Daily Archives: November 4, 2007
Nosferatu: Original Version (1929)
NETFLIX SYNOPSIS: Many horror freaks call F.W. Murnau‘s silent German classic the scariest Dracula adaptation ever. The bone-chilling tale kicks off when a sailor on a ghost ship opens a coffin, thereby releasing a vampire named Count Orlok who sets off on a rampage of terror aimed at a real estate agent and his comely wife. The creepy caped one is played by Max Schreck, sporting grotesque makeup that transforms him into a symbol of pestilence and decay.
REVIEW: I was expecting to be disappointed by this one just because it’s been so hyped, but happily, I absolutely loved this. It is the classic masterpiece and pinnacle of all Nosferatu films that it’s purported to be. It is also another sterling example of why I love silent films, andit was entertaining to the very end. Silent films seem universal – understood by everyone – perhaps because, when boiled down to their basics, films are just moving images on screen and silent films are the purest films by this measure. Everyone can see visual scenes and judge for themselves without having to go through layers of interpretation like language, or distractions and diversions like CGI. The other conveyance of silent films is music, another universal. When both the visual images and the score are working at their zenith, you have the original Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau. None of the other countless derivations, adaptations or retellings of the tale even come close in my opinion, with the exception of Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu in the 1970s with Klaus Kinski playing the title character. With Murnau’s Nosferatu, you are seeing art on screen.
The art direction is sublime, breathtaking really. The scenes on the doomed Demeter, the ship transporting its ghastly cargo of Count Orlock (Max Schreck) and his coffins to the town of Bremen, are striking in their detail. The image of the Count rising from his coffin is an immortal (pardon the pun) scene or of the Count taking a rather unhealthy interest in the cut on the finger of the heretofore naive Jonathon Harker.
Perhaps more importantly, Schreck doesn’t play the Count like the ones after him have played him (i.e., theatrical, dramatic, etc.), though this film is the one to emulate. The title figure is almost wooden here – he hardly utters any dialogue and seems like he’s genuinely afflicted with something. There’s no “vamping” up of the performance (pardon the pun again) – there doesn’t need to be.
Final Rating: 4.5 stars.
Audrey
Gone, Baby, Gone (2007)
NETFLIX SYNOPSIS: When a 4-year-old girl goes missing in Dorchester, one of Boston’s toughest hoods, private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) reluctantly agree to take the case. But the investigation proves tougher, riskier and more complex than they could have imagined. Ben Affleck‘s directorial debut, adapted from the Dennis Lehane novel, also stars Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman.
REVIEW: This is the best movie I’ve seen in theaters this year, hands down, and provides confirmation that Benny A is much better suited helming the camera than mugging for it. I’d heard great things about his little brother Casey in other films this year (namely, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), but he showed us what his acting chops are made of in this film – he is phenomenal. My friends and I breathe a collective sigh of relief to know that there is a younger generation of American actors that can give seriously exciting, original and creative performances (Casey Affleck and Ryan Gosling, thank you!) – ones that interest us and are worth checking out. Even in a well-stacked cast such as this one, which also includes the ever-wonderful Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, Casey Affleck shines as the smart-talking (or rather, ‘cuz we’re in Boston, wicked smaht- tahking), neighborhood “private detective” who plies his connections with the locals to drum up leads. In this way, he fills the niche that the cops don’t serve.
When a little girl goes missing, Patrick and Michelle (his girlfriend and partner in their homegrown PI business) are hired to search for her after the cops’ efforts turn up no promising leads and, from there, our story begins. There are many twists and turns in the plot, but to call this film a simple, or even an excellent, thriller is to underestimate it as the film doesn’t center on a plot point – the little girl’s absence. In fact, at the midway point, the film seemed like it was ending, but we looked at our watches and there was a full 40 minutes left! If the film had ended at this point, it would have deserved a solid 4 stars, but the well-considered remaining 40 minutes put it up into the 5-star “untouchable” category. All I’ll say is that the film delves wholeheartedly into the characters and their motivations and that this is a multi-layered, much more complex storyline and screenplay than what we expected. The ending is totally satisfying and realistic.
Always entertaining, this film is proof that Benny A returns to his great screenplays as well from the days of Good Will Hunting – sorely missed. This film is powered by smart, crackling dialogue from all the cast. Another great thing – the female is NOT a throwaway! So many times where a male is the main character, the female (who invariably plays the girlfriend or wife etc.) is such a throwaway character that all of her scenes could be cut and it wouldn’t make a difference (one of the reasons why The Departed, another Boston film, merited a 4 instead of something higher, although the original Hong Kong film from which Scorsese based The Departed (Infernal Affairs) made much better use of the female characters). Or her scenes just seem like an interruption – a favor to some casting director. Not here – Michelle Monaghan puts in a great and relevant performance. Finally, the film feels and looks like authentic Boston. It makes sense that a film about Boston, directed and co-written and acted by native Bostonians, views like a documentary in that it is so authentic in feel and look, from the dialogue to the clothes to the atmosphere.
Rating: 5 stars
Audrey
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Moral ambiguities are likely inherent in most police work: sometimes the wrong decision feels right, and the right decision feels wrong. Gone, Baby, Gone sets itself apart from the typical action crime drama by shying away from absolutism, setting up a though-provoking dilemma. When it’s over, viewers will wonder “what would I have done?” First-time director Ben Affleck is surprisingly steady behind the camera, and his younger brother Casey is equally solid in front of it (one might say this is their best film since Good Will Hunting). Amy Ryan is amazing in her performance as the grieving yet unworthy mother who has lost her daughter; her performance elicits both sympathy and disdain, often at the same time. The rest of the cast is solid, but at times a bit too over the top; it’s hard to feel emotional when the characters on screen are doing it for you. The script irons out a few rough edges of Dennis Lehane’s very good novel of the same name by changing a few minor details; otherwise it’s the most faithful film adaptation I’ve seen since The Silence of the Lambs.
4.5 stars
HAWK
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Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, GBG is one of the best film adaptations of recent years. Much more than just your standard detective thriller, it’s gritty, realistic, and uncompromising, tackling serious social issues w/o being preachy or offering pat solutions. A little girl goes missing, but instead of a straightforward mystery that is resolved when the girl is found, the good guys experience a profound moral dilemma as to whether or not the child should be returned to her home, since her mother is a junkie who abuses her through neglect, while the kidnappers are actually better parents and provide a loving environment for the child that she has never known.
The two private detectives, Patrick and Angie, played by Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan, are also lovers who live together, and at the climax they become at odds over whether or not the child should be returned to her mother. This scene is done simply, w/o histrionics, as they wrestle with each other over what is the right thing to do. That their differing views will also affect their relationship adds yet another, more personal, layer to their quandary. Observing the little girl in her new home, Angie’s argument is simple: “She’s happy.” Patrick, however, is appalled that she’s asking him to condone and cover up a kidnapping, to be complicit in something he considers a horrible crime. His decision and the ultimate resolution is disturbing, one that leaves the question open as to whether or not Patrick really makes the right moral choice.
The plot is full of genuine surprises throughout, it’s a fine mystery w/lots of twists, and one is never quite sure just who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. The character’s motivations are complex – sometimes selfish, sometimes selfless, sometimes a bit of both. And always, moral ambiguity: when Patrick murders a child murderer in a moment of extreme anguish, he later expresses regret and guilt, while the cop hearing his confession assures him he did the right thing.
Affleck is superb; he puts a spin on the traditional P.I., about as far from the standard tough-guy persona as can be imagined. Confused, scared a lot of the time, in over his head, he plays the character as both weak in some respects and brave and uncompromising in others, when it really counts. Monaghan, in a quiet role, mostly in the background, has the perfect look for her character – tough, pretty but not glamorous, she ultimately shows herself as resolute in her beliefs as her lover. Amy Ryan, as the unlikable mother, is quite brilliant and courageous in a performance that elicits both disdain and pity for her character.
Ben Affleck’s direction is straightforward, no flourishes, in modern film-noir style. He lets the wonderful script and fine acting carry the day, his direction never gets in the way, he just tells a good story. A fine debut.
4 stars
Harold
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
NETFLIX SYNOPSIS (doesn’t do it justice): This deceptively simple romance tells the tale of a tragedy and the erosion of romantic faith by the intolerable weight of time and distance. Pop melodies punctuate the story. Includes cast biographies and restoration information.
Director: Jacques Remy
Cast: Nino Castelnuovo, Catherine Deneuve, Anne Vernon, Ellen Farner, Marc Michel, Mirelle Perrey, Harald Wolff
Awards:
1966 Academy Award®: Best Writing Original Screenplay nominee
1966 Academy Award®: Best Foreign Language Film nominee
1966 Academy Award®: Best Music Score nominee
1966 Academy Award®: Best Music Song nominee
REVIEW: When someone mentions “musical,” what comes to mind for me are the big Hollywood musicals of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s – lots of “pizzazz,” Technicolor, bubbly, carefree and exuberant, happy endings, big-name stars with even bigger voices and dance sequences, and a simple plot that really serves to show off the musical numbers. So this is what I expected to see from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Was I completely wrong! This film is the opposite of your big Hollywood musicals in nearly every aspect except the great technicolor, and even that is decidely French (check out the great wallpaper in the umbrella shop, the opening scenes where the camera pans down on all the brightly-colored open umbrellas in the rain). For one, it is a true musical in that every line of dialogue is sung – there are no spoken words. I got used to this within the first minute of film – an easy feat given that the score, the distinctive songs, and the melodies that connect those songs have to be seamless in order to pull it off. And they are.
There aren’t any big, brash numbers as there are in Hollywood musicals – every sung line is so perfectly in sync with the emotions of the characters and the plotline that you’re right there with them – swooningly innocent in love with Catherine Deneuve’s character, practical and ponderous with the father of her baby away for two years on military duty and confronted with possibility of marrying another man who wants nothing but the best for her, the father returning to find his one time love married and moved away after they both said they’d always stay true, and his handling the issue. The actors’ voices are so rich with emotion and the story so satisfyingly deep, the singing of each line doesn’t seem gimmicky or contrived, but rather, seems like the default, natural way of speaking in Remy’s beautiful world.
Umbrellas was Deneuve’s debut and it made her an international sensation, deservedly so – the start of a rich and wonderful film career. She is beautiful and delicate here, a true ingenue, and you see her develop with the different stages of the film, which is separated like an operetta into three (four?) different sets, beginning with the prelude. The film begins by plunging you into that idealistic, lovers oblivious to the world with only eyes for each other dynamic between Denueve and Nino. Everything is blissful, but he must serve mandatory military duty, and is sent to Algeria to serve his two years, but not before Deneuve and Nino vow their undying love for each other and consummate the relationship. During the two years, Denueve is confronted by the pregnancy, by the prolonged absence of her sweetheart, and by a man who is everything a woman could ever want. After a torturous period of time, she agrees to marry him, with much encouragement from her mother. Nino returns and is devastated, but he moves on with his life gradually and ends up marrying and starting a family of his own. Denueve and Nino many, many years later run across each other at a gas station and the scene is absolutely heartbreaking.
The cast is stellar – the sweetheart couple, Deneuve’s mother, the man whom Deneuve eventually marries – there is no villain here and no bitter feelings. Everyone does what they do because they have to do it. It’s practicality over idealism, the contrast made even more striking by the “musical” container of the film and the songs that you’ll be humming days after you’ve seen it. So quintessentially French (there’s even a scene where Deneuve sends off Nino at the train station and you see her crying in the steam that the train leaves behind – a scene copied by Audrey Hepburn in another musical, “Funny Face,” filmed in Paris!), but so basically human at its core – the Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a classic and a must-see. I’ll be purchasing this for my personal DVD library.
Rating: 4.5 stars.
Audrey
Netflix Cinemajig 