theognis-80821 Reviews

The Rack (1956)

You Decide

[7/10 · 27 May 2024]

Following the success, for Stanley Kramer and Columbia, of "The Caine Mutiny" (1954), Dore Schary rolled the dice on this Rod Serling teleplay for MGM, a giant step in the same direction. As is typical of Rod Serling's best work, moral issues take center stage and shocking the audience is part of his game. After Glenn Ford turned down the lead, newcomer Paul Newman took the challenging role, with major support, and became a major star. We know that the treatment of American soldiers, by the Japanese during WW II, was very harsh, often criminally so, so this story of cruelty in a North Korean camp is plausible. But the conclusion seems more like a veiled reference to the McCarthy Period than to military events.

Stagecoach (1939)

The Turner Thesis Goes To Hollywood

[8/10 · 27 May 2024]

This is not a mere movie; it's Americana. Three years after the release of the film version of Robert Emmet Sherwood's great stage play, "The Petrified Forest," old Broadway hand Ben Hecht helped to recall its themes here: a group of diverse individuals are thrown together in a high pressured, tight geographical area and from that combustion, a nubile young woman emerges to indicate a future. "Ringo Kid" (John Wayne) and "Dallas" (Claire Trevor) both labor under a cloud. Can they escape the past and make a family somewhere on the endless prairie? The All-American theme of "e pluribus unum" (from many, one) is intensified by observing the dramatic unities of time, place, and action. And John Ford guided B oaters into A status, making a star of Wayne in the process, with former silent star George Bancroft providing the send off. The climactic gunfight was to be an obligatory scene in many of these pictures, until it became the title sequence in the most popular TV western series ever, "Gunsmoke."

The Lovely Bones (2009)

The Joy of Death

[6/10 · 26 May 2024]

This may be a part of a new post-apocalyptic genre. In the wake of "On the Beach" (1959), "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), and "The Day After" (1983), we may rest assured of the pretty possibilities to come post mortem. All that's required is a little patience. And faith. Jim Crace's 1999 novel, "Being Dead" was followed in short order by Alice Sebold's book in 2002, adapted here by Peter Jackson's high production value version. This is the new optimism: life sucks, but hope that what follows may be a lot prettier. The design and special effects are very lovely as is superb leading lady, Saoirse Ronan. But the game is up with dopey detective Michael Imperioli, missing clues, and with goofy Grandma Susan Sarandon, who dresses, speaks, and behaves more like a Madame than a grandmother, in a characterization intended to be comical. Jackson's arty manipulations of the story and sentiments only betray weaknesses that Crace's naturalistic yarn avoids.

Night Flight (1933)

Fear of Flying

[5/10 · 25 May 2024]

Inspired by the novel by Antoine de Sainte-Exupery, this movie must have inspired many boys and young men to aspire to be aviators, needed especially after December 7th, 1941. The broad grin worn by Clark Gable, as he soars above the clouds, clinched the argument. Of course, their feats of derring-do alarmed the ladies, but then a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. The sufferings of the women who loved them are understandable, considering the rickety biplanes used to transport polio medication through the fog shrouded Andes, for the dying youngster who needs it. Their noble deeds are a fitting tribute, before any of them depart for that great airport in the sky.

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

The Overstretched Manchuria to Kuwait Supply Line

[3/10 · 24 May 2024]

Since the USA has been at war almost continuously since WW II, it was necessary to update the clever original version of this story from the Korean War to something audiences in 2004 remembered. It is amusing to see how they managed to pull a "Manchurian Candidate" out of the sands of Araby. Although the production values and cast are strong, this color version is very slowly paced and much less dramatic than the earlier black & white film, directed by John Frankenheimer. It is awkward in its flashbacks, exposition, and the actors are less distinct in their speech. And Jonathan Demme is much too fond of extreme close-ups. The story line is pure nonsense.

Alice (1990)

Nice Costumes And Decor

[3/10 · 23 May 2024]

Mia Farrow and William Hurt are a wealthy New York married couple. Her life revolves around shopping, arranging her husband's social life and supervising the servants who supervise her children, in whom she has only a cursory interest. Suddenly, she becomes sexually aggressive with Joe Mantegna, a jazz musician. Due to her "Catholic guilt," she is afflicted with odd back pains and consults Keye Luke, a weird Chinatown acupuncturist/herbalist, whose office doubles as an opium den. Supposedly inspired by Frederico Fellini's "Juliet of the Spirits" (1965) starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, director Woody Allen seems obsessed with forced visual trickery that is as unlikely as the actions of his characters. Allen made some superb films with Mia Farrow in 1984, 1985, and 1986. But in this box office flop, she is portrayed as a ditzy, frivolous, self-absorbed twit with artistic pretensions. Two more movies and two years later, their partnership ended, with "Blue Jasmine" (2013) providing the post mortem.

Intruder in the Dust (1949)

Digging For Truth

[6/10 · 20 May 2024]

Twelve years before the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird" and thirteen years before the release of the movie based on Harper Lee's novel, William Faulkner's book was adapted by Ben Maddow and produced and directed by Clarence Brown. David Brian plays a pipe-wielding attorney before Gregory Peck played a bespectacled attorney, but both can philosophize and set a good example for younger people, who, hopefully, will live in a South that has relegated racism as public policy to the past. Will Geer, facing his upcoming blacklisting, does a fine job as a small town sheriff and Robert Surtees's black & white cinematography is excellent. Juano Hernandez well represents a black middle class and Elizabeth Patterson is an amusing tough guy.

Where the Spies Are (1965)

Where the Audience Isn't

[4/10 · 19 May 2024]

Spy stories were all the rage in the 1960s and Ian Fleming had suggested David Niven to play James Bond, however Producer Albert Broccoli wisely chose Sean Connery instead. The idea that Niven would be a good choice to play a British spy persisted at MGM, but, here, he seems more facile than debonair as everything conveniently falls into place, including beautiful Francoise Dorleac, four features before her tragic death. Mindful of the strong box office of "Where the Boys Are" (1960), this title was chosen for this James Bond mimicry. It was of little help and any idea of a sequel was shelved.

Extortion (2017)

Where Not To Go On Vacation

[7/10 · 19 May 2024]

The waters are clear, the beaches are clean and a pleasant time may be had beneath the warming sun, but problems may follow if the outboard motor on your rented boat leaves you stranded on a remote island. Dr. Kevin Riley (Elon Bailey), his wife and son, hope for rescue when a psychopathic fisherman (Barkhad Abdi) arrives demanding one million dollars for his assistance. The craftsmanship for this film is very good, but writer/director Phil Volken must sometimes strain to keep the pot on a full boil. Go along for the choppy ride and it's an involving, suspenseful story, with very pretty scenery.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Masterpiece

[10/10 · 18 May 2024]

After a decade as a staff writer at Warner Bros., John Huston got an opportunity to direct and, thanks in part to meticulous pre-planning, did a great job. The Dashiell Hammett novel had been adapted twice before: "The Maltese Falcon" (1931) with Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels and "Satan Met A Lady" (1936) with Warren William and Bette Davis. Huston had a stroke of luck when George Raft turned down the lead and Humphrey Bogart, who had been playing gangsters, got the job and, as Sam Spade, perfectly straddled the fence between cop and crook. The unsentimental, cynical story followed the novel closely, including much of the dialogue with actors who perfectly fit their roles. It is especially a classic, because it points to crime as historical fact and locates it in the fundamental character of people, whose unremitting greed and selfishness is identified, not condemned. Principles, articulated by the hero, are the only barriers to plain bestiality. This profound theme lifts the movie above ordinary crime stories and renders the final scene and final shot impossible to forget, a triumph for both Huston and Hammett.

Lili (1953)

Brilliant

[9/10 · 16 May 2024]

Two years after her triumph in "An American In Paris," Leslie Caron appeared in this charming story of a teenage orphan, who, penniless, must make her way in the adult world. Having lost her father at age 16, she seems determined to remain the person he most valued. But in her darkest moment, she is rescued by an embittered, disabled puppeteer. Can her sweetness thaw the chilly heart of an isolated misanthrope? Bronislau Kaper's unforgettable score and Robert H. Planck's photography are splendid. One of the best features of the old Technicolor process is that its vivid colors lent itself so well to fantasy. Director Charles Walters, a choreographer, tells much of the story in dance. From the outset, the forlorn girl entices our sympathy and keeps it throughout. The blending of dream and reality is deft and the art direction is splendid. A rare tale uniquely told.

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Brilliant

[9/10 · 15 May 2024]

The attainment of suffrage in 1920 seemed a great benefit to women, but freedom offers a broad range of choices that makes mistakes more likely. Three years after "Casablanca," Michael Curtiz was given another great screenplay: this time from Ranald MacDougall, with help from seven other writers, including William Faulkner, Albert Maltz and Frank Pierson's talented mother. The cast, led by Oscar winner Joan Crawford, is pitch perfect, launching this soapy drama onto the A-list. There is great suspense in the well-articulated conflicts: marriage vs divorce, husband vs lover, homemaker/maternal duties vs career/business aspirations. And like many who endured the Great Depression--the period of James M. Cain's novel--the desire to provide and protect children with unearned prosperity is also well delineated as the novel's themes are updated to the next, more optimistic decade. Although sometimes dismissed as a "woman's picture," it's skillfulness of execution makes it one of the greatest drama's of the mid-century.

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

The Joy of Suffering

[3/10 · 12 May 2024]

Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a dumpy, sickly, middle-aged playwright/director has received a "genius grant" to stage a magnificent, original, brilliant production about...himself! To realize this ambition, he creates a microcosm of New York City within a warehouse, where characters from his life come and go, where women express their desire to have sex with him, and where he can bemoan his loneliness. As for what is to be taken for reality and what Cotard has constructed, this is given to the audience to decipher; screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman has other fish to fry. For some reason, this highly praised film was largely ignored by moviegoers.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

A Waste of Raspberry Syrup

[3/10 · 10 May 2024]

An attractive, likeable couple buy a house near Long Island Sound for themselves and their children, that, unbeknownst to them, was the scene of the murder of a family a year earlier. Odd things begin happening to suggest it is haunted by some malevolent force. Most people would move out with much less provocation than what James Brolin and Margot Kidder have to endure, but the story is based on actual events that have inspired several books, movies and thousands of tourists to visit Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY. The slow going is somewhat alleviated by some good actors working very, very hard and is probably most entertaining for true believers.

Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood (2019)

The Thin Red Whine

[3/10 · 10 May 2024]

Nothing is more satisfying to a child than to correct an error by the one who says, "Brush your teeth" or "Finish your spinach," by pointing out that the capital of Illinois is Springfield, not Chicago. Now that we live in "a national household," it is time for left-liberals to point out that the USA did not live up to its founding principles for everyone at all times. They cannot say that the differences between peoples are so negligible that Orson Welles as Othello or Gale Sondergaard as Mrs. Hammond or Akim Tamiroff as Gen. Yang is as inoffensive as the characterization of Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi is odious, so much so that both the actor and director apologized. To throw another log on the fire, we are reminded of the unjust incarceration of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor, irrelevant to a film about the occasional casting of European-American actors in Asian roles. Hopefully, a day will come when left-liberals can recognize our many similarities rather than harp on our petty differences.

A Hidden Life (2019)

Masterpiece

[10/10 · 7 May 2024]

Human beings, in Aristotle's view, were distinguished from beasts in their ability to act based on principles rather than mere drives. When the Nazis arrive in an Austrian village, where its men are required to swear an oath to the Fuhrer and the Reich, Franz Jagerstratter (August Diehl) refuses, despite much pressure from the Germans and his community. Writer/director Terrence Malick is not bashful about the message, citing George Eliot: "...for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unheroic acts; and that things are not so ill with you or me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." The modesty, dignity, and courage of the main character is honored by this production.

The New World (2005)

Brilliant

[9/10 · 7 May 2024]

The anthropology seems valid. This is an exacting presentation of what the first Europeans must have encountered in Virginia at the dawn of the 17th century. Thank you, Terry Malick for taking us there. The language, makeup and costumes are most impressive. The natives, in their innocence, veer between being playful and terrifying. Narration is usually a weakness in a movie, especially when mumbled or whispered. An actor like Christopher Plummer, trained in the theatre, clearly a writer's medium, makes the best narrator, because his voice and diction permits his words to cross the footlights and sail over the orchestra to the cheap seats. In this film, the director may have felt that pretty pictures obscure other problems. Any picture in which Q'orianka Kilcher appears as Pocahontas is a pretty one: her performance is as affectless and natural as her character. This movie is unimaginable without her. The portrait of the first slaves, street urchins exiled to the New World as "indentured servants" by King James VI, is brief but accurate. Malick seems devoted to the study of people, who usually pass notice and offers a strong curative to the bygone Hollywood fierce "injuns" on the warpath, speaking broken English.

White Heat (1949)

"Maybe I Am Nuts."--Cody Jarrett

[8/10 · 6 May 2024]

By the middle of the McCarthy Period in 1949, economic (Marxist) accounts of social deviance would no longer be acceptable; psychological (Freudian) explanations were now required. What we learned from Dr. Freud is that early childhood is largely determinative, dreams have a language, and boys are often too closely attached to their mothers, like Oedipus who unwittingly married Jocasta. In this crime story, James Cagney, a crazed psychopath with an extreme devotion to his mother/mentor is tricked by an undercover cop, Edmond O'Brien. Director Raoul Walsh is in top form and the cast is well chosen. The most important part of a movie, which the audience has waited 114 minutes for, is the ending. It is what we take home with us when the show is over, what we will most remember. And this picture certainly gives us that.

Black Swan (2010)

NYC Ballet, the Wes Craven Version

[8/10 · 5 May 2024]

Evidently, the story of an ambitious young ballerina, her stage mother, her heartless, sexually harassing ballet master, her rivals in the corps de ballet, superb direction, cinematography, editing, and design was not considered by these filmmakers to be sufficient--in this age that considers Stephen King to be the new William Shakespeare--to intrigue a mass audience. Therefore, the decision was made to "go all the way." It takes almost superhuman devotion for these artist/athletes to achieve Fonteyn/Ulanova level excellence, so that onlookers may consider them crazy. The idea of the dedicated dancer subsumed by their commitment to a fantastic role, leading to their destruction, was handled brilliantly in the past: "Specter of the Rose" (1946) and "The Red Shoes" (1948). But, here, the need to amp up the yarn with William Castle gimmickry and icky gore diminishes the results. Still, Natalie Portman's Oscar winning performance is magnificent.

Agatha (1979)

A World Gone By

[8/10 · 2 May 2024]

The star of this movie is DP Vittorio Storaro, who, shooting in Techniscope, has performed brilliantly. His co-stars on this modestly budgeted film must have worked like dogs: Production Designer/Costume Designer Shirley Russell and Art Director Simon Holland succeeded in offering us a world of elegance and grace not likely to be seen again. The clothing, furnishings, decor, modes of transportation (trains, planes, automobiles, carriages), and even the smoke (from tea cups, cigarettes, locomotives) are absolutely beautiful. Beautiful, as well, is lead actress Vanessa Redgrave, with her flaming red hair and sky blue eyes. Her portrait of a fragile woman, shocked by the harsh dismissal of her unfaithful husband, is vivid. The plot, which is largely irrelevant, is a speculation about the 11 day disappearance of famous author Agatha Christie in 1926. Evidently, she suffered a nervous breakdown, having lost touch with reality, a subject too painful for explanation. Since the movie has a lead actress, convention requires a lead actor. Dustin Hoffman, a "bankable star," was enlisted to play a rival to her distant husband. A weak script has been deftly obscured by production values.

Leatherheads (2008)

ZZZZZZZZ

[1/10 · 29 April 2024]

This tiresome melange of genres was budgeted to ensure that everyone made out like bandits and banditry certainly explains its raison d'etre. Why is it assumed that because of Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Lloyd, Turpin, Arbuckle and the Keystone Kops, that everything that happened in the1920s must have been hilarious? The constant Mickey Mouse music and slapstick brawls brought a frown, not a smile, to my face. No, the development of the National Football League was probably not this funny. George Clooney is good-looking, charming and very much too cute. In truth, brutal games and fistfights probably led to the loss of at least one tooth.

The Night of the Iguana (1964)

The Male Sexpot

[6/10 · 26 April 2024]

The Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) has been "locked out" of his Episcopal Church because he succumbed to the advances of "a very young Sunday school teacher" and, somewhat improbably, finds himself working as a tour guide in Mexico. Judith Fellowes (Grayson Hall) is a censorious rooster in the "crate of wet hens," that includes her niece (Sue Lyon), a pretty teenager, determined to grab "Larry" as her souvenir. In defense, he drives their bus to an obscure beach hotel, run by earth mother Ava Gardner, from whom he appeals for help. Soon they are joined by an English woman (Deborah Kerr), born and raised in Nantucket, and caring for "the world's oldest living poet" (Cyril Delevanti). Exaggeration is an important element of comedy, but this late effort by Tennessee Williams, seems to go too far. Despite some affecting late scenes, the misogynistic portrayal of women, who just can't leave men alone, amplifies the exaggerations even further. And over the cliff.

Love Letters (1945)

Rostand Ripoff

[6/10 · 22 April 2024]

A soldier (Joseph Cotten) writes love letters to another soldier's girl (Jennifer Jones) back home. Imagine her disappointment when she marries him; in the meantime, Cotten is beset with guilt when he learns of it. Conveniently, she soon becomes a widow and Cotten must find her. The search is stretched across 101 tiresome minutes, complicated by the weak plot device of amnesia and the necessity to keep the past from her to protect her sanity. Director William Dieterle and DP Lee Garmes are visually talented enough to keep us seated until we get The Big Message: 'No one can build happiness on a lie," from romance writer Ayn Rand.

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

Brilliant

[9/10 · 22 April 2024]

An obscure, impoverished artist meets an engaging young girl in Central Park and does a drawing from memory, which sells instantly to a gallery. He searches for her to paint her portrait and learns that she died somewhere in time. She is a ghost, who only he can see. For those who lost loved ones in accidents or, perhaps, in the recent war, there is a consoling message: "There is no life, my darling, until you love and been loved. And then there is no death." David O. Selznick, who loved Jennifer Jones, spared no expense: everything was shot on location and the final portrait in the black & white film astonished in three-strip Technicolor. Oscars for Best Special Effects and a nomination for DP Joseph H. August. Dmitri Tiomkin's score uses themes by Debussy. Director William Dieterle was at his best. Unforgettable.

Election (1999)

Everybody Cheats Somebody Sometime

[8/10 · 21 April 2024]

A bright, energetic, ambitious Omaha high school girl (Reese Witherspoon) aspires to be elected Student Council President in this movie by a bright, energetic, ambitious Omaha film writer/director (Alexander Payne). Her efforts are thwarted by a resentful teacher (Matthew Broderick), but there is, fortunately no censorious producer. Like the leading lady, the movie is determined to entertain: there's never a dull moment. The electoral gamesmanship and numerous sexual peccadillos keep the characters and the audience on their toes in this satirical look at a passionately committed super achiever.