Reviews

Barry Levinson's directorial debut, working from his own original script, is one of those movies that examines a group of friends at a significant moment in their life. Diner focuses itself on several college-aged boys in 1959 Baltimore, caught in that awkward stage right on the cusp of manhood. Each prominent member of the group is stuck at a crossroads between life as a carefree teenager and having to move into the adult world; Eddie Simmons (Steve Guttenberg) is days away from his wedding, Shrevie Schreiber (Daniel Stern) is in a young marriage to Beth (Ellen Barkin), Boogie Sheftell (Mickey Rourke) is a playboy working at a beauty shop, Timothy Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) is a developing alcoholic living off his trust fund, and Billy Howard (Tim Daly) has just come home for Eddie's wedding.

Levinson takes on a slightly non-traditional structure here, as the film occurs almost in a series of vignettes as opposed to a typical narrative. He made the wise move to get the actors acquainted with one another before shooting began, so when it came time to start rolling on the film he was able to build conversations through improvisation and the actors own relationships, as opposed to forcing them to read strict lines off the page. It has a free flow to it all, wisely directed by Levinson and marvelously acted by the young cast of fresh actors. You can feel that camaraderie in their chemistry together, you can really feel all of those years of building relationships between them.

Some of the actors do shine individually; Rourke in particular steals the show, coming onto the screen as if he were a born star. He has the kind of natural charisma and compelling presence that the young Paul Newman and James Dean had, drawing your eyes towards him instantly whenever he comes on screen. There's a soft, sincere man inside that casually flamboyant shell, the kind of guy who wants you to think he's something that he really isn't, and Rourke plays it with such wonderful nuance. It's an impressive performance on it's own, but the real treat of the film is seeing the whole ensemble of young stars working together.

Diner is a story of boys who have to finally make the decision to become men and I think this is an interesting part on the development of men. Over the years there have been hundreds and hundreds of films about adolescence, about boys half the age of the ones seen here, but not enough about this stage in life, one that I find infinitely more interesting. I think any man who is in this stage of their life, or has already passed it, can find a lot to relate to in these characters and the fact that I'm currently in a similar stage surely helped me admire the film even more. It takes place in 1959 but the themes of maturity and morality speak to any generation. They're all caught right in this area between boy and man and it makes for several interesting contradictions within the characters.

Bacon's Fenwick is developing a severe alcohol problem and spends most of his time clowning around and pissing away his life, but we can see that he is an extremely intelligent guy who is wasting his potential. Rourke's Boogie is two thousand dollars in debt from gambling, but he still finds time to get a girl to touch his erection through a popcorn box. Guttenberg's Eddie is getting married in a week but instead of finding the courage to be a responsible man he puts all of his insecurities about taking the plunge into whether or not his fiancée can pass a silly test about football. These guys are all right on that edge and the film centers around them having to own up to where they are in their life and realize that it's time to stop being boys goofing around at the local diner and move onto becoming men.

A lot of films that work with this kind of theme tend to force too much development into such a short time period, to the point where it becomes clear fiction. Levinson wisely avoids this, developing ideas that we don't see the full result of. The alcoholism of Bacon's character is an issue that comes into play for certain, but as the film closes it's still one that exists. It's still one that will impact him for years to come and we don't see the final completion of it. There's a scene early on where Shrevie and Beth go to get in their car and she stands there, waiting for him to open the door, but he doesn't do it. It's a small moment that keys into the discourse of their marriage, a discourse that is developed within the context of the film, but you know when it's over that they still have a long way to go.

Levinson doesn't concern himself with trying to work these characters through their entire life in a two hour period. Instead, he foreshadows events that will come to pass later in life, realizing that this is just a small moment in the grand scheme of it all. It's a shockingly realistic and non-exaggerated approach that I found very impressively done on his part. The film opens up on Christmas of '59 and closes on New Year's Eve the same year, an appropriate time for where these men are in their life. As one decade ends, another begins and they have to evolve themselves just as the year is evolving into a new decade. It's another relatively subtle touch on Levinson's part, but it adds another nice metaphor to where these guys are at and where they are headed to.

After the roaring success (including an Academy Award for Best Picture) of Annie Hall, Woody Allen decided to take his career in a sharp turn, or rather a giant leap to a new field. After a decade of dealing in comedy for his first decade as a filmmaker, Allen presented the world with a new side of him by giving them Interiors. A lot of fans and critics of his met the film with a sharp tongue, seemingly offended by him not offering up another charming, easy-to-swallow comedy as they had come to expect. I, for one, am delighted that he challenged himself in such a way, and the result is anything but delightful. After the wonderful comedic work of Annie Hall, his Interiors is a delicately observed exploration of a trio of sisters who are impacted deeply by their mother.

It's true that he takes a lot of inspiration from Ingmar Bergman in his style here, but it also has that unique touch that only Woody can give a film. He strips it of the enjoyable charm that most of his films contain, but you can still very much tell that this is a Woody Allen film. Allen made some very interesting choices in casting the film, combining regulars of his such as Diane Keaton with newcomers like Mary Beth Hurt and heavy dramatic hitters like E.G. Marshall and Geraldine Page, but the end result is a fluid and fully realized portrait of this family. The family of intellectuals is fractured by their own fragile egos, a discord which is only further cemented when patriarch Arthur (Marshall) announces his plans to move out of the house to live alone for a while, separating from wife Eve (Page). The decision practically cripples Eve, who insists that she can't be left alone and as a result spends her time butting into the lives of her three daughters, played by Keaton, Hurt and Kristin Griffith.

Allen, in a lean 90-minute running time, is able to give the audience his usual league of well-rounded and layered characters, all crafted to work out these themes of familial bonds and conflicts. Allen's ability to write strong, developed female characters has always impressed me and this is perhaps the finest display of his talent for it. These women are honest, aggressive and loaded with faults. He isn't afraid to show the bitter, angry and resentful side of women and he casts his films with actors who are able to properly display that facet of them without turning them into the one-note bitches that often litter mainstream cinema.

Women are often written either as the sexy slut, the adorable girl-next-door, or the annoying bitch, but Allen is able to write them so true. It's long been a shame that females aren't given more opportunities in cinema, but at least there's some small consolation in a male writer like Woody Allen being able to present them so honestly. He's working at the top of his game here as a writer, made even more impressive by the fact that there isn't a drop of humor in the thing at all. He doesn't let you take a pause for a laugh every so often but instead brings you deeper and deeper into the melancholy of these broken lives. The cast is one of his finest ensembles, particularly when it comes to Page and Hurt.

Page, as the incredibly overbearing Eve, is given a character who could have easily been unbearable (and was, for me, at first) but she brings this vulnerability to the role that I found heartbreaking. You can feel the influence of this character in every moment of the film, every tick and emotion that her daughters have, yet she herself is so fragile and alone. It's an absolutely devastating work that resonates deep. Hurt and Keaton play off each other so well, bringing out the faults of each character, the bitter sisterly resentments and attempts at loving that are distracted by their own egos. In a family of intellectuals, it takes the smallest word to break a heart, and this entire cast pulls off that atmosphere with remarkable skill. Interiors is surely one of Woody Allen's best films and such a strong departure for him as a filmmaker. I'm glad that he didn't let the backlash dissuade him from making more films like this in the future, I think this is an excellent display of his range and talents.

What is there to say about one of the funniest movies ever made? John Cleese and Charles Crichton have combined forces to create a riotously funny crime comedy about a group of criminals who are filled with bad luck and bad ideas. It takes a little long to establish the characters upon the opening, but I loved how quickly it got to the point with the robbery taking place within the first ten minutes. The laughs didn't really get started for me until twenty or thirty minutes in, but once they did they did not let up. The plot concerns four unique people who team up in England to rob some diamonds and then spend the rest of the film trying to stab each other in the back, get the loot and get away.

Jamie Lee Curtis leads the foursome as the minx Wanda Gershwitz, along with Tom Georgeson's Georges Thomason. Coming in on them are the stuttering lackey Ken Pile, played by Michael Palin, and the Nietzsche-reading buffoon Otto, played by Kevin Kline. Thomason gets pinched early on, one of the first of many double-crosses, and so the film concerns itself mostly with Otto and Wanda trying to find the diamonds while making sure that Thomason stays behind bars and doesn't give them up. To do this, Wanda gets herself close to Archie Leach (John Cleese), a lawyer who has been tasked with clearing Thomason's name.

A Fish Called Wanda flies around wildly, yet somehow Cleese and Crichton are able to give it this rhythm that flows so well. It never gets too far ahead of itself but it doesn't drag for a single moment either. This is the rare pure comedy that is wickedly funny while also being incredibly intelligent in it's writing and directing. A lot of comedies act as if the audience has a short attention span and so they try to cram as many jokes as possible in the first hour and then leave the audience yawning through the final act. Here though they know that the audience wants to laugh more as times goes on and they spend their time building jokes that will pay off even stronger in the later scenes.

There are so many recurring bits, like Otto's blind rage over being called stupid or Ken's inability to murder an old lady, that only get more and more hilarious as they go on. Somehow these jokes never feel like they're hitting the audience over the head or being used too much, but instead just get better and better. The cast is certainly worth noting, as all four of the main characters provide great ingredients for the laughs. Cleese is the perfect straight man for the wild antics of the rest, Curtis is whip smart and an alluring sex kitten, Palin is so damn likable that you just want to make all of his bad luck go away and Kevin Kline steals the show completely.

Kline takes on Otto with a skill that is almost unmatched in comedic cinema. This is a guy who is always the stupidest person in the room but always thinks that he is the smartest by far. He puts himself on a pedestal and it could have been a role that was done with disastrous results, but Kline takes his craft so seriously that Otto never feels like he's in on the joke that the audience is. This is an actor who has made a career out of mixing comedy and drama, and here is the highlight of his work in the former field. It takes a little bit to get going, but once it does this is easily one of the most delightfully hilarious films I've ever seen and Kline got me laughing harder than I have with a film in a long while. In Denmark a man died while seeing this film in theaters because he literally laughed himself to death. It's easy to see why.

As someone who has never particularly been a fan of the western genre, I'm sure that I don't fit much into the demographic for Once Upon a Time in the West. Still, I was able to find enough to admire here. Sergio Leone is a director who, if nothing else, knows damn well how to stage a scene. The first hour is basically a combination of extended introductions to our main characters, but each one is incredibly tense and memorable. We meet the mysterious Harmonica (Charles Bronson) gunning down those who were out to kill him, the villainous Frank (Henry Fonda) as he shoots a child, the mischievous Cheyenne (Jason Robards) as he escapes custody and the beautiful Jill (Claudia Cardinale) as she arrives off her train.

Each sequence is drawn out but doesn't feel overlong, giving us a first look at the characters that sticks with the viewer until long after the credits roll. That opening hour doesn't delve into the plot much, or the characters themselves, but it's easily my favorite area of the film as it shows a lot of what Leone is best at doing. In these scenes Leone shows his gift for building suspense, utilizing silence when it's appropriate as opposed to trying to ratchet up the tension with directorial tricks. He lets the silence build it all, giving an eerie calm so that when the violence occurs it startles you, shakes you up. In a time so desensitized to graphic violence on film, Leone knows how to make his bullets matter.

The four main characters are all memorable and solidly well-acted, potentially with the exception of Harmonica. I found Bronson serviceable in his role, but the role itself wasn't one that I cared for; the whole mysterious stranger playing his harmonica because he's a badass thing was something that I found laughable almost immediately and it was hard for me to take seriously throughout the film. Bronson allowed me to get over it after a while, along with lessened use of his theme that I found incredibly grating in the opening act, but I still had a hard time not laughing at the basic idea of the character. The other three were sources of great enjoyment for me, though. Fonda goes against his persona and plays a vile bad guy, which is a genius bit of casting on Leone's part, and he uses those baby blue eyes to penetrate you so he can rip out your heart. I think it's one of his finest performances, seeing someone so adored for being wholesome take on such a cruel bastard.

Claudia Cardinale is stunningly gorgeous here, but she also brings a lot of womanly fire to the boy's club. Working against people like Fonda and Bronson, it could have been easy to fall into the role of the helpless woman, but Cardinale makes Jill McBain maybe the most aggressive character in this show. She's got a ton of passion and refuses to let the men push her around. Cardinale may be my favorite performance in the film, but I'd have to say that my favorite character belongs to Jason Robards' Cheyenne. While the feud between Frank and Harmonica rages on, battling with each other while Jill is caught in the middle, Cheyenne is just a wild outlaw having fun in the midst of it all; and oh what fun Robards makes him. You can tell that Robards had a great time shooting this, and seeing him in this character brings a levity to the film that is a welcome relief.

There are definitely a lot of things that I liked about this film, but for everything that I liked there was something that I disliked as well. As great as Leone is at crafting individual sequences, the film became rather tiresome once it tried to actually start doing something with it's characters and narrative. The first hour is exciting and the final half hour or so was a nice conclusion, but everything in the middle dragged on and on. I enjoyed the characters but I didn't particularly care about them, and the script writes them all so thin.

Everything is too black-and-white, with a meaningless plot that was clearly created around the individual scenes. It's like they were writing their cool characters and cool sequences but then realized they had to actually make a narrative to have them exist in so they just tossed something together. It doesn't have a drive at all, despite such excellent moments. Once Upon a Time in the West is a film with a lot to admire, but for me it ended up being less than the sum of it's parts.

I've long been a fan of Richard Gere, with his strong jaw, gorgeous eyes and winning smile, so watching him play the dirty cop Dennis Peck was a startling experience. I love when actors like him play against type, taking their incredibly likable charm and turning it on it's head, making you regret falling for them when they turn out to be as bad as the dirtiest villain. Internal Affairs is a tight crime thriller that pits him against IAD officer Raymond Avilla (Andy Garcia), as the two engage in a roller coaster of hits and misses to bring the other down.

Avilla goes after Peck's finances and the cops he takes care of, trying to turn them against their intimidating leader, while Peck goes after Avilla's wife to try to rip him apart from the inside. Peck is one of those guy who is always in control, or always appears to be even when his house of cards is crumbling down. Gere gives one of his finest performances, making Peck the kind of man who draws you in and then throws you out when he doesn't need you. He's a slick, calculated, incredibly intelligent villain in blue and he utilizes every skill he has an actor. Garcia counters perfectly as the more emotional Avilla, a man whose pride won't allow him to let Peck get off clean and whose temper often gets the better of him.

Mike Figgis directs Internal Affairs with a solid vision, knowing when to key up the dramatics and when to slow things down properly. There's nothing particularly new about this cop thriller, but it does all of the old tricks right. The showdown between the two of them is intense, building to a great climax, and there are several action sequences throughout that get the blood pumping. This is a solid thriller in every way, highlighted by two very fine performances.

Affliction, written and directed by the great Paul Schrader from a novel by Russell Banks, starts off like a story you've heard a thousand times. Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) is the sheriff of a small New Hampshire town. He's also a heavy drinker with an ex-wife who can't stand him and a daughter who spends her time pouting and asking to go home to her mother. One day a hunting "accident" leaves a wealthy businessman dead, and Wade sees this as his opportunity to prove his worth to his family, his town and himself. Under the hands of Schrader though, someone who has never taken the safe road as a filmmaker, this small town neo-noir thriller turns into a wrenching study of a deeply disturbed individual.

What began as an intriguing mystery instead takes a descent into madness, unraveling this man and exposing the brutality that has long been dormant, waiting underneath the surface for the right circumstances to come about. Whitehouse is subtly picked apart by small disturbances, like a gnawing tooth ache and his ungrateful, unloving daughter, that Schrader intelligently weaves into this building sense of aggression and frustration. By the time his daughter refuses to get a Big Mac because her mother says it's bad for her, the audience is down to their last nerve the same way that Whitehouse is. It's an incredible display of bringing the viewer into the mind of it's main character, which builds to a final act that is shattering and terrifying.

Schrader's script is immaculately staged here, the kind of intelligent writing where there isn't a single wasted moment. The first hour of the film is almost all character development, which services everything perfectly. It's all building the sense that things are coming to a dramatic climax, where every path, no matter how large or small, ultimately leads to one destination. As these minor distractions plague on him, Whitehouse continues his investigation into the death, but what takes a more center stage as the film progresses is his chaotic relationship with his father, portrayed by James Coburn. We start to see that it's this father/son dynamic that has made Whitehouse such a disturbed individual, his father being a terrifying bastard of a man who abused him as a child while he drank himself into short-tempered rages.

In this dynamic, Affliction starts to become a study of what kind of impact that relationship can have on the development of a person, that can grow inside of him and change the course of who he is to become. Is Whitehouse a bad man at heart, or was he made that way by his father? He seems good when we first meet him, trying his hardest despite his character faults, but as he goes down this descent the audience is left to wonder if the father makes the man, if a different patriarch could have led him down a path much less dark. Coburn is a terrifying force here, a man who makes you uncomfortable from the moment he steps into the room. Even when he's not in a rage, you can feel it in the air, the fear that it can come at any moment. It's a palpable sensation that anyone with a short-tempered father can immediately relate to. Casting this man was a hard task for Schrader, as he had to find someone who could make the intimidating Nick Nolte quake in his boots, and there couldn't have been anyone more suited for the job than Coburn.

Nolte's performance likewise is a work of art and takes us so thoroughly down this road to darkness that Whitehouse experiences. He makes you sympathize with him, perhaps even empathize as I most certainly did, which makes his explosion, his unbridled descent all the more wrenching. There's a scene where he lets loose, completely explodes on a tirade about how this town needs him, that is one of the most shockingly chilling moments I've experienced in some time. It leaves you unable to move, a towering display of machismo in the face of potential emasculation. This is what the film boils down to in a lot of ways, the things that make a man and what being a man really means.

Interestingly, the story is told from the outside perspective of Whitehouse's brother Rolfe, played by the always great Willem Dafoe. Instead of having the story told through the eyes of Wade, instead we see it all as Rolfe looking back, filled with an eerie sense of remorse that he wasn't able to stop what was coming. Dafoe only appears physically on screen for about ten or fifteen minutes, but you can feel his presence looming over the picture the whole way through, as we occasionally hear him through voice-over. His intriguing voice captures the audience, giving Affliction a troubling, almost poetic neo-noir feel that broods while the characters explode. It's the perfect contrast to the towering work delivered by Schrader and his actors on screen. This is a shattering picture.

The Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro team usually doesn't do much for me (and usually turns out something I loathe), so going into The King of Comedy I wasn't expecting to be impressed. To my surprise, I was not only impressed but came away thinking it was the best work they had ever done together. Working from a superb Paul Zimmerman script, Scorsese and De Niro combine their efforts here to create a satire on the price of fame and what it takes to get there, which also serves as an absolutely hilarious comedy.

Robert De Niro is an actor I was never able to develop a fondness for, almost always finding him to be one of those people who is never able to shed themselves and dive into a role full-on. With rare exception, it always seemed like it was De Niro playing a part rather than the character just existing in it's own accord. Here though, I was amazed by how well he shed his own skin and dove into the role of Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring stand-up comedian who utilizes a forced encounter with talk-show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) as his way to make it into show business. Pupkin is an excellent character to play, filled with narcissism, delusions of grandeur and an absolute blindness to his wealth of personal flaws, and De Niro nails every tick of him.

It's interesting in a lot of ways how the character draws from De Niro's incarnation of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. This is a man who constantly believes that he is doing no wrong, set in his ways and determined to make his plan work. He's a dangerously psychotic man, perhaps even more dangerous than Bickle himself because Pupkin is doing it purely with his own self in mind. Pupkin gives off the idea that he idolizes Langford, but really he idolizes no one but himself and is using this kiss-ass routine to further his own success. He wants to become Langford, to have Langford kissing his toes the way that people do his, and through several fantasies we see those desires play out in Pupkin's mind.

De Niro plays this character brilliantly, taking him on the same way that he would take on Vito Corleone; he never plays Pupkin as a lunatic, never as a moron who the audience is supposed to laugh at. At all times he is believable in the skin of this character and it's a large part of what makes the film work overall. His Pupkin is unsettling more than he is humorous, a grown boy turning into a man who is fascinating and potentially terrifying. I think it's easily De Niro's finest work, but he's still upstaged by the miraculous Sandra Bernhard, who portrays a fellow Langford-obsessed fan that eventually teams up with Pupkin in their big scheme.

Bernhard is a force of nature, getting more laughs in her screen time than most films are able to pack into an entire picture. She is seductively psychotic, absolutely deranged and howlingly hilarious. It's one of my favorite performances, period. She devours this role and her scenes at the dining table with Langford produced some of the hardest laughs I can ever remember having. The film comes around full circle to a final sequence that is intriguing in it's ambiguity, along with it's parallel to the ending of Taxi Driver. Pupkin gets everything he ever wanted, all of the praise and adoration, but as an audience we're left wondering; is it real?

I'm not too sure what I was hoping for going into Awakenings, but it turned out to be the worst case scenario. Written by Steven Zaillain and directed by Penny Marshall, it tells the true story of a doctor who uncovers a miracle drug which he uses to heal a ward of comatose patients. The narrative awkwardly splits itself into focusing on the doctor, played by Robin Williams who you can tell is in a dramatic role because he has a beard and is wearing a leather jacket, and one of the patients named Leonard Lowe, played by Robert De Niro.

The focus is split between the two of them, but not in a very cohesive way at all. Instead, we open up focusing entirely on Doctor Sayer, after a brief look at Lowe's beginning of his disease, and spend the entire first half of the film just with him. Then, as the drug is introduced to Leonard we change the focus almost entirely to him and Sayer becomes a background character instead. It's a really jarring shift in character and the change was hard to adjust to. The focus of the film becomes how someone reacts to the world after decades in a comatose state, which is obviously where they were headed all along so certainly there could have been a more fluid way to transition into that.

Marshall never establishes a proper tone, constantly in this limbo between comedy and drama that feels awkward, inappropriate and ultimately just falls flat. At the start it wasn't that hard of a film to watch, but around the halfway point it began to become increasingly dull until the last half hour was almost unbearable in it's tiresomeness. Zaillain's script never takes on the real issues that these characters would face, taking the heavy themes and glossing over them aside from a few scenes of apparent emotional manipulation.

Williams gives a serviceable portrayal but his character gets tossed aside once the "more interesting" one comes along, and De Niro gives maybe the worst performance of his career. He got an Oscar nomination for it which is just a hilarious display of their tendency to throw any kind of award to a popular actor playing a disability, because this performance is so absurdly hammed up it's borderline appalling. His whole display is laughable and every time I was supposed to feel for this character (as I was so unsubtly told by the writer/director) I ended up laughing.

Toss in an unnecessary and dismally undeveloped romance subplot for each character and this is a film that doesn't know what it's doing but makes sure it ticks all of the boxes this kind of wreck is made to be. Awakenings is the worst kind of exploitative garbage and it does a disservice to the real-life people it's portraying.

I don't think my disdain for Martin Scorsese is much of a secret for anyone who knows my taste in film, so it came as a welcome surprise when I found myself being moved and impressed by his 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Telling the story of a recently widowed woman (Ellen Burstyn) who takes her son on the road, this was a touching study of a woman struggling to find herself in a time when many women determined their worth based on the man who was at their side. In a lot of ways it takes an interesting look at the era in which it was made, but even today it stands strong as a look into this woman being stripped bare of the things she thought were important and being forced to find out what really matters to her.

She finds a few romantic partners throughout the film and it starts to get an "all men are evil" theme going on which I was getting worried about, but Robert Getchell's script ends up coming back around full circle to an ending (that was created by actor Kris Kristofferson, who plays one of her lovers, the day before they shot it) that was touching and spoke to the journey this character was brought down. There's a Wizard of Oz metaphor that bookends her evolution, which I found touching without being poured on too much.

Scorsese, known for his gritty approach, was surprisingly adept at bringing this woman's story to the screen. This is a film that could have easily gone down the saccharine, cheesy Lifetime route if it was handled improperly by it's director, but instead Scorsese is able to make it feel shockingly genuine all the way through. There are moments that are incredibly uncomfortable, such as Burstyn making her way around town desperate to find a job to support her and her son, along with ones that are genuinely terrifying, like when Harvey Keitel's character punches through a glass window in order to break into her hotel room in a brutal display of male aggression.

There's a shift in this character that occurs over the course of the film, slowly developing from a woman who lets men control her into a woman who isn't afraid to stand up for herself and her son, that is portrayed brilliantly by Burstyn. She won an Oscar for her role and it was incredibly well-deserved, along with the fellow nomination that came to Diane Ladd, who steals all of her scenes as a waitress at a diner where Burstyn's character eventually begins to work at. I think it's the mother/son dynamic that made the film work the most for me though, as I found a lot to personally connect to in it.

As an early child of divorce, I spent a lot of time growing up with just my mother and myself, and the relationship between them in this film felt so true in regards to my own experience. The way that the two would drive each other mad one second, but the next they would come back together and be laughing or supporting one another. I felt a deep connection there that touched me a lot. Ellen Burstyn's character here reminded me a lot my own mother, and watching her evolve on this path to finding herself meant quite a bit to me. Solid work by everyone involved here.

After finding Martin Scorsese to be a perpetual disappointment, I have to say I was quite pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed After Hours. Coming off one of my favorite comedic scripts I've encountered, written by Joseph Minion, this is a wild romp of an experience that didn't let up much at all. I've often found Scorsese's films to be loaded with pacing problems and while the final half hour or so here does drag a little bit it wasn't nearly as what I usually experience with his work.

The trim 97 minute running time flies by in a breeze, piloted by Griffin Dunne as a mild-mannered word processor who meets an attractive girl in a coffee shop (Rosanna Arquette, aptly matching that description) and experiences the worst night of his life when he goes to see her at her place. After Hours is quite possibly the ultimate late night comedy, loaded with eccentric and hilarious characters whose quirks are always entertaining rather than grating. Dunne's Paul Hackett falls down a descent into the madness of late night New York, the city which Scorsese earned his reputation depicting.

The director took on this film after his first attempt at The Last Temptation of Christ fell apart and you can really tell that he just wanted to let loose and have some fun, a feeling that translates easily to the audience. It's nice seeing him stretch himself into the comedic world and he succeeds to a point where I really wish we could see him attempt it more often. There's a rhythm to this film, a real pulse that drives it so well. Special note should be given to Howard Shore's really tremendous musical score, which plays such a vital role in giving the film it's simultaneously exciting and terrifying atmosphere.

As I said before, the time flies by and it's in large part due to how Scorsese orchestrates Hackett's mad journey. Watching it very late at night certainly only helped in increasing my strong enjoyment of the picture. I think that After Hours is most certainly the director's most underrated work, and as of now it's also my favorite of his career. Which was a welcome delight since to this point I had never come across a film of his that I was comfortable saying that in regards to.

Maybe my expectations were just too high for this, but I have to say it was quite the disappointment. I didn't find Diabolique bad by any means, but hearing people say that it's better than anything Hitchcock ever did is pretty laughable in my eyes. I think it looks worse by comparison to Hitchcock, but in it's own right it's a solid, if not particularly impressive work. Concerning the wife and mistress of a school headmaster who conspire to murder him together, Henri-Georges Clouzot's film took a while to get going for me but once it did I found some solid enjoyment out of it.

A lot of what makes it work comes more from the work of the two women at it's core. Simone Signoret, as the mistress, takes charge of the murderous plot and stands firm in her beliefs, cold and calculated. She's always trying to remain in control, remain collected, and when things start to unravel you can see her slowly twist at the idea of potentially suffering the consequences. Vera Clouzot, as the wife, takes on the more unstable, emotional role and she really makes it sing. She is wild, uncontrollable and never at rest. Whereas Signoret is very still and mannered, Clouzot bounces off the walls in her distress and this contrast between them drives the film more than anything the director himself does.

There are some nice twists in the narrative that keep the mystery alive in the latter half of the film, along with a stunning final sequence that finally lived up to the hype that had been built around the film. The final sequence was mesmerizing and terrifying, culminating in a twist that I was surprised I didn't see coming. That being said, the resolution itself was disappointingly pedestrian. Overall though, I didn't find much to write home about here, although it was certainly good. This was my first Clouzot film and I'll be sure to check out several more of his works, but if this is a sign of what he has to offer me then I'm afraid I'll never be able to understand those who rank him above his English companion.

Honestly, there's not a lot to say about this film. Sissy Spacek, Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange star as three Southern sisters who reunite when one (Spacek) shoots her husband. The sisters are, of course, incredibly different and their personalities collide over the course of a few days, dealing with what Spacek's character has done while old feuds come to the surface. Clearly based on a play, most of the action takes place in the same house and the film puts everything on the shoulders of the three central women.

Keaton plays Lenny, the matriarch of the trio (both of their parents are deceased and their grandfather who raised them is in the hospital) who is socially inept and often gets stepped on by her siblings. Lange is Meg, the popular and outgoing wild girl, man-eater and failed actress. Spacek rounds it out as the potentially insane and murderous Babe. Tess Harper steals her few scenes as Chick Boyle, who lives next door to the house, but the whole thing is centered around the three sisters and that's what makes it work. The film never takes itself too seriously, despite it's morbid themes and narrative, and the women all do a marvelous job of bringing the laughs mostly without overdoing it.

Crimes of the Heart is a film that on paper doesn't appeal to my tastes at all, but I often found myself cracking up at the ridiculousness of these characters. The women play the characters as straight as possible, approaching them as characters rather than jokes, and this helps make it an enjoyable experience as opposed to a grating one, although Keaton does overdo it at times. The characters are erratic and very large, which opens itself up to potential disaster, but in selecting the proper actresses for each role they were able to make it an entertaining little movie. It's a simple, light and enjoyable film; certainly nothing memorable and I'm sure I won't be thinking about it at all in a few days, but a nice experience while it lasts.

Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence is a slightly interesting departure for him, trading in his mean streets and firearms for the 19th century and romantic affairs. Co-adapted by Jay Cocks from the novel by Edith Wharton, the director has been known to say that this is his most violent film, an obvious reference to the emotional violence that takes place as opposed to the more direct, physical confrontations in the majority of his films. It's an interesting idea and that violence is played out by a superb cast topped by Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder. Day-Lewis takes on the role of Newland Archer, who is recently engaged to Ryder's May Welland but finds himself having difficulty masking his desires for her cousin, Pfeiffer's Ellen Olenska. It's your standard set up for this kind of period piece and it's not told in any way that makes it stand out, but the acting is enough to keep it relatively engaging throughout.

Day-Lewis has gotten worlds of acclaim and two Oscar statues for his theatrical, outlandish performances but I've honestly always preferred him in his more subtle, intimate displays and here is another example of him showing what a great actor he can be when he holds things in. The emotions are mostly underneath the surface in this film, and Scorsese was smart enough to cast three actors who were superb at portraying them in the perfect tone, expressing those emotions quietly without overdoing it to the audience or to the other characters on screen. They remain true to their characters and to the time period. Michelle Pfeiffer is the most open character, often questioning the ideals of the time period, and she gets to show the most outward emotion, which she does extremely well. She's a woman torn apart by her desires and what she believes is right, expertly portraying that ongoing internal conflict.

Winona Ryder may just be the most impressive of the cast, though, which is something I wasn't expecting to say because at first she felt incredibly miscast in this period setting. Over time she developed her character so well and it's the perfect contrast to Pfeiffer's Olenska. While Olenska is more of an adult an an intellectual equal to Archer, his fiancée Welland is naive and childish. She's not necessarily immature, but she succumbs so quickly to what everyone else wants of her and spends much of her life just trying to not upset others. It's a performance that doesn't allow her to do much on the surface, but what Ryder does underneath is wondrous to behold. There's a scene where Welland informs Archer that Olenska is leaving New York to back to Europe, and in his reaction she finally realizes his feelings for her cousin. Ryder doesn't say a word addressing this realization, but through her eyes and the way her face sinks, through the slight change of tone in her voice, she absolutely breaks your heart.

Scorsese has always been adept at crafting an atmosphere for his films, but I don't think that particular skill of his shines through here at all. It seems like he's lost in this period setting and as a result it all falls a little flat. The acting keeps it together, but there isn't anything memorable in terms of the tone and it essentially just feels like an Ivory clone at the end of it. There are a few stylistic choices that he takes to set it apart, but these end up being the biggest flaws of the film. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus takes an interesting approach by shooting most of the early scenes from the far side of the room they're set in. He rarely uses close-ups, instead framing the whole room in the shot in order to give the audience a richer look at all of the sets and production design. It provides for a deliberately picturesque atmosphere that I found quite impressive. Although it only works because the actors are competent enough to work in this format, performing almost as if they were on stage.

However, they stopped doing this somewhere down the line and things got significantly less interesting as a result. There are still some very beautiful shots used throughout the later stages of the film, but they weren't as unique or interesting as what he had been doing earlier on. I thought the characters trips to the theater were interesting, allowing for a contrast between the large emotions on stage and the restrained ones that our characters portrayed, but they didn't utilize this theme nearly enough. My main problem with the film though, lies in the narration, which is absurdly over-done. The film relies far too much on it, using the voice-over work to spoon feed every drop of background information to the audience. It felt practically as if there was more narrated dialogue than there was delivered by the actual characters on screen.

There was a welcome reprieve every time I got to see a character begin to speak, but this only lasted a few minutes before we went right back into the crutch of presenting nice images while the narration rambled on and on endlessly. This over-reliance also forces the film to present any scenes of characters reading letters by shooting the character who wrote the letter and having them read it directly to the audience, staring straight into the camera, a system that is incredibly awkward and distracting. The Age of Innocence was a nice attempt by Scorsese and it was good of him to try to stretch himself out of the niche he had built, but ultimately I don't think he was very successful.

From the opening scene, where an average suburban man gets his gardening hose twisted around a bush branch before he collapses from a stroke as the beautiful titular song looms over, David Lynch makes you aware that Blue Velvet is going to be something a little special. Taking place in Lumberton, as Jeffrey Beaumont returns home (Kyle MacLachlan), this is a dark and twisted neo-noir tale for the ages. The whole "suburbia is hell" theme has been played out hundreds of times throughout cinema, and for the most part it's been done in ways that are dreadfully heavy-handed and served to the audience on an easy-to-digest platter. It's a theme that I find potentially fascinating, but am often disappointed when they miss the mark completely.

Blue Velvet is the finest example of how to handle this properly, utilizing the suburban setting as an ominous backdrop to the dark journey that Jeffrey heads down. Lynch puts his focus primarily on the narrative, on the sharp thrills and complex characters that Jeffrey encounters in the underbelly of the mild-mannered town, instead of trying to make that theme the central focus. By using it as a background instead of the focal point, he is able to make the narrative even more chilling without ever seeming like he's trying to force that suburban nightmare motif down the audience's throat. He makes it a dark noir thriller that would have worked in any setting, but the placement of it here adds another layer to the nightmare; the fact that something this bizarre and grotesque is happening in the backyard of a safe, quiet American neighborhood. He also surprisingly manages to infuse it with a nice bit of his dark humor ("Yes, that's an ear all right.") that had me in stitches several times.

The narrative drives the film but these characters are what makes this world so intriguing for the audience and for Jeffrey. First Jeffrey meets Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), who is safe and sweet, but she's so appropriately boring. It's when we start to succumb to our dangerous desires that we get introduced to Dorothy Vallens, played with frightened hysteria by Isabella Rossellini. Rossellini turns in a star-making performance here, making Dorothy someone who we want to screw and save but we're never fully aware of how potentially dangerous she is. Dorothy is a character who draws you in immediately, evolving from one thing (the controlling, potentially violent older seducer) into something completely different (the broken and fragile mother) and Rossellini remains believable for this entire transition.

Then of course there's Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, quite possibly the most terrifying screen villain in cinematic history. Booth is...something out of this world. He's the devil in the suburban hell and Hopper plays him the way that only he could. It's as if Lynch gave him free reign to just let loose all of the rage and terror that Hopper is capable of and he took full advantage of it, creating a monster who you can't stop watching even when you feel that he would kill you on a second. The film doesn't follow many conventional routes and Booth is another example of this, a violent maniac who is truly unpredictable. The main reason why he is so hauntingly terrifying is the fact that at any point you have no idea what he is going to do next. Booth is like the nightmare version of Jeffrey's darkest impulses and desires.

In Jeffrey Beaumont, Lynch has created a character who serves primarily as a surrogate for the audience and mankind as a whole, controlling him with his dangerous desires and impulses. Lynch explores America's fascination with the grim and macabre, expressed through Jeffrey's obsession with Dorothy and the case. He presents an absorbing take on the theme of voyeurism, as Jeffrey hides in closets and behind the wheel of his car, spending as much time spying on the characters as he does interacting with them. Sandy says to Jeff, "I don't know if you're a detective or a pervert", and it's a line that really speaks to America's fascination with those themes of sexuality, violence and twisted deeds; the danger that you can't look away from even it's hurtling towards you.

Taking it at face value, this is a safe and peaceful neighborhood, but when you open the closet (such as the one that Jeffrey himself hides in) you can find any number of skeletons. Lynch's direction is so completely on point for the entire film, creating a hypnotic atmosphere that pulls you in much in the same way that this dark world pulls in Jeffrey. Through the heavenly tinted cinematography and transfixing score, Lynch gives the film a dreamlike aesthetic that makes the nightmare even more chilling. When the film ends you feel as though you yourself are emerging from a dream state.

There are very few things that I love more than a great Alfred Hitchcock movie, and Spellbound surely ranks as one of his best. An engaging take on psychoanalysis (one of the first films to ever tackle the subject), the narrative follows Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) as she tries to help uncover the truth of a man suffering from amnesia who is potentially responsible for murder (Gregory Peck). Like the best Hitchcock films, the premise is a simple one but it's his direction that makes it such an appealing journey. We follow Constance and the mysterious man, who goes by the proxy John Brown, as they try to solve the mystery of not only his amnesia but of the murder that he thinks he has committed.

The film is endlessly watchable, thanks in part to Hitchcock's performance but also thanks to the superb chemistry between Bergman and Peck. Both actors work so well together, as lovers and as actors, creating a character dynamic that I could have continued watching for many more hours. They craft an immediately believable romance, but as their relationship deepens along their journey they never lose their spark. There wasn't a dull moment here. Bergman presented Petersen as a strong woman losing her focus out of love but always trying to remain in control of herself, while Peck was heartbreaking as the amnesiac who is convinced he has done something terrible but is tortured with the fact that he can't remember it. Michael Chekhov gained a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his supporting turn as Dr. Alexander Brulov, the psychiatrist who mentored Constance that the couple go to see for guidance when they're on the run.

With a lovely charm, some great Hitchcock comedy, an interesting take on the complexities of psychoanalysis and plenty of suspenseful scenes, Spellbound is a real winner. There's also the magnificently memorable dream sequence, designed by none other than Salvador Dali, which is hypnotic and leaves a powerful impression. This is a relatively simple film when it comes down to it, but I love every moment of it.

Dog Day Afternoon is a perfect example of a character drama that slowly builds into something much more. Sidney Lumet's finest film starts off as a simple bank robbery but eventually becomes not only the shattering tale of this true story but also a commentary on the media and the public. Al Pacino's Sonny Wortzik is essentially a normal guy who has been put into circumstances to commit a crime, but he is quickly turned by everyone else into something much more. An idol to some and a monster to others, the public create this figure who stands as something to them beyond anything that he actually is.

We hear tales from the people in his life, from his wife Angie to his lover Leon (played so well by Chris Sarandon), of what a bastard he is, often falling victim to an explosive temper, yet the public sees him as a hero. He screams obscenities at the police and forces them to recall the Attica Prison riot, feeding off the attention that he is given by the public. They turn him into something else, but inside the bank he's just a cornered man who doesn't know what to do. Pacino's portrayal is his finest work and stands as one of the finest performances I've ever seen in a film. He is fascinating, empathetic and always commanding.

Sonny is a significantly flawed man, but Pacino makes it easy to see why the hostages he takes were so enamored with him. The real life workers of the bank commented after words that they had a great time and if Sonny and his partner Sal (John Cazale) had been over at their house for a dinner party it would have been one of the best nights of their life, and Pacino shows this side of Sonny in his performance. The people who knew him tell a totally different side of him than what we see in the bank, but as the walls close in on him you can see those other layers start to creep out.

It's a grueling experience for Sonny, lasting over an entire day inside that bank, and Pacino makes you feel every minute of it by the end. He starts off on fire, exploding off the screen in the opening scenes, but as the day wears on he becomes beaten and exhausted, perhaps not thinking as clearly as he should and maybe even wanting to be arrested just so that the whole disastrous experience can be over. Pacino creates a performance as sensational as the media and public turned Sonny into, and it's a wonder to behold and made even more impressive by the fact that most of the dialogue (including the lengthy phone conversation between him and Sarandon) was improvised.

The 1970s are often cited as a decade of evolution for American cinema, and I can't say that I disagree. Evolving from the world of classic cinema, the '70s were a time of growth in character and uniqueness of storytelling. We became exposed to stories that we wouldn't have seen in decades before, with characters filled with grit and moral ambiguity. Stories became as much about developing their characters as they did about driving the narratives, with a wave of powerful and dynamic young actors like Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson making their names. Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this, but Scarecrow is one of the finest examples of '70s American cinema.

Two of the cream of that crop of young actors were Al Pacino and Gene Hackman, and here they portray two drifters named Max and Lion who drift into one another at the beginning of the film. Together they take a journey towards Pittsburgh, where Max has saved up some money in order to open a car wash, which he invites Lion to do with him. Scarecrow came out in 1973, the same year as The Last Detail, and both films follow a similar structure of using a long journey to explore it's characters. It's not about the point A to point B journey but is instead about taking us on an emotional, thematic journey with these characters. It also bears a resemblance to the great Midnight Cowboy, in the way that these two distinctly different characters come into each other's lives and they both transform the other in ways they wouldn't have expected.

Hackman's Max is a stubborn and aggressive man, stuck in his ways and unable to enjoy the freedom his life allows. He's always one step away from a violent outrage and constantly finds himself getting into confrontations during their time together. Pacino's Lion, on the other hand, is a free spirit with a child-like sense of joy. He is always playing games, dancing around, making faces and trying to make everyone else laugh. When faced with malice from an outside force, Max will revolt with a violent attack but Lion finds himself constantly trying to make jokes and ease the tension away. Their journey together sends them toward the other's sensibility and it's this turn that provides the most interesting aspect of Scarecrow. Lion is eventually faced with the real horrors of the world and realizes that his infantile approach to life can leave him vulnerable to the despicable nature of some people, whereas Max comes to understand that sometimes you should just relax and not constantly live with one hand in a fist.

Guiding the whole journey, of course, are the performances from Hackman and Pacino. These are two of my absolute favorite actors, so it means a lot when I say that these are high among their finest performances. Hackman has said that this was his favorite performance of his career, but the financial failure of the film discouraged him from taking on more independently minded stories such as this and he spent the rest of his career in more commercially safe films. He still managed to deliver quality work for his whole career, but it's a shame that he became so reluctant to do anymore films like this because he is on fire here. All of that stubborn aggression of Max is burnt into Hackman's bulky frame and he creates an intimidating, fascinating character. Watching him slowly start to open up in the later stages of the film was a beautiful turn.

Pacino in the '70s overall was arguably the finest decade for any actor in the history of film and this is one of the strongest examples as to why that was. It's an incredibly unique character for him, trading in the brooding anarchists that he was known for and instead playing someone so filled with wonder and child-like bliss. He is at his most charismatic and playful here and it's a true testament not only to his skill as an actor, but especially to his diversity. The fact that his work here came in the same year as his explosive performance in Serpico, sandwiched by his timeless portrayal of Michael Corleone in the first two Godfather films, is astonishing to ruminate on. These are two tremendous performances highlighting a film with a surprisingly emotional impact.

Brian De Palma made his name working in films that scared and thrilled, primarily in the vein of Hitchcock, before trying to expand himself into new territory. One of those new territories was the gangster epic, which he jumped into with 1987's The Untouchables, written by David Mamet. He took the job primarily as a way to make a big studio movie that would turn a quick profit (after his last few pictures were financial failures) and allow him to make more movies that he wanted to. His lack of genuine passion is evident early on, resulting in a film that doesn't have much spark. It's a shame really, because the script could have allowed for a much stronger picture if better talent had been involved.

De Palma has long been a hit-or-miss director for me and this one misses the mark completely. There are some wonderfully staged sequences that entertain and properly build suspense, but for every bridge shootout there's an unintentionally hilarious moment like the baby rolling down the stairs. De Palma once again pours on his fetish for slow motion shots and once again it results in more hilarity than anything else, often feeling as if it's a parody that the audience isn't allowed in on. Mamet's script had the potential for a lot of punch, but beyond De Palma's poor work here is a cast that screams to be replaced.

Headlining the ensemble is Kevin Costner, the head of the titular squad of men organized to bring down legendary gangster Al Capone, and they really couldn't have found a more inappropriate lead if they tried. I'm not entirely sure how a lot of these scenes were able to make it past the editing room, but Costner trying to deliver Mamet dialogue is like Rob Schneider trying to read Shakespeare. There are so many scenes where you can see the passion and the rage that must have been on the script, but when Costner tries to bring it out of his mouth it comes off so forced, flat and borderline hilarious. Moments of damaged frustration have no meaning when the man portraying it sounds exactly the same as he always does. Costner is probably the worst thing about this picture, but the rest of the cast often leaves something to be desired as well.

Sean Connery inexplicably won an Oscar for his role here, and I can't say I'm entirely certain as to why he did. His character serves as a mentor to Costner's and there's a lot of the standard moments that come with that dynamic but after the film was over I felt nothing that resonated with his performance. I wouldn't say it's particularly bad as Costner was, but I felt nothing for the character, there was nothing there that allowed me to take him as a believable human being. Taking on the role of Capone is Robert De Niro in a performance that feels almost as wrong here as Costner's. De Niro is often over-the-top, hamming it up to a dreadful extreme, but even when he's not, the performance still stinks of self-awareness. There's never a moment where this guy is actually Capone, it's just Robert De Niro putting on some makeup.

The film isn't all bad, though. Like I said, there are some marvelously done sequences that are good enough to feel like they belong in a much better picture. Along with that, you can tell that Mamet's script itself could have been a quality work if it had been taken under the wing of a better group of actors or a director that cared more. I also thought that the film was shot incredibly well, with many scenes that left me impressed with their visual flare. Even when the film overall can fall into ruin, De Palma has always been a master at creating a memorable, unique and impressive style. I just deeply wish that it had been serviced by a better overall product.

This movie is pure Shakespeare. I hadn't seen it in years and tonight was my first time watching it in Blu-Ray, which just elevated it to an even higher plane. All of the technical aspects of the film are wildly impressive. The costumes, the sets, the score, the cinematography in particular was an astonishing achievement. So many shots felt like they were paintings, the actors working on some master artist's canvas. Ridley Scott crafts an epic tale of the warrior Maximus, but it's interesting how intimate the sets themselves are. The battles take place within arenas and almost the entire film is in dark hallways, cells or rooms within large structures. Even the big battle scene that opens the film is on a small field, yet Scott is able to give the film such a grand scope. It speaks a lot to his skill as a director.

The blending of fantasy and reality, as Maximus is constantly looking into the afterlife, reaching out to be with his slain wife and son, is seamless and beautifully touching. We are given an inside look into what Maximus fights for, and Scott's direction is so clear in delivering that to us. It's truly some of the most precise direction I've seen, working from an immaculate script by David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson. The fact that this was an original script still blows my mind. If I had gone in not knowing that I honestly would have thought that it was a Shakespeare adaptation of some play I had somehow never heard of. Dipped in themes as old and violent as revenge, betrayal, incest and battles both physical and political, the film feels like it was ripped straight from the man himself. The dialogue is some of the best of recent years, poetic without seeming like it's trying too hard, memorable without ever becoming unnatural to it's characters.

It's all played out by a tremendous ensemble, highlighted by the explosive force that is Russell Crowe. He turns Maximus into a stone badass, but in his eyes you can still manage to see a warm and honest soul. He's a good man who is forced into a dark place and the result is someone you would never want to have coming after you. As the man he's going after, Joaquin Phoenix is the ultimate slime, having so much fun in the depravity of the role but also managing to bring a surprising vulnerability to the part. I was very caught off guard the several times that I actually felt bad for his Commodus. The battles are wildly entertaining, appropriately violent and so immaculately choreographed, as is to be expected on a Scott production. Working in this genre is just another example of the superb diversity that both Scott and Crowe are capable of, and guiding this achievement is both men at the absolute top of their game.

In telling the story of Jeffrey Wigand and Lowell Bergman's struggle to get the truth out, director Michael Mann was presented with two distinct goals. For one, he took on the duty of telling this important, human story to the audience. Also though, he had the difficult task of taking this story and turning it into an engaging, thrilling piece of film. There's a scene where a character discusses with Bergman how this story is something that matters, something has a national impact. For 60 Minutes, it could just be a piece of "Sunday night entertainment...something to put on between commercials", a story to grip the audience while they're eating their dinner. In creating The Insider it could have been the exact same thing, and part of it has to be that. Mann is given the difficult task of not only creating a piece of entertainment, a film to bring in audiences and keep them engaged for the 157 minute running time, but in taking on this particular story he also has to keep the integrity of it in tact, to make the audience aware and educated on the importance of Wigand's journey. In creating the film Mann found himself in a similar position to Bergman himself, and he pulled it off magnificently.

Here Mann tells a story that really matters, something that resonates within the foundation of the American public, pulling apart a lie told against the foundation of our legal structure and shaking up the tobacco industry which had been man-handling people like Wigand and the American public for decades. This is a story that has to make a difference in the world, beyond just being a piece of entertainment. Michael Mann was the perfect director to take the wheel here because he, working from a script co-written by Eric Roth, knows just how to create a distinctively cinematic thriller but also has the intelligence to do justice to the real life people involved. Mann pieces together a precise, incredibly exciting thriller that's never dull for a moment but he also doesn't overly exaggerate events to the point where he betrays the people he is capturing on screen. He creates a film that is very cinematic, with his excellent staging and use of hand-held cameras, but is also very true. This truth then adds an even higher sense of tension to standard thriller scenes like the moment with Wigand at the driving range or searching for someone in his backyard.

There is a scene where a lawyer, played by Colm Feore, that Wigand is working with talks to him about what Wigand is going through. He compares it to his experience in combat, noting the difference in the fact that combat lasts only a few seconds whereas Wigand's struggle lasts day after day, month after month and sinks into his entire life, leaving an impact on his family and his financial future. Watching Crowe's face in this moment, you can truly see the level of that impact on him. He is a good man in an unjust system, and Crowe takes us thoroughly into his anguished mind here. The extensive running time of the film gives ample opportunity for the audience to feel those walls slowly closing in on him. Nothing feels rushed or too undeveloped, but instead Mann and Crowe bring us on a slow descent with this character and watching him finally explode is a shattering moment.

It's no secret to say that Al Pacino's work has taken quite the decline since his tremendous emergence in the '70s. Still, despite disappointing on most occasions he manages to every so often give a performance that is worthy of his legacy and remind the world what a powerful talent he truly is. His work as Lowell Bergman is one of the best examples of just that, portraying the former radical journalist who know works for the giant corporate network of CBS. Bergman is a man who constantly fights for what he believes in, fighting to tell the important stories and using the broader audience that CBS allows without giving in to the restrictions that come with working in such a large corporation. Taking on Wigand's testimony, Bergman is told for the first time that he's going to have to betray his word to a source and this doesn't sit well with him. There's an interesting parallel here again between what Bergman goes through and what Mann must face as well, working in the film industry. He is told to put his beliefs on hold, to sacrifice his word because CBS is too afraid of the consequences and in his riotous, dismayed reaction you have to wonder if Mann himself has ever given similar speeches when being told that he can't do something.

Ultimately, Bergman and Wigand share a lot of things in common as human beings. They come from incredibly different worlds, Bergman being groomed on the streets and knowing the ins and outs of the industry, whereas Wigand is just a doctor from Louisville, Kentucky who is thrown in over his head with all of these large men with larger wallets. Despite their backgrounds though, they are both men who have their pride and their integrity and they are fighting for what they believe is right. They see these men of Big Tobacco lying on national television, lying in a court of law, and they know that it isn't right. They fight to get their story out, to expose the truth and force these men to face the consequences and it's a story that Michael Mann knows was important to get out to the film-viewing public. He does it with great stride, creating a film that is not only human and important, but also a fully engaging and tense thriller. I'm a large fan of Mann's work as a director throughout his career, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is his true masterpiece.

When talking of Alfred Hitchcock's, most people name Rear Window as one of the finest works of his legendary career. While I think it's a very good film, I can't say I agree. The premise is genius. Jimmy Stewart plays L.B. Jefferies, a photographer who is stuck in a wheelchair for another week until he gets his cast off and finds himself passing the time by spying on his neighbors. Hitchcock is brilliant here at making this small world feel so alive and always moving. No matter who Jefferies is watching at the time, you can always here plenty of different things going on in the other apartments in the courtyard.

Each resident is given their own story and formed character to create this full environment for Jefferies to exist in. It never feels like the characters are existing just for the basis of our story, but rather that they genuinely do exist in their own private lives and we are spying on them out our window. The film opens up some interesting topics on voyeurism, how in private people will do things that could seem incredibly strange or suspicious to someone who is watching from an outside perspective, and whether someone would have the right or moral obligation to try and do something if posed with a conflict such as the one Jefferies faces.

Written by John Michael Hayes, adapted from a short story by Cornell Woolrich, Window begins to focus itself on a mystery that opens up when Jefferies suspects one of his neighbors of murdering his wife. The culprit is Lars Thorwald, played by the great Raymond Burr, and Jefferies finds himself obsessed with finding out what happened to Thorwald's wife on a night where he heard a scream and Thorwald left his apartment several times with a case in the dead of night. This obsession drives him, eventually bringing in the help of his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), his caretaker Stella (the delightful Thelma Ritter) and detective friend Thomas Doyle (Wendell Corey) to try and uncover the truth.

My only complaint with the film is that it didn't really drive me. I thought that the staging of everything was brilliantly done, but the actual unraveling of the mystery just didn't compel me at all and left things kind of flat for several stretches in the middle of the picture. I have to admit that I've never been much for Jimmy Stewart as an actor. I find him likable on occasion but for the most part he's so non-engaging to me, and I think my lack of interest in him may have been the cause of my lack of interest in a lot of the mystery. I've always considered Hitchcock, as many do, the master of suspense and been able to admire his ability to bring intensity out of even some of the most mundane sequences.

An experience such as Stewart following Kim Novak's character in his car in Vertigo could have been a dull endeavor if another director had been behind the camera, but with Hitchcock he turned it into a gripping journey and so I was disappointed that he wasn't able to do much of the same for me. It didn't really hinder my appreciation for long though, as the film builds to it's climax where the tables are turned and Thorwald begins to become aware of those conspiring against him, turning this tale of voyeurism into a thriller of potentially grave consequence.

The set up of placing characters like Fremont and Stella in danger while Jefferies has to sit paralyzed, completely unable to defend those he cares about from the violence occurring right before his eyes, added a "can't turn away" suspense in the final act that was absolutely worthy of the Hitchcock name. That final act sings with a power that completely made up for the dragging bits in the middle. Not one of Hitchcock's best, but a worth addition to his wildly impressive career.

In They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, an extensive dance marathon slowly turns into a brutal exploration of the human spirit. Just about the entire film takes place within the confines of one building, the setting for the marathon lasting weeks, with a group of varied characters coming together in an attempt to outlast the rest for the grand cash prize. It's an interesting premise and has been used several times, mostly for comedic purposes, but the idea of it holds so much dramatic potential. Playing it for comedy would be easy, but the script by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson, adapted from a novel by Horace McCoy, goes for the harsh reality of it all and what comes out is a grueling, tragic display.

The experience these characters put themselves through is torturous, always putting on a show for the crowd and at the mercy of the judges and Gig Young's announcer Rocky. It's like watching animals in a zoo, slowly being pushed down to their dying breath. The film provides an interesting social commentary in the way that the crowd starts off minimal, only a few spectators in the stands as the participants are relatively fresh and alert, but as the days go on and their hope dwindles the crowd grows and grows. They want to see the chaotic potential of the marathon, they want to see these human beings brought to their breaking point, and they get that in spades.

Focusing on the young Robert (Michael Sarrazin) and Gloria (Jane Fonda), two loners who partner up for the contest, the film explores some dark themes through their experience of the contest and the downward spiral they are pushed through. There are flashes to Robert being arrested for an unknown crime that we see several times throughout the film, which provide an interesting look at his character and a curious mystery to try and decipher, but the primary focus of the film is on those themes of bringing a person to their breaking point and seeing what comes out as a result.

The performances are uniformly strong, from the powerfully broken Fonda, to the borderline psychotic Susannah York, to the energetic and determined Red Buttons, but special note should be given to Young who is charismatic and malicious as the host of ceremonies but in his moments out of the spotlight presents a sort of bitter melancholy towards the world that adds another layer to his character. Pollack's direction here is understated but absolutely remarkable. He doesn't use a lot of flash or technique, but he seamlessly gives the film the sensation of it being a marathon itself. You can feel the days and weeks pressing on as they grow weaker, more tired and more hopeless.

By the time the final act comes, the audience is in as much as a weary daze as the participants are. It all comes around to it's final sequence, which is tragic beyond the definition of the word. The revelations are powerful and finding out the true meaning of the title is a revelation for the ages. A strange, unique and utterly brilliant work.

I want to start this by saying that I absolutely love movies set on trains. The closed, claustrophobic setting, the ensemble cast of characters confined to one location, it all has the potential for so much drama. Set it within a cold winter snow drift (my favorite season), and assemble an outrageously good cast featuring the likes of Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave and more, and Murder on the Orient Express had the potential to be some kind of masterpiece. Throw in Sidney Lumet behind the camera and the fact that it's based on an Agatha Christie novel and it sounds too good to be true.

Turns out that it was, as the film is an undercooked and instantly forgettable waste of a lot of extraordinary talent. There are so many great actors here and aside from Finney they all get about ten minutes to do the best they can with thin and unmemorable characters. Thin is probably the best word to describe the whole thing, as the mystery is essentially just a long series of red herrings deliberately thrown at the audience so that Finney's Hercule Poirot can look like a genius when he puts it all together at the end, but it's not like any of that really matters if it's impossible to engage in the mystery in the first place.

The actors all do their best and some of them, particularly Bacall, are able to leave at least some impression, but they have next to nothing to work with and even the greatest actors need something from the page. I'd put most of my blame for why this was a failure on the shoulders of screenwriter Paul Dehn, who adapted Christie's novel into something cheap and frustratingly pedestrian. I found it all to be a trying experience, with this weird attempt at a slightly comedic tone that never worked, making the comedic take on Poirot stick out like a sore thumb.

Beginning Roman Polanski's trilogy of apartment thrillers, Repulsion is a moody descent into the mad mind of protagonist Carole, played with absent perfection by Catherine Deneuve. After seeing this and Belle De Jour recently, Deneuve was clearly a master of being a compelling blank slate for her directors in the '60s. The film is Polanski doing what he does best, creating a unique and fully hypnotizing atmosphere that draws you in deeper and deeper as it continues onward.

What starts off as a seemingly simple tale of a young girl who doesn't want to be alone turns into a frighteningly surreal and violent rationale for why exactly she doesn't want to be. The majority of it takes place within the confines of her apartment, establishing a claustrophobic and inescapable terror, but more accurately the whole thing takes place within her mind. Polanski places us directly into the perspective of the beautiful young girl and we are stuck in a terrifying world where determining what's real and what isn't ceases to become an option. Instead we are left with a surreal nightmare where the walls reach out for us and the potential for haunting fear lies around every corner.

I do have to admit that it dragged a bit for me at times, but the final act was a thrilling conclusion. I loved the symbolism of the walls cracking as Carole's mental state literally cracks within itself. I also really loved the sound techniques within the film, causing something as simple as a phone ringing to be as brutally terrifying as a violent bloody struggle. This is Polanski at the peak of his atmospheric game, a strong compliment given that he may be the finest director since Hitchcock when it comes to establishing a hypnotic, complete and absorbing tone.

I really wanted to love this. I think that John Cassavetes uses a powerful aesthetic technique that gives the film a very authentic atmosphere throughout. A lot of the time it felt more like we were just living with these people then like we were watching actors reading written dialogue. Almost improvised in a lot of ways, or I'd even go as far to say like a home movie. Peter Falk delivers a tremendous performance as the husband of Gena Rowlands' mentally unstable Mabel. Cassavetes constructs the whole thing as a study on the role of madness in the American family, how it buries in and makes an impact on the entire household.

Rather than strictly making it a study of the psychotic Mabel, he makes an intimate point in exploring Falk's Nick, the loving and eternally trying husband. In Falk you can feel that peculiar blend of resentment and adoration towards Mabel, constantly lashing out at her mistakes but eventually coming back down out of the everlasting love he feels towards her. This is where the work by Cassavetes shines the most, in exploring that strange balance that occurs with this kind of love, with this kind of person being in a marriage. The film is deeply uncomfortable at times, which I mean as a huge compliment, when we see strangers and even friends gathered around witnessing Mabel's madness and being completely unsure of how to react. I think a lot of scenes go on too long and there's no reason for this to be over two hours, but the eerie sensation Cassavetes is able to bring out of these extended interactions was very interesting to me.

Where the film doesn't work for me and what dragged it down a lot, unfortunately, was in Rowlands' performance. I wanted so badly to adore her, but she was so inconsistent. Her more reserved moments are brilliant, an unsettling picture of a happy woman with a madness lurking within her, but it's her more manic displays where she totally lost me. In all of her ticks and eccentric behavior, Rowlands felt so calculated, none of it coming off naturally or with any sense of believability. It was honestly hard to watch at times, not in the good way, seeing a film with such an approach of authenticity be dragged down by a performance that was absolutely anything but. It all leveled out somewhere around the middle for me, able to greatly admire the work of Falk and Cassavetes but deeply disappointed by Rowlands.