It's Films I've Watched Lately Some of Which I Liked Greatly With a Twist

Stromboli

Traditionally the “Films I’ve Watched Lately” Feature consists of capsule reviews of the last seven or eight films I’ve watched. Ever the experimenter, with this edition I’m not going to write specifically about the movies, instead focusing on thoughts that viewing of the films inspired. 

Stromboli (1950 Rossellini. Between 1945 and 1975 Italian cinema produced many of the greatest films of all time. No other country can match it. There have been strong ten, even twenty-year periods but nothing to compare with what came out of Italy for thirty years. They were blessed with directors such as Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini who directed Stromboli (along with Rome: Open City, the Flowers of St. Francis and Voyage to Italy). Stromboli stars Ingrid Bergman in one of her greatest roles. 

The Weight (2926) McKinley. It’s not easy to make thoroughly watchable, entertaining movies like this one. What’s even harder is to make those kinds of film that also offer something else like a compelling lead character whose motivations are understandable, if not always defensible. Showing what people do and making it interesting is hard. Showing what people do and why is even harder. The Weight stars the excellent Ethan Hawke in a perfectly entertaining new film. But his talents aren’t fully utilized in a movie that is all what and little why.

Something Wild (1986) Demme. Some directors boast about not using non-professional actors for some or even all of the roles in a particular film and I’m never impressed. (Why not try using amateurs to do your cinema photography, editing, set designs or to write your screenplay?) Something Wild provides an argument for using professional actors. Ray Liotta shows up about halfway through the film and turns an off beat romance into an entirely different film and one that through sheer force of personality he totally dominates — in the best possible way. As he later demonstrated in Goodfellas, Liotta was a terrific actor and by God movies need them.

Jackie Brown (1997) Tarantino. For me Quentin Tarantino has made four great films, Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and this one. He calls Jackie Brown a “hang out” movie that gets better with each viewing. That gives me an idea for another future blog post: hangout films. Plot becomes secondary, being with the characters in a particular time and place is the picture’s real reward. Goodfellas is a great example. So is John Ford’s Long Voyage Home. The Last Picture Show, among its other gifts, is a hangout movie. Radio Days, Mean Streets, Red River, Diner, Local Hero, Animal House, Amarcord, The Big Lebowski are all movies where you can hang.

Boogie Nights (1997) P.T. Anderson. Well look here, another hangout movie. You’ve got characters beautifully realized by the likes of Burt Reynolds, William H. Macy. John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, Alfred Molina and Mark Wahlberg and his amazing prosthetic dick. It’s not a warm and cozy hang given all the indiscriminate sex and the constant threat of violence, but there are a lot of people looking for family and love. Cinema is good at exploring the human desire for companionship. Sometimes sex suffices, other times a group is required, a parental figure, someone to take care of. Even here within the porn industry of the late seventies and eighties in San Fernando Valley, the basic desire is to find a surrogate family.

Shame (1969) Bergman. Speaking of great runs of film-making, how about Ingmar Bergman from 1953 through 1976 (you could start it earlier and end it later and get no argument from me). I count sixteen movies in that period that range from very good to masterpieces. Shame is in the latter category and may be his most underrated. Frequent collaborators Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow co-star and one has to understand that casting was a large part of the great Swedish director’s success. That and getting the most out of his actors. His time spent directing in the theater contributed mightily to his success and style which is typified by the intimacy of his films and the performances. For me Bergman is the greatest director of all time.

A Night at the Opera (1935) Wood. There was early, anarchic Marx Brothers and there was later studio formulaic Marx Brothers. The former included their masterpiece, Duck Soup, along with other great comedies such as Horse Feathers and Monkey Business. The latter was littered with duds such as Go West, At the Circus and The Big Store. Admittedly these later films did feature some of the brothers at their best but the boys were surrounded by sappy love stories and dreary songs which helped dilute the comedy. A Night at the Opera was the bridge between these two eras. There was still a lot of the comic brilliance (see the stateroom scene) that made the Marx Brothers so much fun, but there was also Alan Jones singing and thus grinding the comedy to a screeching halt.

Othello (1951) Welles. The great bard — Shakespeare, William — wrote many of the greatest plays of all time and unsurprisingly this has inspired some fantastic films, Orson Welles’ Othello among them. I suppose one could argue that there should have been by now even more great film based on Shakespeare’s plays. There have been a couple of good Henry V films, two good Hamlets, a Richard III, Othello, a few versions of Romeo and Juliet, three really good versions of Macbeth, two A Midsummer Night Dream and scattered others. There’s a lot but should there be more? Sounds like a future blog post.