Netflix new release roundup for January ‘21

...and that was just January.

What a month, huh? Our long national nightmare is finally over, though the mess DT left behind will take years, if not decades, to clean up, and a whole lot of people out there will try to impede the process... but now that adults are in charge of America again, we stand a good chance at making some progress. To ease us back to movie-related discussion, if you haven’t seen this video from Arnold Schwarzenegger—the former California governor, remember?—take a look at it.

—The Midnight Sky. George Clooney and a little kid are stuck on an Arctic base but they’ve gotta send a message to a spaceship returning from a scouting trip to another planet, telling them not to come home because the earth is effed up. This was done well and all, but man, I’m tired of all these depressing space exploration movies: Interstellar, Gravity, First Man, Ad Astra. I realize SF can’t all be action-adventure shoot-em-ups, but space travel used to represent hope. What happened? Clooney also directs and produces; as an actor, he’s in full-on Grizzly Adams mode, and everyone’s grim and silent and sad. Just the kinda thing we all need right now, isn’t it?

—Pretend It’s a City. Vija told me about this one (she read about it; she didn’t see it): a documentary mini-series, in half-hour installments, on writer Fran Leibowitz, her love-hate relationship with New York, and thoughts on life in general, directed by Martin Scorsese. This is actually their second collaboration; the first movie he made about her was in 2010. I had no prior experience with her; never read her work, never seen her speak, barely even knew who she was, but I can see why Marty put her on film. One part Woody Allen, one part Dorothy Parker, her observations on New York life are quite funny and very often on the nose, to those of us who have lived here long enough. This is someone I could easily see chatting with on a subway car, complaining over a variety of things that are wrong about the city, but mostly I’d be listening. I think there’s a lot to appreciate about this even if you’re not a New Yorker.

—Outside the Wire. US-military-made cyborg teams up with disgraced drone pilot to hunt down European terrorist looking to acquire nukes—but said cyborg has agenda of his own. Anthony Mackie gets to channel his inner Van Damme in what some critics have called an SF Training Day. It was okay, but not emotionally involving. Doesn’t have the heart of Terminator 2 or the brain of Ex Machina. It’s basically an excuse for Mackie to kick ass—which, granted, he does really well! Newcomer Damson Idris is appealing as the human reluctantly paired with this cyborg, but otherwise, well, I probably would’ve passed on this if it were a theatrical release.

More on the other side.

Netflix new release roundup for October ‘20

Good movies can still be found this year through streaming sites, and my site of choice remains Netflix. I suspect the overwhelming majority of this year’s Oscar candidates will come via the streamers, so here’s what I’ve been watching over the past weeks. 

—Da 5 Bloods. The surviving members of a Vietnam platoon return to Vietnam forty years later to find the remains of their commanding officer, as well as to reclaim a cache of gold they appropriated during the war. Spike Lee captures the beauty of modern Vietnam well, its cities as well as its jungles, and the story is relevant, as you would imagine one of his joints to be. Delroy Lindo’s finest work has always been with Spike, and this may be his best performance ever, MAGA cap and all. A Best Actor nomination is all but assured. Also, how wonderful it was to see the late Chadwick Bozeman one more time, in a key supporting role, to remind us what a treasure we lost in him. Even in a normal year, this would be one of the year’s best.

—The Old Guard. Highlander meets Unbreakable: a race of immortal beings live in secret, righting wrongs around the world. They encounter a new one of their kind at the same time a pharmaceutical company wants to discover what makes them tick. Gina Prince-Bythewood was known for romantic dramas like Love and Basketball and Beyond the Lights. Who knew she had an action movie in her? And this one hits on all cylinders: Charlize Theron, who has been making a pretty good post-Oscar career as an action girl, rocks it in this one: kicking ass left and right, but with a vulnerable and human side to her as well. A multi-culti cast that goes all over the world, in a movie that could be the start of a new franchise—once The Virus is under control, of course.

—I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I feel about Charlie Kaufman’s new film the way I did when I saw Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!: there was definitely a singular artistic vision here, at work in a story that starts out relatively mundane and ends surrealistic and utterly bizarre, but I’ll be damned if I can interpret any of it. My guess is it’s a meditation on aging and the deterioration and fragmentation of memory, though it seems to start as the woman’s story and ends as the man’s, which didn’t make sense. Like Mother!, I went into Thinking blind, assuming all I needed to know was the writer-director and his rep (I have got to stop doing that). Ludicrously talky, it bored me silly in places but I kept thinking well, sooner or later there’ll be an explanation for all this. There wasn’t, not that I could tell.

—Rebecca (2020). The critics were less than charitable to this latest version of the world-famous Daphne DuMaurier novel memorably adapted by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, but I didn’t think it was as mediocre as they said it was. The set design of Manderley was thrilling, as were the location shots, and weird dream sequences aside, I found it watchable. Lily James is less mousy as the nameless protagonist than Joan Fontaine, and Armie Hammer felt a bit less cold and uptight than Laurence Olivier, but Kristin Scott Thomas as Danvers was the best part for me. It won’t make me abandon my Criterion DVD of Hitch’s version, but for what it is, it’s alright.

More on the other side.

A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death (AKA Stairway to Heaven)
YouTube viewing

Powell & Pressburger. I’ve wanted to see a Powell & Pressburger film for the longest time. I think I might’ve seen The Red Shoes during my video store years, but if I did, it might have been playing while I was helping customers and therefore couldn’t give it the attention such a movie deserves.

You can spot a P&P film for several reasons, but mostly because of the color. Did any other filmmakers in the Golden Age era use color as brilliantly as P&P? (Douglas Sirk probably comes closest.) Someone will correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure, but I suspect whenever Hollywood used Technicolor back then, it was in a more show-off manner: as part of an “event” picture, like Oz or Wind or Robin, or for a splashy musical or a Cinescope picture.

I don’t get that sense from P&P. They used it prominently and they were obviously proud of it, but I suspect it was treated as just one of several integral elements to their movies which they happened to do better than most: the cinematography, the lighting, the set design—and I can sense this just from looking at clips of their films... though I could be wrong.

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin
YouTube viewing

In Soviet Russia, movies watch you!

Okay, so much for the cheap joke...

Here’s everything you need to know about the Russian Revolution of 1905. Here’s how the town of Odessa factored into the revolution as a result of the pogroms against its Jewish population. And here’s the reality behind the mutiny on the Russian navy’s flagship that inspired the breathtaking film Battleship Potemkin. Pay attention because there’ll be a quiz later.

And as an aside: much, much better writers than Yours Truly have discussed the pros and cons of communism. I’m not interested in going down that path. Leave discussion of Lenin and Marx (not that one) on the table. My only concern is the movie.

1917

1917
seen @ AMC Lincoln Square 13, New York NY

Shooting a film in one shot, or at least making it appear like one shot, might be the greatest challenge a director can undertake, yet when I wrote about the last movie I saw to attempt this feat, Best Picture winner Birdman, I didn’t write about that aspect much because the movie as a whole befuddled me more than I expected it would, but that had more to do with the screenplay than the camerawork... which was not an issue with 1917, a World War 1 film by American Beauty and Skyfall director Sam Mendes that puts the viewer in the trenches and battlefields of France with the protagonists, a pair of soldiers who must warn a battalion cross country of an impending attack, and it doesn’t take long before you stop thinking about how cinematographer Roger Deakins kept the visual flow so consistent and how editor Lee Smith made every cut so seamless and invisible and you get caught up in the story because the cumulative result bonds you with Blake and Scofield; you feel their pain when they get hurt and your heart races when they crawl across a battlefield anticipating enemy fire and you fear their mission may not succeed in time because we stick with them through everything, every step they take, every friend and foe they encounter, every obstacle that slows them down; a lifetime spent watching movies and TV has conditioned us to anticipate cuts in the action but we don’t get that here, and one has to adjust one’s thinking to compensate, but it’s worth the effort because I’m convinced this is one of the best war movies ever made—and Mendes discusses most of the nuts and bolts behind it here.

New year’s links

This Chaplin GIF is submitted in an attempt
to lighten all our spirits.

It’s not too late to reboot 2020 so we can start over, is it?

The holiday season, at least, was a good one. Virginia took me to a Cirque du Soleil show at Madison Square Garden, and in turn, I took her to a performance of Messiah at Carnegie Hall. These were our Christmas gifts to each other. It was the first time I had seen either one. On Christmas night we had dinner with friends—I made a salad—and on New Year’s Eve she and Sandi were once again part of the annual free choral recital in midtown Manhattan. Ann was part of it too, for the first time. It was kinda funny how many people I knew in the chorus this year. Our after-party was a tad smaller than last year, but that was okay.

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Last month was a sad one for Trekkies. On the heels of the death of popular Deep Space Nine supporting player Aron Eisenberg, we lost more stars, from both sides of the camera. I’ve talked about DC Fontana here before; not too much more to add. As a woman writer, she was an inspiration to many who came after her, whether they were professionals in the industry or fans writing for SF zines. As for Rene Auberjonois, I remember feeling good about him joining the cast of DS9 because of his TV and film work elsewhere, and his was a tremendous contribution. His interpretation of Odo was as a multi-faceted character, loaded with contradictions, yet with a human touch underneath his brusque exterior. His relationships with Kira and Quark were fascinating to watch unfold and they brought so much depth to the overall story. Great artists who gave us much to be thankful for as fans.

——————

On a somewhat happier Trek-related note: I had made peace with the belief I would never get to see Star Trek: Discovery, but Ann acquired CBS All Access last month and she was kind enough to invite me to her house so we could binge-watch it. No, I did not expect to do that quite so soon after my little experiment, but life, y’know?

We watched the first twelve or so episodes of Season 1, over two nights. I won’t go into specific details here, but while some things were impressive—Michael Burnham is a unique character in Trek lore, with her own set of morals, and I like the premise of a disgraced Starfleet officer seeking redemption—there was a lot more I didn’t care for. The technology which clearly is superior to that of Kirk’s era; the profanity, which wasn’t Scorsese-level but served no purpose I could tell; the gee-whiz shots of outside the Discovery and then zooming inside; the stronger-than-usual emphasis on action; the unnecessary redesign of the Klingons; the de-emphasis on Starfleet values; the generic American crew; the lack of humor, THE CONSTANT GODDAMN CUTS.

If you wanna get into specifics, let’s talk in the comments. For now, I’ll just say: I understand this is set during a time of war, but even during the Dominion War, DS9 placed a greater emphasis on character and plots tailored around each character than what I’ve seen from Discovery so far. That may change, but I’m not convinced yet. Here’s hoping Picard will be better.

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Let’s go straight to the links:

Le uses All Quiet on the Western Front to address violence in war movies.

Jacqueline on Lionel Barrymore and Christmas.

Cats is gonna lose a ton of money.

Sam Mendes on how his grandfather inspired 1917.

The animation studio behind the Lion King remake shut down.

Could Adam Sandler win an Oscar? If he doesn’t, he’ll unleash a bomb of a movie on us.

Former DS9 star Nana Visitor on Rene Auberjonois.

CBS All Access is expanding Star Trek in many directions.

This post sums up my feelings about the whole CGI James Dean thing.

The struggle to preserve film backdrops.

Spotlight on former NBA star Kevin Garnett in Uncut Gems.

And then there was that time the US government thought Wakanda was a real country.

Waterloo Bridge (1931)

Waterloo Bridge (1931)

YouTube viewing

In this month’s link post, I included the piece by Karen from Shadows and Satin and the noir zine The Dark Pages about Mae Clarke. It made me want to check out some of the actress’s other stuff.

Chances are if you’ve heard of Clarke, you only know her for being the one who got a grapefruit squished in her face by Jimmy Cagney in The Public Enemy. She made other movies, including one from the same year, 1931, called Waterloo Bridge. If you’ve heard of that movie, though, you probably only know it from the Vivian Leigh version, made nine years later, so, yeah, one could argue Clarke’s career has been overlooked—hence Karen’s deep dive into her filmography.

Bridge was directed by James Whale, of Bride of Frankenstein and Invisible Man fame, but it’s no horror flick. It’s a very down-to-earth wartime romance, set during the First World War. Clarke is an American showgirl in London who meets soldier Kent Douglass (AKA Douglas Montgomery) during an air raid at the titular bridge. They spend some time together and he’s instantly smitten, but he doesn’t know Clarke turns tricks on the side to keep a roof over her head—and she’s terrified of him finding out. Look for a pre-fame Bette Davis in a few scenes!

Bridge is a pre-code film, made before the self-imposed restrictions on cinematic content were enforced by a Hollywood fearful of government intervention, and as such, it wasn’t explicit about sex and violence, but it made the audiences of its day read between the lines much more than modern films need to do. No one ever out-and-out proclaims Myra, Clarke’s character, is a ho, but the way the film is written and acted, you can come to that conclusion on your own.

In one early scene, Clarke and a friend are “on duty,” standing in front of a shop window, when a cop comes along. He gives them the eye and at first you wonder, what are they doing wrong? But the way they look at each other, the cop’s body language, and one’s knowledge of such situations—historically speaking, why would a cop be suspicious of women loitering on the street at night?—and the answer is obvious without it being stated outright.

This sort of thing was what filmmakers in the pre-code era did, and it was a kind of storytelling that engaged the audience and forced them to not only pay close attention to what was going on, but to rely on their personal experience.

Douglass’ character struck me as naive. He justifies his infatuation with Clarke by saying how wartime life makes people act on their impulses sooner, since they could all be dead tomorrow. I can buy that rationale, but I still couldn’t completely buy him wanting Clarke so swiftly because he was only nineteen. I remember how I was at nineteen, and though I thought I wanted to marry the girl I loved at the time, I was not ready at all.

But let’s get back to Clarke. Karen called her performance in Bridge “a revelation—she displayed a natural acting style that was liberally infused with poignancy, sincerity, and subtlety.” For the most part, I agree; she rarely descends into melodramatic histrionics, and she shines in a number of important scenes, such as the one with Douglass’ mom where she confesses her illicit sideline.

Myra is a very proud character; she won’t take charity and a part of her thinks she can do alright on her own, but deep down, she still wants love, and she fears her circumstances will keep her from it. It’s too bad Clarke didn’t become as big as Leigh or Harlow or Crawford, but I guess there was only so much room at the top in those days.

The military career of Flight Lt. James Doohan

The D-Day Blogathon is an event memorializing the events of June 6, 1944 through film, hosted by Hamlette’s Soliloquy and Coffee, Classics and Craziness. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the links at the host sites.

I blew a chance to meet James Doohan. It was the mid-90s, and I was at a comic book convention — in Boston, perhaps, but I can’t swear to that. This was during my venture into self-publishing my own comics, and I was on my way to a panel discussion I had thought would help me in my fledgling career. I strode down a carpeted hall. To my left were tables with artists and celebrity guests from TV and film. If you’ve ever been to a con, you know they’re a regular sight, even if they have no direct connection to comics or even sci-fi/fantasy.

I looked and there he was: Scotty from Star Trek.

Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens NY

If you know me by now, you may be able to guess what my favorite scene was in Darkest Hour. England had the Nazi wolves howling at the door, the government was all set to negotiate for a surrender, and Winston Churchill was the only official left who still wanted to fight. He decides to talk to the people, get their opinion, so what does he do?

He takes public transportation.

Did this moment really happen? Who cares? It makes for good drama; indeed, it's not unlike Henry V walking among his troops on the eve of battle. Churchill mentions he had never taken the subway before — believable, given the kind of life he had led prior to that moment — yet he understood this was where he could take the pulse of the people. True, he could have gone into a pub, but he chose the subway, or the underground, as the Brits call it, and the people told him what they wanted: to fight. More to the point, he listened.

It goes without saying that we're currently experiencing a leadership void in Washington, but here in New York, there's another lack of leadership taking place, and it, too, involves the subways.

We have a governor, who controls the administration that operates our subways, who has also ridden the rails to talk to the people, only it's usually for things like ribbon-cutting ceremonies for a new station (usually delivered late and over budget).

Meanwhile, the trains themselves fall behind schedule, suffer derailments (my train had one the day I went to see Hour; I had to take a second bus and walk a long way), operate with ancient signals, and keep more and more passengers late for their appointments. The buses are little better.

In this election year, the governor finally claims to have a plan to get transit the money it needs to not only update the system, but to simply keep it functional, although this is the same guy who, in the past, raided the transit coffers for his own ends.

In Hour, Churchill knew enough about the value of the subway to go there and engage the people in a dialogue during a time of crisis. Twitter overflows with stories of our broken trains, tweeted directly to the governor, the same guy who declared a state of emergency on the subways last year, but his silence has been deafening. Which man looks more like a leader to you?

Anyway, back to the movie: these days we take this period in history for granted in the sense that we say, of course we had to fight the Nazis; no question about it, but at the time, in England, it wasn't so obvious. No one knew for sure how far Germany would go, and negotiating a peace with them must have made sense to a lot of folks because who the hell wanted them to come in and kick England's ass arse? Churchill, however, saw more to the situation than that.

Joe Wright made this film in a way that, ironically, reminded me of a German expression, "Sturm und Drang:" bombastic music, extremes of light and shadow, dramatic camera angles, heavy on the emotion, yet it never feels too melodramatic or over-the-top. And do I even need to go into Gary Oldman's towering performance, in all that prosthetic makeup, no less, one which should FINALLY get him the Oscar he has deserved for so very long?

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Related:

Dunkirk

The King's Speech

Dunkirk

Dunkirk
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

Dunkirk's place in world history isn't something generally taught in American schools; at least, it wasn't taught to me. Wikipedia says the French town is actually a commune, which is like a township. In 1940, during World War 2, the British army was stuck there, having been cut off by Germany, so they had to get out by sea. Winston Churchill put the call out to any and every available boat to come to Dunkirk and help get the soldiers the hell out of Dodge, and they came - over 900 vessels that evacuated over 300,000 troops.

I first became aware of this event through - you guessed it - the movies. One of the highlights of the superb movie Atonement is a roughly-five-minute sequence depicting the Dunkirk evacuation that, in itself, was pretty memorable. Director Joe Wright filmed it as one long tracking shot, following James McAvoy through the beach, amidst the British troops preparing to leave. Atonement isn't a war movie, but this scene definitely sticks out in the memory. (That and Keira Knightley in that green dress.)

Christopher Nolan's film Dunkirk obviously gets to do much more with the event, and he does plenty: aerial combat, sinking ships, grim-faced officers, baby-faced soldiers, acts of selfishness, acts of valor, all within an original screenplay by Nolan light on dialogue but still heavy on drama.

Visually speaking, this film is breathtaking. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema goes above and beyond in getting not just beautiful but unique images, on land, sea and air, that belong on a big screen. Editor Lee Smith pieces it all together in a way that maximizes suspense while balancing the multiple storylines, a Nolan trademark.

All this said, I appreciated Dunkirk more than I loved it. Maybe it was because I arrived a few minutes late again (still not used to Cinemart actually starting their movies on time, unlike most multiplexes), but I had some trouble distinguishing certain characters, determining relationships, figuring out why x was doing y. I also found the characters a little too minimal. I found it hard to care about them beyond a surface level. I even dozed off here and there.

It's more than a little surprising to see a war movie do as well as this one has during the summer months, but then, it is also a Nolan movie, and at this point in time, he seems to have the Midas touch. I appreciate his commitment to working with celluloid in a digital age, to making films meant to be seen in theaters, not on iPhones. Dunkirk is a movie that will be analyzed by future filmmakers for its meticulous attention to craft. I just wished I liked it a little better.

Damn dirty links

I dunno. June was simply a slow month for me. Not a whole lot out there I was eager to see. I do have some more outdoor movies planned for the summer, however, plus a few blogathon posts, so that should make up for the lack of activity. Other than that, I don't have much more to say, except thanks for reading. I've broken another record for monthly pageviews, so I know you're out there.

Your links:

Jacqueline looks at Montgomery Clift's first film role, a sober post-war drama about refugee children.

Raquel celebrates ten years of film blogging.

Silver Screenings Ruth recently went on a Hollywood tour about the very early days of the industry.

FlixChatter Ruth goes into the details of her short film.

Pam hearts German actor Jurgen Prochnow.

Aurora has another guest post, from someone who shares memories of a childhood going to the drive-in.

The New York Times and its panel of experts pick the 25 best films of the century - so far.

One fan's memory of seeing ET for the first time.

Here's what the new Transformers movie is like.

Enjoy the holiday. I shall return July 8.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman
seen @ Movieworld, Douglaston, Queens NY

SPOILERS

So Warner Bros. finally stopped dicking around and gave us a Wonder Woman movie (mostly) worthy of her status within the DC Comics pantheon, and the wider pop culture at large. For years, DC kept selling us the idea of Wondy being one of superhero comics' Big Three, along with Big Blue and Long Ears. WB, the parent company, tended to stick with making movies with just the other two, however. With bombs like Supergirl, Catwoman, Green Lantern and Suicide Squad on their resume, you almost can't blame them. Almost.

Kudos, therefore, to WB for simply getting this movie made. They gave it to a woman director, also a good move. Patty Jenkins might be best known for Monster, the film that got Charlize Theron the Oscar. Jenkins had been lingering in TV since, until this one. Although producer Zack Snyder's fingerprints are detectable, she did a real good job overall.

Gal Gadot has the goods. I didn't expect her to put on an accent (Greek? I suppose). That took some getting used to, but it was no big deal (unless that's her real accent; I dunno). Kinda embarrassed I didn't recognize Captain Kirk at first, but it was nice to see him in another franchise.

All this said, I have a problem with the ending, which is a shame, because I was with this movie until that point. If you don't wanna be spoiled, go no further.

Allied

Allied
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

As much as Robert Zemeckis loves making movies with spectacular visual effects, you'd think he'd be a geek icon on the level of Cameron, Jackson, Lucas and Spielberg. I think he comes close. He did make the Back to the Future trilogy, after all. I'm not sure. I'm not as in tune to geek culture as I once was. I know seeing his name on a movie means something to me. That's why I went to see Allied. I was gonna pass on it until I saw it was his film. Ironically, it's one of his rare movies that's not an obvious special effects extravaganza. 

I still remember the first time I saw Forrest Gump. It was mind-boggling. How'd they make it look, I thought at the time, like Tom Hanks was interacting with Nixon and John Lennon and other people from the past? How'd they make it look like Gary Sinise really lost his legs? I couldn't begin to figure it out. It was so new and different. Moments like that are what keeps me going to the movies - that hope I'll see something like that.

I wouldn't say Allied had comparable moments, but for what it was, it was worth the price of admission. Seeing Brad Pitt in period clothes, in a period setting, reminds me once again that he would have been an A-level star in any time period. This film does have an Old Hollywood feel to it, which seems intentional. It's as if Zemeckis sought to remind us of a time when stars carried a movie - glamorous people doing exciting things.

Was it only a few days ago I was lamenting the inability of today's leading men to love a woman in the movies? Allied has romance to spare. In fact, it's what Jeanine Basinger would call a "marriage movie." The love between Pitt and Marion Cotillard, cemented with the birth of their child, is the point of the movie, something I forgot when trying to figure out if she was a Nazi double agent or not. It was nice to see in a big Hollywood movie again. Would that we could see it more often.

I saw Allied with a small late-afternoon audience of mostly old people. I know this because they talked. Not enough to make me want to beat them over the head for it, but enough to be noticeable. In one early scene, Pitt and Cotillard are talking softly; some dude across the aisle actually yelled, "Louder!" as if there was a problem with the audio. (There wasn't.) Several rows behind me, two or three other seniors periodically felt the need to comment on the action. I arrived late, like after the title card (yet another movie without opening credits), so I kinda felt, in a way, like I had no right to complain. If they had been more chatty, however, things would be different.

Eye in the Sky

Eye in the Sky
seen @ City Cinemas East, New York, NY

Eye in the Sky deals with a relatively new and unusual form of combat, namely, drone warfare. Pilots fly planes by remote control and target people or places via surveillance cameras. There's a lot of debate as to how America has used drones, and whether or not they even should, and if you wanna see the arguments on both sides, just look at this.

How do I feel about it? Well, as far as I understand it, the technology is being used by other countries already, and it could give some of them a leg up on us if one of them decides to use it against us. Naturally, I would hope that we can be judicious and responsible in the use of this technology, or at least, as much so as we can, though that may be easier said than done. But I admit I don't know enough about the issue to have a strong opinion either way.

Eye (another movie without opening credits, by the way) imagines one of those no-win situations that come up every now and then in movies like this: a joint US-England drone warfare operation, led by Helen Mirren, leads to the discovery of known, wanted terrorists in Nairobi. Mirren's about to call down the thunder on them when a little local girl is discovered within the kill zone, and suddenly Mirren has to try and figure out how to carry out the strike against the terrorists without killing the girl.

It was really good; very tense and very good at showing us what drone warfare is really like. Mirren tries hard to stick to the rules of engagement, but the rulebook obviously doesn't prepare one for a scenario such as this. Much of the problem involves getting permission from her superiors in London, who are split on the issue, as you might imagine.Plus, even with all their surveillance cameras and agents on the ground, they can still only see so much.

It was nice to see Barkhad Abdi, the Oscar-nominated actor from Captain Phillips, again, and as a good guy this time - a field agent who can pass for a local, and who controls hidden cameras that let Mirren see into the bad guys' hideout. I hope Hollywood continues to find work for him, especially in movies other than this. I have no idea how much range he has as an actor, but he deserves a shot at escaping the dangers of typecasting.

It was also very nice to see the late Alan Rickman one more time. He plays Mirren's boss back in London, who has to deal with the politicians. I wouldn't say his is a spectacular role, but he's fine. A little stiff, perhaps. As fine a dramatic actor as he was, I thought he had a particular gift for comedy as well, and I'm glad we got to see him do a little bit of both throughout his career on film and stage.

I saw Eye in a theater I'd never been to before, the City Cinemas East on East 86th Street. I suppose it's an annex of the more well-known City Cinemas further south on East 60th, though it's (currently) cheaper by three and a half bucks. Seats were comfortable, bathroom was clean. I'd go there again.

I went with Vija and Franz and a relative newcomer to our moviegoing group: Vija's old boss, Jane. From what Vija used to tell me, the two of them did not always get along when they worked together, yet now that they don't have to see each other every day, they looked like they were great pals. I thought she was quite nice, but then, I've always liked Vija's friends. Didn't get a chance to ask Jane about her time working with Vija, though, not even afterwards when we went for Japanese food. Maybe next time.

Spartacus

The Criterion Blogathon is an event examining the films within the Criterion Collection, hosted by Criterion Blues, Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. For a list of participating bloggers, visit the links at the host sites.

Spartacus

from my DVD collection

I first collected Criterion DVDs back when I worked video retail, in the late 90s-early 00s. It was my co-workers' fault. They were much bigger cinephiles than I was at the time. As my appreciation of movies grew - quality movies, not just whatever was playing at the multiplex that weekend - I began to notice patterns. One of them was that lots of quality movies being released on this new format called DVD were under the Criterion label, and they were the ones my co-workers talked about a lot.

I remember going to the Virgin Megastore for them, either in Times Square or Union Square. Virgin was one of my favorite hangout spots in the 90s because I could buy CDs, DVDs and books there, and often did. I also supported smaller, independently-owned record shops and bookstores, but Virgin had a section specifically devoted to Criterion DVDs, which held a big appeal to someone like me, who was getting an on-the-job education in classic cinema at work.

Lawrence of Arabia

The Blind Spot is an ongoing series hosted by The Matinee in which bloggers watch and write about movies they've never seen before. For a list of past movies, visit the home site.

Lawrence of Arabia
seen @ The Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria NY

In my writing group, there's this delightful woman named Jennifer who is not only a very good writer, but is a big old movie fan. As you can imagine, we've become pretty good friends. Hitchcock is her particular favorite director, but her tastes are pretty wide-ranging, from what I can tell so far. 

Anyway, I told her that MOMI was showing Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm and asked her if she wanted to see it with me. She declined because it's not one of her favorite movies. She said she thought it was too long (she fell asleep at one point) and she couldn't identify with Peter O'Toole's character. This, as you might imagine, gave me pause, since I've come to respect Jen's opinion on movies. I had never seen Lawrence before, and while I wouldn't say I was pumped up for it, I had expected it to be worthy of a four-hour investment of my time, especially since I was seeing it in 70mm. Still, I bought my ticket and hoped for the best.

I could tell that the MOMI crowd on Saturday night was full of cinephiles. There were a lot of dudes wearing movie-related T-shirts. I overheard a conversation about Marvel movies. There was definitely a feeling of anticipation in the air for this multiple-Oscar-winning epic. People were saying it was a sellout, but there was an empty seat next to me, as well as a few other empty seats scattered around the auditorium - but not many.

Let's start with what I liked about the movie. First of all, O'Toole was robbed. I cannot believe he lost the Best Actor Oscar, not even to someone like Gregory Peck. Granted, they were both iconic performances, but O'Toole had so much more to do, physically and emotionally, and he had the burden of carrying a four-hour movie on his relatively unknown shoulders. 

Seeing it in 70mm made a tremendous difference. All those sweeping vistas of the desert and the mountains were breathtaking. Director David Lean apparently spent two years in pre-production and 14 months shooting the picture in multiple locations, including Jordan, Spain and Morocco. You could almost feel the heat in some of those desert scenes, and I suspect that was Lean's intention.

I knew that Maurice Jarre's score has become pretty famous as well, and while the main theme was certainly repeated often enough, it was certainly stirring. MOMI played Lawrence with the overture and the intermission music, so it was nice to hear it independent of the movie. It has a strong Arabian flavor to it. One can picture the rising of the desert sun as it plays. That said...

... did this movie really need to be four hours long? Jen was definitely right about the length! I didn't fall asleep, but I did a lot of twisting and turning in my seat, trying to stay comfortable and awake. Normally, I have no problem with the seats in MOMI's theater, but sometime around the hour and a half mark, I think, it began to be a chore to sit still. And while there were exciting moments in the film, especially in the first half, there were also long-ass shots of the desert landscape and the sun that slowed the action down for me to the point where I kept anticipating the intermission. 

Was T.E. Lawrence hard to relate to, like Jen said? Well, I more or less understood what he was doing and the stakes involved, but I couldn't quite grok what made him go from a nebbish in the very beginning to a badass soldier busting caps in dudes like he was the Punisher. I liked that we saw him struggle with his feelings about violence, being both attracted to and repulsed by it, and that he goes through what looked kinda like post-traumatic stress at one point, which probably had a lot to do with some of the people he's forced to kill. 

At the same time, it kinda looked like he was getting a big head, thinking that he was the one who was gonna lead the Arab people into freedom all by himself. When you strip away all the spectacle, Lawrence is ultimately one more white-man-saves-the-darkies movie, which Hollywood has and continues to specialize in for generations, but one would think that in devoting four hours to a film about one man's life, I'd be able to pin him down a little better.

It was hard to care a great deal about Lawrence. In Gone With the Wind, another marathon movie with a difficult main character, I could at least get into Scarlett's love affairs if I didn't want to think about the racial politics of the film (not that the racial politics were all that easy to ignore). Lawrence's story was interesting, but it was difficult for me to feel for him as a person, PTSD issues aside. So is he hard to relate to? I'd say yes and no.

So maybe I was better off not seeing Lawrence with Jen. Next time I'll have to think of a comedy instead!

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Previous Blind Spot movies:
Gone With the Wind
Charlie Chan in Paris
Jaws

Stalag 17

The Billy Wilder Blogathon is an event celebrating the life and career of one of Hollywood's greatest writer-directors, hosted by Once Upon a Screen and Outspoken & Freckled. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the links at either site.

Stalag 17
YouTube viewing

According to the book Hogan's Heroes: Behind the Scenes at Stalag 13, in 1967, Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, the playwrights of the original play Stalag 17 (and both former World War 2 prisoners-of-war themselves), filed a lawsuit against Bing Crosby Productions and CBS, claiming that the long-running sitcom was the plagiarized result of the playwrights' pitch for a series of their own, based on their play. While the jury ruled in the playwrights' favor, the judge overruled the decision.

I've always loved Stalag 17 and its sharp mix of both humor and pathos, but I've never seen Hogan's Heroes. I had heard of the show, of course, though a sitcom based inside a WW2 POW camp always struck me as a dubious premise. After re-watching Stalag 17 again earlier this month and doing a little reading about the movie, though, I wondered: was there any merit to Bevan and Trzcinski's case?

I watched a few episodes of Hogan from the first season. The pilot, like Stalag 17, involves flushing out a German double agent from within the barracks, though his identity is no mystery. It's a mildly amusing comic variation on the movie. The approach Colonel Hogan and his unit takes to deal with the spy is completely different, and naturally, being a comedy, it stands in tonal contrast to the film's take on the similar premise. Also, the prisoner characters are nothing like the ones in the film. There's no character similar to William Holden's - the black sheep of the group who's the prime suspect.

It's tempting to chalk it up to coincidence, except the Stalag 17 playwrights did come to CBS with the idea first. Would CBS have come up with the idea on their own? We'll never know for sure. Still, I don't want to turn this into a comparison between Hogan and Stalag 17. While the former isn't as bad as I thought it might be, I'd much rather talk about the latter. 

Holden won the Oscar for his work here, and you all know how great an actor he was, but can I also get some love for Robert Strauss, who was also Oscar-nominated? I didn't know this until I saw the IMDB page for the movie. He played Animal, the lovable goofball slob with the Betty Grable fetish. He was certainly memorable and funny, but he was also paired with Harvey Lembeck, who played Shapiro, the whole time. To me, it seems wrong to favor one over the other because they played off of each other the whole movie, and Lembeck was, in my mind at least, every bit as good as Strauss. (For what it's worth, they were both in the original play.) It's always nice to see a comedic role get recognized by the Academy, but I would've voted for Sig Ruman as Schultz. Great comedic actor; always stood out in a cast.

Director/co-writer Billy Wilder made Stalag 17 after the failure of Ace in the Hole, a film that would not be fully appreciated for many years. This one, however, was a hit. It was made during the period between Wilder's breakup with his first primary writing collaborator, Charles Brackett, and his union with his second major writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond. He adapted this from the play with Edwin Blum, but according to Wilder, Blum brought little to the table, so Wilder never worked with him again. He has said that you can always tell which writers he had the best rapport with, because they were the ones he worked with repeatedly, like Brackett and Diamond. The ones he didn't get along with as well, he never worked with again. Like many of Wilder's films, it's tricky to classify: it's too funny to be a drama and too dramatic to be a comedy... but then, that's part of what made Wilder unique among filmmakers.

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Other films by Billy Wilder:
Double Indemnity
Some Like it Hot
A Foreign Affair
One Two Three
Sunset Boulevard