Christmas Movies: Lincoln and Les Miserables

During my Christmas break, I was able to see two films I've been looking forward to: Lincoln and Les Miserables, and found both to be, overall, outstanding.

If you walk into Lincoln expecting to see lots of Spielberg-esque Civil War battle scenes, you'll probably be disappointed.  There isn't much of that there.  It's probably the least Spielberg-esque Spielberg movie I've ever seen.  That's not to say it doesn't have his stamp on it.  But that never took me out of the story, like it has with some of his other films.  The film focuses on the last few months of President Lincoln's life, particularly on the passage of the 13th Amendment.  It grabbed me from the opening scene, in which Lincoln is speaking to a pair of young black soldiers, both of whom handle themselves with more grace and confidence in the presence of the President than the two young white soldiers who briefly interrupt the conversation.  One of them is able to recite Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, a moment which sets the tone of racial tension that, not surprisingly, runs throughout the film.  I liked that the focus of the film was on politics more than battle.  Makes sense, since Lincoln wasn't on the battlefield.  But I thought it was interesting to see how politics were played.  Lincoln obviously believed slavery was immoral.  But that didn't stop him from having a black housekeeper (or from blatantly saying that he'll "get used to her people" having greater freedoms if his amendment passes), and his fight for the 13th Amendment was as much about weakening the Confederate economy as it was about ending slavery.  Daniel Day-Lewis is flawless as Abraham Lincoln.  So much so, that I forgot that that was not actually Abraham Lincoln on the screen in front of me.  He's got some strong supporting performances around him, particularly Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln and Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, but Day-Lewis really carries the film.  

I've heard mixed reactions to Les Miserables, but I really enjoyed it.  I'm a fan of the play, so I was sort of predisposed to like it.  The film looks beautiful, and I really liked that the singing was done live during filming, rather than having the actors pre-record their vocals.  It added emotional depth to the music and lent a little bit of the live theatre experience to the film.  I was a little disappointed that one of my favorite songs from the play, "Little People," was mostly cut, but in context, I can understand why.  I could have done without some of the close ups on actors' faces.  Some, like the one during "I Dreamed a Dream" were effective, but in general, I felt that the technique was overused. The best part of it for me were the performances.  As Fantine, Anne Hathaway proves to be a much better actress than I previously gave her credit for, and this is one of the finest performances I've ever seen from Hugh Jackman.  I also liked Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers; they brought a much-needed levity to the otherwise emotionally draining story.  There were a few that didn't stand out so much.  Eddie Redmayne (Marius) didn't really win me over until "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," and it took me a while to warm up to Russell Crowe as Javert.  I thought Amanda Seyfried and Samantha Barks as Cosette and Eponine, respectively, were a little one-dimensional.  Barks less so than Seyfried.  But those characters are written that way, and both sang their parts very well.  Barks did manage to overcome that and deliver an emotional death scene.  None of the performances are terrible, though.  Overall, I'd recommend it, unless you hate musicals.  

Conquering the Netflix Queue: Wendy and Lucy

Wendy and Lucy (2008), is a snapshot in the life of Wendy Carroll, a young woman traveling from Indiana to Alaska looking for work.  Her only companion on her journey, and, it would seem, her only friend in the world, is her golden retriever mix, Lucy.  She runs into a string of bad luck, starting with her car breaking down somewhere in Oregon.  She gets busted for shoplifting a couple of cans of food for Lucy, leading to a few hours in jail.  When she returns, Lucy is no longer tied up in front of the store where she left her.  Wendy immediately focuses all her efforts on finding Lucy.  She walks across town to check the pound, puts up signs, and even leaves articles of clothing in various places she and Lucy passed through in hopes that Lucy will find the scent and return.

In the meantime, her car is towed to a nearby auto shop to be checked out, and the mechanic tells her that it is going to cost more than the car is worth to fix it.  Wendy cannot afford the repairs, so she is forced to get rid of the car.  At about this point in the film, Wendy finally gets some good news: Lucy has been found.  She takes a taxi to the address given to her by the pound and finds that Lucy has been rescued by a nice foster family, with a nice house and a nice yard for Lucy to play in.  After a few minutes with her friend, Wendy says a tearful goodbye to Lucy and sets off on the rest of her journey alone.

The film, written and directed by Kelly Reichardt, gives us very little information about Wendy's life prior to or following the events in the movie.  We know that she has a sister who doesn't seem to trust her, and that's pretty much it.  We don't know what circumstances led her to decide to go to Alaska, and we don't find out if she makes it there.  But that's not the point of the movie.  It's about the character.  Its simplicity puts nothing between the character and the audience, so we're sharing her experience with her, and getting to see what exactly kind of person she is.  Michelle Williams delivers a subtle, but still captivating performance as Wendy, showing just how far she's come since her Dawson's Creek days.

Though we don't know much about Wendy or her journey outside of this episode, Reichardt has obviously chosen a pivotal point in the journey to share.  And not just because she leaves Lucy behind here, though that's a big part of it.  Most of the people Wendy comes into contact with are fundamentally good, willing to help her out or cut her some sort of break, especially a parking lot security guard and the mechanic who looks at her car.  Their displays of kindness offer Wendy (and, though her, the audience) some hope in the midst of a desperate situation.

Movies: Killer Joe

Killer Joe, directed by William Friedkin, written by Tracy Letts and starring Matthew McConaughey and Emile Hirsch, is kind of like a train wreck.  You can't stop watching it, no matter how hard your stomach is turning. 

It's about the Smiths, a family who live in a trailer park in the Dallas area, and who are dumber than a box of rocks.  The film opens with Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch), pounding on the door of his father's trailer on a rainy night, screaming for his sister, Dottie (Juno Temple) to let him in.  Eventually, the door is opened by his step mother, Sharla (Gina Gershon).  Chris urgently pulls his father, Ansel (Thomas Hayden Church) outside to tell him about an idea he has to get the family $50,000: he wants to have his mother (Ansel's first wife) killed and collect on her life insurance policy.  As Chris puts it, he would then be able to pay off some drug dealers to whom he owes a large sum of money, and the family's financial problems would be solved.  To most people, this would obviously be out of the question.  But the Smiths are not most people, and Chris gets the whole family on board.  To carry out the plan, they reach out to Killer Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a policeman who sometimes moonlights as a contract killer.  When the plan inevitably goes wrong, things go south, fast, for everyone involved.  

The cast is flawless.  Even Matthew McConaughey, who I usually want to punch in the face.  This is by far the best performance I have ever seen from him.  There is something ominous that lurks below Joe's calm exterior, and it is impossible to look away when that exterior is broken.  Juno Temple's Dottie is a perfect, sweet, dumb white trash angel, complete with a halo of blonde hair.  As Chris, Emile Hirsch is a lovable idiot.  For the most part, his heart is in the right place, especially where his sister is concerned.  But his head fails him, and he gets himself, and sometimes the people around him, in trouble.  

Friedkin takes these characters and places them in a dark and dangerous world where anything can happen, and usually does.  Add to that the strength of the writing and cinematography, and you have an unforgettable filmgoing experience.      

 

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: Documentary Double Feature

While in recovery from surgery today, I entertained myself by watching a couple of documentaries.  Objectified (2009), directed by Gary Hustwit, is about the design of everyday objects, and how design influences daily life.  Some of the objects discussed, like spoons and garden tools, are things that might not generally be thought of as having been "designed."  There is even a scene in which a group of people are discussing the design of a toothbrush handle.  My favorite parts of the movie were the scenes which allowed me to watch a designer, or design team, at work.  I also enjoyed seeing how design has evolved as technology has advanced.   Overall, I thought it was interesting, but I would have liked to see more from it.  It's relatively short, so I feel like there's room to add something about solutions to the problems caused by planned obsolescence or something connecting the last few minutes to the rest of the movie.

Then I watched Music Instinct: Science and Song, a PBS documentary by Elena Mannes about the connection between music and the brain.  Given how interested I am in the connection between art and science, I was predisposed to like it.  It covered a lot of things I already knew, but there were some interesting scenes.  I particularly liked its coverage of international music; how different cultures use different tones and rhythms to convey various emotions.   I also really enjoyed interviews with musicians Daniel Bernard Roumain and Evelyn Glennie which highlighted the physical effect of music.  Evelyn Glennie is a deaf percussionist who "hears" music through the vibrations made by the sounds.  I couldn't find her clip from the film, but here is Evelyn Glennie's TED Talk on listening to music with the whole body.

Pretty cool, huh?  

Plays: Rose Rage

I'll just say it: I'm not a huge fan of Shakespeare's histories.  That said, I really enjoyed The Hidden Room's production of Rose Rage, an adaptation that condenses the entire Henry VI trilogy into one two-part, four hour performance.  The company made every effort to approximate the experience of seeing one of Shakespeare's plays in a court setting at the time of its writing.

The venue, the York Rite Temple, lends itself to the experience.  It's a masonic temple, which immediately gives it an air of intrigue that is appropriate for the show.  It's a small, unconventional playing space, with seating running along two walls on either side of the stage.  The seating is nearly level with the floor, putting the audience close to the action, which is fun when they start sword-fighting.  It also provided plenty of opportunity for the actors to interact with the audience, which made for some great comedic moments.  The space had a couple of drawbacks though: it was hot, which made it uncomfortable to sit in for four hours.   And, because of the way the chairs are set up in there, there were major sight line issues for anyone sitting in the second row.  The people involved in the production aren't at fault for those things though, and the actors are actually suffering from the heat just as much, if not more, than the audience in their period costumes.

The costumes are all handmade by members of The Baron's Men, a local theatre troupe that specializes in Shakespeare.  Here are a couple of examples.  

Just like a real Elizabethan performance would have, the show also featured live Elizabethan music, beautifully played by local musicians, and an all male cast, including three guest actors from the U.K. who appeared as part of the Hidden Room's Foreign Actor Exchange Program.  The entire cast did a great job, but those three really stood out.  Many of the actors played more than one role, and the guest actors seemed especially adept at creating distinct characters.  Laurence Pears, who played both Jack Cade and Edward IV, looked like he was having the most fun with his roles, and brought a lot of energy to all his scenes.  Other standouts included James Callas Ball as Duke of Somerset and Lady Elizabeth Gray, Joseph Garlock as Richard (Duke of Gloucester) and Brock England as Queen Margaret.  This cast was so enjoyable to watch, they made the evening fly by.

The show is still playing until this Saturday (the 11th), and I would recommend catching both parts if you can.        

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: Best Worst Movie

So, it's been a while since I posted one of these.  But, in my defense, July has been crazy.

Troll 2 is, by all accounts, a bad movie.  The acting is bad.  The story is bad.  The effects are bad, even for the eighties.  And people absolutely love it. Best Worst Movie (2009) is a documentary about the making of Troll 2, and how, twenty years after it was made, it found a following and became a cult classic.  It was made by Michael Stephenson, who played the child lead in Troll 2.  He conducts interviews with the cast, director, writer and fans of Troll 2.

Overall, I think Best Worst Movie is pretty decent.  Not the best documentary I've ever seen, but not the worst either.  And it does have some really interesting elements.  The parts I found most interesting were the interviews with the people involved who didn't realize that they were making a bad movie.  For example, there's this woman:

That's Margo Prey, who played Diana Waits, the mother, in Troll 2.  In that same interview, she goes on to compare Troll 2 to Casablanca.  For reference, she's comparing this movie:

to this movie:

Call me crazy, but I don't see the similarity.  

And then there's the director of Troll 2, Claudio Fragrasso, who still believes Troll 2 was a good movie, and doesn't seem to understand its cult value.  To his credit, he also doesn't care that people call it the worst movie ever made.  Another interesting character is Don Packard, the actor who played the creepy Nilbog Drugstore owner in Troll 2.  Here's his interview in the film:

  

Another thing I liked about it was watching the fans' reactions to Troll 2.  People go crazy for it: they share it with their friends, they throw viewing parties, they flock to theaters for midnight showings, they make t-shirts and masks.  It's great.  It really demonstrates, and celebrates, how a film, even a bad one, can have a lasting impact of people's lives.   

Paramount Summer Classic Film Series: North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train

The final installment of Hitchcock week at the Paramount was the pairing of North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train.  This was a fun pair of films to see together.  North by Northwest (1959) screened first.  In the film, Cary Grant plays Roger O. Thornhill, a New York advertising executive.  One day, he is kidnapped by foreign spies who have mistaken him for a man named George Kaplan.  They take him to a mansion, presumably owned by one of the spies.  Thornhill insists that he is not George Kaplan and does not have any of the information the spies are looking for.  For his insolence, they force him to drink entirely too much whiskey and then put him behind the wheel of a car.  He survives the drive down a mountain (barely), but is taken into police custody for drunk driving.  Due to his drunken state, the police do not believe his story about the kidnappers.  So, Thornhill decides to take matters into his own hands and find Kaplan himself.  His quest takes him to various locales across the country, including Chicago, Indiana, and Mount Rushmore.  Thornhill eventually learns that there is no George Kaplan and that he has found himself in the midst of a complex government operation.

Cary Grant's portrayal of Roger Thornhill is great.  He's a selfish, superficial, and he drinks too much, but Grant still manages to make him likable enough that we care what happens to him when he gets kidnapped, and does so in the first few minutes of the film.  His character changes drastically in the course of the film.  For more on that, here's an excerpt from a paper I wrote on this movie for my graduate film studies class.

With the introduction of Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), Thornhill’s character begins to change.  Initially, she seems to be exactly the right woman for Thornhill, in that she is a superficial and noncommittal as he.  The two bond instantaneously and there seems to be a real affection between them. Based on what has been established about Thornhill, it would seem out of character for him to become attached to a woman.  Yet he has, heightening his, and the audience’s, sense of surprise and betrayal at her involvement in the attempt on his life.  The introduction of Eve Kendall functions to help Roger Thornhill mature, and his allowing himself to genuinely feel for her is the first sign of this maturation in the film.  We continue to see him grow as he (and we) learn more about her and their relationship changes.  For example, after he discovers that she was involved in the attempt on his life, he has difficulty trusting her.  When he sees her again in her hotel room, she runs to him, relieved that he is still alive, and his hands encircle her head, in the same way as they did earlier on the train.  Only this time, he stops short of touching her, indicating that the trust formed when they initially met is gone.  Thornhill has learned from his experiences in a way that someone who lives as superficially as the opening of the film suggests he does would be unlikely to do.  The change in Thornhill’s character culminates with his placing himself at risk for the woman he loves and ultimately marrying her.  Again, these are actions that the Thornhill of the beginning of the film is unlikely to take.  The man who once shied away from commitment (it is revealed early in the film that Thornhill has been married, and divorced, twice) is now willing to fully commit himself to another person, even to the point of potentially losing his own life.  Watching these changes in Thornhill evokes a sense of joy in the viewer; we are glad that he has survived his ordeal, that he has at last found true love, and that he has grown enough as a person to recognize and accept love rather than run away from it.

Bernard Hermann's score is fantastic as well.  Here's another excerpt from the paper about how sound functions in the film.

The opening theme is fast-paced, setting an appropriate tone for the big city setting of the film’s opening scene.  Hermann used shifting rhythms in the theme to suggest the chaos which is going to ensue as the film progresses.  The opening theme is repeated several times, providing an aural backdrop for several of the most exciting scenes in the film.  In the kidnapping scene, ominous music which echoes the opening theme alerts the viewer that a threat has been introduced; the mood of the music makes the audience feel threatened and uncomfortable.  During the chase scene, when Thornhill drunkenly takes the wheel of the car, the repetition of the opening theme builds tension and excitement, helping to keep viewers on the edge of their seats.  It plays again in the cafe scene at Mount Rushmore, as Thornhill waits for Eve and VanDamm to arrive.  This time, however, it has been slowed down, making it sound more ominous and creating a sense of dread as the viewer waits to find out what will happen next.


As often happens with movies from this time period, I love the costumes too.  I mean, how cute are these?

We follow up with Strangers on a Train (1951).  Farley Granger (who was also in Rope) plays Guy Haines, a well known tennis player who is soon to be engaged to Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), as soon as he gets his wife, Miriam (Kasey Rogers) to sign the divorce papers.  On a train ride to see Anne and her family, he meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker), a seemingly friendly tennis fan.  During their conversation, Antony casually reveals his plan for the perfect murder: two strangers each agree to kill someone the other one wants to be rid of.  As an example, he suggests that he can kill Haines' wife, if Haines will kill his father.  Haines dismisses the idea, thinking that surely this man cannot be serious.  But, Antony is quite serious, and thinking that he has found a partner in crime, murders Miriam.  He then begins to harass Haines about fulfilling his end of the bargain.  When it becomes clear that Haines is not going to kill his father, Antony threatens to plant evidence at the scene of Miriam's murder implicating Haines' guilt.  With the police already treating him as a suspect, Haines must race to prevent Antony from planting the evidence and clear his name.  


I had never seen this movie before, and I thought it was fantastic.  Robert Walker plays creepy really well.  He's got the crazy down.  It's in the eyes.  And in how committed he is to his plan.  He really believes that this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.  It's scary how believable he is.  In a particularly good scene, he is at a party with Guy, Anne, and her family and friends.  He has found another opportunity to talk about his perfect murder scheme, this time with two older women at the party.  To demonstrate how easy it is to kill someone, he places his hands around one of their necks and starts to strangle her, staring intently at Anne's younger sister, Barbara (Patricia Hitchcock).  He forgets himself and almost actually strangles the woman, frightening everyone present, especially Barbara.  Farley Granger puts in a great performance as Guy Haines.  His character is exactly the opposite of Bruno Antony, and it's engaging to watch them interact onscreen.    


Hitchcock's editing is really good in this film too.  In the scene where Haines has chased Antony to the scene of his wife's murder, which happens to be a carnival, the two men end up on an out-of-control carousel as Haines tries to get the piece of evidence away from Antony.  Hitchcock keeps viewers on the edge of their seats by cutting between wide shots of the carousel spinning out of control and close ups of Haines and Antony struggling at the edge of the carousel floor.  Shots of a little boy who is stuck on the carousel and of the carousel horses are thrown in there too.  The shots of the little boy, who, at first, is having the time of his life, are suspenseful because the audience knows that he is in danger, even though he doesn't.  The carousel horses are shot at a low angle and are lit in such a way as to make them look menacing.  

And, again, I love the costumes.

And that's all I have for this one.  I'm off to try and get the image of Robert Walker being creepy out of my head.

Paramount Summer Classic Film Series: Rope and The Birds

The Paramount has a different theme for each week of their summer classic film series, and a couple of weeks ago, it was Hitchcock week.  Which I was very excited about.  In particular, I was excited to get to see Rope (1948) on the big screen.

They are Farley Granger, Jimmy Stewart, and John Dall (left to right), the stars of the film.  The film opens with a man being strangled to death in a living room.  It's shot in close up, so it's hard to tell exactly what is happening at first.  When the camera zooms out, we learn that the murderers are Brandon (Dall) and Philip (Granger), and that the victim is David, a former classmate of theirs whom they view as inferior and therefore unworthy of living any longer.  The job done, they hide the body inside a chest until they can dispose of it.  First, though, they are throwing a dinner party ostensibly to celebrate Philip being recognized for his piano playing.  Really, it's part of their "perfect murder."  Brandon and Philip are so confident that they will get away with the crime that they planned to throw this party immediately following the murder, with the body right under their guests' noses.  Their guests include David's father, aunt, and fiancé, another friend from school, and their former professor, Rupert Cadell (Stewart).  To top it off, they decide to serve dinner from the chest in which they have hidden the body.  

Philip soon begins to feel guilty about the murder, causing him to act strangely during the party.  Brandon's confidence never wavers.  In fact, he gets bolder as the night wears on, even going so far as to discuss the philosophy that inspired the murder with his guests.  It's a twisted version of a philosophy they learned from Cadell back in school which has gave Brandon a God complex that he took too far.  Philip's odd behavior combined with Brandon's brazenness make Rupert begin to suspect something amiss.  By the end of the party, he has figured them out.  

I love everything about this movie.  I've seen it twice, and I could probably watch it a hundred more times and be just as entertained as the first time.  It seems to me like kind of movie that will always have some surprise for me, something new to discover, even if I can quote every line of it along with the actors.  The cast is fantastic.  I talked in my last post about how good Jimmy Stewart is, and this is another example of that.  Dall and Granger are great too.  Dall does an expert job of playing opposites in his character; the nonchalant, pleasant host with a subtle crazy peeking out from just below the surface.  As a person with some acting training, I know how difficult that can be to pull off, and how important it is to find those opposites.  Granger does a good job of being quietly terrified and conflicted between wanting to blurt out a confession and not wanting to be caught and sent to prison.  

The editing is brilliant.  Hitchcock shot the entire movie as one long take.  No cuts, except where he had to replace his film.  A film reel back then could shoot for about 12-15 minutes before it got full and had to be changed out.  Even those necessary cuts are edited so seamlessly, they go unnoticed when watching the film.  For me, it helped build the tension in the film because it places the viewer in the room with the characters, seeing what they see, when they see it.  That tension takes hold from the very beginning and doesn't let up, making it fun and fascinating to watch.  

Side note: I'd love to get a hold of the play it's based on.  How much fun would that be?   

Next up was The Birds (1963).  Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a young socialite,  is shopping in a pet store when Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) happens to come in looking for a lovebird to give his younger sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) for her birthday.  She doesn't know him, but he recognizes her from the papers, and decides to play a little joke on her.  This catches her attention, so she purchases a lovebird and takes it to Mitch.  He isn't home when she comes by, and she learns from a neighbor that he has gone to spend the weekend at his mother's (Jessica Tandy) house in Bodega Bay, about an hour north of where she lives in San Francisco.  She decides to take the bird up to Bodega Bay and leave it at Mitch's mother's house.  When he catches her there, says she has come to visit her friend, Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), whom she has actually just met.  When Melanie decides to stay the night in Bodega Bay, she rents a room from Annie, and the two do actually become friends.  

It has all the makings of a romantic comedy, until the birds of Bodega Bay suddenly begin to attack the people.  It begins with a gull flying down and pecking at Melanie's head while she is driving a boat across the bay after leaving her lovebird at Mitch's mother's house.  The residents of Bodega Bay regard the attack as an isolated incident.  But then, it happens again.  And again.  Each attack is more violent than the last.  Several birds attack at once.  Eventually, people are hurt, even killed, by the bird attacks. 

I like this movie a lot too.  I always have a lot of fun watching it.  The characters are likable, and played well by the actors.  Jessica Tandy does a particularly good job in her role as Mitch's mother, just over bearing enough to be right at home in a Hitchcock movie, but more subtle about it than other Hitchcock mothers, and still a loving mother to her children.       

Alfred Hitchcock explained the difference between surprise and suspense with "the bomb example."  To paraphrase: if two people are having a perfectly normal conversation in a scene and a bomb suddenly goes off, that's surprise.  But if two people are having a perfectly normal conversation in between cuts of the bomb under the table and a clock showing how much longer they have until the bomb goes off, that's suspense.  Hitchcock puts this theory to use a great deal in his films (he wasn't called "The Master of Suspense for nothing), and there is an excellent example of it in the birds.  During one of the more violent bird attacks, some gasoline is spilled.  Melanie watches from across the street as the spilled gasoline flows toward a car and a man lights a cigarette, igniting the gasoline.  We don't just suddenly see a fire.  We see Melanie looking at something, fear-stricken.  Then we see the gasoline making it's way across the street.  Then we see a shot of the birds.  Back to the gas.  Back to Melanie.  The gas again.  Melanie again.  The gas again.  Melanie.  The man pulling his cigarette and matches from his pocket.  Melanie.  The strike of the match.  Fire.  And that's suspense.  It's just a matter of time before that fire starts.  We can see it coming.  It's how that time is filled that makes it interesting.  And it's things like that that make Hitchcock's movies so entertaining.  The bird sound effects are great too.  They're really loud and screechy; it sounds like real birds, just exaggerated a bit.  That cacophony of screeches adds to the chaotic feel of the bird attacks.  Plus, it adds surprise when a bird's screeching interrupts a quiet scene. 

Another thing I like about it is that Hitchcock doesn't leave the audience with a sense of relief at the end, even after Melanie, Mitch, his mother, and Cathy manage to escape from the island.  After they drive away, the camera pans back to the island behind them, which is covered with birds.  They sit on every available surface, still, as if they are watching the car driving away, waiting for their moment to attack.  And then it's over.  So, as much as you might want to believe they got away, you can't really be sure.         

Watch out.  They're coming for you.  

Paramount Summer Classic Film Series: Two Sides of Jimmy Stewart

Jimmy Stewart is quite possibly the most likable person ever.  His roles in films such as It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, among many others, established a very guy-next-door persona for him.  The fact that he put his career on hold to fight in World War II probably didn't hurt either.  But he wasn't just a good guy; he was a great actor, capable of playing a wide variety of characters.  The two films in this double feature, Harvey and Anatomy of a Murder, truly displayed his range.

In Harvey (1950), Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, a kind and pleasant man, whose best friend, after whom the movie is named, is a six-foot tall, invisible rabbit.

Since Elwood is the only person who can see Harvey, his family believes him to be quite out of his mind.  Concerned, and more than a little embarrassed, by his behavior, Elwood's sister Veta Simmons (Josephine Hull), takes Elwood to the local sanitarium to have him committed.  Elwood is escorted to a room, and Veta remains downstairs to talk to Dr. Sanderson (Charles Drake).  Due to a series of miscommunications, the doctor takes Veta for the one who needs treatment, and has her committed instead.  Elwood is brought back down from his room and the doctor apologizes to him.  Dr. Chumley (Cecil Kellaway), the head psychiatrist at the sanitarium, fires Dr. Sanderson for his oversight.  Elwood, however, is totally unfazed; he happily accepts the apology, and invites the doctor out for a drink at Charlie's, his favorite local bar.

Meanwhile, Veta has called her friend, Judge Gaffney (William H. Lynn), to help prove that she does not need psychiatric treatment.  Realizing that Elwood is, in fact, the one who is hallucinating, everyone sets out to find him.  When they do, he is having a drink alone, and explains that Dr. Chumley has left with Harvey.  Elwood is taken back to the sanitarium for treatment.  While they wait for him to receive his injection, the cab driver who brought them to the sanitarium asks Veta for his fare.  She searches her purse, but cannot find her money.  The cab driver refuses to wait until after the injection has been administered, so Veta is forced to interrupt the treatment to get the money from Elwood.  He, of course, pays for it gladly and then returns to have the injection.  However, Veta, fearing that the treatment will alter her brother's kind nature, stops the doctor before the injection is administered.

Dr. Chumley, who really can see Harvey, reinstates Dr. Sanderson, then sends everyone away without saying anything about the giant rabbit.  Elwood stays a bit longer than the others, to say good-bye to his friend.  But as he is leaving, Harvey changes his mind and decides to stay with Elwood.

I thought this was good, fun comedy of errors with a lot of heart.  Stewart is charming as Elwood.  Hull's Veta is appropriately obnoxious and entertaining.  I liked the fact that there was no actor in a rabbit suit allowing the audience to see Harvey.  It leaves room for the audience to wonder whether Elwood really is crazy, and it makes the moment when Veta changes her mind about Elwood's treatment more heartfelt and genuine.  I don't think the film would have worked as well without those elements.  At the end of the film, we get to see that Harvey does, in fact, exist.  Once Elwood's treatment is cancelled, Veta finds her wallet in her purse.  Did Harvey hide it, in an attempt to save his friend?  I like to think he did.  But it's not stated that Harvey is real until he starts to go stay with Dr. Chumley.  Up until then, always polite, Elwood has opened the door for Harvey.  Now though, Harvey opens doors for himself.  Seeing doors swing open and closed on their own is confirmation that Harvey exists.  

We follow up with Anatomy of a Murder (1959), in which Jimmy Stewart stars as Paul Biegler, a small-town lawyer defending Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara), who stands accused of murdering the man who raped his wife, Laura (Lee Remick).  In the courtroom, Biegler is up against the hard-headed Asst. State Attorney General Claude Dancer (George C. Scott), a man whose character is the opposite of Biegler's.  It's a tough, complicated case.  It seems that everyone involved could just as easily be guilty as innocent.

This is a fascinating film.  First of all, it's got one hell of a cast.  All are perfectly suited to their parts.  Stewart's Biegler is still a good guy, but he's also a smart, fast-talking attorney who does what he needs to do to win his case.  It's fun to watch, and play along, as he unravels the case.  Gazzara is great in everything I've seen him in, and this is no exception.  He plays the loving husband, but subtly shows the jealous side of the character.  It's just enough to make you believe he could fly off the handle and commit the murder out of jealousy at seeing another man show interest in his wife. Remick walks the line between victim and seductress perfectly, so that when her innocence is called into question in the courtroom, you almost buy it.

Duke Ellington's Grammy award winning score is surprising and interesting.  It definitely gives the film a specific tone and helps raise the stakes in every scene.

Another thing I like about this film is how risky it was for its time.  Frank discussion of such things as rape and women's panties may be commonplace now, but it was a shock to the 1959 moviegoer.  Considering all that, plus Otto Preminger's direction, it's no surprise that this was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Paramount Summer Classic Film Series: Chaplin in the Sound Era

Charlie Chaplin was one of the most influential directors and actors in the history of film.  While I, personally, think Buster Keaton does a better job in the physical comedy department, Chaplin is undeniably fun to watch.  I like the vaudevillian style of the Little Tramp, his signature character, and the versatility of his work.  This double feature paired The Great Dictator (1940) and Modern Times (1936).

This was the first time I had ever seen The Great Dictator, and I didn't know a whole lot about it going in.  I knew it was about WWII, and that was about it.  From Paramount film programmer Jesse Trussell's film notes, I learned that it was Hollywood's second comic portrayal of Hitler (following The Three Stooges' short You Nazty Spy earlier that year) and that Chaplin drew some inspiration for the film from Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will.  Some scenes in The Great Dictator are direct parodies of scenes from Triumph of the Will.  Chaplin began filming The Great Dictator in 1939, shortly after the start of WWII, after hearing about Hitler's actions from his European Jewish friends.  So there's some context.  Thanks, Jesse.

The film opens with a battle scene in which a young soldier (Chaplin) saves the life of a military pilot named Schultz (Reginald Gardiner).  Chaplin has the crowd laughing right out of the gate, with gags featuring a faulty cannon and an upside down flight.  The soldier is injured in the process and spends a great deal of time in the hospital after the war.  When he returns home to his Jewish neighborhood in Tomania, his memory of the war lost due to his injury, he discovers that the Jewish community in Tomania is suffering from persecution by the Tomanian dictator, Hynkel (also played by Chaplin).  The young soldier experiences the persecution firsthand when he tries to reopen the barber shop he left behind when he went to war.  Hynkel's followers have painted "Jew" on the windows of all businesses owned by Jewish people.  Confused, Chaplin's character begins to wash his off.  Hilarity ensues when Hynkel's soldiers catch him and try to repaint the window.  Soon after this, the Jewish community bands together to fight the persecution.  During their fight, Chaplin's character becomes close with Hannah (Paulette Goddard), a spirited young woman who came to his aid when Hynkel's soldiers attempted to arrest him for washing his window.  Schultz, remembering the young soldier who once saved his life, also eventually joins their cause, turning his back on Hynkel and his oppressive policies.

On the other side of the story is Dictator Hynkel.  As you probably guessed, Hynkel is a parody of Hitler, and Chaplin portrays his as a childish ruler who speaks in gibberish a lot of the time.  When Hynkel learns that Schultz has joined forces with the Jews, he has him arrested.  He also sends soldiers to capture all the Jews and put them in concentration camps.  Schultz and the Barber manage to escape. Hynkel doesn't seem to notice because he is busy planning an attack on a neighboring country.  The young Barber is mistaken for Hynkel and brought up to speak before a crowd of Hynkel's followers and all the citizens of Tomania, who are eagerly listening on the radio.  The listeners include Hannah and her family, who were forced to flee when Hynkel's soldiers came after all the Jewish people.

The ending speech is moving.  At the time, it served to remind audiences of the grave circumstances going on around them.  World War II was raging.  Hundreds of thousands of people died.  Unbelievable atrocities against humanity were being committed.  It probably felt as though the world was going to hell in a hand basket.  This was meant to call attention to those things, and to inspire people to stand against them.   And it remains relevant even now, 72 years later.

This film is fantastic.  It's funny.  It's inspiring.  It's fascinating to watch Charlie Chaplin play two extremely different characters.

Next, we moved on to Modern Times.

This is probably my favorite Chaplin movie.  Even though it is part of the sound era, it has no dialogue.  Chaplin intended it to be his first talkie, but experiments showed that audiences would not react well to hearing The Tramp speak.  This was The Tramp's last appearance.  Chaplin used this film to critique American life during the Great Depression, specifically poor (and sometimes downright inhumane) working conditions.  Again, thanks to Jesse Trussell for the context.  

In this one, The Tramp is a factory worker who is fired from his job following a nervous breakdown caused by the working conditions in the factory.  He gets treatment for his breakdown and sets off to return to work when he accidentally ends up at the front of a Communist demonstration march.  He is arrested and sent to jail.  During his misadventures, he meets the Gamin (Paulette Goddard), an orphan girl living on the streets near the town port.  She has stolen a loaf of bread, and the police are chasing her.  He helps her escape arrest, but ends up in jail.  They quickly fall in love, and after his release from jail, she sets about finding them a house and he goes in search of a job.  He eventually goes back to work at the factory he worked at when the film began, and she finds a job as a performer in a night club.  After another series of mishaps, The Tramp is fired from the factory, and the Gamin helps him get a job as a waiter in the night club where she works.  As it turns out, he is a terrible waiter, but a good singer, so their boss tells him to perform instead.  The police, who have been pursuing the Gamin since she escaped arrest, track them down at the night club and come after her.  The Tramp and the Gamin flee, and set off in search of a new home in a new town.

This film contains some of my favorite Chaplin gags, including the trapped-in-the-gears bit.  I never cease to be impressed by what they were able to accomplish without the special effects technology that is available now.  The upside down flight in the Great Dictator is a great one too.  Modern Times is also interesting in that it's a sound film without dialogue.  It does use sound effects though.  Machinated voices are heard barking orders in the factory where The Tramp works, and there is a very Big Brother-ish scene in which the boss' face appears on a screen in the men's room telling the workers taking their time in there to get back to work.  The sound effects are mostly used to help make the point about the harshness of working conditions at the time.

This is a great pair of films, and I'm glad I got the chance to see them on the big screen.  If you haven't seen them, I recommend that you do so. They are both available for streaming on Hulu Plus.

Up next: A double helping of Jimmy Stewart featuring Harvey and Anatomy of a Murder.

Movies: God Bless America

So, I have been particularly busy this month, and thus haven't had time to write posts about several things I have gone to see.  But, I have just begun a three day weekend, and I have decided to add catching up on the blog to my list of projects for this short time off.  Starting with Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America.

Have you ever wanted to punch someone in the face for being obnoxious, rude, or just downright stupid?  If so, you will probably like this movie.  Frank (Joel Murray) is surrounded by idiots.  His neighbors are unbelievably inconsiderate.  His coworkers are incapable of holding a conversation about anything other than the latest celebrity gossip.    When he turns on the television, all he sees is more stupidity and cruelty.  Usually, Frank deals with that by fantasizing about killing all the terrible people in his life.  When he learns that he is dying of cancer, he just can't take it anymore. So, he goes out and actually kills someone.  His first victim is Chloe, a high school student from a reality TV show akin to My Super Sweet Sixteen, or any show that features spoiled rich kids who have done absolutely nothing to deserve that sort of attention.  Frank shows up to Chloe's school, and shoots her, point blank.  Frank originally intended to stop there, and kill himself before getting caught.  However, Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), another student at Chloe's school, witnesses the shooting, and convinces Frank to keep up the good work, and to let her tag along.  Together, they set out to make the world, or at least the country, a better place, by ridding it of it's most abhorrent citizens.

Thinking back, it occurs to me that this movie requires a pretty significant suspension of disbelief.  It's pretty unlikely that a middle aged man and a teenage girl going around shooting people point blank in broad daylight would go very long without getting caught.  That said, I really enjoyed this for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, it's lighthearted and funny; a good time at the movies.  Underneath that, it's pointing out a lot of the things that are wrong with today's society.  It takes shots at everything from the triviality of the things that the general population is concerned with to the lengths some people are willing to go to for their fifteen minutes of fame to the horrendous ways some people/groups are treated.  At the beginning of the film, Frank eloquently explains his frustrations to a coworker in a monologue that includes the question, "Why do we have a civilization if we're no longer interested in being civilized?"  Watching all the people Frank encounters on a daily basis, coupled with that monologue made me even more grateful for the people I have in my life.  I understand that a lot of those characters are probably exaggerated for comic effect, but even so, I am glad that I have managed to surround myself with people who are not even a little bit like that.  All of my friends are thoughtful, intelligent people who read for pleasure, enjoy a challenge, and are willing to work hard at the things they are passionate about.  They inspire and challenge me, and I am a better person for knowing them.  I am a lucky girl.

Coming up: lots of posts about the Paramount's Summer Classic Film Series.  I have gotten to attend several double features in the last couple of weeks.  While I have fallen hopelessly behind on my Netflix queue project, I just can't pass up the opportunity to catch these movies on the big screen.

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: Brokeback Mountain

As I remember, this movie got a lot of attention when it came out, back in 2005, for being "the gay cowboy movie."  It's more than that, though.  It's a story about love of the purest kind; not only does it survive time, distance, lack of acceptance, and even the mens' own fears about their feelings.

Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), meet in the summer of 1963, when they, by chance, both show up to look for work as shepherds on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming.  They are both hired, and spend the summer together atop the mountain, where their affair begins.  Even though I knew the story, that part still caught me by surprise.  Leading up to it, they don't speak to each other much, mostly because Ennis is a man of very few words.  And, it isn't clear that they are attracted to each other at first.  So, when, after a few days and a few shots of whiskey, they have sex, it's a little surprising.  The scene is completely unromantic.  There is no soft lighting or background music.  It actually borders on violent.  Afterwards, Ennis tells Jack that he "ain't no queer," and that it's a "one shot thing."  Jack agrees.  But it's not.  The summer ends, and both boys go back to their lives, Ennis in Wyoming and Jack in Texas.  Years pass, both get married and have children.  But sometimes, Jack visits Ennis in Wyoming, and the two go on "fishing trips."

On one of these visits, Ennis' wife Alma (Michelle Williams), catches Ennis and Jack kissing.  She doesn't say anything, but she does notice that Ennis never brings home any fish.  From there, it's not hard for her to put two and two together, but she shoulders the burden of knowing that her husband is not in love with her, but with another man silently for a long time.  Eventually, Ennis and Alma get a divorce.  She still hasn't said that she know about Ennis and Jack, but Ennis probably knows.  Williams' performance in this role is excellent.  She particularly stands out in a couple of scenes.  In one, Ennis is leaving on one of his "fishing trips," but he's left his tackle box behind.  "Hey, aren't you forgetting something?" she asks.  He comes back in, gives her a kiss, and leaves.  Without picking up the tackle box.  By this point, she already knows about Ennis and Jack, and this is just further confirmation for her.  In the moment that the camera lingers on her, I could feel that knowledge weighing on her and imagine how much it must hurt.  The other is a scene in which she finally tells Ennis that she knows he wasn't fishing with Jack.  They are already divorced, and she is remarried, but Ennis has come over to have Thanksgiving dinner with her and his daughters.  While they are alone in the kitchen, Alma tells Ennis that she once left him a note in his tackle box: "Please bring home some fish."  After Ennis returned home, without any fish, she saw that the note was untouched.  In one of his most expressive moments in the film, Ennis angrily grabs her by the arm.  She is frightened, and yells at him to leave.  It is clear that, though she has moved on since the divorce, she must have truly loved Ennis, maybe she still does, and that his betrayal of their marriage still hurts her.

That scene is a big one for Ennis too, as it's one of the only times we get to see him be really emotional.  If the movie didn't focus so closely on Ennis and Jack, we might not get to know Ennis at all, he is so guarded.  Ledger shows that in every facet of Ennis.  It shows in the way Ennis carries himself throughout the movie, in the way he speaks, and in what he says.  Physically, he always seems to be pulling into himself.  He doesn't say much, and when he does speak, it's through almost closed lips.  There are only a few scenes in which he lets his guard down, and most of those happen when no other characters are present.  In one though, he reveals something to Jack that tells us as the audience a lot about why he is the way he is.  He tells Jack that when he was just a kid, there were two men in town who were living together.  One day, those two men were found beaten to death, and Ennis' father made sure that he and his brother saw the bodies.  "Hell,"  he says, "for all I know, he {Ennis' father} did it." So, from a very young age, he was taught to believe that the way he felt was wrong.  That he wasn't supposed to be the way he was.  It's a pivotal moment, not just because it helps the audience understand Ennis as a character, but also because he is doing something uncharacteristic by sharing it.  There is a scene at the end of the movie, after Jack has died, in which Ennis breaks down while going through Jack's room during a visit to his parents.  He actually cries.  It's unexpected from a man who for most of the film goes out of his way to hide his feelings.

Jack accepts himself more readily than Ennis, which is most likely why he is always the one going out of his way to visit Ennis, making a greater effort to keep their relationship alive.  Ennis is terrified of being found out, while Jack seems much less concerned about it.  That fact made his character arc a little less interesting, for me at least, because he didn't seem to have the same inner conflict that Ennis had.  He's likable, and it's heartbreaking when he dies, but at least some of that comes from Ennis' reaction to it.  That is also the scene that stood out most to me for Lureen (Anne Hathaway), Jack's wife.  Ennis calls her to find out what happened to Jack, and as she tells Ennis about how Jack was trying to change a tire and it exploded, causing the hubcap to fly into his face, breaking his nose and leaving him lying unconscious in a pool of his own blood.  By the time he was found, it was too late.  During the story, we see Jack getting beaten to death with a tire iron, just like the two men from Ennis' youth.  I couldn't help but wonder, was that what really happened, or is that Ennis' imagination.  The scene stood out for Lureen's character for me because it was the first time I wondered whether she knew, or at least suspected, anything about the relationship between Jack and Ennis.

I really like character driven stuff like this, which I suppose is why I had so much to say about it.  More than I thought I would.  As far as I'm concerned, all the special effects in the world can't hold a candle to really great characters portrayed by really solid actors.  Explosions and car chases and whatnot can be fun, but if you have engaging characters and a good story, you don't need all those bells and whistles.  I really appreciated that about this film.  That and the underlying message about love and acceptance.  Sometimes, I just need to see something that reminds me that true love can survive anything, even when it's far from perfect or comes from an unexpected place.  The fact that this happens to involve a gay couple brings to mind everything that has been in the news recently about gay rights.  Granted, that has been overshadowed by the "zombie attack" stories, but it's still an important issue.  This story starts in 1963, and homosexuality was harshly persecuted at that time.  As a society, I think we like to think we've come a long way since then, but, in this particular issue, I'm not so sure that we have.  And that is devastating to me.  It isn't anyone's place to judge another person for who they fall in love with.  We should be celebrating the fact that they were able to find love at all.  Or at least letting them celebrate it.

But I digress.  And knowing the people who are most likely to be reading this, I expect I'm just preaching to the choir anyway.  Next on the list is a very long movie about Mozart.

Paramount Summer Classic Film Series: Killer of Sheep

The best thing about summer in Austin is the annual Summer Classic Film Series at the Paramount Theater.  Just about everyday, they're showing double features of great classic films.  It's a chance to get out of the heat and watch a couple of movies you wouldn't otherwise get to see on the big screen.  All for less than the price of a regular movie ticket.  Tonight's double feature consisted of John Cassavetes' Shadows and Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep.  I missed Shadows, unfortunately, but I did get to see Killer of Sheep.  

It follows Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) and his wife, played by Kaycee Moore in their daily lives.  He works at a slaughterhouse, then comes home to help her fix up the house and raise the kids.  It's an interesting film in a lot of ways.  Not the least of which is that there isn't a straightforward plot line.  In a series of seemingly unconnected scenes, Stan goes to work, comes home, sees his friends, tries to go to a race on which he has placed a bet (his friend gets a flat tire and they don't make it).  The kids go to school, play, get bullied, witness a theft.  But nothing really happens; it doesn't go anywhere.  And yet, a lot of things have happened.  Lessons have been learned and decisions made that will potentially have an effect on the family's lives that they can't even fathom yet.  So, we as viewers can't either.  It just looks like any other day.

Because the scenes are edited that way, it also feels a lot like a documentary, even though it's not.  In some ways, it reminded me of Yakuaya, the silent documentary I saw at Cine Las Americas this year.  The scenes in the slaughterhouse were particularly reminiscent of that film for me.  Other scenes felt like Frederick Wiseman's High School.  Only, you know, less Wisemany.  I think it felt that way because Wiseman's style was to observe without commenting, which is pretty much what was going on here.  I read that the scenes in which the children are playing were completely unscripted, so it makes sense that they would have a documentary-type feel to them.  It's interesting to see what kids will do to entertain themselves.  These kids didn't have a lot of toys, so they played with things they found lying around: rocks, Halloween masks, whatever.  

I think my favorite thing about it, though, was the music.  And not just because it primarily consisted of jazz and blues music, which I happen to like a lot.  I've always appreciated how powerful music can be.  it can make a bad day into a good one, help purge negative feelings, make a mundane task fun.  In this film, it added grace and beauty to otherwise grotesque slaughterhouse scenes, brought out the romance in the relationship between Stan and his wife, and added a sense of calm to a scene in which a child is injured while playing.  It's absence had an impact too.  We expect a film to have a score, something playing in the background to help set the tone of each scene.  So when it's not there, the scene is automatically a little less comfortable, a little harder to watch.  You might not even be able to put your finger on why that is right away, but it makes a big difference.  In this case, it feels a little less like you're watching things happen in a movie and a little more like you're watching in real life, peeking around a corner to see what's going on over there.  You almost feel guilty for not helping that kid who's getting picked on, until you remember that it's just a movie.  

I enjoyed it.  I don't think a lot of people would though.  It's not anything like the movies you'd see in theaters now.  It doesn't seem to be trying to be entertaining.  It's more of a realistic look at a part of American culture that those of us who haven't lived that way, in that time, wouldn't otherwise know anything about.  I think it's fascinating.  I'm glad I managed to get out and see it.  I hope I'll get to a lot the Classic Film Series.  This year's line up is really great.  Check it out.      

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: A Good Year

With everything going on with the theatre company and trying to get ready for my vacation, I missed Wendy and Lucy before it was removed from streaming, so I've put it at the front of the line in the dvd queue and gone back to the original watching order.  Which brings us to A Good Year, which I don't remember why I put in the queue in the first place.  It's innocuous and predictable, just like I thought it would be.  

Russell Crowe plays Max Skinner, a successful banker in London, who must go to his uncle's chateau in France after said uncle passes away, leaving no will, hence the entire estate goes to his only living relative, which just happens to be Max.  Following a flashback of a moment between young Max (Freddie Highmore) and his uncle Henry (Albert Finney), the movie spends about twenty minutes demonstrating that Max is greedy, self-absorbed, cold, and just an all around asshole.  It doesn't take that long.  Casting Russell Crowe was enough.  He treats people poorly, objectifies women, and has a pompous attitude that probably comes from his being so successful at his job.  He learns that his uncle has passed away after orchestrating a stock exchange that makes him and his associates a lot of money.  He immediately decides to sell the property, and goes out to France to appraise it.  Turns out, it needs some fixing up before it can be sold, so Max is going to have to stick around for a while.    

Enter Fanny (Marion Cotillard), a pretty French girl who had her heart broken and has since not let any man get close to her.  I saw where this was going from the moment Max almost runs her over in his rental car and carelessly keeps driving.  They don't get to it right away, though, because Max also has to deal with Christie (Abbie Cornish), an American girl who claims to be Henry's daughter.  Which would make her the rightful heir to his property.  In the end, Max gives Christie the property, quits his job, and moves to France to be with Fanny, all after spending a week with these people.  Like most romantic comedies, A Good Year doesn't really take the time to actually explore the relationships between the characters before getting to its predictably happy ending.  

In short, it's ok, for what it is, but there's nothing special about it, and these actors could do much better than this.  Marion Cotillard went on to win an Oscar for her performance in La Vie en Rose, Abbie Cornish had a much more complex role in Candy, and Russell Crowe had previously won an Oscar for Gladiator, and was nominated for A Beautiful Mind and The Insider.

Up next: Brokeback Mountain.

Weird Wednesday: The Apple

Greetings from South America!  This post comes to you all the way from Lima, Peru, where I am staying with my cousin all this week.  

The Apple (1980) is absolutely RIDICULOUS.  That's right.  All caps.  Set in the futuristic world of 1994, the story follows Bibi, a young ingenue,  on her path to pop super stardom.  And, it's jam packed with music, dancing, glittery costumes, and a hero who takes himself way to seriously.  But don't just take my word for it.  See for yourself.

There is also this scene, in which Bibi is lured into the world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Rounding out the story is a hippie commune, which Bibi joins after she flees from her recording contract.  The company catches up with her, though, and they show up with the police, who have a warrant for her arrest.  Just when it seems that there is no way out for Bibi, they are visited by a deity who arrives in a transparent flying car to take Bibi and all the hippies away to start a new universe.  

Yeah, you read that right.  Deity.  Flying car.  New universe.

Despite the silliness of the story, the production value on this one is actually pretty good.  And much better than a lot of Weird Wednesdays.  Which means, of course, that someone spent money on that.  Lots of money.  I couldn't quickly find box office information on it, but I always wonder about that when I watch things like this.  It's fun though, if you're into the whole crazy/campy/ridiculous thing.  And if you are, it's available for streaming on Netflix.  

The next Weird Wednesday I'll be in town for is The Black Six, the "story of an all-black Vietnam Vet biker gang who take on a rival gang of racist rednecks. The Black Six are all played by NFL stars, and while none are polished actors they are loose and likable and when it's time to throw an unwise user of the N-word through a wall, they execute the playbook flawlessly." (Lars)

Should be a good time.

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: Metropolis

I know I said A Good Year was going to be next, but I this one is about to be removed from Netflix instant, so I decided to bump it up.  

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) is a silent science fiction epic set in a futuristic urban dystopia in which a class of workers who live underground slave away for ten hours a day while a pampered wealthy class lives in a beautiful city above them.  The two sides are ignorant of one another until one day Freder Frederson (Gustav Froehlich), son of a wealthy businessman, meets Maria (Brigitte Helm), a beautiful girl from underground.  Freder is immediately taken with her, and shocked to learn of the underground workers and their situation.  He decides to leave the comforts of his home to go below in an attempt to help the workers.  To learn more, he seeks out Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), the mad genius of the underground, while Maria rallies the workers together with a message of hope for a better future.  She predicts that a mediator will come to join the underground society with the above ground one. 

Rotwang throws a wrench in Freder and Maria's revolution by kidnapping her and transferring her likeness onto a robot that he controls.  Robot Maria then goes back to the workers and convinces them to indulge themselves in all manner of fantasies.  Despite the excellent crazy eyes Helm used to distinguish Robot Maria from Real Maria, none of the workers notices anything amiss, except Freder.  The workers don't believe him when he protests Robot Maria's message of destruction (the exact opposite of Maria's original message), and continue to follow Robot Maria.  Eventually, the workers realize that they have been tricked, but not before their city is destroyed in a giant flood caused when the workers stopped the machines they had been slaving over at Robot Maria's bidding.  The real Maria escapes from Rotwang just in time to rescue all the workers' children, who were left in the city when their parents stormed out under Robot Maria's spell, from drowning in the flood.  Finally, Maria and Freder are reunited and Freder becomes the mediator Maria predicted.  

Is that complicated enough for you?  Because there's actually more to it than that.  And it can be hard to follow because, after it's release, it was re-edited and censored by various distributors, resulting in the loss of roughly a quarter of the film.  In 2008, a print of Lang's original was discovered in Argentina and restored with the original score.  Twenty five minutes of footage thought lost was put back in.  Some frames are still missing though, and where those would be, they put in title cards to explain what happens in the story.  I watched the restored version, and it was still a little hard for me to keep up with it.  I'd seen it once before, which helps, but I was also trying to work on other things while watching it, which doesn't.  Especially with a silent film.  

Visually, it's stunning.  It's part of the German Expressionist movement, which is known for it's distinct visual style.  It's purposely theatrical, and revolutionary in it's use of the technology available at the time.  Some films used unique and avant-garde camera angles and played with light and shadow.  Others used special effects in new and innovative ways.  Metropolis is one of the latter.  In terms of special effects, it is way ahead of its time.  In the scene in which Maria's likeness is transferred onto Robot Maria, Robot Maria is surrounded by light rings that move up and down around her as though they are scanning Maria's features onto the robot.  In another scene, as Robot Maria dances provocatively in front of the workers, their eyes suddenly fill the screen.  Freder's fever dream after he discovers Robot Maria with his father is a whole sequence of impressive special effects.  It's a great spectacle, even if the story doesn't always make perfect sense.  See for yourself.

That, by the way, is not the score in the restored version.

I don't think the confusing nature of the story is necessarily a bad thing though.  I think it adds to the experience of watching the film.  It's more of a challenge to the viewer because it's not always comfortable.  And I don't think it was meant to be.  It doesn't seem like it's supposed to be easy.  It puts the viewer in the same position as the characters-trying to figure out what's going on in the midst of spectacle and chaos.  Which makes it more engaging to me than a lot of the contemporary films it inspired.  

Up next in the queue is Wendy and Lucy; another one I had to bump up due to limited streaming availability, but it's one I've been looking forward to seeing for a while.

 

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: Brick

This second entry in my little project is Rian Johnson's Brick (2005), a detective story set in a high school in modern day California that gives a nod to the novels of Dashiell Hammett and the older crime noir films those novels inspired. 

At the film's opening, our hero, Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), discovers his former girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) murdered at the mouth of a mysterious-looking dark tunnel.  We then flash back to three days earlier, when Emily reached out to Brendan for help.  The call is cryptic.  It seems she has "screwed up real bad," but before we learn how, the call is interrupted.  A suspicious-looking black car speeds past the phone booth in which Brendan took the call from Emily, and someone flicks a cigarette butt out the window at him.  Presumably, Emily is in the car, about to be killed.  So, Brendan sets out to learn what happened to Emily.  Of course, he gets much more than he bargained for; it turns out she had gotten involved in the school's drug ring and was murdered over a brick (hey, that's the title!) of heroin.   

I found the noir style a bit jarring at first.  Maybe it was hearing that language in a modern setting.  Maybe it was because the characters are all high school students.  I think the combination of those two things made it feel a little like a bunch of kids were playing at being Bogart and Bacall.  Maybe it was because I don't think I've ever seen a noir film that was that bright (lots of scenes that happened outdoors at midday).  Or maybe it was a little bit of all three.  After a few minutes, though, I got over it and thought it was good fun.  It has all the characters you would expect to see in a crime noir film: the gumshoe, the informer, the kingpin, the muscle, the police captain, and the tough dame.  It also has the complex plot line of a classic noir thriller, with Brendan chasing after leads that come to some unexpected conclusions.  And, if you missed anything along the way, it's all wrapped up at the end for you in a scene in which Brendan reveals all that he has learned throughout his investigation.  

Overall, a pretty good time.  Up next, the first movie to come from the dvd queue, A Good Year.

I have a bad feeling about this.

   

Operation: Conquer the Netflix Queue: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Hey, look! It's a post related to the actual reason I started this blog!  And it only took me a week and a half to do it.  At this rate, it will take me 21 years to complete this project.  I'm going to have to pick up the pace.

Anyway, first up in the queue was Alfred Hitchcock's The Man who Knew too Much (1934), starring Peter Lorre, Leslie Banks, and Edna Best.  Banks and Best play Bob and Jill Lawrence, respectively, a couple vacationing in Switzerland with their young daughter, Betty (Nova Pilbeam).  Their vacation is interrupted when their friend Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) is killed in the middle of a dinner party.   His last request to them is to find a note that he has hidden in his room and take it to the British Consulate.  In their attempt to grand their friend's last wish, the Lawrences find themselves caught up in a plot to assassinate a foreign dignitary. As if that wasn't complicated enough, when the assassins learn that the Bob and Jill are aware of the plot, they kidnap Betty to keep them quiet, and the Lawrences must try to save their daughter's life at the same time as they try to prevent the assassination.

I hadn't seen this movie before, but Hitchcock is one of my favorite filmmakers, so I knew I was in for a treat.  I wasn't disappointed.  I like the he builds the story, and how he uses lighting and camera angles.  There is a scene in which Bob finds himself fighting the would be assassins in a large hall.  There is a lot of chair-throwing.  For this scene, Hitchcock cut between wide angle shots and close ups, lending a sense of chaos and confusion.  It's hard for viewers watching to fully grasp what is happening until a wide shot at the end of the fight which shows the extent of the destruction it caused.  It's great.  I couldn't look away from it.  And I'm pretty fidgety, so that doesn't happen all the time, even with movies I like.

I liked the acting in the movie too.  One of my favorite things about watching old movies in general is seeing how acting styles change from one era of film to the next.  It wasn't too long before this film was made that sound was first introduced, so sometimes you still get some of the bigger gestures and facial expressions that were common in silent films, but not so much in later eras.  And it's a vastly different style from what you see in contemporary films.  Jill especially has a few moments that, if I didn't know any better, I'd say would be more at home in a melodrama than a thriller.  I don't mean that negatively, it's just one of those stylistic differences that might look foreign to a contemporary film audience.

This was a good way to kick off the project.  Up next, a contemporary take on film noir.