Richard Widmark: 1914-2008

Girl with Green Eyes (1964)

Art house film tells simple tale of a naive young Irish women’s relationship with an older man. Rita Tushingham is endearing as the young grocery clerk, recently graduated from Catholic school and full of romantic ideas garnered from books. Peter Finch is good as the world weary and intellectual older man, who finds a brief respite with this young “fawn” in the middle of a long complicated relationship with his sometimes wife. Smart and reflective captures to very different perspectives on life as prismoid through the May-December romance. Honest ending.

The Robe (1953)

Dull Biblical epic has Richard Burton as Roman officer who wins Christ’s robe gambling, and later becomes a Christian Martyr. Overblown score, underblown plot and character development. One of the most money making films of 1953.

Fritz Lang: Circle of Destiny (1998)

Documentary on director Fritz Lang and his German language films. Like its subject the film eschews the traditional structural tendencies of most directorial profiles, its not devotedly chronological, there is no narrator, and important parts of his life are entirely skipped over to concentrate on the preferred themes. Interviews in German and English, archival footage and select scenes from the directors films, selections from musical score’s, personal anecdotes, and loads of production stills make this a collage on Lang rather then a straight documentary. As a Lang biographer says in the film, you can never really know your subject, just a little more about him. Better then expected.

Epic Movie (2007)

Didn’t take any time for Southland Tales to encounter real competition in the bad movie department. Epic Movie is of course a sophomoric spoof that simply tags a bunch of semi-recent movie references together. I of course knew it would be like this but I’d never seen any of the Scary Movie films or the like so I decided to see this one. You get what you pay for.

Southland Tales (2007)

Richard Kelly’s much anticipated directorial follow-up to cult classic Donnie Darko is a disappointment, and not just in the sense that Darko would be intrinsicly hard to compete with. This movie is bad, the first half of it constituting the worst movie I’ve seen in a year, though the second half does come close to coalescing around something, but it never quite succeeds. Perhaps overly ambitious, it is confused and fractured, though there are a few musical sequences that did something for me, and some of the foundational material was intriguing. Loads of cameo’s can’t compensate for the fact that this is a bomb. However at least Kelly can have pride in the fact that there has never been a more original bomb to my experience. Good soundtrack.

Arthur C. Clarke: 1917-2008

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Arthur C. Clarke because my dad, who is not much of a reader, apperently gorged on his work as a teen, he still has a small stack of 40+ year old paperbacks of Clarke's ficiton in the garage. Also Clarke invented the artificial satalite, lived in Sir Lanka, and is responsiable for one of the most respected trippy movies of all times, which makes him kind of awsome.

Anthony Minghella: 1954-2008

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

After ‘Mystic River’ and ‘The Departed’, South Boston is the new go-to setting for inelegant crime drama’s. The place has a distinct flavor to it that contrasts with New York, a place that has been rendered generic by its almost given statues as the background for crime movies for eighty years. Gone Baby Gone's new flavor extends to the intracencys of the story, which while at first seeming typical, twists on itself, and then twists again. It all leaves you a cunningly designed moral dilemma worthy of a philosophy class. The Casey Affleck ascendency has begun.

Away From Her (2006)

Considering the prevalence of Alzheimer’s in our modern world it is perhaps surprising that it has received relatively little attention in popular media. A major corrective to this is ‘Away From Her’ the definitive film portrait of the implications of this tragic disease on victim and loved ones alike. Fiona and Grant Anderson are a Canadian couple who have been married 44 years when the wife’s memory starts to go. Childless and still very much in love they are each others world, so when Fiona’s condition digresses to the point that she needs more care then her husband can provide, they make the difficult decision to commit her to an assisted living community. One of the policy’s of that community is to forbid new residents visits or phone calls during their first thirty days, so by the time Grant can see his wife again, she has only a vague understanding of who he is. To make matters harder on the old man, his wife develops an attachment to a fellow resident (Micheal Murphy) who is in need of constant care and becomes somewhat territorial over her.

A beautiful and heartbreaking film about love and loss and growing old, its achievement is rendered all the more remarkable in that it was directed and adapted by thirty year old Canadian actress and advocate Sarah Polly (honestly the last work of her’s I’d seen was a zombie movie). Julie Christie won a Golden Globe and got an Oscar nomination as the luminous Fiona, while Gordon Pinsent anchors the film with a soulful performance as Grant. Special notice also goes to the actress who plays the nurse. The first movie since ‘Warm Springs’ that so impressed me that I watched it again the very next day.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

The best western about myth since ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’. Taken from the true story that was so well known in the 19th century, but basically forgotten today. Ford was a James afficando, obsessed with the man since childhood and convinced that he had much in common with the popular outlaw. Fate brought Robert into the James gang when it had fallen on hard times. He befriended Jesse, worshiped the man, but became disillusioned, perhaps less because of anything James did then because he felt he would never be what he wanted to be in Jesse’s eyes. Ford killed James in an act widely considered one of cowardice, and though he made his living from those events, staring in a stage show about his act and later operating a saloon in Colorado, they eventually lead to his death, when another nobody, who felt slighted by the way James died, shot the shooter in his own bar. Eye opening tragic performance by Cassy Afleck as Ford. Mary-Lousie Parker with to little to do as Jesse’s wife. James Carville plays a Missouri Governor.

Oscar winning animated shorts

War Comes to America (1944)

Final ‘Why We Fight’ film encapsulates them all and gives us an abbreviated history of America and some Gershwin music. I’ve always found footage of that Nazi party of America rally at Madison Square Garden particularly fascinating and scary, with the arena bedecked with American flags and swastika’s and a giant painting of George Washington presiding, if you’ve never seen that you really should. It can happen here.

Kicking and Screaming (2005)

Will Farrell sports comedy with the star relatively toned down and a family emphasis. Not much to say, I liked it. As a friend said: “Any movie with Will Farrell being mean to children in it is going to be funny.”

The Battle of Russia (1943), The Battle of China (1944)

Two typically good 'Why We Fight' entry’s partly of interest in that they are American propaganda for nations that, shortly after the war, would become quite problematic for the U.S. government. This is particularly true for the film on Russia, then already communist for decades. Very little is said about the Russian revolution, and no distinct opinion is ventured on it by the American voice over. Multiple sequences that show Russians attending church services, praying, and celebrating Christmas may seem forgone in light of cold war conceptions of the Soviet State, however Stalin did lighten up on the Orthodox Church during the war years, his people needing any hope and inspiration they could get. The China entry was interesting to me in that I and most Americans, including probably many WWII aficandos, know relatively little about this important theater of the war.

A Mighty Heart (2007)

True story of the Daniel Pearl kidnaping and beheading. The Pearl's are an impressive couple, bright, talented, successful and tolerant. Daniel’s practically been sainted by the journalistic community. Mariane is something, and while at first I wasn’t sure about Angelina Jolie playing this distinctive looking women, her post racial looks and innate acting ability pulled it off. A direct and dignified film.

Be Kind Rewind (2008)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry gives us Be Kind Rewind, a film that dangles the line between good and bad more then any film I’ve seen in a while. I mean the first 20-30 minutes of the film are awful, but once we get to the ‘Sweded’ films things get better, and by the end you see that Gondry has constructed a kind of monument in honor of amateur film making. Since the point is that bad can be good if you are a part of it, the production doesn’t entirely work because a) I was not a part of it, and b) this was not some amateur film, it had Jack Black. I do have to complement Mos Def on a surprising range though, I’ve never seen him repeat himself in a performance. Some friends of mine who heard I saw this film asked me give them a definitive thumbs up or down, for the originality, and certain amount of well constructed sentimentality, I must give Rewind a thumbs up. I think I’d actually watch this one again.

Enemy At The Gates (2001)

This is a good war movie, it has all the parts. I wouldn’t quite call it exceptional however. What was particularly interesting about the thing is that while the true story its based on has the perfect makings for a Hollywood film, it of course couldn’t have been made (or at least would have had some difficulty being made) during the Cold War era. Though come to think of it commies vs. Nazi’s, on some level you win not matter who gets shot.

Cars (2006)

I didn’t expect to like this one, anthropomorphic cars seemed a step down from the bugs, fish and toy’s of Pixar’s past, plus I knew the plot was cribbed from Doc Hollywood. However the movie won me over, very sentimental, very nostalgic and good natured, in fact its down right Capraesque. All this in the form of a Disney cross promotion for NASCAR, you now it has to be pretty decent for me to swallow that synergy.

Robots (2005)

Children’s CG film from the makers of the Ice Age franchise. Good natured story about the worth of everybody provides nice message for the kids, and impressive retro production design for everybody else. Good voice cast. Kind of traditional in a number of ways.