The 27th General Hall of Fame

Weeell, my trap complaint was tongue in cheek - but I did used to obsess over Raiders plot holes and inconsistencies as a kid. That movie was like my Bible. I don't know how I'd react to the fridge in the nuclear explosion if I were a kid last decade. I'm thinking Crystal Skull would not move me to devotion.

While obsessively nitpicking Raiders though, did anyone realise that the idol in the cave had animatronic moving eyes? (There are stills with Spielberg messing with it's insides around.) If you watch the scene very carefully.....yeah. It's impossible to notice. Below is a demo with how it worked - it was meant to follow Indy's movements. They put some work into that, for absolutely zero payoff :

__________________

Shura (1971) -

I don't know that there's anything in this movie which blew me away, but there was nothing which bothered me either. I suppose the plot is a fairly straightforward revenge story, but the stylistic elements of the film were more than enough to save the film. For instance, I liked the usage of darkness and shadows in several scenes. I don't know if I can quite put my finger on why those elements work, but something about seeing various characters appear/disappear from the shadows gives the film a dreamy aesthetic. I also liked how certain scenes were repeated. Through these scenes, you get a sense of Gengobei imagining how he wants to behave in certain situations or how some of the violence he commits or witnesses it etched into his head. These scenes also cause the film to become a subjective experience which puts you in Gengobei's headspace really well. Finally, the high level of violence also surprised me. While certain elements like the slow motion and the (relatively) high levels of blood help in this regard, that most of the deaths are prolonged gives them even more staying power. All things considered, this is definitely the most violent classic samurai film I've seen. As I said at the start of this review, I wouldn't say this film blew me away, but I do have a lot of respect for the film's technical qualities. It's a stylistically impressive take on the revenge film which is so unique with its craft that you eventually stop caring about its somewhat barebones plot.

Next Up: Thunder Road

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

Just finished Midnight Cowboy, so another one down for me!

__________________

I watched The Secret of Roan Inish but I need to watch it again.

Scandalous! Well, perhaps not today - and ironically the version of Baby Face I watched has only been available to us since 2004. When an original camera negative and a duplicate negative were found after curator Michael Mashon requested a print of the film, he found out that the latter was the uncensored version of it. The experience of being able to watch this film as it was originally intended made me think that this should really be the norm, and films from yesterday that were mangled by over officious and censorious meddlers should be made available in their original form so that we may reevaluate them. After reading about the version of Baby Face I would have been watching if the uncensored version had of been the only one I could have found, I'd have had a vastly different reaction to the film.

Barbara Stanwyck stars as Lily Powers and really gives this verve, energy and the sex appeal needed to sell the basic premise of her as a seductress with a powerful hold over the men she uses to work her way up in society. It all starts in a filthy and dilapidated speakeasy in Pennsylvania as Lily's father, Nick (Robert Barrat) is revealed to be a dirtbag who forces his daughter to sleep with customers either for profit or political protection. One of the speakeasy's customers is Adolf Cragg (Alphonse Ethier) who tries to interest Lily in philosophy and confides to her that she'd be better off using her good looks and youth to her advantage. When the still in the back yard explodes, Lily's father is killed, so she takes off with friend Chico (Theresa Harris) to New York, sleeping her way to the upper echelons of Gotham Trust. A murder/suicide and scandal leads to exile and an eventual romance with new boss Courtland Trenholm - but is Lily emotionally invested this time, or is she playing him for a romantic fool?

For me, there's a huge, yet sly, wink Baby Face is giving me as it's melodramatic scenes play out with exaggerated flair and intensity. Lily is something of an anti hero who we're right behind because she's due some vengeance on a world where her father could treat her the way he did and get away with it. The men she targets are vain and financially-driven for the most part, so why should she be any different? It's something Ty Burr of The Boston Globe called "do-me feminism" when tackling the film after it's 2004 re-release and reconstruction. Lily is never once a victim in this - even when the film starts and she resides at her father's speakeasy, she slaps, punches and growls at the men pawing at her, and physically injures a man in authority trying to take advantage of the fact that her father is at his mercy. Cragg persuades her to take this attitude to places where she can excel - but it must have been confusing to audiences in 1933, where Cragg's speech to her had been changed (spoken while we can only see his back and not his lips) into some kind of "better yourself, but be good" monologue.

The censored version had also declined to let us in on the fact that she'd been prostituting for her father since the tender age of 14 (which is, frankly, as disturbing now as it was back then - at least to me.) The Motion Picture Production Code was just about to be officially implemented when Baby Face was gearing for release, and the film was pulled from distribution when the office setting it up got a look at the film. Darryl F. Zanuck, who'd written the story under the pseudonym "Mark Canfield" haggled with the Hays Office over what would be a more acceptable version for them. They insisted on an ending where Lily returns home and lives a modest lifestyle, letting the audience know that her carousing never paid off in the end. A scene set in a box car when Lily is running off to New York with Chico and a railroad worker attempts to boot them off, only to be pacified in a sexual manner, was cut altogether. Other sexualized shots were cut, toning the film down, but also robbing it of it's impetus and meaning.

The film was looked upon unfavourably by critics who may have been well and truly familiar with sexualized films predating the code that was finally implemented in 1934. Those films not only don't look as particularly lurid to modern audiences as they did at the time , but they also seemed particularly progressive, exploring issues that could be of great benefit - but instead the film industry would have to wait many decades until there was any sense of artistic freedom and common sense about it. In 1896 The Kiss featured the first onscreen kiss ever recorded - it's such a loving, beautiful moment on film, and yet it "drew the general outrage of movie goers, civic leaders, and religious leaders, as utterly shocking, obscene and completely immoral." What would these people say if they could see todays internet? Whatever they'd think, I don't think they'd have words capable of expressing it.

So anyway, Baby Face is a lot of fun, and it features John Wayne 6 years shy of his big breakout role in Stagecoach - he only has a small part in the film, but his inclusion adds to that sense of interest and enjoyment I got from watching this. I'm unfamiliar with George Brent, who appears to have made a few films with Bette Davis and had his motion picture heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. A lot of the players in this film reached the pinnacle of their success right here, such as Theresa Harris, who is chided for singing the "St. Louis Blues" - and I laughed when she was, because we'd been hearing a lot of the St. Louis Blues by that time and I'd had enough of it myself. This film seems to be very self-aware, and capable of things that wouldn't be natural for filmmakers to intuit at such an early age of the filmmaking process. Director Alfred E. Green ended up being prolific - but his output has been described as being very "routine", which is the last thing you want to hear before delving into anyone's filmmaking resume. Late in his career, in 1952, he directed Invasion, U.S.A. which is an infamous turkey well-known amongst those who enjoy bad movies.

Baby Face also gives us an interesting look at depression-era America, including the speakeasy of prohibition time and soon-to-be-on-hard-times bankers and financiers that worry so at the whiff of scandal and impropriety. The song "Baby Face" had only just been a hit in 1926, written by Harry Akst and tunefully played over the opening credits making them feel like an introduction to a Warner Bros cartoon. The film is also forward-thinking by elevating African-American Chico to the status of friend to Lily instead of being her servant (as she sometimes plays the role of, however.) The story moves along at a gallop and sustained my interest in the very best sense for it's short 76 minutes (which used to be 71 minutes when censored.) I really think Barbara Stanwyck was powerful, sexy and intelligent while at the same time projecting a sense of innocence and frailty when required for the men she seduced. Without her, the film wouldn't have been as electric or hard-hitting as it was. Stanwyck definitely had that X-factor and would go on to have a remarkable career spanning over half a century. She was gorgeous too. No stranger to controversy at the time, she also starred in The Bitter Tea of General Yen in 1933 - a movie which featured interracial sexual attraction - a taboo in those days.

The ending of the pre-censored version might be seen as a bit limp, but as a whole Baby Face is still razor-sharp - or perhaps I should say Baby Face is now razor-sharp because it's shackles have been lifted and we have the gift of a pristine pre-censorship print of it. I hope there are more out there like this, waiting to be reborn - I fear most have been lost forever though. I enjoyed my voyage through the edgy, booze-soaked, calf-showing winking of the pre-code film, doused in sexuality as it was. I was very surprised to see John Wayne there. Barbara Stanwyck will purr "I can fix that", because she can fix anything. With sex. It's her weapon. Her game-changer. Her stepladder, defensive shield and threat neutralizer. In Baby Face it's taken to such an extreme that it takes on an ethereal quality, and so I don't take it too seriously - that's why I find Baby Face so much fun.

Demons aka Shura (1971)

What a truly excellently insane film that was - I mean, I had a good feeling I was gonna enjoy this, being a big fan of the genre. I also was excited about where that intriguing off-kilter element of a @pahaK nomination would lead to, resulting in a pretty d@mn kick-ass experience for me.

A smartly composited Shakespearean Greek Tragedy with a Grindhouse influence and these crazy premonition moments creating a restart and play out differently made me think of Memento. It had me guessing so that I wasn't sure if the beginning of the blood bath indeed WAS the beginning of the bloodbath. I f@ckin LOVED it.
The reveal of the technique in that first extensive repetitive head turn in the opening scene and the first premonition moment of finding the dead geisha Koman (Yasuko Sanjo), setting my mindset perfecting, strapping in for the ride ahead.

I have to share this: when Gengobei (Katsuo Nakamura) gets arrested, his servant (Masao Imafuku) sacrifices himself for his master. By taking responsibility for the five murders, I paused to take care of some things and told my roommate what I was watching and everything leading up to it, promising to fill her in when I finished.
Well, that's when it truly gets insane and when it was over, I told her, "I'm not saying anything; you NEED to see this. You're going to love this."
Since I don't always get a revisit upon discovering an unknown gem that'll give me reason and the opportunity to rewatch this one sometime soon, that's going to be all kinds of fun.

__________________
What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

Glad you liked it. It took me a couple viewings to fully appreciate it as well. The ending,
Believe it or not, I just watched your movie. I'll post my thoughts shortly.

Magical Girl -

This is one of the noirest neo-noirs I've seen in a long time that, if anything, deserves credit for having such an elegantly crafted story. Like Damián's puzzle - except for that blasted missing piece, of course - it all fits together, and the characters' motivations are justifiable in a way that it reminds me of how well Breaking Bad did all of this. That's not to say the movie is predictable: there are plenty of well-timed surprises and not just the obvious one that despite the typical plot summary for this movie, Luis's Make a Wish Foundation assignment is not all that it's about. What that is, like I said, is tangibly grim from its sun-kissed yet empty aesthetic to the fact that with the exception of Damián's prison buddy, I can't recall anybody smiling. The capper, though, is that when the climactic violence occurs, my reaction was one of satisfaction and acceptance rather than shock.

Nothing that happens in the movie is misery for misery's sake, mind you. Like the reckoning Americans experienced during and after World War II that spawned the noir genre, Spain's similar state of affairs provides a solid basis for Barbara, Luis and Damian's motivations. It would be nice to know more about what was going on in Spain at the time - I know that the ongoing Catalan independence movement came to a head around the early to mid-2010's, but that's about it - mysterious therapist Oliver's bullfighter analogy helps put it in perspective. Despite how well-crafted the movie is and its cultural significance, it is not the easiest movie to watch. It is very deliberately paced, and even though its dearth of emotion is relevant, the combination made it hard to stay awake a few times. I was still pleasantly surprised on the whole and not just because the movie ends up being about much more than an anime obsession. I also didn't expect it to rival the likes of Apocalypse Now, Cure, Demons and Dolores Claiborne in the dark and disturbing department!

It's straightforward and simple - escapist entertainment and feats of heroism for the greater good, rubbing shoulders with something both ancient and unknowable. It sounds good, looks good - and rarely do lines deviate from the bare essential of what's necessary. First and foremost, and this is telling, I always want to mention John Williams. Not for writing two and half minutes of the most recognizable piece of cinematic music in history - but for the entire score of Raiders of the Lost Ark which I've always enjoyed during every moment of the motion picture. It would never have been the same with any other composer in the world - Williams created half of the sensory impact this film had, and it was something I appreciated both consciously and unconsciously, even at a young age. The other crucial element for me was director Steven Spielberg, whose imprint I can intuitively feel onscreen. From Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this was a spirit in tune with mine.

The others encouraged it more than anything. George Lucas at least kicked it off, and both Philip Kaufman and Lawrence Kasdan lent a good hand - neither getting an enormous amount of credit due to the collaborative effort this was. Harrison Ford was key, looking and sounding as far as my eyes are concerned like someone I'd truly look up to - something like my older brother. The character - Indiana Jones - I didn't see as all good. Determined, on the right side and unafraid - but with a certain dark side to him. As a kid I'd been relatively ignorant as to the import of his previous relationship with Karen Allen's Marion, dating back as it did to when she was only a tender age. I could sense that this is probably someone who has killed another person at some time in his life, or several times. First impressions are essential, and I was certainly impressed at how casual this man was when noticing that he had several tarantulas on his body - something that would no doubt cause me to physically convulse, scream and probably even cry, no matter how old I was. Smart, wise, handsome, strong with a mean streak in there somewhere. No tolerance for nonsense and no interest in games, idle pleasures or daydreams. A cool head in a crisis.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was my first love, and it was a love that has lasted a lifetime. I was seven years old when it hit cinema screens, and it's fair to say I didn't see it coming. My Aunt in Canada had mentioned in a letter how good the film was, and so when my parents took me to the cinema one weekend they wanted to see it. I didn't. I'd seen the poster - and for some reason (the hat, the whip) it looked like a western to me, and at the time I wasn't overly fond of westerns. I dug my heels in. We weren't going to see Raiders. Instead, I forced us all to catch Roar. You may have heard of Roar if you're interested in cinematic trivia, for it's a film that's famous for having injured 70 members of it's cast and crew during it's production. That's not a typo - Roar was filmed amongst a staggering number of lions amongst other beasts and even star performers Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith required surgery after the creatures were finished with them. Roar also happens to be an average movie at best. But I remember it well - because it's the film I made everyone watch instead of catching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time.


The next weekend my parents weren't having it. We were going to see Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I saw how wrong I'd been about it's potential. Terrified and excited, Raiders spoke to what fascinated and scared me in equal measure. Of course it was also exciting, thrilling and escapist entertainment so good it captured the imagination of the world. But I was different. Nobody loved Raiders of the Lost Ark as much as I did - it was all I ever talked about. Now, instead of seeing a different movie every weekend, I insisted my parents let me see Raiders over and over again. Eventually, they started taking me in turns to even out the fatigue - for I saw that film over a half a dozen times during it's theatrical run, which amazingly went for around 12 months. My obsession with the film dovetailed well into the birth of the video era - so 1983 saw me owning my own copy of the film on VHS - something which was pretty rare at the time. I watched this film over and over again, and it was an inexhaustible source of excitement and awe. I always told myself that one day another film would come along and knock it off it's perch as my favourite - but that time never came.

What is it about Raiders that sets it apart from every other film I've ever seen? How did it look and sound just right? It was both peculiar to me and universal. It's acknowledged as a great film - I didn't discover that, and some people do indeed like it as much as I do. Still, back in those days I was the only kid who just went on and on about it. I was the only one who bought the sleep-inducing and deceptively convoluted board game. I was already fascinated with the old - the only kid who begged to be taken to museums (I wasn't aware of how odd this was) and my parents came from Germany - they were there when the Nazis were in power, and through the war years. Everywhere in Raiders there was some personal connection or interest. The homage that was being made - to the serial matinees of the 1930s and 1940s - I was completely unfamiliar with however. I remember watching it on video at a friend's place, and a stranger came for something and became glued to the television set. "Yeah, that's Raiders of the Lost Ark - you can borrow it some time." I understood why he had become transfixed - and I'll always wonder how much he appreciated it when he did eventually borrow it.


It took me quite a while to appreciate what Douglas Slocombe had done behind the camera, a thoughtful choice from Spielberg. Slocombe had made his name in the British system at the famous Ealing Studios and was director of photography on famous films such as Kind Hearts and Coronets - regarded to be one of the best ever made. After Ealing he continued to be associated with top level productions like The Italian Job, Rollerball and, interestingly, Jesus Christ Superstar. He cuts an older kind of character when on location filming Raiders - he was 67 years old and braving the Tunisian sun which was taking a toll even on the younger members of the crew. He lived on to be 103 years of age when he passed away in 2016. Special mention, for the first time, must also go to the second unit director Mickey Moore who directed some of the action sequences - the entire truck chase late in the film was directed mostly without Ford on set and with stuntmen taking his place. Spielberg spliced in his own footage with Ford in an absolutely seamless fashion.

There was something about the sun-drenched visual quality of the movie that always attracted me, and it was noticeable that after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that brighter kind of tone was adopted again in Last Crusade. I don't want to talk about the sequels much, as they exist outside the frame of Raiders - but obviously the build-up to Temple of Doom was the most anticipation I'd ever have for a coming attraction, and I bought every publication that mentioned it and started a scrapbook. I saw the trailer for the first time when going to see Footloose and the film itself was just about the only time I wasn't let down by something I keenly anticipated. It wasn't Raiders, but I loved it all the same, and still have a warm appreciation for the second Indiana Jones film - it was just different enough to be it's own entity, and was still very effective as far as action and excitement go. It had one of the greatest opening credits sequences I've ever seen. Still - I consider all the later films "Indiana Jones movies" and Raiders of the Lost Ark a real film. I don't include any of the character which has since been expanded upon when watching Raiders, as I like to see it as something that stands alone.

Editor Michael Kahn has been with Spielberg since Close Encounters of the Third Kind and he recently put his remake of West Side Story together. Kahn was nominated for an Oscar for the first time for Close Encounters but won his first Oscar for his work on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Amongst his eight nominations he has had further wins for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. I'd have to say that Raiders is edited together perfectly - and that George Lucas also had an uncredited role in the editing process. I actually remember the 1982 Oscar ceremony fairly well, which surprises me considering how young I was. Without access to the video yet, it was an excellent source of clips to enjoy. Raiders won a further four Oscars apart from the one for it's editing - Art and Set Direction, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects and a special Oscar for sound effects editing. I was disappointed that it missed out on Best Picture (I still think it should have won.) That year Chariots of Fire took out the Best Picture Academy Award - and looking back there is no way you could regard it superior to Raiders - which was also nominated for Douglas Slocombe's cinematography, Best Original Score (should definitely have won - Chariots of Fire took that one as well) and Best Director for Spielberg.

I was surprised to find deleted scenes I'd never seen before while looking for information - seeing new scenes from this film for the first time since 1981 is certainly a surreal experience. Thankfully Raiders is a better film without all the stuff they left out. In one Satipo falls in a hole and Jones helps him out - redundant considering the many similar sequences that are in the film. In another a female student tries to waylay Jones when he's on the way to his important meeting with the government operatives and Brody - it simply wasn't needed. I'm particularly glad that some of the Three Stooges kind of slapstick which John Rhys-Davies' Sallah shares with various Germans in the desert didn't make the final cut - they did remind me of Last Crusade though. Segments of Jones being tied to the submarine's periscope are there, as is Marion telling Jones that being surrounded by corpses in the Well of the Souls was like her worst nightmare - and we finally get to see the part where Jones and Marion exit the Well of the Souls and come across an incredulous scholar. Not seen is the still infamous 'near execution' of Sallah or the part where the Imam tells Jones not to touch the ark. As you can see, I've always been obsessed with the minutiae of this film.


It's interesting to go back and take a look at the piece Pauline Kael wrote about Raiders of the Lost Ark when it was released. You can always count on Kael to give you an opinion at diametric opposites to the general consensus, and there's a wounded sense of being sold out by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Kael thought that Raiders was directed and edited according to how marketable the movie might be, while ignoring the human element in it entirely. She chided Lucas about making a film that he might have wanted to see as a kid, or still want to see now and thought Spielberg was being too careful after the critical drubbing 1941 received. Unlike me, she was looking for something deeper in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it's interesting how often she contradicts herself. She'll talk about a sequence that's so good you want to stop the show and watch it again, but will lament about the very same sequence that she didn't enjoy herself much either. She says that the film "gets your heart thumping" and in the same passage include "there's no exhilaration in this dumb, motor excitement." She says the film is so good it feels like listening to a song you love and singing along with it - but then complains that it's not beautifully made. Mostly she bemoans the fact that the people in it are cardboard cutouts. Perhaps Raiders of the Lost Ark was birthing a new kind of film that had so little comparison that Kael was forced to weigh it up with the likes of Reds and Atlantic City.

So I ask again, why Raiders of the Lost Ark? If someone was talking about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or some kind of soulless action film the harsher points of Kael's analysis would ring true with me - so what makes me love Raiders to the point that sees it as my most favourite of all films? In her article Kael compares Raiders unfavourably in comparison with Gunga Din - so could it be that this was just a film for my particular generation? I hear many from later generations question Raiders of the Lost Ark's place amongst the great movies, and when watching the film in Russia with some people younger than I am, they seemed to think it was a kind of lesser version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The newness isn't there any more except to those who remember it being new perhaps. Maybe some of the character's less fine points have drifted backwards to taint the original film to some extent. Some of it's successful techniques have become such staples of action and adventure films that a late introduction to Raiders make them seem like clichés. When the film came out in 1981 there had been nothing like it, except for those action/adventure serials it was paying homage to, which lacked the technical finesse Lucasfilm and Spielberg brought to it.

I'm thankful that I initially saw this film before Indiana Jones had become such an identifiable character, and at an age where seeing a movie was such a big deal. After leaving the cinema, there was no youtube to check out a scene again, no video or DVD player or anything except my imagination. The funny thing with imagination is that it plays tricks on you, and initially scenes played out slightly differently than I remembered them - especially those with corpses flying around and faces melting, which I haven't mentioned yet how terrified I was by. Raiders of the Lost Ark came by at such a specific time in film history and I just happened to be a kid during those days - where video, mass media, marketing, toy manufacturing, comics and television played such a large role, or was about to. It was a film that did something to me - whatever part of your brain is stimulated by artistic expression and admiration was touched in a fundamental way which was never again as powerful as it was when I was in that movie theater. Beyond the excitement and the drama, mixed with sound and vision - with words and ideas and emotions. If movies could be compared to a powerful drug, then Raiders of the Lost Ark is that dragon I've been chasing the rest of my life - looking and searching for another film that may come along one day and reach that place in me that hasn't been touched again since 1981.

I enjoyed reading that, Phoenix.

__________________

I think that's the first time I've seen Roar mentioned on the forum. That's a messed up film.

Baby Face follows Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck), a young woman determined to "get anything she wants in the world". The film follows her journey from her father's speakeasy in Pennsylvania to the upper echelons of the Gotham Trust bank; a journey she achieves specifically by sleeping with different men. From the hiring employee at the bank to the vice-president, and others in between.

Released during the Pre-Code era, Baby Face is one of the most notable examples of what the Hays Code fought against, like "inference of sex perversion". The above is the advice given to her by a friend, after seeing her grow up being pimped by her own father, and constantly harassed by his clients. This sets her eventual move to New York City, where we see the lengths she's willing to go to achieve her goals.

From a historical and contextual point of view, it's really interesting to see a film's attempt to push the boundaries set by the system, and Stanwyck revels in the role. She manages to build a compelling character that even if you don't condone her actions, you understand where she's coming from and the reasons for what she's doing what she does. The supporting cast is effective, but this is Stanwyck's show all the way.

I still think they wrapped things in too neat a bow in the end. The whole last act felt too conveniently played for Lily. In the version I saw, things ended a bit too well for Lily, and I think I would've preferred a bleaker ending. As much as I like to see a woman flip the tables on the male-centric manipulation of the times, that doesn't make her actions any better and I feel like the way things unfolded, there was little to no consequence to it all.

Grade:

Thunder Road (2018) -

Man, this is one difficult film to rate! Watching more of Jim Cummings' films might make this an easier film to talk about, though I did enjoy a couple things about it. I've seen a few people argue that Jim is so incompetent and buffoonish that it's hard to root for him. To me though, his erratic behavior worked as scenes like his awkward funeral sermon and his breakdown outside the police station were products of Jim's mental state and his feelings of being overwhelmed. He's a try-hard who has difficulty processing his emotions and does whatever he can to get into the good graces of people he feels he wronged. I don't know much about mental health, so I'm not sure how I'd classify his character, but he did appear to have something which made him act the way he did in the film. Given this, while his character can be challenging at times, I wouldn't describe him as annoying. While Jim's mental state is made as clear as day though, I felt a significant disconnect in feeling anything for him. Torgo mentioned in his review how you're often unsure whether to laugh or cry during his breakdowns and, while I agree, I think this was why the film left me cold. Since I was unsure how I was supposed to react to Jim's breakdowns, I didn't find them funny nor emotionally powerful. I was just left kind of indifferent to Jim throughout most of the film (granted though, there are a couple mildly powerful moments near the end). Normally, I'd argue that the film should've toned down on the awkward bits so that it would be easier to feel a connection towards Jim, but again, they were part of the point of his character, so that wouldn't be a good idea. And this brings me back to the first sentence of this review. This is a difficult film to rate as, while I had difficulty feeling much towards Jim, I'm not sure I could improve the film without diluting his characterization. Therefore, I'll say that, while I was left cold by this film, I still understood and appreciated what it was going for.

Last Up: True Romance

I think that you can do both, and the film leaves room for you to do both, and that's kind of why I love it.

The other day a child said (loudly!) "Just so you know, I'm not exactly wearing underwear today. But don't worry, it's just because there were no clean ones."

This makes me laugh and cry. I laugh because, come on, it's funny. But I cry because I think about how the world is going to treat him. The people in my life who give me that laugh/cry feeling are some of the most interesting and engaging presences in my life, even if they sometimes put me through the emotional wringer.

Yeah, and that's fair and all. I just didn't feel the same connection you did with this film, so I suppose the humor comes down to a matter of taste.

Totally.

But I always think it's interesting when people are like "I'm not sure if this is funny or dramatic" or "Am I supposed to be laughing or crying?". Like, BOTH! BOTH! It can be both! You can do both!

It can be off-putting when a film itself seems confused, but in this case I feel like Cummings knew exactly the line he was walking. (Though of course you're still welcome to not click with or like what he did).

I think the film knew what line it was walking as well. I think that, in my case though, I wasn't able to feel either emotion profoundly enough to really get into the film. It wasn't until the final 10 or so minutes where I found the film emotionally powerful. I don't know what Cummings other films are like, but maybe if I watch some more of them (and assuming they're similar in tone), I may warm up to this film some more. Who knows.

Great ****ing review Phoenix, and needless to say, I 100% agree with it: https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/fil...-the-lost-ark/

Yeah, Phoenix's reviews here are always well-detailed and interesting to read. I wish I could write that good.