1999 - NOTTING HILL, a romantic comedy from England

Glamorous movie star falls in love with the owner of a small bookstore in Notting Hill, London

Julia Roberts is the supposedly hot movie star.  Hugh Grant does his stuttering acting thing.

Compliations occur, but there is a happy ending.

124 Minutes

1969 - THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS, an out of it Western.

The director Burt Kennedy had some experience mixing comedy and drama in the Western genre but by the 1960's Sergio Leone and his many contemporaries had redefined the traditional western with the "Spaghetti" western.  The Good Guys and the Bad Guys seemed really old fashioned and checked out with contemporary trends in this genre.

The film has a surprisingly decent cast with actors such as Robert Mitchum, George Kennedy, Martin Balsam, David Carradine and Lois Nettleton.  Exactly how they got roped into this would probably make a more interesting story then this by the numbers plot of a former sheriff and bank robber teaming up to stop a train robbery.

The film has a decent train robbery action scene towards end and the photography and location filming in Colorado are the only things the film has going for it.

Really not much of a film.

91 minutes, written by Ronald M. Cohen and Dennis Shryak.

1987 - BABETTE'S FEAST - a very good film.

Babette's Feast is one of the best films I have seen.  How could it miss, the film was based on a story by Karin Blixen a highly regarded writer who was admired by Hemingway, Orson Welles, Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe (?).  The film is a meditation on a certain type of austere Christianity told without a trace of irony or a patronizing smirk.

The cast of the film is made up of actors who had worked with Carl Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman and Claude Chabrol of all people.  Stephanie Audran who had played cool sexy redheads for Chabrol would have seemed an odd choice for the title character but she gives a very good performance in a real change of pace role for her.  The rest of the cast was made up of Danish actors with considerable reputations one of them Bridget Federspiel had worked with Dreyer in Ordet a film which is not unrelated to Babette's Feast in theme.

Needless to say the preparation of the feast is photographed so well and made such an impression on the audience, you can find the recipes for the seven course meal all over the internet.  Particularly fascinating is Babett's signature dish the "cailles en sarcophage", a pastry stuffed with a quail which is in turn stuffed with foie gras.

In the end this is one of the best foreign films I have seen.

102 minutes

1957 - KISS THEM FOR ME, another film saved by Cary Grant

You would think a film about 3 Navy fliers on leave in San Francisco during World War II would be be a can't miss.  The film was directed by Stanley Donen, written by Julius Epstein a veteran screenwriter and starred Cary Grant.  This should at the very least be an entertaining comedy.  However Kiss Them For Me is a very disappointing film.  It's not a bad film or a good film just a mediocre one.  As usual only Cary Grant's charm and professionalism can hold this thing together.

Cary Grant's costar is that 50's idea of a female desire, Jayne Mansfield.  A woman with  a ridiculous hour glass figure and little girl personality.  She makes Marilyn Monroe look like Meryl Streep.   Mansfield does her dirty little girl thing throughout the film but mercifully she actually has a rather small part considering she has co-starring billing with Cary Grant in the credits.  Grant's real co-star is the legendary 50's model Suzy Parker.

Parker was a top magazine cover model, one of the first of the "super models."  She probably would have been at home in an Alfred Hitchcock film  if Hitchcock liked cool brunette's instead of cool blondes.  Parker can actually hold her own with Cary Grant even though his approach to seducing her seems mostly to ply her with some drink called a "stinger." A gross cocktail that is a mix of creme de mente and cognac.

Probably the most pathetic thing about this film are the occasional attempts to actually get serious about the plight of the returning war weary veteran.  I understand this is a comedy but the small parts of serious drama stuck in this film really seem out of place.  Cary Grant is always fun to watch in a film, but he really did his best work with good directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor and occasionally Stanley Donen.

105 minutes.

2014 - THE IMITATION GAME, is an imitation of better films.

I was completely unimpressed with The Imitation Game a film that apparently plays fast and very loose with the facts of closeted gay professor Alan Turing and his role in breaking the German Enigma code machine during World War  II.

The film stars British actor flavor of the month Benedict Cumberbatch as the very twitchy Turing and Keira Knightly because as they say there's always has to be a woman in the movies.

Every liberal in the United States is whining about about the authenticity of the story in American Sniper.  I would say this film really has fact baked factual pseudo biographies beat with ridiculous spy plots and overblown dramatic scenes of code breaking that probably couldn't possibly have occured they way it's presented in this film.

If you are looking for a good film about Alan Turing and the Engima project you could probably wait for PBS to repeat Decoding Nazi Secrets which PBS will probably run ad naseum now that The Imitation Game is a success.

114 minutes

1963 - CLEOPATRA, absurd epic drama

Cleopatra is usually discussed from the standpoint of the production and not the end result, the film itself.  The film was notable for paying Elizabeth Taylor the biggest salary a movie star had received up to that time.  The film ate up the talents of two directors Rouben Mamoulian and finally the writer/ director Joseph L. Mankiewicz whose career never recovered.

Excess was the name of the game with 20th Century Fox studio spending 31 million dollars on costumes and sets. Big money in the early 1960s.  The film was started twice with sets built at Pinewood studios and then completely rebuilt in Italy at Cinecitta Studios.  Mankiewicz directed during the day and wrote the script at night.  It's actually kind of a miracle the film is even half coherent.

Considering all the money spent this film is mostly a rehash of previous epics without the wild excess that can usually be found in these types of films.  Mankiewicz was clearly trying to make an intelligent epic but forgot to include any of the crazed fun that a director like Cecil B. DeMille brought to his version of Cleopatra.  This version seems to be mostly a rehash of the Shaw and Shakespeare plays about Cleopatra

Of the big time cast, only Rex Harrison comes off best as Caesar.  Once his character is assassinated in the Roman Senate the film has to focus on the love story between Anthony and Cleopatra which consists of the hammy Richard Burton overacting and Elizabeth Taylor not even bothering to act at all.  In fact the first half of Cleopatra is pretty good with Harrison getting all the good lines.  The second half is pretty terrible with Elizabeth Taylor's unending and ridiculous costume changes and Burton's goofy emoting over the plus sized Taylor.

248 minutes. The film was written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Ranald MacDougall and Sidney Robert Buchman but Mankiewicz was the real power behind the screenplay.

1975 - ADVENTURES OF THE WILDERNESS FAMILY, of historical interest.

The Adventures of the Wilderness, is a family entertainment.  The film is wholesome almost to a fault.  This bunch has to be some of the whitest white people on the planet.  Yet the message of the film somewhat muddles up all of this wholesomeness.  The family has left Denver because of the smog and industrialization that has made the daughter sick.  Apparently moving out of Denver to the suburbs wasn't an option.  This family has chosen to move way the hell out to the middle of nowhere.  This "granola live off the land" existence is somewhat at odds with the message of the film which appears to be the American way of life sucks so lets go into the woods and grow stuff like a bunch of hippies.

What plot there is pretty much involves building a log cabin for everyone to live in, talk about togetherness.  The log cabin building is frequently interrupted by someone, usually one of the kids being chased by a wild animal with Dad coming to the rescue.  And that's it.  There's no soul searching about the children being isolated from human contact, no introspection about what it means to co exist with nature,  just a lot of scenes of kids getting chased by bears, or wolves or cougars.

The director is Stewart Raffill who made a lot of these kinds of films.  Besides The Wilderness Family, his film making cannon includes Across The Great Divide, The Sea Gypsies and that E.T. rip off Mac and Me. 

These films were usually advertised on television with the ads running so often that it basically hynotized the viewer into dragging himself or herself and family to see these films.  Considering the relatively low budget these films were made on (there's lots of shots of the boom mike dropping into view), these film made some decent money.

100 minutes.

1945 - THE SEVENTH VEIL, incredibly over the top and incredibly entertaining drama

This is a mix of classical music and psychology which would probably give 50 Shades of Grey a run for it's money in the sexual masochism department.  British actor Ann Todd really plays off of her ice princess look is the ward of James Mason her rich benefactor who all but physically tortures her into becoming a famous classical pianist.  When Todd falls in love with an artist, Mason takes his cane and hits Todd's hands with it so she will never be able to perform again.  This is the high point of the film.

Into the mix with Mason and Todd's fun and games is Herbert Lom as the psychiatrist tying to straighten things.  This film would have a viewer believe that one visit to Lom and with a little shot of some kind of narcotic, Todd is running her mouth off to Lom about her strange private life.  Herbert Lom is probably remembered today as Chief Inspector Dreyfuss in the Pink Panther movies.

All this stuff is very entertaining for some reason and this film was a huge hit in England in the 1940's.  Even watching it today it is incredibly easy to get caught up in this story and I'm not actually sure why.  Is it Mason's performance or Todd's porcelain looks?  Do the classical music excerpts that run throughout the film add a layer of class to the film? Finally, is the strange masochist streak that runs through the Mason and Todd relationship some sort of erotic turn on for an audience?

Whatever is going on in this film it's very entertaining and something of a forerunner in the erotic thriller genre.

94 minutes

1959 - Ten Seconds to Hell, is subpar Aldrich

In probably a match made in Hell.   Robert Aldrich teamed up with Hammer Studios to make this film about a bomb disposal unit working in Berlin at the end of World War II.  Aldrich cast Jeff Chandler, Jack Palance and Martine Carol.  In a typically perverse Aldrich move, Jeff Chandler who usually played good guys is the bad guy and Jack Palance who usually played bad guys is the good guy.  Marine Carol was sort of a "oh la la" Marilyn Monroe sex symbol because in movies you always have to have a girl.

The plot involves a bomb disposal unit of ex German soldiers who one by one get blown to smithereens by unexploded British bombs.  The tension arises from figuring out who will survive this suicidal job.

The chief problem with Ten Seconds to Hell is that it is kind of boring.  The bomb disposal scenes should have had almost a Hitchcockian approach to ramping up the suspense but curiously these scenes are completely lacking in any kind of interest or tension.  Supposedly Hammer Studios was so disappointed in the finished film that they removed about 30 minutes from Aldrich's original cut.  Aldrich felt that this made the film incomprehensible but after viewing this film and in particular the scenes involving the disarming of the bombs I don't think adding 30 minutes to the running time would have helped this story.

Robert Aldrich was always a director who liked his films a little over the top.  In this case it would seem that in spite of Jack Palance's rather eccentric performance, the finished film was just to conventional for such a dramatic subject.

93 minutes

2014 - INTO THE WOODS, another attempt at a film musical

Here we go again, another shot at making a contemporary musical in a genre that is mostly dead these days.  Into the Woods is based on the Sondheim Broadway musical which was a reworking of classic fairy tales with a modern twist.  Sondheim and his associate James Lapine's big insight in this film is that fairy tales don't always have happy endings.  This is something that I will not be going through life worrying about.

As is the trend with contemporary musicals these days.  The cast is made up of actors who can barely carry a tune.  But the nice thing about a Steve Sondheim song is that they mostly don't worry about tunes it's mostly a lot of rhythmic patter.  Between the non singers and the non songs it's fairly easy to juggle a singing performance out of an actor who is not a professional singer.

The chief exception to this non singer actor stuff is Meryl Streep.  After slaughtering about every ABBA song she got near in Mama Mia.  Streep takes a shot at murdering some of the songs in this film.  Streep tops it off with her very broad performance as the witch.  I know the witch is probably supposed to be a larger than life character but she could at least come off like she wasn't phoning it in with a megaphone.

The basic fact is that there is no longer the talent or resources to make film musicals anymore.  This genre died out with MGM in the 1950's.   That a mediocre film like Into the Woods could get decent reviews and box office show how far the musical genre has fallen.

 124 minutes, screenplay by James Lapine.

1963 - THE BIRDS, probably the last good Hitchcock film.

With the death of Rod Taylor it was a good opportunity to look at one of Taylor's better films, The Birds.  The Birds is the beginning of Alfred Hitchcock's association with Universal Studios.  It also stands out as the last good Hitchcock picture.  Everything starts to go downhill for Hitchcock after this film. 

Hitchcock directs The Birds

The Birds is the first appearance of Hitchock's ingenue Tippi Hedren, who it appears Hitchcock developed a supposedly unhealthy obsession with. Hedren was a model who Hitchcock personally groomed for stardom.  Her lack of acting experience really hurt Marnie and her career never really recovered.   Here she seems OK in the role of a spoiled playgirl, she was clearly carefully directed by Hitchcock.

 

 

The Birds is a very good film, extremely well directed by Hitchcock.  The special effects are now routinely criticized but considering the number of challenges just getting live birds to do anything  would have to had been a significant achievement.  

Hitchcock very deliberately kept the motivations and actions of the birds a mystery and the film has been frequently described as Hitchcock's end of the world film.  There is certainly an apocalyptic subtext that runs throughout the film.  In any case, this is a film made by a master film maker.

119 minutes, screenplay by Evan Hunter.

1960 - THE TIME MACHINE, a good George Pal film.

Considering the modest budget that George Pal had to work with, The Time Machine is a pretty impressive film.  This film looks good, the sets, photography and special effects have a real charm to them.  Most importantly the time machine itself is one cool looking prop.

The film has a small but interesting group of actors.  Character actors such as Whit Bissell, Alan Young, Sebastian Cabot and Tom Helmore are fun to see.   Rod Taylor is perfectly cast as the scientist who can jump into action when the Morlocks are ready to start chomping on his pretty Eloi girlfriend played by the very pretty Yvette Mimieux. 

This was a film that made a big impression on me when I was a kid and it still holds up pretty well.  A good cast and story can carry a film a long way and make for a very entertaining viewing experience.

103 minutes.

2014 - JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT, another reboot

An attempt to reboot the Tom Clancy "Jack Ryan" series with a new plot and a new cast.  The last try was with Ben Affleck as Clancy in The Sum of All Fears.  This one has what the studio considered to be a hot young cast, Chris Pine and Keira Knightley,  Throw in a couple of veterans, Kevin Costner and Kenneth Branagh with Branagh directing and I'm sure everyone thought they had another potential franchise.

What the studio got was just an OK spy thriller.  There's nothing particularly bad about this film but it's just a "seen it all before" spy movie with the usual fight scenes, sneaking around stuff and a last minute race to stop a terrorist attack on New York City.

Chris Pine and Keira Knightley are the leads.  The chief problem with them is their complete lack of chemistry as a couple.  Also, the script has to do a lot of contortions to get them together for the big spy mission  it really makes no sense she would follow him to Russia for a romantic weekend and frankly hurts the credibility of the plot.  Branagh is the Russian bad guy in this film.  He's got the smooth sophisticated evil super villain down but if you've seen any James Bond films at all you've seen this character before.  

The action scenes are OK but again nothing special.  This film ends up being strictly a time killer not good, not bad, really not anything.

105 minutes written Adam Cozad and David Koepp.

2013 - NEBRASKA, a family drama very well made.

Bruce Dern is actually restrained for a change in Nebraska.  Usually Dern is all over the place playing his usual eccentric weirdo character in films.  The director Alexander Payne has Dern and all the actors keep the acting under the radar as benefits this very low key film.  Payne even got away with shooting the film in black and white.

The story is one of those family dramas that the movies like to make, cheap and possible award bait.  Payne cast a lot of the actors against type.  Will Forte and Bob Odenkirk are usually thought of as comedians not low key dramatic actors.  Stacey Keach and Rance Howard are old time Hollywood personalities but it's amazing that Payne was able to get a cast like this to actually stay in character

The Midwestern country of Nebraska and Montana looks mighty grim and I would have to say that after actually driving through it this film has certainly captured the bleakness of that landscape.  The landscape in many ways is as important as the characters in this film.

Although the film is kind of a downer this is an impressive family drama

114 minutes.