, I envy you. You still have a first time to do it.

And if you have viewed them previously, I encourage you to revisit them. I think I'll do so every so often, from now on. Everything--from Park's superb modelwork to the charming, almost-too-good-for-a-cartoon scores by Julian Nott--works brilliantly, and you'll be as satisfied at the end of each film as you'd be following a date with an old friend over tea.

With some fine Wensleydale cheese, of course. I think Bugs Bunny would approve of that.

We Came, We Saw, We Discussed (Kurosawa)

2009-10-25T08:16:00.003-04:00

Well, I have to commend Trudi. It didn't take much from me to convince her to watch Akira Kurosawa's 1957 Macbeth adaptation Throne of Blood. In fact, it was the viewing of a miserable Hans Conreid fantasy called The Twonky on Turner Classic Movies (!) that led us both to put on TOB, which I had received recently from Netflix.

The good news: We watched the entire film together. The bad news: Trudi didn't like it very much.

So was I disappointed? A bit--but not too much. This is a different movie from The Emperor's The Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, both of which Trudi enjoyed. TOB is deliberately stylized, a la the Noh theater from which it draws much of its inspiration, and the fact that the story was known to Trudi made the proceedings less suspenseful (though I pointed out that it was not a literal translation, and the Grand Guignol-type ending is more Kurosawa than Shakespeare). And yes, Univarn, you're absolutely right: It probably would've been better to launch into more accessible Kurosawas, such as High and Low, Stray Dog or The Bad Sleep Well.

I have a confession, however, to make: I'm a sucker for jidai-geki, and I've always liked Kurosawa's period pieces better than his modern ones. So TOB it was.

I do give credit to Trudi for sitting through it, though. It's certainly not an easy one to watch, though it's quite rewarding. On this viewing, I revisited my amazement at some of Kurosawa's brilliant touches: a bleached white spirit weirdly running through the forest; a mass of birds flying into a castle room after escaping from the trees; and, of course, the famous final scene in which Toshiro Mifune's weak, ambitious Washizu/Macbeth gets perforated with a multitude of arrows.

It still works. And it's still the best onscreen adaptation, in my opinion, of Macbeth. Somehow, Kurosawa understood the pessimistic, misanthropic nature of the play, and was able to translate it brilliantly to the screen in another context.

But don't worry, Trudi--that's enough Shakespeare for now. I'll make sure my queue in Netflix has something that's easier to digest up next, like Julie Taymor's adaptation of Titus Andronicus.

Just kidding, Trudi.

Uh, Oh: 'Throne of Blood' Is Up Next

2009-10-23T06:57:00.002-04:00

There are two parts to watching Akira Kurosawa's 1957 masterpiece Throne of Blood. Part one, the easy part, is merely playing the DVD. Part two, the hard part, is convincing Trudi to watch it with me.

Ah...there's the rub.

I know, I know--wrong play. TOB, of course, is based on Macbeth, and it's probably the definitive screen adaptation, despite the fact that it's not a literal translation. Still, it's a movie with quite a bit of violence (especially toward the end), and because Trudi is not enamored of films with battle scenes, this will be a hard sell. I'll probably have to tell her it's not your ordinary chambara film, and there's little in the way of war action (unlike Kurosawa's King Lear adaptation, Ran). In truth, TOB is wonderfully eerie, pessimistic and evocative film, complete with weird mist and freaky ghosts, along with some extraordinary set pieces...such as the famously gruesome ending. And Trudi has good taste in movies, which tells me that she would like this one.

I'll just tone down the nasty bits when I pitch it to her. Here's hoping!

I Admit It: I Watched 'Rambo' Last Night

2009-10-18T08:52:00.003-04:00

But only (in general) during commercial interludes following Yankees gameplay.

Why did I do this? Well, I knew Rambo--the 2008 Sylvester Stallone-directed CGI squibfest, not the, uh, "classic" 1985 version--would be too ludicrous for me to care about missing certain segments during the Yankees-Angels game...making the film perfect for post-midnight viewing. I also knew I wouldn't expend any brain cells needed to concentrate on the strategies exhibited by Halos manager Mike Scioscia and Bronx Bombers skipper Joe Girardi.

Boy, was I right. And how.

I can't say I was disappointed by the movie--especially because I had such low expectations (which were fulfilled)--but I was aggrieved at one thing in particular: the sheer laziness of the flick. It was almost proudly derivative, "borrowing" elements from movies ranging from The Seven Samurai to The Dirty Dozen. Yet the most egregious affront was the Peckinpah-esque body count, a blood cell buildup that seemed to take its cue from the orgiastic finale of The Wild Bunch...though without the contextual ideology that made the latter film so powerful. As extra after extra in Rambo got his head blown off by the eponymous, stone-faced Stallone character, I had to wonder why Sly felt like viewers should see this. To become aghast at the horrors of war? To admire the technical expertise of the special-effects team behind all this splatter?

Or to relish, without conscience, death--presented in great detail--on the ruby screen?

Sadly, the indiscriminate carnage points to the latter. There was no comment here, no subtext, a la The Wild Bunch. It was just violence. Years ago, that might've been the exact criticism levied against Peckinpah, with the suggestion that his style glorified such mayhem. But Peckinpah's films had a strangely intellectual bent underneath all the machismo, and The Wild Bunch's (mostly) unsavory characters had a loyalty and ennui that still got us involved...and made us care.

In Rambo, it was just bloodshed. Without a purpose.

Good thing I stayed up to finish the Yankees game. Otherwise, I might've been dreaming about bad filmmaking rather than good playmaking.

Deja Vu: 'Time' Sputters Again at Casa Butler

2009-10-11T08:35:00.002-04:00

Ever watch a lousy movie more than once just to see if you were right the first time you saw it?

I did just that the other day with Simon Wells' 2002 muddlepiece The Time Machine. Despite the fact that I hated it after seeing it when it came out and I continued to hate it on subsequent viewings, I decided to view it again with the thought that "hey, it couldn't be as bad as I remembered it, right?"

Right? Wrong.

Never mind that director Wells is the great-grandson of Time Machine author H.G. Wells. Actually, mind that. He really has no excuse.

But would his famous great-grandfather agree?

I'm not so sure about that, though methinks he'd have to quibble with the outrageously tedious back story that seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of stretching out the younger Wells' adaptation of what is a very short but concise book. (This seemingly endless prologue has something to do with the the New York-based protagonist, played lethargically by Guy Pearce, mourning the death of his girlfriend.) And he's probably have a bit of a beef with the depiction of the Eloi as a competent, eloquent race of humans that lives in wicker tree houses designed, seemingly, by migratory Ewoks.

Yeah, uh, that doesn't sound like the story envisioned by old H.G.

Sadly, despite some interesting special effects and production design (the memory of which probably lured me back to this adaptation the other day in the first place), this Time Machine doesn't get past first base. It's not even close in quality to George Pal's 1960 interpretation, which still didn't approach the book in terms of economy and imagination. And the script in Wells' film is just bad. Bad, bad, bad. Watching the Eloi interact with Pearce's Time Traveller is so tiresome that the viewer can't help but wait for the Morlocks to come...and it turns out they're not so interesting anyway. (They kind of look like a cross between Crazy Harry the Muppet and the dragon from The NeverEnding Story.) And then, when Jeremy Irons--playing a white-haired Morlock dictator who seems to have wandered in from the Rivendell set of The Fellowship of the Ring--appears, it's too little, too late (though he remains the best thing in the film, despite the fact that he, like so much else in the movie, is not an invention of the book).

So what did I learn from watching this wretched Time Machine for the umpth time? Well...I learned that sometimes the viewer can be right the first time. I also learned that I should change the channel rather than stick with something I know I'm gonna hate. Gee, I wish I could get those two hours returned to me.

If I could turn back time...

And Now the Kvetching Starts

2009-10-09T06:21:00.002-04:00

It's high time we retired zombie movies and vampire TV shows.

I'm just not much of a fan. There's only so much you can do with mindless monsters and bottled blood.

And there's only so much you can do with using these entities to make comments on society.

Look, we've had a rash of that type of thing in recent years, and it has begun to get tired. When Don Siegel and George Romero were doing it in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Night of the Living Dead, respectively, it was interesting. Novel.

At about the 2,468th time, however, it stops being funny.

Now don't get me wrong. I (somewhat) enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, though I didn't think it was a laugh riot. But I'm getting the feeling that these types of films are a bit too "easy" for their makers. They don't take many risks. They cover similar ground: attacks on consumerism, mindless mob mentalities, and blase, jaded or bemused reactions to supernatural activity in urban or suburban environments. Or they try to present otherworldly creatures as character-driven folks who just wanna blend in with everyone else (a la True Blood).

I don't hate to admit it, but I'm just not into this kinda thing.

The other big problem, in my opinion, with these types of monster-hugging media is that zombies and vampires are severely limited in terms of character--owing to their very natures. There's only so much you can do with a personality who can't go out in the light, drinks blood (or brains) and smiles sharper than a saber-toothed cat. Because they're in part defined by their "monster-ness," they exhibit a similarity that relegates them to a kind of flatness. They have few prospects for change, unlike the great characters in film or literature. (I'm thinking, for example, of J.J. Gittes in Chinatown or Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities.)

They have, in my opinion, become cookie-cutter.

And that's why I'm not itching to see the aggressively tongue-in-cheek Zombieland. Or why I don't quiver at the mention of Twilight, True Blood or The Vampire Diaries.

I like my horror with a touch of the eerie, a la Kwaidan or Night of the Demon. It's all about character-infused atmosphere, methinks. Not zombies or vampires.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Consarn It, Another Burton 'Vision' Is Upon Us

2009-10-04T09:13:00.006-04:00

There's a storm a-comin'. And it's not gonna be one of those storms where those caught in it sing about how they like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.

It's a storm of Tim Burton "visions." You know--like his tedious interpretation of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Or his infantile remake of 1968's classic sci-fi flick Planet of the Apes. Or his atrocious adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Now, it's a new film version of Lewis Carroll's children's book Alice in Wonderland. With Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

Be afraid, folks. Be very afraid.

What I'm wondering is how Burton gets money to do these wretched films. And who lets him "augment" the tales with tiresome back stories and leaden expository content that purport to provide the audience with rationales for the protagonists' behavior.

As well as how this once-talented director has succumbed to the scourge of mediocrity.

I thought Beetle Juice was imaginative. I found much of Ed Wood to be intriguing.

I do not find overdoses of Johnny Depp to be palatable.

Granted, the Alice cast--aside from Johnny Depp--is formidable, carrying stalwarts such as Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry and Christopher Lee (as the Jabberwock, no less). And we are allowed to wait until next year before we're thumped with this film.

But I'm worried. I know it's gonna be horrible. And I can't say Alice doesn't faze me anymore.

It does. I'm afraid. Very afraid.

Yea, Verily, Yea: 'Jester' Still Draws Laughs

2009-10-01T06:35:00.002-04:00

I have fond memories of Melvin Frank and Norman Panama's 1956 Danny Kaye vehicle The Court Jester from my childhood. Indeed, my sister and I still quote lines from it every so often...perhaps as a way of showing that we remain kids at heart.

So I deliberately pitched the movie as a silly bit of froth to Trudi before showing it to her last night--an effort to create relatively low expectations that would balloon once she realized how funny the film is.

I think my scheme worked. Trudi, like Garbo, laughed.

Of course, it's not hard to laugh at Kaye's antics in TCG, perhaps his most consistently funny movie (yes, even over Knock on Wood, which has a bunch of sublime moments but overall is driven by a bit too much "serious" plot for my taste). TCG, a hilarious and well-mounted spoof of swashbucklers such as 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood (hey, it even has Basil Rathbone in it!), gives Kaye the opportunity to all of his most silly bits, such as linguistic torture, patter songs and impersonations of congested old men. But the film is most remembered for the "get it, got it, good" exchanges and the memorable "flagon with the dragon" debacle...lines that invariably end up in viewers' repertoires of quotable quotes.

Still, Kaye doesn't accomplish all this singlehandedly: Angela Lansbury, Cecil Parker and gravel-voiced Glynis Johns all turn in amusing performances, and Rathbone, whose name keeps turning up ominously in the opening credits, does his usual fine work as the (usual) villain. Frank and Panama, who also wrote the film, keep up a lively pace, though some of the "serious" moments tend to drag. (No one, in my opinion, goes to a Kaye movie for plot, just as no one watches a Marx Brothers flick just for the singing.) Thankfully, the "serious" moments are few and far between...something I believe Trudi appreciated.

Yea, verily, yea.

Surprises Await in 'God Grew Tired of Us'

2009-09-29T08:02:00.005-04:00

I'm not sure how Trudi picked this one on Netflix. Frankly, I never know what's next in her queue until the film arrives at our apartment.

Well, to quote The Beatles, I should've known better. Because Trudi's latest pick, God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of Lost Boys of Sudan, is an extraordinary film that shouldn't have slipped under my rather insular radar. But I'm glad I saw it late rather than never. And I urge all my readers, if they haven't already, to do the same.

GGTOU tells the story of Sudan's Lost Boys, a group of kids who, amidst the terror of war, were forced to migrate, on foot, from Sudan to Ethiopia and then to Kenya--all the while undergoing unimaginable horrors that no person, let alone a child, should experience. These boys finally reached shelter at a camp in Kenya, though not without cost: Starvation, disease and the evils of war claimed many children along the way, and the boys learned to bury their comrades at an early age. The camp, a United Nations facility, served as a means for the boys to become friends and family to each other, as many were orphaned during the Sudanese conflict, but the camp had limited food, and survival remained a struggle.

Then some of the boys got the opportunity through the camp to make a new home in the United States. And that's when a different kind of struggle emerged for them.

The film, directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn (who also wrote it) and Tommy Walker, focuses on three Lost Boys: Panther, John and Daniel. John, a tall, sensitive young man, settles in Syracuse, N.Y., while Panther and Daniel head to Pittsburgh. Initially, there is a sense of relief when watching their transition to America following the horrors they endured in Sudan, and there's even some amusing moments as they grow acclimated to staples such as refrigerators and supermarkets.

But the amusement stops once the Lost Boys get jobs and begin to support themselves...and start thinking of home.

The film carries a sad subtext. Only a select few of these youths were tapped to journey to America, and many of their friends were left behind in the camp. The loneliness and sadness that Panther, John and Daniel face are expressed quite frankly in the film, but one of the questions that arises is why no mental health services were provided to them following their arrival in the States? There's even a scene in the movie that outlines how one of the boys went through what appeared to be a nervous breakdown and had to be placed under observation. These kids saw what no one should see, all the while maintaining a responsibility for each other that would be unthinkable in the U.S. The stress of that burden must've been immense. So why weren't any professionals assigned to these youths in an effort to ease their transition to the States and assuage any feelings of loneliness and despondence?

One of GGTOU's other issues--this time, in terms of the quality of the film making itself--is that the narration, by Nicole Kidman, is delivered in a monotone that seems designed to call as little attention as possible to her involvement in the documentary. It seems a bit disingenuous; as long as her voice is there, wouldn't it make sense to use all of its nuances and inflections to the fullest possible extent? In this reviewer's opinion, that would've given the proceedings even more power...though it could be argued that narration was hardly necessary in the first place, owing to the nature of this tremendously powerful subject.

Thankfully, GGTOU doesn't pull any punches in its depiction of the boys' struggles--overseas or in America. The graphic, horrifying images of war and starvation in Sudan that are shown early on in the film contrast with the youths' gallant attempts to support themselves, as well as their remaining families and friends, with terribly low wages from jobs that they often take two or three of just to make ends meet. And there are many ethereal moments in the film, especially toward the end, when we follow the boys' successes in their fields, as well as their outreaches toward family members and girlfriends.

But ultimately, GGTOU's effect is sobering: It calls attention to war's terrible impact on innocents--a disaster that is still occurring--and shows that despite the fact that some may be saved, the struggles will continue...unless action on a worldwide scale is taken to address the conflict. I thank Trudi for putting this one on Netflix. I wouldn't have known of it without her doing so, and that would've been my loss.

Warm, Fuzzy Feelings Get Trampled in 'District 9'

2009-09-27T07:06:00.003-04:00

I think the era of cute, friendly aliens, a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial--is finally over.

Neill Blomkamp's District 9, a nightmarish, what-if vision of an Earth that treats its first visitors from outer space like rats carrying the plague, shows that our cynical, suspicious society could fashion a distinctly unpleasant welcome for extraterrestrials on first contact...sans charming hand signals and Francois Truffaut. District 9 presents a scenario in which alien refugees, arriving in a massive ship above Johannesburg, South Africa, at an unidentified date in the future, are shuttled into filthy refugee camps as the government decides what to do with them and derisively called "prawns"--a reference to their crustacean-like features. Enter scruffy, officious Wikus Van De Merwe (played magnificently by Sharlto Copley), a pencil-pusher charged with evicting these otherworldly visitors from their homes, a procedure he appears to do with relish until...

Well, I won't tell you. But it's worth noting that this film has a fish-out-of-water flavor reminiscent of Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451, mixed with the claustrophobic nastiness and bloody action of Aliens.

The most interesting aspect of District 9 is its political subtext--a hardly veiled-at-all comment on apartheid that is made more apparent when one considers the setting for the film: Johannesburg. The aliens themselves are presented as, well, aliens...with highly unusual and often disgusting predilections. (Eating rubber from tires, rummaging through garbage and unnecessarily wearing brassieres are among these extraterrestrials' favorite pastimes, apparently.) The fact that these visitors are so unappealing (especially considering their spiky appendages and aggressive behavior) makes the film so much more complex; the creatures, assumedly created with the help of New Zealand's WETA Workshop (the brains behind the special effects featured in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which District 9 co-producer Peter Jackson directed), are insect-like and dirty-looking, and speak a muttering, click-heavy language that constantly seems to suggest expressions such as "buzz off" no matter what the context.

So how can we feel for these creatures if, to paraphrase Dr. Zira in 1968's Planet of the Apes, they're "so damned ugly"?

There's the rub. These creatures are not E.T. But they are sentient, and the violence and humiliation they endure in District 9 is enough to make a viewer gasp--despite the fact that it's all (admittedly well done) makeup and CGI special effects. And that's the comment, I believe, Blomkamp is making about apartheid...or any other inhumane mistreatment levied against other people: Can one feel for another whom one doesn't understand and who represents an unfamiliar culture? Can the "other" be welcomed into society without being put down and discriminated against?

And could this be a likely scenario in case we ever achieve first contact?

It's a heady perception, and although the film at times degenerates into action-movie cliches and overly animated hand-held-camera wobbling, the subtext is a powerful one. Blomkamp's film has a lot of heart, and that's something much of the best science fiction has as well.

Not to mention green, creepy aliens. Eat your heart out, Close Encounters.

'Cartouche' Ending Not So Bad After All

2009-09-26T09:17:00.002-04:00

Well, I wasn't disappointed--as I'd been in the past.

The ending of Philippe de Broca's 1962 swashbuckler Cartouche, which I finally got around to revisiting last night, wasn't as bad as I'd remembered it. Sure, it was a downer, but it was sensitively handled. My only complaint this time around was that it seemed a bit abrupt.

As opposed to the rest of the film, which was a brawling, thrilling delight.

I wonder if the unhappy (though now that I think about it as an older man, somewhat fitting) ending has led in part to the film's relative anonymity in the United States. After all, we like our swashbucklers happy and peppy--adventures as comedies, where everybody who deserves to wins in the end.

It was not so with Cartouche. C'est dommage. This film deserves to be better known.

La Vie en Rogue: 'Cartouche' Prevails Despite Zs

2009-09-23T09:53:00.003-04:00

So sue me. I'm a lot older than I used to be (as is everyone, of course), and that means I just can't stay up until the wee hours merely to watch a good movie.

At least, not as often.

That was the case last night with Cartouche, Philippe de Broca's exuberant, swashbuckling romp from 1962, which Trudi and I watched about a third of before heading off to catch some Zs. With terrific, colorful cinematography by Christian Matras, a stunning, Purcell-esque score by Georges Delerue, and charming performances by the likes of Jean-Paul Belmondo, Claudia Cardinale and Jean Rochefort, Cartouche has got what it takes to be one of those relatively unknown classics.

Except it has a really downbeat ending...which I didn't get a chance to revisit last night, owing to the soporific atmosphere at La Maison de Simon Butler.

What I did see, however, was "cherce." The story in part concerns a lovable, lower-class thief in 18th-century France, Cartouche (played disarmingly by the roguish Belmondo), who, to escape the villainous mob boss Malichot (a menacing Marcel Dalio), joins the army with two other no-goodniks (Rochefort and Jess Hahn), and then proceeds to return to his thieving ways. Trudi and I got as far as a superbly choreographed fight scene set in a tavern, in which broad slapstick was juxtaposed with delicate swordplay among Belmondo and a set of upper-class twits, and then we had to exeunt omnes.

Oh, well. Looks like we'll finish it later...perhaps tonight?

So far, the movie is even better than I remember it, which may be setting me up for disappointment once I review the ending. Still, it's got many exciting moments, including a bit of anti-war sentiment that echoes de Broca's 1966 cult classic, Le Roi de Coeur. (Two generals even kill each other in the heat of battle, which also happens, ironically, toward the end of LRDC.) I'm looking forward to seeing the rest--whenever that may be. I'm also looking forward to staying up to finish it.

That might be a much taller order.

Up Next on Netflix: 'Cartouche'

2009-09-20T07:45:00.002-04:00

Wow. Talk about obscure.

Philippe de Broca's relatively unknown 1962 swashbuckler Cartouche is on tap for my (and, hopefully, my significant other's) viewing pleasure...and I'm still wondering why I put this one up so high in my queue. After all, I've always hated the ending--a real downer to an otherwise charming and exciting film.

And, no, it's not a warranted, dramatically necessary cinematic downer a la Carol Reed's magnificent The Third Man. In fact, it's completely pointless.

So I'm going to have to ask myself a question I've asked throughout (seemingly) eternity: If a flick is good almost all the way through but sputters at the end, can it still be considered a good film?

Another example of this is Nicolas Roeg's 1973 suspenser Don't Look Now. Wonderful stuff...until the ludicrous, frustrating ending.

How do I come to terms with these fundamentally flawed movies?

I'll have to watch Cartouche again to see if my tastes have changed. I'm not optimistic that they have...but you never know.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

Death Be Not Proud of 'Final Destination'

2009-09-18T02:35:00.004-04:00

Look, I'm as much for Death as the next guy. After all, it's gonna happen to me...er, sometime.

But I'm a little perplexed by Death's career choices. After headlining four Final Destination flicks, he's made it clear he's only in it for the money.

Which brings me to an interesting question: Do I have to see all installments of the franchise to know that it's a lousy, cheap-o set of movies?

Or can I just go by instinct on this one?

By the pricking of my thumbs/Something stupid this way comes.

Oddly enough, I have tried watching at least two of these wretched movies on TV: numeros deux et trois in the series. Needless to say, I was appalled by the ludicrous situations, horrible acting and dreadful writing. But the most offensive thing was the franchise's irritating insistence on personifying Death, who, in his apparent annoyance over being cheated by a bunch of earnest young actors, has devised countless gory ways of getting back at them.

Death, what are you, slumming or something? Don't you have anything better to do?

The fact is, I've embarked on this rant because I'm chagrined that the fourth installment in this painfully obvious series, The Final Destination (hopefully), has been advertised ad nauseam over the airwaves of late in an effort to get undiscerning moviegoers to the theaters. Frankly, this critic would rather have his brains squeezed out by a cheese press than pay 12 smackeroos for the vile jelly that is TFD.

Of course, that may be in the plans for me anyway. Maybe I can get a rain check.

Title-Challenged Films Should 'Meet' Their Maker

2009-09-16T11:19:00.004-04:00

I've now had it with terrible film titles.

Although the dreadful trend of releases with "Meet the" in their monikers appears to have fizzled out (at least for the time being, thank goodness!), the world now has a new enemy: "All About" flicks.

I kid you not. This is truly an insidious pattern.

Take All About Steve, for instance--a universally panned dud starring Sandra Bullock (who should know better than to do this dreck) and Bradley Cooper (who may find himself knowing better after seeing the reactions to this movie). What does the title actually tell us about the movie...other than it's a riff on the 1950 classic Bette Davis picture All About Eve? My theory is that junky flicks of this ilk depend on titles that say nothing about the proceedings...as they're low-concept initiatives with limited, simple (or, rather, simplistic) plots. This applies to such cinematic horrors as Meet the Parents and its cheap-laughathon sequel, Meet the Fockers, as well as to bargain-basement "parodies" such as Meet the Spartans. And let's not forget the prolific Tyler Perry, who regaled us last year with Meet the Browns.

Exciting stuff, huh? Makes you just wanna rush out and spend 12 bucks on these classics.

A good movie title, IMHO, should tempt the potential viewer without giving away too much. But it shouldn't say too little, either...or nothing at all. Films such as The Exterminating Angel, The Hidden Fortress and Kind Hearts and Coronets not only promise interesting content, but also live up to their potential appeal--and each one of these pictures provides some insight into its title when viewers watch it.

So...are the days of good titles gone already? Come on--I hardly knew ye.

I guess I should be optimistic...after all, if Quentin Tarantino can weirdly misspell a 30-year-old movie title for his own Inglourious Basterds, there must be some creativity left. Then again, if we've come to the age of "All About" flicks because it's easier to slap on a movie than a moniker that offers a real perspective, then it's time for me to eschew the popcorn at the movie theater for a nice big cup of fake butter.

Cheap's to the cheap, right?

Bax, Newton Still Steal Show in Lean's 'Twist'

2009-09-13T08:42:00.003-04:00

After watching David Lean's sinewy 1948 masterpiece Oliver Twist last night, I was struck by the fact that it seemed somewhat more heavily cut than Lean's other post-war Dickens adaptation, 1946's Great Expectations--a work of remarkable economy, especially considering the length of the original book. Strangely, I hadn't felt that way about Twist on previous viewings; I have never read the source material (as opposed to GE) and am admittedly ignorant about the full scope of the tale.

This time, however, Twist seemed more choppy than it had before...though not on account of its quality. As an atmospheric piece depicting 19th-century England, the film has few competitors: the production design is impeccable, and the casting--from the epic Francis L. Sullivan as the pompous Mr. Bumble to the wild-eyed Robert Newton (in the film's best and most frightening performance) as the evil Bill Sikes--is nearly perfect. (The criticism of anti-Semitism levied against Alec Guinness' performance as the schnoz-enhanced Fagin may be somewhat valid, owing in part to the ludicrousness of the appendage, but Guinness has finely tuned the character, and my question is: Is Fagin really any more villainous than Sikes, Bumble, Monks or any of the other nasties in the story? I say no.) Plus, the score, by Sir Arnold Bax, is eerie, brassy and very English, striking all the right notes of menace and innocence at the appropriate times.

Lean, though an accomplished editor, apparently did not work his magic on this version of Twist, and perhaps it would've been a very different film if he had. Still, there's a lot to like, from the scary opening sequence involving Twist's mother in the storm to Sikes' terrifying entrance. From a technical perspective, all is very high quality, but from a literary one, it seems there's something missing. Perhaps I'm lamenting the lack of gilding on this lily...it wouldn't be the first time--or, for that matter, the last.

All Right, I've Had Enough of 'Marked for Death'

2009-09-07T11:19:00.004-04:00

Can someone tell me please why Steven Seagal remains popular?

Or, for that matter, why his 1990 magnum opus, Marked for Death, shows up more often than The Seven Samurai on cable?

Or--even more troubling--why I continue to watch this idiotic movie almost every time it's on?

It's not that I like bad writing, hammy acting and uninspired directing. Really. I loathe such things.

But after finding myself lapping up these atrocious elements during a recent viewing of MFD, I realized something extraordinary.

I'm a movie hypocrite.

OK...we're all allowed our guilty pleasures. Some of us, for example, crave the Francis the Talking Mule movies. (You know who you are.) Others enjoy a cheesy Roland Emmerich flick now and then.

Yet MFD occupies a different seat on the cinematic exchange. It has almost no redeeming qualities from a film standpoint. Editing, music, cinematography, script...they're all dreadful. And the story--which supposedly concerns Seagal's obsession with kicking the collective tucheses of the members of a Jamaican drug gang led by the maniacal Screwface (a completely over-the-top Basil Wallace, who nevertheless is more interesting than any of the other characters)--borders on outright racism and xenophobia.

So what the heck is wrong with me? Isn't there a junky Joel Schumacher flick always on that I could watch instead?

It's not that there's a distinct appeal to all the crummily-shot mayhem in MFD. Nor is there any rhyme or reason to the proceedings, which almost always lead to Seagal pushing someone into someone else via his distinctly vague martial-arts moves. And it's certainly not a movie that I'd call a "guilty pleasure," as "pleasure" has very specific connotations that do not jibe with this film, and "guilty" is an adjective that seems, to my mind, to fit in more with the Francis movies than MFD.

At any rate, I'm still trying to figure out this conundrum. To paraphrase The Muppet Show's Waldorf and Statler: "Why do we always come here?/I guess we'll never know."

I'll continue to ponder this great mystery of the cinematic universe while I attempt to restore any credibility this blog has as an arbiter of taste in the movie world. Heh...good luck with that, right?

Virtues of 'Viridiana' Still Ring True

2009-09-04T17:29:00.004-04:00

How Luis Bunuel ever got the money to direct movies is beyond me.

They're anti-clerical. Superficially decadent. And as negative about humanity as anything people will ever see.

Yet this great surrealist director had a long, superb career that carried him all the way from Spain to Mexico while he thumbed his nose at the establishment.

Talk about biting the hand that fed him. And smiling while he was at it.

Viridiana, Bunuel's 1961 masterpiece, is a prime example of how this exceptional artist got away with cinematic murder. The movie--which concerns a nun-to-be (Silvia Pinal) preparing to take her vows who is coerced into staying at the neglected mansion of her lonely, dissolute uncle (the always brilliant Fernando Rey)--lampoons everything within reach, from the church (one of Bunuel's favorite targets) to human compassion. Some scenes--such as the "beggars' banquet" in which a group of unwholesome derelicts engages in a drunken party and reenact da Vinci's Last Supper tableau--have to be seen to be believed. Others just have to be seen. In truth, the film, though hardly tame, is relatively subdued and never beats the viewer over the head with a misanthropic ideology. It's not as funny as much of Bunuel's later work (such as The Phantom of Liberty), but it's more moving...and oftentimes quite realistic, a shocker from this surrealist master of the subconscious, a director who once gave us a razor slicing through a (cow's) eyeball in Un Chien Andalou. The reality lies in the extreme depiction of its characters' obsession, from Pinal's misguided piety to Rey's malodorous fantasies about his dead wife to his illegitimate son's hedonistic bent.

Wow. Hey, Luis--those are real characters! OK, so we don't really like them, but...they behave like real people--with real neuroses! What's up with that?

It's the mark of a great director to treat an incredible subject with conviction, and Bunuel does just that. From the beautiful black-and-white cinematography by Jose Aguayo to the brilliant use of Handel's music (especially the "Hallelujah chorus" from the Messiah), Viridiana involves you in the proceedings from the start. Small wonder it was banned in Spain in its day--if it were poorly done, no one would've paid any attention to it.

My feeling is, they should've given Bunuel more money.

'Transsiberian' Off Credibility Track

2009-08-31T18:08:00.003-04:00

There's a reason few Hitchcockian films are as good as those directed by the master himself.

Take Transsiberian, for instance: director Brad Anderson's tale of an innocent American couple caught up in a world of cross-border drug smuggling and corrupt cops whilst traveling on the famed Trans-Siberian Railway. It's got all of the ingredients necessary to make a suspenseful film in Alfred Hitchcock's style. Except believability.

And that's the most important part.

The problems start with the depiction of the couple, played broadly by Woodly Harrelson and Emily Mortimer. Harrelson's Roy, a hardware store owner who finds himself and his wife Jessie in Russia after journeying to China on a charitable trip with his church, is gullible to the extreme. After "befriending" a bunch of people on the train (a process that invariably includes imbibing large amounts of alcohol), Roy carries a smile on his face that seems plastered (literally) on while gawking at the most unexciting sights--such as as slew of snow-strewn trains. He even exclaims, "I'm an American!" during one purportedly tense scene...a cry echoed in remembrances of stereotypical tourisms past. Meanwhile, Jessie is nearly as credulous, falling for the charms of a shabby, not-really-charismatic couple, Carlos and Abby, they meet on the train (played, respectively, by eye-candy actor Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara, in a particularly dour performance) and hanging out with them, often in the same cabin.

Well, I didn't buy it. This couple is traveling in another country, and they don't get the least bit concerned that their creepy, tiresome cabin mates--who alternate between acting amorously and argumentatively in full view of these strangers--scream "suspicious characters"? Surely they don't remain with these hangers-on solely because of their scintillating conversation? (Certain awkward scenes set in a restaurant support my suggestion that there's a "communication breakdown" effect that precludes any credible feelings of attraction among the parties.) It certainly isn't likely that Roy would confess the fact that he's having marital problems with Jessie to Carlos only a day or so after meeting him. And it's quite improbable that Roy would leave his wife for a day to go exploring without notifying her or giving her any means to contact him. (Perhaps their cell phones were edited out of the script.)

Still, the burden of credibility can't be placed entirely on the actors' shoulders. Anderson's direction is sloppy, like the script, which he co-wrote with Will Conroy. In addition, the suspense-on-a-train theme has been done so frequently (and so much better) that the whole flick seems derivative, like a cross between Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes and Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express...without the breathless excitement such cinematic journeys entail. Appearances by the usually fine Ben Kingsley and Thomas Kretschmann help somewhat, but in the end, Transsiberian is waylaid by an overly ambitious treatment that doesn't satisfy the viewer after building up a not-so-intense atmosphere. It's like waiting a half-hour for the subway and then discovering it's crowded and not air-conditioned.

My advice: Rent a Hitchcock instead.

'Crowd' All I Remembered It to Be

2009-08-29T10:20:00.004-04:00

This will be a short post, but it'll include a huge recommendation...of a sort.

John Schlesinger's 1967 film Far from the Madding Crowd, adapted by the Thomas Hardy novel of the same name, should remain relatively unknown. Why? Well, let's put it this way: A crowd flocking to Crowd would dilute the movie's small "in crowd" fan base. Part of the appeal, perhaps, is the flick's relative anonymity.

And maybe that's just as well. The film, which in part concerns the romantic entanglements of Bathsheba Everdene, a headstrong landowner resolutely played by Julie Christie, has great direction, expert performances (particularly by Christie and her three suitors, portrayed by Alan Bates, Peter Finch and Terence Stamp), beautiful cinematography by Nicholas Roeg, and a gorgeous score by Richard Rodney Bennett. All of these qualities point to a movie that should be better known...but watching Crowd is something like finding a diamond needle in a haystack--like the ones dotting the English countryside that the film so ably showcases.

You don't want to share it with everybody. Just with the ones who will appreciate it.

Let Crowd remain little known. All the more for people to treasure when they discover it.

'Madding' Movie on Its Way

2009-08-27T06:35:00.002-04:00

I can't wait. I'm finally going to show Far from the Madding Crowd to Trudi.

The 1967 John Schlesinger film, an adaption of the Thomas Hardy book by the same name, has long been a favorite of mine, and Trudi--my (very) significant other--will be seeing it for the first time. Because she's a dog lover, however, I probably should warn her that there are some quite upsetting scenes pertaining to canine reactions to sheep...a scenario that basically sets up the other developments in the movie.

Still, it's a great flick, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Bring it on, Netflix!

'Love' Emulates Life...a Bit Too Much

2009-08-24T20:28:00.003-04:00

It turned out that Love on the Run was as good as I expected it to be--and as real.

It seems to me that director Francois Truffaut was incapable of fashioning an impersonal film. Love is no exception, though there was, perhaps, a bit less substance in this 1979 film, the last in his series of Antoine Doinel alter-ego pictures, as much of the flick comprised scenes from earlier films such as The 400 Blows and Bed and Board. What's moving about Love, however, is the fact that the film--which primarily is concerned with the romantic (mis)adventures of Doinel (portrayed, as always, by the ever-youthful Jean-Pierre Leaud)--reveals the protagonist as something of a lost soul, despite his maturity. Newly divorced, Doinel falls in love with seemingly every beautiful woman he meets...and even reconnects with an old flame who is coping with the tragic loss of her child.

Of course, such newfound erotic freedom doesn't seem to suit the rambling Antoine, who can't help but wreck his relationships through his infidelity. He has to start over--and that's where the movie hits hardest.

As an individual who has been through a divorce, I was empathetic, to a certain extent, with Doinel's travails, and nodded at his attempts to rebuild himself while somehow coming to terms with the highs and lows of his marital life. But this was hard to watch, as I predicted, and many of the scenes (including the positive memories recollected in fragments of Truffaut's earlier films in the series) were earnest almost to a fault. I'm not certain how much of Love was based on Truffaut's earlier experiences, but the flick had an honesty suggesting that the great director knew what he was talking about. There's even a scene in which the now fully grown Doinel has a chance meeting with his now aged stepfather, a complex figure in The 400 Blows who ultimately couldn't provide his stepson with a proper paternal governance. This segment is the most powerful in Love, and it also smacks of truth...and reality.

I wish there were more of that in contemporary film--but that would mean I would be less comfortable watching such movies. Still, I have to give Truffaut credit: Very few directors know how to make their audiences so ill at ease while ensuring their pictures remain enjoyable. That takes talent. I wish I knew Truffaut's secret.

Perhaps it has something to do with reality. And experience.

Next Up on My List: 'Love on the Run'

2009-08-23T08:55:00.002-04:00

I've avoided it for a long time--but not because I don't think I'll like it.

Francois Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series of films (which include masterpieces such as The 400 Blows and Stolen Kisses) are always wonderful when I bring myself to watch them.

It's just that I have to bring myself to watch them.

As a writer and director, Truffaut had an insight that enabled him to produce work that--though often whimsical--struck a realistic aspect, emulating life as we know it. That includes all its vicissitudes, triumphs and failures. Great as his art is, I often have trouble approaching it initially, owing to its close subject matter. Once I'm involved, however, I'm into it.

I suspect that 1979's Love on the Run, which I still haven't seen, will be the same. My significant other and I received the DVD via Netflix and expect to watch it soon. I'm awaiting the viewing with trepidation. I already know it's good. Just how good--and true to life--worries me. It's likely that I'll be empathizing with and getting annoyed by Doinel in this film, as in the previous ones, and that's what I'm concerned about. Caring about the characters in a film takes work...and it may not always be rewarding.

I'll just have to grit my teeth and jump right in. How I wish, sometimes, that I could watch bad movies uncritically!

Holy Smoke! 'AMOLAD' Has Improved With Age

2009-08-21T17:48:00.006-04:00

I have to confess something. I never liked The Red Shoes.

There's something fake about it--contrived. A forced love story set in the world of ballet. It's just a little arch, if you can excuse the inadvertent pun.

But that doesn't mean I'm not a fan of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the creative directing (and sometimes writing) duo who helmed TRS. The talented twosome, in fact, spawned one of my favorite films, A Matter of Life and Death, which I just revisited today with great pleasure.

It hasn't gotten worse since I last saw it. In fact, it's gotten better.

AMOLAD should be on every fantasy-film fan's list of must-see movies. The story of a British fighter pilot (dashingly played by David Niven) who jumps from his burning plane and is lost in the English fog by the heavenly conductor who is supposed to escort him to the Great Beyond, AMOLAD enchants with its visionary view of this world and the next. Niven, who falls in love with an American (played with appropriate gusto by Kim Hunter), is cast perfectly as the man who wants--and is warranted--a second chance at life, and the great Roger Livesey is at his mellifluous best as the good doctor who tries to help him. The cinematography, which captures images such as an assembly line of wings in heaven and a great, moving staircase lined with statues of famous personages from history, is sumptuous, and the writing, credited, like the direction, to the P&P team, is sharp and charming.

The fact that this film isn't very well known is an injustice in the world of cinema. Perhaps it has something to do with the unwieldy title. The flick has appeared with an alternate name in the US, Stairway to Heaven, which is cliched but less clunky than AMOLAD. Still, this picture should be more frequently viewed by cineastes; it's one of the most imaginative movies I've seen, and the wonderful special effects still hold up, despite the fact that the film came out in 1946. This is a movie I'd recommend without question, but be prepared: It might make you want to watch more P&P movies, and despite the fact that their oeuvre remains impressive, few, if any, of their other films approach AMOLAD in quality.

Certainly not The Red Shoes.

Holding 'If....' Accountable

2009-08-20T06:27:00.005-04:00

A couple of days ago, my significant other and I turned the clock back and watched Lindsay Anderson's classic rebel-rouser If.... via Netflix. You remember this one: English public-school student Mick Travis (snarkily played by Malcolm McDowell) and his cronies, beaten down (and just plain beaten) by the "whip" upperclassmen, decide to fight back and wage all-out war against the school. With its surreal shifts from color to black-and-white photography, scathing put downs--Travis blasts one whip with the line, "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy bear to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the rest of your frigid life"--and unpleasant depiction of the British school system (an allegory, apparently, for society), the film pulls no punches and hits hard at the end, resulting in a battle with, as Travis would say, "real bullets."

There was a problem, however, that compromised my enjoyment of the film. In the past, I've viewed the film as purely allegorical and bearing no resemblance to current events, owing to its fantastic touches (a bishop rises from a drawer in the headmaster's study to shake hands with Travis after the student almost murders him) and radical characterizations. ("There's no such thing as a wrong war," opines Travis in one scene. "Violence and revolution are the only pure acts.") But now, in the light of the aftermath of the 1999 school shootings at Columbine, Colo., and the 2007 murders at Virginia Tech, among others, If.... doesn't seem so innocent. Publicity for the film at the time appeared to advocate rebellion, in the "spirit" of student protests of the time, and that generated some controversy in its day. Yet the film, with its allegorical and philosophical leanings, seemed removed from reality and hardly literal; it was a comment more on the status quo rather than an open letter inciting armed battle, though its marketing efforts appeared to take advantage of the sentiments of the era.

Still, in this day and age, the ramifications of If.... appear to be broad--and, in this writer's opinion, more than a little disturbing.

The question is: Can art be held accountable for human behavior, even if there is no direct link from one to the other? If....--the successor to Jean Vigo's short school-rebellion flick Zero for Conduct--may now be considered the grandfather of militant-student movies, preceding films such as Heathers and Elephant by more than 20 years and certainly outdoing them in overall treatment and technique. As such, Anderson's film must be viewed in a certain light: that of a world in which the threat of firearms may be present at schools worldwide.

I'm not suggesting that If.... is entirely responsible for the culture of today. But while I was revisiting the film after not having seen it for some time previously, I was unnerved by the fact that it ends violently with a gun battle at a school--started by the protagonists. Is it possible that such a depiction could register in the hearts and minds of certain individuals who really have a beef with society and aren't afraid of acting on it? Is it possible that this fantastic, surreal film could be taken too literally?

Anderson would probably scoff at my concerns, but I can't. If a movie is good enough, people will get involved in it--no matter how out-there the treatment is. There are Star Wars fans who espouse a Jedi religion, for Pete's sake! There are people who speak Klingon! Movies will never stop being real to people, and people will never stop immersing themselves in them. I don't think If.... has the following of Star Wars or Star Trek, and that's probably a good thing. I do think, however, that it has a lot to answer for, and the way to address it would be to study it...perhaps in the classroom. Making students aware of it and inciting debate would temper its more superficial qualities and perhaps get people thinking about its subtext rather than its surface.

Better to think before acting anyway, isn't it? I believe Travis would agree.

'Julie & Julia': Massacring the Art of French Cooking

2009-08-19T17:35:00.007-04:00

Someone has to do something. If not, we'll all be subjected to further attacks from this insidious enemy.

I'm talking about the trend of impeccably researched impersonation, a crutch that talented actors ranging from Charles Laughton to Robert Downey Jr. have used to portray historical characters under the rose-tinted lenses of yesteryear. One of the latest instances of this infernal fad to grace our screens occurs in Julie & Julia, an interminable, Rashomon-esque depiction of one blogger's quest to replicate all of TV-chef-cum-Joan-Sutherland-soundalike Julia Child's recipes from her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In J&J, directed by Nora Ephron, actress Meryl Streep is given what appears to be free rein to present her interpretation of Child's mannerisms--from her singsong vocal inflections to her enthusiastic gesticulations.

To that I say: yuck.

It's one thing to portray a personality accurately and believably. It's another to go over the top and present a caricature. Streep, unfortunately, does the latter. Her bubbly, vociferous imitation of Child is unbearably cartoony, as if it were studied to the nth degree...but not understood. The unlucky viewers of J&J are provided with a series of episodes dating back to Child's years traveling and living in France, where her romance with butter is discovered (surely there's a more interesting dish with which to convey this attraction than sole meuniere) and her prodigious sexual appetites are appeased (by husband Paul, played with little excitement by the usually reliable Stanley Tucci). These moments are interspersed with scenes relating to the Child-emulating blogger, Julie Powell (Amy Adams, in a cutesy performance), and her husband Eric (Chris Messina, who, sadly, does not get much more to do than eat the results of his wife's experiments, crow about how good they are and extol the merits of New York's least-praised borough, Queens).

So what went wrong here? Surely, with this much talent, J&J should've been good, right?

In an ideal world, that probably would've been the result. But director Ephron has let her actors run amok while the script--co-written by Ephron and Powell and based on the latter's eponymous book and the writings of Child and Alex Prud'homme--has meandered into episodic panels that never mesh as a whole. Streep in particular has been let loose, and her brassy portrayal of the much-beloved Child never registers as true. It seems too close...too familiar; the nuances are broad and untrimmed. Child was an extremely interesting person, but she is reduced in the film to a one-dimensional scribe with a funny voice and a penchant for butter.

Movies, in this writer's opinion, should be more roux than butter.

It's not Streep's fault entirely that the film is a failure. Ephron's direction is lax and unimaginative, and the endless jumps from Child's life to that of Powell's become tedious after only a few such instances. Plus, the cinematography offers no substantial insights into Child's love affair with Paris or French cookery...except those that are all too obvious. (For example: Paris is beautiful, butter is delicious, idiots are idiotic.) A more streamlined vision of this story would have been more appropriate--and more palatable, to boot.

But that wouldn't have pleased the masses, would it?

It's too easy to appease audiences by telling them what they already know. Why not tell them what they don't know--but should? After all, a piece of sole cooked in butter may be pleasant though unexciting. Add some salt and sauteed onion, however, and you might have something.

J&J really needed a few cups of nicely browned onions--and a warning: Avoid this flick if you have high cholesterol. As Ephron wrote the script for the Streep-Jack Nicholson vehicle Heartburn, I would expect she'd understand that some meals just don't agree with people.

The Movie Loony Is Now Open for Business!

2009-08-19T16:10:00.000-04:00

That's right--there's a new critic in town (as if we really needed another one). What The Movie Loony hopes to do is provide the best film reviews possible while tearing down overpraised, vaunted junk and building up great art. This blog will be opinionated, obnoxious and downright kvetchy. It also will be insightful and--hopefully--a font of useful information on the cinema of the past, present and future. The Movie Loony aims to offer readers a site that will recommend great films and pan lousy ones in an effort to guide people toward the light and away from the darkness. The reason: No one deserves to see a bad movie. But everyone deserves to see a good one.

Let the kvetching begin!