[sleuth] 1972

Tonight, I rewatched Anthony Schaffer's 1972 adaptation of his play, Sleuth, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. It was on TCM. This Friday, an interesting-looking remake, directed by Kenneth Branagh, scripted by playwright Harold Pinter, and starring Caine (again!) and Jude Law, will be released.

My opinion of the film has changed a little. At first, I didn't like the ending, because I thought it ruined the fun that the rest of the film is about. Now I can see it's purpose a little clearer - Sleuth is about men, and it's a little anti-man. It's about the dark side of the contemporary male, and it's driving home the film's opinion that the whole thing has to end in disaster.

I also paid more attention to the cinematography this time, which was actually rather excellent - the use of focus is constantly used to effect in showing the mass of clutter in Olivier's mansion. Too, I also paid attention to Mankiewicz's direction, which, without being the slightest bit showy, is absolutely splendid (the first time I watched it I thought all the credit should have gone to Schaffer's original play) -- and a perfect way to fade into the sunset.

Also, the first time I watched it, I preferred Caine. I must not have been paying nearly enough attention that time - clearly, Olivier is far better, if not more likeable, oozing with evil charm and pretensious, somewhat repulsively catchy eccentricity. With no disrespect to Caine of course, who does manage to pull off multiple remarkable balancing acts. This film is loaded with so many brilliant one liners it should be put in a vault of the world's greatest screenplays (of course, a lot of it's the original play). All in all, I like this a lot more the second time round.

Rating: [****]

[the crucible]

A stone-black and eternally relevant horror film about human nature, The Crucible crunches togther eye-splitting drama, bone-chilling evil, and some of the best acting that's been performed in the 1990's. Winona Ryder here characterizes one of the most despicable film characters in the history - Arthur Miller said her actions are the result of sexual repression, but I don't know if that makes much, if any, of her actions forgiveable.

Based - although, not too clingingly - on the legendary play Arthur Miller wrote in the 1950's, The Crucible is directly a sharp, biting metaphor for the McCarthyist, anti-communist "Witch Hunt" that took place during that period, in the early years of the Cold War. Less directly, it can be a metaphor for any number of religious and political "witch hunts" that have taken place in the past or could take place in the future. It might be one of the most important plays ever written, and Hytner realizes it fully without restricting it to the ordinary boundaries assigned to films-based-on-plays.

The cinematography, which breathtakingly utilizes the space granted of a wide, crisp blue sky that slowly morphs into overcast, and the score, by George Fenton, are both absolutely top notch. The script, by Miller himself, is one of the better adapted screenplays of the decade. The performances are all fantastic - Day Lewis and Joan Allen are heartbreaking, and Ryder a sickly, demented force of nature. Not forgetting, of course, Paul Scofeld, bringing interesting shades to what at first appears to be a black-and-white character, Rob Campbell as a Reverend who redeems himself after a glimpse of the truth, and Peter Vaughn as a defiant victim of the hunt.

This is an absolutely fantastic film.

Rating: [****]

[the candidate]

Michael Ritchie's biting satire The Candidate follows an idealistic, no-nonsense, environmentalist and devotedly liberal lawyer named John McKay. He is played by Robert Redford, and as we begin the film an old friend is trying to convince him to run for Senator in California. It takes some convincing for John - he's happy doing what he's doing. But watching long running senator Crocker Jarmon babble about preventing environmentalist extremism is too much -- and before we know it, he's running. Does he have any idea what he's doing? Not quite, yet. Will he be recognizable at the end of the film? Yes, but only as someone who is painfully aware that all of their ideals have been sacrificed in order to make themselves electable.

The Candidate, although often blisteringly hilarious (helped along by Redford's naturalistic, bleakly funny acting and Jeremy Larner's brilliantly realistic script), is also a sad pondering on the sacrifices necessary to become an American politician. McKay doesn't put up nearly a big enough fight for his own ideals as we want him to - perhaps he is already realzing the hopelessness of his position. He is becoming a puppet, but who is puppeteer? His scriptwriters? His enemies? The American people? The American political system?

Hard to believe audiences actually found this film "exaggerated" back then when we know now how shockingly true it is. Nothing in this film veers too far into Hollywood drama - extramartial affairs by both McKay and his wife are hinted at, but not followed. There are no sex scenes, or theatrical fights, or rousing speeches or victorious good men. The Candidate works hard to never lose sight of it's roots as an imitation of a documentary, which it does impeccably. Everything in this film is believable, which, I think, is why we find it so funny, and so sad.

Rating: [****]

[in the valley of elah]

Paul Haggis does far more writing that directing. If it were the other way around I would like him a little more.

It's not that his scripts aren't improving - they are, especially here. The scenes he writes for Tommy Lee Jones are sturdy, unshowy, and dramatially interesting. It's too bad the roles he writes for men aren't nearly as good as the ones he writes for women - Charlize Theron, as a harassed policewoman, is wasted in a thanklessly dumb role here (Haggis seems to be trying to bring her over from North Country), and nearly all of the scenes featuring Susan Sarandon are cringe-worthy (that said, Theron and Sarandon both do what they can and give solid performances). The policemen who work with (and harass) Theron are silly caricatures.

A lot of In the Valley of Elah feels strangely detached. It's like Haggis is trying to pull out the best details from a story, but picks all the wrong details. Much of the film feels more like a fable about Small Town America than The War. Other bits of it drag on some kind of silly metaphor through the story about David and Goliath Jones, as Hank Deerfield, tells to a boy. The metaphor doesn't quite add up - in fact, it makes no sense. Haggis should stay away from this - he's far better and welling up tears from raw sentimentality, as he did some in Crash and the script for Letters from Iwo Jima.

Yet, every time In the Valley of Elah feels like it's drifting into a somewhat random, uninteresting epsidode of CSI: Iraq, Haggis whips out a deftly powerful scene - like one where Theron's Detective Emily Sanders (how's that for lame character names?) comes upon the corpse of a woman in a bathtub, or when Hank watches videos his son took from Iraq on his cellphone.

All the thanks and credit should go to composer Mark Isham, who wields low strung, mourful melodies, and Tommy Lee Jones, who makes acting beautiful. Jones is so subtle, he's not even showy about not being showy. There's just no showiness of which to speak. But he can move stones with his deep, sad dog's eyes, bewildered expression, and disillusioned stare. We get it: this is the face of the American during the Iraq war. It's this ultimate tie-in to our current lifestyle that's the film's redeeming hoist.

Rating: [**½]

[homicidal] 1961

Homicidal is quite an achievment on the part of writer Robb White and director/producer William Castle. Most comedies aren't nearly this funny. It features the kind of plot holes, campy dialouge, ridiculously funny acting, and absurd details that Ed Wood could only aspire to.

My favorite detail? A mute, wheelchair-bound aunt is aware that she is living with a homicidal killer-bitch and continually tries to tell everyone who visits the house, from the kindly femme Miriam Webster to a good ol' family doctor who appears to be an old friend. She tries to communicate this by banging a little wooden knob against her wheelchair and staring intently, sometimes trying to mouthe something. Doctor: "Is something wrong, Aunt Helga?" Helga: [stares]

At this point, you gotta wonder - why doesn't she just nod, or shake her head, or make some kind of gesture? Heck, why doesn't she just write it down?

Ahh, but there are so many deliciously stupid details that make Homicidal so enjoyable. And just wait till the last five minutes, when the film is suddenly interrupted--well, I won't give that away. But if you know what I'm talking about, that has to be one of the funniest things ever put into a movie.

For sheer hilarity:

Rating: [***½]

Happy Halloween.

Expect some Horror movie-related stuff coming up in the near future.

Oh, yes, I nearly forgot: Homdical. Let me tell you about that.

[the ox-bow incident]

William Wellman's The Ox-Bow Incident will come as a revelation to those who have only seen B fare Hollywood westerns. It's more artistically made than most westerns, and the dialouge is suprisingly crisp, realistic, and about as untheatrical as old Hollywood gets. It's also more dramatically powerful than most films of the 1940's can lay claim to. Along with the darkly comic The Westerner, The Ox-Bow Incident richly deserves to be called one of the greatest westerns of the 1940's.

Surprising, it comes from such a low name director, but low name directors were really the greatest back then. The studio approved directors always worked within an artistic bubble that leaves many young used to modern cinema bored stiff. The dialouge tends to be all written from the same, very small dictionary, the composition of shots is lazily and carelessly done, and there is often a sense of a single score being reused for nearly every single film since film's started being scored for 20 years.

So it will come as a shock to those who have only toed the waters of this decade to disocver something as imaginative, clasically beautiful, and disturibng as Ox-Bow. Wellman builds an atmosphere of dread slowly and deliberately. You keep thinking: they wouldn't really do it, would they?

Would they? Quietly devastating and original in many aspects and points, Ox-Bow deserves a serious round of applause. Like the fact the story isn't just used as a tool to demonify the lower class - indeed, the first man to demand the creation of the posse is the second best dressed man in the film. Shocking, too, the protagonist (Henry Fonda) at first joins the posse, and does not speak out against it for a while. Also shocking, is the fact the details of the crime are never revealed in full. We only know a man who is probably innocent has to die.

It's not a statement against democracy. To call it that would be an insult to the filmmakers intelligence. Rather, it's a statement against rashness and stupidity. It's not a statement for The Law, it's a statement for law. Viewers today will understand it even more than viewers might have understood it then, which makes it all the better viewing.

Rating: [4 stars]

Japanese Story, a soapy, melodramtic, yet often quite promising exercise bounds along on a premise that is just interesting enough. It is held up partly by an amazing performance by Toni Collette, trying to rise the film above it's painfully obvious "tear-jerker" style in a feat worthy of Atlas. The script and direction aren't all bad, though. They're just never quite good either. Certaintly, they have photographed Australia in a way that is visually stunning, and not just touristically appealing. Alison Tilson has written some good dialouge as well as some bad dialouge, and Sue Brooks as director brings some needed style to the film.

The problem, I think, is that the film is so obvious just when we don't want it to be. The places where we hope for an original touch here and there, such as the personalities of its two leads, are totally unsatisfying. Instead, it's "Wow, look at the amazing cultural differences between these two!"

The final third of the film is where we get a truly great, rewardingly unexpected turn; and the film begins to redeem itself even as it also drags on for far longer than it has the right to. It suffers from what many critics such as myself call "Multiple Ending Syndrome", the most painful symptom of which is that the dramtic end theme music continually seems to be reaching the close before it starts up again to repeat itself.

Rating: [2 ½ stars]

[swimming pool]

Francois Ozon certaintly isn't going for a tasteful balance in his British/French thriller, Swimming Pool. We don't go a few minutes without seeing the ravishingly developed Ludivine Sagnier dripping wet in a bathing suit or somewhat more naked. Regarding this aspect of his film, Ozon has suceeded admirably. Swimming Pool, at least from a straight male point of view, might be one of the most erotic films ever made. Unfortunately, as a drama, thriller, and mystery, Swimming Pool is annoyingly uneven. Like the book that Charlotte Rampling is supposed to be writing, we're moving from one genre to the other, and then one filmmaking style to another. The transition, as it is, is not smooth. The finale of the film feels critically underdeveloped; the beginning of the film feels critically overdeveloped. And the "twist" at the end is positively baffling.

The script has disappointingly badly written dialouge. It may have something to do with the fact Ozon is a Frenchman trying to write in English - the French dialouge of the film isn't so bad.

Sagnier's acting doesn't quite rise above her sex symbol status in this film, but she's not really terrible either. She just gets kind of pw8ned by Charlotte Rampling, who does the best she can with somewhat flimsy material and actually suceeds in pulling off a fine performance admirably.

Rating: 2½ stars

[closer]

Closer, adapted by Patrick Marber from his hit play, is somewhat grounded by the characteristics of a play. It consists of a series of scenes that never move from one location, are entirely filled with dialouge, with large gaps in between during which events involving more movement than a play would be able to contain are only described later. Which isn't to say Closer doesn't work. It does have a couple of scenes, bookending the film, that set it apart from a play, and it's not like a film that feels like a play can't be amazing.

Closer shows the beginning to two relationships, watches them break down and crumble, and either begin again or end forever. It's both a wise, witty, and drearily cynical excursion that is relieved by director Mike Nichols' forward-pacing, relatively short running time, terrific acting, and some flashes of brilliant humor (especially towards the beginning). In other words, Scenes from a Marriage lite. Nichols' seems well in control of each and every shot, composition, and verbal exhange, which is a good position for a director to be in if they're directing something with an unappetizing a subject as Closer's.

Performance-wise, all four of the actors who make up more or less the entire cast of Closer (without checking this, I think only they have speaking roles) give great performances. The standout is Clive Owen, who is both funny and raw.

Rating: 3 stars

she was a good friend of mine.

Malick's Days is the Renaissance Film - it's perfect in every aspect. The cruelly romantic storytelling, the languid, achingly beautiful pace, the hypnotizing sway of the panhandle grass; the visionary concepts of people and earth; and something elusive called religion; and something elusive called happiness. Unflinching but never cynical, beautiful but never distracted, philosophical but never pretensious. If heaven is something like this, I'm converting Christian.

On the eighth day, God made Days of Heaven.

au revoir, 15 year old critic.

Here's an explanation. About a year ago, I created a blog called "15 Year Film Old Critic." After posting on it for a little while, I was suddenly unable to log into it for no good reason. I have no idea why.

So now I've decided to start again. I'm 16 now, of course, and my taste in film has changed, so here's an update on my top 50 films.

1. [days of heaven] [1978] terrence malick 2. [jules et jim] [1962] francois traffaut 3. [fanny och alexander] [1982] ingmar bergman 4. [the third man] [1949] carol reed 5. [ran] [1985] akira kurosawa 6. [fitzcarraldo] [1982] werner herzog 7. [la battaglia di algeri] [1968] gillo pontecorvo 8. [crimes and misdemeanors] [1989] woody allen 9. [la strada] [1954] frederico fellini 10. [apocalypse now] [1979] francis coppola 11. [el espíritu de la colmena] [1973] victor erice 12. [north by northwest] [1959] alfred hitchcock 13. [the grapes of wrath] [1940] john ford 14. [ugetsu monogatari] [1953] kenji mizoguchi 15. [the last wave] [1977] peter weir 16. [suna no onna] [1964] hiroshi teshigahara 17. [le notti di cabiria] [1957] frederico fellini 18. [nashville] [1975] robert altman 19. [il buono, il brutto, il cattivo] [1965] sergio leone 20. [baraka] [1992] ron fricke 21. [la règle du jeu] [1939] jean renoir 22. [the conversation] [1974] francis coppola 23. [the thin red line] [1998] terrence malick 24. [shichinin no samurai] [1954] akira kurosawa 25. [butch cassidy and the sundance kid] [1969] george hill

26. [all quiet on the western front] [1930] lewis milesone 27. [the piano] [1993] jane campion 28. [hiroshima, mon amour] [1959] alain resnais 29. [the fountain] [2006] darren aronofsky 30. [det sjunde inseglet] [1957] ingmar bergman 31. [midnight cowboy] [1969] john schlesinger 32. [28 days later] [2002] danny boyle 33. [topio stin omilichi] [1988] theo angeloupos 34. [manhattan] [1979] woody allen 35. [the manchurian candidate] [1962] john frankenheimer 36. [the mission] [1986] roland joffe 37. [a woman under the influence] [1974] john cassavetes 38. [roman holiday] [1953] william wyler 39. [the godfather] [1972] francis coppola 40. [picnic at hanging rock] [1975] peter weir 41. [cyrano de bergerac] [1990] jean-paul rappeneau 42. [miyamoto musashi/zoku miyamoto mushashi: ichijôji no kettô/miyamoto musashi kanketsuhen: kettô ganryûjima] [1954-1956] hiroshi inagaki 43. [citizen kane] [1941] orson welles 44. [bringing up baby] [1938] howard hawks 45. [2001: a space odyssey] [1968] stanley kubrick 46. [the godfather part II] [1974] francis coppola 47. [la grande illusion] [1937] jean renoir 48. [8 ½] [1963] frederico fellini 49. [les enfants terribles] [1952] jean-pierre melville 50. [raging bull] [1980] martin scorsese