Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.0

While watching Burden of Dreams, I noticed that I never saw lights set up for the shoots. In fact, it seemed mostly to just be Herzog, the camera operator, and the actors. It seems pretty unthinkable that he wouldn't light this, but I guess he didn't. That, the locations, and the filmstock/equiptment used really add to the [unintentional] documentary look to this. I liked it; Herzog is a truely fascinating filmmaker.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

Location: Harris Theater
Seen Before: No
Rating: 5.0

I continue my unoffical marathon of documentaries concerning tortured artists, this time really hitting the pinnacle. The Devil and Daniel Johnston pulls your emotions every witch way without minipulating you, but instead keeping you on the edge of your seat.

Director Jeff Feuzereig doesn't break any ground in terms of presenting the material like Jessica Yu does with In The Realms of the Unreal, but he doesn't have to, either. Johnston's life has been so well documented through songs, audio letters, interviews, MTV (!), friends, and families that all he needed to do was assemble it all together. Granted, a huge amount of love and admiration is required for the film to really mesh, and that undoubtably shows.

Seeing The Devil and Daniel Johnston isn't just enjoying another documentary about an extroidanary man--it's falling in love with the man.

12 Angry Men (1957)

Location: Home
Seen Before: Yes
Rating: 5.0

12 Angry Men is so remarkable that I think it will consistently blow me away every time I watch it, no matter how many times that may add up to be. Besides being packed with actors that are fun, familar faces, they turn out absolutely spectacular performances. Of course director Sidney Lumet is on fire, as well, but the screenplay deserves extra special attention for being able to so expertly weave the facts of the trial and opinions of the jurors throughout. Who knew being stuck in a hot, cramped room for and hour and a half with 12 angry men could be such a roller coaster ride?

Simple Men (1992)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.5

Hal Hartley's films are an absolute treat, and perhaps Simple Men is the best of his I've seen thus far.

The performances are spot on here, where you know the actors and Hartley where on the exact same page all the way through. No one quite writes dialogue like him, and, even when they try, it doesn't hold a candle to it.

Hartley maybe let's the film hang on for too long in some spots, but it's oh so worth it.

Brick (2006)

Location: Squirrel Hill Theater
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.5

The performances in this film are really impressive, most notably the way the difficult, hard-boiled dialogue is expertly handled. Taking film noir and putting in a modern California high school would be no piece of cake, and first-timer Rian Johnson has done a fine job. The cinematography is perfect, but the pace of the story felt off to me. It felt very, very rushed--scenes often fly by and feel like they never had a chance to arc and develop. Even in the most convoluted of films noir--The Big Sleep, we're lookin' at you--the story and character gradually become warped and twisted. Here, the rocket is prematurely lit and off from the start. It's a fun ride, though, and recommended; I plan on taking it a second time.

In The Realms of the Unreal (2004)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 5.0

An extremely fascinating look at the world of reculsive Chicago janitor Henry Darger, whom, upon dying, was found to be the writer and illustrator a 15,000 page fantasy novel. Director Jessica Yu brings the story to life in the best way that she or anyone else could: through the use of Darger's paintings, writings, and journal entries. The interviews with the few people that [just barely] knew him bring a nice outsider's perspective to Darger that aren't found in his own writings.

Burden of Dreams (1982)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 5.0

Maybe it is a better idea to see the film this documentary is about first before seeing the doc, but I just couldn't help myself. Crazy Herzog; the jungle; five-year production; 320-ton boat being pulled over a mountain--it all sounded too good to push aside to watch Fitzcarraldo beforehand.

And this documentary is that good. The film is so engrossing that instances of natives shooting arrows at each other and the giant, once-beautiful ship bouncing off of the rivers' shores literally make you jump in your seat. Herzog's journey to bring his beloved story to the screen is so remarkable that you can't help but keep thinking, "Is this guy serious?" Herzog himself becomes Fitzcarraldo--steadfast; unpredictable; passionate. Maybe documentarian Les Blank could delve a bit deeper in spots, but it practically doesn't matter when what he's filmming is truely stranger than fiction.

Lone Star (1996)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.0

Go go John Sayles. An ensemble film with intertwining storylines that manages to dodge the melodramatic bullet of similar pictures such as last year's beaten to death Crash. Everybody is great and tons of fun to watch, especially the always wonderful Chris Cooper.

Detour (1945)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.0

People with the most general awareness of the term "Film Noir" imagine the detectives and the black and white and the hard boiled dialogue. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but almost all films noir contain another aspect that can't be said of all romantic comedies or all thrillers--innovation.

Detour isn't a great film noir, but it is necessary for the connoisseur and it has those moments of innovation and experiment. Here it's evident in a shot where Al has to drag Charles through the mud and rain from the roadside to beneath a bush. The closeup on Al, with it's framing and lighting, was practically non-existant in filmmaking at the time.

Unfortunately, the film misses the boat by blowing a handful of opportunites where it could have been both a great picture and great film noir.

The Scar (aka Hollow Triumph; 1948)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.5

A Prarie Home Companion (2006)

Location: Southside Works
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.0

Robert Altman's films don't always work with me--I don't dismiss him or them, in fact I just think there's something wrong with me when I don't like them. Prarie Home Companion, though, goes down as easy and smooth as Garrisons Keillor's voice comes across the radio dial.

It's a perfect mix of concert film and story as Altman never lets one story get more interesting than the other. I of course loved the film noir-injected subplot and way in which the ending of the show doesn't seem to be so dramatically weighing down the characters. Everyone always talks about the Altman ensembles and, really, he again lets them shine here. From actors not often given much to bite into (Woody Harrelson; Lindsay Lohan; Lily Tomlin [as of late]) to those with just recent flops under their belt (Kevin Kline in The Pink Panther--ew, dude!) they're just so much fun to watch, and you know they had fun doing it.

There's suicide, an angel of death, and the loss of beloved jobs, but Altman still manages to make the [artfully-told] feel good hit of the year.

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.0

Any list of top 10 cinema monsters would likely include King Kong or Freddy Krueger, but the once-foxy Bette Davis, with her melting, overly-made-up face, easily deserves the top spot.

Despite the film really hinging on the horrific actions of Davis and the somewhat repetitive nature of suspense set-ups, it packs brave, wonderful performances and more than enough chills. I love that it was directed by Kiss Me Deadly's Robert Aldrich, even if I think he could have done a bit more in terms of pushing suspense.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.5

Louis Malle's debut film is an interesting work and certainly an impressive first effort, but not one that I found overly exciting. It's a shame, but Jeanne Moreau isn't given all that much to do except look worried. Elevator to the Gallows is by no means bad and is certainly worth viewing, if not only for the improvised Miles Davis score.

Dial M For Murder (1954)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.5

Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Osbourne, and other Turner Classic Movie MVP's regard this Hitchcock thriller as one of his best while noting that Hitch himself would consider it as one of his minor works. I'm going to have to side with the Master of Suspense on this one as all he did was take a really good, tight play and film it (he said himself that's what he did!). It's got the Hitch touches and no one could have probably pulled it off so well, but it does lack a lot of the visual excitment of his other works. Really nice performances, though, and--this credit goes to the play--an interesting, exciting story.

D. O. A. (1949)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.5

This mid-period film noir, while boasting an interesting story, a decent lead performance, and exciting, then unheard of uses of photography, is ultimately hindered by instances of cheap, expository dialogue and unnecessary musical cues. It's still fun to experience, however, with its complicated, practically Big Sleep-style entangled mystery.

Fists in the Pocket (1965)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.5

Like an early Italian cross between Harold and Maude and The Royal Tenenbaums, Marco Bellocchio's Fists in the Pocket is an absolute joy to behold. Featuring eccentric characters and a dark sense of humor far before such things were commonplace in cinema, Bellocchio crafts a film that feels fresh and groundbreaking; a film paving the way.

The Naked Kiss (1964)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.5

Samuel Fuller, the notorious cigar-chomping pulp director and ex-journalist, brings murderers, pimps, prostitues, and pedophiles to the front row with The Naked Kiss--pretty racy stuff for American cinema in 1964.

Fuller introduces us to our heroine as she wickedly attacks the camera (substituting for a pimp's POV) with a shoe. It's a raging, bizarre, unsettling scene fueled even further by a romping jazz selection that, perhaps needless to say, locks your attention and doesn't let go. From there, however, the film dips up and down between inspired filmmaking and puzzling, blatantly B-movie tendencies.

These tendencies, however, go a long way. In the hands of a craftsman such as Fuller, who is a good filmmaker, they become fascinating--why were such choices made? It is a reflection of the attitudes and views of the man behind the camera as, after all, he was an autuer.

That leaves The Naked Kiss as an exemplary Fuller film (alongside Pickup on South Street and Shock Corridor) in its mix of style, pulp, lowlifes, eccentrics and a dash of curious, B-movie form.

Metropolitan (1990)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.5

What really drew me to and interested me while watching Whit Stillman's first feature is that while his independent contemporaries Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, and Richard Linklator were busy drafting up screenplays glorifying the slacker lifestyle, Stillman aimed for the complete antithesis. His characters are stuck-up, upper class, opinionated Manhattan young men and women who turn out to be a lot of fun to watch.

They never come off as superior to the viewer, as Whitman knows his film would fail if he portrayed them in such a manner. They're ridiculous and a blast to laugh at. Kudos to the screenplay for letting the romance (or lack there of) between Audrey and Tom unfold in a way that dodges all of the bullets. It's never in your face, but instead just peeking from around the corner. Perhaps my single gripe are some of the scenes that hardly have time to get off of the ground before they end--just getting in a joke.

A wonderful little film that Baumbach was trying to make for years until he finally got out Squid and the Whale.

The Bigamist (1953)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.5

I reiterate: expectiations are dangerous.

For some reason I had it carved into my mind that this was a film noir, but it isn't at all. I'd have to rewatch it down the line to fully give it a fair breakdown, though I did find it fascinating this first time around. I'd never seen an Ida Lupino film and it is interesting to see the world through her eyes via cinema, especially considering she was the only female director of her time.

The transfer of this film to dvd is just heinous, which explains why it retails for about six bucks. Perhaps we should instead be thankful that that distributor has dug up this old flicks and at least transfered them, but, seriously, can't we clean it up a bit first?

Touch of Evil (1958)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.0

In discussing Touch of Evil, my Film Noir teacher said he always appreciates Welles' films because of their technical achievements, but fails to be completely drawn in by the characters and therefore the films never fully work for him. Perhaps needless to say, I scoffed at this notion. Welles wasn't capable of making that mistake, was he?

I have to tread against my principles here--shamefully, or course--and say that I have to agree with Fred on this one. Maybe I was just expecting too much from the infamous final classic noir, but I always felt pretty distanced from Vargas and Quinlin. There is no doubt that Quinlin especially is a really fascinating character, but I feel like I wanted to know more about him; why is he so evil and crooked? Hints are certainly dropped along the way, but that didn't completely cut it for me. Similarly, the Vargas backstory of him putting away drug dealers (?) and their boys coming back to get him wasn't explained enough for me. As much as I love Orson both in front of and behind the camera, his performance as Quinlin doesn't always work for me (all of the mumbling).

That being said, however, this film must be one of the most visually stunning ever produced. Welles uses angles and lenses and editing techniques that are not only far before their time, but are wildly experimental. It's so much fun for the eyes that it requires continuous study.