Veronika Voss

A once prominent movie star (Rosel Zech) who earned her start under Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry becomes romantically involved with a reporter (Hilmar Thate) who suspects her neurologist (Annemarie Durringer) of keeping the faded actress under her influence through the use of morphine. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's reimagining of the tragic demise of German actress Sybille Schmitz (his death mirroring her own not long after the release of the film) is shot in brilliant black and white in a melodramatic almost campy mood yet of course with the darker undertones evoking Wilder's Sunset Blvd or even What Ever Happpened to Baby Jane. Zech and Thate are both superb.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Pink Floyd: The Wall

Set to music from Roger Waters' hugely popular classic rock album and featuring grotesque and unforgettable animation by Gerald Scarfe, The Wall tells the story of a rockstar in the midst of an overdose who looks back over his troubled life, including losing his father in the World War II, being browbeaten by his mother and an oppressive school system, and the fascistic sway he holds over his fans. Alan Parker's depressing and sensory overloading rendition of the material amounts to a powerful feature length music video.

*** 1/2 out of ****

The Executioner's Song

The Gary Gilmore story: a recently released ex-con (Tommy Lee Jones), who has spent more than half his life in prison mostly on robbery charges, is driven to murder when his significantly younger girlfriend (Rosanna Arquette) leaves him. Looking at an interminable stay on death row at a time when the country hadn't seen an execution in over a decade, he decides to fight for his right to die. Directed for television by Larry Schiller, who also figures prominently into and provided most of the material for Norman Mailer's expansive book on which the film is based, The Executioner's Song is hurt by its low budget, with key pieces missing, but the core is intact and young couldn't ask for a better performance from TLJ.

*** out ****

A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy

Near the turn of the 20th Century, a crackpot inventor (Woody Allen), his timid wife (Mary Steenburgen), her distinguished older cousin (Jose Ferrer), his much younger girlfriend (Mia Farrow), a hedonist doctor (Tony Roberts), and his forward thinking date (Julie Hagerty)gather for a weekend at an isolated countryside cabin where new romances bloom. Woody's riff on Smiles of a Summer Night is clunky (especially its conclusion) but still light, funny, and occasionally insightful. Roberts and Haggerty stand out in the ensemble.

*** out of ****

Flying Circus and the Python Films

It is difficult to describe the appeal of Monty Python, the irreverent and game changing British comedic troupe, when their irreverent material is as often inane and borderline unwatchable as it is uproarious. Nevertheless the appeal of the group, which consists of members John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and Terry Gilliam and began on the stage and continued on through television and film, is undeniable and their influence on comedy is immeasurable. Here is a brief rundown of their work:

Flying Circus ran on the BBC between 1969 and 1974 with a feature film titled with the group's favorite segue And Now for Something Completely Different sandwiched midway in its run which took the odd approach of refilming some of their greatest hits without of the presence of a studio audience, the result of which is strangely compelling. The series has many regrettable sketches and running gags, and I feel I should keep my opinion on Gilliam's animations to myself in fear of being shunned, but it is absolutely worth suffering the dreck to get to their best and most outrageous routines (or you could just watch them on YouTube---my favorite bit is Palin's bumbling Spanish Inquisitor).

The gang followed up the series with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, perhaps the most widely seen of their features and what I'd personally consider the best of the lot. This silly take on the Arthurian legend has many indelibly hysterical moments and only starts to come apart at the seams towards the very end.

The controversy generated by Life of Brian, which tells the tale of the child born a manger over from Christ, catapulted the Pythons to international superstardom, but the film offers easy and obvious satire, with belabored gags, and laughs that are few and far between (though those few present are hearty). Gilliam's direction does achieve great period look (though his influence beyond that is distracting) and Palin's Pontius Pilate is unforgettable. Casting Chapman in the lead serves as a great disappointment considering what is lost in the supporting roles.

Time Bandits is not officially a Python movie but it was directed by Gilliam who cowrote the script with Palin and features cameos from both Palin and Cleese. The fantastical and occasionally creepy children's story deals with a band of dwarves in possession of a time travel map who take a neglected youth on their marauding journey through history. The film again falls apart towards the end but the actors are likable and the proceedings are worthwhile for the hilarious cameos, which also include Ralph Richardson and Sean Connery. 

Next up was Live at the Hollywood Bowl, a live show converted to film and released theatrically which consists of old sketches and new that comes off quite well leaving you pondering if their material isn't best suited for the stage. 

Meaning of Life, which takes a surreal look into each of life's stages, is a sporadically funny feature which is hurt by dark and atypically heavy dosages of cynicism and vulgarity. The short film that opens the movie is a highlight and the "Every Sperm is Sacred" number is priceless.

In 2014, the Pythons returned for a live farewell show of sorts, Monty Python Live (Mostly), which featured an array of live performances, clips old and new, and a musical revue, all with the participation of the remaining and surprisingly capable troupe members, save Graham Chapman who is roundly toasted during the performance.

Blade Runner

In a bleak and not too distant future, the Blade Runner unit of the LAPD is charged with tracking down and “retiring” rogue replicants, or highly intelligent human cyborgs produced by an ignominious global corporation. When six of these androids escape from their transport and seek refuge in the city, tainted detective Richard Deckard (Harrison Ford) is assigned to the deadly case, never suspecting he’d fall for one their own (Sean Young) he meets along the trail. Bearing just a passing resemblance to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a triumph in set design and visuals, which alone justify the price of admission, even if the plot is uninvolving, the romantic subplot doesn’t bear much weight, and the film is as cold and lifeless as one of its cyborgs. The Ford performance is unlikable, awkward, and amateur, probably by design, and Rutger Hauer is frighteningly electric. Following the initial studio cut, which features putrid, dumbed down Phillip Marlowe like narration, the film went through several subsequentcuts, varying in different degrees, Scott’s final cut in 2007 probably being the most worthy of your time.

*** out of ****

Burden of Dreams

In the oppressive jungles of the Amazon, Les Blank’s documentary follows the tumultuous production of Fitzcarraldo which charts the travails of the film’s director Werner Herzog whose own obsessive behavior, which is worsened by heated disputes with his star Klaus Kinski, major technical problems, overages, and clashes with the natives, begins to mirror that of his own protagonist.

When asked why he shirks studio settings in favor of dangerous location shoots, Herzog often speaks to the magic of place and how it is enhanced on film. While I believe this to be true of Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, and many of his other works, it somehow fails to be realized here on Blank’s highly touted doc and may even take away from some of the mystery Herzog’s masterpiece. It also fails to capture the sensation achieved by Hearts of Darkness, the likewise jungle based Apocalypse now documentary to which it is often compared. Still a lot of good stuff here including film footage featuring Jason Robards and Mick Jagger (they both exited the picture after a short stint) and Herzog’s bombastic, humorous addresses to the camera.

*** out of ****

Fitzcarraldo

An entrepreneur (Klaus Kinski) with wild dreams of bringing opera to the jungle, searches the Andes for already depleted supplies of rubber during the early 20th Century boom. When it is reported that untapped acres of the plant exist on an navigable river, a river which is separated from the main waterway by only a few hundred meters at one point, the off-kiltered businessman hires scores of natives, devises a lever and pulley system, and determines to pull his ship over hill from one stream to the other. Notoriously filmed on location and unsimulated, Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo is a mesmerizing and arresting vision of madness with wide-eyed Kinski in one of his best collaborations with the director.

**** out of ****

Working

A parking attendant, secretary, fireman, telephone operator, millworker, housewife, truck driver truck driver, and more lend insights to the intricacies and monotonies of their individual occupations. From a flopped Stephen Schwartz Broadway musical and adapted from the Studs Terkel book, Working is a studio made for television adaptation which looses something in that approach. Some of the vignettes are brilliant, others are blah, and most of the songs are disposable, with the exception of the poignant "Millworker". Worth watching for a great sequence with Charles Durning and memorable spots by Scatman Crothers, Eileen Brennan, and James Taylor, who contributed a few songs to the production.

** 1/2 out of ****

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

An old nemesis (Ricardo Montalban) returning to exact vengeance and wreak havoc takes control of The Enterprise and seeks to commandeer a life generating entity to use for his own vile purposes. Following an ambiguous first outing they got it right the second time around. The Wrath of Khan features an intriguing story true to the series, with humanity imbued into into it which also offers exciting showdowns and Montalban as an excellent villain.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Fanny and Alexander

A lively family of actors gather at their mothers on Christmas Eve for a night of drunken revelry. Soon, the eldest brother and troupe leader expires on stage leaving his widow to remarry a tyrannical Lutheran bishop who removes her two children from their inspiring family household and subjects them to an austere, monastic form of living. Upon its release, Fanny and Alexander was announced as the final film of Ingmar Bergman and can be viewed as a vividly sumptuous summation of the director's work and life, who here presents a simple story functioning on a visceral level with brilliant staging, wonderful acting, and Sven Nykvist's unforgettable closeup cinematography.

**** out of ****

Deathtrap

A once great playwright (Michael Caine) is nursing his latest Broadway flop when he receives a script in the mail from an admirer and aspiring writer (Christopher Reeve) who hopes his idol will have the time to glance it over. In a flash of diabolical inspiration, he invites his devotee over in a plot to knock him off and present his play as his own. Working with screenwriter Jay Presson Allen, Sidney Lumet's adaptation of Ira Levin's twisty, popular stage production opens up well (perhaps too well) on the screen with a delicious first act followed by a belabored second. Caine, Reeve, and Dyan Cannon are all on point.

** 1/2 out of ****

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Revisiting Steven Spielberg's venerated masterpiece once more, I hearkened back to the days when the networks actually showed movies during primetime on Thanksgiving (this year the lineup consists of a football game, a Charlie Brown special, and an episode of Glee). As a youngster, I was mesmerized by the spectacular special effects and was drawn into an intelligent story that didn't condescend to my age group. Watching E.T. again, it is remarkable how much empathy is still generated by the Henry Thomas performance and that of an automated puppet, and how much of that same sense of wonder and even some of the more painful, fearful feelings (when E.T. is sick) are retained.

Diner

In 1959, a group of college aged friends (Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Tim Daly, Paul Reiser) return home to Baltimore for a wedding and engage in a series of last ditch antics to stave off their already onset foray into adulthood. Barry Levinson's autobiographical Diner is an unworthy American Graffiti knockoff. It features contrived situations and irritating dialogue, and I'd be interested to hear of a film with a more smarmy, less likable cast.

My Favorite Year

An over-the-hill, swashbuckling star of the silver screen of decades yore is slated to appear on the popular King Kaiser Show (great title), and shows up for rehearsals late, drunk, and chasing every woman in sight. When show execs panic and decide to go with option B, a young staff member promises to look after the old rascal and deliver him, sober and promptly, to the taping. Richard Benjamin's "My Favorite Year" is based on Mel Brooks' reminiscence of an infamous Errol  Flynn  appearance on the Sid Caesar show which, despite a great set-up and a riotous ending, come off like someone doing a cheap Brooks riff. Unsurprisingly, the only redeemable element of the story is Peter O'Toole, who delivers a hearty and intensely likable performance as the bawdy actor. The rest of the cast is absolutely stagnant, engaging in extremely broad comedy that mostly comes off as unfunny.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

An exiled barber returns home to London to seek revenge on the malevolent judge who stole his family. After forming a partnership with a wicked pie maker, he resumes business above her shop and sets to carry out his evil plan.  "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is an excellent and macabre rendering of Hugh Wheeler's book, made palatable for the stage by Chtistopher Bond and featuring the deliciously deviant lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. The movie is a filming of the Tony Award winning play in 1982 featuring the original cast. In the leads, George Hearn and especially Angela Lansbury are quite spectacular in whirlwind performances. Along with the rest of a uniformly excellent cast, Hearn and Lansbury sing and dance to fun and often shocking material. Comparing the play to Tim Burton's excellent 2007 film rendition, it is quite a wonder to note how different their performances are from that of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.  "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is a delightfully debauched play and my only complaint is that I didn't watch it performed live.

Victor Victoria

A starving singer in Paris (Julie Andrews) is taken in by a homosexual stage performer (Robert Preston) who saw her audition and believes she has what it takes to be a big star, if only she had a gimmick. Deciding to take the drag act a step further, Victoria will become Victor, a "man" impersonating a woman. Soon her act is the toast of the town, and Victoria will soon draw the curiosity of a Chicago gangster (James Garner) who can't understand the strong feelings he holds for the male performer on the stage! "Victor Victoria" is an outrageous movie that is given an improper treatment. Director Blake Edwards, husband of Julie Andrews, brings the same broad slapstick farcical elements he did to his "Pink Panther" movies and creates the wrong, often embarrassing and unfunny, tone needed for this picture. The main conceit, a woman playing a man playing a woman, is too difficult to believe and although Andrews is earnest in the part, the gimmick is just too distracting. I took pleasure in this film by admiring the supporting performances. Preston is excellent as Andrew's wisecracking homosexual partner and Garner is very strong as the gangster whose tough veneer is only a mask. Lesley Ann Warren and Alex Karras (Mongo from "Blazing Saddles") highlight the film as Garner's mistress and closeted bodyguard. "Victor Victoria" is actually a fun film. I just found myself shaking my head once too often at gags that didn't come off and pondering how much better it could have been.

The Verdict

Frank Galvin is a washed up attorney with a failing private practice who spends his time handing out his business card at funerals and playing pinball while getting drunk at the local watering hole. One day, his old partner does him a favor and throws him a case involving a young woman who was incorrectly administered anesthesia at the Diocesan of Boston hospital and now lies in a vegetative state. Visiting the woman in order to take photographs to secure an easy settlement, Frank is moved by the woman's condition and sees in this case a chance to redeem both her life and his own. "The Verdict" is a remarkable courtroom drama made strong by a triumvirate of artists. For Paul Newman, his work as the alcoholic Galvin represents the finest in a career of illustrious roles. He inhabits the role of a desperate and passionate man, and his final appeal to the jury is truly excellent. The unsung director Sidney Lumet demonstrates his prowess as well, impeccably capturing the city of Boston and finding just the right tone, angles, and colors to tell his story. This also represents a great early film credit of playwright David Mamet who received an Oscar nomination for penning the screenplay. Additionally, the supporting cast is top notch as well which includes James Mason as the ferocious defense attorney for the Catholic diocese, Jack Warden as Newman's long suffering law partner, and Charlotte Rampling whose role is slightly flimsy, but is excellent nonetheless as a woman who figures into Newman's life. "The Verdict" can be seen as a top notch cast and crew giving their best work to a stellar, intelligent courtroom drama that avoids the trappings of the genre.

Poltergeist

In a cookie cutter suburban California development, a seemingly normal family is sleeping when a little girl is drawn out of her bed to the television, which she remains glued to until her parents put her back to sleep. The next night she is summoned in the same way and gives the famous announcement: "They're here". After this point it is clear the house is haunted, but the specters appear playful as they rearrange chairs in the kitchen and slide items across the linoleum. However, their disposition rapidly changes and young Carol Ann is sucked into another dimension. A local psychologist is summoned but she soon realizes the task is too much for her to take on. As the mystery of the haunting is revealed, an exorcist is called in to hopefully retrieve the young girl before she is gone forever. "Poltergeist" was produced by Steven Spielberg from one of his stories and is set in the same kind of suburb as E.T. (which was released around the same time), this time revealing a more sinister side. Directed by Tobe Hooper, who was known for far more gory horror films such as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", this is a nice use of cheesy special effects and shock moments, which are achieved mostly through misdirection. I respond much more to a film like this than I do to say "The Evil Dead" which is more concerned with schlock and crappy fx whereas here we have well thought out characters and nice scare moments. As the parents, JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson give the movie weight during times when the effects border on the laughable and cartoonish. I was surprised how influential the movie is as well, now seeing how many have used elements from this film, particularly the recent "Insidious" which is a direct ripoff. "Poltergeist" achieves the fundamental goal of a horror movie by providing scares and does something more through good filmmaking and by providing well flesh out characters.

The Thing

A Husky runs into an American outpost in remote Antarctica, being chased by Norwegians in a helicopter attempting to shoot it. At the chopper lands, one man accidentally drops a grenade, blowing up himself and the craft while another pursues the dog. After he wounds one of the Americans, he is shot dead and two of the Americans, a pilot and the doctor decide to check out the Norwegian's camp after the suspicious happenings. There they find a the post in ruins along with burned bodies, a frozen man with his throat slit, and an open coffin like apparatchiks. When they return to base, they discover the real reason those men were trying to kill the dog, and a battle begins between not only the men and the deadly shape shifting creature but also amongst the men themselves. John Carpenter's The Thing is based on John W. Campbell Jr.'s novel Who Goes There? which inspired the 1951 film "The Thing from Another World" and it does something interesting with the gruesome monster movie by placing it in the isolated world of the Antarctic, resulting in intense situations and plotting. Kurt Russell is effective as the pilot who becomes the leader when the thing takes over the camp and I liked Wilfred Brimley as the doctor who discovers the true nature of the beast. I found the monster itself to be too grotesque to the point that it somewhat detracts from the story, then again the story is set up very well. The snowy locales provide some nice and foreboding visuals and I liked certain touches such as the ending (spoilers) of the film which ends not in a bloody massacre but in a cold and silent standoff. The movie also seems to have inspired subsequent filmmakers and I thought of James Cameron a lot during this movie, particularly "The Abyss" and "Terminator 2: Judgement Day". As a monster movie, The Thing achieves its primary objective of being eerie, scary, and entertaining and with some effective visuals and plotting it succeeds at being something more as well.