Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

I don't think I ever actually voted in the '70s countdown (think I was absent during the voting window). I definitely regret that.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I don't think I had it on my 25. It would've been quite close though.

__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.

#374 - Once Upon a Time in the West
Sergio Leone, 1968



A widow is drawn into a conflict over her recently deceased husband's extremely valuable tract of land.

It says a lot about how much of a sprawling Old West epic this film is that such a basic logline manages to accurately sum up what the film is about and also do virtually no service whatsoever to what makes the film great. Though it'd be easy to go in expecting Charles Bronson's harmonica-playing gunslinger to be the so-called hero of this little venture, he really is just a supporting player in a greater narrative about the aforementioned widow (Claudia Cardinale) expecting to come home to her family's new ranch only to find they've been murdered by a ruthless mercenary (Henry Fonda) working on the orders of a railroad tycoon (Gabriele Ferzetti). The attack is carried out in such a way as to frame a gang of bandits led by Jason Robards' gruff yet honourable outlaw. With all the necessary players introduced, the battle for the land and the realisation of its true purpose is ready to play out on a stark landscape peppered with dust and death.

Once Upon a Time in the West plays out like an opera without singing - if anything, the characters and their actions make for the ideal substitute for actual singing. It would at least go some way towards excusing the clunkiness of some of the English dub's dialogue (and how it will noticeably lose sync from time to time), but for the most part it translates the lyrical yet world-weary nature of the characters' exchanges just fine. The score is rightfully considered one of Leone's best with each of the main characters getting their own theme music - while the theme for Cardinale's character makes for a perfectly moving and sentimental piece on its own, people will most likely remember the twanging guitar and abrasive harmonica that define Bronson and Fonda's leitmotifs. The film is naturally a visual stunner with its astonshing wide shots and claustrophobic close-ups that capture unforgettable imagery (most notably the opening sequence, but also several deaths that resonate for one reason or another). Characters are well-developed - Bronson is good as an avenging angel, while Fonda gleefully plays against do-gooder type as a savage yet charismatic killer. Robards is the closest things get to a weak link as the outlaw with a heart of gold who begins an unlikely friendship with Cardinale, whose complicated past and trauma-ridden present make for a character who is very aware of her uncertain future.

Though I still consider Once Upon a Time in the West a major favourite not just as far as Westerns go but as far as films in general go, I won't deny that the operatic nature of the film can work against it a bit somewhat. The film may not deal in the same brand of awesome bloodshed that the Dollars trilogy did (which may be part of the reason why I still give The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the edge when it comes to ranking the Leone films) but it still makes for some of the finest cinematic grandiosity to ever exist. From its slow-burn opening that makes a bunch of guys waiting for a train into captivating cinema through to its extremely bittersweet conclusion, this is still a film that I will probably consider a masterpiece for a very long time, if not forever.

#375 - Forbidden Planet
Fred M. Wilcox, 1956



A human starship dedicated to exploration lands on a planet that is inhabited by a scientist, his daughter, their robot, and a dangerous creature.

Forbidden Planet is a solid example of 1950s sci-fi with its high concept taking a team of 23rd-century astronauts (led by none other than Leslie Nielsen, whose youthful and dark-haired appearance here is certainly a surprise to someone who grew up knowing him as the white-haired buffoon from just about every movie he made from 1980 onwards) to the titular planet. There, Nielsen and co. find a scientist (Walter Pidgeon), who is investigating the technology left behind by an ancient alien civilisation. His daughter (Anne Francis) is also on the planet and she is accompanied by a robot ("Robby the Robot as himself", according to the opening credits) that looks like the platonic ideal for a 1950s robot. What follows over the course of the rest of the adventure is a cursory exploration of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know with a standard romantic sub-plot thrown in between its male and female leads and an interesting choice for a monster whose true nature constitutes the heaviest of spoilers for the film.

Forbidden Planet has aged reasonably well as far as sci-fi films from the 1950s go, though it doesn't exactly pull off a lot of surprises. It does play out like an extended episode of Star Trek: The Original Series only without that show's crew, which does add some stakes since there's not much guarantee who will make it out of the venture alive. Aside from the shiny futurisitc designs on everything, there's also the effects work that looks like it was hand-drawn onto every frame but I don't consider that to be a slight against the film; if anything, it makes for an interesting aesthetic to witness, especially in Technicolor. The performances are serviceable. It's a fundamentally good film, but as far as science-fiction goes it's not overly entertaining or thought-provoking.

I love this movie

__________________
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Forbidden Planet it OK. I think you liked it more than I did, as I'd give it a little less and that'd be out of 5.

Technically, all my ratings are out of five. The "first rating is out of four" thing is more of a guideline that I generally see no reason to overturn (as of writing, the only film that has made me waive it since I instituted it was It's Such A Beautiful Day).

So that wasn't your first viewing of Forbidden Planet I take it?

No, it was the first viewing. First-time viewings get blue titles while repeat viewings get red titles. It's not so much out of four as it is that four is a sort of "ceiling" I put on ratings to stop me overrating them. It's kind of the reverse of Nigel Tufnel putting an 11 on his amplifier's dials.

I see. That makes sense. As someone who doesn't put films on their 100 unless I've seen them a number of times, I appreciate your restraint.

#376 - Body of Lies
Ridley Scott, 2008



An undercover CIA agent must contend with an extremely difficult supervisor while he tries to take down a terrorist cell that is responsible for several international bombings.

Body of Lies has a fair bit working against it. It reunites Leonardo CiCaprio with The Departed screenwriter William Monahan (a film that, despite the accolades, I personally have no great affection for) while also indulging a lot of Ridley Scott's usual 21st-century techniques, which is a shame because I don't exactly have the greatest affection for Scott's 21st-century output. There's the usual shakiness to the tension that tends to be more irritating than exciting and only makes me think that Scott doesn't have that much faith in the excitement generated by the story. Despite that, I found myself liking Body of Lies enough not to hate it. It sets up an interesting enough conflict between DiCaprio's undercover agent and his handler (Russell Crowe), the latter of whom often seems to be sabotaging the former's operations out of either uninformed incompetence or callous indifference (most likely both). That's in addition to the somewhat complex plot that develops as DiCaprio works to infiltrate a terrorist organisation by any means necessary, including his befriending of a Jordanian chief of intelligence (Mark Strong), who may or may not be the real brains behind the attacks.

The story itself is an interesting enough examination of U.S. intelligence's intervention in foreign affairs as framed through the eyes of one operative struggling to deal with both the men who want him dead and the men who won't care about his death as long as it brings them results. The concept of characters who are seemingly on the same side frequently deceiving one another makes for a decent enough thread for the story to build around. However, the convolutions naturally get a little tiresome after a while, getting to the point where a romantic sub-plot that develops between a wounded DiCaprio and a local nurse (Golshifteh Farahani) does not come across as a wholly objectionable intrusion. Acting-wise, DiCaprio is decent enough when he's not in Oscar mode, while Crowe's acting feels just as flabby and useless as his character is intended to be (I wonder if that's by choice). Strong makes for a peculiar choice to play a Jordanian agent but carries it off well enough, while I'm disappointed that the considerably talented Oscar Isaac didn't get more to do during his screen-time. Body of Lies is a perfectly middle-of-the-road War on Terror thriller that has an interesting enough premise with its tale of conflicting loyalties where the supposed "good guys" are just as dangerous to one another as their enemies are (possibly even more so), but it's still an ultimately disposable, if not necessarily awful, film.

I liked Body of Lies well enough when I saw it in the theater, but have had no real desire to watch it again (even though I own it on DVD). Definitely not a stand out film for anyone involved, no matter how much I love other work by the screenwriter, director, and cast.

__________________

#377 - The Americanization of Emily
Arthur Hiller, 1964



In the lead-up to the D-Day invasion, an American Navy officer and self-professed coward becomes involved with a propaganda mission while also romancing an English driver.

The Americanization of Emily (it feels weird to deliberately type the "z", but what can you do?) is a fine piece of work that accomplishes the rather difficult act of trying to balance wartime satire with romantic drama. James Garner makes for the ideal mix of handsome features and complicated charisma as a naval officer who is informally known as a "dog-robber", who serves mainly as a man who can sufficiently supply his commanding officer (a doddering admiral played by Melvyn Douglas) with whatever (or whoever) will satiate said officer's wants and desires. Garner eventually ends up being roped into an apparent conflict between the Army and the Navy as Douglas insists that the Navy needs to prove its worth by not only having the first soldier to storm the beaches at Normandy be a sailor, but also by having the first soldier to die on the beaches be a sailor. It's the sort of believably absurd situation one would find in a well-written satire, with Garner naturally able to see through the lunacy of such a plan but unable to back out of it, especially with his more excitable counterpart (James Coburn) behind him all the way. In between dealing with this dangerous situation, Garner ends up courting the eponymous Emily (Julie Andrews), an English driver for military personnel. She serves as a good foil for Garner; while he has a cushy position yet still maintains an attitude of cynical pragmatism towards the war, she has an unfettered sense of idealism that causes her to clash with him over his callowness.

Though it might be a little on the long side and the characters are as prone to on-the-nose speechifying about the story's message as you'd expect from a Paddy Chayefsky screenplay, that hardly matters as it's by-and-large a cracking script brought to life by some very fine actors that does have some genuine surprises here and there. The filmmaking itself is appropriately understated even when it actually comes to scenes of wartime action (also, you're telling me Billy Wilder didn't direct this? This is definitely his kind of movie, after all). Though the publicity stunt involving Garner being the unlucky sap being made to die for the sake of naval pride understandably takes precedence over the course of the film, the entire relationship between Garner and Andrews does not feel remotely underdeveloped and in fact complements the A-plot nicely thanks in no small part due to the chemistry between two talented people. Effective use of character actors like Coburn and Douglas rounds things out nicely and make for a film that does seem to be more obscure than it should be.

#378 - Yojimbo
Akira Kurosawa, 1961



In feudal Japan, a wandering samurai arrives in a small town being torn apart by a gang war.

Yojimbo is an interesting film in that, despite lacking the scale or depth of Kurosawa's other classics, it still managed to build a considerable reputation that has led to it being hailed as one of Kurosawa's best films. I guess it's because it proves that a master capable of crafting lengthy epics filled with stunning characters and imagery can still put that talent to good use in a fairly straightforward action film with a single location and somewhat limited cast. To that end, Yojimbo does offer a fairly simplistic plot in having Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune play a samurai who happens upon a village that is caught in the vice-grip of a pair of gangs. After Mifune learns of the situation from an embittered innkeeper, he sets about trying to play both sides, ostensibly for money (the title is the Japanese word for "bodyguard", which Mifune offers to be for the bosses on either side) but soon reveals a greater motivation for his actions that mere greed.

One of the great things about Kurosawa as a director is his sheer dependability, which is on full display and elevates its rather basic narrative through the addition of some interesting idiosyncrasies. The film's most notable villain does change things up by having his own revolver (which did inspire an unexpected homage in 1979 gang flick The Warriors), the gangs' one attempt at open warfare results in a comical stalemate being watched by an amused Mifune, the gangs actually turn out to be stunningly incompetent in some areas (such as one woman advising her gang leader husband to murder Mifune after their rival gang has been eliminated while Mifune is in earshot), and so on. What few action sequences there are hold up well, with just the right blend of flourish and realism. The monochrome camerawork and jaunty soundtrack contribute to Kurosawa's trademark style and definitely make for one of his best films, none-too-complex subject matter notwithstanding.

I really don't care for Yojimbo at all. Didn't like any remake/reworking of it I've seen either. I always find myself veering between being annoyed and bored for the majority of the story.

#379 - Spawn
Mark A.Z. Dippé, 1997



When a mercenary is double-crossed and murdered by his boss, he goes to Hell and is given the chance to become a superpowered servant of the Devil.

In the same year that Joel Schumacher almost sounded a death-knell for superhero cinema with the garishly campy Batman and Robin, there was the release of a little film about another comic-book anti-hero with a penchant for black costumes, brooding, and justice. Spawn is based on the titular anti-hero, who starts off as a family-man mercenary (Michael Jai White) whose much more villainous boss (Martin Sheen) kills him off as part of a plan to become an arms dealer. From there, White is paired with a demonic clown (an almost unrecognisable John Leguizamo) who is supposed to mentor him in the ways of villainy as he agrees to become a general in Hell's army, but he also attracts a good mentor in the form of a centuries-old soldier (Nicol Williamson, another example of a classy British thespian slumming it in a bad American film) to help him rebel against his new masters. While Spawn promises an engaging adventure soaked in the dark superhero vibe that wouldn't really catch on until well into the following decade (and, to be fair, it does deliver on the vibes), it's a shame that the film underneath is incredibly wanting.

It's one thing for a film to just be bad, but Spawn is the kind of cinematic disaster that is enjoyable to a certain extent. The story mixes a standard superhero origin story with themes of vengeance and morality as White's desperation to return to his alive family leads him to make some regrettable alliances with some extremely unpleasant incarnations of pure evil. While White does his best to sell a stoic but tormented character underneath a layer of burn makeup (and also a computer-generated mask), he doesn't make for an especially compelling presence not because of his own shortcomings but because everyone around him overshadows him in the worst possible ways. Respectable actors like Sheen and Williamson ham it up or sleepwalk through their respective roles, while Leguizamo chews the scenery as a grotesque-looking clown with a raspy voice who will make dick and fart jokes (complete with visible farts) while eating pizza covered in live maggots and being disgusted by the anchovies. One can't help but wonder if the audience is supposed to find this repulsive character funny or disturbing or both, but it doesn't end up doing either (especially when making Apocalypse Now references around Sheen's character). Every other character in the film is virtually a nonentity, not even the family who serves as little more than a motivational tool for White.

In terms of aesthetics, Spawn is pure '90s hell. Whether it's the soundtrack loaded with edgy alt-rock or the incredibly rough CGI, you really do need to brace yourself for things like visions of Hell that play out like scenes from ReBoot or the dulcet tones of Marilyn Manson. The CGI alone is almost worth the price of admission (and I say that as someone who watched this on free-to-air TV) as its gross artifice is a marvel in itself. The roughness of Spawn's red cape being digitally inserted into scenes featuring a live-action Spawn is especially noteworthy, as are the scratchy 3-D credits or the incredibly rough green-screen sequences that take place in Hell itself (complete with primitively-rendered minions). It helps to compensate for the fact that the action sequences are otherwise dull and uninteresting. I used to give out a second rating to films that I believed had some value as a result of their providing unintentional amusement, but I've abandoned that in these reviews because a single rating should be able to cover a film in total. Spawn is saved from a lower rating because, in spite of the considerable dullness and bad humour underneath its eye-watering surface, the visuals alone make for an unforgettable experience. I figure that that is what elevates Spawn ever-so-slightly over other movies of its ilk - it's dated and hideous, but at least it's in a fun sort of way.

#380 - Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan, 2011)

I decided to watch all four of the currently-released Don't Hug Me I'm Scared shorts, which play out like a seemingly ordinary kids' show featuring a trio of colourful characters learning a valuable lesson about creativity through a singing sketchbook, but of course it gets twisted, gory, and nightmarishly existential. I get what it's going for, but that's not enough to really impress me.

#381 - Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 2: TIME (Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan, 2014)

Same basic plot as the first sketch, only this time it's about...time. More of the same "kids' show gets uncomfortable and weird" stuff.

#382 - Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3 (Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan, 2014)

This one is about love, complete with more graphic imagery that is a little unsettling, but is still dulled by the repetitive nature of the shorts' shared premise.

#383 - Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 4 (Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan, 2015)

Possibly my favourite, though that's not saying much as the same three characters are now subjected to learning about computers and the digital world, which at least changes up the visual style a bit. I also like the ending.

I actually like Spawn.

__________________

I like it for all the wrong reasons.

I agree with your review of Spawn