The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Bishop’s Wife (1947) – H. Koster

Apparently, this is a movie that is often played during the Christmas season (because it is set at that time) and lo and behold, here I am in Florida watching it on Turner Classic Movies.  I missed the first five minutes but the plot wasn’t too hard to cotton onto.  Cary Grant is an angel sent to help David Niven, a Bishop who has become more focused on building a new cathedral than on his own family and perhaps some more important values (such as caring for the poor).  The Bishop’s wife (played by Loretta Young) is particularly sad due to her husband’s detachment and neglect.  But, of course, Cary sets everything straight with his angelic/magical powers (although only Niven knows the truth).  In particular, he shows everyone how to relax and have fun and to really love each other again.  Plus, he saves a baby from being hit by a car, helps to reinvigorate the local church choir (actually The Robert Mitchell Boy Choir), lights a Christmas tree, and ice skates up a storm.  Monty Woolley plays a professor friend of the Bishop and James Gleason plays a cab driver who are both touched by Dudley’s (Cary’s) charms.  But most of Cary’s attention is devoted to Young to the point where he must leave (to be reassigned to another case) or risk falling in love (I surmised). At first, I thought that this film might be one inspiration for Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1988) but the latter film is more poetic, philosophical, and less religious (not that religion plays too big a role here either).  In the end, the film didn’t distinguish itself as a top shelf entry in the Christmas canon (I would have preferred a more comedic touch from Grant) but it wasn’t bad.   

  

Remember the Night (1940)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Remember the Night (1940) – M. Leisen

The last of Preston Sturges’ scripts that he didn’t direct himself -- Mitchell Leisen took the reins, as he did for the funnier Easy Living (1937).  Here, Fred MacMurray works as a prosecutor for the district attorney in New York and Barbara Stanwyck, charged with shoplifting, is his last trial before Christmas.  When he asks the judge for a continuance until after the holidays, he realises that this will leave Stanwyck in prison until the new year and arranges with the bailsbondman to have her released.  Little does he know that she would end up with him as he travels back to Indiana to see his mother (Beulah Bondi).  Of course, they fall in love. But what can be done? She is destined to go to jail and he has his reputation to think of.  Surprisingly, Sturges’ script keeps things relatively calm, peppered with only a few zany character actors; things would get much more screwball during his heyday in the forties (including starring Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, 1941).  Remember the Night also includes some poignant sentimental moments in keeping with the Christmas season (Sturges often managed to stir the emotions even as he split one’s sides).  MacMurray seems impossibly young and Stanwyck remains perpetually cynical/tender – the next time he would star with her, they would kill her husband (Double Indemnity, 1944).  Above average (but surpassed by their later masterpieces).

Baby Driver (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Baby Driver (2017) – E. Wright

Sometimes a movie’s hype can be its undoing – or perhaps I’ve just gotten tired of the Edgar Wright formula which seems to focus purely on style (with content chosen to match).  Here, he takes on the heist genre, focusing on Ansel Elgort’s Baby who drives the getaway car for boss Kevin Spacey’s capers, due to a past debt.  He wants to get out...and never more so then when he falls for innocent waitress Lily James.  But he can’t get out and so we see some hi-octane robberies replete with stunt driving and the usual ultra-violence.  The key to the film that allows Wright (or his editor) to strut his stuff is the fact that Baby has tinnitus and so listens to music on his various ipods at all times (to drown out the ringing) – thus, the soundtrack to the action is whatever Baby is listening to.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t wowed by the soundtrack.  I mean, “Tequila”? It was used to better effect in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985).  That’s not to say that the movie isn’t enjoyable –it has a slick flair and doesn’t include any missteps; in other words, it is better than your usual Hollywood tripe.  But I couldn’t quite get excited about it – everything felt too calculated and eager to please.  That’s why Wright is making millions, I guess.

Mill of the Stone Women (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆

Mill of the Stone Women (1960) – G. Ferroni

One thing this film has going for it is an extremely creepy mise-en-scene—it’s set primarily in a windmill in Holland where a famous professor has set up a macabre museum featuring a carousel of wax figures (depicting women who died gruesomely throughout history; e.g., Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn). When a student comes to stay to help the professor document his work, he discovers the professor’s ill daughter who seems to be locked away hidden from everyone else. After an illicit tryst, the student spurns the daughter in favour of another girl but soon finds the daughter dead and the guilt overwhelms him.  Then things become more confusing – the daughter is suddenly back alive and we learn that her father and a deregistered doctor are using blood transfusions to bring her back to life (time and again). Echoing “Eyes Without A Face” (also 1960, but a better film), young women are kidnapped to donate their blood (and lives) and, yes, they end up in the museum.  Perhaps it was the dubbing (a mainstay of Italian films), the wooden acting, or the dream-like quality of the plot and images, but I kept nodding off. A step removed from the production values of Hammer Horror but with a different kind of weirdness that feels more decadent and depraved. 

  

Alien: Covenant (2017)

☆ ☆ ½

Alien: Covenant (2017) – R. Scott

Perhaps the Alien franchise has truly worn out its welcome?  Can we say now that the first two films (Alien, 1979, and Aliens, 1986) have been the only real good ones?  The reboot to the series, Prometheus (2012), was positioned as a prequel – and Covenant is the sequel to that film.  However, most of the new plotting and backstory from that earlier film seems to have been jettisoned in favour of a straight-up action-based echo of the first film from 1979 with only Michael Fassbender’s David remaining as the epitome of evil (a mad scientist in the classic tradition, albeit a “synthetic”). So, the only reason to check this out is for the special effects and the nail-biting tension as spaceships careen wildly, aliens burst from host bodies or stalk their prey down dark tunnels or corridors, and the 15 crew members are picked off one-by-one (not unlike a serial killer film).  Sure, H. R. Giger’s creatures are as gruesome as ever and the plot mechanics still work (a mysterious signal brings yet another ship to a lonely planet) but everything has gotten so old.  There are glimpses of grander themes (one crew member is religious, there is talk of creators both human and not) but it all amounts to nothing.  Purportedly, there is yet another prequel in the works, but what promise could it hold beyond more clichéd thrills?

La Signora senza Camelie (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

La Signora senza Camelie (1953) – M. Antonioni

Antonioni’s second feature shows his interest in women’s experiences to be in full bloom. I haven’t read the play by Alexandre Dumas Fils (Lady with the Camellias or La Traviata or Camille) that Antonioni is referencing with the title but it seems to be about a woman who gives up her spoiled existence (albeit as a courtesan) to join her true love in a relationship which is ultimately thwarted because of concerns about propriety raised by his family. Here, the opposite seems to be happening: Lucia Bosé has no camellias – meaning she comes from a lower-class existence as a shopgirl and is thrown into a different sort of life as an actress discovered by a B-movie producer. Of course, the reason she is “discovered” is because she is sexy and the producers seek to exploit her appeal, a goal which she is willing to indulge.  However, soon she is pushed into marrying one of the filmmakers (who she doesn’t love) and he jealously tries to put the brakes on her career as a sexpot, opting instead to try her in a “serious” picture which he chooses to direct himself (a predictable flop). In short order, their relationship is on the rocks, she is courted by a local diplomat (perhaps only interested in her fame) and she finds it increasingly hard to know what to do.  She goes back to B films to make up for the financial hardship resulting from her foray into arthouse film, but her dreams have now grown bigger; she takes herself more seriously, but inevitably finds herself typecast and trapped in degrading exploitation fare (even as her producer ex-husband has successes from which she is excluded).  The ending is as bleak as you can get and you don’t have to have read the Dumas novel/play to realise that Bosé’s plight as a woman exploited by men, tainted by their objectification, and left to suffer with no standing of her own nor ability to pursue and fulfil her own goals is even more tragic (and relevant) than the earlier more famous work. Antonioni, of course, would continue to examine alienation as his key theme, toying more overtly with viewers’ expectations (and pictorial abstraction), a process only just begun in his early films.

The Chase (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Chase (1946) – A. Ripley

This is a B-noir that is clearly low budget but with a plot that pulls the rug out from under you (not unlike Takashi Miike’s Audition, 1999 – uh, well, not that sadistically).  Robert Cummings is Chuck Scott, a down-and-out veteran who returns a lost wallet only to end up as chauffeur to a notorious gangster (Steve Cochran) in Miami. Cochran’s wife (Michèle Morgan) is kept under lock and key and only allowed to take short trips to the beach at night with Cummings; eventually, they decide to escape together to Havana.  Down in Cuba, they run into trouble and Cummings is soon accused of murder.  Ultimately, it appears that Cochran’s henchman Peter Lorre is behind it all.  And truly, Cochran and Lorre seem to delight in tormenting Cummings (including with a strange added accelerator in the back of the car that takes over control from the driver).  Of course, Cummings doesn’t end up in their clutches but how we get to that point isn’t straightforward.  Despite the bare bones feel and the second string actors, there are enough weird and impressionistic touches here – on top of all of the archetypal noir trappings – to make this worth a watch, if you are digging deep into this genre.

  

Love & Friendship (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Love & Friendship (2016) – W. Stillman

A sometimes biting “comedy of manners” (from the epistolary early novella by Jane Austen) that succeeds by having its characters release unfettered streams of words that rush by so quickly that you barely catch the sting in the tail until a moment or two later.  Director Whit Stillman (who seems to have taken a couple decade break from movie-making) also wrote the screenplay and it is witty.  Kate Beckinsale stars as Lady Susan (the actual title of the Austen work), a widow but one whose reputation as a flirt and schemer precedes her wherever she goes.  The film opens with her escaping from the Manwaring estate (where she has been a visitor and perhaps an interloper) to her brother-in-law’s estate called Churchill.  There she seems to be playing a long con, trying to ensnare one or another rich young man for either herself or her teenage daughter because they are penniless (but relying on friends and relations to tend to their every needs).  Xavier Samuel plays one promising partner who becomes infatuated with Lady Susan, but not the daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark). Tom Bennett provides excellent comic relief as a babbling and ridiculous suitor for the daughter (who is predictably put off).  Beckinsale is, by turns, shrewd, wicked, delightful, smartly funny, and ingratiating.  Chloe Sevigny is her American best friend, married to domineering Stephen Fry, who aids and abets. In fact, there are so many different characters, Stillman does well to introduce them all with captions at the start, adding to the fun stylized feel of the film, which also looks great in its period locales (filmed in Ireland) and costumes.  Thumbs up. 

Captain Fantastic (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Captain Fantastic (2016) – M. Ross

The temptation to drop out of society runs strong in the US (see also Sean Penn’s excellent Into the Wild, 2007) – and who could blame ‘em? Here we find Viggo Mortensen raising his six children in the woods of the Pacific Northwest and who wouldn’t cheer his efforts to strengthen their bodies and minds while avoiding the contamination of capitalism, organized religion, and junk food? The film isn’t called “Captain Fantastic” for nothing!  But Matt Ross’s script (he also directed) gradually forces viewers to confront the possibility that this Super-Dad is actually doing his kids harm by keeping them away from the social world they will eventually have to live in (and exposing them to the truth of adult concepts too soon).  But I’m not so sure – is it either or?  Do we have to endorse the version of reality put forth by Frank Langella (capitalist Christian Grandpa) if we accept the premise that Chomsky-loving Viggo might be over-the-top?  Isn’t there a happy medium? (The film seems to conclude that there is – but this outcome seems as much a fantasy – or cop out -- as the extreme outdoors approach taken earlier; how exactly are they supporting themselves?).  Viggo did have a raison d’etre of sorts – his wife had bipolar disorder and he thought living in the woods would help her (but it did not).  The six child actors acquit themselves admirably and almost without any cringeworthy moments (save only for their rendition of Sweet Child O’ Mine at the “funeral”, now a cliché, but one that did remind me of a long-departed dear friend). The film itself is fun and, although balanced precariously on just some exaggerated representations of deeper worldviews, it does succeed as a more thought-provoking version of the usual Hollywood entertainment.  I just wish that Matt Ross would have seen fit to show Viggo (or his kids) having an influence on the larger society (or at least Langella) rather than simply depicting their assimilation – but I guess that would be truly fantastical.  

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

T2 Trainspotting (2017) – D. Boyle

Is it because I’ve turned 50 that I feel inundated with cinematic offerings that are looking back and commenting (directly or postmodernly) on the journey we’ve all been on for the past few decades?  Twin Peaks: The Return, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Blade Runner 2049, probably others, all seem to be forcing me to contemplate the processes of aging, remembering, learning, forgetting, changing, enduring.  This reminds me of Dan McAdams’ research that has people tell their life stories (suggesting that older people may sort themselves into those who offer stories of “redemption”, overcoming challenges and obstacles, and those who offer stories of “contamination”, failing to overcome obstacles). Danny Boyle’s return to Trainspotting and its characters (again scripted by John Hodge from Irvine Welsh’s novels) explicitly addresses these issues, particularly by having Spud break from his heroin addiction to channel his energies into writing the stories of the lives of the four central protagonists (in effect, the content of Welsh’s book and the first film).  But the film takes a gradual approach to revealing what has happened to Mark “Rent Boy” Renton (Ewen McGregor), Simon “Sick Boy” (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) in the 20 years since the last movie.  Having not watched the earlier film since some time in the ‘90s, I also re-learned their history while updating the facts to the present.  It may be important to know that the previous film ended with Mark escaping with £16,000 from a drug deal, leaving his friends (except for Spud) empty handed.  So, when he returns from 20 years abroad, he isn’t entirely welcome, particularly by Begbie who, unsurprisingly, has been in jail the entire time.  Although Boyle makes some attempt to mimic the style of the 1996 film, this is a more reflective and less manic film.  There are certainly nods to the fans and to the Scottish locals (I watched with subtitles on) but ultimately the end result is something greater than a quick buck-making exercise, less disposable than I expected, and, if not quite profound, certainly another opportunity to think about time and all she brings to mind (at least for a person of a certain vintage).

Pardon My Sarong (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Pardon My Sarong (1942) – E. C. Kenton

Amiable and meandering comedy starring Abbott and Costello which is just a bunch of bits strung onto a typically ridiculous plot.  The boys are bus drivers who hijack their own city bus to help out a society bachelor who needs to get from Chicago to California for a yacht race.  Soon, the law is after them -- in the form of William Demarest (a Preston Sturges favourite); they duck into a magician’s dressing room to escape (cue hijinks).  We are then treated to a few musical interludes (including from The Ink Spots) in the club, which was common in 1940s films of this type and gives them a relaxed feel.  Soon, though, Costello drives the bus into the ocean and the duo winds up on the playboy’s yacht, and subsequently shipwrecked on a tropical isle.  There they run into beautiful or burly natives, an anthropologist who is really running a gang of jewel thieves, and some more slapstick and wordplay.  Of course, given the vintage, there are some pretty crude caricatures on display here but fortunately the racism isn’t mean-spirited (but unfortunately it is still racism) – Lou Costello is typically the butt of most gags.  The sexism is probably more unabashed and there is a fair amount of leering (1940s style).  But if you feel disposed to look past these things (which we can hope are moving behind us, at least overtly), then there are a bunch of chuckles here and everything feels pretty good-natured.  One of A & C’s better outings.

Coma (1978)

☆ ☆ ☆

Coma (1978) – M. Crichton

Extremely schematic thriller in the seventies paranoid vein directed unflashily by Michael Crichton (who also adapted the screenplay from Robin Cook’s book).  It starts out alright with Geneviève Bujold’s Susan Wheeler becoming suspicious about a series of unexplained comas at her workplace (Boston Memorial Hospital).  She confides in her lover Michael Douglas who may or may not be trustworthy.  But about an hour in, we know she is correct and then the running starts.  Of course, there are further discoveries to be made and we don’t quite know all of the answers until the final few minutes, when (like a classic episode of the Batman TV show) Bujold is captured by the main villain and about to meet her doom unless unless unless (she is rescued, of course).  So, it’s a classic cross-cutting finale straight out of the silent days.  I suppose the big secret discovered at the Jefferson Institute (where comatose patients are sent to live out their days in a brutalist monstrosity) is suitably surprising but somehow they couldn’t hang a whole film on it.  Nevertheless, this was fine as mindless fare when your mind is nowhere.

  

Secret Agent (1936)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Secret Agent (1936) – A. Hitchcock

Hitchcock’s follow-up to The 39 Steps (1935) also stars Madeleine Carroll, this time as an apprentice spy during WWI, and Peter Lorre (from the Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934), as a wacky assassin working for the Brits.  John Gielgud takes the lead as the writer drafted to be a spy as Richard Asheden (from the stories by Somerset Maugham).  They are all shipped off to Switzerland to track down an enemy agent and kill him.  As Hitchcock points out, the unsavoury nature of this assignment and the clear ambivalence shown by Gielgud and Carroll undercut the excitement of the adventure story.  And when things go very wrong, this doesn’t help either.  At this stage in his career, Hitch was already ready to defy audience expectations in a big way (he blew up a child with a bomb in his next picture, Sabotage, 1936) but the honesty with which he deals with assassination doesn’t fully jell with the comedy-thriller elements dominating the rest of the picture.  There are, of course, some excellent set-pieces handled with aplomb and an unpredictable ending, if you weren’t trying to figure things out too hard.  Still, this is worth a look, even if not up there with the greatest of the Master’s British pictures.

Confidential Report (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Confidential Report (1955) – O. Welles

There are 7 or 8 different versions of Confidential Report (a.k.a. Mr. Arkadin) but none of them apparently represent Orson Welles’ vision of the film.  Although Criterion released a 105 minute version with all of the available footage drawn from every different English-language version (there are also Spanish), this still didn’t contain the opening shot that Welles described to Peter Bogdanovich in the lengthy book of interviews called “This is Orson Welles” (a shot of Milly’s body washed up on a beach).  I had a VHS copy (entitled “Mr. Arkadin”) that was 92 minutes long that I always found utterly confusing.  So, when I bought a used DVD from the local library last weekend (entitled “Confidential Report”) that is 95 minutes long, I was surprised to find that it felt a lot more coherent.  Of course, this could also be because I’ve seen (and read about) the film a bunch of times now.  Due to financial problems, this is another picture that Welles shot in piecemeal fashion, in different locations, with lots of reshooting when new actors replaced older ones (and to make a Spanish version to suit a co-producer there), and with Welles later dubbing his own voice for many characters and tacking on the musical score (written without access to the film but with notes from Welles) in fragmented form at the end.  The plot itself was drawn from some episodes of the Harry Lime radio show that Welles wrote (and was starring in), although it doesn’t feature Lime but instead another amoral bootlegger/smuggler, Guy van Stratten (played by Robert Arden), who figures he can blackmail the rich and famous Gregory Arkadin (played by Welles himself with bushy beard, false nose, and dubious accent).  But Arkadin has other plans, claiming amnesia and contracting van Stratten to discover everything he can about his past to present in a confidential report.  Naturally, all of the various characters found to testify to the evil-doings in Arkadin’s past meet with unpleasant ends but this doesn’t prevent Arkadin’s daughter (played by Welles’ soon-to-be wife Paola Mori) from discovering her father’s true nature (similar to the scorpion who stings the frog, retold again here by Welles), leading to his demise.  That sounds a lot more coherent than it probably is – although, again, this edit may have been the most straightforward one, ditching many of Welles’ plans for flashbacks within flashbacks.  The end result is a bit patchy, clearly shot on a low budget, with some clever camerawork and unusual shots, sets, and character actors – but it likely only represents a pale shadow of what Welles was intending.   

The Lineup (1958)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Lineup (1958) – D. Siegel

Crisp, police procedural (bringing a then-current TV show to the screen) from Don Siegel (subsequently Clint Eastwood’s favourite director).  As he would later do in his remake of The Killers (1964) and Dirty Harry (1971), Siegel takes a special interest in the psychopathic tendencies of his characters.  Eli Wallach (in his second film) plays the central baddie who is a contract worker for “The Man” who is using innocent tourists as mules to bring heroin into the USA.  Once they disembark, their luggage is stolen and the stuff is extracted and given to The Man.  Wallach and his partner/mentor, played by Robert Keith, arrive in San Francisco (where the film was shot on location) to retrieve the luggage/drugs from three passengers on a docking ship.  However, things don’t go too smoothly – because Wallach’s character is a psychopath.  Because the police have been tipped off, we see them closing in on the killers as well as what the killers are doing (in parallel).  Siegel is far more interested in the killers and the police procedural scenes play like the rote TV episodes they’re drawn from – they are kept purposefully brief (and thus taut).  So, there’s nothing particularly extraordinary here but solid crime show fare, with a few nods to past films noir (murder in a stream room, a person in a wheelchair gets offed, the same aquarium that Welles shot in The Lady from Shanghai is used).  San Francisco does look great.  

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) – E. Wright

I feel as though I’m about 25 years too old for this movie – but with all the retro references to ‘80s and ‘90s videogames and music, I’m not sure.  What do the kids like anyhow?  This movie is also 7 years old and probably dated.  Since I haven’t kept up with US pop culture, I don’t know the graphic novel this was based on and I haven’t seen Michael Cera on TV.  I know who he is though.  Edgar Wright, the director, makes slick funny pastiches of other genres (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) that are so well-crafted that every line, every sound effect, every choreographed move seems to fit together in the right place.  So, Scott Pilgrim the movie is kind of like a theme park ride in that respect – perfectly designed for maximum effect on you (with more onscreen graphics than you can shake a stick at).  But in the Edgar Wright film there can also be too much of everything, or it can feel over-stylized, over-done, forced.  Not that there are too many moments of that sort here (a couple of cringe-worthy spots and the music isn’t as cool as it pretends it is).  Oh yeah, the plot:  Michael Cera is a geeky guy in a band who still isn’t over his ex (Brie Larson, also in a band) but is now dating a 17-year-old Chinese-Canadian high school student (the film takes place in Toronto) until he falls for Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and has to fight her deadly exes in order to date her.  The fights are videogame style.  Jason Schwartzman is the final boss that he needs to defeat.  It’s all sensitive and smarmy and geeky and cool and occasionally funny and probably just too self-conscious for its own good.  But the kids probably liked it and I didn’t mind either.  But a little of this goes a long way.

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) – J. Negulesco

Somehow I thought this was going to be a musical, another genre I’ve come to late (alongside westerns, war films, and foreign films from Spanish-speaking countries). But instead – not.  What we have here is a very dated comedy (you can tell from the title) that finds models Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable on a quest to find rich husbands.  The prospects include dapper (but very sedate) William Powell, faker Alexander D’Arcy, and already married Fred Clark – but as things turn out, other men (not always millionaires) turn out to be of greater interest.  Bacall takes the lead with Monroe (playing short-sighted and air-headed) and Grable (even more air-headed) adding comic relief.  There are a few sly references to the stars’ other careers but nothing here led to any major chuckles on my part.  One of the early CinemaScope features but director Jean Negulesco doesn’t really take full advantage of the format.  Still, apart from the explicit sexism, there’s nothing really wrong with this silly film and it is good to see Bacall embarking on her solo career.

  

Lady in the Lake (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆

Lady in the Lake (1947) – R. Montgomery

Yes, this is the Raymond Chandler adaptation with the gimmick: we see the events through the eyes of detective Philip Marlowe.  That is, the film is shot in “first person”, so that we only see Robert Montgomery (who also directed) when he looks in the mirror or in opening and bridging scenes where he talks directly to the camera to explain things.  Apparently, the idea came from Orson Welles.  It works beautifully in places (as when the camera slowly prowls up the stairs, searching from room to room, until it finally spots a corpse in the shower) but mostly it is an unnecessary distraction.  Most of the actors seem awkward and over-expressive when they need to deliver their lines directly to us (with Montgomery’s voice heard offscreen).  The plot is typical noir (dark/tough/complicated) and, although I haven’t read the source novel, it is also likely to be typical Chandler – as in The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, and The Long Goodbye (the novels I have read), the many characters are duplicitous, involved with each other in ways that are initially hidden, and even Marlowe is compromised.  Montgomery plays him straight but rather flat – Bogart, Powell, and even Gould better capture Marlowe’s sarcastic acceptance of the absurd (while still maintaining an honourable quest for the truth, broadly construed).  Nevertheless, even as a failed experiment, Lady in the Lake is worth a look as a representative entry in this important genre.

After the Storm (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

After the Storm (2016) – H. Kore-eda

I’ve been a big fan of director Kore-eda’s films since I first stumbled into After Life (1998) in a cinema in London.  Admittedly, that was probably his oddest film to date (showing dead people in limbo recreating their favourite memory from their lives) and perhaps his best.  But he has matured into a director with a sensitive and subtle way of portraying everyday life and relationships, not shying away from serious moments but always imbuing events with both humour and humanity.  It’s the small moments (and the way the camera shows simple objects and environments, not unlike Ozu) that brings out the existentialism underlying Kore-eda’s cinema, even if the larger arcs of the plot don’t always go anywhere (much like some lives).  Here, Hiroshi Abe plays a recently divorced man whose irresponsible father has just died; we see that he cares for his own son, aged 9 or 10, but also that he is also as irresponsible as his own father was.  Abe’s career as a novelist seems to have ended after one book and now he earns what little money he can as a private detective for a firm specialising in divorce work and lost pets.  He blows a lot of his money gambling.  He also can’t seem to let go of his ex-wife and his dream of what could have been (including for his career).  I guess the film’s message is that he should move on (after the storm).  This makes it unlike all those fantasies where the couple gets back together and everyone lives happily ever after.  Instead, everyone’s life is just in process and the point is to focus on the here-and-now rather than on future pipe dreams or melancholy longing for days gone by.  Although all the cast is top notch, special mention must go to Kirin Kiki as the warm funny grandma.

The Sun’s Burial (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Sun’s Burial (1960) – N. Oshima

The title refers to the Rising Sun’s funeral – in other words, the demise of Japan as a place of dignity.  In his third film (after the success of Cruel Story of Youth, also 1960), director Nagisa Oshima shows us the degradation and depravity of Osaka’s post-war slums, the epitome of the fallen nation.  We first become acquainted with Hanako who is collecting blood and selling it at a profit by day and prostituting herself by night.  She works with the two local gangs, the main one led by Ohama and an up-and-coming new gang led by Shin that has to keep on the move to prevent being wiped out by Ohama.  She runs the blood business on the side but is soon joined by an older homeless man known only as “The Agitator” who constantly voices his concerns about the fall of the Japanese Empire (but later buys ID cards to sell to incoming illegal immigrants). Two young kids join Shin’s gang only to find themselves increasingly in trouble; the quiet and naïve one, Takeshi, eventually falls in with Hanako.  Violence, and sexual violence, are part of the way of life here and Oshima doesn’t shy away from depicting this everyday brutality (verbal or physical).  It must have been very shocking at the time. However, there are far too many characters to keep track of and their sad fates barely register in the midst of the squalor and despair. Oshima may have wanted us to take in the forest without caring too much for the individual trees.  Even so, his stylish cinematographic eye makes itself known through ugly but perfectly composed shots, good use of colour (that blood!), and an unflinching willingness to show us the underbelly.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

☆ ☆ ☆

Ginger Snaps (2000) – J. Fawcett

It is perhaps too easy to be too hard on genre films, particularly if the genre is given to certain excesses as is the case with the teen horror film.  However, setting aside the inevitable descent into prosthetic creature masks and bloody messes, there is something different and interesting about this low budget Canadian film.  For one thing, the focus is squarely on two sisters, weird kids who don’t fit in with their peers and who have a suicide pact.  For another, the transformation into a werewolf is explicitly equated with the transformation of a girl to a woman. Yes, some of the blood on display is from menstruation. So, is this a tale of empowerment? Is female sexuality something being championed rather than shamed, exploited, or hidden away? I’m not sure the film is so clear on these points.  It may be better at representing the anxiety involved in the transition/transformation (and mother Mimi Rogers does a solid job at embarrassing the girls) than at making any political points.  (Of course, this is something that female viewers might judge better than me).  Thus, in keeping with werewolf films from the golden age, director John Fawcett (male) and screenwriter Karen Walton (female) don’t really aim for scares in the material but instead focus on the emotional experiences of the werewolf (Katharine Isabelle) and her sister who needs to stop her (Emily Perkins). Until the last 30 minutes when straight genre fans are placated (and one actress is replaced by a thing), the film actually had the makings of a weird high school flick (though not without some clichés of that genre too).  Worth a look?

  

They Died With Their Boots On (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆

They Died With Their Boots On (1941) – R. Walsh

Errol Flynn stars as George Armstrong Custer.  The film depicts a highly fictionalised version of his life from his first days as a cadet at West Point, through his Civil War heroics (on the Union side), to his time at Fort Lincoln in the Dakota Country, and finally his death at the Battle of Little Big Horn.  Raoul Walsh directs the action sequences with a certain amount of panache (lots of extras on horseback) but the film feels overlong and Olivia De Havilland has little to do as Custer’s wife (this was her 8^th and last pairing with Flynn).  As you might expect for this era (1940s), the film has a definite racist streak, particularly when it comes to portraying Native Americans; Anthony Quinn plays Crazy Horse but there are some actual Sioux men who were brought out to Hollywood to serve as extras. Hattie McDaniel also plays a maid who is superstitious in a few scenes to offer some “comic relief”.  Interestingly, Flynn portrays Custer as a bit of a delinquent who nonetheless is able to lead men in battle; his casting doesn’t quite seem right (he belongs in less weighty swashbucklers).  Speaking of unusual casting, Sydney Greenstreet appears as a Union General, with only his mutton chops and uniform differentiating this performance from The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca.  Jarring.  Arthur Kennedy is solid as the main villain.  However, you really should look elsewhere if you want to see Flynn at his best (e.g., The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938).   

  

Hidden Figures (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Hidden Figures (2016) – T. Melfi

A feel-good movie about mathematics, the space race, and the civil rights struggle for African-American women – based on a true story.  Prior to the installation of their first IBM mainframe (depicted in the film), NASA used human “computers” to check and double-check calculations; the film follows a group of three of these African American women from the “coloured computer” group.  Taraji P. Henson plays Katherine G. Johnson who assisted with advanced calculations for John Glenn’s first orbit around the Earth (and subsequently the Apollo 11 mission and flights in the space shuttle era).  Henson’s experiences in the all-white NASA offices and engineering labs shown here are, as expected, sometime unpleasant (as when she is snubbed by white colleagues) but sometimes positive (as when she is supported by white colleagues, such as boss Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner).  Janelle Monáe plays Mary Jackson who successfully became NASA’s first African American female engineer (after challenging Virginia’s segregated school’s policy).  Octavia Spencer plays Dorothy Vaughan who became NASA’s first African American female supervisor, running the IBM computer lab.  Although their stories are true, they remained largely unheralded until this film (which Johnson was alive to see at age 98) – so it is worth trumpeting their stereotype-breaking successes.  The movie itself sticks to the feel-good playbook, providing a bit of backstory to each of the characters, a little romance for Johnson, showing their lives outside of work, a few ugly incidents (racism), and, of course, some tension before everything falls into place as a result of the hard work of these women. And it’s all set to some rousing music (coordinated by Pharrell Williams).  In the end, NASA benefits, the US moves ahead of the Soviets in the space race, and best of all, these women also experience gratifying personal success.  However, this is the Hollywood version of their story, so don’t expect anything edgy or challenging.  

Prisoners (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Prisoners (2013) – D. Villeneuve

Relentlessly malevolent (and probably not the picture to watch if you are the parent of small ones), this thriller nevertheless shows director Denis Villeneuve’s talent at building and sustaining tension while abiding by the audience’s expectations. Two families see their youngest members abducted on Thanksgiving and Jake Gyllenhaal is the police detective assigned to find the abductor and get them back.  I haven’t seen Taken or its sequels, so I’m not sure how this fits into the apparent genre – but parent Hugh Jackman decides to take the investigation into his own hands and his fury means that he isn’t subtle.  I don’t think we are meant to identify with Jackman, because everything he does seems to alienate the viewer (and threaten his relationships with everyone else, including his wife, Maria Bello, and the other couple, Viola Davis and Terrence Howard).  As the hunt for the abductor continues, the clues pile up, suspects are tracked down, creepiness abounds (and tends to dominate over the sadness and disgust that would otherwise be the main feeling, since we are dealing with child abduction and possible paedophilia here).  You might catch a bit of a Silence of the Lambs vibe, I suppose.  Gyllenhaal is dogged in his pursuit of all leads, although the police action is pretty genre-consistent at best. In the end, things do get tied up with a bow, but I’ve read that an even darker ending was proposed – that probably would have made for a better film.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

☆ ☆ ½

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – B. Rafelson

This version of the James M. Cain novella seems grimmer than the famed 1946 version with James Garfield and Lana Turner (which is definitely a film noir) and even the 1943 Italian version (Ossessione) which is more neorealism than noir.  Jessica Lange makes a suitable Cora but Jack Nicholson seems too hangdog and beaten as Frank.  I didn’t see any chemistry and the sex scenes, supposedly necessary to undo the censorship of the ‘40s, are anything but alluring (with a sub-current of violence that is a turn-off).  The plot, set in the Depression, sees drifter Frank show up at Nick Papadakis’s petrol station/diner and decide to stay as a handyman, soon striking up an affair with young Cora behind the older Nick’s back.  Eventually, they decide to kill him in order to be together.  The subsequent court case pits them against each other and tests their relationship.  Somehow, Bob Rafelson’s direction seems to drain the action of its tension and the actors don’t really catch the screen on fire with their passion (or their conflict).  Perhaps the shift into the 1980s struck a fatal blow to the seventies drama – after all, Rafelson and Nicholson were so good in Five Easy Pieces (1970) but a decade later, they are visibly straining. Another example of a remake that shouldn’t have happened.

  

The Soft Skin (1964)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Soft Skin (1964) – F. Truffaut

Falling just after Truffaut’s masterpieces (The 400 Blows, 1959; Jules and Jim, 1962), The Soft Skin also shows the creative techniques that were the hallmark of the Nouvelle Vague.  Jean Desailly plays an author/publisher who has an affair with Françoise Dorléac, a stewardess (to use the 1960s term); the film documents, from his perspective, how he navigates the necessary secrecy and juggles the various people who can’t find out (including his wife and small daughter).  I read somewhere that the plot echoes circumstances from Truffaut’s own life (he was divorced in 1965) and the film seems sympathetic toward Desailly’s character – or at least tries to convey his emotional experiences.  Truffaut uses editing and sound magnificently to capture the excitement of the elicit rendezvous and the anxiety related to the risks and inevitable discovery.  You can see his debt and homage to Hitchcock in the best sequences here (and indeed his interviews with Hitch that formed the basis of the famous book had occurred two years earlier).  However, it is impossible to shake the sordid inappropriateness of the actions here, by both Desailly and Dorléac – our identification with them is undermined by our rejection of their actions.  One wonders how much Truffaut himself is complicit in supporting the moral transgressions on display – until the shock ending, which seems to negate everything that has gone before (or provide an easy out for that seeming complicity).  Apparently, this film was booed at the Cannes Film Festival but the craft on display makes it worthwhile even if the content matter is unpalatable.

Silence (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆

Silence (2016) – M. Scorsese

How will Scorsese go down in film history (since this is one of his passions)? Will he be considered a director with a few great masterpieces (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas) who then tried his hand at everything with some middling results (e.g., John Huston)?  Or a great all-rounder (e.g., Howard Hawks)?  Perhaps he has higher aspirations? After all, Ingmar Bergman also called a film (The) Silence, 1963.  But this wasn’t the film in which a priest questioned God’s existence (that was Winter Light, 1963), as Andrew Garfield’s Rodrigues does here when he is witnessing the suffering of Christians in 17^th century Japan.  Garfield (and also everywhere man Adam Driver) is a missionary sent to spread the faith and to bolster the victims of Japan’s efforts to wipe out the religion, not unlike Liam Neeson’s Ferreira sent earlier and now presumed lost.  The story goes that Ferreira capitulated when the Inquisitor asked him to renounce Jesus/God by stepping on his picture.  However, Garfield and Driver won’t believe this.  Many trials later (this is a long movie), Neeson appears and offers a pragmatic solution.  The project seems near to Scorsese’s heart but he lets it drift along. He wants to portray men whose faith is strong enough to endure any hardship – and to characterise their internal struggle – but either Garfield is miscast (or hasn’t the acting chops) or Scorsese himself is ambivalent.  There are moments when the Japanese perspective, arguing that the colonizing efforts of the West must stop, seems to have his sympathy (not considering the bloodthirsty tortures that they wreak on all Christians here in some incredible set-pieces).  Or perhaps it is just my lack of faith that makes this particular cause seem in vain when other more important causes (social justice, more broadly) should dominate? Scorsese and his team create some shots of grand pictorial beauty in this film which must have been awesome on the big screen but he can’t match the transcendental and spiritual themes of his forebears (Bergman, Tarkovsky, Dreyer, Ozu). He’ll go down in history somewhere in the middle.