Stalag 17 (1953)

Hilarious, heart-tugging! You'll laugh... you'll cry... you'll cheer William Holden in his great Academy Award role!

This incisive black comic drama by the great Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity - 1944, Sunset Boulevard - 1950, Some Like It Hot - 1959, The Apartment - 1960) is set in Stalag 17, a German prison-of-war camp in the winter of 1943, two years before the end of World War II.

The action opens in one of the prison huts, Barracks Four, little more than two lines of rough bunkbeds. A group of US airmen, all of equal military rank (sergeant), are helping two of their number, Manfredi and Johnson, to attempt an escape, using a tunnel that the men have helped construct under the perimeter fence. Almost as soon as the two escapees have left the hut, one prisoner, Sefton (William Holden), countering the general mood of optimism amongst the prisoners, argues that the escape attempt is unlikely to succeed and challenges the men to back their opinions by betting against him. Outraged (enraged?), most of the prisoners go ahead and place bets in support of the escapees but soon shots are heard and Sefton collects his not inconsiderable winnings.

An idea begins to seed itself through the minds of the prisoners, spreading like a modern viral meme. The Germans knew the exact time and place of the escape so they must somehow have learned details of the actual escape plan. Ruling out other options (uniformed German warders overhearing, mechanical listening devices) would leave only one logical explanation: a spy amongst their ranks, inside this very barrack, a hidden informer pretending to be one of them, feeding the Germans their most precious secrets. As the least popular person in the barrack, and as the person who profited most from the two escapees' deaths, the loaded barrel of guilt begins to turn towards J.J. Sefton.

At the centre of the film, the question of whether or not there is a hidden spy within the barrack, and if that spy is Sefton, creates an inherent tension driving the plot forward, and in its examination of what people are prepared to do to each other when the stakes are high, cleverly licences the film to explore to some very dark places. And in this case, with people's lives very much in the balance (and with a tip of the hat to Filmspotting's Adam Kempenaar, who loves a high stake), the stakes couldn't be much higher. What's more, according to Wikipedia, because of extensive re-writing of the script by Wilder and Blum, and the fact that, contrary to normal practice, the film was shot in chronological order, behind the scenes, even the cast members themselves "did not know the identity of the informant until the last three days of shooting", possibly adding to the tension on screen.

The film is by no means unremitting doom and gloom. Along the way, there are lighter moments. Among the supporting characters, the ongoing comic double act of the two barrack clowns, "Animal" Kasava (Robert Strauss) and Harry "Sugar Lips" Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck), who played the same roles in the stage play on which the film is based, are brilliantly written and impeccably played. Their repartee includes a ritualised, codified rhythmic use of language, developing localised echoic catch phrases, both English and German ("Raus! Raus! Raus!" and "At ease! At ease!", that strongly reminds me of the kind of thing my son, Matthew, and his friends amuse themselves with, riffing endlessly on phrases like "It's nacho cheese, I say it's nacho cheese. It's my cheese, my nacho cheese, bro, not yours, nacho cheese, no way, not your cheese. It's mine, not yours, nacho cheese." Clearly, Kasava and Shapiro's clowning around is not meaningless fun, but on the contrary, the only way they know of coping with the desperate situation they are in.

The cameraderie of Kasava and Shapiro even extends to the German warder, Sergeant Johann Sebastian Schulz (beautifully played by Sig Ruman), with whom at times they are very familiar, not to say dangerously cheeky. How meaningful, how deep, is this prisoner/warder cameraderie? Is Schulz an example of "the good German" of popular legend, subjugated, like the American prisoners, by Nazi cultists in high positions?

Another trope of prison tales, the question of sex (lack of) and enforced periods of same sex internment, is touched on cleverly and subtly. The Hollywood star, Betty Grable, she of the legendary legs, appears as an icon of female desirability. Along the way (without giving away specific plot spoilers), we see men dancing with men, and a distressingly graphic externalisation of desire, probably inspired by a key scene in Charlie Chaplin's The Goldrush (1925).

Turning away from a literal examination of the story to a kind of subtextual interpretation provides an interesting perspective on the United States of America, with the prison-of-war camp standing microscopically for the nation. If each barrack is like a state in the Union, an analogue of federal government support can be seen in the person of Marko the Mailman (William Pierson) who comes round to share bulletins, as well as in the egalitarian practice of time-sharing with the camp's only radio, the only source of outside news and music. There is even a system of sanctions against groups that transgress, by withholding or truncating time with the radio. Provision of a safety net of care for the severely disadvantaged can be seen in the way the character of Joey (Robinson Stone), the catastrophically shell-shocked unfortunate, is looked after by the men in various ways without thought of recompense or personal advantage.

I love the way that, through the conflict between Sefton and the other prisoners, Wilder manages to juxtapose the two key survival strategies available to the imprisoned US sergeants in Barrack Four, and metaphorically, to participants in the socio-political union of the USA itself. Sefton's strategy, essentially individualistic in nature, aims to maximise personal comforts wherever possible, using wealth (in the absence of money, taking the form mainly of cigarettes, the most common currency of barter in the camp) acquired from fellow prisoners via bets and other revenue-accruing activities. This wealth can then be used to gain special privileges from the German overseers, such as turning a blind eye to black market trading, and to gain material advantages such as bottles of alcohol, cigars and good quality food. Of course, acquiring wealth and privilege at the other prisoners' expense does not necessarily bring popularity. Sefton epitomises the selfish face of capitalism, profiteering, cynically exploiting the misfortunes of others for his own benefit. While Sefton is disliked and mistrusted, at the same time, his character provides much of the entertainment and comforts for the rest: speed races with gambling, a liquor bar, a girlie peep show. Could it be that Sefton stands for the entertainment industry, Hollywood, Wilder himself?

As Wilder re-worked the adultery theme of The Seven Year Itch (1955) to great effect in The Apartment (1960), so Stalag 17 (1953) is a second take on the theme of the flip side of the American ideal of rugged individualism: merciless self-interest, initiated in Ace in the Hole (1951), with Sefton a brother in spirit to Kirk Douglas's cynical newspaper hound, ruthlessly exploiting others to advance his own career.

The contrasting strategy, employed by almost all the other men in the barrack, is a kind of cooperative altruism, in its way, a collective socialism, mainly exemplified in their united efforts to support escape attempts and more generally in mutual protection from punishment by their captors, and in care for less abled people in their group. Interestingly, the cooperative approach taken by the majority, which I would imagine most if not all of us will perceive as the best and most moral approach, essentially aligns itself with socialist principles, and exposes the despicable hidden face of unbridled capitalism. This makes Wilder a highly subversive social commentator, causing American cinema-goers in the 1950s to side emotionally with a socio-political stance (socialism) that many would have (misguidedly, I would suggest) hated and feared, and in the main, continue to hate and fear. Respect for this achievement, Mr Wilder. You rock! (I'll bet Michael Moore loves this film, too.)

To conclude, love it or hate it, this is very much a Billy Wilder film: he co-wrote it, directed and produced. As for William Holden, although in other films I have often not really appreciated him, in this film he is really very good, so good that he got a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar.

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• Director: Billy Wilder
• Writers: Screenplay by Edwin Blum and Billy Wilder, Original theatrical play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski
• Starring: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss, Peter Graves, Neville Brand, Harvey Lembeck

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• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 21 Jul 2012
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Written in WriteRoom, formatted using HyperEdit, posted from my MacBook Pro

Departures (2008)

The gift of last memories

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) just manages to land his dream job as cellist in a classical orchestra in Tokyo, Japan, when the orchestra is disbanded. Forced to sell his hugely expensive professional cello, he gives up on his idea of being a musician, and he and his young wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), return to live for free in his late mother's house in his old hometown, where he falls into a well-paid job, cash up front, though not at all the job he thought was being advertised, but one with high social stigma.

Without revealing Daigo's actual job title, suffice it to say that the backbone of the film is the question of whether or not Daigo will continue with the job. Will he tell his wife the true nature of the job? Will he be able to withstand pressure from others to give the job up? Will he come to like the job or find it too distasteful? Quite a lot of the film details the duties involved in the job. Through Daigo, we get to know both the gut-wrenching parts of the job, and also the emotionally uplifting power of work well done.

This is a rather sweet, quiet, melancholy film, with moments of gentle humour and much real pathos. Much of the emotional impact of the film is doubtless cued by the music, classical pieces, cleverly included diagetically via the playing of Daigo himself.

The script, by Kundo Koyama, is on a par, say, with Colin Higgins' script for Harold and Maude, and the direction, by Yojiro Takita, is immaculate. Wikipedia says that both the lead actor and the director did significant research in preparing before the filming. Motoki is superb in the lead role, and among the main supporting actors, Tsutomu Yamazaki is extremely impressive as Daigo's boss. Other notable players are Kimiko Yo, as his colleague, and Kazuko Yoshiyuki and Takashi Sasano, respectively, owner and long-term customer of a local "sento" bath house.

The story addresses important issues relating to family ties and the social and personal worth of normally stigmatised jobs. There are some very poignant scenes (some involving stones!) and the air in my viewing room did rather fill up with dust towards the end.

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• Director: Yojiro Takita
• Writer: Kundo Koyama
• Starring: Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kimiko Yo, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takashi Sasano

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• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 13 Jun 2012
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Written in WriteRoom, formatted using HyperEdit, posted from my MacBook Pro

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

A Tale of Murder, Lust, Greed, Revenge, and Seafood.

This is a very funny and generally entertaining film, the last great swan-song of brilliant creative humour (at least till now) of the legendary ex-Python, John Cleese, the writer, star and co-director. In the aftermath of a flawed jewel heist, compromised by witness identification of the gang leader, greed and distrust turn the four robbers against each other.

The film starts very succinctly by introducing the gang members, two American and two British, each with a passion, an idiosyncrasy, an Achilles' heel. Wanda, the glamorous and quick-thinking American girlfriend of the gang leader, George, is strongly aroused by the sound of foreign languages, a foible used to good comic effect. Otto, a dim-witted weapons expert, also American, and Wanda's secret lover, believing himself to be an intellectual, has a passion for the works of the philosopher, Nietzsche, though only limited comprehension. Ken, the getaway driver, a British man with a severe speech impediment, a stutter, and a tank full of tropical fish, ironically, given later developments, is a keen animal-lover. Only the leader, George, has no real identifiable passion, unless it be for diamonds. The only chinks in his armour are his trust in Wanda, shown from the outset to be double-timing him with Otto, and his identification by an elderly pedestrian at or near the scene of the robbery.

The plot develops briskly, alternating between the story-lines of defence barrister, Archie Leach (Cleese), and the robbers, and then showing how these initially parallel story-lines converge, in satisfyingly unexpected ways.

The use of American actors is brilliant casting, as it allowed the filmmakers to market the film in the USA as an American film starring American actors (Kline and Curtis) in a story set in England, and to market the film in the UK as a British film starring the much-loved ex-Python comedians, Cleese and Palin, with the bonus of glamorous American guest stars. (Kline was awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.)

The character and portrayal of Archie's wife, Wendy, by Maria Aitken, is superb. She absolutely nails the kind of highly educated, sharp-tongued, sharp-minded, upper-middle class English woman who can deflate a fool with words in less than a minute, and who will fearlessly attack those who wrong her.

The sub-text is perhaps that of hidebound British cultural norms contrasted with the apparent freedoms of the American way of life and the desirability of the exoticism of overseas cultures. This is explicitly bemoaned both by John Cleese's character, George's barrister (lawyer), Archie Leech, who is delighted by the refreshing directness of the American style of social interaction, and also by Otto, who despises English stereotypical reserve and diffidence as unmasculine. A lovely example is the contrast between the dull, middle-class bedtime ritual of Archie and his wife, Wendy, and the extravagant passionate foreplay of Otto and Wanda.

Another strand is that of the use of language. There is Ken, with his communication-impeding stutter, Otto, with his cod-Italian and his catch-phrases ("Asshole!" "What was the middle thing?" "Don't ever call me stupid."), Wanda, with her apparent ability to be sexually aroused by the sound of a foreign language, George, with his creative use of bad language, and Archie, whose job it is to speak in defence of criminals.

The only bum note, to my mind, is a moment, near the end, where Archie, the very English barrister, talking to Otto, impersonates in voice and mannerisms a larger-than-life character from the southern USA, thereby stretching audience credulity and surreptitiously breaking the fourth wall, allowing Cleese himself to break through with a little advertisement for the versatility of his own acting skills.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, there is a reported case of somebody in a cinema actually dying of laughter while watching A Fish Called Wanda.

References

• Wikipedia: Modern deaths attributed to laughter
  

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• Director: Charles Crichton, John Cleese
• Writers: John Cleese, Charles Crichton
• Starring: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Tom Georgeson, Maria Aitken, Patricia Hayes, Geoffrey Palmer

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• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 27 May 2011
• Where seen: School
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Posted from my MacBook Pro with the assistance of TextWrangler

The Apartment (1960)

Movie-wise, there has never been anything like it - laugh-wise, love-wise, or otherwise-wise!

The Apartment (1960) would make an interesting double bill with The Seven Year Itch, directed by Billy Wilder only five years earlier. Both films share the theme of affairs between married men and single women in New York City, including that crucial month or two in the summer when it seems many wives and children escaped the heat of the city on extended summer vacations, leaving married men to their own devices.

The themes are similar, but the story-telling is at a different level of expertise. The Seven Year Itch was a leery cartoonish comedy that winked at the temptations confronting married men, mixed with a meta-discussion of the impact of sex symbols such as Marilyn Monroe, and the somewhat disturbing excesses of male fandom. In The Apartment, Wilder has progressed to a dramatic comedy grounded in believable characters, with life-changing outcomes at stake, a film with real emotional heft.

Ambitious young company employee, C.C. Baxter, is one face among many in the serried ranks of wage slaves in the cavernous financial department of Consolidated Life. an insurance company on the nineteenth floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, and a long way back in the normal line of seniority for promotion to an office of his own, or even ultimately, a key to the executive washroom. But he has found a possible short-cut. As well as frequently working late as unpaid overtime, he finds that he can curry favour with a small stable of middle managers of less than impeccable morals, by loaning out his apartment to them for their clandestine trysts.

Trouble is, the popularity of this venue amongst the managers creates scheduling problems for Baxter, the late nights waiting for the all-clear take a toll on his health, and there is little time left for him to develop a private life. What's more, ironically, given his apparent monk-like existence, the loud carousing coming almost nightly, in his absence, from his apartment, and physical evidence of excessive alcohol consumption, has given Baxter the reputation with his neighbours, a stolid medical doctor and his wife, of being a philandering libertine. When he does manage to get time in the apartment himself, there is little for him to do but eat a solitary TV dinner and read himself to sleep.

The one ray of light in the desolation of Baxter's personal life is a sweet lovely young elevator operator, Miss Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). On the day that Baxter's extended deprivations seem to be having the desired outcome, he asks her out on a date. But she already has an appointment to meet someone, a high ranking executive at the company, Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), a middle-aged family man, with whom she had an extended summer romance, and for whom she is nursing a broken heart.

The real theme of The Apartment is that of loneliness, primarily the loneliness of young single people in a big city. Baxter's loneliness manifests itself in his misguided desire for acceptance in the workplace, and the mistaken perception that his stable of managers like him because of the favours he does for them. On the contrary, the indications are that they dislike being beholden to him: they call him "buddy boy" in a way that suggests he is far from their buddy; they pressure him to give them time in his apartment even when it is clearly very inconvenient for him; they even give his home address out to someone who wishes him harm. Miss Kubelik's loneliness manifests itself in the affair she has had with a married man. But perhaps this affair is not surprising: if young single eligible men like Baxter are busy climbing corporate ladders, where else can she find affection?

Fran Kubelik has aspects in common with the other women in the story, and aspects that differentiate her from them. Like them, she has had an affair with a married man, but unlike them, although heart-broken, her nature is still unspoilt. By comparison, the other women appear coarse, that is to say, coarsened by experience, by repeated disappointment and loss of hope. From the blowsy switchboard operator to the ditzy Monroe lookalike/soundalike in the bar, these women seem to given up looking for lasting love and happiness, and are settling for temporary kicks. Then there's the lonely wife of the jailed jockey, actively seeking out male company on New Year's Eve, like a forlorn reflection of the plight of married men in the summer. She seems to still love her husband, but just needs someone to hold for the night. Maybe these married men had flings with their secretaries, switchboard operators, etc, not because they were cynical thrill seekers, but because they too in their way were lonely.

As for Baxter's middle-aged middle managers, they are a disappointing lot: "happily" married men cynically using the apartment for assignations with long-term mistresses and one-night stands. When they mistakenly get the idea that Baxter has bedded Miss Kubelik, they respond as if it were a challenging sporting achievement. Jeff Sheldrake, Miss Kubelik's ex-lover, however, seems to be a different kind of person, ready to do the right thing for the love of his life. His character is the key to the question of whether a single woman like Fran Kubelik is likely to find happiness with a married man.

Jack Lemmon's performance as Baxter is exemplary. Technically, he is magnificent. Which actor was it who said the best advice he ever got was to do (physical) things quickly, lighting up a cigarette, packing something away, whatever. These sequences of actions may be unavoidable, but dramatically, they are dead time, and it's vital to move on as fast as possible to other more dramatic events. Lemmon exemplifies this skills in various bits of business in the apartment: getting a TV dinner ready, cooking spaghetti, etc. Fortunately, briskness of action fits in well with Baxter's rather frenetic character. This nervousness combines with his characteristic optimistic cheeriness, like a mask, which counterpoints nicely with his essential loneliness. Just the sound of him in the kitchen, humming operatic snatches in a kind of desperately cheery way (according to Wikipedia improvised by Lemmon), are very poignant. The business with the tennis racket too is very good. It makes the otherwise mundane cooking process unusual and interesting to watch. It adds a slightly creative, kooky angle to Baxter's character. It's a good illustration of the kind of makeshift rough-and-ready domesticity of the single male in the kitchen.

Shirley MacLaine is wonderful in the role of Miss Kubelik, combining the unthreatening approachability of the girl-next-door with an adorable sunny sweetness, cuteness and specialness, so that the women in the audience will identify with her and want the best for her, and the men, identifying with Baxter, will want to be with her. MacMurray is fine as Sheldrake. There are some excellent supporting actors, including Dr Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen) and Mrs Dreyfuss (Naomi Stevens), the switchboard operator, and especially, the jockey's wife.

In short, The Apartment is an exceptional dramatic comedy with great story, script, characters, and performances.

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• Director: Billy Wilder
• Writers: Billy Wilder, IAL Diamond
• Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, David Lewis, Joan Shawlee, Naomi Stevens, Edie Adams, Hope Holiday

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• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 6 July 2011
• Where seen: Home, on iPad
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France...

A terrific film in almost every aspect: story, characters, script, direction and acting. After the doldrums of Kill Bill 1 (2003) (so disappointing that I couldn't bring myself to see Kill Bill 2, 2004) and the IQ-lowering Death Proof (2007), this is a welcome return by Quentin Tarantino to the kind of brilliance displayed in the earlier work, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), that inspired a generation of young film-makers. According to Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds], the first draft of the script was written in 1998, before Kill Bill and Death Proof. It seems the script went through some significant changes along the way, so hopefully this current return to form is not limited to projects from his back catalogue but is a pointer to the future.

The story is set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, in a kind of alternate universe where the fixed historical realities of our world do not apply. The plot essentially centres around an Allied mission to assassinate a number of prominent Nazi government officials at a film premiere. The Basterds of the title are a volunteer group of Nazi-hating American soldiers, headed by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), working clandestinely behind enemy lines to instill fear into the hearts and minds of Nazi soldiers through acts of ruthless savagery, consciously creating a word-of-mouth reputation of mythical terror that can strike with impunity, anywhere, anytime. The other characters include French Jews, notably Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), either in hiding or striving to maintain a false public identity; a magnificently skillful Jew-hunting "national security" SD officer, Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz); an equally perceptive Gestapo officer, Major Dieter Hellstrom (August Diehl); a British secret agent with fluent German, Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender); and German film star Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger).

As well as these principal characters, there are a good number of ordinary German soldiers and civilians. With the premise of the Basterds' mission being that it is fine to kill Nazis, interestingly, these "ordinary" Germans are written and played not as cartoonish caricatures, but as fully realised, rounded, sometimes likeable, even in some cases admirable human beings. I found myself wondering what part if any these people would have played in the atrocities committed by their government. Did they all deserve a grisly fate, or were some just soldiers at war, patriotic as any people at war might be about their country? The mission of the Basterds, to kill all Nazis, seemed harsh to my modern eyes, if the term "Nazi" includes normal German people caught up in a war not of their own making.

The film is a showcase for and a discussion of Hitchcock's famous formula for suspense (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1985, by François Truffaut, Simon and Schuster, see also Themes and plot devices in the films of Alfred Hitchcock) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_and_plot_devices_in_the_films_of_Alfred_Hitchcock], in which, as I understand it, explaining how to create suspense, Hitchcock describes a scenario where two people are talking in a room with a bomb under the table. In order to create suspense, Hitchcock explained, the audience needs to know about the bomb. If the audience doesn't know about the bomb, and the bomb goes off, it will be a surprise but nothing more. It is with the knowledge of the existence of bomb, that in the minds of the audience, over time, suspense can be built. In fact, the longer the bomb does not go off, the greater the suspense. In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino puts metaphorical bombs under a lot of tables, and tells the audience about many of them. As the audience spend time with the participants, the metaphorical bomb under the table raises the level of the stakes (the perceived value of the outcome) for each participant, and correspondingly, ratchets up feelings of suspense.

Amusingly, in one key scene, Tarantino reverses the formula, so that for most of the scene, while the participants know, or suspect, that there's a non-literal bomb under the table, the audience is only later told of its existence, though, from the demeanour of the characters, the audience will rightly suspect that something is amiss but not quite know what. This is more like the Hemingway edict, if memory serves, consciously trialled in the short story "A Clean Well-lighted Place" (1926), where a tragic event is never explicitly stated, that you don't need to explicitly include the main event driving the plot, e.g. the climactic suicide, as its occurrence will be active in more or less subtle ways in other parts of the story, like the invisible parts of the iceberg that hit the Titanic. (For interesting discussion of alternatives to Hitchcock's classic formula for suspense, see "Building a Better Bomb: The Alternatives to Suspense" Peet Gelderblom, 19 October 2008, [http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/?p=2030])

The other edict Tarantino seems to follow (one for which I can't find a reference online, and would welcome one) is that, films being essentially a sequence of scenes, if a filmmaker aims to make a great film, it must include half a dozen or so really great scenes, which Basterds does. Where Tarantino excels, in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Inglourious Basterds, is in setting up (physically) fairly static scenarios marked by really kick-ass dialogue. The dialogue, in itself, is often concerned with apparently mundane topics, such as pop culture, food and drink, but nevertheless, because of clear conflict of interests and high stakes (such as a figurative bomb under a table which the audience is well aware of), Tarantino's scenarios are full of suspense. One scene in particular in Inglourious Basterds, full of pleasantries about a family's health and the quality of drink on offer, parallels the technique used by Hemingway in the superb short story "The Killers" (1927), where the menace of two gangsters waiting in a restaurant to murder another character is mainly conveyed through the most banal exchanges, largely relating to the availability - or rather lack of availability - of food, but covering a potential for great violence.

The script includes some nice interplay between art and life, where one character, interacting with another character in person and also able to see that character in a fictive role on screen, is undone when the response to the fictive role supersedes that of the real person, fatally attributing the fictive character's motivation to the real person. While watching this film-within-a-film, which seems to be little more than a series of back-to-back killings, appreciated hugely, for the wrong reasons, by the kind of people most of us would not wish to be associated with, I thought it a neat commentary (inadvertent or not) on the poverty of interest of pure action films such as Kill Bill 1, to my mind is more like a test run of action sequences than a fully-fledged storied film. My brother, Rob, however, suggested that this partially glimpsed film sounded more like a Nazi version of the biopic, Sergeant York (1941) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_York], for which Gary Cooper won a Best Actor Oscar in the title role, which follows a similar plot-line, or alternatively, To Hell and Back (1955) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Hell_and_Back_(film)], starring Audie Murphie as himself, another film about a WWII expert marksman who single-handedly takes on a large number of enemy soldiers.

As for the performances, as a director, Tarantino must be doing something very right, as he has assembled a brilliant cast and got fantastic performances by almost everyone. Of particular note are:

• Christoph Waltz, superb as the character of the charming "national security" officer and rightly received various prestigious awards, including "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe, as well as (confusingly), Best Leading Actor at Cannes
• August Diehl as the Gestapo officer in the beer cellar
• Michael Fassbinder as a British secret agent
• Diane Kruger as a German film star
• Mélanie Laurent as a French Jew
• Daniel Brühl as a German hero

The only slight question mark in my mind hangs over Brad Pitt's portrayal of First Lieutenant Raine, leader of the Basterds. It's a difficult role, with little shading to it, and he plays it with a good deal of swagger, like an old-fashioned swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks or (American) Errol Flynn, mixed with the ruthlessness of a military Clark Gable or a mercenary Lee Marvin. My reservation is that his portrayal, or at least the camera's representation of his portrayal, does not take us into his thought processes, resulting in a person without depth of feeling beyond the actions required, so it's tricky to judge whether or not he is a trustworthy guide to the rights and wrongs of dealing with Nazis. Is he a good man who has embraced a distasteful but essential duty, or a cheerfully heartless executioner? Trying to think of another actor for the role, Sam Shepherd as Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983), comes to mind as having the requisite phlegmatic unflappability and toughness and machismo. There's a quiet intelligence behind the eyes there that Pitt doesn't seem to attempt.

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• Director: Quention Tarantino
• Writer: Quention Tarantino
• Starring: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Mélanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Eli Roth

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• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 24 Jun 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Mother (Madeo) (2009)

She'll stop at nothing.

"Mother" is an unusual character-based murder mystery set in modern day South Korea and featuring a superb performance by Kim Hye-ja, the actress playing the title character, a single mother of a mentally backward, memory-impaired, young man of 28 years of age accused of killing a local school girl. Finding precious little support from the law, Hye-ja, desperate to identify the real perpetrator, is herself forced to turn amateur detective.

The story begins with the son, Do-joon (Won Bin), being led into a needlessly violent confrontation with a group of elderly people by his best friend, Jin-tae (Ku Jin). Later, at the police station, facing a sizeable fine for criminal damage, Jin-tae exploits Do-joon's foggy recollection of the event to trick him into taking the rap. Of course, it is Do-joon's mother, Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja), who will have to try to find the money to pay the fine from her meagre income as a herb seller and unlicensed acupuncturist. Later, when the body of the school girl is found, and the finger of suspicion points to Do-joon, based on circumstantial evidence (possibly planted by Jin-tae), Hye-ja begins a solitary struggle on behalf of her son.

Stripped to its essence, and in the hands of lesser filmmakers, perhaps, this would be just another stock genre murder mystery with an amateur sleuth. But the sly way the story is set up by director, Bong Joon-ho, and screenplay writer, Park Eun-kyo, edging the mother unexpectedly into the role of investigator, is so fresh and clever in its execution that it seems quite novel.

The script is brilliant, with the plot taking various surprising turns. People are not always what they seem at first, and there are some unsettling reveals. Along the way, a harsh light is shone on the investigative powers of the police and the moral fibre of the legal representatives, not to mention the cruel world of Korean schoolchildren, and there are episodes of strong suspense and violence. An intriguing secondary mystery clouds the nature of the relationship between two important characters. Is the one still a small child in the eyes of the other, or is something less savoury involved? Perhaps I missed some vital clues, but in my mind this puzzle was only satisfactorily resolved days after watching the film.

The script is great, but best of all is the outstanding performance by Kim Hye-Ja as the mother, a master class in method acting, her incredibly expressive face able to communicate a range of conflicting emotions within a matter of seconds. The enigmatic temporal bookends in which she features linger in the memory. Very good performances as well by Jin Goo and Won Bin as the two young men.

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• Director: Bong Joon-ho
• Writers: Bong Joon-ho, Park Eun-kyo
• Starring: Kim Hye-ja, Bin Won, Ku Jin, Yoon Jae-Moon, Mi-sun Jun, Young-Suck Lee, Sae-Beauk Song, Mun-hee Na, Woo-hee Chun, Byoung-Soon Kim

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• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 6 May 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amadeus (1984)

Amadeus. The man. The music. The magic. The madness. The murder. The mystery. The motion picture.

Who could make a film about the life of a dead white European classical music composer that would be anything but worthy and dull? Peter Shaffer and Milos Forman, that's who. Adapted from Shaffer's stageplay, Amadeus (the middle name of Wolfgang Mozart) is a highly entertaining film, a wonderful portrayal of creative genius and the feelings of people around a creative genius, positive and negative, and a very effective dramatic packaging of the music of Mozart.

In Vienna, Austria, in the late 1700s, Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones), a rather dull-witted but enthusiastic and well-meaning, if undiscriminating, patron of music, is surrounded by a group of master musicians, with vested interest in maintaining their influence over him. Into their midst comes the young hugely gifted composer and performer, Mozart (Tom Hulce), whose brilliance, to their annoyance, far outshines anyone else's. The current leading light, Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), finding himself beginning to be eclipsed by this new star, begins a secret "dirty-tricks" campaign against Mozart, while at the same time pretending to work on Mozart's behalf.

The story is structured as a series of flashbacks, narrated to an incredulous priest by an apparently victorious, aged wheelchair-bound Salieri, incarcerated in a madhouse, and fixated on the idea that, many years ago, he murdered Mozart. Telling the story mainly from Salieri's point of view is a very effective device. Unlike the rest of his contemporaries, apparently, Salieri has the capacity to fully appreciate the beauty of Mozart's music and the seemingly superhuman power of his genius, is transported by the music, flooded with admiration for the ability to create it. Through Salieri, we, the audience, are brought to feel a similar appreciation. What Salieri, and to an extent, we, the audience, cannot understand is why a person of such obvious personal failings as this arrogant crass immature youth should be chosen to be the vessel of (divine) inspiration, rather than a more deserving recipient, such as himself. Viewing Mozart through Salieri's twin emotional filters of admiration and jealousy intensifies our appreciation of Mozart's genius.

As well as providing an excellent way to view the genius of Mozart and an appreciation of his music, Salieri's jealousy of Mozart provides the engine that drives the story forward. Paraphrasing Sherlock Holmes' remark to Dr Watson about mediocrity, Salieri's tragedy is that he has the talent to recognise genius in others, but not the talent to create genius in himself. In so far as Salieri cannot possess that which he loves best, he will be compelled to act to destroy it, and these actions provide the trials that beset Mozart and start to take their toll on his career and his family life. With regard to historical accuracy, according to Wikipedia, in order to heighten the dramatic thrust of the story, Shaffer used a large measure of artistic licence, pretty well inventing Salieri's dirty tricks campaign and even tampering with Mozart's character, making him more childlike in his personal life than he probably was.

Whatever the case as regards historical accuracy, this is a really enjoyable film that succeeds in dramatising musical genius with a compelling story and a masterful script. The staging of the musical numbers is terrific. The choice of an all-American cast was apparently controversial at the time, but did not bother me, maybe because I'm half-American myself. Amongst a host of excellent performances, including Hulce, with his signature giggle, in the title role (Wikipedia says Hulce is thought to have based his performance partly on the character of the irascible tennis player John McEnroe), and Jones as the slightly dimwitted Emperor, the performance by F. Murray Abraham as Mozart's nemesis, Salieri, is simply outstanding. Interestingly, both Hulce and Abraham were nominated for Best Actor Oscars; Abraham won. The film also won seven other Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeus

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 7 Apr 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Adaptation (2002)

Charlie Kaufman writes the way he lives... With Great Difficulty. His Twin Brother Donald Lives the way he writes... with foolish abandon. Susan writes about life... But can't live it. John's life is a book... Waiting to be adapted. One story... Four Lives... A million ways it can end.

Adaptation is a wonderfully cerebral, ultimately solipsistic journey, the filmic version of a Cubist or Futurist painting from the early 20th century. I say Cubist and Futurist because artists like Pablo Picasso (Le guitarist, 1910) and Marcel Duchamp (Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912), though working in a two dimensional plane, found a way to include the third dimension, giving an all-round view of an scene, and in doing so, managed to incorporate the fourth dimension, time: the time needed to move round exploring a scene from different angles. Likewise, the makers of Adaptation take the story of a New York journalist's fascination with a remarkable Florida botanist, and incorporate the process of bringing the story to screen, which becomes its own story, the story of an obsessed screenwriter's agonised struggle to achieve artistic resolution. This self-reflectivity forms a plot of fantastically convoluted knobbly structure, like the surface of the screenwriter's brain.

The first few minutes of this film are quite disconcerting, as it seems as if we are going to watch a documentary, with the actor John Malkovich appearing as himself. But then when Nicholas Cage appears as Charlie Kaufman, a real life screenwriter trying to adapt The Orchid Thief, a book by Susan Orlean, played by Meryl Streep, we realise that the story is more complex than that, using a range of time-shifting techniques, both flash-backs and flash-forwards, and of voice-overs by Kaufman.

Using the structural conceit of twin screenwriting brothers, each following very different paths, one commercial, the other artistic, the filmmakers are able to have their cake and eat it, so to speak, that is, to have a product that is eminently artistic and cerebral, but also includes mainstream elements of dramatic conflict, danger, violence, action, sex, drugs, etc.

The three leads are brilliant. You can't help but admire Nicolas Cage and Chris Cooper for playing characters quite far from the norms of physical attractiveness. Cage is excellent as the sweaty, balding, overweight, anxious, obsessed Charlie Kaufman, and his twin brother and budding screenwriter Donald. Cooper is also great as the botanist Laroche, played throughout as a man missing his two upper front teeth. Streep is very good as the New Yorker magazine writer shadowing Cooper's character. The supporting cast is very good, with Brian Cox notable as a charismatic writing coach.

The film is a meditation on the creation of itself, and of the obstacles in creating something or adapting something that will be true to life... or not. Within its genre (solipsistic self-referential fiction), Adaptation is an exceptional example, culminating, if I understood the plot correctly, in a perfect exclusionary circle of self. The end credits finish with special thanks to the real-life people whose fictionalised characters we have been watching, bringing the story full circle back into reality.

In his intensity and passion and scorn for the easy well-trodden but temptingly well-paid commercial route, the central character of the film, the screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, is reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp: "Following his maxim never to repeat himself, Duchamp "stopped" painting (1923) after 20 works and devoted himself largely to the game of chess." (Source: Idiom.com) We can only hope that Kaufman does not follow the same career path too closely.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 23 Mar 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Zatoichi (2003)

His Sword Made Him a Hero... His Courage Made Him a Legend. This Summer, Justice is Blind.

What do you get if you translate "revisionist western", "gunfighters" and "the Man With No Name" into Japanese? A bloody tale of gang rivalry and personal revenge set in a town in 19th century Japan, with samurai swordfighters and, in place of Clint Eastwood's brand of mythic anti-hero, a soft-spoken middle-aged blind masseur / gambler with hidden talents.

Written, co-edited, directed by and starring the (it goes without saying) multi-talented Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, Zatoichi is an exceptional film. An ensemble piece, it interweaves the stories of a charismatic samurai warrior forced to hire himself out for funds to treat his invalid wife, a couple of murderous geishas whose back story provides good reason for revenge, a local man with a passion but no talent for gambling living with his aunt, a farmer, and a war between two local Yakuza (criminal) gangs.

The character of Zatoichi, it says in Wikipedia, was well-known in Japan in recent decades through a series of films and TV shows, as a travelling vigilante, protecting "the innocent from oppressive or warring yakuza gangs and investigating/stopping general injustice", rather like David Carradine's wandering monk in the 70s US TV series "Kung Fu".

The film includes a number of memorable fight sequences, extremely violent, but also beautiful in their precise choreography and swift start-stop rhythms, sort of like an animated series of snapshots, endowing the key combatants with preternatural presence of mind and athletic skill, and most importantly, allowing the audience to clearly follow the sequence of moves leading to victory or defeat, unlike the modern vogue for fight scenes comprised of impressionistic collages that mystify more than illuminate. As well as action sequences, there are quieter more reflective scenes, and some laugh out loud slapstick sequences, including a wonderfully surreal group of rhythmic fieldworkers. Not for nothing, one could be forgiven for assuming, is the director's nickname "Beat" Takeshi. (Actually, Wikipedia points out, this nickname is a hangover from his days as a standup comedian, Beat Takeshi.)

The performances are fantastic. Kitano himself, stooped, thick-bodied, shuffling, eyes closed, face-twitching, is strangely compelling, like a stunted Charles Bronson, but somehow hugely believable in the fight sequences. The ronin samurai (Wikipedia explains that a free-lance samurai is a ronin) is played with great inner strength and gravitas by Tadanobu Asano. The younger of the two geisha siblings, Daigoro Tachibana, in particular, gives a fantastic performance. The foolish gambler is nicely played by Guadalcanal Taka.

Zatoichi is an entertaining work of art that could work well in a double bill with a Sergio Leone or Clint Eastwood western, or even the animated modern western "Rango" (though the audience would need to be limited to adults).

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 25 Mar 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

True Grit (2010)

Punishment comes one way or another.

A very entertaining film, mainly because of the remarkably gutsy nature of the 14-year old protagonist, Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), and her single-minded quest to bring her father's killer to justice and how this determination drives the story forward across a wintry Arizona landscape into a succession of encounters, each potentially life-threatening, propelling the audience along in a transport of expectation and (sometimes audible) delight.

Even people who normally avoid westerns might well enjoy this tale, as it is less a genre piece than a human drama in a historical setting.

Key to this film's success is a master-class in building indirect characterisations through action, down to the Coen brothers' expert scripting. From the moment Mattie Ross steps off the train, her interactions with people build a character of sharp-tongued wit, precocious hard-headed business sense, determination and courage.

The man she is hoping to hire to pursue her father's murderer, US Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), is artfully introduced under cross examination in a courtroom trial, painting a picture of a tough, capable but dissolute man, and leaving unresolved the question of whether or not he's a heartless killer of men.

Later, in a brief, almost throwaway, scene (as in Robert Altman's revisionist take on Chandler's classic tale of loyalty and betrayal, "The Long Goodbye", where in an apparently trivial prologue to the main story, Elliott Gould's Philip Marlowe's negotiations with his cat provide in microcosm the key theme of the film), Cogburn and Mattie come across a couple of kids torturing an animal, and the nature of Cogburn's response, funny in isolation, serves to add not insignificant dimension to his character.

The interplay between US Marshall Cogburn and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) as they compete for Mattie's attention and admiration, highlights the debauchery and pragmatism of the former, and the prissy correctness and high-mindedness of the latter, with Mattie left to decide which, if either, is better suited to her purpose.

The film feels absolutely authentic, partly due to the unsanitised grubbiness of some of the more unsavoury characters (unlike the 1969 version, I heard on a podcast, in which John Wayne's Cogburn appeared in relatively well-laundered clothes), but mostly due to the apparent verisimilitude of the dialogue, delivered at speed and without any contractions, and laced with old-fashioned, often biblical, expressions. One of the Coen brothers, speaking on a Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's film review podcast, said at least 90% of the dialogue was from the original source novel.

I have only vague memories of the 1969 version of the film with John Wayne, so l wasn't distracted with mental comparisons between the two versions, and thankfully, the plot was as new for me. Steinfeld is fantastic in the role; Jeff Bridges is marvellous; the supporting cast are uniformly good, notably Dakin Matthews as the double-dealing horse-trader that Mattie outwits.

My only doubt is about Matt Damon: he portrayed a proud man of prissy high-minded nobility well, but I wonder if another actor, perhaps with a more expressive face (Tobey Maguire? James Franco? Andrew Garfield?) could have added more insight. Montgomery Clift, up against Wayne in Red River (and plenty tough in From Here To Eternity), would have made a good contrast to Jeff Bridges.

Wonderful to hear, during the end credits, the unmistakable and eminently suitable voice of Iris DeMent singing the hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", from her 2004 album, "Lifeline".

For me, this is certainly an excellent film: at least full price, maybe higher.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 24 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Cinema
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Sin City (2005)

There is no justice without sin.

Fantastic film version of a strong artistic vision of a dark, violent, sexy version of our world.

When Xanthe and I saw this in the cinema on release, after a steady diet of kids' films, this was a massive shock to the system which left us gasping.

The visuals are gorgeous and so well realised with the limited colour palette and the stunning from above night time snow and rain shots, so iconic.

Of course it can be seen as offensive in its gender stereotyping but it's all tongue-in-cheek, no?

Awesome performance by Mickey Rourke as Marv and by Bruce Willis as cop Hartigan.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 29 Oct 2010
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added actor tags: "Jessica Alba, Benicio del Toro, Brittany Murphy, Elijah Wood". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994)

He's quite engaging. She's otherwise engaged.

Such a successful romantic tragi-comedy. Really funny, moving, emotionally credible. A breakout success that paved the way in the US market for a rush of other British films.

Remarkable how no backstory is given for the characters. Yet we believe in them as a strange social group. The plot cleverly excludes almost all references to the world of work, so the characters exist in a pure world of social relationships.

The WH Auden poem, Stop All The Clocks, is a real highpoint. I saw it on the day of a colleague's funeral, and wept.

Such a good performance by Hugh Grant - probably the key to film's success. Also of course Kristen Scott Thomas. Not to mention the gay couple Simon Callow and John Hannah. And McDowell is fine, if less desirable, ultimately, than Scott Thomas, who is luminous, rivettingly (regally?) fine and intelligent.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 17 Dec 2010
• Where seen: School
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added actor tags: "Simon Callow, James Fleet, Rowan Atkinson, John Hannah, David Bower, Charlotte Coleman". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Amelie (2001)

She'll change your life.

This is a wonderful film, a romantic comedy but not a genre film, set in the world of comic Jeunet grotesques (cf. Delicatessen, City of Lost Children).

The character of Amelie is something of a grotesque too, but made mainstream (= commercial) by the actor Audrey Tatou's personal charm and good looks, which provides a relatively normal access point, or point of view (POV), for the viewer. Switch Tatou for a less winsome, odder-looking young woman, and Amelie would be more unavoidably an eccentric amongst grotesques.

The stakes couldn't be higher. From the beginning, we are shown that Amelie is a young woman whose character has been been formed by an unusual childhood, which has given her an eccentric outlook on the world. As an adult, she now occupies a world of eccentrics, none of whom has been able to fully realise themselves, each one compromised by some flaw or circumstance. And we understand that Amelie herself is ultimately in terrible jeopardy, for unless something or someone changes the course of her future, she will share her neighbours' bleak fate, becoming like them a disappointed or embittered or damaged grotesque.

In many respects, Amelie is a modern version of Jane Austen's Emma: busy making matches between lonely people, and trying to bring hope and /or happiness to sad people, but reluctant to risk reaching out to seize happiness for herself. She is good at clever "schemes" but always at a distance, anonymously.

Jeunet uses every trick in the book to keep things fresh and surprising and delightful: ironic voice over, magic realism, breaking the fourth wall with direct looks and performances to the audience, speeding up sequences.

There is a wonderful mystery involving photo booths, like one of those logic problems people used to tease you with.

The sub-textual values of the film are to be cherished: art for art's delightful sake rather than commercial gain, although that message may be slightly ironic given the film's strong commercial appeal.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 03 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Added writer tag: "Guillaume Laurant"; actor tags: "Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Claire Maurier, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

The Naked Spur (1953)

Packed with Technicolor Thrills!

Another great pairing of James Stewart and Anthony Mann in a modern revisionist western.

Apart from a brief incursion by a group of Blackfeet Indians, slaughtered without too much lasting remorse by the principals, this is a tight five-hander. At the centre is the conflicted bounty hunter, Howie Kemp (Stewart), hunting Ben (Robert Ryan) and his companion (Janet Leigh), who inadvertently picks up a couple of partners, an old prospector (Millard Mitchell), down on his luck, and a brave dashing but dishonourably discharged soldier (Ralph Meeker).

The plot is excellent. The stakes are clear: as the lieutenant neatly points out, Ben is not so much a man as a walking bag of money. In fact, the situation is very similar to that in Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre, where the lure of gold puts pressure on the characters to double cross each other,

It struck me that part of what makes this such a great story is the character of Ben (Ryan), and his sly skillful psychological manipulation of the other characters, as he schemes to create conflict between his captors, with apparent confidence that sooner or later, by this method, opportunities to escape will emerge. This gives the villain of the tale unusual depth and credibility, if not exactly sympathy. After all, in his shoes, it's a tactic any of us would surely use.

The locations and cinematography are wonderful, contrasting strongly with the meanness and pettiness of the principal characters.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 31 Jan 2011
• Where seen: Home, on iPad
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added writer tags: "Sam Rolfe, Harold Jack Bloom"; actor tags: "Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Millard Mitchell, Ralph Meeker". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Winchester '73 (1950)

Fantastic western with many adult themes and a large cast very well handled by the great Anthony Mann. Highly credible due to excellent script seemingly very authentic and well researched, realistic locations, and solid performances by all actors. No silly comedy characters or sub-plots.

Modern in its use of a protagonist whose morality is grey. Remarkable for the dark vengeful character of the protagonist, McAdam, a vigilante in modern terms, verging on the psychotic. Observe the wild conflicted delight on his face while shooting dead attacking Indians. And again, in the finale reel, the single-minded unswerving passion with which he pursues his mission of vengeance.

Also the excellent psycho gunman portrayal by Dan Duryea (like a reflection of a possible future Stewart), and the very fine portrayal of the coward by Charles Drake. Even Shelley Winters (an actress I normally find unappealing and annoying) is good.

The final shootout is very well orchestrated, clearly showing the action and tactics used, and drawing us in.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 5 Jan 2011
• Where seen: Home, on iPad
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added writer tags: "Robert L. Richards, Borden Chase, Stuart N. Lake"; actor tags: "Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Charles Drake". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Witness (1985)

Harrison Ford is John Book - a big city cop who knows too much. His only evidence: a small boy who's seen too much...

I really love this film. It is so clever, using our identification with the honest but cynical and violent Detective Book (Harrison Ford) to draw us into an alternative culture, existing alongside ours in virtual islands. As Book gets to know and falls in love with Rachel (Kelly McGillis), we ourselves learn about and fall in love with the old-world values of Amish life, with its insistence on pacificism and strength of community (who can not weep a little for our alienated modern life-style during the barn-raising scene?).

The direction (Peter Weir) is outstanding, with numerous bravura sequences of fluid apparently-meandering camera-work and no / almost no dialogue, notably the early sequence with Samuel at the train station, the sequence with Samuel in the police station, and the explosive final reel in the barn. Also of note is Weir's technique for creating chemistry between the two leads, in the remarkable "ballet of alternating looks" that creates tension.

The performances are amazing, with McGillis showing a range from demure to openly sizzlingly wantonly lustful, and Ford turning in a career best, e.g. in one or two scenes doing more with the back of his head and shoulders than many actors can do with the front of their faces, to say nothing of brilliant turns from Haas, Rubes and Godunov. Roger Ebert said: "Harrison Ford has never given a better performance in a movie."

Put all that together with thrilling action sequences and a story with real heart, and you have one of the best films of the 1980s.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: Unrecorded
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added writer tags: "Earl W Wallace, William Kelley, Pamela Wallace"; actor tags: "Kelly McGillis, Jan Rubes, Danny Glover, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Dances With Wolves (1990)

Inside everyone is a frontier waiting to be discovered.

I have to say I love this film.

Funny seeing this film again after recently seeing Avatar, nicknamed "Dances with Smurfs", at the cinema. The revisionist take on the Western here reaches an apex, with the army officer protagonist, Lieutenant John Dunbar (Kevin Costner), arriving from the Civil War torn east coast, having volunteered for this post, (naively?) wanting to experience "the frontier" before it disappears.

The story stands up very well, and is more sophisticated than may appear at first glance. Dunbar's courage is established at the outset, contrasting with the malaise of the rest of the Union troops, in an act of (possibly fever-fuelled) bravado that pre-figures the bravery of the native American warriors later in the story, counting coup.

The early part of the story functions mainly to establish the crappiness of white Americans, who are almost all either cowardly, deranged, or boorishly ignorant, strengthening the contrast with the character of Dunbar, and the American Indians he meets, heightening their bravery, dignity, ferocity and/or humanity.

The scene where he reports for duty to his superior officer is very interesting too. It functions as a sneakily innocuous bit of staging, with the deranged officer apparently living in a fairy tale, so that Dunbar receives his orders as if he were a medieval knight being sent on a crusade.

As well as courage, further character-building devices include the contrast between Dunbar, with his appreciation of nature and his literary and artistic ability, revealed through the first person narrative voiceover and his use of a journal, and his boorish undignified guide, with his poor personal hygiene, his childish practical jokes.

At three hours in length, the style is unhurried.

Costner plays it just right. Mary McDonnell (brilliant too later in her career as the President in Battlestar Galactica) is luminous in the role of Stands With A Fist, and does a great job of playing someone reaching for a language they haven't spoken since they were a small child, even later speaking it with curious inflections, as would someone for whom it was a second or foreign language.

The native American actors are great, in particular Graham Greene as Kicking Bird, also the chief, Ten Bears, played by Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman, and Kicking Bird's wife, Black Shawl (Tantoo Cardinal), and the Pawnee villain (Wes Studi). Their makeup and costumes are really impressive.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 21 Aug 2010
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added writer tag: "Michael Blake."; actor tags: "Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Pleasantville (1998)

Nothing is as simple as black and white.

A really wonderful funny charming fantasy fable or allegory with real substance and real heart. Structurally, it resembles that other great fantasy fable Groundhog Day: a reality top and tail, sandwiching the main fantasy segment in which the protagonist goes through a narrative arc.

The story is rich with metaphors, centred around fear of personal and by extension social change. In the black and white versus colour dichotomy, it finds an excellent if obvious vehicle to talk about skin colour discrimination. It charts the development of a more liberal set of values, a broadening of horizons beyond the local community, as well as the development of a distinct youth culture. It also charts the development of popular music in the second half of the 20th century, along with the suspicion and hostility such new kinds of music aroused in older generations.

The script is excellent, as are the special FX, to achieve the juxtaposition of black and white and colour. The performances too are excellent. Joan Allen in particular is riveting as Betty. Walsh, whose last film this was, is also very good.

The video on the DVD of Fiona Apple in the Pleasantville Soda Shop singing the Beatles song Across The Universe, while reactionary black and white townspeople smash the place up, is very affecting, even after several viewings.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 20 Jan 2011
• Where seen: School
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added actor tags: "Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, J. T. Walsh, Reese Witherspoon". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Once (2006)

How often do you find the right person?

A lovely gentle musical film with three main strands of interest: the developing relationship between the two leads; an overview of the music-recording process, from street performing to the professional production of a studio CD; and lastly, an insight into the lives of the kind of people we see in the street selling things and performing.

The film is very naturalistic, with a kind of intimate small story about believable people. John Carney, the director, was a drummer in Glen Hansard's band The Frames, and the musical side of things seems entirely authentic. The leads, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, are musicians and wrote and perform their music themselves. In an interview on the DVD, Carney explained that the story underlying the film was purposefully short and simple. For people with short attention spans, there may be a dearth of action, and too many musical sections, allowed for by the simplicity of storyline. As well as a great amount of music in the film, a notable feature is the diegetic nature of almost all the music.

The arc of the relationship between the two leads and its denouement is very interesting and well done. I was told by a Russian student that when he asks her in Czech if she still loves her husband, and she answers mysteriously in Czech, and won't translate, that what she says is that she loves HIM. I read that in real life, the leads had a romantic relationship, but that it only lasted a couple of years.

The final crane shot, pulling back from the final configuration of characters, with one of them looking out, is very emotional for me, still after several viewings.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 27 Jan 2011
• Where seen: School
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added actor tag: "Markéta Irglová". Corrected spelling of "diegetic". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.