Summer Interlude: Ingmar Bergman

As I pointed out to my twitter followers, one of these days somebody needs to do a scholarly dissertation on the significance of water in the films of Ingmar Bergman. So many of his films involve swimming, oceans, beaches, rivers, lakes, and ponds. His 1951 film Summer Interlude can be counted among these, as one of its most important scenes involves the death of a young man during a cliff-diving accident. The man's name was Henrik and he made his fatal plunge in order to impress his lover named Marie. That was thirteen years ago. Today Marie is a ballerina who discovers the diary Henrik's diary during a dress rehearsal for Swan Lake. When the rehearsal is cancelled due to technical problems with the stage lights, Marie spends her day remembering that fateful summer of love with Henrik. Told largely in flashback, Summer Interlude was one of the most important films in Bergman's early filmography. Perhaps I'll let the great Pauline Kael explain: "Bergman found his style in this film, and it is regarded by cinema historians not only as his breakthrough but also as the beginning of 'a new, great epoch in Swedish films.' Many of the themes (whatever one thinks of them) that Bergman later expanded are here: the artists who have lost their identities, the faces that have become masks, the mirrors that reflect death at work. But this movie, with its rapturous yet ruined love affair, also has a lighter side: an elegiac grace and sweetness." It's true that unlike many of his later films, Summer Interlude seems uncharacteristically optimistic. Even the tragedy of Henrik's death is countered by the start of a new, optimistic relationship with a journalist called David. The film even ends with a short dance number from Swan Lake that ends triumphantly. Whereas many of Bergman's later films would espouse tragedy and the impossibility of reconciliation, Summer Interlude is a brief glimmer of optimism.

7/10

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead: Lloyd Kaufman, Gabriel Friedman

Oh, Troma...what would independent cinema be without you? Without Troma Studios, we would not have such independent classics as the Toxic Avenger series and Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1990). And now the madcap maestros of movie mayhem have given the world yet another glorious tribute to everything gross, disgusting, and in poor taste entitled Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. The film's "hero" is Arbie, a young teenager fresh outta high school who discovers to his dismay that his sweetheart, Wendy, has become a "left-wing, lipstick lesbo liberal" who has joined in with a local protest against the opening of a fast food restaurant: the American Chicken Bunker. Why? Because the ACB was built over an ancient Indian burial ground. So, to spite Wendy, Arbie gets a job with ACB and soon discovers that working at a fast food chicken restaurant isn't all it's cracked up to be (get it?!). Oh, and of course the spirits of the dead chickens co-mingle with the ghosts of the dead Indians. So they join forces and turn all of the customers into giant chicken zombies. And then there's the stereotypes. Director Lloyd Kaufman really went all-out in his attempt to offend everyone under the sun with this film. There's a Burqa-wearing Muslim coworker who repeatedly threatens to blowup the restaurant, a gay Mexican who masturbates into the food, a redneck cook with a love of making sweet love to dead chickens, and Denny, the black power'd manager. Oh, and the owner of the restaurant is a racist Southerner with a diaper fetish. And let's not forget about the literal gallons and gallons of gore, feces, and other bodily fluids which are liberally thrown about the set. See, the secret behind Troma is that they mix graphic imagery with some of the most biting social commentary ever committed to film. So, when you watch Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, one would do well to throw out any semblance of taste or sophistication beforehand. Oh, and did I forget to mention that this film is also a musical?

6/10

The Mill and the Cross: Lech Majewski

Recently there have been several films that have captured the imagination of the public and the press for their technical innovations. James Cameron's Avatar (2009) and Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011) were both lauded for their incredible use of pioneering special effects. And yet, I think that the most significant development in the field of special effects and visual imagery in the cinema belongs to Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross. I say this because with this film Majewski has done more to redefine what can be put on the screen than both Cameron and Scorsese combined. The film is an adaption of Michael Francis Gibson's book The Mill and the Cross which explores the lives of around a dozen of the occupants of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting The Procession to Calvary. The painting, which documents Christ's procession to Golgotha, juxtaposes Christ's suffering with 16th century religious persecution in Flanders. In the course of the film, Majewski literally makes the painting come to life with actors reenacting it with the aid of green-screens and other computer imagery. People are projected in the background and are shrunk to properly depict pre-Renaissance perspectives. Environments and sets are engulfed with artificial lighting and shadows. And yet, for all of its visual deception, Majewski never loses sight of the people in his film. The central performances by Rutger Hauer and Michael York legitimize The Mill and the Cross as a genuine cinematic experience instead of just a fancy tech demo. Even though very few people saw this film, I have a feeling that its ramifications and influence will be felt in the decades to come.

9/10

The Baby: Ted Post

During my tenure as a film buff, I have seen some truly gross, disturbing, and offensive things. I've seen countless decapitations, lurid and perverse sex scenes, and death scenes that could make a mortician's stomach churn. And yet nothing that I have ever seen before has creeped me out as powerfully and effectively as Ted Post's The Baby. See, I made a discovery while watching Dušan Makavejev's Sweet Movie (1974): I am grossed out by diaper fetishists. Oh, I don't hold anything against them, mind you. We all have our own hangups and whatnot. It's just that seeing a grown human wearing a diaper and acting like a baby for some reason hurts my soul. And so it's no surprise that The Baby was one of the most uncomfortable viewing experiences of my life. The film is about a social worker who investigates a family with a twenty-something mentally disabled man who still acts like a baby. She correctly assumes that the family (comprised of women) is abusing the "baby" as a method for venting their anger and frustration against other men in their lives. And so, the social worker attempts to steal him away from them. But everything is not how it seems. It turns out that "baby" may be in even more trouble with the "social worker" than with his actual family. The film is admittingly well made. Ruth Roman's performance of Mrs. Wadsworth, the cruel and sinister matriarch of "baby's" family, evokes an aging Bette Davis. The film captures that queer atmosphere of late 60s and 70s thrillers such as Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Sentinel (1977) wherein supposedly picturesque and modern societies masks disturbing undercurrents of evil. So, like I said, it's a good film. But it isn't one that I plan on watching again anytime soon. *shiver*

7/10

Mrs. Miniver: William Wyler

In my never-ending quest to find forgotten classic films, I am consistently astonished to discover great pieces of cinema that are sitting right in front of our noses. For instance, did you know that there have been eighty-four movies that have won the Academy Award for Best Picture? Think about that for a second. In the history of the Academy Awards, there have been a whopping eighty-four films that Hollywood has distinguished as being the best of the year. That makes eighty-four films that could logically be considered timeless classics. And yet, it is stunning how quickly we forget about them. Of course, everybody remembers certain winners such as Casablanca (1943) and The Godfather (1972). But most of the films that win Hollywood’s highest honor are doomed to be forgotten. How many people have honestly heard of, say, Cavalcade (1933)? The Great Ziegfeld (1936)? How about Gigi (1958)? Not only did that film win Best Picture, it took home an astonishing nine Academy Awards! Or what about Marty (1955), the second and last film to ever win Best Picture and the Palme d’Or? Of course one could make the argument that the Academy Award for Best Picture is not the best measure of a film’s quality. After all, any award that is decided based on popular vote is destined to have a few clunkers. But the fact remains that at some definite point in the past, all of these films that I have mentioned were toasted as the greatest film of the year.

Therefore, I have decided that it is my duty to help bring the spotlight back to some of these great films. I have already featured one of these films on this sight: The Life of Émile Zola (1937). The film that I wish to focus on today was released five years after Dieterle’s film took home the gold. Upon its release, it won six Academy Awards and boasted on its poster that it was “Voted the Greatest Movie Ever Made.” Nowadays, the general public has seldom heard it. This film is none other than William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver.

The story is based off a fictional English housewife created in 1937 for newspaper columns named Mrs. Kay Miniver. Living a very comfortable life in the outskirts of London with her well-to-do family (you can tell they are well off because their house has a name: “Starlings”), Miniver’s life is thrown into turmoil by the start of the Second World War. Her oldest son, Vin, quickly joins the Royal Air Force and becomes one of the Few; the pilots who held off the German Blitz during the Battle of Britain at horrific personal expense. Her husband Clem is called in the middle of the night to participate in the Dunkirk evacuation, that miraculous operation wherein over 300,000 trapped British and French soldiers were rescued from the shores of France from the rapidly advancing German Army. Later that morning, Miniver is threatened by a downed German pilot who holds her at gunpoint. And finally, Miniver’s entire family huddles in a shelter as they are very nearly killed by Nazi bombs.

It would be one thing if the film focused solely on the character of Mrs. Miniver. But Wyler wisely positioned Mrs. Miniver within a much larger cross-section of British society. We meet characters such as the Miniver’s live-in housemaid Gladys who tearfully sees her husband off to the front lines. There’s Lady Beldon, a local aristocrat, and her daughter Carol who falls in love with Vin and eventually becomes his wife. Lady Beldon is locked in an epic struggle with kindly stationmaster Mr. Ballard whose only offense was to dare to enter a rose (which he named the “Mrs. Miniver”) into a local flower competition which she has perennially won for the last several years. And finally there is the local vicar (played by Henry Wilcoxon) who unites the entire community in the final scene with a heart-breakingly powerful sermon in the ruins of his bombed-out church.

The film is indeed a piece of wartime propaganda. Upon its completion President Roosevelt ordered it to be rushed to theaters so that it would inspire Americans to support the war effort. The film, released in 1942, actually began production two years earlier before the United States entered the war. As a result, the film was continually reworked as the US’s involvement became more and more inevitable. This most obviously manifested itself in the scene where Miniver is cornered by the German pilot. As the film was revised, the German was made more stereotypically evil and unrepentant. The encounter became more stand-offish. Finally, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the scene was changed again to include a shot where Miniver slapped him.

And yet, to dismiss the film merely due to its status as propaganda would be foolish. Mrs. Miniver is a genuinely moving piece of filmmaking. Take, for instance, the scene where the Miniver family is being bombed. As they try and sleep in a minuscule shelter, the sounds of bombs gets louder and louder. Suddenly, the entire shelter shakes. The kids awaken, the family cat dashes, the door flies open. Their young son Toby speaks with the clarity that only children can muster: “They almost killed us that time, Mommy.” It is a devastating scene. And yet, it speaks to the film’s overall message: that the strength and unity of Britain, in both its families and communities, is what will help it prevail in the end against evil.

Mrs. Miniver is just one of the numerous Best Picture winners to be largely forgotten. But it remains a triumphant work of art for those who are willing to look for it. For although it was made explicitly for World War Two audiences, its heart, its soul, its message is one that will resound for ages.

9/10

The Little Foxes: William Wyler

Here's a curious little film. William Wyler's The Little Foxes doesn't appear on any Best Of lists of great films that I have ever been able to find. The film wasn't on the 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. It isn't on any AFI Top 100 or Top 10 lists. And it isn't even a member of Roger Ebert's Great Movies Collection. And yet, during my research as a film studies student, The Little Foxes is constantly mentioned as one of the most important and ground-breaking films of the 1940s. William Wyler's classical decoupage and Gregg Toland's cinematography was nothing short of revolutionary according to serious film scholars. Legendary French film critic André Bazin, most famously known for inspiring the French New Wave with his magazine Cahiers du cinéma, would frequently mention this film alongside of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939) as works that redefined the cinema. So what is this film? Well, it can best be described as a film that documents the internal politics and power struggles within an early 20th century Southern aristocratic family. Regina Hubbard Giddens (played in a chilling performance by Bette Davis) engages in a scheme with her two brothers to marry off two of their cousins in order to consolidate enough capital to start a cotton mill. However, this involves getting Regina's sickly husband, Horace, to invest his railroad bonds. Since he refuses out of spite for her (the two have long since lost the flame that brought them together) Regina must use horrific tactics to blackmail, coerce, and dominate everyone around her in order to achieve her goals. As stated, the film is especially revered for its decoupage and cinematography. Wyler relies on a more traditional method of decoupage which is very nearly theatrical in its formalistic purity. The results are absolutely jaw-dropping. The film is especially notorious for a scene involving Regina, a heart-attack, and lonely set of stairs. The Little Foxes is indeed a powerful film displaying the height of Wyler's talents. I just hope that someday it can receive the recognition among the public that it so dearly deserves.

8/10

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde: Roy Ward Baker

Now here's a film to make the mouths of film academics everywhere water: Roy Ward Baker's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a gruesome, disturbing look into the nature of gender politics within horror. The film takes three of the most twisted pieces of British folklore and mashes them together with a sinister twist. At its core, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a standard Hammer Horror retelling of the classic Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde story. Except in this version, the mysterious potion that Dr. Jekyll ingests to unleash his dark side is a mix of "female hormones." He drinks it as part of an experiment to discover a method to restore life to dead and withering tissue. Only, much to his amazement, the serum turns him into a woman! So, we have this delicious dichotomy between the Male Superego (chaste, good) and the Female Id (hypersexual, evil). But more on that in a bit. As I said, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde combines three famous British crime stories. The good Dr. Jekyll, in order to get the "female hormones" he needs for experiments, he must dissect fresh cadavers of young women. At first, he gets his "specimens" from Burke and Hare, the two famous murderers who sold their victims' bodies to scientists and doctors. After they are discovered, Dr. Jekyll takes it upon himself to gather new corpses. In doing so, he inadvertently becomes none other than Jack the Ripper. Of course, this entire story is completely preposterous seeing as how these three stories took place decades apart. But seeing them combined is oddly compelling. There is much to be said for the male/female switch that takes place when Dr. Jekyll transforms. It is characteristic of a trend in horror films wherein women are seen as the evil "other," such as Simone Simon in Cat People (1942) and Linda Blair in The Exorcist (1973). The list goes on, but to examine it more carefully would distract this article from its main purpose: to review Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde. All you need to know is that it is a great film for both casual viewing and serious academic discourse.

8/10

The Devil's Rejects: Rob Zombie

Director Howard Hawks once defined a good movie as one with "Three great scenes, no bad ones." Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects has three good scenes, alright. Unfortunately, the rest of them are "meh." The story is really a continuation of Zombie's earlier film House of 1,000 Corpses (2003). It follows the last days of the Firefly family, a group of socio/psychopathic killers responsible for at least 75 brutal homicides. There isn't much to tell about the rest of the film's plot, really. It just concerns them running from the law, killing a traveling band of musicians, getting captured and tortured by a sadistic sheriff, and finally being gunned down by a roadblock. But I did mention three good scenes, so here they are. In the first, one of the Firefly's by the name of Otis murders two members of the aforementioned band in the middle of the desert. He does so while chillingly mocking their faith in God. It plays like an inverse of Michael Parks' "sermon" from Kevin Smith's Red State (2011). The second great scene is when the sadistic sheriff captures three of the Firefly's and tortures them by sticking pictures of their past victims on them with a staple gun. It was fascinating to see the sheriff embrace his dark side and come to the realization that the only way he could punish such despicable creatures was to lower himself to their level. The third great scene was, of course, the final scene where the surviving Firefly's are killed in a roadblock to the sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird." So, like I said, it has three great scenes. If you have the patience (and stomach) to sit through the rest of Zombie's gorefest, then you will probably enjoy it.

6/10

Brain Damage: Frank Henenlotter

Frank Henenlotter's Brain Damage is a fantastic metaphor for drug abuse in late 80s American culture. It is full of rich subtext and poignant social observations. However, considering the fact that it is about a giant, show-tunes singing, parasitic slug that eats people's brains, it will probably never be given the same respect as other horror films. When serious film scholars write about horror films, they like ones made by proper directors like George A. Romero, Stanely Kubrick, Jacques Tourneur, and William Friedkin. Okay, okay...that's not true. But the more I study horror film from a scholarly standpoint, the more I find that academics tend to gloss over more campy or exploitative films. Unless, of course, they happen to be blaxploitation. Then it's a whole different ballgame. But I'm off topic. Okay, let's see...Frank Henenlotter's Brain Damage. As I said, this is a film about a giant talking slug that eats brains. He does this by latching onto a host, in this case a young man named Brian, injecting their brains with an addictive, blue-colored hallucinogenic, and forcing them to hunt down victims for him when they start to suffer from withdrawal. The film sports many great practical special effects, the best of which being the blue slug, named Aylmer (voiced by famed creature feature host John Zacherle). The film is at times hilarious, terrifying, and tragic as we watch Brian struggle with his new-found addiction. And, of course, it's impossible to forget, particularly because it features what may literally be the funniest death scene in horror history. For my more-sensitive readers, let's just say that it involves oral sex gone horribly, horribly wrong.

8/10

Curse of Frankenstein, The: Terence Fisher

I have an unabashed and un-ironic love of Hammer Horror films. I sincerely think that they are some of the most visually captivating and psychologically stimulating horror films that have ever been made. I am absolutely stunned that during my tenure as a film studies student, I haven't found a single book or journal devoted to these great films. Hopefully I just haven't found them yet. I find it ridiculous that my fellow film studies friends can discuss films like Cat People (1942) and Night of the Living Dead (1968) and use terms like "Manichean" and "bourgeois" to describe them while ignoring Hammer Horror. Sure, there are definitely overtones and subtexts in such great movies for further exploration, but I feel like they are deliberately overreaching for things to talk about when much more interesting horror films are being ignored. And so we get to the first Frankenstein film from Hammer Horror: The Curse of Frankenstein. Director Terence Fisher made several interesting changes to the archetypal Frankenstein story. For one, Dr. Frankenstein is a well-respected, upper class scientist aided not by a hunchbacked assistant, but by a good friend and former tutor named Paul Krempe. Frankenstein originally doesn't want to create new human life, but instead tries to find new ways to revive dead tissue. His desire to create human life grows gradually, as does his madness. And, finally, whereas the original Dr. Frankenstein was just a regular scientist, the new Dr. Frankenstein is clearly an insane sociopath who has no problem with killing friends in order to harvest their bodies for parts for his new creation. Before I finish this short review, I am required by law to mention the phenomenal performances by Hammer Studios regulars Peter Cushing (Doctor Frankenstein) and Christopher Lee (Frankenstein's Monster). Both are chilling and unforgettable in their performances. The Curse of Frankenstein is so good, in fact, that I think it is superior to the original Frankenstein (1931). Blasphemy, I know...but isn't that what the Frankenstein story is all about?

9/10

I Married a Monster from Outer Space: Gene Fowler Jr.

As a general rule, if a movie's title contains the phrases "I Married a ______" or "I Was a Teenage ________," then even if I don't think it's very good, chances are I am still going to enjoy it. Because, let's be honest here, nobody sets out to make the Next Great American Movie with a title like that. People who make films with those kinds of titles know that they are making cheap, tongue-and-cheek schlock-fests. Take director Gene Fowler Jr. When he directed I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), I doubt that he wanted to create a serious movie akin to Rebel Without a Cause meets The Wolfman. It was a fun, silly, over-the-top werewolf movie. A year later, he would direct a fun, silly, over-the-top alien invasion movie entitled I Married a Monster from Outer Space. My favorite part of this film is how seriously its characters take the situation that they find themselves in. The film basically plays out like a low-budget remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). A race of aliens comes to earth, steals human bodies via smoke bubbles, and begin a hostile takeover. And, God bless them, these aliens actually think that they can take over the world with a single spaceship. Okay, that's not true. The last shot of the film reveals a whole fleet of UFOs fleeing earth. But for the length of the entire film, we are led to believe that the aliens attacking the USA are doing so from a single ship. Here's a tip for any would-be alien invaders: if you are going to send ONE alien to subjugate the entire human race, at least have the decency to reduce said race to only a handful of survivors, like in Robot Monster (1953). Otherwise, your grand scheme to conquer the earth comes off like a pale rehash of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). At the end of the day, I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a fun little alien invasion film. And really, it should be treated as such.

6/10

Lolita: Stanley Kubrick

Lolita was the last major work by director Stanley Kubrick that I hadn't seen. So, when the day finally came to watch it, I was quite excited for two reasons. One, I would be able to claim that I had seen all of Kubrick's movies. Two, I would get to see one last great film by one of the undisputed grandmasters of the cinema. And having sat through Lolita, I can say that the film doesn't disappoint. From my own personal experience, it seems like everybody considers Lolita to be one of Kubrick's minor works; a kind of stepping stone in between immaculate masterpieces. I think I know why, too. With each of his great masterpieces, there was a piercing sense that Kubrick had something he desperately wanted to share with the audience: a worldview, a political statement, or even a simple observation on human nature. Lolita lacks such a conviction. The entire film feels like an adaptation of the classic Vladimir Nabokov novel that just happened to have been directed by Kubrick. All of the trademarks are there: the immaculate shot compositions and photography, the deeply ingrained sense of cynicism, and the flawless acting no doubt borne of countless retakes. It is very obvious that Kubrick struggled to adapt the highly controversial novel, a story of an older man named Humbert Humbert who falls in love and starts a sexual relationship with his 12-year old stepdaughter, as accurately as possible. However, the Powers That Be forced him to make so many changes and cuts to the original story that afterward Kubrick mentioned that if he had known how much trouble adapting the novel would have been beforehand, he wouldn't had done it. But as it stands, Lolita is still a worthy member of Kubrick's cinematic canon.

8/10

Gigi: Vincente Minnelli

Vincente Minnelli's Gigi is like George Cukor's My Fair Lady, only without the persisting cultural relevancy. Seriously, compare both films. Both were musicals about precocious young European women who are transformed into proper high class ladies. Both won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score. And both featured music by the legendary team of Lerner and Loewe. The only noticeable difference is that Eliza is English and Gigi is French. Well, that, and Gigi isn't as good. Whereas My Fair Lady had an interesting concept propelling the lead woman's transformation (a bet between two phoneticians), Gigi's eponymous female lead becomes a woman of high class because...um...she wants to. I dunno...that doesn't make for nearly as interesting a drama. So...Gigi wants to become a proper lady so she can appeal to an upper class man who goes around singing about how boring his life of luxury is. Bah, I just couldn't get interested in the characters. The music doesn't help, either. Like the soundtrack from My Fair Lady, it features music that was obviously written to accentuate the lyrics and therefore isn't exactly the most catchy or memorable. You'll remember the lyrics, to be sure, but good luck remembering the actual music that accompanies it. And furthermore, most of the songs sound tired. Honoré Lachaille's "Thank Heavens for Little Girls," for example, features one of the most tedious and dull choruses that I have ever encountered in musical theater, or film. That doesn't even take into consideration how creepy it sounds to hear an old man singing about how much he loves little girls. The film is just tiring and forgettable all round. Watch My Fair Lady instead.

5/10

Black Sun: Koreyoshi Kurahara

In a decrepit wasteland of rubble, detritus, and debris, a crumbling Christian church shivers in the Japanese morning sunlight. In its lone spire, a car thief named Mei relaxes and plays a jazz record. Though the artist sings in a language he doesn’t understand, he feels a desperate, inner connection with them. His walls are plastered with photos and clippings of jazz musicians and the floor is hidden by a layer of albums. He plays with a dog affectionately named “Thelonious Monk.” Life is hard, but enjoyable. At least until he discovers a wounded machine-gun toting American GI hiding in his room. What’s more, he isn’t an ordinary American GI. No...this man happens to be black. Ecstatic at his discovery, Mei tries to communicate and calm the GI who is screeching for help: “Today’s my lucky day! . . . All black men are my friends . . . Negro jazz! . . . I love you!” But the GI ignores him. He is on the run from the military police, having been involved in an incident where two other GI’s were shot and killed. What follows is a brilliantly unsettling examination of cultural boundaries and racial tensions in post-war Japan. Such is the world of Koreyoshi Kurahara’s Black Sun.

Black Sun is one of those special films that could only have come into fruition under the right historical and cultural circumstances. Set in the Japanese post-war reconstruction years, Kurahara’s film is more than just a crime drama; it is a kind of anthropological time capsule. Kurahara’s film perfectly captured the atmosphere of his time and all of its inherent contradictions, such as how Japanese society was experiencing an unheard of level of economic and social freedom while living under the suffocating presence of American occupiers. While jazz clubs and bars flourished and gave birth to a new form of wild night life, many still lived in the remains of bombed-out buildings and collected scrap for a living. And, most importantly, how the unprecedented level of intermingling with another foreign culture managed to entrench racist sentiments and xenophobia.

Take Mei. Mei openly idolizes black jazz musicians. But he had probably never seen one before his run-in with Gill. Even the GI’s that he sees on the street are white. As a result, Mei doesn’t just worship black jazz musicians, but black people in general, lumping them together into an autonomous whole separate from other white Americans. As Gill writhes in pain, Mei eagerly offers him a trumpet and asks him to play.

But the misguided sentiments don’t end with Mei’s assumption of Gill’s musical prowess. When Gill accidentally kills “Thelonious Monk,” Mei calls him a nigger, runs to a bar, and starts to complain about how worthless black people are. Even after he gets over his depression concerning his dog, he introduces Gill to a bar full of friends as his "slave."


In any case, Mei decides to help Gill escape from the police. In order to get through military roadblocks, Mei paints Gill’s face white and his own black. When the roadblock officers begin to interrogate Mei, mistaking him for a black GI, they soon realize that he is just a Japanese in blackface and let him through. Why Gill needed to be in whiteface is left unclear.

But together they embark on a quest to reach “the sea.” For some inexplicable reason, Gill, desires to reach “the sea” so he can return to his “mama.” A bond begins to grow between the two, reminiscent of the one found between the two on-the-run white and black prisoners chained together in The Defiant Ones (1958). As Gill slowly loses his mind to the pain and infection from his bullet wound, Mei begins to risk life and limb to get him to “the sea.” In a hauntingly surreal scene, Gill straps himself to a giant balloon and begs Mei to shoot the rope holding him to the ground. With the police quickly closing in, Mei tearfully obliges and sets Gill free, shouting, “Go back home to your mama!”

Koreyoshi Kurahara’s Black Sun is a loud, ugly, gritty, and gripping film. It is a tortured shriek of post-war anguish from one of Japan’s leading filmmakers of the 1960s. Every aspect of the film is a visceral assault on the senses. Cinematographer Mitsuji Kanau delivers bleak, jagged black-and-white cinematography the likes of which would make Sven Nykvist and John Alton proud...and jealous. Max Roach, one of Mei’s idols whose album provided the title of the film, provided a blood-curdling soundtrack reminiscent of “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace” from his We Insist! - Freedom Now Suite. Chico Roland’s performance as Gill is so intense and unsettling that it can only be likened to a doctor torturing a naked nerve during a root canal.

But most of all, Black Sun is terrifying for its unflinching glare into Japanese society. I lived in Japan for a few months during my Junior year at college, so I know first hand how even today the Japanese have a tendency to rely on stereotypes for their interactions with foreigners. This is not the symptom of some in-bred hatred, but rather a side-effect from a culture that for centuries prided itself on isolation from the rest of the world. As such, Mei’s story can be interpreted as symbolic of the cultural shock that all Japanese people faced at the end of World War Two when the world imposed its will upon them. Regardless, Black Sun is unequivocally a treasure of Japanese cinema that hasn’t lost a single bit of power over the years.

10/10

Angel Face: Otto Preminger

Otto Preminger's Angel Face may not be the most famous film noir, but among certain critics it is among the most beloved. Both Robin Wood and Jean-Luc Godard ranked the film among their All-Time Top Ten. The film stars Robert Mitchum as Frank Jessup, a bored ambulance driver who falls in love with Diane Tremayne, the daughter of an ailing rich old woman. At first Diane seems like a normal, albeit intense, young woman. But as time goes by, she reveals herself to be a manipulative, jealous, and psychotic femme fatale. And yet, I can't for the life of me understand why so many critics have named Angel Face one of the greatest films of all time. It is a fine movie, to be sure. Diane's gradual transformation into a passion-fueled maniac is done quite subtly. The photography by Harry Stradling, a cinematographer with three collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock under his belt who would go on to film Johnny Guitar (1954) and My Fair Lady (1964), is simply superb in the great film noir tradition. And yet, Mitchum's trademark world-weary stoicism seems robotic and lifeless. It has a court scene in the third act (a cardinal sin for non-trial movies according to Roger Ebert) that seems out of place and unnecessary. During my research for this film, I kept coming across critics using words such as "hallucinogenic" and "dreamy" to describe it. I think I may have accidentally seen a different movie, as Angel Face is most certainly not "hallucinogenic" and/or "dreamy." Don't get me wrong. Angel Face is a competent film noir. But I just don't see what Wood and Godard saw in it.

7/10

Artists and Models: Frank Tashlin

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis hold a very special place in my heart. When I was just a youngin', one of my favorite movies to watch with my family was Norman Taurog's The Stooge (1952), an earlier Martin and Lewis comedy. We could barely go a month before we would run to the video store and check it out again. And so now, over a decade later (at the very least), I have been reunited with the infamous comedic duo in Frank Tashlin's Artists and Models. I gotta say, I think I might be a little scared to watch any more of their movies, as they seem to directly relate to whatever I want to be in life. For instance, when I watched The Stooge, a movie about two aspiring actors, I wanted to be...wait for it...an actor. Now that I'm older, I have recently entertained thoughts about starting to write comic books. And lo and behold, Artists and Models is about comic book writers! Considering that many of Martin and Lewis' films involve them getting into the army, I think that I need to stop watching them in favor of maintaining world peace. Anyhow, I suppose that I should tell you a little something about this film. It's about two bachelors trying to break into the art industry. Rick Todd (Martin) is an aspiring painter and his friend Eugene Fullstack (Lewis) wants to write children's books. However, he combats a comedically crippling obsession with comic books, particularly the sexy Bat-Lady. And, wouldn't you know it, the artist for the Bat-Lady comic and her model move into the same apartment building. Let's just say that hijinks ensue...hijinks which eventually involve the Cold War, the Space Race, psychologists crusading against comic books, and a bizarre superhero named "The Vulture." Artists and Models is a charming film that I plan on watching many more times in the future. Watching the film slip into madcap madness is a pure joy. The screen explodes with bright colors, catchy songs, and beautiful women. You know what? World peace can wait. I need to watch more of these movies.

8/10

Strictly Ballroom: Baz Luhrmann

I am not a fan of Baz Luhrmann. I find his films to be shallow, stale, and derivative of much better movies. Case in point: Strictly Ballroom. I want to perform an experiment in this review. I want to see if I can describe this film solely through the use of cliches. After each cliche, I will add in parenthesis how it is exploited in this film. Here we go:

A Brilliant Yet Tortured Artist (Scott Hastings) finds himself at odds with A Dominating Circle of Critics (the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship) who want to squash his innovative techniques. His Prima Donna Partner (Liz Holt) leaves him, so he partners up with the Quiet, Nerdy, Ugly Chick With Glasses, Acne, and Hair Pulled Into a Bun (Fran). After a Makeover (removing said glasses, treating her acne with foundation, and letting her hair go free) it is revealed that She Was More Than She First Appeared (she develops an accent and a Spanish identity once she comes out of her shell). Together they Beat the Odds (the horribly corrupt dance judges), Win the Championship (the Dancing Grand Prix), and Live Happily Ever After (the entire cast breaks into an impromptu dance party).

There...I actually did it. Strictly Ballroom is a film so horrendously riddled with cliches and unoriginality that I could literally describe it without describing it. In addition, all of the characters look like wax museum grotesqueness courtesy of John Waters. My advice: avoid this movie and gird yourself against his upcoming adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

4/10

Passport to Pimlico: Henry Cornelius

Henry Cornelius' Passport to Pimlico is the kind of comedy that I hold near and dear to my heart. It is one of the films that proves that good comedy doesn't have to rely on vulgarity, shock value, or gross-out humor. Don't misunderstand me. There is a time and a place for such things. But recently it seems like Hollywood has come to the conclusion that good comedies need to contain explicit content. But that isn't true. Many of the greatest comedies ever made contain almost no graphic material. Instead, they rely on witty and intelligent writing and brilliant comedic performances. Some films are able to combine the two, like Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) which featured a stunning screenplay and a bevy of historic comedic performances. Other comedy films focus more on performances. The works of the silent comedians such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin come to mind. And then, there are comedies where the writing pulls the most weight. Passport to Pimlico belongs to this category. But that isn't because it lacks memorable performances. Instead, this is because the plot doesn't give any one character enough screen-time to truly develop a mature comedic persona. This is because Passport to Pimlico isn't really about any one character, but about a group of people thrown into bizarre circumstances. To make a long story short, the citizens of the Pimlico district of London discover that, due to a legal loophole, they are technically living on Burgundian soil and as such are not technically British subjects. The residents of Pimlico are swift to declare themselves separate from Great Britain. Why? Because that means that they no longer have to follow British laws concerning post-World War Two rationing. But this also makes Pimlico a mecca for illegal trading and the black market. The true joy of Passport to Pimlico is not necessarily witnessing this small group of people try and establish themselves as a legitimate nation-state while combating the British government (although it is part of it). Instead, it comes from the slow realization that the film-makers are using Pimlico as a metaphor for West Berlin. Just as the Soviet Bloc surrounded West Berlin, the people of Pimlico become dependent on people from the outside airlifting food and supplies to them. What begins as a quaint comedy becomes a delightful satire of Cold War politics. And in addition to all of this, it retains its distinctive Ealing Studios charm. While it might not be as popular as other Ealing Studio comedies like Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Ladykillers (1955), it remains one of the best British comedies of the immediate post-war era.

8/10

The Seventh Victim: Mark Robson

Here we have another infamous horror film by producer Val Lewton. Perhaps most famous for his collaboration with director Jacques Tourneur on the ground-breaking Cat People (1942), Lewton was a master of low budget horror films. Mark Robson's The Seventh Victim was another one of Lewton's great successes from that era. It has gone on to become a darling among critics, most notably Jonathan Rosenbaum who named it his favorite horror film of all time. The film involves a young woman named Mary who travels to New York City in search of her missing sister, Jacqueline. During her search, she stumbles upon an underground society of Palladists, or Satanists, who are responsible for Jacqueline's disappearance. As a member of their cult, Jacqueline faces death for revealing their existence to the outside world. Jacqueline is the seventh person to ever break this particular law, so she becomes the eponymous seventh victim. The trouble is that the Palladists are all sworn to non-violence. Therefore, they embark on a brutal campaign to make Jacqueline commit suicide. And herein lies the film's ultimate strength: there is almost no onscreen violence. The violence in the film is always heavily implied. As a result, the film takes on a poisonous, choking atmosphere where nobody, except Mary, is innocent. But here's the kicker: I don't quite see what all of the fuss is about. It's a decent film, but not, in my opinion, an extraordinary one. It's famously tragic ending notwithstanding, The Seventh Victim feels like a generic horror film from the era. That's not to mention the fact that the plot is sometimes difficult to follow. But it remains a competent little horror film which proves, once again, that what we DON'T see is scarier than what we DO see.

7/10

Follow Me Quietly: Richard Fleischer, Anthony Mann

Quiet honestly, I think the only reason that I am going to remember Richard Fleischer and Anthony Mann's Follow Me Quietly is that its villain is a serial killer who refers to himself as "The Judge" and leaves notes on his victims that read "I am the Law!" For all of you out there who AREN'T familiar with Judge Dredd, then I strongly recommend that you check him out (the comics, not the movie). But besides this rather amusing coincidence, there really isn't anything else particularly special about Follow Me Quietly. It's a rather standard cop procedural: there's a serial killer on the prowl who is being hunted by a dogged police detective who doesn't have any time for your bullshit. There's a subplot with a female reporter who tries in vain to coax some details out of the detective for her sleazy newspaper, but it's just there to give the detective a sappy love interest. Anyhow, I guess that I misspoke when I said that there was almost nothing memorable about this film. It does have one thing going for it: it has no idea how absolutely silly it is. In the race to catch "The Judge" the cops create a life-size trench-coat and fedora wearing dummy that they show to reporters. But since nobody has seen "The Judge" his face is left a giant blank. And so we are treated to several unintentionally hilarious scenes where people try to identify a faceless dummy. My personal favorite is near the end when the detective shows a photo of the faceless dummy to a waitress. When she initially can't recognize him, the detective hits upon the idea to draw a pair of glasses on him with a pen. Immediately the waitress can identify the killer. It's a harmless enough film. And besides, it's only about an hour long. So it won't waste a large chunk of your day if you don't like it.

6/10

Bergman Island: Marie Nyreröd

The most fascinating and illuminating parts of Marie Nyreröd's documentary on Cinematic Grandmaster Ingmar Bergman, Bergman Island, aren't necessarily what he says in the interviews. Instead, they are the desperate, rumbling pauses Bergman makes as he grasps for answers. Filmed four years before his death, Bergman Island documents a series of interviews done in his reclusive home on Fårö Island. If one wished to learn about Bergman, his life, and his work, I would recommend starting elsewhere. While many important details of Bergman's life are covered, the film's 83 minute run-time does not have the capacity to properly capture the size, magnitude, and impact he made on the world. Instead, what Bergman Island flawlessly captures is an intimate, almost sacrosanct portrait of Bergman in his final years. Having been three years since the release of Saraband (2003), his final directorial effort, this film finds the legendary director living a life of quite, almost desperate solitude. He seems to embody a resignation that could only result from a life very fully lived. In one of the film's most moving scenes, he carefully hooks up the first cinematograph he ever owned as a child. We watch his hands violently tremble as he lights the internal lantern and threads an ancient piece of film through it. There is something oddly sad about the scene. Perhaps it is the realization by both Bergman and the audience that this was the first time in decades that he had used it...and very probably the last. What becomes apparent as Bergman Island plays is that for a man who almost never gave interviews throughout his life, he created one of the most autobiographical cinematic oeuvres ever constructed. It makes one desire to give Bergman's films another look, if only to excavate the memories and experiences scattered throughout them.

7/10

Hell's Hinges: Charles Swickard, William S. Hart, and Clifford Smith

Hell’s Hinges is by far one of the most cynical and bleak Westerns that I have ever seen. The fact that it was made in 1916, a full thirteen years before John Ford would officially legitimize the Western as more than just B-movie trash, is all the more astounding. And yet, Hell’s Hinges, clocking in at barely over an hour, could very well be as essential to the survival and evolution of the Western genre as Mr. Ford’s film. To say that it was ahead of its time is an understatement as it seems akin to Revisionist Westerns, such as Robert Altman’s McCabe & Ms. Miller and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992). It is dark, murky, ugly, nasty, and despite an ending that could be classified as “happy,” remains unrepentant.

But perhaps first some history is in order. It’s important to note the general state of Westerns before Hell’s Hinges. It’s generally accepted that one of the most important Westerns of all time was Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) which helped pioneer such techniques as cross-editing to tell a story from more than one point of view. However, subsequent Western fare did little to continue Porter’s tradition of using the genre as a platform for cinematic innovation. As Moving Picture World reported in 1911, Westerns by and large featured “always the same plot, the same scenery, the same impossible Indians, the wicked halfbreeds, the beautiful red maidens, the fierce warriors, the heroic cowboys, the flight from the Indian village at night.” In fact, it was widely accepted that the Western genre had exhausted itself and was doomed to die.

Thankfully, before the genre could expire, producer Thomas Ince breathed new life into it. He set his films in a sprawling twenty-thousand acre ranch above Santa Monica that was dubbed “Inceville.” For actors, he sought out members of the Oglala Sioux tribe and a Wild West show troupe. But perhaps the most important addition to his stable of actors was William S. Hart.

Hart, with his aged stoicism akin to a Wild West Buster Keaton and a unflappable presence that predated and predicted the likes of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, would forever be known as the first star of feature length Westerns.

Forgive the pun, but Hart was truly the heart of what made Hell’s Hinges great. In an era defined by overdramatic acting reminiscent of the theater, Hart’s restraint spoke louder and more forcibly than any exaggerated expression or body movement. And that restraint is what helped propel Hell’s Hinges from the realm of pulp to cinematic genius.

The plot plays as an inversion of the famous Western trope of the arrival of the schoolmarm who brings law and civility to the untamed West. In such stories, there is a town or piece of country ruled by lawlessness and godlessness which is eventually saved and reformed by an outsider, usually from the East. And, at first, Hell’s Hinges seems to fit that story. A minister and his sister arrive from New York to Hell’s Hinges in order to aid the few moral citizens, referred to as the “Petticoat Brigade.”

However, in reality, the minister is a hypocritical charlatan who was sent Westward because his superiors wanted to keep him away from the temptations of the city. Once he arrives, he is seduced by one of the town’s most notorious prostitutes.

His sister, Faith, an exemplar of ingenue Christian piety the likes of which would make Lillian Gish proud, becomes the object of “Blaze” Tracy’s affections. Tracy, played by Hart, was the hired gunman of Silk Miller, the owner of the local saloon and tyrant of Hell’s Hinges. Together, they swore to keep the law and God out of Hell’s Hinges at any cost. However, upon seeing Faith and at the church, he instantly abandons his wicked ways and converts to Christianity.

What results is nothing short of all-out war between Tracy, the new defender of the faith, and Silk Miller. Mobs form, shots are fired, and the church is burned to the ground by none other than the reverend. Before escaping with Tracy and Faith, the reverend is shot and soon dies once they are outside of town. Enraged at the wickedness of Hell’s Hinges, Tracy returns to wreck horrible vengeance upon the town. He traps the remaining population of the town into Silk Miller’s saloon, sets it on fire, and shoots anybody who tries to flee. Instead of bringing salvation and civilization, the East has brought the damnation of Hell’s Hinges.

Although the Western would again atrophy into cinematic trash by the 1930s, Hell’s Hinges was essential to the genre’s survival. Not only was Hell’s Hinges one of the darkest and most brutal Westerns ever made, its craftsmanship was so flawless that it remains riveting even to this day. Hell’s Hinges is a searing fable of Old Testament wrath, not in the Holy Land, but in the land that God forgot: the Old West.

9/10