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Reviews
Dumb Luck (2001)
a true mystery
For some mysterious reason I cannot put into words this movie is charming. Maybe it's Tracy Nelson being caught in one lie after another, or it's Scott Baio acting like a normal person, or Richard Moll acting like Richard Moll, or the supporting actors or it's the plot, which may have been engraved by Noah during his tedious journey as a means of passing time, but it is charming. After watching it I asked myself, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, "Why did you watch that thing," and answered myself, right away, with, "I don't know, I think I'll watch it again and find out."
W. T. Benda, Austin, Texas
Tom Horn (1980)
a fitting tribute
The film is distinctive in four ways, the first being that Steve McQueen finally returned to the screen after having spent the 1970s elsewhere. He was a bounty hunter in the late 1950s on television, then jumped to prominence in "The Magnificent Seven" about 1960 and spent the next ten years as a dominant force on-screen. So this film was a "comeback." But McQueen came back as an artist, not as a cartoon version of his earlier self. His portrayal of Tom Horn does not use close-ups, quick draws or choreographed violence. The second thing that stands out here is the subject of the film, which is frontier justice on the high plains, a rough subject to be sure. "Tom Horn" (1980) is the first movie since "Shane" (1953) to deal realistically with the subject a part of which treatment is using the countryside itself as a character. There were a lot of movies beginning in the late 1960s with Clint Eastwood's "spaghetti westerns" which focused on the grisly righteousness of law enforcement, but it wasn't until Eastwood's "Unforgiven" (1998) that he finally made a movie that approached the quality of "Shane" and "Tom Horn," and employed some panoramic camera work. Third, the way the story is told is unfamiliar to most modern movie fans because it is so old, traditional and specific to the northern plains. The story is told, by veteran Western director Wiard, in the same way author Albert White Eagle tells stories, as a montage of contrasting fragments often out of chrnonolgical order -- "oh, by the way, I forget to tell you something, let me tack it on now" -- the juxtaposition of which fragments imply the surreal ambience of the times, an ambience which could not be effectively shown using the usual plot devices, cinematic close-ups, narrative summaries and chronological markers. For example, we see Tom in a jail cell looking at the clouds outside the little window, then we see him, with the same clouds in the sky behind him, shooting a young man (uncredited actor Sonny Skyhawk) who tries to kill the school marm as she bathes in the horse trough while talking with Tom. Is this something that really happened before he was locked up, or is it a fantasy or dream born of incarceration? It doesn't matter whether the scene is real or imagined, what matters is the jolt we receive by seeing it out of sequence. Most directors would have either shown Tom going to sleep in the cell, thus implying the scene was a dream, or would have had some narrative dialogue which indicated that Tom was remembering something that had really transpired. But Wiard, throughout the film, uses that northern technique. Another example is when we are visually escorted out of a scene in which Tom kills a rustler, with beautiful mountains in the background, into one where he is breaking a horse for the schoolmarm to eventually ride -- the same mountains are in the background, unchanged. A final thing about this movie was actor Richard Farnsworth. This was the first movie in which he had considerable dialogue, and was given a chance to demonstrate his skill at characterization. He plays John Coble, Tom Horn's employer. At the end of the movie is a 1904 quote from Coble, saying that that Tom was not guilty of the crime of which he was accused and convicted. This quotation, as Western researchers know, is from Coble's suicide note. And it foreshadowed Farnsworth's sucide twenty-two years later, a few months after being nominated, finally, for an Academy Award for his brilliant portrayal in "The Straight Story." McQueen, on-screen, and Farnsworth, on-screen and off, epitomized that quality of the Westerner least understood by people in the rest of the nation. The real Tom Horn said, "The people in the Northeast hire us to protect them from the people in the South," and, "We find the thing, whatever it is, then somebody else gets the glory for bringing it down, and somebody else makes the money for taking it back to the folks in town," but "You can either laugh or cry at your fate, and that's not much of a choice, is it, pardner?" The droll stocism and sardonic wit of the cowboy, and the western tracker whether white or Indian, has always enchanted and mystified the rest of the nation, and never really been understood. The movie, "Tom Horn," is a fitting tribute to the history and people of the northern plains, to Steve McQueen's artistry, to the memory of Richard Farnsworth, and to stories that are not easy to tell.
w. t. benda
Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003)
cool hand hitler
Based on the book by Professor Ian Kershaw this movie, like the Professor, presents a modern history, such as he teaches at the University of Sheffield, while conjuring a future he claims is defined by the past. It is not surprising that the Professor neglects to mention that in this past and future is an endorsement of his present-day advocacy of the European Union, because that is how conjurers work, they imply, insinuate, nuance and so forth. So I will spell it out for him. "The Hitler presented in this movie is as entertainingly clever as Cool Hand Luke, we must sit amazed at his dumb luck, hoping that he gets away with his next stunt, the pitiful little guy." And how is this both past and future? I will tell you, by telling what the European Union advocates in Britain say, as they echo their colleagues in Berlin, Brussels and Berghof. "Killing the Jews really wasn't his chief aim, it was a slogan that got out of hand, Hitler's chief aim, as inarticulated as it was, and inadvertantly obscured by his oratorical who-shot-john, was to establish a unified continental European government. His real goals were good, his tactics were horrible -- because he was uneducated, he was skilled beyond his station, he was talented beyond his ability to understand himself, he was an imperfect vehicle for a fine idea, he was a freak of nature, like a one-legged cricket that cannot be killed." The Euroopean Union advocates indicate that we should learn a lesson from all this about following proper procedure next time, and move on. Let's move on they say. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, they say. After all those bad American cowboys killed all those Indians, and that's how America got to where she is, we're just the same, Hitler is an unfortunate part of our history. Let's move on, to a systematic future. The movie's costumes and lighting are superior. The fragmentary early scenes, treated as vignettes by the editor, are fine. The acting is precisely of its time. What I mean by that is I remember forty years ago sinking to the bottom of the lake with the bowling ball gravity of Richard Basehart's Hitler, only to be bouyed up a few years later by Alec Guinness' airy portrayal of Hitler as a perfect brick of smoke. Then came Derek Jacobi, cloaked in Shakespearean imbalance, giving us a Hitler that was King Lear in mechanic's overalls. Now comes Robert Carlyle who as a wolverine on tranquilizers charmed us in "The Full Monty," disturbed us in "Trainspotting" and broke our hearts in "Angela's Ashes," he is a wonderful actor but like the others his Hitler is a shil for some unspoken greater glory yet to come. What was the real Hitler like, at my age people ask me, so here it is, as the old saying goes, "When he's alone is a room there's nobody there." I had no more use for him than I do for the European Union. But the movie does have a certain enchantment, even I am not immune to beauty.
Live from Baghdad (2002)
More than secure trade routes
Michael Keaton, fresh from the competitive rhapsody of last year's "Quicksand" in which he and Michael Caine wrestle for titular agonistes, stands up well to David Suchet in this film, "Live from Baghdad." His face, his tone, even his skin are properly alcoholic -- a portrayal more real if less spiritually satisfying than his premier dramatic role in "Clean and Sober" (1988). Two other actors stand out: Bruce McGill, in whose English there is not the slightest betrayal of his San Antone origins as he delivers Peter Arnett on a silver plate, and Paul Guilfoyle, Jr., whose Ed Turner puts one in mind of Salvatore Dali. Allow me to explain. The film is dedicated to the memory of Ed Turner. I met Ed Turner when he was news director at KWTV in Oklahoma City, the year before he left to become CNN's first managing editor. He was at that time not yet a recovering alcoholic. It was an unpleasant experience. So Guilfoyle's manifestation of blithe stoicism and delicate dedication are strangely juxtaposed against the substance of my experience and memory, as is the director's implication that Keaton's Wiener would blossom with human kindness and cultural understanding were it not for the two dozen bottles of Stolichnaya vodka which we are led to believe sharpens his wits.
The movie was filmed on location in Morocco, which is lovely. The sound editing is excellent. As revisited history, the storyline is not bad although it lacks what most other American films dealing with this subject lack, which is knowledge of empire and its responsibilities. We here in America are led to believe by politicians and writers that we are the first great nation not to have an empire. Hogwash. We have an empire. Everywhere people who speak English have a sense of humor, there is our empire. Everywhere an outsider beats the local aristocracy at their own game, and refuses to claim their robes as his prize, there is our empire. Empire is more than secure trade routes. But I recommend the film, anyway.
W. T. Benda, Austin
Una breve stagione (1969)
God doesn't pay every Sunday
In a stingy tour de force Christopher Jones plays a man whose common sense has all been spent, but there is love at the bottom of this barrel. Despite the richness of the storyline or perhaps because much of it has been borrowed from the classics the original simplicity of Jones' performance stands out like a panhandler in Beverly Hills, even when a man dies as Jones escapes from jail there is love. "God doesn't pay every Sunday" his character says repeating the axiom of the Italian workman, and some women never do as this film foreshadows Jones' disappearance from the salaried world of commerical drama into a long night of blissful anonymity elsewhere. The character remains with us, five nights a week on prime time television, shrouded in fog and grime, but Christopher Jones' version of him in this film still shines like a new silver dollar.
W. T. Benda
The Woman in the Window (1944)
so dark
No one could have been prepared for the woman Joan Bennett becomes in this film, seeing all her movies for the fifteen years before this one was made would have accomplished for a faithful viewer absolutely nothing. This woman has in effect murdered that early Joan Bennett, and in order to demonstrate her strength -- as her serpentine motivation reveals itself beneath circumstances -- is going to destroy all the tough guys that Edward G. Robinson ever played. The result, being somewhat ambiguous, provoked director Fritz Lang to reprise the entire relationship the following year in "Scarlet Street," featuring the same Bennett, Robinson and Dan Duryea. Only the names were changed, to protect the weak and evil. But one watching "Woman in the Window" experiences the texture of descent, whereas "Scarlet Street" begins and ends prone on the sidewalk.
W. T. Benda Austin, Texas
Gunshy (1998)
superior acting, familiar story
Here is an example far beyond what you can expect from a budget so small you could hold it in your hand, a filmed impression of a story familiar to us even before we could pronounce "Charles Dickens" and "A Tale of Two Cities" that stirs us from a sleep not unlike the one which characterizes Michael Wincott in his most popular roles as we struggle with a dream like the one in which William L. Peterson finds himself in the least popular of his, finally awakened as are these two actors by the voices of two men of literature, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Wincott and Peterson hear and obey. They do a far far better thing than they have done before, for Lucie Manette, for us all. The director's vision replaces for our modern minds the awkward spray that is the guillotine's historic signature with the ebbing undertow of grateful friendship, and honest sweat on a tropical beach. At last.
Gunshy (1998)
superior acting, familiar story
Here is an example far beyond what you can expect from a budget so small you could hold it in your hand, a filmed impression of a story familiar to us even before we could pronounce "Charles Dickens" and "A Tale of Two Cities" that stirs us from a sleep not unlike the one which characterizes Michael Wincott in his most popular roles as we struggle with a dream like the one in which William L. Peterson finds himself in the least popular of his, finally awakened as are these two actors by the voices of two men of literature, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Wincott and Peterson hear and obey. They do a far far better thing than they have done before, for Lucie Manette, for us all. The director's vision replaces for our modern minds the awkward spray that is the guillotine's historic signature with the ebbing undertow of grateful friendship, and honest sweat on a tropical beach. At last.