While evading a team of repo men, a struggling writer stashes his car in the garage of what he thinks is an abandoned Beverly Hills mansion. Soon spotted by the resident, a delusional former silent film star, he agrees to step inside and spies opportunity in her desperation. She’s been working on a crappy screenplay, the crux of a comeback effort, and he figures he can bleed a few months’ salary out of a rewrite. She agrees, even invites him to live in the palace rent-free, but as their arrangement grows beyond mere professional courtesy, he begins to question which of them is the spider and which the fly.
A faded silent starlet herself, Gloria Swanson shines anew as Norma Desmond, the unhinged actress who thinks she’s doing the studio a favor by emerging from retirement. Like a triumphant former queen back from exile, this misguided character believes she’s bigger than the scene, but in truth it’s Swanson’s performance that’s oversized. Manic and complex, her unsettling depiction plucks every note from pride to despondency, manipulating her target(s) and the audience alike. She plays well with costar William Holden, whose straight delivery lends gravitas while his inner conflict grows increasingly panicked. Although the opening scene surprisingly spoils his fate, both characters remain sharply written and unpredictable right to the inevitable climax.
Hollywood does love a film about itself, and this one was certainly blessed with an embarrassment of accolades. Nominated for nearly a dozen awards at Oscar time, its constant winks and nods to the industry could have easily felt cheap and pandering. Instead, they enrich the fabric without overshadowing the tapestry. Quick, wonderful cameos from the likes of Buster Keaton and Cecil B. DeMille reinforce crucial plot points, while the backstage pressures of life among the silver screen’s less-celebrated feeds directly into the drama. A sad, sardonic glimpse at the harsh realities of the business and the avenues some stars navigate after the never-ending gala has moved on without them.
Writer / director John Woo essentially invented a sub-genre with the string of hits he released in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Later dubbed “heroic bloodshed” films, their plots typically place a conscientious anti-hero in conflict with his superiors, pitting loyalty against a private code of honor. Essentially pure and simple action movies with an added dash of self-reflection and a jaw-dropping capacity for ammunition. This one, sandwiched in the middle of a six-year collaboration with star Chow Yun-Fat, would become the pair’s international breakthrough.
In The Killer’s setup, Woo pays tribute to a personal influence. Calmly infiltrating a busy night club to fulfill a contract, Yun-Fat slays the manager and fatefully encounters a beautiful lounge singer, just like in Jean-Pierre Melville’s fashion-conscious 1967 gangster film, Le Samouraï. The similarities end there. In the ensuing firefight, the girl is inadvertently blinded and the killer has an epiphany, casting aside his career to atone for the collateral damage. At first, he’s tracked by a persistent undercover officer, but the two soon develop a sense of mutual respect and unite against a common enemy.
Though the intention may have been for an even split between fierce, kinetic violence and soul-searching contemplation, only the former aspects are worth mentioning. Bad dialogue, ham-fisted delivery and a clunky, low-rate production may spoil the film’s deeper aspirations, but hey, at least the fight scenes are lights out. Easy to see how the title character, and this film, has influenced action cinema for decades to come: he’s John Wick, twenty-five years ahead of the curve. Yun-Fat is perfect in that role, always the coolest guy in the room and a fluid natural with pistols and rifles of all sizes. That said, the constant gunplay can grow tiresome, especially during the jumbo-sized final shootout, and the main characters’ plot armor is outrageously thick. A fun ride, if perhaps a bit shallow. Remember to wear ear protection.
Born without a penny to their names, nor the promise of a future worth living, a pair of depression-era twenty-somethings find motivation in one another. Emboldened by their romance and certain about their invulnerability, the pair sets off to get rich quick via a string of car thefts and brazen, bloody daylight robberies. Joined by a small trio of accomplices, tales of their exploits soon capture the public imagination in an age when many felt hopeless, crushed and discarded by the system.
This film brings us up-close and personal with the title characters and their little family, learning about their various quirks and tics between heists. Like most young adults, Bonnie and Clyde’s self-confidence is both a blessing and a curse. Their opportunistic nature makes them difficult to track but also traps them in some very sticky situations. They don’t intend to commit mass murder, but when the other shoe drops (and it often does), sometimes their guns are the only way out and hey, better you than me. An experienced criminal, Clyde knows the score, but Bonnie sees their cross-country escapade as a sort of childish fantasy, never truly recognizing how much danger she’s in until the numbers catch up and the situation grows dire. They’re just kids, playing at being adults, but the law ain’t messing around.
Looking back almost sixty years later, the amount of blood and violence depicted in Bonnie and Clyde hardly seems excessive. It can be harsh and brutal at times, sure, but these doomed lovers chose a harsh, brutal life together and the film portrays that appropriately. Nobody’s ever robbed a bank with cap guns and candy apples, after all, or ditched the police by blowing kisses through a window. Way back in 1967, however, this was held up as evidence of our decaying moral fabric and many contemporary reviews were outraged. What kind of cinema will our children be watching, should this awful trend towards graphic bloodshed continue? I’d hate to see their reactions to Tarantino.
Love, adventure and hand-to-hand combat at the peak of the French and Indian War. On the outskirts of the battlefield, a white man and his adopted native family scoff at the Brits’ latest recruiting efforts and move to abandon their land, but happen upon an ambush on the way out of town and find themselves drawn into the conflict anyway. Now accompanied by a pair of pampered ladies and their posh one-man military escort, the small brood resumes its cautious retreat with an angry Mohawk war party in hot pursuit.
Under the guidance of emerging director Michael Mann, The Last of the Mohicans is a sleek, well-produced picture. It boasts a superb soundtrack, several big, diverse fight scenes and a powerful climax, but the plot is slow, the performances are stiff and the central romances lack a collective spark. Native brothers Uncas (Eric Schweig) and Hawkeye (Daniel Day Lewis) wear a wide assortment of grim, determined faces, which serve them well during the action sets, but their matchmaker moments with the two rescued damsels seem more convenient than romantic and I didn’t buy into their oft-stressed status as star-crossed lovers. In the void of effective romance, the emotional heavy-lifting is left to a subdued and under-explored subplot about a tribe near extinction and a whole lot of whinging about honor, duty and sacrifice.
I had fond memories of watching this one back in the VHS days, but the years haven’t been terribly kind. It’s not bad, it’s just unremarkable.
Certain films innately embody the spirit and flair of a particular point in time. In Snatch’s case, the essence of the late ’90s is laced into its DNA. From the groovy, thumping soundtrack to the flashy, in-your-face visual motifs; the grimy criminal subject matter to the extreme sports-inspired camerawork, it boasts an impressive collection of very specific, time-sensitive pop culture calling cards. Watching this now, almost a quarter-century later, is like cracking open a time capsule. Imagine Pulp Fiction as produced by MTV.
Motivated the ultimate MacGuffin, a diamond the size of a cueball, the plot follows a number of desperate London criminals as they conspire and connive to pull one over on their rivals and reap the riches. We’ve got high-profile mob bosses and blue collar boxing promoters, ex-KGB agents and common street thugs, each armed with their own peculiar bag of quirks and colorful idiosyncrasies. Though most parties are unaware of the others, their paths constantly interlace and overlap, and the whole mess eventually falls together in a great dogpile during the final act’s frantic, crowded, hilarious payoff sequence.
Snatch is an essentially dark comedy, stuffed with all manner of eccentric lowlifes, surprise twists and grim, ironic punchlines. It is a Guy Ritchie / Matthew Vaughn joint, after all, and following hot on the heels of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, their successful debut, it punches a number of the same buttons. Reuses many actors, too, with Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones the most recognizable of the bunch. It’s newcomer Brad Pitt who steals the show, however, in his spectacular turn as an unintelligible, tattooed, caravan-dwelling boxer. His whole community is a riot, in fact, a tight group of lawless drunkards who honor no set of rules. Their unpredictability is just the fuel this film needed to bump its fire from a small blaze into a lofty inferno. Is it dated? Sure. Is it still entertaining? Yeah, that too.
On the brink of a midlife crisis, big-name Broadway player Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is introduced to a starstruck fan (Anne Baxter), admires the kid’s enthusiasm and hires her as a live-in assistant. Margo can be a handful, a drama queen in every sense, but she’s a loyal, compassionate friend and immediately shares those virtues with the new girl. And the new girl, for her part, spins the star’s influence to her own benefit, proving she’s not half as clueless as she seems. Though Margo catches on quickly, her friends and associates remain enchanted with the youngster and chalk their growing divide up to mere jealousy. Which isn’t untrue - now on the wrong side of forty, Margo knows she’s got to start losing those glamorous leading roles to someone - but the aging star’s famously erratic behavior and deep-seated insecurities are the real issue. Those self-destructive tendencies do more to reverse her fortunes than any amount of conniving from the ambitious younger model. She’s fighting the same uphill battle that defeated her predecessors, she knows it, and the desperation only makes things worse.
Well acted and well directed, All About Eve makes good observations about the industry and delivers big twists, but it’s incredibly, distractingly wordy. While I could believe an actress or playwright might speak in this way, an onslaught of witty metaphors and rare adjectives, it’s exhausting to hear it from the entire cast. Every line’s a mouthful. And while that does result in some great material (Davis’s famous “fasten your seatbelts,” for example), it also slows the plot to a crawl. Smart and amusing but overwrought, this film uses sheer hot air to stretch ninety minutes’ worth of material across two hours and change.
Feuding superstars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford came together for this, their only shared screen credit, a good decade-plus past their respective peaks. In it, they play faded showbiz sisters sharing a crumbling Hollywood mansion. While the youngest (Davis) experienced child celebrity and then fell on hard times, her elder sibling (Crawford) enjoyed a successful adult movie career before an untimely auto accident rendered her paraplegic. Now, she depends on little sis to deliver her meals and interact with the world on her behalf, a weakness that the bitter, jealous former Baby Jane relishes and abuses.
There isn’t much more to the story. Jane’s a crazy person who’s allowed years of disillusion and resentment to irreparably crack her while Blanche, the older sister, has no choice but to appease her tormentor and eat punishment. This drags on for quite a while, a cruel monotony that’s only broken by occasional visits from the housekeeper. But that’s not really what this show is all about. Most audience members came out to see the spectacle of Davis and Crawford’s cohabitation, and on that front we get plenty of fireworks. The only thing these two despised more than each other was the thought of having their scenes stolen. There’s a frosty, constant chill between the pair that extends well beyond the typical dramatic fare, like they’re always on the verge of scratching each other’s eyes out. That, plus Davis’s preposterous makeup job (caked at least twenty layers deep) add unusual amounts of authentic, unsettling tension to a picture that would’ve, otherwise, been rather shallow.
Well, it’s still shallow. Hammy and drawn-out, too, but at least there’s something more to it than all that. A film that’s more about the squabbling starlets than the story they’ve set out to tell, Baby Jane aims to be a dark, Hitchcockian thriller, but it hasn’t got the brains to deliver. Instead, it’s more akin to a mad, morbid sideshow.
LucasDisney brings us the Han Solo origin story nobody really asked for, recasting several iconic roles to get the ages right and unintentionally positioning the new crew behind the eight ball because, let’s face it, Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams are an awfully tough act to follow. This is really the breaking point of the entire picture: either you’ll accept Alden Ehrenreich as the Skywalker family’s favorite bootlegging scoundrel, minus about fifteen years, or you’ll never be able to move past the comparison and the movie will have already lost you.
I thought I was in the second camp, avoided the film for years due to it, then found I was actually in the first. Ehrenreich doesn’t look like Harrison, doesn’t move like him and barely manages a halfway decent vocal approximation, but somehow, he fits the role. He carries the same charismatic magnetism, the same visible delight over adventure, excitement and ridiculously long odds. He’s got more nervous energy than a sugar-crusted toddler, a witty retort for every occasion and, crucially, he’s fun to watch, whether luck is on his side or, more often, not. I still think the film would’ve been better served by a brand new character struck by the same circumstances, but then we’d lose the little dashes of lore and history that make the third act such a rich ride.
Donald Glover, on the other hand, is unqualifiably excellent as Lando, all swagger and confidence and allure. I just wish he had more to do. As it stands, he’s little more than a flashy minor supporting character who conveniently connects plot waypoints. I’m sure his role would have expanded in the planned sequels, but no extended franchise is a given - even in the Star Wars universe - and, as those follow-ups appear to be dead in the water, it’s now just a missed opportunity.
Solo was better than I expected. I enjoyed it, in fact, largely because it had the balls not to take itself so damned seriously. A New Hope wasn’t all grit and consequence, so why have so many of the newer films leaned so hard in that direction? I’m curious how much of this one’s pervasive sense of humor can be attributed to original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, chased from the project after five months because the Disney bosses found their work “too screwball.” New captain Ron Howard toes a difficult line in maintaining that freewheeling air while also mixing in a little gravitas, but he gets carried away with sentimentality at the very end.
Released less than two weeks before the disaster at Three Mile Island, The China Syndrome’s depiction of near-meltdown at a Los Angeles nuclear power plant probably seemed impossibly prescient at the time. In truth, most of its plot points were drawn from other, similar near-misses and cover-ups at plants elsewhere in the nation, knowledge which lends extra credence to its firm anti-nuclear agenda. And while it could’ve been forgiven for taking the easy route, this is more than just a scare picture or disaster movie. Behind the alarmist terror of radiation in the American backyard lies an adept piece of roiling suspense and a pertinent philosophical debate.
The crux of the conflict falls between a TV news team, a sympathetic atomic engineer and the bigwigs who control both sides of the narrative. With hearings already underway concerning the construction of a second plant, there’s a lot of money involved and none of the suits - neither the plant officials nor the network executives - want to rock the boat. This leads to great mutual consternation, as the reporters seek to blow whistles, the engineer struggles to get to the bottom of the anomalies and their bosses intend to just sweep the whole mess under the rug and move on. We all serve masters of one shape or another. The real question is: do you have the courage to do what’s ethical, at the expense of a comfortable lifestyle and steady paycheck? Not everyone can answer this in the affirmative.
A bit pokey and redundant, especially during the tiresome setup scenes, The China Syndrome hits an excellent rhythm in the second act that climaxes with an intense control room showdown on live TV. Jack Lemmon shows great range as the troubled engineer whose personal sky is falling, while Jane Fonda and a young Michael Douglas lather it on rather thick as key members of the pesky, vocal, self-righteous news crew. It’s preachy at times, hyperbolic at others, but the deeper messages hit their target and the closing scenes are spirited and well-realized.
Sometimes all it takes is a memorable setting and simple motivations to make a story work. 1917 offers a great example: stationed near the front lines of World War I, a pair of British soldiers are sent on an urgent mission to halt a friendly regiment before it advances into a trap. Intel claims the enemy has abandoned their nearest posts, part of the ruse, and since time is of the essence, the runners are sent straight through yesterday’s hostile terrain to accomplish their objective. Apart from a few minor character-related subplots and side encounters, that’s really all there is to it. Get from A to B, as quickly as you can, and try not to die along the way.
This bare-bones plot allows 1917 to really focus on the gruesome scenery, and unique pressures, of life amongst the harried soldiers of the western front. Rattled and terrified as they are, our couriers must learn to trust their lives to unseen information, speed run through no man’s land, escape an abandoned enemy trench system without triggering any snares and come to grips with the constant, unavoidable presence of rotting corpses around every corner. Like macabre tourists, the audience ogles at these sights and, gradually, comes to understand the sense of hopeless, mutual futility that must’ve been so overwhelming for these young men.
Deftly stitched together and presented as one long, uninterrupted take, the film thus feels intimate to every viewer; a truly immersive experience. The seams are there if you really want to look for them, but the effect is undeniable. We’re experiencing the chaos of war in real-time. This is the kind of intense, enveloping filmmaking that’ll make you hold your breath without realizing. A real audio/visual showpiece, it’s also got one hell of a knack for gut punches. I don’t know why I waited so long - it’s exactly what I was hoping it would be.
A decidedly different, folklore-inspired story from Studio Ghibli’s other founder, the somewhat lesser-known Isao Takahata. The Tale of Princess Kaguya depicts a divine child, mystically delivered to a pleasant little farming family in the base of a bamboo stalk, who begins growing at a rapid pace. When the same family discovers a wealth of gold and silks in another stalk, they take the windfall as a sign that the girl should be raised amongst royalty and whisk her away from their happy, humble country life to join the pompous, self-serving world of the upper class. Which, sadly, is the last thing the girl wants from life.
Driven by its storybook visuals, lush with watercolors and restraint, this film looks like nothing else in the Ghibli catalog. Sparse but expressionistic, it’s a mesmerizing alternative to the warmer, more detail-oriented portrayals of the studio’s house style. That shift is a welcome one, especially when the new methods prove their flexibility during the infrequent high-energy scenes; a real testament to the artists’ ability to adapt and excel while outside their comfort zones. In a storytelling sense, however, it falls short of Ghibli’s better films. I felt the same way about Pom Poko, another of Takahata’s directorial efforts: delightful and charming for the first hour, but then the sprawl sets in and our sense of enchantment quickly fades away.
I loved this as an artistic exercise, and was entranced by the establishing shots, but the plot didn’t have enough steam to carry its goods through two-plus hours. Takahata films just can’t seem to find the exit before overstaying their welcome.
Fresh off a divorce, highly peculiar for the era, a timid young mother throws herself into the art scene of 1950s San Francisco. There, she falls under the spell of Walter Keane, an unspectacular local painter who’s been pestering critics and making “real” artists roll their eyes for years. Together, the two make a sort of magic - while she quietly produces kitschy, haunting portraits, he finds a space to hang them, drums up publicity and schmoozes with the right people. It’s a wildly successful artist/manager partnership, especially when Keane hits on the idea of mass-producing the work to reach a new, lower-income audience, but success goes to his head. Just as they reach the big time, he begins taking credit for her work, and that lie soon eclipses their relationship.
Though it’s directed by Tim Burton, who cites Margaret Keane as an important personal influence, Big Eyes is decidedly un-Burton in most every way. I would’ve expected the director to embrace the more ostentatious aspects of the atomic age, to add his own unique perspective to the creative process and the tackier side of the art scene. Instead, everything just feels run-of-the-mill and workmanlike. He tells the story adequately enough, but adds nothing that wasn’t already printed in the script. Everything’s so blasé, an interesting story told in a thoroughly uninteresting way.
Burton’s gone straight once or twice before - notably in Ed Wood, his most traditional film and first biographical work - but there’s a wide gulf between the emotional punch and subtle character moments of these two films. Even the obligatory accompanying Danny Elfman soundtrack lacks its quirky beats and unmistakable idiosyncrasies. It seems this once-vibrant creative well has run dry, its source content to keep wringing and hope for a few drips of eccentric nostalgia. Nothing so far.
Roman Polanski delivers an homage to the hard-boiled noir detective movies of the 1930s. The tribute is so effective and well-polished, I half expected Humphrey Bogart to emerge from shadows and spit a grim, gravel-voiced monologue at any moment. Instead, Jack Nicholson provides his own take on the same type of role: Jake Gittes, a tenacious private detective who worms his way around the edges of a seedy murder investigation. Roped into the matter as a simple patsy, he refuses to allow the resultant smear on his reputation and doggedly pushes through a haze of lies and misdirection, finding unpleasant answers whilst dodging bald threats and thuggish violence through a mix of sharp intuition and dumb luck.
Chinatown has earned a reputation for its screenplay, allegedly one of the finest ever written. I can’t argue. It’s a wonderfully efficient picture; every action produces a logical consequence, even if they don’t surface until much later. The smart, swerving plot keeps us guessing right to the finish, assisted by a motley cast of would-be (and already-been) crooks. Jake is a magnificent protagonist, and not just in the context of grizzled noir sleuths. Hardened and cynical from years on the job, he’s insatiable in his quest for the truth, not because he seeks justice but because he can’t help himself. He’s just gotta know. Watching Jake work is mesmerizing, particularly where it comes to his arsenal of clever little tricks. Kicking out a brake light so it’s easier to tail a lead; sticking a cheap pocket watch under the tire of a parked car to pinpoint the hour it’s moved; ad-libbing a phony back-story to justify his presence on private property... clearly, he’s been around the block a few times. His proficiencies both inform and delight. Seems like gritty, crime-focused films from this period were big on the nuts and bolts of the work - see Coppola’s The Conversation or Mann’s Thief - and I just can’t get enough of it. At least, not when it’s done right.
Chinatown does it right. It does most everything right, from the plot to the script to the casting to the historical context and underlying meaning. Enjoyable probably isn’t the right word to describe a tale that ends on such a dark series of notes, but I certainly enjoyed the ride. They don’t make ‘em like this any more. Hell, they didn’t make ‘em like this in 1974, either.
Talk about a tough follow-up act. The original Godfather is one of the most celebrated, decorated, revered films ever made, and when Hollywood first inquired about a sequel, director Francis Ford Coppola balked at the thought of it. Too much pressure, with too many bad, lingering memories of creative meddling during the first production. As replacement, he suggested a budding young Martin Scorsese (not what the studio wanted to hear) before Paramount agreed to make certain concessions and limit certain bigwigs’ involvement, drawing Coppola back to the table.
That return partnership resulted in another rich, character-driven epic, a second chapter to rival the first. Or rather, a captivating prologue and a fitting epilogue, all rolled up into one. Told in conjunction, the twin fables of father Vito’s early-century rise to power and son Michael’s desperate bid for 1950s consolidation dovetail beautifully. Cultivated by tragedy, young Vito was a rough, hardened man, but not a harsh or unfair one. He held himself to a high standard, despised those who wouldn’t do the same, but also valued loyalty and community above everything. When Vito lifted himself out of the gutter, he did the same for everyone around him. He may have operated outside the law, but he was far from lawless. From this, we see how Michael learned by his father’s example and drew a number of flawed conclusions. Where Vito was stern but flexible, Michael is hard to a fault. He sees disrespect everywhere, considers forgiveness akin to weakness, and slowly chips away at his own support structure until he’s isolated from the things the old man valued most. If Vito lived to enrich his family, his boy’s sole purpose is to maintain its name. Even if the spirit behind that moniker has withered and decayed.
Though they’re only separated by forty years, the two periods represent a major change in the appearance and operation of western culture. When Vito immigrated at the turn of the century, New York was still a place of lofty dreams and ample opportunity. America hadn’t quite worked out the bugs from its system, enabling hard-working nobodies like young Mr. Corleone to build empires. By the mid ‘50s, that had changed. In such a short period, ivory towers were built, rules changed, offices occupied. Now the game isn’t about the climb, it’s about absurd growth and total domination. Both generations of Corleone men embody these attitudes; one warm-hearted, the other ice-cold; one deeply concerned for his people, the other exploiting his connections to boost a brand. Vito trusts his partners to chase a mutual goal, while Michael only sees them as potential rivals. This fuels their antithetical behavior: where one builds, the other whittles away.
These rich, reverberating messages are all written, acted and filmed with incredible skill. Layers upon layers of context and meaning, loaded conversations, subtle machinations and fine details. However, by comparison to the first, this pensive, reflective story struggles to pace itself. That may be its only weakness, but it’s a significant one, and the main reason I consider it a step below the original. I’m willing to forgive excessive running times in big, sweeping epics like this, when necessary. There’s no good reason for this one to stretch out for as long as it does, particularly in Michael’s story, which drags on forever and ever. That’s where I think the dramatic character losses of the first film hurt the sequel - this plot needed a big personality like Sonny, and it has plenty to choose from in Vito’s story. In Michael’s case, we have to make do with Fredo.
Further episodic adventures through the dark corners and seedy streets of feudal Japan with the jolly, opportunistic blind samurai. In this installment, Zatoichi runs afoul of a conniving widow, escorts a wealthy heiress home from danger and, once again, gets caught up in the middle of a large-scale conflict between bickering gangs. Just another day at the office for Ichi, who’s perfectly willing to go with the flow so long as he finishes the day with a full belly and a roof over his head.
After five adventures, I’ve begun to recognize the character’s favorite, and most reliable, tricks. Joking and groveling, downplaying his own capabilities to remain incognito and catch future opponents unaware. Leaning on his expertise as a masseuse (a job which was forbidden to sighted people at the time) to access private rooms and important people, skirting the muscle of an organization to slash directly at its head. Wolfing down his food and constantly talking with his mouth full... actually, I haven’t quite worked out why he does that yet. He’s also prone to falling in love with the women under his protection, as is the case with this episode’s distressed damsel. Or maybe that’s just another of his manipulations, meant to inspire loyalty and obedience when necessary. If so, it serves to save both parties’ lives when they’re caught in a surprise attack and the slightest hesitation could have been lethal.
In the big picture, On the Road isn’t the most meaningful of our hero’s adventures. He re-treads some familiar thematic terrain, continues his transition from smaller-scale duels to big group battles, slices up the most deserving bad guys and satisfies his moral code before wandering out of town, unscathed, to darken new horizons. It’s an entertaining entry, though, nicely paced and exciting, with a number of well-conceived scenes and overlapped subplots competing for his/our attention. As these Zatoichi pictures go, such attributes can’t always be taken for granted.
Something’s happened to Wes Anderson. Somewhere past The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, he slid into a deep, self-indulgent rut that’s made his subsequent films feel like a chore. Excluding the lively Grand Budapest Hotel, a fleeting glimmer of hope, each new entry in his catalog has grown more tediously derivative than the last, a gradual recline into the echo chamber that’s amplified each of his best and worst traits. Asteroid City is just the latest disappointing, star-studded example of that trend.
Make no mistake, the picture looks great. Stuffed with gaudy film techniques, quaint details, incredible color palettes and gorgeous compositions, it makes for a wonderful trailer. Enough to make us think, hey, maybe this time Anderson has finally bucked the monkey and returned to making the kind of quirky, strong-hearted epics that first made us fall in love with him! Not hardly. Three minutes of immediate, nonsensical act-within-a-screenplay-within-a-movie layering was enough to relieve me of that illusion. The rush of ensuing long, dry, same-voiced monologues only reinforced my belief that this auteur has lost his way. This script swings its dialogue like a club. No subtlety, no nuance; eventually it’ll trap the audience and beat it to some degree of stunned, quivering submission.
In strictly superficial terms, Anderson’s work has never been better. Oversaturated desert colors, wacky small-town eccentricities and 1950s pop culture make for a unique visual playground that matches brilliantly with his style. If he could direct his focus there, on the things that make a Wes Anderson movie look and behave the way they do, while hooking up with a well-suited editing or writing partner, I think the results would be spectacular. As it stands, I’m not sure I’ve got the willpower to sit through another one like this.
A cozy, easygoing film about the tiny people who live in the walls, embarking upon overnight expeditions between floors while we sleep. Borrowing what crumbs and scraps they can, they go about their quaint, peaceful little lives, content to exist in silent parallel. Apart from the risk of being caught in the open by a hungry cat or bird, their greatest mutual fear is being noticed by the big folks. Keep your head down and the status quo might just support you forever.
With a lack of major stakes, just that eternal threat of discovery, we settle in for ninety minutes of serenely observing this happy little world. Which is exactly the type of work Studio Ghibli loves to produce. Even in their most dramatic, consequential pictures, the famed Japanese animation house will habitually obsess over the little, poetic details. It’s part of what I love about them, and in this context it’s enveloping. All the fun of a concept-first story like this one lies in the minutiae, in seeing everyday items repurposed to meet smaller needs. The little clip Arrietty uses to pull her hair back. The sewing needle she modifies into a rapier. Those micro delights, plus the sense of grand exploration in a fantastical setting, are Ghibli’s bread and butter, and here, we get all we could ever ask for.
The Secret World of Arrietty might not be Ghibli’s most mesmerizingly beautiful film, nor their most emotionally engaging, but not everything needs to meet such lofty standards. What exists instead is an effortlessly simple, relaxing watch that doesn’t strive for more. Comfort food for the silver screen.
On the run from indictment, a shady real estate broker waits out the legal storm in a Caribbean beach resort, toting his wife and lawyer along for company. Early in their escape, the trio emerge from a diving expedition to find that the world’s supply of oxygen has temporarily disappeared, effectively wiping out the entire human race. As they’re already conveniently wearing masks and air tanks, these three are able to endure the event (until the plants inexplicably start photosynthesizing again?) and witness the aftermath. The film’s title should reveal their one major disagreement: two guys, one girl and a whole lot of jealousy. Their predicament poses all sorts of interesting possibilities, but the film chooses to pursue none of them. Instead, three sad sacks merely move into a glitzy oceanside estate, learn to fish, grow bored from repetitive walks on the beach and bicker amongst themselves. Dull with a capital D.
Any time he was shooting on-location, Roger Corman liked to throw together an extra feature or two on the side, just to make the most of his time. Last Woman on Earth is one such picture, dreamed up while the director was already in Puerto Rico to film Creature of the Haunted Sea. You know how, sometimes, you can tell nobody on either side of the camera cares about the finished product? This is a great example. Its secondary status is evident throughout, from the lackadaisical script to the disinterested performances, mistimed voice-over work and lukewarm direction. One of the three principal actors, Robert Towne (billed as Edward Wain), is actually just a repurposed writer, tossed in front of the cameras because he happened to be available. It’s his first credited performance and probably should’ve been his last. Can’t say much more for his better-established counterparts, Antony Carbone and Betsy Jones-Moreland. They all stink.
Last Woman on Earth barely runs for an hour, but it feels like it lasts for an eternity. Dump it with the rest of Corman’s dregs.
With Oppenheimer, his first biopic, writer/director Christopher Nolan once again proves he’s up to the challenge of balancing a difficult subject matter with a very tricky character piece. The slow, careful process of scientific discovery is rarely friendly to film, and shy, socially-awkward introverts do not often make for compelling leads, but in this case Nolan juggles both and steps away smelling like roses. As he’d already done on more than one occasion, in decidedly different flavors.
Here we track the career of a famed theoretical physicist, thrust into the limelight as the so-called “father of the atom bomb” during the crush of World War 2 and then dismissed by an ungrateful government after he’d outlived his usefulness and started asking difficult follow-up questions. Oppenheimer’s frustrated early career, meteoric rise to fame and equally rapid fall from grace are depicted almost simultaneously, in a rush of confused, overlapped memories. This style of all-at-once storytelling, in which foreshadowing coexists with its own outcome, is reminiscent of the time-blurred motifs we’ve already seen in Tenet, Inception and Dunkirk. Here it serves as a compelling way to digest a lot of information in a very short amount of time, especially when paired with a head-spinning series of metaphorical visual effects and an entrancing musical score. I’ve read the book this film was based upon, a daunting 800-page tome, and after the first hour I felt like I’d just read most of it all over again. This time with a little extra dramatic pizazz.
It’s an impressive display of top-notch filmmaking, proficiently depicting a historical scenario in which everyone already knows the ending and climaxing with a tense, powerful visualization of the Trinity tests which first loosed the power of violent nuclear fission upon the world. I loved every moment, but then, I was already deeply invested in the subject and had done some homework. My wife, far less prepared, was also far less enchanted. I think this may be more of a knock on Oppenheimer the man than Oppenheimer the film. A complicated, often misguided individual who, for all his brilliance within the hidden world of molecular physics, was inherently flawed and broken in a human sense. Nolan makes no apology for this, baring the person (and his many blemishes) to the screen with no filter, and the results aren’t always pretty.
Perhaps a bit too long, especially in the painfully bitter, sixty-minute postscript, but I’m not sure where I’d want to see a cut. Certainly not a feel-good audience pleaser, Nolan’s latest is an exhausting experience, but also rich, thoughtful and rewarding.
Released within a year of the novel, this potent Steinbeck adaptation sees a hard-working Oklahoma family through a bitter eviction, an arduous cross-country relocation and a desperate fight for survival near the crowded California coast. Along the lonesome desert highway, they encounter cruelty and kindness, hope and hardship, life and loss. Depression-era America was still a fresh reality at the time of filming, which makes its portrayal less a dramatized dash of hindsight and more of a living testament.
The book's broad themes, while tempered, remain intact. To be honest, Steinbeck's version can be downright ruthless in its many depictions of human greed and life beneath the bottom rung. That’s partly what I loved about it - the brutal, unflinching honesty of it all - but I can forgive an eighty-year-old film for averting its gaze from time to time, so long as the message rings true. In this case, the big-screen rework slices away most of the political messaging and concludes its story in a more optimistic place than the novel, but the plot, trimmed and compressed as necessary, still shines. It’s impossible to replicate the rich, deep characterization of a good Steinbeck novel in a two-hour movie, but this one does a fine job of distilling the important players to more digestible versions of themselves without losing their essence.
As adaptations of classic novels go, The Grapes of Wrath is pretty darn good. Especially so considering its age, and the various competing influences that could’ve derailed its narrative. Compared to East of Eden, it’s night-and-day.
A bleak, moody dose of otherworldly weirdness from artist Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy, Vampire Hunter D) and writer/director Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell). As this is primarily intended as an artistic (or poetic?) exercise, the story doesn’t make a lick of sense. Something about a young girl in a floating cathedral, crashing into the ocean and then exploring an abandoned gothic cityscape while caring for a head-sized egg. She meets a rugged male warrior, twice her size but with matching shock-white hair (95% of Amano’s character designs share this feature), and the two proceed to sleep, share Biblical allegories and gaze silently into the abyss. Elsewhere, a squad of ninja launch an all-out assault on a school of gigantic, fish-shaped shadows before disappearing into the night. No further explanation is necessary there, I guess.
Cryptic and weird, drab and sluggish, I found Angel’s Egg dull and unrewarding. The expectation that someone, somewhere, will eventually do something of interest is swiftly beaten out of us, amidst the leads’ glacial migration from one sooty, towering temple to the next. By the time it all draws to a close, after a merciful 71 minutes, I felt little more than relief. There’s style on display here, oodles and oodles of style, but no spirit or structure.
Robert Downey Jr. takes the title role in this dramatized biography of the great pioneering silent movie star. Chaplin’s real life was stuffed with scandalous tidbits - romances with much younger women, an ugly paternity suit, clashes with the Hollywood elite, accusations of communism - and those all make it into the film, but muster very little power. Perhaps because they’re noted and discarded so quickly, mere bumps in the golden-paved road that barely cause an inconvenience. The film tries to excuse this with a flimsy framing device, the gray-haired star discussing his career with a biographer and intentionally skipping the difficult or revealing bits, but I don’t buy it. Instead it feels intentionally glossy and reverent, a take that’s more into its subject as a heroic underdog than a real, flawed human being.
And hey, great, I revere Chaplin too. We don’t need to drag him through the mud to make this biopic interesting... but it does need to be interesting. In that crucial respect, Chaplin is a whiff. Intriguing as it may be to see Tony Stark cosplaying as the little tramp, Marisa Tomei as Mabel Normand, Kevin Kline as Douglas Fairbanks (perfect casting) and an underaged Milla Jovovich as one of Chaplin’s underaged brides, there’s very little to carry this film beyond sentiment and star power.
A true coattail-rider, told with a dearth of energy and enthusiasm, which is ironic as those are precisely the traits that have made its subject so beloved in the hundred-plus years since his heyday.
It’s surprising, in retrospect, that The Thing wasn’t better received by contemporary reviewers. Granted, it faced unusually stiff theatrical competition in E.T. and Blade Runner, both less than two weeks old, which certainly stole a great deal of its thunder. At the hour of The Thing’s opening, Spielberg’s family-friendly blockbuster had already established a popular, positive outlook on alien relations (basically the antithesis of The Thing’s overwhelming nihilism), while Ridley Scott’s sci-fi opus was exploring equally bleak tones and mature, ambiguous themes. There’s no room for three films to coexist at the top, particularly ones with such similarities. Public sentiment agreed that John Carpenter’s small-scale saga of a fierce, faceless extraterrestrial attack in the Antarctic desolation couldn’t hold a candle. Fortunately, hindsight has been more forgiving.
What a ride this is. Carpenter leans hard on the suspense, skillfully employing the locale’s smothering isolation as amplification in much the same way Scott did with Alien, just a few years prior. The nature of the beast, as an invisible, corrupting force, is a brilliant device for this type of story. Nobody’s safe and nobody can be trusted, not even oneself. Late in the crisis, when the team has finally developed a reliable blood test, that fear is palpable. We can see it in their widened eyes and held breath: what if I’m already infected? Their uncertainty intensifies our own, heightening tensions to unbearable levels. In this, Carpenter teaches a master class, and the payoff - a series of lumpy, repulsive creature effects from Rob Bottin - are worth the price we pay. When the alien mass sprouts from its living host, the results are car-crash grotesque, all melted flesh and unnatural deformity. Appropriately powerful and haunting, alien but also eerily familiar, they shock and disgust, every single time.
There’s no two ways about it: this is a classic. An intelligent, potent, thrilling example of science fiction and horror that's right up there with the best of each genre. Tragic that the poor initial reception had such a negative impact on Carpenter’s career.
As with most blockbuster disaster movies, there isn’t a lot of scientific accuracy in The Day After Tomorrow. It’s much happier placing an emphasis on hand-wringing anticipation and large-scale destruction than minding the boring constraints of reality. I think audiences are happier that way, too. Let’s just get it out of the way, then: this is really dumb, its core message is pre-school simple and it’s not going to make sense when we poke and prod at the weirder bits. There. Now I can exhale.
What this leaves behind is a straightforward, ice-themed survival adventure on two fronts. We’ve got a group of teens, on a field trip to Manhattan, who get stranded in the public library during a deadly freeze. And then there’s a determined dad (coincidentally, also the only scientist on the planet who saw this coming) who bundles up tight and sets off on an expedition to bring the kids home safely. Hundreds of thousands die, shopping malls are buried under snow drifts, ocean liners run aground in Times Square and a pack of wolves escapes from the Central Park Zoo. All factor into their own obvious, self-explanatory set pieces. Well, maybe not the mass fatalities. Those just play as extra background color.
Honestly, as the genre goes, this isn’t such a bad example. It crams in all the expected CG shots (the New York tsunami and Los Angeles supertornado are especially memorable) and there’s a lot of stupid, manufactured suspense, but it knows when to show restraint and the character work is actually pretty strong. Four years removed from Donnie Darko, Jake Gyllenhaal was way too good for this kind of flick, but he doesn’t let that knowledge color his performance as the brainy, brooding young adult who’s accidentally shut in with his teen crush for the winter.
Not a good movie, not even close, but a decent enough spectacle and that’s all it intends to be. This might not be one of Roland Emmerich’s best, but it’s also a far, far cry from his worst.
After losing custody of his kids for, basically, being a big kid, Robin Williams goes undercover as a British nanny so he can remain a part of their lives. While he’s initially unprepared for the rigors of housekeeping, and the little ones almost immediately see through the disguise, he soon finds his rhythm and grows to become an indispensable resource for the family, not to mention a close confidant for his ex-wife. Although he often abuses that position (especially when the wife shows interest in a former flame), in general he’s a more active, responsible parent under the wig and cardigan than he ever was as a traditional father.
This is another weak, by-the-numbers Chris Columbus picture, elevated by a manic, largely-improvised performance from Williams. Credit the director for the liberty he grants in that respect, allowing his star to completely take over and alter the tone of several scenes, but man alive, the nuts and bolts of the film are completely inept and flavorless. That’s something I’ve noticed in most of Columbus’s efforts behind the camera: they just aren’t very well-made, with the best entries (Home Alone, for instance) succeeding in spite of his pervasive, amateurish tendencies. They all feel like big-budget Hallmark movies; broad, hammy and superficial. This is no exception. It’s just a quick-lipped Robin Williams dress-up show, nothing more.
I knew a guy like Scott Pilgrim in college. Likable, witty and talented, but also completely self-absorbed and head-over-heels in love with the idea of being in love. Neither had the patience to maintain a long-term relationship, but that’s not really what they were after, as evidenced by the trail of broken hearts in their wake. For this type, falling in love is about one moment in time, not minding a sustained flame. They’re chasing the spark, that microscopic flutter that accompanies every all-encompassing crush. Eventually, hopefully, they grow out of it and learn that deeper love is about give-and-take, compassion and sacrifice, learning to care about someone else more than you do yourself. I take Scott Pilgrim’s arc like that; a dawning realization that hey, I’m not the only person in the world and hey, it sucks to be discarded by someone you still see as the center of the universe. Not sure if my college buddy ever made the same transition.
At the start of this story, Scott’s a terrible boyfriend. He cheats because he’s too cowardly to break up with his significant other, then moans about the awkward conversations to follow. He’s a walking, talking relationship vortex until he’s swept up in the current of another, more powerful storm. That cyclone is named Ramona Flowers, and her history is so messy she’s tailed by “Seven Evil Exes,” an assortment of bitter former lovers who seek battle with the new guy. Director Edgar Wright, no stranger to offbeat love tales, leaves room for these brawls to get as wild and crazy as they wanna be, with most fights accompanied by a high-tempo tune from Scott’s on-screen garage rock band. It’s all presented with oodles of creativity, a great ongoing soundtrack and a striking, one-of-a-kind retro video game aesthetic, but does sometimes get a bit carried away with so many layers of eccentricity. Michael Cera is well-suited for the leading role, all clumsy and weird, with a shockingly rich cast of name actors present to add extra sound and fury. Still pretty good, but I remembered it being much better.
Following an abrupt leap through time and space at the climax of Evil Dead II, harassed horror hero Ash Williams finds himself stranded in the Middle Ages. There, sword-wielding knights admire his shotgun, unkempt villagers ogle his Oldsmobile and learned village elders are dazzled by the science textbooks stuffed in his trunk. Pulled into a conflict between neighboring kingdoms, Ash unmasks their common enemy (an evil zombie horde), proves he’s adept at the art of decapitation and agrees to stem the flow of marching dead at its source: a lost magical text dubbed Necronomicon.
Despite the differences in setting and scale, that’s a pretty similar premise to the first two films. Fight wicked dead things, discover cursed book bound in flesh, recite demonic incantations and smash the big boss. This shouldn’t be surprising, as the second film was already little more than a polished re-telling of the first with a few extra nods, winks and evil, disembodied hands. And besides, no one really watches a Sam Raimi zombie movie for the plot, do they? This particular variety of cult-friendly jam is all about the insanely wacky scenarios, goopy creature effects and egregiously bad dialogue, as wrangled and amplified by its granite-jawed leading man, Bruce Campbell.
In this third installment, Campbell again dominates the screen, one-upping his solo performance with the prop hand by playing both hero and villain, not to mention a dozen itty-bitty munchkin versions of himself in the loony funhouse scene that anchors the second act. He’s the lifeblood of the film, striking badass pinup poses, glistening through all the action scenes, delivering a fiery speech or two and spitting enough hilariously awful catchphrases to be borderline unhealthy. Seriously, how did he keep a straight face through all of this?
As a no-holds-barred playground for one specific actor (and/or one specific type of fan), Army of Darkness hits the mark. It may not be quite as much fun as its predecessor - the medieval setting makes for an awkward fit amidst all the schlocky horror themes - but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s no fun at all. A proud example of loose, silly, uncensored pulp that knows better than to overstay its welcome.
Ignoring the warnings of local pub-goers, a pair of indifferent American backpackers stumble off the main road, encroach upon the wrong rain-soaked pasture and bump into a sharp, furry piece of European folklore. One of the young men is immediately sliced to bloody ribbons, with the other hustling toward the same fate until a late reprieve drops him, instead, in a hospital bed. There, he suffers vivid nightmares, colorful hallucinations, stifling hot flashes and inexplicable bouts of bloodlust before the state deems him adequately recovered and releases him to terrorize the city.
Part early ‘80s gore-horror and part early ‘80s sex comedy, An American Werewolf in London isn’t an especially strong example of either. Fortunately, the real emphasis is (rightly) placed on Rick Baker’s grotesque, groundbreaking special effects work. We skate right past the protagonist’s clumsy flirtations with a cute nurse and silly arguments with an increasingly-decomposed former travel buddy, but linger for ages on the agony of transformation when the switch flips and he finally goes full werewolf. The beast itself may seem a bit tame by today’s standards, propped up by smoke and mirrors as it is, but the bone-breaking metamorphosis scenes remain delightfully repugnant, twisted and squirm-inducing. Extra kudos to lead werewolf David Naughton for really pushing those over the top with a chilling physical (and vocal) performance.
As a pioneer in the emerging laugh/scream subgenre, it’s easy to see how this irreverent take on a once-serious subject would go on to influence films like Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice and, much later, Shaun of the Dead. Writer/director John Landis was brimming with fresh ideas at this point in his career, but still very raw, as evidenced by the loose plot structure and hollow ending.
When I first heard they were making another one of these, I groaned. When I saw the title, I buried my head in my hands. Indy’s last adventure, 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, didn’t leave me with much hope for the franchise, and that first impression - an abrasive, clunky moniker - stunk with precisely the same odor. Man, do I really want to put myself through this again? The first three Indiana Jones films are an indelible part of my cinematic childhood. What’s the point in dragging their names back through the mud? I don’t really need to see an eighty-year-old Harrison Ford don the fedora and try to move like a younger man. Do I?
Well, curiosity sometimes makes us do funny things. Nostalgic fondness, too. And, despite my better judgment, I did indeed take the time to breathe deep, hold my nose and sit through the ’23 model. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s not half as bad as I’d feared. Several important lessons have been learned from that preceding misfire, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to put this on the same pedestal as the first three (not even Temple of Doom), it’s still a great relief. Good enough that I felt no embarrassment about watching, at any rate, though I remain unconvinced about the need for its existence.
Like most of the other Indies, even the good ones, the plot involves an international MacGuffin hunt. Our hero has, and then loses, possession of an ancient mathematical artifact that can somehow transport skilled users through time and space. Something of an analog flux capacitor, in other words. Indy thinks it belongs in a museum, but a small pack of Nazi leftovers (including ringleader Mads Mikkelsen) sees it as a means to revive their evil empire. During the pursuit, we catch up with several recurring members of the broader Jones family (many offscreen), cross paths with the Apollo 11 astronauts, endure a thrilling tuk-tuk chase in Tangier (easily the film’s best scene) and meet a feisty prodigal goddaughter. Who, for what it’s worth, represents one of the more valuable items learned from Crystal Skull. She’s no force-fed Shia Labeouf. The stakes aren’t so artificially high, either, with less supernatural mumbo jumbo and (thank goodness for this) more practical effects. The CG in Dial of Destiny is a crutch, an enhancement, not the constant center of attention like it was in Crystal Skull.
So, yeah, Indiana Jones 5 is better than the abomination that came before. I might even say it’s a mildly above-average old-timers' action movie. It doesn’t feel so much like a classic adventure serial, though, lacking the magic that made the first trilogy sing, and I think the dial itself is partially to blame. There’s just no romance in chasing a wholly-invented artifact; not like there is for an ark of the covenant or holy grail. Those probably never existed either, but generations of treasure-hunters clearly felt otherwise and their documented, accumulated conviction lends a certain, tangible sense of history and authenticity that’s missing here. Archimedes’ dial may be shiny and bright, but in comparison to the genuine article(s) it’s just fool’s gold.
This leisurely adaptation of one of Jules Verne’s most extraordinary voyages sends us on a breakneck race to circumnavigate the globe in a then-unthinkable two and a half months. As more than eight decades had already passed since the book's publication, the filmed version takes some liberties with the source material, but most deviations are for the better. The famous flight in a hot air balloon, for example, was culled from a different Verne novel and has since become one of the tale’s most enduring images. The protagonist's French butler has seen his ethnicity swapped to suit the latin star Cantinflas, a popular foreign comedian whose unique brand of energetic charisma breathes life into a number of floundering scenes.
As travel and culture are essential themes, we’re treated to a great number of panoramic vistas and unique set designs. The route doesn’t make a lot of sense, given the urgency of the trip, but I’m willing to forgive that in the name of a little extra international flavor. Each destination gets its chance to shine, with a heavy emphasis placed on costume and set design, and the constant cultural crash courses feel earnest and celebratory despite a bit of common western bias. Worst of those offenses: casting lily-white Shirley MacLaine as an Indian princess (she studied for a semester in London, we’re told). But that kind of thing is to be expected of 1950s Hollywood.
Verne novels aren’t really regarded for their depth, and in that respect the film is completely loyal. This is just a flowery concept that’s thumped and beaten for every ounce of superficial value, offering no more insight or meaning than a travel agency brochure. It’s a voyage, after all, not a character piece, and despite a literal cast of thousands, loaded with cameos, the finished product can’t quite support its own weight. Without the top-notch production design, it would’ve been a total bore.
