Princess Mononoke

With this film, Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki proves that he is not only one of the world's great storytellers, but that he is also one of the great modern myth-makers. This is the kind of film that comes from an extraordinary imagination. The fact that it is animated (much of it hand drawn by Miyazaki himself) makes the possibilities limitless. He creates of world of ancient Japan where the spirits of the forrest and of animals are gradually dying to the increasing technology and mechinization of man. It's interesting to notice how he is also one of the great moral filmmakers -- there are no good guys and bad guys, just people who all have reasonable motivations (though sometimes misguided) for what they do, and no one is beyond redemption. He creates a beautiful fantasy world and then creates his own myths. It's a fantastic achievement in both animation and filmmaking.

Funny Games

It seems that there is no modern director who makes a post-apocalyptic film like Michael Haneke. Granted, this thriller isn't technically a post-apocalyptic film, but it might as well be. It all begins when a well-to-do German family drives up to their summer home by the lake. A young man comes to the door asking to borrow some eggs. Soon his friend shows up. Then the games begin as the two young men begin a relentless cycle of psychological torment on this family all while keeping polite smiles on their faces. Haneke's direction is certainly effective, perhaps a little bit too effective at times. It's too bad though that the film is cold as ice and painfully hopeless -- if it didn't have the gall to smile at itself in the end, it may well leave the audience wanting to reach for the nearest razor. At least his Time of the Wolf (which actually is a post-apocalyptic film) ended on a note that left room for hope.

The Rolling Stones: Sympathy for the Devil

When Jean-Luc Godard showed up in England he either wanted to make a documentary on The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. The Beatles decline, but the Stones accepted, and it's probaly for the best -- the Stones are more in line with Godard's sensibilities anyway. Still this has to be the most unusual rock documentary ever made. Of course I'm not sure why I should expect anything from Godard to be conventional. The film juxtaposes recording sessions with the band as they go through the process of perfecting and recording their classic song, "Sympathy for the Devil" with various scenes of what basically amounts to political discourse on such topics as black power, pornography, fascism, communism, celebrity, and even filmmaking itself. Now these "parathetical" scenes that have nothing to do with the Rolling Stones actually end up outstaging the band (I'm sure Godard wouldn't have had it any other way). It's interesting that he choses to use a more controlled, locked down camera and long takes for his documentary as opposed to his typical early handheld "documentary" style. It's endlessly fascinating to watch Godard rail off his ideas and discourses one after another with such with and artistry. Oh yeah, and the Rolling Stones are cool too.

Les Carabiniers

This is the war film that only Godard could make. The film opens with four people living in a shack in some unnamed country -- two brothers and their girlfriends. A couple of soldiers drive up and recruit them for the army because a war is about to break out. The soldiers promise them the treasures of the world. It's a humorous scene in which the two brothers discover the perks to being a soldier. "Can we rape women?" "Yes" "Can we kill innocent people?" "Yes" "Can we take expensive cars?" "Yes" etc. Much of the film is told, in typical Godard fashion, through title cards which are letters one brother writes home describing their exploits. But the film climaxes with an amazing scene in which they return home with the "treasures of the world" and for about ten minutes they sort through a carefully arranged stack of photographs of the worlds wonders. It's hilarious and the kind of thing that must be seen to be understood. It's stunning to watch Godard so seamlessly blend politics, humor, art, and filmmaking into one masterful package.

The Fisher King

I have never been a Terry Gilliam groupie. Yes, he is visually inventive, and thanks to his days with Monty Python, has a unique understanding of comedy, but I have never been able to really engage with any of his films. But finally, with The Fisher King Gilliam makes his most human film that at times almost reaches greatness. The opening scenes show bad ass D.J., Jeff Bridges, telling his listeners that they're losers and that mankind is basically screwed. The next day on the news, he sees a story about one of his listeners (who had called in) had taken a shotgun to a cafe and blew away the patrons because of what Bridges said to him on the air. This leads him into an alcoholic depression which eventually causes him to meet Robin Williams, a delusional homeless man who thinks he's an Arthurian knight on a quest for the Holy Grail. He is the holy fool -- a man who may be crazy, but may be right. It turns into a story of friendship and redemption all complimented by Gilliam's visuals, some strong performances, and an excellent comedic sense. It touches you on a human level and almost dares you to care, but unfortunately never quite reaches the transcendence that it strives for.

Gaslight (1944)

This remake of the British film of the same name is mostly successful, though not as terrifying as its predecessor. George Cuckor seems to be an unusual choice to direct a suspense film, particularly a Victorian psychological thriller like this -- it's not the kind of film he was known for, yet it works. If there's one thing this film does better than the British film it's in the performance of Ingrid Bergman as opposed to Diana Wynyard. It's one of Bergman's finest performances as the submissive young wife who is being systematically led to believe that she is going insane. Charles Boyer is less sinister than Anton Walbrook, but then again, Walbrook may have played it a bit more sinister than he needed -- Boyer comes across like a real person and almost becomes more sinister because he is less sinister (if that makes any sense). While this is a classy and effective psychological thriller, I think the British version still comes out ahead because it is more terrifying and shorter.

Father of the Bride (1950)

This film feels like one of the more subtle comedies of the 1950's. There's nothing outrageously funny about it, yet somehow it manages to gain our sympathy and even some of our laughs. Spencer Tracy gives a sturdy performance -- perhaps even more sturdy than usual -- as the father preparing to marry off his only daughter played by a young Elizabeth Taylor (not long before her first actual marriage). I've often felt that Hollywood films about the middle-class have always been made as voyeurs looking in, rather than being a natural part of that world. In other words, it's Hollywood's view of what a middle-class wedding might be like, rather than what a middle-class wedding is like. The scenes that stick out are when Tracy calmly tries to convince Taylor to accept $1,500 from him to run off and elope, as well as the boldly unusual dream sequence which looks like it belongs in one of Bunuel's silent, surrealist films rather than a 50's comedy of manners. Vincente Minelli directs like the old pro he is.

Le Petit Soldat

For his third film, Godard began moving away from merely stylization and deconstructing genres into the world of politics and social commentary. He maintains the light-on-its-feet, New Wave style for what is (in a way) an espionage film. No one understood the revolutionary spirit and the youth culture of cool better than Godard. His protagonist is a revolutionary who doesn't really believe in anything, but is caught in between French and Arab revolutary groups. I love his early films because no matter what they're about, they're all essentially comedies (of course I use that term loosely as American's understand it). To watch this film is to watch a genius finding his voice and coming into his own as an artist.

Gaslight (1940)

There may be nothing more frightening than being a slave -- except, perhaps, not realizing you are being made into one. This British film (which was remade in Hollywood a few years later) is in some ways one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen. In its opening frames we see an old woman strangled to death by an unseen assailant who then begins to tear apart the room looking for something. Later we meet Mr. and Mrs. Mallen. Apparently Mrs. Mallen has a tendancy to take things, but never seems to remember it after it has happened. Her husband subtly suggests that she's going crazy. Paul Mallen as played by Anton Walbrook is one of the most sinister characters in film. We soon realize that she is not going crazy, but he is effectively making her think that she is going crazy -- threatening to commit her, trapping her in the house, not allowing any visitors, but it's all for her own good and she has no reason to suspect that her husband may have ulterior motives. As far as psychological thrillers go, this is top-notch.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Is it a ghost story? Is it a love story? Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz makes it both. Rex Harrison is the ghost of a sea captain hauting his seaside home as widow, Gene Tierney moves in with her young daughter. She is a stubborn woman and refuses to let an apparition frighten her away. The ghost appreciates her spunk and allows her to stay and soon has her writing his memoirs. It's a classy love story of the kind they just don't make anymore, and Bernard Herrmann's score ranks along with Vertigo as his finest with its forlorn, haunting, romantic swills.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

It's the sweltering South in the world of Tennessee Williams where a bunch of psychologically probing relationships come together to celebrate the birthday (probably the last) of a wealthy, dying patriarch. Burl Ives and Paul Newman turn in strong performances as the father and a drunkard son respectively. Elizabeth Taylor looks lovely, though verges on over-acting as Newman's long sufferring wife. It's not as raw as A Streetcar Named Desire nor as lurid as Suddenly, Last Summer (though it has many of Williams' trademark themes such as the unspoken details of the relationship Newman once had with his best friend, Skipper, who later committed suicide). Though in some ways, it's one of the most touching films based on one of his plays. The father-son story and the husband-wife story are filled with emotional immediacy, and as they began to resolve themselves, I found myself strangely moved. The desperate attempts at Southern accents were often distracting, as were the annoying kids. Richard Brooks provides strong direction.

Land of the Dead

In the late 60's, George A. Romero shocked the world with his crudely terrifying, Night of the Living Dead. He would later go on to make his masterpiece, the zombie film/social satire, Dawn of the Dead. Then to round off the trilogy he made the truly abhorrent Day of the Dead. Now nearly forty years after he first frightened the world, he releases the latest entry into the series. I admit, I love a good zombie movie and this is easily Romero's best film since since Dawn of the Dead (which this could most easily be compared to). The dead have taken over, and the living have barricaded themselves in remote places in the middle of large cities as the rest of the world is infested with the living dead. Occasionally groups are sent out in heavily armed vehicles to raid small towns in order to obtains supplies -- food, ammo, booze, etc. But it seems that in one town, a zombie is beginning to evolve, he is learned to how to think in basic cause and effect (a trait which they have not had up to this point). This is not good news for the living. There's a shot in the film in which an army of the dead rises out of the water of a river which was supposed to separate them from the city of the living -- it's a shot that reminds of the underwater, Nazi zombie film, Shock Waves. In addition to some welcome gore (and there's plenty to go around), Romero blends in some of his particular blend of social satire of the class system, capitalism, and the exploitation of the proletariat. It's almost worth the price of admission just to watch Dennis Hopper ("zombies man, they freak me out"). While Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later remains the modern highlight of the genre (though some argue that it's not actually a "zombie" film), this remains a welcome addition, clearly made by a man who understands the potential of the living dead.

Howl's Moving Castle

I've never considered myself an aficianado of anime. I've seen very little, and never had any desire to see more. But when a director reaches the international acclaim that Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki has reached, it may be worth looking into. I was enthralled with my first experience with a Miyazaki film. This is one of the most imaginative fantasies of recent memory. It takes pieces from The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland and some of the Brother's Grimm to create this tale of young girl who is turned into an old woman by a wicked witch. She then becomes the cleaning lady for Howl -- a powerful sorcerer who is having problems of his own -- on his moving castle which can disguise itself in some creative ways. Strong themes of friendship, sacrafice, and even loving one's enemies, as well as some hand drawn visual wonderments make this one of my favorite films of the year so far as well as an early contender for best animated film. I now look forward to exploring more of Miyazaki's work.

Design For Scandal

Walter Pidgeon plays an unscrupulous reporter in this entertaining, though only sporadically funny comedy. He is assigned by his wealthy boss, who is going through a costly divorce, to seduce the female judge who made the divorce so costly in hopes of ruining her reputation and reversing the ruling. Rosalind Russell plays the strong-willed judge. The best scene is the last in which Pidgeon attempts to prove in court, through cross-examining Russell, that the two of them should get married and that they are in love with each other.

Ms. .45

Abel Ferrara's second film is a step up from his The Driller Killer in almost every way, though it maintains the gritty, New York street feel that he has become know for. This is one of those vigilante on the rampage films. Try to image a cross between Death Wish (to which it has most commonly been compared) and Roman Polanski's, Repulsion and you might get something like this. It's about a young, mute woman who is raped on her way home from work (Ferrara is probably one of the few directors bold enough to stage two rape scenes within the first ten minutes of the film). The second one occurs in her apartment, but she manages to hit him across the head with a blunt object and kill him. Not knowing what to do, she carefully dismembers the body, puts the parts in plastic bags which she keeps in the refrigerator, and then day by day disposes of the plastic bags at various locations. Actually, these scenes remind of the scenes in Psycho in which Norman Bates cleans up after mother. Unfortunately, those two incidents throw the girl over the edge and pretty soon she's blasting away every man that glances her way. It's a memorable piece of independent filmmaking even if there are better examples of the genre.

The Dirty Dozen

This is the first among many films of its kind. A hard-nosed major played by Lee Marvin is assigned the task of taking a dozen hardened criminals from a military prison, whip them into shape, and lead them on a mission to destroy a French chateau that houses many high ranking Nazi officers, all in exchange for a reprieve. Is it just me or does the cast, which includes, Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy, Charles Bronson, Telly Savales, John Cassavetes (in a standout performance), Donald Sutherland, and Robert Ryan among others, always seem to appear in this kind of movie? All we're missing is James Coburn. The cast is fine and Robert Aldrich's direction is solid. If you're a fan of this sub-genre, then you probably won't be disappointed.

Dark City

Alex Proyas' film has a distinct element of visionary science fiction. It has many of the same qualities of Blade Runner and what would later become The Matrix. The city is eternally dark because it is a fabrication by a group of super-intelligent aliens whose race is quickly becoming extinct. They have fabricated a world of people because humans have a secret that they do not: souls. They build the city, reshape it with the power of their mind, and change personalities, memory, etc at will, all in the attempt to discover the essence of the human soul. But one man "wakes up" and somehow develops the power to change things at will like the aliens can. It's certainly no Blade Runner but it's probably a better film than any of the Matrix movies, even if it is less action oriented. The world Proyas creates reminds me of Tim Burton's Gotham City in the first Batman film. It's a noir future where not everything is clean -- in fact, much of it is old. Science fiction is one of those genres that has almost endless thematic possibilities, and this is probably one of the better examples of the genre from the last twenty years.

The Prophecy

Watching this movie, I got a really amusing thought: what if when the angel, Gabriel, appeared to Mary to present her with the good tidings, he looked a lot like Christopher Walken? Oh, what I wouldn't give to see her reaction. The premise of this mostly silly, though generally enjoyable supernatural thriller is that there is a missing chapter in the book of Revelation which explains that there is an ongoing second war in heaven (the first, of course, being the one that banished Lucifer) that began soon after the resurrection. Apparently angels aren't the little cuddly children we see in Charmin commercials, they're primarily messengers of death -- they do God's dirty work and worship Him with one wing dipped in blood. Now, some of them are pissed that God has united man with Him and when we are in Heaven, we will be above the angels. After all the work angels do, you'd think God might throw them a bone here and there, but no, He's too busy fawning over us mortals. Walken plays Gabriel, the leader of the rebelling angels who is looking for the soul of a dead military officer (who apparently was really evil and could turn the tide in this war). Angels take human form and do some good detective work, but an actual detective (who was once trained to be a priest) is also on their tail. This seems to be the kind of film that might have been made by a fringe Catholic. Its theology is never seriously off (except the obvious liberties it takes with the addition to the Bible), but then again, it's all a bit too silly to take seriously anyway. Walken, once again proves that he has a unique way of giving very interesting performances in generally bad movies, and in the process elevating them higher than they may deserve. Viggo Mortensen also shows up late in the game with an interesting turn as the Dark Prince himself, but he shows up too late, and by then it doesn't really matter. I probably enjoyed it more than it's really worth.

Friday Night Lights

Sports movies have an uncanny ability to inspire audiences, or at least they do me. There's just something moving about beating the odds, striving for a goal, enduring the fight, and going a little bit farther and harder than you ever though possible. That said, Friday Night Lights is a good sports movie, but not as much of an inspiring one (though it does have some obligatory and effective moments of achievement). The football scenes are well-staged and effectively realistic. What holds this one together is the understated performance of Billy Bob Thornton as the coach who receives more than his share of pressure and "suggestions" from the townsfolk and players parents, but endures with a quiet grace. The thing though, that makes the best of this genre is when the victory is acheieved before the game is even played (think Chariots of Fire, Rocky, Rudy etc.), and this film fails to reach that note.

The People Under the Stairs

I distinctly remember watching the trailer to this film as a kid and, in my ignorance, thinking to myself that this must be one of the scariest movies ever made. In every town there is house which the adults rumor about and the children pass by on the other side of the street. In this town, they have good reason. It concerns a family that must be one of the creepiest, over-the-top religious fanatics ever put to the screen. I say religious -- yelling "burn in hell!" to everyone constitutes as religious, doesn't it? The family is like the worst parts of the mother in Carrie and the family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No one does this kind of film like director Wes Craven. Anyway they man and woman are brother and sister (the man occasionally dresses like that leather-clad retard slave to the hillbilly in Pulp Fiction and sometimes shoots his shotgun in the house). Over the years they have stolen various neighborhood children and have them locked up in the basement turning them into pseudo-vampires that can only feed on the occasional corpse of an unluck passer-by. Sound pleasant so far? Well, Craven brings a touch of class and respectability to what is mostly just excessive sleaze. It's too over-zealous for its own good. It's occasionally entertaining, but not one that is destined to become a holiday classic.

American Psycho

American Psycho sets out to be both a satire of yuppie greed, 80's materialism and policy, while at the same time being a character study of a closet psychotic. Christian Bale plays a successful if slightly eccentric Wall Street broker by day and a man whose murderous impulses take him over at night. He realizes he's psychotic, and at time can't control it, but he fears he doesn't exist. Bale's performance at moments ventures on over the top, but mostly finds a remarkably strong note. Two scene in particular stick out in my mind: one in which a bunch of cocky broker compare business cards that only differ in the texture of the card (watch as Bale squirms as he knows he's being one-uped), and the scene in which Jared Leto gets the axe -- literally. Before he kills people, he has a tendancy to talk about the philosophical implication of various 80's rock songs. It's amusing. These are the kind of people whose worth is determined by what restaurants they can get a reservation at. It's too bitterly sarcastic to be effective satire, but as a black comedy and character study it succeeds with some amusing results.

Farewell, My Concubine

I'm really glad I don't live in a Communist country. In many ways this could be described as the Chinese Doctor Zhivago. It's nearly three hours long, focuses on three people, and has the backdrop of a Communist revolution -- actually most of 20th century Chinese history and culture can be found in this film. That alone is an accomplishment. The opening scenes concern primarily two boys who have been given over to be trained (brutally) as actors for the opera. These scenes feel like a perverse rendition of Oliver Twist in the treatment of the children and the somewhat disturbing undertones. Then they grow up and become big stars in the Beijing opera and one of them falls in love with a prostitute played by the incredibly lovely, Gong Li, who both has the ability to steal the screen and amaze you with her subtle performances at the same time. From then on, China seems to fall apart in front of them. The scenes during the Cultural Revolution are incredibly frightening in an Orwellian sort of way. If it's not a great film, it is a great accomplishment in Chinese filmmaking. I prefer the simpler, more humanitarian films of Zhang Yimou, but this is by no means a waste of its running time.

The Mummy (1932)

With The Mummy, Universal started cashing in on the success of their previous horror films such as Frankenstein and Dracula. Famed German cinematographer, Karl Freund, took the helm as director on this and brings a strong photographic quality to the film, but it lacks the metaphoric implications of some of its superior Universal bretheren. The story is rather silly and contrived, yet the film is not without its own kind of charm, not the least of which can be found in the wonderfully subtle performance by Boris Karloff as Imhotep/The Mummy. The opening scene is strong and the rest is worth watching, though not as good as many of the other horror films of the era.

Happy Times

Zhang Yimou may be the greatest director to ever come out of China, and he is one of the best directors in the world today. At his best, his films ache with the joys of humanity. This is not one of his best films, but it does have the kind of tender-hearted humanity that just makes you want to cry. An aging bachelor doesn't want to spend his remaining years alone, but he's had a lifetime of trouble finding a wife so now he's interested in fat women because they probably won't be as picky. But when he becomes involved with one, he gets more than he bargained for -- not only is she not what she seems, she has a young, teenage, blind step-daughter that she literally cons him into keeping for awhile. The man is a kind of good-hearted scoundrel himself in that he has everyone convinced that he is the manager of a hotel (he's not, he's poor and retired), and convinces the girl that she has a job giving massages in the hotel (it's a bunch of his friends taking turns). The girl is very grateful to him for the opportunity, but she may know more than she's leading on. It all leads up to a poignant ending (some critics say more poignant than it deserves, but I disagree). The girl reminds me of a young Zhang Ziyi and has the kind of smile that could light up a room. It's filled with the joy of life and I find it difficult to resist that.

The Return of the Living Dead

Dan O'Bannon, writer of such horror films as Alien and Dead and Buried took the helm as director on this cult-classic horror comedy. In some ways it's a very loose sequel to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, in fact one of the characters in this film explains that Romero's film was actually based on fact in that some new chemical developed by the military (of course) has the ability to reanimate the dead and somehow this chemical has accidentally made its way to Louisville, Kentucky. Now the dead are rising and only desire one thing -- to eat human brains! These zombies walk, talk, and think, and they can't be re-killed because even if they are dismembered the pieces will continue to attack -- they must be incinerated, but that could be a problem. The trapped humans include a few adults and a group of 80's punks that look like rejects from the Sex Pistols. It's surprisingly less gory than one might imagine and benefits greatly from the fact that never for a moment does it take itself seriously. Some of the animatronic zombies are fairly impressive also. This is one of the best films of its kind, take that for what you will.

Aria

What do you get when you take ten top-notch directors and have them each make a short film in relation to an opera song? Hopefully something better than this, though this will do. The directors were: Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Bill Bryden, Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, Franc Roddam, Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Charles Sturridge, and Julien Temple. While I was rarely sure why the filmmakers chose to associate their images with the particular song they used, it was never uninteresting. For my money, the three best films were the ones directed by Franc Roddam, Ken Russell, and Derek Jarman. Roger Ebert correctly describes this as the first MTV version of opera.

The Invisible Man

In the 30's and 40's, Universal made a string of classic horror films, and this adaptation of the H.G. Welles story is among the best. Claude Raines gives a bold performance as the scientist who learns the secret to invisibility in that his performance is never seen, only heard and implied. An unfortunate side effect of the invisibility serum, though, is madness. Raines realizes that he could wield an almost mythical power with this gift. If there's one thing that these old horror films did wonderfully it isn't scares (because as the film Targets pointed out, this kind of horror is outdated, though fun), it's madness. The mad villains of these films are often frighteningly mad. James Whale directs with that perverse sense of humor that made his Bride of Frankenstein the highlight of the genre. The special effects are impressive, especially considering it was 1933 -- the scene in which he first pulls the bandages off of his face to reveal nothing underneath has a haunting intensity.

Keep Your Right Up

It's amusing to watch and 80's-era Godard film because in some ways it's like an 80's film... directed by Godard. It's also nice to see a Godard film with a sense of humor again. Godard himself plays a film director (with an almost Chaplin-esque clumsiness) alternately knows as the Prince and the Idiot (ala Dostoevsky). He has 24 hours to complete a film in order to secure the financing. This is Godard-lite -- a jumbled up something or other, comedy thing. And while it's clearly one of his lesser films, it never ceases to amaze me that to watch even a bad Godard film is to watch cinema unfold itself. Even the least of his films have a way of inspiring me and filling me with ideas based on his almost inimitable inventiveness.

House of Wax (1953)

Vincent Price stars in one of his first horror film roles as a crippled sculptor of wax statues. His previous gallery of statues was not so accidentally destroyed in a fire which Price was left for dead in (ergo the cripple). Sometime later he mysteriously reappears ready to reopen a new gallery -- this time a gallery that re-enact some recent, unsolved murders. As a horror movie it's not that scarey, but it does have some surprisingly powerful imagery. This was one of the more successful films shot in the 3D process of the mid-50's as seen most obviously when a showman hits a paddleball directly at the camera or when the can-can dancers kick their legs up at the camera. Ironically, underrated studio auteur, Andre de Toth, was blind in one eye and unable to experience his own gimmick. Fortunately, he provides an excellent balance of sex and violence to keep it worth watching. Highlights include Price's dry wit as he guides a tour through gallery of macbre murder scenes; the opening burning of the wax sculptures (it reminded me of the those great death scenes at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark); and the particular irony of watching the sculpture of Joan of Arc being burned in the fire.

Batman Begins

Truth be told, comic book movies are quickly loosing their appeal for me (or maybe they're just getting worse). Fortunately, this is less a comic book movie and more a superhero movie -- the best superhero movie since Paul Verhoeven's underrated RoboCop. The Batman of this film doesn't have super powers -- he's a man with some good training and high tech gadgetry. Christian Bale plays him as a tortured man over the childhood death of his parents and the seemingly unstoppable crime rates of Gotham City. The special effects are excellent -- perhaps because you never need focus on them, the focus remains squarely on the characters. The script is a little bit hokey at moments, but it's also on of the films strengths, along with Chirstopher Nolan's direction who brings a touch of artsy weirdness that aids immensely in my appreciation. The amazing thing is that it's a superhero film, yet it develops itself so well that the actions scenes (including a car chase and the climactic fight on an elevated train) are the scenes that seem most out of place. The few action movie cliches stick out horribly, but at this point, that's a minor complaint. Everything else more than makes up for it. The cast is uniformly excellent including Michael Caine as the loyal butler, Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Batman's Q, Liam Neeson as yet another mentor character (see Star Wars: Episode I, Gangs of New York, and Kingdom of Heaven), Ken Wattanabe as a mysterious warrior, Rutger Hauer as a shadey corporate mogul, Tom Wilkenson as an old school crime lord, and the two standouts: Gary Oldman as an honest, good guy cop (who'd of thought?), and Cillian Murphy as a questionable psychiatrist and occasional villain known as the Scarecrow.

Nazarin

The Vatican ranked this as one of the 15 greatest films ever made on the topic of religion. In fact, this could be Luis Bunuel's most tender and poignant film. It shares more in common with the Italian neo-realists or even Carl Dreyer's films than the surrealist farce that Bunuel has become associated with. It tells the story of a simple, Mexican priest who lives with the people to help the people. After his home is burned he hits the road and begins journeying from poor Mexican village to poor Mexican village. Through is travels inadvertantly, in many ways, he begins to mirror the life of Christ (I suppose it's no coincidence that his name is Father Nazario), though he only has two people following him and they seem less interested in listening to what he has to say than in idolizing him. He is treated with disdain and ultimately arrested. It's a very Catholic film and the characters are treated with dignity and respect. The interesting thing, however, is that this film seems to be as much a cross-examination of faith as a defense of it. The priest is a good man -- upright, and in many ways a model of Christian virtue. At one point, while he is in jail, a prisoner is speaking to him and says something to the effect of, "You're good and I'm bad, but in the end what good does it do?" This hits home with the priest. It's the Ecclesiastes argument that good people die just the same as bad people -- it's all meaningless. It's true though, throughout the film, as good a man as the priest is, he has no impact on anyone or anything. The argument is made not through cheap trickery and insults of Christians/Christianity, but by showing that a good man with faith doesn't make a difference. It's a fascinating method of argumentation, but I can't deny that despite what may well be its attempt to discredit faith, it has affirmed it. It is poignant almost despite itself.

The Pillow Book

Director Peter Greenaway once said that if you want to tell a story, write a book. In other words, film is not a storytelling medium. To a large extent, I agree with him. However, in my opinion Mr. Greenaway has never been a truly good enough director to fully realize his non-narrative dogma as other directors as diverse as Godard, Altman, and Lynch have with greater success. He comes closest in the thoroughly disturbing The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. This film is probably his least disturbing and most erotic, though I wish it amounted to more than it does. Vivian Wu plays a young Japanese woman with an almost Cronenbergian fetish for have calligraphy painted on her naked body (there are a lot of naked bodies of all genders in this film). She judges her lovers by the quality of their calligraphy. But soon she falls in love with an English translator played by Ewan McGregor who once again proves that he is a much bolder actor than most people realize. His writing is poor, but soon she is writing on him and creates a new art that she wants published by a publisher with a shadey past -- she writes books on different men and then sends them to the publisher to be seen (or something). It's all kind of interesting in a Peter Greenaway sort of way.

Ghost Ship

Remember that scene in The Mark of Zorro when Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone are about to face off and Rathbone takes a swipe at a candle with his sword and the candle splits in half and falls to the ground. Then Power takes a swipe at another candle and nothing happens. Rathbone quips, "You missed." Then Power gently taps the candle and it falls over -- he had split it in half but with such precision that it didn't even fall. Now imagine that scene only with a metal wire and a bunch of people dancing and you have the opening of this film. I have to admit that seeing so many people cut in half at the waist and only falling apart after they have a few moments to react to the fact that they've been cut in half had me cheering over the ridiculous audacity of the scene. Too bad the rest of the movie was not as equally audacious. It basically just becomes a typical modern ghost story, though set on a creepy, excellently designed ocean liner that has been missing for 30 years. The setting is its major saving grace, but it could have been so much more. Too bad.

Love Streams

What do you think love is? Is love like a stream, moving ever forward? These are among the questions that John Cassavetes asks in one of his final films. It's a film about love and people who have been too beaten by life to even look for it anymore. Cassavetes himself plays a writer of sex novels (not love) who lives in his Hollywood hills home with an entourage of women randomly parading in and out. Gena Rowlands is woman recovering from a divorce and loss of custody of her daughter. Her character begins in some ways where her character from A Woman Under the Influence left off. It's a good film, even if it isn't one of his best. It's a world weary film that understands people and emotion. I wish I could think of more to write about the film, but like much of Cassavetes work, it is a film that must be felt and not explained. It's worth it for the scene in which Rowlands character brings a veritable zoo's worth of animals in a taxi to Cassavetes' Hollywood home.

The Driller Killer

Abel Ferara's directoral debut is a gritty piece of independent, late-70's filmmaking. It's certainly an unpolished New York street film. Ferara himself plays, Reno, an artist working on his latest work, living in an apartment with two other women -- his lover, and her sometimes lover. When the bills start piling on and a punk rock band moves in next door, Reno begins to take a dive off of the deep end and offing any bum he can get his hands on with power tools. It's got some definite gore that isn't played for laughs. Fortunately, Ferara's a significantly better director than he is an actor, even though this isn't among his finest films. It's often boring and overly grotesque, and lacks the spiritual power of his later films, but he shows an undeniable promise in his handling of the material.

Children of the Corn

I almost don't even want to waste my time dignifying this film with a blog entry. I haven't been this offended by the very existence of a film since Inherit the Wind. I admit, it opens with an effective pre-title sequence in which a bunch of Quaker looking kids butcher the adults in a diner, but my generosity stops there. The acting is atrocious, but no worse than the script. I guess this is Stephen King's satire of religion in middle-America. Pathetically bad with ridiculous ideas.

Bambi Meets Godzilla

This semi-infamous, two-minute cult cartoon delivers exactly what its title implies. This is the sort of thing that Kevin Christensen should be making and becoming famous with.

La Jetee

This is probably one of the more influential, cult short films ever made. It is advertised as the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. It's kind of an avante garde sci-fi story told entirely by still images with a soothing narration on top -- like an artsy Power Point presentation. After WWIII has left the world in ruins, the future must send a volunteer to the past in order to change the future. It's inventive and at under 30-minutes, a welcome piece of filmmaking.

When a Stranger Calls

I love the horror genre. There are so many little forgotten gems buried underneath the rubble that it has mostly become. This is one of those gems. When a Stranger Calls is two separate movies. The first consists of the opening twenty minutes of the film in which a babysitter keeps getting a phone call from some creepy guy telling her to check on the children. This section is the horror movie, and a damn good one. The second is a game of cat-and-mouse when a man (the caller) escapes from an asylum, he is tracked down by a private investigator played by Charles Durning. This section is more of a conventional thriller, yet also a good one. Tony Beckley plays the escaped psycho by making him strangely sympathetic. It's an unusually good performance. The body count and the violence level is low, but the suspense is high. It surprises me that the director, Fred Walton, didn't go on to do anything better because he has a solid grasp on the genre and knows how to work with an interesting premise. This is the kind of angry-caller horror film that paved the way for Scream, yet itself was influenced by Black Christmas, but thankfully it doesn't seem like a cheat or a rip-off. If nothing else it will probably always be remembered as the film from which the THX logo gets its music.

In Praise of Love

In the 1960's, many of the great French film critics (including the director of this film, Jean-Luc Godard) greatly overpraised Otto Preminger's film, Bonjour Tristesse. In that film, Preminger utilized an interesting device: he shot the present day scenes in black and white, and the flashbacks in vivid color. This film is about a director who is casting the female lead for his next film. When he meets one woman, he swears he's met her before but can't think of where. To be honest, I can't recall much more of the plot than that, but then again I don't really care, because no one watches a Godard film for it's meticulous plotting, they watch it for Godard himself. The reason I bring up Preminger's film is because the last third of this film is a flashback in which the director recalls meeting the woman and it is shot in color -- video, for that matter, saturated video color, whereas the first two-thirds was shot on film in black and white. It's an interesting film, that like many of his more recent films, is more somber and introspective than his classic early films. It lacks the humor, but gains a world-weary soul searching of sorts. There are also moments of bitterness (a little bit too bitter if you ask me). His dislike for the U.S. is apparent in a childish scene in which he seems to be trying to prove that the U.S. doesn't actually have a name. I admit, this is second-rate Godard, but second-rate Godard still has the sparks of genius that are so obviously lacking in most of today's films. I haven't seen many of his recent films, but I think that last years' Notre Musique was a superior effort.

Once a Thief

I suppose it is fair to say that John Woo is an artist -- an artist of action (despite some of his recent misfires). His Hong Kong action films are unmistakeably balletic, often occuring around a plot borrowed from a Jean-Pierre Melville film. But story is unimportant -- it's just the stuff you need in order to get to the next action sequence (and I say that with respect, because Woo knows his art and doesn't waste time with the parts he is less gifted in). This is one of his more light-hearted films, and of course stars Chow Yun Fat. Unfortunately, the action scenes (until the end) are generally less inspired and farther between than those from his finest work (The Killer and Hard Boiled). His specialty is the close quarter gun fight which he photographs with an unusual bravado. It's still better than most of his Hollywood outings though, despite the obvious budgetary constraints.

Sahara (2005)

I guess we just don't have enough action-adventure, treasure hunting movies, so throw this one into the mix. Breck Eisner's directoral debut isn't as obnoxiuosly pedantic as National Treasure, but probably isn't as good either. Matthew McConaughey has his own kind of charm, but he's no Nicholas Cage. It's no better and no worse than you might expect -- it's basically useless.

Eat Drink Man Woman

Ang Lee's film is set in Taiwan about an aging, single father who happens to be an artist of a chef, and his three grown daughters (that still live at home). The eldest daughter is the conservative religious type (though thankfully not treated with disdain), the middle is the driven business woman, and the youngest is the freespirit that works at Wendy's. It's a charming little film that reminds you of the power of food and family relationships (as Babette's Feast did to a greater degree). A few years later this was remade by Maria Ripoll into a film called Tortilla Soup where it was reset into a Mexican-American family. Both film have a unique cultural perspective, but Lee is just a better director than Ripoll. It's a satisfying meal.

Arachnaphobia

Frank Marshall's directoral debut is filled with B-movie cliches, but lacks the fun of a good B-movie. It is fun, at times, but it begs to be taken seriously. His subject matter, of course, are those creepy crawly arachnids that we all know and love. It's like a mix of Them!, Frogs, Jaws, and The Birds, but isn't as good as any of them. It's suspenseful at times, and I often found myself laughing with delight, but it doesn't have what it takes to be a good horror film. John Goodman adds some life to the film as the town bug inspector.

L'Age D'Or

Who knew that rank blasphemy could be so much fun? Luis Bunuel's first feature film (made in 1930) is one of the most subversive films he ever made (or anyone ever made for that matter). He takes a step beyond the pure surrealism of Un Chien Andalou, though still partnered with Salvador Dali. His technique is crude, but his images are potent and, well, hilarious. It's a merging of art and politics: he takes on the Church and the clergy with more ferocity and imagination than anything in Fellini, and of course he attacks bourgeois society. Though it was made at the beginning of the sound era, there is very little sound except for music and some sparse dialogue. I wish I could describe all of the memorable images, but he stuffs it as full as one can in 60 minutes. Though I'm still reeling from the ending -- I'm not sure if he takes it too far or only to its logical conclusion -- in which there is a brief blurb about the Marquis de Sade and the 120 days of Sodom. After describing the desecrations, adulterations, and orgies, the exhausted (from too many orgies, no doubt) leader emerges from the castle and is none other than... Jesus! With my jaw agape, I wasn't sure if I should laugh or be incredibly offended. The film is deliberately pornographic, subversive, and scandalous, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

L'Eclisse

Michelangelo Antonioni may well be the pinnacle of what I just termed "make-you-work-for-it" cinema. The idle viewer of an Antonioni film is invariably the deadly bored viewer. Not that his plots are overly complicated or complex. For that matter, he usually maintains a linear narrative. But he is a distinctly modernist filmmaker who works more off of negative space than positive which can often enrage, confound, or bore the viewers. Yet he's so damn good. This film concludes what is loosely referred to as his trilogy of alienation which began with L'Avventura and continued with La Notte (which I have yet to see). The film opens with a nearly 20-minute sequence in which a man a woman sit silently in a room. The woman moves around the room, seeming a little bit anxious. They are lovers, and by the end of the sequence she has left him. Later she meets a young, callous stockbroker played by Alain Delon, and begins a relationship with him. It finally ends in a sequence the likes of which greatness is made of. It's a cold film, but doesn't pretend to be otherwise, though may ultimately lack the resonance of L'Avventura (with the exception of the ending sequence). Antonioni knows how to use the camera -- so well, in fact, that it almost hurt me to watch, it was so perfectly conceived. His actors speak volumes yet there is only a minimal amount of dialogue and they almost never break out an expression, yet he know how to photograph them in such a way the camera provides the performance, and that's the point. It's a film about alienation.

The Celluloid Closet

Rob Epstein, who made the Academy Award winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, also directed this semi-interesting foray into the subtext of American films since the beginning. His topic, of course, as you might deduce from the title, is homosexuality and the portrayal of homosexuals in film. He starts off with the weak, effiminate man who was always the brunt of the joke (though never very funny). Then there were the men who dressed in womens clothing (usually comedies) and the women who dressed in men's clothing (as Marlene Dietrich did in Morocco, and then kissed a woman to the delight of her nightclub audience). And then there are the looks and the gestures and the innuendos. Of course the production code strictly prohibited an mention of homosexuality or any sexually perverse actions in films, but many clever filmmakers were able to get their point across just the same, you just had to know what to be looking for. Actually, I was already familiar with the subtext of most of the films referred to, and the others I had never heard of. But Epstein uses films like: Some Like it Hot, Suddenly Last Summer, Ben-Hur, Red River, Spartacus, The Children's Hour, Rope, Rebecca and a bunch of others. I guess it was kind of interesting to see how the homosexual develops from the accident, to the victim, to the victimizer, and yet so rarely as a normal person. If you're interested in Hollywood subtext, then you will probably enjoy this documentary more than otherwise.

Dead Ringers

This may be the most straightforward film in the canon of David Cronenberg. He tackles many of his typical themes, but this isn't particularly a horror film or science fiction, it's a psychological drama. Very psychological. Jeremy Irons turns in a strong performance as twin gynecologists. It's a testament to his acting in that you can always tell who is who when you're supposed to. When one of them becomes involved with an actresses, he also picks up her drug habits. From there, the film switches as we watch them self-destruct and their identities almost seem to combine. Howard Shore's score sets the right mood, but unfortunately I was never able to latch on to the film as much as I was hoping. Cronenberg is an artist, to be sure, but I so rarely am able to become involved or enjoy his films.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

She became a psycho, that's what. In some ways, this is probably one of the most psychologically disturbing films that I have ever seen. It's been called a classic of camp, but it's high class trash, which makes it all the weirder. Bette Davis, who looks like she's been dead for a decade and someone forgot to tell her, plays the queen of all movie bitches, Baby Jane Hudson, who was once a child star in vaudeville, and later became a forgotten movie star, and is now old, ugly, and a wee bit mentally unbalanced. Joan Crawford, who only looks like she's been dead for five years, plays her sister, Blanche, who was jealous of Jane as a child, but as an adult became a famous and beloved movie star, but is now paralyzed from the waist down and taken care of by her sister. Jane has Blanche basically imprisoned in her second story bedroom and enjoys mentally torturing her by bringing her meals of steamed rat and the like. In some ways it reminded me of Billy Wilder's, Sunset Boulevard, and a subplot of the film, makes that comparisson even more appropriate. Robert Aldrich's direction is sure and he knows how to make his audience uncomfortable. It's almost unbearable watching Blanche trapped upstairs certain that her sister is trying to kill her. I can't say I particularly enjoyed the film, but it was too well made and too "interesting" to be ignored.

Nixon

Oliver Stone is nothing if not a bold filmmaker. His films aren't always good, but even his biggest failures (ahem, Alexander) are willing to take risks and fail rather than just be bad on their own merit (or lack thereof). And knowing that subtlety has never been one of his virtues, I was very surprised to find how thoughtful, well-rounded, and well, subtle, this film was. Of course much of that subtlety can be attributed to the masterful performace of Anthony Hopkins as that most reviled of U.S. Presidents, Richard Nixon. I would imagine that Stone has no love for Nixon, yet this film does not make him into one-dimensional nincompoop bent on destroying the world, but as an almost Shakespearian tragic hero. He was a man who wanted to do good, and by the time he resigned, had accomplished what he had set out to do, but the people hated him for it, and he could never figure out why. In some ways this could be compared to Robert Altman's great, though underseen, Secret Honor. It's just over three hours long and covers Nixon's life from childhood (in flashbacks) to his political career, and of course to Watergate and beyond. Joan Allen also turns in a strong performance as his loyal wife, and in the process, provides the heart of the film. Robert Richardson's strong, period cinematography, and some typically powerful montages add to the epic nature of the film. Only Oliver Stone could get away with opening on a title card with the verse from Matthew in which Jesus says, "What profits a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul." What indeed? I would call this one of Stone's finest films, comparable to, though not quite as good as JFK.

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)

John Carpenter's low-budget, exploitation classic gets the modern, big-budget updating in this film. It just goes to show how economical and effective Carpenter's film was when watching this overblown action flick. Oh, I guess it's mostly enjoyable, but Carpenter's film is superior in almost every way except for production value (arguably) and the performance of Ethan Hawke who goes to show what an underrated actor he really is. Lawrence Fishburn can't seem to let Morpheus go, and his portrayal of the criminal, Bishop, lacks the cornball poetry of Darwin Joston's, Napoleon Wilson. Plus, you come to realize just how cool Carpenter's blantantly simple synth scores really are.

Heaven

That manic maestro of the metaphysical, Tom Tykwer, director of films like Run Lola Run and the superior The Princess and the Warrior was the choice to direct this script by the great, Krysztof Kieslowski. Tykwer was the right choice. After retiring from filmmaking in 1996, Kieslowski sat down to begin writing a new trilogy (Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory) of which this was to be the first, unfortunately for all of us, he died before completing the other two scripts. This one, instead, got picked up by Miramax and was produced by Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella -- I'm not sure if that was a smart move or not, but the film turned out well. Kieslowski's films often dealt with the ideas of fate, chance, coincidence, and the ways in which we are all united without even knowing it -- these also are the ideas that Tykwer has attempted to explore with his films, though with a slightly different stylist approach. With this film, though, he is unusually restrained. This film is hypnotic and in no way stylistically overbearing.

Cate Blanchett, proving yet again that she's one of the most versatile actresses of our day, and Giovanni Ribisi play the leads. She's a teacher living in Italy whose husband and some of her students have died because the government has done nothing about drug control. Her pleas have gone on deaf ears, and now she is going to take matters into her own hands. One of the opening scenes is following her as she plants a small bomb in the government officials office that is responsible for the lack of action. Unfortunately for her, the janitor accidently takes the bomb into an elevator with a father and his two young daughters -- the four innocents die, the guilty lives. Watch Blanchett's reaction when she find out that she murdered innocent people, it's an amazing moment. Ribisi is her translator to the police while she is in custody. He falls in love with her. Then they escape.

The imagery and music combine to hypnotic effect. And by the end, you can almost see the hand of God, because the film itself seems to be such a spiritual exercise. I'm not really sure what else to say about it. It's not a masterpiece, and I can't help but wonder what Kieslowski himself would have done with the material, but just the same, there's something special about this film.

The Blackout

Abel Ferara has been known to make some of the most boldly spiritual genre films in recent memory. This is not one of them. Though it does have a pseudo-dream like way of saying don't do drugs. Matthew Modine (who must have studied at the James Spader school of where-the-hell-are-they-now) is the big shot actor who is also an alcholic and a junkie. Dennis Hopper plays a Dennis Hopper like character, which is generally welcome, and Ferara does the best he can with the material, but it doesn't amount to much.

Le Trou

Often when I get a movie like this, that I've never heard of, and discover that it's over two-hours long, I approach watching it with a minor dread. I like the films of Jacques Becker, but I feel nervous just the same. The fun thing, however, is that I find my nervousness is often misplaced. I was pleasantly surprised to find this to be my favorite film yet from Becker, and what is probably the great prison break movie that I've ever seen. Oh, it's not so much about a prison break so much as it is about the process of breaking out of prison. It has the kind of meticulousness that made other French films of the era such as Rififi so enjoyable. There have been other great films about breaking out of the joint: The Great Escape, which has that enjoyably comfortably big-budget Hollywood feel, A Man Escaped, to which Robert Bresson hints at the metaphysical, and The Shawshank Redemption which has the kind of inspiration feel that has made it an audience favorite, but this is the best of them all, because this is pure cinema -- images juxtaposed against one another. It's very suspeseful and feels as if the audience is the sixth member of the crew as we watch the process step by step. This is one of the best movies I've seen in a while.

The Million Dollar Hotel

What do you get when you team of up three of the most talented Christians in the entertainment industry? Hopefully, something better than this. Unfortunately, we're stuck with it. It's too bad though because I had higher hopes from a film that was directed by Wim Wenders, stars Mel Gibson, and produced by Bono (who also supplied the story and a number of songs from U2). The best part of the film is the opening couple of minutes which begins with a hypnotic helicopter shot around the Los Angeles skyline set to the soothing rhythms of a U2 song, it then moves to the roof of the Million Dollar Hotel where we see a live action sequence that closely resembles Kevin Christensen's Plummet. From there it goes downhill, if you get my meaning. The hotel houses societal rejects: the homeless, mentally retarded, hookers, delusional Indians, Peter Stormare who swears he's the fifth Beatle actually responsible for most of their songs, and apparently Bono in a brief cameo. Mel Gibson is the FBI agent who shows up to find out if the jumber was murdered. He seems dreadfully miscast, and Wenders, who is usually an actor's director, doesn't get the kind of performances out of his cast that he usually manages. In the end, though, I had no idea what I was watching and the layers of meaning (which are almost certainly there) were completely lost on me in such a way that I didn't care to find them.

Dream Lover

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it, blah, blah, blah. When I saw that this film was written and directed by Nicholas Kazan, son of Elia, I said what the heck, let's see what he's got. Not much, as far as I'm concerned. James Spader (what ever happened to him?) plays some guy who meet some mysterious hot chick, falls falls in love, and in a sequence that defies chronology, marries her, has a kid, and soon begins wondering who the hell it is that he married. She's a crafty vixen, who knows how and when to lie and what to say. Oh well, he ends up in an asylum because he can't prove he's not crazy, yada, yada, yada. I wasn't too impressed with young Mr. Kazan.

The Last of Sheila

The ensemble whodunit seems to be a lost art in today's techno-centric world of filmmaking. The 1970's was probably it's last stand, and even then it was socially irrelevant. Too bad, because they were often a good deal of fun, as this one was. Penned by Anthony Perkins (yes, that Anthony Perkins) and directed by Herbert Ross, this murder mystery has an understanding of the entertainment industry and knows how to dole out the clues. Begin with an eccentric movie producer played by James Coburn whose tabloid columnist honey was offed by a hit-and-run driver one year prior that invites a handful of celebrity types on his luxurious yacht for a week of fun in the sun. He also has a way of coming up with games (you know, to kill the time) that have more to them than meets the eye. As the genre dictates, it gets complicated and I'm not going to attempt to explain it, but suffice it to say that we the audience are provided with exactly what one should want from a good yacht-bound murder mystery including James Mason who couldn't give a bad performance if he wanted to.

Juggernaut

In some ways this is exactly like all of the disaster movies of the 1970's, yet almost every movie or TV show since has borrowed liberally from it. Richard Lester brings some British flair to this film about an luxury ocean liner and the seven explosive barrels carefully placed inside by the pissed-ex-governement-explosives-expert-who-didn't-get-recognition-or-a-decent-pension mad bomber. But it all comes down to that final question, the one that really matters... do you cut the red wire or the blue wire? The story is predictable though done far better than average, and it's a good deal of fun. Richard Harris brings a cynical with as the expert sent to deactivate the bomb, and he leads the strong cast of British actors including Omar Sharif, Anthony Hopkins, David Hemmings, and Ian Holm.

Targets

Peter Bogdanovich's directoral debut has been called the best film to come out of the Roger Corman school. In some ways, that's quite a bold statement. The film has much to admire, not the least of which is Boris Karloff in what was probably the last meaningful role of his career. There are two stories going on similtaneously, the first (and in my opinion, most affecting) involves Karloff as Byron Orlock, an aging star of old-fashioned horror films (not unlike Karloff himself), who is beginning to feel old and irrelevant because the horrors of real life seem much more agonizing than the horrors of Victorian horror films like The Terror. In light of this, he is deciding to retire despite the best efforts of a young director (not unlike Bogdanovich) played by Bogdanovich who has written the perfect part for Orlock at this stage in his life. The second story revolves around an all-American boy who lives in an all-American house on an all-American street in a sunny, all-American town who calmly confesses to his phony, uninterested wife that he's been having strage ideas -- such as loading up on guns and ammo and randomly blowing away half of southern California for no apparent reason. There's a great scene when he finally gives in and kills his wife and mother. His murderous exploits lead him to a drive-in theater where Orlock is making his final public appearance. The film seems to be pointing out that the real horror is real life and the American culture of violence, not the movies with creaking doors and creepy castles. It works ideally as B-movie material, had it attempted to be a "legitimate" movie, it probably wouldn't have worked nearly as well. But in the end, what I walk away with is the desire to find the forgotten and "irrelevant" Karloff's of our time (assuming they still exist) and showing what the right actor at the right time can do with the right idea.

Cinderella Man

Ron Howard brings his crowd-pleasing, populist sensibilities to Depression-era America and the life of boxer Jim Braddock. Everyone thinks that Braddock's a has-been -- a boxer who once had potential but now he's getting older, sufferring from injuries, and just isn't the fighter he used to be. On top of that, the Depression is in full swing, he's out of work, his family is struggling to provide a lousy meal and pay the gas bill during the cold, New Jersey winters. Then he gets his second chance which leads him to become heavyweight champ. It's an inspiring story, but certainly one we've all seen before (and probably better). That's not to say that this is a bad movie, in fact it's an enjoyable one and easily one of Howard's best. Russell Crowe turns in what may be his finest performance yet (if not, it certainly ranks up there with The Insider or Master and Commander), as Braddock who, as Roger Ebert correctly points out, is the kind of nice guy character that once might have been played by Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, or Spencer Tracy, and he does it so convincingly. Paul Giamatti is also memorable as the trainer (though not as memorable as say, Burgess Meredeth). There's a lot to admire about this film (Salvatore Totino's cinematography stands out in its semi-nostalgic visual approach to the era), but ultimately we've seen it all before and more intelligently. The boxing scenes, though well choreographed and staged, are clearly derrived from Scorsese's masterful scenes in Raging Bull. It's a fairly superficial "I've-gotta-believe-we've-got-some-say-over-our-lives" kind of theme, but if you like boxing, period movies, Russell Crowe, or just handsomely staged entertainment, then you should find plenty to like with this.

The Howling

Joe Dante came from the Roger Corman school of horror which means he knows how to make enjoyable, B-grade genre films, though not as well as say, John Landis and An American Werewolf in London. Dee Wallace (pre-E.T.) plays a reporter investigating a serial killer, she meets with him, gets injured, and recommended by her doctor to spend some time relaxing at an isolated resort. Of course, at this resort, there are some strang things going on, like for instance werewolves. It's mostly fun, if slightly dull at some points. Indie king, John Sayles, provided the script (no doubt to make money to finance his "real" films). As I mentioned, it's not as good or as campy fun as Landis' film, though it does boast an impressively porny scene of werewolf sex, and a couple of on-screen transformation scenes that must certainly push limits of practical effects (they're rather remarkable despite the fact that they take a couple of minutes as their victims stand there watching rather than running away). Actually, it's worth it just to see the likes of Slim Pickens and John Carradine in semi-werewolf form.

Casque d'or

After WWII and before the New Wave, Jacques Becker seems to be one of the few French directors who was making good films, and this is one of his most fondly remembered. I would classify it as being from the period of French poetic realism. While certainly a different film, I couldn't help but notice how similiar it felt to the great Children of Paradise. It takes place in the Paris underworld of gangsters and wannabe gangsters in the early 1900's -- you almost feel like Offenbach should be playing in the background. The central relationship is between a glorified prostitute and a kind-hearted gangster. Unfortunately for him, she belongs to a more respected, higher ranking gangster. This introduces some fiery passions in both love and violence. While I probably won't remember this film as I do films like Children of Paradise or L'Atalante, it certainly deserves to be held in association with such films.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

If memory serves me correctly, this was Sam Peckinpah's most controversial film, as well as the only one in which he had the right to final cut, as well as, in my opinion, his most forlorn and personal film. While perhaps not as great as Straw Dogs, this film has a kind of sad, desperate passion constantly driving it forward. Peckinpah regular, Warren Oates, stars as a bartender/piano player who gets wind of a chance to make a lot of money for bringing in Alfredo Garcia's cabeza to a wealthy Mexican landowner whose daughter was impregnated by Mr. Garcia. We never meet Garcia, by the time the bounty is placed on his head, he is already dead and buried which automatically makes this different than how one might typically expect. So he takes his Mexican girlfried (Isela Vega) and starts driving the dusty roads of modern Mexico(1974 -- it's a Peckinpah Western that isn't set in the old West). The relationship between Oates and Vega is as sad, passionate, and desperate as the movie itself. In fact, they are granted what may be the most tenderly beautiful scene of Peckinpah's career in a hotel shower (not what you're thinking). Of course, it wouldn't be a Peckinpah picture without a healthy dose of metaphysical violence, which he depicts not as horrifically as Straw Dogs nor as gung ho as The Wild Bunch but as the last resort of desperate men with nothing left to lose and with nothing left to gain. You know, the more I think about it, in some ways, this may be Peckinpah's finest film. From what I hear, Peckinpah was frighteningly like his films -- hard drinking, tough talking, violent, and died early a sad, lonely man. In this film we see the soul of an artist laid bare before us just daring us to show compassion, when in reality, that's probably all he ever needed.

il Grido

Before making the films that he would later be known for, Michelangelo Antonioni made this quiet, little post-neorealist film. Like his finest films, it's about alienation, though this one is more straightforward. It's about a man whose lover leaves him. Brokenhearted, he takes his young daughter and bascially begins to wander. It has that kind of Italian, minimalist poetry, though probably won't be canonized in the ranks of Antonioni's finest work. It's certainly worth a watch.

Dead of Night (aka Deathdream)

After the reprehensible Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and before the masterful Black Christmas, Bob Clark made this pseudo-horror film. Young Andy returns home from Vietnam a matter of hours after his parents have read a letter informing them that he had been killed. But Andy seems somehow... different. I guess the fact that he's one of the walking dead might have something to do with it. To tell you the truth, despite the enticing premise, it's mostly just dull. It does, however, in its own crudely fashioned way, make an interesting metaphor for wars and what happens to those who fight them. When Andy returns home, he's a homicidal zombie "I died for my country, now my country is going to die for me." The film seems to be saying that war makes zombies of all who must fight, and they will never be the same again. It's fairly direct considering the film was made in 1974, and no one wanted to touch the topic of Vietnam. It saddens me to realize that the parents in the film were played by John Marley and Lynn Carlin, who only a few years earlier, turned in amazing performances in John Cassavetes' Faces -- they deserve better. Well, I disagree with what it's trying to say, and I was mostly bored, so just skip Clark's early films and jump straight to Black Christmas.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

I'm impressed that director Bob Clark managed to get this 70's zombie flick made for only $60,000. But my admiration stops there. Actually, I found the film reasonably offensive. It concerns an eccentric (to say the least) director and his group of actors that he lures to a creepy island cemetery at night. All I can say is, these actors must have been desperate for work to sign on with this guy. As a joke (or is it?), he invokes satanic powers to raise the dead and create his own personal army of the living dead. Watching the ritual, I felt dirty at these displays of blatant satanism. After that, there's desecration of graves, and the director brings back to the cabin a corpse named Orville, and makes it the brunt of his sadistic sense of humor. The film goes out of its way with a half-assed attempt at humor, but its not funny. Despite it all, it does maintain an appropriately creepy atmosphere that kept it from being boring, though the ending is far too much like Night of the Living Dead. Steer clear, it's just not worth it.