02/23/08
Schoolgirl Report #2 (1971)
Ernst Hofbauer
The second of thirteen film produced in German that takes a look at the schoolgirl and what turns her on. The films pass themselves off as a documentary that includes short stories about the teen girls but also interviews people on the street in regards to various sex questions. This time out we learn about teen girls who trap their teachers into sex, young couples exploring each others bodies, how young should a girl start and various other topics. If you're actually looking for some sort of documentary on female sexuality then just walk right pass this one because the only reason for this film is the nudity. There's nothing hardcore here but the girls are constantly getting undressed and into various sexual situations. The film certainly comes off very campy today and that's one reason why I think it holds up quite well. The film starts to drag towards the end but if you don't mind a lot of nudity and don't take the film too seriously then it remains entertaining.
Mannequin (1937)
Frank Borzage
John Crawford plays a poor girl living in a rundown apartment with her parents who begs her boyfriend (Alan Curtis) to marry her so that she can get out of where she lives. Hours after the marriage, a rich man (Spencer Tracy) gets talking to the couple and soon tries to get Crawford to leave with him. At first she refuses but then her husband starts showing signs of her father in that he has no big plans for the future. THis film isn't anything special but the performances make it worth watching. Crawford comes off very believable here as the poor girl who wants something in her life yet has to struggle with her family and then husband to get it. Tracy is also very charming here and comes off quite strong. His calm and cool touch comes off very well for the character. Ralph Morgan has a nice supporting role and Leo Gorcey plays Crawford's lazy brother. The screenplay is pretty weak and predictable from start to finish but that doesn't keep the entertainment value down.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Ethan & Joel Coen
A hunter (Josh Brolin) comes across a group of trucks with dead bodies everywhere and discovers $2 million in cash, which he takes. Soon a psychotic killer (Javier Bardem) is after him while a local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) tries to figure out what's going on. I'll start off by saying that I'm not a big fan of the Coen brothers. With that out of the way, this is certainly the best movie I've seen from them but it goes downhill very quickly in the final thirty-minutes, which are quite horrid to be honest. However, everything before that is masterfully done with a beautiful craft that makes this familiar story come off very original, dark and at times funny. I really enjoyed the slow pace that the film carries but I'm not sure if that's how I should describe it. The movie has plenty of graphic violence and action and what makes it so shocking is that it usually comes out of no where or happens when you don't expect it. The pace of the film is slow but this helps when the violence breaks out. The performances are all terrific with Bardem stealing the show as the psychotic killer. Whenever he's on screen you can't take your eyes off of him and his silent performance speaks more than any words could. I was also very impressed with Brolin who I'm usually hit and miss on. Woody Harrelson has a few nice scenes and Tommy Lee Jones is the old Tommy Lee Jones we all love. The film was a lot of fun until the conclusion, which I thought was quite awful.
Journey Into Fear (1943)
Norman Foster
Joseph Cotten plays a US engineer aboard a boat being stalked by Nazi assassins. I've read about this film for several years now and there's seems to be some debate about Orson Welles re-editing the picture as well as filming new scenes for it. The movie plays out a lot like something Welles would do and it seems he had more of a hand in the production than he's credited with. With that said, this film plays out like a lot of the RKO products of the time in that it has a small budget but tries to make it as stylish as possible. The film on a technical level looks very good with some nice camerawork, which helps push the story along. The screenplay by Cotten could have used some work but it's good and the film pushes its 68-minute running time nicely. Cotten is very good in the lead and the supporting cast is also impressive with Dolores del Rio, Welles and Ruth Warrick turning in fine work.
Away From Her (2007)
Sarah Polley
A husband (Gordon Pinsent) must come to terms with his wife's (Julie Christie) Alzheimer's disease as she slowly begins to forget him and starts a relationship with a crippled man living in her nursing home. In 2006 we had
Venus, which was clearly made to try and get Peter O'Toole an Oscar and I think this film was made to get Christie another award but in my opinion the entire heart and soul of this movie belongs to the terrific performance by Gordon Pinsent. Christie is certainly very good in her role but I found the role to be pretty simple whereas Pinsent had a very difficult role, which determined the actor to display a lot of different emotions. For the most part his character is very quiet so the actor must use his body motions and eyes to display his feelings and these feelings come off very clear and heartbreaking. As for the film itself, I was left rather disappointed outside of the performances. I think the film went on way too long and all of the stuff with Olympia Dukakis's character could have been cut. Polley handles the material very well and shows a lot of strong touches for a director who isn't even 30 years old yet.
02/24/08
Redacted (2007)
Brian De Palma
U.S. soldiers working at a checkpoint in Iraq see a 15-year-old girl, which gets their dicks hard so they eventually rape her, murder her and her family and then set them on fire. It's really hard to judge this movie because on one hand it's pretty well made but that's no excuse for the propaganda coming at you every single second of the film. There's no question this is an anti-Iraq movie made by anti-Iraq people and that's why we see the things we do. Every negative heard about American troops is on display here, which is why this film is so one sided and why I couldn't enjoy the movie. I don't give a rats ass what ones opinion on the war is but a movie needs to be open and look at all sides of an issue but this is just like a Michael Moore film as we see one side and that's the side of the director and not necessarily a side with all facts. The American soldiers are all show as crazy, raping idiots who would probably be too stupid to have a job if they weren't in the Army. Is this a good way to show troops? The Iraqi people are shown as innocent victims yet we never see the ones going around blowing innocent people up. Wait a minute, we actually do in the film when one soldier has his head cut off but the film shows this as the right thing to do to the soldier. I could go on and on about this political propaganda in this film but the actually rape case is something DePalma did before with his Vietnam film
Casualties of War. The film taking one incident and trying to show it as everyday stuff is just as bullshit as
The Birth of a Nation. I think it would be fair to say that De Palma has lost a lot of his talent over the past few decades and it's getting harder and harder to get a good film from him. I'll end my review on this last opinion. I find it funny that celebs in Hollywood think they can bring peace to the world, end hunger, magically make dueling sides like one another and rebuild a community yet they can't even make a good fucking movie. Perhaps it's just me but if they can't even make good films or pick a good screenplay then how in the hell are they going to have the brains to do something bigger?
Lodger, The (1944)
John Brahm
Second remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 thriller has an elderly couple (Sara Allgood, Cedric Hardwicke) renting the attic to a mysterious man (Laird Cregar) who might just be Jack the Ripper. The first remake was pretty forgettable but this second one is pretty good from start to finish and contains some things that are better than the 1927 version but others aren't as good. The one improvement is the strong cast that includes Merle Oberson and George Sanders as well as the three folks I mentioned. Cregar has a very strange look that is perfect for the killer and his soft spoken voice is another bonus. The production design is a lot bigger here but this comes at a cost as we get a couple song and dance moments, which are pretty worthless. The one thing that could be debated among the first three version of the film is the ending, which isn't changed here, although the location is. I liked the ending here, although it seemed like they were paying an homage to
The Phantom of the Opera.
Poppy (1936)
A. Edward Sutherland
Remake of D.W. Griffith's
Sally of the Sawdust has W.C. Fields playing the same role of a con man who tries to get his daughter (Rochelle Hudson) into a rich family. I was somewhat disappointed by this film and must say that the Griffith film is somewhat better even though that wasn't that good either. Fields has a few good jokes but for the most part the film doesn't contain too many laughs but it still kept me entertained throughout its 73-minute running time. I think the best joke happens early in the film when Fields sells a "talking dog" to a bar owner. I think several of the jokes don't work and that includes a long running gag dealing with a guy buying five bottles of something even though he didn't want them. The supporting cast includes Richard Cromwell, Granville Bates and Catherine Doucet.
