Author: Marc Sanders

SEPTEMBER 5 (Germany, 2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Tim Fehlbaum
CAST: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Certified Fresh

PLOT: During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, the ABC Sports broadcasting team must adapt to providing live coverage of Israeli athletes being held hostage by a terrorist group.


Two of my absolute favorite true-life movies (United 93 [2006], Bloody Sunday [2002]) happen to be from the same director, Paul Greengrass.  Watching Tim Fehlbaum’s film September 5 felt at times like I was watching a Paul Greengrass film, and I can offer no higher compliment than that.  From the moment the first gunshots are heard coming from the Olympic village in Munich in the wee morning hours of September 5, 1972, this movie never lets up on the tension.  Over the next 24 hours, we will follow the ABC Sports broadcasting team as the managers and crew work through a tangle of journalistic ethics and operational logistics to report on the biggest news story of their lives while maintaining objectivity and their obligation to the truth, and ALSO keeping the safety of the victims and their families in mind.

The four major characters are legendary ABC Sports executive Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard); a then-unknown control-room functionary, Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), who was in the right place at the wrong time; ABC Sports producer Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin); and German-to-English translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch), who is probably an amalgam of several different people who were most likely present during the actual events of the film.

One of the masterstrokes of September 5 is how it rachets up the tension by staying inside the claustrophobic control room and connected offices for the entire film, minus the opening and closing shots showing Geoff arriving for work and leaving the next morning.  Anything showing us the outside world is only visible on the banks of television monitors in front of them, which leads to much confusion towards the end of the film as reports of the Israeli hostages being freed begin circulating, but no one can actually see what the hell is going on.  This is one of the ways the film reminded me of some of the best scenes in United 93 when the people responsible for making the most crucial decisions of their lives were limited by what they could see and hear on the news.

I have never worked in a TV studio, but this movie carries a palpable authenticity that made me believe everything I was seeing.  I never knew, for example, that chyrons (those small captions on the bottom of a TV screen during the news) were analog back in 1972.  Whenever a new development occurs, the control room has to call up a woman in a completely separate room/mini-studio so she can manually place individual letters onto a physical message board, then get behind a camera and shoot the image so it can be superimposed back in the main control room.  Exhausting!

Peter Jennings is reporting remotely across the street from the Israeli apartments, but he cannot be heard live from his radio into the audio feed for the TV signal.  So, some random dude takes a phone handset, unscrews it, solders some wires, clamps it all together in front of a microphone, and presto, now Jennings is live.  The whole operation is put together with spit and baling wire.  It feels like it’s a miracle that anything was televised at all.

The other conflicts presented to us are no less important.  Marianne, a German woman, is drafted into helping with the translation, but first she must endure some brief accusations from Marvin.  The fact these Olympics are being held in Munich less than thirty years after the end of World War II is something many people are still coming to terms with.  He asks her if her parents knew about the concentration camps.  She stares for a second and gives the best answer possible: “But I am not them.”  After that, she earns the complete trust of the entire staff.

The subtext of the German guilt over World War II is bubbling just beneath the surface for the entire film.  A German maintenance worker won’t release replacement cables to a French tech until Marianne talks him into it.  It is theorized at one point that German military forces could possibly end the hostage situation within minutes, but the German military is constitutionally forbidden to operate within the Olympic village, for obvious reasons.  Roone Arledge watches Mark Spitz win yet another gold medal, and instead of going to a closeup of Spitz, he instructs the cameraman to cut to the face of the German swimmer who lost.  Someone asks him, “Do you really want to bring politics into this?”  And he replies, “It’s not about politics, it’s about emotions.”

Which brings in the other major point of retelling this story in this way.  There is a point where ABC’s cameras have great shots of the building, the balcony, and the entire complex, and they are broadcasting live (the first time the Olympics had been broadcast live, by the way).  Someone spots German policemen – non-military – getting into position with sniper rifles.  Marianne hears chatter on the police band about an operation getting the green light.  The press is ordered out of the area, but ABC’s cameras continue to broadcast live.  Someone notices that a TV appears to be on inside the apartment where the hostages are being held.  Geoff suddenly asks a reasonable question: “Are the terrorists seeing this?”  Minutes later, German police storm the ABC control room and demand the cameras be turned off, pointing a gun at the crew at one point.  The cameras get turned off and a furious Arledge kicks the Germans out of the building, but the point is made.  Minutes later, the operation is called off. 

“They should’ve cut the electricity to the apartment, it’s not up to us to double-check on them,” says Marv.  But Geoff makes a point: “Marv, it’s not okay if we made it worse.”  The fine line between the freedom of the press and general public safety could not be more elegantly portrayed than it is here.  Earlier in the film, just as the cameras have been set up with shots of the balcony of the apartment, someone asks, “Black September [the terrorist group responsible], they know the whole world is watching, right? …if they shoot someone on live television, whose story is that?  Is it ours, or is it theirs?”

It seems like an easy question to answer: “Public safety comes first.”  But who gets to decide what’s in the public’s best interest?  Those policemen who burst into the control room and shut the cameras off at gunpoint?  Perhaps it should be left to each newsperson’s individual conscience, but can that always be trusted?  These are questions I am not qualified to answer, but I appreciate films like September 5 because they have enough faith in the viewer to pose those questions and then refrain from providing a tidy answer.  It’s one of those rare thrillers that tells a crackling good story and also asks some big, relevant questions that you may not even think about until you’re driving to work the next day.

One of the last things we hear is Marianne talking to Geoff, who had sent her to the German airport where the hostages were supposed to have been flown out of Germany.  “I was there with hundreds of people, we stared into the night.  We were waiting for something to happen because we wanted to take a picture of it.”  While that’s a rather bleak way of describing a profession that has given us some compelling images that have swayed the world’s opinion on vitally important matters, perhaps it’s also a way to caution those who would exploit situations, like the paparazzi who chased Princess Di into that tunnel.

SEPTEMBER 5

By Marc S. Sanders

September 5 is a sweeping account of how breaking news used to be assembled.  You had to be in the right place at the right time.  If you weren’t, then perhaps the sports department of your media conglomerate is, and they will get the story. 

The very first televised terrorist attack was broadcast at a sadly appropriate time.  The 1972 Olympics were being covered by the ABC television network.  For the first time, homes all across the world would be able to watch the games in color, from a satellite feed shared among the big three networks.  ABC had the broadcasting rights to the games though.  The setting is especially interesting to this story.  The Olympics are being hosted by Germany, primarily out of Munich.  This is an opportunity for the country to finally redeem itself, only twenty-seven years after World War II had come to an end and their country’s Nazi regime had been overthrown.  Germany had a lot to make up for.

The Sports Division of ABC news turn over in the wee hours of the morning of September 5.  Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) slumps into the studio and relieves Roone Arlege (Peter Sarsgaard) following long hours of editing and covering competitions in swimming, volleyball, boxing, track and so on.  There’s minimal staff on shift as the athletes and coaches are asleep for the night, but then Geoffrey and crew believe they hear machine gun fire out of the direction of Olympic Park, and suddenly everyone is awakened and scrambling to put together the story fast. 

No other broadcasts are reporting on this alarming incident.  This is a story that comes at ABC Sports in their own time.  Had this happened today, amid an age of worldwide shrinkage with the existence of the internet, these guys would have been way behind.  In 1972 however, they can rely on Mariane Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) a female German flunky of the sports division to translate the various radio communications between the terrorists and the German negotiators, and what plans are being put in place.  Nine Israeli athletes have been taken hostage in their hotel rooms with two believed to have already been killed.  The terrorists (believed to be a Palestinian militia group called Black September) demand that Israel release two hundred of their prisoners or they will kill a hostage every hour beginning at noon.

Forgive the cliché terminology, but September 5 is a taut, nail biting, documentary style thriller told only through the perspective of the ABC Sports division.  While the developments of the hostage situation feel urgent, for these unshaven guys in glasses and wrinkled shirts who are operating on little sleep and a lot of coffee, it is about getting the news out quickly and accurately, and just as importantly, first.  Geoffrey and Roone are constantly on the phones trying to learn whatever they can from Peter Jennings, the eventual famed ABC reporter, who is nearby the incident and at times hiding from the German police who are desperately trying to clear the area of the press.  The guys even send in a staff member with a smuggled camera and reels of film taped to his belly while he poses as an Olympic weightlifter.  The Germans forbid the press from trespassing but insist the games carry on.  So, the athletes and coaches are the only ones who can enter the area to prepare for competitions of the day.  Even Howard Cosell happens to be in a hotel staircase nearby and can provide feedback. 

In the news control room, the guys are literally putting walkie talkies next to microphones that broadcast live on air with Jim McKay who is behind the desk, talking to the world.  This is bare bones news broadcasting with unsophisticated technology to aid them in this short window of time.  The director of this film, Tim Fehlbaum, brilliantly captures the desperate inconveniences of reporting this way. 

Roone and Geoffrey also have to contend within their own ranks.  This is not a sports story.  This is a news story and so Roone must insist on keeping the story.  They are the only ones there.  How much more effective would a news division located on the other side of the world fare?  Therefore, Roone’s team are the only ones qualified to cover this developing story.  ABC News will not have access to this. 

Roone also has to improvise how the satellite feed is shared with their competitor, CBS Sports.  It’s a pain in the ass inconvenience and yet the resourcefulness and quick thinking of the control room staff find a way to uphold their claim on this story.

While watching this account, it matters little if we know the outcome of the September 5, 1972, Munich attack.  This film’s purpose is covering how the first few who knew about the situation responded. By the time the ninety-five-minute film is over a lot has been shared.  Tim Fehlbaum, with an Oscar nominated screenplay written by him along with Moritz Binder cover quite a bit.  The pace moves as fast as these people in the control had to move on that terrible day.  So, the information comes quick.  With real life archived ABC footage spliced within the film, you feel as if you are standing in the corner of this dark room with various tv screens, microphones, and telephones. 

You watch John Magaro feed information to Jim McKay, and then the picture cuts to real life footage of McKay at the desk.  It’s quite inventive how the script is accommodated to work in line with what Jennings, Cosell, McKay and others literally said as the crisis was being reported.

Having seen all ten Best Picture nominees for 2024, it is disappointing that September 5 did not make the cut.  Tim Fehlbaum’s picture certainly deserves more recognition and a slot over other contenders this year.  Still, the screenplay is a well-deserved accolade.  To interweave a fresh script that hinges on what was literally said on television screens around the world at that time is a marvelous strategy. 

September 5 is a crackling thriller of a terribly sad day.

GREY GARDENS (1975)

DIRECTORS: Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Fresh

PLOT: The celebrated Maysles brothers spearhead this cult classic documentary about Big and Little Edie Beale, reclusive and eccentric cousins of Jackie Onassis who occupy a crumbling mansion in East Hampton, New York.


I have seen and loved many documentaries in my life, from the sublime (Baraka, 1992) to the absurd (The Aristocrats, 2005), from the terrifying (Gimme Shelter, 1970) to the edifying (Dark Days, 2000).  But after watching the cult classic Maysles brothers documentary Grey Gardens, I am sitting in front of my computer terminal and I am at a loss of what to say about it, beyond a summary of its contents.

As the film opens, Big Edie Beale, who celebrates her 79th birthday during the film, and her daughter, Little Edie Beale, 52, reside in a sprawling mansion nicknamed Grey Gardens in a high-end East Hampton neighborhood.  Their biggest claim to fame before this film is that they are cousins to Jackie Onassis.  To say their house is a mess is an insult to both the words “house” and “mess.”  It’s a dump, although we are shown newspaper articles that seem to indicate the house was in even worse condition before the Maysles started filming.  The state health department threatened eviction unless the mansion was cleaned up; there’s even a photograph of Jackie O pitching in with the cleanup.  Through the course of the film, the Maysles and their film crew will capture what some have described as “an impossibly intimate portrait” of a relationship between two people whose minds have retreated to a point where they scarcely notice their surroundings as they repeatedly hash out old arguments from years past.

Any fan of film has at least heard the name Grey Gardens or the names of the Beales at some point in their life.  I’m told it’s featured prominently in at least one episode of the television show Gilmore Girls.  The Criterion Blu-ray contains two interviews from noteworthy fashion designers who have both designed clothing lines directly inspired by Little Edie’s clothing in the film.  There are even pictures of a European photo shoot that replicates scenes from the movie.  This is arguably one of the most famous documentaries of all time.

So, I hit play on my Blu-ray player and started watching.  The cameras do indeed capture intimate moments between mother and daughter.  Little Edie’s fashion sense involves never being seen without something covering her head, whether it’s a turban, a sweater, or a dishtowel.  Big Edie spends – based on what I saw – most of her days in bed, leaving only to take in the sun on her porch or to use the restroom.  Sometimes she leaves the bed to eat a meal, but Little Edie usually brings the food to her mother.  In one sequence, Big Edie cooks corn on the cob on a hot plate while sitting in bed.  She shares her bed with one or more of their many cats, as well as various boxes, books, binders, and photographs.  The mattress is dotted with water stains and what appears to be rust.

But wait, there’s more.  There is a hole in the top corner of a wall in one of the hallways.  This is where a raccoon lives.  At one point, Little Edie leads the camera crew to the attic to perform her version of pest “control.”  She empties a loaf of Wonder Bread onto the attic floor.  Then, as an added treat, she empties an entire box of dry cat food on top of the bread.

Now, why am I mentioning the state of their surroundings instead of recounting the delightful (I guess) eccentricities these two women proclaim at each other night and day?  Because I could not take my eyes off the backdrop of the house itself, which is as much a character in the film as the Overlook Hotel is in The Shining.  There is a room that Little Edie is in the process of decorating, but it looks as if her design process is stuck at a fourth-grade level.  The grounds of the mansion appear to be in utter disarray, overgrown and wild, with unchecked vines and bushes threatening to swallow the house itself.  Every corner of Big Edie’s bedroom is laden with stacks of boxes containing old photo albums and vinyl records, many of which feature Big Edie herself.  (She was a recording star back in the day, apparently; she doesn’t sound half bad.)

We are treated to many scenes featuring Little Edie talking to us about her past, how her mother curtailed her ambitions to be a model in Europe in order to come back home and take care of her.  How her mother sent away one of her suitors because she, Big Edie, didn’t want another cook in her kitchen.  We hear from Big Edie talking about how wild Little Edie was, how she was so hard to handle, so she had to treat her sternly.  There’s a scene where Little Edie sings and sings, and it’s clear she is not as gifted as her mother was, but do you think that’s going to stop her?  No, ma’am, not even when Big Edie begs for a radio so she can listen to something else, ANYTHING else.

I’m watching all of this play out, as the directors capture remarkable footage and whispered conversations.  It is undeniably bizarre, yes, and some of it is mildly entertaining.  (Little Edie’s dancing scenes are worth the price of admission.)  But I could not stop asking myself this question while I was watching: “Why?”  Why is this movie necessary for me to watch?  What do I gain by becoming a fly on the wall and being privy to conversations between two people who would be better off if they lived in separate houses?  In separate states?  What am I missing?  I would imagine I could find all those answers in various other online reviews or movie blogs, but if those answers didn’t occur to me while watching the film, who should I blame?  My own preferences, or the film itself?  Yet another answer I don’t have.

I’d like to think my cinematic taste is relatively evolved, although I was a bit of a late bloomer.  I didn’t see the gangster masterpiece The Public Enemy (1931) until recently, and I have yet to see more than one film by Abbas Kiarostami.  But I love a great documentary, and this has a reputation for being one of the genre’s best.  So, why did I not respond to it as enthusiastically as so many other people have?  What am I missing?  How is this entertaining?  This might hit more poignantly with mothers and daughters, but I’m just speculating.

I have no answers.  I can only promise that, at some point, I will watch this movie again because I do think it deserves another chance.  I don’t know when that will be, but when I do, I’ll try to ignore the house and focus more on the characters.  I’ll keep you posted.

FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975)

DIRECTOR: Dick Richards
CAST: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Anthony Zerbe, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack O’Halloran, Joe Spinell, Sylvester Stallone
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 71% Fresh

PLOT: When a giant ex-con fresh from prison asks Philip Marlowe to find his missing sweetheart, Marlowe winds up entangled in multiple murders, prostitutes, and a sultry trophy wife.


Because it was released only a year after Chinatown (1974), it is tempting to compare Farewell, My Lovely to that landmark film noir, but although they are in the same genre, the two films are apples and oranges…or at least apples and pears.  Both feature hard-nosed private eyes accepting cases that turn out to be more complicated and far-reaching than they appear, both feature multiple unexpected deaths, and both feature curvy, smoky-eyed dames with dangerous secrets and aging husbands.  All true to the genre.  But Chinatown breaks (successfully) with film noir in several key areas, while Farewell, My Lovely achieves its lofty heights while still remaining faithful to the bedrock tropes of vintage film noir, right down to the tired voice-over narration from the hero.  I have no idea how faithful it is to the Raymond Chandler novel by the same name, but if the book is half as entertaining as the movie, I may have to track it down and give it a read.

Robert Mitchum plays legendary gumshoe Philip Marlowe, the third version of the character I’ve ever seen after Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep, 1946) and Elliott Gould (The Long Goodbye, 1973).  Compared to the other two, Mitchum is by far the most shambling version, but I mean that in a good way.  We first see him staring out of a rundown hotel room in downtown Los Angeles, some time in 1941.  We know the timeframe because of a calendar here and there, and because Marlowe is obsessively following Joe DiMaggio’s progress, as he is on the verge of breaking the record for hits in consecutive games.  That’s a nice touch.  Marlowe’s world-weary narration plays over Mitchum’s sagging face and drooping cigarette, and the spell is complete: we are in the hands of one of the great genre pictures, from a story by one of the greatest mystery writers of his generation.

Marlowe’s story starts as a flashback, a story he’s relating to similarly-weary Lieutenant Nulty (John Ireland).  See, it all began when Marlowe was tracking down a rich family’s runaway daughter.  Soon thereafter, “this guy the size of the Statue of Liberty walks up to me.”  This is Moose Malloy, an ex-con fresh out of the slammer after serving seven years for armed robbery and making off with $80,000, which was never recovered.  Moose is played by Jack O’Halloran, whom cinephiles will recognize immediately as the overly large/tall man who played Non, the mute superpowered henchman in 1980’s Superman II.  To see this man actually string words together into sentences was a strange experience, but I eventually got used to it.

Moose wants Marlowe to find his sweetheart, Velma, who hasn’t written to him the last six years of his stretch.  Next thing you know, someone takes a potshot at Moose on the street, Moose winds up killing a guy in a bar, and Marlowe follows Velma’s trail to an insane asylum, and that’s still just the tip of the damn iceberg, because now there’s this guy who wants Marlowe to help deliver $15,000 in ransom to some other guys who stole a jade necklace…and we STILL haven’t seen the rich trophy wife yet.

And round and round it goes.  I have seen other films that attempted to combine this many plot threads and they wound up a jumbled mess.  Not this movie.  Farewell, My Lovely skillfully walked that tightrope and held my interest all the way through.  I was never lost, never confused…except for a couple of places where the soundtrack obscured a word or two, but I don’t know if that’s the soundtrack’s fault or the actors for mumbling too much.  Plus, this movie contains one of the single greatest interrogation sequences I’ve ever seen, starring Marlowe, two thugs, and the madame of a whorehouse.  It starts semi-normal, escalates with a shocker, then tops the first shocker with something I didn’t think even a hardcase like Philip Marlowe would do.  But the more I watched this movie, the more I got the sense (whether it’s true or not, I don’t know) that this Mitchum version of Marlowe is truer to the literary Marlowe than we ever got previously, in terms of Marlowe’s principles.

I should also mention the dialogue, which contains some of the best one-liners and comebacks I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to.  For example:

  • Marlowe describing a large house he’s driving up to: “The house wasn’t much.  It was smaller than Buckingham Palace and probably had fewer windows than the Chrysler Building.”
  • Marlowe on his billing practices: “I don’t accept tips for finding kids.  Pets, yes…five dollars for dogs, ten dollars for elephants.”
  • Marlowe describing the obligatory femme fatale (Charlotte Rampling): “She had a full set of curves which nobody had been able to improve on.  She was giving me the kinda look I could feel in my hip pocket.”
  • Marlowe when the femme fatale asks him to sit next to her: “I’ve been thinking about that for some time.  Ever since you first crossed your legs, to be exact.”

Dialogue and lines like this are dangerous because they have been the targets of so many parodies for so long that modern audiences may have forgotten how to take them at face value.  But in Farewell, My Lovely, it comes off perfectly as a tribute to the classic noirs of the 1940s and ‘50s, a tip of the hat to the giants of the past.

Conversely, this movie also reminded me of many of the best eighties thrillers I remember watching, which is ironic considering it was released in 1975.  Movies like Body Heat and Jagged Edge and Silverado, whose purpose for existing seemed to be just to tell a freaking awesome story, unburdened with subtextual layering but laden with style and wit and intelligence, paying homage to their cinematic ancestors by emulating them without plagiarizing them.  There are no doubt film historians who could analyze this film scene by scene and explain exactly what the filmmakers were really trying to tell us underneath the ingenious dialogue and intricate plotting.  But even if I knew or understood all of that, I maintain the best reason for seeking out and watching Farewell, My Lovely will always because it’s just a damn good movie.

(…if for no other reason because of that interrogation scene…I had to rewind it a couple of times just to get my shocked laughter out of my system…)

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Willam A. Wellman
CAST: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 100% Fresh

PLOT: An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in organized crime during Prohibition.


Having just finished watching Little Caesar (1931) a few days ago, I popped in The Public Enemy, expecting more of the same, if I’m being honest: a fledgling gangster picture, rough around the edges, not spectacular, but historically important.  I could not have been more wrong.  Where Little Caesar at times seemed to be going through the motions, The Public Enemy crackles and sizzles and pops off the screen, still capable of shocking and surprising me nearly a century after it was released.  If that’s not the definition of a masterpiece, well, it damn sure oughta be.

James Cagney gives one of his most indelible performances as Tom Powers, a kid who grew up tough with his best friend, Matt Doyle.  We meet them first as kids in 1909, raising a little hell, teasing Matt’s sister, disdaining Tom’s goody-two-shoes older brother Mike, and learning to treat the law and police officers as a necessary evil.  They supplement their income by stealing watches and giving them to a small-time hood, Putty Nose, who gives them a pittance and treats them like Fagin treated Oliver Twist.  Six years later, they’ve grown into young men (Matt is played as an adult by Edward Woods) who are still in league with Putty Nose, but when a planned theft goes awry, Putty leaves Tom and Matt dangling and wishing only for revenge.

(I enjoyed this back-story approach, as opposed to Little Caesar, which by comparison feels like it plunks us into the middle of a story already in progress and wastes no time waiting for us to catch up.  I know I probably shouldn’t critique a movie by comparing it to another, but I can’t stop myself, sue me.)

It’s during this botched robbery that we get the first glimpses that this movie will pull no punches when it comes to violence, or at least as much as it could in 1931.  A fleeing accomplice is shot at least twice in the back by a patrolman.  He chases Tom and Matt into a dark alley.  We see gunshots flare in the darkness with no clear idea of what’s happening.  Tom and Matt reappear, toss their guns away, and run off…and in a poignant button to the scene, we see a close up of the patrolman’s gun hand lying lifeless under a streetlamp.  We see nothing graphic, but we know exactly what’s happened.  The Public Enemy will use this device many times throughout the picture, to great effect.

Time passes.  Tom’s older brother, Mike, enlists in the Marines for World War I.  No love is lost between the two of them when Mike learns of Tom’s criminal activities.  When Prohibition is enacted, Tom and Matt get even more involved in those activities, working for a sharply dressed mobster, “Nails” Nathan.  They start making more money, buying fancy new cars and clothes.  (One of the funnier scenes occurs when Tom is getting fitted for a custom suit by a tailor who is so far in the closet he’s finding Christmas presents from 1889.)  They meet a couple of molls, which leads to the famous “grapefruit” scene that had women’s groups up in arms…maybe it still does, I couldn’t say.  And they get better at their jobs, in deeper with the mob, and suddenly…

But I’m summarizing again.  That’s how this movie has gotten to me.  I am so enthused about it that I want to shake people by the collar and say, “If you love gangster movies, don’t make the same mistake I did by not seeing The Public Enemy until I was [age deleted]!  It’s sensational!  Here, let me tell you about it…”

Director William A. Wellman (The Ox-Bow Incident, 1942) displays a directorial style that, to my untrained eye, transcends the era in which he was working.  Made in 1931, it feels like it was made ten or fifteen years later, in the vein of the best films of Wilder or Hawks.  Martin Scorsese even calls it “the birth of modern movie acting,” and it’s hard to argue with him when you’re watching Cagney command every single second he’s onscreen, whether he’s whispering sweet nothings into a girl’s ear or playfully chucking his mom on the chin or contemplating gruesome violence as his face twists into an evil grin.

I feel it necessary to mention once more the shocking violent acts perpetrated during the film.  Again, we rarely actually see the violent acts themselves (like the infamous ear scene in Reservoir Dogs [1992]), but that just makes them land even harder.  The camera either tracks off the impending scene or stays behind while gunmen march into another room, leaving us to hear the violence instead of seeing it.  It’s practically Hitchcockian, and it’s perfectly executed.  This method makes the film feel even MORE modern.  Re-shoot this movie, shot for shot, line for line, with all of the tools available to the modern filmmaker, and it would still work, even in a world where Goodfellas and The Untouchables exist.

So, run, don’t walk, to either your friendly local streaming service or to your favorite online retailer and buy or stream The Public Enemy today.  And don’t thank me.  Just promise to tell YOUR friends how awesome it is.  Because it really, really is.

LITTLE CAESAR (1931)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Mervyn LeRoy
CAST: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 96% Fresh

PLOT: A small-time hood shoots his way to the top of the mob ring during Prohibition, but how long will he stay there?


Lurking in the DNA of Mervyn LeRoy’s seminal gangster flick Little Caesar are the genetic markers for virtually every mob movie that’s been made ever since.  It helped kick off a trend of gangster films that proliferated in the 1930s: Angels with Dirty Faces, Scarface, The Public Enemy, The Roaring Twenties, et al.  Its themes have been repeated in masterpieces like The Godfather, Bonnie and Clyde, and Brian DePalma’s epic remake of Scarface, and we never seem to tire of it.  If Little Caesar lacks the visual and editorial pizzazz of those later films…well, what are you gonna do, they were pretty much breaking ground on the genre.  Let’s cut them at least a LITTLE slack.

The film tells the story of the rise and fall of Caesar Enrico Bandello, a small-time thug played by Edward G. Robinson in the performance that would follow him for the rest of his career, no matter how many times he tried to shake it off.  His delivery and intonations would become the hallmarks of gangster-speak for decades.  (Even Chief Wiggum’s voice on The Simpsons is an echo of Robinson.)  The movie opens with a scene of sudden and startling violence, even if it’s done in the shadow of darkness.  Afterwards, Rico and his partner in crime, Joe, talk things over in an all-night diner.  The casting of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Rico’s partner was a masterstroke, emphasizing their differences in size and demeanor right at the start.  As their career paths diverge, Rico gets a little meaner and “squintier”, while Joe stays as improbably handsome as ever.  Clever visual shorthand.

Little Caesar moves quickly…really quickly.  Think of one of your favorite gangster movies.  Picture it as a big hamburger patty sitting on a bun.  Now trim everything off the edges so nothing spills off the boundaries of the bun, and you’re left with nothing but a lean little circle of meat.  That’s Little Caesar.  Clocking in at a scant 78 minutes, it’s barely longer than Bambi.  This movie exemplifies the get-in-get-out-nobody-gets-hurt school of moviemaking.  We get all the character exposition we need in the opening five minutes.  Villains look like villains, cops look like cops, and you can tell the nice girls from the not-so-nice ones by the way they dress, not by what they say.  Considering Little Caesar was made just a few years after the advent of sound, it’s not too surprising to see these vestiges of silent film lingering on the screen.  (There are even a couple of title cards to indicate the passage of time, so we don’t get bogged down with all that talking…)

There is one scene where director LeRoy and the studio editors tried for an effect and failed.  Rico leads his gangsters to rob a hotel lobby during a big party.  The robbery is edited together in a series of fade-ins and fade-outs, instead of quick cuts from one shot to the other.  In the course of the robbery, an important character is murdered.  But because of the shots fading into each other, the effect is not startling, but dreamlike.  It’s hard to explain.  Was this intended to try to get into Rico’s head, to experience the robbery through his own perception, as if he sort of “goes away” whenever he commits acts of violence?  If so, it never happens during any of the other killings he commits.  I can’t figure out exactly what this effect is supposed to symbolize, and as the great man once said, “If you have to ask what something symbolizes, it doesn’t.”

Aside from that scene, and apart from the occasional overacting by a supporting player who is still getting used to using their voice on camera, Little Caesar is lean and mean, like its title character.  Supposedly, it also features what may be the first drive-by shooting ever put on film.  Kinda neat.  It gave Edward G. Robinson the role of a lifetime, as well as one of the greatest exit lines in the history of cinema.  (If you don’t know what it is, you deserve to hear it from him, not me.)  It doesn’t get my blood racing like, say, Heat or The Untouchables, but as a piece of Hollywood history, I’d call it required viewing for anyone who’s a fan of the genre.  Watching Little Caesar is like participating in cinematic archaeology, discovering the roots of everything that came after it.  I’d try to put it more eloquently than that, but it’s late.  Nyaa…nyaa.

P.S. Even Goodfellas paid homage to Little Caesar…there’s a scene where Rico is being introduced to his new gang, and the camera goes around the room: “There’s Tony Passa. Can drive a car better than any mug in town. Otero…he’s little, but he’s the goods all right.” …and so on. I was waiting for one of the mugs to repeat himself like Jimmy Two-Times…

NICKEL BOYS

By Marc S. Sanders

Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Nickel Boys, is now an Oscar nominated film for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is based on a true story that needed the exposure of a film.  However, a better adaptation than what director RaMell Moss did with it should have been completed. 

The Nickel School of Southern Georgia is the setting for a boys school where various forms of abuse took place during the civil rights era.  Apollo 8 was making new discoveries in space, but racial prejudice and crimes of adolescent abuse were not being revealed to a greater public.

Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is a bright student who has been accepted to a prestigious school for gifted learning.  Upon walking to his destination, on the outskirts of Atlanta, Elwood inadvertently gets blamed for a crime he did not commit and is sent to the Nickel Reform School.  The black students are relegated “to the other side of the nickel” in less favorable quarters than the white students. 

At the school, Elwood develops a friendship with Turner (Brandon Wilson) and together they do their best to survive the harsh challenges that go with living at Nickel.  Elwood remains positive that he will be able to leave the school one day and return to his loving grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor).  Turner knows differently.  These boys are never leaving, and they will be compelled to obey the harsh tyranny of living at the school.

What helped me get through the near two and a half hour running time is that sadly this is an all too familiar story, especially for black youth.  The challenge though is the construction of the film.  RaMell Moss takes an unconventional approach where the viewer is the point of view of the two boys.  For about the first third of the picture, we are seeing what Elwood sees.  When he nods his head to the floor, the viewer sees the floor.  When he looks up to the sky, we look to the sky above him.  When he is listening or speaking to another person, like Turner or Hattie for example, that’s who we see.  The viewer is restricted to a forced tunnel vision of only what Elwood’s eyes focus on.  Frankly, as soon as the film began, I said to myself, “Oy.  Two and a half hours of this!”

Shortly after Elwood arrives at Nickel and sits down for breakfast, the perspective finally changes to Turner when the boys meet for the first time.  Now we get to see what Elwood looks like because we are looking through the eyes of Turner.  At this point, I told myself to either fall asleep, walk out or get accustomed to this different way of watching a movie.  I selected option number three and I’m glad I did because I started to become engrossed in the picture.  It’s compelling and absorbing. Granted I was still unsure of what this story was about as the film keeps the viewer very limited as to what is seen and told.  Arbitrary moments are shown through the eyes of the boys that do not necessarily progress the story.  These adolescent boys are not directly tormented as much as they are simply living in a captivity they do not fully understand.

A third person perspective is eventually put upon us.  We are watching the film at a different time, during an internet age, as we see a black man with dreadlock hair surfing the internet and pulling up articles about the Nickel Boys School that once existed.  I had an idea of who I was standing behind as he spoke with his girlfriend, but still I was not entirely sure, and other than an attempt at inventiveness, it puzzled me why the film veers occasionally into this direction.

Nickel Boys has an eye-opening story to tell but the experimental narrative of this picture does not entirely work.  It’s more frustrating than admirable.  RaMell Moss works with a very good cast of young actors who are focused on upholding the first-person perspective.  They are speaking the language of his camera.  Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean as a viewer that I like it.  These young actors deserve a more conventional means of telling this story.  I am confident they can handle that kind of direction just as well.

Nickel Boys ends with a mild twist.  While it might not have seemed necessary, and with Moss’ unusual approach I was not even sure what happened, it’s interesting for at least a beat.  However, to be sure I understood what occurred I turned to my resident Cinemaniac, Thomas Pahl, for assurance that I was accurate in what I think happened. 

I also took issue with RaMell Moss breaking his own rule of filmmaking.  The film limits itself to three different kinds of perspectives: a first-person view from either Elwood or Turner, and a third person sight from a character we meet in a more modern time.  Yet, for one concluding and significant moment that occurs near the end of this story, Moss changes his camera angle for a standard conventional approach.  Why do this?  Was Moss finally at the end of his rope and could not fathom how to demonstrate the story’s end unless he broke away from his own unique approach?  For me this shows the filmmaker could not stay consistent all the way through with the final cut of his picture.

Forgive the presumption, but I recall the Academy considering nominating films only if there is a minority representation contained somewhere within the finished edit.  I’m uncertain if that remains an unspoken rule or if it is set in stone.  Honestly, I think it’s simply considered with a lack of justified merit. 

I do not find Nickel Boys to be worthy of the best of 2024.  A handful of films that were not as recognized did not get the accolades this film received.  Is the picture being honored because it depicted a black experience?  I cannot help but wonder.  It is not a terrible film because there are parallel ideas happening alongside the main storyline and the cast is especially good.  Real life tragic stories are especially appealing to The Academy.  The direction of the piece takes away from much of the benefits of the film though. 

Garner up your patience with the limited view you will have watching Nickel Boys.  I also say this without sarcasm, maybe take a Dramamine.  When watching a production in a first-person narrative, often people are prone to motion sickness.  Surprisingly, it did not happen for me this time.  It should have because I cannot play updated video games that rely on this angle.  Yet, a friend had a different experience with Nickel Boys, and he said it took all his strength not to get up and exit the film.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

By Marc S. Sanders

If you want to stay on top of how the world of American cinema evolved over the last hundred years, within all its categories, you must find time to watch the one film that paved the way for the romantic comedy, as well as the travel comedy.  Frank Capra’s Oscar winning picture, It Happened One Night, is the first of three films to win Oscars for every major category: Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Actress. Nearly a hundred years later, the accolades still feel worthy.

Claudette Colbert is wealthy heiress Ellie Andrews who dives off and swims away from the captivity of her father’s yacht and buses from Miami to New York to reunite with her new husband, King Westly (Jameson Thomas).  Her father, Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly), never approved of this marriage and insists his spoiled daughter get it annulled once she is found.  A ten-thousand-dollar reward is up for grabs to the person who finds her.

Along the way, a rogue reporter, Peter Warne (Clark Gable) ends up next to this young lady on the bus.  Complications ensue where their money gets lost, bags are stolen, buses are missed, and buses get stuck.  Then this trip becomes a walking experience.  Ellie has agreed to stay by Peter’s side though.  He promises to get her to New York as long as he gets to write about her story firsthand amid the constant headlines that recount Alexander’s desperation to get his daughter back.

It’d be easy enough if only Peter and Ellie were not falling for one another.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Any Nora Ephron script has the elements of It Happened One Night.  Screwball comedies with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn seemed to follow a similar blueprint.  To the best of my knowledge, Frank Capra’s film was first though.  

A famous scene has Colbert and Gable on the side of the road trying to hitch a ride.  Colbert’s bare leg does the trick that Gable’s outstretched thumb could not.  Eventually, this scene for the ages evolved into Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal daring to fake an orgasm effectively while dining at Katz’s Delicatessen.

When Harry Met Sally… is what easily comes to mind while watching It Happened One Night.  Peter will tease this spoiled rich girl. Yet, he will also be gentlemanly enough to put up a blanket to divide a cabin room he shares with Ellie, allowing for some privacy.  In the middle of the night though, the two will stay up chatting from either side of their blanket wall, as both acknowledge sad voids within their personal lives.  It’s parallel to how Harry and Sally would chat on the phone from their respective apartment bedrooms while discussing their newly evolving friendship with Casablanca on TV.  

Ellie and Peter become relaxed as their sojourn continues.  They could be left in the middle of nowhere with no money or food, but Gable and Colbert’s chemistry show an easy comfort to each other.  That is what’s expected of any troubled travel film.  At first Ellie does not want to share a rear bench on the bus with Peter.  She’s married to King and the purpose of this runaway trip is to be back in her new husband’s arms.  Plus, this odd fellow on the bus feels unseemly.  His charm is overbearing to the socialite’s proper petiteness.  He’ll resort to munching on a carrot he finds in a patch. She can’t find the appetite for it. Time together breaks down barriers though, just as movies in later decades eventually accomplished with films like Midnight Run and Planes, Trains & Automobiles.  This kind of formula, with ongoing new settings and circumstances, is almost guaranteed to end in positivity once the mutual antagonism is behind the pair.  

For 1934, It Happened One Night was bold in its content, ahead of an eventual ratings system intent on upholding an acceptable level of conservatism.  Colbert’s leg is the most unforgettable.  Later, Peter feels it necessary to spank Ellie.  Then there is the fact that the two share a room together.  Comedic circumstances and shock lend to the humor of this scenario.  Plus, there’s Claudette Colbert undressing down to her slip while a bare-chested Clark Gable is only one side of a blanket away from her.  

Would It Happened One Night endure an endless admiration if moments like these were contained? I doubt it.  Frank Capra’s film hinges on sexual appeal that feels naughty and rebellious.  

The dialogue remains witty.  Clark Gable’s introduction in the film while on the phone with his editor is a precursor to what an outlandish Bill Murray might have done with the script. The material is sometimes quite brash, and the ending, which has been duplicated hundreds of times since, is a perfect example of romantic escapism.  

Over ninety years have passed but unexpected romance is what remains treasured.  When two people with nothing in common begin an unwelcome journey together, it’s still easy to hope they find a way to like each other.  They have to like one another first before they can even concern themselves with falling in love.  The progress of this east coast bus ride allows for the stages to develop naturally.  Frank Capra, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert were the first to give it a shot and it works brilliantly and beautifully.

A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1973)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: John Cassavetes
CAST: Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands, Fred Draper, Matthew Laborteaux (for all you Little House fans out there)
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 89% Fresh

PLOT: Domestic turmoil gets a whole new definition in director John Cassavetes’ landmark portrait of a family in psychological free-fall.


I am a newcomer to the films of John Cassavetes.  The only one of his films I’d seen prior to A Woman Under the Influence is Love Streams (1984), a character study of a woman, played by Gena Rowlands, whose determination to only be herself puts her in conflict with the people and expectations around her.  As a director, Cassavetes seemed only to be interested in putting real people on the screen.  I don’t mean that other great films don’t do that kind of thing, but few directors have made films with scenes so genuine that I had to fight the urge to cough and look away because I felt like I was intruding on a private conversation.

A Woman Under the Influence is about a woman, Mabel Longhetti, a mother of three, who is similar to the woman in Love Streams in that she is constantly waging a battle between how she wants to behave and what is expected of her.  The difference this time is that Mabel is clearly suffering from…well, I’m not going to embarrass myself by putting a name to it because I’m not a psychiatrist.  She seems to be overly anxious all the time.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  Her husband, Nick (Peter Falk), appears to be sympathetic with her anxiety, almost to a fault sometimes, but he tends to explode at her when she tries to be the life of the party.

How has this relationship lasted through three children?  Nick promises Mabel a romantic night at home, but is unexpectedly called away when a city water line bursts.  (He works in construction.)  She assures him everything’s fine on the phone…and promptly walks out of the house, goes to the nearest bar, and picks up a random dude and brings him home to spend the night.  But hey, Nick’s no angel, either.  After a long shift at work, he impulsively invites his entire crew of roughneck buddies to his modest home for a spaghetti dinner…cooked by Mabel, of course.  Mabel anxiously tries to “act normal” by being friendly and chummy with Nick’s co-workers, but she overdoes it, and Nick blows up at her.

Later, there is a remarkable scene where Nick brings a doctor to the house to see if he can talk Mabel down from one of her episodes.  Gena Rowlands adds these brilliant physical tics and peculiarities to Mabel that, in someone else’s hands, would be showboating, but with Rowlands, they come off as so real that it felt like I was watching a documentary.  I read on IMDb that Cassavetes did very little rehearsing, if any at all, so a lot of what we see in this scene and elsewhere was improvised on the spot.  It’s one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.  Had it not been for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Rowlands would have walked away with the Oscar.

A Woman Under the Influence was one of the first movies to really make waves as a truly independent production, predating the modern indie movement by some fifteen years or so.  Is it a movie I enjoyed watching?  Yes, but not in the same way that I enjoy watching The Goonies or Avatar.  This was like watching There Will Be Blood or Sophie’s Choice.  It’s an amazing example of acting as a craft, as an art form.  Not a single scene felt scripted or contrived.  I never knew Peter Falk had this kind of range as an actor.  I’d heard that Gena Rowland’s performance was the stuff of legend, and now I understand the hype.  If I have to be honest, I didn’t care for the very end of the film, a scene that seems to indicate that nothing will keep Mabel and Nick apart, even though they are not good for each other, in my opinion, especially considering what happens in the scene immediately preceding it.

This is a shorter review than I might normally write, but words are failing me with this one.  I’ll start describing one scene, then another, then another, and soon I’ve just recapped the entire film, which I don’t want to do.  This movie is searing, uncompromising, authentic.  To do it justice, I’d have to go away for a month or two and write an old-fashioned research paper (remember those?) complete with outlines, bullet points, and a bibliography.  Whatever you may have heard about Gena Rowland’s performance is 100% true, and then some.  In an earlier review of Peter Hall’s The Homecoming (also 1973), I mentioned that I did not have a lot of space in my head for blistering dramas about dysfunctional families, but I’m glad I made room for A Woman Under the Influence.  It’s a master-class of direction and performance.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD

By Marc S. Sanders

Captain America: Brave New World does not invent any new motifs you have not seen before, but it maintains the magic that have made all of these movies fun in the mighty Marvel way.  It’s well cast with well-edited direction and there actually are a few surprises that did not appear in the countless trailers that have been spread on line. 

Anthony Mackie took over the title character at the end of a Disney + streaming series.  I like him.  He is very vanilla.  Not smart alecky like Robert Downey Jr.  or revolutionary like his predecessor, Chris Evans, and definitely not brash like Thor’s Chris Hemsworth.  He’s Sam Wilson – a guy with a smile who wants to be a friend to everyone.  Hokey?  Sure.  Though that’s not a bad thing.  It’s nice to just like your heroes again.  Danny Ramirez is the sidekick ol’ chum as a new Falcon named Joaquin Torres, and together the pair soar the skies with outstretched feathered wings while trying to save the world.  Harrison Ford is a welcome replacement in the space left open by William Hurt following his passing.  General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross is now the President of the United States and I believe this guy could also thrwart a terrorist hijacking of Air Force One if it happened again. 

Following a successful mission that opens the film where a precious cannister has been recovered, a worldwide peace treaty is on the horizon, and this could be a big win for the President.  However, a surprising assassination attempt interferes, and now Sam and Joaquin must go rogue to exonerate a friend who has been framed and uncover the mastermind behind this plot.  The story is simple and after a million and a half Marvel movies, series and cartoons, I’m grateful.  You can follow this picture without having to catch up on details from earlier installments.  Though, if you do you’ll likely appreciate some surprise appearances that turn up going all the way back to the earliest films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

My major critique with Captain America: Brave New World is the marketing campaign.  While I’m not entirely confident that Anthony Mackie can carry an entire franchise yet, the Marvel brand sells itself and much of the advertising for this picture threw out some of the best goodies that the picture offers.  Was it necessary?  This franchise has a built in following and name brand.  You likely know what I’m referring to but I won’t surrender to the masses and reveal the best attraction of the film.  You just might be the one person reading this who returned from a desert island where you lived alone in a dark cave.  I had a lot of fun with this movie.  I would have had my mind blown had I not known as much as I did.  Still, there is a major player who has hardly been discussed or tossed around of late who makes a nice return.

Julius Onah directs this time and has assembled a well cut action movie.  Most of the scenes are in bright daylight so every soar through the sky with Cap’s colorful wings is easy to follow.  Punches and acrobatic flips are well choreographed.  Military jets thunder across the screen.  Missiles race towards and away from Cap and Falcon.  It’s as colorful as the Marvel artwork found in the original source materials.  A final battle is lots of fun, but the wrap up looks a little odd with the characters supposedly standing amid the wreckage of a Washington D.C. park amid cherry blossom trees.  Just that material alone looked a little too artificial but no matter.  A close up shot of Mackie in his patriotic regalia looks terribly fake and needed another coat of paint to look more convincing.  On a massive Dolby screen (the best way to watch a movie like this because your seats rattle against the sound design), you can easily see the brief eyesore of this moment.  Maybe that will be improved upon when the film hits Blu Ray and streaming. 

As well, the soundtrack is a little intrusive.  It’s adventurous for sure, but the instrumental music never turns off.  There are moments where the heroes are investigating dark rooms and corridors, or Sam and Joaquin are pondering and the music carries on and just feels unwelcome.  Good one on one scenes between Mackie and Ford work on their own, but the soundtrack is just too much for some of these moments.  Let these guys talk and don’t add what isn’t necessary.

Overall, this is a movie I’d watch on repeat.  I like all of the characters.  I appreciate a Parallax View conspiracy kind of plot which is what caters to the Captain America character the best and the dots connect sensibly. 

Captain America: Brave New World is not the best of the Marvel films.  Never needed to be.  It only has to be entertaining, and it more than accomplishes that feat.