January 31, 2005
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
The Man Who Knew Too Much, a film by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenpaly by John Michael Hayes, is another Hitchcock film that excels in so many areas, yet is just lacking or ignorant enough in others to prevent it from being a total masterpiece.
Hitchcock reveled in the everyman becoming the center of a heinous plot, and The Man is a case in point. Dr. Ben McKenna (Jimmy Stewart), wife/singer Jo, and their son Hank (Christopher Olson) are on a bus to Marrakech when Hank accidentally pulls the veil off of a Muslim woman. A man apolgizes to the woman in Arabic, then introduces himself Louis Bernard (Daniel Gelin). They later decide to have drinks together, until Bernard myseriously excuses himself. Ben and Jo have dinner alone, and meet a couple Jo has suspected of spying on them. The couple - Edward and Lucy Drayton - admit to being admirers of Jo's singing, and the next day, they are all touring Marrakech together.
Suddenly, Louis Bernard, disguised as a Muslim man, comes around the corner with a knife in his back. He falls into Ben's arms and warns him of a government plot to kill a Senator in London. He tells him to find Ambrose Chapel, then dies. Ben and Jo soon learn that the Draytons have disappeared with their son, and receive a warning that if they reveal anything to anyone, Hank will be killed. The couple flies to London, where they hope to find their son.
As with all Hitchcock, that which works, works very very well. First off, this film contains two of the best performances in any Hitchcock film. When Doris Day first learns of the news that her son has been kidnapped, I expected the typical wish-wash of undirected emotions that comes from a director allowing his actors to do whatever the hell they wanted, so long as they were in the frame. Not so, however. Doris Day completely breaks down so utterly believably, her face contorting with pain for her missing son. Jimmy Stewart is similarly excellent as his slightly weak character attempting more than he is capable of working sheerly on emotions. Everyone else in the film are standard Hitchcock cast members, from the spies to the assassin to the prime minister character, but this isn't a bad thing.
I mentioned in my review of Strangers on a Train that Hitchcock seems to intentionally avoid setting his films firmly in reality, preferring instead to stylize them with unlikely plot turns, colors, movements, dialog, etc. At times, this works, and I can embrace the world he has created; at others, I wish he'd stick to reality. When Jimmy Stewart and his family are on the bus to Marrakech, it's clearly a rear projection of movement. Yet when they actually pull into Marrakech and show footage of it, you desperately want Jimmy Stewart to be there, part of the action. Because, hell, it's Jimmy Stewart in Africa! Not on a studio lot, but in Africa. How could a man be more out of his element? I'm not sure what the dividing line in footage is, but there is one seen that stands out, when Jimmy Stewart is in a crowd watching a man do a magic trick. However, everything is rear projection, save for Stewart, and you almost wish you could have seen the man amongst the swarming crowds. I think Hitchcock had a bit of Ed Wood in him that sort of said - that's not what I want to focus on, so it doesn't matter; if it looks like Jimmy Stewart is in Marrakech, he's in Marrakech. Similarly, in all the car scenes, I see no reason why they couldn't have actually pushed for a picture car.
However, I must mention that Hitchcock also smacks you over the head with information, and really isn't the master of subtle. For example, often in his films, when someone is spying on you, they are OVERTLY spying on you to the point of simply staring, then turning dramatically when you catch out. What I found amusing in this is that Jo suspects the Draytons of spying, which they are clearly doing. And then they reveal that yes indeed they were spying, as they recognized Jo and admire her voice! It's a very amusing twist.
That being said, the aspects of the film that take place in Marrakech are beautiful, from the blue restaurant to the nighttime city silhouettes, to the yellow deserts and colorful crowds.
The movie, in my opinion, takes a real downturn when they arrive in London, and as far as I can tell, it is all a means of getting to the big finale, which is worth it, but let's talk about that in a moment. This is when the bad (or neglected) elements of Hitchcock begin to show themselves. For example, it seems as if all the spies in his films are basically mom and pop operations, where there are about four or five people involved in the conspiracy. This makes for easy screenwriting, but when you learn that the Draytons make up the major part of the evil organization, it just gets lame. Furthermore, they unbelievably maintain a front at a chapel as a minister and wife seems stupid (again, I can almost picture Hitchcock coming up with this and thinking ingenious, but I find it unrealistic). I mean, that's the thing, you see the two main characters who are part of a bigger cause, but then it turns out the bigger cause is about two or three more people. Luckily, his McGuffin in the film - the actual assassination plot - gets by without explanation, which isn't always so (The 39 Steps McGuffin comes to mind as particularly noticably stupid). And this was the most disappointing aspect, as it showed that the screenwriter hadn't really pushed the threat of the story to its limits. I mean, when two average people topple the menace of ... two other people, it doesn't seem like they had much to begin with. Also, having just come from mysterious Morrocco, the small village sections of London are quite boring.
Again, this is all a means of getting to the climax, and what a climax it is. The assassin has been instructed to shoot a prime minister during a crash of symbols in a symphony piece, and the tension grows as the moments arrives. Jo is in the audience but doesn't want to scream out for fear of her boy getting hurt. It really is a wonderful scene, especially when the cymbal player - who has a single note in the piece - is just sitting there with his cymbals next to him...then slowly gets up...gets in position...
The film ends with a somewhat contrived scene in which they recover their boy and the wrongful parties get in trouble. And then, in true Hitchcock fashion, he ends the movie on a single brief 30 second scene, a sort of "that's all folks!" which always annoys me.
In the end, the premise, acting, Merrekech scenes, score, and finale are brilliance. The rest is cliched and really unthought out. Thus again, it pains me to award another Hitchcock film three stars.
***/****
(Three Veiled Stars / Four Stars)
Posted by nick at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)
Strangers on a Train
Strangers on a Train, a film by Alfred Hitchock with a screenplay by Raymond Chandler and Whitfield Cook based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, is a very good execution of a suspense yarn in standard Hitchcock fashion.
The story is well known - two strangers meet on a train. One, Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is a famous tennis player who is stuck in a bitter marriage he desperately wants out of; the other, Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), is the playboy son of a hated wealthy father who wants him to get a job. Bruno brings up his plan of trading murderers, which, when pulled off, will prevent the authorities from ever suspecting someone so unlikely would have been responsible. Guy quickly walks away, thinking Bruno to be a nut, then heads back home. He's been seeing a senator's daughter, and plans on divorcing his wife. However, she announces she's staying with him.
Bruno learns of this and follows her to a carnival one night. There, he strangles here and walks away. He then makes it known to Guy what he had done, and blackmails him into finishing his end of the bargain. Guy resists, but Bruno is unrelenting. Finally, they have a confrontation at the carnival, where an out-of-control merry-go-round leads to the end.
Hitchcock films always feel contrived, but I've begun to think of this as being intentional. I don't think the world is ever meant to feel fully real but instead somehwhat theatrical and phony, from the backdropped car rides to the unlikely events that happen. The merry-go-round out of control is one example of something that sort of works, sort of doesn't - but I can also imagine Hitch or the screenwriter coming up with the idea and being oh so confidant that it would work. And this level of confidence shows through, generally excusing something that's not exactly believable.
It is important to think in terms of images as a filmmaker, and there's lots to remember from Strangers. From the dark carnival which clearly represents carnal sins, to the shadowy streets of Washington D.C. A wonderful shot occurs when Guy is walking by the Lincoln Monument and sees Bruno in the distance standing at the top of the stairs, just staring at him. The camera is frequently tilted one side, giving a sort of cartoonish style to the film.
This is of course one of the films Hitchcock made with negative homosexual implications. Bruno clearly has some sort of crush on young Guy, and Guy doesn't necessarily seem the type to not have it in him. Frequently homosexuals were given negative roles in films, as can also be seen in Rope and one other which doesn't come to mind. Unfortunate, but such is life.
The acting is excellent on everyone's parts, though again, it's stylized acting and not meant to be realistic. Ultimately, my only complaint is that even though the film feels very thought out, there's only so much that can be done on the premise, and clocking in at a modest 90 minutes, it feels slightly throw-away. It's just a quick adventure that an every-man was thrown into with much less scope. Good stuff overall, but it seems as though there's always something lacking in most Hitchcock films to prevent me from awarding anymore than three stars. But hey, who am I?
***/****
Three Slightly Homosexual Stars / Four StarsPosted by nick at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2005
The Night of the Hunter
The Night of the Hunter, a the only credited film by actor Charles Laughton with a screenplay by James Agee (based on a book by Davis Grubb) is remarkable for primarily one reason: the performance of Robert Mitchum as disturbed preacher Harry Powell. Dressed in a black suit and hat, with "love" tattooed across the fingers on one hand and hate on the other, he is an unstoppable, unpredictable horrific force, and for that The Night of the Hunter shines through as a classic.
The story centers around two children, noble little John Harper and his younger sister, the doll-faced Pearl. One day, their father Ben comes home with thousands of dollars he has robbed from a bank and begs them to hide it. He is then caught by the police and hanged, leaving only his wife Willa to take care of the children. While in prison, Ben had met with a preacher named Harry Powell, who has a disturbed sense of moral justice. After failing to get information about the money out of Ben, Powell then decides to go after the mother and children. When it becomes clear that she knows nothing, he begins to hound the children. Soon, Willa gets in the way and he kills her.
The children run away and are taken in by a loving elderly woman who has adopted several other children. But Powell is hot on their trail, and a confronation late at night brings ruin for one party.
The story itself is at times suspenseful and at othertimes a bit long-winded and drifty. For example, after the children are attacked by the preacher, they set off down the river rather than alerting the authorities. Granted, children are stupid, but it still seems unlikely that they'd simply mum up about it all and get away. Meanwhile, the failure of their uncle, who discovers the mother in the lake, to tell anything about her is questionable. In addition, the scenes in which we see the children interacting with their new family, both before and after the confrontation scene, are a bit too Rockwellian in their apple pie charm.
In between this fat is a very engaging and suspenseful story about a preacher with a twisted set of values, who clearly believes that he is correct not sinning. The idea that such a seemingly harmless person could embody pure evil is disturbing. Furthermore, he simply keeps on coming at them, an unstoppable force. An excellent shot is of Powell on a horse on the very top of a hill, almost painted on the horizon as he walks slowly toward them. He moves slow, but he'll eventually catch up, and this implied confidence is an excellent suspense device.
The children were written to be a little annoying, especially Pearl who always seems on the verge of telling Powell the whereabouts of the money. However, great performances by all, from Willa as a newly converted religious devout, to the unmatchable Robert Mitchum.
The world they live in is somewhat unreal. Roger Ebert excuses this as intentional - that Laughton was trying to create this saccharine existence to then disrupt it with the unholiness of the preacher. However, I think it goes overboard, and the more removed from reality it is, the less impact the suspense carries. The world is eventually divided into the safe country homes and the dangerous, neon sign-filled city streets, and the parrallel is a bit laughable.
Ultimately, the film is about the suspense and not the bits in between, and if you can ignore those, you'll be fine. Furthermore, the end scene, in which John mistakes Powell for his father, is particularly intriguing, as it indicates a strong subtext of hurt and anxiety that he has been unable to overcome.
3 Hate-filled stars / 4 stars
Posted by nick at 11:04 PM | Comments (1)
January 24, 2005
The Amityville Horror (1979)
Not much to say about The Amityville Horror, which purports to show the 20-day house haunting. The scares are pretty much a combination of open windows and breezes mixed in with false alarms. Basically, it shows no imagination whatsoever, and while I'm sure the filmmakers excuse this as sticking with the source material, the source material is FAR from what resulted on celluloid. Entire subplots never even happened. And while the bleeding walls were neat, the floating head in the basement was incredibly lame, like a lame-ass effect from an old genie movie. Ugh. Avoid this Shining-Meets-Exorcist rip-off at all costs.
1.5 stars / 4 stars
Posted by nick at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)
Westworld (1973)
Apparently, tonight was James Brolin night, as I noticed after renting this and The Amityville Horror that both contained the firm-jawed Christian Bale look-alike.
Westworld was a disappointment, though it's pretty clear how writer/director Michael Crichton eventually picked up the pieces for Jurassic Park. The story is about a series of three resorts in the middle of nowhere that recreate various historical periods using robots as actors. Three, to be specific: a cowboy world, a midieval world, and a roman world. Everything goes in the world: murder, sex, food, etc. At a thousand bucks a day, its considered the ultimate fantasy vacation.
If you've seen The Simpsons episode where they go to Itchy & Scratchy Land, and the robots all turn evil, you've pretty much already seen this movie. In fact, The Simpsons did it better, funnier, more quickly, and had a better ending. The story here focuses on two vacationers, mustacheoed Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and experienced gun slinger John Blain (James Brolin) who talks Peter Martin through the ropes.
It's a neat premise, but the film mainly falls flat after the initial excitement dies away. At first, Peter Martin's enthusiasm is infectious as he takes in his share of gun duels, barroom fights, and prostitute sex. Then, the story is left to take over and it pretty much generates countless upon countless unanswered questions that all indicate the three worlds were not particularly well thought out. Just a smattering: So the world isn't open at night, when the scientists go out and round up the bodies? If they're so keen on no guests getting hurt, what happens when two guests start fighting each other in a barroom brawl? How can they possibily focus on so many different storylines at once? When the scientists cut the power, is it really believable that 1) they can't get the electric doors open and 2) die of asphyxiation? What happened to all the robots after the initial killing spree? I mean, it seems to only be unstoppable Robot Gunslinger played by Yul Bynner. And why, when Martin discovers the underground tunnel system that connects the villages, aren't there any exits? I mean the scientists have to come to work each day, right? Is there really just a single control room in the entire place?
And so it all falls apart. A slight backstory about Martin's divorce is mentioned, but it's pretty much useless. Everyone and everything is completely forgotten until it's just a cat and mouse chase between Martin and the Robot, and then the film ends abruptly. Potential premise, terrible execution.
2.5 stars / 4 stars
Posted by nick at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2005
Vertigo
Vertigo is frequently referred to as Hitchcock's most complicated and deep film, and having seen a good majority of his corpus, I have to agree. It's a thriller, a mystery, and a love story rolled into one film, which works well more often than not, but leaves something to be desired for me. I'm having trouble saying exactly what.
The beginning of the film is typical Hitchcock fare - a stylized chase across an obviously fake rooftop leaves a police officer dead and Jimmy Stewart hanging on for dear life. Stewart learns that he has a fear of heights, and thus quits the force (this is the first question I had about an element which seemed forced - how often do heights come into play for a police officer?). He spends some time with his female friend, with whom he was once engaged but was broken off. An old friend hires him then to keep an eye on his wife, who appears to be possessed by the spirit of a dead woman.
Stewart follows the woman, played by Kim Novak, around town until he saves her life. He falls in love with her, but she seems bent on dying in the same way that the spirit that haunts her did many years ago. She eventually does commit suicide, and Stewart drifts into total despair. He begins searching everywhere for likenesses and reminders of her, and soon finds a woman who is her resemblance. He begins to force the woman to dress like her, and and do her hair like her.
Spoilers! But this journal is for Nick. We are then presented with a montage that suggests that Kim Novak was all part of an elaborate scheme to kill Stewarts' friends wife. Novak posed as her to give an alibi for insanity, then did the ol' switcheroo when it was time for the actual wife today. Novak was then expected to disappear, but Stewart had still managed to find her.
Anyway, one night, after they seem together and in love (though he doesn't knwo her true identity), she puts on a jewel once worn by the spirit who she was supposedly possessed by. Stewart realizes this, and forces her back to the scene of the murder, where she ultimately meets her demise.
This was an easy, easy out for Hitchcock, in my opinion. I mean, Jesus, the woman creates an airtight case for being the dead spirit, then creates an airtight case for NOT being the spirit, then screws it all up by wearing the one single most important gem? More questions: whatever happens to the old college flame? There is a very interesting subplot that develops, then dies out to be forgotten. Are we left to assume that Stewart simply left her in the dust? Ah well, that's Jimmy.
The actual possession seems like a really, really stretch of a way to set up an alibi. I mean, it works, but it's also somewhat unbelievable that someone would go to such weird lengths to get away with the murder.
However, I see what Hitchcock was going for, and in that regard, I'm with him - that a woman involved in a murder con unfortunately falls in love with the man she should conning. There were excellent elements to the film - the beginning is very lyrical as Stewart follows Novak from place to place, and it almost lulls you into a sleep. The picture is almost angellicaly hazy, as the whites take on a comforting, soft glow. And this is all perfect for that crucial, shocking moment when she plunges into the bay.
One of my biggest problems with Hitchcock was his famous boast that he treated actors like cattle. Ultimately, he was more concerned with screen placement then anything else, and this is unfortunate because it is then up to the actors to pull of good performances with little direction from ... well, their director. Sometimes, great performanes get by, such as the quirky Norman Bates of Psycho. Character actors are also allowed to get in there, such as the standard villain prototype, and the cop/sheriff figure. However, I feel that his females often come off as the exact same person. Always super elegant to the point of artificiality. Kim Novak reminds me of Janet Leigh reminds me of Tippi Hedren reminds me of Eva Marie Saint. Meanwhile the men are left to play themselves. Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant play Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. Firm-jawed do-gooders always in suits with carefully combed hair.
The colors of this film are very intriguing, but I also have to admit I'm not a fan of Technicolor, as it always feels like I'm looking at pictures from a color magazine of the 1950's. I almost wish I could see what the film would be if shot on modern day stock, as I believe the true vision could come about.
I think there is a superb film in here, but I think it gets a bit lost and muddled with so many different elements. I don't think it's Hitchcock's masterpiece. The ending, above all, gets rid of the problem rather than trying to deal with it, leaving us in almost hte same place we were 20 minutes prior.
***/****
(three out of four stars)Posted by nick at 12:01 AM | Comments (1)
January 19, 2005
All Quiet on the Western Front
The older the film, the more you have to prepare your mind to enjoy it. For example, if I'm about to watch an old German silent film, I have to turn on intellectual mode and make a lot of excuses for the unavoidable shortcomings due to its infant place in the evolution of film. What is wonderful about All Quiet on the Western Front is that little of that need be done. It is an absolutely brilliant, beautiful, revolutionary film from start to finish.
It blows me away that the film was made in 1930. How was this possible? How was such amazing war cinematography even conceived of when the first talkie, The Jazz Singer, had only come out three years prior? The sound track is absolutely amazing, and to listen to it in a full volume surround sound theater would be incredible.
Another rarity is the fact that it openly questions war. Few films of the preceding 1920's did such a thing, and certainly not (to my knowledge) to the scope of All Quiet. The story begins in Germany while a parade for soldiers is underway. Inside a classroom, a teacher instills a sense of rabid patriotism inside his students, who all decide to go out and fight. This is perfectly shot by having huge picture windows behind the teacher as the uproarious parade goes by. The classmates all join, and we focus on them more as a group than on any single person.
At first the war is a bit of a joke. One vignette tells the story of how the cadettes get sick of their seargent, who seems to derive pleasure from seeing them wallow in the mud and run endless training courses. One night, while he is walking home drunk, he is suddenly attacked by the cadettes, who wrap him in a sheet then clobber him (reminiscent of the attack on Gomer Pyle in Full Metal Jacket).
Then they go out on the first night in battle, and as they run through the dark trenches, an explosion occurs, blinding a comrade. The man screams that he's blind, clutching his bleeding eyes and dropping to his knees. Meanwhile, the virgin soldiers simply stare wide-eyed. No one told them about this part.
While the film takes place during World War I, it could certainly be any war (I couldn't help but think of the soldiers currently stationed in Iraq, and how they would view this film). And it also could be any army. I didn't pay much attention at the beginning, and thought it was the British army due to an early credit. When I realized it was the German army, it didn't matter. The only time sides are mentioned is when a few soldiers talk absent-mindedly about why such a war would occur in the first place. Otherwise, they could be British, Americans, Spanish, French - whoever. The participants don't matter, the location doesn't matter. War is war, and war is always the same.
There are numerous moments in this film that come full circle, when a lesser filmmaker would've simply forgotten to grow a seed into fruition. The butterfly sequence is of course pivotal, but so is the transition from general to a man who can't remember his own name. Wonderful stuff.
The cinematography is amazing, especially the stuff during war. When a machine gunner takes out wave after wave of oncoming soldiers, the camera moves through the lines of falling men, then cuts rapidly back and forth to the gunner causing it to happen. Brilliant.
This is, without question, one of the best war films I have ever seen, and that exists. Saving Private Ryan seems like a sappy outing compared to All Quiet. Full Metal Jacket spends too much time on initiation into the war, and not enough on the important part. Ultimately, All Quiet also has scope going for it. Eventually, it is clear that the war will simply continue, with no end in sight. Long after all the students are dead and a new group has replaced them, the fighting will continue.
****/****
(ENTHUSIASTIC four stars out of four stars)
Posted by nick at 02:29 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2005
Million Dollar Baby
Don't go into Million Dollar Baby with expectations of seeing a Rocky of the 21st century, or you're going to be thrown a curve ball that might knock you over. At least, it knocked me over, and I had to seriously rethink the film from start to finish. I'm going to do my best not to give away any secrets about the film, and if you want to hear any of my further specific opinions, ask me in comments.
The main problem is that the film is deceptive about whose story the film is. Is it Rocky's? Or his trainer's? If you are taken into thinking it is Hillary Swank's character, like me (and perhaps this is intended), you have to completely redefine how you've been looking at the film about halfway through. Because ultimately, it's about the trainer played by Clint Eastwood, Frank.
Frank is a trainer who has a daughter that never returns his letters, and a few skeletons in his closet we later learn about. So when southern girl Hillary Swank shows up asking for him to take her on, he turns her down. She persists however, because she doesn't have much else - a shitty job, a family that doesn't love her, and an empty apartment to go home to. Frank works at a local boxing gym with his partner Morgan Freeman, who he once managed ages ago. Together, they begin to teach her, and she starts to get good. She gets bigger and bigger until, of course, the big fight.
Clint Eastwood is a fabulous director, and I really really respect the fact that he didn't just take his cowboy earnings and disappear from the film world. I consider Mystic River to be one of the best films of last year, and this was quite good. But there are two things to keep in mind with Eastwood: 1) he's dark as all hell, and 2) he's going to throw a curve ball at some point and really fuck with your expectations. Fabulous stuff, and I hope he lives long enough to get another few movies out.
The writing was excellent for the film, though I will say that the last 30 minutes of the film were unnecessarily long. I don't mean long as in boring, just too much pounding of the same thing into you. You'll get it when you see it. The characters were well written, as was the dialogue, story, and structure - and while it didn't stray far from the cliche we all have in our minds of a boxing movie, or reinvent it in any way, it still presented it in a fresh light. It really was a great experience to see a gritty darkly lit film take a fairly optimistic outlook on some subject. The background characters are also really well written, and a subplot involving a mentally deficient wannabe boxer named Dynamite has an absolutely wonderful finale. I mean really, really great stuff.
The acting was great as well. Hillary Swank shines as Maggie the boxer, and she just might win the Oscar this year for best actress. Eastwood was good in his role, but he's just being himself, so I don't predict any awards. Lots of good humor though, especially in his relationship with Morgan Freeman. The background characters are all excellent unknown finds, and I have to say that the casting on this film was top notch. The priest, Maggie's family, and the other boxers at the gym are fantastic.
The cinemtography is beautiful as well, with a lot of the same shadowy darkness as Mystic River. One particularly wonderful shot is when Frank is driving with Maggie in the car, and the light just barely lets us know that he's present. Yeah, Eastwood's world really is one of shadows and darkness, and I'm sure someone has a book or two coming on the subject.
I recommend that you see this movie. When I first came out of it, I was mad because it wasn't the movie I expected. But it's kept me thinking constantly about it ever since, and that's generally (not always) a good sign for any film.
Also, having seen it right after Kinsey, it proves that fictional characters can often carry so much more inspiration for fictional deeds than dramatized reality can.
3.5 stars / 4 stars
Posted by nick at 01:03 AM | Comments (0)
Kinsey
Kinsey is exactly the reason why I really dislike biopics, and why I have no desire to see Ray or Beyond the Sea or any other biopics coming along anytime soon. In a nutshell: the problem with biopics is that the question comes along: why not make a documentary? Why are we making a narrative feature film about someone's life? The negatives are obvious: the version will ultimately be heavily watered down, forced into a three act structure, contain countless scenes, dialogue, and people that never existed in the person's life, and ultimately make real life seem like the movies - which it clearly isn't.
What do we gain? Two things: 1) whoever really loves the person in question enough to make a movie gets his basic message distributed to the masses, who are then inspired for two hours before they hit McDonalds, and 2) there's room for a bunch of monologues by people who are ahead of their time given to people far behind the times. Again, I say why not make a documentary? As a writer, why stuck to facts that you still go out of your way to stretch? Ultimately, the worst thing for me is that it's almsot crucial that everone in the audience constantly be thinking: "i can't believe this happened!" And this is what bugs me most.
It didn't happen - at least, not in the way it's being presented.
So there's my bias, it's on the table, and it's amazing how Kinsey was exactly as I predicted it would be. We see a bunch of scenes that never happened in sexologist Brock Kinsey's life, his rise to fame, his downfall, and finally, his come uppance. The End. Really not much to say about the plot anymore than I could describe a riveting movie about the Titanic sinking (sans a love story) because we all know it. It's more on the performances, writing, and cinematography that everything matters.
And in that department, only Liam Neeson really shines, because he really inhabits the character. At times, I think his motivation gets past him a bit, and he becomes a bit to insisting about the scientific legitimacy of his work when as an audience member, you are wondering a tad. The rest of the cast falls short for one of two reasons. On the one hand, there are the people against Kinsey due to their Puritanical views, such as a professor played by Tim Curry or Kinsey's preacher/father, John Lithgow. In these cases, it is PAINFULLY obvious that the actors do not fully understand who their characters could hold their beliefs, and thus come off as charicatures of Bible thumpers and stodgy classical educators. Meanwhile, those on Kinsey's side also lack motivation, such as his wife, Laura Linney, who I think is often faking her understanding of why her character would be with Kinsey. Same goes for Peter Sarsgaard and the rest of his assistants, who begin to sleep with each other and stuff gets weird.
In the end, the bad guys are too weak and cliched, and the good guys too unbelievable due to lack of motivation. Once in a while, Kinsey's character fully shines through, but really, this is Bill Condon on a soap box using a dumbed down means to deliver his message to the masses. Good? Bad? All I know is that if you think he and his wife went around looking at trees and talking about their roots, you're nuts.
I'm giving it 2.5 stars (out of four) - tho if you push me, i MIGHT jack it up to 3 for over-all competence.
Posted by nick at 12:31 AM | Comments (1)
January 16, 2005
Jules et Jim
I just saw my first Francois Truffaut movie, and like most European character-driven pieces, it's difficult to judge on first viewing. Also, the fact that it's a renowned work, a Tuffaut film, and in a foreign language all serve to bias my opinion somewhat. In addition, not knowing anything about the context, the films that influenced it, and the films that were in turn influenced by it hurts as well.
In other words, I enjoyed it, but moreso on that "how interesting" level than outward sheer filmic enjoyment. It's the story of a pair of friends, Jim and Jules (French and Austrian, respectively) who are inseperable. Then a woman named Catherine enters their lives, and while she initially goes out with and later marries Jules, it is clear she loves both and eventually goes back and forth with each. And in this manner, her personality changes to suit her respective lover. Ultimately, she cannot decide, and brings everyone to destruction with her.
I just read the following in a review: "Set during the advent of World War I, Jules and Jim is an allegorical film about the turmoil between French nationalism and the German occupation of World War II. As with the characters' doomed love triangle, the film is a scathing indictment of a country led to ruin by lack of conviction and feigned neutrality."
Interesting. Necessary to understand the film? Clearly alegory should always be secondary to the story being told, unless the alegory is so painfully obvious as to be the story itself. Not to compare the two, but people keep talking about the allegory of The Village to the war on terror, and I think it's a secondary arguement to a shitty, shitty story.
Ultimately for me, it was a lyrical film that seems to deserve closer viewing for the more complex matters it alludes to. However, I think too much whimsy and free-floating direction turn me off too much to give it a second glance anytime soon.
****/*****
four/five starsPosted by nick at 04:46 AM | Comments (1)