In many ways, Peter Yates’ Breaking Away is a typical genre entry: the story of a small town, one where many people never leave, and its limitations on the youth, and a coming-of-age tale. The supporting characters, such as Mike (Dennis Quaid) and Cyril (Daniel Stern), are pretty vanilla. But the material is elevated by a fascinating dynamic between the film’s protagonist Dave (Dennis Christopher) and his grumpy, resistant-to-culture, yet ultimately loving father (Paul Dooley). Early on, we think that Dave’s father is just an asshole who’s bitter that his son has grander ambitions than to sell used cars: Dave is obsessed with learning Italian, primarily because they’re the best bikers in the world, and is clearly smart enough to get into and attend college, even if he’s leaning towards passing. For much of the movie, Dave’s dad could pass for a stereotype of conservative, rural American father’s who wake up every morning dreading that their son might be gay: the father nearly has a heart attack when he walks in on Dave shaving his legs, which he was doing to mimic the Italian bike riders’ techniques. But a funny thing happens—as Dave begins to learn humility through women and the rare taste of cycling defeat, his father begins to change as well, without any irritating plot devices guiding him. Oh, he remains somewhat corrupt and old-fashioned, but his desire for his son to share in his misery starts to melt away (”I didn’t want you to be this miserable. A little bit’s all I asked for.”) The triumphant ending teeters on twee, but feels warranted enough—due to the strong writing that establishes Dave’s character and relationships with those around him—to give it a pass and enjoy the moment right along with him.

66/100

Though Leo McCarey is best known for his screwballs, his greatest skill appears to be the drama. Make Way For Tomorrow (1937) is one of my all-time favorite films, and this underseen gem from 1935, featuring Charles Laughton as the dignified butler Marmaduke Ruggles who ultimately yearns for an identity of his own, is alternately charming and deeply touching. Ruggles of Red Gap opens with the discovery that the Earl of Burnstead, George Vane Bassingwell (Roland Young), has lost his loyal servant Ruggles in a poker game. The winners? The Floud’s, a late-middle aged couple from Red Gap, a small town in rural Washington: Effie (Mary Boland) and Egbert (Charles Ruggles; ironic, or something). Desperate for some sophistication in her saloon-driven Western town, Effie brings Ruggles back to stay with and serve them, hoping his impeccable manners and pristine ways will rub off on Egbert, a hard-drinking, mustachioed cowboy sort, and the town as a whole.

One of McCarey’s gifts is how he deftly spreads the sentiment around. Here, Ruggles may be the centerpiece, but Effie is perhaps the most interesting and sympathetic character. Here’s a woman who fashions herself an elderly bourgeoise-in-training, who wishes for nothing more than to possess extreme grace and to host lavish dinners and cocktail parties…but she’s completely lost on how to act, beyond insisting that her sloppy husband ditch the plaid jackets and buy some proper suits. There’s a wonderful moment where Ruggles fails to show up to orchestrate a dinner party, and an overmatched Effie stammers, stumbles, and ad-libs while 30 guests look on in bemusement. It’s both quite funny, especially with Egbert staggering around rebelliously—a common occurrence—and moving: Effie’s chosen to settle in a place where her wants are completely at odds with the town’s ways, and it’s too late for her to really learn them herself or to put down roots elsewhere. If McCarey’s social commentary on class disparities and lifestyles isn’t exactly Buñuelian, it certainly makes it points: some things can’t be taught, and some things are unacceptable in certain parts of the country, and the world.

And Ruggles? He fits into this equation neatly, also discovering that trying to be someone you’re not is tougher than it first appears. Ultimately, however, he finds the courage to break with family tradition and set off on his own path, and eventually earns a satisfying—and much-deserved—acceptance from the people of Red Gap (Egbert among them, though he shows it’s not so easy to change ones stripes, especially when it might affect the flow of whiskey and back-slapping with the boys). Ruggles of Red Gap is always entertaining, sharply written and directed, and features superb performances from all three leads. Its mix of comedy and drama is smoothly handled by McCarey, and warrants more attention than it’s received in most film circles. And if it’s not quite Make Way For Tomorrow…really, what is?

77/100

Since Tim Burton peaked in the early 90’s with Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood—and, to a lesser extent, the wildly creative Beetlejuice—he’s been mostly on auto-pilot, save for 2007’s excellent Sweeney Todd. Simply pick a topic & filmic universe that should jive with his loopy imagination (Big Fish; Planet of the Apes; Corpse Bride; etc), and expect the combination of his name and a classic story to automatically produce a great film. His latest, Alice in Wonderland, fits this formula perfectly. Theoretically, Burton’s style should produce eye-popping results for Alice and friends, particularly in our souped-up 3D age. Alas, it’s mostly a bore, punctuated with the same old players and the same old “fantastical” world. I love Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter as much as anyone, but just tossing them into every film doesn’t create instant success. For a movie about imagination, Alice in Wonderland is sorely lacking in it, and leaves almost nothing to it either. The key characters—Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum; the Red Queen; etc—are presented in bright color schemes, much like the rest of wonderland, but there’s no energy to any of it. Alice in Wonderland reminds me most of Sleepy Hollow: empty, faux-atmospheric, and without soul. Depp’s Hatter is without spunk; Bonham Carter’s Red Queen does little more than bellow “off with his head” 90 times. And the 3D, which worked so well in, say, 2009’s Coraline, adds absolutely nothing here—only a few bugs pop, and the backgrounds don’t feel any richer. The best thing about the movie is a hookah-smoking caterpillar. It’s difficult to explain why I keep going back to Burton’s well given my recent disappointments, but I do. Maybe I’m just holding out hope that he’ll snap out of his funk and throw some genuine love back into his work sometime soon.

30/100

I’ve now seen three Joseph Losey films, with The Prowler following The Boy With Green Hair (1948) and These Are The Damned (1963). The best phrase I can think of to describe my reaction to his work is harmless indifference. I like Losey’s directorial creativity from a thought process standpoint, but the finished product seems to be a mediocre expression of a talented mind. The Prowler, for instance, opens with the attractive Susan Gilvray (Evenlyn Keyes) soaking in the bathtub in the evening. She glances out the open windows, screams, and closes the blinds. Losey then cuts to two policeman—Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) and Bud Crocker (John Maxwell)—knocking on the front door of her palatial California home, investigating her call of a stranger skulking about on her front lawn. This is important: as The Prowler progresses, we quickly begin to question whether or not there even was a prowler at all. Was Susan, the wife of the famous radio DJ John Gilvray (Sherry Hall)—a man whom she, and we, hardly ever see—simply clamoring for attention? Was her loneliness causing her eyes to play tricks? Or did she really see something? The Prowler gradually evolves into a depiction of lust, emotional & sexual insecurity, and just how far people will go—and where their boundaries lie.

All this makes for a pretty cool setup, which makes the perfectly-passable-but-fairly-bland end result all the more disappointing. There’s just a lack of energy to the entire proceedings: the final 20 minutes in a dusty ghost town are fairly strong, but mediocre acting keeps them from having any major clout. Heflin in particular is a weak choice for a leading role: his facial expressions seem to be permanently etched in either some sort of smirk or a look of disgust. Losey’s script is fine, but doesn’t really draw the audience in, or inspire compassion for any of the characters. As a result, even The Prowler’s best sequences lack any deep emotional heft. This all sounds a bit harsher than it should, really—The Prowler is entertaining, brisk, and certainly not a shallow work. But it leaves the viewer with this lingering feeling of what could have been.

56/100

For a debut, Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming is an impressive effort, but it lacks the resonance or flexibility of his The Squid and the Whale, released ten years later. By that, I mean that Kicking and Screaming, which tells the tale of a bunch of college graduates mostly unwilling to take the plunge into the real world, would likely resonate strongly to those in that place in their lives, but feels far, far away to those who aren’t. Unlike, say, Reality Bites, there’s not enough emotional heft in Baumbach’s rapid-fire script to transcend its narrow focus (this is something Baumbach corrected in his wrenching The Squid and the Whale, then regressed in Margot at the Wedding, which also lacked anyone to really latch onto). Kicking and Screaming has a very sharp screenplay, and is, at times, quite funny, but there’s no real poignancy, and even the best written sequences drag a bit, or don’t work as well as they could or should (case in point: Baumbach test-runs his divorce plot-line, which stems from his personal experience, in a brief encounter between Grover and his father, but it winds up being merely amusing, not rich in subtext). Baumbach is still clearly finding his footing here, and while it’s an admirable opening act, it’s most notable for its hints of what’s to come (in addition to directing and penning The Squid and the Whale, Baumbach also co-wrote Wes Anderson’s hilarious-and-witty Fantastic Mr. Fox).

58/100

Though strong in many facets, my biggest issue with Mervyn LeRoy’s I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang is that its primary turning points are built on shaky premises. First, when James Allen (a superb Paul Muni) is wrongly convicted of robbery and sent off to serve a seven-year sentence in a chain gang, it seems like a stretch to believe that he would been so definitively convicted. The actual criminal, who was killed while trying to make a run for it, attempted to use Allen as a prop right in front of the diner owner’s face. Allen clearly resists helping the robber, doing so only because a gun is pointed squarely in his face. That the owner wouldn’t have explained to the cops that there was no evidence the two were together—they came at different times—is fairly ludicrous, even if Allen did instinctively run out of fear once the robber was shot.

Secondly, when Allen, who had escaped, settled elsewhere, and worked his way up the ladder to fulfilling his lifelong post-war dream of becoming a successful engineer, is fingered and his true identity revealed, the subsequence PR battle and conflicting views on whether the “reformed” Allen should be sent back to finish his time or be set free is deftly handled by LeRoy, illustrating the moral conundrum for those not in the know. But when the lawyers hash out a compromise, it’s apparently not put in writing, and Allen turns himself in based on something with no legal backing, and winds up serving out a long stretch of his term as appeal after appeal is denied. This seems even more absurd than the first chink: would Allen, now a powerful man with powerful friends and powerful connections, really agree to serve 90 days without ironclad assurance that he’d be out afterwards, no questions asked? It’s a shame that these narrative implausibilities detract from an otherwise engaging, interesting picture: LeRoy’s depiction of the brutality of the chain gangs makes one question their constitutionality and place, his compositions are rich and full, and Muni injects Allen with passion, ambition, frustration and optimism all in one at various times. The shadowy final shot is extremely memorable. There’s enough here to make I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang worthwhile, but its problems are deep enough to keep it a long way from sniffing greatness. It’s too flawed a work to merit such high praise.

56/100

If it’s not quite Sunset Boulevard, Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful stands on its own as a scathing portrait of Hollywood’s cutthroat ways and means. Set in the smoky back rooms of Los Angeles studios—in fact, self-serving producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) is puffing a cigarette in nearly every scene—The Bad and the Beautiful is the tale of how the manipulative Shields used three of those closest to him for personal gain, yet deeply contributed to their eventual career success. Plagued-with-self-doubt director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), beautiful-but-masochistic actress Georgia Larrison (Lana Turner), and beleaguered writer James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) all taste the double-crossing wrath of Shields, the son of a hated movie bigwig who lusts for power and to prove that he’s more than just a loathed man’s child. Early on, it’s difficult to envision that Shields will pull it off: his initial meeting with Amiel is at his father’s funeral, where Amiel served as one of many mourners paid eleven bucks by Shields so his father wouldn’t be buried in complete solitude. His grand family home is stripped barren a la Citizen Kane; a bottle of gin and a few paintings are all that’s left. The last of his dollars went to Amiel & company at the funeral. Before he’s accomplished a thing on his own, Shields appears in grave danger of fading into total obscurity.

And yet, the opposite happens. Rather than succumb to his fate, Shields begins working in a bit role producing B-movies, and then leverages an opportunity—Amiel’s ambitious script for an adaptation of a favorite novel—into landing the star Gaucho (Gilbert Roland). So begins Shields’ ascent into one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures, and it starts with how it will often continue: back-stabbing someone close to him. In this instance, Amiel gets tossed to the curb once his script is accepted, as Shields elects to go in a different direction. The Bad and the Beautiful continues on this path, a series of extended flashbacks—the film opens with producer Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon) trying to coax the three into one final project with Shields—depicting how Shields built up, and subsequently tore down, the trio’s hopes and dreams. Its message, that the adversity and heartbreak of Hollywood can toughen one up, creating a star that wouldn’t have been there otherwise, is delivered strongly and smoothly in the first two acts (Amiel and Larrison’s backstories). The third segment, Bartlow’s, is a bit uneven: though it has some great moments, the premise that the circumstances in question could be viewed as a ‘positive,’ no matter what became of Bartlow’s screenwriting career afterwards, is at best a stretch and at worst downright offensive. Still, the overarching themes are delivered strongly, often ruthlessly, and Minnelli’s controlled-but-penetrating direction, coupled with powerful performances by Douglas, Turner—an alcohol-soaked encounter between the two in a tightly-framed room is riveting—and the rest of the cast, including Gloria Grahame (In a Lonely Place; The Big Heat) as Bartlow’s feisty wife make The Bad and the Beautiful a mostly excellent work. Shields is unable to grasp true happiness, no matter how much authority he gets, no matter how full his mansion becomes. And the final few images, filmed outside Pebbel’s offices after the three make their decision, are a perfect portrayal of Hollywood’s unique, yet turbulent, allure.

73/100

SOME SPOILERS ARE PRESENT IN THIS ESSAY! NONE SHOULD REALLY HINDER YOUR ENJOYMENT & APPRECIATION OF SANSHÔ THE BAILIFF, BUT IF YOU PREFER TO GO INTO IT WITH A BLANK SLATE, I’D SUGGEST WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU WATCH IT TO READ THIS REVIEW.

Has a director ever had more extraordinary back-to-back years than Kenji Mizoguchi in 1953 and 1954? With Ugetsu and then Sanshô the Bailiff, Mizoguchi produced two of the decade’s greatest masterpieces, and two of the finest films to ever come out of Japan…and the world. Picking between the two is, for me, like apples and oranges, and entirely unnecessary; it mostly depends on which I’ve seen most recently. Having just finished up a third viewing of Sanshõ, the time seemed right for a long overdue review of one of my favorite movies from a director who, when at his best, is as masterful as any filmmaker, alive or dead. Sanshõ the Bailiff focuses on dual primary themes: a thorough condemning of medieval Japan’s slave trade, and the heartrending story of Zushiõ (Yoshiaki Hanayagi), and Anju (Kyõko Kagawa), which takes the center stage for much of the picture. Ironically, Mizoguchi was forced by his production studio to make this the film’s focal point—he passionately wanted Sanshõ (Eitarõ Shindõ), the brutal administer of the slave camp where Zushiõ and Anju are sold, to be at the story’s forefront. It’s a testament to Mizoguchi’s greatness that he was able to smoothly, if unhappily, adjust to his studio’s demands and put forth such a brilliant work.

Sanshõ the Bailiff begins with Zushiõ and Anju’s father, Masauji (Masao Shimizu)—the Governor of Tango—being banished from his post by his superior officer, a feudal warlord who has no patience for Masauji’s humanistic tendencies. This initial scene does much to shape Sanshõ the Bailiff’s trajectory. Firstly, it establishes the “noble father as a role model” angle that permeates throughout the movie: before being roughly escorted away by armed guards, Masauji tells his children that they’ll be nothing without compassion and selflessness. This worldview is heavily steeped in Japanese culture, and it emerges again and again throughout the film. Secondly, it sets in motion Zushiô and Anju’s tragic arc—with Masauji gone, their mother Tamaki (Kinuyo Tanaka) is forced to take the children to live with Masauji’s brother. After a few years of toiling in obscurity, they’re tricked by a devious priestess and sold into slavery: Tamaki is sent to Sado, and Zushiô & Anju to Sanshô’s estate. Mizoguchi films the excruciating separation on the beach with crystal compositions, and it’s not a coincidence that Sanshô the Bailiff’s most emotional moments occur by the water: at a time when canoes were among the most advanced forms of transportation available, “departures” from lakes and oceans symbolize a goodbye of undetermined lengths, and arrivals to the shores can be seen as miracles.

Zushiô and Anju are immediately put to work despite their extreme youth (when the eight-year old Anju is roughly thrust into the fields on her first day, a kindly middle-aged female slave memorably grumbles, ” she should be playing with dolls.”) The extent of Sanshô’s cruelty quickly becomes apparent: he brands a slave’s forehead with a red-hot poker for trying to run away, and later has a woman’s Achilles tendon slashed for the same reason. He relishes his position of power over the disadvantaged, and doesn’t have a single compassionate bone in his body. Fortunately for Zushiô and Anju, Sanshô’s son  Taro (Akitake Kôno) is much gentler than his father, and grows fond of the children. He believes their story that they come from nobility, but advises them to bide their time until they’re old enough to have a chance at successfully escaping. By this point, Mizoguchi has begun to draw the distinction between good and evil, while making it clear that the lines can still blur. We see this as the children age: Zushiô comes close to giving in to the culture he’s been thrust into when he brands a potential escapee at Sanshô’s instructions. But when Anj, whose soul has not been at all corrupted, hears a recent arrival singing a song about her and her brother, one picked up in Sado, she knows her mother is alive, and it fills her and Zushió with newfound purpose. They pick their spots, and once Zushiô makes it out, with plenty of help, Sanshô the Bailiff shifts gears: the tragedy takes a different direction, and the film focuses on Zushiô being reborn, first by claiming his father’s old job as Governor of Tango, and then sacrificing that power by overstepping it, imposing his will on the private sector, and, with support for his noble aims, freeing all of Sanshô’s slaves. In this sense, Sanshô the Bailiff can also be viewed through the prism of Government’s reach, and what it should and should not be allowed to interfere with. Obviously, the history of our country’s slave trade draws a sharp parallel.

One of Sanshô the Bailiff’s strongest traits is the fluidity of narrative, and the accompanying lyrical cinematography. Every sequence develops gracefully, every character evolves and ends true to their ideals that Mizoguchi so poetically develops early on. Zushiô ultimately lives by his father’s teachings, and feels deeply stained by his role in the branding. Sanshô, the embodiment of cruelty until the end, never repents or recognizes the errors of his ways: the tight compositions in his lair emphasize his closed-minded mentality. And Tamaki, alone in Sado for so many years, never loses hope that her children will have managed to persevere: our final encounter with her near the film’s conclusion is so beautiful and so deserved, it could make a rock weep. There’s nary a flaw in the entirety of Sanshô the Bailiff: top-notch performances, subtle sound editing, and expert pacing are present for its entirety. A richly layered masterpiece, Sanshô the Bailiff deserves a spot near the highest pantheon of world cinema.

98/100

I’ll say this for Nicholas Roeg: the man can shoot a sunset. The most beautiful sequences in Walkabout feature dazzling shades of reds and oranges across the sky: the shot to the left is a prime example. Roeg films them in foregrounds, backgrounds, and from all different angles. The aforementioned colors are used in several strong scenes involving raging fire as well. In fact, his entire use of natural lighting is masterful. Unfortunately, Roeg’s luscious color palette is easily the most engrossing thing about Walkabout, which focuses on a brother and sister stranded in the outback under horrifying circumstances. Unequipped to battle the wilderness—an early moment shows the girl (played by Jenny Agutter; no actual name is given for any of the major characters) in an airy home with ocean views and all the comforts of society, emphasizing her dependence on modern conveniences—the boy and girl are close to expiring until they meet the black boy, an aborigine on a walkabout. Forming a non-verbal friendship—they don’t understand a word of each other’s languages, other than “water” after some effort—the black boy toughens them up and helps get them back to the real world. Roeg’s messages are clear enough: the awesome power of nature (every other scene appears to involve cuts to small animals of some kind), and how technological ingenuity breeds an unhealthy reliance. But Walkabout, despite an interesting premise and a skilled director, rarely spoke to me. Herzog’s approach to the first of the above themes (Aguirre, etc) is much more dynamic, and Roeg’s cinematography, while beautiful, borders on excessive and repetitive much of the time. The unspoken relationship between the children and the black boy is pretty dull, and Roeg’s editing feels pretentious at times, particularly the rapid-fire cuts from primal techniques (spearing a kangaroo, for instance) to chopping meat in a kitchen. The overt symbolism hampers a subject and approach that could have led to a sublime result.

42/100

Expertly paced, gripping, and dripping with sensuality, Otto Preminger’s Laura has hardly aged a day. It grabs hold from the opening bell, when detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) meets with snarky aristocratic journalist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) in Lydecker’s posh home to discuss the murder of Lydecker’s quasi-girlfriend Laura Hunt (an explosively sexy Gene Tierney). Naked in his bathtub, Lydecker’s smarmy quips and peculiar worldview immediately add intrigue to Laura: who is this weirdo? He must be more than twice Laura’s age: what was he to her? More suspects quickly pop into the picture, such as Laura’s servant Bessie (Dorothy Adams) and Laura’s fiancé Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). And while McPherson interrogates the lot and darts around town, he always seems to end up back in Laura’s apartment, where a dramatic painting of her likeness hangs over the fireplace. Indeed, Laura’s magnetic pull appears to extend to everyone her life has touched: flashbacks reveal quirky and varied initial meetings—attempting to recruit Lydecker’s endorsement for her advertising firm on a brand of pen; bantering with Carpenter at a cocktail party—but a lazy attention span. Preminger superbly depicts Laura’s depth of character: she was clearly creative, bold, and sharp as a tack, but also ladylike and coy, progressive while simultaneously embracing attention from men. Strong editing, beautiful black-and-white cinematography and excellent acting across-the-board, particularly from the luscious Tierney, make Laura sexy and engaging, a must-see effort with strengths aplenty.

77/100