The Birds (1963)

A socialite travels to a seaside town in the hopes of finding a man she had met the day before in San Francisco, and in whom she seems to have developed an interest. The man's mother, at whose house he is staying during the weekend, is not very friendly toward the newcomer. However, these dramatic incidents soon take back seat to the fact that the local birds begin attacking the people.

This is a very interesting concept, superbly translated into images. The question of interpretation must be dealt with. One of course is not obliged to look for scientific explanations, and the filmmaker has even explicitly disavowed them. Allegoric interpretations are welcome, of course, even if they are done in a purely ludic spirit. In a trivial sense, the birds are there with the purpose of bringing a couple together; they neutralize, by effect of sheer havoc, the initial dispositions of Mitch's mother, and bring all characters together. They are love-birds, in a word. Beyond that, and perhaps even beyond allegory in a strict sense, the film is the manifestation of a symptom of a political and social order. This symptom is a certain fear which could only happen in imperialist countries (the source story was written by an Englishwoman). Those countries must perpetually live under the menace of those other countries or peoples which were touched by their actions. Sometimes this menace is not physical, but translates into guilt. One can look for historical examples of what I am talking about, which were relevant for the year in which this film was made (e.g., 'Melanie' occupies herself as a guardian for a Korean orphan). One can also look into the future of that year and see what would happen. In 1963 the U.S. was starting a war in Vietnam. Racial integration was also occurring around that time period. And 1965 was the fatidic year when the U.S. would open the door to immigration through the Hart-Celler act. So, The Birds was indeed a symptomatic film, and a prophetic one too.

Rating: 72 (up from 68)

The Apartment (1960)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

An insurance executive has been allowing his corporate superiors to use his apartment for erotic purposes on a regular basis; he expects promotions in return. Things complicate when he becomes interested in an employee who is having an affair with a company big shot.

The first hour is pretty good, I think. The remainder of the film is strictly predictable. It is hard to object to the film on a strictly intellectual basis, perhaps. But films should be stimulating and exciting from beginning to end, and this film ceases to be so at the middle, around which time it becomes a purely mechanical device. Another point which perhaps should be made more explicit by critics and commenters is that this is a tale of universal greed, meaning that all three parties (boss, underling, girl) suffer from excessive greed for most of the duration of the movie. The resolution comes from the realization by two of those parties that their greed was excessive.

Rating: 66 (unchanged)

Meatballs Part II (1984)

This is not exactly a sequel to Meatballs, having only its summer camp settings in common with that film. In 'Part II' we have as a main character of sorts a juvenile delinquent who has been assigned as counsellor in Camp Sasquatch. He is invited by the camp director to be the contender in a boxing match against rival Camp Patton, which is militarily ruled and threatens to take exclusive possession of the lake between the two camps.

Weak comedy, not badly directed, which in the very least serves as a document of 80s aesthetics, frame of mind and even physical appearances.

Rating: 31

The Children's Hour (1961)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

The owners and administrators of a school for girls are accused of lesbianism.

Based on a real event in 1810, this film reportedly follows its real-life source in a faithful manner for its first hour, and this is the best part of the movie. The remainder introduces some fictional elements and, while still having interesting dramatic points, does not fare as well in its analysis of the characters' behavior. The film's point, it seems, is the characterization of the school environment as a torturous one, and the demonstration of how this ends up bouncing back at the torturers.

Rating: 69 (down from 77)

Fear and Desire (1953)

Second viewing; first viewed on October 28, 2005.

In a generic, non-historical war, some soldiers get stranded behind enemy lines after a plane crash.

Very low-budget and with pompous dialogue and narration, this is a poor yet watchable movie. One shot, of the jungle covered in mist, is very beautiful, although I would not know who is mainly responsible, whether the cinematographer or the director, or even mere chance.

Rating: 32 (up from 31)

The Lost Weekend (1945)

Third viewing, probably; previously viewed on November 24, 1992 and, possibly, once before that between 1983 and 1986.

An alcoholic man is getting ready for a weekend in the country away from liquor with his brother. Things do not go as planned, though.

The excellence of this drama comes from an  honest screenplay, a taut narrative, and the expert technique with which it was filmed. It is not, in my opinion, a complete analysis of alcoholism. Many troubles the protagonist goes through do not seem to be directly derived from alcohol itself -- some of them are caused by the repression of alcoholism, and some others might be attributed to his personality. And, on the other hand, many noxious traits found in some alcoholics, e.g. physical violence, are simply absent from his behavior. There is a philosophical aspect to addiction on which the film touches very slightly, namely the fact that the distinction between a bad habit and good one is not that easy to establish, and both in the final analysis are psychological constraints on the individual which could become real mental prisons. As we all tend to form habits, we all tend to become addicts one way or the other. I found Milland's resemblance to Nicholson in this film remarkable, and apparently something of that perception is shared by Paul Mayersberg in this review of The Shining. And here is a fine review of The Lost Weekend by TV Guide.

Rating: 83 (unchanged)

The Great Gatsby (1974)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

A man of obscure origins who has acquired great wealth tries to reapproach the woman with whom he had once a brief relationship, and who is now married.

People generally say there is a problem with this film, but perhaps the problem is that people took seriously what is undoubtedly a dark comedy. There is nothing, not one scene in it that is not laugh-inducing, and that is not a bad thing for those who like a good laugh. Even the bad performances fit like a glove when you look at it that way. You might say it is not the best comedy ever made about rich people, and there I would agreee with you, but that is a different matter.

Rating: 56 (down from 60)

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

Lawman Wyatt Earp allies with dentist-turned-gunfighter 'Doc' Holliday to fight outlaws in the old West.

Decent Western, competently written and directed. Its most appealing point is perhaps the analysis of how a friendship develops in somewhat uncommon circumstances.

Rating: 67

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)

Some events in the life of the inventor of the telephone.

Energetic biographic story with a dire subject (technology always is). The Hollywood treatment has some respect for the viewer's intelligence and the film is watchable, if only barely.

Rating: 40

American Gigolo (1980)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

A male escort and prostitute is framed for the murder of one of his clients.

Viewing this film for a second time was a pleasanter experience than my first one. Formally, there are evident qualities in it. In other aspects as well, it is not as bad as I previously thought (e.g. the main actor's performance). Nevertheless, I could not completely shake off a certain boredom over the progression of the plot and certain pieces of dialogue. Furthermore, the film's underlying concept seems unfocused, and what superficially seems to be an utterly secondary plot point came across, in my analysis, as the film's underdeveloped real center. The point in question, as expressed by one character, is the situation when "you have stepped on too many toes, and nobody cares about you". It is very hard to gather, from the movie itself, what exactly those "toes" are, but then again the events in question may be of a strictly imaginary order.

Rating: 40 (up from 30)

Crime et châtiment (1956)

English title: Crime and Punishment

Based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published in 1866, in serial form.

A student kills an old woman whom he despises expecting to steal her money. An investigation ensues.

I do not remember the novel very well, but its themes seem to be present in the movie as well. I do not think it is a particularly brilliant movie, because, although in its first half it lays out the basic problem in an intelligent way, the second half provides somewhat poor solutions to it, appealing as it does to the religious nature of a prostitute and her influence being too easily applied on the protagonist. It has merits, though, and the leading player, and most supporting ones, do their parts well.

Rating: 59

The Westerner (1940)

Second viewing; first viewed somewhere between 1983 and 1986.

A community of cattle herders conflicts with newly arriving homesteaders because the latter start to build fences around their properties. Amid this scenario, a wandering man is accused of horse theft and stands a summary trial presided by the leader of the cattlemen.

This Western has a comedic form which clashes with its dramatic background plot. It is made with the utmost care and the end result is perhaps flawed yet interesting. A good review  was written by Robert J. Maxwell on the IMDB user review section.

Rating: 58 (unchanged)

A pensão da D. Estela (1956)

The film depicts the life of the dwellers at a boarding house during a few days. The owner is a widow and has marrying designs on one of the customers, who is her accountant and has a mistress on the side. The latter shows up unexpectedly at the boarding house one day and decides to become a guest too. The owner's daughter is a singer who dates an unemployed young doctor. The new cleaning lady is also a struggling singer. Another customer is a monarchist who never pays his rent. And there is also a solitary woman who pretends to be married. The boarding house has a mortgage which has to be payed but there is no money.

Very tame comedy which was very successful in Brazil when it came out. Here you can find some stills and a text in Portuguese with some information.

Rating: 31

Totò sceicco (1950)

English title: Toto the Sheik

Antonio is a majordomo who travels to North Africa to rescue his employer who joined the Foreign Legion.

I am probably not going to do justice to this movie, so I will refrain from reviewing it. A sympathetic review is found on Wikipedia, so I suggest you just read it (provided you know a little Italian, that is).

Rating: 34

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

A struggling musician struggles also with a cat.

The folk phenomenon of the 1960s was a cooptation of popular aesthetics by urban youths, gathering mostly in New York City. So, it was a bourgeois capitalist phenomenon from the outset, and thus an illustration of the alliance between Capital and the Cultural Left. One of the tropes of historiography is the conflict of, on one side, the several races in their respective homelands, and, on the other, foreign elements which come and go with catlike ease. The literary reference for this film seems to be Joyce's Ulysses with its circular narrative (I have not read the book). The templates for the novel's hero Bloom are many, from its ostensive Greek model to the Wandering Jew legend, who in turn may be a later version of Cain, the first homicide, who was doomed to perpetually roam the Earth. So, it is striking that both Capitalism and Leftist Liberalism have this in common, that they abhor borders. That they have joined to ape and profit from that which was essentially -- to quote the name of the book by Kip Lornell -- an ethnic, grassroots and regional genre is ironic, but what isn't in modernity? The film in question is a humorous piece, moderately enjoyable, as are the schoolgirlish attempts by critics at deciphering its erudite in-jokes.

Rating: 57

Cape Fear (1962)

Second viewing; first viewed on September 25, 1996

A man, seeking revenge against a witness whose testimony sent him to prison, moves to his target's town and makes veiled threats against his wife and teenage daughter.

A very thrilling movie, despite its far-fetched premise. It postulates a very sound and plausible main thesis, namely that the law tends to decrease in effectiveness as it increases in liberalism. In real life, one is not likely to find the violence and the organization displayed by Cady in one single individual. Thus, for the film to be properly understood, one must consider that he and his surrounding characters are a simplified fictionalization of a sum of forces: on the one hand the disorganized violence of individual criminals and on the other the organized ideology of leftism.

Rating: 77 (down from 82)

An American Tail (1986)

A family of Jewish mice in Russia emigrate to America. At mid-trip the young son falls overboard and is given as dead.

Disappointing animated fictionalization of the immigration phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century in America. While it manages to evoke certain real-life events and characters with some success, certain incidents in the narrative, such as the cats, poorly translate to real-life concepts. Ultimately, the film sacrifices meaning to the need to entertain an audience of kids in the usual corny way.

Rating: 40

Pas de problème! (1975)

English title: No Problem!

A man dies at a young woman's apartment, and she asks a man she meets at a nightclub to help her dispose of the body. The situation gets complicated, involving further people.

Comedy which borrows, as IMDB user dbdumonteil reminds us, the premise from The Trouble with Harry. The film is funny, the actors are marvelous, everything works well. It is not meant to be groundbreaking or anything, but it made me laugh several times. A series of stills from it are featured in this review.

Rating: 60

Path to War (2002) (TV)

A dramatization of the Johnson administration, focusing primarily on the Vietnam War.

This film does make for a very acceptable crash course on the Vietnam War, and I am glad I watched it. However, no TV drama is complete without those ridiculous human interest adornments which, among other dubious points, will lead an ignorant man like myself to deduce that Mrs. McNamara's stomach problems were just another nasty effect of the war. Johnson comes across as a semi-moron, and I have no further information that will put this labeling into question. The Negro question serves as a countertheme, and is perhaps useful for an analysis of what really happened both in American and in Asian hearts and minds at that period. The question of why would America get involved in the affairs of a distant country at all, apart from the sound military considerations by George Ball, is not once raised in the movie. Vietnamese division into two countries makes for a stark contrast to the cohesiveness of the North Vietnamese people, and is a matter of wonderment to me. Why would anyone try to politically divide a people which is so homogeneous in everything else? The reverse of that question is, why is Johnson so emphatic in his speech about his policies being not for the North, nor for the South, but for the whole America? Why would anyone try to politically unite a people which is so heterogeneous in everything else?

Rating: 63

The Big Knife (1955)

Second viewing; first viewed on February 7, 1998

A Hollywood actor is facing a matrimonial crisis. The crux of the matter is his wife's opposition to the renewal of his contract with a producer. He can't get away from it without facing some dire consequences, though.

The review by Bosley Crowther, while it gives a good idea of the movie, is perhaps a little short-sighted (or narrow-minded) about it (the same probably goes for Pauline Kael, who called it "garish and overdone"). It all pivots on the question of whether the flaws pointed at were intentional or not, whether they were funny or not, and whether it matters whether this comicity is intentional or not. I am not able to settle this matter, but surely enjoyed the movie more than Crowther did. The obviously stupendous performances are Palance's and Winters'; on Steiger's hangs a similar doubt as I have about the movie.

Rating: 67 (unchanged)

El bruto (1953)

English title: The Brute

A slum's landlord issues a note of eviction to all the slum's tenants so that he can sell the land. Some tenants will not take this quietly, and that's when the titular character -- an employee at a slaughterhouse and the landlord's protégé -- enters the picture as an agent of dissuasion to the rebellious tenants.

As IMDB user dbdumonteil remarked, this has parallels with Frankenstein; perhaps it's even closer to The Golem, being the Marxism and Class Consciousness analysis of that story. The plot practically writes itself once the premise is established, but it is a nice watch all the same, with the usual cruel touches which are the director's trademark.

Rating: 61

Vou te contá.. (1958)

The infant son of a wealthy man is kidnapped. A reporter wants to find it and get the reward. At nearly the same time, another baby is taken from its carriage during an absence of its caretaker and, by a coincidence, the reporter is the baby's uncle and lives in the same house. Also coincidentally, the maid at that house is courted by a man who works for the kidnapper of the first baby.

As you may have noticed, the plot is full of coincidences. The film is a near-total disgrace, a disjointed mix of unfunny narrative and musical numbers. The latter are nothing special, although the kind of Brazilian music they show is not unpleasant. The most remarkable thing about the movie is the abundance of racial references in the dialogue and even in one song. The most curious one is perhaps a line by the black male servant about the mixed-race gangster: "when a guy is neither white nor black, beware of him!" This article (in Portuguese) has a commentary about this and another remark by the same character, besides similar ones in other Brazilian movies. Here is an extensive online review (also in Portuguese) which, despite getting the plot appallingly wrong, has some useful information about the actors and singers in the movie.

Rating: 12

Rue de l'Estrapade (1953)

English title: Françoise Steps Out

A woman finds out about her husband's infidelity and leaves home, setting up a new home at a modest apartment in a building with some other interesting lodgers.

This is possibly a seminal film for a genre that has become very popular, especially from the 1970s onwards, having as protagonist a cheated-on woman who after separation acquires a new outlook on life. While this is a genre that has steadily radicalized itself towards hatred of the male sex, this is not the case in question here, as this early item is very circumspect and would be deemed conservative by modern-day feminists. Anyway, it is not an especially inspired film, struggling as it does in its middle section to find incidents to fill the void between separation and reconciliation. But the acting is good, and the mood is light and agreeable.

Rating: 40

Sahara (1983)

Young American heiress to an automobile industry, and auto racer, goes to Africa to take part in a Sahara rally. Trouble is, there is a tribal war along the rally route.

Reportedly a variation on The Sheik (1921), with echoes also of The Wind and the Lion (1975), it is also an allegory on World War II, where Gypsies stand for Jews, and the two warring desert tribes stand respectively for the Nazis and the Allies. It would not be an unreasonable interpretation to say that circumstances dictated that America, a young virgin, would go to bed with the Soviet Union. Further parallels could be drawn at one's own risk. Apart from this amusing allegorical aspect, the film is antiquated, and will provide for some entertainment only on the most basic level.

Rating: 33

Baby It's You (1983)

The late sixties. A well-behaved high school girl with acting ambitions is courted by an academic misfit from a lower social class than her. If their relationship seems improbable even while they live in the same city, will it survive after high school is over and they have physical distance between them?

I suppose many people have known or heard about couples like the one in this film. Probably not exactly identical, but sharing some aspects with them. Anyway, this kind of story is always interesting. The "firstness" factor is crucial, and the filmmaker himself says as much. The film relies on this appeal, and handles the development in a correct way. Among the curious incidents, a teacher proposes a "puzzle" about Ulysses S. Grant to his class.

Rating: 50

Bullseye! (1990)

An American nuclear physicist develops a fusion technique for energy generation and, in partnership with an English aristocrat, has plans to sell it to the highest bidder. Two criminals who happen to be their respective lookalikes try to rob them, and in the process are coopted by the American and English secret services to help them get the recipe.

Moderately entertaining farce, fast and eventful. The dual lookalike premise dates way back (The Comedy of Errors), and, more recently, was used in Our Relations (1936). The editing is quick and the filming has a penchant for odd low-angles and very near close-ups.

Rating: 50

Le cercle rouge (1970)

Second viewing; first viewed on January 25, 1998

English title: The Red Circle

A man who has just been released from prison teams up with a fugitive from police custody and an alcoholic ex-policeman who is an expert marksman in the spectacular robbery of a jewelry store. The police detective from whose custody the second man escaped leads the investigation to catch them.

Strangely compelling, slow-moving policier. Crime is a sordid business which the fiction machine transforms into a seductive dreamworld very much analogous to a casino where desperate characters lay all their chips on one job, and callous lawmen eschew ethics in the pursuit of their goals. Both cops and robbers lead lives on the margin of society. You could say this is Rififi on ice. A curious bit of dialogue is when detective Mattei's chief wonders about the race of his subordinate ("he has blond hair and light eyes, he's very much unlike a Corsican"). If you care to read some reviews, I suggest Christopher Mulrooney's and Ted Goranson (tedg)'s (in both cases, you will have to browse the page).

Rating: 66 (unchanged)

My Foolish Heart (1949)

An unhappily married woman recollects a wartime love affair.

There are some good moments here and there, and the theme of war and its effect on sexual morals is interesting, but mostly it is a lame melodrama, being neither convincing nor engaging.

Rating: 36

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

Second viewing; first viewed on December 10, 1995

Based on the play and the novel, both 1903, by Emma Orczy.

An English aristocrat leads a group of his peers to save French people from the guillotine in 1792 terror-ruled France. His identity is kept scrupulously secret.

Very well-made adventure. The premise is quite depressing, as are all films about fictitious interferences in historical catastrophes (except for those "what if" stories where history is significantly changed). The general tone is juvenile, but the film is fairly enjoyable and the actors do a good job, especially Howard as the titular character.

Rating: 56 (down from 68)

A baronesa transviada (1957)

The IMDB plot summary ("Manicurist finds out she's the daughter of a rich baroness, and inherits her fortune. Now, she'll have to fight her mother's parents, with help from some of her friends.") is almost right: "parents" should be replaced by "relatives".

The title of this Brazilian comedy has, perhaps involuntarily, a double meaning; the apparent one ("the perverted baroness") and a less obvious one ("the stray baroness") related to the premise of a child which got separated from her mother. Although this film was made to please general audiences of all ages, its display of moral wretchedness is somewhat disturbing. The emphasis on grotesque elements wouldn't be out of place in a movie by John Waters or Jack Hill, for example (except for the sex, that is absent here). Some of the verbal wit is heavily dated; take, for instance, the line (the accuracy of whose transcription is as good as the poor audio and my ear allow): "Inteligente é o cor de abóbora, que tem o Pedro Álvares Cabral nas costas." ("The orange-colored is the intelligent one, because it's got Pedro Álvares Cabral on its back."). You would be clueless about its meaning, unless you knew that at that time there was a money bill in Brazil which was orange-colored and had the portrait of Cabral on it (come to think of it, even after knowing that I am still not sure about its meaning). Although it screams low-brow on every frame, there is a sense that there might be something more to this film than a superficial glance will show, a sort of anarchy in its conception (or lack thereof) that attenuates its obvious shortcomings.

Rating: 31

Le vice et la vertu (1963)

English title: Vice and Virtue

In occupied France, two sisters choose opposite paths: one becomes a German officer's mistress, the other marries a Resistance member.

Pulpish dialogue and situations, well filmed, with a penchant for mirrors. The association of Sade and the Axis is a seminal one which would spawn the nazisploitation genre in the 70s and Salò.

Rating: 51

O homem que comprou o mundo (1968)

Englisht title: The Man Who Bought the World

A working-class man receives a trillionaire check from a dying man, and all of a sudden disturbs the balance of power in the world.

A variation on The Man Who Could Work Miracles, without supernatural elements. Unlike its predecessor, it is very shallow on its psychological and political considerations, favoring absurdist comedy instead. Released during the military regime in Brazil, it displays some mild criticism  of that period's authoritarianism.

Rating: 31

The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936)

Second viewing; first viewed on March 9, 1997.

Based on the 1898 short story by H.G. Wells.

A man is suddenly given extraordinary powers over the material reality around him (but not over other people's minds). He goes around consulting various people on what to do with his newly acquired powers, and in the process his own mind matures about it.

Amusing fable about power, which, by disturbing the state of things, analyzes its many aspects. There are excellent special effects, and the performances are very good too. On the negative side, there is a bit of repetitiveness about the proceedings, and also the development is not exactly full of surprises (I hope my having seen it before has not conditioned me into this perception). It is never unpleasant though, and its insights into human nature and the workings of society are mostly correct. As for the phenomenon of concentration of excessive power in a single individual, it finds alarming parallels in present-day reality and its power-wielding billionaires, who far surpass in political influence those of the time this film was made.

Rating: 65 (up from 50)

Lance maior (1968)

I have reviewed this film in July, 2007, which is the date of my first viewing.

You can go to the link of that blog entry, or just read it below:

[begin quote]
Synopsis: Mário is a young law student who works at a bank. He starts a relationship with a humble yet attractive shopgirl. He then starts a concomitant relationship with a rich girl.

Appraisal: Urban drama whose grim candor in character depiction and economic narrative style make for an interesting portrait of how the Brazilian upper and lower middle classes of the late sixties behaved and interacted. Although it abides by a realistic worldview, it has a certain theatricality to its dialogue and mise-en-scene that betrays some roughness in the overall execution; in spite of that, it is a worthy film, probably one of its director's better ones.
[end quote]

I have little to add, except that the aforementioned "theatricality" was possibly a misperception of mine, and that I found the dialog hard to decipher in several instances. I also note that I may have finally understood the meaning of the film's title, something like "Higher Bid" or "Highest Bid". Films which have thematic or plot points in common with this one are A Place in the Sun (or An American Tragedy) and Les bonnes femmes.

Rating: 60 (up from 57)

Shadows and Fog (1991)

Second viewing; first viewed on October 11, 1992.

Based on the play Death, by Woody Allen, first published in 1975.

In a German-speaking European city, a homicidal maniac is on the loose. A modest bureaucratic employee is summoned in the middle of the night to take part in a vigilante group. He spends that entire night in a series of adventures involving, among others, a circus woman.

This is an oddly conceived film, at once heavily theatrical and heavily cinematic, swinging between those two aesthetic poles, or at times combining them into a scene, and not worrying about compatibility or unity. The film's plot also brings together two somewhat disjointed strands (the killer, the circus), with little reason for doing it. It is an easy watch, though, with pleasant enough dialogue and pleasant enough imagery. Allusions to persecution and to accusations of "well poisoning" are casually thrown in, but the word "Jew" is never mentioned.

Rating: 53 (down from 56)

Blade Runner (1982)

Second viewing, first viewing of the final cut; first viewed in 1982 or 1983.

Based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968.

In the future, androids have achieved a high degree of sophistication. A group of them rebel and are hunted by a bounty hunter. The persecuted machines try to survive and also seek the man who engineered their lifespan to be a short one.

I never really understood people's (mostly Americans', it seems to me) obsession with intelligent machines. I mean, I do understand that children would be somewhat fascinated by their human appearance, but that grown men should dedicate so much of their energy and time to philosophize over this is beyond me. As Michael Moorcock puts it: "the bulk of American sf could be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots" (Wizardry and Wild Romance). There are even "scientists" who specialize in the problems of so-called "hard" artificial intelligence. As I said, go figure. In any case, there are some interesting real life issues that are structurally analogous to the ones posed in this genre of fiction, and in Blade Runner specifically (for example, Jews-related issues). However, the film is flawed in more than one aspect, involving both script and direction. There are positive qualities too, but they are mostly in the character construction (including the actors' work). Viewed as a series of set-pieces offering an assortment of bizarre types, the film is passable.

Rating: 51 (down from 63)

Harry and Tonto (1974)

Second viewing; first viewed on December 21, 1991

An elderly man gets thrown out of his apartment on account of its building getting demolished, and then goes on a tour through relatives and America.

Can I say phony? Can I say trite? Can I say that this is exactly programmed for unanimity, and achieves as much of it as anyone can? To give one example of a crack in that unanimity, someone in the IMDB's user comments area who calls himself Neil Doyle has observed that Harry's "most philosophical comment" is "Did you know that the strangest thing about being old is, all your friends are dead." This film is an inferior product in a very nice package, because the screenplay is inferior and everything else including the score, the acting, the cinematography, etc., is good. But I think the film is still interesting because it is a window to how people who know little about the world picture that world in their minds. In other words, it is an anatomy of its own ignorance.

Rating: 50 (up from 48)

Prophecy (1979)

An idealistic medical doctor takes some time off from his activities as a clinician to travel to a countryside area in the role of environmental inspector. There has been an ongoing conflict between a paper manufacturing company and some Native Americans, and environmental analysis is hoped to settle the dispute.

Grim ecological fiction. The issues it brings forth are really important, and the narrative and imagery are gripping and even shocking at times. Despite all that, I do not think films are an effective way of dealing with those matters. It just tends to alienate people, instead of motivating them. This includes me, as I do not consider myself to be any different from most people.

Rating: 50

How to Steal a Million (1966)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986

A art forger cedes a fake sculpture of his for an exhibition and that is when his troubles start. His daughter helps him get out of the jam, with the help of a mysterious character.

It is entertaining and funny, and also a reflection on the bizarre world of art trade. The plot is very imaginative, and everything is very elegant and good looking.

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating: 67 (unchanged)

A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986

A college student gets his girlfriend pregnant; this makes him very, very upset.

Although the production is somewhat classy, this movie tells an absurd story, which anyone with a brain will dismiss after a minute of reflection. Apart from the central performance, which I consider perfect, I do not see many reasons for watching it, and find it rather saddening that I liked it on my previous viewing.

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating: 31 (down from 63)

Festa (1989)

Literal translation of title: Party.

At a big house a party is being thrown for very rich and famous guests. Three persons who have been hired to entertain the guests are told to wait in a downstairs parlor. They are a snooker player and his sidekick, and a harmonica player. They wait and talk while upstairs the party rages on.

Social allegory with little or no insightful or inspired dialogue and barely any action.

Rating: 22

Le pacha (1968)

English title: Pasha

A truck transporting valuable jewelry is robbed. The investigation is led by an aging policeman who is a childhood friend of the policeman who was escorting the stolen cargo.

I am probably not reliable concerning this film. I found the execution very professional, but the film a little dull. The underlying idea it conveys is one of police weariness in the face of mounting criminality and judicial ineffectiveness. This is an interesting subject, but somehow the film fell short of my expectations.

Rating: 31

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Second viewing; first viewed on November 10, 1996

During the Korean War, a platoon goes missing for a few days and returns with a common memory of a confrontation with the enemy in which the sergeant comes out as a hero. Back in America, some members of the platoon have similar recurring nightmares. The sergeant begins behaving strangely and meets with some shady characters who seem to have control over him. His stepfather, whom he hates, is a rightwing politician who acts under the influence of a domineering wife.

There is a strange asymmetry between comedy and tragedy (or drama, which is a more prevalent serious form in recent times). A drama or tragedy may be involutarily comic, whereas the reverse is never the case. This film, for instance, is deadly serious in tone, but everything in it had a comical effect on me. There are many issues with the plot, and some of them are discussed in IMDB's Message Boards. The most important observation to be made about it is that it is a critique of conservatism, and a hallucinating one at that, and the comicity stems mainly from that. There is not a bit of psychological realism in this movie, and the most flagrant violation of plausibility is of course the behavior of the woman who becomes Lt. Marco's girlfriend. Whatever interest the movie may have lies precisely in that it states a position, and is a symptom of a zeitgeist. The technical acumen with which it is made is important to make sure that it succeeds at its goal, which is evidently brainwashing its audience into an adherence to liberal principles.

Rating: 56 (down from 65)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Second viewing; first viewed at some point of time between 1983 and 1986.

Based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, by William Makepeace Thackeray.

The life of an Irish man of modest origin who gets involved in a duel, flees, joins the army, deserts, marries a rich woman, etc.

Splendid film, unbelievably gorgeous, impeccably staged, and engaging at every point of its rather long duration. I speculate that the source novel (which I haven't read) follows an apparent pattern in English works of fiction from the 19th century, the carefully sadistic destruction of its main character, a pattern which first drew my attention when I saw Jude. I sometimes wonder who read these novels when they came out? Mainly women? Young ones? Of course, today everything is distorted by the academic apparatus, and mostly university professors read this stuff. Anyhow, I found that in this particular instance, the artistic imagination employed by the writer and diretor makes following the plot quite bearable, engaging even.

Rating: 74 (up from 66)

Bronenosets Potemkin (1925)

Second viewing; first viewed at some point in time between 1983 and 1986

English title: Battleship Potemkin

Fictionalized dramatization of the incidents surrounding the mutiny in the titular ship in 1905, followed by riots in Odessa, all of which were part of the first Russian revolution.

Revolutions are a serious matter, and everyone should worry about them, whether they happen in Moscow or Baltimore. They may be fair or unfair, but that is not necessarily what determines their success; furthermore, their success is never a guarantee of the ensuing regime's success. A mutiny in a ship is also a serious matter, and in this particular case it was not only an important element in the dynamics of the larger revolution, but a metaphor of sorts for it. Social upset makes for very moving drama, mainly, I think, because every break in conformism is instinctively seen as psychologically healthy. Unfortunately, there is also ample room for psychological manipulation, both in real life and in art, and, perhaps, there would be no revolution without some amount of that sort of manipulation. This film was very popular both among good people (e.g., Chaplin) and not so good ones (e.g., Goebbels). I assume the former were moved by the non-conformist side and the latter by the manipulative side. As such, this work of art will stand forever significant yet ambiguous, like a two-headed monster.

Rating: 66 (unchanged)

The Big Country (1958)

Second viewing; first viewed on August 31, 1997

A sea captain is engaged to be married to a rancher's daughter. His polite and diplomatic manners are viewed with suspicion by his fiancee and by the people living near her. A long-running feud between his father-in-law and another rancher seems to be the source of the violence he witnesses.

Interesting western, which nevertheless has some aspects which should be challenged. It belongs to a class of films in which the hero is an outsider who has a higher moral ground than the locals. This leads to a worldview which justifies many things which have wreaked havoc wherever they have been applied, for example in the case of American imperialism and its later-day offshoots. Also of note is the opposition of the sea person to the land person, about which philosopher Carl Schmitt has theorized, only applied to nations. Here too, the film is to be questioned, as one side appears to have the higher moral ground. All those caveats notwithstanding, the film is certainly of interest and not excessively unpleasant to watch. Christopher Mulrooney notes (here and here) the relationship with The Frisco Kid.

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating: 53 (up from 42)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

Based on the movie Fanfare d'amour (1935), or possibly on its remake Fanfaren der Liebe (1951).

Two musicians hiding from gangsters join an all-woman band under disguise.

Ever since Shakespeare (but probably even earlier; I am not knowledgeable on that) people who disguise as a member of their opposite sex are fruitful material for comedy. Why is that so? Well, as I see it anything that diverts from normality is a matter for comedy. That is how one better sees what normality is, I guess. Or, being perhaps a little blunt, maybe that is just how you get to fill a couple of hours with events. Anyhow, this movie has some funny moments, and keeps things going at an engaging pace. It seems to please both normal people and sexually perverted ones, and that is somewhat fascinating from a philosophical point of view. Perhaps the deeper question is, do some people get a kick from perversion precisely because it is a perversion, that is, a departure from the norm? Or is perversion an inner condition that they possess which makes them see as normal what others see as abnormal? In the latter case, wouldn't they find certain things in this film less funny than most people do?

Rating: 63 (up from 47)

On Deadly Ground (1994)

An unscrupulous oil prospector is causing several deaths and environmental damage. One man opposes that.

Actioner with ecological concerns. The tone is self-parodic.

Rating: 31

Coogan's Bluff (1968)

Second viewing; first viewed on December 7, 1987

A deputy sheriff from Arizona travels to New York to bring back a criminal.

This film is most notable for being a sort of paean to masculinity, a position that would subsequently become rarer and rarer in movies. Lately even films explicitly made for the male audience, including those made by this film's star, have increasingly veered into a compromised position of offering a sort of sanitized version of the male hero. That being said for this film, I found it lacking in the script area, especially after the good half hour in the beginning. The bad guys are totally cartoonish, and not necessarily in an interesting way. But it is very well made and overall a decent film.

Rating: 58 (up from 49)

Terra é sempre terra (1951)

Second viewing; first viewed on August 23, 1992.

The rich and spoiled son of a wealthy landowner decides to visit his mother's farm and get acquainted with its problems. Once there he gets involved with the wife of the greedy administrator.

A bit simple-minded but effective rural drama. It reminded me a little of São Bernardo (1972), which was based on a 1934 novel. I couldn't follow some of the dialogue due probably to a poor sound recording, but enjoyed the film nonetheless. I cannot account for my previous unfavorable assessment, since the film deals with an interesting subject and is overall  competently acted and filmed. Abílio Pereira de Almeida, who is also the author, here plays a part not too dissimilar from the one he played in Caiçara. Vinícius de Moraes, a local literary and musical celebrity, wrote an interesting review in Portuguese. Almeida Salles, a locally well-known film critic, is quoted as saying "there are optimally executed moments" and "the best score made for the cinema to this date in Brazil". An analysis of the dramatic use of sound in this film is found here.

Rating: 51 (up from 19)

Vera Cruz (1954)

Second viewing; first viewed on an indeterminate date before 1987.

After the American Civil War, a former Confederate officer goes to Mexico where another Civil War is going on. There he befriends another American who steals horses to resell them. They join the army of Emperor Maximilian as mercenaries and their first assignment is to escort a society woman to the seaside city of Vera Cruz, whence she will travel back to Europe. They suspect there is something more to that expedition, though.

It has been influential on subsequent American productions, and Italians too, over at least two decades. Viewed from today's perspective, it is basically a series of clichés; from a non-American point of view, it seems a bit arrogant in its glorification of Americans abroad. It is still an entertaining movie, though, and well filmed too. The stupidity of one piece of dialogue aroused my attention:

[begin quote]
Trane: They say that a thief in Mexico today can disappear like a puff of smoke. Is that true?
Nina: You can see smoke disappear.
[end quote]

Rating: 67 (down from 81)

La double vie de Véronique (1991)

Second viewing; first viewed on June 15, 1995.

English title: The Double Life of Véronique.

Weronika is a Polish woman who goes to Kraków to visit her sick aunt and over there finds a position as a lyrical singer. Her lookalike Véronique is a music teacher who lives in Paris and falls in love with a puppeteer and writer of children's books. The film deals consecutively with each of these two women.

I didn't get it on my first viewing; I may have gotten it now, albeit imperfectly. The main consideration is the difference in style between the two parts. This has been ascribed to a difference in temperament between the two protagonists; there must be a correlation indeed. The story of Weronika is intensely naturalistic and unsentimental, whereas that of Véronique is cerebral and kitsch. The relationship between the two may bear an analogy to the two-part nigtmare of Mulholland Drive. Yet the order here seems to have been reversed: Weronika seems much more real than Véronique; would it be too much of a stretch to construe the second story as Weronika's dying dream? A joke has a prudent aunt preparing her will, since the women in her family all have sudden deaths. Véronique profits from her alter ego's disastrous experience. But does she really?

Rating: 50 (up from 10)

Hero and the Terror (1988)

O'Brian, a cop, has recurrent nightmares with a criminal who almost killed him and was then placed in a psychiatric institution. O'Brian is moving in with his pregnant girlfriend, who is somewhat reluctant to do it because she values her independence. A series of murders in the same style of the aforementioned criminal makes O'Brian face his fears once again.

Variation of The Phantom of the Opera. Here, the poetic notion of someone who has a sublime soul hiding under a monstrous appearance is put aside in favor of monstrosity both inner and outer. The two strands of the plot are allegorically related: the repressed fear of rejection by the loved one manifests itself as fear of an invincible monster. Too bad the film's actual deployment of those ideas is so trivial.

Rating: 30

Goldfinger (1964)

Second viewing; first viewed on an indeterminate date before 1987.

A British intelligence agent investigates a case of gold smuggling and discovers a much creepier plot.

To be frank, this is a film for kids, or, to use present (and preciser) terminology, adolescents. That does not stop it from being brilliant from start to finish. The funniest thing about it is, as one person observed in IMDB's discussion board, that its hero is feckless throughout most of it (except in the operation in the prologue, which constitutes, in my opinion, undue interference in a foreign nation's affairs). A thorough plot summary and some interesting analysis may be found in Christopher Mulrooney's notes.

Rating: 75 (unchanged)

Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

Second viewing; first viewed on an undetermined date before 1987.

A convict is sent to a high-security prison in the Alcatraz island. He devises an escape plan.

While this is probably one of the most excellently made films of all times, down deep it is little more than a mechanical entertainment device. It also gives a problematic answer to its dramatic problem of engaging the viewer's empathy: it turns bad guys into good ones and good ones into bad. As that is precisely what the zeitgeist required (and still does, apparently), it was no problem at all, actually.

Rating: 64 (unchanged)

The Defiant Ones (1958)

Second viewing (first with original audio); first viewed on March 12, 1996

A truck transporting prisoners has an accident and two of them, chained to each other, escape, being subsequently chased through a country area.

It is very well filmed, and a remarkable collection of stills might be extracted from any part of it. The movie is also well written and flows at a nice, entertaining pace. All that being said, this is clearly a film with a message, and, furthermore, one that does not appeal to me. It stands on a foundation of radicalized Marxism, its thesis being that race differences are irrelevant in the face of capitalist oppression. Its relativistic view of crime is also typically left-wing; the script is, in this regard, fairly sophisticated in that it has two agents of repression, one (the sheriff) a liberal and the other (the military) a reactionary. The liberal sheriff is an important piece of this puzzle, as he evolves to a realization of his own proletarian condition and thus partially identifies with his targets of persecution (who are more properly categorized as lumpen-proletariat). Why do I call it "radicalized" Marxism? Well, this framework is not exactly what Marx postulated. He never, as far as I know, factored race into his writings, and also didn't consider the lumpen-proletariat as revolution material. This film's diretor would in subsequent films further pursue his leftist agenda, and I suppose Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is the inevitable corollary to The Defiant Ones: after all, if whites and blacks are stuck with each other as implied here, they might as well marry each other and thus extinguish their differences. As a side note, speaking of this director, his It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World looks strangely out of place amid his filmography. Perhaps the persons who were in charge of allocating scripts had a conversation and one of them described it as a "race movie", which prompted someone else to suggest to "hand it to Mr. Kramer".

Rating: 67

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958)

Second viewing; first viewed on June 2, 1996.

English title: Elevator to the Gallows.

An executive plots with his lover the murder of her husband, who is also his boss. However, things have a way of not happening as planned.

Gripping crime thriller. Several details of the plot are not carefully thought out, but that doesn't spoil the fun. It's a bleak film where none of the main characters prompts empathy on the viewer. They are not only amoral, but a bit ridiculous too. References to Algeria and World War II add to the prevailing sordid mood, and the jazz score wraps it all up in melancholy. It is not, however, the brilliant work I perceived it to be on my first viewing.

Rating: 64 (down from 75)

Jude (1996)

Based on the 1895 novel Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy.

A working-class man has dreams of becoming a scholar. His first marriage is a failure. He later falls in love with his cousin.

I guess the above synopsis is to this film what this film is to the source novel. If you like synopses and abridgements, I guess you will like the movie. As for myself, it prompts me to speculate I wouldn't like the novel much. I also speculate it could be construed as a joke. A very obscure one the theme of which could be speculated to be the consequences of letting sex govern one's life.

Rating: 50

Paper Moon (1973)

Second viewing; first viewed on December 24, 1988.

In Kansas, at the time of the Great Depression, a con man associates with a 9-year-old child and they roam the State applying confidence tricks.

It draws its greatest appeal from the notion of a child who can't be outsmarted; the actress in this part is extremely successful in conveying that notion. The growing affection between father and (possible) daughter is intelligently constructed in dramatic and comedic terms. A very neat script makes it all entertaining.

Rating: 68 (unchanged).

La leggenda del santo bevitore (1988)

Second viewing; first viewed on February 24, 1992.

English title: The Legend of the Holy Drinker

Based on the 1939 novella Die Legende vom heiligen Trinker, by Joseph Roth.

A bum meets a mysterious man who gives him 200 francs; he says he would like to pay the man back some day, and his benefactor tells him that, if he feels he has to, he should make a donation at the altar devoted to Thérèse de Lisieux. The bum then goes on to reencounter, by chance, several past acquaintances of his; he also makes some new ones. All this while, he tries to deliver the money he owes the saint.

I thought I should give this film a second chance, but it seemed even worse than on my previous viewing. It is incredibly slow-moving and not always clear about what it is trying to convey, either emotionally or intellectually. I can only speculate about a possible discrepancy of tone between the film and its literary source (I haven't read it). The main performance is amazing, though; I guess it justifies the movie, sort of.

Rating: 42 (down from 47)

The Boston Strangler (1968)

Second viewing; first viewed on September 8, 1990.

A series of murders by strangling of women in the Boston area terrify the female population. The police interrogates every suspect of sexual misconduct in the area of the crimes.

Anyone who read the Wikipedia page for the real Boston Strangler case will see that this film is merely a work of fiction with very little respect for the known facts of that case. As for the psychiatric discourse that the movie puts in display, I, speaking from a layman's perspective, say that one should not take it too seriously. All that being said, the film impresses for its formal creativity.

Pan-and-scan viewing, except for the split-screen parts.

Rating: 50 (down from 64)

Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977)

A bunch of kids go out on a camping trip. A boating race takes most of the screen time, with a rivalry ensuing between the newcomers and some veteran kids.

This is apparently the first Peanuts cartoon that I see. The odd thing is that it seems distinctly aimed at an audience of kids, whereas the comic strips didn't usually give me such an impression. Anyway, I am not able to assess a movie's success at reaching its target audience, only its success at reaching me, and this film didn't greatly succeed at that. From my perspective, this seems just a pedestrian attempt at assembling some run-of-the-mill camping situations and apportioning a slice of the action for each of the characters according to their well-established characteristics.

Rating: 32

The Innocents (1961)

Second viewing; first viewed on October 27, 1989.

Based on the novella The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, first published in 1898.

At a country estate, a new governess is hired to look after two orphaned children. She  begins to have visions of dead people and to question the children's behavior.

A lot of care has been put on the aesthetics of the film, usually to good effect (though I cannot provide a perfect assessment of that for lack of a widescreen copy). The basic plot point is the possibility of deleterious influence that the children may have received from adults prior to the new governess's arrival. The ghosts as narrative devices serve two complementary purposes: providing clues for the new governess about the events prior to her arrival, and putting in doubt her sanity. The basic moral point is perhaps the danger of destroying what one is trying to save. An interpretive angle which I am not sure is in the novella, and is considered more controversial, is that of the psychological phenomenon of projection, especially in dealing with children. The governess might be projecting her own sexual fantasies onto her perception of the children. Thus, it is their very innocence which allows guilt to be projected onto them, as on a blank slate.

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating: 71 (down from 85)

Yoidore tenshi (1948)

English title: Drunken Angel

In a poor and crime-infested neighborhood of a Japanese city, a strong-tempered, sake-drinking doctor devotes himself to fighting illness amid the poor people. He starts treating a proud gangster who has tuberculosis.

Social drama with some entertaining value. The main problem with medically-themed movies is that its real villain is a bug or another non-human entity with which it is hard to establish an emotional link. That is perhaps the reason why the subtheme of alcoholism has been introduced. But here, too, human agency is questionable by today's standards which deem that habit as a disease. Anyhow, there is a very understated implication that the gangster is a sort of mirror image of the doctor. The main point of the film is probably the influence of environment upon the fate of people.

Apparently there was a longer director's cut which has been lost.

Rating: 51

Nora inu (1949)

English title: Stray Dog

A rookie cop has his gun stolen from him while in a bus ride. He becomes obsessed about recovering it, and is assigned by his superior the task of catching the thief and, later on, the person who uses the weapon to commit further crimes.

Entertaining and well-filmed police procedural. The style eschews economy, the film lingering instead extensively over each episode, developing it into plenty of images, the most extreme case of this being the sequence at the baseball stadium where several shots of the game are interspersed with the actual plot scenes. This unhurriedness seems to be a characteristic feature of East Asian cinema. Many thematic threads have been noted by reviewers, but I think an especially noteworthy one is the fundamental need to oppose evil, and the realization that in order to meet that need we must curb our empathy towards perpetrators of evil to a minimum.

Rating: 60

Caiçara (1950)

Second viewing; first viewed on August 16, 1992.

Marina was separated from her parents in infancy and placed in an orphanage of sorts. When she reaches adulthood she accepts the marriage offer from a man who owns a boat factory in a small seaside village. Married life in her new home is full of disappointments at first.

The premise is very similar to that of Stromboli, which was made about one year earlier; as the director of Caiçara was an Italian living in Brazil, the situation is intriguing indeed. At any rate, Caiçara is the better film, because it is better filmed, mostly better acted, and, unlike its hypothetical model, does not suffer from phony philosophical pretensions. It may be no masterpiece, but is thoroughly watchable.

Rating: 51 (up from 43)

Devil's Knot (2013)

Dramatization of the West Memphis Three case. In a small Arkansas town, three children are found dead with their hands and feet tied. Two local teenagers are accused even though no material evidence links them to the murders.

Quite tepid criminal story, which keeps several ends loose and does not venture into speculations. It might be of some interest to those who want to get acquainted with the story.

Rating: 43

Vai trabalhar, vagabundo (1973)

Second viewing; first viewed on April 5, 1992

Informal English Title: Go to Work, Vagabond

Several exploits of a scam artist. He envisions a grand scam consisting of promoting the comeback of two retired pool players for a (rigged) revenge match.

Mildly impaired viewing due to a poor understanding of dialogue. Anyway, The Hustler this ain't, and the relative success it enjoyed in Brazil is no doubt due to its pandering to that country's affection for its own moral maladies. To be fair, however, there is a certain liveliness to the proceedings and some picturesqueness in the location shooting.

Rating: 31 (up from 20)

Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962)

Second viewing; first viewed on April 28, 1996.

English title: Cleo from 5 to 7

A young singer awaits the results of a medical exam screening for cancer. In the meantime she shops, meets her lover, rehearses with her musicians, strolls through the streets of Paris, rides in a car with a friend, watches a short film, goes to a park, etc., pondering and talking all the while about life or trivialities.

Drama which is intelligent and elegant in conception and execution. The challenge of sustaining interest through every move of the main character for the period of one hour and a half is not a small one. To be honest I was not exactly ravished by the whole proceedings, but maybe my judgement was somewhat impaired by the bad quality of my copy (the same in both viewings). Furthermore, in this second viewing I found out that it was cut; the following dialogue between Cléo and the soldier was missing (this is from a subtitles file I found on the internet; I do not vouch for the quality of the translation):

[begin quote]
661
01:10:19,014 --> 01:10:22,142
- Gone?
- It's full of them, most days
662
01:10:22,551 --> 01:10:26,487
- And today...?
- They're all at the other end
663
01:10:26,722 --> 01:10:29,350
They've gone to see
the workmen at the pond
664
01:10:30,793 --> 01:10:33,523
There's plenty of
running water here
665
01:10:33,996 --> 01:10:36,362
But topical things are more fun
666
01:10:37,700 --> 01:10:39,395
What's funny is
that you should know
667
01:10:40,736 --> 01:10:41,862
I'm curious
668
01:10:42,471 --> 01:10:44,962
Why don't you go, then?
669
01:10:45,207 --> 01:10:47,767
I'm more lazy than curious.
I believe without seeing
670
01:10:49,144 --> 01:10:50,839
Anyway, I prefer being here
671
01:10:51,747 --> 01:10:53,044
Isn't it cool?
672
01:10:54,250 --> 01:10:56,878
- It's not very hot.
- I'm all right
673
01:10:57,119 --> 01:10:59,451
It's the first day of summer
674
01:10:59,688 --> 01:11:02,213
For me, summer is when
I'm on holiday
675
01:11:02,524 --> 01:11:06,085
Today it's official.
You're Flora - Goddess of Summer
676
01:11:06,328 --> 01:11:08,592
- What talk!
- I like talking
677
01:11:08,831 --> 01:11:14,133
Did you know that today's
the longest day of the year?
678
01:11:17,172 --> 01:11:18,605
The longest! How true
679
01:11:18,974 --> 01:11:23,411
Today the sun leaves Gemini
for Cancer...
680
01:11:23,679 --> 01:11:25,237
Stop talking like that
681
01:11:27,016 --> 01:11:27,846
I'm sorry
682
01:11:46,935 --> 01:11:48,402
- Going?
- Yes
683
01:11:49,004 --> 01:11:51,336
I'm sorry my information bored you
684
01:11:51,740 --> 01:11:53,469
What's the time?
685
01:11:53,742 --> 01:11:55,642
About six or quarter past
686
01:11:56,779 --> 01:11:58,747
- Waiting for someone?
- No
687
01:11:59,214 --> 01:12:02,115
- Me neither.
- But all men wait for women...
688
01:12:02,418 --> 01:12:06,354
Then, they speak to them...
I don't usually reply. Today I forgot
689
01:12:07,289 --> 01:12:09,723
My thoughts were elsewhere.
You look so calm
690
01:12:09,958 --> 01:12:11,983
I'm on leave
691
01:12:12,194 --> 01:12:15,561
I'm half in uniform.
I leave tonight
692
01:12:15,864 --> 01:12:19,265
I had three weeks.
I've done nothing, it's too short
693
01:12:20,235 --> 01:12:21,702
I like talking to you
694
01:12:23,772 --> 01:12:25,330
- Married?
- No
695
01:12:25,774 --> 01:12:27,742
Do I look
as if I'm out on the prowl?
696
01:12:28,477 --> 01:12:32,072
You seem to be waiting
for something, rather than someone
697
01:12:32,514 --> 01:12:34,004
An examination result
698
01:12:34,550 --> 01:12:35,744
You're a student
699
01:12:35,984 --> 01:12:37,884
No, medical examination
700
01:12:38,187 --> 01:12:39,916
- Are you worried?
- Yes
701
01:12:40,155 --> 01:12:41,247
What are you afraid of?
702
01:12:48,464 --> 01:12:51,160
Cancer.
I'll know for sure this evening
703
01:12:51,734 --> 01:12:54,635
It could be something else
704
01:12:54,870 --> 01:12:56,997
A fortune teller confirmed it
705
01:12:57,639 --> 01:12:59,869
- You believe in cards?
- I'm afraid of everything...
706
01:13:00,642 --> 01:13:03,406
birds, storms, lifts, needles...
707
01:13:03,679 --> 01:13:06,443
and now, this great fear of death
708
01:13:06,782 --> 01:13:09,649
In Algeria, you'd be scared
all the time
709
01:13:09,952 --> 01:13:10,884
How dreadful
710
01:13:11,253 --> 01:13:14,654
They die for nothing.
That's what upsets me
711
01:13:14,890 --> 01:13:18,451
I'd rather die of love
for a woman
712
01:13:19,328 --> 01:13:21,387
Were you never in love?
713
01:13:21,630 --> 01:13:24,121
Often, but never
as deeply as I wanted
714
01:13:24,366 --> 01:13:26,129
It was always the girl's fault
715
01:13:26,335 --> 01:13:28,860
They just like to be loved
716
01:13:29,071 --> 01:13:33,064
They're afraid to give themselves,
to lose something
717
01:13:33,308 --> 01:13:35,071
They love by halves
718
01:13:35,644 --> 01:13:38,579
Their bodies are playthings,
not their lives
719
01:13:39,214 --> 01:13:41,239
So I'm stopping halfway, too
720
01:13:42,518 --> 01:13:44,486
Excuse me for saying this
721
01:13:44,720 --> 01:13:46,210
You're right
722
01:13:47,122 --> 01:13:48,521
Have you been in love?
723
01:13:49,792 --> 01:13:52,317
Like you said: I've always
been afraid to give in...
724
01:13:53,095 --> 01:13:55,495
But what was the use?
I was saving myself for...
725
01:13:56,064 --> 01:13:58,055
Aren't we dramatizing a bit?
[end quote]

I was previously informed that this film was a 1961 release, but IMDB currently lists its release year as 1962. Oddly, in the "Company Credits" section of that site we find this:

Compagnie Commerciale Française Cinématographique (CCFC) (1961) (France) (theatrical)

It is unusual for a film to have been distributed the year previously to its release, so I suspect an error somewhere.

Rating: 62 (up from 61)

The Homesman (2014)

Based on the 1988 novel by Glendon Swarthout.

In 1850s Nebraska, a spinster volunteers to drive three women with psychiatric disorders from their rural community to another city where they will be cared for. She has a chance encounter with a man and manages to persuade him to aid her with her task.

The male lead is one of my favorite actors, but aside from that I cannot say I liked this movie. On a scene-by-scene basis, I found it mostly pedestrian. As for the dramatic ideas behind the plot and characters, all I can say is I am mildly perplexed.

Rating: 40

Still Alice (2014)

A Linguistics professor, married with two daughters and a son, develops a rare, genetically acquired, early onset Alzheimer's disease.

Sober account of an individual with a neurological problem. The novel (which I didn't read) was written by a neurologist, so I suppose the film is respectful of medical science. I can't find much to comment on. One thing I found implausible was the racial demographics of her audience, but what do I know about such things?

Rating: 50

The Narrow Margin (1952)

Second viewing; first viewed on January 26, 1996.

A policeman is put in charge of escorting a criminal's widow to another city where she will testify against her late husband's organization. Members of that organization intend to kill her en route.

I usually like films set on trains, and this is one of the better ones for sure, an ingenious and economical script, very precisely directed, The resolution conspicuously strays from realism, but the film pulls it off quite smoothly. The corrupting power of money and the deceiving power of appearances are two underlining themes.

Rating: 74 (up from 66)

Platoon Leader (1988)

It's tough to beat the IMDB plot summary, so here it goes:

[begin quote] West Point graduate lieutenant Jeff Knight meets cynicism when taking command of sergeant Michael McNamara's tour veterans platoon in a Vietnamese trench camp. Unlike his predecessor, who hid till the end of his tour, Jeff takes charge, experiences the manual doesn't allow coping with all realities and gets wounded. He returns, now fully respect by men and superiors. Besides the Vietcong, the platoon wrestles with the inscrutable villagers, which the GIs officially protect, but also fear as some collaborate with them, other covertly with the Cong, either way subject to bloody reprisals. Written by KGF Vissers [end quote]

The Vietnam war was a bloody episode in the Cold War (which, thus, wasn't as cold as that), in which the U.S.A. learned the hard way that messing with other countries' affairs wasn't the road to success. Or did they learn it? No, they didn't, as they engaged in further mischief in subsequent years. After they pull out of such military fiascoes, some of the money that went down the drain is recovered through hugely successful films made in Hoolywood. Platoon Leader is, however, not Hollywood fare, but rather an independent movie which tries to cash in on a Hollywood blockbuster's success. But it is very well made considering its relatively low budget. Yet, while it may be entertaining to sit for one hour and a half emoting with some brave guys in a fool's errand in an Asian jungle, will it make you wiser?

Rating: 42

What's New, Pussycat? (1965)

Second viewing, first with original audio; first viewed on April 16, 1996.

A compulsive womanizer is getting some pressure from his girlfriend to marry her. He gets involved with several women on the side, and consults with a psychoanalyst who has women problems of his own.

Formally, this is a stage farce that oddly climaxes in a slapstick short. I enjoyed it a lot more this second time, in part because the dubbed version I had first seen made it impossible to appreciate the film's verbal wit. Still, some of its jokes did not work for me, and its accelerated rhythm and (for most of its duration) verbosity sometimes feel strained and slightly annoying.

Rating: 51 (up from 25)

Villa Rides (1968)

An American gunrunner for the counterrevolutionary forces against president Madero is compelled to join Madero's supporter Pancho Villa.

Although well-filmed, this is mostly a silly western with a misguided American point of view and a childish sense of humor.

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating: 31

Sword of the Valiant (1984)

Loosely based on the late 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

At a royal feast, a man accepts the challenge of an intruder, involving a beheading attempt, the result of which sends him on a journey which entails many adventures.

Christopher Mulrooney has a nice text about this film (link):

[begin quote] A grand work, stylistically at the center of a constellation including Boorman’s Excalibur, Battiato’s I Paladini, Hodges’ Flash Gordon, and Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs for the comedy of Fortinbras storming the toy castle, etc.
Tessari’s Zorro is another kindred work, also Desmond Davis’ Clash of the Titans.
“The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.
The four-part riddle is the sole governor of form, after the prelude at the King’s court of well-fed drunken knights he takes issue with.
The parody materials and general good humor give way to the essential poetry of the riddle, the Green Knight’s twelvemonth “game”.
The extraordinary, increasingly rapid treatment of action scenes is only one part of the adroitness that went entirely unobserved by critics, notably in Time Out Film Guide.
The romance of Gawain and Linet in the lost land of Lyonesse, at the castle of Fortinbras, the castle of Bertilak, the Green Chapel. An unreal place, a dark place, a golden place, each with its contrary, and the place of loss, wisdom there. [end quote]

This film belongs to the genre known as sword and sorcery. For some reason, this genre had a big surge in the eighties, after having been all but completely forgotten in the preceding decade. Though it has evolved since (and I haven't followed it in its recent shapes), it hasn't yet fallen out of fashion altogether.

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating: 51

Romancing the Stone (1984)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1984 and 1986.

A novelist receives a call from her sister in Colombia saying she has been kidnapped and asking her to fly to Colombia with a treasure map and deliver it to the kidnappers. Over in that South American country the novelist meets an adventurer who helps her through the various troubles she encounters.

Pacy yet nondescript romantic comedy-adventure which somehow echoes the predominantly empty minds that around its release date had taken over film audiences. The film's plot points cover basic human needs like making a quick fortune or finding a romantic partner who is actually romantic. These things are the bread and butter of modern-day "civilization". It is a very ecologically minded film too -- the hero is a trafficker in rare jungle animals. Well, as long as he is romantic...

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating:  49 (unchanged)

To Die For (1995)

Second viewing; first viewed on April 13, 1996.

A young woman with aspirations towards becoming a TV news anchor gets married to the son of a restaurant owner. His outlook on marriage conflicts with hers, and so she decides to go to extremes to have her way. Some school kids who are the object of a documentary she is making may just come in handy for the job she is envisioning.

Corrosive social satire, a veritable punch in the face of America regarding its perversion of values and general decay. The smart direction perfectly matches the smart script, and everything works out well. On an IMDB message board ("Is this based on the Pamela Smart Case?"), user Brennan-8 opines:

"Watching the film last night (not having seen it since it was in the theatres), it struck me that it was quite a misogynistic film. I know it's a satire on American media and cultural values, but there is also a real hatred toward ambitious women, a delight in depicting her as monstrous and worthy of punishment and death."

Another user, bluephoenix70, concurs and adds:

"I agree with you Brennan about this movie being misogynistic. It's interesting that you say this because I saw another thread that compared the woman in this movie to Sarah Pallin and Hillary Clinton. These are two intelligent and ambitious women. It ticked me off to no end. Sure, there are cases of crazy women who go off the deep end. But just because a woman is sucessful does not mean she's going to kill people."

 

The thread bluephoenix70 refers to is also worth reading ("Anyone see a Palin connection?").

 

Rating: 72 (up from 69)

Tales of Terror (1962)

Second viewing; first viewed in 1983.

Three segments loosely based on the short stories Morella (1835, rev. 1939) (1st segment), The Black Cat  (1843) and The Cask of Amontillado (1846) (2nd segment) and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) (3rd segment), all by Edgar Allan Poe.

(1) A young woman visits her estranged widower father, who has a grudge on her on account of her mother's death. (2) An alcoholic man befriends a wine specialist and introduces him to his wife. (3) A hypnotist proposes to apply his technique on a dying man.

Only the second segment, a study in alcoholism, is really good; furthermore, it has wonderful performances by Lorre and Price (who is in the three episodes and excels in all of them). The last segment has some interesting aspects and also some not so interesting ones. The first segment is just bad. This film has one of the stupidest pieces of dialogue ever (probably concocted purely as a plot advancer), in the last segment:

"-- However, I will make a bargain with you, Mr. Carmichael. I'll marry you upon the stipulation that you will set my husband free.
-- I need make no bargains with you, madam.
-- What?
-- You will marry me in any case.
-- No, Mr. Carmichael. Not unless you end his torment.
-- Edicts, madam? Orders from you? Allow me to enlighten you. I'm in command here. You will do as I say, or I will leave Mr. Valdemar exactly as he is, and never -- do you understand me, madam? -- never let him go."

Rating: 55 (unchanged)

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

This is about a vigilante who singlehandedly tries to wipe out the drug trade in Los Angeles.

Totally wacko, yet moderately watchable action drama. Vigilantes of the lone wolf kind are rare or nonexistent in real life, in which people usually organize toward the achievement of a common goal. In this film, it is the bad guys who get organized. I think this fictional pattern is part of film ideology on a permanent and intrinsic basis. This has to do with the format of the film viewing experience, which is a lonely act. That is why I think cinema is an alienating phenomenon and will meet its doom very soon. The decay in quality we are witnessing today is a consequence of the internal contradictions of the medium. One example: film industry's thriving depends heavily on dates, which basically spoil the individuality of the fruition. Other arts, such as painting, sculpture, and literature are more open to collective experience.

Rating: 32

Trafic (1971)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

English title: Traffic.

An automobile show is upcoming in Amsterdam, and a French company is planning to unveil a revolutionary camper model. The transportation of this car in a truck from France to Holland is full of incidents.

Practically a filmed essay about cars. The displacement of the human element by the machine is possibly the strongest thematic element, but it's not a film driven by a message. Instead of moving along the single highway of social critique, it gently explores multiple side roads of humor and poesy.

Rating: 66 (unchanged)

Un été inoubliable (1994)

English title: An Unforgettable Summer

Based on a chapter from the novel Cronica de familie (Family Chronicle), by Petru Dumitriu (first published in 1957).

In 1925, a Romanian officer is transferred to an outpost at the border with Bulgaria, where a series of attacks by smugglers terrorize the Romanian army. The officer's wife and children accompany him.

A very interesting story, competently told in cinematic terms. The sharp sense of humor and attention to detail make this a solid, thoroughly enjoyable film. The sublime climax near the end is a masterfully orchestrated explosion of violence which one is not likely to easily forget. The film's outlook on politics and human relations is bleak and yet paradoxically the story is suffused with lyricism and joie de vivre. One might want to question whether the film presents us with a tragic situation or something else altogether.

Wikipedia page

Rating: 71

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

Life at an Army Base in Hawaii, in 1941, just before the Japanese attack. A newly transferred soldier is the center of sorts of the narrative. He used to be a boxer but has quit after an accident. At his new outfit they will do all they can to make him fight at the interbase championship. Meanwhile, his sergeant has an affair with the captain's wife.

Mostly ridiculous, yet consistently entertaining, melodrama. The proof it is superbly directed is that it relies on a script that sometimes verges on the undirectable. It is multiply miscast, too, and gets away with it as best it could. When Hollywood became too ashamed to continue making "serious" films like this, comedians and parodists substituted openly comical ones for them.

Rating: 57 (unchanged)

Stage Door (1937)

Second viewing; first viewed on August 6, 1995.

Dramatic comedy set on a boarding house for struggling actresses. The usual problems faced by such creatures are displayed.

Very entertaining and even-talkier-than-usual-for-its-genre-and-time Hollywood comedy. The non-stop succession of witty one-liners is quite amazing and the strong point of the movie. The story is clichéd though, and, being a post-Hays code picture, sexual innuendo is countered by scarce on-screen transgression and by further innuendo to the effect that nothing much actually turns out to have happened off-screen either (e.g., the dumped "slut" implies she wasn't as generous as others may think). The casting is felicitous, especially when it comes to Hepburn as the Sexual Justice Warrior. Reportedly, it is very different from the source play, and TV Guide has a fine review that furthermore has some information on the making of this film.

Rating: 75 (up from 70)

The Omega Man (1971)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

Rather loosely based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

After most of mankind has been decimated by an infection brought about by biological warfare, there is only one healthy survivor  who tries to wipe out a few menacing mutants who group around a charismatic leader.

Poorly written sci-fi, which nevertheless provide some food for thought in the depiction of ludditism as a reaction to a technological catastrophe. The sights of a deserted Los Angeles are also awesome. Most of the dialogue and character interaction are ridiculous, though.

Rating: 37 (up from 26)

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Second viewing; first viewed on December 30, 1995.

A dancer meets a woman in Paris and falls in love with her, without being requited. By a coincidence, they are both on their way to London. Once there he seeks her out, without success. He eventually meets her by chance at a seaside resort, and gets unwittingly mixed up in a complex divorce plot.

What is there to say about this film, except that it has moments of sublime sophistication and lightness? But you know me, I am never fully satisfied, so I'll say that it is not 100% evenly good, and its initial hour or so is better than the remainder of the movie. And I might also suggest that, apart from the obvious visual enchantments, this film profits from text that is superior to other Astaire vehicles that I have watched.

As usual, I am concerned about my own insufficiency as a reviewer and suggest that you check out the various External Reviews at IMDB. I didn't read them all, but those I read were OK (Danny Reid's may be a good one for those who want greater detail and links to other reviews).

Rating: 72 (up from 66)

Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1959) & Das indische Grabmal (1959)

English titles: The Tiger of Eschnapur & The Indian Tomb.

Based on the 1917 novel Das indische Grabmal, by Thea von Harbou.

An architect working in India falls in love with a dancer, who loves him back. The local ruler also falls in love with her.

Entertaining orientalist adventure, told in two complementary films. I suggest this review for those who know some Spanish and are not content with my meager text.

Rating: 56

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

A woman gets pregnant and, amidst constant physical discomfort, gets progressively suspicious that there is a plot led by her neighbors, and with the complicity of her husband, to affect her pregnancy through witchcraft and eventually steal her baby.

Efficient horror drama, with remarkable cinematography and strong visual compositions. The script is not exactly brilliant, though, relying at times on not very original ideas and somewhat abusing of repetition. The underlying structure is a mirror image of the story of Jesus, which as an aftereffect becomes itself tainted with horror.

Rating: 57 (up from 54)

Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Second viewing; first seen on January 13, 1996.

A musical band lands a gig in a hotel in Rio de Janeiro. By a coincidence, the band leader's romantic interest is from that city and happens to be returning home.

Entertaining musical comedy, quite imaginative and well made. Read the fine TV Guide review.

Rating: 58 (up from 40)

The Fallen Idol (1948)

Second viewing; first seen on December 22, 1994

Based on the short story The Basement Room, by Graham Greene, first published in 1936.

The young son of the French Ambassador in London is very attached to his house's butler, and gets mixed up in the latter's affair with a young French woman.

This turned out to be quite different from what I remembered, that is, the story of a young boy's shattered belief in a childhood hero. In fact, the whole affair is much more casual than that, and the boy seems to be much more resilient than my recollection implied. And the film is after all a comedy, if you employ a wide definition of the term. The mind of children is an important element, but I am not inclined to consider it as the film's main theme. In my view, the child here serves mainly to amplify the old theme of relationships, lies and ironic endings. It is very well filmed and well acted.

Rating: 60 (up from 50)

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

Two childhood friends go their separate ways as they grow up: one of them becomes a criminal, and the other a priest. When they reunite, the latter worries about the influence that the former may exert on the neighborhood youngsters.

This film is practically all of it made of memorable scenes. Its conception is clever, too, bringing together two strands of drama, one concerning adults and the other concerning kids. The Dead End Kids are exceptionally well handled for comedy. The film's theme is a complex one, and inevitably one may be misled into thinking that some of its characters' assertions are actually the film's purported thesis. For instance, it is implied that the reform system "made Rocky a criminal", and that furthermore it was all a matter of chance, or of who ran faster. This is all vey poetical, but the film makes it very clear that, since their childhoods, Rocky and Jerry were very different in temperament. It is uncertain whether this kind of film is good or bad for the cause of improving society. It was from a time when individual choice was still considered important. Yet, the emphasis here is on improving the environment where people grow up. I am skeptical of both, because ultimately people make their environments, and choice must always overcome individual predispositions. That does not mean social work, on one side, and moral teaching, on the other, are useless. It's just that they can only do so much. Anyway, this is a necessary film especially as a piece of implicit self-criticism of the film industry regarding all the criminal idol-making that made for much of the production of the time.

Rating: 74 (up from 50)

The Chronicle History or King Henry the Fift wih His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944)

Second viewing; first seen on December 18, 1988.

Shortened title: Henry V

Based on the play by William Shakespeare, written around 1599.

An English king thinks he has rights over the throne of France, and wages war on that country.

Very pretty to look at, but the text did not move me. Reportedly the play was bowdlerized to conform to the war effort. Anyway, wars may not all be stupid, but this one surely seems so.

Rating: 54 (down from 56)

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Second viewing, first with the original audio; first seen on June 24, 2002, on a dubbed copy.

A housemaid is tried for the murder of her employer; in the past she had been acquitted of the murder of her husband. That was a cause of great frustration to the prosecutor; he hopes he can finally convict her now. Her daughter, a New York journalist, is notified of the incident and comes to help her mother, from whom she was estranged and with whom she had not been on the best terms.

This film excels in what regards its moral foundations. The main character embodies many real persons who have no doubt been through problems which are very similar to hers, and her behavior is at once convincing and morally uplifting. It is also an entertaining film, probably due to its source novel (I haven't read it, though) and certainly thanks to its carefully crafted script (you will find similarities in style in the writer's subsequent work, but the final result was never as good as here), which uses every resource at hand to excite the viewer's interest and emotions. It would certainly be possible to say more about this film, but at the moment I am not able to do it, for several reasons (to begin with, the heat where I live is scorching).

Rating: 71 (up from 68)

The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952)

Second viewing; first viewed on November 8, 1992.

From Wikipedia: Based on the play by William Shakespeare, written about 1603, in turn based on the short story Un capitano moro (A Moorish Captain), by Cinthio, first published in 1565 in his collection Gli Hecatommithi. It may have been based on a real incident taking place in Venice about 1508. Still according to Wikipedia, there is an earlier tale from the One Thousand and One Nights, named The Three Apples, which bears similarities to it.

This is one of the most fascinating stories of all times, if I may say so without having actually read the play. The theme of psychological manipulation is of prime importance in our times. There are other themes being explored here which are mostly subordinated to the first one, as they are part of the manipulative schemes devised by Iago. Othello is placed in a position similar to Groucho Marx: he simply could not join a club (i.e. Desdemona) that would accept him as a member. Anway, we should talk about the movie as such. It is pictorially very inspired, and performs a felicitous translation of theater into cinema. I must say, however, that I find that such Shakespeare adaptations can only go so far in shaking its stage origins and, unless they are free adaptations (not the case here), suffer from it.

Rating: 72 (down from 90)