1903: The Great Train Robbery

I guess you ought to have seen it once. In the end, someone shoots at the screen. (5)

1964: The Train

The movie about a team of French resistance members trying to keep the Nazis from deporting a collection of world-renowned paintings to Germany is another one of those incredibly well-crafted 1960s Hollywood pics that provide really good entertainment, but don't even intend to grab you by the lapels. (7)

1953: Ugetsu monogatari

Mizoguchi's film about two men who go out into the world to try their luck does have its moments of (typically Japanese) beauty, but overall it's hard for me to see what all the fuzz is about. (6)

2010: The Social Network

The Film Everybody's Talking about, a courtroom drama of sorts, is an all-around good, funny and well-photographed dramedy, though it's a little too textbook to excite me. (7)

1921: Manhatta

This silent ten-minute documentary, if you want to call it that, portrays a day in the life of Manhattan. Watching completely silent films (without music) is an experience I'm only getting used to, but it helps to look at the film as a series of animated photographs. "Moving pictures", you might say. (7.5)

1987: Kárhozat (Damnation)

Bela Tarr's early film deals with a man in love with a married woman in a small Hungarian town, but what it's really about is light and shadow and movement in space. Not quite Werckmeister, but recommended in the unlikely case you're into this kind of thing. (7)

1961: Léon Morin, prêtre

In a Nazi-occupied French village, a priest, played by Belmondo, converts a woman (Emanuelle Riva) from one false belief system (communism) to the next (christianity). Will he get into more than just her mind? - Melville's commercially most successful film, and of those I've seen the one I found least interesting so far. It's not bad, but it doesn't have a lot to recommend it either, except for a little of that old French film charme that's hard to pin down. (6)

1920: The Neighbors

The best Keaton short I've seen so far, with lots of cool stunts. A bit like The General, only shorter and without trains. (7)

1927: The Lodger

Though it is sometimes hailed as Hitchcock's first masterpiece, I was not that impressed by the story of a family who rents an apartment to a man who may or may not be the serial killer the whole town is looking for. Some interesting visuals at the beginning; apart from that it seems a little old, probably because it is. (6)

1958: Les amants

A woman is torn between her rich but boring husband and her fiery Latin lover. The film moves along decently until, while lying in the bathtub, she decides to solve this conflict by falling in love with a completely uncharismatic student. As he doesn't mind either, we get treated to a scene in which the lovers walk through nature accompanied by the sound of a string quartet, which possibly marks the low point of the use of classical music in the history of movies. At some point, the film ends. (4.5)

1935: Triumph des Willens

Riefenstahl's supposed masterpiece of propaganda filmmaking turn out to be surprisingly pedestrian. Though there are some nice shots, there's nothing that is truly spectacular apart from the sheer mass of people in some scenes. Not in the same league as Eisenstein, but recommended for fans of people marching. (5.5)

The Best of September 2010

1. The American (2010) - 7.5
2. Stardust Memories (1980) - 7.5
3. A Cock and Bull Story (2005) - 7.5
   
4. Masculin feminin (1966) - 7.5
5. Mildred Pierce (1945) - 7
   

Films Not Finished: September 2010

El espiritu de la colmena, Il Gattopardo, Gran Torino, Rich and Strange, Theatre of Blood

2000: Fail-Safe

The black-and-white remake of the 1960s classic (which I've never seen) about an impeding nuclear war between the US and the USSR is sort of outdated, but manages to entertain throughout with a tight screenplay and good visuals. (7)

2006: Un printemps à Paris

A gangster film with the standard ingredients heist, hustlers, homicide. Plus a sick "love story", just because we're French. Not a bad screenplay, and a master would have made this a really good movie, but Jacques Bral isn't one of them, so instead you get what feels like a made-for-TV movie. (6)

2005: Red Eye

Highly conventional thriller about a young woman who's forced to assist a stranger in killing a celebrity, or else. Nothing wrong with it, nothing impressive about it. (6)

1971: Confessione di un commissario di polizia al procuratore della repubblica

Though somewhat trashy in an Italian-film-from-the-1970s kind of way, the movie about a policeman and a DA with different approaches to fighting crime entertains throughout. (7)

1965: The War Game

Fiction-documentary about what it might look like if Britain suffers a nuclear attack. Given that the outcome is rather dreadful anyway, I felt that the film might have been more effective if it had tried less hard. (6)

1954: Ordet

Much like Vreden's dag, another sparse Dreyer film set in the Danish countryside. Generally a nice unspectacular offering, but the young man who thinks he's Jesus's appearances border on the unintentionally comic (at least in the dubbed-into-German version I saw) and the ending is, um, unconventional. (6.5)

1909: A Corner in Wheat

Evil capitalist gains control of the wheat market, as a consequence of which poor people can't buy bread anymore in Griffith's early short which, despite running for a little over 14 minutes, is too long. A must-see if you're writing a history of anti-market films. (4)

1963: L'aîné des Ferchaux (Magnet of Doom or An Honorable Young Man)

Melville's road movie about an industrialist fleeing France for the USA and a failed boxer accompanying him as his "secretary" is typically slow and melancholic and untypically unstylized. Certainly not for everybody, but for me. (7)

1945: Mildred Pierce

The story itself - about how a man came to be murdered - isn't all that interesting, but it is told at quite a pace, and the frames show this was directed by Michael Curtiz, the man responsible for Casablanca. Why this is often classified as a noir escapes me, though. (7)

1962: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

The film about a deviant youth's time in a reformatory and how he got there is generally done well, and I especially like the use of music in the running scenes. Could have done without the grandstanding in the final scene. (6.5)

2005: A Cock and Bull Story

Winterbottom's postmodern mashup of a film version of Tristram Shandy and the behind-the-scenes story of the actors involved in this film is excellently structured and a lot of fun. (7.5)

1951: Ace in the Hole

The story of a reporter putting a man's life in danger in order to have a better story and hence enhance his carreer is sort of pointless: You learn he's an egocentric arsehole in the first five minutes, and then the film spells it out. Still, the script is tightly written in an old Hollywood kind of way, so it's a decent 100 minutes. (6)

2004: Enduring Love

You can't expect any movie to be as gripping as Ian McEwan's masterful novel Enduring Love, about a well-off man who gets stalked by a not-so-well-off one. The screenplay does, in fact, do a decent job - with the notable exception of its attempts to bring the evolutionary psychology of love onto the screen, a feature of the film which pulls off the trick of being trivial and wrong at the same time. But the quality of the movie that really sucks is its piss-poor "modern" visual style. The whole thing looks like a fucking Ikea catalogue! (5)

1991: Homicide

Starts out as a cool cop flick, then devolves into a drama about Jewish identity. Shame. (6.5)

1983: Zelig

Woody Allen's mockumentary on the "chameleon man" whose looks change in response to his surroundings pretty much takes the format of a standard History Channel documentary and is about as entertaining - but a little more so for the occasional typical Allen joke ("I worked with Freud in Vienna. We broke over the concept of penis envy. Freud felt that it should be limited to women."). (6.5)

1964: The Killers

A couple of killers wonder why a victim they killed just stood there and took the hit, and soon they're tracing the million from a robbery he was involved in. When they line up accomplice after accomplice, the victim's story is told in a series of flashbacks. - No-nonsense, hardboiled and well-photographed movie of the kind that one imagines Tarantino enjoys. (7)

1989: Thrash Altenessen: Ein Film aus dem Ruhrgebiet

Watching the late-80s documentary about Essen's then-not-yet-famous metal band Kreator and their social and architectural surroundings was an all-around weird experience. That is all.

1966: Masculin feminin

Another loosely structured black and white film about young French people from Godard. In this one, both the naive main character and the filmmaker himself (via all-caps intertitles) get on one's nerves with simplistic messages from the far left, but it doesn't really matter: Like previous pics, Masculin feminin has that hard-to-pin-down nervous energy that they don't teach at film school. (7.5)

1959: Plan 9 from Outer Space

Yes, this film features some terrible acting and a number of technical blunders that may, indeed, make the movie a valuable teaching example for film school, but on a more general level it is no more trashy than the widely-acclaimed 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still, and certainly more entertaining.

2009: Me and Orson Welles

The theatre's an attractive backdrop for movies anyway, and the setup here is nice, too: Young wannabe actor lucks into a job with pre-Citizen Kane, but already famous, Orson Welles, who is directing Julius Caesar and falls for a fellow employee, whom everyone else, including the boss, also finds attractive. It could be a great film, but was apparently streamlined according to screenwriting 101, which is rarely a good thing. I'm looking at you in particular, canned stupid foreseeable ending. (6.5)

2010: The American

The title character is a killer, played by Clooney, hiding out in a village and getting to know a number of people. But there are films in which the plot is not important, and this is one of them. Anton Corbijn, who previously directed the masterpiece Control, again is in no hurry, and lets the film breathe slowly like an old animal. Naturally, many people find this boring. Which is fine, as long as they don't express their boredom in pseudo-conoisseurish phrases like "that's badly narrated cinema". (7.5)

1966: Alfie

You can read this film about a womanizer with a small conscience as either a statement about the advantages of conventional monogamy or a celebration of alpha maleness with a tacked-on ending to set the church's mind at ease. Either way, a bad basic idea. (5)

1966: What's up, Tiger Lily?

I though it was a joke when it said on the back of the DVD case that they took a Japanese action movie and added a new soundtrack. Not so! Quite silly. I wouldn't want to see a hundred movies like that, but one was quite entertaining. (7)

1980: Stardust Memories

This almost plotless picture is Woody Allen's Otto e mezzo, a film about a famous director (Allen) who gets pestered by half of the people about how brilliant they are and the other half about how his old films were funnier. But it's better than Fellini's movie, or at least the 25 minutes I managed to sit through, merging Allen's usual humour with some shots of real beauty. And aliens. (7.5)

2009: Antichrist

Lars von Trier is a director that has nothing on his mind but to deliver extreme emotional experiences to his audiences. That's fine with me, though in this shocker - about a couple retreating to the woods after their son's death - at times he's trying a little too hard. Even so, the somewhat Lynchesque film, which features the usual imagery like imposing trees, insects, talking foxes and a woman cutting her clit off - is a coherent and attractive audiovisual system. (7)

1961: Experiment in Terror

The thriller about a bank clerk blackmailed into stealing 100,000 dollars is shot in pristine black and white and all-around well made. Not much else to say about it. A weak 7.

1971: Straw Dogs

Goodness gracious! If you are looking for a film to make you really, really aggressive, I recommend this one featuring Dustin Hoffman as a nerdy American mathematician whom the locals in his new, English home village dislike. Of course, things get out of hand. Everybody involved certainly did a very effective job on this one - the screenplay in particular is well-constructed - but an enjoyable experience this is not. (unrated)

The Best of August 2010

1. Synecdoche, New York (2008) - 8.5
2. Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (1963) - 8.0
   
3. Le petit soldat (1963) - 7.5
   
4. Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960) - 7.5
   
5. Vanilla Sky (2001) - 7

Films Not Finished: August 2010

Gertrud, Repulsion, Storm, Toni Takitani

2010: Salt

Pointless film in which a proper plot is eschewed in favour of almost constant, but not particularly spectacular, action. Even genius cinematographer Robert Elswit apparently could not be bothered. (5.5)

1974: The Odessa File

Yes, the screenplay makes suspension of disbelief hard at times, but it's a 1970s Hollywood thriller involving an upstanding journalist, old Nazis and Israel. Is it going to be entertaining? Of course it is! (7)

1963: Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (Muriel, or The Time of Return)

Four people meet in a room in Boulogne-sur-mer and their interconnected lives proceed from there. There's love and hate and the war in Africa and a lot of stuff I'm sure I didn't get on the first viewing. But, if that's a basis for that kind of opinion, it's not about the plot anyway, it's mostly about style. Muriel has a modernist soundtrack (think Stockhausen), shows lots of modernist architecture, both interior and exterior, and employs at least two ways of quick editing: First, a kind of proto-hip hop cutting, in which quick successions of cuts skip only a few minutes each; second, quick cuts away from the main plot to show small scenes that are not allowed to take any longer than they absolutely must (e.g., four seconds). That's a main technique for presenting a film not only about specific people, but also one about the city on the whole, as a kind of side order. Or is it the main order?

For the time being, I'm giving it eight points, but I think it's a grower.

1963: Le petit soldat

Godard's second feature, starring Anna Karina and some bloke who's not Jean-Paul Belmondo, was banned by the French government for three years, for telling the story of a man who gets caught between the fronts of the opposing fractions fighting the Algerian war in Europe. More importantly, like the earliest talkies, it was apparently shot silently, with only the most important sounds overdubbed later. To me, that's a technical weakness rather than a bold artistic move, but I got used to it at the time. With its grainy black and white and its nervous energy, it feels like a lesser version of À bout de souffle, which is not to say it is a bad film at all. (7.5)

2008: Flammen & Citronen (Flame and Citron: The Nazi Assassins)

The film about resistance fighters in Nazi occupied Denmark is generally good, but little not-so-good elements here and there make it merely o.k. (6)

1960: Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers)

Visconti tells the story of four southern Italian brothers who come to Milan in search of a better life, focusing on the tender Rocco and the up-to-no-good Simone. - It's got a last half hour to die for, but the other two have some (mild) lengths. Overall, a very good movie, though. (7.5)

1962: Salvatore Giuliano

The nonlinearly told film starts with the death of the title character, a 1940s Sicilian outlaw, and tells the stories of people connected to him, as well as the history of Sicily during that era. It's a little hard to follow at times, but nicely contrasts the city with the countryside, Sicily with Rome, and darkness with light. (7)

1962: Birdman of Alcatraz

You shouldn't think a film about a prisoner in solitary confinement who becomes a bird expert is all that interesting, but it's pulled off in a very professional manner: a well-structured screenplay (Guy Trosper) and no-nonsense direction (John Frankenheimer). Old Hollywood: It did have something going for itself. (7)

2001: Vanilla Sky

David Aames has it all: Good looks, great job, shitloads of money, and he gets to dump Cameron Diaz for Penelope Cruz. Naturally, fortune must soon deal him a bad hand, and deal him a bad hand it does. - Everybody seems to like the Spanish origninal (Abre los ojos) better. I haven't seen that one; at any rate, Vanilla Sky creates a cohesive aesthetic system which is pleasant in a Dido kind of way. Suits me fine. (7)

1998: Rushmore

Wes Anderson's movie about an outsider at an expensive high school is noteworthy for the contrast between the quirkiness it's trying very hard to project and the fact that the screenplay is a collection of the most-used devices from the screenwriting textbook. A self-indulgent film about a self-indulgent teenager, but it does have its strenghts, such as Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, early The Who songs, and a play about the Vietnam war. (6)

1970: Das Millionenspiel

Despite identifiable weaknesses such as a poor leading actor and some implausibilities, the German TV classic, about a game show in which a candidate can win a million if a bunch of killers does not manage to get him within seven days, manages to entertain thoroughly. (7)

1963: Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light)

I hear Jerry Bruckheimer's planning a remake of this one: A Swedish village pastor has doubts about the existence of god in Bergman's unremarkable, but decent significant-slice-of-life picture. (6)

1962: Cleo de 5 à 7

Cleo spends the two hours between visiting the hospital to have a test done which will tell her whether she suffers from cancer and receiving the test results driving in a taxi, being visited by her lover, talking to her maid, etc. Very good music (though sparse) and cinematography; overall decidedly decent. (6.5)

1962: El ángel exterminador

The bourgeois guests at a dinner party find themselves unable to leave afterwards. Their subsequent behaviour suggests poor stress resistance. Featuring lots of dialogue, perhaps too much, and the little surrealistic touches one may expect from Bunuel (in addition to the general surrealistic setup). Why not? (6)

1943: Vredens Dag (Day of Wrath)

In a 17th century Danish village, witch-burning is alive and well, and people are not shy to let non-witch-related influences guide their decisions about whom to denounce. Combine with the intra-family conflict in a Danish pastor's household, and you have a nice setup for this drama directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer using austere frames and deliberate (but not slow) pacing. (7)

2008: Synecdoche, New York

Brilliant movie, reviewed here. (8.5)

2010: Inception

Reviewed here (6.5).

2004: Collateral

A run-of-the-mill script about a cabbie who gets kidnapped by a contract killer to drive him around L.A. so he can go about his job. Directed by Michael Mann, but it's not in the same league as Heat. It's not even in the same league as Manhunter. (5.5)

1965: Per qualche dollaro in più (For a Few Dollars More)

Once you got over the concept of manliness that is promoted in the second installment of Leone's trilogy about the overly talkative bounty hunter and are ready to enjoy it for what it is (an exercise you're already familiar with, having seen the first one), you'll realize it's not very entertaining. (5.5)

The Best of July 2010

1. The Guns of Navarone (1961) - 8
   
2. L'armée des ombres (1969) - 8
3. Love and Death (1975) - 7.5
   
4. Le clan des Siciliens (1969) - 7.5
5. Oktyabr (1928) - 7.5

Films Not Finished: July 2010

The Honeymoon Killers, Ikiru, The Mist, 16 Blocks

1961: Blast of Silence

A killer comes to Christmastime New York to do a job. Grainy black and white, a hectic jazz soundtrack, lots of second-person voiceover, rooftops, nightclubs - this one delivers just what you expect from a noir. (7)

1962: Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (The Trial of Joan of Arc)

After Dreyer's masterful take on the process against Jeanne d'Arc, it seems like an incredibly shite idea to shoot a film on the same topic, based on the same protocols, but apparently that didn't occur to Robert Bresson. His version is matter-of-factly, austere to the point of artlessness, and a great film to show in history class. (6.5)

2006: Lady in the Water

The film about a mysterious elf from the wet realms who needs help from an unlikely assortment of landlings, in which M. Night Shyamalan does his usual spiel, suffers a little from slowness, but more from the fact that the screenplay fails to make us care about said lady. Exposition, baby! (5.5)

1961: The Guns of Navarone

Ah, splendid! The WW2 film about a rugged band of colourful characters on an all-important mission to destroy two of the Nazis' most powerful weapons on the greek island of Navarone is just what Hollywood blockbuster cinema is supposed to be: An epic featuring interesting locations, suspense, lots of silent-loud contrasts between the scenes and a cast of actors that are stars for a reason. (8)

1961: Judgment at Nuremberg

I am no expert on the Nuremberg trials, but it appears that the film gives as good a treatment of the moral and legal questions surrounding such a case, as well as the various shades of guilt between black and white, as you can expect from a fictional work of entertainment. As a work of entertainment, it succeeds, as it is well structured, populated by interesting characters played well, and, at three hours, not a minute too long. (7.5)

1967: Koroshi na rakuin (Branded to Kill)

One hears this film got director Seijun Suzuki's carreer into trouble, and it's not hard to see why. The studio were probably hoping for just another film about a yakuza killer; what they got was something in a style somewhere between experiment and insanity. The film has lots of nice little ideas, but in my view, sometimes Suzuki is directing too much (instead of going for the simple solution), there is too little narrative glue to hold the whole thing together and it feels chopped up. Recommended for fans of David Lynch. (6.5)

1960: Inherit the Wind

It is hard to stay neutral when telling the story of an actual historical case in which a science teacher in the USA's bible belt was sued for teaching evolution, and this film clearly, and perhaps a bit to forcefully, makes clear that it's not on the side of the religious zealots. Otherwise, this is a well-structured and all-around professionally done piece of political entertainment. (6.5)

1969: Model Shop

The loose sequel to Lola has the kind of screenplay that won't get you any love in screenwriting class: A day in the life of George, who has to deal with his girlfriend nagging about his lack of ambition, the worry of being drafted into Vietnam and the company who want to repossess his car, so George drives around town trying to raise a hundred dollars and meets Lola, who now works in a "model shop", where people can take their own pin-up photos. This one is going to make some people fall asleep, but I liked the excellent cinematography, the film's time-capsule quality and its general feel. One of the rare sequels (if it is a sequel) that I liked better than the original. (7)

1929: Blackmail (Sound Version)

Hitchcock's first talkie, about a homicide detective who investigates a murder he knows his girlfriend has commited and the man that blackmails them, is awkwardly structured and glacially paced, yet I found it reasonably entertaining. (6)

1962: Knife in the Water

A married couple invite a hitchhiker to join them for a weekend sailing trip. He has a personality problem and a knife. - Good screenplay, good direction, good all around. (7)

1961: Lola

Various people live in a French seaside town. Good cinematography, but too much talking. (6)

1961: Victim

The conventional and quick-moving crime drama, dealing with London homosexuals being blackmailed (homosexual behaviour still being illegal in Britain at the time), predictably suffers from anti-anti-gay soapboxing, but is otherwise a solidly done film. (6.5)

2002: Femme Fatale

A heist and its aftermath have repurcussions when their protagonists meet again in Paris 7 years later and everybody's looking for revenge. This no-punches-pulled, wham-bam-bam, in-yo-face film is another quality piece of work from the underrated Brian de Palma, mainstream auteur. (7.5)

1961: The Day the Earth Caught Fire

A London reporter with personal problems is our main man and witness as the simultaneous tests of nuclear bombs by the Americans (at the South Pole) and the Russians (at the North Pole) causes the earth to shift on its axis, which brings about extreme weather changes that are depicted in a refreshingly un-Emmerichian style. Solid work. (6.5)

1960: Village of the Damned

In an English village, a number of children are born who have apparently been begat by aliens and who are blond, precocious and eerily powerful in this crisp, entertaining and totally nonscary old horror/sf film. (7)

1961: Viridiana

This critics' favourite, directed by Buñuel, about the young, kind and beautiful Viridiana's fateful last visit to her uncle and its aftermath, leaves me cold - there's nothing wrong with it, but there's not much right with it either. (5.5)

1966: Tôkyô nagaremono (Tokyo Drifter)

Tetsu has decided to leave his yakuza gang and sworn off violence, but naturally, the past won't leave him be, so you can expect lots of shooting in this fun violence movie. Apparently, this was director Seijun Suzuki's first film in colour, and as such is remindful of pop songs from the 1960s, when stereo had just become available: Let's put one half of the instruments on the left and the other on the right, because we can! Likewise, once given access to colour, Suzuki gave the audience frames like this. Which, I think, is great. Although pistols, not swords, are used, this looks like the film that Tarantino tried to make when he did Kill Bill. The original is to be preferred. (7)

1969: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Bob & Carol go on a weekend seminar about self-actualization, or whatever you want to call it, and swallow the stuff hook, line and sinker, returning to tell their friends Ted & Alice, another wealthy couple that they want to know about their honest feelings. Within five minutes, Carol also goes on record saying that nobody should ever do anything to make other people feel degraded, so you can see a tension there; and if I had written the screenplay, within fifteen minutes there would have been violence, nuclear weapons and all. The actual film, perhaps to its credit, stays more ambivalent, though. Not a great movie, but certainly interesting, and very 1969. (6.5)

2007: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Although it's been a while since Pulp Fiction hit the screens (let alone the first printing of Tristram Shandy), nonlinear storytelling is still considered all the rage in contemporary Hollywood. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but when it is employed mainly as a gimmick, as in this thriller-drama about a robbery that goes all pear-shaped, the nonlinear fashion is a little annoying. Also, one wonders why an accomplished director like Sidney Lumet - with Dog Day Afternoon, perhaps the classic in the robbery-gone-pear-shaped genre, to his name - tries so hard to make this film look modern, making it look run-of-the-mill in the process, is a bit baffling. None of which is to say that this movie is as badly done as the previous sentence. (6)

1968: Night of the Living Dead

George A. Romero's template for pretty much all zombie films to follow it is visibly cheap, but not all that trashy and reasonably diverting, but no more. (6)

1942: Listen to Britain

Mashup of sounds and moving pictures recorded in wartime Britain. Meant as uplifting in a patriotic way and considered a classic, but strikes me as pointless. (3.5)

1943: Meshes of the Afternoon

Mirrors, knives, waves - this experimental short has the whole psychoanalytic mumbo-jumbo. It's easy to see how someone could call this "meaningless experimental crap", but I quite like its Latin feel - the grainy b/w recording of the sunlight -, the music (not that I'd buy it on CD) and the crude surrealism. (7)

1969: Le clan des Siciliens (The Sicilian Clan)

Jean Gabin! Lino Ventura! Numerous mentions of Quai des Orfevres! Modern interior architecture! Occasional female nudity! Questionable police investigation methods! Plot holes! Narrow ties! In short, it has everything a French crime film is supposed to have. (7.5)

1975: Love and Death

Woody Allen's very silly film about a Russian torn between war and females' loins, which plays endlessly on his betaness and is really very silly indeed, is by far the funniest of his films I've seen. That is all. (7.5)

1928: Spione (Spies) (Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung Restoration)

Lang's film about the state fighting a criminal mastermind that's not called Mabuse is a tad unfocused and long, yet overall a decent bit of entertainment. First appearance of a stache-twirling villain that I'm aware of. (6)

1939: Ninotchka

Beautiful but stern Russian special envoy "Ninotchka" Yakushova (Greta Garbo), while in Paris on an official mission, falls into the hands of a playboy, who, um, makes her a woman. If you can deal with this plot, it's a charming old black-and-white comedy for rainy afternoons. Garbo, by the way, laughs! (7)

1928: Oktyabr (Ten Days That Shook the World)

The Eisenstein film about the Russian Revolution, which I saw in a GDR version with German intertitles, Shostakovich's music and added sound effects, is interesting in that a certain interpretation of history affects the way the story is told at a very basic level: Unusually, here are practically no individual characters of relevance, which makes sense if you believe that there is no such thing as individuals, only classes with interests that fight each other. The film suffers from this, but makes up for it by being visually excellent. (7.5)

1999: The Limey

This variant of the man seeks revenge story suffers from a bad case of The "Blimey Mate" Problem, complete with Cockney Rhyming Slang; indeed it's a pretty unsophisticated script all around. Director Steven Soderbergh perhaps should have gotten an Oscar for making it into a visually interesting, reasonably entertaining film. (6.5)

1964: Seance on a Wet Afternoon

The film about professional psychic talking her beta husband into kidnapping so they don't have to be middle class anymore and then offering her services as a medium to the kidnappee's parents suffers a little from a heavy-handed exposition but is otherwise good all around. (7)

1968: The Producers

In order to defraud investors, a Broadway producer and his accountant devise a scheme to produce a flop. They think they've found the right script when they come across Springtime for Hitler, but of course it turns out to be a huge success. - Much too slapsticky for my taste, but even so, the tightly scripted movie provides reasonably good entertainment. (6.5)

1969: L'armée des ombres (Army of Shadows)

When Inglourious Basterds came out, some people complained that it was not what they had expected from a film advertised as depicting the work of freedom fighters behind enemy lines: No training scenes, no raids on barracks, wtf? It is possible that Tarantino's deviations from the genre standards were inspired by L'armée des ombres, Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 flop about the French resistance. Thinking back to the plot, it seems a strange movie indeed: Never do we see the freedom fighters take any effective action against the Germans, and one comes away from the film with the feeling that had the resistance never existed, this would not have made much of a difference. Instead, what is chronicled are the internal workings of the group; much time is given to the killing of resistance members who gave away the names of comrades. 145 minutes long, it is deliberately paced (many people will find this movie boring), and its subdued mood is underlined by Pierre L'Homme's excellent, excellent cinematography, which might best be described as a technicolor version of the work Robert Elswit did for Michael Clayton, and which nicely contrasts with Eric de Marsan's very good, somewhat saccharine music. A minor masterpiece which teaches the lesson that even if you're fighting on the side of the good guys, you may end up doing ugly things. (8)

The Best of June 2010

1. Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962) - 7.5
   
2. Kumonosu-jô (1957) - 7
3. Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965) - 7
   

Films Not Finished June 2010

If...., Themroc

1965: Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution

Godard's take on the Lemmy Caution character is a science fiction film in which the agent comes to Alphaville, the place where logic rules. Lemmy meets a woman, and you can guess the rest. Though a lot is made of the fact that Godard didn't build any sets but rather filmed the most modern-looking parts of Paris he could find, but given that the film is set in the mid-1970s (if I interpret the dialogue correctly), this seems fair enough. The film's not a masterpiece by any stretch, but charmingly quaint. Recommended for fans of b/w shadow-/lightplay. (7)

1954: Thursday's Children

Not only is Lindsay Anderson's documentary about a school for deaf children boring, it also has voice-over narration that alternates between the usual third-person view and taking the (inauthentic) voice of the children ("We are deaf."). Bonus: Contains the remarkable assertion that if you don't have words, you cannot think. (4)

1935: Mutiny on the Bounty

Solid but unexceptional narration of the well-known story. I've previously seen the 1962 version with Marlon Brando, and filming the South Seas in black and white somehow seems wrong. (6)

1960: Charlotte et son Jules

Upon the return of his ex-girlfriend into his flat, a young man starts a ten-minute monologue until the film comes to a predictable "surprise" ending. Pointless twelve-minute early Godard. (4)

1962: Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (My Life to Live)

Nana, who can't make it in film despite having featured in an Eddie Constantine picture (injoke!), is short of money, and we witness her quick descent into prostitution and worse, driven by Michel Legrand's memorable theme music. Godard's unusual use of the camera both in terms of movement and framing, remindful of La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (which we see Nana watching), is the main feature that sets this film apart, although for my taste in one scene it is woefully overdone. (7.5)

1959: Charlotte et Véronique, ou Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick (All the Boys Are Called Patrick)

Godard shot this short a in the year before he did À bout de souffle, but, working from a script by Eric Rohmer, he naturally couldn't produce anything resembling a masterpiece. The story features a couple of female flatmates who go out one day to be chatted up seperately by the same guy, tell about it each other in the evenings, and guess what happens at the end. Exactly the same story, with genders reversed, was made into the excrutiating rap song "Die da" by Die Fantastischen Vier about forty years later, the lyrics having the decisive advantage that it's unclear until the end that the two friends are talking about the same person. Well. (5)

2009: Surrogates

The Bruce Willis flick about a future in which people mind-control human-looking robots that they send out into the streets so they (the humans) can safely stay at home is professionally done all around, but no Blade Runner (6.5).

1954: Viaggio in Italia

Strange: Throughout the film I kept thinking that the mediterranean light had been captured better in the films of Antonioni's ennui trilogy. Apart from that, competent film about a couple bitching at each other during a trip to Italy. Has Ingrid Bergman in it. (6.5)

1919: Broken Blossoms or, The Yellow Man and the Girl

Girl suffers under the thumb of her adoptive father who suffers from bad English ("I'll teach yer!") and anger management issues ("I'll teach yer!"). Girl falls in love with gentle Chinaman (played by a pretty Caucasian-looking Richard Barthelmess). Violence. - There's not a lot to say about D.W. Griffith's acclaimed silent melodrama except that it's not very good. (5.5)

1948: Germania anno zero (Germany, Year Zero)

Rosselini's neorealist classic about a boy in bombed-to-pieces postwar Berlin features lay performances from lay actors and more technical ineptness than you should expect from a 1948 picture. Historically important it may be, particularly good it's not. (5.5) Better films in the same mould are Ladri di biciclette and Rosselini's own Roma, città aperta.

1957: Kumonosu-jô (Throne of Blood)

Kurosawa's idea behind his version of Macbeth, the overriding aesthetic principle of which is scarceness, seems to be to make Ozu look like Busby Berkeley. (7) Just the right thing to watch after Sex and the City 2, and I've also got four Rosselinis lined up.

The Best of May 2010

1. The Kid (1921) - 8
2. Chelovek s kino-apparatom (1929) - 7.5
   
3. Le Trou (1960) - 7.5
4. La battaglia di Algeri (1966) - 7.5
   
5. Le Doulos (1962) - 7
   

Films Not Finished May 2010

Carlito's Way, Coeurs, Girlfriend Experience

2010: Sex and the City 2

I understand every bit of criticism in Roger Ebert's one-star review, but I can't say I hated the film. Yes, we made fun of it and it's certainly no Some Like It Hot, but at times I laughed with the movie and, never having seen an episode of Sex and the City, found it an interesting sociocultural experience overall. (unrated)

2009: Angels & Demons

With its high production values and general wham-bam-bam-ness, the film version of Dan Brown's thriller, about the hunt for kidnapped bishops in Rome, could be more fun if the viewer had to expand less energy on suspending disbelief. (6.5)

2009: Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

Like the Stig Larsson runaway bestseller it is based on, the film takes its time, clocking in at about 150 minutes, though this is by no means to its detriment. Good work all around. (7)

1998: Enemy of the State

The plot is a man on the run, the target audience is the not-too-bright, and it has a political message, too: this film has a lot going against it. (5)

2007: I'm Not There

Six actors playing six facets of Bob Dylan, with episodes from a variety of decades intercut with each other; in other words: this film makes a point of being nonlinear. In my view, it's taking that concept a bit far; despite knowing a bit about Dylan's life, I found it too fractured, but fully understand others disagreeing on that. Visually fine, good music (naturally), an abysmally bad performance by Ben Wishaw as one version of Dylan. (6.5)

2007: In the Valley of Elah

Despite asking us to sympathize with an ex-soldier who managed to raise his two sons into joining the army, the first three quarters of this film, about a father trying to find out who killed his son, work decently as a mystery, until the film starts to clumsily hurl its anti-war meassage at the audience. Possibly the most hideous last scene in movie history. (5)

1930: Sous les toits de Paris (Under the Roofs of Paris)

Clair's partially sound/partially silent romance wields lots of Old Paris charm (despite being obviously filmed in the studio), but it has extremely little plot for a ninety minute film and is accordingly slow. Not nearly as good as Le Million. (6)

1929: Chelovek s kino-apparatom (The Man with a Movie Camera)

Dziga Vertov's silent experimental/documentary film about life in The Modern Russian City attempts to cover all central aspects of life - work and play, birth and death - and time and again puts the filmmakers themselves into the frame, perhaps in an attempt to alert the audience to the subjective nature of the seemingly objective medium, perhaps out of vanity. Despite an undeniable stylishness of the whole movie and quite a feeling for rhythm in particular, the film could still be somewhat boring with the wrong music, I guess, but Michael Nyman's 2002 soundtrack is not only cool music in and by itself, but fits perfectly with the pictures. (7.5)

1956: Bob le flambeur (Fever Heat)

Although lengthy at times, Melville's first crime movie - about an ex-gangster who becomes an ex-ex-gangster after having gambled away his money and plans on robbing the Deauville casino - is recommended overall, not least because of Isabelle Corey, playing the cheekiest Lolita in movie history. Cool shots of 1950s Pigalle, too. (7)

1967: Le samouraï (a.k.a. The Godson)

Melville's 1967 film about a killer who is chased by both the police and his clients, but, strangely, never seems to even think of leaving Paris, is wildly famous for its style. The cinematography is very nice indeed, but then, it's nothing spectacular, and the plot is a bit meagre. Overrated. (6.5)

1944: The Pearl of Death

Holmes (Rathbone) and Watson are looking for a precious pearl in this one. Other people want it too. There's a conflict for you! (6.5)

1924: Paris qui dort (At 3:25)

René Clair's half-hour silent about a group of people who are the only ones awake and moving in a Paris that has otherwise come to a standstill is a mixture of the charming and the lengthy. (6)

1922: Häxan

Benjamin Christensen's educational silent film which uses feature-type scenes to argue against the existence of witchs, witchcraft and the devil, isn't nearly as fucked up as I had hoped, though the writer-director in the role of the devil looks really very good. For stoners. (6)

1966: La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers)

Not only is it fully warranted that this film's look is renowned for its proximity to the documentary style, but the first half or so merely recounts a series of terrorist attacks, complete with dates given and a narrator leading us through the events. After Colonel Mathieu arrives to lead the counterinsurgency, things get a little more conventional. Crisp and elegant, it's a very good film to look at throughout. (7.5)

1962: Le doulos (Doulos: The Finger Man)

Very stylish b/w pick by Jean-Pierre Melleville about two gangsters, featuring Jean-Paul Belmondo and a great unassuming long take. Bit confusing at times, but plot is overrated anyway. (7)

1944: The Scarlet Claw

Does the recent series of murders call for a supernatural explanation? The village's people say yes, Sherlock Holmes says no. Who will turn out to be right? (6.5)

1982: The King of Comedy

Set in contemporary New York, this Martin Scorsese-directed movie, stars Robert de Niro as a chronic loser who is driven to violence by his inability to adjust to the social world around him, but is ultimately not punished for it. - Yeah, it sounds like Taxi Driver, but the synopsis applies equally to The King of Comedy, which must be described as its companion piece, though in terms of aesthetics the latter film is not in the same league as the former. What's worse, while Taxi Driver makes the audience oscillate between a lack of comprehension of and pity with Travis Bickle, The King of Comedy invites scorn for the insufferable wannabe comedian Rupert Pupkin, thus forcing the audience to display one of their lesser characteristics: the tendency to look down on losers. (unrated)

1965: A Study in Terror

This account of Sherlock Holmes (John Neville) hunting Jack the Ripper (not invented by Doyle) either features a very strange approach to cinematography or the material has been subject to serious bleaching over the year. I got used to it after twenty minutes or so, however. Apart from that, a nice afternoon diversion. (6.5)

1960: Le trou (The Hole or The Night Watch)

Despite being in no hurry - among other things, there is a four-minute shot of people hammering away at a cell's floor - Jaques Becker's b/w film about a prison break feels quick, well-timed and disciplined, making it possibly the best in its genre. (7.5)

1984: 1984

Michael Radford's rendering of Orwell's story has every frame shot in grey and blue and the production design seems to have been done on the assumption that dictators deliberately make their countries look depressing. It's a bit like having someone shout DYSTOPIA! at you for 100 minutes. (5)

1921: The Kid

Crisp, funny, touching and featuring a great score (composed in 1971) as well as that certain something it's hard to put one's finger on, The Kid, about The Tramp's adventures with his cute adoptive son, may well be the quintessential Chaplin film. (8)

2002: City by the Sea

Drug addict gets into trouble with the law, re: homicide. His father is a homicide detective. Conflict. - Set in a derelict Long Beach (more derelict than real Long Beach, according to Wikipedia), the film hardly uses the setting and generally suffers from its made-for-TV aesthetics. Someone like Cassavetes or Aronofsky might have made much more of this, one feels, have made much more of this. Still, not a bad film at all. (6.5)

1942: This Gun for Hire

Noirish crime drama about a nightclub singer/magician (Veronica Lake!), a hitman and, in the baddie roles, a bunch of ruthless capitalists. Very crisp. (7)

2007: The Golden Compass

Though it could have done with a bit of work on the screenplay to make the whole thing a little more stringent, compact, focused, and also to put a little more weight on expository elements, this fantasy film about a teenage girl fighting the prevailing totalitarian powers (not unremindful of religious organizations in general and the catholic church in particular), is engaging, clearly shows the audience where all the money went and, most importantly, has shitloads of talking animals in it, including what appears to be a ferret. A talking ferret, oh readers! Just the right thing for a rainy Sunday afternoon. (7)

2008: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Woody Allen takes his usual spiel to Spain with this relationship comedy in which two American girls - one with a taste for the solid life, the other looking for passion, etc. - fall for a mediterranean Romeo with a violent ex wife. While the latter two roles are well filled by Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz respectively, Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson do less than stellar jobs in the first two thirds of the title roles. (Barcelona, as far as I can tell, looks fine.) Tight screenplay, good ending, 7 points.

1997: Kiss the Girls

Filmed in the standard turn-of-the-century-American-suspense-film cinematography, this movie about a pervert kidnapper, a victim and a policeman reliably takes us from one plot point to another, but fails to make the audience care about the characters. (6)

2007: I Am Legend

After a supposed cure for cancer went all wrong, Will Smith appears to be the only human survivor who was not zombiefied. Being, in large part, responsible for the mess, he is trying to find a cure while staying alive in the face of zombie attacks. - Yeah, you could say it's all a bit disjointed in terms of plot and isn't really going anywhere, but the general athmosphere, driven by the excellent production design and cinematography, does enough for me to make this thoroughly enjoyable. (7)

1968: The Odd Couple

It's photographed a bit blandly, but apart from that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this always entertaining and occasionally funny Lemmon-Matthau vehicle. Extra super: the Pigeon sisters. (7)

This is another of the films I saw recently that are based on plays; they hardly ever do that anymore, do they? Instead, every other American film nowadays appears to be based on a comic. All in all, I think I prefer the former.

1981: Diva

In my memory, this film, which was released in Germany only in 1983, seems to be on constant reruns at the local arthouse throughout the mid and late 1980s, so it was always a noteworthy classic in my mind, a bit below Blade Runner perhaps. Funny I only saw the movie - about a postman chased by gangsters because they want his bootleg recording of a famous opera singer's performance - now. It turns out not to be so remarkable; I guess its popularity has a lot to do with its aesthetics, including a general stiltedness, looking very hip, very zeitgeist at the time. An interesting historical document. (6.5)

The Best of April 2010

1. La dolce vita (1960) - 8
   
2. Orfeu negro (1959) - 8
3. (500) Days of Summer (2009) - 7.5
4. Il mio viaggio in Italia (1999) - 7.5
   
5. Old Man Drinking a Glass of Beer (1898) - 7.5

Films Not Finished: April 2010

All the Real Girls, Following (looks like a debutante's no-budget film, probably because it is), I Heart Huckabees (writing a Charlie Kaufman screenplay isn't easy, especially if you're not Charlie Kaufman), Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Zazie dans le metro (it only took two minutes and I wanted to give the little brat a good spanking talking to)

2004: 5x2

Ozon's film about a marriage that doesn't work out is aesthetically tame and would be pretty lame if it weren't for the film's central gimmick (which may have inspired 500 Days of Summer): narrating the story in five sections that are arranged counter-chronologically. The movie gets quite a bit of mileage out of that gimmick. (6.5)

2004: 36 Quai des Orfèvres (36)

The neo-noir about the policemen Léo Vrinks and Denis Klein, who try to catch a gang of big-time robbers while at the same time competing for the post of Paris Chief of Police, keeps just the right balance between being too simple and being so complicated one can't follow all the twists and developments. Otherwise, no mistakes. (7)

1984: Broadway Danny Rose

It's got the right colours for a Woody Allen film - black and white - but is little more than an anecdote. Cool idea with the helium, he should have made more of that. (6.5)

1958: Dracula (a.k.a. Horror of Dracula)

The first film to star Christopher Lee as the Count is too trashy to be reasonably good and not trashy enough to be so bad it's good, but still a decent bit of afternoon entertainment. (6)

1960: Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring)

Bergman picture, black & white, 14th century, the Swedish woods: Three brothers rape a girl, kill her, steal her distinctive dress and go on to ask for a nights rest at - tadaaa - her parents' house. They offer her mother the dress to buy, which turns out to be a bad idea, cause daddy's got a knife. This film might have been more fun if directed by Tobe Hooper. Bergman, one feels, lacks the right sensitivity for the topic. What's more, like a 19th century novelist, he simply tells everything there is to tell as if there's no hurry in the world; the film's got no rhythm. (5.5)

1914: Cabiria (123 min.s Kino Restored Print)

It's set during the Second Punic War between Rome and Cathargo, and apart from that the intricacies of the plot are hard to follow; this probbably isn't helped by a third of the footage missing from the version I saw - anyway, at its centre are Cabiria, who gets seperated from her parents as a little girl and the impressively muscular slave Maciste. Writer-director Giovanni Pastrone, who seems a little biased in favour of the Romans, fires on all cylinders: Volcanos! Elephants! Earthquakes! Armies! Camels! Mirrors that set ships on fire! Stuff falling down! Lots of it! The film's real megalomania, however, is in the title cards, which not only sometimes introduce multiple characters and plotpoints, but also have a tendency to summarize the entire scene we're about to see: Sandra pleads with the noblemen to be released, but to no avail, followed by a three-minute scene in which Sandra pleads with the noblemen to be released, but to no avail - that kind of thing. Sorta fizzes out at the end. (6)

1960: Les yeux sans visage (Eyes without a Face)

A dead girl is found who's missing her facial skin. A surgeon's daughter, alive, is missing her facial skin. Coincidence? I think not! - The B-ish French b/w shocker is jolly good fun overall, but a bit slow at times; a good editor, I think, would have cut it down from 86 minutes to 75 or so, which is a good length for a film. (6.5)

1983: Rumble Fish

Coppola's film about a juvenile delinquent trying to emulate his older brother suffers from a wildly lacklustre script and, to a lesser extent, a phoned-in performance from Harry Dean Stanton Dennis Hopper. Yet it's sort of enjoyable for its 1980s aesthetics: Filmed in black and white except for the fish, the frames depict a dirty, run-down neighbourhood, but in a squeaky-clean way: I bet all the dust you see onscreen is designer dust. (6) A better treatment of this kind of topic by Coppola is Outsiders.

1983: Prénom Carmen (First Name: Carmen)

Godard's comedy about love&terrorism has nothing to offer in terms of plot, cinematography or whatever one might expect from a film, but it's really very funny. Finally I know where Helge Schneider got his humour from. (7)

2008: Choke

It's very tricky to build a narrative around quirky little ideas, but in the case of Chuck Palahniuk's off-kilter comedy novel Choke, and this movie that it's based on, it works just fine. (7)

2001: Werckmeister harmóniák (Werckmeister Harmonies)

Bela Tarr's somewhat Kafkaesque film about a Hungarian town, long on the quality of the b/w cinematography and the music, and short on cuts, is told in a low number of very deliberately paced scenes of varying quality and should be something for everyone who liked Vozvrashcheniye. Perhaps the right kind of contrast if you need to relax from having watched Clash of the Titans. Although it doesn't feature a kraken, it does have a whale. (7.5)

I knew this film was highly regarded by many critics, but what finally made me watch it was Robin Hanson's pointer; in particular the link to the opening scene, the best long shot in a movie that has no shortage of them:

1984: Blood Simple. (Director's Cut)

Though it suffers from the same nondescript cinematography that reduces so many '80s pictures potential quality, the Coen brothers' debut - a sort of noir comedy about the nastiness that ensues when a man finds out his wife has an affair - is a neat enough movie. Like all Coen brothers pictures, though, it is overrated. (6.5)

1970: Patton

Never having read anything about the film's content, but having seen versions of the film's poster multiple times, I naturally had assumed that this was some anti-patriotic war comedy, sort of like M*A*S*H, but apparently, a man looking somewhat silly saluting in front of a giant national flag does not signify parody or satire in the USA.

No comedy then; rather, this is a biopic about an actual US general during WWII, co-written and well-made except for the fact that most of the indoors scenes look like having been shot in the studio. On the plus side: In the original (undubbed and mainly English) version of the film, all of the dialogue in German is delivered by native speakers, which is fairly unusual. (6.5)

2009: Star Treck

Though somewhat unengaging in terms of plot (guess what, they have a planet to save), the film about Kirk, Spock et al. coming of age offers enough little injokes and eye candy to be nonboring. (6)

1978: The Boys from Brazil

Josef Mengele, alive and well in South America, gathers nazi friends old and new to tell them about planned assassinations of 65-year-old fathers around the world; nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman learns of this plot. While this is still believable, the story will take a totally whacky twist later on. Filmed in the indiscriminate pale colours, the film features a dream opportunity for Gregory Peck who plays Mengele - look at his cutesy photo - but only manages a run-of-the-mill villain (written, one must add, in a run-of-the-mill villain way). Overall, a decent enough bit of seventies thriller entertainment. (6.5)

1999: Il mio viaggio in Italia (My Voyage to Italy)

Martin Scorsese's very entertaining tour through the history of Italian cinema up until the 1960s, featuring all the films you might expect in such a documentary. Though I wish he'd bashed a famous director's film from time to time rather than criticizing by omission (Le notti di Cabiria gets about a third of a sentence), one couldn't imagine a more affa- and knowledgeable tour guide than Scorsese. And those eyebrows! Those eyebrows do me every time. (7.5)

2002: The Mothman Prophecies

Basically, what happens in this film is that Richard Gere talks on the phone to an omnisicient moth that's up to no good. The movie doesn't seem as stupid as that sounds; rather, it's a decent thriller of the supernatural using standard noughties mainstream film aesthetics. The disappointing ending is less disappointing for it disappointingness being visible from half an hour away. Still a 6 overall, though.

If this film had been more successful, maybe we could have hoped for Mothman vs. Kraken, à la Alien vs. Predator. Alas, it's not to be.

1928: Steamboat Bill, jr.

Buster Keaton stars as the son of a steamboat captain in this loser-turned-hero story. The storm sequence is great, but it makes up only about a fourth of the film, and, let's face it, the rest is not that hot. (6.5)

1960: La dolce vita

Fellini's famous film, which I've finally seen, has not so much a plot as a series of scenes presenting the life of tabloid journalist Marcello Rubini and his estrangement from that life. Also portraying the life of the rich and famous in late 1950s/early 1960s Italy as vacuous in brilliant b/w pictures, La dolce vita may be seen as the more accessible, fun companion piece to Antonioni's "Incomunicabiliy Trilogy" and at almost three hours is not a minute too long. Just don't expect to see Anita Ekberg playing a major role. (8)

1961: La notte (The Night)

Of the three films in the unofficial "Incomunicabiliy Trilogy", the others being L'avventura and L'eclisse, this one - chronicling a night an estranged couple spend in part together, in part apart - is my favourite because it is the tightest in terms of "stuff happening on the screen". Put differently, as I think I have made clear in the reviews linked to above, the films, brilliant in visual terms, suffer from being too deliberately paced and offering to little in terms of plot developments in my book, and this problem is relatively small in La notte. (7) Now, an Ernest Lehmann screenplay directed by Antonioni, that would have been something.

2007: Disturbia

The film directed by one D.J. Caruso - no, I'm not making this up - is so close in its basic setup to Rear Window that some might say it faces copyright issues. Here it is a stereotypical male teenager that may not leave his house, his clownish mate and the dream girl who's just moved into the house next door spying on the neighbour who may or may not be hauling body parts around in his garage. The film does what it wants to do pretty well, but must stay within the self-chosen confines of its mediocricy, most clearly demonstrated by the almost constant playing of nondescript pop songs for no discernible reason. (6)

I'm generally a fan of the mainstream approach to film, but the more I watch, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that there are more great artsy films out there than great mainstream films, despite the preponderance of the latter.

1903: Alice in Wonderland

The fragment of the first-ever film version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (more info) is a bit weak in terms of overall narrative structure, the growth-shrink scene is too long and, worst of all, the cheshire cat is badly miscast! (5)

1959: Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus) (Restored 107 min.s Version)

Though I realize it is set during Carnival, I still have a feeling that Rio in the late 1950s may not have been the magical place where everyone is always happy (except when throwing a mighty funk on jealousy grounds) and the samba is always playing (except when the bossa is playing). But who cares, it's not a documentary. As for the plot, Orfeu is set to marry Mina - but then Bambi-eyed Eurydice arrives from the countryside. O&E are soon getting it on, but Eurydice is being followed by someone who is either a bloke dressed up as death or Dr. D himself. Never mind the plot, though; the main actor here is the magical Rio described above, filmed in glorious Eastmancolor. (8)

1998: The General

Martin Cahill, the Irish gangster boss this John Boorman picture is about, is no Don Corleone, and The General is no Godfather. It is one of those colour-to-black-and-white jobs that usually go wrong, suffers from an awful soundtrack remindful of the early 1980s (saxophone!) and, like most biopics, lacks a decent narrative arc. Having said that, there's enough happening here to keep you decently entertained for two hours. (6)

1920: Convict 13

Buster Keaton finds himself in a convict's uniform, and soon he's in a prison and about to be hanged. Rioting and lots of standard silent comedy jokes, in particular people falling down. Not the reason Keaton's famous. (5.5)

1897: Old Man Drinking a Glass of Beer

I like it! (7.5)

2009: District 9

In retrospect, it seems like a stroke of genius: Do a film basically using the aesthetics of the Bourne pictures, but

• with aliens
• use a nerd-turned-hero, i.e., a character the kinds of people who like this kind of movie can identify with better than with a brawny hunk such as Bourne or a million other action heroes

Laugh all the way to the bank. (6)

1922: Daydreams

In this 22-minute fragment of a short, Buster Keaton writes home misleading letters to his sweetheart - when he writes about his success on Wall Street, it means he's actually cleaning it, etc. More than most old comedies this one suffers from its visual jokes having become not simply commonplace, but cliché. Reasonably entertaining nonetheless. (6)

1962: L'eclisse ([The] Eclipse)

I recently complained that Antonioni's 1960 L'avventura, while visually brilliant, was too "deliberately paced and loosely plotted" for my taste, but compared to L'eclisse, released two years later and dealing with a woman who breaks up with her socialist fiancé and soon starts a relationship with a superficial and selfish stock-broker, it feels as though the earlier film was written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond. In terms of visuals, Antonioni exchanges L'avventura's old churches and castles for modernist architecture, which, while meant to look cold, perhaps even dehumanizing, still makes for extremely attractive frames. Even so, I found much of the film to be a bit of a bore, but the ending must be one of the greatest in the history of cinema. How do we squeeze all that into a single mark? I'll go for a straight 6, but am not sure this is the right choice.

2006 (?): The Easter Bunny Hates You

I may or may not have seen this before, but anyway Drek points me to this near-masterpiece just in time. Judge for yourself . . .



. . . I'm giving it 7.5 points, which puts it slightly above Citizen Kane.

1997: Insomnia

A cop goes to northern Norway, where the sun never sets, to investigate the murder of a young woman. Not the most untroubled man to begin with, he can't sleep. Slow descent towards madness, morally questionable behaviour. Special mention for the camera work: To call the colouring pale would be an understatement; rather, there seems to be an abundance of light on the screen. Good, off-kilter neo-noir. Or blanche. Well, you get the idea. (7)

2009: Up (in 2-D)

The Pixar movie, about an old man who wants to fulfill his lifelong dream of going to South America by flying there using his house (with lots of helium balloons attached) only to find there's still a boy scout on the porch after he's left the ground, is visually attractive and generally done with the level of professionalism that one expects from Pixar, but suffers a bit from a slump in the middle. Better than Happy Feet or The Incredibles, but not as good as Madagascar or Ratatouille. (6.5)

2009: (500) Days of Summer

You know what? I totally understand what this guy is trying to say. But he's wrong. It's lovely, in an excrutiating way. (7.5)

The Best of March 2010

1. Targets (1968) - 7.5
2. Le Million (1931) - 7.5
   
3. Serpico (1973) - 7.5
   
4. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) - 7
5. Shutter Island (2010) - 7
   

Films Not Finished: March 2010

Silent Running, Smokin' Aces, Vargtimmen

1960: L'avventura

When a party of youngish rich Italians goes on a boating trip, one of them disappears. But Antonioni's film is no run-of-the-mill mystery; rather, after the initial events (the most entertaining part of the movie in my view), it turns into Scenes from a Relationship. I feel wholly ambivalent about the film: Visually, it is stunning; as a narrative, the deliberately paced and loosely plotted L'avventura is much less successful. Overall, a weak recommend (6.5).

1957: Les Espions

The director of a small psychiatric clinic in rural France accepts lots of money from someone claiming to represent the US secret service, and the next day lots of strangers have moved in, taking over the clinic uttering more or less vague threats about what will happen if he resists. It's a cool premise for a movie, but the lack of clarity about who is on whose side tends to create confusion rather than suspense or surprise. (6)

1917: His Wedding Night

It is not quite clear what the general idea was when this Fatty Arbuckle vehicle was conceived, although in the end Buster Keaton is kidnapped while drunk and wearing a dress. Features an illustration of discriminative pricing and mental rotation deficiencies on the part of the filmmakers or the targeted audience. (5)

1962: Vive le Tour

Louis Malle's eighteen-minute documentary explaining the Tour de France is not particularly interesting. (5.5)

1957: Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria)

Fellini's (seminal?) take on the hooker with a heart topos, firmly in the neorealist tradition, is not a bad film at all, but somehow its famous magic managed to elude me. (6)

1917: The Rough House

A silent comic short featuring the usual silent comic short ado and the only film I can think of the trivia about which is more interesting than the film itself (6.0). From IMDb:

• Directorial debut of Buster Keaton.
• Buster Keaton hadn't yet solidified his "Great Stone Face" persona; he smiles, laughs, grimaces, and smirks.
• Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle performs a prototype of the "dancing dinner rolls" that Charles Chaplin used in The Gold Rush (1925). Until "The Rough House" - thought to be lost - was rediscovered, Chaplin was credited with creating the gag.

1939: Midnight

Co-written by Billy Wilder, of Menschen am Sonntag fame, this movie gives us an American gold-digger stranding pennyless in a magical Paris where everyone loves speaking English, and soon attracts the interest of a variety of men, some rich, some less so. Mistaken identities, confusion. Typical, and good, example of the screwball comedy. (7)

1983: Sans soleil

Situated on the border between fictional and nonfictional film, Chris Marker's second-best known film features a woman reading the letters sent to her by a cameraman who travels the world, while we see the footage he has shot. The somewhat experimental book of moving pictures emphasizes the strangeness of foreign continents, or at least that's what I felt it's doing. (7)

1917: The Butcher Boy

Buster Keaton debuts in a minor role while Fatty and Slim, rivals for the heart of the same girl, both cross-dress to sneak into her school. Features a dog, lots of violence, and an attempted kidnapping. (6.5)

2006: Children of Men

In 2027, everyone in the world is infertile (everyone?) and Britain has closed its borders, trying to stem a tide of illegal immigrants who want to come despite England looking like a shithole - apparently the rest of the world is even worse off, the film's a bit vague on this. The screenwriters, keeping the basic dystopian setup, but substantially altering the plot of the novel the book is based on, remembered that in a screenplay the main characters need a task and came up with the lamest one in the book: the characters have to get from A to B, despite obstacles. It takes a lot of hard work to make that interesting, and this film doesn't deliver. Also, pretty much all of the film is shot in a grey-green-blue shade, which is a bit like someone shouting "DYSTOPIA!" in your face for two hours. On the plus side: Michael Caine sporting really long grey hair. (5.5)

As for dystopian Britain, didn't Mark E. Smith remark something to the effect that if you want to see humanity at its worst, you should go to central Manchester around closing time? Now, there's an idea for a film for you: Showdown at the taxi stand.

1931: Le Million

Michel, a poor painter, has won a million in the lottery, but to collect his winnings, he needs the ticket, which is in his jacket, which his financé gives to a man who is fleeing from the police, who sells it to an opeara singer, and so on and so forth: Soon, it seems, tout Paris is chasing the jacket, and director René Clair makes this comic musical a charming little film not dissimilar to the best-know Marx Brothers movies. It starts with a great tracking shot over the roofs of Paris, which are obviously models and look all the better for it, and Le Million is a genuinely early sound film in that Clair, much like Fritz Lang in M, leaves the dialogue unheard when he doesn't need it and seems more conscious of the way sound can be used to great effect than the directors of most contemporary films. Somewhat famous is the fade-in of the roar of a sports stadium crowd when a variety of men fights over the jacket in a rugby-like manner; and when Michel's friend Prosper hears his conscience, it is a whole choir singing to him from the off. Is there a social psychological theory in there? I say yes. (7.5)

Link: Matthew Dessem's essay on the film. Contains lots of spoilers, but they don't really spoil. It's not exactly a mystery, you know.

1935: Bride of Frankenstein

While I found the original Frankenstein charmingly silly, the sequel is more charmlessly stupid in my book - there are even little people in bottles. There are also bad technical glitches. (5)

1973: Serpico

The film starring Al Pacino as the cop who won't take bribes, which is not making him particularly popular with his colleagues, is shot in the same generic 1970s New York cop movie style you'll also find in French Connection and Prince of the City, for example. Entertaining throughout, gripping for about three fifths. (7.5)

1930: Zemlja (Earth)

The film about conflicts between the old and the new in a farmer's village during the early days of the Soviet Union is not particularly exciting in terms of storytelling, but succeeds as moving pictures. The photography of nature is often lauded, yet I found the harvest scene, as rhythmic as an Eisenstein battle sequence, to be the highlight. (7)

1967: Point Blank

The plot about a man who wants his share of the money back from his partners in crime after escaping from Alcatraz has two feet planted firmly on "not a masterpiece" ground, and the film doesn't win the Sergej M. Eisenstein Award for Outstanding Achievements in Editing either. What makes this film worth a look is the lush late-60s interior decoration of the appartments most of the film is set in. I'm not being cynical here: The interior decoration is a marvel to behold. (6)

1968: Targets

Peter Bogdanovich's debut as a film director is visibly low-budget and self-consciously camp. The parallel stories about an aging horror star - played by Boris Karloff - who's tired of acting and a detached young man who turns into a killer really shines when it cuts down on the talking, primarily in the two extended shooting scenes. As a whole, it gives you a real sense of time and place. Great final shot. (7.5)

2010: Shutter Island

The first half or so of Scorsese's film about two agents investigating on a kind of Alcatraz for the criminally insane has an extremely well-crafted plot, but the ending is extremely poor - indeed, my enjoyment of the film was heightened because I discounted early hints about the ending thinking that they couldn't possibly go for something that lame. Also, Scorsese generally doesn't seem at the top of his game, the music's poor and the back projections' quality made me wonder whether they were intended as a deliberate hommage to Hitchcock. Having said all that, of course if Martin Scorsese directs a thriller based on a Dennis Lehane book it's going to be a good film. (7)

1965: Pierrot le Fou

Godard's film about the joys of being a left-wing terrorist is a bit hard to review on purely aesthetic grounds, especially if you keep thinking to yourself: "I bet Baader and Meinhof loved this one." I'll give it a shot, though: Great colours, but the "let's have many scenes that don't advance the plot" strategy is a risky one; here it works somewhat. (6)

2005: Batman Begins

Does what it says on the label - childhood and death of parents, education, development of gadgets, etc. - in a thoroughly professional/predictable way. Too long, although not by as much as The Dark Knight, the visual acumen of which it lacks. I haven't used my stopwatch, but got the impression this might well win a competition for similarity of scenes' length in blockbuster movies. (6.5)

2002: The Transporter

The action film about a man that sells his driving services to illegal enterprises and has his otherwise simple and quiet life disrupted when one of the packages he's hired to transport turns out to be an attractive girl is photographed like an expensive commercial, scored like a cheap one and not quite as bad as that sounds. (5.5)

2005: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Best of the Noughties: Lists and Suggestions #10)

Call me daft, but maybe the plot of this crime comedy was a little too clever for me: I found it hard to follow. Never mind that, though, because with Robert Downey jr., fast-paced, witty dialogue and a corpse being peed on, it works well enough on a minute-by-minute basis, though it's not quite The Last Boy Scout. (7)

2007: Youth without Youth

Francis Ford Coppola's film about a language genius, his doppelgänger and lots of mirrors, raked in less than three million dollars worldwide, at least if you want to believe the standard source. That's surprising for a film by such an famous director. Until you see the film: It's artsy, disjointed and whacky. It does have really good cinematography and Bruno Ganz, but for a film about human consciousness, as which Coppola sees it, it's surprisingly unilluminating about that topic. Recommended for fans of teeth falling out. (4.5)

1972: The Candidate

Nothing much is to be said about the film starring Robert Redford as an idealistic Democratic politician trying to stay honest despite running for senate: A very decent showing all around. (6.5)

1995: To Die For

With a few small changes in the script and a few major changes in style, the film featuring Nicole Kidman as a superficial bitch determined to make it on television could have been a neo-noir; as it is, it's more of a media/American dream satire that's visually unappealing in a 1980s way - and I don't just mean Nicole Kidman's makeup. (6)

2004: La Mala Educación (Bad Education)

Almodóvar's intricately related partial stories have exploitative priests, football, exortion galore, good cinematography, anal sex, theft, a boy singing "Moon River" in Spanish and much, much more. It's all very cleverly constructed, but either Almodóvar doesn't really care about his characters or it's just that his sensibilities and mine are too far apart. (6)

1963: The Haunting

If you're a woman in her twenties still living with you're mother, then you're in trouble - or at least that's what horror films shot around 1960 would have you believe. As though trying to provide an example for the how-not-to box in the textbook, The Haunting uses voiceover to present us with the clichéd thoughts of such a spinster who is participating with two other subjects and a researcher interested in paranormal phenomena to spend some time in an allegedly haunted house. Today the film takes its entertainment value more from its quaíntness than from any shock value it might once have had, but the b/w photography is among the best examples of its kind. (6.5)

2009: An Education

Nick Hornby's script, set in 1961 England, about a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl and her petty bourgeois parents falling for a rich, good-looking and cultured man in his late twenties (I think) is somewhat predictable, as are the characters, but makes up for it with humour, a sense of place and time and an excellent performance by Carey Mulligan in the female lead, so I can recommend it overall. (7)

1985: Jagged Edge

Lame female midlife crisis/courtroom drama from the pen of Joe Eszterhas, who later gave us the not dissimilar Basic Instinct. Features good-looking horses and bad-looking haircuts. (5)

The Best of February 2010

1. La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) - 9
2. Obsession (1976) - 8
   
3. Phantom of the Paradise (1974) - 7.5
4. High and Low (1963) - 7.5
   
5. Sherlock Holmes (2009) - 7.5

Films Not Finished: February 2010

Amsterdamned, Höstsonaten, One Fine Day, Solyaris

1936: Sabotage

Not to be confused with Saboteur, the Hitchcock film about foreign agents violenty disturbing public life in London shares with other Hitchcock movies of that time a certain patchyness and technical shortcomings, but is somehow delivered with more charm to make for an entertaining bit of viewing, though it certainly is not a masterpiece. (7)

1972: Deliverance

When four friends go on a rafting trip, senseless violence finally strikes after a somewhat tedious 25 minutes or so, and after that things get ugly. Not badly executed overall, but I don't really need a film to tell me that civilization is only skin deep and you're never really save; after all, I do pick up a paper from time to time. (6)

1980: Altered States

A brilliant scientist tries to find the essence of the self using unusual methods, which turns out to be a bad idea. The longer it goes on, the harder it gets to take it seriously. (5)

2009: Logorama

The Oscar-nominated short, packed with as many corporate logos as would fit into a quarter of an hour, isn't just visually attractive in a brightly-coloured, in-your-face way, but also a nicely structured police-and-thieves story. Just overlook the sixth-graders style social criticizm. (7)

1984: Body Double

Brian de Palma's take on Rear Window has 1980s: Decade of Bad Taste written all over it and even features Frankie Goes To Hollywood performing "Relax". Interestingly, de Palma uses the kind of dramatic scene that most writers would have put at the end or maybe the beginning of a script as a turning point right in the middle; rather neat. Even so, not his strongest bit of work, especially in visual terms. (7)

2006: Inside Man

This is a Spike Lee movie? Seems like one of those "one for the studio" things. Anyway, this walk down the well-trodden bank robbery path had an ending I found somewhat puzzling, but I found it more regrettable that it didn't seem to want to add anything to the genre. Like, the characters could have recited Whitman once in a while. Or something. I don't know. All in all, no bad entertainment, though. (6.5)

1963: Tengoku to jigoku (High and Low)

About two thirds of Kurosawa's contemporary kidnapping movie show the police trying to catch the perp, as us police people put it, so why is it better than your average TV crime film? A few points:

• The screenplay does leave some questions, but it is structured more interestingly than your average script; in particular, it has well-placed turning points that aren't just there because the textbook says you need them.
• Looks better: It's set in early 1960s Tokyo rather than, say, late 2000s Bremen.
• Looks better: It's in black and white.
• Looks better: It has a director with a sense for visual stuff. This is a thing that baffles me: Much of made-for-TV stuff seems to be by directors and cameramen who don't care how things look. Lack of time and money can't explain all of it.

That list certainly isn't exhaustive. All in all, 7.5.

2009: Up in the Air

George Clooney, radiating his usual charisma, plays a not very realistic outplacement specialist whose passion for living on plaes, in airports and hotels is threatened when a college graduate (the very funny Anna Kendrick) is hired by his firm and suggests that hencetoforth all firing is done via video conferences. After a pacey first hour, the film turns into a standard RomCom between, roughly, minutes 60 and 90, only to redeem itself in the end. Those 30 minutes make the film poorer than it could have been, but, on the upside, much of it is set inside airports and planes, which I just happen to like. A classic 7.

2000: Proof of Life

Meg Ryan is the wife of a man who gets kidnapped in a Southern American country, Russel Crowe is the professional who knows how to handle these things. Will they develop a liking for each other? - Seems like the kind of film made by capable people who swore to each other to work hard enough to deliver a product that's professionally made and is nothing to be ashamed of, but no harder! (5.5)

2009: Moon

Debutant Duncan Jones's film about an employee of an energy company who discovers he is not the only person on his lunar base after all has often been compared to 2001 because it has a talking computer in it but is actually more akin to The Shining as it exploits the setting of a large, sparsely populated building to eerie effect. The film's devoid of weaknesses, but doesn't manage to cross the threshold to greatness either. (7) Given that I blame the regrettable fact of so few films that are set in space coming out on their production being expensive, maybe the best thing about this one is that it was made for only five million dollars, but is entirely convincing in terms of special effects. Let's hope this makes some of the money men rethink their views on funding this kind of film.

1946: Gilda

This noir take on the meange a trois trope, which contains Rita Hayworth's famous one-glove strip, is a very solid piece of work. (7)

1942: Saboteur

In this Hitcock wartime film, you'll be surprised to learn, a man is wrongly accused of being a saboteur. It's a little patchy and the showdown on the Statue of Liberty has more in terms of symbolism than in terms of spectacle. Not a bad film, but North by Northwest it is not. (6)

1950: In a Lonely Place

The main character is called Dixon Steele, but we never see him perform. He is, in fact, a screenwriter, and has a woman falling in love with him who thinks he's wrongly accused of killing a girl. The ending totally doesn't work, but the film makes up for it with generic 1950s b/w US film charm. (7)

1981: Eye of the Needle

The Second World War: Ruthless Nazi spy vs. upstanding, albeit inept, English Rose. Who clearly does too much crying for this to be called a feminist film, and the overly dramatic score is bordering on parody, but why not? (6)

Film Links #3

1. Danish tourism ads directed by Lars von Trier (pointer)

2. "The Greatest Long Tracking Shots in Cinema" and the "20 Greatest Extended Takes in Movie History"

3. Kubrick's Napoleon project

2003: Monster

When Charlize Theron's performance as Aileen Wurmos in Patty Jenkins' biopic about the multiple murderer is discussed, variants of the idea "daring to be ugly" are bandied about a lot. In fact, "daring to be ugly" is one of the most undaring things a good-looking actress can do, because, as the reaction to Theron's performance showed, even if you convincingly demonstrate the role is beyond your reach, soon it's going to rain accolades. Good filmmakers would get a lot out of this meaty topic even with a less than stellar cast, but writer-director Jenkins goes straight for made-for-TV aesthetics and concentrates the rest of her energy on making a political statement of the killer-as-victim variety. Having said all that, a turkey it's not. (5)

1992: Bad Lieutenant

Building your film around a cop that does all kinds of drugs, cheats and is generally devoid of morals is a bit of a cheap idea, the kind of thing that appeals to sixteen-year-olds, and at times the film is way too slow. On the upside: A perfectly cast leading man and the whole thing filmed with just the right amount of nittygrittyness. Summary: Tries to be Taxi Driver, isn't. (6)

Match

From Olly Moss's Films in Black and Red series. More minimalist poster designs here and here (last link NSFW in an abstract way).

1976: Obsession

Brian de Palma's film about a middle-aged man who meets a younger woman that is the spitting image of the man's late wife (who died in a car accident many years before) is often criticized as being merely derivative. But although de Palma's movie is clearly inspired by Hitchcock - he even got Bernard Herrman to compose the music - it tells a story that's quite distinct from the one in the 1958 masterpiece. Indeed one might argue that Vertigo's more important influence is stylistic, the beautiful score sometimes seeming to play endlessly to the painstaikingly composed frames depicting the man's, well, obsession with the young woman. An exercise in style that succeeds all the way. (8)

Roger Ebert sort of agrees.

1930: Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel)

The film that made Marlene Dietrich Marlene Dietrich and chronicles the downfall of a well-respected man who falls in love with a disreputable woman suffers somewhat from the usual technical shortcomings of the day, including an uncinematic overall visual style as well as the fact that leading man Emil Jannings overplays his tragic role. (5.5)

1987: The Dead

Marred by its almost BBCish cinematography (one Fred Murphy's responsible), the film about a dinner party, if that's the right term, in early 20th century Dublin, managed to entertain me without exactly blowing my mind. My knowledge on the sociocultural context is pretty poor, though, so it's quite possible that I missed stuff. Favourite scene: The piano instrumental. Favourite character: The drunk. Pretty strong ending. (6)

1974: Phantom of the Paradise

If you think Tommy was an over-the-top 1970s pop opera, I'd like to refer you to Brian de Palma's glamrock take on The Phantom of the Opera (with a bit of Faust thrown in for good measure), in which a young songwriter has his material robbed by an evil producer, is thrown into not just any prison, but - wait for it! - Sing Sing, tries revenge, in the process of which his face get mutilated by a vinyl press, so that he takes to wearing a silver mask, which goes nicely with his metal teeth (don't ask), before things start to get whacky. The film, which may have been influenced by the consumption of cocaine, would have been even better if, as I had anticipated, at one point giant, winged penises would have flown onto the screen. Maybe in a director's cut. (7.5)

1962: Le procès (The Trial)

As discussed at some lenght by Milan Kundera in his Testaments trahis, Kafka tells his dreamlike story in very clear, simple language, but Welles goes down the opposite route, and I agree with Kundera that that's not a good idea. My point is not that a film should try to be a faithful translation of the book it's based on. But while Kafka's beautiful language enhances what is otherwise a not so interesting story, from Welles we get a sackful of cheap tricks like tilted camera angles, long shadows and even longer hallways, making the film look like a black-and-white version of Brazil; and that, contrary to popular opinion, is not a good film. (5.5 for Le procès; I never finished Brazil)

1961: Une femme est une femme (A Woman Is a Woman)

If A bout de souffle was Godard's take on American gangster films, maybe Une femme est une femme may be seen as his version of lighthearted musicals in the style of An American in Paris. Loosely plotted, it deals with a woman who knows she wants a child but not from which of two men (who, naturally, are good friends - remember, this is a French film). Though it's clearly too much in love with its own quirkiness, it's a good movie overall because it's visually attractive (Early 1960s Paris! Technicolor! Competent individuals in charge!) and because some of its quirkiness is rather lovely - two of the comic scenes, combined running time about four seconds, are almost unforgettably super. (7)