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Jogurtaa · 03-08-2017, 05:44 PM

Just saw Logan. Was a lot better then the usual Marvel superhero movie. The best of X-men related movies for sure. A lot of action, good emotional scenes. I wasn't disappointed

Maxy · 03-08-2017, 06:32 PM

Ya'll ET haters can suck on ER's big long floppy finger. A heartwarming tale.

Spangle · 03-08-2017, 09:04 PM

Quote:Originally posted by TheLastOlympian07@Mar 8 2017, 04:28 PM

i dont like et i mean i would never watch it by myself but if some friends for whatever the fuck reason or the gf wants to check it out id watch it but i do not like nor hate it. its just whatever

Definitely.

Compared to other 80s classics for people, it is far more tolerable than The Goonies or Gremlins.

Jesus The Mexican Way · 03-12-2017, 02:43 AM

i patiently waiting for spungles review of trainspotting 2

Spangle · 03-13-2017, 04:37 PM

Quote:Originally posted by Jesus The Mexican Way@Mar 12 2017, 01:43 AM
i patiently waiting for spungles review of trainspotting 2

it's not even out in America, so it'll be a while

The_Mazais · 03-27-2017, 10:03 AM

I just watched "42" movie about how Jackie Robinson made it to MLB as first black guy. That guy had nerves of steel with all that hate he had to face everyday. Amazing movie.

Spangle · 04-03-2017, 01:35 AM

8/10 - The final entry into director Terry Gilliam's "Trilogy Imagination", The Adventures of Baron Munchausen pick up where the final two entries left. An imaginative tale that blurs the line between dreams and reality, the film is incredibly engaging and entertaining throughout with phenomenal performances from the entire cast. As with the previous two films, the film is more of an ode to storytelling as an escape from reality, more than a straight film that can be defined between dreams and the real world. A film about the mysterious Baron Munchausen (John Neville) and his band of odd helpers (Eric Idle, Charles McKeown, Winston Dennis, and Jack Purvis), the Baron crashes a performance of his life story and informs the audience and actors that they are true stories. Though extraordinary, his adventures are not mere legend and, even more, he is the reason why the Turkish sultan is bombing their beloved city because he stole the sultan's treasure. What ensues is a film that is magical and fantastical that reaches comedic and adventure heights like only Gilliam can reach.

In the first entry in this trilogy, Time Bandits, Gilliam focused on a child. Living in unhappy home with parents who are more concerned with their material goods than their own son, the boy goes to sleep one night and a small band of thieves pop up in his room. What ensues is an imaginative experience that, though it sets it up as occurring in a dream world, drops a few hints that maybe everything was real. In Brazil, the second installment, Gilliam created a 1984-esque dystopian world that is incredibly real, except for the middle aged protagonist's frequent dreams about a different world, culminating in a dream world breakout from prison that is shown to be anything but real. This film, picking up from there, has the Baron tell his story to the crowd as he simultaneously saves the city from the sultan in a dream world. Only it appears to be a dream world, as by the end, the sultan is gone and the city has been saved. Yet, while all of these films show the stories escaping the dream world and jumping into reality, the line between the two hardly matters.

Rather, Gilliam's tales are about the necessity of storytelling and imagination. Objectively, regardless of what the endings show, we all know that dreams are not real. They may reflect reality - as shown in the films by characters in the dreams sharing resemblances with real people, such as Uma Thurman's dual role as city girl Rose and, in the dream, the goddess Venus - but they are simply not real. Gilliam's films, however, suspend this disbelief via storytelling and/or imagination. He fashions his films as an escape from a horrific reality - neglectful parents, dystopian world, a city under siege - with the stories and collective imaginations of the characters being a blissful departure from their traumatic real lives. Thus, the film's finales do not hint at them being real or having actually occurred. Instead, it depicts that it hardly matters. The dream world is objectively better, even if it is not real, than the lives these people lead. Collectively, everybody in these films opt for these falsehoods to enter a state of bliss. In Brazil, the protagonist is declared insane for this, but regardless of his sanity, he has escaped his prison. The boy in Time Bandits escapes in the end via his dreams and the town is saved in this film because they opted to ignore reality and instead enter the world of their imaginations, in which the city is still standing and safe from the sultan.

In crafting this world of imagination, Gilliam continuously finds new antics and ideas to introduce. For instance, the moon brings some of the film's comedic heights with a terrific supporting appearance from Robin Williams as The King of the Moon. A floating head trying to escape the carnal tyranny of his body, the King is a higher being who can create Spring by whistling. His wife Queen Ariadne (Valentina Cortese) is similarly able to separate her head from her body and reach a higher state of being. The two not only exist as a statement on the possibilities of the mind without physical limitations, but are also hysterical entries into the film. No matter where the Baron and his child helper Sally Salt (Sarah Polley) wind up, Gilliam's film is imbued with a sense of adventure that capitalizes on the film's naturally whimsical state of being.

An uproariously funny and thoroughly engaging film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a film with a lot of moving parts and demonstrates Gilliam's tremendous ability to create fun and smart films for audiences of all ages. Not limited by the PG-rating, the film explores important themes such as honesty, while creating a tale about embracing the oddities of life. No matter where you wind up, there is a way out of it (even death) if you are willing to take chances and embrace possibilities that were previously inconceivable. A fun romp through Gilliam's mind, the film is a tremendous conclusion to this trilogy.

9/10 - This classic film noir from director Fritz Lang is absolutely mesmerizing. Spinning a tight story about a femme fatale and her jerk boyfriend who steal the artwork of a cashier (and passionate painter) who is in an unhappy marriage, Scarlet Street is a film focused on rejection, guilt, and manipulation. Compelling and tragic, Scarlet Street is quintessential noir and is a film that will keep you guessing throughout, unafraid to subvert expectations. Yet, its character study elements certainly take hold towards the end, much to the film's betterment as its writing crafts impeccably sympathetic characters, all of whom are deserving of the time of the day they are given in Lang's film.

Our protagonist, Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson), is a loner. Rejected by everybody his entire life, his wife married him because she was grieving her last husband and it was a marriage out of convenience. There is no love between them. In fact, they hate one another. Longing for human connection, he even remarks to a friend that he would to see any woman look at him the way he saw a young man look at his boss. This is a man suffering from extreme loneliness and a low self-esteem. Right from the beginning, we are entered into his world of solitude and see him paint. A cashier, painting is the only thing he loves. His wife hates that he does it and threatens to this his work out, but his work is brilliant. He, sadly, lacks the confidence to sell it to anybody, thus it is an unprofitable enterprise for him and his wife, who are both broke. When he meets femme fatale Katherine March (Joan Bennett). Showering Chris with attention under the direction of her malicious boyfriend Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea), she begins a love affair with Chris to get his money (he claimed he could his paintings for $50,000 a piece). When she finally gets her hands on his art, she realizes he is broke and an unknown painter. Johnny opts to sell one to a street dealer, setting off a firestorm in which art critics and dealers fall in love with the work. Having Katherine claim credit for it, Johnny continues his relationship with Katherine behind Chris' back, who has no issues with Katherine taking credit for his work. The only thing he does not like is Johnny, especially when he sees the two are still dating.

Rejected by the art world as a copy, his wife as a loser, and even Katherine as a clingy and weird loser, Chris is hurt. Scarlet Street's depiction of him is entirely sympathetic, even when he becomes guilty. Showing his tormented soul as he scorches every bridge he once had, Chris may be a bit rougher around the edges than he appears, but remains a sad character. Through the writing and development of his character, Lang turns this noir into a psychological thriller as we see him wracked with guilt for years to come. The exploration of his guilt is limited to voices in his head, but effective. It is an unexpected direction for the film to take, but one that really works due to Lang's graceful handling of the material. Thematically, it works quite well as a realization of one cop in the film claiming that nobody gets away with murder (or really any crime) because their conscience will find them guilty. Chris is the very embodiment of this.

As a major figure of German expressionism, Fritz Lang naturally heavily relies upon that style in the cinematography. One of the highlights of the film comes towards the end when Chris is leaving Katherine's apartment as a drunk Johnny returns. We see Johnny's shadow in the stained glass window, which he breaks. Hiding in a dark corner of the room, Chris watches Johnny enter and then runs off. As with every film noir work, Scarlet Street largely relies upon the dark lighting to hide characters in the shadows and create a constant sense of mystery.

With stellar acting, particularly from Edward G. Robinson, Scarlett Street is a tremendous noir film from Fritz Lang that portrays a man who never had anything. No women wanted him. He never had money. When he finally had both, he simply could not part with it or the joy he had. Coupled with the embarrassment he feels, he must fight back. Unfortunately, the guilt it leaves him with torpedoes his life. Akin to The Big Heat, Scarlet Street is far more risque than many other films of this era, but it is perfect for that reason. Lang is unafraid to go in unexpected directions with the plot and the film benefits greatly from its unpredictably and originality. A solemn character study in a tale of rejection and manipulation that turns into a psychological thriller headlined with overwhelming guilt, Scarlet Street is a hard nosed and heavy hitting film.

7/10 - Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1994, Four Weddings and a Funeral is a charming little crowd pleaser that may have been instinctively nominated for the award as a romantic British film. What ensues, however, is a film that does not really feel like any other nominee from this era. It is a small scale romantic comedy about a bachelor who comes to find love in a cliched downpour after experiencing four weddings and a funeral over the course of two hours. Frightfully British, Four Weddings and a Funeral is a fine film that, while perhaps not Best Picture good, is a truly funny and charming little film with a typically charismatic Hugh Grant in the lead role opposite Andie Macdowell. The weirdest part of this movie though is the revelation that MacDowell's character has slept with 33 men, whereas Grant's has only slept with nine. Maybe I just think Macdowell looks innocent or something, but there is no way Hugh Grant has slept with less people than her. There are not many people who have slept with more, I would wager. As a side note, I just discovered that Grant had four children between 2011 and 2015. The interesting part is that it was with two women. One, a Chinese woman gave birth in 2011 and 2013. The other, a Swedish woman, gave birth in 2012 and 2015. Having discovered this bit after having written the bit about wagering he slept with more people than most can claim, I now feel even more confident about this bet.

That said, focusing on the film, Four Weddings and a Funeral is a truly enjoyable experience. Fast, witty, and smart, the film is not merely some disposable comedy. Instead, it goes to great lengths to subtly develop its characters. By focusing on the weddings and the funeral, the character development can slide by undetected. But, it is absolutely there and quite abundant. Through these encounters, the film explores friendship and mortality. With each passing wedding, these single characters feel time ticking, but find joy in their group of friends. The shared experience and bond with one another is readily apparent and worn on their sleeves throughout, particularly when one of the group gets married. Offering their congratulations, but equally expressing their hope that they will stay in touch, you feel the hopelessness of that request. Through no fault of their own, marriage will cause strain on friendships. People you loved will fall to the side purely because of time limits or distance. It is like every major moment in your life - graduating high school, graduating college, moving, getting a job, getting married, etc - where things change and people move on to new things. In the process, people close to you are left behind. Thus, the film becomes quite somber as you recognize that the love felt in the romance is simultaneously the happy couple spending their last hurrah with their old group of friends, some of whom they will never share the same connection with again.

Romantically, the film does not click nearly as well. It is a film that focuses on missed connections through unrequited love or the one you love marrying someone else. Yet, it lacks the guts to subvert expectations. Instead, it relies upon a cheesy sequence in the rain that is lazily written and oddly acted by Grant and Macdowell to close out this film. While undeniably cute, it does not jive well with the rest of the film and instead feels too neat to truly work for this film. While I am hardly arguing that the film is transcendent or not cliche up to that point, it does feel a little odd for a film to end so happy when it portrays every other issue that pops up as merely something we must deal with in life. There is no perfect person, deaths happen, unrequited love is real, and missed connections happen due to circumstance. Sadly, it lacks the courage to punch the audience in the gut by having Charles (Hugh Grant) just marry the girl he does not love because it is what he feels he must do, regardless of love. Sadly, it is a largely safe and entirely palatable romantic comedy, so expectations are not subverted here.

Charming and witty with tremendous comedic dialogue, Four Weddings and a Funeral feels like a comedy drama tricked into playing up to romantic comedy expectations, even if its first two acts seem to be leading up to an entirely different film. That said, it is a fun film and a pretty odd Best Picture nominee. Featuring a slickly charismatic turn from Hugh Grant in the lead role alongside a game supporting cast, the film is terrific for laughs and an equally great look at friendship as one ages and begins going to weddings and funerals on a regular basis. While gooey and cheesy, it is undeniably great fun to watch unfold.

7/10 - This explosive play turned into a film and loosely based upon Alan Berg, a shock jock who was murdered by white supremacists, the film also feels like a look at Howard Stern or any number of other shock jocks. Showing the mental exhaustion felt by Barry Champlaign (Eric Bogosian) during the course of a few nights of his show, which is on the brink of going national, he deals with a barrage of outlandish callers who vary from white supremacists, drug users, regular unhappy people, rapists, and more. His show attracts the bottom of the barrel and he is the man forced to cope with their phone calls, while maintaining control of his show. A searing character study, the film refuses to deliver likable elements for its protagonist and challenges the audience to like this, largely irredeemable, man. A compelling character study, Talk Radio proceeds at a blistering speed for the first hour and a half before taking a somber and dark turn for the final 20 minutes. Much like the show itself, the film can be felt overstaying its welcome and losing speed.

In the lead role, Eric Bogosian is tremendous. Loud, boisterous, and insane, he brings Barry Champlaign to life and is unafraid to get nasty. Deep down, he is your average guy. But, he has issues. As his ex-wife Ellen (Ellen Greene) points out, he drinks, smokes, and loves to argue. This makes him the perfect host for this style of talk radio, but a bad husband. Mostly acting like a jerk for the entirety of the film, you can still see the conflict. Taking this onslaught of brutal calls every night has taken its toll, making him far more jaded and deeply unhappy. He channels this anger towards anyone near him and to the callers who participate in his show. Fighting everybody for much of the film, we see even he realizes that things must calm down towards the end. While unlikely that he will ever change, he resents the audience his show attracts as a result of his personality and aggressive radio style.

Unfortunately, this characterization and arc results in the film really slowing down towards the end. Racing along at impressive speeds for the first two acts as a result of Bogosian's performance and the engrossingly tone down style of direction from Oliver Stone, the film is like watching a taped radio show. Bogosian's Barry Champlaign brings on an odd cast of characters and it is easy to find the pleasure in watching disasters occur on the radio. It is like watching a car crash or scrolling through vile opinions on Twitter. Oddly, it is mildly interesting to watch such events and figure out what is going on in the crash or in the mind of the person espousing such vitriolic opinions. But, as is always the case, it runs its course. Sensing that this is turning into bad radio, Talk Radio slows down with Barry calling out his listeners. In doing this, the film loses its reckless energy and feels far too solemn. While appropriate with the character becoming far more tragic, the two tones of the film do not seem to really blend well together. This leads to the pacing of the finale taking an oddly slow and methodic turn that does not really work and feels as though it is a major let-off after a film that chugged along at such a solid pace for so long.

That said, Bogosian is tremendous as Barry Champlaign. Alec Baldwin, Ellen Greene, and John C. McGinley all turn in solid supporting performances as well, but this show is Bogosian's. Writing the play the film was based on and playing the lead role so well demonstrates that this was the role he was born to play and he absolutely nails the role. Stone takes a step back here and lets the writing do the talking for him with the film largely contained to just the station's building with Barry in the studio. The only artistic touch is the dreamy haze put on a flashback to when Barry first began in radio. In this sequence, Stone really indulges in his stylistic impulses and it works quite well, even if the sequence does not necessarily fit neatly with the rest of the film.

A dramatic and engaging piece of cinema, Talk Radio lives and dies with its tour de force performance from Eric Bogosian. Beyond the acting, it is a nice character study, but one that goes a bit off the rails towards the end alongside the show. It is a film that may overstay its welcome a bit, but it is undeniably well acted and well-written with a uncharacteristic, yet still good, direction from Stone. While not perfect, it is a film that is certainly easy to watch and interact with.

9/10 - This can't last. This misery can't last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There'll come a time in the future when I shan't mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say quite peacefully and cheerfully how silly I was. No, no, I don't want that time to come ever. I want to remember every minute, always, always to the end of my days.
-Celia Johnson as Laura Jesson

Hollywood has always believed that affairs deliver the most romantic impact. Perhaps, it is because of the forbidden nature and inherent thrill of deception. Or, perhaps it is because it adds a bit of doom to the film, in which the romance is always doomed to end with the characters either leaving themselves unhappy or those around them. In many ways, it mirrors life and the above quote really hits at why it Hollywood may be obsessed with this set-up. Just as with everything in life, an affair cannot last. Either it breaks up your marriage or the two lovers simply break up. Sometimes, both happen. In this fashion, an affair is like a train slowly careening off the track while making a hard turn at slightly too high of a speed. One more push on the acceleration or one strong gust of wind and everything will spill over, taking out everybody in its path.

Poetically written and highly influential in the romance genre, Brief Encounter is about, well, a brief encounter. Meeting by chance at the train station, Laura (Celia Johnson) and Dr Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) begin a sordid love affair. As with all Hays code era films, the romance is shown as being quite tame. They meet at the train station refreshments room or at Alec's office, go to the pictures, and then go back to the train station. Sometimes they step out and go for a leisurely walk or go to lunch. In other words, this is not about sex. In many ways, the romance benefits from this. It allows the film to develop the connection between the characters, with that taking center stage over the scandalous nature of their romance. Poetically written with elegant dialogue and brilliant characterization, Brief Encounter's central romance is not just influential, but moving and sorrowful all on its own. It is a romance that both know is not forever and you can feel the longing and pain in their voices (thanks to the dialogue) when they express this fact.

That said, its romantic heights are just as well done as the lows. Scenes of Laura giddily taking the train after seeing Alec or the two of them walking are achingly beautiful. They beautifully capture the process of falling in love, making the sequences of them being torn apart all the more heart-wrenching and real. You can see they are meant for one another, but are married to other people with children. Even worse, Alec is set to move to South Africa. Clinging to what they have against all odds, the clock is ticking, yet they savor every waking second with one another. In this depiction, Brief Encounter creates an incredibly well-rounded romance that shows both the rise and fall of the love is the same authentic light, making the film an incredibly effective and impactful romantic tearjerker.

Gorgeously written, terrifically acted, and mournfully portrayed, Brief Encounter is a romance that, in just 90 minutes, beautifully portrays the rush, the rise, the gushing, and the solemn realization that the joy cannot continue in this sordid romance. Along the way, it creates brilliant characters with real problems, reservations, and issues that would prevent them from further pursuing this romance. That said, in its portrayal of a fire that burns brightly but briefly, Brief Encounter is a film that sticks in your mind and refuses to let go. It is an unspeakably moving film that makes you feel as though you lost somebody you loved so dearly and are doomed to now live your life as an emotionless zombie and a prisoner of your marriage.

8/10 - In 2017, a film such as Twister being made would be pretty inconceivable. It is a big-budget film that basically feels as though it was a film made to just build up anticipation for a future ride at Universal Studios. Yes, it did become a ride at Universal Studios, but it feels more akin to the movie being mere marketing for the ride, rather than the ride coming as a result of the movie. A special effects bonanza, Twister is hardly a good film in the typical sense, but it is a good film in its own way. What saves the film is its sense of purpose and scope. It feels like a blockbuster and one that is unafraid to delve into serious topics in honoring the storm chaser profession with costly special effects. While cliche and derivative, the film powers through them and delivers terrific entertainment that is hardly a mindless blockbuster.

Often times, on sites other than Letterboxd, I am accused of hating fun as big blockbusters are not my thing. I see Marvel films as hollow parades of predictability with action scenes that exist merely to look cool and show off technology than to actually do anything plot-wise. They are devoid of thrills or entertainment value. The films have just become more like the X Games with guys doing tricks on bikes or the World's Strongest Man re-runs on ESPN with men flexing as they reign in a plane. For those into that, the films are appealing, but it is not my style. Films such as Twister, however, are my style. Its special effects, which are tremendous even today, feel built to be experienced first hand. They are a throwback to old school disaster movies with objects flying from every which direction and the characters forced to run to the right and left on a set with real objects, rather than just a green screen. These more stripped down special effects are fun and far more engaging, but also serve a purpose plot-wise. There are no moments where something is thrown in because it looks cool. The twisters are needed. The carnage is needed. Every piece is there because it communicates the scope of these tornadoes and the danger storm chasers find themselves in during the course of their scientific duty. The special effects, therefore, are quite tight and well deployed. This is a film built to impress with great effects, but its effects create well earned tension and thrills that deliver splendid entertainment.

The tornadoes, however, are only part of Twister's appeal. It is a blockbuster unafraid to become real. Depicting the real damage of tornadoes, the film develops tremendous stakes. Watching the storm chasers trying to play these sensors into the tornado is given incredible purpose as it would allow them to create a new warning system to give people more time to get to safety. It would be a life saving discovery and, therefore, essential. This is not some "save the world from whatever" mission, this is a small increase in warning time, but an essential step for the citizens of the area nonetheless. Thus, while the special effects and tornadoes do look quite "cool", they are also weirdly haunting. As they tear across the country side, you can feel the fear and anticipation of the citizens and the storm chasers as it bears down on populated areas throughout Oklahoma. While the film does not develop these random citizens at all (nor should it), the film is blessed with the fact that it is real because it immediately makes the destruction and human suffering feel real. It gives the film great stakes, but also great scope and purpose with the mission these people are on carrying great importance and weight.

That said, the film does suffer from its stock characters. From the married couple who used to be partners at work, but are now separated and one having a new spouse who simply does not "get" their passion, the film's romantic center is doomed to be cliche. A loud and obnoxious comic relief stock character, a stock supporting character that will clearly wind up in danger, a bad backstory and family tragedy, a useless "villain", and a typical cast of unrecognizable character actors in small roles that help to chase storms, accompany the film's poor romantic set-up. In focusing on its special effects, Twister did forget to build worthwhile characters, but fortunately, this problem is helped and not by the special effects. Rather, the stakes. We do not need much to root for them. We root against the villain because he is a bad storm chaser who does not listen to advice or words of wisdom. His device will fail to help the people in tornado alley. If Bill (Bill Paxton) and Jo (Helen Hunt) get in the right position, however, they can help because they know what they are doing. Regardless of how one-dimensional they are, director Jan De Bont's aforementioned inclusion of the damage caused by a tornado helps to alleviate issues with the characterization as it gives the audience a cause and group of people to easily root for.

Though cliched and predictable, Twister is a fun bit of mid-1990s cinema. It may be cliched to say, but this is absolutely a film that would not be made today. Its special effects feel like those that were simply made on a set in the Warner Bros. lot or were shot on site with practical effects, not just some guy's computer while the filming was done in front of a green screen throughout. Scenes of them simply driving around debris are just as tense and impressively conducted as the scenes of twisters. Thus, while perhaps a bit of a guilty pleasure, Twister is a pure joy to watch. It is heavily commercialized (hello Pepsi), but feels like a breath of fresh air with its blockbuster inclinations thanks to actual stakes, terrific practical effects that were mostly done on location along with the filming, and good performances (namely Paxton, Hunt, and Philip Seymour Hoffman) by actors working with limited characters. All-in-all, Twister is a good time.

8/10 - Directed by Howard Hawks, El Dorado is a pretty typical western, but a damn good one at that. Telling the story of the town of El Dorado, the film focuses on a range war. On one side, we have Bart Jason (Ed Asner). Ruthless and willing to do anything to get his hands on the water supply found in the land of Kevin Macdonald (R.G. Armstrong) and his family, he hires Cole Thornton (John Wayne) to help him run the Macdonald's out of town. However, when Cole discovers his old friend JP Harrah (Robert Mitchum) is the town's sheriff and defender of the Macdonald's, Cole switches sides. Now, he and the drunk JP Harrah must team up to defend the Macdonalds from Jason, his men, and his new hired gun, Nelse McLeod (Christopher George). With the help of a deputy sheriff and an inexperienced gunman named Mississippi (James Caan), the stage is set for a rough and tumble old school western.

Showcasing three of the fastest guns in the area - Cole, JP, and Nelse - the film good vs evil convention also serves as the backdrop for this dick measuring contest between the trio to see who is the best shot in the west. With terrific shootout sequences that are well choreographed and well shot by Hawks, El Dorado may be a pretty stereotypical western from the 1960s with John Wayne as a star, but it displays its cliches at the top of their game. It may rest too squarely on these cliches to be a truly special film, but its usage of them feels relatively fresh and the characters are engaging enough to make the film a fun romp through the old west nonetheless. To the film's credit, as well, the situation is compelling due to the large size of the Macdonald family and the forces used by Bart Jason. Together, they are well armed groups of people and Hawks has a lot of fun with this when staging sequences. Hiding people in the shadows or throughout the town, much of the gun battling may come down to the saloon, but even there, intricate staging allows the film to keep you guessing and even take the well-trodden characters unsure of where the enemy will pop up next.

While perhaps never a great actor, John Wayne was the king of westerns for a reason. He brings this strong charisma and is fully assured of his ability. Though wounded with random paralysis in one hand in this film, his character is an experienced hired gun who knows his way around a battle. Wayne, for his part, does a typically good job bringing this to life even if you can tell he is just every other John Wayne character in existence. Alongside him, Robert Mitchum is terrific as the drunk sheriff. The sequence in which he is laughed at by the saloon patrons and Jason's people particularly works due to Mitchum's acting. Drunk up until then, you can see the hurt in his face and the shame he feels for being a drunkard. Though he still wants to drink, he also wants to get back at those who laughed at him and in a big way. As the young and wily knife throwing revenge killer Mississippi, James Caan is oddly innocent. Typically, we see him in more boisterous and antihero type roles, if not a full on antagonist, but he is quite good here as a man still avenging the death of his father figure. He may not know how to shoot, but he is good natured and Caan may not be brilliant, but he hints at his future abilities in bigger and better roles. Across the board, the supporting cast also does well, particularly Michele Carey who plays the daughter of Macdonald and who is far more capable than many a female character in a western. This may be El Dorado's greatest accomplishment as, though she screws up at one point, she saves the men from certain death by helping them in the climactic gun battle. A strong female character before there was such a thing, Michele Carey never really became a big deal, but her role in this film definitely served as a good calling card nonetheless.

A pretty conventional western, El Dorado works because of Howard Hawks and this game cast. Rising above the cliches and typical characters, El Dorado is a tight and thoroughly entertaining slice of mid-1960s western entertainment. While perhaps not perfect and too cliche for others, it is always fun to see John Wayne shoot guys off of his hip and to see him do it alongside Robert Mitchum and James Caan only makes it that much better. Good characters, fun shootouts, and terrific staging make El Dorado really hum along and become a very good western in spite of its flaws.

Spangle · 04-03-2017, 01:38 AM

8/10 - Towards the end director John Carpenter's 1988 film They Live, he included a joke about himself as a director. Joking that his films rely too heavily upon sex and violence as a tongue-in-cheek jab at his critics, the line showed that Carpenter was getting to his wits end with people claiming his films were dangerous. In further response, he unleashed In the Mouth of Madness on the world. The third and final entry into his Apocalypse trilogy, the film is about an insurance claims investigator named John Trent (Sam Neill). Opening with him in an insane asylum, the film backtracks and is told through flashback as John recounts his experiences to a man who appears to be a detective of some kind. Claiming that the work of Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow), a pulp horror novelist, is real and that John had just lived through his latest novel (In the Mouth of Madness being the title of the novel), John warns the detective that the recent epidemic of random violence will only worsen due to the book.

Set in the fictional town of Hobb's End in New Hampshire, John is sent to find Sutter Cane by Arcane Publishers along with a woman named Styles (Julie Carmen). It is believed that Sutter Cane has gone missing and with him went the copy of In the Mouth of Madness, which is set to be published soon. He travels from New York to find this town of Hobb's End, which is believed to be fake. However, weird sightings on the road as they drive up to New Hampshire eventually lead to them to the town, which is an exact copy of how it is portrayed in the novels by Cane. Events transpire according to each novel with the duo making their way through the town with the help of the books. However, they quickly find themselves as the stars of Cane's hellish new novel with the two at the forefront of a virus that spreads across the world and John tasked with delivering the novel to the world, where it will spread into the real world from the fictional.

While undeniably horrifying with a terrific score courtesy of Carpenter himself, the film almost feels tongue-in-cheek and satirical. Julie Carmen's character of Styles and Jurgen Prochnow's Sutter Cane are the biggest indicators of this. Either Carpenter let Carmen turn in the worst performance in the history of humanity or he purposely had her do so. Her lines are delivered comically to the point that one must wonder if she was really trying or not. Her character swings between comically excessive to oddly unexpressive. These swings are either a result of bipolar disorder or Carpenter's attempts to hint at the film's less-than-serious stance. Prochnow's Sutter Cane similarly feels tongue-in-cheek, but of Carpenter himself. There is some minor resemblance of the two in appearance, but certainly in terms of their work. Off-the-wall, criticized for being influential of violence or insanity, and a bit pulpy, Carpenter's films and Cane's novels are a perfect match here. Thus, Cane's weird ascension (or descent) into becoming some hellish god of Earth figure in full control of the world around him with it representing his writing, the film seems to be Carpenter openly mocking his critics. The film is the equivalent of him saying:

"Yes of course I control the world. I am actually a spawn of the devil with hellhounds fighting off the hoards of protesters against my work, for fear that their children will fall under the spell of the sex and violence on display. The only way to be safe is to get rid of me, but unfortunately, since I control the world, I can ensure my work continues to be seen."

Thus, the film practically becomes a satirical critique of the critics who despise Carpenter's films and openly wonder whether they will have a negative impact on those who watch them. Will Halloween make people kill? Will Christine make people run over others with their car? Will They Live make people kill cops and judges because they control the "system"? In this film, Carpenter assures those worried that all of these will definitely happen, considering the fact that his films all become fact once he puts pen to paper and films it all. To drive this home in the film, he concludes the film with John Trent watching the exact film we just watched in the cinemas starring himself. Incredibly self-reflexive, it is Carpenter's method of winking at the audience and assuring them that, yes, this film is an entirely satirical look at how his films are portrayed.

Scary, entertaining, and incredibly imaginative, In the Mouth of Madness feels like a Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft horror novel, which makes it all the more engaging. As with all of his films, In the Mouth of Madness is certainly an incredibly unique film and one that is endlessly watchable with many layers, both thematically and entertainment-wise. This is a film that constantly subverts expectations and leaves the audience wondering whether they are just a fictional character in a real world or vice versa.

9/10 - After watching David Lean's brilliant film Brief Encounter yesterday, it seems like fate that I would encounter Clint Eastwood's The Bridges of Madison County. Though it is possible that Eastwood did not take inspiration from Lean's film, the two are incredibly similar thematically and plot-wise. Portraying two people meeting for a fleeting few days in 1965, this film is a transcendent look at love and denial that is positively heart wrenching. Set in both 1965 and the present day, the film looks at the affair between Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep) and Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) as it occurs and as it is viewed by Francesca's two children as they learn about it after their mother's death. Both a passionate and mournful look at love, the film is a brilliantly constructed look at relationships.

In 1965, Francesca is an unhappy housewife. With her husband and children out of town for a few days, she plans on just getting some time away from them and breathing. However, photographer Robert Kincaid comes to town to take pictures of the bridges of her Iowa hometown for a National Geographic spread. Quickly falling for him, their relationship is brief, just four days, but very much akin to the one in Brief Encounter. Robert is not married to a woman, but is married to his work. Taking him all over the world, he is devoted to the world to the detriment of his relationships with women. Francesca, meanwhile, ditched her dreams long ago to have children. The part of her that would jump and leave at the drop of a hat is long gone, for fear of instilling a bad message to her children. Thus, both know their relationship is doomed. It will end because there are forces beyond their control that pull them away from one another. Yet, as much as it hurts them both, neither wish to forget what they felt over the course of those four days as they, by their own admission, cram a lifetime of passion into just four days.

With the relationship defined in small moments - Robert picking her flowers, dancing in the kitchen, taking photos at the bridge, laying in the bathtub, and simply talking at the table - the romance is incredibly authentic. Yet, no moment really rips your heart out akin to the last chance they have to be together in spirit. With her husband Richard (Jim Haynie) home now, Francesca goes into town with him where she sees Robert. Staring at one another in the rain, the film refuses to go for the overly dramatic and unrealistic conclusion. They look at one another, Francesca leans over in the front seat to get a better look at him in the pouring rain, but they go their separate ways. Leaving town, Richard winds up behind Robert. In his truck, Robert can be seen hanging the crucifix Francesca gave him on his rearview mirror and waiting at a green light. He gives her one last chance to come with him. She clutches the door handle and waits. Her worries about Robert no longer wanting her are long gone. The connection is mutual. The experience unique. They are brief soulmates, but Francesca must choose: her family or Robert. In this tense and dramatic scene, the drama feels real. It is not manufactured and you can feel her dilemma. Regardless of what she chooses, she will never feel complete as her heart is guaranteed to be pulled in two separate directions. As is the case throughout, Streep beautifully portrays this complex character and the dilemmas before her. She acts out at Robert for making her feel this way, is set to leave, and is set to stay. She cannot make up her mind, but settles on hurting the least amount of people. Were it not for Streep's powerful performance, the film would still be good but not great. This is the perfect marriage between actor and material as she brings power and grace to the picture, as well as the dilemmas put before her character.

One of the film's greatest assets, however, is the portrayal of Francesca's husband. Often times in these films about affairs, the spouse is shown to be boring or abusive or any number of things. Robert, however, is not treated in such a way. He is a great husband and father. On his death bed, he expresses his regret that he never gave Francesca her dreams. His role in the film is moving and powerfully written. A large part of why Francesca stays is to not hurt Richard and it is easy to see why. He is a beautiful soul who never hurt anybody. Why would he deserve to be hurt in such a way by his wife, who he never wronged. Thus, by not portraying him negatively, The Bridges of Madison County brilliantly shows the pull her marriage has on her heart. Had he been portrayed negatively, it would be a mystery as to why she would stay when she was so unhappy. But, due to his characterization, it becomes clear that she stayed because she loved him. She could not hurt somebody she loved for the simple reason that he was not her soulmate. It is a truly selfless act and yet another example of her giving up her dreams for her family. In this area of the film, it almost becomes an ode to mothers who give up their lives for their husbands and children. Though things are changing now, women in 1965 had to drop all their hopes and dreams for their family. Yet, they would do it without complaint. Francesca, though a bit different than many housewives of the era, is a testament to this as she sacrifices all of her hopes to care for her family and give them a strong example of how one should behave in a marriage. In his final words to Francesca, it is also clear that Richard knew. He knew his wife was not happy and he simply did not do enough to make her happy. Just as she had regrets, those were his as he held her back from following her heart and could not make up for it any fashion beyond simply loving her.

Her example is certainly not lost on her children, Michael (Victor Slezak) and Carolyn (Annie Corley), in the modern day either. Though reading about her affair initially stirs up emotions of animosity, the two quickly learn that the letters and journals were the final lesson given to them by their mother. By sharing these with her children, she leaves an indelible mark on their lives as she encourages them to follow their heart. She stayed because she loved them, in spite of her unhappiness. But, she realizes all these years later that she does not want her children to just suck it up and stay when they are unhappy. She wants them to go find somebody that makes them feel wanted, feel beautiful, and feel loved. If their spouse is not doing it for them, there is no shame is following your heart. Upon reading these letters, Carolyn takes a break from her marriage. Michael runs home and tells his wife that he wants to give her the dreams she never followed. By reading these letters, both of them are given a second chance at love, regardless of who it is with. No longer do they accept that marriages are something to be stuck with and divorce is shameful. Instead, working on themselves and their marriage is a must, as is finding a way to bring joy and happiness to their spouse.

The film is also a compelling look at farm life and society. Similar to Brief Encounter or a Douglas Sirk film such as All That Heaven Allows, the film shows gossip and appearances. As Francesca pursues her heart, she risks being ostracized like Lucy Redfield (Michelle Benes), who is having an affair with a local married man. Francesca fears the scorn of the people and her relationship with Robert must be done with absolute discretion. While the film is a celebration of smalltown America and its simple beauties, which is captured with stunning cinematography, the film shows its faults. It is a community and a family unlike any other, but there is a lack of understanding. Things are the way they should be. Divorce is shameful. Affairs even more so. One should get married and stay that way. Similar to those aforementioned films, however, we are shown that the heart can pull us away from these norms. To become happy, one must not be concerned with the perceptions of the world. By the end of the film, Lucy has married her lover and time shows that none of it really mattered after all. This could be why Francesca struck up a friendship with Lucy. Though she says it is because it was the only place she felt she could think about Robert in safety, it was also because Lucy followed her heart. She lived with the "shame" and come out on the other side because she had found her soulmate. As time went on, part of her knew that people would forget and that she would be the fool for having let present prejudice persuade her to not follow future happiness. Thematically, this is also similar to Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, though from the opposite perspective as that film concerns a male protagonist. Similar to Francesca, however, he stays in his passionless marriage to have children and to avoid being ostracized by society. By the time his children are grown and his wife is dead, he learns that the scandalous affair of years ago has now become a regular old marriage and that time would have forgiven him had he left his wife for the woman he truly loved. For Francesca, though she chose the opposite route, being near somebody who chose happiness allows her to essentially live vicariously through her.

A truly unique entry into Clint Eastwood's directorial filmography, The Bridges of Madison County is a salt of the earth kind of film. It is not flashy. It is not dramatic. It is real life. It hurts your heart to watch, but it is an entirely poetic and melodic experience that, upon seeing it all come together, proves to be a film that brings an overwhelming tide of emotion onto viewers. It is a powerful film directed with serious gravitas by Eastwood, while also featuring Meryl Streep in a role she was absolutely born to play. Together, the two bring class and justification to affairs, showing that they are not always done out of nastiness or evil intentions. Instead, they can be the product of two soulmates finding each other too late and being forced to separate as their roads fork away from one another. Melancholy, moving, and methodically paced, The Bridges of Madison County is an absolutely outstanding work.

9/10 - I have seen the light. Years ago, I saw two of them Man With the No Name trilogy entries by Sergio Leone and I liked them a lot. But, I did not love them. Once Upon a Time in the West was even going the same way for me until halfway through. Until then, it was a good western, but one with far too many sequences of somebody just staring off into the distance and then looking back, only to look off into the desert again. By the halfway point though, something changed. It clicked. This staring became brilliant. The scenes of action well earned and brilliantly executed. It is a pitch perfect western and was the very embodiment of what the genre is and was capable of becoming. With a terrific score, great acting, and brilliant direction, Once Upon a Time in the West is a tremendous film.

A story concocted by Leone, Dario Argento, and Bernardo Bertolucci, will hardly ever turn out poorly and Once Upon a Time in the West shows why. Its story - a man and his family with a land settlement are killed by a ruthless man. His widow is left with the land, which is apparently quite valuable as the railroad is set to come through the acreage and her husband planned on building a town surrounding it, having already purchased the materials. It is the perfect settlement and the criminals of the wild west know the score. In its relatively simplistic plotting, the film is clearly influential on a variety of westerns, such as Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller or Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider. Both revisionist westerns, the films show upstart towns with unexpected value. Altman's film shows a frontierman who marries a prostitute (just like in this film), who meets his demise after his town becomes the target of men who wish to control the whole area. Pale Rider has a similar set-up, but with gold under the settlement. A variety of westerns have had this set-up, but both of those feel cut from the same contemplative and methodically paced cloth as Leone's film.

Direction-wise, the film is pitch perfect. Terrific staging of each sequence, a largely tight plot, and beautiful imagery adorn this film. For a film so slow and long, it never bores. There is significant power in the random close-ups of the film and it is because of the direction of Leone. The film is engaging due to the varied approach to the gun battles and characterizations in the film, with each sequence having characters hiding in signs or shadows, creating a great sense of mystery and originality each time a man brandishes a gun. Additionally, each character wears their personality on their sleeve. Every drop of this film is precise and included for a reason, even if the film is not dealing with overly complex themes or anything. It is simply a tight, straight forward western that hums along at its own pace.

One of the strongest parts of this film, however, is the score from Ennio Morricone. At a certain point, the men all look the same. They are tanned white guys with beards. It is hard to tell them apart. Morricone's score helps. It serves as an introduction to who they are, what to expect from the scene, and it cultivates atmosphere. Numerous scenes ride on the sense of mystery instilled by Morricone's score that keeps the viewer alert to the fact that something is off or that something is about to happen. The score not only serves for dramatic impact and as an extension of the characterization, but it is also quite sonically pleasing with Morricone's classic western chords coming to play throughout the film and really creating the perfect ambiance for this film. There is not a note that goes wrong with every chord and line coming off beautifully and helping to created a full figured beauty of a film.

A classic and masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West is a film that I should have seen long ago, but I am glad to have encountered it now because I was finally ready to let Leone into my life as the master that he was. Brilliantly scored, directed, and paced, the film may be long, but its preciseness and terrific technical and visual elements sink their hooks into you with ease and never let go until the film ends. Of the 1960s westerns from Leone, this one certainly ranks as the strongest and with great reason. This is a film that soars on its unpredictability and originality, constantly keeping the audience guessing as to how everything will turn out due to both the plotting and staging of the film and its shootouts. This is not just some simple shoot 'em up western. This is a film with violence and shootouts that advance the plot and serve a purpose, which give them significant stakes and power. Once Upon a Time in the West is just so damn good.

8/10 - The only film directed by Alfred Hitchcock to win Best Picture, Rebecca is a terrific psychological thriller that first introduced the world to Hitchcock's abilities as a horror director. Creating an eerie atmosphere with things constantly on the brink of falling apart, the film is largely set in a large mansion owned by a man named Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). Finding a new and nameless wife (Joan Fontaine) while on vacation, he is seeking to replace the now deceased Rebecca de Winter, who was his first wife. However, his new wife quickly discovers that she - a common woman - is out of her element. The late Rebecca de Winter was a revered society woman with the house staff devoted to her every whim. She also did not love Maxim, which he knew. Fortunately for him, he found his new wife who loves him, but the staff hates her because she is not Rebecca. Creepy, unsettling, and terrifically entertaining, Rebecca is yet another tremendous film by Hitchcock.

Though never showing Rebecca, she functions as a ghost. She slinks from room-to-room and her presence is felt. Her death carries great mystery, but not nearly as much as her life and afterlife, where she proves to be an inescapable presence for his new wife. She constantly finds items owned by her or people devoted to her, feeling trapped by this odd presence. The film is claustrophobic for much of its runtime, as you feel this woman becoming trapped in the shadows of the woman that came before her. Maxim tries to show her he does not want the same woman by moving the bedroom from the west to the east wing, but Rebecca's old things still adorn the home. She feels as though she is in constant competition and it is a battle she will lose. She feels pressured and trapped as her husband seems to grow more-and-more distant the more often it becomes apparent she cannot compete with Rebecca. In this home, the only name that matters is Rebecca, as she will forever be the home's hostess with everyone else relegated to being nothing more than her guest.

A psychological thriller with a fiery finale, Rebecca transforms from a claustrophobic gothic film to a mystery and this transformation is seamless. Alleged to have drowned at sea, Rebecca's body had been identified by Maxim. Or had it? A shipwreck nearby leads to the discovery of Rebecca's boat, which has evidence it may not have sunk innocently. Was it suicide? Murder? Keeping the audience unsure of the story, even after the film is over, Rebecca's mystery is one that sticks with you and refuses to be neat. Instead, it is quite messy and brutal with only one thing being clear: people really liked Rebecca. Otherwise, the true story regarding her death, marriage to Maxim, and his second marriage are all left up in the air, creating terrific mystery and thrill during and after the film. The whole film shows why Hitchcock was the master of suspense with his versatility in the area on full display, as the man knew his way around a murder tale and suspecting those near you are not telling the whole truth.

Rebecca, honestly, is not that flawed. It rarely drags and the film is loaded with classic Hitchcock suspense in a variety of areas with the film constantly leaving the audience trying to play catch up. It fosters great sympathy for our nameless wife character as she is caught between a short-tempered husband and his dead wife, as well as all of the house staff. Through the characterization of all of these characters, Hitchcock continuously foreshadows that something is off in this great big house with the home itself feeling like an unspeakable weight on her shoulders. As is the case with many gothic films, the home in Rebecca takes on a personality of its own, in large part because of Maxim's first wife Rebecca. Thus, the film turns into a constant display of tension and thrill, with danger seemingly lurking around every corner as this nameless wife proves herself to be the furthest thing from Rebecca that could be possibly imagined. This merely causes more and more strife in the home, threatening to boil over at any point.

Much of this tension is derived from the character of Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson). As those influenced by Hitchcock noted, he loved obsession and boy is Mrs. Danvers obsessed. She did not love Rebecca. She worshiped her. Everything Joan Fontaine's character does is wrong because Rebecca did not do it. Everything Rebecca touched or did is worth its weight in gold. She is treated as a god by Mrs. Danvers as she refuses to accept the fact that she is dead and that it is time to move on like everyone else. Rebecca also shows Hitchcock playing with low-key voyeurism with characters spotting one another a window or characters being accused of spying on others. While not a major theme, it does feel as though this home as eyes that contribute to the claustrophobia felt by this poor woman in her new home.

A terrific psychological thriller, Rebecca certainly stands among Hitchcock's best works with excellent performances from Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. A suspenseful and unpredictable film, Rebecca plants you on the edge of your seat and super glues you there for the rest of the film as it takes shocking turns, resulting in it becoming a film that nobody could have ever imagined, even with the film starting off as a flashback. Tense, thrilling, and suspenseful, the film shows what obsession reaps and the damage it can cause for those near the obsessed.

6/10 - And the Academy Award for Good Dog goes to....JUMPY If you watch that video, you can see everything he does in this movie, but with his owner and years before this movie. It also has the added benefit of sparing you watch him be killed by a real asshole. Do not worry though, Ethan Hawke killed the shit out of that dude, which is the good news. Bad news though, the dog does die in the movie. Why must movies kill these good dogs? Apparently Jumpy's trainer is the same one that trained Uggie from The Artist, so you know that this dog knows what he is doing. Director Ti West respectfully takes a step back and allows the film to celebrate Jumpy's talents with him biting a priest, leading a horse, tucking himself into bed, and covering his eyes like a good dog are the true highlights of this film. No shame either: I skipped over the parts with Jumpy being written out of the film. I knew he was going to meet his demise and that Ethan Hawke would go brutalize the men that did it, so no need to watch Ti West drag that scene out far longer than needed (it is actually a few minutes long; Jumpy gets shot and then the really bad guy breaks out a knife after speaking to Hawke with Jumpy whimpering for like three minutes, so I skipped it at that point and realized I did not want to know what happened). Regardless, Jumpy is the real star of this film. Everything is just done to give him a platform to bigger and better productions, so for that, In a Valley of Violence is entirely worth it. Otherwise, it is just a solid film from Ti West.

A spaghetti western throwback with the plot line of John Wick, it is clear that Ti West likes Sergio Leone. The score is very Morricone, but worse. The introductions and font type at the end are very Leone. The introduction of this stranger rolling into town is very Leone. Only problem: he has a name, which is Paul (Hawke). He also talks way too much. That said, West does a relatively decent job of bringing the same sort of style to the film in this relatively straight forward update of a spaghetti western. Infusing it with comedy and graphic violence, West puts his stamp on the proceedings enough to make it more than just a straight stylistic rip-off.

As Abbie's (Jumpy) human, Ethan Hawke turns in a typically solid performance. He just goes around hanging out with Abbie and killing dudes who kill Abbie, so he does not do much here, but the guy sure can kill people. In all seriousness, Hawke is a very good everyman actor and this really shines through here as we quickly relate to his problems and past as a cliched Indian killer in Oklahoma or Kansas for the military. He has regrets and does not want to kill anymore like every other western protagonist, but by God, you cannot kill a man's dog and expect to continue breathing. I know if anybody touched my dog, I'd rip their throat out and make them swallow it. Now, that may go poorly since they would no longer have a throat, but the imagery is quite powerful I'd say.

Other than Hawke, John Travolta is fine and leads the way for the rest of the cast. He plays the Marshal who is the father of a stupid son who, along with the other deputies, killed Abbie. Travolta's Marshal tried to get them to leave Paul alone, but could not. He is a decent man who may have risen to power in the town of Denton by force, but is hardly an evil man. His son, however, is real trash. Watching him get the shit beat out of him with a boot was oddly satisfying. James Ransone overacts as the despicable Gilly a bit, but he is still solid. As the only other characters with any semblance of lines, Taissa Farmiga and Karen Gillan are really bad. Either their dialogue was awful, which it was, or they were just bad, but their confused delivery of lines seem to indicate it is little bit of column A and a bit of column B. Regardless, their characters were bad and they were bad in the roles.

Largely a cliche and run-of-the-mill western, Ti West has some fun, but never wows here. The film definitely thrills and entertains though, but it is ultimately a film that is largely just an above average nostalgia film. West clearly has some good instincts with the genre though so I would love to see him try to be less derivative next time he works in the genre, if he does. He is a guy that critics seem to like, but audiences hate and I have no idea why. His films, from what I have seen, are largely quite palatable and straight forward. This is just a genre film that is pretty harmless, yet some viewers seem to think it is absolute garbage. It is a well made, largely well acted, and thoroughly entertaining western. It is slow, yes, but all westerns are slow. Did y'all pop this in and expect Fast and Furious or something?

8/10 - A twisty little mystery thriller, Sleuth is a film adapted from a play and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. As with every play-to-film adaptation, it never stops feeling like a play, which is both to the film's detriment and betterment. Featuring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine as two men squaring off in a battle of the minds with the two putting one over on one another throughout the film. What is truth and what is fiction befuddles both the characters and the audience, with very moments going as anticipated. When will these boys cry wolf and actually see a wolf? Will they ever see a wolf? This all plays out in Sleuth, which is a twisty and engaging mystery thriller that keeps you guessing and fully on the edge of your seat throughout. With great acting, the film really manages to sell itself to you, which has to be its greatest strength.

As with all plays, Sleuth makes use of its production design heavily. The home of Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) practically becomes a character of its very own with intricate little details and decorations that play a role in the plot. Very much like the relationship between Andrew and Milo (Michael Caine), the home instills a feeling that something is off. The creepy dolls being a major part of this, as they conjured this unsettling atmosphere that leaves the viewer on edge immediately, especially the more the two characters interact with this cluttered home. This intricate production design also mirrors the intricate nature of the plot, with the interactions between the characters hardly telling the whole story. Instead, there are always little nuances both characters miss and they both play out their "games". In terms of the quality of the production design, it is terrific. It is perfect for this film and one that is begging to be properly explored, which it thankfully is throughout the film.

As the two characters play out a series of deathly serious games on one another, the question is posed whether or not these are really games or elaborate murder plots to bury the lede from the police. This line between is it all good fun or murder leads to neither character really being the hero. Both are incredibly shifty and terrifically acted by Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. The duo are terrific whether they are in control or the one being controlled. While the writing and general plotting help to leave you guessing, their acting is another reason why everything is easily bought by the audience and the other character. Of course, their characterization and the film's set-up also contributes to this. Set to marry Andrew's ex-wife after being her lover, Milo comes to pay a visit to Andrew after being invited. Andrew seems to care less that his wife is getting re-married and claims his little robbery game is merely a test to see if Milo likes games too. Or, is it because he wanted to kill him? Milo's own little game raises the same questions. Is he setting up Andrew as a murderer or is it just some clever form of revenge? Neither question reveals itself until the very end when both collide in an unexpected fashion.

Often compared to another play and another film with Michael Caine as a star, Sleuth is far better than Deathtrap. That said, the similarities are clear. Both are plays adapted to film that are about two men pulling the wool over the other's eyes, as well as the audience. Neither film is willing to reveal the truth behind its lies and deception too quickly, with the film occurring in this "is this real?" sort of haze, akin to Sleuth. However, in Sleuth, the acting is far more convincing and the plot feels less, well, plotted. It flows a lot better and feels more natural as the lies told by both characters are spun and reveal their true intentions.

A captivating and thrilling little mystery film, Sleuth is a classic for good reason. Olivier and Caine are terrific actors and they nail their roles here as opposing forces. Top-notch direction, great writing, and tremendous production design, alongside the shifty lead actors, contribute to Sleuth being a wonderfully entertaining film that is eminently watchable.

[Image: Mildred-Pierce-One-Sheet.jpg]

9/10 - Personally, Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young.
-Eve Adren as Ida Corwin

A pitch perfect blend of film noir and melodrama, Mildred Pierce is a film that makes me wonder why I still have yet to see more from Michael Curtiz. Casablanca is one of my favorite films and Mildred Pierce sniffs around being right up there with that tremendous film throughout its runtime. Yet, this stands as just the second work from Curtiz that I have seen. Clearly, that will need to be rectified. A terrific noir film, Mildred Pierce is about a mother's love for her daughter. Taking a unique approach to the classic femme fatale with its protagonist acting like one at times, only to wind up being the victim of the true femme fatale all along, the film is an ode to the senseless love a mother has for their child even when everything says they should give up on trying. But, nothing stops Mildred (Joan Crawford) from loving her ungrateful daughter Veda (Ann Blyth), though the line is certainly tested. Tense, funny, and thrilling, Mildred Pierce is the very embodiment of what made both film noir and old school films click so well.

Opening with a man named Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) being killed and uttering the name, "Mildred", the film immediately makes you believe that Mildred is the gun at the other side. She immediately runs to the pier where she plans to kill herself, but is stopped by a cop. On her way home, she sees a man who runs a restaurant named Wally Fay (Jack Carson), who had always been sweet on her. Bringing him home and locking him inside, only to call the cops and frame him, she has it all set. This is one cold blooded femme fatale, no? Only the kicker is that her first husband Bert Pierce (Bruce Bennett) is seen as the likely suspect since Mildred had recently married Monte. Panic-stricken for her innocent ex, she sets out to tell the story of what really occurred, which sheds light on who the murderer truly was and it is certainly not as clear as it once appeared.

While the crime is the main focus of the film, as in any noir, the film's melodrama certainly serves as a great tool of characterization. That said, the noir inclinations of the story lead to a heavy reliance upon shadows. Often times, Curtiz let his actors just walk off the screen with their shadows left behind to act out the scene. It is a truly compelling style to be used here and it is where much of the film's noir style is derived: shadows. That said, the story often concerns melodrama in the form of Mildred's relationship with her daughter Veda (Ann Blyth). Considered spoiled and stuck-up by her father, she is the reason why her parents divorce. Come to figure out, Bert was onto something. Only interested in her mother so far as she gives her the moon, Veda resents her mother for first being a waitress and then a restaurant owner. Mildred may own a successful chain of restaurants she grew from the ground up, but she is still shameful in the eyes of her daughter. Monte, however, is brilliant. Coming from old money and unemployed, his careless attitude towards money appeals greatly to Veda. Throughout the film, Mildred and Veda have a variety of nasty arguments, but the film demonstrates just how far a mother will go. Veda tells off her mother, yet like an abused dog, Mildred continues to return and look for love where there is nothing but abhorrence. It is honestly a tragic watch as Curtiz rings this melodrama out of the film and shows that Mildred is no femme fatale. Yes, she is a bit ruthless to Wally, but not without reason: she had to save her daughter from further careening off the right path. It is the biggest act to show a mother's love and it is beautifully captured in this film that shows the struggles of raising a child who does not appreciate the effort put in by their parents and want something greater than their parents can be reasonably expected to provide. Veda is a wannabe high society girl and immature, sure to learn quickly that the world does not need another girl like herself. Except, she does not know that yet and Mildred tries to save her, but entirely in vein.

Featuring snappy dialogue and excellent one-liners, one of the most unexpected elements of Mildred Pierce is how funny the film winds up being. There are constant double entendres, comebacks, or outright jokes. The film is hysterical and features the typical quick-witted, smart, and snappy humor and dialogue found in many 1940s films. Except, it has it in bunches to the point that the film becomes borderline comedic. Zippy with all of its punchlines landing incredibly well, the comic touches added in by Curtiz acts as a perfect accompaniment to the noir and melodrama elements that also adorn this film. Never distracting from the plot, the jokes instead build the characters delivering the lines, particularly Ida Corwin (Eve Arden). The manager of Mildred's restaurant, she gets the most comedic lines and it develops this, otherwise innocuous, side character into a person who you cannot wait to see return to the screen.

With excellent film noir cinematography and a sultry score that sets the tone perfectly, Mildred Pierce may be an odd blend of noir and melodrama, but Curtiz swings it perfectly. In large part, it is because of Joan Crawford. Starring as Mildred Pierce, Crawford shows the emotional and psychological toll her daughter brings on her. She sacrifices everything to have her daughter back, but her daughter wants nothing more than to use her. Yet, she comes back for more and even more after that. As previously mentioned, she is quite a tragic figure and, simultaneously, she serves as an ode to mothers everywhere. Her other daughter Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe) certainly recognized how great her mother was, but she could not convince Veda. Watching her struggle to convince this stubborn girl that money is not everything is often hard to watch and quite powerful. It is easy to see how this film could survive without the murder mystery element added from the novel, but with the murder element added it, it only serves to bolster the melodrama. While the murder element likely contributed to Curtiz's decision to use German expressionist inspired lighting, the murder contributes to the melodrama in the sense that we see a woman pushed to her limits and willing to go the ends of the Earth to bring her daughter happiness. It is hard to imagine this film without the murder for that reason as, though it is the center of the film as it is told as a flashback during a police interview, it serves such a terrific role in bringing yet another dimension to the characters and struggles of Mildred.

One of the strongest elements of this film (okay, fuck it, everything is strong) is the writing. As mentioned in regards to Ida and the comedy, each character has a life of their own. Everybody contributes to the film, even if only in aesthetic. There is no completely useless character as everybody serves either the plot or as entertainment. Small characters such as Ida or Lottie (Butterfly McQueen) light up the screen by simply being themselves and delivering their lines with confidence. Obviously, the lead characters are tremendously written and fleshed out, to the point that nobody is completely evil. Monte can occasionally be quite sweet. He may use Mildred, but he does a great job convincing the audience he means well and, initially, he certainly did mean well. Similarly, Wally may not be the greatest guy, but for much of the film, he is the odd and sweet guy that hits on Mildred once a week. Harmless, but a guy who sticks his neck out for her. Bert even gets a great characterization as a man who tries to stop his wife from lassoing the moon to impress their daughter, but fails to stop her. Meanwhile, he is having an affair, but nonetheless, he is hardly entirely a villain. With characters this strong and enjoyable, it is hard not see Mildred Pierce's writing and characterization as one of the most nuanced and impressive works I have seen.

A full-fledged masterpiece, Mildred Pierce is a classic film noir and melodrama blend about a murder that proves the bullets do not just kill the person on the other end of the gun. It also kills those who try to stop the trigger from being pulled and those who pull the trigger. A tragic tale of a woman who builds herself up from nothing to impress her daughter only to wind up losing her anyways, Mildred Pierce is a moving and frequently funny film that includes an engrossing hook of a murder mystery, but takes it far beyond being just a simple pulp crime film.

Spangle · 04-03-2017, 01:42 AM

7/10 - One of the last films of his career finds director Robert Altman at his most stubborn. Often times, his films are criticized for not really having a plot. Instead, those films are character-driven. It is about the interactions some protagonist has with others and the situations they find themselves in that drive the film forward. Films such as California Split are admittedly quite plotless, but the interactions between the two protagonists on their gambling journey is what propels the film forward. Others, such as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, do have more of a plot, but still rely on the characters to move the film forward. The Company, however, is different. Altman refuses to give us characters or a plot. Yes, the film does pretend to focus on ballet dancer Ryan (Neve Campbell), her boyfriend Josh (James Franco), or company director Alberto (Malcolm McDowell), but very few scenes exist where they are the stars. Instead, the film is about the company. The group of dancers, their interactions, and the film plays out more like a documentary than a true drama.

Introducing us to Ryan and her family for no apparent reason, the half-baked character development is the film's biggest fault. Neve Campbell is fine in the role, but Ryan is hardly worthy of so much attention when the film flat out refuses to take it farther than showing us her family and boyfriend. The film would have turned out far better had they just focused on everybody else and the company as a whole, which it seems to want to do. Perhaps Altman could not get funding unless actual characters were added or something, but regardless, it does hold the film back as it just feels excessive and unnecessary. This could also be a writing issue, but even the writing seems to admit these characters are incredibly dry.

That said, the world this film drops you into is absolutely irresistible. Though I am not a dancer nor am I a fan of ballet, the intricacy of the performances on display here and the practice is impeccable. The film feels tense and dramatic with very little effort as you watch people battle it out for roles in a never-ending stream of performances. Merely watching a dancer practice or audition is incredibly tense, even when we have no idea who they are. There is a natural tension to this realistic display put forth by Altman's film that really elevates the film. But, the film is not nearly just the drama. It is also the interactions and camaraderie between those in the company. One woman "rents" out her place for fellow dancers and, one night, she goes around at night asking if somebody has an extra condom. It feels like an out of place scene in the film if you view it as being about Ryan, since she is not in the place at all. If you view it as merely a film about the company, its dancers, and its productions, it makes a whole lot more sense. It is an oddly charming sequence that shows that all of these people are in it together, with no questions asked. Though their families may not support them, the other dancers are ride or die.

While perhaps not the most engaging film on the surface, there is a lot to like about The Company. It may be Altman's least structured film, or at least one of them, but features a lot of late career flair that his earlier films (1980s) sometimes lacked. He is open to giving up scenes to just the choreography and letting the nameless dancers do their thing, which is to the film's benefit. It is a film about the ballet company and by the ballet company. Altman lets them do the talking, unfortunately the film does try to force Ryan and her dull boyfriend upon us, which is the film's main weakness. The film is about the company. Do not try and add some useless love interest and back story to a film that does not need either. Unfortunately, it did and we are left with a film that feels unfocused as a result of this divided approach between Ryan's story and then everybody else. This division is what holds the film back from being better, but even, it is a terrific odd little film that is not really slice of life or stream of consciousness, but more of a docudrama.

8/10 - Gilda is hardly a film noir. Yes, its stylings indicate it is a film noir, but the film lacks many of the elements that would make a film quintessential noir. Yet, its stylings do leave it as film noir, even if it only mildly introduces the mystery and suspense people have come to assume will be present in a film of this ilk. Instead, it focuses far more on romance with the mystery of the film coming from that romantic side. Featuring Rita Hayworth in her trademark role, the film pairs her with Glenn Ford. The two go through a love-hate relationship in an illegal casino in Argentina. The noir elements come from the way in which they rub shoulders with the crime elements of Argentina and some Nazis who have certainly helped to start up the place. That said, the romance is what this film is really all about.

Dripping with sex appeal, the film lets Rita Hayworth play Gilda with the utmost freedom allowed by the Hays code. I imagine those prudes watching this film had to have been sweating, but somehow, it made it through. With every line including sexual innuendo, her body movements alluring, and her actions playful, Gilda is a woman who knows how to hook a man in and wrap him around her finger. She plays a whole room with ease and flirts without even trying to flirt. It is simply her nature. When she is mad at her man, she will go find another one just to make her man jealous. And boy does she find it easy to find a willing participant. Cunning, smart, and manipulative, Gilda is no ordinary femme fatale. In fact, she is the victim of obsession at the hands of Johnny (Glenn Ford). The only thing that can bring down a femme fatale in a noir film is a man named Johnny. Locked up in a prison of a marriage with the man, Gilda may love and hate him in equal measure, but he is the one man she cannot control.

Not to say she does not try, however. She sleeps around and flirts with other men right in front of him, even when she is married to Johnny's boss Ballin Mundson (George Macready). When she is finally with Johnny, their relationship is not just turbulent, rather it climbs mountains and then nosedives repeatedly. Having dated in a past life, the two are brought back together by Gilda's plotting to make him jealous. It works, but perhaps a little too well. By the time they are together, Johnny locks her in her hotel room and when she is allowed to leave, has her followed all over Argentina and South America. She cannot escape and it is a punishment for her using her sex appeal to make Johnny jealous. Many could read this negatively and as an indictment of promiscuous women. A sleep around and you will be punished sort of message. This is probably fair to some extent, as she is certainly punished for her actions and the film does go to great lengths to assure the audience that she is a little too playful with men, especially while singing as she nearly lets them undress her entirely.

That said, the film is more about obsession than anything else. Johnny and Gilda broke one another's hearts. Johnny leaves to get away and Gilda follows. She is obsessed with him, yes, but Johnny's too far gone. Gilda plays around a bit and tries to make him jealous. Johnny's obsession drives him to pure brazenness and insanity through his methods of punishing Gilda. This message of warning people of the costs of obsession is hinted at by Ballin. Watching Gilda dance with another man, he asks Johnny to fetch her for him because he believes that husbands always look silly breaking up their girl from dancing with another man. Johnny has no issues doing this, especially when he is married to the girl. He is the fool. He is the one with egg on his face. Had he just given Gilda the affection she wanted from him, he would have been fine, but he did not. He wanted to possess her and control her. That was his idea of love and it is truly chilling to watch unfold. Gilda is a film that seems to introduce a femme fatale, but shows that instead of women being the main threat to a man, the opposite is true. Men pose the greatest risk to women and it is not even close.

An engaging noir romance that looks at the dangers of obsession inherent in the love-hate relationship that is portrayed, Gilda features a tremendous performance from Rita Hayworth, as well as from Glenn Ford. With a surprise ending that seems a bit too neat and out of left field, Gilda is prevented from being one of my favorite noirs, but it is a damn good film all the same.

8/10 - How much is gold worth? Why is it worth anything? It just something buried underneath the Earth that should be relatively worthless. But, humans have assigned it great value before its appearance. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the film comes right out and says that gold is worth something because of how hard to find it is. But, that is hardly the whole picture. Why go after it at all if it is so hard to find? Known for his films on human nature or failed quests, director John Huston delivers one of his most well-known films and it embodies both of those themes with a group of men - Fred Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart), Howard (Walter Huston), and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt) - going to find gold to strike and strike it rich in Mexico. To do so, they must escape detection by the federales and the banditos that travel in the area, while also overcoming their inclination towards greed and distrust.

Though doubtful that they will turn on one another or want more gold than they can possibly find, Fred and Bob soon learn that the warnings of old school prospector Howard were more true than they could have imagined. It does not take long for them to all distrust one another, particularly Fred. He is out for himself from the start and quickly descends into paranoia. Yet, their reaction to merely thinking about gold answers the question as to why people value it so highly. It taking a lot of man power to find is part of it, yes, but there is more. Greed and pride is the answer. It is hard to find, which makes it rare, which makes it valuable. While the men on this journey are all broke, they see the dollar signs. They know that their lives will change for finding this gold and being able to sell it those who are similarly greedy and prideful. Thus, Huston shows the impact this has on a man. One not only has to be willing to give up their soul in order to possess the gold, but one must be willing to lose themselves and those near them to merely sniff around the stuff. It is only once you have seen the impact it has on a man to have this perceived power can one overcome it and rise above its impact on the mind, as has been done by Howard.

However, Huston shows what greed begets. This is not a film with a happy ending. Bob is shot, Fred loses everything, and Howard is the only man to land on his feet after helping an Indian tribe save a child. The only way to be rewarded is this life is to do good for others, for then good will done for you. As Fred is violent, he meets violence at the hand of greedy banditos. Bob is greedy, thus he loses what he has. Though, through being open to hearing wisdom, Bob has opened himself to be a man like Howard or settling down with a woman. He is no longer after just gold and wealth, instead he has somewhat "seen the light". Howard, meanwhile, is a good man who has put in his due and sacrifices his own gold to try and save a boy's life, which is the most selfless act on display in the film. Thus, he is rewarded for this action.

To illustrate how greed merely begets greed, The Treasure of the Sierra Made shows the bandits. Executed when caught, the bandits play a large role in the film with the them nearly overtaking a train the characters are on and then encountering them in the Sierra Madre with a shootout occurring between the bandits and the film's protagonists. The bandits are the very embodiment of greed and do not value anything or anybody. Once caught, they are forced to dig their own graves before being shot by a firing squad. Their greedy leads them straight into the grave. In this incredibly tightly plotted film, no line goes to waste and least of all the bits regarding the bandits. While the protagonists may not be digging their own physical graves, they are digging ones all the same, especially Fred. The greedier he becomes and the most distrusting of his partners he becomes, the more certain and imminent his death becomes. He may not realize it, but he is the bandito in this tale. He is the man digging his own grave the further he slips into greed. To Huston, it may be human nature to become greedy when faced with the prospect of wealth, but it is not a profitable business and one that is sure to lead to a person's demise.

As a further piece of evidence towards the film's tight story and thematic ruminations, Howard mentions that gold does not look all that nice. Compared to fool's gold, actual gold is not very shiny when you first find it in the mountains. Instead, it simply looks like sand and could easily be disregarded as such. At the end of the film, we see this come back again as the banditos steal their gold finds off the back of the donkeys/burros they owned. Except, they dump the bags, believing them to be bags of sand. Had the bandits known better, they would realize what they had found. However, they have no idea of value. If gold's value, as the film suggests, is because of the work put in by men then it logically fits that the bandits would dump it out. As a group only interested in taking a shortcut to wealth, they place no value on work or the time it takes a man to find gold. Thus, they are not willing to take a second look at something that does not appear valuable or would require effort to derive value from. Instead, they look for the quick buck with the burros and hides. Their discarding of the gold is partially due to ignorance of what gold looks like, but also due to their lack of understanding that hard work is more valuable than simply free loading off of those around them.

Though early in my investigation of John Huston's filmography, it is clear that mother nature also plays a large role in his films. While not really the case in The Maltese Falcon, mother nature played a large role in his other 1948 release, Key Largo. Also starring Humphrey Bogart, the film found a group of characters stuck inside a hotel in Key Largo due to a damaging hurricane wreaking havoc outside that mirrors the turmoil going on indoors. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is very similar. The men are made to pay for taking the gold from the Earth when the wind blows away all of their gold or when Fred gets stuck in the gold mine after the Earth collapses around him. He is saved, but the mountain is fighting back and does not want to lose what belongs to the Earth. But, through human determination and pride, the characters trudge forward and extract gold from the Earth, only for it to reclaim its possession. With the way in which negative traits of human nature are portrayed in juxtaposition to how the fickle nature of mother nature is shown, it is clear the film is incredibly pro-environment. That which we must dig for and damage what is already there is not our's to own and is buried for a reason. Those who dig in spite of the obstacles will be punished accordingly and all of the protagonists lose their bounty. Though Howard and Bob land on their feet, their efforts for ten months were for nought as the Earth reclaimed its gold. At the end of the day, mother nature is in control and will punish those who violate her.

In the lead role, Humphrey Bogart is phenomenal. Of all the performances I have seen from him, his turn as Fred Dobbs must rank as one of his very best. Driven to madness by his greed and haunted by paranoia of the men he betrayed coming back to kill him or coming back and betraying him, Fred is no hero. He may seem sympathetic and idealistic to start with, but he quickly reveals himself to be antihero. He rebukes his partners for wanting to help the widow of James Cody (Bruce Bennett), a man who had found their camp and was quickly killed by bandits. Even worse, he had led the charge for his group to kill James to keep their profits higher. He is an evil man who willingly sells his soul and morals for worldly wealth. Unfortunately for him, he meets his demise at the hand of those who at least admit to be bandits. Fred is worse, as he refuses to admit he stole from Bob and Howard, as well as the Earth. Instead, he rationalizes that the gold is rightfully is because he invested the most in the trip and had worked ten months looking over his shoulder to earn the gold. That said, Fred is a cautionary tale. Bogart plays his paranoid greed side and his poor soul side terrifically. This dichotomy allows Fred to become established a real man with a real dream. To lift himself out of poverty, he sets off to find gold. He does not want to be greedy and simply wants enough to help himself out of his predicament without having to continue begging on the streets. However, through an interaction with a young lottery ticket boy, we see he is not all good. He throws water in the boy's face and tells him to stop begging, even though Fred has just begged for cash himself from men outside. He is a hypocrite with no moral compass at this point, making his shift to a greed-filled man quite natural and a cautionary tale about what gold can do to those without any direction in the world. For those who do not guide themselves by morality and simply take from others and spit in the face of those in need, greed and other mortal sins can easily take hold and drag them down into the pit.

Responsible for both the script and the direction of the film, John Huston is aces. Not only is the script incredibly tight with each line and action playing into the finale or character arcs, but the film is simply terrifically directed. Its themes are well developed and allowed room to breathe and develop naturally, while its pacing is perfect. It never slacks nor does it ever rush. Many older films can skimp on certain areas and simply jump too quickly into its story or other elements of its plot. This film has none of that, moving along at the appropriate pace and rate of development. However, Huston really flexes his directorial muscle in the shootout scene and the finale. In the former, the staging and execution of the shootout is tremendous. It is intricate with banditos hiding everywhere and the protagonists similarly all over the place. Huston derives great tension and anxiety from the sequence as the camera scans the area trying to find where the enemy could be. The scene itself is incredibly engaging and unpredictable with the film deriving a lot of natural tension from the character's lack of knowledge of the nature of banditos and the terrain they are fighting on. Second, the finale when Bob and Howard return to the town and find out their gold is in the ruins is terrific, particularly when they return to the ruins. With the wind gusting all around them, you can practically see the gold dust floating by them as they arrive on horseback to where the banditos dumped out the bags. The whipping wind as they ride on horseback make for some gorgeous shots, but also shows Huston's adeptness at tension. Though we know that the gold is gone, there is still tension as they nervously scan the area for the gold they had dug up, no matter how fruitless the endeavor is for them.

Excellently directed, acted, and written, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a film about gold and the work put in to find gold, which is how its value is derived. However, is it worth all that effort to find something that has no inherent value and will consume your soul? In this battle between human nature and man, as well as mother nature and man, it quickly becomes clear that nature always wins and takes no prisoners when in times of war. A classic for very good reason, The Treasure of the Sierra Made is a tightly plotted film with excellent themes and deserves its classic label.

7/10 - Directed by William Wyler, How to Steal a Million presents a terrific opportunity to watch Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn spar in a romantic heist comedy that may be relatively light entertainment and is hardly among Wyler's most well-known works. That said, as a heist comedy, the film is a charmer. Now, O'Toole and Hepburn certainly do not hurt this element with both turning in terrific performances. With fun heist sequences and a compelling premise, Wyler and his cast inject life into a film that could have been quite dry and tame if handled by a lesser talent. As a whole, How to Steal a Million is not necessarily seen as a classic, but it is a very good film nonetheless. Funny, smart, well put together, How to Steal a Million will also steal your heart with its natural charisma.

The daughter of an art forger, Nicole (Audrey Hepburn) is a good person. She does not like that her father forges art or that her grandfather had similarly forged sculptures, but she is also not going to stab her father in the back. With a forged statue of Venus (aka Nicole's grandmother) now on loan at a major art museum and her father, Charles Bonnet (Hugh Griffith), continuing to sell his forged paintings, things are going well. One night, however, a man breaks in. Simon Dermott (Peter O'Toole), a mysterious but well-dressed burglar is seen scraping a piece of Charles' latest Van Gogh forgery when Nicole finds him. What ensues is a cute romance between the two, as well as a partnership when crisis strikes the Bonnet household: the museum wants to get insurance for the sculpture. If they allow this, a test will be done to assure it is authentic. Knowing that Simon broke into her own home, Nicole reasons that he would be the perfect guy to pull off the heist at the museum. Only problem of course being the high-tech security employed to protect the statue. Using Simon's wit and Nicole's charm, the duo are tasked with finding a way to beat detection.

In the climactic heist sequence, Wyler has a lot of fun. An innovative sequence, what with the boomerang and the key, the scene is tense but always light. As Simon and Nicole work their way to the statue through smarts and a complex plan, the film never loses its light nature with funny and nearly comical methods of evading detection by security. Adding in jokes and visual gags certainly help here, such as with the alcohol, but is also greatly benefited by the chemistry between O'Toole and Hepburn. Trapped in a closet for much of the heist, the duo quickly learn more about one another and the resultant chemistry and warmness towards one another really sells their romance and the film as a whole. In this lengthy sequence, How to Steal a Million really sells itself as a perfect blend of heist and comedy with neither stealing the spotlight from the other. Instead, the scene is just as intense as needed for a proper heist with the light moments never stealing the moment and ruining the tension.

How to Steal a Million also benefits from great production design. From the hidden entryway through the armoire in the Bonnet home or the entire museum and its hidden locked doors, the film really does a great job capitalizing on its unique settings. Each location in the film presents unique elements and manages to keep you guessing as to where they might wind up in these buildings just as much as the heist keeps you on edge. For example, as the heist wraps up, Nicole stumbles through a set of doors leading the guard's room. Except, Wyler had never shown us that this war the guard room entryway. The natural tension she feels with her largely uncertain surroundings and the tension we feel as we do not know where she is (she is supposed to be by the guard room, so it is fine), really benefits the heist sequence. Utilizing its production design to create mystery and embody the secrecy required of this mission, the film's sets are a real highlight.

Charming, funny, and light, How to Steal a Million may not be a classic or one of Wyler's best known works, but it does deserve more views. It has a terrific pairing of Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn at its center with terrifically directed heist scenes and a cute romance to its benefits. Even better, it is funny! Nice diversion cinema, How to Steal a Million entertains with ease.

8/10 - To be overly honest in a dishonest world is like plucking a chicken against the wind... you'll only wind up with a mouth full of feathers.
-Lou Jacobi as Moustache

Ditching the music of the musical this film is based on, Billy Wilder instead laces the film with his trademark cynicism, offering up a bleak and unrelentingly pessimistic worldview. Critiquing justice, honesty, and love, Irma la Douce is an incredibly funny film, but the comedy merely covers up the dark underlying current to this film: the police are incompetent, honesty has no place in this world, and love is impossible without some lies attached. Pairing together new and innocent cop Nester Patou (Jack Lemmon) and seasoned prostitute Irma la Douce (Shirley MacLaine), the film may not be nearly as dynamic as the other famous Lemmon-MacLaine pairing directed by Wilder (The Apartment), but is still a fun romp through the streets of Paris and the depressing opinion of human nature possessed by Wilder.

Cynical to its very core, the film's view of justice is impeccably bleak. A hero cop, but quite naive and innocent nonetheless, Nestor is assigned a new beat as a reward for saving a kid's life who was drowning. Taking over the beat frequented by prostitutes and pimps, he quickly wises up to the crime going on around him and rounds up all the prostitutes and hauls them to jail. Little did he know the situation that existed. Not only did the beat cop before him accept bribes, but his inspector (and boss) is a regular customer of many of the prostitutes. He even gets caught up in the raid. Fired, he quickly strikes a friendship with Irma and soon becomes her pimp after her previous employer got a little too physical with her. Knocking the man out and taking over his management of Irma by accident, he soon falls for her. Except, she has no time to spend with him because she is always working the streets. To fix this, he dresses up as an English lord named Lord X and buys all her time. Perfect, right? Wrong. Irma falls for Lord X and plans for him to whisk her off to England, believing Nestor to be seeing other girls on the side and not actually loving her. To fix this, Nestor kills Lord X. Unfortunately, the cops believe Lord X to be real and send Nestor off to jail for 15 years. While Wilder's critiques towards the corrupt police force is one thing, he really nails the justice system. With Moustache (Lou Jacobi) acting as his counsel, Nestor is told to lie and not tell the truth, because nobody would ever buy it. Unfortunately, they do not buy the lie either and he is sent to jail for 15 years. This, according to Moustache, is worse than a death sentence because that could be commuted to life and then negotiated down to a few months. No problem though as Nestor just breaks out of jail by pulling apart the bars, slipping right past cops, and then evading detection in plain sight in Irma's apartment. Through this series of events, it is clear that Wilder believes the justice system and police force to be both wildly incompetent and corrupt. It matters very little whether a person tells the truth to the police and courts because the only person who tells the truth is one waiting to get bit in the ass for that honesty. Lying hardly helps either, however, as the police and courts are liars themselves. They can smell a lie no issue. Thus, you are screwed no matter what and might as well just try to lose spectacularly and try to claw your way back from having literally no hope. Fortunately, however, the system is incompetent, it cannot even keep people locked up and the cops do not know the first thing about police work, making it even easier to escape the blind eye of the law.

This dishonesty leads nicely into the overall bleak view of honesty presented by Irma la Douce. The quote at the beginning of this review speaks to how little value honestly holds for Wilder. The truth is quickly discarded for Nestor's criminal case and his relationship with Irma only takes off once he starts lying to her. Honesty gets him fired from his job as a cop and working an honest job instead of working as a pimp brings him nothing but hardship in his relationship and tires him out to the point that he can no longer enjoy life. There is very little value to honesty in a world ruled by chaos. We all might as well just throw caution into the wind and jump into the pool without looking. This attitude is embodied by both Irma and Moustache. With the men who seek her companionship, Irma lies to them about her tragic back stories in order to earn more cash. Had she told the same boring story that her mother was a prostitute who quit the job to work in the fish market because of love, nobody would pay her extra out of sympathy. By telling stories of past trauma or siblings that need organ transplants, however, she makes the men feel bad enough to pay her more. Used as light comedy, the film glitzes up the lies to the point that we nearly do not realize she is profiting from her dishonesty. She is also unintentionally complicit in Nestor's ruse as Lord X, which brings in her greatest source of profit. It is only via breaking the law and by being dishonest even in that trade does Irma ever find any benefits. Likewise, the film really soars whenever Moustache speaks. Each time he talks, he claims to have some past experience as something or other. He claims to have been at Dunkirk or a lawyer or any number of things before writing it off as "another story" for a different time. Even the end of the film has this with Lord X appearing in the Church while Nestor is in the other room with Irma. Given this film's view of the truth and honesty, the ending is hardly realistic and underscores Wilder's belief that people will be out for themselves no matter what, even if it means lying. The cops and justice system emphasize this and even Moustache shows this same trait. He lies to his own benefit throughout as the owner of the bistro and allows the dishonest business to operate just across the street. He is not even the real Moustache, having grown his trademark 'stache just to match the name of the bistro he had bought. His lies about his past experience are turned into comedy, however, which merely makes the audience complicit in his lies. It proves Wilder's case that working in one's own best interest and all costs and lying to do so is alright as long as people like you. We like Moustache and find him funny, so his lies are seen as harmless and not worth critiquing him about.

Wilder's other main area of critique is love. Naturally, for a man so cynical, it is clear that he believes love is clearly self-indulgent. But, oddly enough, the romance her appears to be largely selfless. Nestor loves Irma so much, he wants her to be only his and nobody else's. This is not some weird possession thing, but rather his disdain for her career choice. He wishes she would quit, but does not want to confront her about the issue. Instead, he works himself dead tired as a meat packer and then buys all her time to just play solitaire. Nearly unintentionally, Wilder crafts a touching romance that underscores the lengths one will go to in order to spend time and improve the one they love. Or does he? While the comedy of the film covers up its damning critique of the incompetent cops and justice system, as well as its comical approach to honesty, the film's charm covers up its critique of love. Underneath the surface is Nestor working for his own self-interest. Initially damning prostitutes and trying to get them arrested, he falls for Irma. She falls for him, sure, but he only takes an interest in her world to try and get close to her. He becomes her pimp to save her, but she has no desire to be saved. It may be a better path for her, but it is not what she has been known to want. She has no issues with her job and loves Nestor all the same. Yet, out of his own self-interest and indulgence, he works to rescue his unwilling damsel in distress. Hell, she will not even look his way until he beats up her old pimp and is entirely unconvinced he loves her until he admits to killing Lord X. The only way he can be happy with her is when he is in disguise as Lord X because his hard work drives her to insecurity, believing he is running other girls and sleeping with other women. Through these elements, it is clear that Wilder is quite jaded. To him, honesty does not pay in justice, life, or love. Those who work honest jobs are left detached from their lovers to the point that the trust between the two is chiseled away by time. Those who simply lie to their face or engage in displays of possession or overprotection are the only ones to benefit with those blessed with love too wrapped in themselves and their own problems to recognize the good thing when they have it. It is only when it punches them in the face do they realize the love that exists for them. In Irma la Douce, it is clear that for Wilder, love is not something charming and romantic as it may appear on the surface. Instead, it just another form of self-indulgence and deception. While it may have mutually beneficial results, both Nestor and Irma act out of self-interest and self-preservation in their relationship out of fear of losing their significant other.

As a small note, the film also introduces some interesting gender roles. Many of the films of this era are marked by dated views on what it means to be a lady and how a woman is only doing her duty when she is working from the home. Perhaps it is the seedy dark corner the film occurs in that leads to this, but the exact opposite is true in Irma la Douce. To Irma, she wants Nestor to just go to the race track during the day and gamble. If he got a job, it would be a direct blow to her confidence and image as it would appear that she cannot support her man via her work. It makes some sense as a prostitute would, theoretically, like to be able to support their pimp because it would speak to her ability and good looks. That said, it is the inverse of the rules of society and shows just how far detached this world in the film is from other, more typical, walks of life.

Visually, one of the most notable elements of the film is its color palette. Varied with Irma's apartment being a splash of color, as well as the outdoors, Irma la Douce is an incredibly colored film. Compared to the other early works of Wilder that I have seen - Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd, Witness for the Prosecution, Ace in the Hole, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment - the color makes it really stand out in his filmography. Of course, this is largely because those films are all black-and-white, but many of them came after technicolor was already available. The Apartment was released just three years prior to this one and Some Like It Hot came out four years prior. Realistically, Wilder could have shot either or both in technicolor, but chose to not do so. Irma la Douce, however, is a direct departure from this route with it using every color under the sun and keeping it tied to its roots as a musical. As Hollywood musicals are known being colorful affairs, Wilder may have dumped the music but kept the colorization and visual flair offered up by musicals. A few would-be musical numbers are here, but only one actually has any singing, while the other just plays out in the way one would imagine a real musical number would in a film. Yet, its color does more than just speak to the vibrancy of the source material. It also hints at some of the film's main themes. Though he lies to Irma, Nestor never really loses his honesty and forthright approach to the world. Initially seen in his police uniform - symbolizing the truth and trust he brings in the role - his firing leaves him without much to wear. Until, however, he is given a brown suit by Irma from her closet of past lovers. Not fitting her past pimp, Nestor tries it on and it is too large for him, but he gets it tailored to fit perfectly. Brown, symbolizing honesty, is the perfect color for Nestor and further aligns him as the righteous character in this tale of darkness. Meanwhile, Irma's green obsession shows Wilder's cynicism escape into the color palette. Known for symbolizing greed and money, Irma sells her body for cash. She knows this and so does everybody else. She worships dollar bills and is not afraid to tell anybody that is the case. That said, the green in the film also solidifies Irma as a source of Nestor's jealousy. While he does love her, his disdain for her line of work is initially born out of his jealousy that every other man in Paris can sleep with her and spend time with her except for him, even if the two share an apartment together.

Bleak and unrelentingly cynical, Irma la Douce is yet another Billy Wilder film that can be off-putting for the way in which it peals back the lies that hold together society and the way in which people operate. While he covers it up with pitch perfect comedy and a charming romance, these are merely facades. Underneath the surface of both is a depressing look at how corrupt and incompetent the police and justice system are, how useless honesty, and how self-indulgent love can become. This is not your average romantic comedy, but its blast of technicolor leads one to look past its dark core.

8/10 - Perhaps the most noir film ever made, Out of the Past is a film directed by Jacques Tourneur and embodies many of the genre's most popular trademarks. From a detective main character, a storyline that really is simple on the surface but told in such a way that it makes no sense, a large number of side characters that blend together, a brutal femme fatale, and German expressionist inspired cinematography. Starring Robert Mitchum as Jeff Marcum, the film shows him as a private detective hired by a gambler, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) to find his girl, Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer). Having shot him and run off with $40,000, Jeff is tasked with finding the girl. Told via flashback, this portion of the film comes back to haunt Jeff in the present with new girlfriend Ann Miller when Whit and his goons find him after years of hiding out. Noir to its very core, Out of the Past is a terrific piece of noir with a typically great turn from Mitchum in the lead role.

Mitchum is a man born to play a detective. The trenchcoat and hat just look perfect on him with his slow drawl way of speaking being the perfect match of the material. Noir detectives always seem slightly disinterested in their case, while Mitchum's face is nothing less than absolute boredom. He seems to be thinking, "This is what is happening?" Yet, he is entirely in control. As Whit admits, Mitchum's Jeff is both a smart and honest man. No matter the clues he is given, he is quickly able to find Kathie and he quickly strikes up a romance with her. He is a tremendous detective, but like every man in a film noir, he falls for our femme fatale with no hesitation. Tasked with finding Kathie, he seems to have missed the part where she shot Whit and stole his money when he falls in love with her. It is a romance that only brought him troubles and seems to rear its ugly ahead with him now finding himself framed for murders she and Whit have committed.

A ruthless femme fatale, Kathie underscores the fact that a man will do anything for a good looking dame. If she bats her eye lashes or shows interest, the man is reduced to putty in her hands. Kathie knows this as it becomes clear that she merely uses Jeff and plans to continue using him, whether he is with her or against her. She is out for Whit's money and plans to continue to drag Jeff around like a dog on a leash. She is one of the more ruthless femme fatales I have seen and uses her sexuality with ease and reduces every man that encounters her into absolutely nothing. Whit does not even care she shot him or stole from him. Jeff quickly forgets his obligations to the ruthless criminal that employs him. She is a dame that a man would kill to have and she is not afraid to use this ability to her financial gain.

That said, the film's story is pretty convoluted. Perhaps I was a bit distracted, and I was, but Out of the Past's relatively straight forward storyline gets spun out of wack and makes no sense by the end. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions such as: What happened to Kathie and Jeff after they shot Whit's new detective? While questions are common to film noir, these gaps are quite nagging and leave me wondering if I simply missed bits of the movie as my anxious mind ran through everything wrong with my life or if the film just left those gaping holes open. They are not quite plotholes, but they are annoying all the same. Thus, perhaps the story was too convoluted. This is a tale about the past coming to haunt you in the present when unfinished business is left back there and poorly locked up. It threatens to come back and destroy your future if not dealt with immediately. Yet, too many side characters that all look the same and have names that start with "J" and too many different angles leave Out of the Past feeling more than convoluted. Instead, it is practically cluttered. For many, this may be appealing and I do enjoy a nice complex noir, but this one may be a bit much. The film is still terrific, in large part thanks to excellent acting from Mitchum, Greer, and Douglas, as well as the fantastic femme fatale, but the film's story does not do much for me aside from intrigue and cause confusion in equal measure.

In the parts where the story may become a bit too unwieldy to handle, however, Out of the Past's zippy dialogue makes you forget. The film is about atmosphere, like any noir. Following the plot is a sucker's bargain and guaranteed to confuse. The zippy dialogue of the film is both funny and fun, especially coming out of Mitchum's mouth. He was born to say this dialogue and he knows it with each line rolling off his tongue and being blends of smart and witty. Every line plays like the comeback a person imagines hours or years later in the shower, making Out of the Past a tremendously entertaining piece of noir.

That said, Out of the Past is rightfully seen as quintessential noir. For anybody to understand the genre better, the film is a great shorthand. Its terrific dark cinematography, classic protagonist, femme fatale, and complex story are all trademarks of the genre, as is the belief that a man's past will play a role in their life once again. All of these contribute to making Out of the Past both a classic and a truly terrific film. Any film starring Robert Mitchum as a detective is guaranteed to be good, but Out of the Past uses Mitchum's detective pose as merely one small part of its noir charms.

8/10 - Klute is a film directed by Alan J. Pakula that really spins an interesting neo-noir tale and descends its audience into the pits of the streets and sexual depravity. Starring Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda, the film tells the story of a man who has gone missing. Leaving behind his wife, the cops find letters he had sent to a hooker in New York that hint at a level of sexual depravity never seen before by the cops. This, however, does not sound like the Tom Gruneman known by his friends and family. To investigate it, the family hires Tom's friend John Klute (Sutherland) to go to New York and find out what the girl, Bree Daniels (Fonda), may know and find out where Tom is and where he might have gone. Along the way, however, John stumbles upon some things he is not supposed to find and discovers that both he and Bree are in great danger.

One of the strongest portions of this crime film is the score. Other than Klute, the only film directed by Alan J. Pakula was All the President's Men and in that film, I knew he had full grasp on tension and how to create an atmosphere. Klute, which came out four years prior, shows that he knew this right out of the gate in his career. Using an eerie and unsettling score, Klute raises the hairs on the back of your neck and makes this crime film feel more akin to a horror film masquerading as a regular old thriller. The tension and atmosphere created the film is so powerful and dominating that it is felt even when the scene is silent. For example, the climax between Peter (Charles Cloffi) and Bree is silent in between the playing of a recording. Though without a score, these moments of silence are still terrifically thrilling and easily unsettle you as the lack of a score makes her situation somehow feel even more lonely.

Visually, the film also introduces tension via its extreme high-angle shots from an aerial view of both Bree and John. Pakula first uses the shot in Bree's apartment and shows both her and John walking in the place. It only gains tension when we are introduced to Bree's belief that she is being followed and we actually see her get a phone call with somebody who just breathes. Later, Pakula returns to this same shot with John seeing the mysterious figure peering in on them. This shot establishes the apartment as being one of great danger with a voyeuristic antagonistic peering in on her in a very Hitchcock fashion for longer than she may know. Pakula also uses this shot at the wardrobe factory, which is owned by one of Bree's clients. She visits him there and is just required to striptease for the old man. At the end of the film, she goes to see him but finds that he has left. It then turns into the site of the climactic sequence where Bree's life is in danger and John must try to rescue her. When she first arrived there earlier in the film, however, we see a direct aerial shot of her waiting for the elevator and then again of her riding the elevator down after leaving.

In the lead roles, Sutherland and Fonda are terrific. Sutherland plays a hard boiled detective who, like many men before him, begins to feel sympathy for the girl who holds all the keys for his case. He is also incredibly on top of things, even if the result of the case counts as a surprise to him (he knows it via the evidence, but would not have guessed essentially), but he follows the evidence perfectly. As a hooker with a heart of gold, Fonda is typically seductive and sensuous, but also fragile. She does not want to be in this line of work, but it is the only job that makes her feel empowered and wanted. Without it, she would be left both broke and demoralized. While a bit of a stock character, which may be the film's biggest fault as its noir cliches and stock characters replace unique character development, Fonda does play the role incredibly well. She has an innocence in her that makes her an incredibly vulnerable and sympathetic and makes us fear for her safety, especially as those connected to the missing man are found dead.

Tense, thrilling, and suspenseful, Alan J. Pakula's Klute is a page torn right out of Hitchcock with an uneasy score, unsettling camera work, and a compelling detective mystery at its core. Inspired by Hitchcock and noir in equal measure, Klute may bear too much resemblance to its inspirations, but is a terrific film in its own right thanks to the aforementioned score and visual works, as well as the terrific performances from Sutherland and Fonda as two people who inadvertently find themselves in danger.

Spangle · 04-03-2017, 01:45 AM

6/10 - Tombstone is a very odd film. Based on real people who served as an inspiration for western films, Tombstone is a western through and through. But, it loses sight of its western roots, instead showing some unnecessary love interest and feels oddly satirical at times. For a film so rooted in western tradition, it is a film that either had really bad acting or its acting was purposely bad to imbue a sense of comedy. Its writing has a certain zip to it that helps, but the film just lacks something. The whole film just feels off and incomplete. I was entertained by the film, but it just feels empty. It is a film that feels hollow, fleeting, and half-baked. As I said (about fifteen times already), Tombstone just feels odd. I have no idea what this was supposed to be, but I can only imagine this was not the final vision in the mind of the director.

Perhaps the biggest issue with Tombstone is that it is predictable and cliched. Yes, it created the cliches. The narration from Robert Mitchum, whose voice is godly as always, makes it abundantly clear that this is a story about men who inspired westerns. Naturally, their stories will now feel cliche because it created the cliches. That does not save it thematically though, in which it feels like a rip-off of Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider. The film even references the same pale white horse ridden by the fourth horseman of the apocalypse that brings hell with him. Lines such as "I'll be damned", "Maybe you're the Antichrist", "I want your souls", "hell's coming with me", and "it's not revenge, it's a reckoning" further instill this overt religious theme. The film's dialogue also makes references to Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) walking on water and having to work a miracle to kill the cowboys in the film and the possibility of seeing a light to heaven on the way out, while women are shown playing with tarot cards at one point. Additionally, before a big gunfight in the middle of the film, the four sheriffs - Wyatt, Morgan Earp (Bill Paxton), Virgil Earp (Sam Elliott), and Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) - are shown walking in front of a burning building. They are the four horseman of the apocalypse and Wyatt brings hell (fire) with him wherever he goes. Nice. Finally, there is a shot that is repeated throughout the film - a long shot - of the men riding horses as small silhouettes on the horizon. However, it is altered towards the end to include a bright white light in the middle of the frame that seems to be a white light from heaven.

In summation, the religious themes are not just reminiscent of Pale Rider, but far more in-your-face. There is being clear in your themes and then there is simply coming out and shouting them from the rooftops and Tombstone does exactly that. The city of Tombstone is a town being attacked by sinners and revelations is set to play out in this town at the hand of these godly four men. While Eastwood's Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter were similarly overt in their religious themes, the film at least had dialogue that did not reference the Bible. Eastwood would toss in a religious line every once in a while to redirect the themes onto the religion aspect, whereas Tombstone seems content to just mention the Bible as much as possible. If somebody played a drinking game with how many times the film referenced the Bible either directly or just a portion of it, they would die within the first 15 minutes.

What does not help the dialogue is the film's odd satirical tone. It is occasionally funny, yes, but it feels unintentional. Kurt Russell really drops the ball here in the lead role with a role that feels like he was trying to so hard to be a classic western star, but he just fell short. His delivery always felt forced, as did the delivery of Bill Paxton. Neither really had "it" and left the film feeling like a tongue-in-cheek take on westerns via the inspiration of all westerns. It felt like all the western elements were there - tough guy sheriff, shootouts, clear bad guys, a town needing saving, and damsels in distress - but the film never feels like a true, hard-nosed western. Instead, its inclinations feel more akin to finding the comedy in this typical set-up with every character being an exaggeration of their classic archetype. This is what makes the film feel so tonally off, in addition to the poor performances from Russell and Paxton that seem to not really match the subject matter or situations. Perhaps the scene that really underscores this is when Morgan is shot and killed. Wyatt rushes in and holds his brother as he dies before then running outside into a storm with his hands covered in blood. He runs around looking randomly and runs up to Josephine Marcus (Dana Delany), has a weird exchange of dialogue with her, and then continues running around. The scene feels practically surreal and lacking any sense of presence or tension. It is just there and feels incredibly odd. In a similar vein, a sequence of the cowboys burying those killed in the Shootout at the OK Corral and carrying a sign about how they were murdered by the marshals feels very time inappropriate. I do not know much, but I doubt the cowboys would be engaging in a peaceful protest akin to something we see in modern times when an unarmed black man is shot by the police. It does not strike me as a staple of the old west, which is what further drives the film away from being a serious western and more like Blazing Saddles with how it pokes fun at the genre with a modern twist on its conventions.

That said, there are a lot of things to like here. For one, the production design, costume design, and make-up/hairstyling are top-notch. They all match the characters, era, and look of Tombstone. For all of the films faults in its dialogue and some odd scenes, these technical elements really cement the film as having taken place in the late 1880s. Additionally, Val Kilmer is brilliant as Doc Holliday. Wise cracking, but a mean man with a pistol in his hand, Doc Holliday is crippled by tuberculosis for the entirety of the film, but Kilmer plays him with gusto nonetheless. He is ill and fiery at the same time thanks to Kilmer's performance. That said, even he makes the film feel more satirical. From a comic introduction to the character where he seems to be the villain only to wind up being a good guy, Kilmer always seem to be playing him up a bit too much. The performance is still very good and cool-as-ice, but feels more like Kilmer being the only one comfortable enough with the satirical tone of the film to fully embrace, rather than fumble awkwardly with it like Russell or Paxton. A small supporting appearance by Billy Bob Thornton always stands as a highlight, even if his role also serves as a subtle insinuation that the film is actually a comedy trying to break free of the dramatic intentions of the director.

To further divide the film, Tombstone also tries to tack on the romance between Wyatt and Josephine. The script never really develops it in a way that feels believable, however. Perhaps this is due to the film trying to be a western and still find time for this romantic subplot, but it feels entirely tacked on with very little purpose. It simply never really justifies its inclusion and neither Russell nor Dana Delany sell it with any kind of chemistry or hidden connection between the two of them.

Trying to blend the true story behind westerns with a romantic subplot, Tombstone turns into unintentional comedy at times with its awkwardly stilted performances, comically over-the-top characters, odd scenes that seem out of place or take too long or some good ones that are too abrupt, and cringe-inducing dialogue. Overt religious themes, which the film keeps reminding you of throughout, do not alleviate the damage here. However, Tombstone is nearly rescued with great production value and a good turn by Kilmer, it still falters in the end. Fortunately, it is an incredibly fun and entertaining film nonetheless, which does help to make the film hardly irredeemable. That said, I appear to not understand the hype for Tombstone at all. It simply felt odd and completely off tonally. There is something amiss with Tombstone as it fails to set the right tone due to its its awful script that seems to want to become a comedy, but the writers and directors refused to reduce this story of inspiration into a Blazing Saddles type of satire of the genre the characters involved helped to create.

Ultimately, Tombstone is a film that is simultaneously too long and too short. It is a film with a lot of characters that tries to, ambitiously, tell the story of Wyatt Earp and his brothers in its full, western glory. But, it does not get the time to do it to a satisfactory depth. Thus, characters come and go and blend into one another with very few supporting characters, aside from Thornton's, really being able to make an impact. Had it been longer, it would have been able to explore these more and in better depth. That said, at 134 minutes, the film does still slack at times and never really justifies its own existence, hence my calling it hollow earlier. It really feels like fluff and never really hits the right gear, instead going between neutral and first gear with frequent stall-outs sprinkled throughout.

8/10 - Starting off as a psychological drama with themes of obsession, 3 Women hooks towards psychological horror by the end of its second act before turning into a thoroughly confusing film in its third act. Considering themes of motherhood and identity, 3 Women is a deeply philosophical film that borders on incomprehensible plot-wise. Director Robert Altman may be known for plotless films, but this work is more akin to one by Jean-Luc Godard with the general resentment it has for those who try to follow a plot. Whenever it seems as though the film is able to settle in and begin being a truly cohesive work, it takes a dramatic turn and becomes a wholly different experience. In many ways, this film about three women is three films trapped inside of one body, which makes some odd thematic sense.

Conceived in a dream by Altman, 3 Women's psychedelic imagery is hardly its only indicator that it was once a dream. Its general elusiveness and the fashion in which its images escape the mind with equal parts subtle tranquility and frustration, 3 Women is a film that defies definition. Introducing us to Millie (Shelley Duvall) and Pinkie (Sissy Spacek), the film begins with them both working at a rehab clinic for geriatric patients. Pinkie is new so Millie is tasked with showing her the ropes. Soon, they become roommates after Millie's roommate moves in with her boyfriend. Pinkie's odd obsession with Millie is immediate. When Millie misses one day of work, Pinkie asks every other nurse at the clinic about her and keeps repeating that she found her to be incredibly nice. Yet, it is clear nobody agrees. Millie has people she hangs around with, but no friends. She sleeps with men, but that is mostly just because she will, not because the men want to sleep with her specifically. In this opening third of the film, Millie shown to be disliked by most and gratingly annoying to the point that nobody listens to her. Simultaneously, she blames Pinkie for all of her flaws. When her old roommate and some guys cancel plans with Millie (which they had thought was "just drinks", while Millie thought it was a "dinner party"), she blames Pinkie for this.

This section of the film sets the ground work for many themes to be developed later on in the film. Firstly, the concept of identity. Pinkie and Millie are both named Mildred, but Pinkie hates the name. At work, Pinkie accidentally punches Millie's time card. After staining one of her clothes, Pinkie just takes one of Millie's shirts. This manifests itself by the end of the film where it is shown that Pinkie had used Millie's social security number on her W-4 at work. The two of them have practically become the twin co-workers they have by this point. The two are linked and not just in their names. The two have reached the point where Millie speaks on Pinkie's behalf at work and where a man such as Edgar (Robert Fortier) wants to sleep with both of them. They are a package deal and two-of-a-kind, unable to be separated.

Yet, after Pinkie takes a nosedive off the balcony into the pool, the film shows identity in a different fashion. Not recognizing her parents (who are the weirdest people ever and about 105 years old, compared to Spacek who looks like she just hit 12), Pinkie goes on to want to be called Millie and embracing her name of Mildred. Earlier, Millie (original Millie) had similarly expressed issues with her parents by saying that she had a dream where her mother had brought her tomatoes, which she hates. Ironically, Pinkie also says she hates tomatoes. Regardless, the two flip after Pinkie's accident. Instead of Millie treating Pinkie poorly, the opposite is now true. Pinkie is even celebrated and beloved by the other members of the apartment complex. She is a real star in the place compared to Millie who is still ignored. Edgar, who first wanted to sleep with Millie, is now sleeping with Pinkie. Their worlds have flipped and the two are at complete odds with one another. Not having the best relationships with their mothers - a major theme that would be more realized in the third act - the two begin to show how identity changes rapidly. Millie is largely the same, but far more sheepish. She takes one stand at work, but bends over backwards for Pinkie despite the abuse. She acts like a mother rejected by her annoying bubblegum-popping teenager. Pinkie's u-turn in the aftermath of her concussion and amnesia begins to reflect the fractured nature of her mind and the film as a whole. Before transitioning into an out-of-left-field conclusion, the film shows Pinkie lying in bed with psychedelic imagery playing over her. Representing the dream-like nature of the whole film, it also hints at the way in which things blend and change at a shocking rate to the point that what once was is hardly incomprehensible and what is now is the only thing that makes sense.

The finale of the film is one that would make sense, had the proceeding two hours not occurred. Willie (Janice Rule), pregnant for much of the film and married to Edgar, finally gives birth. This signifies the film's full-on descent into madness and its examination of parenthood. An artist painting various phallic and hypersexual images, Willie is lying in bed giving birth as Edgar shows up at Millie and Pinkie's apartment to have sex. He tells them Willie is set to give birth, so the duo rush over. As Millie tries to birth the baby, she tasks Pinkie with rushing over to the hospital to find a doctor. Unfortunately, the baby dies and Pinkie never leaves. Instead, she just watches from outside with a shocked look of absolute horror on her face. This horror merely is a segue into the final sequence in which Millie, Pinkie, and Willie all work at the bar owned by Edgar and Willie while living in the house out back. Pinkie calls Millie her mother and answers her by saying, "Yes ma'am." Willie is also shown to be quite older with gray hair in spots, making it possible for her to be a mother to Millie and grandmother to Pinkie. This linking of the three women - awaited from the very beginning, since they only showed two up to this point - is clear. Now, it hardly works with the rest of the film, but really does prove to be an interesting look at identity. Pinkie, after losing sight of who her parents are, seeks out a mother figure in Millie. Millie, who both wants to care for people by constantly cooking for them and also wishes to have a parent figure in her life, accepts Pinkie as a daughter and seeks out Willie as a mother. With her baby dead and her husband dead, Willie accepts Millie as a child to fill the hole in her life. It is in this portion of the film that we see how people cope and heal with trauma - concussions, societal rejection, a death of a child - and thematically, it works quite well with the first two acts. It is a full realization of the issues faced by the two women initially and then Willie towards the end. Though masquerading as incomprehensible, the film is quite clear by the end that it is a film about women who are broken. Pushed to the ropes by life, they grab the only olive branch available to them. Though odd and deeply horrifying at times, 3 Women is a truly psychological film that is an obvious source of psychoanalytical investigation.

Perhaps Altman's most elusive film, 3 Women is not really plotless as much as it purposefully avoids having a plot. It is just about the trauma in the mind of these three women that occurs in a naturally elusive and uncontrollable fashion due to its origins as a dream by Altman. This is a film that may be one of his more psychological works for the way in which it explores identity and the role that parenthood and childhood play in forming identity. Lose one or the other and all of a sudden, who you are is shattered and it leaves the victim reaching out for any semblance of normalcy, no matter how abnormal it may appear. While its themes are quite clear, its narrative is told in a fashion that makes it clear Altman practically resents those that try to make sense of the plot instead of the themes. The thematic layers are what hold this together, not the narrative that shifts at the drop of a hat. Just as in dreams where the big red pepperoni chasing you represents something else, everything in this film signifies something else and is absolutely not what appears to be. Even their place of work, the geriatric rehabilitation center, is merely a representation of their need to be caregivers and to be cared for by others who are older than they are. An incredibly tight film with no loose-ends, 3 Women is complex and, as such, is an incredibly compelling work by Altman.

7/10 - During my sophomore year of college, one of my housemates - a complete moron and frat bro who justifies every frat stereotype - started dating a girl. They had Skyped a few times in the summer and were excited to get back to campus to really start up the physical side of their relationship. From what I hear, she once answered a Skype call without pants on. Given that this kid was a moron and a frat guy, my housemates and I were largely unconvinced that the relationship was built to last. We were right, as within a week, they had broken up. The girl, a member of a sorority, would later declare war on my housemate and one of her sorority sisters even dumped some beer on a girl my housemate had an on-and-off again relationship with later on. The point of this story, you ask? I could not help but think of this brief relationship and the jokes that ensued from it because early in this film, Bowie (Farley Granger) buys Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell) a watch. Similarly, my stupid housemate had bought his brief girlfriend a $200-$300 bedazzled watch. The similarities do not stop there either as the relationship between Bowie and Keechie is always doomed to fail. They rush into love and get married, but are always barreling towards disaster. Perhaps my housemate was not a thief (though his next girlfriend, the one who got beer dumped on her, got banned from the frat house for stealing cookie dough), but his relationship certainly was on similarly shaky ground.

Released in 1949 after being completed two years prior, They Live by Night only saw release because of the acclaim it received upon a short release in London in 1948. Farley Granger's starring role led to his relationship with Alfred Hitchcock that started off with 1948's Rope and later included 1951's Strangers on a Train. For director Nicholas Ray, it established him as a talented director and started a relationship with Humphrey Bogart, as Ray was hired to director Knock On Any Door by Bogart after he saw this film. In essence, They Live by Night was a tremendous launching pad for both Granger and Ray and with good reason. Though its need to rush into the relationship, much like my old housemate's similar rapidness, does stand as its biggest fault.

The rushed build-up leaves the rest of the romance lacking the necessary authenticity because we never saw them really come together. They had one conversation and a bus ride before getting married. It simply makes them look like stupid kids, which feels like the wrong position to take. They Live by Night further instills this with sequences of the couple watching people get married for $20, dance, or ride horse, with Bowie making comments about how he does not get why people enjoy or do those things. It makes him seem incredibly immature and Keechie is hardly the picture of maturity herself with Bowie's marriage proposal being met with a response that essentially means, "Sure, if you want to." This immaturity is certainly what leads to their ultimate demise, but also makes that finale less than climactic. We can see they are doomed because of young, immature, and dumb they are. By the time they get nailed, it is obvious.

That said, They Live by Night is still terrific. Granger and O'Donnell have excellent chemistry and Ray's direction of the visuals is equally impeccable. The film is gorgeously lit with the perfect use of shadows especially in the final sequence where we barely see the cops creeping up on Bowie in the bushes. This helps the finale scene feel that intensity that is perhaps lost by the characterization of the romance and its lovers. The one bank heist scene that is shown is also incredibly intense, even if we only see it from the perspective of Bowie, the getaway driver. The rush and adrenaline of the moment are perfection and the abrupt nature of the getaway is terrifically portrayed.

A classic of film noir, They Live by Night is a terrific directorial debut from Nicholas Ray. That said, it can be a bit abrupt and brief in some scenes and in its romance, which is its biggest flaw. Fortunately, its cinematography and acting are so good, the brevity of the film hardly makes it bad. Instead, it remains a compelling and thoroughly entertaining noir film that is more interested in its Bonnie & Clyde romance than anything else. Though perhaps an immature love that is always predictably doomed, the chemistry between Granger and O'Donnell is so natural, it still makes the obvious finale tragic and sad to watch unfold.

6/10 - After not liking All That Jazz, my expectations for Cabaret were realistic. I knew that it was possible Bob Fosse's directing style was simply not something I was programmed to enjoy. The end result is a film that seems inconclusive. Definitely more up my alley than All That Jazz, Cabaret is still not a film I would quite say I liked. More-or-less, it is an above average musical (in my books) that has some positives and some drawbacks that leave it being a pretty muddled and mixed bag at the end of the day.

First, the negatives. Though La La Land has come under fire for its weak or bad singing from Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, it is abundantly clear to myself that both Stone and Gosling turn in better singing performances than Liza Minnelli and especially Joel Grey in Cabaret. Neither impress, instead turning in bland performances of bland songs such as "Money, Money" or "Two Ladies" (for Grey). Yes, both are legends - especially Minnelli - but neither really struck me as being worthy of the praise they receive for this film on the singing side of things. Minnelli is largely ineffectual and lacks the punch needed for these musical numbers, instead just feeling quite robotic and missing the gravitas necessary to pull of the songs. Fortunately for her, this is not all her fault as some of the song performed in the cabaret are just very bad. Some have great lyrics and melodies, other are just overtly risque for no other value. The former are exclusively songs with Minnelli. The latter are reserved for Grey who is just flat-out grating to watch. He is too exuberant and boisterous. His singing is comically bad throughout and seems to be played out for laughs with his weird lip movements than for any actual singing ability. If people say Gosling is bad in La La Land, then Grey needs his due for being a bad singer in Cabaret. By the end of the film, however, my favorite song was the one not including either of them and given that they were the stars and the main attractions on the musical side, this seems quite alarming.

Second, the editing is quite bad. Just as in All That Jazz, Fosse goes cut happy at points. Jumping rapidly from one image to the next, the film just turns into a blur at parts. While it is supposed to represent the speed at which everything is occurring, it unfortunately has the side effect of rendering those moments entirely unwatchable and distracting. All That Jazz had the same issue with these rapid cuts that distract more than they enhance. It is clearly a style employed by Fosse that simply does not work in my view. While not too plentiful, the moments are bad enough and occur often enough to be worth mentioning. Other than these, the editing is fine. Nothing great and nothing awful. It cuts when it should and is quite cohesive as a final product, but those few moments unfortunately leave a lot to be desired.

In the mixed, not a pro and not a con, section we have the film's sexuality. Openly confronting society's reservations about open sexuality, LGBT persons, and various other sexual taboos, Cabaret is a crucially important film. It shows that those who cross dress, are trans, are gay, are bi, or are lesbians, are just people too. They want to have fun, they cry, they want to love, and they want to laugh all the same. Cabaret, for this, is boundary shattering. It is impressively open about these topics to the point that it may be too much. Mind you, I am not saying it is too risque or that I am a prude. Rather, it feels as though the film tries too hard to push these boundaries. It includes so many topics and, by the end, it feels like the film is just sitting there and judging the audience for not accepting like one of those SNL sketches about high school theatre with the film screaming out, "This is normal and your world view is small." While I agree with its message of acceptance against its backdrop of the rise in Nazism, it feels like it pours it on a bit thick.

On the positive side of things, some songs really stand out. Though I criticized Minnelli and Grey before, allow me to walk some of those comments back in praising some of their songs. For Grey, "If You Could See Her" is beautifully sung, catchy, and incredibly entertaining. It is also thematically relevant with a great take on accepting a person for who they are and not just judging a book by its cover. For Minnelli, "Mein Herr" and "Maybe This Time" are real standouts. The former features solid singing, but tremendous choreography by Fosse. The latter is gorgeously written with a great mournful and longing delivery by Minnelli on the vocal side of things. Yet, bar none, the highlight of the film is "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". Absolutely chilling to watch be sung by a boy in a Nazi uniform and joined in by similar white people, the sequence is brilliantly put together by Fosse and haunting. The singing and lyrics are terrific, but the moment it signifies is the real highlight and shows the perfect blend of music and plot found in the entirety of Cabaret.

The brilliance of this song is similarly matched by Fosse's portrayal of the rise in Nazism in Berlin in 1931. With Jews being threatened and the Nazis constantly present no matter where you go, it is clear that the line of thinking is taking hold. Fosse handles it with grace and turns this portrayal into one of the best ones concerning the rise of Nazism in Germany due to its subtlety. Yes, a song and many lines of dialogue do occur where the Nazis are discussed, but the film's portrayal is defined in images. A man dumped on the side of the road with blood running from him to the sidewalk, a dead dog (WHY KILL DOGS?), anti-Jewish vandalism, and more adorn this film and show the chilling results of hatred. Yet, they are shown in conjunction with how hatred takes power. Early on in the film, the cabaret owner kicks out a man in a Nazi uniform. The man comes back with some Nazi buddies and beat the cabaret owner to near death. At the end of the film, as Joel Grey performs "Finale", we see a few men in Nazi uniforms in the crowd via the reflection of a mirror. It is a chilling image in-and-of itself, but in the context of the film, it comes to represent the general acceptance of Nazis in Germany by this point in time. Though written off as idle threats by men such as Maximillian (Helmut Griem), it is clear the Nazis are becoming more accepted via "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" and the final image of them simply sitting in the crowd. Once rejected by the cabaret owner, they are now allowed into the club out of fear and intimidation, which are the glue to any rise in any authoritarian power. The warnings of Brian Roberts (Michael York) to take the Nazis seriously are well worth paying attention to, just as they are in modern day America with the rise antisemitism, anti-Muslim, nationalism, and other sources of hatred in America today.

Acting-wise, Liza Minnelli and Michael York are both terrific. As the off-the-wall crazy cabaret girl Sally Bowles, Minnelli is a ball of energy but also quite sad. She is open about sex and love, but unsure of how to old onto love for a long stretch of time. She is the quintessential "once bitten, twice shy" kind of girl. Incredibly sympathetic and charming, Minnelli has excellent comedic delivery and dramatic chops in the film and is the perfect foil to York's Brian Roberts. A real fish out of water, he begins a romance with Sally after seeming quite stiff with his British accent and studies at Cambridge. He is the complete opposite of this world of Sally's in Berlin, but he is smart and incredibly brought to life by York. A truly underrated actor, I love York every time I see him and Cabaret is no exception. Alongside Minnelli, he has great chemistry and the two really work well with one another.

With a mixed bag of songs, singing, and perhaps too upfront with its sexuality and taboo shattering nature, Cabaret is an important film for a great many groups of people and it does them terrific justice. Unfortunately, the film is simply too much of a mixed bag for my taste. It has some obvious flaws - Joel Grey, some bad songs, mediocre to bad singing, and moments of awful editing - that really hold it back. Fortunately, a tremendously graceful handling of the rise of Nazism, as well as terrific editing and some great songs propel Cabaret to become a film with more good than bad.

5/10 - Checking in at just under four hours, Once Upon a Time in America takes a long time to say absolutely nothing unique. A gangster film, the film does nothing for the gangster genre that could not be accomplished in a far shorter runtime because oh my God is this thing long. It just takes forever to end and even then, I still had no idea why it took so long. I love gangster films with The Godfather Parts I and II being among my favorites. I even like Black Mass and Live by Night, which have hardly been universally beloved. Yet, I could not enjoy Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. There are many repulsive elements included that exceed anything in a typical gangster film in terms of being just pure nasty, but even worse, the film is astronomically long. I cannot say this enough: IT IS TOO LONG. While there are moments of brilliance, they are suffocated out of this film through its enormity and ambition. It simply felt like Leone just kept adding scenes with no regard for whether or not they advanced the film at all or not. Its praise as a sprawling epic masterpiece feels quite odd to me and feels as if movie buffs everywhere just hail it as a masterpiece because Leone had to fight to get his cut released. Unfortunately, I disagree. Is it sacrilege to say that I agree with the studio here? Sure, Leone is the artist, but artists can be wrong. Here, he is way off. Perhaps the studio butchered the execution of cutting it down, but the 139 minute version sounds pure bliss. If I have to turn in my Cinephile Membership Card for holding this belief, I will gladly do so, especially if it means not suffering through 229 minutes of a film with unoriginal themes, bland characters, and irredeemable actions by some of the characters.

On the latter, the repeated use of rape as an action by our protagonist Noodles (Robert De Niro) is beyond disturbing. He rapes Carol (Tuesday Weld) and even rapes the girl he loves Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern). Yet, all the same, he is celebrated as our protagonist. Nobody condemns his actions. Hell, his rape of Carol is turned into comedic fodder as Noodles and his friends have her try and identify her rapist by showing her their penises. When he rapes Deborah, it is immediately followed up by him stalking her to the train station to Hollywood. Once more, he is never rebuked and is still shown as our protagonist and hero. This is horrifying to watch unfold and the more the film continued to have Noodles pretend to love Deborah in the aftermath of the rape, the more and more disturbed I became. It practically romanticizes this action and even Deborah does not seem to mind in the aftermath.

Somehow, however, the excessive use of rape perpetrated by a character we should feel some measure of sympathy towards is hardly the only character flaw in the film. Yes, sex is seen as merely paid for and rape by Leone in this film with the characters all demeaning to women unless they can sexually assault them or bully them into submission (women are constantly hit and yelled at in this film to an alarming degree, with it always reduced to comedic fodder with one man saying he was afraid to hit a girl for fear she would like it), but even worse, the characters are bland with a capital B. The amount of boring white guys in this film is shocking with none of them ever being fleshed out or developed beyond minor character identifiers. Though the film is alleged to have explored themes of childhood friendship, I never saw much of that as the film seems to forget it in favor of just romanticizing and turning into nostalgic fodder the rise of gangsters in New York during the prohibition era. The end result is the characters who are friends of Noodles just wind up being forgotten. Leone brings them back every once in a while and then away they go again. I forgot their names repeatedly and if one of them did not have a "cockeye", there is no way I would have ever recognized him.

That said, the film does admittedly concern itself far more with Noodles and Max (James Woods). Though both of them are good in the roles, the two just never have chemistry with one another. The bad dialogue in their scenes is only part of the problem. They never really convince as being friends. I forget most of the movie at this point because it is too long, but it felt like Max just disappeared forever. The only signs of their friendship being a couple bro hugs and then Max and Noodles paying for sex with the same girl but at different times. Otherwise, they are at each other's throats for the rest of the film with Max wondering openly if he should kill Noodles. By the end of the film, when they are both old, the same thing occurs with both of them just talking past each other and sharing no chemistry with one another. It just never really sold me on this. Many women complain about female friendship depicted through male eyes and how it misses the mark. Male friendship is equally hard to bring to life and one would think a man would be more at-home bringing that to life. Though Leone is a man, he just totally missed the mark here. For friends, they never seem to really click with one another.

As mentioned, the length is an issue as well. However, what exacerbates the length is how dull the film is and can become. The storyline just never intrigued me nor did it really grab me. This is largely, perhaps, because of the characters being so bland and uninteresting. But, it is also in part due to the film's unoriginality. It simply never justifies its existence, especially in the direct aftermath of The Godfather. It feels like a poor imitation at times of similar themes of greed and power. It lacks gravitas, power, and a storyline of similarly epic proportions. Instead, it just feels like three films jammed into one between the coming of age tale, the gangster tale, and the mournful and regretful old man tale. The three never gel even if Leone intercuts between the two at times and tries to blend them. Compared to The Godfather Part II, a film with similar themes of the rise of Don Corleone compared to the rise of Michael Corleone, this film just never really gels or compels. It simply floats by with scenes that go nowhere and moments that lacked to pull me in to make me actually care about the plot. The number of characters and subplots introduced that simply add to the length of the film rather than any other purpose (Treat Williams as Jimmy Conway/O'Donnell being a highlight of this, as is Danny Aiello's; neither come back in any meaningful way and just show the gang at work, but there is never any pay-off or intrigue accompanying these moments), it just never made me feel as though the length was justified. It was fluff with just rehashed moments from better gangster movies helping to fluff it up.

That said, I would still say it is worthy of 2 1/2 stars. Why? Because of technical aspects. The cinematography is breathtaking. There is one scene of the young boys walking on the street with one of them skipping in front of them. The sprawling city surrounding them and the long shot used by Leone is just beautiful. This is a common trend in the film with warm browns and the dark blacks of this world highlighting each frame. The end result is a film that is incredibly beautiful and easy to look at. Though the plot bored the heck out of me, the cinematography is absolutely impossible to ignore. Likewise, the costume design and production design are tremendous. Capturing 1900s-1920s New York terrifically with the dull grays and browns of the city juxtaposed with the buzzing nature of swing and speakeasies, the film is authentically crafted with terrific attention to detail in these sequences. Of every film that focuses in on this era in the United States, it is impossible to say it has been captured better than in Once Upon a Time in America. Finally, the score from Ennio Morricone is, naturally, beautiful. It makes the film feel poetic and a lyrical masterpiece, even in the moments when the film's writing and acting leave a lot to be desired. This score is the very example of how the music in a film can make the final product better. It brings it to life and breathes life into dead moments repeatedly and stands as yet another technical accomplishment of this film.

Too long, Once Upon a Time in America is not a film I would really revisit due to that length. Its length is hardly the only issue, as the awful characters, use of rape as comedy, and poor acting by major characters such as Elizabeth McGovern, who's lips have to wage holy war on her cheeks for her smile, the film is maligned by a variety of issues. That said, brilliant cinematography, production design, costume design, and score really help to elevate this film and nearly saves it from being just middle-of-the-road. Unfortunately, there is just not enough good to cancel out all of the bad. Even when there is, the sheer weight and length of this film does not serve to bring out Leone's vision in any stronger fashion. Instead, it has the opposite effect: it snuffs it out and leaves, in its place, a poorly paced film that is loaded with filler.

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6/10 - Having never seen the original animated film, or at least not remembering having seen it, my expectations were not too high for Beauty and the Beast. Do not get me wrong, I never thought it would be bad. But, I was never comparing it to some childhood classic that filled me with nostalgia every time I thought of watching the film. Instead, I saw this film in a vacuum. Unfortunately, it is still a mixed bag. At times, you can feel that fairy tale magic that is promised. Other moments provide sensory overload or are complete filler and wholly unnecessary. The end result is a potion that both enchants and befuddles in near equal measure.

From its very first frame, Beauty and the Beast shows its precarious footing between grating and magical. Its opening sequence of the Beast/Prince Charming (Dan Stevens) getting cursed by an enchantress has both incredible special effects and preposterous make-up. It is well applied, but it seems too exuberant and practically flamboyant with how much make-up the Prince is wearing to his party. That said, the scene still imbues the sense of mystery and magic necessary for the film and its immediate follow-up, the performance of the song "Belle", really hits the mark. Emma Watson's singing is lovely as Belle as she goes through her small French village and the various villagers express their reservations about Belle and her quirky bookworm behavior. It is a real charmer and is a song that gets the proceedings off to a terrific musical beginning, quickly displaying why this film's music is beloved by so many.

Unfortunately, the film then takes some poor turns. In its performance of "Gaston", a loud and incredibly well-choreographed musical number mostly performed by LeFou (Josh Gad), Gaston's (Luke Evans) closest companion, the film hits a real sour note. The song is simply too much. Compared to the more restrained staging of "Belle", "Gaston" is over-the-top and further maligned by an awful joke about the spelling of his name and LeFou's illiteracy. At this point, I was wondering if it was a mistake and the film would not be nearly as good as hoped. These fears were realized when we reach the Prince's castle. While the banter between Lumiere (Ewan McGregor) and Cogsworth (Ian McKellen) was immediately appealing, the arrival at the castle is marked by a few bad moments. One, when Belle is shown her room and the camera does a whip pan. Early in the film, during the performance of "Belle", I noticed some quick camera movements that immediately bothered my eyes. However, I had ignored them because I figured that I was simply a bit tired. Sadly, this eye shattering whip only served to make my strained eyes scream out in anguish. My eyes were not treated kindly in the follow-up to this either with the performance of "Be Our Guest". While the song is fine, the glowing sensory overload that ensues on the dinner table is just far too much. It had bright lights and excitement to try and attract kids to the joy on screen, but it felt far too hollow and bombastic to actually work in any effective way.

Fortunately, the film picks up considerably at this point as it begins to focus on the romance between the Beast and Belle. This is a romance that would charm warmth in the coldest and blackest of hearts. Via songs such as "Something There", "Beauty and the Beast", and "Evermore", the film strikes a heart warmingly romantic tone that rewards viewers with the magic of a fairy tale, terrific songs, and an awe-inducing romance. Together, Watson and Stevens have terrific chemistry in these forms and work incredibly well with one another. Small moments of them simply walking into a library or over a bridge are moving, poetic, and achingly romantic. The film has so much heart, it nearly swells and boils over. Now, these sequences do have their flaws. Though the visual effects of the film are impeccable, especially with Belle's dress - a real highlight of these live-action remakes have been the dresses, as the realization of Cinderella's ball gown with the accompanying visual effects is still stunning to me - and the beast is also incredibly well-realized. That said, there are still issues with the effects. On the bridge, while romantic, it is clear it is occurring in front of a green screen. There are other moments scattered throughout that are unfortunately stricken by shaky visual effects. Fortunately, the whole romance of them falling in love is so well-written and realized, it is hard to deny the film's magic. Accented by charming turns by Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, and Emma Thompson as some of the Beast's cursed helpers, the film strikes a good balance between the more romantic elements and the comedic elements.

Of course, the film reaches a fever pitch with the waltz between Belle and the Beast. The most famous moment, the film's dancing is terrifically put together and choreographed. Highlighted by great lighting and terrific visual effects, the film's magic and realization of the princess fairy tale storyline in this moment is both gorgeous and powerful. It is a point reached once more when the curse is lifted as the Beast lays wounded on the ground and Belle express her love for him. While the last petal of the rose falling at the same time is quite predictable, this predictability is hardly an issue. Instead, it makes it all the more tense and powerful, with the ultimate lifting of the curse bringing joy and happiness to the world. On a side note, did Dan Stevens wear contacts? Nobody's eyes are that blue.

While the romance taking off really helps the film do the same, the climax of the film is quite awful. Gaston is a largely useless character and feels more aligned with manufactured tension than anything else. I know he is in the original, but he feels so excessive. This is a film with natural tension - the curse - and yet it feels the need to add an angry mob with a comically over-the-top battle sequence between the various household items and the people from the small village. It is borderline comical that this in the film and one can only hope it was an addition to this film and not found in the original. It is loud, odd, and trying far too hard to be both funny and tense. The addition of Gaston is quickly made even more obsolete when the tension of him wanting to kill the Beast is rapidly solved and his actions pointless with the Beast being brought back to life as the curse is broken. Thus, his presence is not just artificial tension, but it proves how pointless it all was and how unnecessary an antagonist was in this film. There is enough going on between Belle and the Prince without Gaston and his love of Belle and it is a shame to see him stick around in this iteration of the film.

One of the more controversial elements of this film was having LeFou be a gay man. There are hints throughout at his sexuality as he tries to steer Gaston away from loving Belle as he tries to convince him to just give up loving women and try men on for a size. While nothing is overt on this front, the film's about as subtle as the bathtub scene in Spartacus with this clear obsession. By the end, when LeFou is shown dancing with a man by accident (he was dancing with a woman, but a poor switch in partners left him with a man), it is clear that the controversy is pretty silly. That said, Beauty and the Beast is hardly progressive. LeFou's love for Gaston is turned into comedic fodder with his flamboyant homosexuality being turned into punchlines and hardly moving the needle on the issue. A brief joke about a hyper-masculine musketeer character being into cross dressing further proves that Disney is not nearly as progressive as it may claim. Finding humor in homosexuality, men being in women's clothing and not liking it, or men being in women's clothing and feeling more in touch with their identity, the film's marketing may claim that the film is progressive and a Disney first, but if anything, it underscores how much more progress is required. These are not even baby steps as cross dressing and gay men have been used as comedy even before the Hays code was in place in Hollywood. In 2017, the situation is no different as audiences are given the opportunity to laugh at those in the LGBT community without hesitation or rebuking.

Often magical, enchanting, and incredibly romantic, director Bill Condon's take on Beauty and the Beast hits far more high notes than sour notes, even if they are mostly contained in the romance between Belle and the Prince. The opening is spotty, the beginning of the second act is too much, and the third act is comically too much. That said, the sweet spot in the latter half of the second act is so good, it largely wipes out many of the negatives the film has to offer. Though I am unfamiliar with the source material, it is clear that this new version of the story will hardly have as lasting of an impact on popular culture. However, it is a serviceable remake with a lively performance from Emma Watson and terrific supporting turns from Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, and Kevin Kline, all of whom breathe life into this film in quiet moments. An above average film, Beauty and the Beast is a largely magical experience, even if the gears, nuts, and bolts of the operation are often quite noticeable.

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9/10 - They say that Satan knows the Bible just as well as God, for he uses its words to trick believers and people of the world into following a path of destruction. By knowing the words of the Bible, Lucifer can easily trick people into thinking his voice is that of God and that his words are godly ones. Unfortunately, far too many people fall for this trickery and are led astray. It is in this world that a film such as The Night of the Hunter is born. One where a Preacher is the antagonist and with good reason. He is a cruel and evil man whose only goal is to find money stashed away by a bank robber on death row. He uses his position as a Preacher to find favor with the townsfolk and the man's widow. All that is standing in his way is a couple of kids sworn to secrecy by their father.

Moving in the shadows to try and woo their mother and the townsfolk, Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) is a truly brutal man. Arrested at the beginning of the film for being in possession of a stolen car, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing, sent to lead the righteous off the right path. He talks the talk and shows everybody he knows the Bible, but behind closed doors, he is ruthless. From murder to theft, this is not your father's Reverend. Instead, he is a manipulative and evil man that is deftly portrayed by Robert Mitchum. In my recent forays into older classics, I have become well acquainted with Mitchum and it is hard to see him playing so against type because, inherently, I want to root for him. Mitchum is a terrific actor and The Night of the Hunter really stands as a testament as to why that is the case. He chills the room by simply entering it and his dark figure seems to tower over all of those in his presence. He simply radiates evil and makes the perfect guy for this role as a false prophet. By casting Mitchum, it makes the audience immediately comfortable with Harry Powell, just as the townsfolk are considering his status as a preacher. However, we quickly see Mitchum's brilliance as he turns on a dime between God fearing preacher and the ruthlessly greedy soul he hides within.

As a tale of religion, the film is incredibly strong. On one hand, we have the wolf in sheep's clothing and on the other, we have Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gash). A woman of faith, she takes in both John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) - the children who Harry Powell tries to trick into giving him the location of their father's money - as well as other children. Though rejected by her own son, Rachel takes in children rejected by their parents or who are orphans and gives them a loving home. Reading often from the Bible and instilling a fear of God in her children, she stands as a beacon of light in the film and the true embodiment of faith. In the Bible it states, as Harry Powell quotes from Matthew 10:34, "Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." Rachel, though bringing peace and happiness to this children, is defensive. When she catches wind of Harry's presence and finds out he is not John's father, she immediately defends her home and her children with a gun. Reasoning that this is a harsh world for small ones, she puts herself in harms way to defend the children in her charge against a brutal enemy. In its entirety, the Night of the Hunter is a deeply spiritual affair. It boils down to a man of evil fighting a woman of purity. He is the equivalent of a Holy War on Earth between the left hand of hate and the right hand of love and turns out exactly as illustrated by Harry Powell throughout the film with love conquering hatred.

Its tale of morality is not just limited to the main characters either, as even the Hangman (Paul Bryar) suffers greatly from his job. In hanging the children's father Ben Harper (Peter Graves), he once more finds himself grappling with the weight of his job and being unsure of its justification. A man who's job it is to kill people for the state may just be a job, but what is its impact on his salvation? Though working in the coal mines would likely kill him, he constantly expresses his regret over his job and wishes he had stuck with coal mining. It is a compelling debate and one that the film introduces with grace alongside its main story that raises a lot of questions. Is it better to die young and leave your family to fend for themselves or is it better to be the man in charge of hanging convicted criminals with blood on your hands? The answer is certainly not one that anybody would have a quality answer for.

As a film noir, director Charles Laughton heavily uses shadows, silhouettes, and lighting to create incredible cinematography. The highlight of the bunch being a shot of Harry Powell riding along the horizon on his horse. Silhouetted by the moon, the two young children can see him from a distance and can hear him singing. With the moment filled with tension due to its ominous presence, the film demonstrates how a simple shot can contribute so much to the atmosphere of the film as a whole. Simply riding along the horizon, Harry Powell's dark shadowy appearance contributes greatly to the fear he strikes into the hearts of all those who seem him coming. This tension instilled is just one moment where Laughton conjures an incredibly tense atmosphere with others coming in the bedroom after Harry Powell marries Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), in the basement when John lies and says the money is down there, and in Rachel Cooper's home as she awaits Harry in the dark with a gun in her hand. All three use the darkness and shadows of film noir to instill the sense of mystery that contributes to their tension, but they are also helped by Laughton's terrific direction as he perfectly stages them and paces the scenes, allowing for tension to rise naturally out of the situation as we sit and wait to see just how the situation will unfold.

Tense, frightening, and constantly keeping the audience on edge, Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter is a real tragedy to watch as it is Laughton's only directorial work. Though a cherished actor, the reception to this film made him give up directing as everybody hated it upon release. What a cruel world we live in where Laughton is discouraged from directing again after this film is rejected by the world and men such as Ed Wood and Uwe Boll would not stop releasing new travesties. A classic in every sense of the word, The Night of the Hunter is a tremendous film noir highlighted by a brilliant against type starring performance by Robert Mitchum, who imbues the perfect sense of fear and tension for the character, but juxtaposes it with Biblical knowledge. Embodying the belief that even Satan knows the Bible, his Reverend Harry Powell is chilling, creepy, and wholly unsettling.

Spangle · 04-03-2017, 01:49 AM

7/10 - Othello is not Orson Welles' best work by any measure. It has far more flaws than one has become accustomed to seeing in a film directed by Welles and its Shakespearean language makes the film hard to follow. Thus, it is hardly an easy watch. Yet, its brilliance rises above the sea of flaws accompanying the picture and turns it into a solid Shakespeare adaptation that may miss a lot of the original play, but does capture the gist of it and it does so via the sure hand of Orson Welles. In essence, Othello may have flaws, but at the end of the day, it was directed by Orson Welles. That is enough proof that this film is worth watching and an assurance that, by the end, it will become entirely engrossing.

The tragic tale of Othello (Welles) is brought to life here as he is manipulated by "honest" Iago (Micheal MacLiammoir) to believe that his wife Desdemona (Suzanne Cloutier) is sleeping with Cassio (Michael Laurence). She is not, but believing he has been cuckolded, Othello is furious. Iago, providing evidence via a handkerchief, quickly assuages Othello's concerns and reservations and the two begin to scheme to kill Desdemona and Cassio. For Iago, it is done to further his own military career as getting Othello and Cassio out of the way would leave him in charge of the military. For Othello, his shame and embarrassment has led to him murdering his love and will only further exacerbate themselves once the deed is done due to how he was misled by a man he had trusted so dearly.

While its characters and explosive finale, even if we all know the ending, really score points for Othello, the main highlight here is the cinematography and lighting. Relying upon German expressionist lighting for this adaptation, Welles repeatedly turns to candlelight or having a small spotlight on a person's eyes. Its shadowy look contributes to both the mystery in the film and the general darkness of the plot. The further into darkness we go, the further Othello's descent into jealousy becomes as highlighted in the sequence in the bedroom. As he gets ready to kill Desdemona, she lies in bed as he walks slowly around the room snuffing out all of the candlelight. It is a truly intimidating sequence with Welles' slow and methodical walk all over the room striking fear into the hearts of the viewer and Desdemona. The end result of the scene is a sequence that has only a small amount of artificial light and is, otherwise, completely dark. Menacing and intimidatingly lit, this sequence is a major reason why Othello comes out just fine in the end.

This top-notch ending comes as a surprise after a very bad opening to the film with Welles rushing through far too much. The first act and second act feel like the film is running a sprint and trying to walk at the same time. Its editing is quite bad and quite rushed with scenes slamming into one another or simply cutting too soon. For a film that took three years to make with so much material from the book, a longer running time would be expected. However, at 90 minutes, the film feels cramped and claustrophobic with too much going on throughout. Hell, even the talking is fast as it feels like a YouTube video when played at 1.25x speed at moments. The occasionally bad sound mixing blended with Shakespearean English hardly helps as the story becomes nearly incomprehensible. Combined with the rapid pace, we have a major issue on our hands at the beginning of Othello.

Fortunately, the third act is simply just that good. It is tremendously written, acted, staged, and lit. With the flaws of the beginning, an ending this perfect seemed unlikely. With Welles in charge though, it is always possible and he showed why he is a legend with the climax and third act.

8/10 - He is always very depressed. I think that if he'd been a successful criminal, he would have felt better. You know, he never made the 'ten most wanted' list. It's very unfair voting; it's who you know.
-Janet Margolin as Louise

The second directorial effort from Woody Allen, Take the Money and Run is a far more slapstick and physical comedy effort from Allen than his recent works and is also done in a mockumentary style. Telling the story of Virgil Starkwell (Allen), a bank robber, the film shows his quest to become a member of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List and provide for his family. As one can imagine, these often oppose one another leaving either his family unhappy or him feeling unfulfilled "going straight". An uproariously funny film, Take the Money and Run finds Woody Allen knowing what comedy is and how to evoke simple laughs with relative ease in this incredibly early feature.

The comedy in Take the Money and Run comes in a variety of forms. One, witty lines. Allen is known for tucking jokes into lines that double as jokes and social commentary. Take the Money and Run is certainly no stranger to this with a variety of lines existing as both a comment on the situation faced by prisoners or by those growing up in poverty and a witty line that evokes great laughter. Second, absurdist comedy. Lines such as the one quoted above regarding his aspirations to make the FBI's Most Wanted List are not quite Sleeper-levels of absurd, but absurd nonetheless. Sprinkled throughout this film are gags such as this that border on satire with how the exaggerate and mock a certain reality as it seen through Allen's eyes. Third, physical comedy/slapstick. There is one gag where Allen is using a mallet to break rocks, but it is too heavy for him. The ensuing physicality of the moment is reminiscent of Keaton or Chaplin as he tries his hardest to break the rocks, but is too weak to even swing his tool without killing himself or other prisoners. His early work is known for being more slapstick and Take the Money and Run is no exception with Allen's youthful exuberance being used to the film's benefit in the form of this less witty and more physical approach to humor at times. Fourth and finally, the mockumentary style of the film. Blending the absurdism with realistic interviews with those who knew Virgil, the simple banter between the camera and the interviewee provides yet another great source of comedy that blends the other three styles at play. In essence, Take the Money and Run finds comedy from a variety of sources and, typically, nails all of them.

Plot-wise, the film is pretty straight forward. It just tells the story of Virgil Starkwell and his inept attempts to rob people. Due to the aforementioned comedy, the film's plot is hardly an issue Allen concerns himself with, instead opting to focus on including opportunities for Virgil to have his glasses broken by kids and adults alike. That said, the plot is still engaging and touches on themes of growing up poor and trying to make it in a world where the odds are stacked against you. Rejected by the world early on in life, Virgil sees crime as the only way to make a living and even finds a woman who is willing to back him in his life of crime. Unfortunately, with the system as it is, he is always trying to shovel water out of a boat that is already at the bottom of the lake.

While hardly substantial, Take the Money and Run is yet another tremendously funny film from Woody Allen. Showing his talent as a director, writer, and actor in just his second directorial feature, the film is frenetically paced with a comic wit to match. Consistently delivering laughs of 85 minutes, Take the Money and Run stacks up quite well with his more assured directorial efforts and really stands as a unique film in his filmography, if only for the mockumentary setup. This setup brings a certain freshness to the film and a willingness to test out new comedy styles that more modern Allen films have forgotten, in favor of an intense focus on observational comedy and social critique. Instead of either, Take the Money and Run is just a fast and fun comedy film that never takes itself too seriously and shows the legendary director toying around with various methods of making an audience laugh.

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8/10 - Often cited as one of the best westerns of all-time, John Ford's The Searchers is a film where context is greatly important. Though maligned by some as being deeply racist, The Searchers is actually not that racist for the time period as it shows the savagery of white people alongside the perceived savagery of the Comanche tribe. While its redface and negative portrayal of "ind-juns" is certainly problematic, the film was actually quite ahead of its time for 1956 by making it clear that white people are hardly always the good guys and even our hero, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), is not all good. Instead, he is an intimidating figure who is a loose cannon and capable of wiping out a whole tribe just out of pure hatred. Thus, while the film certainly paints the Comanche in a negative light, the whites are still portrayed as a blend of pure evil and antihero that make it clear The Searchers is a film that recognizes that, in the west, nobody's hands are clean.

A Civil War veteran from the Confederate side, Ethan Edwards is a towering figure of a man. Wayne plays him as he does all of his characters: intensely masculine. However, his overbearing masculinity is seen as a terror-inducing quality in this film with everybody afraid of him flying off the handle. In particular, they are afraid he will kill Deborah (Natalie Wood). Kidnapped by the Comanche as a child, various men try to find her over the years with her uncle Ethan and adopted brother Martin (Jeffrey Hunter) standing as the two men to search for her the longest. Due to his hatred of the Comanche from his time in the Confederacy, it is constantly feared that he will kill Debbie for having been corrupted by the Comanches for so long. Thus, Martin refuses to allow him to go alone so that he can ensure Debbie is safe. This, along with Ethan's willingness to scalp dead Comanche victims or shoot eyes out of a dead Comanche, underscores how much of an antihero this figure is and provides a balance to the racism inherent in the story. At the end of the day, a film about Comanches kidnapping a white girl and with those Comanches being seen as savages by the townsfolk will always turn out a bit racist in the end. Yet, John Ford's characterization of the film's protagonist shows that not even whites are above the same savagery that Indians are accused of being capable of committing. He kills, maims, and scalps people, while always being so bitterly racist, he may murder his own niece. Hardly a "holy white person" or "white savior", Ethan is not the only white man portrayed negatively as a man betrays Ethan and Martin in order to rob them of their money and he is also white.

That said, the film is definitely not overly complimentary of Indians or the Union with the climax occurring with only the help of the Texans and the Confederacy, in spite of offers by the Union to help. By the time the raid on the Comanche village is set to begin, only a young Union soldier is available with his troop 10 miles back. Portrayed as being dumb and incapable of fighting, this young man is hardly any help and his fellow Union soldiers only show up once the climax is over, not able to arrive in time to actually help. While the Comanches are often shown as being savages, they are treated far kinder than the Union in this film with the Union even being criticized for brutally killing innocent Comanches without cause and then triumphantly leaving the scene of their cruel massacre.

In terms of the plot, it is hardly unique or original. That said, it is greatly compelling due to excellent direction by Ford as he wrings out tension and thrills repeatedly as Ethan and Martin battle the Indians or are slowly surrounded by them and forced to run away. Never cutting too early and allowing scenes to play out - particularly the slow and drawn out scene of them being surrounded - Ford really excels in creating a film with great drama. Likewise, the action is well shot and, though occasionally occurring slightly off screen, is always tense and brilliantly captured by Ford, as well being incredibly well staged with ambitious set pieces, such as the one at the river, and incredibly well paced.

With its cinematography, The Searchers also hits a home run with elegant long shots with silhouetted men on horses in the distance or just long shots that take full advantage of the beauty of the locations that the film was shot at. Its beauty is also found in the action which, again is well staged, but also well shot. The sequence at the river is gorgeously captured and really finds the scope of the set piece impeccably well. This western is known for being an absolutely gorgeous one and it certainly lives up to those expectations with impeccable lighting and gorgeous landscapes adorning this terrifically beautiful film.

Though a bit racist and dated in that area, The Searchers is hardly the most racist film of the era due to the way in which it offers up a negative portrayal of whites alongside the Indians. In essence, it is a film that shows nobody is really a good person. Everybody has a dark side and must be constantly feared as a result. This is seen in protagonist Ethan Edwards who, in spite of being our hero and going on the hero's journey, is a true antihero for the fear he inspires and the savagery he indulges in out of pure hatred. Impeccably captured, staged, and acted, The Searchers is a film that spans many years in its two hour runtime, but always stays focused on finding Debbie. Thrilling, dramatic, and truly engrossing, The Searchers is a classic with very good reason.

9/10 - This neo-noir thriller from director John Boorman is tense, thrilling, and impeccably inventive with its sound and constantly intercut flashback moments. Focusing on Walker (Lee Marvin), a man who broke out of Alcatraz and was robbed of his wife and $93,000 by his best friend, Point Blank shows us his efforts to exact brutal revenge on his friend and the mysterious "organization" he works for. With unique sound and excellent noir-inspired cinematography, Point Blank is a thrilling piece of 1960s entertainment as this mysterious criminal named Walker extolls brutal justice on those who wronged him and those who get in his way. Masterfully acted by Marvin, the film's largely silent and on-task protagonist feels like a great companion to Alain Dolan in 1967's Le Samourai and an influence on 2011's Drive, even if Marvin's Walker is relatively chatty compared to those film's protagonists.

One of the most thrilling moments of this comes as Walker walks down the hallway. With the sound of his footsteps playing over scenes of his ex-wife Lynne (Sharon Acker) in her home and of Walker closing in on Lynne's home, the footsteps slowing get louder and louder until he finally bursts through her door. Innovative, this sound editing technique (forget the name) is used impeccably by Boorman and creates tremendous tension and also serving as great character development. With such loud and echoing footsteps, Walker becomes a man that strikes fear into the heart of the enemy. We can feel and hear his enormity purely through this bellowing sound and its stands as the film's most iconic moment and its most impressive portion. However, Boorman quickly follows its up with a violent sequence of Walker at a nightclub. Trying to track his backstabbing ex-friend Mal Reese (John Vernon), he finds out he is associating with Lynne's sister Chris (Angie Dickinson), who runs the nightclub. Once there, he beats up a few guys in the bathroom who tried to attack him. However, instead of using audio of the fight, Boorman uses audio from the jazz musician entertaining the crowd alongside the violent images of the fighting. Brutal and yet highly engrossing, the sequence would be the best of the film if not for the prior scene. Two heavy hitters back-to-back like this using the same technique render it pretty meaningless for any film to try and do the same thing as Boorman. He perfected its usage twice. Just move on. Fortunately, Boorman returns to this technique towards the end as Walker hears a woman over a sound system speaking about him and goes to find the source in the house. It is not the same exact technique, but it has that same always being watched/followed feeling instilled by the previous usages, as well as paralleling the power of the corporation he is up against.

As a neo-noir, the film naturally uses plenty of shadows in its cinematography with many sequences happening in the dark or with limited artificial lighting. The real highlight of this comes in the climax as Walker hides in the shadows as he waits for everybody else to take care of his dirty deeds. With just a sliver of light on part of his face, he is hiding in the shadows and slowly retreats back into the hiding place provided by the darkness. Additionally, a scene in which he stands behind Chris, after sleeping with her, in the bedroom is terrifically framed. With Chris in the background sitting on the bed and Walker lurking behind her and standing up with a shadow cast behind him, the shot is simply impeccable. Yet, noir lighting is not the only source of great shots in Point Blank. In the office building occupied by Carter (Lloyd Bochner), the great low-angle shot in the stairs or of Walker breaking into Carter's well-lit office are tense, terrifically staged, and tremendously well-shot.

Plot-wise, the film is impeccably tight and well-written. Every line comes into play, such as Walker putting on his seat belt and mentioning how "most accidents happen three miles from home" before crashing his car on purpose to try and extract information from his used car salesman passenger. There is not a beat out of place in this thriller and no wonder considering it runs at just 92 minutes. The end result is a film that ends when it should and has no filler, which is always a personal favorite. It is a straight forward neo-noir revenge thriller without time spent developing unnecessary side characters or subplots. Instead, every detail goes into advancing the part of the film what Walker is concerned about: punishing those guilty and getting his money. Other concerns, such as the mysterious "organization" and the mysterious man that gives him access to do so are hardly a focus for him in this film. What certainly does not hurt is the terrific turn from Lee Marvin who delivers an icy cold performance and brutally executes his revenge mission. A sharply dressed, largely quiet, and methodical killer, Walker paved the road for similar quiet killers alongside Alain Dolan in Le Samourai.

Terrifically directed, acted, and written, Point Blank's biggest accomplishment comes in its manipulation of sound to create that echoing surround sound effect in the film. Intimidating, chilling, and omnipresent, these moments really transcend the actions on screen and become truly marvelous cinematic achievements for this relatively straight forward film. It is also what elevates it from being simply a tight and engaging thriller to a near masterpiece.

8/10 - Transporting viewers to a world of lawlessness, lust, and pure amusement, Westworld introduces you to Delos. Playing host to an amusement park where guests pay $1,000 a day to stay in one of three sections in the park: Westworld, Medieval World, or Roman World. Each allows the guest to experience a point in history that no longer exists. Along the way, they will encounter robots that either simulate threats from the time, are there for sex, or are simply there to help them out in their stay. However, when the robots begin to malfunction and actually kill guests, John (James Brolin) and Peter (Richard Benjamin) find themselves on the other side of the gun from a gunslinging old west robot known only as The Gunslinger (Yul Brynner). Tracking down his victims with advanced senses and a perfect aim, The Gunslinger and other robots stand as a warning about how, at some point, robots will snag control away from the humans.

It is not hard to immediately see the similarities with Crichton's Jurassic Park with both taking place in a theme park where things go wrong in spite of the architects "sparing no expense". Unfortunately, in the process, they have created things that they cannot control and, in spite of warnings they are dangerous, continue to press on and push the limits of creation. Using this as a setup to warn society of how corporations do not have the best interest of consumers in their minds and how dangerous artificial intelligence can be, Westworld is a thoroughly compelling film that raises interesting questions regarding human ability to do something. If we can do it, should we do it just because we can or should we exercise some measure of judgment? In today's world, the answer should be clear, but as Westworld demonstrates, greed and pride knows no bounds and will continue to cross over the line of what is right and wrong just to prove our capabilities as a race. Unfortunately, it is this exact hubris that will trigger our demise as our creations begin to out pace and exceed the intelligence of the average person.

After watching John Boorman's Point Blank yesterday, it seems like fate that I would watch Crichton's Westworld today due to the climax utilizing a similar sound editing technique as Point Blank. With Peter hiding in the underground system used by the Delos employees to try and get away from The Gunslinger, he can hear the footsteps of The Gunslinger slowly closing in and heightened due to the echoing of the hallways. Closing in, Peter must think quickly to try and defeat the man he has followed him all the way from Westworld and through Roman World looking to kill him. In following him, as many have said, The Gunslinger operates similar to The Terminator with his robotic precision assisting him in being a terrifying opponent in battle. In portraying this, Crichton laces each moment with great tension and really does a terrific job developing the robots and The Gunslinger as fearful opponents who simply cannot be stopped.

Crichton, for a guy not known for directing, excels in the tension of that moment as well as when the robots begin to go rogue. Lacing the film with anticipation when a sex robot named Daphne (Anne Randall) refuses the seduction of a guest and a snake bites John, the film begins to build anticipation. Little clues that things are going wrong are heeded by some scientists, but overruled by the money hungry owners who are fearful of losing guest confidence. Westworld really excels in building up tension to its climactic sequence with those aforementioned small malfunctions laying the seeds for a far more disastrous occurrence, which later arises when the Black Knight (Michael Mikler) finishes off a guest who was jousting for the right to sleep with the Queen in Medieval World. At this point, all hell breaks loose and it borders on becoming a horror film with how much the tension has risen and, thankfully, it is all incredibly well-earned tension.

This is a tight and focused thriller with each element hinting at the conclusion and, though there are some internal inconsistencies (how did Peter know where the underground operations rooms are?), Westworld is a heavy hitting science fiction thriller that thrills and provokes adequate science fiction fears and thoughts about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Incredibly fun to watch, Westworld is easy watching as are all of Crichton's works, but it has the capable directing, writing, and pacing that some of his films can sometimes lack. Though a bit dated by now, Westworld still entertains and engages with shocking effectiveness.

8/10 - While not containing any nudity, Bonnie and Clyde jumps out of the gates by showing audiences that a new era was about to kick off in American cinema. No longer would sexuality be left to flirtatious hints in the dialogue and no longer would the violence be safe. Instead, Bonnie and Clyde ushered in New Hollywood, an auteur driven era that found American directors reveling in the lifting of the Hays code and lifting all censors from their work. However, American audiences still had to shed their own conceptions as to what can and cannot be allowed in a work of art and it was Bonnie and Clyde that started to make critics and audiences alike realize the potential of this new era. Opening up with Faye Dunaway nude with her back to the camera, it was clear that cinema was about to become far friskier. Rushing to the window without clothes on after hearing the mysterious Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) poking around with her mother's car, Dunaway's Bonnie Parker soon takes up with Clyde with Dunaway turning the iconic crime spree girl into a real sexpot. From trying to help Clyde with his impotence to stroking his gun and looking seductively into his eyes, Bonnie Parker practically single-handedly lifts America into this new era with her sultry disposition and raw sexuality.

Criticized for celebrating these two murderers, the film actually does anything but when you really look at it all. Bonnie and Clyde are the protagonists, yes, but the film shows their insanity, their hubris, their stupidity, and their greed. Always confident they will never be caught, they take chances and mock those that chase them. They take photos with the police and meet up with random people from whom they had stolen a car. These are two dumb kids who, while maybe not wholly evil, are malevolently moronic. Any average criminal would get caught, but the duo were the benefits of their free wheeling attitude and willingness to drive across the whole of America in committing their crimes. Turning them into myths, the two would show up randomly into a town and rob a bank while the newspaper would attribute them with three times as many robberies in places they had never been. They were ghosts and the go-to for any news story. Had they not driven all over and the media not started printing falsehoods, it is entirely possible they would have been able to be tracked by the police. Instead, it was a wild goose chase until they were able to turn CW Moss (Michael J. Pollard) against the couple.

Unafraid to show the graphic results of the couple's violence, we see them kill innocents and kill cops right up close. We see them take on the cops and, yet, we root for them. Through all of their stupidity and murderous intent, the couple are classic cinematic antiheroes who make you root for them out of respect for their pure brazenness and utter lack of inhibition. The film's portrayal of violence, however, breaks through this a bit. From when they kill innocents to when they are finally executed in a hail of bullets, we see what this life of crime brings: violence and a lot of it. Director Arthur Penn uses this violence, alongside the sexuality, to usher in that new era of Hollywood, but to also jar the audience. The violence is unexpected from a film released in 1967. For it to be so bloody and so graphic, audiences at the time had to be running for the hills. I mean, we see a guy get shot five inches from the camera. We see a woman lose her eye. This is a brutal, brutal film. Penn does this shocking level of violence to underscore that Bonnie and Clyde are not to be revered. Their hands are covered in blood and their hubris has caused many good people to die and leave their families behind. While the papers and their legacy has romanticized their status to an insane degree, the gritty details are simple: they are murderers. Bonnie and Clyde is a film that is unafraid to confront this reality, no matter how much it may shock.

A boundary smashing film, Arthur Penn's rendition of the classic crime couple Bonnie and Clyde finds Penn introducing overt sexuality, sensuality, and violence to American films in telling this classic story. Not romanticizing it in the least, Penn offers up gruesome recountings of the couple's crime spree across America and shows their immaturity and pride, which ultimately led to their demise in a hail of bullets. Finding Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway doing some of their best work as the classic couple alongside a charismatic and scenery chewing Gene Hackman, Bonnie and Clyde ushered in a new era in film while decisively closing the book on the more romantic beliefs some had regarding Bonnie and Clyde. There is no romance in violence, underscored by Clyde's impotence and the film's refusal to show them as anything but remorseless maniacs that stole from others simply because they could, while being unafraid to shoot their way out of a tight spot.

8/10 - Wow does Angel Face ever pack a punch. One of the most brutal femme fatales ever put to screen, innocent-looking Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons) sinks her hooks in ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum). A man who cannot commit, Diane's good looks quickly distract him from his fling with Mary (Mona Freeman), but leave him as a man with his back up against the wall. Initially confusing the audience as to why the rich Diane would ever want to manipulate a working class man like Frank, it is clear that even befuddled classic every man Mitchum in his role as Frank. Constantly trying to piece together what Diane wants from him, he soon figures it out: he is the patsy. Diane hates her stepmother Catherine (Barbara O'Neil) and aims to kill her. He tries to get out of town before he is quickly framed for the murder by his brutal femme fatale, but still finds himself on trial, alongside Diane, for the murder.

Though we know Diane is guilty, it is always clear that director Otto Preminger is intrigued by a miscarriage of justice. Angel Face furthers emphasizes this, alongside his later film Anatomy of a Murder. Though the latter is far more in-depth with the court case than this film is, the result is still the same: justice is not served. If the record is to be set straight afterwards, Diane would be seen as insane for trying to cop to a trial that has already been resolved. Yet, the guilt is eating her up. No longer despising her stepmother and missing her father dearly, she realizes that things were not so bad in her past life and her stepmother was not nearly as bad as she had imagined. This guilt and anguish manifests itself similarly to the one experienced by Edward G. Robinson in Fritz Lang's brilliant Scarlet Street. Acquitted of a murder he was guilty of, Robinson's character in that film is driven to madness as a result of his own guilt. A line preceding his collapse hints that nobody is ever let off the hook for a murder, as one's own conscience will always punish them when the system fails. Though Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder shows an elated person after they are acquitted, Angel Face shows Diane in the throws of madness and depression, while filled with regret over what she tried to do to Frank.

The film's psychological approach to this apparent frame job and then its partial miscarriage of justice is only one aspect of its shocking nature. From the shocking way in which Catherine and Diane's father are killed to the shocking finale, Angel Face is a film what was far ahead of its time. Brutal and unflinchingly wading into an unhappy ending, the film's finale allows for a full realization of Diane's guilt and the depression it has left her with. Unable to live with herself with what she has done, the finale may shock and stun, but it is a rare case of a film from this era being able to dive head first into the exact place its story demands.

In her role as the femme fatale, Jean Simmons is tremendous. Playing her innocently, but with a sharp edge, Simmons shows why any man would be easily tricked by her. If she bats her eyes in your direction, it would be hard to turn her away. Though Frank knows she is not to be trusted, he lets himself fall for her trickery and finds himself in a horrific position as a whole. It is because of Simmons' acting that this femme fatale really works, as many women could pull off the looks portion of the role. Her manipulative and apparent innocence cover up her dark interior and leave you wholly convinced that she is telling the truth. By the time the verdict is read, she is so convincing, you nearly feel bad for her even if you know the dirty truth behind the murder. Opposite her, Mitchum plays a man that is far more aloof than usual. Compared to an earlier role in Out of the Past or one later on in The Night of the Hunter, Mitchum's performance here is as a man that is entirely out of control and putty in Diane's hand. His Frank is a man that is wise to her tricks, but hardly cares and writes it off as to his own fault for ever suspecting her. He is a man that is constantly playing from behind and never sure of anybody, even Mary who never manipulates him. Compared to Mitchum's roles as a man who is five steps ahead of the audience and other characters, this one is a very different role for him. Yet, with his charm and natural charisma, Mitchum makes the role work and makes you feel great sympathy for this stupid and easily distracted man.

A tense and compelling film noir, directed Otto Preminger delivers a compelling psychological look at regret and manipulation with a vicious femme fatale and a stunning finale that rises above the usual "happy ending" that afflicts many films from the era. With terrific performances from Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum, this shadowy and dimly lit LA-set noir shows that what one thinks they want is not always what they will truly want once the dust settles.

Spangle · 04-03-2017, 01:53 AM

8/10 - After bursting onto the scene with They Live by Night, director Nicholas Ray decided to casually unleash onto the world this suspenseful and spell binding film noir. In a Lonely Place stars Humphrey Bogart as Dixon Steele. A screenwriter desperately looking for a hit, he also has severe anger issues that has resulted in a variety of assault arrests sitting on his record. One night, after being asked to write the script for a novel, he takes a girl named Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart) home. As she has read the book and Dixon has no interest in the novel, he has her explain the plot to him before sending her home in a taxi. However, Mildred winds up dead and Dixon winds up as the prime suspect. His neighbor and chief witness, Laurel Grey (Gloria Grahame), tells the police she saw Mildred leave the house alone and saw Dixon shut his Venetian door half an hour later. Seeing his arrest record, the police are convinced they have their man however and slowly build a case. Meanwhile, Dixon and Laurel kick off a passionate relationship after meeting during Laurel's questioning.

Though she knows what she saw, Laurel slowly comes to believe that Dixon may actually be the killer. Through moments of him imagining how the murder took place or beating a man to within inches of his life, the audience also begins to wonder. Could this man have actually killed Mildred? A prior arrest that he beat a former girlfriend and the warnings of Laurel's helper hardly assuage the audience of Laurel's concerns about whether or not Dixon was the murderer. Through this, Ray creates an incredibly suspenseful mystery film that keeps the audience engaged easily. He shows us all of Dixon's flaws and makes us wonder whether he could have actually killed Mildred or not. Even better, Ray drops supposed clues that would pin Dixon to the murder in the eyes of the cops. As Mildred shared the story with him, she yelled out, "Help! Help! Help!" to re-enact a scene from the novel. Dixon rushes over and tells her to hush because "he has neighbors". Either Laurel, who was on her deck, did not hear this or did not choose to tell the cops this piece of information in her initial interview. Thus, Ray creates suspense of two forms. One, did Dixon actually kill her and is Laurel now in danger? Two, will Laurel - if convinced he is the killer - use this evidence to get an innocent Dixon locked up?

With a tight and smart script constantly weaving increasingly intricate webs around this, Ray also toys with seemingly innocuous moments that seem to foreshadow a future moment, but wind up being nothing more than red herrings. Whether it be sleeping pills taken by Laurel or a grapefruit knife that Dixon bends, the film seems to be setting you up for a second murder case - one that would be tougher for Dixon to wriggle out of - only to pull the rug out from under you yet again. Instead, Ray doubles down on portraying the dark side of Dixon.

Between this film and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bogart clearly feels at home playing antiheroes. While he is always a lovable protagonist, watching him put that natural charisma to the test as a man who clearly has a dark side and often travels to the side of himself is a true pleasure. Through his characterization and complete selling of Dixon's anger issues, Bogart's presence in the film brings with it great anxiety and tension, for fear that he would snap and harm Laurel. Likewise, Bogart's easy demeanor and natural likability makes us sympathize with his involvement in the case and root for him to be found not guilty. The cognitive dissonance created between these two dichotomies is really what makes the film so greatly compelling, but also shows the brilliance of Bogart. In two split seconds, we can go from loving him to fearing him and back again. Opposite Bogart, Gloria Grahame is terrific as the innocent and mostly sheepish Laurel. She, just like the audience, spends much of the film trying to figure out if Dixon actually killed Mildred. Yet, this is the greatest red herring of them all. Instead, as she realizes, Dixon's guilty of being too angry and irritable to marry. This, through everything, is not a murder story, hence the earlier murder story red herrings. They are to distract the audience from the real story: the romance between Dixon and Laurel and how toxic it is for Laurel. Restricted in her own ambitions to become Dixon's lackey and also put in the crossfire of Dixon's rage far too often, Laurel is in a jam and must figure out a way to get away from him. In her role as Laurel, Grahame garners great sympathy and plays the blind lover perfectly. She sees him as perfect in spite of everything and no matter how many people - Martha, the cops, or an acquaintance - tell her he is bad, she still loves him.

A surprising portrayal of an abusive relationship, In a Lonely Place may appear to be a murder mystery on the surface, but is really an examination of a relationship. Through everything, Laurel sees nothing but Dixon's positive side. He may be a man wracked with anger and a man who limits Laurel's potential as a person, but she loves him all the same. Constantly making excuses for him, director Nicholas Ray smartly creates this murder plot to begin raising suspicion on Dixon. Even if we know he is innocent, the possible framing and rail roading of him garners sympathy akin to that which Laurel feels for him. She too knows he is innocent and can see what being accused of murder has done to him. For all of his faults, she loves him and initially willing to accept his angry side. Yet, Ray's film creates suspense in making us wonder if it is too late. Has she overstayed her welcome? Though its murder story is engaging and sets up red herrings for possible future murders, the whole thing is a red herring. Its simple and obvious conclusion may leave many viewers how it could end so neatly on that front. However, it is merely to obscure from the real story: an abusive relationship and a woman's slow realization that she is in danger if she stays with the man she thinks she loves.

7/10 - After having watched director John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre not long ago, I made it a point to watch The Asphalt Jungle soon after. It is good fortune that I did so, as both films hint on very similar themes. While the prior film was far more rewarding than this one, Huston's portrayal of a man's human nature is as searing as ever in this heist film. Putting a group of men together in order to pull off a heist, we have the mastermind, the bankroller, the man who introduces them all, the hooligan, the driver, and the safe breaker. The score: diamonds. With the latter three all salaried and the mastermind a recently released convict with a mighty large reputation, it is clear that the score will be a huge one for the mastermind and the bankroller who will share the jewel earnings between the two of them. However, when the bankroller gets ideas of cutting everybody else out and leaving the country, things begin to get hairy.

As with The Treasure of the Sierra Made, the problem in The Asphalt Jungle is greed. The man with the money, Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern), is incredibly greedy in a variety of areas. Obviously, cutting out those who do the heist is one form of his greed as he can seemingly never have enough money. Yet, that is exactly his issue. He has no money. Though he has an extravagant lifestyle and is a well-known lawyer, Emmerich has a mistress named Angela (Marilyn Monroe). Though an early role for the renowned blonde bombshell, Angela is a classic Monroe character and a quintessential blonde. She is a serious bimbo who spends every dime that Emmerich gives her before he even gives it to her. Constantly putting on a show for her, Emmerich has filed for bankruptcy and needs to keep up the tricks via this heist. Presented to him by mastermind Doc Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), the heist is a stroke of genius. Keeping the other men involved in the heist on a flat rate guarantee is even better, considering the expected haul of a half million dollars. However, he cannot help himself and schemes to cut everybody else out of their guarantees and cuts to take it all for himself and an associate.

However, things begin to go wrong immediately with sirens going off or people getting shot. By the end of the film, everybody has their back up against the wall and is surrounded by the police. Just as in his prior film, Huston shows how greed never pays. Though it is human nature to be out for yourself - The Asphalt Jungle is impeccably cynical, especially in its portrayal of corrupt cops and snitches - it is a bad business to participate in, as it will bite back. The more and more you satisfy your own needs over others and greedily seek out extra pleasure for yourself, the more likely you are to find yourself at rock bottom with nothing but a shovel to help you dig further down. Huston's film underscores how hopeless greed is for a person, as they take greater and greater risks just to satisfy their own need for more. The only person who is not afflicted by this is Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden). The hooligan who wants nothing more than to go back to his farm in Kentucky, the film shows him in a far more positive light. He may be a punk and a bit dim, but he knows what he wants and goes for it, even as hemorrhages blood on the way there. Dying surrounded by horses is the perfect way for him to go and the film gives him that much for being the only person unconcerned with monetary gain. Instead, he seeks to fulfill the dreams of his father and bring the old farm back to its heyday.

Equating the world of crime with a jungle, the film shows the cops as the tamers and handlers of these wild beasts. In the closing monologue by Police commissioner Hardy (John McIntire), the film comes right out and says it, but it is yet another trait of Huston films: mother nature and the Earth. A film mostly about human nature, the film also shows how much a part of the Earth cities still are. They are simply a more intricately designed representation of the wilderness. There is structure and there are leaders, just as there would be in a pride of lions. When one steps out of line, somebody must be there to stop them or else the city would just decay into nothing more than that very same pride of lions. There would no longer be that line of morality to divide man from the animals. Should we lose that strict moral order enforced the police, people would steal, murder, rape, and more. By then, humanity would descend into chaos and turn into nothing more than another race of untamed and undomesticated wild animals, capable of doing anything at any time.

A tale on how greed never pays, The Asphalt Jungle is a riveting film from John Huston that still manages to wring tension out of its heist sequence even if we know everybody involved is doomed for their greed. With excellent acting and the like, the only problems I had with The Asphalt Jungle was that it was a bit too long and predictable. It is clear early on that the characters will die or get caught, yet it keeps going along with some throwaway lines tossed in there which is very uncanny for top-tier noir. In the best noir films I have seen, every line plays a role in the film; either directly or to purposefully mislead. Yet, there are some moments in The Asphalt Jungle that seem to stand alone in the film such as the jukebox, some moments between Dix and his girlfriend, and scenes of Emmerich playing cards with his innocuous wife who never leaves her bed. While there is enjoyment in these moments for sure, the film is never as tight as it could be and suffers from this when its predictable conclusion arrives. Had its pacing and writing been a bit quicker and tighter respectively, the film's obvious conclusion could still pack a powerful punch. Additionally, it lacks the wit and zip of many other classic noir films, while approaching its themes in a bit too overt and heavy handed fashion (the closing monologue being the main culprit here). For anybody watching, the themes become clear pretty quickly and the film does not cover them up with some witty and funny lines as in many noir films. Instead, it just has men telling women to shut up or making fun of Angela for being a dolt. Its comedy does not work and further contributes to its throwaway lines that really do very little in terms of character development, thematic development, or advancing the plot.

However, in saying that, I am being incredibly nitpicky. While not my favorite noir film, The Asphalt Jungle is still an absolute classic that engages and touches on many of John Huston's trademarks, which makes it an enjoyable watch on the surface just to find his classic themes and compare it to his other works.

EDIT: As I lay in bed last night, I realized an additional feature that sort of contradicts by "negative" section here. While the script is not completely tight, it is interesting to see the jukebox sequence. Though I cited it as a bit excessive and unnecessary, it finally makes sense. Early in the film, Riedenschneider declares that we all "work for our vice". His vice is women and "young pretty girls" as he calls them, which he cites repeatedly as the reason he wants to go to Mexico. While being arrested, he asks the cops how long they had been there and then states they had been there for a length of an average jukebox song. Of course, prior to the arrest, he had just given a young girl nickels to play a song and she danced for him. His ultimate demise was indulging in his vice and it is what got him nabbed by the police because he lost focus.

9/10 - Robert Wise's The Haunting is exactly the type of horror film that I love. Limited to a paltry $1 million budget and a practically zero dollar special effects budget, Wise was forced to alter his vision for the film. Instead of showing ghosts and using special effects throughout, he opted to make a slow, chilling, and atmospheric horror film that shows what goes bump in the night is far scarier when it remains faceless. Instead, the entities in the home are identified with loud banging, cold spots, and an absolutely chilling presence that snatches hold of its inhabitants and never lets go until it has you in its grip. An atmospheric slow burn horror film, The Haunting lay the framework for how to unsettle an audience without ever allowing them to see what was scaring them or even unlocking all of the home's secrets by the end of the film. A haunted house film with venom, The Haunting is a certified classic with great reason.

With the Hill House being the entity in question, the film creates great tension in its intricate design. The set production of this film is impeccable and incredibly detailed, particularly in the execution of its lore. It may lack a dungeon or hidden chambers, but what it does have is something off about the whole thing. Easily disorienting in the hallways due to the wide variety of doors and entry ways that can be found, the home seems to be playing a game of hide and seek with its guests as it forces them to try and guess which way is the way they actually wish to go. With no right angles in the house and doors that off center, the home plays mind games on you and causes unconscious damage to the mind of its occupants. With everything being slightly off, it unsettles and chills for reasons that nobody can really figure out. Simply being a room that is slightly off, and purposely so, is unnerving with your mind unable to explain why it is uncomfortable. In the nursery, the writing above the door and in the room in itself is chilling and a nice touch. In particular, one scene with all of them in the nursery highlights a part of a sentence written on the wall that reads, "suffer little children". At first glance, it appears to read, "suffer little shit", but when the camera backs out a bit, the final word becomes clearer and shows the purpose of the home: to drive people insane and to their breaking point. In the library, the spiral staircase that is falling off the wall and the trap door at the top of the stairs further highlight the attention to detail of the set design and the eerie possibilities of small fractures in the home.

Wise's camera also finds great tension through unsettling shots. Mirror shots that make the film feels as though it were occurring through old coke bottle eye glasses or frequent oblique angles as Eleanor (Julie Harris) runs frantically through the home litter this film with unique shots that further add to the tension. It is the subtly unsettling visuals that really ramp up the tension of the film and the atmosphere, alongside the set design and the sound. The latter being an extension of the set design. From pounding on doors or small creaks and cracks along the way, the film's use of sound is impeccably haunting and leaves the viewer jumping with every bump and thump in the film.

The film's haunting descent into madness experienced Eleanor stands as yet another testament to its genius. Whether or not everything she saw was a hallucination or if everybody else were part of her own trauma, the home's prior owner's story does mirror her own. With an old woman dying in the home as she knocked for her companion to come help her, it raises parallels with Eleanor's own time served as her mother's caretaker. Knocking for Eleanor to come help her, the knocks went unanswered and Eleanor's mother dies. She holds herself responsible is clearly still wracked with grief. As with many horror films nowadays, such as The Babadook, this exploration of grief as the source of the horror is certainly a central tenant of this film. She holds herself responsible and feels the spirit world around her holding her responsible for killing her mother, as she rushes around in this big home getting more and more lost in her thoughts and her old guilt over her actions. With her mind unable to overcome the guilt, the home and its terrors really become her mind simply wrapping around itself and figuratively trapping her consciousness and being within her own mind. Unable to escape, she is driven mad with everybody else in the home with her unable to help in any fashion. This also explains why she was chosen as the home's target, as none of her companions had this vulnerability of the mind. Her grief had left her susceptible to being caught and the home targeted the easy prey.

Terrifying, chilling, and brilliantly constructed, Robert Wise's The Haunting laid the frame work for other slow burn atmospheric thrillers and was similarly chastised by audiences of the time. Considered boring and to be a film where nothing happens, The Haunting was written off by many viewers in 1963. Fortunately, it found an audience and that audience thankfully heralded it as the classic it truly is and deserves to be seen as. Masterfully spliced together, The Haunting terrifies, entertains, and provokes thought in equal measure.

7/10 - A slow and solemn look at a legendary mountain man, Jeremiah Johnson is a revisionist western from director Sydney Pollack that seeks to demystify the legend. Known for killing and scalping upwards of 300 members of the Crow tribe after they killed his Flathead Indian wife and mute adopted son, Jeremiah Johnson lived up in the mountains of what appears to be Kentucky. Played by Robert Redford, Johnson is depicted as an Indian killer in the film to be sure, but he is hardly doing it out of malice. He is one of the few men out there that respects the Natives and wishes to honor their customs and is merely acting out of personal anguish after Crow indians took the only people he loved away from him. Somber and contemplative, the best part of Jeremiah Johnson may be the infamous gif/meme that arose out of the film in recent years, but it is still a compelling and beautiful western.

A man who has things happen to him more than he makes things happen for him, he gets his wife as a gift by accident and has the child thrust upon him by a grieving mother. He takes a while to warm up to both, but eventually comes around to really loving and caring for both with the trio making a good team in the cold and bitter wilderness of the mountains. Compared to his vile and brutal reaction to their deaths, however, he was far more passive and unassuming in the beginning of the film. As with every man arriving in the wilderness, he was a bit idealistic and care free. He knew dangers were out there, but hardly seemed to be concerned by them. The weather and the terrain do a number on him, his horse, and his mule, and he hardly seems to be a person cut out for this rough lifestyle. Via friendships with Bear Claw (Will Geer) and Del Gue (Stefan Gierasch), however, he settles in and finds his groove with hunting, fishing, and skinning food. He becomes a man that is revered in the mountains as being one of the most capable men around with all of the local tribes having immense respect for him as he is willing to trade and not intrude on their property without paying respect.

He is a man who goes through great transformations up in the mountains while, by contrast, nothing changes in the world below. A Mexican war veteran, he encounters soldiers towards the middle of the film who want to have him help them rescue lost wagons of settlers. During their trek to the settlers, he asks about the Mexican War and learns that it is over. Yet, as is clear, a heavy military presence can still be felt across the country as they gear up for more wars. By the end of the film, he sees Bear Claw once more and they discuss what month is is, before deciding it must be March. Bear Claw states that down low, it is a green and happy month. In the mountains, however, it is just another month of winter. In essence, things are different in the mountains than down below, but things do not change down below because people never change. Wars keep happening because we refuse to understand those who are different from ourselves. Jeremiah seems surprised the war is over, but it is still clear in this brief encounter that more war, especially with the Indians, is incredibly likely due to the disrespect for the burial ground expressed by the military. For those in the mountains, there is a deep respect for the Indians, expressed via the mutual fear held by both sides. This difference - people changing to become respectful of others compared to those down below or spiral further into hatred - is the romanticization of the lives of mountain men in the film. The celebration of Jeremiah Johnson is as far as he respects those whose land he took and now shares. While he terrorizes them, the film skips through it via quick images and quick scenes and instead focuses on before and after when he makes peace with the tribe.

Lushly shot with an emphasis on the terrain, along with some nice zoom outs by Pollack (I miss the days of zooming), Jeremiah Johnson is a beautifully captured revisionist western. That said, it can be a bit too slow at times, never really captivating, even as it develops its characters and themes. Though not a celebration of the titular character and instead a celebration of those who come to respect others, Jeremiah Johnson does often border on a celebration of this ruthless killer, which can be a bit unsavory. That said, its moving imagery and terrific lead performance from Robert Redford help to turn the film into a terrifically made and written western, even if it is not the most entertaining film ever made. It also seems to be a direct influence on The Revenant with its investigation of those who live off the land and deal with furs and tribes frequently. However, it is a very different tale with Redford's Johnson getting attacked by wolves while wearing a bear skin instead of getting attacked by a bear.

7/10 - After the success of Sidney Lumet's adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, Hollywood returned to the well with another Agatha Christie adaptation via 1978's Death on the Nile. Another murder tale occurring with famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (this time played by Peter Ustinov) aboard a passenger vessel of some kind, Death on the Nile forces its sleuth to decipher who is the murderer on a riverboat traversing the Nile River. With a very similar set-up to the Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile introduces us to its ensemble cast of characters who all have a reason to kill our murder victim. However, who is guilty and why? Directed by John Guillermin, Death on the Nile may have only read the book on how to make a film, but it follows the recipes therein quite well and the end result is a ripping whodunit that keeps you guessing until the very end.

Taking over an hour to introduce us to every character, their possible motivations, and to get them all on the riverboat, we quickly figure out that Linnet Ridgeway (Lois Chiles) is set to die. The focus from the very beginning, we see her steal away a man from a friend, wear expensive jewels, not read documents that sign away power over her money to attorneys, learn her family screwed people over, that she is involved in a libel suit, and that she speaks poorly about a doctor to important people. In other words, the girl is rich and has enemies. Unfortunately for her, they are all on this riverboat. One of the main problems with the film, however, is that it takes too long to get through everything. An hour is spent developing every character and their motivation only for Poirot to then go around and interview everybody, playing out a possible scenario in which they could have killed Linnet. Together, they both elongate the film unnecessarily when either or could have sufficed. That said, the guessing game as to who will die - even if a bit obvious - is always fun and then the interrogations are lively due to Poirot's eccentric nature and Peter Ustinov's terrific performance in the role. A huge improvement over Albert Finney.

The mystery itself is compelling. As Poirot proves, practically everybody on the ship has the motive and the means to have killed Linnet. With the gun belonging to Jackie (Mia Farrow), the scorned ex-lover of Linnet's new husband Simon (Simon MacCorkindale), it seems as though she is the prime suspect if not for a full account on her whereabouts. Having shot Simon in a fit of rage, she went into shock as Simon dealt with a leg wound. In the mean time, her small gun disappeared and was found to be the source of Linnet's head wound. With both of them crossed off, Poirot sets out to find his killers with engaging interrogations that rely on subtleties, small non-verbal cues, and more about how something is said rather than what was said. When he reveals the killers at the end, it is impeccable to see how all of the small details come together.

As with any whodunit, guessing alongside the detective is a source of great fun in Death on the Nile and thankfully, there is actually a killer in this one. Murder on the Orient Express' conclusion greatly disappointed me and I was fearful that this film would resolve itself the same way due to its similar setup. Fortunately, this was not the case and instead, it has a great murder mystery and conspiracy behind it that makes it all the more compelling. As always, the reveal is shocking, but seeing the puzzle pieces click together with Guillermin splicing in moments from the film as Poirot references them, it all becomes clear. While his manner of just coming out and telling you the killer may be a bit too upfront and showy, it is still engaging all the same and fun whodunit materials.

With good acting performances across the board - especially loved Angela Lansbury, Peter Ustinov, and David Niven here - Death on the Nile is a contained whodunit that keeps you guessing and eagerly pulls the rug out from under you whenever it appears that you have it all solved. With a boat full of potential killers, Death on the Nile provides suitable reasons for all to kill and yet, it cannot be all of them. Or can it? In a well-written and well cast whodunit, director John Guillermin avoids the lackluster acting and conclusion found in Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express to deliver a film with a satisfying, if overlong, build-up and a terrific conclusion.

8/10 - A classic film noir from director William Wyler, The Letter stars Bette Davis as Leslie Crosbie. Opening with Leslie killing a man named Geoff Hammond, she immediately sends for her husband Robert (Herbert Marshall) to come and he arrives with a lawyer, Howard Joyce (James Stephenson). Set in British Malaya, Leslie is put on trial for murder and seems a shoo-in to be acquitted with her accusing Geoff of making unwanted advances to her and her response being to unload a fully loaded gun on him after he refused to take no for an answer. Believable, everybody defends her even as she goes to trial until a letter is found that makes it incredibly apparent that Leslie was having an affair with Geoff and had asked him to come over for the two of them to discuss their relationship. A tense noir with a shocking ending, The Letter is a great vehicle for Davis and never stops surprising.

Though its premise seems devoid of surprise, Wyler still manages to wring out tension and unpredictability through particularly at the end. While I will not spoil it, it is certainly not one I anticipated. As for the rest of the film though, it is almost more melodrama than noir with Leslie and Robert's relationship on the ropes for the final half hour once he becomes aware of the letter and, later, what the letter says. The relationship drama is well developed and always feel authentic with both Davis and Herbert Marshall have good chemistry with one another to the point that you can feel the disconnect between the two of them. It is clear that this is now a one-sided relationship with her being conflicted over both the murder and her affair with the man she felt pressured into killing.

Likewise, the film finds great drama via James Stephenson's excellent role as her attorney. Bending the rules of being an attorney to free his client, though against his own moral compass, it is clear that Howard Joyce is a man torn. On one hand, he did what was right by his client. On the other, he freed someone whose guilt seemed to be quite apparent to him. As he makes his closing statement, you can see the beads of sweat running down his forehead as he realizes he is sealing his fate as an attorney and will possibly be disbarred should anything come out. It is a great piece of character drama as you can see just how conflicted he is about the whole scenario and Stephenson plays the character brilliantly, showing both his steely lawyer determination to win and the more fragile human psyche of being so dishonest in his line of work.

As with any noir, the lighting is great especially where Mrs. Hammond (Gale Sondergaard) is concerned. Always lurking in complete darkness, she never says a word but has a menacing presence. The scorned widow of Geoff Hammond, she clearly has it out for Leslie and seeks to harm her in any way possible. Though without any lines, she is honestly one of the more memorable characters in this film with how she broods and slinks around and is always right where she is not wanted towards the end of the film. The overseer of Leslie's demise, Mrs. Hammond exacts her revenge in ways that would make women with cheating husbands incredibly jealous.

Tense, gorgeously captured, and wonderfully written, William Wyler's The Letter is an engaging noir with some great character drama via the moral questions it poses. With great acting from the whole cast, it is not hard to see why this film with Bette Davis' femme fatale brutally slaying a man with or without cause (to be determined) gained so many accolades upon release and is still seen as a classic.

8/10 - An old school style romantic thriller, Allied feels both modern and cut right out of the 1940s. Gorgeously captured, designed, and staged, Allied is an - at times - lyrical and entirely compelling look at World War II espionage through the eyes of two lovers. Director Robert Zemeckis cannot help but constantly reference Casablanca with his two lovers meeting in a bar in Casablanca, but though the film is deeply indebted to the Golden Age of Hollywood, it is somewhat similar to Steven Soderbergh's The Good German. Another film that I love (sue me), that film attempts to take the style of film noir - going as far as shooting in black-and-white with German expressionist lighting - and tell a story that could have been told in the 1940s. Many found it to be a mess and, admittedly, Tobey Maguire is entirely out of place there. Allied suffered much the same fate as it tried to capture the same appeal of a romance not-really-melodrama-but-sort-of-melodramatic war film akin to the aforementioned Casablanca or another Humphrey Bogart film, To Have and Have Not.

That said, Zemeckis does not go the full nine yards like Soderbergh. Instead, he often channels films such as The English Patient or, believe it or not, Children of Men. Both far more recent, the two feel like a clear influence on some of the style of Allied, whereas the story and romance feels ripped out of 1940s cinema. For the former, the comparison is clear: war-set romance tale that partially occurs in the desert. It is clear from the trailer alone that Zemeckis had seen Anthony Minghella's stunning beauty of a film, with its style of desert shots clearly bearing influence as Zemeckis sets up stunning shots of the desert as one of the highlights of the film's cinematography. However, a sex scene in a car in the desert between Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) and Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard) appears to also channel Minghella's film with the couple engaging in an extended sex scene as a sandstorm blows all around them. A similar scene also occurs in The English Patient, though without the sex. Instead, Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas simply chat and grow closer due to their small confines. One could argue that the raw passion between the two spies is their own way of sharing war stories like those shared by Fiennes.

Yet, Allied's action scenes seem akin to Children of Men. Perhaps not a direct influence, I admit, but a stylistic one nonetheless. Upon viewing Children of Men years ago, I was immediately struck by its action scenes as Clive Owen and company try to shoot their way out of various destroyed buildings. Of every film I have seen, this film still stands as the one that best simulated the action scenes of a video game. It put you in intimate contact with the action and made it feel as though you were doing it yourself. It is is a hard style to describe and it is not due to the POV. Instead, it simply feels like a video game. Allied's action scenes have the same feeling with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard shooting their way out of the ambassador's ball with bodies flying. The shooting and reactions of the men who are shot feels like a cut scene from a first person shooter as the story progresses before you regain control of the main character. Now, of course, this could just be CGI at play, but regardless, the scenes are incredibly tense, terrifically staged, and - again - I love how they are shot for the same reasons why the action scenes in Children of Men work: immediacy, passion, and chaos. However, the film also feels akin to Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film in its camera work. Though not a continuous shot or anything, the camera in Allied feels free flowing. It floats around the characters and the locale, hiding behind storefronts or rushing ahead of the characters and awaiting their arrival in the frame or just waiting on the curb after they drove off in the distance. Capturing the beautiful production and costume design, the camera in Allied feels like an entity in and of itself with it trying ambitious shots that were unlikely to be seen in 1940s cinema.

Story-wise, the film shows the romance between Max and Marianne and, as the trailer shows, throws a wrench in their marriage with Marianne being accused of being a German spy. Deliberate, tense, and unpredictable, the film ditches the happy ending demanded by 1940s audiences and instead sees it to its logical conclusion: a torn relationship as a result of this accusation. No matter whether it is true or not, what was between them has been snuffed out due to suspicion and uncertainty. Brilliantly portrayed by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, the two entirely sell both the rise and fall of the relationship. Captured in small subtleties, such as Pitt's Max lurking over Marianne in his uniform as he must go to work on his day off, the slow demise of the relationship due to her possible work as a spy is haunting and heart wrenching. From the excitement of a day off (the beginning) to the slow and sad realization that the one you love must leave (the fall), Allied captures the gorgeous nuances of this relationship in great detail. In depicting its suspicion, uncertainty, and haunting finale, the film really feels like a throwback to Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion as our protagonist tries to feverishly determine if their spouse is the enemy or not via the help of others and their own sleuthing. Though occurring during WWII and various bombings, the center of this film is always its two lovers. In a gorgeous sequence where the Germans do an air raid on London as the Vatan's hold a party, Max rushes inside to rescue his wife and daughter. Though he knows she may be a spy, it hardly matters. Their love is real, even if they only met on an assignment. At the end of the day, he will do anything to protect her and his daughter Anna, even if it means betraying his country and supervisors. For both, their country is hardly the focus as they belong entirely to one another. As the world crashes around them, they find love in a hopeless place and refuse to let those crashes impact that love.

Gorgeously shot with impeccable attention to detail on the costumes and production design, Allied is a film that is deeply indebted to 1940s cinema, particularly the romantic war films of Humphrey Bogart with, as many have pointed out, Pitt playing a sort of Bogart-esque character as a reserved man whose heart stays firmly within his chest cavity, but will do anything for the woman he loves. Alongside him, Cotillard plays the mystery woman that Max Vatan comes to love. Willing to risk it all for her, she is a woman unable to return the favor (Casablanca) and must face the music, regardless of how much that love has meant to her as well. Beautifully romantic with excellent camera work, Allied's style may be far more modern, but its characters, acting, and storyline are all deeply indebted to classic Hollywood. Pulling off this tricky modernization of an old school tale with impeccable grace, Zemeckis proves he still has a sure hand all these years later.

7/10 - A through-and-through classic, Shane is a film that I knew about even before I really got into watching films. The iconic final sequence of young Joey (Brandon deWilde) calling after Shane (Alan Ladd) as he rides off into the horizon is a scene that has been immortalized in the Hollywood highlight reel of iconic moments. Telling a familiar western tale of a range war between a ruthless man and his sons/friends being waged against homesteaders who simply farm and go about their business, Shane is a clearly influential film even if it is flawed. The flaws mostly come when the film shifts focus away from the range war and more onto Joey and Shane. These moments do not work nearly as well, though the film's comments on pride and masculinity still ring true to this very day.

The moments between Shane and Joey are clunky, namely because Brandon deWilde is incredibly annoying as Joey. His whiny voice and punchable child face (is it wrong to say that?) caused me more annoyance than I had anticipated. However, even the relationship between the two is odd. Immediately upon meeting him, Joey worships Shane. While partially a comment on heroism and cowboys in the old west, it is simply creepy and uncomfortable to watch this kid chase around Shane and kissing the ground on which he walks. The acting does not help, mind you, but the kid being massively annoying certainly did not help this friendship come off any better. All-in-all, the first third of the film is largely dedicated to this, which is unfortunate as it really turned me off from the film from the jump. Fortunately, it shifts to the more typical and well-executed range war after a point in time, but until then, Joey really sucks the life out of this film. When his father starts kicking him out and making him stay in his room, the film really picks up.

Yet, while I despised this portion of the film, it does set up the pride and masculine angle of the film. For Joey's father Joe (Van Heflin), the threats from the film's antagonist have reached the point where they are questioning his manhood and he fears appearing yellow to his wife and son. It certainly does not help that every other settler wants to leave and Joe is now the glue that is holding this homestead together and the only person able to convince people to stay in the area. Yet, Shane's arrival and young Joey's worshiping of him - to the point that he says he loves Shane nearly as much as his father - makes Joe's issues with pride and masculinity even worse. His wife dancing with Shane, even if Joe is fine with it, certainly does not help. Nor goes getting beaten up by Shane. Regardless, he had to try and save his farm and the farms of every other homesteader. If he does not make this stand, he will feel entirely emasculated and no reason will stop him.

In its portrayal of the range war, Shane has some pretty classic bar brawls and shootouts that always really click with great tension and terrific staging. Naturally, as the film is from 1953, the punching does look fake, but that is to be anticipated. Regardless of the fake look, the scenes are wonderfully staged with the characters selling it quite well and, naturally, the gun shootouts are a real highlight of fun. While perhaps not the best range war I have seen, it is well executed with both sides actually getting a chance to make their case. For the antagonists, they were there first and feel as though their land was stolen after they had spent all that time clearing the land of Indians. For the homesteaders, they rightfully bought the land from the government. Of course, the film side steps the issues with having first stolen the land from the Indians, but it is not a revisionist western even if the sequence in which they both make their case for having the land does seem to hint at the fact that both are in the wrong, as the land belongs to neither of them.

A classic, Shane may not be the best western I have ever seen, but it is undeniably iconic with a fun and engaging range war taking center stage. However, until it settles into being about a range war, the annoying child really take some steam out of the film with him just stalking Shane day and night. Overall, it is pretty good and it is easy to see why it has become quite revered by film enthusiasts.

Spangle · 04-03-2017, 01:57 AM

7/10 - It's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.
-Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly

I confess that my recent viewing of William Wyler's heist comedy How to Steal a Million was the first time I had seen Audrey Hepburn in a starring role. Before that, just her bit cameo in Steven Spielberg's Always had crossed my path and that came just mere weeks before the other occasion. In essence, I am just beginning in my understanding of Hepburn as an actress and perhaps no film captures everything she was in her roles than Breakfast at Tiffany's. Yet, before I get into reviewing it, I feel the need to share. Perhaps I am a bit grim in my own personal life. Death and its inevitability is, naturally, a mainstay in my mind. This has very little to do with Breakfast at Tiffany's on the surface, though I will later try to tie it back in out of my simple need to keep on task in these reviews. For me, death was always something to be feared, though it was focused inward. My own demise, as a young child, kept me up at nights. I can remember lying in bed, paralyzed by the thought that one day, I will die. This, as it often does, turned itself into two things. One, the burning desire to be remembered. When I was younger, the mark of being remembered is to somehow have a Wikipedia page. That way, in 100 years, some stupid kid can hit "random page" and my page will pop up and they will read about how banal my life actually turned out to be. While this may be a bit simplistic, it is the truth nonetheless. Second, fear of death of those I love. Whether it be my mother or my dog, the inevitability of their deaths and my resultant mourning often leaves me on the brink of tears. With my dog, now 15, having an infection under the skin around his salivary glands and being forced into a cone of shame as we wait for the swelling to go down, the light is most certainly appearing at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps not soon, as otherwise, he is incredibly healthy for a dog his age with little-to-no gray hair and enough energy to outpace many young pups. My mother, likewise, has been quite healthy aside from aches and pains. Both are a blessing and will be missed with all of my heart upon their deaths. Naturally, once (if) I find a girl to spend the rest of my life with or have kids, they too will be missed once I go or if their train's departure is before my own.

However, both have allowed me to realize something bigger. Just as Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain showed me that death is not to be feared, but to be embraced, the mortality of those that I love has shown me that my desire to be remembered does not need to wind up in something juvenile or asinine such as a Wikipedia. To be truly remembered is to remain in the hearts and minds of those that you love. Beyond those that you love, nobody else really matters and whether or not they are aware of your existence is simply not important. However, to become loved or to love, one must be willing to take chances. Following one's heart down the path it leads and not being afraid of being hurt is the only way to find love, happiness, and therefore, to have an impact in this world on the hearts and minds of those that we love and love us in return.

As many know, Hepburn died of cancer in 1993. In order for her to spend a final Christmas with family, Givenchy flew her out on a private plane - which was filled with flowers - to Switzerland. For some reason, this gesture - though I had read about it before - really struck a chord with me tonight. For Hepburn, she is clearly an idol. Women today still adore her and I have known female friends who have gone as her for Halloween with a black dress and gloves, akin to her famous outfit in this film. Though an icon for women's fashion to this very day and a figure that will last on in Hollywood until the end of time, her final weeks and days were spent with those that she loved. Those that were dear to her gathered around and did anything they could to bring her a last little bit of joy as they spent time together to say goodbye. No matter how loved we are, at the end, only those we love really matter and should matter once we are gone. As long as we remain in their hearts and minds, it was a life worth living. To reach this point, we must be willing to let go and be let go.

In her most famous role as Holly Golightly, Hepburn defines her persona as people will see her for as long as she is remembered. From her iconic dresses, cigarette holder, or hairstyle, every inch of her performance has been turned into a style or fashion icon. Bubbly and boisterous, Holly is like many girls I have known. Though they may appear dumb and shallow on the outside for their love of jewels, fancy dresses, or appearances, there is no doubt something on the inside. The rest is merely a facade to hide up something on the inside that hurts them or they do not like. Hepburn's Holly really captures this inner damage as she rejects men she cares for in order to go after rich men who she does not care about. To tie it in to the earlier discussion about death, she was afraid of losing people. To love is to let people in and to open yourself up to emotional turmoil when they leave. However, if we do not love, for what purpose do we exist? Just as we should strive to make an impact on the lives of those that we love, we should strive to love them in the first place. For Holly, she is unable to do this even as she grows closer and closer to Paul Varjak (George Peppard). He is different from the rich rats she usually dates, which is precisely why she cannot date him. Not only does she care about him, but she sees him as being far too good for her. Though he sells himself to a rich woman for sex, he is a good man with a good heart, though not much money in the bank. Without the money, there would be nothing for her to fall back on if she gets hurt. Instead, she would be left hurt and broke; forced to cope with her own grieving emotions. As she states repeatedly, she does not wish to belong to anybody and transfers this belief to her nameless cat as well. They are transients, not defined by name and free from others. Yet, every heart craves to be filled and money can never fill that hole. She loves her cat and she loves Paul, no matter how much she denies both. However, she must allow herself to love both or else she will continue to feel that something is missing and try to cover it up with new jewelry, dresses, or another husband entirely.

Playing this fast, flirty, and casually beautiful and graceful character, Hepburn is a natural. While Truman Capote thought she was awful and that the film lacked the same meaning as the novel, to me, the novel's apparent message of a little girl lost in a big city and the dangers it can bring, still rings true. Undoubtedly lost and uncertain of where she wants to be, the film makes this abundantly clear when we learn that she turned down a screen test for Hollywood to find out who she was and what she wanted. Yet, just as she is unable to love Paul, she is unable to give herself what she wants. She is afraid of getting hurt, of failure, and of taking that chance. It is easier to sit in one place than move forward. A small town girl, she is trapped in a small apartment and forced to rely upon gifts from old rich male lovers in order to get by. Without this, she would be even more destitute than she presently is, which shows just how lost her character is and will be until she lifts her own walls.

While Hepburn's performance swept me off my feet and made me a permanent fan of her as an actress, this charming little romantic comedy does have its pieces that are dated. Though fast, witty, and zippy as only older films can be, Breakfast at Tiffany's is definitely hit-and-miss with its comedy, as I had no idea it was a comedy. I thought it was just a drama about a girl that had some funny lines strewn in, but I was wrong. Perhaps this is due to the main source of comedy - Mr. Yunioshi (Mickey Rooney) - is merely a racist caricature. Enough has been said about this character with the producer, director, and actor himself all expressing regret over the character, so more does not need to be said. 1961 was a different time and, no matter how bleak today's world may appear, we at least are unlikely to get another Mr. Yunioshi in cinema. However, that and other dated elements certainly leave Breakfast at Tiffany's lacking in certain areas. Its climactic sequence is also a bit dated in spots, even if thematically resonant. Namely, the line where Paul exclaims that Holly belongs to him comes off quite poorly and entirely possessive. Honestly, the character of Paul really borderlines on being a "nice guy" at times and while Peppard has good chemistry with Hepburn, Paul as a character is often lacking as a romantic partner for Holly.

A classic, Breakfast at Tiffany's is a film that clearly had an impact on me to some degree, but mostly because of Hepburn. Iconic in this role, it certainly speaks to longevity and being remembered, in regards to both this film, her death, and our deaths. It would be hard to imagine modern society without Audrey Hepburn, due to the impact she had on girls of all ages who have encountered this or other works starring her. Director Blake Edwards, best known for his Pink Panther films, shows his knack for comedy quite well here, even if the jokes do not translate as well in today's world. However, the heart and soul of this film is Hepburn as she radiates energy and draws every eye in the room on her as this extroverted girl trying to cover up her own disdain for herself with loud parties and numerous lovers. It is only once we let somebody in that we will be happy and feel as though she has truly left her mark and this film is about one girl's quest to do just that. She does not love herself, as the quote at the very top shows as she equates herself to an empty sky with people constantly leaving, and does not feel deserving of love. It is for this reason she is unable to be happy as she knows that love is the only way for her to find the happiness and warmth she craves, even if it may cause her great hurt. In the end, however, all that matters is those we love and that we are remembered by them for the love that we gave them. The here and now matters very little and we must strive to look beyond the confines of our own mind and leap into the abyss to become truly happy and feel fulfilled. Without this courage and willingness to be hurt, we are doomed to live lives in which we jump from person-to-person, place-to-place, and dream-to-dream. Nothing will fulfill us because we do not allow ourselves to become fulfilled. Though many see Breakfast at Tiffany's as a very happy film, it is clearly a dark, melodic, and haunting character study of a girl learning to leave herself open to hurt and love in equal measure instead of cutting herself off from the world to live a meaningless and fruitless life.

"The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open."
-Chuck Palahniuk

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6/10 - Will I ever enjoy a Alfonso Cuaron film? Gravity is probably my favorite by him, though it is only pretty good in hindsight. Had I not seen it in cinemas, its paper thin story and horribly annoying performance from Sandra Bullock would bother me more, but those visuals are first rate. Children of Men is probably a film deserving of a rewatch though, as of now, I really did not care for it. However, I did see it a few years ago. One without an excuse is Y Tu Mama Tambien which I absolutely abhorred. One of my least favorite films I had ever seen. Drove me up the wall and made me run for the showers. Perhaps not my type of film, but regardless, the mere thought of that film sends me running to go turn on the shower head. It is instinct at this point. A Little Princess, an update on a classic fairy tale, joins the pantheon of beloved Cuaron films to completely pass me by and wonder how this man has become so popular. Am I alone in not liking him at all? Visually stunning films sure, but let us not pretend that he has not entirely benefited from a working relationship with Emmanuel Lubezki. Remove Lubezki from the equation and I am running for the hills from his work without any hesitation.

As for this film alone, the film suffers in its characters and in its emotional manipulation. Yes, it is a fairy tale, but the character of Miss Minchin (Eleanor Bron) hardly works. Abusing children and having the entire police force sent to arrest a small girl by accusing her of theft she clearly did not commit seems highly illogical and either the creation of the imaginative mind of a little girl or purely nonsensical writing. Personally, I lean towards the latter. Furthermore, once Sara (Liesel Matthews) is freed from her dungeon - in which she and friend Becky (Vanessa Lee Chester) are forced to work without pay to earn their keep in the home and also starved as punishment - we see Miss Minchin in the streets as a woman who is practically homeless as a result. She has been punished for her cruel nature, which is only fair. Yet, while she is comically cruel to the point that it lacks any basis in common sense and smacks of the writers trying to find a shorthand way to turn her into the antagonist, her fall is turned into comedic fodder. She, who looked down upon those with nothing, is then looked down upon the audience and the film itself for working for a living after losing her job as the headmaster of the school. Yes, she is a cruel wench, but is it not then equally wrong for us to mock her and laugh at her predicament? She may have reaped what she sows, but deserves a helping hand nonetheless and should learn from her errors. Being mocked sends the wrong message to the children audience of the film who will see her punished, laugh, and write her off as an irredeemable person incapable of change. Had she been reformed, shown the light, and taught to act like a reasonable human being, it would show that people can change for the better and those who are at the bottom should be helped, not mocked.

The character of Ram Dass (Errol Sitahal) also appears to be a "magical negro" stock character. The man responsible for keeping Sara going during her days at rock bottom, he exists to merely provide happiness to Sara and to benefit her by nursing her father back to health after his time served in World War I. He appears to have no life other than serving Sara and other whites, while being capable of performing magical acts such as transforming her room (even her bed sheets, which she was laying on) in her sleep to save her from being starved by Miss Minchin. Presently, this character is not seen as a magical negro by film critics, most likely because he is not black and instead an Indian man. Yet, though he does not meet the race requirement of the term, his characterization and role in the film is solely to serve our white protagonist and perform magical acts to keep her happy and motivated. If he is not a "magical negro", then I have no idea what this character could be classified as.

All of that said, however, I am not entirely a curmudgeon. A tale about a girl being reunited with her father after spending time at the bottom and learning to look past her rich upbringing and spread joy to all, A Little Princess is an uplifting and thoroughly magical tale. As a fairy tale, we see this one act as a revisionist fairy tale of sorts. Instead of showing one prince and princess, the film argues that every girl is a princess. They have the right to love who they want and to behave how they want. There are no restrictions on a princess and every girl deserves to experience this freedom and break free of the bonds put on them by society. For this message, the film is quite powerful, even if its ending is entirely emotionally manipulative and predictable. It is so heart warming and moving, however, it practically works.

A film with some shoddy writing that results in a terrible antagonist that is treated awfully by the film and a token minority stock character, A Little Princess is bolstered by a great fairy tale message and fine acting from its young children leads. Above all, it is fun. A celebration of magic, imagination, and storytelling, A Little Princess shows how these elements can be used to lift people up from the very bottom and out of unhappiness and allow them to escape to a better world. Stories are not meant to bore, but rather to fuel the imagination and take those that tell the story and hear the story to an entirely different world than their own. A Little Princess certainly succeeds in these areas and for that reason, it stands as an above average film that is beloved by many for the singular reason that it is magical. It is a fairy tale and through terrific visuals, great costume design, and an even better message, A Little Princess shows that being a princess is not defined by your age, looks, race, or income. Rather, it is defined by being a girl that is willing to embrace the magic all around them.

7/10 - Charlie McDowell's follow-up to the similarly mind bending The One I Love, The Discovery is a film set in a world where the afterlife has been proven to exist. Discovered by Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford), it is proven to be a different "plane of existence" than our own. With the afterlife confirmed to be real, people all across the globe commit suicide on their own or in groups to reach the afterlife and escape their lives of pain or to reunite with loved ones. Using the haunting image of a board advocating against suicide that also keeps track of how many have killed themselves since the announcement by Thomas, McDowell constantly keeps the audience on edge as we see the count grow and grow to the point that it is over 4 billion people. Our protagonist, Will (Jason Segel), is Thomas' son. A year and a half before the film begins, Thomas went on air to do an interview and it went disastrously. Now approaching the two-year anniversary of "the discovery", Will hopes to get his father to retract his work in order to stave off a wave of suicides on the anniversary. On his way there, he meets Isla (Rooney Mara) and both head to Thomas' home with Will's brother Toby (Jesse Plemons). Upon arrival, it is shown to be a cult of people who tried to commit suicide but failed. Beneath the surface, Thomas is working on his next discovery: what is the afterlife?

Films and people alike have always wondered what the afterlife is like. Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain showed a protagonist actively working to cure death as he is forced to watch his wife die from a brain tumor. By the end, we see that "death is the road to awe" and something transcendent that is to be embraced, not feared. In The Discovery, we live in a world where the afterlife represents hope. A way to get out and escape our dreary lives where bad things happen and we constantly lose people that we love. The possibility of the afterlife is one of hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is no need to fear death, as it merely takes you to a different plane of existence and allows you to escape the anguish of this world. Thus, suicide becomes a popular option. It is one that people resort to even in this real world, as a means to escape from the turmoil in their lives. Yet, this is done with the concrete evidence that something is waiting for them. In a way, it is courageous to leap without looking, no matter how tragic somebody taking their life is and always will be. In The Discovery, it seems like the best option as it allows you to press reset.

Through a new machine, Thomas hopes to discover what awaits everybody in the afterlife. This is where McDowell's film somewhat sputters, even if the emotional manipulation that is present does work incredibly well to lend great power to the film and the various discoveries therein. Towards the end, it seems as though the film tries to outdo itself with extra layers and possibilities that come quick and fast via some Nolan-esque exposition to close the film. After such a mind bending and contemplative beginning, it is unfortunate to see the third act run down a path that it could have walked down. This rushed and sudden ending is really what takes the air out of the proceedings. That is not to say the ending is not powerful, however. Though it could have been handled better without the heavy handed exposition, there are moments of brilliance in there with tie-ins to the beginning of the film that really hit your heart and creates great pathos. Though the reality of the afterlife in the film is quite scary and could be deemed to be a bit unwelcome for many, it is simultaneously quite heart warming as we see the bonds between souls become intertwined for the rest of eternity as we seek to solve issues and re-do our lives.

Presenting a compelling and pretty unique premise, The Discovery is a good follow-up for Charlie McDowell that likely will still divide audience and critics alike due to its shaky conclusion after such a mysterious and contemplative beginning. However, in saying that, its opening and thoughts on regret, the afterlife, and what would happen if we learned that it existed, is incredibly engaging and thought provoking. McDowell has an adeptness at handling confusing or odd science fiction premises with an assured hand that both messes with the mind, but also provokes thoughts as to its relation to our world. Though they may occur in slightly altered realities, the people they show are real and their problems are real. With The Discovery, its discussion of the afterlife really hits home as every person wonders what is next. From Christians to atheists, we all expend energy on what the afterlife is or if it even exists. As the former, the afterlife still remains an enigma even if I believe that it exists. What is it like? It is called "Heaven" in Christianity, but what is there? Who is there? Is it there as imagined or is it some other alternate reality? These are questions we have no answers to, though The Discovery aims to offer up a possibility. Yet, what the film is quite firm on and presents with overwhelming evidence: any proof that the afterlife exists is guaranteed to change human existence as we know it forever. If this is merely just a stopgap before we enter the next world, what are we preparing for?

With good lead performances from Jason Segel and Rooney Mara, as well as a tantalizingly prescient performance from Robert Redford, the film shows the demise of society, yet it is not a dystopian world. It is one of juxtaposition between hope and dreams, opposed to desolation and isolation. We are filled with regrets that drive us to consider ending it all to escape our regrets. Yet, can we really escape our minds? Our subconscious? Our souls? Or are we destined to continue to live out what is already there, just slightly altered? Can we ever escape and change our paths or is this simply how we are programmed? The Discovery has more questions than answers, but it is a compelling work nonetheless that will likely fly under-the-radar due to its Netflix release. However, it is more than worth a watch, particularly for those interested in what is awaiting them when they die.

8/10 - John Wayne certainly was never shy to show how much of a jerk he was, whether it was by calling High Noon "un-American" and running the screenwriter out of town or by later criticizing Clint Eastwood's revisionist westerns for not glorifying the sheriffs and cowboys as the real heroes of the west. In many ways, Wayne fancied himself the defender of masculinity, Americana, and the western genre. Those who offended him faced the wrath of the man in the media. Fortunately, however, Wayne could walk the walk. Pairing up with director Howard Hawks to show Fred Zinneman and Gary Cooper how to make a real western about a sheriff defending his town from brutal criminals, the duo came up with Rio Bravo. Both are great films in their own right and Wayne's brick-headedness certainly benefited fans of these gritty old westerns as it motivated him to help bring to life this classic tale.

After arresting Joe Burdette (Claude Akins), Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) must defend his town and jail from Burdette's brutal brother Nathan (John Russell) and the variety of men coming to spring Joe free. With the assistance of drunk Dude (Dean Martin), old and gimpy Stumpy (Walter Brennan), and promising youngster Colorado (Ricky Nelson), Chance fights back against the men that threaten his town in the county of Presidio, Texas. Along the way, he begins a romance with Feathers (Angie Dickinson) and doles out justice to those that have some coming their way. A classic western set-up for some great shootouts and machismo, Rio Bravo is a thrilling and expertly designed western with great writing and great characters that really are up the alley of this Hawks and Wayne combo. For the latter, Chance is a man that knows what he wants, but will never say it for fear of showing weakness. He is obsessed with how he is perceived and aims to be seen as an imposing figure in this small town. Fortunately, as Wayne is always a towering figure in a film, Chance's physical presence is always felt. However, those of his supporting cast are also quite felt with all acting out of pride. When told they cannot do something - too drunk, too young, or too old - they step up to the plate without asking and show that they can hold their own. While High Noon showed Gary Cooper's cop asking for help to form a stronger united force, Rio Bravo shows men rejecting help and stepping up anyways to show their own individual strength.

Compared to Hawks' El Dorado, which is practically a remake of Rio Bravo, this original film does have a bit of a different setup. Whereas El Dorado concerned more of a range war with a man trying to take land that should not rightfully be his and stars Wayne as a hired gun as opposed to a sheriff, the films do feel quite different. That said, the theme of pride and proving people wrong as a manner of showing your manly strength is certainly prevalent in both. Thus, while I would argue that the films are different enough to stand on their own, it is clear that they are part of a thematic trilogy of sorts for Hawks (along with Rio Lobo) that all star Wayne and all concern a group of men taking a stand against an opposing force that threaten their town, innocent people, and - most importantly - the manhood and ego of the protagonists.

As a western, Rio Bravo naturally has great set design, costume design, and incredibly fun staging of shootouts. In particular, the climactic shootout is brilliant, stringing together various elements from the beginning of the film to assist our heroes in taking down the bad guys. With all of the bit characters chipping in to help in an effort to prove their manhood - not because they were asked - the film shows what is possible when a group of individuals working together to take down bad guys. A celebration of individualism and capitalist ideology, Rio Bravo is the polar opposite of the more collectivist High Noon that shows teamwork, not individuals, as the source of a successful shootout. While Rio Bravo wears its ideology on its sleeve, it still has excellent shootouts that really show Hawks' skill in the western genre while also benefiting from Wayne's overt bravado and masculinity.

A classic western from beginning to end, Rio Bravo shows the sheriff and his deputies defending a small Texas town from two criminal brothers. A pretty typical set-up yes, but it is the making of a classic when it pairs together Hawks and Wayne and Rio Bravo shows why both were so dynamic and talented when working together and in the genre. Excellently written with fun, well-developed characters, excellent design, and tremendously choreographed shootouts, Rio Bravo is the definition of a classic film.

7/10 - With a timely release 12 days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania, The China Syndrome is a conspiracy thriller about a nuclear power plant with some issues. Covering up detrimental faults that could lead to a massive accident and cause the surrounding area to become uninhabitable, the nuclear power company's cover-up is discovered by fluff reporter Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) and her cameraman Richard (Michael Douglas). Illegally recording an incident where radiation is almost leaked out, but nearly saved, the two find themselves at an impasse until shift supervisor Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) comes forward to offer information on how broken the nuclear plant really is with the cover-up going all the way to the top. Intense, thrilling, and prescient, The China Syndrome has an obvious anti-corporate message as it reveals its conspiracy and its layers in a slow burn fashion over the course of two hours. Though predictable and undoubtedly cliche, the film's powerful climax packs enough of a punch to overcome any narrative shortcuts.

These cliches come in a variety of fashions. One, the bimbo reporter trying to overcome the preconceived notions of her employers and the scorned old-time employee who wants to keep people safe being the leaker of information. These characters are well crafted and brilliantly played by both Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon, but they are cliches of both the journalist film subgenre and the conspiracy thriller genre. Neither really feel fresh and their struggles and resultant decisions never come as a surprise. Fonda's Kimberly Wells is always right there when Lemmon's Jack Godell is about to break and give her information, even when it is seemingly illogical for her to be there. Second, the film's plotting and tension are always telegraphed. From being followed by a mysterious car, not arriving on time with key information, or the climax with Godell in the control room. All of these moments are undeniably tense, which shows the adeptness of Bridges' direction, but hardly innovate on the genre and always leave these moments of tense predictability lacking and never long enough. When we know what is going to happen, it would be nice if the film sped through it a bit, but instead, it allows the scene to play out as if it were the first time we had seen somebody with key information not arrive at their destination because they got run off the road.

However, that said, its portrayal of the nuclear power plant nearly going off the rails, the cover-up, the refusal to cover it, and then the climactic sequence are always intense. Though cliche throughout, as mentioned before, the film wrings tension out of people's fears regarding this unknown and the appalling shortcuts taken by the nuclear power company and those charged with regulating them. This is really where The China Syndrome's anti-corporate message comes in as people on both the nuclear side and on the news side are more obsessed with money, possible lawsuits, and ratings. Nobody cares about doing what is right, even if it could save millions of lives, because it would cost too much. What they always seem to forget is that if the area becomes uninhabitable and kills millions, it will kill them and their family as well. Unfortunately, money speaks louder as we see the various sides all work tirelessly to cover-up the dangers beneath the surface.

In their respective roles, The China Syndrome is really an excellent actor's showcase with Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas all nailing their roles. As the beautiful and determined-to-overcome-her-beauty reporter, Fonda is excellent and shows great grit and determination. When needed, she is compassionate. In others, she is fiery. She really picks her moments and can stop on a dime and make a complete u-turn in a second, which is always impressive to watch. As the shunned employee, Lemmon is incredibly sympathetic. He is a smart man and loves the company, but does not want people to die because he was too afraid to step forward. With a sobering and tragic ending, as expected, Lemmon's character really creates great pathos due to his relatability and Lemmon's authentic naturalism in the role. As the passionate cameraman Richard, Douglas is over-the-top and abrasive, which is perfect for the role. He knows how to play these men who stop at nothing to get what they want and Richard really fits the bill.

Compared to other news investigators looking into cover-ups films such as All the President's Men, The Insider, or Spotlight, The China Syndrome is not as good. Its beats are too predictable and, as such, it lacks tension in spots. Fortunately, it makes up for it with a compelling cover-up that really shows the dark side of nuclear power. Though it can be safe if done well, the film came at a time when it was quite new and it showed how intricate and disastrous a small problem could be if one thing goes wrong. It drew attention to the issue and, along the way, it made for a truly compelling film. It takes its time in explaining issues and the various mechanisms at hand to show how faulty everything is in the plant. Though it can get technical, it boils it down well and makes it understandable. For a film about such a complex topic, this is a truly great accomplishment by the filmmakers. By doing this, it allows The China Syndrome to rise above its narrative cliches and remain a powerful tale and a warning to companies that seek profits over safety. A slow burn thriller, The China Syndrome has largely been forgotten by time, which is a shame, because it has some great acting, a good message, and delivers excellent entertainment.

9/10 - Back when I reviewed La La Land, I discussed postmodernism. In particular, I discussed the concept of hyperreality. For many cities, such as Los Angeles and Paris in La La Land, the way in which they are perceived by many does not actually exist. These cities tend to be dream-like cities that people, over time, have romanticized heavily. Others can include Tokyo, Manhattan, Las Vegas, Miami, or maybe even London. These cities are ones where people have a concept of the city in their mind, but when they arrive, they realize the city of their dreams is not located there. What they imagined was this hyperreality that, in fact, was never really there. Rome, where Roman Holiday is obviously set, also meets this measure with various films and individuals romanticizing Rome to the point that the city ceases to exist. It is no longer there and what stands in its place is nothing anybody recognizes as Rome. Given that this romantic comedy is set in Rome, there is a connection between the hyperreality of Rome and their day spent together.

In exploring the bounds of this dream world, Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) escapes from the embassy for a night out on the town. However, some sleeping medication ensures a night turns into a day when she is found by newsman Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck). Once he recognizes her, Joe hopes to score a good story out of his day with Ann, only to wind up falling for her instead. Together, the duo encounter the cops, drive mini-bikes, dance by the river, fight private security guards, and visit various tourist traps and memorials. Yet, their time together is fleeting. Ann must return to her country and duty as a princess. Joe wants to return to America. No matter how much both enjoy their time together in Rome, none of it really exists. Their relationship is one built on mutual deception and one that acts as a ticking time bomb. It must end and they must snap out of this dream world that is unlike any other experience in their life. Rome, for them, goes hand-in-hand with their dreamy day together and will, likewise, be imagined to be a far grander place than it really is under the surface of their dreams.

Director William Wyler and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo quickly separate their dreams from their realities with their demeanor and actions in both. For the latter, Ann sets out to do things she never gets to do. As her family and upbringing is quite conservative, she wants to let loose and have a day to herself. She cuts her hair, dances with strange men, and dresses down. She paints the town red and turns Rome into the canvas upon which her dreams have been painted and drawn out. Alongside her, Joe indulges in a dream for a better life, only to come to realize that this better life would include Ann. Through this day together, both indulge in their dream world that both know cannot and will not last long, but they make the most of their time together. In many ways, this is somewhat akin to a film along the lines of Brief Encounter or The Bridges of Madison County. Though both concern affairs, they also depict forbidden love that has a time limit. Roman Holiday has a far shorter time limit and is scandalous for different reasons, but is scandalous nonetheless.

In regards to their demeanor after the encounter, both are incredibly professional. They share nothing but looks with one another that imbue the passion they feel for one another akin to films such as Carol. Via nothing more than a look, the two show their passion and nostalgia for another, though both recognize that the relationship is not meant to last. Thus, there is no need to pretend otherwise. Furthermore, this finale that lacks a climactic romantic overture shows a direct influence on La La Land. Not only does that film often define itself by simple looks by its lovers, but it also tears them away from one another and leaves us waiting for Ann or Joe to go running after their love. Yet, that moment never comes and they go their separate ways. Naturally, Roman Holiday's finale is likely also influenced by Casablanca, as was La La Land's. Their relationship is not built to last and is best to remain in the dream world of Rome. Testing it out in a non-dream world would provide enough strain to tear them apart as they would feel their heart calling them away from that whom they love. This separation between dreams and reality is further established by the photos being returned to her and by Ann remaining tight-lipped to her servants. There is no record of what happened and nobody is speaking about anything. It will instead live on in their hearts and minds before it reaches the point where all parties begin to even wonder if it happened at all or if it were merely just a dream from a better world.

As is typical, Audrey Hepburn is an absolute delight in the role of Princess Ann and plays the cabin fever-stricken princess impeccably well. She really radiates energy, even at her young age, and shows why she became Audrey Hepburn. This film helped to establish her persona, which later really transcended into stardom. Bubbly, vivacious, charismatic, and indelibly a dead ringer (charming), her Princess Ann is both a great source of drama and of comedy. Yet, her best moments undoubtedly come in the former. At the end, after having said her goodbyes to Joe, seeing him again in the crowd brings about many emotions. Yet, she handles her reaction with such grace, and relies solely upon her facial expressions to do so, it is clear why her character is a Princess and why Hepburn was born to play the role. Though she was always able to cut loose and have fun, she played these high society types with the right measure of reservation and rebelliousness to make them feel authentic. Alongside her, Gregory Peck is typically terrific. A real everyman with a great sense of presence in this film, Peck shows his adeptness in both the comedic and dramatic areas of the film. Though he is initially misleading the Princess, Peck is such a charmer, it is hard not to take him at face value and not hold him to task for his actions with the Princess. Plus, by the end, his feelings for her seem so authentic, it is even harder to blame him for never being completely honest with her until he sees her as a member of the press.

A comic charmer and a film with great weight on the dramatic front as well, Roman Holiday is yet another expertly directed film from Wyler and a great excuse to watch Audrey Hepburn cut loose as a pampered princess in Rome. Pairing her up with Gregory Peck, the film is a charming romantic comedy that also shows the dreaminess of Rome and of their relationship. Doomed to always end, their time together will become just as distant from reality as the city of Rome itself one day, yet it will always remain in their hearts and minds regardless. Setting the film in this hyperreal city is a stroke of genius, further highlighting how this - just like a holiday or our perceptions of a thing - cannot last under intense scrutiny or time. While we long for that romantic pay-off with the two coming together, it is simply impossible for a film where its lovers have so much separating them. It would never work before them, no matter how much they tried. Both know this and set out to separate themselves before it is too late. Quite sobering in this regard, Roman Holiday is not your typical romantic comedy even if it is a highly influential one.

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8/10- As with many 1950s Cold War science fiction films, The Thing from Another World has awful special effects, a humanoid alien, and lots of paranoia. Though it lacks the mystery of John Carpenter's 1982 version, due to the nature of "The Thing" in that film, it still has the same fear of the unknown and fear of what is possible in our world that the remake had and what other films of the era had. In many ways, this cold war science fiction film also demonstrates the same fear for the Soviets than many other films of the era had, namely in the finale. Similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the film closes with a warning to keep looking to the skies because you never know what is coming. The world must know what is possible and to always be alert. Given that it was 1951 and the world was under constant nuclear bomb threats, keeping your eyes to the sky for aliens is certainly akin to keeping an eye out for an attack staged by those scary Russians. With the entire film draped in this paranoia regarding the unknown capabilities of "the thing", The Thing from Another World is a tense and wonderfully entertaining piece of 1950s science fiction.

Directed by Christian Nyby with lots of contributions from Howard Hawks, one could call this a Hawks film and I most certainly am calling it one. Though Nyby was there, it is clear that Hawks had a lot of influence to the point that the two were practically co-directors. With Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan) take center stage of Hawks' influence with her dialogue and role being very much a Hawksian woman, Nikki has excellent banter with one of the Air Force men and the leader at the base under attack, Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey). Through not-so-subtle banter, the two reminisce on their romantic history and potential future together akin to Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. This banter is really what defines this as a Hawks film, as well as how Nikki is written. While, obviously, the science fiction terror is a crucial part of this film, it is tough to imagine this one without the comedy and sexual tension between Nikki and Patrick.

In regards to its tale, it is slightly different than Carpenter's take, but is largely the same story. An Arctic outpost finds a flying saucer frozen and finds a man in the ice. Bringing him back to the outpost, he thaws out and wreaks havoc on the place. However, this is different in the sense that in Carpenter's version, the main characters find the destroyed outpost of the group that found the man in ice. Their outpost is only ravaged when they bring back a husky and he attacks them through their dog cage. Thus, The Thing from Another World - while sharing a similar base story - has an entirely different approach and for this reason, it still feels fresh. The imaginative fashion in which the confront "the thing" and try to save their own lives, as well as how "the thing" forms with regards to plants and bloods, are entirely unique and allow this one to still stand on its own so many years later. These unique effects really create a similar paranoia to what could be found in the remake, due to the fact that you can see "the thing" slowly multiplying and forming his new race of aliens on Earth. It is often haunting, chilling, and mysterious in these moments as you can see the doom of Earth beginning and have no idea what this thing is capable of or how quickly it can spread.

A fun and paranoid early 1950s science fiction, The Thing from Another World may not be a cinematic masterpiece, but it is a terrific film nonetheless. Personally, I do prefer it to Carpenter's take, even if I do love Carpenter's innovative approach to the nature of "the thing". As a piece of 1950s science fiction goodness, it is hard to beat The Thing from Another World.

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8/10 - AUTHOR'S NOTE: Spoilers throughout in the middle sections, in which I offer up interpretations of possible character motivations or what I really believe to have occurred in the film. While possibly off-base, they do involve intricate plot description with ample spoilers.

After unequivocally loving Olivier Assayas' 2014 effort, Clouds of Sils Maria, his follow-up is a lot tougher of a nut to crack. Part-thriller, part-horror, part-mood piece, Personal Shopper truly evades definition. It operates at a safe distance from the viewer and refuses to be defined. By the end of the film, what is real and what is not real is really next to impossible to pin down. Personally, I have a variety of working theories, but whether or not any of them are actually accurate is another matter in and of itself. What is clear, however, is that this is a film about grief, identity, and mortality. Above all, it is a thriller that sets out to unsettle its audiences and make them think. To do so, Assayas' film is purposefully complex, dense, and tonally off. Even the editing, with many scenes ending abruptly and fading to black, is used to throw off the audience and make us squirm. Of course, this has the by-product of making the film appear to be lacking satisfaction. In many ways, however, this merely mirrors the issues of Maureen (Kristen Stewart) after losing her twin brother Lewis. Complicated, distant, and forever denying viewer access to its idiosyncrasies, it is no wonder that Personal Shopper has divided audiences.

One of the most obvious themes that Assayas introduces into the film is grief. Working as a personal shopper for model Kyra (Nora von WaldstÃ¤tten) to support herself while also operating as a medium for the couple set to move into Lewis' old home, Maureen is constantly looking for a sign. Before he died, the two had promised to leave the other a sign. Whoever died first had to let the other know they were in the afterlife. Waiting around in Paris for Lewis to come give her that sign, she encounters a ghost that is most definitely not Lewis and also begins to receive mysterious text messages from an unknown number. While she is shaken, she approaches every situation where a ghost may be present with the same question: Are you Lewis? She cannot get him off of her mind and is constantly seeking to find out if he is alright and at peace. Assayas' film shows how grief can control one's way of life to the point that she refuses to meet up with boyfriend Gary (Ty Olwin) in Oman for a vacation. Instead, she does a job she hates for a woman she hates just to justify staying in Paris. In essence, she is a prisoner of her grief, which is not an original theme by any means (The Babadook being a recent example), but is well-executed in the film. Assayas injects incredible tension and fear as we wait to find out if the ghosts and noises she encounters are truly Lewis or some other being.

However, I have my doubts that Maureen is actually a medium. Whether Lewis was or not is unclear, but towards the end of the film, Maureen remarks how Lewis was always more in tune with that and she usually just copied him. It is entirely plausible that Maureen is not a medium at all. Rather, she is merely a girl suffering from a lost identity due to the shared one she had with Lewis. As he was her twin, it is possible she is trying a route he had taken in order to reach him. However, it does not work and either she meets unfriendly forces or she imagines them all. The latter, however, seems most likely with how awful she is at detecting presences. She notices obvious things in the walls or glasses breaking, but never seems to aware a ghost is with her until it is literally right on top of her. If she were a medium, it would stand to reason that she would be better at identifying when they are near. Furthermore, the ghostly text messages she receives where the sender claims to always be around her and sees what she is doing and wearing, certainly hint that there is a ghost around her. Possibly Lewis, the sender does seem to be a bit odd, but largely harmless for Maureen. However, what is clear is that either Maureen is not a medium or she is an entirely dreadful one, making it unlikely she ever actually encounters ghosts. Rather, it is merely a machination of her mind used to cope with the loss of Lewis in the only way he knew how.

One of the most important things that this ghost texter allows her to confront, however, is her sense of identity. Now, this is where this interpretation may lose some people, but I warn you that this is a film that demands multiple views. Coming off of one viewing, it is entirely possible I am off base here. Yet, there are three possible routes to take in regards to Maureen's sense of identity. One is the most logical one based on the film. Through encouraging her to try on Kyra's clothing, the sender allows her to try on a new personality. After expressing that she does not want to be herself, but is unsure who she wants to be, the sender allows her to try out new personalities to find one that fits her. After losing her brother, she has no idea who she is anymore and must strive to find herself once again. The ending, where she is in Oman and asks the presence, "Is it me?" further solidifies this. In the end, this film is about her searching for herself after losing somebody who was so much a part of her. It is inconsequential who she is texting or who she sees in these rooms, as they are all part of her journey to find herself and find a way to cope with the loss of Lewis that works for her. As much as the film is one about grieving, it is a mood piece study into the life of a twin after losing their other half and trying to piece together who they are now and what that means exactly.

However, the second and third possibilities are a bit more out there and require some reading between the tea leaves to reach. The former suggests that Maureen was actually Kyra. So torn up over the loss of her brother, Maureen spirals down to the point that she separates herself from her past as a model and loses sight of who she really was. A man named Ingo (Lars Eidinger) is really the key to this theory. Early in the film, Maureen arrives with clothes for Kyra, only to find Ingo on the couch in Kyra's place as Kyra is in the bedroom with her lawyer having an argument. Though Maureen pops in the door briefly, Kyra never addresses her and she goes out to talk to Ingo instead. Confiding that he has been having an affair with the married Kyra, Ingo says that the relationship is purely physical and that Kyra wants to break it off, but he wants to convince her otherwise. In coordination with this, it is revealed that Maureen has been blowing off her apparent boyfriend Gary. Asking her where she has been as he has been calling her all week, she hardly addresses the question and alludes to being busy buying clothes for Kyra. As he has apparently been gone for a while, it is possible he has no idea about this loss of identity. Along the way, Maureen is constantly asked to try on the clothes by the salespeople and is even asked to fill in for a photo shoot that Kyra has not arrived for on time. For a personal shopper, she finds herself in a lot of odd places where people seem to believe she is Kyra and that she is simply buying clothes for herself. While this may be a by-product of being a personal shopper, the salespeople are quite insistent and the clothing does all fit her without any issues. Yet, she forbids herself to try them on because Kyra would get mad. This can be defined as her personality as Kyra revolting against her new one of Maureen. She no longer wishes to be Kyra, for whatever reason, and the part that is Maureen pushes back by not indulging in wearing the clothing and calling Kyra a "pain in the ass" behind her back to any one who will listen. Never seen together, aside from a brief encounter where they never actually communicate with one another, it is clear that there is an odd relationship between the two nonetheless. At this point, they communicate exclusively through notes left on tables. This is no Fight Club where they are constantly seen together. Instead, they never go where the other does as Maureen seeks to separate herself from her past self. Through the ghost texter, she is coaxed into trying on the clothes, however. Yet, and this is a credit to Stewart and her far more laid back and - for a lack of a better term - "tom-boyish" style. These hyper-feminine dresses look odd on her and Stewart seems emotionless and unhappy while wearing them. They make her feel odd and not like herself. By the time Kyra is murdered, the film sort of tips its hand by having Maureen take the jewerly to her home instead of Kyra's. An unconscious act, her mind is finally allowing her to accept these expensive accessories now that her past personality of Kyra is lying dead and bloodied. Yet, the clearest evidence that Maureen may be Kyra comes in the hotel room. Throughout the film, the ghost texter encourages Maureen to go to a hotel room. She goes and tries on clothes at one point. However, towards the end of the film, we see Ingo leaving the hotel room. While this establishes the ghost texter as either a further manifestation of Maureen's personality, a ghost such as Lewis, or Ingo, it does establish that Maureen is sleeping with Ingo. If there are two keys, why would he have the other one if they were not doing something? Though Ingo claimed to have been sleeping with Kyra, he seemed off and somewhat knowing when first speaking to Maureen, who appeared to not know who he was. However, just as she was able to accept the jewelry, she was able to indulge in her affair with Ingo once again now that Kyra had been killed.

A third option in regards to identity is that Kyra was in fact a different person that Maureen. Yet, she was still not killed by Ingo as the police believe. Instead, she was killed by some force (Lewis?) or Maureen as Maureen is led to try and escape Kyra's clutches. Though she believes that the possibility of Lewis giving her a sign is what keeps her in Paris, it is really her job with Kyra that keeps her there. She hates the job and Kyra, but yet she stays for how it makes her feel stable after losing her brother. It gives her a sense of purpose and identity that is lacking in her life. However, she has come to resent this control and fights out of it. There are two main pieces of evidence to support the belief that Maureen killed Kyra herself. One, the ghost in the backroom. While a piece of evidence for both possible killers, it supports that Maureen is the killer because it is her mind's way of driving her away from the scene. If she has imagined all previous ghost encounters, it is entirely possible that this one was imagined as well. By taking the jewelry and driving off, both of which she claims to have been unconscious actions she took, it establishes murdering Kyra as yet another unconscious act. In an out-of-body action, she offed the only thing that held her in Paris to free her of her bonds. Yet, personally, I like the belief that the ghost killed Kyra a lot more. Regardless of whether or not Maureen can actually see or feel ghosts around her, it is clear that ghosts exist in Assayas' film. The one in Kyra's room that drives Maureen away from the apartment is responsible for killing Kyra on Maureen's behalf. It is the same being that is texting Maureen and it seeks to free Maureen of her life in Paris by riding her of both her employer Kyra and her lover Ingo. Allowing Maureen to claim that Ingo slept with Kyra and by putting Ingo in the hotel room where the ghost has been previously been shown to walk out of and out of the hotel, only to return and then follow Ingo out of the hotel before he gets arrested, it is apparent that this ghostly presence is with Ingo. While possibly uncertain as to why, my only personal opinion is that it is because Ingo was to be the fall guy. As the lover of Maureen, he had to go to let her move on from Paris and return to Gary in Oman. However, Ingo being followed out of the hotel by the ghost is not the only shred of evidence here. Additionally, after Maureen is interviewed by the police, the texter worries about whether or not Maureen mentioned the texts. Had the sender not been involved somehow, they would have no concern and move along. Yet, had she mentioned the texts, it would have taken attention away from Ingo and onto whoever sent those texts or proven that Maureen was insane enough to have killed Kyra. At the end of the film, when she arrives in Oman, she asks a question along the lines of, "Did you want me here?" to which the presence answers in the affirmative. Whatever being is with her, Lewis or not, it is clear that it wanted her to shed her current life. Through her job as a personal shopper, she had in essence become Kyra as she thought for her as to what to buy. To get over Lewis' death, she had to move on and find her new identity and that is with her loving boyfriend, not with some random guy or "pain in the ass" model.

In regards to morality, it is only a natural step after dealing with the loss of a loved one, especially one such as a twin sibling. However, it is even more natural in this film as Maureen suffers from the same heart condition that killed Lewis at age 27 from a heart attack. The thought of dying weighs on her to the point that she becomes obsessed about hearing from Lewis and about the spirit world. Watching an old TV movie with a seance or reading about spiritualist painters, she claims to be a "spiritualist" and a "medium", even though I have my doubts about the legitimacy of either. Instead, she is just a woman concerned about dying and seeking answers about what awaits her if she dies. This would explain, without claiming that she is having an affair with Ingo, why she has been avoiding Gary. Though she is obsessed with the afterlife and enters any possible ghost situation with the same questions regarding the afterlife and being at peace there, Gary does not share the same beliefs. Gary immediately shoots down any possibility of the afterlife and ensures that Maureen feels the same way. Though she half-heartedly agrees with him, it is clear that she does believe in the afterlife and constantly needs to find out for sure and what it is like once we all die. For Maureen, the death of Lewis has rendered her grief-stricken and wondering who she really is, though it also makes her realize she will not live forever. In her visit to the doctor, it is clear that she is skeptical about her chances of living with this affliction and she appears to mentally prepare herself for her own inevitable demise.

Though I threw darts all over the place with this film, one thing is readily apparent upon watching Personal Shopper; all is not as it seems. A film that demands rewatches and attempted interpretation, critic-turned-director Olivier Assayas has created a truly engaging and impeccable work of art. It is a film that takes unoriginal themes and imbues them with originality through its eclectic approach to its narrative and those themes themselves. Capitalizing on Kristen Stewart's naturally reserved approach to acting, the film feels cold, unwelcoming, and distant. Stewart, obviously, nails this and does a great job showing the lack of emotion and discomfort demanded by the character of Maureen. In the director's chair, Assayas assembles a film that wears many hats, yet always feels cohesive. As it jumps between various tones and moods, it always feel like a singular work that keeps its eye on the prize: Maureen. A character study of her after her brother's death, the film studies Maureen, her actions, her feelings, and what happens around her. Though its details are up to interpretation, it is clear that this is a woman who feels imminently mortal, grief-stricken, and has no idea who she is anymore. These themes of mortality, grief, and a loss of identity, are what hold this film together and link up to weave a common thread through what is a dense and often confusing work of art.

Spangle · 04-16-2017, 11:44 AM

9/10 - Wow were the early 1960s excellent for horror films. Psycho, The Innocents, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and The Haunting, in successive years. That, of course, is not even mentioning foreign horror which was also excellent at the time. In many ways, this era seems to mirror that in which we currently exist. Films such as The Babadook, It Follows, and The Witch, have all come out and have similarly taken a slow-burn horror approach that leaves many audience members wringing in their seats and writing the film off as boring. Though not all of the early 1960s films I mentioned had the same response, they were certainly films that relied more on atmosphere. Though indulging in more visceral terror, they set out to create an atmosphere that leaves the viewer on edge without necessarily having to resort to more visual scare attempts. The Innocents is far more atmosphere than anything else, however, as it tells its ghostly tale.

Using frightening sounds and screams or cries, The Innocents constantly keeps you on edge. Yet, two of its most brilliant stokes of genius come via the camera work and the lighting. Utilizing deep focus, The Innocents almost seems to shot right past its protagonists. As governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) races around the house after potentially possessed children Miles (Martin Stephens) and Flora (Pamela Franklin), the deep focus allows your eyes to wander. In the process, we can see the ghostly figures that also call these halls home as they seem to float by in the distance or in the foreground. The film constantly uses this deep focus to really create its atmosphere. Will its pay-offs become more plentiful as we see that Miss Giddens can directly see the ghosts, the atmosphere up to that point where we see shadowy figures in the window or in the room are what really sells the film. Additionally, akin to The Haunting two years later, a few scenes have this coke bottle effect to them. Perhaps it is just an issue with the transfer to TCM, but both films have these scenes where the room almost seems rounded at times and it is quite disorienting and unsettling to watch. Neither use it too much, but it is almost like an oblique angle in how it can distort our view and really leave us seeking normalcy.

In terms of the lighting, The Innocents is perfect, though a lot of that is due to its setting. As with any gothic horror in a big house, there are a lot of hiding spots. Even worse, these films are often set before electricity so the protagonist is forced to just carry around a candle. This creates a scene that is mostly dark and keeps what is behind the protagonist shrouded in complete darkness. As a result, tension is at an all-time high in these moments with ghosts always possibly lurking and sounds in the distance hinting that they are not far off, even if not in the background. Jack Clayton and his cameraman really do an excellent job at creating this atmospheric tension that establishes The Innocents as a pitch perfect horror film.

Coming before other sinister child films such as Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, or the more recent Sinister, The Innocents establishes both Flora and Miles are children that are cast aside from the selfish uncle (Michael Redgrave), but are otherwise just fine. However, their attachment to the prior master of the house and governess, both of whom are now deceased, is most certainly troubling and what establishes this demonic hold that now has them ensnared. By making those at risk children, the film immediately establishes tension and unsettles due to a child's naturally odd behavior. As children are not quite refined in how to behave, as they are children, they can do and say odd things. They may not mean anything, but when they begin to get dark or predictive (and accurate), they can be truly haunting. The Innocents, therefore, creates an interesting dichotomy between what is truly just children being children and what is hinting at a more sinister force at play.

Creating a harrowing atmosphere and a truly terrifying depiction of paranoia and possession, The Innocents is an early 1960s horror film with a paranormal bite to it that will continue to scare people for long to come. As far as haunted house films go, this one alongside The Haunting is likely what helped to kill the genre. Once it is perfected, how can anybody be expected to improve upon it? After a time, it just becomes imitation and we can see that now. Terrifically acted with brilliant camera work and lighting, The Innocents is a bit more slow burn and slightly ambiguous than most horror films, but is a terrifically spooky time nonetheless.

7/10 - Winchester' 73 really kicked off a firestorm for James Stewart and Anthony Mann. The first of their collaborations, the duo would go onto link up seven more times before 1955 and mostly all in westerns. In this first collaboration, the duo pair up to tell a story about a gun: the Winchester '73. With one in a thousand of the gun being deemed "perfect", these perfect guns are a hot commodity. In the town of Dodge City, under the guidance of sheriff Wyatt Earp (Will Geer), Lin McAdam (James Stewart) goes head-to-head with Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally) in a centennial shooting contest that has the gun as a reward. With an unknown history between the two, we see the gun change hands frequently between Dutch Henry Brown, Indian trader Joe Lamont (John McIntire), Indian Chief Young Bull (Rock Hudson, yes seriously), Steve Miller (Charles Drake), Waco Johnnie Dean (Dan Duryea), and then a final shootout between Dutch Henry and Lin for the gun with the personal issues serving as a backdrop to their tussle over the gun.

With this gun as the centerpiece, Winchester '73 explores one gun's journey through a strong cast of Hollywood actors and the unique circumstances that allow them to encounter the gun and to possess it. With everybody desperately wanting to get their hands on the gun, many men die as a result of its simple existence. Yet, it is an interesting comment on the western genre as a whole that this gun is the focus. In many ways, a man in the old west was not a man without a gun. A gun not a gun without a man. They need one another and go together like peanut butter and jelly. In this film, men repeatedly remark how they feel naked without a gun in the gunless Dodge City or if they simply had no gun on them at the time for whatever reason. It is something that makes them feel vulnerable. However, in a time where guns are starting to change and having multiple fires without needing to be reloaded, having a good gun is of a high premium. This is what makes the Winchester '73 so sought after: it is not just good, it is perfect. Thus, to be seen as a stronger man and one instills fear wherever he goes, each gunslinger desperately wants to have the gun as their own. It is what defines them and completes them as a man and shows off their strength via what kind of firepower their gun has.

The film is also notable for ushering in a new Jimmy Stewart. It is one that he would play around with for the rest of his career. Though the protagonist and our hero, he is flawed. He is a man we root for, but mostly because he is the least awful man we are shown. He is a good shot and is out for revenge. Compared to his past characters as men who are redeemable or who are purely good, this role showed him play a man that was a bit of a tragic hero. Knowing that he was wrong to want to kill Dutch Henry, but seeking to do it anyways, he is a man who has lost his way on a path that has a strict no u-turn policy. He is going off-the-rails and cannot return under any circumstance. Compared to men he has played in films such as It's a Wonderful Life that may be flawed, but can have their ship righted with a little push, his Lin McAdams is a good man that has been permanently corrupted and, as such, becomes quite the tragic figure.

However, in saying all of this, Winchester '73 is probably the most straight-forward western I have encountered. It is racist against those savage Injuns, glorifies the south, mocks the north for having bad guns, and is all about guns and the men that carry them. Its final twist makes it a bit unique, which is a nice touch, but Winchester '73 is hardly substantial. If anything, it is most notable for almost being directed by Fritz Lang and being the first Stewart-Mann western pairing of the 1950s. Otherwise, it only has a little bit to say about manhood, pride, and morality in the old west while being mostly focused on its shootouts. In fairness, these shootouts are well done, but are largely straight forward battles without any mystery or usage of its production design that make some western shootouts great fun. As it stands, Winchester '73 is pretty good, but does fall short of being exemplary.

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8/10 - They say that, in the end, we all become our parents. Their negatives. Their positives. Both become part of our identity, no matter how much we try to avoid them. In Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends, this inevitability is observed in Detective Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews). The son of a career criminal who washed killed trying to break out of jail, Mark constantly lives in his father's shadow. Criminals find him impossible to take serious, considering that his father was a criminal. Cops struggle to deal with him due to who his father is as well. As such, Mark has a temper and takes it out on thugs who he seemingly equates with being his father or for simply reminding him of his father. By the end, it is clear that he must make a choice: become his father or break the chain. It is one that is not easy and would require throwing away his life up to that point, but it is one that he must make nonetheless.

In this engaging film noir, we see the mysterious murder of a man at a gambling house of notorious criminal Tommy Scalise (Gary Merrill). A popular target of Mark's rage, Scalise is unafraid to throw Mark's father in his face and reference how he knew him. As part of the investigation, Mark is sent to talk to Ken Paine (Craig Stevens), who worked for Scalise and had fought with the murdered man moments before his death. However, after being attacked by the drunk Paine, Dixon fights back and punch that lands kills Paine through a unique set of circumstances. With a history of roughing up criminals, Mark quickly moves to cover it up through an elaborate set of circumstances. Along the way, he meets Paine's widow Morgan Taylor (Gene Tierney), who was at the gambling hall moments before the death. Sparking a brief romance with Morgan and watching her father be accused of the murder of Paine (as he was there to beat him up, after learning that Paine hit Morgan), Mark realizes he must make a decision about coming clean or not, or else he risks hurting the one he loves by taking away her father.

Often compared to Preminger's brilliant noir Laura, it is hard to imagine why. Yes, this one pairs together Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney for a noir film where they have a brief romance, but I have no idea why it would be compared otherwise. The two are of the same genre with the same leads and same director, yes, but the plots are entirely different as are their themes. Whereas Laura dealt mostly with obsession and deception, Where the Sidewalk Ends deals with parental neglect, inevitability, and guilt. No matter the base similarities, it is clear that this is a different film at all times and not just Preminger redoing his own film. Thus, while comparisons are natural as both are works by Preminger, it is tough to imagine why the two have become so aligned with one another as time has progressed.

That said, in its portrayal of the themes of parental neglect and guilt, Where the Sidewalk Ends really shows the underbelly of society. Both the dark side of the police force and the criminal element of the city are on full display as the film explores what occurs when one is not out in the open. Instead, they are hiding in the shadows and engaging in shady dealings. Mark Dixon, though a cop, is often operating in the darkness as he covers up his accidental killing and beats up those who holds responsible for his own contempt. Unfortunately, neither address his major issue: who his father was. The resentment for his father drives him to cover up the murder, for fear of being a criminal, and to doll out punches to criminals, in lieu of digging up his own father and beating him up. The end result is that, by the end, Dixon hates himself. He cannot reconcile the death of Kaine, even if accidental, but cannot allow Morgan and her father to suffer more from his own mistake. Thus, in order to not become his father, he must become a criminal. It is a bit counter-intuitive, but the conclusion of the film is a full realization of Dixon's character arc and quite satisfying, ditching the typical happy ending that changed many of these dark noirs. Embracing the flaws of the character and showing that he is not his father by the pure fact that he does not run from what he has done, this is a film that shows that you can avoid becoming your parents, if you do not want to become them, but it takes work and stepping outside of one's comfort zone.

Dark, compelling, and impeccably well-written, Where the Sidewalk Ends is yet another terrific film from director Otto Preminger. From every film I have seen from him, I have yet to be disappointed. Fortunately, Where the Sidewalk Ends continues this trend with an excellent character study and take on a man who wants to avoid the inevitable: becoming his father. For him, this means being a cop versus his father's criminal side. However, through the course of the film, he learns this is not the only way. The world's definition of who you are does not mean you are different. As a violent and rule breaking cop, he was no better than his criminal father. By stepping over that line and being a criminal that owned up to his crimes, he can avoid becoming his father and become a better man than he. Incredibly nuanced in the fulfillment of this theme, Where the Sidewalk Ends is a deserved classic with terrific direction, writing, and acting to really bring it home.

8/10 - In my review of Clint Eastwood's The Bridges of Madison County, I discussed affairs in film or simply romances that could result in the person or persons involved being exiled from their present circumstances. Referencing David Lean's Brief Encounter, Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows, and Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, as films that also fit this billing, it was recommended to me in the comments to watch Lean's Ryan's Daughter. A perfect fit for this grouping of films, Ryan's Daughter touches on many of the same themes and events as those other works, while also diving into dealings with human nature vs nature a la a John Huston film, as well as issues between Ireland and England in 1916. A fully-fledged epic from a director known for his epics, Ryan's Daughter has received a mixed critical reception in the 47 years since it came out, most likely because of its incredible length of 206 minutes. This, as with any film that long, divides audiences unless the length is entirely justified. However, Lean's film often devolves into gratuitous shots of nature, which does echo Huston if he were unwieldy and indulgent in his examination the natural world, but also serves as a dividing force. Many will see the film and write it off as Terrence Malick before Terrence Malick, though with a bit more substance. As it stands, Ryan's Daughter is a meditative and absolutely gorgeous romantic epic with engaging themes and similarities to other works.

As with the aforementioned films, Ryan's Daughter has a central marriage that, once exited from, creates scandal. Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) is married to much older school teacher Charles Shaugnessy (Robert Mitchum). Pursuing him and being the catalyst for why the two are married, she begins an affair with a British war hero named Major Doryan (Christopher Jones), who is stationed in their small Irish town. This affair, as mentioned towards the end, is short-lived. It is passionate and burns brightly, but the two - even if unbeknowst them at the time - are doomed to only spend a short time together. Brief Encounter and The Bridges of Madison County are films that similarly portray this short lived romance that is incredibly passionate and risque between two people who are well-matched. In both of those films, the adulterer is shown interacting with their spouse. Cold and largely unloving, these scenes draw a parallel to when they are with their lover. Ryan's Daughter, from when Charles and Rosy are married, immediately creates this. When they first confess their love, the two are bashful and largely unconvincing and almost seem to just roll with the punches, so to speak. Neither really appears ready to jump in, but they presume that they are expected to go forward with the romance and a wedding. While speaking to a priest, Rosy hints at issues regarding her being selfish and wanting the "satisfaction of the flesh" between her and her fiance to change her, as she wants to change. Even on their wedding night, the two seem unhappy, unemotional, and largely unenthused to be married to one another. Compared to when Rosy first meets Major Doryan with the two kissing shortly after, it is clear that this is her sexual awakening that she had been waiting for. While she loved Charles, there is a lust and an unspoken connection between her and Major Doryan that is lacking while she is seen with Charles. Though her time with Major Doryan is short lived as both must go their separate ways as she feels the need from her town and he suffers from the torment of post-war mind, it is passionate and raw. For those brief moments, they experience what love is like and it is something that we will be unable to find in their married life, no matter how hard they try.

Yet, the romance is scandalous. Beyond being naturally scandalous as an affair, it threatens Rosy's social standing. Akin to all aforementioned films, Rosy is at risk of being ostracized by her community and eventually receives this exile. Sleeping with a British soldier is bad enough, but to cheat on an Irishman to do so is heresy. Treated cruelly, accused of informing on Irish movements against the British, and brutally attacked by the whole town in an effort to run her out of town, she is forced to face what no character in the other films was, aside from Jane Wyman's Cary Scott in All That Heaven Allows. Though her love is not an affair, rather just her dating after the death of her husband, she is forced to live out in the open as a woman who loves a man from a lower economic class. In her uppity suburb, this is practically unheard of and she is rejected by her friends and fellow townspeople. In the other films mentioned, the characters eventually back down out of fear of this same rejection. Unfortunately, for Rosy, it is not a choice. She is outed by the slow Michael (John Mills), who saw her and Major Doryan together. Now forced to live out in the open as both an adulterous and "British soldier's whore", she is clearly driven to her wit's end and hardly able to cope with the mental strain of this treatment. Ryan's Daughter explores this with even her own father (Leo McKern) afraid to speak out on her behalf, for fear of his own exile from the town. School children stop showing up once Rosy steps in a substitute for Charles during one school day and people refuse to sell her goods at the store. She has been shut out and is unable to piece back together the life she once had.

However, one of the more interesting comparisons for Ryan's Daughter can be drawn with the work of John Huston. In films such as Key Largo or The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Huston explored human nature as a juxtaposition to extreme conditions. In Key Largo, it is a hurricane and in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it is the extreme conditions faced while mining for gold. Both reveal a lot about the intensity and inherent greed of humanity. In Ryan's Daughter, Lean juxtaposes brutal rainstorms with high tide swells along the coast with the behavior of the townsfolk. During one particular rainstorm, we see the townsfolk clamoring around in the town square. Washed out and running for cover, the people's nature is practically equated with dirt and grime, which are washed away during a storm. In a later storm, we see them yet again, but this time they are out and about. Assisting Irish soldiers in receiving weaponry from the Germans along the shore, they all get plastered by wave after wave along the shore. Yet, they trudge on. No matter the townspeople's flaws, they are brave. As the film shows, they live in a war torn (and storm battered) land, yet they trudge on and continue to love Ireland and defend her from what they perceive as the invasion of the British. The storm as they retrieve their weaponry practically mirrors the barrage they encounter with the British as, no matter what weapons they have, they are constantly outgunned and ill-equipped to escape the all encompassing and always present British.

However, the most compelling comparisons between humanity and nature come via the romance between Rosy and Major Doryan. Not only do their two horses similarly show this connection with both neighing at one another one night, but so does the nature around them. As they make love for the first time, we see a weed spread its pollen into the wind. Things bloom, animals walk about, the trees rustle with the wind. Things are alive and living. This romance is not just powerful with a clear non-verbal connection between the two, but it is constantly expanding and a breathing entity in-and-of itself. By showing these extended sequences of nothing but nature as the two have sex for the first time, we are able to see the parallel between the wilderness they find themselves in both literally and figuratively. For them, this speaks to their nature as a couple as one that is alive and blooming. For their human nature, it speaks to how both need this constant attention and affection. Once they deprive themselves of this constant togetherness, they wither rapidly with Major Doryan taking his own life and Rosy living a reserved and dead inside existence. Not only is their romance a time bomb, but it is one that is the equivalent to receiving flowers for a birthday or as a random present. Initially, they are pretty and beautiful, but they die rapidly and must be thrown out.

Of course, this stands in stark contrast to Rosy's relationship with Charles. A collector of flowers, Charles' love of already dead flowers is the way by which Lean shows how their relationship is dead from the beginning. Much like the flowers, they are dead on arrival and the second they are clipped from their roots, it is all over for them. Though seems similar to Rosy and Major Doryan, the major difference is that Charles collects these flowers and presses them into a book. Rosy thinks this is odd and remarks how she prefers ones that are alive. For her, no matter how short-lived a live flower's life is, it is preferable to being stuck as a dead flower forever. This opinion, while valuable, shows how they will not work together. Rosy needs new things and is unable to may things last. By preserving their beauty, it is not just a dead flower, it allows it to remain beautiful and vibrant for a long time to come. If it were left out in the open, it would wither and die in short order. Yet, Charles is the exact opposite. He lives moment-to-moment and flower-to-flower. His world is not one where flowers constantly shrivel and die. Instead, there is always a new flower to add to the vibrant collection he already has. In terms of a marriage versus affairs, it is clear that Rosy is more inclined for an affair. She craves that which burns the brighter, though the shortest. Charles is fine with a dull flame, as long as it burns forever.

With absolutely gorgeous imagery in Ireland, Ryan's Daughter was always a film destined to be great. However, its length and the character of Michael being used as comical relief do hold the film back. As other films have shown, the themes at play here do not need to be explored in 206 minutes and that length can be cut down a tad. The character of Michael is the butt of all jokes in the town and though Lean cultivates some sympathy for him, his unusual behavior and bad teeth, as well as the music played behind many of his actions, show his comedic nature. Both of these are unfortunate and do hold the film back. Fortunately, however, its depiction of affairs in a close-knit society with the added punch that it is between an Irish woman and a British soldier, are tremendous. Elegantly written, meditatively put together, and entirely moving, Ryan's Daughter is a film that shows why Lean has become known for his epics over the years. While the length can be a bit much, Lean fills it all with such rapturous beauty that one can hardly stand to part with any inch of film.

[Image: Kong_Skull_Island_poster.jpg]

7/10 - Batman: Do you bleed?
Kong: Yeah. Quite a bit actually.

Dear Billy,

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Kong: Skull Island is his chance at a Vietnam War. In his sophomore feature, Vogt-Roberts seems to have some self-recognition that he will never get to direct a Vietnam War film. This is not a shot at him, as he is certainly a promising young director with both this and his debut Kings of Summer standing as solid starts that show he is capable of handling both small intimate films and huge films of epic proportions. While neither are particularly great, they are both capable films nonetheless. In this film, he takes his chance to add as much Vietnam imagery as possible by setting the film in 1973 and also tossing in some Cold War paranoia for good measure in this story of a group of people wandering the jungles on a mission, encountering a remote tribe, and facing a being that the tribe sees as a god. Did Francis Ford Coppola not make this film, sans the big monkey, in 1979?

Wearing this Apocalypse Now influence on its sleeve, Vogt-Roberts shows a love of both gratuitous shots of helicopters flying into the island or of the smell of napalm in the morning when Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to dump napalm on Kong. Yet, as with all Kong films, it must run through the beats of the story. Fortunately, Vogt-Roberts improves upon Peter Jackson's recent rendition. By chopping off an hour, the film is not so dreadfully long, which is really a major benefit. Give me the dinosaurs, but not for too long. Give me some backstory, but not extended scenes in a boat and trying to get funding for the trip. This latest edition streamlines it, yet still has the time to get into very compelling mythology regarding Skull Island and the nature of Kong as well as the other beasts that call Skull Island home. Additionally, some of the more unsavory elements of Jackson's films included its depiction of the natives of Skull Island. Depicting them as horrible savages out to kill white people, Jackson's film indulges in nasty stereotypes that create a truly captivating opening scene in that film, but that hardly justifies the racism. With Skull Island, Vogt-Roberts dispatches of this nastiness and instead has a smart and respected tribe in the center of Skull Island. Playing host to WWII veteran Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) for 28 years, these are no savages and Vogt-Roberts never pretends they are. Instead, the tribe is given its due respect throughout the film. This latest film also ditches the racist undertones of past Kong films. From the original to various remakes, critics have shown the parallel between King Kong being an ape (as black people have often been derogatorily been referred to as "monkeys") and the white/blonde damsel in distress that he clutches in his hand. To critics, it has been a parallel between the perceived assault on the white race by black America. Now, whether or not you buy that or not, I did once have a film professor who claimed that it was why no studio could have an American direct King Kong again, as that parallel had been made. She was not entirely wrong, even if Vogt-Roberts is American as Brie Larson is never a damsel in distress or screeching in his paw, which Naomi Watts did often in 2005. Instead, he holds her once and it is to save her. By then, she had already established that he was not an enemy and was passed out anyways, so no concerns there from her. Of all of its updates, ditching the possible racist undertones is certainly a major plus, regardless of whether you buy into that angle or not.

However, Vogt-Roberts' influences also come via the heavily 70s soundtrack, references, and the political situation at the time. Fortunately, it does actually have a lot to do with the plot. As the Cold War is burning brightly and the Americans are coming off a loss in Vietnam, the whole country needs a win. This mission to Skull Island is that win. Finding new species' or a new island would re-establish America as the top dog in the world and, as such, is a major effort even if it takes some convincing. Yet, what the film does very well with its 1970s post-Vietnam setting is to show the men trying to regroup and go back to war, even if it is a different kind of war. The men are resistant and constantly thinking home. From writing letters, discussing home, or making references to what they will do once they get there, the men form a common bond of trying to make the best of the situation. Yet, on the flip side men such as Packard or James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) need this war. Even photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) needs the war, though she is anti-war. The three of them have nothing left to do after the end of the Vietnam War and the Skull Island job represents another opportunity to feel useful in the world at a time when opportunities were scarce.

That said, in spite of all of the updates and the post-war themes at play here in the sea of disillusionment that was the post-war 1970s, Kong: Skull Island is a King Kong film. Fighting the god of Skull Island and facing off with the various monsters that also call it home, we get to see Kong rip apart a giant squid and exact revenge on the skullcrawler that killed his family. This is definitively one of those films that shows Kong as a tragic figure with him serving as the protector of the tribe that calls the island home, as well as the benevolent animals that exist there. Defending them against the skullcrawlers, Kong is a lonely and incredibly sad figure. Juxtaposing his sheer size with how small and lonely he has become after having his entire family killed, we get a pretty solemn take on the giant ape that makes the attacks lodged against him by the military even harder to watch. In terms of the action, however, Vogt-Roberts stages every scene with Kong incredibly well and really makes them pack a punch throughout. Yet, the peak of this film comes with the skullcrawlers surrounding the human characters in the mass grave of Kong's family. With nothing but the clicking of a camera inside the skullcrawler to let them know where it is while lost in a sea of bones and a cloud of smoke, the scene is terrifically captured and easily the most tense moment of the film. Though the opening in Skull Island with Kong knocking helicopters out of the sky is similarly tense, we know that only the nameless characters played by actors we have never seen before will die. In the skullcrawler scene, the film has already developed a willingness to kill its cast and is unafraid to indulge in this throughout. As such, this sequence keeps the audience on edge and fully alert, as it is how unpredictable as to who will be wiped out next.

In terms of its special effects, Kong: Skull Island is a truly beautiful film. With lots of smoke and light effects to create a smoky scene in Skull Island, as well as an excellent ring of thunderstorms around the island, every effect is done terrifically well and always delivers the goods. The creature design is excellent and really hits the nail on the head with a realistic looking Kong and fun takes on various dinosaurs or unique creatures. Taking influence from a variety of sources on this front, the creature design here is what really makes it so much fun to watch. Seeing new or unique animals not only makes the land feel more foreign, but also adds a sense of adventure to this monster movie. Every scene feels fresh and adventurous, due to the fact that anything could be lurking around the corner. Its skills and traits are unknown and whether or not it eats humans is even more questionable. Whatever is awaiting the cast, however, is something that inspires awe and will likely have them clutching their guns.

However, as with all modern blockbusters, Kong: Skull Island is simply a palatable take on the story. Though I prefer it to Peter Jackson's elongated 2005 take on the story, the film is hardly unique. While it is a stunning film with excellent cinematography, the film still falls into the trap of ruining tense moments with comic relief and having action that looks cool, but lacks weight or substance. The cinematography really helps the action earn some substance as it feels like Vogt-Roberts staged many scenes just to have an excuse to silhouette Kong against the backdrop of fire or have a gorgeous shot of the landscape of Skull Island. Unfortunately, scenes that do not have this feel hollow and straight forward. Though I love the giant squid scene because it is cool, it is a culprit of being nothing but hollow action. We already know Kong is big and strong. Showing him rip apart a squid hardly furthers this feeling. The writing in the film is also incredibly clunky with many scenes of dialogue either forcing in another reference, bad joke, or just coming off awkwardly. This translates into lackluster performances from Jason Mitchell and Thomas Mann, who receive the vast majority of the bad lines. That said, nobody really has excellent dialogue and character development is, naturally at a minimum. For those that would like some substance with their monster movies, Kong: Skull Island does not deliver there and it only further exacerbates its issue with feeling hollow.

Kong: Skull Island, in spite of its issues with hollow action and lackluster writing, is still a terrifically entertaining piece of popcorn entertainment. Wearing its influences on its sleeves and ditching some of the more unsavory elements of past King Kong films and replacing it with a look at post-war time for soldiers, mercenaries, and photographers amidst this sea of disillusionment and the rise of rock and roll, Kong: Skull Island often feels like a time capsule. For a man born in 1984, Jordan Vogt-Roberts does an excellent job providing great 1970s nostalgia and capturing the feeling of America as Vietnam War ended and the Cold War raged onward. Thus, while it has issues with excessive comic relief, hollow action, and bad characters like every other modern blockbuster, Kong: Skull Island makes up for it with that thematic substance. Above all, however, the film is absolutely visually stunning and, even where all else fails, this film is damn pretty. Fun, dumb, and gorgeous, Kong: Skull Island is the hot blonde of films. Though I am pretty sure it has nothing under the hood, it is just pretty enough to keep me distracted with a light and off-the-cuff personality that really keeps you running and guessing as to what is next. While perhaps not the key to a lasting relationship, it does translate well into being a quality blockbuster.

7/10 - A classic epic and adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name, Julius Caesar brings together a tremendous cast for a rendition of Caesar's murder and the turmoil that threatened to split Rome in two afterwards. After Caesar (Louis Calhern) is killed by the senate, chief among them Brutus (James Mason) who delivered the final blow, the senate runs off into exile after Caesar's close friend Mark Antony (Marlon Brando) rallies public support for Caesar and against his murderers. Alongside Octavius (Douglass Watson), Mark Antony leads the charge for Rome against the mutinous army led by Brutus and Cassius (John Gielgud). As an epic, Julius Caesar is tremendous, if short and far too rushed through. As an adaptation of Shakespeare, it is as confusing to follow as any other Shakespeare adaptation.

In a performance where Brando does not play some mumbling figure, his turn as Mark Antony really anchors this film. Somehow, he is able to get all of the Shakespearean words out of his mouth and have them make sense. Of all the characters in the film, it is easy to see why Brando was a fit for Mark Antony. The man who rallies the public after Caesar's death, his confident manner of speech and charisma make him a natural fit for this man of the people. In contrast to him, James Mason is far more sheepish and resistant as Brutus. He is not cowardly by any means, but he seems less apt to public speaking and a bit more shifty than the raw and upfront Mark Antony who speaks his mind. Brutus is easily convinced to kill Caesar by Cassius and the other men, though it troubles him greatly. He is an unwitting leader and one without the necessary ability to be cutthroat, as shown by him allowing Mark Antony to make the speech that turned public support against Brutus and the other men guilty of assassinating Caesar. He lacks the foresight and charisma to be a quality leader of these people and, as such, he finds himself on the outs.

Yet, the film's biggest fault is that it is too quick. The penultimate battle scene flies by and we return to see the losers killing themselves. Obviously, as a Shakespeare play, the battle sequence cannot be too extensive and the play is obviously quite wordy, but nonetheless, it does not work as an epic. Most Hollywood epics that I have seen include lots of characters, dialogue, and battles. Julius Caesar is mostly just words for two hours without any battles. This is unfortunate, especially since the latter half of the second act is spent doing nothing but setting up the battle sequence that is pretty much just skipped through after showing the beginning. This is a by-product of the source material, naturally, but is unfortunate that director Joseph L. Mankiewicz did not put the budget he had to use in a big battle sequence. Perhaps there was one that got cut or something, but as it stands, this epic hardly feels very epic.

In terms of the dialogue, Julius Caesar is followable. However, it is followable in the sense that a Shakespeare play is as somebody who does not understand his version of English. In many ways, it is like the film equivalent of speaking to my deeply Costa Rican grandfather. As I am a horrible grandson, I never learned Spanish. Fortunately, as he lives in the United States, he has picked up English. Unfortunately, it comes out in an odd Yoda-esque order with a thick accent. Julius Caesar, and many other Shakespeare plays adapted to film, are exactly the same. You listen to the words it says and lose the nuance of the language, but you get the gist of it and can try and move on to the next line of the film. This is not really a fun time, however, and that may be partially my fault. It is hard to pay attention as a result with my mind constantly battling between trying to understand and listen to the words or just thinking about something else and piecing it all together later. As such, many details or characterizations may be entirely lost in translation.

An epic that does not feel so epic, Julius Caesar lacks the big battle I was hoping for with just a brief sequence there. That said, the slaying of Caesar and the resulting turmoil afterwards delivers a great sparing between Mark Antony and Brutus with the men doing battle with their words. This can be quite engrossing, but as previously mentioned, tough to understand due to the wording. Fortunately, what is clear to understand is that this is a film with tremendous acting throughout, excellent costume and production design, and a an admirable faithfulness to the original play. It simply just does not feel epic, however.

7/10 - Meet Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain). A lobbyist is a person paid to convince members of congress, via whatever means necessary as long as it is legal (or not), to vote for a specific issue or cause. This is what Elizabeth does. Working 16 hour days, taking uppers to stay awake, and downers to go to sleep, Miss Sloane approaches her work as a surgeon would approach an operation. She is precise, detailed, intricate, and armed to the teeth with knowledge. However, this is only in her mind. To others, she appears to be a drunk driver weaving between lanes going 75 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. Yet, every move is calculated. When she gets offered a chance to promote anti-gun legislation, it is an offer she cannot refuse as it an issue she actually cares about. As such, everything is on the table to win, even her career.

In a powerhouse performance, Jessica Chastain stars as this DC lobbyist that is capable of swaying public opinion with the flick of her wrist and making politicians jump when she says jump. Every misstep is merely a calculated move to distract the opposition and she is always prepared for how to react to any counter-move by the enemy. It is as if this were a book she had read before and was merely going through the motions of re-reading it to re-live the moment. Having developed a penchant for playing these tough-minded female leads, Chastain lifts the film up and breathes life into what is a pretty typical political thriller. Without her bravura performance, this film would certainly struggle. Yet, her portrayal as a woman willing to be commit career suicide in order to actually experience a normal life having made a positive impact on the world, is a nuanced and precise performance. Though Elizabeth appears emotionless and calculated at all times, she is a deeply troubled woman. She has no idea where the line between good and bad is mostly prescribed to the philosophical belief that "the ends justifies the means". Yet, she is also deeply unhappy. It takes a truly brilliant performance to evoke this feeling without actually expressing it, yet her brutal antihero has just the right tinge of emotional vulnerability to make her sympathetic. She is seen as heartless and cruel, but in moments with prostitute Robert Ford (Jake Lacy), we see that she is not some black pit of emotion. In her private moments, she longs for a normal life and love, a world where she is not attacked for just being.

In its plotting, Miss Sloane can play out a bit predictably, but is always captivating. With some whip smart lines in its back pocket, the gun control battle is always center stage with Miss Sloane and her colleagues fighting against her former employers in the battle. Always having some trick up her sleeve to pull off the impossible, the film is entertaining political thriller that can often feel like a mystery with how it keeps the viewer guessing as to what trick she will pull next. Is this moment intentional and part of the plan or did she get caught off-guard and was forced to react quickly? While no political thriller is ever truly original, Miss Sloane's blending of the genre with mystery and this superhero-esque character with nary a flaw in her career and operating weeks ahead of the competition, makes the film's plotting captivating and thoroughly engaging.

Yet, this film is undoubtedly a character study. As much as it is about gun control, Miss Sloane - for nearly an hour and fifty minutes - refuses to grandstand. It is reserved and never loses sight of its central character. Cases are made for and against gun control and the audience roots for Miss Sloane and the gun control cause, purely because the film is written in such a way that she is the good guy. As an antihero, however, we see her flaws and her downsides and nearly wind up hoping she gets convicted by the Senate Ethics Committee because we have seen her willingly break the law, but cover her ass. Her brilliance is admirable, but entirely reprehensible with how it skirts around legislation. In essence, she is no better than a mercenary and fights for whoever pays her the most. Yet, gun control - for reasons unknown - speaks to her heart. Willing to work for whatever to make it a reality, this issue being the one that breaks her cold, black heart is a politically timely move in the present world we live in, but also one that speaks to her character's past. She denies having been touched by gun violence and does not reference it, but it is clear that there was something that made her realize that this was "the" issue for her. Something made it click in her mind that this was a cause she had to fight for, no matter what the NRA offered her in return for fighting for them. It is quite admirable and shows that she has a heart (regardless of your personal stance on gun control), as she cares deeply about some issue and its impact on everyday Americans. They are not just data points. They are means to an end. While this may not always seem right, it is the light that guides her down her career path, In essence, she has realized that to be the change you wish to see in the world, she must convince others to want that same change. If she were the only one fighting for gun control and calling for it, the issue would die. If she rallies bases from the ground up and convinces average Americans to believe something, the change will occur. Her means are not always savory, but they are in the service of an end that she feels, and many feel, is worth the means. The only issue is whether or not one can sleep at night which, given her insomnia, is clearly not something she can do.

Coming in at over two hours, the film's last twenty minutes are incredibly disappointing. After creating a tremendous character study and timely political thriller, the film hops on its soapbox and preaches about lobbying's role in politics and how the moral backbone of politics has decayed to simply basing votes on who pays the most. While this is something I agree with, it is unnecessary. You can feel the screenwriters preaching at you about how lobbyists are not the bad ones. Instead, it is the politicians who accept the bribes and gifts or breakdown under threats. This may be accurate, but the method of doing this - a monologue delivered in court by Chastain - is far too hamfisted and on-the-nose to actually come off smoothly. Though impassioned and excellently delivered by Chastain, the moment comes off as hollow and lacking cinematic purpose. Instead, it is a grandiose display of politics in a film that, though about politics, feels as apolitical as possible for a film depicting a lobbyist arguing for gun control. Its nuance in focusing more on the ills of lobbying and the lengths they go to instead of necessarily focusing on message is done away with at the end, which is a shame.

The film's conclusion to its senate trial and Miss Sloane's career-as-depicted is also far too fantastical. It is clearly cinematic and feels fake. Immediately following its soapbox moment, the film's epilogue similarly rings hollow and feels a bit too detached from reality to actually make an impact. It is tough to describe without spoilers, but these final twenty minutes depict a sense of justice and punishment that can only be found in film with hardly any basis in reality. If these were to actually play out in real life, the United States government would literally collapse upon itself. In essence, these moments are pure Hollywood, cliched, and far too neat for a film depicting such a messy world. After spending nearly two hours unraveling everything, director John Madden tries to put all of the glitter back in the bag. A fool's errand, the stuffing of the glitter back into the bag in such a quick and surreal ending really takes some of the punch out of the final product.

With Jessica Chastain leading the charge here as a tough-nosed, yet emotionally vulnerable, lobbyist, her Miss Sloane inspires fear and admiration in equal measure. She is a menacing presence who thrives on her unpredictability. Yet, by the end, we see her most unpredictable trait is that she has a heart. Being cutthroat and expecting to sleep soundly is a big task to ask of anyone and Miss Sloane, no matter how brilliant, is not immune to the ramifications of her line of work. Had the film not indulged the political beliefs of its creators - and not regarding gun control either, as the film tries to mostly toe the line on that issue, in spite of what the marketing for the film may have suggested - and the fantasies regarding how the world should work at the end, Miss Sloane would be even better. As it stands, it is a largely by-the-books political thriller with an excellent central character and even better lead performance that has a lackluster ending. All-in-all, it may not be brilliant, but Miss Sloane is greatly entertaining and always deeply compelling.

Spangle · 04-16-2017, 11:49 AM

5/10 - David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense is a film that shows the problem with narration better than any film I have ever seen. Long ago, a family member remarked how they hated narrators in film. At first, it is a little odd to hear because narrators often do add a lot. Some of my own personal favorites use narrators extensively. Yet, their point is a fair one. All too often, the narrator is a crutch in telling the story and the story itself feels either too disjointed to work or is too exposition heavy to really actually dive into its story. Often times, this is a non-issue. Others, it is detrimental to the film. Perfect Sense has a unique premise in which the world, one by one, loses its five senses. In conjunction with this, Michael (Ewan McGregor) and Susan (Eva Green) fall in love and discover that, though everything else is collapsing around them, the fact that they have each other is enough. It is touching material that knows it is touching material and compounds the issue with tone-deaf narration that is the equivalent of walking into the room of a quadriplegic and saying, "Hey, it is not all that bad. At least you still have emotions."

Perfect Sense's premise is quite captivating. When it really dives into it all, you feel the trauma of losing your senses individually. Losing one at a time, the people in this world struggle to cope, but they adapt. They keep going along in their regular lives, except without a sense. Losing it is traumatic with odd symptoms immediately preceding the sense going away, but once it is gone, they quickly adjust and move on in their new lives. The worst part is the anticipation and nostalgia they suddenly feel for smell, taste, or hearing. Descriptions of a wet forest with all of the leaves and the smell of fresh rain really play out well and impeccably written. Though we can have all of our senses, the film somehow makes us feel that very same nostalgia. In a way, it feels as though we too have lost these senses and are trying to imagine what it was like to have them alongside the characters. The film's sense of imagery is impeccable and really captures what it feels like to have these senses and experience the world. Of all of its positives, this stands as its sole triumph.

While the romance is not particularly necessary, it is well done. Casting aside past misgivings and forging ahead with a new love, Perfect Sense's moral of the story is that nothing matters if you have love. While perhaps a bit sappy, its romantic core really does how little else matters. The scenes are passionate, touching, and tense as they race about without being able to hear and look for one another. Perhaps it is not necessarily a must have for this film, this romance does wonders for the characters and their arcs, while also providing some ample space for Mackenzie to develop the film's final moral message.

Yet, far too often, we return to our narrator. Describing the downfall of society and making some obvious parallels with how often the world turns to violence, it is far too heavy-handed and hamfisted to actually work. While its actual plot is nuanced and intricately written, its exposition-laden narration that tries to speak to how to act in the world and spoon feed the audience words about what it means to be alive, really hurts the film dramatically. Instead of being a compelling science fiction film, it feels as though focus shifts to the narration with the plot being nothing more than a re-enactment of a scenario akin to an episode of Dateline on NBC. This narration is not merely heavy-handed, but feels practically obnoxious and know-it-all with how it professes to know the meaning of life, while the poor infantile-minded viewer needs this bedtime story to be told to them in order for them to understand it all. Its exposition can be excused, but how it preaches about morals, what really matter, and the human experience comes off as being written by a teenager with no life experience. Compared to the more contemplative and show-don't-tell nature of the plot itself, this narration is greatly unfortunate and constantly takes the steam out of the film.

That said, two well-matched romantic leads in Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, alongside a compelling premise is often enough to save a film, no matter its flaws. Perfect Sense nearly pulls this off, but still winds up being a mixed bag and bang average due to its annoying narration that tries to do too much and feels as though the filmmakers admitted they could not achieve thematic nuance in the plot, without including this hamfisted narration. It is unfortunate and incredibly lazy, reducing what is a nice little science fiction romance film into being a film that tries to imbue more importance than it really possesses.

8/10 - The only true box office success directed by Orson Welles, The Stranger was still yet another film released by Welles to meet resistance from the studios. Re-cut as this straight forward film noir instead of its tense political thriller roots, the film we see today is still brilliant, though unfortunately not what Welles had intended. As it stands, it is a film noir with a psychological tilt to it as we see Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), a war crimes investigator, track down Nazi operative Franz Kindler. Believing Franz to be hiding as Professor Charles Rankin (Orson Welles), Mr. Wilson must first convince Rankin's new wife Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young) that her husband is not who he says he is before he can bring Franz to justice. Tense, riveting, and typically well-directed by Welles, the film may be a straight forward genre picture, but it is a Welles-directed straight forward genre picture.

Heavily utilizing shadows in the old church or outside, characters' faces are often entirely obscured. This seems to have little barring on whether they are bad or not, as protagonist and investigator Mr. Wilson is also subject to the treatment. This speaks to the low-key lighting used as the film shows this dark presence in the small town of Harper, Connecticut. With Franz hanging around as Charles Rankin, we can see this darkness hanging around the town. In her dreams, Mary sees Konrad Meineke (Konstantin Shayne) - a fellow Nazi who comes to visit Franz/Charles - and sees his shadow as hanging over both her and Charles. However, her interpretation of the dream is off. It is not Meineke's shadow. Rather, it is her husbands. His dark, brooding presence hangs over their home and their town like a plague that will not go away. His only positive contribution is the clock, but even the townsfolk are upset at how loud the thing is when it chimes. He contributes nothing but mystery to the town and brings the darkness that he formed in his mind with him like mental baggage that the town must now cope with as well.

As a noir, the film's plot is engaging and constantly leaves you wanting more. Mr. Wilson pieces together this tough to crack crime with the expected pushback, but we always know more. We have seen Charles essentially prove himself to be Franz early on in the film and are merely waiting for Mr. Wilson to be able to prove it as fact. This is where the psychological elements come into play. Fully convinced himself, he must now get Mary on board in order to make her turn against her husband, giving evidence that only she knows that will convict him. References to her subconscious knowing the truth and fighting against her conscious denial of the facts of the case are constant in the late second act of the film as Mr. Wilson tries to prove his case to her. However, as the film shows, only Franz/Charles turning against his wife could ever prove to her that he was a man that posed a danger to her and those that she loves.

With this psychological element hinting at the more psychological film that it was intended to be, it is a shame to see it go largely unexamined. Yet, Welles does still manage to incorporate it nicely and it adds another dramatic layer to this tense noir. The first film to show Holocaust footage, it is an easy place to pinpoint where this more psychological and political film may be hidden. As it presently stands, however, a trio of excellent performances and a captivating mystery man noir really hold things together nicely, even if it is not nearly as theatrical or unwieldly as Welles has become known for. Instead, it is quite restrained with Welles' touch coming in the absolute darkness of some scenes, highlighting that mystery and dark cloud that hangs around the town. Overall, The Stranger is a tremendous film with great twists, turns, and a compelling psychological angle that most noir films ditch in favor of mystery. Yet, The Stranger is unafraid broach this after it gives away its central mystery pretty early on in the film. Without this baggage, Welles' film is able to explore what he undoubtedly finds more captivating: how do you convince a woman that her husband is a madman without startling her?

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5/10 - A dream-like kaleidoscopic descent into the madness of Austin, Texas, and the relationships on display in the film, Song to Song feels akin to a short film from Stan Brakhage or Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera. Echoes of Jean-Luc Godard at his most experimental can also be heard with Malick standing alongside Godard as both extend a middle finger to audiences that wish to receive a normal viewing experience. With a loose connection of images and a free-wheeling approach to scenes and cutting, Song to Song is most certainly lyrical and poetic, but it mostly feels hollow. Its themes are compelling, but haphazardly composed and never rise to the level of importance bestowed upon them by the distant and experimental nature of the film. As a result, it is a hell of a tough watch and not the easiest 129 minutes of filmgoing I have ever experienced. With loose connections to be drawn between scenes, there is a common thread, but there is so much fluff and excess surrounding it, that core seems to get lost in the shuffle.

A deeply spiritual filmmaker by nature, Malick infuses Song to Song with a lot of overt references to God, human nature, and sin. Juxtaposing scenes of Cook (Michael Fassbender) and Rhonda (Natalie Portman) engaging in a three-way with a prostitute with that very same prostitute telling Rhonda that she wants God to come save her, it is clear that there is a deeply religious film. It is through this context that the film's core themes reveal themselves: temptation, love, and experience. Explaining in a voice-over early on that she wishes to experience everything, Faye (Rooney Mara) does just that. She has a highly conventional relationship with BV (Ryan Gosling), a solely physical affair with Cook, and even a few lesbian encounters. Yet, none of these fulfill her. As her initial voice-over noted, she needed every experience to be above and beyond its normal level for her to actual feel it ("the sex needed to be violent"), or else the moment would drift away and she would float on to the next one.

Yet, by the end, she has come back. She gives into temptation with Cook, but comes back to BV at the end and is willing to toss away experiencing life in Austin and replace it with living life with BV in small town America. Faye's journey in this film is one played out in real life and film many times before, though not nearly as dressed up as in Song to Song. She is a girl who is unhappy with herself, as shown in her conversations with her father, and is unsure of what she wants. As a result, she tries everything. She never says no, even when she is hesitant or unsure and regardless of who can be hurt by her actions. Instead, she flies by the seat of her pants and dives head first into the pool of life. Unfortunately for she realizes nearly too late that what truly made her happy and feel in touch with the world was what she had initially and now, she must find her way back to that life and that experience by returning to BV. Considering how dense the film itself is, for it to be able to be boiled down - mostly - into just that description really speaks as to how fluff-filled Song to Song is at 129 minutes.

Malick does add depth, however, with that aforementioned religious parallels. For the film, the character of Cook often comes to represent temptation and could be described as being Satan-esque, if not Satan himself. Presenting temptation to everybody in the film, he drives them all of their pre-ordained paths by offering them a world of experience. For Faye, he promises sexual pleasure that she had never before felt with Cook being adventurous and a generous lover. For BV, he promises to help him make a record deal that would allow him to have the world (classic Lucifer stuff here). For Rhonda, he promises an escape from her job as a waitress and to experience a world she had never been in before. Yet, it all backfires. Faye continues to jump from experience-to-experience and hits bottom when she realizes her father is disappointed in her. BV continues to struggle as a musician and realizes that Cook filed copyrights for BV's songs under Cook's name only, essentially stealing his work. Rhonda is driven into depression and driven away from her mother Miranda (Holly Hunter) to the point that she is suicidal. Promising the world to all that he encounters, Cook frequently engages in sexual sins with three-ways and intense promiscuity while corrupting everybody he touches and dragging them down in hellfire along with himself. As Rhonda notes in a voice-over, he is a destructive force. Yet, Cook embraces his tempting ways, explaining that "people want to be deceived". In essence, he is merely giving people what they want, so what is wrong with that? He is a selfish and harmful being, whether or not he is actually Satan. He is a man that seeks to drive people off the path with empty promises with the sole goal of fulfilling his own needs and sucking the life out of their soul.

The film's themes further reveal themselves via a quote, again, from Faye in a voice-over. Explaining that they, she and BV, lived from "song to song" plays a factor throughout. Frequently, Malick includes a diegetic song playing alongside a moment where characters experience something or somebody new. When BV and Faye first meet, they listen to a song together. BV does the same when he meets Amanda (Cate Blanchett) later on in the film. Faye when she meets Zoey (Berenice Marlohe). Cook and Faye. Cook and Rhonda. Everybody has some sort of diegetic music accompanying them meeting or forging their relationship, especially when they are some concert in the Austin area. For Malick's film, "living song to song" equates to each song signaling a change-up. From the point the song is played, that person's story changes. Either they are driven further down in the rabbit hole or self-hatred and sin or they experience a new relationship. As the film is set in Austin, known for its music scene, it is clear that the constant changes aligning with a new song being played is hardly coincidental. Partially a nod to the city itself, partially an attempt to capture the aesthetic and free wheeling nature of the city, and partially a symbolic way to equate the film itself with an album with each new song telling a different story and using a different instrumental, Song to Song's usage of its title in the film is hardly a throwaway. Instead, it is a key that audiences must use to unlock the mysteries of the film.

As an album, its disjointed nature is explainable and its constantly switch-ups more so, as the film jumps from moment to moment like the beat of a single song changing or altering the melody and then completely altering the arrangement when a new song comes on. Whether the songs are any good, however, is certainly unclear. Songs in which BV and Faye indulge in their relationship in impeccably cute moments with Malick adorning these moments with gorgeous shots of the landscape, the film plays like a beautiful piano ballad written by a lover for their partner. Other moments, such as Cook engaging in sex with any number of women - both part of the main cast and not - play like a sultry and emotionally chaotic song. Moments of Faye or Rhonda expressing their regrets to their parents are akin to a solemn and forlorn guitar-led and mostly acapella song about their past misgivings and attempts to right their ship. Yet, others, such as those at the concerts, are like loud and fast-paced rock songs about rebellion and rising up against the system that holds you down. In essence, this is an album and film that is pulling inspiration from everywhere. It is highly experimental in the way it is composed, written, and performed, with Malick trying to find what works best. Some scenes clunk and rattle, while others hum with beautiful efficiency. It is an album with extreme highs, rock bottom lows, and moments that present a mixed bag. As a result of all of this, Song to Song lacks any sense of cohesion or flow. Though each moment does play into the next, their accompanying songs being so stylistically different from one another lead to a film that feels disjointed and jumbled.

This is mirrored in the editing of the film that feels scattershot at best. In an interview as part of an Actors roundtable, actor Christopher Plummer lamented how Malick desperately needs a writer that is not himself. This is most certainly true, but he clearly needs some editors too. While not edited by himself, rather a team or three, it is obvious that the director will have a lot of influence as to how the final cut will be spliced together. Thus, he either needs to fully hand the reins over or take some constructive criticism on board. With the editing jumping from moment-to-moment rapidly and these moments often clashing with one another as actors jump from one side of the screen to the other, this is highly experimental, but an absolute terror to watch. These quick cuts also lead to a highly fractured film with it feeling as though the entire film is merely a trailer for a much longer one. As a result, it skims through moments, cuts some short, and jumps between moments freely with plenty of inter-cutting as moments play out simultaneously. Attempting to be lyrical through these methods, the film instead has this weird aesthetical flow. It feels halted, lacking any sort of lyricism as a result, and wholly uninterested with telling any sort of story or communicating any sort of theme. Instead, it merely wants to mash images together, without regard for how those images actually go with one another. As the film was first shot in 2012 with reshoots occurring seemingly every year since and then being cut down from eight hours to just over two, it is obvious why this is the case, as it feels as if the film simply spiraled out of Malick's control. Thus, he opted to splice together moments of all that he had and the end result is a film that has some themes and moments of brilliance, but feels altogether like a collage more than an actual film.

That is not to say, however, that the film is not artistically creative and impressive. As with any Malick directed film, there is an obsession with the scenery of the world the characters inhabit. Often times, characters walk right off the screen and Malick never bothers to move the camera. At others, he willingly moves the camera away from the action. Always focusing on the background with characters often occupying the far right or far left of the frame, Malick focuses in on the background and scenery surrounding them, rather than the situation itself. The end result is a sunset-heavy take on Austin and one that highlights the simple beauties of the world around us, allowing the camera to breathe and soak in the sheer awe-inspiring luminosity of a sun shining on an open field or between branches on a tree. Yet, Malick still innovates. Often utilizing an extremely wide angle lens, it not only allows him more space to capture everything he wants to fit in the frame, but creates this curvature effect. In particular, a scene in which BV and Faye goof away has this wide angle lens as well as a swish pan between the two of them. The resultant curvature of the screen is possibly disorienting, but makes this seemingly innocuous inclusion feel like an artistic achievement unlike any other in the film. Often utilizing these pans, tilts, swishing of both, and oblique angles, Malick's camera is free moving and largely unconcerned with covering anything. Mirroring the free wheeling lifestyles of the characters and the fast pace of the city itself, the camera often floats around the room and captures the action without any apparent purpose or direction in how it is shot. While that may sound critical, it is not. This wanton disregard of convention is what makes Song to Song stand out, even in spite of all of its flaws and absolute avoidance of cohesion.

A divisive and hard-to-crack film, Song to Song is another confusing entry into Terrence Malick's filmography. After his magnum opus, The Tree of Life, this brilliant director has made impeccably divisive film after impeccably divisive film with some praising the visuals and others deriding how little sense it all makes. While these films are undoubtedly highly masturbatory on Malick's part, there is enough artistic merit here to consider it an experimental win. However, as a film, it lacks any sort of cohesion, is sloppily edited, and so horribly written that it (by my count) only mention one character's name. Other than that, I was honestly lost as to who each actor portrayed as they largely just refer to one another as "he" or "she". With the story and characters lazily put together and its themes compelling, but not explored with enough depth beyond Malick's typical religious indulgence, the film's only pure strength is its unique camera work and ability to capture the aesthetic of Austin so well, it practically makes one feel as though they flew there and back in the two hour runtime. Unfortunately, there is so little to hang onto beyond this visual appeal that Song to Song winds up being admirably experimental, but shockingly dull.

7/10 - Pure mumblecore, yet scripted beyond what is typical for a Joe Swanberg film, Win it All also happens to be Swanberg's best film yet. Putting him alongside Jake Johnson yet again, the film stars Johnson as Eddie Garrett. A degenerate gambler who is asked by a friend to watch a bag full of money, he naturally gambles it all away and must earn it all back before the friend gets out of jail. Yet, coinciding with this, he tries to fix his life with new girlfriend Eva (Aislinn Derbez) lighting his fire again, brother Ron (Joe Lo Truglio) giving him a job in the family landscaping company, and his sponsor Gene (Keegan Michael-Key) offering him advice and guiding him through his rehabilitation. A loosely plotted film, it has echoes of other gambling-centered films, particularly Robert Altman's California Split for how the film just focuses on these gambling addicts going about their daily life as addicts. Yet, Win it All switches it up by making this a compelling character study of a man that wants to change and gets the audience to root for him, no matter how many bad choices he makes.

Initially making all the wrong moves, Eddie rejects a job offer from his brother and continues to gamble compulsively. It is only when he loses the money of somebody whose money should not be lost does he actually begin to change. However, until then, he is a largely detestable character. It is clear that Swanberg has learned from films such as Happy Christmas where the self-destructive nature of the central addict character is repulsive and leads to a film that gets chastised for having such an unlikable protagonist. Win it All begins much the same way as that film with Eddie hanging out with his settled-in and high-achieving brother and his family, divulging just how destitute his situation is and expressing his hopeless dreams and falsehoods about his current lifestyle. Watching him lie and then go out and gamble all night yet again is a tough cycle to watch and one that makes us inherently want to root against him and just be put to a stop.

Yet, Swanberg manages to make him incredibly sympathetic. We see him fail, but having him meet Eva when at a gambling high and right before a big fall shows the stakes put before him. He must put together his life and quickly if he wishes to have this great girl in his life. This gives the film good stakes, but also makes him more likable and a guy that you root for. Prior to this, he was hurting just himself. Now, we want to see him succeed to not hurt somebody else. Scenes of them together or him hanging out with family as he recovers from gambling all point to this same aspect of the film. As he changes from being unlikable to an impeccably sympathetic man, we want him to succeed and be happy at the end. When things begin going wrong, our heart breaks for him and want to see him put it back together again. Yet, in this character study, Swanberg does misstep. While largely just a look at the life of Eddie and shot and written incredibly realistically, the ending feels like movie fantasy. It dispatches of the low-key mumblecore stylings of the film and embraces a more commercial dramatic ending akin to Rounders or another gambling film when Eddie sets out to win back all of the money. It is unfortunate for a film that is such an intimate look at gambling addiction made by a director who is unafraid to just let them things happen and not script them, only for it to u-turn and become incredibly scripted and cliched at the very end.

As a comedy, the film is mostly focused on telling jokes. Instead, it presents real life scenarios and finds the comedy in everyday life. Encounters between Eddie and his brother Ron really show as this enjoy family life or just mess around with each other as friends and brothers do. Yet, the comedic highlight of the film is Keegan-Michael Key. Absolutely hysterical in his role as Gene, his character is casually funny without really trying and brings a lightness and great comedic zip to the film at all times when he is on-screen. As a foil to Johnson's more serious and downtrodden characters, Key's loose and supportive sponsor role is perfection.

A funny and engaging character study, Win it All becomes a bit too scripted and conventional in its climax and third act, but until then, it is a loosely put together and highly unique film, even if it still falls into the mumblecore genre of filmmaking though with a bit more structure than usual. With this added structure, Swanberg shows that these stories about lost 20-30 somethings can find an aim and serve a purpose instead of just being an hour and a half of characters walking around and driving themselves further down in the pit of despair. For this reason, Win it All is certainly the biggest win of Swanberg's career, even if it needs some additional polishing.

8/10 - An American Werewolf in London is just one of those films that, for whatever reason, kept getting put on the backburner. Fortunately, today, I was in the mood for a John Landis directed 1980s horror comedy and would you look at that, An American Werewolf in London fits the bill. Perhaps the film's greatest flaw is simply not being long enough. Its 97 minute length is nice and concise, but it certainly leaves you wanting more and wishing that the film continued on, even if the age of the werewolves has come to a close. A fun and light horror comedy, An American Werewolf in London has excellent special effects, a fun and light tone, and yet is unafraid to broach the negative mental side effects of becoming a werewolf. While its spooks and laughs are its greatest weapons, its psychological elements are equally compelling.

After leaving a mysterious pub called The Slaughtered Lamb, American friends David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) encounter a werewolf. The two had some hints, given the pentagram and general weirdness in the pub, that this town may have some weirdness about, plus a warning to "beware the moon" and stay near the road. As kids are prone to do, they forgot and wandered off the road. Attacked by a werewolf, Jack is killed and David, as he will learn, is set to turn into a werewolf. The lore in this film is excellent and really takes off as we learn that those killed by a werewolf walk the Earth and advise their werewolf killer to kill themselves in order to end the bloodline, allowing their victims to move on and no longer linger on Earth. For the werewolf, they turn into one with a full moon and must cope with seeing their victims on a regular basis. The emotional toll this takes on David when he sees Jack and others throughout the film drives him mad and questioning what is real all around him. It is a really interesting angle to add to a werewolf film and a great source of comedy undoubtedly, but also providing some emotional depth as we see the cost of becoming a werewolf on an average person. This emotional toll is also seen in the town where the initial attack takes place as we see them walk on eggshells to not alert anybody to what is going on and to practically deny to themselves that these werewolves are real.

Yet, the film's greatest accomplishments come via the special effects. From the excellent transformation scene to the progressive decomposition of Jack throughout the film, the special effects in this film are quintessentially 1980s to be sure, but still hold up in 2017. In particular, the transformation of David into the werewolf stands as the most impressive piece of this with the scene taking its time to show his slow transformation on the outside and the inside before showing his terrifying and fear-inducing final form as a werewolf. Immediately following it up with a truly thrilling sequence of David chasing a victim through a subway station that is not just well formed with a great attention to detail in the production design alongside (even hinting at the climax in a porno theater with a poster for the film playing there), merely adds a cherry on top of the icing of this cake.

An American Werewolf in London treads the tricky line between horror and comedy, yet does so marvelously. Its comedic undertakings can make its horror moments have a little less impact to be sure, but its horror still comes through in the aforementioned chase scene in the subway and other chase scenes, particularly the one to open the film with the werewolf circling David and Jack. These moments really speak to the film's ability to scare, but it is mostly more interested in making us laugh (given that Landis is directing) and in exploring the impact of becoming a werewolf on a man's psyche. An absolutely enjoyable experience that constantly delivers entertainment above and beyond the call of duty, An American Werewolf in London is an 80s classic that feels years ahead of it ahead in 1981. Funny, smart, and scary, An American Werewolf in London more than lives up to expectations.

8/10 - Mostly known for his musicals, it may be odd to see director Stanley Donen trying his hand at a Hitchcockian mystery thriller with a romantic comedy kick. Yet, he makes it work nonetheless. After a vacation, Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) returns home to find her house empty and her rich husband, who she wanted to divorce, dead. She also learns that he was not who he said was. Rather, he was a man with various identities and should be in possession of $250,000, but investigators cannot find the money, which had been stolen from the United States government in World War II. Now, Regina must find the money while contending with a variety of men who all have ties to the money and helped to steal it with Regina's husband or work for the government. Accompanied by a mystery man (Cary Grant), she must avoid the watchful eyes of Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau), Tex Panthollow (James Coburn), Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), and Leopold W. Gideon (Ned Glass).

Pairing together Hepburn and Grant, who nearly collaborated on Roman Holiday, the film is naturally charming. With a sharp wit to the film's comedy and matching the zip and speed of discussion found in many of Grant's earlier comedy films, Charade is an absolutely hysterical comedy film. This is certainly a good thing considering how the romantic angle falters, particularly when Hepburn and Grant finally wind up together. Though the flirtatious banter between the two is good and the comedic chemistry between the two leads is phenomenal and entirely infectious, the team simply lack romantic chemistry. When Charade finally puts them together, it feels more like a father kissing his daughter than two lovers coming together. The duo just does not work together in that fashion. Fortunately, the sharply written comedy does outweigh this due to the excellent delivery, timing, and charisma both possess. Each joke hits its mark and really shows the old school style of subtle in-line jabs and tongue-in-cheek remarks that dominate old comedy films.

Yet, as a Hitchcockian mystery, Charade's greatest strength is naturally its mystery. With characters who never are what they fully appear, we are left to trust and guess the identities of all the men surrounding poor Regina with Hepburn turning in a misleadingly innocent and wide-eyed performance for a woman who knows so much. Though she too is trying to guess where the money is and is often mislead by the men and who they claim to be, she always stays one step ahead. Out of everybody, she is the only one to read between the tea leaves and figure things out. While everybody constantly seems to get one over on her throughout, which is a great source of mystery and suspense, she is always in control and knows more. This is a testament to strong writing that created such a strong female character, but also Hepburn's acting. She comes off so innocent and feminine that everybody inherently trusts her. She plays with this and wraps everybody around her finger as she plays various sides.

A spell binding and constantly captivating on mystery romantic comedy, Charade never really shows its entire hand until the very end with an ending that may seem a bit obvious at times, but certainly not necessarily because it was hinted at any time. With great charm at its disposal between Grant and Hepburn, Charade is a naturally funny film with both just rolling comedic lines off their tongue with a great slickness. As mystery characters, Hepburn's aforementioned misleading innocence is a great foil to Grant's slick and carnivorous mystery man who constantly changes identities whenever Regina finds out he had lied. This mystery as to who she is dealing with compounds the mystery of where the money is and where it is hiding, either in plain sight or hidden somewhere else. Piecing together where Charles put it with small clues that go unnoticed until the end, the characters are often just chasing their own tail, but when things come together, Donen infuses the film with great tension and suspense as everybody races to get to the cash first. A fun romantic comedy mystery, Charade is a formidable mystery and comedy, though it does lack in the romance department. Fortunately, the former two are so good, you hardly even notice.

8/10 - A post-Watergate political thriller, Three Days of the Condor feels massively ahead of its time with its emphasis on war and securing oil in the Middle East. With that kick playing a central role in this film, Three Days of the Condor focuses on Joe Turner (Robert Redford). A man who reads a lot and works for the CIA as part of a team of people that read everything in order to figure out leaks and schemes that the CIA could be a part of, Joe Turner's life is turned upside down when, after returning from lunch, all of his co-workers are dead. Now, he must come back into the CIA, but has no idea who to trust. Taking Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) hostage and gaining her trust, Joe must figure out who he can trust and what his next move must be with both the CIA and the mystery killers behind the assault on his office always watching and lurking in the shadows.

A tense film that plays on the paranoia of the times with the world waking up to the reality that the government may not always be doing what is legal, Three Days of the Condor is a powerhouse film from director Sydney Pollack. Though not really known for his thrillers, instead making more slow-paced and contemplative dramas or westerns, Pollack shows his adeptness in any genre with this film. Lacing the film with tension as you can feel Joe's issue that anybody could be after him, the film's thrills and atmosphere are permeating. The film's greatest source of this paranoia is showing what Joe is up against. From showing the calculating G. Joubert (Max von Sydow) and his slick assassination abilities along with CIA handler Higgins' (Cliff Robertson) attempts to piece things together, the film unrolls slowly. For the most part, Joe is in the dark and must similarly figure out why his place of work was targeted and who is behind it and to what end. By showing this and the variety of things everybody knows, but including things that only one or two may know, the film's tension arises from how in the shadows everybody is about the situation.

As is typical, Redford turns in an excellent performance in the lead role as he plays this man that is trying to stay alive against all odds. As a charismatic everyman, Redford immediately gets the viewers on his side as we see him use his knowledge of literature to piece together the conspiracy and cover-up before him. Alongside him, Faye Dunaway stands as probably the worst part of the film. She is good, but her character of Kathy Hale is useless. Pollack includes a useless sex scene between her and Joe and that is arguably her largest contribution to the film. Mostly just a damsel in distress who suffers from Stockholm syndrome, Kathy Hale is entirely one-dimensional and exists solely to provide some romantic interest for Joe. Pollack seems uninterested in actually having her there, but was likely forced to include the character. Unfortunate, but certainly a typical experience. This diversion into their brief romance stands as the film's biggest fault, though the scenes of Joe kidnapping her and convincing her that he means no harm are tense and fraught with the anticipation that she will turn against him.

A densely plotted and intricately written film, Three Days of the Condor stands as a political thriller released after Watergate that plays on that paranoia. Akin to a 1950s science fiction film that played on fears regarding the Cold War, Three Days of the Condor unravels in a way that is familiar to many Americans. Initially unaware that the CIA could be capable of such nastiness, Joe slowly comes to believe that they are the ones after him with his life firmly in danger. He is tense, distraught, and afraid to trust anybody. By the end, he is capable of believing anything said to him by anybody that sounds partially reasonable and is constantly aware of the threats that await him for knowing what he knows. Though this film is largely politically-focused, its integration of conspiracy and the paranoia that arises from that is yet another strength as it really speaks to the paranoia of the time as the general public was awoken to the nefarious possibilities of their elected leaders.

Tense and fraught with paranoia, Three Days of the Condor is a well-directed film by Sydney Pollack with an equally great lead performance from Robert Redford. Though the film is not nearly as tight as it could be with a fluff role for Faye Dunaway, it is still a thriller that pulls back the veil and shows the nastiness of government secrets for the whole world to see. It is also incredibly predictive with regards to the secrets that Joe uncovers within the CIA during the course of the film. Slow-paced as with all Pollack films, it is a highly engaging, thoughtful, and entertaining thriller.

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