Sunset Blvd.

1950
Paramount Pictures
Director: Billy Wilder
Length: 110 min.
Country: USA
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 25 February

If most people see Sunset Blvd. as being enjoyably entertaining, but deride Wilder's next film, Ace in the Hole as being overwhelmingly cynical, then I can't imagine the depths of the latter's cynicism. Sunset Blvd. is a downright bitter and nasty film featuring two hours of pathetic people doing pathetic things.

The only character that can be liked is Betty Scaefer (Nancy Olson), the young talent trying to make it as a screenwriter, and we watch in horror as Joe Gillis (William Holden) proceeds to destroy her optimism because of his own failed dreams. Indeed, the film ends with no hope for anybody, and all lose either their dreams or their lives, or both. Obviously, the film is a hard one to become invested in, and the two hours tick by very slowly.

The film is not without some merit, though. The acting is good all around, especially in the case of Erich von Stroheim, nearly playing himself which is interesting as he quickly shrugged off this performance (perhaps it hit a little too close to home?). The dialogue is another bright spot - and characteristic of Wilder's scripts - sounding precisely like that of a '50s pulp novel. This includes many funny little barbs aimed at Hollywood which were good for a chuckle. Outside of this, however, there's not much to attach to. It's not interesting enough to overcome its vicious cynicism and the characters are too unsympathetic for us to care about. This is definitely one of Wilder's weaker efforts.

The Crowd

1928
MGM
Director: King Vidor
Length: 104 min.
Country: USA
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 25 February

"If you take a boring job to give your family a high standard of living, as so many people do, you risk infecting your kids with the idea that work is boring. Maybe it would be better for kids in this one case if parents were not so unselfish. A parent who set an example of loving their work might help their kids more than an expensive house."
-Paul Graham, http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

The above quote is a perfect match for King Vidor's The Crowd, a silent masterpiece which features some truly amazing cinematography. The protagonist, John Sims (James Murray), spends all day at his mindless job in a nightmare insurance office (the expressionistic production design is fantastic) dreaming of something better and knowing that one day he will fulfill his father's vague proclamation that John will be a big, important person. Most everyone around him thinks it mostly or only has to do with obtaining a high-level position or high salary regardless of personal satisfaction or happiness (which is sadly true in real life as well).

John begins the film generally accepting this view, and thus in an early scene he belittles "the crowd," the teeming masses of everymen who do not meet this definition. Eventually, he brings his hatred from his soulless job home and takes it out on his wife (see also: real life), an inexcusable behavior from which he develops a new understanding: a successful career is one that will allow great happiness through the use of his endless creativity, individuality and love of entertaining, all of which are cruelly denied him by the insurance company. He sets out to try and conform to this definition, which first (and realistically) leads to financial hardships and a serious rift in the marriage.

He is later able to prove the truth in the "happiness definition" of success, but becomes another face in the crowd as a result. We are now able to see the crowd under a new lens, though, which reveals John and his family - and indeed many others in the crowd - as important, successful people because they have to means to survive while also being happy. This is cleverly represented in a powerful final shot.

Many people saw this film as a downer and the ending a sad one. This, however, depends on what lens you look through. If you, like most Americans, see success as being wealthy regardless of the personal or familial cost, then of course this film will be a downer and most likely strike you as naive. But for those of us who find this definition to be revolting, the film serves as an inspiration. This film is highly recommended if you fit into the latter camp.

Force of Evil

1948
Roberts Productions
Director: Abraham Polonsky
Length: 84 min.
Country: USA
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 23 February

If it weren't for the striking photography, interesting stylization and good pulpy acting, Force of Evil would be a complete failure. As it is, the good points raise the film as a whole only to about middling territory at best. If the film's anti-capitalist message had not been so weak and naive, this may have been a great film.

Instead, its supposedly pro-humanist message sits at uncomfortable odds with its cynical contempt of women and also strangely asks us to feel sorry for those poor honest small-time criminals. You know the ones - they'll steal your money but are fair about taking it, they pay their employees well, and are just trying to get by; big crime syndicates and the police are horrible for trying to stop them. And how could you be mad at these small-time crooks? Look at the mechanics and real-estate agents, the film explicitly says (using these two examples), they are also crooks because their owners make a profit on their services and products, so why is operating a numbers racket be illegal?

Yes, naivete is the rule of the day in Polonsky's film. If the little guys were truly honest businessmen being squeezed by bigger companies and corrupt police, and had the filmmakers not seen women as being either nagging biddies, strumpets or self-destructive ingenues, the film's message would have been much more convincing. As it is, the film is too off-putting to work. You can safely skip this one.

The Getaway

1972
Solar Productions
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Length: 122 min.
Country: USA
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 23 February

It's fairly clear throughout The Getaway that Peckinpah was a gun-for-hire on this production. Certain Peckinpah elements exist - the slow motion shots, the heavy blood-letting, the near-overwhelming machismo - and he does a competent job, but it never feels like he cared about the material very much. The script is rather standard and the film only really picks up between the 55 and 90 minute marks with some outstanding set pieces, including a tense chase through a train. McQueen is cool throughout, as expected, and the constant but subtle exposure of children to violence is a powerful reminder of its effect on young psyches (and yet, this very violent film inexplicably received only a PG rating, which still stands today and reveals once again the uselessness of the current MPAA's system). Otherwise, it's a somewhat tedious affair, made worse by McGraw showing her complete inability to act and by another terrible score by Quincy Jones (a poor man's Lalo Schiffrin) - who was brought aboard by McQueen himself. Better rent The Wild Bunch or Straw Dogs instead.

The New World

2005
New Line Cinema
Director: Terrence Malick
Length: 135 min.
Country: USA
Format: 35mm (but mostly shot on 65mm, baby! How about a 70 print, New Line?)
Date Viewed: 22 February

The New World stands as one of the best recent examples of film poetry. Eschewing traditional narrative structures, Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki capture the actors not so much acting as participating in a stirring and gorgeous dance performance. Intercut with this is remarkable footage of Virginia's flora and fauna, taking a cue from Malick's The Thin Red Line. The editing is mostly strong, though the overly jumpy sequences of Smith's rescue by Pocahontas, Smith's lashing, and the battle scenes are rather off-putting and destroy the rhythms of the rest of the film - this was the intention, but consider it mission accomplished too well.

Aside from this, the film succeeds masterfully. But like The Thin Red Line, it only does so for active viewers. More passive cinema-goers will most likely be incredibly bored and wonder where the story went. For the rest of us, we will be led into a magical world where the lack of story matters none and the images and sounds (and amazing score by James Horner) will astound and delight us endlessly.

The Mistress

Gan
1953
Daiei Films
Director: Shiro Toyoda
Country: Japan
Length: 106 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 22 February

If there was ever a Japanese actress with as much talent, grace and extraordinary beauty as Hideko Takamine, I have not seen her (and I've seen a fair share of Japanese films, and from all decades starting with the 1910s). She shines again in The Mistress (Gan), an adaptation of the fantastic, though occasionally misogynistic, novel by Ogai Mori, Wild Geese (also Gan).

This excellent melodrama also showcases the talents of cinematographer Mitsuo Miura, whose work here may have inspired Kubrick on his The Killing, in that both use the camera as an especially voyeuristic extension of us, the viewer - following the characters from a safe distance, or partially hiding behind various objects or pieces of furniture to get a better look at the unfolding events.

Though glacially paced, the film is never boring, and in fact, it's an incredibly heartbreaking piece. More than once I found myself feeling the emotions of the characters, most notably when Otama, played by Takamine, is snubbed by the young student after she cooks him a dinner. It's rare when a film can invest us to the point of vicariousness. This is a wonderful, though hard-to-find film, but it will be worth your while to find yourself a copy.

Secrets & Lies

1996
CIBY 2000
Director: Mike Leigh
Length: 142 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 21 February

Secrets & Lies is an incredibly powerful film with a perfectly chosen cast. There are no weak links here, and the 142-minute run-time flies by due to the ease in which we can invest ourselves in the events portrayed. This is allowed mainly by the fact that most of us will be able to relate in some way to the universal theme of keeping and telling, well, secrets and lies and the destruction they wreak on our relationships with loved ones (the film allowed me to gain some insight on my extended families' varying levels of dysfunction). Some critics have felt that certain loose ends and somewhat simplistic character motives detract from the film, but in fact these are major strengths; both make the film more realistic and thus more relatable. Highly recommended.

Ruggles of Red Gap

1935
Paramount Pictures
Director: Leo McCarey
Length: 90 min.
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 21 February

It's always difficult to fathom why certain films go on to become classics and others are left in the dust. Why, for instance, are the mediocre films Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story considered comedy classics while the outstanding Ruggles of Red Gap is now largely forgotten? Directed by Leo McCarey, this film is consistently hilarious, moving and sweetly romantic.

Ruggles of Red Gap serves as a passionate criticism of the unnecessarily rigid British class system and makes a very good case against it (but naturally forgets that America, too, has a class system, though granted it's much less restrictive than that of the UK). The cast is uniformly great, and all show impeccable comedic timing. The romance between Ruggles (Charles Laughton, perfect in the role) and Prunella Judson (Zasu Pitts) provides maybe the cutest screen couples ever seen, and Ruggles' recitation of the Gettysburg Address is as inspirational and powerful now as it must have been 71 years ago.

This film is exceptionally rare (the only known film print in existence is playing in Seattle this week), but is very highly recommended. This is most certainly one of the best American comedies.

Cube

1997
The Feature Film Project
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Length: 90 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 19 February

In the hands of a competent director and screenwriter, Cube might have been a big success. As it is, the film is a rather frustrating example of a great idea squandered by a pathetic script, worse dialogue and some of the most awful acting these eyes have ever seen. The production design, cinematography and story are good, though, and the film is tense and effective at building suspense.

But Natali is a writer who appears to have not read anything other than a discount screenwriting 101 book, explaining things that should be left unsaid (the mind-numbingly stupid explanation of the cube's origin), jerking back and forth between fluid action and scenes of stagey and cliched character development/confrontation, and inserting unnecessarily graphic violence into the proceedings (less would have been so much more).

The whole idea of the film is fascinating, and so much gold could have been mined from it, but when it ends, all you can do is wish that the project had been given to a better filmmaker.

The Decalogue (TV)

Dekalog
1989
Telewizja Polska
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Length: 460 min.
Format: DVD
Dates Viewed: 16-19 February

As a single conceptual piece, Kieslowski's The Decalogue is a towering achievement. But looking at each of the ten one-hour parts, the results are mixed. Each of the ten generally unconnected pieces are based on one of the Ten Commandments, sometimes very explicitly and sometimes in an incredibly oblique way (the episode based on "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" features no married characters amongst its leads).

They are all interesting in their relations to their respective Commandments and each is thought-provoking and can lead to interesting debates and discussions between viewers. But their quality as short film varies. Only six are truly well-made and easily sustain interest (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and my favorite, 10), and the rest are either mediocre (6 and 9) or poor (3 and my least favorite, 8 - though it seems to be a favorite of older critics).

The beauty of the series is that you can watch only the pieces you want and in any order and you are not necessarily missing out by skipping a few. Of course, as it is a conceptual piece, it is best to see the entire series, and in order, and along with the two spin-off films, A Short Film About Killing, based on episode five, and A Short Film About Love, based on episode six (both are reviewed on this site).

On the whole, it's easy to respect and admire The Decalogue, but watching 460 minutes (525 minutes if you add the two spin-offs) of fairly bleak Polish cinema is daunting task, especially when only six of the episodes and one of the films are truly solid material.

A Short Film About Love

Krótki Film O Milosci
1988
Zepoly Polskich Producentow Filmowych
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Length: 84 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 18 February

An extension of one of The Decalogue's mediocre episodes, A Short Film About Love adds little to its shorter version, but does give it a more satisfying ending. The acting is pretty good and the story is not bad as a whole, but the film is never terribly engrossing outside of the last twenty or so minutes, when the tables are turned on the two leads. This reversal is surprising and wonderfully ironic; too bad the first three-quarters are so dull.

A Short Film About Killing

Krótki film o zabijaniu
1988
Film Polski
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Length: 81 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 17 February

A hard film to watch, Kieslowski's A Short Film about Killing is a rather good essay railing against Poland's abhorrent but now-defunct (as a result of this film) capital punishment system. It shows that the State has no justification for murdering its criminals in the same way that ordinary citizens have none for killing other citizens.

This is shown very simply and concisely through two killings: one of a taxi cab driver by a young drifter and the other of the young drifter by the State. Both murders are long and horrifying in their brutality and complete ruthlessness.

Though the film offers a good dialogue-based argument against capital punishment from the young lawyer who tries to defend the drifter, the overall argument becomes a little manipulative when it tries to partially justify the drifter's actions through the story of his dead sister. Through this tactic, co-writers Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz try to humanize the drifter, who is the victim of the State, but elsewhere, the writers does not humanize the cabbie, who is the victim of the drifter, or the State, the arbiter of legalized execution. They do this to subtly suggest that the execution by the the State was worse than that by the drifter, when in fact, they are both equal. The film would have been much stronger if either all three of the major entities had been humanized, or if none had been.

As stated, the film is quite good and undoubtedly thought-provoking, but the subtle manipulation throws A Short Film About Killing slightly off and keeps it from being a truly great film.

In the Heat of the Night

1967
The Mirisch Corporation
Director: Norman Jewison
Length: 100 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 14 February

It's hard to say exactly why In the Heat of the Night works as a whole. Certainly with this film, the sum is greater than it's parts.

The acting is pretty good overall, with Poitier dominating the screen through his rich performance as Virgil Tibbs. Steiger is good as redneck Sheriff Gillespie, but is sometimes a little prone to using stereotypes. The supporting cast is generally pretty good, but, outside of the reliable Warren Oates, hardly noteworthy.

The script is decent, but important themes of class division are brought up and then quickly forgotten, and the entire murder-mystery plot is so underwritten as to be unnecessary to the film; by the end, it's still unclear how exactly the mystery was solved. The editing also feels a little choppy. Throughout we get the feeling that certain parts have been removed to tighten up the picture, but it feels over-tightened as a result.

The only really solid attributes of the film are the cinematography by Haskell Wexler and the perfect production design, making a farm town in Illinois look like a dilapidated Southern town.

When all the parts are put together, though, they work rather well. It's easy to become immersed in the film, and like it once it's over. Perhaps it works so well because of its lack of pretentiousness. The film never claims to be destroying racism in a small town or even presenting us with something new (though it may have been an eye-opener for some Northerners, I imagine the racial elements were routine evening news fare by 1967). We understand that the town will not change after Tibbs leaves. Endicott will not get rid of his slave-like servants, the police will still be ineffectual, and racism will still prevail. This is the true realism of the film.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring

Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom
2003
Korea Pictures
Director: Kim Ki-duk
Length: 102 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 14 February

A cyclical tale of self-redemption, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring is a stunning film. The acting, with the sole exception of Young-min Kim as the young adult monk who wildly overacts, is excellent, the cinematography is outstanding (the incredible locations help in this regard), and the script is great with it's heavily reduced dialogue and simple, but powerful lessons. The film was unjustly neglected in the US, but is readily available at Hollywood and Blockbuster, so now you have no excuse for avoiding this lush, meditative film.

Greed (Extended Version)

1924
Metro Goldwyn Pictures
Director: Erich von Stroheim
Length: 239 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 13 February

In 1999, Rick Schmidlin oversaw the addition of 99 minutes to the 1924 release print of Erich von Stroheim's "holy grail of cinema," Greed. These 99 minutes come in the form of still pictures of deleted material and new intertitles based on a continuity script he found in a private library, and this version will likely be the closest we ever come to seeing the full version of the film. Not only was all of the six or seven hours of excised footage completely burned, the original shooting script is long-gone.

What's interesting about using the still photographs is that it allows us to see exactly what was cut and about where it fit in the original cut. It's tough to judge a film missing over half of it's content, and this proves true here as well. Extended subplots have been partially restored here, but go mostly nowhere aside from providing point/counterpoint to the action of the main storyline. In their current form, they probably were better left on the cutting room floor, but perhaps in their full length they were of prime necessity to the film as a whole. Though some parts are redundant, tedious, and/or unclear in this extended version, some new scenes are incredibly rich in their character insight and in filling out what must have been confusing and choppy scenes.

Regardless of the fact we are only watching half a film, it is still quite good. This is an tragic and ironic morality tale showing us what happens to people who develop an obsessive love of money. The theme is of course universal, and we can still learn lessons from the movie today. None of the characters are all good or all bad, but everyone who lets money and greed overtake their lives slowly become inhuman and swing far to their dark sides, which seems to parallel real life rather well. This parallel is helped by the excellent performances of the leads and of the sheer length of the film, which allows for fuller characterizations to emerge slowly and more naturally than a more rushed film would have time for.

The film is not perfect, but von Stroheim's butchered vision is a timeless work that earns its high reputation.

Welcome to Dongmakgol

2005
Film It Suda
Director: Kwang-hyun Park
Length: 133 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 13 February

It seems that when it comes to mainstream Korean cinema (with notable exceptions), Jerry Bruckheimer has become the key influence. Style reminiscent of credit card commercials is heavily favored over substance, shaky-cam syndrome is widespread, violence is disturbing and gratuitous regardless of how light a film appears to be (see Marrying the Mafia), run-times are easily 30 minutes too long, and any potentially interesting ideas and avenues for profound political statements are quickly removed and replaced with empty Hallmark moments.

This is the case with first-timer Kwang-Hyun Park's cliche-fest, Welcome to Dongmakgol, a film that could have said many important things on North-South antagonism and the need for peace and reunification. Instead, all the screenplay decides to tell us over the course of 133 long minutes is that if Northerners and Southerners put down their guns, they could all be good friends. Thankfully, the movie doesn't otherwise choose sides between North and South on any issue, but that's about as strong as the movie gets.

Other major problems abound: the score sounds like it was lifted from a 20-year old direct-to-video feature and tries desperately to tell us what emotions to feel, the acting is generally horrible (even dinner theater may be above the American "actors"), and well, the less said about the giant warthog scene, the better.

Indeed, the director seems thoroughly incapable of presenting the material without a maximum of cheese at all times, as in the warthog scene and the final fireball, or without requiring us to not notice an unbelievably incorrect portrayal of army protocol (strange for a country with compulsory service) and also accept the obvious anachronisms and clunkily manufactured change in Moon Sang-sang's disposition towards the villagers so as to build "tension" and "drama."

Nothing about this shamelessly predictable film rings true in any way, and since it doesn't have anything to say regardless, this movie is a complete waste of time.

Midnight Run

1988
City Lights
Director: Martin Brest
Length: 123 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 12 February

Midnight Run is proof that having a rock-solid cast can elevate a terrible script into an enjoyable film. It stars Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto, Joe Pantoliano, Dennis Farina and John Ashton, and all, as expected, do great work here, creating nice little touches (like De Niro tucking the handcuffed Grodon's coat into the car before closing the door) and character tics (Kotto's continual exasperation towards his subordinates; Farina's hilarious threats) that work so well. Apparently, large parts of the movie were improvised by the cast which is the main reason the film works so well - and is so consistently funny - considering the rigid formula and dull buddy-road-movie cliches that exist in George Gallo's screenplay. Brest keeps the film moving through its two hours, though it does drag a little in the middle. He may not have the talent to improve upon weak material, but at least he can choose a cast who is readily able to do so.

The Phenix City Story

1955
Bischoff Enterprises
Director: Phil Karlson
Length: 87 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 12 February

It seemed for a while that no film from the '50s was more intense than Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, but then I happened upon Phil Karlson's The Phenix City Story, based on true events in the titular city. This is one hardcore film, in which no child or woman is safe from vicious attacks in broad daylight or even murder. How this film got past the Production Code is curious, but it did, and its unflinching look at organized crime in the deep South is the film's biggest strength and perhaps the reason it works so well in riling the audience up against the real-life thugs.

It works despite bad acting (though James Edwards, as usual, brings strong acting skills and class to his role as Zeke, and Edward Andrews is good as the town's criminal kingpin), a preachy script, and an incredibly amateurish workmanship and style. The film as a whole is so unsubtle, worked-up and easily convincing (would you want child-murders running your town and have the police and courts in their pockets?) that it becomes a piece of propaganda, and even became a key advertising component in the campaign of the real-life Albert Patterson, who was running for Governor of Alabama as the film was released. As propaganda, the film is wildly effective, the anger I felt towards the criminals grew as the film went on and I was admittedly somewhat stirred by remarkably hokey mob scene. Seeing the people take power from a corrupt ruling class is a rousing image, and this is what The Phenix City Story such a great film.

The Docks of New York

1928
Paramount
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Length: 76 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 9 February

Josef von Sternberg's The Docks of New York is an exercise in simplicity and in outstandingly stylized cinematography and editing. The story is very brief and straightforward. Not much time is wasted as the film hurtles from A to B. The wedding scene and some of the sequences in the bar probably could have used a little trimming, but their length doesn't hurt the film much.

The most impressive thing about this film is how ahead of the time it feels. While talkies were beginning to enter theaters, some directors kept with silent films, and The Docks of New York comes in the late period of silents. Most all films through this era, silent or otherwise, suffered from copious overacting and a flat style with long, static shots and simplistic edits, but these are usually associated with silent films rather than with their talking counterparts.

von Sternberg's film, however, showcases dynamic and fluid cinematography highlighted by breathtaking lighting that serves as an obvious precursor to the film noir style, though here the lighting surpasses many of the film noirs that would follow. The shots inside the boat and the night exteriors of the first half of the film use streams of light pouring from obscured lights pointed towards the camera and tons of fog to create a perfectly dark and creepy atmosphere. This film may be the jewel in noted cinematographer Harold Rosson's crown.

von Sternberg once said that "shadow is mystery and light is clarity. Shadow conceals - light reveals. To know what to reveal and what to conceal and in what degrees to do this is all there is to art." After watching this film, it would be an understatement to say that von Sternberg and Rosson knew their art.

In Cold Blood

1967
Columbia Pictures
Director: Richard Brooks
Length: 134 min.
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 8 February

Richard Brooks' In Cold Blood is a masterpiece of cinematography and editing. How Conrad Hall and Peter Zinner didn't walk away with awards for their work on this film is beyond me. The shots are framed perfectly and the editing is an display case of fantastic match cuts and of tight cutting. Both men must have been telepathically linked during the making of the film in how well their work complimented each other. The acting in the film is also first-rate, with outstanding performances from Robert Blake and Scott Wilson.

The film is not without its flaws, however. The score occasionally goes over-the-top and becomes a little distracting, and in perhaps the most ridiculous musical cue in cinema history, a female voice sings the word "memories" before the film segues into a flashback. Also, the ending's narration and preachy anti-capitol punishment speech is far too heavy-handed for the film. These flaws do little to hurt In Cold Blood as a whole and it succeeds amazingly well in spite of them.

One more note: It is rare to see a film whose ending is as sobering as this one's. When the slowing heartbeat faded out on the soundtrack, and the title faded in as the sole closing credit, not a person stirred or grabbed their coats. Everyone stayed in their seats until the lights came up. Then, we all walked out of the screening room without uttering a word, into the night as if we really did witness a Federal execution. Even the usually lively Capitol Hill neighborhood seemed incredibly quiet and somber as I walked home in the cold air.

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

1972
Jonas Mekas
Director: Jonas Mekas
Length: 83 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 8 February

Imagine watching 83 minutes of some stranger's home movies. This stranger shot some film in the 50s of fellow Lithuanian displaced peoples that settled in New York after WWII. Twenty years later, he goes on a trip to his old home to see his mother who he hadn't seen since he fled the Nazis during the war, all the while shooting film, and adds it to his 50s footage. The footage is all hand-held, and is so shaky it looks like your average Michael Bay film.

Now imagine that the "director" edits the film as if he was a jackrabbit on uppers, and almost always keeps this film sped up to a minimum of 2x (this is done presumably because 166 minutes of his footage would lead most of us to emptying the nearest bottle of sleeping pills down our gullet). Sometimes he'll provide his own poorly dubbed voice-overs, almost always telling us exceedingly banal trivia and reflections about his trip - though admittedly a couple things he says are of interest. Other times, he'll put music over the footage at odd times, and stop it dead at other odd times (and you can always hear the start/stop click of the tape player it came from). Finally, he throws in a shot of a white box on a black screen occasionally throughout the whole film for no reason. Now guess what. You don't have to imagine this any longer, you can simply watch Jonas Mekas' Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, the most amateuristic "documentary" by a professional filmmaker I have ever seen. Or better yet, don't watch it. Run very far away from it.

Some people are fantastic at making stories of the mundane come alive through the proper use of detail at the right moment and by having a natural storytelling ability. Mekas posseses neither or these traits, and so, it can only be assumed that he was simply lucky that the first three minutes of the film, a discussion of when he realized America was his new home, is so good. From there, the film goes downhill fast and never gets any better. There is no point, there is no conclusion, there is no ending (the film simply stops and the copyright comes up).

The only thing the film really has going for it is that it inspires a debate on what can be counted as a documentary. Can splicing together your home movies with no purpose, no storyline and no ending really be called a documentary? Many critics say yes, at least when it comes to this film, and some have even gone so far as to call Mekas' work "film poetry" (Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader). Personally, I say no. I don't think this can be called a documentary. If it is, then anybody who has ever filmed a family event with a camcorder should be able to slap a copyright on it and throw it into theaters. Mekas shoots, narrates, and records audio with all the skill of your average suburban father, so why not put the video of our family's Christmas, 1985, into a local cinema? Maybe we can fool prominent critics into thinking it's "film poetry."

The Sun Shines Bright

1953
Republic Pictures
Director: John Ford
Length: 93 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 7 February

Of all 146 films John Ford directed, The Sun Shines Bright is his personal favorite and the favorite of many of his fans. Admittedly, I've never cared much for John Ford's films, aside from The Grapes of Wrath and, to a lesser degree, The Searchers and Judge Priest. After having watched The Sun Shines Bright, Judge Priest's half-remake, half-sequel, I see no reason to change my stance on the man's work.

A film much weaker than it's predecessor, The Sun Shines Bright changes the character of Judge Priest from a wise, calm, good-natured and good-humored older man as played by the terrific Will Rogers into an angry, preachy, eccentric with occasional patches of kindness, this time played by Charles Winninger (Rogers died in 1935, thus ruling out his desperately needed return to the role). Perhaps Winninger's performance is closer to the books the films were based on, perhaps not. Either way, Rogers was perfect in the role, and it was a disappointment to see Winninger's changes.

His introduction comes when he wakes up and begins screaming in anger and then bugling for his servant (this being around 1900 is not slavery, but not that different from it, either), Jeff, to come and get the jug of whiskey out from under the Judge's bed (taking approximately seventeen times the effort needed to pull the jug out himself). Immediately, we know we are in for disappointment in this film's choice of lead.

The first third of the movie is shockingly poor. Its inept attempts at balancing multiple story-lines ends up being confusing (the weak editing has been attributed to studio interference, so perhaps this can be excused) and the situations the characters find themselves in are apparently supposed to be funny, but are really just awkward and absurd. The film eventually gets better, and indeed, some of the scenes towards the end are very well done. The funeral procession is a stirring piece of cinema, marred only by the fact that as it goes on, it does becomes a little preposterous. The final shot of the Judge entering his house is incredibly well-shot and lit. Though the last two-thirds are better than the first, it still is not free from poor scenes, like the ridiculously lame chase scene through town, and over-the-top cheesiness that just doesn't work as decent melodrama, like the mystery around Lucy Lee's lineage, which was handled much better in the original.

Then we get to the question of racial stereotypes. Not much has changed since the first film, and in fact, it's may be worse than the 1934 version. Stepin Fetchit reprises not only his role as Jeff, the Judge's servant, but also his awful embodiment of grotesque stereotypes. Most of the African-American woman in this film are presented as "Mammy" types, and the men are presented as slow, childlike adults. For a film that makes quite a bit of lip service about the equality of men regardless of their skin color, the actual portrayal of African-Americans is incredibly offensive.

Save your 93 minutes and skip this shabby film.

Judge Priest

1934
Fox Film Corp.
Director: John Ford
Length: 82 min
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 6 January

John Ford's Judge Priest, set in 1890 Kentucky, is a comedy that generally coasts by amicably on its down home Southern charm and humor. The title character is played by Will Rogers, who plays the part (that would soon be a Hollywood cliche) perfectly. Rogers does a nice job with little touches, such as his conversations with his long-deceased wife. The story is also good, balancing the Judge's courtroom life as well as his neighborhood life, meddling in the affairs of his newphew's love life and preparing for an all-important croquet match, and showing his carefully constructed mask of gentle apathy as he navigates both worlds.

Everything goes rather well until the film begins to fall apart at the end. Strong Confederate pride still plays a huge role in the lives of these Kentuckians, and this explodes to absurd proportions at the climax and carries through to the end, destroying some of the good will the movie generated in its first three-quarters. Further, being a film about the South made in 1934, there is of course some inexcusably horrible racist stereotyping that is hard to watch.

It's hard to shake the fact that the ending is so weak, but the film still works despite this. Overall, Judge Priest is a good film with plenty of good laughs.

Love Streams (Home Video Version)

1984
Cannon Films
Director: John Cassavetes
Length: 122 min.
Format: VHS
Date Viewed: 5 January

When Love Streams was released onto video in 1984, the film was cut down by eighteen minutes. It is unclear who did the cutting and why, but the feeling that one gets from this shortened version is that the longer one needs to be seen. Perhaps a DVD of the uncut version will be released in the near future, or perhaps a 35mm print will come to Seattle (a new print was created sometime late last year and played in New York), but until then, the only available version feels like it is missing some important material that may better flesh out some of the supporting characters and help explain some situations.

This is a very tough film to get into, and the ending's lapse into surrealism is frustrating and feels more than a little pretentious. It's a film that, as a whole, gets better while thinking about it after the fact as opposed to while it's actually playing.

However, the performances by director/co-writer star, John Cassavetes, and his real-life wife, Gena Rowlands, are flawless and incredibly moving, and Seymour Cassel, as always, turns in a strong supporting performance. The Vegas sequence and its violent conclusion is remarkably effective, as is the tragic dream scene where Rowlands tries desperately to win her husband and daughter's love by playing around with gag gifts.

Overall, the film is admirable, but is not a lot of fun to watch. Perhaps this film will turn out like Cassavetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie in that the original cut is far superior, and gets much, much better on a second viewing. The hope is that the theatrical cut will come this way soon.

The Best and Worst of 2005

For 13 months, from 1 January, 2005 to 1 February, 2006, I saw 287 films (my girlfriend doesn't live in this country, so I have a lot of free time). Of these, I only saw 51 films from 2005. Yes, the masses were somewhat correct in that 2005 had a lot of just bad, bad films, but there were also many films of very high quality. In fact, finding ten films to create my least favorite film list was a little difficult, but trying to make an initial cut of really good films down to 20 was a little tough.

The criteria I have established for 2005 films is that (1), it is a film that was released in Seattle theatrically for the first time during the calendar year of 2005 (1 January to 31 December), (2) it is a film that has not been released theatrically in Seattle but available to me on video during the year, and (3) it is a film that has been recut and rereleased theatrically. Number one is the reason why films like The New World and Cache will have to wait until next year's list. Because of the second rule, I did not add Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Pulse (too bad about the latter as I hated it the first time I saw in Japan in 2004, and loved it when I saw it again late last year in its Seattle release, and would've added it to my top ten), and number three is the reason that The Passenger made it and why Major Dundee was "in competition," so to speak.

Before we get to the best and worst films, here is a list, in alphabetical order, of the films that were not bad enough to make the ten worst, but not quite good enough to make it to the honorable mention category.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (USA)
The Aristocrats (USA)
The Bad News Bears (USA)
Batman Begins (USA)
Bright Future (Japan)
Broken Flowers (USA)
Capote (USA)
Days of Being Wild (Hong Kong)
Good Night, And Good Luck. (USA)
Grizzly Man (USA)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (USA/UK)
A History of Violence (USA/Canada)
Kekexili (China)
Kung Fu Hustle (Hong Kong)
Land of the Dead (USA)
Major Dundee (USA)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (USA)
Oseam (South Korea)
Oyster Farmer (Australia)
The President's Last Bang (South Korea)
Pucker Up (USA)
The Squid and the Whale (USA)
Tropical Malady (Thailand)
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (UK)
War of the Worlds (USA)
The White Diamond (Germany/UK)


The Best Films of 2005

HONORABLE MENTION

15. 2046 (Hong Kong) - The final part of Wai's trilogy on Hong Kong of the 1960's, the film has a great style and is thought-provoking. It would have been stronger had it not been a direct sequel to In the Mood For Love, but it's still a very good conclusion to the series.

14. Downfall (Germany) - A fascinating look at the last days of Nazi Germany. Well shot and acted, but it's lack of context keeps it from being in the top ten.

13. Mysterious Skin (USA) - A great script and good performances. The story about the hustler is not nearly as strong as the one about the teen who believes he was abducted by aliens, but it's still good enough to not weaken the film.

12. Layer Cake (UK) - Matthew Vaughn gives a perfect amount of style onto this gangster film. The fun of the film is in the characters. Daniel Craig is outstanding in his role.

11. Junebug (USA) - A film about the red-state/blue-state division that doesn't shit all over the red-staters. This film boasts fantastic performances and a very good script.


TOP TEN

10. Or (My Treasure) (Israel) - A sad film that is brutal on the emotions, but really strong. Great performances and excellent cinematography highlight this great work of cinema verite.

9. Munich (USA) - Steven Spielberg is back in good form with his best film in at least 23 years. The ideas are interesting, and all sides are given fair weight to the film's central issue. The performances are good across the board and the ties to today's political climate were very poigniant. It is a little cheesy in a couple places, but hey, it's Spielberg. What can you expect?

8. Nobody Knows (Japan) - I saw no other film that was so scary, and yet it's not at all a horror film or a thriller. The director reveals slowly but surely the full horror of the kids' situation as it goes from bad to worse over a year. Yuya Yagira, at 12 years old, gave what was probably the best performance of the year, and the Academy Awards show their continued uselessness but refusing to acknowledge it.

7. The Beat That My Heart Skipped (France) - The film is filled with intriguing moral quandaries and a thought-provoking ending. The film is not without its weaknesses, but it more than overcomes them with strong acting and a good story.

6. Memories of Murder (South Korea) - A strong dark comedy with another great performance by Song Kang-ho. This film gives a really good recreation of South Korea during the 80's, and gives the outsider a pretty good look at the political climate during this era.

5. The Best of Youth (Italy) - Over the course of six hours with one Italian family, you almost feel like you've been made an honorary sibling of the two brothers at the center. The film is so good, that after six hours, you just want more.

4. The Passenger (USA/Italy) - Jack Nicholson's gives his best performance in this great existential anti-thriller. The film was originally released in a studio cut in 1975, and was finally restored to the director's intended version late last year. I don't know how they pulled-off the last shot in an era before CGI, but it is incredibly choreographed and perfectly executed.

3. 3-Iron (South Korea) - An amazing film centering on a relationship between a man and a woman who don't say a single word to each other. The film is both hilarious and sad, sometimes simultaneously. The third act is incredibly brilliant.

2. Brokeback Mountain (USA) - One of the best romances I've ever seen. Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams turn in outstanding performances and Larry McMurtray writes a tragic and moving script.

1. This Charming Girl (South Korea) - This is a truly wonderful film experience, perfectly structured and acted, all the more impressive as it's the debut film for its director and lead actress. The story comes together like a puzzle, and follows the rule of "show, don't tell" to the point of only having around 100 words spoken during its 99 minute runtime. Seattlites can find this at Scarecrow, but only on Region 3 DVD. Please find this film and see it.


And of course, the Worst Films of 2005

BOTTOM 10

10. A Tale of Two Sisters (South Korea) - Asian horror continues its nosedive. Note to the director: a film only needs one ending. Clue: The Movie had three, and that worked pretty well. Having more than three is a painful way for your audience to realize the extent of your indecisiveness.

9. Sin City (USA) - The first film made entirely for the fanboys at Aint It Cool News. If it wasn't for the Marv story, this film would be a whole lot higher on this list.

8. Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (USA) - The surprise with this film's addition to the worst film list is that it was only the 8th worst film of the year.

7. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (USA) - Johnny Depp misunderstanding the character of Willy Wonka is bad enough; worse is John August somehow thinking the story could be improved by making it into a film about a guy with daddy issues. The terms Tim Burton and poor judgment are really beginning to become intrinsically linked.

6. R Point (South Korea) - This film had a cool idea and the director thoroughly squandered it by seemingly not caring enough to actually try and take advantage of it. Lazy, careless filmmaking.

5. After the Day Before (Hungary) - A pointlessly bleak and cruel film directed by the world's most cynical person (as observed during his post-screening Q&A). No, sir, you are nothing like David Lynch. Even the worst David Lynch film at least has a point to it.

4. The Constant Gardener (UK) - Dumb, dumb, dumb. And then dumb some more.

3. Save the Green Planet (South Korea) - This film wasn't necessarily bad, and in fact had many great scenes and one of the best ideas I've heard in years. The problem is that, like R-Point, the shameless hack of a director threw this good idea away and in this case decided that ninety minutes of disturbing torture scenes would be a fine substitute. Controversial statement: this film needs to be remade by someone who can adequately mine the film's potential.

2. Crash (USA) - Hey, white liberals! Watching this film does not mean you are fighting or understanding racism. It's funny in a cynical way when people say how powerful and enlightening this film is and then in separate conversations use the term "black people" in a lowered and drawn out tone, or refer to any Latino as a Mexican. This film was piss-poor on every aspect of its production, except for where Don Cheadle was concerned (but that should go without saying).

1. King Kong (USA/New Zealand) - Over the course of three loooooooooooooooooong hours and seven painful minutes, Peter Jackson morphed into a racist George Lucas circa 1999. You fanboys can pretend it's good, but you're only lying to yourselves.


I want to hear your comments on the lists, so go ahead and leave them below. And better yet, post your best/worst of list to the comments page.

Flic Story

1975
Adel Productions
Director: Jacques Deray
Length: 107 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 2 February

Even though it is based on a true story, Jacques Deray's Flic Story employs most of the usual crime film cliches. Nothing really new is presented, and yet, the film is still enjoyable, mostly because the performances by the leads, the always super-cool Alain Delon and Jean-Louis Trintignant, are in top-form.

Delon plays his "super-cop" as a quiet and good-natured man. He loves his wife and his job, and deplores cops who work above the law (he gets after his men for roughing up suspects. Though usually Delon plays tough-as-nails characters in films of this genre, here we see another side of him and he pulls it off very well. Trintignant plays the villain, Buisson, a stone-faced psycho-killer. Trintignant's performance is truly chilling; his stare is enough to make us nervous for anyone else in the frame with him. Their scenes together towards the end where they meet and begin to understand each other are nicely handled by Deray and the script which he co-wrote with Alphonse Boudard.

Though it's nothing we haven't seen before, Flic Story is still a solid French crime film, and worth seeing for the cat-and-mouse between Delon and Trintignant.

Me and You and Everyone We Know

2005
IFC Films
Director: Miranda July
Length: 92 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 1 February

It's always a disappointment when you finish a film and simply don't care about it. It's very hard to care about Miranda July's debut feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know. The characters aren't really interesting, and as a result, the blossoming romance of the two leads fails to register because we can't really see why they like each other so much. The highly sexualized scenes between the many children in the film quickly become either disturbing (why again is it funny that a man leaves dirty notes for two underage teen girls?) or simply dull (the online sex - although the "are you touching yourself" bit was pretty funny). The film is supposed to be quirky and whimsical, and though the quirks and whimsy never feel forced, they never feel natural, either and thus the film doesn't work from that angle, either.

Granted, this film does have some funny parts (I'm guessing no one alive can utter "shitlords" half as funny as John Hawkes does here) and some cute bits (the walk/life-long romance down the street is rather sweet and charming), and the theme of isolation in the digital world is a good one. It's unfortunate that July couldn't make more of these elements and give us a film that was easier to care about.

Capote

2005
United Artists
Director: Bennett Miller
Length: 114 min.
Format: 35mm
Date Viewed: 1 February

If this film's representation of the title character is even a little true, then Truman Capote must have been a pretty terrible man. For two hours, we see his extreme narcissism fuel him towards manipulating, lying to and bribing everyone around him to get what he wants. What he wanted was to write the book to end all books, and he got what he wanted with In Cold Blood.

But the price he paid was too great. As history tells us, he never finished another book, got trapped in his public persona and died of alcoholism. In a sense, the movie serves as a piece of moralism. Narcissism, no matter what it may bring you if anything at all, will end up destroying you. Yes, the film is as depressing as it sounds.

And it's hard to argue with Dan Callahan who, in his review of this film for Slant Magazine, says that the film would have been much better and the title character more interesting "if Capote himself were treated with just an ounce more sympathy." True, but still, Hoffman does a tremendous job of playing Capote, and indeed, the entire cast is first-rate, Catherine Keener and Clifton Collins also each give one of their best performances here.

The script is also well structured and does a good job of showing the beginning of Capote's downward spiral. Miller, in his second feature and first narrative, shows himself a capable director, and is a director who shows violence in the most appropriately blunt and horrifying ways I've seen in some time. It was so effective, I had to look away a couple times, and I was incredibly glad that there was only a very small amount of this in the film.

I can recommend Capote, but don't expect to come out of the cinema happier and more "up with people" than when you went it.

The Aristocrats

2005
Mighty Cheese Productions
Director: Paul Provenza
Length: 86 min.
Format: DVD
Date Viewed: 31 January

As most comedians in this literally one-joke documentary will tell you, the joke, The Aristocrats, is just not funny. And yet, when told by some of the greatest working comedians over and over for 86 minutes, it often becomes hilarious. The trick, like all good jokes, is in the telling. Adding colorful little details and punctuating every line with the perfect tone of voice can make a dumb joke funny as is proven here. Somewhere around 100 comedians give versions of the joke, and also offer insight into what makes jokes work, comedic censorship, and what a joke told can reveal about the teller. The documentary generally succeeds, but it could have used some less spastic editing. The film is heavily cut, trying to get as much in as possible by as many different people as possible while constantly cross-cutting back and forth between comedians, to the point that the film feels geared more towards people with severe ADD. Otherwise, if you like (unfathomably) dirty jokes, this film is for you.