Man with the Movie Camera (1929)

As the brief introductory titles (the only ones in the film) tell us, Man with the Movie Camera is to be an “experiment” in pure cinema, unfettered from the restraints of the theatrical or literary traditions, a ‘truly international medium’. It is not surprising to see such a concept, and such a film arise out of Soviet silent cinema, it fits both the Russians pioneering use of montage, as well as the ideological considerations of that place and time. It is a snap shot of everyday scenes in and around what I believe to be Odessa. As such it proves to be a great record of the ordinary, you get to see people and things long gone, of which you otherwise would never be aware. In some respects its simplicity, showing people at the beach, or playing sports, or going for a drive, foreshadow the ‘real world segments’ of Sesame Street, which I’ve always found oddly fascinating. There’s some interesting editing and stop motion work here to, but not as much as I’d anticipated. Still an often referenced film, and thusly part of motion picture litera... I mean cinemaiteary. 4 out of 5.

Match Point (2005)

Hailed as the best Woody Allen film in a decade, Match Point is at heart a revised rendering of Theodore Dreiser ’s An American Tragedy, only here set in London. Allen hadn’t made a film oversea’s since Love and Death in 1975, in fact he has been almost exclusively a New York film maker for the past 30 years. Though many of his New York films are quite good (Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters), Allen’s movies had been suffering since at least The Curse of the Jade Scorpion in 2001. But with Match Point, even though the subject matter is still vintage Woody (this film strongly evokes his earlier Crimes and Misdemeanors as an immoral morality play), everything about it seem’s reinvigorated. Reminiscent of the praise Alfred Hitchcock received in 1972 for his return to England film Frenzy, Match Point feels like the work of a young film maker with vision, not a calcified old one prone to self parody.

It is a story of a young Irish man (excellently and cooly played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who has already pulled himself up from poverty, if not into particular wealth, via the pro tennis circuit. But Chris is unsatisfied there and leaves professional touring to teach the sport at a posh London country club, spending his free time listing to opera and reading Dosteisky. His interests combine when he meets wealthy young Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) at the club and is drawn into his wealthy family circle, before long he is dating (later marrying) Tom's sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) and working for his father (Brian Cox). The cards have lined up nicely for Chris, he has been lucky, a persistent theme of the film, save for his inability to get over his attraction to the sensual young American Nola (a sensual young Scarlett Johansson). An affair ensues, it is complicated by pregnancy, and all that Chris has spent his life building is now in jeopardy. What will this ambitious, often private, emotionally vague young man do, or more interestingly what will Woody Allen chose to do with him and his story. As An American Tragedy has already been made into one of THE great movies, 1951's A Place in the Sun directed by George Stevens, that Allen's rendering can be so present and involving speaks to the strengths of the director, the actors, the source material, and the human drama of the unknowable depths of anothers soul, even when you think you know them so well. A refreshing something new from Mr. Allen, ironicly out of something old. 5 out of 5.

Boston Legal: Season 1 (2004-2005)

A couple weeks ago I happened to watch a good portion of the final episode of Boston Legal. I had never seen the show before but understood the finale would involve a case argued before the Supreme Court and thought that sounded fun. Anyway I came to quite a realization watching that episode, namely, “Why have I not been watching this show?” This program is the true heir to The West Wing, witty smart writing, fascinating characters, discussion of controversial current issues, in short my kind of entertainment. So a little more then a week later I got the first season for cheap at Shopco, and watched all 17 episodes in about 5 days. I love this show, I am addicted to it, I’m already through disc 3 of season 2. So there’s not a lot to say other then to encourage you to give the show a chance, it’s the only way you’ll really have to appreciate it. 5 out of 5.

East Side, West Side (1949)

There is strain in the Bourne marriage, James Mason loves his wife but he cheats, you see he “just can’t help it”, especially when the pretty Ava Gardner’s around. Jesse (Barbara Stanwyck) loves her husband, but she’s weak and lets him get away with his sins. Hero cop Van Heflin would love to be Jesse’s man but says “homewreacking isn’t my beat”. Future first lady Nancy Davis is Jesse’s best friend, Cyd Charisse the model with a heart of gold who loves Heflin. It’s a great cast in what would otherwise have been just another period melodrama, had it not taken that fun turn and become kind of a police procedural at the end there, thus elevating it from 3 to 3 ½ stars out of 5. Dredgery

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)

Documentary on the life and career of the late Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). One of the giants of the directing profession he left only 13 feature films to his credit, but what an astounding collection it is, I list only those which I have seen : The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Lolita (1962), Dr. Stranglove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), and (probably my favorite) Barry Lyndon (1975). An informative glimpse on the background and work of an extraordinary, revolutionary, visionary film maker. 4 out of 5. Dredgery

Planet B-Boy (2007)

Documentary on an international break dancing competition in Germany. At first I didn’t think this movie would be my thing, but it proved surprisingly entertaining on both an artistic and human interest level. 3 out of 5. Dredgery

Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)

For me the most disappointing John Ford movie since Wagon Master. Normally Ford is great, and he does get a couple of his trademark landscape shots in this picture, but the film is felled by the usually strong Henry Fonda. He is just miscast in this movie, playing a newly wed frontiersman as a shy, uninteresting, even terminally boring figure. There was just no energy, and his character was impossible for me to connect with on any serious level. Claudette Colbert, also typically a delight to behold is only okay as the wife who at first screams her head off at the sight of a friendly Indian, and towards the end of the picture gets to shoot attacking ones. The only one who doesn’t disappoint, and who brings the film its only really energy is Edna May Oliver giving us a fun performance as a head strong frontier widow. 2 out of 5. Drudgery

Brand Upon the Brain (2007)

I think its fair to say that no director working today is more obsessed with Soviet style silent expressionism then Guy Maddin. This was true with his Canadian father, son and a beer heries film The Sadist Music in the World, and it is true of Brand Upon the Brain. Mostly silent save sound effects, a brief song, and narration by Isabella Rossellini, this is the odd tale of a house painter who returns to the island where he was raised by his disturbed parents in the company of his older sister and the denizens of the family run orphanage. Ironically the orphans seem tangential to the story which instead dwells on disturbed love and odd relationships, with gender and mother issues abounding. Told as a remembrance in 12 chapters it actually made a kind of sense up until mid-way through chapter 9 where I just could no longer travel down the same path as the movie in my sympathies. I appreciate some of this but it was like A Clockwork Orange with its stylization and boobies, but missing the good acting and point of Kubricks work. I don’t approve.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Watching a Stanley Kubrick movie is always an experience, an often intense, gripping, even hypnotic experience, and A Clockwork Orange is no exception. The director Frank Capra once wrote that Kubrick was a director of extreme talent, but who couldn’t figure out what it was he wanted to say. I would have to disagree here with Capra, I think Kubrick had tons to say, and this movie is loaded with enough social commentary and insight to warrant volumes of analysis. It is an ultra violent, extremely sexual film, boardering on porn, but also profound. Malcolm McDowell gives what can only be called an amazing performance as Alex DeLarge, a teenage miscreant living in a decaying and crime plagued near future London (1).

Following two days of explicitly depicted debauchery Alex is picked up and arrested for murder, having been betrayed by the gang mates he excessively lorded over. Two years he spends in prison, pretending to be reformed while inside nursing the violent and sexual fantasies that have always been central to his being. Upon hearing of a new experimental technic that is said to cure violent impulses and allow even the worse offenders to be safely released back into society, Alex determines to participate in this program as a way to get early release from his sentence, thinking he’ll be able to con his way through what must be a naive liberal psychobabble of a program. However a new government has come to power, and there efforts to curb individuality and control people are more extreme then anything Alex has ever experienced.

The treatment Alex is put through consists of exposing him to images of extreme violence and sexuality while gradually altering his brain chemistry so that such things make him physically sick. They literally make it impossible for Alex to act upon his baser impulses, any effort to do so is greeted by extreme and debilitating physical pain. Alex is in fact not changed, but robbed of the full extent of his agency, forced to be good for simple self preservation, a prospect that the prison Chaplin finds extremely odious to his higher Christian sensibilities. Upon his release Alex finds that not all is forgiven, and despite all that he has suffered through his former friends and victims, even to an extent his parents, desire him to suffer yet more. Unable to defend himself he is beaten by the homeless people he used to beat, by his former friends now gestapo like cops in the new government, and tortured by others in the films climax and twist, which I will not reveal to the reader.

There is much much here worthy of analyses, and both the left and right are critiqued as unable to deal with a psychotic like Alex, as both a threat and as a human being. It may be that Kubrick intended to tell us that such a person as his protagonist is simply beyond the ability of any society to properly deal with, and that unfortunately he may be the ultimate product of societal excess on either side of the spectrum. This is a touch stone film that shattered barriers and broke new ground, one of the most important films of Kubrick’s career and of the 1970's as a whole. This is as shocking today as it was upon its original release. The best summation of my feelings regarding this film could be summed up in one word: Wow. 5 out of 5.

(1) One of my favorite lines in the film is when a homeless man that Alex and his cronies are beating up, complains that with people living in space and on the moon the decay on the earth has been largely ignored. In this way the movie can almost be viewed as a counterpoint to the directors previous film 2001: A Space Odyssey, while man is exploring the mysteries of transcendence in space, the earth is reverting to a baser more primal state.

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)

There couldn’t be better source material for a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical then the lives of the titular Castle’s, dance phenoms and super celebrates of the 1910's (the Bradgillina of their time Gina Jacobs says). Vernon was a fairly successful vaudeville slapstick player when his new wife Irene redirected his career, and started her’s, as professional dancers debuting in Paris. The two ignited various period dance crazes on both sides of the Atlantic including the Foxtrot and Tango. They also seemed to be willing to put there names on just about any product, and Irene’s fashion sense and ‘bob’ haircut had tremendous affect on the look of American women. Vernon Castle died in an airplane training accident during World War I, saving the lives of two others in the act. The movies big flaw is its removal of several black individuals from there rightful places in the narrative, including the Castle’s longtime composer and arranger James Europe, and recasting faithful family servant Walter as a white man (played by Walter Brennen who’s odd characterization is kind of fun to watch). Also must give a shout out to John Quincey Adams decendent Edna May Oliver as the Castle’s agent and friend Maggie. Rather Enjoyable. 4 out 5.

The musical short Happily Buried (included on the DVD) about the strained romance between the heirs of two large waffle iron manufacturing concerns, is defiantly worth seeing as well.

Flushed Away (2007)

From the Wallace & Gromit people comes this CG flick about a Hyde Park pet rat (Hugh Jackman) flushed into the seamy world of London’ Sewers. Kept afloat by the combined personality of an excellent voice cast (including Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, and Jean Reno) in spite of an unexceptional plot. Everybody I saw it with loved the singing slugs. 3 out of 5.

Australia (2008)

Aussie director Baz Luhrmann departs from the pop-artie form of his ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’, with this sprawling and evocative epic of the rough life in Northern Australia at the beginning of World War II. Conceived as an homage to the sprawling historical epics of David Lean and others ,this films works not only as tribute (laced with motifs and references to movies, stars and directors to numerous to mention), but AS such a film. With the exception of the well played critique of Aussie racial polices of the time (personified in the amazing of performance of first time aboriginal actor Brandon Walters as a ‘half cast’ boy), this film could have been made as is in 1943, 1963 or even 1983. It’s pure classic entertainment in story and form executed to near perfection. This film is as much about the ‘old time movie going experience’ as it is about anything, and I found mine completely satisfying. 4 ½ out of 5.