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Raw Deal (1948)
Solid Moody Noir
Raw Deal - 1948
The plot is simple. Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has been in prison for a robbery that he did with the aid of fellow criminal, Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr). He has not disclosed Rick's role in the robbery. Rick is going to help Joe escape. Joe thinks that all he needs to do is to get San Francisco to get cut his cut of the robbery proceeds. Unknown to Joe, Rick has no intention of paying. Rick's hope is that the authorities will kill the escaped Joe.
The action starts with Pat Regan (Claire Trevor) coming to visit Joe in prison. For those in the know, geographical confusion permeates the movie. The prison is San Quentin, which is in Marin County on San Francisco Bay. The movie presents the prison as being several states away from San Francisco. Places and distances in the film are so misaligned with reality that is better to just ignore this aspect of the movie than to try to make sense of it.
Pat is at the prison to see her guy, Joe. However rather than getting cleared directly to enter, she has to wait. Joe already has a visitor, Ann Martin (Marsha Hunt). Ann is relaying the lawyer's report on Joe's parole status, which is that Joe will be eligible in 2 or 3 years. Ann is a follower of convention. Her advice is that Joe serve his time. Joe does not like the advice, but despite this he is flirtatious. In one of the best lines of the movie, as Ann leaves the visiting room, Joe says, "Next time you come up, don't wear that perfume." Ann: "Why not?" Joe: "It doesn't help a guy's good behavior."
When Pat is finally cleared to see Joe, she lets him know the escape plans are on for that evening. From there things get rolling. For some reason, Ann gave her home address as a place to contact her. When after the jail break Joe and Pat need a place to hide out, they go to Ann's place. Ann continues to be ready to be Miss Priss, ready to turn Joe over to the authorities. Later in a development that could not have been foreseen, after she saves his life by shooting a bad guy, she decides she is in love with him.
In a modern touch, the police implement their dragnet using car radios. However, being equally modern, Joe listens to the police broadcasts and uses this information to avoid the roadblocks.
One unconventional plot twist occurs after Ann, Pat and Joe hole up at in the mountains at the remote Oscar's Tavern. Bloodhounds and a large posse form for a manhunt and initially we think that Joe and the gals are the target. It turns out a wife murderer is on the loose. The situation is tense and gets amped up further when Joe lets murderer (Whit Bissell) retreat into the inn. Fortunately, rather than impose on the people in the tavern, he is riven with guilt and chooses to go out in a blaze of gun fire, committing suicide by cop.
Joe is a hardened career criminal. Pat is his moll and is equally tough. Nonetheless in the end they do the right thing despite such an action not being in their personal interest.
Raw Deal is succeeds in a number of minor ways that add up. The music by Paul Sawtell, is heavy on the Theremin and creates a moody, B movie vibe. (Sawtell was a workhorse B films composer. Per IMDB his music was in over 300 films on an uncredited basis. Most of the listings for his music are: "composer: stock music".) Also noteworthy is the photography by John Alton. It is fluent in the tropes of the noir style. Rooms are lit by Venetian blind striped shadows and are dark and claustrophobic. Streets are full of moody shadows even in daylight. It is minor, but unlike most movie fights (and especially those in B movies), I found Raw Deal's fights well done and suspenseful.
Most shots of Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr) are close up and pointed upward, making him appear even more massive than he actually was. According to Burr, he weighed 340 pounds when he got out of the Navy in 1946. In 1948 he was probably still close to that 340. (Wikipedia goes a bit woozy about Burr's biographical details, i.e., whether he was in the Navy, and how many wives and children he had.) In any event, Burr was large man in 1948.
Great movie? No. But what is here is perfectly serviceable entertainment: a first rate noir veneer, some smart dialog, characters worth learning about and a plot, that, while not air tight, has unexpected turns.
In 500 Words or Less (2009)
No real surprises here
The premise is simple enough here. Follow 4 seniors as they go through the college application process. (I hardly think it counts as a spoiler to note they all get into good schools.) It is touching and moving as we see these young people in the process of making their lives, theirs. The kids portrayed are personable, verbal and attractive and it is easy to see why their parents like them. No doubt this movie will be a favorite of college counselors though I think a great deal has left out of the process. We see nothing of what schools the kids considered applying to or the process by which they chose which schools they would apply to. There is no real discussion of the pros and cons of visiting schools in advance of the application process. The financial considerations are only tangentially alluded to, the implication being that no matter what they charge, college is a good deal. (And people wonder why the cost of college has gone up faster than inflation ever since 1950.) The bottom line is these seniors make it through the admissions process with their sense of themselves still intact ... which I suppose is the minimum goal that a college counselor should have for her charges.
Happily Even After (2004)
A Romantic Comedy that Isn't
(Don't know if this review has spoilers or not - but if it doesn't I came close.) This is the first comment in 2 years on this movie and it very well may be the last, given its very slight distribution. Jake (Jason Behr), unfortunately does too well in the lead role as a negative slacker drunk. Supposedly he went to pieces after his parents died 8 years earlier. Given what is implied by the plot (he majored in a bunch of different things but never graduated), this occurred when he was in college, i.e. the guy has spent approximately a third of his life in the tank. The romantic comedy problem here is that such a loser would only appeal to another loser or someone with a rescue codependency problem. - Not that emotional reality was ever a prerequisite in the romantic comedy genre. That said, Happily Even After has a written on the fly feel to it. The movie opens with a ridiculous scene in a cafe/ laudromat, where, for unknown reasons, patrons are not supposed to keep using a washing machine even though they have put money in. Later on, Katie (Jason's love interest) is putting on a play and has to write the third act ... but when we get to the play, somehow, somewhere the third act has been written - and we have no idea why it was ever mentioned that the play was incomplete. Likewise the play within the movie is sort of like the plot of the movie, but not really. The point of the parallels between the movie plot and the play plot is unclear. Finally (and this probably is a spoiler) Katie announces herself to be a true fairy godmother and the movie implies that she is --- even though in the opening scene she demonstrates that she is no fairy godmother.
Moonlight Mile (2002)
Jake Gyllenhaal is the issue
Spoilers
As fine as Susan Sarandon[Jo Jo] is in portraying a complex woman who is fully capable of feeling multiple different feelings at the same time which spring from a complex inner life, as much as Dustin Hoffman [Ben] inhabits his character as easily as putting on a coat, it all matters for nought because Jake Gyllenhaal, with his sneaky little half smile is at the heart of this movie. Gyllenhaal portrays a moral coward, a man, no make that a boy[Joe], who is incapable of taking a stand that might cause him some discomfort because people might react negatively to it. And so, even though he is the one who is uncertain about their pending marriage, it is his fiance[Diana] who has to tell him that he doesn't really want to marry her. And when Diana gets killed before she can tell her father, Joe does not have the guts to tell Ben and Jo Jo that they were not going to get married. Rather than say anything, Joe appears willing to move in with them (living in Diana's room) and to go into business with Ben as Diana and Ben had originally planned.
The big climatic scene is Joe appearing during the penalty phase of the trial of Diana's murderer. The murderer (who had no trouble blowing away Diana because she would have been a witness to his attempt to kill his wife) is portrayed as a pathetic, sniveler who regrets what he did now that he is back on his medicine. Joe cannot keep up the lies about Diana. He admits that he and Diana were quits and so the DA's attempt to present the broken hearted groomsman goes awry. (The message here is really weird - Does the utter savagery of a mad dog killer not count quite so much when the victim isn't as close to other people as another victim? - Talk about being victimized twice!)
Jake Gyllenhaal's inability project anything like emotion (other than the already mentioned little half smile) means that Sarandon and Hoffman's efforts go for nought.
Musíme si pomáhat (2000)
Charm is not enough
Depending upon your point of view, Divided We Fall is either charming or maddeningly slow as it develops at a leisurely pace. The movie is contradictory in a number of ways. For instance, the first four scenes take place at two year intervals (which altogether take 5 minutes of screen time at most), and despite the time span covered and the drama involved (Jews being run out of town, the Nazis taking over, an escaped Jew) the story unfolds rather slowly. This is the story of Josef and Maria, an ordinary Czech couple swept up in the events of World War II. Josef has planned to malinger his way through World War II, sleeping on his day bed. His friend Horst, an enthusiastic and obnoxious Nazi will have none of it. Horst has prospered under the Nazis and sharing his good fortune with his friend is a way to control/manipulate him - and to further Horst's desire to bed Maria.
In the end, the movie would have you believe that all the characters are compromised and flawed and that there is some good and some bad in all of us. (Actually this overstates the case a bit. The movie waffles a bit in the case of Maria and is not quite sure whether she is a Madonna figure or not. [Maria = Mary Get it?]) But here the movie trips up. The major crisis of the movie is precipitated by Horst when he tries to place a fallen Nazi in Josef and Maria's apartment. The problem is that Horst is either aware of David, the Jew that Josef and Maria are trying to hide, in which case this is a horribly manipulative way for Horst to try to destroy them or he is not aware of the Jew, in which case Horst can claim no credit for the fact that David survives to the end of the war. In the end the attempt to put all the characters on the same moral plane comes off as too pat and movie like.
The movie has problem that I have never encountered before: some of the subtitles were flashed quicker than I could read them. For those who are inclined to steer around movies with subtitles in the first place, I suspect such a flaw would be sure to damn the movie from the get go.
The movie ends with a surreal scene that one might find in a Fellini movie. For a movie that had for the most part developed in a realistic manner, this final and last scene was absolutely false. My family reacted to the scene by screaming and yelling at the screen, "What was _that about?"
The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
Grade B movie Misses
Probably the most unusual aspect of Shanghai Gesture is the tribute to extras at the end of the titles. Clearly Josef Von Sternberg was entranced with the image of the roulette table in the pit of a gambling den and this scene is repeated several times through the course of the movie. The titles reflect this respect for the everyman aspect of movie making calling characters "The Bartender", "The Bookkeeper" and so forth even though many of the characters have names.
Plotwise, Shanghai Gesture leaves much to be desired. Stagy and wordy it does not have much modern appeal. It was adapted from a stage play, which is evident when much of the "action" occurs as people sit around at dinner tables and talk, as people sit at bars and talk as they sit at poker tables and talk. The Gene Tierney character has the emotional depth and reactions of a two year old.
Ona Munson is encumbered with the most fantastical hairdos ever seen without exception. The burden of the old studio system is evident as many of the close-up scenes were clearly shot at a later date and mesh most awkwardly with the scene in which they are embedded.
Reindeer Games (2000)
No Cigar
The flaws in this movie are various, though for 2/3's of the movie they can be overlooked. One prime problem is that Afflick is just never convincing as a joint hardened car thief. When he is inside prison, he looks like a nice suburban kid acting like he is in prison. He is almost never convincing in this role.
But ultimately, the problem with this movie is in the number of plot twists that Frankenheimer throws at the audience. Rather than build a plot, all too often when interest begins to lag, Frankenheimer introduces a double cross, a character who was already killed or some such nonsense. Eventually there are just too many turns to sell us on the results.
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
Offensive is okay, Racism isn't
This movie is profoundly and disturbingly racist at its core. Thus Jim Carey's character's three black sons (adoptive - but that's a plot point of no particular importance) may be wicked smart with Mensa smart parents, but that is of no moment. Despite being raised by straight arrow nice guy and despite having all the brains in the world, these guys get tattoos or stuff themselves to obesity, use 'f***ing' as an article in speech and in general, their exchanges are ghettoese trash talking. The premise is you can take a nigger [to use the language of the movie] out of the 'hood, give him all the brains in the world, but he's still a nigger. This stuff is supposed to be funny. But it isn't. But then Stepin' Fetchit was supposed to be funny too.
The Object of My Affection (1998)
Well Made Movie
This well made movie is full of good performances. Jennifer Aniston does some of her best work here and the rest of the cast is also strong.
So what is wrong with the movie?
Actually nothing other than that it ultimately is too honest for its own good. Thus the action plays out along lines that are really what is most reasonable, probable for those characters in their particular situations. The gears to set up this inevitable conflict were too evident, i.e., this works only if each person in the triangle at the heart of the movie was a certain type of person ... and guess what? Each of these characters is precisely the right kind of person to cause the inevitable conflicts and crises. Since I never felt convinced about the conflict at the heart of this story, it is pretty easy to be dissatisfied with the final result.
Blow-Up (1966)
Mimes
Just saw this film. 01/15/01 Any film or play that uses mimes has dug itself a very large hole. The rest of film is more in the same mood, i.e., the director kept on digging. At best (that is, granting HUGE concessions to premise of the film), this film is a mood piece, not a movie in the sense of having a story. To which I say, who needs mood pieces.
Starry Night (1999)
Nice plot premise but execution is woeful.
The plot premise of Starry Night - the trials and tribulations that Vincent Van Gogh might have if he came back to life was appealing enough for me to pick this movie off the rental video shelf. And the movie starts out promisingly enough with Don McLean's song "Starry, Starry Night". Unfortunately that is the high point.
First of all the production values in this movie are sadly lacking. The low point is the scenes "in France" are clearly travelogue interspersed with close-up cuts of the actors. They culminate in a scene in a church crypt that is more like a funeral home casket display room than a crypt. Bizarre.
Then there is the acting which ranges from bad to appalling. None of the actors do very well but particularly of note is Sally Kirkland who plays the meanest policeman to come down the pike. The love angle is strange, given that Van Gogh's status is never addressed - is he a zombie, an apparition or is he just alive again but about to die in a 100 days per the way he was bewitched?
Then there is the credibility angle. Is it really possible for a person to walk into an auction for a $100 million painting, pick up the painting and run out with it?
Finally there is the biggest continuity gaffe I have ever seen. The same scene (actually the same plot point) regarding the first theft of a picture is repeated twice!
Remember the Titans (2000)
Get your feel good fix
In 1970 (as a complete Yankee outsider) I officiated high school football games in South Carolina. I went to little hamlets all over the state and was part of the ritual that was (probably still is) high school football in the South. REMEMBER THE TITANS did a credible job of bringing back much of that.
(Old Official's quibble - Don't know if it is allowed now, but at that time in high school football a player could not advance a fumble. That was one of the differences between the high school and the professional rules.)
Football was an equalizer that literally allowed black students to compete on an equal playing field with white players. That was good for both, something that comes through pretty well in the movie.
Overall, the movie is schmaltzy with more feel good thrown in than one encounters in real life. (Especially noteworthy is the score that crescendoes at moving moments for those too dense in the audience to get it on their own.) Nonetheless, sometimes I go to the movies to get more feel good inspiration than I encounter in the real world. REMEMBER THE TITANS isn't a bad way to fill up on warm, fuzzy feelings.