Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Everyone in this lightweight 1947 musical is really cheerful. Given that it takes place in the 1890s, I’d say that ‘gay’ is probably the best word to describe it all. Irene Rich plays Lulu, a middle-aged woman who runs a New York boarding house, rented exclusively to artists and musicians. Lulu isn’t much concerned about whether or not her tenants pay rent; she’s so happy and gay that all she cares about is giving creative types a place to stay. Her tenants are likely to do things like breaking into songs as their gay moods strike them. The lovely Jane Frazee is the star, a singer and dancer who is just so darned happy to be alive that not much bothers her. She ends up in a love triangle with two fells who have just arrived from Boston. Meanwhile, she becomes the subject of a calendar illustration. This film was shot just as Vargas-mania was at it’s peak - his legendary run with Esquire magazine lasted from late 1940 through 1948 - so it is sort of amusing to see a film about a sort of Gibson Girl (the 19th century version of pin-up art) portrayed in the enventual titular calendar painting as what is very clearly a 1947 pinup (looks like it was done by Earl Moran or K.O. Munson). I wonder how many 1947 ticket buyers felt slighted at seeing their calendar girl wearing a big floral hat and an ankle-length skirt for most of the film, except for in a few quick shots of the actual calendar, where she time-warps into 1947!. This film is modestly entertaining, full of syrupy (if competently composed) songs, and characters who have never so much as stubbed their pinkie toes. Very gay, the whole thing.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
The original 1962 version of this thriller starred Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Need I say more? You can’t go wrong with either of these guys, and together they’re dynamite. Peck is a prosecutor who locked Mitchum up a decade earlier. Mitchum gets out of the slammer with a grudge against Peck. Peck’s wife and kid are easy targets, and it isn’t long until things get tense. Very tense. Mitchum’s character spent his time in lock-up studying the law, and he knows exactly how to beat the lawyer at his own game, getting away with terrorizing the family, untouchable by the cops. Mitchum outdoes himself as a real slimeball, but one with brains. Densely plotted, expertly performed, and starkly shot (by Sam Leavitt under the direction of J. Lee Thompson). Nice music from Bernard Hermann.
See this one.
Scorsese did a remake in 1991 with Robert DeNiro in the Mitchum role (Mitchum and Peck both appear in the remake too!). It is entertaining, but the original is better.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Casino Royale was the very first James Bond adventure to be written by Ian Fleming. The book came out in 1953, and launched a series that would include a dozen novels (and nine short stories collected in two further volumes), ending in 1966, shortly after Fleming’s death. He lived long enough to see just two of his Bond adventures on screen; the first Bond movie was Doctor No, in 1962. Since then, other parties have taken over the rights to Fleming's creations - there have been a total of twenty-three James Bond movies made to date (twenty-one of them by United Artists, plus one parody, and one made independently, allowed due to a loophole in an old contract). There have also been two dozen more novels, by four different authors. And then there are comic books, newspaper comic strips, video games...
But it all started with the novel Casino Royale, which interestingly was never turned into a ‘real’ Bond Film until 53 years after its publication (the title had previously been used as the name of the aforementioned spoof film). All of Fleming’s other novel titles had been used for films, most of which borrowed only the scantiest elements of plot or character from the tomes they were named after. Once Fleming titles ran out as potential names for movies, the movie producers came up with titles that sounded “Bond-like”, and even named one film, Goldeneye, after Ian Fleming’s estate in Jamaica! The film series has had its ups and downs over the years, there hadn’t been a truly great Bond movie in decades, and it really seemed time to give up. The widow and son-in-law of classic-era Bond producer Cubby Broccoli had been running the show for years, and they were exhausted for ideas. Some people wonder if they ever had any ideas to start with.
After the 20th James Bond film, Die Another Day (2002), it was time to either retire Bond, or do something fresh, radical, and just plain great with the film series. Another bad, goodish, or mediocre film simply wouldn’t do. Fortunately, Casino Royale is indeed fresh, radical, and just plain great.
With new face Daniel Craig taking over the Bond role (the sixth actor - parody nonwithstanding - to play the character in the movies) the series gets a new start. Using the title of the first Bond adventure ever penned for tis film is very appropriate. The film wipes away all continuity established in the prior films, and in a manner not unlike Christopher Nolan’s ‘reboot’ of the Batman franchise, Casino Royale takes us back to Bond’s roots. At the start of the film, Bond has no ‘license to kill’, has never worn a tux, and has never quaffed a martini. In what amounts to an origin film - to a degree, since he’s already in the secret service at the start of the film - we see how Fleming’s creation was shaped into the legend he became.
Casino Royale follows the story of the source novel more closely than any other Bond film does, and Craig plays agent 007 more like the literary character than any of his cinematic predecessors did. These are both very good things. Gone are the corny flirtations and excessive gadgetry of the 1970s James Bond (as played by Roger Moore), and the machine gun slaughters and improbable scenarios of the 1990s James Bond (Pierce Brosnan). Even the masterful Sean Connery and the worthy Timothy Dalton (the former defining the character to this day, but the latter being - until now - the actor coming closest to bringing Fleming’s vision to screen) never came quite as close as Craig to defining Bond as a complex and real human being, rather than either a cartoon character or a superman. Granted, Connery and Dalton were probably capable of more, but were of course limited to the material provided to them by the writers, and by the whims of the producers and directors they worked for.
Casino Royale is a complicated action thriller, with a solid plot, some surprisingly strong characterizations, and a real, plausible, believable take on James Bond. There are some geniusly clever bits in the movie, and some amazing nods directed towards long time fans of the books or films. For example, the way that the producers chose to work a 1964 Aston-Martin DB5 (the beyond-legendary Goldfinger car) into the film is clever as hell. My only real gripe is that in a film that avoids the usual Bond cliche of having high tech gadgets save Bond’s ass every half hour or so, there is an all-to handy defibrillator that just happens to be in the glove compartment of his car when he really needs it. Yeah, that’s the first piece of gear that the secret service issues to secret agents: a defibrillator. This gripe aside, Casino Royale is probably the best Bond film since Thunderball (the fourth film, from 1965).
Now, if anyone from EON productions is reading this here’s a suggestion, offered free of charge: the second Bond novel was Live and Let Die (1954). This was filmed in 1973 with Roger Moore. Thirty-five years later, I’d say it is safe to do a remake. Call the film “Ian Fleming’s Live and Let Die”, and film the book. Film it as close to Fleming’s text as possible (as done with Casino Royale, and as not done with the 1973 film), and make the film as kickass as Casino Royale. Then continue to shoot the Fleming novels, in order, billing them not as remakes so much as re-imagined versions, true to Fleming’s vision (just like Casino Royale, and unlike the existing other films). The one thing that the novels had that the films have never had was continuity from story to story - at the start of each novel, the adventure, the villains, and the girl from the previous novel weigh heavily on Bond’s mind. The novels form an ongoing story, whereas the only continuity present in the films are vague references to Bond’s ongoing feud with criminal organization SPECTRE in the early films, and brief reminders of the death of Bond’s wife Tracy (their wedding and her death were seen in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in1969, and not referenced again until For Your Eyes Only in1981). Some of the novels even ended on cliffhangers.
So, having done a killer job with a re-imagining of the first novel, and having started off a ‘new’ Bond series in the strongest way possible, let’s see them continue by filming the second novel, and maintaining continuity from film to film, making them a series, rather than a bunch of stand-alone movies. Just as Fleming did.
Please?
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
The original version of Cat People (it was remade in the 1980s) features Simone Simon as Irena, a pretty young artist from Serbia who turns into a panther every night. She meets a guy named Oliver (Kent Smith) who digs her, until she shows her claws. There is a bunch of extraneous backstory dealing with some ancient Serbian history, but what matters is that Irena is a cat person, even if she would rather believe she is just going crazy. Life as a cat person doesn't appeal to her, especially since cat people must kill after being kissed, and she kind of likes Oliver. Meanwhile, Oliver has got a work buddy named Alice (Jane Randolph). She's a really swell gal - the kind of guy Oliver really should be with - and she must rescue him from the dangerous piece of pussy he's involved himself with. Of course, the girls meet, and there's a catfight.
This low budget thriller exploits the fear of sex in women of the era (if a man kisses me I will turn into something socially undesirable and even dangerous) combined with a cautionary tale for the guys (pick the nice girl whom you already know, not the exotic dangerous girl). We only see the chick turn into a cat once. The short-ish film is otherwise a bit free of suspense, and can be dull. The performances are mostly wooden, the camerawork, direction, and music are nothing special. Not bad enough to be good, and not good enough to be good. And you know, I really don't like cats much anyway.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Apparently, back in 1924, William Randolph Hearst invited a bunch of people to spend a weekend on his boat. These people included Hollywood types such as Charles Chaplin, plus some of Hearst's business associates, some journalists, and his young girlfriend, the actress Marion Davies. One of the party goers didn't survive the trip, and to this day what happened remains unclear. This 2003 film explores one possible scenario, in which Hearst was freaked out with jealousy over Marion's flirtatious manners, and was driven into a murderous rage. Unfortunately, he shot the wrong guy, and used his power and influence to cover it all up.
Cat's Meow stars Kirsten Dunst as Davies, and Edward Herrmann as Hearst. The film is moderately entertaining, although I found that it can drag a bit here and there. Most of the film takes place on the yacht, which has an appealing design to it, and the costumes are nice too. This film doesn't suck, but is also not a must-see. Hollywood historians will enjoy it most.
Cheech and Chong’s Up In Smoke / Next Movie / Nice Dreams /Review by James Teitelbaum
Things are Tough All Over / Corsican Brothers
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Saw most of these on television as a kid, sneaking into the living room to catch them on cable, late night, after my parents went to bed. I didn’t get most of the sex and drugs and cops-are-dumb jokes, but I did get the potty humor. Went on a binge and re-watched them all in late 2006 and early 2007. This time I got all the jokes, but scant few of them were actually funny, and there were far less of them than I remembered there being. Interesting how I got more of the jokes, but laughed less. Maturity sucks. Up In Smoke is probably the funniest, of course. Things were relatively fresh, and there are a few classic moments, like the good old operationhardhatlardass! The ‘famous’ song is in this one too (“my momma talkin’ to me try’n to tell me how to live / but I don’t listen to her ‘cuz my head is like a sieve!”). Each of the other films has its moments - Cheech snorting salt instead of coke and then washing it down with Chong’s sister’s urine sample, for example. You know, real highbrow stuff.
Paul Reubens appears in Next Movie and Nice Dreams in a proto-Pee Wee Herman persona, with many of Pee Wee’s mannerisms in place, but not yet clad in grey suit and red bow tie. By Things Are Tough All Over, Cheech and Chong decided to change up the formula a bit, setting the film in Chicago (rather than Los Angeles) and then making it a road movie (to Los Angeles). Cheech and Chong also play dual roles as a pair of insane Arab stereotypes that are trying to kill their usual Mexican and stoner characters. These Arabs would never get past the script stage today - waaaay to offensive in these politically correct times. And perhaps that’s what makes these movies slightly worthwhile: they’re from a moment when it was perfectly okay for the heroes to be stoners and cokeheads (and to pop pills, do mescaline, and take LSD...), there are gratuitous naked women running around, and ethnic stereotypes are perfectly acceptable targets for parody. I never thought I’d say this (ever) but there were good things about the 1970s - people could have fun without worrying about who might be offended. At least, more so than today. I feel stifled just thinking about the current climate.
Our heroes decided, for their fifth film, to ditch their familiar roles and try something completely new. They play several roles each in The Corsican Brothers, a period piece taking place in France. No you’re not stoned, this really is a Cheech and Chong movie. However, as there are progressively fewer funny moments in each of their films, this final one is pretty jokeless. The Corsican Brothers has been filmed at least ten times (six of them prior to 1920!) and this is the least funny version. Oh, that was a cheap shot.
Also see Yellowbeard.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Every few years a really well made movie comes along that provides a vision of a dystopian future in which things are really, really fucked up. These ‘warning films’ get harsher and more scary as the years go on, perhaps because they’re all trying to outdo their predecessors, or perhaps because our world really is more scary and grim every year, and so a more and more scary and grim future needs to be shown, in order to not seem too much like the present.
Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men is the latest of these films. If you’re looking for a fully-realized future world, a place that feels like the world we live in, but gone horribly wrong in ways that seem, at this moment in history, absolutely plausible, then this is the film for you.
From the very first scenes, we are introduced to an England of the year 2027, an England with a lot of problems. Seems as though terrorism, war, and natural disasters have pretty much sunk most of the other major nations (New York was nuked, for starters), and for some reason, starting in 2009, all of the planet’s women became infertile. The reasons for the last of these crises is unknown; characters ponder it throughout the film. The fact remains that the human species is dying off. Suicide drugs are legal for people who want to end it early, elementary schools are abandoned, and the youngest man in the world is a celebrity. England is a war zone, with anti-immigration laws strictly enforced, to the point of caging and deporting all illegals. The government bombs buildings, blaming it on terrorists, just to keep people afraid and obidient. A semi-mythical group located somewhere outside of England is called the Human Project. They have unclear goals, but one thing is for certain: when Clive Owen’s ex-wife (Julianne Moore) recruits him to take a pregnant woman to a rendezvous with the Human Project, things get tense.
What follows is a series of action set-pieces featuring Owen and the pregnant woman (Claire-Hope Ashitey) evading the English government, the army, Moore’s terrorist/freedom fighter group, and random mobs as they try to deliver the baby (both literally and figuratively).
No explanations is given for how Ashitey’s character became pregnant (um, you know, aside from the obvious way), but perhaps that isn’t the point: her child is a new hope in a world gone to hell.
The film has many strengths: as an action film, it is excellent. All of the performances are great, including appearances from Michael Caine as an aging hippie, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a duplicitous confederate of Moore. The production design is outstanding, with a completely fleshed out and believable future depicted - if a hopelessly austere and barbarous one. Every frame is filled with a mixture of old and new (I hate movies of the future where everything is shiny and new - the desk I am writing at is 45 years old, the building I live in is 78 years old, and the movie poster on the wall in front of me is 30 years old. Will I find myself suddenly in the future one day, only owning brand-new things made of brushed aluminum?). There are also constant clues, in newspapers, on video monitors, and in conversations, as to what happened between 2007 and 2027. Children of Men happens in a fully realized world. I also like how characters come and go from the story. As Owen and Ashitey flee, they are helped along by people who aren’t always given a closure; their fates are often unclear. As seen from Owen’s character’s point of view, this is an intersting and intense way to play the story; he has no time for long goodbyes while being shot at by various factions intent on using Ashitey’s pregnancy for their own political purposes.
On the other hand, the film is almost fatally flawed in that nothing is really being said here, other than: “watch out, things are going to suck in the future”. That has certainly been said before. There aren’t really any answers offered in the film, to either the potential future reality of the awful political situation that the characters live in, the deteriorating society, or the infertility crisis. Five people are credited as writers on the movie, plus P.D. James, who wrote the source novel. You’d think that one of them could inject some further depth into things. This is a film that makes you really want to think, but ultimately doesn’t give you anything concrete to think about. Still, the scenes where (essentially) a war is stopped as the combatants gaze in awe at the first baby seen by anyone in two decades is chilling, and some of the action scenes are truly intense.
A sequel is very possible... Owen’s character ends up rather worse for the wear, and there are a hundred directions Ashitey’s character can go from the sort of ambiguous place where we last see her.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.1
I have never been particularly impressed with the myth of Edie Sedgwick, nor with any of the other legion people who hung around Andy Warhol’s factory. I always thought that the Velvet Underground were deeply over-rated as a band, and while we’re on the subject, I am a pretty serious art geek, but Warhol himself has always left me cold. All of this said, in 2006, I checked out Factory Girl, the Edie bio-pic, and was not impressed with anything about it, save for Guy Pearce’s portrayal of Warhol. In 2007, I had occasion to sit through Ciao! Manhattan, which is another film about Edie, but this one was made in 1972 and starred the real Sedgwick as “Susan” - basically herself.
Ciao! Manhattan is about a goofy looking and somewhat unwashed hippie guy who leaves Texas for the promise of California surf and sun. A bit lonely, he spies a young girl hitchhiking on the road. She’s mostly naked and completely wasted. That’s Edie. He takes her home to her mom, who lives in a big mansion; mom offers our dopey Texan hippie a job taking care of the wayward Edie/Susan. There’s another weirdo hippie guy on the estate also doing the same job. Edie sets up camp at the bottom of a drained swimming pool, and basically hangs out down there for the duration of the film, usually topless. She occasionally tells her dimwitted new hippie pal assorted tales of her past life in New York. These flashbacks are in black and white, and appear to be actual archival footage from Sedgwick’s glory days. These glory days were pretty far gone by the time Ciao! Manhattan was made; Edie died three months after filming wrapped. Like Edie, most of the ‘actors’ play themselves, sometimes using their real name and sometimes not. Allen Ginsberg appears here, running around completely naked. Edie’s wardrobe is almost as spare, and this is too bad, because the former over-rated model and inexplicable muse is looking pretty rough. Her drug abuse and party-girl lifestyle had caught up with her by the time this film was made.
The acting is bad, the editing is bad, the music is bad, the script doesn’t seem to have existed, and in short the whole film is a mess. However, I suspect that there is a whole generation who revere this film as a time capsule into their youth, the same way that people who grew up a generation later love movies like Rock and Roll High School. High School features New York punk rock icons The Ramones playing themselves, in a story about a teenage brat determined to see their show. It is a pretty bad movie, but if we want to compare New York icons who are forever bonded with their era, I’ll take The Ramones over Edie any day.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.1
It is easy to overlook two things, when giving a cursory glance at the Sex Pistols: first, they really were a great band, and second, John Lydon (nee Johnny Rotten) is really smart. His cynicism, rudeness, and anger can all obscure this, but listen to his interviews, particularly now that he’s mellowed a bit with age, and you find a fella who knows what he’s talking about, perhaps a bit more often than most people. And back to the playing: the Sex Pistols only did one proper LP, a handful of singles, and then a few abortive recordings after Rotten split, but with the exception of the post-Rotten stuff, it is a small but solid body of work. A dozen or two tunes, without a dud in the bunch. Had they continued, perhaps they would have drifted into mediocrity, particularly since Glen Matlock (their bass player and main songwriter) was already long gone, to be replaced with the completely inept Sid Vicious. With a lousy bass player and no songwriter, the band soon imploded. Had to happen, and it did, just in time.
Pre-Pistols, The Ramones were already gigging in New York, and The Damned got a record out in the UK before the Sex Pistols did, but it was the Pistols who will go down in history as the band that made Punk Rock happen in 1976. All rock music, in fact, can be clearly placed as being either pre-Pistols or post-Pistols. They certainly had only a small fraction of the talent of the Beatles, but the Sex Pistols are only slightly less important in their respective impact on rock’s history.
Here then, is a documentary about the making of the sole Sex Pistols LP, Never Mind the Bullocks: Here’s the Sex Pistols. All four Pistols involved with the LP are interviewed (Vicious joined after the LP was recorded, and he's dead now anyway), as well as manager Malcolm McLaren, and all of the producers, engineers, and record label people involved with the group. The band members pick up guitars and demonstrate how certain parts were performed or composed; the engineers pull up the original masters and demonstrate how the record was tracked and mixed. All participants seem really into being there, perhaps more so than on the (also very good) documentary The Filth and the Fury (made by Julien Temple in 2000).
This is a very, very well made documentary and is a must see for all music geeks in general, and aging punk rockers in particular.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
I love Jim Jarmusch films, except when they suck. Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Dead Man, and Mystery Train definitely don’t suck. These are all great films. I am on the fence about Coffee and Cigarettes, though. To be fair, it definitely doesn’t suck. But it isn’t ever going to be on the list of Jarmusch classics listed above. The film is a series of vignettes, filmed over the course of more than a decade, and starring some of Jarmusch’s usual repertory company, some additional names, and a few nobodies. Mostly the characters sit in cafes, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and shoot the breeze.
Maybe this film failed to thrill me because I have never smoked and also don’t really like coffee.
No, that’s not it at all.
I think it is just because nothing particularly interesting happens. Now, Jarmusch has made a career out of showing boring people being bored (Stranger Than Paradise, anyone?) and has a special knack for making ennui entertaining, but in this case it is hit-and-miss. Anthology films are almost always uneven, and given that Jarmusch seems to have shot this one whenever he could grab some pals to do a quick vignette, I suppose it ought to just be taken for what it is: a curiosity with a few nice moments. A few nice moments, plus Tom Waits, Bill Murray, and Renee French (I’d watch a movie about her doing nothing but sitting there reading a magazine. Oh, wait... did it. Check.).
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.1
This is an almost feature-length film made by the Czech master of Surrealism, Jan Svankmejer. Told entirely without dialogue, it concerns the lives of six people who all go through elaborate machinations in order to indulge their bizarre and hilarious fetishes. It begins with a man looking at a porno mag, but soon drifts off into far more unexpected territory. As each of the characters spends time assembling the tools for their personal erotic vision, we discover that their lives are connected in subtle ways. After lengthy preparations, they all manage to find satisfaction. Also involved are chickens, fish, little balls of bread, mannequin parts, empty churches, rolling pins, razor blades, the evening news, paper mache, stolen clothes, fox stoles, nails, clay, and feathers. All of the characters are worried about being caught in the act of their outlandish self-pleasure rituals. In the end, Svenkmeyer launches into some of his trademark stop-motion animation when it is time for action. This movie is truly bizarre, and occasionally hilarious. These people are harmless (except for perhaps the chicken man), they're just our neighbors, doin' the thing they do, right next door. I guess it is a funny look at how perhaps each of has his or her own slightly (or very) unusual little quirks that need to be indulged.
Also on the tape I saw are some shorter films that were shot with live actors, but in a jerky way that looks like stop-motion animation (and sometimes really is). In the first, two men face each other at a table. One of the men is actually a vending machine. By poking, prodding, and punching him in various ways, the other man gets fed. Next, two more men face each other at the table, and proceed to eat everything in front of them - right down to the plates, silverware, and each other's clothes. Third is a well-dressed man who puts every condiment possible on to his unseen meal, which of course turns out to be a human arm.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
When I was in high school in the middle 1980s, there were very, very few of my peers who could be counted among the ranks of Joy Division fans. Those of us who had discovered this music felt a little superior, as if we knew a secret that no one else knew. And, (for unrelated reasons) we were also beat up on a fairly regular basis. Now, it seems that Joy Division are widely considered to have been an important enough and influential enough entity that people are making movies about them. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that the story of doomed Joy Division vocalist Ian Curtis has been put to film. It is just that I am wondering where the hell all of these people who are supposedly so very much into Joy Division were, back in the 1980s when the Bruce Springsteen fans were kicking my ass for being a weirdo.
Control was shot in black and white by famed rock photographer turned film director Anton Corbijn. Black and white was truly the only option for this story; Joy Division were from the bleak industrial town of Manchester. There is no good way to capture the necessary mood in color. Also, all of Joy Division’s record sleeves were in black and white, with the very few bits of color used extremely rarely. Then there is Joy Division’s music. Stark and cold, free of any cheerful sonic colors. No, there is no way this movie could have been made in color.
All of this said, the drama of Ian Curtis begins rather happily. We meet him in 1973, a few years before the formation of Joy Division. He’s a normal teenage kid listening to David Bowie and Roxy Music. His family is not especially wealthy, but we don’t get the feeling that Ian is particularly unhappy or that he is being deprived of life’s basic needs. When he joins a band called Warsaw (soon to be renamed Joy Division), things go swimmingly well, and the band gains a measure of success with little apparent effort. Ian even gets himself a young wife, even if she is a bit of a dumpy local girl without many interesting qualities.
Things begin to go wrong for Ian when he discovers that he is epileptic, and when his wife discovers that her rock star husband has a bit of a more interesting girlfriend on the side. Through the second half of the film, Ian’s life becomes sad and complicated. In reality, his problems are no different than anyone else’s, and being a celebrity makes no difference in the end. The music career is cruising along just fine, and the only drug problems he has are related to the ones he needs to control his epilepsy. No, none of the usual rock star problems are bothering Ian. It is all of the inescapable problems of being human that are going wrong for Ian.
In May of 1980, on the night before Joy Division embarked on their first tour of America, Ian Curtis hung himself. Curtis is played by 27-year-old Sam Riley, who was five months old when the legendary vocalist died (at age 23). Riley does a nice job with the role, summoning the spirit of Curtis admirably. All of the people and places important to his legend are here, all of the beats are hit. Samantha Morton is also good in the film, playing Ian’s wife (the film draws inspiration from Deborah Curtis’s book, Touching From a Distance). I also have to say that actor James Anthony Pearson is the spit and image of guitarist Bernard Sumner.
Music is of course used effectively in the movie. The Joy Division songs heard in the film are a combination of the original recordings (when used as score) and the actors rather competently playing the songs themselves (during the concert scenes). There are more than a few instances where the actors are sonic dead ringers (sorry) for the real Joy Division, and even as familiar with the real band’s repetoire as I am, I was fooled a few times.
Music by other artists who were important in the life of Curtis and the world in which he lived is used as well. Kraftwerk’s Autobahn is employed nicely while the band are traveling in Europe, and David Bowie’s instrumental Warszawa could not possibly have been put to better use than as underscore for an important scene between Ian and his mistress Annik (Alexandra Maria Lara). (As Warsaw, the band’s name was inspired by this piece). I also liked that the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks, two other bands of the era whose influence cannot be overstated, are not actually seen on camera, but in the case of both bands we hear their music and see the reactions it inspires in the future members of Joy Division. This gives us a feel for how important this music was to the musicians who were moved by it - including Ian Curtis and company.
After Curtis died, the three remaining members of Joy Division recruited the drummer’s girlfriend Gillian Gilbert to play keyboards, and rechristened themselves New Order (with Sumner on vocals). The very last shot of the band that we see in the film makes a very subtle allusion to this future: as the three surviving members of Joy Division sit completely motionless in a cafe, stunned by the loss of their friend, an actress playing Gilbert (uncredited) slips into the booth with them. Viola - New Order. New Order went on to have a career that lasted a further 25 years, and were equally as influential as their earlier incarnation. New Order provide some instrumental underscore for the film, and it would have been an appropriate coda to have one of their songs playing over the closing credits instead of a contemporary band doing a Joy Division cover song. Perhaps the choice of using one of today’s acts to perform this music was meant to close the gap between 1980 and 2007, while also underlining Joy Division’s influence on several generations of young musicians.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Crash (1996) is the middle film in what I like to think of as "The James Spader Sex Perv Trilogy", with Secretaryand Sex, Lies, and Videotape and being the other two films. In Crash, he plays a guy who is sexually aroused byvideotaping his girlfrinds talking about sexspanking his secretarycar accidents. His girlfriend, Deborah Kara Unger, is on board too, and eventually they meet Holly Hunter, Rosanna Arquette, and Elias Koteas, who have the same fetish, but bad. Things get stranger and stranger, Koteas gets dangerously weird, and the film becomes a thriller as our protagonists try to avoid getting in over their heads and ending up dead, while liking every minute of it. Crash was directed by David Cronenberg (from a story by J. G. Ballard), who has made thirty-six films to date, with about a half-dozen of the lot being really worth seeing (History of Violence, The Fly, probably Naked Lunch, maybe Videodrome).
Crash may or may not be on that list.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
With the exception of the big and scandalous plot twist half way through this movie, I’d completely forgotten all of the story details since my initial viewing of The Crying Game in 1992. Revisiting the film in 2006, my thoughts are: starts off great, a nice action caper with some believable and real sympathy building between Forrest Whitaker and Steven Rea’s characters. Jaye Davidson is annoying, and Miranda Richardson is miscast. After the big twist, the whole tone changes, and the second half is a much weaker film than the first - until Richardson (still miscast) returns and the film (almost) gets back on track. Meh.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
There are a bunch of Films Noir on this web site that I have high praise for, and this 1948 snoozer isn’t one of them. This caper ostensibly stars Victor Mature, but his role is fairly small. That’s actually good, because the guy always reminds me of a creepy version of Joe Strummer. So the less of Victor Mature, the better. He plays a cop who is chasing down an escaped criminal named Martin Rome (Richard Conte). They happen to have grown up in the same Italian neighborhood. With Rome on the run, Mature attempts to keep the bad guy’s little brother from following in the same misguided footsteps.
The closest thing to a twist or interesting take here is that the convict is clearly guilty. He shot a cop, he admits it, everyone knows it. He is only on the run to track down his girl (Debra Paget) whom we only see in two scenes. After doing one good deed - insuring her safety - he is free to die. Shelley Winters also appears in one of the earliest of her many annoying roles; the only thing of value she contributes is a great leopard skin coat.
Cry of the City plods along without really going anywhere. There’s some business about a lawyer and some stolen jewelry, but yawn, is this movie still on...?
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
This is a sci-fi thriller that succeeds in making it’s point without resorting to bombastic special effects. Cube is about (at least) seven people who each wake up inside a separate 14 by 14 by 14 foot room, with a small trap door on each of the room’s six sides (four walls, floor, ceiling). Moving through the doors leads to identical rooms, each again with six doors. Some of the rooms contain deadly traps, some don’t. There are an unknown number of these rooms that make up a giant cube. Moving from room to room, one of the people dies in the film’s opening scene, six others soon find each other. Of the six main characters, we have a famous escape artist, an autistic, a desk jockey, a cop, a doctor, and a schoolgirl. As they try to figure out why they’re in the cube, what it is for, and how to get out, the film becomes a solid character study. The cop turns into a complete psycho, but initiates most of the tension between the characters. This sparks a few interesting debates and some good dialogue scenes in between truly tense sequences of the characters trying to find their way out. This movie has a really, really dark message about humanity as we discover that the cube is by far the least dangerous thing that our protagonists will encounter.
The guy who plays the cop is completely over the top, his performance borders on comical at times. The doctor overdoes it a bit too, and this is unfortunate, because they're the two dramatic leads. The desk jockey, the autistic, and the schoolgirl are good in their roles, all more subtle and believable if less dramatic. Nicole de Boer, as the student, really shines towards the end.
Director Vincenzo Natali has crafted a unique indie thriller that combines ‘mysterious object' sci-fi in the mold of Arthur C. Clarke (Rama, 2001's monolith, etc., etc.) with some intense suspense and added a dose of well written drama. Not perfect, but entertaining and solid.
Now of course, someone had to go and make a sequel (2002). Neither Vincenzo Natali or any of the original actors or writers were involved in Cube 2 (Hypercube). This time, we have a new cube, and unfortunately a bad case of sequel syndrome. The cube contains a far less interesting mix of people, who are far less interesting performers, in a different sort of cube whos basic workings make no real sense (the cube more or less did make sense last time). The story here is no longer driven by the tension between the characters, and is instead driven by a gimmicky new attempt to make the new cube ‘cooler’ than the old one. In the original, the idea of the cube was fantastic, but believable. This time, we move into a cube that goes far beyond the laws of physics as we understand them, and therefore has less impact. The characters wander around with no plan or direction. Most of the archetypes are similar: the handicapped person (this time blind), the person who unwittingly had something to do with building the cube, the violent person, the doctor, and the criminal. They spend way too much time asking the same questions that the characters asked in the previous film, but not enough time trying to escape. By the time it was over I didn’t care anymore, which is a sharp contrast to the last scenes of the original Cube, during which I was quite wrapped up in the fate of the survivors. There’s not much sense of danger this time, and in general the film, compared to the original, feels like a band doing a mediocre cover version of a classic song. The actress who plays the elderly Mrs. Paley is miserable. The computer graphics effects that replace the good ideas from the last film are shoddy and meaningless.
Cube 3 (aka Cube Zero) followed Hypercube two years later. Again, none of the cast, writers, or director of the originals made it back for this outing. This time, we see two regular guys who have the unenviable job of monitoring the goings on inside a third cube. This cube is a lot more like the first one. These guys don’t seem to have any problem making video records of the gruesome deaths of the people in the cube; the film starts out as almost an alternate universe goof on the previous films. It reminded me of the scenes in Kevin Smith’s Clerks where the fate of the blue collar stiffs working on Star Wars’ Death Star is pondered. These two guys are the Death Star contractors of cube-world, just two schmoes with a crappy job, who think nothing of it. One of them eventually gets a conscience, and goes into the cube to rescue a girl who he thinks is innocent of wrongdoing. This time, the inmates are a little smarter in their usage of their boots, but otherwise this film is nothing but an excuse to show off some ultra violent and gory effects, far more vicious than anything seen in the first two films. It isn’t anything other than a complicated slasher flick. Michael Riley plays a villain that turns the whole thing into complete silliness, but it didn’t really need his help to get there.
In Cube 2, all of the people in the cube were vaguely implicated to have been connected by common knowledge of the top secret evil government cube project. They were therefore condemned to die in the cube lest word of the cube get out to the public. In the first film, the people all seemed completely unrelated, and innocent of any guilt at all. By Cube Zero, it all just seems like an unnecessarily complicated and evil way to punish people. Revealing too much about the cube’s purpose, its creators, and its workings just cheapens the mystery of the first film, and draws attention away from the human drama that took place within the first cube. Clearly, the writers of the subsequent films (and perhaps the actors and director to boot) didn’t have the skill to repeat what made the first film good. The cube in the first film wasn’t the point; it was the impetus for the characters to behave the way they did. In the second and third films, the cube is the point, and it isn’t entertaining enough to carry the films on its own.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Between 1987 and 1995, Yimou Zhang made his first seven films. All of them starred Li Gong, who made her cinematic debut in Zhang’s first feature, Red Sorghum (1987). I have seen three of these films, twice each (Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou, and Shanghai Triad). All of them are entertaining period pieces, beautifully shot and sumptuously costumed. All of them are intense human dramas, filled with people keeping secrets, plotting against each other, and trying to come out on top of their situations. All of them are watchable; none are masterpieces. After an eleven-year hiatus, Zhang and Li Gong are back together - this time with Hong Kong megastar Chow Yun Fat - for Curse of the Golden Flower. Curse (Li Gong’s 27th film, Zhang’s 15th) is everything that one expects from the Zhang/Gong team-up, and more so. The great costumes are there, the melodramatic performances are there, and so are the machinations within an emperor’s family, the colorful sets, and yes, even a battalion of ninjas versus the royal army. At the end of the day, however, it all feels a little silly, a little corny. There are some intense scenes, and all of the performances are fine, but the whole affair just seems a little to close to something you’d find in a bodice-ripper romance novel, except that it has been transposed to 10th century China. Skip it; go rent Raise the Red Lantern instead.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
A nerdy man named Morgan Sullivan (played by Jeremy Northam) gets a job as a corporate spy. His new employers give the milquetoast dork a new identity (as Jack Thursby) and a secret transmitter before sending him to places like Omaha, Boise, and Buffalo to spy on hopelessly dull marketing conventions for products like processed cheese and shaving cream. His shrew of a wife is against him taking the job, but he does it anyway. At one of the conventions, he meets Lucy Liu, who turns out to be some sort of guerrilla activist bent on waking all of the spies up from the brainwashing that they are unwittingly being subjected to. Turns out that during the mindless convention lectures, the attendees are being hypnotized and then both chemically and electronically implanted with false memories, permanently imbedding the new identities in their minds. As Sullivan resists the brainwashing, he begins to wonder which identity is real and which is a construct. Soon it becomes unclear who Sullivan really works for, who got to his head first, and who he can trust. The big twist at the end is part “Kaiser Soze”, while the brainwashing scenes are part The Matrix, and part Darren Aronofsky. The whole thing is 100% derivative, the big twist is transparent from an hour out, and the entire film feels like an amateurish mess. Northam is annoying and obvious in his futile efforts to play the nerd, and Lucy Liu's talent is wasted.
The director did this one between the cool original Cube film, and the fun and sightly twisted Nothing. We’ll call it his sophomore slump (oops, Cube was his second, so never mind, this one just plain sucks).
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
"'The Australian' is nothing without it's master"
It is hard to believe that this 1990 feature was the debut from the team of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. their partnership comes out of the gate an impossibly strong feature. Everything about this movie is so perfect that I cannot think of a single thing that I would change or improve.
I love every one of the ensemble cast of characters. The orange, green, and brown-tinted cinematography is outstanding. The script is densely packed with detail, but the story is streamlined and economical. The movie is hilarious, and is also creepy, and is also very sweet and human. The production design is peerless. The pacing is good, the editing is good. If there's any nitpick at all, it's that one of the sight/sound gags - involving people doing various funny things in time to outside rhythms - happens twice (the joke is recycled a third time in Junet's later film, Amelie). That's the worst I can do.
The surrealist-absurdist-horror-sci-fi-comedy story is about a France that looks like the 1940s, but exists sometime after an apparent ecological disaster or a big(ger) war. Nothing will grow. There is almost no food. A bombed-out apartment building exists far from the center of the city. The landlord also owns the delicatessen on the ground floor. The dozen or so tenants of the building are routinely fed their coveted rations of meat by the butcher, who places ads in the paper to lure new janitors into the building. And then, at night...
The rubber-faced Dominique Pinon stars as Louison, the latest in a long line of doomed caretakers. He is an ex-famous clown from before the dark times. The butcher's daughter (Marie-Laure Dougnac) falls for him, and enlists members of an underground (literally) food-hoarding society to help her out. They screw it up, but the clown still gets the girl.
And that's basically it - except for this weird old guy in the basement who raises snails. And this duet of musical saw and cello. And this lady named Aurore who makes complicated Rube Goldberg-style suicide machines. And two bratty kids stealing panties. And the Troglodyte Society. And two guys making novelty toys like 'bullshit detectors' while the whole world is starving. And the Australian. And lots of old junk from 1942. But that's just the beginning. Every scene contains something delightful, something melancholy, something slimy, something funny, or all of the above.
Junet really understands people, and has a real sentimental streak in him, but this sweetness is dished out in deft and perfect proportions with a heaping topping of the macabre on top. It is always just enough to make even the most jaded old bastard (i.e. me) feel something, but the syrup is never poured on so thickly as to make you want to puke (as in almost all heavy-handed Hollywood films). The balance between Junet's childlike exploration of humanism and his love of the grim and gross is balanced perfectly. Neither aspect ever gets the upper hand.
There was nowhere to go but down after making this movie, but the later efforts of Junet and Caro are all at least good (some great), although none of them reach the heights of this debut. They went on to make the entertaining but considerably less amazing City of Lost Children next. Then, Junet decided to quit France and Caro for Hollywood just long enough to make Alien Resurrection (the doomed fourth film in the Alien franchise) before wising up and moving back to France to hatch Amelie (which recycles a fair number of gags from Delicatessen). His fifth feature was the excellent A Very Long Engagement. Can't wait for his sixth.
It took until 2006 to get a DVD out in North America (that's a crime, especially after the 2001 success of Amelie). The print on the disc is a little mushy, which is too bad. Bonus features include a 13-minute montage of on-set footage that is surprisingly entertaining, a commentary from Junet (in French with English subtitles - some of his commentaries for other movies are in English), a nine-minute reel of screen tests and rehearsals, and trailers. Fairly minimal, but all of it is worth watching.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Given all of the hype this film has been subjected to over the past thirty-five years, I expected a bit more than a mindless, if tense, thriller. Bascially, Deliverance is about four rowdy businessmen who decide to take a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River before the valley is permanently altered via being flooded as part of an imminent dam project. The four men, who are a bit loutish but not particularly nasty or truly deserving of their eventual fates, meet some scary inbred hillbilly types, and initially try to befriend them - witness the famous duelling banjo scene where one of the men jams with a truly twisted-looking and devolved little boy. The foursome soon get on the bad side of the locals - for no apparent reason - and their lives are soon in jeopardy. There is no morality tale here, no environmentalist message, and no reason for them men to suffer as they do. At the end of the day, the film has little to say, other than ‘rednecks are scary and will ass-fuck you if your name is Ned Beatty’.
Now, the performances are fine to good, John Boorman’s direction is fine, there is some nice footage of the river, but I just can’t see why this film is so well-known, and acclaimed.
Boorman went on to make a sci-fi stinker with Sean Connery called Zardoz next, but redeemed himself with Excalibur in 1981, a stylish telling of the King Arthur legends that I have always quite liked.
The Departed
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Martin Scorsese’s latest crime drama is just as expertly put together as all of his other big budget shoot-em ups. The (multi mega) million dollar cast of Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DeCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, and so on, all perform admirably. The script is tight; densely plotted, rich in detail, but never confusing. Everything about the film reeks of quality and professionalism, but ultimately, why do we need another pointless story about criminals shooting each other? Scorsese has done this so many times already, and usually with stunning results. Somehow, Taxi Driver seemed poignant, and still does after thirty years. Somehow Goodfellas and Mean Streets and maybe even The Gangs of New York (maybe) still matter. The Departed, as entertaining and technically flawless as it is, contains nothing we haven't seen before, has no message to speak of, and feels like Scorsese is (very competently) treading water, perhaps putting together a guaranteed cash-cow so he can keep exploring more interesting territory in other films - which he has done many times over, in between gangster movies.
I also wonder how this movie would have been made twenty, or even ten years ago. All of the (adult, male) characters spend more time on their cell phones than teenage girls. These gangsters text each other more often than they talk to each other in person. Try to imagine this story with cell phones out of the picture. The story is completely dependant on them.
Meh.
Destination Moonbase Alpha
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
This ‘movie’ begins with a voice-over recap of the first episode of the first season of the 1970s television show Space:1999. It then moves into two episodes from the second season (The Bringers of Wonder parts 1 and 2), tied together as if they were one long episode. I have a soft spot for Space: 1999, with its psychedelic space-funk soundtrack, its 1970s white vacu-form sets, and guest appearances from the likes of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Surrealist drug-trip plots and weird metaphysical situations were fodder for a solid cast in the first season. Lesser stories and a pared-down cast marred a second season already crippled by much poorer writing; only the presence of Catherine Schell was an improvement. This movie offers little new material if you’ve seen the television series, only the introductory voice-over and an inferior main title are new. It did well enough that three more of these ‘movies’ were made, but all three were bereft of the benefit of the source material having been a two-part episode, and therefore make little sense edited together.
Watch the first season of the series.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Marcello Mastroianni plays Marcello Rubini, a journalist who works for some sort of sleazy tabloid. He hangs out in all of the best clubs and restaurants, and reports on the comings and goings of celebrities. He is friends with flocks of paparazzi photographers, maitres’d, and various actresses, and through these contacts, he roams the night looking for cheap stories. His fiancee hates his lifestyle, and none of the other journalists respect him. Still, he lives la vida loca, er, I mean la dolce vida - the sweet life - bedding models, getting drunk, and attending all of the social functions. Ultimately it is an empty, shallow life, and over time Marcello comes to grow weary of it, but he knows no other way.
While at a gathering of artists and intellectuals at his friend Steiner’s house, he longs for family, stability, and to accomplish something real with his life. Steiner yawns at all of his own boorish intellectual frineds, telling Rubini: “Don't be like me. Salvation doesn't lie within four walls. I'm too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a professional. Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected". Still, Rubini sees that there is more to life than convincing himself that he is having fun al the time. He continues his old lifestyle, but now instead of looking for a sleazy story, he is looking for meaning in it all. He comes to realize that the sweet life is not parties and women, not money and excitement, but something more, a real sweet life, something that he may not be capable of living.
I’ve never been sure that this films needs to go on for three hours, and there are plenty of places where cuts can be made, but living in Rubini’s sweet and sour world for a while is never dull. Rather than following a straight narrative, La Dolce Vida is made up of a dozen or so short stories, a series of vignettes illustrating Rubini’s life, his disconnection from everything truly important, and his eventual desire to change this. These snapshots add up to a teasingly almost-cohesive whole, even if none of them clearly and specifically moves the story along in an obvious or meaningful way. This film is clearly a case of the whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Federico Fellini directed this one in 1960, and was just getting warmed up: his masterpiece 8 1/2 was to be next, and also starred Mastroianni. Not to get ahead of ourselves though - La Dolce Vida is three solid hours of wonderful photography (Otello Martelli), Mastroianni’s captivating charisma, Nino Rota’s famous score, hoards of gorgeous Italian women, the ultra-modern style of 1950s Rome, and all of Fellini’s trademarks coming into focus. Some people consider his previous film, Nights of Cabiria to be his first masterpiece, but I’ve always thought that film to be over-rated. Fellini’s earliest must-see film is right here.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
This worthless action film stars Kiera Knightley, who needs to eat a burrito or five, and who also needs to learn to have more than one facial expression. Domino is supposedly based on the true story of Domino Harvey, a rich girl who left a life of ease to be a bounty hunter. The real Domino killed herself while the film was in production (I would have too if I’d seen a cut of the film); the producers did some reshoots to keep the film up-to-date and to include her death. Big whoop. The trendy and over the top cinematography (shaky camera, quick cuts, oversaturated colors) looks more like a music video than anything, and doesn’t disguise the fact that even when taken as a simple action film, there isn’t much of interest here. There are a lot of far better shoot-em-ups out there.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
Cult films. Movies that have a solid pop culture appeal but which deal with themes far enough outside of the mainstream that typical audiences can’t or won’t accept them. Cult films can fall into two basic categories: those that are too good for the sheep who just aren’t sophisticated enough to 'get' these films, and then the opposite: movies that are so inept that the cultists’ enjoyment of them is largely ironic in nature (and/or drug fueled!). Either way, there’s something to enjoy in the best of the cult movies - either to laugh at them, or to find a deeper meaning and bigger truths than the mainstream cares to absorb.
Donnie Darko seems like it only exists as an effort to create a quintessential cult film, but it is trying way too hard to do so, rather than just trying to be a good film. Seems like director/writer Richard Kelly has been watching too many of David Lynch’s films, and has absorbed Lynch’s form without any of the substance. There are weird characters, improbable scenarios, a weird old lady who talks nonsense, odd surrealistic dreamlike sequences, and a six-foot tall talking bunny. Ultimately, there’s no substance here at all, and in fact, not even a compelling story.
We have Jake Gyllenhaal as the titular Donnie Darko (his real life sister Maggie plays his sister on film), a high school kid in 1988 who is supposed to be on pills to control his various emotional problems. He is prone to somnambulism, often waking up in the morning outdoors after having finally passed out miles from home. One morning he wakes up on a golf course, which is fortunate, since the engine of a jet plane had come crashing through into his bedroom the night before. Donnie is regularly visited by Frank - the man in the bunny suit - who gives him advice. This advice includes doing things like flooding his school. That’s the first half hour; the next two hours don’t really go anywhere.
There are commentaries on the dynamics of teenager society and high school life, but this has all been explored better elsewhere - in fact if you want a better look at the cruelty of teenagers in 1988, see Heathers. The surrealism never seems to add much to either the texture or story, and neither the narrative arc or the character arcs seem to have much point to them. There is some speculation on the nature of time travel and free will, but most of this ground has been covered as well. Censorship and the narrow-minded fundamentalist right are bashed as well, but again, not effectively.
This film definitely has moments, scattered nice scenes, and reasonably good performances overall (that said, I’ll never buy Drew Barrymore as an English teacher, let alone someone who’s ever even read a book). Overall, the scattered nice moments here, be they comedic, dramatic, satirical, or poignant (and all of these are indeed present in Donnie Darko), don’t add up to a satisfying whole, even on a cult level.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.1
Thanks to the internets, I dug up two episodes of a 1978 cartoon version of Don Quixote, made by Romagosa International. The 39 episodes that were produced actually remain fairly faithful to the story of the long novel (or so I am told, but the two episodes that I saw support this theory). I love the disco theme song by Juan Pardo. The backgrounds are lovely and skillfully executed in watercolor. The animation itself isn’t the finest ever, but it is far from the worst I have seen, definitely put together with some level of care. The version I saw was in Spanish with no subtitles, but I am intrigued enough by this to want to see more than two episodes, and with English subtitles. Does someone out there own Region 1 video rights to this? Count me in for a copy of any future DVD release.
Review by James Teitelbaum
©2007 All Rights Reserved
v.1.0
I think there’s a whole generation - perhaps a few generations - who can’t think of Fred MacMurray as anything other than the dad on the old 1960s situation comedy, My Three Sons. That’s really too bad, because MacMurray isn’t half bad as a leading man, as evidenced by his performance in the Film Noir classic Double Indemnity (1944). MacMurray had forty-some films under his belt at the time he went to work for Billy Wilder as Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who has the bad fortune to meet Barbara Stanwyck. I’ve never even heard of most of MacMurray’s previous films, and I’d bet that most other people haven’t either. Clearly though, he’d paid his dues and rehearsed his chops, and he strides into Double Indemnity with all cylinders firing.
MacMurray isn’t the only thing that this film has going for it - the writing here is spectacular, with some flooring dialogue from James M. Cain (upon who’s novel the film is based) as well as director Wilder, and even an assist from Raymond Chandler, king of the detective novel. The banter between MacMurray and Stanwyck is without peer, sporting clever and snappy lines flying around like bullets on D-Day, rapid fire and non-stop. The story is gripping, and showcases Wilder’s gift for directing this type of material. This was only his fourth film, and it is undoubtedly the film in which he found his directorial voice. In the following two decades, Wilder would unleash The Lost Weekend, Sunset Blvd., Sabrina, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot,