higherall7 Reviews

Galaxy Quest (1999)

"Never give up... Never Surrender!"

[9/10 · 18 May 2024]

There is more to Galaxy Quest than meets the eye. Hilariously, that is putting it mildly. It has a wildly improbable resolution that makes perfect sense in the fanciful language of parody and satire. The screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gordon presents a cast of characters who are stuck in Time by virtue of their own past celebrity. Resigned to attending fan conventions celebrating their canceled 1980s space adventure television series GALAXY QUEST, puts this crew of has-been actors squarely in on the joke regarding the state of their careers, but also discovering in a most fantastical way that they are also the butt of it.

Directed by Dean Parisot with a 45 million budget, it made twice that at the box office. Mainly more Sci-Fi than Science Fiction, being more about Cowboys and Indians in outer space than anything else, it is a humorous collage of fact and fiction and a jaunty romp through sly references to at least half a dozen prior Sci-Fi TV shows and films. It treads lightly over all the most familiar tropes and cliches presented in Sci-Fi media and spills its motley crew out into a time warped ending dazed and confused, but ultimately taking a bow for their heroics before an audience of exultant fans. It is a love letter to Sci-Fi Fandom that puts the pedal to the metal and somehow manages to slide home safe in the ninth inning. Regardless of what this tale is or is not, it cannot be said that the NSEA Protector does not know how to crash a convention.

Tim Allen was not what Harold Ramis was feeling for someone to channel that Shatner vibe and he passed on directing this comic Sci-Fi epic according to most accounts. But just like Michael Keaton did for The Dark Knight, Allen made a believer out of Ramis among all others and became friends with William Shatner to boot. The allusions to the Star Trek franchise are broad and obvious, but its lighthearted take made the original crew members fall in love with it. Sigourney Weaver embraced her opportunity to be a buxom blonde starlet working on the Bridge as Lieutenant Tawny Madison to Allen's Commander Peter Quincy Taggart. Alan Rickman brings heart to his role as Dr. Lazarus, a hybridized version of Mr. Spock as a Vulcan and a Klingon. Daryl 'Chill' Mitchell does Geordi LaForge in an alternate universe as Tommy Webber AKA Lieutenant Laredo, the once precocious child pilot. Robin Sachs as Roth'h'ar Sarris, proves to be a menacing reptilian general and formidable adversary to Commander Taggart, chewing the scenery with the best of them without having to even twirl a mustache.

Justin Long of ACCEPTED (2006), makes his film debut here. Let us just say his character, Brandon, a dedicated fan of the television series GALAXY QUEST, helps this film skim the top of some hard core science fiction concepts, without getting too deep about it. Enrico Colantoni as Mathesar, the leader of a group of beleaguered and oppressed aliens known as the Thermians, brings much of the dramatic and moral gravitas of the story home between the smirking at all the inevitable in-jokes and chuckling at how these extra-terrestrials work their bodies. Missi Pyle, as Laliari, brings a touch of soap opera to the space opera as she and the chief engineer for the NSEA Protector, kindle a love interest together. It becomes apparent that whatever the actors cast as Thermians were taught in "alien school", about walking the walk and talking the talk, were lessons learned well.

Industrial Light & Magic led by Bill George created the film's visual effects and you can see how the aesthetics for creating a television show interface with the aesthetics for creating a modern day work of cinema. The primary portions of the film were shot in studios in Los Angeles, and Linda DeScenna, production designer for the film, drew inspiration from the sets of Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, Lost in Space and, of course, Star Trek. While GALAXY QUEST was not an Oscar contender in any category, it did win a Hugo Award for BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION and a Nebula Award for Tim Allen as BEST ACTOR. Star Trek fans also voted this film the seventh best Star Trek film at the 2013 Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas. The resolution of this space opera where fantasy becomes reality within the fantasy world of a fan convention is still something palpably worth experiencing. It is somehow loosely a homage to The Golden Age of Television with an eye on the future all served up with a rousing hero's theme from the score composed by David Newman. It may not be NOTORIOUS (1946), but it does not crash land far from its mark...

Far from Heaven (2002)

Pulling Back the Curtain on Oz...

[8/10 · 15 May 2024]

This is a fascinating film that explores the depths and layers of facade as a concept in American Society. I think early as a young boy I found American History to be a sort of facade when I attempted to give a report on Frederick Douglass in elementary class. Later, I found that much of Mass Media is devoted and dedicated to the creation of facade. Even the iconography of Organized Religion is often enlisted to serve the ersatz noble cause of facade. So it should come as no surprise that filmmakers might find mining the American Dream to be one of the richest sources of facade.

Naturally, a facade works best when its representatives are unaware that they are devoting their energies to upholding and creating it. Such is the case with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid as Cathy and Frank Whitaker. Their suburban reality appears picture perfect. But that's the point and the problem. This 'happily married' couple is profoundly unaware and ignorant of the fact that they are creating a picture or surface impression that depends upon the exclusion of victimized peoples for its principal energizing force. That this idyllic reality unravels before their very eyes to the chagrin and consternation of their neighbors and the community, in which they are ensconced, becomes a glossy and vivid shadow dance between illusion and truth suitable for framing.

Hollywood, of course, is renowned for peddling illusion as truth. This retro chic melodrama made in homage to the films of Douglas Sirk ostensibly seeks to explore the subjects of sexual orientation and miscegenation, but actually on a more subtle level is poised to examine the unsuspected moral degeneration of national culture, whose fantasies of perfection are undergirded with the hellish consequences of the exploitation and oppression of marginalized peoples. This truth is way in the background and out of frame. But it is out of this background that Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan emerges with his daughter Sarah Deagan ably portrayed by Jordan Puryear; wandering about in Cathy Whitaker's garden and somewhat mystified as to how he got there.

That's the interesting thing about the encounter between Cathy Whitaker and Raymond Deagan. Their relationship feels like the fallout from a pernicious legacy whose complete story has yet to find its way into the history books, or the late night news or the confessional of any church. Frank Whitaker's encounter seem less homoerotic and more about the desperation of a man trapped within a concept of patriarchy that depends upon the subjugation of others for its vitality and lifeblood. That his actions seem more like a dramatization of cultural disintegration, and the decimation of the nuclear family unit he and Cathy have created, is certainly one way to look at it. But the desire to escape a suffocating relationship through a somewhat unusual means of self-gratification suggests unexpectedly shocking results.

Director Todd Haynes adroitly equates the so-called 'sin' of miscegenation with the so-called 'sin' of homosexuality within the parameters of melodrama in the 1950s. It is an interesting spin of the moral compass regarding the American scene. While nobody comes out a winner in this fractured fairy tale of injured parties and dismembered families, it is a compelling story of good intentions gone beautifully awry. Human fulfillment in this version of Haynes' America does not exist beyond the illusion created by the privileged few. The performers here as well as the director show us how happiness can be out of reach even in the brightest of colors.

The Big Boss (1971)

Whoop! Here come the Big Boss! Let's get it on!

[7/10 · 14 May 2024]

The Bruce Lee phenomena is a defining experience of modern centuries. Similar to the life journeys of Muhammad Ali, Clint Eastwood and Stan Lee, I count myself fortunate to have been there for it, and I am happy and proud to say this is something I witnessed from the very beginning to beyond. We first became aware of Bruce Lee during the 26 episodes of THE GREEN HORNET (1966-1967). I was hoping as a teenager that he would become an action star comparable to Steve McQueen. Nothing could have prepared me for the profound cultural impact and influence he would eventually have on the entire world.

THE BIG BOSS (1971) is standard chop-socky fare. How much comment it would merit without the charismatic presence of Bruce Lee is hard to imagine and perhaps not worth the consideration. This film, like his poetry and his books, is just one more feature of a strange, eclectic, mysterious Zen-like genius whose multi-faceted effects have saturated and bridged both the Eastern and Western worlds. Bruce Lee advocated the 'form of the formless' and nothing exemplified this more than his own life. When we talk about Bruce Lee we are talking about one of the 100 most important people of the 20th Century, according to TIME magazine.

How did we arrive here? How did this plucky, cocky little Martial Arts guru bring us here? Many would point to this film as his breakthrough moment. When he sat in the audience with his wife, Linda Lee, at the Queen's Theater in Hong Kong, attempting to divine the meaning of the audience's stunned silence in the moments after the end credits were done rolling. Perhaps he was contemplating a fast getaway to avoid the burst of a wave of public censure when the audience rose to its feet clapping, cheering and shouting its approval. At least that's the way his wife would put it later on.

Raymond Chow through Golden Harvest made the film for $100,000 and it ended up make something like 500 times that at the box office. Reviews were mixed from the South China Morning Post to the Strait Times in Singapore. Vincent Canby took his swipe at the Kung Fu thriller, ranking it below the worst Italian Westerns. Variety found the plot silly, but credited Lee with making it entertaining in spots. Meanwhile, Bruce Lee was exploding into the hottest international movie star of the time, and packing them in all over Southeast Asia and surprisingly even in Beirut. When buyers suddenly started arriving from all over the world to purchase the film, it became no longer possible to argue with its success.

Somehow, Bruce Lee along with his co-stars Maria Yi, James Tien, and Han Ying-chieh managed to shatter stereotypes within a stereotypical Kung Fu Eastern revolving predictably around revenge. There was howling in the Fox Theater when Bruce Lee's character Cheng Chao-an punches a thug through a wall and it leaves and outline like in some cartoon. Put the blame on directors Lo Wei and perhaps Wu Chia Hsing for that. But this is a story of a son who goes to great lengths to honor and keep the vow he made to his mother. When he finally in a cataclysm of rage breaks that vow, all hell breaks loose until it become apparent that violence is futile and solves nothing.

Be like water, my friend...

Spartacus (1960)

Shaking out the truth of Spartacus...

[9/10 · 13 May 2024]

"Art revealed is artifice. Art concealed is Art."

• Cecilia Gomez

Teacher of INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL

The legend of Spartacus is a fascinating subject. What Kirk Douglas, Dalton Trumbo and Stanley Kubrick have done cinematically with this legend is particularly remarkable as well. What is worthy of note is the emotional values these three men chose to emphasize albeit through the many arguments and conflicts regarding production necessities, script revisions and directorial control. The facts, as often happens in many Hollywood productions, are played with fast and loose. A little research suggests intriguing alternate courses in which the narrative could have gone. But this 1960 version of a story from ancient history is not just a reflection of a time in antiquity, but indeed, is also a reflection of the political atmosphere in America at that time.

At first, I tended to agree with the point of view of Kubrick. That the more interesting drama revolved around what happened when Spartacus and his people finally and actually made it to the Alps with their long sought after freedom palpably in sight. Standing at the threshold of their goal, it would have been intriguing to see how the vagaries of human intention and motivation suddenly devolved into the least optimum course of action. The failure of Spartacus to persuade the various collection of groups under his command to secure once and for all their hard won freedom reeks with a portent of doom and inevitable tragedy. But despite whatever liberties Douglas, Trumbo and Kubrick took with the actual facts of the tale of Spartacus; and they are considerable; there are still two scenes that stand out in my mind.

The first scene I mention should come as no surprise to you. It has been a source of reference for such creative personalities as Spike Lee and Robert Tapert of the XENA:WARRIOR PRINCESS television series. Kubrick originally considered the "I'M SPARTACUS!" scene a stupid idea. Revisiting the scene in subsequent viewings of the movie, there were times I myself thought this sequence somewhat cheesy and flirting just this side of melodramatic cliche'. But there is a subtlety to this scene that can be easily missed when all the shouting dies down. It has something to do with losing the battle, while winning the war for the hearts and minds and the souls of an entire host of a people. When former slaves decide to die as free men and women rather than return to the condition they have escaped from, a major idea has made its way into the lifeblood of modern civilization.

The second scene is more subtle still and becomes a confrontation between two styles of acting. Kirk Douglas, one of the founding fathers of the Mount Rushmore school of acting, whose legacy and mantle Clint Eastwood would later take up and inherit, has a confrontation with the king of Shakespearean actors, Lawrence Olivier. It is a chilling scene with no dialogue. Douglas' Spartacus and Olivier's Crassus in silent regard take each other's measure. It was only upon later reflection that I came to understand what this scene was all about. It has something to do with, among many other things, the difference between moral and material victory. A moral victory often involves the conquest of self. While a material victory is often about the object of conquering others. Douglas, Trumbo and Kubrick, along with the help of the sensuous Jean Simmons as Varinia, the crafty and duplicitous Peter Ustinov as Batiatus, and the curmudgeonly presence of Charles Laughton as Gracchus; (also you can include here the conservative call for moderation of John Gavin as Julius Caesar and the sheer hero worship of Tony Curtis as Antonius added into the mix), leave it to you to meditate upon which kind of conquest is ultimately the most satisfying, while declining to provide you with any easy answers.

This is a thoroughly adult production that sweeps across the screen at a daunting 197 minutes screen time. Some subjects cause you to go more deeply than you intended to at the outset. I found such to be the case with the subject of Spartacus. I came to discover that as Douglas was preparing this film for production from Dalton Trumbo's adapted screenplay of the Howard Fast novel, there was a parallel project about the life of Spartacus also in the works. Other producers were considering Yul Brynner for the role of Spartacus, and Anthony Quinn to play Crassus in a screenplay adapted from the novel written by Arthur Koestler entitled THE GLADIATORS, but plans for this cinematic version of Spartacus fell through. What remains therefore is this 1960 version which served to help effectively end the Hollywood Blacklist generated by the House on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC) and the political repression of the McCarthy Era. This sprawling, brawling adventure has often been called the 'thinking man's' sword and sandal epic and with a budget of 12 million made at least five times that amount for its producers. While Kubrick failed to acquire the complete creative control he would later enjoy on subsequent productions, his cinematographer, Russell Metty, would later win an Oscar for essentially just sitting around and watching Kubrick work out and complete the duties of cinematography to his own meticulous standards.

Once again, this cinematic take on the life of Spartacus is particularly colored by the perspectives, political and otherwise, that Trumbo, Douglas and Kubrick brought to it. One could easily imagine from even a brief acquaintance with the true facts of the Spartacus saga, how the tale might have looked and been rendered in the hands of and according to the vision of a Tarantino or a Spielberg and the different themes they might have emphasized and brought to the forefront. However, what we have here is a brutal tale about the passion for achieving freedom at any cost set to the rousing score of Alex North, which yet and still is thoughtfully restrained and wryly philosophical. We who are about to live can still applaud Douglas and his crew for putting a surprising amount of mind behind the muscle in this epic.

Nora Prentiss (1947)

The Reluctant Femme Fatale...

[7/10 · 25 January 2024]

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." -- Theodore Roosevelt

Ann Sheridan as Nora Prentiss proves to be a femme fatale in spite of herself. While fully aware of the power of her sex appeal as a nightclub chanteuse, compellingly photographed to noirish effect by the great James Wong Howe, she is at all times a reasonable, honest and mature woman who knows what she wants and knows herself. Kent Smith is the hardworking doctor Richard Talbot who first encounters her as a patient with a minor injury. Neither has the barest inkling that this first meeting will lead to so much more in their lives. Talbot has a wife and children and a successful medical practice, but when trivial events bring Talbot to the nightspot where Nora performs, she becomes the doctor and Talbot the patient while she ministers to his social repression and attempts to coax him out of his shell.

But best intentions are not all that go astray here. While the Doctor restores the Chanteuse to full health, Nora, in attempting to lightly deal with what ails Talbot, gradually reveals that she is only capable of bringing out the worst in him. Theirs becomes an intriguing dance of Fate and destiny, the initial flirtation between them blossoming into full-blown adultery and its attendant maudit consequences. It is sobering to note how easily Talbot's social pose of moral rectitude and responsibility unravels in Nora's presence as she patiently and logically explains what is happening to him now that they have established a relationship. The gravitic pull of their passion is slowly transforming their roles from that of Doctor and Patient to the less tenable positions of Predator and Prey seemingly without their consent.

That is one of a couple of thought-provoking twists that may leave you to ponder these events. At the beginning, Nora Prentiss is comfortable with her role as a nightclub singer, but yearns for something more. Richard Talbot is comfortable as an up-and-coming physician, but also yearns for some kind of spice and spark absent from his staid family life. Each attempts to reach beyond their station and find themselves bonded in disastrous results. It is usual in these noir thrillers for the femme fatale to be two-faced and duplicitous, and to urge her smitten prey to coverup and lie and do heinous things in the name of their love. But this is not what Nora Prentiss does at all, and it becomes a refreshing spin on things.

The other twist is in the screenplay scripted by N. Richard Nash. Once we are past the resolution and the end credits roll, it has become graphically apparent what Doctor Richard Talbot has done for the affections of Nora Prentiss. We are left to ruminate whether or not their actions were inspired by lust or love. The pernicious outcome strongly suggests the former. But whatever the nature of their passion and caring, it does become self-evident it has assumed a monstrous proportion. This, despite the seeming level-headed demeanor of all the characters, including Bruce Bennett as Doctor Joel Merriam, Richard's business partner, Robert Alda as Phil Dinardo, the nightclub owner and smitten friend of Nora, and Rosemary DeCamp as Lucy Talbot, Richard's unsuspecting and soon to be beleaguered wife among others...

This is not the place to go into the vagaries of 'true love'. But what Martin Scorsese said while commenting about Cecil B. DeMille's versions of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS particularly comes to mind. Breaking one of the commandments could well end up breaking you. Consider the case of Doctor Richard Talbot. A man well-established in his profession who yet and still could not avoid asking the old Hindu question '-is this all there is?' That an aesthetic encounter with a torch singer named Nora Prentiss wryly inspires him to self-immolation in the throes of passion is a poignantly sobering thing to behold.

The Good Die Young (1954)

The Devil and Good Intentions...

[7/10 · 18 December 2023]

Perhaps it goes without saying that when people are financially challenged they will do the damnedest things. Here's a case in point for your inspection. One of the virtues of intelligence, (and I might also add sanity), is being able to put the right solution to right problem. You might be surprised how many reasonably intelligent people have difficulty with this when faced with adverse situations. This drama, centering as it does on the trials of four young couples struggling with troublesome relationships involving each other and the almighty cash, successfully riveted this viewer's attention.

I was nodding off when this came on television and suddenly found myself focused on the story from beginning to end. The idea of four relatively young men meeting at some kind of moral and ethical crossroads in a British pub communicated swiftly after the shock appeal of the opening sequence. The setup was so intriguing and the exposition so seeded with the scent of a hokey and melodramatic tragedy in the making, the viewer tends to feel committed to seeing this thing through to the end somehow. This is exactly what the four main characters are tasked with doing. What is so compelling here is that these men are not career criminals or inherently evil.

The cast is all A-list leading men and women. It's hard to imagine anything going awry with the likes of Lawrence Harvey, Gloria Grahame, Richard Basehart, the poor man's Elizabeth Taylor Joan Collins, John Ireland, newcomer Rene Ray, the right honorable Stanley Baker and Margaret Leighton involved, and quite frankly, it seems to me hardly anything does. Here and there, the four interlocking stories of characters challenged to exercise their moral imagination sometimes flirts and smacks right up against melodrama while skirting around the fringes of soap opera, but these relatively good guys going wrong under the malevolent influence of a philandering born killer as represented by Harvey, are always engaging and I found myself invested enough to want to find out what they would do next. The story itself seemed to me a great deal more comprehensible and definitely a bit easier to follow than the shenanigans of the career criminals in PULP FICTION (1994). At least it was more readily apparent to me and my taste for moral closure what this tale was all about.

Lawrence Harvey is Miles 'Rave' Ravenscourt, the man with the nefarious plan. At first, he is scoffed at by Stanley Baker as newly retired prize fighter Mike Morgan, a man without a hand, along with John Ireland as Eddie Blaine, who has deserted from military service to keep an eye on his unfaithful wife, Denise Blaine, played with crafty flirtatiousness by Gloria Grahame. We find Richard Basehart as Joe Halsey up against it, battling a possessive mother for the heart of his wife, Mary Halsey, as played by Joan Collins. In flashbacks, we glimpse at the moral dilemmas confronting this troubled quartet. We come to sympathize with them, when, despite their best intentions, at least three of these hapless fellows start to stray from their moral compass to consider the line of least ethical and moral resistance.

In the end, this cinematic offering comes across as an inversion of The Three Musketeers, with Harvey's Ravenscourt serving as a demented D'Artagnan. After helpfully taking them past the point of no return, Miles gleefully presides over the suspenseful proceedings as the whole caper he first proposed unravels before their very eyes. Next thing we know, director Lewis Gilbert is delivering up the poetic justice and closing out the resolution in a kind of moral geometry that is palpably satisfying and far more plausible than anything that has come before. The ending resounds with a dignity that goes beyond any ambiguity the exposition might have suggested or promised. These four men who conspired to get something for nothing, now are seen earning nothing for something far more important and non-negotiable.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

The poison of greed and Unconditional Love...

[8/10 · 6 December 2023]

Here in the West, so-called Whites are entitled and privileged to talk about how they won and solved the mysteries of the universe. The so-called colored or indigenous peoples are allowed to explain how they lost and were swallowed in the unfathomable void of their suffering so that we can feel their pain. This is the predictable pattern to ethnic strife presented in American Cinema, and this Martin Scorsese masterpiece while teasing at being morally innovative in its profundity, is ironically, at a budget of 200 million dollars, a product of the very power and privilege it seeks to expose and protest. The anti-life antics of Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart and Robert DeNiro as William King Hale take center stage in this epic, but it is the great beauty and moral gravitas of Lily Gladstone as Mollie Kyle that anchors this tragedy and makes us willing to sit through more than three hours of what becomes a ghastly love and horror story. While boasting stirring and startling performances from the likes of Jesse Piemons as agent Thomas Bruce White Sr., Tantoo Cardinal as Lizzie Q, Mollie's mother as well as John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser as prosecuting and defending attorneys, this film, despite its undeniable Anglo-American perspective; is saturated with the collaboration of the Osage Nation and other Native American principals.

While this particular production eventually grinds down into the rhythms I would normally associate with Shakespeare and performances of KING LEAR as helmed by Oliver and Schofield, this ambitious reach is not entirely unfitting or without merit. Once again, it is Lily Gladstone as Mollie Burhart who becomes the revelation here. Before us on the screen is a leading lady of Native American heritage whom the camera loves. She generates an emotive force that made me recall Olivia DeHavilland and Ingrid Bergman. While Native Americans more grounded either by experience or learning or expertise in a shared cultural experience, can rightly criticize and make salient points about the context of this murderous drama, or the arcs or backstory of some of the indigenous characters, the images of Mollie's descent into suffering are compelling and enduring.

Scorsese lovingly exercises a visual and cinematic literacy that harkens back to the early days of silent movies, but as well references the tenebrism of Carvaggio and Rembrandt. This is particularly evident in the scenes where white servants are waiting hand and foot on these Natives who have been unexpectedly fortunate enough to accidentally strike black gold. The issue of assimilation is spectacularly and sensationally presented here in the relationship between Ernest and Mollie Burkhart. The love Mollie shows for her husband becomes all the more poignant as she gradually comes to realize he is in cahoots with William King Hale and slowly but surely is poisoning her to death. The fact that this does not deter her in doing all she can to end The Reign of Terror being visited upon her and the rest of the Osage citizens makes her love appear all the more heroic.

There is much to the argument made by one reviewer that the story should have revolved and centered more on the character of Mollie Burkhart with a fuller and richer backstory. However, it cannot be denied that Ms. Gladstone makes the most of the opportunity given her by director Scorsese, and achieves moments comparable to and at times surpassing what Ingird Bergman did in GASLIGHT (1944) and NOTORIOUS (1948). That is heady stuff to say when you are bouncing lines off of and sharing scenes with renowned A-Listers like DeNiro and DiCaprio. But this actress more than holds her own and we look forward to her swinging from the heels and continuing to convey the Native American perspective in dramas as absorbing and unforgettable as THE HEIRESS (1949) and THE SNAKE PIT (1948) with DeHavilland as well as CASBLANCA (1942) and ANASTASIA (1954), which highlighted Bergman's acting prowess. Time to cross our fingers and hope Lily Gladstone will go on working her magic with the most able directors and in the midst of the most accomplished ensemble casts.

As it stands, this is still a Western that will do to ride the river with. While admittedly you won't learn much about head rights or guardians or allotment; this didactic function of cinema being soft-pedaled here, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto makes this latest demythologizing of How the West Was Won elegiacally vivid. It is in this respect that Scorsese's latest offering shares such great affinity with Eastwood's revisionist Western UNFORGIVEN (1992).

But isn't it interesting how Native Americans are still being presented as victims here in the twentyfirst century, while Western Man continues to exhort that there is much to be learned from Death? Perhaps so, and it may be that the importance of Death in the dealings and affairs of human beings is not to be underestimated. Eastern Man is not much better in his focus on self abnegation, but they are to be at least commended for being able to project a palpable vision of a paradise on Earth. But guess what? It would be great to have a Native American filmmaker breakthrough to capture the imagination of the viewing public with a startling original system of aesthetics owing to his cultural perspective and having pundits discussing how important his newest work is to the cultural consciousness of our times. I can assure you that these new Native American voices do exist. Such voices echo out of such unlikely places as NASA and the Aircrete tepees and domes being constructed by tribal leaders that bear such a striking resemblance to R. Buckminister Fuller's Dymaxion House. There may also be something to be learned from witnessing people sharing ideas and resources while somehow getting along with each other.

Just a thought...

Mad Hot Ballroom (2005)

Dancing into Civilization...

[9/10 · 30 November 2023]

Nowadays, it seems our focus is much less on what type of world we would like our children to grow up in and more on how we can all get over. But, were we to put some thought to the legacy we would pass on to succeeding generations, one that includes young boys and girls growing up learning how to dance with each other would not be a bad gift to leave. The growth and development of ability and attendant to that confidence and self-esteem, serves as the ensuing drama here. I found it engrossing to witness the interweaving of the lives of these young student personalities as they barely begin to approach the milestones of puberty. The power of Dance to socialize and civilize is on full display here.

Owing and derived originally from a feature article written by Amy Sowell, who here goes on to be the film's screenwriter, while directed by Marilyn Agrelo, we get another view of growing up through the steps of the Tango, Foxtrot, Swing, Rumba and the Merengue. This 106 minute documentary about busting a move into greater maturity was made for half a million and ended up grossing nearly nine and a half million dollars at the box office. There are times when it's refreshing and invigorating to look at life and the world from the perspectives of students and children unknowingly studying to master them both. This tale is a little more down to Earth and less high flown than Ramon Menedez's STAND AND DELIVER (1988). Here, instead of having students prepared to master higher mathematics, we have a tale of young girls and boys practicing the virtues of social companionship through The Art of the Dance.

Some people like to sit around and talk and have a good time that way. Others prefer dominoes or skating or knocking down ten pins. But dancing can be a great way for men and women to enjoy each other's company without getting too intense about it. Holding her camera at stomach level, cinematographer Claudia Raschke-Robinson captures the dawning of new ability and maturity on the faces of these 10 and 11 year old students. The three different schools profiled are PS 150 from the affluent Tribecca, PS 112 from the largely Italian and Asian area of Bensonhurst, and PS 115 from the predominantly Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights. Through the prism of student-teacher relationships and the reflections of the young people about themselves and others, we enjoy fascinating new views on the adventures of growing up.

Whether we stand eye to eye with student Emma Biegacki philosophizing about gender roles, or young Michael Vaccaro considering the profundities of ballroom dancing, you cannot help rooting for kids like Wilson Castillo who let their feet do the talking with groovy eloquent mastery. This is a film that argues for cooperation and sophistication in relationships between men and women who are not yet fully developed, but still lightly ruminating upon their role in the community of the future. Young boys who might have resorted to the streets for their education are seen, sometimes reluctantly at first, to find new direction for their energies and talents in the Public School environment.

Particularly inspiring is watching the Dominican kids from Washington Heights rise on pluck and charm to the top of this city-wide competition. It becomes a delight to watch these youngsters transform themselves with plenty of parental and community support into sophisticated ladies and gents.

The great thing was to see educators promote spirit of play and the civilizing impulses as a source of amusement and social development. The over-riding idea implicit in this engaging story is that it is possible to win respect and admiration in the community simply by taking responsibility for the state of the next generation. This subtle truth is vividly and convincingly demonstrated without the roundhouse kicks or karate punches to the gut or a gaudy focus on sex appeal. What I enjoyed most was that you could be a teacher and still have the moves and be cool. Cool enough to represent a positive role model for the citizens of the future to use in forging their own success.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

Calculating The Black Hole of Blindness...

[9/10 · 16 November 2023]

What I really think and feel about Christopher Nolan's latest example of Cinema as Epic biopic is best found in the Science Fiction collection known as THE ILLUSTRATED MAN. Ray Bradbury's third story in this series titled THE OTHER FOOT sums it up quite nicely to my mind. The Western mindset has always demonstrated an obsessive fascination with the themes of World Domination and Global Apocalypse. Here these themes are on full dramatic display. One would be hard put to see where director Nolan fails to touch all the bases with flourishes of angst and panache. I was hoping there would be an intermission at the midpoint, but the pace was so artfully accelerated that the last lap back around to Einstein contracted Time in a way that seemed straight out of one of his Theories on Relativity.

The last time I sat through a three hour movie without an intermission, I was watching Spike Lee's MALCOLM X (1992). At over 200 minutes, it was a slightly longer story of a life than this 180 minute build up to the science project that transformed the world. But both films ended with profoundly explosive results saturated in entropic consequences. This is Cillian Murphy's show from start to finish; and it's a tour de force performance. But we'll see whether he gets robbed for the Best Actor statuette the way it happened with Denzel Washington. Personally, I wouldn't bet on it. While both films have similar rhythms and share in common THE HEROIC MARTYR or SACRIFICE plot pattern, this latest Nolan outing took me back to the heady days of THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935).

The cast is star-studded, of course, what with the likes of Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek and Kenneth Branagh. The technical sophistication that is displayed to handle the narrative is extraordinary and noteworthy. The constant alternation between the vignettes in black and white as opposed to those in color give the narrative a compelling rhythm and the viewer is provided with sundry insights into human pride and the motivation for intellectual transcendence through the contrasting trajectories of many of its characters. The main attraction of this unwieldily collaged engine of memory, sensation and experiences in the adventures of high intellect racing to achieve critical mass, is how often it feels like a highly dramatized version of a Ken Burns documentary clawing its way to escape velocity somewhere beyond the realms of the Public Broadcast Service. It is a high-wire act of some great consequence, with Tom Conti as Einstein checking the equations for this quick and dirty business with great hands off reluctance.

I do believe that comparing this current 'Life and Times of' with Lee's version of the trials and tribulations of the consciousness raising Malcolm X is useful and instructive. Both are flawed masterpieces, with central characters who fail to navigate past the blind spots of their cultural perspectives, no matter how valiant or violent their efforts and attempts. Perhaps this is a cautionary tale about a modern day tragedy for those inheritors and victims of The Industrial Revolution and The Age of Enlightenment. While Nolan's Oppenheimer is presented as the highly learned World Champion of Western Civilization and a poster boy for Western Thought, a little more attention to the various ethnicities who contributed manpower to The Manhattan Project on all levels would not have been out of place. Also, it would have been great to find out more about The Bhagavad Gita and the thousands upon thousands of Japanese Americans who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time during the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

All this may be, admittedly, beyond the scope of an artistic medium that projects 'magic shadows' against a screen and deals more in 'illusions for sale' as its currency than the so-called solidities of everyday life. Nolan cannot be faulted for failing to lead his audience to the threshold of some great ideas. But having led your audience to such a threshold, doesn't always mean you can inspire them to think. Stranger still is how the focus on the phenomena of sex and violence in the narrative can often block one from enjoying the fruits of higher ideation. People who revere the Bruce Lee movies often seem to miss the point of these stories. This being that even a man of fantastic fighting ability can find himself helpless and powerless when it comes to protecting his own family and friends. Before Arthur Conan Doyle got rolling with his Sherlock Holmes adventures and novels, he attempted to set his readers straight that a person motivated by Love can end up outwitting even the most ideal reasoner in an amusing short story entitled 'A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA'. Furthermore, you would think a trained scientist with an IQ hovering somewhere around 210, would be smart enough to find a more lofty purpose for his intellect than participating in a project whose permutations might lead to a vision of destroying all Life as we know it.

Ah, tis a Faustian Bargain devoutly to be meditated upon! But wait! I seem to hear the opening strains of Laurie Anderson's O SUPERMAN wafting in the background...

Escape from New York (1981)

Manhattan Boogie in Smithereens...

[7/10 · 29 August 2023]

Whether or not you can go with and root for the caricatures and exaggerations walking around and posing as real live people here, it is hard to deny that the theme music composed by director John Carpenter, begins the film with a compelling narrative hook. Funny the things that can seize your interest about a film. The poster for THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLEY (1972), boasted a better story than the film turned out to represent. The same can be said for THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1959), the review of which you can find in my book TOWARD A NEW CINEMA published in 2018. The story setup was intriguing, but insufficiently developed and explored.

I think Siskel and Ebert essentially nailed it when they commented that this sci-fi adventure is more or less a cartoon and a pastiche. Actor Kurt Russell reminds me of my nephew after he had seen Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's BATMAN (1989). He struts around looking and acting tough, unashamed that his S. D. "Snake" Plissken is the sincerest form of flattery for Clint Eastwood. The surprising thing about this cliche' ridden piece of sci-fi as a western for the future, is how it manages to steer just this side of being camp. There is sincerity and seriousness to the acting turns of all the players; from Adrienne Barbeau to Lee Van Cleef, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine to Issac Hayes, and even Donald Pleasance as the abducted President. None of the cast act like they exactly know what's going on, or where they are. But it lends gravity to the narrative that none of them appear to be in on the joke.

Disney boy Russell is up at bat to make his transition from heart throb to tough guy, and he's so likeable we find ourselves rooting for him and willing to suspend disbelief on his behalf. While he comes across more as an enfant terrible rather than a bona fide heartless killer, the rebel vibe he exudes is real and convincing. Director Carpenter plays it safe with his overreliance on violence to carry the narrative, and his missed call in neglecting to more colorfully develop the prison society, in which Donald Pleasance as President John Harker crash lands. Meanwhile, there are your standard variety chase scenes and shoot-em-ups, and just when you expect one of the characters to take it up a notch, they're gone in a hail of bullets or a fiery explosion. Much of the cast finds itself collateral damage to this first Comic Book tale on steroids.

Meanwhile, there is the theme music. It an unforgettable theme. At least, as Bernie Casy playing John Slade told Keenen Ivory Wayans portraying Jack Slade in I'M GONNA GET YOU SUCKA (1988)), the kind of hero's theme such as every action hero should have some. Just as this theme music got us rolling into the exposition of the story, I was secretly hoping it would take us out through the resolution of this tale, and happy to right for once. Isaac Hayes who composed the musical score for SHAFT (1971), should know a little somethin'-somethin' about that. How in some inexplicable way music can convey more about story and character than anything seen on the screen.

The musical theme that begins this piece of cinema promises more than the actual story delivers. But somehow, as was the case with Curtis Mayfield's score for SUPERFLY (1972), there is just enough character and action for the music to underline and emphasize. Snake Plissken barely limps away to the strains of AMERICAN BANDSTAND, but he looks cool doing it. After that, you can reflect on all the weird going-ons and derring-do you have just witnessed while you get your groove on to the main theme bookending ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981). It is another point for the ledger supporting Ingmar Bergman's declaration that film has nothing to do with literature.

Dredd (2012)

Final Exam for a Rookie Sidekick...

[9/10 · 5 August 2023]

Judge Dredd is that guilty pleasure you should have no business knowing anything about. Like teenagers slow dancing down in basement parties way past midnight when they promised their parents they would be home as soon as the street lights were on, Judge Dredd works after hours and in the dark. He is that moral force that suddenly appears out of nowhere and like instant coffee or do-it-yourself videos, dispenses Justice as Judge, Jury, and Executioner without prejudice or compassion. He is the wrath of the system maintaining order with force and holding the line against high-tech anarchy in a futuristic society on this Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd is cloned and bound to serve and protect what's left in a dystopian world, armed and equipped with all the latest weapons of authoritarianism that a tough guy might need.

Whatever affinity I ever felt for Judge Dredd, and it is almost none to little for his ilk and his world, comes from the theme of a hero entering a criminally psychotic environment and emerging out the other side relatively unscathed but for a few scrapes and dents on the fender. I felt for Odysseus who went on a rescue mission with the rest of the Kings to rescue a Grecian maiden only to find his life slowly grinding away in an interminable war listening to Ajax and Achilles recycle their war stories over and over again while his son grows up without a father around and his wife has to fend off suitors. The private eye novel KILL THE CLOWN by Richard S. Prather was particularly fascinating because even though the names were changed the game was still the same. What you need to know is waiting for you at a costume party hosted by the criminal elite, many of which you sent up the river. How do you get into this environment reeking with psychosis, murder and mayhem and somehow get out with the goods when you weren't invited and don't want to go no how? "Well," thinks the private eye reluctantly, "-I could rent this clown suit, and wear clown makeup so nobody will recognize me..."

During my initial experience with Judge Dredd in the comics, I found him cartoonish and a caricature of human virtues and vices. Which, I suppose, is the whole point. But in this film the exotic absurdity of his world and the society in which he operates nonetheless captures your fascination and strives to hold your attention with a vise-like grip. Karl Urban's portrayal of Judge Dredd has a lot to do with this. He gives us Dredd as the faceless servant of Justice by any means necessary and Lord help you should you end up on his call sheet.

This is an ultra-violent, brutal story told to a hard rock beat. The sensational aspects of the narrative tend to preclude any ideation that might lead the viewer to ask simple and yet profound questions. One of them being why is it that the concept of the Super Hero is so often equated with the idea of Super Policeman? Why is it so culturally important to make danger, destruction, disaster and death as visually appealing to the senses as possible? These were, by the way, among the favorite subjects of Ernest Hemingway, an important scribe of the Western mindset. But, then again, I digress. Is it really our place to question the aesthetics of a civilization once again descending into barbarism? Just the facts, ma'am. We're simply responding to a call. Let's get in and get out after making our judgement call and file our report. That is what a good Judge does...

Urban's version of Dredd serves up his Justice with a grim-faced professional elan' that very nearly makes us forget he is only doing his job. Directed by Peter Travis and produced by Andrew MacDonald on a budget of thirty to forty-five million, Dredd brings in tow a new recruit for evaluation who marginally failed her aptitude tests. Olivia Thirlby plays Cassandra Anderson, a diffident and conflicted cadet in possession of powerful psychic abilities. Oddly enough, this is really her story, and she comes as close as possible to representing the viewpoint and conscience of the audience. She goes through the most substantial character arc of any of the major players in this tale. She tags along with an understated sense of reluctance and misgivings and ends up a bonafide sidekick of Dredd in spite of herself. Together, they take on the drug lord, Ma-Ma, malevolently portrayed by Lena Headley, who rules a 200-storey slum tower block called the Peach Trees, in the violent metropolis of Mega-City One. Tasked by the Chief Judge portrayed by Rakie Ayola to restore order to Peach Trees, Dredd and Anderson proceed to deal hand to hand with an assortment of thugs, murderers and thieves instead of the customary mutants and robots found in the Comic Series.

This not withstanding, I found this version of Dredd's adventures truer to the original spirit of the Comics than the 1994 edition starring Sylvester Stallone. There is one scene in particular that captures the absurd accent of the Dredd illustrated stories as I remember them. This scene, coupled with the fact that we never see Urban's whole face behind his helmet, grounds this urban adventure in a gritty atmosphere of enigma that feels no need to explain itself. We get a revealing glimpse of a day in the life of a rookie and a seasoned professional as they strive to handle thugs like Kay, as portrayed by Wood Harris, before the paddy wagons come. It is in this way we get a taste of the world of Dredd to the strains of Paul Leonard Morgan's industrial music score. The lean and yet muscular screenplay penned by Alex Garland, unapologetically scuffles with its characters to bring order while blasting its way to those questionable conclusions and a resolution that is true to the spirit of this dystopic environment.

A final word. Consider carefully the character of Cassandra Anderson. You may discover important insights that explain how German citizens became complicit to the wave of regrettable madness that was Nazism in the 20th Century. Should you indeed realize these insights, you may find this story a notch above your usual fantasy gangland shoot-em-up and violence fests.

The Flash (I) (2023)

String Theory on a plate of Sphagetti...

[8/10 · 4 August 2023]

Here with this film, DC Comics throws its hat into the multiverse ring. Everything, including the kitchen sink times infinity, is here in this CGI Comic Book Opera about the ethics of tampering with spatial and temporal discontinuity. The modalities of Time get the symphonic treatment as director Andy Muschietti invites the living and the dead to the concert hall. The rousing finale has a fantasy like evocation to it that is both compelling and fascinating and is more about the landscape of myth and dream than it is about Time. Ezra Miller is also impressive in his binary interpretation of the angst of The Flash.

While this movie is underperforming at the Box Office, it presently boasts several striking performances that may earn it cult movie status somewhere down the line. Michael Keaton's return to the cowl and the cape, exhilarated me and I was shaking my head in wonder. I found myself musing, "Why is he so good at this?" He is definitely the Marlon Brando of the Batmans and struts his stuff with an authority that nearly steals the show. Ezra Miller, whatever his deal is in the real world, presents a Flash I know I wouldn't mind lining up to see in a sequel. Sasha Calle as Kara Jor-El, also known as Supergirl, proves to be a startling surprise, despite ending up under-utilized in driving the narrative as Michael Shannon is reprising with welcome menace and venom his role as General Zod.

Admittedly, it may be stretching things a bit to be comparing Keaton's latest turn at bat as The Caped Crusader with Orson Wells' barely more than an extended cameo as Harry Lime in THE THIRD MAN (1949), but not by much. There is a great resonance to the lines he utters for those who knew him way back when. Perhaps in a time not shouldering the burdens of a COVID-19 pandemic and a war in the Ukraine, THE FLASH might have fared better with audiences, but I have a gut feeling and a sneaking suspicion its time will come. String theory and the lattice layered many-tiered dimensions of amorphous logic deserve a better representation than a plate of spaghetti, but the vivid finale has the visual appeal of a dream world exploding at the seams and spewing its fallout into the past, present and the future. While the final act of this movie lacks the deep unifying coherence of AVENGERS ENDGAME (2019), it still presents imagery that is hauntingly elegiac and alluring.

It can be argued that there is something hollow at the core of this Comic Book opus. What with dazzling special effects wedged into every nook and cranny where plot and character count, the production values of this 200 million dollar movie nearly overshadows the gutsy and stirring dramatics provided by the leads. But Ron Livingston and Maribel Verdu as Barry Allen's parents, Henry and Nora Allen, insure that this does not happen in their pivotal scenes. There really is a story here, dodging between the pyrotechnics of multiversal mania thanks to the screenplay penned by Christina Hodson. The musical score of Benjamin Walifisch flits and soars and undergirds the big moments of wow with the agility of a hummingbird. Besides, when Danny Elfman brings Keaton out of the wings with his score, I'm sure you will find nobody complaining.

Anything or anyone I have left out or failed to mention will easily be found dashing to the rescue or reeling from an explosive cliffhanger in this extensively baroque version of the DC Universe. The producers and director cannot be said to have left any timeline unpeeled inside out while one iteration of The Flash makes a marathon out of eternal recurrence and Thomas Wolfe's notion that you can't go home again. This film is at times an unwieldy mass of significance and nostalgia as fulsome and cloying at some points as it is elegant and astonishing at others. Here and there it comes across as the last gasp of 20th Century Mythology, being consumed by the ghosts it vainly seeks to resurrect. That being said, it still suggests the scent of something new as pertains to The Hero's Journey.

The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)

The Sword Chooses...

[8/10 · 29 July 2023]

This is soul-stirring Kid's Stuff. While watching Louis Ashbourne Serkis go through his paces as Alex, the newly minted once and future King, I could not help but think of a young Roger Ebert; somehow cast in the role of a lifetime. Alex is a pudgy schoolboy without much physical prowess or chutzpah, who somehow manages through much reluctance and disavowal, to wield the ancient sword of Excalibur with the childish righteousness of uncorrupted youth. This is one character arc that is both entertaining and thrilling, while somehow made utterly believable in the hands of director Joe Cornish. You become privy to a ringside seat as Alex and his motley crew of Knights wage war against the demons of childhood.

This recapitulation of Arthurian legend becomes all the sweeter with Angus Imrie and Patrick Stewart, as they tag team to bring Merlin the Magician to life in teenage and adult versions. Leave it to the old conjurer to come into present time in the 21st Century, with new moves for aging backwards and an exotic and dubious Health Cocktail, as well as means to equip the realm with an army of warriors for a new age. The present film has much to recommend it. Translating many of the tropes and characters of this classic tale into the age of now must have been a daunting task. But writer-director Cornish presents an ingenious narrative, that makes you willing to skip over the potholes of plot and suspend your disbelief.

Movie Reviewer Mike Brooks mentioned that one of his STRAY THOUGHTS concerned why Alex was not shown knighting any of the adults into the army he was training to pit against the Mortes Milles or Warrior Demons of Morganna. However, anyone vaguely remembering their years of adolescence will most likely recall a moment in time when kids develop that 'us against them' mentality regarding adults. It was a quantum leap to see the lead character Alex turn the local school bullies Tom Taylor as Lance and Rhiannna Dorris as Kaye into allies, almost inculcating the tenets and principles of non-violence. But the forces of darkness are often intuited by the young as the forces of the adult world. I think the cinematography of Bill Pope and the musical score of Electric Wave Bureau, vividly elucidates the struggle of Alex and his middle school knights, as they valiantly battle the powers of compromise, disillusionment, and corruption marshaled with ferocious and terrifying passion by Rebecca Ferguson as the evil Morganna.

The scenes where Alex explains his mission to his hastily recruited Army of Middle Schoolers, and then proceeds to train them is reminiscent of moments in SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), with amusing highlights since these are, after all, kids. Referring again to the comment made by Mike Brooks; it would have been interesting to see Morganna defeated and somehow converted into the role of ally and friend. However, I am aware that such a move might have put the suspension of disbelief in danger of snapping like a rubber band. I have witnessed this happening in films like THE COLOR OF NIGHT (1994) and a Kung-Fu movie, and it is a horrible thing to experience and behold. The conversion of Morganna over to the light side of the Force for the Future is an idea probably best left for a possible sequel.

The whole course of the narrative feels like a cross between the Harry Potter series and THE LORD OF THE RINGS saga. Alex makes a plausible transition from sheltered childhood to shared community responsibility, while taking his classmates along for the quest. Merlin in youthful and more mature guises, manages the tests of character, the themes and the moral of the story with adroitness and aplomb. This story becomes a scarifying ride in dodgem cars while our youths end up battling the monsters of their wildest nightmares. I found this to be a formidable and winning coming-of-age tale that brings it all home in a rewrite of Camelot for a new millennium.

All Hail The Kids!

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

There goes the Mister Rogers Neighborhood...

[9/10 · 6 June 2023]

This film is saturated with the magic that was MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD (1968-2001). It still airs regularly on PBS, by the way. Like many of my generation, I often watched him in passing, but as I got older considered his shows kids stuff. Which was precisely the case. Mister Rogers was that surrogate parent or guardian who seemed to me, more times than I can count, to show up at just the right time when you were puzzled or disgusted about your relationships with your parents or your classmates and provided you with a time out whereby you could bask in the warm glow of sanity that was his show.

I have to agree with Arnold White of the National Review that probably more interest in the religious origins of Mister Rogers approach to meeting the needs of his audience would have not been out of place. He graduated with high honors from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1962 with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. As an ordained minister he chose to do his ministry with children and families through television rather than as the pastor of a church. This proved to be a pioneering mission that was ongoing for thirty-five years. While no mention is made of his religious background, through the knowing direction of Marielle Heller it is easy to deduce that the Neighborhood of Make-Believe is Fred Rogers church and his television viewers his parishioners.

That's how this film comes across to me. It is Mister Rogers taking us to church with children's songs, music and hand puppets peopling a world and a kingdom of the imagination for our amusement. That is the spell and illusion that Rogers teases us about with a twinkling eye. Tom Hanks captures with disarming ease the holy world that Rogers embodied while for all intents and purposes producing nothing more than a show for kids. There is something profound going on in the wings and center stage with everyday at home naturalness and innocence that to a disillusioned adult can seem too good to be true.

Matthew Rhys as Lloyd Vogel is having none of this cutesy pie stuff. He wants to unmask this facade of childlike curiosity and empathy and discover and expose the 'real' Fred Rogers for the piece he has been tasked to write that will appear in ESQUIRE magazine. But Rogers does wonder how he got that cut on his nose. The trolley does not begin to move until he opens a window upon THAT. Seems Lloyd has been having it out with his father, Jerry Vogel, whose tragic arc is painstakingly portrayed by Chris Cooper. Lloyd wanted to get his 400 word article back to his editor, Ellen, as played with verve by Christine Lahti, but he can't seem to maneuver the minister to a bar for a couple of drinks and a booth to use as a confessional. The last thing he intends to do is to take Rogers' television personality at face value.

Throughout the course of the story it becomes clear that Hanks as Fred Rogers is not pretending to be something he is not; but indeed, is beckoning Lloyd and his father Jerry, to transform themselves into something they always were; loving members of a family. Rogers proves with gentle deftness to be eminently qualified as healer in chief, to the endearing gratitude of Lloyd's wife Dorothy as heart-achingly emoted by Wendy Makeena and other related members of the Vogel clan. Life goes on as it is known to do, and the film scripted by Michael Fitzeman-Blue and Nick Harpster rings true to the core values of the television show. The revelation of the story is that Fred Rogers was never viewing Life through rose-colored glasses, but amazingly confronting it straight on with a different set of tools. Empathy, compassion, curiosity, creativity and humor for one thing, and all without becoming so cynical and bitter that he could not ask for a fellow traveler who was close to God to say a little prayer for him, too.

Seven Samurai (1954)

A Harvest both bitter and sweet...

[10/10 · 31 May 2023]

This is a profound work of Art. Comparable in its turgidity of ideas to Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), and also Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968). Known for quite some time as a kind of Japanese GONE WITH THE WIND (1939); it is nonetheless thoroughly grounded in the Zen and Buddhist principles of the Oriental Mind. Here once again Akira Kurosawa demonstrates he is a Master of Cinema, seemingly unconcerned with pandering to the tastes of his public. He takes his time to tell his story; and the entire narrative evokes the decorum of a Chinese tea ceremony somehow. But still and all we are treated to a tale that is richly seeded with character insights even as its nearly three and a half hours ebbs and flows at a fast-paced, breakneck speed.

Whenever I see Takashi Shimura enter the scene for the first time as the capably strategic and yet spiritually honorable ronin Kambei Shimada, I cannot help but think of one of my first mentors from my teenage years. Bob Wallick was his name and he was a man of great gusto. He loved people and possessed a deep, penetrating insight into human psychology and human motivation. He was on the cusp of some kind of philosophical awakening when I first encountered him. I cannot say how far he got with that; but every time I view Kambei Shimada's marvelous way with people and his ability to handle, manage and lead men, I always find myself thinking of him.

This is a film that is more like a meditation than a story. A quality it shares with Kubrick's science fiction masterpiece about the worship of tools and machines. But whereas the open-ended Kubrick epic is told from the austere and scientifically detached viewpoint of an alien race documentary style, Kurosawa weaves his tale through the viewpoints of the conquerors and the conquered alike. This evenhanded account of victims and victimizers presents us with peasants kowtowing and groveling as they glean the human parade in town for professional warriors qualified to save their village from rape and pillage. The samurai class they appeal to can barely conceal their contempt for these farmers cravenly ways, but without warlords to serve in new wars, wander through the villages as unemployed professionals. The farmers and peasants harbor no special love for them, as it is their ilk that have oppressed and subjected them to numerous atrocities in the past.

But hard times have fallen upon peasants and samurai alike, and as a histrionic wannabe samurai Kikuchiyo, ably played by Toshiro Mifune, rants and rages and expostulates, the time has finally come when they must work together for their mutual survival, despite a deep seated resentment and hatred between the two castes. How this all eventually pans out between the two groups; the one destined to endure and return to sowing and reaping, while the other steadfastly observes the code of a way of life that in the end is fated to die out, humbly becomes the stuff of legend. This film is a serious consideration concerning the viability of the use of force in settling disputes between warriors turned criminals and hapless village folk, untutored in the methods of war and community defense. The themes of crime and punishment, injustice and justice, war and peace are spelled out and reveal themselves in the sudden eruption of the emotional impulses of the characters themselves. Peace and freedom are demonstrated to be attainable, but often at a great price.

Any African American male would easily become absorbed in a story where a master warrior plans out in meticulous detail how to repel and vanquish interlopers soon to come thundering over the crest of a nearby hill with nothing but raping and pillaging on their minds. I remember taking notes about the characters, especially the seven samurai, while lying on my stomach next to my girl friend when I first saw this movie on PBS. The irony that grew stronger and stronger as the narrative progressed was no matter how ably Kambei assembled his team or logically managed the defense of the peasants against the marauding bandits, the irrational nature of armed conflict itself proved to erupt at the oddest times to reveal War time and again as the basic stuff of insanity. This is all encoded in character actions, reactions, and specific choices made in the heat of emotion and battle.

The characters are all unforgettable. I will mention a few, knowing full well I will not be doing full justice to the entire ensemble. Seiji Miyaguchi as the master swordsman Kyuzo is the stone-faced standout and the object of hero worship from young rich boy Katsushiro as played by Isa Kimura. Katsushiro is also enjoying a mentor-student relationship with Kambei and a budding romance with Keiko Tsushima as the peasant girl Shino, which ruffles and ultimately proves to violate and breach certain conventions and traditions between warrior and peasant castes. Minoru Chiaki as the affable and engaging samurai Heihachi Hayashida makes a memorable impression helping maintain morale with his charm and humor. Yoshio Inaba as Gorobei Katayama proves to be a skilled archer, and ends up acting as Kambei's second-in-command. Daisuke Kato as Shichiroji, rounds out the seven, being Kambei's old friend and lieutenant from past battles.

This issue deserves mention; knowing how to fight proves to make a real difference of distinction between the samurai and the peasants. The peasants see themselves as no match for the armed and armored bandits, who every season raid their harvests and leave them with next to nothing. Lacking a defensive wing among them, we find the villagers often begging and groveling for favor with facial expressions alternating between terror and various shades of fear. The samurai, by contrast, being knowledgable in combat and warfare, can comport themselves with a bit more dignity and freely assert themselves in outbursts of anger and antagonism owing to an adopted code of honor involving the sword and arms. The humble, cowed countenances of the villagers suggest a marked contrast from the martial pride and reserved sense of confidence and strength apparent in the behavior of the samurai. The remarkable thing is how the peasants endure to sow their seeds for the future, while the machinations of Kambei and crew meet with unexpected and regrettable and yet also predictable, devastation.

This film earns the highest rating from me because it compels this reviewer to recount in detail the characterizations of the peasants as the victimized class or caste. The culture clash between the honorably pugnacious ronin and the timorously obsequious farmers, praying to be spared the plunder of yet another season's harvest, provides the absorbing context for a human drama just as exciting as the flash of swords, whizz of arrows and roar of muskets. Who can forget Kokuten Kodo as Gisaku, who grants the harried villagers his sage advice at the outset of the exposition of the story. Yoshio Tsuchiya as Rikichi is a villager who expresses much of the pent-up, hot-headed rage that apparently has been oppressed out of many in the community. When he unexpectedly confronts his wife as an unfortunate spoil of bandit wars, it becomes gut-wrenchingly clear that there is more to this conflict than 'X'ing out circles on a battle plan. The wife of Rikichi is poignantly played by Yukiko Shimazaki. One of the more subtle insights of the story is presented by Keiko Tsushima as Shino, the farmer Manzo's daughter. Manzo as played by Kamatari Fujiwara, has Shino disguised as a boy to protect her from the rapaciousness, real and imagined, of principally the samurai as well as the bandits. Bokuzen Hidari as Yohei, a miserably timid old villager, has been compared by critic Michael Jeck to Lincoln Theodore Monore Andrew Perry as a kind of Japanese version of Stephen Fetchit. But I find in some respects, this association to be a facile oversimplification. An oppressed person often desires and searches for that one clarifying moment of dignity that may have been largely absent from their lives. I found it wonderful to behold Yohei having his moment; as fleeting as it proved to be. Yoshio Kosugi plays one of the farmers dispatched to the local town to hire the willing samurai. He more than distinguishes himself as a member of the supporting cast and background characters.

The influence of this film as the very model of the GROUP PROTAGONIST plot pattern is far-reaching across genres as diverse as the Western, Men at War movies and Science Fiction. This movie can be endlessly analyzed from several different approaches without exhausting its potential to inspire insight and to cause new reflections previously not considered. Even while writing this review, it occurred to me that there is a force in this story that strives to achieve a status 'beyond category', as Duke Ellington once advocated, and obliquely and brilliantly achieves it. This Zen puzzle of upholding caste and jumping caste and crossing the lines of caste is as wild and wholly and bleak and dark and life affirming as any of Jean Valjean's wanderings through the underground of the Parisian subway system. Kurosawa's exploration of the virtues of War and Peace will certainly do to ride the river with until such a time as College Students are cradling and carrying their textbooks to class to earn their bachelor degrees and masters degrees and Doctorates in Non-Violence.

The Two Popes (2019)

A Shift in Power from God...

[8/10 · 19 April 2023]

A fascinating film on several accounts. Indeed, as one reviewer commented, this is a buddy movie about two men shouldering a spiritual call of tremendous responsibility. This intimate, and in many respects, amusing take on the trials and drama of the papacy comes cloaked appropriately in its own trappings of gravitas. The grandeur of these religious environs offers its own attraction. While not a tour of the Holy Land, there is hardly a pair of first class Welsh actors anywhere who would pass on a chance to emote in Vatican City, or what we behold as the Sistine Chapel and the Room of Tears.

This biographical drama, transplanted by writer Anthony McCarten from his play to film, gives us Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce at the top of their form. Hopkins plays Pope Benedict XVI with seemingly effortless genteel subtlety while Pryce becomes largely a surrogate for the viewer or audience. Many of his gestures and reactions are how we would imagine ourselves were we in his shoes. There is no doubt as to who is The People's Pope in this Holy Odd Couple. The fact that Pryce is a near dead ringer for Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, soon to be Pope Francis, doesn't hurt either. But Hopkins is no straight man; and holds his own with quiet reserve and authority.

Pope Francis gets most of the back story and the audience's sympathies. This is probably the only serious drawback to this impressive acting tour de force. Nearly all the flashbacks prepare us to experience Cardinal Bergoglio's ascendancy to one of the highest spiritual offices in the world. However, it would have been intriguing to see flashbacks of Pope Benedict's conflicted prior involvement with the Hitler Youth Movement and his experiences as a German infantryman. This interaction and interfacing of flashbacks would have given the entire story a darker edge and undertone for what is obviously a lighter, more open and humanizing presentation of two powerful world leaders.

The cinematography by Cesar Charlone is bright and spacious and rightfully respectful of its austere surroundings. It has a thoughtful, meandering pace at 125 minutes and a solid supporting cast that includes the likes of Lisandro Fiks as Father Franz Jalics, Sidney Cole as Cardinal Turkson, German de Silva as Father Yorio and Maria Ucedo as Esther Ballestrino. The insider's view of Vatican City and the political deliberations of the Cardinals are edited by Fernando Stutz with an accent on probing for character insight. This is particularly noticeable when Hopkins and Pryce do their bits of business among their peers and in the Room for Tears. The reconstructed replica of the Sistine Chapel is also a marvel, and makes as picturesque a setting as you could ask for on the way to confession.

When the pontiffs, present and future, bare their souls about sins of omission and commission, it makes for startling and stirring moments. There are few things as compelling as powerful men contemplating their failure of judgment and moral reaction. This last reveal is presented with dignity and restraint, but it might have been interesting to see more vivid imagery about what Pope Benedict has to tell. Once again, this is a judgement call on the part of director Fernando Meirelles, which looking at the slew of nominations this biopic garnered, appears to have paid off. This light-hearted approach to two dedicated clerics wrestling with the responsibilities of power and the power of God calling as well as Faith at length proves to be fresh and endearing.

Soul (2020)

The Piano Player in The Great Beyond...

[8/10 · 15 April 2023]

The first Pixar film to offer a black lead, Disney gives director Peter Docter full rein to explore the "Great Beyond" and the "Great Before" wherever souls may find themselves. Jamie Foxx plays pianist Joe Gardner, teaching music part-time at a middle school while nursing a full-time dilemma. He earns two opportunities for full-time employment nearly simultaneously; the first is a full-time teaching position at the middle school and the second is a nightly gig with the jazz musician Dorothea Williams as voiced by Angela Bassett. The push and pull of contemplating his dream of becoming a jazz musician over and above accepting duties as a music teacher lands our hapless hero down a manhole where his soul separates from his body. It is the least propitious time to fall down and fall short and off the beaten path.

Naturally, Joe wants another turn at bat. But things are not that easy in the "Great Beyond." He gets tangled up, in more ways than one, with a soul named 22 as voiced by Tina Fey, who has lost that lovin' feeling and is searching for her spark. In an afterlife case of mistaken identity, Joe is assigned to mentor and train 22 who wants nothing to do with Earth. After attempting to escape, he winds up in the "Great Before:" where counselors who are all named Jerry work with mentor souls to prepare the unborn souls for life. But Joe finds 22 a handful; (or is that soulful?) and after dodges and jumps through the "Great Beyond" and the "Great Before", Joe and 22 go down the rabbit hole into "the zone", a dark trap for obsessed, lost souls.

Joe and 22 make it back to Earth, but still can't get that thing with bodies right. Each tooling around a model not ideally suited for them. There is an interesting drama generated between Joe and 22 about a soul's purpose versus its spark and one of the counselor souls attempts to clarify. But all Joe needs is a badge to get back to the Jazz Club, even if it's not his own. Joe discovers in an unsettling way there is more to Life than fulfilling your dreams. The thrill of helping another being find their spark can be fulfilling as well.

The cast is top notch; what with the likes of Phylicia Rashad as Joe's mother, insisting he best take a steady paycheck as a Music Teacher if he knows what's good for him; Wes Studi as one of the soul counselors and Rachel House as the worrisome statistician Terry who must must get the soul count right. This is a film that was four years in production and the painstaking attention to detail shows in every frame. Produced by Dana Murray for 150 million dollars, this 101 minute flick premiered at the BFI London Film Festival October 11th, 2020, and then went on to receive universal acclaim. After winning many accolades at the Oscars, British Film Academy and Golden Globe Awards among others; it was named one of the ten best films of 2020. Trent Raznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste also won the Oscar for Best Original Score.

The cinematography by Matt Aspbury and Ian Megibben is adventuresome and thought-provoking in a twee way. The influence of Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones and educator Johnetta Cole, as well as stars Questlove and Diggs, speaks well in highlighting the African American perspective. The editing of Kevin Nolting is as shifty and crisp as any jazz score and hits many of the right notes all the way to the end. This playful exposition on the origins of human personalities and the concept of determinism may tickle philosophical fancies, but still be light-hearted enough of a riff for kids. Even the spiritual billboard Moonwind, as voiced by Graham Norton, gives just the right amount of spice and soul.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

Down in the Black Bottom...

[9/10 · 11 April 2023]

"You gotta have a fist in your chest." -- Henrietta Epstein

Back in the day, when we were studying Fine Arts at the College for Creative Studies, we covered two of the renowned August Wilson's plays in the venerable Henrietta Epstein's Afro American Literature class. Those plays were FENCES, winner of the 1987 Pulitizer Prize for Drama, and JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE (1984), voted Best Play of the Year 1984-85 by the New York Drama Critic's Circle. We read both plays aloud scene for scene and act by act. Our class enjoyed playing the supporting and major characters in both. So I came to this film version of the award winning MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM expecting a lot and got it.

This was the third time around visiting with poet and playwright August Wilson. There are seven more plays in his Pittsburgh Cycle slated to find film time, according to Wilson enthusiast Denzel Washington, and I have a gut feeling the more his work finds its way into cinema, the better the presentations will become. Something like what happened with The Man With No Name Dollars trilogy. This present offering features sterling performances by Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. But this absorbing character study of the Blues musical scene almost single-handedly created by African Americans well earns its universal acclaim.

There is no doubt that one can easily quibble about the 'talkiness' of the drama as it makes its transition to the screen. But such is the nature of the beast when transferring works of the stage to cinematic posterity. No one would argue that the 'footlight magic' of the Theater has distinct and different features from the 'movie magic' of film. I remember with pleasure how soul stirring it was to listen to Ossie Davis doing his rendition of Walter Lee Younger on those vinyl spoken documentary records we so greatly coveted. The power of his voice swept you away, but this was more an aural pleasure than a visual one. While the wiry, cat-like grace and kinetic energy of Sidney Poitier playing the same character on film is something I would not trade for anything.

Viola Davis as Ma Rainey, the sole African American to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, further cements her reputation among the greatest actors of the 21st Century with the power and range of her performance. Chadwick Boseman goes out on top with an unforgettable performance that places him favorably between James Dean and John Garfield. The basic conflict is still there; the weary and beleaguered black woman finds herself masculinized and forced to undergo that glandular transformation into the latest edition of the Big Mama, while an intelligent, creative and forceful black man finds himself in a struggle for power apparently against a system designed to gradually emasculate him while all the time ostensibly offering opportunities of equality. Glynn Turman as Toledo, Colman Domingo as Cutler, and Michael Potts as Slow Drag admirably serve up the banter hot and heavy, attempting to use the dozens and ghetto humor to rein in the hot-headed Levee and settle him down. But not even the sexual favors of Taylor Paige as Dussie Mae can slow this young man's roll.

Before he knows it, envious of Ma Rainey's exhibitionistic power dance, Levee finds himself trapped within the narrowing confines of his own rage and angst. This is beautifully captured by cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler and is the least stagey part of this piece. The scenes involving Dusan Brown as Sylvester working with Ma Rainey and the rest of the band in the recording studio while Jonny Coyne as Mel Sturdyvant and Jeremy Shamos as Irvin gnash their teeth and flounder around at Prima Donna Rainey's beck and call, is some of the finest ensemble acting you will see anywhere. This is not the New Cinema, as the Black Man cornered and trapped in a system and a world he never made and willing to kill, i.e., adopt the tactics of his oppressor to get out of it is pretty old hat. But this story about Ma Rainey, as with Clint Eastwood's INVICTUS (2009), left me wanting to know more about this Mother of the Blues.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)

Revolution in the Wind...

[9/10 · 9 April 2023]

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminister Fuller

This is an important film. It is actually a masterpiece of the New Cinema and suggests the path not taken that will lead toward an African Aesthetic beyond Blaxsploitation. Take note that I solved for this successfully in a Photo Album on my Facebook Page. However, here is an example of a peaceful revolutionary which is not the stuff of fantasy or fiction, but thoroughly anchored in real life and fact. This is a rich vein of cinematic development that I am sure will prove to be inexhaustible.

The height of the thematic contents cannot be disputed. Maxwell Simba as William Kamkwamba gives a convincing portrayal of a humble and sympathetic character looking for ways to use his own special gifts to help the community in his village. Anyone can relate to his simple desire to contribute solutions of survival that will benefit himself, his friends, his family and his village. That he succeeds against all obstacles and odds is a tale of high adventure celebrating the triumph of mind over matter. A hero who helps save his village through the ingenious connection and application of new ideas rather than aggressive political action becomes a cherished breath of fresh air and an inspiration in the art culture of the world.

This is a groundbreaking movie that postulates a hero who is not contemplating his own inner angst and how to prevent it from manifesting disastrous consequences. We also have here a young man who is not attempting to win out through the exercise of physical prowess in the arenas of Sex and Violence. The higher theme and scheme of this film suggests an exciting new direction in which filmmakers may adventure. This is of particular note for the Black Filmmakers who may feel compelled to cater to public tastes in an effort to go mainstream. The onus is on those filmmakers who go this route to make it dramatic enough and exciting enough to compete with the explosions of franchised blockbusters.

Screenwriter and Director Chiwetel Ejiofor has stumbled either knowingly or unknowingly into that territory where cinema distinguishes itself from all other arts. Many have come to appreciate its unique value as an umbrella for the arts itself, but there is one distinguishing feature of moviemaking that has been staring everyone in the face that has yet to be fully explored or exploited. Hopefully, this particular film will give a hint toward an exciting insight. There are several scenes between Ejiofor and Simba as father and son that are quite poignant, but the whole cast, which includes Joseph Marcell, formerly the Butler on the sitcom THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR (1990-1996) as Chief Wimbe, produce an ensemble effort of verisimilitude and dignity. Aissa Maiga as Agnes Kamkwamba, wife of Ejiofor's Trywell Kamkwamba, comes across as an Ebony version of Sophia Loren with no effort at all. But the scenes of Maxwell Simba as William Kamkwamba, rising to the summit on the high tide of his own ideas backed by the sensible support of his community are the most vividly memorable to my mind.

The cinematography of Dick Pope gives the viewer a good sense of the enivironment and a visceral sense of the land features in Malawi. Antonio Pinto uses his musical score to underline and highlight the important moments in the narrative with subtlety and nuanced spirit. This is an auspicious directorial debut for Ejiofor and places him in the front ranks of important filmmakers. This film gently posits the question of what kind of world would you like for your children to have as they grow up. The answer it provides for the viewer is instructive, inventive and finally soulfully inspiring.

Carrie (1976)

Prom Night Becomes the Witching Hour!

[8/10 · 8 February 2023]

Back when we were just putting the finishing touches on the American Bicentennial, there came this strange film about teenage angst. America was just beginning to recover from the racial, sexual and social angst-ridden Sixties and responding with a stiffening conservative stance. So director Brian De Palma takes us into the showers of a bunch of teenage female gym students Boticelli style. One of them, poignantly portrayed by the renowned Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, makes a surprising discovery about her own sexuality. This first time experience is met with ridicule and laughing derision as she is pelted, in a subtle reference to stoning, with various kinds of napkins and pads.

This is a perverse deconstruction of the Coming-of-Age story.

There are other examples of author Stephen King exploring the lives of characters with supernatural abilities. Consider the empath and healer John Coffey played by Michael Clarke Duncan in THE GREEN MILE (1999), or Christopher Walken cast as the clairvoyant Johnny Smith in the DEAD ZONE (1983). But as far as I can tell, this story whose outline King's wife fished out of the garbage can was the first to make its way to the cinema. The shy and diffident teen Carrie White proved to be the first King character to discover that her extraordinary ability could prove to be more a curse than a blessing.

Once upon a time I heard that if there's anything worse than the state where one thinks everyone is out to get you, it is the state where everyone IS out to get you. The narrative of this film veers more in the direction of the latter than the former. You feel for the heroine and secretly root for her to somehow find a way to rise above her victimization. Betty Buckley plays Miss Collins, the compassionate and caring Gym Teacher who offers Carrie a route to social redemption and salvation. However, the director, cast and crew weave a spell of intangible foreboding doom that slowly and painstakingly develops as the narrative progresses.

Thanks to the fanatical ministrations of a creepily religious mother portrayed with haunting brilliance by Piper Laurie as Margaret White, Carrie is hectored and bullied into experiencing her sexuality as something dirty and sinful and flowing from a source of supernatural evil. The fascinating thing is how Margaret White's self-enforced sexual repression colors and warps her own perception of spirituality. We can easily see how this affects Carrie as she comes to grips with her dawning sexuality. We also become vaguely aware that just as Carrie's mother has not found a sane and acceptable avenue for the expression of her sexual disposition, her daughter has no clue as to how to express the rage accumulating from her entrapment in the role of high school misfit and outsider. The viewer senses that this unexpressed energy has to go someplace, but can't put their finger on exactly where it should or will go.

The where, of course, is Prom Night, which proves to be a brilliant reticulation of suspense and a chilling set piece for director Brian De Palma. Thanks to the music of Pino Donaggio and the cinematography of Mario Tosi, we watch as fellow classmates; the likes of which include Amy Irving as Sue Snell before she became Mrs. Spielberg, William Katt as Tommy Ross before he became THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO (1981-1983), John Travolta as Billy Nolan before he danced his way to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977), and Nancy Allen as Chris Hargensen before she became backup for RoboCop (1987), gently disarm Carrie's incredulousness and bring her and her dream date center stage as the Prom Queen and King. It is from this point onward that the teenage bliss of a dream come true unravels into a fantastic nightmare that takes no prisoners. Instead of witnessing a young teenager finally winning the social acceptance of her peers before launching from this formative experience into society at large, we find ourselves the riveted viewers of a benighted adolescent girl passing her final examination as a witch before matriculation into the graduating class of the damned. The transition of Carrie White from a gushing, giggling ingenue to a demon goddess from Outer Space is an indelible image that perhaps only an actress of Sissy Spacek's stature could convey with such arresting fascination.

But as author King observed while sitting in an audience watching this filmed adaptation of his novel, this definitely came to be known as a tale of a young lady who after this Prom Night, "-ain't never gonna be right!', as he heard one fellow moviegoer alarmingly exclaim...

The Exorcist (1973)

"THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!"

[10/10 · 3 February 2023]

What can you say about a movie that causes people to vomit, have strokes and heart attacks, and literally drives folks up the aisles screaming in panic? Are we talking about a work of cinema or a diabolical piece of aesthetics that harms more than it heals? Billy Graham was quoted as saying he wouldn't watch this movie as he felt the devil was in every frame. Back when it first came out, when I would bring up this film as a topic of discussion, there were those who wanted to immediately change the subject. At the outset, this tale of demonic possession caused its own ripples of controversy that whirlpooled into the status of one of the scariest movies ever made.

Perhaps the horrors of Life are given undue emphasis in a barbarism attempting to civilize itself. I remember that is how one American philosopher put it. Perhaps the process of catharsis is best served when salutary consequences are considered first and foremost. There is much to be said for this point of view. But as temptations go, I have always found it difficult to resist a good old-fashioned Devil's Tale. Whether Life is viewed as a blessing or a curse is always up to the individual, but I have always found any story that matches the wits of mortal man with a supernatural being tremendously attractive.

Max von Sydow as the titular character AKA Father Lankester Merrin is absolutely spot on and a casting choice from Heaven. The role he plays here so completely resonates with his turn as Jesus the Christ in THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965), where he squares off with Death in Lazarus' tomb and wins his own with resurrection; and even his earlier portrayal of the disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block, who returns from the Crusades to challenge Death to a game of Chess via Ingmar Bergman; that when he makes his entrance near its end; it all makes for inspired perfect sense as our spiritual warrior once again prepares to do battle against dark forces for souls that hang in the balance. The names may have changed but the game is still the same. You have heard perhaps people declare after viewing an actor's performance that they would be hard put to imagine anyone else embodying that role. That is how I feel about what Max von Sydow did with Father Merrin here. He along with Jason Miller as Father/ Dr. Damien Karras, S. J. break the Fourth Wall in a Battle Royale between Faith and Knowledge the like of which I doubt I'm likely to ever see again. It is one of those magic moments that rank up there with the last episode of the television series THE PRISONER (1967), and my mentor Pierre Rener ordering the lighting technicians to turn on the lights as he marched out of the wings Stage Left to tell the audience to mind their manners and pipe down or there would be Hell to pay, while yet and still seeming seamlessly to be a part of the performance of THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH he was directing. It is that moment where a member or members of the audience become so involved with the drama before them or between the covers of a book that the artificial walls between reality and illusion temporarily break down, as was the case during the performance of a one-act play of mine entitled UNIT-E.

Cass Tech graduate Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil along with Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil; give once in a lifetime performances as both the perplexed, horrified, and beleaguered mother and the ill-fated daughter whose soul becomes the playground and battlefield for a demon bent on devouring her with evil, while subjecting her to the tortures of the damned. William Friedkin, fresh off his success with THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), succeeded here in bringing both a gritty realism and a documentary feel to the heights and depths of this troubling event of spiritual trauma as drama. Lee J. Cobb is also excellently memorable as Lieutenant William F. Kinderman, finding it alarmingly difficult to face the facts of a murder that appears to have a supernatural basis and a perpetrator who is both innocent and guilty at the same time. Jack MacGowran as Burke Dennings and Mercedes MacCambridge as The Voice of Pazuzu, King of the Demons, round out a notable cast conveying the story in an unforgettably convincing way. Cloaked in Hollywood sensationalism, similar to that found in Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST(2004); it is nonetheless a thought-provoking and soul churning piece of cinema, with one of the most highly suspenseful scenes I have ever seen in a movie theater, sans the elegance of the ending in Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO (1958).

Whether or not the artistry displayed in this updated version of a good old-fashioned Devil's Tale is enough to justify the controversy it generated, both in a positive and negative sense, is probably something each viewer must determine and judge for themselves. I cannot remember when I have ever seen the battle between Good and Evil as starkly represented as it is here, but I would have to agree that THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM (1944) this is not. There is a malevolent dread that seems to permeate the opening scenes of this picture that as an energy appears to release itself; albeit through the most grisly means, by the time the story ends. I remember attempting to read the novel, but could not finish it as I felt like I was in the presence of an evil spirit and somehow colluding with it. Be that as it may, whether this movie is spiritual pornography or spiritual adventure, or perhaps a bit of both, it seems to my mind to be a horror story in the truest sense.

Not as a Stranger (1955)

The Healer cometh wanting and lacking...

[7/10 · 24 January 2023]

This movie speaks volumes about the Mitchum mystique. On that account alone it is worth watching. Some people just look the part and this is evident no matter what anyone pontificates. Many have complained that Bob Mitchum was miscast as the idealistic Doctor Lucas Marsh as surely as Olivia de Havilland was miscast as his put upon and overly tolerant wife, Kristina Hedvigson. But I did not find this to be the case.

Long ago I am sure Mitchum realized that people saw him as their idea of the dominant and strong man. Since people were so eager to project this image onto him, he shrugged his shoulders and went along for the ride. Why not? The money was good and all that was required was that he show up and hit his marks every time the director told him to go here or do that. After a day's work of showing everybody he knew his lines and could handle the physical stuff, including sucking face with some beautiful actress, he could go boozing with his buddies and newly made acting friends after work. No need to sweat it and make this out to be some kind of Federal case.

Now you have some idea of what it would be like to adopt the Mitchum mindset. The earned ennui of an incorrigible teenager who grew and developed the imposing physique of a mesomorph. A bored youth wandering the streets looking for something interesting to do and riding the rails all over the country just for the hell of it. An aimless drifter who shunned authority of any kind, but who was only too glad to graduate from not knowing where his next meal was coming from to the healthier prospects of the next good thing from time to time.

Early on, Mitchum discovered that he conveyed an air of physical intimidation whether or not he so intended. When he takes advantage of this quality, you get films like CAPE FEAR (1962) and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955). When he plays against this natural quality, you get films like HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON (1957), THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY (1959), and the SUNDOWNERS (1960).

I have said all this to prepare my argument for why I feel Mitchum is uniquely suited for this role. Even more so than a more sensitive actor such as Montgomery Clift or perhaps Kirk Douglas. Here in this story Mitchum's physically imposing and stoic presence proves to be the character's greatest weakness. It becomes obvious in the encounter Lucas Marsh has with Lon Chaney Jr., as his alcoholic father Job Marsh, that the elder Marsh's observation concerning both his son's qualification as well as his shortcoming as a healer is more or less correct. Lucas does have the mind and kinesiological gift to be a highly successful physician. This is something that you would not immediately assume from such an obvious 'physical type' as Mitchum who seems more suited for a role as a boxer or a football player or coach. It is intriguing to watch him struggle against type, so to speak, and summon up the humility and compassion necessary to work in tandem with his almost austere self control.

This brings the wonderful Olivia de Havilland as nurse Kristina Hedvigson into the frame. Whenever first time director Stanley Kramer and cinematographer Franz Planer focus on these two in closeup you understand the old adage a picture is worth a thousand words. The legendary de Havilland warmth and compassion cinches and guarantees Doctor Marsh's success in his field. We see some of his most stirring accomplishments in her presence. Blinded by his burning desire to reach the full potential of his ability as a healer; it is startling to see Marsh fail to realize that his wife is that mysterious 'X' factor that supplies and resolves his deficiencies of character. It comes out during a heated exchange that he does not regard her as his intellectual equal, when it is also quite apparent that he is not her equal in emotional development and the attainments of character. Overworked almost to the point of exhaustion, Marsh fails to sense when his wife has become pregnant, even though he is fully trained as a doctor to be aware of and to recognize these symptoms.

Mitchum has always been an actor who expresses emotion better through actions than words. It's the Mitchum Method of exercising manly virtue. When the various cases come to him we see Doctor Marsh adroitly handling them with the genial sensibility of a garage mechanic. But whenever de Havilland as Nurse Hedvigson assists him, the screen crackles with the busy electricity of people doing something constructive to make things better for those seeking their care. That is the one serious drawback of this film. Despite a star-studded cast that includes the likes of Frank Sinatra as fellow Doctor Alfred Boone, Gloria Grahame as Harriet Lang the socialite siren and temptress for Marsh, along with Broderick Crawford as Dr. Aarons and Charles Bickford as Dr. Dave W. Rinkleman; mentors to Marsh both in medical school and in general practice; it is the scenes of Mitchum and de Havilland with their patients that are the most exciting and endearing. Seeing the main characters through the eyes of swelling ranks of patients with all sorts of complaints, maladies, illnesses and injuries would have accelerated the pace and made this medical drama one for the ages. A kind of CANTERBURY TALES for the medical profession.

As it stands, despite this missed opportunity, this is the film where Mitchum demonstrates that he is more than a good looking Hollywood Hunk. When he breaks down and cries after his father's death, even though we only see his back; it feels real. The same goes for when he is thrown off his rhythm by the incompetence of an assisting physician and makes a fatal mistake that costs him the life of his mentor. When he returns home to his wife in tears, frustrated, confused, and distraught, this is Mitchum as emotional as you will ever see him in a good way so enjoy it while you can. Meanwhile, excuse this couple as they close the front door on us to let the healing begin...

Misery (1990)

The Life and Death of Misery...

[8/10 · 14 January 2023]

This is another movie that could easily excel as a stage play. The focus is on two main characters deeply involved with each other in a dialogue rich context, while depending on a foundation of a small set of supporting characters. This calls to mind a few other memorable films. There was PHONE BOOTH (2002), which you will find a review of in TOWARD A NEW CINEMA. OLEANNA (1994), also comes to mind based on an actual David Mamet stage play and, of course, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981) is a different kettle of fish with a lighter heart. But few pairings can match the horrific emotional fireworks that Kathy Bates and James Caan generate in this tense, riveting Stephen King tale of fan obsession.

This is James Caan's version of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) with all the Gothic trimmings courtesy of author King. Caan displays the subtlety, self-restraint, fear, dread, and mystified terror beyond the ken of the macho code of Frank the jewel heist master in THIEF (1981), or the hotheaded ferocity of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (1972). Here Caan as the author Paul Sheldon is given an acceptable opportunity to portray a masculinely dominant male of subtle strength trapped in extraordinary circumstances beyond his control. I'm sure that as director Rob Reiner was perusing and reviewing the entire body of work of the Master of Suspense, he certainly grokked that this was one of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite themes. But in learning from the best, Reiner develops a style and an approach to terror, horror and suspense that is wholly his own.

Kathy Bates is unforgettable as Annie Wilkes, the former trained nurse, who heroically rescues her favorite writer from a bone-jarring car crash in a blizzard covered ditch. When he regains consciousness, she is there hovering over him like a grim-faced angel of doom. She gushes to him that she's his biggest fan. The following scenes bear this out with a vengeance. Kathy Bates as Annie is a chameleon of female obsession. She is at times a hardworking mother figure, a grateful, gushing little sister, a jealous and envious girl friend, a hen-pecking wife, and finally a frustrated single woman desperately doing everything she can to murder her own loneliness and the diminishing opportunity to fulfill all of the above feminine roles in a wholesome, healthy and sane manner.

This is not cinema for the faint of heart. It would be hard to imagine anyone else besides the granite-jawed Caan being able to sustain the kind of physical damage Paul Sheldon undergoes and withstands in hopes of living to write another day. It is also hard to believe he turned down the role that Jack Nicholson performed to Oscar winning success in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975). But no matter how gruesome things get in this film, and as you'll discover, there is plenty of that; it is considerably toned down from what Stephen King provided for his readers to discover in his novel. It's a bleak story about a novelist roused back to consciousness and forced to stoke the fires of creative inspiration in the pit of hell at the behest of his number one fan.

The ensemble that rounds out the cast is as illustrious as it gets. What with the likes of Lauren Bacall playing Marcia Sindell, his literary agent, Richard Farnsworth as Buster the local Sheriff, and Frances Sternhagen as his wife among others. It would have been so easy to go over the top with this subject matter and surrender to the temptation to present it as high camp. Just giving Misery the Pig more scenes and screen time would have accomplished this task nicely. Instead, we have a gripping believable cautionary tale about A. Conan Doyle's worst nightmare. Maybe it's less about Love, and more about bipolar disorder and post traumatic stress syndrome mixed with sadism, but when you don't have visions and fantasies of Romance to retreat into; it just might be that all you have left is misery.

It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)

A party for unexpected guests...

[9/10 · 13 January 2023]

This is a fascinating film that deals in a wry way with the theme of RAGS TO RICHES. When wise and resourceful hobos match wits with the worldly rich, save me a ringside seat. Al Jolson sang and strutted his way to glory as the hobo Bumper in the musical comedy HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM! (1933), almost fifteen years before our present tale; and three years later William Powell would don the sacred vagrant vestments in a little number called MY MAN GODFREY (1936). Those in the know may well recall my earlier review of that movie in the first volume of TOWARD A NEW CINEMA. But in our version now under discussion about the lowly providing edification to those on high, Victor Moore as Aloysius T. McKeever sneaks into a boarded-up Fifth Avenue mansion for a seasonal visit. He knows full well that it belongs to the second richest man in the world, Michael J. O'Connor, as played with gruff and sophisticated amiability by the veteran comic character actor Charles Ruggles.

But no matter. Assuming the coast is clear with O'Connor wintering at his Virginia estate as per usual, McKeever turns on the lights and prepares for a pleasant Christmas and winter with provisions from a well-stocked larder. Unfortunately it isn't long before McKeever finds himself the reluctant host of unexpected guests. An evicted G. I. Jim Bullock in a surprise role for Don DeFore as a leading man, becomes himself an unwanted house guest at first as the victim of urban renewal O'Connor style. After that, it becomes more the merrier for Jim and his war buddies as well as estranged family members with no place to go for holiday cheer. McKeever is, for the most part, urbane and unflappable, as he manages the growing chaos of unwanted boarders. But this is just the start of the twists and turns and goings on at the Fifth Avenue mansion.

Soon it becomes apparent that poverty stemming from the lack and want of material means, while often requiring urgent attention, sometimes pales beside the kinds of poverty whose source is the heart and the soul. These less visible poverties can be more insidious and of greater duration. We see through the interactions of the main characters and the supporting characters a mixture of the rich and the poor in more ways than one. We also get a good taste of how class consciousness can willy nilly induce cultural blindness. This is also a strong theme that screenplay writer Everett Freeman and producer/director Roy Del Ruth run throughout the narrative. Every character has a special insight into a valuable part of Life while simultaneously being unaware or blind to something else.

This is the most entertaining part of this screwball tale. O'Connor's wife, Mary O'Connor played with winning sympathy by Ann Harding, stirs a heartwarming Slumgullion, but does not see how to manage her marriage as well as she does her stew. Gale Storm as Trudy O'Connor is the beautiful, dutiful daughter of Michael O'Connor. But even she has difficulty seeing that if she truly loves G. I. Jim Bullock, whether she is rich or poor should have little to no bearing on the matter. McKeever pontificates to the O'Connors how the lack of friendship can be a serious form of poverty. Ironic it is then that he fails to sense or see how it is their hospitality and sufferance of him as an interloper that enables him to stride merrily away to their next estate in Virginia.

The central motif that nobody is aware of the whole truth, but sort of groping by inches and stumbling toward it with either unwanted or unexpected assistance is a resounding point of hilarity and amusement in this human comedy. McKeever came as an illegal intruder and leaves with friends willing to upgrade his status to that of a guest. Unknowingly and without any special intent beforehand, the characters involved have improved that sense of community which strengthens the bonds of friendship and makes possible the renewal of vows. Even what began as a criminal activity in the dead of night might eventually one day be welcomed in the full light of day. There's just no telling what might happen next time on Fifth Avenue.

The George McKenna Story (1986 TV Movie)

A Soldier of Enlightenment

[8/10 · 12 January 2023]

This is one of the first indications of the rising star that Denzel Washington proved he was destined to become. The narrative is similar in tone and spirit to LEAN ON ME (1989), which starring Morgan Freeman, it predates by three years. Being a film made for television it did not enjoy the production values afforded to the bio pic about Joe Clark. But this does not stop Washington as directed by Eric Laneuville of ST. ELSEWHERE (1982-1988), from making this a step toward super stardom whereupon later this same film would be retitled HARD LESSONS (1986). High School Educators rarely get the attention and respect they deserve, but perhaps this cinematic depiction will make up for some of that benign neglect.

McKenna starts off to the jazzy musical score provided by Herbie Hancock. He is dropped off by his beautiful girlfriend Bobbie Maxwell as played by Lynn Whitfield amid student curses before a building bearing a coating of graffiti. The new principal isn't particularly expected to last the semester as he is viewed with cynicism by some of the student faculty. A particular case in point is Ben Proctor as portrayed by Richard Masur, who involves the new administrator with some pretty nasty skullduggery to hurtle over. But after putting out a fire in the hallway, he starts to paint off the graffiti on the wall across from the school. He initially has to confront resistance from certain teachers, parents and not a few students. When McKenna finally tragically realizes that his school is in the middle of a gang war zone, he is the witness to teachers jumping ship before they end up as casualties.

There are plenty of films based on the awe-inspiring carnage that can be wrought by inventive explosive devices of every kind. Therefore it is somewhat refreshing to see violent disputes settled with an ethic and aesthetic somewhat higher than that of the vendetta. The idea that human conflicts can sometimes be resolved through the knowledgable application of compassion and the willingness to sacrifice in the spirit of unconditional love, may appear to be somewhat novel here in the West, but Professor McKenna demonstrates that it has real uses in Education. While Non-Violence, like Mathematics and Education itself, is a subject that is not all there yet, I don't think anyone would argue that it is easier to teach and instruct an alive and aware student than it is to weep over a corpse. Denzel Washington as McKenna strides the halls of his high school with a never say die attitude. It is subtly inspiring to see him posit himself as a true warrior of enlightenment.

As I mentioned before, this is a made for TV movie. What it lacks in dazzling special effects and sophisticated camera work, it more than makes up for in moral tenor. There is no pandering or catering here to the visceral thrills and tastes of the reptilian brain. We get a glimpse of what an appeal to higher order thinking skills might manifest as practiced by a truly educated individual. Geometry and Shakespeare aside, it is an interesting take on how civilization can be produced in the classroom.

Here is something to watch with your kids on a Saturday afternoon and discuss with them later. It may well provide new insights on how an educated person might overcome the obstacles of Life as opposed to those who dedicate themselves to turf law. Some may recall at the root of the word 'education' is a concept that has to do with drawing out or bringing out the best in the student and others. There is some of that addressed here when we see McKenna's boys and girls in caps and gowns at their graduation ceremonies. Perhaps for just the briefest moment, beyond the sandlots and the dusty basketball courts, these graduated students experience that feeling of the God within which is reported to be also at the root of the word 'enthusiasm'...