Dark Passage (1947)

The structure is interesting even experimental but the plot is classic noir. Bogart and Bacall, a love born of difficult circumstances. The first 20 minutes or more of the movie is first person, you are the camera, your seeing things from the leads point of view. Bogart just escaped from prison (where he was serving time for a murder he didn't commit), only he's not Bogart yet, that's why no face. A creepy plastic surgeon gives him a new face, but he still must deal with suspicious cops, a small time crook who wants to blackmail him, and the person who really murdered his wife. Everything you could want from this kind of picture really, and in unusual packaging.

Grade: B

Capitilism: A Love Story (2009)

I think Micheal Moore is largely right; capitalism is an often cruel inherently selfish system, the problem being that none of the proposed alternative systems have really worked either. It's good to point out the problems however and Moore does a good job of this. It's right up his ally, essentially a compilation of everything he's done into one movie. He trys to confront business men, he feels sorry for poor people, he uses clips from old educational film, he gives you a sort of one sided history of his chosen subject matter. But too me he didn't come of as craven as he sometimes does. Certainly this is a critique of the statues quo that many people would benefit from hearing.

Grade: B

Tangled (2010)

It feels like it was complied from elements of old Disney films, as well as from Shrek. A kind of paint by numbers Disney film taking no risks and offering no surprises, and yet I quite liked it. Mandy Moore and Zachery Levi are perfectly cast as the lead voices, and the songs good if not great, some sounding a little over broadwayesique, as if Disney already has plans for this on the Great White Way. Possessing of the old school Disney feel, as well as a little of that winking knowing quality one found in Enchanted. A minor success.


Grade: B

Any Which Way You Can (1980), 127 Hours (2010), Top Hat (1935)

Any Which Way You Can

Clint Eastwood, an organatange, an aspiring country singer, a neo-nazi biker gang, a bunch of millionaries, crooked fight promoters, fustrated cops, scared tourists, and for good measure Ruth Gordon. Somehow this whole thing works, a surprisngly enjoyable comedy. Wait a second, this was a sequel?! Netfilx que.

Grade: B

127 Hours

Danny Boyle tells the true story of Aron Ralston, an avid mountain climber who had to cut his own right arm off after being wedged in a mountain crevasse for 127 hours. James Franco gives an excellent performance as Ralston and proves that he is one of those actors capable of holding the screen pretty well by themselves. I liked Boyle's cinematic sense for this film, though at first I wasn't quite sure where he was going with it. Combining music with Ralstons memories and hallucinations the film is able to present a character study in a rather unconventional way, and on two fronts really. I hesitate to use the phrase, but rock solid.

Grade: B+

Top Hat

The most iconic of the Astair/Rodgers musicals, clips of this film are seen in such later works as The Purple Rose of Cairo and The Green Mile. The plot, not important (can you say mistaken identity), its all about the Irvin Berlin musical numbers, the stars chemistry, and the lite comedy provided by such character actors as Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore. Beautiful art deco sets.

Grade: B

The Tillman Story (2010), Metropolis Refound (2010), The End of Suburbia (2004), Red Belt (2008)

The Tillman Story

Pat Tillman, a safety for the Arizona Cardinals famously left a multi-million dollar football deal to join the U.S. army in the aftermath of 9/11. Tillman served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and it was while stationed in the latter country that he was killed in 2004. Originally reported to have died in combat it later came out that Corporal Tillman was killed by friendly fire and that this fact had been covered up. This documentary covers the efforts of Tillman's friends and family to bring the truth about his death to light.

Some have argued that this film is too political, but I'm not sure how it could not be. The nature of the cover up and the use of Tillman's image as a symbol and recruiting tool to be exploited by people Tillman apparently didn't much like, well...

Grade: B+

Metropolis Refound

Story of how the only known copy of the complete version of Fritz Lang's 1927 silent German epic Metropolis was discovered in film archives in Argentina. Okay that's neat that they found the complete film, but we don't need a documentary about this. Even at 45 minutes this is too long.

Grade: D

The End of Suburbia (2004)

Works as a kind of companion piece to the superior Collapse. The idea of suburban living, now so entrenched in the American ethos is an unsustainable one. An inefficient use of space with neither the virtues of city or country living, the suburbs are too spread out and too removed from food production. In the aftermath of peak oil production the viability of the suburbs will plummet, and they may well become the slums of the future. A bleak outlook, but backed up by some knowledgeable sounding experts, and also by the fairly obvious fact that oil is not an unlimited resource. The film is low budget (also Canadian) and hurt a little bit by the fact that host/producer Barrie Zwicker is not a natural in front of the camera and that he is best known for his work involving 9/11 conspiracy theories. Most of the films Eisenhower era suburban footage is taken from the same Redbook Magazine promotional film.

Grade: C+

Red Belt (2008)

This really surprised me, but I should have known better its Mammet. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a former solder who now runs a Jiu-Jitsu studio and tries to live his life under a very strict code of ethics. After an accidental shooting at his studio and saving an over the hill action star from a fight at a club Chiwetel is caught up in a number of situations involving the movie star and his producer, his two brothers-in-law, a cop, a loan shark, a fight promoter, a women lawyer and rape victim, and a rigged tournament. It doesn't really sound all that good but it is, surprisingly subtle in that Mammet way. One of the most powerful closing scenes I have witnessed in some time.

Grade: A-

Tamara Drew (2010), Contagion (2011), I Married a Witch (1942)

Tamara Drew

An 'ugly duckling' has a nose job and returns to her home town looking like Gemma Arterton. No longer having a beak like nose Tamara Drew is able to sleep with a couple of men including a rock star and a popular author of mystery novels, pushing off the reconciliation with her childhood sweetheart until the end. There are also subplots about the cheating mystery novelist's much put upon wife and a visiting American English professor, as well as two 15 year old girls and there efforts to meet Tamara's new rock star boyfriend. I've been trying to think of the word to describe the mood or pace of the movie, and I've hit on comfortable. The movie is one you can just be in, the plots not that important and you don't care if it just winds along slowly, though the resolution seemed a bit too quick.

Grade: B

Contagion

Straight forward story, we've seen it before, a mysterious new virus starts up in a remote land (rural China) and spreads around the world. The handling here though is more realistic seeming then most film viruses, the virus comes across as feasible, the symptoms not of an exaggerated nature, and while it kills off tens of millions of people it doesn't apocalypticly crash human civilization (though it does cause a good bit of damage). It's like the story of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic in a contemporary context, and focuses on the outbreaks victims, profiteers, and the doctors who fight it. Films large and good cast includes Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburn, Jude Law and Kate Winslet. Dr. Sanjay Gupta cameos.

Grade: B+

I Married a Witch

Pro-generator to Bewitched. After having father and daughter witch's burned at the stake, a 17th century puritan is cursed with having all of his descendants end up unhappy in love. Fast forward 270 years and one such descendant (Fredrick March) is running for governor of an unspecified New England state. The tree that the two witch's spirits were trapped in is hit by lighting and they escape the night before candidate March's arranged marriage with the daughter of a newspaper magnate. Witch Jennifer incarnates herself as Veronica Lake (then at the height of her popularity) to tempt March and ruin his wedding, she accidentally drinks her own love potion and becomes devoted to him, much to the chagrin of her father Cecil Kellaway. Hijinks's ensue, 'true love' (though it was induced by a magic potion rendering the whole thing... odd) triumphs. Movie enhanced by the presence of Robert Benchley.

Grade: B-

Mon Oncle (1958)

Jacques Tati's second Monsieur Hulot film and winner of the best foreign film Oscar. This is a charming film focusing on the relationship between Hulot and his roughly six year old nephew. It is also a satire on 'modern' (1950's) French life. In the first shots of the film we see a pack of small dogs make there way form a warm, lived in, and slightly dilapidated old neighbourhood into a modernistic one, sterile, empty, artificial.

Hulot lives in the old neighborhood, a friendly place with vegetable carts, open air cafes and children playing in the streets. His nephew lives with his family in the new neighbourhood, one that is fastley encroaching on the old. The nephews family live in an ultra modernistic, uncomfortable seeming house. Even the yard is complicatedly laid out and overly manicured, the setting for the funniest dinner party scene I can think off.

Hulot's sister and brother-in-law desire to make him respectable, meaning part of their social circle. They try to set him up with a neighbour and get him a job in a rubber house factory, suffice it to say none of these things turn out as they hopped. The scenes with the little boy and his friends are also pretty funny, the games they play on the adults, such as whistling while hiding in a small bluff, and wagering on whether the whistle will cause a pedestrian to walk into a light post (this happens about 50% of the time). Again, warm, light hearted, sentimental in its way and quite obviously reminiscent of Chaplin's 'modern' satire City Lights.

Grade A-

Enduring Love (2004)

From the novel by Ian McEwan. Play write Joe Penhall adapted the source material loosely, a lot of changes are made from the novel but its all in service of the greater theme which must have attracted him to the work (this being Penhall's first screenplay he would later adapt The Road). Like Kubrick or Preminger Penhall took what he liked from his source material and largely adapted it as an examination of the theme from the book in which he was most interested, in this case the nature of love.

The movie starts with a spectacularly staged accident in which a hot air balloon with a man and his grandson briefly lites upon a country meadow, only to be pushed back up by a gust of wind the grandson still inside. A number of passersby converge on the balloon and try to help, as the balloon begins to rise again all but one of the men let go, that man later falls to his death. The movie then follows how a number of figures who witnessed the accident cope, and the profound effect it has on there lives.

Daniel Criag is a university professor (though its hard to grasp precisely what he is a professor of) who obsesses over the incident and pushes live in girlfriend Samantha Morton away. This is all made more complicated by the presence of Rhys Ifans a lonely man who develops de Clerambault's syndrome a stressed induced erotic obsession with Craig. Craig views Rhys at first as a mear nuisance and becomes more and more concerned as time goes on, and for good reason. Yet his own obsessions with the accident and Rhys increasing intrusions on his life are making Craig into an unpleasant man and straining his relationships. Craig's Darwin conceptions of love, Morton's romantic, and Rhy's religiously tinged all come into play in this examination of what exactly love is.

Director Roger Michell, perhaps best known for his romantic comedies, might seem a bit of an odd chose for this piece, but he works. In fact the whole direction is fascinating, the choices made, some unusual shots like those that encompass two rooms at once through doors, or the concentration on mundane activities such as eating, this all adds to something, the sense of being on an unstable brink. The whole film is an excellent mode piece with mounting almost tangibly uncomfortable pressure building. I'm a fan of McEwan's book and am happy to say this movie was up to its task, and in fact even exceeds the book in its creepiness.

Grade: A-

A Foreign Affair (1948), The Blue Angel (1930)

Leave it to Billy Wilder to dare and make a comedy set in the ruins of occupied Berlin. Jean Arthur is Congresswoman Phoebe Frost (R-Iowa 8th District) who along with a number of her colleagues travels to Berlin as part of a House subcommittee investigating the morale of American solders there. Though their official escorts attempt to put the best possible spin on things Congresswoman Frost quickly notices the high level of fraternization going on between the G.I.'s and the native Frau's. Arthur sneaks away from her escorts to investigate the situation herself and in the company of a couple of solders who think she is a German girl chances upon a seedy nightclub where the troops are being entertained by cabaret singer Marlene Dietrich (always a cabaret singer that one).

When the Congresswomen discovers that Dietrich had been the girlfriend of a high ranking Nazi, and that an unknown American service man is sheltering her from being questioned in Nuremberg, she sets out to uncover the ner-do-wells identity. The officer Arthur enlists to assist her in this search is a member of her own congressional district, Capt. John Pringel (John Lund, a little known actor for whom this film was probably his career highlight). It turns out ironically that Pringel is the one sheltering Dietrich from the authorities as the two are carrying on an affair on the down low. Now Pringel must attempt to 'help' the congresswomen track down the offending solder while at the same time secretly obstructing her efforts to do so in order to save his own hide. When Arthur gets too close to discovering the truth Lund tries another strategy, seducing the romantically inexperienced congresswomen.

In course of time Lund actually falls for Arthur but then Dietrich unmasks him as her lover. Ms. Frost is heartbroken, but Lund is not punished as his superiors intend to use him to flush out Dietrich's old Nazi boyfriend whose in hiding but whose extreme jealousy for Dietrich might flush him out. In end,well what do you think?

Wilder cynicism combines well with co-writer Charles Brackett's more polished studio sensibilities; the two had a long and successful partnership which resulted in such hits as The Lost Weekend and The Major and the Minor. Lund gets suitably exasperated and is good at playing a man caught in the middle of a no win situation; I wonder why he never really made it as a comic even romantic leading man. Arthur is adorable as always, watch how she just melts like butter for Lund in her trademark Jean Arthur way. Dietrich plays a type she'd play many times and is good at it. I love the world worn pragmatism she displays, cozying up to which ever sides in power, as Lund's character comments she goes in for whatever's 'fashionable', 'last year it was a swastika, next year who knows, maybe a hammer and sickle.'

Sly and well executed but also demonstrating that old school Hollywood heart; I'm not sure why this movie isn't a better known piece of the Wilder canon. Grade: B+

The Blue Angel, the movie that made Dietrich a star and the first of her six films with director Joseph von Sternberg, is a well regarded mini-masterpiece. Emil Jannings, who was at the time considered about the best film actor there was, plays Immanuel Rath an esteemed English professor at a local Gymnasium (college preparatory high school) in a moderate sized German town during the post World War I pre-Nazi era. Never married and living in a small rented room, Rath is treated by his students as a sort of comic figure whom they mock behind his back.
One day Rath discovers that some of his students are in possession of 'racey' pictures of a cabaret singer (Dietrich of course). The students are too young to be admitted to the Blue Angel nightclub where she preforms, so Rath goes there in the hopes of catching some of his pupils on the premises.

Rath attempts to confront Dietrich about her apparent sanctioning of the boys visits, but is essentially immobilized by the singers sensuality and simple niceness to him. He goes back to the club the next night to return some of her panties which he accidentally took from her dressing room the previous evening. Rath later attempts to protect the woman's honor by driving off a lusty sailor and Dietrich is genuinely flattered by this having not been treated like a 'real lady' for some time. Some of Raths students discover that he is genuinely love struck and ribe him about this at school; he continues to see her and some of the school authorities find out about this threatening his career. Just before Dietrich and her fellow performers are about to leave town for there next booking Rath purposes, Dietrich accepts, and whole group think having a professor with them will lend the troop an aura of class. It does not.

Years pass, Rath is reduced to selling Dietrichs racy pictures, and he later becomes the groups clown. Dietrich is nice too and genuinely found of the professor but treats him as a cuckold. At a return engagement to Raths home town the professor is humiliated, the whole community seems to have come out to see the depths to which the once great man has fallen. He snaps. He is later found dead in his old classroom.

A tragedy in the true sense Jannings is excellent at playing the slow degradation of this once proud man. Though some of the sets might be slightly surrealistic, the moves goes for realism. Rath was never a really happy man, though he had self respect. With Dietrich he thinks he has found something greater for his life, the love he's never had. He gives up everything for her, and then slowly eats away at himself; once self righteous man he is now consumed by self hate. One of the interesting things about this movie, and apparently a part of von Sternbergs style is his lack of moral judgement, and unusually rounded characters. While it would be tempting to blame things on Dietrich, it is Rath who is really responsible for his condition, and Dietrich never comes across that badly. In German with subtitles I thing this might be the oldest foreign language sound film I've ever seen. That it crossed over to America at that time and made a mark, later allowing the anti-Nazi Dietrich to permanently leave German and continue a successful career in the states, is testament to its greatness.

Grade: A-

The Divorcee (1930), A Free Soul (1931)

A Norma Shearer double header. The Divorcee begins with a group of friends and family enjoying themselves at a fishing lodge, two of this group (Shearer & Chester Morris) get engaged much to the chagrin of Shearer's would be suitors Conrad Nagel and Robert Montgomery (father of Elizabeth). On the way home that night a drunken Nagel rolls his car disfiguring Judith Wood (1906-2002) whom he later he later marries out of guilt. Shearer & Morris have a high church Episcopalian wedding and on there anniversary three years later Shearer discovers that her husband has been cheating on her with Mary Doran. Morris explains that "it doesn't mean a thing" and heads out on a business trip. While he's gone a distraught Shearer sleeps with Morris's best friend Montgomery (this is pre-code). Guilt ridden Shearer tells her husband that she's slept with some one else (thought she never reveals it was Montgomery) and discovers that he has quite a double standard about these things. They divorce, she sleeps around, he turns to drink, they are both unhappy, they get back together in Paris. The End.

Better is A Free Soul. Shearer's father Lional Barrymore is a talented but too often drunken lawyer (I'm surprised this part wasn't played by his famously tipsy brother John). Barrymore manages to get "notorious gambler" Clark Gabel acquitted on murder charges. Gable takes a shine to his lawyers pretty daughter, she takes a shine to him thus neglecting her earnest polo player fiance Leslie Howard. Barrymore gets sober enough to insist to Shearer that Gable is no good, she agrees not to see him if father agrees to stop drinking, they go on a three month excursion to Yosmitte to 'dry out'. When they get back to civilization Barrymore immediately goes back to drinking and is presumed killed in a train accident; Shearer scorned by her upper crust extended family goes back to Gable. Gable becomes too possessive and threatens Shearer, jilted lover Leslie trys to defend her, he kills Gable. Shearer realizes she really loves Leslie who now seems certain to go to prison for life! If only there were a talented lawyer to defend Leslie; Shearer stumbles over a drunken Barrymore while looking for him (hopping he is alive) in a seamy part of town (this is set in San Fransisco). Barrymore sobers up enough to defend Leslie with a 'stirring oration' in court, he then dies in front of the jury. In the coda Shearer & Leslie's future together is left somewhat in doubt, but hopeful.

The Divorcee is stylistically superior but members of 'the smart set' sleeping around gets old. A Free Soul is more conventional fair, good in the beginning, ho-hum in the middle, and stronger at the end. I think I prefer Ruth Chatterton to Shearer.

The Divorcee: C
A Free Soul: B-

The Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), I Knew it Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale (2009), Zero Hour! (1957)

The Gold Diggers of 1933

When you think of depression era musicals you should think of this, as its a depression era musical about depression era musicals about the depression. Three struggling actresses end up taking three rich men to the alter, with varying degrees of willingness on the men's part. Likable. The 'Forgotten Man' musical sequence at the end feels tacked on and clashes with the predominate mood of the film, but it really is a rather impressive Busby Berkly number. Grade: B

I Knew it Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale

Documentary on the late actor John Cazale. In addition to being a distinguished stage actor Cazale appeared in only five movies (The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter) each of which was nominated for a best picture Oscar. An intriguing looking unusually talented actor he was known for the vulnerability he brought to his performances, and the little looks and ticks he could do that just brought the soul out of his characters and added so much to his portails. Cazale became romantically involved with Meryl Streep and she was at his bed side when he died of lung cancer in 1978. Unfortunately at only forty minutes this documentary (like Cazale life) was too short. Grade: B

Zero Hour!

The plot of this 'airplane in danger' film was later lifted for the immortal comedy Airplane!. In addition to the plot about food poisoning striking the passengers and crew of a commercial airliner mid-flight, large portions of dialogue where appropriated from this film into Airplane!, making this movie unintentionally funny; even the the reluctant pilots named Stryker! Leads Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell are here on the downward slope of their carers and just look leaden and tired. Sterling Hayden in what would later be the Robert Stack role is slightly annoying, so far I've only liked Hayden in the parts he played for Stanley Kubrick. Low budget, set in Canada. Grade: C

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)

One of the most famous of the German silent expressionistic horror films (yes this implies that there were more of those). Dr. Caligari is a mysterious not particularly trustworthy looking man who displays a freaky looking Somnambulist (a fancy way of saying a sleepwalker) at a carnivale.
While unconscious this somnambuilts can tell your fortune, he can also secretly sneak out at night and kill you. He kills this one guys friend so the one guy mounts a search and eventually tracks Caligari down to an insane asylum he administers.

Odd plot, but neat looking, you can see the influences on artists the likes of Tim Burton (Cesar looks a lot like Edward Scissorhands), Terry Gilliam, and even Dr. Seuss. Arguably better then the more famous Universal monster movies that followed it a decade later. Even the title cards here are unique, though they where probably redone during the 1996 restoration of the film. I can not deny however that the film benefited from its succinct running time (70 something minutes) you wouldn't want to drag this simple story out any longer.

Grade: B+

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

A clumsy combination of western stock characters and science fiction conventions. The aliens, monolithic and uninteresting combinations of the space invaders from Independence Day and the Incredible Hulk are after gold, (pesky aliens are always after one of our resources) so they travel to the Arizona Territory in the year 1873. They blow up cows, rope in humans, and interfere with stock western plots like the cattle baron with the bratty son, the mysterious stranger, the tired old sheriff ect. (I'm surprised there wasn't a comic drunk). This feels like a combination of every summer movie though its surprisingly slow, in fact I didn't get mildly excited until the end. Waste of a good cast and potentially interesting concept. Not really bad per say, but not good. Grade: C-