Category: Drama

WITNESS

By Marc S. Sanders

Recently, I viewed The Last Emperor and one issue I had was that it was challenging to comprehend the in-depth culture of the people it depicted. I really wanted to learn and pass the final exam with flying colors. Sadly, this was an AP class that I just wasn’t qualified for.

Now that I have watched Witness for the first time in many moons, I can honestly say there is an approach where you can get absorbed in a thrilling crime drama while also appreciating the core values of the community the film focuses on, namely the Amish who reside in the state of Pennsylvania. It’s a much easier film to learn from. That’s for sure.

Peter Weir directed Harrison Ford to his only Oscar nomination to date. Ford plays police officer John Book, opposite Kelly McGillis as Rachel Lapp, a widowed Amish mother traveling by train from home to visit family. At a layover stop in Philadelphia, her young son Samuel (Lukas Haas, in one of the best child performances I’ve ever seen, so bright, observant and wide eyed) witnesses a murder committed by a decorated narcotics police officer (Danny Glover). When Book gets wind of who the cop is, all three of their lives are in danger and they are forced to flee and hide back at the Lapps’ home among the Amish community. Book, however, has taken a gun shot wound following an attempt on his life. The Amish see no choice but to heal him, especially at Rachel’s insistence.

Weir, with a marvelous script by Earl & Pamela Wallace and William Kelley, shows the intersection of two extremely different ways of life where an “Englishman’s” belief in aggressive tactics conflicts with the peaceful nature of people looking to never get involved with any other culture. A romance may seem inevitable between the two leads but it’s a difficult one to embrace. It’s truly forbidden, not simply by the elder Amish and their respective code, but both Book and Rachel know it can’t happen either.

Because we are aware of this forbidden romance that seems to break through anyway, there’s a terrific dance scene at night lit only by headlights within the barn. Ford and McGillis really shine through in this scene as it is the first escape from the fear they have for their lives and the code they honor and are reluctant to violate. It’s the best scene in the whole film. It presents possibilities for different people to interact despite the barriers that prevent such feelings and actions. They laugh and swing naturally. It’s a different kind of moment for Harrison Ford, unconventional when compared to a large majority of the action film roles he’s widely recognized for.

With a biting soundtrack of suspense from Maurice Jarre, Peter Weir also focuses on the theme of intrusion. When the climactic and certainly expected shootout sequence on the farm is to begin, it’s frightening and disturbing to actually see men in suits holding shotguns amid an unarmed society. There’s a masterful shot at dawn of the three men marching down the hill quickly approaching the farm. These aren’t cops being covert. These are cops storming a palace of peace and tranquility. It’s hard to watch because of the stain it leaves.

Josef Sommer is the lead dirty cop and he plays a great villain, truly an uncelebrated bad guy character, as the years have gone on. He’s a decorated officer who comes off with an intent that looks like it’s noble, until nobility will no longer work and intimidation has to set in. Weir shoots Sommer at a lower angle to give him an imposing height.

Ford is terrific. You see some of the Han Solo vibe in the character. He’s a tough cop after all, but then he transitions into an awakened man healed by the more primitive methods of the Amish and their drive to simply build and nurture. Another good moment occurs when Book contributes to building a barn with the other men. He shares lemonade with them. Assists with lifting the framework and hammering along. Two communities are no longer clashing. They are now blending.

McGillis is also very good in her role. She is determined to honor her background, but questions if she is capable of sin and defends her position later.

Witness gives an in depth look into the daily life of the Amish, literally how they farm, build and dress. Book wakes up with them before sunrise to milk the cow and he experiences what they endure from pesky tourists looking for photo ops. It makes for some funny moments as well as an opportunity to cheer for the stand he eventually takes.

Another funny moment is when Ford dons the Amish attire for the first time; it doesn’t exactly compliment him well at first. Book’s adaptability to his new community is awkward to grasp.

Witness presents a bird’s eye view into a very private way of living, and I saw a very large picture.

Beyond that, it’s also a crackling, good thriller.

PETER IBBETSON (1935)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Henry Hathaway
Cast: Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, Ida Lupino
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: No rating

PLOT: A successful architect who longs for the love of his childhood friend is delighted to discover that the Duchess who just hired him is in fact his long-lost beloved.  This being melodrama, there is of course much more to the story.


[SPOILERS FOLLOW]

Peter Ibbetson plays like a long-lost Dickens novel, full of melodramatic flourishes and convenient plot contrivances designed to play the audience like a grand piano.  Is it shameless?  Yes.  Is it maudlin?  Yes.  Do I normally like movies like this?  No.  But there is something about this film and its story that got around my defenses and into my heart and soul.  I’ll try to elaborate on that as much as I can, but I don’t know how well I’m going to do.  Good luck.

The story opens, as the title card helpfully explains, in the middle of the last century, which would make it somewhere around the 1850s.  Somewhere in a well-heeled French countryside, two children from neighboring British families play and quarrel with each other, Mimsey and Gogo.  (I am not making that up, though why parents felt the need to inflict those names on their children is utterly beyond me.)  Gogo, the boy, cruelly teases the girl, Mimsey, who nevertheless gives as good as she gets.  Unfortunately, Gogo’s mother dies after a long illness, and when a distant uncle arrives to take Gogo back to England, he realizes he doesn’t want to leave his precious Mimsey.  Together they try to run away and hide, but it’s no use.  The sight of poor Mimsey weeping in the branches of a tree as Gogo is finally taken away was one of the scenes that started to chip away at my armor of cynicism.

Time passes, and Gogo changes his name to Peter and takes his mother’s last name, Ibbetson.  He becomes a successful architect and a valuable asset for his employer.  (In a very Dickensian touch, Peter’s employer is blind…wholly unnecessary to the plot, but that specificity makes it feel even more realistic amid all the other melodrama.)  Peter is successful, yes, but he is unhappy.  He is a bachelor, and when a very pretty girl more or less hits on him at a museum back in France, he takes her for a drink as a matter of courtesy, not out of any real attraction.  His heart still belongs to the lost love of his childhood, you see.  Mimsey is the touchstone of his past, his Rosebud, his green light at the end of the pier, and she will not be easily eradicated.

Initially, I was unsympathetic to the adult Peter.  How can anyone get on with their life if they’re stuck in the past?  It didn’t work for Kane or Gatsby.  If there’s anything the last thirty or so years of my life has taught me, it’s that the past will only weigh you down if you let it.  I’m not suggesting one should literally forget history, but had I been one of Peter’s associates in the film, I would have been constantly reminding him about being grateful for the present rather than bemoaning the mistakes or regrets of the past.  That way lies madness.

Before I get into more story details, I should mention the style of the film and the acting, which is so mannered and stylized that it feels as if it were a silent film that had a soundtrack added as an afterthought.  Gary Cooper may be a legend, but in this film…let’s be blunt, he is no Cary Grant.  Every sentence feels as if it’s been dragged out of him by way of torture.  His charisma is based solely on his imposing height and his dashing good looks, NOT his speech.  (Sorry, I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em.)  The women are not much better acting-wise, though the Duchess of Towers does have some interesting moments.  However, one of the movie’s highlights are the cinematography and subtle visual effects, especially in the late stages of the film.  Look at that scene involving the peculiar qualities in the bars of the jail cell and explain to me 100% how that was accomplished.  It’s so understated and effective that it took me completely by surprise.  I believe it would raise eyebrows with TODAY’S audiences.

I mention all of this about the style and my mindset because I believe that it all contributes to the reaction I had to the film, at which I’m still perplexed.

One day, Peter is contracted to rebuild the stables of an aristocratic family, the Duke and Duchess of Towers.  When Peter first meets Mary, the Duchess, he experiences an unexplainable connection.  His contract requires him to live in the Towers house for several months.  One day they share a conversation and discover that they shared a dream.  This isn’t a case of two people dreaming about the same thing coincidentally.  They actually shared a dream, Inception style, but without the machinery.  How can this be?

By now, any breathing audience member has already deduced that the Duchess is Mimsey and they are destined for each other.  Alas, Peter and Mary are not as quick on the uptake as we are, and their moment of recognition is delayed until after the peevish Duke confronts them at the dinner table, in a conversation laden with Hays-Code-era double-speak.  “Well, Mr. Ibbetson, are you to be congratulated again?” the Duke asks.  Later, during a second confrontation, the Duke points a gun at Peter and Mary and explains that they will not make love behind his back.  He raises his gun and says, “Get into your lover’s arms.”  Whoa.  Daring stuff for 1935.  It’s during this second confrontation that something goes horribly wrong, and Peter is sent to jail for life.

MORE melodrama?  Hasn’t this movie already had more than its fair share?  Children tearfully separated?  An equally tearful reunion?  Outrageous coincidences?  Shared dreams, for crying out loud?  Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

It’s in the film’s third act, when our hero is in prison, that Peter Ibbetson really started to get to me at some primal level.  Peter and Mary, after being reunited against all odds, are now separated even more cruelly than before.  Peter is so distraught he goes on a hunger strike, chained to his “bed,” which is little more than a wide wooden beam.  (Look at it from a certain angle and he might almost appear to be on a cross, but don’t worry, it’s not that kind of movie.)  When one of his fellow prisoners makes a joke at Mary’s expense, Peter goes a little crazy and starts to throttle him.  Miles away, at the same time, Mary suddenly senses something is wrong.  In the jail, guards use force that’s a tad too excessive to restrain Peter, and at the same exact moment Mary screams.  The two are connected in a mystical way that transcends walls or distance.  They continue to share dreams in which they laugh and walk and talk as if nothing bad had ever happened.  In one dream, he points to a castle in the distance that he has built for his beloved.  I was reminded instantly of the scenes in Inception where Cobb and his wife Mal build entire cities for themselves in their own shared dream.

I’ve already given away too much, far too much than I usually care to.  As much as I want to, I can’t describe the one scene that got me to literally yell, “NO!” at the TV screen.

What fate eventually befalls Peter and Mary, I leave for you to discover.  What remains for me is to try once again to summarize how I felt after the movie was over.  Intellectually, I can see its shortcomings.  The acting is wooden, despite some pretty sharp dialogue.  The music is overwhelmingly romantic and dramatic, commenting on a lot of action unnecessarily, as was the custom back then.  There are one or two odd cuts.  But on an emotional level, the experience of watching Peter Ibbetson was like watching one of Shakespeare’s tragedies.  The only other movies that ever made feel these precise emotions, although not to the exact same degree, are The Remains of the Day and Atonement.  If you know those movies, you know what I’m talking about.

The movie’s final shot is as shamelessly manipulative as these things get.  It’s unabashed romanticism at its best AND its worst.  But you know what?  This movie earns it, and it works.

THE ACCUSED

By Marc S. Sanders

Jodie Foster won her first of two Best Actress Oscars for playing Sara Tobias, a victim of a barroom gang rape in The Accused, directed by Jonathan Kaplan and written by Tom Toper.

Kelly McGillis portrays prosecutor Katherine Murphy. Murphy initially makes a deal with the three men accused of the rape. An agreement is made for a lighter conviction “reckless endangerment,” rather than “rape,” and a trial is avoided. What happened to Sarah is never put on public record.

Circumstances thereafter motivate Katherine to go another step further and prosecute the men in the bar that encouraged and cheered for the rape to continue. Her own office questions if it will be worth it though and demand she walk away from this seemingly no win scenario.

Kaplan’s film is more or less paint by numbers until it reaches the moment a material witness takes the stand to testify on the exact sequence of events that actually occurred in the back room of a neighborhood bar. Foster is hard to watch at times and that’s the point. There’s nothing glamorous in a film centered on a rape victim, and she puts out all the ugly parts of her character first physically, and then with temper, habitual drinking, and the sense of a poor upbringing. Toper does equip his character with likability though. Sarah tries to get through the tough exterior of Katherine’s no nonsense lawyer ideology with her interests in astrology. Through the film, Katherine shows no interest but we all know that’ll change. Nothing is shocking in the developments of Toper’s story.

What is jaw dropping though is how Kaplan depicts Sarah’s post rape examination. Deep cuts and bruises are shown in various parts of her body. She is propped on stirrups for evidence retention (hair, skin and semen samples for example), even the annoyingly repetitive click and flash of a Polaroid camera are disturbing. You can’t help but be concerned or taken aback.

No. A movie will never measure up to what victims endure following incidents like this. Still, the footage early on in The Accused certainly got me emotional.

The big shock is towards the end when the re-enactment of the rape is presented. Kaplan doesn’t hold back with his crew of extras playing the bar mates. Drinks are abundantly consumed, then a song in the jukebox, some weed, pinball, a wink, then a sexy dance, and suddenly Sarah’s skirt is lifted to reveal her panties and she’s propped on a pinball machine with her arms restrained and her mouth covered by a hand. Then the woo hooing is disturbingly brought on.

Why do I document all of this? I want to show how subtle Kaplan is with the rape scene. Innocent laughs and drunken play can suddenly turn on any one of us, man or woman. A song plays. People are stoned and drunk, and before any of us realize it, there’s a sexually assaulted victim, and a rapist, or three rapists actually. Moreover, there are those who wish for this moment to last and egg it on. For one woman, none of it is fun anymore.

Again, the storyline development of The Accused is nothing we haven’t seen before. It’s step by step, connect the dots within the courtroom and law offices. The crimes (rape for one, cheering & persuading – a crime for another) are terribly shocking though, especially when we see it first-hand.

Every man and woman should watch The Accused. It’s important we remember that we are capable of subjecting ourselves or being subjected.

More so, regardless of our age or experience, we all have something to learn about what a rape victim endures. I imagine this film doesn’t come close, but it’s a solid start.

DO THE RIGHT THING

By Marc S. Sanders

inally, after 30 years, I’ve caught up to a film that has eluded me, Spike Lee’s masterpiece Do The Right Thing. Here is a film from 1989 that really could have been made in 2019. At the very least, it should be rereleased in the theatres. We desperately need this film right now.

My view of Spike Lee has gradually changed over just the last year. It must be due to the current political and socioeconomic climate. I’ve become terribly sensitive to what I see in the news these days.

Following seeing BlacKkKlansman and now this film, Lee really is aware of how low humanity can go. Do The Right Thing offers just a little push that leads to an endless fall, however.

Lee’s film was shot on location in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story takes place on a day where the heat wave has reached a record high, so the predominantly black community has turned on the fire hydrant and Sal’s Pizzeria is open for business. Sal is played by Danny Aiello in an Oscar nominated performance. The main character that everyone knows is Mookie, Sal’s trusted delivery guy, played by Spike Lee. Mookie is well aware of Sal’s mild prejudices towards his customers; mild compared to Pino’s blatant racism (John Turturro), Sal’s older son who works for him along with Vito, the other son.

The film is a day in the life when it appears the same daily routines occur yet again. Mookie delivers pizzas while getting chastised by his son’s mother (Rosie Perez’ debut) for not making more of himself. The middle age men sit on the corner talking about anything random. The kids roam up and down the street goofing off and teasing. Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) seems a little crazy even if we can recognize a life of experience as he’s sipping on a bottle while trying to charm Mother Sister (Davis’ real life wife Ruby Dee) who stays perched on her window sill, and Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) and Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) are on their own mission to make sure black celebrities appear on Sal’s wall along with the Italian Americans, and “Fight The Power” is rightfully blasting on the boom box.

Each scene in the film plays like a vignette and Lee often times will be as direct as possible with his characters to honestly show what they stand for, whether they are racist or intrusive or even naively annoying. The heat index is nicely displayed through the random commentary from the local DJ portrayed by Samuel L Jackson, and it’s easy to grasp that the temperature serves as a threatening metaphor for what we fear will eventually happen. Our communal mentality is about to boil over.

I easily saw the still controversial ending coming. What’s sad is that it is no longer surprising in today’s era. It’s probably one of the best endings to a film that I’ve ever seen. That’s a bold statement but having watched the film just a week ago, I’ve repeatedly had an internal argument with myself. Who is right? Who is justified? Who is wrong? Why do these activities continue to happen? If I’m still turning this film over in my head after a week, then I can’t deny the impact Spike Lee accomplished. I’m angry. I’m annoyed. I’m sad. Don’t get me wrong. I was also entertained with the film. It’s a great script and a great cast.

Beyond the messages of Do The Right Thing, the film is an assortment of bright colors in costumes and backdrops within the neighborhood. Bedford-Stuyvesant really looks like a beautiful area. It looks clean and the residents really never appear terribly intimidating. Lee finds qualities in all his characters to like, even Pico the most racist of all. Mookie even tries to make a point to Pico about just how racist he seems. It’s a great conversation about the status quo of a black celebrity vs simply another “N-word” who walks into Sal’s for a slice of pizza. I found charm among most of the various conversations in the film. So much so that I said to myself, this is a film that truly could be adapted into a musical or a stage play. There’s so much to tell and so many ways to say it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lee likely had a hundred more pages of dialogue and a dozen more characters that never made it into the final product.

In 1989, and all the years thereafter, I dismissed this film. I never cared for Lee’s commentary during public interviews. I can’t stand his response to certain issues, and admittedly I just do not like hip hop and rap music. I also may have naively thought that Spike’s viewpoints were a little over the top. I still do, at times. Nevertheless, I was blind, Reader. I truly was.

There’s a terrible truth to Do The Right Thing. A frightening truth. We are very, very far out of reach of racial harmony.

We learn best, only when we fall. Spike Lee’s film shows the shortcomings of the human spirit. Spike Lee’s film makes you think and debate. You have no choice but to question a moral compass.

Whether you have already seen it or not, watch Do The Right Thing today. More importantly, watch it with your children.

BELFAST

By Marc S. Sanders

Within the first three minutes of Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, there is impactful transition that goes reverse in time.  Van Morrison supplies the music to the film and it opens in bright color capturing glimpses of the thriving city.  There are well paved highways with ongoing traffic.  Fresh painted construction cranes stand in front of a blue sky with a warm sun.  Buildings have beautiful architecture.  There are pieces of eye-popping art within the city.  It looks like the most gorgeous vacation destination.  Even the opening credits are stenciled in nice gold font.  Then Branagh’s camera lifts up over a wall and the screen reverses back in time to August, 1969 where it’s depicted in black and white.  A sweet blond-haired boy named Buddy (Jude Hill) is holding a stick and a trash can lid as he slays an imaginary dragon, but then reality dawns upon him and violent riots erupt on the street he lives on. Cars are set on fire, windows are smashed, bricks are thrown, and Molotov cocktails burst into flames.  What we see as prosperity now, had a history at one time, and history is not always something to embrace.  Belfast reminds us that it was ugly before it got better.

Belfast, Ireland in the late 60s/early 70s is shown through the eyes of Buddy.  Branagh never has Buddy be forced to grow up so fast, despite the inflamed conflicts between Protestants and Catholics living in Ireland.  He plays in the park.  He watches Star Trek on TV.  He does his math homework with his Pop (Ciaran Hinds). He’s a little bit of a troublemaker as he pockets chocolate from the local candy store.  He also escorts his grandmother (Judi Dench) to the movies and live theater.  He’s a happy little kid, but he’s also wise to the new world thrust upon his doorstep.  It’s hard not to see the make shift barrier walls of junk at the end of the block and the sometimes-questioning policemen.

His Pa (Jamie Dornan) leaves for two-week trips for work, but when he’s home, Buddy eyes upon his Pa’s childhood friend intimidating him to join the cause to rid the area of Catholicism.  His Pa is put into an “either you’re for us or you’re against us” dilemma.  Pa does not sway so easily. 

His Ma (Catriona Balfe) tries to keep things as normal as possible.  A surprising moment occurs when Buddy gets swept up in looting a grocery store with the rioters.  He runs home with a box of laundry detergent.  Ma will not stand for that and escorts him back to the store to return the item.  Ma gets a full account at this moment of what’s become of their hometown when all she wants to do is properly discipline and raise her child.

As tensions rise over the coming months, Ma debates with Pa about whether to leave Belfast for a new life in the United Kingdom.  I think this becomes more traumatic for Buddy than the random violence he periodically witnesses.  He’d have to leave his grandparents and his school and his friends.  As well, he’s been working so hard to keep his grades up so that he can sit at the front of class, next to the young girl he pines for.  They are working on a science project that recounts the historic first trip to the moon.

Belfast is a rather short film, but Branagh’s script offers much.  It focuses on a piece of mid-twentieth century European history that I was never familiar with.  The film gives you the minimum details through conversations and sound bites from news broadcasts.  That’s fine, but my attention span was waning at times.  It’s not fair for me to criticize the picture this way.  I just couldn’t relate to the culture of the community, and so I just was not engaged on this one and only viewing.

It’s clearly well-made, and Branagh presents a convincing depiction primarily of this one residential block that this family lives on.  While Buddy’s exploits are endearing and there are especially good performances all around, the riot violence is scary with harsh sound editing of screams and shattering window panes.  The cinematography is strong, especially when it contrasts with color.  The choice is made to depict a live performance of A Christmas Carol in color while the seated audience with Buddy and his grandmother stays in black and white.  Branagh does a cool effect by having bright orange stage lights reflect in Dench’s eye glasses which remain in monochrome.  When the family goes to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the movie screen is in color like the film they are watching.  The characters of Belfast remain in black and white, though.  This family and others like them, remember these tumultuous times in a dull, gray perspective.  It was a non-celebratory and often harsh way to live.  The escapism they partake will always be preserved in promising and welcome colors, however.  This is a fantastic storytelling device.

As Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed the piece, it’s clear that he strove for his exact vision and he has a personal achievement he should be proud of.  There doesn’t appear to be any compromise to his picture.  It’s very well directed with its cast performances, the town extras and the technical choices made.  Yet, the film never grabbed me emotionally.  Belfast exists to simply to show how this family survived day to day with turmoil surrounding them.  If anything, at least I learned something new within the confines of Ireland from fifty years ago.

BEN-HUR (1959)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: William Wyler
Cast: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 86% Certified Fresh

PLOT: After a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend in 1st-century Jerusalem, he regains his freedom and returns for revenge.


For my money, 1959’s record-setting production of Ben-Hur would be a better pick for an annual Easter flick over C.B. de Mille’s overblown The Ten Commandments.  Certainly, Commandments shows the actual story of Passover and might lay claim to more special effects sequences, but Ben-Hur feels grander AND more intimate at the same time.  Plus it actually shows Christ and the crucifixion at the end, and what better symbols could you ask for in an Easter film?

Then, of course, there’s that chariot race.  Game, set, and match.

Ben-Hur was created in an era when Hollywood was watching its profits dwindle because of the advent of television, which was keeping more and more people glued to their sets at home instead of paying for a ticket at the box office.  One way to get people back into theaters was to take the “bigger-is-better” approach: do things that were impossible on a TV budget.

Consider these statistics: Three hundred separate sets were built for Ben-Hur.  The chariot race alone required 15,000 extras on 18 acres of backlot at Cinecitta Studios in Rome and took 10 weeks to shoot.  Over a million props were needed, and it took two years to amass them all before shooting.  Approximately 1.25 million feet of expensive 65mm film was exposed and developed at a cost of roughly a dollar per foot.  The budget for the film ballooned to nearly $15 million, equivalent to over $146 million in today’s dollars, an unthinkable amount in the late 1950s.

But when it was released, Ben-Hur made history by being the first film to win eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor.  It remains the only film to date to win Best Picture and Best Visual Effects.  At the box office, it raked in $75 million ($731 million when adjusted for inflation), making it one of the most profitable films in Hollywood history at the time.  It remains popular today, ranked in the IMDb’s top 250 most popular movies and listed as the #2 epic film of all time by the American Film Institute.  (#1 is Lawrence of Arabia, naturally.)

How does a 63-year-old film, with a running time of 3 hours and 42 minutes, with a blatantly religious plotline culminating in the crucifixion of Christ and a shamelessly manipulative miracle, and featuring some of the hammiest acting this side of Bollywood, remain as popular as it is?  Because despite its shortcomings, it does what every film should do, long or short, sacred or secular: it tells a rollicking good story, and it does it extremely well.

After a solemn prologue depicting the first Nativity, we jump forward 26 years and meet Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), a wealthy Judean prince who enjoys a reunion with his old friend, Messala (Stephen Boyd).  They grew up together but went their separate ways, and now Messala is a Roman tribune assigned to keep the peace in Judea.  Poor Judah realizes just how far they’ve grown apart when an accident leads Messala to arrest Judah and his mother and sister, to demonstrate his power and loyalty to Rome.  Judah vows vengeance and is sentenced to die as a galley slave.  But fate intervenes in the form of Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), a Roman general whose life Judah saves in battle.  Arrius befriends Judah and officially adopts him as his own son, giving Judah the means to return to his homeland, wreak his vengeance upon Messala, and rescue his mother and sister from prison.

…and that’s just Act One.  Act Two focuses heavily on Judah’s revenge in the form of one of the greatest set pieces in Hollywood history: the chariot race.  Or, more properly, The Chariot Race.  If you’ve never seen it, Google/YouTube it.  Even viewed as a stand-alone scene, it is as breathtaking and thrilling as any car chase ever filmed.  It’s so good that George Lucas cribbed many of its beats for the pod-race sequence in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.  The crashes you see during the race were planned, but they were performed with real stuntmen in real danger.  Note especially one sensational stunt where a 2-wheeled chariot drawn by four horses, at full gallop, approach a crashed chariot in their path.  The horses leap the chariot, then the chariot dangerously rolls over the crash itself, hurling the stuntman so high into the air he nearly topples head over heels over the front of his own chariot.  I am at a loss to imagine how they could possibly accomplish this same scene today without the use of visual effects.

Peppered throughout the story are brief scenes featuring Jesus of Nazareth, although we never hear Him speak, and we never see His face.  In Act One, He offers water to Judah as he is being marched to the galleys, a compassionate act that will resonate through the years.  Later He is glimpsed from a distance delivering the Sermon on the Mount.  And later still, we see His trial, His journey to Golgotha, and His crucifixion.  Everyone involved in those scenes show the appropriate and expected levels of awe and sadness, while the score plays a mournful dirge.  It’s a little ham-handed by today’s standards, especially when compared to modern films like The Passion of the Christ, but it is still effective.

The movie’s highest level of filmmaking, apart from The Chariot Race, is on its best display in the first half of the movie.  Nearly two-and-a-half hours fly by, thanks to superb editing.  It’s never boring or soapy.  (Well…ALMOST never soapy.  The requisite love scenes between Judah and the slave girl Esther, played by the lovely Haya Harareet, are not as easy to watch as the rest of the film, but thankfully there aren’t that many of them.)  Every event and every scene feels crucial to the story.  There’s never a moment that drags.  Like the best epic films, watching Ben-Hur makes me feel like I’m reading a richly detailed novel.

If the film has a major downfall, it’s the story that follows The Chariot Race.  The movie doesn’t exactly grind to a halt, but it doesn’t offer the viewer any kind of climactic punches that can match the visceral effect of Judah’s capture, escape, and victory in the race.  (Sorry if I spoiled that for you, but if you seriously thought he lost that race, seek help.)  Sure, there’s the capture and crucifixion of Jesus and the miraculous aftermath, but while that satisfies the true arc of the story, I still, to this day, feel like the film deflates a little at the end.  There’s simply nothing it can offer that could possibly follow up that damn Chariot Race.  The race is the payoff.  Everything that follows feels anti-climactic.

That quibble aside, Ben-Hur is still as captivating as it ever was, with “old” Hollywood’s full power brought to bear to bring audiences a cinematic experience unlike any other at that time.  No matter where you might stand when it comes to its religious overtones, you can’t deny that the movie is exactly as respectful as it needs to be for this story.  And ultimately, the message of the film isn’t “An eye for an eye.”  It’s “Love thy enemy as thyself.”  It takes Judah Ben-Hur a little while to get there.  But he gets there.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

By Marc S. Sanders

In 1967, just before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Norman Jewison’s film In The Heat Of The Night won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor for Rod Steiger and Best Adapted Screenplay by Sterling Silliphant.  While it is easy to classify the movie as a crime drama/murder mystery/detective story, the setting and themes of racial prejudice overshadow who the killer is or the motive.  As the film progressed, I grew less curious of who bludgeoned white businessman Philip Colbert to death and why.  It was much more important to understand exactly why Steiger’s Mississippi Police Chief Gillespie is so quick to believe that a well dressed and cooperative black man who was simply apprehended for waiting at a train station would be the culprit.  The black man is Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a Philadelphia police detective.

After Tibbs has an opportunity to identify himself, Gillespie shamelessly requests his services in solving the crime.  Murder doesn’t happen often in Sparta, Mississippi.  Tibbs’ supervisor speaks highly of his officer’s capabilities.  Tibbs knows how to look for signs of rigor mortis on the deceased.  He knows how to identify that the killer was right-handed and he knows that when another suspect is quickly brought in, that he can’t be the killer either.  Still, many of the heated conversations between Gillespie and Tibbs are the same.  Their back and forths even become redundant at times.  Gillespie, nor the deputies and other residents of Sparta, are apt to listen to a “colored” person.  At one point, Tibbs is put in a cell for not agreeing with Gillespie’s conclusions.  He’s also ordered on two or three occasions to get out of town.  Tibbs is not so willing to surrender though, even if he’s regarded with racial disdain.  The impression is that this murder will not be so challenging for Tibbs to solve, if only he had a little more time and cooperation.  So, the riddle of the crime is not the overall conflict of In The Heat Of The Night.  More so, it is the racial hatred that a deep south Mississippi town has for an educated and skillful black man from up north.  

I read that the film was shot primarily in Sparta, Illinois.  Poitier made that request for his own safety while a tense period within America was occurring against the backdrop of the civil rights movement.  Jewison’s film is quite brave.  In the face of racial divide within the United States, this film still got made.  Yet, it had to be produced with an abundance of caution. 

A telling scene happens in the middle of the picture.  Tibbs requests Gillespie escort him to a wealthy cotton plantation owner’s home.  As they drive up to the home, they pass by the black cotton pickers collecting the crops under the hot sun.  They meet in the estate green house with a Mr. Endicott, who comes off very cordial to Tibbs at first.  However, when a slight accusatory question comes from Tibbs, Endicott slaps him across the face.  Tibbs responds with a slap right back at him.  In Mississippi, a black man better know his place, even if the prime suspect of a murder is a wealthy white man, or more simply just white.  It’s a classic moment in film history.  However, it remains an important scene and maybe its significance should be all the more heightened in modern day 2022 with the Black Lives Matter mentality at the forefront; where police/African American race relations are being tested. 

Three white men were recently sentenced to life in prison without parole for the hate crime killing of a black jogger named Ahmaud Marquez Arbery in the state of Georgia.  All that Mr. Arbery was doing was jogging through a neighborhood.  He didn’t have a weapon.  He hadn’t come in contact with anyone to even slightly suspect a threat.  He was noticed by these three criminals, and because he didn’t belong in that area, he was brutally murdered for the color of his skin.  Evidence would reveal where these men stood with regards to black people as a history of various texts that were clearly racial in nature were later uncovered.  If it wasn’t going to be Mr. Arbery who was murdered, it was eventually going to be another black person who would fall victim to these men. 

Though Dr. King was murdered shortly after the release of In The Heat Of The Night, I’m cautiously optimistic that racial hatred has lessened and the generations that followed learned from the misgivings of their ancestors.  Still, the term “hate crime” is often used in news reports today.  The debate of the Confederate flag and its argument for keeping it flying still has to be pondered.  Fifty years later, I cannot understand why, though. 

I will never forget a vacation I took with my family to Stone Mountain in Georgia back in 2005.  It was fourth of July and we were picnicking on the lawn next to a couple of teenagers while waiting for the fireworks.  I struck up a conversation with a local teenage girl and the flag and the confederacy along with the carving of Confederate leaders (Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis) on the rock sight were brought up.  Her defense of these topics was “It’s history.  Not hate.”  I became much wiser in that moment.  I was just a naïve Jewish guy who was raised in New Jersey.  I was not aware enough.  Much still hadn’t been learned and a whole lot needed to be unlearned.  History is not a reason to celebrate.  History is not meant to honored.  History is meant to be remembered for our rights, and especially our wrongs.  Much of history should not be repeated, and yet that’s what happens all too often.

In The Heat Of The Night is another example of the power of films.  So much is debated about what is taught in our schools.  A proposal of law for “Don’t Say Gay” is likely to be passed in Florida where it’s deemed impermissible to discuss homosexuality in elementary schools.  Books are continuing to be restricted from availability in libraries.  So, if our institutions of learning are being censored, then we have to rely on other mediums.  Movies like Schindler’s List or In The Heat Of The Night or Do The Right Thing offer those opportunities.  Films open a window to view love and hate as well as tolerance and prejudice.  We can never afford to look at our world with rose colored glasses.

THE LAST CASTLE

By Marc S. Sanders

Robert Redford, James Gandolfini and Mark Ruffalo go to sleep in The Last Castle, a prison movie of no consequence directed by Rob Lurie.

They go to sleep. So naturally, I go to sleep.

Redford plays Three Star General Eugene Irwin (a real tough guy name!) sentenced to a military prison. It’s where we have to accept that Gandolfini as a “ruthless” Colonel Winter controls his inmates with an iron fist. (Iron? Aluminum Reynolds Wrap is more like it.). That’s what the Netflix or TV guide description might tell you.

Watch the film however, and you’ll nary see anything terribly harsh from Gandolfini, much less will you see anything triumphant from a run of the mill Redford. Exactly what is the problem these two guys have that motivate the General into a forever-to-get-there uprising against the prison? These guys never appear to be enduring much of a harsh reality.

Amid the concrete walls, basketball is played with glee, rocks are carried to and fro and bets for cigarette winnings are proffered. I don’t get it. What’s wrong with this, and why is Gandolfini regarded as such a dick about it? This Colonel Winter is no Tony Soprano. That’s for sure.

I think it’s in Redford’s contract that dirt must never grace his boyhood good looks and his neat blond hair style remain preserved even when he’s running through 7 foot flames to rescue Ruffalo from a downed helicopter. (Psst, that’s the most exciting—that’s the only exciting—part of the film.)

The Last Castle is not a good movie.

As the allegorical chess play between the opposing leaders carries forth, much flexibility is offered to both sides to plan accordingly for the final battle. This is too neat and too pretty for a prison mutiny uprising. It’s real convenient that there are only rubber bullets in the guards’ rifles. That way it’s safe for everyone to play in the sandbox a little longer past curfew.

Don’t believe me about all this? Then answer me this question:

Where in the hell did Redford’s band of prisoners find the time, resources and covert opportunity to construct a building tall SLING SHOT STRAIGHT OUTTA BRAVEHEART OR LORD OF THE RINGS to chuck boulders with? I mean how the hell would you even hide such a thing when you are locked in a prison? It ain’t under the mattress. That’s for sure.

HOUSE OF GAMES

By Marc S. Sanders

David Mamet is one of the most renowned writers of the last fifty years.  The first film he directed was for his script, House Of Games, with his wife at the time, Lindsay Crouse, and Joe Mantegna.  It’s also important to point out that he recruited well known con artist and card trick player Ricky Jay to consult on the film and join the cast.  When you are constructing a film about the confidence game, a guy like Ricky Jay, who is widely known for his slight of hand and scam artistry, is important to ensure your story remains solid and airtight. (Note: seek out videos of Ricky performing eye popping card tricks and magic on You Tube.  He’ll make you believe that you’ve never seen a card trick before because not many come close to his mastery with a deck in hand.)

House Of Games plays like an instructional or “how to” video demonstrating how to be a successful con artist.  Crouse portrays a psychiatrist with a best-selling book titled “Driven” that focuses on obsessive behaviors.  One of her clients reveals that his compulsive gambling habits have put him $25,000 in debt with a card shark.  Crouse takes it upon herself to confront the card shark (Mantegna) on behalf of her frightened client.  Shortly thereafter, he’s got her acting as his wife to determine if the guy at the other end of a poker table is bluffing.  Then he’s introducing her to his con artist buddies, and she is becoming enamored, not only with him, but with the art of the con and the steal.  Her mundane life gives her the urge to see more.

The other Unpaid Critic, Miguel, recently reviewed this picture.  At the time of this writing, I have not read his review, but he forewarned me that the performances are stripped down to nothing.  Mantegna and Crouse are left bare to just delivering Mamet’s dialogue.  Miguel hadn’t liked this film the first time he saw it many years ago.  On my first viewing, this past week, I was engrossed.  However, I could foresee the ending as quickly as the film began.  I dunno.  Maybe it’s because I’ve seen several con artist films before like The Grifters and the granddaddy of them all, The Sting.  Films that focus on the best liars seem to always move towards a twist where even the viewer is scammed.  It’s fun to participate in the activity.

With House Of Games, the sequence of events move step by step.  Following the two characters’ introductions to each other, Mantegna is caught in the middle of doing another con but now he’s reluctantly forced to include Crouse in on the game.  This time it is seemingly much more complex and grander than the first time they worked together at the poker table.  It also gets all the more confusing when an unexpected murder is involved.  This con spells out a long night for the couple who are also falling for one another. 

Miguel is right.  The performances are most definitely stripped down and often the dialogue is wooden.  Crouse and Mantegna are deliberately flat.  I don’t even think they laugh or smile if I remember correctly.  It is likely because Mamet wants the viewers to follow along and pick up on how a successful con job is meticulous in its methods.  A con artist is not going to make waves with loud, angry monologues or passionate seductions and outrageous silliness.  What’s important is that everything that plays out seems convincing with no distractions that lead to doubt.  So, when the only African American in the cast (extras included) leaves a key on a hotel counter, you notice it.  It happened for a reason.  Later, when the characters come upon a BRIGHT RED Cadillac convertible, you are going to remember it.  A Swiss army knife with tropical artwork on the handle.  A gun metal briefcase with a large amount of cash.  A gun.  A murder.  Props and scenarios guide Mamet’s picture. Not the characters. 

Fortunately, the film remains very engaging.  As well, while I could figure out what was being played here during the entire course of the picture, as a viewer I had no choice but to feel proud of myself for uncovering the puzzles and riddles at play.  For me, watching House Of Games was like answering “Final Jeopardy” correctly when none of the contestants on screen had a clue. At least I was smiling by the end.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946, Great Britain)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: David Lean
Cast: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Jean Simmons, Martita Hunt, Alec Guinness
My Rating: 8/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 100%

PLOT: A humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.


Before moving on to full-blown epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, Sir David Lean’s reputation was already assured with his small-scale masterpieces like Brief Encounter [1945], Oliver Twist [1948], and Summertime [1955], one of the finest Katharine Hepburn films you’ve probably never heard of.  Among these little gems is another Dickens adaptation, Great Expectations [1946], co-starring an impossibly young Alec Guinness.

Having never read the source novel nor, in fact, seen any of the other adaptations (there are at least five others, according to IMDb), I was able to go in “cold” with no preconceived notions or, ahem, expectations of my own.  What I found was a surprisingly engaging melodrama full of gothic overtones and the kinds of coincidences and contrivances that are rife in Dickens’ literature.  Yet they do not feel like contrived literary devices.  They feel like the kinds of coincidences, large or small, that populate our ordinary lives.  (I’ll bet the narrator at the beginning of Magnolia LOVED Dickens.)

The movie opens with a young boy, Pip, visiting the graves of his mother and father.  These opening scenes set the tone: dark skies, bare trees creaking in the incessant wind, and an unexpected encounter with an escaped convict who demands food and a file, for the shackles still hanging from his wrists.  Pip is terrified and complies.  Later the convict is captured and has the opportunity to give up Pip as one who aided a criminal, but in an oddly moving scene, he merely says he stole the food with no one’s assistance.

Later, Pip is introduced to the lovely young Estella (Jean Simmons in one of her earliest roles), who lives in a sprawling, decaying mansion owned by the eccentric old Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt).  Miss Havisham has summoned/hired Pip because it amuses her to watch children play, but more importantly because it also amuses her to watch Estella flirt with and continuously berate Pip as being a commoner, a blacksmith’s son, and someone who is otherwise unworthy of Estella’s affections.  The reasons for Miss Havisham’s cruel games may be guessed at by the dilapidated state of the wedding dress she wears day and night and by the crumbling, molding wedding cake sitting on a cobwebbed banquet table.  (Miss Havisham’s mansion is one of the creepiest gothic locations I’ve ever seen.  I half-expected the story to take a macabre turn, a la Edgar Allen Poe, with a deserting bridegroom rotting away under the floorboards or something.)

Time passes, and in the first of those melodramatic contrivances of which Dickens is so fond, Pip is granted the chance to go to London to become a gentleman.  His livelihood will be sponsored by a handsome annual stipend from an anonymous benefactor through a corpulent attorney named Mr. Jaggers.  (Dickens has some of the greatest character names in literature: Jaggers, Magwitch, Herbert Pocket, Uncle Pumblechook, Mrs. Whimple…I love it.)  Pip enters this new stage of his life assuming, as we all do, that his anonymous benefactor is none other than Miss Havisham.  Makes sense, right?

Through the course of this second act, Pip falls in love with the beautiful but heartless Estella, who warns him she has no heart and only seeks to conquer and discard her many suitors.  This is her way of expressing genuine affection for Pip.  Would Pip rather she do the same to him?

He also meets and befriends his London roommate and business partner, Herbert Pocket, played by an inconceivably young Alec Guinness in his first major screen role.  This was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship, leading to collaborations between Lean and Guinness on The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago, not to mention Guinness’ very next role as the odious Fagin in Lean’s own version of Oliver Twist.

The rest of the story, involving Jaggers’ mysterious maid, a test of Pip’s loyalty, the identity of his benefactor, and the wholly unforeseen fate of Miss Havisham, I leave for you to discover.  It all ends, it seemed to me rather abruptly, but it is satisfying.

To fans of Lean’s more ambitious films, a small film like this one hardly seems as if it were made by the same director.  In today’s terms, it might be like watching a small character-driven film made by the Russo brothers (Avengers: Endgame, Captain America: Civil War, etc.).  In his Great Movies Review for this film, Roger Ebert points out the difference between these two stages of Lean’s directing style:

“[Lean] was an editor for seven years before directing his first film, and his career stands as an argument for the theory that editors make better directors than cinematographers do. …What the earlier films have is greater economy, and thus greater energy, in their storytelling.”

Indeed, Great Expectations hurtles along breathlessly, not as quickly paced as a Marx Brothers comedy, but certainly without wasting a single moment on anything that is not necessary to move the story along, or at least provide just a small dash of character or color to the proceedings.  (One of my favorite small touches was the gruesome death masks hanging on the wall of Mr. Jaggers’ office.  For me, it was a kind of foreshadowing, alluding to the possible fate of the convict Pip encountered at the beginning of the film.) In his later epics, Lean’s pacing slows down in favor of presenting the viewer with grand desert or mountain vistas, so instead of watching a play, it feels like we’re at a museum. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s merely a different style of storytelling.

There is another, perhaps more famous, adaptation of Great Expectations out there, by the famed Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, and no less than Anne Bancroft as Miss Havisham, renamed Ms. Dinsmoor in this version.  It was updated to present day, some other character names were changed, and it is supposedly drenched in atmosphere.  I have yet to see it.  Until I do, Lean’s early masterpiece will remain my favorite version of this timeless tale, abrupt finale and all.