Frost/Nixon

Ron Howard, 2008 (7*)
Reliable director Ron Howard tackles the anti-climax to this pivotal point in American history, as Richard Nixon was the first U.S. president to resign, forced to by impending impeachment by Congress for his part in the authorization and cover-up of crimes that flowed like a river after the Watergate break-in, not just that incident but a whole litany of other civil rights abuses as well. After his pardon by President-apointee Gerald Ford, the entire nation felt robbed of a criminal trial or an admission of guilt and an apology from Nixon.

Australian entertainer and talk-show host David Frost seized an opportunity to outbid other networks with Nixon’s agent for the rigtht to inverview him "live, on tape". Nixon was a Hollywood-style individual with a penchant for the big-time for the big fee, so a lot of the movie is about the financial wranglings made in order to set up the interviews, then we see a re-enactment of the actual interviews, conducted in a mundane, middle-class Republican businessman’s house.

Perhaps it’s the locale, or the staleness of this as a news event as many of us saw this when it happened in reality, but this film lacks the punch and intensity of other Howard docudramas like Apollo 13, Cinderella Man, and A Beautiful Mind. Frank Langella is brilliant as Nixon, deserved the Oscar for capturing his demeanor and style without actually imitating him. Michael Sheen (The Queen) is barely adequate as Frost, giving the character no personality whatsoever, which may have been accurate but hardly dramatic. Down a star for the overall lack of intensity as Nixon is treated more like a kindly, aging grandad, though a vital part of history that should be witnessed as a serving President circumvented the U.S. Constitution at every opportunity. Screenplay author Peter Jordan (an Oscar®-winner for The Queen), but for Howard, a competent but not outstanding volume in his overall filmography.

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The Visitor

Tom McCarthy, 2008 (9*)
This is an excellent little indie film, with some powerful performances by the entire cast. Richard Jenkins, an overlooked character actor (he played the dead father’s ghost on Six Feet Under), received a well-deserved Oscar® nomination for best actor for his best career role. Director Tom McCarthy (Central Station) has written an intelligent and emotionally gripping screenplay about the plight of immigrants here, especially Muslims, affected severely by the backlash created by the 9/11 disaster. The story also shows how people can still mange to communicate and understand each other in spite of different backgrounds, in this case with music as the common link.

Jenkins plays a Connecticut professor, Walter, in New York to give a paper, and when he arrives at his seldom-used apartment, a young couple is living there: a man, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman in his first role), a djembe (hand-made west African goatskin drum) drummer from Syria, and his girlfriend, a street vending jewelry-maker from Senegal. Walter befriends the couple, begins drumming with Tarek’s tutelage, and later tries to help Tarek with his immigration status. The actress Hiam Abbass (Munich) is especially touching as Tarek’s mother, who shows up from Michigan to help her son, and grudgingly becomes friends with Walter. This is well-done all around, not sentimental or mundane in the least, and uses drumming as a metaphor for the universality of the heartbeat and a method of non-verbal communication between different cultures.

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Control Room

Jehane Nouhaim, 2004 (9*)
This is an excellent documentary, obviously shot by director Jehane Houhaim with a modest budget and crew, but one given a wide degree of access to all concerned. The film attempts to show the coverage of the Iraqi war from both sides of the issue, and expose the bias inherent in all newsmedia. We see more of the Al Jazeera coverage, who broadcasts to 40 million in the Arab world, but we also see the US Army's head media (ie, propaganda) liaison officer and hear the standard US pitch on events (liberate the people, make em safe, etc). We also go into the front lines of the war for at least one harrowing incident.

The filmmakers don't make a judgment but show some indicents that didn't get full coverage here in the US, such as the suspicious targeting of three different journalists outposts with missile attacks, killing three from Middle Eastern news sources. So much for freedom of the press, as the US said they shouldn't have been in war zone to begin with, preferring to brief the media themselves daily with the US version of events.

This is an important work for both sides to see, no matter what your own political stance, this is simply good documentary filmmaking and concerning an important era in history. As a BBC journalist states, "all media coverage is biased, they slant the news the way their audience wants to hear it. You listen to Fox for the right-wing, U.S. patriotic view, you watch Al Jazeera to get the opposite view for the Arab world."

As the director of 7-yr old Al Jazeera states, "this war will be a footnote in a few years, no one will still be talking about it, such is the attention span of modern man." Let's hope that films and other media keep it as alive in public consciousness as they have WW2.
[In English, with some subtitles]

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Drugstore Cowboy

Gus Van Sant, 1989 (10*)
[Our 400th review - I was saving a great one]

This is just about the perfect anti-drug film. Matt Dillon, really in his element here as a disaffected youth without any goal in life other than getting high, leads a small group of junkie friends, including girlfriend Kelly Lynch in her best role, in robbing pharmacies in order to get the drugs. They use a number of ruses to pull some robberies, and they’ll take anything within reach, then later swap the stuff they don’t want with other drug users in their network.

This is a sordid and grisly story, but is somehow made hypnotic (the perfect cast helped a lot) by director Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting), in his masterpiece, adapted from an unpublished manuscript that he bought from a convict in prison which recounts his life on the outside as a habitual drug user. This also has some funny dialogue revolving around the everyday delusions and phobias of the characters, such as Dillon’s paranoia about a hat on the bed, his ultimate harbinger of bad tidings. This has the look of a small indie film, yet sends a more powerful jolt than big budget projects. Along with Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000), the best films about drug abuse ever made.

Quote: Didn’t I always tell ya, never put a hat on the bed?

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Some Like It Hot

Billy Wilder, 1959, bw (8*)
A ludicrious premise like this in the hands of anyone short of a master director like Wilder and this classic comedy could have been another forgettable farce, or even a tv show like Bosom Buddies, which obviously borrowed from this. Two musicians, played by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, witness a gangland slaying and flee to avoid being the next victims. Naturally, the best place to hide out? An all-female big band, with none other than Marilyn Monroe around to tempt the guys to shed their female impersonations and reveal their macho studliness. They occasionally forget and speak in deep male voices.

In a funny twist, to top off the insanity, the wealthy Joe E. Brown falls for Jack Lemmon as a woman, so we get some great gender-bending jokes about the aggressive male tactics in romance, as well as the film’s hilarious closing line. This is another Wilder gem, and they’re still trying to make a similar film today, as Tootsie and Big Mama and Mrs. Doubtfire all proved. How ironic that gay heartthrob Tony Curtis was both in drag and played the denonair playboy courting Marilyn on the side. This pokes great fun at the superficiality and materialist driven American romantic ritual.

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Viridiana

Luis Bunuel, 1961, Spain, bw (8*)
For those who would like a more normal, non-surrealist intro to the surrealist friend of Dali, Spanish director Luis Bunuel (Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), this is a good early film with a nearly straightforward story. A nun named Virigiana, played by Silvia Pinal, gets word that her uncle, played by Bunuel favorite Fernando Rey, is ill and aging, which isn't entirely true. She doesn’t really want to leave the convent just before her consecration but the Mother Superior orders her to go.

There at her uncle’s estate, she realizes the wealth he has and that she can do some good with it after all. She visits the town and invites several of the local homeless beggars to come live at the estate as long as they respect everyone and don’t fight and follow simple rules. The ensuing events test her faith as well as faith in mankind. Rather than an apparently wandering film like Discreet Charm, this story has a cohesive progression to an end, which should delight those who haven’t found Bunuel understandable to this point. He admits in interviews that he rarely has a story in mind, and just largely improvises when the cameras roll. In this film, he apparently had more of a script and perhaps it shows as this is his most critically acclaimed film.

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

David Fincher, 2008 (8*)
I'm usually a fan of David Fincher's films, each one has an element of fantasy, yet is made to seem real. Fight Club had Ed Norton battling his insanity, with friends; The Game found Michael Douglas running from unseen enemies as a birthday present from brother Sean Penn. Only Zodiac attempted to be factual, and that was based on the theory of a journalist. Here Fincher films an F. Scott Fitzgerald fantasy story, thanks to an excellent screenplay by Eric Roth, an Oscar®-winner for the Forrest Gump screenplay. This script is not as sharp or crackling with lines, but does treat its subject with a certain reverent gentility.

Benjamin Button is born on the day World War I ended, and his mother died in childbirth. His dad, taking a look at the infant, who was born old, leaves him on the steps of a nearby house for the elderly, and mama for Benjamin becomes an African-American who works in the house, played by Oscar®-nominee Taraji P. Henson. While growing but remaining old he meets a little girl that becomes his lifetime friend, later played by Cate Blanchett. Even as a short, old-looking child, the role is played by Brad Pitt in an amazing Oscar®-winning makeup job.

We eventually discover along with Benjamin that he's not growing older but younger and he adapts to feeling better daily by taking his first job on a tugboat. Fincher makes both the river journeys of the tugboat and later some shots of Lake Ponchetrain look like the old hand-tinted postcards, so the early parts of the film are steeped in Americana. The later parts chronologically, and how the film actually begins for the viewer, use a plot device of having Julia Ormand read Benjamin's diary to an invalid in a hospital who knew him, so we get Benjamin's story in retrospect and from his own words.

This is a gentle, if lengthy fable, running about 2 hrs, 48 minutes. The length kills the pace a little, but fans of film fables such as Field of Dreams and Big Fish should enjoy this, as well as fans of David Fincher. The cast is excellent and also includes Tilda Swinton. The film received 13 Oscar® nominations, the most for 2008, but lost to Slumdog Millionaire in nearly every major category, a film with admittedly more energy and better pace. Three Oscars® for art direction, visual effects, and makeup.

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Sunrise

F.W. Murnau, 1927, silent/bw (8*)
This film is #12 on the critics consensus top 1000.

Normally I'm not a fan of silent movies. In complete silence, there seems to be something lacking, throw in a honky tonk piano and I'd just as soon turn the sound down, or even strangle myself (like Dr. Strangelove). That leaves the dvd's that have a music soundtrack added, which makes them a little more palatable. F.W. Murnau's masterpiece Sunrise is such a beautiful movie visually I'm making an exception. In fact, the cinematography of Kari Struss and Charles Rosher won a well-deserved Oscar®. This movie looks like an 18th century painting in motion, and often uses special effect done so well you can't tell they're effects.

The story is almost a distraction, a typical lover's triangle. George O'Brian is a philandering husband to Oscar®-winner Janet Gaynor (lots of arching eyebrows and sorrowful looks in silent films), and his cosmopolitan girlfriend from the city (Margaret Livingston), who is vacationing in the married couples' country resort village, plans her murder so the lovers can be together.

F.W. Murnau's first film in Hollywood brings his European background and influence into full focus. There are some eerie expressionist scenes outdoors, and some Fritz Lang-ish cityscapes as well as Murnau proves equal to the legendary master. The story takes a back seat to the cinematic art of Sunrise, and this is a treat for all students of film history. Three Oscars®, including one only given this one time (for 1927) for Unique and Artistic Film.

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The Cider House Rules

Lasse Hallstrom, 1999 (8*)
This is my favorite John Irving novel transformation to films, and earned Irving an Oscar® for adapted screenplay. The title refers to a set of rules in a workhouse at an orchard where Tobey McGuire (in an effective dramatic part) goes to work after growing up in a nearby orphanage. Delroy Lindo has a terrific supporting part as one of his co-workers with a past.

Michael Caine, in one of his best roles, won a supporting acting Oscar® as the kind doctor who runs the orphanage. Tobey is in love with a glamorous young Charlize Theron, who brings back memories of a young Grace Kelly, sparkling, refreshing beauty. Swedish Director Lasse Hallstrom usually brings a warm-hearted touch to stories that also have some depth and psychological complexity, and this ranks with his best, which I consider the comedy My Life As a Dog. Two Oscars®

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Election

Alexander Payne, 1999 (9*)
This was the surprise comedic hit for me in 1999. Reese Witherspoon hit her stride as an agressive high schooler who will do just about anything to get elected class president. She's ambitious and knows how to use her femininity to get what she wants. Matthew Broderick is well-cast as a jealous young teacher who puts up a dim-witted opponent but a popular athlete (Chris Klein) against her. Rather than just another sophmoric high school film however, director Alexander Payne (Sideways) gives this film enough bite to make a dark statement about American politics at the same time that he also makes incisive points about the state of relationships and sexuality. One of the best and most overlooked films of that year.

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Salaam Bombay!

Mira Nair, 1988, India (10*)
This is one of the great Asian films. One a few films I'd call a masterpiece, and probably my favorite film by a female director, replacing Lina Wertmuller's Seven Beauties.

Unbelievably, this is director Mira Nair's first feature film - "fiction" that is. (Most wil recognize Monsoon Wedding as hers). After making 5 documentaries, she wanted to show the indominable spirit of these kids and their everyday struggle for survival. She used only 3 pro actors (the Madame, Aneeta Kanwar as Rakah the prostitute, Ragubir Yaday as Chillum the street addict), and 24 children of the streets of Bombay (almost none of whom could read the script!), selected from over 150 she had put into her special acting workshop she set up to cast this movie. Shafiq Syed is the amazing lead actor, as Chiapau/Krishna, and 11-yr old kicked out of his home and told not to come back until he could repay 500 rupees; he now delivers tea daily in the brothel district.

Nair based this on her experiences filming India Cabaret, a documentary about strippers, and meeting a lovable "chai wallah", or tea delivery boy (like in Slumdog Millionaire, which owes a lot to this film and Fernando Mierelles' City of God), who personally brought tea to the strippers daily at 4pm. She got financial assistance from the government in making this, giving her access to harsh prison/orphanages, closed to private filmmakers. She then used the profits from the film to set up 3 homes for street kids, which has grown now to 17. KUDOS all-around for making a social film that actually brought change to Indian society in the way they treat and educate orphans, and showed the world a terrific story, beautifully composed by Nair and shot by cinematographer Sandi Sissel, who, along with Nair, provides commentary for the film.

Great movie, DVD, overall experience. If you like Slumdog, this is even better; more real, harder hitting. I would watch both commentaries as well. Deservedly won Nair the best new director award at Cannes in 1988.

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Short Cuts 3

Lately I've seen more films to avoid than to recommend. Here are the latest ones, all by major directors as well.

Persona (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden) - the kind of Bergman film that Woody Allen and others parodied or copied, consists largely of facial close-ups (beautiful b&w cinematography by Sven Nykvist as usual) of two actresses he was involved with romantically: Bibi Andersson, who plays a nurse to Liv Ullman's actress having a mental breakdown. (Bergman and Ullman became involved after this, her first film with him.) Not much happens except a lot of angst, and a few shots of arc lights or film which critics claim is "Bergman deconstructing cinema as we knew it then" - Whoopee, I always love a good artistic deconstruction. Thankfully a short film at 90 minutes; the best thing here are Liv Ullman's lips. She was 25 at the time and admits, "I didn't understand Bergman, but he was an icon". Example of Bergman's excess: one 5-8 minute scene is shown entirely twice, once showing the speaker, Bibi, once showing the listener, Ullman. Wow, how radical (zzz..) You could do a whole movie that way; and the viewer sits through everything twice, but its 'art'. 5* (of 10)
Note: Bergman's highest ranked film critically, at #40, with Seventh Seal (My pick) just behind at #52 (a knight plays chess with death during the plague in the middle ages; what could be more fun?)

Legend of 1900 (Guiseppe Tornatore, Italy) - normally I love Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, Malena), but this film starring Tim Roth as a pianist who has never set foot off the luxury liner he was born and abandoned on made me ultimately sad by this individual's story. I'm glad its a legend, I would hope this never happened in reality. The 'reverse-named' Pruitt Taylor Vince has his best career role as Roth's best friend, a trumpet player on the ship. Still, it covers four decades in a man and a ship's life - very ambitious. Well made, just heart-wrenching. 6* (of 10)

The Star Maker (Guiseppe Tornatore, Italy) - another Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, Malena) directed film, and like these two, was filmed in Sicily. This is about a talent scout for a Rome film studio, who travels about the countryside taking screen tests for locals to submit to agents in Rome. The story starts very well, as we're shown local Sicilians with faces of great character and life, and it feels like Tornatore himself was duplicating the story's narrative. Somewhere midway however, he picks up a teenage virgin who is dying to escape her boring life working in a convent, and the story goes downhill from there. As a film and Tornatore fan, I eventually felt ripped off by the plot development and conclusion. What began as a warm-hearted romantic comedy filled with hope became serious and unrewarding. One expects better from Tornatore relative to the story itself. Beautifully shot scenes of Sicily (a beautiful ancient amphitheater in one scene) and its inhabitants however. 5* (of 10)
Note: the dvd cover is inaccurate; the girl did not resemble Lolita, but was a dark-haired, black-eyed Italian beauty; she never once wore sunglasses either. "Shoot the Poster Maker"

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Short Cuts 2

Here are some more recent films I've seen that I would avoid, and the reasons why:

The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia) - Bergmanesque film made in Sweden by Russian director (using Berman's cinematorgrapher) who proves he can be just as boring as the Swede he admires. Painful to watch as we descend into dementia with an aging patriarch. 3* (of 10)

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia) - this is science fiction based on "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It's worse than slow, you have to watch this 150 minutes of men sleeping and water dripping at high speed or else tear your hair out. Terrible science fiction, yet #125 on the critics 1000 (how?). The high contrast film also hurt my eyes. 2*
[Note: the two Tarkovksy films I'd recommend: Andrei Rublev, his masterpiece, and Ivan's Childhood, a beautifully shot, b&w anti-war WW2 film; in 59, one of the first Russian films to see airing in the U.S.]

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 remake) - Not great in b&w in the 50's, still not great even with special effects. Good idea, just not much of a story to go with it (this kind of story is routine in early SciFi literature, there's much better out there in books). Mankind is so brutal and destructive that an advanced alien race wants to eradicate us to save the earth. This is sad whether true or not, because we are definitely killing the earth for our short-term profit. Canoe, er Keanu Reeves is even blander in this than normal; he needs to study Gary Cooper if he wants to do a lot with little effort. 4*

Sansho the Bailiff (Kenzi Mizoguchi, Japan) - #88 on the critics top 1000, this b&w 'classic' is a boring and painful look at slavery in ancient Japan. Well filmed, this is still a totally miserable exposé to sit through, and we all know slavery is awful for slaves. Made in 1954, the film looks like early 30's western films, it's that primitive. Watch Seven Samurai again instead, same era, two years later but decades ahead in style. I suppose of all these "short cut" films, this one will still probably interest the most cinephiles, as least as students of film history. 5*

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Burden of Dreams

Les Blank, 1982 (9*)
Whether you liked or even watched Werner Herzog’s ambitious epic Fitzcarraldo, this documentary on its making is one of the best films about filmmaking ever made. Herzog became so obsessed with his story that he repeated the character's prodigious feat of bringing opera to the Amazon rainforest by moving a huge steamship inland over hills and up to a huge lake where it could move around a large, remote area to bring the first opera ever seen or heard by Amazon natives.

Les Blank and his assistant Maureen Gosling take us to Herzog’s film locations in the jungle. His first location became the scene of a border war between tribes, so he had to move to another location. Moving the steamship using manpower, pulleys, and one bulldozer for backup was very dangerous, so many crew members and a structural engineer walked off the job; another was bitten by a green mambo and immediately amputated his own leg with a machete – if not, he would have died in minutes. Such are the burdens of filmmaking dreams, and none were more grandoise than Herzog’s insane obsession.

Lead actor Jason Robards succombed to dysentery and wasn’t allowed to return to location, so Klaus Kinski completed the film. Herzog also lost Mick Jagger to a concert tour, so this film had many setbacks, and Burden of Dreams becomes a chronicle of Herzog's obstacles to his maniacal obsession - perhaps the most 'larger than life' of all films. This is one of the best documentaries ever made.

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Fight Club

David Fincher, 1999 (8*)
Great entertainment, as are most Fincher films (The Game, Benjamin Button), with a few statements thrown in about nihilism, anarchy, and self-absorbed insanity. Edward Norton plays a bored corporate lackey fed up with his nowhere life. One night he runs into Brad Pitt at a bar and they have a fistfight that has a cathartic effect on each one, so they make it a habit. Others later join in the “good ole boy” mayhem, and they form a club, hence the title. Of course its illegal, so the first two rules are “don’t talk about fight club.”

One of Norton’s best performances (but best is still American History X), but I also liked Helena Bonham Carter a lot, totally out of character here as Norton’s nihilistic girlfriend. Eventually the club becomes a gang, with bigger things on their agenda. This film was so hilarious to me, that I found myself the only person laughing out loud in the theater, then I later read that Fincher said “I make comedies yet no one laughs in the theater – they don’t get it.” Well, I did – this is a funny, violent, and influential film that actually spawned fight clubs across the nation. Just one word for all these idiots: boxing! You don’t break your hands or jaws as often and you still get to beat each other senseless if you like that. Yo meatheads, or is it Meatloaves (since he was in this), its just a film!

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Malena

Guiseppe Tournatore, 2000, Italy (8*)
From the director of the classic Cinema Paradiso (Oscar® winner for Foreign Film), if you enjoyed that film you should also like this one. Tournatore again returns to his childhood for inspiration. In this, a young teenage boy in a small Sicilian seacoast town named Renato, excellently portrayed by Guiseppe Sulfaro in his first role, begins the film by getting his first bicycle. To the other boys, this bicycle represents manhood (for Renato, it’s long pants!). On the same seminal day, he discovers the beautiful married woman (whose husband is at war in Africa for Italy), Malena, whom his friends watch walk to town daily (then the whole town watches her shop). Melena is beautifully played in her first film by former model Monica Bellucci, and luckily for us, we get to see just about all of her beauty, as Guiseppe realizes that he is now becoming a man, and begins to spy on Malena, even in her private moments. He later defends her against the town gossips, which is just about everyone, as all the women are jealous of her beauty and the attention she garners from all the men.

The truthful pain of this story is that the boy cannot make himself older (she’s twice his age) and be the man Melena might need, as her husband does not return, so we feel Guiseppe’s helpless torture. Tournatore said that “the greatest love is all is unrequited love”; it’s a theme that also dominated Cinema Paradiso; the first love is almost always unrequited in Tournatore’s films, and it shapes his characters lives. The film starts as a romantic comedy, then turns serious as the war affects all these residents of the town, perhaps the story’s biggest shortcoming, the shift in mood and tone. The towns of Siracusa and Noto looked stunningly like the Renaissance paintings of Caravaggio, apparently untouched by war or time for centuries, as we see in many beautiful shots (the cinematography received and Oscar® nomination). We also hear another beautiful Oscar®-nominated score by Ennio Morricone (who has scored six of Tournatore’s seven films). Another rewarding and nostalgic film by Tournatore, whose fans won’t be disappointed.

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A Wednesday

Neeraj Pandey, 2008, India (9*)
This is a tightly plotted, finely crafted thriller from India, in fact, perhaps the best modern drama I’ve seen from there. The story is very timely: a police commissioner (Anupam Kher) receives a phone call from a common man, as he calls himself, brilliantly played by Naseeruddin Shah (whom you never suspect of being an actor), who claims to have planted five bombs throughout the city. As a show of good faith, he tells the commissioner the first bomb in the police station across the street. When that bomb is found, the authorities decide the man is serious, and they start meeting his demands, beginning with bringing four deadly terrorists together who are being held seperately. This story becomes a battle of wits, and of two computer experts: the ‘common man’ terrorist and a hacker the police bring in to pinpoint the location of his cell phone calls to the police.

I can’t reveal much without spoiling the surprising story, which should hit home with audiences around the world. Suffice to say that: (a) there are no music videos in this film (b) the running time is actually under two hours (c) a&b make this film unique among Indian films, at least in my experience! This is a much tighter story and better film than the top-grossing Ghajini, the previous review here.

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Ghajini

A.R. Murugadoss, 2008, India (6*)
Inspired by Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this is one long schizo mindbender of a film. It was India’s highest grossing film in 2008, and is at least entertaining. Actually, it’s two films: one based on Memento, another apparently based on a Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy! Aamir Khan plays the brain-damaged survivor with short-term memory loss, and apparently on steroids as well – think “Schwartzeneggar meets Crank”. Just look at this guy on the dvd cover, he's supposed to be a corporate telecom CEO!

We start with a similar story to Memento, with medical students discussing a man’s mental case. Just about as his story is explained, we go back in time through a diary to see how the romance developed between an aspiring tv ad model (the murder victim) and a corporate CEO, the character played by Khan. Soon into this flashback, we see the first of five, yes five, music videos with pop music by A.R. Rahman, winner of two Oscars® for Slumdog Millionaire’s music. Each character fantasizes music videos when bored, so it all “makes sense”, everyone has these fantasies daily, right? Director Murugadoss was apparently inspired by both Memento and Singin in the Rain and wanted to get it all into one long film, and this one is over three hours. But then, you get two films for one. Eventually after the romantic comedy, we’re back in Memento again. This is Bollywood at its most insane: a crime mystery meets a romantic comedy with MTV style music videos!

Just a word to Murugadoss however, who remade his own 2005 Tamil film. Any self-respecting and successful criminal nowdays has guns or at least knives, I don’t think too many gangs in any country depend strictly on iron bars for defense. Didn’t people even figure out long bows worked pretty well about 1000 years ago? Down a star for just being plain laughable – these are the stupidest criminals in a half century of movies.

Quote: He's coming, get the iron bars!

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Grand Illusion

aka La Grande Illusion
Jean Renoir, 1937, France, bw (9*)
I’ve often searched for the greatest classic French film, and I’ve often been disappointed, that is, until I saw Grand Illusion again for the first time in over 40 years. Most critics place Renoir’s Rules of the Game near the top of their lists (it’s #3 on the 1000 list, Illusion is #26, they are 1 and 10 for foreign language films), but like Roger Ebert, Rules of the Game I just don’t get, but I get Grand Illusion. This is probably the first great prisoner escape film, and along with All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the great anti-war films that preceded WWII.

This is a beautifully shot film about French prisoners during World War I being held by German officers in a tall, forbidding medieval castle. Career officers played by Erich von Stroheim, a German with a broken back now in a brace and relegated to prison warden duty, and a Frenchman played by Pierre Fresnay, are actually civil and gentlemanly toward each other, and symbolize the last of a dying breed of soldier: those born into families of career soldiers who continue the tradition. The others are common men, officers due to ability and necessity, and features Jean Gabin in his best role as a non-aristocratic everyman soldier, who, no matter how well treated they are, still plans an escape, as its their duty.

Without giving way too much, this has some eloquent statements about compassion, survival, heroism, and humanity in the midst of a brutal and senseless world war. The grand illusion, of course, is that war is not glory and bravery, but a useless waste of humankind, each one of which leaves behind a family and friends. There is one event between the two career officers that I did not understand, that didn’t seem true to their characters, and its an integral point in the plot so I can’t spoil it - that’s why this gets a 9 and not a 10. This was the first foreign language film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar®.

Note: I think I still prefer Jean de Florette/Manon des Source as my favorite French movie, although technically it's two separate films, but its both halves of one novel and really should be watched together.

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L'avventura

Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1960, Italy, bw (9*)
Cannes Special Jury Prize
This is one of the more pleasant film surprises of my lifetime. Not being an Antonioni fan (Blow Up, Red Desert, Zabriskie Point - all overblown bores, in my opinion), I avoided this film since college, over 40 years. I finally gave in and saw the excellent Criterion version, and watched the commentary. I was entranced by this hypnotic film, titled "The Adventure", in which nearly every scene is a masterpiece of composition, lighting, and B&W cinematic beauty. This may be a difficult film for the public, it's a little slow and measured, but as a visual artist myself, I can't think of a better composed b&w film.

The story is basically a missing person scenario, a commentary on relationships, and a romantic triangle, with some subtly erotic stops along the way, all done with visual cues and acting, not with plot or dialogue, both of which are scarce. A group of idle rich take a small yacht to an tiny uninhabited Aeolian island near Sicily, and the fiancée of the main character, Sandro (played by Gabriele Ferzetti in one of his 104 film roles!), goes missing, and while searching for her together, feelings develop between him and her best friend Claudia, subtly played by Antonioni's wife Monica Vitti. The island scenes are starkly beautiful, and took months to film, with the crew lugging heavy equipment by hand over a craggy, volcanic rock surface.

The Cannes film festival gave it a special jury prize for "beauty in film, a new way of looking at cinema" - to say the least! Along with Bertolucci's "The Conformist", this is now my favorite Italian film, I can see why it's an all-time top 100 critically (39th overall, 15th for foreign language). A must for fans of cinema art, but for fans of plot and action, and a nice pat story, this may be disappointing, so down a star for that alone when I wanted to give it a 10; this is its only fault.

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The Handmaid's Tale

Natasha Richardson, 1963-2009

Volcker Schlondorff, 1990 (7*)
This dystopian SciFi tale is based on the Margaret Atwood novel, and was probably Natasha Richardson's best film. The story is not that pleasant, but the cast is superb: Natasha co-stars with Oscar® winners Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway, with Aiden Quinn as the romantic interest. The story is a about a post-apocalyptic society that is now controlled by Christian fundamentalists. All individuality and freedom are gone, and the apocalypse left most women sterile. The few remaining fertile women are captured by the government and are used as "handmaid's" for the politically powerful, which is their name for birth mothers (or sex slaves). Sex is only for pro-creation as all pleasure is now basically outlawed by the fundamentalists, except of course, for the politically powerful. Natasha becomes the handmaid for the powerful and self-righteous Robert Duvall and his unhappy wife Faye Dunaway. Meanwhile, she establishes a friendship and romance with their driver Aiden Quinn.

This is not a pleasant film, but it is a good science fiction movie, often overlooked since it doesn't have the special effects and battles we usually associate with science fiction. (Children of Men is a similar recent film) It simply tells a frightening story of a possible future where all freedom and pleasure have been removed, and all actions are controlled by one religious group, who base all their actions on "God's word" (basically the old testament here), or at least their interpretation of what they want that to be.

See Natasha's complete filmography here

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The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964, Italy (9*)
Pasolini's intention was to film the gospel verbatim, without Hollywood scripting, without blue-eyed, blond Jesus actors - his actor was a Spanish student, Enrique Irazoqui, who'd never made a film! The extras are all Mediterraneans, so they look authenic for once. Roger Ebert said "it looks like a documentarian with a low budget followed Jesus around", and gave it 5 *'s, top rating. It's like NO other religious film I've seen: grainy, gritty, realistic, almost manic and fanatical in places.

Make sure you view the subtitled, black and white original version. There's an awful dubbed version, and even a colorized version out there. The disk I rented had the original, and the colorized/dubbed one both - they managed to ruin it both ways in one version.

Pasolini was murdered in Italy in 1975 after making a dozen films, most say by the neo-fascist right wing. He had just completed "Salo", based on the Marquis de Sade.

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Munich

Steven Spielberg, 2005 (9*)
For some reason, this film didn’t receive the acclaim of other Spielberg films, yet it’s just about as good. The story is based on the true story of an Israeli agent, played by Eric Bana, who, along with four others (including Daniel Craig), relentlessly hunts down all the planners of the Munich Olympic terrorism that led to the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes. This is a long and gripping film, just what you would expect from the filmmaker of Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. When he tackles an important subject, such as these war films and war crimes, you can’t think of any better modern director to handle the balance of action and character motivation. Five Oscar nominations, including best picture and director. No wins – this was the year that the mediocre, tv-looking movie Crash (not the good J.G. Ballard s/m one either) surprised real movie people by winning over this and Brokeback Mountain.

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House of Flying Daggers

Zhang Yimou, 2004, China (8*)
Following his tremendous success with Hero, top-grossing film in Chinese history, Zhang Yimou continued with martial arts adventures with this story of a group of women who oppose the Tang Dynasty's male leaders continually involving the kingdom in wars. Believing if they overthrow the men and allow the women to take over, they can stop the wars and bring peace to the kingdom.

Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, The Road Home) is a member of the subversive revolutionary group known as House of Flying Daggers for their penchant of committing assassinations with daggers, made so that they can be thrown in curves, like a boomerang - so hiding behind a tree is useless. This is more exciting filmmaking from Yimou, who seems to have hit his stride in this genre: the historical, costume, epic action adventure, and the more intrigue the better. Along with Zhang, this stars Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau. Time Magazine and others called this the "best picture of the year".

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Fallen Angels

Wong Kar-Wai, 1995, China/Hong Kong (9*)
I recently re-watched this Wong Kar-Wai film because it had been remastered for dvd, and I couldn't remember it from over a decade earlier. I was surprised and riveted by the stunning visuals. Kar-Wai is a visual master, and this is one of the most visual of his films. This is the 'sequel' to his excellent Chungking Express, the two films being intended to be one long film by Kar-Wai but due to length he put them out as two separate films. Taken together, the films are either a trilogy or tetralogy, it's kind of hard to tell, but suffice to say that they are films of more than one story. These films were the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, hence the trilogy of stories in that film.

The story is not the important part of these films, which are basically urban crime films, with a kind of 'neo-noirish' slant, as filmed by Hong Kong. This story is about a hit man, pondering one last hit before 'retiring'. The visuals take precedence here, with the cinematography of Christopher Doyle (who also works with Chinese master director Zhang Yimou) dazzling and inventive, as usual. The two films together provide an exciting introduction to the Hong Kong crime style, and have proven very influential around the world.

Note: When filmed, Hong Kong was still British. Since its reverted to Chinese nationality, I've been designating these as from China so that a scan for Chinese films will turn these up also. It's a major dilemna, you don't want to offend anyone, but will obviously offend someone - so I'll likely list them as both, no problem there. Same problem with Czechoslavakia vs Czech Republic.. You want a search of those to show Closely Watched Trains, Kolya, and Zelary, rather than have them split up between defunct and active nations.

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