The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)

Four brothers who were leading separate lives return to their hometown to attend their mother's funeral. They find that their old ranch is no longer theirs, and start investigating possible foul play.

Western which is long in length but short in plausibility (see the New York Times review by Howard Thompson; also the Goofs section on IMDB, under Continuity). The basic point of the film is to get the brothers to finally act as such, no matter how ad hoc the odds they face are. Anyway, it is a watchable film, with a reasonably interesting premise and a reasonably coherent plot.

Watched it in pan-and-scan.

Rating: 46

Secret Beyond the Door... (1947)

Second viewing; first: August 19,1994.

A woman marries and notices some strange quirks of her new husband; also, some rumors about his first wife's death make her even more suspicious.

The copy I saw was one which opens with the Republic Pictures logo. At 1 hour 19 minutes into the film, after the line:
(Mark) "Exhibit A. What can I answer when I'm asked if the murder was premeditated?",
it cuts to:
(Maid) "Oh, Mr Mark, you didn't answer."
In between them, the footage containing the following lines, which I got from a subtitles file available on the Web, was cut:
*begin quote*
01:19:59,098 -- 01:20:02,467
Premeditated? I planned it all my life.
01:20:03,311 -- 01:20:07,889
The record shows that you met your wife only this spring in Mexico.
01:20:08,149 -- 01:20:13,689
Yes. I loved her very much and, somehow...
01:20:14,864 -- 01:20:18,862
I felt as though I had been searching for her all my life.
01:20:19,160 -- 01:20:21,651
- To kill her!
- No, I...
01:20:22,080 -- 01:20:24,286
That... came later.
01:20:25,041 -- 01:20:28,873
There is a rumour that you also killed your first wife, Eleanor.
01:20:31,131 -- 01:20:36,291
No. I blamed myself - that's why I built the room.
01:20:37,470 -- 01:20:43,425
She died because I didn't love her - and maybe, unconsciously,
01:20:43,643 -- 01:20:50,476
I wanted her to die, but no man is responsible for his unconscious thoughts.
01:20:51,651 -- 01:20:54,985
If you aren't responsible for your thoughts, who is?
01:20:55,530 -- 01:21:00,489
A man thinks according to the life he's led. All my life I was dominated by women.
01:21:00,786 -- 01:21:05,946
As a child, by my mother. When she left me - when she died -
01:21:06,375 -- 01:21:08,996
by Caroline and by Eleanor...
01:21:09,378 -- 01:21:11,620
I never lived a life of my own
01:21:12,548 -- 01:21:17,755
and I may have thought of... but you can't try a man for his thoughts!
01:21:18,095 -- 01:21:20,052
- But for the consequences of his thoughts.
01:21:20,973 -- 01:21:23,179
I didn't kill Eleanor.
01:21:23,434 -- 01:21:26,269
But you did kill your wife, Celia.
01:21:31,984 -- 01:21:33,395
I tried not to kill!
01:21:44,038 -- 01:21:50,290
The first time, in Mexico, I ran away from her. The impulse to kill faded.
01:21:50,545 -- 01:21:55,456
I thought I'd dreamed it. Then, when she met me at the station
01:21:55,758 -- 01:22:01,678
at Levender Falls, I felt a deep, gentle kind of love.
01:22:02,932 -- 01:22:08,093
Until... I don't know what it was...
01:22:08,355 -- 01:22:11,973
it swept over me like a haze... she became someone else,
01:22:12,317 -- 01:22:14,025
someone I had to kill.
01:22:15,821 -- 01:22:18,775
I fought it down, over and over again.
01:22:20,242 -- 01:22:24,192
There are dark forces in this world. We're, all of us, children of Cain,
01:22:24,329 -- 01:22:26,571
we've - all of us - once thought of murder.
01:22:29,126 -- 01:22:34,998
I can't help myself. I love her but, so help me God,
01:22:35,340 -- 01:22:38,792
if Celia were here, I'd still have to kill her.
*end quote*

God help us with watching old movies on cable... Anyway, I later watched the missing footage on YouTube. The above sequence features Mark on an imaginary trial where he is the defendant being questioned by a prosecutor who is his double. Now regarding the film: it has some striking imagery, and a nightmarish atmosphere, which sort of make up for the somewhat absurd plot. In the right mood, one could enjoy its extravagant notions (in part derived from Bluebeard), I think (I did, to some extent).

Rating: 51 (down from 57)

The Adventures of Gerard (1970)

Based on the short story collection The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in 1896.

Set in Spain during the Napoleonic wars, a series of comical adventures involving a vain and not very bright Hussar of the French army. He is assigned with delivering a message to a French officer who is trying to capture a castle, and gets involved with a beautiful Spanish woman.

Farcical comedy. Wikipedia, talking about the literary source, describes the movie well:

"Conan Doyle, in making his hero a vain, and often rather uncomprehending, Frenchman, was able to satirise both the stereotypical English view of the French and – by presenting them from Gerard's baffled point of view – English manners and attitudes."

Too bad it does not work so well in the movie. The humor comes off awkward and unfunny, even though the main actor does what he can to lend some dignity to it.

Rating: 40

La belle et la bête (1946)

ATTENTION! Mean spoiler below!

Second viewing (1st on April 12, 1992).

English title: Beauty and the Beast

Based on the short story by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont (1st pub. 1756), in turn an adaptation of a longer narrative work by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (1st pub. 1740), which in turn was based on a traditional fairy tale.

I must be excused, yet again, for not being able of new insights about this film. Most has already been said, and often brilliantly so. Let me just say that it is a felicitous work, in which nothing seems to go wrong, and some things go very right. There is one thing, however, that bothers, or rather, intrigues me, and that is the ending. I did not read many reviews, therefore I do not know whether anyone had the same reaction as I did. Most of what I did read tended to emphasize the allegorical aspect of the story and thus of the ending. I in turn, while agreeing with this interpretation, cannot avoid looking also to the straight facts that happen, namely that Avenant is killed and robbed of his appearance, a fact that does not make the Beast a model of virtue; the fact that Beauty is OK with this is a bit shocking, and does not make her a paragon of morality either. I guess, as they say, and I have quoted just the other day, all is fair in love and war.

Rating: 73 (up from 70)

Love Before Breakfast (1936)

A woman is in a relationship with an executive, and is coveted by a capitalist; the latter buys the company at which the former works, and assigns him a position in another country.

Minor comedy, which tackles some interesting aspects of the female psyche. In this instance, it is implicitly argued that women resent being the weaker party in a relationship, and therefore crave at the very least the illusion of power. At one point she says that "this isn’t going to be any Taming of the Shrew", yet the film is an update of sorts of that story. The last scene is funny, perhaps enough so to justify a viewing of the film, which is short by our present standards.

Rating: 33

The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)

A college professor is working on a research at his laboratory and forgets about his wedding, which causes his fiancee to break up with him. Nevertheless, his research has not been in vain: he comes up with a revolutionary material which bounces with ever-increasing amplitude.

While the bulk of this film did not really please me a great deal, I found the first act, which one could make to end right after the discovery of flubber on the "morning after" at the lab, very good. The remainder of the movie does not add anything that one cannot see coming, and is at times rather dull. The two complementary thematic threads (considering the film in its entirety) seem to be (1) the revelation of the power of the fiancee's feelings, and (2) the demonstration of the old adage that says all is fair in love and war. Reasoning in evolutionary terms, it may strike one as advantageous that some women are clueless when it comes to science, but tend to show sympathy towards the underdog scientist: the odds are he will become a millionaire. The character who wants to close the college to open a supermarket is an illustration of the old tale about the chicken with golden eggs.

Rating: 51

In Search of the Castaways (1962)

Based on the novel Les enfants du capitaine Grant, by Jules Verne, first published serially between 1865 and 1867.

Captain Grant goes missing at sea, leaving two children in England. An elderly man (IMDB: "a scientist") contacts them saying he has found a message in a bottle with their father's whereabouts, only in a truncated text. With the help of a rich man (IMDB: "a shipping company owner") and his son, they all go on an expedition in search of the missing captain.

This is a fairly absorbing and inventive film, which favors childishness in the form of cartoon-like action sequences, caricature, and songs. Perhaps it would not be too unreasonable to see this as one more instance on the theme of Fatherhood, a recurring one in Western literature and movies until not so long ago.

I may have seen a cut version. The film starts already showing the French guy and the two kids trying to break in at the ship owner's party; an IMDB user says there is a version which includes initial scenes where the scientist finds the bottle and contacts the children.

Rating: 50

Margie (1946)

HUGE spoilers below; if you mind it, go away.

Second viewing; first: September 23, 1990.

The life of an adolescent girl living in a small town in 1928 America. She has a crush on her French teacher and her "bloomers" keep falling.

Very funny, and occasionally lyrical, chronicle of adolescence. Reviewer Andrew Prasagam provides the names of the three short stories on which it was based in his excellent review. The author is My Sister Eileen's sister, whose husband gets credit in the movie as well. Screenwriting was assigned to a then-famous playwright who, in the Internet Movie Database staff's words, was "best known as the creator of the archetypal American teen, Corliss Archer, introduced in his 1943 Broadway play Kiss and Tell" (this probably qualified him for this job better than anyone else). The movie's central motif of underwear trouble is obviously charged with psychoanalytic symbolism. Critic Dale Thomajan, in a very good review named "The Best High School Movie", printed in Film Comment in July 1992 (and excerpted from his book "From Cyd Charisse to Psycho"), which I accessed at a University computer (from a database named ProQuest, it seems), after describing how Margie's teacher retrieves and later returns Margie's fallen underwear, observes: "This, by the way, is all more innocent than it sounds, though perhaps less innocent than it was intended to be." He is right, of course, and I would add that this sentence is perfect to define the film as a whole. The central theme of the movie is the concept of "father figure". Here we have a girl who does not have a mother (and not once seems to miss one), and whose father is not much of a father figure (although she of course craves for as much of him as she can get). Her grandmother, who raised Margie practically on her own, is as masculine a figure as one can expect from a woman; she is, in the words of a character, "outspoken", was a suffragette, and wants Margie to be president of the U.S.A. So Margie is stuck with a feminine man and a masculine woman, neither of whom can provide her with the father figure she needs. Enter her French teacher. Of course, the script makes it clear he is "only a few years older than her", but there is no mistake about his fatherly attitude towards her. The eventual outcome is only logical. I think that if this film seems mildly disturbing today it is because it is hard for us living in our present-day society to believe that once there was one in which the level of trust was so high. This trust had solid foundations which made sure that things would never go outside acceptable standards of behavior. And in 1946, it is plausible that things seemed pretty unchanged in that regard, and yet they were on the brink of falling apart. Of course, in other respects, 1928 was also on the brink of falling apart, as the film ironically implies by making one of the debaters reference American prosperity in an all too confident tone. The film has numerous anthological one-liners, some of which Mr. Thomajan cites in his review. He refrains from printing his favorite one, out of consideration for future viewers. Having forewarned readers on top of this post, I will have no such qualms. Here's Mr. Thomajan favorite spoken line (preceded by some earlier ones on which it depends for context):

(Margie dances with her French teacher)
Girl: Look, Marybelle. Margie is doing all right!
Marybelle: Oh, he's just taking pity on her.
Girl: Wish he'd take pity on me.
(Johnny takes Margie from her French teacher, and starts dancing with her)
Girl (to Marybelle): Isn't that nice? Now Johnny is taking pity on her too.

Mr. Thomajan also expresses his puzzlement at this film's "relative lack of reputation". I think all films dealing with adolescence are viewed as minor. The reasons are not that hard to fathom, though.

Rating: 76 (up from 69)

Paths of Glory (1957)

Second viewing (first: February 21, 1991).

Based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb, first published in 1935.

During World War One, an unfeasible operation ordered by power-greedy generals ends in failure, and to save face a few soldiers are sentenced to death as an example for the others.

Splendid military drama, of topical relevance in this centennial year of the beginning of the First World War. There is a surplus of critical opinion about this movie, which makes my contribution really unnecessary. Perhaps the most interesting analysis is contained in this sentence from Christopher Mulrooney's brief review: "The point, which rather escaped young Truffaut the critic, is that cowardice and contempt and cant sort well together indeed and make a blinding apparatus that is only with difficulty seen through, especially under wartime conditions." Col. Dax stands out as the moral axis of the movie; you can't really argue for or against his plausibility as a character: he serves a dramatic purpose, and that is all. Should the film have Col. Dax accept the promotion in the end, the "blinding apparatus" would have been perfect. But the box office would suffer, perhaps.

Rating: 87 (up from 74)

4 for Texas (1963)

A man who is a sort of protection racketeer in Galveston, Texas, is carrying a bag full of money in a stagecoach, which is chased by bandits and eventually toppled. Another passenger, a gunman, steals the money. The robbed man tries to recover it, but the robber deposits it in a bank and uses it to renovate a riverboat in order to make it into a casino in partnership with a beautiful blonde.

I really cannot vouch for the accuracy of the above synopsis, as the film does not make clarity one of its priorities, and internet accounts vary. At any rate, this is definitely not a good film, although on a scene-by-scene basis it does have a certain amount of entertainment value. The most curious thing about it is the absolutely negative depiction of a banker, and by extension of banking in general, coming from a director (and co-writer) who had relatives in that business, who disinherited him on account of his dropping out of college to pursue his cinematic career.

Rating: 35

Touch of Evil (1958)

Third viewing (first: May 01, 1991; second: May 20, 1996).
First viewing of the restored version.

The murder of a wealthy man and his mistress near the American-Mexican border puts a veteran policeman with little regard for proper incriminating procedure in conflict with a Mexican policeman who happens to be in the neighborhood on his honeymoon.

A superb film, which perhaps, in some indirect manner, is of some topical relevance in view of the present situation at the U.S.A.-Mexico border. Unfortunately for this blog, much has been written about Touch of Evil, ruling out any possibility for a relevant contribution from me. I will only note two things of mostly subjective nature. One: perhaps on account of this being my third viewing (although I could remember very little of it from my previous ones), or as a result of the restauration improvements, in my experience the plot was not hard to follow, nor in any way deliberately confusing. Two: although it is for the most part well filmed, I did get a little (just a little) sick of the tilted-up shots, at some point along the movie. I will leave it at that, and direct you to two pieces of criticism which I liked (not that I have read many others). One is Ebert's intelligent and informative review. The other is anonymous and was written for TV Guide. Although it contains some minor inaccuracies, no other review (Ebert's included) I came across gives as good an idea of what the movie is really like.

Rating: 91 (unchanged)

No Time for Love (1943)

A woman photographer working for a magazine takes an assignment to record the work on a subway tunnel under construction. She gets acquainted with one of the workers and establishes a love-hate relationship with the guy.

Basically a piece of fluff, but boy is it well-made. Everything is impressive in this production, from the polished dialogue to the spectacular studio-made sequences in the underground tunnel. The plot is dismally implausible, what with the blue-collar male protagonist revealing himself as an accomplished engineer. To be fair, it has a healthy take on the psychology of the sexes, something which has become virtually extinct in recent times.

Rating: 38

A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)

Second viewing; I first saw it in 1982 or 1983.

A weekend in the country with three couples, at the house of one of them, in the first or second decade of the 20th century. Andrew, the host, is a financial advisor with a passion for mechanical inventions, who is going through a crisis in his marriage to Adrian. One of the guests is her cousin Leopold, an elderly professor about to get married to a much younger woman, Andrew's former flame Ariel. Andrew's best friend Maxwell, a doctor and a womanizer, comes with Dulcy, a nurse of liberal mores.

Evenly good comedy, which however failed to impress me as much as it did on my first viewing. There isn't anything in particular which I feel deserves to be criticized, I just feel its achievements are of a more modest dimension than I earlier thought. One thing that I might criticize is the excess of dialogue, although I am not sure this is the film's main problem. Also problematic could be the quality of some of the dialogue, which is wit for wit's sake. Maybe the plot's somewhat derivative nature is also a down side. Anyway, while I am trying hard to justify my somewhat diminished enthusiasm, I do not want to obscure the fact that I like the film, which is consistently intelligent and funny, and well acted too. The theme is the finding of love, and the complementary roles of opportunity and individual receptiveness to it, or something like that.

Rating: 68 (down from 73)

Hôtel du Nord (1938)

Based on the novel by Eugène Dabit, first published in 1929.

Two sweethearts without money make a suicide pact. They check in at the titular hotel, where they intend to go through with it. In the dining room the guests are celebrating the first communion of a policeman's daughter. Several characters are introduced; prominent amongst them are a prostitute and her lover; comic relief is provided by a cuckold and his wife. During the night, a shot is heard: it is the suicide couple's plan being put into action. The prostitute's lover rushes to the young sweethearts's room, and breaks in...

This drama is not without interest, mainly for unfolding a possible outcome of a failed suicide pact, which it does with a reasonable amount of intelligence. The way the scope of the film is enlarged to bring in an assortment of characters of variable relevance to the main plot is also intelligently done. But this is not a film which made my heart beat faster; its essential artificiality is seldom dispelled, even when minor characters turn it into a slice-of-life display. The author of the source novel was a short-lived socialist who probably intended to bring into focus some of the working-class and lumpenproletariat's problems and idiosyncrasies. His novel came out the same year of Baum's Grand Hotel, which I imagine is the rich people's counterpart of it.

If you can guess which of the above was in this movie, you win a kiss (from your girlfriend).

Rating: 54

The Delinquents (1957)

A couple of teenage sweethearts get involved with a teenage gang.

Youth drama, very low-budget yet reasonably well-made. It's watchable yet hard to take too seriously. And I have a very bad reaction when I hear the kind of preaching that begins and ends the picture.

Rating: 33

No Way Out (1950)

A black doctor works on two brothers who were injured after an attempted robbery of a gas station, and one of them dies shortly after receiving an injection applied by him. The surviving brother blames the doctor for it.

Interesting, yet endlessly talky, drama. It exemplifies an argument constantly raised by opponents of multiracial societies, that they corrode interpersonal trust. Whether this is a plausible argument or not is another matter, that I will not address here. As for the film, it is quite watchable, despite its already mentioned verbosity. Behind the obvious patient-mistrusts-doctor thematic axis, there is a parallel one, older doctor-mistrusts-younger doctor, which requires a little analysis to disclose, and which I have picked up from reading Christopher Mulrooney's observations. I will quote him in extenso, since it is short:
*quote* The theme is a variant continuing House of Strangers. The young Negro physician is almost a resident, he faces gross opposition.
This is the middle term, the summation is All About Eve.
Latter-day critics describe it as a film noir and disparage its deficiencies in that regard. *unquote*
I couldn't make any connnection to House of Strangers, because I barely remember it. As for All About Eve, after reading Mulrooney's notes I did see a connection, although I am not sure whether it has anything to do with what he talks about. All About Eve is about a renowned actress and an aspiring actress, No Way Out is about a renowned physician and an aspiring physician. In the former film, the younger is a threat to the older, and ends up usurping her place, so to speak. It is not inconceivable that a threat of this kind could be in place between the two doctors of No Way Out. In All About Eve, the older actress is unsuspecting, if I recall correctly (it's been a while since I've seen it). In No Way Out, the explicit occurrences signal a similar lack of suspicion. However, if you are into digging into the subterranean minds of movies (like I did in my previous blog entry), you might smell something funny. For instance, what if the hateful patient is just a projection of some part of the older doctor's mind? In Freudian jargon, he would be his Id. After all, it is conceivable that the older doctor is an ordinary human being who has fears and feels threatened (instead of the saint he outwardly appears to be). His fears might, for all we know, concern the younger doctor's excessive competence.

Rating: 51

Branded (1950)

Second viewing; the first one was on January 6, 2005.

According to IMDB, this film is based on the novel Montana Rides!, by Max Brand (as Evan Evans), first published in 1933. According to Wikipedia, it was based on Montana Rides Again, by the same author, first published in 1934.

A young man known as Choya, approached by an outlaw, agrees to his proposition to impersonate the son of a wealthy farmer, who disappeared when he was a child. The plan is to steal the farmer's fortune, I think, although the exact way they were going to do that is unclear to me right now. A mark is tattooed on Choya's shoulder, identical to the disappeared son's birthmark.

The nominal plot is juvenile-minded, mainly relying on a main character who just does not act like an ordinary person, but rather takes heroic decisions. This may become annoying for an unimaginative viewer (and I like to consider myself one, by temperament and even conviction) who will see in it just the piling up of wishful thinking and ad hoc solutions (in my first viewing I did precisely that). This film, however, makes it easy, even for me, to misread (in the Bloomian sense) the whole thing as an incest fantasy. More than one person have. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, whom I would not consider an imaginative viewer (but I may not know him well enough), has this revealing passage in his review: "But it seems that his [Choya's] purpose is confounded when the rancher's beautiful daughter throws her brand upon his heart, making brotherly deportment toward her clearly impossible." Notice two things: one, instead of "brotherly", an unimaginative viewer would have said "deceitful" or even "criminal"; two, he, perhaps out of wit, sheds some metaphorical light on the movie's title (nobody else I read has). Crowther still didn't like the film, though. Now consider Christopher Mulrooney's take: "Now, it should be clear that Keith and Calleia play the same role, and there is only one son, real or contrived, who has a mark on him." He has gone further than I could, adding a whole structure to the hallucination (note: Keith plays the villain who proposes the scheme to Choya, and Calleia plays a Mexican who has adopted the real son). More recent cinema has played upon these notions in an explicit manner: Performance (1970) has two characters who merge, or exchange places, in a very ambiguous manner. In The Other (1972) there are two characters who are actually one. In Lost Highway (1997) one character is morphed into someone else. In Fight Club (1999) it is the same scheme of The Other, basically.

Rating: 45 (up from 27)

Young Billy Young (1969)

Based (loosely, it seems) on the novel Who Rides with Wyatt, by Heck Allen (as Will Henry), first published in 1955.

The film starts out with a Mexican militia riding on a train, under the command of a Mexican general. They stop at a village where they execute some men who were being held prisoner at the local church. Two young men, Billy and Jesse, board the train unnoticed and hide in the horse car. After the train leaves, the youngsters invade one of the cars and shoot everyone there, including the general. They flee, riding on two horses they steal, and are chased by the general's soldiers. Billy falls from his horse and is abandoned by Jesse, yet manages to elude his chasers. He finds a jackass and mounts it; he soon comes across a man named Kane, who is camping by a river and advises Billy not to wade in it. This advice goes unheeded by Billy and he gets sucked up in quicksand. He makes it out of the river, but the donkey is gone. Kane refuses to take him and thus he has to walk to the nearest town. To make a long story short, Kane accepts a job as tax collector and deputy sheriff (?) of a town named Lordsburg, taking Billy with him. Kane's motivation for taking the job is to get revenge on Boone, the town's boss, for a past offense. And that's all I can tell you about this film's plot.

This is a melodrama, yet it is not played out with the intensity that has become usually associated with that kind of fictional narrative. On the contrary, the pace is laidback and the characters' interactions approach as much as possible the coolness we tend to associate with real life. As the New York Times reviewer (Howard Thompson) points out, this is closer to TV aesthetics than cinema. As a result, there is an odd mismatch of subject and tone, but this kind of mismatch was increasingly becoming a deliberate choice by filmmakers, in the late 60s onto the 70s, and further on up to some point of exhaustion. The theme of the movie, hiding in plain sight so to speak, is fatherhood, with Billy filling in for Kane's lost son, and Kane filling in for Billy's (presumed) absent father (Jesse and Boone are their mirror image), and all this, of course, as a metaphor for the law coming to a lawless place.

Rating: 50

Fantasia (1940)

Second viewing; the first one happened on an unremembered date before 1987.

This one needs no introduction, I think. It is comprised by several numbers combining music and animation.

A superior product, made by conscientious artists. The film does not seek unity in tone, it is rather content to be a collection, and actually there is change in tone precisely to prevent a sensation of dullness which might arise from the rather long overall length. I only regret the reported modification of a scene for the 1969 re-release, because, it seems, it featured a black centaurette performing a servile function (she rolls out a carpet for Bacchus); this scene did not reappear in the original form in any later re-release. This is where it becomes clear that cinema will never have the same status of the other arts: I cannot see this happening to a novel or a painting (well, who can tell what awaits us in days to come?). In Stalin's Soviet Union, they changed the past to suit the official version of history, and apparently in capitalist countries this gets done without the need of a central authority. The system self-regulates. I read three reviews (New York Times, Washington Post and Roger Ebert) and found them all interesting and well-written. I direct you to the page at IMDB where these and other external reviews are linked to.

Rating: 73 (down from 88)

Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990)

The U.S.A. makes repeated attempts to capture a Latin American drug lord. They eventually raid the guy's fortified headquarters.

Routine action movie. As ediaz8 in IMDB observed in the site's discussion board, the "mole" inside the American team is never revealed, probably because the writer just forgot about him, or because he implicitly admitted that plot is not that important in a movie like this. Another IMDB user (mill722002) pointed out the similarity between this movie and the 1989 Bond movie Licence to Kill. The New York Times review may give a better idea of the movie than I can.

Rating: 30

The Delta Force (1986)

Terrorists hijack a plane and then move some of the passengers to a hiding place. An American elite military team is sent to address the situation.

Another disappointing film from the Cannon Group, which specialized in low-brow action movies in the 1980s. The only action film I liked from them, if I remember correctly, was Missing in Action 2: The Beginning, which departed somewhat from that company's extremely standardized style. There is not a lot I can think of saying about The Delta Force that the anonymous review in TV Guide has not covered, so I direct you to it.

Review: 36

Man of Aran (1934)

From Wikipedia:
*quote*
Man of Aran is a 1934 British fictional documentary (ethnofiction) film directed by Robert J. Flaherty about life on the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland. It portrays characters living in premodern conditions, documenting their daily routines such as fishing off high cliffs, farming potatoes where there is little soil, and hunting for huge basking sharks to get liver oil for lamps. Some situations are fabricated, such as one scene in which the shark fishermen are almost lost at sea in a sudden gale. Additionally, the family members shown are not actually related, having been chosen from among the islanders for their photogenic qualities.
George Stoney's 1978 documentary How the Myth was Made, which is included in the special features of the DVD, relates that the Aran Islanders had not hunted sharks in this way for over fifty years at the time the film was made. Man of Aran is Flaherty's re-creation of culture on the edges of modern society, even though much of the primitive life depicted had been left behind by the 1930s.(...)
*end quote*

From IMDB:
*quote*
The islanders hunt a basking shark for its oil, but they hadn't done so in generations. The filmmakers had to bring an Inuit hunter to show them how to do it as their ancestors might have.
*end quote*

I liked the film. In addition to being enjoyable, it made me think. For starters, what is it that makes this kind of film (I am also thinking of Nanook of the North) aesthetically pleasing? I think it is because there is a nice balance of people and nature. Another question (which perhaps loses some of its appeal after  one reads the above information about all that is false in the movie) is, how do these people stand life in such conditions, and moreover seem happy? Well, never underestimate natural selection. I think they are genetically adapted to this kind of life. Anyway, I am not exactly happy in the environment I live in, so who knows if I too am genetically more adapted to live in a rougher one?

It is strange that Flaherty is credited on IMDB and Wikipedia as its sole writer. The credits that are shown at the beginning of the film credit John Goldman as editor (for which those two sites also give him credit) and scenarist (which is an old word for screenwriter).

Rating: 54

The Toy (1982)

A writer in desperate need of money ends up accepting a job as a rich kid's toy.

A borderline watchable film where the humor seldom works. The inspiration for the storyline may have come from a passage in Machado de Assis' Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (also known as Epitaph of a Small Winner) where young Bras plays horseriding with his slave. In that case, this remake brings it closer to Machado's original idea (in the French movie the titular character is white). The message seems to be that money really buys what you need. In this case, the kid needed a lesson and he sure learned it. Same thing may or may not have happened to American politician Eric Cantor and his backers (except in his case he was more like the toy).

Rating: 31

A erva do rato (2008)

English title: The Herb of the Rat.

A man of eccentric personality marries a widow. She accepts her strange wifely duties with resignation, until an intruder in the household comes along to disturb the routine.

Rather than an adaptation, this is more like a psychoanalysis of Machado de Assis fiction, working from two short stories (The Secret Cause and A Skeleton) of his. I cannot say the result is exciting, although intriguing it is, if you have a certain amount of literary inclination and have read the stories.

Rating: 33

Spartacus (1960)

Second viewing; the first one happened between 1983 and 1986.

Highly fictionalized version of the slave revolt which occurred in Rome in the first century B.C.E. In this version it all starts as an unplanned riot at a gladiator school, and from there expands into a massive rebellion which eventually is crushed by the Roman army.

Quite entertaining epic, both for its spectacular aspect (it is very well filmed throughout) and for its ludicrously idealized depiction of a social conflict. I always like to have a few laughs at the lies Hollywood tells, and afterwards compare them to an account of the historical events in which they were based.

Rating: 54 (down from 58)

Beloved Infidel (1959)

The love affair between a novelist working as a screenwriter and a gossip columnist, in thirties Hollywood.

Stupendously well made (a given, since it is a Hollywood 50s 'A' production), except I was unable to enjoy the widescreen (watched it in pan-and-scan). The great artist who is constrained to work for a medium that is not his, under the orders of philistines, and forgets his calling, and is forgotten by most everyone, and to top it all is fired, and then attempts a comeback, only to see his new literary output rejected, seems to be struggling against the world, a world in which he seems to be just an alien. And yet no one could have been less alien to America than him, or so he was always led to believe. The crux of the movie is his relationship with this woman who seems to be his best friend, yet stands for that same philistinism that is completely alien (and hostile) to him. This is not fully fleshed out in the movie, a superficial love story, and thus a reflection of its own theme.

Rating: 51

Terror by Night (1946)

Sherlock Holmes is hired to escort an elderly lady and her son on a train to Scotland, because they are carrying a diamond with them.

The plot is mediocre, but the film is one of the funnier ones in the series. Try not to laugh, for instance, at the dialogue at the luncheon car, which is transcribed on IMDB (it's the one about curry, but they're all good on that page). And there is more, for instance how Holmes keeps pushing Watson into investigating on his own, with interesting results.

Rating: 53

56 Up (2012)

The Up series, latest installment. As it was inevitably going to happen, Michael the Interviewer drops the R word on Tony Walker. Well, as I have suspected from day one, and hinted at in my previous reviews, Michael the Interviewer is what some people affectionately call a libtard. Or a progtard. He even accuses (laugh out loud) Tony of doing in Spain what immigrants are doing in England. This is just too much, don't you think? Tony, the smartest guy in this series by a country mile, responds to that in an admirably cool manner, but let's get things straight in a way he was perhaps too polite, or too cautious, to do. Tony is not leeching on the Spanish welfare system; on the contrary, he is contributing to the Spanish economy by going there and spending. This was point one. Point two, he is culturally close to Spaniards. They are all European, for Christ's sake. But I think I might be wrong about one thing, and here is a theory which I have been dwelling on for some time now. It may be the case that some people are not really libprogtards in their hearts (basically perhaps because that would be impossible for such intelligent, successful persons). Perhaps they have devised a tactic and a strategy. Perhaps they are not allowed to say some things that go against the Politically Correct rules of modern society. And, just perhaps, they know it when they encounter someone who is more outspoken than they are. So, those phony libtards trick those more outspoken persons into saying those things that they themselves are not allowed, or do not have the guts to say. Well, that is my theory anyway (another theory is that it is always safer to bet on stupidity than on strategy). Concerning Bruce, another participant in this series, there is a noteworthy bit. Bruce is the pro-immigrant Christian-Socialist guy who taught immigrants in the past and later in life switched to a posh Catholic school. He now makes his children go to a Christian (Quaker, I think) school to learn some basics of Moral Values or something to that effect. His wife points out that what she wants to have instilled in her children is the "ethos of tolerance and understanding". Well, I am not a Christian, or any other religious denomination for that matter, so I am unable to give the correct Christian stance on these matters (supposing there can be one). What I can say based only on observation and common sense is: hers is the most traveled road among intellectuals and semi-intellectuals, and there is a nice big hole at the end of that road. But I am sure she is not interested or even listening.

So, I am through with this series for a while (until around 2020, I suppose). What it has taught me is very simple: what we are is all in our biology. Mostly genes, of course, but also how the pregnancy develops, and how the birth process is carried out. So, you really are what you were when you were seven, and even earlier than seven actually, perhaps even as a newborn.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Second viewing; the first one was on December 26, 1993.

Minutes before a Thanksgiving parade, a man offers to replace a drunken Santa and is such a success that Macy's decides to hire him for the entire Christmas season. His supervisor becomes a little worried when she realizes that the old man really believes he is Santa Claus, but then it is too late to fire him because he has operated a small revolution in the store.

This film has a promising premise which gets somewhat sidetracked by some misguided notions. Not all is lost, though. The bit about the company psychiatrist is full of insight about real psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, even if there is an ostensive cop-out by implying that the only problem is that he practiced without a license (but we know better...). Another bit of satire that is spot-on is the one about the judge that must do all he can to get reelected (and does!). As for the rest of the movie, apart from the occasional witty one-liner or situation, the best I can say is that it is not dull. I totally hated this movie when I first saw it, basically because I found it dishonest. I still do, mostly, but I must concede, as I have just done, that it has a few good points.

Rating: 34 (up from 0)

O dragão da maldade contra o santo guerreiro (1969)

Second viewing; the first one was between 1983 and 1986.

International title: Antonio das Mortes.
Suggested translation of the original title: The Dragon of Cruelty vs. the Warrior Saint.

In the poor countryside of Northeastern Brazil, a gang of outlaws appears, disturbing a long period of peace for the region's rich landowner, a blind old man. The bandits, which form a community acting under the leadership of one man, are inspired by a young woman who is deemed as holy. The landowner hires a killer with a big reputation stemming from his past killings of the same sort of bandits who then ravaged that countryside. A subplot has the local sheriff having an affair with the landowner's young and beautiful wife.

Here is another film which I didn't like on my first viewing; at that time, I was watching too many movies, and enjoying too little of them. Now I aim for quality viewing, both in what I view, and in how I view it. Anyway, this film, a sequel to Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, has some things going for it. It has a respectable plot, to begin with. The leading performance is quite on the mark, very effective. The dialogue is functional and intelligent, refraining from verbiage. Visually, it has some interesting finds. The bad side is that the film has too much dead time, in the form of useless sequences or overextended ones.

Rating: 51 (up from 25)

Terra em transe (1967)

Second viewing; the first one occurred between 1983 and 1986.

English titles: Entranced Earth; Anguished Land; Land Entranced; Land in Anguish.
Suggested translation of title: Land in Crisis

The film is the story of Paulo, a poet and journalist who gets involved in party politics, told in a flashback during what seems to be his final moments, following a prologue in which he urges governor Vieira to oppose a coup that has been staged by senator Diaz.

This is interesting as a somewhat crude dramatization of Latin America's politics in the 1960s. Basically, the crisis evoked by the title was caused by the difficulty of overcoming the archaic structures of exploitation of Latin America, which thrived on a largely illiterate people who was an easy prey to the interests of local landowners, foreign capitalists, and an instrumental mass media. Paulo initially, in a learning period, allies himself to a reactionary politician, then, achieving a more developed political understanding, switches to a more popularly connected one, but gets frustrated when the latter reveals to be utterly compromised. He goes through a period of conformism and debauchery, and eventually comes to the realization that he must somehow choose the side he perceives as the lesser evil. That would be Vieira who is perhaps perceived to have nationalist leanings. The film is mostly made of recitations in an operatic style, eschewing realism altogether. Some of the text has a juvenile flavor to it, veering occasionally to borderline nonsense, particularly in the ramblings of the poet character. The film is visually somewhat dull, being composed of mostly close ups, with occasional ensemble shots with camera angles and movement designed to give a sense of urgency and impending doom.

Rating: 61 (down from 64)

49 Up (2005)

Proceeding with the Up series, we get some juicy bits about the death of the East End, and how some of the English are seeking the East End away from the East End (in some cases, even away from England); also, we get to see how teaching immigrants wore away an English teacher the same way water wears away a stone (by dripping on it, not by smashing it). At any rate, this was another lovely installment, and now there is only one to go for me to catch up (and then, hopefully, many more will come). Now I give the academically minded of you the link to an article which may have something to do with this TV series' concerns. Perhaps a few in my legion of readers will remember my comments on the previous installment about the wrong interpretation given to a St. Francis Xavier saying; well, after reading the first paragraph of the abovementioned article it becomes obvious that its author got it wrong too, and in exactly the same way as the Up series did. I was ready to suppose that the outvoted old meaning had to go (that is how democracies work), but then, from the second paragraph onwards, as the real subject of the article is exposed, a non-sequitur occurs: the subject of the research is close in meaning to the Catholic saint's old saying (it's a sort of modern-day, non-religious version of it). My conclusion is that the author seems to believe the two meanings are the same.

Pittsburgh (1942)

In the 1920s, two ambitous coalminers become businessmen and are in love with the same woman. One of them is ruthless whereas the other is socially conscious; their differences eventually separate them.

This one didn't go down well with me, for reasons that are not exactly clear. Perhaps it was the inconsistency of the 'Josie Winters' character, who is made to look upper class in the beginning and then is shown to be just disguising as such, although she does have upper class manners and dress throughout the movie. Or, perhaps, I was bothered by the contrivances imposed by the war effort. Or maybe it was an unconscious deja vu feeling caused by the fact that the plot is similar to Boom Town (1940) (I didn't actually remember it, but was made aware of that fact by TV Guide and also by an IMDB user who identifies himself as Ted-C and complains that no professional reviewer noticed it, well the one on TV Guide did, though I do not know the review's date).

Rating: 31

Life During Wartime (2009)

Several characters and their personal dramas. A woman who works as a counsellor to ex-convicts is herself married to one; he is having trouble straightening out his life and they decide to spend some time apart from each other. A convicted child rapist is released from prison and decides to pay a visit to his sons. His wife has moved with them to a different city and is now starting a relationship with another man.

I thought the individual scenes were well handled, and the performances were faultless. However, the tone is weirdly inconsistent, the satirical sarcasm expressed by the dialogue completely clashing with the lyricism evoked by some visual or musical set-ups. Ultimately, though, that is not what kills the movie, even though some of the satire is a bit sophomoric. The bottom line is that there is just not enough substance here to make a good film; at best it would do as a sitcom pilot.

Rating: 33

The Family Jewels (1965)

Second viewing at least; earlier viewing or viewings occurred prior to 1987.

A motherless nine-year-old girl loses her father and must choose the one among her screwy uncles who will be her guardian. She also has a criminal uncle who some think dead, and who has an eye on the girl's inherited fortune. Throughout this process she is taken care of by her long-time chauffeur and bodyguard.

The best films are those who have very serious themes, but have the elegance to keep that seriousness almost invisible, all the while entertaining us with its art. The Family Jewels certainly qualifies in that category. Children who are heirs to a huge amount of money is a very serious issue a sad case of which has been an item in Brazilian criminal news these days. A more central thematic aspect concerns the ability to choose one's parents. I doubt there are many people to whom this thought has not come over the course of their lives: are these two people (or, in some cases, one) the most qualified ones to bring me up? Are they even compatible with me on any level? This film intelligently avoids a too direct confrontation of this question (the parents are dead), and instead focus on the next stage of choosing the replacement. But, as I said earlier, all this becomes nearly invisible as the film entertains us with the leading actor's multiple impersonations. No doubt these impersonations are the film's raison d'être, although there are two good sequences with the chauffeur (the heist at the beginning; the gas station), a character which involves no make-up. As some critics have (too harshly) pointed out, not all the humor is top quality. I think there are more hits than misses, though.

Rating: 57 (unchanged)

I'm No Angel (1933)

Second viewing; the previous one was on December 5, 1992.

A circus performer gets involved with several men, until she finally falls in love with one of them. When she announces that she will quit the circus to get married, the circus owner is not happy.

Considerably different in style from She Done Him Wrong, released in the same year, this is the less appreciated of the two, and I too felt the same way when I watched them for the first time, many years ago. I am still willing to give that other movie my preference, but I like this one a lot better now. One of the reasons that probably affected its reputation is that it is the less acid of the two, and the one with more emphasis on character interplay. Not that it is a masterpiece of drama or anything close to that, but, as a light sexual comedy, it is not bad.

Rating: 51 (up from 34)

Le dernier métro (1980)

Second viewing; previously seen on January 10, 1988.

English title: The Last Metro.

In Paris under the Occupation, a play is being produced. The former director is Jewish and reportedly has escaped the country; in fact, he is hiding in the theater premises. His wife runs the production now, and secretly meets with him at night. His instructions regarding the staging of the play are faithfully followed, and he is able to hear the rehearsals from his hiding place. A French Nazi critic smells something funny, but despite him the production continues. They hire a new male lead whose previous experience was in the Grand Guignol; he is secretly helping the Resistance. Several petty dramas among the cast and staff are shown.

I do not have much to say about this film. I hated it on first viewing, but cannot understand the exact reasons for that early disliking. I still think the dialogue is very cliché-ridden, and the situations are at times less interesting or convincing than I would expect, but overall the film is not bad, and gives a reasonably honest and entertaining depiction of the artistic environment during World War II.

Rating: 50 (up from 29)

L'effrontée (1985)

English titles: Charlotte and Lulu; Impudent Girl; The Hussy.

Based on the novel The Member of the Wedding, by Carson McCullers, first published in 1946 (no credit is given).

Charlotte is a 13-year-old girl living with her father and her older brother in a lower middle-class neighborhood in a small French town. She lost her mother at birth, and has no interest in socializing with her school mates. Her closest friends are the house maid and a younger girl who has an unspecified chronic illness and sleeps over at her house once in a while. She meets a pianist child prodigy and develops a sort of adoration towards her. She meets a sailor on shore leave and they start a romantic relationship of sorts, although her ignorance in such matters is a problem.

Mildly interesting adaptation of the abovementioned novel, but why no credit? One person on IMDB said that only the French can make such "honest" depictions of adolescence, which Americans could never... Thus, you see that not giving credit doesn't mean just stealing one specific work, it's greater than that, it is stealing another country's cultural status. The ironic citation of The Exorcist is an intelligent touch though (troubled teenage girls as possessed beings).

Rating: 50

She Done Him Wrong (1933)

Second viewing; the previous one was on December 12, 1992.

The misadventures of a femme fatale. She is a singer in a club, and its owner's mistress. She has a soft spot for diamonds. All the guys fall for her, except the new head of the charity mission next door to the club. Her former lover is now in jail, and wouldn't like to know that she hasn't been faithful. Her present lover is also up to some criminal activities.

Early talkie, famous for the leading character's sex-charged one-liners. Although entertaining, it is somewhat harmed by the leading actress's obvious physical inadequacy for the role (she is too old, overweight, and, putting it mildly, not exceptionally pretty), which she partially makes up for with her comedic skills. It is based on a play, but the director does a good job at inserting cinematic elements, especially the street scenes at the beginning of the movie.

Rating: 52 (down from 55)

Shan zha shu zhi lian (2010)

English title: Under the Hawthorn Tree

In 1970, in China, under Mao, a teenage girl is sent to the country for "reeducation". She meets a slightly older boy who is working as a land prospector in the nearby area. They fall in love, but must keep it secret on account of her young age and of political factors involving her family and, as a consequence, herself.

Well-made tear-jerker. I was reluctant to use this denominator on account of its possible negative connotation, so let me clarify that, in addition to its already mentioned competent craftsmanship, this film has an overall un-melodramatic, and even un-romantic style, provided one refers to the traditional, 19th-century meaning of romanticism. It is a celebration of pure love, in terms that would be understandable to anyone at any time in history, provided the sociopolitical background could be explained to them. Concerning that background, the film is frank and realistic, and this aspect is likely to interest politically-minded viewers, but that is not its dramatic center. All that being said, it is probably not a great film, for reasons that are hard to state in a positive way. And it is not likely to put one in a cheerful mood either, so the old advice for using one's own discretion is still the best one.

Rating: 58

Bedazzled (1967)

Second viewing, first with the original audio. Previously seen on September 21, 2001.

A humble cook at a fast-food joint is highly dissatisfied with his life, in particular with his inability to attract the attention of a fellow worker. After a desperate act, he is approached by a guy who claims to be the devil.

Comical version of the Faustian legend which is based on the relatively simple idea of the difficulty of translating our desires into precise words. It would be so obviously easier for him to simply state his wish as "I want to be happy", and yet... But the film is much more than the demonstration of a thesis, it is a visual and verbal feast of sophistication and vulgarity, and funny in either mode. An example of genius: the idea of having an effeminate man to be the incarnation of Envy. I reckon not everyone will appreciate this kind of thing (among others), which may explain why this is another of those rare cases in which I bestow a film a better rating than the average IMDB voter.

Watched in pan-and-scan.

Rating: 72 (up from 70)

The Wedding March (1928)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

An impoverished aristocrat falls in love with a workig-class girl. His family arranges for him a more lucrative association.

Subtlety is not this filmmaker's forte. A lot of shots are repeated a number of times, inducing a somewhat hypnotic effect on the viewer. There is much talk of evil producers who wouldn't give the director free rein (and a blank check), but the fact is that by casting himself, a middle-aged and not so handsome man, as the romantic lead, he did more harm to his film than any producer could. All that being said, the film is not bad. It has striking imagery, and some stimulating moral realism (try not to laugh at the cruel joke the protagonist makes about the limping woman). Maybe it's the effect of the cold I'm with, but I found the plot to be anagrammatically related to Machado de Assis' Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (also published as Epitaph of a Small Winner).

Rating: 62 (unchanged)

42: Forty Two Up (1998)

Alternate title (IMDb title): 42 Up

Sixth installment in the series which interviews a set of United Kingdom people every seven years.

A single sequence makes this worth viewing. Michael asks Tony whether he feels the East End has changed much, Tony answers affirmatively, saying it has become "cosmopolitan" and adds "For me, it's rather sad", and we are shown a glimpse of an East End street with the people in it, and there is no telling whether this is London or, say, Cairo. If you asked my opinion, I would say this is really rather sad, and not only for Tony; I am not even British and it is sad for me too. Apart from a few misguided souls who, at various stages of their education, received a toxic mixture of Christianism and Marxism (one such specimen may be seen right here in the Up series), and think this is all very good and well, I would be ready to bet that the majority of the English people had no desire to see their country flooded with hordes of immigrants. And yet, this came to pass in a so-called democracy. The million-dollar question is: how come? Also, how well does this speak for democracy?

It's about time I'd point out a serious mistake made by this series. Its quotation "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" is interpreted in a completely wrong way by the filmmakers (and also by at least one of the interviewees, but that was in an earlier installment). From the Breaking Spells site, one reads:

"That was the Jesuit motto, alleged to be attributed to Francis Xavier, the co-founder of the Jesuit Order. The implication is that the best opportunity to indoctrinate a person in a lifetime of belief and devotion to religious dogma is when they are young."

The meaning ascribed to it by the people who made this series is that one's personality is already fully formed by the age of seven.

Of course the latter interpretation is one of the points of interest of the show, whereas the former isn't. Or is it?

The Way We Were (1973)

Second viewing; previously viewed somewhere between 1983 and 1986.

A leftist, working-class college girl falls in love with a colleague from the economic elite, in the 1930s. After graduation, they go to Hollywood, where he finds a job as a screenwriter. Their romance has its ups and downs, which are modulated simultaneously by their different temperaments and by the historic events which shake the US and the world.

It was hard for me to simply bypass this movie, despite all the objections I had to it. Its very shortcomings are somewhat compelling to the student of the discourse and filmmaking practices of Hollywood. According to Wikipedia, the interference of the director over the screenplay caused severe production problems, and affected the film negatively. This is ironic because it is almost exactly what happens to the male protagonist during his stay in Hollywood. The film makes a big fuss about it, but the whole thing is just unconvincing: a screenwriter knows from the get-go that he will have no power over the final product, unless of course he is also the producer. Concerning The Way We Were, I doubt that those alleged problems, which I vaguely surmised to be insufficiently developed plot points or somewhat inconsistent characters, were what really bothered me about the movie. And, to be honest, I think that, strictly as a metteur en scène, the director did a great job. The real problem for me, which I strongly suspect would still be a problem had it followed the original script faithfully, is that the film is clearly biased toward leftist values. At one specific scene at least, this becomes so blatantly obvious as to be involuntarily comical, namely, when Hubbell and J.J. are on a boat relaxing and discussing their failed marriages, and J.J. states that in his case it was not a great loss, but in Hubbell's, his ex-wife, well, that was a loss to be really regretted. Are they kidding? So, gorgeous upper-class women with a college education are not attractive as a rule, unlike, say, perhaps equally literate yet insufferably self-righteous commie loudmouthed egomaniacs? Well, I can see their point. And the film has a devious way of pretending it shows us both sides of an issue when in fact it does not. For instance, in an argument about whether or not one should testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, the two parties disagree on several points but agree that the Committee is a violation of the First Amendment (the one regarding Free Speech), which I think is a bit of a stretch and an oversimplification of the whole issue. Anyway, I do not live in the U.S.A., and have more pressing concerns in my own country, so I prefer not to delve further into such discussions and just say that I enjoyed this film and its endearing romantic story, and hope the Katies of this world are still alive and well and very active in the defense of LBGTQ, Immigration 'Reform', the end of White Privilege, and whatever else their present concerns are.

Rating: 59 (down from 63)

The Island at the Top of the World (1974)

Based on the novel The Lost Ones, by Donald Gordon Payne (as Ian Cameron), first published in 1961.

A wealthy man summons a renowned archaeologist to accompany him in an expedition to the Arctic in search of the former's son, who went missing while looking for a legendary place where it was said that whales gathered to die.

Unremarkable and derivative adventure for children, which I nevertheless had to see on account of some thematic elements which I found interesting. It is from the same author of The Children (also published pseudonymously, as James Vance Marshall), later renamed Walkabout to cash in on its movie adaptation. Based on these two films, it appears that he has a consistent interest in primitive cultures, and their contrast with civilized ones (these are the thematic elements which drew me to this movie, by the way).

Rating: 34

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Second viewing at least, the previous one having occurred earlier than 1987, on a forgotten date.

In 1927, a duo of film stars have a huge fan base and a for-the-press-only romance. The coming of sound upsets the way movies were made and also the status of established silent stars. The male star in question meets a struggling actress and singer who has a much better voice than his female co-star.

This is a succession of wonderful musical numbers, and also a good comedy on the advent of sound cinema. To be fair and honest, there is not a tight thematic unity among all parts of the movie. There is just no correlation between, for example, the Charisse number and the outward plot. Therefore, you have to accept that you are watching a somewhat fragmentary work of art. By the way, this also happens in The Band Wagon, which is even more fragmentary. Singin' in the Rain is a good case against the frequent label of escapism applied to Hollywood musicals. It paints no rosy picture of reality. To begin with, even though it ends in a positive way, it has no classical happy ending. Its romantic climax occurs at midmovie, and, more important, the ending is consistent with a zero-sum game worldview: one person's gain is necessarily another's loss. Hagen's character, the big loser here, has few really hateable characteristics, especially when one considers that in real life Reynolds herself had at least some of her songs dubbed by a professional singer. Another aspect which is a mild downer for me is that O'Connor plays a character which is a bit like himself in real life: the guy struggled all his life to have the recognition he deserved. And the irony of ironies is that some years later he would star in a biopic about the most tragic casualty of the advent of sound. Come to think of it, I wonder if the Make 'Em Laugh number is not some sort of conscience appeasement on the part of the filmmakers.

Rating: 88 (down from 95)

The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

Second viewing, sort of; my first viewing, on June 3, 1997, missed the beginning of the movie, if I recall it correctly.

In 1943, Hitler has the idea of kidnapping Churchill. His officers are initially pessimistic about the viability of such a project, but a favorable set of circumstances presents itself, and they decide to do it.

World War II has become a mythology, one which of course has everything to do with who won it, and I honestly cannot be sure I have ever seen anything which could be called a realistic depiction of it. This film appeared at a time when Nazis no longer had to be portrayed as supernatural devils. It is an entertaining fiction, with lots of action. It has some humor too, but that aspect didn't always work for me. I saw the shorter TV version, which leaves much to be desired in terms of plot comprehensibility and proper development.

Saw it in pan-and-scan.

Rating: 50 (I didn't rate it exactly the previous time I saw it, only gave it a coarser rating between 10 and 30).

House of Frankenstein (1944)

A scientist escapes from prison along with another inmate, a hunchback who becomes his faithful assistant. The scientist's imprisonment was due to his scientific work, which was very much in the line of Dr. Frankenstein's. Now his goal is to avenge himself of the men who were responsible for his incarceration. They encounter a traveling carnival show who has among its attractions the skeleton of Count Dracula.

Completely insane in a self-parodic manner that reveals the decadence of the horror genre as it was made at Universal at that time (RKO was quite strong though). The hunchback assistant was to go into Young Frankenstein a few decades later. Apart from the fine cinematography, typical of Hollywood films at that time, it seems, and the mild ludicrousness of its conceptions, there is little to justify viewing it.

Rating: 32

20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Second viewing, probably; I do not remember when I saw it for the first time, but it was surely before 1987, and probably before 1983.

Based on the novel Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, by Jules Verne, first published in 1870.

A mysterious entity, generally thought to be a monster, is wrecking ships at sea in the late 19th century. A search expedition is assembled, led by a scientist. They eventually find what they think is the monster, and attack it, causing damage to their own ship. All those in it fall into the sea, and the scientist and his assistant, as well as a member of the ship's crew, are rescued by a submarine under a mysterious captain.

Being a Disney production, there are some touches aimed at the kid audience,  mostly involving a seal. I do not remember the novel well, but apparently the pacifist motif is an invention of the movie, and an interesting one at that. It is also a bit problematic, because it lends Nemo some contradictory aspects, his pacifism belying his purported lack of humanity. Also, he seems to abhor both the American Civil War and slavery; in other words he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Of course, the trivial answer to this would be that he is mad, but I think he reflects the general mental confusion of many people in the time of the movie and in ours. Anyway, this is an entertaining adventure, with fine actors and some nice visuals. As a curiosity, I point out the influence on the Dr. Phibes' movies: both Phibes and Nemo are avenging their respective wives' deaths, and both play Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the organ.

Rating: 54 (unchanged)

Amarcord (1973)

Second viewing; the first one was on October 14, 1991.

A year in the life of a small Italian village in the Emilia-Romagna region, in the 1930s. The movie has a sort of center in 'Tita', a teenage boy. Another important character is 'Gradisca', a forty-ish unmarried woman who is the object of desire of practically the entire male population in that town.

What first struck me in this second viewing was the prodigiously precise mise en scène, and the flawlessness of form in general. Secondly, I was pleased by how sentimentality is never given a free rein. Overall this is a beautiful chronicle, solidly anchored in history but always looking for the poetic side of events.

Rating: 72 (up from 67)

Såsom i en spegel (1961)

English title: Through a Glass Darkly.
Accurate translation of the original title: As in a Mirror.

A schizophrenic woman is released from a clinic after undergoing treatment and goes to live with her husband, her father, and her younger brother in a deserted island.

What a wonderful idea for a recovering psychiatric patient, to live in a deserted island with her horny teenage brother, her father who had abandoned her when she most needed her, and her caring but feckless husband. Well, that may not be very sound medicine but it makes for a reasonably entertaining drama, albeit one which fills in with dialogue wherever anything beyond the possibilities of its minuscule budget is to be depicted. Some similarly-minded horror films were made, mainly in England, mainly in the sixties, but they relied on images rather than words (needless to say, those films were scorned by critics whereas this one was and still is praised to the heavens). Anyway, what I gathered from this heavily Freudian concoction is that the word 'love' and its two distinct meanings (Eros on one side, which is based on desire and is therefore involuntary; Agape on the other, which is voluntary and based on social or religious constraints) are often confused as a single entity, with positive consequences (e.g. it binds husband and wife together even after desire fades away) and negative ones (e.g. general mental confusion). The title deserves some remarks. As is seen on the top of this entry, the English title is not exactly the same as the Swedish one, due, I think, to a difference in the translations of the biblical verse it is based on (the director mentions in an interview that ancient mirrors were made of bronze and the background of the image were blurry, the accuracy and explaining power of which I cannot vouch for). What is most curious, though, is that in Brazil the release title was a blend of the English and Swedish ones, "Through a Looking Glass", which is funny because it establishes a parallel between 'Karin' and that famous character by Lewis Carroll.

Rating: 51

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Second viewing; the first one was in October or November of 1984.

Based on the novel The Hoods, by Herschel Goldberg (as Harry Grey), first published in 1952.

The story of four friends growing up in New York City during the 1920s, then becoming gangsters during Prohibition. Another section set in the 1960s is interspersed with the earlier time frame.

An imperfect film, but a strong one. The tone is clearly pulpish, and very Italian in style. Maybe it has to do with a taste for the grotesque, which seems to be alien to Anglo-Saxon sensibilities. It is hard for me to make a strictly rational sense of the movie in all its details. I think the basic point is how when you are a child there is a purity of emotion that gets screwed in a thousand ways as you grow old. A psychoanalytical interpretation wouldn't be too off, 'Max' perhaps being a pure Id version of 'Noodles', a la Jekyll and Hyde. I misinterpreted the ending on both viewings, and even the IMDb FAQ gets it wrong, in my opinion (the 'contract on Noodles' hypothesis seems very far-fetched). After I read a statement from a Leone interview I think I got it right (it is supposed to be a murder, not a suicide). But this is not clear on the screen, so I suppose anyone may think what he pleases.

Rating: 71 (up from 69)

The World Moves On (1934)

Drama which deals with a multinational conglomerate whose heads are all members of the same family; some of them become enemies when World War One breaks out.

A weird film, which sort of proves a personal theorem of mine, stating that the quality of a film is often closely related to the amenability of its story to fit an acceptable duration, given the market constraints. Here, it is obvious that this amenability does not happen, and the film feels like it has huge chunks of character development and plot altogether missing. Apart from that, there are other problems with the film that are screenplay-related and happen mostly in the last section; particularly unsavory is the bombastic behavior which is ascribed to character 'Richard'; the final appeal to religion is a bit awkward too, and, at least as viewed today, does not seem integral to the drama. But the film is not a total loss: it is lucid in its assessment of the post-WWI zeitgeist, and now we know that its worst fears became tragic reality in subsequent years; also, it is technically well-made, especially the battlefield sequences.

Rating: 37

35 Up (1991)

The Up series, continued. No huge surprises in this one, except one that concerns an absentee. One reads on the IMDB page, at the Frequently Asked Questions section (this was published 4 years ago, before 56 Up (2012) was made):

*quote* Peter criticised Thatcher's government in 28 Up and lost his teaching job after a tabloid media campaign; he did not appear in any more "Up" films. *unquote* .

(Observation inserted on May 30, 2014: Peter appeared on 56 Up and stated that his leaving the teaching profession had nothing to do with the tabloids, it was his decision entirely.)

Jackie and Sue and their new respective developments were the most interesting things in this installment, in my opinion. I will not comment further, except that, well, they just made me think.

This movie made the Dale Thomajan top ten lists, the second and last time an Up movie did.

The Gilded Lily (1935)

A young working-class woman is best friends with a reporter who is in love with her. She falls in love with a man she meets by accident, unaware that he is a wealthy member of English nobility. A series of misunderstandings interrupt their love affair, while at the same time conferring her celebrity status.

This is what is usually described as "fluff", or, even more deprecatingly, "pap". It is not that the screenwriter, director, and actors are not all geniuses. They are, but did these people have any power over a movie in 1930s Hollywood? The writer is given a very silly story to develop (cashing in on the success of It Happened One Night, reportedly), the director films it to perfection, and the actors play it superbly. But it all started as pap, and the finished product cannot be anything but pap.

Rating: 32

Insomnia (1997)

In a Norwegian region where daylight is constant, the brutal murder of a teenage woman defies the local police. They sent for a Swedish expert to lead the investigation. He sets a trap for the criminal but makes a deadly mistake during an operation to catch him.

Intelligently plotted and competently directed criminal thriller. Crime as a result of mental confusion is the central theme; the sun has a central role (cp. Camus' The Stranger). There is still enough of a moral distinction between the hunter (policeman) and the hunted (novelist), but the film's point is that the policeman's mental mechanism is hardly distinguishable from the novelist's. The central performance is excellent. I found this version preferrable over the remake, which is also good.

Rating: 68

Abrir puertas y ventanas (2011)

Literal translation for the title: Open the Doors and the Windows
English distribution title: Back to Stay

Three student sisters in their early twenties (apparently) are living together in their recently deceased grandmother's house. Sofía is bossy and a bit devious; Marina seems to do all the house work and to be more emotionally honest than the others; Violeta is extremely lazy.

A psychological study where nothing much happens in the way of a plot. It is very well acted and seems to have some insight into how young women act and relate to one another. Another decent Argentinean movie written and directed by a woman (Mumenthaler), amongst several that have appeared in recent times (Galardi, Martel, Murga).

Rating: 61

Une chambre en ville (1982)

English title: A Room in Town

Mme. Langlois is a widow living in Nantes in 1955. Guilbaud is a factory worker who rents a room at Mme. Langlois' apartment. He has a girlfriend who loves him very much. Mme. Langlois has a daughter named Édith who got married recently to a man she does not love. He is jealous and violent. One day, Guilbaud and Édith meet by chance. Did I mention that there is a strike going on, and that's the reason Guilbaud has so much time in his hands?

Sung-through melodrama with no songs, only recitatives. Those who consider the working class and its organized movements through a romantic prism may find this entertaining or even enthralling. Those with a pathological aversion to the spoken word may be in for a treat, too. I am afraid there is little of interest for the rest of mankind, although, to be fair, it is not badly done within its own rather peculiar (and mysterious) constraints.

Rating: 30

Le beau Serge (1958)

English titles: Handsome Serge; Bitter Reunion.

A young man in his early twenties returns to his home town after an absence of many years. He plans to spend the winter there and convalesce from an illness. He reencounters his childhood friend, now a married man and also a bitter alcoholic.

Interesting study of provincial life. The script, or what of it made it to the final cut, is a little reticent about many aspects concerning the characters and incidents, leaving it for the viewer to fill in with his imagination. The drama develops into a more or less traditional tale of redemption or sublimation or whatever else one may think is the case here.

Rating: 52

Jacquot de Nantes (1991)

U.S. title: Jacquot.

Based on the memoirs by Jacques Demy (b. 1931- d. 1990).

Jacquot is a boy growing up in Nantes, the son of a garage owner and a hairdresser. He is a happy child who loves songs and films. The Occupation disturbs his family life, but, despite all the incidents (including two allied bombings), Jacquot and his family come out unscathed (his statement that they have instilled in him a horror of violence seems insincere or self-deceptive). As a teenager, Jacquot develops a love for cinema. He buys an old camera and starts making stop-motion animations. His father does not regard filmmaking as a suitable career and forces him to attend technical school instead. He goes through a troubled and frustrated period until, finally, the support from a filmmaker visiting Nantes grants him a shot at following his aspirations.

This is a fairly banal biographical drama (interspersed with a few  apparitions of the real Demy at the time of filming), but it is very well made and I saw myself watching it painlessly all the way through. To be honest, I do not think the kind of "popular culture"-oriented life led by the protagonist is very healthy. Anyway, certain people seem to adapt better to it than I ever could.

Rating: 50

28 Up (1984)

Upwards goes the On series, sorry, onwards goes the Up series, this time with the subjects at 28. This seems to be a sort of summit in the progression, though of course I may realize I am wrong when I watch the next installments. Anyway it is certainly an important point, a key point perhaps. Already there are two defections, which I regret. The filmmaker/interviewer comes out (I am not sure whether this is in stock footage from the previous installment, or in new one) as to the purpose of the series (among others, I suppose) being the study of social mobility, or, rather, the lack thereof. As I have been saying, he has the same (irritating) effect on me as most leftist types do, so, based on that, I have to assume he is a leftist. And it is leftists who are generally trying to prove there is little mobility and the government should boost it. But what if there is no way of boosting it? I have recently come across an article which reviews a book which seems to be saying precisely that. And I think this film (and the whole series) are precious evidence to that, if you analyze it carefully. You may argue that this isn't a statistically relevant sample, but then neither is it for the opposing, leftist view. I do think, at any rate, that this is an exceptionally interesting film in a, so far, exceptionally interesting series, and I can't wait to see the next one. Before I do, let me just point out that, when Neil speaks of an "impersonal society" referring to, if I recall correctly, the London suburbs, his definition fits our present-day society pretty much in its entirety with a vengeance, and the question should be, who is responsible for that? Who profits from that?

This film is number ten in critic Dale Thomajan's picks for 1985. This is probably what drew me in the first place towards this series, as, based on the films I have watched amongst his choices, he seems to be very reliable (he also has written a few books, amongst them an interesting compilation of film quotations called Great Movie Lines). His top ten lists can be read here.

Hell Up in Harlem (1973)

Sequel to Black Caesar. Tommy recovers from his wounds, recruits his father as an underling, puts the D.A. under control, gets a new girlfriend, and is betrayed by his ambitious second-in-command.

Crude filmmaking is the rule here. The script (assuming there was one) has a certain level of intelligence, and the film is eventful, but the poorness of the execution makes it unequivocally dull.

Rating: 31

The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

Based on the novella Michael Kohlhaas, by Heinrich von Kleist, first published in complete form in 1810 (which in turn was based on a 16th century real event). There is no credit for this in the film, though.

A young woman (the titular character) and her teenage brother are harassed by a young man and his gang, who steal her motor scooter and damage it. She demands financial compensation from the boy's shop owner father, but is sexually harassed instead. Her brother picks a gun from the shop's cash register and, after an altercation, shoots at the owner. Billie and her brother, plus two other teenage girls, flee in a borrowed car, and are pursued by the police.

This is an absolutely ridiculous film, and yet I can't say it hasn't its share of entertainment value in the form of self-parody. It is also an early example of a now prevalent trend that seeks the emasculation of America, in fact, of the civilized world as a whole (I counted three hits on a male character's testicles throughout the film!).

Rating: 30

Dead Birds (1963)

Ethnographic documentary about a people in New Guinea. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Read the Wikipedia page about it.

Read also this review by Kevin Kelly.

This film's sound recordist was a Rockefeller. Read this article on rumors about his death.

21 (1977)

Alternate title (Internet Movie Database): 21 Up.

Third installment of the series of documentaries which every 7 years interviews the same set of British boys and girls. Not much to comment upon that would be significantly different from my comments to the previous installments. You can see my presumption of a certain "liberal" (in American terminology) bias on the filmmaker were to a certain extent addressed by one of the boys, who pointed out that the previous installments led one to believe (wrongly) that the rich kids' life were all privilege and no personal effort.

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Second viewing; the first one was on April 9, 1991.

A man is exposed to radiation while vacationing with his wife in a boat out on the sea. Some months later, another exposure triggers a process of decrease in his bodily size. He experiences serious psychological problems as well as physical dangers associated with his new condition.

I will, for once, decline from commenting on this movie, which I liked a lot, the same as I did the first time I saw it. It so happens, in this particular case, that I wholly agree with most people who liked it, and in the user review section of IMDb there are wonderful reviews to which I do not think I could add anything of interest. That is, apart from the fact that it bears a passing resemblance to Kafka's The Metamorphosis (lots of people noticed that, too).

Rating: 71

L'horloger de Saint-Paul (1974)

U.S. title: The Clockmaker.

Based on the 1954 novel L'horloger d'Everton, by Georges Simenon.

A man learns from the police that his son committed a murder. The victim was a security guard (or floor manager, I am not sure) at the factory where the young man's girlfriend (and apparent accomplice) worked. The two criminals' whereabouts are unknown.

The plot of this psychological drama is comprised basically of a lot of bullshit and mysteries which remain partly unsolved. To be fair, much of the film can still be endured (and, occasionally, even enjoyed) regardless of that, as it concerns the problems of a middle-aged man who questions his role as a father (and as a citizen, perhaps, though this is part of the bullshit). The excellent central performance is key to that enjoyment, and, to yield to a cliché, carries the film. One of the thematic aspects concerns the problem of excessive liberalism in education producing disoriented kids, which the filmmaker would tackle again in L'appât, again, in my opinion, without great success. In The Clockmaker, politics fogs the issue a little, perhaps, and I honestly cannot make head or tail of the protagonist's stance in court, which seems to me more of the same attitude he had in the past, only radicalized.

Rating: 41

It Came from Outer Space (1953)

An object collides with the Earth in the Arizona desert and is at first thought to be a meteorite, but actually is an alien spaceship. An amateur astronomer investigates the incident with the help of his girlfriend and, later on, other townspeople.

Insipid sci-fi, with little to recommend it aside from the musical score. A few scenes are kind of cool, such as the monster's eye glowing in the dark, and the rock avalanche, but overall the film's suspense level is low due to the fact that we suspect early on that the aliens are on the level and mean no harm. These are, by the way, the best kind of aliens: they do not stay here longer than necessary, destroy very little, and did not come here to preach anything. The downside is that they're simply not fun. The film seemed badly filmed to me, in the sense that, at times, the takes follow one another in a poorly designed fashion. For instance, when the protagonist first inspects the landing site, I was at first under the impression that there was another person there, an alien possibly; after I watched it a second time, I realized it was always the same guy, who was filmed first facing the camera and then from behind at a much larger distance. Anyway, most people praised the direction, so these perceptions of mine must be faulty, somehow.

Rating: 32

Junior (1994)

Two male medical researchers are trying to get a fertility drug approved. When they get a "no" from the FDA, they come up with the bold idea of testing the drug on one of them and then submitting the results to a prospective buyer.

Again, what seemed to be a rare event is becoming alarmingly frequent: I like a film more than the IMDb average voter. And I find it odd that this film has so few user reviews. One would think it is a real stinker, and it is not. The artistry of the writers and of the director shows in several occasions, especially in the first half of the movie, which plays out as a sophisticated comedy. The second half is worse, and admittedly overindulges in trite "drag" humor. The overall theme of the movie, however, is the very relevant issue of medicine for profit. The movie has found a funny way to show that some (I am being conservative here) people in the medical world will do anything for money.

Rating: 50

Knight and Day (2010)

A woman boards the same plane as a rogue agent who is in possession of a new invention and is on the run from his employers who are trying to recover the device. She gets mixed-up in this war, under the rogue agent's protection. They all go after the scientist who created the coveted device and a frantic cat-and-dog chase ensues.

Action thriller with a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the genre. As the old expression goes, there is never a dull moment in it. I enjoyed it more than the average IMDb voter, an unusual occurrence. The only criticisms I have to offer concern the weird title and the awful song which plays during the end credits. I would probably have passed this film up had I not come across French critic Jean-Sébastien Chauvin's top ten list for 2010 in Cahiers du cinéma.

Rating: 68