Bonjour Tristesse: Otto Preminger

Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse is a cinematic paradox. It is a film constructed of the purest of Hollywood opulence: handsome actors, beautiful actresses, an exotic seaside setting, and lush late 50's studio cinematography, the kind that combated the rise of television by cramming the screen full of as many bold colors and dazzling images as possible. And yet, it is a viciously damning indictment of unfettered wealth and that special kind of laziness that infests those free from the burden of work. The film concerns a young teenager named Cécile (Jean Seberg) who lives with her father Raymond (David Niven) on the French Riviera. However, when Raymond announces his marriage to an old friend named Anne Larsen (Deborah Kerr), she begins to scheme of ways to break them apart. Brushing aside any suggestions of incestuous undertones (although Preminger certainly seems eager to show them acting oddly affectionate towards each other), there is only one possible explanation for Cécile's desire to break up his father's marriage: Anne has the unmitigated audacity to make her stop lazing around, study for school, and try and make something of herself. But Cécile's machinations turn unexpectedly violent, leading to a horrific accident that lays bare the true extent of her family's apathy. Preminger's cynicism melds together with the film's extravagance a little too naturally for comfort. Even as Cécile throws tantrums about Anne, Preminger takes great care to position Seberg within the frame so that her youthful body and endless supply of bright, tightly-fitted outfits is best displayed. He utilizes an almost Sirkian color palette, ignoring shadows except for brief black-and-white segments scattered throughout the film that show Cécile's guilt in the aftermath of the accident. Even a night-time sequence where a massive crowd dances in the streets seems blindingly illuminated. Preminger hides nothing in Bonjour Tristesse. It is a film about guilt and greed; of anagnorisis borne of lethargy.

7/10

The Strawberry Blonde: Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh's The Strawberry Blonde is a warm romance seeped in honeyed nostalgia. Set in the "Naughty Nineties," the film charts the romances of Biff Grimes (James Cagney), a hot-headed yet well-meaning young man who longs for local society girl Virginia Brush (Rita Hayworth) who dazzles potential suitors with her refined elegance and gorgeous strawberry-blonde hair. His attempts to woo Virginia eventually fail and he grudgingly marries her best friend Amy Lind (Olivia de Havilland), a free-thinking suffragette. After being betrayed by his friend Hugo Barnstead (Jack Carson) into taking the fall for shady business dealings, Biff spends several years in prison. While incarcerated, he comes to the realization that maybe Amy is his "strawberry-blonde" after all. The Strawberry Blonde floats with an endearing lightness of tone that transforms late 19th-century America into a fantasy world. Here is a film that exists in a realm of cozy park benches, lavish parlors, and manicured street corners. Cagney, frustrated with being typecast in tough guy roles throughout the 30's and early 40's, positively glows as the perpetually black-eyed Biff. It's easy to forget how disarming Cagney's charm could be. Yet his scenes with de Havilland and Hayworth demonstrate that he could "aw shucks" with the best of Hollywood's romantic leading men. The Strawberry Blonde is, once again, just a fond fantasy. But then again, aren't all movies?

7/10

A Star is Born: William A. Wellman

Perhaps best known for its 1954 remake by George Cukor starring Judy Garland and James Mason, William A. Wellman's A Star is Born tells the story of a young actress named Esther Victoria Blodgett from North Dakota who travels to Hollywood with big dreams. At first, she encounters nothing but set-backs. But after a chance meeting and romance with Norman Maine, a once-famous actor whose career is in the toilet, she is rocketed to stardom. Esther, re-named Vicki Lester, soon marries Norman. However, Norman cannot deal with Esther's new-found fame in the face of his own wrecked career. Alcoholism takes it toll and he finally ruins everything by drunkenly interrupting Esther's Academy Award acceptance speech and hitting her. Though Esther is determined to help Norman recover, even choosing to abandon her acting career to care for him full-time, he cannot cope with his actions and commits suicide. On its own, A Star is Born is a decent film. Janet Gaynor is fantastic as Esther and Fredric March manages to depict Norman as a self-destructive man who is so undeniably charismatic that we can believe in Esther's affections for him. Lionel Stander has never been more vicious as Matt Libby, their venomous press agent. And yet, we leave the film wondering why Esther would be willing to stay with such an abusive husband. Is it because he helped her in the first place? Perhaps. But does that make up for everything he does to her? No. I can't figure Esther Victoria Blodgett out. Is she simply a good-hearted character? Or is she just some screenwriter's fantasy of an ideal woman who accepts abuse without flinching? Is she the product of melodramatic traditions or misogynist whimsy? I'm not sure. Perhaps this is a question best left to someone smarter than me.

7/10

King Solomon’s Mines: Robert Stevenson, Geoffrey Barkas

Robert Stevenson and Geoffrey Barkas' King Solomon's Mines is as splendid an adventure picture as anything produced by Hollywood during the 1930s. Based on H. Rider Haggard's novel of the same name, the film follows a group of Europeans led by the "great white hunter" Allan Quatermain as they search for the fabled mines of Solomon in the depths of darkest Africa. As with any film by Westerners set in Africa made during this stretch of the 20th century, the film is ripe with racist stereotypes concerning deformed witch doctors, power-mad tribal chiefs, and ignorant "savages." But there is one big difference between this film and its compatriots: Paul Robeson. As Umbopa, the native guide who eventually reveals himself to be the true heir to the throne of the tribe that owns the mines, Robeson steals the show from his white co-stars. He manages to bring sincere dignity to what could have otherwise been a very offensive role. When Umbopa reveals himself as the true king, we truly believe it. It's worth pointing out that King Solomon's Mines side-tracks the white characters for much of its second half. Once Quatermain and his party reach the mines, it becomes Umbopa's story. His efforts to reclaim his throne become the narrative's main focus. The white characters certainly help. After all, they help trick the tribesmen into believing that Umbopa has great magical powers. And they valiantly fight in the battle when the usurper king attacks Umbopa with an army. But Umbopa is the hero. Notice how the film ends with Robeson giving a kind of benediction as the white characters are escorted from his kingdom by a company of 100 troops. So King Solomon's Mines is both a wonderful entertainment and a surprisingly progressive piece of filmmaking.

8/10

Sylvia Scarlett: George Cukor

The esteemed critic and scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum once declared Sylvia Scarlett to be "the most interesting and audacious movie George Cukor ever made." He even went so far as to add it to his Alternative List of the 100 Greatest American Films. But after viewing the film, I have to sorely disagree. While Sylvia Scarlett may be fascinating from the point of view of scholars (for reasons that I will soon reveal), the film ultimately falls flat and collapses in on itself. The film centers around the eponymous Sylvia Scarlett (Katharine Hepburn), a French woman who escapes to England with her unlucky father Henry. Once there, they team up with smooth-talking con man Jimmy Monkley (Cary Grant) and shrill-voiced Cockney housemaid Maudie Tilt to seek their fortune in show business...or in other people's pockets. Making matters more fascinating is that Sylvia disguises herself as a boy for most of the film. Cukor takes delight in throwing Sylvia into a myriad of gender-bent misunderstandings. And, indeed, if Cukor had kept Sylvia Scarlett a fast-paced screwball-esque comedy, it could have been one of the most significant Hollywood films of the 1930s. But once she falls in love with a bland artist, she trades in her long pants for a long skirt and the film devolves into a confused clump of romantic fluff, confusing plot developments, and jarring tonal shifts (including one criminally miscalculated scene where Henry commits suicide only for Sylvia and Jimmy to react almost nonchalantly to the discovery of his body). I can appreciate why Sylvia Scarlett would be of interest for those studying Hollywood gender roles, cinematic homosexuality, and the careers of Hepburn and Grant. Even I was taken aback by a female-on-female kiss, a scene which somehow miraculously made it past the Hays Code. But scholarly import does not a good movie make.

6/10

A Day at the Races: Sam Wood

Sam Wood's A Day at the Races may be my favorite Marx Brothers film that doesn't include the words "duck" or "soup" in its title. Madcap routines, sizzling one-liners, and general lunacy make A Day at the Races a beacon of blessed chaos. The plot sees Groucho, Chico, and Harpo mixed up in a preposterous scheme involving a wealthy hypochondriac, a financially devastated clinic, mistaken identities, a stolen horse, and a climactic horse race that devolves into Looney Tunes-esque anarchy. But we don't watch Marx Brothers films for the plot. We come for the laughs. And A Day at the Races delivers. While the "Tutsi Fruitsy Ice Cream" routine is justifiably revered, my favorite routine involved Groucho, a frustrated business manager, a telephone, and a very loud buzzer. Chico and Harpo's musical routines are perhaps the best they ever made. Harpo's self-destructing piano scene is among his career's finest moments. The film is also blessed with four-time Oscar winner Joseph Ruttenberg's fine cinematography. While respectfully keeping his camera objective during the Brother's various routines, he manages to sneak in some wonderful shots that are captivating in their beauty. One sequence during the racetrack climax where the crowd's hats fly onto the track is nothing less than pure cinema. He even manages to make the obnoxious musical interludes revolving around the bland side characters and their romance a feast for the eyes. Of course, the numbers taking place in the black ghetto were an unexpected treat that managed to steal the show from the Brothers themselves! A Day at the Races is simply a joyful experience that ranks among the best comedies of the 1930s.

9/10

Evilspeak: Eric Weston

Here's a great piece of advertising for Eric Weston's Evilspeak: Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, was a fan of the film. Considering the fact that the film is about a bullied military academy student named Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard) who invokes Satan to exact his revenge on his wicked classmates and teachers, I don't think that a higher recommendation exists. I've heard the film described as being a male version of Stephen King's "Carrie." And I think to an extent that comparison is logical. The classmates and teachers are practically cartoonish in their sadistic enthusiasm in torturing Stanley. The film builds and builds and builds until an explosive climax there Stanley gains powers and slays his tormentors. Indeed, these last 20 minutes of the film are so captivating that they redeem the film's various technical flaws. These include things like characters who randomly drop in and out of the movie, frequently incompetent audio editing, and occasional plot holes (is there an explanation for why Stanley's computer seemingly becomes sentient?). But again, when viewed as a whole, Evilspeak is an incredible experience. It's a shame that Howard has remained under the shadow of his brother Ron. His performance as Stanley is nothing short of inspired and demonstrates that he has substantial acting talent.

7/10

Dishonored: Josef von Sternberg

Josef von Sternberg's Dishonored is as much a spy film as The Scarlet Empress (1934) is a historically accurate re-telling of Catherine the Great's life. All of the trappings of the genre are present: duplicitous secret agents, exotic disguises, clandestine gadgets and weapons, and a plot rife with double-crosses and betrayals. But these are merely distractions. Dishonored is a showcase for its lead actress Marlene Dietrich. Spy-craft is utilized only to the extent that it propels the film's central romantic melodrama concerning Austrian secret agent X27 (Dietrich) and her Russian enemy-slash-lover Colonel Kranau (Victor McLaglen). For instance, during a dangerous mission behind enemy lines X27 brings a pet cat with her that tips Kranau off to her presence. The idea that a secret agent would bring a pet along on a mission is so preposterous that it defies belief. But for Sternberg, the presence of the cat is simply an impetus for throwing X27 back into the arms of Kranau. The character is X27 is a puzzle: she enters the Austrian secret service to help her country during World War One after her husband is killed, yet she sabotages her usefulness in the name of an impossible love affair. One could hand-wave this away with the explanation that X27 is supposed to have indecipherable intentions, much like the enigmatic Mata Hari. But one suspects if the true explanation has more to do with Sternberg's inability to make his movies starring Marlene Dietrich about anything other than Marlene Dietrich. But regardless of these confusions, Dishonored is a wonderful film. Lee Garmes's crisp cinematography is stunning. One early sequence at a costume party has camera acrobatics the likes of which seem to predict Orson Welles and Max Ophüls. And, of course, there is Marlene. Cryptically seductive and slyly erotic as ever, her perpetual smirk reminds us why she was one of the queens of the Weimar Republic and the Hollywood studio systems.

7/10

Frances Ha: Noah Baumbach

Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha was exactly the kind of film that I needed to see at this point in my life. At first, I feared it was going to be another blasé indie drama about rich white twentysomethings living in New York City. And having watched Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture (2010), I was in no mood for it. But Frances Ha took me completely by surprise. It follows a habitually-unemployed dancer named Frances Halladay who jostles from one apartment and roommate to another. Her best friend Sophie leaves her to move to Tokyo with her boyfriend. Alone, her life slowly crumbles into a mess of depression and loneliness. But after a trip home to see her parents in Sacramento, she starts to rebuild everything that had fallen apart. And, astonishingly, she discovers that everybody else's "perfect lives" may not have been so perfect after all. If I sound like I'm being vague, that's intentional. Frances Ha is a film of impossibly intimate snippets snatched from the most painfully awkward, unbearably uncomfortable, searingly honest, and emotionally naked moments in the life of one young woman. To recount them here would do them no justice. Part of that has to do with Baumbach's expert directing. His use of montage to depict both the passage of time and the inner struggles of his characters is stunning. The aforementioned scene in Sacramento hit so close to home that I felt like I was an undergrad college student taking refuge at my parents' house for the holidays again. To not mention Greta Gerwig's performance as Frances would be criminal. Her portrayal was nothing short of a revelation, managing to keep us feeling sympathetic with a character even as she was sabotaging her own life and relationships. Let me be honest for a moment: I only heard about Frances Ha because many of my close friends declared it the best movie of the year. After seeing it, I have to agree. It may not capture the complete zeitgeist of my generation. But it definitely captures a sizable chunk of it.

9/10

Hatchet for the Honeymoon: Mario Bava

Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon is a stylish thriller about a psychotic named John Harrington who murders recently married women in an attempt to recover his childhood memories surrounding the night his mother was killed. It's a seductively captivating film that is more Hitchcock than giallo. For even though we watch John kill several victims, the film is primarily concerned with his exploration of his own tattered psyche and his struggles with a nosy police inspector who is convinced he has something to do with a string of local disappearances. My favorite part of the film involves a sub-plot concerning his domineering wife. After psychologically torturing him for years, he snaps and brutally murders her. But John's wife returns as a ghost...that everyone but him can see. Here is an intriguing concept which puts a marvelous twist on a standard horror trope. Watching the film, one can't help but draw comparisons between John and Bret Easton Ellis' Patrick Bateman. This is particularly obvious during an opening scene where John internally monologues to himself: "My name is John Harrington. I'm 30 years old. I'm a paranoiac. Paranoiac. An enchanting word, so civilized, full of possibilities. The truth is, I am completely mad. The realization which annoys me at first, but is now amusing to me. Quite amusing." But Bateman was more a sociopath, in my opinion. John Harrington is irrevocably insane. And does Bava ever know it!

7/10

Frogs: George McCowan

George McCowan's Frogs could have been a terrific piece of camp if it didn't take itself so seriously. The story of a photographer trapped on an island plantation owned by the Crockett family, Frogs one-ups other "eco-horror" films of the 1970s by featuring a multitude of murderous animal species instead of just one. The scenes where poisonous snakes and alligators dispatch members of the Crockett family are understandable, but many of the earliest death scenes are purely preposterous. My favorite was when a group of tarantulas "dropped" a ton of Spanish moss on one victim and then bit him to death. Another scene where a group of lizards "knock over" a bunch of poison containers in a greenhouse in order to asphyxiate another victim is unintentionally hysterical, too. It doesn't help that the family basically has no motivation to stay on the island after the bodies start to pile up. The reason why is because Jason, the grouchy Crockett family patriarch, doesn't want anything to interfere with his birthday festivities. So in late scenes when Jason practically disowns his surviving family members because they'd rather leave and live instead of staying with him on his birthday are downright enraging. If there was a proper explanation for why Jason doesn't want anything to spoil his birthday, that would be one thing. But the film doesn't really give one. He's just a grouchy old man. It spits in the face of competent character development! But regardless, there is still some enjoyment to be gained from watching Frogs. With the exception of their performances during the ludicrous death scenes, the actors all do wonderful jobs. The cinematography is surprisingly excellent. And there is a basic visceral pleasure in watching all kinds of swamp life scurry about. I shudder at the thought of Frogs being remade. You just know that the producers would insist on CGI amphibians.

6/10

Yearning: Mikio Naruse

Was there ever another Japanese director who could so perfectly capture the feelings of quiet desperation and subtle cruelty as Mikio Naruse? Akira Kurosawa once said that his style was "like a great river with a calm surface and a raging current in its depths." His film Yearning was one of his last true triumphs, a heartbreaking melodrama about a widow named Reiko Morita who single-handily kept her husband's grocery operating 18 years after his death in World War II. However, when a local supermarket opens that threatens to put them out of business, her in-laws plot to get rid of her, tear down the grocery, and re-build it as a competing supermarket. In true classical Japanese tradition, Reiko learns of their plans and agrees to leave to the countryside. Why is she so willing to be practically disowned by an ungrateful family? Out of loyalty to her dead husband? Some misplaced sense of duty? Who can tell. But things are exacerbated when her 25 year-old brother-in-law Koji confesses his love for her. When she leaves for the countryside, he follows her. At first she seems happy, but her crippling fear of intimacy may spell their doom. There are many ways to read Yearning. You can view it as a traditional Japanese melodrama about long-suffering women in a rapidly changing post-war environment. You can read it as a condemnation of the encroachment of capitalism and Western influences. Or you can see it as a simple tragic romance. But regardless of interpretation, Yearning is a wonderful film by one of Japan's early cinematic masters.

7/10

Get to Know Your Rabbit: Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma's Get to Know Your Rabbit is one of those bizarre films that don't quite work yet nonetheless are fascinating in their audacity. Perhaps this is due to the fact that De Palma struggled with his producers so vehemently that he was eventually fired. Whatever the case, Get to Know Your Rabbit is an odd curio. Exhausted and fed up with the world of corporate upper management, Donald Beeman unceremoniously quits his job one day to become a tap dancing magician. His old boss Mr. Turnbull desperately tries to get him back. But when Beeman's show business career eventually takes off, Turnbull has another idea: create a Tap Dancing Magician course for other businessmen. So Beeman returns from a tour to find that he has become an advertising mascot. The very lifestyle that he fled to has become just another corporate prison. This kind of cynicism is brilliantly subversive and a true treat. However, the film is weighed down and eventually capsized by De Palma's unusual use of humor. Heavily inspired by British absurdist humor (think Monty Python's Flying Circus), the film contains bizarre characters, seemingly random events, and performances that irritate and confuse. One sequence where Beeman seduces a woman who delivers a monologue about how she prostituted herself for newspapers when she was younger is especially vexing. Of course, the film does have its charms. Orson Welles turns in a rare self-deprecating performance as Mr. Delasandro, Beeman's tap dancing magician teacher. In true Welles fashion, he steals the show with several of the best lines and jokes. My two favorites:

Mr. Delasandro [While he trains Beeman to tap dance]: "I'm the heckler, right? I've been needling you for the last ten minutes, right? Time now for you to strike back with all the style and wit at your command!"
Beeman: "Up your's, fella!"
Mr. Delasandro [Pensively]: "Not bad...not bad..."

Mr. Delasandro [After Beeman has graduated from his program] : "Donald, before you go, would you like me to look upon you as the son I never had?"
Beeman [Smiling cheerfully]: "No, I don't think so."

That last one made me laugh so hard that I woke up my dad. So Get to Know Your Rabbit doesn't work. But it does something right. I'm just not sure what that something is...

5/10

Tokyo Fist: Shinya Tsukamoto

Shinya Tsukamoto's Tokyo Fist is so good that it may have made the boxing genre obsolete. I cannot for the life of me think of where the boxing genre could possibly go after sitting through this 90 minute masterpiece. Extraordinarily kinetic, breathtakingly brutal, and expertly edited, I'm not sure if there is any possible way to film a punch, a block, or a fight scene without accidentally or deliberately plagiarizing Tsukamoto's visual language. Everything after Tokyo Fist is superfluous. Envisioning a Tokyo that has been drained of energy and color (both figuratively and literally), the film begins when a tepid insurance salesman named Tsuda Yoshiharu is humiliated in front of his fiance by an old high school friend named Kojima Yakuji. After his disgusted fiance leaves him for Kojima, Tsuda throws himself into the sport of boxing as a means to reclaim his manhood and establish a sense of purpose and self in a world absent of meaning. The idea of men seeking purpose through ritualized violence would be touched on a few years later in David Fincher's Fight Club (1999). But that film falters and deflates when compared to Tsukamoto's punishing manifesto: the creation of self via the destruction of self. Tokyo Fist can be compared to Tsukamoto's earlier triumph Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), a film wherein a Japanese businessman is transformed into a metal monstrosity. In both films the protagonists evolve into monsters by the end, thereby providing them with a means of escape from the 9-to-5 hell of modern Japan. But if the transformation in Tetsuo: The Iron Man was involuntary, Tsuda's transformation was his own decision. Here is a film just as dangerous as its main character. It desires nothing more than revolution and destruction by way of a man's fists.

10/10

Kill, Baby, Kill: Mario Bava

Mario Bava's Kill, Baby, Kill may be the director's supreme masterpiece. A film more concerned with imagery, pacing, and atmosphere than plot, Kill, Baby, Kill is a stylistic crystallization unrivaled in the annals of European horror. The film concerns an investigation of a string of murders in a small Carpathian village. Villagers have been found drained of blood with silver coins pierced through their hearts. As the investigators delve deeper into the mystery, it becomes clear that they are dealing with forces the likes of which their science cannot comprehend. Although the struggle between science and superstition is a central one, Bava leaves almost no room for ambiguity concerning the mystical origins of the murders. But to focus too much on the film's story is to miss the point. Bava's eternally inventive camera transforms country ruins into monasteries of the monstrous. Foggy graveyards become macabre tableaux haunted by unseen suspicions and sinister whispers. Here is a film both stoically restrained and wildly extravagant. Consider one scene in a graveyard where Bava's camera replicates the movements of a swing, swaying forward and backward, up and down, close-up and far away. The cliché of a ghostly little girl is used to such perfect effect here that it shames other films that contain them. Though the film may not contain scenes that make you cry out in fright, it operates on a deeper, subconscious level. Kill, Baby, Kill will infect your dreams and nourish your nightmares.

9/10

Dressed to Kill: Brian De Palma

After finishing Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill, I asked a few friends whether or not it was odd that I liked it more than Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), the film that obviously served as its primary inspiration. My query was met with a resounding "YES!" But then again, I'm the putz that liked La Grande Illusion (1937) more than The Rules of the Game (1939). So I clearly cannot be trusted when it comes to matters of cinematic taste. But I stand by my judgement: I like Dressed to Kill more. The first third of the film follows a domestically-suffocated NYC housewife named Kate Miller who goes to the Metropolitan Museum, meets a dashing beau, and has an affair with him. However, once she leaves his apartment she is brutally murdered in an elevator by a strange-looking blonde woman. At this point, the film switches protagonists to Miller's son, Peter, and high-priced call girl Liz Blake (who witnessed the murder) as they try and discover the identity of her killer. I guess if I had to pick one reason why I like Dressed to Kill more than Psycho is its use of purely visual storytelling. The ten minute sequence where Kate Miller is seduced at the Metropolitan Museum should be taught in universities. De Palma displays a rapturous joy in the act of looking, forcing the audience to become voyeurs, participants, and eyewitnesses. This is cinema distilled down to its very essence: beautiful, breath-taking, captivating, and hypnotic.

9/10

Oasis of the Zombies: Jesús Franco

It's never professional for a film critic to dismiss a bad film simply on the grounds of "being boring." But I can't think of a better adjective with which to describe Jesús Franco's Oasis of the Zombies. Everything about this film is an assault on the viewer: the zombie make-up is pathetic, the pace is slow and dreary, the characters forgettable, and the death scenes uninspired and phoned in. The soundtrack is one of the worst that I have ever heard. There are multiple moments when it sounds like the composer literally fell asleep on the keyboard, resulting in shrill, sustained synthesizer chords that pierce the eardrums. The story involves a lost caché of Nazi gold in the African desert. When a group of young treasure hunters go out looking for it, they discover that the Afrika Korps troops that had been killed while transporting it had been transformed into zombies. Of course, we're never really given a satisfactory answer as the why they became zombies. But I suspect that it hardly matters. Oasis of the Zombies isn't a film. It's an endurance test.

3/10

Slugs: Juan Piquer Simón

I love horror films set in America that are written and/or directed by European creators who clearly learned English as a second language. They never seem to fully grasp how Americans actually talk and behave. So the films end up containing bizarre dialogue, ridiculous line-readings, and truly unusual characters. Juan Piquer Simón's Slugs is one such film. Based on the novel by the same name by Shaun Hutson, Slugs concerns a small town overrun by giant, carnivorous black slugs. Mutated by exposure to dumped toxic waste, the slugs multiply by the millions in the town's sewer system until they begin to attack the townsfolk. The plot is rather standard: a health inspector figures out what is happening yet finds himself incapable of getting the police and town authorities to do anything. Where Slugs shines is in its truly exceptional special effects. Some of the gore scenes are truly astonishing. One scene where a businessman literally erupts at a fancy restaurant after unknowingly eating a salad full of the slugs is particularly stomach-churning. Of course, there are also death scenes that are so insane that they become immediately endearing. My favorite involved an elderly couple who are attacked by the slugs in their garden. Somehow the scene ends with their garden erupting into a giant fireball. Does it make sense? No. Is it entertaining? Certainly!

6/10

Two Rode Together: John Ford

If you were to approach an average cinephile and ask them about that one John Ford movie where two cowboys go searching for children kidnapped by Native Americans, they would probably think of The Searchers (1956). But as it turns out, Ford made another film with this central plot device in 1961 entitled Two Rode Together. And though they were made by the same director and were only released about 5 years apart, the two films are almost completely different. Whereas The Searchers plays like a more traditional Western that just happens to sport incredibly cynical and tragic undertones, Two Rode Together is perhaps the most overtly nihilistic film Ford ever made. When Marshal Guthrie McCabe (James Stewart) is shanghaied by the US Military into negotiating the release of several kidnapped white settlers from a local group of Comanche Indians, he leaves for their camp along with his old friend Lieutenant Jim Gary (Richard Widmark). What they find in the Comanche camp is that the white settlers, many of which have been living with the Indians for almost a decade, have acclimated to their new lifestyle and are unwilling to return. However, McCabe and Gary force their return into a world which receives them with hostility, racial hatred, and contempt. One young boy who had been with the Comanche since he was a toddler kills his "mother" when she tries to cut his hair and is swiftly lynched (an especially shocking turn of events considering the fact that several of Ford's previous films had revolved around the prevention of a lynching). A young Mexican woman who had been forced to marry a Comanche man is treated with revulsion by the settlers because she didn't have the decency to kill herself when she was first captured. And then there is McCabe: a cynical, mean-spirited drunk who is repeatedly taken advantage of and abused by members of the US military and the settlers he was supposed to be helping. Not even several injections of warm-hearted Fordian humor can mask the film's undercurrent of resigned misanthropy.

8/10

The Blood Beast Terror: Vernon Sewell

It's easy to forget that Hammer Film Productions wasn't the only British film studio making horror films in the 50's and 60's. Another was Tigon British Film Productions, a company founded in 1966 that would go on to produce many low-budget horror and sexploitation films. Perhaps their greatest triumph was Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General (1968), a fictionalized account of the life of infamous 17th-century witch-hunter Matthew Hopkins. Released the same year as Witchfinder General was Vernon Sewell's The Blood Beast Terror, a film of admittedly lesser quality which mimics the Hammer Horror aesthetic so successfully that it could be easily mistaken for one of their productions. The film follows Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Quennell (played by Hammer standby Peter Cushing) as he investigates a string of grisly murders involving young men found mutilated and drained of blood. At first he suspects a giant bird of prey, but Quennell soon comes to the conclusion that his friend Dr. Carl Mallinger, a prominent entomology professor, may have something to do with it. And, indeed, he does. For Dr. Mallinger's daughter Clare is a "were-moth," a human that turns into a giant, blood-sucking moth at night. This premise is preposterous, but no more so than a scientist giving life to an amalgam of random body parts or a Transylvania count that can turn into a bat. What matters is the execution. And The Blood Beast Terror is satisfyingly competent.

6/10

Invisible Invaders: Edward L. Cahn

I...I love this movie. Edward L. Cahn's Invisible Invaders is like if Roger Corman directed a cross between Day of the Dead (1985) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). It is a film so laughable in concept and execution that it is impossible to not find endearing. So, here's the set-up: invisible aliens want to conquer earth. They decide to do so by re-animating the body of John Carradine and having him inform a prominent scientist named Dr. Adam Penner that he has 24 hours to convince the entire population of earth to surrender. Of course, when he fails, they begin a terrible invasion which involves the re-animation of dead bodies "to kill the living" and the destruction of large portions of the planet. And by "large portions of the planet" I mean "places that aren't America." So Dr. Penner and some colleagues lock themselves into an underground bunker as they try and figure out a way to defeat these aliens. Their solution is more hilariously absurd than the one in M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002). Apparently these invisible, interstellar conquerors can be defeated by...SOUND WAVES!! Invisible Invaders is simply a joy to watch. Don't get me wrong: it's a terrible piece of filmmaking. But it's one of the most enjoyable pieces of terrible filmmaking that I've seen in a long time. I can't recommend it enough!

4/10

Mister Roberts: John Ford

Mister Roberts is as clear an encapsulation of director John Ford's views on the American military as was ever made. On the one hand is his ideal soldier: Lieutenant Junior Grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts, played by Henry Fonda, Ford's old stand-by actor for populist heroes. On the other is the tyrannical captain of the United States Navy cargo ship Reluctant: Lieutenant Commander Morton, played by James Cagney. Morton represents everything that Ford hated about military types: he is an iron-fisted glory-hound more concerned with his reputation and chances for promotion than the welfare of his men. He forces them to work in awful conditions despite reports that they are getting violently ill, he denies them shore leave, and he fetishizes an absurd palm tree awarded to the ship for its stellar performance record. In his quest for promotion, Morton refuses to let Roberts transfer to another ship, fearing that he will spread gossip about the "disharmony" under his command. Roberts, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to leave the Reluctant and join the crew of a ship that sees active combat. But he wants to fight not out of some thirst for adventure, glory, or recognition, but because he feels like it is his duty. He treats the men under his command with respect and takes the blame whenever they do something wrong. Quiet, composed, eager to serve his country, Roberts is everything Morton isn't. As an examination of the ethics that guided John Ford's direction (both morally and cinematically) for decades, Mister Roberts is invaluable. But as a piece of entertainment, it stumbles and comes up short. The central story detailing the struggle between Roberts and Morton is effective enough and the ending packs an emotional wallop. But the film is stymied by poor performances by many of the extras and Cagney, the latter of which over-acted with such abandon that one can't help but wonder if Ford used his worst takes deliberately. Of course, it would be amiss to not mention Jack Lemmon's Academy-Award-winning role as Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver, a lazy officer who spends almost the entire film avoiding Morton. He brings much needed levity in a rather sad and serious story. But in the end Mister Roberts is a film better suited for film scholars and historians than casual viewers.

6/10

Violent Streets: Hideo Gosha

Peter Bogdanovich once told Orson Welles that he had watched his film Touch of Evil (1958) four or five times before he "noticed the story." Why? Because he was mesmerized with the film's direction. I had a similar experience with Hideo Gosha's Violent Streets, a film burdened with a tired, generic Yakuza storyline yet blessed with a truly sensational and captivating visual aesthetic that elevates it into greatness. All you need to know about the plot is this: a retired gangster named Egawa is pulled into a war between two rival gangs, the Tokyo Yakuza and the Western Japan Association. The impetus for the war was the kidnapping, blackmailing, and accidental murder of a pop star under the employ of the Tokyo Yakuza. The crimes, which were quickly blamed on the Western Japan Association, were committed by Egawa's men without his knowledge or permission. And so Egawa must head back into the criminal underworld that he had abandoned so long ago. As I mentioned, anyone familiar with the Yakuza genre would immediately recognize these story beats. But Gosha transforms this cookie-cutter story into a mediation on violence worthy of Martin Scorsese and Sam Peckinpah (indeed, several shoot-outs mimic his slow-motion gun-play sequences). Gosha's widescreen compositions are nearly geometric in their obsession with balance and blocking. He frequently squeezes his characters to one corner or side of the frame and fills the negative space with brash colors and multiple fields of movement. Though he doesn't shoot in deep focus, his shots repeatedly reveal prominent objects in the fore-, middle-, and background that give his images extra texture and weight. Even a simple shot of Egawa lying in bed with a lover is amplified by colored lights which flash and modulate in the background. The action set pieces are remarkable, as well. Gosha manages to keep the violence fresh by framing it in bizarre environments: a junkyard strewn with mannequins, a giant chicken coop, the offices of a "talent" agency, the skeleton of a new building complex. Perhaps I have been too harsh in dismissing Violent Streets' plot. After all, to those not accustomed to the genre, its tried-and-true story of honor, responsibility, and violent destiny would seem enthralling. But the true star of the film is Hideo Gosha and his dazzling direction.

8/10

Attack of the Puppet People: Bert I. Gordon, Jack R. Berne

I can almost see the scene in my head: upon hearing the news that Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) had been a hit, the higher-ups over at American International Pictures immediately reached for their phones, called their secretaries, and barked, "Get me Bert I. Gordon!" And so, a year after The Incredible Shrinking Man was released we have Bert I. Gordon's Attack of the Puppet People, a straight-forward sci-fi flick about an insane doll-maker who shrinks people down to the size of dolls. His mania is fueled by a fear of being alone and abandoned, a phobia sparked when his wife left him. John Hoyt's performance as the doll-maker is one of the film's highlights. He manages to hit that perfect combination of innocence and malevolence, of being a victim himself even while he victimizes others. There's a great subtle scene where he angrily twists a plastic doll head in his hands while discussing his ex-wife. This scene drives home the extent of his suffering more successfully than any overblown villain monologue could. Much like in Gordon's other films, the effects in Attack of the Puppet People are the main attractions. Some of them rank among the best he ever created. His use of miniaturized sets and props is fantastic. But the film also contains some of the worst effects he ever worked on. One particular shot where a "shrunken" kitten is projected onto the doll-maker's hands is particularly awful. But the film is competent and, for the most part, well-acted. In short: it's exactly what theater-goers in 1958 paid for.

5/10

The Last Hurrah: John Ford

The Last Hurrah is a quaint, quietly charming film by John Ford about a New England politician named Frank Skeffington (Spencer Tracy) who may be corrupt, may be virtuous, may be a power-hog, and may have nothing but the best of intentions. Whatever the case, he is getting on in years and knows that he only has one election left in him: his "last hurrah." Ford's film watches as he campaigns, makes promises, and issues threats to keep said promises. He is quite an enigma. On the one hand, he is obviously involved in questionable enterprises in order to maintain voting blocs. In one scene, he turns the wake of a local buffoon into one of the year's biggest social events simply by showing up. But his motives are more complex: he didn't attend to get attention, but to give the widow, a dear friend of his, some money to tide her over. And if the wake becomes an impromptu rally? Well, at least the widow will have "proof" that the entire town "cared about her husband." But despite the intimate nature of Ford's director and Tracy's natural magnetism, The Last Hurrah pales when compared to other films. As a political thriller that examines the true nature of campaigning, it lacks the urgency of All the King's Men (1949). And while it's nearly impossible to not see Ford projecting himself into the character of Skeffington, the film lacks the subtlety and emotional weight of other Fordian self-portraits like The Sun Shines Bright (1953) and The Long Gray Line (1955). There are two moments where Ford's genius shines through. The first is a sequence where Skeffington takes his nephew Adam Caulfield on a tour of the slum where he was born and raised. The second involves Skeffington's carefree, playboy son. In one scene he rushes off to spend another day drenched in jazz music and beautiful women. Right before he leaves, he assures his dad that he would definitely vote for him...at least he would have if he had remembered to register. This scene hits like a bullet to the gut. But despite these moments of greatness, The Last Hurrah exists solely as a minor work by the legendary director.

6/10

The Counselor: Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott's The Counselor is a pile of sun-faded puzzle pieces. At one time they may have formed a vivid, clearly defined picture. But now they lay bleached and jumbled; a chaotic mass with no rhyme and even less reason. The script, penned by legendary writer Cormac McCarthy, flirts with greatness. But it stumbles over its own feet and collapses in a mess of meaningless nihilism, bizarre non sequiturs, and philosophical navel-gazing. At its center is the eponymous Counselor, a successful lawyer who decides to make some extra money through the Mexican drug trade. However, his plans quickly collapse when his drugs are stolen. Though blameless, his professional connection as a lawyer with a client whose son was involved in the crime brings the full wrath of the Mexican cartels down upon his head. Everyone around him is either assassinated or brutalized. These events are, at first, vaguely suggested. They only become pronounced about an hour into the film. For the first half, we are submitted to scene after scene of strange characters waxing poetic about life while discussing murky "business" plans. In a proper thriller, this gradual revelation of motives would have been effective. But in The Counselor they are so poorly executed that they serve to frustrate and confuse the audience. McCarthy's rich prose is apparent in the flowery dialogue. But whereas in a book it would come across as mystic and intriguing, here it seems odd and out of place. Why? Because McCarthy's dialogue is unnatural. It exists for the benefit of an audience and not for effective communication between two characters. Do Mexican gangsters really love to wax poetic when they are destroying a man's life? Are lofty debates about human nature common when ruthless criminals sit down to discuss bank transactions? Do diamond merchants usually go on prolonged diatribes about the nature of the diamond industry with every client they service? Maybe The Counselor would have succeeded as a short story. But as a film it falters and weakly retreads ground already covered by other films based on McCarthy's work like No Country for Old Men (2007).

6/10

To Sleep with Anger: Charles Burnett

In the backyard of his comfortable home nestled in the bosom of South Central Los Angeles, Gideon throws a handful of feed into the chicken coop. Though nowadays he can most certainly afford to buy his chickens from the market, his Deep South beginnings betray him. The sun is bright and the brown ground scuffs his bare feet. In the living room, his wife Suzie leads a group of pregnant women in breathing exercises. The only sounds to be heard are her gentle voice, the exhalation of air, and the scurrying of her grandson Sunny upstairs. Next door a young boy noisily blows on a trumpet in the attic. The squawks and honks elicit the laughter and jeers of neighborhood children. For Gideon and his family, such is just another afternoon in the black middle class.

But all is not well. Sunny’s father, “Babe Brother,” the youngest of Suzie’s two sons, is unreliable and neglectful: he spoils his child, forgets about his mother’s birthday, and weasels his way out of helping Gideon fix his roof. And so, Gideon is angry with his son’s laziness and dishonesty. Junior, Suzie’s eldest, resents the “special treatment” he is convinced his parents gave Babe. And Babe is frustrated by his family’s suffocating demands. Though far from dysfunctional, the threads keeping this extended family together have begun to fray. Anger and resentment have started to creep into the recesses of their everyday lives. And elsewhere strange omens abound: Gideon’s dreams are filled with images of burning fruit and flaming feet, objects in the kitchen knock themselves over onto the floor, and their toby, a kind of protective charm passed down through the generations, goes missing.

And then comes a knock at the door.

In his pocket, a ratty address book. In his hand, a hat. On his lips, a smile brimming with honeyed affection. His name in Harry, and it’s been thirty years since last they’ve met. And though Gideon and Suzie are eager to welcome their old friend into their home, they have no way of knowing the evil that has crossed their doorway. And so the trap is sprung in Charles Burnett’s piercing meditation on African-American folklore simply titled To Sleep with Anger.

The title comes from an old saying: “Never go to bed angry.” Perhaps originating from Ephesians 4:26, the saying explains that couples should never go to sleep if they have unresolved issues or differences. To do so would only allow that anger and frustration to fester and take deeper root. Indeed, as the title would suggest, To Sleep with Anger watches as Gideon and Suzie’s family is corrupted from within by their enigmatic guest.

At first Harry is warmly amiable and friendly, though perhaps a bit rustic and superstitious. When somebody accidentally touches his feet with a broom, his goes pale and immediately throws salt over his shoulders. During a card game with Babe Brother he pulls out a knife to pick his thumbnail. He delights in showing Sunny the rabbit’s foot tied to it, explaining that it is meant to replace his toby which he “lost years ago.” He even helps Junior with his work around the house.

But ever so slowly, a more sinister side of Harry begins to seep out. He harasses and humiliates an old “blues singer” girlfriend who has converted to Christianity. His suggestion of holding a fish fry leads to the introduction of an assortment of drinkers, gamblers, and degenerates who seem to materialize onto their front porch. Eventually his poisonous words convince Babe Brother to abandon his family. Finally, the tensions borne of Harry’s presence leads to arguments, fighting...and murder.

Much of To Sleep with Anger originates from the personal experiences of director Charles Burnett. Though born in Mississippi, he was raised in Los Angeles where he managed to attend UCLA’s graduate film program. Burnett, alongside other UCLA students from the 60s to the 80s, such as Julie Dash and Haile Gerima, would help start the L.A. Rebellion, a movement of African-American filmmakers who would create a distinctly Black Cinema. Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977), his Master of Fine Arts thesis, was a penetrating glance into the African-American culture present in Los Angeles’ Watts district. To this day it is viewed as one of the masterpieces of Black American cinema.

But if Killer of Sheep took a Neorealist view of urban culture, To Sleep with Anger is positioned firmly within the Gothic. The film isn’t an observation, but an indictment of a community trapped between the contemporary and the traditional. Indeed, Harry has been described by Burnett as a character archetype from rural African-American lore: “He’s a [trickster] that comes to steal your soul, and you have to out-trick him. You can bargain with him. But you have to be more clever than he is.” If Gideon and Suzie’s family personifies those black families who sought to transition into the American middle class, then Harry is their Southern roots come knocking with temptations of superstitions, blues, and corn liquor. Harry is the embodiment of the ambivalence felt by many African-Americans (including Burnett himself) towards a past that provided a rich cultural milieu at the expense of slavery, servitude, and oppression.

These struggles are repeatedly pronounced via juxtapositions within Gideon and Suzie’s household. Watch how Burnett’s direction alternates between the realistic and the fantastical. Listen to the soundtrack’s struggle between pious church music and seductive blues guitar. Observe how simple superstitions like folk remedies and the observance of omens betray outward attempts at modernization. To Sleep with Anger is a thick, multi-textured film that begs for multiple viewings. To see it only once is to merely glean over the surface of one of the richest experiences in American Black cinema.

9/10

The Phantom Carriage: Victor Sjöström

(Re-printed from Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear)

Woe to those whose lives are mired in sin! For we all must face a terrible reckoning at the twilight of our lives. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, we face one final journey, one final voyage to that eternal palace, or to that infernal pit. But to those who fear the road before them, fear not! For the road will not be a lonely one. Accompanying us on that grim passage is a guide garbed in black who has made the trip countless times. Do not mistake him for his dour master known simply as Death, for he is just a servant. Cloaked in black and carrying a sinister scythe, this chauffeur drives a decrepit carriage pulled by a tireless horse. For him, an hour on earth becomes a hundred years. What crime, what terrible deed must he have committed to be tasked with this terrible employ? Simply being a victim of the tyranny of the clock. For every New Year’s Eve, the last unfortunate soul to die before the stroke of midnight must become Death’s valet for the New Year, and the driver of the Phantom Carriage.

First told in 1912 by Nobel-prize winning Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, the story of the Phantom Carriage has been told several times in the history of cinema. But no adaptation has been as stunning, and as vital, as the 1921 version directed by and starring Victor Sjöström. A truly revolutionary film, The Phantom Carriage takes its place alongside the other great silent horror films, such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1921), and Faust (1926). Like its compatriots, The Phantom Carriage is a moody, sinisterly atmospheric film. But unlike the other films mentioned which liberally created new universes out of expressionist sets and painted shadows, The Phantom Carriage takes place in a grimly realistic world filled with broken, yet believable characters. When Sjöström thrusts the audiences into the realms of the unreal, the audience shivers, for they see a haunted reflection of the world around them.

The story centers on a drunkard named David Holm (Victor Sjöström), a once respectable family man who fell into a bottle and never crawled out. Once a proud husband and father, he has been reduced to a derelict content to drown his sorrows with his fellow miscreants. On a cold New Year’s Eve, he sits in a graveyard and tells his friends the tale of the Phantom Carriage. But once the story ends, a fight breaks out and David is struck down dead in the street. To his horror, his astral form sits up from his body and watches as an ancient carriage pulls up beside him. Its driver looms over him and pulls off his hood, revealing himself to be his old friend Georges who had died the previous New Year’s Eve.

David regards his old friend with shock and dismay for his poor fortune. But Georges has no time for pleasantries. Georges is on a mission to take David on a tour through his life and show him how he has fallen from grace. Much like Jacob Marley, he will carry his Scrooge through the halls of the past to face ancient sins and transgressions. David is forced to watch how he abandoned his dear wife Anna for drink. In one terrible scene, we watch as Anna locks him in a small room to keep him from infecting their children with tuberculosis. In a terrible rage, he chops the door down with an axe and pounces on his family.

He must watch as he is jailed for drunkenness. Even worse, he is forced to relive his friendship with a young Salvation Army girl named Edit who introduced him to Anna and later took care of him after falling out with Anna. In his delirious state, he infected her with tuberculosis and abused her. Now dying, Georges takes David to her bedside. The poor girl had always blamed herself for David’s misfortune. After all, she was the one who introduced him to Anna. But in a moment of mercy, David kisses her hands and tells her that he is okay. Relieved, Anna peacefully drifts off to her final sleep.

But David’s trip is not over. Georges takes him to his old house where they encounter Anna getting ready to kill herself and their children. David begs Georges to stop her, but he responds that he has no power over the living. In a moment of desperation, David cries out to Georges and God to have mercy on his poor soul and let him interfere. He is miraculously restored to life and humbles himself to Anna, begs for her forgiveness, and swears to be a better man. In this scene, Sjöström reveals his film to be a grim, supernatural morality tale for all poor sinners.

In watching The Phantom Carriage, it is impossible to both be unaffected by the story and unimpressed by the sheer scope of Sjöström’s craftsmanship. Filmed in only three months with a script that took only eight days to write, The Phantom Carriage was a watershed film for both narrative structuralism and the use of special effects. The film is filled with flashbacks, a technique that was revolutionary for its time. In fact, there are even scenes where there are flashbacks within flashbacks, creating three levels of narrative for the audience to follow.

But what the film is most remembered for is its eerie special effects. As mentioned before, The Phantom Carriage did not use German Expressionistic sets. Instead, when they needed to hearken the audience towards the supernatural, they would frequently use superimposition to place make figures and objects appear ghostly. Take the scene early on where the driver of the carriage collects the soul of a man who committed suicide: a transparent figure walks to the still body, pulls the man’s soul out, and escorts him back to the carriage with his body still on the floor. Or how about another ghastly scene where the carriage rides over an ocean and the driver descends to the bottom of the ocean to harvest a drowned sailor? Watching the carriage draw itself slowly over the tossed surf is as haunting an image as ever created by the German Expressionists.

Much of the credit for these effects must go to the cinematographer Julius Jaenzon and his lab assistant Eugén Hellman. The post-production of the film was a lengthy and difficult task. They would have to constantly juggle with superimpositions and double exposures. Such techniques were notorious for being challenging to pull off, since they used hand-waved cameras that needed to be operated at exactly the same speeds each time that they superimposed an image. But the end result is a convincing and unsettling effect.

The Phantom Carriage is easily one of the most important silent horror films ever made. Its influence has been felt for generations. Ingmar Bergman, one of the film’s biggest fans, claimed to watch it every year on New Year’s Eve. Its influence becomes apparent when you examine the character of Death in his seminal The Seventh Seal (1957). It has even been said that Stanley Kubrick modeled the famous scene in The Shining (1980) where Jack Nicholson chops through a wooden door with an axe after the similar scene in The Phantom Carriage. But despite its importance and influence, it has remained poorly distributed and generally unseen by most moviegoers. I will not attempt to explain why, but instead bemoan the depreciation of this classic film. It remains a silent miracle, a dark triumph, and chilling warning to all those who hear the call of the ghostly rider and the Phantom Carriage.

10/10

Gravity: Alfonso Cuarón

If James Wan's The Conjuring (2013) was the last time I was legitimately scared in a movie theater, then Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity was the last time I legitimately felt that I was going to have a panic attack in a movie theater. Gravity is an immaculate thriller about a rookie astronaut named Dr. Ryan Stone who finds herself stranded in space after random debris destroys her space shuttle. She must brave the horrific emptiness of deep space in order to reach a friendly space station so she can get back to earth. But Murphy's law keeps thwarting her at every turn. First she runs out of oxygen, then the only other surviving member of her crew sacrifices himself so she can make it to the International Space Station, then she discovers that the astronauts stationed on it had already used one of the escape modules. The only other module has its parachute prematurely deployed, making it almost useless. But there's still one last hope: a nearby Chinese space-station. But then, of course, comes more space debris...The film's pacing is feverishly relentless, throwing Dr. Stone and the audience into inescapable dilemma after inescapable dilemma. The film is only 90 minutes long but it feels more than two hours thanks in part to Cuarón's masterful use of extended, unbroken takes. The very first shot of the film must have lasted over ten minutes before its first edit. But Gravity isn't just a mere piece of entertainment. It is a fascinating mediation on human nature and spirituality. There's a scene where Dr. Ryan thinks she is going to die, so she tries to contact Mission Control via radio. However, she ends up talking to a Greenlandic Inuit fisherman. They can't understand each other...but they form a kind of bond that is both tragic and heart-breakingly beautiful. If Gravity had ended on this scene I would have been more than satisfied.

9/10

EDIT (March 16, 2014)

I had originally given the film a 9/10 because I felt that the soundtrack was too overbearing and ruined the atmosphere of certain scenes. But after watching the film again in my home, I have come to the conclusion that the film itself was not at fault. Instead, it would seem that the sound system belonging to the theater that I originally saw it in was to blame. Therefore, I have revised my score to a 10/10.

10/10

Gallipoli: Peter Weir

Peter Weir's Gallipoli isn't so much a film about war as it is about the poor young men who are casually sacrificed every day on the battlefield. The young men have different reasons for fighting. Some, like Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee), an eighteen year old sprinter from Western Australia, feel called by a sense of honor and duty. And maybe, just perhaps, the promise of adventure beckons them as well. Others, like Archy's best friend Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson), choose the army because there is nowhere left for them to go. But when Archy and Frank are deployed to ANZAC Cove on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli, their reasons for joining become irrelevant. They know they are going to die. And worse is the knowledge that their deaths will be meaningless. The genius behind Gallipoli is how Weir only depicts the film's central battle, the Battle of the Nek, a horrific engagement wherein tactical mistakes and miscommunications led to the senseless slaughter of 370+ Australian soldiers who were ordered to blindly charge well-defended Turkish lines, in the last twenty or so minutes. The rest of the film is devoted to Archy and Frank's journey from the wastes of Australia to the front lines of World War One. By the time they arrive at the battlefield, the sense of tension, fear, and apprehension is stunningly palpable. Much has been written on how Gallipoli changed around details surrounding the Battle of the Nek to make it seem like the British commanders flagrantly sent hundreds of Australians to their deaths while their own soldiers were "drinking tea on the beach." But Gallipoli isn't so much an historical reconstruction as an historical and cultural polemic. The slaughter at Gallipoli is seen by many cultural commentators as being the birthing place of Australian nationalism. Perhaps none said it better than Gibson: “Gallipoli was the birth of a nation. It was the shattering of a dream for Australia. They had banded together to fight the Hun and died by the thousands in a dirty little trench war." So Gallipoli reconstructs Australia's cultural memories of the events of August 7, 1915. And in this manner, Gallipoli is more important than a mere piece of historical fiction.

9/10

An Actor's Revenge: Kon Ichikawa

Kon Ichikawa's An Actor's Revenge is a film of staggering invention, unbridled creativity, and boundless inspiration. It is no less than the synthesis of two great art forms: the cinema and Japanese kabuki theater. A remake of a 1935 film of the same title, An Actor's Revenge was made to celebrate Kazuo Hasegawa's 300th film role as an actor (he had previously starred in the original as well). In the film, Hasegawa plays two roles. The first is Yukinojō Nakamura, an onnagata (a man trained to play female roles) who swears to gain his revenge against the three men responsible for the death of his parents. His enemies are two merchants - Kawaguchiya and Hiromiya - and a retired magistrate named Sansai. Sansai's daughter, Namiji, is a favored concubine of the shogun. Yukinojō's revenge involves seducing Namiji, thereby ruining Sansai's position and favor in the eyes of the shogun, and a fiendishly clever plot to bankrupt Kawaguchiya and Hiromiya and drive them insane. Hasegawa's second role is as Yamitarō, a dashing, Robin Hood-esque thief who observes the rest of the story and comments on it almost like a detached Greek chorus. The characters of Yukinojō and Yamitarō are derived from different kabuki traditions, allowing Hasegawa to demonstrate the full measure of his acting talents. In fact, the entire film is a meditation on kabuki theatrics, aesthetics, and traditions. Ichikawa combines these with Western cinematic techniques with a rapturous joy: real sets are interspersed with deliberately artificial ones, multitudes of shots are framed to mimic theatrical blocking, and the acting alternates between pure excess and restraint. And yet, for all of its theatrical inspirations, An Actor's Revenge is a work of pure cinema. Bask in its brilliance and be captivated by its genius!

9/10

I expanded on this review over here:

theretroset.com/an-actors-revenge/

Strange Days: Kathryn Bigelow

It's never a good sign when you find yourself wondering "just how much longer is this damn movie anyhow?" And it's an even worse sign when the answer is "at least another hour." Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days is a punishingly long film that squanders some fantastic ideas concerning the nature of reality and the human experience. Here's the idea: there are machines known as SQUID's, or "Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices," that can literally record a person's experiences, their emotions, their physical sensations, etc, etc. These recordings can then be played back like virtual reality DVD's, allowing an average joe on the street to experience things like being a different gender, running a marathon...or raping and killing somebody. Here's the plot: a former LAPD officer named Lenny Nero who markets illegal SQUID recordings comes into possession of a "blackjack," or a snuff recording. Even worse, the woman being attacked was a friend of his. So Nero gets pulled into a world of deadly intrigue that includes powerful music producers, corrupt cops, and the murder of an infamous black rapper named Jeriko One. And, yes, the film's production values are staggering. The SQUID scenes are done via POV tracking shots that must have required herculean efforts to block, rehearse, and properly execute. The streets of Los Angeles are effectively transformed into anarchic nightmares where armored policemen and tanks patrol even the safest neighborhoods. And the final scenes that involve a city-wide rave-turned-riot are magnificent to behold. But the film has two major problems. First, the screenplay is a mess. Blunt force exposition is spewed at the drop of a hat. My "favorite" example is near the end when Nero almost literally asks the antagonist to explain his master plan while being held at gunpoint. And the antagonist agrees! After all, and I quote, he "won't tell anybody." What is this, a Silver Age comic book? But the worst piece of writing in the entire film takes place in an early love scene where Lenny's girlfriend Faith loving stares at him in post-coital bliss. She says, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, "I love your eyes. I love how they see things." George Lucas would have demanded a re-write of that scene. The second problem in the film is that the characters are either stupid, annoying, or so badly characterized that they break the flow of the film. Take Faith, for example. Played by Juliette Lewis, Faith has two modes of expressing herself: shrill, over-dramatic shrieking and lifeless deadpan. She also alternatively helps and betrays Nero throughout the film. However, her heel turns are so abrupt and illogical that they make it seem like her scenes were edited into the final cut in the wrong order. Strange Days is an intriguing failure of a film that doesn't deserve its fantastic concepts.

5/10

Hey Good Lookin’: Ralph Bakshi

I've given Ralph Bakshi the benefit of the doubt every time I've watched one of his movies, but I have to say that there is no excuse for Hey Good Lookin'. I know that the original cut of the film is locked away in a Warner Bros. vault somewhere. I know that the film underwent major revisions due to studio demands. But Hey Good Lookin' is an animated travesty. It's an ugly, uncomfortable, and generally unpleasant experience. But whereas such qualities aided films like Coonskin (1975) because the entire works were racial and social commentaries, in Hey Good Lookin' they add nothing and leave the audience feeling queasy and empty. The story is a meandering mess about two 1950s greasers, Vinnie Genzianna and Crazy Shapiro. One of them is a Fonzie-esque playboy and the other is clinically, violently insane. Try and guess which is which. Through a series of muddled, confusing, and cluttered events, they find themselves drawn into a "rumble" with a black gang known as the Chaplains. One of the film's biggest failures involves its animation. Everything, with the exception of a few shots of rotoscoped dancing, is animated in the overtly cartoon-ish manner of Wizards (1977). But whereas that film at least had a few moments of relative restraint, I can't remember a single moment of Hey Good Lookin' where the characters weren't constantly flailing about like Tex Avery fever dreams while screaming incoherently. The racial and economic commentary that was so essential to Bakshi's other films is either phoned in or unceremoniously dropped. Sorry, Mr. Bakshi. But you can't win every time.

3/10

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown plays almost like one of the great screwball comedies of yesteryear. The plot features several characters who, for different reasons, are at wit's end. And even worse, they all have the misfortune of colliding into each other at the same time. Pepa Marcos is a TV actress who for some reason is desperate to contact her smooth-talking colleague Iván. Her friend Candela arrives at her apartment and announces that the man she had been sleeping with revealed himself to be a Shiite terrorist planning on hijacking a flight to Stockholm later that day. And wouldn't you know it, while they are talking, Iván's son, Carlos, arrives with his fiancée, Marisa. Why?  Because they are considering buying their apartment, of course! Just when things couldn't possibly get any worse, two policemen seeking information about the Shiite terrorists and Carlos' mother, the mentally unstable Lucía, knock on their door. Much of the delight in watching Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown comes from Almodóvar's skill in juggling so many sub-plots and characters as they race towards their inevitably mad-capped and violent conclusion. But despite the film's technical skill, there are a few lingering problems that I have with it. For example, the female characters in this film are defined by their relationships with men: Pepa with Iván, Marisa with her fiancée Carlos, Candela with her Shiite lover, and Lucía also with Iván. And don't even get me started about how offensively Lucía's mental illness is portrayed. And there's also a rather major plot hole near the end: the characters forget about the Shiite terrorists! Are we meant to believe that they weren't stopped and that they managed to hijack the airplane? That's a pretty giant plot oversight. If it was accidental, then it indicates poor screenwriting. If it was intentional, then the characters (and Almodóvar) are clearly sociopathic. But in many circles it is impossible to argue these flaws because Almodóvar is one of those directors whose fans are willing to dismiss such mistakes as irrelevant to the kind of stories that he wants to tell. And, yes, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is visually stunning, complexly plotted without becoming convoluted and confusing, and mesmerizing to behold. But these things are hurt by an insidious undercurrent of misogyny.

8/10

Quadrophenia: Franc Roddam

One of the big problems that I have with a lot of "teen rebellion" films is that most of their protagonists try to come off as tortured and misunderstood when really they're just assholes. The only protagonists from such films that I emphasize with are characters like Jim Stark who clearly have something loose in their heads. Jimmy Cooper from Franc Roddam's Quadrophenia, a film based on the rock opera of the same name by legendary rock band The Who, is another such lost soul. And since there is a plausible explanation for his behavior that doesn't involve being spoiled or being a douche, I found myself actually caring for his predicament. The film follows Jimmy's disillusionment with his careless parents, his boring job, and the truth behind his fellow Mods. The film is an earnest portrait of a scared, confused, and ultimately ill young man being pulled in a million different directions at once. And, of course, the soundtrack by The Who doesn't hurt things, either.

7/10

La Cérémonie: Claude Chabrol

Sophie Bonhomme and Jeanne are two women with very, very important secrets. Sophie, a maid for the well-to-do Lelièvre family, may have killed her father. And Jeanne? Her young daughter. When the two inevitably meet, they form a friendship that plummets towards tragedy...and the deaths of five people. Claude Chabrol's La Cérémonie is based on two sources: the real-life murder case of Christine and Lea Papin, two French maids who killed their employer's wife and daughter, and the 1947 Jean Genet play also inspired by the Papin case entitled The Maids. Curiously, while Genet and his fellow French intellectuals saw the Papin case as symbolic of class struggle, Chabrol seems to sympathize with the wealthy Lelièvre family. Sure, they might be stuffy and occasionally pompous, but they frequently offer Sophie help and go out of their way to be kind to her. Of course, much like the real life case, Sophie was largely dominated by her counterpart in crime. Jeanne is a venomous influence whose charisma is so infectious that the audience can't help but feel drawn to her at the beginning of the film in the same way that Sophie was. The film's strength comes in its insidious subtlety. A shocking revelation about Sophie occurs around thirty minutes into the film that leaves us shaking our heads wondering how we could have possibly missed the very obvious signals and hints dropped earlier. And then there is the almost casual manner in which Sophie and Jeanne first confront each other about their respective "secrets." La Cérémonie is an absorbing experience and a late career triumph for Chabrol.

8/10