Change Your Image
mossgrymk
Favorite genres: noirs, westerns, war films, family dramas, black comedies, chick flics, workplace dramas, social satire
Least Favorite genres: silent films, musicals, sci fi, horror (Lewton excepted), inspirational stuff
Included is my directorial aesthetic:
Great director...a person who over a long period has a strong visual sense, good pacing, and a deep understanding of human behavior. (i.e. Sofia Coppola)
Good director...Has two of the three or has all three but has not had a long enough career (i.e. Claudia Weill)
Ok director...Has one of the three or has none of them but is consistently entertaining (i.e. Nancy Myers)
Bad director...Has one or none of the three and is usually a bore (i.e. Dorothy Arzner )
Reviews
Phantom Lady (1944)
phantom lady
Really torn between a seven and an eight on this one. Ultimately, the stylish grotesqueries of Robert Siodmak and Cornell Woolrich (alias William Irish) won me over. But it was a close call. There's that ridiculous plot, for one thing, asking you to envision Franchot Tone feverishly buying off everyone who saw the title character in that really stupid hat. Then there's Tone not killing Ella Raines when he had numerous chances to do so without anyone witnessing. And speaking of Raines, does anyone care about or believe that this lively gal would be in love with a dull dog like Alan Curtis?
But then, just as you're about to consign this film to the high end of mediocre, you're reminded of Siodmak's wonderful subversive scene where Raines stalks the bartender and suddenly we have a Man In Distress by Woman pic. Wonderful! And how about the scene where Elisha Cook (who I think was in every good noir ever made) leads Raines through a door from normal urban night time to cacophanous, sexual, jazz frenzy? That such set pieces linger in the mind long after the rest of the film is forgotten, along with very interesting minor characters like the PTSD dress designer and the smarmiest pair of detectives you'll ever see in a 40s film, essayed by Regis Toomey and Joseoh Krehan, are enough reasons to give this film a B.
The Small Back Room (1949)
the small back room
David Farrar gives us a fine study in wartime self pity and its faithful companion, alcoholism, and cinematographer Christopher Challis provides a great noir-ish eye on wartime London but otherwise I found this film, as I do most of Powell and Pressburger, less than meets the hype. There is a general air about it, again common to this duo, of "Aren't we just too creative for words?" that results in embarrassingly artsy fartsy stuff like the surrealist DTs Farrrar's character experiences that look like stuff that Wilder would have cut from "Lost Weekend" and a "tense" bomb defusal scene that is not all that tense. I also could have done without Kathleen Byron's relentless pluckiness. And the anti scientific community/pro military message that runs throughout is, ironically in a film about Britain in WW2, a tad fascistic. C plus.
Great Day in the Morning (1956)
great day in the morning
Good Civil War western, a sub genre not noted for its quality, thanks to the dark, dystopian tone taken by director Jacques Tourneur and cinematographer William Snyder. Maybe because it is set at the start of the conflict rather than during its aftermath, as are most such films, it ends with things very much up in the air, its anti hero walking into a rainy night (ironic, considering the title) reluctantly helping the Confederacy while his true love, unbeknownst to him, lies dead. Don't know about you but I find such bleakness at a film's end somewhat bracing, pitched more toward Boetticherian ambiguity than "High Noon" civics lesson. I also like the attention paid in Lesser Samuels' screenplay to lesser (no pun intended) characters such as a cheerily drunken doctor and a none too bright saloon worker who, ironically, well expresses the sadness and menace of the War Between The States. Indeed, if Samuels hadn't fallen down on the job and made Virginia Mayo's character so dull and if the producers had cast a better actor than Bob Stack in the lead (say Scott or McRae) this might have been as good as Budd or Anthony Mann. As it is, let's give it a B minus.
PS...Guess Joe Breen was looking the other way when it came to Ruth Roman's cleavage, huh?
Garbo (2005)
garbo
Very well done doc that does a good job of de-mystifying its subject, especially her decision to leave Hollywood and films for New York and privacy. The simple and, to me, utterly convincing explanation put forward by Kevin Brownlow and Christopher Bird in this film is that of a talented actress who simply could not endure being a Star, especially the non stop attention. That this, of course, puts her at odds with about 99.9% of those in her profession who make it big is an irony to be savored along with that other Garbo irony that this dramatic actress' best film, by far, is her only comedy.
I also like that she didn't take any crap from Louis B. Mayer. A minus.
Toivon tuolla puolen (2017)
the other side of hope
First film I've seen from the noted Finnish director, Aki Kaurismaki, and it was mostly a good experience. I admire the way Kaurismaki takes serious matters with a dry sense of humor and has affection for his main characters. This nicely balances the cynicism with the hopefulness so that one finds oneself caring about the travails of Khaled and Waldemar, especially the former, without feeling that the director is soft peddling how callous and brutish we humans can be.
My only serious criticism is one mentioned by Alicia Malone in her intro on TCM Imports, namely a tendency for the comedy to be relentlessly deadpan. This renders the characters, especially the Finns, way too cartoonishly "cool". It particularly hurts Sakari Kuosmanen's performance as Waldemar. He is so non reactive and low key that when, toward the film's climax, he is finally called on to be warm and caring toward Khaled it is not really believable. Partially making up for this is a decidedly non deadpan performance from Sherwan Haji as Khaled that captures the despair, determination and warmth of a refugee in a sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly land.
I also liked the Finnish country rock. Give it a B.
Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993)
blue
Although it has the usual stuck in quicksand pacing so beloved by this director and at times verges on misery porn this is the best of the hues trilogy, in my opinion. Unlike the others it is, ultimately, quite hopeful, indeed almost religiously so toward the end. Its message of, as one character in the film states, "finding something to hold on to" and having that thing be love, runs the risk of being somewhat sappy. That it is instead quite touching is largely owing to the magnificent performance of Juliette Binoche. This fine actor is able to play an essentially good person undergoing great emotional stress and trauma without falling into the traps of sanctimony or melodrama. Give it a B (for Binoche).
Blitz (2024)
blitz
There is a lot of Spielberg in Steve McQueen, both good and not so good. To start with the big positive, this film bears comparison with the first hour of "Empire Of The Sun" in its ability to depict a city in chaos as seen through a kid's eyes. McQueen's well paced, visually and emotionally stunning set pieces...an underground shelter suddenly made a death trap via flooding, the complete and gruesome obliteration of a night club, a gallery of uncaring and deceitful adults, a rigid bureaucracy that denies shelter when it is most needed...and the magnificent performance of kid actor Elliot Heffernan, for which we must also credit McQueen, takes us off our collective couches and sets us down in London, 1940, amidst the suffering of millions. Bravo SteveMcQueen, director.
Alas, when McQueen puts down his view finder and fires up the ol word processor, things have a tendency to go awry. There are several examples of this. George's runaway kid companions in the freight car are a bit too cute and Disneyfied (or Spielbergified) for my taste. The "can't we all get along?" speech given by the Nigerian blackout warden to the white racist shelter denizens is so on the nose and high school civics lesson-y that it would have been rejected by Stanley Kramer. In the middle of The Blitz, for reasons best known to himself, McQueen decides to do a clumsy, modern take on "Oliver Twist". And in the film's most regrettable move Saoirse Ronan's mother in search of her son is not allowed to have any kind of a relationship with Harris Dickinson's fireman who helps her search and saves her life. This is classic Madonna of the ruins stuff, as if seeing Ronan as a sexual being during such suffering is somehow a profanation of her. Such sexual squeamishness is very reminiscent of both Ford and the Spielberg of, say, "Color Purple". In the process, Ronan's character ceases to be an individual and is instead a rather cloying symbol of Wartime Motherhood, in the worst "Mrs. Miniver" tradition. All of which is encapsulated in the film's sentimental last shot.
Bottom line: McQueen is a great director. Next time, as he did oin "12 Years A Slave", he should outsource the screenplay. B minus.
The Thing (1982)
the thing '82
Not much to add to all the accolades on this site for John Carpenter's masterpiece. Glad to see that time, the great solvent, has washed away the stupid Reagan era film critics who trashed it for, basically, not being "ET". It probably should have been made in the 70s like the sci fi classic it resembles, "Alien" (i.e, a society in a hostile, cold environment slowly imploding from within). It also would have fared bettter, in my opinion, in the Hannibal Lecter 90s. Instead, it had the misfortune to be made in one of Hollywood's dumbest eras, the early 80s, when anything edgy or dark or bleak, all of which this great film is, was looked upon with the suspicion reserved, then as well as today, for liberal Democrats.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
before the devil knows you're dead
Sidney Lumet's final film is not his greatest, but it's certainly in the top 10. An intense family drama, it is at its best when it deals with the utterly feckless, loser sons of jeweler Albert Finney, played magnificently by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke. Watching these two fine actors completely unravel amidst a sea of money worries, parental hatred, drug problems, wife and ex wife problems is, as paced by Lumet and written by scenarist Kelly Masterson (wonder why he didn't have a bigger film career?), totally gripping. The last half hour gets a bit too histrionic and reaching for Greek tragedy and Finney really chews the ol proscenium but, otherwise, this is a great sendoff for a great director. B plus.
Top 10 Lumet Films
10) Bye Bye Braverman
9) Murder on the Orient Express
8) This one
7) Network
6) The Verdict
5) Dog Day Afternoon
4) Prince of the City
3) The Hill
2) 12 Angry Men
1) Serpico.
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)
one of our aircraft is missing
Definitely agree with Ben Mankewiecz that the first half hour is, by itself, worth the price of admission. Absolutely first rate, WW2 aerial action. And even for a jaded 2024 viewer, used to being dazzled by computer generated special effects, that mock up of night time Stuttgart, with the white flashes and streaks lighting up the doomed city and the equally endangered airmen above, is gripping. To employ the cliche, I felt as if I was in the plane with them.
Alas, once the six fliers are grounded the film sags and becomes an infomercial for Dutch resistance with wall to wall brave, resolute, cheerful Hollanders...and one bug eyed Quisling, who over acts. And Powell/Pressburger's decision to jettison a musical score for the sake of "realism" is misguided, in my opinion. In a wartime propaganda film such as this verismilitude is the last thing on the viewer's or film maker's minds so that the absence of music simply reinforces the flatness of the long middle part of this movie. The pace picks up in act three as the Brits get closer to escape but the film, in my opinion, never re-scales the heights of the initial bombing sequence. B minus.
23 Paces to Baker Street (1956)
23 paces to baker st
The title implies that we're in for a jaunty, amateur sleuth take on Sherlock Holmes, kind of like those 1930s offerings with William Powell or Robert Montgomery or Ann Sothern, directed by Woody Van Dyke or Mervin Le Roy. Problem is that Van Johnson is considerably more than twenty three paces behind Bob/Bill on Acting Ave and Vera Miles, a most under rated actress, is given nothing much to do in Nigel Balchin's rather flat screenplay beyond looking concerned and pretty. Oh, and Henry Hathaway, a fine action director, has all the jauntiness of a glowering bull. So even though Milton Krasner's cinematography provides some lovely, brooding images of Thames side London and Cecil Parker and Estelle Winwood give solid support as a bemused Jeeves and a friendly if ditzy barmaid this movie fades quickly from the viewer's consciousness. C plus.
Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932)
boudu saved from drowning
It starts off as an anti parable about the dangers of selflessness (basically, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished") and ends up as a joyous ode to life. In between, is a beguiling mix of cinematic beauty, with shots of the Seine, both in and outside Paris, of which the director's dad would be proud, and comedy that is, by turns, satirical, screwball and slapstick. Of the four principal players Michel Simon, with his long, ungainly body that is the perfect chaotic bull in a bourgeois china shop (here a book store) is the laugh getting standout but he is ably supported by Charles Granval as the amorous, altrustic bookstore owner, Marcelle Hainia as his bemused, lusty wife (this is, you must understand, the Gallic bourgeoisie where marital flexibility is encouraged) and Severine Lerczinska as the libidinous housemaid. It's all very gentle, humanistic stuff, maybe a bit too much so for those, like me, who prefer their comedies on the darker side, but undeniably a charming hour and twenty minutes. B plus.
PS...Mazursky's remake, set in Bev. Hills in the 80s, is not as good (it's too long, for one thing) but is still worth watching to see how Renoir travels from France to So. Cal.
Man in the Saddle (1951)
man in the saddle
This 1951 Andre DeToth western straddles the divide between the action oriented, good guy/bad guy shoot em ups of the 1940s and the more nuanced, ambiguous psychological westerns of the 50s. On the one hand, you've got some interestingly flawed characters, like John Russell's lonely, resentful stalker of Joan Leslie and Ellen Drew's newly married wife, balanced between a desire for social respectability and a realization that her husband, nicely played by Alexander Knox of "Wilson" fame, is a power hungry monster. On the other, there is a very tired story of rich, corrupt ranchers and poorer honest ranchers that we've seen a gazillion times before which features standard scenes of violence along with one of Randolph Scott's less compelling performances as a totally virtuous, heroic character. Obviously, we're a long way from Budd Boetticher here. Or even later DeToth, for that matter. And the amiable racism involving Alphonso Bedoya is most resistible. C plus.
Woman of the Hour (2023)
woman of the hour
Pretty impressive directorial debut from Anna Kendrick, wouldn't you say? In her first film she displays pacing skills that a vet film maker would envy. I like how the film moves at a fast but controlled clip, with no dead spots and, unusual for an actor turned director, the performers not allowed to chew the scenery or go over the top. I also admired Kendrick's feel for her setting, in this case tawdry, 70s Los Angeles where the treeless stucco apartments meet the Polynesian bars and TV studios. Kinda reminded me of Paul Schrader's "Autofocus" or even, at times, PT Anderson's "Boogie Nights". Not as good, of course, as those two low life, LA masterpieces, but definitely neighborhood adjacent.
Other good things include the way Kendrick handles the scenes of violence toward women, never descending into the exploitation pit while, at the same time, resisting the temptation to be too "tasteful" (read artsy-fartsy) that hampers such other psycho killer films as, say, "Peeping Tom". These gruesome scenes are as controlled as the rest of the film. And the sequences dealing with the smarmy "Dating Game" and its smarmy host, Ed Burke (such a thinly disguised Jim Lange that I wonder why they even bothered to fictionalize the guy's name) show an ability to combine satire with creepiness, certainly not easy to do, and for which I credit Ian McDonald's fine screenplay, along with Kendrick.
As for the actors, they're mostly excellent. Daniel Zovatto's serial killer can bear comparison with such great psycho villains as N. Bates and Frank Booth. His combination of arrogance and oleaginousness is truly repellent. I also liked Autumn Best's take on the runaway teen turned canny survivor. I'm not a great judge of future acting success but I'd be surprised if she didn't have a big career.
Ironically, and to her credit, Kendrick lets these two take precedence over the character she plays, a dissatisfied aspiring actor. And in case you didn't know, most actor/directors are not endowed with such modesty.
Any knocks? Not really. Maybe tone down Nicolette Robinson a bit. Hers is the only performance that is close to too histrionic. And maybe have one guy in the film who isn't a killer, butthole, bore or moron. If only to remind the viewer that such folks do, in fact, exist.
Bottom line: Eagerly awaiting Ms. Kendrick's second film. A minus.
Le deuxième souffle (1966)
le deuxieme souffle
Lino Ventura ranked rwenty third on a list of all time Frenchmen? (At least according to Eddie Muller in his Noir Alley intro) Ok. I mean, I guess the French are entitled to have their own weird idols. After all, we elevate some real winners, like the guy we just re elected president. But Lino Ventuira? Really? I mean, isn't that a bit like us putting George Raft in the top twenty third of all time American males? With the important caveat that Raft is a slightly better actor.
Anyway, on to Melville's crime film, co written by a WW2 Gestapo Guy. Sure wish Eddie had told me that in the intro instead of the outro so I could have pulled the plug and spared myself a rather tedious experience which is way too long and way too empty, with lots and lots of scenes of gangsters in living rooms talking that are, unlike similar scenes in "The Godfather", fairly dull 'cause The Gestapo Guy is, to put it kindly, not as good a writer as is Mario Puzo. And Ventura's performance, since he is not a very good actor, is not one designed to pull one in. Paul Meurisse's inspector is better but, like everything in this film, overstays his welcome.
Fortunately, since this is Melville, there are some brilliant action pieces dropped very intermittently into the ennui pool. The platinum truck robbery, set in the windy, barren hills near Marseille, is especially well done and the final shoot out, although somewhat muted since it comes at the end of an insanely protracted movie, shows this great action director at his best. And I admit that a couple of the scenes denoting loneliness and alienation, like Gu's solitary New Years Eve and his kibbutzing at the boce ball game, affected me. B minus.
The Strange Woman (1946)
the strange woman
Torn between a 6 or a 7 on this typically twisted Edgar G. Ulmer offering. The first three fourths are great as Ulmer delves into Hawthorne by way of Stephen King territory with a harrowing take on an economically booming but morally fallen New England town in the early to mid 1800s. Through Ulmer's and his cinematographer, Renoir veteran Lucien Andriot's, eyes Bangor Maine resembles Pottersville with religion and humanity tamped down and lust and profit elevated (kinda sounds like fun, actually, but I digress). It is in this noirish atmosphere that creatures such as Gene Lockhart's cruel, pervy, grasping businessman and Hedy Lamarr's manipulative, narcissistic title character are allowed to flourish and expand like corrupt crabgrass. And both actors deliver wonderful performances. In Lamarr's case it is arguably her best.
Problems arise in the last act. Namely, the dialogue and the direction veer from the controlled to the hysterical with everyone chewing the scenery and Carmen Dragon's score, hitherto merely intrusive, coming perilously close to noise pollution. Also, you just don't buy George Sanders as a roughneck backwoodsman turned gentleman. He's too suave from the get go. And a little of Louis Heyward's tortured weakling goes a long way.
So, a mixed bag. But redeeming it, ultimately, are Hedy and Gene and the primitive yet foreceful style and tone of the film's director. Reviewers on this site throw around the term "hidden gem" a lot. Well, Ulmer really is one. B minus.
Something Always Happens (1934)
something always happens
The blandly Micawberesque title of this Powell without Pressburger offering should clue you in to the quality of this pleasant if relentlessly un-hilarious rom com, mixed in with "The Kid". It's ok while you're watching it but once you're finished you are taken aback by how few laughs or comically memorable scenes it had. The stuff with perennially broke ne'r do well Peter Middleton and the homeless waif is warmed over Chaplin, at best, while the parts with Middleton and filling station heiress Cynthia is an excercise in Meeting Way Too Cute and features a notable dearth of sexual chemistry between Ian Hunter and Nancy O'Neil. The only parts I liked were the ones with Muriel George's kindly but eternally exasperated landlady whose relationship with Middleton is much more comically appealing than Cynthia's. C plus.
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024)
made in england
Interesting if flawed bio doc of England's greatest film making duo. Ironically, what is most engaging about it is also what becomes most tiresome, namely Martin Scorsese. His analyses of the pair's great films are cogent and I like it that he does not omit their lesser efforts, especially in the later years, so that the film manages to steer clear of the too hagiographic. And the affection that Scorsese has for Powell is commmunicated without excessive schmaltz, and is the warmer for it. But after awhile I had a reaction that I hardly ever have with documentaries, namely that this thing could use a few more talking heads! Seen only from the vantage point of one person P/P, the humans, tend to disappear. It would have been nice, for example, to hear from at least one of Powell's three wives (or even to be informed that the guy was married three times). This would have been relatively easy since the last of Powell's spouses was Scorsese's longtime film editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. But no. No one, except the subjects themselves, in interviews, is allowed to intrude on the Voice of Marty. And in a doc about Powell and Pressburger I sure as hell didn't need to know, in some detail, how their films influenced "Raging Bull". In other words, about a fourth of the way through I began to sense a certain outside, outsize ego, like Brooklyn ivy, choking off the subject. And this feeling only kept expanding. B minus.
Arena (1953)
arena
Pretty much agree with my six colleagues below that this film from the usually good Richard Fleischer is total dreck, far and away his worst. The combination of 3D and some uglification process called Ansco-Color means that the color looks faded and washed out, as if the camera is developing glaucoma. As for the writing and story, well, if this thing is filmed in 3D then the writing is 1D all the way; trite, predictable and boring. It's basically just a dull breakup and reconciliation tale set against the background of an even duller rodeo. Indeed, the story is so thin and uninvolving that Fleischer must employ tired filler like periodically cutting away to various anonymous people in the crowd and their not very interesting reactions to the enervating events. If it wasn't for the usual good acting of Jean Hagen and Harry Morgan this thing would rate a D. As it is, let's give it a generous C minus.
PS...Polly Bergen and Gig Young as a rodeo couple? Are you friggin kidding me? She looks like she just finished shopping at I. Magnin while he got his duds from the early 50s equivilent of The Territory Ahead.
Donovan's Reef (1963)
donovan's reef
I see where Ford fans are willing to cut the guy yards and yards of slack on this film, elevating to poetic, elegiac status what was obviously intended by the director to be a decompressing holiday in Hawaii following the intensity of his final great film, "Liberty Valance". And maybe if it was just a mindless romp, with comic bar fights and hot Polynesian babes, I'd be willing to view it more favorably. I mean, every great director is entitled to a "wind down" film or two. But when Ford tries to have it both ways, to purport to make a serious film about a white woman from Boston, played by Elizabeth Allen, undergoing racial enlightenment in the tropics while, on the other, constantly undercutting this potentially interesting story with not only lame comic relief from Wayne, Marvin, Cesar Romero, Marcel Dalio's befuddled priest and Mike Mazurki as a French Legionnaire, but viewing Japanese people with the prejudice he's criticizing Allen's character for exhbiting, this film loses its innocence and charm and, despite William Clothier's lovely, lush cinematography, begins to look rather ugly. C plus.
PS...Allen could be Paula Prentiss' double. Unfortunately, she has about half of Prentiss' acting chops.
Vera Cruz (1954)
vera cruz
Not as gaga about this Western from Robert Aldrich as are the majority of my IMDB colleagues. It's obviously quite influential. Indeed, it looks as if Peckinpah, in particular, studied it since certain scenes, like the stroll that Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster take along the riverbank in the village, before battle, as well as the chaotic final bloodletting in the palace, seem almost to be carbon copies of set pieces in "Wild Bunch". And it's fun to see Lancaster's bravura take on amorality. This fine actor is always at his best when portraying such villainous folks. Think J. J. Hunsacker in "Sweet Smell Of Success" the aging gangster in "Atlantic City" and, of course, Elmer Gantry.
Dragging this film down from the heights, however, is some pretty bad acting from Denise Darcel and Sarita Montiel as the twin love interests. Aldrich was never great at directing women unless you count "Baby Jane", and Crawford/Davis there are more gargoyles than recognizable humans. Also Coop is simply too old and, frankly, kind of feeble looking for his role. I just didn't buy it that he could not only outshoot but out fist fight the much younger, athletic Lancaster. And is it just me or do I get the distinct feel that if you have a gallery of great Western character actors like Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine (who, ironically, would figure prominently in "Wild Bunch"), Jack Elam, and Jack Lambert, among others, then you should give them more to do?
Bottom line: Entertaining as hell, and at times great, but not up to Boetticher/Mann standards. B minus.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
night of the living dead
I've heard about this film ever since it first came out, but have avoided seeing it. Maybe that's because the horror genre is far from my favorite. Maybe it's because I was too busy in 1968 pretentiously watching Godard and Anger films at the Bleecker Street Cinema to bother to make it uptown to watch a bunch of half dead Pennsylvanians. Anyway, thanks to TCM's annual Halloween lineup, I finally caught it and my verdict is probably what it would have been in '68 or '88 or '08, namely that when it's gruesome it's great and when it tries to moralize about the Human Condition (basically the middle third) it's a bore. Two big problems: One is that the humans in the house are not that much more interesting than the zombies outside. Blame that on the flat yet hysterical dialogue provided by director George Romero and John Russo. The other is that with the exception of Duane Jones in the lead the acting, as in so much low budget, independent cinema, is atrocious. I especially wearied of the loud one note performance of Karl Hardman as the lone butthole in the house (another screenplay problem, piling on all the villainy on the shoulders of one character) and Judith O'Dea's obvious, monotonous take on shock and trauma.
On the up side, the zombies are great, especially when they're feasting on the charred bodies of a couple who perished in a car fire. Did I mention that Romero is a master of gore who I'm sure taught Hooper and Craven a thing or two? And the opening sequence in a bleak cemetery in bleak, gray Pennsylvania daylight is, for my dough, the most unsettling in the film and a most effective refutation of the film's title. B minus.
Blue Velvet (1986)
blue velvet
Style over substance. But what style! The menacingly beautiful cinematography from Frederick Elmes (Nightmare on Elmes Street). The magnificent performance of Isabella Rossellini as the Italian skeleton at the 50s WASP picnic, a trope that is brilliantly drmatized by the film's best scene where Mike's silly teenage revenge is suddenly overshadowed by Dorothy Vallens' shattering, vulnerable, adult nudity and we don't know whether to laugh or gasp. The performance of Dean Stockwell that combines both Joel Grey and Todd Browning. And, of course, any time Dennis Hopper is on the screen with his unique ability to fully inhabit the most odious and twisted of minds and make him both repellent and entertaining. A performance that is not only Hopper's finest but bears comparison with Tony Perkins' Norman Bates.
And yet, as the previous reviewer noted, I never really took it seriously. I never completely surrendered to it. Maybe because, for all its stylistic and acting bravura, I always felt the presence of David Lynch in the director's chair, just offscreen, and thus never felt like I was not watching a movie. A very good movie, mind you, but a movie nevertheless. As opposed to being placed in the very real town of Lumberton NC the way, say, Hitchcock plunged me into Santa Rosa California in "Shadow Of A Doubt", a better treatment of evil invading a small town, to which this film is often compared. Give it a B.
Matewan (1987)
matewan
This has the usual mix one gets in a John Sayles film of the stirring with the sluggish, the three dimensional with the flat, the touching with the bathetic. An account of a West Virginia coal miners strike, it ultimately won me over with its gallery of fine performances, especially Will Oldham's adolescent, radical preacher, a character I'd never met with before in any movie, hillbilly or otherwise, Mary Mc Donnell's combination of toughness and vulnerability as Oldham's character's widowed landlady mom, and David Straithern's sympathetic, PTSD small town lawman. Sometimes, though, as alluded to above, the characterizations can slip into caricature as with Chris Cooper's too Christ-like union organizer and Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp's way too moustache twirling scumbag strikebreaker goons. (Just once in a strike film I'd like the organizer to be an A hole and the goons to be fairly nice guys).
The film is also about thirty minutes too long (another sign of Sayles) and actually slows down in pace toward the end, with too many repetitive conversations about good and evil between various characters, instead of speeding up so that the final scene, a good action set piece dealing with the most violent confrontation of a violent film, loses some of its power.
Bottom line: For all its flaws, a heartfelt ode to fighting with and for the downtrodden, especially needed at this time in my country. B minus.
They Live (1988)
they live
I said it in regard to Jean Pierre Melville's critique of America in the 1960s, "Magnet Of Doom", and I'll say it here: Beware of the great action/suspense director who sudddenly decides to turn social critic. The result is apt to be, as it was with Melville and is here, a clumsy, heavy handed journey into the overwrought, trite and obvious, in this case made all the more ironic by its overall tone of mindlessness in a film purporting to deal with, among other things, the dangers of controlled thought.
Being a John Carpenter film, however, there are some compensations. Three of them, to be exact. Namely, the merciless invasion of the homeless encampment by the LAPD, the fight scene between Roddy Piper and Keith David and the final shoot out between the forces of Good (i.e the scruffy revolutionaries) and Evil (The Reagan suits and anyone associated with TV, always a bugbear for the Film crowd, of whom Carpenter is a charter member). It is in these set pieces that Carpenter reminds us why we like Carpenter movies. C plus.