When rating a film I ask myself these three questions: What is the director’s goal or purpose? How does the director try to achieve it? Is the director successful? Hence a big box office hit may get a “5” while a Eurosleaze sexploitation flick gets a “7”. My rating system in a nutshell:
10 = Brilliant!
9 = Exceptional
8 = Very Good
7 = Good
6 = Average
5 = Forgettable
4 = Bad
3 = Dismal
2 = Dog Barf
1 = Beyond Awful
~ ~ ~ ~
Neither Heaven Nor Earth (France 2015) (8): Supernatural thriller, spiritual puzzle box, or humanist parable, writer/director Clément Cogitore’s existential war movie borders on all three—but if there’s one single explanation for the film’s central mystery it’s left entirely up to the viewer. When soldiers under his command begin disappearing one by one while stationed in the outback of Afghanistan, French captain Antarès Bonassieu (an intense Jérémie Renier) is both perplexed and increasingly agitated. His men appear to be vanishing into thin air—some right out of their sleeping bags—and the most thorough searches fail to uncover any clues. Even the local Taliban is experiencing the same phenomenon while nearby villagers, who appear to be unaffected, start behaving oddly. Are the men going AWOL? Being kidnapped? Or are the warnings of a young shepherd who claims divine intervention is at work to be taken seriously? Shot in the barren hills of Morocco, Cogitore certainly incorporates elements of horror into his story with handheld camera sequences reminiscent of Blair Witch and midnight reconnaissance missions filmed through night vision goggles, the grainy footage rendered in ghostly shades of fluorescent green. Although lacking in the usual jump scares and gore, there is nevertheless a creep factor at work which slowly ratchets up as the mystery deepens and one begins to suspect that enemy snipers are not the only danger lurking among the rocks. Meanwhile the villagers cite the hand of Allah while Christian symbols (including the all-seeing eyes of God which crop up in the most unexpected place) loom impotently in the background. But this is wartime, a time of fear and tension in a place where young men die and their comrades are left to make sense of it all. Viewed in this light the disappearances take on a psychological edge in which the focus is not so much on where these men went but rather on the fact that they are gone. With an outraged Antarès turning everything upside-down in order to locate them, the remaining men reverting to pagan-like rituals, and a chaplain flown in to intervene now at a loss for words, Cogitore poses a riddle that neither faith, nor rationality, nor sheer determination alone can adequately address—for once you’ve ruled out Heaven and Earth, what’s left?
Mountain Patrol [Kekexili] (China 2004) (9): In the 1990s herds of Tibetan antelope living on the frigid Kekexili plateau of northern China were being decimated by poachers who stood to make a great deal of money in the illegal fur market. To stem this slaughter a group of grassroots conservationists came into being who, despite lacking legal authority to make arrests, made it their goal to bring poachers to some semblance of justice. But with vast fortunes on the line the poachers fought back, often with lethal consequences. Writer/director Chuan Lu uses this sad piece of history to create an existential road movie in which Beijing journalist Ga Yu, anxious for a story, tags along with one such mountain patrol under the tutelage of former army officer Ri Tai—and what he experiences will go far beyond mere headlines. Against timeless backdrops of jagged mountains and frozen plains spread beneath skies strewn with stars, Ga Yu’s quest into the heart of darkness unfolds with a savage poetry. Disquieting scenes of animal butchery and human cruelty vie with moments of sad reflection as an impassioned Ri Tai and his equally committed comrades fight a losing battle against one particularly ruthless poacher and his followers, mostly simple peasants whose former livelihoods—farming and ranching—have all but dried up. Joining in the fray are the elements themselves with sudden snowstorms and hidden dangers descending indiscriminately on the good and the bad alike while omnipresent vultures circle just overhead. Lu presents a world of moral compromises (Ri Tai is not wholly innocent) and brutal pragmatism wherein sworn enemies must sometimes rely on one another and even God exacts a price—the funerary practices of a local Buddhist sect would be appalling to Western eyes. And no one remains unaffected by this undeclared war, neither families nor lovers nor Ga Yu’s “neutral observer”. With a sharpness bordering on Cinema Verité, what starts out as an ecologically-minded tragedy partially funded by National Geographic gradually segues into a deeply felt transcendental reverie on Good and Evil, human nature, and the call of a higher power, be it Nature or Deity. And a restrained score of native music ties it all together beautifully.
Nobody’s Watching [Nadie nos mira] (Argentina 2017) (7): Following a tumultuous break-up with a married director, wildly popular soap actor Nico (a passionate Guillermo Pfening) leaves Buenos Aires to seek his fortune in New York City. But the dream soon sours when he finds the Big Apple neither knows nor cares that he was a star back home (various producers tell him he’s either too Spanish or not Spanish enough) and he must rely on menial jobs and shoplifting in order to support himself while simultaneously lying to his friends and family that his career is right on track. Suffering one professional setback after another it will take a few faces from his past—and one brutally honest critique—to jar Nico into re-evaluating his life… Without resorting to knee-jerk sentimentality, writer/director Julia Solomonoff encapsulates the immigrant experience with this story of a restless man in search of opportunity abroad who goes from a celebrity to a nobody instead—even ex-pats regarding him with a mixture of pity and bemusement and one successfully married friend going so far as to hire him to be a Hispanic nanny for her child. It’s also a “fish out of water” parable in which Nico learns the hard way that fame and success don’t occur simply because one wills them to. It’s his juggling of twin identities, that of the established foreign actor and penniless newcomer, combined with his washed out hopes which ultimately gives the film its bite. And Solomonoff underscores this disconnect beautifully with a recurring image of Nico’s favourite drinking spot—a stretch of rocks overlooking a bay of water beyond which a twinkling skyline rises cold and remote. Thomas Wolfe once asserted that you can never go home again, and while that may be true sometimes it takes a difficult journey to make us appreciate what “home” really means.
Elling (Norway 2001) (5): Norway’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2002 Oscars is an insufferably upbeat “odd couple” movie whose message, “Hold On To Your Dreams No Matter What!” is shoved into your face far too many times to be effective. Roommates in a mental institution, Elling and Kjell Bjarne couldn’t be any more different. Sheltered by his mother since birth, overly fastidious 40-year old Elling is an anxiety-ridden neurotic given to vocal meltdowns who can’t even answer a phone without going into full panic mode. Also 40, slovenly Kjell Bjarne is a hulking overbearing brute who handles stress by smashing his face into walls and whose only goals in life are eating and losing his virginity. But when the two wind up being released to a state-funded apartment in the middle of Oslo they soon discover that their old coping mechanisms no longer work in the real world and they must learn to rely on themselves as well as others if they are going to make it. And can you guess what happens next? Director Petter Næss’ unwavering feel good flick cashes in on his characters’ wildly opposing temperaments for some lukewarm humour—agoraphobic Elling enters his first public restroom as if he were entering a gas chamber; Kjell Bjarne rings up a $4,000 telephone bill calling sex hotlines—before falling into the expected cliché-riddled groove as each man comes to realize his potential. And just to make sure we don’t miss the message he throws in a couple of signposts in the form of a distressed pregnant neighbour who awakens Kjell Bjarne’s inner decency, an aging poet who kindles an artistic flame in Elling, and a tough but kindly social worker who gently prods his two charges ever forward. Leads Per Christian Ellefsen as Elling and Sven Nordin who actually gained weight in order to give Kjell Bjarne more heft, do ignite some onscreen chemistry as their co-dependence slowly morphs into co-fortification, but they can never rise above a script riddled with mawkishness and Hallmark moments. I’m told the American stage adaptation with Brendan Fraser and Denis O’Hare was superior to the film which is hardly surprising considering how low the bar was set in the first place.
Marie Antoinette (USA 1938) (9): Despite the usual historical stretches common to these films, MGM’s romanticized biopic of Marie Antoinette—the little Austrian princess who became queen of France before meeting her end at the guillotine—is still a dazzling costume epic more than deserving of its four Oscar nominations. In the lead Norma Shearer (Best Actress nominee) exudes star power with her character going from giddy teenager to headstrong monarch whose flamboyant ways made her the target of angry mobs and court opportunists alike, to humbled prisoner bereft of family, friends, and hope as she awaits her execution at the beginning of France’s “Reign of Terror”. Her gradual transformations are pure cinema culminating in one of Hollywood’s most moving performances, those final days behind dank prison walls sure to move all but the hardest of hearts. Also of note are Robert Morley (Best Supporting Actor nominee) as Louis XVI, her whimpering simp of a husband; a bristling John Barrymore as the aging Louis XV; Joseph Schildkraut as the unctuous Duke d’Orléans, a powdered dandy intent on seizing power for himself; and heartthrob Tyrone Power as a visiting Swedish nobleman who carries on a chaste love affair with the unhappily married Marie. But it is the set design and costume departments which turn the production into a 150-minute spectacle. Partly filmed at Versailles itself, MGM spared no expense on recreating lavish interiors overflowing with rococo trappings and crystal chandeliers under which exquisitely wigged and gowned lords and ladies cavort like storybook characters—apparently Shearer’s meticulously sewn outfits alone had a combined weight of almost one ton. And Herbert Stothart’s Oscar-nominated score matches the scenery perfectly whether its accompanying an opulent royal wedding or a harrowing midnight flight through a dark forest. Self-centred aristocrat or naïve pawn—she was only 19 when she ascended to the throne, part of a political pact between Austria and France—directors W. S. Van Dyke and Julien Duvivier don’t profess to offer us a history lesson. What they do leave behind however is a slice of pure movie magic.
The Closed Doors (Egypt 1999) (7): Teenaged Mohammed has not had an easy life. His father abandoned the family long ago, his older brother is missing and presumed dead in the ongoing Gulf War, and his mother is barely making enough money to maintain their squalid apartment in one of Cairo’s poorer neighbourhoods. Now, with the onset of adolescence, he is further plagued by mood swings and sexual urgings he doesn’t know how to handle. All of which make him a prime target for a group of fundamentalists operating out of the local mosque. Hiding his own fears behind a facade of righteousness, koran firmly in hand, Mohammed sets out to “correct” his strong-willed mother’s sinful ways (she refuses to obey the right wing rhetoric of her son’s new mentors) as well as those of his next door neighbour, an unhappily married woman who makes a few extra pounds as an escort… With production values and performances barely one step above an Arabic soap opera, writer/director Atef Hetata’s exposé of one troubled young man suddenly thrust into a moral crossroads he’s ill-equipped to manoeuvre nevertheless makes for some powerful (and highly contentious) viewing. As a grandiose orchestral score ebbs and floes in the background, political propaganda and religious tirades compete with secular entertainment on TV sets and radios—turning Mohammed’s predicament into a metaphor for an entire nation. Whether it’s the wailing voice of a muezzin interrupting an erotic wet dream (“God forgive me!”) or the sight of a woman’s bare knee pushing temptation to the breaking point, Hetata’s critique of earthly (and entirely normal) desires going up against the overbearing precepts of fundamentalist Islam starts off innocuous enough before snowballing into something none of his characters are prepared for. A confrontational piece of filmmaking despite its modest means.
Zift (Bulgaria 2008) (6): Bulgaria’s Best Foreign Language Oscar submission for 2009 is this B&W homage to Film Noir which, despite its lapses into wordy navel-gazing, still pulls off a few clever twists while thumbing its nose at the country’s dalliance with Communism. Jailed in 1944 (just before the Communist coup) for a murder he didn’t commit, embittered “Moth” is finally a free man. But the past is waiting for him in the form of an estranged wife and a murderous associate, both of whom joined Moth in a botched diamond heist which resulted in his imprisonment and the disappearance of the stone. Convinced Moth knows the whereabouts of the missing gem after all these years, his associate hires a couple of goons to extract the information from him while his wife, a femme fatale hovering in the background, holds on to a few secrets of her own… Shot in crisp 35mm with flashbacks in 16mm and blurred 8mm, director Javor Gardev’s Bulgaria is a dank and gloomy world of crumbling architecture and flooded basements in which a woman’s bathhouse sets the stage for a novel chase sequence involving a glass eye (?!), a nightclub chanteuse belts out a bit of irony, and a midnight visit to a muddy cemetery provides more questions than answers (and breaks the tension somewhat with a very funny fart joke). Zachary Baharov, as the film’s buff and shockingly tattooed protagonist—and film’s voiceover narrator—gives us a passable Eastern European Bogart (or Edmond O’Brien) trying to evade goons and crooked officials alike and leaving audiences to wonder just how much he actually does know. And meanwhile in the background radios dutifully announce the time in between jaunty Socialist tunes. Not a great film by any means, but Gardev certainly displays much more than a passing familiarity with the genre especially when it comes to staging and lighting, and his cast of hunks and dames—including a pair of nympho nurses—know how to lay it on thick and heavy.
Ghost World (USA 2001) (7): For BFFs Enid and Rebecca high school graduation threatens to unbalance the equilibrium they’ve formed over the past four years. Perpetually depressed goth chick Enid (Thora Birch in black dye and horn rims) is in the habit of projecting her own insecurities onto the world around her in the form of cutting remarks and cynical asides. Slacker Rebecca (17-year old Scarlett Johansson sans make-up and hairspray) on the other hand has begun to feel the first stirrings of maturity as she seeks out gainful employment and an apartment to call her own. But when the two misfits decide to pull one last mean prank by answering a lonely hearts ad placed by dumpy older geek Seymour (Steve Buscemi personifying apathy and desperation) it has unforeseen consequences, especially when Enid’s guilty conscience starts to elicit other feelings she never realized she had… Shot in primary shades with a background cast of colourful nerds and eccentrics—from a nunchucks-wielding greaseball to an airy-fairy art teacher—director Terry Zwigoff’s teenage angst dramedy certainly reflects its comic book origins. Birch’s monotone delivery and affected sense of adolescent ennui are spot on as she sets the stage for Enid’s emotional comeuppance while Johansson provides the perfect foil-cum-sounding board as her character begins to sense there is more to life than joyrides and backstabbing. And Buscemi bridges the gap as his rubbery-faced fall guy goes from object of derision to the film’s only sympathetic player—albeit a rather pathetic one. Sure to resonate with anyone who has ever struggled through their teens regardless of what year they graduated (the film is vaguely set in the ‘90s), Zwigoff’s Oscar-nominated screenplay, based on Daniel Clowes’ comic, keeps things appropriately downbeat which makes those bursts of pathos all the more biting. And that beautifully ambivalent denouement is sure to divide opinions. The late great director Yasujirō Ozu used the image of faraway trains to suggest the implacable hand of fate at work, here Zwigoff relies instead on a rickety old city bus—a metaphor which, considering the circumstances, couldn’t have been any more perfect.
Digger (Greece 2020) (5): Touted as a contemporary Hellenic Western, writer/director Georgis Grigorakis’ sociopolitical family drama was Greece’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film. Living on several hundred acres of pristine northern forest, grizzled old farmer Nikitas (a convincing Vangelis Mourikis) is at peace among the towering oaks and quiet spaces. But a mining company has been buying up local properties and now they have their sights on his land. With the nearby townspeople already divided between those who want to preserve their way of life and those who welcome the jobs and financial incentives “progress” brings, a stubborn Nikitas refuses to sell out despite the company’s unwelcome intrusions on his privacy. And then a complication enters his life in the form of Johnny, a son he hasn’t seen in twenty years and who now claims half the property as his own thanks to a provision in his late mother’s Will. A generational clash of ideologies results with father and son refusing to budge on their opposing opinions while just a few kilometres away a giant mining machine—nicknamed “The Monster”—slowly devours the landscape. Cinematographer Giorgos Karvelas certainly shows an affinity for mist-shrouded trees and soaring cloudscapes (with dynamite explosions and belching industrial machinery providing contrast), his rustic barnyards and rain-soaked forest trails calling to mind an English landscape painting only with less pastoral pleasantries and more mud. And Grigorakis’ simple script mirrors these uncomplicated visuals. But despite the inclusion of some Greek politics this is essentially the same old “David vs Goliath” trope that’s been repeated so many times it’s become tired and redundant. Yes the heartless corporation is raping the land, yes the proud peasant’s Zen-like attachment to hills and dales is tragically noble. And of course, lost in Eden, father and son will eventually experience their own epiphanies—in a clever move a trundling backhoe becomes both an agent of destruction and an ironic quasi-spiritual metaphor all in the same day. Despite impassioned performances from the two leads, Digger eventually becomes just one more tedious sermon to the choir whose slow burn ends with a pop instead of a bang.
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (UK 1965) (7): An early omnibus collection from Amicus Pictures which scared the hell out of me when I first saw it on late night TV at the age of ten. Five strangers (among them Christopher Lee and a very young Donald Sutherland) wind up sharing a train compartment where they are joined by a mysterious sixth passenger (Peter Cushing barely recognizable with beard and caterpillar eyebrows). A doctor of the Occult, Dr. Schreck—it means “terror” in German!—soon whips out his tarot cards and proceeds to read each man’s horrific future leading to a series of spooky vignettes: a jazz musician gets a lesson in cultural appropriation when he “borrows” some native beats; a new husband begins to question his wife’s dining habits; a couple return from vacation to discover their garden has gone to hell; a man embarking on a DIY renovation learns the hard way that some walls are not meant to be torn down; and an art critic gets his comeuppance when a dead painter comes knocking. Time has definitely turned the chills into corny affectations but with Cushing and Lee anchoring the ensemble and Milton Subotsky’s script offering a few bizarre twists, including one very macabre closing scene, it’s perfect popcorn fare for night owls.
The Holdovers (USA 2023) (8): It’s Christmastime, 1970, and at a posh Massachusetts private school all of the staff and privileged student body has left for the holidays—except for three. Neurotic troublemaker Angus (Dominic Sessa) has been snubbed by his mother who wants some alone time with her new husband; forced to oversee Angus is curmudgeonly history professor Paul Hunham (Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti) who doesn’t have a family to go home to anyway; and supplying the meals is pragmatic cafeteria supervisor Mary Lamb (Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who is facing her first Christmas without her son who was killed in Viet Nam. As snow settles outside and emotions heat up inside, these three contrasting personalities will either learn a thing or two from one another or else go crazy trying… From the film’s opening credits featuring scratchy film stock and a dated Universal Studios logo to its soundtrack of songs from the likes of Cat Stevens and The Temptations, director Alexander Payne has accomplished the near impossible—created a period piece that actually feels like it was made way back then. While cinematographer Eigil Bryld capitalizes on a real life blizzard to give us telling backdrops of snowbound fields and icy Boston cityscapes, David Hemingson’s Oscar-nominated script balances poignancy with enough comic relief to keep things from becoming bogged down in cloying melodrama. Angus’ antisocial behaviour conceals a painful vulnerability which resonates with Paul’s own deep-seated unhappiness, and the friction between the two gives Mary a reason to move beyond her grief. And the three mains are perfectly cast: Sessa’s delicate features literally tremble with repressed anguish; Giamatti growls and sputters, his walleyed stare (courtesy of prosthetic contact lenses) making “eye-to-eye” conversations deliberately awkward; and Randolph’s cynical gaze and corpulent figure provide an unexpected anchor. Rules will be broken, secrets will be shared, and by the time classes resume all three will find their lives have taken a different direction—for better or worse. Despite his protests to the contrary, Payne has indeed given us a new Christmas classic—only this one can be enjoyed all year long. And that final scene will prove priceless to anyone who enjoyed Payne’s previous film, 2004’s Sideways.
Anatomy of a Fall (France 2023) (8): Not entirely happily married couple Sandra (Sandra Hüller, amazing) and Samuel have their problems. She resents being uprooted from her home in Germany to live in a remote French chalet near the village where her husband grew up. He resents her success as an author while his own writing aspirations are put on hold due to the demands of remodelling their house and homeschooling their visually impaired son, not to mention a major case of writers’ block. But when Samuel is found dead outside their home Sandra becomes embroiled in a highly volatile investigation as the courts try to determine whether his death was a result of suicide or murder—with Sandra being the sole suspect. Crisp wintry cinematography, a canny script which bounces between English and French, and a host of top-notch performances transform director Justine Triet’s policier into something far more profound. Not so much a whodunnit as it is a dissection of how we go about deciding upon the Truth when everyone seems to have their own version of it—from the Prosecution who creates a dismal picture of Sandra’s relationship with Samuel based largely on conjecture, to the Defense which presents its own version of reality, to a host of witnesses whose sympathies seem to be divided along gender lines. Then there’s Sandra herself, an outsider who struggles with the language even as her testimonies drop like bombs before a bemused magistrate. And despite being deceased, Samuel also manages to present his own ambiguous evidence just to muddy the waters even further. But the film finds its focus on the couple’s 12-year old son Daniel (a stunning turn from Milo Machado-Graner). Blind, both figuratively and literally, to the intrigues around him Daniel’s struggle to choose his own Truth will create a moral dilemma which threatens to overwhelm him. A knotty philosophical discourse posing as a tense courtroom drama that will leave you not so much questioning the verdict as wondering why you’re questioning it. And kudos to “Messi”, the border collie who played Daniel’s support dog “Snoop”. His impeccable performance as a silent witness earned him a Palme Dog award at Cannes!
The Ornithologist (Portugal 2016) (7): The trials and temptations of Anthony of Padua —the 13th century saint who wandered through the wilds assaulted by demons and tempted by visions of earthly flesh in order to prove his spiritual purity—are played out in the countryside of contemporary northern Portugal with director João Pedro Rodrigues tacking on a rainbow twist for good measure. After his kayak capsizes in unforeseen rapids, birdwatcher Fernando regains consciousness to find the once serene countryside now suddenly turned menacing with phantasms and animal familiars. Thus lost in a dark forest populated by yowling beasts and devilish pagans the atheistic Fernando embarks on a spiritual awakening which will see him bound by a pair of cackling Furies, propositioned by a trio of bare-breasted Amazons, and succumb to the heavenly charms of one very good shepherd… Rodrigues obviously did his catechismal homework for the film makes interesting, occasionally clever, allusions to the legends surrounding St. Anthony be it the symbolic wild boar (pig fat was used to anoint the sick) and avian cameos (infernal owls and a virtuous dove vie for attention) or Fernando—now considering a name change—offering his own version of Anthony’s “sermon to the fish”. And of course memento mori abound with our awakening protagonist stumbling upon a tomb and a grinning skull…and a resurrection of sorts. Admittedly it’s all very Catholic—even if the “Love of Christ” was taken a bit too far (the goats were scandalized)—but it could also be taken as a complex psychodrama detailing one man’s emotional metamorphosis, his only link to the “real world” a bottle of prescription pills and a series of worried texts from a lover back home. Finally, in the title role hunky French actor Paul Hamy gives rise to more than a couple of unclean thoughts himself.
The Hellstrom Chronicle (USA 1971) (7): “The Earth was created not with the gentle caress of love, but with the brutal violence of rape…” And with this baffling analogy Wolper Pictures begins its sensationalistic exposé on the insect world, winner of 1971’s Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Narrated by overly serious and slightly eccentric entomologist Dr. Nils Hellstrom (actually character actor Lawrence Pressman), Hellstrom Chronicle depicts insects as biological computers, disease-carrying assassins, and an implacable army of super-beings able to withstand everything from poison to radiation with a flick of their antennae. And to drive home this point we’re regaled with such sickening close-ups as a Black Widow spider devouring her mate and a battlefield between ants and termites strewn with maniacally twitching body parts…scenes of writhing lizards being dragged into a colony of ravenous ants are almost too much to bear. Unfolding like a horror movie with Pressman’s grim voiceover hovering like one of the four horsemen, nightmare images (bugs are damn ugly) get paired with chilling trivia suggesting that man is ultimately helpless against the wee soulless beasties for while we poison our environment in an attempt to eradicate them, they simply adapt and multiply—one clip of African farmers racing about helplessly as hordes of hungry locusts descend from the sky would be right at home in a ‘50s monster flick. “Where there is no intelligence, there is also no stupidity!” admonishes Hellstrom/Pressman as he gives the human race yet another bitch slap in the face using a withering comparison between our corrupt society based on power and greed, and a well-maintained hive of bees where the idea of self is sacrificed for the sake of the whole. “Without the burden of intellect, emotion, or individual identity, these creatures were given something we weren’t: the knowledge that they must work together to create the elusive utopia…” drones Hellstrom who takes the opportunity to rub our faces in it yet again—and as the screen fades to black with the image of a triumphant beetle backlit by a setting sun you’re left to decide whether or not to cringe in terror or laugh out loud. Or just grab the flyswatter and reassert your own superiority. As an aside, this film served as inspiration for Frank Herbert’s 1973 science-fiction novel, Hellstrom’s Hive. Reading the book and then watching the movie (or vice versa) definitely doubles the shiver factor!
Marked Woman (USA 1937) (7): Despite some horrible overacting by a 29-year old Bette Davis, this crime drama is surprisingly ahead of its time. When sadistic mob boss Johnny Vanning (a reptilian Eduardo Ciannelli) takes over the nightclub where they work, five hostesses find their duties now include being wined and dined by out of town clients—and more if the price is right. Cowed into submission, the women try to make the best of a bad situation until Vanning’s ruthlessness leads to a terrible tragedy for Mary (Davis) one particularly headstrong hostess. Once a mute witness to her boss’ schemes, Mary is now determined to bring him down with the help of an idealistic District Attorney (Humphrey Bogart)…but can she convince her co-workers to help her? And will Vanning simply sit back and allow her to ruin him? Notable at the time for its frank depiction of violence against women, its arguments against gender inequality, and its disheartening portrayal of sexual exploitation—due to Hollywood’s strict moral code at the time you’ll have to read between the lines because prostitution is only vaguely hinted at—the story follows the usual arc towards triumphant justice. But directors Lloyd Bacon and Michael Curtiz throw audiences something of a feminist curve ball at the very end with a scene suggesting that even though the film’s female protagonists managed to survive a battle, the war is far from over. Inspired by the real life trial of gangster “Lucky Luciano”.
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (France 2006) (9): Five years before they tap-danced their way to the Oscars for 2011’s The Artist, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo teamed up for this side-splitting James Bond spoof, one of the funniest films of that particular ilk I have yet to see. Set in 1955, he plays special agent OSS 117, a French spy whose suave mannerisms and devilish good looks belie the fact he’s basically a clueless, insensitive, and egotistical boor while she plays his undercover contact in Cairo where he’s been sent on assignment. And when the two of them get caught up in a dangerous international mess involving Nazis, Russian arms dealers, Egyptian terrorists, and an angry deposed princess the laughs start piling up in earnest! Lampooning every espionage movie trope he can think of, director Michel Hazanavicius and his team of writers mine everything from cultural differences and religion to the battle of the sexes to expose a mother lode of comedy. The sexual innuendos (including 117’s questionable leanings) are as corny as they come—sometimes a loaded pistol is not just a loaded pistol, 117’s cultural ignorance is groan-inducing (his attempt to shout down a Muezzin whose call to prayer disturbed his sleep is broadcast all over Cairo), and a botched assassination in a chicken factory ends in a flurry of feathered missiles (PETA beware!). And that smackdown bitch fight between princess and female operative, involving torn dresses and gratuitous lingerie, adds a smirk to the worst excesses of the Bond franchise. For her part Bejo plays it mostly straight, her character looking on with increasing hostility as a blissfully ignorant 117 repeatedly sticks his foot in his mouth until she just can’t take it anymore… A thoroughly enjoyable flick rife with visual gags and corny one-liners all tied together with a sharply satirical script, and Hazanavicius’ decision to film the entire production using 1950s technology—poorly made miniatures, shamelessly obvious rear projection screens—makes it all the more hilarious. Ian Fleming would have been livid but Hitchcock, I believe, would have smiled.
Beyond Tomorrow (USA 1940) (5): One expects a “Christmas Movie” to be somewhat sentimental but this gushingly sweet confection from Academy Productions is enough to put audiences into a sugar coma that’ll last all the way into the New Year. On Christmas Eve in New York City Jean and Jim, a pair of lonely strangers, are brought together thanks to the intervention of three wealthy old men living in a nearby mansion. Sadly, as the weeks pass and romance begins to bloom between the two tragedy strikes and their three benefactors are killed. Returning as ghosts, the elderly trio await their ultimate fate—until Jean and Jim’s relationship begins to falter (his singing voice lands him a lucrative contract and puts him in the crosshairs of a man-eating diva) and the deceased millionaires realize it’s going to take a bit of supernatural intervention to set things right again… In the 80-minute church sermon which follows, director A. Edward Sutherland threatens to bury us under an avalanche of warbling choirs, sickeningly precious kids (Jean works at a children’s clinic), and compulsory cheer while the Almighty makes a series of ham-fisted cameos amid swirling clouds and blinding arc lights. As Jean, Jean Parker alternately weeps and beams like a good little martyr while Richard Carlson, playing James, yucks it up as a Texas yokel seduced by the Big Apple. In fact the only performances of note come from Charles Winninger as one of the tycoons—a feisty Irishman determined to see the good in everyone—and Maria Ouspenskaya playing her usual Eastern European eccentric, this time as a deposed Russian noblewoman now content to serve as housemaid. Trite and manipulative from its opening montage of twinkling ornaments to that final stairway to Heaven
You Only Live Once (USA 1937) (7): When Joan, the public defender’s bubbly secretary (a virginal Sylvia Sidney), marries newly released inmate Eddie (an angry Henry Fonda) whom her boss once represented, both her boss and her meddling older sister see nothing but trouble ahead. But the two lovebirds are committed to making a go of it, even putting a downpayment on a little home they can call their own. What they hadn’t counted on however was the public’s deep-seated prejudice towards ex-cons which caused more doors to be slammed in their faces than opened—from honeymoon hotel proprietors (The Wizard of Oz’s Margaret Hamilton playing a different kind of wicked witch) to potential employers. With their dreams of wedded bliss starting to crumble around them, especially after he’s implicated in a murder he swears he didn’t commit, Eddie is tempted to return to his old ways while an ever faithful Joan is determined to follow him no matter what. Tragedy, it would appear, is inevitable. Romeo and Juliet turn Bonnie and Clyde in director Fritz Lang’s weeping melodrama notable at the time for its portrayal of violence and human suffering as well as its sympathetic portrayal of a former prisoner whose attempts to go straight are marred at every turn by the court of popular opinion. Sidney practically glows through the smiles and tears as her character searches for those elusive silver linings, and Fonda’s anti-hero gives off romantic vibes even if his bursts of outrage sometimes feel just a bit stagey. For his part, Lang piles on the irony and pathos with each poor choice the couple is maneuvered into making inevitably leading to another leaving us to guess which way it will all end. Graced by suitable metaphors—crooked roads, fogbound forests, gates (both pearly and otherwise)—Lang’s noirish romance certainly nudged the envelope for 1937 cinema. Its dramatic conceits may seem a bit naïve to contemporary audiences but the pure star power of Fonda and Sidney coupled with Leon Shamroy’s evocative cinematography suggest a story which is greater than the sum of its scenes.
Coming to America (USA 1988) (7): In the small but extremely wealthy African kingdom of Zamunda, Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy, who also co-wrote) is facing his upcoming arranged marriage with trepidation. Having grown up the ridiculously pampered son of an overbearing monarch (James Earl Jones) Akeem wants to marry a strong, independent woman and not some obsequious royal sycophant. With this in mind he travels to New York with his manservant (Arsenio Hall) where, posing as a penniless exchange student, he hopes to find the woman of his dreams. What follows is a completely predictable “reverse Cinderella” fairy tale chockfull of inside jokes and culture shock schtick as Akeem meets Miss Right and then must overcome obstacles including her meddling father (John Amos), her pushy boyfriend, and one very irate king. But Murphy and Hall manage to pull it off with a barrage of corny one-liners and expert comic timing which makes even the silliest joke seem funnier than it actually is. And the fact they portray multiple characters throughout is comedy genius with Murphy playing, among other things, a truculent middle-aged barber and feisty Jewish pensioner while Arsenio hams it up as an oily preacher and a brief but hilarious stint as a baritone-voiced barroom diva decked out in gaudy cocktail drag. And they’re backed up by a slew of surprise cameos from the likes of Louie Anderson playing a fastidious burger-flipper, Samuel L. Jackson as a wannabe armed robber, and a young Cuba Gooding Jr. making his debut as a barber shop customer. And a surprise Trading Places reunion is as funny as it is unexpected. From opulent African sets (with choreographed dance sequences by Paula Abdul) to a rat-infested hotel in Queens, director John Landis keeps the tempo brisk enough to prevent you from yawning while Murphy emits some of that old onscreen charisma which made him an 80s movie star. The plot may be tired, the ending a study in “happily ever after” clichés, but cast and crew (nods to the wardrobe people!) deliver what is essentially a silly old-fashioned Feel Good movie and for that I forgive them on all counts.
Franklyn (UK 2008) (5): In contemporary London three lives are about to converge: a suicidal artist (Eva Green) whose controversial pieces mask a lifetime of pain; a heartbroken divorcé (Sam Riley) infatuated with a woman he hasn’t seen since they were both children; and an anguished father (Bernard Hill) searching for his son who went AWOL from the military. And in an alternate reality a masked assassin (Ryan Phillippe) wanders the grimy, mist-shrouded streets of a fantastical metropolis ruled by religious zealots—imagine a steampunk version of Gotham City populated with thousands of colourful cults like the “Seventh Day Manicurists”. Going by the name of “Preest”, the assassin is riddled with guilt over a tragedy he was supposed to have prevented and he’s determined to punish the party responsible—if he can only find them. In writer/director Gerald McMorrow’s highly imaginative but persistently flawed urban fantasy desire and regret are made manifest by a group of despondent people so desperate for a measure of “happily ever after” that it consumes their present. And as each narrative strand progresses towards its conclusion connections, however tenuous, will be made and broken only to be revealed in a very different light for the final curtain. It’s a cerebral mix of psychodrama and fantasy tropes with arresting visuals—hellish skylines calling to mind the twisted landscapes of Hieronymus Bosch tower above a citizenry of infernal harlequins (kudos to the set and costume departments)—and McMorrow makes good use of light whether it be a sunlit street, a shadowy baroque cathedral, or a fog-choked urban maze. But the film’s emotional impact runs skin deep shaped as it is by pop psychology and a string of Hallmark moments which threaten to scuttle the whole production. And that big twist can be seen a mile off as the director doesn’t so much drop hints as shout them from the rafters causing the Grand Finale to lose much of its punch—in fact I think I may have groaned a bit. An intriguing concept nevertheless (though not exactly original) which ultimately flounders under the weight of its own cleverness.
