2001 - STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES, documentary on Kubrick

 Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures is a documentary supplement that came with a Kubrick DVD box set of his films. The picture was directed by Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother in law and apparently had the approval of the Kubrick family. So I wasn't expecting much. The documentary spends a lot of time pushing the idea that Kubrick was just a big lovable teddy bear/family man who directed classic films way ahead of their time.

 

Kubrick probably had an obsessive compulsive personality with possibly a streak of paranoia. He was a recluse towards the end of his life. He spent many years living on a private estate in England with his wife and daughters chasing people off of his property with a shotgun.  A compulsive memo writer.  At one point in the film Kubrick's daughter reads from a lengthy 17 page memo he wrote on how to care for his cats. It's supposed to come off as funny and eccentric but it seems weird. 

The film spends some time discussing the negative reviews to A Clockwork Orange, and Kubrick's surprising reaction to the backlash he received from the film. This part of this seems extremely suspect.  Kubrick had stated in many interviews (when he was giving interviews) that he had always wanted to make a mainstream pornographic movie his entire life.   Did Kubrick actually think the strong sexual violence he put into A Clockwork Orange would be well received by the critics in 1971?

However I think you could make a good argument that after 2001: A Space Odyssey he really didn't make a "classic" film. He made interesting films but considering the 2 years he spent actually filming his final film, Eyes Wide Shut even his most rabid fans would have to admit it was not really the masterpiece that was expected.

The impression left by Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures, is of a very strange guy allowed to do whatever he wanted by a movie studio that gave him enough money to indulge his screwy whims.

 The clips and scenes from the films do look very good.

Running time 142 minutes.

1990 - BLUE PLANET IMAX ok I had no business watching this on my TV

Why did I waste my time? A movie made for an IMAX theater has no business being seen on my TV at home. That said...this movie sucked.

If not for the IMAX format this would be the kind of thing a lazy science teacher would make his class watch if the teacher wasn't feeling like teaching that day. The film shows views of different parts of the world from space. Here's Japan, we then get scenes of scenery in Japan and so on. "Our world is a special place" our narrator says over and over as if to reinforce the point to some misbehaving 12 year olds. The writing is pitched towards a 4th grade audience and the droning voice of the female blathering in the background could put people to sleep if she were doing color commentary at a football game.

No one goes to IMAX movies for the storytelling but this was very pathetic film making. Directed by legendary sound designer Ben Burtt who had worked on the Star Wars films


 42 minutes.

1953 - THE TWONKY, Sci-Fi Comedy about an evil television set

After setting the bar fairly high with his science fiction film Five , auteur filmmaker Arch Obler set it pretty low with The Twonky. The Twonky is a television set possessed by a robot from the future. A college football coach becomes a victim of the robot/television's hypnotic ray. How does the coach know this? He holds up a plate and says it's because of Einstein's theory of relativity and "I've read a lot of science fiction."  

This film is apparently about the evil influence of television on early 1950's American society or a warning about the dangers of communism overtaking the United States. The television hypnotizes a college football team, a university professor and a delivery man to become mindless conforming members of society in one of the film's most unsubtle moments of satire. The Twonky has other incredible powers like lighting your cigarettes and playing solitaire. This TV robot from the future truly is a threat to our American way of life.

The star is Hans Conreid a character actor in probably his only starring role ever. Conreid did a lot of work for Disney. He was the voice and model for Captain Hook in Disney's version of Peter Pan. Conreid supposedly told Obler while they were filming The Twonky that the film would be a flop. Obler answered that he needed the tax write off .

 84 minutes.

1982 - B-Movie BEASTMASTER , time killer time

Don Coscarelli is a writer/director working strictly in the B-movie genre. Beastmaster released in 1982 is a "sword and sorcery" film done on a low but not small budget.

The conventions of this type of movie are that our hero running around in next to nothing is faced with a series of obstacles he must overcome to get the girl wearing next to nothing and save the kingdom from some evil wizard. This is sort of Lord of the Rings light.

   

Lots of beefcake and cheesecake and just about any kind of cake for the men and women watching this. The only semi recognizable "stars" are Rip Torn playing, what else but the "evil wizard" and Tanya Roberts as the "girl." Tanya was a second string angel from Charlies Angels and has an accent that sounds like New York or New Jersey, she definitely did not grow up in Narnia.

 

The Beastmaster has special powers which allow him to fight the forces of evil by talking and controlling the animals of the forest. He's sort of like Dr. Doolittle with a really big sword.

My son watched this with me and he said it was a mash up of Clash of the Titans and the Star Wars movies, and I guess that's probably true enough. All these types of fantasy movies are kind of the same after a while. However, the Beastmaster is here so enjoy it if you stumble on to it while clicking around the TV dial

 

This was photographed by John Alcott who had worked with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining, Barry Lyndon, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It looks very pretty.

 118 minutes, written by Don Coscarelli and Paul Pepperman.

1916 - JUDEX a film serial in 12 parts-prologue through episode 3

Louis Feuillade's serial filmed before World War 1 the prologue and first three chapters set up the storyline. A corrupt banker with a beautiful but clueless daughter is threatened with death by the avenger Judex if he doesn't turn over his money to the poor.

Judex drugs the banker Favraux and fakes his death holding him captive at his secret base. The banker's daughter Jacqueline thinking her father dead relocates to Paris where she's a victim of a gang of crooks led by the evil Diana Monti.

Judex and his brother Roger (?) rescue Jacqueline with a pack of trained dogs that locate and take her to safety. Episode 3 ends with Judex starting to fall in love with Jacqueline.

So far entertaining and fast moving.

The total serial running length is 300 minutes, so probably the first three chapters are about 100 minutes.

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1988 - Coppola's Capra film TUCKER THE MAN AND HIS DREAM

Francis Ford Coppola a maverick filmmaker working in the studio system had wanted to make a film about a maverick car manufacturer named Preston Tucker. His plan for Tucker The Man and His Dream was to film it as a musical. But Coppola's luck had run out, One From The Heart his expensive love story/musical had flopped several years ago and he had been forced to make mainstream commercial movies the last several years.

However, George Lucas committed to producing the film for Coppola to secure the financial backing for the film. Lucas also persuaded Coppola to abandon the musical concept. Coppola agreed and decided to turn the film into a Frank Capra "little guy against the system" film. The final film while interesting, well acted and at times flamboyantly directed if disappointing, it lacks the sense of energy and spark that Capra in his prime could give a film.

Jeff Bridges pours on the charm playing the semi crazed inventor but the film seems kind of tired as if most everyone else is just going through the motions of the story.  All of his energy can't bring the film to life. The elegant and classical photography of Vittorio Storato constantly overwhelms the film and makes everything look just too pretty.

The story tries to make the case that the major automakers stopped the innovative Tucker from building his car of the future, so a lot of time is spent on stock options and board of directors meetings which is  very boring stuff to sit through.

  

Tucker The Man and His Dream is a disappointment because as a story about an unconventional person the film sinks into it's own conventionality by the end. The original musical concept would probably have been difficult to pull off but it would have been a lot more interesting than the final version of this film.

 110 minutes written by Arnold Schulman and David Seidler

1981 - A VERY BRITISH AFFAIR- short and sweet documentary on Powell and Pressburger

Filmed in 1981 while The Red Shoes was being reworked as a Broadway musical. This film is around 60 minutes and not bad. There are some interesting things in here for the film buff. Michael Powell says the character that he is the most like in his films is the nutty "glue man" from A Canterbury Tale. Hungarian, Emeric Pressburger seems like the perfect self deprecating English gentlemen, as he wanders around his cottage feeding the fish in a pond.

 

Powell and Pressburger actually still seem to like each other after a lot of career high and low points.

Towards the end of the film, the interviewer asks Powell if he felt he was sufficiently appreciated by the British public. Powell answers half mockingly "the public never appreciates it's great artists," at which point a very embarrassed Pressburger tells the cameraman to stop filming.

It was an amusing way to end the film.

1940 - Manly BOOM TOWN is very turgid stuff towards the end

  Boom Town is the kind of junk MGM would frequently dump on audiences. MGM the Cadillac of the Hollywood studio studio system during the 1940's, had the biggest stars and the best production facilities. Essentially a movie studio run as an assembly line factory. MGM would pump out films like this that had an alarming blandness. Talent in front and behind the camera were expected to breath life into this boring formula stuff.

 

MGM re teamed Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy to duplicate the success of San Francisco, as further insurance, they cast Claudette Colbert who had had a big hit with Gable in It Happened One Night. Boom Town, starts out as a good natured entertainment about oil wildcatters. Gable and Tracy are fighting, drinking and feuding buddies trying to get rich bringing in oil wells. A woman comes between them and millions of miles of plot later Gable ends up as a rich oil tycoon who is cheating on his nice all American wife with the exotic Heddy Lamarr.

A big fistfight ensues where Tracy beats Gable into insensibility so he can see the error of his ways and go back to sweet bland wife Claudette Colbert. In the meantime, to oppose a big oil consortium, Gable creates a monopoly which brings him to the attention of the US government who puts him on trial. Tracy his on again off again friend, delivers a speech to the jury basically saying Gables monopoly is good for American business and the American people (MGM was a very conservative studio) Boom Town ends with the friends reuniting to start a new business.

Of note in the movie is the ridiculous and constant use of back screen projection and studio sets anytime the stars are involved, not one bit of realism is allowed to enter into the fantasy world of MGM. To even film on location would take away a piece of control from MGM. The cast is kind of interesting.

Frank Morgan shows up from time to time, as a sort of a best friend of Gable and Tracy, it's always hard to think of him in other roles since he is most closely associated with his role as the wizard in The Wizard of Oz. Claudette Colbert a woman who had played a lot of sexy interesting parts at Paramount in the 1930's here finds herself in the thankless role of the wife of Clark Gable. In the world of MGM, American housewives are sexless and boring. European actor Heddy Lamarr gets to play the dirty woman with the sex appeal who Gable has a fling with, she's in the movie so the middle class audience can enjoy her naughtiness while being smug and superior about her loose European morals.

Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy were fine actors and one has to give them credit for being able to breath any sort of life into this film. This is the kind of film that drives a dedicated film viewer to watching European movies with subtitles.

Written by John Lee Mahin, the running time is 119 minutes.

2009 - THE PROPOSAL a painless entertaining timekiller

The story is ridiculous, the settings are a little to unbelievable and it shoots for some pretty easy laughs at times, but this is an undemanding and entertaining movie. What totally saves this movie is the professionalism of the cast. Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds know how to play light comedy. Even during the weaker moments of the script they generally save the day. They have to create a believability that the rest of the cast doesn't even attempt. Betty White is entertaining as the feisty grandmother and it's a fun scene stealing role, but Ryan and Bullock actually provide the context to her part, her character could have gotten tiresome very quickly. Even Malin Ackerman as the ex-girlfriend who was completely horrible in Watchmen, is not to bad.

To call this a "chick flick" or a "woman's picture" is actually a little unfair to the movie. This movie was crafted only to entertain an audience. Since I saw mostly "robots fighting humans" crap this summer,it was a relief to see a movie with a little less testosterone and motor oil.

1932 - THE MASK OF FU MANCHU doesn't really encourage a lot of racial harmony

The legendary oriental criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu wants the sword and mask of Genghis Kahn. With them he can rule Asia and slaughter the "white race." Sir Nyland Smith sort of an Indiana Jones as an old guy is trying to stop the " hideous yellow monster." And that about summons up this film's idea of racial harmony.

English actor Boris Kharloff plays Fu Manchu, American actor Myrna Loy plays his "ugly" daughter, and that about summons up this film's attitude when it came to casting Asian actors in the roles of Asian characters. 
  

The movie is a lot of fun, the story is a little weak but everything else is top grade quality, the black and white photography is very good. The sets and situations are fun, the torture chambers are particularly entertaining. Even the 1930's special effects are pretty decent. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, obviously got a lot of their inspiration from this movie.

The film runs under 90 minutes, MGM produced it so it looks very good.

1956 - LE MONDE DU SILENCE, horror film starring Jacques Cousteau

Jacques Costeau the "father of the environmental movement" released this documentary of his travels around the ocean with the crew of his ship Calypso.

 

 It won an academy award in 1956 for best documentary and was apparently a very influential film. Le Monde Du Silence is also one of the most anti environmental films I have ever seen. Costeau and his crew of undersea explorers are shockingly unenlightened about the oceans they are exploring. Their interactions with sea life are jaw dropping in their insensitivity. In order to get a census count of fish at a coral reef they blow up the reef and count all of the dead fish.

  

 Later in the film Cousteau's ship the Calypso hits and kills a baby sperm whale. The blood from the whale attracts a school of sharks intent on feeding on the dead whale. This provokes Cousteau and his crew into their own frenzy of shark killing because as Cousteau says "ze shark is ze enemy of ze diver."

  

 The movie was co-directed by the great French director Louis Malle. Malle was known for his humanist approach in his films, but in this case that apparently that didn't extend to the fish. An amazingly clueless film.

 86 minutes.

2003 - CHARLIE: THE LIFE AND ART OF CHARLES CHAPLIN probably could have been titled "To many young girls."

Film critic Richard Schickel's documentary is about the very messy life of one of the most important filmmakers in the history of cinema. The film runs over 2 hours and attempts an overview of Chaplin's life and films.

 

Spending to little time on his actual films and concentrating mostly on his private life, Schickel appears to be attempting to link his work with his personal life. The documentary should probably have been titled "Portrait of an Artist as a Dirty Old Man." Schickel tries to be somewhat discreet about his relationships with women, but it still comes off as kind of lurid. Chaplin had a thing for young girls and not young as in their 20's. Woody Allen is a person who knows a thing or two about getting involved with young girls is in the film but he doesn't have anything to say about that part of Chaplin's life during his interview.

Chaplin also had major involvements with the Communist party and was an acknowledged leftist. In the film this is barely touched on. It might have been interesting to look at this aspect of Chaplin's personality, the rich and famous film star flirting with Communism.

When Schickel does spend time on Chaplin's films, it's mostly the ones he made after sound came in. But compared to The Gold Rush and The Kid, does anyone really think that The Great Dictator, Limelight, Modern Times and even City Lights are as good as his silent films? 

 

Schickel doesn't even get into Chaplin's working methods for creating his films which would seem to be the whole reason for a documentary. How did Chaplin evolve as an artist how did he learn his craft? None of these questions are really answered. Overall a disappointment. 

If you are interested in a good documentary on Charles Chaplin I would recommend Kevin Brownlow's Unseen Chaplin which actually manages to capture some of the importance and greatness of Chaplin.

Running time 132 minutes.

1966 - MURDERERS ROW asks the question what is Ann Margaret wearing and why is she wearing it?

In the 1960's every male actor was forced to make some sort of a spy movie. Dean Martin (Dino) latched onto the Donald Hamilton Matt Helm spy novels and pretty much acted like a big goof throughout the series of 4 films.

The screenplay for the movie was written by one of the writers for Martin's variety series which was big at the time. The special effects were by Danny Lee who had won an academy award for his work on Mary Poppins, this was probably not a career highlight for him.

As in any film, accommodating actors is what it's all about.  Dino told Columbia studios that he had no intention of going on location for any of the filming on the French Riviera. Karl Malden was hired to play the chief bad guy and he decided to use some weird semi accent which he would drop and pick up throughout the movie,  nobody apparently was going to call him on it. Then there is 25 year old Ann Margaret playing the love interest to 50 year old Dino.

Exactly what is this woman wearing throughout the film? She comes out of a swimming pool in a one piece swimming suit with long sleeves and a turtleneck. She wears some strange feathery thing with a cap during her big go go dancing scene. Her clothes are so tight she was clearly sewn into them.

What is this movie about? It's about 1966. It's about jokes about kids with long hair, it's about trying to wring every last dollar out of the spy movie craze, it's about the rock group Dino Desi and Billy, it's about 60's icon Ann Margaret but mostly it's about Dean Martin.

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the movie going public. Dino trots out his drunk routine once again. He clearly has no interest in taking this movie even remotely seriously, if the drunk act worked on his TV show, the drunk act will work in Murderers Row.

The 1960's may have been about Vietnam, Kennedy, Woodstock and the Beatles. But is was also about Bewitched, The Flintstones, I Dream of Jeannie and The Dean Martin Show.

 105 minutes, written by Herbert Baker.

1962 - GORATH the end of the world is coming lets have a meeting

Gorath is the third in Toho's space trilogy after The Mysterians and Battle in Outer Space. A large planet is detected in outer space the Japanese send a space ship up to check on it, the spaceship promptly crashes into the planet and everyone figures out that the planet is on a collision course for Earth. What to do? Call a meeting.

 

 
This film has lots of meetings. Everyone spends the first half of the film meeting with someone else. Lots and lots of talk. Finally at the UN the decision is made to stick giant rocket engines on the South Pole and push the Earth out of the way. This sets up many scenes of Toho models and miniatures being constructed at the South Pole. As the planet Gorath gets closer and the rocket engines are fired, a giant walrus which doesn't appreciate all of the noise shows up.

Ishiro Honda the director made lots of these types of fantasy films and he does appear to be interested in pushing a message of mankind finding the ability to work together for a greater purpose.  But Honda was also a company man as well, so if Toho wanted a giant monster walrus in their movie Toho got a giant monster walrus in their movie.
  

As with all of these Toho space epics from this period the real comes from watching the model and miniature work of Eiji Tsuburaya and his special effects team.  Everything looks pretty dated now and even back then the model work was very phony looking, but they do give the picture a toy like charm.

89 minutes, written by Takeshi Kimura.

1929 - THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU is some thing to see

Shot over a five month period from January until June of 1929 literally on a mountain. Temperatures during filming were in the -50's to -60's at times. This film is really something to see.

 

Amazing photography, incredible effects achieved with light and shadow.

The film stars Hitler's favorite film director Leni Riefenenstahl who would go on to film documentaries for the Third Reich. One scene has her been hauled up the side of the mountain while an avalanche is falling on her what fun that must have been.

 

Incredible flying sequences by a German World War I fighter ace (62 confirmed kills) named Ernst Udet. It's unnerving to watch him fly so close to the mountain.

No special effects. An amazing film.

150 minutes.