Reviews

The key events of Vincent Van Gogh's life are narrated (by Claude Dauphin in the French version, and by Martin Gabel in the English), and illustrated by the paintings, with appropriately heightened music score attached. That's it...and that's certainly enough, given the extraordinary interconnection of this particular artist's private life and his career. I have to say that it's extremely puzzling, not to say disturbing, that the entire film is in black-and-white, as if Van Gogh had made only charcoal sketches or woodcuts. Here's a short that cries out to be remade: Digital would make it easy to replace the B&W footage with color photography of the artworks, and both narration and score could remain as is. I was also dismayed that though the film has credits attached, Resnais's name does not appear on the English language print owned by UCLA and screened at the Motion Picture Academy last night. The audience seemed interested and moved, but surely they would have been more so if they'd known that this was an early work by the man who later employed many of the same techniques to memorable effect in "Last Year at Marienbad."

Short subjects, like short stories, as a rule lack the broad popularity of features and novels. That's a shame, because it means that it's hard to locate and view some of the best.

Three cubs in Yosemite frolic in search of food, tussle with an owl, a badger, and a skunk, and end up in a cabin, where they make mayhem in the kitchen till they're found by the owners. The narration gives them names but doesn't anthropomorphize them unduly, and the camera is mostly content to sit back and watch their antics, which are charming. This Oscar winner certainly earns the "AWWWWWWW" it gets from the audience at the last shot -- the three cubs cuddled up on a sofa.

The stale premise - an innocent youth comes to the big city and against all odds wins the career and girl of his dreams - is not made fresher by such devices as a deceased grandma who keeps showing up to offer sage advice. (The only point of marginal interest is the script's limp switcheroo on "The Apartment": Here, it's the junior executive (Kirshner) who's involved with the boss, while the torch-carrying schnook is working class.) In "King of the Hill" Jesse Bradford had enough charisma to carry a film, a quality that appears to have receded as puberty set in. Or maybe he just gets poor career advice. Certainly he is ill served by drek like "SwimFan," "Speedway Junky," and this one. . .

In a subplot tied with the thinnest of threads to the main story, Spencer's roommates (David Krumholtz and Adam Goldberg) are holed up in a mansion they evidently and unaccountably own, attempting to make an amateur porn film. Watching their mirthless antics I was reminded of the efforts of supporting players Abbott and Costello to shine as a team in "One Night in the Tropics," except neither Krumholtz nor Goldberg would qualify as "the funny one." Even the title is off - Spencer is a clueless naif who never expresses any view of life that would qualify as "according to." The picture seems intended as a lighthearted romp among friends, but the results are just heavy, predictable, and dull.

..as actor, writer, and director -- a triple threat. His exhibitionism and egotism are only exceeded by his lack of charisma and talent. The picture's rhythms are off, the dialogue pretentious and ridiculous, and his voice a horror to listen to. I suppose we're meant to be sympathetic to, or at least care about, his dull, feckless protagonist, but I found it impossible to do so.

It's truly an excruciating experience to sit through this amateurish tripe, although if you're in the middle of a rowdy crowd that hates the movie and doesn't mind saying so (as I was at NY's Two Boots Pioneer last night at 9pm), it can be a bonding, Rocky-Horror-like interactive experience. Last previous one for me was at "Gigli."

The film isn't lost or unavailable; I own a VHS copy. Very timely in its day, it begins with the British defeat of the Graf Spee at the River Plate in Dec. 1939, mere months before its 1940 release. The titular women are a group of nurses sent to the front in France pre-Dunkirk. Prominent among them is Pamela (Wendy Barrie), a feckless party girl who beats a manslaughter rap by enlisting in the Women's Auxiliary. (Don't ask.) Serving under the command of a tart but kindly major (legendary theatre veteran Elsie Janis, very watchable and believable) who is in reality--gasp!--the mother Pamela has never met, the pert miss learns leadership and character by the end, of course, and gets the guy as well. Every bit as stiff-upper-lip as Mrs. Miniver but with duller characters, the movie is notable for its exceptional Oscar-nominated visual effects, principally in the 20-minute assault on a French village by British artillery unaware that trapped in the village are, you guessed it, the women in war.

Romantic quadrangle involving two brothers, one a burgeoning ballet composer; a willful heiress; and a waif. Is it a comedy? Director Paul Czinner is notorious for total uncertainty, and you can go for long stretches here not sure whether you're supposed to laugh or weep or what. The roguish brother encounters the heiress as she bends over to rub a plant: "I don't know when I've seen a nicer aspidistra." Is that meant to be funny? You tell me, but it couldn't be delivered or reacted to more stiffly. One's patience with the film will almost surely hinge on one's tolerance for the waif--it's the director's wife Bergner, she of the butchy blond bob and white culottes, the Peter Pan-like gamin quality and Zorbaesque life philosophy. Her Oscar nomination undoubtedly resulted from how she plays the humiliation when her composer husband rudely pushes her off the stage, too busy to hear about her baby's illness. Bergner is quite affecting there, and also thereafter. But overall, unless one has a taste for the curdled, elfin world-weariness she demonstrates for most of the running time, this picture will pretty much be "interest me never."

Proof that not every 1939 release was part of the Golden Age. It's the life and not-so-hard times of Stephen Foster (Don Ameche), who despite a heart condition and a taste for the drink manages to crank out hit after hit. This is the cliched sort of composer bio in which every key event turns out to be instant inspiration for a new ditty, and the moment an on-screen audience hears a new song it can immediately join in for a reprise and know all the words. Still, Al Jolson is sturdy as E.P. Christy, the Technicolor is ravishing, and there are several convincing recreations of minstrel show numbers...and that last fact is why you won't see this film around, no way.

It's just not P.C. to show all that blackface any more, let alone the condescending approach to black people. (When Foster has ripped off "Oh Susannah" from a slave work song but is stuck on the last line, Jeannie--she of the light brown hair fame--comments that she's grown up among black music, their simple culture..."Hmmm...Here's how I think the Negroes would end it." Bingo, smash hit.) "Swanee River" is no great shakes as a movie, but it's a shame that people can't see it because of cowardice.

A not-uninteresting, if somewhat contrived premise -- a gay grad student comes to San Francisco to continue his late father's research into the alleged US govt. creation of the AIDS virus, happening to arrive just as a serial killer connected with the plot is starting his work. But the story is as muddled as the soundtrack, and the student has to be the most hapless and inept amateur sleuth in movie history: A key suspect is right under his very nose (not to mention other body parts) but it never occurs to him to investigate, or even be a little nervous....The S&M sex stuff has nothing to do with the story, it's just there for sensationalism. And some sort of special Oscar should be invented for performances of the badness of Irit Levy's as the detective.

A spoiled debutante (mannered & shrill Wendy Barrie, the poor man's Katharine Hepburn) has trouble adjusting to life as the wife of a Navy flyboy (the always-overrated Ray Milland). This woman's-magazine storyline is terminally boring, and aviation buffs attracted by the title will be disappointed, as barely 5 of the film's excruciating 80 minutes are given over to aerial footage. Oscar nominee for Best Cinematography in the era in which every studio was invited to put up a title in the tech categories, and this was the best Universal could come up with.

Why, oh why doesn't Columbia put this out on DVD so that everyone can experience the joy of seeing these four miraculous performers and these miraculous songs and musical numbers? This is the greatest single cabaret evening I've ever seen, certainly the best TV has ever offered. I taped this off of USA Network and am I glad I did; my copy is smeary and the audio is flawed, but I wouldn't give up this tape for anything -- until a DVD came along, that is...

The state of the art F/X, sound as well as visual, are truly spectacular and more than once justify the word "thrilling." But after a while the movie pummels you so much it begins to feel oppressive in the wrong way -- as if the filmmakers are pounding us, not Nature; and even the occasional respite back at the Crow's Nest, or in the eye of the hurricane, doesn't alleviate the discomfort, at least not for me. In the end this strikes me as something of a misbegotten movie project: In the book the storm is the focal point, even the "hero" if you like; but because movie stars are present the storm has to turn into the "villain." We lose Sebastian Junger's perspective on the relationship of Man, Nature, and Chance -- all of which combined to make the storm "perfect," reported by Junger with more than a little admiration even as he sympathizes with the fishermen and their loved ones. That complex perspective is replaced by a lot of standard Hollywood mock-heroics that don't go anywhere. I left this movie in a somewhat sour mood.

Everything you want in a summer movie: a fast moving story with a point of view and even (some) logic. Terrific stunts and action. Great villains. Rude, in-your-face humor. High-powered cast that brings personality to even the smallest role. And a star who confirms his status as the Coolest Man on Earth. (He already was confirmed as the best actor around, in my opinion. Shaft brings SLJ to a new level of stardom.)

I loved the comment about "the Cuban actor's debut." That's Jeffrey Wright! He starred in Angels in America on Broadway, and played the lead in the movie Basquiat, and he's American. But he's also a chameleon, which is what makes him so effective as Peoples Hernandez.

And on top of it all, David Arnold's score (adapting the great Oscar-winning Isaac Hayes theme song) sounds authentically '70s. The score makes the action ROCK in a way that has been unknown in recent action films, whose music is all synthesizers and attitude.

Can't wait to see this one again.