I never watched Dora the Explorer, never had any kids into the show, but Dora and the Lost City of Gold looked cute, so I thought I’d give it a chance. The movie starts out with the little 6-year-old Dora of the TV show, being raised in the jungle by her parents, but quickly jumps ahead 10 years to a teenage Dora getting ready to move to the city for the first time in her life. Dora is completely unprepared for the city, and the city is unprepared for her. Her one-time sidekick, cousin Diego, has lived in the city all these years and is initially embarrassed by Dora’s naivety and complete lack of social skills. When Dora and some classmates are kidnapped to a South American jungle by treasure hunters, after the fabled Incan City of Gold which Dora’s parents have been hunting for years, their adventure really starts. Isabela Moner is cute as a button and portrays Dora with infectious good cheer, and her exuberance permeates through the tv, but I wasn’t buying it all. This is a family film that is definitely geared towards the youngsters, and has a few too many cliches for the older crowd to enjoy. ★★

Luce is a good kid, a senior in high school, on track towards a seemingly bright and successful future. Adopted as a child from war-torn Eritrea, he was raised well and never has given any reason for anyone to doubt him. Yet he is surrounded by circumstantial evidence that he has a darker side. A class assignment has him write an essay from the point of view of an historical figure, and his pick is a revolutionary who called for violence to end colonialism. He does the paper so well that it negatively grabs his teacher’s attention. Luce was in the vicinity when a classmate was sexually assaulted. He had illegal fireworks in his lockers, but claims they were someone else’s, as he and his friends all share lockers. The only person that doubts Luce is that teacher, but whether she’s right, or she has a vendetta against him, isn’t apparent to the viewer. This is one of those “thrillers” where all the suspense is created by the unknown. There is an obvious racial angle, with Luce being black and raised in a white household in an upper-middle class neighborhood, but it is so much more too. Luce is smart, smart enough to realize he is hampered by both expectations to succeed by some, and by others, expectations to fail. Tremendous, multi-layered film with a fantastic ensemble cast. ★★★★

Official Secrets reminded me of another recent historical film, The Report. Like that picture, this one focuses heavy on the facts of a moment that many people may not be terribly aware, and frankly by itself, though important, may not be all that riveting as viewing material, but which features strong actors to try make it work. The Report succeeded for the most part, Official Secrets does not. This one follows a woman in the intelligence community in the UK, Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), who leaks a memo to the press that the USA has been gathering intel on UN diplomats, in a bid to perhaps blackmail them into voting to legitimize an invasion of Iraq, despite intel that Saddam Hussein in fact has no WMD’s. The second half of the film, where she is busted and brought to trial for being a whistleblower, is boring as hell. I almost made it to the end of the movie, but finally gave up. There’s some good, recognizable actors in this one, but the script is as dry as a desert. ★½

The Farewell is just one of those quiet, beautiful movies that make you feel good. Awkwafina, who burst onto the scene the last couple years in comedic roles in Oceans 8 and Crazy Rich Asians, takes on a more serious part as Billi. Raised in the USA since the age of 6, she returns with her parents to their native China, ostensibly for the wedding of Billi’s cousin, but really to visit her Nai Nai (grandmother), who has terminal lung cancer. In Chinese tradition, none of the family is giving Nai Nai the news of her impending death, forecasted just months away, and she thinks she is just fighting a bad cold. Raised “in the west,” Billi doesn’t understand this tradition and thinks Nai Nai should know the severity of her condition, but she is cowed by all the rest of her family, including her parents. As the wedding approaches, Billi has to come to terms with the differences in cultures from which she was born versus where she was raised. Despite sounding very somber (and it is at times), the film has moments of levity that prevent it from becoming a dirge, such as the time when the family has to rush to the hospital to intercept Nai Nai’s recent test results before she can read it herself. It’s a lovely film and a fantastic role for Awkwafina, nabbing her a Golden Globe. ★★★★

Followed up a film predominately in Chinese with one completely in it, but Long Day’s Journey Into Night is much less linear. Our main character is a man in search of a lost love, and the film starts with a trip through his memories. There’s no clear path through them either. He remembers his girl, his deceased father and surviving mother, and his friend who had been murdered. The memories are disjointed, out of order, and like our own memories, probably not exactly accurate. In fact the same actors play a couple different characters, intentionally I think, to mimic the infallibility of human memory. The director (Gan Bi) uses running water to great effect to signify the flowing of time; water drips everywhere in these memories, from faucets, from rivers, from the sky. The second half of the film is what everyone brings up when they talk about this movie. There is a single, hour-long cut in real time (and shown in 3D no less) following our main character through a dream of his. He’s fallen asleep in a movie theater, and the hour is one long continuous shot of his journey through his dream. And he’s not just sitting in a room. The camera follows him as he walks through a mine, then a nearly abandoned town. There are some truly astounding sequences, including when he takes flight over the town. How the camera pulled all this off is astonishing. It reminded me of other famous long shots where a lot was going on, like the hallway fight scene in Oldboy, the street-side pan of Godard’s Weekend, and the battle at the hospital in Children of Men. Those were all amazing, but this one will amaze you. (And it’s a good, thought-provoking movie too.) ★★★★

I’m a little torn on Judy, starring Renee Zellweger. I was wanting a true biopic about Judy Garland, but instead the film focuses on her final year of life, with a few flashbacks to her early career working for Louis B Mayer at MGM, as she prepared for The Wizard of Oz. In 1968 or 69, Garland is broke and in debt. No one in the USA wants to hire her, what with her reputation for not showing up on time and being hard to work with. With no prospects and the very real possibility of losing her kids to her ex-husband, she signs on for a series of shows in London, where she is still very popular. With most of the film looking at her as an aging, bankrupt star, struggling with addiction, it is a very good picture, just not what I expected. Zellweger gives it her all, and there are moments when the camera is in just the right spot that you forget that it isn’t Garland herself in front of you. It does a great job of showing Judy as a woman who loved to please the crowd, often to the detriment of her own health, but also a person with very real demons that, in the end, she wasn’t able to shake. ★★★

Some books just don’t translate well on screen. By all accounts, The Goldfinch is a fantastic read, but the movie, while it has a few nice moments, never realizes its grand expectations. After a short, cryptic narration, the film becomes a flashback when Theo was a young teenager. He’s one of a few survivors after a terrorist has blown up an art museum in New York. His mother is killed, and with no other family (his deadbeat Dad has disappeared), he goes to live with a classmate’s family. He is treated kindly, and just as he starts to feel at ease, his Dad shows up and takes him off to live in Nevada, where the only saving grace is an immigrant friend he makes, Boris. Theo’s time with his alcoholic, abusive father is awful, until finally Theo runs away and makes his way to New York alone. The title comes from a piece of art, once thought destroyed in the bombing, which Theo has secretly kept it in hiding all these years. Unfortunately the end of the film is very weird, doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the picture. The movie features good acting by Ansel Elgort in the lead, supported by Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson, Jeffrey Wright, and Luke Wilson, but good actors can’t save the subpar script. I stuck through the film hoping all the pieces would come together in the end, but they never add up to anything grand. ★½

BrightBurn is a low budget sci-fi horror film with some big names behind it. It is about a husband and wife, Kyle and Tori (David Denman, Roy from The Office fame, and Elizabeth Banks), who want a baby but have been unable to conceive. Their prayers seem to be answered when an alien spacecraft crashes outside their rural farm, housing a baby, Superman-style. They raise Brandon as their own, and 11 years later, he seems to be a normal boy. However, when the buried spaceship comes alive, it brings out a sinister side of Brandon, and also seems to awaken his superpowers. Let’s just say, he’s not a good guy. Brandon gives in to his anger too easily and starts killing. It’s a decent horror flick, though it does fall into the trap of many low budget such films and really ratchets up the gore in the latter third of the flick. The film is produced by James Gunn of Guardians of the Galaxy fame, and takes place in the same world as one of his early pre-fame pictures, 2010’s Super. ★★½

Ever wonder where the term “Stockholm syndrome” came from? The film Stockholm answers your question. As it states in the opening credits, this movie is based on an absurd but true story. Lars Nystrom is a not-very-bright crook when he walks into a bank one day, not to rob it, but to use the hostages as leverage to free his buddy from jail. The cops do just that, but soon become wise that Lars’ bark is a lot worse than his bite, and that he has no intention to hurt those with him. Ethan Hawke plays an over-the-top robber, with a fine supporting cast including Noomi Rapace as Bianca, one of the hostages. That duo make the film, because as a picture, it is just average. It is worth watching for those acting chops though. In my opinion, Hawke has really upped his game these last few years; it’s getting to the point where I will watch anything with him. ★★★

Speaking of watching anything with him. Joaquin Phoenix is very picky about what he’s in, and they aren’t always good films, but his performances are always spot on. Joker is his latest. An origin story of how one of the greatest comic villains came to be, Phoenix plays a man, Arthur, and his descent into madness (which isn’t a long trip). We’ve seen it done before, like Jack Nicholson’s version in 1989’s Batman, but the Joker isn’t falling into a vat of acid this time. In fact, this is one of the most believable ways it could happen. Arthur is a man who the system has let down. Suffering from mental health problems due to abuse as a child, unable to get his meds or therapy due to cuts to social programs by the city, and plagued by a disorder in which he laughs uncontrollably when he’s nervous, Arthur certainly feels like the world is out to get him. When he finally snaps, it seems like that was the only outcome you could expect. I loved the film. It isn’t related to the current DC Universe films and stands by itself, but I hope a sequel gets made to see Phoenix’s Joker go up against the Bat. ★★★★

 

After James Joyce, it was nice to just read a normal book, and a good one at that. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is an iconic novel that meant a whole lot to a whole lot of different people. Released in 1982, it won Walker a Pulitzer Prize (the first African-American woman to do so) and inspired a generation of young writers.

The principle protagonist is Celie, a poor teenager living in the south in the early 1900’s. Her background, established in the first pages, is about as terrible as you can imagine. Only 14 years old, she’s had two children all ready, both fathered by Celie’s own father Alphonso, who beats and rapes her without mercy. He took the children away from her shortly after birth, and she’s never seen them again. All Celie has in this world is her little sister Nettie, but Alphonso all ready has his eyes on her at the age of 12. When a neighbor, “Mister,” (his name, Albert, isn’t given until much later in the novel. For the majority of it, he’s simply known as “Mister.”), asks to marry Nettie, Alphonso refuses, giving the Celie to him instead. Celie goes from one evil house to another, and her beatings continue. Though still young herself, she has to look after Mister’s children and do all the housework. To get away from Alphonso, Nettie runs away, promising to write letters every day until she dies. However, years go by, and Celie never receives a single letter.

Over the years, new people come into the picture, including Mister’s true love of his life, Shug. Shug is a singer, once a good one, but she’s fallen on hard times due to drugs and a hard life. She moves into their house and becomes Mister’s mistress, under the same roof as Celie. Celie doesn’t care, as she has no love for Mister anyway, and her beatings are less frequent when Shug is around. Other people have tales to be told too, including Mister’s son Harpo, his wife Sofia, and his mistress Squeak, but more than I want to get into in a short synopsis.

Over time, Celie and Shug develop a friendship, and ultimately, a romantic relationship. With Shug’s encouragement, Celie begins to grow her self esteem. This is further developed when Shug finds a cache of letters from Nettie and brings them to Celie. Nettie had indeed been writing all these years, but Mister never gave the letters to Celie. Celie learns that Nettie latched on to a black married couple who have gone to Africa as missionaries. Not only that, but the couple adopted and have been raising Celie’s two children, given to them by Mister when they were just kids. Celie is thrilled at the news, but doesn’t let on to Mister. However, she does start to grow a backbone, and the book subtly shifts as Celie begins to exert more power in the house. In one letter, Celie learns from Nettie that their father wasn’t their father at all, he was a stepfather who stepped in to the void filled with their real father, a local shopowner, was lynched. Knowing that her kids aren’t the product of incest after all, Celie goes to confront Alphonso, who is still mean, but no longer this mythical all-power entity to be feared. The same goes for Mister. When Alphonso dies and the family learns that the land is rightfully Celie’s, she goes to live there, leaving Mister.

Most things finally settle out for Celie by the end. She starts her own sewing business, making clothes that become popular among the local population, and though she never gets the relationship with Shug that she wants, she does find peace. Mister (now called by his name, Albert) even finds the error of his ways, and he and Celie come to terms with each other. At one point, he asks to marry her again, now in spirit as well as in body, but she refuses, knowing that is not her path. The big reunion you are hoping for throughout the book does finally come in the end.

This book is deceptively simple, but there’s a lot going on under the surface. It is told as a series of letters, most written by Celie, and obviously some by Nettie later on (I didn’t even get into her family’s work in Africa, a whole bunch of stuff about the trials people there faced against encroaching white business owners, not to mention the village’s part is selling slaves to America in the first place). In the beginning, Celie is writing to God, as He is the only person she has in the world, when she thinks Nettie and her kids are dead. Later, when even God seems to have turned His back on her, she writes to Nettie, even before Celie knows she’s still alive. Since it is written in first person narrative by an uneducated person, the language is simple, full of grammatical errors, and often phonetic. But through Celie, Walker gets her point across. This is a woman who never had anything, born into a world that hated her from the moment she came out of the womb, but she still found love and acceptance through sheer will and perseverance. Whether you want to interpret that as God’s love in the world, as Shug does in the book, or take a more agnostic look at it, is entirely up to the reader. However, I think it is definitely about an enduring faith that there has to be something better out there. It’s a great book, and an easy page turner that you won’t want to put down.

Ulysses. The name itself can send shivers down the spine of any reader, prepared or not. I thought myself in the former group, having already completed other novels of James Joyce (Finnegans Wake and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). Both were challenging (Finnegans Wake is often called the hardest book to read in the English language), but Ulysses is on another level. The book follows a similar structure and shared character profiles of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. This is a true masterpiece, written by perhaps the greatest writer of all time. Though hard to read, and even harder to decipher, it is rewarding for those brave enough, and patient enough, to tackle it.

The book takes place over one long day and chiefly follows two men, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus (returned again from Joyce’s previous novel). It begins with a couple short chapters following Stephen, mostly serving (as far as I can tell) as an introduction to him for people unfamiliar with Portrait. Stephen interacts with some friends and coworkers, and thinks about his mother’s death. It then switches to Bloom, who will be the chief character for much of the book. Bloom is at home in the beginning of a busy day for him. He sorts the newly delivered mail and says goodbye to his wife, Molly, and daughter before heading out for some errands. While walking through town, he reflects on his wife’s affair with her manager, a man named Boylan. He then heads to a friend’s funeral, along with Simon Dedalus (Stephen’s father) and other acquaintances, though being Jewish, Bloom isn’t “one of the boys.”

Bloom has lunch at a local pub, then heads to the library, where he crosses paths with Stephen, who is expounding his theory of Hamlet to his friends. Afterwards, Bloom has dinner at another bar, and sees Boylan head out for his tryst with Bloom’s wife. Bloom goes for a stroll along the beach, masterbating to a pretty young girl he sees with her friends, before visiting a maternity hospital where a young woman is giving birth. Again, Stephen is there too, but while Bloom, as an older man, is worried about the girl and her long and painful labor, the younger and less mature Stephen tells ribald jokes with his buddies. Afterwards, Stephen and Bloom find themselves at a local whorehouse, where each daydream about their past lives, sins, hopes, and dreams. After helping a drunk Stephen home in a very fatherly-like way, Bloom returns home to Molly. Now very late in the day, he crawls into bed with her, while she ruminates about her time with Boylan earlier and her previous loves as a younger girl, before reaffirming to herself and the reader than she does indeed still choose Bloom.

That’s it, in a nutshell. Nearly 800 pages summed up in 2 paragraphs. Reading that, you may think, what’s the point? The proof is in the pudding, or as I like to say, the journey is more important than the destination. Nearly each “chapter” or section of this book, and there 17 or 18 of them by my count, is written in an entirely different manner. One, when the two men are in the whorehouse, is written as a play, complete with stage directions. Another, when Bloom visits the local paper in his wanderings in the morning of the day, is written with headlines and news stories. When they are at the maternity ward, Joyce shows off his mastery of the language by giving us a history of language itself, meaning, the narration changes throughout the chapter in styles of other writers, and even a section that is very Bible-esque in structure. There’s a chapter that is entirely made up of questions and answers, which for me, solved the most riddles contained in the rest of the novel. And in true modernist fashion, the final chapter is nearly completely stream-of-conciousness writing.

Only a few times throughout this expansive book is there traditional, flowing narrative, i.e. Bloom crossed the street, said, “Hello.” to a passerby, etc. Most times we are in his or someone else’s head, as they dream, reflect, consider, pontificate, and otherwise explore the world around them. A sentence grounded in the real world may end, and the next will begin a paragraph of thoughts or imaginations, with nothing to warn the reader that something has changed. I’m not sure I had the same sense of wonder upon completing Ulysses as I did on Finnegans Wake, but there’s no denying that this is a true work of art, perhaps the greatest novel ever written, and worthy of all the praise you’ve ever heard about it. Like Finnegans, I’ll revisit this one again one day, perhaps with an annotated helper to assist me in deciphering its deeper explorations.

My blog has evolved since I started in 2014. It started off as a journal of my quest to see 100 films, all at the theater (I ended up seeing 122). In 2015 I started reading the “100 greatest English language novels of the 20^th century” (I’m still working on it). I cut back on my movies, but according to my letterboxd account, still saw 91 films that year, mostly at home. That increased every year, to 131 in 2016, 182 in 2017, and then 214 last year. By necessity, my full write-ups on each movie morphed into a small snippet, often collected into like-minded groupings of 5 films, but I tried to write about most of what I saw.

2019 was a whirlwind for me. I started the year by watching films at a breakneck speed, so I thought I’d give it a go to watch over 365 movies in a year. And these were not re-watches, these are all new-to-me films. To say that aloud blows my mind. I’m not some kid with nothing to do, I work 50+ hours a week, have a family, and a group of friends I hang with somewhat regularly, so cramming that many films into a year is pretty wild. At the end of the day, I blogged about 367 of them, but actually watched 387 according to my letterboxd. Crazy stuff. Oh, and I also managed to read 31 of those books.

After all that, I’m honestly a little burned out, so you might be seeing less of me this coming year, at least for a little while. I’ve got just 6 books left of those 100, and then my list is done. I’ll finish those off, and then get to reading some other stuff that I’ve put off since my last break. I’m going to play some video games again. I’m going to go some weekends and not watch a single movie. I’m sure once some time passes, I’ll get that itch to watch again (I still have lots I want to see!). But as always thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on all these pictures, new and old.

How about a set of classic films from 50’s, including a couple melodramas from the great Douglas Sirk, and some westerns? Up first is Sirk’s Written on the Wind. This one is about an oil tycoon’s family and the people that circle them. In particular focus is Kyle (Robert Stack, in an Oscar nominated role), the rich playboy son. His freewheeling lifestyle is only slightly tempered by his life-long friend Mitch (Rock Hudson). Their friendship is tested when they fall in love with the same girl, Lucy (Lauren Bacall). Lucy marries Kyle, making Mitch more embittered that Kyle always gets his way. Turning the screws is the femme fatale role, Kyle’s little sister Marylee (Dorothy Malone, who did win her Oscar), who’s always had a crush on Mitch, and she refuses to let him be anyone else’s beau, even hinting to Kyle that Mitch and Lucy are having an affair. For awhile, Kyle changes his ways and plays the straight and narrow for his love of Lucy, but when he learns from a doctor that he may not be able to father children, he goes back to drinking, and through his sickness, Marylee is able to weasel her way in between them all. I loved the movie, it features some really great acting by some of the greats of this era, and the music is fantastic too, with Marylee’s sultry little devil-music popping when she slinks into view. I read that Sirk’s films weren’t highly thought of in their time but have come to be very well regarded (and copied) since. How could this film ever not be loved?! ★★★★★

All That Heaven Allows is a beautifully done film, and the inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (though this one, spoiler warning, has a happier ending). Cary (Jane Wyman) is a 50ish year-old widow who runs in affluent circles. Her snooty friends, and even her own college-age children, turn their noses up when she falls in love with her former gardener, Ron (Rock Hudson). Ron introduces her to friends of his in the working class, people who genuinely care for others and who don’t put on airs or facades. Cary ultimately needs to decide if she should do what her friends and family want, or what she herself wants. It’s a very touching film, with a lot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) digs at the affluent class and how they treat others and each other. ★★★½

I watched Shane because of its reputation as one of the finest westerns ever made. Perhaps I watched a different version, because I just didn’t get it; it seemed rather ho-hum to me. The eponymous Shane is a drifter who finds himself in a valley in Wyoming where there is a conflict going on between the homesteaders and the cattle ranchers. The homesteaders are there legally and trying to run small farms, but the cattle ranchers, led by the nefarious Ryker, are bullying them off the land. Joe and his wife and son give Shane a place to stay for a couple days in exchange for work around the farm, and Shane likes them enough to join in their fight against the ranchers. It all comes to a head when one of the homesteaders is killed by a gunslinger hired by the cattlemen, leading to a battle between Shane and the rest of them. I don’t see the appeal of this movie at all, and honestly it was so full of tropes and stereotypes that I could not get into it. Not to mention, one of the main characters is little Joey, and we all know how I feel about child actors. And little Joey is one of the worst, showing off his dumb stares and wooden acting for all to see. Every close up of his wide-eyed glances made me cringe. Maybe it was great in 1953, but it hasn’t stood the test of time. ★½

I saw the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, years ago, and liked it very much, but I’d never seen the original until now. Going up against Hollywood Code in its day, this one has a happier ending. Directed by Delmer Daves, it is about the leader of a band of outlaws, Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) who is captured in a small town in the Arizona territory. The local marshal knows that can’t keep him there, because Wade’s group of thugs will easily overwhelm the small village, so he recruits local cattle rancher Dan Evans (Van Heflin) to secret Wade to neighboring Contention City, where they can put Wade on the next train to Yuma. Dan is a simple guy but he’s great with a gun, and while he initially doesn’t want to get involved, he is lured by a substantial cash reward which can help his struggling family. Daves does an excellent job laying out this picture. The first 30 minutes lay the groundwork for what kind of men the actors are, followed by 30-40 minutes of slowly building suspense as Dan waits for the train to take his charge away, and finally the heartpounding climax as he leads Ben through the town, trying to avoid getting himself killed. More than anything this movie looks at the psyche of men. Dan has a strong moral compass, but even he is tempted to let Ben go when Ben offers more and more money to do so. Ben himself is morally ambiguous; he’ll shoot his own man without blinking an eye, but he still holds to his own code of honor. ★★★½

Forty Guns, from Samuel Fuller in 1957, is a rip-roaring good time. Made at a time when he had already established clout as a director and was independently making films with less studio influence, it is a very different kind of western. For one, it features a strong female character as one of the co-leads. Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) runs an area in the Arizona territory with a posse of 40 men. She’s involved in some shady business but is otherwise a tough but fair ruler of her “kingdom.” However, her brother Brockie is a thug, killing and trashing the town. She has a soft spot for him because she birthed him (losing their mother at the time) and raised him, so she’s turned a blind eye to his misdeeds. Their little section of earth is shaken up when US Marshal and former gunfighter lawman Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan) comes to town with his two brothers, there with a warrant to arrest one of Jessica’s gang. Jessica sees in a Griff a man as tough as her, and the two immediately fall in love. A film full of gun fights and intrigue, double crosses, love, and death, this movie has it all. The word play is downright shocking for 1957; there is so much innuendo and double entendre that you wonder how Fuller got it past the sensors (Jessica reaches for Griff’s gun, saying she’s interested in “his trademark,” but he warns her that it might go off in her face). Very enjoyable film, and very different from the westerns you are used to seeing. ★★★★

Watched another set from the great French director Jean-Pierre Melville. Two Men in Manhattan, released in 1959, is a film noir with a slightly different feel than typically found in the genre. The French ambassador to the UN missed a seemingly unimportant vote one day, but two men team up to hunt him down to see if there is a story there. The two men are a French Press Agency journalist and a photographer who knows all the local celebs and hangouts. They spend the night hunting known associates and New York starlets, and do end up finding the ambassador. When they do, they each have to decide between claiming the story or following human decency. Taking place in New York on one long, dark night, the film has a lot of English language as the duo comb the streets. As a tidbit, one of the two (the journalist) is none other than Melville himself, the only time he acted in one of his own films, and his only starring role ever. ★★★

Magnet of Doom was Melville’s first picture in color, released in 1963. It follows a man named Michel who is broke, and picks up an ad to be a traveling secretary for banker Ferchaux. Ferchaux’s bank has failed and he is under investigation for shady business practices; as such, he is looking to skip town. On a time crunch, he hires Michel right away, and the two immediately board a plane for New York. Ferchaux is looking to gather as much cash from various spots as fast as he can, before settling in a non-extradition country. During their road trip from NY to New Orleans, Michel grows bolder in his dealings with Ferchaux, flexing his muscle as the crutch he knows he is, especially once Ferchaux’s brother and business partner is found dead in France. For me, I thought the movie was kind of weak. It features great storytelling but not a great story, if that makes sense. Jean-Paul Belmondo is just going through the motions on this one, and he isn’t as great as some of the other stellar films he’s been showcased in. Very average. ★★½

Le Deuxieme Souffle (Second Wind) came out in 1966, and Melville went back to black and white, to great affect, as it gives it a more raw feel, and the camera work is gritty too. This one features a big cast with lots of moving parts, so you’ve got to pay attention. The gist is a career criminal (Gu) escapes from prison, but before he can go into hiding, he needs a big cash score to set him and his sister up for life. Unfortunately for him, he is being tailed by one of the best investigators Melville ever concocted up. Blot is a cop who knows what people are going to say before they say it, and he is right on Gu’s footsteps, just waiting for a mistake. Gu picks up a job to rob a security van hauling valuable platinum, and all goes according to plan, until the old adage of “no honor among thieves” pops up. Double crosses and gun fights fill out the denouement of this intense flick. This picture doesn’t get as much attention as some of Melville’s other stuff, but it’s a great film. ★★★½

Le Samourai is another good one. Jef Costello (the great Alain Delon) is an assassin, a modern day samurai, whose life necessitates him being a loner. The film opens with him taking down his latest contract, in a busy night club no less. He knows there are going to be witnesses, but he has a lock tight alibi already in place, and the lead investigator, despite his gut instincts, is unable to pin the murder on him. The attention of the police though make Jef’s employers nervous, and they want to take him out too before they can lead the police back to them. Hunted by both the fuzz and his former employers, Jef is on his to try to kill the people who want him dead. It is a quietly tense and compelling film, and one that has some great scenes that are hard to forget. One of Delon’s best (the movie was written with him in mind), and one of the rare pictures to hold a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. ★★★★½

Ending on another great one. Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) is a crime heist drama starring Alain Delon again, this time as a cool and collected man just out of jail. Before getting out, Corey is told about a potential job by a corrupt guard, but it sounds like a high risk/high reward opportunity. Thankfully Corey gets some help. That very day, Vogel escapes police custody and flees on foot, finally jumping in a waiting car’s trunk to get away. The car, of course, belongs to Corey, and the two team up for a detailed and thrilling jewel heist. Aided by a corrupt cop who has been off the force due to his alcoholism, the trio rob a high end jewelry store in mesmerizing fashion. Being known criminals and not wanting to give themselves away to the multitude of cameras around the store, the robbery is done in near complete silence with no dialogue, in real time, for a solid 30 minutes. It is about as gripping an act as you will find. The ending of the film is no less explosive, with the determined police officer who’s been hunting Vogel finally catching up to them. Great picture. ★★★★

Been wanting to watch The Naked and the Dead because it is based on the book I read a couple years ago. It takes place during World War II in the Pacific campaign as a military unit tries to capture a (seemingly?) significant, small island. Obviously a lot was cut, as the book was a big one at over 700 pages, and the film clocks in just over 2 hours, but all the biggest scenes are there, including the nighttime defense of a river crossing, and the climactic reconnaissance mission of a small troop behind enemy lines. Unfortunately what is missing is the detailed character development. The book has a platoon’s worth of major characters, each with their own story and idiosyncrasies. The movie looks closely at 2 or 3 people, such as the hard-lined egotistical general leading it all, but the rest might as well be nameless, faceless soldiers, and as a whole, it is a pretty ho-hum war film. I think if I had seen the movie first, I’d have enjoyed it more, because it’s not like it is poorly done or anything, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Norman Mailer’s great work. ★★½

Stanley Kubrick made a name for himself with his first commercial success, 1957’s Paths of Glory, starring Kirk Douglas. Douglas plays French Colonel Dax in the trenches of World War I. His unit is ordered by General Mireau to advance on an impregnable enemy encampment known as “the anthill.” Everyone knows the majority of the group will die, but Dax does his best to carry out the orders. When the mission inevitably fails in a retreat, Mireau even orders his gunners to shoot on his own troops to try to force them to continue the attack. The gunners refuse, and Mireau tries to cover up his own order. To punish the unit for retreating, three random men are chosen to face trial for cowardice, and Dax offers to defend them. The trial, of course, is a farce, and the three are found guilty in just a few minutes, and sentenced to death by firing squad. Dax makes a latch ditch effort to save them with news to the higher-ups about Mireau’s order, but to no avail. Tremendous film, and in Kubrick fashion, amazing cinematography. The battle scene between the trenches is outstanding in its detail, and so real that it looks like it comes from a movie made today, not 60+ years ago. Even in those early years of Kubrick’s career, he was a talent far ahead of his time. ★★★★½

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence comes from Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, whose controversial films include In the Realms of the Senses and Empire of Passion. This film is much different though, and not just because it features many English speaking actors. It takes place at a Japanese POW camp during World War II. Camp director Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) is a fair but strict leader, often keeping his underlings in line, including Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano). Yonoi’s carefully laid camp is thrown in disarray with the arrival of Major Jack Celliers (David Bowie), who has a penchant for pushing boundaries and standing up for injustices. Trying to keep the peace between the English prisoners and the Japanese guards is Lt. Colonel Lawrence (Tom Conti), who speaks fluent Japanese thanks to living there before the war. Lawrence and Hara share a kinship, as do Celliers and Yonoi, though in a much different way. Both Celliers and Yonoi are dealing with major regret from actions they did before the war, and also, Yonoi seems to hold some latent homosexual feelings for the rugged Celliers (it wouldn’t be an Oshima film without some pent-up sexual frustrations!). All this culminates in a powerful standoff in the final moments of the film. This picture has some truly great acting by all four leads, and a funky psychedelic soundtrack, and while there is a lot to dissect here psychologically, I found the whole of it to be just a bit better than average. ★★★

Overlord is a powerful and profound film from 1975, directed by Stuart Cooper. There’s not much of a story, but one isn’t needed for this short (80 minute) movie about a man pondering his place in the world during World War II. Tom is a young English man newly called to join up with the army as they plan their invasion of Europe. As we see Tom go through training, interspersed throughout is archival footage of actual battles during the war. We see planes dropping bombs, ship-to-ship battles, and fire brigades trying to save cities that are burning to the ground around them. While this is going on in the world, Tom envisions his own death and contemplates his small space in this wider world. Finally the order comes down for the D-Day invasion, an order Tom isn’t aware of because as a lowly private, he isn’t privy to what the plans are. Ultimately his premonitions hold true, and he dies from a stray bullet while on the transport to the beach, having never filed his gun. But then the filmmakers do something amazing: after they’ve shown you all of the death and destruction, they zoom out and show the world from above. It is peaceful and serene, and definitely worth fighting for. A beautiful film. ★★★★

Ride With the Devil is a newer film, from 1999, from director Ang Lee, whose long career has more hits (Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain) than misses (Gemini Man, the original Hulk reboot). This one takes place during the Civil War and shows the bloody conflicts between southern Missourians and union-allied Kansas Jayhawkers, showing the war as a true neighbor vs neighbor conflict. In a rare move, the heroes of the movie are the southerners, and it vilifies the north, at least in the beginning (though as time goes by, the main character comes to realize things about his “friends”). It has a strong cast full of recognizable faces, with some who had recently achieved stardom (Tobey Maguire, Jim Caviezel), some whose best days were behind them (Skeet Ulrich), and some who had yet to hit their big break (Mark Ruffalo, Jeffrey Wright). The movie is beautifully shot with detailed sets and tremendous cinematography, but ultimately it’s not all that memorable. Not all of the actors are as great as those I’ve mentioned (I’m looking at you Jewel), and the large cast can’t hide the poorer ones. And there is some downright shoddy dialogue in spots. It also doesn’t get as contemplative as it obviously attempts to, such as scenes where a southern man laments the loss of their ways with the northerners attempting to provide schools to people of all ilk, and all this being said in front of a character who is far more educated than his immigrant father. I do appreciate that the film makes the conflict about much more than slavery, attempting to show deep-seated cultural differences. Its worthy of a single watch for lovers of historical films (of which I am), but that’s about it. ★★½

About 20 minutes into Freaks, and feeling completely confused about what I was watching, I paused it and googled the movie. I was hoping for just a snippit of what was going on, and thankfully, the first page I clicked on, an article on the Verge website, was titled, “Freaks is a thrilling science fiction film worth knowing nothing about – Avoid spoilers and embrace the mystery.” So I did, and man was it worth it. The premise (that is set up in those first 20 minutes) is a little girl named Chloe who has never left the house. Her dad keeps her in the house with stories that the outside world is full of people who would kill her. At the same time, she seems to have some kind of special powers, able to get people to do things for her (like her neighbor’s daughter bringing her an ice cream cone) and one night, even summoning the neighbor to her room. One day, she’s had enough with being cooped up, and leaves the house. Enough said. Now go watch it. ★★★★★

The Sound of Silence stars Peter Sarsgaard as Peter, and man obsessed with sound. For years, he’s been doing research about harmonic resonance and its affect on people. In his spare time, he goes around the city, tuning forks in hand, and maps out the natural resonances of various spots in the city. His day job involves going to people’s houses to create a more “harmonic” place, and his work is successful. People call him when they are having trouble sleeping, fighting their spouses a lot, or have any strife in the home. Peter comes in, finds the natural resonance of the space, what item (usually electrical) gives off a different or competing hum, and replaces it, and his clients are always satisfied. Until Ellen (Rashida Jones). She’s not sleeping at night, and Peter replaces a toaster in her apartment, but her sleep doesn’t get any better. Peter is nonplussed, and tries to solve her problem, against the backdrop of Peter fighting to have his research legitimized in scientific circles. As a (former) musician, I’ve long been aware of the hum that electrical and mechanical devices give off – anyone with an ear can sit in a quiet room and listen for the various sounds always around us – but I’ve never gone so far as to try to see what musical note each item is giving off. Honestly that part of the film makes a lot of sense, because in western music, what we perceive as dissonance definitely causes angst and an uneasy feeling. Songwriters use this to great affect! It’s a good intellectual idea, and the movie breaks down the ideas into terms that non-musicians can get, but as a film, it’s not all that engaging. ★★½

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a sometimes frustrating, but ultimately satisfying conclusion to the “Skywalker saga.” If you believe Disney, this is the finale of the story arc that started with Luke, Leia, and Han back in 1977. I won’t give any spoilers on the story; suffice it to say, that if you are a die-hard Star Wars fan (which I am), and if hated The Last Jedi because you thought it “didn’t fit the Star Wars mold” (an opinion I do not agree with, I liked The Last Jedi), then you probably will like Rise of Skywalker very much. For me, it was just OK. Not great, certainly not terrible, but just OK. A whole lot happens, and the team behind it do their damnedest to wrap up all the loose plot elements in a tidy little bow. I enjoyed it, even if parts are awfully far-fetched (even for a space saga!), but I just can’t shake the feeling that, now that it is all over, if it wouldn’t have been better to just leave the Skywalker clan alone after Return of the Jedi back in 1983. Nothing will ever top those first three films, both because they are nearly perfect as they sit, and because of the whole nostalgia of them. I’ve really liked parts of every Stars Wars film that has come since (even Solo), but nothing will touch those films that I grew up with. So by all means, go and see Rise of Skywalker (I’m sure everyone else will, it will make a ton of money for Disney), but don’t hope to relive the magic that can only come to a 10 year old kid when Luke and his friends took down the evil Empire. ★★★½

The Aeronauts has a very strong cast who, unfortunately, can’t save a very average film. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, come together again after The Theory of Everything a few years ago, play a pair of people on a mission to climb higher in the atmosphere than any human before. Amelia is the crowd-pleaser who drums up the funds, and James Glaisher is a scientist intent to get high enough to measure the atmosphere, in an attempt to find ways to predict the weather (to which his fellows in the scientific community scoff). Aboard a hot air balloon, the two take off one afternoon and face a storm, the cold, and low oxygen on their adventure. There are some thrilling moments along the way, but some parts are very boring. It is semi-based on a true story. Glaisher did indeed climb high and was one an early meteorologist, but he went up in the balloon with his male partner, which Hollywood switched to a woman for creative license. ★★½

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the latest from Quentin Tarantino (of whom I am not a fan, sue me), is mostly just a homage to classic American films of the 50s and 60s. That’s fine I guess, but how is that a movie? There’s a plot (which takes forever to develop), but there is an awful lot of filler in the 2-and-a-half-hour running time. The movie mostly follows a has-been actor named Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his long-time stunt double Cliff (Brad Pitt). Dalton was once a big TV star in the 50s, but his film career has not gone as well, and he’s depressed about it, falling to alcoholism. When not working, the two hang out at Dalton’s posh house, neighbors to up-and-coming director Roman Polanski and his girl Sharon Tate. Yes, that is where this film is finally going. Cliff just sort of hangs out when he isn’t needed, which is often since Dalton isn’t needed much either, and driving around Hollywood one day, Cliff stumbles upon the Charles Manson entourage. In normal Tarantino fashion, he changes up the actual history for his own, new version of events, and the ending of this one is far too outlandish. I’m convinced critics just give him a pass no matter what he puts out. ★★

Bravo, Toni Morrison. Despite your beloved reputation (no pun), I nearly gave up on you after Jazz (hated it). I gave you a second chance on Song of Solomon (great book until the thud of an ending), and finally in Beloved, I see what all the hype is about.

This book is truly awesome. It follows a family of former slaves in the years after the Civil War, with flashbacks and stories told of their time as slaves before. Sethe is a woman holding onto her sole surviving daughter, Denver, with all of her life, as she’s the only thing she has left in this world. The two live in a haunted “124,” a house at the end of the street in Cincinnati. Neighbors stay away, and you think it is because 124 is haunted, but the real reason isn’t learned until much later. Much has happened to this family over the years, awful things that are hard to write down here in just a few sentences, the kinds of things that only people who have lived as slaves would understand, though Morrison does an amazing job of conveying this hard life to readers. Beatings, rapes, murders, and, yes, even worse, have happened to Sethe, family friend Paul D, and others in the book. For Sethe, these troubles and sufferings have hardened her to just about anything life can throw at her. When, as a young woman, she ran away from her owners, gave birth in a boat, and crawled to a new life with a back beaten so badly that it was a mess of blood and scars, she took it in stride. When her mother-in-law died in the house, she took it in stride. When her two boys ran away from home at age 13, ostensibly because they could not longer deal with the haunting, she took it in stride. In fact, the only thing she didn’t take in stride is one of the big mysteries revealed later in the book and the reason people avoid her: that when a white man came to 124 to take her and her kids back south as runaway slaves, Sethe killed one of her babies (and would have killed them all if not stopped), cutting her throat, so she would not face the life that Sethe previously did.

Beloved is the name engraved on the tomb of said baby, and when a woman shows up on Sethe’s door, with a matching scar across her throat and calling herself Beloved, on the same day that the hauntings stop, the house is thrown in disarray. Denver takes it upon herself to protect Beloved, for fear that Sethe will attempt to hurt her again, but Beloved only has eyes for Sethe. Beloved follows her around, as an adoring child would, but eventually their roles are reversed, with Sethe trying to make amends by doting on Beloved, and Beloved grows spoiled from all the attention. This builds to an amazing conclusion at the very end.

I initially wrote a lot more, but I found that nothing I could write would do justice to this novel. The emotion, the helplessness, and, ultimately, hopefully, the sliver of hope that comes to this family that endured so much, can only be experienced if you read it yourself. It is a magical book about a time that, while not-so-removed in the history of our planet, may as well have been a world removed. It is awful to think much of this probably happened much as Morrison describes, but even in the face of such evil, people persevere. It’s a fantastic read, pure and simple.