Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

#256 - Ninotchka
Ernst Lubitsch, 1939



A Russian diplomat is sent to Paris as part of a mission to located some jewelry.

Ninotchka marks the first Greta Garbo film I've actually seen. Here her presence as the titular Russian diplomat marks her all-too-brief foray into comedy, which is a shame because her role as a comically serious Russian sent to retrieve both a set of confiscated Russian jewelry and the trio of comrades originally sent to retrieve said jewelry before being seduced by lavish Western society. Her foil in this case is a French count (Melvyn Douglas) who becomes intrigued by her cold resistance to the upper-class temptations of Paris. Though it doesn't truly pick up until Ninotchka herself arrives, which does take a while, but it does pick up considerably. Garbo's chilly sarcasm definitely makes an impression as she gets very sarcastic with Douglas and a cavalcade of characters throughout the film. Though the film does lose a little of its comedic momentum as Garbo rather predictably warms up to Douglas and learns to embrace the fun side of decadent European attitudes, it does still manage to keep up a compelling narrative with some likeable characters (Garbo is always amusing, but Douglas takes a while to grow on you).

Beyond the obvious reliance on a classic rom-com's set-up and interplay, there are some interesting gags involving the divide between the joyless yet egalitarian attitudes of communist Russia and the pleasurable yet uneven freedoms of Western Europe - though the film does play up the strengths and weaknesses of both sides of the issue, given the fact that it's a Hollywood film from 1939 it should come as no surprise which side the film ultimately comes down on. Potential political squabbles aside, Ninotchka is a rather strong example of a screwball comedy that has quite a few good one-liners, solid lead performances, and a surprising level of depth. It's definitely a worthwhile example of a classic comedy that, though far from perfect, holds up rather well even now.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

#257 - The Bad and the Beautiful
Vincente Minnelli, 1952



A movie executive summons three different Hollywood players - one a director, one an actress, one a writer - to talk about their relationships to a certain big-shot Hollywood producer.

A film about a wildly successful tycoon told from the point of view of several people who knew the horrible truth about what he was really like? Like that'd ever become a classic. But seriously, folks, The Bad and the Beautiful may not have the most original premise, but that hardly matters as it decides to satirise Hollywood (but not too much, of course) through the tale of a big-shot movie producer (Kirk Douglas) who follows in his late father's footsteps and goes from Poverty Row journeyman to big-name executive. The framing device is because of his former superior (Walter Pidgeon) calling together three of Douglas' erstwhile collaborators - a director (Barry Sullivan) who worked with Douglas from their lowly beginnings, an actress (Lana Turner) who Douglas picked to star in his movies, and a writer (Dick Powell) who moves to Hollywood to write for the movies. As such, the film is broken into telling each of their stories and how they all focus on Douglas.

The film juggles its anthology-like narrative reasonably well, with Sullivan's story properly establishing Douglas' determination and greed borne of resentment while also giving the audience an insight into his riches-to-rags-to-more-riches journey. Turner's story is naturally more rooted in romantic drama and probably makes for the most interesting of the three stories as the interplay between her and Douglas seriously develops the relatively basic character that was observed in Sullivan's segment. That does undermine Powell's segment of the film somewhat as it comes across as a little less striking that Turner's, though his story of an uninterested novelist being chewed up by the Hollywood machine purely because his ditzy wife (Gloria Grahame) wants to experience the glamour first-hand is especially tragic (and gets more so by the time it finishes).

The Bad and the Beautiful carries out its fairly complex narrative with technical aplomb and the performers are generally decent - Douglas is good as always, though I do wonder how Grahame won an Oscar considering her lack of screen-time (she is good, but when there's Oscars involved, it's hard not to apply extra scrutiny). It's understandably got a considerable amount of cynicism, but the extent of the cynicism seems to be aimed at the kind of bastards that truly manage to succeed in Hollywood more so than at Hollywood in general. This film states that it is possible for good people to succeed, but the costs are still too great to be truly worth it.

Nice reviews I like these also

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#258 - Man on Fire
Tony Scott, 2004



A washed-up ex-soldier starts working as a bodyguard for a rich family's only daughter.

I wrote recently about how I was getting bored with revenge movies, especially those with a vigilante action bent because they tend to lack imagination and also occasionally veer into problematic territory with their glorification of outlaw justice. Man on Fire is more or less another one of these films, though it does at least try to develop more depth than a typical film in that particular sub-genre. Denzel Washington stars as a former soldier turned alcoholic who manages to acquire a job as a bodyguard for the daughter (Dakota Fanning) of a family living in Mexico City, which the film tells us in its opening sequence is a hotspot for kidnappings. Of course, this just gives away the fact that there's going to be a kidnapping eventually - and I do mean eventually. The film spends its first hour building up the connection between Washington and Fanning as he gradually warms up to his extremely precocious charge.

Of course, things go pear-shaped eventually and, after a further half-hour or so, Washington is finally willing and able to take on the kidnappers in the film's final hour (with the help of a handful of allies on both sides on the law, of course). Therein lies one of the main flaws I find with Man on Fire - it's too damn long. I at least have to give it credit for at least trying to flesh out its bare-bones revenge narrative, but the end result ends up being a slog. Scott seems to know this as he uses lightning-quick editing and extremely shaky, high-contrast cinematography in order to add layers of tension to scenes that are already supposed to be tense, but this only ends up drawing attention to how boring the tense moments actually are. Those that aren't are often ridiculous - aside from the infamous scene involving Washington's interrogation that involves an unfortunately-placed explosive (and a five-minute countdown that is counted down on-screen and still doesn't last five minutes, so what's the point of having a count-down?), there's also him torturing someone for information to the sound of a Santana song that I can't disassociate from The Big Lebowski (also, the fact that he's torturing someone for information). None of the complications are particularly surprising either. All in all, Man on Fire does deserve credit for trying to put in a bit more effort to develop its characters, but in doing so it just ends up coming across as a bloated excuse for a thriller that doesn't have enough faith in its action to just keep the camera still and focused.

Just read a bunch of your reviews. Overall really great write-ups, Iro!

I really have to find time for Judgment at Nuremberg soon. I think I'll love it!

I haven't really drafted a list for the 1960s countdown yet, but I wouldn't rule it out.

#259 - Bad Lieutenant
Abel Ferrara, 1992



Follows a corrupt police lieutenant as he tries to feed his various addictions and figure out a way to pay off his massive gambling debts while also trying to catch a pair of rapists.

Having seen and disliked Ferrara's previous film, King of New York (seriously, how does a film about Christopher Walken as a crime boss end up being so boring?), I was admittedly skeptical about watching Bad Lieutenant. I'd heard bits and pieces about it that did not make it sound like a pleasant viewing experience in any case, but I figured that I could at least have faith in Harvey Keitel's ability as an actor to carry the film - in essence, that is what keeps Bad Lieutenant from being truly terrible. As the titular lieutenant (who is never named in-story), Keitel lives up to the "bad" part of the film's title as he spends much of the film engaging in substance abuse and the occasional act of sexual deviancy (the film's most notorious scene is probably the one where Keitel sexually harasses a pair of female joy-riders). In the interest of keeping things sufficiently ambiguous, Keitel is also shown as a relatively devout Catholic family man. There are two main plot threads that lend order to the chaos of Keitel's more degenerate behaviour - his compulsive gambling on the World Series sending him further into depth with a crime organisation and a case involving a nun who has been gang-raped, prompting the church to offer a $50,000 reward for justice.

Unfortunately, for the first two thirds of the film the film basically amounts to some largely uninteresting build-up on those two plot threads - the plot regarding the rape case does prompt a morally grey situation about the Church's hypocrisy, while the plot about Keitel's gambling is dull as dishwater (of all the sports for him to bet on, you had to go with baseball?). To compensate, the film is peppered with garish, provocative imagery. Whether it's a naked Keitel blubbering during a drug-addled sexual encounter or a rape scene being intercut with footage of Jesus screaming while being crucified, the images are distinct but I'd be hard-pressed to call them effective. It only starts to get truly interesting during the last twenty or thirty minutes as pressure builds up on Keitel and truly tests him as a person - the last cathedral scene is easily the best in the film and really shows that, despite the generally underwritten quality of the film and Keitel's character, Keitel himself truly throws himself into the role at the best possible moment. The film reaches a conclusion that does sort of make sense given the themes presented throughout the film, but it's debatable as to whether or not it actually works even in a film like this. As a result, Bad Lieutenant does end up feeling a bit too ridiculous and not in a good way. It's lurid, pulpy, hard to take seriously, and most importantly it wastes a good performance from Keitel.

I really need to watch more Lubitsch as I thought Trouble In Paradise is great, I'll probably end up having a marathon of his sometime in the future. Ferrera looks really interesting to me too, I think I'd actually enjoy Bad Lieutenant .

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#260 - The Grey
Joe Carnahan, 2011



After surviving a plane crash in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, a small handful of survivors have to contend with the harsh terrain and a pack of wolves.

I had heard enough about this movie to know that it wasn't just going to be Liam Neeson fighting off wolves for two hours and would actually attempt to tell a deeper story than its high-concept premise might suggest. In the hands of a better writer and/or director, perhaps that would be the case, but as it stands The Grey doesn't quite deliver the way that it seems to want to. After a meandering prologue that establishes Neeson's protagonist - an embittered game hunter tasked with shooting down wildlife around a remote oil drilling facility in Alaska - the plot truly kicks in when the plane he's on crashes. Neeson and his fellow survivors soon learn that they've not only crashed in the middle of nowhere, but they are also in the vicinity of a den of exceptionally territorial wolves. Though there is some dissent in the ranks, it is ultimately up to Neeson to try to lead the others to safety.

The Grey does have some horror elements thanks to the presence of the wolves, but their appearances are split between jump-scare attacks and non-violently stalking their prey. The wilderness also proves a formidable foe in many instances (often improbably so). Unfortunately, like too many mediocre horror movies The Grey also fails to develop a decent cast to care about, which is a problem considering how much the film actually emphasises psychological drama over high-adrenaline thrills. Aside from Neeson, the characters only get the slightest developments intended to make an audience care about them. The soft-spoken family man, the authority-challenging hothead, the motor-mouth comic relief...they're too thin to care about beyond their being charges of Neeson. Neeson himself doesn't get that much characterisation - while it's fun to watch him a gruff mercenary type thrown into a survival situation, his apparently tragic back-story is also rather predictable and doesn't offer much in the way of insight into either the character himself or the film's themes.

Even if you're supposed to take the ever-circling wolves and the icy landscape as some sort of extended metaphor for death or faith or whatever (which would presumably allow you to suspend your disbelief over sequences that defy wolf behaviour or even the laws of physics), The Grey is still a fundamentally mediocre movie. Having Neeson at the heart of the film plus some considerable technical competence only makes the film's most glaring flaws stand out even more. It can't even make its somewhat unexpected ending stick. While I'm fairly glad it didn't devolve into a ridiculous wolf-punching mess (no matter how fun that might have been), I'm also disappointed that it didn't quite deliver on the "meditative character study" front either.

Watched "The Grey" just because Neeson, but just wasnt a huge fan.

#261 - Hot Rod
Akiva Schaffer, 2007



An amateur stuntman tries to raise the money necessary to save his ailing stepfather.

I think I should know by now to not expect too much from any film that's got a reputation for being a "cult comedy". Though a fair few of my current favourite comedies were ones I didn't think too much of upon first viewing, but this film gave me the same vibe I got from Wet Hot American Summer (which I have given two viewings so far and still struggle to find all that amusing no matter how much I want to). Is it supposed to be like a Zen thing where you don't think about how you're supposed to find it funny? Anyway, after finding Andy Samberg funny in recent cop sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I felt I should at least try to check out his most notable big-screen outing (what else was it going to be, That's My Boy?).

Much like Wet Hot American Summer, Hot Rod also earned a cult reputation on the basis of a very off-beat sense of humour and its extremely subversive parody of a horribly clichéd sub-genre of film - in this case, the underdog sports movie. Samberg plays an untalented yet dedicated stuntman who learns that his arrogant stepfather (Ian McShane) is dying of heart disease, so he plans to earn the money necessary to get McShane a heart transplant...in order to keep him alive long enough to punch him in the face and win his respect. Simple enough. What follows is about eighty minutes of primarily physical comedy as Samberg and his ragtag group of friends try to raise the money by helping Samberg perform his stunts.

Unfortunately, too much of the film's humour seems to rely on Samberg being a total failure at being a stuntman (and as a well-adjusted human being, but that's practically irrelevant), with only the occasional genuine laugh (such as Danny McBride's tech expert setting off an explosion prematurely being the film's best joke). That joke in particular worked because it was genuinely excessive and unexpected - far too often, the punchlines to the physical gags are either way too telegraphed or are so weak that you wish it had been the obviously telegraphed punchline you were expecting. Otherwise, it's some pretty sub-standard verbal humour that's only intermittently amusing (Chris Parnell as a kooky radio producer makes for the most consistently funny character, though he doesn't have much screen-time) and only serves to drag things out. It is possible that this film might grow on me, but I think that is very, very unlikely.

Pretty cool list of movies.

#262 - Panic Room
David Fincher, 2002



A mother and daughter move into an upscale New York townhouse with a built-in panic room left over by the previous owners, which causes trouble when a trio of thieves comes looking for the valuable contents of the room.

Out of all David Fincher's films, this is probably the one with the least interesting premise, but that doesn't automatically make it the worst. It's a pretty basic plot by Fincher standards - normal people move into a house, bad guys want to break into the house because of reasons, simmer for two hours. At least Fincher, who is quite the hypercompetent journeyman director, is able to assemble some decent talent on both sides of the camera to keep things sufficiently interesting for two hours. Jodie Foster makes for a good protagonist as the recently-separated single mother trying to take care of her preteen daughter (Kristen Stewart) as they move into a new place. Unfortunately, on their first night the place is invaded by three crooks - Forest Whitaker's conflicted expert, Jared Leto's short-tempered leader, and Dwight Yoakam's disturbingly calm professional - who are looking for something that just so happens to be hidden in the panic room where Foster and Stewart take refuge during the home invasion.

While Panic Room does have a lot of Fincher's usual visual flourishes (most notably that continuous computer-generated long shot early in the film that glides throughout several of the house's stories), it does struggle a bit to fill out its running time with anything to distinguish it from its peers - especially when it comes to the more implausible moments that seem very much in like with typical thriller fare. Whitaker gets the most to work with as a constructor of panic rooms who at least has sympathetic motives to give him depth, as is Yoakam as the most vicious villain in the group. Everyone else is merely serviceable, even Foster. Panic Room is definitely one of Fincher's weakest efforts (if not the weakest, though I'm not sure I'd go that far just yet), but it's still a fairly passable thriller that has some alright performances and the Fincher touch, both of which are factors that elevate it beyond its genre trappings.

#263 - Sharknado 2: The Second One
Anthony C. Ferrante, 2014



Following the events of the first film, the hero of the first film flies to New York only for another freak tornado full of sharks to strike.

As far as movies that bank their whole existence and appeal on being feature-length punchlines go, Sharknado was definitely one of the least objectionable. The fact that its creators (working with the infamous Asylum production company) knew they were making a deliberately so-bad-it's-good movie does neuter the comedic nature to a considerable extent, but it was still sufficiently entertaining that it didn't end up being hate-worthy. Of course, the memetic absurdity of both the film's premise and its execution proved popular enough with audiences to guarantee a follow-up (and with the kind of budget this film would have, that would not have been surprising anyway). Of course, as I have noted before, I do take issue with sequels to intentional comedies because they often struggle to capture that same lightning a second time around (and it's not like Sharknado was that funny in the first place), and unfortunately Sharknado 2: The Second One still falls prey to that particular pitfall.

After an extended sequence aboard a turbulent plane ride that pays questionable homage to both The Twilight Zone and Airplane! (right down to having Robert Hays play the plane's pilot and make a reference to choosing between fish and chicken for dinner- that probably says a lot about the film's character-based humour), Sharknado 2 launches into a fairly straightforward rehash of the original but with more characters and plotlines to fill out its extremely brief running time. Due to the first film's notoriety, there are now celebrity cameos a-plenty, whether playing bit parts or playing themselves, though it's debatable as to whether or not they actually work. Instead, they just remind one that self-awareness is not always an adequate substitute for actual entertainment value. The effects are still as (deliberately) woeful as ever, but even the escalation of the action doesn't do much to create any particularly favourable impressions or spectacles (except maybe during the climax, but even then...). Sharknado 2 is about what you'd expect from a sequel to a one-joke movie. It may ramp up the carnage and throw in a lot of famous faces, but it's still ultimately the same as its predecessor and, though that film had its moments, it barely had enough to make a semi-amusing feature - this film can't even match up to that. I can hardly wait to see what Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! will bring us later this year.

For me Sharkando 2 is a double minus 2 popcorns.

...meaning it's a .

For reference, I currently have the original at .

For me, Sharknado 2 was much better than the first. I prefer my bad movies to be serious bad movies that was great to watch and, as you said, Sharknado wasn't that at all. For me it felt as if it was a long sequence of "woah!" Cool!" moments strung together, which just didn't work well for me. This one was just stupid and I'm fine with that.

That said, neither of these are film I particularly care for and both pale into insignificance when up against Sharktopus or, my favourite, Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus.

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I thought The Grey was decent when I first saw it, and then Panic Room I pretty much agree with your rating. Looks nice and some good moments, but overall it all felt a bit silly to me, same with The Game.

I always thought The Grey was rubbish? When did it start to become something of note? I've only seen Panic Room once, when it was released, and I didn't think it was anything special. I'll take another look at it when it's on.

I shut off The Grey after about 30 minutes. I could tell it wasn't what I expected and was trying to make drama where drama didn't need to be created. I mean surving a plane crash is drama enough, right. Too over the top with the evil game hunter bit.