x_hydra Reviews

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

Best spy movie of the 1960s

[10/10 · 21 December 2004]

So many poor Cold War spy movies were made in the 1960s, ranging from shtick to schlock. This one is a standout -- great acting, great atmosphere, great plot. It's darker, grittier, and more realistic than any other films of this genre from the mid-60s, and wears even better with age (no "mind control machines" or other ridiculous retro gadgets).

Le Carré is often credited for making the spy novel transcend genre fiction and enter into the realm of literature. It is apt that a similar statement can be said about a movie based on Le Carré; it moves beyond "spy movie" into brilliant cinema. Heavily recommended.

Torn Curtain (1966)

Not one of the better Hitchcock films

[1/10 · 21 December 2004]

The plot is fairly substandard (the twists can be seen from a mile away, and it soon devolves into a chase film) and that acting is only so-so. Some of the secondary characters give just awful, over-the-top performances which contrast unpleasantly with the rather conservative performances by the leads. Every scene which focuses on Julie Andrews looks like it was shot through a layer of gauze (for no good reason, in my opinion). It lacks all of Hitchcock's normal mastery of suspense, horror, and cynicism. It is a tedious bore and none of the characters are developed well enough for you to care very much what happens to them. It barely deserves to be called a Hitchcock film.

If you want to see a much better film in the same vein and from the same era, try "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" (1965). "Torn Curtain" feels like a bad Le Carré knock-off as it is, you might as well get the real thing.

Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

Better off watching a documentary

[4 December 2004]

The film falls flat for many, many reasons, both historical and aesthetic. The history is, well, problematic, to say the least, but that's hardly a Hollywood surprise; much worse off is that the writing is quite poor, the acting is in general pretty poor, and the film doesn't really know what it wants to be.

Is it a story about Oppenheimer and Groves? Is it a story about Los Alamos? Is it a story about working to make the Fat Man bomb? Is it a story about the morality of the bomb? Is it a story about John Cusak and Laura Dern smoochin'?

Maybe a truly epic film could be all of these things, but it isn't that epic and so it just feels like a fragmentary attempt at best, unwieldy and somewhat cheaply made. It would have been better, I think, to just throw the historical concerns out the window: make it an interesting plot, not a docudrama. As it is, it is really a pain to watch.

If you want to watch something on the atomic bomb with great acting, suspense, and plot, try Jon Else's documentary "The Day After Trinity." Whereas "Fat Man and Little Boy," leaves you feeling bored and let down, "The Day After Trinity" will leave you with a hushed awe.

It's too bad that this movie is so poor, it is certainly not for lack of interesting subject matter, but unfortunately there was no real artistic vision here, and that's really why it becomes a drama-historical hodgepodge, and a dull one at that.

Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995 Video)

Deliberately devoid of complexity and controversy.

[1/10 · 16 February 2004]

There is no doubt that Kuran, et al, did a great job of getting this footage together. William Shatner on narration and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra for the score are perhaps the part of the most overdramatic combination in the history of documentaries, but these are more forgivable (they are almost a parody of themselves) than this overly sanitized version of American nuclear testing which overlooks practically all of the pertinent policy and moral issues.

As a film about some of the straight technical aspects of nuclear testing, though, it does a good job of explaining the purpose of each of the American tests it covers (it only covers the period between 1945-1964, though). The worst part was the final sequence of the testing of the Chinese atomic bomb. This is a HEAVILY edited sequence (the original can be found in the Chinese propaganda film, "Mao's Little Red Video" -- obviously not objective in any sense in its original, but amazingly made even less so by Kuran) splicing MULTIPLE nuclear tests into one sequence with the obvious intent on capitalizing on the effect of "Mongol hoards" in gas masks. He also redoes the audio, removing the narration explaining the technical purposes of their tests and why their soldiers were doing the maneuvers that they were. It is highly suspicious that a director would take the time to outline the technical aspects of American tests as a de-politicizing tactic, and then do exactly the opposite for the Chinese tests.

As a documentary about nuclear testing, it fails. Nuclear testing was NOT just about big explosions and the technical ramifications of them -- it contains issues of politics, the environment, diplomacy, morality, ethics, history, social policy, so forth and so forth and so forth. None of which were adequately covered in this film, which concerns itself almost completely with technical aspects -- and so attempts to devoid itself of any of the necessary responsibility of properly addressing the issues of nuclear testing.

Visually, it is stunning. It is a valid testament to Kuran's technical abilities. In terms of content, it fails in a variety of ways, ranging from omission to deceptive editing.

Teenage boys who delight in big bangs will no doubt love this. For those looking for a more informative and sophisticated documentary about atomic testing, try "The Atomic Cafe" instead. If you are looking for large explosions with only the most technical of context, then you might enjoy this film. For some, I fear, this is the most favored way to deal with nuclear testing -- one deliberately devoid of complexity and controversy.

The Ugly American (1963)

Butchers the book, Brando hams it up

[2/10 · 16 February 2004]

Years ago, I loved reading "The Ugly American," so when I saw this film at the video store, I had high hopes. Unfortunately there is little similar between Lederer and Burdick's work and this cinematic dreck.

The book is a story of the complexity of diplomacy, and of the multiple ways some people get it right and some people get it wrong, set it a fictional Indo-Chinese country.

The total sum of the movie's attempt to represent complexity are people with different opinions about the state of affairs in the country. And in the end we find out exactly how they were all along. This is not complexity, this is not the ambiguity present in the wonderful book. The screenwriters have taken a plot about fundamental errors in approach, empathy, and understanding, and made it into a movie about people who have minor disagreements on the facts (and eventually are shown the 'correct' interpretation).

The book follows a multitude of characters. The movie follows one character, a very hammy Brando, and barely even references anybody else as being significant.

The ugly engineer from the book has a total of about 5 minutes screenplay in the movie! The sleazy, foolish newspaper man the same! These were CRITICAL and CRUCIAL characters in the book, and they are given barely a mention in the movie! The title of the book/movie was in part referring to these characters as well! It is a bad sign when a movie practically eliminates the title characters from the book it is based on.

The book was a tremendous statement about the difficulties of diplomacy and the errors made in Indo-China just before the outbreak of the Vietnam war. The movie is an hour and a half of barely watchable crap. This is perhaps one of Brando's worst performances -- he is practically a parody of himself with eyebrow raised, head titled musings and statements about the lessons his characters learns.

The book was complicated, subtle, and had incredible depth. The movie is simple, base, and shallow. If you liked the book, you'll hate it. If you haven't read the book, you'll still get nothing out of it. There are far too many better films out there on this topic to waste time with this one.