Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948)

The first oversea's film to a win a best picture Oscar. Undoubtably Academy voters were attracted by the prospect of honoring something different, something "legit". It was the prestigious nature of the film that attracted the votes, and the originality of the presentation. Evocative of German expressionist cinema, the movie is overtly theatrical, you feel like your watching a stage play on an impossible set. Still there are more accessible versions of Hamlet, though here I’m rather impressed with the way the play-within-the-play was handeld, as well as the finally. Three out of Five.

The Silence (1963)

Like Winter Light this is also part of Bergmans faith trilogy, though less overtly Christian in its themes, and to me less resonate. Sisters Esther and Anna are returning home (presumably to Sweden) from a vacation with Anna’s son Johan. While traveling by train Esther becomes sick to the point of coughing up blood, to give her some time to recover they stop in a strange, never identified country, that appears to be on the brink of war. Staying in a grand though almost empty hotel, the sisters revel themselves as a dualistic coupling, Esther the intellectual, almost anaseptic, Anna the earthy, and overtly sensual (in its Yin-Yang the film is almost Buddhist). They have a love/hate relationship with each other, unable to truly communicate, a recurring theme in Bergmans work. Foreignness and separation abound, with young, innocent, curious Johan serving as the films link to the possibility of a hopeful, better future. Well done, but also not something I fully connected with, three out of five.

Burn After Reading (2008)

This latest Coen brothers movie attempts to do for the espionage picture, what The Big Lebowski did for film noir. As you may recall Lebowski was about an L.A. area slacker who gets involved in a story line in which he had no business being in, namely an over-complicated often obscure Raymond Chandler-esque mystery. In Reading we find three employees from a D.C. area gym (Hardbodies) inserting themselves into the world of espionage, blackmail and adultery, a world in which they are far from competent enough to be playing in. The movie, is uneven. It starts out kind of broad, and eventually takes an almost jarring turn into dark territory, becoming No Country For Old Men-like in its violence. Though the darker second half in may ways works better then the relatively lighter first, it also feels kind of uncomfortable, because of the way the dimmer characters are massacred, both physically and psychologically. Like this summers Hancock, Reading also has the feeling of two different films trapped in one movie, though in this case an uneasy alliance between the two holds up, unlike the near literal surrender of the first film to the second in the Will Smith vehicle. Burn After Reading is in any case a great showcase of character actors, and should be used to aid in the casting of other movies. The funniest scenes here where the few between David Rasche (let him be rediscovered please), and J.K. Simmons, as the CIA big wigs trying to figure out just how the employees at Hardbodies got mixed up in this mess. A lot of the other humor falls flat. In spite of this I liked the move enough to give it a 3 out of 5, even an unsuccessful Coen brothers film is more interesting then most other contemporary movies.

Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

Lose adaptation of the Jules Vern novel is an epic adventure spectacle. Affable rouge and jack-of-all-trades Mike Todd produced the film, and apparently got it made largely through force of personality. Todd begged and borrowed to finance the mammoth production, and managed to charm big name stars from both sides of the Atlantic to appear in ‘cameo roles’, a term Todd coined for this film. In all something like 40 stars appear in the movie, ranging from silent screen comedian Buster Keaton, and British stage performer John Gielgud, to gangster film star George Raft and actor/singer Frank Sinatra. David Niven plays Phileas Fogg, and a young Shirley MacLaine an Indian princes. This film, which charmed both audiances and critics and made $18 million box office, and beat out my favorite film Giant for the 1956 best picture Oscar. Two disc DVD edition includes the first film adaptation of a Jules Vern story, From the Earth to the Moon (1902), a 1968 documentary on Mike Todd (who died in a plan crash a year after receiving the Oscar for 80 Days), and numerous other special features, including a 1957 TV special built around a party Todd held for 18,000 guests at Madison Square Garden (1). Here the producer competes with his film for entertainment value. Four out of Five.

1. Which at the time would have translated to one out of every 10,000 Americans attending.

Winter Light (1962)

Ingmar Bergman’s study of a pastors crises of faith is brilliant. I have watched this movie three times in the week since it arrived via Netflix, and I continue to get something more out of it each time. It is a complicated, layered, even ambiguous film, and intentionally so. The performances of the actors and interrelations of the characters are complex and deeply human. The snowy setting in the north of Sweden, in the winter time no-less, adds to the strained and alienated subtext of the characters. The cinematography distant, the dialog often sparse, but an intensity permeates throughout. This is the first Bergman film I’ve seen with a contemporary setting, and I felt that helped me relate to it more directly then The Seventh Sign or The Virgin Spring; yet Winter Light must be called timeless as well. I could talk about this film for a long time with you in conversation, but I find that writing about it almost seems futile at this point. You need to see this film to appreciate it. I appreciated it so much that I’ve orderd up the two other chapters of Bergmans ‘Faith Trilogy’, Through a glass Darkly , and The Silence, and shall see those both real soon. I may write a longer post about all three films in the future. Again, I love this movie. Five out of Five.

Sheen Gems: The Best of Fulton J. Sheen (2005), His Irish Wit and Wisdom: Fulton Sheen (2006)

Respectively highlights from, and three complete episodes of, the long running television programs of Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979). A Bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, Illinois native Sheen was a philosophy professor and the author of 73 books. Bountifully blessed as a communicator, Sheen was a broadcasting natural, possessed of a rare magnetism that draws the viewer in, as well as a slight penchant for theatricality (watch how he uses his robe). I myself was utterly captivated by the man with in minutes, of course I was a communications major so I’m perhaps extra appreciative of fine speechmanship. Sheen seemed a kindly and warm hearted man, with a mischievous smile and excellent mental recall, yet when aroused by some moral issue he could speedily transform his soothing vocal into a thundering roar of conviction and moral indignation. In short a very dynamic, and fascinating gentleman, who had he pursued another course in life could have been a great politician, news, or entertainment personality (and no doubt he was all of those to some extent in his life). Bishop Sheen is currently being considered by the Catholic Church as a candidate for Sainthood. So if you know little or nothing about this man, I recommend you check out some of his material, you should be dully impressed by his performance and deliver if nothing else (though his messages are largely non-denominational). 4 and 3 out of 5 respectively.

Trivia: The actor Martin Sheen adopted his current last name in honor of the good Bishop.

Tropic Thunder (2008)

You know I’m rather impressed with just how on the money this film was. It’s an action/comedy, a send-up of the Vietnam war epic, and perfectly suited for its late summer release, when audiences are ready to have the explosion field behemoths they’ve been watching lambasted. Yet it is also a knowing satire, perhaps even deceptively brilliant, in that it captures the present state of the film industry as accurately in its satire, if not in its artistic merit, as Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd. did, nearly sixty years previous. Stiller accomplishes this through his presentations of types, the fading action star, the method Oscar hog, the gross-out comedian, the rapper aiming for cross over. These all could be rendered rather surfacey, and this film doesn’t escape that problem entirely, but even the characters of shallower pool are given something of a deep end.

Stiller has an ability to display a sympathetic insecurity, and the endearing drive of a character of limited ability to succeed. His Tug Speedman develops in his humanity in a way so natural to the flow of the film, that I’m only fully appreciating it upon reflection. Robert Downey Jr’s Russell Crowish, Kirk Lazarus is a brilliant performance, and loads of fun to watch, yet it evokes Peter Sellers tragic character dependency in ways both spelled out, and more subtle. Jack Blacks drug dependent gross out comic, and Brandon T. Jackson’s closeted rap star are less intricately developed, but effective renderings. I also quite enjoyed Jay Baruchel as the unknown young character actor in the film, and the groups anchor to reality.

The film of course takes its plotting from that old chestnut device of characters (not at first) realizing the situation they are in is real (The Three Amigo’s, The Man who Know to Little, Galaxy Quest). Yet this device is a well suited vehicle for what the film wants to accomplish. The humor here is in many parts quite funny, and often gross out, but there’s enough lite pathos and moral complexity to bring this near Judd Apatow territory. Agent Matthew McCongaughey’s moral dilemma over whether to save his friend and client of 15 years, or take the insurance money and the jet the studio promises if he remain silent about their plan to let Speedman die, actually felt legitimate to me. This movie works on both levels, which is almost amazing. Lastly I must mention Tom Cruse as the harry and foul mouthed executive Lou Grossman, just when you think he can’t surprise you anymore. My kudos to this smart crowd pleaser, 4 out of 5.

Anita Page: 1910-2008

Rambo (2008)

Stallone returned to this franchise, much as he did to the Rocky series in 2006, with a kind of epilog. The most reflective Rambo movie since the original finds our protagonist living in self imposed exile in Thailand, hunting poisonous snakes to be used in dubious ‘sporting’ competitions. Along comes a group of Christian aid workers from Colorado, who want to hire out Rambo and his boat to take them into war torn Burma, so as to service the persecuted Christian minority there. At first Rambo demurs, but a sincere, blond 6th grad teacher prevail upon him to act as there escort. Seeing them passed river pirates to their destination, Rambo leaves the naive Christians and returns to Thailand. Several weeks later the Christians pastor arrives with some mercenaries, he wants Rambo to fairy these hired strong man back into Burma to rescue his parishioners, who according to contacts in that countries resistance, have been taken hostage by the oppressive government. Rambo of course goes and end up saving some lives, but we’ve seen that before and that’s not what lends the movie its interest. The intriguing aspects of the film are two fold, 1) Rambo’s internal ‘spiritual’ reawakening brought on by that blond Christian, and leading ultimately to the series ending exactly the way it should; and 2) the intensity of the violence, even for a Rambo movie, and the films mediation on what that means.

To explore the second point further I refer to a sequence fairly early in the film. Rambo is transporting the Christians by night into Burma, they pass some nasty river pirates in the dark partying. Rambo tells the Christians to remain perfectly silent as their boats attempts to creep past unnoticed, this fails and they are besieged. Rambo tries to work something out with the pirates, they can take any money or supplies they want, but they are most interested in the blond. So, Rambo kills the pirates, thus preventing the rape of the young women, and the probably painful deaths of all the other missionaries. Now one of the missionaries, a doctor, protests this violence in the strongest terms, yet ultimately he was a supreme beneficiary of Rambo’s combat skills, in that he got to remain alive when he otherwise wouldn’t. So what do you do in a situation like this? It is the pacifist dilemma, what to do when violence is your only way to survive against the onslaught of pure evil? This is fairly waity for an action movie, and indeed so is the setting, highlighting the appalling and under reported situation in Myanmar. Stallone ratches up the violence to communicate this state of affairs, and it is affective, though rendered with digital effects that draw undo attention to there status as effects. Though I must complement how the main Burmese villain is that right kind of emotionally dead evil you expect from a war lord. I like were Stallone went with this film, though like the second Rambo it just seems lacking in places for the audience to emotionaly invest, we can be horrified by the carnage we see, but on a personal level the characters we are suppose to care for give us very little, much like Rambo in conversation. So a not fully realized though valiant effort, three out of five.

In a World without Don LaFontaine....