Devil in a blue dress (1995)

Early Denzel smokes the role of Easy Rawlins.
The film begins in noir fashion when Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) says "A man once told me that when you step out of your door in the morning, you're already in trouble. The only question is, are you on top of that trouble or not?"

Ernest Hemingway's The killers (1946)

Tense! Taut! Terrific! Wikipedia page has a theatrical release poster of this film. Excellent film noir. First big role for both Lancaster and Gardner. Well done.

Suddenly

I cam across this DVD (1954) while looking for Singing in the rain on the PN shelves. Looked it up, and it sounded interesting.


Suddenly is the name of the small town invaded by professional assassin Frank Sinatra and his henchmen. Taking a local family hostage, Sinatra sets up a vigil at the second-story window of the family's home. From here, he intends to kill the President of the United States when the latter makes a whistle-stop visit. The film's tension level is enough to induce goose pimples from first scene to last. Sinatra is outstanding as the disgruntled war vet who hopes to become a "somebody" by killing the president. The parallels between his character and Lee Harvey Oswald's are too close for comfort, so much so that Suddenly was withdrawn from local TV packages for several years after the JFK assassination. Sinatra would claim in later years that he himself engineered the removal of Suddenly from general distribution, though in fact he'd lost whatever rights he'd held on the film when it lapsed into public domain. Be sure and miss the notorious colorized version of this black-and-white thriller, wherein Sinatra is transformed into Ol' Brown Eyes.

Well, they tried. It moves along fine. But to speak of tension is to stretch it. Sinatra tries to inject a touch of psychosis, or some sort of mental instability into his character, and almost makes it. Almost. His partners in crime are rank amateurs (both as criminals, and the actors). The good guys are wooden. Nice try. I can believe that the subject matter became very touchy after November 22, 1963. Still.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

An oldie, a goodie. Since I saw an episode of Bizarre Foods, in which Andrew Zimmern visited Savannah and spoke with the Lady Chablis, I've wanted to see this film. In Rotten Tomatoes the critics give it a 47% and the public 64%, which goes to show there is no accoutning for taste. I'd give it at least an 80. Kevin Spacey is smooth and wonderful as Jim Williams, a proud nouveau riche; Jude Law, in what must be one of his earliest roles, plays his drunken lover; John Cusak plays a Yankee reporter in town to cover the famous Williams Christmas party and stays to cover the murder trial of Williams (who killed Billy Hanson, in self-defense, he claims). It is simply a good film, based on John Berendt's book.

Lincoln Lawyer

Brisk and good legal thriller. Lincoln refers to the car that is his office, this lawyer looking for a big payday, willing to defend anyone who has the cash. Some cops think he's too slick, unprincipled, and dislike him, intensely in cases. His ex-wife (Marisa Tomei, one of the few higher-profile American actresses in her age group (she was born in 1964, five years before Mr. McConaughey) who’s actually allowed to act her age, who conveys intelligence and sexiness, and suggests a life that’s been lived and without a face frozen by filler and fear. She plays a character and not just the love interest. She isn’t the star, of course, but without her and the other exceptionally well-cast supporting players, Mr. McConaughey would have a tougher time making you believe that he was to the sleaze born) is a prosecutor.

The story, and there’s a lot of it, nicely condensed from Mr. Connelly’s page-turner best seller, largely turns on a case that looks like a slam dunk or, as one of Mick’s bail bondsmen, Val (John Leguizamo), insists, a jackpot.


That NY Times review, one of many, sums it up well. A good movie.

In the electric mist

Violent, yes, but a good film. Well told story, good acting, great pace.

A gem, a dud

Laura (1944) is a timeless gem. Gene Tierney is the title character, who is presumed to have been murdered – until she shows up. Detective Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) falls for her, her image in the painting in her apartment, and then falls hard for her when she appears. But, who is dead? The zinger is that the body is never seen. Vincent Price is Laura's coy


Critics in Rotten Tomatoes give it 100%, the audience 90%, a rather rare combination of taste. But not everyone likes it. The Village Voice critic: Elevated by studio boss Darryl Zanuck from "B" picture status, Laura opened at the Roxy, became a critical and popular hit, was nominated for five Oscars (winning for cinematography), and launched Preminger's directorial career. Still, alternately sprightly and turgid, if abetted by its haunting, ubiquitous score, it's far from a great movie—most beloved by second-generation surrealists who appreciate it for its time-liquidating dream narrative of l'amour fou. See that movie if you can; for me, Laura is a flavorsome but flawed anticipation of two far more delirious psychosexual cine-obsessions: Vertigo and Blue Velvet.

In contrast stands We own the Night (2007). I didn't like it, or finish it.

The Yards

I’d seen a one-column-wide item about it in the 19& 26 December 2011 issue of the New Yorker magazine. Richard Brody wrote that dierctor James Gray “returned to his native Queens” to film “a blend of operatic drama and documentary veracity.” he states there was “an ending imposed on the film by the producers, with grave results for the film and Gray’s career.”

Not sure how far back the ending in question goes, but I can guess that the very last scene might be it.


Wahlberg plays Leo, who has just come out of prison, serving a couple of year for car theft. He got caught, friends of his did not, and he did not give them up. Street credibility plays an important role in their lives. Phoenix is his best friend, Willie, who is having a serious romance with Leo's cousin, Erica (Theron, who looks great in her Goth colors, dark nail polish, heavy black eye makeup, leather wristband). Caan plays Erica's father, a corrupt owner of a subway car repair company, neck deep in payoffs and sweetheart deals. Steve Lawrence play sthe Queens borough president.


Good acting, and a good story well told.

Slumdog millionaire

Finally saw this 2008 film. A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers. In doing so, the film shows a slice of Indian society. Finely done.

Conviction

A working mother puts herself through law school in an effort to represent her brother, who has been wrongfully convicted of murder and has exhausted his chances to appeal his conviction through public defenders. 

Hilary Swank plays the sister, Sam Rockwell the brother, and Minnie Driver her law-school chum and research partner. The accents are notable, and good, the pace taut, and it is a good movie.

Love me or leave me

Cast: Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell, Robert Keith, Tom Tully
Director: Charles Vidor
Writer: Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart
Running Time: 122 min.
Genre: Drama, Musical
Rating: No Rating
Synopsis: One of the gutsiest movie musicals of the 1950s, Love Me or Leave Me is the true story of 1930s torch-singer Ruth Etting, here played by Doris Day. While working in a dime-a-dance joint, Ruth is discovered by Chicago racketeer Martin The Gimp Snyder (fascinatingly played with nary a redeeming quality by James Cagney). The smitten Snyder exerts pressure on his show-biz connections, and before long Ruth is a star of nightclubs, stage and films. Ruth continues to string Snyder along to get ahead, but she can't help falling in love with musician Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell). After sinking his fortune into a nightclub for Ruth's benefit, Snyder is rather understandably put out when he finds her in the arms of Alderman. Snyder shoots the musician (but not fatally) and is carted away to prison. Upon his release, Snyder finds that Ruth is still in love with Alderman; he is mollified by her act of largesse in keeping her promise to perform in his nightclub at a fraction of her normal salary. No one comes off particularly nobly in Love Me or Leave Me, even though the still-living Ruth Etting, Martin Snyder and Johnny Alderman were offered full script approval. The fact that we are seeing flesh-and-blood opportunists rather than the usual sugary-sweet MGM musical stick figures naturally makes for a more powerful film. In his autobiography, James Cagney had nothing but praise for his co-star Doris Day, and bemoaned the fact that she would soon turn her back on dramatic roles to star in a series of fluffy domestic comedies.~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I enjoyed it. This review captures the film quite well. Doris Day pulled off the songs; her voice had a little, even more than little, resonance and vibrato to it (a couple of times I thought of Sara Vaughn), not the usual limited range and sweetness of so many other musicals.

House of Bamboo

This all started with a column in a New Yorker issue in August, Critic's Notebook: Trouble in Mind. To wit: The most exciting spasm of violence in Samuel Fuller's wide-screen, color-splashed 1955 film noir, "House of Bamboo", is one that doesn't happen. It involves an American crime boss (Robert Ryan) who runs a syndicate in Tokyo, a hard-nosed expat (Robert Stack) who has recently joined the gang and arouses suspicion, and a billiard ball. In the first Hollywood feature to be shot on location in postwar Japan, Fuller transports to an exoticized setting his usual concern: the conflict between the moral repugnance of violence and its visual and visceral thrills. The movie is famous for its gunplay - a bathtub shooting that's sordidly funny, a police ambush of silhouettes seen through the rice paper screen, and a climactic shootout on a flying-saucer-like carousel perched on a rooftop high above the city. But for one terrifying moment, captured in a single tense shot and embodied in Ryan's seething, panterish self-control, Fuller makes his fierce sympathies ambiguous even as he imagines gore beyond what Hollywood mores allowed - and hints that he enjoyed it. The writer was Richard Brody.

In watching the commentary provided by two critics, several names jumped out:

The street with no name

Pickup on South Street

I shot Jesse James

Cinemascope

The film itself was interesting. It begins with a narration, which itself is unusual: a film, not a documentary, begins as if it were a documentary. It is post-WW2 Japan. A supply train chugs along, and stops for a peasant struggling to move his oxen off the tracks. In quick order, it turns out he is not a peasant, for he chokes the engineer who comes out to yell at him. Other train personnel are similarly mugged. And the lone US soldier is shot, and killed. A peasant woman hears the shot, rushes over, sees the dead body, and screams into the camera.

Robert Stack lands in Yokohama, takes a taxi to Tokyo, and chases after Mariko, the sweetheart of his buddy (who in prior shots is seen on an operating table being interrogated by US Army personnel, who find the picture of Mariko in his wallet; he confesses that they were married, but that it is a secret). Stack's character (Spanier) begins to intimidate pachinko managers, shaking them down for protection money. At the second joint he is ambushed by men working for Ryan's character (Sandy). He is thrown through rice paper screens, and beat up a bit. In short order, he joins the gang, and becomes a favorite of the boss. Such favoritism rankles Sandy's long-standing second-in-command, and tension is born, to manifest itself in various ways (including the above-mentioned bathtub scene).

Capote

Hoffman is magnificent as Capote, capturing every mannerism, and becoming the man. Capote was not exactly a nice person, but certainly was ambitious, and his impact can not be minimized.

The brothers Bloom

Ebert gave it 2½ stars, and that is just about right.

At a certain point, we think we're in on the moves of the con, and then we think we're not, and then we're not sure, and then we're wrong, and then we're right, and then we're wrong again, and we're entertained up to another certain point, and then we vote with Bloom: The game gets old. Or is it Stephen who finds that out? Bloom complains, "I'm tired of living a scripted life." We're tired on his behalf. And on our own.

 The problem with the movie is that the cons have too many encores and curtain calls. We tire of being (rhymes with perked) off. When an exercise seems to continue for its own sake, it should sense it has lost its audience, take a bow and sit down. And even then "The Brothers Bloom" has another twist that might actually be moving, if we weren't by this time so paranoid. As George Burns once said, "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made." A splendid statement, and I know it applies to this movie, but I'm not quite sure how.

Escape from Amsterdam

Sherwood, Barrie. (2008). Escape from Amsterdam. New York : Thomas Dunne Books.

After reading Housekeeper and the Professor, and Elegance of the hedgehog, watching Ozu films as a result therefrom, I yearned for more Japanese. This book seemed in keeping with that theme, yet offering a slightly different take.

Started out fine: a young man deep in debt is informed by his father that he and his sister have inherited prints and other assets from a deceased aunt that could results in vast sums of yen for them. Seeing his ticket out of debt, Aozora goes looking for his sister in southern Japan, where he imagines she is working. They both must appear at the lawyer's office for the inheritance to go to them.

As he travels south, Japan does emerge as a character in this novel, and the narrative moves along nicely. Mai's phone is being used by another woman, and her cryptic answers draw Aozoa south. But as he arrives at Amsterdam, a theme park that promises all the pleasures tourists might want, from parades featuring a Princess Michiko look-alike (that is one of two of Mai's jobs) to prostitution, the story weakens. From there is goes on a sort of glide pattern, and although Sherwood tries, he can rescue the book from its two and a half star rating.

Road to Perdition

Good, but quite violent. And Tom Hanks's moustache?

Fracture

Hopkins plays a man whose wife is having an affair, and shoots her; allowing himself to be caught, in fact, walking into his arrest, he waives his rights to pre-trial maneuverings, and asks for a quick trail. Defending himself, he wrecks the prosecution's case (a police detective present at his arraingment was the lover of his wife), and confounds the prosecuting ADA. Rotten Tomatoes assigns a 71% to the film (both critics and fans), and that's about right. I was reminded of Sleuth, to some degree. Hopkins is good, not great; this is the sort of role he has patented, and he gives it a good effort. Gosling can do better. Entertaining.

Gone, baby, gone

Amanda McCready is a 4-year-old who has disappeared from her Boston home. The police make little headway in solving the case, so the girl's aunt hires Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, private detectives. They freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons: they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Patrick and Angie must face area drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they finally solve the case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that tears them apart.

That's the blurb from the studio. And as far as it goes, it's accurate. But it misses much: profanity-laced, the film is based on a book by Dennis Lehane, and it misses being a good movie, for me, because it concentrates on violence and cursing.

Morgan Freeman makes a cameo appearance as a police captain riven by a guilty conscience, and airmails it. Perhaps this is one of those roles he takes simply because it is offered and will add to his resume; there is a rumor that he is trying to become the actor with the greatest number of entries in his filmography. If that is so, this is an entry hardly worth the effort, and one made with hardly an effort.

Ed Harris does a credible job as a detective, but his character isn't up to the challenge. The New York Times reviewer liked the movie, but I didn't like quite as much.

Hoax

Fairly good. Gere remarkably resembled Irving down to a tee, as I remember. Harden wasn't very believable as Irving's wife; even though her English accent was well done, it seemed somehow, well, fake. Molina was good. After watching Elegy for only a few minutes the night before, and disgustedly turning it off, Hoax was a welcome respite.

The big clock

Fairly good film from 1948. Ray Milland is good; Charles Laughton wears a ridiculous moustache, and is bearable; Elsa Lanchester plays an artist with panache, and is actually funny; Maureen O'Sullivan struggles with a stereotypically narrow role; and George Macready appears in a film yet again (he was in Gilda, playing her possessive husband).

A hotshot crime magazine editor inadvertently becomes the subject of a murder investigation after spending an evening with his boss' mistress.