The Small Back Room (1949)

A rare black and white film for this late in the Powell/Pressburger cycle, The Small Back Room is based on Nigel Balchin’s well regarded, and obviously rather internal novel. The story concerns Sammy Rice (David Farrar in a deceptively well balanced performance), an explosives expert working in one of those “small back room” scientist outfits in World War II. Suffering from immense pain as the result of an artificial tin foot he forces himself to wear, Sammy is working to suppress a latent alcoholism with the support of his apparently live-in girlfriend Susan (played by the elegantly beautiful Kathleen Byron). The film is so intriguing as a character study that you hardly feel it needs the lose plot about booby trapped Nazi bombs until the end of the film, when the need to defuse one serves as the catalyst for Sammy dealing with a lot of self confidence issues. I love the lighting in the film its beautiful, the visuals a match for The Archers better known Technicolor films. The sense of place is also remarkable, as is often the case in Powell/Pressberger films England herself is a character of sorts. The movie is also quite dark and racy for the time, giveb issues of alcoholism, psychological fetishes (Sammy insisting on keeping his painful artificial foot on, even when alone with his girlfriend), and the sexuality of Sammy’s relationship with Susan, telegraphed rather boldly for the time. I’ve watched this movie three times already and it just gets better with each viewing, simply more first rate work from Britons fabled Archers. Thumbs Up.

Avatar (2009)

Somehow James Cameron has pulled it off again. Like Titanic, Avatar suffered some bad early press, excessive cost, mishandled early advertising, relatively untried leads, and a general sense that the project was too grandiose, the director a little delusional. Though the writing is not to much above George Lucas, the truly breakthrough special effects, imaginative conceptualization, likeable leads, and untaxing story make Avatar work (not unlike the better, early George Lucas movies). This is one of those event movies that actually deserves to be an event movie, see it in 3D its worth the extra money, in fact I’m having a hard time imaging seeing it without the glasses. I think this film may cement Cameron as the De Mille of our time, he knows how to do spectacle that people want to see, and I think word of mouth is going to do wonders for this picture at the box office. Not a perfect movie, but enveloping in its fantastic sense of place, and boasting of some genuine old fashioned excitement. A bit of a pleasure. Thumbs Up.

Note: Plot felt like an odd cross between The Mission and Silent Running.

Christmas in July (1940)

This rather short Preston Sturges film (running time 67 minutes) plays like a cliff notes version of every other Preston Sturges film: Misunderstanding or con propels pretty girl and (in this case rather bland) lead into ever escalating comic situations, thusly exasperating various scene stealing character actors, and also William Demarest has to be in it. Not his best, but pleasant enough Sturges film succeeds in its brevity. Mild thumbs up.

Darwins Nightmare (2004)

Documentary about how *&%#- up Tanzania is. The films title is a reference to how the introduction of foreign fish into Lake Victoria threatens to destroy the natural eco-system, and how the precious fish based economy has saddled that nation with all sorts of unintended human fall-out as well. The major fishing companies are run by Indians, who pay Russians to fly out the fish. The Russians and others sleep with the prostitutes, many of whom become prostitutes after their husbands die in the dangerous fishing industry. The prostitutes get AIDS and die and many of there children turn to drugs. Preachers come and try to save the children, but their opposition to condemns helps spread the AIDS that kill the mothers. It’s all a very sad tale, rendered more so by the rather human portraits we get of various business men, pilots, prostitutes, orphans, and even a rather intriguing former solder turned security guard. We may now never get to see an anti-creationist documentary by this title, but the shear relevance of this Darwin’s Nightmare more then makes up for it. Thumbs Up.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Spike Jonez dared to make a “children’s” film around the concepts of emotional pain, frustration, and disappointment in family & relationships, it worked and I want to thank him for it. Based (loosely) on Maurice Sendak’s beloved 1963 children’s book of the same name, Where the Wild Things Are is not a conventional children’s movie. I think the film provides an access point for children to rougher emotional issues, kind of ‘your child’s first existentialist movie’ (if you don’t count WALL-E). There has been some debate about how suitable this movie is for young children, if they can take it (as it is a little intense at parts). The two children I saw come into the theater with their mother (ages about 4-6 or so) seemed to sit through it fine, rarely talking, however its hard to even guess at an emotional reaction (though I suspect if I’d seen it at that age I would have been profoundly affected).

The Wild Things, big CG enhanced Muppets our protagonist Max (Max Records, who’s so natural he hardly seems to be acting) meets and is briefly king over in the ‘fantasy’ run-away sequence that constitutes the bulk of the movie, are complicated balls of fuzz and abandonment issues. It is through the Wild Things, whose larger then life qualities, and tendencies to wear their emotional insecurities close to the surface, that Max is able to gain a deeper sense of empathy and a better understanding of the emotional dynamics of others in his own ‘broken home’ (Max’s dad, divorced from his mother, is an unseen presence throughout the film). The film has a wonderfully mature and honest way of speaking to children on an emotional level, and that is to be appreciated when so much of kids entertainment is entirely surfacy. But the movies other accomplishment is how it can bring that child’s perspective home to adult viewers, and mabye even serve as a sort of emotional catharsis. I expected this to be great, and because of those standards perhaps wasn’t quite as emotional affected as I wanted to be, but it was affecting and moving in a reflective way, and combining that with its visual triumphs you have something defiantly worth experiencing in a theater. See it.

Also, good to hear Lauren Ambrose's voice again, under-used, under-used.

The More the Merrier (1943)

My viewing the other week of Talk of the Town reminded me just how great a director Geroge Stevens is, and prompted me to want to see another of his comedies (I’m more versed in his later, post war dramas). I had heard in a documentary that Frank Capra was a tremendous admirer of Steven’s 1943 film The More the Merrier, which took the war time housing shortage in the Washington D.C. area and used it as the conceit upon which to build a romantic comedy. Government employee Jean Arthur is forced to take in two male boarders at her apartment, retired millionaire (Charles Coburn) and a solder/engineer (Joel McCrea) on special assignment. The former boarder decides he’d like to see the latter boarder hitched to their landlady as he’s not a big fan of her bland fiancée (Richard Gains). The film takes awhile to get going but later has its moments, however the picture remains uneven and a little awkward throughout. I felt they had about 70% of a movie here but largely botched the remainder, leaving those scenes either to slow, undeveloped, or even kind of uncomfortable (Arthur and McCrea’s shotgun marriage). It’s not a bad film per say, but I can’t bring myself to recommend it when you can see the aforementioned and superior Talk of the Town, which has something of a similar underlying premise anyway. Not recommended.

Blowup (1966)

In many way’s a good companion piece for A Serious Man. Director Michelangelo Antonioni’s first English language (and second color) feature is (among other things) a rumination on swinging 60’s London (this is a very Mod film) and the callowness of youth. The story concerns an unnamed young photographer (David Hemmings, giving off something of an Oskar Warner type vibe) who photographs vapid and emaciated looking models for the money while holding to a pretentious dream of being of being an important, artistic photographer. One day Hemmings follows a May-December couple in a park hopping to get some slice of life shots, and ends up witnesses to something he doesn’t fully understand. Later blowing up (hence the title) segments from the pictures he took he begins to piece together that he may have been a witness to an attempted, or even actual murder.

The film however dose not really focus on this vaguely mainstream thriller sounding premise, rather it’s a character study, chiefly of Hemmings, and a fascinating encounter with the youth culture of London at that time. The film takes you places you haven’t really been before, even if you think you have, and judging by the critical notices the film got at the time (lots of accolades) it wowed many a professional movie watcher. The film is still well thought of now, I chose to see it simply for further building of film literacy and didn’t expect to like it much, but I was really impressed. It’s a pleasurable film to look at, something about Antonioni’s obvious talent for composition is overwhelming, and brings an incredible sense of life, time and place to what he shoots. Look at the sheer greenness of the park, marvel at the juxtaposing of ugly beautiful modern housing complexes, and beautiful ugly old stone shops. Notice how the parade of overly thin plastic women we see early in the film makes the pleasantly pretty Sarah Miles stand out as the films most pleasant and arguable redeemable female character (or character of either sex for that matter). Also marvel at the documentary quality of the film, that its about swinging 60’s London yet Antonioni clearly has mixed feelings about his subject matter, and he isn’t afraid to present this fact to us. Marvel at Hemmings amoral reaction when he realizes what he saw in the park that day, then watch with mixed frustration and expectation as he proceeds to dither about it. A most impressive work of art, not quite like anything else I’ve seen. Thumbs Up.

A Serious Man (2009)

Early in the film physics professor Larry Gopnik (the unknown Micheal Stuhlbarg in a career making performance) explains to one of his less gifted students that the illustrative stories he tells in class are not really ‘physics’, just parables designed to illuminate principles that even he doesn’t always fully comprehend. That brief moment helps explain a lot about A Serious Man, the Coen brothers most recent film, and their most satisfying and philosophical ‘comedy’ since The Man Who Wasn’t There.

Set among Jews in suburban 1967 Minnesota, the Coen’s for really the first time (with the arguable exception of Fargo) mine their formative environment for story setting. It’s a marvelous recreation, free from the overbearing, forced sense of history present in many films set in the past, the film is not so much nostalgic as it is an incredibly detailed rendering of a time and place, largely free from sentimentality or value judgments of any kind. The story line bares obvious and intentional similarity to the Book of Job, as ’everyman’ Gopnik is subjected to an unremitting stream of every possible hard ship: At home his wife wants to leave him for his best friend, his son’s smoking pot, his daughter emotionally distant, his brother who is living with them suffers from an unremitting neck cyst and appears to be involved in some illegal activity. On top of that one of his students is trying to extort him, he gets into an auto accident, and on the eve of his review for tenure his department keeps receiving unsigned disparaging letters about him.

Gopnik tries to take solace in family, friends, religion, and legal and medical professionals, but all are found wanting. The possibility exists of starting an affair with the sultry neighbor whose husband is always away on business, but being a moral man Larry will not try, and even his dreams give him little respit. In fact its his innocence that most troubles Larry about his situation, he could understand it if he were a bad man and deserved to be punished, but as he keeps protesting throughout the film, “I didn’t do anything!” This I think is what the film is about, the unfair ordeal, the constant stream of seeming punishments that is life, and in so being is consistent with the Coen’s generally dark world view. Smart, subtle, satirical, stylized, and near Talmudicly layered and dense, this is one of the best and most literate of the brothers work, surpisingly funny, and one of the best films of the year. Thumbs Up.

Hollywood Ballyhoo (1982)

Presumably made in the early days of the home video market as a kind of sampler and general introduction to the films and stars of Hollywood’s golden era, this loosely styled documentary places an emphasis on the ‘ballyhoo’ school of movie publicity (film premiers, stars birthday parties, promotional material). Hosted by David Steinberg the films highlight is several minutes worth of outtakes from 1940’s Warner Brothers pictures featuring the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, and Betty Davis swearing. Just the enjoyable kind of slip shod curio I find oddly comforting. Thumbs Up.

Talk of the Town (1942)

School teacher Jean Arthur must hide wrongly accused arsonist Cary Grant in the attic of the home she’s renting to law professor Ronald Colman. Smart, satisfying screwball comedy is wonderfully well constructed and bears obvious tonal similarities to the work of Frank Capra. Grant and Colman’s friendly sparing a real treat. Movie very effective at keeping you guessing which of the two leading men Arthur will wind up with, though I personally would have liked to see her end up with the other man. Still, very satisfying. Thumbs Up.

Mary of Scotland (1936)

Historical drama suffers from the worst excesses of the genre, especially those made in this period, its over talky, thin and boring. Hepburn’s good but doesn’t feel quite right in this setting, where as March is playing below himself as a sort of low cardio Errol Flynn. Surpasses Drums Along the Mohawk as John Fords most disappointing film, save Wagon Master. Thumbs Down.

Surveillance (2008)

This is a bloody, violent, often unpleasant indi suspense thriller co-written and directed by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David. Jennifer may well be more twisted then her father, she's certainly bloodier and even less interested in reassuring endings then dad. While David tends to the surreal in his horror, Jennifer seems to emphasis the real. This film about the investigation of a string of serial murders in a small Nebraska town indicts its victims while humanizing its killers, no one escapes clean. At first I thought the whole thing excessive, but then came to realize that there is more subtlety here then I thought, and was impressed as well with the unexpected intricacy of the film making, as well as how riveting Lynch could make some rather unpleasant scenes. Better and more provocative then I had expected, it managed to win me over through pure artful mendacity. I Approve.

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Disney (non-Pixar) animated film about an orphan boy with a talent for inventing, who travels into the future and befriends a family of eccentrics. I thought this film was just too hyper-active and slim on story, it also seemed oddley dated and remincenst of Frank Capra's Oscar winning 1938 film You Can't Take It With You. Ultimetly Saturday morning cartoon material that does not warrent a motion picture. I disapprove.