Thursday, January 31, 2013

Watch on the Rhine

Watch on the Rhine (1943) starring Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Geraldine Fitzgerald. A couple (Davis and Lukas) arrive in America in 1940, fleeing Europe but determined to carry on their anti-Nazi activities. They are harried by German spies in Washington, D.C.; then they learn that Kurt (Lukas) must return to Europe to try and save some anti-Nazi friends of his. The film may seem a little hyper-patriotic to us today, but remember that it was made in 1943. This movie is based on a stage play by Lillian Hellman, with screenplay by Dashiell Hammett. Lukas won an acting Oscar for his work in this film. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, but not closed captions.) Grade: B+  

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

War Zone

War Zone (1999). No subtitles, no closed captions. Unwatchable. Grade: F 

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The War Wagon

The War Wagon (1967) starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Howard Keel, Robert Walker Jr., Keenan Wynn. Taw Jackson (Wayne), who was robbed of his gold claim and framed and sent to prison, aims to make up for lost ground in this Western. He recruits best frenemy Lomax (Douglas) to help him rob an armored wagon carrying $500,000 worth of gold, and the action is on. More of a caper film than a traditional Western, the movie features all of the usual suspects, including an Indian who has adopted white man's ways (Keel) and a young buck who's good with explosives (Walker), and chooses to use nitroglycerin to blow a bridge. It's a pleasure to see superstars Wayne and Douglas share the screen together, and they play off each other well. The movie uses humor well, and there are many funny scenes to break up the Western action. (English subtitles are included on the DVD, but not closed captions.) Grade: B 

Monday, January 28, 2013

Star Trek: Season 1

Star Trek: Season 1 (1966) starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, et. al. The first season of the storied "Star Trek" TV series is interesting to re-experience. It's great to see all the original stars looking so young. This disc includes the episodes "The Man Trap," "Charlie X" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before." The only one I remembered was "Where No Man Has Gone Before," with guest stars Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman. It was a pretty good episode, except that like so many "Star Trek" episodes it boils down to a fist-fight in the end. The original film from the series has been lovingly restored and even in some cases improved for the transfer to DVD, and I must say I can find no fault with the job the technicians have done in making the transfer. Seeing this beloved old TV series, created and (in many cases) produced by Gene Roddenberry, was like greeting an old friend again and finding that you still like them, even though their flaws seem magnified with the passage of time. (Closed captions are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: A 

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Food, Inc.

Food, Inc. (2008) directed by Robert Kenner. The food production system in the U.S. has gotten more and more industrialized, with only a few giant corporations controlling most of the growing, marketing and selling of food in our country. As a result, it is harder and harder (and more expensive) to get good-tasting, nutritious food. We all know fast food is bad for us, but we eat it anyway because it is easy, cheap and tasty. The result is an obesity and diabetes epidemic (which is really not discussed much in this movie), along with increasing instances of E coli and salmonella poisoning around the nation. This documentary explores the different facets of our flawed food production system, and should be enough to raise alarms in even the most carefree of us. We've got to do something before it's too late! Start by seeing this movie, available on DVD from Netflix. (Closed captions are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: A

Friday, January 25, 2013

The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds (1953) starring Gene Barry, Les Tremayne, Ann Robinson. Invaders from Mars land all over the world, immediately make it clear that their intentions are hostile. The action in the movie takes place in California. Army and Air Force units hit the Martian craft with everything they've got, but to no avail. The Martians clearly have much more advanced technology, and conventional human weapons are useless against them. Finally the decision is made to use the atom bomb. But will it be enough? I won't give away any more of the plot, but suffice it to say that when the end of the movie comes, it comes with startling suddenness, and the film seems disappointingly truncated. The ending should have been drawn out for at least a few minutes, and some exposition should have been included. But it wasn't. I was very let down by the way this movie ended. (Subtitles in English are available for the hard of hearing, and closed captions are included.) Grade: B-

Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Boys from Brazil

The Boys from Brazil (1978) starring Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer. The year is 1978, and former Nazi doctor Josef Mengele (Peck) is alive and well in Paraguay. He has perfected human cloning, and has created 94 perfect copies of Hitler, who are now 13 years old and have been farmed out to adoptive couples around Europe and the United States. Mengele's plan is for a Fourth Reich, presumably with one of his little Hitlers leading it. He is opposed by Nazi-hunting Jew Franz Lieberman (Olivier), who gets wind of the plot and, despite his advanced age, vows to do what he can to stop it. The ultimate showdown between Mengele and Lieberman takes place in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania, and it's pretty disappointing. At the end of the movie we are left with Mengele dead, Lieberman hospitalized, and 94 clones of Hitler loose in the world. It's interesting to speculate what a clone of Hitler might end up doing in this world, but the movie never gets that far. It's entertaining enough, but great art it ain't. (No subtitles are supplied, but closed captions save the day for the hard of hearing.) Grade: C+

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Seraphine

Seraphine (2008) starring Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur. Seraphine (Moreau) is a menial housekeeper by day, but by night she paints -- and German art critic Wilhelm Uhde (Tukur) sees her work and immediately sees that it is the painting of a genius. He is all set to give her career a big boost when World War I breaks out, and he must flee. The scene skips to 1927. Uhde has returned, but he assumes that Seraphine must be dead by now. Then he goes to a local exhibition and sees her work on display there. He seeks her out and begins selling her work. Briefly, Seraphine prospers; then comes the Market Crash of 1929 and the financial distress that follows. In the end, Seraphine goes mad and is confined to an asylum, where she eventually dies. But that doesn't detract from the quality of her painting, and she is still an honored 20th-century painter, known as Seraphine de Senlis. Nor does it detract from the powerful appeal of this movie, which tells her factual story in an engaging fashion and holds our interest until the end. (In French, with English subtitles.) Grade: B+ 

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) starring Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman. An IRS auditor named Harold Crick (Ferrell) starts hearing his daily actions being narrated by a disembodied voice (Thompson). It's driving him crazy, until he hears the voice predict his soon-to-occur death. Then things get deadly serious. This is a surprisingly satisfying movie, with everything making sense except the fact that Crick is able to make contact with Karen Eiffel (Thompson), the author who is writing the book in which he is a character. But if you're willing to accept that small bit of illogic, the film hangs together  perfectly, and makes for a very fulfilling story. Gyllenhaal, as the girl that Crick falls in love with, is very appealing, and Hoffman is not bad as the literature professor whom Crick consults. Altogether, a good movie with a satisfying ending. (English subtitles are available for the hard of hearing, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

Friday, January 18, 2013

Girls

Girls (2012) starring Lena Dunham. Five episodes of the HBO series are presented on this disc. It's a tour-de-force for Dunham, who writes, directs, produces and acts in most of the episodes. Segments range from Hannah (Dunham) and her girlfriends going to a party, to Hannah taking a shower and getting peed on by her boyfriend, to Hannah and her roommate having a fight and deciding not to live together anymore. The series is both funny and sad, ending on a down note with Hannah sitting on the beach eating wedding cake. Dunham says on the Extras that she wanted the show to be about the way twenty-somethings really act, as opposed to the way they have been portrayed in sitcoms, and I think she has succeeded. Dunham herself belies the stereotypes by the way she looks; by TV standards she is not an attractive woman. But her show ultimately succeeds, perhaps because she is a smart and funny woman. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A-    

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Days of Heaven

Days of Heaven (1978) starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz. Directed by Terrence Malick. In 1916, migrant laborers arrive to help with the wheat harvest on a Midwest farm. The farm owner (Shepard) falls in love with a worker named Abby (Adams) and asks her to stay. She agrees to stay, but says her "brother" Bill (Gere) and sister (Manz) must also stay on. The pair are conning the farmer, believing that he is dying, but Abby ends up falling in love with him. Not a typical Malick film, this one has a clear through-plot. Beautifully photographed and with evocative music by Ennio Morricone, it packs a strong emotional punch.  The movie won an Oscar for cinematography. (Closed captions are available.) Grade: B+

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

McCabe and Mrs. Miller

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie. Directed by Robert Altman. Hustler named McCabe (Beatty) plans to start a whorehouse in a turn-of-the-20th-Century mining town. Mrs. Miller (Christie) hears of his plans and makes him a business proposition: She is a whore and a madame, and she can help him run his business with high-class whores and he will make a lot more money. Things are going along just fine when a big mining company becomes interested in buying out the entire town. Soon McCabe's life is in danger. This is a typical Altman film, if such a thing can be said about any director; this one is dark and wet and cold, with dialogue that is often muttered rather than spoken. One thing it is not is a typical Western. The movie de-romanticizes the frontier, and it's not always pleasant to watch. The overall mood is helped through songs by Leonard Cohen. Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions. Grade: B

Monday, January 14, 2013

Tender Mercies

Tender Mercies (1983) starring Robert Duvall, Tess Harper. Washed-up country singer Mac Sledge (Duvall) finds himself broke and staying at a motel owned by a young widow (Harper). One thing leads to another (and rather quickly), and they get married. It is only after they are married that she learns that he was once a rich and famous song writer and performer. It's alcohol that did him in, and he pretty much gives up drinking for her. This is a novelistic movie, with several interesting twists and turns in the script. For a low-budget production, it's really fine. Duvall won an Oscar for his performance. (Closed captions are available for the hard of hearing.) Grade: A-

Friday, January 11, 2013

The Wanderers

The Wanderers (1979) starring Ken Wahl, John Friedrich, Karen Allen. Impressionistic drama of high school gangs, set in 1963 in inner city New York, seems to pursue theme of lost innocence. Hero Richie (the very handsome Ken Wahl) is a straight-arrow character surrounded by a swirling miasma of a changing world. Kennedy's assassination takes place within the context of the movie, and in one haunting scene late in the film Richie stands outside a club's windows while Bob Dylan sings "The Times They are a Changin' " inside. A gang known as the Baldies all get drunk one night and sign up for the Marines, and we know where they're headed -- Vietnam.  There's a large gang, hovering in the background, called the Duckies, and they're the really vicious gang, willing to kill. The movie makes very good use of music, and to my ears every song chosen for the soundtrack was a winner. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A-

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Frankenweenie

Frankenweenie (2012) directed by Tim Burton. Stop-motion animated tale about a boy named Victor and his dog Sparky, who is tragically killed by a car. Victor (last name Frankenstein), inspired by his creepy science teacher and late-night movies, brings Sparky back to life with the help of ingenuity and lightning. The other kids feel threatened (they think Sparky is going to be Victor's science-fair project), and soon the town is under siege from a variety of re-animated pets. It's all great fun and nobody really gets hurt, so here's a vote for Tim Burton for making an accessible, enjoyable movie. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Wanted

Wanted (2008) starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann. Nebbishy office drone Wesley (McAvoy) learns that his father was a member of a secret, 1,000-year-old guild of assassins called the Fraternity. The assassin skills are genetic, so Wesley is the next recruit of the Fraternity, trained by the leader Sloan (Freeman) and the lithe Fox (Jolie). The movie is based on a series of comic books, so you can guess at the level of sophistication that is brought to to the plot. That said, it's a slick production, and with some tweaking could have been a really inspiring motion picture. But when all is said and done, it's about assassins, fer chrissakes. How can an assassin be a hero? Only if he truly believes in what he is doing and his cause is just, criteria that I don't think this film fulfills. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, but not closed captions.) Grade: B

Sunday, January 06, 2013

A Walk in the Sun

A Walk in the Sun (1945) starring Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Sterling Holloway, George Tyne, John Ireland. A platoon of American GIs land on the beach in Italy and commence to walk to a rendezvous point, a farm house six miles inland. The farm house is occupied by Germans, and the Americans must take it away from them and blow a nearby bridge. This is a fairly routine World War II combat action movie, but with lots of screen time devoted to developing the relationships among the men. It probably resonated a lot more strongly in 1945, when the film was released. (English subtitles are available on the disc.) Grade: B 

Friday, January 04, 2013

Voyager

Voyager (1991) starring Sam Shepard, Julie Delpy. Set in the 1950s, this romance at sea has no English subtitles for the hearing-impaired, no closed captions, no nothing. As a consequence, I found it very hard to follow. Too bad, because I think it would have been an interesting movie if the producers of this DVD had made an effort to make it more accessible. Grade: F

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) starring Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry. Six-year-old Hushpuppy (Wallis) and her father Wink (Henry) live in the "Bathtub" area of the Gulf Coast. It's an area that is highly vulnerable to being inundated by seawater, and life isn't made any easier by the extreme poverty of the inhabitants. At the same time, we see scenes of massive ice melting in the Arctic, and the melting of the ice releases prehistoric beasts known as aurochs. These beasts seem to play some kind of allegorical role in the film, but for the life of me I couldn't pin it down. They just appear every once in a while, running (apparently headed for the Bathtub and Hushpuppy). This is an extremely unpleasant film to watch, what with the shaky camera work and the repeated scenes of desperate poverty. The acting is good, but it's a little hard to judge what the point of the film is. The ending offers no hope for the future, only the coming of age of a little girl. There are some interesting settings in this movie, but overall it just didn't hang together for me. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B-

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Nevada Smith

Nevada Smith (1966) starring Steve McQueen, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Arthur Kennedy, Suzanne Pleshette, Martin Landau. Young half-Indian named Max Sand (McQueen) swears revenge on the three men (Malden, Kennedy and Landau) who tortured and killed his mother and father. Knowing nothing about guns, he is taught by a man named Cord (Keith) and sets off to find the three men. This Western raises interesting moral questions as Max hunts down the men, changing his name to Nevada Smith along the way. Has he become just as bad as the men he pursues? I found the final scene to be unforgettable. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+