Spectre (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

Spectre (2015) – S. Mendes

There is certainly a lot of money splashed up there on the screen in the latest James Bond outing (still with Daniel Craig) – per usual.  However, despite the amazing locations (starting with a Day of the Dead festival in Mexico City and then traversing Europe and Northern Africa), things are dreadfully dull.  In fact, I fell asleep (but watched the ending the next day).  Part of the problem can be chalked up to a rather inward gazing plot, all about the MI6 being taken over by another government agency that may actually be linked to the evil world-dominating group of the film title.  This sort of plot has worked astonishingly well for Le Carré and Alec Guinness (in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People) but it falls flat here when the nuances are over-ridden by blunt set-pieces and no time for actual acting.  Poor Ralph Fiennes is trapped here with little to do (taking over as M from Dame Judi Dench whose absence is felt).  Christoph Waltz makes an unsatisfying villain – somehow I can’t take him seriously.  I could go on but instead I will simply pronounce this a misfire.  Perhaps, however, it isn’t even worth watching the Bond franchise at all anymore? 

  

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

☆ ☆ ☆

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) – C. Reiner

It’s ridiculous to see Steve Martin inserted into old films noir, playing against the likes of Alan Ladd, Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, and Barbara Stanwyck – and that’s the point.  However, there aren’t as many belly laughs as one would hope (although the “cleaning woman” bit makes a good plot device).  Martin is a private dick and Rachel Ward is his client/love interest.  The plot was sewn together by finding suitable clips from a dozen movies (The Killers, Double Indemnity, Lost Weekend, Notorious, etc.) and then fitting a story in between.  It mostly works – or as they say in the production notes, it isn’t as confusing as The Big Sleep (which isn’t saying much).  Everyone plays it straight, except for a streak of goofiness throughout (of course).  Carl Reiner directs and plays a small part, but this was clearly a labor of love for him. He also assembled some veterans of the noir era:  the soundtrack is by Miklos Rozsa and the costumes are by Edith Head.  Classy, except it’s not.

  

Bridge of Spies (2015)

☆ ☆ ½

Bridge of Spies (2015) – S. Spielberg

My unlove for Tom Hanks continues and my view that the best term to describe Spielberg is “heavy-handed” is again supported.  I’m not quite sure whether the movie is so dull despite everyone’s best intentions or because they were aiming for middlebrow safe entertainment using familiar schemas that had been successful in the past.  Probably the latter although maybe Hanks just can’t help himself trying hard to be liked/admired.  That’s not to say that the history lesson being taught here isn’t interesting – the exchange of spies between the US and the USSR (including Francis Gary Powers the downed U-2 pilot) is a fascinating part of our political history and there is a lot of backstory that I didn’t know.  But you can’t escape that feeling that Spielberg and Hanks are still cheerleading for the greatest generation rather than keeping their eye on the story.  So, it drags and the team tries too hard to push some emotional buttons.

The Crimson Kimono (1959)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Crimson Kimono (1959) – S. Fuller

The Sam Fuller Picture isn’t like your average film.  Somehow his scripts bluntly foreground societal issues that remain implicit or are completely ignored in other films.  As a case in point, the Crimson Kimono zooms in on the Japanese-American experience by including James Shigeta as a homicide detective investigating the murder of a stripper who was recently painted wearing the titular kimono.  Investigations take him and his white partner (and ex-war buddy) to the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles.  When Shigeta’s character, Joe Kojaku, falls in love with a white witness (and vice versa), Fuller gets to tackle one of his favourite topics, racism, with a special look at how it feels to be an outsider. Things get complicated because the partner also loves the witness -- hence, tension is produced between the two men because of this love triangle.  Fuller leaves the actual detective story aside (although it is finally resolved) to focus on the psychological experience of Kojaku and his relationships with his partner and the witness. Through it all, Kojaku is treated humanistically as a person, not as a symbol of his race or an object for scrutiny – his different culture is accepted by all of the characters and, in the end, he is the only one who perceives himself as different.  All of the others treat him as an ordinary Joe. Fuller, too, is totally supportive of Japanese-Americans and particularly emphasizes their contribution to the war effort in the Forties.  At the same time, he gives us a look at Japanese culture: a Kendo match, a Buddhist memorial ceremony, a festival (with parade), the artistry of dollmakers, and more.  Kojaku even discusses the differences between the Nisei (first generation born in America) and Kibei (born in America but returned to Japan for their schooling before resettling in America) and the problems in dating between them!  So, the merits of the Sam Fuller Picture are many, but don’t choose his films because of their generic frameworks (i.e., the detective story), instead come for the two-fisted didactic discussion.

Knight of Cups (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Knight of Cups (2015) – T. Malick

Beginning with The Tree of Life (2011), Terrence Malick has been using an impressionistic, almost cubist, approach to filmmaking that allow viewers only shards of narrative and images that jump-cut after only a minute or two.  Perhaps this is how he sees memory or even consciousness itself.  Add in the fact that Knight of Cups was apparently completely improvised, with the actors riffing on character sketches and occasionally selecting from lines that Malick wrote for possible use, and the experimental nature of the film should be clear.  The set-up sees Christian Bale as a screenwriter adrift in L. A. (stunningly photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki), absorbed with the hedonistic scene, but knowing that something is missing.  He may represent the younger Malick.  Across the film’s two hours, we get a running tally of the Bale character’s romantic entanglements (each shown briefly before moving to the next) and all the L. A. (and Las Vegas) hot spots you can shake a stick at.  Unfortunately, this does deaden the senses a bit, although both people and places are beautiful to look at.  The overall Tarot theme does not really lend any meaning to the proceedings (although I plead ignorance on this score) and it is difficult to feel that Bale has found inspiration by the end (even when the film rises portentously to imply that he does).  Nevertheless, I enjoyed letting the music, images, snippets of words, and various allusions (to other films, to what we know of Malick, to life) wash over me and thus, I can’t complain.  But one would hope that Malick can make a film that is less solipsistic with the same techniques. 

Desperate (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆

Desperate (1947) – A. Mann

Early film noir from Anthony Mann that contains some great moments (for example, a swinging overhead light that alternatingly reveals the bad guys and casts them into darkness) although the happy ending shakes off a bit too much of the desperation that a fully-fledged noir would leave intact.  Typical of the genre, Mann places the innocent hero into a tough position, caught between the cops and the gang, and having to flee with his pregnant wife from both.  En route to the conclusion, things get rather picaresque but Raymond Burr, the chief heavy, keeps coming and coming. It’s not clear whether our hero did anything wrong (in needing to make money so badly) or whether it’s just the fickle finger of fate that laid in wait for returning servicemen of all moral persuasions – but this guy doesn’t deserve the things that happen to him.  Mann would go on to make a few more, darker, noirs and then a string of really great dark westerns with a morally ambiguous Jimmy Stewart.     

Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946)

☆ ☆ ½

Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946) – G. Douglas

Solid entry in the Dick Tracy series but with Morgan Conway taking a turn as the homicide detective.  This time, Dick is in pursuit of a gang of jewel thieves who spend all of their time double-crossing each other.  Cueball may be low man on the totem pole but he’s grit and grunt enough to knock off all of his colleagues.  Of course, Tracy tracks him down in the end and he meets a gruesome death.  The characterizations in small parts are interesting enough – although not really comic-book-like – to hold one’s attention for an hour.  Nothing more to be said.  Other serials have stronger entries and lasted longer (on the big screen) but this was fine on a rainy night with a cold.