Oct 032018
  October 3, 2018

RenaissanceI discovered Renaissance in the early ‘80s and was sucked into the beauty of their music. I hadn’t heard anything like them, and while I’ve run into copies and bands treading similar ground since, there’s nothing like the original.

Back before “progressive rock” was a term, there was Renaissance, which along with Genesis  and Yes, formed the foundation of British art rock. Renaissance surprisingly rose from the ashes of The Yardbirds, when Keith Reif and Jim McCarty wanted to add classical elements to their performance. Personnel shifts removed both (and everyone else) by the third album, which many consider the true beginnings of the band. Renaissance combined rock with classical (their early albums all incorporated classical works), jazz, and folk. They are best know for their dominate and complex piano, and for lead vocalist Annie Haslam, who is in the running for finest rock vocalist.

Their prime period was ’72-’78, and my favorite songs stay within that era. My ranking of their studio albums (and pretty much everyone else’s) sticks to this as well, with one of their ’72, ’73, or ’74 albums taking the top slot.  I’d order them, from best to worst: Turn of the Cards (1974), Ashes Are Burning (1973), Scheherazade And Other Stories (1975), A Song For All Seasons (1978), Novella (1977), Prolog (1972), Renaissance (1969), Illusion (1971), Tuscany (2001), Symphony of Light / Grandine Il Vento (2013), Azure D’Or (1979), Camera Camera (1981), Time-Line (1983). If you can only buy one, I’d suggest their Live at Carnegie Hall, which does a good job covering their best period, and includes 7 of my 10 favorite songs.

Renaissance faded quickly after ’77, and their dalliance with new wave in the ‘80s was a disaster. They’ve reformed several times with varying forms since, trying to recapture their glory days with only mild success.

My favorites, without further comment:

 

#10 The Vultures Fly High

(from Scheherazade And Other Stories)

 

#9 Ashes Are Burning

(from Ashes Are Burning)

 

#8 Black Flame

(from Turn of the Cards)

 

#7 Song of Scheherazade

(from Scheherazade And Other Stories)

 

#6 Northern Lights

(from A Song For All Seasons)

 

#5 Can You Understand

(from Ashes Are Burning)

 

#4 Prologue

(from Prologue)

 

#3 Running Hard

 (from Turn of the Cards)

 

#2 Carpet of the Sun

(from Ashes Are Burning)

 

#1 Mother Russia

(from Turn of the Cards)

Oct 022018
  October 2, 2018

MotoI’d seen most of the ‘30s detective series when I was a kid, including Charlie Chan, but somehow I missed Mr. Moto. Most of these sorts of films are amusing, but cut pretty much the same and they can get old quickly without something special (like the chemistry between Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man). I assumed Mr. Moto would be a weaker entry, but finally watching the movies, I was taken aback at how good they are. These were inexpensive B-pictures, made to fill in the gap of the lessening Charlie Chan (the stories were written on request because the author of the Chan books had died, leaving a hole in the Asian detective sub-genre, and there was demand). And for the lead, they cast not a Japanese actor, or any Asian actor, but Peter Lorre, a Hungarian Jew with a drug problem and an uncertain interest in the part. This was a recipe for disaster.

But it wasn’t one. Lorre was a fine actor, who not only was up for the challenge of the character, but also of the many fight scenes. And that’s the film series’ second big plus: These weren’t normal detective stories. Rather, Mr. Moto is more of an international spy, and that set these pictures apart. There is as much James Bond at play as there is Philo Vance. There’s a real joy in watching the diminutive Moto taking out one bad guy after another.

As for the casting of a white actor, 1930s Hollywood was ripe with racial issues, but as Keye Luke (Charlie Chan’s #1 Son) noted, the yellow-face and stereotypes were a problem, but the trade-off was that there were roles, the stereotypes were more often positive ones, and there was actually representation. Later, there were no roles at all, and no representation for Asians. And the Moto films had many parts for Asian actors and Asian characters were treated with respect.

And things are better with Moto, as he doesn’t fit a stereotype, nor have a two-dimensional character (he is more complex than either Charlie Chan or Rathbone’s Holmes). He is smart, well educated, athletic, and heroic. He lives well but is able to rough it without complaints. He can, and does, kill (a rarity in “detective” series of the time). He is funny and kind, and is often amused at those around him. He drinks milk in bars, but has no aversion to liquor. He’s a Buddhist, but it comes up no more often than being a Christian comes up for other detectives.

As for stereotypes, they are used in abundance, but not in Asian characters. Instead, silly Westerners (never the villains, who know better) assume the Asian characters will fit their preconceptions, and Moto uses their ignorance to his own advantage. It’s good writing.

And in another bit of joyful twist, Moto is a master of disguise, taking on not only Asian identities, but also German and Austrian. In the Moto universe, no one can tell one race from another (well, until Willie Best shows up in a later entry
).

The series is at its best at the beginning, then stumbles through a rough patch before getting better again, but with the downside that those later entries add comic relief that is out of place and not comic. Another problem is that two of the films (Mr. Moto’s Gamble and Mr. Moto in DangerIsland) were originally meant for Charlie Chan, the first even included Chan’s son as a side kick. I find the Chan films weaker, but also he is a different kind of character—a methodical detective rather than an action hero—so this turns out to be a major problem, at least for Gamble. DangerIsland was actually based on a unrelated novel, that was made into a film and then was being adapted for a second film to feature Chan before it was switched to Moto.

But when the series is good, it is quite good (again, think ‘30s B-movie). There’s a lot of excitement, a touch of archeology (I have to think Indiana Jones owes as much to Moto as Bond does), mystery, and some excellent characters.

I highly suggest the first two films, and then more modestly the fifth, and then a bit more modestly the final three. Use your discretion with the third and forth.

Ranking them (with the # being their release order, not their production order—they changed their dates around when they saw they had a dud with the second one filmed, Takes a Chance):

1 –  Thank You, Mr. Moto (Mr. Moto #2 – 1937)
2 –  Think Fast, Mr. Moto (Mr. Moto #1 – 1937)
3 –  Mysterious Mr. Moto (Mr. Moto #5 – 1938)
4 –  Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (Mr. Moto #6 – 1939)
5 –  Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (Mr. Moto #8 – 1939)
6 –  Mr. Moto in DangerIsland (Mr. Moto #7 – 1939)
7 –  Mr. Moto’s Gamble (Mr. Moto #3 – 1938)
8 –  Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (Mr. Moto #4 – 1938)

 

Aug 172018
  August 17, 2018

Much of my disagreement with the general view of film critics of the 1950s comes down to a disagreement on method acting. Which is to say, they like it, and I hate it. Now it is important to note I’m speaking about method acting in film, which is a very different topic than method acting in theater, and more specifically, I’m talking about what is generally known publicly as method acting in film as opposed to what acting instructors might call method.

In theater things get more complicated as there’s really no single “method.” Rather one school of acting (Stanislavsky’s) was split into three schools (with Lee Strasberg’s being the one most name-dropped) that all approached the method in different ways. The core idea is to find the emotional center of the character, but how that’s done and what that means varies. These three schools then splintered into a dozen or more major schools and hundreds of minor ones, where the teachers modified “the method” to form their own system. Method acting has been described as a cult of personality where students kneel before their specific prophet, and I think that view has merit. But that’s talk of philosophy, and in the theater, what matters is the performance. So if one of these method schools produces superior actors, it’s a bit silly to condemn the school for a stupid philosophy. There is one aspect of that philosophy I will touch on, as I think it is always a problem, though perhaps one that can be overcome by the virtues of the training. The problem is that method acting always focuses on the actor, not on the story. It is about finding the emotion, not necessarily showing that emotion (although all schools that I’ve heard of do try for that expression as a dependent goal), and more importantly, it is not about getting a performance that will work best with others, building to a collaborative story. It is always about the self first.

But that’s theater. And method acting is a very different creature in film. What does method acting mean now? As it is popularly used, it is about the actor losing himself in the part, taking on the attributes of his character both on and off set. The biggest recent examples would be Jared Leto sending rats and used condemns to his co-stars, Wesley Snipes hiding out in his trailer and communicating only through post-it notes that he signed “Blade,” and Christian Bale screaming at and physical attacking crew members. But that isn’t method acting. That’s just bad diva behavior that is crossing into a personality disorder. None of that has anything to do with acting; it’s just being an ass. Montgomery Clift did not spend his off time during From Here to Eternity starting knife fights with anyone chubby. He drank. Apparently a lot. Which is reasonable.

Similarly, people like to call it “method” when an actor changes his body for a role, but that’s got nothing to do with method acting (it’s almost the exact opposite). You don’t get much more of a change than Charlize Theron’s for Monster, but she laughed between takes and specifically stated she wasn’t method in the part. The disconnect can be seen when Robert De Niro’s physical change for Raging Bull is said to be method, but Chris Pratt’s was not for Guardian’s of the Galaxy.

The term “method acting” has become close to meaningless in film as it no longer refers to the training the actor has received, but what stupid things he’s doing. Oh, there’s some actual method actors about, but you can’t tell them apart from non-method actors by watching the finished product. Some are thought to be very good; Daniel Day-Lewis is generally considered a great actor and his method training is given some of the credit, but there’s nothing about what he’s done on screen that is fundamentally different. And that’s not how it once was.

Once upon a time, there was no method acting in film. And then at the very end of the 1940s, things changed. Three men appeared: Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean. Oh, there were others with the training such as Rod Steiger, but there weren’t any print campaigns on him. It was all about the Trinity. They were the first generation movie method actors, and they were different.

They were also pretty men, two of them (Clift and Dean), extraordinarily so. If you think that’s not relevant, then you don’t know Hollywood. Also, I point you back to Steiger, who was not considered pretty. It was Brando who was most important, in the short term, though it was the other two that gave him longevity. What did they do? They died. Dean died quickly, at the peak of his fame, so he’s always remembered as he was. Clift got into a car accident also at the peak of his fame, and then slowly killed himself, but he too has been sealed in a time capsule. They didn’t have a chance to make fools of themselves the way Brando did, (The Island of Dr. Moreau leaps to mind).

But in 1951, no one was laughing at Brando. He burst into cinema with A Streetcar Named Desire and people at the time were very confused. Critics loved it, so they called it realistic, and as Brando was a method actor, they called his acting realistic. I can’t figure how they could be so wrong. There’s nothing “realistic” about either A Streetcar Named Desire or Brando’s performance. That is not, on its own, a condemnation. It wasn’t supposed to be realistic. They took a stage play, with a stage director (Elia Kazan), and all the major actors from a stage company, except for Vivien Leigh, who’d played the part on stage for a different company, and they slapped in on film. It’s a stage play and it feels like it and every single actor plays it that way. Hell, Kazan even shrinks the apartment set as the film progresses to show Blanche DuBois’s feeling of claustrophobia—life was closing in on her. This isn’t realism. It’s representational.

People get it now, or at least some people do, where now is the last thirty years. Roger Ebert calls method acting hyper-realism. What Brando was doing wasn’t what a human would actually do, but a way to represent emotions. No one would yell “Stella” as he does, but reality isn’t the point. The point is feeling that emotion, the need and desire and self-loathing, without any connection to how things are. And he succeeds. You do know how Stanley feels. And so would those people sitting in the back rows of the theater. Kazan and Brando seem to have forgotten that cameras can pick up subtlety.

I am not fond of Brando performance in Streetcar, but I can’t argue that it doesn’t fit the film. No one in it is subtle. No one is real. It’s emotions turned up to 11, then turned up some more, and projected into space.

The problem with method acting comes when this artificial, hyper-realistic acting style is placed in a film that’s actually supposed to be realistic. On the Waterfront isn’t shot as a stage play. It’s shot as if this is reality. But Brando continues to over-emote. He isn’t showing us the external Terry, but the internal one, which conflicts with the film’s style. The same can be said for Clift in A Place in the Sun, as well as From Here to Eternity (although it is hard to call From Here to Eternity realistic with their sandy beach sex scene and the he-man machine gun heroics at the end, but in general, it is trying to be, while Clift is not). These hyped-up performances reached their ridiculous peek in Rebel Without a Cause, when James Dean screams, “You’re tearing me apart!”.

Now that’s some overacting. Has any teen (Dean was 24) ever done that? Has any human? Put this into a film now and it’d be laughed off the screen. I’m betting it would have been in ’55, but Dean was dead by the time of release and no one was in a mood to laugh at him.

So our Trinity was all about hyper-emoting. Again, in the right kind of movie, that could work in theory, but I want to get a bit more specific. Brando and Kazan have both stated that the heart of method acting—of what they were trying to put on screen—was unpredictability. That was the key, that the audience never knows what the character will do next. Brando said that at any moment he might explode out, or he might not. You’d never know. And here we have a huge problem with story. How a character reacts is not supposed to be random. It is supposed to build upon the character’s past actions and visible personality, and it’s meant to further the story. But if a character just “explodes” at any time, then that’s not a character, or a story. That could work if we’re talking about The Joker, but for most any other character, it’s a mess. These explosions of emotion don’t tell us anything about the character (except he might be psychotic). It does, however, explain scenes in Streetcar and Rebel.

Now if you are going to “explode” emotionally, what do you do? You can’t “explode” calmly. Pretty much, explode means violence, of one kind or another. So we’re left with attacking someone/something, sexually assaulting them, or throwing a tantrum. And that’s what we get. This is the biggest change that the first gen method actors brought to ‘50s cinema: they’d suddenly attack or throw a tantrum. And to make it an “explosion,” they’d tend to act overly subdued, and mumble, until the big moment. And this was not the norm for male leads of the ‘30s or ‘40s. That’s the visible change. Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Laurence Olivier did not suddenly drop to the floor crying, kicking their legs in the air. Nor did they scream and sweep the dishes off the table. This was new. Well, more or less new. It’s why I’ve stuck to male pronouns above. Because actresses had done this before. Bette Davis made a career out of having fits. Not that it was any more realistic for women to act this way than men, but it’d popped up for years in film for women. Was it a good change? I’d have suggested a better way to go would be to stop having women throwing tantrums than to start having men do it.

The sudden excitement about this new form of acting wasn’t so much about a new form, but rather having a few males act in ways that had been acceptable only for females in the past. A few emotionally vulnerable pretty men… Yeah, marketing was involved.

Alright, so Brando, Clift, and Dean were focusing on their own emotional states and “exploding” randomly. That sounds problematic to any kind of production, but I can imagine it being workable in the theater. But films aren’t made like stage plays. Scenes aren’t shot sequentially. Often full scenes don’t exist at all. An actor’s emotion rarely has anything to do with the emotion the audience feels. Hitchcock famously demonstrated this “Kuleshov effect” by taking a shot of an actor and splicing in different shots of what the actor was reacting to. If a shot of a mother and child is placed between the shots of the man, his smile displays kindness. But if a shot of a women in a bikini is put between those same shots, then that same smile means lust. There’s no change in the acting. Films aren’t created on set, or on a stage, but in an editing room. A jigsaw of pieces are put together to make the puzzle. So even if your film was an overly emotive representational one, this form of method acting would have no advantage.

Hitchcock had a horrible time with Clift. He wanted Clift to look up after coming out of a church, but the actor couldn’t find any emotional reason for looking up. Of course the reason is that it will have an effect when edited in—the actor’s feelings of the moment were (and are) irrelevant. The actor is trying to make his own movie, and actors simply can’t do that. It doesn’t work. Hitchcock suggested his paycheck be his motivation.

Some historians want to point out that the coming of the Trinity was the beginning of the great blossoming of film method acting. But it wasn’t. It was the end. And that’s easiest to see when the second generation came in. Paul Newman is the perfect example, as he’d trained at the same school as Brando and was brought in once as “a similar type” to push Brando into taking a role (so this new young pup wouldn’t get it). When Newman started to rise, things had changed, as had film method. You can see it in 1958’s Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. There’s lots of emotion, and Newman even gets the seemingly require method temper tantrum. But it is less fake. Newman understood there was a camera involved, so he played to it, not the back rows. Those outburst were more subtle, more real. The hyped-up acting was gone. His tantrum was still odd (but Cat On a Hot Tin Roof was based on a play, so some stagey action is expected), but it seemed like something that a person might actually do. He expressed emotion, lots and lots of emotion, but expressed it, not represented it. Within a decade, the peculiar acting style of the Trinity was gone. Even Brando pulled it in (sometimes
). This overwrought, theatrical acting had appeared, made a splash in a few pictures, and then faded, and everyone once again acted as if they knew that this was a film, not an open air production. And because it was gone so quickly, critics and the public didn’t have the time for the new smell to fade, and to see that it was all pretty silly. By then the films and actors had been declared to be great, and no one likes to contradict themselves. And with two martyrs, emotionally, people just clung to a greatness that never was.

 

 

Aug 092018
  August 9, 2018

billywilderWilder started as a writer, first in Berlin, then in the US where he worked on the masterpiece Ninotchka before he added directing to his resume. He is probably the finest writer/director of all time.

The thing that people sometime miss with Wilder is that he always made comedies, just sometimes those comedies pretended to be dramas. He excelled in pitch black comedies, where murder was part of the gag. Double Indemnity only makes sense when you look at it as the wonderfully nasty little comedy that it is. Wilder was known as a cynic, and that’s clear in practically every film. He was also a bit of a romantic which blends remarkably well with his harsh view of society and humanity.

This is a list of Wilder’s best films as a director, not writer, though the only change would be Ninotchka taking a high position.

First, an honorable mention for The Lost Weekend, which is pretty much perfect for what it is, which is 100 minutes of suffering porn. It starts nowhere and ends nowhere and outside of “alcoholism is bad,” it doesn’t mean much (a point driven home by the writer of the source material’s suicide—the weekend was just a regular weekend in his life and meant nothing more or less than any other horrible weekend).

Another honorable mention goes to The Front Page (1974); it’s reasonably faithful to the stage play and feels even more faithful. It was cynical enough already that Wilder didn’t need to change a thing.

And finally an honorable mention for Ace in the Hole (1951), which would have taken the #8 slot if the last act was half as strong as the first two. It’s more cynical than Sunset Boulevard and nastier than Double Indemnity. When it gets this dark, is a dark comedy still a comedy? Kirk Douglas stars as a twisted reporter who uses a cave-in to his own advantage, and so does everyone else. This has to be a comedy, because if you take it as a drama, it’s too harsh to handle.

His 8 best:

8 – Kiss Me Stupid (1964) —  It’s a satire, and people who somehow think it is a romantic comedy get very upset when they see that the male characters are all slime. Yes, as a romantic comedy it isn’t good. It’s also pretty bad as a western and as a documentary on ancient China. As a vicious satire on small town America, celebrity, and the American way of life, it’s kinda brilliant.

7 – Sabrina (1954) — Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn), the chauffeur’s daughter, has a crush on David (William Holden), the playboy of the house. When time abroad turns her into a suitable target for his shallow affections, older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) sees trouble and tries to break things up. Hepburn is an obvious choice for a romantic comedy, but Bogart? But it works. [Also on the Great Actors Lists for Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, and Audrey Hepburn]

6 – Stalag 17 (1953) — I really don’t know how Wilder pulled this off. No one else could have. It’s a dark prisoner-of-war film where the Nazis are taken quite seriously and yet it bounces into pure comedy, before bouncing back into drama. William Holden, in one of three great films he made with Wilder, plays a selfish, cynical hustler who deals with the Germans
 And he’s the hero. He won the Oscar for his performance, and he deserved to. [Also on the Great Actors List for William Holden]

5 – Witness for the Prosecution (1957) — A courtroom thriller, it is the best adaptation of an Agatha Christie story, and is often mistaken for a Hitchcock film. It’s Marlene Dietrich’s best film, and arguably Charles Laughton’s. The rest of the cast (Tyrone Power, Elsa Lanchester, John Williams, Una O’Connor) all sparkle. The dialog is fast and funny, and the mystery is solid, with one of the great film twists.

4 – The Seven Year Itch (1955) — Perhaps the perfect sex comedy (cleaned up for ‘50s morality), it is a witty farce where a married man, left alone for the summer, fantasizes about the bombshell who moves in upstairs. While Wilder may have found working with Marilyn Monroe a chore, he sure knew what to do with her, directing two of her four great starring roles.

3 – Double Indemnity (1944) — The quintessential Film Noir. In a meaningless world, two jaded people, one a sleazy insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray), the other a sociopathic trophy wife, decide to commit murder. It’s brilliant. (Full critique) [Also on the Great Actors Lists for Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck]

2 – Sunset Boulevard (1950) — Sunset Boulevard takes on the film world, which it loves and loathes simultaneously, showing how it uses up people. It’s a twisted comedy that sees life through a fun-house mirror. It has amazing performances and Wilder’s most interesting cinematography; it’s one of the top Noirs. (Full critique) [Also on the Great Actors List for William Holden]

1 – Some Like It Hot (1959) — Often cited as the greatest comedy of all time, it is certainly a contender. If you haven’t’ seen it, go see it now. It’s a buddy, drag, romantic comedy with gangsters and music. What’s not to love? [Also on the Great Actors List for Jack Lemmon]

Jul 102018
  July 10, 2018

WS_Van_DykeSometimes greatness comes from complicated technique, superior skill, and slow, methodical work. Sometimes it’s knowing when to get out of the way and just get things done. Van Dyke was in the second category. Nicknamed “One-take Woody,” Van Dyke was know for his quick work and keeping under budget. The studio loved him for his speed, but this meant they often gave him lesser projects where getting the film out the door in a hurry was the most important factor. His greatest success came with William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series, where script and actors were the thing, so quick shots weren’t a detriment. He also worked with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy multiple times, which is a plus or minus, depending on how you feel about those two stars. They tire me quickly.

An honorable mention for the twenty good minutes of the otherwise painful San Francisco (Full Review Here). And a bigger honorable mention for his uncredited work on The Prisoner of Zenda; both he and George Cukor were brought in to reshoot the action scenes. And a final honorable mention for Hide-Out (1934); Robert Montgomery is poorly cast as an gangster hiding with an innocent farm family, but Maureen O’Sullivan is adorable.

His top 8:

8 – Rage in Heaven (1934) — A tense thriller where Robert Montgomery plays a paranoid nut-case who is jealous of his wife (Ingrid Bergman) and his “best friend” (George Sanders). More stylish than most of Van Dyke’s film, it excels in its performances. (My Review Here)

7 – Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) — The first of the Weissmuller Tarzan films that follows Jane’s father’s search for an elephant graveyard until they run into Tarzan. Weissmuller is an impressive Tarzan, but this is Maureen O’Sullivan’s show. [Also on The Great Actors List for Maureen O’Sullivan]

6 – Penthouse (1933) — It was a trial run for The Thin Man, with a pre-code twist. Warner Baxter stars as a lawyer detective who’s friends with hoods. He teams up with a call girl played by Myrna Loy and is helped by a mob boss (Nat Pendleton, who was Lieutenant Guild in the Thin Man series). Baxter is no Powell, but the pre-code stuff helps (in questioning her allure since he didn’t jump into bed with her the night before: “I didn’t exactly have to fight for my honor. A few more weeks of this and I’ll be out of condition.”)

5 – Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) — The 4th Thin Man film and the 4th best. Powell and Loy are as good as ever, the dialog is solid, and the mystery is fun. It is now clear that adding a child was a bad idea, as well as a servant, but otherwise, the series is still going strong. [Also on The Great Actors List for Myrna Loy]

4 – I Love You Again (1940) — It may not be a Thin Man movie, but it’s still Powell and Loy. This time Powell has been an obnoxiously straight-laced boor who wakes up after a blow on the head to realize he’s had amnesia for years, and is really a con artist. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for William Powell and Myrna Loy]

3 – Another Thin Man (1939) — The third Thin Man film and its nearly as good as the first two. Nick and Nora have to deal with murder connected to Nora’s father’s business partner. Like the others, it is great fun. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for William Powell and Myrna Loy]

2 – After the Thin Man (1936) — Much like the first Thin Man film, but with Jimmy Stewart added, this is a very close second place. Taking place soon after that film, the pair is summoned by Nora’s snobbish family because a husband is missing and Aunt Katherine wants to avoid scandal. The relationship is wonderful, the humor is spot on, and the mystery is engaging. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for William Powell and Myrna Loy]

1 – The Thin Man (1934) — She’s a rich socialite; he’s a retired PI (now living the high life on her money) who gets sucked into a murder case. Funny and charming, this introduction of Nick and Nora Charles is as good a time as you can have at the cinema. I lucked out, getting to see it on a big screen around 50 years after its release. The mystery stuff is good, but it is the husband and wife interactions that make this film special; they are my favorite couple after Gomez And Morticia Addams. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for William Powell and Myrna Loy]

Jun 192018
  June 19, 2018

de-havillandHer stage role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream led to the movie of the same name, and by the same director, and that led her to a contract with Warner Bros. Her later conflict with the studio resulted in a court case that gave all actors more freedom.

Her most frequent co-star was Errol Flynn. They worked together in eight films: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Dodge City (1939), Four’s a Crowd (1938), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941), and appeared separately in a ninth film, Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943).

She was frequently directed by Michael Curtiz, who she hated as a tyrant, though she admitted that he was a great director who know how to tell stories.

Two of her most acclaimed films don’t make my list. The Heiress gets by on one memorable speech, but the rest is slow and unengaging; it contains one of the worst performances in the golden age of film as Montgomery Clift searches for an accent. As for The Snake Pit, the music is bombastic and it is edited like a ‘50s exploitation thriller. It is one of those films that got credit for its social effect; it was responsible for improvements in the US mental health system. It was more important than great.

First, a dishonorable mention for her weak silly performance as Melanie in the atrocious Gone with the Wind (full review here).

And an honorable mention for The Dark Mirror, where de Havilland gives one of her best performances as a pair of twins, one evil. It gets a bit silly and becomes far too predictable, but it has a nice Noir style.

#8 – Light in the Piazza (1962) — A surprising good film they’d never make today. Olivia de Havilland plays the mother of a girl whose brain injury keeps her as a mental ten-year-old. Now beautiful and in her twenties, she catches the eye of a rich and suave Italian who is attracted to her love of life. de havilland wins on acting, but Yvette Mimieux and George Hamilton steal the picture based on pure charisma. This is a thoughtful and romantic film.

#7 – The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) — The least of the major British-in-colonial-India adventure films, mainly due to the weak romance (poor Olivia de Havilland gets stuck with the worst role of her career). It is also bizarrely historically inaccurate (they didn’t even get the guns right, much less the reason for the charge) and the production was so vile it caused animal welfare laws to be passed. But Errol Flynn is charming, the combat exciting, and it all looks spectacular. [Also on the Errol Flynn list]

#6 – Four’s a Crowd (1938) — Errol Flynn is a charming cad who runs positive PR for the worst people and de Havilland is the spoiled and silly daughter of one of those terrible people. It’s a romantic comedy that also includes Rosalind Russell and Flynn & de Havilland’s frequent co-star, Patric Knowles. [Also on the Errol Flynn list]

#5 – My Cousin Rachel (1952) — A gothic love story and mystery. Is de Havilland a murderess or is Philip just a fool? Well, Philip is certainly a fool in any case. Richard Burton seems too old for the part of a naive youth (Burton never appeared young), but is still compelling. de Havilland is stunning, and I can believe Philip falling instantly for her.

#4 – It’s Love I’m After (1937) — An unfairly forgotten farce, with Leslie Howard as a ham actor in a tempestuous relationship with Bette Davis’s equally over-the-top actress. (It was their third collaboration). Olivia de Havilland, looking like a teenager, plays a girl obsessed by Howard’s Basil Underwood. Both Howard and Davis are naturals at playing hams.

#3 – The Great Garrick (1937) — One of the best comedies of ’37, in which a band of French actors attempt to humiliate the English star David Garrick by pretending to be all of the workers and guests at a country inn, but things become complicated when an unconnected woman (Olivia de Havilland) stumbles into their performance. The supporting cast, including Edward Everett Horton, are as good as the leads.

#2 – Captain Blood (1935) — The first of the de Havilland/Flynn films and the first true Swashbuckler of the Sound era. Errol Flynn is a physician forced into piracy and she’s the governor’s daughter. (Full Critique) [Also on the Errol Flynn list and Basil Rathbone list]

#1 – The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) — The greatest classic Swashbuckler and one of the Best films ever made. It is beautifully shot, with a wonderful score and a strong supporting cast, including de Havilland. It is here that Errol Flynn became an icon. (Full Critique) [Also on the Errol Flynn list and Basil Rathbone list]

 

Back to all Best Films By The Great Actors Lists

Jun 142018
  June 14, 2018

Music can make or break a movie. This was unknown in the late 1920s when talkies began; it was assumed audiences wouldn’t accept music without an onscreen source. But they learned, and film became better for it. I wanted to take a look at my favorite film composers (and simply figure out who are my favorites).

I’m saying “favorite” instead of “best” because I don’t feel I have the qualifications to say the latter. I’m reasonably knowledgeable on film and feel confident in making qualitative statements on the art form, but I haven’t studied music and don’t know the language nor the nuances. I can say how a piece of music affects the plot or emotion of a film, but I don’t want to limit this discussion to how well a score worked in a film, so “favorite” it is.

I started going the standard route and making a top 10, but my list grew to more than ten, and I found myself comparing composers I’d rather separate—particularly when the 3 fighting for the top spot were each from a different era. So, I ended up with a top 6 list (six seemed like a nice number) for each of the Golden, Silver, and Modern ages.

The Golden Age
The Silver Age
The Modern Age


 

My Favorite Golden Age Composers

The Golden Age of Film Composition roughly equates to the Golden Age of Hollywood, running from the very late 1920s to 1960. It was a time when studios controlled filmmaking and composers worked on a weekly salary, rattling off scores on an assembly line, without any ownership of their work. It was also a time when these composers were assured of work, had studios and musicians on hand to work with as well as other composers to bounce things off of. And since the studio owned all, composers could take a melody from one work and insert it into another, giving it their own spin, or six composers could all work simultaneously on a score. This meant that low budget films could have amazing scores that aren’t possible today.

The studios rejected modern (for the 1930s) symphonic music trends, as well as pop music (except in musicals), instead bringing back a more romantic orchestral style.

Another way to define The Golden Age would be as the era of Max Steiner. No one really knew what to do with music when the talkies began—notice how many films didn’t have any. Producers thought audiences wouldn’t accept music without a source, and besides, if there’s dialog, what do you need music for? It was Max Steiner who answered that question with his score to King Kong. Music could mirror, magnify, or simply create the emotion needed for a scene.

Honorable mentions go to Dimitri Tiomkin (High Noon) and Miklós Rózsa (The Thief of Bagdad), the two members of the Golden Age pantheon of film composers who didn’t make my top 6.

My Top 6:

Max Steiner

(The Big Sleep, Adventures Of Don Juan, King Kong)
A child prodigy and grandson of Richard Strauss, Steiner was conducting by age twelve, and composing by fifteen. His career took off in London, but WWI forced him to move to the US where he was a successful conductor of Broadway shows before moving to Hollywood in ’29 and setting the course of film music for the next thirty years. Some later critics have derided him, the Father of Film Music, for sticking with the rules, but then, they were his own rules.

 

Franz Waxman

(The Bride of Frankenstein, The Philadelphia Story, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde)
Classically trained, but also skilled in pop music, Waxman worked as an orchestrator in the German film industry until he was attacked by Nazis due to his Jewish heritage. James Whale knew of his work in Germany and brought him in to score The Bride of Frankenstein. For a time he was the head of Universal’s music department, but he gave that up to focus on composition.

 

Bernard Herrmann

(The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, North by North West, The Day the Earth Stood Still)
Herrmann was know for being brilliant, having an economic style, and being a pain in the ass. He hated title songs for movies, so wouldn’t do them. He was known to belittle his colleagues and was disliked by several of the other composers on my list. He made his name as a conductor and composer on radio, where he worked with Orson Welles and it was Welles who pulled him into Hollywood. Later he worked with Hitchcock, creating some of the most honored scores ever, and greatly enhancing the films. In the late ‘50s and ‘60s he composed a series of memorable works for science fiction and fantasy films, but after he fell out of favor, both due to his refusal to change with the times and his abrasive personality.

 

Alfred Newman

(The Mark of Zorro, The Prisoner of Zenda, Airport)
Another child prodigy, Newman’s best known work now is the 20th Century Fox Fanfare (you know, how Star Wars starts
). Growing up in a time when everyone wasn’t insane about keeping children wrapped in cotton, Newman was a paid classical pianist at twelve, on the vaudeville circuit when he was thirteen, and an orchestra conductor at fifteen. He worked with the best of the best on Broadway, and accompanied Irving Berlin to Hollywood in 1930, where he became the Godfather of Film Music. He is almost the anti-Herrmann, as he was known to be polite and generous, with the ability to change his style to fit the occasion, and was respected and held in awe by those who worked under him. For decades, his was the last word in film music (even over Steiner).

 

Hans J. Salter & Frank Skinner

(The Wolf Man, The Son of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon)
Skinner was a swing-band composer from the Midwest while Salter was a classically trained Austrian who’d come to California to escape the Nazi’s, and they meshed perfectly. The team collaborated on dozens of films while under contract with Universal pictures, who then reused their melodies in many other films (later Mummy and Sherlock Holms movies simply repeat their earlier scores). It is difficult to say how much of Universal’s music of the ’30s and ’40s they were responsible for as they went uncreditied–and when credited, the credits are often wrong, naming only one or the other–but several hundred is a good guess. They were the backbone of Universals music department and wrote for all genres (Salter was proudest of his work in musicals), but it is their work in 1930s/40s monster movies for which they are best remembered now. Each was later nominated for Academy Awards, but that work wasn’t as innovative as their incredible earlier works.

 

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

(The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Captain Blood)
Yes, yet another child prodigy—Mahler declared him a genius at age 9, he composed a ballet at 11, and his operas were in production by the time he was 18. He was an acclaimed classical composer. When asked to compose for film, he was excited by the prospect, as it was a new form, yet romantic like his opera work. Famously, Robin Hood saved his life as the job caused him to get on a train right before the Nazis came. Korngold was a different level for film scoring and changed how film scoring was seen—people now accepted it as art. He worked differently than most film composers, without synchronizing points; he simply watched the film and composed. No one has ever done it better. He is the inspiration for the best modern film composers (John Williams has stated that his Star Wars scores were directly influenced by Korngold).

 


 

My Favorite Silver Age Composers

The idea of a “Silver Age” of film music can be considered a marketing gimmick. The term was apparently first used by a CD house as a way of grouping ‘60s and ‘70s scores in sales brochures, but it is a useful distinction. The Golden Age was defined by a style of romanticism and by creation under strict control by the studios. The Silver Age, then, was when composers broke free of studio control (as well as support) and when jazz became a major factor. Scores tended to either be influenced by pop jazz or be written for the sweeping dramas that were popular at the time. If the Golden Age was the era of Max Steiner, then the Silver Age was the era of Henry Mancini. It faded out when John Williams became the most prominent figure.

Honorable mention goes to Earnest Gold (Exodus), who could never repeat that success.

My Top 6:

Neal Hefti

(Barefoot in the Park, How to Murder Your Wife, The Odd Couple)
It doesn’t get more Silver Age than Hefti. His background was not in classical music, but as a swing and jazz trumpeter. He played with Woody Herman and wrote the arrangements for Count Basie, before leading his own big band. He wrote both for film and television, always with a light, springy flair. His most significant impact on pop culture was the theme to The Odd Couple—that played non-stop for the entire ‘70s—and the theme to the TV show, Batman. (Note: Hefti has a version of The Odd Couple theme with lyrics
 Avoid it).

 

Maurice Jarre

(Lawrence of Arabia, The Man Who Would Be King, Lion of the Desert)
Jarre trained at the Conservatoire de Paris; he was an orchestral composer, though strangely turned to synthesizers in his later years. It was his early work that defines him. He continued well into the Modern Age, but in the end it is all about one movie, and really, one theme. He’s the man who wrote the notes that will describe T.E. Lawrence for eternity, and that’s not a bad legacy.

 

Akira Ifukube

(Godzilla, The Three Treasures, Children of Hiroshima)
Radiation exposure forced him to abandon physical labor and become a composer. Brought up around the traditional music of Japan, Ifukube merged this style with Western classical music. He was mainly interested in creating orchestral works, but he took on work in the film world and had a particular flair for marches. While he composed for 250 movies, in the West he is almost exclusively known for his Godzilla scores.

 

Henry Mancini

(The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Shot in the Dark)
That he played with the Glenn Miller Orchestra should surprise no one. That he learned film composing under the care of Hans J. Salter & Frank Skinner (check out the Golden Age above) as part of Universal’s in-house team is far less obvious. He supposedly had a good deal of input on the score for The Creature From the Black Lagoon. But his swing/jazz side re-emerged while writing pop songs and teaming with Blake Edwards on a series of comedies.

 

John Barry

(Zulu, Goldfinger, Body Heat)
Barry is the man who put James Bond to music. He was a jazz trumpeter who picked up work as an arranger, and later composer. The Bond folks brought him in to fix the main theme (for legal reasons he is credited as the orchestrator on that song), and then a year later to step in for a pop musician who it turned out couldn’t read music. After that, the next eleven Bond films were his. His style was a blend of classical—particularly Russian classical—and jazz.

 

Elmer Bernstein

(The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Ten Commandments)
Bernstein arranged music for Glenn Miller before starting a career as a concert pianist, a career that was cut short by a call from Hollywood. However, the House Un-American Activities Committee derailed that for a few years until he was hired to score The Man With the Golden Arm, and ushered in the Silver Age. His twisting jazz was a revelation to the film world and made him much in demand. He was equally at home with large orchestras and epic themes, finding inspiration from Aaron Copland (who had championed him at a young age). His Western scores feel strongly of Copland. He in turn became an inspiration for Horner, Goldsmith and Williams of the Modern Age.


 

My Favorite Modern Age Composers

The Modern Age of Film Composition can be sloppy to define and it often simply means “after the studio system died,” but that leaves a lot of different styles, and a whole lot of time. I’m using the notion of a Silver Age, in which case, the Modern Age began in the late ‘70s. It was a time when jazzy scores were going out of style, and while a bit of electronica and rock were edging in. But mainly it was the return to the bold and thematic symphonic works that had marked the Golden Age. I connect it to the emergence of the tentpole popcorn film. The pivotal scores were not written for dramas, or war films, or religious epics as had been previously the case, but for science fiction and fantasy films. It is the age of John Williams.

I fear at times that the Modern Age has ended, and we don’t know it yet (Williams is no spring chicken) and the new age is one of pure bombast, with Han Zimmer as the new icon
 And no one wants that.

Honorable mention: James Horner (Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan).
My Top 6:

Danny Elfman

(Batman, Nightbreed, Sleepy Hollow)
While the Modern Age composers tend to have classical training, Elfman is different. While expressing an interest in the earlier film composers, he came from a rock and ska band. He only wrote for film because his brother directed a low budget picture, but that lead to Tim Burton asking him to compose the score for Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure—the start of a long and successful collaboration. His scores feel one part Korngold, one part Silver Age Herrmann, and one part pop.

 

Alan Silvestri

(Back to the Future, The Abyss, The Avengers)
Silvestri is a prime example of the Modern Age, and follows in the footsteps of Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams, though he doesn’t go as strongly for the personal themes the way the others do, and so, is a touch less memorable. He is best known for his work on Robert Zemekis films, writing the scores for 16 of them.

 

Christopher Young

(Hellraiser, Hush, The Glass House)
Young was a jazz drummer before discovering the film scores of Bernard Herrmann. He created a “heavy” sound that he uses in many of his soundtracks. He primarily works on horror films. While effective, his works are not always memorable, blending together. His standout is his amazing work on Hellraiser.

 

Basil Poledouris

(Conan The Barbarian, Starship Troopers, Flesh & Blood)
The master of orchestral power, Poledouris took his inspiration from the Golden Age’s Miklós Rózsa. While he worked repeatedly with Paul Verhoeven, his defining collaboration was with writer/director John Millus (who was never accused of being subtle, or sane). Poldeouris’s brawny style fit Millus’s he-man sensibilities, resulting in his masterpiece, the score to Conan, which I judge as the finest score of the ‘80s, and arguably of the Modern Age. Unfortunately Poledouris couldn’t retain that level—there simply weren’t enough epic films. Imagine what he could have done with The Lord of the Rings.

 

Jerry Goldsmith

(Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Mummy, Patton)
Jerry Goldsmith started deep in the Silver Age—his soundtracks for the Flint films are filled with playful pop jazz that fits next to Hefti and Mancini. He had no problem diverging from the norm, such as with his score for Planet of the Apes and Alien. But in the end I had to place him on the Modern list as his best known score, that for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, is, after Williams’s Star Wars score, the work that most exemplifies the era. He started composing and arranging for CBS radio, and then Television, before turning to film in 1957.

 

John Williams

(Jurrassic Park, Star Wars, Superman)
As the defining composer of the Modern Age, Williams did it right, by training with the major figures of the earlier ages. As an orchestrator, he worked with the Golden Age’s Waxman, Herrmann, and Newman. As a studio pianist, he performed under the Silver Age’s Bernstein and Mancini. Skilled in Jazz, his earlier work leans toward the Silver Age, but he burst out with compositions that called back to the romanticism of the Golden Age. His style is a reflection of Korngold, while his philosophy his pure Steiner.

Mar 252018
  March 25, 2018

howardhawksHawks has the most masculine style of any of the great directors. His films were about men and for men. The relationships that matter were between men, and the only way a woman could have power in a Hawks film was by taking on masculine traits and becoming one of the boys. Thus was born the Hawksian Woman, best fulfilled by Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck and Lauren Bacall. In a sideways fashion, this made Hawks a (occasionally) feminist director. This testosterone-drenched style can become obnoxious in a very serious film, but worked great with humor.

Besides his manly-man style, and those aggressive Hawksian women, he was known for his quick dialog—with actors often speaking over each other—and his willingness to take on any genre. He made westerns, Film Noirs, comedies, musicals, war films, gangster films, action movies, dramas, and maybe a science fiction film (see the honorable mention).

Like Hitchcock, Hawks had a tendency of remaking his own films. A Song is Born (1948) is a remake of the far superior Ball of Fire. Rio Lobo (1970) is a rough remake of El Dorado (1967) which is a rough remake of Rio Bravo (1959).

Honorable mention for The Thing from Another World (1951), for which he is uncredited, and may or may not have directed.

#8 – El Dorado (1967) — Hawks worked best with humor. Rio Bravo took the plot seriously and it is hard to sit through. For El Dorado he shot the same plot, but with everything lighter and a good number of jokes.

#7 – Ball of Fire (1941) — A screwball comedy with Gary Cooper as a hopelessly naĂŻve professor researching slang and Barbara Stanwyck as a showgirl in need of a place to hide. The plot fizzles at the end and Cooper is miscast, but Stanwyck sells the show. [Also on The Great Actors List for Barbara Stanwyck]

#6 – I Was a Male War Bride (1949) — No one starred in more good films than Cary Grant. This one is fluff, but it is fun fluff, with Grant as a French soldier who marries an American and then tries to get to America on a law that assumes the spouse will be female.

#5 – Bringing Up Baby (1938) — THE iconic screwball comedy sees the nearly sociopathic Katharine Hepburn tricking the drab Cary Grant into helping her retrieve her leopard. [Also on The Great Actors List for Katharine Hepburn]

#4 – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) — You can spend days analyzing the subtext of this Jane Russell/Marilyn Monroe musical, which ends with Monroe’s Lorelei Lee giving a defense of gold digging that is impossible to refute. The Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend number has become iconic.

#3 – To Have and Have Not (1944) — “You just put your lips together and blow.” Humphrey Bogart fell in love with his young costar, Lauren Bacall, and so did I, and Hawks found his ideal Hawksian Woman. [Also on The Great Actors List for Humphrey Bogart]

#2 – His Girl Friday (1940) — Who’d have thought gender-swapping one of the leads in a dramady newspaper play would produce this brilliant work. It has all the meaning and fun of the original, and extra layers of romance and feminism. It is extremely fast paced and very funny. Cary Grant excels as a fast-talking (very fast-talking) cad and Rosalind Russell is his equal. [Also on The Great Actors List for Cary Grant]

#1 – The Big Sleep (1946) — Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall make film magic and Hawks sculpts it all perfectly. This is my go-to film. I may have seen it more than any other. It is a joy, yet it still qualifies as Film Noirs. It’s funny, violent, twisted, nasty, and a great time. (Full Critique) [Also on The Great Actors List for Humphrey Bogart]

 

Mar 222018
  March 22, 2018

GeorgeCukorCukor was known as “the woman’s director” as he had a reputation for getting good performances from actresses, but he could have earned the title because of his focus on films targeting women: romances and melodramas. His pictures heavily featured the social elite and often compared life with a performance. He’s a fine director, but I’ve never found anything outstanding about his skills. Rather it was in collaboration (with writers, cinematographers, and actors) where he excelled. His greatest artistic success came from his collaborations with Katharine Hepburn.

An honorable mention for his week as director on The Wizard of Oz and for him getting fired from Gone With the Wind for telling David O. Selznick, accurately, that the script was garbage. And then there’s My Fair Lady. If I’m being fair, it should appear on the list below, and above the 8th slot. But no matter how good it might be, I’m always hit on how disappointing it is. It is good, but it should be much better. The ending is wrong, the sets are poorly designed, the “Get Me To the Church” number is far too long, and Audrey Hepburn isn’t Julie Andrews.

So, the top 8 Cukor films that aren’t disappointing are:

#8 – A Double Life (1947) — It won Ronald Colman a best acting Oscar. He plays an actor who is far too method, so playing Othello turns out to be a very bad idea.

#7 – Pat and Mike (1952) — The 1st of four Katharine Hepburn film on this list and the 1st of two Hepburn/Tracy films. It tries to wave a feminist flag, but in 2017, it feels like it does the opposite. Still, it has some funny moments. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn]

#6 – Adam’s Rib (1949) — Another Hepburn/Tracy film, this one setting them as competing lawyers. The best bits come from a young Judy Holliday as the defendant who shoots her unfaithful husband. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn]

#5 – Les Girls (1957) — Cukor’s first “normal” musical (as A Star is Born is a tragic drama first) isn’t all that normal as it’s primarily a comedy, one with an art film basis. It was Gene Kelly’s last MGM musical, and it’s smart and fun. (My review)

#4 – The Women (1939) — An all female cast made up of most of MGM’s big names deal with male infidelity, pettiness, and backstabbing. It sounds serious, but it’s mostly comic.

#3 – Dinner at Eight (1933) — MGM pulled out all the stops, combining all their biggest stars in one film: John and Lionel Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Billie Burke, Wallace Beery. It’s melodrama and comedy about the lives of sad people who mostly deserve their misery. As was usually the case, Cukor worried mainly about the acting, shooting it like a stage play. Luckily, he got some great performances.

#2 – Holiday (1938) — Often overlooked, this Grant & Katharine Hepburn romantic comedy has always been a favorite of mine. Grant plays a vunderkin whose set to marry the good sister of a high society family, but he wants more than money which doesn’t go over well with the family, except for black sheep Hepburn. This is where you go if you want depth and philosophy with your comedy. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn]

#1 – The Philadelphia Story (1940) — This seems a case of Cukor getting out of the way of Katharine Hepburn’s vision. It is the essential romcom, and was the perfect vehicle for its three leads, Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant. None of them ever had a role that more completely played to their strengths. This is as witty as film gets. [Also on The Great Actors Lists for Cary Grant, James Stewart, and Katharine Hepburn]

Mar 062018
  March 6, 2018

maureen-oharaO’Hara was a young stage beauty when Charles Laughton became captivated by her eyes, put her under contract, and changed her name to O’Hara. While starting off her film career as a maiden in distress and a gypsy girl, she is best known for a stream of Swashbucklers. In each she played a “fiery” red head—a welcome change from the more timid female characters that filled the genre, but not entirely a successful one as these ended up more often annoying than strong. As such, only two of my top eight O’Hara films are Swashbucklers.

#8 – Jamaica Inn (1939) — An early Hitchcock thriller that has as much of Charles Laughton’s fingerprints on it as the director’s. It was O’Hara’s first big role and her first time using her screen name of “O’Hara” instead of “FitzSimons.”

#7 – The Spanish Main (1945) — A standard but enjoyable Swashbuckler with Paul Henreid as the noble pirate and O’Hara as her normal moody maiden. Call it a solid second tier adventure film. (Full Review)

#6 – The Quiet Man (1952) — An over-rated but still good dramady romance with John Wayne trying for a human role for a change and not quite making it. Romance, not to mention dramatic acting, was not in his range. Parts of the film are silly—the never ending fight and the cross-country dragging of O’Hara are the most obvious—but enough works, including O’Hara, to make it a fun film.

#5 – At Sword’s Point (1952) — A surprisingly good Swashbuckler considering the silly premise. The sons and daughter (O’Hara) of the original Musketeers must save France once again.

#4 – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) — Charles Laughton again dominates a picture on this list, at least behind the scenes. He brought O’Hara into the production, and she outshines him. This is the best adaptation of the novel, and the one that influenced all those that followed.

#3 – The Parent Trap (1961) — A joyful family film that’s funny and romantic while escaping the saccharine tones that infected so many Disney films of the time. Hayley Mills plays identical twins attempting to reunite their divorced parents, Brian Keith and O’Hara.

#2 – Our Man in Havana (1959) — A darkly comedic satire on spies and politics, shot in Cuba just after the revolution. Alec Guinness stars as a vacuum cleaner salesmen who fakes being a spy. O’Hara is his assistant, sent from London to help him in his “fine” work. (Full Review)

#1 – Miracle on 34th Street (1947) — A Christmas classic. O’Hara is one of the romantic leads as a mother who doesn’t want her child to be raised with fantasy, but is overshadowed by Edmund Gwenn’s Kris Kringle. (Quick Review)

Mar 042018
  March 4, 2018

Oh, what the hell. The Oscars have always been a mess and this year it is already junk at the nomination level. But it is tradition, so I’ll give it a shot. I’ll kinda sorta say who I think should win and what I think will win. And just like the Academy voters, I haven’t seen every nominee. Note: I’m skipping the doc, shorts, and Foreign Language categories. So here goes, following the order of presentation:

Supporting Actor:

NOMINEES: Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project), Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water), Christopher Plummer (All the Money in the World), Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

WHO SHOULD WIN: Jason Sudeikis (Colossal) Really. Watch it. Forget the nominees—unless he’d count as lead actor.
WHO WILL WIN: Sam Rockwell


Costume Design:

NOMINEES: Beauty and the Beast, Darkest Hour, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, Victoria and Abdul

WHO SHOULD WIN: Really? Just ignore the MCU, sure

WHO WILL WIN: Phantom Thread


Makeup and Hair:

NOMINEES: Darkest Hour, Victoria and Abdul, Wonder

WHO SHOULD WIN: Again, really? So, no genre films? Idiots
WHO WILL WIN: Darkest Hour


Sound Editing/Mixing (Two categories, same nominees):

NOMINEES: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

WHO SHOULD WIN: Only professional sound people should have an opinion
WHO WILL WIN: Dunkirk (at least once)


Supporting Actress:

NOMINEES: Mary J. Blige, (Mudbound), Allison Janney, (I, Tonya), Lesley Manville, (Phantom Thread), Laurie Metcalf, (Lady Bird), Octavia Spencer, (The Shape of Water)

WHO SHOULD WIN: flip a coin
WHO WILL WIN: Allison Janney


Animated Feature:

NOMINEES: The Boss Baby, The Breadwinner, Coco, Ferdinand, Loving Vincent

WHO SHOULD WIN: None!!!
WHO WILL WIN: Coco


Production Design:

NOMINEES: Beauty and the Beast, Blade Runner 2049, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water

WHO SHOULD WIN: No Thor? No Guardians of the Galaxy? Screw it!
WHO WILL WIN: The Shape of Water


Visual Effects:

NOMINEES:: Blade Runner 2049, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, War for the Planet of the Apes

WHO SHOULD WIN: War for the Planet of the Apes
WHO WILL WIN: War for the Planet of the Apes


Film Editing:

NOMINEES: Baby Driver, Dunkirk, I, Tonya, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

WHO SHOULD WIN: I’ll leave this to professional editors
WHO WILL WIN: Dunkirk


Cinematography:

NOMINEES: Blade Runner 2049, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Mudbound, The Shape of Water

WHO SHOULD WIN: The Shape of Water
WHO WILL WIN: Blade Runner 2049


Original Score:

NOMINEES: Dunkirk {Hans Zimmer}, Phantom Thread {Jonny Greenwood}, The Shape of Water {Alexandre Desplat}, Star Wars: The Last Jedi {John Williams}, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri {Carter Burwell}

WHO SHOULD WIN: Star Wars: The Last Jedi {John Williams}
WHO WILL WIN: The Shape of Water {Alexandre Desplat}


Original Song:

NOMINEES: “Mighty River” from Mudbound, “Mystery of Love” from Call Me by Your Name, “Remember Me” from Coco, “Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall, “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman

WHO SHOULD WIN: none
WHO WILL WIN: “Remember Me” from Coco


Adapted Screenplay:

NOMINEES: Call Me by Your Name, The Disaster Artist, Logan, Molly’s Game, Mudbound

WHO SHOULD WIN: The Girl With All the Gifts (screw the nominations)
WHO WILL WIN: Call Me by Your Name


Original Screenplay:

NOMINEES: The Big Sick, Get Out, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

WHO SHOULD WIN: Thor: Ragnarok (if that counts as “original”)
WHO WILL WIN: Get Out


Director:

NOMINEES: Christopher Nolan, Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, Paul Thomas Anderson, Guillermo del Toro

WHO SHOULD WIN: Guillermo del Toro
WHO WILL WIN: Guillermo del Toro


Actor:

NOMINEES: Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread), Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour), Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq.)

WHO SHOULD WIN: Chris Hemsworth (comedy is hard)
WHO WILL WIN: Gary Oldman


Actress:

NOMINEES: Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Margot Robbie (I, Tonya), Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird), Meryl Steep (The Post)

WHO SHOULD WIN: Sennia Nanua (The Girl With All the Gifts). Either she wins in a write-in or the Academy Awards needs to be dumped now. She is clearly the best.
WHO WILL WIN: Frances McDormand


Best Picture:

NOMINEES: Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

WHO SHOULD WIN: The Shape of Water, of the nominees
WHO WILL WIN: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Jan 182018
  January 18, 2018

2017filmranking2I remember years when getting a dozen fantasy and science fiction films was impressive. 2017 gave us 59. Yeah, if you look carefully you might find another or three, but I think I’ve done my share so this is my final ranking for the year. And its been a good year not only for having so many genre films, but having so many good ones. Yes, there are more bad than good, but there are always more bad than good films.

I’ve already created a list of the 10 Best Films of 2017 and the 10 Worst Films of 2017. In the case of the second, it doesn’t match this list because here I’m including all the F&SF films I’ve seen, where that list focuses on the garbage that deserves the focus, that is, big budget or widely released films.

Unless stated otherwise, the titles link to my review.

 

The Bad

#59 – Bright
#58 – Transfomers: The Last Knight
#57 – The Discovery
#56 – Singularity (not reviewed)
#55 – Personal Shopper (not reviewed)
#54 – The Circle
#53 – Flatliners
valarian #52 – The Dark Tower
#51 – The Belko Experiment
#50 – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
#49 – The Space Between Us
#48 – The Lego Ninjago Movie
#47 – Blade of the Immortal
#46 – Kingsman: The Golden Circle (not reviewed)
#45 – Life
#44 – The Guardians
#43 – Beauty and the Beast
#42 – Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
#41 – Beyond Skyline
#40 – The Mummy
#39 – Justice League

 

The Mediocre

#38 – Tokyo Ghoul
#37 – Power Rangers
#36 – The Bad Batch  *
#35 – Death Note
#34 – Despicable Me 3 (not reviewed)
#33 – It 
#32 – Batman Vs. Two-Face
#31 – The Great Wall  *
#30 – King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
ghostinshellranking#29 – Justice League Dark
#28 – Geostorm
#27 – Ghost in the Shell
#26 – Batman and Harley Quinn
#25 – Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (not reviewed)
#24 – Lego Batman (not reviewed)
#23 – Get Out 
#22 – Annabelle: Creation
#21 – Alien: Covenant
#20 – Coco (not reviewed)
#19 – A Cure For Wellness
#18 – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
#17 – A Ghost Story
#16 – Blade Runner 2049
#15 – Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
#14 – War For the Planet of the Apes
#13 – Logan

 

The Good

#12 – Your Name  *
#11 – Kong: Skull Island
#10 – Happy Death Day
thorragnarokranking#9 – The Lure  *
#8 – Spider-Man: Homecoming
#7 – Wonder Woman
#6 – Colossal
#5 – Star Wars: The Last Jedi
#4 – The Shape of Water
#3 – The Girl With All the Gifts *
#2 – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
#1 – Thor: Ragnarok

 

*US wide-release in 2017