The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner: Tony Richardson

Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a sad yet illuminating glimpse into the soul of a young man thrown to the wayside by British society. Brought up in desperate poverty and a broken home, Colin Smith lived as a petty criminal until he was arrested for breaking into a bakery and stealing their cashbox. Instead of prison, he is sent to Ruxton Towers, a reform school for juvenile offenders. There, he quickly catches the eye of "The Governor," the school's overseer, after he discovers that he is a skilled runner. Eager for Ruxton Towers to gain glory at an upcoming five-mile cross country race against a wealthy public school, The Governor gives Colin special privileges in exchange for promising to compete. But this isolates him from his peers. And those lonely training sessions by himself in the woods around the school keep bringing up memories of his old life and his old resentment towards authority...The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is well-shot and visually engaging despite its meager budget. As an entry of the British New Wave, it is essential. As a human drama, it is indispensable.

8/10

Way Out West: James W. Horne

The more and more of their films I watch, the more and more I become convinced that even Laurel and Hardy's "good" sound films weren't all that good. Of all of their feature-length sound films that I have seen, so far James W. Horne's Way Out West has been the best and funniest. But it still suffers from the problems that plague their other sound efforts: gags that go on for far too long in withering silence, an over-reliance on double-takes, and Laurel's piercing scream whenever threatened or attacked. But Way Out West does have its undeniable charms. The occasional flourishes of "white magic" are delightful: Laurel using his thumb as a lighter, Hardy's head becoming stretchable when trapped in a floor, and an old but effective gag where Laurel's singing voice changes pitch when bashed on the head. Also, the dance number where Laurel and Hardy swing and sway along with The Avalon Boys is one of my favorite moments of their entire careers.

6/10

High and Low: Akira Kurosawa

[Revisit Review]

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/the-film-canon-high-and-low-1963/38892.

10/10

The Ipcress File: Sidney J. Furie

Six years before Michael Caine would cement the legacy of "British Cool" in the classic crime movie Get Carter (1971), he appeared in a chilly, almost antiseptic spy thriller entitled The Ipcress File. The first in the Harry Palmer film franchise, Sidney J. Furie's The Ipcress File seems to emulate the austere cool of Jean-Pierre Melville's gangster films. The characters are all men and women of few words. Like the characters in Melville's films, they don't speak much because they don't have to; they are so experienced in their professions that they have settled into an almost unconscious routine where extraneous talk isn't just unnecessary, but counter-productive. But if Melville's gangsters exuded existential pathos and professionalism, Furie's almost silent actors are enigmas. Cinematographer Otto Heller manages to wash out most of the colors from London's streets and buildings. His use of odd framings and dutch angles manages to enhance the story without coming across as style for style's sake. Indeed, the film plays like the natural successor of the aggressive stylization of The Third Man (1949) instead of simply seeming like one of its many imitators.

8/10

A Taste of Honey: Tony Richardson

Tony Richardson's A Taste of Honey is an achingly beautiful film about broken people trying to make sense of their broken lives. A classic of British kitchen sink realism, the film is more concerned with the failings, frustrations, and desperate hopes of its working class characters than with any sort of plot. Jo is a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl who gets knocked up by a black sailor who then abruptly exits the film. As an audience, we are accustomed to stories like these where the father comes back at the last minute. But instead Jo (and the audience) merely watches him sail away on the deck of a ship and that is that. Until then, the black sailor had been portrayed as somewhat of an important supporting character. His permanent departure seems odd within the framework of a normal narrative, but this isn't a normal narrative. Instead, it regards its characters as they reach out blindly seeking human companionship in the face of suffocating poverty and loneliness. Friends and lovers come and go as they will. So, too, do people in Jo's life. For a time she seems to find happiness sharing a flat with a friendless homosexual. But their little family is ruined when Jo's mother, an aging alcoholic, bursts into their lives after being ditched by her latest beau. And yet, the film doesn't villainize the mother. Not truly, anyway. If anything, it pities her. The film understands that Jo is essentially repeating all of her mother's mistakes, even getting pregnant by a one-time lover who left her. We get the sense that the film hopes that Jo might be able to make a better life for herself and her baby. But if there's a road to security and happiness, Jo will have to find it herself.

9/10

Tom Jones: Tony Richardson

I really feel like I should have liked Tony Richardson's Tom Jones more than I did. It's a rather free-spirited picaresque film about a bastard born into nobility who goes out into the world to seek his fortune. But...here's the thing...a good chunk of Tom Jones isn't actually about...Tom Jones. The eponymous rogue isn't even banished until the second half of the film. The first half follows his idyllic life as a noble. That's all well and good, but it shoves its titular character to the side in order to focus on the political machinations of his family members. By the time the film properly starts to be about Tom Jones, he is still almost a stranger to the audience. Tom Jones is a film at war with itself. It contains some brilliant sequences (the greatest among them a shockingly kinetic hunting scene in the first quarter of the film that brutally exposes the innate cruelties of the upper classes as they blithely trample and kill the livestock of innocent peasants), but the film never truly comes into its own as a narrative. Too unfocused to be a proper character study, too bland to be a proper comedy, the film collapses in on itself.

5/10

The King’s Speech: Tom Hooper

[Revisit Review]

One of the joys of watching great movies more than once is that it allows you to pay attention to its formal qualities more than its narrative. Tom Hooper's The King's Speech is an excellent film and a shockingly effective human drama. But this time around I was overcome by how beautiful the film is. It's rare to see a color film with such a subdued color palette that nonetheless doesn't seem washed out or dingy. Combined with cinematographer Danny Cohen's constant alternation between cramped and expansive shots, The King's Speech is one of the most visually evocative British films of the past few decades.

9/10

I'm All Right Jack: John Boulting

I'm naturally drawn to stories where good-natured idiots stumble into situations where they are trapped between two opposite and equally absurd sides. I'm reminded of Charlie Chaplin's great Modern Times (1936) where the Tramp repeatedly finds himself in the middle of a battle between organized labor and the police department. I wonder if John Boulting tried to emulate that film somewhat with I'm All Right Jack, a film where a hapless upper class university graduate gets a job as a factory worker only to accidentally start a massive series of strikes that sweep the countryside. One early sequence where the protagonist is given a tour through a sterile sweets factory seems directly inspired from Chaplin, particularly its conveyor belt gags. But the film fails to maintain that level of energy and inventiveness. Too much of the film's comedy comes from surprised guffawing courtesy of the representatives of labor and capitalism as they get drawn further and further into an economic nightmare. Peter Sellers received a BAFTA Best Actor Award for his performance as the factory's trades union shop steward. Now, Sellers was a magnificent actor and he deserved every single award imaginable for his rich and distinguished career. But, quite frankly, he is wasted in this film. Almost his entire performance is comprised of him alternating between two different facial expressions: pained consternation and self-righteous indignation.

6/10

A Man for All Seasons: Fred Zinnemann

To read this review, go to: theretroset.com/blu-ray-review-man-seasons/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=the_retro_set&utm_content=A%20MAN%20FOR%20(nearly)%20ALL%20SEASONS.

8/10

Genevieve: Henry Cornelius

There is the seed of a great comedy in Henry Cornelius' Genevieve. Unfortunately, it never takes root. The film is advertised as being about two teams who get into a vintage car race in England. However, the actual race doesn't start until the last thirty minutes of the film. The run-time before that is dedicated to more gradual comedy and gentle character development. That's all well and good. But I feel like it's false advertising. It also doesn't help that the actual race never builds up enough tension for any of the comedic payoffs to have any gravitas to them. A good racing film, like a good comedy, needs a sense of immediacy. And Genevieve is too laid back and leisurely for it to be effective as the former. As the latter? Certainly. It has that warm, dry, and delicate lilt that defines so many English comedies. But this should have been first and foremost a racing film.

6/10

El Topo: Alejandro Jodorowsky

[Revisit Review]

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/the-film-canon-el-topo-1970/38595.

9/10

Il Sorpasso: Dino Risi

One of the most difficult things a storyteller, let alone a filmmaker, can do is balance the tragic and comic within a single narrative. It requires a mastery of tone, pacing, and an innate common sense concerning what is socially inappropriate. There's a reason why Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (1997) was hailed as a masterpiece while Jerry Lewis' The Day the Clown Cried (1972) has yet to see the light of day. Dino Risi's Il Sorpasso, one of the great triumphs of the Commedia all'italiana film genre, manages to find the right balance...at least until the last twenty or so minutes when the film becomes outright maudlin. But the film's structure as a road movie featuring two friends seeking respite from life in the Italian countryside forgives and outright validates this evolution of tone. For the road movie is one of the single most allegorical and symbolic of film genres. The road represents life, the passengers the Everyman (or Everywoman), the pit-stops and road-side distractions the different phases of an average person's life, and their eventual arrival at their destination death. Is it any wonder why so many road movies end with the sudden deaths of their protagonists? The tone of Il Sorpasso wavers between the light and comic and the dark and tragic seemingly at the flip of a coin. But that's just the way it should have been.

7/10

Alfred Hitchcock: The Birds

[Revisit Review]

You know, for a "masterpiece," Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds has some atrocious pacing and absurdly clunky scenes of exposition. It's a good thing that I adore static shot reverse shot dialogue scenes that last upwards of 5 minutes or else I would think that the film was visually bankrupt whenever special effects aren't involved! Listen, Howard Hawks once said that the definition of a good movie is three good scenes and no bad ones. THE BIRDS definitely has three good scenes. It might even have more. But the film fails as a whole. I can't forgive the film for the fact that the majority of its run-time is consumed with static, visually uninteresting, uninspired dialogue and bizarre characters who look and behave like plastic dolls instead of human beings.

5/10

Local Hero: Bill Forsyth

I suspect that many people these days don't have the attention span or patience for Bill Forsyth's Local Hero. And what a shame that is. It is a simple film about a simple community full of simple people. It is a comedy, but the laughs come gradually and organically and are rarely shoved to the forefront in the same manner as most comedies. If I have made Local Hero out to seem prosaic or tedious, then allow me to set the record straight: it is a wonderful film brimming with warmth and humanity. Even the ostensible "villain," an American oil magnate who sends the protagonist to the sleepy Scottish village of Ferness isn't demonized or ostracized. Instead, he ends the film having essentially been accepted into the arms of the community he wanted to destroy to make way for an oil refinery. Local Hero is a charming film and a true delight.

7/10

Closely Watched Trains: Jiří Menzel

[Revisit Review]

After all of these years, I'm still not sure what the appeal of Jiří Menzel's Closely Watched Trains is. It's a fragmentary film full of scenes so short they don't even pass for vignettes about the colorful people who live and work at the train station where the story takes place (my favorite being the Nazi collaborator who steadfastly insists that the Nazi's constant retreats are part of a grand scheme to conquer Europe). Here is a film with practically no overt agenda either political (although there are many who argue otherwise) or social. It's about a young man seeking to lose his virginity as the Second World War explodes around him. But perhaps that's where the film finds its charm: its obsession with the average details of everyday life in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

9/10

Tartuffe: F. W. Murnau

The most entertaining part of F. W. Murnau's Tartuffe is Emil Jannings' face as the eponymous hypocrite-slash-con-man Tartüff. The film is a fine adaptation of Molière's classic play, but the nature of the story prevents Murnau, one of early cinema's supreme visual stylists, from giving the film the same visual panache found in his best works. That's not to say that the film is inadequately framed or shot. But for a director so well-versed in German Expressionism and the stylistic gymnastics of The Last Laugh (1924), his work in Tartuffe feels underwhelming. But, as I said, Jannings' face is a constant source of delight. Perpetually pulled back in a half-sneer, half-grimace, Jannings somehow manages to portray a wide range of emotions while barely moving his face. Rarely have I seen a face that seemed so desperately in need of punching.

7/10

Santa Sangre: Alejandro Jodorowsky

[Revisit Review]

I protest the idea that Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre is a horror film. It can be horrifying, but it's much more than that. It isn't just a parade of grotesqueries. There are real emotions at play here. When the clowns take part in the elephant’s funeral procession and spray tears out of their eyes, it’s tragic. Even the scene where Orgo gives Fenix his tattoo is emotionally meaningful. For a brief moment, we see the father express love for his son; a twisted, destructive love, but perhaps the only kind of love he could ever express. Jodorowsky's films all demonstrate a love of images and symbols, but it's his love of characters that surprised me the most in this film.

9/10

A Matter of Life and Death: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

[Revisit Review]

Powell & Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death is one of the best films ever made about America. So perhaps it's appropriate that it's actually a British film. In a way, it is a British response to the famous American short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Steven Vincent Benét. This time a British protagonist is on trial for appealing to extend his life after a snafu in heaven let him live long enough beyond his designated time of death to fall in love with an American woman. I have to admit that I was annoyed by how the legal argument surrounding the protagonist's case essentially came down to "love conquers all" unlike the original short story which had a much more clever ending (or, at least the 1941 William Dieterle film adaptation did). And I think that the sequences involving Doctor Reeves trying to determine a medical explanation for the protagonist's visions went on a bit too long. But other than that A Matter of Life and Death is a brilliant and poignant piece of filmmaking.

9/10

Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer: Thorold Dickinson

Thorold Dickinson's Hill 24 Doesn't Answer is a propaganda film about four doomed soldiers who give their lives in defensive of the eponymous hill so that it can be claimed as part of Israel following the Israeli-Arab war. I call it a propaganda film because it features two very important attributes that sets it apart from simple patriotism-themed films. First, the Arabs are portrayed either as faceless killers, uncouth brutes, or unsympathetic jerks. Dehumanizing the opposition is a crucial element of propaganda. Second, it features a bevy of characters from all different walks of life who rally together around a single cause: in this case the defense of Israel. The film's narrative preaches a message of self-sacrifice in the name of the Israeli nation. That would be all fine and good if it wasn't for the fact that some of the characters have back-stories that are so absurd that they can only exist within the world of propaganda. There's an Irish officer who joins the fight because he falls in love with a Jewish woman. Fair enough, but it doesn't explain his new-found, fanatical Zionism. An Israelite recounts how he met an ex-Nazi while on the battlefield, but the details of the story and the Nazi himself are so over-the-top that they seem more at home in a war bonds promotion circa World War Two than a serious war film. The only character narrative that really works is an American Jew who undergoes a crisis of faith after being wounded in a skirmish. His scenes, particularly those with a sympathetic rabbi who helps him rediscover his childhood faith, are the highlight of the film.

6/10

Permanent Midnight: David Veloz

There are many films about drugs and addiction. But the ones worth watching are just as interested in their characters before and/or after their struggle as they are while in the throes of their torment. David Veloz's Permanent Midnight is one such film. Told in flashback, the film approaches its story with a strange detachment that really only becomes truly effective in the last act where Ben Stiller's character, writer-turned-junkie-turned-writer Jerry Stahl, goes hunting for a fix while "watching" over his infant daughter. I nearly gagged during a scene where he injects a shot of heroin into his neck in the front seat of his car while the baby wriggles in the passenger seat. The rest of the film is competent enough for its subject matter. It doesn't have the same illuminating insight into the life of addicts that superior drug films like Drugstore Cowboy (1989) and Trainspotting (1996) have. But the story beats are familiar and well executed. Plus, it's always nice to see Stiller in a dramatic role that gives him a chance to truly demonstrate his talents as an actor.

7/10

The Ascent: Larisa Shepitko

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/the-film-canon-the-ascent-1977/38179.

10/10

Beverly Hills Cop: Martin Brest

[Revisit Review]

Having seen Martin Brest's Beverly Hills Cop on the big screen thanks to a theatrical re-release, I find myself more in awe of the screenplay than by Eddie Murphy this time around. That's no slight against Murphy, of course. Axel Foley is one of his most memorable and timeless characters for good reason. But having removed myself from Murphy's mystique, I was able to appreciate Daniel Petrie, Jr.'s screenplay for what it was: damn near perfect. For example, there was no need to humanize the cops that served as Judge Reinhold and John Ashton's replacements after they were taken off the Foley case. But lo and behold, they were. Even the Detroit police chief had a spark of simple humanity to him. Such richly drawn three-dimensional characters are a rarity in comedies, and even more exotic in the action-comedy sub-genre.

7/10

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Ben Stiller

I've heard Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty described as being a feature-length "Just Do It" ad by Nike. And in a sense, they're not wrong. But they're also not totally right. True, the film is, at its center, about a middle-aged man who sets out to find some kind of meaning in his life by traveling the world. But there is a frank earnestness, a simple sincerity behind Stiller's direction and performance that makes the film truly special. I found myself marveling at a number of tiny details in the film: how the incredible fantasies decrease in number and scope as his life becomes richer, the placing of LIFE magazine's motto in various bits of background when Stiller first leaves the States, and how Stiller restrains himself from (deservedly) humiliating Adam Scott at the end of the film. Stiller's directorial efforts have varied widely in terms of quality and style. But The Secret Life of Walter Mitty seems to be the first step in the development of a genuine directorial style that neither apes from Gen X filmmakers or MTV-style excess. I'm eager to see where Stiller goes next.

7/10

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Norman Z. McLeod

If somebody walked in on the last act of Norman Z. McLeod's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, they could be forgiven for mistaking the film as a rip-off of the first twenty or so minutes of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959): a wrong man falsely accused of a crime, said man being drugged via alcohol in an opulent mansion by villains who pretend to be someone else when authorities arrive, and even a strained attitude towards mothers. Of course, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty came out twelve years before North by Northwest. And it is most certainly not a thriller. It is an aggravating comedy about the eponymous pulp magazine editor who loses himself in vivid daydreams and accidentally gets sucked into a real-life web of espionage intrigue surrounding a little black book that contains the locations of the hidden Dutch crown jewels. The film's problems can be summarized in two words: Danny Kaye. When properly restrained, Kaye can be a comedic gold mine. Go watch Henry Koster's The Inspector General (1949) if you don't believe me. But here Kaye is just too much. He's too bumbling and accident-prone. Several times I wanted to scream at him to get on with it after mercilessly long sequences where he fumbles his way through furniture, crowded rooms, and hapless bystanders. The great silent comedians were just as accident-prone, but their indiscretions were rarely lingered on. They would cause their social faux pas and move on within seconds. But McLeod has to hang on every single one of Kaye's clumsy antics until we feel all sympathy for his character drain away. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is frustrating, annoying, and not funny enough to sustain its absurd run-time for a 1940s Hollywood comedy.

4/10

Guardians of the Galaxy: James Gunn

[Spoilers Ahead]

James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy is saved from a mediocre script and uninspired villains by its gleeful sense of irrelevance. Ronan feels too much like a watered down Darth Vader, Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan spend the entire film competing to see who can give the more wooden performance, and the use of CGI is overbearing. And yet, the film is infectiously entertaining. Chris Pratt is perfect as Starlord, Bradley Cooper is a revelation as Rocket Raccoon, and Vin Diesel stole the show as Groot. The film is wickedly endearing and funny. I don't know if there was a dry eye in the theater when Groot said, "We are Groot." I do wish that they had kept Groot dead at the end. A more clever director would have saved Groot's resurrection for the third act of the sequel. But I digress. Guardians of the Galaxy is a bona fide crowd-pleaser. I just hope that the team will develop its own identity in time for the sequel and not just continue their watered-down Star Wars/Firefly shtick.

7/10

Frenzy: Alfred Hitchcock

[Revisit Review]

I don't have much to say about Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy that hasn't already been said a dozen times by more prominent and intelligent scholars and critics. But I do have one observation: this film represents one of the only times that I have ever seen a serious thriller incorporate blatant comedic relief without either ruining the tension or derailing the narrative. The reason is that the comedic relief centers around food: squishy food, slimy food, food that bursts when squeezed and crunches when touched. This adds a layer of nauseous repulsion to the proceedings that enhances the fear and disgust felt by the audience towards the horrific crimes being committed onscreen.

9/10

The Hundred-Foot Journey: Lasse Hallström

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/the-hundred-foot-journey-review/37852.

6/10

Persona: Ingmar Bergman

[Revisit Review]

Ingmar Bergman's Persona is one of the cinema's greatest enigmas. Countless critics and intellectuals have pondered over its meanings and possible interpretations. But what strikes me the most about the film is Bergman's use of visual language. One of the most understandable criticisms of Bergman's work is that it wasn't very "cinematic," instead seeming more like filmed theater. But in Persona Bergman invents and utilizes a stark, overbearing, and mesmerizing visual method that was not just unparalleled within the confines of his career, but within avant-garde cinema itself. At the time of my writing this, I have seen 29 of Bergman's films. And to my knowledge, none of them are as visually arresting as this nearly impenetrable riddle of a movie.

9/10

Zoolander: Ben Stiller

[Revisit Review]

Ben Stiller's Zoolander is stupid as hell, but I still love it both in spite of and because of itself. Here is a film that embraces its absurd concept and characters so enthusiastically that it is almost impossible not to fall under its spell. At its worst, Zoolander is well-intentioned but misguided. At its best, it is a fiendishly clever comedy with some genuinely spectacular moments. If I had to pick one, I would probably go with Zoolander's wide-eyed delivery of the line: "You can read minds?!"

6/10

Godzilla: Ishirō Honda

[Revisit Review]

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/the-film-canon-godzilla-1954/37535

10/10

The Cable Guy: Ben Stiller

I dread movies like Ben Stiller's The Cable Guy. It isn't just bad, it's unpleasant. The entire film is a gauntlet of discomfort. There have been other movies which have elicited similar responses from me that I enjoyed and even loved. But The Cable Guy operates under the false assumption that it's a dark comedy when there isn't anything funny about it at all. The jokes come off as unnecessarily cruel and the slapstick is too over-the-top (at least considering the rest of the film's tone). But the film's biggest miscalculation was Jim Carrey's performance as the eponymous Cable Guy. Carrey is simply too obnoxious to be likable or to seem sympathetic when we learn about his troubled childhood. If his performance had been more low-key, it would have been a lot better. You know who would have been perfect for this role? A younger Robert De Niro. In fact...I think he already did this film with Martin Scorsese. It was entitled The King of Comedy (1982). Think about it. Listen, I can appreciate what Stiller was trying to do with this film. He wanted to comment on modern American society by portraying a character who was almost literally raised by television. Carrey's character was the old stereotype of children whose brains had been rotted by television taken to its natural extreme. But, again, a quieter and more controlled performance might have saved this film.

1/10