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Reviews
Between the Lines (1977)
Film Class Without The Class
By 1977 the attention span of movie goers (and apparently directors) had been firmly supplanted by television. So, too, with soundtracking, editing and the phenomenon of the ensemble cast. I'm going to guess that the money to be made was as a test run for a television series, think Taxi, Cheers or Wings. This has the style but none of the substance. It apparently appeals to the not overly demanding public, those happy to see the up and coming of their time trying their chops on material equally without depth or challenge. By the same director, I thought Hester Street had its charms. This has none. Worth noting, it objectifies all the characters, but especially those cast as women. This one shouldn't have passed film class.
Eye of the Needle (1981)
Awful
Otherwise well reviewed on this and other sites, I found this formulaic claptrap irredeemably bad. Everything, every dramatic element of the film, is a contrivance, including the vacuous bloated soundtrack by Miklos Rosza, an otherwise talented composer.
The fault must lie with the director, no differently than poor management in any business, retail or restaurant. This one is strictly by the Robert L. Lippert/William Lee Wilder playbook of directorial mediocrity. Editing shifts suddenly from narrative to swing shots of other bits, e.g. The kid! Remember the kid, presumably to build suspense. This is patronizing and destroys any sense of dramatic continuity.
Okay, we know Sutherland is a bad nazi, although not quite as bad as his accent, playing a nazi playing an Englishman. Every other role is inserted merely to serve a purpose: the embittered husband, the suffering mother/wife, the drunken shepherd, the British military guys, devoid of any individual depth or character.
This film plays solely on the surface. It is as superficial as a cone of cotton candy. In full disclosure, I did not read the book. Someone bought the rights with the intention of gripping an audience to our seats. I made it through so I could warn others. I'm sending a British military helicopter to warn you! It's awful.
Baby Doll (1956)
Deliciously Perverse
John Waters wishes he was Tennessee Williams. The tension of relationships, racial tension, ethnic prejudice, age, old and young, heat and rain and fire, fire, fire. Stark direction by Kazan who turned his friends in to the House Committee on Unamerican Affairs. The affairs in Baby Doll were as American as they come and they set the screen on fire. Malden excels as the emasculated husband, Archie Lee. Eli Wallach supplies the balance of new commerce to the Old South, cuckolding the alcoholic Southerner still whistling Dixie with the needed capital that slavery left behind. John Waters put Divine in a crib, but Carroll Baker was there more than 20 years before. Waters is over the top. Tennessee Williams records the truth of human affairs, so much stranger than fiction.
Hoffman (1970)
Most Unusual
A most unusual film. One thinks, fifty years on from its making, that the subject matter would have aged badly; it hasn't. In fact, what seems horribly taboo instead becomes, over the span of 1:53, delicate and human, gentle and loving, owing to a remarkable script, brilliant understated acting and direction that seems always spot on with nuance and delicacy. There are back stories about the film. Forget them. Probably more relevant now than when it was made and it probably wouldn't be made today (2022). Most unusual.
King of Jazz (1930)
Stupendous
Almost 100 years old as of this viewing/writing, this extravaganza is without question a tour de force of music and dance, costuming and imagination. Breathtaking and stupendous. The best of its genre.
Her Master's Voice (2012)
Brilliant
A life's journey in an hour. Nina Conti, now deservedly world famous, is given the gift of finding the gift she's been given: understanding through the art of ventriloquism. Here is how (and as importantly, why) she began. And why she continues. Few bits of film are brilliant; this is. Perfect.
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013)
An Empty Bucket
The highly stylized story of a prodigal 10 year old's journey across an imaginary landscape, told in the first person with an occasional poor mannered adult crossing his path. T. S., the titular character, invents a perpetual motion machine that is most certainly NOT a metaphor for the grinding pace of this overly long exercise in style over, well....anything. It is not particularly well written, directed or acted and welcomes no suspension of disbelief but, in fairness, doesn't ask for it; it demands it without giving anything in return. Trading on past success, the filmmaker bargains that a formula of quirky characters will satisfy an honest hunger for originality. This isn't it. It is a bland diet of imitation crab pretending to be caviar. There is no warmth, no simple story telling. There is no perpetual motion, only cinematic entropy. 4/10 and only for style.
Le petit prince (2015)
Timeless and Beautiful
Hauntingly and very often exquisitely beautiful, always charming, disarming, shamelessly sentimental interpretation of the classic St. Exupery story easily mistaken for a children's book. I have never been a fan of computer generation or even animated voice-over film. This proves the exception. St. Exupery's narrative is woven into the story of a child being vacuumed into an world of adults whose childhood has been vacuumed from them like a ShopVac hoovering stars from the sky. I am 61 years old. I usually do not recognize the names of the actors in current animation. I am especially delighted to hear in this the familiar voices of artists who have touched my heart for decades, connecting me to childhood as vocally as the voiceless fox to whom the Aviator never quite got around to giving a mouth. But then, the essential things are invisible to the eye and really only seen by the heart. Watch this lovely story with heart and ears and the computer generated tableaux is so remarkably well done that it conquers the suspension of disbelief. Timeless and beautiful. I will watch it again and again and again. 9/10.
Mafioso (1962)
Famiglia
An important and overlooked film that unfolds to reveal a reality as immutable as family: family. Alberto Sordi's first return after eight years to his Sicilian homeland after establishing himself as an engineer in Milan, a position given him by his Sicilian Patron, proves his life on mainland Italy was the real vacation. This film understands its message and never misses the mark, an expectation Sordi's character is expected to fulfill. Mafioso makes Coppola's "The Godfather" an over-produced operatic spectacle. Mafioso is family.
T.R. Baskin (1971)
Stronger Than the City
Having just watched this gem of a film I'm reviewing it to counterbalance the remarkably unsympathetic marks it's received. I found it beautifully written. Many found Ms. Bergen miscast; I did not. I've known more than a few persons of her character's intellect who expected more from life and bore their pain with humor passing for disappointment. I moved to Chicago at 21, as does her character. The natural quality of her and Mr. Boyle's acting is flawless. Caan was more off-putting. It is a quiet film based on few characters in a single frame of a larger life, reflected in Ms. Bergen's silhouette. Her character is stronger and more genuine than the city around her. She, Boyle, the writer and director deserved more than awards. They deserve our thanks. 8/10.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
NOT A CLASSIC
Somehow made it in the pantheon of oughta see films. Oughta see films are 2 steps below must see films. I love Charles Laughton and think he's one of the greatest actors of all time, but he's no director. Mitchum is sentenced to 30 days for car theft (not his other heinous crimes) and is put in a cell with a man sentenced to hang. Even in the 30s when the film is set, that rarely happened. There were county jails for 30 day sentences and prisons for the ones to be hung. Not a spoiler: the kids' father has about 2 minutes to hide stolen loot: takes the stuffing out of doll and replaces it with lots of bills. Dolls remains soft and pliable and stays together while the kid swings it like her old man. Just couldn't happen. Cops don't look for $10,000 in loot (bills were larger in size and this was a stack bigger than the doll) and don't find the doll stuffing he had seconds to scatter (the sirens are blaring when he's hiding the money so you know they're close). Well, suspend your disbelief and keep it suspended when Shelly Winters marries Mitchum. There's no sense setting the film in the depression; it wasn't integral to the film. (See Paper Moon, PLEASE!) Toward the end Gish blows Mitchum's arm near-off making it hang like a real rag doll (not one stuffed with stiff paper bills) then it heals miraculously when Mitchum is cuffed and stuffed in the back of the cruiser with nary a squeal. Really? Some nice cinematography but not enough to save the film. I give it 5 stars because too many 4 and 5 star films are harder to watch, but not much. A major disappointment. If you wanna see Mitchum in noir, watch Out of the Past. If you wanna see noir, watch Burt Lancaster in The Killers. Decidedly not a classic.
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
An Hour Too Long
A waaaaaaayyyyy overly ambitious war epic that can't hold all the big name stars it squeezes into what should have been a more streamlined affair. There's a story to be told, but it gets waylaid by scripting every conceivable estuary and byway. As a result, the intermittent bits of action, death and destruction are a welcome relief from the tedium of the side bits. The score, reusing themes to identify the various bits, like the movie, starts with sweeping promise but devolves into annoying tedium. After a two hour investment one just wants to get it over with. Maybe battles and wars are like that, but I don't think that's the metaphor Attenborough was going for. There are so many better war films. This one's a toothache. A Bridge Too Far is a movie too long.
Le deuxième souffle (1966)
A Masterpiece of the Genre.
Stylistically captures the essence of crime, criminals, their presence among those who think they are neither; good cops; not so smart cops who think they are smart enough; and the meaning of loyalty. Don't die without having seen it.
Gan (1953)
A Lucid Dream
Unspeakably beautiful, delicate and immutable. There is no weakness in the chain of imagery, the power of forces controlling the lives of the characters, painted on the screen like calligraphy. Necessity cages the characters in images as simple as a bird threatened by a snake, to the money lender once janitor to the kept woman generous to her servant to the cruelty of the wagging tongues. Nothing here a traditional American audience demands and receives from Hollywood; only the lucidity of the haiku or bonsai, the migration of the wild geese. Cinematic perfection.
Cry of the City (1948)
As Good As They Say
Real noir. Has all the elements delivered with subtlety and strength. Written like people talk. Acted like people act. The keys are when Siodmak spends extra seconds of film to throw in the observations of random or secondary characters, regular folk. Watch for the scene in the all night café, 4 a.m., when Collins (Fred Clark), Mature's detective sidekick, tosses out a line to a woman at the end of the counter. Those touches (and there are many: Conte's brother speaking Italian in a call he doesn't want understood, etc.) are the ones that suspend disbelief. Noir incorporates all the life of the people and the city around them, in all its darkness and light.
Poruchik Kizhe (1934)
A Must See
Made in 1934, this brilliant piece of filmaking combines elements of Expressionism, Dada, and Surrealism with directorial style reminiscent of Cocteau, Renoir, Leger and Bunuel. Add the music by Prokofiev and it transcends cinematic art. I've followed, sought and studied film for over four decades. This is a seminal work of early cinema with superior subtitling. An absolute must see for those who love the art.
A Taste of Honey (1961)
Perfectly Imperfect
When is a film more than a film? The answer is usually when disbelief is suspended, but this work of art surpasses disbelief. Somewhere in my lizard brain I must have been subconciously aware of editing, script, direction and the kazillion things that make a movie, but so complete was my absorbtion that for 110 minutes I lived and breathed with movie.
Every element seemed flawless: the casting; expressions; locations; and dialogue. All were so beautifully real that their alchemy into film made me almost turn away. Wonderful.
9 of 10 stars because life has imperfection, like a spot on the Mona Lisa.
It is a movie for every oddball whose best hope is to be okay with being human.
Hollywood wanted a happy ending. The director, Tony Richardson, gave us even better: real life. He was right.
Ragtime (1981)
The Music
Just finished watching this lovely, ethereal, haunting and enchanting film. Well acted, beautifully and naturally written dialogue, period costumes, hair, atmosphere and throughout it all, the music.
Also recently watched "The Sting," an academy award winner many remember for its music, a soundtrack provided by Marvin Hamlisch based on the music of Scott Joplin. "The Sting" is set in 1936. Joplin died in 1917, almost 20 years earlier. Joplin's music didn't fit the film or the time period. There was plenty of great popular music in the 1930's, maybe not as upbeat as Joplin's syncopated piano rolls. "The Sting" was a just another buddy flick for Newman and Redford. A period piece it was not.
Not so with Ragtime. I'm sure, as another reviewer wrote, there were anachronisms within the characters whose lives tell the story.
But the music! It is glorious. It is spot on.
The story, like the glorious melting pot of influences that made ragtime music, is the changing of American society as it moved toward World War.
And throughout it all, there was the music.
Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
Daring; Just Plain Great.
Difficult for me NOT to give this movie an IMDb score of 10. Absolutely charming from beginning to end. I'm well aware of Billy Wilder, his reputation as a GREAT director who made great films. STILL, I not only had never seen this, I was totally unaware of it.
It is great: incredibly funny, well written, touchingly directed (the long shots of Mrs. Spooner's dress model, the closing of doors and opening of windows...on and on, just brilliant. Peter Sellers and Marilyn Monroe for the leads? Maybe, but why? In fact, no, no, no. Walston and Novack are perfect in their imperfection, playing regular people in a Hollywood invades reality comedy of (ill)manners.
Dean Martin is perfectly, ideally cast in a role written for the role Hollywood wrote for him- playing a role within a role and ONLY Billy Wilder could write and direct a role for real people's roles. What genius.
Just relax and enjoy this early 60's romp, from trailer to bedroom to Sam the parrot, "bang, bang!"
No loose ends. A great finish. Don't miss a second. Why I don't give this a 10, I don't know. Maybe because they didn't let Ray Walston sing. Maybe there are better movies...Citizen Kane, Casablanca....but this'll do for great comedy. A perfect representative of its time, even better today. Daring; just plain great.
Nickelodeon (1976)
A Director's Love Letter
Just finished watching the color version on Turner Classic Movies. I loved "Paper Moon," especially the wonderful depression-era music, and "The Last Picture Show" (I grew up in Texas not so far from Archer City in the same era), so that's what I knew about Peter Bogdonovich, the director. I echo many of the reviews, without having known about the reception the film apparently received at the time. Even though I was grown when it came out, I just never got around to seeing it. Maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as now, as I approach 60.
Yes, it's filled with slapstick, sometimes goofy, but the audience is in on the jokes. I felt like I was invited to the party, with all these wonderful actors (not in the thespian sense, but in the popular sense)as friends. The magic is that it makes you feel comfortable, because loving movies and movie making is part of my life, too. It appreciates the audience and wants us to have a good time with it.
The director obviously loves the medium. In many ways, there was a Fellini-esque quality to it, as another reviewer wrote. The magic of Fellini was similar: he used the everyday strangeness of reality to make his films real. Hollywood is the make-believe; reality makes a better film.
This is art imitating life. It celebrates the birth of the industry and the magic of the universal language of moving pictures, captured beautifully and simply in Brian Keith's closing monologue. It is Peter's love letter to the industry and to the audience, as only a lover could compose. It is beautifully crafted, the acting balanced throughout the ensemble, and the message delivered with wry humor. Though I didn't see it when released, it may look better now, in nostalgic retrospect. It IS a love letter, and at my age, it is a delightful homage to an industry that just "doesn't make 'em like this anymore." Thank you, Mr. Bogdonovich and all the cast. Love you, too.
The Naked Kiss (1964)
Absolutely Unique
Others who understand Samuel Fuller's brave, groundbreaking daring genius have written excellent reviews of this highly unusual if technically lacking film that from 1964 explores topics still shocking today. I'm not easily forgiving or surprised, but "The Naked Kiss" manages to overcome its faults (wooden acting, sometimes bludgeoning but perhaps necessary sermonizing)by producing what no other film or film maker that I know of did at the time, maybe still. It is a film about the seamy underside of life and its human actors that tells it like it almost is, as much as it could at the time. Like one alcoholic sharing his story with another, it works because we believe in the sincerity of the storyteller. Forget all the low budget criticism; what studio actor would dare have been associated with a film about prostitutes, abortion, violence and pedophilia, all in the perspective of a prophet revealing the hypocrisy of moral society. The biblical prophets were unpopular in their time, too, and Sam Fuller remains a visionary whose work and voice are and remain absolutely unique.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
Charming
Purchased as a closeout DVD, I hadn't a clue about the movie other than my respect for its leading actresses. Even then, I didn't open and play it for months. An absolute delight. The NY Times likened it to French farce; I agree and would throw in English comedy of manners, reflected in the whimsical titles: little letters that dance around until everything falls into place.
The acting is wonderful- an ensemble effort with excellent portrayals of slightly over-the-top characters. The intelligent, poignant but sweet writing carries the day: simple and from the heart. Direction is fast paced with quick angles and swings, ordinarily techniques I wouldn't like, but here they carry the story, rather than just leaving me dizzy. The film is well crafted and cohesive from script to music, lighting and costuming to every foot hitting its mark in tempo and on beat.
A delightful period piece, there was a tear in my eye and suspension of disbelief. It is sincere storytelling that wraps you in its arms and dances every dance.
Like Miss Pettigrew, I watched alone, but the film was a wonderful partner and a romantic date I shall long remember.
Charming!
Noah (2014)
Doesn't Hold Water
Having watched this abomination almost a month ago, I'm trying to remember now why I generously rated it two stars. I am a fan of simplicity in storytelling: no need for spectacular effects. Please just give me dialog from the mouths of fully developed characters. This film falls flat.
The movie bounces from antediluvian to post apocalyptic without rhyme or reason. Noah, his wife and sons are foraging vegans (though it looks an awful lot like they're wearing animal skins), hiding in the scant brush from the savage meat eaters who, though the narrator (a narrator for Heaven's sake?)tells us a great industrialized society has covered the earth. Really?
I was at least hoping for an Edgar Cayce Atlantis or better still, Lemuria- some great civilization predating our own. Instead, the director called on his theological experts who apparently received their ordination from the back of Rolling Stone magazine. Honestly, Madonna has a greater understanding of religious mysticism than the writers here.
From roving bands of hunters to computer generated hoards of mindless minions led by a nasty stowaway whose presence on the ark is a little like the alien popping out of Sigourney Weaver. Ridiculous.
Add a cameo of Methusala (yes, Methusala),some fallen angels dressed like Transformers to help build the boat, mix in computer generated animals that look like stock footage of animals running from a fire, waste the talent of Jennifer Conneley playing Mrs. Noah (a real afterthought) and you have a film that rushed to market before the ark would float.
Oh, and most kids who went to Sunday school know the snake lost its legs AFTER it told Eve to try the fruit (depicted here as a pulsating pomegranate); Noah keeps having visions of the serpent slithering along BEFORE the "original sin."
My favorite line: When Noah says in reference to the folks left to drown, "It is painful." No. God is always merciful. Their suffering ended early in the movie. The rest of us watched it 'til the end.