WarGames: John Badham

I don’t know if I could imagine what 1980s audiences felt when they first watched John Badham‘s WarGames (1983). In a time when the Cold War was still hot and Mutually Assured Destruction was more than just a name for a deathcore metal band, the infamous conclusion that Nuclear War was a “strange game” where “the only winning move is not to play” must have been both shocking and cathartic. But thirty-two years later, I feel like I have the needed historical distance to examine the film as a piece of filmmaking and not just as a manifestation of the American zeitgeist. And I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed by the film’s incongruous tone. Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy feel ripped right out of a John Hughes teen comedy. Their solution to everything from fixing their bad school grades to escaping one of the most heavily guarded military installations on earth? Shenanigans. WarGames boasts stunning cinematography (especially in the last ten minutes of technological hysteria) and one of the most provocative and fascinating concepts in popular 1980s American cinema. But I wish it had been more Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) and less Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).

7/10

Rancho Notorious: Fritz Lang

To read this review, go to: http://www.theblackmaria.org/2015/07/28/b-roll-fritz-langs-rancho-notorious-1952/.

7/10

The Big Heat: Fritz Lang

[Revisit Review]

The first time I saw Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, I was relatively unimpressed. It seemed rather dull and blasé. Roger Ebert's claim that beneath its (relatively) pleasant exterior lurked one of the most sinister, sobering examinations of evil in American cinema seemed unmerited. But it's been a few years now and I have to say that maybe Ebert was on to something. If anything, I found Glenn Ford's portrayal of an oblivious walking force of utter destruction fascinating.

8/10

6 Ways to Die: Nadeem Soumah

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-6-ways-to-die/60490.

7/10

Le Grand Amour: Pierre Étaix

I've heard people describe Pierre Étaix's Le Grand Amour as Buñuelian. But while it may indulge in some bizarre, surrealistic imagery—my favorite sequence involves the protagonist having a dream where his bed becomes a car, drives into the countryside, and encounters multiple other car-beds being driven by people in their pajamas—Le Grand Amour simply isn't mean-spirited enough to be properly Buñuelian. While Étaix was more than capable of feeling cynical and perhaps even pessimistic (see his 1971 documentary Land of Milk and Honey), he was never cruel or mean-spirited. And, in my opinion, that was what made his work stand apart from his contemporaries.

7/10

Margin for Error: Otto Preminger

To read this review, go to: http://www.theblackmaria.org/2015/07/21/b-roll-otto-premingers-margin-error-1943/.

5/10

Big Significant Things: Bryan Reisberg

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-big-significant-things/60173.

6/10

Ant-Man: Peyton Reed

It's actually quite easy to tell where Edgar Wright's vision for Ant-Man began and ended vis-à-vis editorial mandate. At its core, it's a heist film. In the execution of said heists we see the same genius narrative complexity and irreverent, tongue-in-cheek sense of fun that animated films like Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). Much like how those films weren't just spoofs of their respective genres but solid entries in them in their own rights, Ant-Man is one of the best heist films I've seen in years. It rides a fine balance between being a superhero film featuring heists and a heist film featuring superheroes. Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, the titular Ant-Man, does a solid job as the typical Wrightian hero who unexpectedly gets in way over his head in circumstances beyond his wildest dreams. However, the film is significantly deadened by studio interference. You can practically see the invisible hand of Kevin Feige reach down and cram in things to make it more "audience friendly" and "more suitable for the Marvel brand": the villain is just another jealous white male scientist-cum-industrialist with an attitude problem (because we didn't get enough of those in THREE Iron Man films); a spunky supporting female character with juuuuust enough screen-time to make an impression as a cool, kick-ass hero but not enough for her to actually contribute significantly to the overall plot—or to actually get her in a damned costume for once; ubiquitous cameos to remind the audience that, yes, this does take place in the same universe as the Avengers; and a smattering of truly unfortunate CGI and laughable motion physics (a PS1 could have produced more realistic physics than one scene where a tank bursts through the wall of a building). If anything, Ant-Man gives me hope that unconventional approaches to the superhero genre can be successful. But it also discourages me with the realization that major production studios would rather implode than let idiosyncratic directors truly experiment with their precious cash cows.

7/10

Man's Castle: Frank Borzage

Frank Borzage's Man's Castle has gained a quiet notoriety for being a Depression-era drama largely ignored by generations of film critics, directors, and audiences due in no small part to its unusually gritty and occasionally mean-spirited depiction of the era's poor. Not that the film itself is mean-spirited, the poor themselves are shown to be mean-spirited. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Spencer Tracy's irascible con-artist-cum-drifter named Bill. But the (admittedly charming) savageries of Spency Tracy’s uncouth survivalism can’t fully distract me from the fact that the film largely revolves around him domesticating a poor woman played by Loretta Young into a wife-pet. The gritty realism also doesn't gel with Young's melodramatic histrionics. I get that this was supposed to be a romance and I suppose Tracy redeems himself (more or less) by the end, but overall the film feels misdirected and miscalculated.

6/10

Footloose: Herbert Ross

Despite its flaws, I actually really liked Herbert Ross' Footloose. It unsuccessfully tries to mix a coming-of-age story with a light-hearted teen musical, but I feel like its heart was in the right place. The dancing scenes are mesmeric in complexity and energy. But in my opinion John Lithgow steals the show as Reverend Shaw Moore. He's one of the most sympathetic antagonists that I've ever encountered, a fact made even more shocking when you consider that the film came out in the 80s, a decade never really known for pushing moral ambiguity in its mass entertainment. I went into Footloose expecting a lot of 80s cheese. And to be fair, that's exactly what I got. But I also got a surprisingly introspective film about faith, trusting your children, and the responsibility people have towards their larger communities.

6/10

The Glory Guys: Arnold Laven

Here's what you need to know about Arnold Laven's The Glory Guys: it is a dreadfully mediocre movie with jaw-dropping widescreen cinematography courtesy of the great James Wong Howe. Despite all of this film's flaws, I would still recommend watching it for the cinematography. Howe perfectly captures the awe-inspiring sense of scale of the American West and the battles between the US Cavalry and Native Americans. More than once he echoes one of the greatest shots of Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible Part One (1944) where a figure in closeup frames an endless snaking trail of soldiers stretching in a long line from the foreground to the background. But as for the film itself? It feels like counterfeit Sam Peckinpah--mostly because Peckinpah actually WROTE the film. There's a scene where two suitors for the same lady engage in a fist-fight where they trade good-natured insults that feels like it was stolen directly from one of his earlier Westerns. But the film's story is woefully mishandled. The first half seems to predict the training sequences from Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987) while the second half becomes a standard military-adventure film. You can't venerate the military in a film when you've spent about half the run-time exposing it as a dehumanizing institution operated by a number of sociopathic officers ready and willing to sacrifice countless troops for the sake of their own glory.

5/10

Catch Me Daddy: Daniel Wolfe

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-catch-me-daddy/59738.

6/10

The Red Badge of Courage: John Huston

To read this review, go to: http://www.theblackmaria.org/2015/07/14/b-roll-john-hustons-the-red-badge-of-courage-1951/.

6/10

Bonnie and Clyde: Arthur Penn

[Revisit Review]

The first time I watched Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, I wasn't ready for it. Titillated by promises of its notoriety as a stepping-stone in cinematic violence, I expected an action film. But now, several years later, I can appreciate the film for the masterpiece that it is: stylistically daring; stunningly acted; fascinated with the battle between fact, legend, and myth in American popular culture. It is, quite simply, damn near perfect.

10/10

Land of Milk and Honey: Pierre Étaix

I don't know if Pierre Étaix could have effectively ended his cinematic career with an odder movie than Land of Milk and Honey. Turning his camera on French vacationers, Étaix created a film that was part documentary, part comedy, part assault on post-May 1968 French culture. Shot without a script and largely formed in the editing room, Étaix utilizes montage editing to achieve a bold brand of humor that I can't remember ever having encountered before. He'll juxtapose images with narration to create situational or dramatic irony. My favorite example: splicing together a clip of an amateur athlete climbing up a greased pole with a shot of a giant sculpture of Jesus hanging on the cross. I really don't know how else to describe Land of Milk and Honey. Structurally avant-garde and politically ruthless, it isn't so much a film as a form of cinematic suicide. But with it, he did manage to piss off viewers and critics on both sides of the political spectrum. So that means that at the very least he did something right.

7/10

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: John Huston

[Revisit Review]

If I remember correctly, John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was one of the first classic Hollywood films that I watched when I first seriously started to explore the universe of cinema. And my reaction was...largely indifferent. The film just didn't grab me. But now, years and years and years later, I find myself entranced by this mesmeric tale of greed and fate. I do agree with Roger Ebert that the ending was a bit too cheerful and the fates of the surviving prospectors just a bit too happy. In my opinion, the film probably should have ended with the bandits smashing Bogart's bags of gold dust. But everything else about the film stands up proudly alongside the very best of the classic Hollywood studio system.

9/10

The Boxtrolls: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi

[Spoilers Ahead]

Studio Laika films are at their best when they're at their darkest. Coraline (2009) involved a young girl being tortured and almost killed by other-dimensional monsters. The entire storyline of ParaNorman (2012) was set in motion by the lynching of a little girl. Now comes their third full-length feature: Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi's The Boxtrolls. On the one hand, the stop-motion animation has never been better. Each frame is filled with complex motion crammed into every layer—foreground, midground, background. There is a real emphasis on physical humor that does justice to the great silent comedians. And yet, The Boxtrolls isn't as mean as it could be. And ultimately I think it suffers for it. One of the major plot points involves the capture and apparent slaughter over a period of years of the eponymous Boxtrolls. Yet we eventually learn that they are all fine—in addition to the supposedly murdered father of the protagonist. This all feels like a cheap cop-out invented by writers who wrote themselves into a third-act corner. But on the other hand the film does involve a villain who, refreshingly, is willing and capable of straight-up murdering little children. And he does die by literally exploding. But, on a side note, can anybody explain to me why he was a drag singer? Was there a point to that subplot? Because if there was, I think I missed it...

7/10

Bombshell: Victor Fleming

Screwball comedies are all about reversals: of power, gender politics, etc, etc. And I have to give credit to Victor Fleming's Bombshell for introducing a kind of reversal that I have never encountered before within the genre: a fancy career woman, in this case a famous actress, tries to settle down and become more "traditional" while the men around her try to convince her to be more independent. The only problem is that the men are in it for entirely selfish reasons—the family wants her to stay an actress so the gravy train will continue and her agent is madly in love with her. Of course, this being the 1930s, the agent manifests his desires by emotionally manipulating and lying to her. Bombshell is repugnant to the point of being genuinely creepy. You could honestly re-edit it to make it a thriller about a psychotic publicity manager ruining the life of an actress because she is not interested in him. He hires actors to seduce her, emotionally torment her, and leave her so he can swoop in at the end and "rescue" her. What's worse, this is supposed to come off as charming. It's not. But Bombshell's worse sin? It's not very funny.

3/10

Sharknado: Thunder Levin

Here's the thing about stupid-on-purpose: it's meant to come off as silly, but it usually just comes off as stupid. And stupid isn't entertaining. But you know what stupid is? Tedious. Very, very tedious. That was one thing that I was not prepared for in Thunder Levin's Sharknado: the tedium. The only moments of truly enjoyable insanity—shooting falling sharks with a hand-pistol, splitting sharks in half with a chainsaw, diving into a shark while wielding a chainsaw—come at the very end. Everything else is bland and boring. You rarely get a good look at the terrible CGI sharks because the editing is so jumpy and clumsy. But then again, perhaps that's a good thing. I've seen PS1 video games with better graphics than the damn sharks in this movie.

3/10

The Clock: Vincente Minnelli, Fred Zinnemann

To read this review, go to: http://www.theblackmaria.org/2015/07/07/b-roll-vincente-minnellis-the-clock-1945/.

7/10

The Hunchback of Notre Dame: William Dieterle

It was inevitable that Victor Hugo's masterful novel "Notre-Dame de Paris" would be neutered by the time it reached Hollywood. With the Hays Code in full effect, the novel's bleak ending and bare-toothed assault on corruption within the Catholic Church could never have stood. But despite this, there are moments when William Dieterle's The Hunchback of Notre Dame manages to shed the trappings of Hollywood entertainment and attempts to reach the same poetic heights as Hugo's novel. Its odd preoccupation with the righteousness of free speech and the necessity of the free press may seem a curiously American touch, but it does right by the novel's original focus on the development of history as expressed through artistic, scientific, architectural, and sociological advancements. There are also several great scenes: the sprawling Feast of Fools sequence; Charles Laughton’s performance as Quasimodo—particularly while he is being publicly whipped; Quasimodo's defense of Notre-Dame against the invaders. But there isn't really any overarching, cohesive vision. So, for all its strengths, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is merely a good film that strings together individual moments of greatness instead of a great film overall.

7/10

Fat City: John Huston

To read this review, go to: http://www.theblackmaria.org/2015/07/01/b-roll-john-hustons-fat-city-1972/.

8/10

Feeling Good: Pierre Étaix

I...honestly and truly don't know what to make of Pierre Étaix's Feeling Good. It was originally supposed to be a section in his anthology film As Long As You've Got Your Health (1966) but was cut out and re-edited as its own short. But it makes almost no sense. The first five or so minutes are some decent slapstick about Étaix trying to go camping, but then he's arrested and relocated into what I can only describe as a cross between a concentration camp and a Oakie settlement circa the Dust Bowl. Is Étaix trying to make some kind of statement about how everyday society is so regimented that it's practically like living in a prison? I'm not sure. But the crying shame is that this second part of the film simply isn't funny.

As Long as You’ve Got Your Health: Pierre Étaix

Pierre Étaix's As Long as You've Got Your Health was deliberately divided into four short films. So the fairest way that I can think to review the film is to look at all four parts individually.

Insomnia

A man tries to fight his insomnia by reading a vampire novel. But the novel begins to bleed into real life as he starts to jump at simple things like his wife shifting positions in bed. It's a sweet, gentle segment that gets credit for not having the kind of twist ending that I thought it was going for.

The Movies

Étaix goes to the movies and after a series of unfortunate events gets pulled into the world of a never-ending commercial. I'm still not sure how he ended up in the commercial, but I don't care considering the shtick in the first part of this sequence wasn't very inspired. But the actual commercial segment contains some of the best slapstick and visual gags in all of Étaix's oeuvre. 

As Long As You've Got Your Health

At first a kind of rally against industrialization, this segment has some of the most bold and ambitious effects I've ever seen in a quasi-silent comedy. I loved the bits about the clock hands malfunctioning and the music notes falling off the sheet because of the vibrations from street construction. Then it becomes a low-key Orwellian nightmare as all of the inhabitants of the besieged city try to keep themselves from going insane by either perpetually smiling or seeking the advice of an increasingly beleaguered doctor.

Into the Woods No More

I don't have much to say about this one. It's the weakest of the four segments and can basically be boiled down to a handful of characters mince about the countryside for a while.

The overall film is not more than the sum of its parts. But the good parts more than make up for the lackluster ones.

7/10

1941: Steven Spielberg

Allow me to make something abundantly clear about Steven Spielberg's 1941: most of the visual humor and set-pieces involving things getting blown up work. The opening sequence spoofing Jaws (1975) where a night-swimmer gets trapped on the periscope of a Japanese sub was ingenious. The image of a Ferris Wheel rolling into the California Bay was striking and effective. The scene where a lone bomb from a B-52 disrupts a speech being given about how Japanese bombers will never reach California worked. It all worked. What didn't work were the smaller scale scenes involving individual characters acting weird, crazy, and over-the-top. Why? Because all of the principal characters know they're in a comedy. And nothing wrecks a comedy faster than characters who are in on the joke. The only exception that I can think of are the Marx Brothers movies. And even then only the Brothers themselves were in on the gag. This film also needed at least one less sub-plot. It's two-and-a-half hour run-time is exhaustive, especially for a comedy. Lengthy run-times are alright for action films and dramas, but comedies are much more stamina-draining for both filmmakers and audiences.

5/10

The Suitor: Pierre Étaix

Much like his earlier short film Rupture (1961) and his later masterpiece Yo Yo (1965), Pierre Étaix's The Suitor follows a somewhat aloof aristocrat vying against everyday annoyances and some internal discontent. In this case, Étaix plays the eponymous Suitor, a wealthy young man who decides that he needs to find a wife. The only problem is that he has had almost no interaction with the opposite sex outside of his family. So he struggles to enter and navigate the dating scene with...varying results. Although the film features a single plot, it is highly episodic in nature: he will center entire sequences around certain characters or sets for prolonged comedic routines. And, truth be told, this formula eventually becomes taxing. Not all of the sequences are equally thrilling. There's one in particular involving the Suitor escorting an inebriated woman back to her apartment that went on for far too long.

7/10

Runoff: Kimberly Levin

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-runoff/58811.

8/10

Max: Boaz Yakin

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-max/58762.

4/10

Donovan's Brain: Felix E. Feist

Felix E. Feist's Donovan's Brain was a braver film than I think most people would give it credit for. The reason? Its entire success centers almost solely on the ability of one actor to portray multiple characters with nothing but varying usages of body language and vocal intonation. Here that burden is carried by Lew Ayres, a scientist who gets possessed by a megalomaniac brain in his laboratory taken from a recently deceased business tycoon. And despite the fact that Ayres keeps tricking me into thinking that he's actually Jack Lemmon, he does a fantastic job. It helps that Donovan's Brain boasts a legitimately engrossing screenplay and fantastically moody cinematography courtesy of Joseph F. Biroc. This is one of those rare 1950s sci-fi flicks that didn't succumb to the ludicrousness of its central plot or to hammy special effects. Donovan's Brain legitimately works both as sci-fi and as horror.

7/10

The Lost Boys: Joel Schumacher

I came to Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys rather circuitously. I have spent several summers living with my aunt and grandmother in Santa Cruz where the film was shot. Without even realizing it I had familiarized myself with several of the landmarks that were featured prominently in the film. The one exception would have to be the comic book shop which actually became the place that I first started getting into comics. They were happy to tell me that they were featured in the film. Now, several years later, I have finally seen the film and can confirm that they have every right to be proud of being featured in it. The special effects are excellent. The humor is surprisingly organic—stealing holy water from a church, having the experts on evil creatures be comic book nerds, using squirt guns full of holy water mixed with garlic against vampires. The only weak point of the movie is the central love story which is ridiculously weak and tepid. But it's not like we came to this film to see a love story anyway, right?

7/10

Surf Nazis Must Die: Peter George

I am convinced that the only reason Peter George's Surf Nazis Must Die has survived as a "cult classic" is its title. And it's a perfect title, isn't it? First, there's the absurd juxtaposition of the terms "surf" and "Nazis." Follow that up with the command that they "must die" and you have a dynamic, brain-snatching title that is sure to stick with people regardless of whether or not they actually see it. But while Surf Nazis Must Die certainly contains Nazis, surfing, and dying, the final product is so banal and lifeless that afterwards the title will be the only thing that viewers will remember. The film feels like the boring bits of about a dozen Z-grade drive-in pictures chopped up and randomly glued back together by a blind macaque. Scenes start and stop and start and stop with little attention paid to how they transition between each other or build a narrative. It's essentially a 90 minute stag reel of surfing footage and dirty teenagers sneering at each other. The film's diegetic universe doesn't make any sense, either. Apparently a catastrophic earthquake so devastated California that roving gangs of Nazis were able to seize power. And yet apparently enough of society remained that social services like nursing homes and small businesses could still operate. But I'm clearly giving this film more thought than any of its makers did.

1/10

A Woman’s Face: George Cukor

To read this review, go to: http://www.theblackmaria.org/2015/06/23/b-roll-george-cukors-a-womans-face-1941/.

8/10

When Strangers Marry: William Castle

What a delightful discovery! I never would have imagined that William Castle, the master of gimmicks and ridiculous horror films, could have directed such a moody, tense, and wonderfully atmospheric thriller as When Strangers Marry. The film, which centers on a young wife who begins to suspect that her husband might be a murderer, incredibly outshines Suspicion (1941), an earlier film with a similar plot directed by none other than Alfred Hitchcock. There are a handful of magnificent sequences that I can only imagine would have made the Master of Suspense green with envy: the suspected husband flummoxing a sideshow carny who boasts that he can guess anyone's profession with only three guesses; a couple on the run being forced to share a cramped cab with a screaming infant; a hallucinogenic scene where the wife is plagued with visions of people calling her husband a murderer while traveling down a darkened tunnel at night. It reminds me of another early noir with a run-time that barely exceeded 60 minutes: Boris Ingster's Stranger on the Third Floor (1940). Both made up for their low-budget production short-comings with excellent performances, hyper-stylized sequences reflecting their characters' inner paranoia, and a crackerjack script. Where When Strangers Marry falters is that it gives away its major twist with an unfortunate bit of casting. The moment this character appears you know that he's up to no good. They should have invested in a more milquetoast actor. I bet Elisha Cook, Jr. would have been perfect.

8/10

The Devil-Doll: Tod Browning

Tod Browning's The Devil-Doll has one of those delightfully absurd scenarios that could only occur in the pulpiest of sci-fi/horror fever-dreams: a Parisian banker uses people he has shrunken to only a few inches in height with a mysterious chemical formula to get revenge on his one-time colleagues who framed him for robbery and murder seventeen years earlier. The banker, Paul Lavond (Lionel Barrymore), dresses in drag to pose as an elderly female toymaker who ingratiates herself into the homes of his enemies where his servants carry out his grisly commands. The special effects—mostly limited to double-exposures and forced perspective accompanied by over-sized sets and props—are curiously less effective than similar effects in King Kong, released three years earlier. But what saves the film is Barrymore's performance. At times deliciously over-the-top, at times horrifying (note the death glare he gives his enemies as his servants get ready to strike, Barrymore is able to inject an admittedly silly role with genuine pathos. Nowhere is this more apparent than the heart-breaking scene near the end where he confronts his long-lost daughter...while posing as someone else. The Devil-Doll also reveals a curious contradiction implicit within the boundaries of the Motion Picture Production Code: criminals who lie and cheat and steal can get away unpunished as long as the only people he hurts are worse criminals.

7/10

Eden: Mia Hansen-Løve

Mia Hansen-Løve's Eden was literally the hardest film I have had to watch in quite some time. It wasn't because it was shocking or uncomfortable. It was because it was a boring, poorly-constructed piece of miscalculated rubbish. I can understand what Hansen-Løve was going for: an examination of the 90s French techno scene that was just as enamored with the atmosphere and zeitgeist of the era as the musicians who helped pioneer the actual music. It was supposed to be a calm, reflective piece. In short, it tried to be equal parts documentary, drama, and drug film. Yet it trying to do all three, it became none of them. This isn't a film that moves, it meanders. And while many directors are able to pull this kind of meditative anti-plotting off, Hansen-Løve isn't one of them...yet.

3/10

Inside Out: Pete Docter

Pete Docter's Inside Out marks a return to the fastidious creativity and courage that made PIXAR a house-hold name. Beautifully animated, thought-provoking, and unapologetically willing to test the limits of their audience's emotions, Inside Out is the best film PIXAR has put out since 2010 with Toy Story 3 (2010). And yet, I was largely disappointed with the third act. There was way too much slapstick comedic relief during moments that should have been tense with dramatic weight. The anthropomorphic interpretations of Riley's emotions work as characters because they're metaphorical. But in the last act they use Tex Avery-esque logic to overcome challenges (e.g. using hundreds of clones of Riley's ideal boyfriend to create a human bridge) that the entire metaphorical underpinning of the story becomes confused, cluttered, and nearly lost.

7/10

Jurassic World: Colin Trevorrow

It would be so easy to say that my reasons for not loving Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World stemmed solely from my hatred CGI effects, ESPECIALLY in a franchise known for having some of the best practical effects in cinematic history. But really, my dislike of the film comes from the fact that the characters, with the notable exception of Bryce Dallas Howard, were either bland, forgettable, or annoying. Chris Pratt was underwhelming and ultimately useless, the two boys deserved to get eaten by dinosaurs because of their stupidity, and the people running the park and its security were laughably incompetent, even for a narrative centered around nature punishing mankind for its hubris. Still, I would be lying if I didn't say that the ending fight between the T. Rex, Blue, and Indominus didn't make me almost teary-eyed with joy.

6/10

Dogtooth: Yorgos Lanthimos

I think the key scene to understanding Yorgos Lanthimos's Dogtooth is a scene near the end where the eldest daughter (Angeliki Papoulia) begins re-enacting a dance scene from Adrian Lyne's Flashdance (1983) during a performance in honor of her father's birthday. On the surface it's just another in a long line of bizarre images and sequences; Buñuelian surrealism through the lens of Theo Angelopoulos (and not just because they're both Greek—Lanthimos shares Angelopoulos' favor of long, static takes and glacial pacing). But then it hit me: at not point has this young woman ever seen the film, let alone heard of it. The only exposure she has had to anything outside her deliberately isolated and insulated family were two VHS tapes of Jaws (1975) and Rocky IV (1985). So why, or more appropriately how, Flashdance? My theory is that the eldest daughter is, like a medium, beginning to channel the world outside her family's enclosure. This would compliment the interpretation that Dogtooth is about arrested development and the anxieties that accompany young people as they move out on their own for the first time. But I suspect that limiting Dogtooth to such simplistic comparisons would miss the point. It is more than just an allegory; it is a strange, bizarre riddle of a film designed to intrigue and shock audiences. The only interpretations possible are the ones people bring with them from the very beginning.

7/10

The Wolfpack: Crystal Moselle

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-the-wolfpack/57993.

7/10

Hot Fuzz: Edgar Wright

[Revisit Review]

Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz was and is a miracle of comedic filmmaking. It has one of the most ruthlessly sharp and well-constructed screenplays this side of Robert Smith’s for Irving Pichel’s Quicksand! (1950): not a line is wasted or unnecessary. The use of editing to highlight comedic scenes—fast-paced, dramatic cutting for absurdly mundane activities like filling out paperwork—is magnificent. Just like his previous endeavor Shaun of the Dead (2004) which doubled as a gut-busting comedy and a truly chilling zombie horror film, Hot Fuzz works in its own right as both a mystery thriller and an action cop movie. Wright understands that the best parodies, satires, and tributes can stand on their own merits as representations of the things they’re lampooning. This is a lesson most modern filmmakers have woefully missed.

9/10

Zombeavers: Jordan Rubin

I wish that filmmakers would figure out that deliberately, ironically obnoxious characters are STILL obnoxious. They seem to be popular in horror films that intentionally emulate low-budget, cheesy B-movies. But unlike Eli Craig's Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) where the annoying characters were balanced by sympathetic ones and Kevin Smith's Tusk (2014) where they stopped being obnoxious when things began to get real, the obnoxious characters in Jordan Rubin's Zombeavers STAY obnoxious the entire time. They were so unpleasant that I had a hard time getting into the irreverent tone of the film and enjoying it for what it was: a light-hearted, goofy tribute to terrible horrible movies. But at least the practical creature effects were really nice!

(Oh, and don't think I missed the dolly zoom tribute to Jaws [1975]. Nice touch.)

4/10

Set Fire to the Stars: Andy Goddard

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-set-fire-to-the-stars/57554.

7/10

Blood on the Moon: Robert Wise

To read this review, go to: http://theblackmaria.org/2015/06/09/b-roll-robert-wises-blood-on-the-moon-1948/.

6/10

Happy Anniversary: Jean-Claude Carrière, Pierre Étaix

Even though Jean-Claude Carrière and Pierre Étaix's Happy Anniversary has more sets, more props, more characters, and more locations, I still feel like more happened in their first collaboration Rupture (1961). Perhaps the action became decentralized due to its greater scope? Whatever the reason, this madcap tale of one man's repeatedly thwarted attempts to get home in time for an anniversary dinner with his wife is delightful and charming. I can understand why it won an Academy Award for Best Short Film. If anything, it demonstrates Étaix's growth as a filmmaker and points the way towards his full-length feature films.

The Gold Ghost: Buster Keaton, Charles Lamont

The Gold Ghost was not an easy or pleasant film to watch. It was Buster Keaton's first directorial effort with sound cinema and it showed. The plot was formulaic and uninspired: a weak, foppish young man Goes West to try and make a name for himself in order to woo the heart of a woman he loves. The film is so mediocre that it makes Algie, the Miner (1912), a ten minute short film partially directed by Alice Guy-Blaché which essentially told the same basic story, look like D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916). Most of the jokes are reworkings of earlier Keaton gags. But unlike Grand Slam Opera (1936) where he adapted old gags to actually utilize sound technology, the gags here are almost the same as they would have been without sound. It always hurts to see your idols fall.

Rupture: Jean-Claude Carrière, Pierre Étaix

Rupture takes a simple idea—a spurned lover trying to write a break-up letter whose things keep breaking on him—and wrings every single bit of comedy imaginable out of it. It is, in a word, bliss. This is precision slapstick the likes of which only the French comedians like Jacques Tati and René Clair truly excelled at (although Chaplin came damn close with Modern Times [1936]). What would be a better term for this? "Surgical Slapstick?" I'll have to think on it...But anyhow, my favorite part is the hokey sound effects which were created and dubbed in by Étaix after filming had concluded. They are so wild and over-the-top that they almost reach surrealistic heights.

Million Dollar Legs: Edward F. Cline

Having seen Edward F. Cline’s Million Dollar Legs, I can’t help but feel that it is the first part in a triptych of Dadaist Hollywood comedies—the subsequent parts being Leo McCarey’s Duck Soup (1933) and H. C. Potter’s Hellzapoppin’ (1941). All three films are deliberately scatterbrained, surrealistic, and nonsensical. But of the three, Million Dollar Legs is perhaps the most consciously “silly.” It was so silly, in fact, that it took me about fifteen minutes to acclimate myself with its humor. More than once the humor veered between “silly” and “stupid.” But there were enough gags that worked (the discovery of all of Klopstokia’s athletes, for instance) that I was able to forgive the ones that didn’t. Plus, I never though that W. C. Fields would work so well in a supporting role. But here he honestly gives one of his best performances, in my opinion. I’ve always felt that Fields was a comedian best enjoyed in small doses. I’ve always preferred his short films to his features. And Million Dollar Legs finds a nice balance between over- and under-using him.

7/10

Hungry Hearts: Saverio Costanzo

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-hungry-hearts/56935.

9/10

Our Daily Bread: King Vidor

King Vidor was one of those directors that I had always heard of but had never exactly watched. I'd seen his "important" films: the silent masterpieces The Big Parade (1925) and The Crowd (1928). But I had remained largely ignorant of his sound films. And yet, it is perhaps in his sound films that Vidor left the greatest impression both as a director and as an auteur. So his 1934 film Our Daily Bread marked the first time that I truly "met" Mr. Vidor. Unapologetically enthusiastic, centering on can-do protagonists, and concerned with individualist triumph over adversity, Out Daily Bread was an unexpected treat. In a strange way, the film is essentially the story of an American Communist farming commune. And yet Vidor managed to mask this fact by insistently focusing on the struggles of a single protagonist. It's Communism by way of Individualism. A strange idea...but Vidor makes it work.

7/10

The Whispering Chorus: Cecil B. DeMille

To read this review, go to: http://theblackmaria.org/2015/06/02/b-roll-cecil-b-demille-the-whispering-chorus-1918/.

7/10