The Lucky Texan: Robert N. Bradbury

The best thing that can be said about Robert N. Bradbury's The Lucky Texan is that it isn't terrible. It's not very good, but at least the cinematography is watchable and the plot doesn't screech to a halt every few minutes. Of course, it still isn't very good. There are a lot of parts that are downright laughable: a duo of assay officials begin to vocally plot ripping off John Wayne and stealing his gold claim seconds after he leaves the frame like they were on a theatrical stage; the townsfolk immediately suspect Wayne of killing his partner even though a) he had previously cleared his partner's name after some local thugs tried to frame him for crimes, and b) he was literally in the middle of a crowd when the murder took place; for some reason Bradbury earnestly thinks putting George "Gabby" Hayes in a dress is hilarious. But, again, at the very least I could see what was going on.

4/10

St. Vincent: Theodore Melfi

You can smell the film school on this one. That’s not a bad thing, of course. But Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent has all of the hallmarks of a first-time feature-length director trying to distinguish themselves. It may not be as idiosyncratic as Bottle Rocket or as personal as Who’s That Knocking on My Door (at least I think), but here is a film with a distinct vision helmed by a director who wants to get it across. The most remarkable and noticeable part of the film is how it doesn’t villainize any of its characters. Each character has flaws and at least one moment where they prove themselves to have some kind of decency. The bookies hounding Bill Murray leave him alone after he has a stroke, the boy’s father seems to actually want to be a part of his son’s life and not gain custody just to spit his ex-wife, and the priests at the school are revealed to actually care about the children. The two most cliched characters are Bill Murray and Naomi Watts as the Russian prostitute. And while Murray does gain some kind of redemption, it is not the candy-coated about-face of personality and character that plague so many Hollywood movies. He is a bastard through and through. And the film ends with the suggestion that, while he may not be able to be good, maybe he can be less of a bastard in spite of himself. The most remarkable sequence in the film was when Murray took the kid to a nursing home where he impersonated a doctor in order to flirt with a patient suffering from either Alzheimer’s or dementia. At first we think that it is just another scam to get money or to take advantage of somebody. But it slowly dawns on the audience that this woman is his wife. And most impressively, the film doesn’t explicitly tell us that until maybe the last third of the film. It was all communicated visually and through Murray’s performance. Melfi understands characters and if there is one thing that can sum up his directorial style it is that he seeks to explore the humanity behind the archetypes.

7/10

Victim: Basil Dearden

[Revisit Review]

The problem with films that try and address a social problem or ill is that it is nearly impossible to do so without veering into the realm of melodrama or blunt-force moralization. Basil Dearden's Victim is no exception; more than once the audience is presented with what amount to bullet points about why laws against homosexuality are wrong. And yet the film is still a vital piece of cinematic history, being the first English language film to use the word "homosexual." In an age when homosexuality was still illegal in England, Victim was nothing less than a ground-breaking film. So, considering the time period and culture in which it was made, the film's flaws can be forgiven. It also helps that even today when "blackmail" laws have been repealed, Victim succeeds as a taut, masterfully controlled thriller.

9/10

Umberto D.: Vittorio De Sica

[Revisit Review]

The first time I ever saw Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D. was when I was first getting into film in a serious manner. If I remember correctly, I watched it either because it was one of Roger Ebert's Great Movies or because it was on the Criterion Collection. I can't remember which one in particular. But I can remember that it was one of the defining experiences of my time as a fledgling cinephile. And several years later, I still find it an incredibly moving film, but for slightly different reasons. The first time I saw it, I admired it for its humanity and for the simple power of its ending. But this time I was amazed by the sparseness and economy of its visual language. The frequent low-angle long shots in the apartment impressed me the most of all. But I was also surprised by how little dialogue the film contains. So much of the story is expressed purely through the use of images. I am thrilled that I finally got around to re-watching this film. I am already looking forward to my next viewing.

9/10

The House Is Black: Forough Farrokhzad

[Revisit Review]

One of the most interesting things about Forough Farrokhzad's The House is Black is how happy many of the lepers seem. Of course, they are frequently shown in pain and agony. And the movie has no illusions about the nature of the plight. But many scenes show them laughing, smiling, singing, and even playing. It provides an odd juxtaposition between the images and the morose, gloomy poetry that serves as narration. But that makes one wonder...who is she referring to in the poetry? The lepers? Or the narrator herself?

9/10

Horrible Bosses 2: Sean Anders

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-horrible-bosses-2/44556.

8/10

Big Deal on Madonna Street: Mario Monicelli

[Revisit Review]

Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street has the characters of a heist thriller, the complexity and spontaneity of a screwball comedy, and the warmth of a Commedia all'italiana. Its comedic ingenuity is staggering. I love how they introduced the members of the gang one by one as they kept trying to find a scapegoat to take one of their friend's jail-time. I love the little gags like the Donald Duck aprons on the orphanage employees. And I adore both the result of the heist and the way the media reacted to it. Almost none of this comedy feels derived from another source. It's just the result of excellent writing, direction, and acting.

9/10

The Babadook: Jennifer Kent

The best horror films are rarely just about monsters or things that are scary. Instead, they use their creatures and demons and beasties as a platform through which to examine ideas and themes. John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) may be most well-known as a pivotal development in the slasher genre, but at its core is an idea that is very, very real for many people: the idea of being alone and pursued by some unstoppable force that wants to hurt you. There's a reason why after people saw Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) they became scared of open water and not just sharks. Jennifer Kent's The Babadook may on its surface be a story about a single mother and her son who are tormented by an evil spirit. But it's actually about something much deeper. Two things, actually. First, it's the fear that there might be something seriously, medically wrong with your child's head. Second, it's the fear that you might be a bad parent. The eponymous Babadook can easily be read as a manifestation of the mother's anxieties and stresses concerning her role as caretaker of a rambunctious son whose imagination is so powerful and disruptive that he might actually be schizophrenic. It is this focus on parental anxiety that makes The Babadook a magnificent companion piece to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Even the mother's eventual breakdown matches that of Jack Torrance...to a certain point, of course.

9/10

L'Équipage: Anatole Litvak

I can't stand love triangles. They're a cheap way to produce drama and tension. But there are films that have done them decently. Anatole Litvak's L'Équipage is one of them. The story of a World War One aviator named Jean who unknowingly begins an affair with the wife of his co-pilot named Maury, L'Équipage is emotional and powerful. It is also a fantastic technical feat. Litvak's camera is incredibly mobile even in tight interiors. For a 1935 sound film, there are none of the glaring passages of dead silence that plagued so many of its contemporaries. The film features fascinating narrative ellipses. We never see Jean meet Maury's wife. They begin the film having known each other for only twenty-four hours, yet they are already madly in love. Neither do we see Jean and Maury's first mission together. Instead we watch the rest of their squadron try to distract and busy themselves as they fly a potentially suicidal mission. In a way, this seems to predict similar scenes in Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings (1939). But the most interesting aspect of L'Équipage is Maury's wife Denise, who was perhaps best described as "almost wraith-like...an intriguing variant on the classic femme fatale, a naive woman of passion who appears oblivious to the havoc she causes." But I disagree. I think she knows exactly what kind of havoc she is causing. She just doesn't care. She wants what she wants and to hell with everybody else. I haven't hated a character so much in quite a long time...

8/10

Vampyr: Carl Theodor Dreyer

[Revisit Review]

Despite its linear story, the events in Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr seem to take place out of order. Characters are only properly identified and introduced after they have had much screen time; they linger in strange environments that they have been led to for seemingly no reason; the idea of a vampire is only introduced at about the half-way mark of the film's run-time. It’s like a lucid dream that you keep losing track of and have to periodically refocus and replay back up to the point where your mind slipped. The imagery is damn near unparalleled in its ability to disquiet and discomfort. As rudimentary as the special effect is, the living, disembodied shadows that populate the sets galvanize me with a sickening loathing and dread that I rarely feel in horror films. I'm still not sure I understand why happens in Vampyr. And I doubt that I will understand it even if I watch it another 3 times. I will simply just get lost in the imagery, much like how Peter Bogdanovich claimed to have watched Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958) "four of five times before [he] noticed the story."

9/10

The Scarlet Pimpernel: Harold Young

I know it’s petty, but I will never, ever, ever be able to take The Scarlet Pimpernel seriously. First, the name sounds too much like “The Scarlet Pimple.” That’s partially unfair because the character is named after a flower. But the main reason why is because the character represents a toxic perspective on class relations. The character is widely considered to be the first “superhero” because it originated the “hero with a secret identity” idea. But here’s the thing, Baroness Orczy, the character’s creator, was a racist, colonialist, and firm supporter of the superiority of the “upper classes.” So here we have a character who by his very nature is designed to save goodly aristocrats from the savage mob. The blood-shed of the French Revolution was inexcusable, but to pretend that the French aristocracy were innocent victims here is so absurd that even Ayn Rand would call bullshit. But I'm rambling. Despite the fact that I find the idea of The Scarlet Pimpernel problematic, I can't let that affect my judgment of Harold Young's film adaptation of him. For what it's worth, The Scarlet Pimpernel is a fine 1930s adventure film. Leslie Howard is wonderful as the eponymous hero and Merle Oberon glitters as his wife despite the fact that she has a very basic and generic role.

7/10

Le Grand Jeu: Jacques Feyder

Well! This film was disappointing. Jacques Feyder's Le Grand Jeu is to Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1937) as John Brahm's The Brasher Doubloon (1947) is to Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944). It might have all of the bits and pieces that define the Poetic Realism film movement, but they are arranged so haphazardly and poorly that the film collapses in on itself. The film is woefully directionless, meandering for most of its run-time until around the 55 minute mark when the protagonist meets the woman who will captivate him and ultimately spell his doom. Their relationship is rushed to the point of parody, going from their first drunken fling to full-fledged spousal abuse in the span of a couple of minutes. Subplots are picked up and dropped at random (what was up with Clément subplot about getting left behind by the legion?). I had a difficult time following the plot of this film even when I had the wikipedia plot summary sitting in front of me! It is undeniably beautiful. Documentary-like exteriors and chiaroscuro interiors give the world of North Africa a kind of alien veneer. But I was too confused by the story to fully appreciate any of it.

5/10

Horrible Bosses: Seth Gordon

[Spoilers Ahead]

I love a good black comedy. The key word being: "good." They seem to come around so rarely. So I was thrilled to discover Seth Gordon's Horrible Bosses. I was shocked by how little the film relied on shock or cringe humor. Instead, much of the humor comes from the protagonists getting into increasingly terrible situations via their own stupidity and incompetence. I knew that this would be more than just an average comedy when Kevin Spacey shot and killed Colin Farrell. That is the kind of twist that you would find in an Ealing Studios comedy like Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) or The Ladykillers (1955). I love movies like these where things get so hopeless that they actually begin to work themselves out in spite of the protagonist's idiocy. It reminds me of the kind of film that Murder Party (2007) should have been. Of course, the actors are given plenty of room to stretch their comedic and improvisations talents. Charlie Day is at the top of his game and Kevin Spacey damn near steals the show as Jason Bateman's greedy, sociopathic boss. On a side note, the film is actually kind of illuminating in how it demonstrates how little society cares about men getting sexually harassed and raped. That may not have been the film's intention, but it's still food for thought.

7/10

Interstellar: Christopher Nolan

[Spoilers Ahead]

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar epitomizes the strengths and weaknesses of his most recent output. On the one hand, it is dazzlingly beautiful with images that are nothing short of awe-inspiring. It plays with ideas that simply have not been experimented with yet by other mainstream filmmakers. The fifth-dimensional tesseract may be the most visually resplendent and thought-provoking set-piece of his entire career. And yet it slogs through its almost 3-hour run-time. I'm not exactly sure how, but Interstellar is simultaneously under-plotted and over-plotted. Additionally, much of the interior cinematography is too cramped and over-relies on medium shots and close-ups. The result is that there are times when we don't have a clear indication of where certain characters are in relation to each other. The most egregious example is a scene where Matthew McConaughey and Matt Damon go for a walk on an ice planet. It appears that they walk just a few yards away from the base-camp. But when Damon tries to kill McConaughey, it takes Anne Hathaway almost a minute to fly the spaceship to their location. Once she finds McConaughey, Damon somehow teleports back to the base-camp and steals one of the spaceships. Maybe there is an explanation for how this happened. But it wasn't readily apparent. And I paid close attention.

8/10

The Goddess: Wu Yonggang

[Revisit Review]

Wu Yonggang's The Goddess was the fifth movie I ever reviewed on my first film blog Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear. Even back then I was sensitive to its tremendous emotional power. The Goddess may be set in early 20th century China, but its story is universal. This is underscored in the way that most of the principle characters don't have actual names. The protagonist is an unnamed woman. The domineering man is known as "the boss." This makes them more than just characters; they are archetypes. And unlike many films which try to mimic such techniques, The Goddess has the earnestness to achieve it without seeming cheesy, campy, or forced.

9/10

Rome, Open City: Roberto Rossellini

[Revisit Review]

Don Pietro Pellegrini is one of the most noble and heroic priests in the history of cinema. Not particularly warm or loving, he is nonetheless a man of overflowing faith and compassion. Even after the Nazis torture one of his friends to death and order his execution, he bursts into tears after he curses them. Why? I'd like to think it was because he remembered that they, too, are children of God. Aldo Fabrizi's performance is gut-wrenching and heart-breaking. There is never a moment when we question his sincerity or conviction.

9/10

Girls in Uniform: Leontine Sagan

Leontine Sagan's Girls in Uniform is a film that succeeds on several different levels. First, it's a fantastic school drama about a student body oppressed by a tyrannical headmistress. Second, it's a landmark in LGBTQ+ cinema in its unabashed portrayal of lesbian characters (one kiss between a much beloved teacher and one of her students remains somewhat shocking even today for its frankness concerning homosexual affections between a minor and a grown woman). I suppose that these attractions could be rationalized as a psychological coping mechanism for the girls when faced with the harsh, restrictive school environment. After all, the girls all fall for the one teacher who treats them with any kind of kindness (although by today's standards she would still be seen as unduly stern). But the intensity of their romantic feelings seems to argue against that. Finally, Girls in Uniform is fascinating as a prediction of the rise of Nazism. One scene in particular where all of the students line up in their uniforms and bow before an imposing, shrouded visiting princess is uncanny in its proto-fascist implications.

9/10

Juliet of the Spirits: Federico Fellini

[Revisit Review]

Federico Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits works best as a series of delirious images: a seance of shadow-shrouded faces, a red portable pavilion on a beach, rows of veiled nuns giving young girls in white papery wings, a girl in white tied to fiery bars of metal. In a way, the film is a companion piece to his earlier film La Dolce Vita (1960): both center on essentially passive protagonists who are paraded through a menagerie of upper class grotesqueries while on a skewed journey of self-discovery. Her fantasies seem more immediate and real than the bizarre things and people she actually encounters. For me, the best part of the film is the last act where her fantasies and memories of nuns and martyrs begin to bleed into her everyday life.

9/10

Dumb and Dumber To: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/dumb-and-dumber-to-review/43961.

5/10

Big Hero 6: Don Hall, Chris Williams

[Spoilers Ahead]

Don Hall and Chris Williams' Big Hero 6 is the Disney animated film that I have spent over a decade waiting for. At last there is a Disney film that not only equals the output of Pixar but, considering the more recent offerings by that studio, may even surpass it. Disney hasn't made a film this good since 2009's The Princess and the Frog. And I haven't enjoyed one of their films this much since 2002's Lilo & Stitch. The film is just a joy: energetic, colorful, emotional, and unapologetically optimistic. I can't remember the last time I saw such distinct and defined body movement in a 3-D animated film. Each character moves, walks, talks, runs, and even yells in their own way (even if they are only in the background of a scene). I love the creativity of the fight scenes, particularly the final one where Hiro encourages his teammates to think outside of the box and redefine their current problems. My only complaint is that they revived Baymax at the end, succumbing to one of the problems that plagued James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): the need to revive their lovable mascots in time for the credits, thereby largely ruining the impact of their sacrifices and neglecting future audiences of their more appropriate revival in the 2nd or 3rd act of the inevitable sequel.

8/10

Seisaku's Wife: Yasuzô Masumura

[Spoilers Ahead]

Yasuzô Masumura's Seisaku's Wife is a film of considerable artistry, but it is too confused and misguided for it to be considered anything other than a particularly striking cinematic misfire. The basic set-up of the film is simple: a fallen woman falls in love with and marries the local hero of a small village and subsequently suffers incredible derision and hatred from the ignorant villagers to the point where she is driven insane and attacks her husband when he is forced to leave for the front of the Russo-Japanese war. This is pretty standard stuff as far as Japanese feminist condemnations of rural life such as Shohei Imamura's The Insect Woman (1963) and Hiroshi Teshigahara's The Woman in the Dunes (1964). But the problem is that too much of the plot is inexplicable. Seisaku and his ill-fated wife fall in love and passionately embrace after they have barely spent more than 4-5 minutes of screen-time together (much of which shows them treating each other with contempt). After she attacks him, the village inexplicably labels him a "traitor" and ostracizes him. I can understand that Masumura was more concerned with the effect than with the cause. How Seisaku and his wife fell in love isn't as important as the fact that they did. Why Seisaku was branded a traitor isn't as important as the fact that he was. But that's the problem. Ignorant behavior can only be condemned if the behavior is rational (in its own way) and explainable. If it isn't, then the behavior is, well, inexplicable and can be dismissed as just the machinations of one particular village. And if Seisaku's Wife is meant to be such a story of events occurring in a specific place at a specific time with specific people, it falls apart because few or no reasons are given as to why the characters act the way they do. Seisaku's Wife is like a ship cobbled together in a hurry by inexperienced shipbuilders. It may look seaworthy and have all of the right parts in the right places, but chances are that it won't get very far before sinking.

6/10

Darling: John Schlesinger

John Schlesinger's Darling is a film fascinated with surfaces: windows, mirrors, billboards, photographs blown up to cover walls. Its characters are seduced by these surfaces and the illusion of happiness that they promise. But in the end they are destroyed by the realities that lurk beneath them. Perhaps this is best illustrated during a party scene where Diana Scott (Julie Christie) impersonates her friend Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey), an advertising executive, in front of a blank, flickering movie projection as part of a game. It might be in good fun, but it is one of the first and clearest indicators that their relationship is about to go sour. Darling addresses some interesting themes and Christie's performance is incredible. But the film is too bloated. It drifts from one failed set of circumstances to the next. Diana never learns from her mistakes. She just repeats them over and over. She's almost a non-character.

6/10

The Ladykillers: Alexander Mackendrick

[Revisit Review]

Alexander Mackendrick's The Ladykillers has the complex plotting and seemingly effortless ability to execute its narrative without becoming obtuse or cluttered that partially defined the American screwball comedy. Watching the film again, I couldn't help but think that this would make an excellent companion piece to Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). Both films involve people meeting untimely ends thanks to their interactions with seemingly benign old ladies. But American screwball comedies rarely got as cheerfully dark as The Ladykillers. This film is a fiendish joy from start to finish.

9/10

Murder Party: Jeremy Saulnier

[Spoilers Ahead]

There's a lot of heart in Jeremy Saulnier's Murder Party. It's easy to recognize that this was a film he cared deeply about making. And there are moments when it feels like Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985) but with psychopathic, homicidal art students. I love the central idea of the film: a hapless guy unwittingly goes to a "party" run by a bunch of aspiring artists who want to murder him in the most creative way possible in order to secure a grant from their sociopathic patron. I love how the protagonist spends most of the movie tied to a chair while the villains ruin (and occasionally kill) each other due to their own stupidity. But Murder Party is in desperate need of another screenplay draft. About halfway through the film screeches to a halt while the villains play a game of "extreme truth or dare" which I suppose was meant to be funny, but in reality just feels like needless padding. I know that with this type of horror/comedy there can be considerable leeway with regard to plot holes. But here is a film where the central conflict is watching a stupid plan spectacularly fall apart in ridiculous, jaw-dropping ways. Good plotting is essential. Lingering questions like "Where Did the Invitation Come From" and "How Could Alexander Afford a Russian Hit-man/Drug Dealer if He's a Shmuck from New Jersey" are unacceptable.

6/10

The Ball at the Anjo House: Kôzaburô Yoshimura

Good movies are like red hot pokers. Just watching a moment of them can burn you. There were scenes in Kôzaburô Yoshimura's The Ball at the Anjo House that were almost physically painful to watch: the father’s murderous confrontation with the corrupt businessman who wants to snatch their house away from them, the ex-chauffeur's drunken revelation to the assembled guests that he has bought the house of the family that had employed him for years, when the son's fiancée slaps him several times in front of those same guests, and the ending where the younger daughter stops the father from killing himself. In a way, The Ball at the Anjo House is the predecessor to Satyajit Ray's The Music Room (1958) in how it depicts a wealthy family consumed by pride as they try to put on one last social event before they are rendered destitute ("In my heart I'm still nobility," the older sister defiantly declares). After a glacial first act, it builds to a savage crescendo in the 2nd and 3rd until keeping your eyes on the screen is almost impossible. This is an Occupation film through-and-through: the Japanese nobility are shown to be cruel, shallow, and judgmental, the daughter stops the father from killing himself (no doubt at the insistence of American censors who didn’t want to evoke memories of seppuku and kamikaze), and it ends on an upbeat, hopeful note. And yet, as an Occupation film, it stands with Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) as one of the very best.

9/10

Sense and Sensibility: Ang Lee

British period pieces are not my cup of tea. So it is the rare occasion that one of them breaks through my cynicism and dislike towards the genre. Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility is now officially one of them. The cinematography is positively gorgeous. Lee and cinematographer Michael Coulter block and frame the characters like they have leaped from the canvases of the paintings which adorn so many of the houses and mansions that they inhabit. Here is not an attempted facsimile of Georgian era England, but rather of an aesthetic and style that embodies it. And what can be said about the acting? Every part is played magnificently. As the ending credits began to roll, I mused to myself that if the story had taught me anything, it's that the old, creepy guy who longs for your young daughter is actually the man best suited for her. But then I brushed the thought aside. This film earned immunity from my pitiless cynicism.

8/10

Edit -- January 5, 2016 -- I recently had published a DVD review of the film that I wrote. Here is the link: http://theretroset.com/dvd-review-ang-lees-sense-and-sensibility-1995/

Pépé le Moko: Julien Duvivier

[Revisit Review]

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/the-film-canon-pepe-le-moko-1937/43534.

9/10

Nights of Cabiria: Federico Fellini

[Revisit Review]

Just when you thought that Federico Fellini couldn't produce a more emotionally devastating ending than the one attached to La Strada (1954), he goes and releases Nights of Cabiria. But if the ending of La Strada is an ending of emotional surrender, Nights of Cabiria is one of emotional defiance and triumph. I had already seen the film and yet the ending hit me just as hard this second time around. This is due in part to Fellini's excellent direction. But it is due mostly to Giulietta Masina's monumental performance. Her role here is almost diametrically opposed to that of Gelsomina, and yet I couldn't imagine any other actress portraying these characters. They are Giulietta and Giulietta is them.

10/10

Murder on Flight 502: George McCowan

I first bought my DVD copy of George McCowan's Murder on Flight 502 for $1.00 in a supermarket in 2004. I have waited 10 years to open the plastic wrap on the case and watch the damn thing. Now I wonder why I didn't wait another 10 years. The film is a boring, plodding, blandly shot "thriller" about a murderer on-board a plane in the middle of a trans-Atlantic flight. Now, that could be the set-up to a great movie. But Murder on Flight 502 isn't one of them. The characters are stock, the mystery predictable (I called the murderer just minutes into it), and the entire story is somehow bereft of tension and suspense. It also can't keep all of its side-plots up in the air. The most egregious is Sonny Bono as a has-been rock star who is very prominent in the first half of the film and then completely disappears until the last five minutes. This reveals these side-plots for what they really are: filler. I know Murder on Flight 502 was a made-for-TV movie. But that doesn't excuse it. I've seen good made-for-TV movies (ever see Buzz Kulik's Bad Ronald?). And may I just ask a quick question: why would you hire Farrah Fawcett if you were only going to make her a minor character with very little screentime?! She was America's sweet-heart!!

4/10

Eyes Without a Face: Georges Franju

[Revisit Review]

More horror films should aspire to poetry. While most are preoccupied with the shocking and the grotesque, Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face busies itself with the potentially beautiful and lyrical. I noticed something interesting during my second viewing of the film: Christiane Génessier isn't a hero and she doesn't redeem herself at the end of the film. She was happily complicit with her father's crimes and her eventual rebellion against him was borne of a fatalism brought on by a nihilistic belief that she would never regain her beauty again. The murder of her father was a selfish, not a selfless, action.

9/10

Riders of Destiny: Robert N. Bradbury

Robert N. Bradbury's Riders of Destiny is significant for a couple of different reasons. To start with, it was the first time Bradbury and John Wayne worked together to make a Lone Star Western for Monogram Pictures. Second, it's actually...kind of good. If it had had a bit more polish, a fuller soundtrack, a sharper eye for composition, and more immediate editing, it could have gone down as a thoroughly average Western (no mean feat for a Poverty Row production). Riders of Destiny lives up to Richard Brody's claim that "the Western is intrinsically the most political movie genre, because...it is concerned with the founding of cities, and because it depicts the various abstract functions of government as direct, physical actions." Here John Wayne plays a government agent who travels to a small town to help a group of beleaguered homesteaders fight back against a corrupt landowner who is cheating them of their water supply. One of the most curious aspects of the film is how it pulls a double-switcheroo with the opening sequence: Wayne sees a young woman attacked by two gunmen and he saves her; he learns that the gunmen were stagecoach employees and that the woman had actually robbed them of a satchel of money; then he learns that she was stealing it back from people who were going to cheat her family of it. This is complex plotting for the first third of a 50-minute film! And lastly, Riders of Destiny is significant because it features John Wayne as a singing cowboy. And his songs...well...they're pretty dark and bloody! 'Nuff said!

6/10

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages: Benjamin Christensen

[Revisit Review]

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/haxan-witchcraft-through-the-ages-1922/43091.

9/10

Paprika: Satoshi Kon

I have never seen a film with the name 'Satoshi Kon' attached to it that in some way didn't leave me floored and spellbound. His last film before his untimely death, Paprika, is no exception. Continuing his tradition of playing with the boundaries of reality, dreams, fantasies, and delusions, Paprika gleefully elasticizes all concepts of time and space to create a film that is stunning to witness. Just like with Perfect Blue (1998) and Millennium Actress (2001), I left Paprika wondering where in the world animation could possibly go next. What techniques could there possibly be left to discover? What stories could there possibly be left to tell? However, Paprika isn't a perfect film. Despite featuring some of the best animation of Kon's career, the film lacks the same narrative cohesion which made his previous films easy to follow and understand despite their stylistic and narrative extravagances. We are never given a solid reason for why dreams and reality merge near the end of the film, nor how/why Doctor Atsuko Chiba developed such a radically different persona as Paprika. Her "romance" with Doctor Kōsaku Tokita is equally confusing, being both abrupt and inexplicable. I'm not saying that every film narrative needs to answer every single question it raises. But this is a film about the nature of dreams vis-à-vis reality; it relies on its narrative to frame the bizarre events and images that it parades in front of its audiences. Maybe another draft would have done the screenplay good.

9/10

Suspiria: Dario Argento

[Revisit Review]

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/the-film-canon-suspiria-1977/42949.

10/10

The Lawless Frontier: Robert N. Bradbury

I think this is some form of karmic retribution for having watched and almost enjoyed Robert N. Bradbury's The Dawn Rider (1935). After finally seeing an almost passable Poverty Row Western with John Ford, I've watched what might be the worst I've yet to see. There were parts of this film that I literally couldn't see because the cinematography was so bad. What little audio there was (large swathes of the film were submerged in total, awkward silence) was so poor that I couldn't make out most of the dialogue. And this wasn't just a matter of me watching a bad print. Different audio levels were used for different pieces of dialogue, making it seem like some lines were recorded while the actors were standing three studios over. The plot was so generic that even now, with a wikipedia summary right in front of me, I can still barely understand what the movie was about. This movie was pain.

1/10

The Dawn Rider: Robert N. Bradbury

I can't tell you how weird it is to watch a Poverty Row film in the public domain that actually has things happen in it! Robert N. Bradbury's The Dawn Rider may only be 53 minutes long, but it crams in a surprisingly large amount of plot. Of course, that plot is woefully generic: an outsider comes into town, makes fast friends with a local via good-natured fistfight, they fall in love with the same woman, there's a murder, vengeance is sworn, but the killer is the brother of the aforementioned woman. And so on and so forth. It's fun seeing John Wayne in such an early role where he's still developing his acting chops. Even though he seems jerky and occasionally uncomfortable, he still exudes a tremendous amount of authority and charisma. Additionally, there's a surprisingly engaging and impressive action sequence where a gun fight takes place on a moving wagon. Well, it's engaging and impressive by Poverty Row standards. They actually managed some half-decent tracking shots!

5/10

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla: William Beaudine

William Beaudine's Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla could have been a mediocre Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin comedy if it had actually starred Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Instead, it starred Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, two comedians who made a living impersonating them. Both actors are dead ringers for Martin and Lewis in both appearance and acting styles. And that's why I hate this movie so much. They were plagiarizing one of the greatest comedy teams in American history. Watching this film was almost physically painful. When you factor in the rampant misogyny and racism of its setting and characters (suspiciously white inhabitants of the jungles of deepest, darkest Africa) and you have a film that is downright offensive and annoying. And how bizarre is it that of all of the films that I've watched with Bela Lugosi recently, this is the one that treats him with the most respect? By this point in his career, Lugosi was battling a crippling morphine addiction. And yet, none of that manifests itself onscreen. He comes across as a dignified, elderly statesman of horror cinema. If you look close enough, you can almost see a glimpse of what Lugosi might have become if his career had more closely mimicked that of Boris Karloff.

2/10

The Ape Man: William Beaudine

It's uncomfortably uncanny how well William Beaudine's The Ape Man works as a metaphor for Bela Lugosi's career and personal life. Think about it: a dignified professional is reduced to a mentally unstable ape-man who must prey off others to restore himself to his old self. The less said about the obvious drug addiction symbolism, the better. Lugosi's Poverty Row films were merciless in how they demeaned and disgraced him. But The Ape Man is one of the very worst, stripping Dracula Himself of his dignity. One positive thing that I can say about the film is that I enjoyed how unapologetically evil Lugosi's character is. More than once he is confronted with the fact that the only way he can return to being a man is to steal the spinal fluid of innocent victims, killing them almost instantly. And more than once he says that he doesn't care. It's nice to see a villain who doesn't try to justify their crimes with lofty, ridiculous ideals and reasons.

3/10

The Devil Bat: Jean Yarbrough

I find myself having to agree with Tom Weaver, the author of Poverty Row Horrors!, that Jean Yarbrough's The Devil Bat was probably the best of the films Bela Lugosi made on Poverty Row. While still by no means a decent picture, it at least makes an attempt to create a spooky atmosphere. The design of Lugosi's lab and his fiendish electrical experiments with bats flirt with mediocrity. Dave O’Brien is surprisingly enjoyable as big-city reporter Johnny Layden, who manages to pull off that 1940s brand of cocksure charisma without coming off as a douchebag. The giant bat models are so absurd that they almost veer into the realm of camp. But considering that this film wasn't made ironically and shots of the models were matched with stock footage close-ups of real bats, The Devil Bat doesn't get any brownie points for being enjoyably cheesy.

5/10

The Corpse Vanishes: Wallace Fox

Ah...Monogram Pictures: where the audio is inaudible, the cinematography unwatchable, and the actors all washed up. It's getting harder and harder for me to watch Bela Lugosi in these Poverty Row productions. It's beginning to get to the point where there's a cringe factor involved. After all, wasn't this man Dracula? The Corpse Vanishes may not have been Lugosi's most painful Z-grade picture, but that isn't saying much. This time around he's kidnapping paralyzed brides to steal their "bodily fluids" so he can keep his vain wife looking young. I can't believe there's a film out there that makes Edward Dein's The Leech Woman (1960) seem somewhat credible in comparison. I will say that I enjoyed the spunky female reporter who leads the investigation into the mass bride kidnapping. I definitely got a Lois Lane vibe from her. But alas, by the end of the film she is repossessed by the patriarchy and shoved into a "loving marriage" with a man who jokes that he can't wait for her to do his laundry.

4/10

Spooks Run Wild: Phil Rosen

Seeing Bela Lugosi drive a car while in his Dracula get-up was really surreal. I guess it was kind of like seeing Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster water-skiing; it's just not something you would have ever expected to see. So at least I can take that away from Phil Rosen's Spooks Run Wild. For the most part, the film is a blasé horror thriller where the East Side Kids get trapped in a spooky mansion along with Bela Lugosi who, of course, is dressed like Dracula. The film relies very heavily on the comedic personae of the East Side Kids. And I suppose they are just as charming as ever (despite the fact that with the exception of Scruno, the African-American member, all of them are interchangeable both in terms of their appearances and personalities). There are occasional odd sequences that last from 10-30 seconds where the action will cut away to people doing one thing or another that are nearly impossible to see because the film is too damn dark! Come on, people! This is cinematography 101 stuff!

4/10

The Changeling: Peter Medak

Do you want to know my definition of a good scary movie? If I'm watching it in the dark and I have to pause it and go turn on my lights, it's a good scary movie. Peter Medak's The Changeling isn't the most subtle of horror films. Any ambiguity concerning whether or not the house is actually haunted is obliterated mere minutes into the run-time. There's an absurd moment where a victim is chased by a possessed wheelchair. And yet, The Changeling is still effective. I love a good slow-burn horror film. And to its credit, The Changeling does take its time to create atmosphere and develop George C. Scott's character. This film is just as much a touching examination of grief as it is a haunted house thriller. Medak and his cinematographer John Coquillon demonstrate excellent control over the use of space with regards to architecture and character framing. The haunted house feels spacious and empty...and somehow occupied by an unknowable something that hovers juuuuust off-screen. And hey, there are few things in this world more frightening than a dead child's disembodied voice.

7/10

Invisible Ghost: Joseph H. Lewis

The only notable thing about Joseph H. Lewis' Invisible Ghost is its wonderful set-up: a heart-broken man goes into homicidal somnambulist sprees whenever he sees the ghost of his beloved wife. The twist is that his wife isn't actually dead; she was merely brain-damaged in an accident and now lives in his basement (without his knowledge, of course), being secretly cared for by one of her husband's servants. Every now and then she manages to escape and wander off. And each time she does, her husband commits another murder...of course, there is no real explanation for why he becomes hypnotized by her image. But when has a massive plot hole stopped a D-grade horror film from getting made? The pity is that I think that a competent director could make a decent film from this plot. Maybe Hitchcock or De Palma? Or perhaps Buñuel or Jodorowsky? Regardless, Lewis was none of these. In time he would become a damn fine director in his own right, directing two of the seminal works of the film noir genre: Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955). And there are aspirations towards art in Invisible Ghost: a clever camera set-up here, a tragic close-up on Bela Lugosi there. But it's not enough to pull Invisible Ghost out of the gutter.

3/10

Charulata: Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray's Charulata is a tragedy in three parts. That isn't to say that it's divided into three acts or scenes, but rather that it follows three different interconnected storylines that all inevitably succumb to bitter tragedy. Charu is a lonely housewife who wiles away her days in seclusion reading, dreaming, and spying on her neighbors. Bhupati, her husband, is so blinded by optimism concerning politics and his newspaper that he is oblivious to being robbed blind by his brother and to the fact that Charu has fallen madly in love with his cousin Amal. And Amal? An unmotivated slacker fresh from university, he realizes that he must leave their house and abandon any hope for happiness just when he finds purpose in life in both his writing and in his affections towards Charu. There is much to love about Charulata: its gentle yet devastating examination of its characters' emotions, a wonderful song sequence a little past the one hour mark that is unlike almost anything I have ever seen in the cinema of Satyajit Ray, the wonderful swing set scene where Charu first discovers her love for Amal, and the virtuosity of Subrata Mitra's cinematography.

8/10

Millennium Actress: Satoshi Kon

Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress is a dazzling triumph of both form and function. As a piece of animation, it is breath-taking. As a story, it is heart-felt and devastating. And as a narrative, it takes bold risks and experiments with techniques that I have never encountered before. Where to start? The loving tributes to Japanese cinema, in particular the lives of Setsuko Hara and Hideko Takamine as well as classic Japanese films (most notably Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood)? Kon's seamless integrations of present-tense characters in past-tense flashbacks? The evocative art that breathes life to several different eras of history? The palpable sense of yearning on the part of the eponymous actress as she spends her life searching for a man she loves but barely knows, perpetually just out of reach like he was the Holy Grail and she the Knights of King Arthur? To watch Millennium Actress is to experience it. Joyful, melancholy, tragic, and funny, Millennium Actress is essential.

9/10

The Book of Life: Jorge Gutierrez

To read this review, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/the-book-of-life-review/42182.

4/10

Gone Girl: David Fincher

To read my article on this film, go to: http://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/amy-dunnes-one-mistake/42094.

8/10

Wolf Creek: Greg McLean

I hate Greg McLean's Wolf Creek. But it's not because of its violence or its treatment of women. First off, the film isn't even that gory or bloody. Critics who claim that it was some kind of abomination need to brush up on their video nasties. And yes, its female characters were treated in a despicable manner. But that's par for the course for this kind of movie. I hate Wolf Creek because it's boring, predictable, and worst of all, not scary. More and more I've found that when I am frustrated by a character's incompetence and stupidity in a horror film my suspension of disbelief is retarded, thereby preventing me from feeling scared or emotionally invested in the story. In other words, bad writing serves to remind me that I'm watching a movie. And the best horror films make you forget that. But not Wolf Creek. There was never a moment where I wasn't aware that I was watching a movie entitled Wolf Creek. Not even the film's impressive cinematography of the antediluvian Australian Outback could distract me from that.

4/10

Redes: Fred Zinnemann, Emilio Gómez Muriel

Fred Zinnemann and Emilio Gómez Muriel's Redes never manages to completely emotionally engage its audience beyond the usual narrative short-hand familiar to films produced and sponsored by progressive/socialist/communist governments of the early 20th century: injustices are carried out against the honest, hard-working poor, someone dies, a community struggles to fight back. I suspect this is due in large part to the film's run-time which barely makes it over 60 minutes. But what sets Redes apart is its technical brilliance. A precursor to Italian neorealism liberally peppered with Soviet-esque montage sequences, Redes is a triumph of the moving image. There are several sequences which stick in my mind: a sombre funeral for a child that takes place immediately after his father was denied a loan for hospital bills by his employer; groups of fishermen merrily pulling in schools of fish after months of empty nets; the assembled fishermen slowly and deliberately rowing to the shore of the town after agreeing to organize and fight back against their exploiters. The fact that a film like this was made in 1936 is nothing short of astonishing.

9/10

Oliver!: Carol Reed

I'm not sure if Carol Reed's Oliver! will ever get the fair shake it deserves from the critical establishment because it beat out Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) for Best Picture. And yes, that's complete nonsense. But if you go into Oliver! with an open mind, you will find a delightful (if somewhat bloated) musical. I need to use this film in the future as a litmus test to see if I am medically capable of still feeling joy. The film departs from the stark drama of David Lean's 1948 adaptation for something more akin to Mary Poppins (1964) of all things: this is a grinning London where even the chimney sweeps sing, dance, and smile with impossible white teeth. But the best part of the film is the opening of the second act entitled "Who Will Buy?" It has nothing to do with the story, but it's one of the film's best songs and helps re-energize the proceedings after the intermission. One of the main reasons why it's so brilliant is that it temporarily smashes the illusion of storybook cheerfulness to reveal that the lower classes are beaten down and weary; their cheerful demeanor is a facade that helps protect themselves from the vagaries and cruelties of the world.

7/10