Best Movie-Viewing Experiences 9/3/16 - 26/3/16
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GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (2005)
A SECOND VIEWING
d: George Clooney
CAST: David Strathairn; Patricia Clarkson; George Clooney; Robert Downey Jr; Jeff Daniels
> the story of how American Master journalist Edward R Murrow stood up to dickhead fascist Joseph McCarthy and ultimately won; the B&W cinematography is beautiful and, mixed with the incessant cigarette smoke coming out of David's mouth, makes for an interesting celluloid texture; funny how Patrica always seems to fit this era; attempts at mild humour and running gags (a director George trademark) are needless but don't ruin the overall impact; a good modern history lesson and a tale of true heroism
Award-Worthy Performance
David Strathairn
THE DAUGHTER (2015)
A FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Simon Stone
CAST: Geoffrey Rush; Sam Neill; Ewen Leslie; Miranda Otto; Odessa Young; Paul Schneider
> a superb relationship drama which just happens to come from Australia; high quality performances from all involved, particularly from Odessa as the teenager and Ewen who plays her father; somehow the director manages to establish tension from the get-go even when there's not much (seemingly) going on; love the unusual audio-doesn't-always-match-the-visuals editing choices; never overtly Arty but becomes Art right in front of you...but you are too wrapped up in these people's lives to notice; exceptional cinematic storytelling and a preview of a talented director's career-to-be
Award-Worthy Performances
Ewen Leslie; Odessa Young
HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG (2003)
A RE-EVALUATION / ORIGINAL GRADE: A-
d: Vadim Perelman
CAST: Jennifer Connelly; Ben Kingsley; Shohreh Aghdashloo; Ron Eldard
> rarely has such an involving film turned on such a minor plot-point: an ownership dispute over a house; brilliant use of unsettling imagery (night fog & everyday sights framed and shot ominously) and vaguely-sinister music; acting of the two leads is superb; the tension comes from the awkward fact that no one is in the wrong, and no one is an entirely likeable character...making them more like real flawed people who are capable of anything; you are told from the outset that this is not going to work out well, so a sense of dread runs through the viewing experience; a film about pride and despair, rage and fragility
Award-Worthy Performances
Jennifer Connelly; Ben Kingsley
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Zack Snyder
CAST: Ben Affleck; Henry Cavill; Amy Adams; Jesse Eisenberg; Diane Lane; Laurence Fishburne; Gal Gadot; Jeremy Irons; Holly Hunter
> don't believe the naysayers: this is a good movie (of its type, of course); Ben succeeds as Bruce Wayne; Jesse exaggerates his The Social Network annoying-little-snot persona as Lex Luthor; Jeremy is a better fit as Alfred than Michael Caine; spectacular action galore with some recycled DC imagery (swarming bats / Christ-figure); clever blending of the classic "The Dark Knight Returns" and "The Death of Superman" storylines; while I accept that the movie is epic in scope by necessity, it's just too bloody long (wish I'd brought an empty bottle; it's time to bring back intermissions); the best DC movie since The Dark Knight; Hey! There's even a couple of genuinely amusing jokes near the tail end; well done Zack!
DOGFIGHT (1991)
A- SECOND VIEWING
d: Nancy Savoca
CAST: River Phoenix; Lili Taylor
> such a sweet unjustly undersung little movie; 18 year old Marine about to be shipped out to Vietnam in the early days of the war meets up with a nice girl under cruel circumstances - romance ensues; so affecting to see two young people connecting before your eyes, even though they have nothing in common apart from age; early Sixties songs and fashions add charm to the mix; somehow, there's a sense of sadness / dread which hangs over it; one of the most endearing romance flicks I know; if this movie doesn't touch you, you are emotionally dead; thank you to Danny Peary for putting me onto this
Award-Worthy Performance
Lili Taylor
THE GHOST & MR CHICKEN (1966)
B+ SECOND VIEWING
d: Alan Rafkin
CAST: Don Knotts; some other people
> amusing to see this again after more than 40 years; scared the crap outta me back when I was 10 (some of its images were instantly recalled) and my 56-year-old self can see why: the gardening shears sticking out of the neck is pretty hideous!; really just a movie-length episode of the shoulda-happened Barney Fife Show but that Mayberry character was the only persona goggle-eyed Don could portray; there are a couple of running gags in this which made me laugh out loud (Attaboy Luther!); not as good a horror-comedy as Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein or Beetlejuice, I grant you, but not bad; rated generously due to childhood nostalgia
THE WITCH (2015)
B+ FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Robert Eggers
CAST: Anya Taylor-Joy; Ralph Ineson; Kate Dickie; Harvey Scrimshaw
> a gently told horror story of the satanic/witching kind; 17th Century family is expelled from a gated community over a religious dispute and must fend for themselves in the wild - cruel misfortune and tragedies befall them; luscious cinematography of open landscape, closed-in forest and up-close faces; the dialogue is of the "thee & thou" variety, so, unless you're a Shakespearean regular, you will miss some of what is said, which is a little frustrating; goes for creepy rather than fright (I jumped once...bloody goat); unknown cast does a good job, especially the young ones; final scenes are a little overdone and clash with the subtlety of what went before; effective but not entirely haunting
EIGHT MEN OUT (1988)
B+ SECOND VIEWING
d: John Sayles
CAST: John Cusack; David Strathairn; Charlie Sheen; Michael Rooker; Christopher Lloyd
> I'm not much of a baseball fan (or basketball or football or curling or...) but the 1919 Black Sox Scandal has always interested me (no, I can't tell you why); I especially like how this movie begins as a rather lighthearted, jaunty look at the early years of the sport (country-boy players; worshipful tenement kids; jazzy muted trumpets) then gradually slides into the associated evils of organised crime; with the exception of David Strathairn, the actors seem to think they're in a Sunday Night Made-For-TV quickie movie and turn in merely serviceable performances; for addicts of the American Experience documentary series (like me)
THE QUIET AMERICAN (1958)
B+ SECOND VIEWING
d: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
CAST: Michael Redgrave; Audie Murphy; Claude Dauphin
> a Graham Greene politics movie, not in the same league as The Third Man (of course...what could be?), but at least as good as Our Man in Havanna; very (very) talky but Michael rescues most of the conversations in his usual highly-believable / rather offhand style; Audie is acceptable if somewhat two steps back emotionally; set in the early 1950's conflict-torn Indochina, the film avoids both an anti-war stance and a gung-ho action rush, so it comes across as a little anemic; a study of indifference & cynicism Vs involvement & passion
Award-Worthy Performance
Michael Redgrave
STORM IN A TEACUP (1937)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Victor Saville & Ian Dalrymple
CAST: Vivien Leigh; Rex Harrison; Cecil Parker; Sara Allgood
> for Anglophiles (specifically Scotophiles) only; piece of UK whimsy based on a German stage play two years before the nations were mortal enemies; pompous town mayor gets his comeuppance at the hands of a young journalist and sues for slander in retaliation; usual wee doggy / no-nonsense old woman / quirky townsfolk / authority figures as figures of fun / bickering romance; both Vivien and Rex are in their early pre-charisma days (he looks remarkably like a meerkat); Sara gives her standard hammy performance while Cecil blusters away; a pleasant enough little movie though; fans of Hamish Macbeth will dig it
MAN OF STEEL (2013)
B FIRST VIEWING
d: Zack Snyder
CAST: Henry Cavill; Amy Adams; Michael Shannon; Diane Lane; Kevin Costner; Laurence Fishburne; Russell Crowe
> DC Movies have never entirely adopted their own credo: Why So Serious?; Christopher Reeve will always be the cinematic Superman (but Henry's okay); no point praising the high-quality SFX because all the 21st Century super-hero movies have that; geez, Supes makes a helluva mess!; risky over-rejigging of the original comic features that us fanboys hold dear to our 10-year-old hearts; Michael is in a comic book discard-all-subtlety mindset but not in a fun way; Amy as Lois Lane lacks perkiness (she's just brave); an acceptable and necessary prequel to Batman V Superman (see above), but it's no Spider-Man 2 or Unbreakable
THE LOVELY BONES (2009)
C SECOND & LAST VIEWING
d: Peter Jackson
CAST: Saoirse Ronan; Mark Wahlberg; Rachel Weisz; Stanley Tucci; Susan Sarandon
> a film I really wanted to like more than I actually do, but the problem is...it's crappy; Fantasia-style visual splendours which represent the afterlife (has there ever been an acceptable version of Heaven on film?) jars with the brutal story of a young girl who is murdered; the grieving parents and their agony clash with sweet teenage love stories; a psycho-pervert-serial killer and a funky-fun granny inhabit the same space; add groovy psychedelic trappings, rockin' songs ("Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress"!!), the paranormal and a touch of slapstick, and you've got severe cinematic indigestion; remember folks: this is supposedly the story of a child who is raped, killed and dismembered
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Best Movie-Viewing Experiences 19/2/16 - 8/3/16
THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (1988)
A MOVIE JUKEBOX
d: Lawrence Kasdan
CAST: William Hurt; Geena Davis; Kathleen Turner; Bill Pullman
> one of the most closely-aligned to the source-novel films I know (read the book or see the film; the story remains exactly the same); hits me hard emotionally; William's performance is gold, totally lacking in blatant tearjerking and crafty grabs for sentiment; Geena is adorable; love the whole theme of "courage is coping with the unimaginable"... and these characters really do have to deal with an absolute life horror; the quirks of the side characters add charm and (actually) a little bit more poignancy to the whole experience; only a brittle cynic could be anti this gem
Award-Worthy Performances
William Hurt; Geena Davis
CITIZEN RUTH (1996)
A- FIRST VIEWING
d: Alexander Payne
CAST: Laura Dern; Mary Kay Place; Swoosie Kurtz; Burt Reynolds; Tippi Hedren
> something wholly unique in filmdom: a comedy about the abortion debate; Ruth, an intoxicant inhaler who is regularly drunk and wasted, discovers she is pregnant yet again and is advised this time to have an abortion (mainly to reduce / avoid jail time); Laura plays Ruth as the eternal no-hoper who is the unwitting rope in a Babysaver Vs Pro-Choicer tug-o'-war; many amusing moments, most of which are supplied by Laura's exasperation and determination to Look Out For #1 and get what she can out of the situation; farcical story with something serious to say
Award-Worthy Performance
Laura Dern
THE RAILWAY MAN (2013)
A- FIRST VIEWING
d: Jonathan Teplitzky
CAST: Colin Firth; Nicole Kidman; Stellan Skarsgard; Hiroyuki Sanada; Jeremy Irvine
> starts off as a charming little love story and suddenly encompasses the WWII horrors of the Burma Railway; the beatings which take place in the POW Camp are necessarily brutal and harrowing - you feel every single blow; Colin is terrific in the lead - probably his best dramatic performance; the final confrontation between captive and torturer is nerve-wracking and it's a credit to all concerned that you really are unsure what Colin is going to do; a true story of inhumanity at its most barbaric, but also subsequent forgiveness and redemption...we can never have enough of those kind of resolutions
Award-Worthy Performance
Colin Firth
STEVE JOBS (2015)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Danny Boyle
CAST: Michael Fassbender; Kate Winslet; Jeff Daniels; Seth Rogen
> another movie which I had no initial interest in and was almost immediately interested and impressed; essentially a character study of an arrogant, driven visionary (how many true visionaries aren't arrogant and driven?) who was obviously a bit of a dick but still admired and loved; Michael is the whole box 'n' dice and he is terrific; I was never an Apple geek (I've always resented their whole "our way or the highway" approach to production and marketing) but just like with The Social Network, I was hooked on the story; exceptional script construction and direction with a nifty Bob Dylan soundtrack
Award-Worthy Performance
Michael Fassbender
A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988)
A- SECOND VIEWING
d: Charles Crichton
CAST: John Cleese; Jamie Lee Curtis; Kevin Kline; Michael Palin
> late-period screwball comedy made by an Ealing master and starring a third of the Monty Python team paired with two American non-comedians: how did it possibly work?; some very funny scenes here (poor doggies!) and Kevin is wonderfully moronic as Otto; surprised that John and Jamie didn't pursue more roles like this (he has a touch of the Ian Carmichaels; she recalls Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve); Personal Bias Alert: while I believe that everything is entitled to be made comic (except genocide of course), Michael's twist-faced stuttering is uncomfortable...I can see why it was attacked by the similarly afflicted
Award-Worthy Performance
Kevin Kline
GASLIGHT (1940)
B+ SECOND VIEWING
d: Thorold Dickinson
CAST: Anton Walbrook; Diana Wynyard; Frank Pettingell; Cathleen Cordell; Robert Newton
> the original British film which MGM tried to buy up all copies of and destroy when it did the more-famous 1944 remake with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer; this is the better movie though - 1944 went for a lush gothic and noirish feel whereas this one lets the period-setting set the style; Diana is thankfully less histrionic and shows more gumption than Ingrid, and Anton is an acting match for Charles; only the 1944 Angela Lansbury as the sluttish, scheming housemaid is superior; Thorold is one of the great overlooked Golden Age directors - his manipulation of imagery and economic storytelling skills are on show here
BAT*21 (1988)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Peter Markle
CAST: Gene Hackman; Danny Glover; Jerry Reed
> I read somewhere that this is considered the great lost Vietnam War movie...but let's face it...there's not much competition (1978's Go Tell the Spartans gets my vote); usual war film suspense-makers: a deserted village which really isn't / bad-guy soldiers walking past a good-guy soldier hiding in the nearby bushes / being forced through a minefield; Gene & Danny are typical and decent All-American Joes who hate war & killing but, for some reason, still do it anyway; the carpet-bombing scene is appropriately terrifying; a war film which is nearly anti-war enough to suit me
KIM (1950)
B+ MOVIE JUKEBOX
d: Victor Saville
CAST: Dean Stockwell; Errol Flynn; Paul Lukas; Cecil Kellaway
> a childhood favourite of mine which, while I freely admit its many flaws (sluggish direction by Victor + half-hearted performance by Errol + dreadfully obvious studio shots + every Indian cliche under the sun + unintentionally funny rockslide), still gives me pleasure whenever I see it (it helps if you were a Boy Scout in the old days when Kim's Game and Baden-Powell were still part of the propaganda); lovely location shots of India in glorious technicolor; Dean is better in the title role than the originally-proposed, pre-outbreak of WWII Freddie Bartholomew (not the action-boy type) would've been; always liked Paul Lukas as the Holy Man too
45 YEARS (2015)
B+ FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Andrew Haigh
CAST: Charlotte Rampling; Tom Courtenay
> a little movie about a long-married couple (guess how long for?) whose commitment to each other is strained by the discovery (entombed in a glacier!) of the husband's first true love; the whole film rides on the back of Charlotte as she struggles with the found-knowledge that she was always Number 2 in her husband's life, and always will be; fortunately, Charlotte is up to the acting challenge: she is superb; the film is a little too civilized and gentle for my taste (more could've been made of the sex and attic scenes), but still affecting
Award-Worthy Performance
Charlotte Rampling
BLACK AND WHITE (2002)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Craig Lahiff
CAST: Robert Carlyle; Kerry Fox; Charles Dance; David Ngoombujarra; Ben Mendelsohn
> Australian docu-drama about an infamous 1959 murder trial (Aboriginal man sentenced to death for the rape & killing of a 9-year-old girl) which turned on very questionable evidence; movie moves along at a brisk pace (maybe too brisk), brushing over the initial events so it can get stuck into its main targets: the corrupt police, the ravenous press, the right-wing establishment and the self-righteous judiciary; David is terrific as the accused, buffeted by both the well-meaning and the blatantly-racist white guys; although Robert and Charles do a fine job, I wish these feature roles had been played by Aussies, just because...
Award-Worthy Performance
David Ngoombujarra
Worst Movie-Viewing Experiences 19/2/16 - 8/3/16
THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (1948)
B AT LEAST THREE VIEWINGS NOW...
d: Joseph Losey
CAST: Dean Stockwell; Pat O'Brien; Robert Ryan
> one of the downright weirdest movies ever made; an American boy loses his parents in the WWII London Blitz, lives with a singing waiter who insists on being called Gramps, and one day, after a bath, the boy's hair turns bright green; now also throw in a couple of twinklingly-cute Irish songs and a bunch of imaginary war orphans who beg TBWTGH to use his emerald moptop as a symbol of hope or peace (or something); a message film I guess, but isn't "War is dangerous for children" already pretty much taken for granted?; bizarre bizarre bizarre; Joseph Losey...you've done it again
PAPERHOUSE (1988)
D FIRST & LAST VIEWING
d: Bernard Rose
CAST: Charlotte Burke; Ben Cross; Glenne Headly; Gemma Jones
> what a stupid movie; a fantasy / horror flick about an 11 year old girl with glandular fever (!) who draws a house then inhabits it in her dreams; something about her father being a monster out to get her (then he isn't) and a boy with legs which don't work and parents who are having marital difficulties; one of the most unappealing and zero-charisma performances by a child actress ever (no wonder it was Charlotte's only film); not sure how I was supposed to respond to this (certainly wasn't scared or creeped out) so I had a nap on the couch instead
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