WWII Marathon #2: Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)

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This cramped, humid submariner, which drips with disorder, turmoil and the threat of mutiny against the backdrop of the Pacific theater, has just enough moments of officer tension and bunkside shouting matches to qualify for 90's Jerry Bruckheimer. 

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Truth be told, it's not entirely meant as a pejorative - after all, I quite like The Rock and Crimson Tide, two sterling examples of the Bruckheimer machine that got rolling in the mid-90's and seem to take quite a bit of cues from Run Silent, Run Deep.

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Haunted by a Japanese destroyer, commander P.J. Richardson (an appropriately leathered and tanned Clark Gable) supplants officer Jim Bledsoe (the always wonderful Burt Lancaster) and secretly plans to take the USS Nerka back to the Bungo Straits in the Japanese waters and take down the ship that sank him one year prior. 
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Yes, it's quite evident that Edward L. Beach (an ex-naval officer who wrote the 1955 novel upon which the film is based on) has read Herman Melville, but his Captain Ahab isn't quite the towering, mythical figure that he should be, and the film never really takes off in that direction.
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No, for the most part, this is a straight-up men-at-war action film with a more compromised character at its center. Gable reportedly feared being upstaged by the younger, bulkier Lancaster (who doubles as producer), but he needn't fear. [B-]

In Progress

The view from my couch watching Run Silent, Run Deep - review pending.

WWII Marathon #1: The Enemy Below (1957)

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A U.S. Navy Captain and a German U-boat Commander go head-to-head in Dick Powell's gripping, refreshingly spare cat-and-mouse game that, like a good portion of war films from its era, is less shameless propaganda and more of a reverent acknowledgement of the sacrifice made on both sides. 
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Robert Mitchum's sly, confident Captain Murrell matches wit with Carl Jurgen's resourceful  Kapitan von Stolberg, but besides sharing expert tactics and an bottomless bag of tricks, both men share an unusual respect for their opponent and a cautious - rather futile - stance towards war. 

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And although the film sparingly resembles The Bridge on the River Kwai's balanced viewpoint and anti-war undertones, any resemblance is only fleeting, for The Enemy Below works best as a straight-ahead sea-faring action film.
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Shot in CinemaScope and bright, beautiful colors, the film passes the eye test and even took home an Oscar for Walter Rossi's seamless, smoothly-veiled special effects, which accent what is a moderate, lean and professionally-mounted submariner. [B-]

More Night Love

In a 5.26 post, Jim Emerson talks about the opening shots to Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night ('49), which is not only one of the greatest love-on-the-run movies ever made, but one of the best film noirs I've seen. 

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The kind of youthful innocence portrayed by the late Fairley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell is extremely rare for a film over 60 years old - extremely vulnerable, extremely real. This isn't movie love, it is love - one of the reasons why They Live By Night works so damn well. 

Review: 'Bridesmaids' is bravely wicked and obscene

With unyielding audacity, Paul Feig's Bridesmaids will both encourage and shame you into a bout of frenzied snickering, partly because of its sly, practical wit and partly because of its adventurous, inordinate bawdiness. 
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But whether it be a witty volley of bridal acrimony or an ill-timed rage of digestive trauma, the film hits the mark - be it cheaply or sagaciously - and this cast, anchored by Kristen Wiig's cutesy, vulnerable made of honor, delivers each gag or facial glance with precision. 
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Judd Apataw (whose name adorns more comedies than not these days) is given a producer's credit, and the film - for better or worse - strongly bares his influence with its raunchy, overlong, cynical-then-sweet story arc which builds up these intensely exaggerated characters (like Rose Byrne's deliciously villainous Helen) in its first two acts before tearing them down in the third. 
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For a film this audacious, this bravely ribald, it does inevitably disappoint given this foreseeable route that it eventually decides to take. Nevertheless, the actions and the motivations of the characters hold true, which is more than I can say about films of Bridesmaids' ilk - if, in fact, there are any. [B]

Jean Vigo Criterion

I'm a sucker for poetic realism (Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise is top 20 for me), so I was particularly giddy to hear the announcement of Criterion's Jean Vigo box-set, which will include all of his films, including the renowned L'Atalante ('34), which due to limited accessibility, I've never seen. And in Blu-ray, no less!
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Review: 'Priest' is a melting pot of genre slop.

Crowded with supernatural themes and dreary post-apocalyptic imagery, Scott Stewart’s Priest, based on the Korean comic series by Min-Woo Hyung, is so mechanical and ambitionless that even its initially provocative mixture of genres and styles soon becomes routine.

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As explained in a peculiar animated prologue, a war between humans and vampires is now at an end (thanks to the church-ordained, skilled-in-vampire combat “priests”), with the humans living in walled cities under the sanction of the church and the remaining vampires herded into reservations.

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The priests, including our man Paul Bettany, were disbanded by the church that created them after the war for fear of their power, but now after an apparent (although denied by the church) vampire attack in the outlying town (in which Priest’s brother is wounded and his niece, Lucy, is taken), he futilely request permission to track her down.

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Deciding then to go against the church, Priest is excommunicated and accompanied by Sherriff Hicks (a terribly brash Cam Gigandet), who also has a vested interest in Lucy – a boyhood crush.

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He and Priest set out to find her, where they encounter shoddy CG vampires, token sand-swept deserts, blatant John Ford overtones and a dreadfully hammy Karl Urban, who plays the villainous human-vampire hybrid (and former priest) Black Hat with an incessant grin.

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The tepid action scenes are a combination of hokey sharp-edged weaponry and physics-defying martial arts, but it’s not until Maggie Q, the celibate love-interest and Priestess, dispatches a group of goons on motorcycles that anything in the film even remotely registers a blip.

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Essentially, Stewart directs the film like a murkier, spookier Jonah Hex without all of the silly gadgetry, ill-advised facial scars, which is to say that Priest is feebly, fixedly rudderless. [C-]

Review: 'Fast Five' is a muscular, boorish, refreshing addition to a bad franchise.

The Fast and Furious franchise returns with its globalized cast of long-legged women and hulking, barrel-chested brutes - all of whom, with their gorilla physiques and carelessly (or carefully) fitted shirts, appear abnormally engorged.

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But the noticeable uptick in brawn soon becomes an apt physical quality as the thriftily named Fast Five, not five minutes in, reveals itself as a far more able-bodied and robust rubber-and-steel actioner than any of its four boorishly base predecessors.

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Which isn’t to say that this latest installment – which welcomely makes the transition from attitudinal, neon-colored street racer to exotically-framed heist film – isn’t meat-headed, doltish or crudely written, but that it’s an almost inarguably smoother and more agreeable package.

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Picking up where we left off, cop-turned-criminal Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) rather inconceivably busts Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) out of a prison bus and the two suddenly find themselves, along with O’Conner’s girl Mia (Jordana Brewster), Dom’s sister, on the run in Rio de Janeiro.

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The trio soon find themselves in hot water after a botched train robbery involving a Ford GT has the country’s supreme drug lord, Hernan Reyes, plus a bulging super-soldier, Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) on their trail as they gear up for a 100-million-dollar heist.

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The mid-section of the film is rather doughy and undercooked –with the usual team-building and game-planning more taxing than stimulating with a glamorous-yet- limited cast – but once they get behind the wheel, the results are nearly intoxicatingly addictive. (The final car chase is expertly done and exhilaratingly free from exaggerated digital effects.)

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By film’s end, (predicated by an impromptu toast by Dom, the sleeveless patriarch) the seemingly impossible has been attained – Fast Five has turned these macho boors and flimsy, tanned beauties into a goofy, curiously likeable family of misfits, both on and off the screen. [C+]

Quick Reviews: The Old Maid (1939), The Sisters (1938) and Footsteps in the Dark (1941)

"THE OLD MAID" (1939)
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Bette Davis suffers from ill-fated love in the shadow of her sister (Miriam Hopkins) in this positively catty melodrama that's either deliciously wicked or woefully histrionic.
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Davis plays Charlotte, forced to conceal the existence of her daughter, who instead grows up to call Delia (Hopkins) mother. When their relationship becomes contemptuous, the truth threatens to surface. Ending is irresistibly blubbery. [B]
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"THE SISTERS" (1938)
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A San Francisco sportswriter (Errol Flynn) marries a small-town girl (Bette Davis) in this early Anatole Litvak drama based on the 1937 bestseller about a troubled but destined couple.
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The film is relentlessly, absurdly calamitous (alcoholism! pregnancy! unemployment! earthquakes!) and get by on Flynn's boundless charm alone. After all, who's better served to play a drunk? [C-]
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"FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK" (1941)
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Errol Flynn goes amateur sleuth in this goofy, light-hearted, modest detective thriller-comedy that feels like an extension (or rather imitation) of the William Powell mold practiced in the mid 30's with Philo Vance and Nick Charles. 
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The whodunit plotting is a bit clumsy and tepid in the first hour (although thankfully uncluttered) but the final act is a doozy with some pitch-perfect and welcome comedic chops from Flynn. [B]

Quick Reviews: The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

"THE BRIDE CAME C.O.D." (1941) 
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Shrewd, stellar casting elevates this madcap romantic comedy about a Texas oil heiress (Bette Davis) who is nabbed by a pilot (James Cagney) at the behest of her father (Eugene Pallette) in an attempt to stop an impulsive marriage.

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The plane crashes in the Nevada desert and hilarity ensues as the nearly-deserted ghost town of Bonanza becomes the center of attention. Cagney is willingly, amusingly buoyant. [B]
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"THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER" (1942)
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Sprightly and effervescent with a draft of Yuletide coziness, this practically one-set comedy is a joyous reproduction of the 1939 play about a wise, crotchety old radio celebrity who, while briefly confined to a wheelchair, is forced to live in the home of a small-town Ohio family.

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The entire ensemble is immaculate, from Bette Davis to Anne Sheridan to the Witch of the North herself, Billie Burke, but it’s stage actor Monty Woolley, a modest film presence to that point, who hisses his delectable zingers with aplomb and anchors this refined, winning gem. [A]

Quick Reviews: Green Fire (1954) and The Swan (1956)

"GREEN FIRE" (1954)

A reckless miner (Stewart Granger) is on the hunt for the eponymous emerald in the capital of Colombia, where a beautiful plantation owner (Grace Kelly) grows coffee beans amidst revolution. 
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It's spry and flirtatious in the first half, dour and histrionic in the second, but the location-work is consistently stunning including a doozy of an action climax. It's no Romancing the Stone. [B-]
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"THE SWAN" (1956)
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A princess (Grace Kelly) is pushed by her family to marry the crown prince (Alec Guinness), while her true affections lie with the house tutor (Louis Jourdan). 
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It's classy and chic with a touch of lace and wonderfully performed, yet the it's-hard-out-here-for-a-princess final act is oddly muddled, slightly rescued by stirring Guinness monologue. [B-]

Review: 'Meek's Cutoff' is vivid, haunting and beautifully spare.

Withering from the merciless sun and pummeled by the rigid, boundless Oregon terrain, Kelly Reichardt's masterful minimalist western Meek's Cutoff is not merely a journey of rigorous physical adversity, but of mental and psychological endurance - against self, against enemy, against fellow man.

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Or perhaps woman, mind you - seeing as how Reichardt (a fine female director who found prominence with 2008's Wendy and Lucy) frames the film around the tireless and progressively catty Emily Tethrow (Michelle Williams) whose denunciation of the small party's hired guide , the grizzled and ferocious Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), forces her to take a more prominent role in the group's affairs. 

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The days pile up until the group encounters a lone Indian, whose life - much less his intent - is freely debated throughout until desperation leads to his ambiguous motivations guiding them to water, or perhaps an ambush. 

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Shooting in a fittingly old-fashioned academy ratio, Reichardt and cinematographer Chris Blauvelt produce stark, enduring images of the rustic, enervating frontier - mostly with lingering and frighteningly immense long shots. 

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As the grubby, barren landscape takes hold of its muddling captors, Reichardt ratchets the anxiety into baleful astriction - true life-or-death exigency. It's here where the film's ultimate power shift is also its parting goodbye - a fleeting, teasingly cryptic punctuator. [A]

Classic Rewind: Comanche Station (1960)

So structurally and thematically similar to Ride Lonesome the two become nearly indistinguishable, Comanche Station is nonetheless another sharp-edged exercise in greed and lawless temptation.

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After rescuing a captured woman from the Comanches (in a nearly-silent opening scene), Randolph Scott’s Jefferson Cody runs into a trio of outlaws who were beating every bush looking for the same woman – turns out there’s a $5,000 reward for her return.

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This sets off a combustible psychological duel between the men who – even amidst constant Comanche threats – all wish to turn her in for the reward.

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There’s constant bickering and cryptic undercurrents involving the three men who can’t resist the allure of the reward money against the moral standing (or perhaps retributive catharsis) of Scott’s Jefferson Cody - a perfect punctuator to Boetticher’s western landscape of wrath, discontent and avarice. [A-]

Classic Rewind: Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)

Randolph Scott rides into trouble in the border-town of Agry in Buchanan Rides Alone as he’s a witness to a murder and now wrongfully locked-up for involvement with the murderer, Juan de la Vega.
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Worse yet, the victim was Roy Agry, the hot-headed sibling to the trio of brothers of whom the town bears its name. “Anybody here not named Agry?” Scott’s titular Tom Buchanan amusingly pries.

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Eventually, the town turns on itself over what to do with Juan and the mysterious and equally devious Buchanan as convolution abounds in this particularly muddled and knotty western. And the final shootout over the border-jumping bridge is particularly batty. [C+]

Classic Rewind: Ride Lonesome (1959)

Budd Boetticher’s last two films as part of the “Ranown” series both concern themselves with a mixed traveling party of roughnecks, a young lady and the temptation of money and the eventual cost of greed. 

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Ride Lonesome begins with bounty hunter Ben Brigade (Randolph Scott) as he captures the outlaw Billy John, vowing to bring him to justice in Santa Cruz. Along the way, he picks up two rivals and a fetching new widow whose motivations are both mysterious and brazenly obvious, all the while on the run from Billy John’s brother, Frank (played by Lee Van Cleef).

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Fending off two greedy gunmen with one hand while keeping Frank at bay with the other, the real intentions of Brigade’s treacherous capture of Billy John is – as per usual – not as barbaric as one might expect.

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Combining the mixed-company friction of The Naked Spur and the ambiguous, nearly-biblical vengeance of The Man From Laramie, Ride Lonesome may just be the best Anthony Mann western that he never directed – visually sweeping yet thematically gloomy and spiteful. [A-]

Classic Rewind: The Tall T (1957) and Decision at Sundown (1957)

"THE TALL T" (1957)
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An exercise that Anthony Mann could be proud of, this psychological western sees Randolph Scott's golly-gee landowner held hostage alongside a pair of newlyweds by three thugs.
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Like a rockier, paler Man of the West, The Tall T begins to take shape the closer its characters come to desperation and anxiety. It's a film full of lonely, battered and isolated people - of dreams unfulfilled - forced together.
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It's perhaps the most languid of Boetticher's westerns, yet the landscapes (jagged, barren, dark) are some of his most profound. This is a quiet, measured and often surprisingly poignant effort. [B]
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"DECISION AT SUNDOWN" (1957)
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Perhaps the most thorough examination of revenge Boetticher ever put to the screen, this stand-off "town" western begins and end with Randolph Scott trotting into (and then out of) the eponymous Sundown.
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Announcing his arrival at a well-attended wedding, Scott (playing Bart Allison) reveals his intentions to the chapel gathering - he's going to kill Tate Kimbrough. "Ma'am", he says to the bride, "if you marry this man, you'll be a widow by sundown."
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We don't know what Kimbrough did to ruffle his feathers, and we won't find out for a while, but as Bart holes himself up in the livery stable, the town of Sundown begins to turn on itself to the point where the intruder and wedding saboteur has soon garnered the majority of the town's sympathies. 
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What happens in the final reel is contemplative, unsuspecting stuff for a traditional B-western, as Bart Allison's three-year quest for revenge comes to a head, and it's not likely the result he was planning on. [B+]

2nd Annual WWII Marathon Begins May 30th

Last year I spontaneously partook in a World War II Marathon in correspondence with TCM's Memorial Day weekend war movie binge and I had so much fun that I'm doing it again this year. 
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When I set out to make this list, I thought scrounging up another 15 or so films would be impossible given the classics I covered last year (The Guns of Navarone, The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, etc.), but let me tell you, there's no shortage of classic WWII films and I'm gonna keep this baby going year-after-year until I see all of them - why not?
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Anyway, so for 2011, I've added and subtracted and mulled over about 30 or so titles and came up with a good 16 films for this edition, up 2 from last year's 14. Without further ado, the 2011 line-up (keep in mind, a film is only eligible if I've never seen it - for now, anyways):
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"They Were Expendable" (1945) d: John Ford
"Air Force" (1943) d: Howard Hawks
"A Yank in the RAF" (1941) d: Henry King
"Dive Bomber" (1941) d: Michael Curtiz
"Objective, Burma!" (1945) d: Raoul Walsh
"The Devil's Brigade" (1968) d: Andrew V. McLaglen
"Von Ryan's Express" (1965) d: Mark Robson
"The Caine Mutiny" (1954) d: Edward Dmytryk
"Never So Few" (1959) d: John Sturges
"The Young Lions" (1958) d: Edward Dmytryk
"The Night of the Generals" (1967) d: Anatole Litvak
"Operation Crossbow" (1965) d: Michael Anderson
"The Enemy Below" (1957) d: Dick Powell
"Run Silent, Run Deep" (1958) d: Robert Wise
"Attack!" (1956) d: Robert Aldrich 
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So there you have it, you can expect a review a day for about a two-week period - can't wait to dive into it once those temperatures start to regularly hit 100 and I'm inside watching some war movies in the house with the fan on full blast. And thank you, TCM for airing about a third of these. 

Review: "Thor" is goofy, barmy and finally endearing.

This highly unfathomable big-screen adaptation of the most potentially hazardous member of the featured Avengers, despite awkwardly flipping from the glossy, gold-plated corridors of Asgard and the dusty desert trappings of small-town New Mexico (theatrical family drama and fish-out-of-water comedy), is a surprisingly gratifying superhero introduction with its charming disposition and not too serious opinion of its self.
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Heavily rooted in Norse mythology with frost giants, sparkling bridges and almighty powerful hammers, the ability of the film to eventually (though not without difficulty) bring the audience to terms with its admittedly flaky world is nothing less than bewildering. (Trust me, by the end of the film, you'll know what a bifrost bridge is without blinking.)
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And easing the startlingly goofy Asgard segments into something resembling reality is the film's titular son of Odin, Chris Hemsworth, whose infectious smile, shoulder-length gold locks and soft blue eyes don't just help soften the campy source material, they carry it. 
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His segments on Earth (opposite Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings) are goofy, comical and sweet while his Asgard dealings require more intensity and brawn, yet Hemsworth handles both aspects deftly. (Honestly, without him, this could be dreadful stuff.)
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Yet credit must also be given to director Kenneth Branagh, who turned heads when his name was attached to the project years ago, yet has proven to be an able and shrewd choice once the dust settles and the product finished. Taking his Shakespearean background and applying it to the power struggle and betrayal of Thor's royal family, the film carries a bout of tension that keeps it afloat amidst all of the beards and Jotunheim hokum. 
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Looking at possible cinematic offspring of recent memory, one can easily point-out where Thor got it right. Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans, the dull but-not-quite-dreadful remake from last year, was so stiff and surly that it barely moved. This Thor is comfortable and breezy, it stretches its legs before the grueling segments and has enough in reserve to bring it home. [B]

Classic Rewind: Wagon Master (1950)

Wagon Master ('50) is pretty much like every other John Ford western - gorgeous, majestic, vivid, warm, goofy. Unlike an Anthony Mann, whose westerns are heightened by big emotions, ambiguously or vengefully motivated characters with elements of film noir, Ford takes the picturesque, wholesome, humanistic approach.
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Ben Johnson, free from the shadow of the the Duke, plays horse trader Travis Blue, called upon by a group of Mormon settlers to take them across the San Juan Valley, using their extensive knowledge of the terrain and their reputable relationship with the Navajo. 
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As per usual, Ford stocks the film with a colorful, talkative ensemble to fill out his wide-angled compositions of the Utah valleys (Moab sits in for Monument here) and keeps the risky journey generally perky, vivacious and buoyant.
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Along the way, the Mormon expedition picks up a traveling medicine sideshow (romantic diversions) and the inauspicious Clegg family (gotta have bad guys) and their wounded leader, Shiloh (played wonderfully by Charles Kemper). 
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A folksy, hoedown soundtrack, rather than sweetening, is nearly suffocating, yet Ford's landscapes and lively cast win out in this prototypical western by the American auteur - solidly second-tier. [B]

Classic Rewind: Saddle the Wind (1958)

Aside from some dazzling CinemaScope photography and a lovely Julie London title song, Robert Parrish's Saddle the Wind ('58) is a modest, insubstantial western that, at just 84 minutes, feels a tad slight and undernourished. 
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A classic good brother, bad brother family saga, Robert Taylor plays Steve Sinclair, an ex-gunman who has settled down in the valley owned by rancher Dennis Deneen (Donald Crisp) with his careless, hothead younger brother, Tony (John Cassavetes) who brings home a spiritually wounded saloon girl (Julie London) named Joan. 
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When a past enemy, Larry Venables (the great Charles McGraw) comes to town, it sets Tony down a path of violent recklessness that tears he and Steve apart, not to mention his fine catch, the fetching Joan Blake. 
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Tony's decent into madness and hysteria should have been tragic and compelling, but Cassavetes, who would become a renowned independent director and a formidable actor in films like Rosemary's Baby, overplays it here, turning Tony into a runaway freight train who can't be stopped until he runs off a cliff, and not a minute too soon. 
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Taylor, meanwhile, has always been an actor who works better playing a character with a hot streak in him (Johnny Eager), but he runs ice cold here in his usual "straight" role, a la All the Brothers Were Valiant ('53), another tale of feuding siblings. Like that film, Saddle the Wind is compellingly shot and yet inadequately meager. [C+]

Trailer: Immortals (2011)

I wouldn't call Tarsem Singh a great filmmaker by any means, but I've been a fan of his surrealist, fantastical visual style since The Cell, culminating in the surprisingly moving and beautiful The Fall. 
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That being said, although this trailer for Immortals (Relativity, 11.11.11) has some of the directors' trademark visuals, if I didn't know any better, I would have dismissed this as some hack regurgitating more 300 leftovers.
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Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto. This thing cost $115 million? Yikes.