The Station Agent (2003)

Posted on December 18, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Life takes all sorts of people. Otherwise, our everyday human interaction would have no meaning, no real importance. But when each person brings something different to the table, that’s when life gets interesting. We need the introverts, the extroverts, and every shade in between. That’s really what The Station Agent is about. It’s made up of a ragtag cross-section of humanity. Each one’s a different puzzle piece and you wonder how they ever got together. But they all get thrown into one box in the sleepy town of Newfoundland, New Jersey, and these people wind up living life together. Maybe it sounds rather banal, but the result is actually quite rewarding. I don’t exactly find trains exhilarating, but if you have somebody to share them with they’re not so bad.

The central character in our film is a train aficionado and reserved man named Finbar (Peter Dinklage). He’s been gifted a ramshackle shack bequeathed to him by the elderly proprietor of the hobby shop he used to work at. They both shared a contentment in silence and a deep affection for trains. Fin has seemingly lost his only friend in the world, and he resigns himself to silence because he assumes that all people ever notice about him is his size. They don’t seem to care about the person inside the body and he doesn’t want to take a chance. But that’s before he meets the genial dynamo Joe (Bobby Cannavale), who runs a coffee cart out in the boonies. It’s absolute torture for such a vibrant personality, and he jumps at the chance to have someone to talk to nearby.

The quiet little man constantly deflects any attempt by Joe to become acquainted and yet it never fazes him. First reluctantly and then wholeheartedly Fin allows Joe on his long walks along the train tracks, and Joe breaks down the barriers. The unlikely pair gets even more unusual when they add middle-aged artist Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) into their ranks after she nearly runs over Fin several times. Like her two new acquaintances, she has personal issues to work through on her own. But that doesn’t mean she has to live life alone, and with Joe being the glue, these three have something going that truly blossoms into friendship.

Two of the other pieces of the puzzle include the inquisitive girl Cleo, who shares Fin’s fascination with trains and builds an instant connection with him as children often can with other people. She’s direct, innocent, and she accepts Fin for who he is. Then there’s Emily (an almost unrecognizable Michelle Williams), the local librarian, who adds another layer to the town’s charm. She is pretty, but also very sweet and open to talking with Fin. Really she’s just looking for someone to listen since she’s going through a pregnancy with a boyfriend who is bad news.

It’s easy to respect The Station Agent because it’s not a story where romance heals all wounds. There are two such moments when the film could have easily become that, but Tom McCarthy has a greater respect for his characters than that. They don’t get caught up in needless romantic entanglements for the sake of drama. Their interactions are more nuanced and sensitive than that. Because Joe might make jokes, but behind that veneer is a deeply caring heart.

Noticeably McCarthy also has a great respect for quiet. His film is full of solitude as much as it is full of human interaction. That might be off-putting to some, but it makes the story all the more powerful, juxtaposing the idle chatter with tranquility. On his part, Peter Dinklage gives a breakout performance as a man who realizes he can let people into his life. Because in life true friendship can form between people of all colors, shapes, and sizes. We have to give out a chuckle when this unlikely trio is sitting on the porch talking about Fin’s love life one last time. Not in a million years would we expect to be sitting there with them enjoying the moment. But it happened and we do. In many ways, it’s a lot like life.

4/5 Stars

Review: Taxi Driver (1976)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Well. Whatever it is, you should clean up this city here, because this city here is like an open sewer you know. It’s full of filth and scum. And sometimes I can hardly take it. ~ Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle

Taxi Driver‘s Travis Bickle is an American icon representing anyone and everyone who has ever felt like an outcast, outsider, or misfit. He’s the perfect embodiment of any of the angst or disgust that might surge through our veins at any given time. Except before I ever saw Martin Scorsese’s film, I always assumed him to be a thuggish villain. But his character is more complex than that. He’s far more relatable than I would have initially given him credit for.

The film actually opens feeling like the pilot of the Sitcom Taxi or something. There’s Bernard Hermann’s beautifully cool jazz-infused score and then the illuminating lights of an average New York evening. It feels strangely peaceful in spite of all that is going to go down.

Travis is an ex-Vietnam vet who takes a taxi driving job for the strangest of reasons. He just wants something that will have him working long hours and he isn’t too particular about what part of town he ends up in. From the get-go, he strikes the audience as a quiet almost silent observer of all that takes place around him on the streets every night. He’ll sit around with a couple cabbies as they chew the fat, but he’s essentially isolated — a repressed young man who doesn’t really express himself. His existence feels tragic and lonely, certainly not deadly.

There is a small beacon of hope when a pretty campaign volunteer named Betsy (Cybil Sheppard) catches his eye, and he has an extremely awkward interaction with her but it lands him a date. But Travis just doesn’t quite know how to act, he hasn’t learned what it means to be in a relationship and he has an error in judgment while they are out. However, he doesn’t see it that way. He feels his attempts at kindness were completely rejected.

Then, he also begins to notice a young hooker out on the streets and his next mission is to get her away from there back home. He thinks it’s the right thing to do and he means well but young streetwise Iris (Jodie Foster) doesn’t seem to want his charity. So once again Travis seems unwanted and not needed when he is trying to do something nice.

Travis even acknowledges to his colleague Wizard that he’s getting all twisted up inside and confused. He’s distraught and he has no way to deal with it so his outlet includes a heavy strength regimen and loading up on a ton of guns. Never a good sign, but it his mind’s eye it’s all to clean up the streets of the scum of the earth.

However, first he attends a rally for a presidential candidate that Betsy will be at and he has intent to cause harm, but he backs out at the last minute and goes to Plan B confronting Iris’s pimp Sport (Harvey Keitel) and shooting him. The inner demons of Travis are unleashed as he goes off, but his delusions of grandeur reassure him that this is all for Iris. This is for her good. All this bloodshed.

The final moments after his rampage have Travis receiving a letter from Irises parents who are grateful for his actions to save their daughter from corruption. Then, a fully recuperated Travis finds Cybil sitting in the back seat of his taxi cab in all her glory. It’s beyond his wildest dreams, which begs the question is this reality, or is this just a clever construction of his own brain? Another delusion of grandeur. It’s a wonderful open-ended finale.

Paul Schrader’s script is a wonderful character study giving introspection into one troubled man’s psyche. However, there is controversy on two fronts. It’s rumored that John Hinckley Jr. who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan was influenced by this film and also the finale seems to reflect many people who commit mass shootings. Oftentimes they are people who are deeply troubled and are looking for some type of attention. But with that desire comes often deadly consequences.

taxidriver3 Martin Scorsese’s film has also received pointed criticism for its violence which is hard to downplay. However, Taxi Driver remains interesting because it is not bloated with killing (in fact only one scene is actually bloody). Most of the film has to do with relationships or lack thereof because a lot of what Travis does is watch and listen. It might be Martin Scorsese in a cameo as a jealous husband or a presidential candidate asking Bickle’s opinion from the back seat. Furthermore, like any warm-blooded boy, he knows that Cybil Sheppard is a dream girl. And he has enough compassion to want Iris to have a normal childhood. It’s just that his conscientiousness is misdirected and subverted.

The film resigns itself to following this one man in the wasteland that is New York. It’s starkly beautiful and thought-provoking placing a troubled anti-hero in front a canvas of urban realism. I could never condone his behavior, but then again I could never be completely against him either.

4.5/5 Stars

Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Posted on December 16, 2015 by 4 Star Films

eternalsunshine1 In truth, I always thought this film had a well-suited title for its material. It was rather unusual and unique. There was not much more to think about otherwise. But when you actually think about it, whether or not you consider Alexander Pope’s poem from which it originates from, there is great truth that can be gleaned from this phrase “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.” In fact, it’s truth that points to the heart and soul of Charlie Kaufman’s story.

As humans who love and love to love, there is also the equally likely chance that we might lose that love, or have it come crashing back down upon us. Thus, if we lived with a mind never cluttered with such a thing as love and all the complexities, pain, and emotions that go with it, then could we not be forever happy? There would be nothing to darken our mood, as ignorance truly is bliss. Except in that statement, there is something inherently wrong, because to be human means to be thinking and feeling creatures of reason. Take that away from us and we are little more than animals. But with our minds, we can do so much that is worthwhile. Perhaps we get hurt in the process, and yet that brings to mind another long overused epithet. It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. It’s a paraphrasing of Tennyson I think.

This is a great place to enter into this film — this absurdly idiosyncratic vision of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. Initially, the story of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a great mess — a great web of confusion. The tone is a bit melancholy only to be injected with a heavy dose of whimsy. A man quite suddenly boards a train and meets a free-spirited girl. It’s a meet-cute, and yet there’s a strange sensation that this is not the first time they have met.

Over time everything begins to fall into place just like memories hidden away in the human mind. In fact, that’s exactly like this film. Joel (Jim Carrey) is a subdued, often lonely man, who decides to get rid of his memories, especially when he learns that his former girlfriend Clementine has done the same. He just wants to be able to get over her. But as part of the process, all his past memories come flooding back from the most recent to the oldest. Each and everyone seems to include Clem in one way or another. It’s quite the strange sensation, although Joel does begin to get used to it. That doesn’t mean he likes it.

eternalsunshine2 He swims in and out of consciousness between the past and then the present that is going on outside his head. The voices inside his head, or more aptly, the voices right outside his head come from two engineers (Elijah Wood and Mark Ruffalo) from a company in charge of erasing his memories. They create a map of them so they can remove the memories later.

Paranoia sets in as Joel’s past disappears, and he attempts to stop the inevitable erasing of all his recollections. They’re lucid dreams or more like lucid nightmares accompanied by paralysis. However, Joel goes off grid into the deep cavernous expanses of his brain. Entering places where his deepest desires and deep-seated feelings hide. It might be buried in his childhood, humiliating ordeals he was put through, or his most intimate memories of the girl Clementine.

This film is most certainly inventive, but it becomes endangered of relying too heavily on a concept or a gimmick in a way that gets in the way of the love story. Although that does happen at times, in general, Eternal Sunshine functions in great capacity. While being utterly original, it still manages to be anchored by the story of Joel and Clementine. That is due to the wonderfully restrained performance of Carrey paired with Winslet’s dyed-hair and unfettered turn as Clem.

eternalsunshine3 Finally, the narrative folds over on itself again as Joel’s mind returns to the present — a present without any recollection of Clementine. They meet again and there’s a strange sensation in the air. It’s a true deja vu moment that has them befuddled and confused. Will they go through with their relationship even when they find out about their rocky history?

Perhaps the most troubling thing about Eternal Sunshine is that it feels liberating, but it’s liberation without the prospects of romance going anywhere. How do we know that Joel and Clem won’t fall into the same ruts they did before? However, maybe that’s exactly the point. Love often means taking risks and stepping out when it’s hard. The great unknown can be daunting, but without it, there could be no joy or hope in life, only mindless interactions with arbitrary meaning. Love is worth the risk for Joel and Clementine. It’s the same for most people. Therein lies the beauty behind it.

4/5 Stars

Detour (1945)

Posted on December 15, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Hollywood is really missing out, because with the direction that the industry has gone there really is no space for a film like Detour to be made by conventional methods anymore. It was shot in less than two weeks. It cost a minuscule amount compared to the contemporary A-Pictures, and yet it used its low production values as an advantage, not a curse. Director Edgar G. Ulmer was the king of so-called B-films of Poverty Row and Detour was his shining gem. It feels a lot like the later film-noir D.O.A. because both have a main conceit that might be hard to swallow at first, but if you do that initially, you quickly find the film thoroughly rewarding on its own merit.

The sets are simple. A diner, a car, a hotel room, and that’s honestly about it. The actors are pretty obscure by today’s standards. Tom Neal was made for this role of the fateful victim Al Roberts, with his constantly pouting face and a pair of despondent eyes. As he sits glowering in a roadside diner it’s hard to imagine he’s ever smiled in his life. He’s a real sourpuss.

There was a time, back in the day, when he made a modest living as a piano player in a New York club. He had a girl named Sue, and he was relatively content playing the bouncy tune “I Can’t Believe You Fell in Love With Me” while making a few bucks. Now the song haunts him wherever he goes. Sue left to try her luck in Hollywood and soon after Al began his long hitchhike to California to rendezvous with her. On one unassuming evening, all his luck changed. Just like that.

An obliging fellow offered him a ride and they get on well enough. He’s a bookie, but not a bad fellow, so Charles Haskell and Al get on fine. Then they switch up driving duties and a little light rain starts coming down into the convertible. Al goes to put up the top because he assumes Haskell’s only asleep. But when he opens the side door, Haskell falls to the ground. DEAD! Al does what any normal human being would do and he freaks out. Should he dump the body? What should he do with the car? Did anyone see him? Will the people back at the rest stop be able to I.D. him? What will the cops say if they hear his story?

And so he ends up getting rid of Haskell (in a sense playing the role of guilt) and takes on the man’s identity. But wouldn’t you know it, the first person he picks up is the fiery Vera (Ann Savage), who looks apt to claw your eyes out. Of course, she too got a ride from the real Haskell and isn’t buying Al’s story. She’s got him on the rack and she’s not about to let him get off easy. She wants a cut, she wants to sell the car, and Vera’s the only one who is going to call the shots. Al is a stuck, trapped, and paranoid, as Vera waves blackmail in front of his face and won’t let him breathe. She’s got him around her finger and there’s absolutely nothing he can do. After all, who would believe his story?

But whether it’s fate or whatever you want to call it, he gets out of it much in the same way he got into it. The resolution makes me grin because it’s so wonderfully contrived. There’s a tacked on ending to mollify the Production Codes (because Al couldn’t get away with his crime), but although it is an easy fix, it hardly takes away the potency of Detour. I long for the days they made films like this. Ann Savage somehow is nastier and crueler in a few minutes than most any character is in an entire film. It’s a brilliant role and honestly, she’s not my favorite femme fatale, but she has to be one of the most notorious. She seriously sends shivers up the spine.

“Isn’t that a laugh? Haskell got me into this mess, and Haskell was getting me out of it. The police were searching for a dead man. I keep trying to forget what happened, and wonder what my life might’ve been if that car of Haskell’s hadn’t stopped. But one thing I don’t have to wonder about; I know. Someday a car will stop to pick me up that I never thumbed. Yes, fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all.” – Al Roberts

4/5 Stars

Bridge to the Sun (1961)

Posted on December 14, 2015 by 4 Star Films

bridgetothesun1 Bridge to the Sun is one of those films that was ahead of its time. Its main players are hardly remembered by modern audiences. Belgium director Etienne Perier was only a little blip on the Hollywood radar. The leading lady Carroll Baker was probably more notorious for her controversial role in Tennessee’s William’s Baby Doll than she was famous. James Shigeta was a pioneering actor, who was famously told, “If you were white, you’d be a hell of a big star.” He aged gracefully, but was slowly relegated from leading roles to bit parts in Hawaii Five-O and Die Hard. In truth, the film, based on the memoirs of one Gwen Terasaki, does suffer from a clunky script at times, and the box office returns were not too favorable. In fact, it was an outrageous flop back in 1961.

But now, with a fresh pair of eyes from the 21^st century, Bridge to the Sun looks different and dare I say, groundbreaking for its candid depiction of interracial romance. Certainly, this is the story of two people falling in love, but under very different circumstances, in a very different world circa 1935. Gwen is a talkative young woman from Johnson City, Tennessee, who is more than thrilled to venture to the Japanese embassy with her aunt. Like any ignorant American she wants to meet a real-life Japanese, altogether bewitched by their manners and culture. Chopsticks are not exactly her forte, nor sushi. And yet the moment she meets the handsome young Japanese Ambassador Hidenari “Terry” Terasaki, there is an immediate connection. Yes, their cultures are so different which they will be reminded of again and again, but most importantly they love each other passionately. So much so that they disregard relatives and even superiors when it comes to whom they will spend the rest of their lives with. Theirs’ is a true romance.

bridgetothesun2 In fact, this film does not shy away from showing that affection, even though it undoubtedly made some viewers squeamish at the time. More than once Gwen and Terry embrace in intimate moments that signify the deep-seated love that holds them together. Because it’s far from easy. Gwen finds it difficult living in a Japanese culture where the woman is meant to be wholly subservient to her husband. She’s fine with the bowing and the taking off of shoes even, but not being allowed to talk is about the limit. With his family, her strong, lovable husband now seems cold and distant. However, they cannot stay mad forever and soon enough their little girl Mako is born, making them a happy little family. But of course, imperial Japan and isolationist America are on the brink of conflict and Terry and his family are tottering on the brink of calamity. He’s seemingly one man trying to hold together the relations of two nations that he has such close ties to. One because of his wife, the other due to his birth. Then, on a fateful day in December 1941 Japan struck the first blow and life would never be the same. Terry is now being detained and Gwen is fearful she might be forever separated from her husband. Disregarding what everyone else says, she takes her young daughter and follows her husband once again to his homeland – knowing full well what might be in store for her and her daughter.

bridgetothesun5 And when they arrive abroad there is the discrimination and the myriad of strange looks. Even as she makes the long journey across the sea all the white folk scoff at her, but Gwen takes it calmly and fearlessly. Once overseas the climate has changed greatly and now Terry is being questioned for his loyalty. The ethnicity of his wife doesn’t help and the firebombs raining down from above don’t exactly calm their nerves. But again and again, Terry and Gwen prove to be a resilient couple. The anomaly that should never have happened—seemingly could never have happened, and yet they did and they remained unequivocally together.

The days drag on and the plight of the people is worse and worse as Gwen waits anxiously for Terry to return. Finally, he does, badly battered, but soon enough the war ends and a happier ending seems in store. Well, perhaps it’s not quite as cheerful as we should want, but the one true fact is that Bridge to the Sun remains a love story to the end and that’s something you cannot snatch away from it.

As a Japanese-American myself, this film really hits home in many ways. There’s this strange dichotomy developed between Japan and the U.S. Both had their share of prejudice, but it was not so much modern systematic racism, but ignorant bigotry. They got so caught up in their own culture and ways of doing things they were not ready to open up to others. Thus, whites were meant for whites and “Orientals” with “Orientals.” Certainly, this is a narrow-minded presupposition and this story speaks to that longstanding injustice.

Mind you, there is no maliciousness in this statement because it goes both ways. The Japanese at times undoubtedly treated Gwen perhaps far worse than the Americans treated Terry. But the point is that these two represented something special. Maybe they did not think so in the moment because they were in love. But their story is gripping simply due to the fact that it feels like the exception, just like Carroll Baker and James Shigeta playing opposite each other was the exception. That is why I’m drawn to stories like this, and not just in film, but life and history. I don’t want to know just about the status quo, I want to know about those who were willing to step out and be different. I want to know who was brave enough to step out and be a bridge to the sun, whether that may be Japan or somewhere else altogether.

3.5/5 Stars

Review: Vertigo (1958)

Posted on December 13, 2015 by 4 Star Films

“The Greatest Film of All Time.” It certainly seems like an arbitrary title, but if nothing else it gives film aficionados something to discuss. And that’s what Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is now being called for many reasons. Rather than join the debate, I wish to take a few moments to acknowledge what makes the film itself special.

On the surface, shall we say the first viewing, Vertigo is thoroughly enjoyable as a psychological thriller and mystery. The title sequence is haunting with an eye staring back at us from behind the credits and as an audience we are quickly thrown into the action, watching the opening chase scene unfold. In only a few moments one man is dead and the other John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) now has debilitating vertigo that takes him off the police force. We never learn why they were chasing a man on the rooftops. It doesn’t really matter. It’s a time later with his friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) that we first see Scottie after the harrowing events. She obviously cares deeply for him, and he sees her simply as a good friend so we can undoubtedly expect her to be in the film more.

Then, rather mysteriously, an old school acquaintance named Elster (Tom Helmore) calls up Ferguson, hoping to get him to shadow his wife. It has nothing to do with infidelity, but fear, because the worried husband believes that something is wrong with his wife Madeleine. She disappears for hours at a time and is barely conscious half the time. He would describe her as possessed and Scottie is noticeably skeptical. But he relents and agrees to tail her sending himself spinning headlong into a mystery that will become his obsession.

He gets to know Madeleine by following her, all throughout the streets of San Francisco, and much like Rear Window, this part of the film becomes a repetition of scenes followed by the reactions of Stewart. Hitchcock’s background in silents is seemingly at work here as he lets the images and score of Bernard Hermann take center stage along with Stewart’s expressions. We end up all over, from a flower stand to a cemetery, an art museum, and an old hotel. Madeleine goes from place to place like a solemn specter and we watch in expectation. Something must happen.

In an instant, she leaps into the water near the Golden Gate to commit suicide and that’s when Scottie swoops in to rescue her. He can’t lose her now because by this point he’s entranced by the icy blond who he only knows from a distance. And so their relationship progresses if you can call it that. They wander together and Madeleine shares her nightmares with Scottie.

The two of them head to San Juan Bautista and that’s when the nightmares become a reality for both of them. It’s devastating to Scottie, and the second phase of the film begins. He’s inconsolable and madly in love with this girl he cannot have. She’s hardly real. But then wandering the streets listlessly he spies Judy Barton, who coincidentally looks strikingly like Madeleine.

So he does the only thing that he can think of, meet her and try to turn into the girl he so desires. His obsessions are the only things that drive him, that and the haunting memories. Finally, he figures out the mystery, but the swirling cycle continues as he goes back to San Juan Bautista. A cruel twist of deja vu rears it’s ugly head once more.

Hitchcock always was one for visual showmanship and it reveals itself whether it’s the parallel symbolism that Scottie notes in the painting of Carlotta Valdes or the out-of-body dream sequence that he suffers through. There’s also the dizzying zoom creating the so-called Vertigo Effect whenever Stewart looks down from a great height. These are obvious visual flourishes, but it’s almost more interesting to watch our main characters walk the streets of San Francisco, especially since there are so many real landmarks to work with (ie. Golden Gate, Mission San Juan Bautista, Muir Woods National Monument, and the Coit Tower among others). There’s something mesmerizing and trance-like about all these scenes that’s difficult to discount. It pulls us in as an audience. We want to see more. Bernard Hermann’s score is, of course, noteworthy and at its core, there is a constant disconcerting quality. It is strangely majestic and beautiful, but it pounds away menacingly. And it spirals in and out with the same sounds, the same crescendos. You think you would get sick of it, but strangely enough, you don’t. It enraptures us.

Then there are the players. Kim Novak has the dual role as Madeleine and Judy. She carries out both with the needed precision. Elster’s wife is elegantly beautiful, aloof and ethereal in a way that makes her the obvious fantasy of Stewart’s character. When she casts a sidelong glance or stares up at Stewart there is a faraway quality in her eyes. The clothes. The hair. How she talks. Even how she carries herself. She is spellbinding, otherworldly, and almost unattainable in all ways. Then there’s Judy, the epitome of a Midwestern girl. Pretty but not elegant. Smart but not cultured. But she falls for Ferguson as he falls for an impossible ideal.

James Stewart is an important piece in this film because it’s his character’s obsession that drives the plot. His instabilities, his desires, his anguish, his vertigo. It has been said that Stewart himself is a stand-in for Hitchcock and the own inner workings of the director’s being. His obsession and lusts. That may be true but something else that could be inferred is that Stewart is really a stand-in for all of us. After all, there was no greater every man than him, but there also is a universal quality to the baggage weighing on his being. Stewart’s every man is certainly being subverted, or could it be he is becoming a more accurate depiction of everyone? It’s a scary thought but what is buried inside of us? What are our own fantasies, obsessions, and lusts that lurk under the surface? Let me put it a different way.

For Stewart, he has three prominent women in his life. There’s the fantasy in Madeleine, the perfect ideal, who will ultimately ruin his life because intimacy with her is impossible. There’s Judy who has a passionate love for him, but it seems complicated in so many ways. She’s trying to measure up to his standards. The ideals and fantasies he has created poison what they could have. Then, there’s Midge who is practical, funny, and also completely devoted to Scottie. If his head were on straight he would go right to her because he would undoubtedly find the most satisfaction in that relationship, but his obsessions have undermined that.

There was an alternate ending of the film which showed Scottie with Midge once more, listening on the radio about Elster’s capture. The ending that was kept is more powerful, not because Elster got away scotch free, but because we don’t see Midge again. She all but disappears by the end of the film and with her goes all that could have been decent and good about reality for Scottie. He gets so caught up in fantasy and that tears his life apart. He’s literally spiraling in a web of never-ending hellish obsession. Who knows what becomes of him? We can only guess.

5/5 Stars

Chariots of Fire (1981)

Posted on December 12, 2015 by 4 Star Films

“Now there are just two of us – young Aubrey Montague and myself – who can close our eyes and remember those few young men with hope in our hearts and wings on our heels.” ~ Lord Lindsay

I am hardly a world traveler but one of the places I fell in love with early on was the British Isles. London is a wonderful city with so many memorable landmarks from Big Ben to Buckingham Palace. Harry Potter to Sherlock Holmes. There are the Salisbury plains hosting the monolithic Stonehenge, and the Lake District which is undoubtedly some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. No wonder Wordsworth and Blake were so enamored by it. However, St. Andrews Scotland has to be one of the most starkly beautiful places I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. It’s steeped in golf history due to the Old Course and despite being the home of a university, it is surrounded by a charmingly quaint town.

And of course, most pertinent to this discussion, its beaches became the perfect setting for the opening moments of the now iconic Chariots of Fire. Really it is so much more than its stellar theme by Vangelis because these sequences bookend a truly remarkable story. We enter the narrative in 1978 where two old men eulogize about the old days and their good friend Harold Abrahams who has recently passed.

Cross_and_Havers Back in the 1920s, a brash young Abrahams (Ben Cross) is about to enter university at Cambridge intent on becoming the greatest runner in the world, and taking on all the naysayers and discrimination head-on. He’s a Jew and faces the antisemitism thrown his way with defiance and a bit of arrogance. He’s a proud young man who loves to run, but more than that he loves to win. His best friend becomes Aubrey, a good-natured chap, who willingly lends a listening ear to all of Harold’s discontent. Soon enough Abraham’s makes a name for himself by breaking a longstanding record of 700 years, at the same time gaining a friend in the sprightly Lord Lindsay. Together the trio hopes to realize their dreams of running for their country in the Paris games of 1924. They are the generation after the Great War and with them rise the hopes and dreams of all those who came before them.

Charleson_as_Liddell Simultaneously we are introduced to Eric Liddell (Ian Charleston) a man from a very different walk of life. He’s a Scot through and through, although he grew up in China, the son of devout Christian missionaries. Everything in his life is for the glory of God, and he is a gifted runner, but in his eyes, it’s simply a gift from God (I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure). His sister is worried about his preoccupation with this seemingly frivolous pastime, but Eric sees a chance at the Olympics as a bigger platform – a platform to use his God-given talent to glorify his maker while living out his faith. Abrahams is a disciplined competitor and he goes so far as to bring on respected coach Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm) to help his chances. Liddell is a pure thoroughbred with life pulsing through his veins, and of course, they must face off. It’s inevitable.

But this is only the beginning as all these men we have built a connection with travel across the sea for the Olympic Games grappling with their own anxieties and consciences. For Abrahams, it’s the prospect of failure and success. Failure will burn because his whole existence has always been about running — about winning. He has only a few seconds to justify his very existence. However, the fear of winning is almost greater, because at 24 years of age, where else is he supposed to go after winning a gold medal? It scares the life out of him. Liddell’s tribulation is of a different nature as he must stand true to his beliefs even if it seems to be sabotaging his own success. And of course, Aubrey and Lord Lindsay have their own successes and failures that run the spectrum. Perhaps most importantly these men prove their worth not only to their American opponents but the entire world. They can return home with their heads held high — champions of a feel-good tale to be sure.

Yes, this is a story about two strikingly different individuals, but Chariots of Fire becomes so engrossing due to all its characters. Aubrey resonates with me due to his general contentedness. Lindsay has an air of playful charm that is refreshing. Harold embodies my own hopes, fears, and anxieties. Eric reflects every person’s struggles with spirituality and personal conviction. In essence, the narrative goes back to the glory days to bring light to the universal and continual rise and fall of man. We’re far from perfect, but in spite of all our failures, there is still space for redemption.

The refrains of the theme music paired with William Blake’s majestic “Jerusalem” get me every time. I love being steeped in this atmospheric periodness and my heart yearns to be back in England so I can run on those very same beaches with wreckless abandon. But even if I don’t get there soon, I will be content in running life’s race to the best of my abilities wherever I am. That’s all that any of us can do.

“I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me.” If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race.” – Eric Liddell

4.5/5 Stars

Some Came Running (1958)

Posted on December 10, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Some Came Running is a film that can so easily get lost in the shuffle of 1950s Hollywood. It’s hardly the most well-known picture of director Vincente Minnelli, known generally for his musicals and excellent set direction. Furthermore, this is most certainly a melodrama, certainly affecting, but not quite as falsely superficial to the degree of Douglas Sirk’s work. In a way, it feels like a 50s variation on The Best Years of Our Lives.

In the post-war years drifting vet and one-time author Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) comes back to the town he skipped out on as a young kid. He’s a bit hung over getting off the Greyhound and realizes he has another traveler in his wake. The fellow passenger is the potentially disreputable and slightly dumb Ginny Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine), who came along for the ride from Chicago on his invitation.

Now that he’s back home, he just wants Ginny to head back the way she came, while he gets over with the obligatory meeting with his older brother. After handing his brother over to a boarding school, Frank Hirsh (Arthur Kennedy) did pretty well for himself. He married a wife (Leora Dana) from a good family and inherited a profitable jewelry business. By now he’s living the American Dream and his daughter Dawn (Betty Lou Keim) is growing up to be a beautiful young woman. In fact, you might call Frank a pillar of society, because everything’s working for him and people look up to him for what he has made for himself.

Thus, the arrival of Dave is not without its problems. The brothers have not talked for well nigh 16 years now. Frank looks to play things up like nothing’s changed and they’re both pals. He sets his brother up to an evening with a Professor French and his beautiful and highly intelligent daughter Gwen (Martha Hyer), who happens to be a literature teacher at the local high school. This is his way of trying to get his brother into good company. After all, he can’t bear that people should talk. He’s got a reputation to uphold.

But Dave’s not much for that type of company, although he takes a liking to Gwen, who avoids his advances while still taking a great interest in his work as an author. Furthermore, the cynical drifter begins to keep company with jovial gambler Bama Dillert, played by none other than a boozing, poker playing Dean Martin. Thus, there are some genuinely entertaining moments that feel like nothing more than a Rat Pack hangout.

But Some Came Running is quick to plunge back into dramatic turmoil. There are affairs, hypocrisy, unbridled passion, bar fights, parades, and carnivals all highlighted by the eye-catching staging of Minnelli. In fact, Minnelli always has an eye for his scenes, and there’s nothing different about this film. We are watching the players of course, but the space they fill, the clothes they wear, and so on are almost just as interesting. Colors pop making for vibrant viewing to match the spectacle. The climactic moments feel rather Hitchcockian with the pulse-pounding intensity set to the backdrop of a bustling carnival and the Elmer Bernstein score reverberates with his usual fervor.

Dean Martin is the comedy. Arthur Kennedy is necessary. Shirley MacLaine is the tragedy. Martha Hyer is rationality. But Frank Sinatra is the core of this film because he balances a surface level cynicism with genuine affection. He shows his interior on multiple occasions. His eyes watch over his niece with great care. His heart yearns for Gwen ardently, and he holds a deep sympathy for Ginny. Sinatra was in many quality films, but this is perhaps his greatest performance.

Is it blasphemy that in many ways I appreciate this James Jones adaptation just as much, if not more than, the long-heralded From Here to Eternity? I suppose I am entitled to my opinion.

4/5 Stars

Ugetsu (1953)

Posted on December 9, 2015 by 4 Star Films

During my film odyssey, I first met Kurosawa, then Ozu, and finally Mizoguchi. Each with similarities and most importantly their own personal touches when it comes to the language of cinema. Kenji Mizoguchi seems especially at home with Japanese folk tales in the jidaigeki mode of Japanese period-dramas. Ugetsu finds its inspiration in such a fable from 18th-century author Ueda Akinari, and it also gathers some inspiration from scroll painting. As the narrative arc begins, it’s as if the story is slowly getting rolled out bit by bit with the camera slowly tracking with the action.

In this case, our subject is a group peasant villagers who live with their wives. Genjuro is a farmer with a penchant for pottery, who has a little boy together with his wife Miyagi. Then, there is the often buffoonish Tobei, who has fantasies of one day becoming a samurai. His wife Ohama often becomes annoyed with his obsession. When marauders come and uproot them from their homes and yet they remain together. However, with the progression of time, Genjuro has become more obsessive over his pottery as avarice overtakes him, and Tobei can no longer quell his desire for military honor. Miyagi particularly notices a change in her husband, because money has become his everything and he has put his heart and soul into that kiln of his. True, it seems to pay heavy dividends when he takes his wares to the marketplace and gets a pretty penny, while also meeting the ravishingly beautiful Lady Wakasa.

For our male protagonists, their wildest dreams begin to play out. Genjuro has begun a euphoric fling with his new mistress with little concern for his wife and child he left behind. Simultaneously Tobei in a stroke of good-fortune captures the severed head of a high ranking general. Although he’s a nobody, he gets in with the right crowd and his greatest wish is granted. He becomes a big shot samurai complete with weapons, armor, tassels, and an imposing entourage.

Meanwhile, unspeakable things are happening to the women in their lives, but the men seem to be lost in their dreams. When they finally are given a heavy dose of reality, it can be painful, even violently chaotic at times. And yet the reality check proves necessary because in a way it allows these men to shake off the ethereal and live in the present — allowing them to be more fully realized versions of themselves.

Mizoguchi rather like Fellini has a great interest in the supernatural or at least dream worlds. It’s far from nightmarish horror at least in the modern sense, but it is an everyday type of horror, where husbands act out on their darkest desires, family members die, and so on. Some would say this is far worst because it hits closer to home. The world of dreamscapes and ghosts overlap with reality.

The director is also constantly utilizing long takes, but they’re far from stagnant, very often panning to the left to accentuate the feel of a scroll being unfurled. Especially in the marketplace you get the sense that you could easily be lost in a sea of people, but Mizoguchi only goes to close-ups at the most opportune moments. Otherwise, he is best suited in pseudo outdoors settings — integrating architecture and nature in perfect cohesion. These facades are put up for people to interact with whether it’s a hut or an outdoor pool, but it never loses its naturalistic beauty.

It feels quintessentially different than his contemporaries, allowing for a thoroughly unique view of the human condition. Certain types of ghosts haunt all of us whether they are choices that we wish we could take back or the hand we are dealt when our lives began. Thus, Ugetsu is remarkably poignant even in its antiquity.

5/5 Stars

Review: The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Posted on December 7, 2015 by 4 Star Films

The Grapes of Wrath is in special company with a number of literary adaptations where film and source material are both so highly regarded and culturally significant. A few other names spring to mind such as Gone with the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

However, even more so than all of those stories John Steinbeck’s novel of exodus during the Dust Bowl has a universal ring reverberating for the common man. The Joads are a humble, simplistic Oklahoma clan, but they are only one family out of many who are forced to make the migration out to California. The Dust Bowl and big business push them off their homes and their only hope is the distant promise land of California. They cling to that hope which keeps them going resolutely onward toward the Orange Groves.

Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) who has just gotten out on parole is the figure from which we see the story through. He’s the focal point certainly, but he is defined by all those around him. Ma Joad (Jane Darwell) is the rock of the family, keeping them together, civil, and spirited even when the worst hardships of life hit.

Grandpa dies on the land that he called home. Grandma dies without the company of her lifelong partner. Rosasharn’s husband cuts out when prospects look bad. The family is slowly drained of money, food, gasoline, and hope when they see that the prospects in California are far from good. The book has so much to say politically and socially, using the Joads as a universal parable to reflect the reality of a great many people.

Obviously, John Ford’s film cannot contain all the exposition and commentary of the novel, but he uses the visual medium brilliantly and the Nunnally Johnson’s script fills the screen with all sorts of folks. There are no true villains and the only heroes are those who maintain their humanity and treat others well on a day to day basis. Ma Joad is one, offering food to starving children because it’s the right thing to do. A roadside waitress comes off brusque at first before extending a true act of kindness. You have the genial caretaker (Grant Mitchell) of the Wheat Patch Camp, who is angelic in comparison to so many of the other gruff people the Joads come in contact with.

There’s the scum of the earth. People just doing what they’re told, men just worried about profit, and crooked cops looking to run Okies out. There are those who just grin and bear it to feed their families. They’re part of the problem too and finally, you have Jim Casy and then Tom following in his footsteps.

Former preacher Jim Casy (John Carradine) is a critical figure because he, like so many of the other characters, has lost himself and yet over the course of the film he finds his purpose again. He’s the film’s Christ-like figure (with the initials JC), and yet he seems counter-intuitive to what we expect. But he has the most important things down. He fights for justice and lays down his life for his friends.

Rather like an extensive Dorothea Lange exhibition, cinematographer Gregg Toland shoots the film in beautifully austere and gritty black and white, which feels like a test run for Citizen Kane. However, it remains iconic in its own right with the ways in which it makes the plain, simple, and ordinary cinematic. It’s truly a visual snapshot of Americana with Henry Fonda as our All-American poster boy.

Speaking of Fonda, how could I have lost sight of his character here? Fonda in many ways synonymous with Tom Joad, and I always equate him being a kindly, true blue American. But that’s only part of him. That’s how he acts around his family, but he’s a young man disillusioned by the world. He speaks his mind and is not opposed to fighting back against the injustice. Because that’s what he sees around him. That’s why he kills the man who beats Casy and that’s why he goes out on the road; to be a champion of justice where there isn’t any. It’s an ending more suited for Hollywood at the time than Steinbeck’s original denouement, but it no less poignant or powerful. It doesn’t just stop with the Depression, but it ends up being a whole lot bigger and more universal than that. This is one of the great tales about the human condition, courtesy of one of America’s greatest directors starring one of America’s most legendary actors.

4.5/5 Stars

“I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build, I’ll be there, too.” – Tom Joad