The Wages of Fear.

Review #2337: The Wages of Fear.

Cast: 

Yves Montand (Mario), Charles Vanel (Jo), Folco Lulli (Luigi), Peter van Eyck (Bimba), Véra Clouzot (Linda), William Tubbs (Bill O'Brien), Darío Moreno (Hernandez), and Jo Dest (Smerloff) Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Review: 

Time really does mean some directors and films stand tall after death. Henri-Georges Clouzot actually attended Naval school before his myopia made his interests turn elsewhere. He studied political science and eventually found work in writing, which soon led him to work in a Berlin studio involving translation and writing (with his first short film coming in 1931). He was fired from his studio job with the rise of Nazism in 1934 and soon became plagued by tuberculosis that had him sick for several years. He eventually found himself in a precarious place where Continental Films was his own place to get work in France...a German-operated company established after Germany invaded France. Clouzot wrote for the studio. He made his directorial debut with The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942). His second effort was Le Corbeau (1943), loosely based on an actual case of strange letters sent to people, and it managed the strange feat of being scrutinized by both the Vichy regime and anti-Nazi resistance members that led to Clouzot being fired from Continental. When France was liberated, Clouzot was tried as a "collaborator" that initially had him banned from filmmaking. A few years later, he was allowed to direct again, and he returned with Quai des Orfèvres (1947). Clouzot's reputation had peaks and valleys that really happened with both The Wages of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955). Marred by health problems and a few public critiques from filmmakers of the "French New Wave" that he took to heart, Clouzot made just one film after 1960 with La prisonnière (1968). Clouzot died at the age of 69 in 1977. The Wages of Fear is based on the 1950 novel Le Salaire de la peur by Georges Arnaud Clouzot co-wrote the screenplay with Jérome Geronimi. The novel has been adapted a handful more times: Howard W. Koch's Violent Road (1958) took inspiration from the book without saying as such, while William Friedkin made his own adaptation of the novel with Sorcerer (1977). In 2024, a Netflix "film" was released, as directed by Julien Leclercq.

It really is a gripping time to watch tension play out in slow burning essence. The 153-minute runtime basically feels like a gliding motion, one that looks upon its four leads in all the nerves possible for a trip through hell. There are four pillars of doom one eventually sees all get dropped into a figurative board that seemingly favors nothing but random chance.  They are comrades only in the sense of being united in an insane mission that is grinded away by the immovable hand of fate, complete with a capable quartet to carry the film along in grimy patience of warped sensibilities in some way. Singer-turned-actor Montand is particularly effective in selling the sorrow that comes in too much time for leisure in a dead-end space. Vanel and his illusory bravado that comes with an actor confident enough to let the role breathe without turning it into false pity that is undeniably gripping in the same sense that arises with seeing him and Montand when compared from the first half of the film to afterwards. Lilli and van Eyck might seem normal when compared to those two, but their warped sense of self is still pretty easy to see through just seeing them as either a buffoon or machine-like efficacy that only makes their pursuit all the more curious. Incidentally, this was the last film for Tubbs, who died in 1953 from a heart ailment at 45; he pulls off a worthwhile performance in blithering American type of grime that works with such a tight amount of screentime. One can cite quite a few sequences fit for feeling that tension firsthand, such as the timber platform sequence or the scene with explosive rocks or that illuminating (in more ways than one) scene in the oil. By the time the movie closes itself out in an ideal type of way when it comes to the price of fears and fearlessness, one has seen a pretty good experience in terms of tension.  Admittedly, trying to compare the film with Sorcerer is pretty futile, mainly because both are pretty interesting movies in distinctive visions for the source material that one won't go wrong with watching either movie in terms of tension. As a whole, what you get here is a worthwhile film on the unravelling nature of fear in a journey of terror that makes the most of its atmosphere and tension for quite the curiosity. 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Cape Fear (1962).

Review #2336: Cape Fear.

Cast: 

Gregory Peck (Sam Bowden), Robert Mitchum (Max Cady), Polly Bergen (Peggy Bowden), Lori Martin (Nancy Bowden), Martin Balsam (Mark Dutton), Jack Kruschen (Dave Grafton), Telly Savalas (Charlie Sievers), and Barrie Chase (Diane Taylor) Directed by J. Lee Thompson.

Review: 

Yes, even British directors can fall in and out of "social realism" films to do some adventures. Actually, I had assumed I had covered a film by J. Lee Thompson before, but as it turns out, Thompson's wide variety of films had slipped thought the cracks. He actually had an interest in plays before becoming a screenwriter with at British International Pictures (after spending time in the Royal Air Force in World War II). He had worked as a dialogue director on a handful of films (one included Jamaica Inn [1939]) before finally becoming a feature director with Murder Without Crime (1950). Thompson's most noted effort of the first few years probably was Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), which dealt with a failing marriage. However, he became an action guy with Ice Cold in Alex (1958) that saw him reach a peak with The Guns of Navarone (1961), which came about because Alexander Mackendrick got replaced late. Described as a director who "sort of sold out", Thompson would work in a variety of film and TV that ranged from directing the fourth and fifth film of the Planet of the Apes series to other fare like Happy Birthday to Me (1981) and nine Charles Bronson vehicles that closed his career with Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989). Thompson died in 2002 at the age of 88. At any rate, Cape Fear is adapted from the 1957 novel The Executioners, as written by John D. MacDonald in 1957. Peck and his production company had purchased the rights to the book not long after it came out, and the experience he had with Thompson on Navarone got him to hire him to direct the ensuing film (it was Peck that suggested the film title, apparently believing the book title was a "turn-off", where upon he looked up places on the Atlantic coast and found the Cape Fear region in North Carolina). The movie was written by James R. Webb, the writer for various screenplays such as Vera Cruz (1953) and The Big Country (1958). Naturally, a remake was done in 1991 (by Martin Scorsese, no less). Interestingly, both film adaptations are distinct in their freewheeling from the book that ranged from the time spent in jail (13 in the book, 8 in this film, and 14 in the 1991 movie), the nature of Bowden's relation to Cady (one as a witness to Cady's crime during wartime, a witness as a prosecutor, or as a defense attorney to Cady). Peck, Mitchum, and Balsam also made small appearances in the remake.

For whatever reason, audiences of the time seemed to be a bit weirded out at the rough-and-tumble elements of a thriller movie because, uh, even a movie that doesn't say the word "rape" could be thought of as a tough sit. Nowadays, one just sees a movie filled with impending terror that makes the best of its Hitchcock ambitions (why else would one have Bernard Herrmann for the music) for a pretty neat thriller. Peck may be a bit overshadowed here, but he maintains the general dignity that comes with trying to maintain a grip on one's principles (so not a saint but clear in his motivations). His onscreen family with Bergen and Martin sell that shaky dynamic that arise in growing ugliness that one is exposed to that is sold well. Balsam and the others are relatively on point in filling the edges in the growing claustrophobia (incidentally, this was released the same year that a relatively young Savalas was nominated for an Oscar for Birdman of Alcatraz [1962]).

Undeniably, Mitchum is the star here, and it was said that he took the role only when he was gifted a bottle of bourbon (his other best known role in malice is probably The Night of the Hunter [1955], incidentally). You can just feel the malice ooze from him in each scene he appears in, mostly because his contempt for Peck shines ever so brightly in general menace. He maneuvers around like a snake awaiting a target to strike with its fangs that perhaps is just as unnerving in his maneuvering that dominates the first half of the film, whether it involves the legal system or, well, people. You just have to experience the slime for yourself, particularly the sequence with the eggs. The sequence he shares with Peck prior to the climax involving the extent of where one would go in single-minded pursuit is especially a standout. The climax is relatively fine when it comes to setting up the entrapment for a queasy mood, albeit within the confines of what you might expect from its era. As a whole, it is a fairly tight thriller that hits most of the beats required in rough enjoyment with star value and a worthy look to accompany it in thrilling execution. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Woman in the Dunes.

Review #2335: Woman in the Dunes.

Cast: 

Eiji Okada (Niki Junpei), Kyōko Kishida (the widow in the dunes), and Kōji Mitsui (the village elder) Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara.

Review: 

Did you know the first Asian director to be nominated for an Academy Award was actually Hiroshi Teshigahara? Born in Chiyoda in Tokyo as the son of Sōfū Teshigahara (a founder of ikebana school Sōgetsu-ryū, which deals with flower arrangement), he went straight to working in film after graduating from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, starting with documentaries and shorts before his first feature with Pitfall (1962), which was an adaptation of a television play by Abe. With this film, Abe wrote the film as based on his own novel of the same name, which had been published to considerable attention in 1960 (which you can interpret in places such as this). The movie had two different versions: a 147-minute version and a 124-minute trimming that was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director (strangely, those nominations were a year apart from each other, which is how one loses to Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow one year and Robert Wise directing The Sound of Music in the next year); the next Asian to be nominated for Best Director wouldn't be for another 20 years. He ultimately directed a handful of films and documentaries (which included two further adaptations of Abe works) until 1992 while also keeping busy as an artist (such as ikebana and calligraphy). Teshigahara died in 2001 at the age of 74. 

Admittedly, calling the movie a peculiar experience is an understatement. You might as well call it a movie where insects lie in the sand that makes you feel each and every minute stuck in rawness. You feel every grain of sand and every bit of trapping in trauma that grinds away perhaps just as much as life grinds one to either work to survive or to survive to work. To live is to entrap oneself somewhere, and it really can come down to just big one chooses to dig for themselves in the guise of identity. Escape might as well just be a word that translates to "futile". The movie relies so much on the dynamic between Okada and Kishida in all of the conviction required in selling the illusion of what matters most of flight and punishment (okay, I'm paraphrasing from the sentence that precedes the book in there being no joy in flight without threats of punishment, but I think you get it). One craves meaning and will look anywhere to get that meaning, whether that involves passion drenched in sand or otherwise. Is it damnation or salvation that one experiences with a film all about form? At a certain point with these two, they might as well be thought of as one entity among themselves that is within a space of illogic logic (one wonders if they would be so lucky to experience such breathtaking visuals that occur here, naturally). Kishida sells that tragedy of living in the pit of all pits with efficiency.  Sure, one might call themselves free with what they do (or don't do) compared to others, but everyone is grinded up the same way in the end no matter how many paths they try to take for themselves. The music contributed by Tōru Takemitsu only lends further curiosity into how one could craft such an unnerving time for anyone to experience for themselves. An "avant garde" movie through and through, what you get here is a pretty intense movie. It hits most of the notes required for a movie you just have to experience in the realm of elusive claustrophobia that will surely stick in one's senses for time to come.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Well, I assume it is a good time to list an upcoming slate of reviews in the coming days: J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Wages of Fear and Alex Cox's Repo Man.

Blast of Silence.

Review #2334: Blast of Silence.

Cast:

Allen Baron (Frank Bono), Molly McCarthy (Lorrie), Larry Tucker (Big Ralph), Peter H. Clune (Troiano), Danny Meehan (Petey), Howard Mann (Bodyguard), Charles Creasap (Contact man), with Bill DePrato (Joe Boniface), and Lionel Stander (Narrator) Written and Directed by Allen Baron.

Review: 

Admittedly, some movies are picked not so much for their great status but because you have to admire the tenacity to get something done in the hopes that somebody, anybody, could watch it and either be entertained or learn something different in perspective. It is the work of a man who directed just three other movies but was never too far without work. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he dropped out of high school at 16 to look for work. Three years later, he studied at the School of Visual Arts and later worked in freelance art and cabdriving. Evidently, an invite to visit onto a Paramount sound stage in 1951 interested in filmmaking. When working, he was approached into working on a low-budget film with some friends...in Cuba. One can only wonder what type of omen comes with that movie being Barry Mahon's Cuban Rebel Girls (1959). But Baron had such an interesting time (well, if "accidentally firing a shotgun and getting arrested before escaping Cuba" is interesting) that he ended up wanting to do his own independent film. Gradually, with the help of taxi-driving and the help of acquiring equipment (such as "short ends" of film at discount price, or, um, going back to Cuba to recover equipment), a movie eventually came into focus. Baron was basically forced to star in the movie (starting with the test footage) when he could not get his summer stock friend to appear (Peter Falk, interestingly enough). Shot in guerilla fashion in New York City for about $50,000 (as shot and produced by Merrill Brody), the movie even managed to find a place for release with Universal Pictures. The movie actually had its climax filmed during a hurricane (in late September 1960, the East Coast got hit with a storm, strangely enough). While Baron wrote the film, Will Sparks was a "story consultant". The narration for the film was provided after production, as written by Waldo Salt and narrated by Lionel Stander. Both were not given proper credit due being on the blacklist (Salt would later recover and win two Academy Awards for his scripts on Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home while Stander settled in Europe for many years and maintained work). Baron directed three other films, Terror in the City (1964; also known as "Pie in the Sky"), Outside In (1972), and Foxfire Light (1982), but he maintained a much steadier career with hundreds of episodes on TV, most notably with The Love Boat and Charlie's Angels. In steady retirement from filmmaking for many years, Baron apparently paints regularly into his nineties.

There is something quite fascinating in the gloomy skies that come from such a raw movie presented here. It is a swiftly black-hearted movie that grinds 77 minutes in the strangest ways possible for a noir that really is in a strange place when it comes to "the times". It features a shell for a lead character to follow to go with, well, not the greatest performances to back that up, but it has a strangely alluring sense of self in terms of urban loneliness and a captivating narration that seems to engulf the viewer each time words get uttered, one that finds terror in the awakening of old haunting grounds to see, complete with a Christmastime setting to stick the knife in further. The movie starts with a scream and ends with the stench of death that makes for a cut-and-dry metaphor of someone who just couldn't handle being a man with people to think about beyond who goes in the box next. Baron may not have been a force of nature for acting beyond a particular cadence fit for small-time gangster roles, but you can still see a curious performance mined in the realm of desperation. This is a man grinded into being a certain type of tool that can be used and disposed of just as quickly as another can take one's place in the great circle of relevancy. Anybody could be a cog to be thrown away into the dustbin to a quiet disposal, really, but it is especially apparent to see it play out with a movie that does not lend much to its own proceedings. Of course, Tucker and his unsavory timing fit the movie to a T in invoking visceral malaise (interestingly, he would later become a screenwriter, co-writing such works as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice [1969]). McCarthy is fine as a mere ordinary pawn, one who differs from the creature we see in the film as our lead. As a whole, the sum of the parts makes for a curious result here, with Baron and company having crafted a raw and gloomy feature that endears itself to the ones who encounter it for the blunt execution that comes from its result of a man who can only be seen by others as either death or just a face in the crowd that gets whacked with fate just as everyone.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

High Fidelity.

Review #2333: High Fidelity.

Cast

John Cusack (Rob Gordon), Iben Hjejle (Laura), Jack Black (Barry Judd), Todd Louiso (Dick), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Charlie Nicholson), Lisa Bonet (Marie DeSalle), Sara Gilbert (Anaugh Moss), Chris Bauer (Paul), Lili Taylor (Sarah Kendrew), Joan Cusack (Liz), Tim Robbins (Ian "Ray" Raymond), and Joelle Carter (Penny Hardwick) Directed by Stephen Frears.

Review: 

“I liked the idea of it being in America. It had a sort of, this sort of more optimistic way in which Americans live, seemed to me to add something to it, rather than taking it away. So it lost some of its stoicism and became slightly more romantic.”

Yes, movies from the new millennium are soon to turn 25 years old, so it seemed apt to cover a movie just as much a result of the writers as it is the director. In 1995, essayist Nick Hornby (probably best known already for his 1995 memoir Fever Pitch), had his first novel come out to the frenzied attention of British audiences who apparently found something in themselves with a setting at a London record shop and a distinct inner monologue. There were rumblings of doing a film as soon as the book came out, with plans ranging from having a draft script done by Scott Rosenberg set in Boston or having Mike Newell involved as a director. Eventually, it was sprung to have John Cusack take a crack at writing a film screenplay, one done in collaboration with D. V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink, who each had worked on Grosse Pointe Blank (as released by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution in 1997). It was through Hornby's permission that they could change the setting to Chicago. Basically, Cusack and Pink/DeVincentis would each go through the book and write what they structured from the book and eventually edit what they saw by basically approaching it as "a checklist of things we need to get done". Cusack suggested trying to approach Stephen Frears to direct. He had actually studied law at the University of Cambridge before electing to work as an assistant to Lindsay Anderson at the Royal Court Theatre (he also worked as an assistant to Karel Reisz as well) and he soon honed his skills for British television. He became a feature director with Gumshoe (1971), but he became a name with My Beautiful Launderette (1985). Hornby was apparently quite satisfied with the adaptation, mostly because a good deal of the dialogue addressing the audience is basically straight from the book. In 2020, a television adaptation of the book came out that lasted one season.

There is something strangely comforting about a comedy that doubles as a sort of male confessional. It is the kind of movie made for people who besides having a certain interest in music maybe, just maybe, need to grow up. The love affair one can have with music in all of its meaningful depths and reaches is palpable with the people we experience in the film that actually end up feeling like people we know in some way or form. Maybe we don't all make top five lists, but we sure do stew on something in the great book of lists and hang-ups. Strangely, it reminds me of Annie Hall (1977), which also handles the anatomy of a breakup through a lead that likes to address the audience (of course, one actually feels the pulse of a tolerable human being in terms the direction and in the acting with High Fidelity, so chew on that). From the jump, it is quite understandable to see Cusack at his most curious and possibly his most effective role. He corrals the movie with a certain kind of slacker (one can operate a store and still slack) charism that really does come through in a manner that we follow along with in ways that a lesser actor would've simply just made a muddled mess. I posit that while some people are self-absorbed, we call them friends anyway because there is a difference between terribly behaved people and people with terrible behavior (i.e. the type that needs to hear "shut up!" once in a while), and some movies win out with weirdos like this. We chuckle and recoil at what we see and hear of a person in all of his bewildering aspects because Cusack just happens to have the voice to carry that drumbeat of weirdness to finding something to do besides just looking back. Of course, it just so happens that there is a pretty capable cast right behind Cusack to make things work beyond just a grandstand for music. Black and Louiso are a dynamic pair of amusement because each just happen to have their own distinct type of humor that connects from the jump in terms of timing and general energy for the material that is palpable in more ways than one. Hjejle goes along with the proceedings that arise from being presented in the prism of one-sided weariness that works in parts. There are a few other little surprises to be found in small moments to see someone such as Robbins take one on the chin in one particular scene of imagined confrontation or one particular cameo to raise a chuckle. I like the overall mood of the film, one that doesn't just dally to conventional means to try and say something about weird hangups or the people you see along the way, and doesn't overstay its welcome at 113 minutes. In general, what we have is a film made by people who clearly had an interest in making a confessional for the hang-ups in all of us that has a distinct love for Chicago and enough charm to make one mix themselves into seeing it play out.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Alice in the Cities.

Review #2332: Alice in the Cities.

Cast: 

Rüdiger Vogler (Philip Winter), Yella Rottländer (Alice van Dam), Lisa Kreuzer (Lisa van Dam), Edda Köchl (Angela), Ernest Boehm (Philip's editor), Sam Presti (Car Dealer), and Lois Moran (the Pan Am booking agent) Directed by Wim Winders.

Review: 

"The most pure is still definitely Alice in the Cities because it was my discovery of my own turf and my own territory which was the road, and the first film I made on the road and the first time I had discovered storytelling as a very free gift and not as something with a lot of rules."

It occurred to me that I haven't covered too many German directors recently, and it only seems appropriate to finally get around to a Wim Wenders movie, complete with a pivotal one for a director at a crossroads of what he should do. Wenders was born in Düsseldorf in Germany, and he actually had an interest in still photography as a youth. He actually studied medicine and philosophy before trying his hand at painting. It happened to be that his obsession with cinema (such as the works of John Ford) led him to try his hand at filmmaking; he failed entry test at France's national film school but found a studio office back in his hometown to work and eventually studied at the University of Television and Film Munich while also working as a film critic. He made his first short films in school before graduating with his feature debut in Summer in the City (1970), which had influence from a "great hero" of his in John Cassavetes. He then made his next film with The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972), a West German-Austria co-production that evidently took influence from Alfred Hitchcock. His dissatisfaction with the German/Spanish co-production of his next assignment with The Scarlet Letter (1973) led him to consider a different line of approach. Incidentally, that movie features Rottländer and Vogler in small roles. Wenders was inspired by the experiences that Peter Handke (a writer on three of Wenders' films) had as a single parent and probably just as inspired by Handke's 1972 novel Short Letter, Long Farewell, which was about an alienated writer making a journey across America. He also took inspiration from the Chuck Berry song "Memphis, Tennessee", which was about a man trying to re-connect with his daughter. However, he almost did not do the movie at all because he happened to come across the release of Paper Moon (1973) because, well, it coincidentally felt similar to what Winders had in mind for his movie. However, he was persuaded by none other than Samuel Fuller to convince to not give up. Taking inspiration from the photography of Walker Evans (famously known for his large format photography during the Great Depression), the movie was filmed in sequence from North Carolina to the eventual result in Europe as an improvised shoot (as shot by Robby Müller on 16mm rather than 35mm because of budgetary constraints, but the movie was framed for it the way they wanted to, which helped for a subsequent restoration). The film is considered as the first of a "Road Trilogy" crafted by Wenders, likely because his next two films with The Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976) each dealt with the road and had Vogler as star. An active director and photographer for over a half-century, one can find numerous highlights of Wenders such as Paris, Texas (1984), Wings of Desire (1987), the documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and most recently, Perfect Days (2023).

What we have here is a wandering piece of curiosity, one that captures a special type of feeling that arises from being unable to do anything other than take photographs in the guise of trying to "craft a story". There is a loneliness that arises in the imagination one can have with this film, since it has plenty of breathing room with its double act of Vogler and Rottländer that just vibes on its own terms in crisscross neatness. The journey is one of absorption rather than finding some sort of meaning to it all, and it probably is noteworthy to say that Winders "felt like a fish in the water" when it came to making the film, one where he could go into an adventure with drifters that sure find "something" in the eyes of travelling with one's eyes rather than seeing it, if you will (a half century later, consider how far one has come since the Polaroid SX-70 in "instant photographs of things"). Rottländer appeared in a handful of films as a youth before moving on to costume designing and eventually a medical doctor. She arrives in the picture not too long into its trappings (110 minutes) and basically snatches the show with her spry energy, one that seems quite natural in expressing the free quirks that come with both the road and becoming an actual person beyond the imagery of oneself. The character played by Vogler has been said in some circles as being the alter ego of Winders in his time and this works out for a worthwhile performance in the drift towards burning in for responsibility rather than burning out into oblivion, particularly when matched with the enigmatic Kreuzer for a few scenes. One hits the road of uncertainty with reasoned assurance with a duo that maneuver the countryside (sometimes with a choice music cue) with absorbing grace that could only come from a filmmaker wanting to let a movie breathe in being an image of the street rather than just capturing it, which works just as well for the ending in closing right on the point needed. As a whole, this is a movie wrapped in the glow of a journey worth taking in feeling and seeing the images for oneself.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

We begin 2025 with the fourth edition of New Directors Month, which you might remember had started with Metropolis for 2024. Through the month of January, we'll feature over ten filmmakers (Shigehiro Ozawa, Stephen Frears, just to name a few) that Movie Night hasn't managed to talk about in the previous fourteen seasons. Onward. 

Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

Review #2331: Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

Cast: 

Bette Davis (Charlotte Hollis), Olivia de Havilland (Miriam Deering), Joseph Cotten (Doctor Drew Bayliss), Agnes Moorehead (Velma Cruther), Cecil Kellaway (Harry Willis), Mary Astor (Jewel Mayhew), Victor Buono (Big Sam Hollis), Wesley Addy (Sheriff Luke Standish), William Campbell (Paul Merchand), and Bruce Dern (John Mayhew) Produced and Directed by Robert Aldrich (#105 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, #778 - The Longest Yard, #1014 - The Dirty Dozen, #1389 - Kiss Me Deadly)

Review: 

If you remember, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) was a hit with audiences, so naturally one might want to capture on that success and make a quick follow-up. Robert Aldrich decided to use an unpublished short story written by Henry Farrell called "What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?". Lukas Heller, who had adapted Farrell's Baby Jane novel, would write the screenplay with Farrell (incidentally, Farrell wrote one other screenplay with What's the Matter with Helen? [1971]). Of course, he ran into a small problem: Joan Crawford and Bette Davis did not really want to work with each other again. Crawford (as cast in a role that wasn't exactly a role to chew on when compared to Davis, who had influenced the title change) wound up in the hospital with a respiratory ailment, but Aldrich was skeptical enough to actually hire a P.I. to track her. Incidentally, Crawford happened to star in a different type of psychological horror movie in 1964 with Strait-Jacket (both movies feature a person spooked by a memory of head-rolling death that may or may not be coming back to haunt them back home). At any rate, demands by the insurance company led him to either trash the movie or fire Crawford, for which Alrich went with the latter decision in August of 1964. After a handful of actresses rejected Aldrich's offers (such as Vivien Leigh), he eventually replaced her with a good friend of Davis with Olivia de Havilland. Others did return to be involved with the film from Jane such as editor Michael Luciano and composer Frank De Vol to go along with appearances by Victor Buono and Wesley Addy. While not quite as popular as the aforementioned Aldrich film, the movie was a relative success with audiences when it first came out in late 1964 and even received a few award nominations (in interviews, Aldrich liked making the movie just fine, although he had wished he could've spread out the time in making two similar films with Baby Jane and Charlotte for "my personal taste" while also arguing that Davis gave a better performance in the latter). In 1969, Aldrich produced What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, which while not related to Charlotte or Baby Jane is at least interesting for being about an aging old woman (played by Geraldine Page) dealing with murder and mayhem.

Creepy and creaky with a runtime at 133 minutes, this is the kind of movie that plays right at home for those who like drawn out thrillers (it reminds me to consider Les Diaboliques [1955], incidentally), albeit ones that play with bits of gore here and there. One particularly has some fun with the opening sequence (which features the ever-effective Buono to go along with a young Dern getting to be a part of, well, head-rolling) to draw out the scenarios of Southern Gothic mayhem that does eventually circle back to what it believes will be fun turns of the screw. Of course, it helps to have an actress like Davis at the helm to give the whole thing a sense of interested dignity in making this more than just goofy hysterics (hey, we don't judge anyway, particularly since  there are people who thought Baby Jane had some sort of camp aspect to it, as if scene-chewery isn't merely just part of just making some thrillers). Her entrapment in the past for the character is handled with the usual Davis standard of approaching the role with straight-to-the-point grace, managing to handle the tightrope of not merely being consumed or embarrassed by the macabre aspects. She plays the great creature that comes with a psyche that can only see things through the prism of the place that might as well be a mark on her soul, one that traps her soul that can be seen even when she is brandishing a shotgun (as seen early in the movie). de Havilland apparently wasn't too keen on making the movie but elected to do it because of the desire by Davis to work with her, which she did with relative success (after this, she appeared in five further films over the next 15 years to go along with a few television appearances prior to her death in 2020 at the age of 104). But she plays it as it if was a tight-rope to glitter in facades just as interesting as the one presented by what one would assume is just a nut (maybe it's a spoiler to say to beware of nice-presenting strangers), and it goes just as well with Cotten (incidentally, he also happened to play a key role in a movie about a woman possibly being on the nutty side with 1944's Gaslight), who has that conniving nicety to play the part one needs to play in triangular mayhem with composure to make it stick. Of course, Moorehead inspires a few quizzical in amusement that lends support to both the unravelling curiosity along with generally being warm to follow in terms of devotion with an accent to match (hey, the accents are fine for me). Of course, Kellaway is the civil one for enjoyment on the level of a usual character actor that could just inhabit a role with a few choice sentences. Undeniably, the movie is so worthwhile to see in all of the shadows and angles (as shot by Joseph Biroc), which is gorgeously appropriate when it comes to crafting a tawdry tale (complete with carefully composed angles for such a suitable set (which come to a head in one eerie scene) with game actors and at least one rug-pull moment that will surely make a worthy dark joke. Sure, the movie wraps its strings quite a few times around itself to make a knot, but the game is worth playing nonetheless. Aldrich was a craftsman director worth following along with in his attempts at chasing the audience to entertain with whatever he felt like doing at the time. As such, there is a few good moments in suspense to justify a watch for those who love seeing a few familiar actors play along in Gothic strangeness for lively execution that endures after six decades because of the commitment behind it.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

167 reviews later, here we are at yet another New Year's Eve. Sure, last year was a bit busier, but October 2024 was a month to be proud of regardless. Since 2011, we've managed to review a movie on December 31st a total of 17 times, with only 2015 and 2017 being exceptions, and it was nice to try a double-header once again to try and top how things went from last year.

As a treat, I'd like to close off Season 14 by showing off a few concept ideas I had come up with MS Paint before settling on the final format in what accompanied each review in 2024. We shall see what Season XV brings in 2025. It will be a short wait for the next review.

All That Jazz.

Review #2330: All That Jazz.

Cast: 

Roy Scheider (Joe Gideon; Keith Gordon as young Joe Gideon), Jessica Lange (Angelique, the Angel of Death), Ann Reinking (Katie Jagger), Leland Palmer (Audrey Paris), Cliff Gorman (Davis Newman), Ben Vereen (O'Connor Flood), Erzsebet Foldi (Michelle Gideon), Michael Tolan (Dr. Ballinger), Max Wright (Joshua Penn), William LeMassena (Jonesy Hecht), Chris Chase (Leslie Perry), Deborah Geffner (Victoria Porter), Anthony Holland (Paul Dann), David Margulies (Larry Goldie), John Lithgow (Lucas Sergeant), with Sandahl Bergman, Eileen Casey, Bruce Davis, Gary Flannery, Jennifer Nairn-Smith, Danny Ruvolo, Leland Schwantes, John Sowinski, Candace Tovar, and Rima Vetter (principal dancers) Directed by Bob Fosse (#904 - Cabaret)

Review: 

“It is off‐beat. Some people are locked into certain channels of thinking. They're rigid. They think you shouldn't show an operation in a musical. I know the film is strong, but the intention was to be strong. I accomplished what I set out to do, to move people out of the ordinary movie experience. So it's a compliment to all involved that the film is being talked about.”

If one remembers, Bob Fosse was quite the busy man in his age. The Chicago native was the son of a travelling salesman that was so big on being in dance that he was already performing professionally at the age of 13 before moving on to doing shows at burlesque clubs. In adulthood, he went from acting in musical productions in the late 1940s to directing and choreographing his own musical works such as the 1955 show Damn Yankees. He became a feature director with Sweet Charity (1969) that would see him rise in his peaks, which included the smash adaptation of Cabaret (1972) and his work on adapting the play Lenny to a film and also directing and choreographing the Chicago musical. The result of working on both led to him suffering a massive heart attack. He became interested in the subject of life and death as a result and when recovering from open-heart surgery, he came across the Hilma Wolitzer novel Ending. He tapped himself to work with Robert Alan Aurthur on a screenplay of the novel but found that he did not in fact want to "live with that kind of pain for a year and a half." The result of shifting course resulted in a script that would happen to share elements of Fosse's life, such as habits with certain substances (one perhaps may be struck by Fosse once being quoted as saying, "I don't have time for that kind of pain" when it came to the nature of needing to work and being afraid to stop). Various actors came in consideration for the lead role, ranging from Richard Dreyfuss (who dropped out, citing exhaustion) to Paul Newman (who declined an offer due to his issue with the character and regretted his decision), but Fosse would get his way in wanting Scheider. Fosse wrote the screenplay with Aurthur, who died of lung cancer in 1978. Fosse would direct one further film with Star 80 (a decidedly-different type of movie released in 1983) to go along with staging the production Big Deal. He died in 1987 at the age of 60 while in the process of staging a revival show of Sweet Charity. Incidentally, Reinking (who was Fosse's partner for a number of years, and, well, a star featured here) would later be involved in the direction of the 1999 musical revue of Fosse, which utilized a handful of songs from All that Jazz.

Admittedly, the comparison to Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) came pretty early in the film's lifetime, but there is some entertainment to be found here with a fairly game cast and some useful dancing that generally will prove worthy in the end. It is an expression of ego in all the facets imaginable for a man having himself in on a joke, if you think about it enough when it comes to its energy for the climax. It stylizes the pursuit of work at the expense of everything is a way that seems so raw and yet so real at the same time, since one might as well have a ball when going down in a blaze of glory. Scheider carries the movie with an intensity that is one for the ages in more ways than one, since, yes, he really can do a bit of song and dance to go with being among the noted names of lead presences for his era. The drive and passion of all-consuming work is all compulsive and obsessive in ways that Scheider apparently related to quite well when it came to being a regular worker. The mirage of his character is that he is hard to love but perhaps harder to hate (or perhaps in a different view, its the other way). Consider the scene where he is wrapped in the space looking back at a memory with Lange (playing the angel of death) that shows him with Reinking and all the quibbles that come with how one puts up with the other for so long ("staying in", as they say"). If the film really was just a self-indulgent muddle, it would not lend time for worthwhile moments with Lange and her knowing sense of timing (as one does when listening to recollections of a man on the cusp of reckless abandon) or with Reinking being game to playing out fact and fiction with a lover. It also can be damn funny, as wonderfully captured with "Take Off With Us", in which you get to see a rehearsal of dancers with flashlights and minimal clothing to a murmuring group of producers. In short, one can get taken everywhere by razzle dazzle but never really get anywhere. It all comes to a head for the final stage of the film in "Bye Bye Life" in such poignant nature in both the choreography and the music that has such a crisp tempo for one hell of a subject matter (you've got a crowd viewing some dancers dressed up in veiny get-ups) that even shows Scheider shaking hands down on the stage. On the whole, the movie is Fosse in its distilled form with a exhilarating showman who knew what to deliver in choreographed brilliance that knows death is inevitable and yet decides to move right ahead anyway because what else is there? As the film closes out, there really is no business like show business.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Street Fighter.

Review #2329 Street Fighter.

Cast: 

Jean-Claude Van Damme (Colonel William F. Guile), Raul Julia (M. Bison), Ming-Na Wen (Chun-Li Zang), Damian Chapa (Ken Masters), Kylie Minogue (Cammy White), Simon Callow (A.N. Official), Byron Mann (Ryu Hoshi), Roshan Seth (Dr. Dhalsim), Andrew Bryniarski (Zangief), Grand L. Bush (Gerald Balrog), Robert Mammone (Carlos Blanka), Miguel A. Núñez Jr. (Dee Jay), Gregg Rainwater (T. Hawk), Kenya Sawada (Captain Sawada), Jay Tavare (Vega), Peter Tuiasosopo (E. Honda), and Wes Studi (Victor Sagat) Written and Directed by Steven E. de Souza.

Review: 

I'm sure plenty of you have at least played the video game of the same name, as originally directed by Takashi Nishiyama and designed by Hiroshi Matsumoto for release in arcades by Capcom that took inspiration from a wide variety of sources such as Enter the Dragon and various shōnen manga and anime. The release of the sequel in 1991 launched the series into the stratosphere. It did not become a surprise to see a film spring into development, one that would see Capcom serve as a co-financier and a mandate by them for a December 1994 release date that basically meant a fast production rundown. They managed to hire someone who actually liked the games with Steven E. de Souza, who envisioned his idea to do a cross between Star Wars, James Bond and a war movie that wouldn't have too many elements from the games. The Philadelphia native had gone from story editing shows like The Six Million Dollar Man to screenwriting movies such as Commando (1985) and co-writing the first two Die Hard films but had directed just one movie before: Arnold's Wrecking Co. (1973), a little-seen pot comedy. As it turned out, this would be his last film as a director. Van Damme and Julia were cast fairly quickly (the former was an actor Capcom had pictured as playing Guile for quite some time) but the rest of the actors would be comprised of unknowns (the casting of Minogue came about because Souza happened to see her on a magazine about "beautiful people" and he needed an Australian). When the filmmakers realized the extent of Julia's condition, in which he was suffering from cancer, the decision was made to shoot the intensive action scenes that did not require the actor while they got him to regain body mass, which essentially meant actors would train for their action scenes with barely any time to spare before filming., since, well, they also had to meet a strict deadline for December 1994. Troubles with the MPAA occurred where trying to go down from an R to PG-13 somehow almost resulted in a G rating with the cuts (amusingly, Capcom had decided to go into partnership with Hasbro when it came to toy-line production making shaped the film in a "G.I. Joe way"). Interestingly, it would not be the first Street Fighter movie released, as an anime adaptation of the second game, called Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, would be released in Japan in August of 1994 with some countries also getting a theater release. While the live-action movie did have some pull with audiences, no sequel would follow despite its attempted sequel-bait. The only other Fighter film that has come out in theaters was The Legend of Chun-Li in 2009.

What a marvelous mess. The uneven nature of a movie that slogs through 102 minutes with the feeling of rushed slop is painfully apparent by the time one is even halfway through a film that can't quite find a suitable center to really get things interesting with such a miserable ensemble. The fight scenes are mediocre at best and the movie only manages to draw the smallest of interest in actually wondering just how source material like people fighting in the streets could be turned into a movie that the 1980s would've spit out for being too familiar (at least Bison Bucks is semi original?). Van Damme had a problem with certain substances to collide with a big ego during production of this film. Capcom may have thought he looked like a good Guile, but man, he really has nothing to show for it with this performance, which is bereft of general charm (unless you count ridiculous lines about balls) or impressive ass-kicking. Trying or not, he has never been so, um, funny. Even crappy movies have some interest to generate in committed actors playing the adversary, and Julia basically approaches it as if Bison was on the level of a Shakespearian figure. He accepted the role because his kids liked the games, and if that's not a good reason to have a go at something, well, think what you want. Julia died after suffering a stroke in October of 1994 after finishing production on this film. Lost in the shuffle is Mann and Chapa, who don't have much to make a suitable pair despite the obvious attempts at trying to get a good rapport. To say nothing of note about Minogue and Wen is a pretty sad thing. With lines handled with bombast such as say, "of COURSE!", you may or may not get some amusement from the camp crap that comes through in a movie that shoots itself in the foot early (one can only take so many character in-and-outs before you give up trying to follow) and never recovers. In general, the three decades that have followed its release has seen a fair share of stellar and not-so stellar entertainment based on gaming that goes to show that even the best laid plans can go down south with dubious execution such as this one.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

American Beauty.

Review #2328: American Beauty.

Cast: 

Kevin Spacey (Lester Burnham), Annette Bening (Carolyn Burnham), Thora Birch (Jane Burnham), Wes Bentley (Ricky Fitts), Mena Suvari (Angela Hayes), Peter Gallagher (Buddy Kane), Allison Janney (Barbara Fitts), Chris Cooper (Col. Frank Fitts), Scott Bakula (Jim Olmeyer), and Sam Robards (Jim Berkley) Directed by Sam Mendes (#572 - Skyfall, #1585 - 1917, #1891 - Spectre)

Review: 

"If you are doing a play or a film, you have to have a secret way in if you are directing it. Sometimes it’s big things. American Beauty, for me, was about my adolescence."

It isn't every day you get a movie with a lead presence who throws away his responsibilities to go on a quest to maybe get with a much, much younger woman. To start, the movie was written by Alan Ball, the playwright-turned TV writer on the sitcoms Grace Under Fire and Cybill. The Atlanta native, frustrated by his work on those shows, tried to get into film. One of the scripts he would write was cribbed from a play idea he had come up and discarded, with the passion and "anger and rage at my working situation" resulting in a script that Dreamworks Pictures liked. There were numerous inspirations: one was the media circus surrounding the Amy Fisher trial (in which a 17-year old severely wounded the wife of a man she had a sexual relationship when still underage that saw her nicknamed the "Long Island Lolita"), and the other was an actual experience involving a plastic bag that he followed intently for 10 minutes (of course, his Buddhist faith played an influence too, where he was once quoted talking about a notion of "the miraculous within the mundane"). As strange as it sounds, it really was a script that wound up directed by a first-time filmmaker in Sam Mendes, who at the time had just done a revival of the musical Cabaret (interestingly, Mendes had Spacey and Bening in mind from the beginning). Present for rewrites during production (such as excising particular aspects of the ending), Mendes and Ball would each win an Academy Award that yer (television viewers might recognize that afterwards, Ball wound up creating Six Feet Under and True Blood).  

Hell, I suppose you could say that there is a beauty that is ironed out of people by culture, experience, or, well, conformity. Satire, psychological drama, whatever one calls the movie, it certainly is one that has managed to endure in the strange sphere of movies that some people really, really liked 25 years ago and others that, well, thought it was aging terribly by the years that went by (it most certainly is not the worst Best Picture winner when stuff like Cavalcade and Chariots of Fire exists). "Is that all there is?" isn't exactly the freshest premise, admittedly, because you could gleam that in another 1999 movie with Fight Club (which in perhaps a mirror of this film went from polarized reviews to a cult following in its 25 years of life) or even with Office Space. The times shifted fast on this film to a bizarro world where cynicism runs deep and the profound now reeks of pretentiousness. The facades that folks found funny to point at now just seem hollow in their barbs. Esteemed people of their age (insert any Administration of the past few decades) now resemble ghoulish relics. The taboos of older years are now stuff you may wish to bleach from your eyes on Twitter (or, for those with certain tastes, bookmark like a chipmunk), while others on social media seem to believe that their county and political values should be like of the old movies they watched as a youth. I think you get the idea, but I will say this much: the movie is kind of funny to me in that strange way that comes in facades and soap-opera weirdness. It narrates itself as if was Sunset Boulevard (1950), complete with strange self-importance and a worthwhile look (as shot by the famed Conrad L. Hall) of suburban facades.

I interpreted Spacey's performance as one that believe he is in on the joke of someone looking for meaning by basically reverting to a man-child. He trades one sense of totems for other totems in an amusing manner that is actually quite pathetic when you really get down to it. It isn't a role with any sense of dignity to it, but trying to re-invent oneself in the throes of balding hair and flabby nature is strangely enduring ot the now. I may not care for the man or his character, but I don't have to be to get a few chuckles at the pursuit of what one believes to be beauty. Honestly, Bening is the more interesting presence because somehow, her type-A personality facade is really, really amusing to me. It probably is represented best when one sees at her job in which she repeats the sentence "I will sell this house today" on a compulsive level that only makes the punchline (for all the facades one can put up, it all goes to shit in the face of looking closer) all the more amusing. Really, there may be a bit of the Burnhams in the people we may see every day, as that song by the Doors goes (people are strange...). Strangely, Bentley and Birch don't really have as much as impact as I thought they might have done for a movie that starts itself with the two of them for a moment that comes right back to the climax. It's just a couple of adrift youth that try to stake the waters between the ordinary and what is "interesting", and yeah, one gets it I suppose; Suvari may be played as an object, but her facade is at least obvious enough to be played to an actual conclusion. Besides, the brazen vulnerabilities that lie beneath the facade played by Cooper and Janney are far more compelling in those unspoken moments each has on screen (the latter basically seems to be as distant as a wide painting). In general, it is a movie that is shallow and yet somehow fascinating to see for the time it was made in, one in which it tries to make some sort of statement about the beauty of things that lie beneath the surface that have been left adrift in a time where people's pursuit for things and facades have only made one see the film as ridiculous rather than profound. Well-made and weirdly amusing, it is a movie that could only come from the turn of one millennium into another.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Nosferatu (2024).

Review #2327: Nosferatu.

Cast: 

Bill Skarsgård (Count Orlok / Nosferatu), Nicholas Hoult (Thomas Hutter), Lily-Rose Depp (Ellen Hutter), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Friedrich Harding), Emma Corrin (Anna Harding), Willem Dafoe (Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz), Ralph Ineson (Dr. Wilhelm Sievers), and Simon McBurney (Herr Knock) Directed by Robert Eggers (#780 - The Witch, #1833 - The Northman)

Review: 

"A lot of people talk about my films as stylized. But aside from the fairy tale composition, it’s not intended to be stylized. I over-rehearse with the intention of it being in the actors’ muscle memory, so that it doesn’t feel like hitting a mark. If you’re doing expressionist cinema, you are aware of the artifice so much, because it’s stylizing the world in a way that is completely unrealistic. Here, obviously — you know, I’m sick of talking about my research, too, but obviously the verisimilitude of the material world is very important to me."

In 1922, a movie from a cheap studio came out with unusual circumstances. Prana Film was behind one and only one film: this one, which had been founded by Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau, with the latter being an occultist artist (supposedly, he was inspired to do the film based on an experience in World War I, where he met a Serbian farmer that apparently had a father rise from the grave to feed on blood); Grau designed the sets and costumes, complete with making up a letter with "Enochian" symbols that shows up in the film. The duo brought Henrik Galeen in to write a screenplay that would be inspired by the 1897 novel Dracula (as written by Bram Stoker) and F.W. Murnau as a director. Of course, Florence Balcombe, the widow of Stoker, did not like hearing that someone made a movie freely adapted from Dracula and issued a lawsuit, with the result being the negative and all prints of the film ordered to be destroyed (incidentally: years after the lawsuit, she did grant the rights of the book to a guy who made it into a play for the theater which, well, she didn't get the entitlements for it). But the movie, unlike Balcombe, would endure in the public sphere. Over a half-century later, Werner Herzog was eager to make his own "homage" of Nosferatu and waited until the copyright for Dracula to enter the public domain to make what became Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). which had the names of the book characters incorporated for a curious outcome of artful terror (it set itself in 1850, whereas both the 1922 and 2024 film are set in 1838). As a youth, Eggers found an image of its star in Max Schreck that had him obsessed enough to later direct a stage version of Nosferatu. Eggers had first been tapped to direct a Nosferatu remake since the first announcement being in 2015. Each version has their own distinct edge in terms of the climax (the 1922 movie details a "pure-hearted woman" offering blood of her own will, the 1979 movie features an awakened sick man, and, well, "the purity of dawn" is something you have to see here).

I'm not quite sure where I would rank it among movies involving vampires, but it probably will rest pretty high, managing to outrank directors who tried to make their own Dracula movies such as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), for example. But with this "folk vampire" story, one will have plenty to highlight in a movie that focuses on a psychic and erotic connection with a creature of pure evil that emanates haunting atmosphere most films would dream to have. It is the perils of being blinded by perceived enlightened times at the cost of folk tales. With a film like this, we get to participate in the ritual of folk terror that clearly had plenty of investment from Eggers in history and curiosity (for one, Eggers had already read Montague Summers in terms of his work on vampires but obviously one would wonder about the imitation of Vlad the Impaler and the works of Jean-Martin Charcot in terms of hysteria). In short, Eggers has crafted his own legend of unsettling nature that earns every moment it crafts in terror with craftsmanship made from love that is deliberate in its pacing (132 minutes) for all of the senses possible. Interestingly, Skarsgard had read for the role later played by Hoult (of course, I can't imagine what the film would've ended up with Harry Styles or Anya Taylor-Joy as leads). Skarsgard (as aided by opera singer Ásgerður Júníusdóttir in lowering his vocal range) is exquisite in his unsettling nature as a rotting Transylvanian nobleman corpse. He ends up wrapped in darkness and makeup that makes him pretty distinct in an obsession and rotting core that one can certainly see as both repulsive and seductive. Wrapped in agency as a victim of choices (most significantly the ones to start and close the movie) is a wonderful Rose-Depp that seems to understand the darkness that lies beneath the surface of the time one is wrapped up into with a grace that works well in selling this gothic tragedy. Hoult is the most normal of the folks in the main group, which namely means a man having his 19th century preconceptions shattered (consider that in this version, he is even warned to not go to the Carpathian Mountains by his wife), which he handles with worthy timing. Rounding out the cast is a mix of strange seasoned dignity, whether that involves the conventional in Ineson, the shaken Taylor-Johnson (who gets to have a disturbing last highlight), or, well, the occult magic of Dafoe, who plays the role with gusto in terms of shattering belief that dominates the screen in a way that is distinct from the usual "vampire hunter" role because of how committed he is mystical devotion. Of course, Corrin and McBurney also do well in the cast (the latter proves quite suitable in raving madness). Above all, this is a tremendously gorgeous movie to view in Gothic despair (as captured by Jarin Blaschke), one in which there are plenty of moments to simply gaze in curiosity, whether that involves a nighttime ritual (consider what they do there when compared to how things go in the last scene involving vampire confrontation) or the leadup to meeting Orlok on his realm. As a whole, it is a charmer of the grotesque that builds its dread for righteous furor for a damn good time that likely will improve with further viewings. It is a tossup to figure out what lurks best in the totally-not Dracula adaptations, but you will not go wrong here.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

A Christmas Story Christmas.

Review #2326: A Christmas Story Christmas.

Cast: 

Peter Billingsley (Ralph "Ralphie" Parker), Erinn Hayes (Sandy Parker), Julie Hagerty (Mrs. Parker), Scott Schwartz (Flick), R. D. Robb (Schwartz), Zack Ward (Officer Scut Farkus), Ian Petrella (Randy Parker), River Drosche (Mark Parker), and Julianna Layne (Julie Parker) Directed by Clay Kaytis.

Review:

I'm sure you already know this, but A Christmas Story (1983) was a modest success upon its release. It took 12 years to actually get the movie made. Sure, Bob Clark may not have got along all the way around with Jean Shepherd (a peddler-type of showman that deliberately fibbed about his upbringing, he once described his work as "anti-sentimental"), but there was a certain magic to it all in those series of vignettes that everyone and their mother have probably seen at least once around the holiday season. Far from just "“Dickens’s Christmas Carol as retold by Scrooge", there was a curious magic to it all that really could only be done once. Sure, Shepherd and Clark tried it again with My Summer Story (1994), but nobody cared enough to even find time to criticize the movie. But the nudge to talk about A Christmas Story has persisted. Hell, the house that was part of filming is now an actual Municipal Landmark of the good city of Cleveland (perhaps ironically, this film could not get access by the current owners of the building to scan the house and neighborhood for referencing). As late as 2017, people even tried making live versions of the damn movie. It should prove no surprise, then, that one would find themselves stumbling onto this movie. Peter Billingsley wanted to do a movie as both sequel and origin story for the original film, for which he co-wrote the story with Nick Schenk, who in turn co-wrote the screenplay with writer/director Clay Kaytis. You might wonder why I would make an exception to a movie that was released onto streaming on HBO Max by Warner Bros. Pictures. Well, it is easier to make fun of streaming (which I will call the stupidest way to release a movie imaginable) when one notices that this did in fact have a DVD release for all to see.

Admittedly, making a movie sequel nearly 40 years after the fact is a tough prospect. For better or worse, falling into a description of "endearing" is exactly how I would describe the whole experience of watching the movie. Sure, it probably would've made Jean Shepherd seethe in the clearest of ways, but it does manage to have enough energy to carry itself for a few laughs with a game cast to at least justify a look for 98 minutes. You get your little moments spent looking at footage from before, but it isn't peppered in one's face for too many "remember?" smirks. It all rides on Billingsley, who narrates the movie and takes up a good chunk of the general action (one wonders what has more "things that happen" and I would suppose it is this one, which involves a would-be writer and Christmas shopping). He pulls off the best performance because of his commitment to showing the face of a man having to pull ashore to familiar trappings where dreams and disappointments run hand in hand with each other while having his own family to try and deliver a worthy Christmas for this time around. Now he sees the strange perspectives of youth from the side of an adult, which is different when one thinks of a kid in the 1940s compared to, well, 1973. Hayes makes a suitable match on the side of ones with their own quirks and desires for a quality Christmas to seal a year up, (silly or otherwise). One sees things click best when Billingsley, Schwartz and Robb share the screen together in goofy energy that could only come from middle-aged folks engaged in trifling matters (but most of us are always wrapped in trifling matters, so chew on that). Hagerty captures some of the qualities originally played by Melinda Dillon (who passed away in early 2023), albeit on a much smaller scale. Drosche and Layne round it out with fairly ordinary performances (read: kid actors) that accompany a general feeling of people with varying levels of hang-ups; consider, however, the fact that one sees imagined sequences again from the character played by Billingsley and wonder how it looks when you are seeing them from a child as compared to a family man. Beyond the popping in of familiar sights (one might chuckle at a bully reforming so they can be a cop) is at least a sense of commitment in trying to rise above not quite Midwestern-trappings (okay the movie is set in Indiana but really, is one going to tell it apart from say, Hungary?). The sequence at Christmastime is probably the most the film has going for it in the warmth that arises from taking action in the usual drudgery of mundane living. In general, I went with the movie with pretty reasonable expectations (to expect something to suck is not a fun way to live) and the movie pretty much landed right where I thought it would. Call it silly, call it a mild follow-up, but one thing it most certainly is not is a movie lacking in commitment. It aims to fit neatly in the shoes of second glancing after one has already had their fill of a familiar story and rewards those who settle for a few chuckles and a fitting enough ending to make the circle complete in offbeat holiday times.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Collateral.

Review #2325: Collateral.

Cast: 

Tom Cruise (Vincent), Jamie Foxx (Max Durocher), Jada Pinkett Smith (Annie Farrell), Mark Ruffalo (Ray Fanning), Peter Berg (Richard Weidner), Bruce McGill (Frank Pedrosa), and Irma P. Hall (Ida Durocher) Directed by Michael Mann (#1531 - Ali, #1631 - The Last of the Mohicans, #1713 - Manhunter, #2091 - Miami Vice)

Review: 

"I wanted to compress time, to imagine the psychological extremes when two lives collide unexpectedly. Small [details] become very important when, for example, you don’t change wardrobe, when the time of day doesn’t change, when the color of night or the cut of a suit becomes crucial."

Admittedly, taking a ride with a stranger is not a particularly new concept for a film. You've got quite a few movies dealing with strangers on a train, for example, or hitch-hiking with, well, The Hitch-Hiker (1953). Incidentally, the original basis for the script came from a cab ride home that Stuart Beattie (probably best known for his co-credit on the Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl script) had when he was a teenager in which he made an idea about a maniac sitting in the back of a cab with the driver right there in implicit trust that he soon turned into a treatment. Sure, the script and film are only superficially similiar (it had subplots that are entirely not in the film, like a relationship between the cabbie and a librarian), but the efforts of Julie Richardson (who ended up co-producing the film with Mann) eventually paid off. The eighth film of Mann's career, it was his decision to shoot the film primarily with the Viper FilmStream High-Definition Camera (i.e. not film, although the nightclub sequence is shot that way) as a way to capture the urban environment of night-time LA. Incidentally, the original cast members in mind for the lead roles were Russell Crowe and Adam Sandler (or perhaps even Sandler paired with Cruise), but so it goes. The movie was a relative success at the time of its release, done just two decades ago.

You can see pretty quickly the appeal in a movie that is set in one night with such a compact goal in mind in tight thrills with characters that match each other like a glove for a neat movie. It maneuvers curiosity for its locale and machinations for two hours that deserves consideration for any thriller type of night. It has a murky feel with its locale that extends right to its trips through LA that feel distinct like a vignette, whether that involves a nightclub or a hospital visit.

Undeniably, Cruise delivers the best in his role, one that apparently took inspiration from Alain Delon's character in Le Samouraï [1967] (one might wonder if there was something to draw from the silver-haired fox of Lee Marvin). Wrapped in grey attire and silver hair, there is something unnerving about his mannerisms in how he just "clicks" as an erudite and efficient killer that still makes one curious about what makes him tick. It basically is a cat-and-mouse game where one is curious where the cat wants to guide the mouse next. The character doesn't even that much of a backstory, one can just picture in their heads a guy who seeps in and out of his assignment as one who really could just lurk in the shadows and have no one notice, much in the same way that Foxx's character is just as one to be thought of in the background for most people (hey, do you know your cabbie?); go figure, it was Foxx that recieved the Academy Award nomination that year. But yes, Foxx is pretty effective here in his own terms of instinct of human nature, one who we like as someone learning to not lie so much about themselves. Smith makes a suitable presence to fit the ends of the film required in snap timing while the others fit the fragmented pieces required in a trip where you have a highly efficient (and smart) killer on one side and a tense but equally interesting presence worth watching on the other, such as the nightclub sequence when it comes to building a release of just who one really is when around other people. The film eventually delves into a chase that works out pretty well in the hands of Mann, who finds time to look upon an office from a distance to build tension. I especially like the ending in just settling on the most soothing of  possible resolutions when it comes to rising above collateral nature to be one's own man that circles back to earlier in the movie involving people fading into the background. As a whole, it's a neat movie that has two worthy players with worthy staging and a look to make a useful neo-noir fit for the eyes of the 21st century.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.