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Reviews
The Celluloid Closet (1995)
Must-See For Movie Buffs!
Plenty of ideas for future rentals!
Films cited:
Edison Experimental, 1895 A Florida Enchantment, 1914 + Algie, the Miner, 1912 The Soilers, 1923 Wanderer of the West, 1927 Behind the Screen, 1916 Our Betters, 1933 + The Gay Divorcée, 1934 The Broadway Melody, 1929 Myrt and Marge, 1934 Call Her Savage, 1932 Morocco, 1930 + Queen Christina, 1933 + Tarzan and His Mate, 1934 Manslaughter, 1922 + The Lost Weekend, 1945 Crossfire, 1947 + Dracula's Daughter, 1936 + Rebecca, 1940 + The Maltese Falcon, 1941 Rope, 1948 - Caged, 1950 + Young Man With a Horn, 1950 + Tea and Sympathy, 1956 + Rebel Without a Cause, 1955 Ben-Hur, 1959 Calamity Jane, 1953 + Johnny Guitar, 1954 + Red River, 1948 + In a Lonely Place, 1950 + Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953 Lover Come Back, 1961 Pillow Talk, 1959 Some Like It Hot, 1959 Spartacus, 1960 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1958 + Suddenly, Last Summer, 1959 + Bride of Frankenstein, 1935 + Victim, 1961 + The Children's Hour, 1962 + Advise and Consent, 1962 Walk on the Wild Side, 1962 + The Detective, 1968 The Fox, 1968 The Boys in the Band, 1970 Cabaret, 1972 + Next Stop, Greenwich Village, 1976 Car Wash, 1976 Vanishing Point, 1971 Freebie and the Bean, 1974 Night Shift, 1982 Teen Wolf, 1985 Cruising, 1980 Windows, 1980 The Fan, 1981 Making Love, 1982 Wings, 1927 + The Sergeant, 1968 + A View from the Bridge, 1962 + Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, 1974 Sunday, Bloody Sunday, 1971 Personal Best, 1982 The Color Purple, 1985 Thelma and Louise, 1991 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969 The Hunger, 1983 Midnight Express, 1978 Fried Green Tomatoes, 1991 Philadelphia, 1993 Torch Song Trilogy, 1988 The Wedding Banquet, 1993 Poison, 1991 + Go Fish, 1994 + The Hours and Times, 1992 Edward II, 1991 The Living End, 1992 The Crying Game, 1992 My Own Private Idaho, 1991 Silkwood, 1983 The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 1994 + The Silence of the Lambs, 1991 Basic Instinct, 1992 Longtime Companion, 1990 My Beautiful Laundrette, 1985 Lianna, 1983 Boys on the Side, 1995 Parting Glances, 1986 + Desert Hearts, 1985
Broadway Serenade (1939)
OK; MacDonald Is An Acquired Taste
A lot of fun! The ending sequence is great.
MacDonald is indisputably a talented vocalist, extremely powerful. (See and hear her in "San Francisco.") She's a little TOO powerful for my taste. Whenever she solos or duets, she smothers everything else with soprano sauce. She's a warbler for sure! Her best bit is the swing sequence at the bar.
July 2005 Trivia: Lew Ayres old house in LA (< 2000 square feet) just sold for around $620K.
So rent it!
Here's another line!
Blue Vinyl (2002)
Cunning, Heartfelt Propaganda, But Worth a Look
Blue Vinyl is lefty scare-mongering propaganda, but nevertheless worth a viewing. Helfand gives enough names and references to provide the viewer with opportunity for deeper research if desired. Chemical-phobic true believers will love the film, and skeptics will find plenty of examples of bad science and misleading presentation to debunk and debate.
JH's crusade against vinyl chloride is so intense that she seems unaware of her daily use of hundreds of other synthetics, such as the toxic-spawned semiconductors in her cameras, phones, and transportation. She inflicts this intensity upon her parents, who seem to bear fairly well a level of hectoring that would surely shorten my lifespan if I had to endure it like they did. (I would have had a stroke sometime during the days-long sales presentation by the California mud architect.)
She concludes that wood is a dandy safe building material, and recommends old planking recovered from demolished picturesque mills in New Hampshire, at premium cost. Since the supply of quaint old mills and barns is limited, sooner or later she's going to have to start cutting down forests, and that will probably upset some of her allies. It's not as if there are any work-related injuries or deaths in the lumber industry! (And if your house catches fire, be sure to breathe in that harmless innocent wood smoke; it's so much better for you than PVC combustion products.)
Let me mention just two specific problems with the film: 1) She depicts the Bucket Brigade, a grass-roots air-sampling project in a Louisiana community. But she fails to show whether any _control_ samples were taken, which would establish whether the samples were perhaps contaminated by the _plastic_ bags in which they were collected. 2) She interviews a spokesperson for the vinyl industry (a PhD organic chemist.) She goes out of her way to demonstrate her frustration that the interview is limited to 30 minutes. Well, guess what? She doesn't even show you the full 30 minute interview; she edits it down to about two minutes, most of which is taken up by her canned questions. The least she could have done was to include the full, unedited interview in the DVD extras, but I have a feeling that would have been too fair to her nemesis.
Piñero (2001)
A Well-Acted Biography, Worth Your Time
Wonderful photography and locations. Great acting performances all around, with a special shout-out to Rita Moreno. Soundtrack by Kip Hanrahan transcends all.
Whether you respect Pinero or not, it's a detailed, loving biography. I learned from it.
Would it be better in chronological sequence? So many films these days eschew chronology; I sometimes wish the DVDs would include multiple edits, including the director's edit, and a chronological edit.
If you like this, I'd strongly recommend Panic In Needle Park. PINP makes you interested in the (fictional) characters and their fate, whereas this (probably factual) film may leave you indifferent.
I saw it for free, from the public library.
Runaway (1984)
Inept Cheeseball Of A Movie
Terrible acting, plodding TV-movie-style direction and camera work, horribly unreal dialogue, and a truly awful synthesizer musical score. Some of the worst reaction shots ever filmed. Cynthia Rhodes could profitably take acting lessons from Chuck Norris. Even for the sci-fi genre, this is bottom-of-the-barrel. Of course it's dated; it's about a world with computers that aren't networked, robots without "off" switches, and no cell-phones. The movie may be interesting to fans of Kirstie Alley and Gene Simmons. There's a hilariously inappropriate outburst from Alley in the backseat of a car during a chase, and Simmons mostly just glowers. There are a couple of effective jump-scenes near the end. Don't pay to rent it; check it out from the library for free, like I did.
Shane (1953)
Shane: A Flawless MUST-SEE Film
Shane: A Flawless MUST-SEE Film
I'd place Shane in the top three Westerns, along with High Noon and The Oxbow Incident.
I can't find even one flaw in Shane. Breathtaking story, casting, acting, setting, photography.
Recent reports say that Shane was meticulously researched, so what you see for wardrobe and sets is close to authentic.
Pay special attention to elder Riker's soliloquy. Rarely does a movie villian justify himself so eloquently. But this is only one among at least a half-dozen brilliant set-pieces in this drama.
Look at the skies and mountain backgrounds! Think what these looked like in the theater!
If you have never seen a Western, or if you think you'd never like a Western, you must absolutely see Shane.
Shane is a MUST-SEE for all movie buffs. If you've never seen it, it MUST be your next pick!
The Music Man (1962)
Witty, Funny, Insightful
In the sixties, my folks would play the MM soundtrack LP frequently, and I grew to loathe it, not having seen the movie (at that age, I wouldn't have understood it anyway.) This week, I spotted the DVD at the library, watched it and enjoyed it. It's witty, funny, and insightful about American attitudes, slang and commerce. If you like Tocqueville or Sinclair Lewis, you might like this musical.
Preston blows the doors out of the joint with a super-energetic, laser-focused performance. The Prof. Hill character is deeper than many reviewers seem to realize. He's no mere con-man; he accomplishes miracles from the first day of his arrival in River City. Even though he can't play a note, he knows more about music than even formally-trained Marian. He's far more adept at leadership than the mayor. He transforms almost everyone he meets, and for the better.
I didn't understand the motivation of Hackett's character. He'd left the con game, settled down happily for the quiet life in River City, and you'd think he would feel some loyalty to the town and its people. Despite this, he commits fully to the con and to escaping the town. Maybe another viewing would clear this up for me.
If you're a USA midwesterner, baby-boomer or older, who's never seen this film, I recommend that you give it a look.
Judy Berlin (1999)
One Day In Babylon
This is one interpretation of a slice of life in southern Long Island. The major theme is the emotional distance among the characters and the awkward futility of their attempts to communicate. A minor theme is mental illness: Dolores has memory impairment, Alice has incipient dementia, and David has crippling depression.
The cast is good. The music is intrusive and not so good: minimalist, with a faux-baroque touch. The camera uses medium long shots to emphasize the emotional chasms, and pulls in medium close in the few scenes where characters almost connect.
The movie held my interest all the way through, but I can't fault anyone who found it dull or pointless. Here are some recommendations: For a better use of a minimalist score, see Koyaanisqatsi. To enjoy an artfully scored movie with _real_ baroque music, see Kramer vs Kramer. For better use of black-and-white photography in a recent film, see The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Another film touching on emotional emptiness and the banality of the suburban landscape is Ghost World. For two completely different looks at life in Long Island communities, try Trees Lounge, and L.I.E.
Eight Crazy Nights (2002)
Unpleasant, Unfunny, Unwatchable
Do NOT pay money to see Eight Crazy Nights!
This is one of the very few movies, ever, that I could not finish watching. It is thoroughly repulsive and humorless. I have nothing against gross-out humor, but Sandler's character isn't simply gross: he's a hateful felonious violent sociopath who wouldn't be tolerated in any small town, during holiday season or any other season.
If that main character doesn't annoy you enough, the gratingly-voiced old coach will drive needles into your ears. There's nothing about these characters or their situation that could compel me to sit through the whole film to learn their fate.
You could make a satisfying cartoon short out of ECN: keep the first ten minutes, throw out everything else, and then add a new five minute ending where Sandler's character meets the same fate as the Joe Pesci character does in Casino.
TV Turkeys: The World's Worst Television Shows (1987)
Mildly Interesting Old TV Flops 1930s-1950s
TV Turkeys is a compilation of old pilots and broadcasts. I was expecting sixties stuff like "My Mother the Car," but this material is much older and more obscure. It includes a western acted by children/dubbed by adults; a mattress commercial purportedly from the 1930s; a dull interview of SoCal car enthusiasts; a short episode of "Suicide Theatre" starring (I think) DeForest Kelley; a Raleigh cigarette "gameshow;" a sitcom about ditzy stewardesses called "Up On Cloud Nine," starring an actress you'll remember from "Leave It To Beaver;" and my favorite, an outrageous advertisement for the United Fund. It's padded with lame commentary by Ozzie & Harriet actor Skip Young. Mildly interesting but probably not worth paying for; I recommend you check it out for free from the library, like I did.
Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)
Dystopic, Surreal, Pretentious!
Dystopic, Surreal, Pretentious! A "vision" of a dystopic technocracy, centrally controlled by Alpha-60, told through the experience of a supersidereal secret agent. Much worse than it sounds! The best parts are the interiors, the spiral staircases, the urban landscapes, the tracking shots. Everything else is pretentious artsy-fartsy avant-garde phony-baloney. The use of music is absolutely terrible! The story and dialogue are "merde," the soundtrack is a hash, the continuity ISN'T; the acting is especially bad in the long scenes, where actors wander about without ANY sense of reality of interaction. You can see lots of walking tracking shots in corridors (best accomplished in GoodFellas.) You can see face-closeups of weird stylistic characters (best accomplished in Fargo.)
Conquest of Space (1955)
Retro Visual Delight
I recommend this film based on the delightfully retro sets, visuals, and special "effects," and the excellent condition of the print. It's Willy Ley all the way, a fun vignette of the space buff dreams of its era. The sound is a little muddy; the story, dialogue and acting are quite bad. The camera shakes up and down every time it dollies. Although certainly not in the same league as Forbidden Planet, this film is well worth 80 minutes of a movie fan's time.
The 51st State (2001)
OK For Fans Of The Violent Action-Comedy Genre
1) I saw it for free, and I enjoy the British gangster genre and films with lots of profanity and over-the-top violence. So I liked Formula 51 better than most critics did; it's better than the TomatoMeter 22% rating indicates.
2) It borrows styles and character types from Trainspotters, Guy Ritchie and Tarantino actioners.
3) Too many critics complained about Jackson's kilt. It's a complete non-issue; don't worry about it.
4) Meat Loaf acts a good villain, a tiny bit like the D'Onofrio villain in Salton Sea.
5) There are no good guys. If you need a good guy in your films, then you won't like this one. On the other hand, the biggest villains are dispatched very satisfactorily.
6) The British urban settings were interesting to me, a Yank.
7) The worst thing about the film is the gradual softening of the Carlyle and Mortimer characters. They started out hard-boiled, and eventually turned into those two kids in the "Love Is..." cartoons. I wanted them to stay vicious to the end.
8) It's an action-comedy, so don't obsess over plot and continuity questions, like how Carlyle's gunshot wound heals in a few hours, or how escape-by-barge could possibly work. Any single movie in the Die Hard series has dozens more plot holes than this film does, and it doesn't much matter in a violent action-comedy.
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
One Of The Three Greatest Westerns
One of the three greatest Westerns (along with Shane and High Noon,) and among the finest films from any country, period or genre. If you never thought you'd like a Western, or have seen only (the many) bad ones, you must see this film! Brilliant performances by all actors; pay special attention to Fonda and Darwell (if you admired their performances in Grapes of Wrath, you'll like them here too.) Gripping, timeless and profound story. Short, easy to watch, yet repeated viewings will reward you, revealing how some seemingly incidental scenes develop characters. Note the compositional use of framing and obscuration.
Lord Love a Duck (1966)
Unpleasant, Flawed, Dated
For me, good things about this film: 1) I thought about it for days after I saw it (for the first time in 2003.) 2) A few foxy actresses gyrate. 3) It held my attention throughout. 4) McDowell's character made me want to choke him to death at every appearance; a sign of good acting, I hope!
For me, neutral things about this 1966 American film: 1) I acknowledge that it probably ages very poorly: A) The level of humor is "Rowan&Martin Laugh-In" quality: a) Harvey Korman acts his heart out, but desperately trying to make the script funny, he resorts to worthless gags like sticking stuff in his mouth. b) The movie producer does a countdown from ten, forgets which number comes before six. Hilarity ensues! His girlfriend delivers the same dull punchline FOUR times in a row. A Barrel O'Laughs! B) The music is dreadful twangy rock'n'roll, much like the ersatz rock'n'roll that was sometimes used in sitcoms like "The Andy Griffith Show," and "The Beverly Hillbillies." C) There's a pervasive general sense of chaotic rebellion against ... what?
a) The dumbing-down of education (botany becomes "plant skills for life;" several schools consolidate into one.) b) The modernization of religious ritual (drive-in church.) c) The vapidity of 1960s American SoCal consumer culture. Note especially Alan's ridiculous and annoying closing monologue. d) The fall of quality cinema (while at the same time, capitalizing on the beach-party genre draw.)
For me, bad things about this film: 1) Continuity. A) Watch how shabbily the film bridges Barbara Ann's wedding. B) What possibly justifies the reach for pathos with Marie's suicide? (And they keep playing that _lame_ music well into the scene.) It feels like biting into a clot of mustard in the middle of a jelly doughnut. C) The whole movie-producer/celebrity subtheme is tacked-on. It feels like they tried to achieve continuity by editing together Alan's taped recollections, Barbara Ann's dreams, and scenes with the producer. 2) Characters lack logical motivation for their actions. Even a farce has to be somewhat logical, doesn't it? A) Why doesn't anyone realize Alan's trying to murder Barbara Ann's husband after the first try, let alone after four attempts? Hey, hey, HEY! B) What's up with the delirious hilarity of Barbara Ann's lunch date with her father? What justifies their loopy behavior? Was there a dope-smoking scene that was edited out? C) Why do all the primary characters allow Alan to worm his way into their lives when he is such an insufferable know-it-all/dreamer/manipulator/pain-in-the-butt? 3) Technical problems. A) Boom microphones show up in at least a half dozen scenes. In at least one scene, the entire boom and pole are visible.
The AristoCats (1970)
Pretty Good Background Art
The primary characters and action are often upstaged by the quality of the background art. There is a not-so-subtle ethnic stereotype in the first appearance of Scat Cat's band; watch the drummer.
Scooby-Doo (2002)
Better Than The Original Cartoons, At Least
1) This movie is tolerable if you can see it for free; don't pay for it. 2) It is crafted far better than the original cartoons. 3) The casting is quite good, especially Lillard. 4) Self-mockery elevates the plot somewhat above the plots of the cartoons. 5) Whether or not you like the art design and the computer animation, you have to admit that someone put a lot of work into it.
Scotland, PA (2001)
Dialogue Difficult to Hear on VHS
I liked everything about this movie except the audio mix. On the rented VHS, for some reason the dialogue was usually too faint compared to other sound components, so I had to constantly change the volume to try to hear what characters were saying. Maybe this was better in the theater, but for tapes and DVDs, I think the studios should compress the dynamic range of the sound.