rate the last movie you saw

[Paul MacLean]

I think that’s easy to answer. Because so much of the action has focused on him, we’ve been tricked into thinking he’s the protagonist of the story and forgetting who the real protagonist is: Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones).

Not to keep going on forever about this (!), but...

I have no problem with tragedies -- I love Doctor Zhivago, Tess, Chinatown, Romeo and Juliet, etc. I'm all for plots twists which veer off into strikingly unexpected directions (like The Crying Game, or Deathtrap). What I don't like is "bait and switch" plotting, where the script sets up a series of expectations -- expectations for something dramatically satisfying -- and then pulls the rug out from under you (which is why I don't really care for Brazil either).

In the case of No Country For Old Men, Josh Brolin's story was -- to me -- the most interesting plot element. But the writers discard his story abruptly -- perhaps because they think it is "more daring" to deny the audience a satisfactory outcome, or perhaps just to be "different for the sake of being different". Either way, I find it irksome. I know the screenplay was merely following the resolution of the book -- but plot alterations are often necessary to create a more cinematic experience. For instance, in The Bridge on the River Kwaii, the bridge is destroyed at the end of the movie (whereas it survives the war in the book). In The Natural, Robert Redford hits a home run at the end of film (but in the book, Roy Hobbs misses the ball and the Knights lose the pennant).

[AndyDursin]

The Natural movie basically gutted the entire point of the book, which I read at some point in college. Not that I disliked the film (and I certainly get why they changed it), but the novel ends on a very cynical and downbeat note, imparting a wholly different message.

On NO COUNTRY, considering its a Coen Brothers movie, I guess Id argue its not a bait and switch. Offbeat and odd is what they specialize in and I think what you are describing as a shortcoming plays right into what the film was trying to say thematically. Whether or not thats effective is a matter of taste! I fully understand what you are saying though. Like Ive said I thought it was very strong yet hasnt been a film Ive wanted to watch again.

[Eric Paddon]

Penelope (1966) 6.5 of 10

-Still MIA on DVD so this was making do with an old TCM recording (non-anamorphic) from the early 2000s. I was always more positive about it in the past but this time I can see more clearly what went wrong in this film. First, it probably suffered from being a product of 1966/67 when tastes were starting to change. The movie evokes more the atmosphere of the less violent 1963-64 period and that can often make a big difference when you look at films of the 60s.

-The other mistake they made was that totally awful, unfunny scene near the beginning with Jonathan Winters as the lecherous professor chasing Natalie around the classroom and ripping off her improbable 19th century dress. The fact that it gave us Natalie in her underwear was not much compensation for the fact that the scene in addition to being unfunny is a jarring bit of cartoon idiocy coming off an opening scene that is stylishly funny showing Natalie robbing her husband's bank and going through quick changes as she gets away. The tone of the Winters scene even if it had been funny just throws the film off completely and shows how a comedy needs to be consistent in its tone. This problem comes up again toward the end when Natalie, after exuding a carefree nonchalance through the first 70 minutes then has to adjust to a left turn where she's afraid people think she's crazy and it also works against the tone of what's been working in the film.

-The film's best and funniest scene is when Natalie, alarmed by the fact the Salvation Army major she gave a thousand dollars of stolen money to has to return it, then expertly shames her banker husband Ian Bannen into giving him a new check for the same thousand. If they'd maintained that approach of smart writing and rapid fire delivery by Natalie it would have been a better film overall. Ultimately, I still had fun but when you like a film the first time you see it and then read about why it was critically panned at some point in a later viewing you'll begin to understand better why it failed.

-Ian Bannen was a bit of a surprising choice for her leading man (apparently the result of the fact that Natalie got so much for this movie, it left little budget for a top named leading man) but he does quite well. (I have to admit I still don't get how he got a supporting Actor nomination for "Flight Of The Phoenix"). But the real hidden gem of the film is Peter Falk as the police lieutenant. It's not just a precursor to "Columbo", Falk's mannerisms and demeanor practically make it seem like discovering a lost scene from a Columbo episode. It's fascinating to watch and even more so considering he and Natalie had just worked together in "The Great Race" where not once did Falk ever offer a hint of his most famous character to come.

-Williams' comic score is my favorite next to "How To Steal A Million."

[Paul MacLean]

Wonder Wheel (8/10)

At the outset, given this film's splashy photography and dreamlike depiction of 1940s Coney Island, I expected a kind of endearing, nostalgic comedy in the vein of Radio Days. But Wonder Wheel is anything but, and proves to be more along the lines of Match Point or Blue Jasmine.

I only just finished watching the film and I'm still trying to digest it. Did I like it? I'm not sure. This is the kind of film that transcends "like" or "dislike". Was it impressive and artistically effective? Absolutely. In fact I'd say it was a better-written script than Blue Jasmine, and offers-up some of Woody Allen's most complex examinations of human relationships. I do think that the ostentatious visual style almost seems at odds with the overall bleakness of the story -- though presumably that is the point -- but the loud, pastel lighting is a touch distracting at times. Wonder Wheel is also a technical change of pace for Allen, as he relies very heavily on CGI, which is effective in recreating the time and place (though it gives the film a rather "unreal" quality, which I'm not sure is intentional).

In any case, Wonder Wheel is one of Allen's most severe efforts, and definitely worth a look.

[mkaroly]

Looking forward to watching Wonder Wheel - I have it on DVD but have not had a chance to watch it. Thanks for the review Paul!

[AndyDursin]

Interesting. Wonder Wheel has been very poorly received...gotten some of the worst reviews of Allen's career and has gotten pretty scathing reaction from viewers in general....so its intriguing reading Paul's account. I wonder if some of the reaction has something to do with Allen's off-screen controversies. On the other hand, I am not interested in the subject or Allen's recent (say, post mid 90s) work in general, so I'll leave it to you Allenphiles.

[Paul MacLean]

Interesting. Wonder Wheel has been very poorly received...gotten some of the worst reviews of Allen's career and has gotten pretty scathing reaction from viewers in general....so its intriguing reading Paul's account. I wonder if some of the reaction has something to do with Allen's off-screen controversies. On the other hand, I am not interested in the subject or Allen's recent (say, post mid 90s) work in general, so I'll leave it to you Allenphiles.

I hadn't read any of the reviews, or seen trailers, etc. so I came to it with no real expectations. Given the "nostalgic" setting, and the set-up of some of the plot elements -- beautiful bimbo on the run from the mob, and the kid who is a budding pyromaniac (and the casting of Jim Belushi) -- I assumed I was in for a comedy. But it proved quite the opposite -- it was very dark in fact. Maybe audiences and critics rejected the movie because they felt mislead.

It is one of Allen's strangest films to be sure, but it was extremely well-written and acted. Allen extracts superb performances from all the cast (including Justin Timberlake), and it was nice to see Jim Belushi given a serious role for a change.

[Eric Paddon]

Psycho (1960) 8.5 of 10

-In a way there's a price to be paid sometimes for a film becoming a classic and in the case of "Psycho" it is too much of a classic to EVER generate any kind of real shock value of the kind it first did again. I suppose you could spring it on some unsuspecting viewers here and there but I really think the image of the shower murder and Norman Bates is so ingrained in our culture that most people who have never seen it have likely heard of it and they aren't going to sit down and watch the film for the first time and be lulled by the first 45 minutes.

-For myself, I decided to look at this again to evaluate some aspects of the film that get lost in the shuffle over the years because of the obsession of critics over Perkins, the character of Norman, the shower murder etc. I decided to instead study more the other principals. Starting with Leigh. IMO, not nearly enough has been said about how her performance (which did get an Oscar nomination) is what makes the murder shocking and tragic. Leigh's natural radiance and the fact that she comes off as a decent person who succumbs to a temptation out of impulse and not methodical planning is what sets up the viewer for the shock. Her total ineptitude in trying to be bad even as she tries to press on with it shows someone who can't run from the fact that she is too decent and good at heart and of course the final tragedy is that she has come to terms with this thanks to her conversation with Norman. She is willing to start over and try to fix things and then bang, just like that her life is over. I think there should even be a mention of how after she is stabbed she still lives just a little bit longer and has an expression of bewilderment that matches the audience immediate reaction. As if her final thought is, "What just happened to me?" Ultimately her death reminds me of the heartbreak she brought to her Columbo episode fifteen years later as the most sympathetic of Columbo killers because the same innocent vulnerability is there.

-And a couple words now about the much maligned Vera Miles and John Gavin. Both were stuck with the thankless roles in the script. I'd note that the script never really makes it clear why Gavin and Leigh had to do their affair in secret motel rooms when he's established as divorced and not still attached. And yet, they both do well with what they're dealt with. To me, it's a strength that Miles and Gavin make a number of wrong assumptions about what happened to Leigh even though they're in the ballpark, so to speak. That comes off as believable. If you had two people playing sleuth on their own, they shouldn't turn into brilliant deductive experts and be able to correctly guess the real reason (the original script I think had Gavin speculating on Norman's motives etc.) That's why the also maligned Simon Oakland summary I think is ultimately better because a professional is the only one who can summarize what's been going on. If Miles or Gavin did it, it would be as jarring as the moment in Miles TZ episode where out of left field she suddenly goes into a discourse about how all the strange things have to be some parallel universe phenom crossing over etc. So while people may not like the exposition at the end, it is needed or else we're left with too many questions that if answered another way would have ultimately detracted from the overall believable terror quality of the film. Miles and Gavin got stuck with underwritten roles but in the end they are believable as people trying to find out what happened to her sister/his girlfriend and that's what's needed to further give Leigh's murder the extra depth it needs for the film to work as a whole (and that's why in the end I have no desire to revisit "Psycho 2" which I saw once decades ago because I don't like what they did to Miles character. It's one thing to make her the villainess, but they did so in a shallow one-dimensional fashion that cheapens the original ultimately more than any other aspect of the film).

[AndyDursin]

PSYCHO II as I reviewed before is an overrated movie IMO. It looks like a TV movie because it basically was one and even Jerry's score is kind of pedestrian. PSYCHO III is a much more interesting film and works right up until the dumb "stinger" they were forced to add by the studio. Still its a more creative and offbeat work.

[Eric Paddon]

Hitchcock (2012) 5 of 10
The Girl (2012) (HBO) 4 of 10

Well I had to see these similar films for the first time just for the heck of it. Neither was particularly enthralling. Toby Jones nailed Hitchcock more than Hopkins, and Helen Mirren came off as a completely glammed Alma which is just ridiculous. Both films give us combined four years of Hitchcock and both films give us completely opposite takes of the man. The former ends with Hitch all lovey-dovey with Alma who implausibly asserts herself as a bigger power behind "Psycho" than she really was (the scene of her directing Balsam's murder is not true), while the latter shows us a Hitchcock behaving like a wannabe Weinsten.

Neither extreme I think likely gives us the true Hitchcock. To me, the former film fell apart with its disjointed style like the Ed Gein intrusions (it worked barely in the prologue since it set things up for Hopkins to be like the Hitch of TV but the stuff in the film itself was just bizarre). And the most damning thing for me was realizing that the still living Pat Hitchcock, who was actually IN "Psycho" clearly gave no cooperation since she is not depicted nor is her existence even mentioned. But if the film was disjointed and had a less credible Hitch and an overly glamorized Alma, "The Girl" just fell flat completely narrative and acting wise. It was though amusing to see a future actress depicted on-screen from when she was a child as was the case with Melanie Griffith.

[Eric Paddon]

Damnation Alley (1977) 5.5 of 10

=Bargain Blu-Ray purchase and my first viewing of it in many decades. I really wish the could have found some of the scenes shown on TV since I still have a clear memory of a post-apocalypse scene of Peppard trying to talk with a drunken and depressed Murray Hamilton, who in the theatrical cut is seen on-screen watching the devastation, referred to briefly and then is glimpsed for one frame when the base goes up in convenient conflagration. You just don't get an actor like him for a film and then waste him like that.

=The real problem is that this is a 1950s film demonstrating that what would have seemed like passable escapist entertainment in the 50s no longer worked in the 70s. There were higher standards of "realism" we were expecting by then. You could get away with such cheap gimmicks as magnified scorpions in a B/W 50s sci-fi "B" movie but not in 1976 even with "Star Wars" still just around the corner in production. But if that's all your budget could do, then you have to give us a much more engaging through-line plot and some more character nuance than the film gives us. Instead we get an "odd couple" dynamic of Peppard who stays the straight-and-narrow Air Force professional from start to finish without letting his guard down once (just one moment of introspection perhaps, since it's established that he had a wife in Chicago when the bombs dropped. I'm shocked that during that eerily effective control voice description of cities being hit that they didn't have the sense to mention "Chicago" and maybe show just a shot of Peppard wincing or something like that) and we have Vincent, the non-conformist who somehow has been allowed to "quit the service" yet still keep living next to the base (totally unbelievable. If Vincent was still using the same food and water as everyone else, "resigning from the service" wouldn't have been an option. In this case it makes him come off as needlessly self-centered and as a result not as likable as he's supposed to be). And then we have them get in a cross-country jaunt that amounts to largely interminable sequences of puttering along through the desert (which calls to mind weak sci-fi TV shows of the 70s like "Logan's Run" and "Planet Of The Apes") punctuated of course by their "fuel stops" in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City and the attack of the killer cockroaches. (Really weird how sure Peppard is that they're always going to conveniently find gas along the way!)

=One of the extras has a ten minute interview with the screenwriter who did the final draft and he admits that all he was doing was punching up the existing outline that already existed without changing it. He also acknowledged that it could have used some more plot dynamics than what showed up and as he also acknowledged, the film has no real climax. It's just three vignettes, a convenient duex ex machina and then a ridiculous ending (Albany, NY never looked that good even BEFORE a nuclear war!)

=Bigger appreciation on my part for Goldsmith's score and what he could do to liven up this relic of a film that never had a chance of working without some needed changes in the script and the acting.

[Monterey Jack]

Your movie marathon, should you choose to accept it...

-Mission: Impossible (1996): 8/10



1.) Along with the Alien and Fast & Furious movies, it's hard to think of a major movie franchise that has mutated so many times over the last two+ decades. Brian De Palma's 1996 original now seems very odd compared to the increasingly-outlandish sequels, a complicated Cold War throwback that seemed like yesterday's headlines even in the mid-90's.

2.) As always, De Palma's sleek visual style gives the movie a cinematic pop even what characters are just sitting around talking. Aided by long-time collaborators like editor Paul Hirsch and cinematographer Stephen H. Burum, M:I is a handsome, classy production all the way through, and the last satisfying Hollywood studio film he ever did (Snake Eyes was butchered by Paramount to remove the insane tidal wave[!] ending, Mission To Mars had De Palma inheriting a rotten screenplay that was dropped by Gore Verbinski when he abandoned the project right before filming was to commence, leaving BDP to bat clean-up in a wide-eyed sci-fi genre he was clearly ill-at-ease with).

3.) Danny Elfman's wild, percussive musical score adds tremendously to the film's overall visceral impact, melding with De Palma's contorted, off-kilter camerawork to keep the viewer in a consistent state of paranoid anxiety. Shame they never worked together again, given De Palma's Hitchcock fixation and Elfman's love of Bernard Herrmann.

4.) Hi, uncredited Emilio Estevez! Bye, uncredited Emilio Estevez...!

5.) The film's depiction of mid-90's "The Internet" now seems humorously quaint.

6.) Tom Cruise has better chemistry with Vanessa Redgrave (as a playfully flirty MILF of a spy) than he does with the blank-faced Emmanuel Beart as the film's ostensible "love interest".

7.) The scene where Cruise gradually realizes he's being accused of being a mole in a fishtank-laden restaurant by his IMF superior (the marvelously snide, dead-eyed Henry Czerny) is a masterclass of slowly-building tension, leading to a sensationally orgasmic release that was the first really insane "for real" stunt Cruise has pulled off over the course of the series.

8.) Ving Rhames is wasted for the first time in the series. Jean Reno doesn't do much better.

9.) I remember how incredibly neat it was back in the day to see the then-novel technology of CGI allowing an actor to peel another actor's face off like it were a latex mask. The seams show a lot more in this day of casual F/X wizardry.

10.) Overall, this is still a confident, stylish and engrossing mainstream entertainment that was unfairly accused of being needlessly impenetrable and byzantine at the time of release (although this was the year when brain-dead fare like Twister and Independence Day was the norm for summer blockbusters). It honestly isn't THAT hard to follow, provided you have an affinity for spy cinema. I kind of wish the sequels had featured a bit more sly espionage and a little less action mayhem, even though I've liked each installment in different ways.

[AndyDursin]

Agreed on most of your points but I think your DePalma bias adds 2 unwarranted points to the score.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, it's striking how the first few films in the series are basically Cruise vanity projects (they basically take a piss all over the original series, its characters and concept -- no wonder why Martin Landau refused to make an appearance). First M:I for me is all about the set-pieces -- which are fun -- but everything inbetween is patently disappointing from a human scale. Weak script, unappealing characters, and not very likable at all.

[Paul MacLean]

Personally I found the M:I script so convoluted as to be unintelligible. I stuck it out until end though, suffering through the most ludicrously inane, preposterous climactic sequence ever put on film -- a helicopter flying through the chunnel? And it's explosion hurling Cruise safely back to the train? Oy vey!

[BobaMike]

I like the first one a lot. Great score, and I do love the chunnel sequence

It made quite a mark pop culture (to this day)- think how many things spoof/ rip off the air duct scene and the drop into the computer room!