Category: Genre

BOBBY (2006)

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s the distinguished doorman who is retired now but returns each day to play chess with a colleague in the hotel lobby.  There’s the open-minded girl who is inspired to prevent a young man from getting drafted into the Vietnam War by marrying him.  Her hairdresser is married to the hotel manager, who happens to be having an affair with the beautiful switchboard operator.  As well, the dining manager is a bigot who will deny his Mexican employees enough time to leave work and exercise their right to vote.  A busboy will have no choice but to miss what will likely be Don Drysdale record breaking sixth shut out game in a row.  A drunken night club performer can hardly stand up straight while she is completely dismissive of her caring husband.  A wealthy man is ready to introduce his trophy wife to an eventful evening in modern politics.  Two young campaign workers sneak away to drop acid for the first time.  A black man is at a loss following the recent assassination of Dr. King. Though he has hope that at least Bobby Kennedy will uphold his faith for a promising future in America for African Americans to carry equal rights. 

So, what does any of this have to do with Robert F Kennedy?  Not much I’m afraid.  Writer/Director and star Emilio Estevez tells us that all of these stories occur in the Ambassador Hotel on the fateful night when the Senator was assassinated in the hotel kitchen by Sirhan Sirhan.  In Bobby, the only character that is not a character is Bobby Kennedy and that is unfortunate.  More to the point, all of these short stories and other characters are precisely boring.

Estevez committed himself to grinding out stories that occur in the Ambassador that would lead up to Kennedy’s tragic death.  He’s admitted that they are all fictional. Based on his research and photographs, these characters are very loosely inspired by those that were there that night.  Before gathering in the ballroom to hear Kennedy’s victory speech after winning the California primary, these people were going through own personal ordeals.  If Emilio Estevez was not so personally inspired and researched in Robert Kennedy’s purpose to American history and politics, then perhaps Arthur Hailey (Hotel, Airport) would have pieced together this script of anecdotes and vignettes.

I commend Estevez’ efforts here.  The film looks great and even though the Ambassador was being demolished at literally the same time as this film was being shot, the scenic designs are very authentic.  The cast is even more impressive as the director reunites with many co-stars that he’s worked with before including Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Christian Slater and his real-life father Martin Sheen, a lifelong loyalist to the Kennedy family.  The “importance” of this movie seems to sell itself.  Yet, everything is incredibly mundane and of little interest.  When your cast and your characters are just items on a grocery list to check off, there’s not much that’s interesting beyond the coupons.

The juicy gossip that surrounds the real-life actors is more captivating. Estevez cast Ashton Kutcher (Demi Moore’s real-life husband at the time) to play the drug dealer who provides acid to the campaign workers (Shia LeBeouf, Brian Geraghty).  Moore is also Estevez’ ex-girlfriend.  Yet, to watch Kutcher, LeBeouf and Geraghty experience an acid trip with weird visions they see when they open a bedroom closet is unfunny and not captivating.  Emilio Estevez is not living up to the Coen Brothers (The Big Lebowski).

A tryst with the boss (William H Macy) and his young, attractive and naïve switchboard operator (Heather Graham) is nauseatingly hokey.  The aged wife who works in the hotel salon (Sharon Stone) turns it all into squeamish soap opera tripe.

Bobby has an alarming opening.  A false alarm fire call is wrapping up at the Ambassador Hotel and you may feel like you are entering the middle of a panic storm, but things quickly calm down and the film resorts to cookie cutter editing to introduce its all-star cast.  None of what they say matters.  This is a game of who you can recognize.  Joshua Jackson, Nick Cannon, Harry Belafonte, and eventually the guy with the most significant role, Laurence Fishburne, is given his moment, the best scene of the whole film.  Fishburne is the kitchen chef who allegorically uses his creations in cuisine to compare the black man’s experience to the brown man’s, or Mexican. 

Having finished a trip to Martha’s Vineyard, I wanted to show my wife the under-the-radar and captivating film, Chappaquiddick, which covers Ted Kennedy’s personal story of controversy.  (My review of that film is on this site.) To continue on the Kennedy parade, we were motivated to follow up with Bobby.  Yet, this picture offers very little to the significance of Senator Robert F Kennedy.  There are samples of news reports complete with Cronkite.  Plus, the Senator’s own words ring through the epilogue of the picture.  Yet, I felt cheated of learning nothing new about the historical figure. 

Reader, you may tell me to kick dirt and go find another movie or read a book.  Fair!  However, this is film is called Bobby, and if I’m not going to learn about Bobby Kennedy from the man himself, then allow me to get to know the man through the eyes of these individuals.  Who hates him?  Who loves him? Who has a crush on him?  Who is inspired by him?  Who wants him dead and why? 

Estevez’ script does not allow enough material to describe what Kennedy meant to these campaign workers or hotel workers or guests.  They are primarily self-absorbed in their own personal battles to think enough about the fact that Bobby Kennedy is expected to make an appearance later this evening.  Again, their personal concerns for each other is very dull.  I don’t want to be around a drunk and obnoxious Demi Moore.  I don’t want to drop acid with some guys who hide behind a façade for caring about the candidate they are supposed to be serving.  I feel sorry for the busboy who will miss that big game, but that’s not enough to get me engaged in the entirety of the picture.

Bobby lends very little to the confusing times of the late sixties when an unwinnable war was persisting and championed leaders were being killed for others’ agendas.  Any of these stories could have been yanked from this script and slotted into a disaster flick like The Poseidon Adventure or The Towering Inferno. 

Bobby only picks up momentum when it arrives at its end that many of us learned about in school or witnessed firsthand in documentaries or directly from that very sad and unfortunate evening, June 4, 1968.  This day in history is so much more important than a Helen Hunt character trying to convince her Martin Sheen husband to let her buy a new pair of black shoes.  Bobby Kennedy deserves more recognition than what Emilio Estevez offered.

BRING HER BACK (2025)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTORS: Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou
CAST: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sora Wong
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 89% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother.


Bring Her Back is a supremely disturbing modern horror film from the two directors of 2022’s celebrated debut film Talk to Me; it’s right up there with Hereditary [2018] and The Babadook [2014].  It brazenly opens with creepy black and white footage of…something…then appears to drop into “Lifetime-movie” mode, lulling us along until WHAM, something truly unbelievable occurs, and it’s just a roller-coaster ride the rest of the way.  It’s bloody ingenious.  (Emphasis on the “bloody.”)

Andy (Billy Barratt) and the visually-impaired Piper (Sora Wong) are step-siblings who experience an early tragedy, resulting in the two of them being assigned as foster children to Laura (Sally Hawkins), a single mother who has experienced a tragedy of her own.  Her child is Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a 10-year-old boy who has been voluntarily mute since his sister, Laura’s daughter, drowned in their pool, now kept empty.

Ominous signs abound.  Laura’s house is completely encircled by a strip of white paint.  She locks Oliver in his room whenever she leaves the house.  At a funeral, Laura surreptitiously clips some hairs from the body in the casket.  Andy discovers he has started wetting the bed, but he’s 17 years old; Laura ascribes it to stress, but the real reason is far more…invasive.  And over everything is the mute Oliver, lurking in the background, occasionally banging on doors and windows, and more.

Another superb element to the story is the character of Piper, Andy’s visually-impaired sister.  I mention this because the filmmakers deliberately held a casting call for actual visually-impaired actresses, settling on the completely non-professional Sora Wong.  This aspect of her character is utilized to the hilt throughout the movie, in ways I can’t even hint at without spoiling any surprises.  (Okay, I’ll mention one moment…where she knows someone is front of her, feels their head, then turns and asks someone else, “Who is this?”  BRRRRR…)

When the Philippou brothers do drop the hammer and get started with the real horror elements, they do not hold back.  There are scenes here as terrifying and as off-putting (in a good way, I guess?) as anything in [insert your favorite horror film here].  There are images here that I will not soon forget.  In a perfect world, this movie would become so popular among horror fans that those scenes would become part of a pop-culture shorthand.  “The knife scene.”  “The table scene.”  “The Russian videos.”  “The ‘self-snacking’ shot.”

I initially had an issue with the very ending, which felt more, shall we say, heartfelt than the rest of the movie implied was coming.  However, I learn from IMDb that the Philippous had a much grander ending planned.  But everything changed when a close friend of theirs passed away unexpectedly during production; the film is dedicated to him in the closing credits.  Danny Philippou is quoted: “[The film’s ending] goes against the conventions a little bit, but it feels more true to life.”  Watch the film and judge for yourself if he’s right.  As for me, now that I know that piece of trivia, the film’s ending is easier for me to accept.

Here’s hoping that Bring Her Back becomes at least a cult classic.  For someone like me, who’s a bit picky with this genre, it’s an easy pick for a new movie to throw into my annual Halloween rotation.  I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks, William Atherton
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 87% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A young wife breaks her husband out of prison in 1969 Texas so he can help reclaim their infant from a foster family.  The ensuing media circus takes everyone by surprise.


Watching Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express is like looking at one of those historical medieval tapestries of fierce battles, created by artists who didn’t yet know how to depict perspective.  There is plenty of action on display, but everything looks and feels flat.  The film took an award at Cannes that year for Best Screenplay, probably (at least partly) in recognition of how it shies away from a traditional Hollywood resolution, but even its downbeat ending is reminiscent of earlier, more resonant films like Bonnie and Clyde [1967] or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969].  As a stepping stone in the career of an eventual legend, it’s worth a view.  As a stand-alone film, it never quite achieves liftoff.

Based on real events, The Sugarland Express tells the story of Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn at her irrepressible, bubbly best), the young wife of prison inmate Clovis Poplin (William Atherton).  During a conjugal visit, just four months before Clovis is to be released, Lou Jean boldly busts him out because she needs his help to reclaim their infant, Langston, from a foster home.  Lou Jean herself has just finished serving time at a women’s prison, and the state, probably very wisely, determined Langston was better off with a foster family.  But they need to hurry because “I bet those Methodists are gettin’ ready to move out of state.”  Lou Jean’s delivery of “Methodists” tells you all you need to know about her feelings on the matter.

After Lou Jean breaks him out, a comedy of errors ends up in a situation where she and Clovis have hijacked a police cruiser and are holding a police officer at gunpoint.  They demand to be left alone while they drive to Sugarland, Texas, and retrieve their son, at which point they’ll release their hostage.

Now, this has all the makings of a smart, character-driven “road” movie, instigated by desperate people with no real plans for their end-game.  But for reasons I can’t put a finger on, nothing ever happens in the film that got me on the edge of my seat, figuratively speaking.  I fully comprehended the situation intellectually, but the film never got to me at an emotional level.

Could it be because we never really learn a lot about Lou Jean and Clovis in order to make them more empathetic?  No, I don’t think so, because over the course of the film, we’ll hear all about their past histories and previous brushes with the law.  The very fact they’re executing this plan to essentially kidnap Langston is proof of how unfit they are as parents.

I think part of the problem with the movie is…

…I’ve been sitting here for the last fifteen minutes trying to finish that sentence.  I can report that the film didn’t get to me emotionally, but I am struggling to explain why.  Could it be as simple as I think they’re not such great people, but the film seems to be siding with them as the movie progresses?  I mean, the movie HAS to side with them at least partially in order to make their journey mean anything.  Look at Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Bank robbers, lawbreakers, but clearly the good guys because, duh, Paul Newman and Robert Redford are playing them.

So, maybe it has to do with the casting?  The Sugarland Express had one of America’s sweethearts as a woman willing to resort to kidnapping just to commit another kidnapping in the name of maternal love.  So, we’ve gotta root for her, right?  But then we see her behaving in the most inane, brainless way for so much of the movie.  I found it difficult to side with her when I just wanted to, forgive the expression, slap some sense into her.

What about Clovis?  I could side with him.  He appears to have misgivings throughout the entire film, right up to the point of no return.  But the way he willingly goes along with the scheme because, dammit, it’s his wife…something about that also turned me off on him.  There are moments I felt sorry for him, for them both, because I could see where this movie was headed early on.  But that empathy wasn’t enough to make me feel a catharsis of tragic energy at the film’s finale.  There’s just something about Clovis and Lou Jean that wouldn’t allow me to get too worked up over their fate.

I guess I identified most with the kidnapped police officer, Slide (Michael Sacks).  Maybe too much.  From the beginning, Slide is begging them to drop their weapons and turn themselves over to the police.  At first, he looks like he’s just following his training.  But then the movie progresses, and doggone it, he starts to like these two loonies, even though Clovis handcuffs him and even shoots at him a couple of times in the heat of the moment.  He can see where this road ends, and he pleads with them not to do exactly what the Texas state troopers expect them to do, because he doesn’t want to see them dead.  Because Slide never stops imploring the Poplins to see sense and do the smart thing, I guess he’s who I sided with for the entire movie.  (Well, him and his superior, Captain Tanner [Ben Johnson], who also doesn’t want to see them die.)

But…isn’t that the wrong way to approach this movie?  I shouldn’t be siding with the cops, for cryin’ out loud, should I?  At least, not in this movie.  Discuss.

From a technical standpoint, it is pretty cool to see how Spielberg, in only his second film, was able to marshal vast resources to create some arresting imagery.  The sight of what looks like literally hundreds of cop cars following the Poplins is a deceptively difficult feat, logistically speaking.  There’s a tense shootout in a used car lot that would have been right at home in The French Connection.  And everywhere, there’s bits of humor that made me smile.  From the elderly couple abandoned on the road (long story) to the solution of how to get Lou Jean to a toilet while in the middle of an extended police chase, Spielberg constantly pokes us in the ribs.  If this had gotten to the hands of someone like John Landis, it’s easy to see how this could have been turned into an out-and-out comedy with thriller elements, instead of the other way around.

One other aspect I did like was the media circus that blew up around the Poplins’ plight.  I’m sure it is yet another link to previous anti-heroic films, but while I was watching it, I was reminded of only one film: Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers [1994].  The outpouring of affection from the general public for these two, let’s face it, outlaws was both funny and sobering at the same time.  It would have been interesting to see a scene or two at the end of the film as an epilogue, so we could get a reading on what the public thought about how the police should have handled the situation.

If comparing The Sugarland Express to most of Spielberg’s later films, it certainly comes up lacking, no question.  As a lifelong Spielberg fan, I am compelled to say it SHOULDN’T be compared to his later films because it was made before he’d had a chance to hone his skills and become the populist/mainstream film icon he is today.  Look carefully at the two-dimensional storytelling and you can see the outlines of what was coming around the bend for this modern-day master.

INSOMNIA

By Marc S. Sanders

Insomnia is an unusual kind of crazed killer pursuit because the hero is initially implied to be compromised, and before the first act of the picture ends, we see that he truly is not as noble as he is described.  This Christopher Nolan film, one of the few that neither he nor his brother Jonathan wrote, is headlined by three Oscar winners and they beautifully absorb this insightful script from writer Hillary Seitz.

Al Pacino is a celebrated Los Angeles Detective named Will Dormer.  When we see him arriving aboard a propeller plane into the foggy town of Night Mute, Alaska with his partner Hap Eckart (Martin Donovan), he looks weary and worn out.  Greeted with warm welcomes by a fan of his is Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) and his old friend Chief Nyback (Paul Dooley).  Will has been special requested to investigate the murder of a young girl found in a trash heap, strangled to death.  Happenings like this do not occur often in Night Mute.  So, it is best to use the assistance of an expert.

Right away, Will is ready to get to work by visiting the girl’s boyfriend at school.  What he doesn’t realize is that it is ten o’clock at night. At this time of year, a midnight sun lasts twenty-four hours over this little getaway.  After he’s had a chance to investigate the victim’s body and go over the autopsy notes, the discovery of her bookbag leads to the prime suspect, mystery writer Walter Finch (Robin Williams).  A raid on his home near the beach is initiated and it does not go as planned.  Will screws up while chasing down the guy who gets away. 

While it seems that with some cover up, Will can keep his terrible error in judgment to himself, Walter knows everything. Now, with taunting phone calls in the middle of broad sunlit evenings, Will’s insomnia is becoming a hinderance as he tries to do his job while suppressing his own personal guilt and egregious acts.

The duality of Pacino versus Williams is reminiscent of Eastwood against Malkovich in In The Line Of Fire.  It works very well especially because of the departure that Robin Williams takes from his usual fare.  Ironically, he portrayed another creepy guy in the year of this release with a movie called One Hour Photo.  Williams is just a different kind of cut from Al Pacino and that’s why their conflict works well.  Pacino’s gruff tone, which is all too familiar within the second half of his career, has a roughness against the smooth and calm demeanor that Robin Williams relies on with his dialogue.  Walter Finch appears relaxed, rested and neat.  Will Dormer is wrinkled, tired, and lonely with guilt.  This killer has an inescapable edge over the cop, and thus Insomnia stands apart from the other fare of its time from the likes of Fincher, Demme or the Scott brothers’ respective films.

Christopher Nolan captures a creepy and uncomfortable setting for an environment bright with daylight amid a corner of the world that still embraces the nature of Earth.  He is thorough explorer with his go-to director of photography, Wally Pfister.  Clouds and the blurs of fogs keep moments unclear.  The sun blaring through windows is disorienting.  You can also feel the chill of Alaska, even if you are like me and have never visited the state. 

Though the film was primarily shot in Canada, there are amazing bluish/white overhead shots of snow-capped mountains and expansive rocky lakes surrounded by green woods.  A foot chase midway through the picture uses this unusual environment as Dormer chases after Finch across an expanse of floating logs that trap him underwater.  As Pacino desperately looks for an opening to the surface, Nolan really makes you feel like you are drowning amid this unexpected trap.  (Try to watch Insomnia on with at least a 5.0 surround sound.)

Hilary Swank’s role appears like a forgettable partner early on, but her significance opens up later in the story as more is revealed.  I look at her character of Ellie and it occurs to me that a theme of mentorship builds the backdrop of Insomnia.  Ellie has studied Will’s most famous cases and he’s much like a celebrity in her presence.  Finch is a well-known author that built a connection with the murder victim who avidly read his novels.  This film is a good reference to the adage that perhaps it is best to never meet your heroes.

I was very surprised by the directions that Insomnia takes, and quite early on.  There are unexpected moments that occur very quickly after the exposition is covered.  Nolan’s film is not a carbon copy of the tough cop working to nab the intelligent killer that’s on the loose.  Bodies do not just turn up before the final showdown, and the office Captain does not unleash on the detective threatening to pull him from this case.  What you observe in Insomnia is not what you have seen a thousand times before. 

Will Dormer is in an unsolvable conundrum of doing the right thing, but can he afford to surrender to his own misgivings after a decorated thirty-year career?  I could not predict how he would get himself out of this situation where Walter Finch, his antagonist, has got the clear advantage. 

Insomnia is a well thought out script superbly brought to vision by Christopher Nolan.  A thinker’s thriller.

NOTE: It’s a nice touch to call Pacino’s character “Dormer” which in French and Latin means “to sleep.”

MEMENTO

By Marc S. Sanders

Christopher Nolan’s Memento was Oscar nominated for his screenplay, adapted from a short story by his brother Jonathan, as well as for editing.  You’d be hard pressed to find a better example that lives up to the merits of these categories because without the inventive storytelling and how it’s cut together, Memento would not be so memorable.  

Guy Pearce plays Leonard, but he distinctly remembers that only his wife called him Lenny.  We observe him in two different narratives.  A black and white collection of scenes has him in a hotel room chatting on the phone with an unknown caller.  In modern color, Leonard is wearing a tan suit and driving a dusty Jaguar while traipsing from one place to another.  He’s trying to make progress with uncovering who murdered his wife.  The scenes in color though must be shown in reverse.  In other words, a scene is shown, then it will cut to Leonard back on the phone, and then another scene is revealed showing what occurred literally just prior to the last color scene we saw.

It must be done this way so we can be just as discombobulated as Leonard.  He suffers from a condition where he has no short term memory.  Therefore, if Leonard learns something or meets someone or arrives at a location, he’ll soon forget anything he just encountered minutes ago.  

While he pursues the mystery of his wife’s killer, Leonard tattoos his flesh with notes to help guide him when his short attention span can’t. He also takes instant Polaroids of people he meets and the places he goes.  As quick as he can, he’ll jot a note on the photos to aid him as he carries on.

Memento starts at the end of the story and when the film concludes, the viewer arrives at the beginning.  Perhaps the beginning will explain the end that was shown almost two hours before.

Christopher Nolan had a small budget to work with and the California city locales are nothing dazzling.  There’s little to offer with special effects as well.  So, it is impressive that he uses Jonathan’s idea to create a mystery we want to see resolved where the information we get seems to erase itself as quickly as it is told.

Leonard can’t remember anyone he’s recently met, but oddball cases like Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) certainly remember him.  Are these folks working with Leonard or against him?  Even with seeing the ending first, I could never spoil anything, and you’ll find it hard to decipher what these are these characters’ best interests.  

Nolan exercises some neat visuals to keep you on track.  We see a broken car window before we see how it got shattered.  Leonard can’t recall how that happened.  Leonard is also unable to remember why a bar patron is chuckling at him.  Christopher Nolan maintains well placed book marks to aid the viewer in this story that makes an effort at throwing off its protagonist as well as the audience.

What also helps is that when all the secrets are revealed, at least to the viewer, it’s a pretty solid crime set up that does not come off like a stale Murder, She Wrote episode.  It’s clever, tricky and unexpected.

Guy Pearce is really good in his role that eventually reveals some duality, but that’s where I’ll stop.  Carrie-Anne Moss always seems questionable, but what’s her agenda?  Joe Pantoliano is the sleazy guy with the mustache.  So why is he always turning up in Leonard’s way?

Like his future efforts to come, Christopher Nolan layers his films in great depths of dimension.  It never stops thinking. Often, he answers a riddle with one or two or three more conundrums.  What’s especially appreciative is that he eventually reaches a final answer to all of his questions.  Still, that doesn’t mean he ever would want you to stop thinking about what you ascertained from Memento.

SHANE (1953)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: George Stevens
CAST: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Fresh

PLOT: A drifter (who may or may not be a retired gunfighter) comes to the assistance of a homestead family terrorized by a wealthy cattleman and his hired gun.


Shane affords me the opportunity to use a word I never get to use in daily conversation: archetypal.  John Ford’s Stagecoach [1939] may be the granddaddy of the modern Western, but Shane taps into something even more primal.

Alan Ladd as Shane is the archetype of the mysterious stranger riding out of the mountains, either coming to the aid of a community who has lost hope (Pale Rider, 1985) or wreaking havoc as an avenging angel (High Plains Drifter, 1973), and then disappearing into the sunset or riding back into the distant mountains.  This formula was probably already old when Shane was made, and the film does little to dress it up or add any kind of pretentious spin to the story.  But by sticking to the formula and really nailing it home, director George Stevens achieved a weird kind of clarity that elevates Shane into a mythical realm.  If it’s not terribly realistic, well…who wants realism mixed in with their magic?  Not me.

Shane is set in the high plains of Wyoming in 1889.  (I don’t remember the exact year being mentioned in the film – I pulled it off IMDb – but we can tell it’s after the war because a running gag involves a harmonica player who always starts playing a Union song whenever a homesteader called Stonewall, who fought for the South, walks into a meeting.  It’s a mark of faith in the intelligence of the average viewer that the screenplay never comes out and explains that’s what’s happening; we just see it and have to put two and two together.  Nice.)

ANYWAY…it’s 1889, and a land baron named Rufus Ryker is trying to run homesteaders off some land that they rightfully own, but which is preventing Ryker from expanding his cattle ranch.  Among these homesteaders is Joe Starrett (Van Heflin); his wife, Marian (Jean Arthur); and his little boy, Joey (Brandon De Wilde, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but don’t ask my opinion of his performance…just don’t).

One day, true to mythical form, a lone figure rides out of the mountains and up to Starrett’s patch of land.  He is improbably good looking, wears a fringed buckskin jacket, two ivory-handled revolvers, and identifies himself only as Shane.  After earning Starrett’s trust, he agrees to stay on as a hired hand and possibly help with the struggle against Ryker…

…and if you’ve been watching movies as long as I have, you could practically write your own screenplay for the rest of the film, because you’ve seen it before, many times.  The stranger proves his worth, defends his new friends, makes friends with the wife (but not TOO friendly), gets hero-worshipped by the little boy, and eventually runs them cattle barons plumb out of business.  But I’ve never seen it done quite like Shane.

For example, there’s a bar fight that ought to be in the Bar Fight Hall of Fame.  Shane, in what HAS to be a deliberate move to goad the bad guys into action, walks into a saloon filled with Ryker’s men to return a soda-pop bottle for the deposit.  A fight predictably breaks out, first one-on-one, then 1-on-2, then 3, then 4.  (Who does this guy think he is?  John Wick?)  The fight gets to a point when it’s winding down…then it picks right up again.  Then they get Shane on the ropes and start waling on him…until Starrett sees what’s happening, grabs an axe handle, and cracks it over someone’s head.  That may not sound like much in writing, but it’s pretty impressive visually, especially from a 1953 Western that feels at times like a Disney product.

(It almost feels like what Tarantino did with the fight between the Bride and the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003).  George Stevens said, “Okay, these people want a bar fight?  I’ll give you a damn bar fight.”)

But while I was watching it, I started to analyze it a little bit.  Bar fights…seen one, seen a thousand.  But Shane felt to me like it was embracing the cliché, making friends with a trope, and in so doing the fight became a myth of a bar fight, a fever dream of itself.  It’s not just a bar fight.  It’s THE bar fight.

A lot of Shane works that way.  Shane isn’t just a mysterious stranger, he’s THE mysterious stranger.  An argument could be made for Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” as the archetype of this character, at least in the Western genre, but it’s clear that Eastwood took a lot of cues from Shane when writing and directing his own films.  I’m not suggesting that Eastwood plagiarized Shane.  I’m suggesting that Eastwood’s creations are infused with Shane’s DNA in all the best ways.  (I wouldn’t presume to speculate how much of Shane is in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns starring Eastwood, though I would say those have more of Kurosawa in them than George Stevens.)

There are just two items that bugged me while watching Shane.  One, the editing was occasionally erratic, using a lot of fades or cuts to virtually empty frames in the middle of the action.  I don’t normally pick that kind of thing apart in a review, but it was glaringly apparent in a lot of places.

Two…the tragic waste of talent by casting Jean Arthur as Mrs. Starrett.  Jean Arthur is the fast-talking, quick-thinking actress who appeared in such classics as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [1936], Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Only Angels Have Wings [both 1939].  She goes (or OUGHT to go) on the list of intelligent female actors like Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell.  By 1953, she was semi-retired and only appeared in Shane as a favor to her friend, director George Stevens.  When I saw her name in the credits, I had visions of her delivering fiery speeches, shaming and out-thinking the menfolk, declaring her admiration for Shane without exactly laying out her TRUE feelings for him, and so on.  Instead, she is reduced to spending the majority of her screen time fretting over her husband’s safety, casting loaded glances at Shane while her husband isn’t around, baking pies, and reading bedtime stories to Joey.  I know I just got done writing about how the movie embraces clichés and becomes mythological, and there’s nothing more clichéd than the “little woman” supporting her husband, etc., but something about her role just rubbed me the wrong way.  After this film, Arthur retired from film completely, and although Shane was a massive popular and critical hit, I can’t help but wish she had been given more to do in her last film.

By the time Shane reaches its famous finale (“Shaaane!  Come baaack!”), justice has been meted out and the little guys have won…all is right with the world.  Echoes of Shane still linger today, because who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned bad-guy beatdown, administered by the archetypal mysterious stranger?  This may not be my favorite Western of all time, but from now on, whenever I do watch my favorite Westerns, I’ll keep an eye out for Shane’s shadow, looming large over all who came after it.

FOLLOWING

By Marc S. Sanders

A young filmmaker scraped up six thousand dollars to make a short movie clocking in at just over an hour called Following.  The writer/director is Christopher Nolan.  While he may have been very limited on resources, his reach for imagination was already infinite at the start of his career.  Following is…well…challenging to follow, and I had to watch it twice to grasp the novel curves in time jumps and twists.  However, on my second go round I enthusiastically applaud its brilliance.  The wrap up to this short film is genius.

Gone for nearly fifty years, Alfred Hitchcock’s attempts at pursuing the questionable temptations that people undergo remain wholly intriguing.  His movies are still watched, studied, referenced, and duplicated.  Most importantly, they inspire filmmakers like Christopher Nolan.  Following leaps into its story with parallels from Rear Window and then segues into brief encounters like Strangers On A Train commits.  Mischief is at play which gradually develops into deceit and maybe murder.

Nolan makes an hour and ten minutes feel like a breezy fast moving two hours.  The script for Following throws a lot of information at you at a fast pace, which is something the famed director continued to do with the majority of his later films.  It’s to your advantage to stay alert and explore what’s shown in every frame.  Much of what comes at you will circle back for a twist or two.

Bill (Jeremy Theobold) is an unemployed writer who occupies his time by simply shadowing random people going about their lives within the streets of London.  There’s no particular reason for his behavior.  He relays to an older man that perhaps he’ll learn or become inspired by what he sees people do during their day-to-day business.  

A man in a suit carrying a large tote bag (Alex Haw) becomes Bill’s latest observation.  Bill keeps his distance and follows the man into a cafe.  As the man gets up to leave, he makes a surprising stop at Bill’s table.  He calls himself Cobb, and he has an unusual habit of his own.

Cobb demonstrates to Bill how he takes interest in learning about random people by entering their flats when they are not home.  He’s not there to necessarily burglarize.  Though he will tease the owners by planting a pair of women’s panties in their laundry or emptying their little box of knick knacks on the desk.  Maybe he’ll hide one earring to turn up later. In particular, he shows Bill how much you can learn about people by looking at how they keep their home, what they collect or what they furnish the place with.  So, how about the gentlemen pop the cork on a bottle of wine and have a chat while they stay a while.

These two strangers build a warped kind of mentality for this behavior, but as Bill becomes more natural at what Cobb has introduced him to, so do the risks become more apparent.

Following has some unusual ideas; the kind that are perverted enough to only see in the movies.  If I were to meet guys like Bill or Cobb at a bar and they started telling me of their derring do, I might excuse myself as subtly as possible.  In Christopher Nolan’s film though, I’m intrigued of what these men gain or how they entrap themselves.  

On occasion, it is hard to follow where the film turns its attention.  There are time jumps that come out of nowhere.  We see Bill with a different haircut.  At another time he has cuts on his face.  His wardrobe is different. Because of the small budget, the editing and cinematography must have suffered making these time jumps feel seamless.  So, on my first watch I was confused and wondered if the movie had some scenes cut or if I dozed off while watching it.  Then again, this is Christopher Nolan who is notorious for not keeping a straight and narrow narrative.  His well-known movies like Memento, Interstellar or Oppenheimer have all of his best tools at play to emulate different periods of time.  Following is presented in black and white and so it’s a challenge to focus on where you are in the story and where you left off.

The second time I watched the movie, it was much clearer to bridge everything together and you recognize when one twist occurs at the halfway mark followed by something else until it reaches its fascinating conclusion where every prop you see or line that was uttered serves their ulterior motives.

Following is a thrilling play on your thought process where one character might be performing a cruel sleight of hand on another.  Do not trust anything you see or hear.

Currently, Following is on You Tube and streaming on TUBI, but I had to watch with some limited commercial interruptions.  I encourage you to deal with it because Christopher Nolan’s first film shows some of the storytelling tricks he’s most appreciated for.  What you see in Memento, The Prestige or Inception was attempted early on with Following.  It was not as flashy, but it was just as inventive and brainy.

At just over an hour, Following is that perfect story to watch just after you’ve crawled under the covers and turned off the lights.  It’s a thrilling bedtime story.

TIGHTROPE

By Marc S. Sanders

The most recognizable cop Clint Eastwood portrayed is of course Dirty Harry Callahan, San Francisco’s finest.  Tightrope introduces a different kind of policeman though.  Wes Block covers New Orleans, and he balances the seedy underworld of crime in and around the French Quarter while being a single dad to two preteen daughters (the elder one played by Eastwood’s real life child Alison Eastwood).

There’s a serial killer on the loose whose victims of choice are ladies who work in the sex industry.  A skeleton in Wes’ closet is his penchant for getting involved in the world of kinky sex for satisfaction.  This killer seems to follow closely behind Wes’ investigation and his personal trysts.  Best he knows about this creep is he wears tennis shoes and he’s likely a Caucasian.  If Wes didn’t know any better, he could be as likely a suspect as the mayor.

Tightrope is a surprising film considering Eastwood’s resume in the nineteen seventies through eighties.  Usually, his tough, quiet persona never emulated weakness or questionable morals pertaining to rough sexual treatment of women.  Tightrope is not an action picture, but it implies ugly portraits of victimization for women.  It does not hold back on the nudity or the peril that the killer’s victims find themselves in.  It’s an uneasy crime thriller that does not compromise.  

On the flip side of Wes Block’s kinky obsessions is a genuine relationship he begins with a woman named Beryl (Geneviève Bujold). She specializes in helping women protect themselves from rape attacks as well as recovery.  The two have a good chemistry that begins with different interests with sex crimes. Later, they find a mutual appreciation for one another.  Wes might carry shame and fault, but considering Beryl’s background she might be the only grown woman who understands his personal demons.

What I like about this section of the story is that Wes and Beryl’s relationship does not rush itself.  He has an armor that covers his weakness.  She has a bold strength and will not be intimidated.  In order for them to connect, they’ll need to alter their nature when it comes to affection and respect.

There’s also a good dynamic with the two daughters.  To watch Clint Eastwood try to maintain composure while explaining a hard on to his youngest daughter is both hilarious but also stands for another conflict for this protagonist with a checkered background.  This is a different kind comedy routine than his prior connections with an orangutan or a bulldog named Meat Head.

I like that his older daughter played by Alison Eastwood offers empathy with little dialogue.  A great moment has her lie down on her father’s back while he’s in an anguished, drunken stupor. A young girl lending comfort to her pained father.

Eastwood lends a convincing portrayal of guy dealing with personal torment as both a parent and a cop.  The more he digs into what makes this psycho tick the more he seems to endanger what could be another victim for prey and even his own children, plus Beryl.

Writer/director Richard Tuggle captures great location shots of New Orleans along Bourbon Street and within the French Quarter, sometimes celebratory and frequently frighteningly lurid.  Jazz trumpets deliver an atmospheric soundtrack.  A lot of cuts, edits and photographic shots seem reminiscent of Eastwood’s techniques. It would not be surprising, especially since he’s a producer, if he sat in the chair behind the camera to bring the film to completion.

Tightrope is a slow burn potboiler with convincingly ugly material.  It’s disturbing but wholly engaging with different reasons for a familiar Clint Eastwood to quietly brood.  The suspense and frustration build as the danger heightens.  This is the kind of movie you watch after midnight when the rest of the household has gone to bed.

ABSOLUTE POWER

By Marc S. Sanders

As Clint Eastwood’s Absolute Power was unfolding I started to think this plays like one of those hardcover bestseller political thrillers from the 90s that my dad would scoop up off of the neatly designed stack at the front of Barnes & Noble.  You know with the glossy book jacket that has the blood stain and a dead girl’s nail polished hand next to a bloody letter opener.  The graphics are elevated to feel the crime scene with your fingertips.  The intrigue is summed up on the inside tab.  You turn to the back of the book to see the picture of the author.  Then you buy it with your membership card.  Go figure!  William Goldman adapted the screenplay from a novel by renowned author David Baldacci. Absolute Power has an engaging set up, a who’s who of a cast, it’s directed, produced and starring Eastwood. Still, it evolves into utter eye-rolling preposterousness.

Eastwood directs his own portrayal Luther Whitney, an expert jewel thief.  He might be getting up there in age but he scopes out the mansion of a billionaire tycoon (E.G Marshall, in his final on-screen role) and locates the vault hidden behind a large two-way mirror.  Everything is going to plan as Luther bags up the valuables and a lot of cash but then a drunken couple enter with Luther hidden behind the mirror to watch their tryst turn deadly.  The President of the United States (Gene Hackman) avoids being stabbed to death by the young lady (Melora Hardin) when his secret service detail (Scott Gleen and Dennis Haysbert) enter to shoot the girl dead.  The President’s Chief of Staff (Judy Davis) arrives soon after.  Luther observes the four as they rush the Commander In Chief out of the house and alter the crime scene.  They get careless and just as Luther makes a quick exit, he retrieves evidence that will hopefully work to his advantage.  Now he’s in danger of the President and the other three as they work to permanently contain the situation.

Elsewhere is Ed Harris as the detective out to solve the murder and uncover everything we already know.  When he realizes a thief must have been at the scene of the crime, he actually approaches Luther for some guidance as to who could have been there.  Later, he will use Laura Linney, playing Luther’s daughter, for assistance as her father seems to be the prime suspect. 

The tycoon, the President’s biggest supporter, also wants to resolve his personal vendetta by hiring his own sniper (Richard Jenkins) to take out Luther. 

Absolute Power has all of these players, with recognizable actors in the roles, and yet cannot work the magic necessary to fix this outrageous conundrum.  I can believe that a President could get in more trouble than he needs with a one-night stand and a dead girl on the floor.  I can believe members of his staff will work to tie off all the loose ends, even if it means more murder and mayhem must occur. 

What is hard to swallow is how neatly the story wraps up literally within one afternoon leading into an evening.  It’s fortunate that window washers are present to throw off a couple of snipers with an inconvenient glare at the most inopportune time.  Otherwise, there will be no more movie.  It helps that a character with remorse happens to take his own life, thus exposing the conspiracy, just as Eastwood’s character is steering his own way to exoneration.  All in the same night!!!!

To ramp up the suspense, the bad guys go after Linney’s character, the one person Luther cares for the most.  She ends up in a hospital.  Message has been sent.  Luther better surrender himself along with what he knows to the President’s squad.  Yet, they try one more time to permanently eliminate her and I asked why.  What purpose does that serve to kill her now?  If you kill her, then Luther has nothing to protect or care about anymore.  He can just reveal the entire breakdown of what really happened complete with evidence and so on.

A few years earlier, Eastwood starred in In The Line Of Fire where John Malkovich played a master of disguise assassin.  Luther is also a craftsman at hiding in plain sight.  However, there’s no way I can believe that.  We are looking at Clint Eastwood here.  He’s got his own unique and very tall and square stature.  Put a white mustache and a pair of glasses on the guy, and it is still Clint Eastwood.  Put a hat and beard on him and it is still Clint Eastwood.  Wrap him up in a trench coat and have him walk the city streets in broad daylight where fifty cops are awaiting his arrival and you’ll be able to see the one and only Clint Eastwood.  It just can’t work.  James Bond can hide in disguise.  John Malkovich can hide in disguise.  Go anywhere in the world and Shaquille O’Neal and Clint Eastwood would never be hidden in plain sight. 

William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid) is one of Hollywood’s most celebrated screenwriters.  He did not think this story all the way through.  You may believe Gene Hackman (second billing behind Eastwood) would have had more of a presence in this picture but oddly enough he’s hardly there. The real bad guy roles belong to Judy Davis and Scott Glenn who are not nearly as exciting as what Hackman could have delivered.

There was a potential for a good conspiracy thriller. The problem is the audience knows too much following the first fifteen minutes of the film.  We know everything that happened and therefore I could care less about the progress that Ed Harris’ detective makes.  Absolute Power likely would have performed better had it opened after the crime had occurred.  Run the opening credits over the dead girl in the room and open the two-way mirror for Luther to enter the frame.  He makes a run for it and then the film can gradually reveal what precisely happened.  A mystery for the characters and the audiences who are watching them only works if the questions are offered before the answers are revealed.

Absolute Power offered a lot of promise with a lot of talent but it’s devoid of both.

TO CATCH A THIEF (1955)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock
CAST: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams [no, not THAT John Williams]
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A retired jewel thief in the French Riviera sets out to prove his innocence after being suspected of returning to his former occupation.


Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief is somewhat of a paradox.  It contains all the hallmarks of the master’s touch during what was arguably his most fruitful decade of work: exotic location shoots, a breathless romance, sly comedy, daring innuendo, and, of course, a vivacious blonde.  But there is little to no suspense.  There’s an intriguing mystery that admittedly left me guessing until almost the very end, but I never felt invested in the hero’s predicament.  I cared way more about L.B. Jefferies [Rear Window] or Roger O. Thornhill [North by Northwest] or even “Scottie” Ferguson [Vertigo] than I did for John Robie.

The story opens right away with a typical Hitchcock wink-and-nod.  The camera pushes in to an inviting travel brochure for the south of France, then there’s an immediate smash cut to a woman screaming.  Is she being murdered?!  This is a Hitchcock movie, after all!  No, she’s distraught because someone has stolen her precious jewelry.  There has been a rash of burglaries, in fact, perpetrated by a shadowy, unseen figure whom French authorities believe is none other than the infamous John Robie (Cary Grant), aka “The Cat.”  But Robie has retired comfortably to a stunning villa and claims he’s innocent of this new string of daring crimes.  To clear his name, he must do what the police can’t: identify and capture the burglar himself.

There’s a subplot about how Robie was involved in the French Resistance during the war, but his former comrades, who now all work at the same restaurant (!), are distrustful of him.  I was never quite clear on why.  Something about how the law could catch up to them if Robie was ever arrested?  But if they were Resistance, why would they be considered criminals?  Did they help him with his previous string of burglaries?  The screenplay is not 100% clear on this, unless my attention wandered at some point.

Anyway, in the course of Robie’s investigation, he meets (by chance?) the stunning Frances Stevens, played by the inimitable Grace Kelly in one of her three films for Hitchcock.  At first, she is aloof towards Robie, but when he escorts her to her hotel room after rebuffing him all night, she boldly plants a firm kiss on his lips before closing the door on him.  Not only that, she reveals the next day she knows exactly who Robie is and practically dares him to steal the fabulous diamond necklace she’s wearing.

While Frances is certainly no shrinking violet, her attitude and character felt…forced.  The screenplay explains (in a roundabout way) that she is a bit of a thrill-seeker, so she’s getting her kicks by tweaking a known criminal.  Okay, fair enough, I guess, but later in the film, she abruptly declares she’s in love with Robie, almost out of the blue.  This and other incidents, too numerous to mention, had me thinking that the new burglar was actually…Frances herself?  Watch the movie and tell me I’m wrong for thinking that way.  She throws herself at him in a male-fantasy kind of way because, duh, it’s a Hitchcock movie, but this aspect kept me locked in to my theory of her as the burglar, because what other motive could she possibly have?

Without giving TOO much away, let it be said that the mystery of the new burglar’s identity is cleverly hidden until the final scenes which demonstrate Roger Ebert’s Law of Economy of Characters.  This law posits that a character introduced with no clear role will turn out to be important to the plot.  In hindsight, it’s an obvious choice, but I must admit, it did keep me guessing.

But, again, while there was mystery, there was no genuine suspense.  The whole film is so light-hearted and airy that to introduce real danger might have ruined the atmosphere.  It’s not just comic, it’s downright slapstick, exemplified in a scene where Robie runs from the police only to fall into a bunch of flowers at a market and the elderly flower-seller starts beating him with a bunch of lilies.  In an earlier scene set in a hotel casino, Robie drops a 10,000-franc chip down the cleavage of a female guest as part of a ruse.  These and other instances almost make me want to classify this film as a romantic comedy rather than a suspense thriller.

Which brings up another point.  To Catch a Thief might be the most unwittingly prophetic film in Hitchcock’s filmography.  Consider:

  1. There is an early scene when Robie gets on a bus and sits next to a woman who is holding small birdcage.  Shades of The Birds, released eight years after To Catch a Thief.
  2. One scene features Robie in a motorboat, running from the police who are chasing him in…an airplane.  Four years later, Cary Grant would be running from another airplane in North by Northwest.
  3. A late scene features a key character dangling from a rooftop, which immediately reminded me of Vertigo, released five years later.
  4. The scene at the flower market takes place at an outdoor market that looks uncannily like the same one Cary Grant visits while looking for some rare stamps in Stanley Donen’s Charade, released TEN years later.  (Not a Hitchcock movie, but one featuring a very similar romantic relationship, this time with Audrey Hepburn.)

Having said all of that, I still must confess that this movie did not exactly stir up my emotions the way many other Hitchcock films do, even after repeated viewings.  To Catch a Thief is beautiful to look at, not least because of its sensational location photography and, of course, Grace Kelly.  The mystery at the center of the plot is sound, and I appreciate Hitchcock’s sense of humor, which occupies front and center as opposed to his other films where it lurks at the edges of the danger.  But I was never on the edge of my seat.  I know, I know, this isn’t Psycho or The Birds, but…there you have it.