Strangers on a Train (1951)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Strangers on a Train (1951) – A. Hitchcock

There is something a bit unsatisfying about Strangers on a Train despite Hitchcock’s awesome technical prowess and complete mastery of the use of suspense. I’ll chalk it up to the presence of Farley Granger and Ruth Roman, a rather dull pair of lead actors.  Robert Walker, in contrast, is magnificently psychopathic as the stranger who strikes up a conversation (on a train) with Granger, offering to kill his wife (Kasey Rogers) in exchange for Granger killing Walker’s father.  You see, Granger, an up and coming tennis star, is seeking a divorce from cheating Rogers that will allow him to marry Roman, a senator’s daughter (the film takes place in DC).  Walker’s father may or may not be a tyrant – it seems more likely that Walker perceives persecution that is not there.  At any rate, Walker carries out his side of the “bargain” (again, all in his head) at a small town carnival and then pressures Granger to follow through on his end.  Of course, he won’t and Walker promises to retaliate.  The police are closing in all the while.  The suspense arrives when Granger must finish a tennis match at Forest Hills, NY, before racing back to the small town carnival to catch Walker before he plants evidence at the scene of the crime (when Walker also drops said evidence down the drain, the tension is ratcheted up even further). Indeed, Hitchcock is near the top of his game, playing with audience expectations and spiking the film with a dash of morbid humour).  If only he’d managed to get a stronger cast…but of course, his real masterworks were soon to come.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Miracle on 34^th Street (1947) – G. Seaton

When was the last time I watched this? Not for a while and certainly not with kids by my side.  We are at that time when the boys may be doubting Santa’s existence, so this movie which confronts that issue directly was particularly relevant.  They were both glued to the screen but indicated afterward that the movie was “not the best” (but it is hard to take that judgment seriously – although it could be a general disdain for B&W films as a whole).  Edmund Gwenn plays Kris Kringle who is recruited by Maureen O’Hara to “act” as Santa for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and then in the store meeting with children. However, he claims to be the real Santa and eventually falls foul of the store’s psychologist, despite passing all of the mental exams they could provide.  Fortunately, when he is assigned to a commitment hearing, he has lawyer John Payne in his corner. Payne is also romantically interested in O’Hara, who by the way has been raising her daughter Natalie Wood not to believe in Claus.  Gwenn sees it as a personal challenge to convince them – but he and Payne also have to convince the New York Supreme Court that Santa is real and Kringle is him.  Of course, they do!  I teared up a few times, I must admit. 

The Rider (2017)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Rider (2017) – C. Zhao

Bleak, sombre and somehow opaque study of a young rodeo rider who sees his dreams closed off after a terrible head injury. Brady Jandreau essentially plays a version of himself and director Chloé Zhao leaves him alone with his feelings for long stretches of the film. (This is the opaque part). He is joined by his real dad and intellectually impaired real sister, also playing versions of themselves.  All non-actors.  Brady struggles with his desire to ride again and even to compete riding broncos once more, knowing that any additional fall could be fatal.  We see him bond with horses and recognise his real talents in working with them and feel sorrow for his plight. However, we also see that fate has let him off (relatively) easy, as his best mate, also a budding rodeo star, is now a paraplegic after a fall (also playing himself).  Yet despite these terrible dangers, none of the boys seem to be able to pull away from the allure of the rodeo and Brady does nothing to dissuade his friends (and fans) from engaging in the same behaviours that harmed him and his friend. It’s hard to know what’s on his mind – but the impoverished cultural milieu all around them (in Pine Ridge, South Dakota) probably means that dangerous dreams die hard. There’s an unavoidable documentary feel here but Zhao’s poetic direction lifts it into a more introspective vein.

  

Criss Cross (1949)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Criss Cross (1949) – R. Siodmak

Burt Lancaster returns home to L. A. after kicking around the country after the war.  He won’t admit to himself that he’s there to see his old flame (and ex-wife) Yvonne De Carlo but he is.  Unfortunately, she’s now married to Dan Duryea (who has played many bad guys in films noir, so you know he’s trouble).  Still, there’s a flame.  We see in flashback how things began and also how the armored car robbery that Lancaster is planning with Duryea came to be.  After the flashback, we get the robbery itself and its aftermath.  It’s a downer but this is noir.  Perhaps there are similarities to that famous earlier Siodmak-Lancaster film, The Killers (1946), where Lancaster waits for the hired guns he knows will take him out (and we see why in the flashback) but it’s a winning formula.  Here again, Burt is none too bright, driven to the wrong ends by his obsession with a lady, and he pays for his mistakes.  Criss Cross has all the noir tropes and stylistic tics and a Miklós Rózsa score to boot.  See it for its sense of inexorable doom.

  

The Fugitive (1993)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Fugitive (1993) – A. Davis

A big hit in its day (based on the concept of the TV series from the 1960s), this is a Hollywood thriller, no more, no less.  That is not to say that it isn’t very enjoyable – it is! Harrison Ford (in serious/glum mode, not smart alecky) is Dr Richard Kimble, whose wife is killed by a mysterious one-armed man at the start of the film, a crime for which Kimble himself is given the death penalty.  But when the bus carrying prisoners crashes and is then hit by a train, Kimble escapes (hence, the title).  He is pursued by US Marshall Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) and his team (including off the top of a very tall dam!).  After he comes to his senses, Kimble decides to return to Chicago and attempts to track down the killer, which means sneaking into hospitals to gather evidence which points in a certain direction (no spoilers here).  Whether or not the MacGuffin has further resonance in society (it surely does, these days), the film is superbly edited to produce the right amount of thrills (though not really any dread or true worry for Kimble). You know it is all going to work out and it is fun to see the clues fall into place.  Director Andrew Davis doesn’t seem to have had any subsequent hits, so this might have been one of those lucky times when the stars (Ford and Jones) were properly aligned. 

Sorry We Missed You (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Sorry We Missed You (2019) – K. Loach

The gig economy is destroying lives! Director Ken Loach (b. 1936!) and writer Paul Laverty (b. 1957) use their neo-realistic (or is it kitchen sink) approach to depicting the lives of the working class to examine this thoroughly modern economic model (after examining how hard it is to get government benefits in I, Daniel Blake, 2016, which won the Palme D’or).  Ricky (Kris Hitchen) signs up to deliver parcels as a “franchise” owner – he has to buy his own van but receives the parcels and a route from the distribution centre run by brutish Maloney (Ross Brewter).  If he doesn’t arrive on time or misses a day without organising his own replacement driver or loses/damages the expensive contraption that scans the packages/signatures etc., he is in for hefty fines.  Of course, this situation immediately sets viewers on edge, knowing that something bad is going to happen.  But Loach keeps things personal and we first see the impact of this 14-hour day job on his family life – he has had to sell his wife Abbie’s (Debbie Honeywood) car, leaving her stuck on public transport to manage her job caring for elderly people in their homes (also treated as contract work paid only for limited time visits and not paid if clients require extra time, which a truly caring person would want to offer). When their teen son starts to get into trouble at school and then with the law, everything comes crashing down.  There is no sympathy from the distribution centre and the fines pile up.  We know that soon the competition will undercut Ricky by being willing to sacrifice their own lives to take his share of the market…and the rich business owners get richer, not having to pay insurance, retirement funds, vacation time, or anything else.  As they have been doing so well, Loach and Laverty hit the nail on the head but it’s a gruelling experience -- if only it can have some influence on society.

  

Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) – I. Bergman

In the end, it’s the story of two unsatisfied people who look for other options but realise that instead they just need to muddle along the way they’ve been going and make the best of it (until other options come along, I guess).  Is that depressing? This _is_ an Ingmar Bergman film, after all.  Åke Grönberg is Albert, the leader of the circus, who has left his wife (when she inherited money and decided to leave the circus).  He has fallen in with young Anne (Harriet Andersson), the bareback rider, who is jealous of the wife, as she suspects (rightly, it turns out) that Albert would like to leave the circus too and settle down with his former family.  So, she takes an opportunity to cheat on him with an actor at a theatre in the town the circus has stopped at, dreaming that this will open a new chapter in her life – but it doesn’t.  When their options don’t pan out, the circus and the couple move on.  Bergman uses expressionistic lighting and sets and camera angles to good effect – and the acting is strong throughout.  I guess it’s ultimately a downer, but I feel somehow that perhaps Bergman wants these two to accept their plight and get on with living.  What we yearn for may be only a fantasy anyway. The problematic part in accepting what we have is getting past the cruelty and injustice that we seem to inevitably inflict on each other (especially when we are chasing these fantasies).

 

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Jojo Rabbit (2019) – T. Waititi

It may seem a brazen or tasteless move to make a comedy about the Holocaust but Kiwi director Taiki Waititi pulls it off – and he wasn’t the first: Mel Brooks joked about Springtime for Hitler in The Producers (1967), Jerry Lewis’s unfinished The Day the Clown Cried (1972) is embargoed until 2024, and of course, Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (1997) won some Oscars with its sentimental comedy taking place in an actual concentration camp.  Waititi’s film has more of a Diary of Anne Frank slant with a young Hitler youth boy (Roman Griffin Davis) whose father is away (purportedly at the front) discovering that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in a hidden room upstairs.  Waititi himself plays the boy’s imaginary friend Adolf – yes, that Adolf but a lot more goofy than you would expect (but still a jerk who is prejudiced against those who are different).  The vibe here is similar to Wes Anderson’s films – colourful and with pop songs (both Beatles and Bowie singing in German) – which flies in the face of the content.  True, things do head in a sentimental direction (albeit with some jarring events) but Waititi and his writers use their comedic impulses wisely and stick it to the Fuhrer while also championing the stigmatised (Sam Rockwell is great as a subversively supportive Nazi officer).  They also demonstrate some insight into how a fatherless young boy might feel.  I had my doubts but Waititi succeeds at helping us to never forget the atrocities of the 20^th century while being cute and funny at the same time.

 

Dark Waters (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Dark Waters (2019) – T. Haynes

I don’t know whether this belongs to the “conspiracy thriller” genre (popular in the 70s) or a new genre that involves people fighting the system for justice (social or environmental; Erin Brockovich, 2000; The Report, 2019; more).  In this case, Mark Ruffalo is Rob Bilott, a lawyer for a big firm that usually works to defend corporations (particularly chemical companies) against lawsuits.  But when he is contacted by a farmer from West Virginia with sick cows as a result of a nearby landfill owned by Dupont, he decides to challenge the big chemical company. Director Todd Haynes (who also made Safe, 1995, another film about environmental contamination) knows all the right moves for this genre:  Bilott finds some clues suggesting malfeasance, then experiences setbacks when the company and his own firm (led by Tim Robbins) bristle, then has what appears to be a win but sees that win dissipate as the evil corporation uses its power over the government to get its way.  Haynes and Ruffalo easily conjure up the expected emotional reactions to the highs and lows in the story.  But remarkably, the effect is more powerful because Bilott is a real person and he really did sue Dupont and uncover the horror that was their willingness to sacrifice public health for profit (experimentation on people while testing whether Teflon was safe or not; dumping chemicals in the rivers of West Virginia).  Dupont’s stock price took another hit when this film was released – if what is presented here is true, they deserve it.  But the truly depressing part of the story is the moral: we can’t trust business and we can’t trust the government to look after people’s health and welfare.  This deserved lack of trust may have now opened the door to conspiracy theorists who run amok with crazy and dangerous pronouncements on the internet (about vaccinations, for example) that seem believable because, yeah, we’ve been betrayed before.  To conclude: the system has let us down and we need to rebuild community to fix it.  

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) – J. Foley

It’s an acting masterclass from Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, and Alec Baldwin using a script by David Mamet (based on his play) and directed by James Foley. Aside from Spacey (the office manager), they all play real estate salesmen, mostly down on their luck. Alec Baldwin (a high-flyer from the head office) is brought in to threaten them to start closing deals – or else!  Lemmon seems to be in the most dire position, with a sick daughter in the hospital and out of funds.  Only Pacino has been selling and he has Jonathan Pryce on the hook as the film unfolds.  But when the premium “Glengarry” leads are stolen, the office falls apart as everyone is suspected.  Although only Pacino received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, everyone here is given some choice dialogue in that emphatic (and highly profane) Mamet style.  It’s gripping…and sad.  These guys are busting their butts in order to convince people to invest their hard-won savings in some highly doubtful get-rich-quick property schemes.  Clearly, they’ve got to sell their souls (as Baldwin seems to have) and be ready to exploit others without feeling in order to climb the ladder of success.  Such is capitalism.

  

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆  ½

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – F. Capra

Been a long time since I watched this but I felt in need of some political uplift!  Jimmy Stewart plays the naïve but sincere and morally right boys’ club leader who suddenly finds himself the junior senator from his rural state when the incumbent dies and the governor (a puppet for a evil machine) picks him as a pushover.  The machine run by news magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) already has the state’s senior senator (played by Claude Rains with perfect ambivalence) in his pocket and together they are pushing through some major graft – trying to get federal approval for a dam after they have conveniently bought up all the surrounding land, putting the deeds in dummy names.  Of course, Senator Jefferson Smith (Stewart) puts a crimp in their plans, first accidentally but then with moral purpose – but the machine uses all their evil power against him.  The highlight of the film is Smith’s long filibuster to stop himself from getting ejected from the Senate and to defeat the bill.  Director Frank Capra can be Capracorny at times but there are so many great supporting actors here (Jean Arthur, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee, Beulah Bondi, Eugene Pallette, Harry Carey, etc.) that he can’t really go wrong, despite the total emotional manipulation at play.  Of course, the film ends abruptly on a high note, with little chance to contemplate the realities of the situation.  But hey, this sort of fable where corruption is defeated by those who advocate that the government should care for the people is just what I needed!

  

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) – M. Heller

I am one of those people who grew up watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on PBS (and I sometimes wonder whether this is one of the things that encouraged me to move to Pittsburgh in the mid-90s).  I am still keen to see Morgan Neville’s recent documentary (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 2018) but it hasn’t come my way yet.  Instead, despite my general dislike of Tom Hanks (as an actor, if not a person), who plays Fred Rogers, I thought I would give this film a try.  And I must confess that I liked it – because it is very weird!  First of all, it isn’t a bio-pic.  Instead, it is based on an Esquire magazine article that details how a cynical “broken” writer Lloyd Vogel, played by Mattthew Rhys, is assigned to interview Rogers in 1998 (for a special issue on “heroes”) and the transformative effect the meeting has on his life.  Sure, it is one of those uplifting films (like Silver Linings Playbook, which I also enjoyed) that can move you – but Hanks’ portrayal of Rogers is so damn odd that it is hard to look away.  At one point, he suggests that Vogel and he take a minute to think about all the people who loved and cared for us when we were small and the camera allows Hanks to gaze goofily out of the screen at us (this technique also seems drawn directly from attachment theory’s recent “security priming” interventions that boost well-being/reduce insecurity).  The problems that Vogel faces – family drama with dad Chris Cooper – are probably not too unusual and there are many adults with emotional problems out there – overcoming them for a heart-warming finale is screenwriting 101.  But the intervention of Mr. Rogers – the fact that there ever was such a person as Mr. Rogers – seems extraordinary.  Director Marielle Heller and her team manage to inject some creative elements (dream sequence, models of Pittsburgh and NYC that echo the TV show’s sets/methods) but in the end it is Hanks who pulls this off.  Now I’m going to be gentler with my kids!

  

Wanda (1970)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Wanda (1970) – B. Loden

Intense character study written, starring, and directed by Barbara Loden, her only film.  With no music and shot in that cinema verité documentary style (familiar from the Maysles Brothers) it is easy to think that what you are watching is “real”.  Wanda (Loden) is something of a lost soul (declaring “I’m no good” at one point), wandering (get it?) aimlessly throughout the picture, not seeking out trouble but not avoiding it when it finds her, just trying to get by, it seems.  The film opens in a poor PA mining community with Wanda accepting a divorce from her husband and willingly giving up custody of her two children.  Then we see here move from beer to beer, scrounging money where she can, sleeping with guys who help her out.  She doesn’t say much and perhaps has not much to say.  When she stumbles into a robbery in a bar, she follows the stick-up man to a motel and stays with him even though he is cruel to her.  Perhaps out of loneliness she doesn’t leave when he plans a bank robbery.  When that’s over, she moves on, aimlessly.  An interview I saw with Loden reveals that she felt that Wanda knows “what she doesn’t want” but isn’t sure what she does want.  Most descriptions of the film refer to it as feminist, perhaps because Wanda rejects the expected role for women at the time (mother and housewife) but finds that society offers no other opportunities. 

Midnight (1939)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Midnight (1939) – M. Leisen

I thought I had thoroughly mined the screwball comedy genre (popular in the ‘30s & ‘40s) but I had missed this prime example, directed by Mitchell Leisen but written by Charles Bracket and Billy Wilder (all responsible for other screwballs with other partners).  Claudette Colbert (herself no stranger to the genre) plays a broke chorus girl just arrived in Paris (after losing all her dough in Monte Carlo) who allows a sympathetic taxi driver (Don Ameche) to drive her around from nightclub to nightclub looking for a job.  No luck, but there are sparks between them – nevertheless she flees, winding up in a posh society piano recital (hosted by Hedda Hopper!) where she catches the eye of John Barrymore and ends up playing bridge with his wife (Mary Astor), the man trying to seduce her (Francis Lederer), and another friend.  To avoid being thrown out of the event, she claims to be the Baroness Czerny (taking the taxi driver’s surname off the top of her head).  Soon, she finds herself employed by Barrymore to continue playing the Baroness in order to divert Lederer’s attention away from Astor – but when Ameche (the real Czerny) shows up, chaos ensues.  As it always does in screwball comedy.  Somehow too each film in this genre challenges us to guess who ends up married/not married or divorced/not divorced – and Midnight offers as complex a conclusion as any.  

  

The Mother and the Whore (1973)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Mother and the Whore (1973) – J. Eustache

This film, a sort of epilogue to (or elegy for) the Nouvelle Vague, captures that feeling in your twenties when you are finding your way, establishing relationships under heightened uncertainty, not just about the rules of relationships but about yourself and your values and goals.  In its typically French fashion, the film is all talk – often fascinating talk that reveals character (or character flaws), shot with actors speaking directly to the camera. At the start (of its 3 ½ hour length), the main talker is Alexandre, played by New Wave stalwart Jean-Pierre Léaud who we know so well from his work with Truffaut (from The 400 Blows onward).  Although he is our main point of identification, we are likely meant to be ambivalent about him, since he is clearly setting out to cheat on his live-in girlfriend, Marie (Bernadette LaFont; her flat, not his) with another woman he notices at an outdoor café/pub, Veronika (Françoise Lebrun).  He is a charming talker but selfish and narcissistic, even while he aims to be totally honest with both women (if not always with himself – there is a lot of bad faith on display here). As the film progresses, we get to see more about Marie’s perspective (angry, hurt, jealous) and especially that of Veronika who starts to have monologues of her own by the film’s end -- and she is quite willing to offer her graphic views on sexual matters, laced with a lot of profanity.  Indeed, the film is shocking in this respect, calling to mind the films of Andy Warhol or John Waters that know no boundaries.  Although not pornographic, the film does not shy away from presenting the ménage à trois as it appears, struggles, and collapses, with all the heightened emotions that you would expect. Given its time period (and the title), it isn’t too difficult to ascertain that the film has something to say about “women’s liberation” and is questioning Alexandre’s (and society’s) attitudes toward women and their role.  To its credit, it sees women as free to make their own decisions about life and especially sex; however, I also got the sense that director Jean Eustache (who wrote every word) may yearn for simpler times (or have empathy for those who do) when gender roles were clearer. The end result is nothing less than completely absorbing and intense (if dated) – viewers be prepared!

The Fire Within (1963)

 

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Fire Within (1963) – L. Malle

Apparently, director Louis Malle identified so much with Alain Leroy, the protagonist of Pierre Drieu La Rochelle’s novel, that he even dressed actor Maurice Ronet in his own clothes.  Malle was reportedly insecure about his ability (despite several awards and commercial successes, including Les Amants, 1958), and saw glimpses of himself in the character who feels at a dead-end at age 30 after a (short) lifetime spent indulging himself with nightlife and women and especially alcohol.  When we meet Alain he has been living at a clinic in Versailles, separated from his American wife (still in New York) and his friends (all in Paris); he is introspective and unwilling to leave despite having been detoxed and “cured”.  After sleeping with his wife’s visiting go-between, Lydia, he restlessly decides that he should kill himself – but first, he makes one last trip to Paris to say goodbye.  His encounters with his old friends prove rather unsatisfying:  they have either matured into adulthood (with wife, kids, career) or they remain as they were but seem distant or foolish.  Anyone who has struggled with depression can see Alain’s troubled self-loathing in Ronet’s eyes and in the way he alternately lashes out at others and wallows in his public shame (feeling he is seen as a burnt out degenerate). It’s an impressively complex and sad performance.  However, the film, despite Alain’s downward trajectory, occasionally offers reasons for living. Alain’s friends profess their love and try to convince him that he has things to contribute. The film itself, with its beautiful B&W cinematography (by Ghislain Cloquet) and its thoughtful piano score (by Erik Satie), often stops to observe Paris, its people, and Alain’s immediate surroundings.  This sensual experience reminds us of those little pleasures that the mindful existentialist can focus on to keep angst at bay.  However, it is not enough for Alain.

 

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

 

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – J. & E. Coen 

One of the Coen Brothers’ most accessible films that rises on the strength of its rootsy Depression-era setting and especially music (the soundtrack went platinum).  Ironic, I suppose, because the film takes its title from the film that director Joel McCrea wants to make (in Sullivan’s Travels, 1941) when he decides to give up commercial filmmaking to make something more serious (i.e., about the struggles of the common man).  But I guess that theme is somewhere buried in there along with the Coens’ usual assortment of oddities, anecdotes, references, and jokes!  This time, the plot is also held together by its links to Homer’s The Odyssey and the homeward journey of its hero (and/or to The Wizard of Oz and its similar trek). George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Turturro play three convicts who break loose from a chain gang and then aim to head to George Clooney’s home to get their hands on the proceeds from a bank robbery that he has hidden there, before the TVA floods the whole place.  Along the way, they meet various characters who may echo Homer – John Goodman as a one-eyed Bible Salesman, for example – and a variety of time-period relevant events (a KKK rally, for example).  They are always followed by a demonic sheriff in mirror shades. They meet gangster George BabyFace Nelson (Michael Badalucco). They also meet Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King) who may or may not have sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for guitar-playing prowess – which brings us back to the music.  At one point in their journey, the boys stumble into a Sun Records styled recording studio and radio station where they fortuitously record a version of “Man of Constant Sorrow” which becomes an unlikely hit for their pseudonym The Soggy Bottom Boys (a plot device that returns later to salvage, well, everything). Clooney didn’t do his own singing but apart from that his presence here was really a revelation (back in 2000) – he is truly funny as the fast-talking but ridiculous Ulysses Everett McGill (that name!).  Nelson and Turturro are no slouches either and the whole thing ambles along so amiably with its rollicking and wistful accompaniment that it leaves you with a warm feeling that seems rarely the Coens’ goal. I’m glad I revisited it.      

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019) – Q. Tarantino

As with all of QT’s films, this one is extremely problematic in so many ways.  I hesitated to give it 4 stars (relegating it to my better film blog rather than to the annex) but I was impressed by the performances offered by Brad Pitt (as an out-of-work stunt man) and Leonardo DiCaprio (as a fading second-string star).  Tarantino’s efforts to recreate the past, in this case 1969 in Hollywood, are as always unparalleled.  Being old myself, I appreciated the nostalgia for the analogue world (and TV Guide!) even if the events depicted – encompassing the lead-up to the Manson murders – happened before I can remember.  I didn’t much care for the past two Tarantino films (Hateful Eight, Django Unchained) but Once Upon a Time has less in common with them and harkens back a bit more to the pacing and rhythms of Jackie Brown (1997), which is one of his best.  While watching, I had mixed feelings about the long scenes (in an already long film) of Pitt driving around or DiCaprio acting in TV westerns but I have to admit that they do establish the characters, the setting, and the tone. The Spahn ranch episode is especially creepy.  Of course, QT is working around the edges in every scene, filling the soundtrack with period music and radio DJs, decorating the set with period props and furniture, getting every detail right (kudos to his art department).  There are a lot of references and in-jokes, to be sure. However, Once Upon a Time does have grander objectives than just reproducing the past – Tarantino wants to say something about Hollywood’s loss of innocence as a result of the Manson murders (as well as various implicit and explicit side comments about Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, Bruce Lee, and the industry).  Everything builds to the murders and viewers are naturally in dread as the date nears – DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton actually lives next door to the murder house on Cielo Drive. I won’t spoil the movie but it should come as no surprise that Tarantino revels in the depiction of terrible violence. He seems to be using the film to lash out at “hippies” and the way the counter-culture overwhelmed and perhaps destroyed the film and TV days of old – or perhaps this is just assuming that he identifies with Pitt and DiCaprio’s characters who belong to that older world. If he does, then the film might be a sort of fantasy wish fulfilment for him.  But a lot of viewers won’t want to go through the ordeal of the final scenes even if the denouement grants QT’s wish.   

Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Police Story 3: Supercop (1992) – S. Tong

The special thing about Jackie Chan is that he does his own stunts – not just fighting but extreme stunts, which probably hit their peak in this second sequel to his action comedy hit Police Story (1985).  The plot is really incidental to the stunts – Jackie is a cop going undercover in mainland China to capture a drug kingpin.  Michelle Yeoh is the Chinese Interpol agent who joins him (and also does her own amazing stunts).  What little comedy there is here (as compared to the earlier Police Story or Project A films) centers on Jackie’s boastful “supercop” persona and on his relationship with May (Maggie Cheung) who catches him in compromising situations (that are not what they seem).  In some ways, Jackie is a little older, a little duller – but the stunts more than make up for this, involving trains, helicopters, cars, motorbikes, motorboats etc.  There’s also a good deal of ultraviolence, courtesy of drug dealers with automatic weapons and explosives.  So, more of an action film and less shenanigans than in the past.  I saw this on the big screen in 1993 (not the later dubbed version with a new musical soundtrack) and was pretty wowed.   

  

Twelve O’Clock High (1949)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Twelve O’Clock High (1949) – H. King

Gregory Peck plays Brigadier General Frank Savage tasked with reversing the flagging morale of an air force group who are trialling daylight bombing campaigns during the early days of US involvement in WWII.  The film is explicitly about leadership, what works and what doesn’t.  Savage is replacing another group leader who became too protective of his “boys” and started to make poor decisions as a result.  So, Savage starts off cold and tough with no sympathy and the only goal being to build confidence and pride in the 918’s achievements. The outcome is a whole raft of transfer applications.  Slowly, following mission after mission (and a few key deaths), Savage’s leadership style changes toward a more personal identification with the group.  Apparently, Peck himself wanted the script to be anti-war, emphasising the psychological toll on Savage and the men under his command – it does that but never quite denies the “glories” of war. Although most of the film takes place on the ground, some final pivotal action scenes make use of real battle footage (which feels rather ominous).  On the back of Peck’s charisma (and also Dean Jagger in a key supporting role), the film works. 

El Topo (1970)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

El Topo (1970) – A. Jodorowsky

A cult sensation and “Midnight Movie” that brought director Alejandro Jodorowsky (still working at age 90 as of 2019) fame/notoriety and the attention of the Beatles and their resources, El Topo is something of a curiosity in these days of much more grotesque shocks. Despite all the violence and blood (garishly looking like red paint slopped everywhere), the film has more in common with Buñuel’s provocative surrealism than with grindhouse exploitation fare. Jodorowsky himself plays the gunslinger who must defeat four masters to gain enlightenment but who ends up trapped underground with a community of physically disabled outcasts (who he then frees). The shifts in the film are jarring – from mystical acid Western to socio-political attack on religion with some mime thrown in for good measure (Jodorowsky trained with Marcel Marceau!). It doesn’t really make sense but has some great images – every time I started to get bored, another beautiful vista or startlingly weird set-up appeared.  You have to keep asking yourself, who would put this sort of scene in a film – and why? I believe the answer can only be found in Jodorowsky’s deeper consciousness or his autobiography (he’s a metaphysical guy, very interested in the Tarot, as his next better film, The Holy Mountain, would reveal). Of course, El Topo crosses the line of good taste very often and is not for the squeamish or easily offended (Jodorowsky has since apologised for some aspects).

  

The Celebration (1998)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Celebration (1998) – T. Vinterberg

Obviously, Thomas Vinterberg’s film is intended to shock – with the key “reveal” treated almost like a jump scare, for the audience and most of the characters in the film. Of course, Festen is also famous as the first Dogme film, following the “rules” set forth by Lars von Trier and his associates in 1995 (e.g., location shooting, handheld camera, diegetic sound only, natural lighting, no action, etc.).  Despite this spartan approach, Vinterberg has concocted a film from which it is hard to look away.  A family gathers for the 60^th birthday of the patriarch.  His three grown children have very different personalities (and perhaps personality problems) and they are mourning the recent death of the fourth sibling.  The events take place in the magnificent hotel owned by the family which has been reserved for the occasion.  In turn, we learn about each sibling, but only in dribs and drabs, until eventually the truth comes out.  It’s ultimately a gut-wrenching experience, determined to shock and wound – not unlike the confrontational moves by von Trier in his own films.  This deliberateness might actually lessen the power of the film and mute any discussion of its real issues.  But nevertheless it does force them out there.  I suspect trigger warnings are in order.

  

A Ghost Story (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A Ghost Story (2017) – D. Lowery

To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about this one.  Would it be too depressing? After all, the description suggests it is about love and loss and a ghost that lingers after death.  And it is all those things.  In fact, the ghost lingers long after love and loss are maybe only a distant memory.  In fact, the ghost seems tied to the place (as in the classic “haunted house” genre) rather than to a person.  Director David Lowery manages to allude to the tropes of that genre while instead making what is really an experimental film (but one that is absorbing and watchable and not hard work at all, in case that term turns you away).  Amusingly, the ghost is the well-known spectre in a sheet (with two sad eyes cut out) which may have a Brechtian effect (?).  Although the film is virtually wordless, somewhere in the middle there is a long monologue by Will Oldham (yes, Bonnie Prince Billy) that tries to put our humble existence into context.  So, yeah, it’s an existential statement but also cosmic and spiritual, sad and stirring, and possibly romantic (that last scene may or may not belie this).  Only 90 minutes and so worth it!

Cremator (1969)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 

Cremator (1969) – J. Herz

This Czech New Wave film is definitely weird, although perhaps not quite as weird as I was expecting (I didn’t expect a character study).  Rudolf Hrusínský plays the title character, a family man who proudly works at the local crematorium, setting souls free from their worries (as inspired by a book about the Dalai Lama).  However, the film is set in the 1930s and soon Kopfrkingl the Cremator is being encouraged by an old friend, and now Fascist with Nazi sympathies, to think about the purity of races and using his crematorium for cleansing in the Holocaust sense.  So, yeah, it’s dark and often discussed as a horror film.  But Kopfrkingl is seemingly not an evil guy – he’s avuncular and pretty much a dupe who is willing to change his behaviour to be part of the in-crowd (evil is banal, then).  Somehow director Juraj Herz manages to connect this will to power with sexual desire, implying that Kopfrkingl’s motives are anything but clear.  Add to this his morbid obsession with death and disease and it’s positively psychodynamic.  Where the film is definitely weird is that we can’t always be sure whether what we see is reality or Kopfrkingl’s fantasies/dreams/fears.  There are a lot of really strange scenes and shots in beautiful B&W (and impossible edits between them) – which makes the film impressive despite its content matter, which to be honest grows darker and darker as it goes along.  At the same time, it is impossible to escape the feeling that much of what is happening could be very very black comedy.  Wow.

Blue Collar (1978)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Blue Collar (1978) – P. Schrader

Paul Schrader’s debut film as a director (after writing Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and De Palma’s Obsession) is a heist film, of a sort, but really more a look at three autoworkers and their attempts not to get screwed by both management and their union. Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto, and Harvey Keitel are barely making ends meet – Keitel works two jobs, Pryor cheats on his taxes, and Kotto has a side hustle or two going on.  They blow off steam when they can but the failure of the union rep to support them leads to a half-cooked plan to rob the safe at headquarters.  Of course, things don’t go to plan – but the aftermath is what really makes the film interesting.  Pryor, Keitel, and Kotto all have different depressing trajectories.  Schrader keeps things gritty and the actors strut their stuff.  The result is partly a sociological treatise about the plight of the working man (1970s edition) with some particular truths about working while black (courtesy of Pryor) and partly an engaging drama about three friends who fall out.  Recommended.

The Lady Eve (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Lady Eve (1941) – P. Sturges

Do you know about writer-director Preston Sturges, one of the masters of screwball comedy? If not, you are missing out!  He first worked as a screenwriter for Mitchell Leisen (Easy Living, 1937; Remember the Night, 1940) but then graduated to his own insane work, populated with peculiarly named characters played by eccentric and memorable character actors and with a few big name stars thrown in.  His work can be manic and wordy but always funny (and often satirical with some bite).  The Lady Eve is a relatively leisurely affair, following Henry Fonda’s Charlie Pike (heir to an ale fortune) as he encounters a trio of card sharks aiming to swindle him out of his fortune on a cruise ship.  Charles Coburn (perfect!) and Barbara Stanwyck (exquisite!) team up as a father-daughter act and Fonda swiftly succumbs to their charms.  Stanwyck is soon in love with Fonda too, but when she’s exposed as the con artist she is, all bets are off!  But true to his complicated form, Sturges doesn’t leave things there but allows Stanwyck to return to wreak her revenge, lightly disguised as a British noble. Confusion ensues (and lots of pratfalls).  The ending is particularly sweet – is this secretly a comedy of remarriage? Highly recommended!

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – S. Kubrick

I decided to rewatch Kubrick’s last film to see if there was something that I missed on first viewing 15 to 20 years ago. I think, in fact, that there wasn’t.  Which is not to say that the film doesn’t plumb some depths – it has a fair bit to say about sexual desire and jealousy and how these might be expressed in relationships.  Then married couple, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, describe their fantasies, acted on or not, to each other and witness the pain they inflict.  Based on the source novel by Arthur Schnitzler (Traumnovelle, 1926), sexual desire has a Freudian feel, consciously repressed (or just lied about?) and/or sublimated into dreams.  In fact, we don’t quite know whether the majority of the film is one of Tom Cruise’s dreams.  It certainly is an outlandish story (he discovers a secret meeting of the high and mighty, all dressed in masks and robes, and engaged in an orgy) and there are threats all around for anyone, Cruise in particular, who seeks to be unfaithful (the superego battling the id, no doubt).  As a cinematic experience, the film certainly is dreamlike, rambling from episode to episode (often in Kubrick’s studio-recreated version of Greenwich Village), filled with great chunks of emotionally laden speech and, yes, sexually suggestive moments. The colour template is warm oranges and chilly blues (often set against each other in the same shot), perhaps representing closeness and distance and the easy way we can slip between them. However, despite all the nudity and sex, it isn’t a particularly erotic film – there is too much anxiety for that, too much fear and jealousy.  The use of sex for domination by the powerful (i.e., the wealthy; such as Sydney Pollack’s evil host) or to control one’s spouse is too overt here and too uncomfortable. Of course, if you haven’t seen it, this is well worth investigating – I wouldn’t see it on a first date, however.    

Green Book (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Green Book (2018) – P. Farrelly

I appreciate the critiques of this film that argue that we don’t need yet another look at Black Lives as told through the eyes of a white character (and also written and directed by white guys).  We need to listen to black voices telling their own stories. I hope we are ready to listen and that we have reached a point where white audiences don’t need a surrogate, a version of themselves in the story, in order to listen, learn, and, yes, identify.  However, for those who need it, Green Book shows us the horrors of racism in the Deep South (circa early 1960s) through the experiences of Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), a bouncer from Brooklyn hired to drive Dr Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a renowned pianist, on his trio’s concert tour (an “ironic” status reversal from, uh, Driving Miss Daisy). The arc of the plot sees a casually racist Tony change his views through his growing friendship with Don and his witnessing of Don’s harrowing experiences.  And, yes, it seems we do need to hear yet again about the horrors of racism, although again safely half a century in the past, because some lessons aren’t being learned.  Director Peter Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber) infuses a little bit of comedy in the film and some nicely rendered period settings but this is mainstream filmmaking (of the most nonthreatening kind).  Both Mortensen (who gained a lot of weight) and Ali bring the acting acumen that elevates the film beyond its origins (although not methinks to Best Picture level, which it surprisingly won).