The Brother from Another Planet: John Sayles

Watching John Sayles' The Brother from Another Planet, it can be difficult to believe that it was made for only $350,000.  These days it seems like even an independent drama with no special effects or established names can't even get made for less than one million dollars.  But, lo and behold, Sayles proved that great films don't need great budgets. But I suppose we should have all seen that coming. A student of Roger Corman, the godfather of B-movies, Sayles got his film education making films for pennies.  So when Sayles received a MacArthur Fellows "genius" grant of $350,000, it only stood to reason that he would make something special. The result was the aforementioned The Brother from Another Planet. It follows an unnamed "Brother," or alien, who crash lands in the Upper New York Harbor in the early 1980s while on the run.  The Brother looks exactly like a normal black human except for his feet which each sport only three toes.  On his old world, having three toes meant that you were a slave.  And so we have the familiar scenario of a stranger in a strange land. Only this time, it's an alien in New York City.  We travel through the usual cliches of this particular story: culture shock (the concept of money confuses him), finding a group of friends (the denizens of a black bar), falling in love (with a lounge singer), and fighting off people who try to return him to his original home (two white "hunters"). But what's fascinating is how Sayles' manages to perfectly utilize these established tropes so that they seem fresh and new again. All of story developments feel organic, not forced. And Sayles has an impeccable eye for capturing New York City's cultural richness. The title makes it sound like a knock-off blaxploitation flick. But The Brother from Another Planet is something much, much more.

9/10

Eastern Promises: David Cronenberg

It usually doesn't take me very long to realize that I am watching a film that I will inevitably give a 10/10 score.  In most cases it only takes me about 15-20 minutes.  There are even some films, like The 400 Blows (1959), that I can tell within minutes of starting that I am witnessing something truly special. I guess it's a talent you develop when you watch over 300+ films every year.  This was not the case with David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises.  Cronenberg's film about the Russian Mafia in London and European sex trafficking didn't really grab my attention until about two-thirds of the way into its running time.  It started off like a standard, albeit unusually well photographed and acted, mafia movie.  A 14 year old Russian prostitute dies while giving birth to a baby girl.  Anna Khitrova, the British-Russian midwife who assists in the birth at a London hospital, discovers a diary and a business card for a Trans-Siberian restaurant among the dead girl's belongings.  Her Russian is poor, but she is able to learn that her name was Tatiana.  She gives the diary to her gloomy Ukranian uncle Stepan to translate. But before he can finish deciphering the diary, she travels to the Trans-Siberian restaurant to investigate why Titania had one of their cards. What she doesn't know is that the restaurant is owned by Semyon, an elderly vory (the equivalent of an Italian "Godfather") in the Russian Mafia.  When she returns home, she is horrified to discover from the freshly translated diary that Titania was a sex slave who was lured to England with promises of a better life only to be beaten, raped, forcibly addicted to heroin, and impregnated by Semyon and his son Kirill.  Things get even worse when Semyon orders his driver and body disposer Nikolai Luzhin to retrieve the diary and make their problem with Anna's family "disappear."  Incredibly, what I have just described is only the surface story. Underneath are subplots concerning power struggles between Semyon's organization and a rival Chechen gang, Kirill's attempts to gain his father's respect and power, the importance and iconography of prison tattoos within the Russian mafia, and the savage nature of London's criminal underground.  This is a movie of truly astonishing complexity and depth. I didn't even really realize how complicated this film's story was until about an hour in when I realized that I was juggling 4-5 subplots in my head. But even more amazingly, Cronenberg's direction and Steven Knight's screenplay balance all of the film's subplots without making any of them seem convoluted or confusing.  I previously said that I didn't realize that I was watching a 10/10 until about two-thirds of the way in. The reason is that after about an hour the plot suddenly swung in an unexpected direction that took me so violently by surprise that I'm amazed my head didn't fall off.  And yet, despite the cataclysmic twist, the plot development was handled with such finesse that it seemed like a natural extension of the story instead of a cheap director's ploy.  This movie truly left me in awe. Armin Mueller-Stahl's performance as Semyon is the stuff of legend.  In my book, he ranks alongside Don Vito Corleone, Tony Montana, and Tommy DeVito as one of the most fascinating, and terrifying, mafia bosses in cinematic history.  Viggo Mortensen gives the performance of his career as Nikolai Luzhin.  And finally, Eastern Promises features a fight scene in a Turkish bath that will one day be regarded as one of the greatest ever committed to film.  How good is it? In my opinion, it ranks with the hallway scene in Oldboy (2003), Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon (1972), and the alleyway brawl in They Live (1988).  Eastern Promises is truly a film for the ages.

10/10

The Dead Zone: David Cronenberg

Even though The Dead Zone may be adapted from a novel by Stephen King, the film fits comfortably into director David Cronenberg's filmography.  The film is usually considered, along with Fast Company (1979), as one of two anomalies in a career defined by body horror, deviant sexuality, and graphic violence.  But consider the basic premise of the film.  It stars Christopher Walken as Johnny Smith, a teacher who survives a terrible car accident and awakens from a coma five years later to find that he has developed psychic powers where he can learn a person's secrets and future when he touches them.  Sound familiar yet? Well, how about this: Johnny Smith is an average person who gets in an accident (Rabid). He soon discovers that as a result of this accident, he has undergone a strange metamorphosis (The Fly) that causes him to have psychic hallucinations (Videodrome).  Initially, he tries to fight back against this bizarre development (Dead Ringers), but eventually he accepts that he has changed and comes to terms with his new lifestyle (Crash).  The only thing that separates The Dead Zone from Cronenberg's other body horror films is that it contains almost no graphic sex or violence.  But even without the R-rating, The Dead Zone is an extremely enjoyable film.  We watch as Johnny uses his powers to catch a serial killer and save many other people from future disasters. But the film's true conflict begins when Johnny shakes hands with Greg Stillson, a US Senatorial candidate, and learns that not only is he destined to become President of the United States, but that he will spark a war which will lead to a nuclear holocaust. This creates a fantastic moral conundrum: should Johnny kill Stillson and save the world? But what if his vision is wrong? Is it worth the risk?  Don't be fooled by claims that The Dead Zone is just another Stephen King adaptation. The Dead Zone is a worthy entry in Cronenberg's career.

7/10

Spider: David Cronenberg

Spider is endemic of a problem that I've begun to have with David Cronenberg's more recent work.  Quite simply, Spider, much like many of his latest releases, is a film that somebody other than Cronenberg could have made.  It's not because Spider is based on the Patrick McGrath novel of the same name. After all, Cronenberg is no stranger to filming stories written by somebody else.  The problem is that somebody else could have taken the exact same script and made the exact same film. From the start of his career all the way up to the start of the new millennium, Cronenberg mostly made movies that only he could dream up.  Who other than David Cronenberg could dream up a story like the one in Videodrome (1983)? Who other than David Cronenberg could have adapted William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch?" Who other than David Cronenberg could make films that elevated the body horror genre to the level of art?  So his film Spider annoys me because it started the trend that lasted throughout the 2000s of Cronenberg making other people's films.  But let's put all of that aside for now and just focus on the film.  Spider follows Dennis "Spider" Cleg (Ralph Fiennes) a schizophrenic Englishman with a torturous childhood. The film begins as Dennis arrives at a halfway house for the mentally disturbed following his release from a mental institution where he has supposedly spent most of his life.  He slowly begins to reconstruct his past and the horrific events that led to his original incarceration as a child.  Like the novel, the film is notorious for its unreliable narrator.  When Dennis experiences flashbacks, we are unsure whether or not they really happened or if they were invented by his sick mind. Cronenberg accentuates this problem by having the adult Dennis physically present as an unseen observer in his own childhood memories.  Even more curiously, the adult Dennis is an observer in memories that he couldn't have witnessed in the first place because he wasn't present for them as a child.  I won't spoil the mystery, but it involves his mother's supposed death at the hands of his father. While Cronenberg's narrative techniques are fascinating, the film is surprisingly dull and sterile. We feel no affection or interest in the mystery because Dennis doesn't seem to care either.  The film isn't poorly made, it just isn't very interesting. Cronenberg's other films of the 2000s would rapidly increase in quality. But there is still a petty part of me that resents Spider for what it did to Cronenberg's career.

6/10

M. Butterfly: David Cronenberg

Even though M. Butterfly wasn't based on an original idea by David Cronenberg, it still fits snugly into the Canadian director's filmography.  In fact, when considered from the perspective of auteur theory, M. Butterfly is more inherently "Cronenbergian" than several of his other films.  For example, even though Cronenberg helped write the screenplay for his drag racing film Fast Company (1979), it is viewed as an anomaly when compared to a career dominated by body horror.  On the other hand, M. Butterfly was a story that Cronenberg had no hand in creating or developing.  It was based off the play "M. Butterfly" by David Henry Hwang which was itself based on the real life relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer.  Of course, the story is centered around the fact that during their 20 year affair, Boursicot was completely unaware that his lover was both a man and a spy for the Chinese government.  This story touches on many of the themes that defined Cronenberg's early and mid-career work: seduction by a foreign "other," the swapping of gender roles, and betrayal at the hands of the human body.  The film opens in Beijing in the 1960s where the Boursicot character, here renamed to "René Gallimard," falls in love with the Pu character, here renamed to "Song Liling." One of the film's central themes is the West's inability or unwillingness to try and understand Eastern culture. This is reflected by Gallimard's ignorance at the fact that in the Peking opera, all of the female parts are played by crossdressing men. If Gallimard had actually learned Chinese or researched basic information about the Peking opera, the whole affair could have been avoided.  But Gallimard becomes entranced by this "perfect Oriental woman" to the point that he doesn't even question the fact that Liling refuses to take his clothes off during sex.  One of the film's most fascinating aspects is how it considers Liling's involvement in the whole affair. Liling takes part in the charade because of the political turmoil in China. With the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, Liling decides that playing along and working for the Chinese government would be the wisest, and safest, thing to do.  20 years later, the affair comes crashing down when Gallimard is arrested and tried by the French for treason.  Liling is revealed to be a man and Gallimard's response...well, let's just say that it turns the relationship's gender roles on its head. Many critics didn't like M. Butterfly. But from the reviews that I read, their main complaint was that the film wasn't "Cronenbergian" enough. But I disagree. Just because there aren't any exploding heads, mutated women, or talking bugs doesn't mean that M. Butterfly is anything less than one of Cronenberg's greatest and most personal works.

8/10

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death: John D. Hancock

About a week ago, I found a Facebook app that was designed to test my knowledge and love of horror cinema by asking how many films I had seen on a list of what they called the 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time.  I'm no Cinema Snob, but I fancy myself as knowing a thing or two about the genre. So imagine my surprise when I learned that I had only seen 80/100 of the films that were listed! Even more bizarrely, many of the films that I had not seen I had also never heard of before. So, in order to defend my honor as a horror aficionado, I set out to track down the films that had escaped my knowledge for so long.  The first was John D. Hancock's low, low, low budget psychological thriller Let's Scare Jessica to Death.  The film's premise seemed interesting enough: a young woman named Jessica, her husband, and their friend move to a decrepit Victorian farmhouse in rural Connecticut.  Jessica had recently been released from a mental institution where she was treated for a severe nervous breakdown.  In accordance with horror movie law, it isn't long after the psychologically fragile woman moves to the old mansion/house/apartment/farm in the middle of nowhere that she begins to hallucinate. This is all precipitated when the trio first arrive at the farmhouse and discover that a hippie named Emily had been squatting there.  Then Jessica begins to hear voices, see dead bodies lying around, and believe that Emily and their neighbors are vampires and/or zombies and/or ghosts.  The specifics aren't important. All that matters is that Jessica begins to go crazy again and believe that everyone around her wants to die.  Oh, and of course, it's uncertain whether this is all real or just a hallucination by Jessica.  It doesn't really matter, though. Let's Scare Jessica to Death isn't very good. I understand that the film wasn't aiming for shock scares and instead focused on creating an atmosphere of terror and dread. But it doesn't do a very good job of that, either. The film is a strange curiosity, but not worthy of being on a list of the 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time...at least in my opinion.

4/10

Crimes of the Future: David Cronenberg

I honestly didn't think that David Cronenberg could make a film worse than his first full-length feature Stereo (1969).  But I was wrong...so very, very wrong.  His follow-up, the cryptically titled Crimes of the Future, takes everything bad about Stereo and makes it worse.  They both are about medical foundations and sinister scientists, are a little over an hour, and were shot without sound because Cronenberg's camera was too noisy.  They both feature grating, monotonous voice-overs added in post-production where actors improvise insane medical jargon to accompany the bizarre images.  But amazingly, Crimes of the Future does a worse job with this technique because the voice-over only accompanies about fifty percent of the film. The rest is comprised of soundless footage of actors doing who knows what.  Even though the voice-over tries to make a case for an overall "plot" concerning a dermatological drug which accidentally kills the world's sexually mature women, I refuse to believe that Crimes of the Future has any kind of story. It's boring, poorly shot, abysmally paced, and mind-numbingly dull. I found a plot summary on wikipedia that claimed to explain what was going on.  But even with the outline in front of me, I still couldn't make heads or tails of what I was witnessing.  Something about men giving birth? Secret underground pedophile rings? Men growing flippers? I need to stop thinking about this film before I get a brain tumor.

1/10

Tucker & Dale vs Evil: Eli Craig

Be honest, how could anyone not love a movie with a title like Tucker & Dale vs Evil?  It sounds like the lovechild of a hellbilly band from rural South Carolina and Les Claypool! But Eli Craig's film makes good on its title's promise of quirky and gory fun.  You only have to watch Tucker & Dale vs Evil for a few minutes to realize that you are witnessing something special.  It follows Tucker and Dale, two kind-hearted hillbillies who have just purchased the vacation-home of their dreams: a decrepit lakefront cabin in the middle of the woods.  Oh sure, it's a fixer-up. The windows are caked with dirt, weeds and heavy brush infest the yard, one of the support beams is unstable, and the walls are plastered with newspaper clippings of "The Memorial Day Massacre," where a group of college kids were savagely murdered twenty years ago. But, hey, nothing's perfect! As they set in to repair their new home, a party of unruly college kids arrive and mistake Tucker and Dale as murderous hillbillies. But the college kids are as incompetent as they are drunk and they start to accidentally kill themselves while trying to investigate.  As you can probably already tell, Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a satire of slasher films, particularly of the crazy hillbilly sub-genre.  The hillbillies in question are best friends, kind, and well-meaning. The college kids are mean, idiotic, and occasionally sociopathic.  As the college kids keep accidentally killing themselves, the survivors become more and more convinced that the hillbillies are out for blood. Well, all of them except for a young woman named Allison who fell off a rock, hit her head, and almost drowned when the party first arrived. Tucker and Dale saved her life, bandaged her up, and befriended her. Dale, the big galoot, is instantly smitten and woos her with plates of bacon and board games.  But when there are only a few college kids left, Allison finds herself trying to mediate peace between the blood-thirsty students and the completely bewildered hillbillies. It leads to an inevitable bloody conclusion. But it doesn't feel cheap or tacked on. In fact, Tucker & Dale vs Evil presents its narrative so flawlessly that we forget that it is a satire and begin to enjoy it purely as a comedy.  The film is simply hysterical. Combine that with a surprisingly heart-felt and emotional relationship between the eponymous Tucker and Dale and you'll find one of the most original and entertaining horror/comedy films of the last decade.

8/10

Birdemic: Shock and Terror: James Nguyen

The greatest bad movies are always made by filmmakers who honestly want to make something great but are ignorant of their complete and total incompetency.  Ed Wood passionately loved the cinema and wanted to become the next great American director.  Claudio Fragasso was astonished and offended to learn that his film Troll 2 (1990) had garnered a reputation as one of the worst ever made.  Tommy Wiseau advertised his film The Room (2003) as a serious drama only to relabel it a "black comedy" when it began to make money on the bad movie circuit.  Director James Nguyen joins the ranks of these deluded "auteurs" with Birdemic: Shock and Terror.  Speaking as someone who genuinely loves bad movies and has seen every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I can say without a hint of exaggeration or irony that Birdemic: Shock and Terror is the single worst, most incompetently made, and most mind-bogglingly bad film that I have ever seen.  And the best part is that I honestly believe that Nguyen had no idea that he was making such a terrible movie. The film is supposed to be an homage of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) with a romance inspired by Vertigo (1958).  Recounting the film's plot in any detail would make my head explode, so suffice it to say that it follows Rod and Nathalie, two young people living in Silicon Valley who are caught in the middle of an invasion of killer birds. And by "killer birds" I mean copied and pasted computer .gifs which rarely move and explode in fireballs when they hit the ground. They can also spit acid, but only do so once.  Oh, and they apparently have the ability to spontaneously trigger terrible acting. I say this because every single performance, every single line, and every single take is miscalculated and miserable. I honestly didn't know you could make a film this poorly. The sound editing is so poor that many times it will cut to actors silently mouthing words for several seconds before the audio cuts back in. Random characters like a researcher and a tree hugger will appear, soapbox about global warming and the environment, and then disappear. Such basic filmmaking techniques as proper lighting and shot/reverse shot are ignored or forgotten. It is, quite simply, the perfect bad movie.

0/10 (Official Rating)
10/10 (So Bad It's Good Rating)

Into the Abyss: Werner Herzog

Whether he's filming in Germany, Africa, South America, or Australia, director Werner Herzog has an uncanny ability to reach into a location and bare its very soul in front of the camera.  In his most recent documentary Into the Abyss, he does nothing less than capture the atmosphere of tragedy, quiet desperation, and impossible hope that possesses rural Texas. I should know. I lived in such an area for five years when I was a child. Herzog finds Texas' heart in the story of Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, two teenagers convicted of a triple homicide in Conroe, Texas.  The boys killed three people during a robbery of a neighbor's red Camaro. Burkett received a life sentence. But Perry, who actually killed the three victims, got the death penalty. Herzog views the killers, victims' families, and the police involved with the case with a passive, non-judgmental eye. There is an overwhelming sadness pervasive in the film. But the sadness isn't directed at anybody in particular. Herzog regards the broken lives of killers and victims ruthlessly.  It seems like almost every person connected to the case has either done jail time, is currently in jail, or seems destined for it.  He even managed to interview Perry eight days before his execution. But the most devastating parts of the documentary are the interviews with the prison's priest who delivers last rites and a former executioner. The priest hates his job but feels obligated to do it. He needs to show the prisoners that even in their last moments somebody loves them. The executioner recounts how he quit after performing over 100 executions and could no longer handle the inhumanity of the system. Werner Herzog has stated that he is against the death penalty. But at no point during Into the Abyss does Herzog explicitly condemn it. Instead, he lets those involved in the case serve as living testimonies to a cruel and horrific system.

9/10

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia: Julien Nitzberg

I am openly proud of my Southern heritage. My father was born in Atlanta, my mother lived in Mobile, I was born in Florida, and I grew up in Texas. So I have deep love and affection for Southern culture. That being said, I find myself bothered with the documentary The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. It chronicles a year in the lives of the White Family of Boone County, West Virginia.  The Whites are portrayed as Southern/Appalachian royalty; the last remnants of a rebel dynasty.  They first came to national attention through the documentary The Dancing Outlaw (1991) which focused on the life of legendary mountain dancer D. Ray White.  Since then, D. Ray has died and the White family has become notorious as a band of law-breakers, drug-takers, and miscreants. The most fascinating person we meet is Mamie White, D. Ray's oldest daughter.  She takes us on a grand tour of courthouses, jails, pharmacies, and rehab clinics which have become familiar haunts for her family. Along the way we meet a son who was sentenced to 50 years in prison for attempted murder, a niece who loses a newborn to Child Protection Services, and a whole host of misfits, troublemakers, and hell-raisers. In a way, the film is a fascinating glimpse into the deterioration of the coal mining industry, the people who depend on it to survive, and the culture that has sprung up around them. But here's my problem with the film: it makes them out to be troubled heroes. Despite all of their problems, they are presented as misunderstood rebels who stand for something. I know that we Southerners take pride in our rebel heritage. But there's a difference between rebelling against social norms and taking pride in living in your own filth. There is some hope in the White clan, but it doesn't seem like enough. One of the last lines in the film goes something like, "We're all going to Hell. But at least the world will know who we were." Oh, they might remember the Whites.  But if they do, it will be for the wrong reasons.

6/10

Rabid: David Cronenberg

If there is one lesson that can be taken away from David Cronenberg's Rabid, it's that you shouldn't make a film about any kind of apocalypse taking place in a city when you have a small budget.  Though I had problems with his earlier Shivers, I must admit that Cronenberg did a good job convincing me that all hell was breaking loose during the film's central epidemic. But that was because Cronenberg contained the entire film inside a single building. In Rabid, Cronenberg tries to tell the story of another widespread epidemic. But this time he sets it largely in small towns and cities. And let me just say this: playing sirens over shots of big buildings does not make the audience believe that the end of the world is truly upon them.  But I digress.  Rabid is a curious film in which a young woman, played by porn star Marilyn Chambers, gets in a terrible motorcycle incident.  She is rescued by the staff of a nearby plastic surgery hospital who treat her wounds with morphogenetically neutral skin graphs in the hope that they will rebuild her lost tissue and organs. The process saves her life, but has the unfortunate side effect of turning her into a vampire-like creature which feeds with a stinger hiding in one of her armpits.  Her victims become blood-craving zombies who infect so many people that martial law is declared.  But it's too late...the zombie apocalypse has arrived!  Two things need to be noted. First, Cronenberg's zombies have more in common with the "rage zombies" popularized in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002) then with the slow, shuffling George A. Romero zombies. So in a way, Cronenberg predicted the eventual transformation of the zombie from the walking dead into sprinting killers. Second, Marilyn Chamber's performance was extraordinary. It makes me wish that she had done more non-pornographic work. While Rabid has its flaws, it still is worth a watch for horror and zombie aficionados.

6/10

Stereo: David Cronenberg

I almost feel guilty in writing a serious review for David Cronenberg's Stereo.  After all, it was Cronenberg's very first feature-length film.  He wrote, directed, shot, and edited the entire production himself. It was shot in black and white and without sound because Cronenberg's camera was too loud.  It purports to be a kind of documentary of educational resources and case study footage taken at the Canadian Academy of Erotic Enquiry. It depicts an experiment carried out by Dr. Luthor Stringfellow where young men and women are instilled with telepathic abilities which can be enhanced via sexual contact with other volunteers.  The volunteers are encouraged to sexually explore as much as they want with whoever they want, regardless of gender. Dr. Stringfellow hopes that these relationships will coalesce into a new social unit that can replace the modern family unit. Of course, we don't learn any of this by what we see on the screen. Instead, all of this is explained by a series of dull, monotonous voice-overs parodying complex scientific and medical jargon.  If one were to set the film on mute, the viewer would be left with an incomprehensible collage of bizarre images and sex.  Apparently there is a sub-plot about a female volunteer who develops a split-personality during the experiment, but I couldn't pick up on it. The problem with Stereo is that the beleaguered voice-overs which drone on and on about nonsensical, incomprehensible subjects and observations lulls the audience into a hypnotic stupor.  We can't pay attention to the images because we are trying to understand the narration. And if we ignore the narration, then the images make even LESS sense.  Stereo was clearly a stepping stone for Cronenberg's career. He would not be the director that he is today without making it. But that doesn't make it a good film. Stereo remains a confusing, torturous, and frustrating viewing experience.
 
2/10

Le Havre: Aki Kaurismäki

It's almost surreal to see Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki to make a film so...optimistic.  Oh, I'm sure that he's made upbeat films before. But I'm only familiar with his more famous work like The Match Factory Girl (1990) which was never known for containing rainbows and sunshine, if you know what I mean.  But I enjoyed Le Havre, his latest film.  It's uncanny how the techniques he employed so successfully to create atmospheres of black comedy and despair translated to this film. We find at the center of the film Marcel Marx, an ex-bohemian and struggling writer living in the port city of Le Havre, France. He comes across a teenage illegal immigrant from Gabon named Idrissa who had escaped a security sweep which detained his friends and family.  So Marcel finds himself hiding Idrissa from the immigration authorities and the police. Surprisingly, the film spends more time regarding Marcel's relationships with his sickly wife, neighbors, and a local police officer than with Idrissa. I can only imagine that if a similar plot were pitched to a Hollywood studio, the film would focus on cultural misunderstandings between Marcel and Idrissa. But Le Havre is more nuanced about that. Idrissa is a catalyst through which Marcel changes his life and the lives around him. It left me feeling satisfied and even hopeful.  I've always hated it when great directors succumb to sadness, depression, and despair in their later films.  So the thought that Kaurismäki's films might start getting progressively happier pleases me. There is enough sadness and grief in the world. We need more happy films. Not films filled with artificial emotions, but films that tell real stories that reassure ourselves of mankind's future.

7/10

Here Comes Mr. Jordan: Alexander Hall

When I first learned that Here Comes Mr. Jordan was the source material for the film Down to Earth (2001), I felt apprehensive. I liked Down to Earth fine, I guess. I just wasn't looking forward to seeing the same story a second time. But Here Comes Mr. Jordan blew my mind!  It may have the same basic plot set-up as Down to Earth, i.e. a man is accidentally whisked away from his body by an angel who then needs to find a replacement body where he can live out the remainder of his years, but it far exceeds its remake in terms of originality. Down to Earth featured Chris Rock as a struggling comedian who was given the body of an ancient billionaire. He used his new life to pursue the woman of his dreams and achieve his dreams of becoming a famous comedian. But whereas Down to Earth used its plot to explore the romance between Chris Rock and his beloved, Here Comes Mr. Jordan shoots for much, much more.  The film follows Robert Montgomery as Joe Pendleton, an amateur boxer, pilot, and saxophone player who "dies" in a plane crash. He is given the body of an aging tycoon named Farnsworth who was murdered by his wife and an associate. He inhabits the body not because he wants the money, but because he wants to bring the pair to justice. It also doesn't hurt that he wants to use his new-found wealth to save Miss Logan, the daughter of a financier who was just sold worthless bonds by Farnsworth.  But he is soon murdered again by his wife. He then must use the body of another boxer to save Miss Logan, reclaim his title, and get his murderers arrested. It's a phenomenally dense film, but it never feels laborious or tiring to watch. There is just a LOT of story that needs to be told.  And in today's Hollywood climate of creative bankruptcy, a truly inventive story is worth its weight in gold, silver, and diamonds.

9/10

Private Hell 36: Don Siegel

Don Siegel's Private Hell 36 is a standard crime potboiler about two cops who come into possession of a large amount of stolen cash.  L.A. detectives Cal Bruner and Jack Farnham track down a counterfeiter operating out of a horse racetrack and accidentally force his car off the road in the ensuing chase.  The crash kills the counterfeiter and smashes open his payload of fake money. Before more cops can arrive, Cal stuffs some money into his suit and hides it.  He convinces Jack to play along, much to his frustration.  As fate would have it, Cal and Jack's police captain discovers that some money was missing from the crime scene and assigns them to discover its whereabouts.  Jack slowly spirals into a fit of depression and anger over his involvement.  He finally confronts Cal and says that they need to return the money regardless of the fact that doing so will land them prison sentences.  But Cal has other ideas concerning the money.  Like I said, this is all standard crime drama fare.  The detectives are stone-faced and tough, the dames beautiful, the streets dark, and the shadows bold.  Although this film does suffer from some amateurish lighting and cinematography, particularly in the first third.  I know that film noir and crime films are supposed to be dark.  But they shouldn't be SO dark that you have to squint to see what's going on.  The same problem pops up in the final scene.  It's so dark that you can barely make the characters out.  Ida Lupino is a real saving grace in this film. Her performance as a night-club singer is a welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant film.  Thankfully her scenes have the best lighting.

6/10

Shine: Scott Hicks

If you were to ask me which of the three actors who portrayed the lead role of David Helfgott in Shine deserved to win an Oscar, then Geoffrey Rush would have been my last choice.  Don't get me wrong, Rush's performance as the adult Helfgott, the Australian concert pianist who suffered from schizoaffective disorder, was magnificent.  But his role was strictly limited to the first few minutes and the last third of the film.  The first part of the film which portrays Helfgott's childhood under his tyrannical father featured an astonishing performance by Alex Rafalowicz.  Good child performances are hard to come by.  So much praise should be given to Rafalowicz who gave a performance that most adult actors would envy.  We can see him begin to crack and shatter as his father, a Holocaust survivor hell-bent on his children's success, forces him to practice the piano endlessly.  When Helfgott rebels against his father and travels to the Royal College of Music in London, he is played by Noah Taylor.  Again, Taylor perfectly portrays Helfgott as an obsessive student on the cusp of a mental breakdown. When he does finally crumble during a competition immediately after playing Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto, the audience can feel nothing but the utmost pity and heart-break.  But of course, much like the real life story that inspired it, Shine needed to conclude with a happy ending.  So Rush portrays Helfgott as a fast-talking, giggling madman whose sanity is restored through the love of a kind woman.  If an Oscar HAD to be given to one of the actors playing Helfgott, I honestly think that Rafalowicz should have received it.  But even that couldn't forgive the injustice of Armin Mueller-Stahl's loss of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor to Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire (1996).  Mueller-Stahl's performance as Helfgott's father was the stuff of legend. Though cruel, it was constantly apparent that Helfgott's father hated dispensing the discipline he felt was vital to keeping his family together. Haunted by dreams of concentration camps, he feared the outside world and honestly believed that his actions were in his children's best interests. It takes a special kind of performance to make a child abuser sympathetic.  But regardless, Shine is a decent movie.  Its cliched plot concerning a mentally unstable genius beating the odds is given fresh life by its acting.  And, hey, who needs awards anyway?

7/10

Visioneers: Jared Drake

“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” - Horace Walpole

George Washington Winsterhammerman hasn’t felt happy in quite some time.  Oh sure, he has a enviable life.  After all, he has a decent job as a Level Three “TUNT” employee at the Jeffers Corporation, the single largest business in world history which simultaneously maintains de facto control over the United States government.  He has a lovely wife, a son, and a massive single family home in the suburbs.  As his name suggests, he is even a descendent of the original George Washington, leader of the American Revolution and the first President of the United States.  But despite all of these things, George Washington Winsterhammerman isn’t happy.  Even worse, he has begun to have dreams when he goes to sleep at night.  And everyone knows that having dreams is the first sign that you might explode.  See, over 100,000 people have spontaneously exploded for no apparent reason.

George has recently seen a doctor to investigate if he was in danger of exploding, but he was given a clean bill of health, relatively speaking.  As the doctor said, “Mr. Winsterhammerman, you seem like someone who’s able to follow orders well, you have a desire to please, you’re a pleasant, affable sort of fellow who doesn’t seem to want much, perhaps just to be included.  Judging from the somewhat dull look in your eyes I would rate your intelligence at ‘average.’  All of which is good.”  So George Washington Winsterhammerman has everything going in his favor. And yet, he dreams.

Such is the world of Visioneers, the first film by writer-director team Brandon and Jared Drake.  The film has been advertised as a black comedy, but I think to do so would be disrespectful.  Visioneers is so much more than just a comedy with black humor.  Instead, it is a devastating examination of the relationship between tragedy and comedy. Many like to imagine a line, however thin, between the two. But I’ve begun to doubt that comedy and tragedy are two different things.  The thought first occurred to me when I recently re-watched Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925), arguably the greatest blend of laughter and tears ever committed to the screen.  In the famous bread-roll dance scene, I couldn’t figure out whether to laugh at Chaplin’s antics or weep at the cruelty of the women who tricked him.  I frequently felt the same emotion while watching Visioneers.  On the one hand I wanted to laugh at the scenes that demonstrated the complete absurdity of George’s world.  Who wouldn’t laugh at a society where flipping your middle finger and saying "Jeffers morning" was a standard greeting?

George’s wife watches a show where women discuss how the use of “vaginal butter” and the ownership of 12-gauge shotguns are the keys to staying happy!
 
On the ride home from work, George is serenaded by radio commercials with such infectious jingles as:

If you wanna be happy and have lots of friends,
Eat fried chicken, fried chicken makes a difference.
And if you wanna have fun and not blow to pieces,
Eat fried chicken, fried chicken, it’s delicious!
 
And yet, all of the laughter makes one feel nervous and uncomfortable.  It’s very clear that George lives in a truly hellish society where genuine emotions and feelings are repressed and replaced by kitschy, artificial substitutes such as television, consumer goods, and blind loyalty to the Jeffers Corporation.

When George’s brother Julieen, a former Level Five employee, moves into his pool-house after quitting his job, we view him as an amusing oddity despite the fact that he is clearly the only person we’ve seen who is actually happy and content with his life. His achievement of what we as the viewers view as normalcy make him an outsider.  In another scene, to combat the increase of explosion cases the Jeffers Corporation forces its employees to wear silly outfits and hug giant teddy bears.  At first, we laugh. But when one of George’s co-workers has a particularly violent reaction to the overstuffed animals, our hearts sink into our stomachs.  Yes, there is humor in this world.  But it comes at the expense of its occupants’ very humanity.

Eventually George seeks solace in the form of his ex-boss Charisma who was suddenly fired.  He discovers her working in her father’s cafe in an “undeveloped” part of the country.  They find a glimmer of hope and happiness in each other.  But the powers that be conspire to try and keep them apart.  From there George’s world continues to collapse.  Julieen is violently taken into custody by government agents. The government suddenly declares explosions as a “threat to our way of life” and begins a campaign to install thought inhibitors into all of its citizens.  These inhibitors are, of course, manufactured and distributed by the Jeffers Corporation.  Media personalities start to blow up during live broadcasts. In one of the film’s most devastating scenes, George and his wife witness the “vaginal butter” lady suffer a mental breakdown when she learns that she has been instructed to tell people that “happiness is being happy.”

I won’t reveal what happens in the last few scenes because I believe that it is something that you have to experience for yourself.  I won’t even say if it’s happy or sad.  You need to see it with your own two eyes.  It is the perfect conclusion to the Drake brothers first film.  I praise a lot of films as part of my job as a movie critic.  As such, I can say that some films have better acting than Visioneers, although Zach Galifianakis’ performance as George would have easily earned an Oscar nod if it had gained a wider release.  Some films have better cinematography.  And some films demonstrate a greater level of craftsmanship.  But despite this, Visioneers is truly something special.  Since first watching it, the film has haunted my dreams and occupied my fantasies.  There is something so basic, so primitive, and so pure at the heart of Visioneers that it stands in a league of its own.  Most Oscar winners wish that they could claim the same.  

8/10 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein: Charles Barton

There are some things that don't quite mix. I remember when I learned that a crossover between Archie and the Punisher existed, I was floored. How could two such massively different characters possibly interact? The same thing went through my mind when I first heard of the film Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Horror and comedy rarely mix. Abbott and Costello rely on slapstick and word-play to entertain their audiences. The Universal Monsters of the 1930s and 1940s relied on atmosphere, pacing, and dread. So, while the film has moments of genius, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein falls flat. The basic premise of the story is that through an unfortunate series of circumstances and coincidences, Abbott and Costello find themselves trapped in an island castle with Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Wolfman. I will admit that the horror aficionado in me delighted in seeing Béla Lugosi return to his role as Dracula. But his performance here is predictably more campy than in the original Dracula (1931). Lon Chaney, Jr. does his father proud as the tortured Wolfman. In a way, I dearly wish that this film could have been made without Abbott and Costello and focused solely on the monsters. The film does a decent job capturing the atmosphere of the early Universe Monsters. But it is ruined by the upbeat and cheerful antics of Abbott and Costello. This should have been two films instead of one. But still, it's an old school monster mash. That's reason enough to see it.

6/10

Jiro Dreams of Sushi: David Gelb

David Gelb's new documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a film of single-minded intensity. It explores the life, techniques, and personality of Jiro Ono, an 85 year old sushi chef who has been recognized by the Japanese government as a living national treasure. Not only is he one of the world's greatest chefs, he is widely regarded as the single greatest sushi chef alive today. He owns a small restaurant by the name of Sukiyabashi Jiro which has become a kind of international shrine both to the art of sushi and to Jiro himself. Though he may not outwardly look it, Jiro is nothing short of a force of nature. At 85 he still strives to perfect the art of sushi. His two sons, Yoshikazu and Takashi, are both blessed and doomed to follow in his footsteps. Watching the film, one can only feel amazed and fascinated by Jiro's energy and tenacity. How does he have the drive and energy to work long hours every day at his age? Does he think of anything but sushi? The answer, quite possibly, is no. As the title suggests, even Jiro's dreams are filled with images of sushi. He works as a tyrant in his kitchen. He trains apprentices for free, but he expects long hours and painful hard work in return. Jiro is such a perfectionist that the first thing his apprentices must learn is how to properly twist wet towels. Jiro explains that his staff are not even allowed to touch the fish until they have trained for ten years. But the insane effort and drive for perfection shows. Every single piece of sushi that Jiro prepares is an immaculate morsel. I haven't seen food this appealing on screen since Tampopo (1985). The film is a mesmerizing glance into the world and mind of a true mad genius of the culinary world.

7/10

Fat Girl: Catherine Breillat

Well, I can certainly say that I was not expecting Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl to be so...well...memorable. The film's description didn't sound like something that would hold my interest for very long. It follows two teenage sisters vacationing at the French seaside. The youngest, the twelve-year-old Anaïs, is the eponymous fat girl who is jealous of her sister Elena's good looks. One day the two meet a young Italian law student named Fernando. He effortlessly seduces Elena, much to Anaïs' displeasure. Of course, their affair is found out, but not before Anaïs witnesses one of their more intimate encounters. This is an astonishingly honest film. It is further proof of my belief that you can literally do anything in a movie and get away with it as long as you claim that it is "art." Both Anaïs and Elena star in graphic sex scenes. This wouldn't be too unusual concerning the film's subject matter. But from what I could gather, both actresses were not of age when they shot their scenes. I dunno, but it seems to me that if a film was made in America where a 13 year old girl is shown nude and having sex, it would result in one of the biggest moral panics in history. But as I said, the film is dealing specifically with teenage sexuality. So while the underage sex scenes are uncomfortable to watch, they are not unwarranted...I guess. But I doubt that most people who see it will afterwards dwell on the underage nudity considering that the ending comes so far out of left field that it seems as if Breillat spliced a scene from a totally different film in. I'm not kidding. The final scene contains one of the most random and surreal plot twists imaginable. Was it necessary? I have no idea. But like I said at the beginning of the review, it was enough to ensure that I will never forget it.

8/10

Jacob’s Ladder: Adrian Lyne

Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder was a film that I had heard about on multiple occasions, but had never actually seen. From what I could tell, the film was a major watershed moment for the psychological horror genre. But I had never actually seen the damn thing. So, a few days ago I decided to rectify that situation. And I must say, Jacob's Ladder lives up to the hype. The story of a Vietnam veteran named Jacob Singer who begins to experience horrific visions and hallucinations, Jacob's Ladder takes a sadistic glee in keeping its audience on the very cusp of understanding what is going on. Just as we begin to understand a piece of the puzzle, the film whisks us away back to square one. Is Jacob going insane? Why are Jacob's old army friends acting so strange? Why does it seem like shadowy men in black suits follow Jacob everywhere? And what happened back in Vietnam that damaged his psyche in the first place? Is this film a flash-forward? A flashback? A hallucination in and of itself? Is it all, in fact, just a dream? Such a film could have easily been butchered by a sub-par director. But Lyne pulls off a magnificent balancing act, keeping the plot vague and mysterious while not completely isolating the audience. I won't give the ending away, but suffice to say that many might feel cheated by it. But I disagree. I feel that it perfectly suits the overall tone of the film. Jacob's Ladder does not tell a story in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, it presents a series of strange, tragic, and monstrous events through the eyes of a broken mind. The journey is the key, not the destination. Jacob's Ladder is a stunning film. I'm ashamed that it took me almost 23 years to see it.

9/10

The Plough and the Stars: John Ford

I pride myself on a list over 3 years in the making where I keep track of every single movie that I watch. Yes, it is partially the product of my obsessive compulsive personality, but there is a much more practical reason behind the list. The list allows me to see which movies I have watched and how many times I have viewed them. Therefore, I discovered, much to my surprise, that I had already watched John Ford's The Plough and the Stars once before after viewing it again a few days ago. I must not have been paying very close attention, because I didn't remember a single scene of the film. That's quite a shame, too. While not one of Ford's greater films, The Plough and the Stars remains a relatively enjoyable outing. An adaptation of Seán O'Casey's famous play about people caught in the middle of Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising, the film focuses on one of Ford's favorite themes: manly honor. Nora and Jack Clitheroe live in Dublin as a relatively happy couple. However, Jack is promoted to the rank of Commandant in the Irish Citizen Army. He is called away to participate in a bloody uprising during Easter Week of 1916 where Irish republicans attempted to break away from British rule and establish an Irish Republic. Nora begs Jack not to go, but he chastises her like a child and says that it's his duty as an Irishman. Of course, the uprising is brutally squashed and Jack finds himself running for his life from the British army. The film uneasily balances the gritty violence of the uprising with scenes of comic relief involving the Clitheroe's neighbors. What could have been a powerful drama is hurt by the constant tonal shifts. It may not be perfect, but The Plough and the Stars is still solid enough.

6/10

Monkey Business: Howard Hawks

I was rather surprised by how little I enjoyed Howard Hawk's Monkey Business. It sounds like just the kind of screwball comedy that I love. After all, it features a collaboration between the ultimate screwball comedy tag-team of Hawks and Cary Grant. It has Marilyn Monroe as a supporting actress wherein she steals every scene. Dr. Barnaby Fulton (Grant) is a chemist trying to discover a potion that would decrease its user's age. After an unfortunate incident involving an escaped test chimpanzee, some random chemicals, and a water cooler, Fulton and his wife, Edwina (Ginger Rogers), accidentally ingest a completed version of the serum that mentally devolves them to the level of children. And so there are many scenes where Grant and Rogers go about acting like hormonal teenagers and spoiled children much to the chagrin of their friends and co-workers. There are even a few scenes with what I assume to be a real chimpanzee that are genuinely enjoyable. But the film feels unusually flat. The actors seem to be sleepwalking for the first 20-30 minutes of the film. They don't start acting with any amount of energy until Fulton first gets a dose of his formula. The only times that Grant or Rogers seem to have any chemistry is when they act like children. And, as can be expected, Hawks manages to stretch the narrative to great extremes. By the end of the film, Grant is running around wearing Indian war paint, the head doctors at Fulton's lab have their own run-in with the new formula, and Rogers accidentally kidnaps a neighbor's baby. But again, there is a strange, sterile mood to the film. It feels like Hawks and Grant are just filling in points of the plot as if they were sections of a paint-by-numbers picture. The formula is there, both figuratively and literally. But the catalyst must have been shipped to the wrong laboratory.

6/10

Three Resurrected Drunkards: Nagisa Oshima

One of the great dilemmas film critics face concerns the reviewing of experimental films. On the one hand, experimental films should be praised and studied so as to help promote the continuing evolution of the cinema. On the other, should critics give experimental films good reviews simply because they are experimental? I don't believe so. I can admire an experimental film for its audacity and technique. But that doesn't mean that I have to pretend that I enjoyed it. Take Nagisa Oshima's Three Resurrected Drunkards, for instance. The film follows three Japanese students whose clothes are stolen one day while they are swimming at the beach. They are forced to wear the clothes of two Korean soldiers from Vietnam who went AWOL. The students protest at first, but when one of the Korean soldiers pulls out a pistol, they relent. And so begins a very strange film where Oshima examines one of the darker sides of Japanese culture: discrimination against Korean immigrants. The three students are captured by the military and forced to fight in Vietnam. They escape, but the two Korean soldiers pursue them. They force the students at gunpoint to continue with the charade so they can disappear into Japanese society. About halfway through the film, something even stranger happens: the film restarts from the beginning. The boys go to the same beach and get their clothes stolen once again. However, this time the boys have memories of their plight during the first half of the film. So they try to do the exact opposite of their original actions so as to avoid being shanghaied into the Korean military. But Oshima doesn't let his protagonists off so easily. Despite their best efforts, they end up being persecuted by the Japanese and captured by the military. As the film ends, I find myself wondering whether I should give Three Resurrected Drunkards a good review. After all, it was daring in its political content, beautiful in its composition, and quite unlike anything I had ever seen before. But I find myself not caring about these things. The film is deliberately obtuse and opaque, even for the radical Oshima. It feels tedious and hollow. So is it a good film? Some might think so. But I, for one, do not.

5/10

Letter Never Sent: Mikhail Kalatozov

I've always held a special fondness in my heart for the work of Mikhail Kalatozov. Unlike most of his Soviet counterparts who believed that the essence of cinema could be found in the editing room, Kalatozov seemed more interested in the camera itself. Kalatozov would treat the camera almost as another character, having it swerve back and forth between his subjects. He had a fondness for long takes that defied traditional Soviet methods of filmmaking. Take his film Letter Never Sent. The film tells the story of a guide and three geologists searching for diamonds in the boreal forest of central Siberia. After a difficult search, they finally discover a rich payload of the precious crystals. But fate conspires against them in the form of a forest fire which destroys their radio and strands them in the frozen Siberian wasteland. The doomed expedition desperately seeks civilization. But one by one they succumb to the elements. Kalatozov regards these poor souls with the utmost curiosity, waving the camera around them as if goading them onward. The stark black-and-white cinematography seems to reflect the bleak battle of man vs. nature. According to Dina Iordanova, Kalatozov and his cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky "pioneer[ed] shots made with a handheld camera and other complex techniques involving focal length, camera angles and movement, and lighting." Quite simply, Letter Never Sent is an astonishing sight to behold. It depicts the birth of a new kind of Soviet cinematic language. At last, Soviet filmmakers were beginning to break free of the tyranny of montage.

9/10

Fury: Fritz Lang

There is a famous scene in Fritz Lang’s M (1931) where a group of townspeople suddenly mob a random man during a panic caused by a recent string of child murders. The unsuspecting man had made the mistake of giving a little girl the time of day. At first, a large man appears and accuses him of bothering the girl. When the man rightfully objects, onlookers swarm around him. Raised voices lead to shouts. Shouts lead to screams. And before the poor man can object, he is attacked by the crowd. Five years after Lang released M, he would direct another penetrating examination of mob mentality and crowd psychology. It would be the first film Lang directed after fleeing to the United States from the looming specter of Nazism. Loosely based on a real life incident where two men were lynched in Santa Clara, California in 1933, the film, simply titled Fury, would prove to be one of Lang’s most angry and cynical.

At the beginning of the film we find Joe Wilson, a well-meaning auto mechanic, as he embarks on a long journey to meet his fiancée, Katherine Grant, in California. These early scenes chug along with an obnoxious, plasticine kitsch. Joe, played by Spencer Tracy, seems a bit too idealistic and well-off for an auto mechanic, happily popping an occasional peanut in his mouth from his pocket as he laughs at the world around him. Katherine, played by Sylvia Sidney, seems a bit too doe-eyed and innocent. The world seems a bit too bright and friendly. Indeed, one could easily be fooled into thinking that the projector had accidentally run the wrong film. Is this the same Fritz Lang whose most famous film involved a child murderer?

But things take an unusual turn during Joe’s journey. He stops in a small town for some gas. However, the townsfolk seem strangely unnerved, their eyes swiftly shifting all over this outsider. Unbeknownst to Joe, the town had recently suffered the loss of a little girl to two kidnappers. And even more unfortunately for Joe, one of the kidnappers supposedly had a fondest for peanuts. The sheriff decides to hold Joe overnight while they investigate him. However, rumor and hearsay quickly spreads throughout the town that the sheriff has one of the kidnappers in the jail. The police stripped Joe’s car in the search for ransom money, but failed to find any. However tales start to spread about how the “prisoner” had a suspicious amount of money in his possession. How much? $100! No, $1,000! No, it was $10,000! Gossip swirls around until the townsfolk are convinced that the police are holding a vicious, unrepentant kidnapper who was caught with all the ransom money.

A mob forms. The sheriff tries to maintain the peace, but the people are restless. Sensing a possible riot, the sheriff calls in the National Guard. But word reaches the governor who stops them from being deployed. He’s up for re-election, y’see, and voters don’t like it when the National Guard gets involved in their business. The crowd loses control and storms the jailhouse. When they are blocked by the sheriff and his deputies, they set the jailhouse on fire, laughing and jeering at the heinous criminal getting his just reward.

Miraculously, Joe survived the fire and escaped. However, having survived a lynching, Joe Wilson is a changed man. He desires nothing more than vengeance on his would-be killers. When twenty-two townsfolk are put on trial for his murder, he gleefully listens as they slowly crack under pressure. He knows that if found guilty, the townsfolk would be given the death penalty. But he doesn’t care. He wants them to suffer. When the trial seems to stall from lack of evidence, he quickly mails the judge incriminating memento as an “anonymous towns-member.” Soon Katherine discovers that Joe is alive and begs for him to appear before the court, thereby saving the townsfolk’s lives. What is Joe to do? Appear and let off the people who gladly tried to murder him without evidence or a trial? Or should he let them the ultimate punishment?

With Fury, Lang rips asunder the picturesque image of small-town America. The seemingly incorruptible American justice system is ultimately wielded by Joe Wilson to prosecute the townsfolk. Rather than trying to correct an egregious sin, the townsfolk become entombed in silence, refusing to indicate any of their peers as members of the lynch mob. While a news camera captured several hundred people participating in the mob, the entire population of the town was apparently “asleep that night” or “out at their cabin in the woods.” Even Spencer Tracy, no stranger to diverse roles but usually associated with kind characters, transforms into a snarling, angry shadow of his former self.

It has been argued that once Lang moved to America he lost his eye for formal composition and ultra-stylized cinematography. However, Fury proves this assumption wrong. The striking black-and-white photography, courtesy of Joseph Ruttenberg, transforms the town and courthouse into hellish reflections of man’s most primal nature. It also warrants mention that Lang had not yet lost his taste for silent film language while making Fury. There are several scenes that demonstrate his skill for storytelling with visual language. Take an early scene where the town gossip mill first begins to turn. We are treated to several shots of different people embellishing the story with each re-telling. At one point, a flock of squawking hens are superimposed on top of a couple of gossiping old ladies. Such a sequence makes perfect sense for those familiar with silent film language. However, if such a technique was used in a modern movie, it would probably be received with raucous laughter.

What could have been a simple courtroom crime drama was wielded to make no less a commentary on American society as M was to Weimar Germany. While Lang would go on to make several of his greatest films in America, for many, once he left Europe the thrill was gone. Once he was crushed into the unforgiving mold of the Hollywood studio system, Lang became just another peddler of cheap B-movies. But these people are wrong. Just one viewing of Fury will suffice to silence them.

9/10

Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me: François Truffaut

François Truffaut is indisputably one of the greatest directors to ever live. The problem is that many times Truffaut tried to make other people's films. A devout lover of Alfred Hitchcock and film noir, Truffaut made a large number of genre films that fell flat. Films like The Bride Wore Black (1968), The Story of Adele H. (1975), and Confidentially Yours (1983) were embarrassing blemishes on the record of one of the fathers of the French New Wave. Truffaut was at his best when he directed his focus squarely on a small group of characters. He was a master at capturing little moments and invading the secret universes of curious children and weary adults. His film Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me surprisingly broke free of this mold. It focused on the larger-than-life exploits of suspected murderess Camille Bliss. This Camille character fascinated me. She was a whirlwind of freedom and death, a kind of grown up version of Queneau's Zazie. While she claimed no responsibility, the people who fell in love her frequently experienced premature deaths of a most gruesome manner. Locked in prison, she recounted her story to Stanislas Previne, a young sociologist who wanted to research her for his thesis. Alas, Camille managed to infect Stanislas' mind so that he fell in love with her and figured out a way to get her out of prison. One can only behold Camille in stunned awe. No matter what her situation, she managed to come out on top. Full of the energy, spirit, and enthusiasm of Truffaut's earlier works, Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me managed to be a crime film that didn't seem like a cheap carbon copy of Hollywood genre fair.

7/10

The Hospital: Arthur Hiller

Trust me folks, don't go throughout life without befriending at least one cinema snob. Yes, they might annoy you with speeches about how meaningless the Oscars are. Yes, they might prattle endlessly about classic films that most people have never heard of. And, yes, occasionally they will drag you to a strange foreign film that will give you a migraine. But all of these things are insignificant. The value of befriending a cinema snob is that they will help you discover great films that will blow your mind. For example, I have a friend in graduate school who is an even bigger film geek then me! Recently, he insisted that I needed to go out and watch Arthur Hiller's The Hospital. So I miraculously obtained a copy of this film that I had never heard of before in my life. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that The Hospital was a fantastic film. Set in a teaching hospital in Manhattan, The Hospital follows Dr. Bock, the Chief of Medicine, as he desperately tries to navigate one of the worst days of his career. Somebody has been going around murdering doctors and nurses right beneath the noses of the hospital staff. Even worse, massive protests are being waged against the hospital's expansion plan which would demolish housing for desperately poor squatters. It certainly doesn't help that Dr. Bock has been suicidal for several years. The film plays like an episode of Scrubs written by a particularly morose Woody Allen. George C. Scott gives one of the great performances of his career as the exhausted, miserable, and impotent Dr. Bock. Salvation seems to come in the form of Barbara Drummond, the daughter of one of his patients. But the body count keeps getting higher and the protestors are getting ready to storm the hospital. The Hospital is one of those great films that seem to perfectly capture New York City in the midst of the 1970s. I like to imagine that it took place in the same universe as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975). Hell...I like to imagine that they all took place in the span of a single week. The Hospital is a marvelous film that begs the question: Why don't more people remember it?

7/10

The Wedding Banquet: Ang Lee

I have a strange feeling that the reasons I love Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet are different from most other people. The film is the story of a gay Taiwanese-American named Wai-Tung Gao living in Manhattan who has a lavender marriage with his friend Wei-Wei. Though Wai-Tung is in a steady relationship with a man named Simon, he feels obligated into going through with the sham marriage because his parents won't stop pressuring him to settle down and produce grandchildren. Wei-Wei, an artist facing deportation to mainland China, needs the marriage so she can obtain a green card. But things become difficult when Wai-Tung's parents suddenly fly from Taiwan to witness the marriage. After their civil wedding service ends in disaster, Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei are forced to hold a lavish wedding banquet to placate the parents. As can be expected, the film was widely praised for its progressive views on homosexuality. But I found myself captivated by Lee's portrayal of the cultural clashes between the liberal United States and the more conservative Taiwan. In fact, my favorite part of the film was the eponymous wedding banquet where Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei are forced to participate in a seemingly endless line of celebratory games and customs. My favorite was the scene where the families make a male toddler jump up and down on the newlyweds' bed in order to encourage the birth of a male child. But afterwards, Lee complicates things when Wei-Wei seduces Wai-Tung, drunken and exhausted, and gets pregnant. I found it fascinating how the film shifted to focus on the moral problems of whether or not they should keep the child and who should end up taking care of it. This isn't just a film about homosexuality. It is a film about family, tradition, responsibility, and love. And THAT is why I love it.

8/10

Androcles and the Lion: Chester Erskine, Nicholas Ray

I see in Chester Erskine's Androcles and the Lion a great film desperately clawing away beneath a surface of mediocrity. No small amount of labor went into the creation of this film adaptation of the play by the legendary George Bernard Shaw. After all, Shaw was Erskine's close friend and mentor. The film valiantly attempts to bring Shaw's update of the classic fable of Androcles, a slave saved from certain death by a lion he had previously aided and befriended, to the silver screen. Androcles, originally just a normal slave, assumes the role of an early persecuted Christian doomed to be fed to wild animals in the Circus Maximus of Rome. He is characterized as a kind of holy fool, completely oblivious to the cruelties of the world and more than willing to be martyred. He is accompanied by several other Christians being led to the slaughter. Each of them is symbolic of a different kind of Christian as envisioned by Shaw in the early 20th century. However, despite its wit, despite its cynicism, despite its faithfulness to the original play, Androcles and the Lion falls flat. The film wildly modulates between goofy bits of good-natured humor to dour, maudlin monologues about the sufferings of those who follow Christ. I can only imagine that the play worked better on the stage where the performers could refine the thematic shifts with each nightly performance. But the film version remains eerily uncanny. At times, it seems as if two completely different films that both happened to be set in Ancient Rome were spliced together. Although, I must admit I did have fun trying to spot the scenes where the actors actually interacted with a live lion. Most of the scenes with the lion make use of clumsy composite shots and even clumsier puppets. As I said, there's a great film trapped somewhere in Androcles and the Lion. It's just too bad we can't see it.

5/10

Hangman’s House: John Ford

One day, when all is truly right in the world, John Ford's silent work will finally get the recognition that it so sorely deserves. While his contributions to the Western genre and the further codification of cinematic language are rightfully lauded, very few remember that Ford had already achieved mastery over his craft before the advent of sound. Films like The Iron Horse (1924) and Four Sons (1928) displayed such skill and maturity that they could be easily mistaken for forgotten works of Vidor or Murnau. This ability can be seen to a lesser extent in Hangman's House, a charming drama set in Ford's beloved Ireland. The film displays many of the themes that would come to define Ford's work in the coming decades, such as a delight in portraying the local color and men dominated by commitments to codes or unspoken rules of honor. In this case, we are introduced to Commandant Denis Hogan, a soldier stationed in Algiers who returns to his native Ireland (where he is a wanted man) after a telegram informs him of his sister's ruination and demise at the hands of the wicked aristocrat John D'Arcy. D'Arcy, we learn, is in Ireland trying to win the hand of Connaught O'Brien, the daughter of a local baron who made his fortune as a hanging judge. Of course, Connaught resists the arrangment due to her love for her childhood friend Dermot McDermot. It's fascinating to watch Ford weave these individuals into a single tale of love, treachery, and justice. Though the year was 1928 and soon he would be directing sound films, Ford still relied heavily on the language of silent cinema. Take, for instance, one early scene where Connaught's father has a vision of a man being hanged while staring into his fireplace. Hangman's House also serves as a special treat for film historians, as it contains the first confirmed appearance of John Wayne in one of Ford's films. Truly then, Hangman's House served as a bridge for John Ford between two different cinematic worlds. It would be the start of his destiny.

7/10

Landscape in the Mist: Theo Angelopoulos

Above all, I find that the works of Theo Angelopoulos invoke stillness and silence. The fact that they almost always feature characters on the run or undergoing personal journeys of discovery seems irrelevant. Angelopoulos seemed to arrange his films not in terms of plot advancement, but by set pieces full of astonishing imagery. His characters would drift from one fantastic locale to the next in a kind of daze while always seeking...something. In Landscape in the Mist, he sets his camera on two young children seeking entry into Germany where they believe their estranged father lives. Their reasons for leaving are never very clear, but something powerful drives them forward. They encounter many strange, wonderful, and dangerous things: a group of traveling actors, a giant stone hand being lifted from a bay by a helicopter, rampant industrial decay. They find some who help them, like one young man with a motorcycle that they keep encountering. But they are not always that lucky. One of the children is forced to trade her virginity for passage. But such are the sacrifices that must be made. The entire film plays like an allegory for an ancient epic that time forgot, like one of the corrupted passages of the Epic of Gilgamesh or the final chapter of the Satyricon. Angelopoulos creates a kind of doppelganger of our world where a light drizzle constantly falls, seemingly abandoned smokestacks still cough, and incomprehensible horrors lay around each bend. It is a cinematic fever dream of which I was terrified to wake up from.

8/10