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Reviews
Liliom (1930)
LILIOM (1930) - 2008 DVD quality
For those posters who wondered about the quality of the new (Dec. 2008) DVD release of LILIOM, which is part of the over-stuffed, badly packaged Murnau and Borgaze at Fox set, the actual quality of this disc is unbelievably good. I don't know where they found their source elements, but this is a beautiful print, with only occasional flaws. The black and white photography is detailed and beautiful, allowing the best look we've had at the elaborate sets and interesting production design. Even Charles Farrell's voice, which is not ideal for this hyper-masculine role, is much improved on this newly restored print.
There is no commentary, but an impressive collection of still photos is included as an extra.
The film is still the stilted, downbeat, badly paced film it was before, but for "Carousel" aficionados, or fans of early talkies, this is a very interesting movie, which can now be experienced in a much more pleasurable manner. I would give the movie a 5-star rating, and the print 8 or 9. Amazingly good for its vintage!
Chicago (2002)
A correction re: Ann Reinking
I am enjoying reading the comments about CHICAGO, and can't wait to see it. I do wish to correct a mistake that seems to keep being perpetuated. Although Ann Reinking provided the choreography ("in the style of Bob Fosse") for the long running Broadway revival (and its subsequent tours, London company, etc.), she did not work on the film at all. Not a day. Whatever the virtues of the film's choreography (and whether or not it, too, owes its style to Fosse), it is not the work of Ms. Reinking.
Finding North (1998)
Nice try, but contrived and unconvincing
This film, a chronicle of road trip combining a despondent gay man who has lost his lover to AIDS with a bossy Brooklyneese woman who still lives with her overbearing parents, is calculated to bring chuckles and tears. Unfortunately, the film is riddled with improbable coincidences, hokey sentimentality, and amateurish acting and filming. One hopes to like the film, and I do commend its portrayal of a gay male in reasonably unstereotypical fashion. The blatancy of the script's contrivances, however (they "meet cute," he just happens to come into her bank the day after she saw him almost leap to his death from a bridge - and she's carrying the shoe he left behind, she pursues him all the way to Texas with no encouragement or realization that he's gay, they learn "life lessons" after meeting his dead lover's crusty surrogate mother, etc.), just sabotaged the film for me. It made me squirm in uneasiness, and I never found myself relaxing in the hands of a filmmaker who believed in her material. Thumbs down here.
Peeping Tom (1960)
Disturbing, interesting, wonderfully filmed
PEEPING TOM is a precursor of many later psychological studies of serial killers, and one of the most insightful in its probing of the forces that lead a young man to murderous behavior. Beautifully filmed in the rich colors with which director Michael Powell (THE RED SHOES, TALES OF HOFFMAN) is often associated, it's as classy and well-acted a piece of terror as one is likely to find. The DVD also provides an insightful documentary "A Very British PSYCHO" that effectively interviews most of the major participants in the film, as well as the critics who blasted the controversial film when it first appeared. Definitely worth a look, if you enjoy this kind of film.