Year in Review: 1996

1996 contains the best film by my favorite filmmaking brothers, the best film from one of the only truly independent filmmakers working right now, and one of the best from the best Canadian director in history – and that’s just the top 3 films! There is a wealth of cinematic richness coming for 1996.

10. Everyone Says I Love You (Woody Allen)
Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You is one of the most enjoyable films he has ever made. It is a musical where all the stars in the film do their own singing – whether or not they are very good (the lone exception being Drew Barrymore who apparently was really, really bad). The film revolves around the lives and loves of an extended family, set in New York, Paris and Venice. The entire cast – including Allen, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Goldie Hawn, Edward Norton, Tim Roth (who I especially like as a criminal), Alan Alda and Gaby Hoffman are all delightful. Sure, you could dismiss Everyone Says I Love You as meaningless piffle if you wanted to, but couldn’t you say the same thing for most great musicals? Allen’s film is quite simply a joy.

9. Paradise Lost (Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky)
Paradise Lost is one of the best documentaries of the 1990s. It focuses on a case in Arkansas where three teenage boys were arrested and convicted of killing three preteens boys – on no physical or eyewitness evidence at all, but rather on a dubious confession by one of the three (who is mentally handicapped) and the suspicion of the townspeople who didn’t like the teens because they dressed in black and listened to heavy metal music. The case has become famous – spawning numerous books and a sequel to this film in 2000 (and apparently, another one coming soon), but the boys still remain in jail – the “ringleader” Damien Echols on death row. The film is an incisive examination of small town bigotry and justice gone crazy.

8. Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier)
If Dreyer were alive today, he might well make a film like Lars von Trier’s brilliant Breaking the Waves. Emily Watson gives an astonishingly good performance as a woman who has held onto her virginity until her wedding night with husband Stellan Skarsgaard. Her new found sexuality excites her, but when her husband is paralyzed from the neck down, and asks her to start having sex with other men, she is confused and hurt – but does so anyway. Breaking the Waves is a rather profound little film that daringly connects sex and spirituality. Von Trier has always been a provocateur, but when he wants to, he can make brilliant movies like this one.

7. Bound (Andy & Larry Wachowski)
Before the Wachoski’s would become world famous for The Matrix movies, they made this brilliant little neo-noir – which is way better than any of their other movies. Jennifer Tilly plays the girlfriend of a gangster – Joe Pantiliano – who is tired of living with a man with his short of a fuse, and decides she wants to steal a bag full of money that he is supposed to give to his bosses – and make them think that he stole it – to get out. In order to do so however, she needs help, so she seduces the recently paroled new handiwoman next door – Gina Gershon. Yes, Tilly and Gershon are beautiful woman, and their sex scenes in the movie are hot, but that’s not the only reason to love this film (although it is a good one). The noir storyline is brilliantly handled by the Wachowskis, who twist the story in every which way they can. The acting is superb as well by the three leads. Most impressive though is the astonishing visual look of the film – dark blacks, deep crimsons, shadows and intrigue. Why can’ t the Wachowskis make something like this again rather than crap like Speed Racer?

6. Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh)
Out of all the screen versions of Hamlet, I think Kenneth Branagh is far and away the best. It isn’t only that it is the only complete version put on screen – although that certainly helps – but also because Branagh has cast brilliant actors in all the key roles, and has found an interesting way to direct each and every scene. Yes, Branagh is probably too old to play the title role, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t great in it – far better than Laurence Olivier’s Oscar winning performance from 1948. Kate Winslet is his equal as the tragic Ophelia, and Julie Christie (Gertude) and Derek Jacobi (Claudis) are also brilliant in the movie. What sets Branagh’s Hamlet apart however is the brilliant staging of the movie. This is a remarkably visual film, making the most of the lush settings, and the brilliant cinematography. No, Branagh didn’t really need to fill every single role with a movie star – but with a few exceptions (Billy Crystal and Robin Williams spring to mind) each and every one of them delivers a wonderful performance. This is easily the best Hamlet ever put on screen – and could just be the greatest Shakespeare of all time.

5. The People Vs. Larry Flynt (Milos Forman)
Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt is a wonderful biopic on the famed publisher of Hustler magazine. Larry Flynt was controversial when he first started publishing the magazine – it was far too dirty and disgusting, and the religious right set their eyes on him. Flynt had to battle them in court constantly for the right to publish what he wanted to, and even after an assassination attempt left him paralyzed, he continued. Woody Harrellson gives a remarkable performance as Flynt – larger than life, a joker, a pervert, a drug addict and everything else. Courtney Love is equally great as his first wife, who cannot quite pull out of the tailspin that she finds herself in as Larry does. Edward Norton – as part of his breakout year – is also good as the boyish lawyer who fights for Larry, no matter what. Forman’s direction of the movie is assured and the screenplay intelligent. No, The People vs. Larry Flynt does not reinvent the wheel – but what it does, it does amazingly well.

4. Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz)
Todd Solondz’s breakout film as a director is this incredibly dark comedy about a young girl (Heather Mattarazzo is a brilliant performance) who is picked on mercilessly by EVERYONE in her life. Her parents are proud of their oldest son, who gets great grades, and adore their younger daughter, who is a ballerina, but seem to hate poor Dawn, their middle child. She has a crush on a “rock star” who is nice to her, but breaks her heart. The local bully tells her to show up at a certain place so he can rape her, and she does. At least she’s getting attention. Welcome to the Dollhouse is a difficult film to watch – how can one teenage girl put up with everything that she does? Like all of Solondz’s movies, Welcome to the Dollhouse is a moral puzzle that you have to try and figure out. Solondz seems to have been forgotten by most critics – but I still count myself as a fan – and Welcome to the Dollhouse is one of the big reasons why.

3. Crash (David Cronenberg)
There is probably no way to describe David Cronenberg’s Crash without making it sound perverted. It is, after all, about a group of people who are turned on by car crashes- the crunching metal and broken glass offers some sort of release for them, and often they will have sex right in their destroyed vehicles. James Spader and Deborah Kara Unger are the couple at the center of the movie – whose sex life is already messed up when the film starts, and gets more screwed up when they fall in with the crash group – lead by Elias Koteas and Holly Hunter. Cronenberg’s film, although it contains a lot of sex, is not an erotic film – the sex here isn’t sexy, but disturbing, and allows us to see past the sex into the obsession that drives it. Cronenberg has always been obsessed with strange sex – and here combining the hard metal of the cars, with the soft flesh, he has created a truly warped film. The film is one of Cronenberg’s masterpieces – and deserves to be seen and remembered way more than that other movie called Crash.

2. Lone Star (John Sayles)
John Sayles’ Lone Star is a murder mystery, where the solution of the crime is nowhere near as interesting as everything that comes before it. Set in a small Texas town, the film stars Chris Cooper as the local sheriff – son the infamous former sheriff (seen in flashback played by Matthew McConaghey – in one of the only good performances in his career). One a skull is found buried in a shooting range, it brings back the disappearance of the former sheriff (Kris Kristofferson), the man his father replaced and became a legend because of. So Cooper digs into the past, and it brings back even more than just the death, but old feelings that he never got over. Lone Star is an intelligent film – a mystery, where the solution doesn’t really matter, but the journey does. Sayles has been one of the truly independent filmmakers in America for decades now, who can always be counted on to make an intelligent movie. Lone Star is the best one he ever made.

1. Fargo (Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Coen Brothers are among my favorite filmmakers of all time, and Fargo is the best film that the brothers have ever made. Frances McDormand is simply brilliant as a pregnant, small time Police Chief who has to solve a grizzly double murder on her beat. The whole thing got started because William H. Macy’s desperate used car salesman hired two men (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stomare – a study in contrasts if there ever was one – to kidnap his wife to get his rich father in law to pay the ransom, and hence get him out of his multiple schemes that have resulted in massive debt. Fargo is at once one of the best dark comedies in history – utterly hilarious moments are littered throughout the movie – as well as an expert character study for all the principles involved. Fargo is really a neo-noir, but set in the frozen wasteland of Minnesota, where everyone is dressed in parkas, and talk in funny accents, instead of being hard boiled cops and crooks in New York or LA. There is not a moment wrong in the film – it is quite simply one of the very best films ever made.

Just Missed The Top 10: Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson), Mother (Albert Brooks), Waiting for Guffman (Christopher Guest), Get on the Bus (Spike Lee), Big Night (Campbell Scott & Stanley Tucci), Jude (Michael Winterbottom), Trees Lounge (Steve Buscemi), Scream (Wes Craven), Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch), Michael Collins (Neil Jordan), Swingers (Doug Liman), suburbia (Richard Linklater), Looking for Richard (Al Pacino), Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh), Trainspotting (Danny Boyle), La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz).

Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: The English Patient (Anthony Minghella)
Good god, was I ever bored by The English Patient. Typically I like Anthony Minghella’s films, but for me The English Patient is a needlessly complex, long winded and mind numbing experience. I even watched the film a second time to see if I missed something – I didn’t. I remember watching that classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine has to sit through the movie again and again and while everyone else around her is crying, she’s going crazy she hates the movie so much. Oddly, I think that helped to hurt the films’ reputation – do you hear anyone talking about the film anymore. Yeah, me either. This is one of my least favorite best pictures winners ever.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Geoffrey Rush, Shine
Geoffrey Rush had been doing solid work on screen in Australia and on stage everyone for years, but this was the role that brought him to a wider audience. And he is excellent as a piano prodigy with mental issues. Having said that, I think that Noah Taylor, who plays the younger version, is perhaps even better than Rush – his character was more complex, because by the time Rush got to play him he was off the deep end. A good performance by a great actor, but like many people who have won for playing a mentally ill person, I find the performance a little one note. Personally, I would prefer Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade (although that has some of the same problems about being one note) but really think that Woody Harrelson deserved this for The People vs. Larry Flynt.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Frances McDormand, Fargo
An inspired choice by the Academy. They had more Academy friendly roles by Kristen Scott Thomas and Brenda Blethyn – perhaps even Emily Watson but her role is very sexual – but they made the right call by giving it to McDormand’s lovable pregnant Sheriff, who is both hilarious and heartbreakingly real. McDormand is one of those rare actresses who can seemingly do anything, as she has proved time and again, and her great career richly deserves an Oscar - and I'm glad she won for Coen brothers movie, since she often does her best work with with them. One of the best performances of the decade, and a great job by the Academy.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Cuba Gooding Jr., Jerry Maguire
I enjoyed Jerry Maguire as much as the next person – but I do not think that it was anywhere near Oscar worthy in any category. Yes, Cuba Gooding Jr. is fun in the role of as a football player whose ego far exceeds his talent. In fact, I would argue that Gooding played that role as well as it could be played. But really, an Oscar? When you had William H. Macy in Fargo and Edward Norton in Primal Fear nominated? Seriously? Has there ever been an actor whose career crashed and burned faster than Gooding's did coming off of an Oscar win? You almost feel sorry for the guy when he turns up in movies like Boat Trip, Shadowboxer or Norbit.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Juliette Binoche, The Englist Patient
I love Binoche – more so in her French films that the English ones – but I still do love her. And considering she is playing a Canadian in this film, I should love her character even more. But good god, her section of The English Patient was mind numbingly boring. Had they jettisoned her subplot – which in my opinion goes nowhere very slowly – the film might have worked for me, as the main thrust, although deliberately paced, is at times at least interesting. But her segments of the film always bring it to a dead stop. She does what she can, but I still think the movie is stinker. Who would I have given it to? No one who was nominated that’s for sure, as they picked a rather mediocre crop, even if I did like Marianne Jean Baptiste and Joan Allen in their roles. But Courtney Love in The People vs. Larry Flynt and Kate Winslet in both Hamlet and Jude are better than any of the nominees.

Year in Review: 1986

1986 contains a number of great films – so many in fact, that I’m sure that some will complain that I overlooked some their favorites for the films on this list. So be it. I stand behind every title on this list.

10. The Great Mouse Detective (Ron Clements & John Musker & Burny Mattinson & David Michener)
I am sure there are going to be some who wonder how I could put this film on this list, while I didn’t find room for Tarkovsky’s final film The Sacrifice, or Frears’ wonderful My Beautiful Laundrette, or one of the great sports stories of all time in Hoosiers, or Denys Arcand’s The Decline of the American Empire or Peter Weir’s The Mosquito Coast or any number of other films. My answer is simple – I like The Great Mouse Detective more. This is one of the my first movie going experiences that I remember, and all these years later, the film still holds a special place in my heart. It is not the greatest Disney animated effort of all time, but God do I love it still. My love of Sherlock Holmes comes from my love of this movie, with its ingenious mouse modeled after Holmes, who has to track down the evil Professor Ratigan (voiced by Vincent Price of course), who has kidnapped a brilliant mouse scientist and his daughter so that he can have a clockwork mouse in the guise of the Queen of the Mice, so he can rule England. At least the Mouse part of it, I guess. So call me a sap if you want to, but I love this Disney classic with all my heart.

9. ‘Round Midnight (Bertrand Tavernier)
Dexter Gordon was not a professional actor, yet he delivered one of the very best performances of the year in 1986. Gordon plays a version of himself – a veteran jazz musician, considered to be one of the great saxophone players of his era, who was also a drug addict and alcoholic. The movie is set in 1960 Paris, where Gordon goes to play at a club, and maybe dry out a little bit. He has very little willpower of his own, so he relies on the manager of the club and his landlady, and later one of his young friends, to keep him off drugs. But eventually, he knows he will start using again. The film is full of jazz music, that director Bertrand Tavernier recorded live to give it the feel of real jazz – and it works wonderfully. The movie has the best jazz in any narrative feature I have ever seen. Yet, when I think about ‘Round Midnight, I don’t think of the music – at least not at first. I think of Gordon’s face, and his steady decline in the film. He knows he is going to die soon – and he seems to have accepted his fate. But he keeps right on playing anyway.

8. Mona Lisa (Neil Jordan)
It’s funny how much we come to care about the two main characters in Mona Lisa. After all, he (Bob Hoskins) is a low level British mob guy just out of prison, and she (Cathy Tyson) is the high class prostitute he is assigned to drive around. But like them we do, because they are so well written, so well acted that we see past their jobs, and see the people they are. Eventually, the two characters, who hate each other at first, do the same thing and they share a bond. It’s not a bond based on sex, but upon mutual respect. Hoskins has been assigned by his boss (Michael Caine) to find out all he can about one of Tyson’s clients, and this at first helps to break the wall down. But things get more complicated when Tyson confides her fear for a friend to Hoskins – they started out working the street together, and Tyson fears that her friend is still there, and still at the mercy of a merciless pimp. He agrees to help find her. What starts out as a character study of these two people turns into a thriller, but because by the time the thriller elements come in, we care so much about these two people, the thriller elements take on an additional level of intensity. Hoskins delivers one of his best performances as the ex-con that we take some time getting to know, and Tyson matches him showing off her tough exterior, and then letting her guard down. Michael Caine is chilling as the boss, because although he is a villain – and an evil one at that – he plays it straight, as if he is little more than a businessman. He just happens to know what his business is. Neil Jordan has had a spotty career as a director – making some great films like this, The Crying Game and The Butcher Boy and so not so great ones as well. But with Mona Lisa, he made one of his best films.

7. Manhunter (Michael Mann)
Michael Mann’s Manhunter was the first screen appearance by Hannibal Lector – here embodied in one unforgettable scene by Brian Cox. Yet, Manhunter is much more than simply a curiosity item for people who want to see someone other than Anthony Hopkins play the famed cannibal. It is a great thriller in its own right. William Peterson gives an excellent performance as Graham, the FBI agent who arrested Lector the first time, and was almost killed in the process. He is drawn back into the fold when a family annihilator, Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan) starts killing people. Peterson is really the center of the movie, and he does an excellent job in the lead role, as the brilliant, yet now somewhat hesitant Graham. Noonan is tremendously creepy as Dollarhyde, and the cast also includes great work by Joan Allen, as the blind woman that Dollarhyde befriends. The film is an intense thriller, assembled brilliantly by Mann, and shot by the great Dante Spinotti to maximum effect. The climax, scored to In a Gada da Vida, is a classic of the genre. Overall, I think the cheesy score hurt the movie a little bit – but not much. Yes, Brent Ratner remade this film by its original title, Red Dragon, years later with Hopkins in an expanded role as Lector. But as Mann stated when he was told that Ratner said that his version was better than Mann’s “He must be mistaken”.

6. Aliens (James Cameron)
James Cameron did not set out to simply repeat the success of the Ridley Scott original film when he made a sequel to Alien – he essentially set out to change things. The original movie was a horror film in the grand old tradition where you have a monster stalking a group of people who are trapped, picking them off one by one. While Aliens certainly has horror movie elements, it is more a balls to the walls action film – what that starts early on with the intensity and never lets up. While I prefer Scott’s films, there is no denying that Cameron’s is one of the best the genre produced in the 1980s. Sigourney Weaver goes from “survivor girl” in the original film, to a kick ass action star here – and the transformation is seamless and believable. The rest of the cast is fine, but the fact remains that the movie rests on the shoulders of Weaver, and Cameron’s special effects – which are better than the original film, given the higher budget. The film is gritty and intense from beginning to end – and just maybe Cameron’s best film.

5. Sid and Nancy (Alex Cox)
Sid and Nancy may just be the best movie ever about the life of a rock star. Gary Oldman gives an electrifying performance as Sid Vicious, the bass player for the Sex Pistols, who had little discernible talent, but had the right attitude. And Chloe Webb is every bit his equal as his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. The film opens with Vicious being arrested for Spungen’s murder, but then flashes back to show how the couple got to where they were. The film is full of sound and fury all the way through, but amazingly, Cox is able to tell his story in a coherent fashion. The film is built on the amazing lead performances, and they are amazing – there is never a moment of doubt watching them that they are who they are. Oldman plays Vicious as a naïve kid – someone who achieved great fame at the age of the 17, and never really recovered. Who was Sid Vicious really? I doubt he even knew, because at the time when most of us are figuring that out, he had already descended into his heroin addiction. Webb makes Spungen the more grounded of the two – the more ambitious. She mothers Vicious, because that’s what he needed, and also what she needed. But soon, she is as far gone as Sid is, and there is no turning back. Did Vicious kill Spungen? Does it matter? They were so strung out at the time, who knows what happened in that hotel room. And just a few months later Vicious was dead. Sid and Nancy tells their story in unblinking detail – it is the story of two lives completely wasted.

4. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen)
Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters is one of his greatest achievements. Taking the basic structure of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander – where a theatrical family gathers at three different holidays – the first a time of happiness, the second a time of pain, and the third after the pain has subsided, Allen spins off Bergman’s film and makes one of his incisive, yet funny, movies about the lives of his characters. Mia Farrow is Hannah, a successful Broadway actress, whose husband (Michael Caine) is having an affair with her sister (Barbara Hershey), who has just left her much older lover (Max von Sydow). Hannah’s ex-husband is Mickey (Allen), who is a lifelong hypochondriac, but may in fact now have a serious disease. He goes on a date with Hannah’s other sister (Dianne Wiest), and it goes horribly wrong, but the two will eventually find each other again. The film is at times touching and heartbreaking, at times painfully honest about the lives of this family, and at times downright hilarious. One of the best moments in the film – and really in Allen’s entire career – comes when his character is completely depressed, but wanders into a screening of the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, and reminds himself why life is worth living. It is an ode to how the power of cinema. Like all of Allen’s films, the acting is great – Caine and Wiest both won Oscars, but they are matched by everyone in the cast. If I were to make a list of the best Woody Allen movies of all time, Hannah and Her Sister would easily rank in the top 5.

3. The Fly (David Cronenberg)
David Cronenberg is perhaps the perfect filmmaking to make The Fly. He has always been obsessed with “body horror” – how the real horror is not what is outside the body, but what is inside. Jeff Goldblum gives a tour de force performance as the scientist who accidentally mixes his DNA with that of a fly. At first, he thinks it is great, as it allows him greater strength and speed – which increases his confidence. But he also becomes increasingly arrogant, and violent, thus setting in motion the events that will lead to his inevitable downfall. The transformation sequences, where Goldblum slowly starts to become a hybrid of a man and a fly are absolutely brilliantly well done by the makeup, making the “Brundlefly” one of the most hideous monsters in screen history. Somehow though, Goldblum manages to keep the performance underneath all that makeup real, and emotional, right up until the final moments of his life, when he places the shotgun in Geena Davis’ hand up against his head (in a shot that I find chilling, touching and unforgettable). The film is among the most disturbing and gross of Cronenberg’s career – but also among the very best. The Fly is a masterful science fiction movie that gets under your skin, and stays there. Once you see, you will never forget it.

2. Platoon (Oliver Stone)
As a grunt’s eye view of the war in Vietnam, Oliver Stone’s Platoon cannot be beat. The story centers of the young, idealistic Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), based on Stone himself, who enlists in the Army in 1967, because he believes it is his duty to his country. But as he experiences the war firsthand, he becomes disillusioned with it. At first he is torn between the two Sergeant in the unit – the sympathetic Elias (Willem Dafoe) and the tough as nails Barnes (Tom Berenger), but soon it becomes clear which side he is on – Elias’. The movie features several great, intense set pieces – the raiding of the village, where Barnes cold bloodedly murders a innocent woman, before the burn the village to the ground, and Taylor finds some of his fellow soldiers raping a civilian, the battle in the jungle, where Barnes shoots Elias and leaves him for dead, and of course the final napalm battle, where Taylor and Barnes suddenly come face to face with each other. Stone based the movie on his own experiences, and doesn’t exaggerate. The film’s depiction of violence and the moral ambiguity that the film seeks are the strengths of the film. This is a harsh, unrelenting view of the war in Vietnam. While it doesn’t reach the heights of something like Apocalypse Now, it doesn’t really strive to. This is Stone’s story of the war, and the film that he had to get made in order to move on.

1. Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
David Lynch’s Blue Velvet is perhaps the most divisive film of the 1980s – some like Roger Ebert absolutely hate it, while some, like me, think that it maybe the best film of the entire decade. While I understand why some hate the film, to me Lynch’s twisted, dark version of suburbia is a film that never fails to get under my skin and draw me into his vision. Taking his lead from films like Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and Ray’s Bigger Than Life, Lynch creates a seemingly perfect suburban landscape, and then perverts it with the darkness that lurks beneath. Kyle McLachlan plays the perfect, all American boy, home from university. He even starts to date the pretty blonde cheerleader (Laura Dern). But then, in a field, he finds a human ear, crawling with ants. He turns it over to the police, but remains fascinated by the ear, and its implications, so he starts digging deeper. He should have left it alone. His search eventually leads him to Isabella Rossellini, who catches him spying on her, and tries to humiliate him – but then the terrifying Frank (Dennis Hopper, in one of the best villain performances in screen history) shows up, and as McLachlan watches from the closet, does some terrible, unexplainable things. Things only get worse from there. What Lynch has excelled at his entire career, is creating dream worlds, and turning them into nightmares. The upbeat, sunny, cheery phoniness of the opening scenes is just a façade covering the darkness in the small town. Lynch then twists and turns this perfect world into a sick, twisted place. The filmmaking is impeccable, the performances amazing and the screenplay, no matter how strange it gets, never loses focus. This is quite simply one of the best films ever made.

Just Missed The Top 10: Hoosiers (David Anspaugh), At Close Range (James Foley), Labyrinth (Jim Hensen), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (John Hughes), A Room with a View (James Ivory), Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch), The Mission (Roland Joffe), She's Gotta Have It (Spike Lee), Castle in the Sky (Hayao Miyazaki), Stand By Me (Rob Reiner), Salvador (Oliver Stone), A Better Tomorrow (John Woo), My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears), The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky), The Decline of the American Empire (Denys Arcand), The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir)

Notable Films Missed: The Green Ray (Francois Truffaut), My Friend Ivan Lapshin (Axel Gherman)

Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: Platoon (Oliver Stone)
When I stop and think about it, I am somewhat amazed that Oliver Stone’s Platoon won the Best Picture award. This is a war movie with heroes or villains. In fact, the enemy is barely seen at all in the film, and Stone gives us the sense that they are all around you. He has made a film about scared kids who become angry, and how that anger leads to violence. He has made a film that strips war films of all the glamour and honor and valor that we have come to expect from them. The film is morally ambigious at best, and doesn’t offer the traditional payoff we expect. Of the nominees, it was clearly the best film of the bunch – but the Academy overlooked the best this year in favor of films in their comfort zone – A Room with a View, Children of a Lesser God, The Mission and Hannah and Her Sisters. They made the right choice – especially considering that I see no way in hell that Blue Velvet could have ever been nominated.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Paul Newman, The Color of Money
Far be it for me to criticize the Academy the one time they decided to give Hollywood legend Paul Newman an acting Oscar. The man who was nominated for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Absence of Malice and The Verdict before this film, and Nobody’s Fool and Road to Perdition after, certainly deserved to win an Oscar. But look again at those other 8 films he was nominated for, and tell me if you think that any of them are not as good as The Color of Money, which is perhaps Martin Scorsese’s least interesting film as a director, because it was the least ambitious. True, Newman is charming in The Color of Money, reprising his Hustler role a quarter century later, but an Oscar for it? I don’t think so.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Marlee Maitlin, Children of a Lesser God
Marlee Maitlin joins that select group of people who have won an Academy award for their one great performance. It really isn’t Maitlin’s fault that her career never took off after Children of a Lesser God – after all, how many roles are there for a deaf actress? But Maitlin has built a good career for herself, and her performance in the film is quite good, as the janitor at a school for the deaf where she used to be a student, although I do think the story of the film itself is rather trite and clichéd. She and William Hurt, along with the heart Piper Laurie, save the film from becoming saccharine, and I have a hard time arguing against her win (especially considering they didn’t nominate Isabella Rossellini or Chloe Webb), but I don’t necessarily think she deserved to win.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine, Hannah and Her Sisters
Michael Caine had an excellent 1986 – delivering not one, but two great supporting turns here and in Mona Lisa. Here he plays an accountant married to one sister, but in love with another. Or is it just lust he feels for Barbara Hershey’s character, and not love? It says a lot about Caine that although he is one of those actors who appears to be the same in every movie, all his performances have subtle differences. Perhaps the moment we remember most on Caine’s in the movie is when he is so happy that he finally got his answer – it may not have been the one he wanted, but he got one, and he’s happy (something I can relate to all too well). This was a strong category this year as alongside Caine, they nominated Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger for Platoon, and Dennis Hooper (for his great turn in Hoosiers, not his miraculous one in Blue Velvet) – all of whom would have been deserving.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Diane Wiest, Hannah and Her Sisters
I know that many remember her second Oscar winning performance for Woody Allen – as the egotistical actor in Bullets Over Broadway - as the better one I have always preferred her performance here, as the sister full of emotional tics, and whose cocaine addiction has had a greater impact on her than she wants to admit. Of the nominees, she was the most logical choice to win, although had they also nominated Barbara Hershey for her role in Hannah and Her Sisters (and they should have), I might have found it harder to choose.

Year in Review: 1943

1943 was not the strongest year of the 1940s – but it still produced several classic films, including one of the most loved films of all time – but as always, there are more great films beneath the surface.

10. The More the Merrier (George Stevens)
The More the Merrier is an enjoyable war time comedy about the housing shortage in Washington. Jean Arthur needs a roommate, and reluctantly agrees to rent half of her apartment to Charles Coburn, who turns around and rents half of his half to Joel McCrea. Arthur is furious, but since she has already spent the rent money, she has no choice but to relent. The three of them bicker and argue – with sexual tension building between McCrea and Arthur, despite the fact that she is already engaged. When a possible scandal erupts, McCrea and Arthur are forced to get married – they plan to have it annulled later, but you know how these things work out. The primary reason to see the movie is for the excellent performances by the three leads – Arthur in particular is a pure joy to watch, and Coburn is wonderful (in an Oscar winning performance) as the crotchety old man. This film represented the last of a kind for Stevens – who throughout the 1930s made mainly comedies and musicals. After returning from the war – where he made many documentaries about the Nazis, his films would become much darker. But The More the Merrier is a wonderful comedy of its sort – hilarious and heartfelt – something Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to make.

9. Heaven Can Wait (Ernst Lubitsch)
Don Ameche has just died and believes that he belongs in Hell, not Heaven, so that is where he goes. He is greeted by the Devil and asked why he thinks he belongs in Hell, so Ameche tells his life story. He was a spoiled rich kid, who grows up to be a playboy, until he finally falls in love with a woman (Gene Tierny) and marries her – only to almost lose her when he has an affair. Torn up with guilt about his life, he thinks he deserves to be where he has come. Directed by master comedic filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch, Heaven Can Wait is a witty, clever comedy, with a little more drama that Lubitsch usually let sneak into his film. It is wonderfully photographed in color, and the leads are both wonderful – as is the supporting cast. This may not rank among Lubitsch’s best films – but that’s only because of how talented he was.

8. I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)
I Walked With a Zombie marked the second wonderful collaboration between director Jacques Tourneur and producer Val Lewton. Very loosely based on the Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the film follows an Canadian nurse (Frances Dee) as she travels to the Caribbean to care for the wife of a wealthy plantation owner (Tom Conway) who is essentially in some sort of waking coma, that her doctors says is because of a tropical fever. We will learn otherwise. I Walked With a Zombie is a wonderfully stylish film by Tourneur – who was a master at this sort of B horror film. Like most of Lewton’s films, we are not quite sure what to make of the supernatural elements of the story – they are treated with ambigiuity. The film is not really a zombie film at all, but rather a look at the culture on the Caribbean island itself – with its depiction of voodoo and the troubles of the descendents of slaves. The film is brilliant – and proof that sometimes B movies can be every bit as good as A movies.

7. Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Day of Wrath is a deeply spiritural, that is brilliantly shot, and well told. A young woman, married to an older man, falls in love with his son, who is just slightly older than she is. She is rapturous at their new found love, but he is much less so – being dragged down by the guilt of his sin. Her husband is convinced that he is being punished, be he had just overseen the death of an older woman who had been accused of witchcraft – who placed a hex on him before she was sent to die. His mother hates his new wife, and finds any excuse she can to make it well known. Like all of Dreyer’s films, Day of Wrath is a very serious affair – one that takes religious extremism very seriously, as the weight of the guilt that the son feels finally overpowers him. The film is also about the blatant sexism in society during the period (it takes place in the 1600s). The son views himself as a good man, so the only explanation for his sin, must be the young wife – who was just exploring her sexuality, and for the first time felt free – must be a witch who hexed him. Day of Wrath is more of a film to admire than one to whole heartedly embrace, but it is still a masterfully well made movie. Would it be wrong of me to say that I prefer this to Dreyer’s much more highly acclaimed Ordet, which is also masterful, but not quite this emotionally devastating.

6. Le Corbeau (Henri Georges Clouzot)
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Corbeau was a huge hit in France when it was released in 1943, but after liberation, the film, and the filmmaker were banned. It was perceived as being anti-French, and since it was produced by a German company, this made it doubly suspicious. But all these years later when one looks at Le Corbeau, what emerges is a strongly anti-fascist, anti-right wing movie. The film centers on a small town in France, where virtually everyone starts to receive letters that are signed only by Le Corbeau (The Raven). The letters cast disparaging remarks onto the town’s doctor – who is said to be having an affair, lying to patients and committing abortions. The town grows increasingly paranoid at these letters, and the secrets they reveal. Although the film is a whodunit, the identity of the letter writer is really beside the point – it is about the damage the letters do to the town, which is threatens to destroy. Clouzot is one of the underrated masters of the French cinema, and this is one of his best films.

5. The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
The second of two Val Lewton produced horror films on this list, The Seventh Victim is one of my favorites from the famed horror producer. The film is an excellent film about a young woman (Kim Hunter) who goes searching for her sister when she apparently disappears. The search leads her to a Satanic cult where her sister was a member. The film is daring in a number of ways. There is a certain homoerotic tension between the sister (Jean Brooks) and another woman in the film – which may help explain some of Brooks actions – including her shocking final suicide, something that was also frowned upon at the time. You could read the film as anti-feminist if you want – Hunter is a good girl, who loves children, whereas her doomed sister is more worldly and indepedant – but it doesn’t really matter. The Seventh Victim is a wonderful atmospheric film, with shocking twists and turns. It is one of the best films that Lewton ever produced – and perhaps the best film that Mark Robson ever directed.

4. The Ox Bow Incident (William A. Wellman)
William A. Wellman doesn’t seem to get too much respect these days, despite having a very long and successful career in the studio era – spanning silent and sound films. In my mind, The Ox Bow Incident is the finest film he ever directed. The film is about the danger of mob rule, as a posse is formed to catch three suspected cattle rustlers and murderers. When the posse catches up to the men they think are guilty, they become leary about arresting them and bringing them back from trial. The courts could let them go. They take a vote – and only a few (including Henry Fonda) want to bring them back alive – the rest want to hang them. The film is a powerful indictment of the behavior of the men, who leap to judgement with little or no proof, and ends with a heart wrenching climax. Well acted, directed and written, The Ox Bow Incident is a great studio era Western.

3. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
Powell and Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of the great movies ever made about life in the military. The film recounts the times of Clive Candy (Roger Livesey), a British officer who fights in the Boer War, WWI and is finally a General during WWII, where he has become old, and fears he is no longer respected or needed. The film uses Candy as a metaphor for how modern warfare changed over the 40 year period – it used to be for gentlemen who played by a certain set of rules, but by WWII, all the rules had gone out the window. Livesey is great in the lead role, going from an arrogant young officier, into a kindly old man still steadfastly believing in right and wrong. He is more than ably supported by Deborah Kerr – in three roles, as Candy was in love with the first one, than spent his life getting surrogates – and especially Anton Walbrook, who is amazing as his German friend who doesn’t like what has happened to his country. The film is brilliantly photographed in vibrant Technicolor, and although it is nearly three hours long, it never drags. Apparently the British government didn’t approve of the film – it wasn’t as uplifting or patriotic as something like Mrs. Miniver – but it is 10 times better, more honest, more true. It took guts for Powell & Pressbiurger to make this film in 1943 – and that is one of the reason why it is a masterpiece – perhaps the best film the duo ever made.

2. Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
Hitchcock often referred to Shadow of a Doubt as his personal favorite of his own movies – and although I don’t quite agree that it’s his best, it is certainly one of his masterpieces. A bored teenager living in suburbia (Teresa Wright) is thrilled when her beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton) comes to town for a visit – not knowing until it is too late that Charlie is a serial killer. Wright is wonderful in the role of the teenager who is torn between doing the right thing, and staying loyal to her family. Cotton is even better as Charlie, an outwardly nice guy, who harbors a cold soul underneath. Masterfully directed by Hitchcock, the films depiction of the darkness that lurks in suburbia would inspire such filmmakers as David Lynch (Blue Velvet) and Sam Mendes (American Beauty). The film certainly ranks among Hitchcock’s best.

1. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)
Truly, how could I possibly select anything other than Casablanca this year? Not only is it among the most popular Hollywood films ever made, it also served (along with Citizen Kane and a number of Marx brothers movies) as my introduction to classic cinema. I remember watching it around the age of 10 and being completely absorbed in it. And every time I watch it again, I remain completely absorbed by it. Humphrey Bogart gives one of the greatest screen performances of all time as Rick – the cynic who loses the girl that he loves, but finds his way back to humanity again. Ingrid Bergman has never been more beautiful than she is here. Claude Rains is perfect as the corrupt cop, and Paul Henrid even does fine work as the morally outright man. Curtiz was a journeyman director, but one of the most talented in screen history – and he the cinematography in this is among the best of all the black and white films. This is, in short, one of my absolute favorite movies of all time.

Just Missed the Top 10: The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur), For Whom the Bells Toll, Hangmen Also Die (Fritz Lang), Watch on the Rhine (Herman Schulmin).

Notable Films Missed: Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren), Fires Were Started (Humphrey Jennings), Douce (Claude Autant-Lara), The Human Comedy (Clarence Brown), In Which We Serve (Noel Coward & David Lean), Madame Curie (Mervyn LeRoy), The Song of Bernadette (Henry King).

Oscar Winner – Picture & Director: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)
I am duly impressed that the Academy picked this seemingly lightweight film over the more “substantial” and “important” movies they could have picked. In doing so they picked one of the most timeless, enduring classics in movie history. Good job.

Oscar Winner – Actor: Paul Lukas, Watch on the Rhine
Paul Lukas was given the role of his career in Watch on the Rhine – as a Good German hiding out in America for a little while before having to go back and work against the Nazis. Lukas is very good in his every scene. The problem for me is the movie itself shows too much of its stage roots – there are far too many times when the action stops so that Lukas can make a speech and it drags the movie to a halt. Lukas is better than the movie, but still I would have voted for Bogart – and think that Roger Livesey deserved a nomination as well.

Oscar Winner – Actress: Jennifer Jones, The Song of Bernadette.
I really did try to watch this film once – but the VHS copy I got for the library didn’t work, so I took it as a sign that I shouldn’t watch it. I will get to it someday I swear – I do love Jennifer Jones – but a three hour movie about a virtuous nun really doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, does it? Out of the nominees, I loved Jean Arthur and Ingrid Bergman – even if they stupidly nominated her for Whom the Bell Tolls and not Casablanca. I will also say that I thought Teresa Wright was brilliant in Shadow of a Doubt, as was Kim Hunter in The Seventh Victim – the later being all the more impressive since it was her first role!

Oscar Winner – Supporting Actor: Charles Coburn, The More the Merrier.
Coburn is very good in the role – funny and heartfelt – but really in a year where they nominated Claude Rains for his great work in Casablanca, and could have nominated Joseph Cotton for Shadow of a Doubt and Anton Walbrook for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Coburn is just nowhere near good enough.

Oscar Winner – Supporting Actress: Katina Paxinou, For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Katin Paxinou is one of my favorite parts of the often heavy handed (yet still entertaining) For Whom the Bell Tolls, and considering it wasn’t a particularly strong year, I guess she deserved to win. My vote would have gone to the triple role of newcomer Deborah Kerr for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, where she expertly played three different characters – but they didn’t nominate her, so what the hell.

Helter Skelter: Two Movies

Helter Skelter (1976) ***
Directed by: Tom Gries
Written By: J.P. Miller based on the book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry.
Starring: George DiCenzo (Vincent Bugliosi), Steve Railsback (Charles Manson), Nancy Wolfe (Susan Atkins), Marilyn Burns (Linda Kasabian), Christina Hart (Patricia Krenwinkel), Cathey Paine (Leslie Van Houten), Alan Oppenheimer (Aaron Stovitz), Rudy Ramos (Danny DeCarlo), Bill Durkin (Tex Watson), Howard Caine (Everett Scoville), Jason Ronard (Paul Watkins), Skip Homeier (Judge Older).

Helter Skelter (2004) *** ½
Directed by: John Gray
Written By: John Gray based on the book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry.
Starring: Jeremy Davies (Charles Manson), Clea DuVall (Linda Kasabian), Marguerite Moreau (Susan 'Sadie' Atkins), Eric Dane (Charles "Tex" Watson), Allison Smith (Patricia 'Katie' Krenwinkle), Bruno Kirby (Vincent Bugliosi), Catherine Wadkins (Leslie Van Houten), Mary Lynn Rajskub (Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme), Marek Probosz (Roman Polanski).

Despite my love of true crime books, up until a few weeks ago I had never read what is apparently the bestselling book of all time in the genre – Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry Helter Skelter, which was about Bugliosi who was the lead prosecutor in the Charles Manson case. I’m not sure why I had never read the book – perhaps the sheer length of the book was intimidating, or perhaps I didn’t think I’d be very interested in a book about a drug fueled cult who killed people. But when I did actually pick the book up a few weeks ago, I was enthralled by it. It truly is one of the best true crime book in history, and offered remarkable insight not only into the trial of Charles Manson, but the inner workings of his sick mind. When I was finished, I thought I’d check out the two TV movies based on the book – the first in 1976 and the second in 2004. While I thought that both films were good, they were also both incomplete, but surprisingly, to me at least, I found the more recent of the two to be the better movie – mainly because in Jeremy Davies performance as Manson you have one of the best portrayals of pure evil I have ever seen on film.

The 1976 version, directed by Tom Gries, sticks pretty much to the outline of the book – opening with the murders, moving on through the investigation, the arrest and how Bugliosi built the case against Manson and his co-defendants – Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and the absent Charles “Tex” Watson (who would be tried separately). It doesn’t present the murders in any detail until Linda Kasabian takes the stand and describes them. Gries favors a almost Dragnet style “Just the Facts ma’am” approach to the film. At times though, I found that Gries was trying to cram too much into a single movie – especially since at times, he seemed to be rushing through things. For example, in the book Bugliosi spends a lot of time complaining about Manson’s lawyer, Everett Scoville, who objected to nearly everything and slowed the whole trial down considerably, driving everyone crazy. This eventually leads to one of the other defendant’s lawyers apologizing to Bugliosi as he admits that it was his idea to hire him in the first place. In the book, this is well played out, in the movie it rushes by so quickly that it barely registers – better to leave it out entirely, if you’re not going to deal with it full (especially since they rushed through the part where Manson held up the paper with the headline about how Nixon declared Manson guilty even before the trial was over). Gries in a rush to get everything in, does a disservice to what he leaves there, by not fully exploring it.

The bigger problem to me though in the original film is the performance by Steve Railsback as Manson. Railsback plays Manson as almost completely bonkers – smiling, laughing, singing and looking goofy the whole time staring off into space (seriously, I don’t think I ever once saw him blink in the course of the movie). It’s hard to believe this Manson as the same man who was able to brainwash his followers into committing murder for him. There is one great moment that Railsback has in the film – when he takes the stand and delivers Manson’s infamous speech about how he didn’t make these kids killers – society did. Society threw them out with the trash, where Manson was just there to pick them up when they needed it. It is a haunting moment, and Railsback is up to the task. Another haunting moment is his final scene, with Manson in jail singing which sticks in my mind days later. No, I don’t think Railsback did a great job in playing the Manson we have come to know through Bugliosi’s book, and his infamous interviews with Charlie Rose, Tom Snyder and Geraldo Riveria – but then again, Railsback didn’t have the luxury of seeing those interviews before he delivered his performance (they were all done in the 1980s). I’m not saying that Railsback is bad in the movie – he certainly gives a memorable performance – just that it doesn’t quite relate to what we know about Manson.

However, despite the flaws in the film, there is a lot more than works as a whole than that doesn’t work. Nancy Wolfe gives a chilling performance as Susan Atkins, who matter of factly describes the crimes to the grand jury, all the while laughing and smirking and yawning. And George DiCenzo is excellent as Bugliosi (although I could have done without him addressing the camera directly at the beginning and end of the movie) as he shows Bugliosi’s commitment to bringing Manson and his followers to justice. Marilyn Burns is quite good as Linda Kasabian, the woman who was along on both nights of murder who testified against Manson at trial. The film also does an excellent job of showing the mounting evidence against Manson, and how the case was built piece by piece – making us accept the seemingly bizarre motive of Helter Skelter itself – that a war was coming between the blacks and whites, and the blacks would win, but once they did, they wouldn’t know what to do, so they’d turn to Manson and his family, the only white people left, and turn control over to them. Manson was just “showing blackie how it’s done”. Watching the film, I liked how it provided a good overview of the case, despite by disappointment that it wasn’t more detailed.

In 2004, John Gray wrote and directed another made for TV movie based on the book, but he took a distinctly different approach to the material – the trail is not dramatized at all in the film, but rather the film concentrates on life in the family itself, the murders and the arrest, and touches on how Bugliosi (this time played by Bruno Kirby) put the pieces of the puzzle together. But while Bugliosi was the main character in the previous film, he takes backseat in this movie – he doesn’t even show up until the last third of the movie. Until then, it is Manson’s show – and the performance by Jeremy Davies as Manson is one of the best in recent memory.

Unlike Railsback, Davies does not play Manson as outwardly insane and crazy. While I had trouble buying Railsback as the master manipulator Manson, I had no problem at all believing Davies. He is much quieter than Railsback was, inviting you in closer to hear what he says. In his hands, Manson is not an insane man, but a more evil one. You believe that this man could convince people to kill for him. There is something about Davies eyes that invite you in, and even though you see the evil in them, it never goes over the top. He is charming in a offbeat kind of way, able to control his followers with little more than a look and better grasps the circular logic than Manson used to get what he wanted. It is a performance that towers over the movie, and makes it much more disturbing than the original film. When he draws out his sword, in the films first scene, to slice Gary Hinnman’s ear off, you know you are entering Charlie’s world – and it isn’t a pretty place.

But Davies doesn’t deliver the films only great performance. Clea Duvall has almost as much screen time as he does as Linda Kasabian, and the film is just as much about her journey as it is about Manson’s. She arrives in the family a lost young woman – one child in hand, another on the way, estranged from her husband and her family and looking for answers. The Family seemingly provides a place for her to go and be herself. Charlie is interesting – he seems like a nice guy musician, but gradually she starts to see the darker side of the family, but by then she is in too deep to get herself out. She goes along on the nights of the murder because she doesn’t know how to say no.

Just like in the original film, the key supporting player in the movie is Susan Atkins – here played wonderfully by Marguerite Moreau. She seems to have studied Nancy Wolfe’s work in the original film, and captures that same look of bewilderment and cold hearted malice in her laughing, giggling performance as Atkins, who felt no remorse over what she did. It is a chilling performance.

This film, unlike the other one, really tries to get inside the shared insanity of the Family itself – showing its progression into an unfeeling, unthinking killing force, and watching how each character changes throughout the film. The final scene of the film is the most haunting, as Bugliosi goes to visit Manson in jail before the trail. In this version, this is when Manson delivers his speech about how society cast out his Family members and he merely dusted them off and gave them a sense of belonging and love. While this was the highlight of the previous film, and Railsback’s performance, Davies outdoes himself here – creating one of the most memorable and chilling moments that I can remember seeing in a film.

The 2004 version is to me anyway, the better of the two films – it is better made, better acted and has what is most likely the best performance any actor will ever give as Manson. And yet, something is holding it back from being a great film. Like the earlier film, it feels that there is something missing from it – and I think I know what it is in both cases.

Other than Atkins, the rest of the killers in the Manson family remain little more than ciphers in both films. Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel are barely present in both films, and there is no attempt to really get to understand either one of them. They remain the laughing, unfeeling monsters in both films – but no attempt is made to explain them, or what led them to Manson in the first place. At least Gray tries with Krenwinkel in the 2004 version, giving us a haunting scene where Krenwinkel’s father visits her in jail and asks her what he did wrong to make her turn out this way. Krenwinkel seems to be on the verge of breaking, but it is at that moment that Atkins and Van Houten skip past the interview room singing, and Krenwinkel leaves her heartbroken father to join them.

As for Van Houten, apparently John Waters had something to do with her role in the new version being almost completely written out of the film. He has become friends with Van Houten during her years in jail, and believes she should be paroled. When he found out a new version of the book was being made, he called Gray and asked him to be mindful of what his film would do to the public perception of Van Houten. The result is a portrait of Van Houten that even her biggest supporters would deem kind – she isn’t given any time to actually talk in the film, and during the LiBianca killings, the only ones Van Houten was involved, she is portrayed as being hesitant and only stabbing Rosemary LiBianca after she was dead, and only at the urging at Watson and Krenwinkel who pretty much force her to stab her.

The bigger problem in both of the films is that Watson remains a completely under considered character. I can barely recall him appearing in the 1976 version (because that focused on the trail of Manson, and Watson was still in Texas awaiting extradition at the time), and in the newer version, although he is given more screen time (and played by Eric Dane, who would go onto play McSteamy on Gray’s Anatomy), but again it remains a mystery as to how he was manipulated into killing for Manson. In both films, that is what is really missing – how precisely Manson manipulated his followers into killing for him, and what went through their minds while they were killing. Perhaps these are unanswerable questions – Bugliosi’s book only touches on it, and neither Atkins or Watson’s books (which are more about their conversion to Christianity than Manson) offered believable explanations, and Van Houten doesn’t talk about it much, and from what I can tell, Krenwinkel doesn’t talk about it at all. But in both films, it feels like this absence makes the films incomplete.

Another glaring omission from both movies (the 1976 version more than the 2004 version, since it looked at the trial in more detail), is that neither ever puts the Manson version of events on screen. After the quartet was found guilty, during the sentencing stage of the trial Atkins, Krenwinkel, Van Houten and a host of other Family members went on the stand and claimed that it was the girls, including Kasabian, who came up with the idea for the Tate and LiBianca killings saying that they wanted to do it to get Bobby Beausouliel (who had been convicted of killing Gary Hinnman) out of jail by making it look like the real killer was still on the loose. No one believes this story, and most of the witnesses have since recanted and admitted they had it all up, but it remains relevant, because as far as I know, this is the version of events Manson still claims is the truth. Why they, or he, didn’t testify during the guilt phase of the trial about this remains a mystery – as does Manson’s claim that he was never allowed to mount a defense. His lawyer was allowed – he just didn’t do it, and if Manson wanted to take the stand to do more than just make a statement without the jury present, then no one – not even his own lawyer, could have stopped him.

Perhaps it can all be explained by something as simple as time constraints. The 1976 version originally aired over two nights, and has a running time of 3 hours. The director’s cut of the 2004 version, which is slightly longer than the TV version, is already at 2 hours and 15 minutes – and that doesn’t even include any of the trail. I think in order to do the book properly, without skimping on anything, it needs to be a proper, epic miniseries running closer to 8-10 hours, and not three. Given the lackluster response to the 2004 version (for reasons that I do not understand), I doubt that this will ever happen. And because of that, a single definitive version of Helter Skelter may never be seen.

In the absence of one complete version, we have to look to the two films we do have – which in a strange way complement each other. The 2004 version gives an excellent glimpse into the Manson family, and everything that lead up to the murders, right up until the start of the trial. The 1976 version gives an excellent view of how the case against Manson was built, and how the trail played out. Yes, there is some overlap in the movies, but strangely, given that they were adapted from the same book, there are many more differences – not in fact or interpretation, but one what the directors choose to focus on.

What remains obvious, through watching these two films and reading the book, is that Manson still has the power to fascinate, and terrify people even though he has been in jail for more than 40 years now. It’s not just me who is still drawn to the case – go online and you can buy all sorts of posters and artwork of Manson, and even an action figure! There are still movies being made about him, TV specials about him and websites devoted to him. Charles Manson has had a greater impact on society than any American criminal of the 20th Century. Even if neither of these movies gives a complete picture of his life and crimes, for now anyway, they will have to suffice.

TV Movie Review: You Don't Know Jack

You Don’t Know Jack ****
Directed by: Barry Levinson
Written By: Adam Mazer.
Starring: Al Pacino (Dr. Jack Kevorkian), Danny Huston (Geoffrey Fieger), Susan Sarandon (Janet Good), John Goodman (Neal Nicol), Brenda Vaccaro (Margo Janus), Eric Lange (John Skrzynski), James Urbaniak (Jack Lessenberry), Danielle McKee (Dorothy Lessenberry).

There are many actors of Al Pacino’s age and stature who have simply grown bored and unambitious with their choices – Robert DeNiro and Gene Hackman come to mind. But Pacino has not yet given up – he seems to still hunger for great roles, and working with great directors, and is willing to go outside the normal channels to find these projects for himself. Yes, in the last decade Pacino has made some bad choices, but he has also made some great ones, and for the second time this decade he has gone to HBO (the first being his brilliant performance as Roy Cohn in Mike Nichols Angels in America) to find a role worthy of his talent. As Dr. Jack Kevorkian in Barry Levinson’s new film You Don’t Know Jack, Pacino is given one of the best roles of his late period – and he doesn’t let the opportunity pass.

Everyone knows who Jack Kevorkian is. The infamous “Dr. Death” helped over 130 terminally ill patients commit suicide in the 1990s. He had his medical license revoked and went on trail numerous times – being acquitted at each of them until his final one – and became the face and voice of the assisted suicide movement. To some he was a godsend, helping their loved ones end their suffering, but to others he was little more than one of the prolific serial killers of all time. The new HBO film You Don’t Know Jack looks behind the headlines at the man who felt driven to do what he did.

Kevorkian is not the most charming, charismatic or cheerful spokesperson that the Right to Die movement could have had. What he was, was the only doctor willing to do what he believed in, which was to help people end their suffering. When he first starts with his “suicide machine”, he knows that they will probably come after him and try and put him in jail for it, and he doesn’t care. He had already retired from his career as a pathologist, he never married, he has no kids, and other than his sister Margo (Brenda Vaccaro), he has no family. He doesn’t even have that much money – what the hell are they going to take away from him, other than his freedom, and he doesn’t care about that. Most of his family died in the Armenian Genocide, and then when he came to America, he had to watch his mother die a slow, painful death. He didn’t just do it in spite of the fact he knew that they would come after him – he did it precisely because he knew they would. His downfall would be because of this hubris – when he pushed things too far, believing himself to be invincible, and eventually forcing the prosecutors, who had long since stopped trying to convict him of anything, to go after him with everything they had.

Pacino carries the movie with his amazing performance. He confronts Kevorkian, with all his contradictions, his ego and his humanity, and creates one of the most memorable characters of the year out of him. It is easy to watch the film and not like Kevorkian very much, but you have to admire his moxie and commitment – not many people would be willing to do what he did knowing the potential consequences. Near the end of the movie, when it becomes clear that Kevorkian is in way over his head in his final trial – where, for the first time, he actually injected the patient himself, instead of letting them control the suicide machine, and he decides to represent himself, you cannot help but feel sorry for the poor bastard. By then, everyone except Kevorkian knows that he is screwed, but he keeps right on trying anyway.

But Pacino is not the only good performance in the film. Danny Huston is excellent as his longtime lawyer, who takes all of his cases pro bono – not out of kindness, but because he knows it will be a great way to make a name for himself, and he does. And yet, even you even like Huston, who does come to genuinely care about Kevorkian, and becomes increasingly frustrated during that final trial when he is kept on the outside. Susan Sarandon is quite good as well as a Right to Die advocate who comes to befriend Kevorkian – but will later need his services. John Goodman gives the type of performance he always does – that is supplying great support for the leads – never flashy, but always wonderful. Best of all is Brenda Vaccaro, given perhaps the best role of her career as Marjo, Kevorkian’s sister, and she carries her part well. While everyone else in the film likes Kevorkian, or at least what he stands for and what he can do for their cause, she is the only one who genuinely loves him – and stands by him no matter what happens. The supporting players who play Kevorkian’s “patients” and their families all feel genuine.

The film was directed by Barry Levinson – Oscar winner for Rain Man, who in the past few years has struggled to make a decent theatrical movie – failing with titles like Envy, Man of the Year and What Just Happened? Here though, he does a great job of staying out of the way of the story, and simply letting it unfold around us. He does some wonderful things with the “videos” the patients make, but generally he stays in the background – which is how it should work with this type of TV movie.

I am sure that the people who are opposed to Kevorkian and his views will not be happy with the film. It is rather one sided in its view, and doesn’t give much time or space for the arguments against assisted suicide, while it spends a lot of time arguing for it. Since I agree with assisted suicide (it seems to be that I have no right to tell people who are in pain and want to end their lives with dignity that they can’t), it didn’t bother me very much. Besides, the film does not paint Kevorkian as a saint or angel of mercy. It looks at him, flaws and all, and asks you to judge what he did based on his actions. Reasonable people can disagree on an issue as complex and fraught with legal and moral issues as assisted suicide. Hopefully everyone can watch You Don’t Know Jack with an open mind.

Movie Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street **
Directed by: Samuel Bayer
Written By: Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer based on the characters created by Wes Craven.
Starring: Jackie Earle Haley (Freddy Krueger), Kyle Gallner (Quentin O'Grady), Rooney Mara (Nancy Holbrook), Katie Cassidy (Kris Fowles), Thomas Dekker (Jesse Braun), Kellan Lutz (Dean Russell), Clancy Brown (Alan Smith), Connie Britton (Dr. Gwen Holbrook).

The idea behind A Nightmare on Elm Street is so simple, yet so terrifying, that there is a reason why the original still haunts and scares so many people. Unlike most of the slasher movies of the 1980s, A Nightmare on Elm Street was not about so hulking, faceless monster you just kept coming. Rather it was about a killer who got to you in the one place you can never escape – your sleep. You couldn’t outrun him, move away or chop off his head, because he existed only in your dreams, where there are no rules. Everyone sleeps, and no matter where or when you fell asleep, Freddy was right there. The original worked because Wes Craven took this idea, and crafted an incredibly scary movie out of it – creating characters that we liked that were more than just fodder for the killer to hack up in creative ways, but real people. In Freddy Krueger, he created one of the all time great horror movie villains, a sadistically funny madman with burns covering his face, a weird sweater and a fedora. Robert Englund ripped into the role with a glee that made him memorable, and the movie a success. Over the last 26 years, and countless sequels, Krueger has devolved from a murderer with a sadistic sense of humor, into a cackling clown who kills people – and there is a difference. So when they decided to reboot the franchise, they wisely decided to recast Krueger, rather than give the role back to Englund, who through no fault of his own had become stale in the role. Jackie Earle Haley does an admirable job as Freddy in this remake – it’s everything around him that doesn’t work.

The new movie pretty much follows the formula of the original. A group of high school kids start dreaming of a strange, burned man named Freddy. As the teens start dying one by one in their sleep, the remaining kids (in this case Nancy played by Rooney Mara and Quentin played by Kyle Gallner) try and find out the truth about what happened in their past, as their parents are being evasive about it, and they are starting to remember dark secrets. They hope if they can unravel the mystery, they can save themselves from Freddy.

The main problem with this new version of the movie is the writing. The teens being terrorized by Freddy are cookie cutter characters without any depth or emotion to them. I remember been drawn in by the performances of Heather Langenkamp and Johnny Depp in the original – they were not just lambs being lined up for the slaughter, but real people you were rooting for. If you root for these new versions at all, it’s simply because of human nature – you never really want to see someone get hacked up.

For his part, Jackie Earle Haley does as good of a job playing Freddy Krueger as I think is possible under these circumstances. The filmmakers wisely keep him in the shadows in the opening acts of the movie, making him an evil presence – all sadistic laugh, and fingers made out of knives, which he uses to great effect either by rubbing them together, or running them along the metal walls of his nightmare world. When the filmmakers do concentrate on him more in the final act, he becomes a little less menacing, and there are moments when he seems to be on the edge of going overboard into comedy, like in many of the later Nightmare movies, but he never quite does. No, this is not the iconic performance that Englund gave, but it’s a damn fine one.

The film is directed by Samuel Bayer, making his feature debut after spending years directing music videos. He doesn’t have the style, wit or imagination behind the camera that Craven has, but he knows how to craft a horror movie. Given that the screenplay is full of those “boo!” moments where people come out from behind something to scare the characters and the audience, he handles them well – as he does with the killings themselves, which are bloody, but never cross the line into torture porn like so many recent horror movies do. His film is also, it must be said, a marvel of production design, creating intricate, scary places for everything to occur – whether that’s Freddy lair, or the sterile, bright environment of a hospital. If you gave Bayer a better script, he’d probably make a better movie.

So where does this new A Nightmare on Elm Street fall in terms of the rash of remakes of classic horror films from the 1970s and 1980s fall in? Somewhere in the middle I would say. It is certainly more effective than the new Friday the 13th, but not as good as The Hills Have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, Last House on the Left, or either of Rob Zombie’s Halloween films. It is roughly equivalent of the new The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For fans of Freddy, I’m sure they will rejoice that their favorite killer is back, terrorizing an entirely new generation of kids. I just wish the filmmakers had had a little more imagination when making the film.