Into_The_West Reviews

The Big Store (1941)

A Passable Movie--For Someone Else

[2/10 · 3 August 2006]

I finally brought myself to watch all of the Big Store, the movie on the flip side of Go West DVD. I recall seeing Store (in the late 60's/early 70's I deliberately saw any Marx movie whether on TV or in a revival in a theatre until I had seen them all) years before and being bored out of my skull.

I had tried to watch it a few weeks earlier, but gave up after the scene where the beds can be hidden in the wall or floors.

This time, biting the bullet, I watched Groucho sing while he sold and the final chase scene with sound effects added that made it seem like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

And the end, I had to admit, The Big Store was passable--provided it had starred someone else.

If you can erase the fact you're watching the Marx Brothers from your mind, The Big Store seems exactly like any overblown 1940's comedy. It well meets the standard for a Red Skelton film or perhaps something with Danny Kaye or early Jerry Lewis.

If you can perform the mental feat that Groucho is Red Skelton, Chico is Danny Kaye and Harpo is Jerry Lewis (uggghhh!), the Big Store does not seem like the abysmal thing it is.

Seeing this film makes you understand just how high the bar the Marx Brothers set for their movies, much higher than virtually any other comic working with a film studio, instead of independently as Chaplin did.

Things happened in a Marx Brother film that just never happened in one with Red Skelton: Margaret Dumont being deviled by Groucho, Groucho being deviled by Chico, and the rest of the Universe bedeviled by Harpo. Out of the gate in the Cocoanuts, the Brothers' first film in 1929, we already have the "Why A Duck?" routine between Groucho and Chico. We already have Groucho's "Won't you lie down?" to Margaret Dumont, and Harpo giving Basil Ruysdael his leg while whistling a tune from the arcane musical, "Floradora." Even as we move to the later films, there is also the Marx's brilliant sense of surrealism and absurdity, far beyond the capabilities of anyone else. Their penultimate film, A Night in Casablanca, an almost last hurrah which they financed themselves and had more say over, can be arguably ranked with the lesser Paramount or best MGM films.

But Store provides a disconnect which the brothers never are able to overcome. This was never something impossible for them. The plot was generally something they made their way around, jumped over, or totally jettisoned. Here, there are trapped in it, and it's not pretty.

There are still some marvelous moments--how can there not be in a Marx Brothers movie? Groucho's last film appearance with Margaret Dumont is as always wonderful. Harpo has a magnificent harp solo where he turns into Mozart and his mirror reflections spring to life far more than any ever did in Duck Soup. The opening sequence where Dumont visits Groucho's fly-by-night detective agency (where Harpo is the given the Quasi-Zeppoesque role as Groucho's Assistant) is wonderful.

But the lengthy Groucho musical number (three DVD chapters!) is pretty much a straight one. There's no tattooed lady, African explorer, or pre-war hysteria to be found. The juvenile's musical number, The Tenement Symphony, is nowhere as mercifully brief as When My Dreams Come True is in the Cocoanuts. Harpo and Chico even participate in it.

Worst of all, however, are the moments where the brothers are made into just any old comedy team, pushing wrong buttons to create chaos, riding on roller skates and unicycles to escape the villain, and serving up a wienie with some Puccini (Or is it Rossini? My mind has blocked it out like a car accident).

You don't gotta sing while you sell. Please don't.

It's sad that the Marx's valedictory with MGM had to be this generic bore. Through no fault of their own, they became personae non grata at the studio and seemed to be given a script pulled at random from a file drawer.

So, if you're a Red Skelton fan, and can ignore the fact you're watching Groucho, Harpo and Chico, by all means, watch The Big Store. If you're a Marx Brothers worshipper (they don't merely have fans), please show their memories respect and keep the DVD on the side that has Go West.

A Day at the Races (1937)

BLASPHEMY!! I didn't like it (well, a lot of it)

[7/10 · 10 June 2006]

To say you don't like A Day at the Races is blasphemous. You can note it as the first sign of their decline, or the last film they made that actually clicked, but that it doesn't work, that's taking your life in your hands. Yet, I will.

I cannot call A Day at the Races a movie with no great comic moments. I can't say that about any Marx Bros. movie, even the execrable Big Store. The question is how often do they come, and how often do you find yourself clicking the "skip" button on the DVD remote.

The film has three unequivocally great bits: Tootsie-Frootsie Ice Cream, Chico and Harpo keeping Groucho from being found in flagrante delicto by Margaret Dumont, and Margaret Dumont's medical examination. What surrounds these, at least up to the 1 hr., 20 min point, is lesser Marx, but generally good excepting those scenes when Jack Jones's father and Mureen O'Sullivan are present, or ballets, or songs, or spirituals or....

A lot of it isn't the material or the brothers' delivery of it. We have another gooey and extensive Allan Jones romantic subplot, this time featuring Tarzan's mate (and Mia Farrow's mother), Maureen O'Sullivan. And the musical bits outside of Harpo and Chico's solos are just too long and don't seem to have a real function in the film except to satisfy what was assumed to be the public's thirst for MGM musical numbers.

But a lot of it is how the brothers are used. Groucho is much too much an avuncular type, going for pathos with lines to O'Sullivan like, "What if I'm not the doctor you think I am?" (Groucho is a vet when everyone thinks he's a renowned M.D.) It's not that Groucho can't do pathos. It's just that Groucho doesn't demean his abilities even if one would think he should. Can you imagine him saying, "I'm not the explorer you think I am" to Margaret Dumont in Animal Crackers?? What's more, Harpo seems unusually underused here. He has lots of scenes with Chico, or with Chico and Groucho, but virtually nothing alone, unlike in A Night at the Opera, or any of the Paramount films. When you don't have Harpo with his own bits, even briefly, that takes a lot away from a Marx Bros. film, too.

One plus to note in the film, however, is Margaret Dumont. On a web page, as evidence of Ms. Dumont's legendary inability to understand any of the material she ever acted in, it quotes Maureen O'Sullivan as saying that Dumont had referred to Mrs. Upjohn (her character in Races) as a "serious part, not like the others." Well, it is serious in the sense it's a far more three dimensional character than Mrs. Potter, Rittenhouse, Teasdale and Claypool. In those roles, the material basically gave Dumont the opportunity to play straight man to Groucho, no mean feat, and no one could have done it better. But Mrs. Upjohn is not merely stuffy, or snooty, or naive--she's neurotic. Her need to be reassured she's sick when she isn't is a grand comic bit on its own, as is her attraction, then disaffection, then attraction again to Groucho (it's the only film where Groucho proposes to her seriously and she accepts). She won a Screen Actors Guild award for this and it's not too difficult to understand why.

As stated before, there's no Marx Bros. film that's worth total rejection, and there's plenty of good Groucho insults and Chico con games here. It just would have been nice had the film been shorter, had less plot, less music, more comedy, and above all, more Harpo.

So I say watch until the examination screen, skip the musical numbers (except Groucho dancing with Esther Muir), mute it whenever Irene Hervey's ex and John Farrow's wife are present, turn it off and be happy

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Not the Marxes' greatest, but more than merely good.

[9/10 · 8 June 2006]

A Night at the Opera is a more than just a good Marx Brothers movie. It has a number of the Marxes' best known classic routines. It has a script by Kaufman and Ryskind, the authors of The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. It's a movie to watch. I can't, however, argue it is the brothers' best film and it surprises me why people say it is, although they often qualify the rating with "arguably." The Paramount films tend to be derided because of their low budget look, which, obviously, an MGM movie isn't going to have. And all these things make it as appealing as the lesser of the Paramount films. It is not as bad as the MGM films that follow it. Not even close.

But it repeatedly violates the rules of the Marx Universe, or sets up new ones. Groucho now can be sweetly sentimental toward a brokenhearted ingenue instead of simply saying, "Congratulations, I know you'll be absolutely miserable with this man." He can also be thrown down stairs, giving the punch (or is it kick) line to a minor player. It's as disturbing as when he cries "Help! Help!" in A Night in Casablanca. Groucho doesn't yell for help. He can face a gangster about to shoot him and still make jokes. Or rather, he could.

The brothers are at the mercy of chaos, rather than the creators of it (The Stateroom Scene). When they disrupt the opera and become the masters again, the movie is good. Otherwise, it feels strange.

Zeppo is missed. It's easy to see how the part that later became Allan Jones's could have been originally crafted for Zeppo. When Jones works with all the brothers, he tries to capture Zeppo's synchronicity with them, but can't do it. Jones is a romantic lead. Anyone with a good voice could do this part.

It's also strange to see the three brothers allies so quickly. In the Paramount films there is always the Groucho-Zeppo duo and the Harpo-Chico duo, both of which eventually become integrated together. Harpo and Chico still begin knowing each other here, but Groucho seems just an absurd appendage to their universe. But he still connects to it far better than Jones does.

The romantic subplot sucks. Perhaps not as badly as Polly and Bob in Cocoanuts, and perhaps that's part of the problem. The subplot is passable enough to make it legitimate, not something the brothers can ignore or work around. It drives them. They are also driven by it in Animal Crackers, but there the plot was not reuniting lovers but being part of and so exposing the hypocrisy of high society. There is no satire in Opera. The triangle of Kitty Carlisle, Jones, and Walter Woolf King is essentially dramatic and it makes Opera feel less like an out and out Marx comedy.

I could also do without Alone and Cosi-Cosa. Time for the skip button.

It's geared to appeal to the same people who found Duck Soup awful. Those people aren't really around anymore and the intelligence in Duck Soup is largely missing in Opera, to the latter film's detriment.

Again, though, I think it ranks with the lesser Paramounts. There's Chico and Groucho's contract scene. There's Harpo bringing down all the wrong opera backdrops on Walter Woolf King. There's laughter far more continuous than it is in the later MGM films. And it is a handsomely produced film. Thalberg was no slouch.

But the brothers were Marxian anarchists of another kind. Until we get to the final opera scene, there's not a lot of wildness. We are seeing the brothers transformed into something other than what they started as. It's not happened enough yet to matter, or spoil the film, but it does take Opera to a lower ranking than Duck Soup or Animal Crackers. It has the weaknesses those other two films (especially Duck Soup) do not.

Go West (1940)

What A Marx Bros. Film by Buster Keaton would be like, er, is like

[9/10 · 8 June 2006]

The most significant thing about Go West is that Buster Keaton was an uncredited writer on this film. He also was on A Night at the Opera but the Keaton touch is more difficult to discern there.

The Marx Bros. have a reputation as verbal comics (Harpo excluded, of course), but one must note many of their best scenes are visual. The mirror sequence in Duck Soup is the prime example. Others include the unpacking scene in A Night in Casablanca, the "massacre" that ends Animal Crackers, large parts of the football game (and the final marriage scene) in Horse Feathers. Even something as minor as Groucho flicking ashes into a call pipe to the engineers of the ship in Monkey Business shows just how important the visual can be, even for Groucho.

Keaton, of course, was virtually 100% visual. Occasionally there are subtle jokes in the subtitles of his films (His "Can you describe it?" to a woman looking for a lost dollar bill in Sherlock Jr. is an example), but that's about it.

What this means is that a Marx Brothers film partly written by Buster Keaton is not a combination of irreconcilable ideas. Keaton's contributions here do not become crystal clear until the last 15 minutes of the film, the climactic train chase.

There are lots of similarities between gags from Our Hospitality (the train leaving the track yet still running), Steamboat Bill Jr (Harpo escapes being run over as the train with a house stuck on the front comes at him by opening a front door, then opening a back door, calling to mind the falling building facade Buster faced in the earlier film) and, of course, the General (chopping up the train for firewood), but the thing that's most noteworthy about The General is just how long Keaton can sustain a chase (it virtually runs the entire film), and the Go West sequence is marvelously sustained comedy.

The Big Store also has the Brothers doing physical shtick, but the absence of the surreal makes them look like nothing more than slightly more sophisticated three stooges. They are not three stooges here. Harpo uses the wheel of the train to sharpen an ax, kerosene instead of water is used to douse an engine's fire resulting in it taking off at hyper speed, Groucho is buried beneath an avalanche of popcorn put in the train's fire as fuel. Something like watching the train go off the track and then go into a circle as merry-go-round music plays just seems like pure Keaton and pure Marx.

Although not Duck Soup (what is, other than Duck Soup?) the film to me is the best thing they did between A Night at the Opera and A Night in Casablanca. Groucho's character is more along the lines of his Paramount persona than his avuncular Day at the Races one. He finally seems totally unfettered again. Harpo, too, is unfettered (although maybe it would be better to say unleashed). He's given a large number of bits where he's not depending on Chico or anyone else to bring off the gag. And Chico seems almost as delightfully corrupt as he is in the Cocoanuts.

The film is slowed by a few too many musical numbers, too much of a sappy romantic subplot about families in feuds. and the scenes among stereotypical Native Americans are diminished by a few too many "ugh"'s and references to "the red man." Yet the pacing is fast enough, and delivery and lines sharp enough, to keep all the balls up in the air to the end. This is the first film since Duck Soup to unequivocally seem like the Marxes as they would play it in a Paramount film (A Night in Casablanca would be the last).

And this is all lead-up to the final train sequence which, as any climax must be, is the best one of the film.

More than the scene in Limelight where Keaton and Chaplin do a comedy routine (an opportunity Chaplin seems to have tossed with mediocre gags), Keaton's working with the Marx Brothers is a remarkable moment in film history, and one that worked well enough to redeem alater comedy of the Marx Brothers.

Animal Crackers (1930)

Great, But Misunderstood

[10/10 · 22 March 2006]

It's only been recently that the greatness of AC came through to me.The problem is the tendency is to think of it like The Cocoanuts since the films were sequential and both from stage plays. I also don't think people understand there are both "light" and "heavy" Marx Bros. films.

"Cocoanuts" is a light film. It has a deliberately silly and transparent plot, a perfect vehicle for showcasing the genius of the brothers for the first time. On the surface AC may seem the same--silly romantic plot, funny musical numbers, the Marxes vs. high society--but it's not. This film (or play) is not a showcase for the Marxes other than for their ability to stay relatively close to the script and bring to full flower playwright George S. Kaufman's caustic vision of the rich idiots on Long Island, their pretentious parties, and all the childish "games" they play.

The plot isn't superfluous. It's all connected to this. Margaret Dumont's Mrs. Rittenhouse is ten times as complex as Mrs. Potter from Cocoanuts. Both naive and phony, her attraction to Captain Spaulding (Groucho) is played on by him to woo then abuse her--not merely insult, abuse.

Chico and Harpo are unusually unlikable. Even Zeppo, as Spaulding's arrogant secretary, is a jerk. Groucho has been placed in no incongruous position of power as in Duck Soup. He's just a hanger-on and a leech.

That's what's always made this film more difficult. There is no one to like, not even the Marxes. But that's the point. If you think of this as "the movie with Hooray for Captain Spaulding in it," you'll watch that and become bored. If you realize this is the Marx Brothers playing it deep (satirically, hysterically, wackily deep, but deep, nonetheless), you won't have a "feelgood" reaction at the end as you do for Duck Soup or other films, but you'll appreciate how great it is.

It is on a level with Duck Soup. They are the two "message" films that conceal method in the madness, producing something richer than any of the brothers frothier films.

10 out of 10

A Night in Casablanca (1946)

Funnier Than Casablanca--and A Night at the Opera

[9/10 · 20 January 2006]

The last film with all three brothers seen together, this is the first film since Duck Soup that captures the style of the Paramount films. The love interest is minimized. Unlike the MGM films, the sight gags are more surrealistic than slapstick. The puns, insults, non-sequitors, and simply absurdist statements come with the volume and velocity of their earliest films, but Harpo's comedy becomes as dominant as Groucho's and his gags are wonderful.

Things from other films are revisited, but not in a way to make the film seem tired. Gags get refined. Like Mr. Hammer in Cocoanuts, Groucho is the hotel manager, but has more (disastrous) interaction with guests. Harpo also eats the inedible again, but takes it to a new level.

Like the stateroom in a Night at the Opera, Harpo and Chico manage to take up an entire restaurant floor with tables to get gratuities from customers, yet unlike Opera, the chaos originates from them, not from around them.

There are also totally new classic routines. The brothers help the villain unpack (of course, he's trying to pack) in a scene of purely visual comedy almost as good as the mirror scene in Duck Soup. And Harpo gets control of an airplane--need I say more?.

The only thing that doesn't fit is the melodramatic final chase with the brothers in the kind of action and real jeopardy that is not a part of the Marx's universe, even in the worst of their MGM films. Yet even there, they can still bend someone else's universe a little.

I am one of the few people who doesn't like "Casablanca," so this is my favorite movie taking place in the North African city, worthy as a supplement to the Silver Screen Collection of the five Paramount films.

Since the Marxes are older, the comedy is less physical, though more physical than you'd imagine for three men in their late 50's, so this is no reason to feel sad, What is, however, is the final moment where the brothers run off after Lisette Verea to apparently do what they were trying to do to Thelma Todd at the end of Horse Feathers. Not only does it remind us of their earlier glory, but in the Marxian equivalent of Chaplin's tramp trudging down the road with Paulette Goddard at the end of Modern Times, theirs back to the camera, the Marxes, too, exit forever.

Yet, it's only sad until you hit the "play movie" button again, which I did. Even though I can't claim this is better than the best of the Paramount comedies, since it's less familiar to Marx fans, it's like a newly discovered treasure.

Crumb (1994)

Explaining R. Crumb

[10/10 · 1 January 2006]

Robert Crumb is not everybody's cup of tea. He has been accused of being a racist and a misogynist. This film does much to deal with misconceptions about the artist, but not all the misconceptions are negative.

As typical for a documentary like this, there are several artists/critics interviewed about Crumb's work. Invariably, there is some sort of analysis given. Crumb's compared to Brueghel, to Daumier, he's spoken of as a great political satirist.

The fact is the first thing discussed in the film is what motivates Crumb's art, what is he trying to express. After a slightly amused, slightly annoyed "Jesus! I dunno..." he speaks that he doesn't think of his work in conscious terms until _after_ he's drawn it; then he figures out what it's about.

This film very subtly points out Crumb is not really anything he's been accused or praised for being. His work "is the purest form of his id," his wife, Aline, comments.

The film is really his triumph to be himself through a number of horrendous hurdles: a brutal father and drug addicted brother; being rejected by women; being tempted to sell out; and legal problems over cartoons. While his two brothers, Charles and Max, both show in differing degrees how their youths were permanently scarred then, Robert Crumb emerges whole, even admirable, in spite of the uncompromising nature of his art. He is unique, his work not easily separable into allegorical meanings or expression of political beliefs.

Crumb is a great artist, and he cannot be understood from a few interviews and his art can't reduced into something understandable in clichéd artistic terms. Zwigoff's film shows Crumb in every way available and tries to express his art similarly. At the end, all we can do is be astonished that the man not only survived but flourished, and marvel at the wide range of what he's produced.

Zwigoff's style is so seamless, it doesn't feel like his film, but Crumb's. Of course, it is not Crumb's, but that impression is an indication of Zwigoff's mastery of the form. If his own personality intrudes in the fabric of the film by what he shows and how he orders it, he complements rather than obscures Crumb's genius.

The result is unforgettable, not just for its exposition of Crumb, artist and human being, but for the experience of letting Zwigoff's work flow over the film and us.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965 TV Movie)

Brown and Broflowski--A Tale of Two Schlemiels

[9/10 · 25 December 2005]

A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of those shows no one makes a dig at. There's good justification not to. The show was the first time Charles Schulz's genius was ever translated into animation, although far from the last. As the first, it seems the purest Schulz, even more than It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, although that's arguable.

I haven't seen it in years, but I don't have to, to cite the great moments.Sally wanting cash from Santa, Schroeder playing Beethoven "Christmas Music," Lucy's outrage at Charlie Brown's hesitation at naming her the Christmas queen, the really beautiful Vince Guaraldi music surrounding the skating scene and the Christmas rehearsal,

There's also Charlie Brown's pathos. His crooked smile as everyone finally agrees with him to get a tree, his happiness when he thinks he can still celebrate a solitary Christmas with the tree, and his both comic and sad cry of "I killed it!" when a single ornament bends the entire tree over to the ground.

And there's also the subtle satire of how Christmas has blissfully sailed into crass commercialism and away from its religious significance.

The culmination of this last element is Linus's famous quoting of the New Testament passage concerning the birth of Christ. It certainly does not disrupt the tone, nor is it intended to be a regression into pre-Peanuts sentimentality. And, of course, it's delivered wonderfully well.

This is where another quite different Christmas Special from about 30 years later comes to mind, "A South Park Christmas" AKA "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo."

To cross-reference these two shows with anything less than 100 pages between them seems disgusting. How can you contrast Schulz's timeless special with Parker's scatological satire?

The fact is Parker addresses one thing in his Christmas special which is the only problem I've ever had with Schulz's--that final speech puts up the barrier between Christian children and everyone else.

Kyle Broflowski mournfully trudges along with his "Lonely Jew at Christmas" song, really beautiful (Parker has always had a melodic gift even if his songs are satirical), scored for 'cello accompaniment. "I'm a Jew, a Lonely Jew/I'd be merry, but I'm Hebrew/at Christmas."

The Hanky show, of course, takes a turn not dissimilar to A C B Christmas, with its own speech about how in trying to make Christmas secular, its non-religious message of peace and brotherhood also gets lost. That differs from what Linus says in that Parker is choosing to make Christmas all inclusive.

The main song, if you can get past who it's about, is as touching as anything in the earlier special:

"He loves me and I love you So vicariously he loves you Even if you're a Jew...."

In short, a C B Christmas has many timeless elements, but its climax tips the scale to it being not quite timeless. This is not a reason to disregard it or even find it wanting in any way. It's not. But if I felt I had something in common with Charlie Brown in our mutual schlemielhood, the similarities ended when he got his redemption and I didn't get mine.

Duck Amuck (1953)

The Single Funniest Cartoon Ever Made Period!

[10/10 · 23 December 2005]

It is no exaggeration to rate this the funniest cartoon ever made. Favorite moment: when Daffy is turned into some kind of a four legged polka dotted creature with a screwball flag on its tail and flower petals around its face. Second favorite moment: When Daffy sees himself in the mirror in this state. This scene always brings out wild, silly giggling in me Mozart would be proud of. The Fleischers did the intercession of the animator into the surreal cartoon thing before this. A lot of animators did. In fact, it's there all the way back in the cartoons of WIndsor McCay, Emile Cohl and J. Stuart Blackton. None of those animation giants ever came close to doing it as well and developing it so satisfyingly as Chuck Jones does here. Jones's level of surrealism puts colleague Bob Clampett to shame, and his timing here puts even mentor Tex Avery to shame. Those elements--imagination and timing--are what makes Duck Amuck rise above any other cartoon in sheer hilarity, and that includes the other Chuck Jones cartoons (Jones's Rabbit Seasoning comes close, though). There are wittier cartoons. There are more beautifully drawn cartoons. There are far more terrifying cartoons. There are cartoons that deeply move us. Well, poop on them. If an alien came down from outer space (other than Marvin the Martian) and wanted to know what an animated cartoon was like, I'd show him, her, or it Duck Amuck, And I've no doubt he, she, or it would be laughing his, her or its xnarf off. If it were possible, I'd give it 11 stars. No, I wouldn't. I'd give it 100.

The Member of the Wedding (1952)

The Most Faithful Adaptation of a McCullers Play/Novel

[10/10 · 2 December 2005]

The most underrated American author of the 20th Century is Carson McCullers. If you look at the opening page of "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" you will be amazed how quickly everything becomes as vivid as a picture. If you read "Clock Without Hands" you will not even notice the seamless merging of things that are tragic and zany, and one of the most original ways a bigot could ever undo himself on radio.

"Member of the Wedding" was one of her few novels, and the only one she ever adapted into a play. Even though McCullers was very much like the character Frankie, there was nothing autobiographical in it, yet the need of Frankie to belong to a "we of me" was something the author searched for her entire brief life, and she never communicates that longing more powerfully than here.

Although the film has the three stars of the play, Ethel Waters, Julie Harris and Brandon De Wilde, in the same roles on film, it incorporates material from the novel--specifically, Frankie's disastrous attempt at a liaison with a soldier--and so feels cinematic. The play doesn't have Frankie having to be thrown out of her brother's and new sister in law's car; the film does, and it is all the more devastating because of it.

The "We of Me" speech, which Julie Harris was directed to deliver almost as a prayer, is something anyone who has ever experienced loneliness will be moved by.

Distubringly, people have a tendency to take what McCullers did and essentially rewrite it. That is what happened to "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." As with works of Mark Twain or Mary W. Shelley, people feel an obligation to bring McCullers work "up to date" or "make it more dramatic." The sadness of this is it's not necessary. Novels like Huckleberry Finn, Frankenstein, or the Heart Is a Lonely Hunter have in them all that is needed for an effective movie. When this novel/play was put to the screen that same mistake was not made and we are all the luckier for it.

One minor bit of trivia: McCullers based the character of John Henry on author, friend, and fellow southerner, Truman Capote.

Swim Team (1979)

One Great Gag in a Film that Sinks

[2/10 · 20 August 2005]

I recall an article in a swimming magazine in which the writer wondered if anyone would make "the swimming movie," just as "Chariots of Fire" was the "track and field movie." Apparently, he forgot this film. Or perhaps he suppressed it from his memory.

How can you make a film about swimmers that is in no way sexy? And I've never heard of a swim club where all the members do is party. Swimming is such a squeaky clean milieu, even more so in the 1970's, that the champion Don Schollander once described it as "still being in the 19th Century." The director and writer, James Polakof, has odd conceptions of the sport, having the coach of the rivals of the "Swim Team" dress relatively closely to an 80 year old female tourist at the beach, white socks under sandals, shorts, and arthritic movement. Of course, this is a comedy, so the idea is not supposed to be realistic. But it's also not funny.

The film, though, manages to have one brilliant gag, which is why I saved it from the dreaded one star out of 10. The film's one recognizable actor (excluding a brief cameo by Buster Crabbe) is Stephen Furst, playing a character not unlike the schlump he played in "Animal House," another example of incongruity used for attempted comedy effect.

The team's new coach, who is dedicated to turning their reputation around, has a brainflash and makes Furst swim the butterfly stroke, a stroke involving both arms stretched out in front of the swimmer, then simultaneously swept back behind him. Furst is so fat that when he does the stroke he creates a wake that pushes his rivals in adjoining lanes back against the pool wall, so he wins.

Even though the gag is less than perfectly executed and poorly filmed, it is the kind of thing one could imagine Buster Keaton coming up with. How it occurred to the writer-director is uncertain, but perhaps the late Damon Runyan's comment that even the worst movie has at least one good thing in it is the explanation.

This, however, is not "the swimming movie." It is, instead a movie about swimming--sort of.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978)

Attack of the Killer Director

[5/10 · 20 August 2005]

"Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!" is a perplexing film. Its director, John DeBello, is also its writer, and the writer and director seem to be at odds with each other. Usually when someone writes and directs, such as Chaplin, Keaton, Sturges, Welles, Jerry Lewis, or even Edward D. Wood, Jr., there is a clear vision present. The director knows how to best serve the writer.

In "Killer Tomatoes," however, DeBello, as director, seems to have no idea what DeBello, the writer means. This strange cinematic schizophrenia is best shown by the fact if you look at the script for the movie separately from its realization, it's a fairly good low-budget satire, a kind of guilty pleasure, a movie nobody wants to admit they love. However, when you look at it on the screen, the gags are so often so poorly set up, you have no idea what the jokes are.

An example is there is supposed to be a black agent who is a master of disguise. He emerges from a car dressed in the uniform of an American Army officer with a small moustache. Later, the crazed paratrooper who joins the force looks at the guy and screams, "Oh my God, it's Adolf Hitler!!" So why didn't DeBello understand his master of disguise should be in a Nazi uniform? Looking at the script separately from the film, it is full of arguably brilliant moments. The main plot involves the government dealing with the Killer Tomato problem, not by attacking them, but starting an advertising campaign to convince people the tomatoes actually good for them, since they don't know how to stop them. A group of scientist meets on the issue and discusses a series of governmental agencies the acronyms for which all turn out to be stupid, vulgar words. A man in a hat and glasses with a cape sticking out of his jacket is greeted with, "Oh, Hi, Clark!" by a female reporter.

And in the film's most brilliant moment, the White House aide assigned to create the advertisements about the killer tomatoes visits the nation's leading advertising agency, "Mindmaker," whose president is a man with gold chains around his neck one step away from Boca Raton. Since ad men give you a song and dance, he proceeds to give one. "They sell, they buy, and only I know why," he sings, "important decisions are being made each day, decisions too important for the common man to make, they're always in a bind, so Mindmaker will help make up their mind!" And yet, all this is so poorly edited and staged that most of the effect is lost.

So, if you've seen "Killer Tomatoes" before, and already know the payoffs to the poorly set up gags, or are willing to listen to the script and overlook how it's presented, it's actually a very funny film. If you don't meet those prerequisites, however, you won't like it.

Team America: World Police (2004)

Not quite Parker's "A King in New York"

[7/10 · 28 June 2005]

I love Trey Parker's films. "Cannibal! The Musical" is more than just the work of a talented 23 year old, it's a masterpiece. And "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" strikes nary a false note. I had been wanting, therefore, to see "Team America" for some time, although I had heard that people construed it as "pro-war" and against the war protesters in Hollywood. I finally decided I had to see it, and I was generally glad that I did.

"Team" takes the "South Park" movie one step further. The fairly obvious satire of the latter movie gives way to a far subtler version here. There are little subtle references, such as everyone being puppets on strings (and therefore, everyone is manipulated by someone), or when the team's central computer, I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E., goes down, a team member cries "We've lost intelligence! Do you hear me? We have no intelligence!" We do have the attacks on the Hollywood stars, but no, this is not quite a Republican vilification. When Sean Penn talks about how wonderful Iraq was before the war, including "rivers of chocolate," it's not hard to understand Parker and Stone aren't implying Penn really believes this , or that we should be in Iraq. At worst, they may be questioning whether Michael Moore's implication in "Fahrenheit 9/11" that Iraq was a nice place before we invaded was a little exaggerated. Being a person who thought "Fahrenheit 9/11" was an admirable work, I don't have a problem with this. "Rocky and Bullwinkle" made fun of the left and the right, too.

The only real negative comment on Hollywood actors is that they are so removed from what they are protesting against, it may just be the 21st century version of "Radical Chic," rather than heartfelt activism, but again, that's simply the satirist finding targets.

And Bush and Co. are not exactly exempt from attack, either. In combating terrorism, Team America proceeds to destroy every international city, including all landmarks, in the process of bringing down the terrorists hiding there. Hardly seems a ringing endorsement of Iraq. Patriotic country songs are ridiculed. Climactic passionate patriotic speeches make analogies to bodily functions you will never likely hear at the Republican Convention.

What's more, the whole essence of Team America being a take-off on the puppet TV show, "Thunderbirds," is really that the anti-terrorism perspective is childishly naive. "The flag waving American is almost a thing of the past!" is one line in the film, and the irony of this is inescapable. Even a reference to the bar scene in "Star Wars" implies anti-terrorists are playing Luke Skywalker; this is later reinforced by having one of the team members dressed as the older Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Regardless of all this, the film is not as successful overall as Parker's other efforts. A gag about the fact marionettes can't move like real people (although in this movie, they can when they want to!) wears thin quickly. The presentation of various action movie scene clichés (the member who quits because of guilt, the member with painful memories, etc.) may make sense, but they are rarely in and of themselves funny, and there are long stretches were there are no laughs.

When laughs do occur, however, they are screamers. Parker indeed knows how to milk a sight gag beyond belief. These moments make watching the film worthwhile, as are Parker's songs where a ballad becomes a condemnation of director Michael Bay, or a dictator sings a song about loneliness that sounds like something from Sesame Street.

When I first heard about "Team America," I wondered if it would be Parker's "King in New York," i.e., the downward spiral of creativity from an absolute master unfortunately at the end of inspiration. Team America, however, is not an analogue to Chaplin's penultimate film. Closer to "Monsieur Verdoux" or "Limelight": flawed, but the genius still is there just enough to shine through.

7 out of 10 stars.

Your Face (1987)

The First True Plymptoon

[10/10 · 28 May 2005]

As odd as this may sound, I first saw "Your Face" on the Lifetime Channel as I was laying in a hospital room, recovering from major surgery. "Your Face" seemed to fit then and it seems to fit now and always.

Although Plympton had made several cartoons prior to "Your Face," this is the fist time we see the style his work is noted for: impossibly grotesque body deformations done for laughs, and funny, too. We watch and see everything that could possibly happen to the singer's head, including abstract reduction. All through the strange looking singer seems blissfully unaware of what's being done to him as he sings a song that is a perfect parody of the ballad and touching, as well.

As with later films, Plympton does little if anything to signal us if we should laugh, be horrified, or just creeped out. This sense of subtlety is what makes his films so enjoyable to me.

Although only three minutes long, this is a perfectly complete, self-contained masterpiece of animation.

Bill Plympton rules!

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

The Animated Musical Grows Up

[10/10 · 7 May 2005]

The South Park movie has always been one of my favorites. A major question would be why. One reason is the successful translation of a TV show into a film, with the film being far superior. Another is this is an animated musical where you actually like the songs. Another is this is a very mature animated feature whose mature elements don't seem there just for shock.

But this is also an insightful view of society in the late Clinton years, people wrapped up in battles to maintain "family values," and in doing so promoting hatred and prejudice. But this displaced perspective on right and wrong seems to stretch all the way up to Heaven (where Kenny is rejected) and Hell (where George Burns and Gandhi are accepted).

Satan also is sympathetic, something that drives evangelicals crazy. But the fact is this movie is strongly about Christian ideas in the compassion and self-sacrifice of Kenny. In what seems a not too hidden analogy, Kenny goes to Hell to redeem the world. He also is so compassionate, he can even care about the pain and suffering of Satan, himself.

Indeed, amidst all the profanity uttered, one might miss that this film ends quite sentimentally, with allusions to the "summer of love" end of Yellow Submarine and with Kenny reprieved from Hell and getting his wings as he flies into Heaven. And perhaps that is the point. As Cartman notes "it doesn't hurt anybody." Along with this view, there are other favorite targets of Parker's, such as the American love of seeing people executed. How far is "Tomorrow night we'll be entertained/An execution, what a sight!" from "Cannibal! the Musical"'s "It's as nice as a day can be/won't you come to the hanging with me?" There are, however, two sad things about the film. One is in many ways the United States has become very much like it is in this movie, acting, as Gregory says, "as policeman for the world." It almost feels chillingly prophetic to see Saddam Hussein's country attacked by the US (Note: in the South Park Universe, Saddam is Canadian, as evidenced by his flapping head).

The other thing is that thing film is a testament to the genius of a cartoon voice artist who belongs up there with Mel Blanc, June Foray, Paul Frees, Mae Questyl, and Jack Mercer: Mary Kay Bergman. Not only does she do the speaking voices of all the mothers, but the singing voices, too. In the great "Blame Canada" number, she does 16 different voice parts. In the final reprise of "Mountain Town," she can be heard at the end hitting a High C.

Sadly, only four months after the debut of what had been her greatest achievement, she took her own life, having suffered with crushing, but unrevealed fears. It is tragic to see this film as her swan song, but on the other hand, she managed to give ample proof of her greatness before she left us, and in a movie I think will become (if it hasn't already become) a classic of animated cinema, and cinema in general.

Le Petomane (1979)

Vive Le Petomane!

[8/10 · 1 May 2005]

This is a fairly bizarre film and not simply because of its subject matter.

Directed by the man who directed "Monty Python's Flying Circus," written by the duo who gave British TV "Steptoe and Son" (which begat our own "Sanford and Son"), "Le Petomane" plays largely like an extended Python sketch, which is ironic since virtually everything portrayed in the film actually happened.

This film is that rare work, the historical comedy. The only other one that comes to mind is Trey Parker's "Cannibal! The Musical," but Parker's film differs in that he is not trying to produce docudrama, and so much is added to ensure we understand that's not what this is.

Of course, cannibalism isn't funny, while farting generally is. MacNaughton, Galton and Simpson have the burden of trying to decide whether to be serious or silly with a source material it's almost impossible to make serious.

But since Pujol retired from the stage in 1914 because he felt his act inappropriate in time of war, the film takes a sudden and decided turn to serious that seems jarring. It's hard to know whether the last scene, Pujol's heartfelt farewell on the occasion of his final performance, followed by a wind instrument salute, and Pujol's trademark putting out the footlight candles with wind, is meant to be touching or dryly funny.

Aside from this, the film is highly enjoyable, giving us a good impression of what this forgotten great of the Moulin Rouge stage was like. Let us just say, fans of the movies "Blazing Saddles," and "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" will find much to enjoy.

The cast is great, especially the one and only Leonard Rossiter, giving us the deadpan, serious Pujol quite effectively.

Zelig (1983)

A Minor Masterpiece

[10/10 · 16 April 2005]

Zelig is, I think, my favorite Woody Allen movie. It's strange to prefer it over Annie Hall or Manhattan or Hannah and Her Sisters, and perhaps it's just my trivia loving personality that points me toward Zelig rather than one of Allen's more traditional movies.

Regardless, it is an incredible film. Years before computer animation, Allen was able to insert himself convincingly into old movies. His ability to replicate both the look and sound of old newsreels, in addition to the scratches and discolorations, is remarkable, but this is just window dressing for something that exists on several different levels.

At one level, Zelig is a simple satire, a fake documentary about a made-up "human chameleon" celebrity of the 1920's. It's rich with typical Allen touches and lines. But at another, it is a serious examination of how we adulate then try to destroy celebrities in America. At yet another, it is an examination of the Jewish compulsion to assimilate into whatever society we happen to be in.

But there are even more layers to this film. Allen manages to be laugh out loud farcical through most of this movie, but in the way of all great screen comedians, injects pathos into the film when Zelig, about to be sentenced for multiple crimes committed when he was in his "chameleon states" disappears leaving his heartbroken fiancée/psychiatrist behind.

And at an even deeper level, it's a rejection of the modern tendency to have to understand what things mean, rather than just appreciating them. This latter bit is shown by an actor discussing his book, "Interpreting Zelig," immediately followed by the late Susan Sonntag, playing herself, disputing this while the subtitle identifying her shows her as the author of "Against Interpretation." Indeed any film that manages to have Dr. Bruno Bettleheim, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow and Sonntag playing in it, commenting on the fictional Zelig, is something that can appeal to many people in many ways.

Undoubtedly, this reflects the complex character of Zelig himself, who could be so many different things to so many different people. This complexity is, like it is for Zelig, both a curse and its redemption. Rather than just a silly little fake documentary or a complex dissertation on art and philosophy, it's both and neither.

All this creates a remarkably rich cinematic experience which is genuinely unique, even among Allen's several "mockumentaries" like "The Harvey Wallanger Story," "Take the Money and Run" and "Sweet and Lowdown." See it once, or a hundred times, there are always details, either on the screen or in the ideas presented, that seem new and wonderful.

If it isn't Allen's great masterpiece (which in my mind, it could be), it's a minor masterpiece worth seeing.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

In the end we dislike him although we know it's wrong

[9/10 · 1 April 2005]

Edward Scissorhands was a film that confused me the first time I saw it, and many times afterward. The problem was simply this: if Edward was such a kind and gentle soul, how could he skewer Jim at the end? There are lots of logical reasons. Jim was trying to kill him. Jim was endangering Kim. Or Burton's own explanation, that even someone like Edward has a breaking point. None of these, however, satisfied me.

Tim Burton has a tendency to have protagonists he has an ambiguous relationship with. Beetlejuice is a villain, yet he's the most likable person in the movie. Ed Wood is an absolute hack, yet it's hard not being sucked into his vision that he's brilliant. Jack Skellington of the Nightmare Before Christmas is the hero but we really kind of loathe him. Ichabod Crane of Sleepy Hollow is the hero, but he's a pompous dork.

The thing these characters have in common, however, is that they are creators, people who produce their own realities, sometimes literally, as with Ed Wood, or sometimes magically, as with Beetlejuice, or sometimes just in his own head, like Ichabod Crane.

Edward Scissorhands, too, is a creator, and of Burton's characters, the closest to being a pure artist. He does hair styling, pet grooming, topiary and ice sculpture. This is relevant to why Edward does everything he does.

The author James Joyce contended that an artist is a person who reacts to a woman neither by lusting after her or loving her, but wanting to capture her essence on paper. This distancing factor is what makes artists perpetual symbols of man's sense of isolation. But the artist's vision is clearly more isolating than that of a average man, because if the average man could create it, it would seem less like art and more like hackwork.

Artists are often portrayed as tragic loners, doomed to ultimately gain satisfaction only through the products of their imaginations. The problem with Edward Scissorhands is that he clearly is _not_ a loner. He desires the company of other people. He initially enjoys the adulation he receives. Even when he knows he is being used, he still allows it to happen because of a love of people, especially Kim. He is so very lovable and Johnny Depp accentuates this. So can he kill? His scissor hands, of course, are what ultimately distances him from the people he wants to be close to. They inadvertently destroy property, or hurt people even when Edward is trying to save someone's life. The scissor hands are also the symbol of the artist: they are what permits him to create. But they also permit him to kill.

In many ways, murder is the thing that ultimately, permanently takes the perpetrator away from society. It is the highest crime, and when no justification, such as self-defense, can be found for it, it is often punished with death or life imprisonment. Having Edward kill Jim erases our vision of Edward, the gentle, lovable soul, even if we say Edward was totally justified in doing it. Edward is capable of more than just hurting people accidentally.

The contradiction of Edward, the lovable and Edward, the homicidal caused horrific conflict in me. The first time I saw the film, I disliked it, precisely for this reason. How could I even feel sorry for Edward if he killed someone? And isn't that the point of the movie, that Edward is a tragic character? Hasn't Burton defeated his own purpose? But a tragic character is a person of great abilities with one flaw that brings him down. Edward is exactly this. His flaw, however, is not his scissor hands; it is, rather, his need for human contact. But Edward is not just a tragic hero, but also a tragic artist. He is a person we must ultimately dislike, even if we don't want to, because that is the only way he can do the thing he _must_ do, avoid human contact, and achieve the distancing from human reactions Joyce talked about.

This is the true genius of the film: the tragedy of the artist. Burton wants us to feel conflicted, to view Edward as something far worse than we ever thought he could be. We cannot truly love the artist, only what he creates. It is one of the great paradoxes of life, and Burton wants it to be under our skins.

Many famous artists, like Gauguin, Wagner, or Hemingway, were detestable people. Yet what they produced is enjoyed and will continue to be enjoyed. And at the film's very end, we don't see Edward, but the "snow" he creates by sculpting the ice. Kim's final line, "sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it," tells us in the final analysis, the artist is the insignificant part; the art is what is important. The art imparts joy.

And in the art is redemption: ours and Edward's.

Martha, Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart (2003 TV Movie)

Not as negative a portrayal as people think

[7/10 · 6 March 2005]

This film has a reputation of being an endless slam job on Martha Stewart. This is partly true. But I don't think it's been that much of a secret Martha Stewart sometimes berates staff. So did Charlie Chaplin. So did Milton Berle. So did Gustav Mahler. So did Johnny Carson. The latter four are generally beloved to many people, because of comparisons between misery inflicted and joy provided.

What I think measures a film's point of view is what it shows the person accomplished. Ms. Stewart's brilliance at pioneering a new kind of TV and making a billion dollars in the process is part of that. But also, at the end, when her reputation is supposedly crumbling (actually, it never seems to have), the fact that when she visits an agricultural fair and literally everybody there mobs her with their admiration says the rest. Compare the misery she's inflicted on a few to the happiness she's brought her viewers. This film's end says there's no comparison. And if you don't agree, you can make the same argument about Chaplin, Berle, Mahler, and Carson.

Miracle Run (2004 TV Movie)

A Film That Needs To Be Seen By More People

[24 January 2005]

"Miracle Run" is not the first film to take on the subject of autism, but it is likely the most affirmative, and that is something significant.

I, myself, have Asperger's Syndrome, which puts me on the autistic spectrum, something I didn't know the first time I saw this film. Yet, even on the first viewing, something that caught my attention was the scene where the young Steven Morgan is transfixed by an air conditioner vent on the ceiling as he is being interviewed by a psychiatrist. This is exactly something that happened to me when I was a few years older than Steven was.

I bring this up because I feel autism and autistic spectrum orientations are far more common than thought, and I have a feeling many people watching this film have more in common with the Morgans than they think they do. Because of this, the film has tremendous importance. The Morgan twins, who were branded as hopeless when children, and castigated in High School as "retards" for their manner of speech and movement, neither were, nor are, hopeless or mentally challenged. They simply think and learn differently.

The film somewhat makes these points. Somewhere in Corinne Morgan's struggle to get appropriate education for her sons is the message that our educational system is geared only for those capable of learning in traditional ways. The film does say that once the boys have been taught in a way that connects with their learning styles, they are fully functional and able to not only be but excel in High School.

"Miracle Run" does make note of the remarkable abilities of its protagonists, something alluded to at the very beginning by Phillip watching a Superman cartoon. Indeed, even before the running gag begins about the Morgans joining every club requiring intellectual or physical skills in High School, there are vague suggestions of the remarkable minds of these two. This is especially so in one scene where the young Steven puts his hands on either side of the face of his new babysitter, as if he is taking the measure of her as a person.

The question remains, however, is what is the film's attitude toward autism, itself? Undoubtedly, this film very strongly asserts that autistic children have the right to everything neurotically children have. It also makes the argument that autistic children can display incredible abilities such as Phillip's guitar playing, Steven's prowess at cross-country, and both brothers' skills at chess, astronomy, geography, etc. etc.

But at the very end it notes the foundation Corinne Morgan founded, Miracle Run, has as its goal finding a _cure_ for autism. Obviously, the situation Corinne finds herself in at the beginning of the film, with two low functioning children, no assistance from the educational system and indifference and fear from everyone else, is not a positive one, nor one we, as a society, should allow to be perpetuated.

Yet, does this film say autistic people should be cured of the remarkable capabilities they display? Hans Asperger, the pediatrician who discovered the syndrome I have, never viewed it as a negative. In the final analysis, "Miracle Run" seems to contradict everything else it seems to be saying.

If that is the final message of this film, however, it does not make it well, and perhaps, it is more obligatory than heartfelt. The film's final message seems to be more about the triumph of the Morgan twins and the "overcoming many obstacles" Steven speaks of in the speech he gives in the film's last scene.

Speaking about other pluses of this film, its central focus is Mary Louise Parker, who plays Corinne Morgan. Not unlike the way she plays Ruth Jamison in "Fried Green Tomatoes," Parker displays an inner radiant strength, endless determination, a sense of humor, and dominance without being overbearing. The actors who play the Morgan twins as teenagers also give riveting performances, particularly Zac Efron as Steven. Efron shows great presence and manages to portray a high functioning autistic without his acting becoming mechanical. Not only does he engage our sympathy, he has us rooting for him throughout the film, something that helps the film to work so well.

The film's music is also something that caught my attention. Every so often an otherworldly chromatic theme steps in that seems to represent the Morgans' qualities of being both different and transcendent. It underlines every moment of aspiration in the film for both brothers, and at the end, with Steven's amazing first race as a cross-country runner, it is transformed into music of exultation.

This is an amazing film.

Mahler (1974)

Mixed Feelings

[17 September 2004]

I'm not certain you could do justice to Mahler's life with a movie--a miniseries may be the minimum. Mahler's pieces are just so lengthy, including a minute or so of the music is more confusing than representational of the character of his music.

Yet, Russell does this. It doesn't make it a bad film. Indeed, Mahler's life isn't purely his music, and the events of that life are all pretty much there. There are some incredibly touching sequences. Alma burying the score of her composition after her husband rejects it, and falling on the ground crying. A representation of one of the Kindertotenlieder, ending with the death of one of Mahler's daughters that is so sudden it's like a kick in the stomach. A visit with what one assumes is the Archduke that takes an unexpected and genuinely sad turn.

Curiously, Russell decides to end the film on a curiously upbeat note, falling back to the 6th Symphony's joyous "Alma" theme of the first movement to show the reconciliation of Alma and Mahler and Mahler's acceptance of his own impending death. The controversial unfinished 10th Symphony, which really showed where Mahler's mind was at death (serene acceptance and relief) is only represented at the beginning of the film by a brief excerpt to illustrate a dream sequence.

For one who knows Mahler, well, this seems an injustice to Mahler the creator. For one who doesn't, this seems like forced happiness, at best.

Green Fields (1937)

A Worthwhile Curio of the Jewish Past

[17 September 2004]

While I saw this film 35 years ago when I was 13, and couldn't understand the parts where Yiddish was spoken without subtitles, I remember it being very enjoyable. It is a comedy and everyone has foibles, including the student, who often is self-important and pompous. I remember him explaining his sensitivity by saying, "I have a Jewish heart." Like everyone else doesn't?

One thing I picked up years later when this was the subject of a TV documentary, was a scene where the young son of the family, played by a very young Hershel Bernardi, invites the student to cross a river, symbolic that by simplifying his life he is, in a sense, crossing the River Jordan.

Not a bad idea, today, either.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Weep, America, Weep

[14 July 2004]

Somewhere in this will be a review of Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," but in order to really review it, I need to speak of other things, perhaps, so bear with me.

I went into this film with the understanding that every reviewer, whether someone from the media or someone on-line here had indicated the film was brilliant, but was clearly biased propaganda. Even though my political views are quite close to Moore's, I still went into this film with a cynical perspective, wanting to separate fact from carefully arranged fact.

Obviously, there is much in this film that is clearly subjective. When Mr. Moore makes, in his narration, little barbs at George W. Bush's expense, one knows this is not fact. One understands that when he interviews people critical of Bush administration decisions, there must be people who could defend those decisions equally well. And one understands some conclusions he arrives at about Bush are based on more circumstantial than direct evidence.

Beyond a certain point, however, I stopped paying attention to that. Many have noted that there is little if anything in "Fahrenheit 9/11" that hasn't been told before. But like any good detective, Moore pieces together a lot of little facts to make a decimating impression not only of Bush and Republicans, but of the corruption of American business and its literal exploitation of the mindlessly huge tragedy of Iraq for nothing other than profit. But this is hardly all it is. Moore's mission is also to put into perspective and put a human face on that mindlessly huge tragedy.

Yes, there can be people to counter Moore's interviewees as to why Bush made decisions he did. But is there anyone who can sufficiently counter the genuinely intelligent patriot who loses her son and her belief in her government and its war, or the soldiers missing limbs, or the Iraqi civilians screaming in agony over their dead? [end spoilers]

I doubt there's ever been a documentary that hasn't assumed a point of view. Is it truth?

Truth is what sells best in the marketplace of ideas and this film shows many things represented as truth by the media far less credible than what Mr. Moore presents. Whether that makes him a visionary or a con man depends on what what the future tells us was and wasn't true.

I came out of this movie weeping. Driving home I even had to pull off the road to wipe my eyes because my tears were making it difficult to drive. That this film did this is a testament to Mr. Moore's content and the matchless ability with which he shapes it into what I have to say must be considered first and foremost a documentary, and one that transcends its form to become life itself, maddening, bitter, humorous, shocking, heartbreaking.

10/10.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The "Greatest Film" Game

[23 June 2004]

Rather than just enjoy movies, critics like to play "The Greatest Film" game. A few years back, it was rare that a contemporary film was picked as greatest. "Citizen Kane," "Le Grand Illusion," "The Gold Rush" and other pre-1950 films usually got the nod well into the 1980's.

Then, for some reason, most likely the Internet opening up a voice for the average person to rate film, contemporary films started getting in. "Schindler's List" was one that comes to mind. "Shawshank Redemption" is another.

While picking the same old, stale films year after year doesn't seem to be logical, picking newer ones has a certain risk. Many films amaze and beguile audiences when they come out because they are geared to what currently sells. As years passed, the flaws become apparent and they drop out of sight, while timeless films initially received lukewarmly, or even critically, such as "The Wizard of Oz," "The General," or "Intolerance" soar.

Will "The Shawshank Redemption" drop into obscurity, too? I don't think so.

Why? One can try to explain.

Two possible reasons are Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. I don't know if either are underrated actors or not, but I rarely hear people remark how completely they transform themselves from role to role. This is certainly the case here. The two performances, and the chemistry between the two men is the core of the film and reinforces one of its primary messages: never let anyone make you lose hope.

The fact the setting, prison, is alien to most filmgoer's experience, doesn't matter. "Shawshank" could never be considered a "prison" film. It contains a story as archetypal as "The Odyssey," a long journey, through many dangers, that ends with the traveler (this time, two travelers) seen to a safe shore (literally!).

Another great strength of "Shawshank" is how it operates on different levels. Like Jon Avnet's "Fried Green Tomatoes," it has its most obvious message--about not losing hope and surviving--set highest. But as "Tomatoes" had a gay subtext that could be acknowledged or ignored, so does "Shawshank," that prison is a dehumanizing experience that ends up ruining people for life rather than just letting them pay their debts to society and move on.

Given this country's conservative bent, it is somewhat bizarre that a film that carries this message is so adored. All I can say is the other aspects of the film allow one to ignore it and still enjoy it, which is probably fitting since films where the message is the most important thing, such as those of the '50's and '60's, now show their age badly.

In the final analysis, though, regardless of what elements we pick at, we ultimately can't say why "Shawshank" is so great. We just know it is by how we feel and how others feel.

Two final examples of the latter. The moment in Andy's escape when he stands in the sewage lagoon outside the prison and holds his arms up in jubilation as the rain pours on him is always a part of trailers and coming attractions. Indeed it was part one of the film's original ads. Why should the filmmakers give away the ending? Because there is nothing to give away. One can see the film 100 times knowing Andy will escape and still want to see it, because it isn't about an escape plot. It's about Andy and Red's journey and what they teach each other.

The second example is that the Lifetime Channel, which generally shows either classic "Chick Flicks" like "Thelma and Louise," or made for TV things about unfaithful or homicidal husbands, showed this as their feature presentation one evening and this is a film that really has no women in it at all.

Of course, one can argue a "Chick Flick" is really just a film that values exploration of deep human feelings and relationships more than car chases and explosions. If that is the case, then "Shawshank" is the greatest Chick Flick of them all.

And I think the Greatest Film Game never fit more than here.

The Paul Hogan Show (1973–1984)

Paul Hogan was never as good as this again

[20 June 2004]

My first exposure to Paul Hogan was when his series was syndicated on American television in the early 1980's. I always thought he was a tremendous performer, both in the material he wrote and the wide variety of characters he portrayed.

I found him far superior to Benny Hill, since Hogan's work, unlike Hill's, seemed more contemporary. Hill's work, although often amusing, always seemed like recycled music hall/"Carry On" film/"Laugh In" stuff. If Hogan did draw on things, they were instead Monty Python and Saturday Night. If he didn't draw on things, his work could be quite original, and his ability to continually re-invent characters was quite good (I recall his middle-aged beach bum character, Arthur Dunger, eventually being turned into a middle-aged beach bum superhero, and then into a middle-aged beach bum superhero video game character who ended up destroying the person playing the game).

Sadly, when "Crocodile Dundee" came out the show (which Hogan on the Tonight Show once joked was only on in America at 2 AM) got yanked, presumably for repackaging and reselling to capitalize on Hogan's new movie star status. The quality of his films declined rapidly, however, and I'm supposing up until last month, when a DVD was supposed to be released in Australia, no one saw the value in re-releasing these little masterpieces of comedy.

Although some things in "Crocodile Dundee" came close (my favorite gag in that was the "updating" of the film, "Walkabout," having its star, David Gumpilil, walk onto the scene with face paint, spear--and blue jeans!), Hogan never was able, in my opinion, to bring the magic of his TV show to his films.

One should be grateful, though, for his show, and hope a DVD will be coming this way soon.