Film Journal 2003

Grade system a little rough in 2003 as I switched over to the 100 pt scale. Journal format is pretty messy, etc.

001. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (Steven Spielberg) viewed 1-1-03 in theater
Grade B+ 2002
Entertaining film from Spielberg is a bit overloaded, with the simple plot line confused by unnecessary story threads surrounding it. DeCaprio gives a laid back and confident performance in the lead role and is able to look the part when he is in high school and later in his early adulthood with a minimum of makeup effects. Hanks is also quite good as the FBI agent following DeCaprio’s trail, he exudes warmth but also stringent professionalism. The scenes the two share are standouts: including an early one where DeCaprio cons Hanks and a later one in which Hanks has to talk DeCaprio into turning himself in to the police. The last section of the film doesn’t really work and some of the center section should have been truncated in order to give the story a better flow. Basically this year’s Ocean’s 11, a smooth running but flawed big studio film with wit and charm in spades.

002. DAY OF THE DEAD (George A. Romero) viewed 1-2-03 on video (second viewing)
Grade C+ (upgraded from C-) 1985
A good genre film by itself, but in the context of the Romero Dead Trilogy it looks pretty hollow. The set up is intriguing but Romero mishandles it with slack pacing and lack of threat from the rampant Zombies held up by a fence. The second half of the film turns into a gore showcase, where the humans we have grown to dislike (the military) are torn apart in incredible violent ways.

003. DEATH RACE 2000 (Paul Bartel) viewed 1-3-03 on dvd
Grade C+ 1975
A cult film to be sure, Bartel adding some subversive wit and making it almost worth watching but it’s too uneven to recommend. Nice to see a B film with this much exploitative fun: from the cartoonish violence to gratuitous nudity, also points added for running down old people and children. The assassination plot is unnecessary and it distracts from the race and satire that populate the better first half of the film.

004. PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (Carl Theodore Dreyer) viewed 1-6-03 on video (second viewing)
Grade B+ 1927
Very well directed film: with Joan seen mostly in close-up with eyes averted upward as if waiting for instructions from god and her persecutors seen in jarring pan shots or sweaty extreme close up. So well directed, in fact, that after about a half hour I wanted to avert my eyes from the screen and gather my thoughts. Dreyer’s main goal here is to put us in the shoes of his heroine and have us identify with her, and the goal is well achieved but it makes the film a masterpiece to respect rather than love.

005. CARO DAIRIO (Nanni Moretti) viewed 1-6-03 on video
Grade C+ 1994
“Caro Diaro” is a film in three chapters: “On My Vespa,” “Islands” and “Doctors.” Each chapter featuring Moretti and focusing on his obsessions and neuroses. Pretty much every reviewer will point out that he is often called the Italian Woody Allen and it’s a somewhat apt comparison, although Moretti’s neuroses seem pretty restrained compared with Allen (who seems at times to be of freak interest).

The first chapter has Moretti riding his vespa through Rome during summertime, “when all the movie theaters are playing horror and porn.” The theme for this first chapter is dislocation: showing Moretti visiting houses and penthouses where he doesn’t belong to see how other people live, watching people dance, or joining a band on stage for the chorus. He stops to talk to a guy in a convertible, and he tells him that he feels separate from the majority of the people and will always be someone who relates better with the minority of the population. Ironically the guy in the convertible doesn’t relate to him either and drives off without caring.

Music and movies are a big part of this section but both are seen as spectator arts for Moretti, although he is playing himself (a filmmaker). After seeing (the great film) “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” (John McNaughton, 1990) he fantasizes taking revenge upon the reviewer who heaped acclaim onto that film.

The death in “Henry” is followed by real death as Moretti remembers the death of Pier Paulo Pasolini (through headlines not actual reminiscence) and visits the spot where he died. Moretti refers to Pasolini’s death as an “assassination,” and it feels vaguely wrong knowing some of the details of how he was killed. As we follow Moretti to the scene of the crime some twenty years later he doesn’t give us any commentary on what he is feeling about the murder or the site, he lets the image and music speak for themselves.

The second chapter is Moretti visiting a few different Islands looking for a quiet place to work. The island is full of only children and with both “islands” and “only children” we see that this section is about isolation. The fact that Moretti is unable to stay in any island for any significant length of time is a testament both to his dislocation from the places, but also to his isolation from the people around him. This is further instilled by Moretti’s friend who is obsessed with television and especially the soap “Bad and the Beautiful,” television often representing loneliness and isolation in movies (for instance “All That Heaven Allows” (Douglas Sirk, 1955) and “Requiem For A Dream” (Darren Aronofski, 2000)). I felt the second chapter was the weakest because it didn’t really contain any significant insight and most of the humor was lost to me.

The third chapter might be the best, as Moretti goes from doctor to doctor looking for a cure to a chronic itch. Each doctor gives him a new prescription and we see flashes of the crumpled paper as proof of this chapter validity. Out of frustration he even visits an Asian acupuncturist to cure his tragic itch. Medical neurosis isn’t exactly new ground for film comedy, Woody Allen did it 8 years earlier in “Hannah and Her Sister” (Woody Allen, 1986) but it gets us to relate with Moretti more than either of the two previous chapters. It is also by far the most private story, with the audience allowed access to a traumatic time in Moretti’s life and to his body.

Ideally “Caro Diario” would work like “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell, which had random insights into the world as variations on the theme: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” In that song Mitchell insights ran from insights into nature in the first two verses, and then turned personal in the last verse, which made the theme of the song personal for us to relate it through her personal life. Moretti’s “Caro Diario” wants to be like that, but I don’t find that the third story really gives us insight into Moretti that are common with those found in the first two chapters. Instead he gives us two chapters about isolation and dislocation and then a third story about questioning authority figures. I don’t find that the three chapters have a firm unity and it makes the film seem kind of scattershot, and unfocused.

006. UNDER THE SAND (Francois Ozon) viewed 1-6-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 2001
A masterful first half of a film, with a very good second half that didn’t go in the direction that I thought (and hoped) it might. The first half is full of nuance and tension as a character disappears without a trace, and the film gets the tone just right in these scenes not playing up the mystery or the husband instead focusing all attention on the wife. As soon as the wife’s mental deterioration begins I think the film veers off into a wrong path, as I was hoping the film would go in the Picnic at Hanging Rock direction and instead becomes a fairly interesting character study. The third Ozon film I’ve seen and this film (quite different than 8 Women or Water Drops on Burning Rocks) confirms him as perhaps the most arresting talent recently emerged in Europe.

007. INTERIORS (Woody Allen) viewed 1-7-03 on dvd
Grade C 1978
Allen’s early attempt at a serious, arty drama comes off as mannered and unconvincing. Allen obviously found a better balance between comedy and drama in some of his later film (notably in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Hannah and Her Sisters) and made Interiors as a film entirely void of laughs. The acting is stiff, the dialogue is overwritten and photography is too strained to emulate the work of Ingmar Bergman.

008. GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy) viewed 1-7-03 on video
Grade A 1933
An early musical masterpiece, with dance sequences (over) choreographed by Busby Berkley and a very funny backstage musical film surrounding them. The film opens with a “Were in the Money” musical number complete with dancer’s wearing coins and singing a verse in pig latin, but the depression reigns in on the happiness of this sequence and will carry over much of the first act. Gold Diggers ends up following a pair of rich men who are used by showgirls in scenes that are played for comedy, but the roughness of the depression is never forgotten and justifies the showgirls actions as being out of desperation. The film has a false happy ending with the announcement of marriage, but the final musical sequence “Remember the Forgotten Man” rings in at the last moment to show that things are far from settled and happy, especially if you aren’t a beautiful showgirl who can trade in on her sexuality. The musical sequences are superb; my favorite was the madly voyeuristic and silly “Pettin’ in the Park” although the “Shadow Waltz” electric violins are brilliant.

009. ABOUT SCHMIDT (Alexander Payne) viewed 1-7-03 in theater
Grade B+ 2002
Another smart and sharp satire by Alexander Payne, who is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. Payne specializes in portraying small town people who are flawed and looking for the right thing to do in the midst of a crisis of character (retirement and widowing, honesty, and pregnancy). About Schmidt is often funny in its perceptive view of behavior, and in the third act it also turns Schmidt into a tragic figure without straining for credibility. Nicholson gives another wonderful performance following his work in The Pledge, which was among the best performances in his career, and it looks like he will age gracefully into roles that continue to challenge him.

010. SAY ANYTHING (Cameron Crowe) viewed 1-7-03 on dvd (approx. tenth viewing)
Grade A 1989
A wonderful film, that is actually two great films in tandem. The first film is the story of a father-daughter relationship of honesty and openness, and the second is the story of a teenage romance between two uniquely different people. The way these two films meet and conflict with each other is part of Cameron Crowe’s brilliance as he gives emotional weight to both stories and so the conflict of why one of the film’s relationships must be broken is honest and utterly fresh. As with Untitled (Almost Famous), Say Anything has about a dozen moments of such intense feeling that I begin to quiver with emotion.

011. CHASING AMY (Kevin Smith) viewed 1-7-03 on dvd (approx. fifth viewing)
Grade A- 1997
Lesbian angle is a red herring as the film is really about male sexual jealousy and conforming, as was Clerks and (to some degree) Mallrats. Chasing Amy feels like its Smith’s most personal film, less gimmicky than his previous films and less big-concept than his later films. His balance of humor and seriousness is best in this film although he does occasionally deflate serious scenes with a comic line, something that sitcoms stoop to as to not steer away their target audience (“It’s a comedy I swear!”). Smith’s visual sense improved with Chasing Amy and has gotten better since, but he should really study the films of Richard Linklater and Eric Rohmer to see how to do basic coverage of people talking in a room.

012. MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (Hayao Miyazaki) viewed 1-8-03 on dvd (American Version)
Grade B 1988
I liked this film less than the two previous Miyazaki films I’ve seen (Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away) just because it seemed to have a less intense imagination for creating a new world of creatures. In this film Miyazaki keeps his spiritual world in the background, instead focusing on two young girls in a new house. I found the two young girls very realistic and sometimes very annoying but appreciated the understanding father (too often the fathers are there only to criticize and be the ignorant adult) and Totoro. This review refers to the dubbed (and possibly re-edited) version recently released by Fox DVD, I have not seen the Japanese version which I’m sure is the preferred version.

013. STOP MAKING SENSE (Jonathan Demme) viewed 1-8-03 on dvd (approx. eighth viewing)
Grade A 1984
The best rock movie that I’ve seen and also one of the most simple. It begins with an empty set and adds roughly one new instrument for each song, so you get an appreciation for each instrument and the musician (character) who plays it. There are no cutaways to the audience jumping for joy in the audience (until the last song) and the camera work is nonobtrusive, letting the music provide the energy rather than the cinema technique. The songs are all top-notch Talking Heads from the prime era of their recordings, every album after this film would be a decline in quality and lead singer Byrne is very entertaining to watch perform. Watching the film you also get a feeling of the director Jonathan Demme, in the way he selects what bits to show of each musicians performance. Some highlights include: the last bit of “Found a Job”, the lamp dance in “This Must be the Place (Naïve Melody)” and (of course) the big suit in “Girlfriend is Better.” This film is not to be missed.

014. LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (Peter Jackson) viewed 1-5-03 in Imax theater
Grade B- 2002
Not as good as the first one, mainly because not much new ground is covered both in the literal sense and the narrative. The effects are generally very nifty and Jackson knows how to stage an action scene, but to what end? The big battle at the end of this film is a technical triumph and a logistical nightmare: with a handful of the fellowship able to single-handedly kill thousands of their enemies. The most interesting plot thread is between Frodo and Gollum because it is the least distracted and stays closest to the dynamics around the ring, everything else is a distraction.

015. PUBLIC ENEMY (William Wellman) viewed 1-9-03 on laserdisc
Grade A- 1931
A savage and brutal pre-code film with a stunning star turn by James Cagney. This film was undoubtedly an influence on Scorsese with its casual blend of perverse violence and humor, for instance in the horse scene. The violent showdowns are wisely kept just offscreen, heard mostly as the camera only lets to witness the before and after, almost like the camera can’t stand to look at the violence. The grapefruit scene is still so shocking 70+ years later that the people I saw it with were laughing uncomfortably in disbelief. The rain-drenched climax is iconic and has been referenced as lately as Road To Perdition.

016. MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (Vincente Minnelli) viewed 1-10-03 on video
Grade A- 1944
Very good musical, that uses its musical sequences to bring characters together or bridge their emotions. The story is unabashedly romantic and melodramatic, dealing with moving away to New York and the courting of two budding girls. Before the ridiculously happy ending, we get scenes of surprising poignancy: the girl destroying her snowmen or the older couple making up with a duet of “You and I.” The ending is a piece of dream fulfillment that reminded me of Jacques Demy’s Young Girls of Rochefort, and made me feel unreasonably good.

017. CLERKS (Kevin Smith) viewed 1-10-03 in theater (approx. fifth viewing)
Grade B+ (downgraded from A-) 1994
First time viewing Clerks in the theater and my opinion of it dropped a bit, viewing at home might be ideal for this film. Dialogue feels overpolished and more mannered here than any of his later films, and said by unprofessional actors it comes off stiff. Some of the gags feel a bit too cute for there own sake: the anti-cigarette riot, or the perfect dozen eggs, and characters are forever pulling out business cards to give themselves credibility (Do we really need the contractor to show his credentials to the clerks?). The big screen also brings out how bad the film looks, often framed and blocked into ugly compositions with cutaways that don’t really make sense: a brief shot of the shoes of the people who are talking. That said this film is often very funny and engaging, and Smith may one day develop into a major talent (retiring Jay and Silent Bob is a good choice).

018. NINOTCHKA (Ernst Lubitsch) viewed 1-11-03 on video
Grade B 1939
The third Lubitsch film I’ve seen but the first that didn’t remotely achieve perfection. Not as funny as Trouble in Paradise or as full of adult humor (a concession to the code has a tamer Lubitsch) and nowhere near as charming as The Shop Around the Corner. It is fun to watch Garbo melt to the charms of capitalism, but neither entertaining or funny enough to clarify this films status as a classic film.

019. THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES (Clint Eastwood) viewed 1-11-03 on video
Grade B 1976
A little revisionist on the typical Eastwood Man With No Name persona but Eastwood’s genre changes haven’t taken the sublime quality they would in Unforgiven. Starts very well, with the event that drives forward the rest of the plot and Eastwood’s preparation for revenge all coming before the opening credits. Eastwood wisely puts a scar down the middle of the hero’s face to remind us that all his violence springs from the opening action. There are also some scenes that work in ways that are different than expected: especially a showdown between Eastwood and a group of Indians and the very last scene. A good film and probably the best western Eastwood directed other than Unforgiven, although not its equal as Eastwood and some critics think to be.

020. NICO ICON (Susanne Ofteringer) viewed 1-11-03 on dvd
Grade C 1996
Talking head documentary of the life of Nico: the singer on the first Velvet Underground album, model and solo artist later into the seventies and eighties. The film is not bad its just not very insightful, it lacks some key interviews and viewpoints and focuses too much on interviewee’s who didn’t seem to know her all that well. I’m a Nico fan, I have her album Chelsea Girl and listen to it frequently but this film doesn’t add any new background that would help me appreciate her work more.

021. RABBIT-PROOF FENCE (Philip Noyce) viewed 1-12-03 in theater
Grade C 2002
Taking a serious injustice film and turning it into an adventure film isn’t a problem for me, just this adventure film happens to be rather limp. The journey isn’t really seen as a big conquest (the natives mostly seem helpful and sympathetic to the girls’ plight) and no real sense of time passing (months go by – we are told). No real sense of the little girls as individual characters (although they are all photogenic) and that might have helped develop interest in their journey, which isn’t all that visually interesting; not like Roeg’s view of the outback in the masterful Walkabout.

022. WESTWORLD (Michael Crichton) viewed 1-12-03 on video
Grade B 1973
An entertaining hybrid of the western and science fiction genres, with a fantasy construct of the mythic old west going terribly wrong because of mechanical problems. The climax plays more for surprise effect than gradual suspense and it feels like the wrong choice, with everything happening too fast and over too soon.

023. THE GENERAL LINE (Sergei Eisenstein) viewed 1-13-03 on (a very bad) video
Grade B+ 1929
Those who regularly read my site (both of you) may have noticed that I gave a C+ to Battleship Potempkin, and now in giving Eisenstein’s least admired film a higher rating I may be accused of perverse snobbery. The General Line (also known as The Old and the New) isn’t simple a better film than Potempkin; it is a more technically accomplished one and surely a more entertaining one. That said, I must say the version I saw was a shitty video copy of a 16mm print with no music and thus I may still be severely underrating this film. The film is about the wonders of cooperative farming and its most exciting scene is an anticipation of cream being churned into butter. Before you sigh sarcastically and skip to the next review know that the butter-churning scene is actually pretty damn exciting and surprisingly funny. Also very funny is a “wedding” scene with a bull being introduced to a cow, that scene climaxing (literally) in a witty and wonderful expression of montage that blew me away. Well worth seeing if you are interested in Eisenstein and were put off by his oppressive masterpiece Potemkin.

024. THE BIG COMBO (Joseph H. Lewis) viewed 1-13-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1955
Odd film noir that plays with dream logic, with each character unbalanced by their emotions. Lewis’ uses cinematic technique in collaboration with the film’s violence: music as device to torture the cop, sound muted for a significant murder and dramatic lighting finally killing the villain. The direction is stylish and the shootout in dense fog at the climax is an obvious highlight.

025. FRANKENSTEIN (James Whale) viewed 1-14-03 on dvd
Grade C 1931
Surprisingly mad and off-balanced, with actors going so over the top that they distract from the story and especially the mood, which is often creepy because of Arthur Edeson’s photography. The film veers wildly from broad comedy to expressionistic horror, but is neither funny nor scary enough to warrant its status as the horror classic. It’s interesting to take the queer theory with this film: since Whale was gay and the story is basically two men creating new life without a woman, and Elizabeth set in opposition to Dr. Frankenstein’s achievement.

026. SWING TIME (George Stevens) viewed 1-14-03 on video
Grade A- 1936
Charming and entertaining Astaire-Rogers vehicle with delightful musical sequences. The film doesn’t ever reach the sublime level of Top Hat, but does qualify as one of the best musicals made during the classic Hollywood years for musicals.

027. FEAR DOT COM (William Malone) viewed 1-14-03 on dvd
Grade C 2002
This film is best when playing up the visual imagination and playing down the plot, which is laid pretty thick and is mostly disposable. William Malone may one day make a quality movie, but he’s currently one of the only schlock horror director that’s trying to achieve something unique. And as always, it’s nice to see Jeffery Comb’s getting work.

028. WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? (Tsai Ming-liang) viewed 1-15-03 on dvd (second viewing)
Grade B 2002
A slow and beguiling film with 103 long or very long, static takes of people doing mostly banal tasks. 103 shots in 116 minutes gives you an idea of the film’s pacing and the director doesn’t ever move the camera, if it sounds like slow torture you may as well skip to the next review. If you’re still reading you are the prime audience for this film and probably something of a masochist, although that’s not to say the film is without pleasure or interest. One of the bigger pleasures is the film’s sense of humor that is quirky and understated, sometimes deadpan like Jarmusch and sometimes visual like Tati. The film is also a meditation on loneliness and dislocation: all the characters close themselves in and are missing someone or something important to them. This is the second time I’ve seen the film (so I’m a bit of a masochist as well) and the images are rich in a way that really stays with you after you’ve seen them. There is also a loving homage to Francois Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Leaud and most significantly Paris.

029. METROPOLITAN (Whit Stillman) viewed 1-15-03 on video (third viewing)
Grade A 1990
Whit Stillman’s first film Metropolitan announced a great new voice in independent films, and is one of the best films of the nineties. His writing isn’t joke-oriented but witty and observantly funny. It’s the kind of subtle comedy that can be watched repeatedly without losing its appeal, in fact with each viewing it becomes obvious how much effort was taken in letting the humor come from the characters and how they talk rather than limp comedic situations.

A middle-class socialist joins a clique of wealthy yuppies, The Sally Fowler Rat Pack, in after deb-party for a few weeks around Christmas Time. Stillman keenly observes the parties, and presents them in a sampler form that keeps the conversations immediate and interesting. The conversations range from Jane Austin to surrealist contempt for the bourgeoisie to title aristocracy, sometimes the parties turn to strip poker or truth or dare.

The cast is a heap of newcomers with the introducing list is longer than the regular cast credits, but they mostly do a very game job with the material. The dialogue is mannered and could easily come out wrong with misdirection or bad acting choices (see Clerks for occasional examples). In particular Chris Eigeman handles himself very well in the tastiest role of snarling Nick Smith (his first role) and he would continue to be one of the most integral parts of Stillman’s next two projects.

When will Whit Stillman make another film?!

030. SHOW ME LOVE (Lukas Moodysson) viewed 1-15-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1999
Honest and moving love story of two teenage girls that fall in love with each other and the consequences that it brings them. Before the two meet up the film makes some pointed and funny observations about teenagers living in a small town; yearning for drugs, raves or anything exciting to happen. The relationship develops in a way that seems very original, with both girls coming into it with different reasons and different family life. The birthday party near the beginning is a minor masterpiece seeming both cruel and utterly convincing in the way people hurt each other just to strike out. Original Swedish title was Fucking Amal (Amal being the lame small town the characters are stuck in) but Show Me Love is a good enough replacement as it sums up the emotions more than might be first expected. Only caveat is the final song coming in and undermining the impact of the final scene.

031. BLONDE VENUS (Josef von Sternberg) viewed 1-16-03 on laserdisc
Grade B 1932
Certainly campy for much of the first half: highlight being Dietrich stripping from an ape suit and singing “Hot Voodoo” with two arrows sticking through her head (attracting Cary Grant in the process but who could resist that). The middle section slumped as Dietrich slums it trashy hotels keeping her son from her husband. Then the film rebounded with a final scene of bittersweet reconciliation that brought a lump to my throat.

032. THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (Nicholas Ray) viewed 1-16-03 on video
Grade B+ 1949
Convict and young bride run off together in Ray’s adaptation of Edward Anderson’s “Thieves Like Us” played as a tragedy with the two young criminals as corrupted innocents. Walks a similar line with Ray’s next film Knock on Any Door, but this one favors moody poetry to preachy speeches and it is really effective. Altman also adapted the book into a film of the same name and made a significantly different film, which feels earthy rather than brooding.

033. A GUY THING (Chris Koch) viewed 1-17-03 in theater
Grade D 2003
A hard film to watch since I like most of the actors involved and couldn’t imagine them in a film as bad as this. Comedy is unnecessarily scatological (he has crabs, ha-ha) and half baked (a subtext of guys helping Lee out of the worst jams for the sake of male camaraderie suggests another film). Mostly I just wanted to hurl things at the screen with every progressing moment, and even begun to be annoyed by things I usually like; from Mark Mothersbaugh annoying score to Jason Lee’s eyebrow reliant acting. Of everybody involved only Julia Stiles comes away basically untarnished, she may be in for big things if she finds the right part. A good start would be passing on films from the director of Snow Day and looking for more films to stretch your palate.

034. 25TH HOUR (Spike Lee) viewed 1-18-03 in theater
Grade A 2002
Spike Lee’s return to form and his best film since Clockers and it stays away from the things that usually trip him up. Gone are the unnecessary subplots that have him distracted, gone is the loud music distancing us from the characters' dialogue, and gone is the heavy-handed message mongering. This film is focused and simple, and Lee invests it with his exceptional craftsmanship.

The film’s theme is doing the right thing when opposed with life’s challenges and the reparations for doing wrong. Norton is going to jail for selling drugs, but the people in his life (girlfriend, best friends and father) are all accomplices to his wrongdoing and didn’t do anything about his activity. All are seen as guilty in some way and most of all is Norton, who is established as a flawed character who has done some destructive things to the neighborhood in favor of making a quick buck. The film doesn’t skate blame off of its characters, and it gives them other flaws to establish that even very positive characters (a teacher or a businessman) can behave just as destructively in their own interest.

The film also deals with September 11 in a way that is both moving and refreshing; showing anti-Arab sentiments in the backgrounds of scenes, flags on cars (remember that) and staging an important conversation by a window over looking ground zero as workers clean the debris. Spike Lee even stops the forward momentum of the film for an impassioned soliloquy of hatred delivered by Edward Norton, dishing “fuck you’s” to every racial group in NY, and individually citing Osama bin Laden, Enron, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney -specifically in their involvement of the Enron scandal.

035. QUAI DES ORFEVRES (Henri-Georges Clouzot) viewed 1-19-03 in theater
Grade A 1947
A great unseen film from Clouzot, who has for too long been unfairly neglected by American audiences, and is capable of making suspense films that can compare with Hitchcock in their technical quality and undeniable entertainment value. This film’s first half has the logic of an American film noir film, with characters driven by self-interest or blinding emotions into a downward spiral of fate. After an important murder, the film switches gears and becomes a top-notch detective story and mystery. Somehow Clouzot is able to both get suspense by aligning us with the guilty (either actually or by appearance) and then surprise us with twists that reveal new sides to things we thought we knew from the film’s first half. A great film that I look forward to seeing again.

036. MURDER, MY SWEET (Edward Dmytryk) viewed 1-22-03 on video
Grade A- 1944
Clever and witty script and surprisingly convincing performance from Powell as Marlowe make this a very entertaining and worthy entry into the company of the other Chandler adaptations. The film also contains a great metaphor for the film noir genre; when Powell is knocked unconscious and “a dark pool opens up at his feet” sucking him in. Plot is perhaps too muddled but Dmytryk has the look down and Powell handles the wise-ass dialogue like a pro.

037. THE KILLERS (Robert Siodmak) viewed 1-22-03 on video
Grade B- 1946
Good performance by Lancaster but the film never really came together as I hoped it would, and after seeing the ’64 version I wonder if the source material just doesn’t translate all that well to film. I’ve never been fond of extended flashbacks for one and I think the structure of this film is especially weak, hurting whatever momentum either story builds.

038. DRESSED TO KILL (Brian De Palma) viewed 1-23-03 on dvd (sixth viewing)
Grade A 1980

039. BODY DOUBLE (Brian De Palma) viewed 1-24-03 on dvd (fourth viewing)
Grade B+ 1984
Brian De Palma does Hitchcock!

So the detractors said with the initial release of these two films which borrow Hitchcock’s plot threads and scramble them around into new films. Dressed to Kill was obviously inspired by Psycho and Body Double was inspired by Rear Window (with quite a healthy dose of Vertigo thrown in for flavor). However, these films are not cheap rip-off works, as those detractors would claim, but rather the brilliantly original work which acknowledge their sources and actually build upon them in a very interesting way.

Dressed to Kill is Psycho
It begins and ends with a shower sequence, has a surprising early murder of a main character and a killer transsexual that drives the plot. However, De Palma treats the material differently playing up the dream-like quality of the images. The film begins and ends with dream sequences, the first one is in De Palma mode and the second one is done as a Hitchcock homage. The first sequence draws you into the action (the girl in shower) with seductive music and slow, lyrical camera movement before a sudden burst of violence. The second sequence has established threat and draws out time to build suspense, even providing a false threat (the white shoes) before revealing the real threat. After the first dream sequence but before the first murder the film follows the pattern established: slow, gliding camera movements and beautiful Pino Donaggio score guiding attention to insignificant details before spastic outbursts of violence.
The museum sequence in Dressed to Kill echoes the great set pieces in Hitchcock’s films, but is actually more daring than most of them. De Palma holds attention for a long stretch of silent screen time, as Angie Dickinson: looks at the paintings, looks at a few patrons, meets the glance of a man who sits by her, chases him, is chased by her and ends up in a cab with him. After that sequence De Palma’s manipulation continues as he forces Dickinson to confront potential problems of her infidelity before unleashing a final surprise. What is daring about this sequence isn’t just that it relies on De Palma’s technique to draw the audience in, but that he didn’t lead into the scene with ominous warning about the fate of the sequence. Compared to a Hitchcock sequence, say in North By Northwest, the difference is that Hitchcock made sure to warn the audience that the character was in danger before the set piece, so he didn’t have to rely on his technique to carry the audiences attention. They stay with the action because they are expecting the threat, De Palma makes no such promise to the audience and the result is a masterful piece of cinematic storytelling.

Body Double is Rear Window and Vertigo
Voyeurism is often a theme in De Palma’s films (Sisters even has a Peeping Tom Game Show), and in this film a murder plot is discovered through spying on a neighbor through binoculars (as in Rear Window). The peeper in this case is an out of work actor who was fired because his claustrophobia wouldn’t let him perform, and he eventually discovers that someone involved in the murder plot is actually a hired actor (as in Vertigo) and his claustrophobia works against helping the intended victim. The Hitchcock references crossbreed with each other, and his desire to look and claustrophobia are both his downfalls here, giving him the flaws of both movies to make his challenge more concrete.

Now that the Hitchcock references are out of the way it is interesting to note that De Palma uses these story threads as a springboard for the themes that control his characters. Where Hitchcock’s characters are moved in the plot by chance (basically good people who are mistaken for bad people) De Palma likes to deal with characters that are corrupted by sexual temptation. In Dressed to Kill: Dickinson is driven by lust and punished for it, the killer acts only when driven by lust and Allen as the prostitute is basically always in trouble. The only untouchable character is Gordon who is so geeky he is embarrassed by sex; when he invites Allen to his house late in the film there is no question that his intentions are noble (De Palma is said to have related to this character). Lust drives the protagonist of Body Double and also the killer, as they both spy the same strip show in the window and are drawn to her. In both films good characters act in a negative fashion: Dickinson has extramarital affair and Wasson peeps, stalks and eventually takes the underwear of the woman he lusts after. After Dickinson’s affair with the man, De Palma basically judges her in a series of ways, from the STD test to the little girl staring in the elevator and finally the murder. Wasson in Body Double is actually one of the creepiest characters in the film (although we know his intentions are mostly good), as his moves mirror the killers (who is ugly and deemed as threatening).

Also noteworthy is De Palma’s use of split personalities or doubles as a consistent theme in his movies. In these films his doubles were also in the Hitchcock films but his other thriller films also work similarly. Most recently Femme Fatale had two Rebecca Romijn Stamos’ (as every world should), in Raising Cain Lithgow is split into many pieces, and Carlito’s Way is actually a double for Scarface. He may have started out derivative of Hitchcock but now he is mostly derivative of himself, much as Hitchcock was in the second half of his career.

040. INTACTO (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) viewed 1-24-03 in theater
Grade B- 2002
Intriguing (if not totally original) storyline about the nature of luck as seen from people who survive freak accidents, actually plays like a hybrid sports and detective movie and grows progressively ridiculous as it goes on. A lot of scenes work on their own but the film doesn’t really come together in the end and the ending is a letdown.

041. DIABOLIQUE (Henry-Georges Clouzot) viewed 1-24-03 on dvd
Grade A- 1955
A pretty nasty film and incredibly tense, this film is often cited as a precursor to Psycho in the development of the adult thriller. I like the middle section best when the murder has taken place and the killers are waiting for the body to be found, the suspense during that section almost reaches the level Clouzot achieved in his great film Wages of Fear. It taps into that great fear: that you have done something wrong and you will be found out no matter what you do (see also Blood Simple) and it is highly recommended – even if you have seen the lame remake with Sharon Stone.

042. TO BE OR NOT TO BE (Ernst Lubitsch) viewed 1-25-03 on video
Grade A- 1942
A very funny film about a Polish acting troupe forced to outwit the Nazi’s and stop a spy from giving away the underground. Much of the humor derives from poking fun at the nazi regime by making them look ridiculous, but still not undermining the menace they present. The oft repeated joke of the man in the front of the theater getting up as Hamlet begins his “To be or not to be” speech made me laugh every time.

043. THE TIN STAR (Anthony Mann) viewed 1-26-03 on video
Grade B 1957
A lesser Anthony Mann western (which is to say still very good) with bounty hunter Henry Fonda teaching Sheriff Anthony Perkins how to defend himself. The psychological depth in this film is no match for Mann other films, possibly the lack of vengeance as a major theme to drive the protagonist is the biggest misstep for Mann. Instead of feeling the impending conflict was an extension of the characters’ obsessions, the conflict is felt necessary to account the film as a Western.

044. THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK (Preston Sturges) viewed 1-26-03 on video
Grade C- 1944
Strained and mostly unfunny comedy done in a breakneck pace that dulls the material into a big, chaotic mess. Also an annoying mess; with all the acting on the same pitch of spastic frenzy to the point that every new twist of the plot started to seem sadistic. I’ll take the mayhem of Palm Beach Story, thanks.

045. BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (William Wyler) viewed 1-28-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1946
Well meaning and often touching, but also overlong and repetitive. The film is stretched to a nearly three hour running time that seems highly excessive since all the characters develop in a fairly predictable way and the fat in the story really just lessens the final effect of the story. Still some scenes in the first and last act really moved me, and if the film were a little more concise it would be truly great.

046. SCARLET STREET (Fritz Lang) viewed 1-28-03 on video
Grade B- 1945
Lang at his most fatalistic and aggressively downbeat, with Robinson pulled into a world of crime to support a much younger woman and the inevitable downfall. Robinson is feminized and dependent: wearing a ridiculously frilly apron and living off his bitter wife’s money. His downfall at the hands of the women he loves seems blatantly obvious from the start, and any irony the film achieves seems accidental and cruel as this is NOT A COMEDY, so it becomes as entertaining as watching a train wreck.

047. ABOUT A BOY (Paul and Chris Weitz) viewed 1-28-03 on dvd (second viewing)
Grade B+ 2002
I might still be overrating this film a bit since the directors don’t really have a handle on the material and I got the feeling that the film could have achieved greatness if in less consumer-minded hands. However, thanks to Hugh Grant’s performance, the film is almost consistently funny and compelling. The last act is the film’s biggest problem because curing Grant of his lifestyle, he becomes a significantly less compelling character and the film begins to enter into romantic-comedy fantasy world where characters can change with the drop of a hat if it is in the name of love. The talent show sequence actually plays better than it should (again due to Grant’s uneasy performance rather than the direction) but it also is the film’s biggest cheat; giving us a big climactic scene of humiliation rather than a more moving scene of Grant actually making a meaningful character discovery. Grant may be the most unfairly underrated actor working today, as he gives dignity to films that sometimes don't deserve it and weight to otherwise light films.

048. THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (Joseph L. Mankiewicz) viewed 1-29-03 on video
Grade B+ 1947
Charming romantic-fantasy that would easily score an A-, were it not so overshadowed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger’s Stairway to Heaven. Still the film is very moving, especially in the last third when the characters forget about the ghost and live their lives out over a stretch of years. The final reconciliation is wonderfully bittersweet and made me forgive the overly classy direction by Mankiewicz, which underplays the fantasy element.

049. CARRIE (Brian De Palma) viewed 1-30-03 on dvd (fifth viewing
Grade A 1976
A film’s tone is set by the first few minutes of screen time. The tone is developed, we are given a rough idea of the film’s moral stance and introduced to important characters. In Carrie, the second shot is a creeping dolly through the girl’s locker room as dozens of naked girls pass the camera in slow motion. This is very ballsy; it gives the feeling that anything may go in this picture and questions the restraint of the filmmaker showing us this. The shot singles out our main character Carrie and we are introduced to her in a series of shots that watch her take a shower. These shots are accompanied by seductive music, and then the audience is given a jolt as she suddenly has her period. This comes as a shock both to the character and the audience. Our sympathies are linked to the character and we are given an idea how the film will deliver its terror; after seducing the audience and characters in giving their confidence the shock comes with a sadist’s glee – a simple bit of misdirection. A method that should be somewhat familiar to any one who has seen De Palma’s other thrillers of this period.

Though the story was written by Stephen King, this is every bit a Brian De Palma film, and it fits in nicely with his oeuvre. Like his other films; sexual desire is linked with guilt and Carrie is punished for having it. Carrie having the period in the early scene pushes the main narrative forward and leads to her being asked to the prom to make up for it. The scenes of Carrie becoming a woman are touching, and so is much of the prom. Then Carrie is punished for attending the prom with blood that mirrors the opening shower scene, and this time Carrie gets retribution.

The final scenes of horror violence work so well because of how well the characters are established by De Palma. Many of the scenes with Carrie in school play like a dramatic character study, and the scenes with the supporting characters are funny and human. The film is unthinkable without the convincing performance by Sissy Spacek in the lead role, which was nominated for the best actress Oscar and grounds the material.

050. LOLITA (Stanley Kubrick) viewed 1-31-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1962
Funny and satiric for the first two thirds and then finally tragic in the last third, the film changes as its perception of Humbert Humbert. The film utterly relies on its cast to work: Sellers sets the comic tone in an early scene, Winters gives humanity to the middle half and Mason is perfect a character so helpless to his love (his character her reminded me of his character in Bigger Than Life). The film runs too long at nearly two and a half hours but it is a fascinating early look at the darker themes that would develop in Kubrick’s British years after Spartacus.

051. THAT UNCERTAIN FEELING (Ernst Lubitsch) viewed 1-31-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1941
Funny comedy of the sexes, with an unhappy woman decides to divorce her husband. Great sight gags (the first one immediately following the inter-title card), comic set pieces and a very funny performance by Burgess Meredith make this well worth viewing. The highlight is a sequence in the lawyer’s office where they try to justify a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, which builds masterfully.

052. BEAT THE DEVIL (John Houston) viewed 2-01-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1954
Silly and wild comedy that thinks it is a serious film, and the actors play it straight as well. The result is actually very funny and a send-up/combination of the other Houston-Bogart films. The audience of the day didn’t get the joke and it was a huge failure, and it is easy to see why they didn’t: most of the cast looking ridiculous and spouting goofy lines as if they were making a routine drama.

053. SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (John Ford) viewed 2-01-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1949
Beautifully shot in technicolor and bravely lacking in narrative, instead focusing on tone and feeling. Full of beautiful sequences and a great sweep of melancholy - the best probably a ride during a lightning storm. John Wayne also gives one of his best performances as the aging Cavalry Captain and the sentimental sequences of his retirement (climaxing with him getting a watch) are very moving. Some of the film’s subplots don’t work and lessen the overall effect, but still a very fine movie.

054. DANCE WITH A STRANGER (Mike Newell) viewed 2-01-03 on dvd
Grade C 1985
Everything’s dark and smoky in this film of a destructive relationship that ends in murder. The over-stylized mise-en-scene and acting distance the emotions of the story, until everything feels repressed and hollow. The film tries to achieve the hard-boiled feel of a film noir but instead it’s as mannered as any stuffy British costume drama, although I’m not sure the story would have been compelling if told straight.

055. SUDDEN FEAR (David Miller) viewed 2-01-03 on dvd
Grade C+ 1952
Nice noirish cinematography by Charles Lang is the highlight of this otherwise fairly forgettable thriller. Joan Crawford is a wealthy playwright who marries a young actor (Jack Palance) and then discovers that he is planning to kill her to get her money. The set up actually works quite well but as soon as Crawford realized her life was in danger the film became a very routine thriller. Not bad just terribly marginal, I won’t remember it at all by next week.

056. SPARTACUS (Stanley Kubrick) viewed 2-02-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1960
I might be in the minority here but I think Spartacus would have been much better if Anthony Mann had finished as the film’s director. That’s not to say Spartacus is a failure as it stands, in fact it is great and bold entertainment, just not always enthusiastic. The middle section of the film is too relaxed and padded, slowing the pace set by the exciting first half for dead sequences. However the film rebounds nicely with a brave final third that ends on a down note.

057. BALL OF FIRE (Howard Hawks) viewed 2-03-03 on dvd
Grade B+ (Another frickin’ B+) 1941
Script by Billy Wilder and Charles Bracket and it shows in practically every scene. The film is a witty twist on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with a seven old professors overseeing the romance of a young aloof professor (Gary Cooper) with a showgirl (Barbara Stanwick, always lovely even though her hairdo resembles a mullet) forced to hide out to avoid the police (which hints at Some Like It Hot). The romance is fairly standard stuff and basically predictable, but the film is quite fun to watch and shows Hawk’s typically great comic timing.

058. WEEK-END IN HAVANA (Walter Lang) viewed 2-04-03 on video
Grade C- 1941
Insipid characters and an incredibly lame story line can hurt any musical-comedy, but when even the music and comedy are utterly uninspired all hope is lost. The Latin characters are all incredible stereotypes (Miranda wears typical fruit salad headdress) but even worse are the white characters who are so blank and stupid they cannot support a film: they feel like minor characters given the show without knowing what to do with it. Some moments have a snaky charm to them, but the film is totally forgettable.

059. TARGETS (Peter Bogdanovich) viewed 2-05-03 on video
Grade C 1968
Opens with a disclaimer saying that the film would show why America has such a problem with guns and then unfolds as a routine thriller involving a sniper and a retiring actor (Karloff in one of his last roles). The disclaimer was put on because Robert Kennedy was assassinated, but it actually points out how superficial the sniper violence is in the film. The sniper character is seen with very little insight, and seen often in the first half of the film which upsets the pacing. Some of the climactic scenes work well, but the film isn’t ever very compelling or entertaining.

060. MILDRED PIERCE (Michael Curtiz) viewed 2-05-03 on video
Grade B- 1945
Starting with a murder and then going into flashback to tell everything up to the murder is not a particularly unusual way for a film to unravel, but with Mildred Pierce it is essential. It keeps interest in Mildred’s character because she is first presented as a femme fatale and then shifts with the plot developments. The film is very well directed by Curtiz and shot in shadowy noir by Ernest Waller and that carried me over stretches of annoying character actions.

061. MAN FROM THE ALAMO (Budd Boetticher) viewed 2-06-03 on video
Grade B+ 1953
Good western with Ford playing a person who is wrongly accused of cowardice and must prove himself against a pack of opposing soldiers. Ford is good as Boetticher’s typical loner character, but the film is a bit too insubstantial given its early set piece in the Alamo. Boetticher’s direction is perfect though, and I look forward to seeing more of his films.

062. MONSIEUR VERDOUX (Charles Chaplin) viewed 2-06-03 on video
Grade B+ 1947
Similar to The Great Dictator in that Chaplin is no longer trying to win the audience over with bittersweet plots or likable characters, instead his comedy is coming from the darkest of places and growing very cold and satirical. In Monsieur Verdoux, Chaplin has directed a comedy that centers largely on the mass murder of rich widows, with Chaplin himself playing the killer but still not altogether distancing himself from the Chaplin persona. The comic scenes in the silent Chaplin films depended on Chaplin’s tramp surviving poverty and the humor grew from his bid for self-preservation. Monsieur Verdoux works similarly, the comic set pieces are mostly centered around the killer getting away with his crimes (escaping a wedding, trying to kill a wife on a boat) but darkness has crept into Chaplin’s film.

063. THE SET-UP (Robert Wise) viewed 2-07-03 on video
Grade A 1949
A great film that unfolds in (more or less) real time, as a boxer is set-up to loose a bout and not told about it. Since the fix is known to the audience going into the main fight it puts the bout into two contrasting lines of suspense: I was rooting for the aging boxer to win his match but I knew the result of his victory could cost his life. The boxing scenes are incredibly intense and although the action is sometimes repetitive I never felt bored by it. Save for the last line of dialogue this is a nearly perfect film, one that deserves to be better known.

064. RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (Sam Peckinpah) viewed 2-07-03 on video (not widescreen)
Grade B+ 1962
The note above is very important, this film was viewed on a pan and scan video copy and I feel that this substantially hurt the film. That said this is still a very good film and an obvious influence on the dirtier revisionist westerns of the late sixties and seventies (especially McCabe and Mrs. Miller). I felt the first third of the film was too lazily paced, taking too long to get to the main story action. However, once the terrific wedding scenes comes along he film really takes off and stays at a very good level of intensity. Works well as a swan song for Scott and McCrey, as well as a changing of the guard from the westerns they made.

065. FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO (Billy Wilder) viewed 2-07-03 on video
Grade A- 1943
I don’t have a lot to say about this film, I thought it was a very exciting and funny spy film that somehow managed to not lessen the evils of WWII. A timeless film and a precursor to Speilberg’s Indiana Jones films, as Cameron Crowe suggested before me.

066. INTRUDER IN THE DUST (Clarence Brown) viewed 2-07-03 on video
Grade A- 1949
Way ahead of its time in its view of racism, the same film in the sixties would be sensationalistic and self-congratulatory. The black man accused of shooting a white man in the back isn’t characterized as impossibly noble character with kindness of mythic proportions but rather as a character who feels no need to humble himself to the white people of his town. Somehow the film comes across as much more realistic and modern than 1995’s A Time To Kill.

067. LOVELY AND AMAZING (Nicole Holofcener) viewed 2-08-03 on dvd
Grade C+ 2002
Basically unremarkable with a few good scenes scattered along to maintain interest in the proceedings and generally good performances. Everything feels very televisionalized (I think I made that word up) with characters getting story space intervals resembling soaps and sitcom dialogue that never really seems real.

068. LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (John M. Stahl) viewed 2-08-03 on video
Grade B 1945
Odd hybrid of film noir and melodrama with everything shot in vibrant technicolor, it feels like trash some moments and genius at others. The two scenes of violence really stand out, and the color surrounding the actions make it seem hyper-real. I think the film loses its way after Tierny leaves but the first two-thirds are fascinating.

069. RAILROADED! (Anthony Mann) viewed 2-09-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1947
Railroaded lacks the great moody photography that John Alton brought to Raw Deal and T-Men but this is still another very good film noir from Anthony Mann.

070. DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY (Jim McBride) viewed 2-09-03 on video
Grade B 1968
I didn’t realize that the film was a complete put-on until late into the film, and it didn’t really affect the way I viewed the film. It is a pretentious and often funny look at the life of someone who must capture everything on film. His girlfriend refuses to be taped and the film and Holzman’s life come apart as result. I find it weird that everyone who really loves film always ends up being a creep or a pervert, or at least becoming totally overwhelmed by their obsession (For example: Camera Buff, Peeping Tom, Leaud in Last Tango in Paris).

071. THE 49TH PARALLEL (Michael Powell) viewed 2-11-03 on dvd
Grade A- 1941
Propaganda films about German nazi troops trying to get to safety after their ship is blown up, and along the way meet many people who represent a tempting different lifestyle. The film is episodic with new characters showing up to surround the nazi’s every twenty minutes or so and very entertaining with each segment filled with great actors and surprises. Howard’s’ fistfight with the nazi and Anton Walbrook’s speech denouncing the nazis are obvious highlights in a very good film.

072. TALES OF HOFFMAN (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) viewed 2-12-03 on laserdisc
Grade B 1951
Beautifully photographed in rich technicolor, and Powell and Pressburger do a very effective job of telling each story with new focused color palates (Prologue and epilogue in deep blue and red, first act in yellow, second in dark grays and oranges and third in light blue). Also spectacular in its use of images to tell the story, since the film is basically a silent film and uses the images expressionistically to relate the information to the audience. A great film technically, but somehow emotionally underwhelming and long-winded at over two-hours. The themes fit in nicely with The Archers’ other works (the story draws an interesting parallel to my favorite Life and Death Of Colonial Blimp) and a lot of the ballet numbers are reminiscent of the brilliant The Red Shoes but still something held me back. I will take another viewing sometime down the line and see if I can resolve my feelings for the film.

073. A CANTERBURY TALE (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) viewed 2-13-03 on dvd
Grade B 1944
A Canterbury Tale is a pleasant trifle of a film but not much more than that, with very little narrative and no sense of narrative drive. Instead the film relies on charm and the considerable skill of the masterful storytelling abilities of The Archers to weave a web to hide how empty the plot really is. Not that I’m complaining about the lack of plot, because I didn’t mind at all when I was watching the film, which is probably closest to I Know Where I’m Going with the mysticism of the locale guiding the characters more than the plot. Just left me wanting when it was all over, like I had been taken in by the film and walked away nearly empty-handed.

074. THE WICKER MAN (Robin Hardy) viewed 2-13-03 on dvd (extended version – third viewing)
Grade A 1973
The extended version is probably the most ideal version available: giving the opening scenes of grounded reality of the Sergeant’s life and a minimum of character information before thrusting him into the weirdness on the Island (A later scene with Christopher Lee and two snails making love could have been left out of the film). Still the film looks better on every viewing, finding even seemingly insignificant details: the opening thank you and the music, more filled with nuance and cleverness. The surprise in the last act forces a complete reconstruction of the film’s motives: not a horror film but a satirical look at the absurdity of all religion from an outsider’s gaze. It is also very interesting how the film keeps the viewer off balance, giving bizarre musical number and brilliant little non-sequiturs to confuse the Sergeant and the viewer. One of the best horror films of the seventies and certainly one of the best horror/musical/comedies ever made.

075. WOMAN OF THE YEAR (George Stevens) viewed 2-14-03 on video
Grade C+ 1942
A C+ is actually too nice for this film which takes a radical misstep about half way through and never really recovers. Instead of being a comedy about the life of a professional woman, the film begins to resent her character and poke stabs at her while she’s helpless. The scenes with the adopted boy seemed especially heavy-handed. The final scene that tries to return to comedy with zany mishaps in the kitchen is such a disaster I felt sorry for the film, especially since it had started out genuinely charming and funny. Good chemistry between the actors and a very good first half almost make the film worth checking out, too bad it all fell apart.

076. SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Ernst Lubitsch) viewed 2-15-03 on dvd (second viewing)
Grade A 1940
Just as charming and wonderful as I remembered it, and possibly the only romantic comedy that starts with its two characters hating each other and I actually believe it and find it a suitable obstacle for them to overcome. The comedy is brilliantly designed, building to comic climaxes like the work of a great architect making it obvious for the uninitiated to what the Lubitsch-touch refers. Perhaps the best romantic comedy ever made, finding room for human characters and scenes of sadness and bittersweet joy.

077. TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (Howard Hawks) viewed 2-17-03 on video
Grade B+ 1944
Basically the Hawks reworking of Casablanca with Bogart reprising the role of a man in the midst of political warfare who doesn’t want to get involved but must because of his love for a woman. And what a woman. Bacalls first film with Bogart and she has that great line (“You know how to whistle, don’t you?”) and the ability to make everything she says sound double-sided and laced with sexual overtones. A pretty damn entertaining film all and all, with crackling lines of dialogue and a basically engaging storyline. Faulkner co-wrote the screenplay and it was based on a Ernest Hemingway book and that’s not a bad pedigree.

078. DROWNING BY NUMBERS (Peter Greenaway) viewed 2-17-03 on video
Grade B 1987
I guess I’m a Greenaway fan since I seem to like every one of his films (The Baby of Macon excepted) but something holds me back on every film he makes. With this film I was excited as the story set itself up: introducing the numbers and games and drownings but then it just kept going on without really covering any new ground with each number. In fact the film’s narrative plays like a skipping record, repeating the same ground. “Once you’ve gotten to a hundred you’ve seen everything” says the little girl at the beginning of the film describing the device used in the film of laying numbers (1-100) into the diegetics of the story as it progresses, but I felt that I had seen roughly everything at about sixty. That doesn’t mean the film isn’t entertaining (although some will find it torturous), with it’s droll humor and unabashed sex, just it goes a bit stale for the last third, until the fireworks come out in the last scenes.

079. COMANCHE STATION (Budd Boetticher) viewed 2-18-03 on video
Grade B+ 1960
Another very simple set-up: Scott finds kidnapped lady and must return her to her to her husband but others stand in the way, with interesting verbal show downs between Scott and the others who plan to double cross him and turn the lady in for a reward. Side conversations about practical living in the west really ground this film in a reality that’s rather uncommon with western films, making it ahead of its time. Echoes to The Tall T actually strengthen my opinion of that film (which I now yearn to see again) and make me ready to see more Randown Westerns (as soon as I can locate them).

080. THE BROOD (David Cronenberg) viewed 2-18-03 on video
Grade B- 1979
Another very personal film from Cronenberg with most of the themes he would continue to develop in his career. The film is probably closest to Cronenberg’s earlier film Shivers: with both showing illness being manifested physically and harming the characters of the film. In fact the alternate title on that film was “They Come From Within” which perfectly describes the basis for Cronenberg’s horror themes. The Brood is not as mature or moving a work as his masterpiece The Fly, but this film has many creepy moments and a great score from Howard Shore. Is it me, or are the killer midget things in this film very similar to the killer in Don’t Look Now?

081. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (Orson Welles) viewed 2-20-03 on video
Grade A 1942
It’s hard to imagine Welles’ original film being better than this shortened version because this is such a powerful and mature work even at less than 90 minutes. It’s a more laid back and less eager to please film than Citizen Kane, but no less ambitious. It has a very good feeling for the time period, especially in the tour de force first third of the film in which Welles sets the stage for the action. Stanley Cortez’s cinematography (which was assisted heavily by Tolland’s experiments on Citizen Kane) is very beautiful: rich deep focus shots throughout and filled with shadow in the second half. A few scenes in the last half lighten the overall tragic tone of the material suggesting a happy outcome to the events, but despite the changes this is still a wonderful film.

082. HEAVEN CAN WAIT (Ernst Lubitsch) viewed 2-20-03 on video
Grade A- 1943
It is very odd to see a romantic/comedy/fantasy with characters as complicated as those we get in this film, and I think that is an essential part of what makes Lubitsch’s films work so well. As with Trouble in Paradise the characters in this film (especially the lead character) are established as containing bad traits and a lot of the comedy comes from them acting their way out of the trouble they’ve created themselves. The scenes in hell that bookend the film nicely set the tone for the film (I can’t think of another film that has the central character applying to get into hell) and most of the comedy that follows is lean and funny. Would have scored a solid A, but it is notch below Trouble in Paradise and The Shop Around the Corner.

083. THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (Jacques Demy) viewed 2-20-03 on dvd (Third viewing)
Grade A (upgraded from A-) 1967
One of the best musicals ever made and probably the one that best understands what makes musicals magical in the first place. The musical numbers exist in the world of the story: people will be talking and then suddenly break into song and then the whole thing will turn into a number with extras standing up and dancing with the characters. The film acknowledges the general weirdness of this phenomenon but making the world of the film completely linked with music: each character has their own theme, sailors are always walking by the camera and decide (what the hell) to join in dancing, and in one sequence a musical number is taking place out of the main action of the story and Deneuve is carried through the number away from the action. This all adds to the magical quality of the movie. The sequence with Gene Kelly dancing after falling in love rivals is sequence in Singin’ in the Rain for its pure blissed-out quality (I’ve seen the film three times but that sequence close to twenty).

084. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (Jacques Demy) viewed 2-20-03 on dvd (Second viewing)
Grade A+ (upgraded from A) 1964
My favorite musical, although it’s not a traditional musical with song and dance numbers. Instead every line of dialogue in the film is sung and music put in untraditional places (shop, mechanics, a sickbed). Not the love-conquers-all romantic musical that many critics suggest, but rather sober and realistic about the fact that many relationships come out of convenience rather than love. Michel Legrand’s music is beautiful and haunting and the visual design (often matching the characters’ emotions) are splendidly vibrant. The last scene at the gas station, with its subtle dialogue and reprised main theme, is one of the greatest and most moving scenes in cinema.

085. THE MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE: Ultimate Edition (Jimmy Wang Yu) viewed 2-21-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1975
Wonderfully choreographed fight sequences and general lunacy make this film a minor masterpiece. The fighting styles cover the whole spectrum in an extended tournament, and then two later set pieces (one is a steel-floored house on fire) are even more amazing. The dialogue is often laughable (Sample Line: “Earlier he tried to kill me, but he failed”) but it adds to the fun of the otherworldly experience. The title flying guillotine is a miracle in its own right: it looks like a fabric bird-cage and it is thrown onto the opponent’s head, which it cleanly decapitates. That the flying guillotine is thrown by a blind man, with even bigger eye brows than Martin Scorsese and ears that twitch when he is detecting his enemy’s position, should go without saying. Highly recommended and entirely deserving of its recent revival, it is a great offshoot of the kung fu genre.

086. LITTLE OTIK (Jan Svankmajer) viewed 2-21-03 on dvd
Grade B- 2001
A couple unable to have children adopts a tree stump as their baby in this dark and surreal film from Svankmajer, which recalls Lynch’s Eraserhead in its view of childbirth. The style is over the top- accentuating close-ups within scenes, odd camera angles and mix of animation with live action footage (looks like a graphic novel being peeled away). For most of the first half the film is a good deal of fun, but the darker second half loses the humor and satire of the first half instead becoming a creature feature. The pacing is also too slack, and far too long at over two hours. However, I look forward to seeing Svankmajer’s other films (this is the first I’ve seen) as he is definitely a director with a unique vision and visual style.

087. CHICAGO (Rob Marshall) viewed 2-21-03 in theater
Grade B+ 2002
Knowing nothing of the stage version of Chicago, I though (and hoped) that this was going to be a diegetic musical and even watched two Jacques Demy films to get me in the musical mood. However this film uses its musical numbers as inner-monologue: showing the characters desperation acted out in elaborate set pieces to underline the show business and phoniness of everything that transpires. I was reminded of both Pennies From Heaven and (even) Lola Montes while watching the film. Unfortunately often I was reminded of the far-reaching influence of Moulin Rouge, with its fast editing that gives very little awe to the production numbers because you can’t focus your attention long enough to be impressed – just overwhelmed. That said, I really enjoyed seeing this cast perform the songs and found some of the set pieces surprisingly memorable (especially the Murderess Tango and Mr. Cellophane) and the choreography (when I could tell what was going on) fun to watch. Not the home run that some seem to think it is, but better than I was expecting. I’ll hold my breath for a diegetic musical as good as the ones in the fifties or directed by Jacques Demy…

088. THE ROCKING HORSE WINNER (Anthony Pelissier) viewed 2-21-03 on dvd
Grade B 1949
A boy turns to a rocking horse to predict the outcomes to the horse races to help his mother’s finances, in this film that plays like a dark, warped fantasy. As the boy becomes more obsessed with his horse the film takes on a more manic quality: with feverish shots of his riding the horse and dark close-ups. An odd and peculiar film, that is very subtle in the way it establishes the story.

089. THE IN-LAWS (Arthur Hiller) viewed 2-22-03 on video
Grade B+ 1979
This film establishes its characters like it is going to be a fairly standard family comedy, but then it just keeps piling up zany plot twists. As the film progresses it gets more intriguingly insane and funny, climaxing in some ways with the Dictator presenting his hand puppet.

090. BODY AND SOUL (Robert Rossen) viewed 2-23-03 on dvd
Grade A- 1947
Polonski’s script here is remarkable, consistently finding the right notes in dialogue and the way he tells a very common story. His script is so good that I was able to overlook the (almost) complete lack of boxing scenes in this boxing movie and that I’d just recently seen The Set-Up: which does everything Body and Soul does just better and with more economy. Why is the boxing movie the best genre of sports films?

091. SCARFACE (Howard Hawks) viewed 2-23-03 on video
Grade A- 1932
The last of the three big gangster films of the thirties I had to see (along with Little Caesar and Public Enemy) and it’s the best of the bunch. It’s an exciting film and a very funny one as well: audaciously making the most frightening characters also the most comical. Scarface, as played by Muni, is viscous and violent but also exaggerated like a cartoon. The film is also especially adept at telling the story through images: Karlof getting shot and the camera pans to the bowling pins being knocked down, or the machine gun fire blowing the days on the calendar away. Scarface (more than the other two seminal gangster films) learned a lot from the silent films of the preceding decade and exploits the advantages of that era.

092. ADAM’S RIB (George Cukor) viewed 2-24-03 on video
Grade B- 1949
Pretty much everyone else seems to love this film so maybe I’m missing something, I thought this was a decent comedy that was hampered (and almost ruined) by a very weak final third. The jokes are often funny but the script too often goes for the easiest gag (strong woman lifting Tracy in the air, etc.) and the ending seems very contrived and desperate: with Hepburn in Wayne’s arms for no apparent reason.

093. PEPE LE MOKO (Julien Duvivier) viewed 2-24-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1937
Mysterious and maze-like Casbah setting really helps this film which is otherwise fairly slight and unmemorable. It gives weight to the main character: who is a princely crook in the Casbah but can’t afford to escape it and go back to his beloved home. His romance is at first banal but finally tragic as she represents everything that would await him if he weren’t stuck and dependent on the Casbah. A tragic character study when I was expecting (for some inexplicable reason) a Hitchcockian thriller.

094. BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) viewed 2-25-03 on dvd
Grade B 1973
Heavily stylized and stagy film, with Fassbinder once again dealing with the sexual power play between dominant and submissive lovers. The set is filled with dolls and mannequins, and as the film progresses the central characters (with the exception of Karin) start to resemble the pale mannequins like their life is being sucked away by their obsessions. The film is just two hours but it moves at a very deliberate pace that can occasionally work against the emotional involvement with the characters, and will probably fascinate Fassbinder fans and bore others to tears.

095. DONKEY SKIN (Jacques Demy) viewed 2-26-03 on video
Grade B 1971
I’m not familiar with the original fairy tale but it seemed to me that this story had two-halves that didn’t really fit together narratively only thematically: the first with the King trying to romance his daughter and the second with the peasant daughter being sought by a lovesick Prince with her ring. Everything is done with typical Demy style, which means wonderful color design and Legrand’s music helping tell the story. Not great, but beautifully filmed and slyly charming.

096. LES BONNES FEMMES (Claude Chabrol) viewed 2-26-03 on dvd
Grade A- 1960
Episodic film about a group of girls who are looking for love and mostly finding disappointment. The film doesn’t really feel like a Chabrol film (save for the murder and darker elements that start to emerge in the second half) instead like a non-judgmental character portrait of these girls, kind of like a Rohmer film. The film is very subtle and characters actions can be sometimes read in multiple ways. In Chabrol’s world everything good has a dark side that will soon appear: like when the characters are playing with the tiger at the zoo and it roars at them, or the playful kissing that turns to rape (or does it). As (the uber wise) Theo P. put it: “is it rape at the end of the long opening sequence, when Lafont is badgered into a room, protesting mightily, by the two guys who've picked her up and the door closes softly in our face, or just a kind of farce, the usual messy end.”

097. THE QUIET MAN (John Ford) viewed 2-26-03 on dvd
Grade C- 1952
Pretty slight for an over two-hour running time, basically hitting the same notes for the middle hour before coming to the expected showdown in the last fifteen minutes. The rest of the time is filled with Irish stereotypic characters and amazingly green pastures. The conclusion to the film with Wayne dragging O’hara and fighting McLaglen may have been audience pleasing when the film was released but now it feels pretty childish. At least everything looks nice.

098. MARNIE (Alfred Hitchcock) viewed 2-27-03 on dvd
Grade C 1964
Reminded me of Hitchcock’s Spellbound: both with a character who has to get over the past through psychoanalysis in order to be cured of a past crime that haunts them. Like that film I was mostly uninvolved this the story and found the character motivations sketchy at best and lame narrative conveniences at worst. I never got a sense of Connery’s character and his fascination with Marnie and didn’t buy his blind acceptance of her past. As usual with Hitchcock there are some dazzling scenes but the overall effort is pretty weak.

099. I’LL DO ANYTHING (James L. Brooks) viewed 2-27-03 on dvd
Grade B 1994
An obvious companion piece to Broadcast News: showing ambitious people in an entertainment field and how their personal lives are repressed. However, this film is shapeless and sometimes meandering, without the flow of Broadcast News or Brooks’ other films. The writing of certain scenes reminded me of how good Brooks can be at creating comedy and character dimension at the same time, but at other times drifted to sitcom standbys (cute kids and obvious jokes).

100. ALL OR NOTHING (Mike Leigh) viewed 2-27-03 on dvd
Grade A- 2002
A return to the bleak and sometimes wonderful world of Mike Leigh after he traveled uncharted lands in Topsy Turvy. This film plays more like Leigh’s great film Life Is Sweet, where he offers a slice of life that offers tragedy and then redeems it with character insight. The film has a numbing effect that is similar to Nick Drake music: not depressing or overwhelmingly sad, just relentlessly melancholy. When the characters are faced with something that disrupts their lives, the result is usually telling and recognizably human (“Maybe we should go to Disneyworld.”) and a late confrontation between man and wife is deeply moving. Most critics called All or Nothing a failure upon its release last year, many of the same critics who hailed Life is Sweet a decade before, but in hoping for a changed Mike Leigh (or some would say developed) they have missed a marvelous film.

101. KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN (Hector Babenco) viewed 2-28-03 on video
Grade C 1985
I usually hate it when critics complain that a movie is “theatrical,” and notice that it wasn’t “opened up” very well. Usually this refers to even the best theatrical adaptations (Glengarry Glen Ross) and shows impatience with stressing dialogue over the visuals. That said, I don’t think Kiss of the Spider Woman is a film that needed to be made (and certainly not in this manner) because much of the script’s power is in the descriptions of the remembered film to soothe the prisoners of their bleak surroundings. When Hurt begins to describe the scene and we see it, the magic is lost and the attention is turned away from the prisoners and on to the described story. Then (as if to compensate) Babenco shoots the prison scenes with high stylization that tends to emphasize the theatrical quality of the work through lighting. The material is moving but the execution is wrong in every way.

102. MAN IN THE SADDLE (André de Toth) viewed 2-28-03 on video
Grade B- 1951
The showdowns are well-executed and the direction is solid, but the story is fairly weak and unmemorable. This is film is overshadowed by the superb work done by Boetticher/Scott in the late fifties but holds up well as entertainment.

103. OLIVER TWIST (David Lean) viewed 3-1-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1948
I wasn’t that thrilled with Lean’s adaptation of Great Expectations (although I didn’t much like the story either) but this film is a marked improvement on that film. This is a dark film shot with some expressionistic techniques and sometimes recalling film noir, and the bleak material is given proper weight. The murder scene (with the dog scratching at the door) is especially well handled, suggesting a welcomed dark sensibility that never really crept into Lean’s other works.

104. THE LOST GARDEN: THE LIFE AND CINEMA OF ALICE GUY-BLANCHE (Marquise Lepage) viewed 3-3-03 on video
Grade C 1995
Blanche is a very interesting subject and all of her lost (or discredited) works make for a tragic subject, it’s too bad this documentary by Lepage is such a pretentious mess. The interviews are staged and lifeless (with the occasional exception of the historians in perios costume which is affectionate) and the footage from Blanche’s films is difficult to appreciate or put into context because they are presented without noting the title or date of production. Probably most useful as an apetizer to get interest in discovering Blanche’s work, but otherwise pretty empty and wasteful.

105. HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (John Ford) viewed 3-3-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1941
As personal as Ford’s The Quiet Man, just a lot more emotionally moving and lovingly directed. The cinematography by Arthur Miller is a standout, although it’s black and white – shouldn’t we be able to see how green the fields are? However, there is no excuse for this film beating Citizen Kane for best picture.

106. THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (Jerry Schatzberg) viewed 3-3-03 on dvd
Grade C+ 1971
I’ve seen the whole junky thing too many times to really appreciate this film: all grit and authentic to the way junkies live and behave. The love story doesn’t feel that fresh either, since Sid and Nancy is probably the pinnacle of that sub-genre, and at least that film had a bit more insight into the characters. Everything in this film is played as tragedy, there’s little room for anything else to seep in (at least Sid and Nancy knew that the life of a junky was so stupid that it could be funny). The best thing in this film are the two lead performances from Pacino and Winn as the doomed lovers, and Schatzberg’s occasionally inspired mise en scene.

107. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN -- A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) viewed 3-3-03 on dvd (second viewing)
Grade A+ (upgraded from A) 1946
I was even more enchanted on the second viewing, and terribly moved by the first scene of the dying pilot confessing his love for a character he has never met. Performances are very good, and probably underrated because of the superb visual storytelling that tend to steal the show.

108. CHINATOWN (Roman Polanski) viewed 3-3-03 on dvd (third viewing – first in widescreen)
Grade A+ 1974
Although this film isn’t really attuned to the visual style of film noir, there is a sense of doom that hangs over all the characters. Every step taken leads into a strange confrontation and all the characters are haunted by their pasts and empty futures. The plot falls secondary to the nightmarish mood created by the look (yellow and decaying) and visual road maps (Nicholson’s nose being on of many). The characters aren’t quite what they seem to be: Dunaway isn’t a femme fatale, Huston isn’t a heartless tycoon (he is evil but oddly human, “She’s mine too”) and Nicholson is hopelessly lost and impotent when he seemed so strong at the beginning. However, the characters never really feel like pawns in the plot rather the mystery ceases to matter in the final stretch, as any resolution couldn’t bring closure.

109. RULES OF ATTRACTION (Roger Avery) viewed 3-4-03 on dvd
Grade B- 2002
I really wish Avery would get a story that deserves him with the visual wackiness and inventive story structure. Instead with this film, he confirms himself as one of the most frustrating of the talented filmmakers out there. This film is dazzling in stretches (always thanks to Avery): the European vacation montage, the opening party scene and suicide with echoing Harry Nielson on the soundtrack. If only the film weren’t such an empty piece of work, less entertaining and satirical than American Psycho and more sensationalized. Avery has a good film in him though, hopefully coming soon.

110. THE SOFT SKIN (François Truffaut) viewed 3-4-03 on dvd
Grade B 1964
The Soft Skin is far less technically impressive than Truffaut previous three film, but it shows a clear fondness for Hitchcock and development of some essential Truffaut themes. The silent stretches of film with subjective camera letting the characters’ observations tell the story works very effectively. An obvious precursor to The Woman Next Door, with Truffaut’s themes of doomed relationships, infidelity and murderous women all finding their way into this film.

111. THE TALL T (Budd Boetticher) viewed 3-5-03 on video (second and third viewing)
Grade A 1957
Held up very well on the second and third viewing. The narrative and characters are set up with casual economy, Boetticher great at telling his story with minimal excess. One of the best westerns ever made.

112. AUDITION (Takashi Miike) viewed 3-5-03 on dvd (fifth viewing)
Grade A 2001
(This review contains spoilers and should be read only after viewing the film)
When talking about Audition, everyone always talks about the ingenious tonal shift in the second half - compared by some to Psycho’s shift to slasher-film. Audition uses its tonal shift to seduce the audience in the same way the Shigeharu is seduced, unlike Psycho which uses its shift merely to jar the audience. The first half of Audition plays like a romantic drama of two lovers coming together, played with a dark undertone of unease. Everyone warns Shigeharu that Asami isn’t right but he goes on courting her despite their warnings.

The second half of the film (which starts with the abrupt smack of the blanket) turns into a psychological horror film, where we realize Asami is unstable. Shigeharu learns this as we do (although we get a few hints away from him: especially the moving bag in her apartment), but as he quests to find her we start to realize that Shigeharu is just as unstable a character. Filled with disillusion about Asami – and women in general, when he is first knocked out we get a prolonged dream sequence which works on two levels: cranking up the horror and revealing Shigeharu’s sickness. The scenes of their dates are replayed (minus the jump cuts of the first half) and Asami’s true nature is revealed and Shigeharu ignores the signs. Like Mulholland Drive which re-imagined reality (of the second half) into dream (of the first half), Audition re-imagines the entire film into the mini-dream sequence. Culminating with his wife (“no honey she’s not for you”) and his co-worker (filling in more blanks of the first half). Aligning Shigeharu with the grotesque man in the bag and the dirty old man, both sexual skeletons in her closet.

The visual style employed by Miike is brilliant at echoing plot elements. The first half shot in long shots with distractions in the foreground: golf balls, bartender with drink mixer or dog scraping across the floor. The only stretch that comes alive is the Audition montage, which has a nervous energy that resembles Shigeharu’s excitement at possibly finding a new mate. Shigeharu’s dates with Asami are especially visual interesting, often refusing them two-shots and then separating them in the frame. The second half is overwhelmed (immediately) with hand-held camera work and dutch angles. As we find out the true nature of the characters we start to get far more close-ups, and finally extreme close ups in the final scene of torture. The sounds are also very strong – symbolizing different stages of the story: bartender mixing as they talk about the audition, phone ringing showing Shigeharu’s interest in Asami, and Blanket flapping on bed to start second half of the film. Then as the horror elements build: the creaking of the wheelchair, burning of timbers, flapping of tongue, Shigeharu’s fall, Asami’s throwing up (over the grotesque man – mimicking some audience members disgust), the old-mans head falling, the pins, “deeper deeper” and the crunching of the wire on bone.

Audition was startling on the first viewing, but my appreciation for it grows on each viewing. Once you get beyond the impact of the images (which inspired walkouts when I saw it), the characters grow more complex – less pawns of the director and more meaningfully troubled. Most people compare the film to Psycho and although the tone shift resembles that film, it is actually a closer match to the themes Hitchcock explored in Vertigo or Marnie. The film is most haunting (at least for me) when the sanity of Shigeharu is called into question (by his friends and family). Like those Hitchcock films it is about a man who is psychologically pushed by his yearning for a dangerous and damaged woman, which is ultimately his downfall.

113. TEA AND SYMPATHY (Vincente Minnelli) viewed 3-6-03 on laserdisc
Grade C 1956
The fifties of this film seems like a completely different world, as perhaps a response to the queer themes of the story all the men are played as hyper-macho: throwing each other down on the beach, playing football, hugging (in a very manly bear-grip way) and acting out in a bizarre (blatantly homoerotic) hazing ritual. The queer boy in this film is actually not queer at all; rather he is just too sensitive and unable to express his love physically (a radical change from the play), drawing interesting parallels to 50s films like Rebel Without a Cause. Plays as camp now, although it seems very sincere about what it’s trying to express and falls apart in the second half. The bookending scenes don’t work at all and the final letter from Kerr, which explains the entire film and how to feel about it, inspired unintentional laughter from pretty much everybody in the screening room.

114. BITE THE BULLET (Richard Brooks) viewed 3-6-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1975
A western epic that could never be made today, and feels foreign even to the seventies (probably why it was such an underachiever). The characters relationships grow as the race goes on, with many perfect small scenes of quiet dialogue played off against the race. Some slow motion scenes seem out of place in the film, which is otherwise fairly naturally directed.

115. DIAMOND MEN (Daniel M. Cohen) viewed 3-6-03 on dvd
Grade B 2002
I had the distinct feeling that the plot was going to get in the way of this film and the characters it had created. When the plot twists come in the last stretch and contradict some established character traits I felt betrayed. Sometimes it is refreshing to see a movie about characters where NOTHING big happens, and you get the feeling for interesting characters. Robert Forster is very good in this film and deserves to be cast by more experienced directors in the service of better films, that other Wahlberg isn’t half bad either.

116. IGBY GOES DOWN (Burr Steers) viewed 3-7-03 on dvd
Grade C+ 2002
Second rate Whit Stillman (Steers was in The Last Days of Disco) with some funny bits but too many annoying characters that keep getting in the way. Whereas Stillman’s films have mostly likable yuppies (and far superior dialogue), Steers writes only obnoxious twits and gives no somewhat normal anchor characters to gauge everything against. Cast is very good: it’s nice to see Goldblum playing a non-scientist/doctor/teacher, Peete naked again, Culkan good comedic timing and is that fucking Ryan Philippe growing on me.

117. GERRY (Gus Van Sant) viewed 3-8-03 in theater
Grade B+ 2003
Hard to justify a B+ for this film, since it’s as cinematically welcoming to the viewer as the desert is to the two guys named Gerry. Most of the shots go on forever, the dialogue is anecdotal, the character development absent and the plot one-note. That said, I expect my rating for Gerry will increase with another viewing and fully expect to be hailing it as a masterpiece by the end of the year. It keeps growing in my memory, gaining in meaning.

I’ll take all my plot complaints one-by-one.

The shots go on forever, and some of them are incredibly beautiful. The one with both Gerrys in the foreground bouncing up and down as they walk, is one of the most hypnotic shots I’ve seen in recent memory like something out of a Tarkovski film: with human traits personifying the movements of a running machine. The shot of the characters walking into a sunrise is haunting, with the characters moving like zombies across landscape colored like a foreign planet.

The dialogue is anecdotal but often funny and they pay off in the story. Early in the film they refer to “the thing at the end of the trail” as being the goal of their journey. As they walk they tell a story about Jeopardy and later by the campfire talk about a video game, both stories involve a victory that was lost for ironic reasons (only 12 soliders, all the letters but one). The quest the two Gerry’s take resembles these two anecdotes.

Character development is absent from the film, totally true. The characters in the films are not strongly defined and are not given any area to grow because all their dialogue is either anecdotal or practical (“I’m stuck on this rock”). However, nature is the biggest character in the film and it radically changes moods: from welcoming in the first section, to abruptly hilly and barren to finally inhospitable. The characters are forced to react against nature and any more dialogue or activity from the two characters would be blatantly unrealistic and undermine the predicament. The characters become more defined in the last third as they react to the hopelessness of their situation, and their blankness becomes more touching because it is easier to read ourselves onto them.

The plot is one-note but very economic and provides the character with enough narrative drive immediately as they are forced into survival mode. Onto this simple plot, the film is able to create a good amount of variation and depth to the problem. The scene with Gerry stuck on a rock is very funny (comparisons to Tati seem apt), and as the situation gets more serious in the film’s second half the tone changes keeping everything interesting.

I hate it when critics proclaim a film as being “not for everyone,” as I think it shows their elitist nature (“You won’t get this because I’m smart and you’re not”). And so it is with a heavy-heart that I proclaim this film not for everyone. I don’t think everyone will enjoy it and appreciate how daring Van Sant is for attempting it. I won’t guarantee you will like it, because you aren’t as smart as I am.

118. CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS (François Truffaut) viewed 3-8-03 on dvd
Grade A- 1983
I don’t understand the general critical apprehension towards this film, which seems to me – in it’s way – just about perfect. It’s not a deep film or a daringly unconventional one, but a loving homage to mysteries of the 40s and 50s and Hitchcock. The mystery is complicated, not that hard to figure out but Truffaut piles on the clues (most of which misdirect) and has a lot of fun with the material (Ardent investigating in a trench coat she can’t take off and other funny non-sequiturs). I dare you to not have a good time watching this allegedly lesser Truffaut film.

119. CITY OF GOD (Fernando Meirelles) viewed 3-9-03 in theater
Grade B- 2003
Meirelles surely learns from the best, as he piles every stylistic-excess he can think of into the film, ripping off true stylists like Scorsese or De Palma and mounting a sometimes dazzling but totally empty and immoral film. Meirelles doesn’t actually have anything to say about violence in the City of God, often playing it off against (or with) innocent jokes about growing up: the drug warfare plays as counterpoint to central character Rocket trying to lose his virginity. Rocket as the central character is a problem because his involvement in the story seems minor and forced. The story wants to be epic, spanning several decades broken down into individual stories, but the first is almost completely unnecessary to the central one and others ramble. That said, certain stretches of the film work very well especially the party scene, which has totally unnecessary split-screen that basically sums up Meirelles weakness as a filmmaker.

120. THE TALE OF ZATOICHI (Kenji Misumi) viewed 3-9-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1962
Started out as a variation on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo - except this film has a blind samurai – with the protagonist caught between two rival gangs. However, this film quickly distinguishes itself as being more than a mere imitator: showing depth to the central character and developing an interesting relationship between him and the opposing master samurai. Misumi’s direction is confident and moody and allows the screen to be filled with shadow in some interior scenes. Some comic elements are allowed into the film as well, like when Zatoichi crosses the bridge on his hands and knees or as he slyly grifts money from the gangsters. The final showdown plays as less exciting than expected, lasting only a minute or so – but is very emotionally resonant and ends with an embrace that is very touching.

121. THE TALE OF ZATOICHI CONTINUES (Kazuo Mori) viewed 3-9-03 on dvd
Grade B- 1962
Less successful follow up to the first Zatoichi film, has a lot more swordplay but a pretty lame storyline. The development of Zatoichi’s character (especially in the last few minutes) inspires hope that the series will move in a different direction with the character (perhaps more bloodlust) and it will be interesting to see it happen. Part three coming in the next week.

122. THE 400 BLOWS (Francois Truffaut) viewed 3-10-03 on dvd (eighth viewing)
Grade A+ 1959
I’m at a loss as to where I should begin with this review of one of my very favorite films, which I saw for the first time about seven years ago. It is a highly personal film for Truffaut (although not entirely autobiographical as he co-wrote the script with Marcel Moussy – a schoolteacher), and thus my review will be highly personal. I saw it on the Independent Film Channel for the first time and didn’t expect to sit through the entire thing. It’s in black-and-white and French, which for me at 15 was still a bit of a turnoff. I didn’t know anything of Truffaut except that he was a highly regarded director. I knew nothing of The 400 Blows as an essential part of the New Wave movement, or its important breaks from traditional cinema of that time. I sat down and watched it and have never really recovered from it.

It’s not just the emotional experience that effected me - although it’s a highly emotional film - but rather a feeling of recognition. I’m not like any of the characters in the film, I’ve never remotely raised hell nor have I really wanted to. Instead I broke through the film and saw Truffaut, full of passion and shaking with emotion at what he was trying to get across. Not the characters or the situations, but breaking free from everything and putting the energy into something constructive.

There are several points in the film where everything breaks free of the narrative and exists in a state of sublime serendipity. First the scene on the spinning ride, where everything spins and creates its own force. Later perhaps the best example of the phenomenon is when Doinel breaks free from custody and runs for freedom. The last three shots of the film (by far the longest in the film) give the feeling of the very film breaking free with Doinel. As though any constraints have been lifted on everything, everything now free!

No film is as breathless as The 400 Blows and I don’t mean breathless as excited but rather as a state of transcending form into an emotional spastic orgasm. Even the quietest or most heartbreaking scenes have an overwhelming flurry of emotional turmoil beneath the surface. Or maybe that’s just the emotions that come to the surface when I see the film. In fact, now I’m a bit breathless and unfocused so I’ll try to focus my attention to certain aspects (images or whatever) that I haven’t yet covered in my insane rambling.

Jean-Pierre Leaud’s performance is the best child performance I’ve ever seen, completely natural and unforced. His responses in the psychological interview scene are so fucking remarkable at how he is able to suggest a life separate from what we’ve seen.

Truffaut’s compositions are scope and magnificent, never using his mise-en-scene in an uninteresting way, beautifully contrasting Doinel’s various states of being in the film (among the group of kids in school, free in frame when away from everyone, made little by parents and enclosed in the last section). My favorite shot right after Doinel and his friend ditch their backpacks and the camera whip-pans cuts to a whip-pan of them entering the cinema.

The scene with the kids at the puppet show is a minor masterpiece that stands aside as something that doesn’t forward the plot and would be cut today. It is essential because it shows Truffaut’s warmth for children (as do other episodic moments) and contrasts these kids to Doinel’s experience. It may be the most essential scene at establishing the outer world of the film, and allows a comparison to gauge against the behavior of the other children we have seen onscreen.

Truffaut broke free of his troubled youth with his love for films and in this film you can constantly see the constraint of a young artist struggling to break free of an oppressive environment. When punished in the first scene (for marking on a girlie photo) he is given detention in the corner of the room, where he then writes a(n attempted) poem which gets him in further trouble from his teacher. Later a shrine to Balzac catches on fire and an attempt at homage is condemned as plagiarism.

123. JOHANNA D’ARC OF MONGOLIA (Ulrike Ottinger) viewed 3-11-03 on video
Grade C- 1989
The first hour of Johanna d’arc of Mongolia doesn’t go anywhere but it is pleasant enough that I hoped a decent story might develop from the established characters. When the second hour starts there is a radical twist in the narrative (from chamber piece to ethnography) and it never really re-enters the realm of narrative cinema. The film might be of some anthropological interest to some wanting to learn about the Mongolians, but they will have to sit through a pointless first hour to get to the interesting Mongolians. I would have preferred staying on the train with the small group of established characters, rather than go where the film eventually took me (eventually being an apt word – the film runs 165 minutes and feels even longer).

124. CAT PEOPLE (Jacques Tourneur) viewed 3-11-03 on video (second viewing)
Grade A 1942
The unexpected theme of sexuality, especially female sexual repression into Cat People is what makes this film so truly daring and affecting. Tourneur aligns Cat People to the fear we have of our bodies and creates a complicated work that reminds me of Cronenberg’s best films. The underlining theme of beautiful or exotic things disguising the terrible and horrific is Tourneur favorite ground to establish his films on. The two scare scenes hold up very well (both were replicated in Schrader’s 1982 Cat People), relying on darkness and shadow (provided by Tourneur moving his hand in front of the camera) rather than creature effects.

125. THE HOURS (Stephen Daldry) viewed 3-14-03 in theater
Grade C 2002
Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Daldry’s The Hours creates character drama – and tragedy – after everyday things that face us. In The Hours, characters are faced with a friend with cancer, aids, a party, depression, work anxiety and baking a birthday cake. These items set as problems for characters in three storylines all focusing on middle-aged women unhappy with their domestic lives. Whereas Magnolia builds to a sublime pitch by editing the plot threads together, The Hours keeps crosscutting between the character to show us that they are connected by some (supernatural?) force, like they have crossed through some bizarre time wormhole. The coincidences that connect the stories together (explicitly reminded by insistent editing) are increasingly annoying. The performances aren’t strong enough to overcome the overall weakness of the film’s execution: Harris especially over-the-top, Streep and Moore too punctuated and Kidman hidden behind unfortunate make-up that makes her performance (the best of the bunch) seem gimmicky. The most overrated film of the year.

126. THE WIZARD (Todd Holland) viewed 3-14-03 on video (second viewing – first in ten years)
Grade D 1989
A film I remembered vaguely from my childhood and wanted to see again for nostalgia sake. I didn’t remember it as any masterpiece (I saw it when I was nine), but hardly remembered how awful the film really was. The film culminates in the unveiling of Super Mario Bros. 3 at a Video Game Competition, and also features such classic games as Double Dragon, Contra and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which sadly made my long for my old NES system). The film is basically a commercial for Nintendo, with games featured every few minutes and all other plot secondary. It is worth noting that a subplot with a runaway tracker features many scenes that are (unintentionally) hilarious, as are the subplots praising the virtues of family.

127. DECISION AT SUNDOWN (Budd Boetticher) viewed 3-14-03 on video
Grade B 1957
Odd western, even by Boetticher’s standards, with Scott seeking revenge on the man who was responsible for his wife’s suicide. The film leads into standoffs that pay off in unexpected and unsatisfying, especially as the nature of Scott’s dead wife changes in the course of the film. An interesting twist of the western genre but not in the same realm of excellence as The Tall T.

128. DEMONS (Lamberto Bava) viewed 3-14-03 on dvd
Grade C- 1986
Starts very well with Bava showing some of his father’s mastery of creating suspense out of minimal material (especially in the first scene on the subway), but then turns abruptly into a splatter film and never turns back. Not without its virtues, including some stylish camera work and lighting, not to mention the essential 80s gore and nudity but the film feels aimless and overly derivative of George Romero’s zombie films. In the end its too much of a mess to even enter the same league with Return of the Living Dead (itself a derivative but incredibly fun mess).

129. DIARY OF FORBIDDEN DREAMS (Roman Polanski) viewed 3-15-03 on video (Severely Cut American Version)
Grade B 1973
Absurd, erotic take on Alice in Wonderland by Polanski – with his themes of isolation and abandonment played at an unabashedly comic pitch. The performances are all fun, especially from Rome who is game for pretty much anything and the first half of the film is some kind of lunatic masterwork. The second half is unfocused and sometimes confusing, which may be partly due to extensive re-editing by American distributors. I hope to have the complete, uncut version of the film in the next few months (whenever I can afford it).

130. FULLTIME KILLER (Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai) viewed 3-15-03 on dvd
Grade B 2003
A fascinating twist on the traditional Hong Kong action film, with heavy influences from other action films entering into the discourse of the film (most fully cited). Comes across as self-parody at times, and then refreshingly post-modern at other times. Some sequences are brilliantly orchestrated: especially the street shoot-out and end abandoned factory shoot-out (complete with extensive fireworks – you gotta love those abandoned factories). The twist ending, showing two possibly outcomes to the shooting (complete with their own character-defined classical music), is pretty much perfect. An original work that gives variations to a genre I was losing hope for.

131. TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER (Jean-Luc Godard) viewed 3-16-03 on video
Grade B 1966
GODARD!
the narrator whispers! – the city screams! – the women talk! – Vietnam must end!
everyone TALKS…
but what are words?
what good are words?
books piled together – meaningless
like the vietnamese
what do the americans care?
just another product
to consume
and sexualize
and dispose of
HOLLYWOOD more than anyone, man
just like all the other products
cluttering up our skyline
FIN
GODARD!

132. THE PIANIST (Roman Polanski) viewed 3-17-03 in theater
Grade B 2002
I'm not quite cynical enough to dismiss an earnest Holocaust drama executed with this much skill, despite the feeling that we?re traveling over well-covered territory. Polanski has spent much of his career showing people in surroundings where they don?t belong and the repercussions of horror and this film is probably his most personal extension of those themes (and his family?s experience in Poland during WWII). The second half is full of haunting scenes and images, and an artist using art to get through tragedy seems like an apt topic for Polanski ? since he has lived through three tragedies (one of his own making).

133. OLIVER! (Carol Reed) viewed 3-17-03 on dvd
Grade B- 1968
Bleak story set against HUGE production numbers and I was never really attuned to the style. I would have probably liked it more had I not seen it mere weeks after David Lean?s superb (and superbly stylized) telling of the same story, which dwarfed this one. I?m not sure if this film is representational of Carol Reed?s later work, but I didn?t see a glimmer of The Third Man and Odd Man Out auteur.

134. PHASE IV (Saul Bass) viewed 3-17-03 on video
Grade B- 1975
Pretty silly in retrospect, but full of small pleasures which make the film worth seeing. The director Saul Bass, who famously did the titles for several key Alfred Hitchcock films, finds many unsettling images of ants (yes this is a killer ant picture) and challenges audience expectations enough to keep the film consistently interesting.

135. STREET SMART (Jerry Schatzberg) viewed 3-18-03 on video
Grade B 1987
There are a few really good things in Street Smart, especially the pimp played by Morgan Freeman and prostitute by Kathy Baker, but the film never even remotely gels. Christopher Reeves is miscast and the plot (although initially intriguing) quickly becomes redundant and lazy. Baker and Freeman deserve a better film, maybe one focused on their characters.

136. IRREVERSIBLE (Gaspar Noe) viewed 3-20-03 in theater
Grade A- 2003
Gaspar Noe was a born provocateur and one of the most exciting filmmakers working now. He possesses a unique ability to create images and sound that put the viewer in the mindset of the characters. His first film I Stand Alone was a minor masterpiece following a racist, depraved butcher as he walked around promising violence. That film would randomly leap towards the character with a non-diegetic gunshot on the soundtrack, which raised the intensity of an already intense film considerably. Irreversible contains a few such effects, which grate on the nerves of the viewer.
The first shot in Irreversible, a spastic, spasming camera cartwheel dancing outside a grungy building, made me feel seasick. A few scenes later we witness graphically violent S&M acts in a gay club, shot in a similar style and with a sickening metallic murmur on the soundtrack. That scene culminates in an extended beating of a man?s head with a fire extinguisher. We see the man?s head go from blood to brain matter in a long take, in one of two scenes that virtually insure walkouts across the country.
The other scene is a long-take rape and beating which is as painful to watch as any scene I?ve ever seen. The two scenes are very tough to watch, but essential to the point of the film which is a study of the nature of violence and the destructive quality of time. ?Time destroys everything,? we are repeatedly told by the film, which works backward from these painful scenes to the characters living before this violence changed their lives. The later scenes add tragedy to the early scenes as we reflect upon where the characters are headed and they have no idea. This is one of the year?s best films.

137. DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN?S DIARY (Guy Maddin) viewed 3-20-03 on dvd-r
Grade A- 2003
This is also one of the year?s best films another amazing treat from the consistently interesting Guy Maddin. This is a silent film and a surprisingly faithful retelling of Bram Stoker?s Dracula as a ballet. Some sequences are very funny and some images are totally resonant, making this my favorite telling of Stoker?s story so far.

138. THE STORY OF US (Rob Reiner) viewed 3-21-03 on video
Grade D+ 2001
This is a fairly pathetic film, with couple arguing and bickering for much of the running time only to realize the importance of marriage in the final seconds. A total waste of time and Reiner?s worst film since North.

139. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (Michael Curtiz) viewed 3-24-03 on video
Grade A- 1942
Very good musical biography, given a manic energy by James Cagney who is superb as George M. Cohan. The relationships between Cohan and his wife and his entertainment family is particularly well handled in this film, leading to many scenes of emotional weight in the second half of the film.

140. EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS (Kenneth Bowser) viewed 3-25-03 on TV
Grade B 2003
Good documentary focusing on the brief American auteur system that developed in the seventies, focusing on a few key directors. Although all the interview footage is very good, and often revealing, the film would have benefited greatly if more of the featured directors had agreed to be interviewed.

141. FEMME FATALE (Brian De Palma) viewed 3-25-03 on dvd (second viewing)
Grade B+ 2002

142. ANATOMY OF A MURDER (Otto Preminger) viewed 3-25-03 on dvd (second viewing)
Grade A 1959

143. 8 MILE (Curtis Hanson) viewed 3-29-03 on dvd
Grade B- 2002
I was originally going to write this review as a rap, but then realized I wasn?t that fancy. This film is the rap version of The Karate Kid, and it goes along pretty much as you would imagine a streamlined retelling of Eminem?s life as a Hollywood sport?s film. The film sometimes tries to clear up the controversies surrounding his career: his homophobia is dismissed by the film ? gay = homosexual, faggot = loser and Eminem is even given a gay co-worker who he seems to like. I liked how the film chose to include many other autobiographic details that made his character look unflattering. The rap battles are entertaining but too few, with too many subplots bogging down the film?s middle section.

144. I NEVER SANG FOR MY FATHER (Gilbert Cates) viewed 3-30-03 on video
Grade A- 1970
I almost teared up a few times while watching this film, which deals with an aged father struggling to hold on to his son as the expense of the son?s happiness. The performances are flawless, with Hackman giving a sensitive performance that?s close to Harry Caul in The Conversation. The direction is sometimes wrong-footed, and has the annoying tendency to underline (obvious) great actor moments and monologues with the zoom-lens. The strong script has a good handle on human interactions (it feels autobiographical) without stooping to easy pay-off or cheap sentiment.

145. BARON BLOOD (Mario Bava) viewed 3-31-03 on dvd
Grade C 1972
A terrible script is given Bava?s typically stylish touch and almost becomes watchable. But no amount of blue lighting or wonderfully creepy shadows could rescue this script.

146. AKIRA KUROSAWA?S DREAMS (Akira Kurosawa) viewed 4-01-03 on dvd
Grade B- 1990
There are some awesome stretches and images in Akira Kurosawa?s Dreams, but it?s too much of a mixed bag with some fascinating dreams and others that I?ve already forgotten. All the dreams are variations on the stupidity of man (war, ruining or not appreciating nature). This is a film that is probably best viewed in spurts - maybe over several days ? just to let the images sink in properly.

147. HERO (Zhang Yimou) viewed 4-01-03 on dvd
Grade B- 2003
This film is just an exercise in style: with every excuse for wind blown hair, clothes or curtains exploited (with the obligatory WHOOSH on the soundtrack) and everything neatly color coordinated. However, director Zhang Yimou approaches the material with a crippling air of self-righteousness and complete seriousness (hell even Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had some humor in it), content to drive it home that martial arts IS art. Sword fighting is equated with music and calligraphy, with every fight filmed like a ballet, which is then contradicted by unbelievable wire-fu fighting which removes the art and skill from the fighting we see ? putting everything in the world of fantasy but without any of the fun. The story twists itself into a narrative pretzel, making a straightforward story unnecessarily complicated just to show new variations on the fight sequences. That said, the fight sequences are often dazzling: especially the fight in the falling autumn leaves and the one skidding across the ocean, which make the film worth seeing ? just don?t expect a masterpiece like Master of the Flying Guillotine.

148. THE VIEW FROM THE TOP (Bruno Barreto) viewed 4-2-03 in theater
Grade C- 2003
Sometimes charming (mostly thanks to performances) but just too much of a mess to even be a pleasant diversion. The tone wavers between scenes, but has an underlining earnestness that is kind of creepy. Bruno Barreto appears have a leg fetish, as he takes every possible opportunity to fawn over Paltrow in her short skirts ? which isn?t a complaint merely an observation. Mark Ruffalo is appealing but wasted as the male love interest for Paltrow, thanks to the script which denies him scenes of any weight in order to keep everything ?even breakups- as civil as possible.

149. BEFORE SUNRISE (Richard Linklater) viewed 4-3-03 on dvd (fifth viewing)
Grade A 1995
Long review coming soon.

150. CITY ON FIRE (Ringo Lam) viewed 4-3-03 on dvd
Grade B- 1987
Good Hong Kong action film with a very charismatic performance by Chow Yun-Fat and interesting interaction between him and the lead badguy. The story was latter borrowed by Tarantino for Reservoir Dogs, and though Tarantino lifted entire scenes from this film?s second half, the two films couldn?t be more different. If only Quentin wrote the dialogue for this film?

151. FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET (Dario Argento) viewed 4-3-03 on video
Grade B- 1972
Argento?s film before his masterpiece Deep Red, is a stylish and sometimes scary giallo thriller. The killer was too easy to predict ? especially if you are attuned to Argento?s conventions ? but the reveal of the title ?Flies? is a lot of fun. Argento?s mise-en-scene isn?t as strong here as it is in Deep Red, but there are several show-off bits of technique that will please his fans (my favorite was the shot inside the guitar at the beginning). Not a great film but essential for fans of the director, which I am.

152. THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE (Jonathan Demme) viewed 4-4-03 on dvd
Grade B- 2002
Remake of Stanley Donen?s Charade, is basically an exercise in style and charm. The film is set in 60?s France and has a lot of fun referencing and paying homage to films of the French New Wave, among them: clip from Shoot the Piano Player (and appearance of star Charles Aznavour), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg of the side of a van and a late appearance from (the queen) Anna Karina, among others. Wahlberg is too laid back and no match for Cary Grant (I would have cast George Clooney but others would bitch about that as well), but the effortlessly charming Thandie Newton does very well in the lead role. It is also nice to see Demme (always the humanist) conclude the final shoot-out in such an unexpected way. Not a great film but full of small pleasures.

153. SPIDER (David Cronenberg) viewed 4-5-03 in theater
Grade B- 2003
The first shot of Spider (after Cronenberg?s typically weird title sequence) is a long tracking shot down an arrived train, we watch as many interesting faces pass the camera and wonder which character we will follow. When we finally start following a skinny, mumbling man that can barely walk and the filming technique adjusts to the character. Which is to say that Cronenberg?s new film Spider is pretty hard to watch and hostile to the viewer, unfolding at a slow pace with a typically static camera. We follow Spider back into his memories of childhood and see what made him the man he is. The final revelation is hardly a great plot twist (Spider should be automatically seen as an unreliable narrator), but it puts an interesting spin on the material and makes it translate into many different readings ? all of which have some validity.

154. BORDER INCIDENT (Anthony Mann) viewed 4-6-03 in theater
Grade B 1949
Beautifully shot (by John Alton) film noir, with haunting day-for-night compositions with an oppressive skyline. The story echoes T Men, except this time the characters are infiltrating illegal farming practices. The second half is an odd blend of extreme (for 1949) violence and warm character interactions.

155. SIDE STREET (Anthony Mann) viewed 4-6-03 in theater
Grade B+ 1950
A film noir that was sometimes hampered by illogical plot points and character actions, but overcame any story problems with technical accomplishment. At times the film plays like a Hitchcockian thriller, but Mann?s unique framing makes the film all his own. The final car chase and shoot-out are surprisingly effective and exciting.

156. ALL ABOUT LILLY CHOU-CHOU (Shunji Iwai) viewed 4-6-03 on dvd
Grade C+ 2002
I feel bad giving a film this ambitious and full of brilliant moments a C+, and I concede I may be terribly underrating it. Moments of the film are so beautiful that they will resonate strongly in my mind for weeks after seeing them (especially the silenced screaming and concert scenes) but they can?t overcome a movie this muddled and hopelessly pretentious. If I work up the courage I may try sitting through this film again, and see if I missed a masterpiece in my struggle to comprehend.

157. FAIL-SAFE (Sidney Lumet) viewed 4-8-03 on video
Grade A- 1964
Fail-Safe is the straight and earnest version of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (both came out the same year) basically telling the same story with completely different intentions. Whereas Kubrick’s film is obviously satire, Fail-Safe plays everything with the proper amount of weight and debate – building suspense but not cheaply playing on the fears of the audience (which were facing the height of the Cold War). The actions of the president (Henry Fonda) are not entirely predictable and neither is the advice he gets from some of his staff members. The film is shot in black and white and Lumet handles the closed in material very well, with occasional glimpses of a newer flashy style.

158. TORN CURTAIN (Alfred Hitchcock) viewed 4-8-03 on video
Grade C 1966
A weaker Hitchcock film with very little to recommend it as the plot goes through routine motions and the casting feels mismatched to the material. Probably the only note-worthy scene in the film is an extended murder sequence that takes a very long time and genuinely looks painful – especially the knife that breaks off into the guy’s body. This scene provides more example of how Hitchcock helped to demolish the Production Code with his challenging material.

159. AMERICAN MOVIE (Chris Smith) viewed 4-8-03 on dvd
Grade B 1999
This film is sometimes affectionate about its subject matter and at other times it feels like director Chris Smith is mean-spiritedly poking fun. The subject is a little goofy (see also Fast, Cheap, and Out Of Control) and takes himself so seriously that it is hard not to find some of his behavior funny, but any malicious attempts to get laughter feel force and hurt the integrity of the film.

160. ADVISE AND CONSENT (Otto Preminger) viewed 4-8-03 on video
Grade A- 19