Hitchcock (2012)

In 1959 Alfred Hitchcock was on top of the world, his bright Technicolor thrillers such as North By Northwest were making fortunes, he had a top rated television series and was recognized and admired all over the world. What Hitchcock wasn't however was cutting edge (any more) and that's what he wanted to be. So along comes Psycho, author Robert Bloch's novel based loosely on the life of Wisconsin murder and grave robber Ed Gein. This gruesome property was quickly snapped up by Hitch and with the weight of industry opinion against him the 'master of suspense' mortgaged his own home to get his movie made. In black and white, inspired by an unpleasant  true story, a quarter of the budget of his previous picture, little advertising, and with undertones of homosexuality and mother obsession, not to mention losing its female lead less then halfway through the story, Psycho quite unexpectedly become a phenomenal, cinematic touchstone, career highlight of a success  (Budget $806,947, Box Office $50,000,000).

Based on Stephen Rebello's 1990 non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, director Sacha Gervasi's film tells the behind the scenes story of a landmark films creation, from Hitchcock's initial desire to shatter the expectations of all he had done before, to Psycho's ultimate great success. Now Hitchcock pads things, its not a documentary and I'm not sure how much strain Alfred and wife Alma's marriage was going through during all this, and I don't much care either way because the weakness of the film is inherent in the conceit of its basic plot, its just about making a movie, and we know how this one turns out, so its not a lot to hang a 98 minute dramatic narrative on.

The best thing this movie has going for it is Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, he does an amazing imitation, with the voice, and in all that prosthetics, but I honestly think it would have been put to better use hosting a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Helen Mirren plays Alma Reville Hitchcock, she's always good and Mrs. Hitch is interesting, but the marital difficulties here feel pro-forma, I'm sure he wasn't the easiest man to live with, but I'm sure she had her ways of dealing with it, they were married for 54 years after all. Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel are eye candy who play eye candy of a different era, Kurtwood Smith plays the Breen Office, James D'Arcy suitably brings out Anthony Perkins fay qualities, and Michael Stuhlbarg is safely cast as Lew Wasserman but sadly given the perfectness of this has very little to do.

In short Hitchcock is just an okay movie about a really impressive movie. **1/2

Boise Classic Movies

Classic Nick Online

Rome, Open City (1945)

After Mussolini's ouster from power in mid 1943 it was not long before the remaining Italian government found its self no longer capable of defending the capital and declared it an 'open city', a Nazi occupying force quickly took over and held Rome until the Allies took it in June of 44'. Six months later Roberto Rossellini begin the filming of Rome, Open City based on a screen play co-written by Frederico Fellini, which came about as a fictionalized amalgam of what started as two different documentary projects, one a film about the patriot priest Don Pieto Morosini who assisted the resistance in the' open city' days and was killed by the Nazi's, and another about Roman children who fought the Nazi's during the occupation. With the Italian film industry literally in ruins Rome, Open City was made on the cheap, used real locations, and mostly non-professional actors.

The movie is a slice of life tale about occupied Rome, it tells the stories of a number of different players in the resistance, including a patriot priest (an impressive performance by Aldo Fabrizi), an atheist resistance fighter (Marcello Pagliero) and his pregnant semi-lapsed Catholic fiancé (Anna Magnani, amazing performance) as well as a group of young boys who have formed themselves into a resistance unit, but whose use of home made bombs on occupying targets ultimately draws unwanted Nazi attention to the tenement complex where most of the characters live. A very important early example of what became known as the Italian neo-realist school of film making, Rome, Open City is a dynamic, heart felt, jagged, character infused, tale of courage, all the more remarkable for the hard circumstances of its production, and its incredible proximity in time to the resistance, I mean all involved were making a movie that could have gotten them executed for treason less then a year before. An important and fantastically good film that would be an important addition to anyone's film literacy. ****

Niagra (1986)

As part of  my recent vacation I went with my tour group to a first generation IMAX theater in Niagara Falls, Ontario to watch this 41 "docu-drama" about the famous falls. Basically Niagara is a bunch of little vinyets about highlight moments in the history of the falls, including an Indian legend about its origin, the journey of a former tour boat down the river, a guy who tight rope walked half way across the falls, a middle age lady who went over the falls in a barrel with her cat, and a young boy who survived going over the falls after a boat accident on a family outing in the 1960's. Now the quality of the acting, the costuming (except for the last sequence when they didn't even try to make it look like the 60's), and the style of the music and cinematography kept making me think of the early 1990's church film Legacy, and when the first title card came up in the credits I knew why, 'Directed by Keith Merrill'.

Now my mom grew up with the Merrill family in the San Jose area of California in the 1960's, so I'm more aware of Keith's work then I might otherwise be, though growing up LDS and visiting the Legacy Theater in SLC several times I couldn't help but encounter his work. Keith Merrill was long the go to director for LDS Church produced features, they probably got the idea because this Mormon filmmaker did short touristy films for places like Niagara Falls and the Alamo. As Legacy and later The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepard would be the tourist oriented films shown at Church venues like Temple Square, the choice must have felt right. Anyway Merrill has a style that's readily identifiable, its hooky and idealistic, of a best face forward temperament. I've long been curious to see the film that won Keith Merrill his first Oscar early in his career, the 1973 documentary The Great American Cowboy (he later won a second Oscar, in this case for best documentary short for Amazon in 1997), but this early film is surprisingly hard to find.

Niagara is fine for the kind of movie it is, though since they've been showing it at the falls for almost thirty years it might be time for the local tourist board to think about updating it, Keith Merrill's probably available. **

The Velvet Mouse Show

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

This most recent effort to revive the once prominent Planet of the Apes franchise is far more successful on nearly every level then was the disastrous 2001 Tim Burton reboot. (As a side note I remember hearing in the 1990's that Oliver Stone of all people was interesting in doing a remake of Planet of the Apes with Arnold Schwarzenegger, I'm pretty sure that would have been a disaster as well, but probably a more interesting one then Tim Burton's rather pointless and uninspired effort. Moving on). Screen writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver's new take servers as an origin story or jumping off point for what 20th Century Fox no doubt hopes will be a long and success series of films, and I'm pretty sure at least one of those predicted future films will deal with the crew of the first manned mission to Mars as this movie goes out of its way to mention them although it has no bearing on the immediate plot. Also (spoiler) there is that plague the apes are immune too which is hardly dealt with in this film but will doubtless be the catalyst for the Earth becoming a 'planet of the apes'.

The plot of this movie has to deal with Dr. James Franco and his efforts to come up with a cure of Alzheimer's as his father Jon Lithgow has that tragic disease. Dr. Franco is testing the potential cures he is working on on Apes, his viral-based drug "ALZ-112' shows promise until one of the test apes "Bright Eyes" (wink, nod) goes nuts and the project is terminated with the surviving apes on the serum all slated to be exterminated. One Ape, a new born  James names Caesar, is saved however and taken home by the doctor to live with him and his father. Caesar shows that he has inherited the heightened intelligence his mother had developed as a result of James drug, Dr. Franco studies him and keeps working on his serum which he eventually gives to his father to great effect, at least temporarily. James also gets an obligatory love interest in the form of a veterinarian played by Freida Pinto (note to studios, more Freida Pinto please).

The ape Caesar is played by the Olivier of motion capture Andy Serkis and is the best thing in the film, which is rather odd when you think about it.  Much of this movie is from an apes perspective, and Caesar, a non-human is by far the most developed and nuanced character in the film. Now I'd say this mostly works, but it also kept tugging at the back of my head throughout the film as I watching a lot of humans die at Ape hands, its a weird position for a viewer to be in loyalty wise. Not great, not bad, but intriguingly original in its take on a nearly half century old movie property. ***