First up was Clint Eastwood's directorial debut PLAY MISTY FOR ME. He has matured directorialy since then, I feel. I didn't see much greatness in his ham-fisted handling of this, at least. If this had been a TV Movie and I had seen it at the age of twelve, it might have been one of those things that sticks in the mind and colours one's youth, but today it's very flat. No sense of irony at all, just by-the-numbers stuff, lifted out of the ordinary by Jessica Walter's scarily convincing playing of the nutty nympho.

Music is mostly source, but Dee Barton's original score does pop up (ineffectually fading in and out) in the final minutes before Eastwood punches the silly tart out the window Dirty Harry style.

PLAY MISTY FOR ME (USA 1971)

Directed by Clint Eastwood
Screenplay by Jo Heims and Dean Reisner
Photography by Bruce Surtees
Music by Dee Barton

Loved those two sexy girls too. Why didn't Hudson jump at the chance? Was he gay or something? Hee ho hee. Paula Prentiss is great, but I stopped fancying her just when Hudson started to get "hooked". He fell for her snivelling and rejected her kookiness, I was the other way around.

Cheerful score from the great Hank Mancini.

MAN'S FAVORITE SPORT? (USA 1963)

Directed by Howard Hawks
Screenplay by John Fenton Murray
Photography by Russell Harlan
Music by Henry Mancini

It smacks of Capra's greater IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, but even that great movie was too long. Maybe it's all just indicative of my poor attention span. Anyway, I was affected by this film's soft heart, but it might be too soft in the head into the bargain.

Not much Tiomkin music, but the Main Titles reminded me of Laurel and Hardy.

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (USA 1938)

Directed by Frank Capra
Screenplay by Robert Riskin, from the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
Photography by Joseph Walker
Music by Dimitri Tiomkin

Have seen the original version many times. Felt seeing it on the big screen was the real way to go. I was right , as the movie was much scarier and more cerebral. John Hurt's death was much more disturbing this time, and the whole end sequence of Ripley just running through the ship is exhaustingly terrifying.

The new cut really just adds the deleted scenes from the old DVD release, and they really should have stayed cut. One scene makes the Veronica Cartright character look like a COMPLETELY crazed woman way before she's supposed to, and also eliminates sympathy for the Dallas character (mainly because he also wanted to get on the ship and disregard quarentine rules). The infamous nest scene was also there...and not very necessary (the usual "kill me please" stuff). It didn't matter though, seeing this movie on the big screen was just as cool as seeing Star Wars back during the '97 re-releases. Check this out before its gone (I'm just being nitpicky about the DC stuff...its no big deal)!!!!

I don't know how much of that is entirely accurate...a couple footnotes by the book's editor suggest to the reader that Hawks was not cautious about "altering" events as he told them. At least, his stories sometimes don't match up with the way other people remember it.

It's an interesting story nonetheless. I haven't seen MAN'S FAVORITE SPORT?, but if, as you say, two hours is too long, it seems odd that an additional 40 minutes would have improved the film. But who knows? Maybe those 40 minutes had a lot of meat on them.

This is a brilliant, beautiful, and almost dangerously unconventional independent production from Orson Welles in 1955. The story follows a small-time blackmailer named Guy Van Stratten (Arden) who meets and falls in love with Raina Arkadin (Paola Mori, who was Welles’ third wife), who is resistant of his love for her at first. But he presists and they travel to Spain together, where she soon falls in love with him. In love, they attend a magnificent masquerade ball at a castle, where Stratten meets her father: the mysterious amnesiac billionaire Gregory Arkadin (Welles). Arkadin proposes to Stratten a deal, to research Arkadin’s own mysterious past, and in turn, getting a chance to marry Raina. This leads Stratten all over the globe in search of information about Arkadin, including a visit to a flea circus (you read that right). This film is wonderfully confusing, heavily stylized, and also campy. The acting strikes me as very film noir-ish, which makes things all the more fun.

Paul Misraki was a French composer who isn’t well-known today (though one of his notable assignments was scoring Godard’s Alphaville). I must comment on his score for “Confidential Report,” which is not only serviceable but also a lot of fun, and much of it reminded me of Nino Rota. Misraki’s main titles for the film start out with a very bouncy gypsy/carnival-esque theme, then seuging into a slow marching waltz. In the party scenes, he varieties his theme to slow big band cues (Rota did the same thing).

The black and white cinematography is quite a feast…in fact, it is intoxicatingly awesome. More arty camera angles than probably any other film I’ve ever seen. I can definitely see how the fast-paced editing with the multiple camera angles inspired such directors as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and later Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich. However, what was the most surprising about this film was the masquerade ball, which was carnival-esque and insane, with people in masks mocking the camera, smiling at it, winking at it, running at it, dancing into it, and storms of people walking in front of it. I felt like I was watching a Federico Fellini film, directed by Orson Welles. This scene had all of the madness and carnivalisms of Fellini, with the camera angles and editing of Welles. What a treat!

Unfortunately, this film surfaces in many different versions. If you are compelled to see it, absolutely don’t, under any circumstance, get the DVD from laserlight. It is a cropped (yes, cropped from 1.37…you don’t even get all of the square frame!), unrestored, public domain print that looks like it was buried for 30 years. Worst of all, the DVD is cut by ten minutes, apparently deleting the film’s important dream-like structure! The version I have, which is of terrific quality, is from Home Vision Entertainment, and is on VHS. The DVD company Criterion owns the rights to this, and sometime in the next few years they will release this on DVD, that is years though…until then, this nice VHS copy will do. This is a film I could probably watch 100 times and never tire of it. It’s a feast of artistic camera angles. If you love this kind of stuff, check it out…but only the Home Vision version!

Dylan
NP: Small Soldiers (Jerry Goldsmith)

Kirk, or James, or James T Kirk, so MAN'S FAVORITE SPORT? was supposed to be longer? As I mentioned, my attention was already taxed well before the two hour mark, but that may just be indicative of my increasingly flagging concentration as regards just about everything these days. I even find it difficult to get through a 75-min CD, even when it's good.

Alex, I didn't manage to catch the new longer ALIEN before it disappeared from the cinema screens. I do like the old shorter version, with some reservations.

I've no idea of the torture that poor Michael Cimino went through making HEAVEN'S GATE, but I'm sure he has no idea of the torture I went through watching it. I disliked it intensely. Poserishly distant interpretations, dialogues mumbled through sound effects etc, and for 219 minutes.

Vilmos Zsigmond's painterly canvases are extremely accomplished though. The images even have the texture of canvas, the exteriors bathed in constantly billowing smoke, the interiors illuminated by paraffin lamps which smudge the features out of all the faces. This excess of vaseline also helps disguise the fact that neither Kris Kristofferson nor John Hurt were really twenty years old in the opening college scenes. Impressive photography, but bah, it annoyed me too.

David Mansfield's hurdy-gurdy score is undramatic, deliberately so, just to make the film even more serious and important. It reminded me of Jack Hargreaves in a big armchair, smoking a pipe and talking about fishing for crap, I mean carp.

HEAVEN'S GATE (USA 1980)

Directed by Michael Cimino
Screenplay by Michael Cimino
Photography by Vilmos Zsigmond
Music by David Mansfield

Here is a movie that should be great. It has an original, imaginative story that can be enjoyed by both children and adults in equal measures, a smart script with well-developed characters, and a nice cast of actors who all give great, memorable performances. So what's lacking here? I can only lay the blame on Andrew Davis. He's a competent director, responsible for some taut thrillers that are as good as anything in the genre, the highlight of his career undoubtedly being THE FUGITIVE. But this story needed someone with a greater scope of vision at the helm, someone like Alfonso Cuaron. Heck, even Brad Silberling could have handled this material better than Andrew Davis did. He simply seems bored with this film, refusing to inject any life into his storytelling.

This is not to say the film is bad. Far from it, in fact. Despite Davis' flimsy direction, the strength of the actors and the sheer delight of the story shine through. Shia LaBeouf is an actor to watch out for. He got his big break on the surprisingly good Disney Channel TV series "Even Stevens," (HOLES is also Disney) where he displayed a lot of comic talent. What he displays here on top of that (or rather within it) is a great deal of heart and sensitivity. Jon Voigt is hilarious as the intimidating buffoon who oversees the camp. Tim Blake Nelson does his usual schtick, but he's quite good at it so there aren't any complaints. And Sigourney Weaver is perfectly cast as the warden, a woman who needs to be commanding, friendly, and frightening all at the same time. She pulls it off beautifully.

The plot seems like it should be too complicated for the length of a single film (some critics certainly thought so), but somehow it never gets more convoluted than it needs to be. There are lots of different threads here, and it's great to see how fate weaves them all together, even if some of them are easily predicted.

The only other points that get subtracted from this film are the result of it's soundtrack, which is filled to the brim in the first two thirds with irritating pop and rap songs that serve no purpose other than to sell the accompanying album. It's even more irritating that Joel McNeely's work is so good when it finally takes over in the last act of the film, because you long to have had more chances to get acquainted with it before then.

This is a good movie, but in the end a disappointment. I seriously think the potential was here for a classic family film, but alas, Andrew Davis just couldn't deliver.

Failed to write down my thoughts about this and the next film right after I saw them, so my comments are going to be brief, but I enjoyed this one a lot. The performances really sell the movie. Stewart was never better, Arthur is great, and Claude Rains is absolutely fantastic. You can read so much inner conflict on his face during the second half of the film that you effectively hate and pity him in equal doses.

Still, there was something about this film that didn't quite sit right with me, and I'm afraid it all boils down to Capra's famous brand of schmaltz. I'm sure I just didn't do a good enough job removing myself from my own era, but I couldn't help it. The ending was also a little too abrupt for me - I thought I was watching the end of the second act but it turned out the movie was over.

Small complaints, though. This is still a wonderful film, and I'd watch it again in a heartbeat any time.

While there are many people who remember this film fondly, it never seems to get mentioned among the great classics of American cinema, and I really can't understand why. This is really, really great film. It takes a seemingly rather silly romantic fantasy premise and turns it into a moving, funny, and thoughtful movie that relies solely on the strength of the characters instead of plot contrivances to keep the audience interested.

The cast does a marvelous job. Gene Tierney is a strong woman who doesn't fall to tears at every turn, Rex Harrison is every bit the swashbuckler with a soft spot he portrays, and George Sanders is charmingly narcissistic. There's some beautiful camera work by Lang in here, and the film features one of the most gorgeous scores Herrmann ever composed. I really can't comprehend how this film manages not to be at the top all those "best ever" lists. I might not put it in my top 20, but I don't think this film could possibly be disliked. It crawls into your chest and wraps a blanket around your heart with exquisite snugness - it's just great.

My only problem with the movie is that Anna, Tierney's daughter in the film, is played by little Natalie Wood, but when they flash forward at the end the older version is played by Vanessa Brown. They couldn't forsee this as a problem at the time, of course, but Brown isn't remotely as attractive as Wood was when she reached that age. But then again, how many women have ever existed who were as beautiful as Natalie Wood?

I feel funny writing about this film after Dylan spoke so eloquently about it in last month's thread. My sentiments are exactly the same as his were, so I don't know what to say that he didn't say already.

Crispin Glover is really amazing in this, a performance which demands sympathy for a character who, while sensitive and hurt, is also quite deranged. His talents are put to work beautifully in every scene of the film. Take for example his mother's funeral (not really a spoiler, I think - you can guess her fate after just knowing what the film is about). As he speaks to her, lying in the coffin, he sobs uncontrollably while a large string of snot hangs from his nose, which he snatches away. It's a moment that manages to be sad, touching, funny, and disgusting all at once, and it all comes down to Glover's performance. It's really remarkable, full of both campy melodrama and amazing subtlety. It's a cliche to say this, but you'd think he was born to play Willard.

Shilrey Walker's score is awesome, a wonderful homage to Herrmann with some great ideas of its own. Adding the accordion section to the orchestra was a great idea, and it leaves an indelible mark on the viewer, a perfect companion to the character that inspired it.

The ending of the film didn't go where I was expecting or where I was hoping, yet I was not disappointed by it. There's more falling action here than in most feature films, but that didn't bother me either. I thought it last just as long as it needed to, though I can imagine some people being either disappointed or anxious to leave the theater. I would not be one of them.

Kudos to New Line for greenlighting this project and having enough respect for the few people who did see it to put together a DVD that has a lot of stuff on it, none of which I've watched yet (I'm rather anxious to see this music video Dylan talked about in his comments on the film).

Recommended to all, with the reservation that if the film didn't look appealing to you in trailers and TV spots, it probably won't appeal to you. But if you thought it looked interesting, by all means, rent it. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Graham,

I've had a perverted desire to see HEAVEN'S GATE for a long time after reading all about its catastrophic production. Everything I've ever read sounded terrible, but wow, look at that cast! I'm not sure I'm masochistic enough to get through it...it doesn't sound enjoyably bad, the way THE CONQUEROR does. (Seen that one?)

My third Miyazaki film. This guy is really fantastic. While not quite as good as PRINCESS MONONOKE or SPIRITED AWAY, this is still very great. Miyazaki's world-building skills are incredible. Each of his films takes place in a world so rich and so beautifully realized you can only sit back and be awed by it.

I've only just watched the English dub, but I'm anxious to watch the Japanese version. I looked at just a few minutes of it, and it seems to be a somewhat different experience. For one thing, was a lot less dialogue in the original version than in the English dub (apparently Disney doesn't think people will understand what's right in front of them). And it's not just the voices - the entire soundtrack was redone for the new version, voices, sound effects, and score.

The music is great. Hisaishi was engaged to rescore the picture based on his original material. All of the synthesized portions of the original score have been orchestrated, and apparently scenes left unscored originally have been given new music, presumably to make it more accessible to American audiences. I don't know if the expansion was really worth it, but the new orchestration is very welcomed, as Hisaishi's score sounds marvelous in its new dress.

The rest of the new sound design is pretty weak compared to the few minutes I've watched of the Japanese version, which was far more active. I expected more after learning how long it took to complete this dub (it was originally supposed to be released in '99, shortly after Disney put out that dub of KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE).

The new voice actors do a pretty good job. It's not as good as Disney's SPIRITED AWAY dub, but I think it's a little better than PRINCESS MONONOKE. James Van Der Beek's voice can get a little annoying, but it's not terrible. Anna Paquin is pretty good, if a little too happy at times when it didn't seem appropriate...the great thing about her voice is that she chose not to mask her natrual accent, which works out great with her character's origin. Cloris Leachman is great, as is Mark Hamil, doing sort of a more classy and refined version of his Joker voice from Batman: The Animated Series.

Highly recommended. If you've seen any Miyazaki and liked it, you'll like this too.

Long stretches of it are really extraordinary, such as the night-time journey downstream under a starry sky, watched by a multitude of river wildlife; and the haunting shot of Shelley Winters in the car at the bottom of the lake, hair streaming in mermaid fashion (a scene which actually doesn't make much sense - how did the vehicle get that far out? - but it fits in with the fairy tale-cum-nightmare logic).

The only questionable aspect is the comic tone of some of Mitchum's scenes - shelves falling on his head, getting shot at and fleeing making Laurel and Hardy scared noises, etc. But it's still a memorable film.

Music by Walter Schumann - is that him of "The Walter Schumann Voices" on Leith Stevens' "Exploring The Unknown"? Some of his score here is actually quite like 50s SF/horror, especially reminiscent of Carmen Dragon's stark chords for INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. But there's more to it than that, in fact it's an excellent, varied work (the use of lullabies, jaunty Coplandesque Americana, Bernsteinesque MOCKINGBIRD-type intimacy, a Herrmannesque waltz for the fateful marriage between Mitchum and Winters - plus other things ending in "esque").

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (USA 1955)

Directed by Charles Laughton
Screenplay by James Agee, from the novel by Davis Grubb
Photography by Stanley Cortez
Music by Walter Schumann

On DVD:
Spartacus
How to Succeed in Business without...
The Lady Vanishes
Koyaanisqatsi
The Matrix

Composer Kenyon Hopkins did a number of pretty decent films, though he never seemed to get much recognition from geeks like us. His score here probably doesn't even amount to five minutes worth, but it's an excellent theme for small orchestra, with some intimate solo writing sort of like Bernstein's BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ. The sound broadens for the marvellous final cue.

Oh, I still think the kid was guilty.

TWELVE ANGRY MEN (USA 1957)

Directed by Sidney Lumet
Screenplay by Reginald Rose, from his play
Photography by Boris Kaufman
Music by Kenyon Hopkins

"I got a second chance at life. I am not going to waste it on a big house, a new car every year, and a bunch of friends who want a big house and a new car every year."

The trailer makes a big deal of this being Murray's first dramatic performance - "Bill Murray...in a role unlike anything he's ever done before!" Indeed, there is a lot of drama here, but Murray portrays Larry Darrell with a great sense of humor in the midst of every dramatic situation, and it makes for a very unique and very endearing performance. It reminds me of something Fellini once wrote: "Nothing is sadder than laughter, nothing more enriching and uplifting than the terror of deep despair." What Fellini was saying was that there was no great comedian who didn't understand the importance of making fun of even the most tragic situation, and likewise no great tragedian who didn't understand how to "keep an ironic distance from even the most terrible suffering." This is what Bill Murray accomplishes here.

Everyone is really good in this movie, actually. Theresa Russell lavishes in her very meaty character, Catherine Hicks has never been better, James Keach (who admittedly, aside from one or two great scenes, has little to do but stand and look dejected) is good, and Denholm Elliot is really marvellous, portraying the lovable uncle who cares deeply for his family but, because he feels a profound desire to be liked and accepted, also maintains a cordial distance from them to remain in the high society life in Paris. Also great in little supporting roles are Peter Vaughan and Saeed Jaffrey (Billy Fish, for anyone who's seen THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING).

If only the movie itself could sustain these great performances. I haven't read Maugham's novel - I want to after seeing this film - but it seems to suffer from the same problem that plagues all Dickens adaptations (except for A Christmas Carol, which is a short book)...there's simply far too much story to be told in the span of one film. The unfortunate result is that even though this is a rather (agreeably) slow-paced film, events still happen far too quickly. The filmmakers seemed to be keen on spending as much time as possible on Larry's eventual redemptive relationship with Sophie (Russell), but as that doesn't come until the end of the story, they are forced to spend far too little time on the two crucial experiences that shape Larry into who he is when he gets to that point in the narrative: his service as a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I, and his residence with monks in India. We only witness these two turning points in his life long enough to know that they happened, but we never really get to know anything about them.

Still, this film works on the strength of the actors. I highly recommend this widely forgotten piece for fans of Bill Murray's performances in RUSHMORE and LOST IN TRANSLATION. Those are both better films, but Murray's performance is still first-rate, and for that alone it would be a shame if this movie drifted into obscurity any more than it already has.

Kirk
NP - Naive and Sentimental Music (John Adams)

LA STRADA (1954)
Director: Federico Fellini
Screenplay: Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli
Cinematography: Otello Martelli
Music: Nino Rota
Stars: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart

This is my second Fellini film. I saw AMARCORD a while back, which was quite endearing, but as Dylan predicted when I told him I was set to watch LA STRADA, I think this is really my official introduction.

And what an introduction it is...LA STRADA is wonderful, probably the most delightful tragedy I have ever seen. That's a very fitting description, because it's a tragic story, you know it's a tragic story, you can feel it as you watch it...yet it's a delight to watch.

The performances are staggering. Anthony Quinn's Zampano is a totally unlikable character. Every time he shows a hint of redemption, he ruins it. You would call him sadistic except that he doesn't seem to find happiness in either pain or pleasure. And yet either despite or because of his weariness and his cold, harsh attitude you feel compassionate towards him. It's partly out of pity, certainly, but there's something more there as well, something I haven't really put my finger on yet.

Giuletta Masina's Gelsomina is the complete opposite. Very childlike, everything around her is new and exciting even if it's frightening. She sees everything with wonder, eager to discover more. The Fool, played by Richard Basehart, seems on the surface to have more in common with Gelsomina, but I rather think he's more of a different version of Zampano. I haven't read a lot about this film, and I haven't been thinking about it for very long, so I don't know if this is just my perception or if it's something that's generally accepted. But it seems to me that the Fool and Zampano are the same character, but with the basic difference that one takes himself and the world seriously, and the other does not. They both have the world experience, but whereas Zampano has allowed the cruel world to beat him into submission, and he thereby becomes cruel himself, the Fool sees the world as an absurd place, and has lived through it by becoming absurd himself.

But neither the Fool nor Zampano seem to be able to act against their instincts, to avoid fate even as it stares them in the face. The Fool can't stop joking around, can't stop teasing Zampano, and Zampano has grown too cold to allow the sparks of emotion inside him to catch fire (except for anger, the only thing he seems to live for). The conclusion is inevitable and heartbreaking.

It's a little odd how it's Gelsomina you're supposedly following throughout the narrative, but in the end it's Zampano you care about, it's Zampano you really grieve for. As Scorcese says in his interview on the new Criterion DVD, "That's the hard place to go." You realize that this cold, cruel beast was also a human being, and maybe you realize you had more in common with him than you would have thought (or liked). I did, at least.