I finally saw It’s A Wonderful Life last week. I opted out years ago in protest of Ted Turner’s colorized version, and then it just annoyed me when it was on 24 hours a day throughout December in the 1990s. By the time that ended, not having seen it had become a test of wills; Matt vs. The World, Christmas edition. But I’ve finally decided that it’s time to finally see this classic film and find out what the fuss is all about.

Of course, I already knew most of the story. You can’t get away from it that absolutely; after all, the story’s been re-used several times. The fun was watching the details that haven’t made it into the cultural database.

The first two thirds of the movie was pretty darn good. I appreciated how George Bailey had grand plans that kept getting interrupted by his sense of duty to others. He didn’t get to college, he didn’t get a honeymoon, he didn’t get to have a lot of money or go to cities around the world or do anything he’d planned. Instead he compromised, and compromised, and compromised.

Not that that’s a bad thing. That’s just the way life happens sometimes.

I wasn’t feeling the last third of the movie, though. From the time Clarence hit the ground on, it took a turn that was a bit too optimistic for me, and a bit narcissistic. I mean, according to Clarence’s reality, no other boy could have saved George’s brother, and Mary would have turned into an old maid who couldn’t possibly have found another mate, and nobody in the world would have stood up to old Mr. Potter. Et cetera.

I’m only half serious here; I’m well aware of the limited message that Frank Capra was trying to give. And while it’s a little heavy handed for me, I do understand the appeal of that message, especially at Christmastime. Regardless, it was all worth it for the scene between George Bailey and his daughter Zuzu. That was a sweet moment.

And of course, without It’s A Wonderful Life, we wouldn’t have The Lost Ending to It’s A Wonderful Life.

Merry Christmas, movie house!

An Alfred Hitchcock film today, this one a remake of a film he’d made 22 years earlier. The Man Who Knew Too Much stars Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, in a rare dramatic role. They are Ben and Jo McKenna, on vacation with their son in Morocco in the 1950s. After a series of seemingly innocent encounters, Ben is given a piece of information that puts the entire family in jeopardy.

Hitchcock is amazing. Even today’s directors don’t hold a candle to his skill. Here we have a mystery with clues flying all over the place as the audience follows Ben and Jo around. But there isn’t enough information to know the good guys from the bad, and the audience is left to try (unsuccessfully) to piece it all together.

At this point Hitchcock does something that most filmmakers won’t. At just the right time, as the tension is becoming unbearable, he veers from the lead characters’ perspective and gives the audience an additional bit of information. He did it in Rear Window when the audience watches a woman leave the neighbor’s apartment while Jeffries sleeps, sure that she’s been murdered. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock takes us to the kidnappers, where we learn exactly when in a piece of music a man will be killed. He points out which instrument to watch and lets us hear a recording several times to make sure we’ve got it.

Then he drops us back into the lead characters’ lap, where we find our place in the viewing fundamentally changed. We aren’t following them around as they search for clues anymore, we’re trying to lead them around hoping they figure out what we already know in time to stop a murder. Hitchcock has made us active participants, powerless to do anything but watch in horror.

Jimmy Stewart is wonderful as the clumsy and confused doctor put completely out of his element without the first idea of what to do. It’s an intriguing series of events that leads to the meat of the story, and Stewart is an exceptional choice for getting the audience there without realizing it.

Doris Day (below) does an impressive job, especially given the departure this was from her usual light-and-fluffy comedies. I wouldn’t call her acting revolutionary, but she’s certainly charming in the role, and especially effective near the beginning when her husband is dismissive of her suspicions.

This is brilliant film making. It’s not my favorite Hitchcock (that still belongs to Rear Window), but still great.

I hadn’t even heard of The Third Man until Netflix told me I’d like it. I decided to give it a shot. I mean, it’s got Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten from Citizen Kane, and the reviews are pretty darn positive, so there must be something to it.

Fortunately for Netflix (we’re still on the outs since The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), I liked The Third Man quite a lot. The zither music throughout the film set it apart as a film, and I was delighted at what I saw. (BTW, it’s rated A for Adults.)

Set during the post-World War II occupation of Vienna, the film follows American author Holly Martins (played by Joseph Cotten, below) as he tries to figure out how his friend died. Before long, Holly is caught up in a web of lies so complex that even the audience isn’t sure if he’s right.

And that’s the film’s first success. Before I got the DVD I knew that the accident that killed Harry Lime, and even the fact that he died, was in question. I also knew that the part of Harry Lime (what a great name) was played by Orson Welles, so Harry would obviously be making an appearance. Still, I found myself questioning everything right along with Holly. Was Harry murdered? And by whom? For what reason?

Alida Valli, the actress who played Harry’s love interest Anna, has a haunting, troubled beauty. She knows things as they are, not as she wishes them to be. In occupied Vienna, she knows that things like the black market and forged papers are necessary. But with American ideals that see the city from across the ocean, Holly would claim that morality is binary; either a thing is right or it is wrong.

The occupying forces, of course, agree with Holly. They’re bringing Vienna back from the brink of barbarism, and their rules are there for a reason. What they cannot see, or at least cannot acknowledge, is that their laws may work when looking at the grand scheme, but also crush the people with their rigidity.

Major Calloway and Sergeant Paine (pictured above) are, then, in an impossible position. They’re the middlemen who see the hardship on the street while also seeing the ideal being propped up. They understand why people must circumvent legal means of trade, but see the importance of shutting down the black market.

And that’s where Harry Lime comes in. Harry is the underbelly of the black market personified. He’s in Vienna to make a buck, plain and simple. If someone gets hurt in the process, then that’s just the price we pay for society’s advancement.

This is what makes The Third Man successful. It’s a seemingly simple problem, but writer Graham Greene and director Carol Reed present it within a story of intrigue that both complicates and finally answers it with a breathtaking chase through the sewers of Vienna and a long walk after a funeral.

Dark and humorous, beautiful and cynical, this classic noir is a film of contradiction. Give it a look and see if you agree.

With apologies, this is easily the shortest review I’ve written. It’s just that I don’t have much to say about this one.

I saw The Treasure of the Sierra Madre last weekend. I was mostly unimpressed by the experience. I’m not sure if I was just in the wrong mood, but I felt like it was just standard 1940s movie fare. Pretty heavy handed on the moral lesson, a bit over-the-top on the performances, overbearing music, the whole nine.

It’s not that Humphrey Bogart or Tim Holt (above, for example) gave a bad performance, it’s just that it was so obvious how it was going to turn out. I guess there’s only so much you can do with “Hey, I’m a swell guy.” “Gold’ll change you!” “Hey, I’m a bad guy now because of gold.” “Told you.”

I never knew where the “stinking badges” line came from, so it was fun to have it sneak up on me. That was the best part of the film for me. Well, that and Walter Huston’s little jig.

His Oscar-winning little jig.

All in all, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre only ended up rating mediocre for me. Better luck next time, John Huston.

Warning: This review contains a major spoiler, so if you don’t want to know what happens in the last ten minutes turns out, turn back now.

I actually enjoyed The Heart is a Lonely Hunter for most of the movie. It had the right mix of quirky and earnest to suit my tastes. It’s the story of a deaf man (Alan Arkin, below) who is waiting to gain legal guardianship of another deaf man who is also mentally challenged and committed to a mental hospital.

While he waits for permission to remove his friend from the hospital, we follow him as he gets acquainted with the town he’s moved to. We meet a middle aged couple dealing with financial hardship, a teenage girl afraid to dream, a drunken drifter, a black doctor looking back on a lifetime of choices, and the doctor’s daughter, who has a tenuous relationship with her father.

The film has a great cast, including Cicily Tyson, Stacy Keach, and Sondra Locke. I even recognized the second deaf man as Tinker Jones from the first season of Little House on the Prairie ¹, so that was cool. Even with this cast, though, I don’t think The Heart is a Lonely Hunter lived up to its potential.

Maybe it was the change of era from the book’s 1930s to the late 1960s. The financial problems would have been a lot more potent set against the Great Depression. Other parts of the story would have made more sense in the original setting, too. The institutionalized racism shown in the doctor’s subplot were interesting and germane to the times, but I wonder if his story would have benefited from being set before the Civil Rights movement.

There were also problems with the direction. It had that late 1960s loosey-goosey ‘that’s good enough’ feel to it. It reminded me of the direction in Sybil, though in that case the failure wasn’t fatal. Here, I just kept wondering if they couldn’t have given each scene one more shot.

But the biggest problem I had with The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was in the last ten minutes. It’s going along, and going along, and a bunch of disconnected things are happening, and I’m waiting for all the storylines to join into one, and hey isn’t that drifter going to return soon, and then Alan Arkin kills himself and the end. Muh-wha? Excuse me?

I just about threw the remote at the TV.

If I were handing out opinions about what film you should see (which, come to think of it, I am!), I’d skip The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Maybe see it for Alan Arkin, because he’s truly wonderful in the role. And the doctor’s story is kind of poignant. Otherwise, it’s a pass.

 

 

¹ And yes, I remembered the character’s name without looking it up. Such is my love for the first season of Little House. ⇧

(Thanks to DVD Beaver for today’s screencap.)

I’ve wanted to see this film ever since I saw WALL•E in the theater. Several of the songs from Hello, Dolly! are used in that one, and I was curious to see the source material. I saw it as a stage production, but that was 20 years ago in high school¹, so it was fun to see it and almost remember some of the songs.

What a fun movie. From the opening sequence of people’s shoes walking in time to the music, it had me under its spell. Jerry Herman’s Oscar winning score is light and effortless in its expression of unadulterated joy. I’m not the biggest Barbra Streisand fan, but she is marvelous as Dolly. Her voice is impeccable, and she owns the music.

Of course, Barbra isn’t the only star. Michael Crawford (above) is convincing as Cornelius, a man-child who’s never left Yonkers to explore the big city. He has a Dick Van Dyke-ish quality in his performance. It grates after awhile, but he does it well. With totally-not-gay-life partner Barnaby, Cornelius makes his way to New York City to find a couple of fag hags women to kiss².

Walter Matthau serves as leading man, and honestly, his performance is the weakest link in Hello, Dolly! for me. Sourpuss was Matthau’s stock-and-trade, but here he is so sour that I couldn’t figure out why Dolly would be so enamored with him.

You can definitely see director Gene Kelly’s fingerprints all over it, and Michael Kidd’s choreography meshes wonderfully with the music. The whole production is just BIG, and not just in scenes like the big parade. Even the smaller sets have a bigness to them. When set against its time (1969, when Midnight Cowboy won best picture and anti-war protests were common), Hello, Dolly! stands out as a statement of defiant optimism.

And that’s an optimism that we need to see again. Take another look at Hello, Dolly! and remind yourself of the prosperity of spirit that should accompany our daily lives. Then watch it again so you don’t forget.

¹ Upon realization that it had been 20 years since I was a high school sophomore, I curled into a fetal position and slowly rocked back and forth for about an hour. ⇧
² Oh, come on. They spend the night in the cellar together. Cornelious is 28 years old and he’s never kissed a girl. They’re going to show the girls the town “from top to bottom” then take them to a ballroom dancing competition. They may as well as have had pitcher/catcher shirts on! ⇧

I was a bit skeptical last year when people started raving about Ben Affleck’s first directorial work. I’m not exactly in the “HE SUX!” camp, but he doesn’t exactly have the most distinguished record in front of the camera. But with Gone Baby Gone he more than got himself out of the doghouse.

Gone Baby Gone is the story of private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monoghan, below) as they search for a missing four-year-old. Based on the novel from author Dennis Lehane (#4 in a series, from what I gather), the first half seems almost straightforward in execution, almost Law & Order–esque¹.

Then, somewhere in the middle, the emphasis went from the dramatic aspect to the thriller, with a pinch of character piece for good measure. It went from being about the missing little girl to a fascinating series of questions, each leading to the next, all of them exploring what happened around her abduction.

But the film succeeds on more than just plot. The performances are stellar.  Ed Harris has an intensity that one would expect from a Boston police investigator. I loved his scene alone with Casey Affleck. Very powerful stuff. And Morgan Freeman was used sparingly, but he owned every scene he was in.

Amy Ryan (above, with Harris) turned in a stunningly honest performance as Helene McCready, mother of the missing girl. Putting aside her perfect accent, she was completely believable in the role. From her early flippancy to later when Helene finally understands the gravity of the situation, she totally sold it. She is the coke ho, in a totally appropriate way. (And she doesn’t really look like that. She’s breathtaking in real life.)

But really, Gone Baby Gone belongs to the Affleck Brothers. Ben surprised just about everybody with his directorial vision. For starters, he had a difficult story on his hands, done in two acts rather than the standard three, which added some potential for failure. Also, I loved his use of local folks as extras in their native Boston (specifically, Dorchester), firmly rooting the film in reality.

By far my favorite scene was (how do I do this without giving something away?) the one in the bathroom. I didn’t see it coming², and the choice to shoot it as if it were a traumatic memory, with the slow drumbeat in the background slowly fading out as it passed, was insanely effective. Just wonderful.

Casey Affleck, who I loved in The Assassination of Jesse James, outdoes that performance with Gone Baby Gone‘s detective struggling with issues of morality and duty. I totally believed him as he worked his way through the complex web of deception, and his performance in the aforementioned bathroom scene was (I’m running out of adjectives) stunning. (I do wish he’d get the marbles out of his mouth, though.)

Of course, now we come to the question that everyone asks after they’ve seen this film: Do you think he was right? I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and I can say without reservation, he absolutely did the right thing.

Both times.

¹ Almost! I said almost! ⇧
² I literally gasped and held my hand in front of my mouth for a good five minutes. ⇧

A quickie today. I saw the much lauded film Gladiator a few weeks ago, and I’ve been putting off reviewing it because honestly, I don’t have that much to say about it. I went in with (somewhat) high expectations, what with it being the Oscar darling of 2000, but I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed with the entire film.

The whole movie just seemed…obvious. There was no question at the beginning that they would win the battle, that something would happen to get Maximus (Russell Crowe) to eventually be the titular¹ Gladiator, so the first section of the film almost seemed like a waste of time.

Of course, there’s more to a movie than just going from point A to point B, but I didn’t find the characters that engaging either. Richard Harris was the standout actor, and he died fairly early on. (oops, that’s a spoiler) Jaoquin Phoenix and Connie Nielson were serviceable in their roles, but they weren’t given much to work with. And Russell Crowe does a fine grousing reluctant leader, but I was hoping for more depth in his role than that.

I’m not saying it was a bad film; it just didn’t rise to the level of majesty that I think Ridley Scott was going for. It was all supposed to be Very Very Important, and it just didn’t work for me. The almost generic Important Movie Score, the golden glow cast over the every image (with the exception of the first battle, which got a bluish glow) seemed too calculated for me to get emotionally involved.

As I say, I was pretty disappointed.

 

¹ *snicker* ⇧

A bit late for the July 4th celebration (totally Netflix’s fault), I finally saw the film Independence Day. This is one of those popcorn movies that I don’t generally like all that much, but I figured I’d give it a shot and I’m glad I did. There’s plenty wrong with the movie, but there’s plenty right about it too.

Independence Day, for those who haven’t seen it, is the story of aliens coming to Earth bent on destruction and how we (led by the Americans, of course) defeated them. There’s barely more to the plot, but that’s the gist of it.

This is one of those times when I really think the director (Roland Emmerich in this case) made a pretty good movie in spite of himself. ¹ What I mean is that the faults were pretty outstanding. So many of the characters were just paper-thin caricatures, so many story points depended on unbelievable coincidence that I found my eyebrow furrowing in derision pretty often. And there were so many ham-fisted performances!

Harvey Fierstein’s endless prancing across the screen, Brent Spiner’s “Look how wacky I am!” mad scientist, Randy Quaid acting drunk (poorly) for most of the movie, Bill Pullman talking all gravely voiced for no good reason, Judd Hirsch being the stereotype Jew, James Rebhorn as the mustache twisting Secretary of Defense, Jeff Goldblum as the smartypants recycling guy… The list goes on and on.

Don’t get me wrong, the positives outweigh the negatives in this case. I was actually impressed with most of the CGI. It’s almost revolutionary for its day. I appreciated that we didn’t actually see the aliens for quite some time, helping to build the tension until we finally did see them. While the bringing together of the different players was a bit clumsy, once they were assembled it seemed to work. And the final battle was laid out pretty well.

Some of the actors did a pretty good job in spite of their direction. Will Smith brought his A-game, and was one of the more three-dimensional characters, stripper girlfriend or no stripper girlfriend. Jeff Goldblum turned in a (I can’t believe I’m typing this) decent performance in the last hour of the movie. In fact, one of the highlights for me was Smith and Goldblum’s scene in the alien craft. Their interaction was believable, their individual reactions to space travel were distinct and honest to the characters.

So what sets Independence Day apart from other popcorn action flicks like [cref 338]? Why is this one good when that one (for example) was so very bad, especially since they have so much in common? The only answers I can come up with are that the actors elevated the project, and while both were studio-driven, Independence Day seemed a little less conscious of it.

All in all, a good movie. A little on the long side, a bit brainless for my usual tastes, but I can overlook its faults and understand why it was such a blockbuster in its day. I’m not sure if I’d see it again, but it would be interesting to see it in a full theater.

¹ A quick look at his filmography bears that out. Since 1996, Emmerich has made 1998′s Godzilla, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, and 10,000 BC. Hardly a winning lineup. ⇧

I rarely see a movie in the theater. Now that DVDs are released so soon after the film’s premiere, I have even less reason to go spend $20 at a theater. But when I saw the first ad for WALL•E, I knew this was one I’d have to see on the big screen. So after hearing raves from several friends, I decided to catch a late Saturday showing.

Oh. Man. Am I ever glad I didn’t wait.

The first 20-30 minutes are dialogue-free, as WALL•E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) goes about his lonesome daily routine, collecting and compacting trash, keeping interesting relics for the home he makes with his trusty cockroach sidekick. Director Andrew Stanton and his production team from Pixar spent a lot of time and energy getting the pantomime just right. The result is magical.

When a spaceship lands with EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), WALL•E immediately falls in love, while EVE remains focused on her mission. Through a long series of events that I shan’t spoil here, EVE and WALL•E wind up on the humans’ spaceship, where they quickly become outlaws for reasons that (again) I’ll leave for you to find out at the theater. Just trust me that it’s great, okay?

Need proof? Okay, see that picture up there?  It’s the future and there are both capes and robots! And Fred Freaking Willard appears as the CEO of Buy N Large, the Wal-Mart-esque super-mega-corp, second only to Try N Save in fake store naming! Also, taco shakes for dinner, which I’m not entirely convinced would be such a great thing.

WALL•E has action, it has humor, it has drama (seriously, bring the tissues), but more importantly, it has a heart. Two songs from musical Hello, Dolly! (“Put on Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Takes a Moment”) are crucial to the development of the plot. Kudos to  20th Century Fox for allowing Pixar/Disney to use clips of the film. WALL•E wouldn’t be the same without it. Count on a resurgence of interest in the nearly 40-year-old film! (An added bonus: Jerry Herman, the lyricist who wrote both songs is in love with WALL•E, saying “What a wonderful use — to show a desolate world contrasted with the joy of those lyrics.”)

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Pixar feature without a Pixar short. They’re always great but this one outdoes even Lifted, my previous favorite that shipped with Ratatouille. Presto is a dialogue-free piece of genius about a rabbit and the magician who forgot to feed him before going on stage. Big mistake. What follows is a wildly imaginative series of magic-induced punishments that left the audience in my theater laughing in the aisles. It’s hysterical, on par with Chuck Jones’s Wabbit Season/Duck Season shorts from the 1950s. (Presto is now available on iTunes.)

There’s talk of WALL•E being submitted in the Best Picture category rather than Best Animated for this year’s Academy Awards, and I think that would be a smart move. Take my word for it. WALL•E is the real deal.