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From Mao to Mozart
The Front
The Front Page
Frozen River
Funny People
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Frankenstein 1931 James Whale 2.5 Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff. Pretty klunky original version of the tradition. Noteworthy primarily because it was groundbreaking. Impressive is the laboratory scene with all the electricity and the operating table with the body on it being lifted toward the ceiling and through the roof. Karloff gives famous performance in which he learns to be angry and destructive; he doesn’t start out that way, but he shows fear of fire and a desire to be friendly and sweet to the little girl, but he throws her in the water without understanding the danger. Sets are German Expressionist, although more cluttered than the German ones or the later ones in the series; the Tower is impressive, especially on the inside. Set in Central Europe with lots of peasants (borrowed from a Victor Herbert operetta?), but they become bourgeois in top hats when they chase and catch up with the monster. Special effects (Karloff’s makeup, the burning windmill, etc.) must have been startling at the time (nothing like it before?), but they look distinctly fake and cheesy to modern audience. Acting is uneven, from moving (Karloff), to dead and unconvincing (Clarke and Clive), to overheated – the Burgomeister and especially Henry Frankenstein’s father. Film is not in good condition; I suspect some scenes are missing, e.g., the visit to the deaf hermit. Interesting as beginning of historical tradition in monster movies.


Frantic 1988 Roman Polanski (Britain) 3.0 Harrison Ford quiet, determined and often woodenly inexpressive as American doctor in Paris whose wife mysteriously disappears; Betty Buckley also underacting as his wife whom he dearly loves; Emmanuelle Seigner as beautiful, tempting, flighty as free-spirited young sidekick who hooks up with Ford chastely in the search for his wife. Moderately entertaining, well-made Polanski film about an American whose wife disappears out of a Paris hotel room; the rest of the film is essentially a linear search for her through the byways of Paris; Ford becomes progressively involved in international intrigue until he is finally reunited with Buckley next to the Seine; Seigner is shot by the bad guys – her death in Ford’s shocked arms is her best scene in the film. The film starts off with a long low-key sequence that shows Polanski’s unpretentious skill: Ford and Buckley arrive more or less uneventfully at the hotel, they check in, settle into their room, Ford takes a shower while Buckley puts away her things as seen through the open door to the bathroom, the shot past Ford and through the shower door shows her moving off the frame to the left; and when he emerges with his towel, she is nowhere to be found. The film has obvious Hitchcock debts – the shower scene from which we observe the disappearance of Buckley; the rooftop vertigo scene in which Ford is trying to get into Seigner’s apartment and then recuperate the model of the Statue of Liberty that he has dropped; the statuette itself is the McGuffin that contains the nuclear widget that the bad guys are trying to get their hands on; the piquant, amusing little scenes that frustrate Ford in his search – his extremely poor French that leads to a florist thinking that he is trying to buy flowers for his wife; the fussy embassy bureaucrat (John Mahoney) who follows regulations and fills out forms rather than take action; a Jamaican in a night club thinks Seigner wants to buy cocaine when she ask some questions. Entertaining tour of Paris in the late 80s with a lot of commercial streets, parking garages, barges on the Seine next to the mock-up of the Statue of Liberty (McGuffin again), cool night clubs, the showdown under a Seine bridge. Film has considerable suspense since we don’t know what happened to Buckley; but it lacks thriller punch and shocks, and the performances, especially Ford’s, are flat. It does portray a sense of paranoia and obsessiveness.


Fried Green Tomatoes 1991 Jon Avnet 3.0 Kathy Bates as overweight, unhappily married southern housewife who in a nursing home listens to the story told by..., Jessica Tandy tells the story that took place in Whistle Stop Alabama back in the 20s and 30s, Mary Stuart Masterson cute and plucky as the young Idgy who has an obvious crush on..., Mary Louise Parker the tragic proper and pretty girl who dies of cancer, Cicely Tyson in rather colorless role as loyal black servant, Chris O'Donnell as the good ol' Southern boy who as sheriff of Whistle Town stands up to the Klan. Very sentimental, music-filled, flashback nostalgic story about friendship, love (it is suggested that the two women are lesbian lovers), courage, loyalty, tragedy (Parker is beaten by her husband, and just when she survives all the indignities of life, she dies of cancer!) taking place in a carefully reconstructed 'To Kill a Mockingbird'-style South in the 1920s and 1930s. A true woman's 'chick flick' that tugs inexorably at the heartstrings and has the women somehow surviving the indignities of life inflicted upon them by their menfolk, in a setting that the art directors lovingly created in the finest detail. Social setting reminiscent of 'Mockingbird' -- all the black folks are oppressed and noble, while the white folks are divided into nigger-hating sheet wearers (Klan) and the good whites (our heroines, naturally) who are thoughtful friends of their black servants and insist on serving the town blacks in the rear of the Whistle Stop Cafe. Alabamians build up their self-worth by sneering at the people from neighboring Georgia (Valdosta usually). Denouement is ridiculous -- it turns out the body of the disappeared husband was barbecued by Big George and then served to the Georgia sheriff who declares it to be the best barbecue he ever put in his mouth! Perhaps most interesting part of movie is the development of Kathy Bates, who (somehow) under the influence of storytelling Tandy progresses from an overeating, unhappy housewife to a more confident version of herself and a better marriage, without of course having to resort to feminist self-realization (i.e., looking at her vagina in a mirror). Somewhat artificial, heart-warming, entertaining movie that shamelessly appeals to the feminine audience.


From Mao to Mozart 1981 (Isaac Stern) 3.0 Entertaining and interesting documentary on Stern's trip to China in 1979 -- invited by Chinese musical authorities. A lot of passages showing performances of Chinese musicians -- particularly impressive are the child prodigies -- and of Stern giving master lessons to Chinese students -- invariably praising them for their advanced technique, but adding that they have to put more emotion/feeling in their music and that they have to make every note "sing", etc. Interesting to see Chinese musicians so eager to learn from Western sources, especially from the avuncular and helpful, if sometimes pompous, Stern. Particularly moving is the story by the director of the Shanghai Conservatory of how he and the faculty of the school were imprisoned, humiliated, and (mostly mentally) tortured by the henchmen of the Cultural Revolution, who wanted to exclude all outside influence from Chinese music. Also excerpts from the virtuosic playing of native Chinese instruments by young musicians.


The Front 1976 Martin Ritt (blacklisted) 3.0 Woody Allen playing his same stammering, unsure comic persona as a writer front in the Blacklist era, Michael Murphy as Communist-sympathizing writer looking for work, Zero Mostel (blacklisted) as Hecky Brown, television actor and comedian who can’t find work because he once marched in a May Day parade, Andrea Marcovicci as TV script supervisor who falls for the persona Howard Prince creates, Herschel Bernhardi (blacklisted) as TV producer constantly under pressure to keep out the Commies. Film that indicts 50s blacklisting in TV and movies, but plays more like a comedy about Woody Allen’s unexpected rise and fall as a “front” for blacklisted writers. Allen has no political inclinations in beginning of movie; he is looking for money, success and sex. He warms to the money and adulation he receives as a result of his “writing;” a lot of energy goes into courting and landing the pretty woman (Marcovicci) who is taller than he is. Prince feels his oats as time goes on, he starts to front for more than one writer, and then he begins to screen and edit scripts before he turns them in to the network, since he has his “reputation” to protect. Most moving manifestation of the destructive impact of the blacklist was Hecky Brown (Mostel), who because of his past temporary association with Communists cannot get a decent-paying gig even in the Catskills; after Allen befriends him out of pity, he commits suicide after laying his champagne bottle on the sill of the hotel window he jumps out of. In the end Allen refuses to answer questions posed to him by HUAC (he responds to the questions in a befuddled and absent-minded way); he is hustled off to federal prison for contempt of Congress, and in the train station he is lionized by his old (Commie) friends and by a gaggle of hero-worshipers. Movie is interesting and often funny with classic Allen one-liners; it makes sacrifices (like the romance) to the American movie market.


The Front Page 1931 Lewis Milestone 3.0 Pat O’Brien (Hildy Johnson), Mary Brian, Mae Clarke, Adolphe Menjou (Walter Burns), Edward Everett Horton. Adaptation of Hecht and MacArthur Broadway play. Seems to be basically a filmed play; whole thing is set in the press room at a jail where an anarchist is awaiting execution (he is reprieved at the end); film focuses on rapid-fire dialogue delivered by a bunch of wise-guy journalists running in and out of the room, and no one is faster than O’Brien and Menjou! Film is in terrible condition with poor image and crackling, staticky soundtrack; obviously it has not been remastered. Wit is acerbic, with insults thrown at practically everyone (never would have made it to the screen after 1934!) including women (Menjou is a misogynist), politicians (both mayor and sheriff are ridiculous and venal and reduce everything to politics and the prospects for reelection), Blacks (“pickaniny” was born in a taxicab), and of course the Red menace. Plot involves whether dedicated newsman Hildy will actually marry Brian and move to New York; of course, Menjou is determined to prevent it (they are old newsroom buds), and even telephones at the very end to have Hildy arrested at the first train stop on the way to his bliss. Of course, later remade as ‘His Girl Friday’ in 1940 with Hildy cast as a woman (Rosalind Russell) and Howard Hawks delivering the same rapid fire delivery; and then again in 1970s.


Frost/Nixon 2008 Ron Howard 3.5 Frank Langella outstandingly convincing and entertaining as he inhabits the body and personality of Richard Nixon; Michael Sheen all smooth, toothy, and under-surface insecure as David Frost; Kevin Bacon as Colonel Brennan, Nixon’s protective assistant. Outstanding talky movie based on successful Broadway play. Superficial talk show host Frost courts Nixon in 1977 to undergo 30 hours of interviews. Film progresses through the sessions in a local Republican congressman’s house. In several scenes it becomes apparent that the theme is a contest of minds and will between Nixon and Frost, especially since Frost’s research assistants are dedicated Nixon haters who are determined to make the bastard admit that he did wrong in Watergate. Nixon himself affirms the theme in a (fictitious) late night phone call where he proclaims that Frost and he are both victims of the snobbery of the beautiful people, and that the remaining interview about Watergate will be a contest which only one of them will win (Nixon later tells Frost that he has no recollection of the phone call). In the beginning the cunning, slippery Nixon gets the better of Frost with his rambling, folksy diversions, but Frost rallies in the end to force from Nixon the famous admission that he let down the American people and that it would haunt him the rest of his life. The film’s balance is then restored by the pathos evoked by Langella in this scene – tragic, regretful, disappointed that he will never enjoy the respect due to the president who opened the door to China. Film makes outstanding use of close-ups, especially of course of Langella’s face toward the end. Langella’s powerful performance provides a kind of partial rehabilitation of Nixon – he is witty, always courteous and thoughtful (after the last interview he stops to talk sensitively with a bystander about her dog). Beneath his cunning and calculated exterior, he is disarmingly sincere in the confessions he makes to Frost about his failings and his regrets about never being liked – he envies Frost for his charm, his easiness with others, his enjoyment of company. Terrifically entertaining film about the thrust and parry between two worthy adversaries; Frost was the winner, but they both went away with their dignity. Nixon-haters will vary between outrage and disappointment in their reactions.


Frozen River 2008 Courtney Hunt 3.0 Melissa Leo plays Ray, a lower-class white woman struggling to support her family in upstate New York (her Mohawk husband had taken off with the money she has saved to buy a better mobile home); Misty Upham as Lila, a bitter Indian woman who has lost her baby to her mother in law and who smuggles illegals across the border from Canada; Michael O’Keefe as a sympathetic trooper; Charlie McDermott as Ray’s teenage son, who has to babysit his younger brother and who makes mistakes being on his own. Interesting and ultimately moving realistic film. Made with no frills, it realistically depicts life among poor folk in and around the Indian Reservation: the depths of winter, it is always cold with snow covering everything along the barren streets; most everyone lives at or below the poverty line and has to struggle to make ends meet; Indians and Whites do not get along – Upham tells Ray that she doesn’t usually work with whites and state troopers stop Indians on the road when they let Whites go on by. The narrative focuses on Ray’s need for funds so that her television set will not be repossessed and she will be able to buy a new “double wide” for her and her children to live in. When she and Lila meet, they are very hostile, but by necessity Ray soon joins her in the smuggling operation, contacting shady and dangerous characters across the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, and driving them over the frozen river (will the ice hold?) back to the drop off point in New York. The narrative focuses on the development of the relationship between the two women – wary and hostile at first, but gradually thawing to a kind of tentative mutual respect because of their common status as poor, women, and love and worry for their children. Once when a baby belonging to some Pakistani immigrants gets left by mistake on the ice, Ray and Lila just have to look at one another to agree to set off to find it (they find it alive). The two are cornered by the police at the end: since one of them has to be arrested, Ray agrees that she will give herself up – being White she will get only a few months in prison. Meanwhile, Lila moves into the old trailer with Ray’s children, the two little kids begin to play with one another, and the truck comes down the road with the double-wide that will be paid for by the smuggling proceeds. Wonderful acting; especially by Ray, who although she looks weather- and life-beaten, asks for absolutely no pity as she forges ahead in her campaign to improve the lives of herself and her children. Reminds us of the importance of Independent movies in American films.


Funny People 2009 Judd Apatow 2.0 Adam Sandler painfully dominating a film about stand-up comics and his search for romantic stability; Seth Rogan amusing as puppy-dog-like comic who signs on as Sandler's companion and amanuensis; Jason Schwartzman often amusing as one of three slacker roommates – starring in a sitcom, he is more successful than the other two; Jonah Hill as manic-depressive third chubby roommate, who can't decide whether he should mock or support his friends; Aubrey Plaza as reserved but sexy aspiring actress, who admits that she has sex with celebrities because they are celebrities; Leslie Mann (guess what, Apatow's wife) as serious romantic interest offered for Sandler's redemption – she is good at looking wholesome and smiling adoringly at her ex-boyfriend; Eric Bana (Australian) as highly neurotic husband of Leslie. Sometimes funny, mostly irritating film set in the world of celebrity stand-up comedians in Los Angeles. The funny part is due mostly to the antics of the slacker trio, who can't let a moment go by without cracking a joke or playing one. Rogan is a simple guy, unassuming and endearing, who as Sandler's alter ego sometimes earns point by objecting to his self-involved behavior, but there is a clueless passivity about the way he follows his boss around that prevents the viewer from taking him seriously. Sandler is superficial and egotistical, somewhat ironic about his material success and celebrity status, but mostly interested in making people laugh and screwing pretty young things he doesn't like and whom he will never see again. His Hollywood redemptive characteristic is his yearning for his ex-girlfriend, Mann, who dumped him years ago and then married and had two daughters (both played by Apatow's daughters). Second half of the interminable (2:26) movie is monopolized by Sandler's and Rogan's trip to Marin County, where Sandler makes a play for his ex-girlfriend; luckily husband Bana is off to the Far East for a business deal, although things get a bit tenser when he unexpectedly returns. Romantic comedy-style clichés abound as the film creeps toward its conclusion, marked by the triumph of marital fidelity (Sandler returns to Los Angeles with only having done oral sex with Mann). The ending seems to be a return to an immature slacker lifestyle – he and Rogan meet and the latter suggests more jokes to use in his routines. The film would be more than occasionally funny if there weren't so many penis jokes (30, 40?) and if Sandler's joke delivery wasn't so mumbly and low-key.


Fury 1936 Fritz Lang (MGM) 3.5 Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sydney looking pretty glamorous as sweet, sensitive fiancée, Edward Ellis as a hokey upstanding sheriff who defends the jail against the attacking mob, Walter Brennan as very skinny deputy sheriff Bugs with that famous voice, William Abel as the corny DA trying the 22 men for murder. Lang’s first Hollywood film made paradoxically at squeaky clean MGM. Texture of the film is small-town America – characters have scrubbed, sanitized, respectable look even as they shout for violence against Tracy in jail – very different from dingy, veristic Warners look! Also all public servants are presented as upstanding and trying their best to do their duty – the Sheriff, the District Attorney, the Judge, and even Bugs, the comic relief deputy. Tracy does good job with a difficult role – an upstanding working class guy who just wants to get enough money together to marry his sweetheart, then turning into an unreasonable, crazed seeker of revenge after the attempt against his life, only finally to shave, dress properly, and appear before the judge in order to save the lives of the 22 men. Film has three McGuffins somewhat laboriously worked into the script – the tear on the raincoat sewed up with blue thread, the peanuts in Joe’s pocket, and his use of the word ‘momentum’ when he means ‘memento’ all three tip Sydney off that he is alive toward the end of the film. The film has several surprise reversals – Tracy appears suddenly off camera (and then in shadows) when brothers are talking about him after his death; when jury is rendering its verdicts, camera follows one man running out of the courtroom, he stops, then reverses to show Tracy dressed in suit, then camera retreats as Tracy strides up to the judge. Heart of movie is the jail-burning sequence: the crowd descends on the jail, the Sheriff and deputies try to stop them, they break down the door, can’t get at the keys, Tracy caught in a pattern of jail bars, the crowd sets fire to the jail building, desperate Sydney arrives on the scene and sees Tracy behind the flames through the cell window, the dog runs into Tracy’s cell to “die” with him, rapid cutting between expressive, horrified close-ups – Tracy, Sydney, angry townsfolk, one woman kneeling in prayer, one fellow eating a hotdog -- and then all ended with use of dynamite. Film would be aimed at the South, but seems to take place in the western part of the Midwest. It begins with a condemnation of mob violence (endemic in the USA in the early 20th century) and the power of rumor (after Joe’s arrest, many scenes of men spreading rumors in the bar and women gossiping about the same thing at home), but also condemns revenge – if Tracy hadn’t been brought back to his senses by a good woman, he would have stood by while at least a dozen citizens would have been executed. Trial scene feels contrived and stagy. Has happy ending as Tracy in front of the judge forswears revenge and opts for justice; credits roll after embrace of reconciliation with Sydney.


The Fury 1978 Brian DePalma 3.0 Kirk Douglas, Amy Irving, Charles Durning, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgrass. Almost nonsensical thriller about father (Douglas) searching for his kidnapped psychic son, and enlisting heavily psychic Irving to help find him. Film begins with confused kidnap scene on Israeli beach, and then shifts to Toney locations in Chicago and outskirts. Some attempts at humor (interjecting Hitchcock style vignettes) are partially successful – scene where Douglas invades working class Chicago apartment and wins over fat old lady; extended chase sequence where federal agents try, but do not succeed, in catching Douglas, who kidnaps two local cops to help him. Kind of spy plot is almost irrelevant – what is so valuable about the psychic kids to motivate the feds to be so mean? What is relationship between scientific institute under Durning in Chicago and the other one in the country? Interesting that the bad guys are the feds, not the Russians or the Chinese – a sign of the 70s. Irving is very cute and fetching as vulnerable, smart, game teenage psychic; we do root for her. But why do we have to watch her ooh and ahh over her adorable bedroom and eat ice cream sundaes with fudge and marshmallow cream with Snodgrass? Pièces de résistance of movie are the violent schlock scenes à la DePalma. Irving has uncanny ability to make people bleed and to sense scenes and events; then she is shocked by the ill she has wrought. Ending is a true tour de force – a psychic confrontation between the evil Robin and his father, girlfriend, and Irving. He levitates and murders girlfriend, spinning her around until blood is splattered all over the wall and mirrors; he almost kills his father (he is levitated above Douglas when he enters the room), but falls to his death, where he communicates some blue-eyed power and will to revenge to Irving. She then is comforted by evil leering Cassavetes, and just as we think she is going to give in and become his lover, she turns on him, blinds him with cerebral hemorrhage and blood pouring out of his eyes, he staggers around the room, and then, apparently with the power given her by Robin, she blows him up in fantastic explosion with his head tumbling away. Ne plus ultra of gory shock and dismay!