Halloween 2015 #1: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) - Robert Wiene

Okay turns out summer is a time for relaxation, so I took the summer off from seeing movies in the organized manner that I’ve done in the past, which led me to believe that I was off the hook from writing reviews. Some of my favorite movies I saw over past three months, however, have been Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), The Hours (2002), Nightcrawler (2014), and Thelma and Louise (1991). 

But now I had the crazy idea where instead of me coming up with just a random list of films to make my way through (which would actually be my sixth time doing that, which is insane!), I am doing a themed movie-cation list. In October! Can you guess the theme?

And what better way to start a scary movie-cation list with perhaps the first horror film of all time? The German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, released in 1920, marks the so-called beginning of the horror genre. It tells the story of a hypnotist, Dr. Caligari, who uses a somnambulist (which is apparently a sleepwalker, like everyone knows what that word means?) to commit murders in the small village of Holstenwall. Dr. Caligari brings his spectacle to the town fair, where our protagonist, Francis, and his friend, Alan, first witness the bewitching gaze of the sleepwalker, Cesare. 

Scary, right? Well, Alan makes horror movie mistake #1, and asks Cesare how long he’s going to live, to which Cesare replies, “Until dawn.” Cue murder!

Also this awesome shot of their shadows. Who knew shadows could be so scary? I picture people in audiences fainting left and right, as they were wont to do in the 1920s. 

Those Germans really knew fear. The writers of the film, Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, have actually stated that the film is a metaphor for the German people’s penchant for dictators, and how they are easily seduced by a powerful leader into becoming mindless drones for world domination. Both the writers were pacifists who were distrustful of the German government after World War I, so the character of Cesare represents the German people who are forced to carry out acts of violence in the name of a mad authority figure. 

He reminds me of Peter Pettigrew. 

But there’s a lot of stuff going on in this film besides the subtext that is really impressive. First, the set design feels like it took a page of out Tim Burton’s book… well… okay never mind.

I’m not sure why this gif is sped up, but you can get a sense of the shadows and jagged shapes that make up this spooky visual style.

Also cool to note is that the film features a frame tale, an incredible precedent for the medium of film, despite having been around for centuries in literature (including one of the first horror books of all time, Frankenstein). In it, Francis tells an old man how he had to leave his hometown with his fiancée (the woman in the first gif), but they are still haunted by the events that took place in Holstenwall. 

The twist ending actually contradicts this setup, which leaves the viewer questioning the validity of any of the storylines. Who can we trust if not our protagonist!? Is anyone safe from the psychological damage brought on by World War I? Spooky stuff.

I have a list of about fifteen or so classic horror films that I will see for the first time this month, so follow along as I try not to give myself nightmares until Christmas.

Spring 2015 #16: High Noon (1952) - Fred Zinnemann

 A Western?! How many of these are there? 

On the bright side, this is the shortest Western I’ve ever heard of, at 84 minutes. It also flips the genre on its head by happening in real time, in one town, and without any chase scenes. Crazy right?

Oh yeah and Grace Kelly plays a Quaker!

Okay, so now that you’re probably down for this “barely longer than an episode of Game of Thrones” feature film, here’s what it’s about. High Noon tells the story of Will Kane (Gary Cooper), as he is about to leave for his honeymoon, when he learns that an old enemy of his, Frank Miller, is coming in to town on the noon train and wants to kill him. Apparently Kane tried to get Miller hanged for his crimes but he was released on a technicality. The whole town is mad at Kane for this and now no one wants to help him. 

Especially not his pacifist wife, Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly). They get married in the first scene, and Kane is about to give up his job as the town marshal forever, until he learns of the return of his rival.

And the entire movie takes place between about 11 and 12:15! Kane runs from the saloon to the church to his ex-girlfriend to his successor as town marshal, and no one wants to help him out. Either because they believe Miller should kill him for letting him get away, or because they are mad at Kane for coming back when he had just given up his position as marshal.

The film culminates in Miller’s arrival, and the two battle it out for good old-fashioned patriarchal supremacy. But don’t expect only the guys to have all the fun! Kane’s (and also Miller’s) ex-girlfriend, Helen Ramirez, is a total badass, and also Mexican! (Even the actress, Katy Jurado, is Mexican!) The film takes place in New Mexico Territory.

High Noon went on to win four Oscars, including one for Gary Cooper. It ranks at #211 on the IMDb Top 250 and #27 on AFI’s 100 Films.

Spring 2015 #15: Modern Times (1936) - Charlie Chaplin

I can feel summer coming, but I still have two films left after this one for some reason! So here were are, back in the Silent Film Era… although not really because the first talkie came out in 1927. How did Charlie adapt?!

Well, apparently, he originally wrote a full script for the film, but abandoned it when he realized that his lovable “tramp” character just didn’t work when he spoke.

Modern Times works both as a slapstick comedy (one of Chaplin’s most revered) and as a biting commentary on the abuse of the working class due to industrialization during The Great Depression.

Here, A Factory Worker’s boss orders him to stop smoking on his break. The boss has cameras watching every worker at all times, and Chaplin’s character just isn’t cut out for that regimented work ethic.

After an awesome scene where he gets sucked into a machine, he begins to have a mental breakdown.

Chaplin ends up getting arrested, where he meets the down-on-her-luck orphan girl with a knack for petty theft.

She even looks fierce stealing a banana. The character, “the Gamin,” is played by famous actress Paulette Goddard. 

Chaplin also goes through a series of mishaps where he is mistaken for a union leader. The film offers a pretty dark depiction on the way the organization of laborers were treated.

But it’s easy to watch the film for what it is, a silly comedy about two lovable misfits falling for each other.

There’s also a great scene where Chaplin’s boss tests out a device that can eliminate the lunch breaks of his workers by mechanically feeding them.

Not sure how he could continue working during this, but okay.

The film culminates in A Factory Worker and A Gamin getting jobs as performing waiters, and Chaplin’s voice is actually heard for the first time ever in a film when he sings a gibberish version of Léo Daniderff’s “Je cherche après Titine.”

Modern Times is all good fun, and it is certainly one of the greatest hits from the king of the Silent Era. The IMDb Top 250 lists it at #39, while the AFI 100 Films puts it at #78. At only 89 minutes, it’s a nice little retreat back to the days of economic despair and abusive factory conditions.

Spring 2015 #9: Trainspotting (1996) - Danny Boyle

This Movie Bucketlist list is my longest that I’ve done so far, although it’s basically just every movie that’s on my Watchlist and on Netflix. Trainspotting has been recommended to me on Netflix for years, and at 94 minutes it’s a cake walk compared to some of my other films.

Ewan McGregor stars as Renton in this British dark comedy drama about a group of heroin addicts living on the fringe of society. They are con artists, burglars, and drug dealers trying to get by, constantly forcing us to question the habits of both established society as well as counterculture. 

The film opens with Renton trying to cut himself off from heroine, locking himself in a hotel room and preparing for the worst. This plan eventually fails, and he becomes entangled with a teenage school girl named Diana, played by Kelly MacDonald (the voice of Merida in Brave).

Renton and his friends enjoy their vices, and regularly get themselves in trouble trying to get them. When Renton is caught stealing from a bookstore, he enters a drug rehabilitation program to avoid jail time and ends up locked in his childhood bedroom and forced to experience all of the withdrawal symptoms. But it actually works!

Renton moves to London, but his criminally-inclined friends follow him there and things get a little crazy.

The story is certainly dark, with HIV plots, death, and serious explorations of the difficulties of drug addition. Renton reiterates that he wants to be a “good person,” but his situation and even his decisions rarely reinforce that attitude. He straddles the line between staying loyal to his friends and keeping himself safe from destructive behaviors. 

The style of the film is also very entertaining, regularly dipping into the surreal in order to uniquely portray the absurd lifestyle of a heroin addict.

The film is worth a watch, as many people consider it to be one of the greatest Scottish films of all time (and yes, it is incredibly difficult to understand what the characters are saying a majority of the time). The screenplay was nominated for an Oscar, and IMDb 250 ranks it at #156. It was also directed by Danny Boyle, who went on to win the Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire.

Spring 2015 #8: Oldboy (2003) - Park Chan-wook

I’m sort of procrastinating this review because this is one of those movies that you see once and then never want to think about again. And it’s still amazing. For real.

So a businessman named Oh Dae-su is randomly kidnapped one day after being rescued from the police station (for drunkenness?) by his best friend. He remains in a small room for 15 years without a single person telling him why, and then one day, he is released without explanation. And he is NOT happy.

He soon meets a girl, Mi-do, and starts living with her while he tracks down his captor. After Oh Dae-su finds the man who imprisoned him, Lee Woo-jin, he is given the choice between finding out the truth of why he was imprisoned or killing him right then. Lee Woo-jin is a rich businessman and a scary dude.

The search for answers leads Oh Dae-su down a horrifying path from which he can never return (or can he?). There are crazy fighting sequences, including one that took three days to film and is one amazing continuous take.

Excuse the bad gif quality.

The film kind of reminded me of Kill Bill a little, since it’s a revenge story and Kill Bill is inspired by samurai films, and Oldboy is based on the Japanese manga of the same name, despite it being a South Korean film. But Oldboy is much richer in complexity and much more horrifying in the reveal.

The tone is incredibly dark but also very twisted, as things like hypnosis and incest start to enter the plot. Also Oh Dae-Su eats a live octopus… which the actor really did.

Also the ending is intentionally ambiguous and terrifying and left me in shock for at least an hour after the film ended.

The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, and is now #70 on the IMDb Top 250.

Spring 2015 #5: Cinema Paradiso (1988) - Giuseppe Tornatore

Italian movies! I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve seen an Italian movie, maybe even since I saw Bicycle Thieves three years ago in Intro to Cinema. For all the French movies I’ve seen, my Italian movie knowledge is pitiful.

But oh my god movies about movies! My favorite kind of movies. On my Spring 2015 Film Bucketlist, the film in this spot was actually originally the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, but the list was modified to be my first Netflix-only Moviecation List because of accessibility problems.

So the film is about a filmmaker named Salvatore Di Vita, who is living in Rome when he hears that his childhood mentor and friend, a projectionist named Alfredo, has died. Suddenly we are following the childhood and adolescence of Salvatore, nicknamed Totò, in the small town of Giancaldo, Sicily.

Right from the get-go, Totò is a boisterous film fanatic, which we see juxtaposed with his boring duties as a church altar boy. When the priest sits down in the town’s theater to censor all of the kissing, which he calls “pornography,” from the week’s movies, Totò sneaks into the projection room and heckles Alfredo into giving him the kissing frames.

Alfredo seems to be Totò’s only friend, and vice-versa, which thankfully never gets into creepy territory as the two of them just truly love films. Eventually, Totò becomes the official projectionist of the Cinema Paradiso, and we flash forward to the 1950s, when Totò is in high school.

And now Totò has a love interest in the beautiful Elena. But then later, Totò eventually leaves his tiny village behind for the big world of Rome, and has not returned since.

The film deals with growing up, romance, and fate. It’s a coming of age film AND a film about films!? It literally couldn’t be more aligned with my interests.

The actor who plays young Totò is fantastic, and seeing him interact with the adults in his life is such a treat.

The ending is also incredibly touching and sweet.

Cinema Paradiso is an endearing story about growing up and leaving your home behind. Sometimes I felt like it was missing a little something, which makes sense because the director’s cut is 173 minutes, IMDb lists it at 155 minutes, and the Netflix version is 124 minutes… so I’m not sure what’s happening there?

But I still very much enjoyed the film. It ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, as well as FIVE BAFTAS, including Best Supporting Actor for the young Totò!

Cinema Paradiso is #56 in the IMDb Top 250, and is not on the AFI 100 Films list because it is not an American film!

Fall 2014 #16: All About Eve (1950) - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I did it!! Oh god it feels good to finish a film bucketlist, because it means I get to make a new one!

The last film on my list is Best Picture Winner All About Eve. The story was originally a true anecdote told by actress Elisabeth Bergner, then written as a short story by Mary Orr, and finally written for the screen and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It tells the story of Eve Harrington, a renowned Broadway actress winning a fictitious theatre award, and how she climbed the social ladder to achieve her dream of fame and fortune.

After seeing Eve receiving her award, the story flashes back to the day the main characters meet Eve Harrington. She has spent weeks seeing every performance of the famous Broadway actress Margo Channing, and now the writer’s wife, Karen Richards, wants to introduce Eve to her idol.

The incomparable Bette Davis plays the egomaniac diva, Margo Channing. An aging Broadway actress, Margo is constantly obsessing over how others perceive her and how she’s going to remain in the spotlight. To her, Eve is an innocent little nobody who is in for a rude awakening in the theatre world she so desires to be a part of. So Margo takes Eve under her wing, making her her assistant, agent, secretary, and friend.

But things take a turn! I don’t want to give away too much, but the film is an entertaining look at the relationships between women in the workforce, how building one up means tearing another down, and how theatre is especially designed for this ruthless competition.

Margo’s obsession with age is constant, as she eventually reveals herself to have recently turned forty, while her boyfriend (who is also her director) is only 32. Her bombastic attitude and abrasive reaction to everything relating to her persona is at its peak when Eve starts to encroach on both her professional and personal lives.

Also every scene where Margo is drinking is amazing. But the film is also a lot deeper than its story about theatre prima donnas and the malevolent critics who make or break them. Its release less than a decade after World War II has created for some incredibly interesting interpretations on what it means to be a woman in America.

Many have argued that Eve’s invasion of everything Margo holds dear is a metaphor for the attack on traditional American values: women trying to assume agency in a patriarchal society, homosexuality encroaching on traditional heteronormative values, COMMUNISM! It’s all hinted at with the audience being left to decide which side they support. 

I don’t know what to make of the LGBT reading of the film, since in 1950 any vaguely homosexual character is innately the antagonistic force in the story, while Eve to me is more of the generic woman trying to conquer an extremely unwelcoming and sexist industry.

Speaking of female empowerment! Marilyn Monroe appears about halfway into the film for no reason.

I’m going to be completely honest and say that I have never once seen a film with Marilyn Monroe in it… which is saying something since I’ve seen every episode of Smash!

But I was actually shocked at how much Marilyn shines on camera. Like it’s unthinkable that someone could steal a scene from Bette Davis, but I literally couldn’t take my eyes off her when she was on screen.

Iconic. Anyway the film is an impressive study on the power of theatre and performance in our lives, and how becoming the person we dream of being can mean sacrificing everything others believe about us. It almost reminded me of Birdman, the way it intertwined film and theatre and the way different walks of life view different types of artistic creation.

The film was nominated for a record fourteen Oscars (a feat not accomplished again until Titanic 47 years later. It won Best Picture, and is still the only film ever to have four actresses nominated. It currently is #98 on the IMDb Top 250 and #28 on the AFI 100 Films list. And that’s all folks! Stay tuned for my Summer 2015 Moviecation List!