Ace in the Hole

ACE IN THE HOLE is one of the great American movies: deeply rooted in specific ailments of the country, while celebrating other aspects. The film begins with Kirk Douglas' Chuck Tatum, a reporter who's been fired by all the major newspapers, arriving at the Albuquerque Sun in New Mexico. Boisterously, he barges in and demands a job, promising he'll find the paper a big story. A year passes and no such story has come along, Tatum is with a kid-photographer on his way to a story about rattlesnakes, and he comes across a big hit: a man has trapped himself in an old indian cave while searching for pottery. First on the scene, Tatum manipulates the situation, gaining the trust of the captured Leo, and making deals with the sheriff, Leo's wife, and anyone else he can coerce. With Leo under the rocks, Tatum furnishes a seven-day maximum story, brining nationwide attention to what is supposed to be an inevitable triumph against the elements. Tatum's methods are gross and risky, but in order to further himself, they're carried out. Billy Wilder's direction is perfect, the shots are beautiful, and Tatum's decline is one that is complex and riveting. So many films are made nowadays about deplorable people who are supposedly charismatic and thus interesting, but Tatum's decline is one that we all succumb to in admittedly smaller ways.

★★★★★

Bad Day at Black Rock

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK gets it. There is not simply a western here, not simply great performances, not simply a clever plot. Instead, there's an understanding of these events and action under a greater scope. There's a dreaminess to the actions. A stranger with one arm enters an old western town. Paranoid, and expecting the worst, the townspeople begin to threaten him, and he coolly goes about his business, speckled with vicious townspeople attacks in between. What's shown here is the dying western, incompatible with the new, odd world which consists of war and scope. Great.
Bad Day at Black Rock: ★★★★

The Night of the Hunter

The first time I saw Charles Laughton's THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, I remember a sense of bafflement after it. What to make of it? It references nothing (accidentally so, German Expressionism), but, truly, purely, is a work of originality. Seeping between fairytale imagery, animal life, shadows, civil war songs, and Robert Mitchum's towering presence is great filmmaking intertwining everything together. Out of nowhere, shot in a swoop, Mitchum's Preacher enters the lives of two children with a dead father, a teddy bear filled with cash he stole, and a ditzy mother. He takes advantage of them, seeking the stolen money after hearing of it from the father when they were jailed together. H-A-T-E written on his left hand, L-O-V-E written on his right, Mitchum gives one of cinema's best performances, singing, killing, and in shadows all the time. The film is such a mystery though, its imagery, camera movements, sensations could have only come out of Laughton's head. His only film, it's a masterpiece: a work of all-out expression depicting good and evil.
The Night of the Hunter: ★★★★

All That Heaven Allows

Douglas Sirk as a filmmaker is a master. His colors, tones, direction, staging, is all flawless. His stories are daring too, soaked in sap, but so wonderfully handled, that such a thing can be embraced. ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS burrows into the culture of the 1950's, and of a widow living alone who falls in love with her gardener. Cary (Jane Wyman), the widow, is well-off, sees her over-schooled children almost every weekend, and only has to deal with the snide remarks of a cruel neighbor. She's a member of a higher class, but that position is broken after the death of her husband. Instead, she has to look out for herself, and that's not popular at the tea parties. Unhappy with a myriad of suitors, Cary finds her gardener to be most alluring. Ron (Rock Hudson), the gardener, is a sort of pure environmentalist. He has a friend who reads Walden every day, but he's never read it because to read it would be to be ordered by Thoreau. Ron's a man of that tradition though, he thinks purely for himself, and has little influences. He becomes enamored with Cary, and they end up falling in love: Cary swept off her feet and into a woodside cabin. She becomes afraid of how everything will look to the public, and Sirk handles the middle section of the film as a social commentary on the wrongheadedness of judging high class members. In resolution though, Cary makes many failures, and then rectifies them. This is the boldest part of the film to first admit that Cary could make such failures, but has the power to rectify them. This is so much more worthwhile than tales that paint the woman as infallible, for isn't that just as myth-like? Sirk's film is beautiful and vast.
All That Heaven Allows: ★★★★

House on Haunted Hill

I would say that the 1959 film, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is the best film on Halloween that exists. Halloween, at first, suggests horror, but behind that horror there is the knowledge that such things as witches and monsters do not exist. This is the intent of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. In the film, a wealthy mogul named Fredrick Loren (played by the legendary Vincent Price), invites a group of five people to a house he owns. The house is supposedly haunted, and is a notorious eyesore in an abandoned part of town. Loren tells the five that they will all have a little party, and if they can stay the night, he will pay them $10,000. This seems like easy money to the five, and they all show up for the fun. However, everything goes wrong, and in shocking scenes filled with empty space and gorgeous lighting, the ghosts come out. There is a lot of clever and smart filmmaking at work. Not only is the story quite clever, and the end brilliant, but the way that tension builds (and the reasoning for why tension building is important) is occasionally quite scary. What Price and director William Castle accomplish is a shared hysteria. The five visitors are all unreliable source of information, and the camera never follows any one of them too carefully. This makes for a treasure of a film, entertaining and well made.
House on Haunted Hill: ★★★1/2

Rear Window

By the time I reached REAR WINDOW, the last of the consensus-great Hitchcock films I hadn't seen, it became apparent to me that Hitchcock does not have a "best" film. While I watched it, I recognized old feelings that Hitchcock had arisen within me in his other films. Namely, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, VERTIGO, TO CATCH A THIEF, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, DIAL M FOR MURDER, and NOTORIOUS. I realize now that Hitchcock's "best" films each do something great in a different light. In REAR WINDOW, for example, voyeurism and a contained space is used brilliantly. But this is very unlike NORTH BY NORTHWEST, which is epic in scale. REAR WINDOW, the 1957 film by Hitchcock, was filmed on a set built by Hitchcock that comprises of the apartment buildings' façades, and a garden between them. Inside of the buildings, L.B. Jefferies, a photographer, sits in a wheelchair with a broken leg. He is quite bored, but looks out his window incessantly at his neighbors; each of which he has learned something about in the past weeks. Jefferies (played by a dark, but pleasant James Stewart) has this routine interrupted by a nurse named Stella (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend / fiancé whom he does not wish to marry, but loves. She is obsessed with dresses as a model, wearing a different, expensive one every day. She is played by Grace Kelly: a perfect Hitchcock icy blonde. Jefferies remarks on his observations to these two women, and one night, while obsessively looking through a telephoto lens at a neighbor, he sees what he thinks to be a murder. He does not actually see the murder take place, but sees a broken series of events / images. This is what we, the audience do as well. We see broken pieces of a story and piece them together, and like Jefferies (who is immobile) in this case, we are unable to do anything about what we see through the lens. Jefferies, however, has these two women at his disposal, who eventually develop his ideas within their minds as if they were convinced audience members. Jefferies watches these women venture out into danger, and we feel his anguish at being immobile. Hitchcock's use of a subdued setting and suspense here is masterful.
Rear Window: ★★★★

Street of Shame

Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi's favorite subject was always prostitutes, and for his last film, that's what he burrowed into. STREET OF SHAME tells of a whorehouse and an ensemble of prostitutes working the street surrounding it. Each one of them has a specific and desperate necessity to be a hooker, but the Japanese government is considering banning the practice. The head of the whorehouse tells the girls that he and the 'missus' are the ones that really care about them, and that the government considers them less than people, even though they provide a social service. One of the women works to send money to her son, who is ashamed of her. Another seems to do it for fun, but later this develops into a dark greed. Another is raising money for sick husband, and her starving son. And yet another flees the whorehouse to look for a better life, but is told at the employment office that she might as well just become a whore. The necessity that Mizoguchi implants into his characters is essential, and he shows scenes broken up from each other so that the head of the whorehouse can applaud his workers in one scene, and cheat them while calling them merchandise in another. Mizoguchi's masterful use of mis-en-scene is at play here as well, fathers of whores enter and speak to their clothed daughters about the elephant in the room while pictures of naked women adorn the walls. Mizoguchi's composition is naturalistic, and yet evocative of the shame that the women face, and what they are forced to do. STREET OF SHAME is a fine film, although perhaps a little long or under-plotted.
Street of Shame: ★★★

Strangers on a Train

The 1951 film, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is quite the accomplishment. It features great acting, and Hitchcock's recognizably pleasing direction. It was co-written by Raymond Chandler, and is about two strangers, one a lazy psychopath, the other a tennis player, who meet on a train and plot to kill each other's annoyances. Robert Walker (the psychopath) and Farley Granger (the tennis player) are the two men, who talk of this prospect. It would be perfect. No one would suspect, and neither could be implicated in the other's crime. But when Granger leaves the train for his hometown, the idea leaves his head, as he was never actually serious about it. But the completely serious Walker goes through with the plot, and kills Granger's troublesome wife. This shocks Granger, and now Walker expects Granger to kill his father. Walker plays such a great character, fiddling around with Granger's lighter which could implicate him in the crime, going to tennis matches, and in the midst of the people looking back and forth stares straight ahead. Hitchcock uses his trademark obsession of items, showing us Walker while the camera sits beside the lighter, and obsessing over a certain style of glasses. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is a damn good Hitchcock film.
Strangers on a Train: ★★★1/2

Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man

I've seen almost all of the Abbott & Costello films. They all follow the same general formula as well, except for a few standouts that serve as exceptions. In most of the films, there's some plot going on that involves a love triangle, or estranged relationships, and the man within the relationship stumbles across Abbott or Costello or the other way around. Then, Abbott and Costello attempt to help in the situation, Costello gets the crap beaten out of him, and Abbott either makes some money, or just gets to sit back and smirk. The duo are extremely appealing, they're not of the "let's be weird to be funny" tradition that came right after them. There's also a sadness within their characters not unlike the pathos evoked by Charlie Chaplin, and their real-life selves were all but content human beings. In ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN, the duo come across the Invisible Man, who, like in the 1930's film, is going on a rampage despite the wariness of his friends and family. This is more of a purposeful Invisible Man though, and he only really goes crazy when he gets drunk. The gags involved, and the seamless special effects are extremely well done, and the film is still pretty funny. Unlike some of the other A&C films, there aren't just random scenes to allow the duo to be funny, but their comedy is integrated with the theme of an invisible man. It's one of their better films.
Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man: ★★★

Invaders from Mars

INVADERS FROM MARS perfectly captures the classic alien invasion movie. It has it all, idealistic towns that don't actually exist, goofy looking aliens, insane cosmological logic, men with a lot of silver make-up to make them look like, immediately, aliens, and the right textile feel. As IFM starts and a somewhat corny household is established, everything that has been sure is about to be broken by the invaders. As the young boy of the household peers out of his window in the early morning, he sees a spaceship fall. After alerting his dad, who jollily attributes it to nightmares, he then turns dark and serious as he sets out to investigate. The general premise after this is that by this house, where the aliens from Mars have landed, the aliens lurk underground and suck up whoever comes by with whirpool-like sand. After you've been taken by the aliens, you become a mere slave to them, and do their bidding. There's some plot concerning the motives of the aliens, but this is shrugged off, for all that really matters is for the boy from the opening scene to be reunited with his sane parents. INVADERS FROM MARS employs the use of surrealistic objects like pillars, ominous choral music, changes in color, and creepy landscapes to its benefit. In no way is the film anything but entertaining, and for an alien invasion film, that's all that should be asked.
Invaders from Mars: ★★★

The Searchers

The Searchers was one of the most life-changing films I have ever seen. It deals with a mysticism created by John Wayne (the quintessential cowboy) who enters into a journey for a lost girl to indian tribes and brutally searches for her under the worst of landscapes, but the most beautiful from afar and from the camera's lens. Directed by one of the greatest of American directors, John Ford, the film seeps with realism rather than sappiness. There is a hardness and grit to Wayne's character that evokes a languor and an unmatched sadness with a quick hand for a gun. This is a man who is hateful because he has been injured. When Wayne mutilates the body of a dead indian to ensure his block towards the holy land, we see that he does it because of a hatred that has been implanted into his character. Wayne's cowboy lives on the plains outside of politics and rhetoric, and on those plains it is a singular gun that ensures safety or death. The complexities raised by Ford's film seeps into the American landscape of film, it shows a man who literally rides in on a horse to save a community from a dubious problem. It is the beauty of the cowboy western to have the scene where he gives a last, stoic look towards those who needed help, and then rides off, leaving the town desolate and solitary to fight for itself. Perhaps the purpose of Wayne's cowboy is to serve as an example for a community, but to show the imperfection of a figure who is supposedly immersed in goodness. A great film, and more elegiac than the most "serious" of films.

Umberto D

Recently, I have tried to stray from reviewing films from memory. The benefit to this process was that the films had settled in my mind, but the reviews were not as visceral or fresh as they would be otherwise. However, with Umberto D, which parried its way across my mind in the early morning wind brush to school, I remembered the film and its images more freshly than my realization of its greatness had been after seeing the film originally. The film is essentially an exercise within genre. The genre is neo-realism, which consistently utilized non-actors in order to create a realistic feel. Perhaps it is this feel that has returned, as we plight through events are not of any real importance but to the party concerned. Umberto D considers a man whose name the title is, and his descent into inevitability: which includes old age, companionship that is obligatory to such a condition, and poverty within amiability (which often seems inappropriate and causes discomfort). As Umberto loves his dog Flike, he moves through the life of poverty methodically, as we all do within our own lives: collecting and sustaining, and implanting self-improtance to make it all worthwhile. What is so endearing about the observatory nature of Umberto D is the realization of empathy within what could have been anonymity. As something trite and obvious, perhaps even forgettable, becomes slowly abstract through the observatory camera, we sense that perhaps the actor who evokes Umberto experiences these things too. That we all experience such things.
Umberto D: ★★★★

The Sound of Fury/Try and Get Me!

The Sound of Fury is a fine, 1950 film noir. It has all of the marking of noir, and although it is devoid of striking camera movements, it is at times inventive with them while maintaining the main theme of film noir. This is, of course, the average man who is sucked into evil by unfortunate circumstances. And so we are left to consider Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy). He is unemployed but dearly loves his family and their approval. Seeing no alternative, Howard turns to crime for the allure of big bucks is to much to pass up. He gets mixed up with Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges, father of Jeff Bridges). Slocum and Howard end up robbing a few minor stores, but pulling in a decent heap. The media makes a big deal out of all of this, instigated mostly by a journalist played by Richard Carlson. Eventually, things begin to go downhill for Howard, as the evil of his actions begin to arise. Now, the beginning of The Sound of Fury is quite good. The family portrait and the descent into shadiness is well done, and the opening title is a wonder. The film is especially good at conveying the normality of man, and how it can be twisted around to form spectral figures in our heads that we can demonize. This is not a great film, however, because the end finally feels preachy and self-righteous. Not to minimize some truly great scenes that come before this however, The Sound of Fury is a good film.
The Sound of Fury/Try and Get Me!: ★★★

Gojira

The name of the film that should be Godzilla is Gojira. I think it's actually fitting, because when the trampled asians say: Godzilla, it sounds like Gojira!!! It's quite funny, and probably one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen that unfortunately takes itself seriously. It's such a crude looking film with the dinosaur Godzilla jumping and simultaneously shooting fire into multiple buildings blocks apart. But who cares, it's fucking Godzilla! The story should be familiar: radiation from the bombing around WWII have caused a freak of nature dinosaur to emerge from the sea to fuck up the people who were hurt as bad is it was. (Wouldn't it have made more sense for Godzilla to attack the Allies?) Whatever, dinosaurs are idiots anyway. Gojira shouldn't even be awarded stars because it's just so dumb and silly. For eight year olds it might serve some purpose for the Rawr, rawr, rawr of clay dinosaurs, but it's essentially schlock that gained popularity for some godawful reason.
Gojira: ★★

The Thing: From Another World!

Science fiction is often frowned upon. Science fiction from the 1950's is constantly frowned upon. This is stupid. They are accused as being jingoistic and exhibiting man conquering the monster that he created with radiation in the first place. Some are. Some ridiculously so. Not The Thing. It's clever. It's different. It was made in 1951, starring James Arness as the Thing and produced by the influential name in Hollywood: Howard Hawks. It starts with a team of military men going up to the Arctic to answer the call of a group of scientists. The scientists have been picking up massive amounts of radiation from what they assume to be a fallen meteor. The group goes out to the site, and discover a saucer like burn in the ice. Instead of chipping out the saucer, they use explosives. The saucer goes with it, except that the ejected pilot lies frozen in ice. They chip him out, take him back to the base, an idiot puts an electric blanket over the block of ice and what do you get? Why just an 8 foot tall THING (from another world). This movie is such utter fun! It's obviously bullshit, but you have to know that going in. It is what it is, and it does it damn well. It scared the living shit out of me the first time I saw it. Sure, I was eight but even seeing it recently it had an effect. It's fun, silly, and damn entertaining.
The Thing: From Another World!: ★★★

The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter is one of those films that is shockingly great. It is not only one of my personal favorite films of all time, but I think, one of the actual best shot ever. Technically, German Expressionism is apparent throughout Night of the Hunter, lines and angles feel like they shouldn't be stopping at the screen, they appear crude and gorgeous. It's one of the best looking pictures ever made. It's also a fantasy, and at a level higher than that which fantasy usually offers. We get shots of the dead underneath the fishing-poles of children, animals who resemble the people in the film in their deviousness, and a seeping fear throughout. The tale is of a preacher (Robert Mitchum) who marries into the decent American family, and shatters them from the inside out. On his left knuckles, he has written: Hate. On his right: Love. The film is about how things can go awry in a nightmarish sense, and then how classically good values can fight that evil. This is apparent within the film with Lillian Gish playing a kindly but stern matron figure. There is never any outstanding violence in the film, but the sense that that violence is about to come out, or that it has happened without anyone noticing. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is a superior film.

The Seventh Seal

The Seventh Seal was released in 1958 by the great swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman. It is in a different language, it was released over fifty years ago. Does that lessen its impact today at all? Not at all. For The Seventh Seal embodies a mood, a time, and a specific idea. For, The Seventh Seal  is something like a period piece. It takes place in the middle ages, and just how the ideas Bergman shows existed in those times existed now, they still exist in 2011. It is a timeless classic. It begins with a knight played by Max Von Sydow (who acted in 2010's Shutter Island) who is tired and weary after the crusades. He has cheated death in the crusades, and he will attempt to cheat him again. Death comes for the knight, but the knight is intelligent and decides to postpone and perhaps even cheat death by playing him in a game of chess. Death is clever too and poses as different townspeople to learn what the knight's strategy will be. The entire film is not just about chess though, for in its gorgeously shot story we get many other colorful characters. The movie is about deviousness and the silence of god. God does not help these people and they are left to fight against pure evil. Their fate is merely the natural conclusion.