The Pawnbroker (1964), Jolson Sings Again (1949), The Muppets (2011), House of Saddam (2008)

The Pawnbroker

It took American film nearly 20 years to really deal with the holocaust; the anti-anti-Semitic Oscar winner A Gentleman's Agreement (1947) doesn't even mention it, while The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) is of course not about the concentration camp experience. Director Sidney Lument broke this and a couple of other boundaries with The Pawnbroker. Rod Steiger gives a ligament contender for the best film performance of all time as Sol Nazerman, a holocaust survivor with a tormented inner life who threatens to unravel as the anniversary of his wife's death approaches. Sol's wife and children died in the camps and all he has left is the oblivious suburban family of his sister-in-law, and the wife of an old friend who was killed in the camp and with whom he is having a rather grim sexual relationship. Nazerman runs a pawn shop in Harlem, bringing him in constant contact with a whole other type of human suffering, which doesn't help him any. He has become a callused human being, just trying to protect himself, but as that moral cocoon threatens to burst this tragic figure hopes for death. Riveting. An Amazing movie, a must see.

Great


Jolson Sings Again

Sequel to the Al Jolson bio-pic The Jolson Story. It picks up where the last movie left off, Jolson's composit wife has just left him as he performs in a night club, he searches for her in vain though eventually decides her leaving is for the best, thusly the film makers don't have to pay Evelyn Keyes again. Jolson enjoys a brief come back, followed by a number of years of narcissistic self amusement, followed by performing for U.S. troops in World War II, re-marriage to a much younger southern nurse (Barbara Hale, rather sexy actually), and finally a late in life re-emergence in the Zeitgeist with the success of his bio-pic The Jolson Story. The latter sequences are odd and regressive, including Al Jolson dubbing for Alan Parks dubbing for Alan Parks, also its an excuse to show clips from the first film and thereby save money. It is what it is.

Fair

The Muppets

The fact that writer/star Jason Segel is a huge and sentimental Muppet fan is on emanate display in this nostalgic tribute to the creations of Jim Henson. In fact this has got to be the best Muppet product to come out since Henson's death more then twenty years ago. The basic plot of the Muppets trying to save their old theater has been done before as part of a Christmas special, but here it is profoundly better done and aided by the insertion of a romantic sub-plot for human characters Segel and Amy Adams. This counterbalancing of Muppet wackiness with a more conventional story acts in much the same way as did the secondary plots in the later Marx Brothers movies, providing an anchor that actually makes the true stars more impressive. The film is loaded with cameos ranging from Mickey Rooney to Selena Gomez, and contains some very well done musical work. It was a treat.

Good


House of Saddam

Joint HBO/BBC miniseries production about the former Iraqi dictator and his kin shows us how they where all just one big happy family. Not so much. It reminded me a lot of the prime time soap Dallas, only with more palm trees and executions. I loved how the names of the husbands of Saddam's two daughters were Saddam and Hussein. Production keeps the right balance between indictment and objectivity as well as a surprising amount of context for the last thirty years of mid-east history (I feel like I understand the Persian Gulf War a lot better now).

Good