Starring – Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, and Larry Gates
In the early to mid-fifties, a relatively new genre had taken hold of the film industry. Taking the place of the grand, war-themed dramas, science fiction (often times tinged with horror elements) came into its own with the birth of the atomic age. And while there had certainly been stories of space travel, monsters, and aliens before this timeframe, the films of the fifties and sixties came to represent the fears of the modern world. Fear of radiation, fear of communism, and the fear of the perceived corruption of the “American” value system (these fears would stem from events as diverse as the Korean War, race relations in the United States, the burgeoning civil rights movement, and eventually the assassination of JFK). So the question is, does Invasion of the Body Snatchers exist as a commentary on this change, or is it simply an exploitation film, capitalizing on this social upheaval to make a buck? The answer is…both.
The story is relatively simple, a doctor in a small California town returns home from a medical seminar at the insistance of his secretary. The doctor’s office is flooded with cases of hysterical people claiming that close friends or members of their families are in some way different, and not themselves. When pressed for details on what is different, the only elaboration is that despite looking and acting exactly the same as usual, these people are different, and somehow off.
Eventually the doctor, teaming up with his former sweetheart, learns that the town’s people are steadily and silently being replaced by these malicious, un-feeling, pod-people, called this because of the giant seed pod that the replacement’s are born out of (a device that works especially well in the United States thanks to our dependance on and prevalence of agriculture in this country). From then on out, it is a fight to escape the clutches of this foreign, yet eerily familiar menace.
Now, as far as I’ve read, the film was never trying to be anything more than a riveting, good time. It may have borrowed on the xenophobia and tension that came from the communist threat, but it was never meant to be a direct allegory. Never-the-less, the film, intentionally or not, has managed to distill the anxiety of it’s time to great effect. Tension in the story is built slowly over the course of the story. It never goes for the easy scare, relying instead upon the unease of the situation. In fact, once the pods and the blank, faceless, replacements are finally shown it is almost a relief; Once we know what to look out for we can stop concentrating on everything else that we don’t have to.
In terms of the look of the pod-people, in their unformed state they aren’t so much shocking as they are unsettling. The un-defined shape of these intruders fits nicely with the un-ease that the town’s folk are feeling. When we’re confronted with what seems wrong with it, we can’t put our finger on it, and therein lies the success of this film.
As far as acting goes, each actor does what is necessary but no more than that. Don Siegel, director of such other classics as Dirty Harry, The Killers, and Escape from Alcatraz, knows just what to get from his actors to keep the momentum going, and the tension thick.
I know that there are now two different re-makes of this same story, one in 1978 with the same name starring Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy, and another in 2007 with Nicole Kidman called simply The Invasion. I’ve heard from a trustworthy source that the 1978 version is pretty great, and I’ve heard from a number of sources that the 2007 version is anything but. All in all, I was surprised with the quality in this film, pleasantly so. I’m not sure why, but it was better than I thought it was going to be. Definitely worth the watch.
Each year I approach the whole Oscar Award season with more than a little bit of trepidation. Films that truely deserve to win (granted, this is all in my opinion) get overlooked, actors and actresses who deserved to get the award for their best performance in a movie a few years ago get the award this year for something that is generally a little cliched and entirely safe, and most eggregiously, films that are unique or are attempting something new are overshadowed by the size of a competitor’s box office.
This year is a little different. This year I am more than a little optimistic about the selection of films, actors, and crew up for consideration. I haven’t seen all of the options in each category (yet), but in most all of the categories I DO have a strong opinion on who I think should win. Not only do I have very pronounced opinions on this subject, but I imagine that all of you do as well, so I’ve included some surveys in this post to see just what everyone thinks. So please take a moment and let me know what you think…so without further ado, lets get started…
Best actor in a leading role Oscars 2010 nominees
* Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
* George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
* Colin Firth in “A Single Man” (The Weinstein Company)
* Morgan Freeman in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
* Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)
In the best actor race, I’ve seen two of the performances thus far, George Clooney in Up In the Air, and Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker. Let me preface this by saying that I am generally a fan of everything that George Clooney does. He is slick, cool under pressure, a nice looking man, and he most certainly can act. That being said, he deserved it for Michael Clayton, not this. Up In The Air was a good movie, but it wasn’t what I would call a great one. Jeremy Renner’s war addicted soldier was a far more interesting character study in my opinion. Renner played a man who was electric and magnetic, so the audience couldn’t keep their eyes off of him, but at the same time he left room for his co-stars to shine as well.
Not having seen any of the others yet I can’t speak to the quality of any of their performances…in terms of each as actors though, all are more than qualified to be in this race. I have a feeling that this might be Jeff Bridges’ award to lose, however. Bridges is a continually strong actor who gives his all to each role, making each movie he has a role in, more than a little bit better for having him.
Best actor in a supporting role Oscars 2010 nominees
* Matt Damon in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
* Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger” (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
* Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
* Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (DreamWorks in association with Film4, Distributed by Paramount)
* Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)
Big respect to Mr. Damon, Harrelson, Plummer, and Tucci, but this award should…no, MUST go to the outstanding performance by Christoph Waltz, as Col. Hans Landa, in Ingourious Basterds. Never have I gone into a movie more apprehensive, and come out more exuberent than I did with Basterds, thanks mostly to Waltz’s performance. Not only was this character a force of nature, it was a multi-lingual, full frontal assault on the viewer. The bar has been set, and it’s going to take nothing less than divine intervention to get to the next level.
Luckily, I think my passion for Waltz’s performance is shared by many in the film world, so I predict the Oscar for best actor in a supporting role will find it’s way to him.
Best actress in a leading role Oscars 2010 nominees
* Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.)
* Helen Mirren in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
* Carey Mulligan in “An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics)
* Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
* Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
This catagory, this year, is my Kriptonite. I have seen none of these performances. I’ve heard Precious is great. Heart-breaking, but great. Helen Mirren is always fantastic and deserving of attention, but she won recently for The Queen. Meryl Streep, who has a permanent seat awaiting her each year in the the front row of the Oscars Ceremony, is receiving rave reviews for her rendition of Julia Child, but she too has gotten a lot of recognition from her peers. That leaves us with Carey Mulligan from An Education, or Sandra Bullock from The Blind Side. One plays a young girl navigating her way through the strange and sometimes predatory world of the fifties and sixties. The other plays a brassy, proud Texas MILF who helps a disadvantaged young man by showing him what family is. I have great interest in one of these and the other I still roll my eyes at, I’ll let you decide which.
Deep down I hope that Gabourey Sidibe or Carey Mulligan take this one, but I am afraid that Mirren, Streep and Bullock stand a better chance, Bullock in particular.
Best actress in a supporting role Oscars 2010 nominees
* Penélope Cruz in “Nine” (The Weinstein Company)
* Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
* Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
* Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
* Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
I am bummed out that neither Melanie Laurent, or Diane Kruger were nominated for Oscars (Laurent for leading role, and Kruger for supporting). Both turned in incredible performances in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. As it stands I’ve only seen Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, both in Up In The Air, which I thought was pretty good, but not really what I’d call Oscar worthy. From the reviews I’ve heard, it looks like they should only read one name this year, for this catagory. Mo’Nique. As the predatory, dangerous, and ultimately believable mother to the main character in Precious, Mo’Nique, like Jeff Bridges in the actor race, has this all but sewn up.
Best animated feature film of the year Oscars 2010 nominees:
*“Coraline” (Focus Features) Henry Selick
*“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox) Wes Anderson
*“The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney) John Musker and Ron Clements
*“The Secret of Kells” (GKIDS) Tomm Moore
*“Up” (Walt Disney) Pete Docter
This is hard. Usually even if other animated films are good, Pixar comes along and almost arbitrarily wins. This time around the director of the much ballyhooed and beloved Nightmare Before Christmas gives us Coraline; The ever-popular, auteur director Wes Anderson puts an animated spin into one of his films with The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Disney rediscovered the formula that made them successful in the first place with The Princess and The Frog, and the fifth entry is filled with a film that I’ve never heard of, most likely to maintain a certain indie cred on the part of the Oscars, despite the fact that it will never win.
If I had my druthers, Coraline would take it. I think, however, that despite the leveled playing field, Up will still float away with the prize.
Best in cinematography Oscars 2010 nominees:
*“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) Mauro Fiore
*“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Warner Bros.) Bruno Delbonnel
*“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) Barry Ackroyd
*“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company) Robert Richardson
*“The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics) Christian Berger
This award will probably easily go to Avatar, thanks mainly to the ground breaking technology that gave birth to the cinematography contained therein. I would like to see it go, instead, to The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, or The White Ribbon. Each of these films, Hurt Locker, Basterds, and White Ribbon has stuck with me exponentially more than Avatar, making each location more breathtaking than an ironically named place with glow-in-the-dark plants, floating mountains, and giant blue Native Americans. The care and precision in the depiction of an eerie, ominous German village from the early 1900s, the stylized and lovingly rendered portrait of France in the grip of the Nazis, and the cruel and harsh desert climate, filled with bad blood and explosives, in my mind, are all more precious than unobtainium.
Avatar will probably win, but Inglourious Basterds, The Hurt Locker, and The White Ribbon deserve to. Specifically Inglourious Basterds.
*“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company) Quentin Tarantino
*“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate) Lee Daniels
*“Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) Jason Reitman
In case you haven’t read any of my thoughts in the other catagories, I am a huge supporter of Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino has finally manage to return to the kind of breathtaking, engaging, and self assured filmmaking not seen from him since Pulp Fiction. Despite the misguided popularity of the Kill Bill series (Vol. 1 was all reference and flash, and though Vol. 2 redeemed it slightly, it wasn’t enough to fully salvage the series) , and the strange love for the just plain awful Death Proof, Tarantino has fully returned to form with his epic WWII film. A close second in this category would have to be for Kathryn Bigelow’s direction of The Hurt Locker. I’ve been a big fan of Bigelow since back in the days of Point Break, and Near Dark, so I’m glad to see she’s still around making compelling and entertaining films. Bigelow has managed, almost single-handedly, to trash the assumption that women directors can only direct romantic comedies.
The one potential upset in this race comes in on the wings of a great neon dragon-like creature, James Cameron. My choice: Quentin Tarantino.
Best motion picture of the year Oscars 2010 Nominees:
*“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) A Lightstorm Entertainment Production James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
*“The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.) An Alcon Entertainment Production Nominees to be determined
*“District 9″ (Sony Pictures Releasing) A Block/Hanson Production Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
*“An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics) A Finola Dwyer/Wildgaze Films Production Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
*“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) A Voltage Pictures Production Nominees to be determined
*“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company) A Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures/A Band Apart/Zehnte Babelsberg Production Lawrence Bender, Producer
*“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate) A Lee Daniels Entertainment/Smokewood Entertainment Production Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
*“A Serious Man” (Focus Features) A Working Title Films Production Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers
*“Up” (Walt Disney)A Pixar Production Jonas Rivera, Producer
*“Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) A Montecito Picture Company Production Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producer
Now we come to the big daddy. Who will win the big enchilada? The Oscar for best motion picture of the year? This year, as a means of driving up interest in viewers, the standard set-up of choosing from 5 nominees has been doubled to 10. I’ve seen six of the ten films, and my overall tone isn’t changing. Inglourious Basterds is still my first choice. The inclusion of more options, however, does change my second choice. Despite the fact that it will be hugely overshadowed by “the other” effects heavy, science fiction film, District 9 has excelled at doing a lot with a little. Made for barely a fraction of the cost of Avatar (30 million as compared to upwards of 300 million), District 9 remains a fully realized world that seems more realistic than Avatar ever was. Avatar and The Hurt Locker definitely stand a good chance of winning, but neither affected me quite as much as Basterds or District 9 did this year.
There are quite a few other awards to be debated and pined over, but I feel that these are the ones I’m most interested in. If you should like to see a complete list of the nominations, check it out here… http://oscar.go.com/media/2010/html/print10.html.
Starring – Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Harry Dean Stanton, and Strother Martin
Combining religious imagery, southern drawl, male bonding, and a healthy dash of exuberance, Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke has become more than the small story of a man’s stint in the clink, it has transcended its reach and become a meditation on the importance (or the lack of) of authority for authority’s sake. Paul Newman, arguably one of the most iconic actors of his time, perfectly personifies independence, and the idea of anti-establishment.
The story deals with capture and incarceration of the titular, Luke, and his relationships with his fellow inmates, the guards that drive them, and with the bureaucratic warden who oversees everything in the prison. In the first 5 minutes of the film, we see Luke cutting the heads off of parking meters, being caught, and sentenced to 2 years in prison. While he is doing something technically wrong, the 2 year sentence seems a bit of an over-reaction to the weight of the crime.
Once in prison, Luke spends his time testing the boundaries set by both the inmates as well as those set by the guards. Eventually bonds begin to form, and a precident is set as the other inmates begin looking up to Luke. It is in this part of the film that the main relationship, that of Luke and George Kennedy’s Dragline, is solidified. The two men start off as rivals; Luke is simply pushing buttons, a behavior that Dragline sees as threatening to his authority among the other inmates. Over time, the men become friends, Dragline eventually becoming Luke’s biggest advocate.
There are many different theories on the internet about what the different factions represented in this movie represent. There is quite a bit of religious iconography that appears in the composition of the film, and while that is a perfectly valid interpretation, I fell more in line with the societal similarities. To start with, Luke. He gets his own group because he is really a free radical. He doesn’t follow any one set of guidelines despite what anyone else tries to force him to do. Luke disrupts the set in stone flow established by the system (the Warden), and maintained by the guards. He inspires change, and therefore straddles the line between respected and feared.
Next we have the prisoners. These men represent society, everyday people with faults and flaws. Each has a place, a role in the story, and each seems to run on a set path (ones that eventually get thrown off by the arrival of Luke). Despite the fact that each these men are convicted prisoners, all of them are relatable, and the majority of them are downright familiar, almost good. They represent all mankind. The guards are an obvious stand in for the law, specifically the police. These men keep the peace, and enforce the will of the bureaucracy, often utilizing fear, threat of violence and force (most personified by the anonymous and imposing “man with no eyes”).
Finally, we have the warden. In the story, the warden is one man, yet he represents a system of rule, or government that is infinitely larger than one man. Since this system is most disrupted by the arrival of Luke, the warden is the most afraid of him. What Luke represents is dependant upon which group you are from.
Despite it’s rather serious themes, Cool Hand Luke remains a rather jovial film, thanks in no small part to Newman’s performance as the eminently likable, Luke. Newman and George Kennedy were both nominated for Oscars for their performances, with Kennedy taking home the statue for Best Supporting Actor. Balancing out the weight and likability of the main characters is Strother Martin as the warden. His measured performance never travels too far into the cartoon villain territory, yet it’s just strong enough to get the proper reaction. Cool Hand Luke is another film that is populated with famous faces before they were famous, including Harry Dean Stanton, and Dennis Hopper.
The film looks like a sweltering hot summer feels, sticky sweaty clothes and all. The era, and the setting of the film are perfectly evoked in the cinematography, with sunbleached days and hot, dark nights.
I am coming more and more to believe that Paul Newman was one of the industry’s best actors that never got the full recognition he deserved. I am writing this (in part) to commemorate his birthday (01/27/2010). So belated happy birthday to the late Mr. Newman! What we have here, is a failure to communicate! Well…I hope that’s not the case, anyway.
Starring – Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, and Georgia Hale
Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush is essentially the same film as Modern Times, the other of his films that I’ve seen. That is not to say that it is bad, or that it is poorly done, on the contrary the gags are very well through out and expertly executed. No, I only mean that The Gold Rush is a venue for Chaplin’s most enduring character, The Tramp, to play out many of the same, or at the very least similar, gags as seen in his other films. The backdrops in each changes, but he essence of each is the same.
This time around The Tramp is trying his luck in the Alaskan frontier as a gold prospector. A number of other characters struggle alongside him, most notably is Georgia, the love interest. He spends the entirety of the movie pining after Georgia, dreaming up clever ways to get her attention, and most of the time failing miserably. There is some tension between the Tramp and some of his fellow prospectors, but it mostly amounts to a bunch of innocent, slapstick, sight gags. At no point was I ever convinced that Chaplin was going to fail, or die, or succumb to any of the dangers to which he is subjected throughout the film. Once all the danger and opportunity for our hero’s failure is stripped away, all that is left are a series of nice, but rather shallow skits that are barely tied together by setting and characters.
The individual gags themselves (a delusional prospector sees the Tramp as a plump chicken, constant walking through doorways into empty space, and playing round-about games of hide and go seek from ones’ pursuers, to name a few) have inspired more than a few Warner Brothers cartoons as well as defining the language of comedy. The real accomplishment in what Chaplin managed with his films was in the imitation that he inspired. His gags (and those of his contemporaries) have been used, re-used, and re-imagined so much that they have become a part of our collective knowledge. The value of his work is measured in how many people know about it, whether or not they know it’s Chaplin’s work doesn’t lessen the impact of its saturation.
Despite the fact that, in my opinion, The Gold Rush isn’t the best of the movies on this list, I recognize it’s importance. If for no other reason than it’s contribution to the language and history of film, The Gold Rush deserves to be on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
Starring – Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Will Sampson, and Louise Fletcher
Based on the popular novel by Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of those iconic, larger than life movies, where the public’s impressions of it have grown beyond it’s content. Jack Nicolson plays, well…he plays the Jack Nicholson that he always does. The story, while it follows Nicholson’s character (R.P. McMurphy), isn’t about him. His character acts as a catalyst for the other residents of the ward, and with all the expectations and preconceived notions about this movie, this fact is a bit of a let down.
For starters, Nicholson is playing Jack Nicholson, period. Where in Five Easy Pieces he deviated from his usual approach to acting, here in Cuckoo’s Nest, he embraces it. I guess the fact that he plays a character in a mental asylum makes the style more appropriate, having seen it literally a dozen times before does somehow lessen the impact.
As I hinted at before, Nicholson plays a character by the name of R.P. McMurphy, who at the beginning of the film is being admitted to a mental hospital due to his acting out repeatedly on the job. Immediately, McMurphy manages to rile up the other residents of his ward with his antics and questioning of the status quo, normally kept in check by the imposing nurse Ratched. McMurphy, who is there by force, is flabbergasted to find out that the other men stay in this place by choice. He shows his disdain for the institution and its staff by consistently breaking the rules, breaking out, and challenging the authority of his captors.
So, I’ve covered my thoughts on Jack Nicholson’s acting, but luckily this film doesn’t rely solely on his performance. The other residents of the asylum as well as the wonderfully devious turn by Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched provide a bevy of wonderful performances that truly move the plot of the film forward. A lot of familiar faces show up as relatively minor roles, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and Scatman Coruthers, were all people I knew instantly, but there are a number of other lesser known actors that inhabit some of the other roles. One prominent, completely believable character, Billy Bibbit, is fleshed out by the character actor Brad Dourif. Despite Nicholson’s appearance on the poster and his notoriety pushing the popularity of the film, it is these other smaller roles that completely envelop us. Through McMurphy we are allowed to watch Dourif’s Bibbit grow, Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched fume, and scheme, and perhaps most famously Will Sampson’s Chief Bromden free himself from his self-imposed bondage.
I don’t know if this rather voyeuristic outcome was intended by the director, or by Nicholson’s performance, but thankfully that is what happened. Nicholson represents a chaos to these people, the same way a tornado or a car accident might in another film. His character is something almost as powerful as a force of nature, something to be endured and weathered by each of the other characters. If that was the desired outcome, then I take back my negative criticism of Nicholson’s performance. Unfortunately this sort of thing only works once and a while, and he’s been playing the same character for years.
The cinematography, while fitting for the setting and tone of the film, didn’t seem all that different from other films in the seventies, and as a result didn’t catch my attention so much.
Despite my initial impression of Nicholson’s performance, I did really end up enjoying the film. I didn’t realize quite how many of the plot points I had a decent knowledge of either, thanks to pop-culture references in other movies and television shows, so there was quite a lot of material that was fun and engaging. I’d be interested in reading more about the history of this film, and it’s appearance on this list, but for the moment I’m content with having seen the film.
…that I’ve been nominated for a Kreativ Blogger Award…
I owe this prestigious distinction to the kind attention of the talented M. Carter, of M. Carter @ The Movies fame. This award isn’t all just fame and glory, though, it does have a certain set of responsibilities that come along with it. Seven of them to be exact, and for the sake of convenience I’ve listed them below.
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name seven things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate seven Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.
So numbers 1 – 3 have been taken care of, so it’s on to number 4.
Seven Things People might find interesting about me (Might being the operative word here):
I do all my best creative work late at night, and as a result…
…I am totally not a morning person.
I am a complete and utter fan of most things French (the people, the culture, the language, the country, the cuisine, the films, etc…)
I have a guinea pig named Oliver, after Oliver Stone.
Oliver Stone’s “JFK” and Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low” are in a dead heat for being my favorite movie of all time.
Despite being a huge fan of films in all their “high-art” forms, I have a pronounced weakness for cheesy action movies of the 80’s and 90’s (Die Hard, Total Recall, The Terminator, To Live and Die in LA, Timecop, The Last Boyscout, Tango & Cash, Heat…you get where this is going)
My fiancée and I are contemplating having a Twin Peaks themed wedding.
Now on to the seven blogs that I nominate. I’ll try to stay brief and to the point.
Starring – Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin and Walter Brennan
Coming into this film, I knew only the blurb that I’d seen in the 1001 Movies book, and frankly I was pretty excited to check it out. The premise is pretty standard, yet pretty compelling. A man gets off a train in a lonely desert town, no one knows why he’s there yet they immediately distrust him, eventually leading to threats of violence and confrontation. I was instantly grabbed by this concept. I wanted to see what would happen. Unfortunately, once I did, I wished I had just lived with my imagination of what it might be.
First off, Spencer Tracy isn’t a bad-ass. Based solely on the description, it seemed to me that Tracy’s character would have to be a hard as nails, no-nonsense type of guy. Someone who could take care of business if the situation called for it. What we got was a rather weathered old man who never seemed willing to stand up for himself. The townsfolk took a lot of pleasure in pushing him around, and he took great care to try to keep from provoking them any further. He took loads of abuse when it seemed like he should be handing some out.
The bad guys, while actually pretty bad people, didn’t provide any interesting motivation for their cruelty. The set-up of the story hints at some terrible secret that the entire town is trying to keep quiet, and when Tracy’s character arrives, everyone immediately jumps to the conclusion that he is there specifically to position blame. Aggravatingly, nobody ever stops to ask any questions, instead they stubbornly decide to be vague and confrontational with their dealings with one another. I’m sure if the towns people ever asked the Macreedy why he was there, they could have saved themselves an awful lot of trouble. Instead they start trouble almost immediately
As far as the supporting bad guys go, I would have expected more from a cast featuring Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, both actors that I really like in other roles. It wasn’t until the credits that I realized that Lee Marvin was in it, or that he played a fairly prominent character. The character of Reno played by Robert Ryan was probably the only character I found somewhat interesting, unfortunately he seemed a little under-developed, and lacked any real motivation by the end.
One of it’s most gorgeous attributes, the scenery in which it was filmed, was mis-used as well. It was rare that we ever saw the panoramic vista’s in which the town was supposedly set. It’s too bad really, as the location would have given the audience insight into the isolation (both literally as well as the town’s isolation from decency) that each of the people in town was subject to. The one major theme of the film seemed to be the fact that each character was in one way or another alone, some for their crimes, and in the case of Macreedy, his isolation from any help or safety.
Unfortunately, this is another film that I’d have to say is just taking up a precious spot on this list that rightfully deserves to go to another film. While it wasn’t awful, it was by no means one of the greatest films ever made.
P.S. Although it has nothing to do with Bad Day at Black Rock, I recently watched film that I thought for the life of me was on this list. To my dismay, it was not. To my further dismay, films like Bad Day at Black Rock, are! The film in question is Peter Bogdanovich’s, Paper Moon starring Ryan and Tatum O’Neil and a “father” and “daughter” team of hucksters, traveling their way across depression era America swindling what they can from whoever they are able to. It features a performance from the always fantastic Madeline Kahn, and is quite possibly one of the most beautiful looking films I have ever seen. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out.
Starring – Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Joe Morton, Kris Kristofferson, and Matthew McConaughey
In the mid-nineties after Sex, Lies, and Videotape opened a great many doors for as well as quite a few minds to indie films, there was a rich landscape of films like John Sayles’ Lone Star being made. Films that cared as much about characterization and plot as they did explosions and profitability. Looking back, I’ve come to the realization that, in today’s film climate, movies at the level of Lone Star are very hard to find.
The story is both simple and complex. Simple in it’s set up and execution, and complex in how it affects each of the characters tied to the story. Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper), son to the town legend, Sheriff Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey), finds a skeleton out in the desert with a sheriff’s badge. Questions about how his father came to be Sheriff begin to come to the surface, when the body starts to look like it might have been that of Buddy’s predecessor the ruthless, corrupt, Sheriff Charlie Wade. This discovery prompts Sam to examine the difference between right and wrong, memory and fact, and the strength of family bonds.
Typical of John Sayles films (or at least the one other one that I’ve seen, Sunshine State), there are multiple story lines, usually dealing with family, relationships, and the weight of the past as it affects the potential of the future. While Sam continues his investigation into what happened between his father and Charlie Wade, he reconnects with his old high school sweetheart, Pilar, played wonderfully by the magnificent Elizabeth Pena, works with the town’s mayor, and with the owner of a local bar that caters to African-Amercian clientele. Each of these characters’ stories weave elements of the past with present-day drama, and each holds a piece of the puzzle of the body in the desert.
In terms of tying in the themes of the inter-connectivity of the past and the present, John Sayles utilizes transitions that blend seamlessly into the present-day. Often times it seems as if Sam is part of the audience, watching each of these pieces fall into place, watching the story weave itself together as we go along. Aside from this small visual flair, the film rests mostly on the strength of its actors, and rest assured, its actors more than carry the load.
Through simple (NOTE: when I say simple, I don’t mean that it’s easy, only that it looks effortless when he does it) use of pauses, inflection, body-language, and facial expressions, Chris Cooper gives a fully realized performance as a man tired of living under his father’s thumb. McConaughey and Kristofferson embody memories, each filtered through the recollections of Sam, and the townsfolk, each is strong and absolute. Pilar is an emotionally, fully rounded woman who has deprived herself of happiness trying to do what’s right by her children and by her mother. Each character lives and breathes, and though they make believable choices, none of them are predictable or boring.
It is unfortunate that films like these aren’t being made as much as they were in the 90s. In the wrong hands they could be mundane and mediocre, but in the right hands, filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch, Todd Solondz, Steven Soderburgh, and John Sayles can make us love movies on a whole other level.
P.S. This is possibly the best acting that Matthew McConaughey has ever done.
P.P.S. If you’d like to learn more about the indie movement of the 90s I can’t recommend “Down and Dirty Pictures” by Peter Biskind highly enough.
Not having seen much from the cannon of Mr. Chaplin, I only had the few clips I’d seen in film school, and the similarities of his peers (Keaton, Three Stooges, Fatty Arbuckle, The Marx Brothers, etc.) on which to form my initial impression of him. Modern Times marks my first opportunity to form an opinion based on work that I had actually seen from start to finish, and while the man clearly has vision, talent, and comedic range, it seems to me that the hype about Chaplin being the greatest performer of his generation may have given me some over-the-top expectations for him.
Please don’t get me wrong…I don’t mean to say that he is overrated, nor do I think his films are lacking any crucial element. I guess I just wouldn’t consider the tagline that I found in IMDb to accurately describe him…(“He stands alone as the greatest entertainer of modern times! No one on earth can make you laugh as heartily or touch your heart as deeply…the whole world laughs, cries and thrills to his priceless genius!”) This is high praise for a man who came out of the same time frame as the Marx Bros., and Buster Keaton, and to a new viewer it sets the bar very high.
The story is simple enough, Chaplin’s Little Tramp is trying to make his way through the world of burgeoning technology, and industry. He tries in vain to keep up at his assembly line job tightening bolts, managing to consistently cause problems for his co-workers, and bosses alike. After his disastrous run in with a new automated feeding machine, his bosses have reason to believe that he has gone a little mad, and they send him away to a mental hospital. Once he gets out, he runs into a series of problems with the police who alternately believe that he is a communist, a thief, and a troublemaker. When in custody, he meets a young woman who is also struggling to survive in the modern world. Together they attempt to create a little place for themselves in the world.
I thought that the film’s set-pieces were it’s greatest strength, allowing Chaplin to really explore the ridiculous nature of the crazy mechanized world, the nature of and need for infrastructure, and the simplicity inherent in it all. It is very clear that Chaplin’s films (along with those of Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and the Marx Brothers) with their wide variety of visual appeal combined with storytelling and heart went a long way in inspiring a whole crop of successful visual filmmakers such as Jacques Tati, Terry Gilliam, and I’d even guess Peter Jackson. The intimate nature of the Tramp’s interaction with his physical surroundings speaks volumes about his curiosity, resilience, and compassion. Chaplin must have firmly believed that it wasn’t the fancy machinery that made modern living great, but it was instead it was the strong connections possible because of these innovations.
Modern Times was Chaplin’s last silent feature, and it was only sort-of silent. It is filled with sound-effects, some voice acting, and lots of music. It a time when most of the industry had already converted over to the “new” talkie format, I wonder if Modern Times was itself a commentary on the nature of change in his own industry?
Despite the fact that it may have been a bit over hyped for me, I still really enjoyed what Chaplin had to offer in Modern Times, and I look forward to seeing more of his work (this time with a bit more moderate expectations).
Starring – Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Harry Morgan, and Anthony Quinn
The Western, as of late, has gone through a bit of a transformation. What was once a nice clean depiction of black and white, good and evil, has changed over the years flitting across many different themes and archetypes into the metaphorical and allegory laden period pieces that they have become today. As I’ve said in my review for the fantastic McCabe & Mrs. Miller, I have tended to discount westerns in general, and early westerns in particular as being fluff, and devoid of value. My appreciation for the genre came to me fairly recently, and I’ve been working to shake my initial impression ever since. The Ox-Bow Incident goes a very, very long way in repairing my misconceptions of what the western is capable of, as well as make me wonder why I haven’t seen Henry Fonda in more films.
As the title suggests, the plot centers around a single horrific incident, that we the audience don’t even see. Everything that inspires what we see happens off-screen. I wouldn’t be surprised if Quentin Tarantino took a little inspiration for how to achieve the bank heist from Reservoir Dogs from watching this film. There is not a word of dialog wasted in this almost too-brief potboiler that deals with fear, anger, and the tenuous connection between the two. Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan (better known as, and from here out, referred to as Col. Potter from the M*A*S*H TV show) play a couple of ranchers who, fairly new in the area, come into town for a bit of relaxation and a bit of drink. Conversation in the saloon quickly turns grim when word comes that a local cattleman has been shot to death and his herd stolen. Fear quickly turns to anger, and despite the best efforts of the few level-headed townsfolk, a posse forms and rides on the word of rumor to intercept the criminals. Soon enough, the lynch mob happens upon a group of three sleeping men, who quickly become a target for the aggression and fear of the scared towns folk.
So we have a typical western-ish set up, and a cast of characters that also seem a little typical for your average western, so what makes this one so different? Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews. Henry Fonda’s character, Gil, is neither good nor evil. He doesn’t moralize, blindly standing up to do “the right thing”, nor is he driven by nefarious motives toward the typical tying of a helpless maiden to the railroad tracks. He is a cynical observer who is no more exempt from the actions of the mob than the rest of them. Despite his objections, he believes without question that there will be no redemption, no help for the three accused men. He is a beaten man from the beginning. The real hero, “Good Guy” is played by Dana Andrews, as Donald Martin, one of the suspected cattle rustlers. He tries to reason with the mob for the lives of him and his companions, a senile old man, and a Mexican man (played soulfully by Anthony Quinn) who is instantly demonized by the crowd due to his race. Together Gil and Donald juxtapose the humanity of individuals as well as the monstrosity capable of indifferent men, a struggle that wouldn’t creep into mainstream cinema consciousness till the noir films that came out later, after the war. It is in these two men, that we see victory battle defeat, and true good versus true evil.
As far as the artistry and construction of the film, it is economical, taking place in two main locations (the Saloon, and at the accused men’s camp site). The film doesn’t rely on flash, massive set pieces, or spectacle. Instead, it simply lets the solid, well-told story play out as it should. The fact that it was shot in black and white (although probably more of a decision based on when it came out rather than as a conscious artistic choice) really helps to underpin the fact that the characters see each other as well as themselves in terms of black and white, good and evil. Similarly, the “trial” of the three men takes place out in the wild, literally and figuratively outside the bounds of civilization. Civility is not a quality that the mob has going for it, and the creaky, shadowy setting suits this subtext perfectly.
I chose to watch this movie via my streaming Netflix choices mainly based on it’s length (it’s only 74 minutes), but I was wowed by everything about it. The message of the film can be seen in both the overt imagery, the subtext of the plot, and the finely honed dialog. Each element of this film works together so incredibly efficiently, that 74 minutes was all it needed to do the job right. You owe it to yourself to watch this film, I promise it won’t take long and you’ll be happy you did.
