1988 - ANOTHER WOMAN, Woody Allen reworks Wild Strawberries badly

Let's go to the dialog:

"I accept your condemnation."

“Maybe you’ve had too much champagne.”
“Maybe this conversation scares you.”

“I laid my head down and closed my eyes, and I guess I dozed off. I don’t know how long I was asleep, but one of the pillows must have slipped off the vent, and I gradually became aware of a voice. A woman’s voice. And it was such an anguished, heart-wrenching sound that I was totally arrested by its sadness.”

Ingmar Woody directs Liv Rowlands and Max Von Hackman

“Something tells me you know everything, and you’re scared.”
 
"I closed the book, and felt this strange mixture of wistfulness and hope, and I wondered if a memory is something you have or something you've lost. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace."

Finally this little gem, seems to be Woody's own review of his film:

"This is overblown, it's too emotional, it's maudlin. Your dreams may be meaningful to you, but to the objective observer, it's just so embarrassing."

1941 - DIVE BOMBER, is a tribute to the Navy flight surgeon and actually a good movie

Dive Bomber is a highly entertaining war film that came out before World War 2.  It was written by "Spig" Wead who John Wayne played in The Wings of Eagles.  Erroll Flynn is the flight surgeon attempting to solve all the fighter pilot problems of blackouts and you name it.  Fred MacMurray is one of the Navy's top pilots who doesn't like Flynn and can't see the value in his research.  Of course MacMurray comes to see the light as a true Navy bromance is born.

This film was directed by Michael Curtiz and photographed in stunning technicolor by Bert Glennon and Winton Hoch who both worked with John Ford.  The film looks great.  The flying sequences are particularly vivid.

A fairly impressive achievement considering the subject matter and the technical challenges of shooting with the gigantic technicolor camera during the early 1940's.  The film is also very entertaining.

133 minutes

1969 - A WALK WITH LOVE AND DEATH, medival love story from John Huston

During the 100 Years War (circa 1300's), two young lovers wander around France doing their young lover thing which consists of prancing in the fields, singing love songs while playing a lute and saying lots of dumb things to each other.

A Walk with Love and Death was directed by John Huston who apparently saw it as a starring vehicle for his daughter Angelica who was young, pretty and couldn't act.  Huston's plan was to hire an actor to play opposite her who also couldn't act.  The actor Assi Dayan was equally inept which kept her from looking too horrible.

Besides trying to kick start his daughter's career, Huston apparently was trying to make some point about "man's inhumanity to man" in a rather heavy handed way with this innocent young lovers stuff.  He also didn't seem to have much sense of the time and place he set the story in.  Everything seems way to clean and neat for the Middle Ages especially when you contrast it to something like Monty Python and the Holy Grail .

 

If there is a lesson to be learned from this film it's probably don't hire performers with absolutely no acting experience. Also, John Huston's classic Hollywood style of film making looked pretty outdated for a late 1960's film.

90 minutes, screenplay by Dale Wasserman.

1957 - FUNNY FACE, 50's musical with a lot of style probably too much style.

Fred Astaire is the fashion photographer based on Richard Avedon.  Audrey Hepburn is the intellectual book seller who Astaire discovers and turns into a top fashion model.  The songs are by George and Ira Gershwin, Stanley Donen directed and the film was shot in Vista Vision so it looks great.

However MGM was the studio of origin for this musical but ended up selling the whole package to Paramount, apparently they had little faith in the film.

Astaire is almost 60 years old but still has a lot of grace when he dances.  Hepburn was not a trained dancer but had studied ballet and appeared in some stage musicals so she was able to fake it pretty well.  The film also stars Kay Thompson who was a vocal coach and arranger for MGM during it's musical hey day.  Kay Thompson was a big deal at MGM since she was involved in a lot of their musicals and probably was as influential behind the scenes as a Vincent Minnelli, Roger Edens or Arthur Freed.

Funny Face has a lot of good things about it, but like almost every musical from the 1950's it's always one too many songs and one too many dance numbers.  Stanley Donen's skill as a director keeps it watchable but it finally wears out it's welcome about halfway through the film

103 minutes.

2012 - ARGO, a good thriller.

I'll jump on the Argo bandwagon, this is a very good thriller.  There has been some whining about the liberties that have been taken with the true story of some Americans trapped in Iran during the revolution, but the credit at the beginning of the film does say "based on a true story."

Affleck and his production team paid good attention to period detail and casting.  Affleck's the star but he's smart enough to let the rest of his cast do their thing.  John Goodman as makeup expert John Chambers and Alan Arkin in particular really seem to be having fun as Hollywood talent hired by the CIA to get the hostages out, it's just another bad Hollywood production for them.

This is a well constructed film that manages to mix excitement, humor and suspense something Hitchcock was very adept at doing in his Paramount films although Affleck is no Hitchcock.
Still, this is a very well directed film.

Makeup artist John Chambers sounds like a real character, not only was he occasionally working for the CIA, he also created Spock's ears for Star Trek, the makeup for the Munsters and those crazy masks for The List of Adrian Messenger.

120 minutes, written by Chris Terrio.

1985 - MR VAMPIRE, classic horror comedy from Hong Kong

The Chinese like it fast and very goofy in this vampire comedy which features hopping vampires.  The Chinese have it figured out, vampire films are kind of stupid

  I actually laughed at loud at this nonsense particularly the scenes where the Taoist priest attempts to keep his assistant from turning into a vampire by filing down his teeth.

This was a big hit when it came out in Taiwan and was responsible for three sequels.  

As usual with these Hong Kong films from the 1980's, the stunt work is very impressive.

96 minutes, written by Sze-to Cheuk-hon, Barry Wong and Wong Ying.

1990 - JU DOU aka The Story of Ju Dou

 I'm not big on love stories and tragic love stories in particular but this Chinese film directed by Zhang Yimou was very good.

The film was noticeable for a couple of things.  It was shot in technicolor which nobody was using.  The setting for the film was a factory that dyed silk which allowed for striking color effects.  Unfortunately the DVD I had of this film was of such a poor quality I could barely tell the film was in color much less vivid color.

The other big thing was Gong Li who was establishing her self as one of China's best and best looking actors. 

If you actually watch the film without all of this extraneous stuff this is a good film with a fascinating setting and story with some interesting variations on the traditional love story.

95 minutes.

1961 - THE GREENGAGE SUMMER, aka The Loss of Innocence

Based on a novel from Runmer Godden and similar to Godden's The River which was filmed by Jean Renoir.  The Greengage Summer is a coming of age story which is unusually well done when you put it up against something like The Blue Lagoon or that sleezefest The Lovers.

The film was amusingly enough directed by Lewis Gilbert, photographed by F.A. Young and edited by Peter Hunt who all worked together on You Only Live Twice.  That this bunch could make a film about teenage girls without descending into exploitation is probably due to Godden's story which isn't afraid to make the teenagers immature and unlikable at times.

The film has a good cast with Kenneth More who usually played light comedy roles and Susannah York as the teenager way in over her head doing the little girl tease thing.

99 minutes, written by Howard Koch.

1983 - KRULL, kind of flat footed fantasy

Krull never quite had the stuff to make it as a fantasy film.  The film is a Lord Of The Rings type story which came out years before those films but was clearly influenced by the Tolkien books.

There is enough going on to sort of keep you engaged in watching the film but all of the episodes in the film don't add up to an interesting story. Every scene seems to have come from low budget fantasy films from the 1940's and 50's.  Almost any Ray Harryhausen film had more imagination in it than Krull. 

The film also suffers from very bland characters which the actors can't get a handle on.  There is the handsome prince, beautiful princess, the magician, the comedy relief and a little kid who is tagging along for no particular reason.

Krull was an expensive film to make at the time, it has big sets and bright color photography,  However the special effects were standard movie making stuff, with optical tricks, stop motion, animation and matte painting effects used throughout the film.  This was very old fashioned approach considering Star Wars had come out in 1977 and had completely changed the way special effects were used in films.

The climatic fight at the end of the film with the prince throwing come sort of souped up Frisbee called a "gaive" at the monster was kind of lame and anticlimactic.

Krull belongs in the film category called "OK time killer."

121 minutes, written by Stanford Sherman.

1949 - DICK BARTON STRIKES BACK, the very poor man's James Bond

Secret agent Dick Barton is out to stop Family Affair's evil "Mr. French" Sebastian Cabot from destroying England with sound waves.

This so called film was based on a popular cliffhanger radio serial on the BBC and apparently it was  very popular.

The film was shot completely on location so not only is it hard to watch but hard to hear as well.  Dick faces a lot of close calls as takes on the evil enemy spy ring and their giant tuning fork,  a weapon worse "than the atomic bomb." He wraps the case up in about 70 minutes in time to get a pint of bitters at the local pub.

The final fight with the bad guys all filmed on location is pretty well done.  The theme music called "The Devil's Gallop" by Charles Williams is probably the best thing in the film.

73 minutes.

1960 - SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST, Hammer Studios does Robin Hood

Hammer Studios and actor Richard Greene produced this stand alone Robin Hood story in color and shot on location in Ireland.  Hammer's top director Terence Fisher kept the story moving along with lots of guys getting shot with arrows and stabbed with broad swords.  Since this was a Hammer production there was the expected touches of sadism and violence.

Richard Greene had started in a television version of the Robin Hood story called The Adventures of Robin Hood.  Greene cranked out 143 of these TV shows (which I can remember seeing in reruns) so he had a ready made audience for this film.

This film is nothing special but it is a decent time killer.  The film is unpretentious and doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is an entertaining Hammer film.

80 minutes, written by Alan Hackney.

2012 - THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, is pretty good

I'm not going to lose much sleep over the careers of multimillion dollar film directors.  But Christopher Nolan must have had his hands full making another Batman film.  After the success of The Dark Knight the studio expected another big Batman film.  Nolan aiming for something a little more serious than The Avengers but since the comic book movie bar wasn't set very high with that film it probably wasn't much of a challenge.

Nolan co-wrote a story that was about terrorism, class warfare and the ethical consequences of vigilante justice.  All of this was stuck into the Batman legend with the expected fights and chases.  That the film is a decent entertainment is probably a tribute to Nolan's storytelling skills.  However this is still a Batman film.

OK on with the criticisms:

1.  Can anyone really understand what the growling Batman and the muffle mouthed super villain Bane are talking about?   The rumor was that Bane's voice was rerecorded after the film's trailer was released.  That's hard to believe and did anyone really listen to what was coming out of mouth of Christian Bale and did anyone understand half of it?

2.  The film is almost three hours long.  I could have easily lost the scenes in the underground prison with the well, they really added nothing to the film.  Also a lot of the film focuses on rookie cop John Blake, most of this stuff could have easily been dropped as well or maybe even The Cat Woman stuff.  I suppose you could say it adds depth to the story but it also adds a whole lot of running time to the film. 

3.  The Dark Knight Rises presupposes everyone has seen the first two films and especially Batman Begins to understand what's going on in this film.   Batman Begins had a pretty stupid plot about vaporizing the water supply of Gotham City apparently the League of Assassins is still trying to vaporize Gotham City in this film.

4.  The ending is basically the same ending as Nolan's previous film Inception talk about lazy.  Nolan has proclaimed he wanted to wrap up the Batman trilogy but surprise surprise there is room for a sequel.

5.  Finally, this is a movie about Batman, this is not an epic tragedy along the lines of King Lear, this is Batman a comic book character.

165 minutes.

1968 - 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, is probably as good as it gets for science fiction

Watched the Blu-Ray of this film, probably the first time I've seen it in about 15 years or so.  The Blu-Ray did take out some of the grain which was particularly noticeable in the Discovery One spaceship sequences but overall the film looked very good.  

Stanley Kubrick really brought his "A" game to this film.  He wanted to make the best science fiction film possible and he wasn't fooling around.  The special effects still look very sharp and clear.  Kubrick pushed film technology to the limit and it paid off,  the space scenes have an powerful look  to them which no other science fiction film has been able to duplicate.  The musical selections chosen for the film perfectly complement the film and I am not a big fan of adding classical music to films.

When this film came out it confused a lot of the critics.  The chief complaint was that the story was obscure and difficult to understand.  I've never understood their reaction to this film.  Even in my first viewing of this film it was clear that 2001: A Space Odyssey was about evolution and man's encounter with extraterrestrial life.

I have seen a lot of science fiction films and I am of the opinion that 2001: A Space Odyssey is still the best film in the science fiction genre. 

142 minutes, screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark.

1960 - WILD RIVER, another impressive film from Elia Kazan

The federal government in the form of the Tennessee Valley Authority needs to evict an old woman and her family from their home in order to dam up the river and bring electricity to the region.  Conflicts over individual rights, racism and cultural differences create the drama.

Wild River is film making at a very high level.  The film was filmed in CinemaScope and benefits from a director who knows what he's doing with it for a change.  There is a lot of atmosphere in this film.  Kazan shot on location and really captures rural Tennessee. 

Kazan was also a pro when it came to directing actors.  Everyone in the cast delivers the goods from overly method actor Montgomery Cliff, Lee Remick and Jo Van Fleet as the matriarch of the family who Cliff is trying to evict are excellent.  But when you get right down to it everyone in the cast,  which includes scenery chewing actors like Jay C. Flippen and Albert Salmi are working at a very high level. 

For a film over 40 years old this is still very contemporary in the issues it raises regarding the role of government in the lives of people.

110 minutes.

1960 - THE LOST WORLD, pretty bad even by Irwin Allen standards.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World is a great book that people have been stealing from for years.  The Jurassic Park films are probably the latest example.  However this seems to be a story that no one can make a decent film out.  Probably giving it to Irwin Allen wasn't going to result in any kind of quality product.  Even as cheesy fun the film is not entertaining.

Everything should be in place for another Irwin Allen camp classic.   An odd eclectic cast that runs the gamut from distinguished actor Claude Rains to 1960's cheese cake actress Jill St John who never could act.  The sets are phony looking.  Everything was clearly shot in the studio which probably made it nice for the cast and crew.  They could get home at a decent hour after a long day of hiding behind paper mache rocks and plastic ferns.  The dinosaur effects were the old cheap standby of using lizards with stuff glued on them and photographed up close as they fought with each other.

So what was the problem with this film.  Well talk.  Everyone in this film is constantly talking, talking, talking.  There are a lot of very boring dialog scenes and they are everywhere.  Irwin Allen was no Ozu when it came to directing actors, he just stuck the camera in front of them and let them ramble on.

This film continues Irwin Allen's association with three time academy award winning photographer Winton Hoch who had worked with John Ford prior to his association with Allen.  The film is very pretty to look at.

97 minutes, screenplay by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett.