Everyone's got an addiction - mine, like many people's, is Netflix. My queue is stuffed to saturation, my day revolves around making time to watch a movie and keep my queue moving, and I've become overly familiar with the pickup times at my local mailboxes – but there's a silver lining: a cornucopia of reviews.
The reviews are broken up into three sections by their starred rating: 5 stars, 3 to 4.5, and 0 to 2.5. Movies that make my Top Ten or Top Twenty are marked as such. There's also a hall of shame -– the Bottom Ten.
FIVE STARS
Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People (1942, 1944)
Top Twenty
Cat People is one of the great fright films. Simone Simon stars as a young woman convinced she turns into a murderous feline. She’s right, but not everyone believes her, to their clawed regret. Jacques Tourneur directed this masterpiece of shadows and suggestion; the terror highlight is a nighttime walk through Central Park. However, the sequel is an entirely different affair, a weird, daffy fantasy about an unhappy girl and the strangely helpful spirit of Simon’s cat person.
Jules et Jim (1962)
Top Ten
A signpost of cinema, Jules et Jim is one of Francois Truffaut’s masterpieces, an exploration of love and its bitter discontents. Jeanne Moreau is unforgettably alluring as Catherine, the romantic cynosure of Jules (Oscar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre). Jules et Jim has acquired the weight of a masterpiece, but its gracefulness in telling a disturbing story belies that weight. Possibly the most adult film ever made, Jules et Jim is a must-see.
Liza with a 'Z' (1972)
Electrifying. Liza with a 'Z' is a long lost TV special from 1972, directed by Bob Fosse and starring a youthful Liza Minnelli. The picture’s a little grainy and the music might be called kitschy, but Liza is nuclear fission incarnate, a true star basking in the well-deserved love of her glamorous audience. A peak number is “I Gotcha” – the pink spangled Halston minidress, the supersexed-up Fosse choreography and Liza’s wacked-out divaness add up to camp nirvana. If her tabloid exploits obscured Liza’s talent and left you wondering what the original fuss was, Liza with a Z is your answer. The extras include an interview with Liza and the video restoration team that’s as pure an example of fan worship as you’ll ever see.
The Red Shoes (1948)
Top Ten
The Red Shoes is essential viewing, a Technicolor extravaganza unlike anything else in the movies and so uniquely designed, acted and filmed that it singlehandedly justifies the elevation of the movies into an art form. Based on the Hans Christian Anderson story about a doomed ballerina, and filmed by the writer/director team of Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell in a style describable as celestial kitsch. Stars the glittering Moira Shearer as the doomed ballerina, Marius Goring as her composer and lover, and Anton Walbrook as the Diaghilev-like impresario. With its glimpses of post-Ballet Russe dancing and Leonide Massine’s performance as the ballet master, The Red Shoes is catnip for ballet fans. Its aesthetic descendants include Jacques Demy’s equally entrancing The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Rififi (1955)
Top Ten
Jules Dassin’s heist flick has a hurtling dramatic power. Almost lighthearted at the beginning but ultimately a Shakespearean tragedy, Rififi is a true original, a scathingly misanthropic hair-raiser. The famously dialogue-free heist sequence is remarkable. Rififi is clearly indebted to John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and an inspiration to cinematic sponger Quentin Tarantino.
The 39 Steps (1935)
Top Ten
Hitchcock’s 1937 film of the John Buchan adventure novel is one of his best and is the ur-text for the spy film genre, the stylish Bourne Identity being its most recent variation. Suave Robert Donat stars as Hannay, accused of murder and racing to find the real killer with persnickety blonde Madeleine Carroll as his unwilling accomplice. Hitchcock’s storytelling verve is at its purest: the escape by train, the pursuit through the Scottish highlands, the encounter with the man with the missing finger are all prime examples of Hitchcock’s remarkable genius. Its ramshackle special effects are a special delight. Check out the helicopter!
Further Viewing: The Lady Vanishes, 1938.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Top Ten
Magic. Jacques Demy’s unforgettable pop-art musical of young love is one of the supreme cinematic creations. Breathtakingly lovely Catherine Deneuve stars as a young woman in love with a handsome but penniless garage mechanic (Nino Castelnuovo) who is sent off to the Algerian War. The sung dialogue is startling at first and the art direction is goofy to the point of psychedelia, but Demy spins these potential distractions and Michel Legrand’s elegant music into fairy tale gold. If you have the chance to see it on a big screen, jump! Restored to its original glory in 1992.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
I DON'T WANT TO GO TO REHAB, PART 2 (3 TO 4.5 STARS)
THREE STARS
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Keir Dullea (of 2001), Carol Lynley, Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward star in Otto Preminger’s dank melodrama about a missing child and a hysterical mother. Not a particularly good movie, but the savory Olivier hams it up and Coward, along with a host of British actors in cameo roles, make it worth a once-over.
Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
Jeanne Moreau stars as an adulterous murderess in this French film noir, the first directorial effort from Louis Malle. It’s like Godard’s Breathless fleshed out with a good plot and realistic characters and is much superior to that overrated “masterpiece”. Maurice Ronet co-stars as Moreau’s patsy of a boyfriend and Jean Wall is her rich but unwanted husband. The plot mechanics twist around an elaborate murder plot that goes without a hitch – except for that wayward elevator. Miles Davis composed and performed the score. The one drawback to the movie is a long sequence that features Moreau wandering through a glitteringly noctural Paris while she mutters inanities about love. It’s really silly and quite out of place in what is otherwise a trim little thriller.
Peyton Place (1957)
Lana Turner stars in this Technicolor soap opera, based on the best-selling novel of the same name. Risqué for its time, Peyton Place now seems rather talky and stiff. Youthful co-stars Hope Lange and Diane Varsi bring some zip to the proceedings, but it’s still a long slog.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Walter Matthau stars in this gritty thriller about a subway car hijacked by a gang of go-for-broke criminals led by Robert Shaw and including a youthful Hector Elizondo and the perennial Martin Balsam. Matthau leavens the somewhat repulsive goings-on with his patented brand of hang-dog cynical humor. The movie is fascinating for its glimpse of a much different New York City. One of Quentin Tarantino’s many sources for Reservoir Dogs; the Pelham hijackers are code-named Mr. Blue, Mr. Pink, etc.
3.5 STARS
Barbra Streisand: The Television Specials
My Name is Barbra and A Happening in Central Park are the clear winners in this package and are essential viewing for all Barbraphiles. Both specials show Streisand at her singular best. Color Me Barbra is campy fun, but the other two segments are only sporadically entertaining. The whole package charts the evolution of Streisand from an affected but powerful performer to glossy Hollywood royalty.
The Deep End (2001)
Tilda Swinton and Goran Visnjic star in this remake of genius director Max Ophuls’ The Reckless Moment (1949). Swinton is the mother desperate to save her gay teenage son from a possible murder charge and Visnjic is the morally confused blackmailer on her trail. Swinton uses her remarkably ascetic and powerful screen presence as a hermetic weapon; she doesn’t engage with others so much as plow them over or bounce off them. The Deep End was filmed around Lake Tahoe and co-stars Jonathan Tucker as the son and Josh Lucas as the dead guy.
Divorce, Italian Style (1961)
This acerbically plotted, highly amusing comedy stars Marcello Mastroianni as a beleagured husband who wants to divorce his wife and marry his lovely and much younger girlfriend. Mastroianni’s finely tuned performance as a hangdog roué caught in a comic web of lust and murder is memorable.
I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott star as newlyweds whose honeymoon is interrupted by a body-snatching monster in this 1958 low budgeter. More like film noir than sci fi and part of the paranoiac tradition that includes Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Blade Runner, Married displays a cynical intelligence about societal mores that make it a distinctive addition to the genre.
Swimming Pool, France (2003)
Fans of Patricia Highsmith’s glowering suspense stories will enjoy this sun-kissed twister. Charlotte Rampling plays a repressed mystery writer who goes on vacation to the South of France and gets a lot more than a nice tan. Voluptuous Ludivine Sagnier co-stars as the fly in the ointment. Rampling’s witty performance is the polar opposite of her melancholic turn in Under the Sand, also directed by François Ozon.
Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse (1996)
Everything you always wanted to know about… George Balanchine and dancer Suzanne Farrell’s professional and personal relationship. If you’re interested in ballet history, this is a must-see. The footage of Farrell in performance is revelatory.
The World of Henry Orient (1964)
The eccentric but affecting tale of two footloose adolescent girls in pursuit of rakish, dimwitted classical pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellars). Angela Lansbury and Paula Prentiss co-star and both turn in distinctive performances, Lansbury’s a close cousin to her malevolent turn in The Manchurian Candidate. Henry Orient might be billed as a comedy, but its bitter view of the machinations surrounding romantic love give the film a distinctively melancholic tang.
FOUR STARS
Contempt (Le Mepris) (1963)
Godard’s Cinemascope essay on the perils of filmmaking stars Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance and fabled director Fritz Lang as himself. Contempt is fascinating and infuriating, beautiful and boring, sincere and cynical. Filled with references to classical mythology, his own films and his personal life, it’s catnip for serious-minded filmgoers. For the rest of us, even if much of the film seems tedious, the beauties on display – Bardot, Rome, Capri – are entertaining. The most brazen sequence in the movie is a twenty-minute long argument between Bardot and Piccoli that’s shot within one small room in real time. It’s like being trapped in someone else’s marital disarray and is a most disquieting experience, itchily, uncomfortably entertaining. Contempt justifies Godard’s exalted reputation as a rebel genius much more than any of his other films. Based on a novel by Alberto Moravia.
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger star as a black Philadelphia cop and a small-town Southern sheriff involved in solving a murder. Heat hasn’t dated as message movies are wont to do; it still carries an emotional punch. Both lead actors are excellent (Steiger won an Oscar) and Lee Grant, as the victim’s wife, makes her few minutes of screen time really count. The cinematography by legendary Haskell Wexler is both beautiful and dramatically pungent. Wunderkind director Hal Ashby was the film editor.
Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960)
An enchanting record of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, cherishable not just for capturing jazz immortals – Thelonious Monk, George Shearing, Gerry Mulligan, Big Maybelle, Louis Armstrong, among others – in their prime but also for its luxuriously tactile record of a sensuous East Coast summer. The peak of the movie is a wackily behatted Anita O’Day giving the performance of a lifetime – hers, yours and mine. If you need a summer vacation or have the wintertime blues, watch this movie for an instant cure.
The Long Goodbye (1973)
One of the highly overrated Robert Altman’s few good films. Raymond Chandler’s 1954 novel – his best and a true American classic – is updated to the 1970s. Elliott Gould stars as a hapless post-hippie version of gumshoe Philip Marlowe, Sterling Hayden turns in a monumental performance as a deranged alcoholic, and Frigidaire-cool blonde Nina Van Pallandt is the femme fatale. Also stars Mark Rydell as a vicious thug and Jim Bouton as Marlowe’s erstwhile friend.
Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
Top-notch British sci-fi/horror from the late 60s, Quatermass is the story of a London subway excavation that unearths remnants of Martian civilization on earth. The results are predictably dire, but the film’s suggestiveness and simple but terrifying effects make it a very special movie. Highly recommended.
4.5 STARS
Caballe: Beyond Music (2003)
A documentary about Montserrat Caballé, the Spanish opera singer and one of the great stars of classical music. Caballé is almost impossibly endearing, with a winsomeness that belies her magnificence. Performance films and interviews with her family and operatic compatriots give a good sense of her prodigious talent and the regard with which she is held. The only drawback to the film – it ends. There’s no such thing as too much Montsi.
I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
Another Pressburger/Powell success. Wendy Hiller stars as a headstrong young woman on her way to her wedding on a remote Hebrides island. Her obstinacy in the face of nature’s unwillingness to accommodate her plans causes havoc for all. A delightful, very relaxed adult comedy.
It's a Gift (1934)
W.C. Fields at his considerable best. The shambolic, almost surreal plot lets Fields and his cohorts (including Fields’ infantile nemesis Baby LeRoy) make unforgettable comic hay. Essential viewing for fans of American comedy.
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Hitchcock demonstrates both his mastery of the spy film genre and his genius in transforming its basics into an experience uniquely thrilling and comic. Dame May Whitty is the disappearing lady, Margaret Lockwood is the suspicious fellow passenger, and Michael Redgrave (father of Vanessa and Lynn) the foppish folklorist who helps Lockwood uncover the truth. The character actors who give the film its distinctive tang include Paul Lukas, Googie Withers, and most especially Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as two cricket-obsessed passengers. Most of the action takes place on a train trip across unnamed but hostile European countries and the tone of the film clearly reflects a late 1930s anxiety about war.
Petulia (1968)
The ineffable Julie Christie stars as Petulia, a young woman with a bad husband in gorgeous rich boy Richard Chamberlain and an adulterous yen for George C. Scott’s divorced doctor. Christie is in her prime both as an actress and a great beauty, and Scott is hammily effective as the bewildered object of her affections. The last shot of Christie will haunt you. Shirley Knight and Joseph Cotton are also on handto give notable performances, and Janis Joplin performs in an early party sequence. The movie is worth watching just for its late 60s San Francisco setting, exquisitely photographed by Nicolas Roeg (soon to turn to directing himself). Richard Lester directed.
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Keir Dullea (of 2001), Carol Lynley, Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward star in Otto Preminger’s dank melodrama about a missing child and a hysterical mother. Not a particularly good movie, but the savory Olivier hams it up and Coward, along with a host of British actors in cameo roles, make it worth a once-over.
Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
Jeanne Moreau stars as an adulterous murderess in this French film noir, the first directorial effort from Louis Malle. It’s like Godard’s Breathless fleshed out with a good plot and realistic characters and is much superior to that overrated “masterpiece”. Maurice Ronet co-stars as Moreau’s patsy of a boyfriend and Jean Wall is her rich but unwanted husband. The plot mechanics twist around an elaborate murder plot that goes without a hitch – except for that wayward elevator. Miles Davis composed and performed the score. The one drawback to the movie is a long sequence that features Moreau wandering through a glitteringly noctural Paris while she mutters inanities about love. It’s really silly and quite out of place in what is otherwise a trim little thriller.
Peyton Place (1957)
Lana Turner stars in this Technicolor soap opera, based on the best-selling novel of the same name. Risqué for its time, Peyton Place now seems rather talky and stiff. Youthful co-stars Hope Lange and Diane Varsi bring some zip to the proceedings, but it’s still a long slog.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Walter Matthau stars in this gritty thriller about a subway car hijacked by a gang of go-for-broke criminals led by Robert Shaw and including a youthful Hector Elizondo and the perennial Martin Balsam. Matthau leavens the somewhat repulsive goings-on with his patented brand of hang-dog cynical humor. The movie is fascinating for its glimpse of a much different New York City. One of Quentin Tarantino’s many sources for Reservoir Dogs; the Pelham hijackers are code-named Mr. Blue, Mr. Pink, etc.
3.5 STARS
Barbra Streisand: The Television Specials
My Name is Barbra and A Happening in Central Park are the clear winners in this package and are essential viewing for all Barbraphiles. Both specials show Streisand at her singular best. Color Me Barbra is campy fun, but the other two segments are only sporadically entertaining. The whole package charts the evolution of Streisand from an affected but powerful performer to glossy Hollywood royalty.
The Deep End (2001)
Tilda Swinton and Goran Visnjic star in this remake of genius director Max Ophuls’ The Reckless Moment (1949). Swinton is the mother desperate to save her gay teenage son from a possible murder charge and Visnjic is the morally confused blackmailer on her trail. Swinton uses her remarkably ascetic and powerful screen presence as a hermetic weapon; she doesn’t engage with others so much as plow them over or bounce off them. The Deep End was filmed around Lake Tahoe and co-stars Jonathan Tucker as the son and Josh Lucas as the dead guy.
Divorce, Italian Style (1961)
This acerbically plotted, highly amusing comedy stars Marcello Mastroianni as a beleagured husband who wants to divorce his wife and marry his lovely and much younger girlfriend. Mastroianni’s finely tuned performance as a hangdog roué caught in a comic web of lust and murder is memorable.
I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott star as newlyweds whose honeymoon is interrupted by a body-snatching monster in this 1958 low budgeter. More like film noir than sci fi and part of the paranoiac tradition that includes Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Blade Runner, Married displays a cynical intelligence about societal mores that make it a distinctive addition to the genre.
Swimming Pool, France (2003)
Fans of Patricia Highsmith’s glowering suspense stories will enjoy this sun-kissed twister. Charlotte Rampling plays a repressed mystery writer who goes on vacation to the South of France and gets a lot more than a nice tan. Voluptuous Ludivine Sagnier co-stars as the fly in the ointment. Rampling’s witty performance is the polar opposite of her melancholic turn in Under the Sand, also directed by François Ozon.
Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse (1996)
Everything you always wanted to know about… George Balanchine and dancer Suzanne Farrell’s professional and personal relationship. If you’re interested in ballet history, this is a must-see. The footage of Farrell in performance is revelatory.
The World of Henry Orient (1964)
The eccentric but affecting tale of two footloose adolescent girls in pursuit of rakish, dimwitted classical pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellars). Angela Lansbury and Paula Prentiss co-star and both turn in distinctive performances, Lansbury’s a close cousin to her malevolent turn in The Manchurian Candidate. Henry Orient might be billed as a comedy, but its bitter view of the machinations surrounding romantic love give the film a distinctively melancholic tang.
FOUR STARS
Contempt (Le Mepris) (1963)
Godard’s Cinemascope essay on the perils of filmmaking stars Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance and fabled director Fritz Lang as himself. Contempt is fascinating and infuriating, beautiful and boring, sincere and cynical. Filled with references to classical mythology, his own films and his personal life, it’s catnip for serious-minded filmgoers. For the rest of us, even if much of the film seems tedious, the beauties on display – Bardot, Rome, Capri – are entertaining. The most brazen sequence in the movie is a twenty-minute long argument between Bardot and Piccoli that’s shot within one small room in real time. It’s like being trapped in someone else’s marital disarray and is a most disquieting experience, itchily, uncomfortably entertaining. Contempt justifies Godard’s exalted reputation as a rebel genius much more than any of his other films. Based on a novel by Alberto Moravia.
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger star as a black Philadelphia cop and a small-town Southern sheriff involved in solving a murder. Heat hasn’t dated as message movies are wont to do; it still carries an emotional punch. Both lead actors are excellent (Steiger won an Oscar) and Lee Grant, as the victim’s wife, makes her few minutes of screen time really count. The cinematography by legendary Haskell Wexler is both beautiful and dramatically pungent. Wunderkind director Hal Ashby was the film editor.
Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960)
An enchanting record of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, cherishable not just for capturing jazz immortals – Thelonious Monk, George Shearing, Gerry Mulligan, Big Maybelle, Louis Armstrong, among others – in their prime but also for its luxuriously tactile record of a sensuous East Coast summer. The peak of the movie is a wackily behatted Anita O’Day giving the performance of a lifetime – hers, yours and mine. If you need a summer vacation or have the wintertime blues, watch this movie for an instant cure.
The Long Goodbye (1973)
One of the highly overrated Robert Altman’s few good films. Raymond Chandler’s 1954 novel – his best and a true American classic – is updated to the 1970s. Elliott Gould stars as a hapless post-hippie version of gumshoe Philip Marlowe, Sterling Hayden turns in a monumental performance as a deranged alcoholic, and Frigidaire-cool blonde Nina Van Pallandt is the femme fatale. Also stars Mark Rydell as a vicious thug and Jim Bouton as Marlowe’s erstwhile friend.
Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
Top-notch British sci-fi/horror from the late 60s, Quatermass is the story of a London subway excavation that unearths remnants of Martian civilization on earth. The results are predictably dire, but the film’s suggestiveness and simple but terrifying effects make it a very special movie. Highly recommended.
4.5 STARS
Caballe: Beyond Music (2003)
A documentary about Montserrat Caballé, the Spanish opera singer and one of the great stars of classical music. Caballé is almost impossibly endearing, with a winsomeness that belies her magnificence. Performance films and interviews with her family and operatic compatriots give a good sense of her prodigious talent and the regard with which she is held. The only drawback to the film – it ends. There’s no such thing as too much Montsi.
I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
Another Pressburger/Powell success. Wendy Hiller stars as a headstrong young woman on her way to her wedding on a remote Hebrides island. Her obstinacy in the face of nature’s unwillingness to accommodate her plans causes havoc for all. A delightful, very relaxed adult comedy.
It's a Gift (1934)
W.C. Fields at his considerable best. The shambolic, almost surreal plot lets Fields and his cohorts (including Fields’ infantile nemesis Baby LeRoy) make unforgettable comic hay. Essential viewing for fans of American comedy.
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Hitchcock demonstrates both his mastery of the spy film genre and his genius in transforming its basics into an experience uniquely thrilling and comic. Dame May Whitty is the disappearing lady, Margaret Lockwood is the suspicious fellow passenger, and Michael Redgrave (father of Vanessa and Lynn) the foppish folklorist who helps Lockwood uncover the truth. The character actors who give the film its distinctive tang include Paul Lukas, Googie Withers, and most especially Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as two cricket-obsessed passengers. Most of the action takes place on a train trip across unnamed but hostile European countries and the tone of the film clearly reflects a late 1930s anxiety about war.
Petulia (1968)
The ineffable Julie Christie stars as Petulia, a young woman with a bad husband in gorgeous rich boy Richard Chamberlain and an adulterous yen for George C. Scott’s divorced doctor. Christie is in her prime both as an actress and a great beauty, and Scott is hammily effective as the bewildered object of her affections. The last shot of Christie will haunt you. Shirley Knight and Joseph Cotton are also on handto give notable performances, and Janis Joplin performs in an early party sequence. The movie is worth watching just for its late 60s San Francisco setting, exquisitely photographed by Nicolas Roeg (soon to turn to directing himself). Richard Lester directed.
I DON'T WANT TO GO TO REHAB, PART 1 (ZERO TO 2.5 STARS)
ZERO STARS
Two for the Road (1967)
Bottom Ten
Unendurable, faux-sophisticated tripe about a married couple (Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) and the various stages of their marriage, from carefree youth to embittered middle age. Hepburn and Finney are two of the most charismatic of movie stars but their roles as a shrew and a bully waste their talents. Hepburn wears some astonishing outfits, but fashion shows are usually ten minutes long, not 112. The broad caricatures of Americans (William Daniels and Eleanor Bron) are symptomatic of the reflexive English snobbery this movie wallows in. The idiotic script, a cornucopia of trite dramatics and moronic ponderings on the emptiness of success, is by Frederic Raphael and was nominated for an Academy Award. Go figure.
1.5 STARS
The Fortune Cookie (1966)
A Billy Wilder misfire. After Jack Lemmon is hurt at a Cleveland Browns football game, his lawyer brother-in-law Walter Matthau steps in to make them both a fortune. Matthau is a breath of fresh air in what is otherwise a stale, sour comedy.
The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
Irritating and overlong animated film about a bicyclist, his mother and the eponymous triplets. The theme song will crawl into the corner of your brain reserved for irritants like Achy Breaky Heart and The Macarena.
What's New Pussycat? (1965)
Spoilt milk disguised as a frothy romantic comedy. The animated opening credits are the high point of the film. Paula Prentiss, who’s made far too few films, brings a goony comic punch to her scenes, but the rest is almost unendurable. Also stars Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole, Romy Schneider and Woody Allen in his first big-screen performance. Allen also wrote the film. He’s improved since then.
TWO STARS
Funny Face (1957)
Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn star in this theoretically lighthearted musical about a photographer (Astaire) who discovers the mousy Hepburn in a bookstore, turns her into a world-famous fashion model and falls in love with her. The big problem is that Astaire, thirty years Hepburn’s senior, is simply too old to play the part of an antic genius. Their December-May romance is both unbelievable and a little disturbing; watching Astaire woo Hepburn with a song and dance act is embarrassing, and his trip to the “bohemian” side of Paris is no help. Fortunately, Kay Thompson, gonzo musical comedy performer (and author of the Eloise books), is on hand to liven things up. Her solo number “Think Pink” and her duet with Astaire are the highlights of the film. She’s a confident pro whooping it up. The film is not without some other pleasures. The satire of the fashion world is fitfully amusing, and the springtime Paris locations are beautifully shot by cinematographer Ray June. Songs by Gershwin include S’Wonderful, He Loves and She Loves and the title tune.
Muriel's Wedding (1994)
Married With Children meets Diane Arbus, Muriel’s Wedding is a queasy mixture of comedy and unpleasant family melodrama. Many viewers describe it as funny, but it’s cheap sadistic voyeurism, like laughing at tone-deaf karaoke or the dimwits of The Jerry Springer Show. Toni Collette is fearless as the matrimonially desperate Muriel and Rachel Griffiths pizzazzes things up.
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Highly praised, heavy-handed melodrama about social class based on Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Place is mostly remarkable now for its shockingly beautiful co-stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Clift has one of the great film entrances: first seen hitchhiking with his back turned to the camera, he turns to face the audience and his handsomeness is thrilling. Unfortunately that’s the high point of the movie, and there’s two more hours of predestined tragedy to grind through. Co-stars Shelley Winters as Clift’s lower-class girlfriend.
Repulsion (1965)
Roman Polanski flick, admired by many. Catherine Deneuve, young and almost impossibly beautiful, stars as a deranged young woman. That’s the plot – she’s deranged. She’s deranged in the kitchen, she’s deranged in the living room, she’s deranged in the street. The bathroom, too. In spite of Polanski’s considerable technique and inventiveness, all the derangement is really quite dull.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Strangely celebrated late 60s high-toned schlock. Faye Dunaway plays a beautifully dressed insurance investor on the track of gentlemen bandit Steve McQueen. Dunaway is fun to watch in spite of the thin material, but the handsome McQueen brings his minimalist acting style to a new low. He’s got one facial expression and he uses it profligately. Remade with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in 1999.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Oddly tension-free thriller directed by Sidney Pollack. Robert Redford plays a low-level CIA employee on the run from a cabal of rogue CIA agents, Faye Dunaway is his unwilling accomplice, Cliff Robertson is Redford’s boss, and Max Von Sydow plays an amusedly amoral killer. The first twenty minutes, during which all of Redford’s coworkers are murdered, is nerve-crackling but the rest of the movie mosies by. Redford makes much of the movie work through star power and physical beauty, but Dunaway is miscast as a stereotypically helpful handmaiden. She’s just not a passive presence – asking her to be a girlish victim is like hiring Bette Davis to water your houseplants. She has one good, very funny scene in which she helps Redford kidnap Robertson; you can see the relief in her eyes at having something to do other than simper. Robertson sports one of the more astonishing of cinematic hairdos, a combover so elevated it approaches Eraserhead status. The dialogue has one classic howler: Redford: “Well, at least I haven’t raped you!” Dunaway: “The night is young!”
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Steve Coogan is great as Tony Wilson, record producer and TV personality who spearheaded the Manchester music scene of the 1980s. The movie itself doesn’t quite come up to his level – it’s a scattershot affair, excitingly filmed but dramatically inert. The most moving part of the film is the saga of Ian Curtis, the doomed lead singer of Joy Division. Also starring Shirley Henderson.
Two for the Road (1967)
Bottom Ten
Unendurable, faux-sophisticated tripe about a married couple (Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) and the various stages of their marriage, from carefree youth to embittered middle age. Hepburn and Finney are two of the most charismatic of movie stars but their roles as a shrew and a bully waste their talents. Hepburn wears some astonishing outfits, but fashion shows are usually ten minutes long, not 112. The broad caricatures of Americans (William Daniels and Eleanor Bron) are symptomatic of the reflexive English snobbery this movie wallows in. The idiotic script, a cornucopia of trite dramatics and moronic ponderings on the emptiness of success, is by Frederic Raphael and was nominated for an Academy Award. Go figure.
1.5 STARS
The Fortune Cookie (1966)
A Billy Wilder misfire. After Jack Lemmon is hurt at a Cleveland Browns football game, his lawyer brother-in-law Walter Matthau steps in to make them both a fortune. Matthau is a breath of fresh air in what is otherwise a stale, sour comedy.
The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
Irritating and overlong animated film about a bicyclist, his mother and the eponymous triplets. The theme song will crawl into the corner of your brain reserved for irritants like Achy Breaky Heart and The Macarena.
What's New Pussycat? (1965)
Spoilt milk disguised as a frothy romantic comedy. The animated opening credits are the high point of the film. Paula Prentiss, who’s made far too few films, brings a goony comic punch to her scenes, but the rest is almost unendurable. Also stars Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole, Romy Schneider and Woody Allen in his first big-screen performance. Allen also wrote the film. He’s improved since then.
TWO STARS
Funny Face (1957)
Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn star in this theoretically lighthearted musical about a photographer (Astaire) who discovers the mousy Hepburn in a bookstore, turns her into a world-famous fashion model and falls in love with her. The big problem is that Astaire, thirty years Hepburn’s senior, is simply too old to play the part of an antic genius. Their December-May romance is both unbelievable and a little disturbing; watching Astaire woo Hepburn with a song and dance act is embarrassing, and his trip to the “bohemian” side of Paris is no help. Fortunately, Kay Thompson, gonzo musical comedy performer (and author of the Eloise books), is on hand to liven things up. Her solo number “Think Pink” and her duet with Astaire are the highlights of the film. She’s a confident pro whooping it up. The film is not without some other pleasures. The satire of the fashion world is fitfully amusing, and the springtime Paris locations are beautifully shot by cinematographer Ray June. Songs by Gershwin include S’Wonderful, He Loves and She Loves and the title tune.
Muriel's Wedding (1994)
Married With Children meets Diane Arbus, Muriel’s Wedding is a queasy mixture of comedy and unpleasant family melodrama. Many viewers describe it as funny, but it’s cheap sadistic voyeurism, like laughing at tone-deaf karaoke or the dimwits of The Jerry Springer Show. Toni Collette is fearless as the matrimonially desperate Muriel and Rachel Griffiths pizzazzes things up.
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Highly praised, heavy-handed melodrama about social class based on Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Place is mostly remarkable now for its shockingly beautiful co-stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Clift has one of the great film entrances: first seen hitchhiking with his back turned to the camera, he turns to face the audience and his handsomeness is thrilling. Unfortunately that’s the high point of the movie, and there’s two more hours of predestined tragedy to grind through. Co-stars Shelley Winters as Clift’s lower-class girlfriend.
Repulsion (1965)
Roman Polanski flick, admired by many. Catherine Deneuve, young and almost impossibly beautiful, stars as a deranged young woman. That’s the plot – she’s deranged. She’s deranged in the kitchen, she’s deranged in the living room, she’s deranged in the street. The bathroom, too. In spite of Polanski’s considerable technique and inventiveness, all the derangement is really quite dull.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Strangely celebrated late 60s high-toned schlock. Faye Dunaway plays a beautifully dressed insurance investor on the track of gentlemen bandit Steve McQueen. Dunaway is fun to watch in spite of the thin material, but the handsome McQueen brings his minimalist acting style to a new low. He’s got one facial expression and he uses it profligately. Remade with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in 1999.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Oddly tension-free thriller directed by Sidney Pollack. Robert Redford plays a low-level CIA employee on the run from a cabal of rogue CIA agents, Faye Dunaway is his unwilling accomplice, Cliff Robertson is Redford’s boss, and Max Von Sydow plays an amusedly amoral killer. The first twenty minutes, during which all of Redford’s coworkers are murdered, is nerve-crackling but the rest of the movie mosies by. Redford makes much of the movie work through star power and physical beauty, but Dunaway is miscast as a stereotypically helpful handmaiden. She’s just not a passive presence – asking her to be a girlish victim is like hiring Bette Davis to water your houseplants. She has one good, very funny scene in which she helps Redford kidnap Robertson; you can see the relief in her eyes at having something to do other than simper. Robertson sports one of the more astonishing of cinematic hairdos, a combover so elevated it approaches Eraserhead status. The dialogue has one classic howler: Redford: “Well, at least I haven’t raped you!” Dunaway: “The night is young!”
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Steve Coogan is great as Tony Wilson, record producer and TV personality who spearheaded the Manchester music scene of the 1980s. The movie itself doesn’t quite come up to his level – it’s a scattershot affair, excitingly filmed but dramatically inert. The most moving part of the film is the saga of Ian Curtis, the doomed lead singer of Joy Division. Also starring Shirley Henderson.
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