Tom Cruise's best action movie ever!: a review of Edge of Tomorrow!

Recipe for a kick-ass film. Blend the following ingredients: 
A cup of Tom Cruise
A cup of Emily Blunt
A table spoon of Brendan Gleeson
A table spoon of John Paxton
Hardware, lots and lots of futuristic military hardware
A dash of Run Lola Run
A sprinkle of Starship Troopers
A sprinkle of Black Hawk Down

Stir vigorously.  Set surround volume to HIGH. Place clean disc in player and leave it for 113 minutes. Serve with 2 (or more) cold beverages of your choice with a side of chips--and don't forget the guacamole dip!

Director Doug Liman's 2014 science fiction action thriller Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt and Brendan Gleeson is one of the most exciting and original action films from a director known for bringing Robert Ludlum's Bourne series to the big screen. Also known for the tagline Live. Die. Repeat., Edge of tomorrow centers around Major William Cage, a U.S. Naval officer--played by Cruise-- with zero combat experience who is unwillingly deployed to the front lines of a landing operation to battle with alien creatures that have invaded earth. There, he teams with Special Forces leader Rita Vrataski known as the Full Metal Bitch--played by Emily Blunt --and becomes caught in a time loop that resets every time he's killed. 

This is 1 of those films like Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film Starship Troopers that somehow managed to fly in under the radar. Having seen Liman's work on the original Bourne movie and his excellent 1999 film Go, I figured that if anything else, Live. Die. Repeat. would be fairly entertaining and have a decent script. What I wasn't prepared for was how easily the film would measure up with iconic films like The Terminator or even The Matrix. This is a muscular super-toy one can appreciate from a geek standpoint with all of the military gadgets like the combat exoskeletons the soldiers wear, to its humor, to its James Cameronesque level of action--everything about this film cries out for a sequel which is coming, I read, in 2020 and deservedly so. Tom Cruise is, as always, great in his role as a soft public relations officer who grows by experience on top of experience into a hard-core warrior. Emily Blunt is also great as a seasoned field warrior who mentors him. Brendan Gleeson is also great as Defense Force Commander General Brigham. And finally, the late Bill Paxton is great as Master Sergeant Farrell who whips Cruise and other soldiers into shape prior to the landing operation. 

Live. Die. Repeat or, if you prefer, Edge of Tomorrow, is a damn good film that proves that you can make  an entertaining movie that is under 2 hours. If you're a Tom Cruise hater you have no idea what you're missing out on!

Nymphomaniac is more than sex: a review of Nymphomaniac

Nymphomaniac is more than sex: a review of Nymphomaniac

A middle-aged bachelor (Stellan Skarsgård) finds a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in an alley covered with bruises. He takes her home and nurses her wounds. In return, she tells him her life story: her name is Joe and she is a nymphomaniac. Even as a child, Joe was aware that she was different and that she possessed an inordinate craving for sex uncomplicated by love and jealousy. She gets a job at a printing company and there, meets Jerome (Shia LaBeouf), who also happens to be her boss. One day without warning, Jerome disappears but not before raising her awareness to the fact that sex is good, but love is the missing ingredient. Her journey to find this missing ingredient will put her in some strange situations and also lays the foundation for this film.

Nymphomaniac is a 2 part European art film by director Lars Von Trier chronicling the odyssey of a woman who seeks connections to the outside world through sexual experimentation! This 2013 film contains sexually explicit situations that leaves nothing to the imagination. The film’s all-star cast includes Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard (Insomnia), Willem Dafoe, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Shia LaBeouf as Jerome, and Stacy Martin as the teenaged Joe. This film challenges the social conventions of sexuality through a woman who pursues her desires openly while eschewing any emotional intimacy with or responsibility for those affected, including men to whom she declares false feelings for nor the families that these men abandon to be with her. 

The film works psychologically, sociologically and as a metaphor of society’s desensitization to stimulation and its detachment from the emotional needs of others, a theme similar to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 film called Salo, based on Marquis De Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom. Instead of pleasure, that film describes civilization rotting to a point where it is incapable of distinguishing pleasure from shit. 

The use of CGI in this film is stunning. The sex scenes are real but performed by porn stars and not the films' main actors whose heads are digitally attached to the bodies of the actual performers. 

Charlotte Gainsbourg is incredible in Nymphomaniac as she is in Von Trier’s 2009 film, AntiChrist, which also stars Willem Dafoe. Since leaving the Transformers franchise behind, Shia LaBeouf has become a seriously good actor (He is stellar in this film). Also of note is Uma Thurman as the wife of 1 of Joe's many lovers. In a way, Uma's devastating performance in this film dominates the other performances.  As I said, this is part 1 of a 2 part film and if you like Lars Von Trier's AntiChrist and you don't have a bias against a film that is truly adult in every sense of the word, this film will be right up your alley.

Christopher Nolan leaving DC was the best thing to happen for Marvel Studios: a review of The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan leaving DC was the best thing to happen for Marvel Studios: a  review of The Dark Knight!

Director Christopher Nolan's 2008 film The Dark Knight is without any reasonable doubt 1 of the greatest films ever, let alone superhero films that transcended its genre by being directed at an intelligent adult audience. In this film, a face-painted psychopath calling himself the Joker terrorizes the city of Gotham to persuade Batman to reveal his true identity. Batman, meanwhile, is conflicted by his role and puts his faith in an up and coming District Attorney named Harvey Dent who works on the side of the law to replace him. The film stars Christian Bale as Batman, Aaron Echhart as Commissioner Harvey Dent, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Gary Oldman as Lieutenant James Gordon, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and, last but not least Heath Ledger in his final performance as Joker. Nolan and his brother Jonathan co wrote the script that is based on a story by Christopher and David S. Goyer.

Those who followed Nolan's career from his debut film 'Following' (1998) and his game-changing reverse-chronological masterpiece 'Memento' (2000) were probably not surprised by the complexity and literature-like quality he brought to Batman which in my mind is a Criterion-worthy trilogy. The Dark Knight is the only-- THE ONLY-- superhero film that earned an Oscar in an acting category for Heath Ledger's retardedly brilliant performance as the Joker, albeit a posthumous Supporting Actor award. Nolan's Batman also distinguishes itself from other superhero films in how it mirrors our own society, complete with crooked politicians and crooked cops and face-painted psychopaths like the Joker whose face paint links him in our collective minds with domestic terrorists like the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh or 21 year old Christopher Sides who shot up a Florida theater in 2012 wearing Joker face-paint.

It was inevitable that Nolan's art-house interpretation of Batman would be replaced by Zack Snyder's franchise version but we can always go back and enjoy The Dark Knight and its sequels.

Prophecies of Doom: a review of The Terminator

Prophecies of Doom: a review of The Terminator

Some films age like wine. It's hard to believe that Director James Cameron's  inspired fever dream, The Terminator, is 34 years old. Its lean script, staccato editing and direction, and its human driven storyline are what gives it the staying power to outshine most of today's sci fi films even with technologies like CGI, motion capture, and 3D-motion photography at their disposal. But what makes Terminator a cut above other speculative science fiction films is the fact that almost all of its projections have come to pass like the flying unmanned "Hunter-killers" in the film that today we call drones that are dropping bombs in Afghanistan; there's the A.I. network called Skynet in the film that "gets smart" and there is Google's new technology Alpha Go that they claim is a "learning computer;" there's the Terminator in the film and there's the United States' defense agency called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the Atlas robot chassis they created that can climb and run on a treadmill; combine the Atlas with Google's Alpha Go designed brain and voila, instant Terminator. Then you have Facebook having to "unplug" 2 of its A.I. systems after these systems started talking to each other in a secret language they created. This coupled with government projections that in a couple of years 6% of U.S. jobs will be taken over by these smart systems and existential warnings from the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking on the threat A.I. poses to civilization. Then there's Sophia (look her up). And let's not even begin talking about self-driving cars which are already being used in France and that we will be sharing our streets and highways with in the next year or 2. Taking all this into account, plus the fact that even owning an electric typewriter in 1984 was a luxury, The Terminator is--in my mind--one of the most important films (and probably THE MOST accurate theatrical prophesy that has come true) ever made, even more so than Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece. 

Stripped down to its titanium skeleton, the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a cyborg from the future that travels back 40 years in time to kill a waitress (Linda Hamilton) to prevent her from giving birth to a boy who will one day destroy them and save mankind. Throughout all of this, there's a love story involving Sarah Connor and the soldier--played by Michael Bien--whom her son, John, sends back in time to protect from the Terminator

Terminator remains, even after all these years, 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 some setup 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.

"This is the end, my only friend, the end!"-- Apocalypse Now Redux review

"This is the end, my only friend, the end!"-- Apocalypse Now Redux review

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 war film written by John Milius, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin Willard, a CIA assassin commissioned to locate and terminate the command of a renegade Special Forces operative named Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who is wanted for murdering Vietnamese agents and building a fortress in a Cambodian jungle where natives worship him as a god. The film is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 19th century novella The Heart of Darkness about a voyage up the Congo River to the heart of Africa, the Congo free state. In Apocalypse Now, this river is renamed the  Nung River up which Captain Willard finds Kurtz and personal redemption. The film also stars Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, Robert DuVall, and Harrison Ford. 

This version of the film is called the Redux version due to 49 minutes of footage added to the original theatrical version in 2001. There is more action in this version such as the helicopter raid on Vin Bin Drop where Captain Willard begins his journey up the river. But the key added scene in the Redux version involves the French plantation outpost where Willard has a brief affair with a French woman by the name of Madam Sarrault. Why this scene was left out of the original is understandable because of that version's 2 1/2 running time; however, having this scene in this version provides a greater understanding of both Kurtz's and Willards' dislocation from reality. Another added scene is a continuation of the scene at the supply depot involving the Playboy bunnies. In this film, Willard and his crew find the bunnies further upriver. Even this small scene, thanks to editor Walter Murch, seems necessary to the film's overall theme. In all, the added footage takes the original 1979 feature from 2 1/2 hours to almost 3 1/2 hours and let me tell you that once you see this version you'll never go back to the original. 

I have the blu ray and the sound and color are worth the upgrade if you're coming from DVD. Can't say enough about this movie which is probably the best film about war ever. Very entertaining!

Super-sexy shape-shifters of the Dark World: My review of Wicked City

Super-sexy shape-shifters of the Dark World: My review of Wicked City

Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri's 1987 anime Wicked City is about a secret agent named Taki and his incredibly beautiful partner named Makie. They are assigned to protect a pint-sized pervert named Giuseppe Mayart who's coming to Tokyo to sign a 500 year old peace treaty between Earth and the Black World, a parallel dimension, which also happens to be where Makie is from.Throughout the film, the agents do battle with a host of weird creatures from the Black world determined to sabotage the treaty. But at the heart of the story is 2 very different beings from different worlds going through Hell together and eventually falling in love.

This animated feature contains explicit content, including a creature that resembles a giant phallus, sodomy, a very graphic rape scene, some profanity. At the same time, these elements are what sets this film and its director apart from other anime directors like Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, and others.

The artwork in this film is all hand drawn having been made in a time before CGI and has the director’s style being the long mysterious eyes, especially with Makie who, in my opinion, is the sexiest female in any anime feature.

But I can't stress this enough: this one is for adults only. If you like Japanese Director Takashi Miike's films you should have no problem with Wicked City.

Life is a game of poker: a review of Cincinnati Kid!

Life is a game of poker: a review of Cincinnati Kid!

Director Norman Jewison's 1965 drama The Cincinnati Kid tells the story of an ambitious up and coming poker player named Eric Stoner, played by Steve McQueen, who learns the hard way courtesy of "the man" Lancey Howard that, in poker as in life, you got to know when to fold.

The film uses stud poker as a metaphor throughout the film, and focuses particularly on the relationship between McQueen and Christian (Tuesday Weld). The cast is top notch with supporting actors like Karl Malden, who plays a washed up player named shooter reduced to dealing cards, Joan Blondell, the deft-fingered dealer known as "Lady-Fingers," Rip Torn as the wealthy villain obsessed with beating "The Man,” played by Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margaret as Shooter's high-maintenance floozy, and even a cameo by Cab Calloway. All of these actors are perfect in their supporting roles, but the main focus of this film is the buildup of and showdown between McQueen and Robinson (the Man) at the poker table.

Terrific film. Low-key like some of his other films like Le Mans, Bullit, and The Thomas Crown Affair, very crisp, very cool like the man himself. Norman Jewison is one of those directors you don't think about when you think of great directors but his movies that I've seen are good, including Rollerball and The Thomas Crown Affair, which also features McQueen. Steve McQueen is one of those actors who defined the 60's. Definitely up there with James Dean as one of the coolest actors ever.

Combining sex and art: a review of Turkish Delight

Combining sex and art: a review of Turkish Delight

Of all Director Paul Verhoeven's Dutch films before he came to America and made such classics as Robocop, Basic Instinct, and Total Recall, his 1973 film, Turkish Delight, is among my favorites along with Katie Tippel and The Fourth Man.

Turkish Delight is an ambiguous title for this film since the film can be best described as the bittersweet dream of a rebelious sculptor's (Rutger Hauer) discovery of perfection in a young vivacious redhead (Monique van de ven) and inevitable discovery that not all things are what they seem to be on the surface. Remember this as you watch the initial montage of brutal crimes perpetrated by Eric upon Olga. Their stormy relationship begins after this in flashback, culminating in their split. But there's a lot in between that will help you to understand the context of these few details I've provided that you won't see the end coming when it does.

This is a sweet entertaining film and an excellent primer for those unfamiliar with foreign films. Very very funny at times, though often raunchy, and, as common in Verhoeven's Dutch film offerings, there are no special efforts to cover up male and female private areas. When discussions come up about the greatest actors, Hauer's name should be among them.

Robbing a bank for a sex change: a review of Dog Day Afternoon

Robbing a bank for a sex change: a review of Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day afternoon is a 1975 American crime drama directed by Sydney Lumet and based on a Life magazine article by P.F. Kluge entitled The Boys in The Bank which is based on a similar bank robbery in 1972. Dog Day is one of those films that defines the 70's style of filmmaking that reflected the social changes of the times. The 70s was a great decade for Pacino with the Godfathers 1 and 2, this film, Serpico, And Justice For All among other films. And the 70s was a decade that he collaborated with directors on multiple films, Francis Ford Coppola with the Godfather films and Sydney Lumet on Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico. With the exception of my favorite actor Marlon Brando, I can't think of an actor putting together 4 great iconic films in a single decade as Pacino did in the 70s.

Dog Day Afternoon follows the events of a bungled Brooklyn bank robbery in 1975 when a couple of unemployed losers become instant celebrities on live television. The film shows how easily one can go from being a schmuck to a god by pandering to the people's emotions. As Sonny, Pacino uses one word to go from being an armed criminal to a superstar: Attica, the 1971 prison riot that resulted in the deaths of 33 inmates. Pacino's performance is very tense in this film and his performance is not a glamorous one as the film grainy look and feel makes it seem less a film and more like it's taking place in real time. In this respect, the film's aesthetic calls to mind films like the French Connection and On The Waterfront. 

There are also a lot of close up shots of the actors' faces so there was nothing to hide the human performances of the actors from the viewers. You feel what these people feel in the context of the circumstances they find themselves thrust into. Charles Durning is excellent as the police lieutenant who negotiates with Pacino and his parter, Sal, played by the late great John Cazale who also co stars with Pacino as Fredo in the Godfather films. Other great performances in this film came from James Broderick as the FBI agent who negotiates with Sonny and also a very young Lance Henrickson who you'll remember plays the android Bishop in the 1st 2 Alien films.

This film runs a little over 2 hours but there's so much going on that you'll hardly notice the time. A great example of 70's filmmaking and of what made Pacino the star he is today.

This is your brain on drugs!: A Scanner Darkly review

This is your brain on drugs!: A Scanner Darkly review

Richard Linklater's 2006 film A Scanner Darkly-- one of many many film adaptations of visionary Phillip K. Dick's many novels-- follows a drug agent named "Fred" whose brain is literally split, like Siamese twins, by a psychedelic drug known as Substance D (for Death). Through this disruption we see the symbiotic relationship between the cops and criminals as Fred, who's identity is obscured by a "scramble suit," does electronic surveillance on himself as a drug dealer named Bob Arctor.

This is a very faithful adaptation to Dick's novel, one of the best I've read on drug abuse and without a doubt, the most creative on the subject. Like Waking Life, Linklater chose to animate this film in that floating style of his that is essentially rotoscoping or tracing over live action elements and combining them with composite imagery. The effect of this style decision pays off by augmenting the drug induced reality of the world in which this story takes place. An example of this is when an addict attempts to O.D. on psychedelics but instead winds up face to face with a weird-looking creature from another dimension.

I believe that A Scanner Darkly snuck under the radar, mostly because of the fact that it is an animated film aimed at adults. The addition of Robert Downey Jr. as one of the paranoid addicts (Barris)who himself was a drug user was probably not a coincidence. Keanu Reeves is convincingly "dirty" and tacky-looking as drug dealer and user Bob Arctor. Woody Harrelson is also grimy as Luckman, Reeve's long-haired roommate in this film.

This is definitely one of those "you'll either like it, or you won't" films. Not that it's all that hard or graphic, it's the way it's presented. I try to tell people I know about this movie and they really want to see it, then once they discover that it's animated, they're turned off like that. This is a shame because this film's up there with the best, including Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream, The Lost Weekend, Man With the Golden Arm, etc, imo. If you like entertaining films that are also deep you should try this.

Take a hit of this and Enter The Void: a review of Gaspar Noe's film

Take a hit of this and Enter The Void: a review of Gaspar Noe's film

Irreversible Director Gaspar Noe's 2009 film Enter The Void is an acid trip set in Tokyo about a drug dealer named Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) whose immortal soul reviews all of his decisions prior to being set up by his best friend and killed by the cops in a drug sting.  This is one of those movies you have to see twice-- once to let it dazzle you, and a second time to think about it. The plot is somewhat based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead which the main character references in the film. This film assaults you from the ferociously colorful title sequence and all throughout.  This is the ugliest, most depressing, saddest, and yet the most beautiful film I've seen. Paz de la Huerta as Oscar's little sister Linda gives a skin-peeling performance as a stripper who's manipulated for sex by an emotionally detached pimp. This is a love or hate film but Noe really outdid himself. This film will be talked about for years to come and I rank it up there, visually, with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not for the squeamish, though.

FDA Approved!: Dallas Buyer's Club review

FDA Approved!: Dallas Buyer's Club review

Woke up in a cold sweat. Had a fever of 101. Went by my doctor. They drew some blood and told me I'd contracted a raging case of Dallas Buyer's Club. This 2013 film by Jean-Marc Vallée starring Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto is 1 of those films that made me wonder what was shakier, me or the camera movements. It is based on the true story of Ron Woodroof, a heterosexual male who contracts Aids and, after being given a month to live, survives thanks to his savvy in self-medicating with natural low to non-toxic alternative drugs and no thanks to the FDA who is miffed that he is hipping as many people as possible to AZT, an FDA approved drug that does more harm than good. The performances in this film from the top down starting with Matthew, to Jennifer Garner, to Jared Leto. Jared Leto, lol, whooee! Let's just say that he was VERY convincing, effective, and endearing as Ron's right-hand queen, Rayon. This film deals with an array of issues besides homophobia including racism through McConaughey's character. Hard to believe this is based on a true story and that it took me so long to check it out. But that's me, first to hate and the last to love. Few films come to mind where performances are this great, DeNiro in Raging Bull, Stallone in Rocky, Rourke in The Wrestler, Masina in Nights of Cabiria, and Brad Davis in Midnight Express are a few. Put McConaughey in this film up there. Terrific entertaining film.

"Soylent Green is people!!!" a review of Soylent Green

"Soylent Green is people!!!" a review of Soylent Green

The 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green takes place in a bleak future where man's abuse of the planet has reached critical mass. Greenhouse emissions have turned the atmosphere into a swamp; 50 million people carpet the streets and sidewalks of New York. Against this backdrop, a New York detective named Frank Thorn (Charlton Heston) investigates the murder of a public official that leads him to a processing plant that makes a food product called Soylent Green. 

Soylent Green is 1 of those films that has aged well thanks to the masterful direction of Richard Fleischer and its 2 stars, Charlton Heston and the great Edward G. Robinson in his final role as Thorn's wistful roommate Sol Roth who can remember the good ol' days when you could buy real meat, real fruits and vegetables, and real butter. Mr. Robinson plays 2nd to Heston in this film, but his performance is the lightning rod through which I could identify with the story emotionally. Definitely, his best performance. 

As for Charlton, his penchant for playing the reluctant champion of the people continues in this film. Politics aside, there's no denying the fact that Heston had the 'it' factor that put him in the elite class of Hollywood actors. In his role as detective Frank Thorn, you get an everyman skimming where he can here and there who, despite his flaws, is mixed up in a mystery where he ends up defending the people. Sounds a lot like Moses in The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur, right? Except that there's no happy ending in this film.

Because of the commentary it makes on urban overcrowding, Soylent Green is in my top 5 of the greatest science fiction films ever, right up there with the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner. The film won the Nebula Award for Best Drama and The Saturn Award for best science fiction film. The stirring opening montage showing America evolving from its pastoral and dignified beginnings to today's urban, overcrowded, poisoned industrial dystopia is up there with the The Road Warrior opening. Terrific film and a revelation for those who've yet to discover it. This should definitely be in the Criterion collection.

When We Were Kings! A review of the documentary

When We Were Kings! A review of the documentary

No sports figure was as polarizing as Muhammad Ali in the sixties. So it's ironic that one who was so demonized on his religious beliefs and his position on the Vietnam War, which was at that time politically incorrect, should wind up being the most beloved national sports figure ever. No professional athlete at the height of his career has ever sacrificed as much as Ali, let alone any entertainer period, especially when he also happened to be Black. Ali was a champion not only in the boxing ring, but also a champion who set an example for those who believed in something greater than himself, namely the human race, and he did it in a time when the risk for doing so was not just losing his livelihood, but also his life.

When We Were Kings is Mr. Leon Gast's 1996 Academy Award winning documentary of the hype and preparations leading up to one of the greatest upsets in sports history, 1974's Rumble in the Jungle boxing contest between Ali and George Foreman, who, at that time was perceived by the pundits as virtually indestructible. In this doc we get to see Ali out of his boxing element as he was then: cocky, defiant, funny, as good as a promoter as he was a fighter. We get to hear, in his own words, why he is the greatest, that his fight against Foreman is only a microcosm of the struggles of his people in America and Africa against injustice. We get to see him courting the sentiment of the Congo people by characterizing Foreman as a pawn of the White establishment. We also get to see a very young Don King with his black hair (now white) shooting up, building up the hype, bringing in America's hottest Black musicians and entertainers like James Brown,B.B. King, The Spinners (my all-time favorite group), Bill Withers, Big Black,etc. We get to hear the music, which serves as the soundtrack to the fighter's public training camps. We get various perspectives from the most influential writers of that time like George Plimpton and Norman Mailer (and also Mr. Spike Lee), who were both also ringside and provide lots of anecdotes, often very funny, of a lot of behind the scenes stuff, including ringside blow-by-blow descriptions of the fight itself.

This film is very entertaining and a great artifact for young people who have heard of but have no idea who Ali was, what makes him the great icon that he is, and why he is considered the greatest in and out of the Boxing ring. I can't say enough about this documentary. I've seen it maybe 3 times in the past month. It's that good. Back then, there was a lot of swagger and that's what this film is essentially about. When men, like Ali, were regarded as Kings, as larger than life, who walked among us like giants. Took me a long time to see this film and it was well worth the wait. Think I'll see it again in a couple of weeks.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 murder mystery Frenzy: my review of the film

Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 murder mystery Frenzy: my review of the film

Director Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 British murder mystery Frenzy takes everything from his best films and puts them all into 1 entertaining fun ride revolving around an unemployed hard-luck bartender named Richard--played by Jon Finch-- who becomes the perfect fall-guy for a series of grisly murders committed with neckties.

As he does in almost all of his movies, Hitchcock reveals to us--the viewers-- early on in the film who the real necktie killer is and dedicates the remaining 3/4 of the film to having the characters solve this mystery. In Richard Blaney, Hitchcock provides us with a perfect suspect for committing the murders and no tangible reason to believe in his innocence other than intuition and faith. Hitchcock likes to play with the viewers and the main character in this fashion. For instance, in his 1942 film Saboteur, the accused protagonist finds a blind man who believes in his innocence. And in his 1938 murder mystery The Lady Vanishes, we have a similar situation, only this time the protagonist is a young woman who insists on the existence of a British agent who disappears on a train when no one but her has seen the agent.

But Frenzy is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies because you could see him making a transition in the style in which he shot movies in up to that point, similar to another great director named Stanley Kubrick who's style changed radically from the 1964 political satire Dr. Strangelove to his 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I believe that Frenzy, like 2001, marked a new direction for Hitchcock. Frenzy marked the 1st time he chose to show murder including sexual assault in graphic detail. In his past films, these elements would have been suggested by either dialogue or in a contextual scene in which the actual scene itself would have been edited out. Also, this film marked a return, of sorts, to his roots as a British director and working with actors who weren't household names. As 1 of Hitchcock's last films, Frenzy reveals hints that his powers hadn't diminished and were, in fact, becoming even greater. If you haven't seen this film, you should and this is 1 Criterion should definitely add to their collection.

A review of Mori Masaki's 1983 anime Barefoot Gen

A review of Mori Masaki's 1983 anime classic Barefoot Gen

When discussions of the greatest anti war films come up, Director Mori Masaki's 1983 anime Barefoot Gen should be right there in the same discussion as Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film Paths of Glory if not for anything other than the human dimension of war it provides from the perspective of those regarded as collateral damage.

Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur: a review

Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur: a review

Director Alfred Hitchcock's 1942 noir spy thriller Saboteur is about a munitions worker (Robert Cummings) falsely accused of starting a fire in a warehouse that kills his friend and who goes on a cross-country search to find the real culprit named Fry. Like Hitchcock's 1959 film North By Northwest and his 1938 British mystery film The Lady Vanishes, the protagonists' real search is for 1 single person who believes in him. And like those films, once he finds that person who believes in him he also discovers the truth and the man who really killed his friend. The overall lesson in this film is that you can't always judge something by the way it looks on the surface, beautifully illustrated by a blind man as Director James Whale does in his 1935 Horror classic The Bride of Frankenstein.

The Mill and The Cross: my review of Lech Majewski's beautiful film

The Mill and The Cross: my review of Lech Majewski's beautiful film

Saw Director Lech Majewski's film The Mill and The Cross at the Tivoli back in 2011. Never heard of it and chose it spur-of-the-moment. The best film of its kind I've seen since The Tree of Life. Mill and The Cross is based on a famous painting by Pieter Bruegel called "Way to Calvary," which depicts the Crucifixion.

The great Rutger Hauer plays Bruegel, Michael York his patron, and York's wife, Charlotte Rampling, Bruegel's reference for Mary, Jesus' mother.

One of the greatest Vietnam War films ever!: My review of Oliver Stone's 'Platoon'

One of the greatest Vietnam War films ever!: My review of Oliver Stone's 'Platoon'

Director Oliver Stone's 1986 film Platoon is one of the most powerful anti war films ever made, the film that made Charlie Sheen a star, following in his father Martin Sheen's footsteps who also starred in one of the most iconic war films, Francis Ford Copolla's 1979 epic Apocalypse Now. Amazingly, not only are these 2 films headlined by father and son but both films also take place in the Vietnam war.

Spike Lee's 'Jungle Fever:' my review

Spike Lee's 'Jungle Fever:' my review

When I first saw Director Spike Lee's 1991 drama Jungle Fever in the theater, I was overwhelmed with the cinematography, particularly the various gels that were used by cinematographer Ernest Dickerson to make some scenes look gritty and blown out and other gels used to make the picture look razor sharp such as the scene involving the crack house called the Taj Mahal. It is as if the director used these photographic techniques as one using a highlight marker to overemphasize details he wanted to stand out. And those scenes--like electrified hair--do stand out, so much so that the rest of the film--at times--seems more like filler than context for these scenes. Nevertheless, there are enough good things about the film besides Ernest Dickerson's phantasmagorical cinematography that are worth a word or 2. The film's all-star cast includes Anthony Quinn, Wesley Snipes, Samuel L. Jackston, John Turturro, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, and Halle Berry.

The Browning Version: a review of the film

The Browning Version: a review of the film!

First, I'd like to give credit to Criterion for the excellent job they did on The Browning Version. This 1951 film directed by Anthony Asquith stars Michael Redgrave as Crocker-Harris, headmaster and literature professor at an all boys school in England. In his role as Crocker-Harris, Redgrave is as brittle as they come. None of his students like him and call him names behind his back. A student named Taplow feels sorry for the professor and gets close enough to him to learn that the mean professor is not mean at all, but actually a victim who's taken advantage of by a wife half his age who only married him for personal gain. Crocker-Harris has nothing of love in his life except his love of literature and the Browning Version of a book called Agamemnon.

The Browning version is a  sad film about the regrets most of us have about things we wish we would have done in the past. This has been one of my favorite movies for a long time because of Michael Redgrave's performance as Crocker-Harris who is reduced to playing cuckold to a young wife who only married him for his money.

This is one of the great performances ever, up there with Charles Laughton's performance as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and in a way, the roles are similar, only that in The Browning Version, the main character's disfigurement is on the inside. This is a great movie at only an hour and a half.

The 400 Blows: a review of the great Francois Truffaut film

The 400 Blows: a review of the great Francois Truffaut film!

Director Francois Truffaut's semi-autobiographical film The 400 Blows came out in 1959 as part of the French New Wave movement. This film follows the difficult life of a boy named Antoine played by Jean Pierre Leaud.

The film opens in a classroom where students are secretly passing around a picture of a pin-up girl. At the precise moment that the picture touches Antoine's hand the teacher happens to look up from his desk and catches him red-handed. The teacher punishes Antoine again when he catches the boy scribbling a poem on the chalkboard. And it gets no better at home for Antoine as his young mother played by Claire Maurier and stepfather played by Albert Remy bicker about money in front of him and complain about how much he eats. Antoine can't seem to do anything right anywhere. Like school, he finds a creative outlet by developing an interest in a famous writer named Balzac. He even builds a small shrine for the writer but makes the mistake of placing a candle in it which almost burns down the apartment. The rest of the film goes on like this, broken up by little things like him skipping school and going to the carnival to spin around inside of a giant cylinder. 

This film is about how some people are just magnets for bad luck. The ambiguous ending invites the viewer to draw his own conclusions as to Antoine's ultimate fate. This is one of my favorite movies and despite how it sounds, there are a few light moments in the film. There's a lot of ways to look at The 400 Blows. In some ways, it's inspirational in that with all the negativity Antoine deals with that he's still resilient enough to try to have a childhood such as the carnival scene, that we were all once kids before we grew up. Criterion did a great job on this film. I have the DVD and it still looks great.

'The Battle Over Citizen Kane': a review of the documentary

'The Battle Over Citizen Kane': a review of the documentary

There are some film documentaries that are so good that they stand on their own. The 1996 documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane is the rare instance where the appetizer may actually be better than the main course. Produced by Michael Epstein and Thomas Lennon, written by Richard Ben Cramer and Thomas Lennon, and powerfully narrated by Richard Cramer, The Battle Over Citizen Kane originally aired as an episode of the Public Broadcast System's The American Experience looking at the lives, the careers and the ultimate showdown between Hearst and Welles over Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane. 

Reportedly, Welles' weaved strands of his own life with that of Hearst's in making the film and the battleship-sized egos of the 2 in the documentary are compared, showing how each man in his own world seized power by the white-hot force of his personality and how each man eventually lost that power through excess and appetite. Estate photos and videos interwoven with interviews with journalists like Jimmy Breslin along with stock footage of turn of the century America add the color and humor that keeps this 2 hour documentary entertaining from the gate to the finish line. There are no lapses in this presentation but my favorite parts show Orson's Broadway career directing Depression Era Black actors to perform Shakespeare; then there’s  the legend of Orson's famous 1938 War of The Worlds radio hoax that later went on to inspire 2 films! If you see no other documentary on a film see this 1.

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo: a review

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo: a review

Director Alfred Hitchcock's made a lot of great movies and he is far and away one of the greatest directors who ever lived. But of all of his films--and he’s directed over 70 films, at least--his artistic masterpiece is his 1958 film Vertigo starring James Stewart and Kim Novack based on Boileau-Narcejac’s 1954 book From Among the Dead.

Vertigo features Stewart as Detective John Scottie who is forced to retire due to his fear of heights which results in the death of his partner. Afterwards, he agrees to help out a friend by following the man’s beautiful wife (played by Kim Novack) The husband believes that his wife is possessed by a young woman who committed suicide a century ago. What Stewart doesn’t know is that his fear of heights makes him the perfect witness to a murder!

Everything in this film-- the cinematography, the acting, the locations (all around San Francisco), the color, the music (by Mr. Bernard Herrman)--is absolute perfection. James Stewart is one of my favorite actors and this is my 2nd favorite film of his besides Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder. Kim Novack is incredible playing 2 roles, that of Gavin Elster’s blonde wife Madeleine and as a Brunette named Judy Barton from Salina, Kansas whom Scottie becomes obsessed to the point of physically transforming her into the woman of his dreams. As in most of his films, Hitch makes his trademark cameo but you can't blink or you'll miss him.

I really can't say this is THE greatest simply because there are so many great films. The film it's most compared with is Citizen Kane and seeing it for the first time in years this is a pretty fair comparison. I'd call it a toss up because I couldn't put one under the other, both are the great. If you have not seen this one yet, you’re in for a treat; if you have seen it like me you don’t mind rewatching it to admire its beauty and precision. Every time I see it I spot something I hadn’t noticed before.

My Review of The Original Mad Max

My Review of the Original Mad Max

Before The Fast and The Furious, Speed Racer, and all of today's hybrid human/cgi rendered cars and blue screen chase sequences, there were movies with real stuntmen and real gas guzzlers from Detroit that made a lot of noise. Of these films, Australian director George Miller's 1979 dystopian film Mad Max--and its follow-up, The Road Warrior--exemplifies the extinct breed of animal known as muscle cars, or, in this instance, Australian muscle!

In a nutshell, Mad Max is about a good cop named Max Rockatanski (Played by Mel Gibson) who gives in to the dark side after a ruthless motorcycle gang led by the Toe-cutter ambushes and tortures his best friend, the "Goose." The real star of this film, though, are not the many muscle cars used in this film: Max's yellow Interceptor squad car; the Kawasaki motorcycles; or The Mad Max revenge car, the Pursuit Special at the end of the film. No, the most important star of this film is the driver's seat perspective of the road itself.

Can't say enough about this film which was Director George Miller's 1st film, putting him up with the likes of Scorsese's 1973 film Mean Streets, and Christopher Nolan's 1998 film Following as among the best debut films ever. Like James Cameron's 1984 film The Terminator, Mad Max's sequel is as good if not better than the original. If you haven't seen this film in a while, you should see it on blu ray. It's like seeing it for the first time.

My Review of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira

My Review of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira

Director Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 anime Akira takes place in the year 2012 in Neo Tokyo following an event similar to the atomic bombs America dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A boy named Akira is the subject of secret government experiments that give him access to superhuman powers. Things get out of control when the government does the experiment on a biker named Tetsuo who becomes obsessed with his best friend's motorcycle and who has been picked on all his life for being short.

This anime, like a lot of sci fi anime reference Japanese culture after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a way of signaling the death of one age and the birth of a new age. Looking at this anime and others like Ghost in The Shell, the influence of Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner is obvious in the fusion of industrial-looking tech combined with social and environmental issues like crime, poverty, overcrowding and lots of consumer products marketed on just about every square inch of available space. These elements together describe an aesthetic known as cyberpunk. Watching Akira, it is easy to see how much Blade Runner influenced the artwork and, in a lot of ways, Akira takes it a step further. Watching it, even after 30 years since it was made, it can easily take a couple of nights just to take in everything. And, unlike most anime where only the main characters in the foreground move, everything and I do mean EVERYTHING moves in Akira. Otomo is a gear-head and his obsession with detail, particularly machines, verges on the insane. Up to the time it came out, the only animation you could find this kind of motion was Disney. But Disney was for kids in those days but Akira was aimed at adults. This, if anything else, explains the cultural perceptions that American film audiences and Japanese film audiences have about animated movies. If you have heard of anime or if all you know about it is Dragonball Z or Pokemon, seeing Akira for the 1st time is going to be somewhat of a shock to what you are used to seeing, especially the level of graphic violence including blood. 

I still have my VHS copy of this film and recently, I upgraded to blu ray. This film looks incredible. The colors are popping and saturated but they don't bleed over the details. The opening scenes at night are absolutely crazy. The rainbows chasing the motorbikes, the motorbikes themselves, the clothes, the cityscape, everything looks better on blu ray. 

Despite the look of this film, the dialogue is bad. Otomo shows his weaknesses in the writing department but I'm not sure how much this has to do by it being translated out of Japanese to English. 

I read someplace that they were thinking about turning it into a live action movie but I don't think it'll work because the story itself is rather convoluted. Plus, I don't think that every good anime translates to live action. Look at what happened to Ghost in the Shell. I believe, too, that the sophistication of live action effects in recent years has not only equaled but has exceeded what you could only show in an animated movie. If they did make a live action Akira, I would like it to be Japanese. These films have a way of being Westernized with White actors like Ghost in the Shell was and Robert Rodriguez's upcoming action film Alita: The Battle Angel. If it is produced into a live action movie, though, I'll still go to see it. 

Finishing up this review, I'm glad to say that even after all these years, as far as animation has come, Akira still looks good. I think what makes this film age well is the fact that what you see on the screen is completely organic and hand-drawn by real people. This type of anime or animation period is gone now. I even read that Hayao Miyazaki's next animated film will be all CGI. That'll be interesting.