Year in Review: 1954

There are at least three films from 1954 that could legitimately claim to be the best, most influential of the year. The bad news is that only one can take the top spot, but the good news is that they are all masterpieces – and they remain just the tip of the iceberg of what was released this year.

10. Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk)
Douglas Sirk made films in almost every genre during the course of his career - but it is the melodrama that he will most be remembered for. While Magnificent Obsession may not quite be as good as some of the other films in that genre he made – All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, Imitation of Life – it started the period of his career for which he is most remembered – that of the bright, colorful melodramas, all of which were about more than the surfaces indicated. Magnificent Obsession is about a young, rich playboy (Rock Hudson) who is wasting his life, until he gets into a boating accident that indirectly results in another man dying. He tries to make it up to the widow (Jane Wyman), only to cause an accident that leaves her blind. And that’s just the first act! No, you cannot take Magnificent Obsession seriously as a story, but you can get lost in its visuals, the over the top performances by Hudson and Wyman. And the story does draw you in despite its silliness. This is an example of style over substance to be sure – but what style!

9. Sabrina (Billy Wilder)
Billy Wilder’s Sabrina is a wonderful romantic fantasy of a movie. Many of Wilder’s films have a cynical shell to them, but Sabrina was a little softer than those films, more romantic. It stars Audrey Hepburn in one of her best performances as a young woman who has spent her entire life around a wealthy family (her dad being their chauffer), and has always been in love with the younger brother – the dashing, womanizing William Holden, despite the fact that he has never noticed her. After returning for Paris, he does notice her, but his workaholic brother, Humphrey Bogart, doesn’t approve – many because Holden is set to marry someone else, and if that falls through, so does a business deal. So Bogart tries to seduce Hepburn himself. The film is bubbly and sweet – pretty much impossible to resist – and puts just about every romantic comedy in recent years to shame.

8. The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk)
Humphrey Bogart was a great actor, and far too often I hear him dismissed as someone who simply played the same character again and again. His work in The Caine Mutiny, for which he received one of his few Oscar nominations, stands as one of his best. He plays the paranoid Captain Queeg, who takes over an undisciplined ship during WWII, and tries to crack down on the crew. At first, it seems like he is just strict – but his behavior becomes increasingly erratic and paranoid as the film progresses. Miles away from his usual performance, Bogart is wonderful here. The direction by Edward Dmytryk is professional, and somewhat workmanlike, but it does the job. The rest of the cast – Fred MacMurray, Tom Tully, Jose Ferrar and Robert Francis among them – are all also wonderful. The Caine Mutiny is a little different for a war movie of its time – it isn’t a sanctified picture of men at war, but darker, and more complex.

7. Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder is a fine, intense thriller which once again shows Hitchcock playing with the visuals of his films. Originally shot for 3-D, this was essentially abandoned because audiences were tired of the process by the time the film was released. But even more interesting is the editing of the movie. This is a film that is based on a play which had only one set – while Hitchcock added a few additional locations, for the most part, this film still only has one room in which to work. And yet because of the way Hitchcock shot and edited the film, it never feels static – never like a photographed play. The movie is about a rich man (Ray Milland) who wants to have his wife (Grace Kelly) murdered. He gets a hit man, but of course, nothing goes according to plan. The performances in the film are wonderful – especially by Kelly who is sympathetic as the wife, which is saying something since we know that she is an adulteress the whole movie. Hitchcock’s direction elevates this into a tense thriller, and while it may not quite be one of his best, it’s pretty damn close.

6. La Strada (Federico Fellini)
La Strada is one of great early films by Federico Fellini – a simple, neorealist drama that is practically impossible to resist. It is a film that gets under your skin and into your heart, and one that I find impossible to forget. Anthony Quinn is excellent as a circus strongman who buys the simple minded Giuletta Masina to be his assistant. They meet a clown (Richard Basehart) who pleasures in mocking the strongman, and who Masina feels a kinship towards. Quinn is exceedingly cruel to Masina, who takes it up until a point until she can longer stand it – but surprisingly, it is Basehart who convinces her to stay with Quinn. The films climax is devastating as Quinn finally realizes what he has done, and completely breaks down. The film is exceedingly simple, and at times plays more like a tone poem than a film – you could site the Chaplin silent films as an influence on it. Fellini would go onto direct more complex and better films than La Strada, but there is something to be said about the beautiful simplicity of this film.

5. A Star is Born (George Cukor)
While this was not the first screen version of the famous Hollywood tale, it is the definitive version – and seems to have served as a template for nearly all showbiz movies – both fictional and ones based on real performers – ever since. James Mason gives one of his best performances, and certainly his most iconic, as an aging, drunken movie star who discovers a great young singer, Judy Garland, and turns her into a star. As her career takes off, he gets dumped by the studio and falls deeper into depression and alcoholism. Sadly, some of this movie has been lost, although the DVD version provides the scenes as best they can (using still photos and a real soundtrack). The film hits pretty much every note imaginable – comedy, drama, wonderful music numbers by Garland. It is a film about both the upside and downside of fame, and truly remarkable achievement.

4. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
I have to thank the Criterion Collection for finally bringing much of Kenji Mizoguchi’s films to North American DVD – although there are still many presumably great films by the Japanese director, considered to be the equal of Kurosawa and Ozu, to be released. Sansho the Bailiff is a film about the evils of slavery, and how women are marginalized in the political system. A wealthy governor is banished to a far away outpost, his wife and children taken from him and sold – the wife into prostitution, the children into slavery. The film follows the two children as the struggle to survive under the harsh conditions for years – the son once abandoning his kindly fathers teachings, but eventually finding his way again. Sansho the Bailiff is a difficult film to endure, but masterfully handled by Mizoguchi, whose camera work was perhaps never better than it is in this film. The film is a testament to Mizoguchi’s humanity and masterful direction – a film that for far too long wasn’t available. Now that it is, it can take its place among the masterpieces of cinema.

3. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan)
Despite the fact that Elia Kazan made On the Waterfront in large part to defend his decision to name names at the House of Un-American Activities Committee, it remains one of the influential, and best, Hollywood films of the 1950s. Rarely has a movie boasted better performances than this one does. Marlon Brando gives one of his best, most iconic performances as Terry, who was once a promising boxer, but has given it all away and is now just a low level enforcer for the corrupt Union heads at the docks. He is tired of the corruption, and wants to talk – much to chagrin of his brother (Rod Steiger), and of course the union leader himself (Lee J. Cobb). When Brando, who is pretty simple minded, meets and falls in love with a murdered dockworkers sister (Eva Marie Saint), and spurned by a do gooder priest (Karl Malden), Terry decides to testify about what he knows. The film is intense and dramatic – but does have a few lighter moments as well (like Brando putting on Saint’s glove after she drops it). The film is a powerful indictment of corruption and greed, and while it doesn’t undo what Kazan did, it is still a masterpiece.

2. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
Seven Samurai is one of those few foreign films that many people in North America are familiar with – even many people who hate subtitles can tell you what the film is about. It is Kurosawa’s most popular film – his most epic film – and for a filmmaker who made countless films about samurais, it is easily the best samurai film ever made. A small village, who has been raided by bandits in the past, find out that they are going to be raided again in the near future. If they cannot hold off this new attack, they will likely be destroyed. But they know nothing of how to fight. They get rebuffed by every samurai they approach looking for help – until they meet Takashi Shimura, who agrees to help – and he will eventually convince 6 others to stand and fight with him. The film is four hours long, but it never feels like that while watching it. You get involved in its plot and its characters. The film has been influential in many ways – from its recruitment format (something seen in such films as Ocean’s 11, the recent The Expendables, etc.), to introducing the hero through an action sequence unrelated to main plot, etc. The film is certainly inspired by the Hollywood Westerns that Kurosawa loved so much, but it is better than most of those. Its influence can be felt in films right up until the present day. Is it Kurosawa’s best film? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it is a masterpiece.

1. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is one of the master’s very best films. In the film, Hitchcock succeeds brilliantly into making his audience all voyeurs – committing this sin right alongside his protagonist played expertly by James Stewart. Because Stewart is such a wholesome actor, the audience follows him into the films darker places – confined to a wheelchair because of a broken leg, he passes the time looking out of his window and at his neighbors across the street. What starts out innocently becomes a little bit of an obsession, especially when he thinks he has witnessed a murder by one of his neighbors. Hitchcock’s use of the camera, and his elaborately built set, are masterful, the score intense. The supporting work by Grace Kelly, as Stewart’s long suffering girlfriend and Thelma Ritter as his nurse, elevate the material as well. But this movie is really about Stewart and his obsession, which is really Hitchcock’s own obsession with voyeurism – and how through the course of this film, he makes it our obsession as well. A true masterpiece.

Just Missed The Top 10: The Country Girl (George Seaton), Gojira (Ishiro Honda), Musashi Miyamoto (Hiroshi Inagki), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Richard Fleisher)

Notable Films Missed: The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Chikamatsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi), Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray), Senso (Luchino Visconti), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen), Three Coins in the Fountain (Jean Negulesco).

Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan)
It is hard to argue with On the Waterfront being named the best film of the year – especially considering that the Academy, as per usual, didn’t quite recognize Hitchcock’s genius (although he was nominated for Best Director) and Seven Samurai didn’t get released stateside until 1956. The film has everything the Academy looks for in a Best Picture winner – important subject matter, great performances and a respected director. It certainly remains one of the most influential films of its time – and is one of the best choices the Academy ever made.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront
It was just a matter of time before the Academy had to give Brando an Oscar. This was his fourth year in a row being nominated for the Best Actor Oscar (following losses for A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata and Julius Caesar) and even though Brando typically refused to play the Oscar game, and pretty much shunned Hollywood his entire career, his performance here was simply too good to overlook. Can you really argue against the performance winning? Yeah, me neither.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Grace Kelly, The Country Girl
Grace Kelly certainly had a career year in 1954 – not only for this film but also for Dial M for Murder and Rear Window as well. Personally, I think her performance in those two Hitchcock movies are better than her work here – as the ever supportive wife of an alcoholic entertainer (Bing Crosby). But those films were thrillers, and as such, the Academy turned their nose up at them in favor of the more dramatic turn here. It is a fine performance, and a fine film for that matter, but I still wish she had won for one of the other two performances – and barring that, I think Judy Garland, who had a similar yet much more complex role in A Star is Born, should have taken this prize.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Edmond O’Brien, The Barefoot Contessa
I am kind of embarrassed to admit that I have not seen this film. After all, I am a fan of Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner and Edmond O’Brien, as well as writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, but somehow I never did get around to seeing this. I suspect that O’Brien won in part because of internal competition among the three nominees from On the Waterfront – especially considering Karl Malden had already won an Oscar, and Rod Steiger was a bit of an unknown at the time (and Lee J. Cobb is the type of character actor who normally had to settle for nominations at best). But until I see it, I won’t know. It is near the top of my to see list after I get through the remaining films I want to see to complete this exercise.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront
Eva Marie Saint benefitted greatly from having a dramatic role in the Best Picture winner, where she got to do most of her scenes next to Marlon Brando at the top of his game. After all, although she was a TV veteran at the time this film was made, it was her first movie credit. But she makes the most of it, bringing out both a dramatic side in Brando, and a more playful one as well. While Saint had a great career since On the Waterfront (most notably in North by Northwest), this remains the film for which she will be remembered forever.

DVD Review: Cemetery Junction

Cemetery Junction ***
Directed by: Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant.
Written By: Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant.
Starring: Christian Cooke (Freddie Taylor), Tom Hughes (Bruce Pearson), Jack Doolan (Snork), Felicity Jones (Julie), Ricky Gervais (Mr. Taylor), Ralph Fiennes (Mr Kendrick), Matthew Goode (Mike Ramsay), Steve Speirs (Sgt. Wyn Davies), Anne Reid (Freddie's Gran), Julia Davis (Mrs Taylor), Emily Watson (Mrs Kendrick).

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are responsible for two of the greatest TV shows of the last decade - The Office and Extras. In both shows, they showed they were masters at awkward comedy – the shows that make us laugh, and yet are at times almost painful to watch because of the humiliation up there on the screen. So it comes as quite as a surprise that their first feature film together is Cemetery Junction – a sweet, funny, affable coming of age movie set in the 1970s. There are a few moments when we can see the normal style of Gervais and Merchant peaking through in the film, but overall this is a departure for them. And while it is hardly the masterwork that the short seasons of The Office or Extras were, the film deserved a better fate than being unceremoniously dumped straight to DVD in North America.

The film takes place in 1973, in the small British town of Cemetery Junction, where almost everyone works in factory. It centers on three young men in their early 20s – Freddie (Christian Cooke) wants more out of life than working alongside his father (Gervais) as a grease monkey and has become a door to door insurance salesman working for Mr. Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes), a no nonsense man who came from the same neighborhood, but has made a success of himself – and looks down on everyone who hasn’t. Bruce (Tom Hughes) is a rebel without a cause (he even wears the same red jacket James Dean had), working in a factory, angry at his father who he sees as lazy, and getting into fights constantly for no real reason. The third is Snork (Jack Doolan), the lovable, pudgy loser of the group who seems to be drifting aimlessly and is happy that way.

Cemetery Junction is not really an original movie – we have seen countless filmmakers revisit their earlier years in these kind of nostalgic trips back in time. But the film is extremely well written by Gervais and Merchant – at times quite funny (Gervais and Anne Reid, who plays his mother bicker hilariously every time they are onscreen together), but overall quite poignant and charming as well. Sure, they are looking back at their past through rose colored glasses, but doesn’t everyone. They capture that real sense of impending adulthood of these three kids who don’t really want to grow up, but have to. And surrounding those three, they have a superior supporting cast – not just Fiennes, who is wonderful as a very boring, yet somewhat cruel man, but also Matthew Goode as the next Fiennes, Felicity Jones as the girl Freddie likes, despite the fact that she is Fiennes’ daughter, and Goode’s fiancée, and perhaps best of all Emily Watson as Fiennes quiet, long suffering wife who hits all the right notes.

Cemetery Junction is a step into a different terrain for Gervais and Merchant, and for the most part they pull it off. If you didn’t know it was them behind the camera, you probably would not guess it was them. I admire them for stretching, yet at the same time hope they now make a movie more in their regular vein. When you are better than pretty much everyone else in the world at something, why do something else?

DVD Review: City Island

City Island ** ½
Directed by: Raymond De Felitta.
Written By: Raymond De Felitta.
Starring: Andy Garcia (Vince Rizzo), Julianna Margulies (Joyce Rizzo), Steven Strait (Tony Nardella), Dominik García-Lorido (Vivian Rizzo), Ezra Miller (Vince Jr.), Emily Mortimer (Molly), Alan Arkin (Michael Malakov).

City Island is an agreeable little comedy about a strange, over exuberant Italian-American family living in a little known area of the Bronx – what is essentially a fishing village. The father is Vince (Andy Garcia), but he isn’t a fisherman – he is a correctional officer, or what everyone else in the movie calls a prison guard. He has long since harbored a secret ambition to be an actor though, and has been driving into the city to take acting classes. He is too embarrassed to admit this to anyone though – telling his wife (Julianne Margulies) that he has a poker game – which she thinks is code name for having an affair. Meanwhile, their daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) is supposed to be off at college, but is instead working a strip club because she lost her scholarship. Their son Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller) is becoming obsessed with porn sites – especially ones involving larger women and food. And, oh yeah, Vince has found out that the son he had in a previous relationship, that he ran out on before he was born (Steven Strait), has ended up in prison, and decides to help him get early release by bringing him home to his family – without telling anyone who he really is. This is a family that essentially doesn’t tell each other anything.

There are a lot of moments in City Island that work – most of them involving Andy Garcia who delivers one of his best performances in years. Yes, in a way he is the stereotypical Italian American male – loud, swinging hand gestures accompany much of what he says when he gets angry, but eventually DeFelitta and Garcia find their way inside him and make him more than that. He is a dreamer – an essentially good guy, who is trying really hard to please everyone, but cannot do it. His best scenes involve Molly (Emily Mortimer) a woman he meets in his acting class. It is only with Molly that he can really explain everything he is going through. They don’t have an affair, but instead they provide that stranger that movies so often contain that the main character can finally open up to.

The problem with the movie is that aside from Vince, no one else ever really moves beyond the level of caricature. DeFellita’s previous film, Two Family House, was also about an Italian American family man with secrets, but that one sidestepped this problem. While both films are in essence a comedic fantasy (no real attempt is made for either of them to be realistic, because the stories he is working with are not), but Two Family House worked because the characters felt authentic. Other than Garcia, that isn’t the case in City Island, which is amusing in fits and starts (and does have a fine ending), but never really rises above its limitations.

Year in Review: 1935

There are a lot of great films from 1935 - serious films by truly masterful filmmakers. But for me, I like the fun films from 1935 the most - the top two films represent the horror and musical genres - two that I very rarely have at the top of my list. As you can see, I do have a number of notable films missed this year, but I’m happy with my list.

10. Peter Ibbetson (Henry Hathaway)
Peter Ibbetson is a strange film – a film whose plot would be ridiculous if it wasn’t handled so brilliantly. The film is about two young lovers (Gary Cooper and Ann Harding) who are separated again and again through the years, but are constantly drawn to each other. Even after one dies, they continue to “visit” each other through their dreams. Henry Hathaway does a brilliant job making this film – he gives the film a surrealist look and feel, quite daring for a studio movie of its time. Cooper and Harding do really seem to share some deep connection to each other here. The film is so well made and acted, and includes a truly great score by Ernst Toch, that we forget the absurdity of the plot, and simply drift along with the movie. An underrated little gem.

9. Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd)
Personally, I think that it is possible that an even greater version of the famed Mutiny on the Bounty story can be made. They’ve had three cracks at it already, and this one clearly is the best of the lot. Mainly I think because of Charles Laughton, who is larger than life and brilliant as the evil, egocentric Captain Bligh. Clark Gable is in full hero mode as Fletcher Christain, and Franchot Tone is also excellent as the crew member who tries to put a stop to the mutiny (it is rumored that people thought that Tone was so good in the film, that his performance was the reason the Academy introduced the supporting acting categories the following year). Frank Lloyd has never been my favorite director – but he has made an entertaining, seafaring epic out of this movie that if nothing else is entertaining from beginning to end. Until we get a better film, this is the definitive version of this infamous story.

8. Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl)
Leni Riefensthal’s Triumph of the Will presents a never ending problem for film critics. It is inarguably the most visually stunning and influential film made in 1935. But it is also an evil film, serving an evil purpose. Can you throw away all that artistry because of the evil, or can you ignore the evil and focus solely on the skill in which the film was made. Alas, I can do both, and neither, and if that sounds like a contradiction, it’s because it is. The film is about the Nuremberg rally of 1934 – where hundreds of thousands of people gathered to celebrate Nazi Germany, and its leader Hitler. Riefenstahl was there, and captured it all in a sanitized form. The film is about Nazi perfection, and Riefrnstahl captures that with the thousands of marching soldiers in perfect unison. Towering stages are built, Nazi flags hang everywhere, and Hitler’s presence hangs over every frame of the film, even the ones he is not in. The film is pure propaganda from beginning to end. It’s value today is to see how to make a great propaganda film, because Riefenstahl made the best here. Will it sway anyone to Hitler’s belief system? I doubt it highly – the film is, as Roger Ebert claimed, rather dull in places, and it never really does give you any indication of what Hitler’s belief system is. It’s just there, and we watch it, and once you have, you most likely will never forget it.

7. Captain Blood (Michael Curtiz)
Michael Curtiz’s Captain Blood is a wonderfully entertaining, swashbuckling epic starring Errol Flynn at his best. He plays a doctor in 17th Century England convicted of treason for helping a friend. Instead of carrying out his death sentence, the King sells Blood, and everyone else convicted, into slavery which is where he meets the beautiful Olivia de Havilland. But soon Blood and his fellow slaves escape, and begin their lives as pirates. Michael Curtiz is one of those Hollywood directors from the studio era who could seemingly direct anything. In this movie, he makes a rousing, romantic, fun epic pirate movie. He is, of course, aided by Flynn’s charm and style in the lead, along with De Havilland, who had wonderful chemistry with Flynn, and the wonderful Basil Rathborne, as Blood’s somewhat treacherous partner. The movie is fairly meaningless, but as good, old fashioned Hollywood entertainment, it’s tough to beat.

6. The Informer (John Ford)
John Ford’s The Informer is one of the director’s more dramatic pictures. It stars Victor McLaglen, who in 1922 Ireland informs on his friend, a member of the IRA, in order to collect the reward money. But McLaglen is racked with guilt over his decision, and his that guilt will eventually give himself away to the people who want to kill whoever informs. Ford’s sympathies are clearly with the IRA here, and McLaglen is portrayed as a coward. But he is also portrayed sympathetically by Ford – he makes a difficult choice, and regrets it, and he slowly degenerates into the mess we see near the end of the movie. McLaglen is excellent in the lead role, and would continue to work with Ford for years – mainly as a character actor, as he was one of the most valued of Ford’s stock company of supporting players. In The Informer, he is given the role of his lifetime, and he makes the most of it. A great performance in a great movie.

5. A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood)
The Marx Brothers are among the finest film comedians of all time. Never mind that this film is nearly 80 years old, it is still a film that I can watch today and laugh pretty much from start to finish – the brothers never fail to bring me out of a funk when I’m in one. A Night at the Opera is perhaps the best film they ever made next to the wonderful Duck Soup. The movie starts in Italy, where the brothers decide to help two young opera singers find fame and love, moves onto a ship when they stowaway to follow everyone in New York, and ends in a riotous scene at the opening night opera in New York, where they throw the entire performance into chaos. True, some of the scenes involving Kitty Carlisle, or all the singing, can be skipped, and I kind of prefer their old style when they would just out and out attack anyone in their way, whether they deserved it or not (that has been softened in this film, as they only attack the villains). And yet, there is more great work here than in most of the Brothers movie – an hilarious comedy by perhaps the finest comedy team in cinema history.

4. Toni (Jean Renoir)
Jean Renoir did a lot of his best work in the 1930s. Toni is a masterful film that is ripe for rediscovery, as I do not think it is as widely known as it deserves to be. This film was one of the key films that inspired the Italian neo-realist movement of the 1940s. It is about an immigrant quarry worker (Charles Blavette) who is in love with the beautiful Josefa (Celia Montalvan), but lives with the clingy, pathetic Marie (Jenny Helia). When Josefa is taken advantage of by Toni’s brute of a boss, she ends up marrying him instead, and Toni is stuck marrying Marie. No one is happy in their relationships, and as the years pass, things turn violent. Renoir used non-professional actors here, but they deliver great performances – raw and realistic. The narrative is simply, yet Renoir finds beauty in this simplicity. It is a shame that Toni seems to have been largely forgotten, while the neo-realist Italian films have become some of the most celebrated in cinema history. It is time for Toni to get some credit.

3. The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock)
Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps is the second of many films the master made about an innocent man wrongly accused going on the run. In this film, Robert Donat is the innocent man in question – who meets a young woman at magician’s act, who meets a young woman who says that she is a British spy, and has uncovered a conspiracy called the 39 steps. When she is murdered, Donat goes on the run to try and bring the conspiracy to light, but is pursued by police and the conspirers themselves to try and silence him. This is widely regarded as perhaps the best of Hitchcock’s British films, and while I think there maybe a couple of others I like more, it is damned close. By this point in his career, Hitchcock had pretty much already become the master of suspense, and is filmmaking is, as always, impeccable and he draws a great performance from Robert Donat in the lead. Hitchcock loved to play the audience, and he does so wonderfully here – a great thriller by a great filmmaker.

2. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale)
Out of all the Universal Horror films of the 1930s, I think The Bride of Frankenstein is my favorite. It is just as emotional as the original Frankenstein film by Whale in 1931 – perhaps even more so – and much more subversive. Watching the film today, you understand precisely what Whale, a homosexual, was doing in this movie. Its themes are clearly about homosexuality, and necrophilia for that matter, but Whale buried his themes in plain sight. Audiences, and censors, then thought that were watching a shocking, frightening horror movie, seemingly unaware of what Whale was really up to. Karloff has never been better than he was here – buried under all that makeup, and speaking halting, he finds subtle notes to play in the monster. His “parents” are more in overdrive camp – delightfully fun to watch, but Karloff’s monster is the tragic center of the film. Whale has made a film that is a masterpiece of production design and cinematography, and while the film probably wouldn’t scare modern audiences, it has an intelligence and style that is missing for recent horror films. Few sequels live up to the original – Bride of Frankenstein surpasses its first film, which was a masterpiece in its own right.

1. Top Hat (Mark Sandrich)
There is something to be said about movies that just flat out entertain you. I know most of my top films during this exercise have been serious, auteur films, but this year I have to say that out everything I have seen, Top Hat – a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical is far and away my favorite. It is better not to think about the plot – which logically doesn’t make any sense. It involves Rogers falling in love with Astaire, but then thinking that she is her best friend’s womanizing husband. True, you would think that she would at least know who her best friend’s husband is, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? What matters is the chemistry between Astaire and Rogers, who are one of the best in screen history. In their comedic scenes together, they are perfection, throwing witty barbs at each other with effortless humor and grace. But it is in the dance numbers where the movie truly comes alive. The numbers for Isn’t This a Lovely Day and Cheek to Cheek may be the two best dance numbers in cinema history – a perfect blend of song and dance, performed in incredibly long takes that should have exhausted the dancers beyond all realistic means, but they come through them smiling. The other dance numbers are great as well, but those two are transcendent. Yes, the movie is a fantasy, baring no real resemblance to reality – but when fantasy looks this great, who the hell needs reality?

Just Missed The Top 10: G-Men (William Keighley), Roberta (William A. Seiter).

Notable Films Missed: Alice Adams (George Stevens), Broadway Melody of 1936 (Roy Del Ruth), Carnival in Flanders (Jacques Feyder), David Copperfield (George Cukor), The Devil is a Woman (Josef von Sternberg), Les Misérables (Richard Boleslawski), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Max Reinhardt & William Dieterle), Naughty Marietta (W.S. Van Dyke), Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey).

Oscar Winner – Best Picture: Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty holds a strange distinction in Oscar history – it is the last best picture winner to win no other Oscars. True, they had much fewer categories in 1935 than they have today (and as mentioned above, had there been a supporting actor category Franchot Tone would have almost certainly have won), but it is odd that it happened at all (not only that, but this was the third film to pull off that feat). But perhaps it makes sense – the Academy had already given Frank Lloyd two directing Oscars at this point, and his two stars – Clark Gable and Charles Laughton – had also won Oscars by this point as well. As to whether or not the film is deserving of a win – you can tell I think there were better films this year than this one, but this was an audience friendly hit, and unlike Top Hat or Captain Blood (fellow nominees both) felt like it actually had something to say. It is a fine choice, but this time, I do wish they had looked elsewhere.

Oscar Winner – Best Director: John Ford, The Informer
John Ford has won more best director Oscars – four – than anyone else in history, and this was his first one. Obviously, the Academy loved the movie, but I think it’s dark subject matter and lack of stars prevented it from winning the big prize. It’s probably well enough, because I think had it won, many observers would point it out as an example of the Academy giving it to “serious, message movies” and while this certainly was one, I can’t say it is the worst example of one. Ford does a great job at capturing the humanity of his characters. It is a fine choice, but I almost wish that Michael Curtiz had won for Captain Blood – not because he truly deserved it (that would be James Whale), but because had he been able to pull it off, he would be the only Best Director winner to win on a write in ballot – alas, he only placed second.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Victor McLaglen, The Informer
I think the Academy gives their top acting prize too seldom to great character actors who have found a great role for themselves. So I am happy that they gave this one to McLaglen, who had a long, great career mainly as a character actor working for director John Ford. Ford gave him his best role in this dark little film, and despite the fact it wasn’t a huge success at the time, the Academy gave him the prize – and he probably deserved it out of the nominees.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Bette Davis, Dangerous
Dangerous has, to my knowledge anyway, never been released on DVD. The reason seems to be that no one actually thinks that highly of the film anymore – and evidence suggests that they never really did. Davis was a young star at the time, and she was desperate to win an Oscar, so she campaigned her ass off to win this, and low and behold she did. If the film does come out on DVD, or if it airs of TCM as it has in the past, I will probably watch it. But I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to do so.

Year in Review: 1966

I feel kind of like I have just scratched the surface of the cinematic treasures of 1966. This isn’t because I haven’t seen enough films from that year - I have - it just seems like no matter how many I watch, there is always more to see. Having said that, it would take something quite special to break into the top 4 films.

10. Seconds (John Frankenheimer)
Seconds is one of those strange, genre bending films that could only have been made in the 1960s. It combines elements of science fiction, horror, noir, psychedelic cinema and pure drama and is without a doubt that strangest film that either John Frankenheimer, or his star Rock Hudson, ever made. John Randolph plays a miserable, middle aged man in a career his hates, and a wife he dislikes. He then gets an offer that is too good to be true. “The Company” will provide him with a new identity so he can start over again. Not only that, but the give extensive plastic surgery and psychoanalysis, and he comes out of it now played by Rock Hudson. At first, he loves his new life and the freedom it supplies. But soon he starts to see the drawbacks of what he did, regrets his decision. Too late to go back, but finding it impossible to move forward, he is stuck – but The Company is always there to help. Along with The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May, Seconds forms part of the loosely connected “paranoia” trilogy that Frankenheimer made in the 1960s. This is certainly the strangest of the bunch, jumping genres at will, and having the bleakest ending imaginable. It is a nearly forgotten film, but it should be remembered – Frankenheimer is at the peak of his powers here, and Hudson has never been better. I guarantee, you have never seen anything quite like this before.

9. The Naked Prey (Cornel Wilde)
Cornel Wilde’s The Naked Prey is stripped to the bone filmmaking at its best. Wilde stars as a white hunter in Africa guiding a hunting party. The come across a tribe of natives, and the guy paying for the trip foolishly refuses to offer them anything. The Africans take the entire party hostage, brutally killing one after another, until all that is left is Wilde. They let him loose, so they can hunt him down for sport. But Wilde is not going to go down so easily. The film has little dialogue of any sort, and simply watches as Wilde runs from his pursuers. He is smart and stealthy, and although he is let loose completely naked, he has soon killed on of his pursuers, got a little clothing and a weapon. The chase continues. The movie is brutal, bloody and extremely violent – but Wilde is making more than just another jungle romp here. He is making a movie about civilization, and how uncivilized it actually is. Wilde’s performance is almost all physical, and his camera moves effortlessly along, and the constant, thumping jungle drums score is haunting. Wilde is a forgotten auteur – most of his films are not even available. But even though I have only seen this one, I think he is one of the best actor turned directors I can recall. Please release more his work.

8. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky)
I know most high minded critics would place this film much higher on their list of the best films of 1966 – many in fact would call it the best. But while I think that the film is brilliantly well made – perhaps the best of Tarkovsky’s career – like all of his films I admired the film more than I truly loved it. The film is told in 9 parts, spanning 3 hours and 20 minutes, and it felt that long as well. That doesn’t mean I don’t think that Andrei Rublev is a great film – it truly is, and has some of the best sequences of any film I can recall (in particular during the last section before the epilogue in which they are working on casting a giant bell – the entire sequence is stunning). And I like the way Tarkovsky found a way to make a movie about a painter completely cinematic and stunningly visual, without concentrating on his painting. Rather, Andrei Rublev is a film about the artists place in the world, and in that it succeeds brilliantly. I do (and realize I run the risk of being called a cinematic heretic for saying so) thinking that this film, like most Tarkovsky, could have been edited down a little bit and been a better film. But Tarkovsky was a true artist, who made precisely the films he wanted to make. I may not be running out to see this film again any time too soon, but I know a great film by a great filmmaker when I see it.

7. The Shop on Main Street (Jan Kadar & Elmar Klos)
Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos’ film is one of the most underrated of all Holocaust films. It concentrates on a man from Czechoslovakia who is assigned to take over a local business from an eldery Jewish woman once the Nazis have invaded. She thinks he has shown up for a job, and gives him one, because he does not have the heart to tell her the truth. When the Nazis start rounding up the Jews, he tries to protect her, with tragic results. The film is closely observed, quiet and heart breaking. An all but forgotten masterwork.

6. Blowup (Michangelo Antonini)
Michangelo Antonini’s Blowup is structured like a thriller, but it really isn’t one. Like his previous films – L’Aventurra, La Notte and L’Ecclisse, this is a film about a hollow, empty man who for a brief time has his passions aroused, before he literally disappears into nothingness. David Hemmings has the lead role as a fashion photographer in trendy London. He spends his days doing all those photo shoots of empty headed models, most of whom he sleeps with and then discards, and his nights doing “real photography”. It’s during one of these bouts with the real photography that he captures a man and a woman on film. He cannot tell what they are doing, but the woman (Vanessa Redgrave) chases him down and wants the film back. He refuses. She comes to his apartment and tries to seduce away for him. He refuses again, and in the films centerpiece section, he blows all the pictures up until he is convinced that he has captured a murder on film. But has he really? Antonini sets up this mystery, but has no interest in solving it. The solution isn’t the point – and never was. This is a film about Hemmings and his shallow, empty existence, his contempt for women and how, for a brief period of time, he cares about something again. The murder gives him something real to concentrate on – and when everything disappears, there is no reason left for him to be around anymore.

5. The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo)
The Battle of Algiers is one of the most important films of the 1960s – a film that remains relevant right up to today. That’s because it depicts the kind of guerilla warfare that has dominated the world since the end of WWII in a harsh, unblinking light. Yes, the critics who claimed that Pontecorvo had made an objective film were kidding themselves – his sympathy is clearly with the Algerian rebels and against the French Army (listen to when the masterful score by Ennio Morricone plays for an idea of why), but he did make a clear eyed film. The French Army is not exactly villains, but they are not heroes either. Neither are the Algerians. Both of them kill civilians, and feel no remorse about it. The Algerians with their bombs that take out anyone who happens to be around, and the French respond by using torture to try and get the terrorists to reveal their plans and others whereabouts. Sound familiar? It should, this is essentially what has been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last decade. Pontecorvo’s film is still relevant, is still watched by people on all sides of similar conflicts the world over. And the skill in which Pontecorvo made the film is still evident – it really is a masterful directing job, and this really is a great film.

4. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols)
Edward Albee’s play about a warring older couple (brilliantly played by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) who use a younger couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) as pawns in their own twisted game is brilliantly brought to the screen by Mike Nichols. Martha (Taylor) is the daughter of the dean of the University, married to George (Burton) an associate professor of history. They spend the play verbally and at times physically, abusing each other in front of their guests – a new professor, and his alcoholic wife. But it is all a game to George and Martha, who invent their own stories to try and get a rise out of their guests, for their own amusement. Nichols avoids the trap of making this all seem like a stage bound play – something amazingly difficult as he was a theater director, and this was his first film behind the camera. He gets Taylor and Burton to open up in ways that I had never seen them do before. True they often made films together, but many of them were vanity projects – this is one is anything but. I have rarely seen a better film about two worse people than this one.

3. Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
Persona is one of Ingmar Bergman’s best, most iconic films. Despite its reputation for being difficult to follow, it is actually a rather simple film. A well known actress (Liv Ullman) just stops talking one day on stage in mid sentence. She is sent off to the remote island, where Bergman made a lot of his films, his her nurse (Bibi Andersson). Because Ullman doesn’t speak at all, Andersson has to fill the silence with her constant stories – including one that is so shocking and so detailed, it surprises me every time I see the film that Bergman never does visualize this story – Andersson is such a good storyteller that I feel that I have seen the scene she describes. The two men gradually seem to merge – hence the title – into one. The film is disturbing and mysterious, and one that I can’t tell if it is deceptively simple or deceptively complex. Watching the film, you understand what is happening the first time you see it – and yet it is a film that draws me in time and again, because of its mysteries. Persona is a masterpiece.

2. Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson)
Au Hasard Balthazar is one of the great spiritual films of all time, and also one of the simplest. The film follows a donkey named Balthazar from the moment he is born to the moment he dies. He spends his entire life in a small French farming community, and he will change hands multiple times throughout the film. Some of his owners are kind, some are downright cruel, but Balthazar goes through his life as best he can. He is not a cartoon animal – we never really get to know what he is thinking, and we don’t need to know. His life is just a series of events that he is powerless to control. When feel happiness at certain times in the movie – when he takes his first brave steps, or when he enjoys life as a performing donkey, and we feel sadness in other parts, like when one of his owners beats him so much that he simply refuses to move anymore. He has had enough, the consequences be damned. But those emotions are ours, not Balthazar’s. Bresson, like he does in all of his movies, forces the audience to do the work in this film – he doesn’t supply us with simple moralizing, but rather he uses this movie about a donkey to enable us to see the world. We are all Balthazar. True, we have the ability to think and feel more than he does, but we are still pretty much powerless over whatever life wants to do with us. It does what it does, until we die. Hopefully, we can all find that moment of peace like Balthazar does at the end of the film, where he simply sits down in a meadow and waits for death.

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone)
The Good, the Bad and The Ugly is Sergio Leone’s masterpiece. There is a strange, almost otherworldly quality to it – so much so that it inspired Stephen King to write his The Dark Tower books, which in fact take place in an alternate world that is like ours, but not quite. That is true of Leone’s film as well. On the surface, it does seem like a typical Western. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef play three men all after a fortune in Civil War gold, buried in a cemetery. None of them know all of the information needed to get the gold – but together they hold the pieces. They team up, but we know when the gold is found, the chances are two of the three men will not be around long enough to enjoy it. Leone’s film is full of shootouts, masterfully directed in his high style (none better than the climatic one). The performances work wonderfully, perhaps because all three men are simply playing types, not real characters, know that and except it. Leone’s film is thin on plot, but that doesn’t stop him from making the film three hours long. He is not afraid of long detours, and drawing out his material. In that way, he is like Tarkovsky (but it should be noted in no other way do the filmmakers resemble each other). Leone makes his film, brilliantly stylist that he is. No other filmmaker made films quite like he did. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is his masterpiece.

Just Missed The Top 10: The Chase (Arthur Penn), The Fortune Cookie (Billy Wilder), How to Steal a Million (William Wyler), A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinneman), The Professionals (Richard Brooks), Tokyo Drifter (Seijun Sukuki).

Notable Films Missed: Alfie (Lewis Gilbert), Closely Watched Trains (Jiri Menzel), La Collectuineuse (Erich Rohmer), Cul De Sac (Roman Polanski), Daisies (Vera Chytilova), La Deuzieme Souffle (Jean Pierre Melville), Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill! (Russ Meyer), Masculin Femenin (Jean Luc Godard), The Rise to Power of King Louis XIV (Roberto Rossellini),The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (Norman Jewison), The Sand Pebbles (Robert Wise), Seven Women (John Ford), Yesterday Girl (Alexander Kluge).

Oscar Winner – Picture & Director: A Man from All Seasons (Fred Zinneman).
A Man for All Seasons is a fine film – the type of classy, historical drama that the Academy cannot seem to help rewarding year after year. And it is a well made film, with some excellent performances, not just by Paul Scofield but by Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller and Orson Welles – looking like a huge red fire truck as the cardinal. For me though, 1966 was about more daring films, and A Man for All Seasons was anything but daring. It was an old school director, making an old school Hollywood film, and doing a fine job, but it doesn’t strike me as exciting filmmaking – it strikes me as something you would watch in school, and considering that it was English class where I first saw this film, I guess I am right.

Oscar Winner – Actor: Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons
Scofield is the best thing about A Man for All Seasons. Recreating his role on Broadway as Thomas More, who refused to relent and give a favorable opinion to the King getting divorced, even when it leads to his beheading, Scofield is intelligent and articulate throughout the film – and still has a sense of humor about things as well. It’s a fine performance. Personally, I think it is a shame that Richard Burton never won an Oscar for his great career, and since I think that his work in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Is the best of his career, I think he clearly should have won.

Oscar Winner – Actress: Elizabeth Taylor, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
This was a great year for lead actresses. Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullman were both spectacular in Persona and Ida Kaminska was wonderful as the dottering old woman in The Shop on Main Street (for which she shockingly got an Oscar nomination). But as good as they were – and they were all great – I think the Academy made the right choice in giving this Oscar to Taylor. She may have won her first Oscar (for Butterfield 8) for being young and gorgeous (I can’t comment because I haven’t seen that movie, but even she thought the film was crap), but at this point in her career, she had moved onto a new level. Her work here is without vanity – she has perhaps never looked worse in any film in her career – and she digs into her cruel role with a vengeance, and not only keeps up with, but I think surpasses Burton. A great performance by a great actress.

Oscar Winner – Supporting Actor: Walter Matthau, The Fortune Cookie
Walter Matthau always said he only won this award because he had a health scare right in the same year. Who would have guessed that he would have pulled through and lived another 3 plus decades? Matthau is wonderful as the sleazy lawyer in Billy Wilder’s highly enjoyable farce of a movie – and of course anything that stars Matthau with his good friend Jack Lemmon is certainly worth watching. But perhaps Matthau was right. Fellow nominees Robert Shaw and George Segal were better than he was – in more prestigious movies to boot, and although I have not seen the movie, Hollywood favorite James Mason was nominated for Georgy Girl – and he ended up never winning an Oscar. I don’t mind this win too much – it is an enjoyable romp of a film, but Matthau was so good, I do wish he had won for something else.

Oscar Winner – Supporting Actress: Sandy Dennis, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Sandy Dennis was excellent in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She is far and away the dumbest character in the movie – at times she is so out of it she doesn’t even realize that she is being mocked mercilessly. But there is more to the Dennis character than just her drunken stupidity. She is a little smarter than she looks, and she is surely the most sensitive, and likable of the characters as well. The film wouldn’t quite have the impact it does if George and Martha were picking on a awful character just like themselves. All the performances in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf were worthy of Oscars, and that includes this one.

Movie Review: The Milk of Sorrow

The Milk of Sorrow **
Directed by: Claudia Llosa.
Written By: Claudia Llosa.
Starring: Magaly Solier (Fausta), Susi Sánchez (Aída), Efraín Solís (Noé), Marino Ballón (Tío Lúcido), Antolín Prieto (Hijo de Aída).

The Milk of Sorrow is about the effects of sexual violence on women, and how the fear, pain and paranoia can be passed down through the generations. The main character in the film, Fausta (Magaly Solier) was never raped – but her mother was gang raped when she was pregnant with her, and the locals in her small Peruvian village believe that she has contracted the disease – “the milk of sorrow” through her mother’s breast milk. When Fausta collapses early in the film, they take her to the hospital where at first they believe that she has a large tumor on her uterus. She doesn’t. What she does have however is a potato growing inside of her vagina – which she believes will protect her from rape. Yes, I said a potato.

The Milk of Sorrow is a movie long on symbolism, but short on any actual content. For a movie about sexual violence, we actually do not see any in the movie (which is probably a good thing). The film does open with Fausta’s dying mother telling the story, through song, on how she was raped and what the aftermath was. This was during a political upheaval in Peru, where the rape of women was commonplace.

Fausta is paranoid around pretty much all men, expect those in her family. When at a party, an attractive young man starts flirting with her, she immediately gets up and walks away. When she starts a new job as a maid for a rich pianist, and the gardener rings the bell to be allowed inside, she is hesitant at letting him in – just like she will be hesitant when he wants to come into the kitchen for a glass of water. For her, every man is a potential rapist. She goes back and forth on the issue of the potato in her vagina – at first refusing to have it removed, but later wanting it to be. She wants to be normal, but she cannot let go of her fear.

Watching the film, I wanted to like it more than I actually did. Claudia Llosa is a talented director, with a definite eye for interesting shots and she gives the movie a distinctive visual look. But as a writer, she is not nearly as good. I am sure that Llosa has a point in the subplots involving Fausta trying to bury her mother (something, I’m sure, about burying the past), or with the storyline involving Fausta’s female boss, who screws her over completely (something perhaps about how even women screw other women), but they are never really developed. And because Fausta is such a quiet, distant character, I had trouble relating to her – and truly caring about her.

The Milk of Sorrow is an interesting movie, but for me it is a miss. It certainly didn’t deserve to me nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign language film – especially when films like I Killed My Mother, Police Adjective and Mother were all left out. Perhaps women will respond better to the film then I did – I’m not sure. But what I do know is that for me, The Milk of Sorrow, was an interesting failure.

Movie Review: Machete

Machete ***
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Maniquis.
Written By: Robert Rodriguez & Álvaro Rodríguez.
Starring: Danny Trejo (Machete), Robert De Niro (Senator McLaughlin), Jessica Alba (Sartana), Steven Seagal (Torrez), Michelle Rodriguez (Luz), Jeff Fahey (Booth), Cheech Marin (Padr), Don Johnson (Lt. Stillman), Shea Whigham (Sniper), Lindsay Lohan (April), Daryl Sabara (Julio).

Some people never really grow up. I think Robert Rodriguez is one of those people. He made his debut film, El Mariachi way back in 1992 and the only thing that has really changed in the 18 years since then is that he now has more money to make his movies. Unlike his friend and fellow class of ’92 director Quentin Tarantino, he has never really grown as a filmmaker - he has fun making his tribute to the B movies of the past. Not that there is anything wrong with that - because Rodriguez does that better than just about anyone else.

His latest film is Machete, which is based on the trailer he made when he teamed up with Tarantino to make Grindhouse. It stars Danny Trejo as a Mexican Federale whose family is killed in front of him by the evil drug kingpin Torrez (Steven Seagal). A year later, he is living in Texas illegally and works as a day laborer. He is approached by Booth (Jeff Fahey) with a job offer. He will get $150,000 if he assassinates State Senator McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro), a racist, anti-immigration man who wants to build an electrified fence across the border. Machete agrees, gives to the money to Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), who runs something called the Network, which helps Mexicans cross the border and start a new life together. But he is double crossed, the assassination botched and he becomes the most wanted man in Texas. Immigration officer Sartana (Jessica Alba) tracks him down, but believes his story, and instead of bringing him in, decides to help him. His revelations have far reaching implications as it reveals a huge conspiracy.

Much like Grindhouse, Machete plays well as a tongue and cheek parody of the exploitation films of the 1960s and 70s. The film is extremely violent - from its opening action sequence where Machete goes on a solo mission after Torrez and ends up hacking about a dozen people with his machete - complete with limbs and heads flying all over the place, and torrents of blood splattering the walls all over the place. Rodriguez is wonderful at staging these scenes of ultra violence - and considering that there are rarely 5 minutes in a row without one of these scenes, the movie remains entertaining throughout. Another thing that helps is the performances. Danny Trejo has been in pretty much every Rodriguez movie in a supporting role, but given the lead here, he does precisely what he is asked to do. He isn’t going to win an Oscar for it or anything, but he has the right style for this role. He doesn’t take it seriously, yet he has a perfect deadpan style that makes his lines hilarious. Yet he isn’t half as good as Robert DeNiro who is pretty much perfect as he goes completely over the top as the Senator with the put on Texas accent and swagger. DeNiro has often phoned in his performances in the last decade, and while this certainly isn’t going to let him regain any of his prestige, he certainly does seem to give it his all in this film. The rest of the cast is fine - Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez both play tough, sexy women, and do their job fine, Lindsay Lohan is pretty damn good as a slut who for reasons I will allow you to discover ends up packing a gun and dressed as a nun, and Don Johnson as a vigilante who has taken it upon himself to patrol the border is fine as well. Acting in a movie like this has to be kind of difficult, because you have to both be in on the joke, but not go too far with it. The cast here strikes a fine balance between those two extremes.

Machete isn’t a great movie. It is trash, pure and simple. But it is a movie that knows it is trash, and wants to be nothing more than that. There is something refreshing about that. When I watched Grindhouse, I enjoyed Rodriguez’s segment, Planet Terror, while it was playing, but after Tarantino’s Death Proof started, the Rodriguez film went out of my memory. Here, not teamed up with Tarantino, it allows Machete to breathe a little more. While Rodriguez will probably never be the filmmaker people thought he could be when he made his debut, I think he’s okay with that. And as long as he continues to make films as entertaining as Machete, so I am I.