1944 - TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, Bogie meets Baby.

To Have and Have Not was clearly made to capitalize on another wartime romance, Casablanca, Howard Hawks teamed up 19 year old Lauren Bacall with 45 year Humphrey Bogart.  As they say the romantic sparks practically flew off the screen.

 

In a lot of ways this is almost a plot-less film.  Hawk's interest seemed to be mostly devoted to having his two leads take smart with each other throughout the film.  The result is a highly entertaining love story.

 I guess it doesn't need to be repeated that Bacall and Bogart married in real life.  The film is generally considered a high point in Hawk's career and is an excellent example of quality 1940's film making.

The screenplay was by old Hollywood pro Jules Furthman and William Faulkner of all people.  The film runs 100 minutes.

1979 - DON GIOVANNI, Mozart's opera on film

 Probably as good a version of a filmed opera as you are going to see anywhere.  The Blu Ray is an excellent transfer and the photography courtesy of Gerry Fisher is absolutely stunning.

Be forewarned that this is a 3 hour film.  However the nice thing about the Blu Ray disc is that you can pause it and take as many breaks as you want or need.

The director Joseph Losey has done an excellent job transferring this opera to film.  Amusingly enought he apparently fell asleep while attending a live performance of the opera.

 

It doesn't hurt to have a good filmed version of what is considered to be one of Mozart's greatest operas.

The screenplay was by Losey, Rolf Liebermann, Patricia Losey, Renzo Rossellini, and Frantz Salieri based on the libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music of course.

1972 - AVANTI, a romantic comedy from Billy Wilder.

Avanti just misses being a very good romantic comedy from the usually cynical Billy Wilder.  What kills it is the length, 140 minutes.  This is long for just about any film much less a comedy.  Wilder had final cut and refused to shorten the film.

Avanti is about an American businessman traveling to Italy to pick up the body of his deceased father.  While there he discovers that his father had a long running affair with a woman which went on for over 10 years.  The business man also runs into the woman's daughter, a rather overweight Englishwoman. Let the fat jokes commence.

Jack Lemmon plays the business man almost like an older version of his CC Baxter character from The Apartment. Juliet Mills is the free spirited Englishwoman who worms her way into Lemmon's life.

 

This film is considered a late period Wilder film.  It has a more gentle touch than the last couple of films that Wilder had directed which were pretty damn cynical.

If you can get past the length this isn't a bad film. but once again the length of the film makes it somewhat of a chore to get through at times.

Written by Wilder and his frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond.

1950 - DEVIL'S DOORWAY, good revisionist western

 A good western from Anthony Mann with an able assist from his cameraman John Alton.  Devil's Doorway speaks to the mistreatment of the Native American at the hands of a bunch of racists white men.

Robert Taylor plays the Native American, Lance Poole a Civil War veteran medal of honor winner who is cheated out of his land by an unethical attorney.  Let's face it Taylor is completely miscast in the role but does a very good job as Lance Poole, who isn't going to roll over and let white men walk all over him.

 

The action when it comes is very good and the film makes it points without hammering the viewer over the head about the mistreatment of Native Americans.

The film was written by Guy Trosper and runs 84 minutes.

2013 - HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER SEASON 9, the final season

The last season of HIMYM, is sort of a last hurrah for the cast and guest stars.  Almost everyone who appeared in the series takes a sort of bow. All of Ted's old girlfriends appear and almost every goofball, (The Captain, Robin Scherbatsky, Sr.,The Bartender etc.). among others make a final appearance.

The writers tried something different in this season.  The episodes were set over the 3 day period of Barney and Robins wedding.  In theory this was sort of clever,  in reality kind of unwieldy.  

 

The plan was to finally bring Ted and Robin together after her divorce from Barney.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the last episode. The actress they hired to play Ted's unseen wife, Cristin Milioti was so likable that fans of the series resented killing her off to make way for Robin.

 

The DVD release offered 2 versions of the final show, one where the mother is alive and married to Ted and one where the mother is dead and Ted finally ends up with Robin. My vote is he should have stuck with girlfriend Victoria from season 1

Well that's showbiz.

24 episodes, 516 minutes.

2011 - PINA, a well done film about dance

I suppose it anyone was going to make a film about a German choreographer names Pina Bausch and make it interesting it would be Wim Wenders.  Pina Bausch died before Wenders shot this film and her dance company had to persuade Wenders to finish the film.

What we have in this film are several very interesting and good dance pieces. In between the dancing Wenders has the dancers speak about Pina Bausch. However it's a voice over narration instead of the usual talking head stuff.

 

Gene Kelly had tried unsuccessfully to make a film about dance called Invitation To The Dance but couldn't pull it off.  Wenders on the other hand has carefully thought out how to photograph the dancing in this film and it comes out very well.

 

The film was written by Wim Wenders and runs 106 minutes.

1957 - THE SPIRIT OF ST LOUIS, an odd Billy Wilder film

Exactly what Jewish director Billy Wilder saw in famed aviator (and probably Nazi) Charles Lindbergh will probably forever remain a mystery.  In any case Wilder got Warner Brothers to shell out seven million dollars and hired James Stewart and actor in his 50's to play Lindbergh a man in his 20's. 

 The result was a box office disaster, Warner Brothers lost their money the public didn't come out and the critics focused on Stewart's age.  As it turned out nobody much remembered who Lindbergh was which probably didn't help the popularity of the movie.

This film on Lindbergh is somewhat of a miss.  Wilder brought his usual professionalism to the project but for some reason he just couldn't seem to get it to come together. Maybe watching a guy sit in a cockpit flying a plane was not the public's idea of exciting film making.  Not a bad film but not the classic about a questionable American hero that Wilder was aiming for.

 

The screenplay was as usual by Billy Wilder with help from Charles Lederer and Wendell Mayes. The film runs 135 minutes.

1984 - A CHRISTMAS CAROL, yet another version

Yes it's another version of A Christmas Carol, this time with George C Scott in the role of Mister you know who.

This film was directed by one time British wonder boy Clive Donner.  What ever happened to his career anyway?  It has good production values, was photographed in England and with the exception of Scott has an English cast.

Considered to be one of the better and most faithful versions of the Dicken's warhorse of a story.  This strikes me as just another unecessary version of A Christmas Carol.  Filmmakers really need to take a nice long break before anyone tackles this story yet again.

Screenplay by Roger Overholt Hirson the running time is 100 very familiar minutes.

2007 - THE KINGDOM, watchout Middle East terrorists here come the good guys.

A nice schizo action film.  The Kingdom starts out with a short history lesson about the United States government's screw ups over the many years in dealing with the Middle East all in the name of oil.  It puts the viewer in the mood for perhaps a fairly honest appraisal of yet another US foreign policy disaster.

However after that lecture,  we jump into the action. At an American housing compound built by an oil company,  terrorists set off a bomb.  This brings in the FBI's crack bomb investigation team.  They have to put together what happened and who did it.  Since this is a film directed by Peter Berg a man who apparently has to much iron in his diet, the violence commences.

The action scenes are well staged with the usual shaky camera style that is so popular these days.  The cast beginning with Jamie Foxx, Jason Batemen, Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner (in the role of the girl, because there always has to be a girl) is OK.

The film is ultimately a rather pointless mess.  It can't decide if it should be sympathetic to the situation in the Middle East or just another shoot em up.  Guess what prevails.

The film was written by Matthew Michael Carnahan  and runs 109 minutes.

1949 - THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD

Is this one of the greatest animated Disney features?  No but it's very good.   These two stories show the skill of the Disney production company and they each run about 30 minutes.

The Wind In The Willows is narrated by Basil Rathbone and is based on the Kenneth Grahame children's book.

The second story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is narrated by Bing Crosby and is based on Washington Irving's "The Sketch Book".

The film runs 68 minutes and doesn't wear out it's welcome.

2012 - HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER SEASON 8

They probably should have called it a day after season 7 but incredibly CBS squeezed two more seasons out of this series.

The cast and the writers seem completely on autopilot by this time. Frankly the relationship and engagement of Robin and Barney always seemed very contrived to me.  Clearly the plan was to pair Robin up with Ted.  But as we shall see in season 9, a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the last episode.

 

The  cast really has to carry the load because the producers/writers sure couldn't seem to get the season jelling.

517 minutes, 23 episodes.

1955 - THE MAN FROM LARAMIE, Anthony Mann, James Stewart

The fifth and last western from the team of Anthony Mann and James Stewart. The setting is New Mexico the action is good as usual.  The film has a streak of brutality particularly in the scene where Stewart gets his finger shot off.

Mann was scheduled to direct Stewart's next film about an accordion playing cowboy but complained about the script and the accordion.  An angry Stewart (in real life an actual accordion player) broke off his relationship with Mann.  So it goes with Hollywood prima movie stars.

 

Still, an excellent western.  Philip Yordan and Frank Burt wrote the screenplay,  The picture runs 102 minutes.

1958 - THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, a film about a big fish.

Ernest Hemingway's popular novella which probably helped him win the Nobel Prize in literature was purchased by Warner Brothers studio.  Classy film director Fred Zinnemann was hired to turn it into a prestige film.  A very miscast Spencer Tracy played the "old man."  Then everything went wrong.  Hemingway was hired to catch a marlin and that never happened.  The sea wasn't very hospitable to filming in Havana and decision was made to film in a tank with a plastic fish on a sound stage.  A frustrated Zinnemann quit the production.

 

John Sturges was hired to complete the film, and it's probably a miracle that he actually finished it. How's the end product?  Well considered all the problems and compromises made, not that bad.

The color photography is at times stunning, the score by Dimitri Tiomkin is good.  Spencer Tracy's narration isn't bad.  The film got decent reviews but the public didn't show up.  So much for art pictures I guess.

Peter Viertel wrote the screenplay.  The film runs 85 minutes.

2007 - ELITE SQUAD, tough as hell crime film

Rio De Janeiro looks like a total hellhole in this crime drama about a squad of cops called BOPE a military squad attempting to contain the city's drug lords.  The drug dealers are tough and the regular street cops are corrupt.  Making their job very tough.

If the BOPE cops come off as tough and brutal dealing with the criminal element in the slums the criminals are even more violent it that's possible. After a while it's hard to know who the good guys are or in fact were there ever any good guys.

 

A violent but extremely well made film.

 

The screenplay was by Braulio Mantovani, Jose Padilha and Rodrigo Pimentel, the film runs 115 minutes and was a big hit in Brazil.

1964 - SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, excellent political thriller

 The director John Frankenheimer at the top of his game.  This political thriller about an attempted coup by the United States military against a weak President is skillfully made. A lack of the usual tiresome action scenes is compensated by ramping up the suspense with excellent acting, camera work, and direction.

 

The film has a superb cast, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Frederic March, Martin Balsam, Edmund O'Brien, George Macready and Ava Gardner in the rather thankless role of the love interest.  I would be neglectful if I didn't mention a couple of favorite supporting actors, Whit Bissel,  Hugh Marlowe and Richard Anderson.

  

Rod Serling wrote the at times somewhat preachy screenplay,  the running time is 118 minutes. Kirk Douglas's company produced it.

1978 - THE DRIVER, excellent car chase film

Crapped on by about every major critic at the time of release and ignored by the audience.  This is one of writer/director Walter Hill's best films.

 

The action scenes are excellent, the car chases are real.  None of the characters have names.  Ryan O'Neal (who's pretty damn good) is "The Driver."  Bruce Dern is "The Detective."  Isabelle Adjani is "The Player."

 

The film is styled in it's presentation to put it mildly. Clearly a big influence on Nicholas Winding Refin's The Drive and Edgar Wright's Baby Driver.

 

The film runs a fast paced 91 minutes.

1964 - ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, Good Science Fiction

A good reliable science fiction film anyway you cut.  The director Bryon Haskin was a talented craftsman who knew his way around this genre.  The film is also smart enough and self aware enough to acknowledge that it is based on Daniel Defoe's novel.

 A great deal of the film was shot in Death Valley by master color cinematographer Winton Hoch.  Hoch was a named usually associated with John Ford and frequently Irwin Allen.  The sky was so blue it allowed the special effects technicians to add optical work with a great deal of  clarity,  unusual for a modestly budgeted 1960's science fiction film.

The acting, story and design have been carefully thought thru.  The story moves along as the astronaut  Christopher Draper encounters challenges surviving in the Martian environment.  This is Hollywood movie making at it's best, with the filmmakers bringing a lot of skill to a premise which could have been very ridiculous.

The film wasn't a success when it was released, but has grown it stature with time.

 Ib Melchior and John Higgins wrote the screenplay, 110 minutes.