Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (Kenji Misumi, 1972)
The third film in the
Lone Wolf and Cub series is a bit more low-key than the first two. It still has bloody action, although these scenes are paced further apart than before. The major change seems to be that in this installment, Ogami Ittō (Tomisaburo Wakayama), the former Shogunate executioner, comes across another "true warrior", Kanbei (Go Kato), whom Ittō would like to see continue to live, so the two delay their duel and call it a draw. The back story of Kanbei turns out to be as important as anything else in the film. Although I said that there seems to be less action and more quietude in this outing, the finale is quite spectacular when Ittō takes on the entire army of a corrupt chamberlain, and then Kanbei turns up again at the very end. This final 15 minutes may be as good as anything in the first two films.
W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)
Oliver Stone leaves behind his usual frenetic, free-wheeling style to tell the story of President George W. Bush's life from two perspectives, both surprisingly low-key and empathetic to the man. Of course, Josh Brolin's total immersion into the Bush persona makes it seem much smoother than it otherwise would have been. Bush is seen shortly after 9/11 with his cabinet and advisors planning on how to fight his war on terror. At the same time, the film begins a series of flashbacks which begin in 1966 when Bush was a pledge at a fraternity at Yale. The younger Bush is shown to be a pleasure-loving, hard-drinking young man who constantly disappoints his father (James Cromwell) while seeking to find his place in the world. The older W. is shown to be a sincere individual who isn't fully-equipped to deal with fighting a war on terror and who seems to have surrounded himself with some questionable aides and confidantes who don't actually support the same principles he does. As I mentioned before, Josh Brolin is terrific playing Bush at all ages as a truly-likable person, especially when meeting and courting his future wife Laura (Elizabeth Banks).
Stone seems content to show Bush in a non-cynical way. The entire first hour plays out as a loose character comedy which just happens to be about very serious situations involving dozens of real-life characters. Stone uses longer takes than normal and leaves it up to the audience to interpret what it all means. It's only in the final hour, where the Iraq War shows a badly-divided Bush Administration when someone could take any real objection to the politics shown. No matter who seems to be on the hawk or dove sides, W. almost always seems to be a man in the middle, trying to weigh both sides and keep things together while trying to uphold the Constitution. I will admit that you'll have to decide if Stone was being satirical in his use of the recurring background music of "Robin Hood", "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and "The Yellow Rose of Texas" throughout the film. It also ends with one of my fave Dylan songs, "With God on Our Side", playing over the end credits. I wouldn't be surprised if W. himself interprets that song differently than I do, but I also know that W. probably looks at baseball differently than I do, and baseball is used as a metaphor throughout the film.
Lust For Life (Vincente Minnelli, 1956)
I'll admit that I may have a tough time justifying such a high rating for a very melodramatic and mostly-depressing biopic of Vincent Van Gogh, but since he's my favorite artist, and Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn (as Van Gogh's friend Paul Gauguin) are so good in their roles here, I'll surprise myself and continue to think this highly of it. Van Gogh was a deeply-disturbed individual who found it difficult to give all the love he felt for a suffering humanity. He was also apparently clinically-depressed from his extreme sense of loneliness and low self-worth, and he suffered seizures, especially in the final two years of his life. The film follows Van Gogh's life at a mining village and his subsequent reunion with his brother Theo (James Donald). Van Gogh had bad luck with women, and after being told he was a failure as a Man of God, he was also considered a failed artist. It's only when he's left to his own devices and moves into a house in Arles, that he begins to perfect his own intense post-impressionist style which makes him so beloved to this day.
The highlights of the film, besides the dozens of Van Gogh paintings on display, are that many of the characters and settings are obvious recreations of the people and places that Vincent painted. That and the scenes between Van Gogh and Gauguin where they argue about how and what to paint and what it means to them. Although the men were obviously friends, the relationship was a very stormy one and eventually led to Vincent cutting off part of his left ear. After this incident, Vincent agreed to commit himself to a mental hospital at Saint-Rémy. He would go for long stretches just relaxing without his paints and canvas, but when he was deemed well enough to work, he created many of his most-famous paintings while staying at the hospital. The overall intensity of
Lust For Life is immeasurably aided by the musical score by Miklós Rózsa and the brightly-colored photography of F.A. Young and Russell Harland. At the center of it all is the voice of the human soul crying out for companionship and understanding.
The Fall (Tarsem, 2008)
This lush fantasmagoria tells the story of injured 1920s Hollywood stuntman Roy (Lee Pace) and his relationship with immigrant girl Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) who's staying at the same hospital with a broken arm. To pass the time, Roy tells Alexandria exotic stories of adventure and heroism, which he embroiders with some wildly anachronistic touches and she sees in her mind's eye as even more flamboyant (if that's possible). Eventually, Roy enlists the girl to get him some painkillers from the hospital pharmacy, and as the stories continue on towards some form of conclusion, Roy and Alexandria seem to enter into the stories themselves and what happens in both the real world and the story world seem to begin to affect one another.
The Fall begins with a sparkling black-and-white sequence involving a train stopped on a bridge and a horse being hauled out of the water below. It continues with many more references to horses, some suspended in the air. The remainder of the film is in spectacular color, with many scenes shot through colored filters and others awash in hues and tones which seem to seep into the frame from various angles. The locations and sets are often breathtaking, while the story and characters are so unique that you will probably have to agree that you've seen nothing like it before. The film's conclusion, with a seemingly impromptu "narration" from a very-excited Alexandria, includes a wonderful scene from Buster Keaton's
Three Ages. Whatever you ultimately think and/or feel about
The Fall, I feel that you'll have to give it points for originality and beauty.
Love's Labour's Lost (Kenneth Branagh, 2000)
Kenneth Branagh deserves some points too for turning this Shakespeare comedy into a 1930s style musical, complete with some of the best songs to ever grace the Astaire and Rogers films. The plot involves a King and his three best friends agreeing to leave women alone for three years, but almost immediately, a princess and three of her friends show up in the kingdom, and love smacks all eight of them right between the eyes. The Shakespearean dialogue is still in place, but the setting seems to be the late 1930s, so that when war eventually breaks out, the obvious reference is WWII. In between the Shakespeare, the characters sing and dance to Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields. I thought that Alicia Silverstone was probably the weakest thespian and the weakest singer. Branagh will never make anyone forget Fred Astaire, but he does a decent interpretation of "They Can't Take That Away From Me", and even some of what seems like shoddy choreography comes across as charming in a sort of Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let's put on a show!" manner. I realize that the concept does sound like it's rife with disaster, but if you just lighten up a bit, it does have its pleasures.
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that's what i've been doing on Akira (i'm almost done 
i'm normally pretty good about that stuff
