Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Elizabeth Taylor’s death prompted me to watch “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof” via Netflix instant viewing. I was instantly endeared to this film as the brat children are described as “no neck monsters” unrestrained by their parents. The endearment continues with the pure, Southern gothic screenplay adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer-winning play, co-penned by Richard Brooks and James Poe.

This gang of no-necked, horrible children are the nieces and nephews of Maggie and Brick Pollitt - Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, respectively. Brick is an alcoholic and it quickly becomes apparent that the couple have not made love in a long time. Maggie is not happy about this and says she feels like she’s a “cat on a hot tin roof," at times referring to herself as “Maggie the Cat.” The miscreants’ parents are Mae and Gooper Pollitt. The patriarch and matriarch of the family are “Big Daddy” and “Big Momma” Pollitt, with Burl Ives playing an uncharacteristically harsh, cruel (yet honest) role - that of Big Daddy Pollitt. The drama surrounds Big Daddy Pollitt's terminal illness and the resolving of his 28,000 acre, multi-million dollar estate.

The highlights of this film are the dialogue, the acting, the cinematography and the subtext. I’m not sure which order of greatness these fall in. The entire film is quotable. The themes of avarice and mendacity are brilliantly illustrated. The acting is 99% spot-on, and the color film and lighting is luminous and beautiful. There is a possible subtext of a gay relationship between Brick and a former friend who formed (at least) an emotional triangle with “Maggie the Cat.” The original play referenced homesexuality directly - Hollywood removed these direct references. Regardless, it’s an extremely brave play for the mid 1950’s and less-brave, but still courageous subsequent film for the mid to late 1950’s. Williams is said not to have been happy with the adaptation due to these omissions.

The actors, all of them, are to be praised for their gentile Southern accents - slight, very real and very well done.

I am thrilled with this movie. The blu-ray is not yet available, but the Netflix high-definition stream is - please avail yourself of this.

IMDB.com article
Wikipedia article

The Seventh Seal

Yet another one of my 50% off Criterion purchases was Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" made in 1957 - widely lauded as a classic cinema masterpiece. It takes its name from the Bible’s Book of Revelation, wherein seven seals are opened before rapture takes place and final judgement is rendered. As the film notes, "when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (Revelation 8:1). This is a meditation on religion, doubt and faith, referenced in the space of half an hour wherein God is silent. We are immediately introduced to the knight and his squire returning from the crusades. The knight, played by a young Max Von Sydow, starts a game of chess with Death in an attempt to bargain for his life. This is immediately contrasted with a scene involving a family of actors who, despite their poverty, are very much in love and are examples of faith and life itself.

The knight and squire wander into a church with an artist painting a fresco of death terrorizing a village, indicative of the black death (the plague of historical times) that surrounds them. The fresco portrays villagers who are whipping themselves into a frenzy in the belief that the black plague is a punishment handed down by God. The knight enters the confessional expecting a priest to hear him. During the heartfelt confession, the knight asks such questions as "Is it so cruelly inconceivable to grasp God with the senses? Why should He hide himself in a mist of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles?...What is going to happen to those of us who want to believe but aren't able to?" However, it is not a priest who is listening to the knight’s entreaties, but Death who poses the question “You want a guarantee?” The knight wants knowledge, not “faith or conjecture, but knowledge.” After explaining to Death that he wants God to reach out his hand to him, Death notes “yet, he is silent.” After the knight explains how he feels that God isn’t there at times, Death posits that, perhaps, “God isn’t there,” whereupon the knight relates that this isn’t an outcome he can accept - “No man can live facing death knowing that everything is nothingness.” I do not want to transcribe this entire conversation, although I’m tempted to - there are at least two other existential quandaries that are also illuminated - facing death and the general ignorance to its meaning . It is the core of not only this movie, but also the question of faith and doubt in religion. To juxtapose this argument onto the scenario of a knight returning home from the Crusades to find the black plague ravaging his homeland in a chess game with Death is nothing short of a brilliant intellectual and artistic display.

However, as Pee Wee Herman notes, "Why does everyone always have such a big but(t)?" BUT, HOWEVER, etc., the attempts at comedy relief in "The Seventh Seal" fall hard unto modern concrete, but maybe these found a sympathetic audience in 1957. Too much time is spent trying to humorously explore the notion of fidelity - it plays into a misogynistic theme that is too prevalent. This is a big stone dragging down the greater themes present.

On yet another, trivial, note, there is also WAY too much baby butt in this movie. Gross.

I’m not fond of the whiny circus performers, the baby butt present, the blubbering blacksmith, his tramp wife, etc. This movie boils down, for me, to the confessional scene between knight and Death and their interplay exploring mortality, doubt and faith. The burning of the “witch” is no trivial affair, either - also orchestrated by Death. A quick digress: George Lucas’s Emperor Palpatine looks suspiciously like Bergman’s Death driving the witch’s wagon.

In my layman’s opinion, this is a beautiful film with grand themes present, but too much of the film is wasted trying to be funny and marred by over-the-top acting.

IMDB.com "Seventh Seal" entry
"The Seventh Seal" wikipedia article

Spoileriffic trailer:

The Call of Cthulhu

The 2005 film adaptation of “The Call of Cthulhu” done by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is an admirable attempt at creating a period, silent-film retelling of the famous H.P. Lovecraft story.

Although a very well-done endeavor, I find the mix of modern and silent film-making techniques to be distracting. An “either/or” philosophy would have served better. Generally, the silent-film techniques employed serve the film well, but we are taken out of the story by improbable overhead camera shots and other modern techniques. This technique, called “mythoscope” by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society should probably end here. It isn’t horrible, but it uses too many modern camera angles and other effects to suit my tastes. It’s cool on paper, but the execution leaves me wanting.

From a story-telling perspective, it does not elucidate the written story all that well - there’s a reason filmmaker upon filmmaker have passed upon this film - the three disparate locales in the story make it hard to film a narrative whole. I’m afraid that the HPLHS adaptation doesn’t succeed, either.

That being said, it is a short film. If you’re a H.P. Lovecraft fan, of course you should give this a viewing and decide for yourself.

Wikipedia article
IMDB.com article

The Thin Blue Line

This Errol Morris documentary is considered a classic documentary, but my impressions are that the Phillip Glass soundtrack, as well as the cheesy reenactments are over the top and sully the journalistic nature of what a documentary is supposed to achieve. The closeups of various items - a newspaper article, a clock, and the too-loud Glass soundtrack overlaying the actual participants’ dialogue makes for a frustrating viewing experience - maddening, actually. For example, what do we gain by watching the same b-movie the participants watched during the night in question? An insight into their psychology? I am really interested in the story, but the pretentious soundtrack and the cinematography ruin this for me.

Here’s the synopsis from the Wikipedia article:

The film concerns the November 28, 1976 murder of Dallas police officer, Robert W. Wood, during a traffic stop. The Dallas Police Department was unable to make an arrest until they learned of information given by a 16-year-old resident of Vidor, Texas who had told friends that he was responsible for the crime.[3] The juvenile, David Ray Harris, led police to the car driven from the scene of the crime, as well as a .22 caliber revolver he identified as the murder weapon. He subsequently identified 28-year-old Ohio resident Randall Dale Adams as the murderer.

Adams had been living in a motel in Dallas with his brother. The film presents a series of interviews about the investigation and reenactments of the shooting, based on the testimony and recollections of Adams, Harris, and various witnesses and detectives. Two attorneys who represented Adams at the trial where he was convicted of capital murder also appear: they suggest that Adams was charged with the crime despite the better evidence against Harris because, as Harris was a juvenile, Adams alone of the two could be sentenced to death under Texas law.

The film's title comes from the prosecutor's comment during his closing argument that the police are the "thin blue line" separating society from anarchy. This is a re-working of a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem Tommy in which he describes British soldiers (nicknamed "Tommy Atkins") as the "thin red line", from the color of their uniforms and their formation.

This documentary’s investigation showed that five witnesses committed perjury and, as a result, overturned Adams’s conviction. I do not argue that this is not an important movie, but its style is an unfortunate, pretentious precedent for films to come. On the other hand, it’s investigation and quest for truth set an even more important precedent - suffice it to say that I cannot argue with the importance of this movie, but from a viewer’s perspective, it falls short for me.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring

This film is a Buddhist fable writ large upon the silver screen. It is beautiful, poignant, and also a little perplexing to me - there’s a scene where the master monk beats his student, albeit after a suicide attempt, and there’s some child endangerment issues. These are moot, though, as this film is meant, I believe, to be taken as a visual poem and not a literal tale.

It is a 2003 South Korean film, directed by Kim Ki-duk, and stars Su Oh-yeong, Kim Young-min, Seo Jae-kyung, and Kim Jong-ho.

Jimi Plays Monterey / Shake! Otis at Monterey

Another one of my Criterion Collections’ 50% off purchases was “Jimi Plays Monterey / Shake! Otis at Monterey” which documents each artists’ performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. This is directed by D.A. Pennebaker - for the most part, straight concert footage is used, a credit to Pennebaker’s taste. One point where this strays during the music is during Otis’s “Try a Little Tenderness” where Pennebaker cuts in shots of various women in the audience and outside of the venue with children, lovers, etc. It’s short, very sweet, and manages to get beyond all the negative hippie mystique of the era and show the truly beautiful aspects of the 60’s - all in a short 2-3 (?) minute sequence. Very well done.

Both of these are historic performances and important documents of the history of rock and rhythm and blues music. There are many highlights, not the least of which is seeing a very young Donald "Duck" Dunn spasm all over his bass in glorious fashion.

I’m glad they’re in my collection.

Cronos

“Cronos,” Guillermo Del Toro’s first feature, is a tale of alchemy combined with vampiric elements. Positive elements include Guillermo’s fondness of children, the elderly and their interactions. After listening to Del Toro’s commentary, my thoughts coalesce: his alchemical symbols were lost on me, and probably most of his audience. The story revolves around a clock-like, golden scarab that holds a live insect inside. He speaks of selling his car to get the money needed to film the internal artifact shots, even though his producers said they weren't needed. He insists that they're critical to the movie to explain the alchemy of the movie. I'm not sure this should have been his, apparently, main focus.

This film isn’t a failure, and, I’m very glad this movie was made as it allowed Del Toro to make much better films. However, Del Toro’s insistence on the internal insect shots shows a navel-gazing in regards to this strange vamipire/alchemy mythology that simply doesn’t interest me.

I bought this based upon Del Toro’s later movies, and the Criterion Collections’ reputation, and, again, I don’t hate it, but I’ll probably be selling this on ebay.

Wilderness

Based on my friend, KennKong's urging, I did what I vowed I wasn't going to do - put a movie at the top of my queue considering I've recently spent too much money on the Criterion Collection's 50% off sale.

However, Ken being a good sport with my reviews, entertaining discussions, etc., I felt I shouldn't be so stuck in my ways.

Thus, I have seen Michael J. Basset's 2006 film, "Wilderness," and, as usual, Kong is spot on with his recommendations. It's an intense tale of revenge that doesn't take too long setting up. Humans hunting humans have been an interesting topic for me. In film, "Apocalypto," "Battle Royale," "The Most Dangerous Game" and a slew of Bond films have also had this as a theme.

Suffice it to say that other than appealing to bloodlust, something I feel guilty about, this movie is great. I'm not going to waste any more time, though, and direct you to Kong's review.

The Social Network

“The Social Network,” directed by David Fincher and starring Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg starts with an incredible scene of dialogue. Fincher notes in the commentary that it was very brave for Aaron Sorkin to write 9 pages of dialogue as an opening scene. Also, taking a cue from film noir, it is rapid-fire, intense and is filled with romantic tension. I loved it. Rooney Mara, playing Erica Albright, Zuckerberg’s girlfriend, is fantastic as the foil.

This rapid-fire dialogue follows throughout the movie and is the highlight. I don’t have a lot to say - it’s an interesting story, but the acting and the dialogue are the highlights.

I also love the soundtrack - its pace matches the dialogue and feel very well. I’ve never been a huge fan of Reznor’s music, but I’ve also never placed it in a soundtrack context - it’s working well - very well. It’s still quintissentially Reznor, co-written with Atticus Ross, but I’ll give credit where credit is due - this is a great soundtrack.

I really expected this to be a ho-hum movie. I love this movie - even though it’s a very modern topic, it returns to the old-fashioned notion that the script and dialogue need to be crafted and polished. I haven’t seen “The King’s Speech” yet, but this, so far, is what I think deserved the best picture Oscar for 2010. I do agree, however, with what it did win - best score, best screenplay, and best editing.

Paths of Glory

“Paths Of Glory” is a 1957 Stanley Kubrick film adapted from the novel of the same name penned by Humphrey Cobb.

First off, I’m watching the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray and it looks great. Second, we almost immediately have a scene where General George Mireau, played by George Macready, slaps a soldier because he’s a “baby,” not shell-shocked as another soldier advises. The general declares “there is no such thing as shell-shocked!”

A great dialogue follows wherein General Mireau, after advising Kirk Douglas’s character, Colonel Dax, that his men are expected to suffer 60% casualties after the planned offensive on the “Ant Hill.” Mireau notices a smirk on Dax’s face and asks Dax if he is amused after stating that “all of France is depending on you!” The two-minute conversation if full of traps and release, well-acted and contains more cinematic worth than most movies.

Throughout the film, the secondary actors leave a little something to be desired and take the audience out of the movie, unfortunately. The dialogue, however, is interesting enough so these minor acting deficiencies don’t significantly impact the movie as a whole.

The assault on Ant Hill is fantastic. It starts with Colonel Dix walking through the trenches, looking each weary soldier in the eye as the morning’s initial military barrage starts. He then whistles for the assault to begins, and the soldiers leap out of the trenches for the assault, which ultimately fails due to soldiers’ refusal to fight against insurmountable odds.

The film becomes a legal one. It is an early, antiwar movie, and illustrates the tenuous legal dynamics in military tribunals. Col. Dix uses an emotional appeal to protect the sometimes randomly-picked defendants in a court-martial trial for “cowardice in the face of the enemy.”
This appeal fails, and the three defendants are sentenced to death.

A rather shocking scene occurs when the priest informs the prisoners of their fate and offers to accept their confessions - hostility against religion is displayed, a precursor for anti-establishment films to come.

This is what I think is paramount to this film - it is a very early example of anti-establishment, anti-war film that is expertly made and primarily courageous for its time.

The cinematography is certainly worth mentioning. Not being a film scholar, it seems that the incorporation of wide-angle, macro shops with off-center, perspective shots was also early for its time. This movie has the distinctive Kubrick signature.

It is a short, 88 minute movie. Stakes are established, gambled, and realized. A closing scene of a bunch of horny soldiers clamoring for an obviously traumatized German woman to sing naively takes the humanist tone to a improbable conclusion - the soldiers stop acting like crazy horndogs and hum along with her, some sobbing in recognition of the dynamic present. Col. Dix looks on in approval and grants the men some more time before having to move back to the front.

This is not a perfect movie, but stands as an amazing accomplishment.