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573,600 | 4,532,636 | 48,028 | 8 | Good vs . Evil in the American West | O . k . I know , I know . . . . books and films are two different art forms and little can be gained by comparing the telling of the same story in one vs . the other . I'm a firm advocate of that myself . However , let me just say that you cannot watch this film as a substitute of the Steinbeck novel ( though a film should never be used as a stand in for literature in my opinion ) . Kazan et al . very liberally adapt Steinbeck's story to the big screen and make a very impressive film ; however , it's not the same story Steinbeck himself was telling . That aside , " East of Eden " is a good ( not quite great , but close ) film from a very inconsistent period of American film making ( i . e . the mid-50's . ) Cinemascope and other widescreen processes were new , and many directors were content just to train their cameras on a pretty landscape and think that was enough to make their compositions interesting . However , Elia Kazan , completely at home in the stark b & w worlds of " On the Waterfront " and " A Streetcar Named Desire " obviously knew what to do with his widescreen compositions , and , as a result , " East of Eden " is far more dynamic than many films from the same time period . For example , in an early scene , Cal ( James Dean ) walks along a stand of trees beside his brother and his brother's soon-to-be fiancé . While they're talking , Cal walks deeper into the frame and follows the other two while hidden from us and them by the trees . This of course serves the purpose of communicating Cal's isolation , but it also seems like a perfectly natural thing for Cal's character to do and so doesn't feel obvious or heavy handed , and it's visually interesting , and so breaks up the frame . Kazan adds touches like that throughout the entire film . Even if they don't always work ( the skewed angles toward the end are somewhat corny ) , they're appreciated for their attempts to create a unique visual style . James Dean just wasn't a very good actor , but he was an interesting screen presence . He was always sulking around and looking uncomfortable in his own skin , which is probably why teenagers at the time related to him so much , and why he seems so right for the role of Cal . The women in this film deliver the best performances . Julie Harris does much with a somewhat thankless role through her naturalistic acting , and Jo Van Fleet is simply terrific in a role that amounts to one significant scene . I'm not sure she deserved an Oscar for her ( maybe ) ten minutes of screen time , but she does manage to make Kate into a memorable character in the blink of an eye . Indeed , the film's greatest disservice to the novel is in reducing Kate's character to nothing more than a plot device . Anyone who's read the book remembers what a vivid character Steinbeck creates of her , and it's a shame the film couldn't take more advantage of that . What the movie comes down to thematically is an investigation into the " good " vs . " bad " impulses that exist in everyone , and whether or not we are forced into one of these two polar opposites by fate or have the ability to decide for ourselves which one we'll choose . It's an absorbing film and one of the must sees from one of the most interesting decades for the art form . |
573,463 | 4,532,636 | 23,590 | 8 | Hard-Core Pre-Code Film Is a Shocker | This pre-Code melodrama is terse and blunt , and it also happens to be one of the most shocking of the pre-Code films I've seen . Ann Dvorak , Joan Blondell and Bette Davis play three friends who meet ten years after having attended school together . Dvorak is a society woman who's itching for something more exciting than the dutiful husband ( Warren William ) and young son she has , and falls in with a gang of druggies and kidnappers . Blondell is the take charge spitfire who decides to intervene and save Dvorak's son from her destructive behavior ; she happens also to fall for Dvorak's husband in the process . Dvorak gives a harrowing and blistering performance as a woman who is driven literally insane by drug use , and the film's most shocking content occurs in the scenes that show her wasting away in the drug den , ravaged by cocaine . Blondell is typically cute and sassy . The young Davis might as well not be in the film at all , and only exists so that the title can make sense . The whole thing rushes like a steamroller to a slam-bang climax that will have your jaw on the floor . Like many Warners films from this time period , that movie pretends to be a sobering moral sermon while it's really just an exploitative bit of sensationalism , but whatever its intentions , it's a firecracker of a movie . With an appearance by a very young Humphrey Bogart . |
574,215 | 4,532,636 | 11,144 | 8 | Harold Goes West | This charming Harold Lloyd comedy short finds city boy Harold being sent by stern parents to the wild west to work on his uncle's ranch . He never makes it to the ranch - - instead , he gets into all sorts of comedic hijinks in a frontier town , becomes the target of a killer mob of bullies , and wins the hand of a sweet country charmer , all in about 15 minutes ! As usual , the visual gags come fast and furious , and the unflappable Harold carries everything off with utmost panache . Highlights include his impressive lasso routine , and his frantic escape from the gang of thugs , in which he employs just about every trick imaginable to outsmart them . Great fun . |
574,329 | 4,532,636 | 93,565 | 8 | Howling at the Moon | A low-key and charming family comedy about a spinsterish widow ( Cher ) , who is torn between marrying her stuffy fiancé ( Danny Aiello ) and his animalistic brother ( Nicolas Cage ) . Cher proves herself to be an immensely warm and likable screen presence , and the film is mostly a star vehicle for her . But she gets terrific support from Vincent Gardenia and Olympia Dukakis , playing her philandering father and world-weary mother , and from a very funny Nicolas Cage , who proves that he once had both charm and talent . The film makes terrific use of " Musetta's Waltz " from " La Boheme " . |
573,828 | 4,532,636 | 72,417 | 8 | A Bruising Portrait of Mental Illness | Eeesh , what a tough movie to sit through . This two and a half hour movie left me sweaty , exhausted and hollowed out . In its own way it's an extremely well done film , but I don't know that it's an experience I want to repeat . Director John Cassavetes follows a few months in the life of a family whose mother and wife ( Gena Rowlands ) is suffering from mental illness , and the movie consists of one long scene after another of her cracking up , or trying not to crack up , and the various family members ' reactions to her cracking up . Peter Falk plays the husband and father who thinks that mental illness is just some silly nonsense his wife should be able to stop if she just tried hard enough . Rowlands has the showier role , but Falk is the revelation here . His depiction of a husband who blusters and shouts to hide his overwhelming sense of helplessness and fear is superb . Cassavetes's camera is relentless . We watch Rowlands suffer again and again in long takes and intimate closeups . There are times when you simply want to look away from the screen to help this poor woman preserve a shred of dignity . The highlight of the film ( or low point , depending on your point of view ) comes when Rowlands's character returns home from a stay in an institution , and her family works overtime to convince themselves that everything's fine when the audience can see clearly that everything is not . Bruising is the best word I can think of to describe this film . |
574,118 | 4,532,636 | 56,592 | 8 | A Fine Screen Adaptation of a Beloved Book | To Kill a Mockinbird is one of those movies that is bound to fail on a first viewing , because it has to of course compete with the book on which it is based , which has captivated readers ever since it was written . But when you revisit the film after the initial " it's not as good as the book " reaction , you find that it's a wonderful piece of art in its own right , and if it sacrifices much of the texture and detail that makes the book so compelling , it keeps the tone and the book's humanist message intact . Gregory Peck was perhaps born to play Atticus Finch . I most admire him and the screenwriter and director for keeping the role of Atticus true to the book and not allowing a certain cloying brand of sentimentality typical of Hollywood films to creep into the performance . Atticus is a noble and good man , and a reliable father , but he's rather cold and formidable . Scout and Jem love him , but they're also slightly scared of him , and he keeps them at a distance . The very traits that count as deficiencies as a father are what make him a good lawyer . This aspect of Atticus's character always fascinated me , and Peck gets it just right . My biggest lament is that the filmmakers could not include the story of Jem and Mrs . Dubose , the mean old lady who lives in the Finches ' neighborhood , that provides perhaps the single most beautiful moment in the novel . As punishment for destroying her flowers , Jem must read to Mrs . Dubose every day after school , for increasingly longer periods of time . When she dies , Jem receives a box containing the petals of a flower , the kind that Jem destroyed . He thinks she's haunting him from the grave , but Atticus explains to him that Jem was unknowingly helping Mrs . Dubose kick a morphine addiction . Jem's reading distracted her through her periods of withdrawal , and enabled the proud woman to leave the earth without taking the shameful secret with her . Sending the flower to Jem was her way of thanking him . What a wonderful moment in 20th Century literature . |
573,479 | 4,532,636 | 373,074 | 8 | A Kung Fu Blast | Kung Fu Hustle is " Kill Bill " with a healthy dose of Looney Tunes thrown in for good measure . It's a rip off of about a hundred other films , but yet it never feels like a rip off . To Stephen Chow's credit , it feels totally original , and you find yourself as you're watching the movie eagerly waiting for the next bit of insane craziness he's going to throw on to the screen . This movie pokes fun at the earnestness of recent films in the genre , like " Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon , " " Hero , " and " House of Flying Daggers . " Nothing is taken seriously here , and thank God for that . This is one bit of nonsense after another , and it's enormously entertaining . Film buffs should have a blast ticking off the homages to other films . The Axe Gang brings to mind the Crazy 88's of " Kill Bill . " Chow tips his hat to the blood-spurting elevator scene from " The Shining . " A poster for " Top Hat " is prominently displayed in the background of one scene ( suggesting that Chow draws inspiration for his dazzling fight choreography from the fancy footwork of Fred and Ginger ) . And " The Matrix " gets its due as well . Chow gives himself a fun character to play , and he's also written a very clever screenplay . Pay careful attention to the early scenes , because clues that you might be tempted to shrug off as just being silly bits of embellishment actually become quite important later on . And lastly , this movie has an awesome soundtrack . |
573,480 | 4,532,636 | 17,750 | 8 | Before Bob Fosse , There Was This | I suspect that Mr . Rob Marshall watched this 1927 silent before making his recent screen adaptation of the smash-hit Broadway musical . The non-musical scenes in his version look an awful lot like this exceptional film . Phyllis Haver provides a marvelously witty and sexy characterization as Roxie Hart , that ultimate gold digger who shoots her lover for jilting her and then becomes a media sensation . Haver puts all sorts of unique touches on the role , and her scenes during the murder trial are small gems of comic acting . The handsome Victor Varconi , looking for all the world like Liam Neeson , has a much larger role as Amos , Roxie's long-suffering husband , than any subsequent version would give that character . He's still a bit of a sap , but he's a much sharper sap than later incarnations would allow . This original version focuses much more on the domestic relationship between these two - - the roles of Billy Flynn and Mama Morton , treated so colorfully in the musical , are much diminished here , and the character of Velma Kelly is absent altogether . The recent stage revival and movie have blunted the impact of this story's critique on the modern media and the public's responsibility in enabling our media to peddle trash . It's surprising that a film that came out nearly 80 years ago makes the same point just as candidly ; one can only imagine how forceful this message must have seemed at the time . |
574,431 | 4,532,636 | 70,290 | 8 | A Well Acted , Sober Film About Unpleasant Responsibilities | Don't let the fact that the DVD cover makes this movie look like gay porn keep you from seeing it . Director Hal Ashby made a string of unfussy but very , very good films throughout the 1970s , and " The Last Detail " is one them . The story doesn't sound like much : two Navy officers are assigned to escort a third to the prison where he will be serving time . Along the way , the requisite male bonding ensues , and the older , jaded officer ( Jack Nicholson ) has a chance to reflect upon his own fortune and misfortune and be a sort of father figure , for better or worse , to his young and troubled charge ( played extremely well by Randy Quaid ) . Like all of Ashby's films , " The Last Detail " challenges things like duty and institutional authority , which made Ashby one of the most vocal of the anti-establishment directors from a volatile period of American history . But also like all of his films , it poses challenges in a low-key , non-confrontational way , without sacrificing its bite . Well done . |
574,259 | 4,532,636 | 28,597 | 8 | Madcap Comedy with a Serious Undertone | The Awful Truth is a wonderful screwball comedy from that most fertile period of screwball comedies - - the 1930s . Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a terrific match as a dueling husband and wife , each determined to prove to the other that he / she can live without him / her . Until they discover " the awful truth " : they're made for each other . Grant and Dunne have tremendous chemistry together , and Ralph Bellamy received his sole Academy Award nomination as the film's straight man , a macho Western man's man , about as far away from Cary Grant as you can get , who has a hankering for Dunne . And not to be outdone by " The Thin Man , " there's even a cute dog thrown into the mix , given cute doggy things to do by director Leo McCarey . McCarey , who had some experience directing the Marx Brothers before helming this , shows his flair for physical comedy , but he keeps a pretty tight reign and doesn't let the movie get too carried away by its own zaniness . In fact , he's able to give the film a rather serious tone running constantly underneath its silly surface , and I think that's probably why we remember this film now when we've forgotten so many other throw-away comedies from the same time period . There's something rather sad in the feud between Grant and Dunne ; there's a very realistic bitterness that develops between the two , and their characters walk that very thin line between love and hate . They could have a beautiful , passionate partnership , but don't quite know how to pull it off . Of course the battle of the sexes is here plumbed for its comic potential , but it's not difficult to see how this movie could be played seriously , rather reminiscent of " Dodsworth " , in which case we'd be remembering it as a fine example of 30s drama rather than the comedy that it is . |
573,799 | 4,532,636 | 405,336 | 8 | This Is How the World Ends . . . . . . Watching Reality T . V . | Another invigorating mindfck from Richard Kelly , the indie darling who made an auspicious debut with cult fave " Donnie Darko . " Like the previous film , I walked out of this one not necessarily understanding everything I had just seen , but feeling certain that I liked it , whatever it was . The film reminded me of books by Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller , and at times of Thomas Pynchon's " Gravity's Rainbow . " It's earned itself a lot of hatred from audiences and critics alike , and it's admittedly not for everyone . But I appreciate Kelly's attempts to make films in a different way , eschewing some of the more conventional devices , like linear narrative , for more filmic ones , like dynamic imagery . If sometimes his movie feels like more of a mess than a movie , well that's the price you pay for being bold . At the heart of " Southland Tales " is a simple and what to me felt like a very personal story about two friends who served together in Iraq , and the fact that this story is nearly buried by a melange of subplots involving political machinations , activist groups , doomsday prophecies , philosophizing porn stars and schizophrenic actors seemed to me to come scarily close to the way our world looks right now when you turn on the television set . The film is full of second-tier actors doing very good work , and the movie is awfully funny , but it has a palpably emotional center , just like " Donnie Darko . " If it didn't have that , I think it would have just come across as glib . I couldn't make sense of all of it , but I felt like those involved in making it could , and that makes all the difference in the world between a good movie and a bad one . |
573,545 | 4,532,636 | 299,478 | 8 | Revisiting " Scenes from a Marriage " | A sequel of sorts to his 1973 magnum opus " Scenes from a Marriage , " " Sarband " picks up in real time Ingmar Bergman's story of a fractured marriage and its aftermath . Marianne , beautifully played by Bergman's muse , Liv Ullmann , visits her ex-husband , Johan ( Erland Josephson ) , whom she hasn't seen in years , for reasons even she can't explain . She doesn't know what she hopes to get from the reunion , though the fact that Johan , twenty years older than Marianne and in his mid-80s , may not be long for this world likely has much to do with it . Marianne stumbles into the dysfunction plaguing Johan's " other " family , the son ( Henrik ) he had before marrying Marianne and his son's daughter ( Karin ) . Henrik's wife and Karin's mother , the enigmatic Anna , died two years ago , and Karin has become an inappropriate surrogate for her in Henrik's life ( just how inappropriate is never made completely clear , but an abruptly ended French kiss between father and daughter shockingly suggests that their relationship has crossed more than just emotional boundaries ) . Henrik is smothering Karin , trying to prevent her from ever leaving him ( she's a cellist , as is Henrik , and wants to attend a music conservatory ) and filling her mind with guilt at the thought of doing so . Johan dotes on Karin , also making her a surrogate for Anna , whom Johan obviously loved with more than the type of love traditionally reserved for a daughter-in-law . He also uses Karin against Henrik , who he despises with a vitriolic aggression , and who is despised back with no less passion by his son . This is the mess Marianne steps into , becoming a sort of warm mother figure to both Karin and Johan , and an enemy to Henrik . Welcome to Ingmar Bergman territory . However , it does please me to report that , serious as this movie is , it's actually one of the most heart-warming films I've ever seen Bergman do . For all the time devoted to the supporting characters , the movie is really about Marianne . She's the one who goes on her quest seeking some sense of peace , and she gets it . She's hurt that she couldn't fulfill the role in Johan's life that Anna apparently did , and the fact that he adores his granddaughter from Anna while ignoring the two daughters he has with Marianne strikes a bitter chord with her . But Marianne ultimately leaves bitterness behind , and the film's final moments illustrate that she is moving on with the life she has rather than continuing to lament the life she lost . The skill with which Bergman develops the relationship between Marianne and Johan over the course of his two films is astounding . Ullmann and Josephson are so expert in their roles , and they have so much chemistry together , that you're fooled into thinking you really are watching two people who have the history their characters have in the films . Josephson plays Johan as a monster , but for all that you still see what it was about him that Marianne loved , and what she can't let go of , no matter how poorly he treats her . He's different with her than he is with others ; he lets his guard down , admits vulnerability . In a touching scene in this movie , he appears at Marianne's door in the middle of the night , scared as a little boy , and crawls into bed with her . He strips down to nothing , as does she , but the sight of their nakedness , rather than suggesting anything erotic , suggests instead the nakedness of a mother with her newly born baby . And Ullmann gives a tour de force performance . In " Scenes from a Marriage , " we watched her Marianne go through stages of confusion , grief and anger over the unfair dissolution of her marriage . But the Marianne we get here is resigned ; she knows by now what she has the right to expect , and doesn't expect more than that . And finally , FINALLY , when she sees how riddled with contempt Johan has become , she begins to be able to distance herself from him , think of herself as having a life of her own away from him , and perhaps even understanding that breaking from him was the best thing that could have happened to their relationship . " Saraband " doesn't have the devastating quality of " Scenes from a Marriage . " It feels more rushed and less developed . It also feels strangely surreal , as if these people are acting on a stage ; Bergman makes almost no attempt to make his film feel cinematic , and these people seem to exist in a world of their own , making their actions and feelings seem of less consequence . But it's still an outstanding film , and if it's true that this is Bergman's last , it's a beautiful swan song . |
574,033 | 4,532,636 | 32,943 | 8 | Handsome and Fairly Faithful | I was expecting a film that only barely resembled the source material , but was surprised instead to find that this 1940 version of the Jane Austen tale is pretty faithful to the novel . Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier make an engaging Lizzie and Darcy . They're too old for the roles , but that turns out to be not as much of a liability as I thought it would , and both are as likable and spunky as I've ever seen them . This version is played much more lightly than the more recent Keira Knightley version - - the tone overall is comic . But it works here , because every actor adjusts his / her performance accordingly . Edmund Gwenn and Mary Boland play Mr . and Mrs . Bennett , both doing about what you'd expect with the parts . The other notable performances come from Edna May Oliver as Lady Catherine de Bourgh - - it's her storyline towards the film's conclusion with which the screenplay takes the greatest liberties - - and Frieda Inescort , who delivers one withering line after another as Caroline Bingley . The time period is updated to some time in the early 1800s , with the result that the movie looks more like " Gone with the Wind " than it does " Pride and Prejudice . " Indeed , I wonder if MGM chose to update the time period in order to capitalize on the success of David Selznick's blockbuster . Purists will undoubtedly howl at some of the departures , but everyone else will likely have a good time . |
573,906 | 4,532,636 | 439 | 8 | Film Editing Is Born | It's hard to assign " The Great Train Robbery " a rating , as it shouldn't really be watched as a film the way we watch films now . But from a historical perspective , it's fascinating , and is an excellent example of the use of film editing , an art form then in its infancy and now an award category recognized every year at the Oscars . Before this movie , it wasn't customary to tell multiple story lines simultaneously , but here , various activities going on in different locations are intercut to create suspense . D . W . Griffith would use this technique much more ambitiously ( and combine it with many other developing film techniques ) in " The Birth of a Nation " over ten years later , but credit must be given to " Train Robbery " for blazing a trail . Also , this is the movie famous for the shot of an outlaw shooting a gun directly at the camera . I can't imagine what effect this had on audiences at the time , who were probably diving behind their chairs for cover . |
574,255 | 4,532,636 | 39,190 | 8 | A Charmer | The Bishop's Wife is one of the better Christmas movies out there . I wouldn't place it as high as " Miracle on 34th Street , " but it's in that league , and certainly has a similar feel . Henry Koster does a fine job of giving the film a leisurely pace without letting it drag , and the performances are uniformly solid . It is somewhat of a shame to see David Niven stuck in a part that doesn't allow him much room for humour , as he can be so funny . And I do have to admit that Loretta Young's allure alludes me somewhat . She doesn't seem very dynamic for two men ( or should I say a man and an angel ) to be making such a fuss over . But she's certainly more than passable . One of my favorite performances came from Elsa Lanchester , in a minor role as the family maid . This movie becomes magical only once - - - during the ice skating scene between Cary Grant , Young and James Gleason . That could have gone on for hours and I would have been transfixed . But not every movie can be magical , and this film is a very good ( if non-magical ) one . Pop in on a snowy night , light the Christmas tree , make some hot chocolate , and enjoy . |
573,426 | 4,532,636 | 83,745 | 8 | A Stunning Cast in an Overheated Play | Come Back to the 5 and Dime , Jimmy Dean , Jimmy Dean was the first in a string of 1980s stage to screen adaptations directed by Robert Altman . Virtually every movie Altman made during this decade was completely outside of the Hollywood studio system . They were tiny films on tiny budgets with small casts , sometimes shot on only one set , and almost all of them feel more like filmed plays than movies . As a result , they are some of his least interesting films in cinematic terms , but that's not to say that they're not fascinating in their own way . " Come Back to the 5 and Dime " is southern Gothic claptrap that Altman is too good for , but he elevates it into something gripping and marvelous through virtue of his directing skills and his remarkable cast of actresses . It tells the story of a James Dean fan club who hold a reunion many years after the young actor's death , after each woman has been out in the world and has gathered some baggage along the way . During the course of their day together , buried secrets arise , conflicts boil over and morbid plot twists are revealed . It's pretty overheated and silly stuff , like a parody of Tennesse Williams , but it's so phenomenally acted that it's easy to overlook the flaws in the material . Sandy Dennis , Cher and Karen Black are the principal actresses , all of them doing some of the best work of their careers , and the supporting cast is filled out by Sudie Bond , Marta Heflin and Kathy Bates . The young actor Mark Patton , probably most known for his performance in " A Nightmare on Elm Stree Part 2 , " is the lone male . Altman's signature wandering camera never leaves the shabby 5 and dime store in which the film is set , but he keeps things visually interesting by lingering on different parts of the meticulously detailed set , and a wall of mirrors serves as both a symbolic and a physical barrier between past and present . Unfortunately , it looks like this film is very hard to find , especially on DVD , but it's more than worth a viewing if you want to put the effort into tracking it down . |
574,347 | 4,532,636 | 200,465 | 8 | Solidly Entertaining and Atypical Heist Film | This slick , no-nonsense thriller had me on the edge of my seat . The film is based on a true story , but take that for whatever it's worth . I don't know anything about the bank robbery portrayed in this film , so can't answer for its accuracy . But it's one hell of an entertaining movie . If you're going into it because you enjoy heist films , be warned : little attention is payed to the actual mechanics of this bank robbery . Instead , the film is much more about the people ( police , thugs and MI5 alike ) who become invested in seeing the bank robbers caught when it becomes known that the robbers targeted safety deposit boxes , and by extension the private information contained in them that could make or break the lives of many . Jason Statham heads up the cast of not especially well-known British actors , and aside from a rather out-of-place fight scene towards the film's climax , is asked to keep his action hero persona under wraps . |
574,308 | 4,532,636 | 74,119 | 8 | A Thrilling Movie About How Fun It Is to Be a Journalist | All the President's Men was one of two big releases in 1976 that examined the power of the American media ( " Network " being the other ) . " Network " took a cerebral , arty approach to its subject and created a blistering satire . " All the President's Men " is a much more straightforward thriller , along the lines of this year's " Zodiac . " It's perhaps less ambitious than " Network , " but having seen Sidney Lumet's film recently I think " President's Men " has aged better . Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play Woodward and Bernstein , the two reporters for the Washington Post who investigated and uncovered the secrets surrounding Watergate . This movie makes the job of a journalist look intolerably exciting , and indeed I've read reports that applications to journalism schools actually spiked after this movie hit theatres . There's not anything really stylistically distinguished about the movie , but it's smashingly entertaining , and director Alan J . Pakula proved once again how good he was at putting urban paranoia on screen ( as he had done with " Klute " five years earlier ) . An Oscar went to Jason Robards , playing Ben Bradlee , editor of the Post , as a craggy sage , and a nomination went out to Jane Alexander , in a small but effective role as a reluctant informant . Hal Holbrook received the dubious honor ( thank you Linda Lovelace ) of playing Deep Throat . |
574,334 | 4,532,636 | 795,493 | 8 | Woody Allen Has Found a New Muse | First with " Match Point " and now with " Cassandra's Dream , " Woody Allen has carved a new niche for himself as director of juicy little British thrillers , like something right out of Patricia Highsmith . " Cassandra's Dream " is not as good as " Match Point , " but that's not to say it isn't a good movie . It's quite well done ; the story bears remarkable resemblance to another film that came out last year , Sidney Lumet's " Before the Devil Knows You're Dead , " but it doesn't feel like a rip-off . Just as in " Match Point , " which was an updated version of " An American Tragedy , " Allen takes familiar material but makes it feel original . Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell play brothers , one sharp and ambitious , the other dumber and nicer , who find themselves in need of financial help from their jet-setting uncle ( played by Tom Wilkinson in a couple of brief scenes ) , and agree to murder the chief witness in an upcoming investigation into the uncle's business practices in exchange for his assistance . The requisite pangs of guilt ensue , the brothers ' worlds start to unravel , and everything ends in a tragic but inevitable conclusion . The film is full of the same preoccupations of Greek tragedy - - fate , guilt and hubris - - that Allen frequently examines in his comedies , and that more than anything identify this as a Woody Allen movie . The acting is quite good , and even if the writing doesn't offer anything profound , Allen knows enough about the basics of dramatic narrative to ensure that everything is developed well and logically . I wasn't on the edge of my seat the way I was while watching " Match Point , " but I was pretty engrossed . |
573,351 | 4,532,636 | 357,413 | 8 | Surprised at the Low Rating | I thought " Anchorman " was hilarious , so I was surprised at the low rating it received here . Well written , well acted , and well directed , this is a very funny adult comedy with some classic scenes and lines . I will not soon forget the " West Side Story " rumble between five rival news teams , that includes a man on fire and another man being speared with a trident . Or the verbal abuse Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate throw back and forth at each other while the credits for their news show are rolling ( " I'm proud of my pubic mane " is one of my favorite lines , which Ferrell says in response to Applegate telling him he has too much pubic hair ) . Ferrell of course is funny , and Applegate makes a good straight man ( or woman ) . Steve Carell and Paul Rudd are also terrific as well . And I had a blast with the impressive list of cameos , my favorite being Tim Robbins as the lead anchor at the local public television station . This movie really satisfies the need for good comedy that you don't have to think very much about , but that still manages to be more clever than usual and doesn't rely on bathroom humour for all of its laughs . Watch and have a great time . |
574,235 | 4,532,636 | 478,134 | 8 | A Tough-Minded Film About the Terrible Toll of the Iraq War | It will be interesting once the current wretched Iraq war is a distant memory to go back and watch the movies about the war that came out while it was raging on . " In the Valley of Elah " joins a list of other films about the Iraqi conflict ( or conflicts in the Middle East , in general ) that have tanked at the box office . Audiences have sent a clear message : We do not want to see movies that remind us about a terrible , depressing war that we can't do anything about . In " In the Valley of Elah , " Tommy Lee Jones plays Hank Deerfield , retired sergeant in the U . S . Army , who sets out on an investigation into the whereabouts of his son , Mike , when Mike returns from duty in Iraq and then goes missing . It's not long into the movie before the charred , dismembered remains of Hank's son are found in a field not far from the military base . Hank runs up against first the infuriating , squabbling bureaucracy of the local police force and the military police , who argue over jurisdiction , and then the indifference of both when it's determined that the crime is a military matter : the local police are glad to wash their hands of yet another homicide that promises to go unsolved , and the military wants to sweep the case under the rug as quickly as possible to avoid bad publicity . Hank's only nominal ally is Detective Emily Sanders ( Charlize Theron ) . Her doggedness in sticking to the investigation into the murder of Hank's son arises partially from her first chance to work on an important case , partially from her desire to do the right thing , and partially because she feels for Hank - - she has a son of her own . " In the Valley of Elah " is part police procedural drama , part character study , part angry diatribe against America's military institution . As the investigation progresses , Hank discovers some unpleasant truths about his son and some of the atrocities he committed while in Iraq . Likewise , his fellow troop members become implicated in his death , despite Hank's firm belief that a man's Army buddies would never do something like that to one another . The movie argues that these young men who are being sent to Iraq to " preserve our freedom " are absorbing a devastating psychological toll that no one wants to admit is there , not their families , not their friends , and certainly not the military itself . Jones , as Hank , is extraordinary , and Hank is fascinating . He's the kind of life-long military man we instantly recognize . He's quietly chauvinistic to his wife , a wonderful Susan Sarandon , and doesn't even tell her about the truths he's uncovering about their boy . When he stays in hotel rooms he remakes the bed to his satisfaction . He's a man so rigidly in control of himself that one of the only signs we see of the distress he's in is that he nicks himself shaving . One of the things I liked best about the film was its suggestion that people like Hank share as much responsibility as anyone for the toll foolish military leadership takes on the American public . He's doggedly macho , patriotic and unquestioning , a deadly combination . His wife blames him for the death of both of their sons ( an older son , also military , died ten years earlier in a helicopter crash ) , claiming that neither would have ever found acceptance as a man had they not gone into the military . He has an unshakable illusion of the military as a place of duty , discipline and honor . That nick he receives while shaving is like the first minuscule crack in the foundation of his belief in an institution to which he's pledged his life . It's heartbreaking to watch this man lose everything in his life that up to that point has given it meaning . I give co-writer / director Paul Haggis a lot of credit for making such a tough-minded movie while we're smack in the middle of a conflict that is taking people's children away from them . We've become especially sensitive of late to criticizing the military for fear that we won't be supporting the troops who comprise it . Haggis sensitively keeps the distinction intact , but he's not afraid to admit that there are soldiers coming back from the war and doing terrible things because they don't know how to readjust to civilian life . They're not coming back heroes , no matter how much we want to believe they are - - they're coming back hollowed out husks of who they used to be . Stylistically , the film is rather drab . Haggis takes a quiet and somber approach , as if the slightest loud noise or quick movement will detract from the elegiac tone he creates . Even the color palette is drab , all washed out blues and institutional grays . We know he's a director capable of style ; " Crash " was , if nothing else , stylish . But unlike that film , which was so schematic and over scripted that the actors couldn't breathe in their roles , " In the Valle of Elah " feels much more organic and understated , as if the characters are finding out truths about themselves as they go along rather than truths imposed on them from the heavy hand of the writer . The film teeters on the brink of sentimentality only a couple of times , but mostly it stays lean and tough . I really didn't expect to like this film as much as I did . It's haunting , thought provoking and one of the best films I've seen yet this year . |
574,384 | 4,532,636 | 76,095 | 8 | A Winning Romantic Comedy from Neil Simon | 1977 was apparently the year for neurotic romantic comedies featuring people who look like real people , if " The Goodbye Girl " and " Annie Hall " are anything to go by . Woody Allen's film is obviously the superior of the two , but I have a soft spot for Neil Simon's comedy , and I like it quite a lot . Richard Dreyfuss was on the cusp of stardom after his performance in " Jaws , " and his double score this year with " The Goodbye Girl " and " Close Encounters of the Third Kind " launched him into the big time . Marsha Mason was perfect at playing roles like this - - vulnerable softies looking for love while at the same time tough cookies who could make it on their own if forced to . In this film , the two meet cute when Dreyfuss shows up at Mason's apartment , having subletted it from Mason's boyfriend , who dumped her and took off without telling her that she and her ten-year-old daughter would be left with no place to live . Dreyfuss , a struggling actor , agrees to let the mom and daughter stay in the apartment with him , and of course after much bickering , the two fall in love . The movie is at its best when Dreyfuss and Mason are fighting . My favorite line is delivered by Mason after one of their many run-ins over Dreyfuss's bohemian living habits : " I don't know you well enough to truly dislike you , but you are just too weird to live with . " Quinn Cummings gives an adorable performance as Mason's daughter . She manages to be both precocious and cute ( think Tatum O'Neal in " Paper Moon " ) , a tough feat for a child actor . In one of the first scenes , while Mason is reading the dear john letter left by her louse of a boyfriend , who's left to star in a Bertolucci film , Cummings , instead of asking questions about what happened between her mom and boyfriend , or what they're going to do , or any other number of things it would make sense for a child to ask about , wants to know instead who Bertolucci is and what movies he's directed . A kid after my own heart . |
573,647 | 4,532,636 | 468,569 | 8 | Very Good , But Yikes , Let's Keep Things in Perspective | Whatever else it may be , " The Dark Knight , " Christopher Nolan's follow up to his " Batman Begins , " the film that resurrected the Batman franchise , is the most ambitious superhero film ever made . It's full of brooding ruminations about the inherent nature of humanity , obviously fueled by the troubled state of a post - world , and it packs an awful lot of plot into its two-and-a-half-hour running time . However , be cautioned , and don't let its # 1 rating at IMDb set up expectations that the film can't possibly meet . I doubt any experienced film goer is truly going to think that this is the best film ever made . The praise heaped on Heath Ledger for his performance as the Joker is well deserved . Indeed , the Joker becomes the focus of this movie , which may not be such a desirable thing , given that this is . . . you know . . . . a Batman movie . The caped crusader fades into the background in this installment , to the point where you might leave the movie and forget that he was in it . Ditto Maggie Gyllenhaal , who plays the love interest , and who , true to the superhero movie formula , gets practically nothing to do . But Ledger you WILL remember . He creates a fascinating character in the Joker , and it's through him that the movie poses all of its major moral questions . Is it human nature , as the Joker suggests , to devolve into chaos when the illusion of order is taken away ; or do humans have an inherent kindness that will cause them to look out for one another even when circumstances seem to call for self preservation ? One of the most fascinating things about Ledger's creation is that the Joker has no more motive as a criminal than to pose questions like this . He's not out for money or even power - - he just wants to create anarchy and see what happens . I was not prepared for the other villain the screenplay throws into the mix : Two Face , played well by Aaron Eckhart . The film is too long , and it's this storyline that makes it so . Chrisotpher Nolan and his brother , Jonathan , the co-writers of the film , would have done well to leave this plot line out . By the end of the film , there are too many characters doing too many things independently of one another , so that the film loses focus slightly . The movie looks fantastic though , and the production team does wonders with Chicago ( where I live by the way ) . In fact the look of the film is one of its major selling points , and I was pleased to finally see a superhero film that looks cinematic rather than cartoonish . So . . . an excellent addition to the superhero genre and a completely entertaining experience . . . . but it's still , after all , a Batman movie , and it's not the best film since " Citizen Kane . " |
573,867 | 4,532,636 | 43,456 | 8 | A " B " Movie with " Ideas | The Day the Earth Stood Still is a nifty little science fiction film from 1951 , low-budget and starkly designed , that I'm sure was not meant to be anything major when released , but has since become to be considered one of the greatest of its genre . Directed with a spare , documentary-like style by Robert Wise ( who would go on to direct such major motion pictures as " The Sound of Music " and " West Side Story " ) , the film tells the story of a lone visitor ( with his robot Gort ) to Earth , who comes to warn the inhabitants of this planet against the irresponsible use of atomic power . This movie should be required viewing today , especially by members of our own government , as U . S . policy seems to be shifting ever more toward doing whatever the hell we want and the effects of our actions on world relations be damned . Sadly , the earthlings in the film behave all too predictably ( and realistically ) , instantly assuming the visitors have come to inflict harm and dealing with the situation through excessive military force . Sound familiar ? It's a quick 90-minute film that smartly keeps its plot basic ; it knows not to overstretch its modest bounds . Michael Rennie is appropriately otherworldly as Klaatu , the humanoid alien , and Patricia Neal appears in an early role as one of the only level-headed people in Washington D . C . A terrific and thoughtful movie . Trivia : Patricia Neal's character is instructed late in the film to say the words " Klaatu , Barada , Nikto " to Gort to prevent him from going on a destructive rampage . George Lucas borrowed these three words and gave them as names to three of Jabba the Hutt's henchman in " Return of the Jedi . " A case of one sci-fi film offering homage to another . |
573,614 | 4,532,636 | 98,067 | 8 | Excellent Ron Howard Film ( If Such a Thing Is Possible ) | Ron Howard has been directing such deadly bores for so long now that it's easy to forget he once showed promise . During the 1980s , he made his best films , because he wasn't trying to make them IMPORTANT . First came " Splash , " an utterly winning comedy that made a star out of Tom Hanks , and then " Parenthood , " a well-written ensemble dramedy about navigating the tricky waters of child rearing that features a fantastic cast . Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen anchor the film as the grounded , reliable married couple at the film's center , with much of the comedy being supplied by Dianne Wiest , playing Martin's sister , and Rick Moranis , playing his type-A brother-in-law . Wiest especially steals the show as a divorcée at her wit's end trying desperately to keep her wild child daughter ( Martha Plimpton ) and recluse son ( a young Joaquin Phoenix ) in check . The film also features Tom Hulce , excellent as yet a fourth sibling with a gambling addiction , and the expert Jason Robards , as the tyrannical family patriarch . The film is episodic in nature , full of beautifully realized individual moments . The only thing I could have done without is Randy Newman's atrocious theme song . |
573,682 | 4,532,636 | 45,152 | 8 | MGM Near the Top of Its Musical Game | The heaps of scholarly criticism heaped on " Singing ' in the Rain " have done it a disservice by giving it the ball and chain reputation of an IMPORTANT picture in cinema history . Let's not forget why " Singin ' in the Rain " was made , which was to provide a form of escapist entertainment , nor why it's still so loved now , which is because it's great fun and everything clicks . It's not homework , and it's not medicine . I don't even think it's the best movie musical ever made ( I liked MGM's " Seven Brides for Seven Brothers " more ) , and it's not one I feel compelled to go back to again and again . I'm not a huge fan of Gene Kelly , and think he's squirrelly when he's trying to be dashing , and Donald O'Connor's manic energy is just as likely to be exhausting as it is funny . But there's no improving on Jean Hagen's pitch-perfect performance as the ditzy villainess , and Debbie Reynolds shows how sweet and charming she was early in her career , before she became a broad . The songs and dances aren't especially well integrated into the film - - you can practically hear the gears grinding whenever the film transitions from its book to its musical portions . But the numbers are so wildly entertaining in and of themselves that you don't much care . The " Singin ' in the Rain " sequence does what far too few films do - - it transports you to a place where what's happening on the screen in front of you is the only thing that matters . |
574,024 | 4,532,636 | 399,146 | 8 | A Haunting Film | Viggo Mortensen has been allowed to shed the silly , macho , grizzled locks and attitude he was forced to don for three long years in a row for the " Lord of the Rings " trilogy , and has finally been given the chance to play a real character , that of Tom Stall , steady-eddie dad and husband , who may or may not be hiding a shocking and violent past . Mortensen is terrific in this movie . It's one of those performances whose quality could be easily underestimated , because it's not a flashy role . No doubt at the end of the year , he will be overlooked for a bunch of actors who chew the scenery in phony Hollywood biopics , but such is the way of popular entertainment . Mortensen deserves accolades for this movie , and I hope other directors are paying attention to him . David Cronenberg's " A History of Violence " is a disturbing reflection on the pervasiveness of violence in our culture , the tendency to turn to violence first as a means of settling conflict , and the vicious cycle a reliance on violence can cause . In other words , violence breeds violence . I don't know that Cronenberg necessarily has anything new to say on the subject , but he has fashioned a haunting and memorable movie from the theme . Maria Bello was considered by many to be woefully overlooked for her performance in " The Cooler " from two years ago ; my hunch is the community will make that oversight up to her this year for her performance as Tom Stall's wife . It's refreshing to see a wife / mother character who is required to do more than suffer nobly . Bello creates a vivid , strong , three-dimensional picture of a wife who has her entire world pulled out from under her and the steps she takes to deal with it . It's also nice for a change to see a movie where the violence matters , and has consequences . When violence occurs in this movie , it is quick and startling - - there are moments when I wanted to look away from the screen . It just barely avoids being gratuitous , though , because it's not treated lightly . Part of the importance of the film's message is seeing what a bullet will do to a human face . Cronenberg approaches the material in a typically strange fashion ( though this is one of the more accessible Cronenberg films ) . It varies widely in tone : the tense , brooding atmosphere created whenever criminals are part of the scene ; the almost funny picture painted by Cronenberg of an idyllic American small town , complete with bouncy music and a quaint main street ; the action movie quality that takes over whenever Mortensen's character springs into action . I'm not sure Cronenberg is entirely successful at blending these disparate elements , but I can appreciate what he was trying to do , and I felt that he was always in total control of his movie and made the finished product he wanted to make . So far , the Oscar-bait season of 2005 has been an unusually ripe one for tough and relevant films . Maybe the industry is finally reacting to and the depressing , dispiriting hole American has fallen into since then at the hands of the Bush Administration . The last period of social and political unrest in America resulted in some of the best films ever made . Could we be on the verge of another period of greatness ? Here's hoping . |
573,797 | 4,532,636 | 89,424 | 8 | This Weird Movie Will Catch You in Its Web | A bizarre , evocative film which seems strange even now - - I can't imagine what audiences made of it in 1985 . William Hurt and Raul Julia play cell mates , one gay , the other straight , rotting away in a Latin American prison under the iron thumb of a tyrannical dictatorship . At first , Julia's Latin machismo makes him repelled by Hurt's flamboyant femininity , but the two gradually bond , thrown together as they are , and discover a kind of love that transcends conventions about love and sex and that can probably only exist between two people surviving in extreme conditions . Hurt , already known as a strapping leading man at the time , took quite a risk playing this fey character , especially at a time when movies still weren't comfortable with mainstream portrayals of gays , but his risk payed off - - he won that year's Best Actor Academy Award and became just about the hottest actor in town for a few years there in the mid-80s . Julia has a much less showy role , but the success of the film is dependent upon the strength of both male leads , and he delivers . Sonia Braga plays the eponymous spider woman , a dream figure cobbled together by both men from their imaginations and memories of old movies . This film is a big downer , but if you enjoy well-acted , well-written stories , then the depressing ending is worth it . |
574,337 | 4,532,636 | 62,622 | 8 | The Best Movie I Never Want to See Again | I used to think " 2001 : A Space Odyssey " was a Great Movie , but now I'm not so sure . Now that I've seen it a few times , I feel like I've gotten all there is to be gotten from it , and the thought of sitting down to watch it again triggers my brain to begin thinking of all the other things I could be doing with my time . Is that the sign of a great movie ? Shouldn't we be able to revisit great movies again and again and find something fresh about them years after they initially hit the screens ? I don't know . Anyway , " 2001 " is at least a terrific movie and an important one . No science fiction film made since can deny the influence of this movie's vision of space . Many of the special effects look more realistic than the computer generated effects of today . And while I defy anyone to truly explain the meaning of this film with confidence ( I wonder if even Kubrick could have ) , it certainly makes you feel something , even if you're not sure what that something is . On the first viewing , the pacing of the film seemed stately and fitting for a film about drifting through the cold depths of space ; now it just seems ponderous . It's even more pronounced now how little the human actors register in this film , and how HAL ( which is just a voice , really ) steals the show . And when I was younger and more eager to accept the opinions of film scholars and other purported know-it-alls , I thought the ending was profound and full of meaning ; now it seems pretty obtuse and vague . But when it comes right down to it , Kubrick's worst movie is anyone else's masterpiece . His movies never feel comfortable with human emotions , so the fact that this movie could almost exist without humans at all comes as little surprise . His style has always been slow , but it comes as a welcome change from all the frenetic , hyper crap being produced now . And at least this movie makes you think , even if it doesn't provide any answers , which again is more than I can say for most of the movies playing in theatres this weekend . So I may not rate " 2001 " as highly as I once would have , but I fully support its place as one of the most audacious and significant films of all time . |
574,318 | 4,532,636 | 449,088 | 8 | YO , HO , HO and a Mixed Bag of Fun | Midway through the third installment of Walt Disney's deliriously popular pirate franchise , a character says of Capt . Jack Sparrow ( played by Johnnny Depp in what now has to qualify as one of the weirdest characterizations in screen history ) , " Is he making this up as he goes along ? " Shiver me timbers , mateys , but one has to ask director Gore Verbinski and his team of wranglers , er , writers , the same question of the entire series . I did not fall in love like so many others with the first film in the trilogy , " The Curse of the Black Pearl , " but I saw its appeal . It was far too long and sloppy , criticisms that have been leveled at parts two and three but which apply to the first movie as well . I can't even really remember the plot . It has something to do with Sparrow's beloved ship , the Black Pearl , being stolen from him by the rival pirate captain Barbossa ( the marvelous Geoffrey Rush , bringing some obligatory British class to the proceedings ) and his army of undead , and Sparrow's efforts , along with that most boring pair of screen lovers , Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom , to get it back . Depending on your perspective , that plot summary either wraps it up or barely scratches the surface , because " Pirates " is stuffed with more subplots than it can handle . Never has so much plot been shoe-horned into a movie ( or trilogy of movies ) and so much of it not mattered a bit . It turns out that Sparrow is actually undead himself , and some sort of curse need be broken if he is to regain his mortality . Well , it's not ruining anything to tell you that the curse is indeed broken , and loose ends are wrapped up while everything's left conveniently open for a sequel . That sequel , " Dead Man's Chest , " takes everything that is charming about the first episode and pushes it past the limits of the audience's endurance . What a gormless mess the second part is , all furious action and racing around with absolutely no attempt made at coherence . A tremendous amount of plot exposition occurs in this installment . Indeed , the whole film is really set up for part three , yet at the same time is paced as if the entire movie is one long climax . Our consolation is that Bill Nighy makes his first appearance as Davy Jones ( no , not the Monkey ) , looking like a serving of very angry calamari , and taking up the classy British slack that Rush left behind at the end of Part I . " Dead Man's Chest " makes no sense whatsoever , and it's not really even very fun . Even in a mindless action movie , one likes to have a vague idea of what all the fuss is about . So it pleases me to report that the third and ( maybe ? ) final entry , " At World's End , " gets more right than not , and provides a tremendous amount of fun . It doesn't even feel overly long , despite its run time of nearly three hours . The " Pirates " movies ' saving grace is the cast the filmmakers have assembled , and there are moments in this film , when the cast is all together at the same time , that rival " Star Wars " for sheer screen chemistry . Rush returns , so we get to enjoy both him and Nighy , and of course Johnny Depp is back , and returns to the inspired performance ( and surpasses the downright nuttiness ) that made the first installment so memorable . Chow-Yun Fat is this episode's most significant addition , but let's not dwell on him or the embarrassing Asian stereotype he hauls along behind him . There's a huge amount of jokey humour in this segment , perhaps the most in the series , which helps it succeed in becoming what one sensed it wanted to become all along - - a sort of Indiana Jones set on water . My prayers that the pre-pubescent Orlando Bloom would be killed off looked as if they might have a chance of being answered for a brief moment , until the writers cruelly resurrected him as a swarthy pirate captain and give him a dramatic entrance that gave me the biggest ( if most unintentional ) belly laugh of them all . Why is it that despite his swishing and mincing , Depp still gives the impression that he could kick Bloom's ass ? The " Pirates " trilogy will not go down as classics of the genre , but they'll be remembered for wedging themselves firmly in the consciousness of movie-going America . Grade : " Curse of the Black Pearl " : B " Dead Man's Chest " : " At World's End " : |
573,808 | 4,532,636 | 89,393 | 8 | More Obscure , But One of My Favorites | This is one of the lower-tier teen comedies from the 1980s , and it's not as well known as movies like " Sixteen Candles , " " Pretty in Pink " or other films about high-school angst , but it's one of my favorites . Terry Griffith , aspiring journalist , gets an early taste of sexism when an article she writes for an internship contest is passed over for an obviously inferior article written by boys , so she poses as Ralph Macchio and signs up at a rival high school , hoping to submit her article there and get it accepted . Things get complicated , as such things do , when she falls for a nerd who's actually kind of cool when you get to know him , and she becomes the target for the high school bully , played by William Zabka , who created a cottage industry out of playing the blonde jock high school bully in teen movies from the 80s , and who coincidentally also tormented Ralph Macchio in " The Karate Kid . " Terry doesn't know much about being a boy , but never fear - - her little brother , who names his penis Spike , does , and he teaches her all the basics , like how to scratch her balls . |
573,870 | 4,532,636 | 274,812 | 8 | I'd Like That Coffee with a Spanking , Please | Secretary is a deliciously off-beat dramedy about an emotionally disturbed young girl ( Maggie Gyllenhaal ) who gets a job as a you know what for an attorney with his own set of personal problems ( James Spader ) . Soon , she's doing more than typing for him , and he's helping her come out of her reclusive shell . This film on paper sounds almost exactly like " The Piano . " A young woman is given the choice between a conventional relationship and one that superficially might seem perverse , and opts for the perverse one . In both films , what no-one in the heroine's sphere understands is that the man she's involved with is appealing because he's the only one who seems to understand what she needs . " Secretary " is not as sombre as " The Piano , " however , though it's not as rowdy as the premise might lead you to believe . It's actually a quite substantive film and only occasionally did I think it faltered somewhat in telling its story ( particularly toward the end , when Lee embarks upon her hunger strike ) . Ironically , in offering herself up for submissive humiliation from her boss , Lee finds the strength she needs to face her own demons and forges a confidence she's never before had . Gyllenhall is spectacular , and gives one of those performances that should put her on the map as a serious actress , if anyone is paying attention . Spader is pretty good too , but he's upstaged by Gyllenhaal , who owns this movie . |
573,840 | 4,532,636 | 468,492 | 8 | A Mutant Movie About a Mutant Fish | The monster movie is reborn in this quick , witty and endlessly creative Korean film . An opening scene showing a worker in some military lab dumping bottle after bottle of old formaldehyde down the sink sets the stage for a mutant to come slithering out of the watery depths of Korea's main river , and it does just that , looking like a big angry fish with legs . In a dazzling action scene , it wreaks havoc on pleasure seekers strolling about the waterside , and takes with it a young girl whose family spends the rest of the film looking for her . The movie is as much about the coming together of this likable clan as it is the monster , and it's peppered with unexpected moments of comedy ( some of it downright slapstick ) , so that the whole thing feels like a hybrid of horror movie , family drama and Keystone Kops . In this way , the movie itself is a bit of a mutant . As any self-respecting monster movie should , this film feeds off of current event hot topics - - like pollution and viral pandemics - - to fuel its atmosphere of paranoia and panic ( shots of Korean commuters walking the streets with surgical masks over their faces recall news images of Asia's SARS scare ) . There's also some quite pointed and very harsh jabs taken at America and its reputation as a country that pushes its way into other countries only to make things worse than they were before . It sickens me that other countries think of us this way , even if I can't blame them . I liked this movie's score too ( it sounds like something out of an Italian mafia family movie ) which again is completely incongruous with the film's other elements but yet somehow works . |
573,701 | 4,532,636 | 923,600 | 8 | There's More Than One Use for a Shopping Bag | In " Baghead , " Matt , Chad , Katherine and Michelle are four Hollywood wannabes who go to a secluded cabin to write a screenplay . They get pretty much no work done , but spend plenty of time over petty practical jokes and obsessions with who likes who and who's screwing who . Things get weird when a strange figure wearing a bag over his head begins appearing in the woods , freaking all of them out to a progressively greater degree . " Baghead " is one of those reflexive films about the process of making films . It blurs the line between reality and fiction , and whether intentional or not , it questions whether or not the democratization of film-making is good for the art form . Any four yahoos with a portable camera can now make a movie , but just because a movie is cheap and made outside of the Hollywood system does not make it automatically better . At the film's beginning , the four attend a screening of an underground film made for under $1 , 000 by a director they obviously worship , and I was never sure whether " Baghead " itself was an attempt at creating the kind of low-budget quality film the characters in it admire or whether it was poking fun at the whole idea . Maybe it's both . Whatever its intentions , I liked the film , and especially liked where it went in its final moments , when these four rather boring people we've spent over an hour with become actual characters who we discover we actually care about . |
573,300 | 4,532,636 | 470,705 | 8 | Sadly , a Movie That's Truly for Our Troubled Times | Bug is so strange and so rooted in stage origins that it could have gone very wrong as a movie , but it doesn't . While not without its flaws ( like a too abrupt ending ) , director William Friedkin and the small cast he assembled ensure that the movie works , and its enigmatic nature supplies an almost never-ending source of conversation to those who see it . As the movie started , I was worried that Ashley Judd was miscast as a poor white woman stagnating in a flea-bitten hotel in the middle of nowhere , Oklahoma . But she put my fears to rest . She gives a convincing , and by the end absolutely terrifying , performance as a woman who descends into a world of madness and paranoia . The man who drags her down with him is played by Michael Shannon , and he does astonishing work as well . These two hole themselves up in their hotel room , convinced that the government has used them as hosts for an experiment involving mind-controlling bugs , and the more delusional they get , the more they feed off of one another's paranoia until they've constructed a conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories . The movie is gruesome at times ( a scene involving a tooth pulling made me turn my face away ) , but it's full of thought provoking ideas and good writing , so the shock moments don't overwhelm the film's merits . It's clearly a response to the world's post - climate of fear and anxiety , where germs and chemicals have become weapons in a faceless war , and where the media is so pervasive that thoughts worm their way into your heads whether you want them to or not . One of the most interesting aspects of the film to me was the fact that these two lost souls create conspiracy theories to account for all of the things that are wrong in their respective lives and over which they feel like they have no control . If they create their own reality , they have power over it . Harry Connick , Jr . has a supporting role as Judd's thug of an ex-husband . Again , I thought he would be miscast and that I wouldn't be able to take him seriously , but he pulls it off . And stage actor Brian F . O'Byrne appears for one brief but memorable scene , and meets a grisly end . I bet this scene is one that provokes the most discussion . Based on the film's indifferent reception upon release , I wasn't expecting to like it nearly as much as I did . |
573,330 | 4,532,636 | 43,338 | 8 | Billy Wilder Stages a Circus | A very good and very cynical indictment of the media's thirst for a good story that nevertheless still left me wanting a little more . Perhaps it's just the fact that so many films between the time of this film's release and now have trodden the same ground that " Ace in the Hole " has a been-there-done-that quality to it . No doubt it was strong stuff in 1951 , but the points this film makes you've seen made a hundred times by now . Kirk Douglas is the down on his luck journalist who orchestrates a media frenzy around a man trapped in a mine . He gives a typically hammy performance - - perhaps I would have thought the film had more punch if someone else had been cast in the lead . It falls to Jan Sterling to give the film's most memorable performance as the wife of the trapped man . Cold-hearted doesn't even begin to describe her character , a classic femme fatale transplanted directly from a 1940s noir . Whatever faults one may be able to find with the film , one has to admit that director Billy Wilder deserves credit for managing the sheer size of the production , which earns its original release title , " The Big Carnival . " |
574,413 | 4,532,636 | 98,206 | 8 | A Polar Bear Fell on Me | Meet Dalton , bad-ass bouncer in a redneck joint . He's got a past he's running away from , when he's not busy practicing Tai Chi in his back yard , humping women up against fireplaces and strutting around in pleated pants . And in case you think Dalton is too little to be a good bouncer , just wait until you see him rip a guy's throat out with his bare hand . " Road House " is everything a bad movie should be , and it's a hell of a lot more entertaining than a lot of legitimately " good " films . As I'm writing this comment , we're heading toward the 2008 Academy Awards , and if I had a choice between watching this movie again or any of this year's Best Picture nominees , which one do you think I'd pick ? " Road House " gets so progressively bizarre that it almost becomes good . Well , o . k . not good , maybe , but definitely fascinating . You can't tear your eyes away from the screen for fear you'll miss something classic . Do yourself a favor and don't watch the special feature on the DVD that shows Patrick Swayze and other cast members talking about the film . It's too obvious that even they thought it was over the top and a bit embarrassing , which harms its good bad movie vibe . It's no fun to watch a bad movie when the people in it KNOW it's a bad movie . I would , however , recommend watching the special feature called " What Would Dalton Do ? " , in which a bunch of real-life bouncers talk about the character like he's a real person who they idolize . Did they not realize that Patrick Swayze was an actor and that " Road House " was not a documentary ? |
574,504 | 4,532,636 | 74,486 | 8 | David Lynch's Bizarre Nightmare of Fatherhood | This phantasmagorical David Lynch film is nearly suffocating in its ability to immerse its audience in a domestic nightmare . It's a fascinating film , but not one I can say I necessarily enjoyed watching . All of Lynch's fever dream movies are open to interpretation , so I can only say what I took from this film personally . To me it was entirely about the fear of responsibility and the potential stagnation that comes with domestic married life and fatherhood . The baby in this film is literally a creature from another planet ; it's threatening not because it's evil or menacing itself but rather because it has needs and wants that it has no clear way of communicating and which its father doesn't entirely comprehend . The film manages to capture in images and sounds the kind of abstract thoughts and fears that lead men into mid-life crises . It's a difficult film to summarize or even describe , other than to say that it lingers in the brain and is amazingly unsettling to watch . |
574,277 | 4,532,636 | 995,039 | 8 | Ricky Gervais Sees Dead People | A strong formula comedy that gets an extra jolt of originality from an improvisatory performance by Ricky Gervais . Gervais plays a Manhattan dentist with an over-sensitive gag reflex who hates people . When he accidentally dies for seven minutes during a routine medical procedure , he finds upon waking that he can see and converse with dead people , who want his help in finishing up unresolved business . One of these , a smarmy , cheating husband ( played by Greg Kinnear ) wants him to help prevent his widow ( Tea Leoni ) from marrying a guy he doesn't like . Guess what . . . Gervais falls in love with her himself . There's a lot of standard obligatory plot in " Ghost Town " that's specific to the genre : we have to sit through the requisite scenes of Gervais thinking he's going crazy because he can see dead people ; he and Leoni have a falling out when she thinks he's tricking her just to get close to her , etc . But the acting is so good , especially from Gervais and Leoni , who absolutely lights up the screen whenever she's on it , that it's easy to forget we've seen much of this before . One of my favorite parts of the film was the brief but hilarious performance of Kristen Wiig , who plays Gervais's doctor . You may remember her as Kathryn Heigle's passive-aggressive colleague in " Knocked Up , " and though she always does the same schtick , she makes me laugh every time . |
573,477 | 4,532,636 | 126,886 | 8 | Flick for President ? | The Academy Award attention heaped on " Sideways " helped to make Alexander Payne a mainstream name among casual film goers , but many of us knew about his talent as a film maker long before . And his two more recent films - - " Sideways " and " About Schmidt " - - have been much gentler ( thought still terrific ) than his earlier efforts . Before " Election , " Payne had already made " Citizen Ruth , " a caustic , bracing satire of the abortion issue , and " Election " continued his penchant for harsh , uncomfortable comedy . I mean that in a good way , though . Payne's movies are funny , but they make you uneasy for laughing at them , and they have sharp , intelligent insights into the attitudes that drive American values . In " Election , " Payne uses a high school class presidential election as an opportunity to lampoon everything that's goofy about the American political system . Just as in our national elections for president , the winner is not necessarily the person with the most integrity , and honesty is a liability , not a virtue . The person who is willing to play dirtiest comes out on top , and elections aren't about who is most qualified but rather about who is most popular . And , the best part about the movie is its acknowledgement of voter apathy . Most Americans don't really give a damn , something that makes them not so different from the majority of high schoolers who don't even understand the point of having a class president to begin with . In fact , in the film's best scene , the assembly at which each candidate gives her / his campaign speech , one of the candidates ( who joins the race out of spite ) gets the best reception from the crowd when she encourages everyone not to vote at all . Reese Witherspoon gives a wonderful performance as Tracy Flick , the school's most likely to succeed , whose goodie-goodie exterior hides the fact that she's willing to do just about anything to get ahead . Matthew Broderick is refreshingly unlikable as a social studies teacher who would like to see Tracy fail just once , until the fact that his own life is falling apart turns this wish into an obsession . And Chris Klein has some fun as the dopey , Jesus-following popular guy who becomes Tracy's arch rival , but never really even knows it . Payne doesn't tidy up his film's moral messages . On the one hand , Tracy is obnoxious , and we want to see her fail as much as Broderick's character does . But she does know how to play the game , and isn't that part of what makes someone a good leader ? We sympathize with Broderick up to a point , but his motives really are driven by a personal vendetta , not by any altruistic ideal of right vs . wrong . So if you normally need someone to root for in order to enjoy a movie , you're probably not going to like this one . But who expects a hero ? . . . I mean , come on , we're talking about American politics here . |
573,613 | 4,532,636 | 98,724 | 8 | Early Soderbergh Movie Anticipated the Indie Boom of the 90s | Steven Soderbergh has turned into one of the most schizophrenic directors alive , able to follow up gritty films like " Traffic " with glossy and frivolous Hollywood fare like the " Ocean's Eleven " series . " Sex , Lies and Videotape " is one of his early efforts before anyone really knew who he was , and it's an excellent character study with erotic thriller overtones . It features second-tier stars giving great performances , and it's got that indie vibe that began to take hold late in the 1980s and would evolve into the full-fledged indie movement of the 90s . |
574,190 | 4,532,636 | 64,665 | 8 | Ride ' Em , Cowboy | Oy vay . " Midnight Cowboy " is a serious contender in my book for most depressing film ever made . Every once in a while , there's a film that makes me wish I could go back and experience it the way audiences at the time of its release experienced it , and this movie is one of them . I'd venture to guess that American mainstream audiences had seen nothing quite like this at the time , and even now , though there have been hundreds of films since that are more violent , more realistic , more daring in subject matter , it's hard to shake off the grimy grittiness of this sad , sad story . Jon Voight of course plays Joe Buck , young Texan stud who dreams of going to the Big Apple and making his fortune as a hustler to beautiful , rich women . Voight walks a tight rope playing this pathetic and self-delusional character , and gives a tremendous performance . He quickly realizes that the cowboy routine is looked on as a joke in NYC , that he's nowhere near tough enough to make it in this hell-hole of a city , and that it's not beautiful rich women who are likely to pay for his services . He befriends the sickly Ratso Rizzo , played iconically by Dustin Hoffman , and the two of them strike up the kind of friendship that can only develop between two people who are such lonely losers that no one else will have them . This movie isn't remotely entertaining . It's relentlessly grim , depicting a version of New York City that looks nothing like the city today , filled with degenerates and dregs , sleazy sex , drugs and perverts . Director John Schlesinger can't control himself and uses all manner of trendy 60s cinematic devices , including crazy zooms , shock editing , abrupt changes from color to black and white , sped up action . All of this likely seemed cutting edge at the time , and enhanced the feeling for audiences that they were seeing something unique , but now it all makes the film look terribly dated , much more so than other films released at the same time . But it's worth sitting through , because of its marvelous acting , and its rich thematic structure . Schlesinger addresses a lot of issues in this film : the idea of masculinity ; the different kinds of love possible between two men ; the barriers between country and city ; urban loneliness and isolation . In its own way , " Midnight Cowboy " even contributes its own voice to the " death of the western hero " theme that was so prevalent in other films from 1969 , like " Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid " and " The Wild Bunch . " Joe Buck , a cowboy modeled on the masculine ideals he picks up at drive-in movies , finds that what works in the world of myth doesn't work in the cruel , harsh realities of America's urban jungles . Some feminine sensibilities are provided by Sylvia Miles , in a brief but memorable appearance as Joe Buck's first conquest , a strung out society lady who hustles the hustler ; and Brenda Vacarro , as a party-going druggie , who makes Joe go limp ( if you know what I mean ) . A very young Bob Balaban also appears as a creepy young man who picks Joe up at a movie theatre and orally services him during the show . I wonder how he's billed in the closing cast credits . A must-see for anyone seriously interested in film history , but you're forgiven if you only want to see it once . |
573,814 | 4,532,636 | 89,560 | 8 | Even the Most Jaded Movie Goer Has to Choke Up at This One | Ugh , what a gut-wrenching movie this is . Peter Bogdanovich avoids the maudlin histrionics that could have marred this story about a young man suffering from a fatal disease that leaves him horribly deformed . Eric Stoltz is remarkable as the young man , Rocky Dennis , and it's entirely thanks to him , and to his charm as an actor , that we fall in love with Rocky and are heart-broken to see him die at the end . Cher is equally as good as his mom , who sees nothing ugly in her son and feels nothing but ferocious love for him . I will always remember a wonderful scene in this movie , in which Rocky is trying to explain colors to a blind girl ( played by a lovely and young Laura Dern ) and does so by giving her items to touch - - a hot potato for red , cotton for white , ice for blue . |
573,389 | 4,532,636 | 104,454 | 8 | Respectful to Forster's Book But Not Inspired as a Film | Merchant / Ivory give E . M . Forster's novel the Masterpiece Theatre treatment , and the result is an accomplished and beautiful-looking film , if one that misses out on the psychological complexity of Forster's novel . Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter play two Bohemian sisters who find themselves embroiled in the affairs of an aristocratic and business-oriented family and its estate when the family matriarch ( played imperiously by Vanessa Redgrave ) dies . You can feel the movie hitting all of the novel's high points , and it's never less than tasteful and respectful to Forster , but the whole thing feels more dutiful than inspired . Also with Anthony Hopkins , fresh off his Oscar win the year before for " The Silence of the Lambs . " |
574,046 | 4,532,636 | 104,466 | 8 | Husbands and Wives and Foxes and Hedgehogs | When I was much younger and pretentious and just discovering Woody Allen movies , I thought the world of elite intellectuals in which his movies are so often set looked appealing and exciting , and I liked to think of myself as belonging to it some day . Now that I'm much older and have more life experience under my belt , I watch a movie like " Husbands and Wives " and thank God that I don't know any people like the characters in it . " Husbands and Wives " is a very accomplished film , but it came awfully close at times to making me utterly frustrated . It's about a bunch of privileged intellectuals with far too much time on their hands , which they spend dithering about philosophical and emotional conundrums that are boring to everyone but themselves . The saving grace of the film is the fact that Allen seems to be somewhat bored with them too , and suggests that the way to ensure you won't have a fulfilling or satisfying relationship is to analyze and worry it to death . The film is full of some of the most unlikable characters Allen has ever created , notably Sydney Pollack's total ass of an adulterer and Mia Farrow's frumpy drip of a wife . The standout in the cast is Judy Davis , who plays Pollack's estranged wife with a brilliant combination of broad comedy and pathos . She's hilariously believable as a woman who struggles to convey a confidence she doesn't feel , and one of the film's highlights is a scene in which she mentally begins labeling everyone she knows as either a fox or a hedgehog while in the middle of having sex with Liam Neeson . The film also has a part for Allen himself , as a literature professor and writer who flirts with the idea of starting up with one of his students , played by Juliette Lewis . Allen chose to shoot the film as if it were a documentary , with lots of hand-held camera-work and confessional monologues delivered directly at the viewer . I understand why he did it , but it still feels unnecessary and hurts more than it helps . |
573,528 | 4,532,636 | 87,332 | 8 | Sigourney Weaver Fed My Childhood Fantasies | A special effects comedy extravaganza brought to you largely by members of " Saturday Night Live . " There are two things I remember most about this movie . One of them is Sigourney Weaver , who's smoking hot and is a far cry from the butch role she played in " Alien " and for which at the time she was probably most well known . The other is Rick Moranis , who is hysterical as a possessed geek and runs around stealing the movie right out from everyone else in it . Bill Murray is his droll self , the special effects hold up well even now , and how can you not like that theme song ? |
574,184 | 4,532,636 | 43,265 | 8 | Bogart and Hepburn ? An Unlikely Jungle Romance | Who would have thought that Humphrey Bogart , known for playing brooding tough guys ; Katharine Hepburn , known for playing strong-willed and ever-so-distant females ; and John Huston , a man's man director , could put together such a light-hearted , screwball comedy ? But that's exactly what happens with " The African Queen . " Bogart stepped way out of his usual screen persona to play this comical , grizzled character ; Hepburn launched the phase of her career that would find her playing uptight spinsters . I never would have thought they'd have any chemistry together , let alone produce even the palest of sexual sparks , but they're as natural a screen pair as either of them was separately with their respective frequent film partners . This adventure romance finds Hepburn's straight-laced missionary and Bogart's unkempt river-boat captain winding their way through the African wilderness . They do all the things you would expect them to do in a movie like this , but what they do best is bicker , down to the very last scene , where their bickering continues even as they are rescued and the final credits roll . According to film annals , Huston hadn't set out to make a comedy , but when he realized how much chemistry his two stars had , he changed gears and made a different movie than was originally intended . Thank God for that - - I'm not a big fan of Huston or his heavy-handed touch as a director , so I'm glad Bogart and Hepburn forced him to lighten up . |
573,366 | 4,532,636 | 373,469 | 8 | A Great Vehicle for Robert Downey , Jr . | Robert Downey , Jr . gives a loose , hip and extremely likable performance in this loose , hip and extremely likable comedy thriller . Downey , Jr . may not be able to manage his personal life worth a damn , but he does manage to show unerring instincts in picking good movies , and he's frequently one of the best things about whatever movie he happens to be in . In " Kiss Kiss Bang Bang " he plays Harry , a petty thief who ends up in L . A . on a fluke auditioning for a part as a private detective in a movie . Fiction begins to blur into reality when he gets caught up in a murder plot and must do some real-life detective work of his own with the help of Gay Perry , a Hollywood agent and odd-jobber ( Val Kilmer ) and his childhood friend , Harmony ( Michelle Monaghan ) , who he meets up with by chance . The plot is fast and twisted ; we frequently can see no further ahead than the characters and so share the same emotions they do when the next development comes along . The writers of this film have fashioned a quick-witted screenplay full of throw-away zingers and outrageous scenarios that they , along with the actors and direction , help to make work . Keep a sharp eye while watching this film ; tiny little details of plot or even of the production design recur later , sometimes in important ways , sometimes as no more than inside jokes . And even that most dreaded of film conventions , the voice over narration , that usually makes me cringe , works very well here , mostly due to Downey , Jr . ' s hilarious delivery of it . So . . . . a fast-paced , funny and off-beat film with don't-sweat-it performances and a solid script . You could do much worse . . . . . |
574,475 | 4,532,636 | 22,286 | 8 | Cagney Commands the Streets of Chicago | Take him or leave him , one can't deny the tremendous screen presence of James Cagney . " The Public Enemy , " which launched Cagney into the Hollywood big time , doesn't so much tell one cohesive story as much as it offers a series of vignettes linked by Cagney's sheer star power . Cagney is Tom Powers , childhood hoodlum who grows up to become an adult hoodlum and meets his end as part of a bloody gang war in 1920 Chicago . The film is positioned as part morality tale , part public service message . A title card at the film's opening announces that the filmmakers in no way mean to glamorize the gangster life , while one placed at the end announces a call to action on the part of the American public to bring an end to the seedy underworld portrayed in the movie . And to the film's credit , despite stylish direction by William Wellman and an intensely charismatic performance from Cagney , it sticks to its promise . The film has an invigorating energy , but it never once glamorizes Cagney or his lifestyle . There are a number of truly memorable moments in this film . Of course the famous grapefruit scene has gone down in film annals as one of them , but I was most struck by the film's shocking finale , in which the body of Cagney is dropped off at the front door of his home while his mother happily changes the sheets of his bed upstairs , thinking that " coming home " means that her son is coming home alive . Another dazzling segment is the one in which Cagney seeks revenge on the gang that killed his best friend . We see him staking out the pool hall where they have gathered , with a truly frightening and psychotic expression on his face . Then he walks through the rain directly toward the camera until his face fills the frame . After he enters the pool hall , we hear shots and a man screaming while the camera stays focused on the exterior of the building . Cagney then emerges , wounded and staggering through the rain . The whole segment feels much more violent than it actually is , because of the effective use of camera and sound ( which was in its infancy , but which Wellman uses superbly ) . Most of the other actors come off poorly next to Cagney , because his style of acting was so different from the conventions of the time . Donald Cook , playing Cagney's war-hero brother , overacts to the hilt , with one foot firmly planted in silent films . A couple of females are thrown in as eye candy , but absolutely no attempt is made to develop their characters . Joan Blondell is cute and sexy , but Jean Harlow is dreadful . How this ugly , clunking , horrible actress ever achieved stardom is beyond me . And as frequently happens with pre-Code cinema , I was taken aback by material that you never think of appearing in films from this time period . It makes overt fun of gays and Jews , frankly addresses sex , and , most strikingly , makes a parallel between gangsters and soldiers , claiming that both murder but for different reasons . Ten years later a comment like that would NEVER appear in a Hollywood film , and movies wouldn't be comfortable criticizing war again until the 1970s . " The Public Enemy " is rough around the edges . You can still feel the various artists involved trying to feel their way around the new era of motion pictures , and as a result , parts of the film are uneven . But it's a striking and remarkable movie that , despite limitations placed on it by the time period and the technology available , packs a gangster-sized punch . |
573,497 | 4,532,636 | 758,784 | 8 | The Film May Be Gloomy , But It's Not Depressing | Movies about literary people too often sound like books rather than movies . The way characters talk doesn't jive with the way people actually sound in real life . Dialogue sounds scripted , phrases and speeches are too well put together . This is a trap " Starting Out in the Evening " doesn't avoid , but it's easy to overlook that minor flaw , as the rest of the film is intelligent and thoughtful . The main reason to watch is Frank Langella , playing Leonard Schiller , an aging novelist who the world has forgotten and who is tempted to hope that his name might be revived by an idolatrous grad student who wants to do her thesis on his work . The grad student ( Lauren Ambrose ) is pushy and rather unlikable , but it makes sense that Leonard would take to her , as only someone as pushy as she could break through his reclusive facade . The relationship these two embark upon is complicated to say the least , and both actors navigate the tricky terrain well . A subplot involves Leonard's daughter ( played by Lili Taylor , who it was a pleasure to see again ) and her rekindled relationship with a man of whom Leonard does not approve ( Adrian Lester ) . " Starting Out in the Evening " is one of those ultra-sombre movies that takes place in the dead of winter , when everything is cold and dead , and in which the predominant color scheme is brown and gray . But the cast brings enough vitality to the film , and the screenplay is unpredictable enough , that the end product is engaging rather than depressing . |
573,347 | 4,532,636 | 53,172 | 8 | The First ( and Best ) Doris Day Sex Comedy | With " Pillow Talk , " Doris Day established a mini-genre of her own that would last well into the 1960s , the wholesome sex comedy . These films offered healthy doses of man-and-woman lust but couched them in bubble gum colored sets and silly complicated sitcom plots that made them palatable to the suburban housewife audience . Still , Doris Day deserves kudos for creating a new kind of 50s heroine , one that looked like the dutiful cookie cutter housewife but had a mind of her own and a saucy tongue to go with it . Her strong-willed independence threatened the uber-masculine appeal of her leading men ( Rock Hudson , Cary Grant ) , but did it in such a comical , likable way that audiences loved her rather than hated her for it . " Pillow Talk " is funny and mindless , not a bad combination if you're in the mood for it . |
573,511 | 4,532,636 | 39,536 | 8 | Widmark Giggles His Way Through a Crime Thriller Classic | Victor Mature plays a hood who's picked up in an attempted jewelry heist and decides to play ball with the police by becoming an informant . Richard Widmark , in a famous performance as a giggling psychopath , is one of the crooks Mature rats out , and it's up to him to figure out how to get Widmark out of the picture before he comes after his wife and kids . Director Henry Hathaway gives this no-nonsense docu-crime-thriller a gritty and authentic look ( a title card at the opening claims that the film was shot entirely on actual locations ) and uses virtually no musical score to complement the action . I thought the pacing was a bit sluggish at times , but Widmark alone makes the film worth watching , and overall it's a great addition to the hard-boiled films that were so prevalent in the years immediately following World War II . Brian Donlevy has a supporting role as a district attorney , and if you blink you may miss a young Karl Malden as a detective . |
573,691 | 4,532,636 | 17,925 | 8 | A Buster Keaton Classic | This delightful Buster Keaton comedy is probably his best known film . In " The General , " Keaton plays Johnnie Gray , engineer on the train that gives the film its name . Johnnie , as one of the title cards explains , has two loves : his train and his girl . When the Civil War comes to Marietta , GA , Johnnie does everything he can to be first in line to enlist . But when he's refused by the recruiters ( they think he's more valuable to the Confederacy as a train engineer than as a soldier , but don't tell him that ) , he falls into disgrace with his true love and her family . Then his beloved train is stolen by a bunch of Yankees , and he's off to rescue her , rescuing his other love in the process and redeeming himself in the eyes of her and her father . What impresses most about " The General " now is the sheer size and scope of the film . 80 % of the movie takes place on a moving train , and we're talking a real-life moving train here , not a model or set . The stunts Keaton plans for himself are life threatening , and it's thrilling to watch him pull them off with effortless and acrobatic aplomb . |
574,114 | 4,532,636 | 367,089 | 8 | Moral of the Story : Divorce Is Tough | A friend of mine was hesitant to see this movie , because she'd heard that it pushes the agenda that divorce is never a good option for dealing with marital problems . I don't really know who told her this , and I hope this same reason isn't keeping others from seeing it . This isn't at all what I took away from the film . It certainly communicates the idea that divorce isn't easy , on either the parents or the kids , but I don't feel that it pronounces judgement on those who turn to it as an option . " The Squid and the Whale " is a sad - - though at times very funny - - look at what divorce does to one family in 1986 New York . Jeff Daniels plays the dad , a pompous , arrogant writer whose feelings of commercial failure ( he teaches literature at a university ) cause him to act intellectually superior to everyone he meets . Daniels is almost too good in this role ; he reminded me way too much of people I actually know who are like this . He's the kind of guy who would be deadly at a dinner party , because there's no such thing as a casual or flippant remark in this guy's presence . He analyzes everything to death , and isn't content until everyone's opinion matches his own . Laura Linney plays the wayward mom , blamed for the break up of the marriage by the dad because of a string of affairs she carries on . Her guilt keeps her from being able to discipline her sons , especially the oldest , who treats her horribly . Linney's role is smaller but in some ways much more complex than Daniels ' . Her character has to take responsibility for her infidelity but still make the audience sympathize with her . Caught in the middle of this mess are their two boys . The oldest quickly allies himself with his dad , and walks around regurgitating his father's opinions on every subject , rarely pausing to form any of his own . The younger son , more sensitive and tired of being intellectually brow beaten by his father and older brother , sticks closer to the mom . No one is totally to blame , yet no one is completely innocent either in this honest and frank film . Noah Baumbach has made no secret of the fact that it is based on his own adolescent life , and it has that confessional feeling that movies in this genre frequently do . There are awkward moments when this doesn't totally work . The ending for one is rather ham-fisted , and a scene between the oldest son and his school therapist seemed awfully pat to me . But the acting and the sharp writing make up for these weaknesses , and the movie manages to be poignant without ever becoming maudlin or overly sentimental . See it for the performances of Linney and especially Daniels , who has been proving his versatility as an actor over the last few years . |
574,093 | 4,532,636 | 1,068,649 | 8 | Kristin Scott Thomas Gives One of the Must-See Performances of 2008 | As I catch up on the movies released in 2008 that did NOT receive Academy Award nominations , I find myself more and more convinced that the Academy seriously botched things this year . How in the world did the Academy NOT nominate Kristin Scott Thomas for her riveting and heart-breaking performance in " I've Loved You So Long . " Thomas plays Juliette , a woman who's been released from 15 years of prison after killing her own son . She's taken in by her sister , who was a teenager when the two last saw each other . Now the two have to start virtually from scratch , as strangers with a common past . Juliette is withdrawn and lifeless , at first justifying the label of cold , merciless child killer that the world wants to pin on her . But as the movie progresses , we see life return to her , and we learn the reason that led her to do what she did . That reason is revealed in the last moments of the film , but what impressed me about the movie , and about Thomas's performance , is that I almost no longer cared why she had done what she did by the time I found out . I still wanted to know out of curiosity , but I don't know that it would have changed my opinion of the character . She was clearly a warm , kind person with the capacity for great love . She clearly was struggling with demons she didn't want anybody to see . Thomas does an amazing thing - - she makes us care deeply for a woman who doesn't ask for or want our sympathy , and this despite the fact that we know she did something most of us , without knowing the circumstances behind the act , would count as unforgivable . Just watch Thomas's face when she visits her ill mother for the first time since going to prison , a woman withering away with dementia in a nursing home , or her face when her sister's family and new-found friends surprise her with a birthday party , and tell me that Angelina Jolie deserved a best actress nomination instead . |
573,723 | 4,532,636 | 22,208 | 8 | Stanwyck Takes Care of Business | A tawdry and downright disturbing pre-code film that stars Barbara Stanwyck giving one hell of a ferocious performance . Stanwyck plays the titular night nurse , assigned to care for the two small children of a negligent and drunken floozy . The children's ' father is dead ; the family chauffeur , played by a hateful Clark Gable , is running things , and he wants the children to die so that he can collect the trust money that was intended for them . Therefore , the children are wasting away from starvation while a useless maid dithers around and Stanwyck tries to get the hospital to intervene . The film would probably be instantly forgettable if not for the fierce performance of Stanwyck , who throws herself ( quite literally ) into the role of savior , taking punches , getting thrown into a wall , all while dishing out some punches of her own . This is film-making of the sensational Warners variety , featuring lots of suggestive dialogue , shots of Stanwyck and her nurse buddy , the saucy Joan Blondell , in their underwear , and a world in which things like murder are o . k . as long as they're done for the right reason . The movie is certainly no masterpiece , but it does have that energy and sizzle that characterized Warners films from this time period , and it is effective on its own modest terms . |
574,221 | 4,532,636 | 942,385 | 8 | Funniest Movie of 2008 ? | I always find movies and actors that are willing to lampoon themselves and their own business to be a breath of fresh air , and " Tropic Thunder " is nothing but Hollywood lampooning itself . If you've found this comment , you likely already know what this movie is about , so there's no need for a summary from me . I'll just say that I thought it was very funny , and proof that Hollywood is capable of making a comedy that can be enjoyed by adults . The principal male cast gels wonderfully , even if Robert Downey Jr . completely steals the show as a dude dressed up as a dude playing another dude , with even the big name actors in cameos ( I'm talking to you , Tom Cruise ) doing their material justice . If Hollywood is going to insist on making disposable formula films , at least it's a comfort to know that IT knows that it's making disposable formula films . Nothing would be more depressing than to think that Hollywood is giving us movies like the one being made fun of in " Tropic Thunder " in all seriousness . |
574,134 | 4,532,636 | 57,163 | 8 | Angst in the Heartland | I don't know why anyone would want to live in Texas after the big-screen depictions of it as a place full of nothing but boredom and misery . Surely it can't be that bad . Well , " Hud " certainly makes it seem like it is . This bleak and depressing story shows Hud ( Paul Newman ) , only surviving son of a farm owner ( Melvyn Douglas ) who has found him to be nothing but a disappointment , selfishly whiling away the hours in Nowheresville , Texas . Newman portrays Hud as almost ridiculously virile and full of annoying machismo . His character doesn't know how to interact with anyone on a genuine level , so he instead uses aggression ( physical , verbal , and sexual ) as his only means of communication . It's a great performance by Newman , but the character as written isn't fully fleshed out , and it's hard to ever feel anything but dislike for Hud . Also great in the film is Patricia Neal , who dubiously won the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance as the live-in housekeeper who finds Hud obnoxious and alluring at the same time . Her performance is obviously a supporting one and should in no way be considered a lead ( though she really is the only female character in the movie ) , but she's great in it , and I only wish she was in the film more . Rounding out the cast of characters is Hud's nephew , son of his dead brother , played by Brandon de Wilde ( of " Shane " fame ) , who's also very good . Every actor has a natural style of delivery that makes this film seem so much more contemporary than other ' 63 releases . " Hud " is an incredibly sombre film . Don't go into this expecting to be cheered . Characters continuously reach out for human contact and repeatedly find none . But it's a very solid film , if a bit heavy-handed at times , and the acting is by far its greatest asset . |
573,524 | 4,532,636 | 29,864 | 8 | Whether He's Sane or Insane , Edward G . Robinson Is Terrific | What a fun movie ! Edward G . Robinson plays a respected doctor who decides that the only way to truly understand criminal behavior for an academic study he is writing is to become a criminal himself . He joins a thieving ring run by Jo Keller ( Claire Trevor , looking hotsy-totsy ) and proceeds to both help the thieves with their crimes while at the same time studying them for the biological and psychological effects of their actions . Trouble arises when Jo's right-hand man , played by Humphrey Bogart , begins to feel like a third wheel , and blackmails Robinson when he discovers his true identity . This film is a real treat . It's funny , creepy and suspenseful , all at the same time . Robinson begins to enjoy being a criminal , and his detached approach to crime makes him capable of committing murder without a second thought . Is he sane or insane ? That's the question a jury must answer at the film's climax , and one the viewer still won't be able to answer after the movie's over . Robinson , Trevor and Bogart have enough chemistry together to start a fire , and the three of them would team up again 10 years later for another terrific film , John Huston's " Key Largo . " Anatole Litvak provides the fluid direction . |
573,505 | 4,532,636 | 102,713 | 8 | You've Got to Hand It to Babs | Well-done soap opera with Southern Gothic undertones . Nick Nolte gives a marvelous performance - - the first one to establish him as a serious actor - - as a man in therapy because of a horrible and horrifying event that happened to his family when he was a boy . Barbra Streisand , who also directed , plays the therapist , and delivers a solid performance of her own . People seem to want to dislike Streisand , but you've got to admit that the woman has talent , both in front of and behind the camera . I haven't seen this film since it was originally released , so maybe I would find that it doesn't hold up well . But as it stands now , I remember it as being very good and very moving . There was a big broo-ha at the time that the film received a whole bunch of Academy Award nominations , including one for Best Picture , but not one for Streisand herself as director or actress , the result being that the Hollywood community accused the Academy of being sexist . Big surprise Hollywood ! Nolte did receive a nomination , deservedly , as did Kate Nelligan , playing Nolte's mom . |
574,185 | 4,532,636 | 37,638 | 8 | One of the Blackest Films Noir I've Ever Seen | Detour has to be one of the most fatalistic films noir ever made . Laughably short ( at 67 minutes ) , this nightmare film chronicles one man's bad day carried out to epic proportions . Tom Neal plays Al Roberts , hitchhiking across the country to join his girlfriend in L . A . , who's set out to make a name for herself in Hollywood . He's picked up by a shady character named Charles Haskell , who inexplicably dies one night while Al is driving the car . Certain that no one will believe this bizarre story and will suspect him of killing Haskell , Al assumes his identity with plans to ditch the car in L . A . But he picks up Vera ( Ann Savage ) , whom Haskell had given a ride earlier . Vera knows Al is up to something , and blackmails Al into joining her own money-grubbing schemes . These two hole up in an L . A . hotel , and what ensues is a domestic drama from hell . Ann Savage is nearly unwatchable as the repulsive Vera . She spits out each line like a snake spitting venom , and her harsh , angular features complement her abrasive personality . Tom Neal is effective as the dopey iconic film noir anti-hero , bullied by the femme fatale into doing whatever she wants , blaming the heavy hand of fate for his ill fortune . Is it a coincidence that a movie released in 1945 , the year in which service men would be returning home to an uncertain home life , with both husbands and wives suspicious of each other's extra-curricular activities while they were parted , would paint such a demonic picture of domestic life ? And how interesting ( and hopeless ) that everyone who comes across Al's path dies - - even Vera , whose manner of death I won't divulge so as not to spoil it - - was suffering from some unnamed illness , the implication being that she was not long for the world anyway . So essentially the entire trajectory of Al's downward spiral is pointless from the start . A far cry from the morale-building films that had glutted the marketplace for the last few years . " Detour " seems to take place in a slightly alternate universe . Everything feels just a little off , with the feverish quality that comes from being too close to the inner workings of one man's obsessive thoughts . The America pictured here is barren and deserted ; it's a world of empty roads , lonely filling stations and flea-bag diners in the middle of nowhere . The film was so cheaply made that the film stock and sound quality actually change throughout the picture . But these rough edges only enhance the movie's lurid appeal . |
573,362 | 4,532,636 | 58,536 | 8 | . . . . Or , the Tale of a Young Homosexual's Acceptance | O . k . I'm being a smart ass , but does anyone else see how you can read homosexual undertones into this story ? The " misfits " who don't fit in . The dad who's disappointed with his son for not being " manly " enough . The fear and suspicion of those who are " normal . " Oh , what has our jaded society done to these once innocent classics ? I loved this film as a kid , and love it now . It's got terrific songs , and wonderful narration from Burl Ives , whose warm-rum voice is forever associated in my mind with the title song , Gene Autry or no Gene Autry . Though on watching this again recently , I was surprised by the story involving the abominable snow monster . I could have sworn that he was cranky because of a toothache and that the little dentist elf made him happy when he pulled his tooth . Don't know where I got that . My favorite character is Yukon Cornelius - - he's a hoot whenever he licks the end of his pick to see if there's any silver or gold on it , and then says , with disgust , " Nuthin ' . " |
573,325 | 4,532,636 | 31,762 | 8 | And You Thought FedEx Delivery Men Had It Rough | A very strange movie in its own way , " Only Angels Have Wings " is about a group of mail carriers living , working and carousing somewhere in South America . Supposedly it's very dangerous to fly mail back and forth from this particular frontier town , and the life expectancy of a flier isn't long . Therefore , when sexy Jean Arthur shows up on a stop-over and gets a hankering for boss Cary Grant , the sexual tension rests in whether or not Grant will be alive long enough to make forming a romantic attachment worthwhile . With a second world war looming on the horizon , one can see how this story was both relevant and irrelevant at the same time : relevant as a parallel for the many American men who would soon be in the position of not knowing whether or not they would be alive from day to day ; but sort of irrelvant too , since we're talking about delivering mail here , not going to war ! ! I can't imagine a movie made today about the dangers of being a FedEx delivery man ( unless you count " Cast Away " ) . Anyway , Cary Grant is horribly miscast as the crusty man in charge , who puts up a callous front and tries to convince everyone that he doesn't care when one of his men dies . I can only take Grant seriously when he's in a tuxedo and being dapper ; here they outfit him in ridiculous parachute pants pulled up to his nipples - - - I kept expecting him to drop to the floor and start break dancing . As for the female lead , Jean Arthur could do no wrong , as far as I'm concerned . Rita Hayworth shows up in an early role as another love interest for Grant , and one-time silent film star Richard Barthelmess struts in playing Grant's mail carrier arch rival ( ! ) , looking for all the world like he's still acting in silent films . Director Howard Hawks creates an authentically foggy and sweaty South American atmosphere , and for all the surface silliness of the plot , he fashions a pretty compelling movie about the instinct to challenge death that dominates these characters ' lives . I don't hear this movie mentioned along with the other classics released in the golden year of 1939 , but it more than holds its own against the more popular films of that year . |
573,961 | 4,532,636 | 37,674 | 8 | Bold and Beautifully Designed | A truly remarkable yet also rather esoteric film about the creative life . I was able to admire it without ever really being drawn into its story . The production design is astounding , and probably the film's greatest selling point . The sets have a baroque , grandiose quality of the kind you see in opera sets - - which is fitting , since this film is about theatre and the role it plays in both the lives of those who use it to make a living and those who turn to it as an escape from their own realities . I wonder if Ingmar Bergman was at all influenced by this film when making " Fanny and Alexander . " Certain parts , and an overall tone , in the second half of Bergman's film reminded me very much of Carne's . |
574,041 | 4,532,636 | 412,536 | 8 | Perfectly Captures the Tone of Evelyn Waugh's Novel | A lovely adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel that nicely captures Waugh's original tone of loss , regret and elegiac nostalgia . Matthew Goode plays Charles Ryder , a young Englishman who falls in with an aristocratic family and soon finds himself at the center of its swirling dysfunction . The film explores the role family plays in shaping the kind of people we become , and the temptation to return to the lessons of our upbringing ( here represented specifically by Roman Catholicism ) even if we never fully believed the things those lessons taught us . And running underneath all is Waugh's elegy for an England that no longer existed after it emerged from the ashes of a great war . All of the actors are very good , especially Matthew Goode and Emma Thompson , who plays the family matriarch and brilliantly illustrates the unique hold mothers can have over their children . |
574,282 | 4,532,636 | 29,850 | 8 | Eisenstein's Stirring Propaganda Film | Alexander Nevsky marked director Sergei Eisenstein's return to film-making after a period of exile , and what he produced is a bald-faced propaganda film proclaiming Russia's superiority over Germany . There's very little plot : Russians unite to battle Germans ; Russia wins . The film is really an extended montage of mostly battle scenes , mixed in with some moments of German brutality ( like a rather shocking scene that shows German soldiers throwing Russian children onto a raging fire ) . This was Eisenstein's first sound film , and it's clear that he had no idea what to do with the medium . Indeed , this film really looks more like a silent film with some sound added . There are some dialogue scenes , but they sit rather lifelessly on the screen , and the pacing is all off , as if the actors weren't actually on the set together at the same time when they were filming them . Eisenstein mostly uses sound as an excuse to overlay a rousing Prokofiev score over the proceedings , and indeed , that's one of the film's biggest assets . Say what you will about Eisenstein's ability ( or lack of ) to direct actors or tell his film in a more narrative format , he certainly knows how to edit images and music together for maximum effect , and " Alexander Nevsky " over all shines through its deficiencies . |
573,715 | 4,532,636 | 57,091 | 8 | A Fantastic Period Film from Luchino Visconti | Luchino Visconti's " The Leopard " is a ravishing costume drama about the waning days of Sicily's nobility in the 1860s during Italy's struggles to create a united state . Burt Lancaster , in a bit of unlikely casting ( since he couldn't speak Italian and had his entire part dubbed by an Italian actor ) represents the aging nobility that recognizes the need for change but at the same time the fact that there will no longer be a place for it in the new order . Lancaster gives a marvelous performance despite the dubbed voice over . As an actor , he was always good at doing resigned nostalgia ( see " Atlantic City " from 1981 ) . The movie is probably longer than it needs to be , since it doesn't really have much story to tell . But it looks outstanding , thanks to Visconti's meticulous attention to period detail and his use of saturated colors in the film's art direction and costume design . A 45-minute fascinating ball scene caps off the film , and gives the viewer the feeling of being a fly on the wall . Some knowledge of Italian history would probably have helped me to understand this film's nuances more , because Visconti doesn't spend much time catching the uninformed viewer up to speed . But I was able to infer enough to get the basic gist . |
573,728 | 4,532,636 | 462,322 | 8 | Tarantino Has Done It Again ; Rodriguez , Not So Much | What " Grindhouse " proves more than anything is how much better a director Quentin Tarantino is than Robert Rodriguez . It's unfortunate for Rodriguez that his film and Tarantino's are being presented in a format that allows the audience to compare them side by side ; the comparison only highlights Rodriguez's flaws and Tarantino's talent . " Planet Terror , " Rodriguez's segment , is a tribute to the trashy zombie flicks of yesteryear , but it's a completely disposable movie . I know Rodriguez would probably take that as a compliment , since the grindhouse films to which he and Tarantino are paying homage are remembered for being the movie equivalent of junk food . But Tarantino creates a film that could easily stand alone outside of the double feature gimmick concept , while Rodriguez uses his opportunity at genre parody to make nothing but a frenetic gross-out film . I had fun with a lot of " Planet Terror . " I especially liked Rose McGowan , as go-go girl ( don't call her a stripper ) Cherry Darling , who gets her leg gnawed off by crazed zombies and has it replaced with a machine gun that she uses to mow down her enemies while performing gymnastics . It's hooks like these that keep " Planet Terror " afloat . Rodriguez uses today's advanced technologies to include all of the outrageous images and stunts that makers of trash cinema would maybe have included themselves if they could have . But much of " Planet Terror " just made me feel sort of bad and depressed . The sight of mass human carnage in these post - days , when footage of suicide bombings assaults us on a daily basis , carries unpleasant connotations , and it's awfully difficult to lose yourself in the " fun " of seeing bodies ripped and blown apart with all of the indifference of a director who gets off on the site of human bloodshed . Therefore , I felt a slight sense of relief when " Planet Terror " ended . But then Tarantino's " Death Proof " came roaring on to the screen , and memories of Rodriguez's segment were immediately wiped away . In " Death Proof , " Kurt Russell plays stuntman Mike , who uses his grizzled charm to lure girls ( like Rose McGowan , who pops up again in this segment , albeit in a very different role ) into his bitchin ' retro car and then kills them . Or he follows groups of girls riding in their own cars and plows into them at 200 miles per hour , as he does in the film's most disturbing and graphic scene . But after doing away with one such group , he sets his sights on another ( the immensely charismatic trio of Rosario Dawson , Tracie Thoms and real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell , who plays herself ) - - and instantly recognizes his mistake . Half way through " Death Proof , " Tarantino switches gears , and instead of following a " girls in danger " template , he makes the girls the dangerous ones . It's as if every female ever victimized in a grade-Z horror flick is resurrected in this group of fierce females , and work through them to get their revenge . The film is unpredictable , fresh , rousing and immensely exciting . It sent me out on a high . Tarantino is incapable of making a thoughtless movie , and I'm beginning to think he's incapable of making a bad movie . Where Rodriguez is content to appeal to the most basic urgings of the adolescent males he clearly assumed would be his audience for this , Tarantino is interested in doing something more . " Death Proof " is not simply imitative of grindhouse cinema . Tarantino has always excelled at mimicking the genres he loves while making something completely unique out of them , and he does the same here . " Death Proof " isn't only an homage to the loved films of Tarantino's past ; it's also an elegy . Stuntman Mike is a relic of an age when filmmakers created special effects in real time and space , without the help of CGI , and indeed no CGI was used in the astonishing extended action sequence that comprises the last third of Tarantino's film . He recognizes grindhouse films as the trash that they were , but it's clear that they also represent to him a certain kind of freedom that doesn't exist for filmmakers anymore . Makers of grindhouse movies knew that their films were going to be discounted by the mainstream movie establishment anyway , so they could revel in a kind of artistic freedom and make the movies they wanted to make without thought as to box office or awards potential . It's no wonder that this particular genre appeals to an auteur like Tarantino . And of course , linking these two films are the batch of fake trailers for other sleazy cinematic offerings . " Thanksgiving " seems to be the one that audiences remember the most , but I actually thought " Don't " was the wittiest , and the one that felt most authentic . " Planet Terror " : " Death Proof " : |
574,127 | 4,532,636 | 35,575 | 8 | Yankee Doodle Cagney | I didn't expect to like this movie at all , as I'm not much of a flag waver and from the isolated scenes I had seen from this film , that seemed to be all that took place in it . It's still pretty cornball in its approach to American patriotism and fervour , and with the American government currently bullying its way around the world , the " let's be proud we're all Americans " broo-hah-hah on display in the film is even harder to digest . But don't avoid this movie if those are your only reservations about it . " Yankee Doodle Dandy " has an energetic drive to it that many films lack . The 125-minute running time flies by , and the film is never once boring . This energy is due almost entirely to one thing : James Cagney . Cagney tears into the role of George M . Cohan with everything he's got , and just try taking your eyes off of him whenever he's on screen . He can't sing at all , and he's really more of an acrobat than a dancer , but he pulls off the role of a Broadway showman effortlessly . The rah-rah American sentiments are obviously a product of the time , and little more than World War II propaganda at moments , but I could swallow them easier in this film for some reason . Maybe because when they're at their most intrusive ( the " Grand Old Flag " number , for instance ) , the spectacle is so rousing that I would have been just as moved if they'd been singing about cheese and crackers . A deservedly beloved American classic . |
573,485 | 4,532,636 | 367,027 | 8 | For Once , Emotion Trumps Sex | A married sex therapist doles out relationship advice at work but privately spends her time in search of an orgasm , which she's never had . Two gay men find themselves drifting from one another and introduce a third man into their relationship in an attempt to bring some fulfillment back to their emotional connection . A professional dominatrix excels at abusing clients , but brings that abusive behavior to her personal relationships as well and as a result isolates herself from any true human contact . Meanwhile , all of these characters meet regularly at Shortbus , a sex club where everyone is free to be whatever they want to be , where no one's a freak because everyone's a freak , and where , most importantly , everyone feels a sense of community in a scary post - world . Such is " Shortbus , " John Cameron Mitchell's emotionally affecting follow up film to his dazzling debut , " Hedwig and the Angry Inch . " By now , everyone knows that " Shortbus " contains many scenes of quite explicit sex . As happens with any more conventional film that contains material we are used to seeing only in bona fide pornography , the sex tends to dominate on a first viewing ; it's so hard not to be distracted by the explicit scenes and ignore the other things going on . However , it is to Mitchell's great credit that I left the film not remembering the sex as much as I remembered some of the beautiful emotional moments , of which " Shortbus " is chock full . I saw a screening of this at the Chicago International Film Festival , and two of the actors , Sook-Yin Lee and Lindsay Beamish , were on hand to answer questions . Lee explained what Mitchell was trying to do with this film , and I greatly admire his ambition . She said that he was trying to make an antidote to all of the other films out there that treat sex just as explicitly but in such more negative ways . Sex in our movie culture is usually full of dysfunction - - if it's not downright harmful , it's at best desultory and unsatisfying ( think " 9 Songs " ) . Our culture condones graphic violence in films , many times in combination with sex , but squirms away from sex as it really looks , even though it's one of the most natural of human functions . Mitchell wanted to illuminate this hypocrisy and show that sex can be fun , sex can bring people together , sex can make you laugh . It can't necessarily solve problems , as the characters in this film realize , but it doesn't always have to necessarily cause problems either . My biggest complaint about " Shortbus " is that I felt somewhat left out . As a heterosexual male , I don't feel that I was represented by any of the film's characters . Mitchell , as a gay man , obviously has an understanding of gay relationships , and the storyline with the three gay lovers is handled beautifully . But I felt that Mitchell was stereotyping heterosexual relationships in the same way that heterosexuals stereotype gays . The married couple is bored , unfulfilled , caustic with one another . Lee's character can't achieve orgasm until she comes to a sex club and gets it on with another woman . Just once , can't a film show a heterosexual couple who are happy and having a completely satisfying emotional and sexual relationship ? I know this wouldn't make for great drama , but it would at least make me feel better . I really liked " Shortbus " without feeling that it was a complete bulls-eye for Mitchell . At the very least , he has an outstanding talent and has proved himself to be a young filmmaker to watch . |
574,085 | 4,532,636 | 58,576 | 8 | Another Stark Thriller from John Frankenheimer | John Frankenheimer ( who died not very long ago ) left us with a terrific repertoire of films , yet I don't hear his name mentioned often in discussions about influential American directors . " Seven Days in May " seems to be all but forgotten ; at least , I don't know anyone who's seen it or even heard of it . But it's a terrific political intrigue film , its impact lessened only somewhat by the release of " The Manchurian Candidate " two years earlier . There's no mistaking the John Frankenheimer style : the sharp black and white cinematography , stark sets and lighting , claustrophobic compositions . Faces are framed in extreme close-up to completely dominate the screen . He uses deep focus effectively ; two characters will be having a conversation in the foreground , but a third will be constantly in view in the background , as if to suggest that every whispered secret has the potential to be overheard . This style is fabulously on display in " Candidate " and is reprised here in " Seven Days in May . " Frankenheimer makes great use in both films of TV screens : a character will be simultaneously in view of the film's camera and projected on a screen within the world of the film , giving the movie viewer different angles of the same scene both literally and figuratively ; since media plays a role so frequently in his movies , Frankenheimer constantly draws our attention to its existence and the power it has to manipulate what we perceive to be the truth . As for the performances , there is no improving on Fredric March's understated interpretation of an ailing president , stuck in the dilemma of acting in what he thinks is the country's best interests even though the country itself is rejecting his beliefs . Burt Lancaster does his usual steely Burt Lancaster thing as the film's villain and Kirk Douglas meets him line for line as a subordinate who begins to doubt his boss's integrity . Ava Gardner gives a somewhat weird performance as the film's lone female character ; she walks through the film as if drugged , but it works . And Edmond O'Brien won an Oscar nomination as a hot-tempered southern senator and friend to the president , somewhat curious since March's performance of all of them seems ripe for Academy consideration . " Seven Days in May " isn't as taut a film as " The Manchurian Candidate , " and it's more heavy handed in its political agenda ( this severely dates the film ) , but it's still a rousing good time and comes highly recommended . |
573,729 | 4,532,636 | 58,390 | 8 | Fuller Tops Himself | Samuel Fuller could make whacked-out movies like no other , and " The Naked Kiss " was his most whacked out of all . Constance Towers plays Kelly , a hooker who we see in the film's opening sequence shaved completely bald and beating up her pimp . She takes $75 dollars from him or , as she makes sure to point out to him , " exactly what I've got coming to me , " and then proceeds to put on her wig and makeup while seductive music plays and the opening credits roll . From that moment on , we know we're in Fuller-land . Kelly arrives in the quiet suburban idyll of Grantville , and hooks up with her first and last trick , the town's police captain . After that , she decides to wipe her slate clean , and she becomes a nurse in a children's hospital . But she can't escape her past . When she's accused of killing her fiancée , the town's founder , golden boy and Korean war hero , in a fit of rage after finding him molesting a young girl , Kelly's reliability and reputation is called into question , and her life hangs in the balance . Along with her pimp , Kelly will pound around on a couple of other people before the film is over - - notably a whore house madame who tries to seduce one of Kelly's co-worker friends into a life of prostitution - - but Kelly is basically a good and decent person who believes in justice stripped of any sentimental or phony pretensions . Her fiancée's status and privilege don't prevent her from seeing the pervert underneath , and her love for the children and her young , naive co-workers is fierce but rough ; she'll just as soon slap some sense into someone as she will hug some sense into him . The character of Kelly is a refreshing creation , and both she and Constance Towers , who brings her to life , hold this film together when it otherwise might have been a mess . I think Fuller's weakness was as a writer ; parts of " The Naked Kiss " are hampered by ridiculous , overheated dialogue and melodrama of the most maudlin order . But he was such a striking visionary that his films always work on the strength of style alone , and that , coupled with Towers ' performance , make " The Naked Kiss " something fascinating to behold . Fuller was always interested in the outcasts and misfits of society . You can tell he didn't have much use for the civilized mainstream . In " The Naked Kiss , " his camera lingers lovingly on the crippled children in shots that intentionally evoke impressions of war veteran hospitals . And Kelly leaves Grantville at the film's end , not because the town shuns her - - on the contrary , once they realize she was telling the truth , she's the new town hero - - but because its hypocrisy disgusts her . The implication is that she'd rather remain an outcast than be accepted by a society that she abhors . " The Naked Kiss " is crazy , frenzied and trippy . It's deliriously nonsensical yet makes a pointed statement in that unique way that only Samuel Fuller could pull off . Check it out . |
573,417 | 4,532,636 | 299,977 | 8 | Visual Poetry | Hero is a jaw-droppingly gorgeous film that is truly worth seeing for its lush production design alone . Director Zhang Yimou brings a visual elegance to the kung-fu genre film , and a magical realist sensibility to the narrative itself , the results of which are a very violent film where the violence seems to have consequences , and the line between hero and villain isn't so much a line as a vast field of shaded grey . The film is reminiscent of " Rashomon " in its fragmented approach to telling its story ; one is never sure whether or not the version he is hearing is the truth . That may be because in the world of " Hero , " the truth is very open to interpretation - - one man's noble act is another man's crime . The film pays its respects to various art forms , all of which are compared to the artistry of swordplay : music , literature , dance . Just as a skilled swordsman can yield nearly unstoppable power , so can the artist impact the world around him . No one will accuse Yimou of being a subtle director , and I do have to say that the continuous fighting gets ever so slightly monotonous . Yimou does a good job of combating this monotony by changing the color palettes and showcasing increasingly dazzling choreography , but when the character of Snow challenges the character of Broken Sword to a duel for what feels like the fiftieth time toward the film's conclusion , I sympathized with Broken Sword when he says , " Must violence always be the answer ( paraphrased ) . " Still , this is a minor quibble , and one must also remember that this film is working within the confines of its genre , and that that's just how these films are . |
574,514 | 4,532,636 | 58,404 | 8 | A Night Worth Spending | A sultry and marvelously atmospheric screen adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play . Richard Burton plays a defrocked priest who holes up in an isolated Mexican hotel with a group of religious biddies for whom he is serving as tour guide . The group's leader , a strident harpy played by Grayson Hall , wants to report Burton to the authorities for his inappropriate behavior with her young charge , played by the flirty Sue Lyon ( yes , of " Lolita " fame ) . In response , he practically takes the women hostage , disabling their vehicle so that they can't leave the hotel . The hotel's owner , played by a sexy Ava Gardner , is an old friend of Burton , and she becomes a sort of accomplice to his actions . Williams uses the tension created by this situation and these characters to explore the dark nights of the soul that each of us is bound to go through at one point or another in the course of our lives , and the salvation humans can find in one another . I'm not sure how closely the film follows the original stage play , but as presented here , this is one of Williams ' more hopeful and optimistic stories . Richard Burton and Ava Gardner share some sweet moments , during which each allows him / herself to be emotionally vulnerable to the other , and receive some solace from the interaction . And there's a wonderful character played by Deborah Kerr , a spinster painter who shows up with her doddering grandfather in tow and whose vague past hints at some dark nights of her own . She is able to help the Burton character learn how to navigate his crisis and emerge relatively unscathed on the other side . The film is directed by John Huston , and it takes a pretty frank approach to some of the dicey subject matter , a much more frank approach than some of the other Williams adaptations that had been made into films around the same time as this one . |
573,793 | 4,532,636 | 107,207 | 8 | Rousing Film About the Triumph of Justice | Following closely on the heels of another movie about the IRA , 1992's " The Crying Game , " came Jim Sheridan's effective and rousing " In the Name of the Father , " the true story of a group of men wrongly accused of participating in a series of IRA bombings . This film is fun to watch for its period detail and for the predictably excellent performance of Daniel Day-Lewis . But Emma Thompson , playing the attorney of Day-Lewis and his father ( Pete Postlethwaite ) , though given a much smaller role , really brings some fire to the proceedings through her energetic performance . Thompson had just been discovered by American audiences in " Howards End " the year before , and was also winning acclaim in " The Remains of the Day " even as she was making her appearance in this one , and it was refreshing to see her in a more contemporary role . Though nominated for seven Oscars , including Best Picture , Best Actor ( Day-Lewis ) , Best Supporting Actor ( Postlethwaite ) , Best Supporting Actress ( Thompson ) and Best Director , the film was shut out . I'm not a huge fan of Jim Sheridan's movies in general , but I liked this one . |
573,550 | 4,532,636 | 80,388 | 8 | Lancaster's Last Great Role | Burt Lancaster gives an astonishing performance aching with melancholy in this lovely , quiet little film by Louis Malle . He plays a one-time gangster ( in his own mind at least quite a big shot ) who , like the city that gives the film its title , isn't what he used to be . Susan Sarandon , in an early-career performance , plays a woman who works in one of the casinos and whose life intersects with Lancaster's because of a drug deal her no-good husband was involved in . The two don't ever become friends exactly , but they each get something from the other until the sad ending , when Lancaster realizes that there isn't a place in his life for Sarandon , and that there may not be a place in the world for him . The film is a low-key character study that completely satisfies , and gives Lancaster perhaps his last great role . |
573,410 | 4,532,636 | 35,446 | 8 | Strange But Delightful | It's hard to recognize how utterly daring this film probably was at the time of its release . Charles Chaplin was put on a death list by Hitler for lampooning him in " The Great Dictator " in 1940 , and while Ernst Lubitsch's film isn't quite as scathing as Chaplin's , I still have to think that so openly mocking the Gestapo while the war was still raging took a lot of guts for everyone involved . This isn't necessarily a laugh out loud comedy ; there are no really big laughs to be had . But it's never once less than delightful to watch , and all of the performances are terrific . Of course , the most praise must go to Jack Benny , who seems so utterly comfortable on screen , but Carole Lombard is as sexy and engaging as ever , even if she has quite a bit less to do . Very funny , very entertaining , and probably a must see from the period of war-time cinema . |
574,192 | 4,532,636 | 497,116 | 8 | A Scary Wake Up Call for Those Still Napping | The only people who will watch " An Inconvenient Truth " will be those who need no convincing that global warming may just be the single most pressing issue affecting modern man - - yes , even more pressing than the war on terror . As much as jihadists would probably like to think otherwise , radical Islam just can't compete with annihilation of the entire planet . Consisting almost entirely of filmed footage of a fancy slide show presentation Al Gore presents around the world to various groups , " An Inconvenient Truth " lays out a formidable array of statistics to prove the validity of global warming and its effects on the environment , and makes it painfully clear ( if it wasn't already ) that those who still and inexplicably refuse to consider its reality are ostriches with their heads hopelessly buried . The film's title is a perfect one ; those who dismiss global warming as the apparition of liberal scare mongers don't want to admit of its existence because it would be awfully inconvenient for them to . Inconvenient for governments because , as Gore says , they would then have a moral imperative to do something about it . Inconvenient for individual citizens because they would have to make some changes to their lifestyles that would cause them to give up minor conveniences . Moments of the film are deeply scary , like the one when Gore explains what will happen when and if a chunk of Antarctica or Greenland breaks off , elevating the sea level worldwide by 20 feet , drowning Manhattan and most of Florida , and submerging humongous cities like Shanghai in China and Bangalore in India , homes to millions of people . The United States couldn't even deal with a flooded city like New Orleans ; what will it do when Los Angeles and San Francisco become disaster areas ? Luckily , " An Inconvenient Truth " ends on a hopeful note , suggesting that the challenge our planet faces due to global warming is not insurmountable , and that the human race has been able to reverse seemingly irreversible problems in the past ( like the hole in the ozone layer ) . More importantly , it explains what the average citizen like you and me can do to make ourselves feel a little less helpless . Let's hope that the call to action is not only heard but understood by those who need to understand it most . |
574,256 | 4,532,636 | 33,532 | 8 | The Devil Is No Match for an American Politician | This film could never work now , because Americans are far too cynical to accept a politician beating the Devil in a battle of morals . Now the politician would be in the Devil's hip pocket . " The Devil and Daniel Webster " is a creepy , effective little morality tale about a farmer who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for prosperity and the politician who ends up defending him and winning it back . What seemed startling in 1941 feels mostly creaky by today's standards , but there are still some fresh moments of film making in this one . William Dieterle was obviously open to experimentation when it comes to the use of cinematography and sound , and the movie has a striking visual look . The plot is mostly connect the dots , and there are no real surprises , but I don't know that one watches a morality tale for surprises in the first place . Walter Huston is extremely creepy as the Devil ( aka Mr . Scratch ) . He received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his performance even though , based on sheer screen time , he really has more of a supporting role . But he's so effective when on screen that his presence dominates the film even when he's physically absent , which probably accounts for the lead nomination . Edward Arnold is pretty good too as Daniel Webster . Also standing out is Jane Darwell ( Ma Joad in " The Grapes of Wrath " ) as a hardened farm mother . Parts of this film have a wicked sense of humour , which I thoroughly enjoyed . The trial at the end ( with a literal jury of the damned ) , is especially amusing . On a sidenote , the film was successful in capturing the 1941 Academy Award for Best Dramatic Score . Don't expect to see any points made that haven't already been made a thousand times in a thousand other movies , but enjoy the originality of the film technique on display . |
574,276 | 4,532,636 | 375,679 | 8 | An Important Film , Even If an Imperfect One | Crash has so many good things going for it , it's a shame that it's hampered by a clunky , obvious and over-earnest script . The movie is very Altmanesque in design , featuring a large ensemble cast and a plot that intricately weaves various plot lines together in surprising ways . Unlike Altman's best films , though , " Crash " doesn't have that spontaneous , improvised feel ; everything feels too forced and overly scripted . Every scene plays out in the same way , creating an ever so slightly monotonous pace . It's a movie with great intentions that isn't entirely successful at fulfilling them . But , the writing is my only complaint . From a directing and acting standpoint , " Crash " triumphs . Paul Haggis makes the leap from screenwriter to director ably , and does a wonderful job of keeping his story moving fluidly along , no matter how implausible it might be . And as far as the ensemble goes , this is ones of those movies ( also very like an Altman film , come to think of it ) that has a cast full of actors who you've never seen act as well as they do here . I wouldn't say I've ever been much impressed by the dramatic range of Ryan Philippe , Matt Dillon , Brendan Fraser or Sandra Bullock , but they certainly impress here . Bullock , despite a tiny role , makes an enormous impression , and her brief monologue during which she describes what it's like to wake up every morning filled with anger without even knowing what she's angry about , was one of the most affecting scenes I've seen in a movie all year . Other cast members are excellent as well : Terrence Howard as a movie executive " selling out " to white America ; Thandie Newton as his frustrated wife , angry at him for not standing up to the very people who have made her privileged life possible ; Don Cheadle as a hardened detective who has resigned himself to the unfairness of being judged by the color of your skin . Whatever its faults , " Crash " deserves high praise for tackling with intelligence and conviction subject matter that other film makers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole . How refreshing in our time of political correctness that a film would dare suggest that stereotypes might be based on truths , and that a white director and writer can make a sharp film about the race question without feeling the need to cushion everything through the gauzy haze of liberal white guilt . Not a perfect movie by any means , but one that I think deserves to be seen . |
573,539 | 4,532,636 | 35,417 | 8 | One More Reason to Miss Jean Arthur | George Stevens had the ability to make truly memorable films out of lightweight material . " The Talk of the Town " and " The More the Merrier ( 1943 ) " were two early-40s projects that teamed Stevens up with the adorable Jean Arthur . Both would probably have been forgettable pseudo-comedies had Stevens not directed them with such a sure hand . " Town " is a sort of strange hybrid - - part screwball comedy , part political activist film . Its screenplay could probably be a little tidier , but I'm not going to complain , because I loved this movie . Cary Grant and Arthur were a terrific match for one another , and Ronald Colman makes a perfect straight man for the both of them . He plays a stuffy professor staying in Arthur's country home while he devotes himself to work . Grant shows up on the lamb for some political activism that got him in trouble , and the movie is devoted to Arthur's and Grant's antics as they first try to hide Grant's identity from Colman and then try to enlist Colman in their populist cause . This is a great and not especially well known film from the war years . Set aside some time to enjoy it and I'm sure you won't be disappointed . |
574,417 | 4,532,636 | 52,893 | 8 | A Poem | It's nearly impossible to talk about " Hiroshima , Mon Amour " in the same language I use to talk about other films . Even people used to international cinema may find themselves somewhat boggled by this visual tone poem . It's beautiful , and it leaves a distinct impression , but it does so in the way that a striking and unexpected image would , not in the way that an accessible film narrative would . Therefore , it interests without ever fully engaging . To say that Resnais ' film has something in common with silent cinema would be misleading , because sound certainly matters . But the movie definitely feels like a piece of non-verbal cinema , where sensation matters more than cognition . A movie I probably need to see again to truly appreciate . |
573,774 | 4,532,636 | 66,026 | 8 | The Definition of Organized Insanity | Once that now famous and haunting opening theme song , " Suicide Is Painless , " has finished playing , " MASH " bursts on to the screen in a blaze of sound and movement . It's a typical Altman film , and that's a huge compliment . It may not seem like anything special now , because his style has been so influential on all manner of present-day filmmakers , but at the time , audiences had never seen a major studio film whose ordering principle was mass chaos . Altman films have forever spoiled for me just a tiny bit all other carefully framed , carefully constructed conventional films , because his movies feel so alive in a way that other films don't . " MASH " is gloriously crazy , with all of the actors talking over one another and no apparent thought given to the framing of scenes . Altman has said that he wants his audiences to have to work at his movies . You have to decide what you want to listen to and who you want to watch , because virtually every character in the frame at any given moment is doing or saying something that's no less important than what some other character is doing or saying . But don't be fooled . Altman may have claimed innocence in imposing any kind of directorial hand on his material , but his films are as craftily constructed as any other . " MASH " begins with a montage of wounded soldiers being delivered to the medical unit for treatment , and one of the last shots of the film shows a dead body wrapped in a bright white sheet being driven through the MASH unit while in the foreground a group of doctors play cards , pausing only momentarily to glance at the sight . The message is clear . This casual framing approach that in a sense brings the story back to where we started tells us that there is an organizing principle to the lunacy and madness , and that principle is death . " MASH " feels more like an adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel " Catch-22 " than the Mike Nichols film that was actually based on the book , which ironically came out the same year as " MASH . " And I have to say that , unlike many other films that lose their lustre after many years and many viewings , " MASH " gets funnier every time I see it . I think there are better Altman films , and more important ones , but few are are such damn fun . |
574,372 | 4,532,636 | 37,988 | 8 | A Little Slow , But Effectively Creepy | This screen adaptation of the Oscar Wilde novel has style and atmosphere to spare , but it's also a bit slow and ponderous . Hurd Hatfield is perfectly cast as Dorian Gray , an English dandy who's terrified of losing his youth and unwittingly enters into some sort of supernatural pact - - he will never change , while a portrait of him painted by an artist friend will show all the sins and evils that Dorian gives himself over to in his pursuit of selfish pleasure . Albert Lewin provides meticulous direction , using deep-focus compositions in a way that makes Dorian's environment as much a character in the film as any of the living people , and also using color in a couple of clever shock moments for effect . But if he succeeds in creating an air of enigma around the story , the price he pays is that the film moves along rather sluggishly at times . George Sanders appears as another dandy friend of Dorian who's chiefly responsible for encouraging Dorian to give up his morals and embark on a life of debauchery . He's thoroughly aggravating , which no doubt is what the character called for , but doesn't make him any less annoying to deal with . Angela Lansbury has a brief role as one of Dorian's conquests who he carelessly tosses aside . And Donna Reed looks lovely but struggles with an undeveloped role as the love of Dorian's life . I'm not sure how that relationship is dealt with in Wilde's novel , but in the film not nearly enough time is devoted to it and so it comes off as unconvincing . Combine the period Gothic trappings of " Gaslight " with the themes of material obsession in " Laura " and you'll have a good idea of what to expect with " The Picture of Dorian Gray . " |
574,169 | 4,532,636 | 49,552 | 8 | Another Wonderfully Inventive Film from Jacques Tourneur | Jacques Tourneur used his vast reserves of creativity to turn small-budget films into fascinating movie-going experiences . If " Out of the Past " is one of the best films noir to be released in the 1940s , then " Nightfall " must be one of the best from the succeeding decade . Aldo Ray plays James Vanning , who , with his doctor friend Edward Gurston ( Frank Albertson ) , finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up knowing the whereabouts of a bag of stolen money , wanted mightily by two bank robbers ( one played with droll relish by Brian Keith ) . Fate , always a principal character in any film noir , brings James together with Marie Gardner ( an impossibly young Anne Bancroft ) , a fashion model who becomes his girl Friday . Meanwhile , an insurance investigator ( James Gregory ) working on behalf of the robbed bank has James's number and comes calling . All of these characters finally collide in a memorable and rather grisly ending . " Nightfall " is tremendously stylish and playful . It very much resembles Tourneur's earlier noir , " Out of the Past , " in its thesis that a man can run but never hide from his past . But it also reminded me of " On Dangerous Ground , " Nicholas Ray's strange offering from 1952 , in its juxtaposition of a shadow-filled urban environment filled with anonymous ( and perhaps dangerous ) strangers with the wide open ( and no less frightening ) spaces of the country , where anything can happen and no one will know . I don't know if Aldo Ray was considered a good actor at the time , but he does a terrific job here - - who better to play an American everyman caught up in a sticky web than this all-American jock of an actor ? He and Bancroft sizzle in their scenes together , and one of the movie's highlights comes when they are racing away from one of Bancroft's fashion shows with the bad guys in hot pursuit , and Ray , frustrated by the fact that Bancroft can't run in the impractical gown she was just modeling , picks her up and runs with her into the safety of a cab , after which she leans against him and says , " You're the most wanted man I know . " This scene and line got laughs and applause at the screening I attended , but you could tell that people were laughing with the film and not at it . This film is one of the highlights of the noir genre , and I highly recommend catching it if you get a chance . |
573,444 | 4,532,636 | 84,516 | 8 | JoBeth Williams Could Be My Mom Anytime | JoBeth Williams made one of the sexiest moms in history in this funhouse chiller from Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg . I was all of seven years old when this movie came out , and the image of her in panties and an over-sized t-shirt gave my young mind plenty of fantasy material . Ahem . . . . oh yeah , and there are ghosts in this movie too . Plenty of them . They come in the form of trees that eat people , possessed and evil stuffed clowns and dead , decomposing bodies that come barreling up through your kitchen linoleum . All of the special effects are pretty nifty , and hold up well considering the film's age . And there's a terrific score from Jerry Goldsmith . The whole thing feels much more like a Spielberg film than a Tobe Hooper film , and many suspect that Spielberg played a much larger role in directing it than has ever been admitted . |
574,310 | 4,532,636 | 372,183 | 8 | Bourne's Back in Business | Bourne is back . Jason Bourne , contentedly hiding out with his girl ( again played by Franka Potente ) , dives back into action when a hit-man comes calling . Turns out Bourne has been framed in the killing of two CIA operatives , and getting rid of him would mean the CIA would be left with no suspects . But of course Bourne can't be brought down by a mere assassin , and the rest of the movie is another virtually non-stop string of action set pieces , culminating in perhaps the most amazing car chase sequence I've ever seen . Director Paul Greengrass could film a bar mitzvah and make it exciting - - his films are edited to within an inch of their lives , but somehow his herky-jerky camera-work and lightspeed cutting never become distracting , as they would in the hands of someone else . He has a nearly genius ability to choreograph action so that we're always seeing whatever we need to see when we need to see it , despite whatever else is going on at the same time . The Bourne movies maybe aren't lasting masterpieces , but they're small classics in their genre . Since Chris Cooper copped out at the end of the last one , Joan Allen steps in as the lead CIA agent on Bourne's trail , and she does a good job of looking hot and pensive at the same time . |
574,479 | 4,532,636 | 22,835 | 8 | Watch It for the Camera Work | What happened to movies in the late 30's and early 40's ? Why did they become so stale and stagey ? " Dr . Jekyll and Mr . Hyde " would be considered downright antique to many of today's casual filmgoers , but it feels so much more dynamic technically and thematically than many films that came out later in its decade . The answer , of course , is that this movie came out before enforcement of the Production Code , at which time artistry in films - - both style and substance - - took a nose dive . This film is worth watching for its stunning camera work alone . It doesn't suffer from any of the awkwardness other films working in the early years of sound do . The camera's always moving , there's terrific use of light and shadow , and the scenes showing the transformation of Jekyll to Hyde are seamlessly filmed in what appear to be uninterrupted shots , leaving you to ponder the sheer physical behind-the-scenes mechanics of them . But this movie isn't just more technically advanced than films later in the decade ; it's more adult in content too . No filming of this story ten years later ( I've not seen the Victor Fleming version for comparison ) would dare add the level of sexuality that this story does . Fredric March is very good in the dual role , and when he transforms into Mr . Hyde , you can see that it's everything within his power not to rip the dress right off whatever female he happens to be with and mount her right there . I'm not exaggerating ; the film is really that frank . Creepy good fun . |
574,457 | 4,532,636 | 498,380 | 8 | Admired It , But Wasn't Overwhelmed By It | Clint Eastwood's " Letters from Iwo Jima " is a sober , haunting film , filled with striking images that I thought as I was watching the movie would stick with me longer than they did . I found myself admiring the movie very much , but not feeling greatly passionate about it one way or the other . It didn't resonate with me the way other films this year - - like " Children of Men , " for instance , or " Little Children " - - have . I think much of my reaction is due to the fact that Eastwood wants so clearly to make " great " films . He's a modern day John Ford or George Stevens - - he works with traditionally American subjects and in American genres ( even if , as in " Letters , " the point of view is not American ) , but like those directors , his desire to make films that people will remember him by sometimes infuses them with a formality that's hard to warm to . So it is with this film . One must give Eastwood credit , though , for embarking upon such a daring venture . Only someone with his clout could make a major studio film in a foreign language that asks us to sympathize with America's enemies in one of the world's largest calamities . And he does so without any sentimentality or bombast ; had Steven Spielberg made this movie , the results would likely have been unbearable . But Eastwood has a matter-of-fact quality to his storytelling , and mostly trusts his story to tell itself without forcing it on us with a heavy directorial hand . Even the film's visual pallet is subdued . Everything is a washed out brown and gray , and some scenes , notably the ones that take place deep in the caves in which the Japanese hide themselves , could be in black and white and look no different . The film is terribly sad - - the message that comes through more than any other is the hopeless waste of war . The Japanese don't stand a chance at beating the Americans on Iwo Jima , but they fight to the death , for dying is more noble than surrendering . The film reminds us that people don't fight wars ; governments fight wars , and people get dragged along behind to do their government's dirty work . " Letters from Iwo Jima " reminded me somewhat of " The Thin Red Line " in the way that it tells its story ( though I think " Red Line " is a better movie ) . It's ruminative and deeply psychological . Eastwood avoids the tendency of many war films to present us with a batch of interchangeable " types . " We understand what these men are thinking and feeling , and we understand what they've left behind , so that when they die , we care that they're gone . I have not seen " Flags of Our Fathers " yet , but wonder how that film will change my appreciation of this one . While I liked " Letters from Iwo Jima " very much , I wasn't overwhelmed by it . Perhaps the two films are better when taken together as a whole than either is by itself . |
573,932 | 4,532,636 | 110,005 | 8 | Peter Jackson Before " Lord of the Rings " | Before he was known for the " Lord of the Rings " trilogy , Peter Jackson made this fascinating movie about two friends who submerge themselves in a fantasy world of their own creation with horrifying results . I know I'm in the minority , but I wish Jackson would go back to making movies like this . His love of special effects is clear even in this film , but the effects work at the service of a story about actual people living in the actual world , and the results are far more compelling than anything to be found in all 50 hours of the " Rings " trilogy . Before she was a household name , Kate Winslet appeared in this , and gave a marvelous performance . |
574,191 | 4,532,636 | 64,115 | 8 | Bosom Buddies | The ultimate " buddy " movie . Buddy movies were all over the place in 1969 in various guises - - this , " Midnight Cowboy , " " The Wild Bunch , " " Easy Rider . " " Butch Cassidy " is the lightest and most accessible of these - - for that reason , I don't think it's as interesting to look at now as these other movies are . But it does serve up a dose of good old-fashioned Hollywood film-making , and in Paul Newman and Robert Redford , it presented audiences with a cinema duo as memorable as that of Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello , or if you prefer a more contemporary example , Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau , who had manufactured a similar screen chemistry the year before in " The Odd Couple . " " Butch and Sundance " is mostly a nostalgic comedy , harking back to the glory days of screen westerns . But for all its levity , there is something dark about it that's hard to describe . Butch and Sundance are anti-heroes in the same way that Bonnie and Clyde were in Arthur Penn's brilliant film - - they've got the glamour of Hollywood movie stars , but their doom is sealed from the second the film starts , and because they're so likable and charismatic , it makes it that much more upsetting to see them destroyed . Like Bonnie and Clyde , Butch and Sundance find themselves unable to exist in a world intent on their destruction - - in this way , the film comments both on the death of the traditional western , and on the alienated restlessness of an entire younger generation that was beginning to make itself heard in American cinema . Also starring Katharine Ross as the third point in a love triangle , and featuring one of the best film songs ever recorded , " Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head , " which accompanies Paul Newman as he shows off for Ross on a bicycle in one of the movie's highlights . |
573,698 | 4,532,636 | 104,036 | 8 | Is That a Flashlight in Your Pocket ? . . . . | The Crying Game was quite a sensation back in 1992 , and all anybody could talk about in connection with the movie was its big twist . I knew about the twist in advance of seeing the film , so I was able to concentrate on the rest of the story , and it's quite a good one . Neil Jordan crafted a slick little IRA thriller with a dusting of modern-day noir , and the film scores on both the levels of plot and character . Stephen Rea and Jaye Davidson received Oscar nominations for their performances ( whatever happened to either of them ? ) , while Forest Whitaker and Miranda Richardson ( who had quite a prolific year in 1992 ) deliver solid turns as well . |
574,021 | 4,532,636 | 379,725 | 8 | Highly Intelligent Look Into the Mind of an Artist | The recent onslaught of bland , paint-by-number Hollywood biopics may leave you completely disinterested in seeing " Capote , " the new film about eccentric author Truman Capote , directed by Bennett Miller and starring the chameleon Philip Seymour Hoffman . I hope you will reconsider if that is the case . " Capote " is not a biopic in the style of last year's overrated " Ray " - - - show childhood of celebrity ( ideally working in some liberal doses of strife or abuse if possible ) , show scrappy rise of celebrity from modest beginnings , show celebrity reach peak status , show celebrity self-destruct ( usually due to drugs and / or alcohol ) , show celebrity hit rock-bottom , show celebrity seek peace and affirmation , and end on fuzzy , heart-warming scene in which celebrity is honored with a standing ovation as the soundtrack music swells . " Capote " is not that kind of film . In fact , " Capote " is not really about the life of Truman Capote , but rather is about the chain of events that led to Capote writing the book for which he is best known , " In Cold Blood . " This is perhaps the most intelligent film I've ever seen about the relationship between an artist / journalist and the subject about which he is writing . The movie asks : how morally responsible is a writer for his subject ? As depicted in this film , Capote becomes fascinated by a brutal crime in a tiny Kansas town , in which two men brutally murdered an entire family because they thought a large amount of money was hidden in the house . As he spends a great deal of time with one of the men ( Perry Smith ) and begins to piece together his story , he becomes personally interested in helping him fight his case ; eventually , however , Capote's desire to write a work of art overrides the personal interest he's taken in Perry Smith , and he leaves the prisoner clinging to a false hope that Capote is bringing the " true " story ( that is , the story of the men's innocence , though they're not innocent ) to the world . Miller's film is unflinching in its portrayal of Capote as a selfish artist who plays with the lives of his creations ; it's as if he's become so used to writing fiction that he forgets he is telling the story of real people , and moreover real people who trust him to have their best interests at heart . Hoffman has been great in just about every movie he's appeared in , so it was no surprise to me that he would be great here as well . His performance is more than a mere impersonation . He is so good at showing the audience the two sides of Capote : the endearing , lovable side that make people want to trust him ; and the cold , manipulative side that takes over when he becomes Capote the artist . It's to Hoffman's credit that you don't leave the film necessarily despising Capote for his actions , but neither do you feel like you've just participated in a two-hour session of hero worship . Catherine Keener drabs down to play novelist Harper Lee ; Clifton Collins , Jr . is soft and articulate as Perry Smith , which makes his final confession of the murders all the more chilling ; and Chris Cooper adds another fine character performance to his list of character performances as head of the Holcomb , Kansas police department , leading the investigation . My only problem with the film is its monotonous pacing . I feel like the film makers wanted so hard to avoid any of the artificial traditional Hollywood trappings that they felt any burst of energy or activity would be betraying the film's realism . " Capote " is a fine addition to the genre of films committed to exploring the motivations that drive artists , and Hoffman may finally get his due from the mainstream establishment for his award-worthy performance . |
574,416 | 4,532,636 | 106,226 | 8 | Any Other Classics You'd Care to Adapt , Mr . Scorsese ? | Take THAT Merchant and Ivory ! THIS is the way to do a literary adaptation . Martin Scorsese , never one to fear boldness , tackles Edith Wharton's classic and revels in its sumptuous excess . The production and costume design alone are worth the price of admission , but Scorsese does Wharton's themes and characterizations justice as well . That most chameleonic of chameleon actors Daniel Day-Lewis is perhaps a bit too old for his role , but Day-Lewis can do anything and he's great here . Michelle Pfeiffer's natural coldness as an actress serves her well in this particular role . And even Winona Ryder outfits herself well in a smaller but crucial role , even if her contemporary accent and mannerisms are out of place in a period piece . Well done , Mr . Scorsese . |
573,917 | 4,532,636 | 36,342 | 8 | When Hitchcock Comes to Middle America | It's been reported that the primary appeal of doing " Shadow of a Doubt " for Alfred Hitchcock was the idea of bringing a sense of menace to a small , every day American town . In that , this movie brilliantly succeeds . It doesn't join " Rear Window " or " Psycho " as one of my favorite Hitchcock films , but it has much to recommend it . Joseph Cotten didn't get many chances to play a sinister villain , but he's very good at it . His natural ease and charm work to his advantage in creating a smarmy character who you're never completely sure about . He has a lot of chemistry with Teresa Wright , who plays his niece and supposedly has a closer than normal connection with him . In fact , in typical Hitchcock fashion , their relationship in the early scenes of this film takes on a sort of creepy romantic quality that's never overtly addressed but is always there as subtext . As Wright begins to suspect that her Uncle Charlie might not be such a great guy after all - - and may in fact be much worse than simply not a great guy - - the balance of power shifts and she begins to play against him . One of the things I liked most about this movie was how strong a character Wright's Charlie is allowed to be . She's not a ninny , like a character in her situation would be in any number of other films . She doesn't swoon , cry and squeal helplessly . After Uncle Charlie tries to kill her by locking her in a garage with a running car , and she comes to looking directly into his face , she doesn't bite her knuckles as you might expect , but rather says with a cold hard determination , " Go away . " It's very effective , and the whole movie is like that . It has a great supporting cast , both well cast and acted . There's not a throwaway character among the bunch , and everyone makes much of varying sized roles . Patricia Collinge is a stand out as Uncle Charlie's sister , whose radar is going off even as she doesn't want to believe anything sinister can be happening . Henry Travers is the father of the family . . . his attitudes toward Charlie change after he comes to the bank where he works and makes inappropriate jokes . It wasn't until the end credits that I even realized who Hume Cronyn was playing ; I've never seen him so young . " Shadow of a Doubt " isn't as obviously distinguished visually as other Hitchcock films , but it bears his unmistakable mark nonetheless . There aren't as many shots you come away from the film remembering as there are in , say , " Rear Window . " But the whole thing has the feeling of being completely controlled from beginning to end . I really liked the way small-town America was portrayed in this film . It's not full of a bunch of rubes who say things like " aw shucks " and do silly things for us to laugh at . Hitchcock is skillful at showing the contrast between the small-town life of young Charlie's family and Uncle Charlie's jaded big-city life of crime . But he doesn't condescend or patronize . If you want to see higher-tier Hitchcock , you could do much worse than this film . It's got an engaging story , wonderful acting and complex characters , and a few scenes that qualify as genuine nail biters . Very good ! |
574,502 | 4,532,636 | 81,398 | 8 | Excellent Film ? Yes . Scorsese's Masterpiece ? No . | I'm resistant to the many claims that " Raging Bull " is Scorsese's masterpiece . It's certainly excellent , but I think at least two of Scorsese's films on either side of this one - - " Taxi Driver " and " King of Comedy " - - are better . Robert De Niro is truly impressive as Jake LaMotta , but , as so often happens with these biopics , the character he's given to play isn't all that interesting . Once he establishes that LaMotta was a boorish , abusive lout , the character has nowhere to go , and when I hear people praise De Niro's performance now , I almost always hear them talking about the weight he gained to play the role , not the performance itself . Joe Pesci gives the performance to watch in this film as La Motta's bullied little brother . He brings the film whatever emotional center it has . And Scorsese , who can sometimes do wonders with female characters , doesn't do so here ; Cathy Moriarty's put-upon wife is window dressing . What the movie does do well is provide a pitch-perfect illustration of what the American dream is to some people and what they're willing to sacrifice on the way to attaining it , and it does so with sterling black and white cinematography and cracker jack editing from Scorsese's long-time collaborator , Thelma Schoonmaker . |
574,490 | 4,532,636 | 86,979 | 8 | Spooky and Stylish Early Coen Brothers | This early Coen brothers film shows what they can do when they're at the top of their game . This juicy noirish thriller has atmosphere and style to spare , with good performances from a handful of unconventional actors , notably Dan Hedaya , who makes a great bad guy , and Frances McDormand , who of course has gone on to become a Coen regular . " Blood Simple " introduced one of the thematic obsessions that have fueled some of the Coen brothers ' best later movies , like " Fargo " and " No Country for Old Men " : what kinds of unspeakable things are going on out there in the middle of the American nowhere when no one is around to see them ? |
574,176 | 4,532,636 | 37,932 | 8 | A Charming and Truly Suspenseful Little Gothic Thriller | Nina Foch delivers a surprisingly strong performance as the title character in this fun little Gothic nail-biter . She accepts a position as secretary to a London society dowager ( played imperiously by Dame May Witty ) and her creepy son ( the effete and bothersome George Macready ) . Before she knows it , she awakens to find herself in a seaside manor she's never seen before , where Witty and Macready are calling her Marian and trying to convince the servants and the nearby townspeople that she's Macready's mad wife . Of course this pair can only be planning dastardly deeds , and even though we know Julia has to eventually escape her trap , director Joseph Lewis builds real suspense in answering the question of just how she'll manage it . " My Name Is Julia Ross " has nothing stylistically to set it apart from any number of films that came out at the same time period , but I was surprised by how well it held together despite its shoe-string budget and B-movie pedigree . There are quite a few moments that just may have you on the edge of your seat , and I found myself really rooting for Julia as she caught on to the scheme underfoot and began to outsmart her captors . In any other Gothic thriller , the heroine would have swooned , screamed and dithered , waiting for her hero to come and save her . So I can't tell you how refreshing it was to have the heroine in this film use her brain and figure out how to save herself . Well done . |
574,489 | 4,532,636 | 100,150 | 8 | The Coen Brothers Flirt with Gangsters | A terrific gangster film from the Coen brothers , set in the 1930s worlds of nightclubs and professional hit men . Gabriel Byrne is the lead in this one , and he gives a solid performance as a man who we're never quite sure we have figured out . But this film is more about style and atmosphere than it is about people and actors . The Coen brothers seem to be as interested in exploring the gangster film genre as they do in making a strict gangster movie , and it has a stylized look to it that lends it the air of the abstract . These aren't complaints though . The film looks tremendous , and it's art directed to the hilt . |
573,522 | 4,532,636 | 87,003 | 8 | Did You Hear the One About Danny Rose ? . . . . | A pretty funny Woody Allen comedy , in which Allen himself plays Danny Rose , small-time talent agent who finds himself falling for the mistress ( Mia Farrow ) of one of his clients ( Nick Apollo Forte ) when he has to pretend to be the mistress's date at one of his client's shows ( it's a long story ) . Before long , Allen and Farrow are engaged in an escape from a gang of hoods that climaxes in a shootout in the storage warehouse for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade . Allen is hilarious as usual , but Farrow is the one who impressed me with her acting here . I already knew she was a fine dramatic actress , but here she gets to show her comedic side , playing a brassy floozy with a Joisy accent and enormous glasses . The film is framed as a story one famous comedian is telling to a group of other famous comedians at New York City's Carnegie Deli , and the whole film has the patina of nostalgia for NYC that so often infuses Allen's films . Like " Manhattan , " " Broadway Danny Rose " is filmed in black and white and looks fantastic . |
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