Baby Face (Alfred E.
Green, 1933, USA, 75 min.)
Viewed on Turner
Classic Movies First Viewing
One
of the most daring “women’s pictures” from pre-code Hollywood is this
entertaining Barbara Stanwyck vehicle about a woman of modest means who
brazenly sleeps her way to the top (with guidance from the literature of
Nietzsche!). Conventional love conquers all in the damp squib of an ending, but
it’s the rest of the film’s unambiguous celebration of a woman going after what
she wants that ultimately leaves an impression. B+
Chimes at
Midnight
(Orson Welles, 1966, Spain, 119 min.)
Viewed on Turner
Classic Movies Second Viewing
Orson
Welles’ favorite of his own films is this comic tragedy focusing on the
friendship and ultimate betrayal of Shakespeare’s recurring characters Falstaff
(Welles) and Prince Hal (Keith Baxter). The loss of an Eden due to political and
industrial progress was Welles’ most cherished theme, and this film features
one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful explorations of that idea. Hal’s
ultimate rejection of Falstaff leads to the best acting of Welles’ career, and
is all the more powerful due to how memorably the film captures the idyllic
earlier stages of their friendship. The chaotic dirtiness of the Middle Ages
has rarely been captured as well as it is here, particularly during a violent
mud-soaked battle sequence. A-
Clouds of Sils
Maria
(Olivier Assayas, 2014, France, 124 min.)
Viewed Theatrically First Viewing
Olivier
Assayas’ complex backstage drama covers a lot of the same thematic territory as
Birdman (2014), but thankfully does
so with far less bombast and far more grace and profundity. Juliette Binoche
stars as an actress returning to the play that launched her career decades
earlier, though she will now be playing the role of her previous character’s
older lover. Much of the film revolves around Binoche and her personal
assistant Kristen Stewart running lines from the play, and Assayas effortlessly
achieves a lot of low-key surreal effects by playfully blurring the lines
between the characters from the play, the characters Binoche and Stewart are
playing in the movie, and the real-life Binoche and Stewart. Thankfully Assayas
mostly sidesteps superficial meta effects and instead makes a fluid and witty
essay about the state of popular culture. B+
Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon
(Ang Lee, 2000, Hong Kong/China, 120 min.)
Viewed on
Netflix Second Viewing
Ang
Lee’s widescreen epic aspires to be nothing less than the Gone with the Wind (1939) of wuxia films, and thankfully feels
emboldened rather than weighed down by its sweeping romanticism. The fight
scenes are among the most exciting in the history of the genre (even if
legendary choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping arguably leans a bit too heavily on wire
work), but it is the lavish production design and the atypically fine cast that
elevate this past usual martial arts film standards. A-
The Last Five
Years
(Richard LaGravenese, 2015, USA, 94 min.)
Viewed On Demand First Viewing
Though
I’ve never seen it performed live, Jason Robert Brown’s stage musical The Last Five Years clearly loses
something in translation to film. The play charts the dissolution of a marriage
through a skewed chronology, with hotshot novelist Jamie and struggling actress
Cathy taking turns narrating the story, he starting at the hopeful beginning
and she starting at the bitter end and working backwards, only meeting on stage
for one duet when their timelines briefly coincide. That poignant narrative
conceit is absent in the film version, where Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick
share screen time during virtually every musical number, with whichever partner
isn’t signing usually relegated to reaction shots. Director Richard
LaGravenese’s lack of stylistic flair has the benefit of allowing the viewer to
focus on the fine score (and Kendrick’s very strong performance), but there’s
no doubt that this is an inferior version of the material. C+
Live and Let Die (Guy Hamilton,
1973, UK, 122 min.)
Viewed on
Blu-Ray Second Viewing
Roger
Moore’s first outing as James Bond marks a confident and pleasurable change in
tone for the series. Whereas the sole George Lazenby Bond vehicle On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
wavers awkwardly between being a “realistic” spy picture and a winking tribute
to the Sean Connery films, Live and Let
Die commits fully to outrageous camp. By the time Bond is jumping across
the backs of alligators to cross a river the film may as well be set in the Austin Powers universe. The silliness
may offend the portion of the fan base who take 007 too seriously, but the tone
is perfectly suited to Moore’s relaxed take on the character, and it’s nice to
see a Bond film that’s simply designed to be fun. A lengthy speedboat chase
through a Louisiana bayou is one of the best action sequences in the whole
series, and the ludicrous death of Yaphet Kotto’s character has to be seen to
be believed. B
Macbeth (Orson Welles,
1948, USA, 107 min.)
Viewed on Turner
Classic Movies Second Viewing
The
first of Orson Welles’ three Shakespeare films is the least celebrated, even by
Welles scholars, but it is another exciting example of the
director-writer-actor reinventing the rules of cinema on the fly. Welles creates
a disconcerting atmosphere by turning old Western sets into expressionistic
gothic landscapes, and by having his cast lip sync their dialogue to a
pre-recorded track. It’s true that the performances aren’t quite up to par with
Welles’ usual standards – Jeanette Nolan particularly stands out as an
inadequate Lady Macbeth – but on a formal level this is totally different than
(but equally as interesting as) anything he ever made. B+
The Magnificent
Ambersons
(Orson Welles, 1942, USA, 88 min.)
Viewed on a DVR
ripped from Turner Classic Movies Latest
of Many Viewings
Orson
Welles’ adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s 1918 novel was famously damaged by RKO
Studios, who cut nearly half of Welles’ original edit and tacked on a ludicrous
happy ending after a disastrous test screening. But even in compromised form Ambersons is Welles’ most potent
evocation of a lost Eden, with his most daring manipulation of audience
sympathies. Tim Holt’s protagonist is a spoiled and unlikeable rich kid, but it’s
hard not to be moved by the gradual loss of his beautiful horse and buggy world
as the pollution and crassness of modern industry is ushered in by kindly
automobile pioneer Joseph Cotton. Few films have evoked the passage of time as
gorgeously or as sadly as this one, or given such a fully fleshed view of a
vanishing way of life. A
Une chambre en
ville
(Jacques Demy, 1982, France, 94 min.)
Viewed on Hulu
Plus First Viewing
Jacques
Demy returned to the style of his most popular work The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) with this musical melodrama. Once
again all of the dialogue is sung to a non-stop musical background, though this
time the story is considerably darker and incorporates everything from workers’
strikes to prostitution to suicide. The brutal material isn’t as natural a fit
for the aesthetic as Cherbourg’s
wistful melancholia was – though a violent domestic dispute, staged as a series
of shot-reverse shots where each party is yelling directly at the camera, is a
dazzling highlight – but it’s often fascinating to watch Demy push the limits
of his signature aesthetic with this grim story. B
Voyage to Italy (Roberto
Rossellini, 1954, Italy, 83 min.)
Viewed on Hulu
Plus First Viewing
Ingrid
Bergman and George Sanders play a married couple whose relationship becomes
strained when they travel to Italy to sell off a deceased relative’s villa. The
shifting terrain of the country becomes a metaphorical reflection of the state
of their relationship; the desolation of Pompeii, for example, provides the
backdrop for their lowest point. Clearly this is a case of real-life married
couple and creative partners Bergman and Roberto Rossellini working out their issues
on camera, but thankfully this is a touchingly intimate look at marital
challenges rather than a navel-gazing wallow in misery, and it builds to a
sweet finale that feels believable even as it’s presented as a miracle. B+
