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The Kids Are All Right
The Killers
The Killing
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The King’s Speech
Kiss of Death
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The Kids Are All Right 2010 Lisa Cholodenko 3.0 Annette Bening as up-tight, often foul-mouthed (!) 50-or-so doctor in Los Angeles living with her gay spouse raising two children; Julianne Moore as somewhat flaky and “hippie” spouse; Josh Hutcherson as their wise-before-his age son with a good sense of humor; Mia Wasikowska in strong performance as their daughter on the verge of womanhood; Mark Ruffalo often annoying as the hip, confused, uncertain sperm donor, who becomes involved with the family; Yaya DaCosta as Ruffalo’s beautiful, but unattachable girlfriend. Family drama with comic overtones about passages in life – the two women have to survive a mid-life crisis, Mia has to start to grow up and move toward greater independence, and Ruffalo has to recognize that his unattached life is not satisfying. In the beginning Mia summons Ruffalo into the family without asking her “Moms” and he turns out to be a disruptive influence: the kids hang out with him and Mia becomes more surly toward her moms; Hutcherson is influenced to drop his worthless guy friend (when he unzips his zipper to pee on a stray dog!); and when Moore starts a wild sexual affair with Ruffalo, her relationship with her spouse and her children goes rapidly downhill. All is ok in the end as Mia goes off to college, the two parents reconcile, and Ruffalo shuffles off to parts unknown, presumably to find a woman to marry and have children with. The film has a genuine, non-Hollywood feel: the characters are real and varied (Moore and Bening have a great time playing their parts in very distinct ways), there is no romantic salvation (in the end Ruffalo is still in the cold, and the two women reunite with little romantic passion). Dialogue is generally authentic, although the script sometimes goes out of its way to be cute and approving about lesbians being parents and forming a family; the film’s political correctness-“cool” extends to having Ruffalo run an organic foods garden on Los Angeles and to having characters bragging about juicing and loving to eat local. The subplot of Hutcherson’s friendship with the flaky kid goes nowhere; it was obviously there to give some element of “passage” to his character, but it would have worked better to leave it out. Bening expresses her emotional condition at a dinner table by singing (badly) a song from an early Joni Mitchell album, whereas Moore delivers a small speech toward the end of the film explaining (somewhat pessimistically) why she and Bening are staying together. A much more effective scene is the last one when Mia is left alone in her new college dorm room; you can see the hesitation and potential loneliness in her face, and then she runs out to her parents’ car where she gives them and her brother a moving hug – in film the visual works the best.


Kill Bill, Vol I 2003 Quentin Tarantino 3.0 Uma Thurman, Daryl Hannah, Lucy Liu. QT’s tribute to his beloved Hong Kong kung fu movies. Enormous quantities of martial arts violence – often comical with UT defeating impossible numbers of attackers and neat fountains of blood spurting up from severed heads and limbs. No sex. No dialogue. No believable characters. No real story, no real plot. No male characters: murderers and action heroes are now mostly women. Revenge drama, but we never know why the wedding party was killed in first place. Editing pace quite slow, especially in endless scene with sword maker (with really bad comedy), and the interminable confrontation with Lucy Liu and cohorts. Pure action and Hong Kong genre. Very imaginative, but all for shock/impressive effect – some sequences in black and white, one longish (good) sequence is animated, Japanese style. Terrific mise-en-scene, e.g., the final battle with LL in snow garden; but again it has no dramatic impact – just a typical scene from the genre. Movie is so obviously truncated – ends suddenly with a question, and we are invited to tune in; Vol 1 has no independent dramatic integrity.


The Killers 1946 Robert Siodmark 4.0 Burt Lancaster looking strong, reflective and existential as an ex-boxer who gets himself in big trouble when he tries to steal from his crime associates; Edmond O’Brien as an unusually tough and aggressive insurance investigator who carries a gun; Rita Hayworth incredibly beautiful, dark-haired, glamorous and dangerous as Lancaster’s sometime girlfriend; William Conrad in smaller but convincing role as sarcastic and vicious hit man; Albert Dekker as Big Jim Colfax; Sam Levene as police lieutenant friend of Lancaster; Virginia Christine as sometime girlfriend of Lancaster – she later becomes Levene’s wife. Extremely compelling film noir based in part on the famous Hemingway short story (published in 1927); only the first ten minutes or so of is based on the well-known incident where Conrad and a partner show up in a diner in New Jersey and bully the three men there – “bright boy” – and then kill Lancaster. When O’Brien comes on the scene to investigate the murder for an insurance company (shades of Double Indemnity’ although O’Brien is a much tougher investigator than Edward G. Robinson), there ensues a series of flashbacks – a la ‘Citizen Kane’ with contributions from several characters giving different points of view – that reveal to the viewer Lancaster’s character and background and deliver a fascinating, extremely twisty background story. Lancaster was a boxer who had to quit because of a smashed hand; he later gets involved with mobsters and is one of the principal participants in a payroll robbery; he tries to double-cross his buddies and take all the money for himself, but he makes the mistake of trusting femme fatale Ava Gardner, who absconds with the money from their hotel room in Atlantic City and moves in and marries Dekker; Dekker is the one who has Lancaster murdered. Dynamite ending with the murder of Dekker and another man apparently by Gardner, and intense close-up of Gardner’s (beautiful!) face as she pleads desperately with her dying husband to clear her of wrong-doing before he dies! Gardner is extremely effective as femme fatale – dark, beautiful, lurking in the background, completely ruthless and ready to double-cross anyone or commit murder to get her way. Lancaster is the classic doomed man, a victim of the manipulations of Gardner and waiting passively as a doomed service station attendant for his former partners to catch up with him. As often in the immediate postwar film noir, the plot is labyrinthine (think of ‘The Big Sleep’), but it makes little difference if the viewer can’t stay abreast, since he is focused on theme, the woman, and the camera. Very stylishly shot in the studio by German veteran Siodmark: a lot of standardly lit interior shots that are handled gracefully and economically; also some fabulous noir scenes – the arrival of the hit men in the beginning with long shadows and brightly contrasted lighting; a burial scene with dark lighting, dimly lit figures standing by the grave with clouds lowering in the background – could be something out of ‘Great Expectations’ or ‘Wuthering Heights’. Picture perfect film noir with all ingredients present, interesting characters, and the supremely glamorous fatal woman.


The Killing 1956 Stanley Kubrick 4.0 Sterling Hayden good-looking with his usual stoical, dry, dead pan delivery as the guy who meticulously organizes a $2 million heist at a race track; Elisha Cook Jr. as insignificant racetrack cashier with a money-grubbing wife as a problem; Marie Windsor acting strongly as the low-life wife who has contempt for Cook and betrays the plot to her boyfriend; Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted de Corsia, Joe Sawyer, Joseph Turkel as various of the small-time accomplices who all have personal problems that create a need for money and open up the possibility of failures in the plan. A very engrossing crime caper film shot in very sharp, perfectly framed black and white; the lighting is mostly high key and newsreel-like. Film is a heist film that appears to be modeled on ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ with an endearing last-act reference to “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ (Hayden’s stolen money breaks out of the worn suitcase on the airport tarmac and it is blown all over the runway). Precision is the key term. Hayden organizes the heist very meticulously, planning and timing everything down to the last minute, making sure all the participants know their roles, calculating the time it will take him to get to the racetrack and the time to go from the racetrack to the motel, etc. The film is also made precisely. There is a strong-voiced, dead pan narrator who leads us through the preparations; he mentions the exact times at which certain functions are performed; he reveals the details and execution of the plan in several successive layers – we don’t know how the different parts of the plan will mesh until the last part of the film. Not a single frame is wasted in this tightly edited and planned film. There are several noir elements. Since the script emphasizes the problems of the participants (the cop needs money to pay off his gambling debts to the mob, the bartender needs money to pay the medical bills of his sick wife, etc.), the viewer is tipped off in the beginning that things are probably going to go wrong. The real fly in the ointment is Marie Windsor, who is bored with her husband, wheedles the plan out of him, and then plots with her studly boyfriend to take not only Cook’s share but the whole take! And although the mechanics of the heist mesh well, the sharpshooter who is hired to kill the horse is shot and killed, and Windsor’s men die in a bloody shootout with gang members, when the former arrives at a meeting point to take the money. Hayden tries to escape at the airport with the cash in the suitcase, but he stoically awaits arrest at the exit door (he can’t get a taxi to stop for him) after his money is spread all over the runway. It is obvious that crime does not pay: personal problems (Windsor), bad luck (the cop shows up when the rifleman is trying to escape), and bad decisions (buying a beat-up old suitcase with locks that don’t work) all play a role in the debacle. A realist film with noir elements.


Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 Robert Hamer (Ealing Studios:Britain) 4.0 Dennis Price (surname Mazzini) as priceless snobby, superior, dry-witted cadet offspring of noble family d'Ascoyne who decides to do away with all eight members of the family standing between him and the dukedom; Valerie Hobson as straight upper class woman married to one of the men murdered by Price and who decides to marry Price; Joan Greenwood as sexy, languorous (but middle class) girlfriend of Price who marries a dolt because she thinks Price has limited prospects but who has long affair with Price for consolation and then turns out to be almost as ruthless as Price himself; Alec Guinness plays eight members of the d'Ascoyne family – from young and callow photographer (Henry) to suffragette, old Duke, the doddering old country parson, the kind and thoughtful banker –, almost all of whom are murdered by Price. Delightful dry, ironic, understated black comedy about socially mobile Price, who is also motivated by desire to revenge his mother's snub by her extremely snobby family; he murders his way to social prominence, only to be captured and condemned for an irrelevant crime of which he was not guilty. Price is priceless as detached, ironic, snobby narrator (he hates the snobbishness of his family, and is yet snobbish himself), who tells the story in his memoirs written the night before his execution with an extremely amusing detachment – sayings like "vice is not so unless it is noticed by others," or in Italy they say “revenge is a dish that people of taste prefer to eat cold,” or he quotes Tennyson in pointing out that kind hearts are superior to coronets (thus an attack on the nobility); in the end when he emerges supposedly freed from his penalty he quotes the "Threepenny Opera" in saying that he could be happy with either of the women awaiting him if only one of them would do away with the other. The narrative voiceover is pricelessly literary, wry and detached in its persistent irony. Inspired combination of delicious acting, literary screenplay, rollicking black humor, and biting satire of the English upper crust. It would be very difficult to find a more entertaining film.


The King’s Speech 2010 Tom Hooper (Britain) 4.0 Colin Firth is eloquent in realistic, moving portrayal of the decent, conscientious, stubborn, class-bound younger son of George V, the second heir to the throne; Helena Bonham Carter low-key and effective as his supportive wife; Geoffrey Rush as speech therapist Lionel Logue, a contrasting personality with the future king – he is Australian, common, enthusiastic, impulsive, presumptuously intimate with Bertie (what he insists on calling his patient); Derek Jacobi looking aged in almost cameo role as the Archbishop of Canterbury; Guy Pearce as attractive, sociable, sometimes harsh Edward VIII, who is however thoroughly under the thumb of his mistress (he resembles the historical figure); Eve Best strong-willed, manipulative, and resembling Edward’s mistress Wallace Simpson. Superior royal historical drama with outstanding acting (what else can one expect from English A productions?), a touching story, and a ‘Rocky’-like curve to final triumph when the tongue-tied Bertie successfully delivers a moving speech from Buckingham Palace at the beginning of World War II, and even the radio operators congratulate him as he walks away. The story moves from Bertie’s initial stammering debacle at some Commonwealth games in 1925, through his long, often adversarial relationship with therapist Logue, and ultimate success when – his hand virtually held by Logue – he delivers the war speech. The story is quite moving: Bertie is a sweet and conscientious man but he cannot express himself verbally in front of others; he has to break through his strong personal reserve to allow an intimate relationship with Logue (he is used to being called “His Royal Highness”); in a bit of reluctant personal revelation, he confesses to Logue that he was much punished and repressed as a young man by his parents (including having his left hand tied behind his back to break him of his left-handed vice), and that he was close only to his second nanny; although he doesn’t want to be king, he has no choice when Edward abdicates to marry “the woman I love”; and then with the help of his loyal and patient wife (an understated performance from Bonham Carter), he rises to the challenge. Other characters are equally interesting if not perhaps so moving: Rush’s brash, impulsive, enthusiastic, aggressively common personality from Down Under; Edward’s sociable friendliness, but he shows his fangs when he responds with bitter sarcasm to what he perceives as an attempt by his brother to replace him; dark-haired Best strolling casually through guest-filled rooms making sure she gets her way. Historical characters such as Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall!) are amusingly recognizable. What with its focus on Bertie, the future Queen Mother and Elizabeth and Margaret while they are still children, the film provides good press for the royals. Finely honed, enjoyable film that deserver many awards.


Kinsey 2004 Bill Condon 3.5 Liam Neeson speaking flawless American in first-rate portrayal of the hyper-driven Kinsey, Laura Linney as the free-thinking, loyal, tolerant, understanding wife with a sense of humor, Chris O’Donnell as one of Kinsey’s assistants who enjoys his sexual perquisites, John Lithgow as impossible father, puritanical Methodist lay preacher, Oliver Platt as beleaguered Indiana University president trying to talk sense to Kinsey, Lynn Redgrave as final interview subject who pays tribute to the personally liberating impact of Kinsey’s research. Excellent film about Kinsey’s research, his personality, and his relationships, marred only perhaps by being slightly long and meandering at the end. Film deals very frankly with the facts of American sexual behavior in the late 1940s – both the establishment moral position that we should have only heterosexual marital sex and in the missionary position for the purpose of making babies and that that is what almost everybody in fact does; and the reality that Kinsey discovers through his carefully empirical research that there is an amazing variety of human sexual behavior ranging from standard marital sex to frequent homosexuality among men and even bestiality. The roots of Kinsey’s obsessive drive for discovery and taxonomy is located in the repressive legacy of his surrealistically difficult father, who in the beginning of the film rails against the zipper since it makes sex easier; and also from the memory of his and his wife’s own sexual ignorance on their wedding night. Kinsey is depicted as obsessive/compulsive researcher who stops at nothing in pursuit of his mission. He says that he is perfectly objective (he is a “churchy” nerd, and his interview technique is a model of impartial teasing out of information), but the audience knows that underneath he is crusading against sexual prudery and repression. He comes across as insensitive because of his insistence that sex and a loving relationship are separate domains (he says love cannot be studied through science) and that recreational, exploratory, investigative sex is harmless; in fact, his wife is sometimes deeply chagrined by his behavior (including homosexual contact with one of his assistants), and his encouragement of exploratory behavior among his assistants also causes friction. His willingness to interview an arch-seducer goes awry when the latter admits he has had sex with several hundred underage children (Kinsey’s assistant walks outraged out of the room). But film ends on more or less high note with Redgrave’s sexual history interview in which she gives tribute to Kinsey for enabling her to acknowledge her lesbian inclinations and to live “three happy years” with her partner. Film also connects Kinsey at the beginning and the end with a sort of Transcendentalist spiritual connection with nature (including an upward shot at cathedral-like redwood trees); implies that his contact with true human nature creates a relationship with Nature and perhaps with God. Funny and perceptive look at American academic politics, as Indiana University President tries (without much success) to keep Kinsey from harming his own cause, and as public outrage and congressional pressure (this is the age of McCarthyism) finally force the generous Rockefeller Foundation to withdraw its funding (but only after the publication of the first two volumes of his study). Film is basically a tribute to the man who brought the USA out of the sexual Stone Ages and into the realm of sexual freedom, but it recognizes the faults of the hero.


Kiss Me Deadly 1955 Robert Aldrich 4.0 Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper as Velda, Cloris Leachman as Christine, Great 50s film noir style detective story based on Mike Hammer series by Mickey Spillane. Very linear story: begins with intriguing encounter with (will she be fatal?) woman wandering in only her trench coat on a dark, lonely road; picked up by Hammer; she is murdered (he almost); he then follows very linear plot (Hammer moves from one character to another looking for information) with the trail leading to a final secret surprise – it is all about an atomic secret. It is not clear what the bad guys want to do with the threatening little box filled with the huge energy. Has great apocalyptic ending with the house on the beach glowing and rocking and finally exploding in violent fireball; Hammer and girlfriend just barely escape in the original ending, which apparently had been replaced for most of the movie’s life by shorter ending that suggested that the two had been killed by the explosion. Meeker does excellent job as very tough (he regularly beats up people in order to get information) and sleazy (he has secretary Velda frame guys by seducing them) private eye, but he apparently has decent streak, since he seems to care deeply about finding out why his hitchhiker was killed and is very upset when his friend Nick is knocked off; his competency is marginal, since he is adept at getting people killed. Script is excellent – all the characters are interesting, even the minor ones we encounter on the way (Nick, the enthusiastic mechanic; the venal coroner! The clerk at the desk of the Hollywood Athletic Club, etc.). All sorts of high culture references – Christina Rossetti’s poem “Remember,” Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” plays on the radio, Trevigo sings along with his recording of Caruso when Hammer walks into his apartment, etc. Excellent direction with atmospheric shots of 50s streets day and night; inventive moving camera that follows complex actions keeping main characters in frame, or tracking up a complex set of stairs to suggest the Byzantine plot and the machinations behind it. Although the main female character is supportive of Hammer (his secretary), women are definitely dangerous – the original hitchhiker leads him into dangerous story, and the blond that Hammer meets in the flophouse is posing as the murdered woman’s roommate and trying to undo Hammer. Uses topical 50s dangers (atomic materials used for bad purposes), but movie doesn’t seem political. Print is in good, not great, shape.

Kiss of Death 1947 Henry Hathaway 3.0 Victor Mature, Richard Widmark, Coleen Gray, Brian Donleavy. Rather low-key crime drama that is interesting at times, but somehow dissatisfying. Directed in more or less deadpan style, semi-documentary and matter of fact, with everything shot on location in New York. Mature good as nice crook, who goes to prison for a jewelry heist, but loves his family; much motivated by crooks’ code of honor not to “squeal” on your buddies. Widmark is riveting as maniacal killer/crime boss, who giggles compulsively in falsetto voice as he pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs. Characters are generally more civilized and well spoken than most characters in crime drama. Has elements of “noir,” but key woman is angelic (not black widow), lighting is too realist and unshadowed, and sense of fate is present but attenuated. Ending rather confusing. Mature wants to put Tommy (Widmark) in prison and not kill him in self defense (he would go to prison for gun possession?); he appears to walk willingly into Tommy’s gun (wants to die?), but on other hand he needs Tommy to have the gun in hand for him to go to prison for life; then it is ambiguous as to whether Nick is dead. Voice-over of Gray says he “got what he wanted.” We are left in the dark: is that death or recovery and reunion with his beloved family?