January 20-26 Recap

Films

City Lights
Director: Charles Chaplin
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1931)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: B+

I have yet to see a silent movie I love more than Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr., but City Lights comes close. Sweet, silly, and full of heart, the film makes it easy to see why Chaplin was such a beloved performer. His Little Tramp is so full of pathos and comic nobility that it's impossible not to root for him--especially when his intentions are so good.

The film has plenty to say about social strata and injustices--and about fundamental humanity that crosses all economic, racial, and other boundaries--but it doesn't really hit you over the head with those points. They just seem to shuffle themselves out of Chaplin's silly little walk: a hypocritical and drunken rich man, a bum who helps save a potential suicide, a black man who tries to share his knowledge with a white man, and on and on. All that, plus Virginia Cherrill's great performance as a sweet blind girl make this my favorite Chaplin movie so far (though admittedly, I have a lot of blind spots here--no pun intended). A pretty great little film.

Diabolique
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Genre: Thriller
Source: France (1955)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: A

What a great thriller! Diabolique works in ways like a standard Hitchcock thriller, but Clouzot ratchets up the tension in his own unique ways; this surpasses many of Hitch's own efforts and stands comfortably with the master's best. In fact, Clouzot is beating Hitchcock to the punch on several ideas that would later be attributed to Hitchcock. It's smart, it's frightening, and it is brilliant film making.

I couldn't look away from this film, and even if I suspected part of what was going on, the director found twists and turns that made it increasingly unsettling. The filthy pool, the photograph that could have been just a trick of the light, the shadows and sounds in the climactic scene--all of it brilliantly shifts ever so slightly beneath our feet, defying our expectations in small or large ways, so that we too, like Vera Clouzot's Christina, find ourselves increasingly unsure what to think or believe. It's really effective. And Christina herself is a fascinating figure. In the film's climax she is dressed in a sheer nightgown that is both old fashioned as well as sheer and revealing, and that combination serves as a great metaphor both for Christina's character and the film as a whole. 

I understand this film was remade in the 90s, and I have to wonder why bother? This nearly sixty year old film stands up perfectly well to any thriller of recent days. 

Frozen
Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Genre: Animation
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: A

People repeatedly told me this was a really good little animated film, but the trailers did nothing for me, and that little snowman looked dumb. Fortunately for me my wife wanted to see it, because people were right, the movie is pretty great, and the snowman is actually pretty funny.

I like that Disney is taking a few notes from the conversation about what harm the "princess image" can do to girls, because this is clearly a film aimed at sending more positive messages to young women. Here we have a princess determined to save her sister--not in order to win the love of a man, but because her relationship with her sister matters to her, and she thinks the world is wrong about her sister. Not only that, but even as it gets into more standard territory regarding "true love" and the usual fairy tale fluff, the film finds ways to twist it and continue to affirm the empowerment of Princess Anna in smart ways. It's Disney film that passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, and that's a really nice thing to see.

On top of that, it's clever, comic, and engaging. The music is pretty great, the visuals are beautiful, and the humor is really funny. Josh Gad took a while to grow on me as an actor, and he's often miscast I think, but when he gets the right material he is pretty hilarious.

I just really enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to.

Glengarry Glen Ross
Director: James Foley
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (1992)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C+

I think this film was basically designed to give each of the different actors a little set piece monologue they could run with. I get the draw of that--these are great actors who are clearly into the project--and there's a bit of an "ode to the crappiness of work" element to the thing that is appealing, but the film didn't really click for me. Jack Lemmon did, and since in a lot of ways he's our access point in to this world that's good, but the film as a whole got a little tedious, even at only 100 minutes. 

As a writer, David Mamet works for me until he exhausts me, and that's pretty much how this film felt. The story is relatable (who hasn't felt under-appreciated at a job before?), the acting is great, and so on. I just got tired of it all long before the movie did.

Big Trouble in Little China
Director: John Carpenter
Genre: Action Comedy
Source: USA (1986)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B-

Silly 80s B movie that has Kurt Russell drawling his way through a mishmash of genres--kung fu movie, monster matinee, supernatural thriller, etc. There's no real logic at play here, and at times it seems almost defiantly bad, but it's also kind of defiantly fun. As Russell (as the always cool Jack Burton, a kind of blue collar truckstop Indiana Jones) and his buddy Wang battle their way through a series of Mortal Kombat rejects to save the women they love, the film gets more and more absurd as the movie progresses, but it doesn't seem to care.

Really, it's just the kind of movie I wish I had seen when I was about ten. I would have loved it as a kind of grown up Goonies. Now I can just enjoy it for the fun it provided for me on the treadmill.

Some Like It Hot
Director: Billy Wilder
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1959)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: DVD
Grade: A-

I rewatched Some Like it Hot to teach the basic three act structure and linear storytelling to my high school Intro to Film Class, and I was pleased to say the film still works well, both for film aficionados and for students leery of anything made before the year of their birth. I primed the pump a little bit by emphasizing how this was one of those films that seemed scandalous according to the standards of the Hays Production Code, and its success helped put a nail in the coffin of that system (though it wouldn't completely disappear for another eight years). I talked about how many movies still took their cues from this early cross-dressing film comedy (White Chicks, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Tootsie all came to mind) and discussed the reasons director Billy Wilder wanted to keep it in black and white. Then I crossed my fingers and started the film.

They ate it up! OK, maybe I had to help them understand what kind of comedy to watch out for (the lines, "You must be the new girls." "Yes, very new." still make me laugh), but they bought into it pretty quickly. And why wouldn't they? Jack Lemmon is a riot here, playing a character so over the top he might be insane. Tony Curtis is doing such strange things with his voice that you can't help but be drawn in. And Marilyn Monroe? Well, I haven't seen everything Monroe has done, but I know that from what I have seen this is just one of her best roles ever. Sugar is sexy, but she's also vulnerable and sincere and a little dumb but a lot good-hearted, and it's that image of Marilyn that seems to have lived on.

Fifty-five years later, I'm pleased to report the film still has legs--and shapely legs at that, whether they belong to a man or a woman.

(Side note: This is a pretty solid film for teaching the traditional three act structure. The inciting incident, plot points, midpoint, and climax are all really easy to identify. I might put this one back in rotation for film class.)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Genre: Spy Thriller
Source: USA (2014)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: B-

Standard grade thriller here. I don't find it to have the highs of my favorite Jack Ryan movies (Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger) but it's much better than Affleck's attempt at whatever brand Hollywood is determined to sell here. What is that brand, by the way? What purpose does giving this character the same name as Tom Clancy's well known hero actually accomplish? This could have been any burgeoning spy franchise. I don't quite get it.

That aside, though Branagh (even after his turn with Thor) seems like an odd choice for director, and though at times the film seems to lose track of itself in its editing, and though the story as a whole is in pretty well worn spy thriller territory, I had a nice enough time with the film (until the final act, which just felt a little silly). Pine is a solid leading man; the dynamic set up between he and his girlfriend is really great; Branagh is even a fun understated-yet-still-chewing-scenery type of villain. There are even some sequences that really work--the first major fight scene in the film is great: no choreographed martial arts, no superhuman ballet, just a gritty and rough scramble to stay alive. But my favorite part here may be Kevin Costner. After the summer's Man of Steel, I can't help but think he's better as a mature supporting actor than he ever was as a leading man.

Branagh's presence notwithstanding, this ain't Shakespeare, and it's not even a super original spy movie. But it's kind of a fun popcorn movie, and given the barren wasteland that is usually the beginning of the year, there are worse movies out there to see.

I Married a Witch
Director: Rene Clair
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1942)
Rating: NR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: B

Yep, crush on Veronica Lake still confirmed.

This film is several steps below the only other Lake film I've seen (the classic Sullivan's Travels), but she remains fun, alluring, and ridiculously likable. Frederic March is all right as the often befuddled Wallace Wooley (as well as a whole host of his ancestors), and Cecil Kellaway seems to be having a good time as a sorcerer (and father of Veronica Lake's Jennifer) named Daniel, but really this movie is all about Lake. The plot keeps moving forward in increasingly weird and silly directions, but Lake serves as the energetic and self-possessed center of it all. 

The movie has a few other things going for it as well: a few clever effects (the "moving" smoke, a simple double exposure, actually works really well), sharp dialogue, and a zany sense of fun. The film even even made me laugh out loud a few times (every time the singer started in to "I Love You Truly" it just got funnier and funnier). But make no mistake, this movie is all about Lake. She brings a confident but innocent sense of sex to the role (from her smoke covered but suggested nude first appearance to her repeatedly showing up in Wooley's bed) that is alluring, but she also just exudes playfulness in every scene that makes it impossible not to smile along. Maybe she can't sing (I'm not sure who thought her little fireplace song would be a good idea), but when you've got this much appeal on screen, you don't have to.

She's just great.

Books

The Good Lord Bird (by James McBride)
I'm really on a roll with fantastic books this year.

Every once in a while you get to read a book that really pushes all your buttons, and The Good Lord Bird was one of those books for me. Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, I heard again and again (so much so that I started to tune out) about Bleeding Kansas and the border wars with Missouri ruffians over the slavery issue. Of course we focused in Lawrence on Quantrill's burning of the city in 1863, but we also touched on John Brown's time in the state. After all, there in the capitol building in Topeka is that mural of Brown--a raging lunatic with a flowing beard, Bible and gun in hand. He's a terrifying figure, looking equal parts inspiration and insanity.

In The Good Lord Bird, James McBride brings Brown to vivid life, a prophetic madman who is driven by God or folly to try and end slavery by waging a one man war against it, no matter the cost. In McBride's incredibly skilled hands, we see Brown through the eyes of Henry/Henrietta Shackleford, better known as Onion--a slave boy mistaken for (and then disguising himself as) a girl, freed by Brown and accompanying him from his Kansas days and through Harper's Ferry, able to testify to the Old Man's derangement as well as his determination, his psychosis as well as his passion. The novel is funny, rich, and often poignant, and in less skilled hands it could have been to self-serious or too wild, but McBride finds a perfectly Twain-like balance between the two. Onion him/herself isn't quite sure what to make of Brown, and so she sees identifies his deficiencies with a deft eye. But she also respects this man who trusts so fully in his cause and in his God that his faith makes his defeats into victories and his victories into divine will. Onion's adventures sometimes take him/her away from Brown, and buried in the narrative is an equally compelling coming-of-age story of a young black man in the worst of times, when anything you need to do to save your skin--even denying your identity by putting on a dress--seem to make sense.  McBride writes with a sense of the hypocrisy surrounding the slavery question, both of the whites and of the African Americans themselves. Frederick Douglass may be taken down a peg or two, even as Harriet Tubman is elevated. In the end, those who do nothing but talk are exposed for the pretense and false virtue, while those who act--in whatever way they know how--are elevated and celebrated. 

There are elements of the novel that I'm still working through. I'm not sure, for example, what the opening set up for how Onion's story came to be told really serves any particular purpose, other than to set up the possible unreliability of the narrator (an idea further confirmed by a few of the details that don't quite match up within the narrative), and perhaps a second read through would help me see why having an unreliable narrator might be a boon to this book instead of a detraction. But on the first time through I just loved the journey, the voice, the characters, and the contemplation the book inspired. It's quirky, but it's also one of the best books I've read in a long time--and I like a lot of books.

What a great way to start the year.

Grade: A