The Fall (2006)

☆ ☆ ½

The Fall (2006) – Tarsem Singh

Strangely unaffecting, despite the fact that it was reportedly shot in 28 countries with the express goal of making a pictorial marvel.  To be honest, I thought this was all digitally created imagery until I read otherwise (and I have very mixed feelings about CGI anyway) – but even knowing that it is “real” doesn’t change the fact that the film is boring.  (And, as a fan of the Ron Fricke cinematic travelogues, I do think that a film based on images alone can be successful).  Director Tarsem Singh (or just Tarsem) apparently paid millions of his own money to finance the four-year project that sees an injured (and suicidal) stuntman telling a fantasy story to a 5-year old immigrant girl with a broken arm and a tragic past when both are recuperating in a sanatorium in 1920s California.  The fantasy story becomes interwoven with the realities of both teller and listener – and transpires in various locales across the globe (naturally).  At times this seems pitched for children, at other times it is too dark in content (suicide, violence) to show it to them.  Give it a miss.      

Miles Ahead (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Miles Ahead (2015) – D. Cheadle

Not really a bio-pic of Miles Davis – but what is it?  Some kind of bizarre buddy-action-comedy starring Don Cheadle as Miles and Ewen McGregor as a Rolling Stone reporter-wannabe trying to get a story.  Davis is in his burnt-out period (1975-1980), not happy, not friendly, high on coke most of the time, holed up in his NY bachelor pad/home studio, not making music.  The plot involves some stolen session tapes and the impression a young up-and-coming trumpeter has on evil Miles.  There are flashbacks to earlier happier times (but still Davis rarely smiles).  He’s acerbic even then but he’d found love (Emayatzy Corinealdi as Frances Davis née Taylor) and then threw it all away (drugs, cheating, etc.).  The world of jazz looks pretty messed up and then there is also racism with which to contend.  Cheadle directs with a certain flair but it’s hard not to see that this fiction is a bit overcooked.  Still, there is enough music by the real Miles floating across the soundtrack to make things enjoyable from a sonic perspective.  The inevitable glowing interviews on the DVD feature Davis family members singing the trumpeter’s praises – but what movie were they watching?  

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

☆ ☆ ☆

A Prairie Home Companion (2006) – R. Altman

When I lived in Minnesota, I never paid too much attention to Garrison Keillor out at Lake Wobegon and his Prairie Home Companion radio show.  I watched this film primarily because it was directed by Robert Altman, his last film, and it certainly bears his stamp (overlapping dialogue, large cast, indirect focus, camera zoom, meandering non-plot).  The material is genial enough (written by Keillor) and well-suited to Altman’s style.  The age-old radio show is going to be shut down and the Fitzgerald Theatre demolished – we watch the last performance front-stage and back-stage.  There’s some folksy country music (sung by the likes of Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, and John C. O’Reilly), some folksy stories and witticisms by Keillor, some informal friendly banter among old friends, and then some bits of plot thrown in to move the film along.  Lindsay Lohan is here doing not much.  Don’t start here with Altman but he does elevate the totally non-offensive material here.  There’s a place for this way back yonder in your parents’ day, I think.

Predator (1987)

☆ ☆ ☆

Predator (1987) – J. McTiernan

There’s something odd about watching Predator 30 years after its release (for the first time).  The soundtrack feels wrong – it is all symphonic, an old-school Hollywood score (by Alan Silvestri) – no rock music or blaring guitars or screeching crashing exploding “percussion”.  This somehow makes Predator a bit dreamier and more unworldly than your modern action film.  It also feels a lot more “low budget” – although in reality the special effects probably cost millions more than today’s digital contributions.  A lot of things blow up.  The plot is simple:  Arnold and his band of commandos are dropped off in the jungle (Mexico playing South America) to rescue some hostages but instead meet a virtually indestructible, nearly invisible, humanoid alien with high tech weaponry hell-bent on destroying (and eating?) them.  By the end, it is Arnold vs. Predator mano a mano as you knew it would be.  Arnold has his schtick down pat by this point in his career, letting one-liners rip and giving a surprisingly thoughtful performance (as far as he could).  His super-stardom and comedic turns were just a year or two away.  In the end, Predator didn’t exactly wow me but it held together fine.  ImDB proudly announces that this is one of a few films with two future US Governors (Jesse Ventura is the other) – how’s them apples? 

The Revenant (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Revenant (2015) – A. G. Iñárritu

Often beautiful to look at, Iñárritu’s epic period Western is also grim and somewhat relentless.  Leonardo DiCaprio is the seasoned guide to a trapping company out in North Dakota (or further west, judging by the mountains) who gets mauled by a bear and then more-or-less left for dead by the company.  Well, asshole Tom Hardy is left to look after him and his son by a Pawnee mother and that’s as good as leaving him for dead.  Shot with natural light only and without digital effects (or so they say), The Revenant looks authentic enough.  Perhaps it is just me, however, but I can’t really buy Leo in this part – he seems to be trying too hard and isn’t quite the right type for the grizzled and tough outdoorsman he plays.  That said, I think this is a problem for Leo more generally – he seems to be acting most of the time rather than really inhabiting his characters.  So, after his gruelling challenges, crawling around on his elbows in the snow for half the movie, Leo is deadset on revenge and he eventually gets it (or allows it to happen).  That’s basically the arc of the story and I don’t think it gets any deeper than that (despite some gauzy flashbacks to his life with the Pawnee which must mean something….maybe).  It’s long but I’m recommending it for the evocative experience, if nothing else – you really do feel that you are out in the wilderness back in time.

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Heartbreak Kid (1972) – E. May

Charles Grodin plays a character to which an intensely ambivalent reaction is the only correct response.  On the one hand, he’s funny (increasingly so, as the movie progresses).  On the other hand, he’s ready to end his marriage after 5 days because he meets Cybill Shepherd and she seems better.  Of course, Jeannie Berlin (the director Elaine May’s daughter) does do a great (funny) “annoying” and you can see Grodin’s pall as he really gets to know his bride.  But he’s a lying cad; Berlin doesn’t deserve to be dumped (and we feel sympathy for her).  So, we’re almost expecting Grodin to get his comeuppance and Eddie Albert (as Shepherd’s dad) very nearly offers it (“I’m a rich brick wall”).  But somehow Grodin defies the odds, following Shepherd back to Minneapolis (with several scenes shot on Northrop Mall at the U of M – it looks the same!).  And once he succeeds, surprisingly, we’re left with an exquisite moment (scored with “Close to You”, a repeated motif) where we aren’t quite sure if Grodin is happy or not.  Neil Simon wrote the screenplay from a story by Bruce Jay Friedman.  Funny and “real-seeming” but so very wrong.   

Where to Invade Next (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Where to Invade Next (2015) – M. Moore

Affectionately referred to as “Mike’s Happy Movie” by his team, it is impossible not to feel overwhelming and terrible cognitive dissonance when watching Michael Moore’s 2015 film.  Of course, Moore was/is still in the business of trying to get America to lift her game; here, by travelling the world to highlight how other countries do things better (healthcare, education, workers’ rights, and so on).  The pointed implication (for Obama at the time) was that military spending makes up too much of the budget and the money could be better spent on other priorities (as other countries successfully do).  Of course, those other countries are clearly idealized and the whole film/presentation is light-hearted and comic, with Moore playing faux-naïve at how everything is different elsewhere.  However, now that Trump and his cronies are in charge, the likelihood of any of the changes proposed actually happening seems miniscule and my get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.  But, really we do need to resist!  If anything, I feel hope that the left has been galvanized by recent events – it just remains to be seen whether the energy that has materialized can be channelled into profitable avenues for real change.

23 Paces to Baker Street (1956)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

23 Paces to Baker Street (1956) – H. Hathaway

Nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes but definitely in a Hitchcock mood.  Van Johnson plays a bitter blind playwright, an American in London, who overhears an ambiguous conversation in a pub that suggests foul play.  He tries to get the police interested but when they aren’t, he starts investigating on his own with the help of his manservant Bob (Cecil Parker) and his ex-girlfriend (Vera Miles).  One clue leads to another and soon the trio really thinks they have uncovered a fiendish plot to do with kidnapping (the MacGuffin of this story, which doesn’t necessarily need to make much sense – it just motivates the action).  Of course, Johnson is quickly in over his head and the bad guys seek to silence him, creating suspense (we know that this will end happily, so the suspense is in figuring out how Johnson will defeat those out to get him).  1950s cinemascope in that strange technicolor world that existed in Hitchcock’s films (and other films of this era) but perhaps nowhere else.  Worth a look, if not on par with the Master.

The Blue Lamp (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Blue Lamp (1950) – B. Dearden

Affectionate portrayal of cops on the beat in post-war London, showing their camaraderie in the face of a rise in youth crime.  Jack Warner and Jimmy Hanley play mentor and mentee cops who have to deal with rebel Dirk Bogarde who stages a couple of robberies with his partner Patric Doonan and 17-year-old girlfriend (Peggy Evans).  The young hoods are too wet-behind-the-ears for the professional criminal class who refuse to help them (and may even help the police instead).  What we get, then, is partly police procedural with an occasional tilt toward noir (via some expressionist lighting) but more often we see the cops at work in their everyday roles (and in some cases cosily at home). Scenes with Bogarde don’t really reveal the motivation behind his crimes but he’s always charismatic.  Add to this, the real London settings (especially seen in a frantic car chase) and the result is highly enjoyable, although admittedly fantasy (i.e. in the portrayal of the noble and caring cops who are too idealized to be really human).

Noroi (2005)

☆ ☆ ½

Noroi (2005) – K. Shiraishi

Back when J-Horror was the thing (after the mega-success of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, 1998), a number of other films capitalized well on the trend (e.g., Ju-On, Pulse, maybe Dark Water).  Nozoi was a relative latecomer (it didn’t cross my radar then) but now with a decade gone by, it seems even more out-of-date (those videotapes!).  Taking his cues from the Blair Witch songbook, director Koji Shiraishi positions the footage we see as “found” after the mysterious disappearance of the central protagonist, a paranormal investigator. More specifically, we get to see the rough cut of a documentary he was making about a young girl with E. S. P. who disappears, leading the filmmakers to learn about a demon who needs to be assuaged with an annual ritual and who just might have possessed someone.  As is typical with J-Horror, the dots don’t really connect in a way that makes sense but each individual dot is laden with creepiness -- or designed to be that way (the film trots out some typical spooky clichés).  The problem here is that the whole film feels slow as molasses and any foreboding that might begin to build simply seeps away as the investigator plods on.  Some of the acting did not convince either.  Staged versions of Japanese variety TV shows with real comedians and talento playing roles were the highlight.  The shocking ending basically woke me up (too much screaming) but by then it was too late.        

The Falcon Takes Over (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Falcon Takes Over (1942) – I. Reis

George Sanders is the Falcon, an upper crust society-type who is also a private investigator.  He seems to also have a way with the ladies (a la James Bond).  However, in this film, a rendering of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, the Falcon is really Philip Marlowe, so there’s a bit of dissonance:  Marlowe was never so suave.  Indeed, Dick Powell’s Marlowe in the superior Murder, My Sweet (1944) is far more lived in and grungy. He also gets beat up a fair bit which doesn’t happen to the Falcon; instead Sanders has a sidekick played by Allen Jenkins who takes the various beatings from Moose Malloy and also provides comic relief by getting into trouble.  This moves the film into the more formulaic territory of the mystery serials (e.g., Charlie Chan, Dick Tracy, Mr. Moto, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) which were generally lighter fare.  But somehow the Chandler text elevates the picture to something more than the usual “guess the murderer before he/she is identified by the sleuth” mystery – it is a little more confusing, less straightforward, more interesting.  George Sanders’ star power is more than evident but he’s still an odd droll character – who thought he should be the hero? That said, I fully approve of him and the film was fine.