mark f's Movie Tab III

"Manos" The Hands of Fate (Hal Warren, 1966) Camp Rating:


Talk about "Lies in Advertising", but that's stolen from the Psycho poster. "Manos" is regularly called the worst film ever made, but it cannot really compare to The Creeping Terror, and it's also less-entertaining on a stupidity level. True, it is a lousier movie than Plan 9 from Outer Space, but that has plenty of idiot characters to laugh at and "feel for". In "Manos", there are far fewer characters, and I don't even think of them as characters because they're more idiotic puppets being utilized by a deranged puppeteer, and they cannot compare with the "Pull the Strings!" of Bela Lugosi in Wood's otherwise pathetic Glen or Glenda? Oh well, what IS good about this flick? I have no idea. Well, actually the score is pretty tripped-out and would be good to listen to in the dark without watching the movie. Torgo is worth a chuckle or two with his "beefed-up" thighs and halting delivery of lines, but what can I say? The worst actor in the flick is the dumbass director who plays the "father Michael". What a craphead! The film needed much more of the "Brides" in their underwear attacking each other for it to be worth watching for even camp value, but when the "Surprise Ending" shows up (if you can figure it out), you'll be happy that the movie is over, even if the closing song is worth a few laughs.

Barbarosa (Fred Schepisi, 1982) -


I've always loved this quirky western ever since I first watched it in the theatre. It's gorgeously photographed and Willie Nelson and Gary Busey make such a great team that it's a shame that they didn't make more films together. What sets this western apart from most is that it evolves from a revenge flick into a sly fairy tale about families and the lengths a man will go to try to protect his and perhaps reinvent himself to find true happiness. Willie Nelson is great as Barbarosa, a bandit who married into a Mexican family but was immediately cast out and has been hunted by that family for about 20 years. Gary Busey is a "farm boy" who accidentally killed an in-law and is on the run from the dead man's father and brothers. Busey comes across Barbarosa, becomes his partner and learns the ropes from the wise veteran, but even more important, he learns about family life and the unfortunate truth it can sometimes present as well as the beautiful rewards it can lead to depending on one's outlook on life. Just in case it sounds like I'm painting this film as too dark, I have to mention that the quirkiness extends to its sense of humor which is also quite generous and gives Willie Nelson an all-time great line when he first meets up with "Angel Morales". Gilbert Roland also delivers a strong performance as the stern patrician of the Mexican family who is actually Barbarosa's father-in-law. The film's climax is also just about perfect.

Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961) ; Art House Rating:


Bergman's first "chamber drama" is also one of his most accessible, telling the story of schizophrenic young Karin (Harriet Andersson) who has recently left a mental hospital to return to the island home of her family, her doctor husband Martin (Max von Sydow), her novelist father David (Gunnar Björnstrand) and her younger, awkward brother Minus (Lars Passgård). The siblings have a problem with their father because he always seems to be off somewhere writing his latest "popular" novel and never seems to have time for them. Besides that, Karin seems to be getting worse, she's become frigid, cannot sleep and honestly believes that she's living in two worlds and is beginning to feel that she prefers the one which nobody else can see or hear. Harriet Andersson goes through staggering emotional range in this powerful film, beautifully photographed by Sven Nykvist. There are a couple of scenes in this film which are the equal of Bergman's best. For me those would be the scene with the voices coming through the cracks in the wall and the possible arrival of Karin's God in that second-story room near the film's climax. This was the first film of a trilogy which also included Winter Light (1962) and The Silence (1963).

The Gods Must Be Crazy(Jamie Uys, 1980)

This international hit still packs plenty of entertainment although I'd imagine that many of today's audiences would find it just too hokey and silly for words. I mean, back in 1984, when it was released in the U.S., we understood that the film was low-budget, old-fashioned, fake, slapsticky, amateurish, and had a chintzy musical score, but it was also charming and somehow just plain funny. The combination of disparate characters is probably one of the main things going for it. You have the wise Kalahari bushman (N!xau) with his Coke bottle, a gift from the Gods, which goes from being the best tool ever given to Mankind to being a horrible curse. Throw in an incredibly clumsy-around-women biologist (Marius Weyers) and a female office worker-turned-teacher (Sandra Prinsloo), and have most of their encounters center around a Jeep with a mind of its own, and you have the makings of a slapstick romantic comedy crossed with a nature travelog. Add in some warring factions racing across the desert and shooting up places along the way, and then you've got plenty of action put into the mix. As I said above, it's still very entertaining, but maybe younger audiences just won't get it or be able to get into it.

Miss Julie (Mike Figgis, 1999)


This is an intense version of Strindberg's intense play, although it's not nearly as cinematic or striking as the 1951 version. It's set in 1894 Sweden and tells how Miss Julie (Saffron Burrows), the inexperienced daughter of the lord of the manor, confronts her father's footman Jean (Peter Mullan) and spends a long night in the kitchen talking with him about class, the world and their places in it. Their talk is mostly a battle of wits and wills with both sides attempting to turn the table on the other, but eventually both souls open up to share something a bit more tender. However, Jean's sexual knowledge eventually sets him above his "better", and while his fiancee (Marie Doyle Kennedy) sleeps nearby, he attempts to seduce Miss Julie. Director Figgis stages the scenes simply, mostly all in the estate's great kitchen, but the lead performances and the striking dialogue make the entire experience extremely intimate and threateningly real. Both performances are excellent, especially Burrows who imbues Miss Julie with both arrogance and innocence and makes it easy for someone to fear for her future as the night progresses. Mullan plays the more-enigmatic Jean and finds a middle ground for him because you're never really sure if he's just being a bastard or truly cares for Miss Julie and is trapped outside his class and will never be able to rise above it. Overall, it's a well-done adaptation of a surprisingly still-modern play.

One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, 1961) (mafo MoFo Top 100 Film)


Machine-gun-paced Cold War comedy covers just about everything one could think of, not just what was happening in the divided city of Berlin at the time. James Cagney is a marvel as a Coca-Cola executive who has to "babysit" his boss's teenage daughter (Pamela Tiffin) and gets several headaches when she marries a young "Bolshevik" (Horst Buchholz) from East Berlin. The young woman's family is also on the way to Berlin to pick up their daughter, so Cagney has little time to straighten things out. There is also the usual high quota of sex and movie jokes from scripters I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder and a smart musical score which incorporates Khatchaturian's "Sabre Dance". It's almost impossible to describe how fast the dialogue flies by as everyone speaks as quickly as possible and the plot twists come at such a frantic pace. Don't expect to go to the kitchen or the bathroom with the movie playing because you'll miss about 20 visual or verbal jokes a minute. Of course, the better-versed you are in the world history and popular culture of 1961, the more fun you'll have watching this terrific comedy, but it's also a great way to learn some of those things in between all the laughs.

The Delinquents (Robert Altman, 1957)


Director Altman's first feature film (he wrote the script in five days) is a foray into juvenile delinquents roaming Kansas City, Missouri, looking for people to rob and abuse. Caught in the middle of their crime spree are good teenager Scotty (Tom Laughlin) and his sweetheart Janice (Rosemary Howard). The couple's problems start when her parents decide that the kids are too serious and forbid Scotty from seeing Janice. Here is where the leaders of the delinquents, Billy (Peter Miller) and Eddy (Richard Bakalyan), make their move to make the couple's life a living hell. The film starts out with a narrated prologue which makes it sound like an Ed Wood flick, but the studio added this against Altman's wishes. In general, the film operates on a higher technical and acting level than those of Wood, and it's reasonably watchable despite the overlit interior and exterior scenes. Altman admits that nobody knew what they were doing, but this, a James Dean docu and his many shorts got him plenty of work directing TV shows for the next decade. It's also fun to see Laughlin one year before he played a naval pilot in South Pacific and a full decade before he did his first Billy Jack role

Sitting Pretty (Walter Lang, 1948)


Mr. Belvedere teaches a baby an object lesson he'll never forget.

This is a hilarious film about problem children, nosy neighbors and their gossip, how difficult it is to maintain a happy marriage, and, most of all, a wonderfully-unique character, Lynn Belvedere (Clifton Webb), a "genius" who can do almost everything and turns the suburban community of Hummingbird Hill upside down and inside out in a very short while. The couple (Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara), who are desperate for a nanny/babysitter for their three frightful children, think they are getting a female for the job, but Mr. Belvedere proves to be too wonderful for them to ever get rid of, even when the nosiest neighbor (Richard Haydn) in film history gets people into trouble by trying to claim that some hanky panky is occurring under their roof. Just sit back and let all the clever dialogue, situations and acting produce several smiles on your face and out-loud laughs. Mr. Belvedere is one of the wittiest characters in film history, right up there with Webb's own Waldo Lydecker from Laura. It's just too bad that the two Mr. Belvedere sequels which turned up in the mid-1950s are so mediocre

Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronomi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, 1951) (mafo MoFo Top 100 Film)


Walt Disney hated this awesome version of the Lewis Carroll novel. He couldn't find anybody to root for and he found the lack of a strong story to be a huge roadblock. All I can say is I'm thankful that he didn't force the animation and writing team to change the incredibly surreal and uproarious content of this, my vote for the greatest traditional animated film ever made. I don't really want to go into how fast-paced and insane this film is, but it's a non-stop assault on the pomposity of logic and staid Victorian England which is also still able to include digs at many modern foibles which humans have in our current day and age, among them being rude and in far too much of a hurry to even say good day. It's also a potent political satire when we get to the Red Queen and how all things must be her way. There are so many wonderfully-drawn and beautifully-voiced characters that it's unfair to single some out, but I have to mention the Cheshire Cat (Sterling Holloway), the Caterpillar (Richard Haydn), the Mad Hatter (Ed Wynn) and the March Hare (Jerry Colonna). The crazy songs are frosting on the cake and a perfect aural counterpoint to the mind-blowing visuals. Some of this movie, especially the incredible opening scene, seems to be almost shot in 3-D.

The Buddy Holly Story (Steve Rash, 1978)


Gary Busey got his Best Actor Oscar nom for playing the title role here, and he not only plays a believable Buddy Holly, but he plays his own guitar, sings and dances. The other Crickets (Charlie Martin Smith - standup bass - and Don Stroud - drums) also sing and play their own instruments. The three do not really attempt to sound like the original records, but the joy and truth of what they do does make it highly worthy of the spirit of original rock 'n roll. The band was formed in Lubbock, Texas and went through some problems trying to be heard, but once the public got a taste of them, they became extremely popular. Buddy also finds time to woo and marry his beloved Maria Elena (Maria Richwine). The film is jam-packed with rollicking musical numbers, especially when the band plays the Apollo Theatre in Harlem and the closing segment with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens that fateful night before "The Day the Music Died". The Buddy Holly Story actually ranks as one of the very best films about the birth of rock 'n roll [if not the most accurate] to this day, and it may well take a very long time for another film to ever touch its heartfelt depiction of the 1950s when all races could actually come together over the music; at least if you were young enough and wanted to piss off your parents.

The Wolfman (Joe Johnston, 2010) (Director's Cut - 119 minutes)


I watched the director's cut of The Wolfman, and I don't understand why the movie was a bomb at the box office. I know it was 16 minutes shorter in the theatre and this could have weakened its impact somewhat, but I found the flick to be at least as good as the recent Sherlock Holmes which earned over $200 million domestically. It's true that many people believe they know everything there is to know about The Wolfman because the Lon Chaney, Jr. flick was so short and direct, but this film, at least in its longer version, has several added plot twists which the original never considered, and besides that, the original isn't really that good of a film(!) Although this Wolfman has the brooding Lawrence Talbot as a Shakespearean actor, it's surprising how well Benicio Del Toro fits the role of an Englishman, and there is a palpable heat which slowly develops between him and the fiancee (Emily Blunt) of his dead brother. Anthony Hopkins has plenty to contribute as Lawrence's nobleman father, and there are all those twists and turns which are new here. I especially enjoyed the cameo on the train with Max von Sydow and the wolf's head cane, as well as that idiot psycho doctor who gets exactly what he deserves. Extra credit for all the extreme violence and gore on hand in the Director's Cut.

Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926) ; Classic Rating:


Murnau's final German film before he moved on to Hollywood is a great blend of spectacle and special effects, especially in the first half. It's a classic story of Good vs. Evil, not all that unlike the Book of Job, where Mephisto [the Devil] (Emil Jannings) bets God that he can turn God-fearing, good man Faust (Gösta Ekman) into an unrepentant sinner if given a free hand. Faust wants youth and is especially attracted to a beautiful innocent (Camilla Horn). Eventually, her brother (William Dieterle) does battle for her honor with Faust in a scene reminiscent of Shakespeare's far-later Romeo and Juliet. The opening combines every imaginable use of sets, costumes, F/X, trippy editing and storytelling skill which Fritz Lang would later try to improve upon in the next year's Metropolis. The second half of the film which tells how Faust falls a bit short in his purity is entertaining but not as mesmerizing as the earlier scenes. However, it's very interesting to see Dieterle acting in this film before he moved to the U.S. to become a significant director and make his own Americanized version of this tale, the wonderful The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941).

The Trouble with Harry (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955) -


Hitch gleefully spins a tale about a dead body that almost everybody believes was personally killed by them and gets buried and unburied over and over. Yes, the film is a black comedy, but it does have plenty of trademark Hitchcock suspense as well as some of the funniest dialogue you'll ever hear. It takes place in New England during the fall, and Brenda and I both agree that it's probably the film which most resembles what our honeymoon looked like with all those striking autumnal colors. I don't want to get into too many details, but Harry causes trouble for an elderly hunter (Edmund Gwenn), a spinster (Mildred Natwick) who likes him, a painter (John Forsythe) with a devilish tongue, and a pretty young mother (Shirley MacLaine). This is not only the first Hitchcock film with a Bernard Herrmann score, but it's also MacLaine's film debut and an early flick for the boy (Jerry Mathers, the Beave from "Leave it to Beaver") who plays her son and steals all his scenes. The humor in Harry, especially from the John Forsythe character, is hilarious and surprisingly-modern. It may take just a little bit to really get going, but this film is generally underrated in the Hitchcock oeurve.