madjc7 Reviews

Born to Buck (1966)

Big Plans, Some Great Footage, and Some Good Memories

[5/10 · 28 March 2007]

Let's say from the outset that this is no great movie, but it's got some great features. I confess I'm prejudiced since my dad and two brothers appear in it--they're in the credits. I remember the making of the film.

Casey Tibbs managed to bring together enough talent and money to get the movie made, but some decisions seem downright bone-headed. Along with the great narration by Slim Pickens and Henry Fonda, there's good film of moving a herd of horses up along the Missouri River, where the plan was to swim across, but weather plagued the filming. One of the most dramatic scenes in the filming was where Casey manages, barely, to make it across the river by hanging on to his horse's tail as wind and rain pounded the river. Waves and wind kept everyone in the houseboat where the cameras were supposed to be filming, so the dramatic moment when Casey emerges from the river is a bad reenactment. Too bad.

Clips of elk and pine trees appear in the film, but they don't belong in this movie set in the river breaks. It does include some footage from the Ft. Pierre 4th of July Rodeo, along with some Native American dancers.

If you're interested in history of this area, central South Dakota, and its history and characters, you'll see some of them in this flawed but fun film.

Winter Solstice (I) (2004)

A study in the aftermath of loss

[6/10 · 3 January 2006]

What happens when a spouse dies? There are no tender flashbacks in this film showing the husband and wife in their marital bliss before the wife dies. This film is about what happens afterward. Even five years later, the reverberations are being felt by the husband and his two young adult sons.

Keep your expectations realistic, and this film delivers. In a key scene, a high school history teacher asks the class, "Why did the Mongols turn back when they were poised to roll up Europe like a carpet?" Pete, the younger son, seems to know, but doesn't care to answer. The teacher offers to let him out of class (a makeup summer class) if he can answer.

Pete finally takes the bait: "Their leader died and they didn't know what to do." There you have it. Does the filmmaker do any more to explain what troubles this family? Yes, but you have to put the pieces together yourself. He doesn't make it hard; he just doesn't grind it up and put it in a baby food jar.

The film builds to some very touching scenes that explore the impact of loss on the three remaining family members. If you're interested in exploring how real people deal with the real issue of loss, you'll find something here.

The ending comes before you want it to, sure. There are no easy answers offered by the conclusion, but that's the way life is.

Runaway Jury (2003)

A film for those willing to pay attention

[7/10 · 2 January 2006]

The errors in continuity on these pages show that there must have been a lot of re-shooting and editing of scenes; if that's not done carefully you end up with a list of inconsistencies, which the film suffers from.

But don't let your over-critical eye be distracted by these. You won't notice them in your initial viewing, I suspect. Rather, you will be paying attention to clues as to the continuity of the storytelling. It's enough to do to establish the relationship among the forces facing each other in the trial.

Cusak, Hackman, and Hoffman do a great job of acting, and it's not clear what they will do, usually. Hackman's character is never really surprising, but that's because he makes it clear that he's an evil dude. But Cusak and Hoffman are capable of surprising you convincingly; they're fully fleshed-out characters. You need to watch them.

You also need to watch how the characters pay attention to each other. The motivation in the key characters requires them to be able to "read" each other, and as the viewer you're given lots of shots that you need to interpret, as the characters do. For many of them, the interpretation is given, as in the scenes where the lawyers are selecting the jury, but many times you're left to your own devices.

Your ability to "read" some of the key characters is tested, and if you like to participate as a film unfolds, you'll like this one.

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

A glimpse into gangster behavior and its causes

[8/10 · 31 December 2005]

The film is a great example of another age in movie-making. It's an action movie, with plenty of violence, including gunfights, killings, explosions, and near slapstick fisticuffs, but there is also plenty of lingering moments to go with the wise-cracking and tough-guy posing, not to mention the moralizing that appears more than once. Cagney is at his best as a tough-guy gangster, and Pat O'Brien plays the stereotypical Irish priest with a heart of gold. You'll want to forget that Bogart plays a weasel of a lawyer who dies a coward.

My favorites are the young men who play the gangster wanna-be's. Their voices, accents, and lines of dialog make them a memorable part of a film that most people remember for Cagney as Rocky Sullivan and O'Brien as Jerry Connelly. The physical humor too makes them stand out, slap-happy characters as much like the Little Rascals or the Three Stooges as they are hoodlums. Cagney too is excellent in his antics.

It's in an early scene that Sullivan's and Connelly's lives diverge from the small-time crooks they appear on their way to be. The two are running from the cops and one leaps over the fence and gets away while the other is caught and sent to reform school. It's worth asking yourself what that moral in the film seems to be.

It's a great old action film, but be sure to note the story as what Hollywood offered in 1938 as a look into the status of crime and the celebrity of criminals (Cagney was the same age as Al Capone, and Bonnie and Clyde had only recently been killed). The film attempts to explore the root causes of crime, poverty among them, and offers up some ideas about reformation.

Later movies might glorify criminals. This one doesn't.