Category: Genre

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Italy, 2017)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Luca Guadagnino
CAST: Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Certified Fresh

PLOT: In 1980s Italy, romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father’s research assistant.


Call Me by Your Name is remarkable because it tells a heartbreaking first-love story that could have easily devolved into cheap melodrama.  I mean, look at the plot description above.  It has “soap opera” written all over it.  But because director Luca Guadagnino (Bones and All, the 2018 remake of Suspiria) applies restraint, and because the screenplay by James Ivory (of Merchant Ivory fame) sticks to realism as opposed to predictable scripted nonsense, and because of the fearlessness of the film’s two leads, Call Me by Your Name becomes one of the best films about the thrill and heartbreak of first love I’ve ever seen.

The story takes place in the summer of 1983, in Italy.  The Perlmans are on vacation at their villa in the Italian countryside.  Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) has hired an American, Oliver (Armie Hammer), to assist him with research over the holiday.  Elio (Timothée Chalamet), Mr. Perlman’s 17-year-old son, appears to take an instant dislike to Oliver, but we later see this is a maneuver designed to disguise his real, and scary, crush on Oliver.

…but I don’t want to write a full synopsis of the story, because I guarantee it would read like someone’s Twilight fan-fiction or something similar.  What happens is reasonably predictable and has been seen in countless movies from Douglas Sirk to Nora Ephron.  What makes this movie special is how it happens.

There is not a single scene or shot in the movie that feels routine.  Or, not “routine”, that’s not the right word.  The whole movie feels authentic.  Nobody talks in screenplay-ese (except for a sensational speech from Mr. Perlman near the end, which I will forgive because it works).  Whatever happens, whenever it happens, feels spontaneous and precisely observed.

Here is at least one moment that captures what I mean.  Elio’s crush on Oliver has gotten deeper, but he’s kept it to himself.  One night, the two of them and a bunch of Elio’s friends visit a local bar with an outdoor dance floor.  Oliver starts dancing with a pretty girl.  Elio’s friends get up to dance, but Elio stays behind, eyeing Oliver and the girl, and you can almost hear the gears turning over in Elio’s head.  He finally does get up to dance, but watch his movements carefully: he starts dancing with a girl, but surreptitiously moves closer to Oliver for a moment.  Oliver turns to Elio, and Elio abruptly turns away and pulls a little move and slide, pretending not to notice Oliver while also trying to impress him a little.  Elio turns back, sees that Oliver is no longer looking, and quickly moves back towards him.  This kind of behavior is so specific, and yet universally recognizable.  There was no dialogue, but I knew everything going through Elio’s head in every second of that scene.

I also admired the scene, done in one take, where Elio finally reveals his feelings to Oliver, but it’s all done in this marvelous code, where Elio never actually says precisely what he’s talking about, but Oliver is smart enough to decipher the code.  (“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”)  I’ve seen so many films where the Oliver character is written as an otherwise adult person but has to be incredibly dumb in order to prolong the “idiot plot.”  How refreshing to be confronted with characters with working brains.

Guadagnino also appears to be a great fan of Japanese films, particularly those of Yasujiro Ozu.  Throughout the movie, there are many scenes that are divided, almost like chapter headings, by a series of stationary shots, held for several seconds, of ordinary items: a window, or a staircase, or the still waters of a lake, or an apricot tree.  Ozu was known for doing the same thing in his films; they were called “pillow shots,” because Japanese poetry utilizes the same device, using words instead of shots, to separate thoughts or ideas.  These “pillow shots” lend a sense of poetry or…I don’t know what, exactly, to the film.  It may look (and sound) a little pretentious, but trust me, it works.  It made the movie feel as if there were great currents of significance rumbling below the surface.

Alert readers may notice I haven’t even mentioned the sex scenes yet.  Going into this movie, I remembered that there was some hoopla about the graphic nature of those scenes, but I get the feeling they’re like the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs: everyone thinks they remember seeing the ear actually getting cut off, but we don’t.  Tarantino tactfully moves the camera up and away and leaves the dismemberment off-camera.  Same thing here.  Guadagnino leaves no doubt as to what is about to happen, but then moves the camera away, or cuts to the next scene, or expertly positions the camera so the naughtiest actions are never actually seen.

This is shrewd filmmaking.  If the film had been filled with NC-17-worthy content, the message would have been lost.  It would have become a movie about the sex instead of being about the turmoil and ecstasy of being in love with someone who loves you back, even if it’s only for a short time.

I should also mention the roles of Elio’s parents.  I can see how some people might watch the movie and imagine that his parents are far too forgiving, especially given their religious upbringing.  However, this was another welcome departure from the realms of unnecessary melodrama.  Instead of scenes where the furious parents make unreasonable demands or deliver intolerant lectures, we are given a father and mother who know enough about parenting, and about their son, to realize when it’s time to lecture and when it’s time to just let things happen.  I’m not suggesting they would ever willingly allow their son to go into harm’s way.  But they’re smart enough to know how important it is that Oliver and Elio take a little sabbatical together before Oliver’s final departure.

(They also know when a small lie is sometimes necessary at the appropriate moment.  After Mr. Perlman’s wonderful speech at the end of the film, Elio asks him, “Does mother know?”  Mr. Perlman hesitates, then delivers a very tactful answer.  To me, this was his way of protecting his son at a time when he desperately needed comfort.  I suppose it could be interpreted either way, but since Mr. Perlman knows his wife, I believe it was a perfectly timed lie.  Just a small one.  It’s a magnificent button to the scene.)

Call Me by Your Name deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay that year.  It’s a masterpiece of storytelling by osmosis, without using signal flags or hokey dialogue.  It recalls with perfect precision how it feels to be uplifted and crushed emotionally, and how one must decide how to deal with those feelings.  I was never the 17-year-old son of a professor with romantic feelings for his assistant, but I understood and identified with Elio nearly every step of the way during the movie.  I would imagine many others can, too.

PATRIOT GAMES

By Marc S. Sanders

You may remember Patriot Games as a tense thriller featuring the favorite hero Jack Ryan doing the wherewithal action that is demanding for the adaptation of Tom Clancy’s best-selling novel.  Harrison Ford (taking over the role from Alec Baldwin) plays the guy who will thwart an assassination attempt on the Royal Family or punch out a terrorist thug invading his home or on a speed boat during a dark and stormy night.  Only a small bit of the action sequences are flawed, but that doesn’t take away from what makes the picture truly special.  In the follow up to The Hunt For Red October, Jack Ryan goes back to the CIA to investigate who wants revenge against him and who was responsible for that assassination attempt.  What the picture serves as the covert halls of the Central Intelligence Agency is what is especially convincing and most fascinating.

On the surface, the Irish Republican Army appears to be the scapegoat for attempting to murder members of the Royal Family as they are pulling out of the front gates of Buckingham Palace.  Jack Ryan is in London vacationing with his wife Cathy (Anne Archer) and daughter Sally (Thora Birch) when he comes upon the incident just in time to foil the crime.  In the process, Ryan takes a bullet to the shoulder and kills the younger brother of the most dangerous squad member, Sean Miller (Sean Bean).  A quick trial puts Miller behind bars and Jack is recognized as a hero.

However, Sean Miller escapes with his surviving comrades and vows revenge on Jack and his family.  An attempt is made on the Ryans’ lives and Jack insists on getting back into the CIA to locate Miller and his team.

The revenge plot is the main thread and its pretty ho hum.  We’ve seen all that many times before.  However, what branches off are the conflicts within Irish politics and how Jack Ryan gradually uncovers who and where this small faction of terrorists may be.  Cold War commentary is delivered by an under the radar performance from one of my favorite character actors, Richard Harris.  He attempts to deny responsibility of these attacks and offer an olive branch to Ryan.  Ford and Harris have three good scenes together, two of which are minimal on dialogue but effective in sending their messages to one another. 

As well, Harrison Ford occupies another great heroic role.  I agree with a majority who believe he was too old to play the novice Jack Ryan described in Clancy’s early novels.  Many insist casting Baldwin was perfect.  It was. Yet, I am able to look past that as the character does not have the rookie appearance or regard in this picture.  With Harrison Ford, Jack Ryan is now at a point where he looks seasoned and experienced like the character eventually becomes in the book series.

Director Phillip Noyce is good at using the mysterious and quiet orchestral accompaniments of James Horner to follow Jack as he studies photographs or reflects on the day of the assassination attempt in order to piece together random clues.  In other films, this might get boring and tedious.  However, the director captures good closeups of Harrison Ford and quick flashbacks are edited to help identify what were important blink and miss it moments necessary to assemble the puzzle.  A simple visit to the restroom for Jack Ryan and a glance at a woman’s ponytail lead to a solid conclusion.

Sean Bean has the physical and quiet intensity to his role.  He’s the muscle of the terrorist group, not the leader (played by Patrick Bergen).  Bean serves the revenge element and his physique and weapon handling work well as a nice threat to the hero of the picture.

As the story progresses, the audience follows along with Ryan.  Satellite photographs are studied and zoomed in seeking some semblance of an image in a blur.  Sometimes Jack Ryan is moving in the right direction but in other times he’s unsure.  Even though we always know how the bad guys are doing and where they are, we empathize because Harrison Ford’s character does not.  Still, it’s a thrill to witness him eventually make his discoveries.

A nice approach occurs when the CIA sends in troops to what they believe is an enemy base camp.  We watch Jack Ryan and all of the government officials stare with intensity on a big screen as little black pixels drop down and move at a running pace from an overhead satellite shot.  We don’t have to endure one more machine gun battle.  This kind of intensity is much more interesting where lives are taken as a means of protection, but still a principled man like Jack Ryan does not feel good about what has to be done.

Patriot Games works well with its plays on espionage, spy activity, traitors, and government relations between America, Great Britain and Ireland.  The select action scenes are done well and hold their suspense for quite long.  However, the final sequence is challenging to sit through. 

As the enemy prepares a covert attack on the Ryans’ Virginia home where the Royal Family are guests, there is much running around upstairs and down, in the basement, and outside the roof and so on.  It’s pouring rain with the standard thunder and lightning in the middle of the night as well.  Once the villains and the hero make their way to some getaway boats, the film unravels.  The picture shakes like crazy against the waves and rain.  There’s little light on any of the shots as well and the sound goes loud due to the boat engines and the storm setting.  All of these elements make it challenging to get absorbed in the movie’s climactic ending. 

Hollywood pictures fall back on this approach often in films like Ang Lee’s Hulk and the first installment of The Hunger Games.  It’s dark and wet and shaky and rainy. So, it is hard to decipher who is hitting who and who is shooting at who and who is driving which boat and where are they now.  It’s a shame really because Patriot Games is a taut thriller that holds your attention for nearly two hours, but then you give up in the final few minutes to simply rely on your instincts for how the story is going to wrap itself up.

Jack Ryan’s second adventure is worth watching but oddly enough, maybe wait for your restroom break until the last ten minutes of the picture.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON (2021)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Dean Fleischer Camp
CAST: Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer Camp, Isabella Rossellini
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 98% Fresh

PLOT: Marcel, a tiny talking seashell with big shoes and one googly eye, becomes the subject of a documentary.


Years ago, I went to see Happy Feet.  The premise was absurd – singing penguins, give me a break – but as soon as Nicole Kidman’s character sang the first words of Prince’s Kiss, I remember thinking, “Okay, this movie is only going to work if I just give in to the concept.”  I did, and it did (for the most part).  Some movies are like that.  If you’re the kind of person who brings too much logic to the movie theater, who’s always wondering, when a movie character just orders “a beer” at a bar, how does the bartender know what to bring him…if you’re that kind of person, then Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is not for you.  Trust me.  I’m trying to give a public service message here.  If you watch a James Bond movie and sit there the whole time going, “That couldn’t happen…that couldn’t happen”…then skip Marcel and go find a Werner Herzog documentary.  Cave of Forgotten Dreams is excellent.

However, if you enjoy flights of fancy, fits of whimsy, and a gently aggressive cuteness factor balanced nicely by, not one, but two potentially tear-jerking plot developments – all centered on a talking seashell – then have I got a movie for you.

The story: A down-on-his-luck documentary filmmaker (Dean Fleischer Camp) moves into an Airbnb with his dog.  After following some odd clues around the house, he discovers his diminutive roommate: Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate), a pebble-sized seashell with one eye – a googly eye – and tiny shoes, with a voice that sounds like your favorite childhood puppy was granted the gift of speech.  Dean discovers that Marcel has lived in this house for some time with his grandmother, Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini!).  There used to be an entire community, including many of Marcel’s family members, but they all vanished one traumatic night when the couple that used to live in the Airbnb got into an argument and the man stormed off with his luggage…carrying some unwitting passengers.

Now Marcel fends for himself, while Nana Connie helps in the garden.  Dean, the filmmaker, asks some excellent questions.  How does Marcel get around the house?  Why, by traveling inside a tennis ball using it like a tiny hamster ball; it’s okay as long as you don’t mind knocking some things over every once in a while.  What does he eat?  Mostly fruit from the tree growing outside.  How does Marcel get it out of the tree all by himself?  Using the mixer in the kitchen and a long length of rope, of course.  I could explain it, but it’s funnier if you find out for yourself how that works.  How does Marcel reach high places in the house?  Well, if he can’t jump it, there’s plenty of honey in the house, and honey is sticky, and that’s why there are sometimes little footprints all over the walls.  (Marcel asks Dean his own important questions: “Have you ever eaten a raspberry?  Um, and what was that like?”)

This is all unbearably cute.  I’m still not sure why I responded to it so strongly.  This is not normally my kind of material.  But the sight of this little seashell with one eye plopping down in front of the TV to watch 60 Minutes with his Nana just brought a smile to my face.  (Marcel explains, “We just call it ‘the show.’  That’s how much we love it.”)

One of the most charming elements of this movie is how it trucks along giving us one cuteness blast after another, and then it blindsides you with sentiments that are so simple and direct that they hit you in the feels before you even realize what’s happened.  As Marcel recounts the story of his family’s disappearance that fateful night, he sheds a tear or two.  Then he says:

“And then the next day, there was a really sunny day with a good breeze.  And I just remember thinking, if I was somebody else, I would really be enjoying this.”

I don’t know about you, but that statement really hits home with me, for all sorts of reasons that I won’t bore you with.  There are several moments like that in the film.  Here’s another one:

“Have you ever done that before, like, when there’s a party in your house?  Sometimes it’s easiest to rest when you go off by yourself and you can still hear the noise of the party, and you feel safe knowing that so many people are around, that you can have a rest?”

I identified with that so strongly that I can point to events in my life when I did exactly that, literally.  Hearing those words spoken in Marcel’s guileless, childlike tones almost felt…I might be overstating this a little…therapeutic.  It was a mildly bizarre experience for me.

Meanwhile, in events that uncannily mirror exactly what happened with the original Marcel shorts in real life, Dean posts his videos online and starts getting a phenomenal response.  He suggests that Marcel post a plea online to see if the online community can help track down his family.  This leads to some rather unfortunate attention-seekers, but it does provide a motivation for Marcel to take his first trip to the outside world, riding on the dashboard of Dean’s car.  If the idea of a teeny tiny seashell getting carsick and vomiting a teeny tiny little bit and apologizing every time…if you don’t find that even a little cute, I pity you.

Events progress rapidly (the movie is just over 90 minutes long).  There is an incident involving Nana Connie and some hooligans who break into the Airbnb.  The producers of 60 Minutes reach out to Dean and Marcel and ask if Lesley Stahl can come to the house and interview them.  Marcel says no, not until Nana Connie is better.  …and what happens after that I will not reveal, because it involves some of the most heartfelt passages of the film as the depth of Marcel’s relationship with his grandmother is tested, and the grandmother displays the kind of wisdom and sacrifice that would feel at home in an O. Henry story.

When so many films out there celebrate cynicism and snark, what a treat it is to find one that just wants to make you feel a little better.  I could not put it any better than Marcel himself:

“Guess why I smile a lot.  Uh, ‘cause it’s worth it.”

SUPERMAN II

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s time for the man in the red cape and blue tights to fall in love with Lois Lane, but wouldn’t you know it?  Three Krytonian criminals possessing the same powers as our hero have arrived on Earth with a means to dominate the planet and exact revenge on the son of their jailer.  Superman II picks up where Richard Donner’s original 1978 smash left off.  It remains a fantastically fun and breathless sequel.

Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night) gets the directing credit on this film following one of Hollywood’s most infamous behind-the-scenes stories.  While I’m a big admirer of Donner’s body of work, I think it was a blessing that Lester finished the job.  I’ve seen what Donner was intending to do on a special Blu Ray cut, and it just does not work. The characters make odd choices that seem inconsistent with how they were perceived in the first film.  That’s all I need to say about that comparison right now, though. 

In the original theatrical release, the story expands on the relationship between Superman & Lois (Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder) as well as Clark Kent and Lois.  Eventually, both relationships intersect with one another, and Lois realizes the man she’s been admiring and the one she hardly takes notice of are one and the same.  The problem for Superman, known by his krypton name Kal-El, son of Jor-El, is if it is acceptable to be intimate with an earthling. 

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) has escaped prison to entice three villains from Krypton into a partnership that will allow them to take over the Earth and destroy Superman.  The trio is led by General Zod (Terence Stamp) with the wicked Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and the mindless and mute Non (Jack O’Halloran).  Following their attack on Houston, or as they call it the “Planet Huuston,” and the White House, it is on to Metropolis in search of Kal-El.

I’ve offered up quite a bit of what Superman II provides and I am not even close to sharing all it’s adventurous features and character dynamics.  This is a solid picture all the way through, and it begins with the casting.

I’ll be bold by declaring that Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman is one of the best casting decisions in film history.  Think about this for a moment.  As good as Henry Cavill was in Zach Snyder’s films, thirty years later, and how well some of the WB iterations have been, the contrary point that most people make is that none of them are Christopher Reeve.  From the smile, his handsome face, clear voice with perfect enunciation and even the signature hair curl over the forehead, no one has looked as good as a superhero come to life better than Mr. Reeve.  When he’s flying, even with outdated visual effect backgrounds, you are still convinced that Christopher Reeve knows exactly how to fly.

Following the director shake up on this picture, it is said Gene Hackman refused to shoot some scenes or do follow up edits.  You can tell when there is a double in place for him and you can hear the different vocal sound bites from Lex Luthor.  Nevertheless, what survived from Hackman’s participation is silly and twisted like you would expect from a modern-day, dastardly villain or as he declares himself to be “the greatest criminal mind of our age.” Some of these lines look hokey on paper, but Hackman invests his showmanship once again in the character.  I love it.  On all of those top ten lists, Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor is the one that everyone is regrettably forgetting about.

Margot Kidder is just as committed.  Lois Lane is best when she is the go-getter and Kidder is thoroughly convincing at not just being seen in the stunts and action but actually performing through Lois’ fears, sense of daring, and adoration for the love of her life.  Near the beginning of the film, there’s a great close up of Kidder looking up into the heights of the Eiffel Tower as Superman flies a hydrogen bomb out of danger.  No dialogue, but you can read it all over Margot Kidder’s face.  There goes my hero.  Watch him as he goes.  Few love interests in superhero films have ever matched what Margot Kidder accomplished in these pictures.

The action scenes are great set ups.  I get a chill down my spine every time I watch the showdown in Metropolis between the three baddies against the man in blue and red.  However, Richard Lester never neglects the acting throughout the whole two hours, particularly by the leads, as well as the Shakespearean maniacal performances from Stamp and Douglas.  Furthermore, the extras throughout Metropolis, Houston and even in Niagara Falls are performing very well and therefore turning the various settings into characters themselves.  Just as the fight over Metropolis is to begin, a cabbie declares “Man, this is gonna be good!”  Isn’t that guy speaking for the audience?  I remember the room applauding in the theater at that line.  When Superman rescues a child in Niagara Falls, a woman utters “What a nice man!” Clifton James, from a couple of James Bond movies, resurrects that redneck persona and it works better here as the guy who clashes with the imposing new visitors.  All of these walk on characters further shape the purpose of the visitors from space.  None of it depends on B-movie tripe like declaring “Peace!”  The personality of the folks meet the strangers from a strange land.  Sometimes it is done for means of slapstick, but it is always very entertaining.

Superman II is a perfect complement to the original film thanks especially to the cast.  Reeve gives multiple performances of Clark and Kal-El that could not be more different.  Kidder takes her character in new directions upon learning the surprises the script has in store for Lois.  Hackman is doing the same routine, but fortunately it’s welcome because I can not get enough of his antics.

This sequel really set the bar high and the next installments for Reeve came nowhere close. Though I actually have an affection for Superman III with that internal struggle depicted in the junk yard scene; one for the ages. 

The first two movies are legendary and Warner Bros/DC films realize they still have not superseded what was done over forty years ago.  The studios are not trying hard enough. However, more to the point, the filmmakers back then got it absolutely perfect, and you cannot beat Superman, nor can you beat perfection.

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Woody Allen
CAST: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Dianne Wiest, and…Jeff Daniels
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Fresh

PLOT: In 1935 New Jersey, a movie character walks off the screen and into the real-world life of a lonely, unhappily married woman.


I can imagine that it would be absurdly easy to poke holes in The Purple Rose of Cairo.  The premise is outlandish, taking place in the real world but firmly in the realm of fantasy.  It stretches the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, then goes a little further.  It asks the audience member to forget cynicism and snark for eighty-two minutes and give in to the kind of hopeless romanticism that exists only on the movie screen.  And then, amid all that glorious make-believe, it abruptly confronts you with the knowledge that, yes, this kind of thing really does only happen in the movies, and the real world can be messy and unforgiving and sad.  Yes…but at our lowest points, we can always turn to Fred and Ginger, and Bogey and Bacall, and Luke and Leia, and Gene Kelly, and Hogwarts and the Emerald City.  The Purple Rose of Cairo reminds us that the movies allow us to escape reality for an hour or three.  Sign me up.

This movie’s plot is the embodiment of the “high-concept pitch.”  What if a movie character walked off the movie screen and tried to live in the real world?  I don’t have any statistics to support this, but I’m pretty sure there are at least 18,337 other films with variations of this fish-out-of-water scenario, most memorably Splash, Last Action Hero, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

In this version, Mia Farrow plays Cecilia, a semi-depressed housewife in 1935 New Jersey, living in a small town still in the grips of the Great Depression.  Her husband, Monk (Danny Aiello), claims he’s looking for work, but we only ever see him pitching pennies with his buddies or making life miserable for Cecilia at home.  Her wages from her waitressing job go directly to rent and groceries, and anything left over goes to Monk.  Amid this bleakness, Cecilia goes to see the new film opening at the local theater, The Purple Rose of Cairo, starring a dashingly handsome actor named Gil Shepherd in the supporting role of archaeologist Tom Baxter (both roles played by a young Jeff Daniels).  She is swept away by the glitter, glamour, and romance of the film.

Imagine her surprise when, during one of the many screenings she attends, Tom Baxter abruptly stops mid-sentence, breaks the fourth wall, and speaks directly to Cecilia from up on the screen.  “My God, you must really love this picture…I gotta speak to you.”  And he simply walks off the screen, much to the consternation of the movie audience, and walks out of the theater, arm in arm with Cecilia.  The wit with which Woody Allen handles the reactions of the audience AND the movie characters Tom leaves behind is priceless.  The characters and the real people react with perfect logic, so the effect is not one of slapstick (I can see an Adam Sandler version of this movie beating the joke to death), but one of a strange mixture of high and low comedy.  To relate the scenes here word for word would ruin the magic.  (An African-American maid steals every scene she’s in.)  Tom and Cecilia go off together, and the rest of the film is, from a plot perspective, fairly predictable.

What makes this movie unique is how it tells the story.  Tom knows what an amusement park is, but he has no clue what popcorn tastes like.  (“Been watching people eat it for all those performances.  When they rattle those bags, though, that’s annoying.”)  He has fallen instantly in love with Cecilia…love at first sight.  Tom hides in the city, and Cecilia lies to Monk to go back and see Tom the next night.  A nice touch comes when calls start coming in to RKO that the Tom Baxter character in prints being shown in other cities is also trying to escape his gilded silver-screen cage.  (“He almost made it in Detroit.”)  There’s the inevitable showdown between Tom and Monk.  Tom only knows the moves he uses on film, but Monk fights dirty.  However, the fight still doesn’t end quite as I expected…another nice touch.

The real crisis occurs when the studio calls in Gil Shepherd, the actor who PLAYS Tom Baxter, to New Jersey so he can try to wrangle his creation back into the movie where he belongs.  There is the expected confusion when Cecilia bumps into Gil, mistaking him for Tom.  The plot thickens even more when Gil starts falling in love with Cecilia herself, and she finds herself in a pickle.  She tells Gil, “I just met a wonderful new man.  He’s fictional, but you can’t have everything.”

The commentary being made here regarding our fascination with movie characters (and the movies themselves) as opposed to the actors who play them seems simple, but in trying to analyze it like a “real” critic, I feel helpless in the face of the ingenuity of the situation.  My words aren’t doing justice to the almost poetic elegance on display.  The more you love movies, the more you’ll appreciate what I’m desperately trying to convey.

There are two moments/sequences that elevate The Purple Rose of Cairo from a dramatic exercise into the realm of genuine movie magic.  One is when Tom wants to show Cecilia a night on the town, but they have no money (Cecilia is broke, and all of Tom’s movie money is fake).  But he remembers that, in the “fake” Purple Rose movie, the scene coming up after the one he abandoned takes all the characters to the Copacabana.  It’s here that the viewer simply must suspend what little disbelief remains and give in to the simple but grand gesture of watching Cecilia herself appear on the black-and-white screen with all of the people she’s been watching night after night.  They go to the Copa, and after watching the singer who’s supposed to be Tom Baxter’s love interest, Tom and Cecilia head out for a night on the town, as only 1930’s movies could provide.  (The maître d’ provides one of the movies biggest laughs when he suddenly realizes he can do whatever he wants…and does.)

But the greatest moment is the very ending, which I will try desperately not to spoil here.  It’s here where we get to the heart of what Woody Allen is really trying to say: The movies are here and real life is there, and never the twain shall meet.  Is this a depressing point of view?  Well, I mean…yeah, a little.  But it’s also indisputably true.  If we walked around like we were actually in a movie, we’d never lock our doors behind us when we walked into our apartment.  Everyone’s phone numbers would begin with “555”.  We’d turn on the light when answering the phone at night (who does that, really?).  But in the real world, none of that is true.  In the real world, hearts get broken, sometimes for good.  We get fired.  People die.  WE die.  Love the movies, Allen is saying, but never forget that you’re flesh and bone, and that actions have consequences.  I’m reminded of a good line from Ready Player One: “As terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place that you can get a decent meal.”

The final shot of the movie, of Cecilia smiling through her tears, moved me like I’ve rarely been moved before.  It reminded me, perversely, of some of the worst times in my life because it was at those dark times that the movies came to my aid.  I went through a fair episode of depression in my twenties; a friend showed me Harold and Maude, and it literally changed my life.  During the Covid lockdown, I was furloughed, and the maddening Florida unemployment website sapped my will to live, figuratively speaking; my best friend, out of the blue, bought me a copy of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker just to cheer me up…and it did.  During that same period, several different films were in constant rotation in my movie room, all of which provided spectacular ways of escaping real life: Blade Runner 2049, Prometheus, The Martian, Interstellar, Gravity, and Sunshine [2007].  Not all laugh riots, to be sure, but they were excellent tonics against the constant worry of unemployment and disease.

And in 2017, Hurricane Irma threatened Florida.  For the first time, I was genuinely frightened that we would finally see real danger from a hurricane.  Miraculously, a local multiplex chose to stay open until almost the eleventh hour, and to get our minds off the approaching storm, I took my girlfriend to see the new remake of Stephen King’s It.  For two hours, we got scared out of our wits in the best way possible.  We escaped reality, and collectively we had our real-world fears literally exorcised.  I cannot tell you how grateful we were to have that brief respite from our troubles.

Those are the memories that came back to me in the final sequence of The Purple Rose of Cairo.  Yes, the real world is still the only place to get a decent meal, and it remains imperfect and sometimes painful.  But the movies are as close as a button click or a car ride.  They’re implausible and sometimes unrealistic and not always perfectly written.  But The Purple Rose of Cairo just wants to remind us of their power to cheer us up and transport us.

THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (United Kingdom, 1982)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Peter Greenaway
CAST: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Ann-Louise Lambert, Hugh Fraser
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Fresh

PLOT: An insouciant young artist is commissioned by the wife of a wealthy landowner to make a series of drawings of the estate while her husband is away.


The directorial debut film of Peter Greenaway at first feels like a mashup of earlier British period films, most notably Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones.  It contains much of the painterly beauty and some – not a lot – of the stateliness of Kubrick’s film, combined with the irreverence of Tom Jones, especially concerning sexual matters.  However, The Draughtsman’s Contract makes its own mark, particularly in the closing sequences when revelations occur throwing everything that has come before into a different light.  In behind-the-scenes interviews on the Blu-ray, multiple people say multiple times that the clues to the mystery that pops up unexpectedly are hidden in plain sight.  Well, kudos to the filmmakers, because I was fooled.

The story takes place in 1694 in one of the more beautiful portions of the English countryside.  A dimly-lit prologue establishes the particulars: Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgins, whom you may recognize as Sherlock Holmes’s mentor in Young Sherlock Holmes [1985]) is a talented but arrogant draughtsman (pronounced “draftsman”), much in demand for the quality of his pencil drawings.  After much prodding from Mrs. Herbert (Janet Suzman) and her married daughter, Mrs. Talmann (Anne-Louise Lambert), he is persuaded to enter into a contract to produce twelve drawings of Mrs. Herbert’s country estate while Mr. Herbert is away on business.  But because Mr. Neville is abandoning a previous commitment, he insists that his payment be his regular fee, full room and board on the estate…and one private visit each day to Mrs. Herbert so that she may “comply with his requests concerning his pleasure.”  I would say that this may have influenced Jane Campion’s masterpiece The Piano, except the favors in The Piano evolve into something deeper, while the favors in Contract have no deeper level than satisfying Mr. Neville’s appetites.

Given the reputed over-the-top nature of Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (unseen by me so far), I expected the scenes depicting Mrs. Herbert’s contractual obligations to be far more explicit than what is shown.  This is not a criticism.  I think, for this film, that kind of attention-getting device would detract from the narrative momentum Greenaway achieves.  Since the movie is extremely dialogue-heavy, we are better served by short scenes leaving no question as to the liberties taken by Mr. Neville, so we may return expeditiously to the plot.

(I stand corrected: there is one brief but potentially stomach-churning shot of Mrs. Herbert dealing with the effects of eating something that perhaps did not entirely agree with her…eeyuck.)

Leaving those interludes aside, the film is essentially a series of deliberately wordy conversations among Mr. Neville, his servant, Mrs. Talmann, Mrs. Herbert, etcetera, while we also watch Mr. Neville practicing his craft.  Using an ingenious device I’ve never seen before, he sets up a framed grid of wires on a tripod so that the object he’s drawing is divided into multiple squares.  Then he simply draws an expanded version of the framed object onto his sketchpad, grid by grid.  (My girlfriend and I used a variation of this same process to draw Timon from The Lion King at Animal Kingdom.)

His one guiding rule is: “Draw what you see, not what you know.”  As such, if the view has changed in any way when he returns to each site, he immediately incorporates those changes into his drawing, whether the changes be as simple as the addition of a ladder on the side of a building or more complex, like adding a dog standing outside a greenhouse.  This credo will come back to haunt Mr. Neville in ways he cannot anticipate.

A mystery arises.  Mr. Herbert never returns from his business trip.  His horse is found wandering the estate.  No one can confirm his arrival at his destination.  Articles of Mr. Herbert’s clothing suddenly appear here and there around the estate…and as such, immediately become part of Neville’s drawings.

And what’s the story with the occasional appearance of a naked man whom we, the audience, can see, but which the movie characters cannot?  True, he’s not quite in anyone’s field of vision, except twice, when a child can clearly see him, but his guardian cannot, and when a steward shoos him away off a bridge.  I have gone over his scenes in my head multiple times, and I still cannot grasp the significance of this anomaly.  Director Greenaway was a painter before he became a filmmaker (indeed, it is his hands we see making Neville’s sketches), so presumably there’s a reason behind it.  Is this man a Fellini-esque or Lynchian sideshow, intended to raise questions without answering them?  Or is this man a visual representation of the “paint what you see, not what you know” philosophy?  If we extend that rule to our lives, are we being encouraged not to ignore the fanciful, the odd, the unusual, simply because they may not fit in the limited framework of our beliefs and/or prejudices?  Perhaps the child could see this man because he did not yet have any prejudices that would exclude him from his awareness, whereas his guardian simply sees a wall, or a statue, because that’s easier to deal with.  Discuss.

Whatever this naked man represents is secondary, at least during the film, to what happens among Mr. Neville, Mrs. Herbert, and her daughter Mrs. Tallman.  I especially enjoyed just listening to them talk.  In its own way, The Draughtsman’s Contract reminded me of the films of Tarantino, where outrageous incidents or conduct are always framed by characters who talk and talk.  What a treat it is sometimes to just listen to dialogue that doesn’t feel like it was generated at the cliché factory.  Some examples:

  • “Why is that Dutchman waving his arms about?  Is he homesick for windmills?”
  • “When your speech is as coarse as your face, Louis, then you sound as impotent by day as you perform by night.”
  • “He doesn’t like to see the fish.  Carp live too long…they remind him of Catholics.”
  • “Your inventory, Louis, is unlimited, like your long, clean, white breeches.  There is nothing of substance in either of them.”

And so on.  Full disclosure: before the eventual resolution of Mr. Herbert’s disappearance and the subtle change in relationship between Mr. Neville and Mrs. Herbert, I was resigned to the idea that the movie had nothing else to offer, plot-wise, and I was mentally giving the film a more mediocre score.  But good things come to those who wait.  Give The Draughtsman’s Contract a chance, and you will find, as I did, that Greenaway has a few surprises in store for anyone who thinks they know how this story will end.

GET CARTER (United Kingdom, 1971)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Mike Hodges
CAST: Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland, John Osborne
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 87% Fresh

PLOT: When his brother dies under mysterious circumstances, London gangster Jack Carter travels to Newcastle to investigate.


While watching 1971’s Get Carter (Caine, not Stallone), I was reminded of so many other later films that I began to wonder what gangster/crime films weren’t influenced by Get Carter.  Throughout the picture, I could see hints and whispers of Bugsy, Beverly Hills Cop, Carlito’s Way, and the John Wick franchise, among others.  I probably missed some.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe those films weren’t paying homage to the best British film ever made (according to a 2004 poll), at least not consciously.  But its DNA is there for anyone who knows where to look.

(To be sure, Get Carter was itself influenced by earlier authors and films.  In very broad strokes, the plot of Get Carter resembles The Big Sleep.  In both films, a hard, cynical man tries to get to the bottom of a mystery that no one else is particularly interested in solving.  They both even involve pornography, though to be sure that was more implied in the older film, while in Get Carter we are left in no doubt.)

The tone of Get Carter matches its protagonist: cold, flat, uninflected, violent only when it has to be.  Michael Caine’s performance is a masterpiece of understated, simmering viciousness.  He only gets really angry a few times in the film, and he doesn’t smile, not genuinely, until the very end.  I read on IMDb that Caine’s intention was to show a more realistic, less sensational kind of violence than had been seen in earlier gangster films, “never using thirty punches when one would do.”

This is also an echo of a French film, Le samouraï, in which a professional killer shows absolutely no expressions the entire film, even with a gun in his face.  Carter is equally cool under pressure, as in the scene when he is surprised in the act of “lovemaking” (love has nothing to do with it) by two gangsters.  He registers surprise and little else, pulling a double-barreled shotgun from under the bed and, while stark naked, marching his would-be attackers out of the flat at gunpoint.  In a movie with little to no humor, there is a welcome double-take from the nosey next-door neighbor, not to mention the children’s parade taking place down the street.  (In this scene, there is something very Bond-like about Carter, mixing deadly danger with borderline slapstick.)

1971 was not a year for shrinking violets at the movies.  It saw the release of Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange, and The French Connection, among others.  Into this mix comes Get Carter with its casual violence and frequent female nudity, profanity, and so on.  Even so, there were a couple of moments that got a little shock out of me.  One was when a car is disposed of while Carter knows what precious cargo is in the trunk, but the bad guys do not.  Watch Carter’s utter impassiveness; he could have raised a warning, but he doesn’t.  There’s cold, and then there’s cold.  Another shocking moment is when Carter absentmindedly turns on a film projector and watches the amateur porn film displayed on the wall.  Watch his face again as he slowly realizes the identity of one of the actresses in this tawdry film.  A tear rolls down his face.  Because of what we already know about Carter, that tear doesn’t just mean he’s grieving.  He’s so boiling mad that I feared for the life of the woman in the next room.  It’s a great moment because of how rarely we see emotion on his face.

Get Carter is classic noir, just in color and with more adult situations.  Carter may not be a cop, but he has a code, nonetheless.  He absolutely will not stop digging until he solves the question of his brother’s death.  He defies his own bosses in London, ignores many warnings, survives several attempts on his life, but he just can’t help himself.  His obsession trumps everything else, just like Bogey in The Big Sleep or William Hurt in Body Heat.  There are hints of tragedy at every turn, but Carter presses on, whatever the cost, even if he thinks he might not like what he finds.  These are the qualities of any great noir hero, and Carter exemplifies them all.

***SPOILER ALERT AHEAD, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED:***

I feel obligated to mention my reaction, at least briefly, to the film’s ending.  At first, I threw my hands in the air, much as I did at the ending of…well, another very different film from the late ‘60s.  But as I thought back to the events of the film leading to this moment, I had to shrug and say to myself, “Well…it’s not like they didn’t warn him.”  At least it’s motivated by something, and not just random fate.  I can accept it.  It’s not something you would see in a conventional Hollywood film today, that’s for sure.  Look at John Wick.

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Howard Hawks
CAST: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 88% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A couple of showgirls on a cruise to France get themselves involved in a plot involving a private detective, a diamond tiara, and the occasional musical number.


Why did I watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a musical from 1953 featuring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe?  Well, it happens to be listed in the movie compendium 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, for one thing.  And there’s the uber-famous production number “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” performed by Marilyn Monroe in that iconic pink dress that showcased her shimmy like nothing else I can think of.  And it’s directed by Howard Hawks, one of my favorite directors from Hollywood’s golden years (His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, Bringing Up Baby, many others).

While the song and the actors and the direction are competent, I didn’t quite get involved in the story as much as I hoped I would.  There’s no denying the wattage generated by Monroe whenever she’s on screen, and the screenplay by Charles Lederer provides some amazing little zingers, some of which I’m shocked got past the 1953 censors.  (When a man is asked which girl he would save from drowning first, Russell or Monroe, the man replies in admiration, “Those girls couldn’t drown.”)  But the plot, which I won’t even bother describing here, is merely a nail on which to hang those visuals of Jane and Marilyn strutting their stuff in exuberant Technicolor dresses and the occasional song or three.  Make no mistake, from a narrative standpoint, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is pure farce, top to bottom.  (And no wonder, it’s based on a stage musical.)  You either give in to the formula or you don’t.  And I’ll admit, there were times when I didn’t.  There’s a song and dance number at a Parisian café which I thought was unnecessary, and the tortuous route traveled by the tiara, especially its final hiding place, stretched the logical part of my brain to the limit.

But, on the other hand…yeah, it was fun.  Set logic aside and surrender to the sights and sounds, and Gentlemen provides substantial eye and ear candy.  And there are some genuine laughs.  Like the subplot about Monroe looking through the passenger manifest looking for gentlemen traveling “with valets”, who must therefore be rich.  She finds one, Henry Spofford III, and arranges for him to be seated at her dinner table.  The revelation of Mr. Spofford’s true nature is one of the comic high points.

Or the bit towards the end where Jane Russell gets to have her cake and eat it, too.  Thanks to the machinations of the plot, Russell not only gets top billing for the movie, but she also gets to lampoon her sexy costar by impersonating Marilyn Monroe.  (In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that her appearance in a courtroom wearing a fur coat that conceals all until she crosses her fishnet-clad legs may have provided at least SOME inspiration to that one scene in Basic Instinct.  YOU know which scene I’m talking about, perv.)

But when it comes down to it, if for nothing else, you’ve got to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes just to see Marilyn Monroe singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”  She may play ditzy and dumb for the whole rest of the movie, but in this number, Monroe is totally and fully in command of her body, the camera, and the audience in that strapless pink dress which looks like it’s held up by sheer willpower.  For several minutes, she coos, struts, bumps, shimmies and shakes, and there’s nothing you can do but just watch in awe.  Almost as much as she did in Some Like It Hot, she simply embodies sexual…sexual…you know what, she just embodies sex.  I suppose there’s a more literary way to describe it, but I’m too tired to think of it.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes may not feature the dancing feet of Gwen Verdon or Gene Kelly, or the vocal stylings of Debbie Reynolds or, well, Gene Kelly, or the literary complexity of West Side Story or A Star Is Born.  But when you have a song and dance number that is literally inimitable (sorry, Madonna, nice try), who cares?  I can think of plenty of worse ways to spend an evening than watching Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe for 90 minutes.

[Side note: Penni was NOT a fan of how Monroe’s character constantly called her fiancé “daddy.”  Not sure why I’m mentioning that, but it just made it funnier to me every time Monroe said it.]

CASABLANCA

By Marc S. Sanders

I’ve always struggled with Casablanca.  It just does not have that hold on me that so many cinema lovers acquire upon viewing the celebrated film.  In the past, I’ve called it overrated, a bore, underwhelming, and plenty of other negative connotations.  Don’t worry reader.  I’ve been stabbed in the heart, back and eyes a thousand times over with the eyerolls, the verbal gasps, and the room exits from friends when I contribute to a discussion on this overall favorite.  I’ve tried.  Believe me, I’ve tried to love Casablanca.  Now, on this fifth viewing, or call it the sixth because I had to stop in the middle when my mind was wandering last week, I sincerely developed a semblance of appreciation for the picture.  Now be patient with me.

To absorb the classic film about Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), the saloon keeper who keeps to himself, crossing paths with his long-lost love Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), I allowed myself to envision watching it in a movie house in 1942, when World War II was occurring on another side of the world and people were being forced to relocate or suffer captivity at the hands of the vile Nazi regime.  Casablanca, Morocco was the last hopeful exit to Lisbon, and then on to the Americas.  I had to embrace the setting and the time period in order to relate to the Oscar winning film. 

Rick runs the Café Americain near the airport of Casablanca.  All walks of life come through the doors each night to drink, gamble, smoke, flirt, and sing along with Sam the memorably charming piano player (Dooley Wilson). Most importantly, some patrons hope to score the necessary papers for passage out of this tiny desert port area that has yet to be Nazi occupied.  Rick is the expatriate who runs this gin joint and he has no interest in aiding anyone with an escape, nor with assisting the Nazis in rounding up their usual suspects they believe are enemies of the state.  He could care less about anyone’s cause or politics.  He just wants to run a respectable bar.

However, the past circles back on Rick when Ilsa arrives with a wanted Frenchman named Victor Laszlo, great name, played by Paul Henreid.  Victor has escaped the concentration camps and he is making efforts to reach the states so that he can continue his underground campaign of exposing the treachery and threats of the Nazis.  Rick has already been warned if Victor should make an appearance he must not be permitted to leave Casablanca.  The bar manager would rather not be involved.  Yet, it’s hard for him to resist thinking about his past love, Ilsa. Flashbacks soon reveal their time spent in Paris when they fell madly in love only for her to suddenly abandon him as they were trying to board a train exodus before the Nazis seized the territory.

Casablanca has a very simple plot and that lends to the strength of its finished product.  The love triangle of three good people, Rick, Ilsa and Victor, is where the complexity lies and there is no denying how memorable the main players are in their roles.  However, I can only surmise that the legendary status of the film tainted my open mindedness for an admiration of the piece.  The hype has always been too much for me, I guess.

Reader, I don’t think I am a big fan of Humphrey Bogart.  I’m very sorry.  It could be The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon.  Too often, I think he is quite bland in his signature, unforgettable caricature. No matter which film he’s in, Bogart is unique.  There is still no one like him with his chiseled face, dark hair and deep voice.  I’m not sure that’s even a fair description.  It’s hard to find the right adjectives for Bogie.  He was one of a kind.  However, there was little range to the star.  (I know.  I’ve seen The African Queen; great movie.) Rick is so closed off and predominantly on the same plane of emotions whether I am seeing him at the beginning of the film or at the end when he delivers his final speech to Ilsa before the plane departure.  He’s too one note for me. He’s just a boring guy and if I was at a table drinking alongside him, I would have to excuse myself very quickly.  Even to play chess with Rick would be excruciating.

Paul Henried is charming though.  He plays Victor as the adventurer or the daring swashbuckler, aware of his threat to the Nazis, but fearless in whatever he faces.  He just knows he serves a greater purpose to the world.  The loose knit, white suit and hat compliment his relaxed stature.  Even the scar over his right eye seems to tell a story.  In Casablanca, I find myself more concerned with what will happen to Victor Laszlo than anyone else.

Ingrid Berman is strikingly beautiful.  You can just recognize her exuberance through the black and white photography.  She was an actress that the camera loved and her performance is sensational as the woman caught in the middle, who mourned what she thought was the loss of a husband, only to find new love. Then the unexpected interfered with her desire for a promising new future.  Her best scene is when she stands up to Rick, no matter the stakes, to get him to help her rescue her husband Victor.  If it is not pleading, then she will use other means.  Frankly, I had forgotten what she tried next in this scene, which I will not spoil.  So, when the camera cuts back to her following another speech from Rick, my eyes went wide.  Ilsa is not just some pretty dame.  She knows she must be more than that, even more than a one night stand or some gentleman’s true love.

For so many years, I would hop on The Great Movie Ride at Disney/MGM studios and come across the famous final scene.  I heard Rick’s speech so many times, a hundred times more than I have watched Casablanca.  Take a scene like that out of context, and it waters down the power of the celebrated film.  What a difference it makes after you learn why Rick and Ilsa could not stay together following Paris, and why you learn their fates are destined for different paths perhaps.  “Here’s lookin’ at you kid!” has a deeper connotation when watching the film as a whole.  I know I’m pointing out the obvious.  Yet, I embraced Bogart’s improvised line that much more in addition to so many other well-known pieces of dialogue.  Other films have those special moments where you can isolate a scene on a work break and just take it in.  I know snippets of Casablanca are viewed that way, but there’s an emptiness to watching these scenes in that fashion.

In 1942, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as Jews and gypsies and every other race or nationality or demographic were being bullied at the hands of an unforgiving Nazi regime, audiences must have regarded Victor, Ilsa and Rick as heroes.  True heroes!  They must have been considered the heroes who don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed-up world, but must therefore sacrifice what they hold so dear and personal.  It makes me wonder if Michael Curtiz’ film would have had the same kind of impact if it was released at later time in the century like the 1960s, long after the war was over and the Axis armies, particularly the Nazis, were wiped out.  In 1942, perhaps I would have had more of an appreciation for Rick and Ilsa if I watched the film then. 

My attention especially perked up during the competitive nature of the French and Moroccan patrons singing the anthem La Marseillaise against the Germans’ rendition of Die Wacht am Rhein.  It’s a scene that demonstrates promise during a very frightening and confusing period in time.  I imagine audiences applauded and cheered during this scene.  On the other hand, maybe they were afraid and apprehensive to do so during such a confusing time.  The fiction found in the Oscar winning script from twin brothers Julius and Phillip Epstein was daring enough to defy the power of Hitler’s fast rising influence.  Modern films from the likes of Spike Lee and Adam McKay attempt to circumvent their stories to present day crises and dare to footnote their films with real life news footage.  It’s admirable at times.  Sometimes their efforts are divisive.  Yet, they do not feel as meaningful as what the Epstein brothers and Curtiz accomplished.  For me, this moment near the conclusion of Casablanca is my favorite scene of the picture.  The slaphappy regulars of Rick’s Café  Americain were enthusiastic to join Sam for a rousing rendition of Knock On Wood, but when reality intrudes upon their escapism, another dimension to the people does not hesitate to stand up for a purpose.

So, it’s always been tough to win me over with Casablanca.  Still, I marvel at the picture for the absorbing settings of Rick’s Café along with the crowded Moroccan streets occupied with refugees and pickpockets under the authority of a party who threatens to stake its claim.  Sam turns the bar into a regular evening atmosphere to bond and escape while the drinkers yearn to be on the next plane to safety and freedom.  Tricks are turned where travel papers are the most sought-after commodity, and ultimately, beyond Rick Blaine, there are people who may strive for safe passage and will also unite against a tyranny if enough will take up their swords, people like Victor Laszlo. This is what I treasure from Casablanca. 

The cast consists of a colorful bunch including Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt.  Plus, Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris, but that was always a tough relationship for me to connect with.  What is more meaningful is the harbor that Casablanca and Rick’s Café Americain offered those who were fleeing, hiding and surviving amid their desperations.

This will not be the last time I watch Casablanca.  For a film to have this much staying power after more than eighty years, there must be something else I have yet to uncover, and I cannot wait to find it.

I’ll play it again for old time’s sake. 

JOE KIDD

By Marc S. Sanders

Joe Kidd is not one of Clint Eastwood’s best westerns.  In fact, it might be his weakest of the sort.  The film arrived at the tail end of director John Sturges’ (Bad Day At Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven) career and through my research it seems that Eastwood did not get along with him.  Sturges was rumored to be an alcoholic providing limited focus on the film in question.  I’m apt to believe that theory.  Joe Kidd, which was scripted by Elmore Leonard who would go on to write Get Shorty, is full of enormous plot holes. 

Eastwood is a welcome sight at first, handcuffed in the Sherrif’s jail until he’s unlocked to attend his court hearing.  Before leaving, in typical quiet, tough guy style, he demonstrates to an annoying cellmate that he won’t be intimidated by splashing the guy’s stew in his face and then denting the pot over his forehead.  It’s a great introduction for a title character.  I laughed.  I clapped.  After that, however, the movie fell apart.

The structure of Joe Kidd seems to start in the middle of a story that opted not to go back to the beginning.  A Mexican rebel leader named Luis Chama (John Saxon) causes some ruckus in the courtroom and around town, and then he flees into the nearby mountains.  Joe manages to shoot one gang member who enters the saloon.  Thereafter, a wealthy landsman named Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) arrives and after paying for Kidd’s bail, he hires the ex-bounty hunter to accompany his posse and bring back Chama and his squad.  According to Harlan, Chama is occupying a large chunk of valuable land and therefore has to be taken out of the equation.  Okay.  Simple enough.

However, the narrative zig zags from that point.  First, Joe declines the offer from Harlan.  Then he discovers that Chama has tied up one of his ranch hands in barbed wire.  So, he dons his perfect tough guy cowboy duds (his hat looks great on his head) and off he goes with Harlan.  Midway on their journey through the mountains, they set up camp at a Mexican church.  Harlan announces into the wide expanse, for Chama to hear, that he will kill five people in the church if he does not surrender himself.  After a period of time, he’ll kill five more until the Rebel gives himself in and so on and so on.  Joe Kidd does not agree with this arrangement, gets fired by Harlan and eventually sidles up with Chama.  What’s going on here?  Didn’t Joe want to even a score with Chama after what he did to his ranch hand?  In a short ninety-minute running time, set ups occur only to be undone minutes later, and I’m starting to question my ability for basic comprehension. 

To date, of all I’ve seen in Robert Duvall’s illustrious career, this is hands down the weakest character he’s portrayed.  He’s not a terrible actor here.  He just has nothing to do except look like a greedy landowner with a mustache and a six shooter on his hip.  He’s not given any dimension of material to play with, and thus comes off like a bad guy of the week on an episode of The A-Team.  John Saxon actually guest starred a few times on that show as a variety of different bad guys.  The only new thing I see from him in this picture is his unconvincing Mexican accent. 

Clint Eastwood is playing his typical westerner.  He looks great with the hat and stature and the gun in his hand.  Yet, the novelty looks tired here.  As if we’ve already seen him in other classics like the Dollars trilogy, and High Plains Drifter.  There was nothing new to offer with Joe Kidd.  A diversion occurs early on where Kidd is about to take advantage of Harlan’s girl.  That goes nowhere and serves no purpose.

I imagine there was a better and more fleshed out script here that never materialized.  A friend of mine recently asked me if it would make sense to remake films with potentially good ideas that were poorly executed.  Seems logical to me, and then he asked me to name some examples.  On the spot, I could not come up with one.  Howard The Duck? Never!  Green Lantern?  Yeah, that’ll likely be done eventually anyway.  However, I think I have come across a good one to consider.  How about remaking Joe Kidd? 

You know what?  Wouldn’t work.  There’s a tone to the piece that seems a little prejudiced and not appropriate for present day. More importantly, on another try, it wouldn’t have the main attraction. 

Has anyone remade a Clint Eastwood picture? 

My point exactly!