The Empire Strikes Back (1980) ***

By far The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is my favorite film in the Star Wars collection. In the good old days, when you could drop off your 8-year-old kid and her friend at the movies without worrying whether they’d be there or tied up in the basement of some pervert when you came to pick them up, I went to see a Saturday matinee of this Sci-Fi thriller in May of 1980. Being children with good eyesight and strong , flexible necks, we sat in the very first row of the theatre. It is almost indescribable how I felt when I saw those gigantic white AT-AT Walkers on the planet Hoth. For more than two hours I was mesmerized by this galaxy so far, far away.

Since I do not prescribe to the idiocy of the renumbering of these films after the prequels emerged, this is the second of the Star Wars films. Coming off the destruction of its beloved Death Star, the Galactic Empire is looking to set the galaxy right again and snuff out the Rebel Alliance. The Rebels are hiding on Hoth, which looks a lot like Norway in winter.  As the Empire strikes back the Rebels flee to an unnamed rendezvous point. Not everyone makes it there—namely our principal characters: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and the droids (Anthony Daniels). While his friends are dodging asteroids and the Star Destroyer, Luke takes a trip to Dagobah to learn the Jedi way from Yoda (Frank Oz). Before he can complete his Jedi training Luke has a vision of Han and Leia in trouble and goes to rescue them. It is in Cloud City that Luke and Darth Vader (David Prowse/James Earl Jones) have their famous light saber duel—you know the one where Vader cuts off Luke’s hand and tells him he’s his father? Oh, that Vader, he really did give into the Dark Side, didn’t he?  Anyway, the last few moments of the film are a preparation for the sequel to come: Return of the Jedi (1983). Granted, as an 8-year-old I was a bit miffed that I was going to have to wait to see if Han Solo would be forever left in suspended animation, but as an adult I appreciate the idea of a well-devised cliffhanger.

What I most like about The Empire Strikes Back is Yoda—the all-time greatest Star Wars character ever. Small in stature, with a skin shade of lima bean green, Yoda is not as ruggedly handsome as Han Solo, but he is so charismatic—and wise.  I’ve always been a fan of Confucius, and that’s who Yoda resembles. Think about it, when Yoda says to Luke, “Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try,” you have to think of Confucius. I loved Yoda so much as a kid my parents bought me a rubber-molded Yoda puppet for Christmas, which I kept until an unfortunate hot light incident melted my prized possession.  I’ve read that Hamill was not fond of spending months shooting the swamp scenes with animals and props. Personally, I think he was upset that he was being upstaged by the most interesting Jedi in the world.

And, then there’s Vader—the second most interesting. Yes, I know I’m not supposed to root for the Dark Side, but Vader is a complete badass. He walks with purpose (what powerful strides indeed) and suffers no fools. Who wouldn’t want to be able to crush the windpipes of people who fail us just by slightly raising our hand? Plus, he knows how to wear black and works a cape like a supermodel—and don’t forget his awesome theme song composed by John Williams.

Overall, The Empire Strikes Back is a thrilling Sci-Fi movie.  I’m not a full-on geek, so I can’t describe in detail all of the ships, vehicles, and weapons that make the film a visual treat.  Suffice to say, George Lucas and company did a superior job of using the technology that they had (pre-CGI) to create entirely new worlds and creatures. The true test of how good this movie is the fact that I get the same feeling today that I did 30+ years ago when I sat in the front row and watched it. 

 

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Blow-Up (1966) *

(There may be spoilers, if that’s possible, in this post.)

Somehow this 1966 film from famed Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni earned two Academy Award nominations: Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.  Obviously drug abuse was a huge problem for Academy voters in the mid-60s, because Blow-Up is a really bad art film gone horribly wrong.  I’m sure many a purist’s head is exploding as they read this, but I don’t care. For me, Blow-Up is painful to watch—sort of like another Antonioni movie, Zabriskie Point (1970), but only slightly better.

David Hemmings plays a famous London fashion photographer who spends his days surrounded by beautiful but vapid models and his nights taking vérité-esque pictures of men in flophouses (known as the doss house in England). The slight plot that there is comes about when the photographer happens upon a couple in a deserted park and starts taking photos of them.  When the woman sees (Vanessa Redgrave) him she demands he give her the undeveloped film.  Naturally he refuses—he thinks he wants to use the photos for the end of his upcoming book—and she shows up at his flat/studio and offers to sleep with him for the pictures.  We never learn if this actually happens (like so many other things we never learn in this movie), but we do know that after she leaves he develops the film and discovers that she was attempting to hide the fact that she was part of a murder.  Yes, I  know this sounds like an interesting plot turn, but believe me, it’s not. 

So, why didn’t I like this film? First, Blow-Up seems like a vanity project. Is the photographer a ‘complex’ and  ‘conflicted’ representation of Antonioni himself, who makes inane films about rich and beautiful people but longs to do bigger things? Maybe, but again, I don’t care. Watching Hemmings drive around in a Rolls Royce and roll around on the floor with two dimwitted groupies was not must-see cinema.  Rather, it seemed like a reflection of Antonioni himself and what he thought a successful artist should do to pass the time. 

And then there’s the acting. Oh, poor Vanessa Redgrave, why must you act like a jittery drug addict looking for your next fix in every scene?  Yes, she was complicit in a homicide, but her overactive eyes and fidgeting hands went way over the top.  Obviously Antonioni couldn’t coax a nuanced performance out of her and allowed her to play neurotic to the hilt.  And, then on the opposite extreme of Redgrave there is Hemmings—to be playing what one would assume was a charismatic and powerful man and yet be so boring must have been difficult. 

Finally, we must discuss the completely ridiculous ending (now is where ‘spoilers’ will appear).  Did I watch a film for nearly two hours about an assumed murder to find absolutely no resolution at the end? But wait…there’s more—did the movie truly end with a mime show and me asking WTF? I get ambiguity, but Antonioni’s version of it is beyond overboard. 

Overall, it was bad---really bad.  So many questions were left unanswered—and I’m not even talking about the film itself.  The biggest question I find myself pondering is how the hell did Antonioni and fellow screenwriter Tonino Guerra’s screenplay for this get nominated for an Oscar?  Was there really a script of insanely long periods of silence rewarded with such an honor?  Are we sure it wasn’t an outline?  Oh, the perils of “The Book”.

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Four Lions (2010) **1/2

It is difficult to believe that Four Lions (2010) is director Christopher Morris’ first feature film, because it is steady and focused. Morris is primarily known in England for his work on the mock news program The Day Today (1994), where he wrote and read some of the funniest news ever to cross the airwaves of the BBC. If you’re an American and you haven’t heard of this film don’t feel like you’ve been living under a rock. You see, this is a rather controversial film—a satirical comedy about homegrown British jihadists.  It was difficult enough to get Channel 4 or the BBC to get behind the project (eventually Film 4 Productions and Warp Films came on board), it was even more difficult to find a U.S. distributor—it took nine months, and even then it found a VERY limited release. Why?

The movie is about five young Muslim men who become determined to commit jihad on their homeland—England.  Never were there five men on earth less suited for such an endeavor.  The leader of the group, Omar (Riz Ahmed), is a husband and father who tells his son jihad bedtime stories with Simba from The Lion King starring as the martyr.  He aligns himself with four of the biggest losers ever: Waj (Kayvan Novak), a half-wit who takes his cell phone to a jihad training camp; Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), a man who tries to train crows to carry bombs; Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a white convert who thinks that if you swallow your SIM card your cell phone can’t be tracked; and, Hassan (Arsher Ali), a would-be rapper of jihad.  Basically, they are the Five Stooges of Jihad. 

I’m sure there are many people who think it’s not okay to make a satirical film about jihad—and, that’s their right—but I think that if you can make a TV show like Hogan’s Heroes or a film like or To Be or Not to Be then you can make a film like this.  It’s irreverent, topical, and hilarious.  Omar has the perfect family—a beautiful wife (Preeya Kalidas) and an adoring son—and is gainfully employed.  Yet, he is a also a critic of Western society—the same man who tell his son the Simba jihad bedtime story and allows his wife to work in a hospital.  It doesn’t fit.  Then, you have Hassan, a university student who devises his jihad video to include this rap: “I'm the Mujahedeen and I'm making a scene / Now you's gonna feel what the boom-boom means / It's like Tupac said, "When I die, I'm not dead"/ We are the martyrs, you're just smashed tomatoes / Allah Akbar!” How serious can this man be? But the worst has to be Barry—a man so insanely wrong about everything that he says things like, “You can't win an argument just by being right.”  This is the same man who tells his co-conspirators that if they shake their heads from side-to-side quickly that surveillance cameras won’t be able to capture their images.  This is the man who wants to be the leader?

Shot in an almost documentary style, the film reminds me of This Is Spinal Tap (1984) or Borat (2007), but it’s not a mockumentary but a satirical commentary about one of England’s closest held fears—homegrown jihadists doing things like the 7/7 London bombings.  While this film came out five years after that horrific day, its topic is still a sore spot for many in the nation.  I wonder what some people felt when they watched the final sequences of this movie, where the four surviving men (or the four lions) dress up in costumes (Teenage Mutant Turtle, Honey Monster, an Ostrich that looks like it has a giant penis, and a really idiotic Clown) and attempt to blow-up the London marathon.  Could this really happen?  Surely idiots like these would be detected before it got that far…

There is no doubt that the movie is funny.  It might make some people uncomfortable to watch it, let alone laugh at it, but I think it is worth a look.  In the words of Will Durst, “Comedy is defiance. It's a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it's the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale.”

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Being John Malkovich (1999) ***1/2

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was nominated for an Oscar for the ingenious script he penned for Being John Malkovich (1999). The only reason his imaginative and brilliant screenplay lost is because it was up against Alan Ball’s American Beauty (1999)—which was just a tad more brilliant. While I am not known for my unadorned adoration of “art” films, I do regard Being John Malkovich as one of the best films of the 1990s.  From the inspired and riveting opening scene until the wickedly bizarre ending, I was thoroughly engrossed in this unique film.

If you’ve not seen Being John Malkovich the story might seem too out-there, but Kaufman’s script works because director Spike Jonze adeptly handles the complexity of the plot with a steady hand.   Like Kaufman, Jonze was rightly nominated for an Oscar, too—which creates an Academy Award conundrum for me. How can a film be nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director but not for Best Picture? Ah, but I digress…

Now, without giving away too much for those who’ve never seen this, I will attempt to give a cogent plot overview. Craig Schwartz ( John Cusack) is a depressed and underworked puppeteer who takes a job as a filing clerk at Lester Corp to supplement his wife Lotte’s (Cameron Diaz) pet menagerie (which includes an adorable chimp named Elijah). Lester Corp is on the 7 1/2 floor of the Mertin Flemmer Building in NYC—which has ceilings so low that just about everyone has to duck their head to maneuver.  Craig instantly becomes obsessed with an aloof and unethical woman named Maxine (Catherine Keener, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar). After Craig discovers a secret passageway that is used as a metaphysical portal into the mind of John Malkovich, Maxine suggests they should charge other people $200 for the surreal (but real) experience of being Malkovich for 15 minutes.  Not long after this, one of the most twisted love triangles in the history of film develops as Lotte and Maxine act out their mutual sexual attraction through Maxine engaging in sex with Malkovich.  This enrages Craig, so he takes over Malkovich’s being and controls him as though he were a puppet. That’s all I can say without giving away too much. Yes, it sounds completely unbelievable and outrageous, but it works.

So, why do I admire such an outrageous movie? Simple: it’s a wicked dark comedy based on a uniquely smart concept.  Of course, Jonze had my undivided attention from the moment Being John Malkovich began with a riveting puppet show—that’s right, a one-man puppet show that was so viscerally raw that I sometimes just watch it for pleasure (as I also do with the tango scene from Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge). From there it just gets stranger with the miniature stage of the 7 1/2 floor and then the voyeuristic portal leading to Malkovich’s mind. There are many standout scenes, but two are, at least for me, wildly memorable.

The first scene is when Malkovich enters his own portal and finds himself trapped in a crowded restaurant where everyone is John Malkovich—men, women, and children alike.  As actors are known for their narcissism, this scene is laced with underlying meanings as well as a postmodern interpretation of self. When faced with his inner desire to be able to become anyone and anything as an actor he encounters the uncomfortable realization that such a desire leads to madness. Suffice to say, Nietzsche and Sartre would have had a field day with this movie.

Some might find my admiration for the second scene silly, but I don’t care. Throughout the film Lotte keeps referring to taking Elijah (her chimp) to psychotherapy because of a childhood trauma.  This alone is funny but seems like a meaningless story element until Craig ties Lotte up and locks her in a cage with Elijah.  As Lotte struggles against the ropes Elijah has a flashback to when his parents were tied up and he couldn’t get the ropes untied before the whole family was captured by hunters.  It sounds stupid, but when Elijah frees Lotte it really affects me. 

All of the principal performers do splendid jobs with their respective parts. While Cusack deserves some recognition for how well he plays Craig’s descent into madness, it was not much of stretch from the other disaffected young men he’d played before (and after). In complete contrast is Diaz—who is almost unrecognizable as the dowdy, repressed Lotte.  Still, the standouts are Malkovich and Keener.  It is never easy to play yourself, let alone portray yourself in such a complex way. Not only does Malkovich have to be himself but he also has to transform himself into Craig’s personhood when his conscious mind is taken hostage by Craig.  And, Keener is scathingly delightful as Maxine. Physically, vocally, and internally she displays who Maxine is to the audience.  While her character is obviously morally bankrupt, Keener also makes Maxine likable—which in a lesser actress’ hands would have never happened.

So, why didn’t I give Being John Malkovich  four stars if I liked it so much?  It’s a small thing, but the section of the film when Malkovich becomes a renowned puppeteer is too drawn out. While I find it hilarious that people would pay to see a performance of Swan Lake where the Prince is played by a puppet, it just seemed as though things had just gone too far at this point. Yet, while this less than desirable element slightly tarnished Being John Malkovich for me, I am still a huge admirer. 

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) **

 

I’ve never read a John le Carré spy novel; nor am I fan of the genre at all.  That doesn’t mean that I lack an appreciation for suspense or that I oppose espionage-based thrillers.  But for me, director Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) was far from thrilling and just a tad suspenseful.  As such, I don’t know why this was one of the movies I had to see before my death. 

Based on the le Carré novel of the same name, Tinker, Tailor Soldier Spy is a Cold War-era espionage film. It’s 1973 and the British Intelligence Service has a deep-cover mole at the upper echelons of power.  After a botched mission in Budapest to ascertain the mole’s identity, Control (John Hurt) and George Smiley (Gary Oldman) are pushed out of MI6 and find themselves in early retirement.  Not long after  this Control dies and allegations are made by another MI6 agent (Tom Hardy) that there is indeed a mole. The head of intelligence (Simon McBurney) then recruits Smiley to secretly investigate this claim. What he finds is that Control had narrowed the suspects down to six men: Percy  “Tinker” Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill “Tailor” Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy “Soldier” Bland (Ciaran Hinds), Toby “Poorman” Esterhase, and “Beggarman”, who happens to be Smiley himself. What follows is one of the most unexciting pursuits of truth that has ever dared called itself a spy thriller. When the mole is finally revealed there is no “Aha” moment or a sense that he was even a nefarious sort.  Instead, you shrug your shoulders and wonder how many more minutes are left.

By reading the comments above I’m sure you’ve gotten the impression that I didn’t like this film.  That would be a fair assessment, but incorrect. No, this is one of many movies in “The Book” that was tolerable to watch but far from what I consider must-see cinema. My biggest complaint about the film is how difficult to follow the story is. When Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan adapted the screenplay they should have considered the would-be viewer who hadn’t read le Carré’s book.  Daily Mirror film critic David Edwards gives an apt description of my thoughts on the movie: “The big question is whether such a hefty novel can fit comfortably into a feature-length production. Unfortunately, the plot is every bit as bewildering with an overload of spy-speak, a few too many characters to keep track of and a final act that ends with a whimper, rather than a bang."

I did, however, learn a few things from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: MI6 is known as the Circus; Treasure is the word used for good intelligence; and Lamplighters is what the surveillance department is called.  There were others, but those are the ones that stood out the most. It was also a delight to see a number of old British cars and what passed for fashion back then—though, I must say that Smiley’s suits were quite stylish for tweed (I expect the tailoring helped). 

Overall, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was an exercise in patience for me.  The plot was difficult to follow and I often found myself irked by Alfredson’s overuse of flashbacks.  Still, Oldman, Firth, and Hardy give good performances in their respective roles, and it is always a delight to spend some time pondering how stupid the Cold War really was.

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The Hole (Le Trou) 1959 **1/2

Underappreciated French director Jacques Becker died just a few weeks after filming was completed on Le Trou (The Hole). Becker is primarily known for working as an assistant director to Jean Renoir on such films as Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939), but he was a gifted director in his own right, helming such films as Casque d’or (1952) and Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954). In a way it is fitting that his last film was about a would-be prison escape, as he himself never fully recovered his health after being imprisoned for a year by the Germans during the Occupation.

Le Trou tells the true story of the 1947 attempted escape of La Santé Prison by five prisoners. Becker and author Jose Giovanni based the screenplay on Giovanni’s book of the same name.  The cast was comprised mostly of non-professional actors—one (Jack Keraudy) of whom was one of the actual men who tried to escape in 1947—which adds an element of authenticity to an already realistic depiction of the inner-workings of prison life. Becker’s austere and unflinching style is only enhanced by the lack of music and editing in the film.

When Gaspard’s (Marc Michel) cellblock undergoes renovations he is reassigned to a cell with four other men. This couldn’t come at a worse time for these men, as they are about to embark on an arduous task: digging a hole out of La Santé Prison. Without a doubt the most badass of them all is Roland (Keraudy)—he’s smart and he knows how to break out of prisons—he is the ringleader.  Geo (Michel Constantin), Manu (Philippe Leroy), and Monseigneur (Raymond Meunier)  are his trusted co-conspirators. The men are apprehensive about telling Gaspard about their plan, but they have no choice as their window of opportunity is closing, and so they enlist him in their daring endeavor. From this point on it becomes a waiting game to see if they escape or if Gaspard can be truly trusted.

What makes Le Trou so special is the painstaking effort that Becker and cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet take to capture the various stages of the escape plan.  Because most of the scenes take place in tight quarters (a cramped cell and underground tunnels), there is a claustrophobic feel to the movie.  Becker employs extreme close-ups and tight-framing, and exceedingly long takes with sparse editing.  For example, when the men first break through the cell floor, Becker chose to film it in real time. The resulting shot is four-minute continuous take of the men using a makeshift tool to break open the floor. Later, when Roland has to file through bars, Becker returns to this technique again.  What this creates for the viewer is a sense of authenticity and personal involvement in the planned escape. 

For some, the slow (but realistic) manner in which Becker chose to film Le Trou can be off-putting—and some might even say boring.  For me, I think it creates an air of suspense and realism which most prison escape movies seem to lack.  What stands out most to me, however, is that what I most remember about Le Trou is not the acting, but the time and labor consuming project the prisoners endure. Here, the goal is more important than any one individual.  This is a very French theme; and, one which can be disconcerting to American audiences. Nonetheless, Le Trou is now regarded by many critics to be one of the best French films ever made.  I don’t know if I can venture that far in my appreciation, but I still find it to be a gritty, realistic depiction of what it takes to escape from prison.

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Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) **1/2

(This is my contribution to the James Cagney Blogathon, which is organized by R.D. Finch at The Movie Projector and runs from April 8-12.)

Few actors played the fast-talking, posturing gangster better than James Cagney.  He did it so well that he often found himself typecast in tough-guy roles, while seeing parts he coveted awarded to other actors who ‘fit’ the role better.  At heart he was a song-and-dance man, who began his career in vaudeville and never got it out of his blood.  Yet, it is primarily his work in such famous gangster films as The Public Enemy (1931), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and White Heat (1949), that he is most recognized.  Perhaps it is ironic that the character-type he so wanted to avoid being pigeonholed into is the one that he is most famous for, but at least he can take solace in the fact that he was Hollywood’s Golden Age version of Robert De Niro. Of Cagney’s three Academy Award nominations, two of them were for gangster parts. The first of these nominations came from a career-changing turn in Angels with Dirty Faces.

When Warner Bros first offered Cagney the role of gangster Rocky Sullivan in director Michael Curtiz’s Angels with Dirty Faces his agent was convinced Cagney wouldn’t take it.  The script called for Rocky to ‘turn yellow’ as he was being escorted to the electric chair—a character trait that no other Cagney character had ever exhibited. Fortunately the agent was wrong, and Cagney saw an opportunity to prove to critics and producers that he had a broad acting range.  For many it was shocking to see the quintessential tough-guy crying out in anguish as he was about to pay for his crimes.  While some viewers today find this overly-moralized act a bit difficult to accept, Rocky’s final ‘redemptive’ act fit Curtiz’s social responsibility style and was also a way to sidestep the Hays Code—how else could Cagney’s murderous character retain a touch of heroism in an era when cinematic criminals had to pay for their sins.

If there was a studio who knew how to make an effective gangster melodrama it was Warner Bros. Angels with Dirty Faces was one in many of a long line of films the studio produced where childhood friends found themselves on the opposite side of the law as adults (Manhattan Melodrama and Dead End spring to mind).  Growing up on the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1920s, Jerry Connolly (Pat O’Brien) and Rocky Sullivan (Cagney) were juvenile delinquents one step away from the reformatory. It was that one step that actually led one (Rocky) into a life of crime and the other (Jerry) into the priesthood.  As a result, when the two friends are reunited as adults they find themselves in conflict. In particular, Father Jerry has dedicated his life to keeping other young men  (played by the “Dead End” Kids) from ending up like Rocky. The problem is, Rocky has money, power and prestige—all the things the boys in the neighborhood admire.  What transpires is a morality tale about the ills of vice and the redemptive nature of self-sacrifice.

While there is a smattering of a romance between Rocky and a social worker (Ann Sheridan) in the movie, the story is primarily male-centered. Cagney and O’Brien played well off one another.  The two men were great friends off-screen, and it usually showed in the nine films they made together. Angels with Dirty Faces also marked the first of three films that Cagney and Humphrey Bogart worked opposite one another.  Bogart was not yet a bona fide Hollywood leading man, and he found himself playing second fiddle to Cagney.  Here his Jim Frazier comes off as a spineless desperate man—a ‘type’ that Bogart often found himself playing in the 1930s, but one that he would forever dump once he was cast as the lead in High Sierra ( 1941) and The Maltese Falcon (1941).

The film’s other male standout is often overlooked, but perhaps deserves the most praise: Frankie Burke, who plays Rocky as a kid.  If you’ve seen Angels with Dirty Faces then you know it starts out with a smart-talking swaggering kid who looks, sounds, and acts a lot like James Cagney.  It took me several minutes to finally determine that Burke, not Cagney, was on the screen. Burke had Cagney down-pat—his speech pattern, mannerisms, and body language were spot on.  His resemblance to Cagney was so uncanny that he was hired on the spot by Warner Bros. 

Overall, Angels with Dirty Faces is an engaging film. While Curtiz’s moralizing can appear a tad over the top to some, the story itself does not lack integrity—many a 1930s gangster found himself on the losing end and proved that sometimes crime didn’t pay.  The acting by the leads was good, and Burke’s small role was an impressive one. Max Steiner’s score contrasted with Sol Polito’s stark, expressionistic cinematography. The closing scenes of the movie provides for a memorable conclusion.  And, finally, this was the film that proved to the critics and Hollywood producers that Cagney could indeed act.

 

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