Like most, I’m very aware of the scandal with American Catholic priests, but unfortunately, I did not follow the path it took around the world. By the Grace of God is a French film, based on the true story of a group of men who, molested as children by the same priest, band together to make sure the world becomes aware of what he did, and what the church did to allow it to keep happening. Alexandre comes forward first, and for awhile, he fights the fight alone. Bernard Preynat led the local boy scouts when Alexandre was a kid, and molested him several times. Now 40 years old, the statute of limitations has expired for Alexandre, but he is driven to find fellow victims, and especially, ones who may have been molested more recently, so as to go after Preynat legally. Alexandre also wants to hit the higher-up priests who protected Preynat all those years ago, and who continue to do so to this day. Over the course of the film, Alexandre’s work does reach others, notably François and Emmanuel, who join the movement for justice. It’s an all right movie, emotional without being heavy handed, but has a little too much of the paint-by-numbers feel for my tastes. So much of the picture is just a stream of dialogue, letters spoken to the viewer, etc., and since it is French movie, as an English speaker, I felt like I was reading a book more than watching a movie. But that’s my problem and not the fault of the filmmakers. ★★★

What We Do in the Shadows isn’t a recent film (comes from 2014), but it was recommended to me (shout out to The Conductor) and it looked very interesting. Directed by Taika Waititi (and later made into a series on FX, which I definitely now have to check out too!), it is a fake documentary film following a quartet of vampires sharing a flat in New Zealand. A film crew is doing a doc on them (protected by crucifixes and guaranteed safety by their subjects) as the big, annual Unholy Masquerade is approaching. That event does happen towards the end, but the film is more about the daily, modern lives of our undead antiheroes. And it is fantastically funny. Starring a few unknowns (to me) as well as Waititi himself and Jemaine Clement (a few films, but most recently as Oliver in FX’s Legion – seriously go watch it if you haven’t), our vampires are lovable despite going out and killing people every night. Viago, Vlad, and the others detail the problems with “living” as a modern vampire, such as finding the right outfit when you can’t check yourself out in the mirror, being outcasts because they keep a human friend, and not being able to go in a nightclub because they haven’t been invited in. It’s a great comedy with high re-watch merit. ★★★★

Clemency is a powerful film, about the people surrounding a man on death row and nearing the end of his life. Tony Woods has been on death row for 15 years after being convicted of killing a man. Tony admits he was there that fateful night but has always denied he pulled the trigger, and there is proof that he may be telling the truth, in that forensics say the shooter was left handed and Tony is not. Despite that, Tony is just about at the end of his rope. The film’s main character isn’t Tony though, it is the warden of the prison, Bernadine (played by Alfre Woodard). Bernadine has just overseen her 11th execution, one that went bad when the drugs didn’t work as intended and the subject was in obvious pain for several long seconds before his life ended. Bernadine is wracked with guilt and depression over his death, as well as the others that came before, and is slowly creeping with dread toward’s Tony’s day, despite outwardly trying to appear calm and collected for the safety of her staff and inmates. The film does a fantastic job dealing with a touchy subject in a matter-of-fact way which shows the sides of all involved, from Tony to Bernadine, the prison’s chaplain to Tony’s long-suffering lawyer, who is set to retire after this last case, tired and worn down from a lifetime of fighting against the system to save people from execution. Tony is a man who has power over nothing, who has lived 15 years with little hope, and the movie does a tremendous job of letting us glimpse how that can feel to a person. The only subplot I didn’t dig was the strained relationship of Bernadine and her husband. It was introduced to show the pressure she’s under, but Woodard’s acting did a good enough job of that without those added and oftentimes unnecessary scenes. That’s a minor quibble though; the film is fantastic. ★★★★

Bombshell is based on the downfall of Fox News exec Roger Ailes, centering on allegations against him of sexual misconduct brought by women at the channel, specifically from Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly. Carlson has refused his advances for years and has found herself demoted within the organization and on her way to being fired. Kelly also has denied Ailes for years, but her popularity with the public has kept her safe, until now, when she’s been butting heads with Donald Trump on his campaign trail for president. Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron are solid as the two leading ladies (though I was distracted by Theron forcing her voice lower to impersonate Kelly’s deeper tone; I don’t think it was necessary for the role). The third of the trio of women front and center is a “Kayla” (Margot Robbie, who’s been on a roll here lately), a character who is an amalgamation of young women at the station who find themselves having to decide between sex with Ailes or looking for a new job. I enjoyed the movie overall, though I suspect it is one of those that is good when you watch it the first time, but doesn’t have much replay value. The movie is just a bit too sensational for me as well, I feel it could have dug deeper into the support system women need to feel safe at work. ★★★½

Films like The Vast of Night are reasons why I love watching movies. Obviously done on a miniscule budget, with believable performances by actors you’ve never heard of, yet it is gripping, tense, and utterly enjoyable. It is a creepy-esque sci-fi film that takes place in a tiny town in New Mexico in the 1950’s. With nothing to do in the town, high school sports reign supreme, so on the night of a basketball game, everyone in town is at the school, except for our focal characters. High schooler Fay has a single mom who struggles to pay the bills in 1950s America, so Fay is working the switchboard for the tiny town when she hears a strange noise coming first from the radio, and then over the phone lines. She tries to call the few people she knows aren’t at the game, but the line is cut off inexplicably. So she calls slightly older (and object of desire of all the girls in school) Everett, who hosts a nighttime radio program and also, thus, is not at the game. The two spend the rest of the evening trying to sourse this noise, and its origins. As listerners call in to the show talking about strange happenings outside of town, the mystery slowly starts to unfold. To say more than that would ruin it for you. Go watch it, it’s free on Amazon Prime, and well worth your 90 minutes. ★★★★½

Sacha Guitry was a playwright and director in the early 20th Century in France. He wrote and produced several successful plays in Paris, but avoided making movies during the silent era (after watching a couple of his pictures, I see that he loves quick and counterpointed dialogue, which would be impossible to pull off in intertitles) but embraced talkies once they became standard. Today I’ll look at 8 of his films from the 1930’s, culled from the nice sets put out by Arrow Films and the Criterion Collection.

The New Testament is based on a play of his and is pretty much a filmed play, mostly on one set. It follows Jean, a successful doctor, his wife Lucie, and their circle of friends and servants. One day Jean doesn’t come home to a dinner party, but a stranger appears at the door with his jacket. Lucie worriedly goes through its pockets, and they find his last will and testament. Frantic for a clue to his whereabouts, they open it, and find a shock. Jean confesses to having an affair with a woman who (coincidentally?) shares the name with his new secretary, and more than that, admits he knows of his wife’s adultery too, with a (very young) friend present for the dinner party. When Jean swoops through the door, those present hide the will and pretend nothing is amiss. The film is a bit dated, but a lot of the quick dialogue is still funny today. But in an old-timey way, the “play” is entirely spoken, with no real action to break it up. As such, as a non-native language viewer, you are stuck reading constantly. I like foreign films, but it’s hard when you don’t get to actually watch much of what the actors or doing because you are tied to the text at the bottom of the screen. ★★

The Story of a Cheat (aka Confessions of a Cheat) is leagues better, and also, I think, way ahead of its time. It starts with Guitry, in voice-over fashion, introducing the actors and film crew who are involved in making the picture, including the composer of the music, the film editors, the producer, etc., a technique that Orson Welles would later famously do as well, and an outside-the-box idea that you can envision inspiring a young Truffaut or Resnais during the French New Wave 20 years later. When it gets going, the film is also very uniquely done. It is entirely narrated by “the cheat,” who is writing his memoir in a café, even going so far as to speak for his actors when they have a line to deliver. He begins as a young man, when he is grounded from eating the mushroom delicacy which was prepared for dinner (grounded because he was caught stealing from the till at his parent’s store), only to become the sole survivor after said mushrooms killed the other 11 members of the family. From then on, our narrator tries to go the straight and narrow path of honesty, but always seems to be pulled into schemes by less scrupulous people around him, from coworkers to beautiful femme fatales. Though we only hear one voice, his, through all of the film, it never gets stale. For one, it is truly funny, not dated at all, and is beautifully written. For two, the story has some fabulous twists and turns that keeps the viewer on his toes as we go through the peaks and valleys of our antihero’s life. I loved every minute of it. ★★★★

Like The New Testament, My Father Was Right is also based on a play of Guitry’s, and unfortunately the other thing they have in common is being a total bore. There’s even less going on in this film than there was in the first. The overall gist is about learning to live life to be happy and not to worry about what may or may not happen to destroy that happiness. A wealthy man raises his son on his own, after the mother flew the coup 20 years previously, and as a young man, the son has a distrust of women for fear of betrayal. It is up the father to assuage his fears. That’s really it, and it takes nearly 2 hours to get through it. There are some moments of brevity but the whole thing is pretty monotonous. The Story of a Cheat was based on a book Guitry had written, but so far, the two film adaptations of his plays have been a struggle to get through. ★

And uh-oh: another play-based film. Let’s Make a Dream comes from a play of Guitry’s from 1916. I settled in with little hope for a pleasant film. Maybe it was the low expectations, but I enjoyed this one! It’s another simple story: a husband is most clearly planning to run around on his wife one night, so she goes off to sleep with a new man of her own. What should have been a quick evening tryst goes awry when they end up sleeping through the night. The next morning, she is distraught about how to go home to her waiting husband, so her new lover plans how to get them off scott free. The big twist is yet to come though! The best part of the film is the long monologues delivered by the lover, both alone to the viewers and to his new girl later. Witty and engaging, it’s a clever and funny picture. I’m not entirely sure today’s average moviegoer would dig it, but the banter is top notch. ★★★

Pearls of the Crown is another original work of Guitry’s, not based on a previous play of his, and it was his most ambitious film to that point. It is the (fictitious) story of 7 pearls, four of which would go on to adorn the crown of England, and the other 3 which seem to be lost to time. Told in flashback over the course of 400 years, the tale jumps countries constantly with a revolving multitude of cast members, and involves kings, queens, mistresses, and popes. Guitry, always playing the leading man in his films, plays 3 or 4 of them here, including King François of France and Napolean III. He brings his trademark irreverent dialogue to this film, but that’s the only highlight. There was so much going on, I felt a bit lost at times. And frankly it’s all a bit boring for too-long stretches. The film has good moments, and some chuckles, but it felt really long, and wasn’t even 2 hours. ★½

Man oh man, I’m up and down with this director. I really liked Désiré, the story of a butler (with the title’s name) who takes a job with a well-to-do society woman named Odette. Odette is dating a politician and runs her household in the strict, time-honored fashion of delineated boundaries between servants and master. Though she is kind to Désiré and the maid, Madeleine, she makes sure to keep them separate from herself and her boyfriend Felix. Désiré comes from a family of valets and knows his place, and he is very good at it, but for some reason, he and Odette share some kind of subliminal attraction to each other: each night, they dream about each other and even call out their names in their sleep, much to Felix’s chagrin. Désiré is aghast at this breach of protocol, as is Odette for much the same reason. The movie is comedy, but also strays towards satire in poking fun at the differences in class. The best scene is the second-to-last act, a dinner party involving Felix, Odette, and a deaf friend, with Désiré waiting on them. It is pure laughs throughout. The ending drops the comedy though, and becomes quite poignant as Guitry screams for equal treatment for the “lesser” class. ★★★

Let’s Go Up the Champs-Élysées is alright I guess. It is very similar to Pearls of the Crown, in that it is a “historical” story, in this case, about the famous venue in Paris and how it came to be, but that is just the backstory. Mostly the film focuses on a few key players, kings of France and whatnot, because the person telling the story happens to be distantly related. The storyteller in this case is a teacher, who is 64 years old today, a significant age in the history of his family. It seems his ancestors always fell in love at 54, and died at 64, so on this special day, he tells the tale of his lineage to his class. It is a long and winding story, made by head spin a bit at times. While not a complete dud, it wasn’t as engaging as the better Guitry pictures, and distinctly lacked the comedic wit of the films I’d enjoyed to this point. I have one more to go to finish this set, I’m hoping to finish with a good one. ★★

Did indeed end on a good note. Quadrille came out in 1938 (can you believe Guitry made all 8 of these films in a 3 year window, 1936-’38?!) and is about a long quadrangle. Philippe is a decent enough guy; he’s always stayed faithful to the woman in his life, though his first marriage ended after she cheated. He’s been with a successful actress, Paulette, for a number of years now, and they are discussing marriage, when her eye strays to a popular (and young) American actor named Carl. She goes and has a one-night fling with him, and the next morning, is torn between returning to Philippe or latching on to Carl for good. When Carl goes off to do his own thing, Paulette begs Philippe to take her back, but for how long? It seems she can’t control herself whenever Carl is around! Tired of her antics, Philippe starts eyeing his own young plaything, Claudine, whom he’s known since she was young but who is now a dashing young woman. As verbose as any of Guitry’s pictures, it was just clever enough to keep my attention. After seeing all these films, I’ve definitely come to know his style. While dated, some of these pictures can still be entertaining if you sit back and enjoy the wordplay, because ultimately, that’s really the focus of all of these films. ★★★

One actress I’ve done a complete 180 on is Kristen Stewart. I used to think she couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag, but I adore her these days. Her latest is Seberg, where she portrays the actress Jean Seberg, made world famous for her role in Jean-Luc Godard’s breakout picture of the French New Wave, Breathless, in 1960. Seberg details her later life, starting in the late 60s, and centers around her relationship with Hakim Jamal, a black man and activist. This relationship, as well as Jean’s giving of money to civil rights groups, draws the attention of the FBI, who start monitoring and even harassing her. These intrusions produce a lot of anxiety and paranoia for Jean, and she spirals down a dark path. The film has some great actors including Anthony Mackie, Jack O’Connell, Vince Vaughn, and Colm Meaney, but the stars can’t save the picture. It’s a bit of a mess, despite Stewart giving it her all. She is convincing as a woman losing her grip on the reality around her and sinking into depression, but the picture feels superficial, and I felt like it could be more. Having said that, Stewart fans should still see it, just to remind yourself how good she is. ★★½

Birds of Prey follows the fabulous Harley Quinn, in a standalone picture of the antihero introduced in the DC film universe in Suicide Squad. When I saw that film a couple years ago, I wrote that I would like to see some characters get their own picture, so here we go! And the film is actually really good. It helps that Quinn is such an outlandish, cartoonish villain, and Margot Robbie portrays her insanity to perfection. Harley is fresh off her breakup with the Joker and looking to establish herself as more than just a side piece. Unfortunately, without Joker’s protection, she’s become the target for anyone she’s wronged over the years, and that list is long. To add to her troubles, she’s become entangled in the hunt for an extremely rare diamond, being chased by cops and supervillain Black Mask (a wonderfully insane and diabolical Ewan McGregor). The film stretches reality and leans heavily on the comic book elements of its origin, which is most evident in the bizarre and over-the-top fight scenes, but because Harley has set the stage for the nutty feel of the film, it all works. The film is a lot of fun, may be the best DC film I’ve seen yet (in regards to the interconnected films anyway, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker was spectacular but not connected to the others). If you too have seen this film and liked it, you should also check out the recent DC adult cartoon. It is a heavy R rating, like the film, and features an all-star voice cast. It is more humor and less heart than this picture, but has plenty of great laughs. ★★★★

Jojo Rabbit comes from director Taika Waititi, who is famous for Thor: Ragnarok but who also had previously done Hunt for the Wilderpeople. This newest picture has more of the feel of the latter, though I enjoyed Jojo a lot more than that one. The premise is a bit ridiculous, but like Birds of Prey, it works, this time due to a wonderful story (a bit tried-and-true, but well done) and excellent direction. Jojo is a 10 year old in the final months of Germany’s part in World War II. A young German boy, he idolizes Hitler, and even sees and talks to him as an imaginary friend (portrayed by Waititi himself). Jojo’s faith in the Nazi party’s direction is tested one day when he finds that his mother has been hiding a teenage Jewish girl in their attic. As Jojo gets to know Elsa, and also realizing his mother doesn’t share his own love of the Nazi party, Jojo has to look inside and ask some hard questions about his country and friends. For a story like this, it would be easy to make it a very dark picture, and there are heavy moments which the camera doesn’t shy away from, but Waititi is able to lighten the mood with humor, often at his own expense in his portrayal of a whimsical, goofy, and borderline flamboyant Hitler. I usually loath child actors, but Roman Griffin Davis is endearing as Jojo in this coming-of-age picture. Great supporting work from Scarlett Johansson, Thomas McKenzie, and Sam Rockwell (one of my favorites) as well. This is one of those pictures with a high re-watch value. ★★★★½

I liked the premise of Frankie enough to see it, but I had some trepidations. It is about a family reunion in an idyllic area of Portugal, a reunion put together by the matriach, François Crémont, because she is dying of cancer and wants to see everyone in peace. Frankie is a renowned actress (and played by renowned actress Isabelle Huppert herself) and she wants to see her adult son Paul married, and so has invited a long-time friend on this family vacation to set them up. The film takes place over a single long day, with the focus being on the relationships within the family, some strong, but most of which are splintered, or at least, splintering. My trepidations were well founded; as expected, it unfortunately comes off as a lot of self indulgent tripe. It’s the kind of art film where the actors speak to each other in ways that real people don’t normally converse, the kind of picture that critics eat up and average moviegoers leave bored out of their mind. I was in the middle: not bored, because I do not mind the pacing for a film like this, but ultimately there’s nothing rewarding or memorable about it. The best thing I can say about the film is the setting of the Portuguese Riviera is breathtaking. But that’s really the best thing I can say. ★

Dark Waters, based on a true story that started in 1998, is about a farmer from West Virginia who approaches a lawyer about cows on his farm dying by the droves, and the farmer thinks the chemical group DuPont is to blame. The lawyer, Robert Bilott, is from that area of WV, went to a tiny law school, and as such is playfully joked about at his big law firm, where he was just made a partner after years of hard work. Rob starts digging into DuPont, first as a favor to the community he was from, but then harder over time as he realizes DuPont knew about the chemical and its dangers, and covered it up for years. The chemical in question, PFOA or also known as C-8, is a main ingredient in teflon, which is used in everything from pots and pans to carpet to clothing, anything that manufacturers want to repel water. DuPont drags the case out for years, trying to get by on small settlements to individual parties of a few million here and there (pocket change to them, as Rob points out), but Rob won’t let up, despite the toll it takes on his firm and family. The film is eye-opening. I remember the whole teflon news when it came out but honestly didn’t pay much attention at the time, but I for one will be going out and buying new pots and pans soon (those made after 2013 no longer have PFOA, as a result of this case, and I’m pretty sure my old ass ones are from before then). As a picture, it is just ok, despite the lead being another one of my favorites, the highly underrated Mark Ruffalo. The dialogue is often atrociously bad, even though delivered by some good actors like Tim Robbins and Anne Hathaway. So bad that it made me chuckle and roll my eyes more than a couple times. Chalk that up to poor writing I guess, and it’s a shame, because this story had potential. Due yourself a favor, and read about PFOA and its lasting effects on health. ★★

Going to look at some of the most popular films of Ernst Lubitsch. He was extremely popular (and bankable) in his day, but you don’t hear much about these movies anymore. The Shop Around the Corner stars Jimmy Stewart (a few years before It’s a Wonderful Life) and Margaret Sullavan as coworkers in a small goods shop. They can’t stand each other, but unbeknownst to them, they’ve been writing anonymous letters to each other through a post office box and falling in love with that ideal person. The banter between them and the other workers in the store is fantastic, and there’s a whole plot involving the owner of the store (Frank Morgan, more popular known as the Wizard himself in The Wizard of Oz), and the owner’s wife having an affair with one of the other employees. But the developing love story between our two leads is the real draw. A very popular film, it was remade a couple times, into In the Good Old Summertime (starring Judy Garland) and, most recently, You’ve Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Though Mail credits the original play as its inspiration, it obviously draws heavily from this film (and if you remember, the bookstore that Meg Ryan’s character owns is named “Shop Around the Corner”). ★★★

The above film is from 1940, but a lot changed between it and 1933’s Design for Living, specifically, 1933 is pre-Hollywood Code. As such, more than just innuendo about sex, we get straight up talk about sex and straight up (off camera) sex. And it’s funny too! This film is about a girl, Gilda (Miriam Hopkins), who ends up on a train to Paris with a couple of men, roommates named Thomas (Fredric March) and George (Gary Cooper). Gilda is a successful corporate artist in advertising but the two men are struggling in their artistic endeavors, Thomas as a playwright and George as an artist. Each of the men instantly fall head over heels for the beautiful and vivacious Gilda, and in wonderful pre-code fashion, she’s not timid or shy about her own needs: she wants them both! The two men try to put bros before hoes and shake on not pursuing the girl, but neither can keep up his end of the bargain. When Thomas goes away to London to open a play, Gilda starts sleeping with George, but romps with Thomas when he comes back to visit. The film is delightfully funny, and though I haven’t seen a lot of pre-code films, I think they are so far ahead of their time in depicting strong women who stand up for themselves and what they want, physically and otherwise. It’s a fantastically fun film, based on a play by Noël Coward (loved the stuff David Lean did based on his plays). Unsurprisingly, when the Hollywood Code hammer came down the next year, Design for Living was banned by the Catholic League of Decency. ★★★★

Imagine the deftness of writing and direction it takes to combine nail biting suspense with laugh-out-loud comedy. That’s what is found in To Be or Not to Be. The film follows the actors of a small theater in Warsaw, Poland, in the days leading up to and just after the Nazi invasion. Josef Tura (Jack Benny) is the leading man, supported by his wife Maria (Carole Lombard). Maria meets with a young Polish airman in her dressing room each night during the performances, and once the invasion begins, the young man goes to England where he can fight the Germans. There, he meets a Polish resistance leader, Professor Siletsky, and gives him a message to give Maria. However, Siletsky is actually a spy for Germany, and has been gathering intel on those Polish citizens who have gone over to fight against the invaders. Back in Poland, Josef and Maria have been doing what they can to support the resistance, and now take it upon themselves to kill Siletsky before he can pass on his intel to the gestapo. Sounds dire, and it is, but this black comedy is also incredibly funny. The comedic lines are delivered perfectly, at unforeseen moments, so that even when you are leaning forward during a tense exchange, when the actors are in very real fear of death, something will be said that will ease the tension and produce a laugh. Done poorly, and either the drama or the comedy suffers, but nothing is done incorrectly in this film. It all goes together so wonderfully. If the writing isn’t perfect, or if the direction isn’t spot on, or if the lines aren’t delivered just so, a movie like this could be a mess. Instead, it all comes together to brilliance. The film was not well received when it was released in 1942, it was after all satirizing the Nazi party when they were doing some very terrible things. But seen today, it is a whole other story. On a side note, Lubitsch (a German-born Jew who was a successful director in Germany before the war, and in Hollywood during it) was particularly despised by Hitler, who used Lubitsch’s face in propaganda pictures. ★★★★★

Heaven Can Wait is the first clunker from this director that I’ve seen. It still has some of the witty dialogue, but wasn’t all that intriguing for me. An old man has just died and rather than arrive at the pearly gates, he gets to the one place where everyone in his life has told him to go. At hell’s vestibule, Henry is greeted by a suave and welcoming Satan, who admits he isn’t familiar with Henry’s credentials to get him into hell. Henry begins to recount what he believes is a bad life, starting with being a naughty child, and then into adulthood, where he ran away with his cousin’s betrothed, only to continue his dalliances (off-camera of course). Henry always had a way with words, which kept him out of serious trouble throughout his life, and he uses them to save his marriage. Henry is portrayed by a young Don Ameche, who I recognized immediately from films of my childhood (Cocoon and Trading Places – one of my favorites as a kid). But nothing is memorable about this film unfortunately. ★★

Cluny Brown is a young woman, niece to a plumber, who isn’t afraid to do things for herself (and in fact, loves crawling under a sink and fixing a leak herself). When she responds to a service call in place of her uncle and does just this, she meets a foreigner named Mr Belinski, who is in London in hiding from Hitler’s Nazis. Mr Belinski is smitten with the modern Cluny, and fate brings them together again when they meet in the country, after Cluny is there to become a maid and Belinski is again in hiding. Cluny tries to do what she thinks is proper and has a date with the local pharmacist, but Belinski tries to convince her that the man is not for her, with his staid and unadventurous lifestyle. It’s a very nice romantic comedy, with Lubitsch’s trademark risqué interchanges. And holy cow, how did some of this dialogue get past 1940’s censors?! There’s a delightful scene where Cluny is thanking Mr Belinski for meeting him in the city and rolling down her stockings and banging it out (meaning the plumbing) within earshot of the housekeepers, who are obviously flabbergasted. The dialogue is the best part of the film, as the story is a little too expected. Nuts to the squirrels! ★★★½

Brute Force may be one of the best prison films I’ve ever seen. Released in 1947 and directed by the great Jules Dassin before he was blacklisted during McCarthy’s communist witch hunt, it features a couple young stars in Burt Lancaster and Hume Cronyn. The “action” of the film takes place entirely in a prison, where the inmates all dream of getting out and returning to their girls waiting on the outside. No one wants out more than rabble-rouser Joe Collins. The other prisoners follow his example, and the guards are understandably weary around him because of this. Joe is particularly opposed by the sadistic captain of the guard, Munsey. Munsey plays the prisoners off of each other, fermenting paranoia and angst among them. Joe is onto the game though, and is able to gather a few close friends to plan a real escape. The attempt is fantastic; even though the viewer knows it can’t possibly succeed, we hold out hope that a miracle can happen. Interspersed throughout the film are flashbacks, some heartbreaking, for each of our main troupe, showing the reason they want to get out and the life they want to return to. This is the third Dassin film I’ve seen, and loved The Naked City and Thieves’ Highway. Been holding out on Rififi, his supposed masterpiece, but that one is coming. ★★★½

Ride the Pink Horse is a seldom-seen film noir from director Robert Montgomery, who also starred in the lead role as Lucky Gagin. Gagin comes to a tiny town in New Mexico, San Pablo, in order to blackmail a crime boss, Frank Hugo, over the murder of Gagin’s friend. In classic film noir fashion, there are some side tracks, double crosses, a ne’er-do-well girl, and some innocents who try to give a helping hand to Gagin along the way. I resisted liking Gagin through much of the film, because frankly, he’s not a very likable guy. He is rough with people, condescending, and downright cruel in his talk to the local Mexican immigrants in town, calling them derogatory names even when they are helping. I know a lot of that can be written off as part of the times in 1947, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch. Still, Gagin gets his comeuppance in the end, and his language and character issues aside, the film itself is absolutely enthralling. Not sure how this one hasn’t gotten more attention over the years, but anyone who likes film noir should check it out. ★★★★

Hold Back the Dawn is a lovely romance from director Mitchell Leisen, based on a screenplay by Billy Wilder. Georges is from Romania and is trying to immigrate to America for a new start. He can afford to get to Mexico first, but it is there that he learns about quota limits on who can cross into the USA, and is told it will be 5-8 years before he can enter. A few months in, and broke from living at the local hotel, Georges is reunited with a former dance partner from Romania, Anita, who tells him how she was able to get US citizenship by “marrying in” and then quickly divorcing. Georges plans to do the same thing, and targets a visiting schoolteacher, Emmy, who is in Mexico with a bunch of field-tripping kids. Georges woos her and marries her all in a day, but is at least gallant enough to put off their wedding night. Over time, as Georges tries to avoid the USA immigrant agent who frequents the Mexican town with eyes out for people just like him trying to get into the country any way they can, Georges starts to have feelings for Emmy after all. But will he realize it himself before she catches on to his plot? It’s a very nice film; perhaps not all that memorable in the long run, but entertaining. Emmy is played by none other Olivia de Havilland, Melanie Hamilton of Gone With the Wind fame. She received an Oscar nomination for this role, and the picture received 6 nominations overall. ★★★½

My Name is Julia Rose is sort of a tense, quasi-psychological drama, from director Joseph H Lewis. It’s a simple picture, just a hair over an hour long, and not all that deep either. American immigrant Julia is desperate for work in the UK, and visits an employment agency where she hears about a job as a secretary for a wealthy woman. All seems ok until we see the family she is to work for, and they start whispering about nefarious doings. As soon as Julia gets there that night, she is drugged, and wakes up 2 days later in a seaside mansion, and is being called a different name. She doesn’t know what their intent is, and no one knows she’s there. The rest of the film is about her boyfriend trying to hunt her down, and her repeated attempts to escape the crazy family. Strange picture, and a few too many cheesy moments, even for a 40s flick. The constant (and I mean CONSTANT) violin runs and tremolos, to build suspense I guess, grew tiresome even during the short length of this film. ★½

So Dark the Night is from the same director, and it is a bit better. It’s a classic who-done-it in the film noir tradition. Henri is a famous detective from Paris on vacation in a small village in the French countryside. A local girl, Nanette, sets her eyes on him as a way to get out of the tiny town. Nanette’s mother encourages her to pursue Henri, but Nanette’s father and her longtime beau Leon have obvious objections. When Nanette ends up dead of strangulation, Henri suspects Leon immediately, until Leon is found dead too. Those are just the first two, and the killer starts leaving notes of warning to Henri as well. The ending gets a little weird, with some wild leaps in typical 40s fashion, but it was still ok. And I do like a short film I can watch in about an hour! ★★½

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? hails from 1962 and stars two Hollywood heavyhitters, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. By the 60’s they were aging stars and not getting the calls they used to, but this film revitalized their careers. Directed by Robert Aldrich, it is a psychological thriller about the Hudson sisters. Beginning in 1917, “Baby Jane” Hudson is a child star on the theater circuit while her sister Blanche looks on from the sidelines. By the mid-30s though, their fortunes have been reversed, as studios have found that Jane can’t act her way out of a box, and Blanche has become a Hollywood star. On one fateful night, it is implied Jane, in a fit of jealousy, drives down Blanche. When we see them again in the 60’s, we see that the incident has left Blanche in a wheelchair. She’s protected Jane though, so Jane didn’t do any jailtime, and Jane has been taking care of Blanche, whose residual checks keep the family living well. The film really gets going now. Jane has become a mentally unstable alcoholic, and she begins to mentally torture Blanche, who is confined to the second floor of the house, all while having delusions of revitalizing her career as “Baby Jane.” It’s a great film, tense with an almost-horror flick feel, and two leading ladies who had lost nothing to time. Fun stuff, and gripping to the end. ★★★½

Seconds, from director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate back in the day, and more recently Ronin and Reindeer Games), is about an older man who has grown bored of his aging wife and stale life (banker). When he receives a cryptic call from an old friend, who was presumed dead, promising a new life, he jumps at it. He ends up receiving more than he bargained for, realizing too late that the grass isn’t always greener. They give him a new, younger face, new house and career, new life, but he can’t find peace. It’s a psychological thriller, with jarring and close-up shots of our anti-hero losing his grip. The co-leads of older man (John Randolph, who had a long and storied career on TV, in film, and on Broadway) and younger man (Rock Hudson, who needs no introduction) are both great, but the film was too stunted for my tastes. And while Hudson is always great, I like my Rock in his more traditional heartthrob roles. I struggled to get into this one despite the solid reviews. ★★

Something Wild was critically the opposite from above. Receiving middling reviews, I really enjoyed this piece, which again is a psychological film, leaning more on the drama aspects instead of the thriller like Seconds (though there are plenty of tense moments in the final 30 minutes). Walking home from school one evening, college student Mary Ann (Carroll Baker, who is amazing in this role) is brutally raped. The next day, she can’t return to a normal life, and wanders the city, unable to mentally find her footing. Mary Ann abruptly leaves her home and takes a tiny apartment in a seedy part of town, gets a lowly job in a five-and-ten, and spends her nights restless. When Mary Ann finally reaches the end of her rope, she attempts to jump off a bridge but is saved at the last second by Mike, a passerby. He takes care of her at first, bringing her to his place and feeding her, but when he comes drunk home after work, we see that he is up to no good. Mary Ann and Mike are a couple of wonderfully complex characters. Also, the director does a great job of putting us in Mary Ann’s head; you feel her hopelessness as she isolates herself from everyone in her life, and you see how alone she is even though all of New York is bustling around her. Great film that I think was just ahead of its time; if it were made today, it would be a darling of the indie circuit. ★★★½

I was enthralled by Bill Greaves’s pseudo-documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One, made in 1968 but not released until decades later. Greaves, an actor and documentarian (in fact, a member of The Actor’s Studio in New York in the late 40’s at the same time as Marlon Brando and Shelley Winters, among others) plays an inept version of himself trying to make a film in a park in New York with three film crews: the first is filming his movie, the second is filming the first film crew in a “making of” sort of way, and the third is filming anything that catches their eye in the area. They keep filming the same scene over and over again, from different angles, different takes, and even different actors. It seems no one is in on the joke except Bill himself; the actors and film crew increasingly wonder what the hell they are all doing there and if Bill even has a plan for it all. Of course in reality, Greaves is filming everything to edit together later for a piece about the mayhem going on and the natural, authentic reactions of those involved in it. It is mesmerizing in a reality television sort of way, but far better for those of us who love movies. It gives a real behind the scenes look. Unfortunately the film took 20+ years to get released, and only did after actor/filmmaker Steve Buscemi saw it at a film festival, and brought on acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh to help raise money for Greaves to finally get it done. They even used a lot of the unused footage (Greaves reportedly had shot 55 hours of tape initially) to make a sequel, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take 2 1/2. The first 40 minutes of the sequel is old footage, before they get to new stuff later on. It doesn’t have the freshness of the first film, because the counter-culture element of the 60’s shines so well in Take One, plus, we are all in on the joke now. I’d give maybe 2 stars to the sequel, but for Take One, : ★★★★

The Honeymoon Killers is based on a true story, about a pair of serial killers who killed older woman who had placed “lonely hearts” ads. In the film, Martha Beck has just placed such an ad when she is contacted by Ray Fernandez. The two exchange letters for awhile, until they decide to finally meet at her home in Alabama. Ray makes the trip down from New York, but is only there a day or two, managing to swindle Martha out of some money. Realizing she’s been duped, Martha chases him to New York and threatens the police. Placating her, the duo hatch a plan to continue targeting old single women for money, a scheme that eventually turns to murdering their victims once the cash is safe in hand. Martha plays the crazy one, prone to fits of sudden violence, and Ray seems unable or unwilling to reign her in. Lauded in its day for its realism, it’s a good low budget film with tense moments and plenty of thrills for a late 60s historical drama. ★★★½

I usually see newer movies, and Take Shelter isn’t a new film (2011), but I stumbled upon it accidentally, saw it had two fantastic actors (Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain), was directed by Jeff Nichols (before he did Mud and Midnight Special), and dove in. Curtis is a construction worker in a rural community who suddenly one day starts suffering from debilitating fear about impending disasters. He and his wife Samantha are already struggling to make ends meet, with big bills for the special school and needs for their deaf daughter Hannah. First Curtis has progressively worse nightmares, which are vivid and violent, but when it becomes hallucinations while awake, of storms killing his family, strangers kidnapping Hannah, etc., he starts to act on his fears. Accepting his nightmares as premonitions, he borrows a bunch of money from the bank and starts expanding a storm shelter on his land into a secure bunker. This leads to all sorts of problems in his relationship with his wife and other friends and family. As Curtis goes further down the rabbit hole, these chasms grow even wider. Michael Shannon puts in a tour-de-force performance, in an engrossing picture examining mental illness (or is it?) and its affect on the family. ★★★½

The Half of It is a very nice, new take on the classic coming-of-age tale. Ellie is a very smart and talented girl in high school, but she’s shy and ridiculed as the class nerd. She also happens to be the best writer in school, so everyone pays her to write their papers, and she uses the money to help support her single father, who hates his job in the small town where they seem to be stuck. Ellie is approached by a dumb (but nice) jock, Paul, to help him write a love letter to Aster, the prettiest girl in school. The problem is, Ellie has a huge crush on Aster herself. Aster hangs with the cool crowd because of her looks, but she’s smart and artsy and more akin to Ellie. As Ellie and Paul grow closer, this little love triangle grows very complicated. Ellie tells us in the beginning this isn’t a love story, but it is a story about finding yourself. The film is definitely more painful than warming, but it leaves you with a sense that life will be OK in the end. ★★★½

Extraction, starring Chris Hemsworth in his classic manly role, is no sweeping, thought-provoking cinematic experience, but it doesn’t try to be. It is a straight forward action flick, and for what it is, it hits on all cylinders. Tyler Rake is a mercenary with a team that goes to the highest bidder. They’ve been hired to rescue a boy who’s been kidnapped. The boy is the son of a drug lord in India, but he’s been nabbed by a drug lord from Bangladesh. In the mission to get the boy and get them to the people with the most money, all hell breaks loose. There’s no deep plot here, no surprises, just lots of pure action, with Rake killing dozens, if not hundreds of “bad guys” on the way. If you are in the mood to see hand-to-hand fights, lots of explosions, and plenty of gratuitous gore, this film will satisfy. I went in knowing what to expect, and was happy with the outcome. ★★★½

Little Women received a ton of accolades last year, but I just don’t get all the praise. A new telling of the classic Alcott book, director Greta Gerwig brought together an all-star cast of women, including Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, and Florence Pugh. The actors are charming, but the characters are a bit pretentious. A family of four girls living with their mother while their father is off with the Union army in the Civil War, they are raised to be sure of themselves, kind to the needy, and strong willed in a time when women were just supposed to get married and be an ornament. Jo wants to be a writer, Amy an artist, Meg an actor/playwright, and Beth a musician, and each pursues their goals in their own way, while remaining tightly connected to each other. The film is about these pursuits, as well as the relationships that come and go. Unfortunately it all comes off as too syrupy sweet, and as the film is told in flashbacks (and even a couple flash forwards), it feels choppy, and honestly this way of telling this classic story doesn’t do justice to the girls. Starting in the present and then going back, we don’t get to see them “become” the women they are over time, it just sort of happens. And (**SPOILER**) when Beth dies, because we didn’t get to know her so well earlier, her death has a much less affect on the watcher as it does on the reader in the book, and does Beth a severe disservice. And the film feels long. It is under 2 1/2 hours, but I’ve seen 3+ hour films that went by quicker. It isn’t bad, and the actors are great all around, but not deserving of the heaps of praise. I think sometimes we go too far to applaud a woman director when she makes a good film, because the industry is lacking in good female directors, and unfortunately that was the case here for me. ★★★

Pain and Glory is the latest from storied director Pedro Almodóvar, who I ashamedly admit I haven’t seen enough of (will rectify that before too long). It stars Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo, an aging, successful director who is at a bit of a crossroads. In 4 years he has lost his mother and had major back surgery which has left him in constant pain. On the 32nd anniversary of his breakout film, a local theater in Madrid is screening a restored version of the movie, bringing all kinds of emotion to Salvador. He reconnects to the star of that film, despite a falling out 30 years ago, and also begins to work through his thoughts and feelings regarding his mother. Interspersed throughout the picture are flashbacks to Salvador’s childhood, growing up in poverty. This is a film about healing, both for our main character and, I believe, for director Almodóvar. He’s on record for saying how personal the film was for him, and while it isn’t a true biography, it is also very evident that he is working things out for himself in this film. It’s a beautiful film, with a nuanced and touching performance by Banderas. ★★★★★

I thought it’d be nice to watch some film adaptations of some of these books I’ve been reading. Wise Blood, directed by famed actor and director John Huston and released in 1979, is based on a book by the great American writer Flannery O’Connor. I didn’t read this book, but I did read her famous book of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find. This film is about a man recently released from military service, Haze, who has lost all faith in faith, if you catch my meaning. We see in flashbacks that his dad was a charlatan preacher, and after witnessing another man pretending to be a blind preacher as well (basically panhandling), Haze decides to start a new kind of church. He starts the “Church of Christ Without Christ” and tells people they don’t need Jesus, and to only look out for themselves. Along the way, he continues to cross paths with the blind man and his daughter, who is obsessed with getting Haze in the sack, as well as a local boy who finds his own personal Jesus in the form of a mummified corpse at the local museum. Its zany adventures and characters remind me of a Coen Brothers film, so fans of theirs should check this out. I definitely see some inspiration there. Good cast too, starring Brad Dourif as Haze (most well known as stuttering Billy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), as well as Harry Dean Stanton and a small part for Ned Beatty. ★★★½

I did read The Grapes of Wrath, and this film version came out just a year after the book, in 1940. It stars Henry Fonda in a younger role as Tom Joad, and is directed by the great John Ford. The film is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, so you can just read my blurb there. Obviously it is a shortened version, and my only gripe is the film feels rushed. And they did move some stuff around, to give the movie a more uplifting ending. In the film, the family finds itself at the government camp near the end instead of shortly after arriving in California. This lets them end on a good note, feeling some hope for the future. The only hope in the book is the hope that man will continue to help each other through even the worst of times. The film completely eliminates the final chapters of the book, when the Joad family hits rock bottom and is starving, as well as Rose of Sharon delivering a dead baby, and the famous, iconic final scene. Still, the movie is very well done for what it is, and is well deserving of being heralded as one of the great classic American films of all time. ★★★½

It’s been awhile, over 5 years and about 100 books ago, since I read Kipling’s Kim. I remember the gist of it, and recall really enjoying it. The film adaptation from 1950, starring Errol Flynn and a young Dean Stockwell, has the look but missing some of the magic of that great novel. The basic premise is the same: a young Irish-born orphan is living on the streets in India, and has absorbed local cultures and customs so much that people think he is an Indian. He falls in with a holy man, a Buddhist lama, who is seeking a river of enlightenment. At the same time, Kim is aiding a horse trader/British spy known as the Red Beard, who is covertly battling against Russian invaders for land in the Afghanistan region. It isn’t long before Kim is recruited by British spies for “the Great Game” in the the battle for control over the area. The film has the basics of the book down, and because much of it was filmed in India (no small feat in 1950), it has brilliance and vibrancy that sucks you in from the opening scenes, but it seems to lose something halfway through. It comes off as a typical Hollywood flick, and doesn’t give its characters space to breathe. And though my memory may be a little fuzzy, the latter half seems greatly different from the book. Whereas the book left the reader thinking about the larger picture, the film is more cut and dry. Certainly not a bad flick, but it doesn’t live up to the source material. ★★★

1984 sticks to George Orwell’s novel pretty closely. In a dystopian time, Winston Smith feels rebellious towards the ever-watching Big Brother, and he knows that much of what he is told is not real at all. He finds a like-minded woman in Julia, and despite relationships like this being outlawed, they begin a covert love affair, meeting above an old shop in the “prole” district, where cameras and microphones aren’t around to capture everything. Just when Winston starts to dig more into a supposed rebellion movement, he and Julia learn that they’ve been under surveillance all along, and Winston now faces torture and, worse, mind controlling changes to force him into party lines. The film is great, led perfectly by John Hurt as Winston, and if it had been an original picture and not based on an amazing book, I’d probably rate it higher. But as good as it is, it isn’t quite as good as the source material. Winston does narrate some of his thoughts to us viewers, but you just can’t get into his head as you can in a book. Still, a very enjoyable picture, that speaks more today than it did when the novel first came out. When today’s politicians say one thing, and then later deny ever saying it, sprouting “fake news” when confronted with proof, it isn’t all that different from the terrible and scary future depicted by Orwell in 1949. ★★★★

A Room With a View is based on the book by EM Forster, and stars a 19-year-old Helena Bonham Carter in her first film role. Lucy Honeychurch is a young woman from a well-to-do family, traveling in Italy with her cousin Charlotte as chaperon. In Italy, the two women meet Mr Emerson and his son George (Julian Sands). Mr Emerson sees George has an instant attraction to Lucy, and implores her to get George to come out of his sullen ways. Out on a picnic one day, George steals a kiss, seen by Charlotte, so she rushes Lucy away. They return to England and Lucy does the proper thing, getting engaged to Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis), a suit with nothing to offer the world except his money and position. It is to be a marriage for society and not for love, in fact, their first kiss is awkward and lacking the passion Lucy shared with George. Lucy’s mother isn’t fond of Cecil either, thinking him standoff-ish towards the “new money” Honychurchs. Lucy’s little world is thrown in disarray when, seemingly by fate, the Emersons rent a nearby villa, and Lucy must confront George again. The film Howards End was done by the same director (James Ivory) and lead (Bonham Carter), and in that case I liked the book more. Here, while I did enjoy the book very much, the film is absolutely perfect. It is charming, funny (with a lot more humor than I remember from the book), emotional, and richly detailed in both scenes and dialogue. A wonderful film, with a top-notch cast including the above before-they-were famous trio and supporting roles by established stars Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, and other recognizable faces. ★★★★★

Followed up with another period drama, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, based on a book I was lukewarm to when I read it. Unlike the two previous films above, this one is not a strict adaptation. This is a film-within-a-film with two timelines. In one, we see the story from the novel, featuring the love affair of Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff. The other shows the actors playing these characters, Mike and Anna, and their own clandestine tryst. Inside the movie, Charles ultimately ends his engagement to a high society woman to pursue Sarah, a so-called town whore, of whom it is whispered she once slept with a ne’er-do-well Frenchman passing through the village. Outside the movie, Mike is head-over-heels for Anna, but she is married and does not look to be leaving her French husband anytime soon. The correlations between the two narratives are pretty obvious. Though not exactly faithful to the book, the two stories were done on purpose; since the book had 3 endings, they can simulate a similar feel by having 2 distinct stories going on in the movie. I found the book overly wordy and the author prone to long philosophical discussions, and enjoyed the film much more. The converging separate plots come together cleanly in the end, and Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons are splendid in the two leads. Release in 1981, it is early in their long and storied careers. ★★★½

Closely Watched Trains may be one of the finest films to come out of the “Czech New Wave” film movement. Released in 1966 and directed by Jiri Menzel, it follows a young man/late teenager named Milos Hrma who’s gotten his first job as a train porter. It takes place in a tiny town during World War II, while his country is under Nazi occupation. He’s only occupied with the things kids his age are always are, namely, getting laid. He wants to sleep with a pretty young local girl, but is scared to make a move and doesn’t know how to do so, it being his first time and all. After their first awkward attempt, he even attempts suicide but is saved by an onlooker. The doctor tells him he is just suffering from premature ejaculation, and to find an older woman for his first experience, who can “show him the ways.” Through all this, it turns out the other workers at the train station are involved in the resistance movement against the Nazis, all completely oblivious to the sex-crazed Milos. It’s a funny film and typical of the New Wave movement, but also very heartfelt and, in the end, very sad and endearing. A lovely film (it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film) from a country I’ve had next-to-zero experience from before. ★★★★

Before Milos Forman won a couple Oscars for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus, he made a name for himself in the Czech New Wave in his native Czechoslovakia. On the surface, The Firemen’s Ball is a screwball comedy. A group of local firefighters is throwing a big retirement party for their outgoing chairman, and the whole troop is a bunch of bumbling idiots. The main sources of laughs come from people stealing prizes from the lottery table all night, and the lecherous old men ogling over very young women for the beauty contest to be held. But the comedy is only so light-hearted, once you realize Forman was making fun of the Communist party in control of Czechoslovakia. In fact, the film was banned in his home country for a long time. The Fireman’s Ball was his last film made there before coming to the USA. While away scanning locations for his next film in 1968, Prague was invaded by the Warsaw Pact of countries, including the USSR. He obviously did very well in America, but this was a great film and a lasting piece of that era. ★★★½

I liked Jiri Menzel’s above film so much that I hunted down another. Unfortunately Capricious Summer doesn’t come close. Released two years after Closely Watched Trains, this film is about three middle-aged men, life-long friends, as they relax on a summer retreat. They debate life and poke fun at each other as all friends do, but their relaxing days are thrown into disarray when a traveling circus performer comes to town. The one married man of the trio sees his wife fall for the performer, while the three men all vie for the attention of his lovely young assistant. I chuckled a few times, but found myself bored for way too large of a portion of this picture. ★

Just as I loved and hated two films of Jiri Menzel’s, I loved and hated films by director Jaromil Jires. A few months ago I saw Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and it did nothing for me. I gave him another chance for The Joke, and this one was great. It is about a man who writes a questionable joke to his girlfriend deriding the Communist party, and when it becomes public, he is sentenced to 6 years in a “rehabilitation” army, which is basically prison and manual labor. The movie shows the events of then, and also ten years later when he returns to his hometown to enact a revenge, though on who and for exactly what we are not quite aware yet. The movie is narrated by our main character, and in a cool new wave-y style, we see “current” Ludvik watching events from the past that merge with his modern setting. It sounds weird but makes sense when you see it. The film is very obviously anti-Communist party, and since it was completed just before the Soviet invasion, it was banned and shelved for 20 years. Whereas many directors from the country would flee to continue making the movies they wanted, Jires stuck around and made less controversial films until the party fell apart in the late 80s. ★★★½

Pearls of the Deep is an anthology film, made up of 5 short skits based on a book of short stories by Czech author Bohumil Hrabal. Each part of the film has a different director. Like most anthology movies, it is a bit uneven, but overall it is a nice picture. The Death of Mr Baltazar, directed by Jiri Menzel, shows a group at a motorcycle race, each person one-upping another with wild tales they’ve witnessed, before the eponymous Baltazar crashes in the race. The Imposters (director Jan Nemec) is about a pair of dying old men in a hospital, telling each other of their exploits in life, before we find out later from the coroner that the stories were all made up. The House of Joy (director Evald Schorm) follows a couple insurance salesman who get more than they bargained for when they try to sell man who sees himself as an important artist more than a goat pelt producer. The Restaurant of the World (director Vera Chytilova) takes place in a restaurant one night when a woman is found having committed suicide, while a wedding party celebrates outside. Finally, Jaromil Jires’s Romance is a fun romp, about a beautiful young gypsy girl who offers her body to a passing young man in exchange for some new clothes from the department store, but he gets more than anticipated when they quickly fall in love with each other. Parts of the film were good (some very good, particularly Jires’s finale), and as a whole there is a sense of railing against the establishment. Unfortunately for these directors in 1965, they would lose the ability to openly do that very soon. ★★★

Hour of the Wolf is a bit different from other Ingmar Bergman films. It’s very much a horror picture, and it shows Bergman using different themes than he’s traditionally known for. Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) is an artist of local fame, and he’s brought his younger wife Alma (Liv Ullmann) to a tiny island where he has a summer home. They aren’t there for long before Johan starts becoming distant and surly; he stops sleeping and starts talking about being haunted by demons on the island, people he names as the Birdman, the Meat Eaters, and a lady who removes her face when she takes off her hat. Shortly after Johan starts acting this way, Alma is visiting by an older woman who tells Alma where Johan keeps his diary. Trying to help him, Alma reads through it, and finds out that Johan was once involved in a scandalous affair on the island, before their marriage, to a married woman named Veronica. Johan also admits to Alma that he killed a young boy on the island once, a story that repulses Alma. A local baron invites the couple to his castle for dinner, at which Johan’s past is brought up, and allusions are made that Veronica is still around. Before the conclusion, Veronica’s ghastly visage does indeed show up, and the demons are unmasked. It’s a very different feel from what I’m used to from this director, but it is good nonetheless. Bergman’s longtime cinematographer Sven Nykvist (look up his impressive list of films!) creates a gloriously dark miasma which permeates through each successive scene, getting bleaker and bleaker until a stunning conclusion. ★★★½

Released the same year, von Sydow and Ullman return together in Bergman’s Shame, another film very different from his usual fare. It is the most political film he ever made, and also very antiwar, as a look at the legacy of World War II and probably eyeing the ongoing Vietnam conflict as well. Jan and Eva are a married couple, violinists in a local symphony before a Civil War broke out recently, but they’ve stayed on their farm and away from the conflict. Eva is a strong willed woman and the defacto head of the house, while Jan is submissive and prefers to avoid conflict. They can’t forever though, and war finally comes to them. Nearly sent to a labor camp, they are saved at the last second by a local politician and supposed friend, Jacobi (another Bergman stalwart, Gunnar Bjornstrand), who became a conspirator for the (so far) winning side of the war. I didn’t enjoy this first hour of the film, to this point; it is almost an action film, which seems neither Bergman’s nor von Sydow’s forte, but the second act found them both in their element. Things have settled down a bit, but Jacobi has used his power over the couple to his advantage. Showering them with gifts (food and supplies, in a time when such things are hard to come by), he’s seduced Eva into granting sexual favors in exchange. The mousy Jan is unable to stop it, but when the political tides turn against Jacobi, Jan is finally able to grow a backbone. The problem is, will Eva like the man he becomes? There are some stunning moments in the second half, some heartfelt and heartbreaking dialogue and emotional peaks and valleys that only Bergman could produce. Sit through the first half, because the payoff is fantastic. The second half is 4+ stars, but I’m docking it just a bit for the first half. ★★★½

Having just finished The Passion of Anna, I’m just going to freewrite a bit on my thoughts about it. I went into this one blind, and probably should have read at least a synopsis to know what I was getting into. Without it, I didn’t know what to think for quite awhile. It starts with an almost New Wave-y feel, with a voice narration describing events to the viewer, and the film is interspersed with interviews with the four main actors, breaking the fourth wall and discussing their individual views on what makes their character tick. Ultimately, I think the film deals with one of Bergman’s favorite subjects: loneliness, and its entwinement with humanity. Andreas is a man who has cut himself off from others, figuratively and literally, but he seems to give in to others’ needs when they require companionship. This flaw (if it is one, it seems to be for Andreas) leads him to two love affairs, first with the married Eva, and later with the widowed Anna. Each of these two women have their own issues, as does Eva’s husband Elis. The film closely examines each of these four people. There are a whole lot of movies out there where characters are one dimensional, but certainly not here. These four are complex, flawed human beings, not always aware of want they want in this world, only that they don’t have it yet. Bergman’s monologues in this film are truly exceptional, and will have you thinking about the greater world around you, and your place in it. It’s an exceptional picture, probably one of Bergman’s lesser known gems, and one I’ll need to revisit one day now that I know what to look for. ★★★★

Like many high profile directors, Ingmar Bergman was a bit of a narcissist; he loved glowing praise but was condescending to unfavorable critics. For a time he led the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre, and when one of his productions was not warmly received, he made The Rite. It’s basically a filmed stage play, featuring a cast of just four. A traveling threater trio is brought in on charges of indecency in their latest act, and they are being investigated by a local judge, who interviews them. A short film at just 75 minutes, it is basically satire with Bergman making fun of the sensor process, pointing out perceived hypocrisy in how content can be accepted in one situation and derided in another. He also has the judge do some terrible deeds himself, which are not persecuted. I’m sure Bergman had a big laugh at it all, but it doesn’t make for a great film. Just sort of felt like showing off what he could get away with, while thumbing his nose at his detractors. ★½

The Touch is the first truly bad film I’ve seen of this director, and at this point, I’ve seen quite a few. At least with the above The Rite, I get where it’s coming from and, while I didn’t enjoy, it at least has some artistic merit and I can see how some would get into it. I don’t see anything in The Touch. Bergman’s first film in English, and with a bonafide American star (Elliott Gould, just a year removed from MASH and two from his first Oscar nom), it is the least “Bergman” Bergman film he probably ever did. Bibi Anderson plays Karin, a woman torn between two men. Her husband Andreas (Max von Sydow) isn’t the warmest partner around, and he is absent due to work, but he obviously loves her. Karin wants something more though, and ends up in the arms of displaced American David (Gould). As the common phrase goes, I don’t know what she sees in him. David is childish, and prone to angry outbursts when he doesn’t get his way, i.e., if Karin doesn’t drop everything and come to his apartment when he calls. Their love affair is just poorly done too; it’s the worst kind of melodrama where the couple says and does things that don’t even make sense from an adult relationship point of view. Since the above films had great second acts, I stuck around until the end waiting for a big “ah-ha” moment. I’ll save you the viewing: it doesn’t come. ½