An alcoholic drifter and former country singer (Robert Duvall) is unable to pay his bill at a small motel in Texas, he volunteers to work it off. Soon he falls in love with the motel's owner Rosa Lee (Tess Harper) and marries her. He begins to pull his troubled life together and maybe plot a comeback as he is able to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Ellen Barkin) while bonding with Rosa Lee's young son (Allan Hubbard.)
MY THOUGHTS
Many of the best indie dramas since the 90's have been low-budget 'small films' that were well-written and showcases for great actors portraying interesting, if troubled, characters. Those countless films clearly used Tender Mercies as a template. 2009's Crazy Heart is a great example and it borrows more than a little from this film and is probably one of the better examples of the influence of this film.
Robert Duvall has always been one of the best actors out there and this is one of his best roles. Often a supporting performer elsewhere, he shines in the lead as Mac Sledge. Sledge is a difficult role especially with balancing the darker elements with the lighter, dry comedic aspects of the character. Mac Sledge and his world seems very real. It's a very subtle and subdued performance that fits the character like a glove (or guitar.) The subtle way he is able to make that transformation from a dark soul to a warm and centered one because of a the love of a woman is the highlight of the film. He definitely deserved the Oscar for Best Actor that he won here.
The supporting performances augment the fine performance by Robert Duvall, as do the direction and screenplay,. They help make Mac Sledge one of the main highlights of his long successful career.
You do not need to be a fan of country music to find the film to be great. The film speaks at a far deeper level. You will be able to reflect on your own problems as Mac tries to conquer his.
When aging CIA agent Miles Kendig (Walter Matthau) is put out to pasture, he quits. In order to get back at his boss (Ned Beatty,) he vows to write his memoirs which will reveal critical secrets of all the major world powers. Kendig sends his book out one chapter at a time to all the involved parties and tries to stay one step ahead of them... who will stop at nothing to keep him from publishing the book.
MY THOUGHTS
A very entertaining and fun cat and mouse spy tale.
The script of Hopscotch moves with the intelligence and suspense of the best of James Bond films, though it is a very different animal.
It's that different animal because of Walter Matthau. The film offers him a great opportunity to display his unique skills to their fullest. Matthau was equally adept with comedy and drama. His wholly original mix of charisma, charm and gruffness is used to perfect effect here. He handles the mix of high comedy and high drama far better than, and with far more sophistication and subtlety, than Roger Moore's James Bond.
Hopscotch also benefits from Matthau's genuine chemistry with Glenda Jackson, playing an old flame. The two make for a quirky but realistic couple.
The film is also filled with many other great actors in supporting roles which flesh out the world and Kendig's character like Herbert Lom as Kendig's Russian counterpart and a young Sam Waterston as Kendig's protege who's forced to go after him, yet admiring and rooting for him the whole way.
Matthau is great with comedy and drama and Hopscotch is perfectly able to balance them. The comedy never lets you forget that Kendig is in serious and life-threatening trouble... or destroys the realism the film is able to maintain. Yet at the same time, the drama never gets too heavy handed and is often broken up at just the right time by a one-liner or crazy situation. It never gets too silly or overly dramatic to be believable and that is a very difficult balance to maintain.
A perfect film for lovers of Walter Matthau or fans of spy films looking to laugh.
1946 - 20th Century Fox
Directed By Alfred L. Werker
SYNOPSIS
Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw) goes to San Fransisco to meet her returning POW husband (Frank Latimore.) She gazes out her window at witnesses a man murdering his wife. She goes into a severe shock. Her psychologist (Vincent Price) just so happens to be the murderer... and he will stop at nothing to make sure she is unable to tell.
MY THOUGHTS
Vincent Price shines in an average b-movie.
The film is a part of the Fox Film Noir series and like many of those entries, calling it 'noir' is a little iffy. The extreme shadowing and unique camera angles are barely evident here. Perhaps it's due to the film's b-movie status and quick shooting schedule. It was shot in just 19 days.
Thematically it does fit the noir category. Murder and deceitful characters are essential noir elements. The film seems more than a little influenced by Hitchcock's Spellbound.
Shock is also able to create and maintain a decent level of suspense throughout... though calling the film 'Shock' is a bit misleading. Janet Stewart may be in shock, but the film is not shocking at all. It's rather routine instead.
The characters spout all sorts of psychological jargon and theories. Some of it seems real, while the rest seems as phony as the technobabble in 50's sci-fi B-movies.
Vincent Price is able to spout the occasionally silly babble without seeming ridiculous. Whether in horror films or otherwise, Price always shined playing dark shady roles. The roles seemed to always be written to be 'all bad' yet Price is always able to make them seem more human and real. This is one of them, and he's a delight to watch.
All in all, it's an entertaining film, if a bit predictable.
Country singer Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) has led a rough life on the road... too much booze, smokes and ex-wives. He meets a young journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and falls for her and her 4 year old boy (Jack Nation.) After a car accident, Bad finds out his destructive lifestyle is killing him and stops touring. His relationship inspires him to write songs for the first time in years... but his alcoholism stands to doom their coupling.
MY THOUGHTS
A ho-hum movie containing an amazing performance.
You cannot begin to discuss this film without singling out the amazing job by Jeff Bridges. Bad Blake is created wholly in the flesh and seems to be a real person like Waylon Jennings who just happens to have an invisible camera on him as he goes about his life. Bridges' bushy beard ages him perfectly to give him that look of a man that lived a rough life.
It may not be his single best performance, but it's up there. Bad Blake is the sort of flawed, troubled character that Oscar likes to single out come awards time, so Bridges finally won his first statue for this film.
Who knew he could sing so well? If he wasn't such a great actor, I would definitely say he missed his calling.
The music is outstanding. It's sad what passes for country music these days doesn't hold a candle to these songs. Music producer T-Bone Burnett was also responsible for the soundtracks to O Brother Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain (among others) and this collection of songs is just as strong.
Storywise, the film offers little new. It's your typical troubled musician story that plays like a dramatized version of VH-1's Behind The Music. The script feels like it's puzzled, unsure whether to tell a plot-driven story or deliver a character study... so it does a bit of both and moves at an unsteady and unsure pace.
The Bridges/Gyllenhall relationship is a bit awkward, as is their chemistry.The whole 'lonely single mother looking for any man's attention' cliche is in full effect. But that doesn't bring the film down... and in fact helps flesh out the Bad Blake character.
Crazy Heart is not a very original tale, but it's one that is made great by Jeff Bridges amazing portrayal.
Two decades after an alien mothership breaks down over Johannesburg, government agent Wikus (Sharlto Copley) is put in charge of moving the alien refugees to a new camp. Wikus is exposed to biotechnology and is slowly turning into one of the aliens. In order to be cured, he must team up with an alien and get some missing fuel to return the alien drop-ship to the mothership.
MY THOUGHTS
At it's best, science fiction is able to tackle contemporary social issues and address them in an abstract way, and bring the viewer (or reader) new insight.
The original Star Trek TV series is one great example. Because the writing was so strong, it was enough to make you forget how bad many of the sets looked, hammy performances, bad special effects. The show was able to make subtle, yet powerful, statements about racism, the Cold War, Vietnam and dozens more issues. With it's sci-fi bent and subtle storytelling, the show was able to slip this commentary right under the nose of the TV censors, who would have completely rejected the episodes and keep them off the airwaves.
District 9 boldly attempts to be relevant and meaningful in the same way... but fails. The film flaunts it's views on racism and xenophobia within the first few moments, completely without any subtlety and never lets up.
It's like being repeatedly bashed in the head by a croquet mallet. Once is enough, but it keeps hammering away until you've bled out.
The camera never passes up a chance to linger on the 'no non-human loitering' signs - clearly a take on the old 'white's only' signs in 20th century America. The film is set in South Africa, no stranger to racial problems in recent times. The alien's camp resembles any refugee camp you'd see on the news or even a WW2 concentration camp. This message would have been as easily tackled in a 5 minute short.
Especially with it's setting, no doubt the screenwriters got help from this book:
The social commentary is grafted onto a basic action plot that's as unrealistic as any Steven Seagal movie. The wimpy, nerdy (not to mention sick and injured) Wikus is able to escape from an underground quarantine lab in "the most guarded building in the world." Unlikely.
With the entire world alerted to his escape, he is able to go into hiding. Wikus (now add malnourishment to his list of woes) and an alien return to the same heavily guarded building, break in, and take the vital fuel for the alien's ship and are able to escape again with relative ease. The authorities know exactly where they are headed yet cannot stop them. Preposterous.
This fuel that they go get is also somehow responsible for turning Wikus into an alien. How?
When things begin to look very grim, some sort of alien mechanical suit magically shows up for Wikus to wear which looks like the lovechild of Ripley's mechanical suit from Aliens and a Michael BayTransformer. Ugh.
A 'clever' way to write yourself out of a script jam.
We're introduced to the characters and situations in a documentary style*, which ultimately feels just like the reality garbage people are force-fed every night on television. I, for one, avoid television for this reason and despise the fact its creeping into cinema. The film forgets this as the plot gets going but reverts to the documentary style whenever it slows down. (*I hate to use the term 'cinema verite' here because style and subtlety are so crucial, which are completely lacking in District 9)
District 9 never fails to cut to 'live news footage' to make a statement about the overeager news media. Somehow their news tickers are able to report things like 'massive casualties' mere seconds after an incident happens. Any reputable news source would wait to confirm information like that before putting it out there (even Fox News!) So.... is it commentary on the media... or poor writing/filmmaking? You decide.
None of the human or alien characters are remotely interesting. Sharlto Copley (as Wikus) does a decent job, but Wikus is pretty much an asshole and an idiot at the beginning of the film, so when he's infected, we don't give a crap. Every other character is one dimensional. Even Wikus' close alien ally, Christopher, isn't given much personality. It's hard to feel bad for the aliens because we never really get to know any.
The bloody action and special effects are nicely done, especially considering the film's small budget. District 9 is well paced and picks up steam, moving like a roller-coaster. But it's not enough to save the film.
It is absolutely ridiculous District 9 was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, but then again so was Crash, which also tackled racism with the subtlety of a nuclear bomb blast.
District 9 is the type of film that morons would claim as being meaningful and important.
Battleship Potemkin, about the 1905 Russian Revolution, remains revolutionary to this date. Popularizing the use of montage, it's hard to think of any film since that doesn't owe at least a small debt to this classic.
It's been a favorite of mine and I was eager to see how a film of it's vintage would look in hi-def.
I was pleasantly suprised to see how strong and vivid the images are, despite being 85 years old.
Sure, there are several heavy lines that do crop up in the film and heavy grain throughout (as it was made) but the film has never looked better. The quality of the new transfer shows vastly more details than any beat-up old print you'd see in a film class or on some budget DVD.
Facing the scissors of many censor boards through the years, Battleship Potemkin has gone through several versions.
Few records survive of the first cut of the film, or even its second official version showcased at its 1926 premiere in Berlin, so historians have painstakingly restored the film to make a close approximate of those early versions. The intertitles also changed through the years, and this version returns them to their originals.
The 1926 version featured its own original score performed by an orchestra and that is what you hear on the soundtrack. The music is very dynamic and newly recorded with slight adaptations to fit the pacing/editing of this new version. The score is vastly superior to any public domain version of the film with random music that doesn't fit the action.
You can learn about the music and film restoration from a 40-minute documentary included on the disc. Some photo galleries are also included showing behind-the-scenes photos and movie posters.
Battleship Potemkin is one of the best silent films and Kino International has done an excellent job steering it into this 21st century blu-ray world.
A documentary that looks into the short and turbulent career of The Doors in the late 1960's and early 70's.
MY THOUGHTS
Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors painted front-man Jim Morrison as a drug-fueled monster.
The film angered the surviving band-members who actually participated in the film and felt screwed over by Stone. This probably kept them from telling the definitive Doors story for nearly 20 years.
When You're Strange is that definitive story and differs from your average rocumentary. All the footage featured is vintage film of the band, much of it rare and previously unseen. There's no modern day talking heads like music journalists telling us how great the band was, or band members looking back with rose-colored glasses on the 'good old days.' All the interviews used are from back in the day when the events happened. Johnny Depp narrates the film's poetic prose, keeping in nature with Morrison's lyrics. But his monotone delivery makes him sound thoroughly bored, detracting from the documentary.
The Doors music is used in generous portions, from the biggest hits to deep album tracks, and uses rare live tracks and the familiar studio ones.
The tensions inside the band and their troubles (like Morrison's Miami incident) are not glossed over and are portrayed matter-of-factly and given equal time with the band's high points. (no pun intended) Jim Morrison appears more as an actual person with problems, unlike the beast in Oliver Stone's tale.
When You're Strange offers very little new info to die-hard fans of the group apart from the footage.
I would have liked if they carried the film beyond the death of Jim Morrison. The band actually continued on and made two albums as a trio before calling it a day. The style of the documentary probably would prevent this however, with the media being less-interested in the band following Morrison's death, resulting in fewer interviews and footage of this era.
For fans of The Doors, When You're Strange offers a definitive history of the band and unseen footage, but little else. For newcomers to the band, the film is a great introduction.
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