Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

*Spoilers*

It is the most anticipated movie of the year, and then some. It is the sequel fans have been waiting for since 1983. It is the contemporary master of nostalgia cinema J.J. Abrams take on the holy grail of franchises. It's buzz tremendous, it is being eagerly greeted as a spiritual experience perhaps greater then a personal visited by Pope Francis. It is Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and it is good, maybe even real good, but its not great.

A recent article on Vice tagged this movie as 'the least interesting Star Wars yet', and I think that nails it, though a statement like that requires some unpacking. Lucas's prequel trilogy to his original set has come to be nearly cinematic shorthand for failing expectations. To those who grew up on the original films the lead up to the release of Episode I: The Phantom Menace was heady times indeed. We were stoked in 1999 that Lucas would again give us a big screen Star Wars experience, that wasn't just a slight reediting of the first three films liked he'd given us in 1997. There was denial I think at first for many us, the movie just wasn't that good, and the two that came after it also not on par with the original now sacred trilogy. We blamed Lucas, and to a lesser extent Hayden Christensen. The master had gone astray, seduced by the dark side much as Anakin had been. But Abrams would be our Luke Skywalker, he would rescue the franchise, he would restore balance to The Force. And he did, kind of.

It was in many ways an unenviable challenge and perhaps Abrams was the only name you could attach to the property to put people at an instant ease. He had a way with these things, he was a turn around artiest, be they franchises like Mission Impossible and Star Trek, or neglected genera types like 80's style family adventure movies (Super 8) or to a lesser extent monster destroying city pics (Cloverfield). Abrams could make things cool, Star Wars was inherently cool, so it shouldn't be a problem for him. But the task at hand, the job he confronted was what do we, both he and us the collective audience, want these new Star Wars movies to be? It is a question that in-fact I still don't know my personal answer to. But I know the answer that most people seem to have had, they wanted more of the same, they wanted the feel of the original trilogy back, and they go that. Episode VII feels like one of the first three films, more specifically it feels like Episode IV, but more on that later.

Abrams took the safe choice, the popular choice, he avoided risk. This is what Disney no doubt wanted of him, he took the road more traveled and that made all the difference. In his prequel trilogy Lucas let his creative energies fly, not just in the visuals, harbingers of our excessively computer soaked blockbusters of today, but in the story. Lucas sought to expand the universe of his own creation, taking it places in the era of Clinton and Bush II that he couldn't have gone in the time of Carter of Regan. The prequel movies were opened up, they were free of the constraints of the earlier productions in terms of sets and scope and budget. Naboo was impressive, so was Coruscant. We were seeing the mythologiesed  past of The Old Republic only hinted at in the original trilogy. We were seeing a Camelot, were Jedi Knights had been the guardians of galactic order for ages. We were seeing the seeds of destruction planted as they paved the way for the collapse of the old order. We were seeing the story of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, a sort of hero's journey in reverse the paved the way and added more context to the mythic Joseph Campbell hero's journey of Luke in the original trilogy. Lucas took a risk in telling that story, he could have just continued with the original cast (Harrison Ford's schedule permitting) and people would have eaten it up (as they are now). We knew the end of Anakin's story, why did we need to see the beginning?

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The Unknown Known (2013)

In 2003 documentarian Errol Morris won an Academy Award for The Fog of War, his film about former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. A decade later Morris released The Unknown Known a documentary about another former Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The two films and the two men serve as odd mirror images of one another. While McNamara was deeply troubled and repentive about the role he played in the escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War, Rumsfeld shows no such signs of regret or introspection about the Afghan and Second Iraq War, save on a few relatively minor points, but on the whole he thinks he did right. While The Fog of War stands on its own I couldn't help but see The Unknown Known (title is Rumsfeld speak for things 'we thought we knew but turns out we didn't) only in relation to the earlier film and its subject. This film is Rumsfeld narrating his life's journey, from Congressman, to Nixon aid, Ford confident and Secretary of Defense, to foreign policy trouble shooter under Regan and a return to the Defense Secretary post just months before the tragedy of 9/11. Through it all Rumsfeld shows his single minded determination, and ability to get himself placed in favorable positions. Indeed much of this was true also of McNamara, but he had a sense of self criticism and introspection that Rumsfeld seems to lack. Not the Donald Rumsfeld, in many ways a very smart man like McNamara, has no ability to self analyze, it's just that he seems capable of doing so only to point, and that point, where I suppose further introspection might somehow risk his sense of self, he stops and will go no further. This is an interesting film, in some ways more interesting then The Fog of War, because its subject is to me less understandable a man then McNamara, so this film is a valuable historical document about how Donald Rumsfeld sees himself, and there is a lot to be learned from that. ***

The Daily Script

The Thing (1982)

After a disappointing experience this past October with The Thing's 2011 remake/prequel, I finally got around to watching John Carpenter's original 1982 version of the story. Now I can see what the remake was truly a pale imitation of, I've already sat through basically this same story, with roughly the same setting and similar characters, but this one was just so much better. It had a sense of life and energy to it, and certainly of originality that the more recent movie lacked. Even the special effects, though they were showing basically the same kind of stuff, namely 'The Thing' contorting human like bodies into all sorts of weird shapes, was so much more satisfying when you know its done with physically effects not computers. All this being said there was still a part of me that was tempted at the end for them to make a third The Thing movie and use modern digital effects to have a young Kurt Russell and a young Mary Elizabeth Winstead team up to fight the alien beast, but I'm pretty sure that that to would only be a pale imitation of the original, about like an alien attempting to assume human form. ***1/2

More than Honey (2012)

Swiss documentary about how all the bees are dying. Well more precisely it's about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a still only vaguely understood condition that has been effecting a troubling number of western honeybee colonies since at least 2006. It's bad, we are losing a lot of bees, and bees are very vital to life on this planet. In parts of China, as shown in this documentary, bees are basically gone, and now migrant workers are being employed to artificially pollinate orchards, a time consuming and ineffective process. There are some reasons to hope however, honeybees in Australia seem to be doing just fine, and the so called 'killer bees' or Africanized honeybee in the America's appear to be resistant to the condition that is near decimating its domesticated brethren. But beyond all that I was surprised just how little I understood about bees, how they work and the effects generations of human interface in their lives has had on them. This is a well done documentary that has some fascinating information and really beautiful shots of bees in it. Worth seeing if your at all curious about the subject. ***

Pinochet's Last Stand (2006)

BBC production, distributed domestically by HBO, Pinochet's Last Stand tells the story of how in 1998 former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in Britain while visiting for some surgery and spent 18 months fighting extradition to Spain for war crimes. Ultimately through various face saving maneuvers Pinochet was allowed to go home to Chile and never faced prosecution for his alleged crimes, including the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of people. Pinochet's Last Stand stars Derek Jacobi as Pinochet, Peter Capaldi as the human rights lawyer responsible for getting him arrested, and Anna Massey (in a piece of 'why didn't I think of that' casting) as Margret Thatcher, the former PM and Pinochet ally who helped get the man released.

While the story itself is interesting and even important, it was the first time an arrest of this nature had been made, that of a former head of state who was traveling legally in a foreign nation, its also pretty damn dry for a TV movie. The acting's good though restrained and there are occasionally interesting bits to it, like Pinochet's at first strained and later friendly relationship with the British police tasked with keeping him under house arrest, however on the whole its kind of a snoozer. There is probably a good article or two on this in some back issues of The Nation, I'd say read those, and don't bother with this movie. **

Trumbo (2015)

Trumbo tells the story of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's roughly 12-year and ultimately successful battle against the Hollywood blacklist. Trumbo, who wrote the National Book Award winning novel Johnny Got His Gun, as well the screenplays for such movies as Thirty Seconds over Tokyo and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, was an avowed leftist and member of the communist party for five years (1943-1948), yet also a patriotic American who loved his country and served in World War II, albeit not in a combat role. By 1947 Trumbo had become the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, but that same year he and nine associates known collectively as 'The Hollywood Ten' were blacklisted from work in the movie industry for their refusal to 'name names' to the House Un-American Activates Committee, Trumbo himself even spent some time in prison for contempt of congress (technically a crime we are all guilty of, am I right?).

After coming out of prison Trumbo continued to work under pseudonyms and the names of friends, even winning two Oscars that way, for Roman Holiday in 1953 and The Brave One in 1956. Mostly though Trumbo wrote and doctored the scripts for various B and below movies, the most famous and best of which is probably Gun Crazy, which I recommend. Though working in secret, if something of an open one, the Trumbo's (because the whole family was involved really) had to give up a lot of luxuries they were used to be, but they stuck together and worked through it until in 1960, with the political climate sufficiently changed and the support of Hollywood heavyweights like Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger, Trumbo's name again could appear on film as the screenwriter of such blockbusters as Exodus and Spartacus. The blacklist was effectively over and Trumbo would continue to write films (including a personal favorite of mine Papilon) before dying of a heart attack at the age of 70 in 1976.

Bryan Cranston plays Dalton Trumbo, and its a great performance, he is going to at the very least be Oscar nominated for this (and if he wins will become only the second person to win an Oscar for playing an Oscar winner, after Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator). Trumbo was a man with a very distinct way of talking, a distinct look and a distinct bearing, Cranston captures all of this wonderfully, impressing me and giving me yet another reason to finally watch Breaking Bad. The large supporting cast is good and its hard to pick out just a few performances for comment, though Elle Fanning's and Louis C. K.'s are to me probably the most memorable. Though do any JAG fans want to comment on what they think about having David James Elliott play John Wayne?

Trumbo is a smart film about a smart writer, but the thing I appreciated most about it was that it was an optimistic film, and Trumbo an optimistic man, in the face of everything he was up against. It's just so pleasant to see something smartly written and positive, there's a lot of well written stuff out there, and a lot of positive stuff, but those two things don't overlap as much as I'd wish so it's really refreshing when they do. ***1/2

The Conspiracy (2012)

Canadian independent film distributed by XLrator Media. I had heard good things about this movie, which is why I decided to watch it, but the previews for other XLrator fair the proceeded it were enough to cause me some worry. However The Conspiracy rose above the bad action/gimmick ethos of its movie trailer brethren. I was actually impressed by it, I think they got a lot out of the limited budget/resources they had, and even had some mildly interesting things to say, the movie was certainly smarter and better put together then might be expected.

The Conspiracy is about two friends who decide to make a documentary together about a local conspiracy theorist, but when that man disappears, suddenly under mysterious circumstances, one friend finds himself drawn into the world of such theories, while the other remains skeptical, at least at first. The movie is presented in the form of 'the documentary' the two ultimately make, which I don't think entirely worked but mostly does. This movie reminded me chiefly of two films 1) Primer, by virtue of its limited budget and story about two friends whose side work project gets totally out of hand, and 2) The Devil Rides Out, by virtue of secret ceremonies in the woods and stuff. Said ceremonies are the center piece of the pictures longish and surprisingly tense climatic sequence. The movie does a great job of being about as artistically strong a film as its story and budget could possibly permit it to be. If director Christopher MacBride ever makes another film, I'd certainly consider seeing it. ***

Pitfall (1948)

Mediocre and forgettable film noir about a married insurance exec (Dick Powell) who gets involved with the girlfriend (Lizabeth Scott) of an embezzler (Byron Barr) who is the object of obsession for a P.I. (Raymond Burr), and that's the girlfriend he's obsessed with, not the embezzler, just clarifying. Weak, pointless, there is really no reason to bother with this movie. It's sad how quickly Miss Scott's career landed in the doldrums after a promising start in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. *

Big Stone Gap (2015)

In the spring of 2000 I served for six weeks in and around the community of Big Stone Gap, Virginia as part of my LDS mission. One of the most picturesque and charming little towns I spent time in, I was there right around the time the novel Big Stone Gap first came out. Said novel was by a town native named Adriana Trigiani who had previously been a writer on The Cosby Show and A Different World before becoming a novelist (I really do feel bad for anyone whose career is tied to Bill Cosby's). Set in 'the Gap' in the late 1970's BSG is the story of a 40ish town spinster of Italian extraction who never really felt like she belonged and finally finds true love and answers about her past after discovering a trove of letters that had been sent to her late mother. The novel was quite successful and as of now has spawned three sequels. Full of quirky characters, humor and a pleasant love story the novel was well suited to be adapted as feature film, so it's a little surprising that it took so long to come to the big screen.

I suspect that the reason for this however is that Trigiani wanted to make sure that the thing was done right, and she did, both adapting her own novel for the screen and directing the thing. Trigiani managed to put together a wonderful cast to bring her odd ball collection of character to life. Said film stars Ashley Judd as lead character Ave Maria Mulligan (perfect casting), Patrick Wilson and John Benjamin Hickey as her two love interests, and Whoopi Goldberg and Jenna Elfman as her two best friends Fleeta and Ivey Lou. Anthony LaPaglia also appears enjoyable cast against type as the preternaturally calm and soft spoken Spec Broadwater. A few characters from the novel are left out, like the two town handymen, but most everybody else makes at least a short appearance.

To me one of the most interesting things about the film is that it was shot in the actual Big Stone Gap, a town I haven't been in in 15 years, but one so small that I recognized much of what I saw on screen. It's a weird experience seeing a house you distinctly remember knocking on as a missionary up on a movie screen. Big Stone Gap is an enjoyable film of limited scope that is in no hurry to get where its going, a lot like the novel it was based on. While I preferred the book this is the next best thing. **1/2

Experimenter (2015)

Bio-pic about the famed social psychologist Dr. Stanley Milgram, whose early 1960's experiments at Princeton University showed that almost all Americans were willing to subject a stranger to painful electrical shocks if asked to do so politely by a man in a lab coat. This work provided great insight into the human disposition towards obedience to authority and is now discussed in almost every college level introductory psych course, including the one I took in 2003. These experiments were to shape and define the life and career of Dr. Milgram in ways that he likely could never have anticipated, in fact it said that he never expected the results of his study to show nearly the level of blind obedience to authority that they did. These experiments both made Milgram's career and in a way limited it, despite a great deal of interesting research he conducted subsequent to the Princeton study, and which are well depicted in the film, that early work would always define his career and legacy, and give him a strong association with things Orwellian. In fact Dr. Milgram was never in greater demand on the lecture circuit then he was in that ominous year 1984, ironically the same year in which he died, he was only 51 years old.

Milgram is plaid quite well and with convincing detachment by Peter Sarsgaard, his wife Alexandra "Sasha" Milgram is played by Winona Ryder, who doesn't have that much to do in this role but it was nice to see her on the big screen again just the same. The rest of the cast is rounded out by a great number of well known actors in small supporting parts, many of them as participants in Milgram's most famous study, including Jim Gaffigan (kind of a perfect part for him), Anthony Edwards, John Leguizamo, and Taryn Manning. Dennis Haysbert is also in the film briefly playing actor Ossie Davis, he does a wonderful job of capturing that actors voice and presence, and no I'm not going to tell you why Ossie Davis would appear in a bio-pic about Stanley Milgram, you'll have to find that out on your own.

While Milgram and his work are very interesting in and of themselves, as the subject matter for a movie they have their limitations. The arc of Milgram's life in some ways lacks dramatic heft, at least of the type one generally associates with the subject of biographical film. Yes Milgram was frustrated by the way in which his career had been "typecast", but he was always able to get work in his chosen field, and for the most part seemed to have a happy and successful marriage, his widow of 30+ years Sasha never remarried and even briefly appears at the end of the film, which I think says something.

The filmmakers seem to have been aware of these limitations and sought to compensate for them in part through stylistic flourishes in presentation, which to my mind met with mixed results. Having Sarsgaard narrate the film and speak directly to the camera works, having a literal elephant walk behind him in a hallway when he discuses how being Jewish made him particularly interested in the concepts of blind obedience because of the Holocaust, that kind of works though pushes it, but having him and the other actors in color against a blown up black and white photograph of a living room when visiting the home of a colleague he's not too found of, well that mostly felt silly and a little pertinacious. The fake beard Sarsgaard wears through much of the film, also silly, but also kind of entertaining.

Experimenter is an interesting but uneven film which I was expecting to be better then I ultimately thought it was. A little too arty, a little too abstract, it never achieves the level of emotional connection with the audience that I was hopping for. Still, it's consistently interesting and at times even insightful.  **1/2

Black Mass (2015)

Eighteen years ago Johnny Depp played an FBI agent infiltrating the mob in the movie Donnie Brasco, now in a weird bit of symmetry he plays a gangster infiltrating the FBI in the new(ish) movie Black Mass. Like Donnie Brasco, Black Mass is based on a true story, specifically it is based on the 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill. It is the story of how James "Whitey" Bulger used his position as a secret FBI informant to rise from a relatively minor figure in the Boston underworld to become the most powerful crime boss in Massachusetts, before going into hiding and successfully evading authorities for 16 1/2 years. Bulger has become a larger then life figure, perhaps the seminal American gangster of the 2nd half of the 20th century, he was the basis for Jack Nicholson's character in the 2006 Oscar winning film The Departed, and along with his successful politician brother William M. Bulger inspiration for the 2006-2008 Showtime series Brotherhood, both of which I would recommend.

The casting of Depp, a talented actor who all too often falls into self-parody is at the same time perfectly logical and thoroughly unexpected. This is a part that in another time or another universe would have gone to Ray Liotta, and I kept thinking of Liotta throughout the picture, even coming up with the tag line "Johnny Depp is Ray Liotta as Whitey Bulger". Now that could be seen as a put down to Depp, but its really not, its a testament to that fact that Depp is so good in the role that he hardly registers as acting, or even as being there. Depp is Whitey Bulger, and Whitey Bulger is the kind of character Ray Liotta would play in a movie, hence this weird trinity.

This is violent movie, it can be rightly criticized for that violence. It is a movie that makes a real life monster its central character, and by virtue of the way dramatic narratives work the viewers surrogate, which brings with it a certain level of implied sympathy. Though it delves into the darkness of Bulger, and how that darkness evolved over time (there is a certain murder he commits a little more then halfway through the film which is so clearly unnecessary, whereas his previous murders had a certain internal logic to them, that it forces the audience to acknowledge what an awful guy they've been following) it none the less can't help but in some ways glamorize him. I mean look at all the things he was able to get away with, and how long he got away with them, there is a reason movies have been made about this guy, he was very good at what he did. In a final, but less weighty piece of criticism, I've seen a lot of mob movies and this movie didn't break any new ground, as awful as these real life evils where, I felt I'd seen them before, and that lessened the impact.

But the central performance stands, while the supporting performances are largely sufficient if not much more then that, I feel the movie was over cast with recognizable names. A competent movie, but one whose very existence is kind of disconcerting. Why make this movie? Why did I see this movie? Not for lofty reasons, but because sometimes we like to vicariously see bad people do bad things. We probably shouldn't. The strongest emotion this movie invoked in me was that of unease. ***

Silver Bullet (1985), Graveyard Shift (1990)

Silver Bullet is a lesser Stephen King adaptation based on his novella Cycle of the Werewolf. It's set in a small Maine town in the 1970's and is about a sister (Megan Follows), her brother (the late Corey Haim) who rides a supped up wheelchair dubbed 'The Silver Bullet', and their drunkard black sheep uncle (perfectly cast as Gary Busey) who must stop a particularly prolific werewolf who is slowly decimating their town. Kind of an odd film, its B-movie like, fairly violent, rated R and featuring teenagers as the leads (real teenagers, not 20 something pretending to be teenagers), so I'm not sure who the target audience is supposed to be. Also staring Everett McGill and Terry O'Quinn. **

Graveyard Shift is a bottom of the barrel Stephen King flick based on one of his earliest published short stories. In short Graveyard Shift is about a rotting, rat infested old textile mill in Maine which is not only run on the extreme cheap but has a carnivorous monster living beneath it. The movie is not good, its pretty slow, boring, and has some of Stephen Kings least interesting, least complex, and most annoying characters. It also doesn't seem to have a point beyond pure horror, and it's horror is not well executed. I feel like the people who made this film managed it about as well as the characters managed the textile mill. To me the most interesting thing about this movie is that the lead David Andrews looks a lot like a former boss of mine, one who could have run that mill a whole lot better. *

Ghost (1990)

Ghost was a tremendously successful film when it came out in 1990, so ubiquitous and popular that even at age 10 I was well aware of the film and in broad outline what it was about. Of course the famed "pottery scene" is legendary and I remember seeing it spoofed in one of the Naked Gun movies. Still I made no particular effort to see the film until it came up in a recent conversation with a friend of mine who mentioned that he thought it had some interesting things to say in the realm of metaphysics. So I watched Ghost and thought it was pretty good.

The story is of the unrequired love between a recently murdered banker (Patrick Swayze) and his artist girlfriend (Demi Moore), who now may be in danger from (25 year old spoiler) the bankers best friend (Tony Goldwyn) who was responsible for Swayze's murder. Being a ghost there's not much Swayze can do about this until he discovers the ability to communicate with a con woman psychic (Whoopi Goldberg, who won a supporting actress Oscar for this role) who turns out to be actually a little psychic after all. Sure the plot is cloying but its likable, and with a surprisingly intense climax.

I to liked this movies depiction of the afterlife, it didn't feel dated (as often happens with cinematic portals of the hereafter) but was a rather timeless take, and one fairly compatible with Mormon conceptions of the great beyond, which I think is part of what my friend liked about it. Vincent Schiavelli's "Subway Ghost" is quite the interesting and ambiguous character. I can see how Ghost was so popular, it has a little something for everybody and was smarter and more insightful then I had anticipated. ***1/2

Specter (2015)

Before last week the last James Bond move I'd seen was The World is Not Enough, in the theater, in 1999. It's not that I don't like James Bond, it just that I'd only seen three of them in their entirety, the first three Brosnan ones. Watching all the Bond films in order has long been on my cinematic bucket list, but I kept not getting around to it. It was the prospect of Christoph Waltz playing the villain that was finally enough to pull me out of Bond movie retirement. So I'm sad to say that I was a little disappointed.

The opining action sequence in Mexico City is as good as anything you've ever seen in a Bond movie. It was remarkably well staged, the scale just massive, it felt like there we tens of thousands of people in it, it alone is worth seeing the movie for and got my expectations for the rest of film fairly high. Sadly the rest of the movie did not live up to that opening. It's not a bad movie, it's quite watchable, for the most part I enjoyed it, but it just felt a little weak, especially given the high marks I've  heard accorded to the earlier films in the Daniel Craig cycle. Perhaps this movie would have been more satisfying as the (presumed) conclusion to the Craig cycle (there certainly were a lot of references to the early films that I couldn't get) then as a standalone, but again from what I hear that is not the case.

Craig is a fine Bond, Lea Sydoux, this outings Bond girl is just gorgeous and more then adequately talented, and I liked the new Miss Moneypenny and Q (I can't believe I'm the same age as Q). Christoph Waltz is more then game, but he lacked enough good speeches and his evil plan could have been better, I mean playing as he did the 'he-who-must-not-be-named' villain. Oh yeah, Ralph Fiennes is in this, he's good to. But the story felt tired, we've been here before, it was almost shockingly paint by numbers, none of the big reveals were big reveals. The whole thing seemed very workman like, you got the requisite Bond thrills, but nothing deeper, I was hoping for, and felt that I had been lead to expect, more. Again I enjoyed it, I'd say its worth seeing, but the more I reflect the more I feel a little let down. ***

Pet Sematary (1989)

Pet Sematary, the 1989 film based on the 1983 Stephen King novel of the same name owes its origins to when "In 1978, King returned to his alma mater, the University of Maine at Orono, to teach for a year as a gesture of gratitude for the education he had received there. During this time his family rented a house on a busy road in Orrington. The road claimed the lives of a number of pets, and the neighborhood children had created a pet cemetery in a field near the Kings' home. King's daughter Naomi buried her cat "Smucky" there after it was hit, and shortly thereafter their son Owen had a close call running toward the road. King wrote the novel based on their experiences, but feeling he had gone too far with the subject matter of the book, he discarded the idea of having it published. However, needing a final book for his contract King reluctantly submitted it to Doubleday on the advice of his wife Tabitha^[3] and friend Peter Straub.^{[4]"-Wikepida}

Knowing this backstory you can really see how these various elements feed into the fictional narrative, which is about a young doctor, his wife, two kids and cat who move into a rural Maine home when he takes a job at the local university. The house is on a busy road which has taken the lives of many local pets who for decades the children have buried in a nearby "pet sematary", the misspelling of the name being a nod to the fact that the spot was originally established by children. The story is at its heart about the difficult and unpleasant (though ultimately necessary) task of explaining death to children, and the understandable childlike desire to reject death. The pet sematary itself is ultimately a kind of starting point for exploring these ideas, with the mystical spot in fact being beyond the pet sematary (Beyond the Pet Sematary might have been a more accurate name for this story) in an old Indian burial ground which you find out early in the film, with the help of an affable neighbor played by Fred Gwynee (best known as Herman Munster, whose presence is in my opinion is the best thing about this movie, and I'm not putting the movie down in saying this, I'm putting Fred Gwynee up).

Once this ancient cemetery has proven its ability to bring a pet cat back from the dead it opens the question of doing the same with a human, and when our leads youngest child is killed by a truck on the dangerous road in front of their home, well the ground has been lade for a creepy climax. I really liked this movie, it had an excellent and distinctive mood to it, I liked the cast, I liked the story and the ideas behind it, I liked the dark humor of it, like the angel who still sports the disfiguring injuries that resulted in his death as he attempts to influence the Creed family away from messing with the dark powers that lie 'Beyond the Pet Sematary.' There is some great existential dread to this piece of work, yet its also enjoyably watchable. Recommended ***

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

I've wanted to see Koyaanisqatsi for many years now, so when an opportunity to see it on the big screen at BYU's International Cinema came up I took it. Koyaanisqatis is a very original, very unusual movie, it lacks any traditional narrative, I suppose you'd call it a documentary but perhaps a better description would be a film collage. Images without narration take us from the pristine desert of the American South West (all the footage in this film appears to have been shot in the U.S.) to nuclear explosions there, to industrial and commercial buildings, traffic jams and dirty streets in New York and Los Angeles, snippets of radio and television, people filling through train stations, the mass production of everything from automobiles to snack cakes, the pace of the images, of life and the world going increasingly faster and faster. As I watched these images in their relentnless procession I knew the film was making me feel something, and feel it strongly, but I couldn't quite tell what that feeling was, that is until the end when in text on the screen they tell you what Koyaanisqatsi means, its a Hopi language word that translates loosely as "unbalanced life", which is what the films presents, our ultimately unsustainable economic and human order of the modern world. One element of the film which I found fascinating, and which by its nature wouldn't have been part of the viewing experience for its original audiances was a weird sense of nostalgia. The world presented in the film is the world of the very early 1980's, the world of my first dawning of conciseness , the outfits the cars etc are of a past, but that past is just a forerunner of our present, everything we see in the film is still happening today, only even faster. Koyaanisqatsi is a film to be experienced, to be in a way soaked in, and seeing it on a big screen only helps that experience. The soundtrack by Philip Glass is probably his best and most iconic work. Koyaanisqatsi is really a great work of both art and commentary. ****

No Escape (2015)

When I first saw the previews for No Escape I thought of some friends of mine who are currently living in Thailand with their family, it looked to be the closet thing I'd ever see to an action film staring Jackson and Lisa, unless you count Red Eye, which is an action film staring characters named Jackson and Lisa. Anyway No Escape stars Owen Wilson and Lake Bell as parents who move their family to a never named south-east Asian country that boarders Vietnam so Wilson can take a new job after the company he worked for in Texas has gone out of business. Well the day they arrive there is a coup, the corrupt prime minister is murdered, and many armed locals go about the city killing any foreigners or collaborators they can get their machetes on. Wilson and Bell then must do everything in their power to protect their two young daughters and stay a step ahead of the mob, but is there No Escape? Maybe.

This was a very intense movie, it takes 20 minutes or so for the action to really start but once it does it is relentless and often terrifying, truly a horror movie. Our lead couple eventually gets some help from a mildly drunk, womanizing British business man they first met on the plan, he is played by Pierce Brosnan so I don't think its a big spoiler to say that he is more then a mere mildly drunk, womanizing British business man. My experience with Wilson in 'serious' films is limited but I hated Behind Enemy Lines, though I don't mind him in this film and am also happy to see that Lake Bell is getting more work. There's not many films of this type, at least that I have seen, so I found No Escape refreshingly original in premise, and as I said quite intense. I'd recommend it, but know what you are getting into. ***

Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986), Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990), Bates Motel (1987)

So a couple of weekends ago I decided to go through the various Psycho sequels, having purchased a 4 DVD pack thereof at Wal-Mart a short time prior (only five dollars). Now I've seen the original 1960 Hitchcock Psycho probably around a half dozen times or so, and while I've known about these Psycho sequels for a couple of decades it was a friend of mine expressing his fondness for them that actually got me to watch. On the whole they are better then I had expected.

The first Psycho sequel, the economically titled Psycho II came out in 1983. At the start of the film Norman Bates (played of course by Anthony Perkins, because there would be no point in making these films without Anthony Perkins) "is released from a mental institution after spending 22 years in confinement. Lila Loomis (Vera Miles), sister of Marion Crane, vehemently protests with a petition that she has been circulating with signatures of 743 people, including the relatives of the seven people Norman killed prior to his incarceration, but her plea is dismissed. Norman is taken to his old home behind the Bates Motel by Dr. Bill Raymond (Robert Loggia), who assures him everything will be fine.

Norman is introduced to the motel's new manager, Warren Toomey (Dennis Franz). The following day, Norman reports to a prearranged job as a dishwasher and busboy at a nearby diner, run by a kindly old lady named Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar). One of his co-workers there is Mary Samuels (Meg Tilly [sister of Jennifer]) a young waitress. After work, Mary claims she has been thrown out of her boyfriend's place and needs a place to stay. Norman offers to let her stay at the motel, then extends the offer to his home when he discovers that Toomey has turned what had been a shabby but respectable establishment before Norman was committed into a sleazy adult motel.

Norman's adjustment back into society appears to be going along well until "Mother" begins to make her presence known. Norman gets mysterious notes from "Mother" at the house and diner. Phone calls come from someone claiming to be Norman's mother. The next day, a drunk Toomey picks a fight at the diner after Norman fires him. Later, a figure in a black dress stabs Toomey to death with a kitchen knife as he is packing to leave the motel. As Norman begins to reconstruct his motel, he begins to doubt his sanity when he begins hearing voices in the house. He enters his mother's bedroom to find it looks exactly as it did 22 years ago." - (from Wikipedia). And so it goes.

While kind of slow at first this film improves as it goes along and does a really good job of making you unsure what's going on. You don't know, for the longest time, if Norman is going back to his old ways, if he's hallucinating, if someone is killing in Norman's name, and that is a lot of what makes the movie satisfying. So I'll limit my spoilers to one that is basically unavoidable considering that there are two more 'canonical' sequels in this franchise, so whatever Norman may or may not have done murder wise through the bulk of the film, by the end he's a killer once more.

Psycho III is probably the weakest entry in this series, not bad per say but not great, though interestingly it was actually directed by Perkins. This film attempts to give Norman a legitimate love interest, but what kind of legitimate love interest would Norman have? Well in this case a shy young nun who has just renounced her vows after accidently causing the death of a sister. Said ex-nun is named Maureen Coyle, same M. C. initials as Norman's most famous victim Marion Crane, this girl even looks like Crane, down to build and short blond hair. Maureen Coyle is played by Diana Scarwid, the same actress who played Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest, thus on a subtle level enhancing the "mommy fixation" aspect of the Psycho franchise. By the end of this film Norman is again to be committed to a mental institution, which makes it a bit surprising to find him out of the hospital at the start of Psycho IV.

Psycho IV: The Beginning has an interesting structure, most of the film is presented as conversations Norman has with a talk radio host (C. C. H. Pounder) accompanied by flash back depictions of Normans difficult childhood in which he is played by Henry Thomas (Elliott from E.T.) and his mother Norma by Olivia Hussey (best known as Juliet in the classic 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet). Hussey's characterization in this is so sensual that you can understand why Norman would be so messed up when it comes to sex. So this film explores a lot of the same territory that I image the A&E series Bates Motel does, I haven't seen that series but I want to more now that I've seen this. This final canonical movies gives some good closure, but also opens the way for more possible sequels, which of course never happened in large part due to actor Anthony Perkins death from AIDS in 1992.

The final entry in this Psycho four pack is Bates Motel, not canonical with the other Psycho movies in this set Bates Motel is a 1987 TV movie intended as the pilot for a proposed but never produced spin off Psycho TV series also to have been titled Bates Motel. In all my decades of watching movies I don't know if I've ever encountered one that got the source material more wrong then did this film. The story "is about Alex West, a mentally disturbed youth who was admitted to an asylum after killing his abusive stepfather. There he befriends Norman Bates and ends up inheriting the infamous Bates Motel."- Wikipedia.

Alex West is played by Bud Cort, an odd fellow who is best known for playing Harold in the cult hit 1971 Hal Ashby comedy Harold and Maude. After spending the bulk of his life in a mental institution, where he is mentored by Norman Bates no less, Alex is let free to go a run the Bates Motel by himself, this seems like a bad idea not least of all because Alex has basically no real world experience, how is he supposed to run a motel by himself? The movie doesn't even go in the expected direction of Alex picking up were Bates left off as a serial murder, but rather purses a strangely lite and awkwardly goofy tone, with Alex befriending a number of misfit characters including a Jersey run away (Lori Petty) and black handy-man who once worked for the Bates (Moses Gunn), and they proceeded to run the motel together, after having it significantly remodeled through a loan they were able to get because the Bates Motel land has significantly appreciated in value over the years.

It is apparent from this pilot that the proposed series was not even to have been primarily about Alex and his staff, but rather about the guests in the motel in a kind of quirky Highway to Heaven or Fantasy Island sort of way. This movie/pilot even features a woman saved from suicide by the ghosts of dead teenagers! What on earth does this have to do with Psycho? This is nothing like Psycho! In fact it feels more like this was supposed to be just a quirky show about a motel that got the Psycho tie in grafted onto it as a way to secure funding, it is basically a betrayal of its supposed source marital. Difficult to watch, no wonder it wasn't picked up.

Psycho II (1983): ***
Psycho III (1986): **
Psycho IV (1990): ***
Bates Motel (1987): *

The Thing (2011)

While visiting some friends this weekend we thought we were going to see the classic 1982 John Carpenter version of The Thing, which I understand is really good, but instead we ended up watching the 2011 remake, which turns out is not very good. Both heretofore mentioned versions of The Thing are remakes of Howard Hawks 1951 movie The Thing from Another World, though hold on, in reading up on the 2011 The Thing it is apparently a prequel to the 1982 version of The Thing, I did not pick up on that. Anyway The Thing under discussion now is not very good, independent of the goodness or badness of other Things. This Thing is just kind of there. I didn't bond with any of the characters, I didn't have any emotional connection that would make any of their deaths, of which there are many, mean anything to me. I had no stakes in the game, even lead Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whom I usually like, is here pretty boring. I also didn't like the effects,  I found the CGI a little off putting, its like the movie makers thought they could make up some for all the bland characters with interesting visuals, and some of them were interesting, but on the whole even though I hadn't seen anything quite like these effects before, I still felt like I'd seen it before. Also said effects were just far too illusory, they didn't have any substance or heft, it didn't feel like it was really there because it wasn't. I think Thing movies would benefit from the presence of a physical Thing, I'll bet The Thing in 1982's The Thing is a physical Thing and that's likely part of why that Thing is probably a better Thing. So in short the only Thing this Thing did well was get me to add the 80's Thing to my Netflix Thing, I mean queue.*1/2

Crimson Peak (2015)

A Guillermo del Toro directed gothic horror, romance film with Jessica Chastain in it, yes I'm interested. A wonderful piece of mood and design, Crimson Peak invokes for me the old 'Hammer Horror' films of the middle of last century, with a distinct color pallet, an unrushed pace, and an odd sense of subtlety, even when its being completely over the top. I personally liked the story, but it's kind of slight and needed the scene chewing of the actors and strong visual sense of the film to work. The ghosts are distinctive and very del Torro, and this has got to be my favorite cinematic haunted house of all time, that set, its massive and intricate, you can almost feel the rot and dampness through the screen, and speaking of the screen I recommend seeing this on a big one, I saw it in IMAX which I am convinced is this films proper format. Mia Wasikowska is a fine young actress who anchored the film, and can really pull of those period customs quite fetchingly. Tom Hiddleston will always be Loki, but that kind of works for him in this part. As for Jessica Chastain, nice change of pace for her. Really I didn't find the film that scary, but I did find it quite fun to watch. ***

Ordet (1955)

This is the first film I saw as part of BYU's International Cinema program, it is free and open to the public and shows a large variety of films at the Kimball Tower Tuesdays through Saturdays during Fall and Winter Semesters. Ordet is a 1955 Danish language film directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, who is best known for his 1928 silent masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc, but who continued to work as a director into the mid 1960's. The film is an adaption of the 1932 play of the same title by Kaj Munk, a playwright and pastor whose martyrdom by the Nazi's during the occupation of Denmark has lead to his inclusion in the Calendar of Saints for the Lutheran Church. This is background I did not have when I saw the film, but it certainly adds context to it now that I have. Ordet apparently is Danish for "The Word" as in "The Word of God", this is a very religious film, but not in a shallow or off-putting way.

The film centers around the Borgan family, well off farmers of influence in their rural Danish community. Morton Borgan is the patriarch, elderly now he has three sons, the oldest Mikkle an atheist married to a devout and kind hearted wife named Inger, middle child Johannes, a former seminary student who went insane studying Søren Kierkegaard and believes himself to be Jesus Christ, and youngest child Anders, who is lovesick for the daughter of the leader of a local Christian religious sect with whom the devout Morton is at theological odds.The film is about faith and doubt, and has interesting things to say about the subject.

There are various crises of faith throughout and in watching the film, without much background, I didn't really know where it was going to come down on these, so for me the ending was a surprise. This could have ended more ambiguously, which is what I was anticipating as the film neared its conclusion, so its taking the stand that it ultimately did take provides a sense of religious aw that could have come off downright hokey in lesser hands. Really an impressive and moving work of art. Some strong performances and excellent cinematography.****

Captain America (1979), Captian America II: Death Too Soon (1979)

Owing to the success of The Incredible Hulk TV series CBS tried its hand at Captain America with a couple of TV movies in 1979. These films seem to have been intended to pave the way for a Captain America TV show but that series never happened, which is likely a good thing because they weren't very good. The first film of course centered on Captain America's origin story, only its not the one you know, rather its kind of the bastard son of that one. Former College football player Reb Brown plays Steve Rogers, here a former Marine whose a talented painter and sketch artist (I guess as an attempt by the screen writers to convince you this lug of a character has some depth and a soul). Rogers father was a government scientist who unbeknownst to Steve developed a formula that heightened his strength, hearing, agility etc and allowed him to moonlight as a 'super hero' derisively dubbed by his enemies as 'Captain America'. With Steve's dad now dead his good friend and fellow scientist Simon Mills (Len Birman) tries to convince Steve take his dad's serum and become the new Captain America, as said formula is apparently, and conveniently, fatal to none Rogereses. At first Steve's all like 'no', but then when an Oil millionaire with a rather stupid plan kills one of Steve's friends and threatens the life of said friends daughter, Steve's all like 'yes I guess so'. What follows are some pretty unremarkable "action sequences" and visual effects that go a good way towards supporting the thesis that doing super hero's right was beyond the technical abilities of 1970's American television. Still the network persisted and later that same year released Captain America II: Death Too Soon, which while quite a bit better then the original film, is still pretty poor and was not a death too soon for this network attempt at adapting Captain America for television.

As I said this second Captain America TV movie was better then the original, owing in large part to not being burdened by a clunky origin story. Rogers, yet again bumbing around the west coast and painting out of his van, and with a pet cat no less, is called in by Doc Mills to help when notorious terrorist General Miguel  (played by Christopher Lee, who automatically ups the watchablity factor of anything he is in) has snuck into the U.S. and kidnaped yet another government scientist. Rogers eventually tracks some of Miguel's men to a small Oregon town which they are using to test the rapid ageing chemical Miguel got from the government scientist and intends to use on the city of Portland should he not be given a billion dollars by the U.S. government. Rogers of course eventually foils Miguel with the help of a pretty widow and her young son, as well as Mills associate Dr. Wendy Day, who was played in the first film by Heather Menzies (Jessica 6 from the Logan's Run TV series as well as Mrs. Robert Urich) but in this film by Connie Sellecca two years away from playing another super hero's love interest in the ABC television series The Greatest American Hero, which by the way is so much better then these movies.

CBS's Captain America TV movies are a little interesting as artifacts of their time but not as much else, certainly not as entertainment, I was going to show these to my niece and nephews but there would be no point, they would be bored, much as I was. Unable to do Captain America right they simply tried to get a rip off version of The Six Million Dollar Man out of him, even down to having Len Birman basically play Richard Anderson. Star Reb Brown can not count acting among his talents, though his kind of reluctant, not fully engaged rendering of Steve Rogers in a way makes him the perfect Captain America for the Carter era. Still probably best to keep these two oddities down in the nostalgia hole where they belong.

Captain America *
Captain America II: Death Too Soon *1/2

Vacation (2015)

When I first heard they were going to make a kind of sequel film to the 'National Lampoons Vacation' series I was excited, but when I started hearing the early buzz and reviews I was disappointed. Still I decided that I was going to see the film because my dad loved those movies so much, especially the original and Christmas Vacation. What I got was a film that split the difference between my original high hopes and my later small expectations. Vacation takes the character of Rusty from the original films (here played by Ed Helms, whose about as good an heir to Chevy Chase as you could expect) whose now grown up and decides, against all apparent logic, to take his family on a road trip to Walley World. The movie basically takes the original Vacation film as its template, only makes it less funny and more crude, not that the original movie was without crudity. Still this movie did a really good job of capturing the essence of what the original film was about, had a (mostly) good heart and a few genuinely funny moments (one of which was so unexpected it was awesome), though there were quite a few misfires as well. In short its a mediocrity with some heart, but I was expecting much worse so I kind of liked it. **

Fantastic Four (2015)

When it comes to film adaptations the Fantastic Four really seems to be a cursed property. The first Fantastic Four film was never released, the second two Fantastic Four films, the ones with Jessica Alba and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans were surprisingly successful but also just awful, while this newest Fantastic Four movie, yet another reboot, manages to suck all the hope and life out of what are potentially some of the funniest of comic book characters. This newest Fantastic Four film is co-produced by Constantin Film, the German company responsible for all the other Fantastic Four films, including the un-released one so maybe they are the problem. Though the Marvel Studios logo appears before the film they seem to be hedging their bets as to whether this movie can truly be considered part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or not, if you search the MCU page on Wikipedia this movie is not listed as part of the continuity or master plan of that ambitious studio project.

The movie goes over the origin story again, though its a little different from previous renderings, less cosmic rays and more inter-dimensional weirdness. The lead characters are generally not that fun, seem kind of constipated, and the actors are playing too young, these characters should not be twenty years old and these actors certainly are not. Dr. Doom is not a great villain, though I suppose he could be, and the gray palate, both in tone and color becomes oppressive. The Fantastic Four should be bright, hopeful, and fun, and though at least this film makes them seem smart (the other didn't) it gets most everything else wrong. I could sit through it once, but I don't really desire too again. *1/2

Sholay (1975)

Sholay is one of the most famous and successful examples of the 'curry western', the Indian counterpart to Italy's more famous 'spaghetti western'. Though set in then contemporary India Sholay borrows a number of prominent tropes from American westerns including a lot of horse ridding, a train robbery, and a small frontier community beset by a band of merciless marauders. Sanjeev Kumar is Baldev Singh the Thakur or leader of his small high desert community, Baldev is also a former officer with the national police who, when his family and community are menaced by Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) a character that was such a good villain that in 2013 Hindi language Filmfare magazine named him the most iconic villain in the history of Indian cinema, Baldev brings in two skilled yet lite hearted bandits with whom he'd had previous dealings (as portrayed in flashback) to help him protect the community.

These two fun loving bandits, who are in many ways reminiscent of Disney's Chip and Dale chipmunk characters, are Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) the straight man, and Veeru (Dharmendra) the funny one. We get a fair bit of backstory on these two, including a roughly ten minute sequence, of very little story importance for the rest of the film, in which the pair are in a prison together under the command of a warden played by the multi-talented Govardhan Asrani who looks suspiciously like Hitler and acts suspiciously like Charlie Chaplin's spoof of Hitler in The Great Dictator. After their release from prison the two, after some convincing, agree to help Baldev defend his community, at first for money, and later out of respect for Baldev, hatred for Gabbar, and love of their respective love interests, Jaya Bachchan for Jai and Hema Malini for Veeru, Malini (who is super winning in the film) in fact later became the real life wife of Dharmendra and is today a member of India's parliament.

The film has some really interesting tonal shifts, its very lite at places but also gets rather gruesome, particularly towards the end. Being an Indian film it has a number of musical numbers in it, and they are all pretty good, with "Yeh Dosti" and "Holi Ke Din" being the most memorable, in fact you should really watch "Holi Ke Din" its like what you would imagine every Indian musical number would be like. Sholay is a fun movie and there is a reason that it is one of relative few Indian films to be fairly well known outside of the subcontinent. ***

Max (2015)

Max is a boy and his dog movie, that great staple of family entertainment. The title dog Max is a Belgian Malinois (vaguely German Shepard looking) raised since a pup, principally by its trainer Kyle Wincott (Robbie Amell) to serve the U.S. Marines in ferreting (or rather dogging) out hidden weapons caches. Max bonded so closely with his trainer that when Kyle is killed in a combat mission in Afghanistan the dog suffers sever PTSD and won't work with anyone else, this is how Max comes into the care of Kyle's teenage brother Justin (Josh Wiggins) and comes to stay with him and his parents (Lauren Graham, and Thomas Haden Church) in small town Texas. This set up, as conveyed in the films trailer, is such expert emotional manipulation that is caused me to tear up and decide to see the movie, the kind I would typically not see in a theater (even a dollar one) or pretty much ever.

The film is solid for what it is. The plot gets its further and necessary complication in the form of Kyle's childhood friend and war buddy Tyler Harne (Luke Kleintank) who is (to a certain not particularly clear degree) responsible for Kyle's death and Max knows it. Now on extended leave from military service Tyler is trying to sell weapons that he somehow managed to sneak halfway around the world from Afghanistan to a group of Mexican drug runners, Justin and Max end up finding out about this and with the help of friends Chuy (Dejon LaQuake) and Carmen (Mia Xitlali) try to stop it, chiefly by ridding through the woods on their bikes a lot. A perfect formula movie for its target demographic Max is a likable but none to challenging film. The performances are fine, the dramatic execution competent, the emotional arc is workable, and there is a good early teenage sense of adventure to the proceedings. In short Max is doing something right, because its managed to stay in the local dollar theater the entire 2 1/2 months I've been in Utah so far. **1/2

The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)

This  movie is about what film critic Roger Ebert once described as "one of the most peculiar cases of treason in American history." It is the story of two California men, friends since they were alter boys together, who in the mid-1970's kind of accidently on purpose end up selling state secrets to the Russians. Timothy Hutton is Christopher John Boyce, a seminary drop out and oldest son of a former FBI agent who gets a job working for a government contractor receiving and transmitting coded top secret communiques from U.S. intelligence assets around the world. Boyce becomes disillusioned when he learns of how the U.S. government covertly assisted in the political demise of an inconvenient Australian prime minister who was deemed insufficiently aligned with American interests. Disgusted at the behavior of his own government, and feeling that simply leaking information to a newspaper would be of only very limited effectiveness, Boyce enlists the aid of his friend Andrew Daulton Lee (Sean Penn) a modestly successful drug dealer, in finding an outlet for the intelligence information to which he has access. Lee eventually does so by selling it to the Soviet Union through their Mexico City embassy, Boyce is at first repelled by this but eventually decides to go along.

The title of the films comes from the name of the 1979 book The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage by Robert Lindsey on which the movie is based, Boyce being "The Falcon" because of his pet falcon Fawkes and Lee "The Snowman" because he was a drug dealer, and as depicted in the film liked his cocaine more then just a little bit. Boyce and Lee of course both eventually get caught and they each go to prison for a long time, though Boyce actually escapes for a while and that story sounds like it could have made a decent sequel to The Falcon and The Snowman. Strong performances from Hutton and Penn, as well as Pat Hingle  as Boyce's father and David Suchet as the two's Soviet handler, are all ably guided under John Schlesinger's expert direction resulting in a film that is sharp, moody and morally ambiguous. An impressive work and sadly a somewhat forgotten one.  ***1/2

Tomorrowland (2015)

Tomorrowland has not had a very successful theatrical release, which is really too bad because we should have come trust its director Brad Bird by now. Bird specializes in making smarter then usual family films with lite philosophical lessons like The Incredibles, Ratatouille or The Iron Giant. Tomorrowland certainty fits into this type, but I recognize it would have been a hard film to market, from the previews one is not fully sure what its about, and even watching it the 'tomorrow' element in 'Tomorrowland' is bit ambiguously rendered. Like the Disneyland land from which the movie takes its name Tomorrowland is about that old school optimistic view of the future, a kind of retro-tomorrow seemingly out of place is our apocalypse drenched pop culture of today. In fact that is more or less explicitly the major theme of the film, that we need to recapture that old optimism and work towards making such a positive future happen, or else we run the risk of making our worst visions of tomorrow a self fulfilling prophecy. Ultimately the journey the films protagonist Casey Newton ( a peppy Britt Robertson) goes on is more engaging then the somewhat preachy conclusion it ultimately arrives at. Still its family friendly and fun though a little bit long, and its kind of neat seeing George Clooney in a film of this type, though I couldn't fully get a read on if he was truly enjoying himself or not. Tomorrowland is certainly different from your typical family film and a worthy effort. ***

Menschen am Sonntag aka People on Sunday (1930)

Filmed in the summer of 1929 Menschen am Sonntag is the tale of four young people who spend a lazy Sunday together in and around Berlin. This late German silent was something of an experimental film and used non actors as its stars and is notable both for being one of the earliest writing credits for future film making legend Billy Wilder (his second writing credit according to IMDb), and for being a notable time capsule of German life just a few years before the Nazi's came to power. It is this latter aspect of the films notoriety that will likely resonate most with modern viewers. Really not that much happens in the film story wise, its a slice life film, mostly lite in tone, and with decidedly independent production values. The film contains many shots done in a sort of early cinema verite style, shot anonymously, often at a distance, and with most of the 'extras' unaware they were even being filmed. In short it was guerrilla film making by people still new to the movie making game, its ambition appropriately restrained but still filled with a sense of wonder, possibility, and youth. This is also what gives the film a tragic edge that it wouldn't have conveyed when first released in 1930.

A viewer of today comes at this film with a perspective that both those behind and in front of the camera couldn't have had. While they did not we do know what happens next, we know what happened after the Nazi's came to power, we know about World War II. When we look at shots of people walking down the street, or playing with their children at the beach, we know that some of these people would have voted for Hitler and his party just a few years later, we know that some of them would have become Nazi's, that some of them would have been killed by the Nazi's, and that many of them would have refused to see the truth of what was going on around them. This quality of foreboding is now inherent in any film made or set in Germany during the years running up to the rise of the Nazi State. I couldn't help but wonder if the hansom male lead became a Nazi solder, he certainly looked like ones mental image of one. I couldn't help but wonder if the sensitive dark haired girl who he spurns for your blond friend (oh the levels of unintended irony) met a dark fate during the years of the Third Reich. Seeing all these Germans, both the films knowing participants and the real world "extras" going about life around them, having a Sunday in the park, on the beach, riding the bus, buying a phonograph, just existing and living in the prelude to history's most iconic horror is a sobering, thought provoking thing. People on Sunday is a simple film, but its also an important document of the calm before the storm that tore through the world in the later decades of the first half of the twentieth century, and that more then anything it accomplished as just a work of independent cinema, is why it should and will be watched and remembered for time to come. ***

The Fantastic Four (1994)

Made primarily to help a German production company hold on its copyright on the property, 1994's The Fantastic Four holds the odd distinction of being the only Roger Corman produced film never to be released. That's right this film was never released, not in theaters, not on video, even though its exactly the kind of film my brother would have had us rent from our local Hastings back in the mid 90's. In fact for a time the film was even thought to have been destroyed, but at least one copy survived, and was further copied and in what increasingly seems the way of all things ended up on the internet. In 2005 a much more professional looking version of The Fantastic Four was finally released in theaters, but I could never get more then 10 minutes into that movie, while this lost version of FF is at least watchable, and oddly admirable when you learn the backstory. It remains to be seen however if the forth coming third FF origin movie will prove to be at least decent, my love of all things Kate Mara makes me hope so. For this original The Fantastic Four I give **

Learn more, and even see the movie here:http://www.vice.com/read/remembering-the-1994-fantastic-four-movie-that-was-supposedly-too-shitty-to-be-released-265?utm_source=vicefbus

Ant-Man (2015)

Ant-Man is a Marvel comic book character who has existed for more then fifty years, but you probably hadn't heard of him until you saw previews for this movie. Yes Marvel Studios great success and need for a steady stream of product has lead the powers that be to dig a little deeper into the barrel for characters to build movies around. That being said Ant-Man certainly has his place, he's even welcome because not only is he that rare super hero property who you don't start the film knowing everything about, but as a result of that you don't bring a ton of pre-existing expectations to the film and it can thus be easier to enjoy on its own terms. Not that the other films in the Marvel series are oppressive by any means but the tone here was refreshingly light, in part both to the script co-written by Edger Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame but also as Ant-Man is the perfect super hero character for Paul Rudd, who of course is a lightly comic actor here playing a lightly comic hero. I also liked how the story line here didn't feel needlessly out-sized, forgive the obvious joke. Ant-Man is a fun, straight forward super hero comedy that is delightfully unpretentious. Enjoyable. ***

Jaws 2 (1978)

Sequel to the iconic 1975 blockbuster Jaws, Jaws 2 is perhaps needless to say a lesser film. In fact there isn't that much to Jaws 2, its basically just a retread of the first film, a large aggressive Great White starts to feed on folks off the coast of Amity Island during the summer tourist season, Sheriff Roy Scheider wants to get right on that and close down the beaches but the towns commercial interests don't want to listen to him so more people needlessly die. Scheider is the only of the big three from the first film to return for this sequel, Robert Shaw was dead in the franchise, and then actually died a few months after this movie came out, and Richard Dreyfuss's character is said to be unreachable on an expedition in the arctic ocean. Still Jaws 2 is watchable, while the character moments were often a bit pained there is enough action and suspense to generate excitement. Passable enough, Jaws 2 doesn't fill me with a lot of hope for the later films in this series however. ***

Midnight Run (1988)

Mismatched buddy comedy/road trip movie in the 80's tradition Robert De Niro is a former cop turned bounty hunter who must locate and escort a former mob accountant (Charles Grodin) from New York to LA in a five days, or in reference to the title by midnight on Saturday. Gordin had stolen $15 million from a mob boss (Dennis Farina) and given it to charity after discovering that the seemingly legitimate firm he worked for was in fact a mob front. Upon locating Grodin , who was in hiding, De Niro must keep him safe and moving as they travel across the country dodging the mob, the FBI, and a rival bounty hunter in an effort to get him back in time to save a bail bondsman from bankruptcy. The movie goes about where you'd expect it to go story wise, though perhaps a little slower and in a slightly more restrained fashioned then I'd anticipated. Well made, enjoyable, but also not quite as deep or insightful as it may have intended to be, but only by a little bit. Still ***

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

I really enjoy Wes Anderson movies, and this one is  just about perfect. A boy and girl, both wise beyond their years at age 12, run away together on a small wooded island off the Atlantic seaboard in 1965, just a few days before a massive hurricane is do to hit the area. Wes Anderson indulges his YA sensibilities expertly and gives us a sweet childhood fantasy of young love in the best of ways. Complete with his trademark visual sense and large cast of characters, a lovely retro piece that is perhaps the best film about scouting since Follow Me Boys. I hearty enjoyed the proceedings. Most of this is good family material but their are one or two scenes which would give me a little pause about showing to youth under age 13.  ***1/2

The Green Berets (1968)

John Wayne's pro Vietnam War movie feels like a film in denial, both on the realities of the Vietnam War as well as on what constitutes an engaging viewing experience. Nominally based on a 1965 book by Robin Moore the film has been described as a sort of World War II movie in Vietnam clothing, and while such a description isn't 100% accurate it does capture the essence of this film, it does not feel quite real, almost as if it comes from another dimension or is about a different war. Wayne is an Army colonel given command over FOB near "the border" in South Vietnam, the two big action sequences are an enemy siege on the base, and after that Wayne leading his men on a secret mission to kidnap a North Vietnam general, these sequences play almost like two different movies. Worse still when there is no shooting going on its almost unspeakably boring. David Janssen appears in the film as perhaps the only American reporter to go to Vietnam as a skeptic of the war and come back a supporter, and all the other Americans in the film are squeaky clean.This production also made the mistake of filming mostly in Georgia, you should not film your Vietnam War movie in Georgia, Georgia looks nothing like Vietnam, it is not a jungle place, in a few shots you can see the leaves on the trees starting to show their fall colors. Roger Ebert put this film on his "Most Hated" list but perhaps the best summation of The Green Berets comes from Renata Adler writing in the New York Times "It is vile and insane. On top of that, it is dull." *

Jurassic World (2015)

Fourteen years after the release of the last 'Jurassic Park' movie comes this late entry in the series entitled Jurassic World, and given the records its been breaking it pretty much ensures that there will be a Jurassic Park 5, which they even did a pretty good job of laying the groundwork for in this movie. I've been a little surprised by the number of people I know who did not like this movie and I can certainly see their points, there are structural, story and character problems (or cliches) here a plenty, but it was still a fun enough ride for me to enjoy the thing. Chris Pratt is at a point in his career right now were he can make everything he does work. This film does not have the same spark the first movie had, but it manages to produce a reasonably passable imitation of one. ***

Django (1966)

Quinton Tarantino got his main characters name and cool theme music for Django Unchained from this classic 'spaghetti western' simply titled Django.  Django here is not black but rather white, though he does take on the Ku Klux Klan, as well as Mexican bandits as a union veteran in the post civil war southwest.The film features Italian actor Franco Nero as Django, as well as a Claudia Cardinale type, model/actress Loredana Nusciak as Django's love interest Maria. Most memorable among the supporting cast are Jose Bodalo as leader of the bandits and Angel Alvarez as Nathaniel.

Django starts the movie lugging a coffin around and murdering some Klansman after they kill some banditos to retrieve Maria who spurned the attention of there raciest leader Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo). Django then takes Maria to a nearby town that though practically abandoned, has become a kind of demilitarized zone between the Mexicans and Jackson's men, largely it seems because there is a brothel there, run by the character Nathaniel. Django takes up residence at the brothel then provokes Jackson and his men into attacking in mass so that he can slaughter most of them with the machine gun he's been keeping in that coffin. Django does this because Jackson was apparently responsible for the death of his wife. After laying the Klansman low Django then appears to team up with the Mexicans, but its all just part of a secret plan to steal some gold so he can start over and 'bury his old self'.

The film feels a little scattered but is still enjoyably off kilter. Django would spawn literally dozen of lose sequels that kept the characters name, but apparently not much else. Given this films obvious resonance to Tarantino I thought it would be worth a see, and it was. Not amazing, but odd and memorable. **1/2

Jaws (1975)

Besides being the film that basically launched Steven Spielberg's career, Jaws is also generally recognized as the film that inaugurated the now ubiquitous tradition of the summer blockbuster. Universal didn't have a ton of confidence in this film and elected to basically dump it in mid June (official resale date was June 20, 1975, exactly forty years ago last Saturday) with summer then considered by the industry the time of year when people were least likely to go to the movies. Well they were wrong, Jaws through a quark of timing and talent, and even technical problems (the mechanical sharks used in the film routinely broke down, forcing young Spielberg to film scenes from the sharks point of view to save both time and money, thus unintentionally resulting in some of the most iconic shots in film history), would quickly become the most money making movie of all time, not to be surpassed until the equally unexpected mega success of Star Wars two years later. For good or for ill  or a little of both 'the summer blockbuster' has been a staple of movie production and release scheduling ever since.

Based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Peter Benchley, Jaws is the story of a Massachusetts island community best by a people hungry great white during the height of the summer vacation season, and efforts of principally three men, the local sheriff (Roy Scheider) an expert shark hunter (Robert Shaw) and a young oceanographer (Richard Dreyfuss) to find and kill the beast. The film can most easily be divided into those two parts, the first part focusing on the gradually increasing incidents of shark attacks near the town of Amity and the reactions of both locals and visitors, and the second half the three leads on a small boat hunting down, and then doing prolonged battle with the deadly great white. There is dryish humor and even a little poignancy throughout, and a goodly number of jump in your seat scares. I had never seen this movie in its entirety so when a good opportunity to see the film in the theater came up I took it, it was well worth it, the big screen with an audience is really the best medium for this movie, so if you ever have a chance I highly recommend that you see it this way.

Jaws is one of those rare films that is also a legitimate turning point in cinema history, Before Jaws and After Jaws would be as good a system as any to provide world cinema with a historic axis. Jaws truly lives up to the hype that's grown around it and is an absolute must see for the self respecting movie lover. ****

Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)

Released in May of 1939, before the Second World War had even begun in Europe, Confessions of a Nazi Spy has the distinction of being the first blatantly anti-Nazi film to be produced by a major Hollywood film studio (Warner Brothers). Based on the true story of a Nazi spy ring uncovered in the U.S. by the FBI, acting on a tip from the British, the film feels more like an expose with dramatic reenactments then it does a typical movie of the period, at least until Edward G. Robinson shows up half way through to lead the Bureaus spy busting. In light of current debates over government domestic surveillance its interesting to note that at the time this Nazi spy ring came to light (1937-1938) the U.S. had essentially no domestic counter intelligence apparatus, with the FBI being brought in because there was no one else equipped to persue the case, and at least as depicted in the film not everyone in that agency felt that this was something they aught to be doing. Dramatically uneven the film benefits from having both historic and curio value, as well as Edward G Robinson whom I always enjoying seeing outsmart people in movies. **1/2

I Married a Woman (1958)

Part of the very brief American film career of "the British Marylyn Monroe" Diana Dors. Filmed in 1956 it was not actually released until 1958 because the studio that made it, RKO, was falling apart at the time and ending up closing entirely, its remaining films to be distributed by others. Nearly as generic as its name I Married a Women plays very much like the situation comedy's of its day, but with just a little added sex appeal. Dors plays the sexy young wife of a New York adman (George Gobels, whose talent impressively transcends the little he's given to work with), she just wants to tell her husband that she's pregnant, but he's preoccupied trying to save an important account at work, so predictably a series comic misunderstanding prevents George from learning he's a father to be until the last few minutes of the picture. John Wayne of all people actually has a cameo in this movie, the lead couple goes to see one of his films which amusingly is shown in color while the rest of the picture is in black and white, this is probably the films creative high point. Likable in spite of its self I Married a Women has some definite value as curio. **1/2

A Deadly Adoption (2015)

A Deadly Adoption is perhaps the driest meta-comedy I have ever seen. Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig simply made 'a Lifetime movie', and that's the joke, with different leads it would be all but indistinguishable from anything else produced by the network. Its that kind of vanity project whose primary purpose was to amuse the people that made it, most people who watch this are going to be a little confused by it. The fact that The Lifetime Network was apparently in on the joke and paid for it makes A Deadly Adoption kind of awesome. ***

Insurgent (2015)

Insurgent is the second entry in the film adaptions of writer Veronica Roth's Divergent series. The story starts something like five days after the end of events in the first movie, so its a very direct continuation of the story, but not at all a repeat of it, its very much its own thing. I enjoyed the first movie and enjoyed this one, but they are both rather straight forward films to the point that they don't have a lot I feel like analyzing. It did leave me excited at the end that in the forth coming films (it looks life the third book of the trilogy will be made into two movies, not an uncommon choice when it comes to wrapping up popular young adult franchises) we will finally get to see what's beyond the wall surrounding the future Chicago that has been the setting of the first two films. Anyway this film not only meet, but I'd say slightly exceeded my expectations for it. Good job. ***

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)

This movie is based on a 1963 novel called 'The Chase' so that should give you a pretty good idea of what its about, It's a kind of Bonnie (Susan George) and Clyde (Peter Fonda) and Clyde (Adam Roarke) story, only the last Clyde for some reason don't warrant inclusion in the title. Enjoyable in a Smokey and the Bandit type way, the film is apparently a particular favorite of writer/director Quentin Tarantino who makes direct reference to it in his film Death Proof. Certainly better then average Grind-house fair, to me it was sufficiently entertaining but not exceptional. **1/2

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Gosford Park (2001)

Gosford Park, director Robert Altman's mesh of Upstairs, Downstairs and Agatha Christie sensibilities is a film that I always assumed would be good, but didn't place much of a priority on seeing. Well I finally saw it and don't know why I waited so long. I loved this film, it just really worked. The cast is large and great, the plot and structure may seem to ramble but is actually very finally and subtly crafted. The music is pretty, the sets beautiful, the whole aura of the proceedings comfortably old fashioned yet surprisingly fresh. It was just a great watch I can't praise it highly enough. Maybe this is a sign I need to buckle under and watch Downton Abbey. ****

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Director George Miller's "revisiting" of his Mad Max franchise looks and feels like it should be based on graphic novel but it wasn't, its also way different from the Babe and Happy Feet movies that Miller's been making for the last 20ish years. I admit I haven't seen any of the earlier Mad Max films, in fact I didn't even know that this movie had the same director as those until just now. Fury Road has gotten tremendously good word of mouth among people with whom I am acquainted, and while this is not exactly the kind of thing I'd usually bother to see in a theater I thought I'd give it a chance.

Now I'm not going to lie, for the first 20-30 minutes or so I HATED this movie, much like my initial reaction to the film The Wild Bunch. It was just so crazy, fast and violent it was turning me off, it wasn't until Max joined up with the group of women he would spend the reset of the film helping to defend that I finally had a rooting interest and started to get invested. This film has a crazy energy, it won't slow down, and its over the top stylings, once I got in tune with them, were really rather enjoyable, I'd liken it to my experience seeing Grindhouse in the theater eight years ago, it was just not something I could have prepared myself for, but it was awesome. The film also has a definite feminist subtext that has been much remarked upon and which I think really helped sell the movie for me, it was insanity, but in support of a good cause. Anyway defiantly not for everybody, but an enjoyably crazy experience for those its for. With the success this movie has had, I don't think we will have to wait another 30 years for a sequel. ***

Born Losers (1967)

Tom Laughlin's quasi-iconic character Billy Jack was not initially introduced to audiences in the self titled 1971 cult classic Billy Jack, but rather in the surprisingly racy 1967 action film Born Losers. At the time unable to get the money to make the Billy Jack film that Tom Laughlin wanted to make, the actor/writer/director instead decided to cash in on the then popularity of 'biker gang films' and made this film that takes its title from the name of the fictitious biker gang which constitutes its primary antagonist. The 'Born Losers' invade in mass a small California beach town around spring break time and proceeded to wreck general havoc as well as rape a number of young women. Recently returned half-Indian Vietnam war veteran Billy Jack gets caught up in events trying to stop the biker gang, but he arguably isn't the films main character, rather young college student Vicky Barrington (played by the films writer Elizabeth James) is.

Vicky and several other girls who have been rapped by the gang are to testify against their assailants in a trial, only the Born Losers go about intimidating them one by one  into dropping out. Billy Jack manages to save Vicky from assault after her police protection is lured away in a distraction, he proceeds to try and keep her safe with him until the trail comes and the two start falling in love. But things don't turn out as planed and Billy Jack and Vicky have several confrontations with the Losers and eventually Jack is severely beaten and Vicky surrenders her self to the gang to save his life. Billy Jack then must try to convince a not unjustifiably scared local police force to help him rescue Vickie. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the films ending is that Billy Jack dose not turn into the type of action superhero that Stallone did with Rambo, Billy Jack is reasonably skilled but nothing he does here seems like it would be impossible for a real person to do and hence the climatic solution is satisfying in being effective yet comparatively understated. I found I was routing for Billy Jack more then I might for other movie heroes because his victories felt more like real accomplishments then they typically do.

This movie can be a little hard to watch in places, it pretty frank about its subject matter, but its such an a-typical and I hesitate to say almost realist action film that I just found it kind of fascinating. Billy Jack the movie would later take things even further in a unique direction but Born Losers is a worthy introduction for Laughlin's classic character. ***

San Andreas (2015)

My late father just loved disaster movies and as a result I've developed quite a fondness for the genera as well. In his tribute my mother and I went and saw this movie and we both quite enjoyed it, it does what it set out to do and does it pretty well, an old fashioned disaster outing. That being said one of the reasons I like disaster films are their cliches, and San Andreas is a beautiful monument of cliches, I will now list as many as I can think of at this moment:

The main character Chief Raymond "Ray" Gaines (played suitably by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) works in a field that could have relevance to the disaster (helicopter based rescue for the L.A. Fire Department) and he's really good at it (they have him conduct a teaser rescue at the beginning of the film to show just how good his character is at his job before the real action starts).  Ray has lost a family member (his daughter) and blames himself for not being able to save her (she drowned on a river rafting trip with him).  Ray doesn't like to talk about his pain, this puts stress on his marriage, so his wife Emma (Carla Gugino, who I honestly think looks even better now then she did in her twenty's) is divorcing him. 

Emma has hooked up with a rich developer dick played by Ioan Gruffudd. Ioan takes Ray's other and requisite hot daughter (Alexandra Daddario) with him to San Francisco, though he'd never 'want to replace what you and your father have'. When the (first) earthquake hits Ioan quickly proves himself useless and abandons Alexandra. Luckily Alexandra had just meet cute with aspiring young British architect Hugo Johnstone-Burt and his adorable younger brother Ollie (Art Parkinson), they manage to save her and eventually get her in contact with her dad who basically steals a helicopter and heads up to San Fran to save his surviving daughter, after first saving his estranged wife from off an office tower that is in danger of collapsing.

So there is couple A's journey to and subsequent search of San Fran for there daughter, who forms couple B with Hugo because of course they fall for each other. Ollie has a handy guide book to help in getting around the city as his brother was planing to show him the town, good thing Ollie didn't just download an App for that purpose like most every kid would do now days. Ray and Emma save a few people along the way but mostly this is about saving daughter and (as a consequence) daughters new friends, and surprise couple A's marriage. Daughter of course must end up very close to death at a point at which her father can save her, from drowning no less, in obvious reference to dead sister.

All this is not to mention the B plot of scientist (Paul Giamatti, Yea) who is obsessed with predicting earthquakes and manages to perfect his method just in time for the big one (though of course a close associate of his dies in the process, saving a little girl no less). In a slight departure its not so much that no on will listen to Dr. Giamatti as that he is cut off from being able to get the word out that Big Quake #2 is coming and will be even worse then Big Quake #1 because said Big Quake #1  has disabled most available communications. Good thing Dr. G. just happened to have a visiting reporter on hand at his lab (Archie Panjabi) when disaster struck.

So San Andreas is predictable fair holding few if any surprises, but it hits the high points of its paint by numbers structure well enough for me to enjoy it. One thing that I particularly liked about it is that it wasn't the whole world that was in danger, mostly just California, there has been a lot of disaster movie scope inflation over the years so a few mere 9. something earthquakes seem almost calm in compassion to the world wide disasters of Roland Emmerich and company. Maybe I shouldn't but I liked San Andreas for being what it is. ***

See Also: The Great Los Angles Earthquake, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, San Francisco, Volcano, Independence Day, The Poseidon Adventure, 2012, the complete works of Irwin Allen and Roland Emmerich ect. all.

Mr. Arkadin aka Confidential Report (1955)

Mr. Arkadin is on of those unwieldy Orson Wells character study mysteries, which now that I think about aren't all of his films on some level character study mysteries? Like so many of Wells films its origin and process of production is also unwieldy and fascinating. Originally conceived as a sort of prequel/sequel for the Harry Lime character that Wells had essayed in the film The Third Man and also in a radio series titled The Lives of Harry Lime , Wells apparently became so fascinated by the Arkadin character (which  was reportedly based in part on the real life arms dealer Basil Zaharoff) that rather then resume the role of Lime, he simply removed Lime from the story, replaced him with a similar character and decided to play the role of Arkadin himself.

A complicated French-Spanish-Swiss co production it was shot in multiple countries throughout Europe, particularly in Spain, and missed sufficient deadlines that Wells eventually had creative control taken from him and the film was edited and released in multiple versions throughout the world not getting an American release until 1962 (The version I watched was kind of a composite done after Wells death). The film concerns Arkadin hiring small time ex patriot American smuggler Guy Van Stratten (this part was originally to have been the Harry Lime character) to dig into his own background for mysterious reasons after said smuggler (played by relative unknown Robert Arden) stumbles upon some potentially valuable information on Mr. Arkadin as well as attracts the romantic interest of his daughter Raina (played by the woman who would become Wells third and final wife, they were married for thirty years, Paola Mori). There is much intrigue, death and suspense as well as interesting characters encountered by Guy as he crisscrosses the global in search of the origin of Arkadian and the source of his fortune. It's enjoyably weird, often feels rambely and improvised, but has a surprisingly taut odd logic to it that comes through at the end. Wells is a director whose innovations are so atypical that they still feel remarkably fresh even sixty years later. A more then worthwhile viewing. ***1/2