Tropical Malady

Sud Pralad
2004
Anna Sanders Films
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Length: 118 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 31 January

This is a film that I liked upon reflection much more than while actually watching it. Tropical Malady is essentially two short films (both have opening credits) that tell the same story with the same two main characters and corresponding actors, except the first is told literally and the second metaphorically. The metaphorical half, as expected is difficult to understand and, on little more than 4 hours of sleep as was my case, hard to get through. Precious little happens, and the concept of a standard timeline is meaningless. The second half is well-crafted and creative in its execution, but I preferred the the first half. The leads are both good in their roles and they have a natural charisma together. Their scene in the movie house is extremely erotic and their scene in the long-house when Keng lays his head on Tong's leg is incredibly romantic. The film is good overall and the cinematography is often breathtaking, but it didn't spark with me as much as I wish it had. If you are a passive viewer of films, don't bother; this is for active viewers only.

Shoot the Piano Player

Tirez sur le pianiste
1960
Les Films de la Pléiade
Director: Francois Truffaut
Length: 81 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 29 January

Dull even at 81 minutes, Francois Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player tries way too hard to blend various genres and to be inventive, and it shows painfully throughout. The film does have some truly funny scenes and a couple of clever moments, but it's generally forced and flat as a result. The characters are all one-dimensional and bland, with the only exception to the one-dimensionality being the lead, Charles Aznavour, but his character is certainly not interesting. He is played as a straight-man but is strangely given no comedic yin to his yang. The French New Wave certainly had its successes, but this film sure isn't one of them.

The Best of Youth

La Meglio Gioventù
2003 (US Release: 2005)
Rai CinemaFiction
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
Length: 360 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 29 January

Yes, the film is six hours long. This will probably deter you from watching the film, but it would be silly to let this happen. After all, most people watch twice that in shitty TV shows every week. Those who give this film a chance will get to the end of the six hours and still want more. Tight, focused and economical even at six hours, the story of two Italian brothers living through a tough era of Italian political turmoil, 1966-2003 is completely engrossing and the six hours fly by faster than standard megaplex dreck (King Kong is half the length of The Best of Youth but feels five times as long). The beauty of the film comes in a bright yet realistic optimism that perseveres through death, separation and a country engaged in an battle of ideologies. Tenderly acted, gorgeously photographed, tightly edited, Giordana's film is easily one of the best films of 2005, and Nicola and Mirella's walk near Carlo's estate near the end of the film is one of the most romantic and touching scenes I've seen in years. Do yourself a favor and give this film a chance.

Back to the Future

1985
Amblin Entertainment
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Length: 111 min.
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 28 January

Fun Film Experiment!

Watching this fun and inventive film at the Egyptian theater this weekend for the first time since I was a young lad, I noticed that the great Dean Cundey (Escape From New York, The Fog) was the director of photography. I was disappointed for most of the film at what I initially perceived as somewhat standard framing. Then it hit me: he shot it like a film from 1955! This renewed my faith in Cundey and led me to devise an as-of-yet untested theory that I want you to try with me. During the 1985 sequences of the film, keep everything as usual on your TV, but the second Marty goes back to 1955, turn off the TV's color, and watch it in black-and-white. My hypothesis is that the film will look like it was produced in 1955, just with really good special effects, and will perhaps enhance the fun of the film. Give it a try. What have you got to lose?

Serenity

2005
Mutant Enemy
Director: Joss Whedon
Length: 119 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 27 January

Serenity is another in a long line of film based on TV shows that feels like a two-parter that somehow got a theatrical release. The sets, lighting and framing has a distinct television quality to it (strange, then, that cinematographer Jack Green has only one TV episode to sizable filmography), the story doesn't amount to a whole lot and it tries to wrap up loose ends from the Firefly series. All this, however, matters very little in the case of Serenity; it doesn't take itself very seriously and just wants to have a whole lot of fun. The cowboys-in-space idea generally works (though the dialogue often feels forced, like it was written by someone who hasn't seen a Western since he was a boy), and gives a much needed fresh angle to the science-fiction genre. The film is often very funny and the battles are exciting, which reveals some unpolished directorial talent in Joss Whedon, who should have two films out in the next two years. Let's just hope they too don't feel like a TV show on the big screen.

Enjo

1958
Daiei
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Length: 98 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 26 January

Ichikawa is without a doubt one of the true masters of Japanese cinema, having the brilliant Tokyo Olympiad and the sumptuous adaptation of The Makioka Sisters as just two examples of his directorial filmography. It is disappointing, then, that his adaptation of Yukio Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavillion, here titled Enjo, is such a weak film.

Just like the book, I found it very difficult to get into the story. None of the characters resonate with me, and none are particularly interesting, save Kashiwagi, who is interesting in a perverse way. After a while and finding no access point I cared enough to go through, I found both book and film to be dull and cold. The script of the film is so jumpy and rushed that it's hard to get one's bearings, and all characters, especially the supporting characters, feel woefully underdeveloped. Worse, when Mizoguchi (Raizou Ichikawa) finally gets to his destructive act at the temple, it's not remotely clear why he made the decision to proceed.

The scope cinematography by master cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa is extremely well-framed, and the match-cuts by editor Shigeo Nishida are flawless and seem quite ahead of their time, but both seem wasted on such a poor story and script.

Layer Cake

2004
Columbia Pictures Industry
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Length: 106 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 25 January

It's a shame that first-time director Matthew Vaughn is being compared to hack director Guy Ritchie. Vaughn, in his one film, has shown far more talent than Ritchie has shown in his three (though I didn't see Swept Away because I'm not an idiot).

Vaughn gives us a confidently made crime film, utilizing stylization to suit the story as opposed to the other way around as most crime films do these days. The fantastic cinematography and seamless editing allow for a pacing that flows smoothly from start to end. The soundtrack, culled from must have been Vaughn's collection as a young man, is great and the songs very well chosen to fit their scenes.

The performances are also consistently strong. Daniel Craig is excellent here, and plays the lead in an atypical way. He never goes to bed with a woman, hates guns and gets extremely upset when he has to use one (though his playacting as Bond was rather funny) and gets obviously overwhelmed when the stakes are raised too high for his taste.

The script lets us down sometimes, though, dropping certain plot lines without notice and gets a bit too confusing during certain key scenes around the half-way mark (which is perhaps due to my limited understanding of British slang). The wraps everything up fairly tidy by the end, though, and the last scene, while it may understandingly frustrate many, was perfect for this type of story.

This is a very good film overall, and I am already excited for Vaughn's next film, an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust.

Crash

2004
ApolloProScreen Filmproduktion
Director: Paul Haggis
Length: 112 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 24 January

Let's just get it out of the way. Crash is a terrible film. I somehow endured it's length (I can't remember ever being so happy for a film to end ten minutes before it's advertised run-time), and I ask you to avoid doing so yourself.

Racism in modern America is a topic that needs to be properly examined in the mass media. Some people have taken the stance that Crash fills that need. It doesn't, and perhaps even hurts our attempt to overthrow racism. Someone needs to come along and make a film that exposes the racist undercurrent in our country. How many people do you know spend their entire day screaming racial epitaphs or starting an agressive confrotntation every time they see a person of another race as they do in Crash? Exactly; almost nobody. How many people do you know tense up when they are around different races, or quietly single out an entire race as a group of thieves or bloodthirsty hoodlums to their same-race friends or families? That's right, almost everybody. And I, shamefully enough, include myself in that group (I've said some truly horrible things in my time). None of us are free from racially motivated stereotyping. Many of us work very hard on eliminating this racism and stereotyping from our thoughts and actions, but most people have no idea what they are saying or doing is harmful to others.

This is where Crash may hurt instead of help. In presenting racists as only those who openly and actively spew hate to others, it allows the subtly racist viewer off the hook. The subtle racist can correctly assert that they act in such a manner and thus, is either not a racist or, worse, can excuse their hateful words as they are not as bad as Crash's characters (trust me, I've seen this excuse from others and have used it myself in the past). This fallacy is already too prevalent in our society. You see it every time someone you know refer to anyone who speaks Spanish as a "beaner" to their non-Latino friends or points to prison statistics as proof that most black people are criminals (usually pointed out after the person says "I'm not a racist, but..."), for example. One day, a film may come along that exposes this truth and make us realize the error of our ways, but it seems that we're going to have to wait a little longer for that film.

But this is not the only problem of Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco's script. Throughout the film, you can almost hear the writers congratulating each other on how "perfectly" they scripted the ridiculously stupid coincidences that lead the characters to their conclusions and on how pat everything wraps up. They don't hesitate to use every cliche in the book and every non-revelation they can think of (wait, you mean the LAPD...is racist?). Haggis and Moresco even stoop so low as to have a scene where a little girl gets in the way of a gun, and worst of all, include a last-second rescue from an exploding car (it's so cheesy I had to leave the room for a minute, and almost turned the DVD off right there). Between characters making incongruous changes and choices and the aforementioned coincidences (and don't even get me started on the snowfall at the film's end), the script is so preposterous we can't begin to take it seriously even on a technical level. In fact, the whole script is generally of TV movie-of-the-week quality. The fact that the film played theatrically is something of a shock.

The cinematography is similarly poor. Slow motion is used at the worst possible times, and a hilariously poor dolly-counter-zoom only makes the child-in-danger scene all the more cringe-inducing (and not in the way Haggis wants us to cringe).

Nothing about this film rings true, and the entire effort is a huge waste of time. This isn't the worst film of the year. No, King Kong has a strangle-hold on that position. Crash certainly comes close, though. Let's just hope that somebody makes a real film on racism in the near future so we can erase Haggis' failed attempt from our consciousness.

The Molly Maguires

1970
Paramount Pictures
Director: Martin Ritt
Length: 124 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 24 January

The Molly Maguires was a major flop when it was released, and led to Sean Connery being labeled "box office poison." It further killed any chance of making Richard Harris into a star. The film was a flop because it's not very good, but it's a shame that two leads took the hit, because they are two of the few shining lights of the film.

Connery gives one of his best performances as Jack Kehoe, a man of few words but plenty of intensity. Harris plays James McKenna the same way he played Captain Tyreen in Major Dundee, but he's damn good at playing it. Their last scene together is quite powerful, fully revealing their high level of talent.

The film's other strength comes in the irreplaceable James Wong Howe's cinematography. Howe is perhaps the greatest American cinematographer of all time. He doesn't disappoint here, with his fantastic scope compositions - the 2.35:1 frame perfectly matching the mines lack of height and excess of length.

As stated, though, the film is just not good enough to make up for its rather impressive strengths. The main problem lies, strangely enough, in its desire to remain totally objective. Walter Bernstein's script tries to remain too objective and not to show anyone in a truly bad light, and as a result it doesn't even tell us exactly what everyone is fighting for. A throwaway line, so quiet it's hard to hear, says the men are angry because of cut wages, but in the end, Kehoe claims he fights the police and mine owners to show that he "is alive" and won't roll over to the powers that be.

I'm lucky that I've been reading about the battles of the late ninteenth centure, and of the Molly Maguires themselves who fought against the injustices of inhuman mine owners and their vicious police officers. Anyone who has not read up on the period and the fights between labor and capital are sure to be lost, and not understand the significance of anybody's actions or motives in situations like the burning of the company store, for instance.

Ritt and Bernstein's quest for objectivity and their attempts at show us the motivations through background detail is admirable and preferable to being hit over the head with speeches and heavy-handed symbolism, but they have unfortunately gone to the opposite extreme. Ritt and Bernstein's refusal to explain the stakes for members on either side of this particular fight is baffling, and weakens the film immensely. Nine years later, Ritt would correct this mistake and tell us what the battle between capital and labor is about in his film Norma Rae.

Glengarry Glen Ross

1992
GGR
Director: James Foley
Length: 100 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 23 January

Most films from the early 90s had a distinct style that now seems to resemble the late night soft-core Cinemax movies, and Glengarry Glen Ross can easily be counted as a member of this group. In Glengarry Glen Ross, this style is most notable in the poor and seemingly rushed lighting and in the soft jazz score that unfortunately underlines key scenes that should have been left alone. The editing is also weak, transitioning awkwardly between scenes and breaking scenes up into pieces that would have worked much better as a whole.

What the film does have going for it, though, is its excellent script and its fantastic actors. The dialogue, with its rough and vulgar language, feels extremely realistic in its portrayal of bottom-feeding salesmen. These salesmen are played fantastically by the ensemble cast, with Lemmon as its stand-out.

Lemmon is perfect as pathetic schmuck Shelley Levene, who makes a last-ditch effort to climb back up the heap that once was his. The character is impossible to like, but Lemmon knows how to reveal Levene's desperation lurking just below - though often showing itself explicitly at unguarded moments - the veneer of an old pro who still has the touch, but just not right this second. Pacino is also perfectly cast (another of the few films I like him in) as Ricky Roma, the hot-shot of the minor leagues. It's not so much that he's better in this film than any other one, but that he plays a character that perfectly encapsulates the "Al Pacino role." I could see Al Pacino as a property salesman in a place like Premiere Property (I'd most likely reach for my checkbook if he tried to sell me something), and as a result, is one of the few movies in which I can actually buy his performance. He does not disappoint here. Jonathan Pryce is the only actor in the cast who does, though, playing Pacino's prey, a man who seems a little too nervous. Why he exaggerated the character to the degree he does is beyond me, and perhaps this should have been rethought.

Regardless, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, and the film works despite its flaws.

The White Diamond

2004
Marco Polo Film AG
Director: Werner Herzog
Length: 90 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 23 January

The White Diamond is only the second Herzog film I've seen, behind Grizzly Man. I am very curious to see his fictional films, but I don't think I can take any more of his documentaries. The reason is extremely subjective. I have a very strict and narrow view on how documentaries should be made, and I consequently reject those that do not at least come close to matching this (perhaps ridiculously) confined notion.

Personally, I think documentaries should be as objective as is possible (knowing that nothing can be considered truly objective), that their flow and structure should be formal and logical, and for the documentarian to remain solely behind the camera - and in no circumstances getting in front of it (except for narration). Herzog stays close to my first rule, but he smashed the latter two with a sledgehammer with Grizzly Man, and does so even more with The White Diamond.

A case can be made that a child-like exuberance for his subjects do not allow him to restrain himself, but I feel it is more a large ego that leads him to do it. He occasionally steps in front of the camera and tries to change situations to fit his needs, inappropriately stepping over the documentarian line. In Grizzly Man, he films himself listening to the tape of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend being eaten by a grizzly, and then orders the keeper of the tape (an ex-girlfriend and interestingly enough a producer of the film) to destroy it. In this film, Herzog argues (on-screen) with the main subject, sad lost-boy Graham Dorrington, to allow himself to be part of the first flight with Dorrington. Ego seems to play a rather large, but very subtle, part of Herzog's documentaries, and it is, as expected, very off-putting.

In regards to my other rule of documentaries, the form of this film falls apart as we get closer to the end. The traditional climax finishes some 25 minutes before the end of the film, and the last third wanders around following tangents until we get to the credits.

It cannot be contested, however, that the footage is gorgeous, and that the additional, improvised sub-story following Rastafarian miner Mark Anthony Yhap is perhaps of more interest than Dorrington's fight to defeat the demons of his past. In fact, I almost wish that there was a film about Yhap, his desire to find his family, and his prized red rooster. This Guyanese Rastafarian somehow perfectly encapsulates the essence of the leading Japanese cultural aesthetic of mono no aware, or an ability to find beauty in the sadness of things, and is all the more mesmerizing for it. Dorrington still makes for an interesting subject, though, with his extremely conflicted sense of self, and the tragic loss of his dreams (hearing him talk about his missing fingers and the resulting death of his life's ambition is particularly devastating). He was also interesting to me personally as he is more like me than I necessarily want to admit.

Another high point of the film is the breathtaking views of the Guyana rainforest, and little moments like the waterfall reflected in the raindrop, or the thousands of Swifts racing back to their nests behind the waterfall, or the balloon gently touching the surface of the river. Henning Bruemmer and Klaus Scheurich are top-notch cinematographers, and interestingly enough, their only film credit, outside of Bruemmer's contribution to a TV show in the UK. It is my hope they will work again very soon.

The White Diamond is a good film, but it is hard for me to accept as a documentary, and in that respect, somewhat of a failure. When it comes to documentaries, Herzog needs to keep himself and his ego in check.

The Seven Year Itch

1955
20th Century Fox
Director: Billy Wilder
Length: 105 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 21 January

I've never cared for ditzy blonde characters in comedies, but I make an exception for ones portrayed by Marilyn Monroe. She has perfect comedic timing and knows how to perfectly and subtly accentuate those little throwaway sight gags that make up some of the funniest bits of Wilder's The Seven Year Itch.

Clearly adapted from the stage, the film mines gold from the sexual hang-ups and exaggerated neurosis of summer bachelor Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell). The jokes come fast and funny, but the film starts to feel a little long by the end. Ewell is hilarious and perfect as the "Manhattan every-man," but when Monroe and Ewell are together, the film lights up so much that, as Melissa Anderson writes in her review for the Village Voice, "when she's not on-screen, we wait impatiently, wondering, Where have you gone, Mrs. DiMaggio?"

Of the three Monroe films I've seen (the other two being Some Like it Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - my favorite musical), this is clearly the lesser, but it's still a damn good film.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

Onna ga Kaidan wo Agaru Toki
1960
Toho
Director: Mikio Naruse
Length: 111 min.
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 21 January

The only thing I like better than American melodrama is Japanese melodrama. Japanese acting, reaching back to the Noh theater, is more often than not a little over-the-top. This style carried over into films (and continues today) which of course lends itself very well to melodramatic movies. Of course, it's even better when melodrama is perfectly underacted, which is the case in Mikio Naruse's masterful film, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. Employing the 60s Japanese filmmaking style I love so much - gorgeous Tohoscope cinematography revealing a booming post-war Tokyo, slick men's and beautiful women's costume design, fun jazzy scores and fantastic production design - the film revolves around the head hostess at a Tokyo hostess bar as she stands at a crossroads that will lead her to one of three different futures. Hideko Takamine, who plays the lead hostess, Keiko, gives a tremendous performance, caught between the lives of three men, each of which come to represent one of the three paths. The three men, played by frequent Kurosawa collaborators Masayuki Mori, Tatsuya Nakadai and Daisuke Kato, are similarly outstanding in their roles, giving perfectly subtle performances. The story unfolds slowly over the course of two hours, revealing layer after layer of carefully repressed truth and desire. There's nary a flaw in the film, which plays as part of a Mikio Naruse retrospective at the Northwest Film Forum during the next four weeks. If you are in the Seattle area, or in another of the 20 American cities the series is coming to, I strongly recommend that you go and see some of the films. You won't be disappointed.

The Constant Gardener

2005
Focus Features
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Length: 129 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 20 January

The cinematography and editing style of Meirelles' City of God worked because it fit the flashy, over-the-top style of the low-life criminals in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Meirelles brings that same style to Africa and Europe for a thriller about diplomats and activists fighting drug companies, and, as expected, the style doesn't fit. Way overproduced (one Tony Scott is one too many; we don't need a second), the style here is distracting and Meirelles desperately tries to have it cover the lackluster story. His attempt failed.

The film focuses mainly on Justin Quayle's (Ralph Fiennes) attempt to learn why his wife was murdered. This leads him across two continents and through many death threats from the British government and pharmaceutical companies. He uncovers a conspiracy in which many innocent Africans were being killed as a result, and it is in existing between the conspiracy and the mystery of Tessa Quayle's (Rachel Weisz) death that the film failed.

The film reveals its sad apathy to the Africans when Quayle is shown the location of the mass grave of the murdered pharmaceutical guinea pigs and then completely ignores it. You see, he cares more about finding every detail about his wife's death, while finishing her all-important work by revealing the evidence she could never find and vindicating the dead Africans is a trifling matter that little troubles the white diplomat. Trivial lip-service is given to the plight of the Africans at the hands of the whites, seen in the UN airplane that will rescue only aid workers when a bandit gang comes to attack a village, and yet, the film subtly turns the attack back on the natives for being the cruel ones, ignoring the fact that the Europeans are a major part of the problem. The conspiracy story-line shamefully lets the conspirators off the hook for all save the murder of a white woman.

On the other hand, the second main story-line, that of finding out the truth of his wife, fails to engage us fully. It seems that they do love each other, but the origin of the relationship feels false and rushed. They meet and make love immediately after they meet when Tessa makes an impassioned attack on Britain's involvement in Iraq following a speech given by Justin and they recognize their yin-and-yang possibilities. She badgers him in to marrying her and taking her to Africa, but it's hard to shake the fact, indeed throughout the entirety of the film, that she does this only to suit her need and her desire to fight the good fight on the front lines though still within the British power structure. This is never addressed in the film, but the specter of their relationship's dubiousness lingers as Justin wanders around the world. Soon after they arrive in Kenya, the young couple are pregnant and madly in love, but it feels rushed and forced. For a full two hour film, having one main story-line feeling rushed and unconvincing and the other fairly unimportant leads to a rather dull and uninspiring experience.

An important film needs to be told about the disgraceful actions of pharmaceutical companies. I guess we'll just have to wait a little longer.

Mysterious Skin

2004
Mysterious Films, LLC
Director: Gregg Araki
Length: 104 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 19 January

Gregg Araki was always a director I heard should be avoided. His films were supposed to be flashy, aggressive and empty, so I saw no reason to watch Mysterious Skin when it appeared last summer. I'm glad I changed my mind. This is a fantastically written, well-acted look at the ramifications of sexual abuse. The two types of denial represented by the characters, and the extreme repression of Brian (Brady Corbet) and the self-destruction of teen hustler Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are superbly brought to the screen through the script, the actors, and of course, director Araki. The film is intense and unflinching, and very carefully edited, and yet, never exploits Brian and Neil, but shows, matter-of-factly, how they deal with the suffering brought on by the abuse of their Little League coach. Most critics have taken to Neil's story, but I took to Brian's story more. His relationship with Avalyn (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is especially engrossing and tragic. The film drags in the middle, which is the only disappointing aspect of the movie. Otherwise, if you can handle the disturbing subject matter and the particularly scary rape scene towards the end, you will be rewarded with seeing one of the year's best films.

Fingers

1978
Fingers Productions, Inc.
Director: James Toback
Length: 89 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 18 January

Fingers was remade last year as The Beat That My Heart Skipped, reviewed earlier, and is one of those rare films that is actually lesser than its remake. Harvey Keitel gives an interesting performance as Jimmy, and the unmistakably 70s style is always cool, but the film as a whole is mediocre. The relationships between Jimmy and his mother (who is alive in this film, though almost entirely absent and forgotten) and his father are much weaker here than in the remake (though in the latter, I think this is subjectively so as the remake's relationship hews closer to my relationship with my dad, though obviously without the loan sharking/thug aspect), and Ben Gazzo, as Jimmy father, is a rather bad actor which makes his character hard to like (the exact opposite of how we are supposed to feel about him). Fingers is streamlined when compared to the remake, but the story is less interesting, focusing on both underdeveloped parental relationships and Jimmy's emasculation and (confusing) sexual issues, as seen in a rather tedious relationship with a hooker. The latter leads to bizarre and overlong scenes with Jim Brown as a pimp that make little sense as to what is physically going on, but we can understand that Jimmy has been emasculated in front of the girl he likes, which partly leads us to Jimmy's act in the final scene. The ending is pretty close to the remake's, but the remake was outstandingly ambiguous in this aspect. In the original, we feel that Jimmy has reclaimed his masculinity, and the main story-line's resolution is ambiguous, but it feels somehow unearned as the whole thing was too vague for us to care very much in the first place. Jacques Audiard, in making The Beat That My Heart Skipped, has created the right kind of remake: taking a weak film and improving the story immensely. I only wish more directors would follow his example.

Gone With the Wind

1939
Selznick International Pictures
Director: Victor Fleming
Length: 238 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 17 January

I must admit something. I love melodramas. A lot. For the past couple of years, my love for them has grown. Had I known that Gone With the Wind was a melodrama, I would not have waited so long to see it. Its four hour runtime is daunting, but well worth it for anyone who likes a good melodrama or epic romances. On the flip side, anyone who doesn't like these should stay as far away as possible. For those of us in the former category, this is a rich and gorgeous film that gives us outstanding performances by Leigh (although admittedly she is like nails on a chalkboard in her early scenes, she more than overcomes this after the first thirty minutes or so), Gable and de Havilland, a witty and well-structured script, beautiful three-strip Technicolor photography and excellent production design. Unfortunately, there are a few dark factors found in the film. It is quite racist and has a strange nostalgia for the Old South, fondly recalling the days of slavery (explicitly, too, in the opening titles). Further, a rape occurs between two of the leads, and the result is shocking and abhorrent. The victim apparently loved it - check out her smile at breakfast in the morning. Are we to infer that she changed her mind once she was taken upstairs or that the director/writer are under the impression it was what she needed/wanted?. This shamefully misogynistic scene is a major problem in the script, and one I can't excuse. Aside from this, Gone With the Wind is still a very good film, and though it is generally overrated (it's not one of the best films ever made), it does deserve its status as a classic.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté
2005
Why Not Productions
Director: Jacques Audiard
Length: 106 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 16 January

The Beat That My Heart Skipped has many moral quandaries throughout its runtime, but it focuses mainly on Thomas Seyr's (Romain Duris) decision between a future of being either a thug/shady real estate buyer or a concert pianist. This is also embodied in a struggle of loyalty towards either his father (himself a thug and rather weak loan shark) or his deceased mother (herself a noted concert pianist, who trained Thomas while he was a boy). Such a disparate choice of futures is fascinating, and is written and played very well by Duris, who also must decide between his piano teacher and his business partner's betrayed wife, and whether or not to collect a debt for his father from a deadly Russian criminal. The script is good overall, and the excellent cast more than makes up for their characters' one-dimensionality that is the script's one major shortcoming. Audiard is confident in his direction, and the cinematography is strong, with very restricted lighting and well-done hand-held camerawork. Audiard brings all the elements of filmmaking together flawlessly in the third act, where he ramps us the tension until it's almost unbearable during the riveting climax. This is one of the best thrillers I've seen in the past few years, and is easily one of the best of 2005.

Animal Farm

1954
Halas & Batchelor Cartoon Films
Directors: John Halas & Joy Batchelor
Length: 72 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 16 January

After reading a particularly great book, our curiosity almost always drives us to seek out the film adaptation, and as anyone can tell you, it's almost always a letdown. Such is the case with Animal Farm, though the fault does not entirely lay the directors. No, in this case, it's partly the CIA's doing. Recently discovered as having been funded by the CIA (who bought the film rights to the novel after promising to arrange a meeting between George Orwell's widow and her favorite actor, Clark Gable), the infamous critique of the Soviet style of fascistic Socialism as well as of Western Capitalism morphed in its transition to the screen into a pro-West propaganda piece that betrays the novel and lessens the story. The directors, however, made another error in modifying some of the key characters by reducing their interesting traits - Benjamin, the intellectual and conscientious though quiet objector, is now just another working-stiff on the farm; gone entirely is Mollie, the uber-Capitalist. Further, almost all of the deceptively simple dialogue from the book was cut, and a narrator does much speaking, but only gives us background details and unnecessarily telling us what's happening on screen. Where the film succeeds is in it's simple yet gorgeous animation, and it's lovely score. Halas and Batchelor deserve much praise for these two aspects, but it's a shame the story and script couldn't match it.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Unrated Version)

2005
Universal Studios
Director: Judd Apatow
Length: 133 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 15 January

Another in the long line of Unrated DVD editions of films, The 40-Year-Old Virgin adds 17 minutes to the runtime, and true-to-form, it's pretty obvious which scenes they are and why they were cut in the first place. Having not seen the theatrical cut of the film, it's hard to say whether or not the 116 minute cut played more smoothly, and if it worked better, though I'm guessing that even that could have been trimmed down by another fifteen or so minutes. Scenes play on far past their expiration date a little too often and other scenes go nowhere, or live to give a capping punch-line that just wasn't worth it. This is my one complaint about the film, but it served to make the film less enjoyable than I feel it could have been. Still, it is more often than not hilarious and also rather sweet when the film moves into the romantic half. Carell is perfect as the titular Andy, and his and Apatow's script accurately shows the comically painful details of being single and clueless as to how end said bachelorhood (certain scenes hit a little too close to home for me, as I'm sure they do for many), and also the details of how men often talk when they are at the bar or poker table. Regardless of it's main flaw, this is one of the funniest films of the year, and it will be exciting to see more from both director and star.

Arizona Dream (European Version)

1993
Union Generale Cinematographique
Director: Emir Kusturica
Length: 142 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 15 January

Probably one of the funnier scenes I've witnessed in the last few months is seeing a middle-aged Jerry Lewis shouting nonsense and speed-walking away from Faye Dunaway firing a shotgun. Jerry Lewis is priceless throughout his rather short role in Kusturica's Arizona Dream, and the rest of the main cast, Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Lili Taylor and Vincent Gallo are uniformly strong, and are often given great scenes to work with. Unfortunately, this is about all the movie consists of: great performances and a few memorable scenes encased in 142 minutes of a nonexistent story, symbols that make little to no sense, unbelievably cheesy score (we're talkin' Gallipoli cheesy here), and an understanding that Kusturica pushes his film into the realm of art for art's sake far too often for the movie to ever become a great one. But, the film is still enjoyable. Its a rather funny movie (Gallo's love/hate relationship with North by Northwest comes to mind), and is pretty much always entertaining. Too bad it squandered its chance to be great.

10 on Ten

2004
MK2 SA
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Length: 83 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 14 January

Abbas Kiarostami gives what he calls a "cinema master class" in this making-of piece that was created for the French DVD release of Ten, and it appears on the American release as well, though perhaps five minutes shorter than the theatrical and French version. Essentially, the director drives in his jeep and talks to the camera for 83 minutes on ten topics related to film production (the camera, the director, the actors, etc.). It's easy to agree with some of his ideas and philosophies, easy to disagree with others (video is not better than film; sorry, Abbas), and yet others are merely thought-provoking, if hard to agree or disagree with (American films sent abroad are more destructive than the American military - a statement he hopefully won't have to put to the test in the near future). This is an interesting film for those who want to be filmmakers, as there are some good nuggets of information to be mined, but it's best to see it only after first watching Ten, and being prepared for a bit of tedium.

Ten

2002
MK2 SA
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Length: 90 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 14 January

Filming the mundane, everyday world in a flat, verite style is very difficult in that it can easily become tedious. There seems to be no reason as the why one film in this style works and another doesn't, and I would venture a guess that the reason is entirely subjective. It boils down to whether or not the viewer is personally interested in the problems and emotions being presented. Kiarostami's Ten, unfortunately, did not interest me overall, though a couple of the vignettes worked for me. Whereas in Camel(s), I spent ninety minutes of a couple on a weekend with nothing to say to each other completely riveted and nearly on the edge of my seat, Ten, with its circular arguments and repetitive dialogue and segments, kept my toe tapping and my eyes on my watch. The style of Ten, boiled down to the extreme essentials of only three camera angles (one of which is only used once) and seven non-professional actors is certainly interesting, as is the subject of feminism and liberation for women in a society that often traps them behind closed doors. Too bad the film as a whole could not sustain my interest.

Downfall

Der Untergang
2004
Constantin Film Produktion
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Length: 155 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 12 January

The power of Downfall comes in part through its stunning attention to historical accuracy (everything that happens in the film was verified by multiple sources researched in the script phase), and also in part through its ability to show the people left standing as Nazi Germany collapsed around them. Not exaggerated monsters or over-the-top caricatures of evil men and women, but people. Believe it or not, Hitler was good with children, loved his new wife, Eva, treated his secretary with respect and took good care of his dog. Of course, he was an evil mass-murderer and a disastrously inept military commander to boot (clearly evidenced in this film), but everybody has some shred of humanism left in them, and Downfall wisely maintains this realism throughout its runtime. The chaos, the petty struggles for power over a virtually nonexistent state and military, and the shocking decadence shown by the powers that be while the Russians are mortaring them from a couple hundred meters away are extremely fascinating and it is easy to get swept up in the story, though I was happy to have watched it on video, where I could pause and do some quick research on the various players involved in these struggles. Much like Good Night, And Good Luck, the "who's who" is regrettably absent, and only those who have studied the higher-ups of Nazi Germany, 1945 will stay afloat. This is the one true flaw of the film, and it is a big one. The rest of the film is very strong, however, so I can still highly recommend Downfall; just have Google handy while you watch the DVD.

Nobody Knows

Dare Mo Shiranai
2004
Bandai Visual Co.
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Length: 141 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 12 January

One of the best cinema verite films in recent memory, Nobody Knows is a breathtaking and, quite frankly, terrifying film. I sat on the edge of the couch in horror throughout the majority of the run time, as the situation of the four forgotten children goes from terrible to desperate to worse. The main character of the film, Akira, played to perfection by 13 year-old Yuya Yagira, who deservedly won the Best Actor Award at the 2004 Cannes, does his best to keep his siblings, each one born of a different, absent father, together and alive. Their abhorrent, run-away mother leaves them a very small amount of money which quickly runs out. Still, Yagira maintains a mask of strength around his brother and sisters, yet occasionally, his overwhelming desire to act as a normal child - go to school, play with friends, date the girl, play baseball on the team - destroys his facade, and in these times you realize how amazing Akira has been in handling the affairs of the family. He pays the bills, keeps all receipts, buys presents for his siblings that he pretends are from his mom, and of course, gets plenty of Apollo Chocolate for the youngest, Yuki. Ayu Kitaura, whose similarly wonderful performance as oldest sister, Kyoko, has been unjustly overlooked, ties down the domestic side, keeping the youngest two children inside and away from adults who may turn them in to Social Services, and perfectly reveals to the viewer her simultaneous hatred and love felt towards her mother. Other fears abound: did their surrogate third sister, Saki, really only sing karaoke with the middle-aged business man to help support the kids? What will they do now that the utilities are shut off? What has happened to Yuki? Will the landlord find out about them? All of this is captured by the largely unmoving camera, capturing the events like a documentary and through this stylistic choice, increases our fear about what will happen to the kids. This is easily one of the year's best, and we can only hope that it will be rightly awarded at this year's Academy Awards.

Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu
2004
Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia
Director: Stephen Chow
Length: 100 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 12 January

After a rather intense opening sequence, Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle settles into a fun comedy with a good blend of high- and low-humor and inventive fight scenes. It surprises me that the movie needed four writers to bring a characteristically weak and nonsensical story to the screen, but the dialogue is great (though I'm guessing that, as usual, plenty of liberties have been taken in the English translation) and the characters, with their individual, one-dimensional quirks, are a lot of fun. The fight scenes are, of course, the focus of the movie, and they are very well done. I'll admit, though, that kung fu films are generally pretty boring to me, and in Kung Fu Hustle, the fight scenes go on a little too long and get a little dull by the end. When it comes to Chinese/HK action films, the bullet operas always appealed to me far more than martial arts movies. This is a personal preference, to be sure, but it's the main reason why I prefer Chow's Shaolin Soccer. The lighter tone of Shaolin certainly helps in this regard, too. For as funny as Hustle is, it's a bit dark to go down quite as smoothly as I think Chow wants it to.

I Am Cuba

Soy Cuba
1964
Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos
Director: Mikheil Kalatozishvili
Length: 141 min.
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 11 January

I Am Cuba is told in four chronological stories, leading the viewer from Cuba the prostitute whosellss herself to America to Cuba the revolutionary, triumphing over the Battista dictatorship.

Forget for a moment that Castro is himself a fascist dictator (you heard me right) who rules his country every bit as strict as Battista did. Without this harsh understanding, the film is an amazing piece of art that shows how a country rejected capitalism and entered a perfect Socialist utopia.

The problem is that we cannot forget the true state of Cuba, and thus, the film becomes a simple piece of propaganda - naive and apologist - and a sense of dread falls over I Am Cuba as we realize that the people are being hoodwinked into thinking they will be truly free. We can only guess that Cubans had begun to realize this by the time the film was released five years after the Castro's rise to power; it bombed on its release and was almost completely forgotten until 1992. This is not to say that Cuba being a puppet of America and directly under a brutal dictator in Battista was better for the country; it most certainly wasn't, but the country has not importantly improved in any way outside of its wonderful medical program.

The film does accurately show the horrors of the Battista regime, from its opening story (the strongest of the four) of a young prostitute servicing Ugly Americans on a sex trip (she gets raffled off to a Pastor of some denomination, revealing, perhaps, Socialism's fear of religion's corrupting influence) to the selling of a serf's land to the United Fruit Co. - that company that wreaked so much havoc on the poor throughout Latin America - in the second story, to the corruption through murder and removal of civillibertiess of the Battista administration as seen in third story. These horrors are not exaggerated, but seem discredited when we reflect on Castro's vicious repression of homosexuals, the murder of those who oppose his regime and the lack of free speech.

This is not to say the film is without merit. Far from it, the stories are generally well-written, and the poetry narrated off-camera in between the four is haunting and moving. The first and third stories are particularly strong (though the irony of student revolutionaries wearing very nicepreppiey clothes and driving convertibles as they talk about making sacrifices for the revolution is rather funny), and the second and fourth are not bad, but are slightly discomforting in their leads' extremely selfish choices (think the selfishness of Roy at the ending of Close Encounters multiplied by 1,000) that are supposed to be revolutionary in their acts, but only lead me to think about how badly their wives and children are being screwed over by their husbands.

The most important thing about "I Am Cuba," though, is the cinematography. This is perhaps the most beautifully shot film of all time. Largely handheld, and using an extremely wide-angle lens (at times getting dangerously close to fish-eyed) and infrared film, the incredibly long takes (the average shot length must hover around 2 minutes) are a sight to behold, and the film should be viewed in a theater for this reason alone. Two shots stand out in my mind: one in which a camera starts on the roof of a hotel where a beauty contest is taking place, then wanders around an attached bar, focuses on a pool and then goes down three to five stories to get there (showing it through railing bars tosymbolizee the prison like feeling of this capitalist playground), following a woman who buys acocktaill and then enters the pool, and the shot ends underwater in the pool. In the second, we follow a funeral procession through the streets of Havana, go up three stories to a cigar rolling workroom, follow some of the men as walk to the balcony to drape a Cuban flag over the side, and the camera continues outside the building and down the street, three stories above. Breathtaking doesn't even begin to describe the two shots, and these are just two of the hundreds examples I want to share.

If you can ignore the naivepropagandaa, I highly recommend that you see this film, if for nothing else but the visuals.

Them!

1954
Warner Bros.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Length: 94 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 9 January

If you are interested in 50s monster films, "Them!" is one of your best bets. The effects are great for the time, and are still a lot of fun (though admittedly, the queens and princesses are disappointingly lame). The camera-work and blocking are both excellent, and it's interesting that some of the better shots were done to allow for 3-D effects that were scrapped for budget concerns (during the film I just thought they were a little ahead of their time). The film does get a little talky during the second act, but this is fairly standard for movies of this era, and it does little to lessen the immense fun had while watching "Them!"

The Godfather

1972
Paramount Pictures
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Length: 175 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 8 January

I'm glad I gave "The Godfather" a second chance. Expectations were set far too high for me when I first saw it, and seeing it again allowed me to lower them to the appropriate level. No, "The Godfather" is not one of the best films of all time. Not even close. It's not even Coppola's best work (that would be the theatrical cut of "Apocalypse Now"). It is a strong tale of a Mafia gang war, though, with great performances (one of Pacino's very few good performances - you heard me right), gorgeous cinematography and excellent editing. Seeing how a crime family utilizes its rackets and crooked government and uniformed officials gives us an interesting insight that we often only see in the papers when a family is brought down. Personally, though, I prefer the street-level view of a family, and how the day-to-day operations work, which is why I prefer "GoodFellas" to "The Godfather," which, of course, is a subjective preference. However, "The Godfather" suffers from major flaws that keep it from being one of the greatest films of all time. The first is the sequence in Italy, which brings the film grinding to a halt and provides us with nothing of interest or importance, and seems only present in order to give Coppola a chance to visit "the old country." The more important flaw is in Pacino's entry into the family business. He starts not wanting to do it; he goes to college and joins the Marines to avoid entering the business. He is not interested in murder and the other, lesser dirty jobs of the mob. But his dad gets shot and immediately he's in. There's little in the way of meaningful internal conflict or real motivation, and it frankly becomes a little hard to buy the key narrative transition of the entire film. Pacino does what he can with the script, though, and turns in a fine performance, especially during the Louis' Restaurant sequence.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

2005
Good Night and Good Luck, LLC
Director: George Clooney
Length: 90 min.
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 7 January

"Good Night, and Good Luck" is perhaps the most beautiful looking film of the year, if not the last few years. Presenting the film in black-and-white was a strong choice by Clooney, and it works, along with the realistic production design and dark, smoke-filled rooms, to make the film look like it may have been shot in the late 50s or early 60s. The strange thing is that it does not resemble an American production from this era so much as a European production in terms of its mise-en-scene, specifically in the way the camera moves and even in minor details like the text crawl towards the beginning. The ensemble cast are uniformly stellar, but many of the characters were not established at all in terms of their names or roles on Murrow's show, which leads to much confusion to those who don't have an extensive knowledge of Murrow's program. This is one symptom of the film's main flaw, a surprising lack of context. Names are tossed about in clearly important ways, and yet, the importance is lost of those of us too young to know who they are. Further, the HUAAC era is not well explained outside of the very few, though pivotal, events underlined in the movie. I know the basics of what happened, and a little as to extent of the committee's damage, but I could have used more establishing information to put the film into greater context. I think the film's strength is in not becoming bogged down in the entirety of HUAAC's multi-year crusade, and overstating Murrow's role in it's downfall, but a little more background would have allowed the audience to understand to film as a whole as opposed to needing me to take a minute to desperately try and remember who William F. Buckley was (I failed). The film excels, however, at giving us a look at the first footholds of advertisers power over the nightly news, and at the dangerous persuasiveness of the media to present extreme ideas as objective truth. We witness the latter especially in two amazing found artifacts, a blatantly biased television ad for cigarettes which lauds consumers for not listening to advertisers while buying their cigarettes - clearly America's best - and also in an interview between Murrow and Liberace (!) who covers his "plans for marriage" with the most obvious sham stories (Princess Margaret?) that most viewers probably fell for. The film also makes a strong allusion to our current political climate, tying McCarthyism to the War on Terror (McCarthy used the same tactics as found in Bush's November 13, 2001, Military Order [66 Federal Register 57831 (2001)]), and also to the infotainment and biased government mouthpiece role of modern TV journalism. The lessons we can take away from "Good Night, and Good Luck" are very important, and we can look to Edward R. Murrow as a role model in using the news to combat the loss of our civil rights and the lies perpetrated by men and women in power.

Oseam

2003
Mago21
Director: Baek-yeob Seong
Length: 75 min.
Format: VCD
Date Viewed: 5 January

It's strange to think it, but "Oseam" only works as an animated film. If this story of an orphaned boy and his sister who finds refuge in a Buddhist monastery was live action, with a flesh and blood rambunctious child playing Gilson, it would have reeked of precociousness and suffered far more of emotional manipulation than it already does. In its current animated form, Baek-yeob Seong hits us over the head with signifiers designed to make us cry at certain points and laugh at others, and occasionally it's earned, and occasionally it's not. Further, when we get to the ending, it's not obvious to anyone unfamiliar with Buddhism, regardless of the fact that the English subtitles are very well done, of how we should feel. It's almost impossible to understand outside of the religion's devotees, and to be honest, I had to read someone else's review to catch the what was happening in the final scene. In fact (without giving anything away), the new understanding that Buddhist gods can be petty and selfish - at least to the view of an agnostic Westerner like myself - almost overshadowed the emotional power of the ending, which makes me wonder if it doesn't play better to a Korean audience, which would explain why it has not found distribution in this country. This is not to say that the film is bad; it's not. The animation is beautiful, the voice-work is good and the editing is well-done. Overall, I found the story interesting (though it does hit a couple of false notes - what's with the snowboarding monk?) and we are easily able to care for the characters, of whom I found Gami particularly strong. This film is recommend for people who enjoy tear-jerkers and fans of heavier animation.

Broken Flowers

2005
Dead Flowers, Inc.
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Length: 106 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 4 January

Is Bill Murray playing himself in his latest series of films with Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola and now Jim Jarmusch? It almost feels like he is putting his own pain gained in his own mid-life crisis onto the screen as opposed to playing a man in a mid-life crisis. Whichever it may be, nobody does it as honestly, effectively or painfully as Murray, and this is perhaps his most painful role to date. Whether or not Murray's Don Johnston (an obvious Anglicizing of Don Juan) has a son or the pink letter was a fake, though it takes up immeasurable space on web boards, is moot; the entire plot point is a McGuffin. The journey Don takes, and the crossroads it leads him to is the important thing. Little is found, and that's what makes the whole thing so realistic. Revisiting ex-girlfriends is not easy, speaking from experience. Sometimes there is unbearable tension, like in the dinner scene with Dawn and her husband, and other times there is sadness and regret, like Don has with Michelle when he visits her grave, and sometimes the ex is still lusting after you, like with Laura. Though the script often gets a hair's width away from condescending the female characters, it always manages to stay on the side of embracing their personality quirks, and the film is stronger for it. The film, like all of Jarmusch's films, is almost always a little heavy, but welcome comic relief comes with Jeffrey Wright's character, Winston, who is excellent as the amatuer detective and serves as Don's temptation. This isn't Jarmusch's best, but it's still an effective film and is well worth a rental.

Danger: Diabolik

Diabolik
1968
Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografia
Director: Mario Bava
Length: 100 minutes
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 3 January

Only the Italians could have made "Danger: Diabolik." Between the high fashion, fantastic sets, excellent score, brightly colored production design, flamboyant cinematography and incredibly beautiful leads, the film reeks of late 60s Italian excess, and this film is all the better for it. This incredibly fun crime film doesn't make any sense at all and doesn't even begin to care. Based on a long-running comic book series, the film revels in its comic origins as perfectly as the 1967 film version of "Batman" (to date my favorite comic book film, to which "Danger: Diabolik" is second), as is vividly evidenced in the sets, carelessness towards space and time, painfully arched eyebrows and even its characters' exaggerated body types. Bava, whose "Planet of the Vampires" is one of my favorite horror films, is the perfect director for this material, making essentially a B-movie on an A-budget. However, the film could have used a little trimming - especially extraneous is the hippie freak-out scene towards the beginning - and the ending is left open too widely, waiting for a sequel that never came to be. These are minor quibbles, though, and the film more than compensates for them, providing us a masterpiece of Italian B-movie cinema.

French Connection II

1975
20th Century Fox
Director: John Frankenheimer
Length: 119 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 3 January

In this underwhelming sequel, both 'Popeye' Doyle and the style of the first film get mercilessly mutated. The former transforms from interesting antihero to loudmouthed, American boor overseas - not much of a change, to be sure, but enough of a subtle change that results in Doyle being annoying instead of strangely charming. The latter morphs from documentary-like realism to bland action film, complete with dull shoot-outs in warehouses to wildly improbable coincidences to lame buddy cop and "hilarious" fish-out-of-water cliches to plot points that make no sense - not the least of which is 'Popeye' being in Marseilles in the first place. Much like "Evil Dead II," this sequel begins in a different place then where the ending of the first left us, and though it works in "Evil Dead II," here all we can think about during the long 118 minutes is how manufactured the modification feels. Having Frog One turn Doyle into a junkie was an interesting touch, but it also takes 30 minutes in the middle of the film for him to get hooked and then detoxed, stopping the momentum cold turkey, much like Doyle. The ending is the strongest part of the film, with its excellent use of handheld, high-grain POV shots, and the very last sequence before the credits is wonderfully edited. Pity the rest of the film couldn't be as tightly cut down as those 15 seconds.

The French Connection

1971
20th Century Fox
Director: William Friedkin
Length: 104 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 3 January

'Popeye' Doyle is one of the great antiheroes in cinema. He is largely amoral, racist, arrogant, violent and, quite frankly, not even a very good cop. Regardless, we root for him because of his charisma, his unwavering sense of duty, and that, at least in the main case of the film, he goes after men worse than he is. Hackman is perfect in the role (his best performance), which gives some credit to the method acting philosophy; would the film have been so good if he and Scheider stuck to the script with its Hollywood detective dialogue? Of course not. Indeed, the film works primarily as a document of narcotics detectives in the New York of the 1970s, revealing the mannerisms, lifestyles, overt racism and language of Hackman and Scheider's real-life counterparts. The fantastic documentary style cinematography and editing often make us feel as if we are watching the greatest episode of "Cops" ever. The ending does hit a bit of a false note with its forced anti-climactic ending, and perhaps could have done without the freeze-frame epilogue. Otherwise, this is one of the few films deserving of a Best Picture Oscar, which it won in 1972, although many days I feel like perhaps "The Last Picture Show" or "Straw Dogs" should have won instead.

Roots

(TV)
1977
Wolper Productions
Director: Marvin J Chomsky, et al.
Length: 573 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 28 December - 2 January

"Roots" is an excellent and fairly comprehensive look at American slavery. Plenty of important history and impressive attention to detail enrich the story of the descendants of Kunta Kinte. The film gets a bit repetitive and drags in the middle, but the first and third parts are quite strong while dealing with the moral implications of buying and selling slaves and how a newly "free" people work to make a new life after the legal fall of slavery. The middle parts also see a few performances that are difficult to sit through for their wild overacting (anyone who watches "Roots" deserves a medal for making it through the scenes with Sandy Duncan), though a bit of over- and underacting is found throughout. Louis Gossett, Jr. and Georg Stanford Brown are standouts in the cast, and Gossett was rightly awarded the Emmy for his performance. Though the interior scenes suffer from terrible 1970s TV lighting and camerawork, "Roots" as a whole generally avoids the problem that all period films from the 70s look like it's the 1970s recreating era x. I will agree with John Amos that this is a film that should be played in schools for our young to see, and it's a good film to accompany the chapter "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom," from Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" (Perennial Classics).