Criss Cross: Robert Siodmak

Most great film noir have doomed protagonists fighting against their own destinies.  But few are as harsh and cynical as Robert Siodmak's Criss Cross.  We know the moment that Burt Lancaster lays eyes on his ex-wife, now married to mobster Slim Dundee, that a happy ending is out of the question.  Personally, I found the big twist that Slim and his goons used Lancaster's character the way they did to be predictable.  But where the film shines is how Lancaster's ex-wife treats him when he comes to her to flee from the gangsters.  Criss Cross resides in a vacuum free from morality as characters betray each other and seal their fates in the process.  Like a Greek tragedy, nobody is getting out of this film in one piece.

6/10

The Big Combo: Joseph H. Lewis

If film noir is the genre of dark, brooding obsession, then Joseph H. Lewis' The Big Combo reigns supreme on a throne of reheated coffee, cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and lifeless bodies.  At the center of the film is Police Lt. Leonard Diamond's rabid determination to bring down notorious gangster Mr. Brown.  He makes no secret of his personal crusade against the sadistic gangster, confronting him several times.  As a result, almost everyone he touches in the course of the investigation gets either murdered or psychologically shattered by Mr. Brown.  Blind to his contribution to the case's ever-increasing body count, Diamond lunges forward on his personal vendetta.  But what drives him?  Is it his sense of justice?  Or perhaps it's Susan, Mr. Brown's suicidal squeeze that Diamond can't get off his mind?  Whatever the reason, Diamond uses her as just another pawn in his strategy to take down Mr. Brown.  And therein lays the inherent tragedy and twisted irony of the film: both men, Lt. Diamond and Mr. Brown, see others as disposable tools in their fight against each other.  One justifies his actions with a badge, the other with his gun and his terrible, terrible smile.

9/10

The Tree of Life: Terrence Malick

Some films defy explanation or categorization because they blaze such new ground, chart such unexpected territory, or contain such passionate vision.  These are the films that spellbind audiences and film-lovers for generations and generations.  Terrence Malick's new film The Tree of Life is not only destined to place among them, but to help rule them.  Not so much a movie as a cinematic prayer, Malick uses the childhood memories of its protagonist as a metaphor for life, the universe, and existence itself.  Containing a 20 minute sequence of the birth of the universe, The Tree of Life captivates with a terrifying and awe-inspiring power.  It is a puzzle, a holy enigma of a film that will inspire countless interpretations, none of them ultimately correct.  For how can you define the universe?  Malick's film makes no attempt to answer this question, but instead celebrates the unanswerable question, the unknowable essence that binds us all.

10/10

Crazy Thunder Road: Sōgo Ishii

Crazy Thunder Road is a difficult film to grasp, at least from a critical standpoint.  On its surface it is a standard, albeit influential, Japanese biker film from the 80s.  It concerns the internal power struggles within a biker gang when its leader, Ken, steps down.  From there it dives into a chaotic frenzy as the bikers bounce from gang to gang, from leader to leader.  But there is more at work here than just a simple exploitation film.  Director Sōgo Ishii endows the film with a cynical self-conscious, as if it realizes how futile and expendable the lives of its characters are.  An ex-punk rocker, Ishii seems to conclude that those who choose the biker way of life are doomed to self destruct.  This becomes most apparent during the final fight were several gangs fight it out with fists, bats, guns, and dynamite.  Ishii's coup de grace is that the only character to escape from the climax unharmed is a young boy who doubles as a drug dealer, as if to suggest that while the bikers may die, their way of life is invincible from one generation to another.  As a film critic, I feel repulsed by its abject ugliness.  But as a filmmaker, I am fascinated by its construction considering Ishii made it on 16mm film stock as a graduation project for film school.  Despite its surliness, it is impossible to ignore the high craftsmanship of its kinetic editing and direction.  In the end, Crazy Thunder Road is as frantic as the lifestyle that it emulates.

6/10

The Great Silence: Sergio Corbucci

[Note: I am reviewing the film with it's original Italian ending.]

The Western genre was both saved and damned by the Italians who took up its gauntlet when it was passed from American filmmakers.  They injected it with brooding characters, psychopathic villains, and bloody, gruesome violence the likes of which had never been seen before.  The West was not the romantic place that it once was.  They inspired countless filmmakers, many of whom would go on to found the Revisionist Western genre.  And why?  Because spaghetti Westerns stripped the West of its naive optimism.  Cowboys couldn't be separated by the color of their hats anymore.  Now, the only morale that ruled was who had the fastest gun.  Sergio Corbucci, one of the true auteurs of the genre, made dozens of films that affirmed this new identity.  But few were as harsh and pessimistic as the earth-shattering The Great Silence.  Pitting two of the most infamous characters to haunt the genre in history, the mute gunfighter Silence and the sociopathic Loco (played by the magnificent Klaus Kinski), The Great Silence dares to examine a West where the good guys don't always win and the world is as bleak as the snow covered mountains of Utah.  It was because of masterpieces like this film that happy endings could never again work for Westerns.

8/10

Through the Olive Trees: Abbas Kiarostami

The world's fascination with Abbas Kiarostami will forever vex me.  This is the fourth film by the famous Iranian director that I have seen, behind Taste of Cherry, Close-Up, and The Wind Will Carry Us.  For the fourth time I have found his work to be obtuse, deliberately opaque, and bereft of any deeper meaning.  To his credit, Kiarostami has tried to blend the line between real life, documentary, and fiction in his films.  He tries to do this here by depicting the love between two actors in real life who portray two characters in love in a film that Kiarostami is making.  But he makes no distinction between what is real, fiction, and documentary.  Several times we watch him do multiple takes of the same shot over and over again until we can hardly stand it.  I suppose that this is supposed to be hypnotic and captivating to some audiences, but personally I found it boring and unnecessary.  The whole film is drained of any kind of energy or urgency.  In some cases, such as the phenomenal film Wings of Desire, this can strengthen a film's message and its artistic merit.  But Kiarostami doesn't seem to want to say anything with his film.  It just...is.  And the result is a lackluster, disengaging film.

3/10

RoboCop 2: Irvin Kershner

For a man who for the majority of his career did quirky, independent films, Irvin Kershner was a genius at doing blockbusters.  Of course, his greatest and most famous film was the indomitable Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.  But before he ended his cinematic career, he managed to create another fantastic sequel: RoboCop 2.  Yes, yes, I understand the film's criticisms from both a fanboy and critical standpoint.  It did erase all of the development from the first film by turning him back into an emotionless machine.  The foul-mouthed youth Hob was indeed a bit over the top.  But what RoboCop 2  did manage was to explore ethical and moral areas untouched by the first film.   The first RoboCop focused on the inherent tragedy of the titular character losing and regaining his humanity.  The sequel explores the question of who has the power to control such a weapon.  Can it really "belong" to anybody if it can potentially be controlled by evil corporate thugs?  Many people criticized the film for its increased violence.  But I think they were missing Kershner's point.  In a world controlled by privatized interests, whether criminal or corporate, human lives become worthless and meaningless.  I could literally go on for pages about why I believe this film should be remembered as fondly as the original.  But the simplest reason is that Kershner managed to explore new philosophical grey areas within the confines of a sci-fi action film.  And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is worth admiration.

8/10

The Freshman: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor

Considering that he was 32 years old when he starred as a red-cheeked college freshman, Harold Lloyd does a magnificent job endearing us towards his character, Harold "Speedy" Lamb.  But then again, didn't he always?  Of the three godfathers of silent comedy, only Charlie Chaplin did a better job in winning love and sympathy for the plight of his protagonists (Buster Keaton's deadpan seriousness rarely did the same).  In The Freshman, Lloyd plays the eternal fall guy, first humiliating himself at the class inauguration, then at a dance, and then on the football field.  But unlike Charlie Chaplin's Tramp, who cheated, connived, and stumbled his way to victory, Lloyd finished on top through sheer commitment. His indomitable "can-do" attitude endeared him to like-minded audiences in the 1920s and remains a powerful motivator to modern admirers.  Even today, his jokes, pratfalls, and physical hijinks retain their comedic punch, even if they weren't as frequently on display as his contemporaries.  But that's all right.  He spent the extra time winning our support and our love.

7/10

The Wild Blue Yonder: Werner Herzog

As one of the cinema's most enigmatic visionaries, Werner Herzog has a strange knack for getting things right, even when he gets them wrong.  This is apparent in The Wild, Blue Yonder, a film which should by all means fail miserably.  The film is comprised of stock footage of astronauts during training and in space set to the bizarre narration of Brad Dourif as an alien from another galaxy who has taken up residence on earth.  Dourif spouts off an incredible mythology of his alien race's journey to earth and human's attempts to reach his planet over a galaxy away.  As usual, Herzog has a preternatural ability to transform ordinary and mundane footage into captivating and symbolic echoes.  However, the film leaves me wondering why.  Dourif's alien swings from translucent awe at the universe and mankind to unbridled anger and contempt for the exact same thing.  In the end, his mood swings expunge the gravity of his words and transform Dourif into a rambling mouthpiece.  It's a beautiful film by all means.  In fact, it may be the closest that we will ever get to seeing a Herzog film shot in space.  But it remains a puzzling, and ultimately meaningless, exploration of the universe.

6/10

Crimewave: Sam Raimi

During my entire filmgoing career, I have seen few, if any, films have fail as miserably and spectacularly as Sami Raimi's Crimewave.  This abomination has a plot, I guess...but the film is so annoying, so poorly executed, and so badly conceived that I could not for the life of me figure it out. From what I could discern it involved an innocent man about to be electrocuted on death row explaining why he was innocent.  But from there the film careens into nonsensical slapstack that would offend the Three Stooges (who were apparently a main "influence").  Along the way there is a long-suffering love interest, an unfortunate black man who is apparently killed several times, and two of the most scrotum-clenchingly annoying hitman that I have ever seen.  I think I know what Sam Raimi and writers Joel and Ethan Coen were going for: a pastiche of slapstick mixed with hard-boiled film noir.  The concept isn't faulty by definition.  But perhaps Raimi and the Coens were too young, too unexperienced to pull it off.  Maybe there was too much studio intervention in a project done by normally independent artists.  But whatever the explanation, Crimewave is a horrific film.  This creature is poorly shot, clumsily edited, abysmally acted, and worthy of nothing but aggravated contempt.

0/10

Thirteen Assassins: Eiichi Kudo

Eiichi Kudo's Thirteen Assassins can't seem to decide whether it's an art film masquerading as a B-movie or a B-movie masquerading as an art film.  On the one hand, it's a terrifyingly visceral film with the last hour devoted to action scenes of the thirteen assassins attempting to kill the corrupt lord that they were hired to take care of.  Bodies fall by the dozens as blood sprays by the gallons as they press forward in their appointed task.  But Kudo filmed with the same eye for detail and design as Masaki Kobayashi.  Shots are composed with along geometric shapes and architectural patterns such as the tiles of a roof or rows of freshly planted rice paddies.  Kudo has the restraint to not show the corrupt lord committing the crimes for which he would be assassinated: the rape of another lord's wife and the subsequent murder of her entire family to cover it up.  Instead, he uses lighting and sound to imply them with deft clarity.  But when push comes to shove, Kudo delights in detailing every aspect of the fight: the planning stage, the trap, the ambush, the execution.  The bastard hybrid of Seven Samurai and Samurai Rebellion, Thirteen Assassins is both chanbara and jidaigeki, action film and drama,  bloody pulp movie and refined art film.

8/10

Lady Snowblood: Toshiya Fujita

Lady Snowblood has become legendary in underground cinema circles, even catching the attention of such prominent directors as Quentin Tarantino.  It is considered to be a masterpiece of Japanese exploitation cinema.  But don't be fooled by this film's pulpy exterior; the fountains of crimson-colored corn syrup and whimsical cinematography.  Beneath its surface lurks a powerful fable about the foibles of revenge and untempered vengeance.  Director Toshiya Fujita sets up this story of a young woman pledged to hunt down and murder her family's killers as a kind of bloody fairy tale.  As she hunts down her family's assailants, she is confronted with horrific moral choices: should she spare the repentant father who's daughter prostitutes herself for his well-being?  Should she murder the family of those she comes to know and love?  Does revenge end when someone is dead and buried?  At the film's end, with her victims cleaved by her sword, she is left as a pathetic husk of a human being.  Her revenge has become her life.  Once it is gone, what use is she to anyone anymore?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing. 

9/10

The Invisible Man: James Whale

By 1933, James Whale had already established himself as an visionary director, having helped kick off the Universal Studios Monsters film series with the smash hit Frankenstein.  He would further explore the realm of science gone mad with The Invisible Man, an adaption of the novel by H. G. Wells.  The key difference between the two films was the feelings of the audience towards their titular monster.  While the audience was encouraged to feel sympathy and sorrow for Frankenstein's Monster, the Invisible Man was a character to be reviled and feared.  Driven mad by the same sciences that made him invisible, we witness him commit vile acts of premeditated violence.  In the book, the Invisible Man was not driven insane by his experiments.  But by adding the insanity measure, Whale was able to create a new breed of monster: the genius sociopath.  In his insanity I can see flickers of Hannibal Lector and his calculations, driven home in a sequence where he makes good on a promise to murder a colleague at 10:00.  On a side note, I was amazed by how violent the film was by 1930s standards.  The film explicitly states that his body count was well over 120 victims, many of whom we see dispatched on screen.  Maybe there is a dose of Jason Voorhees in him as well...

8/10

Predator 2: Stephen Hopkins

In light of the generally tattered state of the Predator franchise after its abysmal outings with the Alien vs. Predator series, fans have come to regard Predator 2  as a good, albeit inferior, follow-up to the beloved Predator by John McTiernan.  Therefore I was surprised to find myself enjoying it more than its predecessor.  The primary reason was that the sequel actually managed to develop the titular character.  The first film found the Predator as a near sociopathic killer who picked off the members of Dutch's team one-by-one.  Predator 2 gave this creature a culture and motivations: it only hunts armed creatures, it doesn't harm creatures who are pregnant or ill, to defeat a Predator in combat is to win the respect of its race.  Additionally, the film took the bold step of transplanting the series from the first film into the "urban jungle" of Los Angeles (which appears to be more violent and dangerous than Afghanistan).  The film still has problems.  For instance: I wouldn't be surprised if "angry black man" was all of the motivation the director afforded Danny Glover.  But as flawed as it may be, Predators 2 managed to create not just a fascinating monster, but a mythos and universe to accompany it.  That's more than can be said for most sequels.

7/10

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison: John Huston

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison is a strange little film in the evolution of John Huston, the director.  Widely considered to be the inventor the film noir genre with The Maltese Falcon, Huston spent the forties and most of the fifties doing cheap, pulp outings.  By the sixties he evolved into an adapter of classic literature, which superb film translations of The Night of the Iguana, Fat City, The Man Who Would Be King, Wise Blood, Under the Volcano, and The Dead.  But in this film he seems to try and make a straighter film than his usual grimy repertoire.  It was a color CinemaScope film that was made with the support of the US Armed Forces.  The problem is that Huston plays it a little too straight.  It is bereft of the cynical charm and pot-boiled mentality that made his early work so appealing.  It doesn't do anything wrong...it just doesn't do anything that great either.  The story is predictable and well-worn and carries a pro-America, pro-armed forces undertone more characteristic of John Ford.  Simply put, it doesn't feel like a John Huston film.

6/10

Across the Pacific: John Huston, Vincent Sherman

For his third directorial effort Across the Pacific, John Huston renewed his partnership with legendary film icon Humphrey Bogart.  Together, they created a film that eerily foreshadowed the evolution of the archetypal Bogart character.  In this film, Bogart plays Captain Rick Leland, a disgraced soldier who becomes embroiled in a Japanese scheme to bomb the Panama Canal Locks.  Released the same year as Casablanca, the film that would cement his celebrity status, Across the Pacific prophesies his role as Rick Blaine, even giving him the same first name.  We find Bogart as a world-weary outcast who has no real loyalty to his country.  He is cynical, but not yet the dour and gloomy figure he would become in subsequent releases such as  In a Lonely Place.  Of course, the film itself is standard, if well-crafted, 1940s Hollywood fare: Bogie joins the good side, foils the Japanese surprise attack, and gets the girl.  But viewed as an entry in his illustrious career, Across the Pacific is a fascinating, and essential, piece of Bogart-lore.

7/10

Badlands: Terrence Malick

Malick's work has always existed in a twilight zone between stark reality and feverish fantasy.  Malick shows us our world through a sepia-tinted filter of memory.  Even his most crisply filmed features seem to echo old photographs and ways of life gone past.  Here, in his first film, Malick examines Holly and Kit, a doomed couple living out the tireless fable of Bonnie and Clyde in 1950s rural northern United States.  While it may seem like a knock-off of the more successful and influential Arthur Penn film Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands transcends the tropes of the story and launches into a full-scale examination of teenage apathy.  Kit is a homicidal sociopath and Holly only starts to protest against his murderous actions when she comes to the silent conclusion that he may one day turn the gun on her.  I found the true meat of the film to be in how Kit tried to create illusions of grandeur surrounding their actions.  When Kit is finally captured, his prostitution of his image in an attempt to transform himself into a celebrity reveals a deeper and more terrifying justification for his crimes: he did it because it was the only way that he felt he could have a hand in defining himself.

Score: 8/10

Blog Mission of Purpose

Hello, my name is Nathanael Hood, and I watch movies.

A LOT of them.  So many, in fact, that I worry that they will lose significance if I don't scribble down my thoughts about them for posterity. This blog is for nobody in particular.  I'm writing it for myself.  But if you like it, then, hey, that's okay, too.

Nathanael Hood