James Cameron's 'Terminator': a review

This is a review of James Cameron's 1984 science fiction film 'Terminator' starring Arnold Schwarzenegger 

Some films age like wine: the older they get, the better they get. It's hard to believe that James Cameron's 'Terminator is pushing 35 years old. Terminator's lean script, staccato editing and direction, and its human driven storyline are what allows it to survive amongst modern films that benefit from superior technologies like CGI, motion capture, and now 3D-motion photography. Everything's relative and, in 1984, Terminator's special effects were extraordinary. For instance, there's a scene in a motel where the Terminator attends to some gunshot wounds he suffered. Using a box-knife, he opens up his forearm to readjust a broken piston rod. Then, he stabs the box-knife into his eyeball and plucks the soft gelatin organ out of his head. In the ragged and empty mouth of his eye-socket, a hard shiny light zooms in and out. This was scary back in 1984. Today, a five-year old could see through these transparent effects.

Plot: The Terminator is a cyborg from the future that travels back in time--forty years--to kill a woman, a waitress, whose unborn son will save mankind in near the future. But the true magic about this film is that despite its concept, it is a human story 1st and an action film 2nd.

Terminator is James Cameron's best movie. It has the perfect atmosphere; most of the action is at night. The big `70's cars in the Terminator's chase sequences are reminiscent of the big cars in The French Connection's chase sequences. Unlike T2, where there's a lot of exposition between action scenes, Terminator's action scenes erupt out of nowhere. I could go on and on but the bottom line is that Terminator will be around long after most of today's science fiction rip-offs are obsolete.

Is Taxi Driver De Niro's best film? A review

A review of Martin Scorsese's film 'Taxi Driver' starring Robert De Niro

The world has become a toilet to Travis Bickle. Out of this filth appears a flower of virtue that nothing can touch--a young gorgeous campaign-volunteer named Betsy played by Cybill Shepherd. She's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Driving a cab at night, all Travis sees are whores; however, Betsy's incorruptible, and she alone can redeem mankind. She allows him to take her on a date. Though awkward, he says all the right things. He takes her to the theater to see a movie--a porno flick. Horrified and offended, she hails a cab and leaves him on the sidewalk. Travis is stunned. At that moment, a whore saunters by. They pause to gaze at each other--she is his mirror; they are one and the same.

Betsy destroys Travis; she's just like all the others. Now, there's nothing in the world worth saving--now, he knows what he must do. He hones his body and his mind: no more smoking; no more drinking; no more bad food--he must be fit. He'll annihilate Betsy and the whole world. By chance, he stumbles into the middle of a pimp/whore squabble; the whore is a thirteen-year-old girl. Something rises up in Travis's heart, something he never felt before. He discovers something worth saving-- a lost thirteen-year-old whore named Iris (Jodie Foster).

Taxi Driver was the second collaboration between Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese. Bernard Herman's magical score wafts over every scene. Taxi Driver was an omen, forecasting the senseless tragedies of both Columbine and Virginia Tech. No movie collection is adequate without this great film. 

'The Seventh Seal' Review

This is a review of director Ingmar Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal'.

Of Ingmar Bergman's early black and white films, The Seventh Seal (1957) is my personal favorite. The story takes place in the middle of the 12th century. The black plague strikes Europe. A knight (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand) return from the Crusades: the Crusades were a series of military campaigns by western European Christians to recover the Holy Land from the Saracen Muslims. The ocean delivers Antonius and his squire to a beach. The sky is half lit; the ocean is restless; the sun is almost under the horizon. A black bird--a scavenger--hangs over Antonius. He prays. But he and his squire are not alone. Nearby stands a tall figure in a long black robe. His face is pale and familiar--he is Death. Antonius is ready, but first he must challenge Death to a game of chess. If Death prevails, Antonius dies; if Antonius prevails, Death must allow him to live. Death agrees; his chess figures are black. The game begins.

Death and the chessboard vanish, the sun burns overhead, and once again, Antonius and his squire are alone on the beach. They find two stray horses and begin their inland journey. Deeper inland, they encounter symbols of death and danger. The clouds are light and unable to cool the sun. Antonius and his squire encounter the corpse of a monk. They stroll past an old rundown wagon. Three troubadours--Jof (Nils Pope), his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson), and Skat (Erik Strandmark)--sleep inside the wagon. They will travel to the Saint's Festival in Elsinor, and the lead actor shall play the role of Death in a play on the church steps. Antonius and his squire visit the church in Elsinor. There, an artist is painting a fresco. Within this fresco, Death leads a ghoulish parade of corpses. The knight, Antonius Block, notices a priest inside of a small room. There, Block alleviates his conscience. Iron bars separate Antonius and the priest in the chamber who bears Antonius's confession. A black cloak obscures the priests face. Antonius speaks freely. His whole life has been meaningless. Is there a God? Antonius tells the priest of his scheme to stall Death with a game of chess. The chess game is a respite for Antonius to search out the meaning of life on earth. Antonius's confession amuses the priest. Antonius discloses his strategy: he shall outmaneuver Death with a bishop and a knight. Hearing this, the priest rises from his seat and shows his face: the priest is Death--the Knight has been fooled! Round one to Death.

And so the story progresses. Most of Bergman's early films-- Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Virgin Spring, etc.--were allegorical. The Seventh Seal is the best known of his earlier films, all of which were done in black and white. I loved this film the first time I saw it. Bergman's films and characters speak to you. Bibi Andersson--who plays one of the traveling troubadours in the film-- has starred in many of Bergman's early black and white films such as The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night, and the Magician. Also, she has starred in many of Bergman's latter color films such as Scenes From a Marriage and Persona. Max von Sydow starred in several of Bergman's earlier films.

My review of Gaspar Noe's 'Enter The Void'

A review of Gaspar Noe's 2009 thriller 'Enter The Void'.

Some films are simply so far ahead of their time that they simply can't be completely appreciated on 1 viewing. I am going to say this without equivocating and with all humility: this film has replaced 2001: A Space Odyssey as my all time favorite trip-out film. That's right, I take back everything I said against this film in my former review. I guess after seeing Irreversible and being blown away by it, I was expecting something similarly shocking. This film is an entirely different animal than the previous films in that it's trippier and, in its own ugly perverse way, more beautiful than his previous films.

Basically, the film's an odyssey of reincarnation and the afterlife told through the eyes of the main character who's a drug dealer who happens to get caught at the wrong place (Tokyo) at the wrong time with dope, a psychedelic drug called DMT. This is one of those movies you have to see twice, once to be be introduced to it, and a second time after it's taken root in your subconscious. It is something about the whole experience of this film that sets it apart from other films, much the same as what separates 2001 from other sci fi films. There's a plot but it's buried in the experience, the beauty, the horror of the images in this film, unconscious, you can't see it but you know it's there, like air, all around you. This is definitely a love or hate film. Gaspar Noe outdid himself. This film will be talked about for years to come. Like I said, it's not about the story as much as it's about what you see, hear, and feel on the screen. Incredible film! Not for the squeamish and a great follow-up to his 2001 film Irreversible.

'The Last Tango in Paris': a review

This is a review of director Bernardo Bertolucci's 1982 erotic drama film 'Last Tango in Paris' starring Marlon Brando.

For those who have not seen this great film by the great Bernardo Bertolucci, I’ll keep this review as simple as possible without spoiling it.

The Last Tango in Paris is centered around a middle-aged widower named Paul (Marlon Brando) who enters into an impersonal no-names-no-questions relationship with a Parisian woman 20-something years younger than himself. Their relationship is built around a series of extremely intense, kinky, and ultimately empty sexual encounters in an old apartment building. The film uses the intimate act of sex in its purest sense as a way to show the disconnect between these 2 characters—one, who struggles to deal with the suicide of his wife and the other, torn between her love for him and another guy.

This is a beautiful movie with atmosphere so thick you can cut it with a knife. The look of this movie makes you want to fly to Paris immediately. The color palette is deep and saturated. The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, The Conformist, The Last Emperor) is terrific. The soundtrack theme by Gato Barbieri is sexy and consistent throughout. The intro credits open up with 2 paintings by Francis Bacon: Double Portrait of Lucien Freud and Frank Auerbach and Study for a Portrait, both of which seem to suggest, by their violently distorted—almost lewd—facial and body expressions metaphors of the characters and relationships in the film.

As beautiful as this film is as poetry and as affecting as it is emotionally, especially the scene where Brando confronts his dead wife’s corpse, I must warn those of you who have a problem with sex, because it gets extremely raunchy in this movie. When this film was initially released, the MPAA gave it an X rating and after revisions were made it still couldn’t get any cleaner than an NC-17 rating. But this is a European film and as any film connoisseur can tell you there’s a big difference between what America deems unfit and what the rest of the world thinks.

When most of us think of Brando we think of the Godfather, Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront, Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar, or Kurtz, the megalomaniac in Apocalypse Now. Tango is one of Brando’s lesser known films except among those whose movie tastes extend beyond our shores. Brando is the greatest actor who ever lived because he never seems like he is acting if that makes sense. There is such a raw, physical, yet visceral power about his performances that makes him seem opaque while at the same time transparent and vulnerable. Another actor who came across like this was James Dean. The fact that sex is so big in this film can obscure the deeper meaning behind its necessity by his character to shield himself with it, to keep his heart—still wounded over the loss of his wife—from being wounded again. Great, great film. See this one with a like-minded movie lover and remember the Merlot while you’re at it.

'The Hunchback of Notre Dame': a review

This is a review of William Dieterle's 1939 film 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' starring Charles Laughton and based on Victor Hugo's 1831 novel of the same name.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of my favorite books so when I came upon this film version of Victor Hugo’s classic I had some prejudices to overcome. There are few cases where movies based on successful novels have been successful without staying faithful to the source material. Namely, those movies that come to mind are The Godfather, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, A Scanner Darkly, and Bladerunner to name a few. Then there are those movie adaptations that turned out to be disasters like Puzo’s The Sicilian, Anna Karenina, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, Noah, etc. But in all fairness to the latter list, the problems with them were not so much the fact that they could not be translated to film, but the fact that these films didn’t have the right person—director—translating them.

I’d never heard of William Dieterle, the Hunchback’s director, so I was even more skeptical about it (Before I continue with this review, I want to warn those who have not read the book nor are familiar with the story that there will be a few spoilers here; however, I will try to skim around the plot as much as is possible to point out some of the differences between the book and film). The novel is centered around the characters Esmeralda, the Gypsy Girl, and archdeacon Claude Frollo, the story’s villain who views Esmeralda as evil because of the temptations her beauty arouses in him; by contrast, the film devotes equal attention to its central and supporting characters as well as the then technological innovation of the printing press, which, in this film, represents an epoch from the age of architecture—as expressed in the intricate design of the Notre Dame cathedral—to the age of the written word. Another difference of the film from the book is that there is no personal history of the gypsy-girl Esmeralda or her mother. In the film, Captain Phoebus is killed; in the book, Captain Phoebus is not killed, but wounded. In the film, Esmeralda rides out of the town square with Gringoire, whom she loves; in the novel, Esmeralda does not love Gringoire, but merely tolerates him. In the film, both Esmeralda and Quasimodo (the Hunchback) are alive at the end; in the book, they are both dead, Esmeralda by murder and Quasimodo by natural causes. These are only a few of the differences between the book and the film and there are many more. Despite these changes, I’m happy to say that this is one of the rare cases where the film—while not better than the book—is equal to the book.

There are acting performances that are so inspired, so powerful, that they become larger-than-life performances:

Al Pacino—The Godfather, Scarface
Peter O’ Toole—Lawrence of Arabia
Albert Finney—Under the Volcano
Brad Davis—Midnight Express
Marlon Brando—On The Waterfront
Giulietta Masina—La Strada
Sylvester Stallone—Rocky (the 1st movie)
Robert De Niro—Raging Bull
Liv Ullman—Cries and Whispers, Scenes From a Marriage
David Thewlis—Naked
John Hurt—The Elephant Man

In this film, actor Charles Laughton channels the pathos of Hugo’s Hunchback to the degree that I found myself frequently reaching up to wipe away tears. Despite being submerged under tons of makeup, Mr. Laughton—as John Hurt accomplished under similar conditions in John Lynch’s Elephant Man— was able to show the wounded soul of his character by how the world treated him, which was relentlessly cruel.

Other performances of note are Maureen O’ Hara’s Esmeralda and Sir Cedric Hardwicke’s Jehan Frollo. The direction by William Dieterle was extraordinary, especially the crowd scenes and the mob scene at the end of the film. Speaking of the film’s ending, it was perfect. No one dies, however, it was not a happy ending either, at least not for Quasimodo. Moving away from comparisons to the book, this film, imo, ranks up there with some of the best, namely, Citizen Kane, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931 film), and Bride of Frankenstein to name a few.