Kaze's Movie Notes: Archive 17

Rope (1948) ***
The murder victim is stuffed into a chest in the parlor just before the party guests arrive. Jimmy Stewart’s job is to rattle the murderers; gets a little rattled himself. Lesser Hitchcock.

Detective Story (1951) *****
Kirk Douglas is nothing short of volcanic as the tormented cop who can’t show anyone a little mercy--including himself. A cast full of pros helps him out, and he makes one of the all-time great movie exits.

Pickup on South Street (1953) ***
Richard Widmark cold-cocks Jean Peters, then wakes her by pouring a beer on her face. It’s tough-guy noir all the way. Historical interest.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007) **
Cyber-terrorists crash the country’s electronic infrastructure, not realizing that it's bad to mess with John McClane. Willis still cool but CGI now allows for stunts too implausible to thrill you.

Crimson Tide (1995) ***
Serious silliness onboard as Hackman and Denzel keep taking and retaking control of a nuclear sub readying launch, with the clock, as usual, ticking like mad. Suspense, holes galore.

Kaze's Movie Notes: Archive 16

Brothers (2005) ***
Psychologically rich but terribly sad tale of an honorable man who, in wartime and under duress, commits an act for which he cannot forgive himself. When he returns home, nothing’s the same.

Island in the Sky (1953) ***
Guy stuff. John Wayne and crew of four go down at 70-below. A host of well-liked Warner Brothers supporting actors fly repeated missions to find them. Courage, gentlemen.

Romance and Cigarettes (2005) **
Ten minutes in, James Gandolfini fights with his wife Susan Sarandon, goes out into the street and breaks into “Lonely Is a Man Without Love.” All the neighborhood guys join in. From there, it’s all downhill.

Sunshine (2007) **
First half: intriguing space mission to reignite the sun. Second half: psycho killer onboard. Too bad. Visually spectacular throughout, and the tone is mostly serious, but the plot lets us down.

Eastern Promises (2007) *****
A great thriller. Possibly too brutal, but the Russian mob brutality raises the stakes for everyone--morally and mortally. All you can do is hang on tight and hope things turn out okay. See it.

RasoirJ's Movie Notes: The Blue Angel

The Blue Angel (1930) director: Josef von Sternberg (Rating = 4 = I liked it a lot)

A wonderfully entertaining film that stands up better than anything else I’ve seen from the early talkie era. Germans with their hierarchical educational institutions, rigid social class distinctions, and capacity for angst can really nail a humiliation story. In the decline and fall of Professer Rath under the spell of the cabaret singer Lola Lola, director Josef von Sternberg has created on one level a brilliant farce, maybe the first screwball comedy on screen. We see Herr Professor first as the lord of all he surveys in his classroom and the keeper of social order – the supreme superego. When he enters the Blue Angel, he encounters a cluttered, confusing, yet deeply seductive backstage world where all that the classroom represses is loosed. I found myself chuckling again and again at how Von Sternberg crams the dressing rooms with silent clowns, props, cops, floozies, students, and assorted low-lifes in constant bustle.

Emil Jannings as the professor dazzled by Lola Lola puts on an acting workshop in his disintegration from august deity of the gymnasium to cuckolded clown who crows for a living onstage. And it’s a grand pleasure to be there at the birth of the Marlene Dietrich legend. As the good-hearted realist Lola Lola, Dietrich seems to spend most of her camera time changing her extraordinary skirts backstage, but there are also plenty of those iconic shots of Marlene onstage in lingerie and top hat stretching out those legs as she sings “Falling in Love Again.” Pure movie bliss.

RasoirJ's Movie Notes: Bright Star

Bright Star (2009) Director: Jane Campion (Rating = 3 - I liked it.)

Jane Campion and her two stars, Ben Whishaw as the poet Keats and Abbie Cornish as his great love Fanny Brawne, manage the remarkable feat of making this sad, tortured yet enduring love story both credible and moving. I feared the costume-drama prettiness and attitudinizing that often mars historical biographies of the British type, but Whishaw and Cornish are compelling as the young lovers fate frowns upon. It helps that both actors are fresh faces. Whishaw nicely embodies Keats’s diffidence and dedication as well as his quiet genius. Cornish, with her severe hairdo and extreme self-possession, is a little jarrring at first, but soon wins us over with her capacity for devotion. There’s nothing of the giddy girl about her.

This is a tough story to make interesting – a poet dies young of TB while everybody looks on, able to do nothing – and it lags some in the second half, but Campion makes up in authenticity what she lacks in dramatic action. Warning: Much poetry gets recited on screen, so this film is recommended for those who appreciate Keats and the English Romantic poets.

RasoirJ's Movie Notes: Pandora's Box

Pandora’s Box (1929) – Director: F.W. Pabst (Rating = 3 = I liked it)

Has there ever been a greater life force on screen than Louise Brooks as the large-hearted vamp Lulu? Now I see what Howard Hawks meant with his famous remark: “The camera loves some people.” The camera loves her eyes, her black bob hairdo, her every gesture. Men are helpless before her charm, but the sheer power of her cheerfully non-discriminating need to capture every man who strolls across her path destroys them one by one. The source material - Frank Wedekind's plays - infuses the film with a withering irony that seems quite comntemporary. This is the first silent film I’ve seen with credible psychological realism, though of course Lulu, as incarnated in Louise, is larger than life. A star is born. Too bad Louise Brooks did not have as big a career as Marilyn Monroe.

RasoirJ's Movie Notes: Up in the Air

Up in the Air (2009) - Director: Jason Reitman (Rating = 4 = I liked it a lot)

It takes the charm of a Cary Grant or a George Clooney to pull off the role of a corporate downsizer who travels the country to fire people and is perfectly adapted to his ecological niche. Like a shark, he has to keep moving to stay alive. Also, there are very fine women’s turns by Vera Formiga as Clooney’s female equivalent and girlfriend (when their travel schedules match up) and Anna Kendrick as the fresh-out-of-Cornell kid who tries to learn the firing game from old master Clooney. The script provides much smart, ironic humor here threaded with big serious themes. We get to see a lot of firings up close, and the array of responses from actors who look like real people is a fine index of how much we invest in our jobs.