584. CHINATOWN (1974)

Running Time: 130 minutes
Directed By: Roman Polanski
Written By: Robert Towne
Main Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman
Click here to view the trailer

"FORGET IT JAKE, IT'S CHINATOWN"

I promise not to return to the blog after today until I have watched and am prepared to write a review for Stalker, as Tarkovsky Week has officially stretched into "Tarkovsky Two Months" and even I'll admit it's ridiculous at this point. My PLAN (emphasis on the word "plan") is to get it watched by tomorrow night, even if it takes me two or three sit downs. Anyway, Polanski's 1974 noir, Chinatown, has been streaming on Netflix for months, so I decided to give it a whirl - not the first time I've seen it, I might add.

Chinatown is told in the same vein as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe stories, with Nicholson playing the role of the lead dick, Jake Gittes. When he's hired by the wife of the chief engineer of the L.A. Department of Water & Power, to find out if the man is cheating, Jake is on the case, tailing Mr. Hollis Mulwray around town until he finds him kissing on another woman and photographing the action so he can get his easy payday. However, things turn out to be less than easy, when the photographs somehow wind up in the early edition and the REAL Mrs. Mulwray (Dunaway) comes a knocking. It turns out that the woman who hired Jake originally was an impostor and now Mrs. Mulwray wants answers and plans to get them in the form of a lawsuit against Gittes. Jake, not particularly fond of being duped and then sued, sets out to find out why he was fooled, which in turn leads him to bigger and fatter fish to fry. The whole movie takes place during the course of a drought and it turns out that the city's short water supply may be somewhat to blame for all the nefarious goings on. While snooping around the L.A. water reservoir, Gittes discovers that large quantities of water are being purged every night. It is also during this scene that Jake is attacked and has his nose slashed, causing his character to sport a bandage and/or a nasty nose scar for the duration of the film.

SPOILER ALERT!

I'd seen Chinatown once before and judging by my IMDB rating, I didn't like it that much - only giving it a 4/10 on the movie site. Yesterday's rewatch proved I must have been a little out of my mind or perhaps a little confused. Actually, anyone who claims that Chinatown is hard to follow or confusing (THE BOOK actually notes this) must be giving less than full attention, as I found the film fairly easy to follow along with and didn't stumble once. It's no Big Sleep, I'll tell you that much. As long as you pay attention (and how could you not with Nicholson's mug onscreen - a talent too good to not encapsulate your attention) you'll be fine and most should be pleased, as it happens to be one of those classic movies that is actually good and merits it's praise. The only thing I'd really complain about, as far as the story goes, is the fact that the whole thing hinges on this big water department scandal and it's all sort of silly if you think about it. I mean, the Gittes character gets his nose slashed, gets shot at, is nearly killed several times and thanks, in part, to the city's water department heads, who don't want him finding out that their irrigating their recently purchased land. I mean, must we get this carried away over a simple water supply? Must there be death and doom all because the city is re-routing water to their orange groves? It's all a bit silly, isn't it? However, I will say that the whole thing with the incest sort of puts this movie into a whole new category. Up until that point this is a simple, modern film noir, but once they introduce the fact that Mrs. Mulwray has a daughter who is also her sister AND basically say that it wasn't a rape from the old man, this movie gets a lot darker and a lot more unusual, slipping into a category all it's own.

Oh well...if you can look past that (and honestly, at times I couldn't) then it's all good and Chinatown will surely provide you with an easy, fun, enjoyable, thrilling couple of hours at the movies. The cast is excellent and I'm learning lately what a fan of Faye Dunaway I am. Not necessarily in this, but loved her in Mommie Dearest and it doesn't get much sexier with your clothes on than watching her play chess with Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair. It kind of makes me want to go bust open my Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection and check out Family Plot, starring her and a Hitchcock film I haven't seen, to boot. I'm always a fan of Nicholson and especially after watching and pondering over his films from THE BOOK. I realize now, more than ever, that the acclaim that is showered upon him as completely deserving and if anything, not enough. Is he officially retired? Is there a particular reason that he hasn't done a movie since 2010, other than he "just hasn't"? As far as Polanski goes, I wouldn't call this his best work, by a long shot. I'd easily put Rosemary's Baby above this and even Knife in the Water, my personal favorite Polanski film. In a perfect world, in fact, Knife in the Water would've gotten Chinatown's spot, but no book that calls itself a definitive guide to the best and most "must see" films is going to exclude Chinatown, so que sera sera.

RATING: 7/10  Not a personal favorite or anything, but certainly deserving that extra nudge into '7' territory and something I'd happily sit through again someday, just to make sure I got everything straight. PS. John Huston was fabulous in this too!

MOVIES WATCHED: 918
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 83

April 12, 2015  5:53pm

482. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Running Time: 136 minutes
Directed By: Roman Polanski
Written By: Roman Polanski, from novel by Ira Levin
Main Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans

FRIGHTFEST 2011: 3 of 5

Well gang, "Frightfest 2011" is raging on to it's third installment, as we inch closer and closer to Halloween and "Mother of All Horror Movies" - "The Exorcist". Tonight I take a look at a movie that I went giddy over the first time I saw it - "Rosemary's Baby".

Rosemary (Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (Cassavetes) are a young, New York couple, searching for an apartment, where they can raise a family. When the film opens they are touring the most recent candidate - an apartment at Bramford. The duo decide to take the place and before a few weeks are up, they meet the nosy neighbors - an aging couple, Minnie (Gordon) and Roman Castevet (Blackmer). When The Castavets invite Rosemary and Guy to dinner, the two feel obliged to accept, despite Guy's initial hesitation. When the evening concludes, Guy seems pleased as punch to be living next to the Castavets and can't say enough good things about them. On the other hand, Rosemary, didn't have as good a time as she thought she would and while she can't put her finger on it, seems to carry an uneasiness when it comes to Minnie and Roman. Fast forward a little bit and Guy lands the lead role in a major play opening up and the two finally decide to have that baby they've been talking about. Rosemary, however, has a little too much to drink on their intended night and goes to sleep, dreaming very strange dreams. The next morning Guy informs her that the two "went ahead as scheduled" and Rosemary can't get over the vicious looking scratch marks on her back. Now, Rosemary is pregnant, but everyone, including Guy, Minnie, Roman and her new obstetrician, Dr. Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy) seem to be acting strangely.

The first time you see "Rosemary's Baby" it's extremely hard not to like it, in my opinion. There are so many intricacies in the script and so many little things, that the film kind of takes on the characteristics of a thrilling murder mystery, as opposed to a cryptic horror film. Really, if you get down to bare bones, "Rosemary's Baby" isn't that scary at all. To me, it's more eerie than anything. There's a real sense of threat and uneasiness in the atmosphere of the film, that you can't help but be on edge throughout and even until well after the picture has concluded. The New York setting is the perfect place to evoke this eeriness, because it's the last place you'd expect to be frightened. Think about it, 95% of all horror movies take us to the most desolate of settings (middle of the woods, a cabin fifty miles past Kalamazoo), while "Rosemary's Baby" told us that "shit could happen EVEN where there were a lot of people.

SPOILER ALERT!

Going back to the aforementioned idea that this picture takes on the characteristics of a murder mystery - well it really kind of does, in my opinion. You have so many different outcomes that when it gets down to the end of the movie, anything could happen. Who was in on all this? Did Guy really set up HIS OWN wife? Is the Dr. in on it to? What about the younger, more Charles Grodin looking Dr, is he in on it too? You have more questions than you have answers, where USUALLY the intent of a horror movie is to just be scared, this one plays out like a mystery, where you just have to know what happens and what's happening. "Rosemary's Baby" really works so much better the first time around. The first time I saw this picture, I honestly thought that there was a good chance that Rosemary was a whacko and that she was going to end up in Happy Hills Psychiatric Ward, while Guy was left to take care of this baby all alone. In actuality, that is a viable possibility, right up until the very end. Speaking of the end, it's an ending that I'm not crazy about. In my opinion, it's far too anti-climactic. We've just been spoon-fed two hours of tense, taught, eerie footage and then all that happens in the end is Rosemary happens upon this secret room, finds her baby and holds it, basically accepting all the shit that so many people just conspired to get over on her.

On a final note, the book makes note of a scene where Rosemary firsts notice the baby kicking, exclaiming "It's Alive!, It's Alive!" (ie. "Frankenstein") and the horrifying look on Guy's face, as he realizes what's living inside his wife's womb. I honestly didn't even notice this on first viewing (although I might just have to go back and take a look), but it's small details LIKE that one that make "Rosemary's Baby" stand out. Little intricacies that were added in to really hammer home the story. The story is so far-fetched on it's own, but the way the entire idea is executed, you really forget how hokey the story is and just go with it for the duration.

RATING: 8/10 Like I said, it works a little better the first time you see it, when you don't have all the answers, but it still holds up quite well. However, Mia Farrow still annoys the piss out of me.

MOVIES WATCHED: 340
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 661

October 26. 2011 11:29pm

441. Repulsion (1965)

Running Time: 104 minutes
Directed By: Roman Polanski
Written By: Gerard Brach, Roman Polanski, David Stone
Main Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Yvonne Furneaux

Note: I'm going to try to tinker with the format of my reviews a little bit and make it a little bit easier on myself to bang them out. Instead of writing a plot synopsis, I'm going to attach a trailer for the film (when I can find one) and focus more on my actual opinion of the movie. I hope you like the new format and for all you reading this, please give me a little feedback, because I can always switch back to the old way of doing things.

REPULSION - APTLY NAMED



I'll start out by saying that I didn't care too much for "Repulsion" at all. Now before you go attacking me for being too close minded to find something a little different from the norm' a good thing, I'll say that I, in most cases, enjoy it when a filmmaker tries for something a little different and thinks outside the box. There was certainly an idea festering in there somewhere, beneath the mostly boring, monotonous plot. I like the idea of having a person who isn't all together there, being locked in an apartment, by herself for a few days and seeing what plays out. However, this film didn't intrigue me that much, and when you're going to think outside the box and do something a little off the wall, then certainly the first element you need is intrigue. I'm not sure if the Polanski fan in me was just expecting something more, as I have never seen this film, prior to tonight. I can't decide whether Deneuve was brilliant as the obviously mental ill loner or if her character was just really annoying and I'm leaning more toward the latter, as that was yet another element that I think was missing here, is that I didn't really care for these characters (or character, as this is pretty much a one woman show) and thus didn't care what happened to them/her.

I really have a love/hate relationship with Polanski's work, as I either seem to love the film or really despise it. On one hand you have the man who made classics like: Rosemary's Baby, The Pianist and Knife in the Water and on the other hand that same man directed The Tenant and now, Repulsion. And speaking of "Knife in the Water", I've always scratched my head and wondered why that beautiful film wasn't included in the "1001" book, and now I scratch even harder, as "Repulsion" could've easily been omitted for a better, more subtle, classic like "Knife in the Water".

With all that being said, I have this sneaking suspicion that someday, a very long time from now I'm going to think about "Repulsion" and say to myself "You know that wasn't half bad, maybe I should give it another go", and maybe...just maybe, then I'll see the greatness that Polanski intended.

RATING: 3.5/10 I gave it a few notches for innovation, unique camera angles, sound, score and for brief moments of interest, but really that's as high as I can go, in good conscience.

MOVIES WATCHED: 146
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 855

September 18, 2010 2:43am

967. The Pianist (2002)

Running Time: 148 minutes
Directed By: Roman Polanski
Written By: Ronald Harwood, from book by Wladyslaw Szpilman
Main Cast: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Ed Stoppard, Emilia Fox

A MOVIE THAT WILL BREAK YOUR HEART OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Opting yet again for the Netflix instant queue, I chose a relatively newer movie from the pages of the "1001" and went with Roman Polanski's "The Pianist". Now before I start showering a bit of praise toward a Roman Polanski film, I'll ask that anyone who has shunned Polanski and his work, due to his recent newsworthy tidbits, please refrain from battering me with verbal insults, as I'm merely separating the artist from the man.

The film chronicles the journey of Wladyslaw Szpilman as he tries to survive in a Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland. We start out by establishing the fact the Szpilman was a classically trained pianist, but Polanski doesn't waste a second of his film and we're quickly into the thick of things as the Germans take over Warsaw. Several decrees are made, the first stating that all of the Jewish population must wear armbands with the Star of David to identify themselves. The following decree has all Jews being forced to repopulate in the Warsaw Ghetto. Once there, they are blocked in by a wall of brick and must face hunger, as Wladyslaw and his family try to fight for their survival and witness the hideous acts of the Nazi regime. One particularly brutal scene shows a troop of Nazi's storming into an apartment building in the Warsaw Ghetto, going to the top floor and forcing a Jewish family to stand. When an elderly man in a wheelchair is unable to comply, they dump him over the balcony to the streets below. They march the rest downstairs, shoot them all and then drive off, running over bodies as their vehicles depart.

Eventually the family is taken away from the Warsaw Ghetto, as the Nazi's prepare to take them to an extermination facility in Treblinka. At the last minute, Wladyslaw is saved by a member of the Jewish police, who also happens to be a family member. At first he is taken back inside the ghetto to become a slave labourer. It is there where he begins to talk with some of the other Jews and learns of plans for a Jewish uprising, where other Jews plan to bring in guns to fight back against the oppression of the Germans. Later, prior to the start of the uprising, Wladyslaw decides to go into hiding outside the ghetto, relying on the help of some friends he had prior to being imprisoned. They set him up in an apartment building, keeping him locked inside and bringing him food whenever the coast is clear. At this point of the film it becomes a tale of survival, and it feels like one man against the world as we follow Wladyslaw.

I'm not real big on history movies, as I'm not a real big history buff and therefore not all that interested. The holocaust, however, does hold some interest for me, if only for the fact that it's unbelievable the amount of horror that was inflicted on the Jewish population during this time. I haven't seen a whole lot of holocaust movies, but I can definitely say that this is the most harrowing one that I've seen and it really makes you stop and think: "My God this stuff actually happened", in fact you can't help but think that. As far as the movie itself goes though, I thought it was excellent and really only have two bad pieces of criticism. The first is that the film does kind of drag, but only very minor and only in a couple spots, nothing major. The other thing that I didn't like and something that actually removed me slightly from the film, was the fact that there wasn't more subtitling. We have a movie that takes place entirely in Warsaw, Poland, as it's being invaded by Germans, and the primary language that the characters are speaking is English. You'd really expect Roman Polanski to be a little more risky and go for the subtitling, I think I would've really been able to let myself be captivated by the environment, had that been the case.

RATING: 8.5/10 Other than my minor quibbles at the end there, you'll get nothing but a big thumbs up from me on "The Pianist" and I'm glad I chose it.

MOVIES WATCHED: 137
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 864

September 6, 2010 2:56pm