Up today is a set of films starring the great Laurence Olivier, beginning with 49th Parallel from 1941, written and directed by the famous duo of Powell and Pressburger. It is a British war propaganda film to drum up support against Nazi Germany, but it is a much better film than most such movies. A German sub is reconnoitering in Canada when it is sunk by Canadian airplanes. A team of survivors escape and make their way across Canada, leaving a swath of death and destruction behind them. They are picked off one by one on their journey, until only one is left and he too cannot escape his fate. Sounds straight forward, but there are some rousing moments and some conflicting ones for our Germans too. One particularly powerful one is when they find themselves at a religious community made up of German Canadians. The Nazi leader thinks he will find support here, but is rebuffed by the people who see themselves more as Canadians than Germans. One of the Nazis, a former baker before he was drafted into the army, enjoys the quiet atmosphere, and when he hints that he’d like to desert the army, his fellows kill him. The movie portrays a lot of instances where the Nazi Germans are blindly following instructions, but even their victims are willing to forgive them their terrible practices. A very good, moving film. Olivier is given top billing due to his stardom, but he is only in about a third of the film, playing a French Canadian fur trader near the beginning. Many other noticeable faces too, including Eric Portman in the lead, and Leslie Howard (Ashley Wilkes from Gone With the Wind).

Next is a trio of films based on Shakespearean plays directed by Olivier as well. I’ve never been a big fan of Shakespeare. I think they are well written but I often have a hard time following the sometimes tedious and long-winded dialogue. In my opinion, they are better as movies than when read, especially when the movie is done well, with proper inflections and actions to act out the words. Henry V (1944) was the first. There’s a great scene early on that is a marvel for the time when this film was made. The film starts out at a theater in 1600 where a troupe is about to perform the play “Henry V” in front of a live audience. A few scenes are shown and we watch along with the crowd, hearing their laughs and cheers. As it goes though and we get enveloped into the flow of the play, the curtains rise and it is no longer a play we are watching, but King Henry V is now on the fields of France preparing to go to war. This transition is magic to see at a time long before computers could help. If you’ve ever been fully engaged in a film or book, you know what it is like when you feel like you become part of the story, and Olivier does a masterful job of actually pulling you in to his performance in this way. Really brilliant and it keeps you enthralled through the rest of the movie. The sets may lack the extreme attention to detail that today’s period pieces achieve, but it can never be so exciting as when the forces of England and France meet each other on the battlefield. Great acting to tell a great story.

Olivier followed up with Hamlet in 1948. Hamlet’s father is recently dead, and his mother has married Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, the new king. However, the deceased father’s ghost visits Hamlet and tells him that he was murdered by Claudius, so Hamlet begins to map out his revenge. Hamlet plots his uncle’s downfall and finally gets his wish in the end, but also loses his own life in the final confrontation. Tons of Shakespeare dialogue, but again, an intriguing film and a fun one. And of course, several of those long-known quotable lines which many do not know the origin: “To be or not to be,” and “To thine own self be true.”

Olivier’s last Shakespearean film (as director, he would act in others later) is Richard III from 1955. Compared to the other two, here we see Olivier show off his range as an actor. Instead of bold, handsome, and strong, Richard is weak, deformed, and dastardly. Richard plots his way to the throne of England and narrates his plan to the audience along the way. He contrives to remove his brother and all others that stand before him in line of succession to the throne, through murder, deception, and execution. When he finally gets it though, he finds that all the feuds and rivalries he stoked along the way are now thrown against him, and he finds holding his place impossible. Now in color, the film beautifully shows off the costumes and scenes of medieval England, and Olivier is once again brilliant and eye-arresting. Maybe the most accessible of the films, it is also the most engaging from start to finish.

The last one is the biggest production, from 1960: Spartacus. The background of this film is very interesting. It stars (and was produced) by Kirk Douglas, who wanted to make a big epic of his own after being turned down for the role of Ben Hur. He brought on a young Stanley Kubrick (one of my all-time favorite directors) to direct, but still made a lot of the decisions himself. This has lead to it being one of the least “Kubrick-ish” films made, but still a good one. Spartacus is a slave who dreams of being free. He leads a revolt against the Roman Empire, and is opposed by the devilishly cunning Roman politician and warrior Crassus (Olivier). Spartacus gathers quite the ragtag army and has some surprising victories against troops who don’t take him seriously, but the revolt is quashed when Crassus finally brings all of Rome’s might down on them. Also starring Tony Curtis and the amazing Charles Laughton, Spartacus is one of the great epics of all time. Kubrick though famously disowned it, since it was the one film for which he did not have total control.

Here’s another group of films by the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, including some of his most famous. Summer Interlude came out in 1951, and he himself called it a turning point in his career. The movie starts by following Marie, a successful but aging ballet dancer who jokes that at 28, she might as well be 40 because of the short life span of her career. When a mysterious diary is dropped off at her work on the eve of a big (and possibly her last) performance, she takes a day to visit her childhood home and relive a summer of her youth. We learn that she once fell in love here as a teenager, and shared a beautiful summer with Henrik. Despite their very different backgrounds (Marie is from a wealthy family, Henrik from the opposite), they bond quickly. Tragedy strikes though when Henrik falls and dies days before their summer vacation was to end. Marie ends up living with her uncle who molests her, and she grows up to be a grave and unemotional adult. The film ends on a high note though, with a glimpse that perhaps Marie will be able to open up and allow herself to feel again. This was the first film in which Bergman focused on the female psyche as a focal point in the film, something for which he became famous for in later movies. A really beautiful movie.

If Summer Interlude was the start of Bergman’s focus on female leads, that trend was set in stone with 1953’s Summer With Monika. Monika is a free-living, free-thinking young woman who never wants to settle down. She lures Harry away from his job and convinces him to run off with her. They steal Harry’s father’s boat and take it up the coast, finding a quiet little cove to spend the summer on. They seem to be love, but when the summer comes to a close (and they run out of food and discover that Monika has become pregnant), they are forced to return to the city. Harry wants do to what is right, and marries Monika, takes a job, and starts taking classes at night so he can make more money. Monika however still refuses to settle, ignoring their baby and starting to run around on him. When Harry finds her in bed with another, he beats her, and she leaves him. The film ends with Harry taking care of the baby on his own, and thinking about moments from his lone summer with Monika. Maybe not quite as good as Interlude, still a very strong film, and it was the first to star Harriet Andersson, long-time lead actress for Bergman (and his wife for a couple years, though she continued to star in his films long after their marriage ended). She is fantastic in this film, and it was the one that launched her into stardom.

One of Bergman’s most famous movies is Wild Strawberries from 1957. It is about an older man on the day he is to receive an honorary degree from his hometown university. He is old and crotchety, lonely, and stern with his family and housekeeper. He is told by his daughter-in-law that she doesn’t like him because of these reasons. Nevertheless, she agrees to ride along with him on the car ride to where he is to receive the award. Along the way, the duo visit his family’s old summer house, and we see through flashbacks what has made him the way he is. And also, we see him soften his stance and open up to his daughter-in-law, as well as other travelers they meet along the way. A very touching film, if a bit esoteric at times in true Bergman fashion.

The Virgin Spring followed in 1960, also starring Max von Sydow as Tore, the head of a farming family in Sweden in medieval times. His beautiful, virgin daughter Karin (Birgitta Valberg) is sent to take candles to the local church, and is accompanied by their servant Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom), who is pregnant and thus shamed as a single mother. Along the way, the two become separated, and Karin is lured to a clearing by a trio of shepherds, who proceed to take turns raping her before they kill her, with Ingeri arriving in time to watch it all. The scene is brutal for today, much less 1960, which is why the film was hit hard by censors at the time. The killers steal Karin’s clothes, and by sheer bad luck, end up at Tore’s home to sell them. Tore of course recognizes the clothes and kills all three of them, and has Ingeri lead them to the clearing to find Karin’s body. The film is a pretty transparent view at the battle between Paganism and Christianity. Pagan elements like water, fire, and mystical spells are offset by Christian views of atoning for sin, forgiveness, and the eternal conflict of good vs evil. The shamed Ingeri, who continues to pray to Odin instead of God, wants to see the beautiful Karen brought low, but when it happens, she is afraid and knows that this is wrong. After Tore gets his vengeance on his daughter’s killers, he vows to build a church to God to atone. Once again a fantastic Bergman classic.

Coming much later in his career, Bergman released Cries and Whispers in 1972. It details a trio of wealthy adult sisters as one of them, Agnes, lays painfully dying from cancer. Her sisters Maria and Karin watch over, along with long-time household servant Anna. The movie is broken up in sections showing what makes each of the characters tick. Karin, the oldest, shuns attachments, which is shown by her avoidance of physical touch, even with her husband. Maria seems to love all, but it is just a facade, as she actually holds contempt for all but herself. Anna genuinely cares for Agnes and it is hinted that the two shared a love affair. When Agnes does finally die, she returns in a dream-like (or more correctly, nightmare-like) scene to the surviving family, reaching out individually to the three woman, but only Anna is able to provide comfort, with Agnes’s sisters shunning her. As soon as the funeral is over, the sisters drop their fake caring for Agnes, and agree to sell off the house and turn Anna out to take care of herself. Before leaving though, Anna finds Agnes’s diary, and reads of a moment when the four women shared a summer day together, and Agnes remarked it was the one moment of true happiness. A great melodrama with fantastic acting by some of Bergman’s favorite actresses of the time.

Phantom Thread is the latest from director Paul Thomas Anderson, and apparently the last film of renowned actor Daniel Day-Lewis (though at only 60, he’s young enough that I doubt he stays retired). He plays Reynolds Woodcock, a popular dressmaker in Victorian England, making dresses for nobles and royalty. Reynolds has severe mother issues, his mother having died and left the dress business to him and his sister Cyril. Reynolds designs while Cyril runs the business side, and her dominating personality has filled the missing hole in Reynolds life. Reynolds meets a young Anna though, and the two fall in love, and Anna and Cyril end up battling of control of Reynolds. A very well acted period drama, but in the end, if you are hoping Reynolds can overcome his reliability on a strong woman, you may be disappointed, though maybe not in the way you might expect. It’s a fairly straight forward film without some of Anderson’s typical subplots, but a good one nonetheless.

Uncle Drew is an OK comedy centered around the game of basketball, with a cast of current and former professional players. Uncle Drew is a legend in the backyard basketball circuit, but no one has seen him in decades. When a local coach needs to field a team to earn some money in an upcoming tournament, he finds Uncle Drew, who gathers his old crew, and I do mean old. The laughs are mostly of the geriatric variety, and there are some good ones, but the whole movie feels a little paint-by-numbers. Aided by makeup, the “old” team consists of Kyrie Irving, Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, Chris Weber, and Nate Robinson, and they are pretty good for not being actors, with some jokes lobbed for off-camera laughs (the team reminding Chris Weber’s character that they are out of time-outs near the end of the game). Good for a few laughs, but like most comedies, don’t come expecting anything deep and lasting.

Woman Walks Ahead is based on the true story of a painter, Catherine Weldon, who travels to Dakota to paint a portrait of famed Native American Sitting Bull. She faces opposition from the local military branch, who still seeks a way to legally kill Sitting Bull for his role in the Battle of Little Bighorn. The movie tries to be a sweeping biopic but comes off far too ho-hum. Though the acting by the two leads, Jessica Chastain and Michael Greyeyes, is quite good, the movie feels like it is lacking something. Firstly, it seems to play loosely with the facts, which can be forgiven for a movie, but little things stick out. For a film that takes place on the great plains, there are no vast vistas to behold, and for characters that should be deep and multifaceted, they all seem very one dimensional. Unfortunately a bit of a let down.

The First Purge is a great example of a film not trying to do too much, and knowing what it is. In Woman Walks Ahead, the filmmakers wanted to make a great, deep movie, and failed. For this one, it only wants to show blood and gore with some thrilling action set in, and that it does well. This film, the fourth in the series, shows how the Purge was initiated, that one night a year when all crime, including murder, is allowed, to let people feed their violent tendencies without fear of prosecution. The plot is paper thin, and exceedingly transparent, but if you just sit back and wait for the inevitable bloodshed, it delivers what is expected of it. Not going to win any awards and not going to leave a lasting impression, but an entertaining, mindless romp.

Beast is a fantastic psychological thriller. In a small, tight-nit town in England, a mid-20 something woman named Moll still lives with her parents. Her mom is not kind to her, and Moll has some dark moment in her past that seems to keep her at arms length from the others in their community. The town is on edge because of a series of rapes and murders, with the killer unknown and at large. Moll falls in love with the town bad boy, Pascall, a relationship that is not approved of by Moll’s wealthy mother. When the cops start questioning Moll about Pascall’s whereabouts on the night of the most recent murder, she has to question her own feelings for this man whom she doesn’t really know well, but who is the only person to seem to care for her. As it goes, it seems the more we learn about Moll and Pascall, the more we don’t know who to believe. A really fun movie from first time writer/director Michael Pearce, and Jessie Buckley is eye-arresting as Moll.

This round of films features one of the most controversial directors of all time, Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini’s works faced constant court battles in their day, but ultimately opened up censors for future films. First up is 1962’s Mamma Roma, probably the most straight-forward of the films I’m looking at today, though not without its own symbolism. Mamma Roma is an outspoken woman in a poor area in Italy, who reconnects with her 16 year old son Ettore. Ettore doesn’t know his mother is a former prostitute, he only knows she wants him to rise above their place and advance is position in society. She has opened a stand at the local market and wants to lead a respectable life. Roma hates Ettore’s friends, and doesn’t want him messing with the local hussy either. Things go south though when Roma’s former pimp shows up and threatens to expose her. Roma gets a prostitute to sleep with Ettore to get him to forget his little girlfriend Bruna, but it isn’t until Bruna outs his mother to him does Ettore drop her. He then rejects his mother’s wishes, and ends up in jail when he is caught stealing with his friends. An early look at Pasolini’s rejection of capitalism.

The Trilogy of Life is made up of 3 films celebrating humanity, or a pure idea of it (as thought by Pasolini) before it was corrupted by greed and religion, all based on old texts from the middle ages. The Decameron (1971) is based on the book of the same name by Giovanni Boccaccio. It takes a number of the stories and weaves them throughout the overall frame of a painter as he paints a fresco on a wall of a church, with Pasolini playing the role of the painter himself. Extremely sacrilegious and depicting graphic nudity and sex, it champions human nature as innocent and the human body as beautiful. Some stories are just a couple minutes long, some are longer, but they follow one another with no breaks in between. At the ending, Pasolini as the painter steps back from his finished masterpiece, and leaves us with the cryptic words, “Why produce a work of art when dreaming about it is so much sweeter?”

Pasolini moved from Italy to England to continue his trilogy with The Canterbury Tales in 1972, based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s work. Pasolini plays Chaucer himself, writing down his tales which get shown to us throughout the film. Pasolini’s views are readily apparent again. In one sketch where two men are caught separately in homosexual acts, only the poor one is sentenced to death, as the rich man can afford to pay the church’s bribe. This film has a little more flow, but still, the sketches are wholly separate stories. Like The Decameron, it is a celebration of life and humanity, with maybe even more humor than the first film. As Chaucer, Pasolini again ends with a thoughtful moment, penning, “Here ends the Canterbury Tales, told only for the pleasure of telling them. Amen.”

The final film in the trilogy is 1974’s Arabian Nights, based on the old Arabic story of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Filmed in Yemen and Nepal, this one has more of an over-arching story than the first two. Nur eh Din falls in love with his slave Zumurrud, and the film tells their adventures, with other stories interwoven throughout, sometimes involving them, sometimes in tales told as breaks in the main plot (and sometimes even stories within stories!). The best of the trilogy as far as I’m concerned, it is beautifully filmed and full of intriguing, enveloping tales that sweep you off to the middle east. The movie is at its best when the stories are being told, but in Pasolini fashion, there is still too much gratuitous nudity and sex thrown in. I don’t mind this when it is part of the story, but here it just seems to be in the movie to set off the censors. Having watched the trilogy now, I can say I like Pasolini for the stories he told, but it seems his rebellious nature couldn’t help but include material that didn’t necessarily advance his films, but more just to piss people off.

Pasolini’s last film, released in 1975 three weeks after his murder, is his most controversial. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, is based on the Marquis de Sade’s infamous 18th century book. If the preceding films are the Trilogy of Life, this film is of death, or at least, the death of humanity as Pasolini saw it. This film is not for the faint of heart. It takes place in the final years of fascist Italy in 1944-45. A quartet of perverse men set up a house of debauchery, employing aging prostitutes to tell their stories, a group of young men to act as guards, and 18 kidnapped people (9 boys and 9 girls) to use as their victims. For the rest of the film, we see people beaten, raped, forced to eat excrement, treated as dogs, and, for those that didn’t follow the rules set down in the beginning, tortured and brutally killed in the end. Pasolini holds nothing back, all is gruesomely depicted in a detached, voyeur-like way. Obviously Pasolini is saying a lot through his lens, for those with a strong enough stomach to watch and interpret. I’m all for film as art, but this one is hard to watch. Even in today’s society where the envelope has been pushed much further than it was in 1975 (when this film faced years of censorship all across the world), there are still moments where I had to cover my eyes or look away.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is all right I guess. It is more dinosaur hijinks. Unfortunately it relies more on showing the dinosaurs run amok than any cohesive story. What it does though, it does well. The backstory is the island from the first Jurassic World is in danger of its volcano going off, killing all the remaining dinosaurs. Animal rights activists are demanding action, and a rich entrepreneur uses the relocation as an excuse to sell dinosaurs to collectors and hunters. Of course it all goes wrong, and the dinosaurs get out and start wreaking havoc. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard return to reprise their roles. The actions sequences are good as always, but the whole film is a little silly and unnecessary, and there are numerous plot elements that are introduced by never explored. Not as good as the original Jurassic Park or first Jurassic World, but on par with the other sequels.

Sicario was a surprise hit a couple years ago, and like all blockbuster smashes, it got a sequel. Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado isn’t quite as good as the original, but it is still a lot of fun. Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro return as a couple CIA operatives doing the dirty work for our government. The Mexican cartel is still the target, but for a different reason this time. Terrorists have been working in the USA, terrorists smuggled across the border by members of various cartels. To disrupt their actions, a plot is hatched to start a war between the cartels, by kidnapping the daughter of one and blaming it on another. This sequel passes on some of the intrigue from the first film in favor of a more straight forward narrative, but it works. Still lots of action, and while maybe not as explosive as the first, I still really enjoyed it.

Like the Ghostbusters remake, Ocean’s 8 is a new take with an all female cast, and an unofficial sequel (Sandra Bullock plays Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie Ocean). Led by Bullock and Cate Blanchett, unfortunately it is neither as funny nor as intriguing as the first movie, though maybe better than Ocean’s Thirteen, the finale in the last trilogy. Ocean and her team are set to steal a priceless Cartier necklace during the annual Met Gala. What made the George Clooney version so brilliant was its combination of comical banter between the team, the fantastic twists and turns, and the edge-of-your-seat thrills during the heist. This films lacks nearly all of that. The jokes between the ladies fall flat, they outline the entire plan before it begins so we know exactly how it is going to go down, and the robbery itself isn’t as exciting. No offense to Bullock, who I like, but she doesn’t have Clooney’s charm or charisma. There is one good twist in the final 12 minutes that redeems itself slightly, but even that is ruined by a member “recap” that slows down the rush. Nearly a total bust.

The Rider is a tremendous film, made more so when you read that it is based on a true story (which I did not know going in). The movie opens focusing on Brady, a horse trainer and cowboy who has just sustained a devastating head injury during a rodeo. Told by the doctors that he shouldn’t ride anymore for fear of losing his quality of life, he struggles with what to do now, as the life of a cowboy is all he knows and all he has ever wanted. He is surrounded by his family (alcoholic father, autistic sister, and friends, one of which is also severely paralyzed from his own rodeo accident). We see Brady’s trials throughout the film and the director, young Chloé Zhao, does a masterful job of putting us in his shoes. As I learned afterwards, this film is very factual. Brady, his sister Lilly, and their father are playing themselves (their last name was changed, as were some elements of the film). Many in the film (no professional actors among them) are playing versions of themselves, including Brady’s paralyzed friend Lane. Zhao was on a ranch in South Dakota filming a different movie when she met Brady. She wanted to do some kind of movie featuring him, but didn’t know what kind of film to make, before Brady suffered his accident. After he was healed up, they made this film about love and perseverance. One of the most touching films I’ve seen this year.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the newest Jumanji remake. If you can tell from my blog, my tastes don’t often stray to comedy. I enjoy a good one, but I tend to like dramas best. This one is ok though. It takes the classic Robin Williams film and modernizes it, with the players sucked into a video game now instead of a board game. A quartet of unlikely friends find themselves having to beat “the game” in order to make it back to their real lives, and must do so without dying in the game, which would lead to their very real deaths. I didn’t laugh at all in the first half of the film, the jokes felt contrived and bland, but whether I warmed up to, or they just got better, I enjoyed the second half better. As an action film, it isn’t half bad either. All in all a decently fun film.

Today’s batch is a quintet of films brought to us from Spain and two of her greatest directors. First up may be the most renowned, Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive from 1973, released during the fascist period of dictator Francisco Franco. As such, it is full of symbolism so as to get through the censors. It centers around young Ana, a girl who, with her older sister Isabel, watches the film Frankenstein. Curious Ana wonders about the creature and why he killed a girl in the film, and Isabel feeds Ana’s fears, and says she knows Frankenstein, that he is a spirit who lives in an abandoned shack outside of town. Since Ana’s parents are absorbed in their own lives (father Fernando is a beekeeper and obsesses over them, and mother Teresa longs for a secret lover in another city), Isabel is Ana’s only real attachment to reality, so Ana believes everything she tells her. Ana visits the shack regularly, until a wounded soldier is actually found hiding there (we assume he is a fighter against the fascist regime). A very rich film told with the magic and mysticism that only a child’s eyes can see, but one that probably needs multiple viewings to really get all the nuance. I like a movie that makes me think, but this one was a bit much for me the first time through.

Ten years later, Erice followed up with El Sur (The South). Originally supposed to be a 3 hour film, the producer cut it short half way through, much to Erice’s chagrin. This one is also told through the eyes of a child. Estrella and her family (father Agustin and mother Julia) live in northern Spain during the early days of Franco’s regime, having fled the southern parts for different reasons. Estrella loves her father but he is preoccupied with a long lost love, a girl he left in the south. Agustin also left his family in the south, after a quarrel with his father, and the two never spoke again, though he still talks to his mother Casilda and Milagros, the nanny that raised him from a child. Estrella learns of her father’s emotional affair but keeps his secret to herself. Years later, now aged 15, Estrella confronts him about it. Whether from shame or just as a continuance of his selfish being, Agustin takes his life. Estrella then is sent south to live with her grandparents. Armed with a note her father left of a long distance call made the day before he died, she hopes to finally learn the past of the father she never understood. I knew this movie had been cut short, and while watching, I was hoping that it had been finished, because I was loving every minute of it and didn’t want it to stop. At the end though, when we see Estrella head off towards The South that we never end up seeing, I thought it was perfect as it sits. El Sur hangs over the family throughout the film, and learning its secrets may have killed some of the magic this movie produced. An amazing film, and I liked it more than Beehive, though it did not receive the acclaim of that first movie.

Next up is Carlos Saura’s “Flamenco Trilogy,” so named not for any thematic or story continuation, but because of the music tying them together. First was Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) from 1981, starring real-life dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades. The film starts with a dance troupe arriving at a rehearsal space to do a final dress rehearsal before performing the famous Spanish play Blood Wedding, which has been adapted to a flamenco dance by the director. It starts with them getting dressed, doing their makeup and warming up, and you think that some interaction between the actors will be the basis for the movie, but instead, the rehearsal is the movie. If that sounds boring, it most definitely is not. I was unexpectedly moved by the beautifully choreographed dancing, accompanied by the sharp, staccato music. The final knife fight between a new husband and her wife’s lover is as suspenseful as anything you’ll see, even knowing it is just a “play within a play” so to speak. Brilliant.

With many of the same actors, Saura followed this up with Carmen in 1983. Director Antonio is putting together a flamenco style performance of the famous opera. He has a talented troupe of dancers, but none meet his idea of what Carmen should look like. He finally finds her in a school, someone who has the look (and even the name!). Unfortunately Carmen is used to getting her way based on her looks, and doesn’t apply herself to learning the dance technique, much to the angst of the Antonio’s female lead partner Cristina, who didn’t get the role despite her ability as a dancer because Antonio thought her too old. Before long Carmen has Antonio wrapped around her finger, which becomes a problem when he learns she is married, and their personal lives more and more begin to reflect the play they are preparing. As a movie, it is just so-so, but the performances during their rehearsals are just as mesmerizing as those of the first film.

The core cast returned again in 1986 for El amur brujo (Love, the Magician). This one is the biggest production so far, with a much larger cast and bigger sets. This film is pretty much a straight forward musical, with singing and dancing numbers entwined with the story. In a poor, rural Spanish town, Carmelo loves Candela, but she has been promised since childhood to Jose. Jose dies in a fight though, and Carmelo is blamed and sent to prison. When he returns years later, he finds that Candela has never moved on, in fact, she returns to the place of Jose’s death every night and dances with his spirit. Carmelo decides to fight for her, but first she must overcome her dead husband. A strong film, and a fitting conclusion to Saura’s flamenco films.

First up is A Woman is a Woman (Une femme est une femme) from 1961, starring Godard’s wife at the time, and frequent muse in his early films, Anna Karina. Angela is an exotic dancer at the local club, but has dreams of having a traditional family with her lover Emile. She badly wants a baby, but Emile does not, so Angela teases that she will just sleep around with other men until she gets what she wants. Despite being impetuous and seeming to keep Emile on a string, Angela does seem to really care for him, and when she does go and actually sleeps with their mutual friend Alfred, she is wracked with guilt. Angela returns to Emile, confesses, and the two have sex, so they can then believe that he is the father. The movie is made as sort of a tribute to American musicals, placing quick, quirky music blasts in throughout to go along with Angela’s constantly changing moods. A great example of early Godard (his third film).

Godard’s next film was My Life to Live (Vivre sa vie) in 1962. Anna Karina plays as Nana, a woman who has goals but doesn’t know how to properly pursue them. The opening of the film shows her leaving her husband and baby behind to go follow her dream of being an actress. Without any money though, she very quickly falls into prostitution, and is under the control of a pimp before long. This leads to her downfall, as she is killed when her pimp tries to sell her to another and the deal goes south. The French New Wave is in full effect here. Nana’s life is split up into twelve sequences, with title cards telling the audience what is coming up in the next scene. The opening of the film is a full eight minutes of dialogue, with the camera seeing nothing more than the back of the talkers’ heads. Hard to connect with people when you can’t see their faces, but it is done here to great effect. Those moments are not yet Nana’s life. This movie isn’t as accessible as the first, but overall a stronger masterpiece.

Contempt (1963, Le Mépris) is a cautionary tale about how a single moment can alter a relationship. Paul and his wife Camille are deeply in love. Paul is a screenwriter and takes a job from an American producer (Jeremy Prokosch, played by Jack Palance). Jeremy wants to make a film based on The Odyssey, but wants an “American style” film. He is at odds with his director (renowned German director Fritz Lang, playing himself) who wants to make a more obtuse, art film. Paul likes Lang’s ideas, but allows himself to be bought by Jeremy. After their meeting, when Jeremy suggests they go back to his house, and offers to drive Camille in his two seater, Paul agrees. Camille is hurt, thinking she is being sold off as well, and her and Paul’s love is suddenly lost forever. An emotionally charged film, and relatable to anyone who has seen a relationship fall apart.

Godard combines science fiction and film noir in Alphaville, from 1965. Alphaville is a city in a near-future dystopia where a computer, Alpha 60, has taken command and has outlawed emotion, free thinking, and sense of self. Lemmy Caution is a spy sent in to find the engineer who built Alpha 60, and bring him back to “the Outlands,” or kill him if he refuses. Most of the film is spent exploring this society where all emotion, even weeping at your spouse’s funeral, is outlawed and punishable by death. The simple question “why?” is also forbidden. Sometimes illogical actions are in place, like nodding to mean “no” and shaking your head to mean “yes.” This last item isn’t explained in the beginning, leading to some confusion by the viewer, until you catch on that many things that are said in the film are actually meant to be the opposite. A great exploration by Godard and very different from his earlier films. My love of dystopian films meant this was to be one of my favorites of Godard’s so far.

By the time Masculin féminin came out in 1966, Godard knew his craft and his direction, had it down to perfection. Filmed on the busy streets of Paris, it follows Paul and his conquest of women, led by blooming pop star Madeleine, who seems completely uninterested in Paul in any significant way, and just uses him for her own physical pleasure. By 1966 the French New Wave was no longer new, and the young 20-somethings on screen had grown up with this movement. We see a culture of young people who live in the moment, with all that it brings. Talking about James Dean and Bob Dylan, they idolize “being cool” and in doing so, ooze coolness themselves. Living for “right now” is all that matters. Masterfully written and executed, you can see the beginnings of a culture that continues to today, young people who don’t feel tied down to old traditions, who simply want to enjoy life and to live it to the fullest.

Next up on the list is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I’m not going to give any kind of synopsis on these, because you’ve either read them yourself, or seen the blockbuster films (from almost 20 years ago! Can you believe it has been that long?!), or you have absolutely no interest. So I’ll take this moment to talk about how these books changed my life.

I’ve always been a reader. My parents instilled the importance of reading into me at an early age. My brother and I watched a fair amount of TV growing up, probably as much as any normal kid of the 80’s, but I always read at night. I usually carried a book around with me in grade school and junior high, to read when I had a break, and didn’t care what the other kids thought about it. I “graduated” to adult books fairly early in life, mostly because the books at my “age appropriate level” (I don’t think it was called that back then) were below my actual reading level. In fact, I remember getting asked by my 4th grade teacher if I should really be reading Stephen King, and not having an answer because it seemed normal to be reading anything I could get my hands on. Admittedly looking back, I know I read things I wasn’t ready for, but as a fairly innocent young mind, most of the stuff was over my head anyway. I was reading for the stories.

Also in 4th grade, I read The Hobbit, and then in 5th, The Lord of the Rings. Before this time, I was reading mostly fiction, and especially epics and/or mystery/spy thriller novels. Things like the aforementioned King, Ken Follett, Tom Clancy, Agatha Christie, etc. Sort of all over the map. But The Lord of the Rings opened my eyes to a whole new genre. Whereas books I’d read previous to this were very much grounded in the world we live in (even outlandish ones like Carrie or Pet Sematary still took place on our Earth), now I saw a wholly created new world to explore. I was all in. I remember reading The Lord of the Rings twice through, back-to-back, and then jumping in to other sci-fi/fantasy worlds like the Wheel of Time, the Death Gate Cycle, Shannara, Dragonlance, and the list goes on. I read at a frenetic pace for years, devouring anything I could find. It really wasn’t until I was out of college that I started reading less science fiction and more “straight ahead” fiction again, but to this day, nothing excites me more than when an author creates a world from scratch, and opens the reader up to new, unthought of possibilities.

All this reading really shaped who I am as an adult. The drive to consume as many stories as I can has lead me to watch as many movies as I do, and still, of course, to read as much as possible. I still own the original set of The Lord of the Rings trilogy my parents bought for me in 5th grade (very much aged but lovingly cared for all these years), and while it has probably been surpassed by King’s Dark Tower series as my all-time favorite “epic,” it still holds a special place in my heart. I’m in the beginning of re-reading it now, my fifth or sixth time through. I last read them when the movies were coming out, so it has been quite awhile. I’m looking forward to going on Frodo’s epic journey again. As Tolkien says in the book, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s List(original title Schindler’s Ark) is one of those rare instances where the movie is better than the book. Everyone knows the story. It is a fiction novel, put together from a multitude of interviews, about the real life Oscar Schindler, a German factory owner and Nazi party member, who housed and ultimately saved over a thousand Jews from near-certain death during the Holocaust. Steven Spielberg took this book and make a cohesive, narrative, linear movie which exceeds the novel. The book is good, and won prizes when it was released in 1982, but it has an almost documentary-like style and lacks a lot of the emotion that Liam Neeson brought to the character. It is almost too fact-like when documenting the tribulations of the Jewish people. For me, it was honestly a bit of a chore to read. Without the movie, maybe I would have enjoyed it more, but the film is a lot better.

Directed by Alexander Korda, That Hamilton Woman from 1941 starred one of the biggest Hollywood couples in its time, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Both were established stars (Leigh was just 2 years removed from her breakthrough on Gone With the Wind) and this film was a big hit. It starts with Emma Hamilton as an aged, haggard thief in London, and after being apprehended, she shares her life tale with her fellow prisoners. Born a poor country girl but with a startling beauty, Emma attracted the attention of a noble diplomat in Naples. She marries the much older man, but is drawn towards a younger war hero (England was, as always, in a series of wars with France). However, Emma finds it is much easier to live with her very public affair in Naples than in England when they return there. Like a lot of movies featuring real-life couples, their acting together feels a little wooden at times (strange that real chemistry is so hard to capture on film), but it is a well done film, and Leigh shines in her soliloquies, as she so often did.

I seem to say this a lot, but 12 Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lument, is one of the best films I’ve seen in a while. For a movie with no action and no change of scenes (all but a couple minutes takes place in a jury deliberation room), it is supremely, nail-bitingly intriguing. The premise is a young man is on trial for murdering his father, and the case against him is seemingly ironclad. The jury’s preliminary vote is 11-1 for guilty, with the sole dissenter being juror # 8 (Henry Fonda). He sees minor problems in the prosecution that creates doubt in his eyes. He spends the hour and a half of the film pleading the case for the accused to his fellow jurors. The dialogue in this film is fantastic, the moments of clarity among the jurors is thrilling. A truly incredible movie.

I’m not going to say anything more about 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express (also directed by Sidney Lument) than go see it. Get it on Netflix, check TCM, whatever you need to do. Far superior to the recent remake, this one is a true gem. Whereas the new one has an all-star cast, this one has an all-legends cast, featuring Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman (who won an Oscar), Lauren Bacall, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Martin Balsam, among others. The classic story of a group of passengers stuck on a train where a murder has happened, with Agatha Christie’s favorite detective, Hercule Poirot, there to solve it. The original “Clue” mystery of who-done-it, with-what, and how?

This Happy Breed, directed by David Lean, came out in 1944, but was based on a Noel Coward play from 1939, and follows a family in London in the 20 year period between the end and beginning of the two World Wars. The opening shot is of the family moving in to a new flat. Being lower-middle class, a large group shares the small space, including mother and father, their 3 near-adult children, the father’s sister, and the mother’s mom. A quiet film, it portrays the daily lives of this group, showing the big moments over their 20 years in the house. The children grow and get married and lead their own lives. The parents go with the flow through it all, as friends and family come and go, some permanently through death unfortunately. There is a poignant moment at the end, when all have moved out and mom and dad are left in the house alone and they too are moving out to a smaller place, where the father remarks that most rooms look bigger when they are emptied of furniture, but this one seems smaller. The movie ends as it began, and the front door of the house, though this time with people leaving. A very nice little film.

David Lean’s acknowledged masterpiece is Lawrence of Arabia. About the life of T.E. Lawrence, it is a long historical epic, coming in at nearly 4 hours in length, the kind of film that would have a hard time getting made today. I thought this very thing in fact early in the film when Lawrence and his desert guide, finding relief at a well, see a figure approaching from the distance. In suspenseful dead silence, the movie lets this unknown character slowly creep towards our protagonist. This quiet, long sequence isn’t fast paced enough for today’s movie goers, but it is brilliant in its simplicity. This film plays out like this scene; it lets the plot develop and come to the viewer, slowly but surely. Brash young Lawrence finds fame as an English officer in the Arab revolt, fighting alongside Arabs in their quest for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Without his knowledge, his quest is silently backed by the English powers, who hope to gain a foothold in the area after World War I. Later in the war, when Lawrence finds himself surrounded by people more interested in money than freedom, he finds that he too has changed, or perhaps, his love of war was always there with him. The film won 7 of the 10 Oscars it was nominated for in 1962.