Teenage Wastelands: Wild in the Streets and G-a-s-s-s-s

Wild in the Streets, by Barry Shear, 1968

In the mid to late 60's, it was becoming clear: for the first time, the youth were calling the shots.  There were more teenagers than ever, thanks to the post World War II baby boom, and they were making sure their voices were getting heard, through protests and pop culture.  It was only a matter of time before this was addressed in a movie.

Barry Shear's Wild in the Streets is a darkly satirical take on the idea of teenagers taking power.  It stars Christopher Jones as Max Frost, a rebellious, but highly intelligent young man who runs away from his parents (but not before taking a few swipes at their prized possessions), and starts a new life of sex, drugs, and rock & roll.  He forms a band, who are also his entourage and think tank, and together, they begin fighting to lower the voting age to 14, by writing hit songs motivating an army of teenage fans to organize and revolt.  Once Max gets what he wants, though, it's not enough anymore, so he keeps pushing for more, and the world quickly turns into a dystopia.  It's basically a crazy dark version of this comic book.

Wild in the Streets pushes all of its ideas to their furthest extreme, and doesn't pull punches.  I think it's aged very well, too.  It's dark and extremely cynical, and it doesn't make any effort to make even the protagonist likeable.  There are no good guys in this movie, and that makes it even more fun.  The soundtrack is pretty good, too.  Usually fake bands in movies don't have good songs, but Max's band has some really good stuff, including one song that became a hit in the real world, "Shape of Things to Come".  Also, the editing in Wild in the Streets got a well deserved Oscar nomination.  It has a great ending, too.  The last line is laugh out loud funny.

G-a-s-s-s-s, by Roger Corman, 1971

G-a-s-s-s-s is kind of like Wild in the Streets if it was stupid.  I mean, it's actually kind of enjoyable, but it's not making any kind of big political statement or anything.  It's about what happens if a mysterious gas is released that kills off everybody over the age of 25.  While the smart teenagers in Wild in the Streets would have probably been ready to take over and pick society back up, Roger Corman's youths are probably more realistic: they spend most of the movie goofing around.

Corman was clearly less interested in making a statement than he was in making a movie that teenagers will shell out their cash for.  It doesn't stand the test of time nearly as well as "Wild", and it wasn't intended to.  It's loaded with pop culture references many of which flew right over my head.  This is a movie for the kids of 1971, not the kids of 2012 or any other time.  He obviously didn't foresee the home video market.  G-a-s-s-s-s has a soundtrack by Country Joe and the Fish, which is not bad, but it doesn't have the punch that the original songs in the other movie had.  It also, like many Roger Corman films, has a cast of several young actors on the rise, including Bud Cort, Cindy Williams, and Talia Shire.

One bit that I liked was that when the end of the world comes, the kids all sort of split into their high school cliques.  When everybody is looting, the jocks steal all the meat.  Later, we learn they're all dying of poor nutrition and want the vegetables that the hippie kids are growing.  I thought that was pretty clever.

I would never trash on Roger Corman.  I love the guy.  He directed and produced lots and lots of stinkers, a bunch of decent, fun movies, and once in a while, a real gem of a film would squeeze through.  G-a-s-s-s-s is not one of the gems, but it's one of those decent fun movies.  It's often doubled with Wild in the Streets, and I can see why, but Wild in the Streets is the superior film by a wide margin.

Comedies from Epic to Intimate: The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming, How to Steal a Million, The Puffy Chair

The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, by Norman Jewison, 1966

Back in the 60's, it seems like they were trying to kick off a new subgenre: comedy epics.  That's a pretty tall order.  Most of the best comedies are short and smaller in scale, packing in the laughs and getting out without wearing out their welcome, and keeping the focus on a few main characters.  Norman Jewison's Best Picture nominated Cold War comedy, The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming has a great premise and starts off strong, but ultimately collapses under its own massive weight.

A Soviet submarine gets grounded just off the coast of a small New England island.  A group of men (led by Alan Arkin in his movie debut) are sent out to find a boat to get themselves unstuck.  They soon cross paths with a local family (Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, and a couple of kids) who become unwilling participants in their plan.  Eventually, word spreads, and through a huge game of telephone, the word is that a Soviet Invasion is imminent and the entire town is into a panic and forms a mob.

Norman Jewison is a very good filmmaker (see the excellent original The Thomas Crown Affair), and 'Russians' was skillfully made, but it was just too big and too long.  It had all these wacky townsfolk, like Jonathan Winters as the police chief, and an unnecessary love story thrown in between a Russian and an American girl.  The delivery of the film's message of peace and unity between the USA and Russia is done in an overly sentimental way.  The best parts of the movie were the scenes between Reiner and his family, and Arkin and his men.  I loved Reiner's insecurity, as his manhood is questioned through his son's disappointment that he didn't shoot anybody.

There was a great, smaller movie to be found in there, with the exact same message, and without all the setpieces and stunts and mob scenes and superfluous characters.  I'm not opposed to the epic comedy, Blues Brothers is amazing, even at 2 1/2 hours, but it also has lots of great music and action to ease the lulls in between the laughs.  This movie has some very good moments, and might be worth checking out sometime for Reiner and Arkin's performances alone, but I wouldn't go too far out of my way to see it, if I were you.

How to Steal a Million, by William Wyler, 1966

I don't know how this happened, but until I saw How to Steal a Million, the only William Wyler film I'd seen was Ben-Hur.  Well, Ben-Hur is Ben-Hur, but this is pretty good, too.  It's a whole lot of fun and really smart.

As the title suggests, How to Steal a Million is a heist movie, a romantic heist comedy to be exact.  It stars Audrey Hepburn as Nicole, a (gasp!) wealthy socialite, whose rich father, sweetheart though he is, earned all his money as a master art forger.  It's a family trade.  Nicole meets an art thief (Peter O'Toole) who has broken into her home and smooth talks her into driving him back to his own place.  When she finds out that a statue forged by her grandfather on loan to a museum is about to undergo an inspection, Nicole recruits the thief into helping her plan a heist of the statue in order to prevent her father from being exposed as a fraud.  Then they fall in love.

How to Steal a Million is clever, funny, has a great script, and good performances by all the leads.  Peter O'Toole is especially awesome as the suave art thief, Simon, and he has great chemistry with Hepburn.  The heist is really well put together, and involves simple but effective tactics like throwing a boomerang to trip an alarm.  There's a great twist toward the end that I didn't see coming at all.  I love a good heist movie, and How to Steal a Million more than qualifies.

The Puffy Chair, by The Duplass Brothers, 2005

I think I've gone on record on this blog in saying that I really like what the Duplass Brothers do.  They make these intimate, emotional comedies, that focus way more on character than plot or set pieces.  I dug the hell out of Cyrus, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, and Safety Not Guaranteed (which they produced but didn't write and direct).

The Puffy Chair is Mark and Jay Duplass' first film, made for a microbudget, with heavily improvised dialogue.  I guess it's considered a part of the "Mumblecore" movement, but I don't really have much of an understanding of what that means.  There's not really any mumbling in this.  It stars Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton as a couple in a doomed relationship who, along with his deadbeat brother, drive across the country to deliver a vintage chair that is an exact replica of the one in their house growing up to their father for his birthday.  And you know, things happen on the way, like road trip movie things.  And relationship things.

I actually like these guys better now that they mix more comedy into their movies, but you can see the beginnings of their style and humor taking root in The Puffy Chair.  There's a hilarious and uncomfortable sequence where Mark Duplass tries to sneak his girlfriend into a cheap motel room.  It goes wrong in a painfully realistic manner. 

The Puffy Chair is worth looking into if you're a fan of the Duplass Brothers' other films, but if Jason Segel or Jonah Hill are your reasons for watching those, you should probably look elsewhere.  Though, I guess if you're a fan of The League, you might be interested in this, since Duplass and Aselton are stars of that show.  As epic and expensive as The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming was, The Puffy Chair is the complete opposite, and I definitely prefer my comedies better this way. 

Rope of Sand, The Gold Rush, Two-Way Stretch, When Eight Bells Toll

Rope of Sand, by William Dieterle,1949

So, here's the problem with being as far behind as I am in reviewing the movies I watch.  Most of the time, I watch good movies and I remember them and still have stuff to say a couple weeks later when I get around to writing about them.  Occasionally, I don't like a movie, and I can usually remember my gripes pretty well. too.  But then there's the occasion where I watch a movie that's just kind of OK.  Forgettable, even.

I guess I should have taken notes while I was watching William Dieterle's adventure film Rope of Sand, because I can remember very little at this point.  It didn't wow me.  Burt Lancaster stars as a guy in Africa who is hiding some diamonds he found from an evil diamond company.  They hire a lady to seduce it out of him and ummmm, I can't remember.  Peter Lorre is in it, and I always like him.  Claude Rains, too.  The movie is fine in the moment as a diversion, I don't recall NOT liking it, but if I'm any indication, it doesn't really stay with you.  Dieterle also directed The Devil and Daniel Webster, so he's still alright in my book.

The Gold Rush, by Charles Chaplin, 1924

Well, OK, I blew it on that last one.  Let's see if I can't do a little better this time.

As forgettable as Rope of Sand was (I even just now blanked on the title, no kidding), Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush is that much more memorable.  It's quite simply Chaplin's Little Tramp character in the gold rush.  Not the gold rush in California in the 1840's, the one in the Yukon at the turn of the century.  The Tramp finds himself trapped in a cabin with a couple of nasty guys, then finds himself in a town, in love with a local girl.  Lots of great physical comedy bits ensue.

My favorite bit was while Chaplin was stuck in the cabin during a blizzard with the two guys.  The two guys are fighting each other over a rifle while The Tramp hides.  No matter where he goes, though, the fighting men always turn so that the gun is pointing directly at him.  It's really funny stuff, in that great, timeless kind of way.  There are also some excellent practical effects involving the cabin being suspended on an icy cliff.

I usually lean toward Buster Keaton when it comes to silent comedies, but I'm not opposed to Chaplin.  He was an immensely talented comic and director.  I haven't actually seen a lot of Chaplin's films, and none of them since, I don't know, Intro to Film in college?  I should look into him a bit more.

Two-Way Stretch, by Robert Day, 1960

Two-Way Stretch is not a great comedy by any means, but it has a great premise and is worth watching if you're a fan of Peter Sellers.  That premise?  It's about a group of crooks living comfortably in prison, who hatch a scheme to break out, pull a heist, and break back into jail before anyone notices they're gone.  Unfortunately, a new warden arrives and tightens things up in the prison, so now they have to sneak around him.

It's a pretty clever premise, no?  The movie is just decent.  I do remember it better than Rope of Sand, which is apparently my new reference point now.  I liked Sellers, and my favorite jokes were early in the movie, when they show just how comfortable life for these prisoners is.  You know, I don't say this about many movies, but Two-Way Stretch would actually be a pretty good candidate for a remake.

When Eight Bells Toll, by Etienne Perier, 1971

Hey now, this is pretty awesome.  When Eight Bells Toll was initially intended to be a competitor with the highly successful James Bond series.  Of course, it didn't stand a chance, but you know what?  It's actually closer to a true 007 story than the Bond movies were at that point.

A young Anthony Hopkins, not long after his debut in A Lion in Winter, plays secret agent Phillip Calvert, on a mission to investigate a hijacked ship carrying a bunch of gold.  It's a fairly standard spy movie, but Hopkins is awesome in it.  He's suave and charming, and badass when necessary.  He even snaps a guy's neck in a pretty awesome way.  He has great dialogue, too.

In 1971, Diamonds are Forever came out, easily the lamest Bond movie yet (at the time, I mean, it may have been surpassed since).  Things had gotten campy and over-the-top ridiculous.  Of course, it was highly successful.  When Eight Bells Toll came out, it didn't do nearly as well, despite the fact that it was far superior.  It feels like a cool, low-tech spy movie (I prefer 'em low-tech), along the lines of the first 007 film, Dr. No.  It's totally worth watching.  In fact, of these four movies, it's the one I recommend the most.  I know The Gold Rush is a masterpiece, but When Eight Bells Toll is one of those little hidden gems.

Sowing My "Wilder" Oats the Fourth: I Give Up On Trying to Rationalize That Title: The Lost Weekend and Irma la Douce

Hey, folks, I'm back with another entry in my little series exploring the work of one of my favorite filmmakers, Billy Wilder.  This will be my last one for a while, since October's coming and that means horror movies.  Billy Wilder should have made some horror movies, so I could review them.

The Lost Weekend, by Billy Wilder, 1945

While most of my reviews so far have focused on the Billy Wilder of the late 50's, the 60's, and the 70's, there's still a good deal of his early films that I've yet to see.  A cautionary tale of the dangers of addiction, The Lost Weekend is a true classic, made just after Wilder had received a bunch of Oscar nominations for his breakthrough, Double Indemnity.

Ray Milland plays Don Birnam, an aspiring writer who lives on his brother's dime, which he mostly spends on booze.  At the start of the movie, Don is ten days sober, or so he claims, as we soon see him pull up a bottle he had hidden outside his window.  Once he gets his brother out of his hair, Don goes on a massive bender, full of self loathing and yuckiness.  During his bender, we see in flashbacks what has led Don to this point, as well as his meeting and courtship with Helen St. James, the woman who loves him and tolerates his behavior maybe way more than he deserves.

The Lost Weekend isn't one of Wilder's screwball comedies.  It's dark and even pretty harrowing for its time, with a serious underlying message about alcoholism, a problem that was on the rise since Prohibition.  That said, there are some laughs, and plenty of that sharp dialogue Billy Wilder was so good at writing.  Perhaps The Lost Weekend's most lasting contribution to society is the scene where Dan is walking while neon signs and stuff dissolve by in the background.  Even if you haven't seen this movie, you've seen that scene in homages and parodies a million billion times.  I'm guessing some of the people who use that device don't even know where it came from.

I'm sure at some point, we've all known, been, or dealt with addicts in our lives.  In the Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder addresses the issue head on at a time when many people just enabled it or swept it under the rug.  And he manages to make it all entertaining and not beat us over the head too hard with the message (there is some beating us over the head, but not TOO hard).

Irma la Douce, by Billy Wilder, 1963

While One, Two, Three was Wilder's next movie after his big Best Picture win for The Apartment, Irma la Douce was his true followup.  I assume One, Two Three was already in production by the time the Oscar nominations came out.  Irma la Douce is that kind of big, maybe a little too big, ambitious movies that a director makes when given extra license by a studio for making them an award winning box office hit.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, Irma la Douce is Billy Wilder's Magnolia.

Though he reunites The Apartment's stars, Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, Wilder wisely does not try to replicate the tone of that film.  Instead, Irma la Douce is more of a sophisticated screwball comedy in the vein of Some Like it Hot.  Set in Paris, Lemmon plays Nestor, an idealistic and oblivious police officer assigned to the seedy red light district, where the usual officers on duty take bribes to look the other way while the prostitutes work.  When he finds out what's going on, he stages a one man raid on the hotel and arrests all the prostitutes, including Irma la Douce (MacLaine), a sweet, chain-smoking, green-stockinged prostitute who carries around an alcoholic poodle.  She recognizes his kindness and good intentions, and treats him more kindly than the others.

Now, comes the series of misunderstandings part, because that's what these comedies are all about, right?  Well, Irma la Douce has maybe the most misunderstandings ever in one of these movies, so many, in fact, that the movie has an unwieldy 2 1/2 hour running time.  You see, through a series of misunderstandings, Nestor loses his job, and then another series of misunderstandings leads Nestor to become Irma's pimp.  And when Nestor can't stand the thought of Irma sleeping with other men, he disguises himself as "Lord X" a Brit who pays Irma to be exclusive to him.  Nestor must now work all night to pay for his own girl's services as a prostitute, but not for sex, just for talking.  Nestor's sneaking out to work at night leads Irma to believe he's cheating on her, which leads her to try to run away with Lord X who is really Nestor... and so on.

This movie is complicated, but oh so smart.  I'm not usually big on comedies longer than 90 minutes or so, and you could definitely feel Irma la Douce's length (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID HEHEHEH).  But I didn't really mind, that much, because the movie was very watchable and funny, and Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine are both great once again.  Lemmon gets to show his range, playing two characters (or one character playing another, I guess) and showing off his physical comedy skills.  It's also, as expected from Billy Wilder, ridiculously mature for its time.  By 1963, his movies are getting pretty dirty, and it's awesome.  If you can commit to that insanely long running time, or maybe just watch it in two sittings, Irma la Douce is an extremely fun ride.  I know I said it's bloated and overlong like Magnolia, but hey, I happen to really like Magnolia too.

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If you'd like, I have a bunch more Billy Wilder reviews and you can follow these links here to read them.

Ace in the Hole

The Front Page

The Seven Year Itch and Sabrina

Witness for the Prosecution and Kiss Me, Stupid

One, Two, Three and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

The Bicycle Thief, Goyokin, and Jiro Dreams of Sushi

The Bicycle Thief, by Vittorio de Sica, 1948


Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief (or Bicycle Thieves, depending on who you ask) is one of the best, most important, and most moving films ever made. That's not up for debate, it's earned that. Having seen the film, I can now acknowledge all those things, but I don't know, it was just so sad.

The Bicycle Thief is the relentlessly soul-crushing story of Antonio, an impoverished man who gets a job opportunity that requires he has a bike. He and his wife trade all their sheets to be able to get one, and even then, just barely. Antonio and his family treat the bike as their most precious possession. His son polishes it and has memorized every detail, down to a small dent. When Antonio goes to work for his first day, he carries his bike into the office, refusing to put it down. Then, on the job, which is riding around the city and gluing posters to walls, a man takes off with his bike.

Antonio goes to the police, who just trivialize the theft, as though it's not important. To Antonio, of course, it's the most important thing in the world. He, his son, and some friends go on a desperate search, combing the city for the bicycle. There are thousands of bicycles, and so on. The movie is just really damn sad. There are uplifting moments, and there's actually a lovely message of empathy and understanding to the whole thing. Though Antonio's desperation is blinding him to it, we can see that everybody is struggling, not just him. This is what drives people to steal bicycles.

I'm not NOT recommending the movie, it really is great, but just warning you, grab your hankies. No wait, don't use hankies, those are so gross, use a tissue. And watch something happy or fun afterwards, like cat videos or a cool-as-hell samurai movie or something.

Goyokin, by Hideo Gosha, 1969


I feel like Hideo Gosha was the last great director of the Japanese New Wave of the 50's and 60's. I don't know if this is a fact, because my knowledge is incomplete, but this is how it seems to me. While most of the other important directors of the time began making films in the 30's and 40's and were already well into their careers when they produced their seminal works, Gosha made his first film in 1964. Japanese cinema becomes a whole different beast in the 1970's, and I feel like Gosha kind of bridges the gap between the two styles.

In Goyokin, the great Tatsuya Nakadai (The Sword of Doom, High and Low, Kagemusha, among many others) stars as Magobei Wakizaka, an honorable samurai who looks on in shame as his clansmen slaughter an entire village to steal a shipment of gold. He can't go on as a samurai anymore and quits, but also promises his master and best friend, Rokugo (Tetsuro Tanba of You Only Live Twice and The Twilight Samurai, also among many others), that he won't report this transgression as long as it doesn't happen again.

Three years later, Magobei, living a peaceful life, is about to give up his sword for good when assassins sent to kill him tip him off that Rokugo is planning on butchering another village. Magobei decides to stop it from happening. Along the way, he stumbles across the girl who was the sole survivor of the massacre three years ago, and wins over a mercenary sent to kill him.

This movie is awesome. It's fun, with lots of action and adventure. Tatsuya Nakadai is totally badass as Magobei Wakizaka. There's a great scene where he is tied up and dropped into a deep pit of snow and left to die. The exact details of his escape are left to the imagination, but we're given enough of a starting point to marvel at how cool this guy is. Rokugo's plan to run a shipment of gold into the sea is pretty diabolical, and Wakizaka's plan to thwart this plan is equally clever. And of course, we get a deadly showdown between the two at the climax.

I've seen five or six of Hideo Gosha's films now, and dug them all. Though the film that follows this, Hitokiri, is a lot darker, the rest of the ones I've seen, such as Secret of the Urn have all had this kind of spirit of adventure. Goyokin is tons of fun.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi, by David Gelb, 2011


We're going to stay in Japan for our next review, though this is a very different kind of movie than Goyokin. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary about Jiro Ono, an 85 year old man who owns a tiny sushi shop that purportedly makes the best sushi in the world. Jiro has spent close to his entire life making sushi, obsessing over every detail, honing his techniques, and looking for ways to improve it. He's like Van Gogh painting the same scene over and over again, trying to find the perfect colors to represent it. Or Stanley Kubrick obsessively looking through thousands of pictures of door frames, trying to find the exact perfect one to include in his film.

We also meet Jiro's two sons; the eldest is in his 50's and is still being primed to take over Jiro's restaurant someday. He has to live with the anxiety that even if his sushi is every bit as good as his fathers, people will somehow perceive it as lesser and thus put his business under. The youngest son has been encouraged to open his own sushi restaurant that is an identical mirror image of Jiro's place. Jiro was not the best father to his sons. He was too busy thinking of sushi, but I guess he's there for them now, in his way.

The documentary is fascinating, though it can be as repetitive and single-minded as its subject. Could you imagine living your life with your brain centered on all aspects of sushi and nothing else? Of course, he's not making the sushi alone. Along with his sons, he has several apprentices. They are given years and years of rigorous training. In fact, they said it takes something like ten years before they're even allowed to handle the eggs.

What's weird is, I'm not an adventurous eater in the least bit. I've never even had sushi, but I still could totally appreciate this movie and Jiro's work. I assume this sushi is the most delicious raw fish one could ever eat, if one were into such things as raw fish. It would be like if somebody in America would dedicate their entire life to cultivating the most perfect french fry in the world... Oh man, now I'm drooling. I've gotta go.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky and Breathless: There Are Lots of Different Ways to Be Great

Wow, everybody, I'm not going to make a big deal of it, but Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky is the 300th movie I've reviewed on I Probably Liked It. That's a lot of movies for someone to probably like in only 20 months! I haven't slowed down at all since watching it either. I still have almost 30 movies to review. I'm really wanting to be caught up by the end of this month, but writing takes a lot of time that I don't necessarily have, so we'll see.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, by Lam Nai-Choi, 1991


I've been hearing about this movie since I was in 9th grade. Back in the early, pre-Stewart days of The Daily Show, they always used to show a clip of a guy smashing another man's head with his fists like Ghallagher smashes a watermelon with a sledgehammer. The older geeks who were more in the know than I told me about The Story of Ricky, and thus a legend was born.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, set in a hellish not-too-distant future of 2001, is about a good guy who is imprisoned for killing a crime boss. The prison is just as corrupt as the outside world, as Ricky soon learns when he comes to the defense of a poor old man who is just shy of parole. In doing this, he makes enemies of not only the worst of the prisoners, but also the evil warden and his lackies. Now Ricky must fight his way through these guys and out of the jail that would rather see him dead.

This movie is nuts! I don't know why it took me so long to see it. I guess because it was never sitting directly in front of me, until it popped up on Netflix. The violence is super over-the-top and hilariously fake looking. It's like if Evil Dead 2-era Sam Raimi made a science fiction kung fu prison drama/comedy. We're in a world where pretty much anything can happen. We see Ricky smash his fists through heads and torsos, and one of his foes tries to choke Ricky with his intestines at one point. Ricky has superpowers and is basically indestructible, unfortunately for these bad guys. You never feel like the odds are overwhelming for the hero, you just watch to see how he's going to eviscerate one boss after another.

I'm guessing my description isn't really selling Riki-Oh. You're probably wondering what's so appealing about it. It's hard to do this movie justice with words. Let me just say that it's weird and funny and culty and great to watch with a group of friends (inebriation optional). Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky is off its rocker, and totally awesome for it.

Breathless, by Jean-Luc Godard, 1960


While I think you could say the Story of Ricky achieves a kind of greatness, Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless is the real deal. Sure, it doesn't have a scene where the hero shoves a bad guy into a meat grinder, but it has its own non-meat-grinder related merits. There's a reason this film is frequently voted by critics as one of the best ever made.

One of the films that kick started the French New Wave, Breathless is the story of Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a guy who steals a car and shoots a cop and now needs money to get out of the way. He goes into the city to find someone to give him a loan. While he's there, he also tracks down Patricia (Jean Seberg), an American girl he's slept with a few times, and wants to come with him. Much of the movie is set in her apartment, as they smoke cigarettes like they're in a French movie and discuss their situation and she tries to determine whether she loves him or not, while the cops are out there tracking him down.

It says something about a movie when it is the source of all the stereotypes of what a certain kind of movie is. Breathless is like that. Every American parody of an "artsy" French film on TV, in cartoons, and in movies, is just doing its own version of Breathless. This is that movie. The philosophical voice-over narration of the hero, the frequent use of jump-cuts. Not only often parodied, but often used for serious. The way Godard used jump-cuts in his editing was a brand new thing at the time, though it's become recognizable and commonplace over the last 50 years.

I had seen Godard's Alphaville before this, and I liked it, but now that I've seen Breathless, Godard seems much easier to get into. It's bold, groundbreaking, and personal and it still feels that way half a century later. This would have been a much better film for me to start off with.

Sowing My "Wilder" Oats 2: Stubbornly Clinging to This Awful Title: Witness for the Prosecution and Kiss Me, Stupid

Hey, everybody, I'm back, and I have more "Wilder" oats to sow. As I mentioned last week, Billy Wilder is one of my favorite directors and I recently decided that I needed to see more of his films. Luckily, there's a wealth of them on Netflix Instant, including some of his best work.

Witness for the Prosecution, by Billy Wilder, 1957


One of my favorite things about Witness for the Prosecution was the end credits. And no, not because the movie was over. What I liked was that a card came up on the screen that politely advised outgoing cinema-goers to not spoil the twist ending for anyone. I wonder if it worked?

Witness for the Prosecution isn't one of Wilder's screwball comedies, in fact it's an adaptation of an Agatha Christie play. It's something more along the lines of Ace in the Hole, a drama with some comedic moments balancing out some very dark moments. He was very good at walking that line and finding the necessary balance between the two.

Charles Laughton plays Sir Wilfrid Robarts, a highly respected barrister brought out of retirement to defend a man (Tyrone Power) of the murder of an old woman. Making the case more difficult is the man's wife (Marlene Dietrich) who is uncooperative and clearly hiding something, or perhaps many things. Robarts deduces that she is the key to finding the truth of this case, as she takes the witness stand against her husband.

Laughton's Robarts is a really great character. He puts himself through a lot of physical and mental stress when he's defending someone. He's large and unhealthy, and when he's working, he drinks and smokes a bunch and pops heart pills like crazy, so the stress of this trial could very well kill him. He's actually quite loveable, despite his self destructive tendencies. They even make him kind of heroic, like 'this is how I am while I'm working, but I'm still going to see this trial through even if it does me in.' Robarts also has a great repartee with his nurse (played by Laughton's wife, Elsa Lanchester), trying to avoid her throughout. Most of the light moments come from the two of them.

Marlene Dietrich is excellent too. I don't want to say too much about her, because many of the film's twist and turns are placed on her shoulders, so I'll just leave it at that.

Witness for the Prosecution is one of Wilder's strongest films, and that's saying quite a bit. The word 'cynical' gets thrown around a lot in reference to Wilder, and this is no exception. His cynicism has always worked in his favor, though. Most of his films have that edge. It's weird, I don't generally like my cynical side, and try to avoid letting it loose, but I sure enjoy his.

Kiss Me, Stupid, by Billy Wilder, 1964


I'm not much for the crooners, so I really never felt much need to watch any of the movies featuring the Rat Pack guys. The only movie I think I've ever seen with one of those guys is Scorsese's The King of Comedy with Jerry Lewis. I'm not even sure if that counts. Anyway, if it weren't for Billy Wilder, I don't think I ever would have given a Dean Martin movie a shot, but as expected with Wilder, Kiss Me, Stupid is smart, funny, and edgy for its time.

Dean Martin stars as himself, though just referred to as "Dino" throughout. Like Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, he's playing a broadly exaggerated version of the way the public perceives him. You know, drunken and lecherous. He's pretty gross in this movie, but I always assumed he was pretty gross in real life too, so I don't know how exaggerated it is. I just assume there was some self awareness going into his performance.

Anyway, Dean Martin drives through a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Climax, Nevada (get it?). When a couple of struggling songwriters named Orville and Barney (Ray Walston and Cliff Osmond) stumble across him, they concoct a plan to strand Dino there overnight so they can pitch him their songs. Dino refuses to deal with them because he's horny, and he hears good things about Orville's wife (HINT HINT). Orville understands the implied trade, a night with his wife for a song, but can't bring himself to sell her out like that (plus he's worried that she, a HUGE Dino fan, just might say yes). So they do the right (?) thing and instead of prostituting Orville's wife, they get her out of the house and hire an actual prostitute named Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak) to pretend to be her. All sorts of screwball scenarios then ensue as they try to keep the ruse going.

This isn't one of my favorite Billy Wilder movies, but I still liked it. Ray Walston played things a little too big. He mugs a lot for the camera. I read that Orville was supposed to be played by Jack Lemmon but he wasn't available, and that makes a lot of sense. Then Peter Sellers was supposed to do it and he had a heart attack during filming. It goes without saying that both of those guys would have killed, but Ray Walston is what we got and I can accept that, I guess.

By far my favorite performance in the movie is Kim Novak as Polly the Pistol. She steals the show and by the end of the movie I was totally crushing on her. I also read (thanks, Wikipedia!) that Marilyn Monroe was meant to play the role, but of course, she died during pre-production. Well, I could see why they wanted a Lemmon/Monroe reunion, but I'm glad Novak got the part, because she brought a soul to the character that I'm not entirely sure Monroe could have.

Dean Martin wasn't actually a huge part of the movie. He spends a lot of it sleeping, actually, occasionally waking up to sing a song or complain about not having had sex yet. I don't know how self aware of his character's portrayal that Martin was for this, but he comes across as a total creep. It seems to me that Dino might not have realized that Wilder was sometimes lighting and shooting him to look like a home invader or a rapist or something. If he was aware, that's awesome that he's willing to let himself be portrayed that way, but if he wasn't aware, that's kind of even more awesome.

Just like up above, I won't spoil the ending, but I was genuinely surprised at how adult it was! Things have come a long way in the nine years since the relatively chaste days of The Seven Year Itch. So to sum things up: Dino's a creep, Walston is hammy, and Novak steals it. The script is sly and edgy, but with a better protagonist, the movie could have been a whole lot more. Still, Wilder pulls it off and Kiss Me, Stupid is still a good time.

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If you want to read more of my Billy Wilder reviews, follow these links!
- The Front Page
- Ace in the Hole
- The Seven Year Itch / Sabrina

The Great Escape

The Great Escape, by John Sturges, 1963

I have a long history with not seeing John Sturges' The Great Escape. It has been sitting unwatched in my DVD collection for over a decade now. I bought it as a gift for my dad, maybe in 2000 or so, and sometime after that, he died, and I absorbed it back into my own collection. I never watched it, at first because it made me think of him, but as years passed and the pain dulled, it was really just because it was hidden away in a book of old caseless DVDs and when I did notice it, I didn't have the time or patience for a three hour movie.

Well, I finally watched The Great Escape, and as I expected, it's kind of the ultimate watch-with-your-dad movie. For those few of you who may not have already watched it, it's about a bunch of tough-guy P.O.W.s in Poland in World War II, who hatch an elaborate plan to dig a tunnel right under the Nazis' eyes and burrow out of their prison camp. Steve McQueen leads the team, in the role that made him a star. James Garner, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn are there. Donald Pleasance is there, but true to form, he's not a tough guy, he's an expert forger losing his eyesight.

The movie is great fun, though it's perfectly comfortable being serious when the story demands it too. The three hour running time rolls by unnoticed. The score is another classic by Elmer Bernstein (whether you've seen the movie or not, you definitely know this score), who also wrote the influential score for Sturges' The Magnificent Seven, among many others. Those are the only two John Sturges films I've seen so far, but that guy knew his stuff, didn't he? Both are great, large-scale stories with tons of action, drama, and comedy, and huge ensemble casts playing great, memorable characters. I never liked war movies or westerns when I was young, but now I totally enjoy them, and Sturges made movies that are among the very best of those genres.

My dad wasn't a big movie guy, really. He liked a lot of great movies, but that was a side effect of growing up in the 60's and 70's when great movies were coming out left and right. He had some amazing stuff taped off HBO when I was a kid, and that's what opened the doors for me to love movies in the first place. So I guess what I'm saying is, you should totally watch The Great Escape, or The Magnificent Seven, or The Godfather, or even The Lord of the Rings, or anything else, especially if it's something he likes, with your dad. I didn't get to do much of that, and I regret it.

Mommie Dearest and The Swimmer: Two Bizarre Films by Frank Perry

Mommie Dearest, by Frank Perry, 1981
Mommie Dearest probably needs no introduction. It's a true camp classic, with one of the greatest over-the-top performances in movie history: Faye Dunaway as unhinged screen legend Joan Crawford is a sight to behold. It's the "true"? story of Christina Crawford, Joan's adopted daughter, who suffered a lifetime of verbal and psychological abuse by her crazy movie star mother. I'm sure there is actually a good deal of truth to the story, but the movie and its star are just so excessive that I can't imagine it played out like this in real life.

Even if you haven't seen Mommie Dearest before, scenes and lines have become part of pop culture. I'm sure we all know the "No More Wire Hangers" line, right? I feel kind of bad for Faye Dunaway, for being so ashamed of this role. It's a tour de force, whether she acknowledges it or not. She really transforms herself into Joan Crawford, and when Crawford goes crazy, Dunaway is hilariously and delightfully watchable. I know that's probably not what she intended to be, but we've seen Network, Chinatown, and Bonnie and Clyde, so we know Faye Dunaway can act. And act she does. And act and act and act. Nobody told her she was acting in a comedy.

Mommie Dearest is a rare instance of a studio putting a new spin on their marketing of a movie. When audiences at screenings laughed throughout, Paramount decided to sell it as high camp, and made a tidy profit on it. We all know that Dunaway wasn't happy. I wonder what director Frank Perry thought of it. I kind of get the sense that that was what he was going for all along, but who knows? There's a scene toward the end when 20-something Christina falls ill and her 60-year-old mother fills in for her on the soap opera she was acting on while she recovers. That's hilarious! And I felt like Frank Perry was aware of the humor of it all.

Regardless of whether it was meant to be funny or not, Mommie Dearest is one of the most insane movies ever made. Utterly tasteless, but undeniably watchable. Its cult status is well earned.

The Swimmer, by Frank Perry, 1968
After seeing Mommie Dearest, I was curious about the work of Frank Perry, so I sought out his 1968 film, The Swimmer, adapted from a John Cheever short story. It's a surreal, allegorical tale about Ned (Burt Lancaster), a successful man who decides to swim home through all the swimming pools across the county. On his journey through his neighbors' backyards, Ned encounters many people from his past, and has discussions with them, where more and more about his own nature is revealed, before swimming through their pools and running to the next yard. As the movie progresses, we realize, along with Ned, that he isn't the happy, successful, pleasant man he at first seemed to be.

The Swimmer is very much a piece of late sixties weirdness. It hasn't endured or held up the same way a lot of the major movies from that time period have. It kind of shares some themes with The Graduate. Not only the whole swimming pool thing, but also the notion that our ideas of success and The American Dream have become rather hollow, an idea very much prevalent in the 1960's.

I found The Swimmer to be an interesting film, but not a great one. This may come as a surprise, but this movie by the director of Mommie Dearest is NOT the most subtle of allegories. Everything is really on-the-nose, and you feel like he is driving the point home by repeatedly punching your face with it. As the narrative progresses, Ned, having been swimming, running half naked through the woods, and realizing what a piece of shit he is all day, starts getting colder and colder. By the end of it, he's basically holding out his fists and yelling "NOOOOOOOOOOO!", like Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

Still, The Swimmer is at least an interesting artifact of its time, and worth noting for that. They don't make movies like it now, and there was really only a brief period where they did.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and The Naked City

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, by Russ Meyer, 1965

In the heyday of exploitation movies, one of the most important factors in getting butts in movie theater seats was to have a tantalizing title. I doubt there's ever been a title that piques curiosity more than Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Russ Meyer struck gold with that one, I must say. The real challenge is making a movie that lives up to that title.

Well, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a true classic, at least as far as trashy movies go. Look, it's not Gone with the Wind, but it does have a certain quality. It's the story of three badass go-go dancers, Billie, Rosie, and their leader, Varla (Tura Satana). While road racing in the desert, they come across a couple of goofy teenagers. Varla kills the boy and they end up kidnapping the girl. They then find themselves scheming to rob an old man in a wheelchair and his two sons (including a dumb, muscular one named The Vegetable), while their teenage hostage tries to get away.

That's basically the story. It almost felt like Meyer and his cowriter Jack Moran were just going "and then this happens", "and then this happens", when they were writing the screenplay, because I don't know how else you would make the leap from "road-racing go-go dancers kill a teen" to "then they end up on a ranch". Not that I'm complaining, though. The movie is weird and plenty of fun. I was amused by how un-trashy this trashy movie seemed. There's not even nudity or anything in it, the violence is tame, it's just, you know, titillation. There's almost an innocence to it. A few years later, this movie would have been wayyyy more exploitative.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a fun and memorable B-movie, but I'm not sure if it would have endured the way it has if it didn't have that crazy title. I'm glad that weird stuff like this exists, though.

The Naked City, by Jules Dassin, 1948

If you traced the police procedural drama genre all the way back to its roots, Jules Dassin's 1948 Film Noir, The Naked City, might have been the starting point. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing it was at least the beginning of the modern era. The Naked City plays like the original Law & Order episode.

It begins with the murder of a model. Two police detectives, Muldoon and Halloran (Barry Fitzgerald and Don Taylor) begin their investigation. We then see the entire investigative process play out, interviewing witnesses, looking for clues, and following leads, until ultimately, they find their man. I know I'm being vague, but look, it's a really successful formula that we all know by heart by now, don't we?

I don't mean to say that The Naked City is formulaic. I don't believe it was at the time. I think it might be a big reason the formula is so prevalent today. It's a great movie, it even won a couple Oscars. The mystery is very well constructed and richly layered. The cinematography, on location in New York City, is fantastic. The characters, including the investigators, suspects, witnesses, and even the murderer are all given depth and dimension. There's a great scene where Halloran goes home to his wife, who begs him to discipline their son, which he doesn't believe in. We learn a lot about his nature in that one scene. He's not going to hit his kid, which says a lot about a man in 1948.

The Naked City is a classic, and a very influential film. Jules Dassin made some pretty groundbreaking movies. In addition to revolutionizing the police procedural with this, he practically invented the heist genre too, with 1955's Rififi (more on that whenever I actually see it). The only other film I've seen by him is Topkapi, which is another fun and influential heist movie.

Cul-de-sac, Reds, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Since these multiple review columns that I was originally doing to play catch up have become the norm, I've decided to drop the dumb "Grab Bag" title. I'm sure everyone will miss it.

Cul-de-sac, by Roman Polanski, 1966

I haven't seen many of the old Roman Polanski films, but I hold Chinatown in very high regard (as one should), so I thought I'd take a look at something else. Cul-de-sac is Polanski's third film, a home invasion thriller-comedy of sorts, about a married couple who live in a castle on an island taken hostage by a fugitive criminal stranded there by the high tides. Donald Pleasance stars as the timid, emasculated husband.

I don't know, there was some interesting stuff in the film, but I have to say, I didn't really care for it. I had a hard time liking, or even sympathizing with any of the characters. Donald Pleasance built a career out of playing pushovers and weak men like this, but I've liked him more in other movies. I did like the setup of the criminal's car breaking down in the middle of a rising tide, forcing him to abandon his accomplice, dying of a gunshot wound, but the story gets more and more improbable and labored as it continues. It gets to the point where company comes to visit and the criminal pretends to be their butler. If it were just a wacky comedy, that might work, but the movie presents it semi-seriously, and it didn't work for me.

I'm not giving up on Polanski just yet. There are still a couple of big ones I should look into. I haven't even seen Rosemary's Baby! But Cul-de-sac just didn't cut it for me.

Reds, by Warren Beatty, 1981

Now this, I liked. Reds is Warren Beatty's epic, about Jack Reed, an American communist journalist and writer who helped out with the Russian Revolution in the 1920's. The narrative is tied together through interviews with the actual surviving colleagues and contemporaries of Reed, at that point in their 80's and 90's. Beatty was always a smart and capable director and producer, and had a hand in the development of many of his most memorable starring roles, often nurturing them for years before they got made. Reds may be his crowning achievement.

With a cast including Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Gene Hackman, Reds feels like the dying breath of the stellar auteur-driven Hollywood of the 1970's, which had collapsed under the weight of bloated disasters such as Cimino's Heaven's Gate (which I haven't seen) and Altman's Popeye (which I love, warts and all), and the massive success of mainstream blockbusters like Star Wars and Jaws.
I love that Reds was about a group of American communists, which was very much a serious movement in the America of the early 20th Century, though it wasn't something anybody wanted to talk about after the 1950's. That this movie came out in the Reagan administration is a wonder unto itself.

The 3 hr 15 min run time is a bit of an obstacle, but I was never bored. The movie spans years, and is filled with action, drama, romance, and tragedy, like all good epics. It won Oscars for directing, cinematography, and supporting actress (Maureen Stapleton), and was nominated for many more, yet Reds isn't discussed much today, is it? It's strange how so many of the 1980's Oscar winners have been overshadowed by all the sci-fi/fantasy movies and comedies of the era that we grew up watching. Anyway, Reds is worth setting aside a sizeable chunk of your time for.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? by Robert Aldritch, 1962

I am so glad I have finally seen this crazy movie. An aging Bette Davis runs rampant as Baby Jane Hudson, an over-the-hill child star, driven mad by her jealousy over her sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), a beloved screen actress, now wheelchair-ridden from a car "accident" and held captive in her bedroom.

Director Robert Aldritch and screenwriter Lukas Heller give the film a noirish, stylized look and a macabre sense of humor, while Davis and Crawford act their hearts out. I should also mention Victor Buono's hilarious performance as Edwin, a piano player hired by Jane to help revive her "career".

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? is a true classic movie that has all the markings of a cult classic. The movie is so dark, twisted, weird, and disturbing, by 1962 standards, that I'm surprised it ever made it into theaters, let alone to so much acclaim and success. Things were just starting to loosen up around then, so I guess Baby Jane made it through, and I'm glad that it did.

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So that's all for now. I'm very slowly catching up. It's my hope to be close to current by October, but I'm like 30 movies behind right now and I've been watching movies every day. Of the above three, I would most recommend Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, though Reds is great too. You can skip Cul-de-sac and watch Chinatown again instead.

Thanks, everyone!

Grab Bag: Fist of Fury / The Chinese Connection, The Lion in Winter, Alice

Look at me! I'm back! Writing about movies once again, now with an all-new, all-Chicago-y backdrop. I still don't have the internet yet, so updates may still be sporadic, but I haven't stopped watching movies in my absence. I think I have like 30 movies piled up to talk about, including some real-deal classics.

Fist of Fury / The Chinese Connection, by Lo Wei, 1972

Much like Enter the Dragon, I'm pretty sure I watched The Chinese Connection when I was a kid, but I don't really remember it. Bruce Lee plays, well, a Bruce Lee-type who returns to his home town to find his master murdered by Japanese bad guys. Bruce Lee then kicks everybody's ass to avenge his teacher and prove Chinese superiority. I can't think of too much more to say about it right now because I'm a bad writer, but it's good stuff.

The Lion in Winter, by Anthony Harvey, 1968

Well, I didn't have much to say about Fist of Fury, so hopefully I can make up for that with the next two.

I said I watched some true classics, and this is one of them. Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn star as King Henry II and his wife Lady Eleanor in this vicious adaptation of the play of the same name.

The Lion in Winter follows the machinations and maneuverings of an aging Henry and Eleanor, their three children, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, in determining the succession of the British Crown. Henry wants his youngest, the snivelling John on the throne. Eleanor wants the eldest, the kingly Richard (Anthony Hopkins in his first movie role). Geoffrey, the middle child, wants Geoffrey on the throne, but nobody else seems to care. Backstabbing, eavesdropping, and manipulation abounds. It's like watching two hours of the most epic domestic dispute of all time.

The characters are all thoroughly wretched people who care for little outside of themselves, but they're thoroughly wretched interesting people, especially O'Toole's Henry. Hepburn won a well-deserved Oscar for her performance.

I didn't know what this movie was going to be like when I started it, and I did not expect it to be so dark and filled with such acidic dialogue. I assume it's a fairly straight adaptation of the play. The family kind of reminded me of the Lannisters in A Game of Thrones. The Lion in Winter is thoroughly engrossing. The writing and the performances pull you in and don't let go for the entire 2 hour plus running time.

Alice, by Woody Allen, 1990

When I was 21 or so, I discovered the films of Woody Allen and never looked back. Like most comedy guys, I prefer the early, zany stuff, but I still appreciate a lot of his later work, all the while yearning for the Woody Allen of old. I've seen the majority of his films, though I've fallen off in recent years. Every once in a while, I look into one of the movies I've overlooked. Alice is one of those movies.

Alice is one of his whimsical fantasy comedies, along the lines of The Purple Rose of Cairo or Midnight in Paris, two of my favorite post-Manhattan Allen films. It is the story of Alice, (Mia Farrow) an unhappy rich housewife who lives a boring, struggle-free life. When she is recommended to a Chinese holistic healer, he gives her all sorts of magic herbs that allow her to fly around the city, speak to ghosts, turn invisible, and so on. Through these she is able to see herself and others in a new light and can make the changes that will allow her to live the life she had intended for herself.

Alice was a decent enough movie, but I wouldn't even put it in my top 10 Allen films. I guess it was said to be a riff on Alice in Wonderland, but really, the only similarity is that she ingests things that give her powers. I also found Allen's take on the mystical Chinese healer to be pretty outdated and borderline racist, in that way where grandpas are racist even when they don't realize it. Still, it has some really fun and funny moments, and it's better than some of his films. I would say check out Alice, but only if you have already seen all the really great Woody Allen films and feel the need to watch more.

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I was hoping to have time for more reviews but this entry alone has taken me days to put together! Things will be calming down in the next week or so, and hopefully I can get back to a regular schedule by then. See you soon!

Grab Bag: Children of Men, Topkapi, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Children of Men, by Alfonso Cuaron, 2006

OK, everyone! You can all rest easy. I have finally seen Children of Men. Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian masterpiece about a man (Clive Owen) who must find a way to save the first child to be born in eighteen years is every bit as breathtaking as I'd hoped. What I love most about Cuaron's work (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, among others) is his complete commitment to the believability of the worlds he creates. Even his most fantastical worlds are always jammed with small details, often down to the most mundane things, which contribute to making the movie feel utterly real. The war scenes in Children of Men almost feel like a documentary. As the first movie ever to make me cry with the line "Pull my finger", what choice do I but to name Children of Men one of the best movies of the last decade?

Topkapi, by Jules Dassin, 1964

This is one of those cool-as-hell 60's heist movies like The Italian Job or The Thomas Crown Affair, where a bunch of likeable crooks get together to steal something very valuable for the thrill of it all. It's funny, really smartly plotted, and the heist itself is a hoot to watch them pull off. Peter Ustinov won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role as a small time crook brought in as a patsy but later recruited as a full partner in the heist. I'm sure this is one of the movies Steven Soderbergh had in mind when he made Ocean's 11, and there's a wire acrobatics scene that I'm certain inspired the one in Mission: Impossible. Topkapi is definitely worth checking out.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010

I'll stand by those last two movies, but Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is definitely one of those films that falls into the "Not For Everyone" category. Winner of the 2010 Cannes Palme d'Or award, Uncle Boonmee is the story of a terminally ill man in the last few days of his life, looking back at his past lives, and spending time with his family, including the ghost of his wife, and his son who went missing years before and has now returned as a human-ape hybrid creature. See? Not for everyone.

I can't say I loved it, but I found it strange and fascinating and inscrutable, and I would be interested in watching it again to see if I could decipher it a little more. The highlight for me was the scene at the dinner table where Boonmee's entire family is reunited for the first time in 19 years. The movie is rich with Thai, (or rather a specific region of Thailand) folklore and spirituality, with strong themes of death, change, and rebirth at the forefront. Again, I must stress, this movie is probably not for everyone, but if you ever wanted to see a romance between a woman and a catfish, this movie might be the one for you.

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All three of these movies are worth your time, but Children of Men is essential viewing. I can't believe it took me six years to get around to it. Don't be like me!

Grab Bag: Peeping Tom, Hopscotch, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Three more movie reviews coming your way. No theme today, just some good old movies that I think are all worth your time. Enjoy!

Peeping Tom by Michael Powell, 1960

Mere months before Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was released here in the states, a somewhat similar film was released in England, to much less acclaim: Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. The story of a cameraman who kills women in order to preserve the look in their eyes at the moment of their death, Peeping Tom is a bit edgier than Psycho, focusing less on the Hollywood thrills and twists and turns that Hitchcock preferred and instead takes a more subdued, realistic, and well, British approach.

I actually may have liked Peeping Tom better than Psycho, if that's possible. Mark Lewis, the killer character played by Carl Boehm, is a more realistic portrayal of the psychology of a serial killer than Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. He is less charming than Perkins, and is more of the quiet, strange man who lives upstairs. As a child, his psychologist father filmed him at every moment of the day, often intentionally scaring him to record his reaction. There's a very unsettling sexual subtext to the footage and Mark's reaction while watching it. There's a lot of sexual subtext throughout.

Upon release, Peeping Tom tanked, but over the years, the critical reception for it has completely turned around. Now regarded by many as a masterpiece, it was a bit ahead of its time, I think, and people didn't know what to make of it. Anyhow, this movie is a must. Check it out, if you haven't. It would make a perfect double feature with Psycho.

Hopscotch by Ronald Neame, 1980
Whew, look at that poster. That is not a movie I would want to see. Perhaps not the ideal marketing campaign for Hopscotch, but then again, what do I know?

Hopscotch is the story of Miles Kendig (Walter Matthau), an experienced CIA field agent who is punished for no good reason by his superior, and put on a desk job. To get back at them, Kendig runs off, goes into hiding, writes a tell-all book exposing all of his dirty laundry, as well as the CIA's and the KGB's, and threatens to publish.

The movie is a smart, funny, and spirited chase movie, as Kendig leads his CIA superior (Ned Beatty) and replacement (Sam Waterston) on just to mess with them. It's unpredictable, since Kendig keeps his plan under wraps, even to the audience. I like the low tech, analog aspect. Spy movies with crazy technology are cool, but there's something really fun about it all being done the old fashioned way. It's sort of like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in that way, but, you know, funny. Walter Matthau is great here as always.

Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Otto Preminger, 1950

This has nothing to do with the Shel Silverstein book. It's a film noir, and a good one, at that.

Where the Sidewalk Ends is about Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews), a hotheaded detective, recently demoted for his violent impulses. When investigating a murder at an underground gambling house, Dixon is sent to question a possible but unlikely suspect, one that he shouldn't have much problem with. Well, Dixon ends up accidentally killing the guy.

He attempts to cover it up, but things only get worse from there, as he takes a liking to his victim's estranged wife and father-in-law, a cab driver prone to exaggerating stories. How far can Dixon carry his guilt? When will the lies pile up too high?

Where the Sidewalk Ends is a satisfying film noir, though in the end, it's a lot less nihilistic than some of its peers. I always wonder when I see a film noir end with anything but the darkest of outcomes if this was a compromise with someone at the studio. Not necessarily, I know, but I bet there are many cases where it is.

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That's all for today. I've got a lot more stuff to review, so I'll try to have three more tomorrow.

Grab Bag Robert Edition: Enter the Dragon, Bad Company, The Hustler

By coincidence, all three of the movies I'm reviewing today are directed by guys named Robert. It's a theme!

Enter the Dragon, by Robert Clouse, 1973

I remember when I was a little kid and Bruce Lee was the bomb. I knew he was the greatest long before I ever saw a single one of his movies. He's still the bomb, as it happens. I haven't seen Enter the Dragon in probably close to 20 years, so all I really remembered was that Lady from Shanghai style fight in the house of mirrors, and the claw marks on Bruce Lee's chest and cheeks.

One thing that struck me about Enter the Dragon is how, in an effort to reach all the demographics they could, the producers made a movie that mixed as many genres as they could (martial arts, crime movie, spy movie, blaxploitation), and was strangely racially diverse for its time. I'm not saying it's not exploitative, but it was kinda cool that there was a Chinese guy, a black guy, and a white guy fighting in this tournament on equal ground. I liked the villain with the fake hand that had various weapon attachments too. I guess I forgot about that guy. But Bruce Lee was coolest of all.

Bad Company, by Robert Benton, 1972

I don't think I've ever seen Jeff Bridges this young before. So I guess that's cool. Sort of like seeing young Beau Bridges in that old Hal Ashby movie, but, you know, better.

Bad Company is a western starring Barry Brown as a young, well-to-do, educated lad, sent west by his parents to save him from conscription and certain death in the Civil War (Vietnam parable, anyone?). On his way, he crosses paths with a fellow kid named Jake (Bridges) and his gang of teenage thieves, also avoiding the war, cheating and stealing their way west. Barry joins up with Jake's gang and gets into all sorts of trouble, though he still tries to keep on the straight and narrow.

It's a pretty good movie. Better than I expected, anyhow. Bridges is awesome as always in a sort of loveable rogue role. I liked the way it starts with them as mortal enemies, becomes a buddy movie, before they become mortal enemies again and then buddies. It was also pretty violent and dark with a surprisingly high good guy body count, showing us just how wild and dangerous the west can be. This movie is worth checking out, I'd say, though it's not great.

The Hustler, by Robert Rossen, 1961

Now THIS is great. A legitimate classic, by all accounts.

This is the story of Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman), a pool hustler with a desperate need to prove himself by beating Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Along the way, he makes some enemies, and finds a fragile love in Sarah (Piper Laurie), a sad alcoholic woman.

The performances are all around excellent, but I especially loved George C. Scott as Bert Gordon, who takes it upon himself to manage Fast Eddie. The dialogue is incredible, too. It makes you wish more movies nowadays were written this well, or at least in this manner. I also loved the cinematography, which won an Oscar. There's an amazing continuous shot that follows Sarah around a party. We see just how much of a wreck she is as she finishes three entire drinks in a single take. Much of the movie is shot around a pool table, but it never stops being interesting. You'd think there would only be a limited way to shoot a game of pool, but they keep you involved.

Out of these three movies, this is the big one. If you haven't seen The Hustler yet, you definitely should.

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So there you have it. If I was to base it off of these three movies, I would say that guys name Robert are pretty good directors.