Panic in the Streets (1950)

Posted on June 26, 2017 by 4 Star Films

It disappoints me that I was not more taken with the material than I was but despite not being wholly engaged, there are still some fascinating aspects to Panic in the Streets. Though a somewhat simple picture, it seems possible that I might just need to give it a second viewing soon. Let’s begin with the reality.

This noir docudrama is somehow not as tense as some of Elia Kazan’s other works. In fact, it’s port locale anticipate the memorable atmosphere of On The Waterfront, although it’s hard to stand up to such a revered classic. Still, the film does have its own appeals.

It begins with a gritty setting full of grungy character and New Orleans charm that continues the trend of post-war films taking the movie cameras to the streets and to the people who actually dwell there. In this way, the film shares some similarities to The Naked City.

The acting talent is also a wonderful strength with Richard Widmark playing our lead, Lt. Commander Clint Reed, this time on the right side of the law as a Naval Doctor trying to contain an outbreak of pneumonic plague before it spreads exponentially. His compatriot is played by the always enjoyable Paul Douglas a world-wearied police captain who must grin and bear joining forces with Reed.

The film is full of seedy undesirables and the most important and memorable one is Jack Palance (in his screen debut) showing off his tough as nails personality that was certainly no fluke. His right hand blubbering crony is the equally conniving Zero Mostel and together they make a slimy pair for the police to close in on. Because it’s one of their associates who ends up murdered but it’s only in the coroner’s office where they find out he was infected with something fierce.

This sets the sirens going off in Reed’s head and while not an alarmist, he wants everyone to consider the gravity of the situation. He has some trouble working with the police but he also seems to understand that this is not an isolated issue but it can affect his family — his wife Nancy (Barbara Bel Geddes) and his precocious boy (Tommy Rettig). But not just his immediate circle, but his entire community. And so he and Captain Warren race against the clock to not only to prevent an epidemic but solve a crime and apprehend the perpetrators. So this is undoubtedly your typical police procedural enlivened by New Orleans but there are also different layers to what is going on that have broader implications.

For instance, what do you tell the press? Do you keep it under wraps or let them shout it from the rooftops so the criminals get away scot-free — like rats fleeing the scene of the crime? Are you just looking for the murderers or are you considering the entire community at large? These questions deserve to be parsed through more thoroughly than I possibly can. So while Panic in the Streets is more methodical than a tense drama there are some very good things to it. Namely its location, its cast, and the universal nature of its central conflict.

3.5/5 Stars

The Bigamist (1953)

Posted on June 20, 2017 by 4 Star Films

I despise you and I pity you. ~ Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Jordan

The Bigamist is at first a delightful noir — in one aspect unassuming and yet groundbreaking when put in a broader context. Ida Lupino is not simply a good female director. She is a good director, period. She left a body of work both behind and in front of the camera that speaks for itself. Even the small ones like The Hitchhiker and The Bigamist have a certain strength about them.

In this case, the film’s title flashes with the superficial tinges of a sordid drama but when you actually get into the thick of it all, there’s a great deal of tenderness and certain heartbreak there.

In some ways, Edmund Gwenn becomes our main character’s father confessor as the protagonist explains how it all began through flashback: The plotting is simple. Harry Graham (Edmond O’Brien) found himself living a double life. But it’s not just that. He loves his wife Eve (Joan Fontaine). They genuinely care for each other deeply and now they share together in business but he spends a great deal of his time on the road. They’re even planning to adopt a child together since Eve cannot have a child of her own. Obviously, during his frequent bouts on the road, Harry gets lonely and we’ve undoubtedly heard that excuse countless times and it’s been the calling card for a great deal of infidelity.

the-bigamist-2 Except at first what Harry does, does not seem like infidelity. In one integral scene Harry takes one of those bus tours to see the stars because, after all, Beverly Hills is that land of movie stars and their extravagant lifestyles. Jimmy Stewart, Jack Benny, Oscar Levant, Barbara Stanwyck, and Jane Wyman are all given a nod. There are even a few playful in-jokes to the always genial Edmund Gwenn who turns up as the adoption agent. All of this is essentially fluff but it’s on that same ride where he meets someone — a woman named Phyllis Martin (Ida Lupino).

It’s true that they’re both looking for a friend and they gravitate towards each other. It’s nothing more than that and Phyllis invites her newfound friend to a restaurant made in the popular mode of Early American Chinese. It’s where she works. But he hardly cares. He sees her more and the most astounding thing is that he tells his wife about it almost in jest saying he met a brunette in California. The reason he cites: she wasn’t beautiful but she was nice.

And right in that moment, you can see what’s particularly striking about The Bigamist. It’s a frank, open, and honest film in an often prim and proper era of certain sensibilities. The Bigamist looks to be a film to trod all over those social mores and yet extraordinarily enough it doesn’t. Yes, in certain ways it dissects them but it does it with great care and a tenderness for all parties involved.

It’s not so much a dark brooding noir but a film of interpersonal tragedy rather like earlier such examples as Pitfall or They Live by Night where bits of darkness pervades the home and relationships which are admittedly fragile because of the humans involved. Topics of divorce, infidelity, and pregnancy further complicate matters. But not in some lurid exploitive way to sell tickets.

It’s oddly ironic on multiple levels. Of course, we know as an audience that he is seeing another woman but that’s only the beginning. In a major fit of situational irony, it works exactly contrary to what we might expect. Edmund O’Brien’s lead is a good and decent man. His wife is not a holy terror but played by one of the sympathetic heroines of the 40s and 50s, Joan Fontaine. Furthermore, Ida Lupino is not some sleazy femme fatale. In fact, she’s the one who initially rejects his advances and shows reluctance to marry him.

the-bigamist-3 It strikes me how it’s often the small, tiny, unassuming pictures that impact me the most and this film did wrench my heart over the course of only a very few minutes. The final court sequence sums up the reasons quite well because it ends the film on a moral note setting up a rather convicting paradigm.

We see both women there. We see the accused sitting in front of the judge and jury willingly admitting his guilt. His is a society that winks an eye at a married fellow with a mistress and yet he, a man who genuinely loved two women, is found at fault under the law. The defense attorney on his behalf calls for punishment tempered by mercy.

When those two women walk out of the courtroom as the proceedings end, it does not mean that any of it can ever go back to normal. Will either of them even take him back? We can make an educated assumption but that’s not really for us to know. However, on a universal level, the words of the attorney reverberate in my ears. Each one of us has aspects of our character that are undoubtedly despicable but also elicit pity. It only makes sense that each of us deserves a certain amount of punishment but also a measure of mercy. It’s up to us to extend that to others. Because the reality is that we might not be that much better than the eponymous bigamist. Judging by his character we might actually be far worse.

3.5/5 Stars

This Gun for Hire (1942)

Posted on June 9, 2017 by 4 Star Films

220px-this_gun_for_hire_movie_poster Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake found themselves partnered together on numerous occasions partially out of convenience (at 5’6 and 4’11 they were a perfect height match) but also there’s a genuine chemistry between them. And it all came into being with This Gun for Hire an economical film-noir where Ladd wasn’t even one of the top-billed stars.

Those coveted positions above the title went to Lake and the relatively young buck Robert Preston with Ladd tacked on with an “Introducing” title card. It was his latest attempt to break into the film industry that had long relegated him to bit parts and uncredited cameos (ie. Citizen Kane). It worked.

His menacing thug Raven is the first character we meet and he soon proves his brooding menace is more than just show. He is a gun for hire after all and he finishes up some business for a client getting his payoff through a nervous and portly fellow named Gates (Laird Cregar). But the money is hot and Raven soon finds a price on his head. He’s been had and he’s not about the let that slide.

The main push from the law enforcement is led by none other than Michael Crane (Robert Preston) who has recently been vacationing with his girlfriend Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake). As he burns the midnight oil she has her own gig as a magician/nightclub singer while also taking on some clandestine activities — activities that’s she sworn not to tell anyone about — even her beau.

As we might expect with the tenets of noir, the film is a lot bigger than we are initially led to believe, not simply involving murder, but also treason and government secrets as Pearl Harbor is still fresh on everyone’s minds. In such a way, our three leads get tied up both literally and figuratively as Raven continues as a fugitive in search of the man who set him up.

He too crosses paths with Ellen and in her, he finds a kind of confidante who doesn’t immediately write him off, despite his deadly tendencies. Before her he only liked cats, the reason, they don’t need anyone, rather like him. But he’s also not about to reform, not until his work is done.

Although its transitions are at times choppy and awkward, there’s indisputably an intrigue that courses through This Gun For Hire that makes it a diverting bit of noir and its latter half is the pinnacle of the action as the dragnet closes in around Raven. For the 1940s, it was a crackerjack finale but unfortunately, it’s sullied now by an abrupt happy ending. No matter.

While Robert Preston is a fairly flat lead, Veronica Lake is her usual playfully sympathetic self and Laird Cregar plays the spineless oaf to perfection. His slimy sort is one of the reasons noir becomes so wickedly delectable. In fact, he’s perhaps second only to Alan Ladd’s characterization because over the course of the film Ladd systematically steals the picture, taking every little bit of limelight and making it count. Solidifying his stardom by playing a highly compelling heavy and essentially stealing the girl away from his male costar.

Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and perhaps most notably James Cagney, all played corrupt, crazed, and vindictive gangsters at one time or another. What sets Ladd apart is his utterly emotionless eyes. They’re still the eyes of a stone cold killer but there’s a vast emptiness there. Anyways it’s the perfect laconic performance for film-noir and while he never reached the heights of Bogart (also a former supporting player), Alan Ladd rightfully so gained recognition for his own career — most notably in Shane. But everything has to start somewhere and This Gun For Hire is precisely that film. His mark is all over it.

3.5/5 Stars

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Posted on June 6, 2017 by 4 Star Films

saving-private-ryan-1 There’s something remarkably moving about the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. I’ve only felt it a few times in my own lifetime whether it was family members recognizing names on the Vietnam Memorial tears in their eyes or walking over the sunken remains of the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor. It’s these types of memories that don’t leave us — even as outsiders — people who cannot understand these historical moments firsthand.

And that’s why Saving Private Ryan is a truly breathtaking, at times horrifying, and wholly visceral experience. Words cannot actually describe the visuals on the beaches of Normandy at Omaha. The utter chaos, death, and tumult engulfing the scene — above and below the surface of the water.

The cast includes a number of memorable players including Tom Hanks, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Paul Giamatti, Matt Damon, and even Nathan Fillion. And yet it’s not about any one man or even a singular act of valor. Even Private Ryan is only a starting point of a far more universal tale.

It’s also easy to say that this is a film cheapens life in the number of bodies that are blown to bits and slaughtered seemingly needlessly on screen. However, it’s even more difficult to acknowledge that in one sense life is cheap — transient to the extent that our bodies are not indestructible. We are fallible beings and breath so easily leaves our lungs and no time is this more evident than in the wake of war.

One sequence that springs to mind involves two surrendering men who, on first inspection, look German and sound German. The men under Captain Miller’s (Tom Hanks) command gun them down and they do it with smiles on their faces. This, after all, is the enemy, pure and simple. Except they were not “Nazis.” They weren’t even Germans, but Czechs (based on what they say). Men who historically had been captured by the Nazis and press-ganged into military service. And in the end, they get shot by Americans. Even the undertones of this scene point to the fact that their lives were so easily snuffed out, without even a second thought.

So, yes, life seems cheap in this film in the physical sense, even from just one example. But it is granted a great deal of depth and richness in many other ways. Families and brothers. Comrades and compatriots. Personal convictions and disillusionment in war revealed through the many characters we come to know. All of that bleeds out of this film along with the blood from the bodies.

In that sense, it’s all difficult to watch and Spielberg never intended this to be easy going. I cannot speak for others but within the intense moments of bloodshed, the lulls in the action, and unrest within the ranks, there’s a solemnity developed.

War is at times the everyday. It’s indescribable and inscrutable. But Saving Private Ryan’s suggests that there are certain things that we hold onto. High and lofty things such as liberty and freedom that are often so easy to discount. They seem easily besmirched, dragged through the mud by all of our human inadequacies and evil. But perhaps that makes them even more important to hang on to, because just like life, these ideals are worth the fight, though they might so easily be lost. It doesn’t make the wrong right or cover up all the pain, even found within this film, but it latches on a tiny bit of good within a whole lot of messiness.

It goes back to the basic implications of the film’s main conceit — the task of saving one man — Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon). It’s representative of not only the entire war but each and every one of us as we traverse roads of tribulation. Every story, whether wartime or our own, deserves an ending with some type of salvation. Because Saving Private Ryan is imbued with so much more meaning. Our human experience is wrapped up in it. There is no greater love than a man giving his life for his friends. But imagine if you are dying for the freedom of others or even the preservation of someone who you hardly know? That’s what happens in this story.

That’s why when elderly James Ryan comes back to Normandy so many years later, there’s a gravity to the situation. This is by no means a corny piece of Hollywood drama. It’s the ultimate act of love that he has received and he can hardly comprehend it, just as we as an audience must grapple with it too. In that way, Saving Private Ryan is indubitably affecting not simply as a war drama but an epic human narrative. It pertains to all of us.

The profound and terrifying thing about this gift that he has received through the sacrifice of so many others is that he cannot “earn it.” Because, in this sense, life proves to be far from cheap. There is no way to earn that back. There is no way for us to live a wholly “good” life or be completely “good” people. The whole entirety of the film tells us otherwise. Still, we can live our life with a sense of freedom knowing that cannot be expected of us. A life of purpose is all that can be asked of us. It’s that kind of purpose that makes Saving Private Ryan continuously compelling.

5/5 Stars

The Birds (1963)

Posted on June 1, 2017 by 4 Star Films

thebirds1 The Birds is about all sort of birds. The ones we are acquainted with initially are actually a pair of humans. Lovebirds you might call them. Except they don’t know it quite yet, but the moment Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) meet in a pet shop, the sparks are already flying — the birds too.

In this way, the film opens with a love story as you might expect between a grounded lawyer and a cultured woman who nevertheless has somewhat of a reputation. She matter of factly plays “Deux Arabesques” by Claude Debussy on the piano (I had to look that up), but she’s also been involved in an unseemly ordeal at a Roman fountain. Her daddy’s a big shot newspaperman. She’s the kind of gal who elicits whistles from passersby and skeptical looks from protective mothers. The film has both types.

But if The Birds ended as a simple love story it would be a rather tepid affair altogether, not to mention faulty advertising. But Alfred Hitchcock the unequivocal master of suspense could never be accused of such a thing (other things possibly). He injects the storyline with an impending dread and a continual payoff that makes the Birds a tense horror classic even to this day putting the emphasis on his major assets. The first being his antagonistic ornithological forces cycling in and out of the narrative menacingly. The second strength is his impeccable use of panoramic locales.

Much like Douglas Sirk, Hitchcock knows how to use the glossy palette of Hollywood to the nth degree and it becomes one of his main attractions taking his favorite spots in Northern California once again — this time the idyllic Bodega Bay — and developing them into the perfect canvass for the drama he draws up.

A short story from Daphne du Maurier (author of Rebecca) provided the inspiration rather than true source material, however, Ed Mcbain, a reputable writer in his own right, crafts something that’s still quite compelling. It proceeds like you might expect from a normal romantic drama. There’s the meet-cute, the flirtatious repartee, the woman pursuing the man who catches her fancy. Beautiful skies, sunshine, and love in the air. There’s a younger sister (Angela Cartwright), an old flame (Suzanne Pleshette), and a mother (Jessica Tandy). Each looks at this new woman with an entirely different perspective.

But upending the typical progressions The Birds becomes a grim thriller as the bird populations including crows, seagulls, and even sparrows become belligerent. Invading homes, causing havoc, and terrorizing the general population. Melanie and Mitch become our intrepid heroes but it’s almost easy to lose them amidst this churning force of nature.

In one particular scene inside the iconic Tides restaurant, all the locals trade talk about the current state of affairs. It becomes very obvious that there’s a great deal of fear and confusion. What’s at hand is almost apocalyptic as one drunkard wildly quotes the Bible out of context and a didactic bird expert tries to assuage any concerns. But none of that dialogue can possibly mitigate what happens next. A fire starts. The birds rain down in waves of fury. People are chased hither and thither. Melanie first looks on from the restaurant, fights her way to a telephone booth and somehow reaches safety. Others were not so lucky.

thebirds2 Most assuredly, the film benefits from long stretches of wordless action. The most striking example involves a murder of crows gathering on a jungle gym near the schoolhouse. Never before was the name of their posse more applicable. And while the narrative lacks a true score, the unnerving screeches from the birds is sound enough to send chills down the spine of any audience.

At different times both Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn had the potential to be in this project, but perhaps it’s better that they were not. Although Hitchcock essentially tortured her and ultimately ruined her career, Tippi Hedren gives a sparkling performance here that is nevertheless overshadowed by her many adversaries. After all, it’s not her name in the title. The same goes for Rod Taylor a handsome and adequate actor but he’s not the main attraction either. However, to its credit, the script does at least devote time to several of its supporting characters to develop their contours, namely the schoolteacher Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) and Mitch’s skeptical mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy). But that’s not what keeps us watching or what keeps audiences coming back over 50 years later. No one knew that better than Hitchcock himself.

4.5/5 Stars

Pandora’s Box (1929)

Posted on May 25, 2017 by 4 Star Films

The Greek gods created a woman – Pandora. She was beautiful and charming and versed in the art of flattery. But the gods also gave her a box containing all the evils of the world. The heedless woman opened the box, and all evil was loosed upon us.

It’s often extraordinary the international platform that silent films afforded their stars. Pandora’s Box is one of the now lauded pinnacles of Weimar cinema and yet its main starlet — its acclaimed cover girl — was an American. With her bob hairstyle and vivacious sensuality, Lousie Brooks became synonymous with the Lulu character she portrayed in this film. It was this persona that caused her to rival other noteworthy contemporaries including Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

Except she differed in that Hollywood was not her first choice. Hollywood was not what made her a star. In fact, she shied away from that route, instead opting for other avenues altogether. That’s how she wound up partnering with director G.W. Pabst in not only Pandora’s Box but another classic, Diary of a Lost Girl. Then when she had enough she retired from the trade allowing her legacy to be championed by film aficionados years later.

The film in itself is really a bit of a parable taking inspiration from Greek mythology and sectioned off into Acts like a stage play. Pandora’s Box, is of course, the titular object that released all the evils into the world leaving only hope behind. The parallels are planted early on as Lulu lives life with a flirtatious vitality but that’s precisely what leaves a wake of destruction in her path. She woos every man who comes her way, a dancer and performer for all who will lend an eye. As of right now, she is the mistress of a well-to-do businessman named Schlon but he realizes that he needs to protect his image.

He plans to marry another woman but Lulu finds a way to unwittingly needle her way back into his life forcing his hand and ultimately winning him over again. But the conquests that come her way never last and she truly is a destructive temptress — a landmark femme fatale — she cannot help but flaunt her sexuality. She’s energetic, pernicious, meretricious.

The turning point of the film comes at Lulu’s trial sequence for the deed that she unwittingly perpetrated. The prosecutor stands over her wagging his finger as she’s veiled in somber shades of black. Her journey could end there but instead, she is granted another reprieve and escapes with two companions to London.

Not being bogged down by Production Codes of any kind, Pandora’s Box plays with some surprisingly frank themes most obvious of those being Lulu’s overt sexuality as well as adultery, prostitution, scandal, and so many other taboos. However, what makes the film quake with emotion is the very fact that Lulu is hardly an evil individual. Misled, immoral, and destructive yes, but it’s easy to feel sorry for her. Hers is the ultimate tragic narrative because while she assuredly ruins other people, she’s only injuring herself even more so. She dredges up so much hurt and elicits so much violence. All her attempts at love are only met with brutality.

Through it all, we follow faithfully even though we know from the outset it’s all for naught. And that’s a credit to Louise Brooks’s portrayal because there’s no doubt that she has that special something that makes you turn an eye and look. Her performance runs the gamut of emotions so uninhibited, lively, and free. There’s a universal vim and vigor to her that still feels fresh to this day in an otherwise archaic mode of filmmaking.

The amazing thing is that she probably could have been a bigger star than she actually was. She never really realized the potential that she had like a Dietrich or a Garbo but that’s not what she wanted. Still, the notability came her way anyways. Sadly, real life and the cinematic seem closer than you might expect. Her life was hardly as tragic as a film but you wonder if she ever found love chasing after men as she did.

4.5/5 Stars

Review: East of Eden (1955)

Posted on May 22, 2017 by 4 Star Films

east_of_eden_poster East of Eden. It was John Steinbeck’s epic work. Showcasing a familial narrative sprawled across his familiar locales of Salinas and Monterey over the turn of the century. But as a film, it rather unwittingly became James Dean’s. He wasn’t even a star yet. He had been on the stage and in a few small roles on television. His performance as Cal Trask was his first film role and the only one that ever got released during his lifetime. As his following two films, both premiered after his untimely death (curiously not all that far away from this film’s setting).

Director Elia Kazan utilized Technicolor and the harrowing perspective of Cinemascope to paint East of Eden with vibrant colors and rather unnerving angles. It’s also true that Kazan, known for evoking intense performances from actors bread on the Method, was more inspired than perhaps even he realized when he cast Dean. The actor’s body movements. His moody histrionics. His angst emanating from those piercing eyes of his. Even his terminal sadness channeled from his own real-life desire for his father’s love. It’s all within the role of Cal Trask and takes away any doubt about who the focal point of this film is.

And for some, this might be a rather glaring problem with the film. Kazan’s adaptation of the latter half of Steinbeck’s novel focuses on the Cain and Abel dynamic between brothers Cal and Aron as they vie for the affection of their father Adam. For the film to work, each of these characters should be on equal footing. And it’s true that the film is a pendulum of emotional turmoil. It’s positively charged with virulent intensity. First, it’s Cal who is angry and isolated as he tries to discover the whereabouts of the mother he never knew. Meanwhile, his brother Aron (Richard Davalos) is happily in love with his girl and readily defends his brother against any criticism.

But as Cal tries with all his might to win the affection of his father by any means possible, things begin to change. No, his father never exhibits the type of pleasure in him that he so desires, but in his struggles, Cal becomes closer with his brother’s girl — gaining her sympathy.

As time passes, the U.S. is teetering on the brink of the Great War and still, Cal cannot earn his father’s love and his brother becomes more and more jealous. As Cal comes into his own, showing a certain amount of industry and thoughtfulness, it seems Aron becomes more withdrawn and cold. And still, Adam loves his “good son” the best.

James Dean’s performance is spectacularly engaging. I would argue it’s not a morbid sense of curiosity that draws us to him as a tragic hero. But he truly had a special ability to control entire scenes with a glance or some slight movement. Like a Brando or a Clift, he had a certain ability to tap into something that classical actors couldn’t quite touch. Whether it was realism or not is slightly beside the point because they live in characters who are charged with real emotions. It makes Dean’s role as Cal Trask almost palpable. You can feel all that is going on inside of him.

It’s the fact that Dean is so memorable, that brings to light just how much some of the other roles pale in comparison. Davalos does a fine job in his first film, but he cannot balance the scales weighed down by Dean. Raymond Massey on his part is a fairly flat actor not given to anything altogether interesting. It is Dean who elevates Massey’s role in a sense (even though Massey despised the younger actor). Furthermore, Julie Harris is a reputable performer with great heart but she somehow seems miscast (perhaps she’s too old for her role). And Jo Van Fleet gets into the film with a few integral scenes but even she does not have enough time to neutralize Dean.

Perhaps it’s because of the now iconic screen tests of Dean and Paul Newman working off each other, but part of me wonders if Newman in the role of Aron could have done anything to counterbalance Dean. Part of me rejects this hypothesis because Newman never had the same type of melancholy or intensity that Dean was able to muster. He was the likable one. Still, it’s an interesting supposition that in no way takes away from the phenomenal way James Dean burst onto the scene in 1955. He was an explosive supernova of talent — unfortunately for us, he was snuffed out far too quickly.

4/5 Stars

Blue Jay (2016)

Posted on May 20, 2017 by 4 Star Films

Are you leaving room for Jesus?~Amanda

You know it. Catholic school forever.~Jim

Is it true that nostalgia always feels like it should be in black and white? If that sentiment is true there’s a rooted purpose in Blue Jay’s muted black and white tones that run deep. So often we consider it as a gimmick in the modern film spectrum but here it works.

This is a story of boy meets girl again. Now they are both 20 years older no longer naive high school sweethearts and he’s lost his mother and she’s now married to a man many years her senior. They’ve moved on you might say as is customary with those living life. But this day they run into each other at the local market. The stage is set for a fulfilling reunion.

However, in the opening interludes, we don’t know anything about either of them. Jim (Mark Duplass) with his scruffy ensemble and Amanda (Sarah Paulson) with her knit cap. For us, both of them have a clean slate but for the two of them meeting again is a mixed bag of emotions.

In these moments, it seems like all parties involved with the film are trying to make everything as unbearably awkward as possible. Is this the way movies work? A script must always acknowledge the sheer awkwardness of it all, creating certain pretenses, and piddling around with what characters are actually thinking. Is it simply a mean trick of a screenwriter to try and pull us into his story, in this case, Mark Duplass, or is there actually some truth to it all?

Are people actually this awkward in real life? Heaven forbid we actually act like this when we’re together or worse yet with someone we have a crush on. I can answer that rhetorical question almost instantly as a multitude of cringe-worthy moments surge to the fore. So yes, there’s probably some truth here and yes, Duplass is drawing us in. Of course, the final joke is that the film utilized no script at all only simple character arcs to arrive at its conclusions.

Still, these moments are only the setup. It’s not Blue Jay at its best. The film comes into its own as time progresses and the contours of the two characters become more evident with every memory they manage to conjure up and every little thing they do together that takes them through their old routines. They stop at the local liquor store and the proprietor (Clu Gulager) with his cowboy hat welcomes them in like old times. Whether or not they know his unassuming roots in western television lore is another thing altogether.

Then, they make the rounds of Jim’s old family home, the house of his deceased mother which is left pretty as it was when he was still a teenager. Piled high with treasures, clothing, trinkets, romance novels, and other artifacts from that long bygone era known as the 1990s.

They let the nostalgia waft over them as they reminisce together, playing their admittedly dorky version of “House” as Mr. and Mrs. Henderson and exhibiting the funkiest ’90s dancing as two of the whitest kids you know. But they accept their quirks and how dorky they are. That’s the fun part as they remember their younger days.

It’s in these wistful and yet still somehow carefree moments that the film recalls one of my favorite lyrics,

Here’s to the twilight
here’s to the memories
these are my souvenirs
my mental pictures of everything
Here’s to the late nights
here’s to the firelight
these are my souvenirs
my souvenirs

I close my eyes and go back in time
I can see you’re smiling, you’re so alive
we were so young, we had no fear
we were so young, we had no idea
that life was just happening
life was just happening

In the final stretch there some big reveals, there’s some of the drama we were expecting, some of the histrionics that we were wary of from a film such as this. After all, they’re in a confined space together with so many emotions still dwelling inside. You wonder about the old dichotomy that men and woman can either be married or unmarried. They’re never just friends because the boundaries become too difficult to maintain. The self-restraint too difficult to manage even in the most self-controlled of us all. After all, metaphorically speaking, a man can’t scoop burning coals into his lap without burning himself.

But we’ve come to care about the characters enough that’s there no sense that this is some shallow attempt to play with our emotions and get a rise out of us. Somehow it feels like a less flawed iteration of Your Sister’s Sister because it’s frank but never purposely crass and more than its predecessor Blue Jay feels true blue and sincere. It’s a more intimate even heartfelt drama that wins its audience over.

These characters deservedly earn our respect and even in the modicum amount of time they do well to build a rapport with their audience. They do the heavy lifting by opening up and we are called to respond accordingly. The tears and the laughter are intermingled. The regrets with the reality. The way we perceived things would look farther down the road and how they look now. I guess you could say that it’s the blue jay way–reflected precisely by the path this film takes.

It’s the memories and the dashed hopes it starts to pull out of the closets back out into the open. It’s joy. It’s laughter. It’s pain. It’s heartbreak. And as is usually the case with life the ending is unwritten. That’s why they’re still making films like this, now until the end of time.

3.5/5 Stars

Review: 8 1/2 (1963)

Posted on May 15, 2017 by 4 Star Films

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Is the subject of this film a religious one? – A Religious Leader

Yes, well, in a manner of speaking. – Guido

It famously opens with a dream. Our main character stuck in a silent traffic jam, completely disillusioned by the scene around him until he’s able to escape everything inhibiting him and soar into the upper echelons of the atmosphere. But it hardly lasts. Soon he finds himself tethered, being brought back down to earth.

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Our protagonist of sorts turns out to be Guido (the famed Italian icon Marcello Mastroianni), a film director who is going through a spell of director’s block. His most recent activities include an extended stay at a luxury spa at the behest of his doctors. It’s also early on in the film that someone asks him if his next film is also going to be one devoid of hope. It’s a very quick statement but in some sense, it sets the groundwork for Fellini’s entire film.

And it is a very personal film and a fascinating exploration of the art of filmmaking — the thing making it the most compelling is the strange suspicion that parts of Fellini himself dwell inside of Guido. Perhaps Guido shares a bit of his philosophy and stance or more precisely Fellini is like his main character.

The film within a film soon becomes evident and in that sense, it’s also a personal picture. Its title being derived from the number of pictures the Maestro had directed thus far. And numerous meta qualities come to the fore, most obviously when Guido is going through the screen tests his producer (Guido Alberti) and wife Luisa (Anouk Aimee) among those viewing the proceedings.

But going back to that issue of hope, the film’s finale has always been striking to me but I realized that it takes on new meaning put in the context of higher issues altogether. In some respects, Guido or Fellini, whichever you prefer, is trying to derive some sort of higher meaning, whatever that means to him.

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That’s in part why he has his legions of characters join hands in an almost communal dance of absurdity. Simultaneously, a journalist can be heard throwing his questions out, “Are you for or against eroticism?” and in the same breath, “Do you believe in God?” Because this is Fellini’s answer — the solution he has drawn up for himself. There is a sense of grandiose absurdity that is full of dreamscapes — where the distinction between reality and fantasy hardly means anything. Because in the eye of the beholder they are hardly different.

On purely a level of spectacle, it’s indubitably a fascinating set-up. Fellini is known for his quintessential style. To be Felliniesque is to be wrapped up in the surreal and the fantastic. But the philosophical conclusions that go hand in hand with such a provocative approach to film are rather disheartening. If this is part of what Fellini is trying to grapple with as it pertains to love and ultimate truth then 8 1/2 does fall back on a rather dismal ending.

As Guido explains to the man of the cloth, he is looking for some flash of understanding, some obvious moment of truth, like Saul at Damascus. He, like all his peers, carries the foundations of a Catholic upbringing. The religious authorities tell them that there is no salvation outside the church. His strict Catholic school told him what was wrong. Likewise, Guido plans to have a spaceship in his next film — humanities “new Noah’s Ark.” And it’s true that space exploration has been the final frontier, a beacon of potential hopes and truths. You see that in later works like 2001 and Solaris. However, Noah’s Ark was also a vessel to escape destruction as much as it was a ship of exploration.

In drawing other cinematic comparisons, Fellini’s film revolves around a pointless MacGuffin (the phrase Asa Nisi Masa) rather like Welles famed Rosebud. Truthfully, this is a comedy in the same way perhaps Citizen Kane is a comedy. In a similar way, Guido seems isolated, but his mind, in particular, is twisted up with fantasies.

The most divisive scene in the film is yet another fantasy conjured up by Guido that is either extraordinary humorous or sadly indicative of his state of being depending on how you view it. He dreams himself in the stead of all the women he has crossed paths with thus far, all ready and waiting on his whim — his personal harem of sorts — totally and completely objectified for his pleasure. Again, it’s played for truly comic effect but what are the implications?

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As the eternal beauty Claudia (Claudia Cardinale) notes, “He doesn’t know how to love.” She speaks of Guido’s protagonist but as the meta-ness suggests, this protagonist is Guido himself and going down even a layer further maybe even Fellini too. It’s precisely these problems that tie back into Guido’s disillusionment. “There’s no part in the film. And there’s no film. There’s nothing anywhere,” he says to Claudia.

Chaos and nothingness. True perfection is nothingness. His final conclusion? Life is a celebration. Let’s live it together. In essence, it’s true but the carnival showmanship and parlor tricks cannot obscure the bottom line here. As Francis Schaeffer once noted someone like Fellini “has no way to distinguish between right and wrong, or even between what is objectively true as opposed to illusion or fantasy.” That’s a terrifying world to come to terms with. During filming, Fellini supposedly kept a note on his camera to remind himself that this was a comedy film. But much like Citizen Kane, perhaps there’s a need to label it a tragicomedy. You cannot deal with such issues without elation being matched with some amount of melancholy.

5/5 Stars

Platoon (1986)

Posted on May 12, 2017 by 4 Star Films

platoon_posters_86 It’s a rather interesting parallel that Charlie Sheen is playing much the same role his father did in Apocalypse Now. At least in the sense that they become our entry point into the mire of war, specifically in Vietnam. But where Apocalypse seemed to belong more so to Brando or even Duvall, Platoon is really Willem Dafoe’s film. At least he’s the one who makes it what it is. His final moment is emblematic of the entire narrative.

But it is also striking that the film opens with an excerpt from Ecclesiastes as follows, “Rejoice young man in your youth…” But the latter half of that same verse has major implications that will come into play later.

For now, these soldiers muddle their way through their tours of duty the best they can. Smoke, beer, and Smokey Robinson is the perfect way to combat the insanity and humidity right outside your tent.

Oliver Stone conjures up themes of politics and government conspiracies. The first word is uttered several times throughout Platoon but in the general sense. When you get a group of people together vying for positions and attention there’s bound to be politics. As for government conspiracy, Stone doesn’t quite scrape that barrel, although to be sure as a Vietnam veteran himself perhaps he has a lot to be disgruntled about.

Instead, he has a cast of characters who get to reflect all the angst and disillusionment for him and it’s a fairly impressive bunch. Aside from Sheen and Dafoe, John Bergener, Keith David, John McGinley, Forrest Whitaker, and even Johnny Depp make appearance wading their way through Vietnam.

It’s been far too long since I’ve seen Apocalypse Now to draw too many comparisons. However, although Platoon is a perturbing film it’s not the same type of expansive labyrinth that I recall from Coppola’s epic. Charlie Sheen’s voiceovers attempt to add an introspective tinge to the entire narrative, but that is not where the strength of the film lies.

Platoon also has its share of pyrotechnics, in fact, it succumbs to them too often but that’s not the reason the film is affecting either. It’s the aftermath of those explosions. The carnage that is left in the wake of the barrages of RPGs. The bodies maimed and the images that haunt these young men.

And as audience members, it’s hard not to feel something. Repulsed. Angry. Frustrated. Confused. Perhaps that is the film working — giving even a zenith of the taste of what it was to be in the jungles of Vietnam back in 1967. This is one of those experiences I cannot take too often because it’s almost too much.

My initial hope was that Stone would not inject this film with his own brand or message and I will say that when I watch Platoon I am not left with the feeling that I am listening to Oliver Stone but instead I am watching something terribly volatile unfold. That’s certainly a testament to this film. In the end, Platoon is bolstered by its sheer intensity.

But back to Ecclesiastes, the earlier verse ends “and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.” And it’s this final bit that is important in suggesting that young men are laid low due to their joy. But it’s hard to make that type of assertion. If anything, a film such as Platoon is perplexing because the answers are unclear and the reasons the world works the ways it does are not known to us.

Young men will continue to walk through life naively and he will struggle through life questioning the presence of God as much as this seemingly apathetic indifference towards the suffering in the world. Whether Stone was grappling with those same questions is up for contention but the beauty of film is that it very rarely works on a singular level. It can mean many things to many people. So it is with Platoon.

4/5 Stars