maisannes Reviews

Waging a Living (2005)

Taking a longer look at lives

[7/10 · 28 February 2006]

Waging a Living looks at the lives of several people who feel that it is difficult for themselves to get ahead or pay the bills even though they have full-time employment. A waitress, security guard, CNA and an elder care activity leader face the challenges of rising costs of living, raising dependent children, social services regulations and just plain life.

The documentary's strongest asset is that instead of the snapshots usually seen on the nightly news, these people are followed for several years so we can see the steady stream of immediate problems along with the slower solutions such as education, unionization and patient persistence.

Watching the movie filled me with a combination of gratitude for my own circumstances and insecurity from knowing that I am not too far away from living paycheck to paycheck myself.

My only concern about the film is that it is imbalanced by focusing on the external causes of their conditions but does not point out as much what choices these people made in the past to place themselves in these positions. For instance, we are not told why one person lost his job, or why disability claims were not taken earlier, or why they have so many children and so on. Then again, perhaps the filmmakers thought that "blaming the victim" was unwarranted.

Lastly, two of the four people are members of the same union, even though they live on different coasts, and are both shown as active union members. I wonder how these people came to be chosen for the documentary, and if their union somehow was involved in the making of the film.

The Ice Harvest (2005)

Putting the R back in Ramis

[3/10 · 29 October 2005]

The Ice Harvest's violence, strippers and angry humor goes far afield from Ramis's usual comedic territory. John Cusack does his best to provide a sympathetic center in a movie trying to find the funny side of the lack of honor among thieves.

I saw the movie with a festival audience in Charlottesville and the theater was full of laughter, but it was just not to my taste. Billy Bob Thornton's matter of fact rueful cruelty had its moments, but I grew weary of Oliver Platt's rude drunkenness quickly, and slapstick gags will only carry me so far.

A History of Violence's commentary on how we react to criminals and killing will never become dated as long as Hollywood continues to produce movies like these.

The Reformer and the Redhead (1950)

Kindhearted but dated

[3/10 · 4 May 2005]

Just another TCM time-passer. June Allyson brings her usual earnest charm to a movie that just didn't have much to it. The essential weakness is that the screenplay cannot make up its mind whether it wants to be a "look at all those crazy animals" comedy or a political "the honest man will win" film. When the movie finally makes its decision at the end, it just made me wonder why it spent all that time on the other thread. I've also been fairly suspicious of movies that have more than one credited director. Maybe that played a role here too.

The high point for me was the performance of Cecil Kellaway as the father. TCM and IMDb make a great combination for learning about the wonderful character actors of Hollywood history.

After Midnight (2004)

Love of cinema and love of Love

[9/10 · 13 February 2005]

After Midnight (9 out of 10)

Give me the Italian love of cinema and love of love over the French any day of the week, well, maybe 6 out of 7.

Here we have a movie about movies shot on digital video with a genre plot and some postmodern reflexivism thrown in. In the hands of a certain French New Wave director whose name I refuse to type, who in fact has used all of these devices himself, these tactics would be used at times to alienate, to smirk, to nudge-nudge-wink-wink, and to create narrative distance or irony. Ferrario uses them for all their worth, but with a consistently joyful embrace of both his characters and his audience. It's as if all 95 minutes of Band of Outsiders were running through the Louvre and dancing the Madison.

Any movie that keeps a smile fixed on my face from start to finish deserves a superior mark, even if it doesn't have the depth or reach of other movies I rank as highly.

The Fog of War (2003)

The Tidal Wave of History

[10/10 · 29 August 2004]

I learned things I didn't know, saw that beliefs I had were false, and gained a greater understanding of the facts I already had at hand. All of this was done with an engaging and original visual style, with yet another fine Philip Glass score. Robert McNamara is a riveting intellect and personality, and shows that being one of the best and the brightest does not make a person immune to a tidal wave of history, which can drown anyone when it comes, and comes hard.

It is unfortunate that so many filmed documentaries do little more than project a television-style news program onto a big screen. Even lovers of Fahrenheit 9/11 have to admit that it brings little to the table cinematically. The Fog of War has cinematic style and historical substance.

10 out of 10

Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

An unmitigated grotesque

[1/10 · 29 August 2004]

I had neither the mind, stomach, nor spiritual inclination to witness its conclusion.

This was an unmitigated grotesque.

A step beyond Bliss and City of Lost Children, which at least had hopes of arresting one's attention and sympathy, because Songs From the Second Floor barely nods at narrative. I see these three as sharing a need to affront the viewer without giving nearly enough recompense. At least medical research subjects are paid for their pain. These movies form a "comedy" club I do not wish to be a member of.

Apparently Roy Andersson was influenced by a poet named Caesar Vallejo. Well, I might read a poem or two like this before putting the book down, maybe even pick it up again later to read a little more, but I am not going to read for 98 minutes without a break.

Only the second movie I have ever walked out on in the theater.

Story of a Prostitute (1965)

An atypical Suzuki

[8/10 · 30 June 2003]

***Mild spoilers***

A much different movie from Suzuki's frenzied free-jazz yakuza flicks. Here he conforms more closely with traditional storytelling, though not without a few "reality breaks." The beautiful b&w cinematography is a far cry from the grittiness of Branded to Kill or the gleeful colors of Tokyo Drifter. Also, there is a great deal of sentiment here, and a more direct treatment of Japanese honor themes.

The Suzuki touch is still there though. Plenty of violence and sexual tension. There is a playful special effect "tearing up" the bad-guy adjutant early on, and some jarring wish-fulfillment/fantasy sequences. I was most impressed by the camera placements and movements, especially in the third act. The heroine's mad dash through the war zone at the hour point could stand side-by-side with any director's battle scene proudly. I seriously doubt that Arthur Penn saw this movie before Bonnie and Clyde, but when you see the farewell shots of the two protagonists, you have to wonder....

8 out of 10

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Honors richly deserved

[10/10 · 22 May 2003]

"It feels as though we're going to hit a beach."

The second great armed forces landing in the 40's: Home.

If 1946 was not like this, then it might as well have been, for once all of the WWII Vets pass away, movies like these will define the moment for all times.

A sailor is reunited with (literally) the girl next door, except that he has no hands to hold her. An airman finds that whirlwind airbase romances do not necessarily hold up to peacetime challenges. An army sergeant returns to an even better job than he left, but has more complicated battles to fight.

Seven Oscars were well deserved. A subtly solid cast, including Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Hoagy Carmichael and my new favorite actress, Teresa Wright. William Wyler and Gregg Toland save their tricks for the key scenes.

10 out of 10.

Duel in the Sun (1946)

Offensive bombast

[1 February 2003]

Duel in the Sun (2 out of 10)

Sickening and pathetic Selznick bombast, worthy only of a Mystery Western Theater 3000 treatment, only I was too offended by its racism and misogyny to laugh. Brutal and profoundly misguided.

Fireworks (1997)

Bursts of violence and comfortable silences

[7/10 · 23 November 2002]

Kana-Bi `Fireworks' (Kitano) 7 out of 10

In sumo wrestling the combatant's measured and stately rituals contrast with the fierce suddenness of the matches, which often last but a few seconds. Takeshi Kitano's fights are brutal and decisive – a chopstick to the eye or a gunshot on the pick-up beat of the measure and it's over. Most movie fights are like boxing matches, with jabs and counterpunches and snappy dialogue between rounds. Do not look for extended martial arts set pieces here. `Fireworks' has bursts of action, but Kitano is more concerned with taking his time to show the different responses to adversity by the two main characters.

Like Mike Hodges's Get Carter (not, for heaven's sake, the Stallone remake) the beginning of the movie purposefully is hard to follow. The viewer is thrown into the plot without standard exposition or background. Add in some unadvertised-as-such flashbacks and it took a while for this viewer to get `orient-ed.' But once I did, I was given time to appreciate the comfortable silences between Nishi and his wife, Horibe's paintings of flower-animals, and Jo Hisaishi's sensitive score. When Miyuki's wood block puzzle pieces are properly assembled, we know Kitano is giving us the clue that the end of the line is near. Nishi's final moments have the wistful fatalism common in Japanese culture and cinema, so I rightly was punished for predicting a different ending. Serves me right.

Alice's Restaurant (1969)

If you had to be there....

[3/10 · 7 October 2002]

Alice's Restaurant (3 out of 10)

"Well, you had to be there..." You just can't defend a movie that way. First, if I WAS there, I don't really need to see the movie, now do I. Second, as a filmmaker, isn't it your job to TAKE ME there? But, third and most likely, "there" probably just wasn't that great in the first place.

Jules and Jim (1962)

Inscrutability becomes randomness

[3/10 · 7 October 2002]

3 out of 10

First, let's self-credential. I think Day For Night is brilliant, I appreciate some Godard, and wasn't scared away by Last Year in Marienbad, so my dissatisfaction cannot be explained away by mere francophobia, or ugly Americacentrism.

This movie is simply too inscrutable. When character motivations and sensibilities are so alien, their actions are essentially random to the viewer. Random action makes for a plotless movie. Then again, I suspect this movie makes no sense in any language.

As when reading philosophy, when confronted so, the intellectual has two choices. One is to look at the confusing text peppered with bon mots and say "This is brilliant/deep/ineffable." In other words: "I "know" this is supposed to be important, so there must be something there I'm missing. There's something wrong with me." The other path: "This is balderdash cloaked in mystery. There's something wrong with it."

I choose the latter.

Sol Madrid (1968)

Characterless, plotless mess

[2/10 · 1 October 2002]

2 out of 10

Why even bother giving names to these plot advancers? It is a reach even to call them characters, since there is zero context, characterization or texture provided. "Supercop" infiltrates "Latin Drug Lord's" operation using "Blonde Moll" who is on the run from "Mob Guy." Who are these people? Apparently the director didn't care either, all he wanted was a few gun and knife fights to occur in front of a camera.

Unfortunately for the viewer, the plot itself is just as underdeveloped. I defy anyone to explain why the Michael Conrad character exists, why Sol Madrid does 3/4ths of the things he does (or how he could be allowed by his superiors to do so), or why "Mob Guy" decides to reenact the desert hotel scene from Touch of Evil.

The "mafia meeting" at the beginning is the silliest I have ever seen. And, no, this isn't supposed to be a comedy.

David McCallum and Stella Stevens believe the best way to deliver lines in an "intense" scene is to yell them, otherwise, any inflection is superfluous.

The only morsels of merit are seeing a completely unbelievable yet interesting way to smuggle drugs play out and Ricardo Montalban, who, despite the decent resumes of the other actors, is the only one who decided to employ his talents instead of pocketing his paycheck simply for showing up on the set.

Lady in the Lake (1946)

Stiff

[3/10 · 7 September 2002]

Lady In The Lake (3 out of 10)

Phillip Marlowe movies marry us to the detective's point of view. He is in every scene, and we never see what happens behind his back. The Lady In The Lake takes this one step further. Here the camera itself is Marlowe. The majority of the movie is Marlowe's P.O.V. -- the camera shakes when he gets slapped around, and "our" eyes close when he kisses the girl. No Stedicam, of course, so the camerawork is pretty stiff, but not nearly as stiff as the acting.

The Raymond Chandler plot is as good as you might expect, and I allowed myself to accept the gimmick; however, the acting is worse than I have ever seen in any A-movie of the studio system. Beyond horrible. Did the actors feel silly talking to the camera?

Lila Leeds is stunning in her brief turn as a receptionist. If I had to be busted with pot, like Robert Mitchum, I'd do the perp walk with her any night.

The Rapture (1991)

Read a book instead

[3/10 · 14 July 2002]

Michael Tolkin should have written a book instead. Ever better, you should read a book instead of watching this movie. What's next: a dramatization of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion? Two shockingly brilliant plot twists and an intellectually courageous ending aside, it is not good cinema. Long-winded polemical dialogue, poor production values, ineffable content, ack!

Network (1976)

Think for yourself

[8/10 · 13 July 2002]

What struck me was that there was no music whatever throughout the movie, except for the TV themes. All of the dialogue is left dangling on a limb, free to be interpreted by the viewer. No funny/tragic/heartwarming/comical/suspenseful cues to release the viewer from having to make an independent judgment.

Alice (1990)

Willing to suspend disbelief

[9/10 · 19 May 2002]

Alice (9 out of 10)

Woody took my disbelief and suspended it high above Manhattan, so I could peer down upon Mia's Chinese-herb-aided exploration of infidelity, family and Catholicism.

Allen here is clearly more in touch with both yin and yang than Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut. A dream, not a nightmare; a trail, not a train track.

The Night of the Iguana (1964)

words words words

[6/10 · 18 April 2002]

Night of the Iguana 6 out of 10

A defrocked tourguide, a Nantucket spinster, a wild widow, two cocoa colored cabin boys with maracas, a host of Texas Baptists, the original Lolita, and the oldest working poet drown in words, words, words, words, words, words, words.

Huston typecasts well. He lets Burton swear, sweat and swig. Need a nymphette, get Sue Lyon. Ava Gardner replays Marlene Dietrich in Touch of Evil, substituting pot and rum for tobacco and tequila.

Those not Afraid of Virginia Woolf should like this movie more. I'll take the cinematography, scenery and cast, and leave behind about 20 pages of script

The Deadly Affair (1967)

Plot plods

[2/10 · 2 April 2002]

The Deadly Affair (2 out of 10)

Sidney Lumet runs James Mason through the paces of a John LeCarre spy novel. Plot plods.

A Quincy Jones/Astrud Gilberto (Jobim's female singer, Girl From Ipanema etc, for those unfamiliar) musical collaboration is welcome, but misplaced in Cold War England.

*******VAUGE SPOILER ALERT**********

The story twist suffers from what I'll call "The Principle of Narrative Economy" which insists that the secret character (the mysterious Sontag) must be one of the characters we already know, which in this case made him easy to spot. This convention works in a whodunit story: It's unfair for Agatha Christie to have the murderer be a completely new character introduced in the last chapter. Here Sontag's identity is just pat, and lazy at that. International spy thrillers need not be so conservative.

Simone Signoret as Elsa Fennan is the movie's only redeeming feature. At least this movie HAS a redeeming feature, so it avoids a 1 rating.

If you don't add a auteur's or cinematic touch to a book, why bother making a movie? I'd rather read the book instead.

Lonely Are the Brave (1962)

The Last Cowboy

[5/10 · 18 February 2002]

Lonely Are The Brave (5 out of 10)

Kirk Douglas says this is his favorite movie. He must mean that it has his favorite theme or message, because, as a movie, it is quite average. Kirk plays "the last cowboy" facing tractor-trailers, helicopters, fences and irrelevance. George Kennedy, Carroll O'Connor and Walter Matthau provide adequate support.

Once the second half developed, I knew I had seen this movie before. It was called First Blood (the 1st Rambo movie.) An out of place and time individualist bears the brunt of uninvited violence, then flees the law to the wild country. Then there's a looooooooooooong chase. I half expected Richard Crenna as a cowboy to come to resolve the situation. However, this is not a right-wing apologia; it comes from the left (Dalton Trumbo screenplay.) The cowboy era is dead, and its symbol cannot survive for sequels.

Nixon (1995)

A waste of great acting

[4/10 · 7 January 2002]

True, there were times that I saw Nixon, not Hopkins, up there on the screen. James Woods and Joan Allen are also excellent as Haldemann and Pat Nixon. I am fascinated by Watergate and the acting is great, so why must I ultimately give it a thumbs-down?

Oliver Stone just couldn't get out of his own way.

1. He had to theorize (not too convincingly) about what was in the 18 1/2 minute gap. There is enough in the verified historical record to fill six compelling screenplays.

2. He overuses mixed-media. In Natural Born Killers, form and content merged; here I would have preferred a more serene mise-en-scene.

Four out of ten.

Guns for San Sebastian (1968)

A spaghetti western surprise

[8/10 · 7 January 2002]

A spaghetti western surprise with Anthony Quinn as a "priest" and Charles Bronson as a Mestizo malcontent.

The movie has a theme, a developed plot, some actors with charisma and an Ennio Morricone score. That's more than most movies give you, regardless of genre.

I was pleased to find that Spaghettiville isn't a one-horse (Eastwood/Leone) town.

8 out of 10.

The Slender Thread (1965)

A solid screenplay

[6/10 · 7 January 2002]

Sydney Pollack's first as a director stars Sidney Poitier as an intern at a Seattle suicide hotline and Anne Bancroft as the barbituate swallower. Cast includes Telly Savalas, Ed Asner and (HOORAY!) Steven Hill (best known as the gravel-voiced head lawyer in Law and Order.) Enough gruff-but-lovables for ya?

It is completely dialogue-driven drama, so it must have something special to overcome my biases against that form, such as:

1. Details. Learn how caller-ID/*69 was done in the analog world. See each level of interaction between the fire dept/phone co/police/hospital/etc. A tribute to the beginnings of the modern rescue squad safety net.

2. The first Poitier role I know of that doesn't dwell on his race. Content of character over color of skin indeed.

3. The tension is not "I'm going to talk you out of taking the pills." The pills are already being digested; instead, the goal is to keep Bancroft on the line so she can be found before she dies. This slight tweak forces the screenplay away from some easy cliches.

Rates as a 6 out of 10. (I'm a tough grader)