Movie Update 28

These are some pretty runty-ass movies! They weren't bad, though.

The Good German

I've only seen two films by Steven Soderbergh, which both happened to be very populist and not terribly original. But he's known as a very experimental filmmaker, at least by Hollywood standards, and even if you don't like The Good German very much, you have to admit it's ambitious. I ended up enjoying its modern day take on lots of old noir tropes, but more interesting than the film itself is the way it is dedicated to the style of the period. It's in black and white, and more than that the way it was filmed is very much the traditional old way, with old cutting and old blocking and everything. It doesn't really actually look like it was made in the 40s, because of the lighting, and because of the weird disconnect with the very modern standards of sex, violence, and language. I don't understand the point of going this far with replicating a look without replicating a tone as well. But you can't say the whole thing isn't interesting. And I think George Clooney and Cate Blanchett make a good pair on-screen, anyway.

The Red Badge of Courage


A war film by John Huston, based on a book about a soldier in the Civil War who fears death and yet yearns to earn his own war wounds and be looked well upon by others. It's an odd movie for a couple of reasons, most notably the incredibly on-the-nose narration, which not only directly quotes the original novel but also addresses the audience in a weird, hitting-you-over-the-head kind of way. It definitely wasn't surprising that this was added by the studio against Huston's wishes, and that they also cut the film down to its scant 70 minute running time, which is hardly enough time to develop themes, especially when so much of that time is just Huston's (admittedly well shot) war scenes. There's the potential for a great 50s war movie in here, but it was lost between filming and release.

Tetro


Francis Ford Coppola's post-70s career is frustrating, showing little evidence that a man who could create a film as perfect as The Godfather still knows what he is doing. Tetro is interesting though, a more personal project than most of his other work, about a couple of estranged brothers who reunite in Spain. It's shown in black and white except for flashbacks, and shows the devastating effect certain actions can have on family ties. It's not exactly the most entertaining movie ever, but there's definitely some stuff going on here that you don't really see in most other movies. It's also really nice to look at, with some stylistic experiments and just really good cinematography throughout. Definitely the best thing I've seen by him that was released in the last 30 years.

Thor: Tales of Asgard


That cover is misleading; it shows a grown up Thor, but the film takes place in his more formative years, before Loki was evil, and before Odin even allowed him to venture out of Asgard. At least they didn't extend the lie far enough to show him holding the hammer. Tales of Asgard isn't much different from the other Marvel movies, being competently animated and telling a pretty standard story, although being Thor, it's less a typical sci-fi action plot and more a typical fantasy one. Thor goes on a journey with Loki, hangs with the warriors three, gets help from Sif, and accidentally gets into some bad shit with the frost giants. As a supplement to the live action film... it's fine. There's nothing terribly exciting about it, but it doesn't really mess up anywhere either. It's a way to pass 70 minutes if you like comic books, I guess.

Movie Update 13

Here is a brief summary about my movie watching and the fact that these movies are all movies and that I like watching movies.

The African Queen


Some weird combination of an adventure, a buddy road picture, and a romantic comedy, The African Queen rests almost entirely on the shoulders of its two leads, played excellently as always by Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. He's an eccentric, hard-drinking boatman and she's an uptight religious woman, so the conflict between them is obvious at first, but the way their relationship develops as they face the various perils of their journey through the waters of Africa is constantly intriguing. I haven't fallen in love with any of John Huston's work yet, but he's nothing if not an extremely competent director in a variety of styles and moods. Good ending, too.

Gone with the Wind

For the 1930s, this is a pretty darn remarkable technical achievement. Vivien Leigh and especially Clark Gable do really good jobs in their roles. And those are about the only truly positive things I have to say about this film. It's an overly long story with not a whole lot of real enjoyable substance. Scarlett doesn't have much character beyond being an opportunistic homewrecker, and there's no really great alternatives to latch on to. I don't require characters in a story to be likable, but there's gotta be something, and this just seemed like a long series of unfortunate romantic events set (pretty effectively) against a dramatic historical backdrop.

The Sugarland Express


Steven Spielberg's first real theatrical film isn't bad, though it isn't great either. Goldie Hawn stars as a troubled young woman who breaks her husband out of what's basically a halfway house I guess to help rescue their young child from his adoptive parents. They end up getting chased by the police, holding one hostage, and leading them all on a grand chase across the country to Sugarland, where their kid lives. There's some humor and some brief action and some family drama. The most interesting part is the relationship that grows between the couple and their captive over the couple days the story takes place in. Other than that, it tends to drag here and there. There should be more urgency to a chase movie than this. It's mostly based on a true story, which is probably more remarkable than the film itself. You can definitely see the promise his career would later capitalize on.

Tootsie


I've seen parts of this before, but this is my first time watching the thing start to finish. I'm not usually a patron of films heavily featuring cross-dressing main characters, but the difference between most of them and Tootsie as I see it is they don't bother to make their female counterparts compelling in any way, while Michael Dorsey's Dorothy Michaels alter-ego becomes a full character in her own right. Dustin Hoffman is great, Bill Murray is possibly more great in a smaller role as his roommate, and the film is a nice combination of a truly funny comedy and a solid romantic drama about people who want what they can't have. It was a little too early 80s for my taste in places, but for the most part Tootsie is just a likable, fun movie from start to finish.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

What's interesting to me about this film was how much it surprised me with Humphrey Bogart's character. I thought it would be a fairly standard if well made old fashioned adventure movie, with him and a couple other guys seeking gold in a foreign land. Early scenes had a bit of an edge, as he and another man who were swindled out of proper pay for some work they did beat the cash out of the guy who cheated them. But he still seemed like his usual self with the rough charm and everything, and as the plot really got going, I saw no reason to change my mind. But very slowly, the movie reveals how much of a dick he really is under that likable exterior, and after a while, he's basically playing the villain. The pacing of the transition is really great, as he gradually transforms from a guy eager to make a fortune, to one a little too defensive of the money he's made, to a completely delusional, paranoid and basically crazy son of a bitch. His companions see the warning signs but aren't quite prepared for what he ends up doing, and the movie ends up a lot darker than what I thought I was going to see.

And it's a better film for it, I think. I was certainly enjoying it up to the point where things start changing, with the three main actors developing an interesting little community together and a script totally rife with snappy dialogue. It's known for one of the most famous misquoted lines in history involving stinking badges, but there's a whole lot of talking the whole movie through, and there's no shortage of nice bits. I also liked how the Spanish dialogue wasn't subtitled at all, either letting characters translate it for their monolingual cohorts or just making you figure out what's happening in a scene through action and context. I'd generally expect movies from this era to just have Mexican characters always speaking English, and it really helped add to the authenticity of a fairly gritty tale. The acting is solid, and although I wasn't sure about Walter Huston winning an Oscar for his work, there's something really likable about the old guy. And all of that would have made for a solid movie, but the way things turn bad as it goes on are what really make it the classic it's considered today. It's not quite one of my favorites of the era, but it's hard to deny that it's a really good one.

Chinatown

However you feel about what Roman Polanski did, it shouldn't affect your opinion of his work. This is actually the first film of his I've seen, but I was definitely impressed by it, although it might have been more the script and the acting than anything he was in charge of. It was still well-made though, a 70s film noir that definitely lives up to the sensibilities of both. A lot of the style, plot, and content could have easily existed in a film from the original noir movement, but while the setting is in the 40s, a lot of the details aren't. The content is a lot racier, with more violence, vulgarity, sexuality, and a rather infamous twist near the end that certainly would have been too much at the time.

A lot of that is just window dressing though, without which the movie would have still been good just on the strength of the story. A nefarious plot about misappropriated water sounds at first like it might have come from an episode of Captain Planet, but it's really an interesting case, and Jack Nicholson's investigation style makes the whole thing into quite the intriguing caper. There's something about his cynicism and world-weariness that makes him seem a bit more human than the average private dick, and just when he starts caring again the world can't help but beat him back down. Good supporting cast too, Faye Dunaway plays the whole femme fatale thing in a way you'd expect from the 70s, and John Huston shows directing isn't his only skill as her rich and enterprising father.

The script is stuffed with great lines and clever stuff for Jack to do, and deserved its Oscar as much as any screenplay usually can. Hard to say why the ending is so great without explaining it, so I'll just say that the movie builds perfectly to a brutal crescendo that fits exactly what it should be based on everything that came before. Even characters that seemed made to disappear early in the film come back in appropriate roles for the conclusion. It's really just the pinnacle of well-constructed filmmaking.

The Maltese Falcon

I didn't enjoy Falcon as much as The Big Sleep, but it was still a really good example of film noir in its prime. John Huston's another director I know at this point mostly be reputation, but this was a very good first effort and he's had some other stuff I definitely would like to see. Bogart's several years younger than in Sleep, although it's kind of hard to tell the difference. It's pretty much the same hard-nosed persona, maybe a little more prone to laughter in certain situations but still a detective who just wants to finish the job.

What starts as a simple tail job results in a couple murders and a rapidly growing conspiracy as several people search for the falcon, a supposedly priceless treasure from hundreds of years ago. Everyone wants to get their hands on it, except for Bogart, who just wants to solve the murders and get paid. The main plot might have been a bit stronger than Sleep but the dialogue wasn't nearly as consistently enjoyable on its own merits, and I really didn't like the leading lady. She was supposed to be really attractive and seductive, but she was merely average looking and constantly breaking down into fake crying to try to lie her way out of trouble instead of just being alluring. Even man-voiced Lauren Bacall was better than that. I really like the noir style whether in traditional usage or a more modern take on it, and I'd like to see more good examples soon.