2001: A Space Odyssey

Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1968 (10*)

AFI Top 100

[Updated: 12.31.11]

This groundbreaking SciFi epic was the first to feature totally realistic space effects, and changed forever the way SF films looked. The story, by Arthur C. Clarke, was written for this film because Kubrick wanted to film his incredible novel A Childhood's End, which could not be filmed at the time with existing technology. That book, and this film, are about the next step in the evolution of mankind, from a material to a spiritual being. The previous step, from animal intelligence to human intelligence, is shown in the beginning to give us a major clue, so its surprising that so many people are still baffled by this movie, which has only 20 minutes of dialogue and encourages us to think - what a concept!

Kubrick's film would have been even better had he been able to get phenomena filmmaker Jordan Belson to work on it, but he refused to ever work on commercial films. Belson makes short animated films about things like the birth of a star, or motion through space. All his short films are in the permanent archives at the Museum of Modern Art, and are much better than anything put into commercial SF films. At film festivals, these short films of 3-8 minutes always get standing ovations. Kubrick did make planets and spaceships finally look realistic together, and forever changed the way science fiction films looked going forward. It would be another 10 yrs before Star Wars, but all the action adventure space films that followed looked the way they did because of 2001, so in that regard it was highly influential on the entire industry. Not exactly an exciting film, it was nevertheless a visionary film, and for its time, like nothing else that had ever been filmed.

The sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, attempts to explain the story further, a story which really needed no filmed postscript. That became more of an action film, with much more human interaction between Americans and Russian in a joint venture to activate the spaceship Discovery, and also check out Jupiter from closer range. Worth seeing, and well-done. Clarke himself wrote a third novel in the series as well, 2040, that has not yet been filmed, real SF fans should read the entire trilogy.

Ranked #1 at the Criterion networking film site, The Auteurs, with over 100,000 members.

Note: it's very similar to the parable of Jesus - it's about the birth of a spiritual being, not a corporal one. The awakening of one's spiritual self is a 'virgin birth' that doesn't involve procreation. In 2001, this is symbolized by the floating embryo at the end, a metaphor for the astronaut now being a spiritual being. In Clarke's novel Childhood's End, this happened to the entire race beginning with the current generation of children, so the adults were living out the last physical lives on earth, or the end of the childhood of mankind.

Read more...

Death at a Funeral

Frank Oz, 2007 (8.3*)
It’s not every day that you laugh all through a film about a funeral. Writer Dean Craig has managed to do just that in this black comedy. It’s also not in any other cinema funerals that you see hallucinagenic drugs ingested (accidentally), a naked man threatening to jump off a roof, and a blackmailing dwarf giving everyone a thrill with an unexpected appearance.

These are just a few of the bizarre images and ideas that should at least have everyone chuckling. The film starts a bit slow, as at first you just have people on their way to the funeral of a well-to-do British family patriarch, father of a pair of brothers, played by Matthew Macfadyen, who lives at the house of his parents, and Rupert Graves, a famous novelist who lives in New York, flying in after years away from home. You see the normal rushing of people late, the grumbling by the elderly uncle in a wheelchair, “you’re late!” (wonderfully played by veteran actor Peter Vaughn, who was the head man in  Terry Gilliam's Brazil – “Ere I am JH”) and other family members in slight turmoil. However, this funeral has no one weeping or appearing that distressed, so in that regard it’s a realistic one.

However, once the funeral service begins at the house, one event after another delays the proceedings to the delight of the audience. One of my favorite side stories is the boyfriend of a relative who is accidently given some LSD instead of valium, as a pill bottle for the latter was used by a hippie brother for transporting the acid without notice. Alan Tudyk is perhaps a little over the top, but I have seen people on psychedelics act just this way at pop festivals; many inevitably end up naked, as does his character Simon.

Tiny actor Peter Dinklage (best known for The Station Agent) plays the dwarf who sets the brothers and the funeral on its ears with some startling photos, adding his own bizarre flavor to the unexpected plot turns. Jane Asher, former gf of Paul McCartney, plays the grieving widow, who is the only one shedding any tears for the deceased.

Remade by Neil LaBute as a black version (of course with Martin Lawrence, who gets to star in every film that Eddie Murphy is not in - and also Chris Rock), a unappealing version that got a 5.4 rating at IMDB vs. 7.3 for the original, and a 51 from Metacritics vs. 67 for the original. Not big numbers for the original either, but I think it’s a little better than that – it’s certainly an original comedy, and the best comedy about the way we treat death since The Loved One (1965), Tony Richardson’s b&w comedy of the Evelyn Waugh novel.

This won two audience awards, at the Locarno Int’l Film Festival and the U.S. Comedy Arts festival.

Read more...

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy

Noomi Rapace, her biopic, and as Lisbeth

Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Denmark - Sweden - Germany - Norway
Niels Arden Oplev, 2009 (7.8*)
I’m reviewing these together because after you’ve either read the novels or seen the trilogy, you realize it’s just one long story about the heroine, not three distinctly different stories.

Actress Noomi Rapace made a star of herself and created an indelible screen image in punk hacker Lisbeth Salander, the subject of this crime trilogy from the famous novels by Stieg Larsson. I haven’t read the novels, but like most transcriptions to screen, you lose a lot because you’re getting a lot of other artists to interpret a solo work from the mind of one person, and the medium is also being transformed from one of linguistics and the mind’s imagination to a series of images filtered through the minds of others – the screenwriters, the cinematographers, the editors, and the director. All form a collaberative committee on a film, overseen by the director’s vision, which often changes during the process.

Some may find these films a bit too explicit, they show a woman who’s the victim of abuse, and it’s not for the squeamish. Some found this exploitive, others found it a frank depiction of the misygony in society, and how women in general are the victims of sex crimes perpetrated by sadistic men – unfortunately there’s never a shortage of these at any time in history. For me, I found the films to be more about a woman empowering herself by using her brains and street smarts to stand her own ground. In many regards, I found these films similar to the theme of the powerful French film Chaos (2001), from director Coline Serreau, which I’ve called “the ultimate women’s power film”, and one which had me standing and applauding at the end.

The series begins with a man convinced a relative was murdered and he employs a disgraced journalist, expertly played by Michael Nyqvist, and a criminal computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, to help him unravel the mystery of some grisly murders in the distant past.

The first film won 13 awards (and Rapace won three for actress), including a BAFTA for films not in English (the equivalent of foreign language film at the Oscars). Rated 7.7 at IMDB, and 76 from Metacritics – that’s probably about right, though the cinematography and music are first rate, and actually make each film better. Some think it’s a bit long at 155 minutes, and there’s a longer 180 minute version from Sweden.

The Girl Who Played With Fire
Daniel Aldredsen, 2009 (7.2*)
The second in the series begins to unravel the mystery of Lisbeth Salander’s life. Her father may have been a Soviet agent, that’s part of the mystery. Journalist Blomkvyst of Millenium magazine (Nyqvist), who exposes the corrupton of the establishment, is investigating sex trafficking in Sweden, and the two themselves become the targets of the powerful in return

This film has more action, and is also compelling but is really setting you up for the concluding film, which provides closure to the entire series.

This film is not as compelling as the other two, and was only rated 6.9 at IMDB (fan votes), and 66 at Metacritics. This film and the third didn’t win any awards, and only garnered five nominations between them.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
Daniel Alfredson, 2009 (8.0*)
[Rated 7.0 at IMBD and 60 at Metacritics]

This film was the most riveting of the three for me, perhaps because it was the least violent. Without giving anything away, it becomes a battle of wits between two viewpoints – to put it in normal cinema jargon, the good guys and the bad guys, but using their minds rather than weapons or martial arts.

However, depending on how you feel about certain issues, these sides may appear the opposite to other people. It’s almost like politics - if we agree with a rebel, they’re freedom fighters; if we disagree, they’re terrorists. That's why we have a legal system, at least for civilians.

We see the entire mystery unfold as the journalist uncovers the clues himself. Another long film at 147 minutes, it still didn’t seem overlong; it’s a complex psychological story that demands thorough examination and revelation. The third film brought closure to the story, and in an intelligent, credible manner. Those who stick with the entire trilogy should feel justified in the end.

Read more...

Performance

Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell, 1970 (8.5*)
Roeg was also cinematographer

This is #326 on our Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls. Former cinematographer Nicolas Roeg shared directing credit on this one, beginning a career that included some visually stunning films.

Performance woke me up when I first saw it. In the beginning, gangster Chas Devlin, played by James Fox, appears to be running from some other criminals, and needs to disappear quickly. He finds an ad for someone wanting to rent a room to a lodger. He literally walks into the mansion and life of a jaded rock star Turner, Mick Jagger – who, by the way, when first seen is listening to late 60’s rap music, in this case “Wake Up, Niggers” by the Last Poets (who were absolutely great, and ground-breaking; I have both their lp's on vinyl), likely the fathers of modern rap, because this sounded just like rap music today, which hasn’t progressed much at all from the late 60’s.

With the help of his two bohemian girlfriends (Anita Pallenberg and Michèle Breton), Turner slowly ensnares Devlin in his hedonistic world.

So a story that begins as a crime thriller, becomes an existential tale of two men beginning to share lives and personalities, each providing something the other needs, an escape from a reality that’s no longer tolerable to either psyche, for different reasons.  For me, this is what elevated this story beyond the mundane, and probably why it’s still ranked as highly in polls today.

James Fox, a criminal on the run

Read more...

Splendor in the Grass

Elia Kazan, 1961 (8.6*)
Ranked #1003 on our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

Not considered one of Kazan’s best, certainly not when compared to On the Waterfront (1951) or A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) bw, or even up against A Face in the Crowd (1957), or his first film, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), this film of a 50’s high school romance still stands up well today, and seems to speak to a universal audience from any era. This list of films shows what a great director Kazan was, if you can get past the HUAC hearings and just judge his art on its own merit.

Warren Beatty made his film debut as a popular, wealthy, and handsome high school senior, Bud, of course also a star athlete – the quintessential American dream in a man, and for his film debut, gives a sensitive and believable performance. He was the younger brother of actress Shirley MacLaine, and before this was best known as the boyfriend of Tuesday Weld on The Life and Loves of Dobie Gillis on tv, playing a popular, wealthy, and handsome high schooler in that romantic comedy.

Natalie Wood plays his less wealthy girlfriend, Deenie, from the wrong side of the tracks to Bud's bigoted, narrow-minded, capitalist father, honestly portrayed by Pat Hingle in his most memorable role - he was so good you wanted to hit him with a baseball bat. I don’t think it was Beatty’s debut that surprised people, it was the full-bodied performance by Natalie Wood, in what for me is a career-making performance that proved she was more than just another pretty face, and she was undoubtably that.

In this story, amid the pangs of youthful desire, Bud is first having his advances denied by Deenie, who, of course, has marriage in mind and doesn’t want to be a ‘bad girl’. Then we see Bud’s slutty older sister who gets drunk, then literally has men lining up for a chance with her. We begin to get the idea that this is a more complex film romance than most. Later, when Deenie finally wants to go the distance because she fears she may lose Bud, he backs off, no doubt psychologically damaged by his dysfunctional family. As a result, Deenie has your standard teenage nervous breakdown.

This movie grew on me over time, and though not Kazan’s best, it’s still better than 95% of the movie romances, thanks to the power of William Inge’s original play and Kazan’s great touch with actors. His films produced more Oscar® winning performances is history than anyone except William Wyler – Wyler leads 13 to 8, so even Kazan is a distant second to the great Wyler.

I find this film to always be honestly touching, and it speaks to those who did grow up on the wrong side of the tracks (for me, right next to both the railroad tracks and an old cotton mill). Like many Kazan films, it says a lot about class bigotry and alienation within our society, which is especially tough for teenagers to deal with because they’re just gaining the experiences that progress them into adulthood, and don’t have the wisdom or patience to withstand the prejudices of adults that are often taught to their children as well.

Read more...

Before Sunset

Richard Linklater, 2004 (8.2*)
This film was a small, pleasant surprise for me. This one follows Linklater’s Before Sunrise, made nine years earlier with the same actors. In that film, an American traveler, Ethan Hawke, meets a young Frenchwoman from Paris, Julie Delpy, and for at least one night, sparks fly. Yet somehow the film failed to involve me, it just didn’t seem to cut much beneath the surface to let me feel much for the characters, and it was just a two character film.

In this sequel, set nine years later, Hawke is now a published novelist at a book signing at a small Parisian bookstore. After answering a few questions about writing, he spots Delpy off to the side waving at him. You can tell by his face he's both excited and surprised; he wanders over, they very much want to catch up, but Hawke has a flight at the airport and must leave by 7:15 that evening, hence the title. They have to say what they will, and reveal their emotions or hide them, all before sunset. What follows is loose and free examination of what’s been going on in each of their lives and minds since that previous chance meeting. This time, the characters have more passion, more depth, and more chemistry onscreen.

I thought this film was engaging and credible, these are the kinds of relationships in our lives that eventually disturb many of us. The quick ones with lots of chemistry between a couple are who otherwise destined for different geographical locations, at least temporarily. Often they may intend to reuinite but more often do not, and this film makes an honest and easy-going attempt to give us all the same idea – what if we could reunite with a former lover from our past, when our passion was only extinguished by distance and time.

The script, with believable dialogue, was co-written by Linklater and his two stars, which makes me wonder if much of it was improvised; it has that feel. Delpy herself also sings one of her own songs onscreen while playing acoustic guitar, and a couple more on the soundtrack, and they’re not bad – kind of simple and folky like another Marianne Faithful. It seems apparent from the lyrics that she either wrote the song for this film, or as a postscript for the first film. She also gives the better performance here, her character was the more involving with more emotions to show. In fact, this is my favorite performance by Delpy to date.

Linklater often employs a moving camera backing up while the two actors walk forward, following them through the city streets, or even into a river boat. Paris is a beautiful set for a film, and here almost serves as a supporting cast member. This keeps the film from being as static as two people just sitting and talking in a café, which they do briefly, more like My Dinner With Andre, which was boring compared to this film. This story makes us wonder exactly what happened to these characters in the nine year interim, and what will happen in the next two, after this reunion. One of the better screen romances on film, certainly one of the most credible.

This is Linklater’s highest ranked film, currently at #418 on our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls. His others ranked are Dazed and Confused #530, Waking Life #687, then Before Sunrise #752.

Read more...

Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969, France (9.0*)
Based on truth, as both novelist Joseph Kessel and director Jean-Pierre Melville were both in this army themselves. An excellent (and low-key) war film without the histrionics of most, Army in the Shadows takes the French men and women of the Resistance as its theme, at a point near the end of the war when the Resistance movement and Nazi intelligence about its work and staff are both firmly established.

This film will likely give most of the modern filmgoers a history lesson into the daily movements of the Resistance. Here we are shown the more mundane aspects of fighting a war from within, such as the ladies who operated safe houses for members on the run, as the Gestapo can torture enough members to gain intelligence on others. We also see aristocrats whose estates played host to small aircraft used to smuggle collaborators in and out of France. Unfortunately, we also witness the fate of those who crack under pressure or torture.

This a fascinating expose of the gruesome realities of heroism and the struggle against occupying armies, which of course also included moments of hopelessness and failure of nerve, as even the stout feel hidden eyes on every movement. Events test this hidden army, eventually each one finds themselves up against his or her personal limit of bravery and endurance as this struggle continued for years with no end in sight, at least during the time setting of this film.

Led by Simone Signoret in perhaps her best performance, and also starring Paul Meurisse and Jean-Pierre Cassel, this is one of the finest French films for craftmanship of acting and directing, and is Melville’s masterpiece. His crime films are excellent but none pack the emotional or historical weight of this story. You won’t find a better film about the Resistance in all of cinema.

The newly restored version on dvd was released in 2006 and won three new awards. The film has a rating of 8.2 at IMDB, which would place it in the top 250, but it doesn’t have enough ratings yet, with under 8,000 – so it’s rank in our compendium of polls would be much higher than the current 277, it would certainly be in the top 200. At Metacritics, it has a rating of 99, which would place it in the top 10 there, just after the 5-6 perfect 10’s, which include Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Read more...

Crash (1996)

David Cronenberg, 1996 (8.0*)
You now need the year of this film as a designator, so it's not confused with the mediocre film (that came later) that won best picture of 2005 in a very weak year (when they were afraid of Brokeback Mountain as well).

Cronenberg’s Crash is the much more interesting one; this one pre-dated the terrible best picture one that resembled a tv show, and was based on SF author J.G. Ballard’s novel (he also wrote Empire of the Sun based on his childhood). In this bizarre story, a group of car wreck survivors are turned on by auto crashes.

After a car wreck in which Holly Hunter’s husband is killed in a head-on collision with James Spader he discovers a strange eroticism to the entire crash. They later get together for romance in a car [that's her on the dvd giving him a lap ride in the front seat!]. He then discovers a group of people who use the energy of these crashes to fuel a strange sense of eroticism. Some even re-enact famous crashes at clandestine events only known to the group itself. Those with scars and injuries, like Roseanne Arquette, become especially sensual in cars.

I’d say this film is more notable for James Spader getting to make love onscreen to Holly Hunter, Rosanna Arquette, and his (onscreen) wife Debra Kara Unger [photo below] in the same film, which I think is my favorite sex group yet in all of cinema.

J.G. Ballard is a very interesting author who once stole some Republican National Committee stationary and sent a memo to the convention that nominated Reagan, with an article on them he penned titled “Why I Want to F*** Ronald Reagan”. This was later published in a collection of Ballard's stories and articles with the story of how he acheived the singular feat.

Crash won 8 awards out of 12 nominations

Read more...

Stop Making Sense

Jonathan Demme, 1984 (9.2*)
I guess it helps to be a fan of the rock band Talking Heads to really enjoy this concert documentary, but for any fan of concert filmmaking, this will also be a treat. There have been other good concert films, like Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, documenting The Band’s last concert, but for me this one went a little more over the top.

When I saw this in the theater, there were people dancing in the aisles, and the crowd was a huge range of ages. I was already a fan of the band, so for me it was an unexpected treat that I felt like I was also at this concert at the Pantages Theater in L.A., shot over three nights.

The band had just been a more intellectual punk rock band than most, led by the cerebral lead singer-songwriter David Byrne, known as much for his out-of-sync gyrations as much as songs. Then they added two former members of the Funkadelic-Parliament funk bands, Bernie Worrell (keyboards) and Alex Weir (guitar, vocals) and suddenly discovered rhythm, notably from the James Brown school of funk grooves. This suddenly rejuvenated the band and it’s obvious in this concert; they’re now a fusion of musical influences working together to create something unique. My own favorite here is near the end, “Cross-Eyed and Painless”, and I can’t imagine it without the P-funk connection. Of course there’s the hits, “Burning Down the House” and “Psycho Killer”, but just as good are “This Must Be the Place” and “I Get Wild/Wild Gravity”.

Ironically, Byrne is now best known for wearing the big suit around this era. On a live tv interview (Letterman?), Byrne said "a friend told me 'onstage, you're bigger than life', so I said 'oh, then I need a really big suit'"

If you’re just interested in good rock concert films as well, this is one of the best ever (maybe the best) - along with The Police “Synchronicity Concert” (a live concert, unedited, from the Omni in Atlanta, Ga), and the all-time classic, Woodstock (1970) which did it’s best to record both highlights of three days of concerts and also document the event itself. For these reasons, it will likely forever remain the ultimate rock concert film.

Demme is best known for directing the Oscar®-winning best picture The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he also won a directing Oscar®. Demme is currently the 78th ranked director on our top ranked 1000 films compendium of all polls, with 4 titles in the top 1000, with Silence of the Lambs his top-ranked at #47 all-time.

See the full list of top ranked 100 directors here: Top Ranked 100 Directors, 2011 Edition

Read more...

The Awful Truth

Leo McCarey, 1937, bw (8.8*)
This is one of those 30’s screwball comedies that you can watch over and over. Cary Grant plays a man who may or may not have been philandering, as he’s getting a tan in a salon in the film’s beginning because he’s supposed to have been in Florida. When he gets home, wife Irene Dunne is gone, and the two start divorce proceedings.

They also start trying to make each other jealous by trying to get engaged as fast as possible. Of course, they then play little games trying to saboutage each other’s attempts at a new relationship. All this is made a classic with some very funny dialogue and performances to match. There’s a great sequence in which Dunne has someone play her husband sister for his new lady’s family.

Asta the dog, from the Thin Man series, has one of his 14 film roles here as Mr. Smith, the family pet for whom Grant demands visitation rights in the divorce proceedings - but is he missing the dog or Dunne?

Awful Truth is a film with genuine laughs, not one of those films that is pleasant throughout and a funny concept, but seemingly lacks any laugh-out-loud dialogue. McCarey had a hand in some of the best comedies of his era, notably the Marx Brothers’ best film, Duck Soup (1933)

McCarey actually won the Oscar® for best director for this film, which he later duplicated with Going My Way in 1945, for which he also won for best screenplay. This could have easily won for screenplay as well.

Ranked #515 in our update of the top ranked 1000 films of all-time
Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net

Ranked #84 comedy on our list of comedies in the top 100
Top Ranked Comedy Films of All Time

Read more...

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Michael Curtiz, 1938 (8.2*)
This version of Robin Hood remains one of the most lively and colorful; it playfully captures the feel of the original legendary myth – after all, it’s a band of merry men cavorting in the woods in tights! These are the people who invented the phrase ‘derring-do’, that pretty well sums it up.

It’s a film of fluff and derring-do, all with gusto and tongue-in-cheek, starring the energetic Errol Flynn as the nobleman turned highway robber with his band of thieves. Olivia de Havilland provides the romance, as a damsel trapped inside the castle with those in control, but whose heart is stirred by this roqueish rascal, who, of course, risks capture just to face Olivia and make with some serious flirtation from a distance, which is all it takes for this bored lady.

Of course, there has to be a reason for all this, so the story is that while King Richard is away fighting in one of the Crusades, the Norman lords, led by Basil Rathbone, are abusing the Saxon masses, so Robin of Loxley stands up for the people by basically becoming a small-time warlord with a tiny guerrilla army hiding in the forests, so he's a medieval Che Guevara fighting the politicians in cahoots with the wealthy capitalists who together are stealing land from the people with inpunity.

For it’s time, this was some of the best technicolor ever put on film, it’s a beautiful palette to behold, one of my favorites (I’m a painter and a photographer, with a degree in Painting and Drawing). They truly 'don't make em like this anymore', though Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy (2003-07) is an attempt to recapture the unbridled, mindless joy of cinematic mayhem in the name of good.

Read more...

Love Among the Ruins

George Cukor, 1975, tv (8.6*)
This wonderful UK comedy that takes place in I believe the Edwardian era is another reminder of just how far ahead their tv productions are compared to the U.S. – over there these are just as good as feature films with tenfold budgets and huge pr campaigns.

Katharine Hepburn plays an aging actress who is being sued by a younger man for breach of promise. The lawyer she unwittingly hires, Laurence Olivier, is actually a former lover from several decades back, who she has forgotten but who is still in love with her. In fact, her new lawyer never really got over his youthful attachment. There are some classic scenes of them alone as he tries to stir her memories.

As this involves a court case, in which Hepburn’s estate and reputation both are on the line, we get to see a different side of both characters than we see in private – here the two are acting in Hepburn’s best interest, so the two actors involved are now giving us a performance within another performance, pretty classy indeed.

Everything about this production is top quality, you might say sublime. Cukor won an Emmy for his direction, as did the writer, James Costigan, also the costumes and set design. Both Oliver and Hepburn won primetime acting Emmys, as the tv film won six overall. It's nice to see the two actors beyond their prime but obviously still better than just about anyone else alive.

This is the perfect type of G-rated comedy they should and could make much more often than once a decade or so. Cukor also directed the classics My Fair Lady (1964) and The Women (1939).

Read more...