Irie212 Reviews

Sasquatch Sunset (2024)

There's a trick to watching this movie

[8/10 · 16 April 2024]

It's possible to see this movie at an almost anthropological level, with four humanoid creatures shown in in a series of scenes of them eating, fornicating, walking, defecating, sleeping, etc. That could be boring.

But start with the early scene of two of them chewing on grasses in an alpine meadow-- and think of it as breakfast. This is the start of their day. After that you're watching what their daily life is like, and it is familiar. Soon an interstitial title appears, "Spring," and the time scale has opened to a year. Eventually, you will stop thinking about the timeline and start thinking about the fragility of existence.

There is no backstory, but the quartet is taken to be the last of their species-- and they know it. They created a signal to call for help: banging a fallen branch against a tree trunk in a series of four distinct sounds that echo through the forest. It tell us that they were once part of a clan, and a tribe, members of whom have died in the recent past. Perhaps there were five Sasquatch a year ago, or ten. Every death brings them closer to extinction, and every time their SOS isn't answered, they're reminded that they are the last of their kind.

The movie is brilliantly structured, with credible costuming, able performances, and a score that pretty successfully mixes folk and New Age-y forms.

But my favorite parts have to do with the glimmers of intelligence and progress. We see nascent engineering skills when a log traps one of them. One member has the urge to count things, but without numbers he has trouble keeping track past two or three. At one point he holds a fossil or rock that petrified into rows of ripples, interrupted in the middle by a dark horizontal flaw. He begins counting down from the flaw, struggling to find a way to keep track, and you realize that someday he may notice there are ripples both above and below the flaw, which will require negative numbers.

But the best scene, by far, is when they happen upon a road in their forest. Do your brain a favor; see the movie.

Born to Be Bad (1950)

Soap-opera noir

[7/10 · 13 April 2024]

This movie got under my skin. I don't know why. It's no masterpiece, but I've watched it three times, returning to it every few years because it I find it so satisfying. I think of it as soap-opera noir, and without the noir I wouldn't enjoy it. But it's well written, constructed, and paced, like most of Nicholas Ray's movies, including his neglected gem, "Bigger than Life."

The big attraction is Joan Fontaine, so silken smooth as the bad girl who never met a man she didn't want. But there's also Joan Leslie, who was only in her twenties but plays such an intelligent, mature, talented woman that she seems oddly ageless. She's one of several actresses from 1940s Hollywood who never quite reached the starry heights of Stanwyck, Bergman, Hepburn, Crawford, and Davis, but never disappoints.

Hostage (2005)

Listen for the quiet

[7/10 · 13 April 2024]

There is a moment when Sheriff Talley (Bruce Willis) empties his gun into an already dead man-- and the sound is muted. After multiple scenes of deafening gunfire and explosions, all of which were part of a police action, when he empties that weapon, the sound is muffled: it's personal. That breakaway choice is perhaps the most obvious example of the director Florent-Emilio Siri's talent. The whole of "Hostage" is carefully crafted, with the kind of operatic violence we see in exceptional action films, e.g., Seven Samurai, RoboCop, Django Unchained, Deadpool (among many others). Along with pacing and music, choices like that are what give movies their power, like drivers behind the script and the performances.

The overall rating almost dissuaded me from watching, but the negative reviews were unconvincing, especially those that claimed the plot was hard to follow because there are two sets of bad guys. Really? Some reviewers couldn't separate the young punks taking hostages in a house from the masked gangsters who terrorized both the punks and the police? It reminded me of the reviewers who didn't like "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" because they couldn't keep track of three ships (Black Pearl, Flying Dutchman, and Endeavor). Three. How did they make it out of grade school, I wonder. There are reasons to dislike the third Pirates movie, but that's not one of them.

I watched "Hostage" for Bruce Willis, who was also a producer. Evidently he brought Siri from France to direct after seeing his first feature. That confirms what I've read about Willis over his varied career: he appreciated that movies could be both popular and cinematically sophisticated. The trouble was, he was so good in "Die Hard" that audiences and producers wanted more of the same, and he delivered, but his oeuvre also includes comedy, drama, satire, science fiction, ensemble films, voice-over work, and more than a few cameos. He took supporting roles as well as leads, and made more than a few bombs like "Hudson Hawk," "Bonfire of the Vanities," and "Breakfast of Champions" (which has sunk to DVD obscurity). I.e., he took chances. Screenrant lists him sixth among greatest action stars, after Schwarzenegger (No. 1), Eastwood, Stallone, Harrison Ford, and Jackie Chan. All I'll add is that he is, by a fair margin, the most versatile and talented actor in that bunch.

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)

Gamblers, flag-wavers, and a couple of heroes

[9/10 · 12 April 2024]

It starts with six Marines and it matters how we meet them. Just returned from the Pacific theatre, we see them entering a bar where they order a single beer because they've gambled away all but fifteen cents. Heroic? Sturges is just getting started.

Led by Sgt. Heffelfinger (William Demarest), they try to pay for the beer with one of General Yamamoto's teeth, actually an elk tooth rejected by the waiter ("Big man, was he?"). Suddenly beers and food arrive at their table, courtesy of a guy at the end of the bar: Woodrow Truesmith (Eddie Bracken), whose hay fever kept him out of the corps so he's been working alongside Rosie the Riveters. But he longed to be a Marine like his father, who died in World War I. He knows everything about the Marines, every battle, every regulation, and confesses that he's been lying to his mother and everyone back home, saying he is serving in the Pacific. The beer-wielding Marines take a liking to him, and decide to help him out by escorting him home in uniform. He protests vehemently because it disrespects the Marine Corps, but he's outnumbered by marines who couldn't care less. He bought them beers, quid pro quo. So much for military pride after they made it home in one piece.

It has all the wit and pace I've come to expect and treasure from Sturges, as well as characters who flesh out the comedy, particularly the marine who was an orphan and has trouble sleeping in the dark, and who honors Woodrow's mother beyond all reason. But the soul of the movie is Eddie Bracken, the honorable would-be soldier who never stops protesting as the marines' plan spirals out of control. His hometown welcomes him with enthusiasm that builds to nominating him for mayor. The cast is an ensemble of Sturges regulars, joined by Ella Raines as Woodrow's girl and Raymond Walburn as the fatuous sitting mayor ("In a few years, if the war goes on - heaven forbid - you won't be able to swing a cat without knocking down a couple of heroes").

I have to stop here because reviewing this movie just makes me want to see it again. No review can do it justice.

Striking Distance (1993)

The striking thing about Striking Distance

[6/10 · 3 April 2024]

After reading about the movie's troubled production, which only lacked actual murders to be as fraught as the movie's plot, I was amazed that "Striking Distance" is even watchable. In fact, it's not bad at all. There's a high bar for plot twists, and it clears that bar with flying colors.

Bruce Willis, as usual, makes the movie worth watching all by himself (even though he practically disowned it later). Sarah Jessica Parker doesn't disappoint, if only because she's not slathered in make-up for a change. The supporting actors could hardly be improved upon: Dennis Farina, Brion James, and far too little of John Mahoney and Andre Braugher.

And no, I'm not forgetting Robert Pastorelli. He is one of two big mistakes that almost sink the film:

Pastorelli seemed to have invaded from another, and much worse, movie. He played Jimmy Detillo, a mentally ill cop, at a constant pitch of hysteria worse than anything I've seen in hospital emergency rooms. Why he wasn't nominated for a Razzie is beyond me. He was certainly worse than John Lithgow ("Cliffhanger"), and even Keanu Reeves, who has no business doing Shakespeare ("Much Ado"). The winner, Woody Harrelson, may have deserved it; I don't know because I have not and never will see "Indecent Proposal," which almost swept the nominations in 1994.

Deadlier than Pastorelli were the decisions to let two scenes drag on long after interest was exhausted. The car chase at the beginning lasts 5:06 minutes, not as long as "The French Connection" at 5:50, but it felt twice that, with none of the vigor or suspense that William Friedkin mastered. Worse, the climactic scene: I don't remember how many times the bad guy seemed to be dead only to surface for another fight, but I think it's more often than "The Terminator," and, again, with nothing like James Cameron's control of tension and suspense.

Man of Evil (1944)

Doesn't age well? I beg to differ.

[8/10 · 3 April 2024]

This is a response to the reviewers who seem to want movies to be up to date, a reaction almost as inane as the "It was good for its time" insult. Every art form reflects its era. That is an axiom, not a weakness. "Fanny by Gaslight" very much reflects the morals and class system of Victorian England, but also explores timeless themes: loyalty, greed, forgiveness, and love both romantic and familial.

Ironically, the viewers who air such views suffer from the very thing they accuse the movie of: being stuck in their own era. Perfect example, the reviewer who called this movie "stilted and rather tame." If you watch it on its terms, it is neither. Another began the review, "This is a story that doesn't age well," then proceeded to praise the presentation of the protagonist: "With every revelation, she has to make a choice about whether to live her life honestly or prudently." That is a timeless theme.

"Fanny by Gaslight" is admirable as cinema as well: finely paced and structured by director Anthony Asquith; beautifully shot by Arthur Crabtree (a Hitchcock protégée); and with sensitive portrayals by all the actors, even minor roles.

The Illusionist (2006)

Stylish sleight, very slight

[3/10 · 2 April 2024]

A young duchess and a peasant meet costume-drama cute in this boy-meets-girl romance set in 1889 Vienna. Failing in a serious attempt to be dramatic, it boils down to a fairy tale, creaking around the infamous and tragic Mayerling episode that helped spark World War I. Like 'Pan's Labyrinth,' the Spanish Civil War fairy tale, it's long on style, short on substance, shorter on logic. A lot of talent went into both movies, but not a lot of thought: they both trivialize horrific episodes in European history. The difference: 'The Illusionist' actually sinks to the "And they lived happily ever after" ending.

Less epic complaints:

1. Eisenheim does some early prestidigitation, but the big supernatural illusions rely on special effects, not a magician's hard-earned techniques of misdirection, stage props, etc. To quote reviewer SydBarrett420 (whom I'd like to meet for both reasons), "' The Illusionist' makes absolutely no attempt to explain how Norton's character performs his magic. So we are left to wonder how a man can make spirits or something similar appear. The answer is, he can't."

2. Both the audience and Rufus Sewell deserve better than reducing Crown Prince Rudolf to a one-note villain. As written, he is as simplistic as Snow White's stepmother. Pure evil. Again, fairy tale stuff, trivializing the Habsburg murder-suicide.

3. I can't improve on this summation from Michael-70: "...when Eisenheim is finished, we have an innocent man in jail for murder (who will presumably stay there) and the suicide of another man who is made to think he killed someone who is actually still alive." All of which, by the way, we're not supposed to notice after the *abracadabra* ending.

The good news: Dick Pope's photograph is up to his high standard. The evocative score is by Philip Glass. Eddie Marsan is always a treat. Director Neil Burger isn't prolific.

The Kid (2000)

On the couch with a stand-up Bruce

[7/10 · 2 April 2024]

Occasionally during the movie, I found myself wondering what it would be like to confront myself as the child I was. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have any big psychological breakthrough. But as passive psychotherapy, "The Kid" is a bargain, a way to simply reflect back on my own growth.

It all depended on the writing, which refreshes formulaic Disney, and the casting. Spencer Breslin could not be improved upon as eight-year-old Rusty. An urchin who seems half-formed with his baby fat, mop of hair, and teeth facing orthodontia, but he's both vulnerable and strong-willed. He grows up to become Russ, who has crushed his vulnerability to dust and become an image consultant-- unaware that his first client was himself. Bruce Willis plays Russ with brinkmanship skill, making us understand why he is disliked by colleagues and clients, but also suggesting that his hubris hides a fragile humanity.

To be honest, I was inclined to like the movie before it began. The supporting cast suggested quality: Lily Tomlin, Jean Smart, Chi McBride, Dana Ivey, and Emily Mortimer don't gravitate toward third-rate material.

But I watched it for Bruce Willis. As I write, there are frequent updates about the dementia that will claim his life all too soon. His popularity has always been touted above his talent, even though his talents are remarkable. With nothing but a change of expression, he can bring you from laughter to heartache in seconds. The laughter will soon be behind us; the heartache is coming.

No Man of Her Own (1950)

Double Identity

[6/10 · 31 March 2024]

Barbara Stanwyck plays more than one role here, and I don't mean Helen posing as Patrice. I mean Helen is like litmus paper, changing personality depending on the situation. Stanwyck has the chops to be a chameleon; the problem is, it makes Helen a construct, not a character.

When we meet her, she pregnant and hysterical, banging on the door where the father (Lyle Bettger) is holed up with a brassy blonde. He slips a train ticket under the door for her: bye-bye, baby mama.

On the train, Helen is befriended by Hugh and Patrice Harkness, who are legitimately in the family way. When the women go to freshen up, their conversation is almost laughable: the most flagrant exposition I can recall in any film (and stay tuned for more): Patrice does all the talking, telling Helen everything she (and we) will need to know to further the plot-- that she never met Hugh's parents, they don't even know what she looks like, etc. Patrice even puts her wedding ring on Helen's finger(!) to be "safe" while she washes her hands. Train crash. So long Patrice and family.

Helen wakes up in the hospital minus serious injury, but plus a baby boy who needs a name. Like, maybe, Harkness. Assuming Patrice's identity is a bold decision, but instead of gaining courage, Helen becomes as nervous and timid as a rabbit when the Harknesses welcome her into her home. Eventually she warms up and relaxes, especially with Mama Harkness, who has a flagrant heart condition. But Helen goes squirrelly again whenever she slips up, e.g., not knowing Hugh's favorite song.

The family decide to make Helen and the boy their heirs, which she objects to, but is overruled by their other son, Bill (John Lund at his best, for what that's worth), who falls for Helen/Patrice even though he suspects she's a fraud. It's all that timid behavior, plus he sees her accidently write her real name while testing a pen in a store. (NB: the camera lingers on the next customer, a flagrantly brassy blonde.)

There is some stunning noirish photography by Daniel Fapp ("To Each His Own," "The Great Escape"), especially when a body is dragged up a railyard staircase at night in an explosion of steam. So this is a well-made, but very heavy-handed movie. I was never bored because, ironically, I was intrigued by the sheer clumsiness of the plot advancement, and by the demands placed on Stanwyck. Joanne Woodward won her Oscar with fewer faces.

The Bookshop (2017)

The Wolf and the Lamb

[5/10 · 29 March 2024]

An English war widow, Florence Green (Emily Mortimer, gentle as a lamb), converts an old house in a small seaside town into her home and her livelihood: a bookshop, heavy on novels. In spite of her intelligence, she trusts everybody, which is a mark of innocence, but also of foolishness.

I don't know if Penelope Fitzgerald had Aesop in mind when she published "The Bookshop" (1979), but as adapted in this movie, her story boils down to his simple but haunting fable, "The Wolf and the Lamb." The moral: Tyrants take no pity on innocents.

But while Aesop requires only a few terrifying paragraphs, "The Bookshop" takes almost two hours-- and misses the moral because it's too busy cuddling the lamb.

When Florence is warned that the town dowager will stop at nothing to gain control of the house for her own purposes, does she take steps to protect her investment? No. She keeps doing business with her lawyer who, even in her credulous eyes, is a charlatan. She hires a slick opportunist, a man she dislikes, merely because he asks her to. In short, she's a patsy. A lot of good people are.

The odd thing is we're obviously supposed to admire her, even though her actions prove her to be imprudent, stubborn, and naïve. She's lauded for her courage, but courage without judgment is a formula for disaster, and disaster befalls her because that dowager (Patricia Clarkson, more voracious than a wolf) is a merciless tyrant. If you expect justice from a tyrant, you are a fool.

Florence has another problem: she's more fantasy than flesh and blood. A one-dimensional character. The only thing she adores as much as books was her husband. They met in a London bookshop, where they organized the poetry section together. Poetry. Of course. Because history, biography, science, etc., don't reek of Romance, which this story does. Romance with a capital R. In other words romance minus sex...

Florence's first customer, posh Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), is almost two-dimensional. An elderly misanthrope, he becomes rather smitten with her, but stiff upper lips don't incline toward kisses. The only other 2-D character has the same two D's: a miniature female version of Brundish, the ten-year-old shop girl, Christine (Honor Kneafsey) is a budding misanthrope who prizes Florence. She barely plausible, though, being the kind of child you find only in fiction: as articulate and tough-talking as a adult but with none of the natural vulnerability of a child.

There is one standout performance: Patricia Clarkson as Violet, the evil dowager. She is pure evil, which is disappointing, as I said. Her corrupt actions don't even end with deploying a nephew who is in Parliament to pass an eminent domain bill that allows her to simply claim the old house from Florence. But she comes to life in the scene where Bill Nighy arrives at her manse to tell her to back off from Florence, because Clarkson delivers a master class in film acting. Before admitting him, she pauses for just a few seconds to prepare her reaction. There is no dialog-- i.e., elemental cinema. She merely stands, her beatific smile tinged with smugness, as she rehearses the ever-so-delicate gestures she will use on him-- a dismissive tilt of the head, an almost imperceptible shrug of one shoulder. Violet is revealed, so cold it gave me chills. An exquisite display of film as a visual medium.

Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)

Dated? Hasn't aged well? I beg to differ.

[8/10 · 28 March 2024]

Quite a few reviewers accuse this film of being dated. But when I first saw it in 1970, it already defied that idea because it saw through the zeitgeist. Rather than getting mired in passing fads and causes, the writers fondly made light of the clash of generations. Writers Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor exaggerate the tensions and conversations in the two families of the engaged couple, as well as the period fashions and furnishings, just enough to make the film entertaining, but also witty and touching.

The movie spares nobody. Hidebound Italian Catholics, bourgeois suburbanites, a macho ex-marine married to a feminist, an usher seducing a bridesmaid, counterculture cohabitation-- the superb cast delivers it all. Superficially, they all represent stereotypes, but-- and here's the trick-- they also defy simplistic categories they are unique individuals, and you cannot predict what any of them will say or do next. No Archie Bunkers or Meatheads here.

It's not Balzac, but it is a classic human comedy realized as popular art, two families afloat in the late '60s, when parents thought they were losing their offspring, because their kids were questioning traditions. But those kids were questioning ingrained habits, not traditional virtues, the deep values and ethics that form our larger society. "No gap here," is the refrain of Gig Young, a buffoonish patriarch determined to keep everybody happy-- but ultimately he's right. They all have more in common than they know, and by the time the young couple is married, we don't have to be told that their marriage will be every bit as complicated as their parents' are. The movie already told us.

If the movie has a core, it's Richard Castellano's speech to his elder son who is about to divorce his wife, an unthinkable first in the family. Castellano (in the same role he played in the original Broadway play) got an Oscar nomination, and he's wonderful throughout, but especially delivering the speech that becomes the spoken soul of the movie. It includes: "We're all strangers. But after a while you get used to it. You become deeper strangers. That's a sort of love."

Middlemarch (1994)

Masterpiece begets near-masterpiece

[9/10 · 25 March 2024]

Middlemarch is widely considered one of the greatest English-language novels, the equal of Moby Dick and Ulysses. It is not plot and characters that make masterpieces; those essentials ultimately matter less than use of language and the quality of the thought, two things that cannot be fully equalled on screen. But this Middlemarch is about as good as it ever gets.

Consider this sentence from Eliot, about a vain young girl in the presence of a man she wants: "Every nerve and muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness that she was being looked at." Reading that, you feel it. Or this, about blind love: "Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us." I could open Middlemarch at random, to any of its 800+ pages, and find sublime observations like those.

Andrew Davis (writer) and Anthony Page (director) obviously cherish Eliot's book. The tone, the pace, the mise-en-scène in England and in Rome-- all of it is superb. The principal actors, Juliet Aubrey, Rufus Sewell, Douglas Hodge, and especially Patrick Malahide bring it all to life, aided by an ensemble of British actors, most of whom were known to me because of their distinguished careers. (There are weaknesses, of course, including two young actresses, Trevyn McDowell and Rachel Power, who are just good enough).

I've read Middlemarch three times, and watched this series twice, between readings. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give it is that the praiseworthy incarnation of Eliot's characters actually served to enhance the 2nd and 3rd reading of her remarkable novel.

The King of Comedy (1982)

De Niro to the rescue

[6/10 · 24 March 2024]

Rupert Pupkin, an autograph hound hungry for fame, declares himself a stand-up comic. His sense of humor is minimal. E.g.: His friend Rita says, "Jesus Christ! Rupert Pupkin!" He replies, "The two of us are often confused, he's the one with the famous father." Quick, but formulaic, not fresh. He's no Jack Paar, or Steve Allen, or Johnny Carson. We are on a downhill trajectory, where celebrity is valued above talent.

As Pupkin, Robert De Niro manages a brinkmanship performance between lighthearted (his demeanor) and heavy-handed (his tactics) that is nothing short of superb; without him, the rating would be halved. Pupkin idolizes talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis, also fine), and he's not alone-- fans implausibly mob Jerry like he's Rod Stewart (the movie is set in 1976). But Pupkin wants to BE Jerry. He has elaborate fantasies about him, which Scorsese shows, so parts of the movie are in Pupkin's head. But his reality, when he isn't stalking Jerry, is a room furnished like a talk show stage set, where he sits with cardboard cutouts of Jerry and Liza Minnelli and banters: a one-man Rat Pack.

What Pupkin does not do on that set is hone material, so we don't know if he is even capable of sustaining a stand-up routine-- which is just enough mystery to keep our curiosity alive during, sorry to say, what drags on as a rather spineless one-note satire. If only Scorsese didn't wallow in cinema: the 109-minute run time could easily have been 97 (same as "After Hours," his only shorter movie). Even the opening credits are protracted because the font is so large that most names get their own screen. The fatal flaw, though, is the tiresomely repetitive dialog. Prolixity makes sense for Pupkin, whose signature characteristic is persistence. But almost every character-- from network executives to security guards-- is tediously long-winded, which slows the movie to a crawl. The kidnapping sequence disappoints, too, but that's because of two dire mistakes: pointing a camera at Sandra Bernhard, and letting her speak.

When Pupkin finally performs his routine, it turns out to be worth the wait. After a few formulaic New Jersey jokes, he twists into a disturbing riff about his alcoholic parents ("...until I was 13 I thought throwing up was a sign of maturity") and getting beaten up by classmates ("I was the youngest kid in the history of the school to graduate in traction") that builds to publicly confessing that he got on the show only by holding Jerry hostage. It's brilliant.

Pupkin is arrested by authorities, spends two years in jail, and emerges to (1) become even more famous because of his best-seller about the kidnapping, finally getting his own talk show, or (2) have another elaborate fantasy about being famous because of his best-seller and getting a talk-show.

You decide; I stopped caring.

The Bear (2022– )

How is this a comedy?

[4/10 · 21 March 2024]

I came for Jeremy Allen White, who has exceptional presence on screen, only to discover that this is an ensemble series with precious few characters to care about, and several you wish would die off (first up: Richie).

I made it through the infamous veal stock scene, which was so remarkably stupid that I had watch it twice to make sure that, yes, the huge vat of precious veal stock was stored on top of a box which itself was on top of a high shelf (stupidity No 1); and yes, chef Sydney, in the middle of some childish snit, did insist on lifting it down all by her own short self rather than accepting help from a bigger stronger chef (No 2), and yes, it spills all over the floor which anyone could see coming and therefore isn't funny (No 3). Why??

Still, I kept going, hoping to find a reason for the show's popularity. I even made it through the Xanax in the Kool-Aid episode (I'll watch anything with Oliver Platt), until...

Jamie Lee Curtis showed up as the deranged matriarch in "Fishes" (Season 2, ep. 6), an episode that could have satirized an Italian seven-fishes Christmas feast. Dozens of sitcoms, maybe more, have used holiday gatherings as ways to laugh at minor family dysfunction (read: no criminal behavior). Not "The Bear." Insults fly, tensions flare, and none of it, not even the food fight, was funny.

Again, why is this considered a comedy? Or, no, wait-- the problem is bigger than that. Forget categories. Even as a drama, "The Bear" is a disappointment.

Last Man Standing (1996)

The fundamental flaw

[6/10 · 13 March 2024]

Unfortunately, Walter Hill's sanctioned remake of Kurosawa's original was bound to be a pale imitation. Hill is strikingly faithful to Yojimbo, almost character by character. And he is a terrific director of action pictures; indeed, he can handle any genre I've seen I'm work in. Nothing about this production disappoints, especially if you like sprays of gunfire, Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken, superb sound editing, and Ry Cooder's music.

The problem is the era: Prohibition in America, specifically Texas. The original is set in Japan in 1860, near the end of ronin culture, when freelance samurai warriors still roamed. The samurai anti-hero, Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune), ruthlessly pits two ruthless gangs against each other in a remote village, just as John Smith (Willis) does here in Texas. But Sanjuro ultimately faces an opponent with a *gun.* I.e., he brings a gun to a sword fight. This changes *everything.* Swords were becoming antique, as were samurai warriors. So Yojimbo became a profound look at the end of an honorable warrior culture, only to see it replaced by an infinitely more violent culture based on nothing more than sheer greed. Zero nobility. In the hands of a master filmmaker like Kurosawa, that idea propels Yojimbo to greatness.

Walter Hill tries to duplicate the powerful sword vs. Gun tension with Colt automatic vs. Thompson submachine gun, but but it's still a gun in a gunfight. Even given the firepower of a Tommy gun in the hands of a maniac (Walken), it is a puny difference.

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Flying cars, flying wisecracks

[6/10 · 9 March 2024]

This is a standard Tony Scott product: filmed for maximum darkness even in sunlight, and indulging heavily in two kinds of violence: mayhem and cruelty. The mayhem is spectacular, e.g., when a chase scene ends with a car flying through the air and landing in a swimming pool. The cruelty actually borders on sadism, but cannot be taken seriously because, except when a character actually expires, everybody heals pretty quickly so they can be beaten again. Or shot or knived or blown up. Whatever.

Wisecracks also fly, plenty of them, liberally laced with the f-word in all its forms, as an adjective, verb, noun, expletive. Joe (Bruce Willis) has a recalcitrant 13-year-old daughter and even she has a foul mouth. Still, the dialog is witty enough to make the whole thing amusing, if formulaic: the bad guys are irredeemably bad while the good guys (Willis and Damon Wayans) are irrepressible alpha males who quip in the face of death. E.g., Joe to a thug holding a gun to his head: "Now I'm not saying your girlfriend is fat, but her high school picture was an aerial photograph." And this, Jimmy to Joe: "I'm going to the bathroom, okay. You wanna come? The doc said I shouldn't lift anything heavy."

But here's my problem: Bruce Willis performs at a zombie level. Wayans is fine, as handsome as he is talented, but I felt cheated because I watched it for Willis, an actor whose popularity overshadows (I can't bring myself to use the past tense) his considerable talent. His subtlety of expression can lift your spirits one second, and break your heart the next. But as Joe, he is stoic. He takes beatings with the same lack of affect he uses to deliver his lines, mining none of the gold that is his charm. Joe is given a miserable backstory-- a cheating wife, an unlikeable daughter, a partner who betrays him-- but so are most private detectives in movies. So why the diminution? I was left wondering if it was his own choice to perform at half-strength, or if that's how it was written? Or directed? For whatever reason, it did the film no favors.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Top 5 things wrong with Lebowski

[4/10 · 5 March 2024]

1. The title is a clue: The difference between The Big Lebowski and The Big Heat, The Big Chill, The Big Sleep, The Big Easy, The Big Country, etc., is that the other titles arise from context. Ditto The Big Short, which came later. If the Coens had called it The Two Lebowskis, at last it would have had made sense.

2. Weird does not equal funny. All but plotless, it amounts to a series of loose sketches about unusual characters, with the signature Coen Bro's dedication to unusual and/or surrealistic camera work.

3. Witless. Relentless cursing is a crutch for lame writers, so unless you laugh at common expletives, you will find little to laugh at. Including catch-phrases like "The Dude abides," there are zero clever lines.

4. John Goodman's character. One loud grating note in a crew cut and sunglasses, Walter Sobchak is an insult to the eyes, ears, and mind (even his name smacks of desperation for laughs). That he has *any* friends is unfathomable. It's hard to pinpoint his worst aspect, but I think it's saying "Shut up, Donny" to Steve Buscemi over and over and over and over and over... Laughing yet?

5. Pointless. If it isn't funny, and makes no sense, what was the point? The Dude as the sane center of a crazy world? If so, that puts it in a familiar genre: films that present lunatics, schoolchildren, etc., as the sane ones. E.g., One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which at least had structure. Ultimately I decided Lebowski was just a screw-loose script concocted to seduce a self-selecting audience of stoners.

Our Friends in the North (1996)

Rings true like few other series

[10/10 · 4 March 2024]

An ambitious series without trying to be epic, Our Friends (for short) is a finely detailed work of art set in Newcastle. The 4 principal characters begin as working class youths in 1964, and we follow them into the 1990s.

Start with Mary, who is the all-purpose female for the plot-- girlfriend, wife, mother, divorcée, and, eventually, lawyer-- but beautifully brought to life by Gina McKee as an intelligent and honorable woman, a friend to all and a survivor. The three men become a braid that brings different arenas into focus: Nicky, a revolution-minded politico (superb Christopher Eccleston); Tosker, a hot-headed and horny businessman (a vigorous Mark Strong); and Geordie, a simple wounded soul (the scene of his father beating him is almost too real) who falls into a life of crime (a versatile Daniel Craig). With their passion for life, all three men defy the stiff-upper-lip stereotype; indeed, all three come to tears at times.

Its strongest qualities include the intricate relationships between parents and children, and couples. The slow demise of Mary's marriage is as balanced and believable as any I've seen in film or on TV.

The quartet of friends, with their family and colleagues, navigate the troubled waters of England in the late 20th century, a world of political and police corruption, labor strikes and housing shortages, crime and what often feels like random punishment. At no point is it predictable, and at no point will you be tempted to turn it off. Especially not when Malcolm McDowell shows up as a detestable London crime boss with charm to spare.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Without Dr. Strange, a zero

[3/10 · 17 February 2024]

Spider-Men, as it should have been titled, is yet more proof that stuffing more action into action pictures doesn't make them exciting. This is a two-and-a-half hour yawn. I almost dislocated my jaw at one point.

My two cents: First, for such a youth-oriented movie, the only cool characters are two of the adults, Dr Strange and Aunt May.

Second, the idea of a multiverse may be the single most damaging addition to Hollywood formulae since John Schuck uttered the F word in M*A*S*H, kicking prudes to the curb (good) but ushering in decades of lazy writing (bad). I had hoped Everything Everywhere All At Once would be the stupidest-ever use of the multiverse, because the hypothesis was wasted on the result: a chick flick, with Mom and daughter reconciling. But Spider-Men is just as stupid.

Shameless (2011–2021)

For the easily shocked

[5/10 · 1 February 2024]

It's entertaining, for sure, but as much as I appreciated the talent behind Shameless, it was obvious from the start that the show's primary fuel was shock value (and good luck with that in the 21st Century). In episode after episode about the indigent Gallagher family, we get bathroom and bedroom nudity, booze and drugs, gay and straight boinking, and petty criminality, mostly to scrounge income.

There are interesting plot lines, and even occasional wit (mostly the scripts just spew profanity, so much easier to write), but the characters were too one-dimensional to keep me going, especially the cartoonish adult trio (William H. Macy, Joan Cusack, and Joel Murray). Only Jeremy Allen White stood out in the cast, as the eldest son, Lip. He has strong screen presence and a distinctive look, on top of which, Lip was given the liveliest dialogue because he's the smart one (ever formula series has a smart one).

"Shameless" reminds me of Hollywood's most unrealistic stock character, the hooker with a heart of gold. The premise is the entire theme: a deadbeat father whose seven offspring have a preternatural loyalty to one another, and to him. Hustlers with hearts of gold. An impoverished idea about impoverished people.

Though it was never predictable, it began to feel repetitive, and I called it quits-- but credit where credit is due: nine seasons is impressive.

Still Mine (2012)

Time's not up for this wise old builder

[8/10 · 23 January 2024]

James Cromwell and Geneviève Bujold are superb, separately and together, as Craig and Irene Morrison in this film is based on events that were covered in newspapers under headlines such as, "All I wanted to do is build a house."

In rural New Brunswick, an elderly couple live in their old farmhouse. Irene is suffering progressive cognitive decline, so Craig takes care of them both. Their children are grown, but two live close by, and Craig firmly deflects their interference. Their daughter, a well-meaning nag, insists that he isn't up to taking care of "my mother." Their son, a more sensitive and supportive soul, reminds her, "She's his wife."

They are no longer capable of raising cattle, but they still have chickens, and Craig is strong and healthy for his age. He's also a skilled builder, who learned carpentry from his father, a shipwright. He decides to build a one-story house for them because Irene will soon need a walker. He chooses a site on high ground, overlooking the bay, a view she always wanted.

As the frame rises, the town notices. Enter the bureaucracy: plans and permits, fees and inspectors. Craig quietly points out that there are hundreds of homes in town, standing and occupied, that were built a century or more ago, before permits. His building expertise is considerable, especially regarding seasoned pine, and his dialog with the inspector is a treat-- but it falls on deaf ears. A "stop work" order is issued, and ignored. As Irene declines, mentally and physically, Craig continues building, with his lawyer (Campbell Scott) running interference. But he ends up in court; jail is threatened.

I've been programmed to expect disasters to happen in movies, to amp up the action. No disasters here, nor anything mawkishly sentimental. Just dignity, persistence, and common sense pitted against the brick-wall bureaucracy. Tall and graceful as ever, James Cromwell is in very nearly every scene, which makes the movie a pleasure to watch. When the aged beauty Geneviève Bujold joins him in the frame, that pleasure only deepens.

Cold Brook (2018)

Fichtner's directorial debut, with talent to spare

[9/10 · 23 January 2024]

Halfway through "Cold Brook," when I realized that there were no bad guys (so far anyway), I felt myself relax and start thinking about that. No bad guys. William Fichtner gives us a world where people have a natural faith in each other.

We've come to expect conflict in movies, but if "Cold Brook" has a theme, it is trust. It's the foundation of every relationship. Even when an elusive man (Harold Perrineau) is seen prowling the college's museum after hours, the two custodians, Ted and Hilde (Fichtner and Kim Coates), pursue him mainly out of curiosity, not any dark suspicion, and the prowler's situation is such that they help him borrow (not steal) what he needs from a museum display case to answer some fateful old questions.

Ted and Hilde are not only colleagues and best friends but next-door neighbors and family men. Their marriages are strong, with kids who have the most routine problems-- like stubbornness and laziness and tests graded C+. Both husbands breakfast together at a diner, and hang out with a gang of blue-collar buddies, all of which is fine with the wives. Even when their absences become more frequent and lengthy, and they seem distracted, their wives show concern, but there's no nagging, no worry that the men are straying.

I enjoyed every minute of "Cold Brook," up to and including the point when the zealous college cop (Brad William Henke) goes after them for presumed theft. A bad guy after all? Or is Fichtner testing me as a viewer: can I trust that human virtue really will prevail? I didn't fail, but I wouldn't give myself more than a C+.

Dumb Money (2023)

Davids, Goliaths, and nags

[7/10 · 22 January 2024]

Like "The Big Short" in style and substance, this Wall Street procedural is extremely well done, making it a lot of fun to watch private Davids take on hedge-fund Goliaths who dubbed them "dumb money." The whole cast is terrific, and Paul Dano holds it all together as the calm center of the hurricane.

Just a few questions/quibbles:

Why is it so poorly lit? Almost every scene has the look of photographs that were too heavily inked. Even outdoors.

The movie is relentlessly geared to a youth audience, which is fine, of course. I'm in my 70s and had no trouble keeping up (with a little help from Shazam), but I was a bit surprised how little concern there was about appealing to a general audience.

My only real criticism is that far too much of the movie repeats one monotonous aspect of the plot: people brazenly advising investors what to do, or what not to do, with their money. Every single investor gets nagged by someone-- partners, siblings, parents, friends, colleagues, classmates-- and nagging is as tedious in movies as it is in real life.

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)

Role reversal blossoms into friendship

[8/10 · 21 January 2024]

This time the scraped knee is the old lady's, and it's a young man who applies the bandage. An adaptation of a 1971 novel by the under-rated Elizabeth (née Coles) Taylor, the movie begins at a geriatrically slow pace which picks up, ironically, when aged Mrs. Palfrey falls down. She lands on the sidewalk in view of the basement apartment of young Ludovic Meyer, so named to prop up the comedy. Ludo bandages her knee, makes her a cup of tea, and they connect in a rather forced way: embarrassed that her own grandson never visits her at The Claremont, she asks Ludo to pretend to be him. He does, and the other senior tenants at The Claremont believe it. The deceit weaves a mildly tangled web, but mostly results in the filmmakers stacking the deck against the real grandson, Desmond, presented as a cipher we're not supposed to like. Ditto both mothers-- Ludo's and Desmond's. Reducing all three to antagonists is a blatant plot device, and a significant flaw.

But the movie is more about Mrs. Palfrey's generation, and about the friendship with Ludo, a widow and a bachelor, both on their own. Unfortunately, Dame Joan Plowright, who was 75 at the time but seemed a good deal older, doesn't muster up much thespian skill other than an occasional wobbly smile. Mrs. Palfrey is a charming role, well written, but Plowright brings the minimum to her performance: very little change of expression or variation in delivering her lines.

Perhaps inevitably then, Rupert Friend as Ludo steals the attention in every frame they share. He is an engaging performer, and he brings the lion's share of vitality to the film, as well as dashing leonine hair. Most of the other characters are pensioners, of course, staying at the Claremont, so they're not a bouncy crowd. But they're a varied crew, and played well. Anna Massey stands out in her small but crucial role, as she did in every film I've seen her in. She worked until she died, aged 73, in 2011.

Friends & Crocodiles (2005 TV Movie)

The Emperor's new clothes?

[4/10 · 18 January 2024]

Except for the lavish party scenes, everything about this movie is half-baked. Based on the reviews, I gather it was meant to be a satire on avarice, or maybe capitalism, but it's like smoke without a fire. Or a crocodile without teeth.

The characters never come to life, and most are unnecessary, including Robert Lindsay and Eddie Marsan, whose talents should never be wasted. Only two people matter: the Gatsby-like magnate Paul Reynolds (Damian Lewis), who typically just hangs out and throws parties at his estate, and Lizzie Thomas (Jodhi May), whom he hires as a secretary/nag. She dutifully organizes and nags, but quits after calling the police to restore order when he hires thugs to trash one of his parties, to liven things up. They part as enemies, and his fortunes fall while she rises to become a captain of industry. She speaks of him as her mentor, which is fair enough, I guess, because she doesn't show any more signs of financial wizardry than he does.

Stephen Poliakoff, who pulled off this lukewarm mess, clearly has the oomph to get the funding, which had to be considerable. It would be interesting to know what his elevator pitch was, because I truly don't know what he was trying to say and all the superfluous female nudity suggests the Emperor's new clothes. There's a passing reference to "she" wanting 20 years in office. So, Margaret Thatcher is being satirized? In one sequence, Patrick Malahide dismantles a giant manufacturing company to switch to tech, which leads to ruin, and in another Paul presents an idea that he worked on for five months to venture capitalists: bookstores with cafés. So, anti-tech?

Poliakoff's Paul did have one interesting idea, which is why he kept a dwarf crocodile: crocodiles did indeed survive the extinction that killed dinosaurs, and biotech has taken an interest in their remarkable resilience. As I write in early 2024, a crocodile protein called defensin (CpoBD13), similar to a human protein, is being actively investigated as an antifungal agent.