I love The Dead Zone. Christopher Walken was great in it. Back in the day Siskel & Ebert were pushing him for an Oscar nod for Best Actor but unfortunately it didn't happen. Film got very good reviews.
AAW (Special Achievement) -- Visual Effects AAN -- Art Direction, Sound, Sound Effects Editing, Original Score
The box-office champ of 1983, I had never seen it before. I just assumed I had. Loses a lot on the small screen, of course. I knew, though, that most fans of the franchise disparage the tiresome use of the Ewoks in this film, and they're right. The opening sequences with Jabba the Hutt are too Muppet-y, and that big hole in the ground isn't scary enough. But I did like the speeder bike pursuits through the forest. Sometimes the forest scenes looked like a bunch of people in costumes in a park. The prequels did a better job of grounding the conflicts in political struggle. Here, it's all militaristic. Not enough wonder and the ending (considering it's the conclusion of a trilogy) is rushed.
The film commonly credited with inciting the enforcement of the Motion Picture Code. Easy to see why. Barbara Stanwyck sleeps her way to the top. The "Forbidden Hollywood" DVD includes both the version shown in theaters and a pre-release version that is even more startling. Very explicit and racy stuff, and I won't soon forget Stanwyck's face as she watches her father burn to death. Most commentators find fault with the denoument, and I do too, but the episodes leading up to it, although repetitive, are absorbing. She's great. And John Wayne has a small part as one of her first conquest/patsies.
The Emperor Jones National Film Registry (1999)
Maybe Paul Robeson's finest hour on film, and worth it to see him. Screenwriter Du Bose Heyward pads out Eugene O'Neill's play by dramatizing the back story desribed in the play, and I actually enjoyed the verve of those scenes. I liked Robeson, too, and his series of soliloquies at the end are impressive. It's ultimately more interesting to argue about the movie's treatment of blacks than it is to wring your hands about it.
Duck Soup National Film Registry (1990)
Anarchy, some of it trenchant, some of it vicious -- Harpo's attacks on the lemonade vendor seem motiveless and cruel. It includes the famous mirror scene which is brilliant.
Any Ozu is worthwhile for Ozu fans but I think others would enjoy this too. A steady mix of comedy and Depression-era melodrama, mostly an investigation of a father-and-son relationship (outstanding perforance by Takeshi Sakamoto as the irresponsible and ignorant but ultimately loveable father)in the slums of Tokyo. Ozu was already inserting shots of hanging laundry, water towers, and other trademark flourishes.
Equinox Flower (1958)
From Criterion's Late Ozu Eclipse Series
Ozu's first color film is yet another generational comedy, in which the parents learn they must yield to the children. Once again, a daughter is of marrying age. More comedy than is usual. Rewarding eventually but the languid pace will probably put off anyone new to Ozu.
I don't mean to imply that Ozu is inaccessible to anyone but film students and cineastes. But it definitely helps to know something about him and his techniques.
Best Director -- Cannes, National Society of Film Critics
This was Bresson's last film. Anybody with anything to say about Robert Bresson, I'd love to hear it. I think that if you mean to be a lover of cinema you eventually have to go out and meet Bresson. I've only seen this one, Mouchette, and A Man Escaped. I understand that a few masterpieces await me.
Coppola's second S.E. Hinton adaptation this year, following The Outsiders. This one couldn't be more different. Coppola says that he set out to make an "art film for teenagers." I think this has aged beautifully, although it's not for everybody. Coppola's commentary track is wistful and naked. It works as a kind of memoir of regret. His special affection for this movie -- he ranks it with The Conversation as one of his favorites -- seems to derive from his memories of the passion and joy that suffused the its making. I loved it.
AAW -- (4) Film Editing, Music (Original Score, Bill Conti), Sound, Sound Effects Editing AAN -- Picture, Cinematography, Art Direction, Supporting Actor (Sam Shepard)
A good American movie that seems to never get revived or even talked about much. It's kind of a slog for home viewing (unless you have a good home-theater system) and really belongs in a theater. Maybe that's why the domestic scenes came off so well when I watched it recently. Manages to be cynical and inspired by the awe of it all at the same time. Ed Harris and Dennis Quaid come off especially well.
Scarface (1983)
Nothing else like it, really. Still fun, and wicked, and extremely pointless. But three hours of it?
Terms of Endearment (1983)
AAW -- Picture, Director (James L. Brooks), Actress (Shirley MacLaine), Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson), Adapted Screenplay (Brooks)
AAN -- Actress (Debra Winger), Supporting Actor (John Lithgow), Art Direction, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound
Let's just say that even thought it's legitimately open to it that I'm unable to brook any criticism of one of my favorite movies.
Victor Fleming directs Jean Harlow in a Hollywood satire. Mostly fun, but sometimes shrill. Ahead of its time. Rarely screened, I saw it as part celebration of Michael Sragow's new and definitive biography of Victor Fleming, which I've been enjoying immensely. We're lucky to have Sragow as a film critic in Baltimore.
Here's a rave review of the book by Peter Bogdanovich in the Wall Street Journal
A Fritz Lang masterpiece with an excellent, and for me, indispensable, commentary track from your pals at Criterion. I mean, the movie only really registered with me after hearing and learning about it. I think that's legit, although I know some viewers insist that a movie stand on its own.
The Blob (1958)
Criterion again. Steve McQueen. A deliberate attempt at combining the Monster Movie with the Teenage Delinquent film. It works, and the nighttime photography is surprisingly lush, but I wish it were scarier.
This is the first year I've done this kind of retrospective viewing. It's been fun because it forced me to queue of some things I never would have.
I don't know why I never before saw The Outsiders and Rumblefish. I think that, taken together, they form one of the sweetwest one-two punches any director ever landed. I'm nuts about them now, and Coppola's commentary for the Rumblefish DVD is heartbreaking -- it's his lost child.
My favorite 1958 catch was the Cannes Palme D'or winner, The Cranes are Flying The Cranes are Flying, beautiful and tragic on Criterion.
From 1933, I loved Katharine Hepburn in Little Women the lavish extras that came on the King Kong DVDs, which made me really appreciate the film; the insane musical numbers from 42nd Street, Golddiggers of 1933, and, especially Footlight Parade, with a terrific Jimmy Cagney (and John Waters contributing to the DVD extras); and especially William Wyler's breakneck Counsellor at Law
