The King’s Speech (2010) Review

15 06 2011

Copyright See-Saw Films 2010

★ ★ ★ ★

Where to start?  Well, I think Academy Award winners and nominees might be a good place to freshen up the new stock of reviews to come from the back log.  Why not start here with last year’s Best Picture winner The King’s Speech? Sounds like a plan to me.

This was one of the few films last year I actually made it to the theater for.  I hate to say it, but with Netflix, I have become increasingly lazy with the idea of driving to the theater and paying $7 to $8 to watch a picture, but some films are worth seeing on the big screen.  After the well-referred reviews and Oscar nominations this film garnered, I figured it’d be worth the admission.  In the end, it was.

The film revolves around King George VI’s (Colin Firth) reign as monarch of the British Empire beginning in 1936 and primarily focusing on his rule through World War II.  Bertie, as he is referred by friends and family, assumes the throne following the abdication by his elder brother Edward VIII.  Though well brought up to be king, the newly named monarch is worried about his noticeable stammer.  Having been to many specialists for correction over the years, he is quite reluctant to try another; however, at his wife’s behest, he begins sessions with Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), a speech therapist with unique methods.  Their tumultuous relationship as “doctor” and patient, result in a lasting friendship and new found courage for the king.

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Writing, Directly for the Screen, this is a solid film.  Firth and Rush are brilliant in their respective roles, as is Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen Mother.  The direction by Tom Hooper is stagy and textbook, but works for the picture which is driven by performance.  A bit tailored for its eventual Oscar glory, being that it is exactly what the Academy likes to see (historical, period piece, drama), it is still an interesting telling of a truly inspiring story.


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The Thin Man (1934) Review

23 05 2011

Copyright 1934 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

I had heard the name of the Thin Man series for many years and seen copies of various installments of the series in the local library since I was a kid.  For some reason, however, I had never taken the opportunity to watch any of the films.  This past weekend, the first installment, aptly entitled The Thin Man, made its way through my Netflix queue and into the mailbox.

Genre wise, the film is a murder mystery caper.  When a well-to-do inventor, Clyde Wynant (Edward Ellis), leaves town and doesn’t return, the local police force unravel a web of suspicious characters, all with ties to Wynant.  After several people end up dead, Wynant’s daughter, Dorothy (Maureen O’ Sullivan), decides to confide in an old friend and former private detective, Nick Charles (William Powell), to help in solving the mystery.  The only problem is that Charles no longer works as a detective.  After marrying a wealthy socialite, Nora (Myrna Loy), he quit his day job and began living the easy life.  Nick and Nora, both insatiable alcoholics, spend their days drinking, having parties and taking care of their little dog, Asta.  Nick at first declines Dorothy’s offer to get involved, but Nora, who never knew him as a detective, thinks it would be exciting and urges him to take the case.  In the end, he reluctantly agrees.  Between drinks, he begins working on the case and catches on to many more clues than the police force, who are led by Inspector John Guild (Nat Pendleton).  To identify the murderer, a large house party is held at the Charles’s with all the suspects in toe.  The final deductions are made and the mystery is solved in grand style.

This is a very fun movie to watch.  It’s a murder mystery that, at the time was breaking new ground in story and plot that we are used to all to well today.  However, the film still holds up amazingly well.  The dynamic chemistry between Powell and Loy is a large part of what make the film so fun.  They play off each other with such lovingly jest that you can’t help but smile when they are on screen together.

Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett, the film was originally supposed to be a B-movie.  Because of this, the entire film was shot in only two weeks by director W. S. “One-Take” Van Dyke.  To think that a feature film like this could be made within two weeks is truly mind boggling!  In the end, the film became an immense success and garnered Oscar nominations for Best Actor for William Powell, Best Writing for an Adaptation, Best Director and Best Picture.  Furthermore, the film spawned  five sequels, all with Powell and Loy in the leading roles of Nick and Nora.


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Slacker (1991) Review

19 05 2011

Copyright 1991 Detour Filmproduction

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but great characters are really what make a great film.  Slacker is a perfect example of this concept.  Why?  Because it is essentially a plotless film with an ensemble cast that is really, really good.

Made on a $23,000 budget on 16mm, this was Richard Linklater’s (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, Scanner Darkly) first well-received feature on a large scale.  It was shot in and around Austin, Tx., and is largely just a series of vignettes centered around various 20-somethings.  Some of the various characters include a man who has just run over his mother, a crazy old conspiracy theorist who assaults people verbally with his views, a JFK assassination enthusiast, some guys who work on cars all day long, a girl trying to sell Madonna’s pap smear, etc.  It’s definitely a bizarre mix of characters, but the film manages to keep you intrigued throughout.  Early musings on later concepts explored in Linklater’s Waking Life also seem to be taking root in this early film with several pontifications on dreams.

The direction is very straight forward with minimal cuts; this, most likely, is due to budget constraints.  However, it works for the type of film being told.  The story, though plotless, has extremely sharp dialog that, in my opinion, is what makes the movie so damn entertaining.  A lot of the actors are obviously amateur, but bring a level of naturalism to the parts that really sell the roles.  Even Linklater himself makes an appearance as the main character in one of the vignettes at the beginning of the movie.

I really enjoyed Slacker.  It’s bizarre, comedic and witty, all elements of comedy that intrigue me the most in this genre of film.


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Anatomy of a Murder (1959) Review

16 05 2011

Copyright 1959 Carlyle Productions

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

This film is the epitome of courtroom dramas.  It’s epic, at two hours and forty minutes, and includes a huge cast of characters that centralize around a single murder case.

Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) is a former District Attorney who has recently lost his post in election and has reverted back to private practice.  Seemingly upset over loosing his post, he spends most of his time fishing or drinking with his old lawyer friend Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O’Connell).  One day Biegler receives a call from Laura Manion (Lee Remick) about taking on the case of her husband, Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara), who is currently awaiting trial for murdering a bar owner, Barney Quill, who supposedly raped Laura.  McCarthy tells Biegler to take the job, and he does.  Being that Lt. Manion was able to premeditate the murder, the best defense they have is a plea for temporary insanity.  The last two hours of the film are intense courtroom drama between Biegler as the defense and Asst. State Atty. Gen. Claude Dancer (George C. Scott), who is helping the local prosecuting attorney in the trial.  Witness after witness come through and the tides seem to change back and forth until the final verdict is given at the end of the film.

Wendell Mayes wrote the screenplay based on the book by John D. Voelker.  The script is extremely tight and has very realistic dialog for the era it was produced, which sometimes tended to be a bit melodramatic for modern tastes, especially in films of this nature.  Austrian born Otto Preminger directed the film and boy did he direct the heck out of this movie.  There are lots of dollies and other various motions in almost every shot that keep the film visually interesting.

The acting across the board is awesome.  Gazzara, O’Connell and Scott as a supporting cast are tremendous.  Remick as the flirty victimized wife really gives a great performance and is dazzlingly beautiful in this film.  The real kudos here, however, belong to Jimmy Stewart.  His portrayal of the relentless Biegler is a standout performance and, in a career as illustrious as Stewart’s, that’s saying a lot.  Every minute he is on screen is captivating.

At the time this movie came out in 1959, it was very risque because of the taboo subject matter of rape and murder.  It definitely has lost a little bit of the shock and awe from what 1950s audiences felt, but the film overall still holds up amazingly well.  If only films like this could be released these days, then there might be a reason to make it to the theater more often.


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The Accused (1988) Review

12 05 2011

Copyright 1988 Paramount Pictures (Canada)

★ ★ 1/2

This film was recently added to the instant queue and, since its got an Academy Award-winning performance in it, I decided to give it a try.  I can’t say that I was too impressed overall and, don’t get me wrong, it’s not because of the delicate subject matter being a put off; I just don’t think this was a very good movie.

Directed by Jonathan Kaplan, the movie is loosely based on a true story that happened in Massachusetts in 1983.  Jodie Foster plays Sarah Tobias, a low, working class waitress, who is gang raped at a dive bar by three different men during a late night of drinking and doing drugs.  The prosecutor for her case, Kathryn Murphy (Kelly McGills), agrees to a plea bargain with each of the three men and they get 3-5 years in prison; however, in the plea bargain their crime is not listed as rape, but as a lesser offense.  Tobias is, understandably, upset over not getting to tell her story in court and the light punishment the three men receive for the heinous crime they committed against her.  Soon after, in a video store, a man starts to taunt her and associate her with the rape victim from the bar.  She wrecks her car into his truck out of frustration and it is found that this man was in the bar that night as one of the cheering crowd who watched the rape.  Murphy, determined to bring justice and make up for the plea bargain of the assailants, brings a case against three patrons of the bar who cheered the other men on, trying to convict them as accessories to the crime.  A court case is held and Tobias gets to tell her story, as well as a key witness who is a friend of one of the assailants.  Is retribution achieved?  I’ll let you watch the film if you want to find out, though I’m sure you can probably guess and figure it out.

The story for this film is a decent premise for a courtroom drama, but it just kind of fizzles out over the course of the movie.  The whole film seems like a good premise for a movie, but just doesn’t fully work in execution.  Kaplan’s direction was completely and utterly boring.  Every shot felt as if it were out of a filmmaking 101 textbook.  Furthermore, the one supposed shining moment of the film, the Academy Award-winning performance by Jodie Foster, didn’t really knock my socks off.  Sure, she had some great scenes and it was an impressive performance, but I wouldn’t call it electrifying or stand-out as some critics have suggested.  It most certainly is not the caliber of performance she delivered for her second Oscar in Silence of the Lambs.

Maybe I saw this film on a bad night or something, but I just couldn’t get into it.  It’s rated pretty well by IMDB and most critics seemed to generally like it.  For me, it’s not terrible, but it’s nothing to write home about either.


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Blue Valentine (2010) Review

10 05 2011

Copyright 2010 Hunting Lane Films and Silverwood Films

★ ★ ★ ★

So, this movie was kind of what I was expecting in a lot of ways, but in a lot of other ways a lot different than I would have imagined.  I knew it was going to be a low-budget indie flick, but I was not expecting the level of emotion presented in the film.  Based on the ads, it seemed like it was being marketed as a light romantic comedy; that assessment couldn’t be further from the truth.  This film is definitely an emotionally charged drama in every sense of the definition.

The premise is fairly simple: Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) are a couple; their relationship is told in a series of flash forwards to the present day and flash backs from when they first met.  Honestly, that’s exactly what the logline of this film would have to be; it’s that simple.  In present day, Dean, a painter with no education and sort of “from the streets”, and Cindy, a nurse who once had aspired to be a doctor, live a fairly normal lower-middle to middle class life.  They have a kid, Frankie (Faith Wladyka), between them and seem to have a very stressed relationship together, though they both very much love their daughter.  In the flash back sequences, we see student, Cindy, and mover, Dean, falling in love.  The two characters are vastly different from their past selves to their present selves in how they behave in general and towards each other.  Essentially, this film is the tale of Dean and Cindy falling in love and, much later, falling out of love.

Like I said, this is a very straight forward plot.  Story-wise, direction-wise and cinematography-wise, there isn’t really anything stand out about this film from any other well-made indie drama/romance.  What sets this film apart and what makes it so well revered by critics, in my opinion, are the performances by Gosling and Williams.  They truly make this film; each of them portray the characters with such vital realism that you truly feel like you are experiencing the emotions they are going through on screen.  By the time the film was done, both Maddie and I were literally mentally and physically exhausted.

This is not a perfect film, but definitely a jewel of independent cinema.  It’s films like these that come along and make the careers of some young director, this time Derek Cianfrance, that keep all the rest of us in the game, constantly forcing ourselves to create a better and better product to compete.


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Freakonomics (2010) Review

9 05 2011

Copyright 2010 Cold Fusion Media Group

★ ★

Apparently the book that this documentary is based on by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner sold nearly 4 million copies.  For the sake of reader’s interest, I hope the book was more entertaining and informative than this movie was.

As an interesting concept, the film was divided into four segments and written and directed by several different well-known documentarians including: Morgan Spurlock, Eugene Jarecki, Alex Gibney and Rachel Grady, among others.  There were four major sections overall: one segment on names entitled “A Roshanda By Any Other Name”; one segment on cheating entitled “Pure Corruption”; one segment on crime called “It’s Not Always a Wonderful Life”; and one segment on incentives entitled “Can a Ninth Grader be Bribed to Succeed?”

Going in order that they appeared, I found the first segment on naming to be marginally interesting and somewhat entertaining.  However, the majority of the information provided could have been summed up in a sentence rather than 25 minutes of screen time.  The second segment, which featured information on cheating in sumo wrestling, was the worst and it was the longest segment!  I didn’t care at all about sumo wrestling, the economic data they presented or anything else this segment had to offer.  To be honest, I fast forwarded through about 20 minutes of this segment because it was brutal.  The third segment, which dealt with crime in early 1990s, was by far the most interesting of the entire film.  If this segment would have been a stand alone short film, it would have probably won some awards and gotten rave reviews because it was very well presented.  Then, like the first, the fourth segment was only marginal.

Interspersed between the four segments are various interviews with the two authors, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.  Both of them seem really arrogant and condescending in how they present their information.  It’s a shame, because some of the material seemed like it could be really interesting.  After seeing the guys who came up with it, however, it makes it feel like it could loose validity.

I would not recommend wasting your time with this film.  The only part I can recommend would be the third segment.  So, if you are interested in this film, just go to Netflix instant watch and fast forward to about an hour in for that and then just be done with this movie after that.  There are too many other good documentaries to waste your time on this one.


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Ryan’s Daughter (1970) Review

7 05 2011

Copyright 1970 Faraway Productions

★ ★ ★ 1/2

This was the final of David Lean’s epics made after 1955 that I had yet to see.  The accompanying films in the bunch were Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zchivago and A Passage to India.  A huge Lean fan, I had always heard that this was his least impressive effort.  Actually, because of Pauline Kael’s scathing review of this film upon its release, Lean would wait 14 years to direct another motion picture.  The film itself, however, though very long, is not a bad movie by any means.  In relation to David Lean films it might not stand out, but in relation to other movies in general, it’s actually a pretty good movie.

The story takes place in a small town in Ireland in 1916, as British troops are just beginning to occupy the Irish countryside.  On a grand scale, the film tackles plot points of the rebel’s fight towards arming themselves under the lead of Tim O’Leary (Barry Foster).  Yet, the real crux of the story as the title suggests is focused on the bar keep’s, Thomas Ryan ‘s (Leo McKern), daughter (Sarah Miles).  A spoiled young girl, constantly referred to as “princess” by her father, falls in love with the kind, mild-mannered school teacher, Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum).  Though he is much older than she, they eventually marry and settle into the schoolhouse quarters on the edge of town.  At first a happy marriage, she soon starts to look for more in life.  When a crippled British officer (Christopher Jones) comes to the local British camp, she immediately falls for him.  Their torrid affair dominates the middle portion of the film.  So, essentially, you have a love affair set to the back drop of political turmoil in 1910s Ireland.  In the end, the affair proves a terrible mistake for everyone invovled.

As usual with a late Lean film, everything about this movie is epic.  The production design, the locations and the sweeping camera movements are amazingly well put together.  To top it all off is the beautiful, Academy award-winning cinematography by Freddie Young.  I could go on for paragraphs about Young’s work; every shot in this three hour film is just absolutely breathtaking.  I can only hope one day to possess the creative and technical brilliance that he exuded behind the camera.  But, I must say, that this type of film does lend itself quite well to cinematography with its locations and period setting.

The acting, on a whole is very well-handled.  Sarah Miles and Robert Mitchum both did incredible jobs in their leading roles.  Christopher Jones, who played the British officer, I had heard was very hard to deal with on set and they had to dub his lines over in post.  All in all, they must have done a good job cutting around his performance because I didn’t really notice it being that bad.  John Mills, who played the village idiot, as Tropic Thunder would suggest actually went pretty much full retard, and won Best Supporting Actor for it.  He plays the part with such childlike wonder though, that I can easily see how he pulled off such an award even though his character never spoke a word in the film.  Another fine turn was made by British actor Trevor Howard as the patriarchal preist who brought equality to the small town with an iron fist.

All in all, I don’t see why people give this film such bad reviews.  Yes, I agree that it could have probably been 30 minutes or so shorter than its three hour and fifteen minute running time.  Yet, for such a long running time, the movie carries interest and entertains surprisingly well.  To me, this was definitely as good as  A Passage to India.  Sure, it wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia or Bridge on the River Kwai, but you can’t strike brilliance too many times in a row in one lifetime.


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Go (1999) Review

6 05 2011

Copyright 1999 Columbia Pictures

★ ★ ★ ★

Doug Liman’s previous effort, Swingers, is one of my favorite comedies of all-time.  I think every time a relationship ends, I watch that movie for moral support and to remember that I’m money baby.  Anyway, I’d had this film sitting in my queue for quite some time with a definite interest to watch it, but for some reason always passed it over for something else.  I’m glad I finally sat down and watched it last night, it was well worth the watching.

The story, by John August, kind of plays out like Pulp Fiction; however, rather than hoodlums and gangsters occupying the intertwining stories, it’s a group of teenagers and 20-somethings.  There are three main stories in the film which follow the characters of Ronna (Sarah Polley), who is a cashier at a local grocer who cons a drug dealer; Simon (Desmond Askew), a fellow cashier who gets involved way over his head on a trip to Las Vegas with his buddies; and Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr), a couple of television detectives who are having to help a real detective to get a drug charge dropped.  All three of these stories flow into and out of one another in a very cohesive and entertaining script that takes place over the course of one night.  There’s comedy, drama and action all bundled into one in this one and it actually pulls it all off quite well.

Like Swingers, Liman shot this film in addition to directing it.  It has the same raw quality with lots of handheld shots and a grainy, pushed negative look.  For this type of film, that kind of direction and camerawork actually works really well.  To me, this is where Liman as a director succeeds the most, and I’d love to see him come back and make some more films like this one and Swingers at some point in his career.

The ensemble cast all do a great job and, as previously mentioned, the script is very tight and solid.  I could understand some people not liking the multiple intertwining storyline structure here, but I fall flat for them.  I loved it in Pulp Fiction, loved it in Short Cuts, love it in this film and love it in many others.  I’ve said before that I feel characters are the real crux of what make good stories and, in my opinion, films like this with large, developed ensembles interacting with each other on multiple levels, makes for a great film.

So, if you like Swingers and think you would like something that is kind of Pulp Fiction Lite, then I would highly recommend this film.  It’s not necessarily a deep movie, but it is a hell of a lot of fun to watch.


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Alfie (1966) Review

2 05 2011

Copyright 1966 Sheldrake Films

★ ★ ★ 1/2

For a long time before seeing this film I had always associated it as a comedy; even IMDB identifies the film as such.  Yet, I didn’t really see this film as a comedy at all.  Not that it didn’t have a few comedic moments, but all in all, this was a very dramatic film.

The film follows cockney cad, Alfie (Michael Caine), as he goes from “bird” to “bird” in the swinging 1960s.  He’s the epitome of a shiesty  playboy, sleeping with other men’s wives, getting women pregnant and not staying with them, having staunchly patriarchal relationships and even sleeping with a good friend’s wife and forcing her to get an abortion.  However, with each mishap and side step, Alfie comes closer to realizing that you can’t find happiness in this manner of life.  He always thought he had it all figured out, but in the end, the question lingers as the title track to Cher’s theme song says, “What’s it going to be, Alfie?”

As with many of the films I’ve seen over the last week or two, this film had some really great moments, but on a whole was a bit long and boring at times.  Lewis Gilbert directed this film and I have always liked his very fluid directing style.  For those of you unfamiliar with Gilbert by name, he directed You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker in the Bond series.

Technically, I think the main flaw with the film is its running time of nearly two hours; the subject matter just peters out after a while.  In my opinion, this is a film that I think I would have much preferred had it only ran for about an hour and a half.  Also, worth noting, is the fact that this film is incredibly British; so, if you aren’t up to speed on 1960s British slang, you might want to have Google open to figure out what’s being said at times.

The best part of the film is probably Michael Caine’s performance.  I won’t say it’s amazing or one of my favorite Caine performances, but it was a breakthrough role for him that made his career. Also, in many ways, this role is very much against type from what we’re used to seeing Caine in these days.  Supporting cast includes Shelley Winters, Millicent Martin and Julia Foster.

Overall, this isn’t a bad film, but has things about it that keep me from giving it a higher rating.  It was remade in 2004 with Jude Law taking the leading role of Alfie.  I haven’t seen the remake, but I’ve heard that it is much worse than the original.  In that case, I think I’ll pass.


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