921. Ta'm e guilass/Taste of Cherry (1997)

Running Time: 95 minutes
Directed By: Abbas Kiarostami
Written By: Abbas Kiarostami
Main Cast: Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Safar Ali Moradi, Mir Hossein Noori
Click here to view the trailer

700 DOWN

Another quick update before my review: The copy of "Open Your Eyes" that I'd tracked down online isn't working properly for me. I'll try it again in the morning, but if it still isn't working I'll be forced to scramble and come up with a last minute replacement for that film. Stay tuned. By the way, current plans are for me to finish up the last movie and last review in the morning, make the TOP 20 tomorrow afternoon and post it either tomorrow night or Thursday. Now then...cherries and stuff...

"Taste of Cherry" is a pretty simple, little film and detailing it shouldn't take no time. Mr. Baadi (Ershadi) is driving around Tehran, Iran, looking for someone who will assist him when he kills himself the following morning. Basically the plan is for Mr. Baadi to take a bottle full of sleeping pills and lie down in a hole, that he's already pre-dug, beneath a cherry tree. If he's able to find someone to assist him, it will be that person's duty to come to him the following morning, at dawn and either A) cover him with dirt if, he's dead or B) help him out of the hole, if he's alive. He's offering 200,000 tomans for the man that will accept this odd job. First, Baadi picks up a soldier on his way to the barracks and a shy soldier at that. The soldier ultimately refuses to help out Mr. Baadi and ends up running away, perhaps thinking that Mr. Baadi is either crazy or that he has other motives. The second man that Mr. Baadi picks up is a seminarian and while he doesn't really try to talk Baadi out of suicide, he is stern that it goes against everything he believes in and that he cannot assist him. The third and last man that Mr. Baadi talks to is a taxidermist and because he has a child who is ill, he agrees to help Mr. Baadi. His name is Mr. Bagheri, a wise, old gentleman and as they drive through town, he tries to talk Mr. Baadi out of his decision

SPOILER ALERT!!

For those of you who have seen this movie and who have been following me for a long enough time, you probably already can kind of suspect what I'm going to say. You probably know my #1 gripe with this picture and the thing that ruined the entire movie for me...shall we say it together?...

The ending.

I'll get to the ending in a minute though. "Taste of Cherry" was a movie that I've been wanting to see for a very long time. I knew just by reading the plot that it sounded unusual and unique enough to be something special and just knew I'd like it, no matter what. And hey, I did like it. I mean, what's not to like? Oh sure, you'll have people who claim that it's boring, that it's just a man driving around in his car, talking to strangers, having the same conversations. But for me, it's right up my alley because I love dialogue driven movies and this is a movie where we're literally driving dialogue! The performances are very natural, almost like real conversations and it's probably a testament to Kiarostami, who sat either in the passenger's or driver's seat and played each scene like an interview, looking for genuine reactions from his actors.

Did I need to know why Mr. Baadi wanted to kill himself? Not at all. Did I need to know, in the end, whether Baadi lives or dies? Nope. However, would it have been nice to know both of those facts? Yes. Look, movies are storytelling, I think we can all agree on that. I've said it before and I'll say it again, don't give me this "interpret my own ending" bull crap. If you're a writer/director and you've got an idea for a film, then tell me a story. Show me things, let me all the way in and don't make me guess. I don't want to press this issue too much, because honestly, it wasn't that big of an issue for me. I'm fairly confident that we're given enough footage to know that Baadi probably dies in the end. Now, as it pertains to why he wants to kill himself, I'd have liked to have had a scene where he finally breaks down and tells Mr. Bagheri why he's committing suicide. In fact, when he runs back in to meet Mr. Bagheri, after dropping him off, I thought that's what we were going to get. However, it never comes and we're left to interpret. Why did you think Baadi was killing himself? Personally, I'd like to think he had a wife and she died. Perhaps he had a relationship like the one I have with my wife. Now, I could never do the relationship that my wife and I have justice with words, but let's suffice it to say that it's really something special and yes, if she were to pass away, I would probably want to pass away too. Well, I'd like to think that's what happened with Mr. Baadi and if I'm going to go ahead and thing that, then I can view the film a little easier, because now I can give Mr. Baadi the rest of his story, the story that we don't get from the STORYTELLER! Perhaps the spot where he wants to be buried was where they had their first date, first kiss, or maybe it's where they made love for the first time. These are my interpretations and I can draw from personal experiences/feelings (my wife) and make Mr. Baadi's journey more impactful. More impactful than if Kiarostami had just told me? I don't know.

Anyway, then there's that ending. No, not the one with Mr. Baadi lying in his grave. I'm sure he dies...at least that's my interpretation. No, I'm talking about the ending with the camera crew and Kiarostami himself appearing and even the actor who plays Baadi showing up. According to several online resources, it's apparently Kiarostami's way of telling us, "Don't worry. Don't cry, it's only a movie. Mr. Baadi is fictional and see, here's the actor that played him and he's just fine". Look, don't tell me it's only a movie. I pressed the play button, of course I know it's only a movie. I want to be emotionally rocked...that's what I paid for. No one goes into movies not knowing anything. Either we go to the theaters after seeing a trailer on television or we rent a DVD after reading the back of the box. When you read the synopsis or see the trailer for "Taste of Cherry" you're going in expecting to be emotionally wrenched. Now, there are some other interpretations, but the "don't worry" one seems to be the most popular.

At this point, I just really don't know how to take this film. In some ways, it was brilliant and in other ways I wanted a lot more. I loved it up to a certain point, but when it became apparent that we were going to have to help Kiarostami finish his ideas and then deal with that awful ending, it hurt the movie a lot. I was all prepared to come here and lay praise upon this picture and tell how I teared up a little at the end and really gush, but I didn't get to do that and with a few tweaks, it could've been the picture that I imagined it being. I really don't know...let me keep thinking...

RATING: 7/10  It's at least a '7', so there's that. Even now, I'm coming to terms with the fact that I had to interpret and I'm getting more comfortable with it, but I still think this film had much more potential and ultimately, despite the '7', I'm disappointed a little.

MOVIES WATCHED: 700
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 301

June 5, 2013  1:37am

930. HAPPINESS (1998)

Running Time: 139 minutes
Directed By: Todd Solondz
Written By: Todd Solondz
Main Cast: Jane Adams, Lara Flynn Boyle, Cynthia Stevenson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker
Click here to view the trailer

PERVERSION IS EVERYWHERE

For the curious, the movies that have been/will be held over from the "Final 15" post are: "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Beauty and the Beast". These three movies will be early views at the start of next season, which I'll probably get going on in August or September. The final two movies this season (after "Happiness") will be: "Open Your Eyes" and "Taste of Cherry". Now then...

Let's see...where to begin, where to begin. "Happiness" actually follows several different storylines, but all of the characters are in some way connected to three sisters: Joy Jordan (Adams), Helen Jordan (Boyle) and Trish Maplewood (Stevenson). Joy Jordan is the baby of the three siblings and is having a bit of a hiccup in her life. Her love life is in shambles and her job opportunities are limited. Joy finds herself crying on a regular basis, trying to cope with the hand she's been dealt. In order to find more fulfillment in her life, Joy takes a job teaching adult immigrants English, where she's a scab teacher (the former teacher is on strike) and begins dating one of her students, Vlad - a Russian. Meanwhile, Helen's life is perhaps too exciting - a sex writer who has constant appointments, lunch dates, dinner dates and appearances to schedule. She can have any man she wants, but the one man that she doesn't want, who wants her, is her neighbor, Allen (Hoffman). Allen is a lonely guy, who gets off by calling women on the phone and sometimes talking dirty to them. When he begins calling Helen anonymously, Helen becomes excited by him and requests to meet him. Then there's Trish Jordan, who has a seemingly perfect life. A white picket fence, a psychiatrist husband, two sons, PTA meetings and family meals. What she doesn't know is that her husband Bill (Baker) is sexually attracted to little boys and has even gone so far as to rape two of his sons schoolmates. Throughout the film, his son Billy questions his father on the birds and the bees, which leads to some very candid and straightforward discussion.

SPOILER ALERT!!

Whenever I'm not 100% sure, I have ways of telling whether or not I liked a particular movie. If I find myself on IMDB following the watching of said movie, reading message board posts and seeing what others had to say about it, that's a good sign. If I find myself retelling the plot, in detail, to my wife, that's also a good sign. Both of these signs were fulfilled following the watching of "Happiness" and after going through an entire day not really knowing whether to accept or reject this film (I watched it last night), I think I've finally decided. I think it's a really great movie, despite some really appalling and disgusting subject matter. You see, that's not really easy for me to admit because I'd seen "Happiness" once before and in fact, I used to own "Happiness" on DVD (a blind buy purely because Philip Seymour Hoffman was a part of the cast - I used to love that guy...still do). It sat on my DVD shelf for years and when I finally broke down and gave it a watch, I hated it. I'm pretty sure I didn't waste any time selling it away and figured I'd never watch it again. Well, apparently I didn't know about THE BOOK then and when THE BOOK came along, I realized I'd have to give it one more go around. I think that pretty much brings us up to speed on where I stand with this movie. This time, I had absolutely no problem sitting through this over two hour movie, which felt more like forty-five minutes. Solondz used his time very wisely and didn't take a second of his film for granted, cramming in something essential during every scene.

It's a controversial piece, there's no denying that. It's a film that will certainly leave your casual movie goer with a dropped jaw and probably turn off a lot of people. I won't deny that there were times during the picture where I felt dirty and disgusting for even watching it and even more so, for enjoying it. Certainly I'm, for the most part, talking about the storyline involving Dylan Baker. However, the film (in a way) redeems itself for giving us a few happy moments, moments of closure and letting us know that, at least these characters recognize their wrongdoing, which is more than we get in real life sometimes. The short scene where Bill Maplewood turns to his half sleeping wife, in bed and tells her that "he's sick", not referring to a virus he may have picked up, but rather that he's sick for being a pedophile. He's sobbing at the time and really, I thought that was a brilliant inclusion and I wonder what I would've thought of that storyline if that scene had been omitted. There's another nice scene where Allen finally realizes that the girls he calls on the phone and more notably Helen, are never going to accept him or find him appealing and that his other neighbor, Kristina will. So he goes to her apartment and lies down with her; Allen on top of the blankets, she underneath. It's a nod to the fact that neither of them really like the physical act of sex. Allen gets off on being distanced from his objects of desire (his penchant for using the phone) and Kristina has been raped, so neither will she find sex an appealing activity. They're perfect for each other - awkward and perfect.

So as much as people want to condemn Todd Solondz for making "Happiness", I'd rather applaud him. Why? Because these sorts of people do exist. Who knows what goes on when people lock their doors and pull their curtains at night. People have all sorts of perversions and turn ons, whether you're a doctor, living in the 'burbs or a regular guy, living in an apartment. Some of our turn ons are fairly run of the mill, but behind a lot of locked doors there are a real sickos: pedophiles, rapists and the like; and then there's guy's like Allen, a little odd, but for the most part, harmless. So thank you Todd Solondz for not shying away from this sort of subject matter and facing it and even more so for being able to find a little humor in it and even more so for adding those few classy touches, in a film that really has no place being classy. For people who say they don't like this movie, but secretly do, I understand. For people who say they don't like this movie and mean it, I don't understand. I'll certainly NEVER bash anyone's personal opinion, but I do apologize if you're offended by "Happiness". I apologize if every film can't be roses & puppy dogs and I apologize that as long as there are directors like Todd Solondz, there will be filmmakers who aren't afraid to grab reality by the horns and show us what's really going on.

RATING: 8/10  See, I have a hard time accepting movies that I once held such a passionate dislike for, so that explains the '8' and explains why this film MAY not make the TOP 20 list...but it probably will.

MOVIES WATCHED: 699
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 302

June 4, 2013  6:15pm

853. The Crying Game (1992)

Running Time: 112 minutes
Directed By: Neil Jordan
Written By: Neil Jordan
Main Cast: Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Forest Whitaker, Jaye Davidson, Adrian Dunbar
Click here to view the trailer

"IT'S IN MY NATURE"

Because my wife and I were both off from work today, because she felt like watching one more movie with me and because she didn't want to watch any of the ones I previously had scheduled, I let her pick just one more replacement from the DVD shelf. This time around she chose "The Crying Game", a movie that she bought and that I'd never seen.

The film begins at a carnival where black British soldier Jody (Whitaker) has picked up a girl, Jude (Richardson) and is trying to show her a good time, before trying even harder to get her into bed. However, as it turns out, the girl was just a decoy and a member of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and along with her cronies - Fergus (Rea) and Maguire (Dunbar) - they kidnap Jody and try to use him as leverage to get other members of the IRA out of custody. From there they hole up in a desolate area, where they keep Jody tied to a chair with a cloth sack over his head. After a while, Jody and Fergus strike up conversation and actually become quite chummy, despite the promise that if their comrades are not released in three days, Jody will be shot. Knowing that he'll die no matter what, Jody asks Fergus to take his wallet and look up his girlfriend, Dil (Davidson). Jody wants Dil to know that at the end of his life, he was thinking about her. When the three days are up and the deed is set to be done, Fergus takes Jody out into the woods and knowing that Fergus won't shoot him in the back, Jody takes off running. Fergus pleads with him to stop, but when Jody makes it to the road he is run over by a military truck. Following that, the house where Jody was being kept is raided and everyone except Fergus is seemingly killed. Now, Fergus intends to keep his promise, heading to London to find Dil. He finds her quickly enough and the two strike up a romance of their own, but their relationship is saturated in secrets...from both sides.

SPOILER ALERT!

Don't really have a whole lot to say about this one, so I'll probably be keeping it short, sweet and to the point. I liked the movie for sure, but am not sure how it will fair on the upcoming TOP 20 list. It may be a case of too little, too late or even a case of following something stellar ("Blue Velvet") and not being able to come close to it's greatness. The film was like two movie split in two, with the first one being the relationship that buds between Fergus and Jody and the second being the relationship between Fergus and Dil. If I had my way, the Fergus/Jody stuff would've been lengthened by about twenty or so minutes, just to add another layer of icing to the cake. I would applaud that Jordan was able to establish and cement that relationship so quickly though and make everything that follows believable. I guess it's just that I was enjoying Forest Whitaker and thought he may have gotten knocked off a bit too quickly.

From Jody's death we get into the Fergus/Dil stuff and it was fine, but I did have a few gripes. Let me first say that I knew beforehand that Dil was going to be exposed as a man, so that was something that was already spoiled for me. However, it didn't effect my enjoyment of the picture, because I looked more forward to the inevitable scene where Fergus told Dil all about what happened to Jody and expected a really emotional, heart wrenching scene. Instead, it sort of pops out of nowhere when it does finally happen and it's during a part in the film where the character of Dil is all hopped up on pills, so the emotional reaction is nil. I was really disappointed by all of this, as it seemed to be what we were building to and it never really paid off. I also didn't like the return of Jude and Maguire. I felt the picture would have benefited more if we'd have just kept exploring the relationship between Dil and Fergus, Fergus trying to figure out his own sexual preference and how he was going to break it to Dil that he knew Jody and was partly responsible for his death. Anyway, those are significant gripes, but I liked the picture for the most part. It was engaging, the acting was superb (British film - what do you expect) and there were enough little moments that made the picture worth seeing. Thumbs up, but if I'd had it my way, things would've played out a little differently.

RATING: 7/10  Not bad in the least, just not how I pictured it turning out. It's a good film, but like I said, I think it will be too little, too late as it pertains to "The Crying Game" and the TOP 20 list.

MOVIES WATCHED: 698
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 303

June 3, 2013  4:23pm

607. CARRIE (1976)

Running Time: 98 minutes
Directed By: Brian De Palma
Written By: Lawrence D. Cohen, from the novel by Stephen King
Main Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, John Travolta
Click here to view the trailer

DON'T PISS OFF CARRIE!

My wife's second choice to replace the two movies from the 40s that I couldn't get a hold of, is "Carrie" - the 1976 feature directed by Brian De Palma and adapted from a Stephen King novel. This one also came off of our DVD collection and despite the fact that I bought it, I'd have to say I wasn't crazy about it this time around.

The film starts at a typical, American high school, just after a girls gym class, as the young ladies are in their locker room, showering and changing. Carrie White (Spacek) loses herself under the warm water of a shower head and as she lathers her body, she begins to have her period. You see, apparently this is Carrie's first period and having no prior knowledge that her body would begin to do this, she freaks out and thinks she's dying.  Of course, the other students laugh and throw tampons at her, urging her to "plug it up". Carrie is embarrassed to death and is only saved when the gym teacher comes to her aid. Later, we learn that Carrie's home life is a little bit odd, as her mother is a hardcore religious enthusiast, who now believes that Carrie has committed sin by beginning menstruation. Her mother, Margaret (Laurie) locks her in the closet and forces her to pray, in hopes that God will forgive her for becoming a woman. Back at school, the girls who were involved in the tampon throwing incident are being heavily punished by gym teacher, Miss Collins (Betty Buckley). They're sentenced to a week's worth of detention, with her and if they don't appear, they'll be refused tickets to their senior prom. Meanwhile, Sue Snell (Irving) one of the girls involved in the locker room incident, is starting to feel guilt for her role in the event and decides to sacrifice her date, Tommy Ross (Katt), so that Carrie can go to the prom with him and experience what it's like to be accepted at high school. Oh and Carrie is discovering something else about her body; that she has the power to move things with her mind. What will happen when Tommy escorts Carrie to the prom?

SPOILER ALERT!!

You aren't going to hear me say this often, if ever again, so listen carefully: I don't like "Carrie" because I've read the novel and am of the opinion that it is better than the film.

Whew! That was hard. I'm not much of a reader, but years ago, mainly because my brother was such a big fan of Stephen King and I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about, I picked up a copy of Carrie and read it. I had already seen the movie at that point, but was still surprised to learn that there were many differences between the film and the novel. One of the main differences and one of the reasons I just can't like this movie, is the ending, which sees Carrie White not only burn down her high school, but proceed to leave the high school, walk through town and basically burn the entire town to the ground - houses, businesses, everything. Sure, I completely understand that the year was 1976 and to undertake such a feat as to burn down an entire town on film would've cost a lot more money than this production probably had, but dammit, the heart wants what the heart wants! In 2002, they remade "Carrie" for the first time, as a television movie and at least they included a shot of a town being burned to the ground, but that was about the end of it. This fall, Hollywood will take another crack at "Carrie", when a new version comes out around Halloween. While I'm sure this new version will be shoddy at best, here's hoping they go balls to the wall and produce a more faithful adaptation.

But, it wasn't just the fact that the film wasn't as good as the book, as I had other gripes too. The ending just seems to stretch on forever and ever, as De Palma uses a slow motion effect and makes the spilled pigs blood feel like spilled molasses. That score got really old, really quick too and it just kept playing and playing and wouldn't quit. It's just not a very eventful film, as De Palma takes too much time establishing everything and not enough time focusing on what makes the book great. Piper Laurie was amazing as Margaret White, but the rest of the cast was filled out with amateur teenagers/twenty-somethings that just couldn't cut the mustard when it came time to bring the acting muscle. The film had some good to it and it had that gritty, 70s horror movie feel and in that case you want those non-experienced actors, because that goes along way in making it more fun. My wife and I had a blast making fun of the actors, their expressions and their silly wardrobes. However, "Carrie" shouldn't JUST BE your typical horror fest, because it's based on a King novel and King puts a lot more effort into his work than that and deserves a higher class of film.

RATING: 5.5/10  I was gonna' go '6', but I really don't think it's even that good. I wanted to like it, but ultimately it's flaws were too prevalent and I couldn't get past that.

MOVIES WATCHED: 697
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 304

June 3, 2013  11:13am

739. Blue Velvet (1986)

Running Time: 120 minutes
Directed By: David Lynch
Written By: David Lynch
Main Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, Hope Lange
Click here to view the trailer

TROUBLE UNTIL THE ROBINS COME

Since my wife and I were both off tomorrow and needed a couple of movies to watch, I decided to let her do the honors in picking the two movies that would replace "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". All she really had to work with was our DVD collection, so (with a little urging from yours truly) her first selection was "Blue Velvet".

Jeffrey Beaumont (MacLachlan) is home from school because his father has just been placed in the hospital, after suffering a severe stroke. One day, while walking home from visiting his father at the hospital, Jeffrey crosses a field and happens upon a human ear lying in the grass. He takes the ear directly to the police station and an investigation is opened. Jeffrey, perhaps driven by boredom and the fact that nothing ever happens in his crummy, little hometown of Lumberton, goes to visit the police detective that night, Detective Williams, who is also a neighbor. Det. Williams tells him that he'll have to stop asking questions about the case, but promises that once everything blows over, he'll tell him all about it. While walking home, he runs into Sandy Williams (Dern), the detective's daughter, who walks with him and tells him tidbits of the case she heard, since her bedroom is right above her father's office. She recalls hearing the name Dorothy Vallens (Rossellini) over and over and knows that she lives in an apartment building, not far from their street.  Jeffrey is fully intrigued by the prospect of murder happening right in the middle of Lumberton and can't stay away from the case. Jeffrey schemes to break into Dorothy's apartment and find out more about the ear and what's really going on with Dorothy Vallens. He pulls Sandy in with him and what Jeffrey ultimately finds out is that Dorothy's husband and son have been kidnapped and are being held by psychopath Frank Booth (Hopper). Frank is holding Dorothy's family hostage so that, in turn for keeping them alive, she'll do sexual favors for him.

In dreams, I walk with you. In dreams, I talk to you. In dreams, you're mine, all the time. Forever.

I first encountered David Lynch in 2005. I was working at a Movie Gallery and a friend & co-worker couldn't stop talking about a movie he'd been renting everyday, for the past week. We got free rentals at this particular video store and every night, I'd notice this co-worker return and re-rent the same film, over and over again. One night, we got to talking about it and it turned out that the film was called "Mulholland Dr." and was directed by somebody named David Lynch. I'd seen "Blue Velvet" before, but nothing else of this David Lynch's and since I liked "Blue Velvet", decided that I'd give this "Mulholland" movie a try...when he was finished with it. It turned out that the reason he kept renting it, over and over again, was because he couldn't figure it out. Apparently every night he'd watch it, try to crack the code that was "Mulholland Dr." and fail. Even back then I considered myself a fairly smart guy when it came to films, so I was sure that I'd rent it, figure it out in one sitting and be proud as punch when I returned to work the next day to shed some light on my friend's ongoing investigation. Except, it wasn't quite that easy and Lynch had stumped even me. It wasn't so much the unsolvable qualities of "Mulholland Dr." though that got me going, but rather the dreamlike atmosphere, the characters that had both human and inhuman qualities and the pure weirdness. Anyway, I decided then that I was going to become a HUGE David Lynch fan, watch everything of his that I could get a hold of and probably watch them over and over again, not unlike my friend and his obsession with "Mulholland". However, a few years later, after I got married, I revisited some of Lynch's filmography and decided that maybe I went a little too gaga for this guy and that really, he only had two masterpieces: "Mulholland Dr." and "Blue Velvet", with the latter being the most mentally accessible.

What's not to like about "Blue Velvet" really? Oh sure, there's a TON of cursing, some nudity and a bunch of sexual content & dialogue, but if you're a big boy or girl, you can handle and what you'll get in return is an amazing time at the movies. "Blue Velvet" works on so many levels, whether you're the type of movie goer that likes to dig a little deeper or whether you're the type that just likes to sit back and enjoy the ride - "Blue Velvet" will accommodate all tastes. Isn't it funny how sometimes the scariest films are the ones that you wouldn't necessarily classify as horror films? I'd consider "Blue Velvet" to be ONE OF the freakiest movies I've ever seen and it's because we're dealing with real people here. I have no doubt that there are people walking the streets right now, somewhere in the country I live in, somewhere in the state I live in, perhaps somewhere on the street I live on, that are just as psychotic as Frank, if not worse. To me, one of the things this film represented was the birth of evil. When we open, we zoom in on Anytown, USA. A fireman waves hello from his truck, roses outside of a white picket fence are highlighted and a man waters his lawn. It all has a very "Leave It to Beaver"-esque quality and while we're never told when the film takes place, I'd assume it takes place in the 50s or so.

Now then, when you hear the word "evil", you probably don't think of the suburbs circa 1950, where Peggy Sue, the homecoming queen and Bobby, the football quarterback could go down to the candy store and get a couple of sodas, all the while flipping through the jukebox to find their favorite tune, presumably something they heard on 'Bandstand'. No, you probably don't think of that when you hear the word "evil". In fact, what you probably think of is something current, perhaps something you saw on the news or perhaps you think of something artificial, like green pea soup spewing out of the mouth of Linda Blair. Maybe you even think of something biblical, but certainly there was a time when the general consensus says evil didn't exist in our country and kids could walk home from school freely without being nabbed and the worse thing to happen on a Friday night was maybe a car race between the Sharks and the Jets. So to me, this film smashes that misconception and says, "Yes, evil has always existed and even in the most unlikeliest of places; on Main Street in Anytown, USA, with a very neat girl and a very neat guy.

The whole film feels unreal and sometimes the line between reality and dream are a little blurred, as Jeffrey falls further and further down the rabbit hole and is constantly pulled between the world of the good (Sandy)and the world of the evil (Dorothy and Frank). The film incorporates elements of voyeurism, film noir and sadomasochistic behaviors. I'd even go so far as to call Frank Booth ONE OF the greatest and scariest movie villains of all-time, right up there with Hitchcock's most evil characters. Dennis Hopper, that once young kid who played opposite James Dean in "Giant" and "Rebel Without a Cause", shatters every preexisting thought you ever had about him and gives you a new persona to remember. Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for Dean Stockwell and his Roy Orbison lip-synch. Every scene is carefully constructed and essential to moving the story. Lynch had been on the scene since 1977, but didn't really cement his name until 1986 and the release of "Blue Velvet".

RATING: 9/10  I can't go all the way because there were a few flaws (too few to mention), but it's still a damn good movie and proof that whether you love him or hate him, David Lynch knows how to make an outstanding film.

MOVIES WATCHED: 696
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 305

June 3, 2013  1:37am

202. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

Running Time: 86 minutes
Directed By: Max Ophuls
Written By: Howard Koch, Stefan Zweig, from the novel Brief einer Unbekannten by Stefan Zweig
Main Cast: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Art Smith, Howard Freeman
Click here to view the trailer

"BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS LETTER, I MAY BE DEAD..."

After "Letter from an Unknown Woman" there are only three films left for me to watch that come from the decade of the 1940s. To be honest, the 40s really haven't been too kind to me, nor I to them. As I write this, only ten movies from THE BOOK, from the 40s, have been granted an appearance on my TOP 20 lists and I don't have high hopes for this one either.

The film is told almost entirely in flashback. The film opens with Stefan Brand (Jourdan), a concert pianist, arriving home at night and finding a piece of mail. The mail (that is the letter from the title) is from Lisa Berndle (Fontaine) and we slip into our flashback. We head back to when Lisa was a teenager, in Vienna, living in a closely set group of apartment houses and remembering back to one day when a moving van showed up outside the residence. It was Stefan and he was moving into one of the vacant apartments. Lisa recalls being infatuated with him, despite not even seeing him for the longest time. She'd hear his music from the courtyard and happily daydream about the man behind the melodic tones. One day, as he's exiting the building, she holds the door open for him and is put into a dream world when he smiles back at her and thanks her. Time goes on and Lisa recalls her mother remarrying and having to move away from the building and resisting the idea passionately. The new family moves to Linz and Lisa eventually settles in and swallows the pill she's been served. Fast forward years later and Lisa is back in Vienna, working at a dress shop. Through a series of events, she and Stefan meet and he's infatuated with her. He courts her for the evening, as the two have dinner, visit an amusement park (in the winter) and ride on a novelty train. They (in not so many words) pledge their love to one another, but the following day, Stefan announces that he must go away for a concert. While he's away, Lisa learns of her pregnancy (by Stefan) and wanting to be the one woman who never asks him for anything, she doesn't bother telling him about it. Years later Lisa is married to a wealthy man and raising her son, but does she ever see Stefan again?

Honestly, I think I have to blame myself for not liking this one, as I just wasn't in the mood for this sort of thing last night. I was never going to love "Letter from an Unknown Woman", but I think under different circumstances, I would've liked it a bit better. In fact, I was totally taken by surprise by this movie, because going into it I had absolutely no clue what it was even about, so maybe that worked against it too. Judging by the title, the film sounded like a murder mystery and the word "unknown" alone got my mind to thinking that this film must be filled with intrigue. As it turns out, it was just a melodramatic love story about a girl who gets a crush on a semi-celebrity and kind of goes a little crazy. I mean, Lisa turns the stalker dial all the way up to '11' and somehow we're still supposed to be rooting for her, hoping to God she gets the guy. Look, if Lisa had existed in the real world, we'd be wrapping her firmly in a straightjacket and ushering her directly into her personalized padded cell. But this is Hollywood in the golden ages folks, where stalkers were considered romantics and Humphrey Bogart was ALWAYS...ALWAYS a bad ass.

Am I reading far too much into this or is it possible that Lisa made up the entire letter? I mean, what are the odds that this world traveled pianist is going to give this girl the time of day, let alone fall in love with her? If you think about it, we never get a confirmation from Stefan that this letter and the contents are genuine. Sure, he looks a little rattled at the end, but hearing from a stalker can rattle a guy...I'd think. I'd really like to think that Lisa was indeed mad and that everything contained within the letter is utter make believe on her part. Even the whole part about him not remembering her, when they hook up again, years later is just too hard to believe and sounds like something a man hating female might be disillusioned over. I'm probably totally off track and I guess what I'm trying to say is that romance like this just doesn't exist outside of the world of an overly melodramatic movie. Call me a skeptic, but it's true. The performances were fine and had I seen him in something a little more my style, I would've absolutely loved Louis Jourdan. He oozed that classic Hollywood star look and backed it all up onscreen. Fontaine was kind of *meh*, playing it a little too cool and quiet and I'll take "Rebecca" any day over this. All in all, it was an utterly average night at the movies and maybe someday, when I'm feeling extra sentimental and overly romantic, I'll give this one another go around.

RATING: 5/10  Another incredibly mediocre film and now I really need things to pick up to send this season off the same way it started...with a BANG!

MOVIES WATCHED: 695
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 306

June 2, 2013  8:02pm

204. Force of Evil (1948)

Running Time: 82 minutes
Directed By: Abraham Polonsky
Written By: Abraham Polonsky, Ira Wolfert, from the novel Tucker's People by Ira Wolfert
Main Cast: John Garfield, Beatrice Pearson, Thomas Gomez, Marie Windsor, Howland Chamberlain

IT'S A TOUGH RACKET

Quick update to the final movies I'll be watching for the blog: I was ultimately unable to get a hold of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", so my hopes of finishing up the 1940s is out the window. No worries though and I shouldn't have any trouble tracking them down when I reactivate my Netflix membership, whenever I come back from my short hiatus. Anyway, last night I took in "Force of Evil", which I still had from Netflix, so let's talk about that, shall we?

"Force of Evil" was directed by Abraham Polonsky and starred John Garfield as Joe Morse. Joe is a big time lawyer, who mainly works off of Wall Street, but we find out right away that Joe isn't just a defender of the law, he's also a breaker of it. The plot revolves around a numbers racket, that's something like the modern day lottery. Every day, in the newspaper, three numbers are posted. The day before, people can lay down bets on what they think the three numbers will be and based on how much they bet, is what they'll win. The numbers are somehow picked based on the random choosing from the track races and it's a big racket, that pulls in a lot of dough. There are places around town that people call banks, and these are the places where you lay your bets and if you win, you go to the bank to collect your earnings. Joe's brother, Leo (Gomez) operates one of the smaller banks. Anyway, Joe and a gangster friend of his are planning to fix the numbers racket so that the number '776' comes in on July 4th. Apparently a lot of people play that particular number on July 4th, due to it's association with the Declaration of Independence and the formation of America. When that number actually hits on July 4th, all of the banks in town are going to go belly up and that's when Joe and gangster Ben Tucker are going to step in and clean-up. Joe tries to warn his brother of the impending catastrophe that will happen at his bank, but Leo plans to run a clean business and doesn't want help from his brother, a known scum. Meanwhile, Joe kindles a romance with Leo's ex-secretary Doris (Pearson).

Yeah, I didn't care for this one that much. I've found that if you're going to give me a heist/racket movie, you need to keep it as simple as possible, focus all of your details into the planning and staging of the heist/racket and certainly don't muck it up with a romance. Take Kubrick's "The Killer" for instance (a movie that was wrongfully excluded from THE BOOK). There's a movie where we don't have to sit through any romance and all we're given is the intricate, gory details of five men and their attempt to knock off a horse track. Simple and awesome. In "Force of Evil", you start out pretty strong, as a voice over narration from Joe informs us that he plans to make his first million bucks on July 4th and then we trace the steps backwards and find out what he's talking about. It starts out pretty interesting - Joe and Ben Tucker plan to somehow rig the numbers racket (which, like I mentioned, just came off as an illegal lottery) and make off with tons of loot. But it got all mucked up with too many unnecessary details, a sibling rivalry, the Joe/Doris stuff and ultimately I honestly couldn't wait for this one to just end. Actually, I had an easier time getting through nearly three hours of "The Thin Red Line", than I did getting through eighty minutes of "Force of Evil". It's not that it was bad or anything, it's just that I think I was expecting a whole lot more and what I got wasn't anything even remotely close to worth writing home about. When you present me with a film noir, my hopes are always going to be a little higher, because they really are my types of movies. I love the mood, the atmosphere and the style, but I also like a certain level of simplicity and that wasn't given to me here. It was just too complicated. Give me "The Big Heat" (cops' family gets killed, he wants revenge), "Detour" (accidental murder) or "The Asphalt Jungle" (group of guys pull of a jewel heist) any 'ol day of the week. They were simple, awesome and so much fun. "Force of Evil"? Not so much.

RATING: 5/10  I'll give it a few notches for the things I mentioned (good style, good mood) and for decent acting & that final scene with Joe descending multiple hills to find his brothers corpse. That was gold, the rest...*meh*.

MOVIES WATCHED: 694
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 307

June 1, 2013  5:17pm