Brett's Utterly Non-Quintessential Movie Blog

January 2012

2012-02-01T09:49:00.001-08:00

Overall, January was a pretty slipshod movie month for me—not one of the 14 pictures I saw were truly extraordinary. I suppose that's to be expected, as this time of the year is generally considered to be the doldrums when it comes to film releases. Here's a rundown on what I saw.

FIRST-RUN

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—GHOST PROTOCOL (2011)—I endured the original in the new franchise, but none of the sequels. I am hopelessly confused by any and all spy and secret-agent stories (including the original Mission: Impossible TV series), so I try to avoid them. But great reviews attracted me to this adventure, which is jam-packed with suspense and impressive stunt work. The actual story evaporated from my mind almost as soon as I paid for the parking. (7)

CONTRABAND (2012)—Here's one of my classic "accidental movie" stories. I intended to see Joyful Noise (already gone from theaters as of this writing), but apparently I got the movie times wrong and the only thing playing within the hour was this Mark Wahlberg vehicle. So I sucked it up and paid for a ticket, figuring that my low expectations might yield in something entertaining. And sure enough, I wasn't terribly disappointed. Wahlberg plays a former smuggler who's forced to do "one last job" to get some crime-lord heat off of his ne'er-do-well brother-in-law. Kate Beckinsale is mediocre at best in the thankless role of Wahlberg's wife, but Giovanni Ribisi is extremely effective as a scary bad guy. (8)

ALBERT NOBBS (2011)—The somewhat less than ravishing Glenn Close is the ideal actress to portray a woman disguised as a male hotel butler—a role she originated onstage decades ago. Unfortunately, there's very little story here, and the film contains scene after excruciating scene in which nothing of interest actually happens. One of the dullest movies I've seen in recent memory—at the closing credits, Joan and I were practically petrified with boredom. (3)

THE GREY (2012)—While this is not destined to win any Oscars, at least it wasn't boring! This year's Liam Neeson action thriller finds him one of a handful of survivors in an Alaskan plane crash; together they must brave the relentless blizzard and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of ravenous killer wolves, against all odds. Basically, the film becomes And Then There Were None played out in the snow—there are some decent jump scenes and a reasonable amount of suspense. My only major problem was that you could never see fog on anybody's breath, which automatically demolishes my suspension of disbelief—it just reminds us that it's all so much phony snow. (8)

DVDs

AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970)—Remade a couple of years ago, this is the original mystery-thriller that unfolds on the French countryside, where a couple of young women on a biking holiday run afoul of a serial killer. The film starts out entertainingly, introducing a male character who may or may not be behind one of the girls' mysterious disappearance, but the second half grows increasingly less suspenseful. (5)

FINIAN'S RAINBOW (1968)—Since I'm going to be seeing the stage version of this 1940s musical next month (starring my pal Jay Steele), I thought I'd check out the 141-minute feature film version, which stars Fred Astaire and Petula Clark. I have been listening to the original cast album for several weeks and really enjoying it, and knowing the score beforehand helped my enjoyment of the movie. It goes on a bit too long, but it's a charming romp with a strong anti-racist message. (8)

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)—Unlike Finian's Rainbow, this is not a musical. Amazingly, I missed this freak hit from—my God, was it really 13 years ago? This is the picture that kicked off the current "found footage" horror movie fad, and I must admit I was curious to check it out with the success of the Paranormal Activity franchise. It's a creepy, sometimes harrowing chiller, obviously largely improvised. (8)

THE HOUSE ON GREENAPPLE ROAD (1970)—I was a TV-movie addict back in the Seventies, and I loved so many of the cheesy thrillers they'd show (mostly on ABC) that I collect all the ones I missed and occasionally watch one out of pure nostalgia's sake. Unfortunately, I am rarely blown away when I catch one of the ones that "got away," and this is no exception. It's a totally by-the-numbers detective story about a missing mom (Janet Leigh) that plays like a TV pilot (which it was—it's a Quinn Martin production). (5)

ZODIAC (2007)—Unnecessarily long mystery about the real-life investigation of a serial killer whose identity has never been definitively established. The film is told from the point of view of a newspaper staff reporting about the string of killings in San Francisco; the actual murders are pretty scary, but the journalism angle left me feeling restless. (6)

A PERFECT WORLD (1993)—I'm a Clint Eastwood fan, and I'm trying to watch all the ones I've missed over the years. Clint isn't really the star of this, but he did direct it and has a strong supporting role as a cop who's on the trail of escaped convict Kevin Costner and the little boy he's kidnapped. The relationship Costner and the boy, who's desperate for a strong male role model in his life, is the selling point of this otherwise rambling drama. (6)

KEANE (2004)—Here's an indie flick whose unusual tale and gritty characters have continued to linger in my memory. Damian Lewis—so perfect as the star of Showtime's Homeland—plays the title character, an increasingly unglued man searching for the daughter who was abducted from New York City's Port Authority bus terminal. The semi-homeless Lewis, who spends a lot of time obsessing and muttering to himself, meets a down-on-her-luck woman (Amy Ryan) who has a small daughter, and it's their uneasy alliance that becomes the center of this small but unforgettable film—nothing about it is remotely Hollywood, from Lewis's unpleasantly incoherent monologues to the somewhat downbeat denouement. But I thoroughly enjoyed this involving thriller from writer-director Lodge Kerrigan. (8)

IMITATION OF LIFE (1959)—Ordinarily I enjoy soapers, and this remake of the 1934 film has plenty to go around. Lana Turner is a rising stage star who's raising a daughter, juggling various lovers and forging a friendship with her black maid, who herself is raising a troubled daughter. This is the kind of movie where the kids grow up before our eyes (played by several actresses, including Sandra Dee), but Turner and her cronies never age a day. Sadly, the movie never really clicked for me, although there are a number of decent scenes. (6)

GOSFORD PARK (2001)—Robert Altman's variation of an Agatha Christie drawing-room murder mystery is full of the Altman signature bits—dozens of characters, all reciting their overlapping and extraneous dialogue. The murder doesn't even happen until about 90 minutes into the movie, which gives us a fair amount of time to meet the myriad cast of characters, some of whom are interesting (i.e., Maggie Smith) and many whom are not. Scripted by Julian Fellowes, this period drama is not unlike the setup of his later extraordinaryTV series Downton Abbey, but not nearly as elegant, involving or witty (although both feature Maggie Smith and her deliciously poisonous barbs). (7)

THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964)—This was a recommendation from my dear friend Merf, although it's been on my radar for many years. It's the story of two high-school girls, one of whom, Val (Tippy Walker), is a bit troubled and develops a crush on a pianist played by Peter Sellers. When the focus is on the girls' coming of age, the movie is delightful, but when Sellers is onscreen, it devolves into less-interesting slapstick. Despite the title, Sellers' Henry character isn't the star of the movie; although Sellers can be devastatingly funny as Inspector Clouseau, his manic presence here works against what is otherwise a delightful and charming film. Hypocritical Angela Lansbury and kind Tom Bosley are perfect as Val's largely absentee parents, and Merrie Spaeth is quite good as Val's partner in crime. Val and her eventual maturation reminded me a bit of Hayley Mills' character in the excellent Chalk Garden, released the same year as this. (Mills was offered a role in this movie, but eventually turned it down.) (8)

My Most Anticipated Films of 2012

2012-01-09T16:51:00.000-08:00

This is the third consecutive year I've written about upcoming movies that I'm excited to see in the ensuing months. Looking back at my last two such notes, it's a tad embarrassing to see the garbage (I'm pronouncing that "gar-bozh") I put on my lists—reviews were so bad on many that I didn't even consider seeing them. (From 2010's list: Edge of Darkness, Valentine's Day, The Losers and The Last Song; 2011's list included Sanctum, Battle: Los Angeles, and The Thing.) Even some of those I did see in 2011 were enormously disappointing—Sucker Punch, Cowboys and Aliens, Human Centipede 2, for example. In fact, only two of the movies from last year's list ended up being among my favorites of the year: The Descendants and Midnight in Paris. Indeed, I've learned that many of the movies that turned out to be my very favorites are ones that I didn't even know about when the year began. Thus, it would be the height of folly for me to expect anything different from the list below. Still, it's fun to look back in a year's time and shake my head sadly at the kind of drivel I was once actually looking forward to.

The following 12 months promise great drama, suspense, terror and comedy, but what it has the most of is sequels, prequels and reboots. (It's also got two movies about Snow White and two radically different takes on the life of Abraham Lincoln.) I'm not against sequels—indeed, I'm quite looking forward to the latest upcoming chapters of Piranha, Paranormal Activity, Taken and Ridley Scott's Alien prequel—but since I've never been a fanatic of superheroes, spies, fantasy and video-game adaptations, a huge chunk of 2012's fare may be automatically dispensed with. It's a long list that includes The Dark Knight Rises, Scary Movie 5, The Hobbit, The Amazing Spider-Man, Skyfall (James Bond), American Reunion (American Pie 4), Wrath of the Titans, Bourne Legacy, Men in Black III and Expendables II. Sequels with colons are more popular than ever these days, too...consider Underworld: Awakening, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Resident Evil: Retribution, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. That's a hell of a lot of colons, if you ask me.

While I realize that very few of the following are destined to become 2013 Oscar nominees, here are my 20 most anticipated films of the year ahead:

THE GREY—I'd never have guessed Liam Neeson would become my favorite action film star, but he's so entertaining in Taken and Unknown that I actually prefer watching him in a vengeful frenzy than in dramas like The Other Man and Chloe. This survival-in-the-snow thriller is due on Jan. 27. UPDATE: Saw the film on Jan. 30 and will be awarding it an (8) in my blog.

CHRONICLE—Here's the latest "found footage" horror movie, about some high-school kids who discover they have superpowers...but it begins to feed the darker sides of their souls. (Feb. 3)

THE WOMAN IN BLACK—Susan Hill's supernatural novel has been turned into a hit play as well as a TV-movie; now Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe is starring in a big-budget feature. (Feb. 3)

SAFE HOUSE—Denzel Washington a CIA crime drama. The Denz is back! This time, he's got Ryan Reynolds as a co-star; seems like this will be a variation of The Defiant Ones. (Feb. 10)

THE VOW—I make no apologies for wanting to see this corny chick flick about a woman with amnesia. I enjoy that sort of drivel! With Rachel McAdams (who starred in The Notebook, an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel) and Channing Tatum (who starred in Dear John, an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel), it's not difficult to see that the target audience is lovers of romantic dramas. Co-starring Sam Neill. (Feb. 10)

THE HUNGER GAMES—Now that the Harry Potter series is over and the Twilight installments come to a close this year, Suzanne Collins is poised to become the next female author with an immensely popular series of novels that has spawned a major film franchise. This is undisputedly the most anticipated movie of 2012. (March 23)

THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY—I like a good kidnapping and revenge story (i.e., Taken), and this Henry Cavill / Bruce Willis movie seems like it might be a good take on the genre. (April 6)

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS—This horror movie was on my list last year, but its release date was pushed back. I still want to see it, mostly because Joss Whedon wrote and produced; it has the potential to be more than the usual haunted-house movie. (April 13)

MOVIE 43—The portmanteau—an omnibus film comprising several different stories—used to be much more prevalent in days of yore, but pictures like Love Actually have evidently repopularized the idea (even Woody Allen's next movie is a portmanteau). One hopes that Movie 43, which features an all-star cast that includes Hugh Jackman, Elizabeth Banks, Emma Stone, Kate Winslet, Gerard Butler, Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts and Richard Gere, will be better than the recent Garry Marshall crapfests (Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve) that have sullying movie screens of late. (April 13)

THE LUCKY ONE—Unlike The Vow, which is merely trying to appear like a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, this one really is. From the looks of the trailer, this looks every bit as formulaic and sentimental as all the others, but I can dig it. (April 20)

SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD—Steve Carell and Keira Knightley in an end-of-the-world comedy with a rather unweildy title. He's hilarious, she's beautiful...what could possibly go wrong? (April 20)

THE AVENGERS—I am not a big fan of superheroes or TV shows restyled for the big screen, but when Joss Whedon is writing and directing, all you have to do is hand me a pen, and I'm signed up for the ride. (May 4)

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL—Another title I'll be wrestling to remember. This one features a British dream cast, including Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton (from TV's The Norman Conquests). If the movie is half as good as its trailer, I'll be delighted! (May 4)

PROMETHEUS—Ridley Scott's return to outer space (supposedly a prequel to Alien) has all the earmarks of being a sci-fi summer blockbuster...throw in Charlize Theron, and I'll be buying advance tickets! (June 8)

BRAVE—This year's Pixar/Disney animated offering appeals to me far more than 2011's Cars 2 (which grossed half as much as 2010's Toy Story 3). If anybody can make me care about a kingdom-based, fairy-tale fantasy adventure, it's Pixar and Disney. (June 22)

PREMIUM RUSH—Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a bicycle messenger with a very important delivery that evidently gets him in very hot water in this fast-paced action thriller. It has a great trailer and features beautiful Jamie Chung. (Aug. 24)

TAKEN 2—Liam Neeson is back as Bryan Mills in this sequel to the kidnapping thriller. Supposedly he's the hostage this time out. (Oct. 5)

NERO FIDDLED—Filming in Spain this time, here's Woody Allen's follow-up to his biggest all-time hit, Midnight in Paris. And it's his first "omnibus" film since the 40-year-old Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (I'm not counting New York Stories). He's pulled together a typically impressive cast: Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Greta Gerwig, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Roberto Benigni...and, acting in one of his own films since 2006's Scoop, the director himself. (Oct. 19)

LES MISERABLES—Victor Hugo's classic novel was turned into a phenomenally successful stage musical by composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricists Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel; it remains the only musical I've seen three times on Broadway. When one of my other all-time favorite musicals, Sweeney Todd, was brought the the screen in 2007, the results were excellent; I'm hoping they do a similarly smooth job this time out as well. (Dec. 7)

DJANGO UNCHAINED—Two words: Quentin Tarantino. His newest directorial effort automatically qualifies this to be one of the year's most eagerly awaited movies; the fact that it's a revenge-themed spaghetti Western-type flm only adds fuel to the fire. (Dec. 25)

__________________________________________________________________________

ALSO ON MY RADAR....Here are a bunch others I've got my eye on. I'm not exactly breathless with anticipation on any of the following, but each interests me...for one reason or another.

THE DIVIDE—Huddled together in a basement, the survivors of a nuclear blast start to get on each other's nerves...This has all the makings of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, but whether that's good or bad remains to be seen. (Jan. 13)

JOYFUL NOISE—This year's Queen Latifah comedy pairs her with Dolly Parton in a movie about a singing competition, but the main draw for me is off-the-charts beautiful Keke Palmer, a young black actress who melts my heart with her incredibly sexy smile. (Jan. 13)

HAYWIRE—Director Steven Soderbergh's follow-up to Contagion is another thriller, this time about a special-ops soldier who's double-crossed. (Jan. 20)

THE INKEEPERS—There's a haunted hotel, see, and...well, that's all I know. But the trailer looks good. Don't they all? (Feb. 3)

GONE—Amanda Seyfried as a former kidnap victim who plots to confront her abductor. Should have plenty of violence and terror! (Feb. 24)

THE LORAX—Another big-screen Dr. Seuss adaptation, coming on the heels of 2008's Horton Hears a Who! Like its predecessor, the TV version will probably prove to be the superior commodity, but the trailer does look appealing. (March 2)

BEING FLYNN—Robert DeNiro in a comedy-drama "based on a true story." (March 2)

THE THREE STOOGES—I am not a fan of the Stooges, and this will probably wind up being terrible...but for some reason, I like the idea of updating them. Also, I will follow Sofía Vergara to the ends of the Earth. Larry David has a cameo as well. This one is a real longshot, but hope springs eternal. (April 13)

SAFE—Action thriller about an agent (Jason Statham) who must rescue a 12-year-old Chinese girl from a dangerous New York gang. (April 27)

DARK SHADOWS—I run very hot and very cold on the Tim Burton collaborations with Johnny Depp; I loved Sweeney Todd and Corpse Bride, but others (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland) leave me feeling simply bewildered. I'm crossing my fingers that this will be one of the home runs. If not...Burton always has a remake of his own Frankenweenie coming out in October. One of them is bound to be a winner. (May 11)

MOONRISE KINGDOM—I'm not a Wes Anderson fan, but I rarely miss a Bill Murray film, and this one also has Bruce Willis. (May 16)

JACK THE GIANT KILLER—Presumably this will be an improvement on the cheesy 1962 fantasy about a giant and the guy charged with killing him. (June 15)

TED—Writer-director Seth MacFarlane (of Family Guy fame) has Mark Wahlberg as a guy whose teddy bear comes to life; Mila Kunis provides the eye candy. (July 13)

THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN—Disney comedy/fantasy about a couple who wish for a child...and magically get one. (Aug. 15)

PARANORMAN—An animated movie about a boy who battles supernatural elements could have a Corpse Bride appeal. (Aug. 17)

SINISTER—A supernatural thriller starring Ethan Hawke as a writer of true-crime novels. (Aug. 24)

7500—Supernatural forces threaten passengers in a jumbo jetliner. With delectable lovelies Amy Smart, Jamie Chung, Leslie Bibb and Nicky Whelan—I'd watch any one of them in virtually anything. (Aug. 31)

THE BIG WEDDING—Robert DeNiro and Diane Keaton play a divorced couple who pretend to be married for appearances at a wedding. With Robin Williams, Katherine Heigl, Susan Sarandon, Amanda Seyfried and Marc Blucas. (Oct. 19)

MY MOTHER'S CURSE—Seth Rogan is the inventor, and Barbra Streisand plays his mother in this road-trip comedy. (Nov. 2)

November/December 2011

2012-01-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

It's the wee hours of 2012 as I type my final movie blog of the prior year. I missed November, owing to various work, vacation and television obligations (including a seven-night cruise to Mexico and watching the entirety of Downton Abbey's second season). So I'm including both November and December in this installment.

NOVEMBER MOVIES

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011)—I was suckered into seeing this by Miami Herald critic Rene Rodriguez, who praised the film's supposedly masterful ending. I had a different take, which was, "What ending?" The movie—about a young woman who escapes from a commune where women are brainwashed into being sexual slaves—ends abruptly with no real resolution. And while I can appreciate that this is the point, I wanted something a little more than "Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!" (7)

BUTTER (2012)—This is probably the first movie I've blogged about that was still unreleased by the time I got around to writing about it. I was invited to an advance screening of this one in Santa Monica in November, way before its official March 2012 debut. Full disclosure: Not only did I laugh out loud numerous times during this comedy, but a couple of the scenes were genuinely moving as well. That's why I'd like to be able to rate this wonderfully cast and superbly acted comedy a full-on "10." Unfortunately, too many illogical plot points prevented me from feeling fully satisfied by what should have been a home run in the spirit of Alexander Payne's Election, after which it clearly patterns itself. A savvy mix of outrageous, profane humor and tearful sentimentality, director Jim Field Smith's film is certainly the best movie ever made about the art of butter carving. In it, Ty Burrell (of TV's hit series Modern Family) is an Iowa-based champion sculptor who uses the titular dairy product; when political forces encourage him to bow out and give others a chance to win the blue ribbon, his power-obsessed wife (Jennifer Garner) blows a gasket and enters the competition herself to keep the family name on the trophy table. Enter Destiny (Yara Shahidi), a 10-year-old black foster child who discovers she's pretty darn good at butter carving herself, and takes on Garner. Here's where those pesky plot flaws start to rear their ugly heads. How does Garner learn this art practically overnight? Why is Burrell elbowed out of the running at all, when he clearly has no other serious competition? Worse yet: after Garner's character accuses Destiny of getting help from Hugh Jackman, why does anybody pay her any attention, when Destiny's solo handiwork was observed by an audience? I realize this is a comedy, but you've gotta have some logic or the house of cards just falls apart. Still, if you can somehow overlook some of the irritating and quite frankly lazy plot conceits, what's left is enjoyable enough, especially thanks to Olivia Wilde's over-the-top portrayal of a lunatic stripper, and newcomer Shahidi is a winning Destiny. Additionally, there are also humorous turns by familiar supporting players from comedy TV shows (Phyllis Smith of The Office, Kristen Schaal of Flight of the Conchords). Thumbs up for some hilarious bloopers at the closing credits mark. (7)

LIKE CRAZY (2011)—An apprentice carpenter (Anton Yelchin) falls in love with a pretty British student (Felicity Jones) studying in the States. When their intense love affair (i.e., great sex) prompts her to overstay her visa, complications obviously ensue. The actors give it their college best (ha-ha), but the movie feels largely improvised, which I gather it was. It's hard to sympathize with these dumb-dumbs, who should have known the government wouldn't take kindly to her breaking the rules. The moral of the movie seems to be that love, no matter how strong it is at the beginning, is doomed to fade. Whoop-de-do. (7)

TOWER HEIST (2011)—A comedy caper starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy as a couple of guys who try to swindle a fortune from a Bernie Madoff-like financier played by Alan Alda. Not bad, but should have been a lot funnier (and a little more plausible). Murphy's role fizzles way before the conclusion, but Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) does well in a smaller role. (7)

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, PART 1 (2011)—Penultimate installment in the vampire series created by Stephenie Meyer may be slightly better than its two predecessors, but it's still infinitely worse than the original film. Ally Sheedy lookalike Kristen Stewart finally marries vampire Robert Pattinson, and they honeymoon on a beautiful island that's very pretty to look at. Then she gets pregnant, and her unborn hybrid baby nearly kills her and (for reasons I couldn't completely understand) totally pisses off the wolf-men, who launch their own attack. I wasn't exactly bored, but there was rarely a time when I didn't wish I was watching the original Twilight. There's one truly magical moment when wolf-boy Jacob (Taylor Lautner) makes a mysterious connection with the baby Renesme, which will hopefully be elaborated upon in the series' final chapter, due next Christmas. (6)

ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (2011)—Some generations ago, Santa delivered toys on Christmas the traditional way, with the reindeers and the chimneys. But with the world population now in the billions, how can that possibly work? This animated entertainment purports to resolve the conundrum (an army of elves toil in front of computers and there's a big super-spaceship), but the film's explanation was, at least for me, more perplexing than the original question. But the wonky logic won't matter to kids—at least the kids I saw it with—and there's enough charm and action here to keep everybody interested. (7)

A DANGEROUS METHOD (2011)—A tremendously flat and dull film about Freud, Jung and a troubled female patient they first treat, then mentor. As the patient, Keira Knightley is a revelation—in the early part of the film, this striking beauty contorts her features in ways that are alarming and horrifying, and as we see her take control of her demons, she gives one of the year's best performances—too bad it's in one of the year's most boring films. (4)

JOSEPHINE AND MEN (1955)—The only archival movie I saw in November stars Glynis Johns as a woman who only seems to be attracted to men who need her. The moment they don't need her desperately, she completely loses interest. That doesn't sound like much of a plot, and it isn't, but the British-made Josephine sparkles with wit, good acting and deft direction. Co-starring Peter Finch, and directed by the legendary Roy Boulting. (8)

DECEMBER MOVIES

HUGO (2011)—Martin Scorsese directs a film for children about the importance of…film preservation? I found it to be a rather odd theme, but I guess that's what people like Scorsese care about. Based on the sort-of graphic novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, this amazingly photographed film introduces us to the title character, an orphan who lives behind the walls of a Paris train station and operates all of the building's clocks. As we learn about his backstory, he locks horns with a shopkeeper who turns out to be pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès. Their relationship is the cornerstone of a movie that should be more interesting to adults than children. I saw the film in 2D, but am hoping to catch it again in 3D—by all accounts, it's a richer and more rewarding experience. (8)

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011) I've never enjoyed spy movies—I never know what's going on or who's double-crossing whom—but it is rare that I pass up an opportunity to see a VIP screening and hobnob with movie-industry folks. (Thanks to my friend Irene for constantly inviting me to these cool events!) Plus, it stars Gary Oldman, one of the best actors ever born. Unfortunately, this is spy a thriller with a plot so convoluted that I was practically catatonic with boredom trying to follow it. Forgive me, all you intellectuals, but in my private Hell, this is the only movie that's playing, forever. (1)

THE DESCENDANTS (2011) I don't make any secret about the fact that Alexander Payne is my favorite living director—I adore (and own) all of his previous efforts, from Citizen Ruth to Sideways, which are all loaded with drama, comedy, pathos and satire. The Descendants is a worthy addition to the Payne canon, even if it's not quite up to the level of quality of its predecessors. It's still a fascinating story, with a terrific lead performance by George Clooney as a Hawaiian attorney whose wife lies comatose in a hospital bed following a speedboat injury. Previously a neglectful husband and father, he pulls his family together while dealing with a startling revelation about his wife that comes to light after her accident. This is a movie that had me tearing up one second and laughing literally a moment later. This is easily one of the year's best films. Only debit: the movie never once lets you forget that it takes place in Hawaii, and beats us over the head with nonstop ukelele music. (9)

THE ARTIST (2011)—A dazzling and wordless triumph. In the late 1920s, silent films are about to become a thing of the past. But before talkies take over, George Valentin is everybody's favorite leading man. Aspiring actress Peppy Miller literally bumps into him, and her career starts to take off. The Artist tells both of their stories (as well as Valentin's adorable Jack Russell terrier), which seems far more compelling than what any of their respective movies are about. It's a wonderful surprise, with plenty of good old fashioned drama and romance; writer-director Michel Hazanavicius has taken something extremely old and turned it into the freshest film of the year. Like Hugo before it, it's a movie about movies, but this one has more heart and soul—and achieves it without color or spoken dialogue. Leading actress Bérénice Bejo is ravishing. The Artist is not to be missed. (10)

YOUNG ADULT (2011)—Juno writer Diablo Cody (retiming with director Jason Reitman) turns in another screenplay full of her trademark snark, but this one works only sporadically. Charlize Theron is perfect in the role of an attractive and single (but morally bankrupt) author of young-adult novels who abruptly decides to marry her high-school boyfriend, even though he's a happily married father of a baby girl. Arriving at her small hometown, she connects with an ex-classmate (comedian Patton Oswalt) she doesn't even remember. Will Theron succeed in stealing her ex-sweetie, or will her embarrassing and misguided plot backfire in her face? There are a few chuckles as the film shambles toward its inevitable conclusion, but constant movie companion Joan said it best: all the good parts were in the trailer. (7)

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (2011)—An extremely long and incredibly dull examination of a 10-year-old boy (Thomas Horn), devastated by the loss of his dad (Tom Hanks) on 9/11, and his odyssey to figure out the meaning of a strange key Hanks left behind. For me, the movie's main problem is that the boy—a social misfit who probably suffers from Aspergers Syndrome—isn't a fraction as likable as he should be in order for the audience to care about him; he tends to shout at people a lot and keeps rattling an annoying tambourine. The film comes to life briefly when an elderly mute neighbor (Max Von Sydow) enters the picture, and for a time, we enjoy the two of them attempt to solve the mystery of the key. But as soon as Sydow checks out, so too do we. The film's editors chopped out a subplot involving James Gandolfini, whose entire part ended up on the cutting room floor. What a pity that another 30-45 minutes of this bloated film didn't go with him. The dishonest filmmakers first depict the boy's mother (Sandra Bullock) as napping and neglectful, but unconvincingly ask us to believe she's a saint by the end of the picture. (6)

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (2011)—My low expectations for this sentimental family film paid off in droves. Based on the true story of a widowed father of two children who buys a dilapidated zoo with plans to refurbish it, the movie is overly simplistic and one-dimensional, but director Cameron Crowe has his heart in the right place, and gives the film enough sparkle, humanity and animal jokes to balance the massive levels of corn. (The two leads, Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, are two of our most attractive movie stars.) To my astonishment, I spilled more tears in this movie than practically any other in my life. We Bought Another Zoo, anybody? (9)

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)—I am one of the few who haven't read the Stieg Larsson or seen the original Swedish film adaptation, which turns out to be a huge plus for viewers of this remake. Director David Fincher (Seven) is at the top of his game, having assembled a great cast led by the titular Rooney Mara as Lisbeth, the punkish, bisexual misfit who teams with Daniel Craig to solve a mystery for Christopher Plummer's character. It's pure story from start to finish, absorbing, violent, surprising and satisfying in numerous ways. Astonishingly, at 158 minutes, the movie could stand to be even longer, as one of its few debits is that the last 20 minutes seems a little short-handed and rushed. I would buy a longer director's cut of this marvelous piece of entertainment. Mara turns in what is probably the year's best performance by an actress—she makes her character detached, dangerous, pitiable, fiercely intelligent and ultimately sympathetic. Unfortunately, the movie is apparently tanking at the box office. (10)

WAR HORSE (2011)—Steven Spielberg's latest "serious" effort starts off as an old-fashioned sentimental story of a boy and his horse; it becomes alternately gripping, violent and suspenseful—but also unforgivably bloated. The horse is conscripted to help soldiers on the front lines of WWI, and the animal flip-flops on both sides of the battleground during various hours of the film to make the following points: 1. The horse is wonderful and heroic; 2. Regardless of which side you're fighting on, you're still a human being; 3. War sucks for everybody. At 2 hours and 40 minutes, the movie needs at least 40 minutes lopped out of it. There was enough here to keep me entertained, but its excruciating length is a major liability—when the horse isn't at the center of the story, the movie suffers. (7)

PUSS IN BOOTS (2011)—Entertaining and worthy Shrek spinoff focuses on the swashbuckling kitty, who joins forces with Humpty Dumpty and a female feline voiced by Salma Hayek. Lots of motion, humor and Spanish music, with a cool redemption subplot; it's mostly for kids, but it'll keep the adults entertained. I love how the poster plays with a popular cinematic cliché of a protagonist calmly walking away from an explosion! (8)

JANE EYRE (2011)—I have neither read Charlotte Bronte's classic novel nor seen any of the countless film or TV adaptations; this newest version is my first encounter with Jane. To my surprise, it seems more Dickensian than Austenian as a story (innocent youngster endures various hardships and runs afoul of evil, tortuous and cantankerous souls as he/she barrels toward adulthood). In the title role, Mia Wasikowska is picture-perfect as the not-especially-attractive Jane, yet somehow exuding a spiritual beauty and winning our hearts with her morality and ability to love. It's got me curious to check out other film and TV versions. Interestingly, I had intended my final film of 2011 to be Shame, starring Michael Fassbender (so coldly aloof as Carl Jung in this year's A Dangerous Method), but it was so relentlessly dull that I didn't make it past the first 45 minutes. Yet here is Fassbender again, turning in a fine performance as Jane's love interest, Rochester. (8)

MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2011

The Artist
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Descendants
Crazy Stupid Love
Moneyball
Real Steel
Midnight in Paris
Thor
Limitless
Win Win
Rio
Life, Above All
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
One Day
Colombiana
Contagion
Bridesmaids

2011 MOVIES I'M SORRY I MISSED

The Muppets
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
A Separation
My Week With Marilyn
Hanna
The Debt
The Tree of Life
The Devil's Double
Straw Dogs
The Way

2011 MOVIES I'M SORRY I SAW

Sucker Punch (half)
Take Shelter
Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence

FAVORITE PAST MOVIES I SAW 2011

I don't really discuss TV series in this blog, but for posterity's sake, I should mention that this was the year I began burning through several different series, all of them still going strong as of this date: Dexter, Breaking Bad and Homeland, in that order. And yet I still found time to watch a fair amount of old movies, both on DVD and in the theater. Here were my favorites:

Barney's Version (2010)
Blind Corner (1963)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Cash on Demand (1961)
Country Strong (2010)
Cry Terror (1958)
The Fighter (2010)
Grand Hotel (1932)
The Great Escape (1963)
The Greengage Summer (1961)
The Holiday (2006)
Holiday Inn (1942)
Hud (1963)
Kind Lady (1951)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
The Mark (1961)
Mister Roberts (1955)
A Night at the Opera (1933)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Rabbit Hole (2010)
Shane (1953)
The Silent Partner (1978)
The Snorkel (1958)
Sophie's Choice (1982)
The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
Super (2010)
Susan Slade (1961)
The Well (1951)

October 2011

2011-11-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

With the new TV season in full swing, most of my movie viewing has been relegated to weekends in the theater, and my attention to archival films has been regrettably lacking. Overall it was a rather disappointing crop this month, but there were three delightful highlights.

FIRST-RUN

THE IDES OF MARCH (2011)—A political thriller involving Governor George Clooney's presidential campaign, which is being run by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ryan Gosling, the latter of which takes a lunch meeting with a rival campaign manager (Paul Giamatti) and starts to see his career unravel as a result; there's a subplot about a scandal involving Clooney and a pretty young girl (Evan Rachel Wood) he has slept with. The movie moves along nicely, with a few cool twists, but there are a few perplexingly illogical plot points that mar the film's overall flavor (spoilers ahead!). I found it absurd that Wood would commit suicide in the wake of an abortion to avoid dragging her religious family through a scandal—wouldn't that itself create a scandal?—and it doesn't make any sense that a simple lunch meeting would qualify Gosling for dismissal from the campaign. An interesting but flawed movie with one of those infuriatingly ambiguous endings. (7)

DIRTY GIRL (2011)—Juno Temple stars as a pretty but obnoxious high-school slut who's paired up with an introverted homosexual classmate (Jeremy Dozier)...and this odd-couple pairing results in an unlikely friendship as they both rebel against their respective unsavory family members. The leads to a good job, but too many dumb/silly conceits subtract from the narrative, especially a scene where tubby Dozier mesmerizes in a striptease competition. Dwight Yoakam appears as Dozier's father as a despicable character indistinguishable from the one he played in Sling Blade, and there's no sense of why Mary Steenburgen would ever have been attracted to this earthworm. This should have been a nice redemption story involving Temple, but the movie unfortunately settles for being less than it should have been. (6)

MARGIN CALL (2011)—A decent fictionalized account of the sort of greed-fueled behavior on Wall Street that led to this country's current financial crisis, although the filmmakers unfortunately don't attempt to dumb down the details so that birdbrains like me can understand the machinations of how worthless stocks get sold in the first place. (In one of the film's more memorable scenes, the trading firm's CEO (Jeremy Irons) implores the super-smart junior employee (Star Trek's Zachary Quinto) to recount what has happened in terms that even a dog could understand, yet I still didn't quite understand the explanation. Even so, the performances by Quinto and the always-dependable Kevin Spacey are first-rate. (7)

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011)—I am a major fan of the first two "found footage" horror films in this series; the third is basically the same gimmick, the only twist being that it's a prequel to the first two and filmed using somewhat more archaic recording equipment. But the gimmick of putting one of the cameras on an oscillating fan is brilliant. I felt incredibly cheated that 90 percent of the footage in the movie's trailer inexplicably failed to make it onscreen, and I lost patience with the plot about 10 minutes before the end. Still entertaining and creepy, but not as good as its predecessors. (8)

MONEYBALL (2011)—A consistently absorbing drama about real-life baseball GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and how he hooks up with a young whiz-kid to build a winning Oakland A's team based on statistical data, to the consternation of the team's professional scouts. This is a terrific sports movie for people who aren't necessarily sports fans—it's entertaining, suspenseful and even moving. (9)

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2: FULL SEQUENCE (2011)—Writer/director Tom Six's original horror flick had some nice dark humor and an unthinkably perverse plot; in this "meta sequel," Part 1 becomes the "film within" Part 2, and eliminates any semblance of rational plot—it just strives to be brutal and ugly, and push the tastelessness envelope. It's got a wonderfully grotesque villain named Martin (Laurence R. Harvey) and is filmed in stark, striking black-and-white...but despite all of the torture and killing, there's none of the humor, suspense and drama that the first Centipede had. Six delights in throwing stuff at us that's patently implausible: for example, how does Martin, who is evidently mute, successfully ensnare the actress from Part 1 to fly from the U.S. to England for an audition (supposedly for a Quentin Tarantino film)? And stapling people together instead of using surgery is just preposterous. (5)

TAKE SHELTER (2011)—Suffering through this interminable movie makes me want to ignore good critical reviews for the rest of eternity; how did so many of them get hoodwinked by such a nothing of a film? At its center is a husband and father played by Michael Shannon, a simple guy who starts to suffer symptoms of schizophrenia. After he begins to hallucinate and have apocalyptic dreams involving storms, he gets a loan from the bank to rebuild his storm shelter, and begins behaving more and more erratically. Over and over, the viewer is shown bizarre things that turn out to be only another one of his troubling dreams. By the time we get to the movie's climactic "punch line," I no longer cared about the protagonist or anybody else in the movie. (5)

REAL STEEL (2011)—Hilariously, while I didn't care much for the previous film (which somehow racked up many excellent reviews), I absolutely loved this critically maligned popcorn movie, which is 100 percent pure (albeit predictable) entertainment, a cross between Rocky and Robocop. In the not-too-distant future, people attend fights between large robots of the rock 'em, sock 'em variety; the special effects on display here are positively outstanding. I felt like a kid watching a monster movie. Recommended for little boys of all ages. (10)

50/50 (2011)—Occasionally entertaining comedy-drama about an ordinary twentysomething (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who gets cancer, and the best friend (Seth Rogen) who provides a measure of comic relief and genuine support as he navigates his way toward recovery. There are some slow patches, to be sure—this film needs some real tightening up—but it's not a bad effort. I just wish the filmmakers had made me care more about their protagonist; Rogen pretty much carries the film on his shoulders. (7)

FROM THE ARCHIVES

KIND LADY (1951)—This is actually a remake of a 1935 Basil Rathbone thriller about a con man who enters the life of a kind, wealthy elderly woman and ends up holding her hostage in her own home while he and his criminal buddies proceed to rob her blind. Maurice Evans (who would go on to play Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes almost 20 years hence) is outstanding as the charming but sinister artist who has big plans for poor, dear Ethel Barrymore. (9)

THE GREENGAGE SUMMER (1961)—Stylish and imaginative drama of a group of British children who arrive in France on a holiday with the mother, who suddenly falls ill and must recover at a nearby hospital while the kids stay at a local hotel. Taken under their wing by the hotel's sole guest (fellow Britisher Kenneth More, who's having a fling with the hotel's proprietor), the children start to view their savior as kind of a father figure...except that he starts to develop a sexual attraction to the eldest girl (Susannah York), who is about to turn 17 and is blossoming into a lovely young woman. If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it gets worse—turns out More may also be hiding from the cops. This film, based on a novel by Rumer Godden, was retitled Loss of Innocence for U.S. viewers and is a true gem, a forgotten classic that truly deserves to find a new audience. (10)

September 2011

2011-10-03T00:22:00.000-07:00

As the summer rocketed to a close, so did my ability to watch nearly a movie a day, as my work obligations and the new TV season pulled me away from film. Of the eight movies viewed last month, only three were new. Here's what went down.

APOLLO 18 (2011)—The "found footage" horror genre that began with The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity continues with this lunar edition, which purports to tell of a secret U.S. moon landing some 40 years ago—as well as a secret USSR mission to boot. Both, as it turns out, ended extremely badly, thanks to some wicket creatures that are somehow living on our beloved satellite. While there are a few scares to be had here, most of the time you find yourself wondering (a) how and why they were filming all of this stuff (and from so many different angles), and (b) how any of the footage could have possibly been discovered. (7)

CONTAGION (2011)—Gwyneth Paltrow somehow contracts a mysterious virus that ends up killing millions of people all over the world. Her husband (Matt Damon) struggles to keep their daughter safe from both the disease and the marauding hordes who are stalking the streets and forcing the country into marshall law. The film adopts the interesting gimmick of introducing the action at Day #2 of the crisis, then letting the story unfold to its conclusion before flashing back to Day #1, where we find out how the virus got created in the first place. It's a compelling and nerve-wracking film with some nicely drawn characters, but without a truly touching and captivating human story. For me, the most moving sequence involves the fate of a scientist played by Kate Winslet. (8)

DRIVE (2011)—A man with no name, few words and excellent fighting skills helps a pretty woman who is threatened by a scary bad guy. Paging Clint Eastwood! Ryan Gosling is the modern-day antihero—a mechanic instead of a cowboy—who excels at fast getaways and kicking villains to death in elevators. Albert Brooks is a Jewish gangster who likes to slice people open with a switchblade. The two men cross paths in a dangerous ways. The pretty girl is played by talented British actress Carey Mulligan, who is totally wasted here playing a character who is sketchily written, to say the least. The film, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, contains enough action to keep men everywhere intrigued, but by the end you're still hungry for a movie. (8)

PICNIC (1955)—A watchable but at times embarrassingly dated adaptation of William Inge's hit play, featuring William Holden as a down-on-his-luck drifter who takes his shirt off a lot, arousing the carnal desires of a variety of women in a small town (notably Kim Novak). Holden is entirely too old to play the handsome young drifter, but apparently female audiences of the mid-1950s didn't agree. Susan Strasberg, as Kim's kid sister, has a very nice bit as an underage semi-tomboy. (7)

WOLF CREEK (2005)—I heard this Aussie horror flick described as "torture porn," and that's as apt a description as any. Three young attractive people on a road trip through the Australian countryside experience car trouble and get help from an affable trucker…who turns out to be a very, very bad man. The filmmakers turn the typical horror cliches on their heads, defying expectations and taking the characters' destinies in directions you haven't seen a million times before. This results in a scary but ultimately brutally sad denouement. Supposedly "based on actual events," but that's a bit of a stretch. (6)

A FOREIGN AFFAIR (1948)—If I accomplished nothing else this month, it was to scratch yet another Billy Wilder movie off my list. This post-WWII comedy takes us to war-torn Berlin, where an Army captain finds himself torn between an attractive visiting Congresswoman (Jean Arthur) and a ex-Nazi nightclub singer (Marlene Dietrich). There's a generous helping of humor, but it's not top-tier Wilder; still, Wilder at his most mediocre is better than most directors at their very best. (8)

RASCAL (1969)—I was in the mood to watch a wholesome Disney flick, the likes of which the Mouse churned out for decades. This one features Bill Mumy (the kid from Lost in Space) as a boy who adopts a pet raccoon whose mischievous nature gets both of them in predicament after predicament. Harmless family fun based on Sterling North's autobiographical book. (7)

A CRY FROM THE STREETS (1958)—Well-made, terrifically acted British drama (in beautiful B&W) about a female social worker whose job finding homes for orphans—and reuniting kids with their runaway parents—impacts her new romance with a young suitor in many ways. Featuring a bunch of very talented child actors between 5 and 8 years old. Only debit: a totally out-of-place musical sequence halfway through the film. (8)

CRY TERROR (1958)—Nifty thriller starring James Mason and Inger Stevens as a couple who, along with their child, are kidnapped by villains Rod Steiger (menacing as ever), Jack Klugman, Angie Dickinson and Neville Brand in an elaborate terrorism plot. Quite suspenseful for its time. (8)

August 2011

2011-09-01T19:18:00.000-07:00

My basic plan for this month's archival series was to focus on "The Movies I Most Want to See." While I wasn't entirely successful in sticking to that mandate, I was able to run a red line through the names of a lot of movies I've been pining to see for quite a while. Meanwhile, most of the first-run films I saw were uniformly excellent. A very good movie month, with some excellent surprises and more winners than losers.

NEW MOVIES

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011)—Although it has been widely described as a prequel to the Charlton Heston classic, that's not technically true—particularly if you regard the 1968 film in conjunction with the rest of the original series. Regardless, this "origin story" is a gripping, imaginative cocktail of storylines from various movies, from Charly (intelligence drug) to Escape from Alcatraz (prison break) and many others—but interestingly, nothing that even vaguely reminded me of the original Planet of the Apes! Most of the CGI ape effects are astonishing and completely believable, but not quite all. As with Avatar, a few of the animated warm bodies seem to lack weight. But that's a minor quibble—this was a suspenseful and involving summer blockbuster, whetting our appetite for the inevitable sequels. (9)

THE HELP (2011)—Kathryn Stockett's 2010 novel is a rich, fabulously imagined tapestry about racial bigotry and the human condition; I wish the film version could have made the same emotional impact. It doesn't, but there are fine performances from Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Bryce Dallas Howard. Although she's a fine performer, Emma Stone turns out to be one of the weaker links for me as the main character, Skeeter, who sets out to pen a book about racism in early '60s Mississippi. Unfortunately, the screenplay doesn't come close to equalling the source material; what's left is a moderately engaging story that ultimately left me pining for the feeling the book provided. (7)

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE (2011)—The surprise of the year—maybe the decade. Steve Carell, so hilarious in TV's The Office, has never come close to equalling that performance on the big screen (I am not a fan of The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Little Miss Sunshine, his most critically acclaimed films). Crazy, Stupid, Love, despite having a crazily stupid title, is a comedy worthy of his talents; he plays a guy separating from his wife of many years (Julianne Moore), and struggling to re-enter the dating scene with the help of a younger male friend, played by Ryan Gosling. The supporting cast, which includes Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Bobo, are all marvelous, and Analeigh Tipton (playing a 17-year-old, but actually the same age as Emma Stone), triumphs in the role of a babysitter inexplicably smitten with Carell. (9)

ONE DAY (2011)—I had extremely low expectations for this, as it got a depressingly low 27% "fresh" on the Tomatometer. But Irene and I were both mesmerized by this story of Emma (Anne Hathaway), a British student whose relationship with a male friend, Dexter (Jim Sturgess) is traced over a 20-year period—each year, in fact, on the same date. That conceit, perhaps inspired by Same Time, Next Year, gives us great insight into the couple's dynamic, and the actors a wonderful chance to literally grow into their roles. I did not read the David Nicholls novel the film is based on, but he's done a great job adapting it. The film is full of romance, pathos, comedy, tragedy and even a bit of skinny-dipping. (9)

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (2011)—A trashy but acceptably entertaining rom-com, unbelievably predictable, but pushing most of the right buttons. A pretty girl (Mila Kunis) tells hot guy (Justin Timberlake) she only wants to be fuckbuddies. Guess what happens next! The film teases us by placing A-listers Andy Samberg and Emma Stone at the beginning of the movie, but those appearances turn out to be cameos. The leads perform very well. (8)

COLOMBIANA (2011)—This is an unashamedly enjoyable popcorn movie, starring "it" girl Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) as an assassin who's killing off the bad guys who destroyed her family when she was a tot. It's pure action from beginning to end; Saldana is sexy and beautiful, and the bloodshed is copious. As one wag observed, "Revenge is a dish best served sexy." (9)

DVDs

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1976)—Jodie Foster is the "little girl" whose dad never seems to be home, and Martin Sheen is a bad guy who kills her hamster with a cigarette. OK suspenser has some interesting moments; two years earlier, co-star Scott Jacoby had starred in a spiritually related thriller called Bad Ronald, a TV film in which he played an orphan living in a house under equally bizarre circumstances. (7)

X-MEN (2000)—With all of the hoopla over this summer's prequel (X-Men: First Class), I decided to dip my toe in the X pool and see what I've been missing. Although I'm not a superhero fan by any stretch of the imagination (I'm one of the few moviegoers less than enthralled with The Dark Knight franchise), I have enjoyed occasional forays into the genre (Superman II, Heroes). Although I saw X-Men a little less than a month ago, I remember almost nothing about it except that Patrick "Capt. Picard" Stewart and Bruce "Willard" Davison were in it. I recall thinking that Heroes, at least in its first season, did the same kind of thing, only much better. (6)

DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)—This is a famous horror "anthology" movie whose most famous segment features Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist who becomes increasingly unglued when his dummy starts to take on a life of its own. Internationally acclaimed as being a superior horror film, and certainly the best "portmanteau," I found it decent but hardly worthy of its extraordinary reputation. (7)

ONIONHEAD (1958)—I have wanted to check out this Andy Griffith comedy since I was in college. He plays an Okie who joins the Coast Guard during WWII and is assigned to be a cook (although he can't cook). He learns how from the galley chief, grumpy drunk Walter Matthau, almost unrecognizable with lighter hair and a wearing an appliance to give him an overbite. The movie mixes comedic and dramatic elements liberally, throwing in some romantic entanglements and some unexpected drama, making it a worthy successor to Griffith's first big hit, No Time for Sergeants, although this follow-up was a box-office bomb. (8)

BLIND CORNER (1963)—Retitled Man in the Dark for U.S. audiences, this British crime drama stars William Sylvester as a blind pop-music composer whose wife, Barbara Shelley, is plotting to kill him. I will confess to wanting to watch this because beautiful Shelley is the star of my favorite movie, Village fo the Damned, and this shocker was made shortly after it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it has a cool little plot twist I didn't see coming, even though it was recycled in one of my favorite TV movies, 1979's Murder by Natural Causes. (9)

FROZEN (2010)—Talk about a chiller! This one is literally ice-cold. Three attractive twentysomethings are unintentionally stranded on a ski lift…right before a snowstorm…and the resort has been shut down for a week. What to do, what to do! Suffice it to say that what does happen is very bad for all concerned. Some of it seems a trifle implausible, but if you just go with it, it's a decent shocker, reminiscent of 2003's Open Water, about some scuba divers accidentally left behind by their diving group by doing the same "inaccurate head count" that leads to the stranding of these skiers. (8)

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944)—Gene Kelly plays a charming cad, a chronic gambler who eventually gets sucked into a web of murder and intrigue, while trying to hide his dark side from new wife Deana Durbin. The story, told in flashbacks, is loosely based on a book by Somerset Maugham, whose stories and movies I've been working my way through since watching last month's Quartet, Trio and Encore. This is a pretty bleak movie considering the title, but not bad. (7)

JACK THE GIANT KILLER (1962)—Full disclosure: My viewing of this movie was much different than any of the others. As a big fan of TV's Mystery Science Theater 3000—the show where a bunch of smartasses make fun of the dialogue in bad movies—I have followed the careers of some of the cast since the show's cancellation with great interest. Mike Nelson and company crack wise during the presentation of bad movies; their new venture is called RiffTrax, and this is the second time I've seen one of their live presentations fed via satellite to a movie house (the first one was This Island Earth). The original film is actually a fairly decent fantasy-adventure for kids—I ate up this kind of stuff in my youth—but the shoddy special effects, awkward dialogue and gimcrack sets are all very much worth making fun of, which Nelson and his buddies do with a hilarity worthy of the Marx Brothers. I had a rollicking good time—hope they do more of these. If laughter were indeed the best medicine, nobody in Mike Nelson's world would ever get sick. Note: My grade of (10) is for the RiffTrax version, not the film itself.

THE SNORKEL (1958)—Teenager Mandy Miller suspects that stepfather Peter van Eyck has killed her mom, despite his airtight alibi (and "airtight" in this case has beautiful double meaning). In fact, Mandy's pretty sure that van Eyck also knocked off her daddy! And she's right: the film actually begins, Columbo-style, showing us the ingenious way the creepy German dispatches mummy, which completely stumps the police and has them telling Mandy she's nuts. Filmed in beautiful black-and-white, The Snorkel is a cracking good Hammer thriller with an incredibly satisfying finale. (9)

LOST (1955)—Retitled Tears for Simon for American audiences, Lost is the British story of a babysitter who leaves an infant in a pram unsupervised for a couple of minutes outside a local pharmacist…and when she returns, the pram and the kid have vanished. Was the kid abducted, kidnapped, or something else? The police try to keep the terrified parents calm as they look for clues and attempt to solve the case the old fashioned way. Keeps your attention throughout. (8)

LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (1962)—A cool title for this movie might be May I Marry Your Retarded Daughter? Except that George Hamilton never really does figure out that Olivia de Havilland's offspring (Yvette Mimieux) isn't exactly all there, mentally speaking. A couple of years ago, I watched the 1966 Hayley Mills movie Sky West and Crooked (retitled Gypsy Girl in the U.S.—why do they keep doing that?!), in which she plays a pretty but mentally slow teenager who discovers love. This film, released a few years earlier, features Mimieux in a similar kind of role, although she has a much more carefree personality in this. Mama de Havilland is at first understandably concerned when a suave Frenchman (Hamilton—no joke) enters her life during a trip to Paris, but she she slowly starts to warm to the relationship. Light but enjoyable comedy-drama. (8)

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1933)—Along with Duck Soup, one of the Marx Brothers' triumphs—simply hilarious. I'd really like to see this on the big screen someday. (10)

THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS (1957)—I continue to work my way through the filmography of director Billy Wilder, and I'm making great progress. Jimmy Stewart plays real-life pilot Charles Lindbergh, who made the first successful solo nonstop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris. Stewart, 47, was much too old to play the 25-year-old Lindbergh, but the film is otherwise perfect, recounting the ambition, ingenuity and considerable bravery that went into that flight. One of Wilder's best! (10)

JOY RIDE (2001)—From the Guilty Pleasure Files comes this low-budget thriller about a couple of brothers who run afoul of a scary truck driver during a road trip. Basically a cross between I Saw What You Did and Duel, the movie offers equal helpings of gripping suspense and laughable implausibility. (8)

TWICE TOLD TALES (1963)—Yet another horror anthology film, this one features Vincent Price headlining a trilogy loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne tales. The Scarlet Letter it ain't. (6)

THE FORGOTTEN (2004)—Here's a great setup: Julianne Moore, grieving over the death of her young son, is told by her psychiatrist and husband that the kid never existed—all her memories of the boy have been manufactured as a way of coping with the fact that the baby was stillborn. Is she crazy, or is there some bizarre conspiracy afoot? Unfortunately, the Big Reveal is so preposterous that I wasn't able to tell my friend Jay about it while keeping a straight face. The first half hour is great, though, and there's a wonderful jump scene involving Alfre Woodard that saves this from being a total waste of time. (6)

THE 39 STEPS (1959)—Occasionally, I end up watching a movie by accident and, well, this is one of those times. Originally, I was torn between watching the Hitchcock classic and a later version starring John Mills (one of my favorite actors). Well, guess what? I ended up downloading and watching an interim adaptation of John Buchan's novel directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Kenneth More as the typical Hitchcockian protagonist (innocent guy unwittingly caught up in a web of intrigue). It's reasonably entertaining, although I do regret not treating myself to the Hitchcock version. (7)

SUPER (2010)—Comparisons to 2010's Kick Ass are inevitable, as both movies are black comedies involving regular folks with no magical abilities nonetheless who strive to reinvent themselves as superheroes. Similar though they may be, I enjoyed both films immensely; this one features the great Rainn Wilson (The Office) and Ellen Page (Juno) as a short-order cook and a comic-book store employee, respectively, who transform themselves into The Crimson Bolt and Boltie. Like the similar spoofs Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Kick Ass, this film has a fun comic-book sensibility and a darkly wonderful sense of humor—as well as deliciously nasty Kevin Bacon as the bad guy and a great catch phrase, "Shut up, crime!" (9)

MANDY (1952)—Six years before The Snorkel (see above), Mandy Miller played the title role of a deaf child in this sensitive, touching and intelligent British drama. After discovering that their infant daughter cannot hear, Mandy's parents find themselves at odds about how to best care for her. Should they raise her at home, or send her to a special school for the deaf? By today's standards, the father's insistence that she not receive the proper care seems more than a trifle unacceptable, but the events of the film were well over half a century ago. All of the performances, including Jack Hawkins as the brilliant headmaster who helps Mandy, but isn't such a success with other adults. (9)

July 2011

2011-08-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

I spent last month catching up on all of the iconic movies I'd somehow missed—everything from Rebel Without a Cause and Hud to Sophie's Choice and The Godfather. I saw so many famous movies that I thought it might be fun to even the scales by doing a program of "Movies You've Never Heard Of." Naturally, I know some of my movie-loving friends will have heard of some of these, but the idea was to choose little-known films that might turn out to be gems. Even if most of them were not, it was certainly an interesting variety of flicks. Owing to a variety of circumstances—Joan was out of commission for most of the month, I did some traveling—I only found myself in a theater seeing a first-run movie once in July. (Also, there wasn't a whole lot of new stuff worth seeing.) I'll start with the theatrical offering and then move on to the DVDs. Naturally, I'm very curious about which of these movies you've actually heard of!

BEGINNERS (2011)—Ewan McGregor, recently seen in last year's Polanski thriller The Ghost Writer, plays Oliver, a sad-sack artist whose 70-something dad (Christopher Plummer) comes out of the closet and starts a relationship with a much younger man. The film, which is presented in non-linear format, rewinds and fast-forwards through various stages of Oliver's life—as a young boy whose half-Jewish mother nurtures him, as a mostly morose adult who deals with his elderly father's revelations, and finally after dad's passing from cancer. It is during this final phase that Oliver meets and romances Anna (Mélanie Laurent), a film actress of French extraction. The film is rarely comfortable spending more than five or ten minutes in a particular life phase before jettisoning the narrative and perching on a different platform of Oliver's life. His relationships—with mom, dad, lover and dog—are tenderly rendered, although the movie often demands the viewer's extreme patience to reap the maximum rewards. (8)

TRIANGLE (2009)—What would Dead Calm be like if David Lynch directed it? This psychological horror flick puts five survivors of a sailboat wreck on an ocean liner with no passengers, only to battle strange murderous forces…and if you think that sounds strange, you ain't heard nothin' yet. Melissa George, an Aussie actress doing a passable American accent, plays a Floridian who inexplicably gets trapped in a kind of time loop on the water. For viewers who don't mind leaving reality behind, this is an intriguing puzzle-type movie, but after a while, I grew restless with its instant-replay mentality. Still, it gets points for originality. (7)

PUNCHING THE CLOWN (2009)—This (extremely) independent film was co-written by one of my favorite comedians, Henry Phillips, who also stars as himself. It follows his "rise" to "fame" via a series of cringeworthy events, mostly involving audiences and executives who just don't "get" him or his satirical tunes. While not completely successful as a comedy film, it does serve to introduce the viewer to Henry's hilarious songs, and there are half a dozen moments of true genius—particularly a sequence involving the origin of a certain bagel, and another where his brother inadvertently cock-blocks Henry's attempts to score with a young woman. There's also an amusing turn by a sophomoric musician named Stupid Joe whose idiotic numbers inexplicably bring the house down. (8)

THIRD MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN (1959)—The story of a boy who aspires to fill his late father's shoes as a mountain climber. He joins forces with another renowned climber (Michael Rennie) to conquer the Citadel, a daunting mountain in the Alps we know as the Matterhorn. Exciting action, good performances, excellent Disney production values and scenery make for a truly superb adventure. (9)

IF I HAD A MILLION (1932)—Amiable anthology comedy from Paramount about an ailing tycoon who decides to leave a million bucks each to various strangers. Each story focuses on how the recipient uses (or misuses) the windfall. Cute, though a bit silly in parts. W.C. Fields has a great bit in a story about getting revenge on selfish drivers. (8)

THE MARK (1961)—Long before the word "pedophile" entered the common public lexicon, 20th Century Fox distributed this sympathetic look at a would-be child molester. After serving a couple of years in the clink for abducting young girl, Jim Fuller (Stuart Whitman) has made great progress in therapy—a new job, a budding romance and a gradual washing away of "those" desires—until something happens to cause his world to unravel. Based on a novel by Charles E. Israel, this is a compelling psychological study of a guy you root for despite what he's done in the past. Whitman is excellent as the reformed but confused patient, Rod Steiger is typically wonderful as his shrink, and Maria Schell performs beautifully as his new love interest. Excellent plotting and screenplay. Interestingly, when Whitman was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, his competition included Schell's brother, Maximillian Schell, for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg. Schell won. (10)

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (2007)—Not to be confused with that 2004 teen sex comedy starring Elisha Cuthbert. What starts out something like Stand by Me—a man's nostalgic look back at life in the 1950s—turns ever-more horrifying as we meet the boy's neighbors, headed up by a sadistic woman who, with her biological kids, are brutalizing and torturing two foster girls they've taken in. Based on a true story, it's just about as unwatchable as any horror movie ever made—have any people watched the whole thing without covering their eyes? Seems pretty unlikely. This doesn't work particularly well as drama, but as a sadistic and disgusting experience, it ranks right up there. (7)

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME (2000)—Single mom Laura Linney grapples with her loose-cannon brother (Mark Ruffalo), hardass boss (Matthew Broderick), boyfriend (Jon Tenney) and son (Rory Culkin), all of whom put something on a strain on her life. Interesting, touching drama about believable people with genuine flaws. (8)

52 PICK-UP (1986)—Based on an Elmore Leonard novel (so Connie has undoubtedly heard of it), this crime drama has some problems—chiefly second-rate direction by John Frankenheimer and a cheesy-sounding synthesized musical score. But the hard-nosed blackmail and revenge storyline kept me interested, and there are some deliciously slimy performances by bad guys Clarence Williams III and John Glover that make it a passable way to kill a couple of hours. (8)

I NOT STUPID (2002)—This dramedy follows the adventures of a trio of Singaporean youths, as well as the trials and tribulations of their parents. It's a satirical, mildly amusing and sometimes even exciting story about blind obedience, the fear of failure, competition, corporal punishment and kidnapping! (I have to admit that some of the humor was, at least for me, based on hearing a lot of the characters speak English in their very strong native accent, as well as the "Singlish" dialect, although most of the movie's dialogue is in Mandarin.) Writer-director Jack Neo keeps things moving at a nice clip, and there are a couple of quite lovely Asian females in the cast to keep me spellbound. This was followed by a semi-sequel, which I might view when I do a month of strictly foreign films. (8)

QUARTET (1948)—I have always been a fan of anthology movies, ever since seeing the horror compendiums Tales from the Crypt and Asylum in middle school. There are actually quite a few non-scary examples, including If I Had a Million, from earlier this month, and one that I viewed last year called O. Henry's Full House (1952), which offered five adaptations of O. Henry short stories. Quartet is the first in a series of three films based on the short stories of W. Somerset Maugham, who appears at the beginning of each to introduce the adaptations. The four tales in Quartet are alternately dramatic, amusing and touching, and the three film adaptations of Maugham's work had the bonus result of leading me to read several of his excellent short stories not adapted into film, notably "The Man With the Scar" and "The Treasure." (8)

TRIO (1950)—Here's the second of the three Maugham anthology films, with three tales instead of four. This time, we get two shorter stories and a longer one that lasts for about an hour; as a result, the third (about some people staying in a sanitarium) drags in comparison to the first two, and it's my least favorite of all so far. But the opening tales are both excellent. (8)

ENCORE (1952)—Third and final of the Maugham anthologies is just as enjoyable, although the second story in Encore is similar to the second one in Trio—both are about annoying individuals aboard a cruise ship who ultimately find their way into your heart. Glynis Johns, the British beauty I discovered about a year ago in 1952's The Card (and subsequently enjoyed in 1953's Personal Affair) is in the third story as a high-diver who loses her nerve. Maugham's presence adds a lot, even though he's no Hitchcock in the introduction department. (8)

LIFE, ABOVE ALL (2010)—A South African film in the Sotho language, but based on an English-language novel called Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton. It's a powerful, absorbing but very depressing story about a 12-year-old African girl grappling with numerous issues, from her mother's AIDS and her best friend's resorting to prostitution to the superstitions and fears of her neighborhood. It's a very sad movie, but never dull, with extraordinary photography and a powerful message, to say nothing of the emotional and devastating performance of Khomotso Manyaka. (9)

A KIND OF LOVING (1961)—The poster might lead you to believe that there are female vampires in this movie. There aren't. Charming Alan Bates meets a pretty girl (June Ritchie) at work and begins dating her; the first section of the movie is a romantic bliss-out. Then he gets her pregnant, they're forced into marriage, and everything falls apart. Bates and Ritchie are outstanding; director John Schlesinger would go on to direct Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Marathon Man (1976). (8)

QUEEN BEE (1955)—Last month, I got a taste of Joan Crawford as a beautiful cruise-ship passenger in 1932's Grand Hotel. Now we enter more obscure territory, 23 years later, and Joan isn't so young anymore. By now, the 50-year-old fully resembles her Mommie Dearest caricature, and her villainous persona is in full swing. In Queen
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GETTING IT RIGHT (1989)—Randal Kleiser, the American director of Grease and such slimy follow-ups as The Blue Lagoon and (yecch!) Summer Lovers, was a curious choice to direct a British romantic comedy featuring (among others) Helena Bonham Carter, Lynn Redgrave and Sir John Geilgud. I believe I acquired it because I'm a fan of Jane Horrocks, who plays one of three potential love interests for Gavin Lamb, played by the somewhat wooden Jesse Birdsall, who isn't quite good enough to play the lead. Fortunately, the rest of the cast saves the picture. Gavin is a handsome but introverted 31-year-old straight hairdresser (as if there could ever be such a thing) who must overcome his shyness and somehow forge a love life for himself. Carter, Redgrave and Horrocks are the ladies in his life, and it won't take any viewer with above-average intelligence to figure out who steals his heart. The film meanders for a while, but finally gets its footing—all it really needs is Hugh Grant in the lead, and a film score better than the insufficient synth job that was obviously all they could afford. (8)

THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO (1993)—Leonard Maltin raved about this little Western period film in his book 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen, calling it one of his "favorite unsung movies of the 1990s." Inspired by the true story of a man laid to rest when it is discovered that "he" is actually a "she," the film stars lovely Suzy Amis as Josephine, a woman seduced, impregnated and eventually thrown out of her home. She finds that being pretty and single in the Old West is a dangerous combination, so she cuts her hair, wears men's clothing and gives herself an ugly scar on her face to pass herself off as a dude. Everybody falls for it, of course, except the viewers, who wonder why none of the characters in the movie point to her and say, "Hey! That ain't no man! That there's a lady!" I realize that this is based on a true story, but no way in hell was the real "Little Jo" a knockout—I'm sure the real-life Jo more closely resembled Sandra Bernhard or Janet Reno. If you can overlook this basic flaw, it's a decent movie—it even has a romance in it, although tragically brief. (8)

June 2011

2011-08-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

During the last couple of years, while delving into my personal collection of movies on DVD, it has been my hope to scratch a lot of the "iconic films I've never seen" off my must-see list. The problem is that I tend to be drawn to more independent, lesser-known and cult-type titles than the ones critics are always trumpeting about (The Godfather, Sophie's Choice, Deliverance, etc.) as so many of them just sound boring to me. A lot of universally praised films, from Gone With the Wind to The Maltese Falcon and Lawrence of Arabia, tend to leave me cold because I simply don't care for "film noir" and big "epic" blockbusters. (Connie calls it the On the Waterfront Syndrome.) Nevertheless, in recent times, I have tried to unburdened my movie load by having finally forced myself to watch classic films such as Chinatown, The Philadelphia Story, Dr. Zhivago, Blow Out, Bringing Up Baby, The Sound of Music, The Third Man, Judgment in Nuremburg, How Green Was My Valley and How to Steal a Million, among others.

Despite having eliminated those famous films from my list, there remains an staggering amount that I still have never seen. So this month, in choosing older movies, I set about on an ambitious journey by single-mindedly focusing on those "classics" I felt most guilty about having missed. Even given the considerable reputation of all of these films, I knew I wasn't going to like everything. Still, I feel very relieved to be able to say I have, at long last, seen Sophie's Choice. With the arrival of summer, I found myself freed from the responsibility of having to watch the ten or so regular TV series I still follow, which left a lot of extra time to watch films. And with 29 total on the docket, that was very nearly a film a day for the month of June.

So what did I learn? Two things: first, just because a movie is universally considered to be a classic, that doesn't automatically mean it's good; and second, I'm not so simpatico with the whole "antihero" craze—after failing to be charmed by Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull), Tony Manero (Saturday Night Fever), Lewis Medlock (Deliverance), Sonny Wortzik (Dog Day Afternoon) and Jim Stark (Rebel Without a Cause), I think I can safely say that unlikable and unsympathetic male leads in movies are not my cup of tea—Hud being a notable exception.

I intend to balance everything out in July by leaping back into the obscurities pile with a special program of "Movies You've Never Heard Of." In some ways, I am more excited about watching those.

FIRST-RUN FILMS

A LITTLE HELP (2011)—A somewhat overlong dramedy that casts cutie-pie Jenna Fischer (Pam from TV'sThe Office) as Laura, a woman suffering from a variety of problems—cheating spouse (Chris O'Donnell), unappreciative son, bitchy sister, condescending mom—that no amount of beer and cigarettes can make go away. And then things suddenly take a turn for the worse. The movie's theme is how lies infect the soul: how they grow, like a cancer, and end up spoiling life. There are good turns by Ron Liebman and Lesley Ann Warren as Laura's parents, and Kim Coates as a shifty attorney—the embodiment of dishonesty. It's not a great movie, but I found myself caring about the characters, warts and all (for once, Fischer is photographed in a way that is not especially attractive). A nice effort by first-time feature writer/director Michael J. Weithorn. (8)

BRIDESMAIDS (2011)—The filmmakers rope the audience in with the promise of dirty jokes and raunchy toilet humor, but send you home with a couple of touching redemption stories and an unexpected tear in your eye. Kristen Wiig, the talented comedienne of Saturday Night Live, co-wrote and stars in this occasionally sophomoric comedy about a woman whose best friend since childhood (SNL's Maya Rudolph) is about to get married. But gathering the bridesmaids together throws a stick into the spokes when another close friend of Rudoph's—the absurdly rich and stunningly beautiful Rose Byrne—ignites a tragicomedy of jealousy and hurt feelings within Wiig, eventually causing her life to unravel. At its best, the film wavers between amusing absurdity and laugh-out-loud hilarity, much of it deriving from jokes about Byrne's wealth and high standing, and she all but steals the movie from Wiig; love interest Chris O'Dowd, meanwhile, establishes himself firmly as the Irish Judge Reinhold. (9)

SUPER 8 (2011)—SPOILER ALERT: A alien from another planet is helped by a group of children to go back home, while all the mean adults just want to hold him hostage and study him. Hey, wait a minute...isn't that the plot to another movie? The summer blockbuster of 2011 gleefully rips off the summer blockbuster of 1982. J.J. Abrams' film is a generally entertaining, but equally confounding, tribute to both Steven Spielberg's sci-fi movies and to his own childhood passion for filmmaking. It's all about the 1970s, and great attention to detail has been given to conjure up an authentic Seventies feeling. But the filmmaker doesn't commit himself to the story—there are entirely too many references to Spielberg films, even cribbing specific pieces of dialogue, to the point where it becomes too distracting. Probably the year's biggest letdown, not because it's awful, but because it could have been so much better. (7)

THE "CLASSICS" I SOMEHOW MISSED

THE BOUNTY (1984)—To be a real "purist" during this month's project, I ought to have started with the Clark Gable version of Mutiny on the Bounty (or the almost-as-famous Marlon Brando remake). But I thought it might be interesting to start with this update, which pits Anthony Hopkins' Capt. Bligh against youthful Mel Gibson's Fletcher Christian. (Mind you, I made this decision well before I had any inkling that there would be a steady stream of beautiful topless island women on display.) Because it's told in flashback, this telling of the story establishes from the get-go that Gibson—who starts out as Hopkins' buddy—is going to play a major role in the mutiny that follows, which sort of blunted a bit of the suspense for me; I'm not sure if earlier versions of the story take the same approach. Also, this version is supposed to humanize Capt. Bligh somewhat, although he is still a bit of a psychopathic madman. While I enjoyed it for the most part, it doesn't really add up to much except a mildly interesting history lesson. (8)

RAGING BULL (1980)—At long last, another classic to scratch off the cinematic bucket list. Thirty years ago, it seems everybody except me watched Jake LaMotta (Robert DeNiro) implode on the screen as the middleweight fighter who destroys competitors in the ring while simultaneously destroying his personal life with his nasty jealous streak. As I've repeated made clear in my blog, it's always a struggle for me to enjoy movies where the central character doesn't have an ounce of likability or empathy, and DeNiro plays LaMotta as 100 percent unsympathetic. (It should also be said that I've never been a fan of the dark and gritty oeuvre of Martin Scorsese, whom I acknowledge is one of the country's most popular and respected film directors. That being said, I very much enjoyed his comedy After Hours and his "Life Lessons" segment of New York Stories.) Like The Bounty, Raging Bull serves as a peripherally interesting history lesson, but as a piece of entertainment, it's a struggle to endure. The boxing scenes are some of the bloodiest and most gruesome I've ever witnessed. (6)

GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS (1939)—Robert Donat is amazing in this story of a British schoolteacher whose 63-year career unfolds in just under two hours. His makeup and acting are extremely impressive as we watch him transform from a relatively young man to a sprightly old geezer. Greer Garson appears as his love interest. Sentimental but good fun; based on the novel by James Hilton, who in turn based Mr. Chips on his real-life teacher at Cambridge. (8)

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (1961)—Paul Varjak (George Peppard) is a writer who lives in an apartment upstairs from Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), with whom he falls madly in love—attracted, I assume, to her rudeness, selfishness, illogical behavior, dipsomania, greedy addiction to expensive jewelry, illegal undertakings (she delivers coded messages to an underworld mob boss in Sing Sing), general mischievous impulses and lack of imagination (she can't be bothered to think of a name for her pet cat). And Paul overlooks the fact not only that she had her first marriage (to Jed Clampett!) annulled, but also that she doesn't even bother to tell him (Peppard) that she was married and divorced at all. And why does Paul overlook all of her flaws? Because she's pretty and she has a British accent, of course! Another thing Holly does is smoke constantly, which as anybody who knows me can tell you is an immediate turnoff—how disgusting and off-putting it is that the iconic image of Hepburn clutching her oversized cigarette holder did so much to glamorize smoking. (Hepburn died of cancer.) Half of the "jokes" in this alleged comedy involve an ridiculously stereotyped caricature of a Japanese landlord (played by Mickey Rooney) bellowing that he "gonna call the po-reece on Horry Gorightry" because she's always losing the keys to her apartment and having to buzz him to let her in, or making a racket, or whatever. Paul and Holly wind up together at the end, but how long will they stay together before he strangles her? (5)

REPULSION (1965)—Director Roman Polanksi's first film in English, it's a psychological thriller about a pretty girl who is becoming progressively more unglued—it's Black Swan without the ballet. In fact, if I'd seen this film prior to Black Swan, I'd probably have viewed the 2010 Natalie Portman flick as wildly derivative of Polanski, and retroactively, I definitely do. I expect quite a lot of films have borrowed from Repulsion. It brought to mind a horror movie I saw last year, Fright, which starred Susan George as a similarly beautiful blonde woman alone at night and fending off attackers, although hers were all real, none imagined. Repulsion is definitely a creepy film, perfect for watching late at night. (8)

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977)—This is one of the top-five "iconic" films released during my lifetime that I inexplicably missed. I have always really enjoyed the soundtrack music, but nothing about the movie ever compelled me to watch—I just find it boring to watch people dance (at least to disco). I forced myself to sit through the film just to finally say I've seen it, but it was rough going because I couldn't muster the strength to care about the protagonist, Tony Manero (John Travolta) or any of the other characters, for that matter. Travolta is a curious entertainer; I find I either love him (Urban Cowboy, Pulp Fiction) or despise him (Blow Out, Hairspray). This one has aged terribly. (4)

HOLIDAY INN (1942)—Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in the famous Irving Berlin musical that contains romantic hijinks, big production numbers and lots of great songs. The chemistry between the two leads (and female star Marjorie Reynolds) is copious. Plenty of good humor and melody. (9)

SHANE (1953)—Alan Ladd is the mysterious hero who rides into the lives of homesteader Van Heflin and his family and winds up working for them—and protecting them from some vicious bad guys. (Pretty much the plot of every Western.) Beautifully realized, directed and filmed, with some excellent brawls. (9)

HUD (1963)—Paul Newman won much acclaim for his role as Hud, the selfish and snide title character, son of a deeply moral Melvyn Douglas (the apple didn't just fall far from this tree; it fell in the next continent). Hud drinks, sleeps with married women and apparently contributed to the highway death of his older brother some years before; his nephew (Brandon De Wilde) nonetheless idolizes Hud, and their relationship is key to the success of the film, as the kid must choose between grandpa and uncle (i.e., good and evil). Patricia Neal won an Oscar for her portrayal of the family housekeeper, who tries to resist Hud's advances. One of the best movies ever to contain a cow holocaust! (9)

SOPHIE'S CHOICE (1982)—I have no idea how I missed this one. Based on a very popular William Styron novel, the film version (I guess) sounded a bit boring to me in my youth, but I'm glad I finally got around to watching it. Meryl Streep is fascinating to watch as Sophie, a concentration camp survivor who balances a romance with cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs Kevin Kline and gentle writer Peter MacNicol (later of Ally McBeal). Quite compelling. (9)

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)—Here's director Sergio Leone's follow-up to his "Man With No Name" trilogy, a Spaghetti western that casts Henry Fonda in an atypical role as a sadistic killer. Fonda wants to steal luscious Claudia Cardinale's land, but she is protected by Jason Robards and Charles Bronson, the latter of whom has a very personal vendetta against Fonda. The movie is long (175 minutes) but generally mesmerizing, with cool directorial touches throughout. Watching this film, it's easy to see what inspired Quentin Tarantino; meanwhile, it has inspired me to watch the original Clint trilogy, as well as Leone's follow-up to this film, Duck You Sucker. (9)

DELIVERANCE (1972)—I was generally familiar with the story of this film, and have seen the famous "squeal like a pig" scene on TV (where it was obviously truncated), but I've never actually watched the film from beginning to end. Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox ill-advisedly take a canoeing trip down a river and run afoul of dangerous rapids and rednecks. I kept thinking, "Well, this is what you get for not staying at home." Reynolds in particular is an extremely arrogant "protagonist" I had a hard time sympathizing with. All the hillbillies in the movie (especially the inbred banjo player) are terrifying. (6)

SOUNDER (1972)—Released the same year as Deliverance, Sounder is quite a different kind of film. Set during the Great Depression, Paul Winfield is a poor black sharecropper who, along with Cicely Tyson, raise their young kids and often have to send them to bed hungry. When Winfield is sent to jail for stealing food for his family, their son David Lee (Kevin Hooks) makes a trek to the "pen" to see his dad. The movie is based on William H. Armstrong's novel, which I presume contains more about the titular dog. Right before seeing this film, I had finished reading Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help, which is also about pure-hearted black people and despicably racist whites. Interestingly, Cicely Tyson is in the movie versions of both stories. (7)

WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954)—I was curious to see how this Irving Berlin musical compared to his earlier Holiday Inn, which also starred Bing Crosby. Inn co-star Fred Astaire was asked to appear in this film, but turned it down after he read the script; he was replaced by Danny Kaye. Although not as charming or well-written as Holiday Inn, it is a very similar film—not exactly a remake, but not exactly a different movie either—about show-biz singers who popularize a hotel by doing their act there. Similar romantic hijinks make up the plotlines of both movies as well. The best thing in this film are funny Danny Kaye and the typically tuneful Irving Berlin songs. Oh, and Vera-Ellen is a genuine cutie pie (while her movie sister, Rosemary Clooney, is rather plain in comparison). (7)

GRAND HOTEL (1932)—Birth, life, death, love…and, inescapably, money. They all configure in this lavish, soapy drama, the grandaddy of all "multiple characters under the same roof" genre (last month's Ship of Fools is another example). Guests—and permanent residents—of Berlin's Grand Hotel include a lonely ballet star (Greta Garbo), a crooked industrialist (Wallace Beery), a dying employee of the former (Lionel Barrymore), a thief with a heart of gold (John Barrymore, Lionel's real-life brother), a pretty stenographer (Joan Crawford) and a disfigured WWI veteran (Lewis Stone). Most of them cross paths in important ways, and not everybody gets out of the hotel alive…based on an Austrian novel, which was turned into a successful play by the screenwriter of this movie—which is notable for being the only film to win a Best Picture Oscar without being nominated in any other category. Young Crawford, by this time a veteran of dozens of movies, is still unrecognizable as the rather scarifying Mommie Dearest I most associate her as looking like. Good fun. (9)

MISTER ROBERTS (1955)—About time I finally got around to watching this comedy-drama war flick, which takes place toward the end of WWII. Henry Fonda played the title character in the play version for years, and he's typically perfect onscreen as the lieutenant of a cargo ship who must contend with the tyrannical captain (James Cagney) while trying to keep order among the 60+ crew members who are denied liberties and generally bossed around. Jack Lemmon provides the comedy, including the film's hilarious punchline. (9)

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957)—Fascinating WWII movie about British soldiers in a Thailand-based POW camp, where the Japanese captors are forcing our heroes to build a railroad bridge with an important deadline looming. Alec Guinness plays the British officer who initially resists (and is tortured by) the Japanese camp leader, but gradually compelled to collaborate with enthusiasm on the bridge—with tragic consequences. Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes), the film is an exciting yarn, and even though I basically knew beforehand how the story was going to end, there were some twists I found genuinely suspenseful, unsettling and astonishing. (9)

THE GODFATHER (1972)—I'll be honest: I was very reluctant to watch this film, which sits ever so piously at the very top of many critics' best-ever lists. I realized a long time ago that films having to do with spies and the Mob just make me feel utterly confused. I never know who's working for whom, what's going on or who's getting double- and triple-crossed. I don't even have a rudimentary knowledge of what all these organizations are supposed to be doing half the time. Still, I guess it's important to watch The Godfather, given all its accolades, so I sat down with a kind of "Cliff's Notes" (aka the Wikipedia entry), as well as the film's screenplay, so I would have an easier time following the labyrinthian plot and cast of characters. I'm glad I had those available, because it did make it much easier to understand—I ended up feeling like I was doing a project for school rather than losing myself in a great movie, although I admit there were several suspenseful scenes that made watching this extremely long film more endurable. I also realized in retrospect that I had actually seen a few of the more famous scenes (i.e., head of stallion, Sonny's murder) on TV many years ago. Looking at the film with a fresh perspective, I found it extremely implausible that these mobsters not only decapitated the racehorse but successfully sneaked its head into the bed of Woltz, the film mogul, without being heard or observed. All the performances, especially Brando in the title role, are superb. Now I guess I gotta watch the squeakuel. (8)

DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)—Yes, this bank-robbery-went-awry actually happened. Yes, the capable performers throw themselves into the story. No, I could not muster up the energy to care about protagonists. This is yet another anti-hero movie, which I am notoriously uneasy with. "But what about Pacino's powerhouse performance?" you ask. Sure, he plays the part of a scummy, annoying, selfish dirtbag to the hilt. I just didn't like the guy. By comparison, I recall really liking Pacino in an equally unlikable criminal role, Scarface, which I found mesmerizing. Go figure. (5)

HIGH NOON (1952)—Every time I see Gary Cooper in a movie, he's about 25 years older than his romantic partner. This one is no exception, although it would be a stretch to emphasize the romantic element of this Western. The plot is simple: Small-town sheriff Cooper put away a dastardly villain who's now inexplicably being released—and he's coming in on the noon train to seek revenge. He hustles to deputize some of the residents, but nobody wants to offer their help—they all value their lives for some reason. If you can't guess the ending from what I've told you, well, think harder. I found the musical score of this movie to be extremely overbearing and distracting to the action. (7)

MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944)—Here's a classic example of the danger of having heightened expectations. I've always heard this was a classic musical, so I was prepared for something along the lines of Oklahoma or The Music Man. It stars the great Judy Garland, whom I loved in The Wizard of Oz, but have only rarely encountered outside of that film. Oz packs innumerable tunes and story developments into its paltry 101 minutes; St. Louis, by comparison, has a quarter of the songs and practically no story, so it feels like an incredible slog at 113 minutes. The plot can be summarized thusly: "A cute boy moved in next door, but we might have to move to New York." The movie is colorful, and has some great performers (especially little sister Margaret O'Brien, who won a special Oscar), but desperately needs more story. I was also somewhat put off by Mary Astor's sloppy piano "playing" (she mimics to a pre-recorded track, abysmally) and the numerous "outdoor" scenes that are so obviously movie sets. (7)

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)—West Side Story without New York, the interracial romance or the Sharks. But it's got plenty of knife-wielding teen punks and Natalie Wood! The film stars James Dean, a troubled teen nobody understands—not his shallow parents, not his classmates, not the cops who arrest him for public drunkenness…not even the other juvenile delinquents. Only pretty Natalie and troubled teenager Sal Mineo care about him—which is unfortunate, since she's a two-faced ninny and he's a total psycho! In other words, the number of likable people in this movie is basically nil. This is a classic film about the generation gap and the inability of human beings of all ages to truly communicate—especially when they're as stupid as the people who populate this unbelievably dated movie. Ironically, Dean plays a kid who plays a game of chicken involving an automobile (which leaves one character dead), and Dean himself was dead from a car accident by the time the film was released. What was perceived as sensitive and thrilling half a century ago doesn't really go over that well today, I'm afraid. (4)

THE DEER HUNTER (1978)—An interminable and harrowing three-act film about the toll taken on three Pennsylvania steelworkers who have an extremely rough time of it in the Vietnam war. "Woefully depressing" is an understatement. The original script was about guys who travel to Las Vegas to play Russian Roulette; the script was revised to take place in Vietnam, and they left in the Russian Roulette, even though there has never been any documentation of the game being played in that country, at least during the war. (6)

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971)—Sad and poignant, this is the second adaptation of a Larry McMurtry novel I've seen this month, the other being Hud. Like the earlier picture, this is in black and white and takes a stark look at a small Texas town and the tortured inhabitants within. The young people do whatever they can to feel alive, while the older folks seem trapped in a dead-end world of nostalgia, longing and regret. Cybill Shepherd is excellent as the fickle but beautiful young Jacy, who flits from boy to boy without batting an eyelid, while Ben Johnson, Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman are all wonderfully memorable as a few of the past-40 crowd. I've already got my hands on the sequel, Texasville. I'd quite like to see The Last Picture Show again someday. (9)

THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995)—Regrettably, the famous twist ending had been spoiled for me quite a while ago, but I decided to take a chance on the movie because so many have lauded it as being essential. Well, I certainly do wish I had not known the answer to the question "Who is Kaiser Söze?" before sitting down to watch the movie, but I was somewhat able to appreciate the movie's setup and construction, as it is ingeniously plotted…still, it's kind of like knowing the punch line to a joke that you have to sit and listen to anyway. (7)

THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963)—How did I ever miss this picture? It's a great adventure, full of heart-stopping suspense and scary Nazis! Like Stalag 17, it's a great POW camp picture, and the film's flutey jingle reminded me of the theme from Hogan's Heroes. I'm really glad I finally caught up to seeing this rollicking thrill ride, despite so much of the last third being rather downbeat. (9)

I'm curious to know...how many of the "Classic 26" movies on my list have you seen?

May 2011

2011-08-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

Egad, only seven movies this month. Well, that's still a better showing than March. And while I did poorly in quantity, I seem to have made up for it in quality. Excuses: Have been distracted by too much TV. Lately I have been re-watching favorites The West Wing with Joan and The Larry Sanders Show by myself, as well as burning through the entire first season of Downton Abbey with Jay during my visit to Palo Alto in May. This is all in addition to the regular TV series I watch, which include Modern Family, The Office, 30 Rock, Desperate Housewives, Law and O:der: Special Victims Unit, American Idol, The Simpsons, Grey's Anatomy, House, South Park and Saturday Night Live, to say nothing of Letterman, Leno and Jimmy Kimmel on late night. Fortunately, all but the talk shows have wrapped up for the season, which should leave more time for movies over the summer. Here's what I managed to squeeze in to my busy schedule during May, starting with the first-run flickers.

RABBIT HOLE (2011)—Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, devastated by the death of their young son a year or so earlier in a car accident, are still trying to put their lives back together, albeit in drastically different ways. Eckhart still clings desperately any and all memories of the boy, including video clips. Kidman can't bear to even live in their house anymore, as it's full of haunting memories she'd rather put out of her mind. She rejects their therapy sessions, while he is attracted to a woman (Sandra Oh) who attends them. Meanwhile, he's freaked out when she begins to develop a friendship with the teen who ran over their son. Will they be able to pull themselves out of the abyss? What sounds like a dreary story never truly depresses—it's actually quite compelling material, and has a hopeful resolution. (9)

RIO (2011)—It's so wonderful to see a fun movie with somebody you love. One of my all-time movie highlights will be attending an afternoon screening of this animated charmer with my niece, Emma. Both of us really enjoyed its good humor (and each other's company, of course). Lots of cool bird characters, voice characterizations and colorful animation—the only debit is the gross depiction of a continually drooling bulldog voiced by Tracy Morgan. Otherwise, a grand piece of entertainment suitable for kids and adults alike. (8)

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011)—This is one of Woody Allen's more enjoyable efforts from the past 15 or so years, and it has become his biggest box-office hit. Harkening back to the fantastical time-continuum themes present in The Purple Rose of Cairo, Woody gives us an ill-suited engaged couple (idealistic Hollywood screenwriter Owen Wilson and bitchy Rachel McAdams) pursue markedly different paths in the City of Love. Nothing in the film matches Woody at his humorous best—those days are long over—but it's a lightly entertaining yarn, with flashes of sparkling wit. Although she has a small role in this, the character I remember most fondly is the drop-dead gorgeous Léa Seydoux, a fashion model turned actress. (8)

THOR (2011)—A rip-roaring action superhero treat for boys of all ages. The mythological God of Thunder, who naturally lives on another planet, is exiled on Earth and undergoes a standard movie redemption story that's nonetheless a sheer delight, with a deliciously nasty villain, lots of comic-book suspense and Natalie Portman, freed of her Black Swan leotard. I'm already anxious for the sequel! (9)

SHIP OF FOOLS (1965)—I suppose I was drawn to the idea of a cruise-ship movie, as I become more obsessed with ocean liners as I get older. Like the title suggests, this ship's passengers are a pathetic lot—more racists, Nazis, boors, dumkopfs, cowards, drunks, bickering lovers and self-absorbed ninnies than you can shake a stick at. The closest thing to a sympathetic character is dwarf Michael Dunn (evil Dr. Loveless from The Wild Wild West), who breaks the fourth wall at the beginning and end of the picture to remind us that the ship is basically a metaphor for the world—we're all basically assholes. Based on the bestseller by Katherine Anne Porter, who was bummed by how much of her story got left out of the movie. (6)

ACE IN THE HOLE (1951)—One of the rituals of my movie obsession is trying to work through the remaining filmography of Billy Wilder, who is probably my very favorite director of the past. His catalog is limited but truly astonishing: Sunset Blvd., Stalag 17, Witness for the Prosecution, The Apartment, One, Two Three, Irma La Douce, Kiss Me Stupid and The Fortune Cookie are all huge favorites of mine. Originally released as The Big Carnival (against Wilder's wishes), this was one of the director's rare flops. Kirk Douglas plays a boozing, immoral journalist who capitalizes on a cave-in victim's crisis to his own advantage, with disastrous results. Although it's a decent depiction of the dangers of blind self-servitude and corruption, the journalist in me couldn't help rolling his eyes at some of the more farfetched aspects of the story. Not among Wilder's best, but still an interesting piece of work. Later re-released with its original title. Still gotta watch Emperor Waltz, Spirit of St. Louis, Love in the Afternoon and The Front Page, and I suppose I should give The Seven Year Itch another try. (8)

WAKING NED DEVINE (1998)—The titular Irishman wins the Lotto, and promptly drops dead from shock. This exceedingly gentle comedy involves the subterfuge undertaken by the rest of his tiny village (population: 52) who attempt to hide Ned's death and share in the winnings. There's a microscopic romantic subplot about a pig farmer who has eyes for a single mom and an even more microscopic twist involving a scary-looking old bitch who throws a monkey wrench into the village's plan. The film is lighter than air, but genial enough, with a satisfying (and surprisingly dark) conclusion; at a scant 90 minutes, it still feels overlong. (7)

April 2011

2011-08-30T17:03:00.001-07:00

Despite doing a lot of traveling—and also because of it—I saw a fair amount of movies in April. This month, I spent time in Las Vegas, Lake Havasu City (Arizona) and the Cayman Islands, but still managed to treat myself to several films, both on DVD and in the theaters. Let's start with the first-runs and move on the oldies.

TRUST (2011)—My kickoff April flick was an uneasy drama about how an adult man seduces a high-school freshman girl via the Internet. Although not really a great movie by any standards, it conveys with cold-blooded effectiveness how predators operate so successfully; the leads' instant messages are displayed onscreen, subtitle style, and we feel both the young girl's heart fluttering and our own revulsion simultaneously. When the parents discover the unholy affair, the father explodes with rage, causing even more damage to the family than the pedophile caused. Even if Trust is a trifle flawed, it bravely takes us to places few other movies dare to go. (8)

WIN WIN (2011)—Some of my favorite comedy-dramas are indie films like this one—recent examples include Please Give and City Island. Paul Giamatti stars as a struggling attorney who moonlights as a wrestling coach; his losing streak in both professions gets a shot in the arm with the arrival of a young man who changes both his personal and professional careers. Top-notch acting and a thoughtful script make this one the perfect "Brett movie." (9)

INSIDIOUS (2011)—The poster for this horror movie claims it's from "the makers of Paranormal Activity." I have no idea which makers they're talking about—neither the writer nor director had anything to do with that series; they're actually the team that created the Saw franchise. And Paranormal Activity was released by Paramount, while this one isn't. Weird. Anyway, this film definitely has more to do with actual paranormal activity, except the surveillance cameras of PA are forsaken for a more traditional haunted-house picture that's actually a close cousin to Poltergeist. Although there's very little about this movie that hasn't been done many times before, it delivers the requisite chills and thrills. (When I called the theater's showtime recording, the female voice announced this film as "Insidulous," which gave me a belly laugh.) Definitely recommended for horror-movie buffs. (8)

THE LINCOLN LAWYER (2011) I have exceptionally little interest in Matthew McConaughey, whom I still blame for being the only weak link in the otherwise solid Contact (1997); he has always struck me as a far more handsome, but much less talented version of Woody Harrelson. But Connie's thumbs-up review—combined with the fact that I was in a Las Vegas multiplex that featured this film at the most convenience showtime—gave my no-McConaughey rule a temporary reprieve. It helps that he's not supposed to be entirely likable in the Lincoln Lawyer, which, while being perfectly entertaining, is indistinguishable from hoards of crime/attorney films and TV shows I have seen in my life—the frame-ups, the double-crosses, the uncooperative witnesses, the courtroom speeches, etc. But I'm happy to watch anything that isn't boring, especially if William H. Macy is in the cast—and country singer Trace Adkins, in a three-minute part, is terrific as a motorcycle-riding bad boy. (8)

SUCKER PUNCH (2011)—I am not including this in the canon of Movies I Have Officially Seen; I am not rating it, but I do want to mention it, as I paid full price to get in and walked out of this silly mess halfway through. At the beginning of the year, I mentioned Sucker Punch as one of the movies I was most excited about in the forthcoming year, being a fan of director Zack Snyder's earlier films 300 and Watchmen. But he should have stayed in the director's chair and far, far away from his word processor, because his screenplay is an incoherent disaster. All of the usual dazzling visuals are on display, but the movie is incomprehensible on a scale that might puzzle even David Lynch. Bafflingly bad.

SOURCE CODE (2011)—It's hardly surprising that last year's Inception would inspire a spate of clones, including this preposterous sci-fi outing. Illogical though it may be, it's thoroughly enjoyable, with soldier Jake Gyllenhaal tapped by government scientists to try to thwart a terrorist bombing in Chicago—through the power of his subconscious mind. It's all completely ridiculous, but a diverting and fun ride. (8)

ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (2011)—Yet another imaginative (though preposterous) film made possible by the enduring popularity of Inception. In this one, Senatorial hopeful Matt Damon finds himself "unstuck in time" as he attempts to romance dancer Emily Blunt. Some of the story elements reminded me of the Stephen King novella The Langoliers, although it is actually based on a 1954 story by Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner, Total Recall). Like Source Code, it's an energetic and fun thrill ride that never gets boring. And incidentally, I enjoyed both movies much more than Inception. (8)

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (2011)—Based on an acclaimed novel I never read, here's a Titanic-type story that, at least cinematically, borrows liberally from that sunken-ship flick. Like the famous James Cameron movie, it starts with a present-day old person telling the story of his life in flashback, which centers around a forbidden romance divided by class lines and climaxes with a famous disaster. There is also a heavy transportation theme—although Titanic's was a ship, while the entire cast of WFE travels around in a train. Although there are many parallels, WFE is a stylish, original work aided magnificently by the presence of Christoph Waltz (the nasty Nazi of Inglorious Basterds). (9)

TALL STORY (1960)—This popped up on my TiVo wish list recently because I'm a fan of actor Ray Walston—I've enjoyed everything I've ever seen him in, from My Favorite Martian to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In this movie, directed by Joshua Logan, Jane Fonda takes her first starring role as a college student who sets her eyes on basketball player Anthony Perkins, while Walston dons a goatee as a professor. It's unbelievably lightweight fluff, but if you're in the mood for a slice of 1960s academia, Jane is incredibly lovely. It's interesting to watch this knowing that soon Perkins would be typecast as a Psycho and that Fonda would go on to play a hooker in Klute, as well as sex kitten Barbarella! (8)

A SUMMER PLACE (1959)—My viewing of this film—which spawned the famous theme song—was directly influenced by my having recently viewed Susan Slade, which it resembles in theme, style and stars (Dorothy McGuire and Troy Donohue were in both films). It's a slice of life from a more innocent time, when young people apparently did not realize that having sex led to getting pregnant. I enjoy soap operas, romance and easy-listening music, so this was a nice way to kill a couple of hours. (8)

THE WELL (1951)—A black child in a small town vanishes, which leads to false accusations and finally a race riot. In reality, the poor girl has fallen down an abandoned well in a field. Will she be discovered and rescued before everybody needlessly slaughters each other? Way ahead of its time in subject matter, The Well has a painfully low budget but lofty aspirations, and it creates terrific suspense with a largely unknown cast (although it was neat to see Harry "Colonel Potter" Morgan at the relatively young age of 36. Damn, he's still alive as I write this...96 years old!). This is an anti-racism movie every high-school kid should be forced to watch. (8)

THE HOLIDAY (2006)—A delightful surprise. I don't even remember this movie coming out in theaters. But last year, I very much enjoyed the Nancy Meyers comedy It's Complicated, and felt I should catch up on some of the earlier romcoms she has multi-hyphenated. The Holiday is even better, with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as two heartbroken women from the U.S. and England, respectively, who decide to swap homes (and lives) for a two-week holiday. Predictably, their lives are made richer and fuller in the trade. Jude Law and Jack Black round out the cast, and Eli Wallach is superb as an aging screenwriter who is befriended by Winslet's character. Interestingly, the phrase "It's complicated" are uttered a few times in this movie, whereas I don't think they are ever spoken in the movie of that name. (9)

PHFFFT! (1954)—No amount of mediocre comedies are going to make me dislike the great Jack Lemmon, but as I devote the rest of my life to watching the movies of his that I missed, it becomes clearer that I have already seen all his great ones. Phffft! serves as both the title of the movie and a decent review of same; this is a largely forgettable and toothless marital comedy that does, in all fairness, feature a lovely Kim Novak in a small role that prevents the movie from being completely unwatchable. Lemmon (in only his third film) and co-star Judy Holliday try their hardest, but the script just isn't very funny. Oh, well, I still have a few movies starring Jack left to see (including Mister Roberts, Days of Wine and Roses and Under the Yum Yum Tree). Let's hope they aren't all lemons. (6)

BLOW OUT (1981)—Cross one more famous movie off the list that everybody except for me has seen. Having officially dispensed with Chinatown, Clockwork Orange, Philadelphia Story, Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, among others, I now turn my attention to this noirish thriller from 1981. I have very much enjoyed some of Brian De Palma's movies (Carrie, Scarface and Body Double among them), but I have to rank Blow Out as one that blows. The film suffers from embarrassingly heavy-handed direction, too many characters smoking cigarettes, a lead (John Travolta) I could not begin to care about and a true bummer of an ending—it's very easy to see why this was a box-office disappointment. The only halfway likable character in the film is the hooker played by Nancy Allen. The story, a variation of Michelangelo Antonioni 1966 film Blow-Up, is about John Travolta's movie sound-technician character inadvertently recording an assassination, and the web of murder and intrigue he gets into as a result. At one point, Travolta actually manages to assemble several seconds of film footage culled from maybe a dozen photos (at most) he has discovered published in a magazine, which any person who is knowledgable about the mechanics of movies will tell you is a fraction of a fraction of the amount needed for even a couple of seconds' worth of film. Meanwhile, I found the film's story to be far short of mesmerizing. Despite this setback, I am still curious about other De Palma movies, including Obsession, Mission to Mars and Femme Fatale. And with Blow Out out of the way, I look forward to forcing myself to watch Raging Bull, Blade Runner, Meet Me in St. Louis, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Saturday Night Fever (another Travolta vehicle, groannnn). (5)

March 2011

2011-08-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

Continuing last month's downward spiral of movie-watching: having burned through five seasons of Showtime's Dexter TV series in barely more than a month left me precious little time in my schedule for any films. I was able to watch exactly four—three first-run and an old TV-movie I've wanted to watch for a very long time.

THURSDAY'S GAME (1973) was the TV movie. It stars Gene Wilder, Ellen Burstyn and a veritable menagerie of familiar sitcom actors (Bob Newhart! Nancy Walker! Cloris Leachman! Valerie Harper! Rob Reiner! Richard Gautier! Norman Fell!), and was written by The Mary Tyler Moore Show creator James L. Brooks, so I had every reasonable expectation for this to be much funnier than it actually was. Wilder and Newhart are a couple of poker-playing buddies who continue to hang out after their regular card game is derailed; they experience various employment and marital challenges, but none of them are particularly compelling. Still, gotta love that cast. (7)

RANGO (2011) was the first of the new movies. It's an animated vehicle starring the voice of Johnny Depp; he plays a terribly unattractive lizard in a spoof of a Wild West flick. The movie ambles along slowly and uninvolvingly until about three-quarters of the way through, when it suddenly comes to life with the introduction of a scary snake villain and a memorable homage to Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" character (that scene is remarkably well done—and amazingly, the voice is not Clint's). I only wish the lion's share of Rango had been as clever and interesting as the ending. (6)

UNKNOWN (2011) is the latest attempt to fashion Liam Neeson as an action hero, taking a very obvious and deliberate cue from 2008's Taken. Divorced of his Schindler's List cred, Neeson once again allows himself to be and take on a role that might have gone to Harrison Ford about 20 years ago. Here he finds himself trapped in the old Hitchcock-meets-Twilight-Zone predicament of suddenly being treated like a stranger by his friends and loved ones. Why do people keep denying his true identity? We've seen this plot before in movies like Total Recall, but although the scenario is a hand-me-down, Unknown does keep your interest throughout—preposterous though it might be. (7)

LIMITLESS (2011) is a case of having inadvertently saved the best for last. As with Unknown, we've seen the basic plot setup of Limitless before—it's a twist on the old Charly (1968) story of a guy (Bradley Cooper) who suddenly becomes a genius—and must deal with the grim reality of reverting back to his original dumb-dumbedness. Thankfully, though, screenwriter Leslie Dixon, director Neil Burger and especially the visual effects team keep the viewer invested in the action from the opening scene onward. Robert De Niro and Abbie Cornish round out the superb cast. (9)

February 2011

2011-08-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

February was a tough movie month for a couple of reasons: first, I traveled to MIami for the big boat show, followed by a week of vacation; then I decided to start working my way through the Showtime TV series Dexter (thanks to Joan for the recommendation). I devoured the first season last month—its dozen hour-long episodes was the equivalent of six feature-length movies. I'm really enjoying the series (already two episodes in on Season 2), so older movies are probably going to get short shrift in the foreseeable future.

THE L-SHAPED ROOM (1962)—I can't remember what I read that helped catapult this movie to the top of my list, but it's one I am very grateful to scratch off it. While I am a big fan of British films, the subgenre of the so-called "kitchen sink" drama (i.e., ordinary people living in low-income homes) has never really resonated with me. The L-Shaped Room includes many of the elements of the kitchen-sink movie (i.e., star Leslie Caron is unmarried and pregnant). The twist is that she's a French girl living in a seedy boarding house. There is a love interest, there are other boarders who serve as the secondary characters, and there is lovely Leslie herself, which is the first and best reason to see this. Cicely Courtneidge has a touching turn as an aging lesbian. (8)

BRINGING UP BABY (1938)—Still riding high on my discovery of Katharine Hepburn's great 1930s beauty, I just had to check out this wild comedy, which has earned quite a reputation among film fans. "Overrated" does not begin to describe this. It's infinitely more silly than funny—there is no utterance that does not get misinterpreted by someone; no article of clothing that doesn't get ripped off someone's body by accident; no fallen article that Cary Grant doesn't trip over. It's a gigantic load of nonsense about Hepburn's pet baby leopard and her pursuit of paleontologist Grant. Despite the silliness, the final gag, involving a Brontosaurus skeleton, almost makes the whole movie worth sitting through. (6)

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1970)—Perhaps hungry for something lighthearted but not silly, I turned to Billy Wilder, who is one of my very favorite directors. I expected an unorthodox and offbeat revisiting of the Baker Street detective, this being a mystery not concocted by original author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But it turns out to be a standard type of Holmes story without a lot of surprises, or any surprises, to be honest. (There are some amusing homosexual references, but even those seem quaint by today's standards). The story has something to do with the Queen and the secret behind the Loch Ness Monster. Not bad, but hardly revolutionary. (7)

THE COMPANY MEN (2010)—Three men working for a large corporation, each at different levels of seniority, must face the spectre of unemployment when the recession catches up with them. Ben Affleck plays a wealthy, up-and-coming financier who loses his job and must support his family by becoming (eek!) a laborer. The story passes the time well enough, but it's a bit off-putting to be made to feel sorry for the incredibly privileged. (8)

THE PRESTIGE (2006)—I can't remember how I could have missed this movie about magicians. It came out the same year as The Illusionist, which Joan and I quite enjoyed, but somehow this one slipped past me. I have been meaning to correct that oversight and now I have. Unfortunately, despite a great cast (including Christian Bale) and some interesting twists, this movie disappoints because of its preposterous science-fiction elements (i.e., David Bowie, as the electricity pioneer Tesla, is supposed to have invented a matter-transporter back in the 19th Century. And what does he do with this revolutionary invention? He sells it to a magician—what else?) Always nice to see Michael Caine, and even nicer to see Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall. (7)

A VERY SPECIAL FAVOR (1965)—After The L-Shaped Room, I was curious to see more of Leslie Caron. She's captivating in this picture, as always. This was one of many sex comedies from the 1960s that had a lot of talk but zero action. It's basically a Big Lie movie, and a piece of nonsensical fluff, but it's cute. (8)

BIUTIFUL (2010)—Tragic, well-acted drama, in Spanish, about Uxbal (Javier Bardem), a father of two in Barcelona who tries to find a balance between both sides of the law—and then discovers he's dying of cancer. We watch in grim sadness as his life spirals farther and farther out of control, trying to maintain civility with his bipolar ex-wife while his body falls apart. It's a mesmerizing downer. Thanks to Irene for inviting me to the Academy screening. (8)

I AM NUMBER FOUR (2011)—Caught this one with Connie while visiting Hollywood, FL. It's a totally forgettable teenage superhero-type flick that's like a hybrid of the TV series Roswell and Heroes. Just a dumb, fun popcorn movie about some badass aliens who just want to find the title protagonist and kill him. (8)

THE SEARCHERS (1956)—I closed February by screening two John Wayne movies directed by the legendary John Ford. The first has always been spoken about as one of the very best films the Duke ever made; it's supposed to be "complex" and ahead of its time. Although certainly watchable, I didn't find it particularly complex—it seems like an ordinary Civil War-era Western about a little girl kidnapped by Indians and the quest to get her back. (Actually, it's an absurdly simple plot.) Interesting to see Natalie Wood playing a 15-year-old. Great color cinematography. (8)

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962)—Ingeniously plotted B&W Western pairing John Wayne with Jimmy Stewart, who in 1962 was a little long in the tooth to be playing the character he does here, but he's so good that we work extra hard to forgive him for not being the ideal age. This is a great flashback movie where the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together until the final one snaps into place perfectly. Lee Marvin has never been more sinister. My favorite film of the month! (9)

January 2011

2011-02-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

A new year, a new opportunity to fritter my life away watching movies! Although I wasn't able to watch a film a day this month, I wasn't far off—25 is a pretty respectable number, depending on your definition of "respectable." This month ran the gamut from movies I've been curious about since childhood (Bedlam, The Pawnbroker) to movies I never even heard about mere days before I saw them (Mao's Last Dancer). There were recommendations by friends (Susan Slade, The Women), marvelous surprises (Barney's Version, The Silent Partner) and predictable disappointments (Little Fockers). Thanks to those who watched with me—Joan, Anna, Irene and Jay. Here's the gallery.

COUNTRY STRONG (2010)—Given the considerable talents of Gwyneth Paltrow, including her remarkable singing voice, I had big hopes for this tale of a C&W superstar battling addiction and other demons, but despite a bunch of excellent songs, the movie is marred by too many puzzlingly dumb plot points and a preposterous, unbelievable resolution. Update: after a second viewing (thanks to Irene for the invite!), I have upgraded my rating by one point. It's still not a great picture, or even a good one...but I did find it enjoyably trashy, and the cast is excellent, especially Paltrow and Garrett Hedlund. (7)

LITTLE FOCKERS (2010)—The original Meet the Parents was a hoot, that rare Ben Stiller comedy that actually delivered the laughs, many of them courtesy of co-star Robert DeNiro. The first sequel (Meet the Fockers) was weak, and the trend continues with the most anemic of the trilogy...although the cast (aided by the always breathtaking Jessica Alba) does its best to make the lackluster script come to life. (6)

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1938)—Eight years before Jimmy Stewart clashed with Lionel "Mr. Potter" Barrymore in It's a Wonderful Life, here they were together, making nice instead of waging war. There's a romance at the heart of this story of an eccentric family that knows how to life life to the fullest; director Frank Capra has opened up and improved George S. Kaufman's hit Broadway play considerably. (8)

MADE IN DAGENHAM (2010)—It's always a pleasure to watch Sally Hawkins, a gifted actress who invariably proves she's better than the material she's starring in (Happy-Go-Lucky). Dagenham is based on an actual women's strike at Ford plant in Great Britain in the late 1960s; Hawkins puts her family on the back burner to lead the gals toward a pay raise and equal rights in the workplace. Hawkins' resemblance to real-life 1960s movie star Rita Tushingham continues to amaze me; this film is certainly interesting and entertaining, but I never completely lost myself in it. Still, I will happily see anything that features Hawkins or her captivating co-star, Rosamund Pike. (7)

THE FIGHTER (2010)—I swore I was done with Mark Wahlberg following the disatrous one-two punch of The Happening and The Other Guys. But I found myself in the audience of this picture mostly by accident (I'd gone to the theater to see a free screening that turned out to be overcrowded, and The Fighter was the only thing playing that I hadn't already seen). Reviews were positive, so I gave it a chance, and I wasn't disappointed. Wahlberg overcomes a series of obstacles—mostly drug-addicted brother Christian Bale—to make a name for himself as a prizefighter. This real-life tale is brought to the screen with deftness and humor, and with the outstanding performance of Melissa Leo as the conniving and insipid mother. (9)

LITTLE WOMEN (1933)—Here's one of about a dozen film versions of the classic Louisa May Alcott novel; I've long been interested to know what it's all about without actually having to read it, so I started with the classic George Cukor adaptation. (I own two other versions.) My mind was blown three ways to Tuesday by the enormous beauty of young Katharine Hepburn, whom I had never viewed as anything but an aging thespian. (Her loveliness in Little Women caused me to acquire and watch several other Hepburn films from this time period.) The story, and the movie, is simple but absorbing. (8)

HOW DO YOU KNOW? (2010)—A trifle of a comedy featuring Paul Rudd, Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson. A waste of time for all concerned, and all of the good bits were in the trailer. (5)

HOLIDAY (1938)—Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, those two "dahling chahmuhs" with Mid-Atlantic accents, star in a movie about virtually nothing. Cute but totally forgettable. (7)

MAO'S LAST DANCER (2009)—My third movie this month to be based on a real story. This one is about a young male ballet dancer from China who makes a splash in the U.S. Although hindered by a few narrative shortcuts, it's a mostly interesting story about a fellow caught between two nations. (8)

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)—Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn reunite after Holiday for another romantic comedy; this one also stars James Stewart in what is essentially a love pentagon. Lots of funny lines, and Hepburn is sassy and adorable. (8)

DR. ZHIVAGO (1965)—This was my friend Anna's pick. I've never been a fan of the "sweeping epic" films typified by Lawrence of Arabia, and this one didn't do much to bring me around. Not completely uninteresting, but not really my cup of tea. (6)

SUSAN SLADE (1961)—How fitting that this obscure soaper (recommended by my friend Kathy Hansen) should prove so much more entertaining than the Oscar-winning Dr. Zhivago! Troy Donahue and Grant Williams have eyes for Connie Stevens, who spends a lot of the movie knocked up and heartbroken...but at least there's a happy ending. I liked the pretty scenery and the engaging performance of Lloyd Nolan as Connie's hard-working dad. I predict that this film will inspire me to watch A Summer Place very soon. (8)

THE SUSPECT (1944)—Charles Laughton as a truly decent guy who finds he's not above bumping off his bloodsucking wife and a smarmy blackmailer. A fun turn-of-the-century murder picture starring the always watchable Laughton and Stanley Ridges as the inspector he plays cat-and-mouse with. (8)

BARNEY'S VERSION (2010)—I remember first seeing the trailer for this movie quite a while before it was eventually released. My expectations were rather low, which may have contributed to my liking it as much as I did. The idea of a guy falling in love with another woman right after getting married has been done in movies before (The Heartbreak Kid), and Barney (Paul Giamatti) isn't a fraction as likable as Charles Grodin's character was—he drinks and smokes too much, and he's a bit of a curmudgeon. And yet we still root for him. At least I did, because heavenly Rosamund Pike (Made in Dagenham) is worth fighting for—I don't care who you just married! As Barney's papa, Dustin Hoffman is around to give his son some sage advice. One of the funniest and saddest pictures I'll see all year. (9)

SOMEWHERE (2010)—Sofia Coppola's film opens with a fast car zooming around a racetrack. Around and around and around it goes, while we watch helplessly, hoping something else will happen. Unfortunately, precious little does. The driver of the car is action-movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), a cipher of a human who fritters away his free time in between pictures by lounging, eating, watching TV, sunbathing, bathing and having sex with random women. He is sloth personified—there doesn't seem to be a person inside. At length, he is persuaded to spend some time with his young daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), and for a moment, he has a brief fling with being a responsible parent. Dorff's scenes with Fanning are the heart of the movie, but too much of the film seems padded with interminable scenes of people doing nothing. (5)

BEDLAM (1946)—Boris Karloff plays the evil head of Bedlam, an insane asylum, and when a young woman tries to do something about the miserable conditions there, he has her committed. I have been curious about this horror-drama since my tween years; I had hoped it would be a bit more horrifying—or horrifying at all. (6)

FRIENDS WITH MONEY (2006)—Nicole Holofcener is a gifted writer/director who manages to coax excellent performances from her cast. Jennifer Aniston is an actress who manages to suck the life out of every movie she appears in. What happens when this performer who specializes in bad comedies appears in a movie by a director who specializes in sharp, well-written comedies? Who will win? The answer, in this case, is Holofcener. Aniston shows she can inhabit an actual character instead of being the equivalent of a two-dimensional cartoon, and it sure doesn't hurt that her co-stars are great actresses like Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack and Frances McDormand. The film is about four friends, their significant others and their various limitations, issues and jealousies. It's occasionally very witty. (8)

NO STRINGS ATTACHED (2011)—Here's the first new film of the new calendar year I'm seeing, an extremely corny and predictable romcom that's made watchable by a very capable cast that includes Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Mindy Kaling, Lake Bell and Greta Gerwig. The movie draws many of its laughs by giving its female main character (Portman) the kind of commitment-phobic personality that a guy would normally have, while the guy just wants to snuggle. In another notable switch-up, a lot of the bits they used in the trailer are not in the actual film! (7)

THE SILENT PARTNER (1978)—This was the most exciting cinematic surprise of the month—at least, from the archives. Elliott Gould, one of my favorite actors from the 1970s, stars in this Canadian-made crime-suspense thriller as a bank employee who realizes he's about to be robbed...and turns the caper around to his advantage. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as smoothly as he hoped, as an exciting game of cat and mouse (with heavy Christopher Plummer) unfolds. The movie had me enthralled from beginning to end—an IMDB user called it "one of the best films you've probably never heard of." I agree! Sadly, co-star Susannah York died of cancer only days before my viewing of the DVD. (10)

NOTHING SACRED (1937)—I kept reading great reviews of this comedy oldie, but I guess I'm just not a big fan of the so-called "screwball comedy" genre. Some of the laughs have to do with watching a guy punch a woman, which has definitely lost a lot of its "hilarious" impact over the years. Carole Lombard stars as a woman incorrectly diagnosed with a fatal disease; when she learns she's perfectly healthy, she starts to enjoy the sympathetic media blitz that envelops her. Not bad, but not exactly my style. (7)

BROKEN FLOWERS (2005)—Bill Murray plays as an aging "Don Juan" who receives an anonymous letter from a jilted lover informing him that he has a grown son by a long-discarded lover. He then reluctantly sets out to learn the truth in a protracted road trip to visit a variety of his exes. It starts out well enough but slowly falls apart (for both Murray and for the viewer) as each successive reunion is a bigger disaster than the one before. The film has a couple of funny lines, a great deal of awkwardness and a wholly unsatisfying resolution. (6)

CASH ON DEMAND (1961)—This was the second great movie I saw this month that was a crime thriller involving a bank robbery, made outside the U.S., and largely unheard of. Peter Cushing is a super-mean bank manager who finds himself an unwilling pawn in an elaborate robbery scheme. It's actually a variation of the old "Scrooge" story, but it's flawlessly acted and directed. (9)

THE WOMEN (1939)—Recommended by Jay Steele and viewed on my weekend trip to Palo Alto at the end of January. It's a comedy-drama jam-packed with dialogue and featuring an all-woman cast—not a male to be seen in a single frame. Infidelity and divorce are the themes; Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard and Rosalind Russell head the perfect cast. Consistently funny and rewarding; repeat viewings would undoubtedly help to catch some of the missed dialogue. (9)

PRIVATE LIVES (1931)—A somewhat younger Norma Shearer stars in this adaptation of the famous Noel Coward play, yet another variation on the story of people who lose their hearts to others immediately following the wedding. In this case, two exes rekindle their love on their respective honeymoons. Shearer and Robert Montgomery leave their spouses, flirt, kiss, hurl insults and ultimately tear the joint apart. I selected this film on the strength of having seen the truly awesome This Happy Breed, another Coward production, last year. (8)

THE PAWNBROKER (1964)—Here's another film I'm very happy to cross of the list; I've been wanting to see it since high school. Universally lauded by critics, it's been called the first American movie to address the Holocaust (as well as the first American movie featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval). Rod Steiger stars as a Holocaust survivor whose loved ones didn't make it; now working in Harlem, he has become an empty shell of a man, divorced of emotions and rejecting those who try to bring him around. It's quite well done, but watching it is a profoundly sad experience. (8)

December 2010

2011-01-02T10:43:00.001-08:00

At last—another year of devoted film fanaticism is behind me! And so is another year of blogging about the wonderful and wretched movies I treated/subjected myself to. "Only" nine features seen this month, a rather light month, to be sure, mostly because of the winter break. But it seems to be better-than-average, gradewise—I picked 'em good in December.

So let's delve into last month's treasure chest and then do a modest appraisal of the best (and worst) of what 2010 brought our way. Special thanks to Joan, my constant moviegoing companion, for treating to so many of the first-run offerings—I wouldn't have nearly as much fun seeing them without you!

RED (2010)—I gave this comic-book adaptation little more than a passing consideration for viewing, but it seemed to appeal to Joan. So after talking about it for some weeks, we finally did catch a screening of it rather a long time after its debut. I find Bruce Willis to be a solid and dependable performer; of the flicks I've seen him in (Pulp Fiction, Die Hard, The Sixth Sense), I have always enjoyed him, and I have cherished memories of his TV series, Moonlighting. So while Willis is generally the draw, it is co-star Helen Mirren whom I am far more likely to remember in this actioner, playing a longtime agent/assassin who totes a bulky machine gun and kicks more ass than Willis does. I don't usually go for these CIA/double-crossing type yarns, but this was generally entertaining and made memorable by Mirren, so delicious and sexy (even at age 65!). This was also the second movie of 2010 to feature the inimitable Richard Dreyfuss in a small but pivotal cameo role (the other being Piranha 3D).

THE NEXT THREE DAYS (2010)—Poor Russell Crowe. His wife has been arrested for murdering her own boss, and it's up to Russ to bust her out of jail and prove her innocence against all costs. Don't you just hate it when that happens? The wife, played by the sultry Elizabeth Banks, is far more interesting and likable than Crowe's character, for the simple reason that Crowe turns in a one-note performance: he's sour and cranky through the whole picture. Even though you're always on his side and wanting to root for him, you're also wishing he could have been played by somebody with at least an ounce of charisma. He doesn't ruin the movie, but he's a definite detriment to it.

UNSTOPPABLE (2010)—As with Red, I had not given this action-adventure any more serious viewing consideration than I had given the last Tony Scott-directed movie featuring Denzel Washington and a runaway train (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three). But I kept hearing positive comments from friends and reviewers alike, so one day when there was absolutely nothing else to see, I bought a ticket. I was glad I did! I was completely absorbed and entertained—that old cliché about an "edge-of-your-seat" movie experience is an adequate description of this often thrilling ride. Denzel and Chris Pine (the latest James T. Kirk) are out to stop a runaway freight train that's carrying some dangerous chemicals—and might just blow everybody up wherever and whenever it derails. Oddly cast but more than capable Rosario Dawson plays the concerned yardmaster who tries to help the pair while clashing with her boss. It's a real corker, and probably the 2010 movie I most regret not having dragged Joan to see.

WINTER'S BONE (2010)—Here's the first of a trio of very bleak offerings I saw in a row toward the end of the month. Though released months earlier, I caught this indie film on DVD. It's a harrowing tale of 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), who is living in virtual poverty with two young siblings and a mentally vacant mother. Her dad, arrested for cooking up meth, has used their home to get sprung on bail; now he's missing. So it's up to Ree to find her dad, dead or alive, in order to retain possession of their ramshackle house—a dangerous task that must be accomplished when she's not teaching her brother and sister how to hunt for and skin squirrels for their supper. The film is about the pluck and determination of this young woman to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, and there's a menacing chill in the air as Ree stares down a rogue's gallery of creepy, violent townspeople who have no desire to help her and every reason to shut her up—permanently. Often difficult to watch, the film is impossible not to admire and even cherish.

BLUE VALENTINE (2010)—The bleakness continues with a low-budget drama that traces a couple (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) morphing from innocent lovers to warring spouses over the course of six years. They marry, have a kid, and then start to annoy each other with their personality deficiencies. But the real star of the movie is the editing: this is one of those pictures that has no interest in telling a story in the traditional linear format. Instead, we ping-pong back and forth through time, from the early months of the relationship to its death throes, without much of a glimpse of what happens in between—it's up to the viewer to connect the dots. It's an emotional rollercoaster ride as we shunt back and forth between the warm-and-fuzzy beginnings and the often brutal and disgusting denouement, including one scary and unforgettable scene in which Gosling appears at his wife's job drunk and acts like a bellowing SOB. Like the previous film, it's loaded with great acting, but it's a downer, without even the hint of hopefulness that Winter's Bone offers.

ANOTHER YEAR (2010)—The ostensible stars of this Mike Leigh film are Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen as married couple who are actually happy (!), but the real protagonist is Sheen's single workmate, the increasingly miserable Mary. And it is Lesley Manville, as the beleaguered Mary, who carries the picture, solidly and rivetingly, on her shoulders. There are other characters who pass through their lives over the course of one year, but everybody in the movie serves as someone for Mary to react to, either longingly or despicably. Like Leigh's previous movie, Happy-Go-Lucky, one actress becomes the entire reason to see the movie, and Manville (ex-wife of Gary Oldman) turns in one of the year's most shattering performances. Maybe even the best.

TRUE GRIT (2010)—John Wayne won an Oscar for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in the 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis's beloved novel, so Jeff Bridges has his work cut out for him trying to outdo the Duke, and directors Ethan and Joel Coen attempt to give the familiar story their own sensibilities. It all works surprisingly well. Bridges gives us a unique take on Cogburn—hoarser, hairier, dirtier and rougher around the edges. As with the first movie, the characters all speak Portis's quaint dialogue that eschews virtually all contractions and thus sounding like Barbara Eden's Jeannie ("I do not," "I will not," "I cannot," etc.—have these hicks been reading Shakespeare?); Matt Damon takes over for Glen Campbell and relative newcomer Hailee Steinfeld plays Mattie Ross with even more grace and defiance that Kim Darby did. There are a few more "gritty" elements that the earlier film ignored about the novel that the Coens do not, including the unexpectedly downer ending. For me, the best things about the remake are Bridges and Steinfeld. See it for them.

THE KING'S SPEECH (2010)—When you're next in line for the British throne, it helps to be able to sound kingly. Albert "Bertie" George (Colin Firth) certainly doesn't. He suffers from a stammer that makes it impossible to read a five-minute speech in less than half an hour, so his wife enlists the help of a therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who uses unconventional methods to help him overcome his difficulties. It's a difficult journey, given some of Bertie's hangups and personal history (to say nothing of his teasing brother). But Firth and Rush gradually earn each other's trust and forge a friendship that goes a long way to minimizing that speech defect. Their uneasy but ever-strengthening relationship, much of it viewed in their therapy sessions, makes The King's Speech a great piece of fact-based British storytelling.

KISS ME, STUPID (1964)—My list of favorite films is littered by titles directed by Billy Wilder, including The Fortune Cookie, Stalag 17, The Apartment and One, Two, Three, and I'm always eager to expand that list. Several weeks' worth of filming had to be scrapped when costar Peter Sellers suffered a heart attack; he was replaced by Ray Walston, whom I happen to like a lot, and who does a very admirable job opposite Dean Martin in this hilarious tale of songwriting, prostitution and mistaken identity. Blasted by critics as smutty and immoral upon its first release, it has slowly found an audience over the years, and I'm happy to report that it was one of the single most enjoyable "oldies" I saw all year. It's great fun and features a couple of great female performances (by Kim Novak and Felicia Farr) as the romantic counterparts to Walston and Martin (who mocks his boozy persona to great comic effect in this).

THE FINAL TALLY

• Red (8)
• The Next Three Days (7)
• Unstoppable (9)
• Winter's Bone (9)
• Blue Valentine (8)
• Another Year (8)
• True Grit (9)
• The King's Speech (9)
• Kiss Me, Stupid (10)

2010 RECAP

Total number of movies I saw in 2010:

156

Best movies of 2010:

• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Greatest
• Please Give
• City Island
• Kick-Ass
• Toy Story 3
• The Kids are All Right
• Flipped
• The Disappearance of Alice Creed
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Tangled
• Easy A
• The King's Speech
• Winter's Bone
• True Grit
• Unstoppable

Best older movies I saw this year:

• Forbidden Games
• This Happy Breed
• The Sound of Music
• The Card
• Kiss Me, Stupid
• SherryBaby
• King Rat
• The Green Man
• The Third Secret
• Judgment in Nuremburg

Worst movies of 2010:

• The Other Guys
• When in Rome
• Greenberg
• The Runaways
• Life During Wartime

Movies I can scratch off my "Most Want to See" list

• Chinatown
• How Green Was My Valley
• I’m All Right, Jack
• The Third Man
• How to Steal a Million*

*Interestingly, this was the only one of these I genuinely loved.

Of the 14 movies I blogged a year ago that I was most excited about seeing in 2010, the only ones I actually saw were:

• Shutter Island
• She's Out of My League
• Kick-Ass
• Toy Story 3
• Inception
• Piranha 3D
• Tangled

Th-th-th-that's all, folks!

October/November 2010

2010-12-14T11:23:00.000-08:00

Toward the end of October, I suffered a terrible computer mishap: I lost the file where I kept track of the movies I had been seeing. This led to a period of inactivity updating my blog while I procrastinated about reconstructing the list. Now, as we hurtle toward the end of the calendar year, it is finally time to try piecing together the list of the films I have seen during the last couple of months. I have zero memory which of these I saw in which month, but at least I am reasonably sure that all of the feature films are accounted for. No doubt I've lost track of some of the older films I viewed on DVD or AVI, but I do remember most of them.

I'll start with the newer stuff and list everything in order of enjoyment, since I no longer have a record of what I saw chronologically.

FIRST-RUN

TANGLED—At the start of this year, it was still known as Rapunzel, Disney's latest attempt to breathe life into the old princess fairy-tale formula. But after The Princess and the Frog did less-than-spectacular business (especially among boys), the Mouse's marketers tinkered with the title and the ad campaign, helping to create a huge hit. The movie has flair, humor, suspense and great music (by Alan Menken). (10)

EASY A—This takeoff on The Scarlet Letter presents Emma Stone as a clean-cut high-school girl who pretends to be a slut to beef up her popularity—a plan that works a little too well. It's a surprisingly fun comedy with uniformly good performances, including Amanda Bynes as an annoying Bible-thumper. (9)

MEGAMIND—The latest Dreamworks animated feature stars Will Ferrell as the title supervillain, who has a few more likable bones in his body than he ought to have. The top-notch cast includes Tina Fey, David Cross and Brad Pitt. As with all Dreamworks cartoons, the only thing that really bugged me about this one is the perpetual, predictable and highly annoying reliance of hit songs on the soundtrack. Still, this is a very fun and lively outing, if a bit formulaic. (9)

IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY—My jokey alternate title for this was Love Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A depressed teen with thoughts of suicide (Keir Gilchrist) checks himself into a psych ward and meets an adorable pseudo-crazy girl there. Is it true love, or will he pursue the classmate he has a crush on? Zach Galifianakis provides some laughs as another fellow inmate. (8)

THE SOCIAL NETWORK—Perhaps the year's most talked-about movie, a largely fictionalized account of how computer genius Mark Zuckerberg either invented or stole the idea for Facebook, depending on whose story you believe. Jesse Eisenberg seems to be channeling Michael Cera as the laconic Zuckerberg; despite some fun, snarky dialogue by Aaron Sorkin, the whole plot comes down to "he said / he said." (8)

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT—This may be the only movie I have seen accidentally. After sitting through one movie at a local multiplex one afternoon, I sneaked into this one under the impression that it was Never Let Me Go, which has a similarly generic title. I had been actively avoiding this unbelievably contrived Katherine Heigl romantic "comedy," but since I wasn't paying for it, I decided to give it a chance...and found it to be not nearly as terrible as I had anticipated. It's enjoyable in a very cute, mindless way, and Heigl is, after all, extremely beautiful. (7)

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS—Unlike the previous entry, this was a movie that I'd had very high expectations for that was a bit disappointing. I happen to be a big fan of director Ed Zwick, who has provided me with untold hours of pleasure with his many TV dramas, as well as movies like Courage Under Fire. This film is part romantic comedy, part historical satire and part disease-of-the-week drama, and while each of these parts succeeds on its own, it doesn't really quite jell as a whole. Anne Hathaway, as a sexy sufferer of Parkinsons, is worth the price of admission—both for her acting and the considerable nudity she has on display. (7)

FAIR GAME—Naomi Watts plays real-life CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose cover was blown by certain White House officials out to discredit her husband (Sean Penn). I remember that I enjoyed it, but most of my specific memories about the film have already evaporated from my mind. (7)

MORNING GLORY—Ironically, even though the Valerie Plame movie has social relevance and high-caliber acting, it is this wispy, silly, ineffectual comedy that I recall all the details about. Harrison Ford is a grumpy, award-winning broadcast journalist (think Dan Rather) who reluctantly takes a position as the host of a TV morning show produced by novice Rachel McAdams. The movie is frightfully contrived, extremely silly and nearly impossible not to enjoy. McAdams is arguably the most beautiful of actresses working in movies today. (7)

HEREAFTER—It starts with a devastating and spectacular tsuami, one of the single best special-effects sequences I have ever seen. Director Clint Eastwood's movie, about a guy (Matt Damon) who communicates with the dead but doesn't really enjoy his gift, is a slow-moving affair, featuring three characters in different countries who have each been touched by death and who, after an extremely long wait, finally converge. Interesting, but overlong; and Damon's reluctance to use his amazing powers was never explained to my complete satisfaction. (7)

LET ME IN—Remake of a Swedish vampire movie; moderately entertaining, thanks to actress Chloe Moretz of Kick-Ass. (7)

SKYLINE—Cloverfield meets War of the Worlds as a small group of L.A. dwellers cope with a terrifying alien invasion. Despite a truly horrible screenplay with laughable dialogue, it's worth seeing just for the monsters. (7)

STONE—No-nonsense prison parole official Robert DeNiro must decide the fate of loopy inmate Edward Norton, which proves tricky when Norton's sexy wife, Milla Jovovich, attempts to intervene. Intriguing premise, which ultimately suffers from a total lack of any sympathetic characters. (7)

THE AMERICAN—George Clooney is a hit man hiding out in an Italian village and playing the mattress mambo with hooker Violante Placido. Decent, but as with the previous entry, it's hard to truly care about any of the characters. (7)

BURLESQUE—This is the kind of terrible movie you check out just to see how bad it is. It did not disappoint in that respect (everything about it is either asinine or ludicrous), but Cher continues to shine as an actress. (5)

REVIVALS / DVD / iPAD

SUSPICION (1941)—Fun Hitchcock film about how Joan Fontaine marries a charming gambler (Cary Grant) who might just be plotting to bump her off for her money. (8)

SAW (2004)—This was one of a series of horror movies I viewed while sailing on my Royal Caribbean cruise of early November. A relentlessly gory and disgusting entry that launched the extremely successful series. This first chapter, at least, contains a good idea and a few decent twists. Not sure if I'll bother with any of the sequels. (8)

HOSTEL (2005)—People keep disappearing in Eli Roth's creepy and sadistic horror movie, set in a Slovakian city where you can torture kidnap victims at a price. Like Saw, it is disgusting and horrific, but it sure keeps you interested. (8)

SPLICE (2009)—A suspenseful sci-fi film that zips along at a breakneck pace. A pair of romantically involved scientists secretly cross-breed a human and animal named Dren, whom they perversely keep as part lab experiment, part pet, and part daughter. Alternately compelling, silly and wildly implausible, but always entertaining. Good SFX. Suggested sequel: Diet Splice. (8)

A PERSONAL AFFAIR (1953)—Having recently very much enjoyed the young Glynis Johns in The Card, I decided to check out this film from around the same time period. It's a low-key melodrama/mystery about how Johns falls in love with her clueless married schoolteacher (Leo Genn), then vanishes after being confronted about her feelings by Genn's wife (Gene Tierney). With the lovesick teenager missing, things start to look very bad for the teacher. This being the 1950s, all is happily resolved by the end. (8)

MR. DENNING DRIVES NORTH (1952)—I continue to plow through the John Mills filmography with this Hitchcockian thriller about a guy suspected for a murder he didn't commit. He must put the pieces of the puzzle while running from the cops. It's a very familiar plot, but Mills is never less than fascinating to watch onscreen. (8)

THE GAME (1997)—The phrase "laughably preposterous" gets thrown around a lot, but it definitely applies here. Michael Douglas is given a gift of a live-action "game," which he must play out in order to gain some sort of relevant epiphany, but the rules seem to entail putting his life in almost constant peril. The result is a movie about a game that becomes kind of a game itself, as the viewer tries to piece together exactly what is going on. Michael Douglas is very watchable, but the movie is so ludicrous that it's difficult to take seriously. (7)

THE THIRD MAN (1949)—Noirish adaptation of Graham Greene's novel about a man (Joseph Cotten) who investigates the mysterious death of his friend (Orson Welles) in Vienna. I wanted to like it more than I did; I never like these film noirs, and Cotten is one of my least-favorite actors. (6)

PEEPING TOM (1960)—British thriller about a twisted psychopath who likes to film women as he murders them; it was way ahead of its time when it was released, but it's lost a great deal of its impact after 50 years. (6)

MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (1993)—There's nary a twist in Woody Allen's comedy-mystery, his first post-Mia movie. It's neither hilarious nor suspenseful—it's just about as mediocre as the poster for it would seem to suggest. Allen himself whines way too much in it. (6)

A CHILD IS WAITING (1963)—Teacher Judy Garland clashes with the principal of the school for retarded children. (Real retarded kids were used, and it's funny to hear them referred to as "retarded kids" way before the political consciousness deemed that a bad word.) Innovative, at least in 1963; a bit dull and overwrought today. (6)

CHINATOWN (1974) Landmark film-noir tribute starring Jack Nicholson as a private eye who investigates some excruciatingly boring goings-on related to the local water utility. "Vastly overrated" is putting it mildly—I guess I will never understand why people love this movie. (4)

September 2010

2010-10-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

Last year, I attempted to watch an average of one movie a day. It was a challenge, and doomed to fail, but I was surprised when I was able to keep it up for nearly half of 2009 until other distractions demanded my attention. Now, thanks to my new iPad, I am able to watch more films on the go, and I was actually able to view a movie every day this September.

I've also adopted a new philosophy about movie watching—it suddenly dawned on me that I need not commit to watching a movie in its entirety if I find it boring, nonsensical, inferior or unbelievable. So I've actually begun to abandon some movies after 15-30 minutes when they fail to carbonate my imagination.

Here's September's cinematic lineup, more or less in chronological order:

1. FRIGHT (1971) I picked this because I enjoy scary movies—and because British actress Susan George was so sexy during this period of her career. This fright-fest starts off extremely well: Susan plays a pretty girl who comes over to babysit while the lady and gentleman of the house spend the evening out. The setup is done very skillfully, and I was rapt with interest as the groundwork was laid for the terror to come. As Susan spends the first quarter-hour alone in the house, there's a growing sense of foreboding...and then, much to my disappointment, the film proceeds to slowly jump the shark. The source of the film's evil menace—which should deliver the paralyzing fright that the film's title promises—is far more annoying than horrific, and modern-day viewers are apt to be bewildered by the police response (if you can call it that), which involves standing around outside the house talking somewhat loudly. What a terrible pity this movie couldn't follow through on what starts out so well...although as I say, Susan is quite easy on the eyes. (5)

2. THE BROTHERS BLOOM (2008) This is one of half a dozen films I saw this month that were recommended by various friends. Valerie Collins implored me to give this "flim-flam" film a chance—and since I love con-artist stories, I accepted the challenge. Two brothers (sexy Mark Ruffalo and eagle-nosed Adrien Brody) who have had a lot of success swindling people decide to do one final con, this time on an eccentric rich girl named Penelope (Rachel Weisz). Their very elaborate and well-plotted scam is fraught with peril, thanks to the unpredictability of their "mark." It's an interesting though quite offbeat story, and one of the better con movies. (8)

3. MACHETE (2010) This is a new film by Robert Rodriguez, based on the fake trailer that appeared in Grindhouse, his double feature with Quentin Tarantino. It's another tribute to the farfetched but relentlessly action-packed drive-in films from the '60s and '70s, and he does it so well that the parody aspect begins to blur as the movie becomes nearly indistinguishable from the ones it intends to satirize. Danny Trejo is perfectly cast as the macho man's macho man, and his beautiful co-stars (Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba) make this a must-see movie for men. Bloody, preposterous, fitfully enjoyable fun. (8)

4. THE CARD (1952) Recently I purchased an obscure show-tune LP of a musical called The Card, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned that the musical was based on a 1911 novel by Arnold Bennett, which was later made into this 1952 comedy film. Having enjoyed the musical so much, I was eager to check out the (non-musical) movie version, and I was not disappointed. Alec Guinness (37 years old at the time of filming, but seeming much younger) stars as a self-made entrepreneur who gets involved with a woman played by the lovely but spoiled Glynis Johns. Her performance is so delightful that I subsequently picked up several of her other movies and forcing my friend Jay to watch it (and he liked it well enough to share it with one of his friends). Now if I can only get him to listen to the musical! (9)

5. A CHRISTMAS WISH (1998) Here's a made-for-TV movie recommended to me by my friend Joan, who'd seen it several years ago. It's a serviceable, low-budget drama, reminding me of one of the Danielle Steel novels I've read. Neil Patrick Harris stars as a man who has taken over his grandfather's real-estate business, grappling with trying to fill grandpa's estimable shoes, striking up a new romance—and solving a compelling mystery in time for Christmas. The movie tries hard to be heartwarming while winding up mostly corny and syrupy (just like the vast majority of TV movies) but it's watchable enough. I did have a problem with the mystery's inevitable solution, but seeing a pre-Ring Naomi Watts was a revelation! (8)

6. THIS HAPPY BREED (1944) My favorite movie of the month and possibly the year, this intensely moving drama is about a working-class family in England spanning the time between the two World Wars, exploring the themes of love, death, war, loyalty, friendship, motherhood, fatherhood and maturity. It left me sobbing and shattered; I have now sat through it three times so far and can't wait to see it again. Featuring the always-fantastic John Mills, as well as Robert Newton, Celia Johnson and Kay Walsh—every one of them riveting. Directed by David Lean and written by the great Noel Coward. (10)

7. IN WHICH WE SERVE (1942) My selection of this film was directly influenced by the preceding one; not only does it also feature John Mills and Kay Walsh, but it was also written by Noel Coward (and actually stars Coward as well)! This one takes place during WWII, and interestingly, was made and released well before the end of that war. The stories of the movie are told mostly in flashback. (8)

8. THE MILLION-POUND NOTE (1954) Penniless American Gregory Peck wanders around London looking for a job and a meal, and is given an extraordinary gift of £1,000,000 by two rich men who have made a private bet about their gift. The movie makes its point—people treat you differently if they think you're rich—over and over again. This contrived comedy is not bad, but not quite as funny as I'd hoped. (7)

9. THE NOTORIOUS LANDLADY (1962) Jack Lemmon, one of my very favorite actors, stars in this comedy-mystery as an American embassy man in London who falls for a woman with a possibly murderous past. The film has the promise of a Hitchockian-type thriller, but eventually becomes too silly and slapsticky. Still, the first half is quite enjoyable. (7)

10. STARTER FOR 10 (2006) Back in 1985, a freshman at Bristol University competes for a chance to appear on a famous TV quiz show (with a beautiful girl he falls for). Moderately interesting study of a guy who learns some big Life Lessons, with the always enchanting Rebecca Hall as the girl he's clearly more suited for. I like to think I am very well suited for her myself. (8)

11. SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010) It seems only yesterday that Joan and I were staring at an oversized poster of this movie and remarking on how terrible it would probably be. But free screenings at Paramount have a way of luring us in, and I'm glad it did. This turns out to be a mad, loud, unexpectedly surreal video-game of a movie that I loved—and that she despised. The picture positively percolates with goofy humor and frenzied action. A pure bliss-out. (10)

12. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) This is one of a handful of movies (along with Saturday Night Fever, Chinatown and Raging Bull) that most film buffs have seen but that I have inexplicably missed. When a local revival cinema was showing a new 35mm print of the classic musical, I knew the time had finally come for me to see it. Not only was I amazed by how truly excellent it was, I was totally unprepared for the mad crush I would develop on Julie Andrews, who is more than just sweet in this film—she's incredibly sexy as well. I've heard "Do, Re, Mi" all my life, so how wild is it that this sequence in the film reduced me to tears? (10)

13. INDISCREET (1958) Halfway into this movie about how a married man (Cary Grant) has an affair with a famous actress (Ingrid Bergman), I realized I was watching yet another variation of the "Big Lie" romance flick, and I never quite recovered from that revelation. Odd revelation: I always enjoy Cary Grant, but I rarely love any of the movies I see him in! (7)

14. WHO IS HARRY NILSSON? (2010) A fun and informative documentary about the famous singer-songwriter who shot to stardom with his version of "Everybody's Talkin'" from Midnight Cowboy. It's full of great interviews with people who knew and worked with him, including my musical hero, Randy Newman. (8)

15. THE MORTAL STORM (1940) I love Jimmy Stewart...but is he really the best person to cast as a German citizen who finds himself up against the Nazis? It wasn't easy to buy him in that role, but fortunately Stewart is watchable in virtually everything he does, so I stuck with this story of 1930s anti-Semitism in a German alps setting. Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard of Oz) appears as a college professor whose career is cut short when he teaches that Aryans and non-Aryans are biologically identical. (8)

16. EAT PRAY LOVE (2010) Reasonably entertaining travelogue starring Julia Roberts on a spiritual journey to Italy, India and Indonesia (WHAT? No Iceland?), where she indulges in the title verbs. Not nearly as bad as I feared it'd be; still hard to look at Javier Bardem and not recall his sinister character from No Country for Old Men. (8)

17. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) Extremely low-budget, poorly made revenge flick about a woman who's brutally raped by a quartet of rednecks...and the comeuppance each receives after they unwisely leave her alive. It's hard to defend my viewing of this outright trash, horribly written and directed as it is, but I just have a passion for revenge movies—even shamelessly exploitative ones like this. (8)

18. GENEVIEVE (1953) I'd read exceedingly good things about this British comedy about a pair of couples who own antique cars and drive them from London to Brighton in a kind of race. Hilarity ensues when the cars continually break down and the rival men mock and trick each other. Clean, good-spirited fun. (9)

19. A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946) Yet another acclaimed British film, this one features young David Niven as a WWII aviator who by all rights should have died when his bomber crashes, but Heaven apparently makes some sort of mistake (à la Here Comes Mr. Jordan) and he has to argue his case in the Court of the Great Beyond. Despite universal enthusiasm for this otherworldly comedy, I found it just ho-hum, although I liked the romance between Niven and Kim Hunter (who would go on to play Zira the chimp in the Planet of the Apes series). Interestingly, in a reverse of the old Wizard of Oz gimmick, the film reverts from color to black-and-white when the action shifts to the dreamy world of Heaven. (6)

20. THE TOWN (2010) Armed robber Ben Affleck gets involved with one of his bank-employee victims, the always enjoyable Rebecca Hall. I generally dislike films where I'm asked to sympathize with, and root for, an obvious bad guy, and although there are some obvious plot holes in the film, I was never bored in what is ultimately an entertaining and suspenseful crime thriller. It features excellent performances from the entire cast, including Jon Hamm as a cop, Jeremy Renner as Affleck's hot-headed partner in crime, and Blake Lively as Affleck's lowlife ex. (8)

21. DEVIL (2010) Five people are trapped in an elevator...is one of them Satan? Essentially a slasher movie with a twist, Devil serves up pure adrenaline to distract you from thinking too much about the plot. (7)

22. THE FIVE PENNIES (1959) The first of two Danny Kaye movies that were recommended to me by different people; this one is courtesy of Eileen. A somewhat fictionalized biography of Red Nichols, the famous cornet player, The Five Pennies offers us a look at his romance with young Barbara Bel Geddes, his career achievements, the birth of his daughter (and her battle with polio), lots of jazz playing, and cameos by Louis Armstrong and other performers. Kaye is his usual funny self. (8)

23. YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER (2010) Woody Allen's latest is set in England, involving two couples wrestling with various affairs of the heart (i.e., divorce and infidelity). Although far from Woody's best, it's a bit more enjoyable than some of his other output over the last 20 years or so, successfully mixing drama, romance and some very light comedy (thanks to a perfectly cast Lucy Punch as a Chav hooker who hooks up with aging Anthony Hopkins). Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire also scores points as a delectable neighbor who catches Josh Brolin's eye. (8)

24. STAGE FRIGHT (1950) Hitchcock directed this thriller about a young woman (Jane Wyman) hell-bent on proving the innocence of a friend accused of murder, and the usual hot water all Hitchcock protagonists get themselves into. I had recently seen Wyman in my umpteenth viewing of Pollyanna (1960) and was wondering how cute she must have looked as a slightly younger woman. Now I know! Two of my favorite performers, Alastair Sim and Kay Walsh, keep things lively in what is ultimately lesser Hitchcock. (8)

25. MADAME X (1966) Unbeknownst to me at the time I saw this on DVD, this was at least the third filming of the identical story of a woman (Lana Turner) whose life crashes down around her after she cheats on her absentee husband (John Forsythe). And the film was remade yet again after this version! Clearly, this tragic melodrama has a lot of life in it. (8)

26. LIFE WITH FATHER (1947) William Powell is the whole show in this story of a man who rules his wife and four sons with an iron fist—and there is no way he's getting baptized! Powell's views on religion and baptism provided no end of hilarity, and I liked the curious relationship he has with his wife (Irene Dunne), who employs a variety of tricks to get what she wants out of him. There's very little story here, per se; it's all just a grand opportunity for Powell to play his blustery role with as much horsepower as possible. Special thanks to Merf for the recommendation! (9)

27. HOW TO STEAL A MILLION (1966) Both Merf and Jay had recommended this comedy to me; since it stars two of my favorite actors (Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn), there was little point in resisting. Both actors are at the top of their game in this amusing caper about their attempt to steal a priceless statue belonging to Hepburn's art-forgery dad from a museum before it can be discovered as a fake. The movie is grand fun with a lot of sparkling dialogue. Gotta love that boomerang! (9)

28. CATFISH (2010) Supposedly real documentary about a good-looking young man (Nev Schulman) who forges a relationship with some people on Facebook, and his slow realization that everything is not what it appears to be. Real or not, I found myself absorbed throughout by this shoestring-budgeted feature, which has some suspenseful and disturbing elements, as well as some excruciatingly uncomfortable laughs. (8)

29. THE COURT JESTER (1955) The second Danny Kaye movie I viewed this month that was a friend's recommendation (this one by Joan's sister, Nancy). It's a delightfully funny spoof of historical costume dramas, with Kaye doing his best to overthrow the evil usurpers of the royal family. There are lots of great lines, jousting, romance, et al. I only regret that I did not get to enjoy it on the big screen, where it clearly is meant to be seen. And don't forget: The pellet with the poison's in the pestle with the vessel! (9)

30. CASE 39 (2010) This Paramount horror movie has been sitting on the shelf for a few years. Given my penchant for evil-kid movies, I found it enjoyable enough; what it lacks in logic, it makes up for in thrills. It's one of the many horror flicks that begs the question: Why do people continue to go back to a house they know is deathly dangerous? Between this and garbage like New in Town, Renée Zellweger's career has really taken a beating since Jerry Maguire. (8)

August 2010

2010-09-01T21:33:00.001-07:00

FIRST-RUN FILMS

Seven of the 13 movies I saw in August were new or relatively new, including one I saw twice; that one will undoubtedly be among my very favorites of 2010.

I'll start with the best and work my way down.

Rob Reiner can be unpredictable. He has directed some wonderful movies that I cherish, including This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, Misery and The American President. But he tends to lose his footing—the bomb North is famously hated by critics, and some of his later-period flicks were reviewed just as poorly. Even so, I have seen far more hits than misses by the ex-Meathead, so I was curious to check out Flipped, which was said to be in the same vein as TV's sweetly nostalgic The Wonder Years—a period-piece coming-of-age story that harkened back to his earlier hit Stand by Me, also taking place during the late 1950s. Based on a novel set in contemporary times, Flipped readjusts the timeframe back half a century, but retains the book's gimmick of telling the tale from two schoolmates' disparate points of view. Bryce, a cute boy (Callan McAuliffe) moves next door to free-thinking Juli (Madeline Carroll), and she instantly falls in love with him. He can't stand her, though, and the movie chronicles his extremely slow re-evaluation of her beauty, both inner and outer. It's an extremely thought-provoking and moving film with a number of excellent adult performances (John Mahoney, Anthony Edwards, Rebecca DeMornay and Penelope Ann Miller among them). I would see it a third time.

Here's the review of Flipped that I posted to IMDB.com:

Back in 1973, an episode of TV's All in the Family told the same story from three different perspectives, one of which was from the point of view of Mike Stivic, played by Rob Reiner. Watching his latest directorial effort, I wondered if the "he said / she said" gimmick of that episode ("Everybody Tells the Truth") was what attracted Reiner to Flipped, the young-adult novel by Wendelin Van Draanen, which employs the same multi-POV technique that Lawrence Durrell perfected with his Alexandria Quartet in the late 1950s. The film version of Flipped shows Reiner at the top of his form, a worthy addition to an ouevre that includes Stand By Me, the 1986 period piece that Flipped most recalls, with its younger characters and coming-of-age theme. At the heart of Flipped is Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll), a smart, pretty and thoughtful girl who you just can't help losing your heart to. Juli herself flips for Bryce Loski, who is at first repelled by Juli and then slowly starts to see her for the lovely person she is. The cast is augmented by such pros as John Mahoney (Frasier's dad on Cheers), Anthony Edwards, Aidan Quinn and Rebecca De Mornay and Penelope Ann Miller. The film offers up various slices of life from the late '50s and early '60s that makes for a nostalgic, romantic and very moving film. Special kudos to the filmmakers for finding a girl to play young Juli (Morgan Lily) who looks chillingly like Madeline Carroll; I would have bet anything the two were sisters. For those who are bored by the dumb-dumb summer comedies of 2010, this is a tender and emotionally satisfying journey that will stay with you for years.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a three-character British thriller about two men (including Happy-Go-Lucky's gruff Eddie Marsan) who snatch a pretty girl (Gemma Arterton) for the ransom...but everything is not quite as it seems, and the fun of the movie is in the numerous revelations and twists that the writer/director J. Blakeson keeps throwing at you. It's a gripping, edge-of-your-seat nail-biter, very well acted and immensely satisfying.

And then we have Piranha 3-D, one of those movies I couldn't drag Joan to with a heavy chain, and wouldn't bother trying. Just as well—this is a real "guy" movie with nonstop action and wall-to-wall blood, gore, nudity, cardboard characterizations and evil fishies with razor-sharp teeth. Some of the gorier scenes were almost cartoonish in their absurdity, reminding me of a Road Runner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote is skewered by, say, a falling harp. No, it's not going to win any Oscars, but it guarantees that I will be first in line for Piranha 3D II.

Dinner for Schmucks is Steve Carell's latest zany vehicle, a remake of a French farce I haven't seen about some pompous lawyer types who find and invite idiots of their acquaintance to a periodic get-together so they can make fun of them. Paul Rudd's "find" is Carell, a maker of dioramas featuring stuffed rodents. He's a well-meaning klutz who won't leave Rudd alone, but he may have an important lesson to teach him about who the real idiot is. Get it? It's sporadically entertaining and doesn't require any excess brain power, but two things about the movie confounded me. First of all, Rudd has a gorgeous girlfriend (Stephanie Szostak) who disapproves of the whole dinner gambit and demands that Rudd not participate at the cost of missing out on his promotion. Um, excuse me? This bimbo is the biggest schmuck in the movie—I would have dropped her like a hot potato for suggesting I intentionally forego my big promotion. Another thing that doesn't add up is the fact that Carell is supposed to be a blithering idiot, yet he possesses ingenious talent and skill—his mouse dioramas are so cute that I would have purchased several in the lobby, had they been for sale. The filmmakers want to have it both ways; the film's other characters make fun of Carell's creations, but they're way too delightful to be considered odious.

Middle Men was a free screening at Paramount, and I think Joan and I walked away from this story of how the Internet became so inundated by porn with a sense that we'd seen something reasonably entertaining and informative if not exactly memorable. Luke Wilson plays a lawyer who assists two very technically savvy but socially despicable nitwits form the first pay-for-porn website on the Web. The movie tells us that it's based on a true story while simultaneously informing us that it's a work of fiction—a confusing contradiction that left us scratching our heads. Quite a bit of the movie details the basic conflict, which is that the Russian mob has their hands in this indecent but wildly lucrative innovation, and their crooked attorney (James Caan) is also hungry for a percentage. The end result is a mishmash of character study and fictionalized history lesson, but I can't honestly claim to have been bored.

Now we get to the two movies I genuinely wish I hadn't seen.

The first is Life During Wartime, writer-director Todd Solondz's sequel to his splendid and groundbreaking 1998 film Happiness, a unique and sickly hilarious concoction about three sisters and their struggles with men. The new movie picks up where that one left off, but with an entirely new cast of actors who resemble the previous ones the way a teacup resembles a blizzard—for example, one of the white characters from Happiness is now played by a black actor. Alarmingly, Solondz's ability to convey his dark-comedy tales in an endearingly goofy way seems to have suffered over the passage of time. It had been awhile since I'd seen Happiness, so I watched it again the night before my screening of Life During Wartime, and only a glimmer of the director's considerable skills are on display in the new film. It's got some interesting ideas, but the movie just doesn't entertain or challenge us in the same way as before. On the plus side, there is one electrifying scene with 64-year-old Charlotte Rampling, a character not featured in the original film, and I'll always remember it fondly. She's topless in the scene, and she still looks incredibly sexy.

Finally, there was The Other Guys, or as I like to call it, "Connie's Revenge." Years ago, I brought a DVD of one of my favorite comedies, Team America, over to Connie's house, and she wound up having so much loathing for it that it surprised me how different our respective senses of humor could be. Now I get my comeuppance as her recommendation of the buddy-cop spoof The Other Guys (which she called "really funny!") sent me rushing to the theater (with Joan in tow), only to encounter one of the most foul, dismal and dreadful piles of cinematic crap it has ever been my misfortune to sit through three-quarters of. I stalked out about 20 minutes before the end of the movie and played Angry Bird on my iPhone, which was about 100 times funnier than the movie. Joan stuck with it all the way through, and to be fair, Will Ferrell has made me chuckle on occasion. But Mark Wahlberg is so repellent and awful in the movie that, like a comedic black hole, anything that might have been halfway amusing gets sucked into the vortex, never to be seen again. After the movie, I felt like I needed to take a shower—it made me feel that dirty.

DVDs

Once again, going from good to not-so-good:

• Judgment in Nuremburg is the famous 1961 Stanley Kramer movie featuring the great Spencer Tracy as a small-town American judge who travels to Germany to consider the case of a few Nazis after WWII. Although it's very long (186 mins.) and doesn't contain a lot of action, I was absorbed throughout; there's a surprising scene where one of the prosecuting attorneys shows a lengthy film-within-the-film documenting Nazi atrocities that must have been extremely potent for 1961, because I could barely watch it nearly 50 years hence. There are many great performances; Tracy is always superb, and there are great turns by Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich and Maximilian Schell. It was also fun to see future TV series stars William "Capt. Kirk" Shatner and Werner "Col. Klink" Klemperer.

• Bad Day at Black Rock—Continuing in my Spencer Tracy phase, this was my last movie of August; in fact, I watched it last night. It's an odd movie, basically a Western with one-armed city man Tracy traveling to very small desert town to get to the bottom of a Japanese man's disappearance. He finds nothing but creepy menace and threats of violence in the few townspeople he meets, who obviously have something to hide. Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are a memorable pair of villains, and it's always great to see (and hear) Walter Brennan. Best scene in the movie involves nice-guy Tracy finally reaching the end of his rope with Ernest Borgnine.

• Private's Progress (1956) and its sequel, I'm All Right Jack (1959) are two very British black-and-white comedies about Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael), a not particularly bright fellow who confounds his Army superiors in the first movie and his business superiors in the second. They're very dry comedies in the grand English tradition, directed by John Boulting and featuring much of the same cast of British actors like Terry-Thomas and Richard Attenborough. The sequel has the benefit of starring Peter Sellers as a Communist union leader at the missile factory where Stanley works, and the film contains a hilariously memorable scene in a sweets factory where Stanley gets his fill of the candy-coated Twinkie-type desserts off an assembly line.

• Dime With a Halo is an obscure 1963 independent film that I watched merely to gaze at its incredibly beautiful star, Barbara Luna. The story is about Luna's little brother once they have relocated to Mexico, and how a winning race-track ticket causes misery for everybody involved. The movie is also memorable for an eyebrow-raising scene where Luna appeals to the libido of a 12-year-old boy; no film made today could ever get away with something like that, yet Dime With a Halo was obviously marketed to kids—and Luna plays a stripper to boot!

• The Pursuit of Happiness (1971) is about what happens when young Michael Sarrazin accidentally runs down a woman in his car, is sent to prison, and then escapes to be with his girlfriend, the beautiful Barbara Hershey (the main reason I watched the movie). Not a great film, but Hershey is worth watching in practically anything.

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

Flipped (10)
Judgment in Nuremburg (9)
The Disappearance of Alice Creed (9)
Bad Day at Black Rock (8)
Piranha 3D (8)
Dinner for Schmucks (7)
I'm All Right, Jack (7)
Middle Men (7)
The Pursuit of Happiness (6)
Dime With a Halo (6)
Private's Progress (6)
Dime With a Halo (6)
The Pursuit of Happiness (6)
Life During Wartime (4)
The Other Guys (2)

July 2010

2010-07-31T22:56:00.000-07:00

DVDs

I've started each of my 2010 blogs with a report on the new movies I've seen, but this month I'm going to lead with the oldies, because of one gleaming, shattering film that moved me so immensely that I've managed to shed a tear every day that has passed—merely by thinking about it.

How is it possible that I had never even heard of 1952's Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games) until this month? In recent months and years, I have attempted to catch up on the "classics" of cinema (i.e., A Clockwork Orange), and too often I find myself disappointed by the lack of an impact they make. Well, here's the opposite occurrence: a movie that is totally unfamiliar to me, and it shatters my world. A 5-year-old French girl named Paulette (Brigitte Fossey), orphaned by a Nazi air raid, wanders the countryside before being taken in by a peasant family. She makes friends with the youngest son (Georges Poujouly), and together they learn how to cope with their respective tragedies, as well as with the horrors of war. The film celebrates the innocence and curiosity of children, and lampoons the imbecility and savagery of adults. It sounds dark and serious, but there's actually a fair amount of humor in this astonishing and marvelous film. I recommend it without reservation, with the warning that the ending will haunt you forever. I can't think about this film, or even hear any of the music, without the waterworks turning on. It is very simply the single most touching and poignant film I have ever seen—a masterpiece of cinema.

Another truly superb older movie I discovered in July was King Rat (1965), based on the James Clavell novel, and also taking place during WWII. This one takes place in a Japanese POW camp based in Singapore, with various British and American soldiers being kept in less-than-ideal conditions, to put it mildly. One prisoner who seems to do very well for himself is U.S. Corp. King (George Segal), who has learned how to turn his considerable charm and black-marketing skills to his advantage. He befriends a British soldier played by James Fox, and their uneasy relationship forms the heart of the movie. Although the Japanese are obviously the bad guys, the real antagonist takes the form of a British lieutenant (Tom Courtenay) who tries to catch Segal and others breaking the rules; his Javert-like obsession threatens to become his own undoing. I took a chance on the film because it stars one of my very favorite actors, John Mills, whose role is small but pivotal.

Both WWII movies were filmed in glorious black and white, as were my next two British oldies, which also kept me riveted throughout: The Green Man (1956) and The Third Secret (1964). The former is a farcical comedy starring the amazingly funny Alastair Sim as an unlikely hit man; the latter is a Hitchockian thriller featuring the phenomenal Pamela Franklin as a young girl whose psychiatrist father is murdered. Although both movies are excellent, English and in B&W, they couldn't be more different in flavor.

Though I'm a big fan of Jimmy Stewart, I haven't seen close to even half of his movies. And I haven't even seen one of the many Westerns he made, so I treated myself to what many consider his best: The Naked Spur (1953), with a classic bounty-hunter plot that details Jimmy's attempts to round up a bad guy who has a price on his head. Although he's the protagonist, Jimmy gets as far from his nice-guy persona as I've ever seen him do. He's "helped" by a couple of guns-for-hire, who may not be the most trustworthy souls around, and sexy Janet Leigh is involved as a prospective love interest. It's a very good Western, as Westerns go.

I had heard good things about 1944's The Uninvited, in which Ray Milland and his sister, Ruth Hussey, buy a house together, only to find out that the damned place is haunted. This interesting occult comedy-thriller-romance gets a boost from the lovely Gail Russell, who plays Milland's new neighbor; she was just 20 when this film was released; tragically, she later became an alcoholic and died at age 36 from a booze-related heart attack.

SherryBaby (2006) is a film that my friend Geof O'Keefe has been urging me to watch. It stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as Sherry, a newly paroled drug addict who attempts to connect with her young daughter, who's being raised by her brother and sister-in-law. I was sure I hadn't seen the movie before, but so much of it was familiar to me that I realized fairly early on that I must have seen a big portion of it on cable. That doesn't sound like much of a recommendation, but this is indeed a very riveting and well-acted drama, with Gyllenhaal giving the performance of her career (so far). The movie doesn't try to gloss over Sherry's flaws—or the devastating reasons for those flaws. I highly recommend it.

Hot Millions, from 1968, was ironically the "newest" old movie I saw in July. It's a comedy about how ex-con (and current con man) Peter Ustinov launches an elaborate embezzlement scheme using a computer at his new job. I was seduced by the critics' rave reviews, but only found myself mildly interested, despite the presence of ace performers like Maggie Smith, Karl Malden and Bob Newhart.

I closed out July (this very afternoon, actually) with 1959's Sapphire, knowing not a thing about it beforehand. It's a British whodunit involving a slain young woman whose murder investigation turns up some rather surprising things about her recent past. Although it's involving and not at all slow-moving, what must have seemed like a shocking and innovative "reveal" by pre-1960s standards was not especially difficult to predict today, especially after so many years of watching Law and Order and its many predecessors. Still, it's a taut and well-acted mystery in which race relations plays a major theme.

FIRST-RUN

I'm rather proud of myself this month for having made some very good film selections in July; I enjoyed nearly everything I saw—the one exception being the summer's big-budget blockbuster, which left both Joan and me bored. Directed by Christopher Nolan (of Memento, which I loved, and The Dark Knight, which I didn't), Inception is this year's Matrix—a complex sci-fi outing which does not bear close, or any, logical scrutiny. It plays with many of same ideas as 1984's Dreamscape, which also involved the plot device of entering other people's dreams. This is essentially a heist movie in which it becomes necessary for the protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio) to get inside the head of an energy bigwig so as to plant some information in his brain that will lead to a satisfactory outcome that involves one giant energy corporation getting the upper hand over another (although why any moviegoer should give a rat's ass about this completely escaped me). Superior performers like Ellen Page are around not to have their characters explored, but to get shot at in somebody's dream and tell other characters to hurry up. There are occasionally some interesting special effects in the film (such as the famous Paris-folding-on-itself clip, which everybody saw in the trailers), but there aren't any people to care about in this overlong mess, and absolutely zero suspense. It's a jigsaw puzzle of a movie where the finished image turns out to be as interesting as a pane-glass window.

Ironically, while Inception drew rave reviews from critics and audience members alike, I far preferred The Last Airbender, which received a severe critical lambasting. No doubt because my expectations were already at an all-time low (not helped by the fact that director M. Night Shyamalan's last couple of movies were manure), I was pleasantly surprised by this fast-paced adventure-fantasy. Prior to the screening, Joan had passed along some helpful advice from a colleague, who said that as long as you accept it as a kid's movie, you'll be reasonably entertained, and that was precisely correct. Sadly, the information didn't help Joan herself, as she lost interest in the movie early on.

Joan was also my date for a couple of pleasant comedies: Cyrus and The Kids Are All Right. Both are sweet and funny, never wearing out their welcome (in fact, Cyrus was surprisingly short—we were equally stunned when the closing credits came up).

Cyrus is the story of a homely fortysomething man (John C. Reilly) who unexpectedly finds love in attractive Marisa Tomei, whose son, the title character, is a corpulent Jonah Hill with some troublesome Mommy issues. Although it's hard to imagine two men I'd rather stare at less for 90 minutes, the film, admittedly a trifle, goes down like a spoonful of honey, and there are some laughs to be had and all the actors do a fine job.

The Kids Are All Right, meanwhile, is another winning comedy with a family at the center, this one involving a pair of lesbian moms (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) whose teenage son and daughter connive to meet their sperm-donor dad (Mark Ruffalo). All of the performers do extremely well in this gentle, genial story, and everybody is quite likable. Though there are inevitable personality conflicts, there's scarcely a person to truly dislike in the film. By the end, I wished that the Ruffalo story thread had had a better resolution, but overall, Kids is a superb summer movie starring two actresses who normally don't appeal to me at all.

It's hard to know where to mention Peacock, which was technically released in 2010, but bypassed theaters and went directly to video without collecting $200 (probably in the literal sense). I picked up this drama because it co-stars Ellen Page, and it sounded appropriately offbeat: talented Irish actor Cillian Murphy plays John, a man living in Peacock, Nebraska, who has a big secret: he lives half his life in drag as Emma, his "wife," who rarely if ever leaves the house (this is apparently due to an extremely poor case of mothering). When a train accident in his back yard causes a lot of unwanted local attention, Emma finds herself thrust into the world, and John's two personalities begin to battle for dominance. Half Katherine Ann Porter, half Psycho, this odd little movie kept me guessing from scene to scene, and although more could have ultimately been done with it, it's a decent movie, worth seeing for Murphy's two excellent characterizations.

Similarly, I'm not sure if The Lost Skeleton Returns Again counts as a new film or a revival. A sequel to the hilarious 2001 horror parody The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, it was filmed several years ago and has been gathering dust while its producers have sought a distribution deal. It has gotten minimal and unofficial screenings around the U.S., but made a showing at this year's Comic Con (as well as a couple of evenings at my local revival cinema), and is out on DVD in a couple of weeks. Full of (intentionally) awful dialogue and wooden acting, both movies are affectionate sendups of Ed Wood-style cheapie '50s and '60s sci-fi schlock. The cast is very likable and writer-director Larry Blamire obviously loves the genre he is lampooning. Sequels are rarely as good as the originals, but I enjoyed Returns Again very much.

July was also the month for the eagerly anticipated Eclipse, third in the Twilight vampire franchise by Stephenie Meyer. I was a big fan of the first in the series, but the second one dragged. Number three is somewhere in between, lacking the novelty and excitement of the first film, but registering more of a pulse than the soulless New Moon. I genuinely like the three young leads, and as with the preceding entries, I find myself perking up when the personality dynamic between them is explored—and extremely bored whenever they're not on screen (or, worse, when the oh-so-dull Volturi clan take center stage). My favorite scene took place in a freezing-cold tent where Edward and Jacob have a frank but gentlemanly conversation about their love for Bella—while Jacob lends some much-needed body warmth to the shivering object of his affections.

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

Forbidden Games (10)
King Rat (10)
The Green Man (9)
The Third Secret (9)
The Kids Are All Right (9)
The Lost Skeleton Returns Again (8)
The Last Airbender (8)
Eclipse (8)
Cyrus (8)
The Naked Spur (8)
Sapphire (8)
Peacock (7)
The Uninvited (7)
Hot Millions (6)
Inception (5)

June 2010

2010-07-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

FIRST-RUN FILMS

Owing to a variety of excuses (a week-long vacation among them) this was an exceptionally light movie month. I saw only three feature films in June:

• Toy Story 3 (which I saw twice). Joan called this the best of the three, but to me, the first will always be the best. Having said that, the entire Toy Story trilogy is amazing—funny, moving and musically quintessential (thanks to the perfect songs and scoring of our idol, Randy Newman). The story this time around is loaded with equal amounts of sentimentality and suspense. Joan and I were both left sobbing by the finale (and that was my second viewing of it!).

• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. This was touted to me as a blemishes-and-all look at the 77-year-old comedienne, showing how she lives and works, and how she has survived in her industry for so long. We see archival footage of her on old TV shows (i.e., The Tonight Show) interspersed with her current act and her day-to-day life. She grapples with an inattentive manager, a periodically slow work schedule, keeping various friends and relatives on the payroll, etc. To be honest, I was much less interested the machinations of her personal life than I was in her vintage comedy—it's extraordinary to see her performing live in the 1960s, and the fact is that I would have been much happier seeing a two-hour clip reel highlighting her standup act over the years. Rivers can be hilarious, yet often off-putting in an "outrageous" way, and I frankly find it difficult to watch her with the freakish amount of plastic surgery on her face. Not to say that a little nip and tuck here and there can't keep you looking youthful, but her face has started to resemble a rubbery Halloween mask.

• Just Wright. OK, this actually came out back in May, but Joan invited me to a screening at Paramount, and we just can't resist those freebies! We'd enjoyed the Queen Latifah comedy The Last Holiday a few years ago (or so she had to remind me), so perhaps this will be a tradition for us to see every corny QL comedy she puts out. Just Wright is as predictable and by-the-numbers as any movie ever made, but I find her to be a real charmer—she deserves to be a movie star, even if she's destined to earn her nut making these extremely contrived kinds of flicks. I liked it more than Joan did, having a slightly higher tolerance for unabashed romantic chick flicks than she does.

DVD/REVIVALS

Over the years, I have read numerous accolades for the 1968 British film If... (directed by Lindsay Anderson). Made only a few years before A Clockwork Orange, the film stars Malcolm McDowall as an odd lad in a private school who suffers brutality and indignities from his classmates, and finally rebels in a shocking and savage manner. The film could almost be a prequel to Clockwork Orange—in fact, there was a sequel of sorts to this movie called O Lucky Man. As meaningful and innovative as If... is supposed to be, I had much the same reaction to it as I did with Clockwork Orange; I just think you have to be British to sufficiently appreciate these films. I don't identify or sympathize with McDowall's characters, and each picture fails to move me because I don't care about any of the characters.

Hard Candy (2005) is another tough one for the same reason—in this two-character drama, who do you root for: the yuppie pedophile (Patrick Wilson) or the relentlessly sarcastic 14-year-old (Ellen Page) who stalks, torments and brutalizes him? I watched this film on the recommendation of my friend Geof, and because I was so profoundly impressed by Ellen Page when I saw Juno in 2007. (I even love her in the series of TV commercials she made for the information-technology firm Cisco.) Although it's a tough film to watch, and lacks a character you can truly like and identify with, Hard Candy is the demanding, challenging and provocative drama that I was expecting If... to be. There are a few twists as the game of cat-and-mouse unfolds, and although it's not really a home-run kind of movie, at least it made a deep impression on me—and deepened my appreciation for Page's talents. She is a powerhouse in Hard Candy; it's a phenomenal performance.

Another movie I've always heard fantastic things about, and finally had to make myself sit down and watch, is The Magnificent Seven (1960). This is a Western remake of a Japanese film called The Seven Samurai (which was itself inspired by American-made Western movies). Like most Westerns, the plot is a pretty basic good vs. evil story: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, et. al., are gunfighters who band together to protect some gentle Mexicans against bad guy Eli Wallach and his gang of thieves. It's entertaining but didn't strike me as anything remarkable.

RERUNS

Lately I have been thinking about Sandy Duncan, an actress who had a lot of success on TV, but who I fell in love with in various movies from the early '70s. I find her to be quite fetching in a tomboyish way, and her smile never fails to melt my heart. So I treated myself to the old Disney movie Million Dollar Duck (1971), co-starring Dean Jones and Joe Flynn in a refashioning of the old Aesop tale about the goose that laid the golden egg. It's a wonderfully enjoyable kids' movie and Duncan is incredibly cute and enjoyable in it.

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

Toy Story 3 (10)
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (7)
Just Wright (8)
If... (5)
Hard Candy (8)
The Magnificent Seven (7)

May 2010

2010-06-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

FIRST-RUN FILMS

Of the five new movies I saw in May, two will undoubtedly make my top-five list of 2010. While created by entirely different production teams, the two are "twinned" in my mind as both are independent, adult comedies with a few dramatic undertones. Both are intelligent, unpredictable and quite satisfying.

The first of these was Please Give, written and directed by Nicole Holofcener. It's her fourth feature, and after having seen it, I immediately ordered her three earlier pictures on DVD (Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing and Friends With Money). New York City-based Please Give centers on married used-furniture dealers Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt), along with their teenage daughter Abby, elderly neighbor Andra, and Andra's granddaughters (stunning Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet). How their lives intertwine forms the basis of the story, and it's a total winner—I saw the movie both at the beginning of the month and then again at the end of May with Joan.

Its spiritual cousin is City Island, another movie about a New York City family, this one headed by bickering Andy Garcia and Julianna Marguiles and their bickering children. Everybody in the family has a Big Secret, and when Garcia's son (by another woman) enters the picture, the lies gradually become exposed like falling dominoes. Directed by Raymond De Felitta, the movie took awhile to win me over, but it did, completely.

As a fan of vigilante movies, Harry Brown (starring Michael Caine) seemed like it would be an exciting British variation on the Death Wish formula, and while most of the same basic elements are there, it doesn't have quite as much suspense as most of the movies in the genre. Although this is far from Caine's best movie, it's probably farther from his worst. He's always worth watching.

Joan invited me to the Paramount Theatre to see Shrek Forever After, the fourth installment in what is purportedly the last picture in the animated franchise. What began as a fun novelty has lost a great deal of its charm, and the movie seems to be aware of this, incorporating the idea of staleness into a story that features Shrek growing bored with his life. Through a magical conceit, he is transported to a world where he was never born, a plot shamelessly ripped off from It's a Wonderful Life, and in the spirit of that movie, he comes to realize everything he has taken for granted. Fortunately, the movie is not without humor: when Eddie Murphy's Donkey delivers the line "What are you talking about, cracker?" to the Gingerbread Man, that's a gag that kids and adults laugh at for different reasons. Although this installment of Shrek relies way too heavily on popular songs—a hit tune is trotted out dutifully every 10 minutes or so—the voice cast is excellent, as usual. Even if the series has worn out its welcome, it's been a fun ride.

Joan and I were also curious to check out Letters to Juliet, apparently to confirm that it would be a slightly longer version of its own trailer—which, as it turns out, it most certainly is. Juliet is an entertaining, utterly predictable and shamelessly by-the-numbers romcom that plays like Mamma Mia without all the ABBA music. (The fact that both movies star gorgeous Amanda Seyfried as a girl named Sophie is only where the similarities begin.) Vanessa Redgrave, looking handsome but acting alarmingly frail, searches for her long-lost love with her grandson, cocky Christopher Egan, in tow. If you spend more than a moment wondering if Seyfried will dump her neglectful fiance for Egan in the film's climax, well, this must be your first romcom.

Footnote: I like to give small-budget independent movies a chance whenever I can, but the horrific acting (by star Dario Deak) in Dreamkiller drove me from the screening about halfway through.

DVD/REVIVALS

While visiting Jay in Palo Alto (to see him star in the musical Hello Dolly), we caught a double feature at the local revival cinema: Love Me Tonight and Trouble in Paradise. The two films had more in common than their 1932 release year—both are variations of the old "Big Lie" romance formula that has been inflicted upon the general public presumably since the dawn of time. In Love Me Tonight, Maurice Chevalier plays a tailor who falls for a young princess while disguising himself as a baron; Trouble in Paradise, meanwhile, stars Herbert Marshall as a con artist who captures the heart of the woman he's trying to steal from. Both movies are consistently funny, and Love Me Tonight has the good sense to contain several excellent Rodgers and Hart songs, including the very popular "Isn't it Romantic?" Jay and I were amused by the fact that although the movie takes place in Paris, Chevalier is the only actor who talks in a French accent.

Apparently I watched only one movie on DVD this month, which was American Psycho, a favorite movie of my friend Anna. She is obsessed with serial killers, which makes this a natural choice; sadly, barely a month after viewing it, I find it difficult to remember very much about it.

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

Please Give (10)
Harry Brown (6)
City Island (10)
Love Me Tonight (8)
Trouble in Paradise (8)
Shrek Forever After (7)
Letters to Juliet (8)
American Psycho (4)

April 2010

2010-05-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

FIRST-RUN FILMS

Four of the new films I saw this month are ones I'll remember fondly for many years—and one was so good, I was happy to see it twice (once in 2-D, once in 3-D, mirroring the way I saw and enjoyed Avatar).

The first of the first-runs was Repo Men, a violent sci-fi thriller that combined elements from numerous futuristic actioners I've seen over the years. Since it's about a person in authority whose job it is to run after wrongdoers—and who ultimately finds himself the hunted rather than the hunter—it bore more than a passing resemblance to 1976's Logan's Run. Naturally, this version of the tale is vastly more grisly and shocking, and although I had a few problems with the narrative, it moved along at quite a clip and was never dull for a moment. The twist ending didn't make a massive amount of sense, but it did take me by surprise, and that's the important thing.

Next up was How to Train Your Dragon, the 3-D animated adventure that I first saw in 2-D (I always seem to enjoy the traditional configuration better). This is my favorite Dreamworks picture so far—a grand, funny, moving and very human story about a boy and his dog...er, dragon. It's jam-packed with thrills and quotable lines, and it appealed to both the adult and the kid in me.

The beautiful Carey Mulligan (from last year's An Education) returns to the big screen with shorter hair in The Greatest as a pregnant girl who moves in with the family of her recently killed boyfriend. As the still-grieving parents, Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon perform very well, capably and below par, depending on the scene and the actor. But the overall film is still wonderful, a nice companion piece to 1980's Ordinary People. It's a great chick flick; not for every taste, but I enjoyed it wholeheartedly.

Un Prophète (A Prophet) is a French picture with subtitles, released in 2009 but only now getting around to the local art houses in L.A. It's about an Arab man sent to a French prison, the suffering and traumas he endures, and ultimately the story of how he slowly gains power and momentum there. It's a very cool idea for a movie, but because there's a fair amount in here about organized crime and such, I got a bit lost in those complicated machinations, as I tend to do. About half of the time, I was mesmerized, but much of the time I was bored and/or confused.

Joan had suggested The Joneses, a movie I'd heard or read nothing about, and I was extremely pleased by its fresh, satirical and amusing story about an upscale neighborhood that gets some new neighbors who appear to be a traditional family...but who are anything but. Demi Moore and David Duchovny are outstanding in this very original film.

I had been looking forward to Kick-Ass, which had been touted as a comic-book superhero movie with an edgy twist, and there was a lot of truth in that advertising. Filled with comically gruesome violence, the film is about a ragtag group of makeshift, costumed "superheroes" who are ordinary humans, but with some tricks up their sleeve. My favorite was the 11-year-old Hit Girl, a cute but dangerous child with an arsenal of killer moves who isn't afraid to unleash a deadly blow or a shocking cuss word. Director Matthew Vaughn keeps things moving at an exciting clip. Can't wait for the sequel!

Joan invited me to Paramount for a special screening of The Ghost Writer, starring Ewan McGregor as the unnamed title character, who is hired to complete work on the autobiography of the former Prime Minister, played by Pierce Brosnan. It's the latest directorial effort of Roman Polanski, who finished editing the picture in Switzerland after his detainment on his sexual-abuse charges. Much of the movie is an absorbing, somewhat claustrophobic thriller, but to my mind, too much of it (including the "shocking" twist ending) is completely implausible and nonsensical.

Two movies I saw toward the end of the month were my least-favorites: The Runaways, a repellent version of Joan Jett's early career, and Greenberg, a "comedy" featuring Ben Stiller as an incredible asshole who somehow attracts the younger and immeasurably more lovely Greta Gerwig. The two films are somehow linked in my mind because I couldn't have cared less about the heroes of either movie—both were crass and charmless.

DVD

Things got off to a good start on the old movies, as I'd recently acquired a copy of The Intruder, a 1962 Roger Corman-directed drama starring William Shatner as a "professional bigot" who moves from town to town trying to get the locals to reject racial integration. It's based on a novel by Charles Beaumont, who wrote several of the great Twilight Zone episodes. It's a little-seen but imaginative little movie—the only "serious" one in Corman's ouevre.

I finally broke out my copy of How Green Was My Valley, the famous, Oscar-winning 1941 version of the Richard Llewellyn novel. Young Roddy McDowall stars as Huw Morgan, whose early life growing up in a Welsh coal-mining village is recounted with much drama as the work starts to dry up, the community starts to face unbearable hardship, and his own family starts to disintegrate. There's menace and death at every corner. I can't deny that John Ford's classic film is entertaining, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

More disappointing was Artificial Intelligence: AI from 2001, a sci-fi film directed by Stephen Spielberg that I'd missed. It's one of those android stories where we're supposed to have feelings for the robot (here played by Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense). But although they've created a machine that can convincingly express feelings, I couldn't bring myself to truly care about this glorified toy. And the ending was an insult to my very non-artificial intelligence.

RERUNS

I managed to inflict several of my all-time favorite movies on my friend Anna, including 1967's Bedazzled (Dudley Moore), 1979's Real Life (Albert Brooks), 1980's The Stunt Man (Peter O'Toole) and 1983's Zelig (Woody Allen). I think she enjoyed most of them. I was delighted, as I always am, to re-view these classics. Meanwhile, as part of Paramount's revival series, I accompanied Joan to a screening of the original version of The Bad News Bears (1976), starring Walter Matthau as a drunken former baseball player who coaches a hopeless little-league team...and becomes a better person for doing so. Sorry to say that Joan didn't enjoy it, but she was most assuredly the only person in the theater who didn't.

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

The Intruder (8)
AI: Artificial Intelligence (6)
Repo Men (8)
How to Train Your Dragon (10)
The Greatest (9)
A Prophet (4)
The Joneses (8)
Kick-Ass (9)
The Runaways (3)
Greenberg (4)
The Ghost Writer (5)
How Green Was My Valley (7)

March 2010

2010-04-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

It was another very light (for me) movie month, owing to the usual string of excuses. The big highlight were the reruns, but more on them momentarily.

FIRST-RUN FILMS

Joan and I saw a couple of new movies in March, and I saw one "new" movie on my own. I say "new" because Harmony and Me was completed in 2009 and evidently already available on DVD, yet is making the rounds in a variety of local theaters anyway. I became aware of this indie comedy because I am a fan of one of its cast members (Suzy Nakamura), and her Facebook page kept promoting her appearance in the movie. In actuality, she is hardly in it. After the screening at the local Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax, I submitted this review to IMDB:

Halfway through the film Harmony and Me, the central character's ex-girlfriend sizes him up and declares, "You know how sometimes you're watching a movie, and halfway through, you realize that you don't care about these characters? That's what's wrong with you." The line simultaneously demolishes our suspension of disbelief and reminds us what's wrong with Harmony and Me. Ultimately, it's a chore to care much about Harmony, a sad-sack amateur songwriter with a boring day job and a bevy of quirky co-workers, quirky friends, quirky family members and quirky neighbors, all of whom are immensely more watchable and fun to listen to than he is. Shot in three weeks, Harmony and Me is an indie comedy with a budget so low that the cameraman couldn't afford Windex to wipe off the perpetually dirty lens. The film is relentlessly quirky, with some inspiringly improvisational-type humor, and only loses its footing when it settles for being quirky for quirk's sake. As Harmony, glum Justin Rice whines to anybody who will listen that his ex won't stop breaking his heart, and you can't help wondering how Jessica (fresh-faced Kristen Tucker) put up with this whiner for ten minutes, let alone a full year, before dumping this loser. (Tucker's shtick about mourning the relationship several weeks before actually breaking up with him is the funniest thing in the film—somebody needs to give this gifted actress her own comedy.) Viewers with a high tolerance for quirk are encouraged to give the movie a chance for the occasional moments of brilliance and for the excellent supporting players—including a genius turn by director Bob Byington and recurring Modern Family actress Suzy Nakamura, who has been cast as so many doctors that she deserves a medical diploma.

Neither of the two first-run films I saw with Joan are likely to linger in my memory for very long. Alice in Wonderland, the Tim Burton version of the classic Lewis Carroll books, was visually arresting—it had some of the coolest optical effects I've ever seen on film —but meandered a lot until the final battle scene, which was extremely well done. Meanwhile, the Clint Eastwood-directed Invictus featured a perfectly cast Morgan Freeman as South African President and rugby fan Nelson Mandella, who uses the World Cup as a way of pulling his country together. It's the thinnest wisp of a movie plot idea; the climactic game is full of slow-motion effects and one outrageously misleading and factually iffy sequence involving a jetliner buzzing the stadium that the audience is meant to think might be an act of terrorism—it's a despicable bit of trickery and dishonesty.

DVD

Prior to seeing the Tim Burton remake, I decided to acquaint myself with the 1951 Disney animated version of Alice in Wonderland, which is lively and colorful and imaginative but completely devoid of a real story—Alice merely stumbles into one seemingly drug-influenced situation populated by bizarro characters after another. Every five minutes or so, the hookah-smoking caterpillar or hammer-head birds are dismissed and the next set of weirdos are introduced. I had tried to watch this movie many years ago and was turned off by its lack of a cohesive story, but this time I was more comfortable with just letting the movie take me on its psychedelic journey.

Late in March, I took one of my periodic trips up to Northern California to meet Jay for some musical-theater fun. Although he is usually starring in a show, this trip featured him as an audience member rather than an actor. We planned to attend two musicals I was interested to see for the first time: Kismet and Sweet Charity, respectively. Since I already had both of the movie versions on DVD, I decided to compare and contrast the productions. It's interesting that both shows are based on earlier works—the 1953 Broadway production of Kismet (and subsequent 1955 film) derive from a 1911 play, and the 1966 Broadway production of Sweet Charity (and 1969 film) come from the 1957 Federico Fellini film Nights of Cabiria—which I also own but have not yet seen. Even the music from Kismet is based on earlier material, specifically the compositions of Alexander Borodin (1833-1887).

Of the two, Kismet is by far the more enjoyable film. While not quite as lavishly produced as the best musical movies, it's still quite colorful and enjoyable, even though some of the musical numbers have been excised. Taking place in Baghdad during the time of the Arabian Nights, the story features a charming rogue of a hero, a couple of attractive heroines, an alluring harem of assorted lovelies, a despicable bad guy and a happy ending. What's not to like?

The film of Sweet Charity is infinitely more problematic. The first movie of choreographer/dancer-turned-director Bob Fosse, the adaptation has been mucked up with the addition of any number of optical effects (slow-motion, freeze frame, backwards-filming, etc.) that fatally distract from the characters and story. Presumably, these effects were considered innovative in the Sixties, but they are deadly antiquated by today's standards—as is the creaky plot involving a "dance hall girl" who dreams of finding a decent guy. As a big fan of Shirley MacLaine, my hopes were high, but aside from the occasional bright spot (such as the performance of "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This"), the movie falls flat.

RERUNS & REVIVALS

Joan had expressed interest in the suspenseful war film The Hurt Locker (which I'd seen last year and liked a lot), so I eagerly accepted her invitation to see it at the Paramount Theater; the movie went on to win a bunch of Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Paramount is also beginning to screen some classic films, such as 1951's The African Queen (to celebrate its finally being restored and released to DVD). Although I know I saw the movie back in college, I remembered almost nothing about it. Seeing the restored version on the big screen was indescribable; it looks so spectacular that you come away feeling that it could have filmed fairly recently. Everything about this movie is perfect—the performances, the story and especially the direction (by John Huston). Understandably proud Paramount's bigwigs insisted on showing a brief documentary of their elaborate and immaculate restoration, but Joan and I felt this would have been better shared after the movie rather than before. Even so, I am greatly looking forward to more Paramount screenings in the year ahead!

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

Invictus (5)
Alice in Wonderland-1951 (8)
Alice in Wonderland-2010 (7)
Sweet Charity (5)
Harmony and Me (6)
Kismet (8)

February 2010

2010-03-03T21:15:00.001-08:00

This was a relatively light movie month, owing to my trip back to Florida for the Miami Boat Show and other activities (Randy Newman concert, Ayckbourn play with Su, et al.). Still, I managed to squeeze in some celluloid entertainment...it's just too bad I didn't choose a few more winners.

FIRST-RUN FILMS

Three big-screen features were enjoyed by Joan and me in February, although audience members seem to be getting ruder by the minute, texting with their distractingly bright cell phones and hauling in their wailing and inappropriately underage kids. First up was Dear John, a very familiar but still entertaining wartime romance story based on a novel by The Notebook author Nicholas Sparks (whose bestseller The Last Song gets the movie treatment this March). The big draw for me was pixieish cutie-pie Amanda Seyfried, who (along with co-lead Channing Tatum) gave the movie some real heart. Unfortunately, our enjoyment of this movie was severely tested by a woman who decided to turn the theater into her own personal day-care center with numerous loud kids, one of whom was a toddler who kept trying to crawl toward the exit. (Note to self: See if they sell Tasers on eBay.)

Next up was Crazy Heart, the 2009 Oscar nominee for Best Actor (Jeff Bridges) and Best Supporting Actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal), as well as a Best Song bid. It's an involving character study about an alcoholic country-music performer whose career has seen better days...when a new romance and the prospect of a professional resurgence suddenly turn up. It's an excellent vehicle for Bridges, whom I've long admired; while the movie doesn't break any new ground, it's a decent character study, and it kept me interested throughout.

Finally, we had Shutter Island, originally set for release last fall but inexplicably pushed back to 2010. The movie is based on a Dennis Lehane novel I'd read a couple of years ago at Connie's suggestion. Since I already knew the plot (and plot twists) of the book, there was comparatively little suspense for me, although I was keen to see how well director Martin Scorsese was able to translate page to screen. With a great cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow, it turns out to be a creepy, old-fashioned thriller every bit as involving as the novel it's based on.

DVDS

During my trip to Florida, my friend Michael wanted to show me an obscure comedy-sci-fi sendup called Alien Trespass, whose satirical approach to the material reminded me vaguely of the explosively hilarious Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, only not nearly as funny. The 2009 feature features luscious Jenni Baird and a plot involving a wrecked spaceship and an escaped alien. Some of the movie is fun, some of it plodding, but it was a fine way to pass a couple of hours with a similar-minded, genre-loving friend.

On the plane ride back to L.A., I selected Woody Allen's 2004 comedy-drama Melinda and Melinda, a willfully schizophrenic film that attempts to show two sides (comic and tragic) of the same story with the same central character (Radha Mitchell). Will Ferrell and Amanda Peet star in the funnier of the two stories, which I'd frankly wished were the basis of the whole movie; still, it was an interesting experiment, not the best Woody by a four-minute mile, but mostly enjoyable.

I began watching the 1941 comedy The Lady Eve late last year (on Su's recommendation) but got distracted for some reason and never finished it. On Feb. 22, I finally sat down and watched the whole movie, written and directed by famed screenwriter Preston Sturges, whom Su strongly admires. It stars Henry Fonda as a naive heir to an ale fortune who meets and falls in love with a con artist (Barbara Stanwyck) on an ocean cruise. When he learns the truth about her scam and dumps her, she decides to make him fall in love with her all over again by re-introducing herself to him in a disguise. This contrivance is about as easy to swallow as Lois Lane's inability to recognize Clark Kent in spectacles (Stanwyck's new persona seems to involve wearing a different brand of eyeliner). But the movie is so diverting and funny that it doesn't really matter. It's a fun romp for lovers of screwball-type comedies.

Anna wanted to watch 1993's The Joy Luck Club together—pretty much to watch one scene she had already described—but as I had it in my inventory already, I was keen to check it out. Based on the 1989 novel by Amy Tan, JLC unfolds as a series of related short tales detailing the relationship between four older women, all Chinese immigrants, and their daughters. The backstories are all more interesting (by design, I suppose) than the modern-day action, with many scenes of unimaginable hardship and brutality that was, at times, difficult for me to watch. Still, it's an enlightening and mostly compelling ride, with some of the stories understandably more effective than the others.

ET CETERA

On Feb. 20, I was lucky (?) enough to catch a feature movie that is basically unreleased, having only been screened at a handful of conventions and film festivals. It's a lurid thriller made last year called The Human Centipede, about a mad German doctor who kidnaps an Asian guy and two American girls and connects them surgically, mouth to anus, to create the titular creature. Needless to say, numerous things go wrong (as they had with his first attempt, which involved sewing together his three rottweilers to form "3-Dog"), and part of the fun is anticipating the inevitable fall of the gruesome house of cards created by this horrific experiment. Though not a great movie by anybody's standards, Human Centipede was shown at a nearby revival house with a whooping and cackling audience primed to enjoy this kind of stuff, so it probably seemed a lot better as a result. And as I am perversely intrigued by the ass-to-mouth theme—as no doubt many in my audience was—it made for an enjoyably sick ride.

RERUNS

The last official movie I saw in February was 1950's Born Yesterday, which I dragged Anna to. Based on the hit Garson Kanin play from 1946, it stars Judy Holliday, William Holden and Broderick Crawford. The political satire is sharp, the performances are first-rate, and the dialogue is never less than brilliant. I saw this for the first time (on DVD) last year, and it has quickly become one of my favorite comedies of all time!

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

Dear John (8)
Crazy Heart (8)
Alien Trespass (6)
Melinda & Melinda (7)
Shutter Island (7)
The Human Centipede (8)
The Lady Eve (9)
The Joy Luck Club (7)

January 2010

2010-01-30T12:23:00.000-08:00

Last year, I took on the impossible challenge of trying to see an average of one movie a day. To my surprise, I was actually able to complete this task for nearly half of 2009 before I became distracted by other things. This year, I'm going to try simply blogging about the movies I watch. That should prove more manageable.

Although I would like to have hit more out of the ballpark (I could only rate one movie out of 20 a perfect "ten"), there was certainly a lot of variety in my selections this month. I suppose that's a nice way of saying it was a catastrophically mixed bag, but we strive for optimism around my house.

FIRST-RUN FILMS

Of the half-dozen current films I sat through, the first was the best: last year's Avatar, less than a month old but still #1 at the box office as I write this at the end of January. It has trumped Titanic as the all-time box-office champ. It's a total bliss-out, and although it's admittedly a retread of Disney's Pocahontas, what really confounds me is that I did not even realize until after my second screening of it that it's really the ten billionth regurgitation of the old "Big Lie" plot I'm eternally complaining about—a man deceives a lady with whom he ends up falling in love, then she discovers his deception and their true love is thrown into jeopardy. I can forgive few movies for using this incredibly creaky plot, but this one is a dazzler.

Rounding out the other first-run movies seen in a theater this month: Youth in Revolt, a quirky but funny movie starring Michael Cera as a nice guy with a romantic problem that only his evil alter-ego can solve; Nine, a quite stylish musical with an excellent cast that didn't deserve the critical drubbing it received (although it does play a lot like a remake of All That Jazz, and there's so much cigarette smoking in it that I feared I might get movie lung cancer); and When In Rome, a repellent Disney-produced "comedy" starring Kristen Bell and her adorable smile, which I saw at a free screening, and I still want my money back. (Su, you sure can pick 'em.)

Meanwhile, I caught a couple of recent flicks on DVD screeners: The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a mostly enjoyable Wes Anderson-directed stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's novel, and The Blind Side, an above-average drama with Sandra Bullock as a sassy but big-hearted rich woman who takes a hulking, illiterate black youth under her wing and helps educate him and turn him into a football hero. Yay, liberals!

REVIVALS

Of the four movies I caught at revival theaters, the big revelation for me is what a knockout Jennifer Jones (who died in December) was. Although I sat through Madame Bovary on DVD last year, I apparently failed to be beguiled by the abundant beauty of Jennifer. Traveling to Palo Alto to visit my friend Jay, we saw two of her dramas at our favorite haunt, the Stanford Theatre: Love Letters (1945), in which she plays an amnesia victim who falls in love with creepy Joseph Cotten, and Portrait of Jennie (1948), in which she plays a ghost who falls in love with creepy Joseph Cotten. Neither movie was truly outstanding, although both had their moments, howsoever brief.

It was also finally time for me to encounter the famous 1948 critics' favorite, The Bicycle Thief. Directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring a cast of non-professionals, this Italian classic tells the simple story of a poor man who lands a job hanging posters, but is immediately thwarted by the theft of his bicycle. Although the movie kept me absorbed throughout, I was a little disappointed by the downbeat ending—which, while I recognize that it was a landmark denouement for its day, still left me a little unsatisfied. (Like Jay, I demand a little justice from my dramas.) Meanwhile, I didn't last longer than 30 minutes into the surprisingly boring 1965 comedy-western Cat Ballou, starring Jane Fonda back when she was simply smoldering.

DVD SELECTIONS

My friend Anna chose two of her favorites for us to watch together: 1996's supernatural thriller The Craft, and the 2004 indie comedy Mail Order Wife, both of which I enjoyed. Mail Order Wife, in particular, had a number of unpredictable twists that kept me guessing throughout.

Rounding out my other selections from the DVD vault, in order of quality:

• Sons and Lovers, the Oscar-winning adaptation of the classic D.H. Lawrence novel I was supposed to read in high school, about a young artist in a mining community whose mother postively suffocates him with love.
• The Smallest Show on Earth, an amusing 1957 British comedy co-starring Peter Sellers as the projectionist of a decaying movie house.
• Big Jake, a violent 1971 John Wayne western with a kidnapping and revenge theme...not surprisingly, from the same screenwriter who penned Dirty Harry, released the same year!
• Bunny Lake is Missing, a vaguely Hitchockian suspenser about a young woman whose young daughter inexplicably goes missing from her school, and the resulting manhunt, which yields a surprise ending.
• The Day the Earth Caught Fire, a serviceable 1961 end-of-the-world thriller.
• The Glass House, a TV movie co-written by Truman Capote and featuring Alan Alda as a nice-guy prisoner who gets on the bad side of mean prisoner Vic Morrow.
• Bluebeard's 10 Honeymoons, a George Sanders film released the same year (1960) as my beloved Village of the Damned, this one casting him as a serial killer.
• Quacker Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx, the movie "comedy" Gene Wilder released the year before Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, proving once again that I don't like Gene Wilder movies where he has to do a funny accent (this time an Irish one). And what an awful title, too.

ET CETERA

Interestingly, the first movie I saw of 2010 wasn't on DVD or on TV or at the theater. For several years, I have wanted to see Alan Alda in a filmed stage play about a married guy who romances a married woman. You may think I am describing Same Time, Next Year (1978), but no. While it's true that I do adore that movie, I am referring to a TV movie called 6 RMS RIV VU from four years before Same Time, Next Year.

Based on Bob Randall play, 6 RMS RIV VU stars Alda and Carol Burnett, both of whom were nominated for Best Lead Actor Emmy awards in 1974 for this comedy. To my amazement, it has never been issued on DVD and I've never found a copy for sale anywhere on the Internet. Naturally, this only intensified my interest in seeing it. As luck would have it, the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills offers patrons the chance to watch a video copy on a private TV monitor. So did it live up to my expectations? Not entirely, although it was certainly wonderful to finally scratch the itch. It's not bad, but production values were extremely low (it was reminiscent of watching a videotaped-live sitcom like All in the Family), and it contained numerous dated jokes of the "Hey, your shrink is my shrink's shrink" variety. Still, it's always nice to see Alda and Burnett, both of whom starred in the stellar 1981 comedy The Four Seasons, written and directed by the great "Hawkeye Pierce"!

THE RERUNS

Not included in my final tally (below), but worth mentioning anyway, are a few favorite movies that I was successfully able to foist upon my friends. First, Su and her family agreed to sit still long enough on my birthday for a late-evening DVD screening of my all-time favorite movie, Village of the Damned (1960), at their Santa Monica home. Usually I don't like people around me to talk during a movie, but in this instance, I was hanging on every one of their comments each time they predicted what might happen next. It was one of the highlights of the month for me, a memory I will cherish forever.

Next up was my victim Leticia, who was hijacked to a New Beverly Cinema showing of 1971's hilarious comedy A New Leaf, directed by and starring Elaine May, with Walter Matthau as her husband and would-be killer. The story of the film's agonizing birth is almost as interesting as the story told by the film; it's well worth researching (or asking me to tell you about). The movie also single-handedly turned me into a gigantic fan of mystery writer Jack Ritchie, who penned the marvelous short story it was based on. Leticia was left lukewarm, but seeing it on the big screen for the first time in my life, with a theater full of like-minded and laughing patrons, was an absolute joy for me.

Finally, during my visit to Palo Alto to see Jay, I brought along my DVD of the magnificent Hobson's Choice (1954), which I discovered last year. I knew he would enjoy the story, the brilliant humor, the acting and the conclusion, which contains utterly no trace of injustice (a pet peeve of his). If you've never seen Charles Laughton in this movie, you owe it to yourself to give it a peek!

THE FINAL TALLY (with 1-10 ratings)

Avatar (10)
Nine (9)
Sons and Lovers (9)
Youth in Revolt (8)
Big Jake (8)
The Smallest Show on Earth (8)
Mail-Order Wife (8)
The Craft (8)
The Bicycle Thief (8)
The Blind Side (7)
Bunny Lake is Missing (7)
6 RMS RIV VU (7)
Love Letters (7)
Bluebeard's 10 Honeymoons (7)
The Glass House (6)
Portrait of Jennie (6)
The Fantastic Mr Fox (6)
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (6)
Quacker Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (3)
When in Rome (2)

Christmas with the Steeles 2009

2009-12-29T06:17:00.001-08:00

2009-10-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

6/7/09: That Certain Summer (1972)

2009-06-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

TV-MOVIE MONTH
Nominated for a slew of Emmy Awards (and winner for Supporting Actor Scott Jacoby), That Certain Summer turns out to be a surprisingly boring affair. The theme of homosexuality was still relatively new to movies in general back in 1972, and practically unheard of on TV. But 37 years later, it's understandable that the impact has been somewhat muted. So forgettable is the storyline that halfway through viewing the film, I realized that I had actually seen it—or at least some of it—as recently as last year.

Hal Holbrook, a big favorite of mine, plays a divorced father of a 15-year-old boy (Jacoby) who comes to learn that Dad's good friend Gary (Martin Sheen) is actually his live-in lover. (Memo to closeted dads: if you have an electric razor, hide the bottle of shaving cream.) It's a bitter pill to swallow, regardless of the year or the political climate. But That Certain Summer unfolds at a snail's pace, and the truly great cast (including Hope Lange and Joe Don Maker) don't manage to make much of an impression, at least on me. After looking forward to seeing it for half a lifetime, That Certain Summer proves to be a major letdown from one of my all-time favorite writing teams, Richard Levinson and William Link—who subsequently reteamed with Holbrook for the infinitely superior TV movie Murder by Natural Causes seven years later. Rating: 2/5.

6/6/09: A Taste of Evil (1971)

2009-06-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

TV-MOVIE MONTH
A Taste of Evil starts with Susan Wilcox, a girl of about 11, being attacked and then raped at her home by an unknown assailant. Flash-forward to several years later, and we learn that the incident left Susan traumatized to the point of catatonia for quite some time. The mental wounds now having been healed, Susan returns home to confront her demons—only to find that the original menace may still be lurking in the shadows. Or is it all in her imagination? As we learn what's really going on in A Taste of Evil, there are some unexpected twists in the tale; farfetched though some of it is, the movie did keep me spellbound throughout—this is precisely the sort of thriller I would have absolutely loved as a kid, and it still keeps me entertained today. The movie is a close cousin to another TV shocker from my youth: A Strange and Deadly Occurrence, made in 1974 by the same director, John Llewellyn Moxey. Evil coaxes good performances from Barbara Stanwyck, Barbara Parkins, Roddy McDowall, William Windom and Arthur O'Connell. Nicely written by horror-movie veteran screenwriter Jimmy Sangster. Rating: 4/5.

6/5/09: Hitchhike! (1974)

2009-06-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

TV-MOVIE MONTH
One frequent setting for 1970s TV suspense flicks was the open highway (e.g., Duel). In fact, actress Cloris Leachman, star of today's crapfest du jour, starred in one (Dying Room Only) only a year earlier. In today's entry, she picks up a hitchhiker, the aloof Michael Brandon, who has just murdered his lover in cold blood. Now, I have a very difficult time sympathizing for anybody who picks up a perfect stranger by the side of the road, so it's a challenge to muster any real sympathy for Cloris in this particular movie. Worse, there are way too many dull stretches on their way from L.A. to San Francisco. The action occasionally perks up when Brandon gets a little psychopathic from time to time, but Hitchhike! ultimately suffers from an anemic script and so-so performances (although Cloris is good, as usual). This is one movie that will really make you appreciate having a cell phone. Rating: 2/5.

6/4/09: Revenge for a Rape (1976)

2009-06-10T00:20:00.000-07:00

TV-MOVIE MONTH
Death Wish meets Deliverance in today's howlingly awful, hopelessly schlocky revenge flick. Mike Connors (TV's Mannix) goes on a camping trip with his wife when she is raped by three guys while he's fishing. Unwilling to let the police do their job, he goes hunting for the culprits himself...with disastrous results.

Now, I love revenge stories, which is why I grabbed this DVD from the pile so early on in TV-Movie Month. However, 20 years before this was filmed, the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents aired an extremely similar story called "Revenge," wherein Ralph Meeker goes after the man he believes raped his wife (Vera Miles), with the twist being that she pointed out an innocent bystander. That's the same basic plot twist (targeting an innocent guy for wife rape) behind Revenge for a Rape; I wouldn't have minded the similarity in the story, except that the acting, direction, soundtrack and script are all irredeemably third-rate. Some unintentional laughs, though. Rating: 1/5.

6/3/09: The Forgotten Man (1971)

2009-06-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

TV-MOVIE MONTH
Writer Bernard Fein was one of of the creators and writers of Hogan's Heroes (1965-1971), about a group of POWs in World War II. His final TV project was the TV movie The Forgotten Man, about a Vietnam POW played by Dennis Weaver, but the tone is decidedly more dramatic.

Escaping from a POW camp five years after he was presumed killed in the war, he returns to the States—only to find that his wife has remarried, his business sold and the life he once knew a distant memory. Worse yet, he is exhibiting symptoms of what is now known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD). He keeps flashing back to his savage captors and his interrogations, and as Weaver's mind begins to unravel, it leads to some unnerving and scary behavior.

The Forgotten Man is extremely typical of the low-budget television movies from the 1970s; familiar TV actors, familiar orchestral score, obvious spots for commercial breaks, etc. For me, that's not a criticism—it adds to the nostalgic flavor. The film kept me absorbed, and surprisingly I couldn't have predicted the direction the story would take. Weaver and co-star Lois Nettleton are very good; even better is young Pamelyn Ferdin (who appeared in countless movies and TV shows during the '60s and '70s), playing Weaver's beloved daughter. Rating: 3/5.

6/2/09: Baffled! (1973)

2009-06-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

TV-MOVIE MONTH
Several of the filmmakers of yesterday's offering worked on various incarnations of Star Trek; today's choice stars Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy. Indeed, Nimoy's participation was my sole reason for being interested in Baffled! Regrettably, the movie is fairly weak, cheaply made, horrendously scored and full of bad acting, especially by Nimoy.

He stars as Tom Kovack, a race-car driver who starts having strange psychic visions that take him to a hotel in England, where some curious things are going on. He is aided by psychic-phenomena enthusiast Susan Hampshire, whose attractiveness is one of the very few things that kept me from falling asleep. Together they try to put the pieces of the mystery together, and of course by the end of the movie they have done just that. The formula reminded me of two much later TV series; it's sort of a cross between Medium (a person's visions are connected to a crime) and The X-Files (male and female team up to solve an otherworldly mystery). Both of those series were infinitely better than this dull movie of the week. The opening credits sequence and the very last scene make it painfully obvious that this was a pilot for a show. Why it never happened will definitely not leave you Baffled! Rating: 2/5.

6/1/09: Family Flight (1972)

2009-06-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

TV-MOVIE MONTH
As of this writing, I am planning to devote the entirety of June to movies made for TV during the 1970s. Growing up in that decade, I loved so many of the "Movies of the Week" that aired in that decade, from critically acclaimed broadcasts (Sybil, Duel) to low-budget thrillers (Trilogy of Terror) and well-written but now-forgotten dramas (A Cry for Help). Over the years, I have built up quite a collection of these Seventies flicks that I missed—enough for two months' worth of viewings at least. They include family dramas (the critically lauded That Certain Summer), horror schlock (Satan's School for Girls), mysteries (Snatched), and assorted romances, dramas, comedies, shockers and sci-fi claptrap. Since none of them were shown in theaters, I obviously won't be able to display a poster to accompany each blog entry; I'll show a VHS or DVD cover if the movie was officially released.

We kick off, for no reason whatsoever, with Family Fight, a 1972 suspenser directed by Marvin Chomsky (who lensed a few of the original Star Trek episodes) and produced by Harve Bennett, who, coincidentally enough, would go on to produce several of the Star Trek feature films. Rod Taylor stars as the head of a dysfunctional family (including an alcoholic wife and a withdrawn son) who pilots a small aircraft over Baja California when the plane is forced down in the desert. The party of four must work together to get out of a very tense and dangerous situation. The film is extremely representative of its type from this era; it reminded me a bit of Ordeal, another survival-themed TV movie (from 1973) that stranded Arthur Hill in the desert. Like most movies from this genre, what it lacks in production values, it makes up for in decent acting and an interesting story. This was one of the first movie roles for Ed Begley Jr., who has a couple of lines as a hitchhiker at the beginning of the film. Rating: 4/5.

5/31/09: A Simple Twist of Fate (1994)

2009-06-06T00:45:00.000-07:00

MERF'S PICKS
Although it wasn't intentional, the fact that I sequenced two Steve Martin movies back to back turns out to have been a stroke of genius—especially these two particular titles. While both are worth watching, they couldn't be more different. The Lonely Guy is a broad comedy trading on Steve's comic persona, although he didn't write the screenplay; whereas A Simple Twist of Fate is a straight drama, with a script penned by Martin. Separated by exactly one decade, Twist of Fate shows Steve's growth as an actor and spotlights his ambition as a scenarist.

Loosely based on George Eliot's 1861 novel Silas Marner, the movie features Steve as a divorced loner whose life suddenly changes when a toddler literally walks into his life (and his house) one chilly winter's night. The little girl's mother, a heroin addict, has died outside in the snow, and a couple of rather farfetched scenes later, Steve Martin has adopted Mathilda as his own.

The movie's third act becomes a courtroom drama, with the now 12-year-old girl's biological father attempting to gain custody of the child. The heaviness of the drama is lifted by occasional and much-needed flashes of humor, some of it provided by SCTV veteran Catherine O'Hara, whom I've never thought of as particularly attractive, but who is drop-dead gorgeous in this film. (Pity she didn't get the opportunity to play Steve's love interest.) Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, as the biological father, partially succeeds with his Southern accent, and Cliff Eidelman's musical score is perfectly lush and melodic. The acting is all first-rate, and the various children playing Mathilda are amazing, especially Alana Austin as the 12-year-old version. I had only two slight gripes about the film. First, after letting his toddler escape briefly from their house, Steve later allows her to vanish again, and she teeters precariously from a steep cliff. (Bad parenting, Steve, and bad scripting—I lost faith in you as a Dad after that scene.) Second, I wanted to be more touched by the events in the movie, especially the ending. My eyes were entirely too dry by the dénouement; while there was plenty of warmth and emotion, I never got truly verklempt. (Thank God English borrows from so many other languages!) Despite those misgivings, I did enjoy the movie. Rating: 4/5.

5/30/09: The Lonely Guy (1984)

2009-06-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

MERF'S PICKS
Since I first saw him perform his stand-up comedy, I have considered Steve Martin a genius. His early TV comedy specials were inspired, and his early film career produced some of my favorite comedies, some of which he scripted himself (Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Roxanne) and some written by others (All of Me, Little Shop of Horrors). And although Martin has continued to be funny on TV, and in plays and books he's written, his later films failed to deliver on his early promise, and today he churns out so many warmed-over retreads and remakes of old movies and TV shows that space prohibits me from even listing here. The fact is, I haven't loved a Steve Martin movie since 1989's Parenthood. So I had reason to look forward to The Lonely Guy, filmed well before I totally lost interest in Martin's film career. I think the only reason I missed it in the first place was that I read a bunch of mediocre reviews of it.

The movie turns out to be more more subued than one might expect, given Martin's early "wacky" persona. Many of the jokes fizzle hopelessly, the direction (by the unpredictable Arthur Hiller) is mediocre, and a few times, my intelligence was offended by the script. Martin plays a newly single guy who can't adapt to being alone; at one point he meets another single guy (Charles Grodin) and they have this exchange:

Grodin: I'm Warren Evans.
Martin (shaking his hand): Larry Hubbard.
Grodin: First-time lonely guy?
Martin: What's a lonely guy?

Ummm, are you fucking kidding me? A male adult needs to have that expression defined for him? Dialogue like this doesn't belong in a movie for thinking people. Which brings me to my next point, which is that about half of the movie really is genuinely funny, likeable and satirical. My favorite lines, between Martin and Grodin, are obviously improvised—I wish there had been more of that. I suspect the problem here is one of too many cooks spoiling the broth: the screenplay was the result of several writers, including original book author Bruce Jay Friedman, playwright Neil Simon and Mary Tyler Moore Show collaborators Stan Daniels and Ed Weinberger, as well as any improvised stuff contributed by Martin. Sometimes The Lonely Guy seems genuinely fresh and funny; other times, not so much. The humor is all over the map:

• Black-comedy moments involving the suicides of numerous lonely men;

• Silly moments (like when Steve gets into bed with his girlfriend, oblivious to the fact that she's sleeping with another guy);

• Inspired moments (Steve winds up in bed with some hot models and Dr. Joyce Brothers);

• Surreal moments (Steve goes into a restaurant alone, and literally has a spotlight shone upon him to make him the embarrassed center of attention).

There's also a terrific sight gag involving the pages of a day-by-day wall calendar that made me laugh out loud. As I say, some of it works, some of it doesn't.

There's not much of a plot to the film, and that works to its advantage. When it starts to be about something, it's inevitably the romance between Steve and Judith Ivey, which never quite gels. Every time they hook up, she dumps him on the grounds that he's too nice, or too perfect, or too sexy, or something nonsensical like that. (It's easily the worst part of the movie.) I craved more of the Woody Allenish bits, like the one where Steve consults with a psychiatrist who only interacts through his street-level intercom, and more Steve Martinish bits, like the one where Steve tries to lure potential dates by getting too big of a dog, who drags him along the sidewalk on his belly. A couple of times during the movie, Steve narrates in voice-over or addresses the audience by talking directly into the camera, but this device is never fully realized. The Lonely Guy probably would have been better if it believed more in itself and much less restrained. There are enough funny bits to make it worth seeing, but it could have been a real classic. Rating: 3/5.

5/29/09: Little Fugitive (1953)

2009-06-03T01:23:00.000-07:00

MERF'S PICKS
Made in 1953 but having the look and feel of a considerably older movie, Little Fugitive tells the story of Joey Norton, a little boy who's tricked into thinking he has accidentally killed his older brother. Sickened and afraid by what he's done, Joey runs off to Coney Island...where he rides horses, plays games, collects the deposits on untold soda bottles, and generally has a great time until the happy and predictable conclusion.

While not a terrible movie, Little Fugitive is terribly made and surprisingly amateurish, perhaps the work of a first-time director, or maybe student filmmakers—students not much older than the protagonists, in fact. (The few quarters that Joey earns by digging up soda bottles might have been the entire budget for this movie.)

Although plagued with ponderously slow stretches and several subpar performances, the movie does succeed in making the viewer care about Joey, and we stick to the end to make sure he finds out he's not really guilty of first-degree manslaughter. Probably the most interesting thing about the film's 90 minutes is watching the parade of hilarious anachronisms, such as the sequence where riders are seen pulling the brass ring as they ride the merry-go-round. Rating: 3/5.

5/28/09: Folks! (1992)

2009-06-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

MERF'S PICKS
There may be, I suppose, a way to construct a comedy around the subject of dementia. I've never seen it done successfully, but I don't entirely discount the possibility, unlikely as it seems—just as a comedy with jokes about rape would be difficult to imagine. But if there were a man to attempt it, Robert Klane is unquestionably that man.

Klane is the author of various black-comedy films, starting with 1970's Where's Poppa?, about a man torn between taking care of his aging mother and bumping her off. Klane is clearly a man with major parental issues, for the identical theme (with a similarly punctuated title) resurfaces in Folks!, about a man torn between taking care of his aging parents and bumping them off. (Klane also wrote one of the blackest of black comedies, Weekend at Bernie's, about a couple of guys carrying around a corpse.)

Folks! features a tragically mustache-free Tom Selleck as a stockbroker whose life goes directly into the toilet when he starts to care for his elderly parents, who have various physical and mental problems. Nearly all of the humor in the film derives from the series of mishaps that Selleck suffers during his new role as caretaker (he loses his family, his job, even a toe and a testicle, although I missed his mustache the most) and the fact that his father (Don Ameche) has Alzheimer's, which leads to the "hilarious" burning down of his own house.

Whether this material could have been amusing in the hands of a different crew, or whether it was doomed to failure because of the subject matter, I honestly don't know, but Folks! is unbearably excruciating from beginning to end. (I might have chuckled once accidentally.) There's a scene toward the end of the movie where Selleck, hoping that his suicidal parents will die in a horrible car accident, knowingly sends them out on the highway—giving no thought to how this might affect, for example, other drivers carrying small children in their vehicles. And he's the hero of this film! Folks! is mean-spirited and jarringly unfunny—easily among the worst movies I have seen all year, or ever. Rating: 1/5.

5/27/09: Crossing Delancey (1988)

2009-06-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

MERF'S PICKS
Interesting but inadvertent sequencing: We followed up two comedy-Westerns with two charming romantic comedies. Peter Riegert (one of the best parts of National Lampoon's Animal House) and Amy Irving play two Jewish singles set up by a modern-day matchmaker in Manhattan and slowly—painfully slowly—start a romance. But the anticipation is mouth-watering.

Irving, looking dreamier than I've ever seen her, initially spurns pickle seller Riegert in favor for a more "intellectual" writer, but ultimately realizes she's thrown back the wrong fish. It's hard to figure out why; the viewer senses that the writer is a first-class creep and that Riegert is the far more sensible choice 20 minutes into the picture.

It's always a delight to come across a genuinely smart, funny and romantic comedy like this one. This was the only screen credit of legendary Yiddish stage actress Reizl Bozyk, who is very amusing as Irving's grandmother. And I wondered if film recommender Merf realizes that the music group The Roches, whom I keep foisting upon her, sang all of the songs in the movie, including the oft-played cover of "Come Softly to Me"—and that vocalist Suzzy Roche plays the friend of Irving's whom she introduces to Riegert, with disastrous results. In any case, Delancey is delicious. Rating: 5/5.

5/26/09: Something's Gotta Give (2003)

2009-06-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

MERF'S PICKS
Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton are paired up in Something's Gotta Give, a hopelessly contrived, embarrassingly corny, purely by-the-numbers, excruciatingly predictable—and, yes, totally charming—romantic comedy.

The plot couldn't be simpler: Nicholson (66 years old at the time of release) is dating perky young Amanda Peet, then slowly comes to find he's falling in love with her more age-appropriate mother (Keaton, 57). Even though I felt like I'd seen this film a dozen times before—and done better—it's still confoundingly entertaining and nearly impossible to dislike, all thanks to the boundless appeal of its two soon-to-be-crotchety stars. Jack plays his usual horndog character (when he announces that he isn't good at being monogamous, you're not exactly reeling from the shock), but with a dash more heart and soul. And Keaton couldn't be more perfect for her role as a woman who initially resents Jack but, like many a lass before her, winds up succumbing to his devilish grin.

All of the usual romcom elements are present and accounted for, including conflicts and complications you can see coming 20 minutes before they happen...but there's something to be said for predictability, and the movie feels like a comfortable, well-worn pair of shoes. Something's Gotta Give only veers into awfulness once, during an extended sequence that calls for Keaton to sob incessantly and annoyingly (Jesus, was I delighted when that scene ended). Conversely, the scene where Jack and Diane spend their first night together is funny, moving and unforgettable. The question of whether Nicholson would eventually win the girl was moot, as this was Merf's recommendation—I knew it would have the required happy ending. But I can't blame her for shattering any suspense; anybody watching this movie knows exactly how it's going to end about halfway through. The film goes down smooth and easy, like a nice, cold, familiar-tasting mug of root beer, and leaves you thirsty for more. Rating: 4/5.