Airport ’77: Jerry Jameson

As I mentioned in my review for Creature From the Black Lagoon, I spent many a vacation during my childhood visiting Wakulla Springs near Tallahassee, Florida. At the base of the river that fed out of the Springs, there was a small beach were visitors could swim. About twenty or so feet from the sands of the beach was a huge wooden platform that swimmers could relax on. At first I didn't think anything of this oddly placed construction. However, I later learned that it was used as a platform for a crane which was used to lift and position a massive submerged airplane for a film shoot. That film shoot was for Jerry Jameson's Airport '77. The second sequel in the hugely popular Airport series, Airport '77 was a part of the grand tradition of 70s disaster movies. The film features a fantastic cast including James Stewart as an elderly philanthropist who is transporting a large number of valuable paintings aboard a new luxury Boeing 747-100, Jack Lemmon as the captain of that plane, Christopher Lee as a diver, and Olivia de Havilland as a passenger. A failed hijacking attempt led by the co-pilot leads to the plane crashing into the ocean, trapping the passengers and crew beneath the waves. The film follows the survivors attempts to signal rescuers and escape from a watery grave. It balances intense character drama with the truly fascinating and methodical rescue attempts from the Navy. Apparently, the techniques used by the Navy in the film are authentic and would be used in a similar real life situation. While it may not have the same pizazz as other 70s disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure (1972) or The Towering Inferno (1974), Airport '77 is an ultimately satisfying piece of cinema.

7/10

Il Generale della Rovere: Roberto Rossellini

I have often said that if one day the Catholic Church canonized a director as the Patron Saint of the Cinema, then Roberto Rossellini would be one of the best choices. Rossellini was one of the most revered and thoughtful directors who ever lived. He is mostly remembered for his indispensable contribution to the Italian Neorealist Movement with such films as Rome, Open City (1945), Paisà (1946), and Germany, Year Zero (1948). However, his tenure as a filmmaker supreme lasted long after the glory days of Italian Neorealism. One of his most remarkable post-Neorealism films was Il Generale della Rovere. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1959. Based off the novel by Indro Montanelli which was itself based on a true story, Il Generale della Rovere tells the story of a petty thief named Victorio Emanuele Bardone (played by the mighty Vittorio De Sica) living in occupied Italy during World War Two. Victorio makes his way by exploiting the weak and helpless. One of his most lucrative sources of income comes from lying to families who have relatives imprisoned by the Nazis and saying that in exchange for a hefty fee, he will put a good word in and get them released. Of course...this never happens and he almost always blows their fee gambling. For Victorio, the Occupation represents nothing more than an opportunity. However, he is eventually arrested by the Nazi authorities and forced to impersonate the Italian Resistance leader General della Rovere in order to infiltrate a group of captured resistance fighters. But upon arrival at the prison and witnessing first hand the horrors of the Nazis, he slowly begins to sincerely adopt his new identity. His transformation from petty thief to a genuine member of the Resistance is one of the most touching that I have recently encountered in the cinema. His transformation is gradual enough that it doesn't reek of artifice. With Il Generale della Rovere, Rossellini reflects on nothing less than the worth of the human soul and the cost of freedom against tyranny.

7/10

Contact: Robert Zemeckis

As soon as I finished watching Robert Zemeckis' Contact, I ran online and started to research SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). After witnessing the film that I had just seen, I had to know more about mankind's actual progress towards making first contact with another alien race. I now run a program that uses my computer's down time to crunch numbers and calculations for scientists involved in SETI. It's a small contribution, to be sure, but after seeing Contact, I knew that I had to do something. That's the kind of impact that Contact had. It's not just a film, it's an experience. Based off the novel by Carl Sagan, the film explores a possible future where we finally make contact with extra-terrestrial life. Jodie Foster plays Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a researcher who has spent her life listening to the stars for signs of other life. Miraculously, she is the first to discover a transmission believed to have been sent from near the star Vega, about 26 light years away. The transmission contains instructions for a vessel supposedly capable of interstellar flight that will transport ONE passenger to Vega. Ellie is eventually chosen for the mission. However, things don't quite go according to plan. Oh, she travels to Vega...but for reasons that I don't want to spoil, nobody back on earth wants to believe her. And therein lies the real heart and soul of the film: the conflict between science and faith. Ellie is a staunch Atheist who only believes in what she can see or scientifically verify. But her experience with Vega requires her to make a leap of faith. Of course, there are other reasons to watch the film. It is so expertly crafted by Zemeckis that even though it is two and a half hours long, it feels like it is over in a minute. The special effects carry on the grand science fiction tradition of such films as Forbidden Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Star Wars. Contact is more than just another science fiction film...it is a reflection on the very forces that will one day shape mankind and its destiny.

9/10

A Cure for Pokeritis: Laurence Trimble

He wears a poor fitting suit and vest and sports a smashed, battered old black hat. His face looks like somebody shoved a bicycle pump up his nose and used it until his cheeks, jowls, and nose became permanently inflated and disjointed from his skull. His wife isn’t much better off, either. Her head looks like somebody from the Amazon tried to shrink it but forgot to remove the skull first. Her nose juts forward with such force that it could probably be used as an icepick. Though they might seem unfamiliar to modern day audiences, these two faces were amongst the most recognizable by many of the earliest film audiences. For they were John Bunny and Flora Finch. Together, they starred in over one hundred short comedies for Vitagraph Studios. They were affectionately referred to by the public as “Bunnyfinches.” These films would comprise one of the earliest bodies of work by a silent comedian. Before Buster Keaton, before Charlie Chaplin, before the silent clowns that would be remembered and loved by generations of audiences and filmmakers, there was John Bunny. Widely considered to be the first comic star in the United States, with the aid of Flora Finch, John Bunny became one of the first pioneers of silent comedy.

If one would look for an example of Bunny’s work, they couldn’t do better than A Cure for Pokeritis. The film was a pristine summation of the John Bunny shtick. It starred Bunny as a husband hopelessly addicted to poker. His affliction is so severe that he even tricks his wife, played by Finch, into believing that he is a member of a special society that would charge him $10 for each missed weekly meeting. But, alas, Bunny is a restless sleeper. One night, he confesses in his sleep to his grand deception. This was, of course, after he had sworn to stop playing poker. So his wife hires their Cousin Freddie to investigate Bunny’s “meetings.” Upon Freddie’s confirmation of Bunny’s illicit deeds, she convinces her Bible group to dress up like policemen and pretend to raid their game. So the Bible group dons fake uniforms and storms the game parlor. After a few brief moments of putting the fear of God into their hearts, their wives come into the room and reveal the deception. Husbands and wives embrace and make up, Finch gently pets Bunny’s head, and all is right in the world.

Though the film only clocks in at about twelve minutes, it might seem difficult for modern audiences to sit through, especially ones expecting the polished humor of, say, Keaton or Chaplin. But that is because A Cure for Pokeritis wasn’t funny in the way that we expect silent comedies to be. The film contains no over-the-top slapstick, visual gags, or witty turns of phrase in the dialogue. Instead, audiences from the 1910s would have found humor simply in the situation. At the turn of the 20th century, fat comedians were seen as cute and cuddly. As a result, audiences would have found great amusement at watching a hapless John Bunny try and thwart his wife in the same way that we would laugh at a cat play with a particularly arrogant piece of string.

Films like A Cure for Pokeritis demonstrate the birthing pains of silent comedy. But it also serves as a prime example of early cinematic innovation. Take, for instance, the poker game raid scene. When the “police” arrive to “raid” the poker game, we see the inside of the parlor where the players are positioned in the foreground. Suddenly, their black servant enters from the left side of the background. Having spotted the police, he sneaks behind the players, alerts another patron, and exits to the right. A “policeman” sneaks up behind the oblivious gamblers using a coat-rack to hide himself. He signals the rest of the “officers” into the room. Two other “policeman” sneak behind the unsuspecting victims before the rest of them come in and break up the game. This might seem like a trivial, commonplace scene to modern viewers. But consider that in 1912, most films were still operating under the tyranny of theatrical staging, blocking, and acting. As a result, most of these early films operated within one depth of field with their characters occupying the foreground. This scene is an early example of a filmmaker simultaneously carrying out a scene in two different depths of field. Even more interesting is how it is used to create a comedic situation. So, this scene demonstrates an early, primordial comedic language that existed explicitly within the realm of cinema.

I understand that this might be a little difficult to understand for people unversed in cinematic language, so allow me to elaborate. If such a scene was blocked and choreographed on-stage, it would have to be done in a way so that every audience member, regardless of whether they are up front or in the balconies, could see all of the action. Therefore, simply having the characters walk behind each other for comedic effect wouldn’t be prudent, considering that audience members in the front of the theater would have their view blocked by the characters in the foreground. But the cinema creates a flat spatial plane wherein every single audience member, regardless of their position in the theater, can get the exact same view of the action. As a result, there is no need to compensate for people who are closer to the screen. This frees the filmmaker to create multiple depths of field within the frame that can act independently of each other. Such a division would be nearly impossible to reconstruct on a traditional flat stage. So this scene in A Cure for Pokeritis uses the limitations of a fixed view to its advantage in order to create a comedic scene that is inherently cinematic.

While A Cure for Pokeritis may seem boring and contrived today, it remains a crucial piece of cinematic history. It represented early efforts to utilize the silver screen as a transmitter of comedy instead of just historical dramas, newsreels, and stage reproductions. Through such films, John Bunny helped make the movies funny. All silent comedians and their modern-day counterparts owe a great deal of debt to him. It is our duty as film lovers to preserve and commemorate such an important talent and his films...even if they don’t seem funny anymore.

Tiny Furniture: Lena Dunham

Tiny Furniture is the kind of film that I hate having to review. On the one hand, it's a wonderfully composed, written, and acted film. Director Lena Dunham certainly has a fair amount of talent. But on the other hand, I have rarely encountered characters in a film that I have hated more. Don't misunderstand, my disdain for the characters isn't the same that I feel for, say, Hannibal Lector or Darth Vader. It isn't a hatred formed from an acknowledgment that they are evil and that they do wicked things. Instead, it is borne from a disbelief that these kind of people could ever exist. Allow me to explain. The film follows Aura, a recent graduate from a mid-west liberal arts college, who returns to her family's Tribeca loft. With no real idea of where to go next in life, she engages in affairs with two different men and gets into fights with her family. I guess that the film is an examination of how Aura's life has no purpose or direction. But I was distracted from what Dunham was trying to accomplish by the fact that all of the characters in her film were absolutely despicable. Her mother is an artist who admits that she has never done a fair day's work in her life. She spends her days going to parties and galleries and her nights in a Vicodin-fueled stupor. Her sister is, for a lack of a better word, a complete bitch. Even though she's still in high school, she acts like she's the center of the world. In one scene she has a party in their loft with 20+ students and treats Aura like a piece of crap when she asks them to turn their music down. The two men she sleeps with are scumbags. The first is a new-age hipster who makes his living doing youtube videos and mooching off Aura's hospitality. The second is a chef who hits Aura up for drugs and sleeps with her even though he has a girlfriend. I'm getting pissed off just writing descriptions of these characters. Am I supposed to admire them or hold them in high esteem just because they're "artists?" I really, really hate to say this, but after watching this film, I sympathize with Fox News conservatives who see liberal elites as the bane of society. These people do not deserve their wealth, respect, or lifestyles. And yet, despite my hatred for the characters, I have to admit that this is a well made film. So, screw it. I'll give it an average score. I don't ever want to think about this film, or its characters, again.

5/10

Collateral: Michael Mann

After watching Collateral, I find myself in awe that director Michael Mann isn't more widely respected and lauded among cinema circles. Collateral was such a perfectly conceived and executed film that after I finished watching it I simply stared at the screen, completely slack-jawed. The entire crime drama genre has become so tired and stale in today's cinema that Collateral felt like a blessed breath of fresh air. Of course, this should have come as no surprise considering that Mann also directed Heat, a film which I personally believe was the finest crime film of the 90s, and Public Enemies, a criminally overlooked film detailing the final days of John Dillinger. I feel that one of the main reasons that Mann is so skilled at creating crime films is that he never operates on just one level. Heat was not just a perfect crime film...it also was a stirring examination of the symbiotic relationship between criminals and policemen. Public Enemies wasn't just a piece of historical fiction...it was an exploration of the nature of folk heroes and cultural deification. And so we come to Collateral. What is the deeper meaning behind Collateral? Well, let's examine the plot: Nightshift cab driver Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) accidentally picks up professional hitman Vincent (Tom Cruise) and is forced to drive him around L.A. while he completes a list of five hits. As the night progresses, Max and Vincent develop a strange relationship. I wouldn't call it a "friendship" per say...but a kind of uneasy understanding. It isn't one based on respect or admiration. Max vocally derides Vincent and takes every opportunity to escape that he can. But after a while, Max seems to gain a kind of understanding of why Vincent does what he does. And as the audience, we can't help but envy Max's discovery. What exactly makes Vincent tick? That is the true enigma of Collateral. In Vincent, Tom Cruise creates one of the most original and compelling villains since Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs. It's obvious that Vincent is fascinated by the world and the people who inhabit it. Yet this does nothing to stop him from killing his contracts. He kills efficiently and remorsefully. But why? His third hit is the owner of a jazz club. Before he kills him, he listens to him play, buys him a drink, complements him, and listens to him tell stories about Miles Davis. He even gives him a chance to escape his fate. Why would he kill somebody that he admired so much? I'd like to propose a theory...Vincent is a man who is scared at the world and at the thought of being forgotten. He has finally found a place as an assassin and as such, he feels that he must carry this occupation out to the best of his abilities. He kills because it is all he knows. If he doesn't, then what good is he? During the course of that terrible night, Vincent and Max drive by a wolf prowling the streets of L.A. What is the wolf doing there? It doesn't belong there. Neither does Vincent. But despite this, both can only be what they are: the wolf a wolf, and Vincent an assassin. Or maybe I'm completely wrong. The point is that Collateral made me think about this. That, my friends, is the sign of a truly great movie.

9/10

Dance, Girl, Dance: Dorothy Arzner

Upon it's original release, Dorothy Arzner's Dance, Girl, Dance was critically panned and devastated at the box office. One reviewer wrote that the film was a "cliché-ridden, garbled repetition of the story of the aches and pains in a dancer's rise to fame and fortune." After it's catastrophic release, it was largely ignored and forgotten until it was rediscovered by members of the Feminist Movement in the 70s. It has since been heralded as an early and daring example of empowered women in Hollywood. In fact, the idea of the "empowered woman" is at the very core of Dance, Girl, Dance. It follows two struggling dancers, Judy (Maureen O'Hara) and Bubbles (Lucille Ball) who are continually on the look-out for work. Judy is a trained and serious ballerina who passionately loves the art of dancing. Bubbles lacks Judy's training, but she has "it." That "it" of course is overflowing sex appeal and a willingness to flaunt it openly. Both girls get hired to perform at the same show one night. Bubbles opens with a naughty and flirtatious number that easily wins over the audience. However, she is followed by Judy's demure ballerina routine. She is quickly booed off-stage as they begin to demand Bubbles' return. This inspires an idea for the theater-owner: create an act using both Judy and Bubbles. The act requires Bubbles to open with her usual number. Then, Judy comes out and dances a ballet, garnering boos from the audience, thereby creating a greater demand for Bubbles. Bubbles becomes "Tiger Lily" and Judy becomes her "fool." And yet, despite her nightly torment at the hands of the audience, Judy maintains her self-respect, dignity, and love of dancing. Oh, there's a romantic subplot thrown in there, of course. But it's Judy's determination to do what she loves in the face of hate and adversity that makes Dance, Girl, Dance memorable.

7/10

While the City Sleeps: Fritz Lang

While the City Sleeps was one of the last films that legendary director Fritz Lang created in America before he returned to his native Germany in the late 1950s. As such, it feels like a film made by a tired director who has grown weary of working within the suffocating confines of the Hollywood studio system. That's not to say that it's a bad film...it just doesn't live up to the high caliber of his best work. It pales in comparison to his proto-noir like Fury and his ultimate genre masterpiece The Big Heat. The film is advertised as being about a serial killer referred to as the "Lipstick Killer." However, it is more concerned with the newspapermen who cover it; quite literally the people who work while the city sleeps. After the death of a mighty newspaper magnate, his foppish son decides to let his three department heads duke it out for control of the company. The son turns the investigation of the Lipstick Killer into a competition: if one of the department heads is able to identify the killer before the police, they will gain control over the company. But the real star isn't one of the department heads. Instead, it is high-profile reporter Edward Mobley. In a turn that serves as a perfect example of Fritzian cynicism, Mobley goes on national television and mocks the Lipstick Killer before offering up his fiance Nancy Liggett as bait. Of course, he doesn't consult Nancy before he offers her life up. Overall, While the City Sleeps is a film that doesn't quite seem to know what it wants to be. Is it a serial killer flick? A police (or reporter) procedural? Is it a romantic melodrama? There are times when films are able to balance all of these themes. While the City Sleeps is not one of them.

6/10

I Was a Teenage Werewolf: Gene Fowler Jr.

Ah...you know that you're watching a quality B-movie when right in the middle there's a song-and-dance number that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. You'll just be watching the movie and then, for some reason, a group of teenagers get together and gyrate to a swingin' rock 'n roll song! This might seem unusual, especially considering that this takes place in the middle of a film entitled I Was a Teenage Werewolf. It might just be my opinion, but wouldn't you think that an upbeat rock tune would kinda ruin the suspense and terror? But see, that's why these movies are so enjoyable. Oh, sure, director Gene Fowler Jr. had a story that he wanted to tell: a raucous teen undergoes hypnotherapy to control his emotions and in the process gets turned into a werewolf when his doctor decides to make him a guinea pig in an experiment to make humans revert to a lower evolutionary state. And, sure, the fact that the teen becomes a werewolf instead of a chimpanzee makes no sense. But, again, that doesn't really matter. The film needed a werewolf and dagnabit they were gonna have one, science be damned! And at the end of the day, I'll bet that Fowler discovered that his film was still too short for distribution. So he thought, "Screw it, let's throw in a musical number." And he did. And it was glorious. I Was a Teenage Werewolf is so ridiculous and improbable that it somehow becomes genuinely enjoyable! And I'm not simply trying to say that it was so-bad-that-it's-good. It was actually a pretty decent flick. The pacing was alright, the acting was decent, and the cinematography was average. Oh, the transformation effects were terrible and the science behind the werewolf makes less sense than Hollow Earth theories...but who cares? This is a werewolf film with a MUSICAL NUMBER. What else do you need to know?

6/10

Blithe Spirit: David Lean

David Lean's Blithe Spirit is a curious combination of British drawing room dramatics and supernatural tomfoolery. Adapted from the play by Noël Coward, the film follows a well-to-do novelist named Charles Condomine who invites an elderly medium named Madame Arcati to his home to perform a séance. His intention is to use her as a source for material for his next novel. As such, he doesn't believe in Arcati's powers or even in the existence of the supernatural. So, imagine his surprise when the séance accidentally summons the ghost of his first wife Elvira. As the only one who can see or hear her, Charles tries to convince his current wife Ruth that he is being haunted. This being a very, very British film, his proclamations are met with many guffaws and dry chuckles. However, things take a turn for the worst when Elvira decides that she wants Charles dead so he can join her in the afterlife. Unfortunately, Elvira's plan backfires and ends up killing Ruth. So instead of being haunted by the ghostly specter of one dead wife, Charles has to contend with two. He calls Arcati back and pleads for her to exorcise them. I won't give what happens away, but suffice it to say that the result must have resulted in many popped monocles. Blithe Spirit is a strange little film that can't quite decide what it wants to be. There are large sections of it with no supernatural goings-on that feature the (living) characters discourse on their lives and their society. If somebody flipped this movie on in the middle while it was on television, they might easily believe it to be a wry English drama à la Oscar Wilde. But nevertheless, Blithe Spirit is an enjoyable experience, even if it is uneven in its thematic execution.

7/10

This Happy Breed: David Lean

Before he revolutionized cinema with his big-budget epic films, British director David Lean got his start doing smaller scale dramas. In particular, his first few films were collaborations with famous British playwright Noël Coward. In This Happy Breed, Lean dissects a small working class British family recovering from the end of the First World War. The film tracks their lives right up to the start of World War Two. The family is comprised of a man named Frank, his wife Ethel, their three children (Reg, Vi and Queenie), his widowed sister Sylvia, and Ethel's mother. Living next door to them is Bob Mitchell, who served with Frank in the army during the First World War. We watch their comings and goings, their successes and heartbreaks. The family has an uncanny ability of somehow getting involved with many great historical events. They travel to the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley in 1924, participate in the General Strike of 1926, and get swept up with the Jazz Age. And, of course, it isn't long before the family begins to hear news broadcasts and disturbing rumors concerning a certain chancellor of Germany. But the real focus is the family dynamics. Lean demonstrates a knack for developing sharp, believable characters that we sympathize and identify with. I believe that it was because of his upbringing as a director of dramas and character studies that he was able to create blockbusters that didn't lose sight of the humans at their centers. This Happy Breed is a warm film, sometimes happy, sometimes tragic...but never artificial.

7/10

Kings of the Road: Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders' Kings of the Road is the kind of film that comes up every now and then and proves to be a challenge for film reviewers. To put it simply, I didn't like this film. But the essential problem is that I can't help feeling that I didn't like this film for the wrong reasons. After all, Kings of the Road is a beloved film. It was the third part in Wim Wenders' Road Trilogy, a series of three films that emulated American road movies. It follows a projection-equipment repair mechanic named Bruno Winter and a depressed pediatrician named Robert Lander as they travel up and down the East-West German border. It is a lengthy, slow film filled with long takes devoid of any dialogue or significance towards what can be construed as "the plot." At the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, it was the unanimous recipient of the FIPRESCI prize. It has since been named a personal favorite by many film lovers and directors, most notably Jim Jarmusch who emulated it in such films as Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law. And yet, I couldn't stand this film. I can actually remember the exact moment when my morbid curiosity surrounding the film turned to stunned amazement and contempt: when I was forced to witness Bruno Winter defecate on camera. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. In one scene where Bruno is driving, he unceremoniously stops the van, mutters, "I need to shit," and pops a squat in a nearby field. We then watch in graphic detail as he defecates, wipes, and then gets back in the van and continues driving. This scene wasn't simulated. We watch an actual man take an actual dump before our very eyes. Now, would somebody please explain to me why watching a man defecate was so important to a film that was already almost three hours long? I don't think anybody can. And there's my problem: it feels like Wenders was shoving things in front of the camera for no reason other than his desire to be artsy. I actually discovered that with the exception of the first scene where the two men meet, the entire film was improvised. And so I can only sit back and shake my head. Maybe there are people out there who were able to glean some great meaning from this film. Maybe there are people who see this film as an immaculate piece of art. But I can't do that for the life of me. Maybe I'm not smart or cultured enough to get it, but in my opinion, Kings of the Road is a boring, pointless film that was made solely for artistic snobs who can "appreciate" watching a man take a shit.

3/10

Swamp Thing: Wes Craven

Wes Craven's Swamp Thing looks like a made-for-television movie from the 70s that was originally shot on VHS and then transferred to 8mm film stock. Listen...I didn't expect Wes Craven to make masterpiece, here. And I totally didn't expect for it to live up to the staggering heights of Alan Moore's run on the Swamp Thing comic book (which FYI is one of the greatest comic book runs of all time). But I expected more than THIS. Oh, the basics of Swamp Thing's origins are still there: Dr. Alec Holland works in a laboratory in the middle of the Louisiana swamp where he tries to create some kind of animal/plant hybrid. There is an accident which results in Alec getting covered by chemicals and falling into the swamp. He thereby becomes the Swamp Thing, the protector of the swamp! Of course...in the comics this is all an accident. In the movie, it is the result of a group of paramilitary soldiers seeking a formula for immortality which cause the fateful accident. We then witness a series of increasingly ridiculous fight scenes where the Swamp Thing manages to repeatedly sneak up on trained soldiers and incapacitate them. But the worst part is that the Swamp Thing isn't on camera very much! For a movie called Swamp Thing which is literally about a THING from the SWAMP, we see only about 30 minutes worth of this creature. And, yes, I'll be fair, most of my problems with this film comes from how it goes against what made Swamp Thing such a great comic book character. In the comics, the Swamp Thing was a gentle protector of nature who rarely used physical violence. The series was about tone, atmosphere, and horror. Here, it's about explosions and cheap special effects. All I can say is that Swamp Thing deserves better than this movie.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover: Peter Greenaway

Sometimes, after a long week of watching sub-par movies thrown together in a few months by a bunch of commercial hacks, I want nothing more than to slip into a film created by a true cinematic master and let their flawless artistry wash over me. The works of Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, and Werner Herzog are reliable wells of inspiration borne of impeccable craftsmanship. And now, upon viewing The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, I think that I might have a new director to add to that list: Peter Greenaway. If The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is any indication at all, then Greenaway may quickly become one of my all-time favorite directors. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a film of such staggering artistry that I am amazed that I had never heard of it before I watched it. The film follows the eponymous cook, thief, wife, and lover. The Thief is an English gangster who commandeers the high-class Le Hollandais Restaurant, run by French chef Richard Borst. The Thief is one of those rare characters in the cinema whose very presence is enough to make one feel queasy or nauseous (think Alex from A Clockwork Orange). He is a loud, mean, crude, disgusting pig of a man who fancies himself a gourmet. His ever-suffering Wife strikes up an affair with a frequent patron of the restaurant who owns a book shop. The Wife and Lover run off in between courses to engage in wild, passionate sex in bathrooms, meat lockers, freezers, and anywhere else that they can indulge themselves. The Cook tries to help the couple escape when they are discovered. But it is ultimately to no avail. The Thief has the Lover killed by having pages of a book on the French Revolution shoved down his throat. The devastated Wife at first seems near-catatonic...at least until she hatches a scheme for one of the most sinister and diabolical revenges imaginable. I know that the film is supposedly some sort of metaphor for England under the iron rule of Margaret Thatcher, but I couldn't care less. In my opinion, it seems almost sinful to try and dissect such a magnificent piece of art. Greenaway positions this film in a small handful of hypnotically dazzling sets that are viewed almost exclusively from medium-long to long shots. His camera is predominately harnessed by slow tracking shots that navigate a strict 180 degree angle. What could have been a harsh conversational drama à la Mike Leigh takes on an almost dreamlike quality. While trying to describe this film, my mind keeps wondering back to the works of Stanley Kubrick, in particular Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut where he turned his obsessive perfectionism on the lives of ordinary people thrust into strange circumstances. In a similar way, Greenaway transforms the lives of his characters and the simple action of eating dinner into one that speaks impenetrable volumes.

10/10

The Longest Day: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Gerd Oswald, Darryl F. Zanuck, John Wayne

In hindsight, it's a little unfair that The Longest Day was destined to be released the same year as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. As a result, The Longest Day will always be overshadowed by the film that is said to be one of the greatest film epics of all time. And, really, that isn't fair. The Longest Day is one of the most ambitious and massive films ever produced by Hollywood. The film sported five screenwriters and a whopping six directors. The result: one of the finest war films ever made about World War Two. It seems inevitable that history will remember Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan as the definitive film about the D-Day Normandy landings. However, while Saving Private Ryan focused on a very small group of soldiers, The Longest Day encompasses the entirety of the forces involved in that terrible battle. The filmmakers brought in military consultants, many of whom actually fought during D-Day, from both the Allied and Axis camps. The film poster boasts 42 international stars, including John Wayne, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, and Robert Mitchum. It cost $10,000,000 to make, earning it the title of most expensive black-and-white film ever made until 1993 and the release of Schindler's List. But enough about the technical aspects. The true triumph of The Longest Day is how it compressed all of the events surrounding D-Day, including occurrences on both sides of the beach, into three hours. We see the Allied soldiers as they wait for the final order to cross the English Channel. We see the German command organize a desperate defense at the sight of the largest amphibious invading force in world history knock on Normandy's door. We see preliminary paratroopers landing behind enemy lines to sabotage German defenses. We see French Resistance members joining the struggle. We see the death and carnage on the beaches. And we see almost all there was to see. And yet, at no point is the human element of the story lost. At all times we feel deeply connected to the characters onscreen, even if they are only there for a few minutes. Whether or not Spielberg made a better D-Day film is for historians and critics to decide. But the power, skill, and legacy of The Longest Day can never be forgotten.

9/10

Downfall: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Oliver Girschbiegel's Downfall is not only one of the best German films ever made, but one of the most important as well. It represents nothing less than a nation finally standing up and accepting its terrible past. Even today, over 65 years after the fall of the Third Reich and the death of Adolf Hitler, the very idea of a film like Downfall is stunning in its audacity. We all know the story of the last days of Hitler: as the Red Army surrounded Berlin, Hitler, his staff, and top generals retreated into a tiny bunker from which they would never return. When defeat became imminent, instead of facing his crimes, Hitler and his newly wed wife Eva Braun committed suicide. Downfall sets out to depict these last few days in high detail. Hirschbiegel collaborated with historians and Traudl Junge, Hitler's last secretary in the bunker, to reconstruct one of the defining moments of modern German history. But before I dive into the ethical and moral ramifications of the film, a few words concerning the film's technical achievements is necessary. Downfall is an immaculately made film. Collaborating with cinematographer Rainer Klausmann, Hirschbiegel transforms Hitler's bunker into a twisting, nihilistic hive of corridors and claustrophobic offices. As the sound of Russian bombs and artillery echo through the halls, the bunker becomes a kind of hell for its doomed occupants. Low angle shots are widely used to visibly frame the characters between the floor and the ceiling as if the two were slowly crawling closer and closer together. When Hirschbiegel moves outside the bunker to witness the final desperate defense of the Nazi forces, we are plunged into some of the most compelling and realistic battle scenes in recent cinematic history. Much credit is due to the sound effects and editing team, for they outdid themselves. Hirschbiegel wisely demonstrated that the sounds of battle and dying soldiers is much more engaging and frightening than any special effect. The ever present sounds of battle permeate the bunker, acting as a ruthless reminder of the terror to come. And now, finally, the big question concerning Downfall: is it appropriate to have Adolf Hitler and his other head Nazis portrayed by professional actors instead of newsreel footage (as had been standard practice in German cinema)? After all, if they are recreated, isn't there a chance that they might be accidentally depicted as human instead of as the monsters that they truly were? And would having actors portray the men who orchestrated the largest war and genocide in human history be appropriate in and of itself? I'm not sure that anyone can answer that. The point is that Downfall DID have these historical figures recreated by actors. Whether you agree with this or not, it is impossible to deny its significance. For a country that might not ever shake off the historical demons of the Third Reich, Downfall represents a positive step forward for the German psyche, an acceptance of what was, and more importantly, a solemn warning for future generations.

10/10

Kiss of Death: Henry Hathaway

Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death is a delicious film noir that understands one of the genre's most fundamental aspects: that the main character is doomed from the very start. Many of the all-time greatest noir like Double Indemnity, Detour, and Out of the Past feature protagonists who are destined for failure from the very beginning. The tragedy comes from the fact that they fail even though they frequently try to disassociate themselves from their pasts and move forward in life, yet are drawn back into oblivion for one reason or another. In Kiss of Death, the troubled protagonist is Nick Bianco, a crook who is captured during a jewelry heist gone terribly wrong. The police offer leniency if he would squeal on his accomplices. However, Nick firmly believes in the unwritten code of thieves: no snitching. As a result, he is given a 20 year sentence. However, his world is shattered when he discovers that his wife has committed suicide and his young daughters have been packed up and sent to an orphanage. His love for his daughters transforms and convinces him to cooperate with the police in order to be released so he can take care of them. Along with Assistant District Attorney Louis D'Angelo, a man who is genuinely sympathetic towards Nick's situation, they hatch an elaborate scheme to point the finger at his accomplices while protecting his own identity. The scheme works and Nick is released on parole. However, he soon finds himself at odds with Tommy Udo, a psychopathic killer who personally dispatches "squealers" whenever he can. In one of the film's most famous scenes, he pushes the wheelchair-bound mother of a suspected squealer down a flight of stairs, killing her instantly. Through a series of unfortunate events, Nick is outed as a squealer. Suddenly, his entire family is at risk of being "visited" by Tommy. Nick decides that he must personally stop Tommy from hurting his family, even if he has to die to do so. Kiss of Death is a remarkable film noir that dives headfirst into a desperate story of redemption and love. It is a taut thriller, of course, but its emotional core is firmly rooted in one man's love for his family. You know, it's funny. Not many film noir are really about Love, with a capital "L." Sex, lust, and desire? Of course. But Love? That is a much rarer thing. And Kiss of Death is all the stronger for embracing it.

8/10

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Saw the film again at the 2016 New York Film Festival. Still liked it, but wasn't quite as enthused as I was the first time I saw it. Here's the link to my new review:

http://theretroset.com/henry-hathaway-portrait-of-an-underratedd-artist/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=the_retro_set&utm_content=Henry%20Hathaway:%20Portrait%20of%20an%20Underrated%20Artist

7/10

The Crime of Monsieur Lange: Jean Renoir

I recently read an article by French New Wave "founder" André Bazin in which he praised Jean Renoir and his naturalism. He pointed out that Renoir's films move just a bit more leisurely than others and because of this they reach a higher level of cinematic quality. This realism would help infuse many of Renoir's films into undeniable classics, such as The Rules of the Game and Grand Illusion. But here, in The Crime of Monsieur Lange, the more relaxed tone and pacing harms what could have been an interesting film. Now, I understand that this film has quite a bit of historical subtext. The film apparently captured the spirit of the left-wing political movement, Popular Front, that seized France before it was defeated in the late 1930s. As such, the film follows a magazine company that is thrown into peril when its head manager is apparently killed in a train accident. The unemployed workers decide to come together and form a cooperative. Their new cooperative proves wildly successful. However, it is soon discovered that the head of the company merely faked his own death (supposedly partly in order to escape from debtors). He returns to the company and demands that he take back control of it since it is legally his. However, he is shot and killed by M. Lange, a clerk-turned-writer who specializes in the highly popular Arizona Jim series. So Lange and his lover Valentine flee to the Belgian border where they are recognized by the patrons of an inn that they stop at and forced to tell their story. This is all a framing tool that positions the bulk of the film as a cumbersome flashback. This isn't a bad idea for a film, it just isn't executed well. The first hour of the film meanders and wobbles to and fro as it sways from one character to another, exploring their lives and affairs. The actual "story" part of the story takes place in the last 20-30 minutes of the film when I assumed that somebody told Renoir that eventually he was going to have to make something happen. And, yes, like I said, I understand its role as a representative of the Popular Front. But that shouldn't excuse what is in reality a mediocre film. Take Italian Neorealism, for example. The Italian Neorealists told stories of great political and social impact that crystallized a devastating period in their history. And you know what else? Their films still hold up to this day as engaging and compelling pieces of cinema. The Crime of Monsieur Lange may be an important film in Renoir's oeuvre due to its historical significance, but it also remains tedious, tired, and unfocused.

6/10

Some Came Running: Vincente Minnelli

I saw Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running for one reason: Martin Scorsese mentioned it in A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. Scorsese explained that "the film's final carnival scene remains...one of the best and most expressive uses of CinemaScope." So I decided that if one of the Grand Masters of the Cinema believed that it was worth watching, who am I to argue? And, I have to admit that the final carnival scene was absolutely fantastic. However, I feel that the rest of the film was pitifully lacking in quality. The film is an overwrought drama concerning a callous veteran named Dave Hirsch who gets on a bus one day to his hometown Parkman, Indiana while in a drunken stupor. He immediately gets into a conflict with his older brother Frank Hirsh who owns a jewelry store and sees Dave as a danger to his social status. Now, I'll be perfectly frank, I am compiling this review while constantly referring back to wikipedia and IMDB because for the life of me I cannot remember what happened in this film. It's been four days since I saw this film and it had such a minimal impact on me that it's like I never saw it in the first place. But I'll try to provide a few more details. Uh...let's see...Dave falls in love with a school teacher named Gwen French who loves his writing (did I mention he was a writer?). But that doesn't end up well because he was already in love with Ginnie Moorehead, an easy woman who followed Dave on his bus ride to Parkman. But THAT is complicated by the fact that there are gangsters involved and...I don't know...this film is a blur. I paid attention to it, I really did. But it just failed to leave any imprint on my subconscious.

5/10

The Secret of the Urn: Hideo Gosha

Hideo Gosha is one of Japanese cinema's greatest secrets. While most Western audiences will immediately think of Akira Kurosawa as the master of the chanbara (swordfighting) genre with films like Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, Gosha's filmography is rich with many of its greatest examples. His films like Three Outlaw Samurai and Sword of the Beast infused the genre with a new level of violence and dark, foreboding overtones. Gosha's films are harsh, jagged, and very, very bloody. Take one of the first scenes in his film The Secret of the Urn. A loyal samurai named Samanosuke is dispatched by his Lord to kill an enemy spy. It turns out that the spy was one of his childhood friends. When Samanosuke confronts him, he is tricked and betrayed. His face is slashed, leaving him blind in one eye. And then, to add insult to injury, his sword-fighting arm is chopped off and jettisoned into the sky in a scene that seems to predict the infamous bone-throw scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. His body is then thrown over a cliff and left for dead. But Samanosuke survives. Driven insane by his betrayal and injuries, he adopts the name Tange Sazen and becomes a ronin, or masterless samurai. He is eventually drawn back into the fray of things when his ex-clan tries to recover and retrieve a stolen urn which supposedly contains the location to one million ryo. His ex-clan desperately needs the money to prevent another clan from taking over their territory. As fate would have it, the elusive urn somehow falls into Sazen's hands. It is his duty to return the urn...but Sazen isn't cooperating. It turns out that he might have his own plans for the pot after all...The Secret of the Urn is a great piece of chanbara history. Originally created in 1927, Tange Sazen has become a Japanese cultural icon, much like Zatoichi and Yojimbo, two other famous cinematic samurai. Gosha's The Secret of the Urn was meant to "re-boot" the character for a new generation. And as it stands, Gosha's version of the Tange Sazen story is still one of the most widely admired and beloved. And it's no small wonder. The Secret of the Urn is a film that will leave one hell of an impression on anyone who watches it.

7/10

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets: Shūji Terayama

When you've seen as many movies as I have, you get to a point where you honestly believe that you can't be surprised or confused by film anymore. You begin to believe that you've seen everything that could possibly be out there: every trick camera shot, every special effect, every experimental doodad and whatnot. And then, right as you are lulled into a false sense of security, a film like Shūji Terayama's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets comes along, punches you in the face, and proves just how little you've truly seen or imagined. This is easily one of the hardest films that I've ever had to write about because of how it spurns things like traditional narrative, character identification, and any semblance of linear movement. But I guess in hindsight that I really should have expected something like this. After all, it is directed by Shūji Terayama, one of the heroes of the Japanese avant-garde. So...how do I describe this film? Well...I guess that it focuses on a dysfunctional Japanese family. The "main" "character" is an alienated young man who just sorta drifts through life. His father is a peeping tom who thinks the best way to make a man out of him is to buy him a prostitute. His sister is a man-hater who has an almost bestial attraction to her pet rabbit. His grandmother is a con artist...I think. We watch as they disintegrate and drift through a purposeless existence. Of course, this is all very difficult to speculate on. Terayama fills the film with jagged and disconnected vignettes of lonely, isolated people all throughout Japan. In one particularly moving segment, we watch a series of what I can only describe as dating service confessionals, i.e. people making tapes wherein they plead for companionship. Other segments of the film seem to be prolonged music videos of rebellious Japanese youth set to proto-punk. Overall, the film seems to be a rallying cry for...something. I think that different people will have their own interpretations of just what Terayama was trying to accomplish with Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets. Maybe it's a shriek against individualistic isolation. Maybe it's a reflection of the chaos of post-war Japan as seen through the shattered looking-glass of wayward youth. I dunno. Maybe it doesn't mean anything at all.

5/10

Kiss of the Spider Woman: Héctor Babenco

I'll be perfectly honest: the main reason why I didn't like Héctor Babenco's Kiss of the Spider Woman was that I didn't quite understand it. The film was based on Argentine writer Manuel Puig's novel of the same name, a work which challenged several literary norms through the use of experimental techniques. Babenco's adaptation maintains a similar uneasy feeling that fills the audience with an uncertain feeling that something about the film is a bit...off. The nuts and bolts of the story concern two cellmates in an Argentinian prison. The first, Valentin Arregui (Raúl Juliá), is a political prisoner. The second, Luis Molina (William Hurt), is a flamboyant homosexual who was imprisoned for sleeping with an underage boy. Molina has been secretly employed by the police to befriend Arregui and coax him into revealing the locations of his revolutionary cell's members in exchange for prison parole. Of course, we don't learn that until about a third of the way into the film. Instead, we are treated to the early budding of Molina and Arregui's friendship. Molina attempts to gain Arregui's trust (and help himself cope with his situation) by vividly recounting scenes from his favorite film, Her Real Glory, a piece of Nazi propaganda during World War Two. And here is where Kiss of the Spider Woman lost me. The first part of it is primarily composed of Molina's cinematic flashbacks. Only gradually do we learn about the two prisoners' backgrounds and reasons for being incarcerated. It uncomfortably evolves from a wistful fantasy into a pounding political thriller. Raúl Juliá shines as Arregui. Viewers who are only familiar with Juliá's tenure as Gomez Addams will be shocked by his earnest and devastatingly honest performance. And then...there's William Hurt. Frequent readers of my Mini Reviews will recall that I take issue with Hurt's "acting style." But here, Hurt's performance is absolutely ridiculous. His portrayal of Molina feels like a flamboyant gay man impersonating an uptight straight man impersonating a flamboyant gay man. And, of course, just like in my recently reviewed Reversal of Fortune, the odd, out-of-place performance wins the international acclaim (in this case the Academy Award for Best Actor) while the steadfast, captivating performance by the other notable actor is critically snubbed. Kiss of the Spider Woman is an unusual film that I suspect only garnered the level of praise that it did in international film circles due to its confrontation and depiction of homosexual themes and issues. But for the modern viewer, that simply isn't enough.

6/10

Son of Frankenstein: Rowland V. Lee

Rowland V. Lee's Son of Frankenstein was the third film in the Universal Studios' Frankenstein franchise. It was one of the rare times that horror icons Boris Karloff (in his last performance as the Monster) and Béla Lugosi (Ygor) would share the screen. In addition, this third entry also saw the inclusion of Basil Rathbone as the eponymous son of Frankenstein. If Lon Chaney had somehow managed to show up, this film would have been a grand slam in the horror casting department. But I digress. Son of Frankenstein follows Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (Rathbone), his wife Elsa, and their young son Peter as they relocate to the Frankenstein family castle. Wolf is determined to redeem his father's reputation. This drive is strengthened when the entire town shows up at the train station to meet and inform him that he is unwelcome. One of the only people who isn't immediately hateful towards Wolf is Ygor, a blacksmith who was hanged for graverobbing. He was pronounced dead only to wake up momentarily afterwards. As a result, the townspeople were legally obligated to release him as he had technically "died." Ygor, who bares a warped neck due to the hanging, manipulates Wolf into reviving the Monster. Once reawakened, Ygor secretly forces the Monster to murder all of the jurors at his trial. It's up to Wolf and a local policeman who lost an arm to the Monster when he was a child to stop both Ygor and his abomination. Overall, it's a decent piece of Universal horror. My only problem is that while the first two movies used the story of Frankenstein to make bold societal and sexual statements, Son of Frankenstein is content to simply exist and spook people. Karloff, Lugosi, and Rathbone are all at the top of their game. But without the brave subtext of the first two films, Son of Frankenstein is just an average horror film with an unusually superb cast.

7/10

Reversal of Fortune: Barbet Schroeder

Barbet Schroder's Reversal of Fortune is a member of an impromptu genre of film which I like to refer to as New England Dramas. New England Dramas are basically films which are usually, although not always, set in New England that focus on the problems of well-to-do, middle-to-upper class white people. You know...films like Children of a Lesser God, In the Bedroom, On Golden Pond, etc, etc. They usually feature very pretty cinematography, gentle piano background music, and a strange proclivity to take place during autumn. My problem with New England Dramas is that by and large the well-to-do, middle-to-upper class white people that they feature are terribly dull and uninteresting. And so it is with the main characters in Reversal of Fortune. At least, two out of three of them. The first two are Sunny von Bülow and Claus von Bülow, a pair of excruciatingly boring socialites who spend their days drinking, popping pills, and sleeping. At least, they did until Sunny von Bülow fell into a bizarre coma which left her brain dead. Claus von Bülow was then famously accused and convicted in real life of attempting to murder her by giving her an overdose of insulin. Reversal of Fortune comes in right after these events and details Claus' attempts to overturn his conviction in an appeal with the help of law professor Alan Dershowitz. The scenes with Dershowitz, played by a marvelous Ron Silver, are full of fast, witty dialogue and move with the brisk pace of a film that knows that it has a lot of story to tell and only two hours in which to do it. And then comes Jeremy Irons as Claus von Bülow. I am a huge fan of Jeremy Irons, in no small part due to his performance as Scar in The Lion King, the very first film that I ever saw as a child in a movie theater. But here in Reversal of Fortune he talks like he has a mouth full of Novocaine and therefore must over-stretch his jaws in order to properly pronounce his words. His vowels are somehow sharper than his consonants...figure THAT out...The fact that Irons won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Silver wasn't even nominated irks the hell out of me. Oh, this is an interesting film when it focuses on the nuts and bolts of Claus' case. But, like a dour specter, Irons glowers over this film, serving only to remind me why I can't stand New England Dramas in the first place.

7/10