Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

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The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)

"We've got a script but we don't follow it closely." Robert Altman

The Long Goodbye, a fun watch at times thanks to Elliot Gould's 'I don't care' attitude that he in-vibes into the often portrayed Philip Marlowe. But it's the 'let's party' Robert Altman's directorial style that takes a would be noir and turns it into a big budget version of a student film.

One can't call Elliot Gould's performance as acting in the traditional sense. Though there's no denying he has enough anti-establishment air about him to make his wise cracking lines be the highlight of the film.

Perhaps if Altman wasn't so relaxed about his movie making duties as a director he wouldn't have allowed so many improvised scenes. Those improvisations sometimes work to the film's advantage. But other times like the third scene where veteran actor Sterling Hayden plays a drunk, by actually being drunk and stoned, we get a sloppy performance where a stupor Sterling constantly forgets his cues and blows his lines. It would be wrong to blame Mr Hayden for that mess, the credit albeit a dour one goes to the director who likes to shoot film stock but has a hard time buckling down in the editing room and keeping to a vision.

That lack of directorial vision shows up in the wild tonal shifts that plaque the production. The acting ranges from ecliptic but suitable (Gould) to downright horrible. Much of the time the movie felt like an old TV episode of Starsky and Hutch complete with cool detectives, a cool car and zany over the top bad guys all set in a cartoon caper.

And what's with the women in this so called noir? All the younger woman act like brainless manikins. The would-be femme fatale (Nina van Pallandt) can't act and is played as a helpless character who can't find her way out of a paper bag. And do I really need to mention Bambi and her 3 friends who live across from Marlowe and are as clueless as the movie's plot is?

Like I said a fun watch, but I wish the film's director had staid more focused.





The Truth 'La Vérité' (1960)
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

It's criminal I tell ya! Just totally insane and all together unfathomable that I've never seen a Brigitte Bardot film before... Sure I've heard her name ever since I was a kid in school. Everyone knows the name Brigitte Bardot, so why haven't I seen her in anything until now.

I gotta say she could act up a storm, at least in this film. I totally believed the emotions that she was pouring out of her and onto film. I was clearly on her side from the get-go even though she did seem troubled with a capital T. But you know what, that troubled character was very believable and grounded in reality. She was both self destructive and needy at the same time with an underlying resentment of her sister and mom. Believable stuff for sure.

Gawd! I hate that guy in the screenshot above. Sami Frey was the actor who played a very well done, ******* of a person! Sometime during the movie a subtitle came on that described Gilbert (Sami Frey) perfectly...



That made me think of the movie Whiplash and Andrew the guy who wanted to be the jazz drummer and was willing to screw over his girlfriend all for his own selfish purposes. I can't stand self absorbed, smug people like that and for some reason most people root for Andrew in Whiplash but he's the same type of ******* as Gilbert is. Funny how one film can make a person hate a character and in another film that same type of character is lifted up and people admire him for his dedication to music, even though in the process he hurts people.





Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Director: Orson Welles

Original title: Campanadas a medianoche

'When King Henry IV ascends to the throne, his heir, the Prince of Wales, is befriended by Sir John Falstaff, an old, overweight, fun-loving habitual liar. Through Falstaff's eyes we see the reign of King Henry IV and the rise of Henry V.' Based on several of William Shakespeare's plays.

Orson Welles was a bonafide genius. He often referred to himself as having, "started at the top and worked his way down." At the top, refers to Citizen Kane, and Orson had an unheard of full editorial control over his 1st movie. Studios did not just grant youngsters like 26 year old Orson full control over a major studio film...but then again Orson Welles was no ordinary 26 year old!

Welles had started his career as a stage director doing plays based on Shakespeare but with a modern twist. So it's not surprising Welles chose a work of Shakespeare as the basis for his last feature length, non documentary film.

I hadn't seen Chimes at Midnight before...OMG this was epic! It had a sweeping vastness to the exterior long shots and the interiors made the castle seem vast and cavernous. And the film was drenched in Orson's unique cinema style...Like those low angled shots that made the characters look larger than life itself. I was awed at the scenes with the rows of those long spears. In one magnificent scene the clouds flew by like centuries peeling away layer by layer. How did Orson do that? I don't know, but that's why there's never been another like Orson Welles.





The Green Years (Paulo Rocha 1963)
Original title: Os Verdes Anos

I'm impressed. This is my first Portuguese new wave film and there's much that I appreciated. Some might say there's little insight into the characters and their motives, but to me that screenshot says it all.

Dialogue and character deposition aren't necessary when the look in the character's eyes can explain more than words ever could...That screenshot perfectly encapsulates the emotional conflict of the couple.

The director intentionally keeps his distance from the story, as this is not a first hand telling, but a second hand telling by the uncle. Thus the lives of the young couple are seen as an impression through the eyes of the jaded uncle. I think that's brilliant film making.

There's been a lot said about some of the editing. Yes, it's a bit jarring at times. But that isn't a negative for me. I image shooting in the city presented special problems for the director with people walking into the frame ruining shots.

The cinematography: the way the camera moves, the way the director composes his scenes, the spacial distances and the angle of view...all magnificent. So many personable shots out of a window...and tracking shots that give movement to the story. Very nice.



A couple people mentioned the copy of the movie they watched had poor video quality. I understand how that can effect one's enjoyment of a film, it does effect me. Luckily I found a fully restored version that looked as good as new...and that quality made me appreciate the city-scape-cinematography. Much of the appeal of this film is the creative use of Lisbon. In a way the city itself is a character.

The one drawback for me is the ending, which felt tacked on so that the story could wrap up and the audience would have something to talk about afterwards. I'd preferred if the ending was earned by the movie's story and not just done for added 'flair'.





Whiplash

(
Damien Chazelle 2014)


I tried watching Whiplash when it first came out, I shut it off after 30 minutes. Previously I wrote this:

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules
Whiplash lost me when the music teacher picked up and hurled a heavy metal chair at the student. I know the director wanted to show the teacher's intensity, but that scene broke the illusion of believability. No way could I believe that in today's sue-happy society would a teacher with such near-psychotic behavior be allowed to continue to work... and I sure didn't want to spend two hours listening to someone yelling & bulling. That's the problem with many new Hollywood films, they have to be bigger, louder, ballsier than the last picture.

So...I just watched the entire movie and yeah it was entertaining but akin to eating a big bag of pepperoni sticks for dinner. Sure it gives a big punch and hits the right emotional spots. But like eating a bunch of junk food, it sure in the hell wasn't good...

Miles Teller...what a bad actor, at least in this one movie. His one note method of acting never varied. It didn't matter if he was knuckling under to his instructor or 'fake acting' being shy as he asked the movie theater girl out for a date. Nothing about his acting rose above the level of mediocre.

J.K. Simmons ...he actually kicked ass as an actor and was the best casting choice in the film. But the crappy dialogue that he's forced to say by director/writer Damien Chazelle is just pure bunk, bombastic. You know J.K. Simmons could've been more intimidating just by brow beating someone with a steely glance and a snide remark. He sure didn't need the homophobia hate language, that was a cheap writer's trick to get the audience to hate the instructor's guts. That hate was not earned by the movie, it was shoveled in our face by a lame script. And yes the chair throwing incident was ridiculous. Instead: the metal folding chair should've been thrown at the ground with force. Less is more!

Melissa Benoist 'The girl'...yup that's her role in the film, to be a girl. We get one contrived meeting scene between her and the music student, that has him shyly asking her for a date. I've seen the same scene done better in corny 1980s teen films. Then there's a brief pizza eating scene, then he breaks up with her. Why bother to do a movie relationship if the script can't earn what it wants to achieve. What the film wants to do is get us to the one crucial spot where he dumps his girlfriend so he can then study music full time...thus pounding into the audience's heads that he really, really wants to be a jazz drummer. That break-up scene wasn't earned. There needed to be a couple more brief scenes establishing that 'the girl' was falling for jazz boy and that jazz boy was increasingly become obsessed with his career.

The abusive teacher....OK now that I've seen the entire film, I do know they address that the teacher was abusive. BUT that one brief scene with the lawyer (or whoever she was) trying to convince the drummer student to tell the authorities about the teacher's abuse, rang hollow...Once again the director/writer treats the scene like an afterthought. The demise of the abusive music teacher and the repercussions from that, should've been the entire third act.

Whiplash
tricks the viewer into thinking they've seen something amazing when all we really did was go on a fast & loud ride.





Themroc (1973)
Director
Claude Faraldo

Themroc is a French absurdist social commentary film.

I watched the whole thing and was that a chore! I liked the film at first as it was like a silent era comedy film about a working class man who sure coughed a lot and liked looking at pretty girls in mini skirts...He reminded me of Benny Hill at this point of the film. I'm not sure who the younger girl was in his apartment who kept exposing her breast to him...gosh I hope that wasn't his sister! But after watching the weirdness of the movie, I'm guessing it was.

I liked the social commentary from 1973...It doesn't matter that this is set in France, there was this baby boomer/hippie movement back then that endorsed well just about anything and were definitely anti-establishment. Themroc is very anti-establishment and for that reason I found it's sociological time machine look back to the early 70s interesting.

The film wrapped up with our man (don't know what his name was, Themroc maybe?) tearing apart his apartment with a sledgehammer and throwing the trappings of modern life to the sidewalk below. Clearly another statement on rejecting commercialism & capitalism. The falling debris was interesting to watch, but only for awhile, that scene went on too long. I kept thinking the guy was going to fall out of that gaping hole in his third story apartment. I hope the actor had a rope tied onto his waist as it looked dangerous. The cops come of course and well you just have to see the 'pig' roast and orgy scene for yourself...But I never thought endless closeups of people's faces as they had orgasms could be so boring.





About Elly (2009)
Dir: Asghar Farhadi

This kinda felt like an Iranian version of Friends...at least in the beginning. Then after 30 really long minutes with nothing happening we get what felt like a contrived situation with the kid in the water and a long rescue that was suppose be thrilling, it wasn't. Then the movie turns into a 2 hour long version of a TV reality show, where a group of people crammed into one dingy, little house create drama by overreacting to the situation and accusing & yelling at each other...Then I became conscious that all I was seeing of Iran was this one little house and one small section of the beach...all shot with a hand held camera. It felt like a student film.

The actors were decent and Elly was pretty...and it was an easy movie to watch. Nothing to object to...but the story's drama should've been endemic to the social situation of Elly trying to escape a controlling fiance and as a woman not having the same rights as a man.





Whiplash

(
Damien Chazelle 2014)


I tried watching Whiplash when it first came out, I shut it off after 30 minutes. Previously I wrote this:

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules
Whiplash lost me when the music teacher picked up and hurled a heavy metal chair at the student. I know the director wanted to show the teacher's intensity, but that scene broke the illusion of believability. No way could I believe that in today's sue-happy society would a teacher with such near-psychotic behavior be allowed to continue to work... and I sure didn't want to spend two hours listening to someone yelling & bulling. That's the problem with many new Hollywood films, they have to be bigger, louder, ballsier than the last picture.

So...I just watched the entire movie and yeah it was entertaining but akin to eating a big bag of pepperoni sticks for dinner. Sure it gives a big punch and hits the right emotional spots. But like eating a bunch of junk food, it sure in the hell wasn't good...

Miles Teller...what a bad actor, at least in this one movie. His one note method of acting never varied. It didn't matter if he was knuckling under to his instructor or 'fake acting' being shy as he asked the movie theater girl out for a date. Nothing about his acting rose above the level of mediocre.

J.K. Simmons ...he actually kicked ass as an actor and was the best casting choice in the film. But the crappy dialogue that he's forced to say by director/writer Damien Chazelle is just pure bunk, bombastic. You know J.K. Simmons could've been more intimidating just by brow beating someone with a steely glance and a snide remark. He sure didn't need the homophobia hate language, that was a cheap writer's trick to get the audience to hate the instructor's guts. That hate was not earned by the movie, it was shoveled in our face by a lame script. And yes the chair throwing incident was ridiculous. Instead: the metal folding chair should've been thrown at the ground with force. Less is more!

Melissa Benoist 'The girl'...yup that's her role in the film, to be a girl. We get one contrived meeting scene between her and the music student, that has him shyly asking her for a date. I've seen the same scene done better in corny 1980s teen films. Then there's a brief pizza eating scene, then he breaks up with her. Why bother to do a movie relationship if the script can't earn what it wants to achieve. What the film wants to do is get us to the one crucial spot where he dumps his girlfriend so he can then study music full time...thus pounding into the audience's heads that he really, really wants to be a jazz drummer. That break-up scene wasn't earned. There needed to be a couple more brief scenes establishing that 'the girl' was falling for jazz boy and that jazz boy was increasingly become obsessed with his career.

The abusive teacher....OK now that I've seen the entire film, I do know they address that the teacher was abusive. BUT that one brief scene with the lawyer (or whoever she was) trying to convince the drummer student to tell the authorities about the teacher's abuse, rang hollow...Once again the director/writer treats the scene like an afterthought. The demise of the abusive music teacher and the repercussions from that, should've been the entire third act.

Whiplash
tricks the viewer into thinking they've seen something amazing when all we really did was go on a fast & loud ride.

So glad to see that someone sees in Whiplash what I did.




Ship of Fools (Stanley Kramer 1965)

This was the nom I was most looking forward to watching...I'd seen it some 15 years ago but remembered nothing about it. I knew it had an all star cast and was directed by one of the great 20th century directors Stanley Kramer (The Defiant Ones, On the Beach, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Inherit the Wind, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner). Kramer directed one of my all time top films, his tour de force Judgement at Nuremberg. So I expected big things from Ship of Fools especially as it features three of my favorite actors: Lee Marvin, Jose Ferrer and Vivian Leigh.

I hate to say this but I was underwhelmed and found the movie middle of the road. I think the problem stems from Abby Mann's screenplay of Katherine Anne Porter's novel Ship of Fools. When a screenplay is adapted from a lengthy and complex multi-character novel the screenwriter has literally two choices: They can include the bulk of the characters by skeletonizing the characters down to just a few core characteristics thus removing most of their story arcs and nuances, so as to save on film runtime...Or the screenwriter can cut mercilessly until the side characters are removed from the movie's screenplay allowing the main characters to be more fully explored in the shorter time that movies offer. Ship of Fools does the former and retains all the characters albeit in very reduced story form.

It's that lack of character exploration that disappointment me the most. Consider the rich uncle who has left all of his money to his young poor nephew with one catch, the nephew doesn't get the money until the uncle has died. But we learn nothing of their relationship other than that single fact. Then there's Vivian Leigh, we're directly told by another character she's an aging coquette who's looking for a kind of love she'll never find. But how about letting the character's actions divulge this to us instead of having the film directly tells us through a monologue...That's what happens when a novel has the characters skeletonized down to mere whispers of their former selves. It would've been better to cut the secondary story of the Spanish labors who board the ship in Cuba. Their story could be interesting but not in the short time the movie has when one considers all the numerous characters that the movie includes.



Pros: There are some real strengths in Ship of Fools. Simone Signoret and Oskar Werner who were both Oscar nominated for best actor/actress for their work on this film. Their acting and their scenes together are worth the 'price of admission'. The way they are written says much without telling us their whole story, we 'get them' through their emotions and actions, that elevates the movie and was greatly appreciated by me.

The scenes with the Jewish man (Heinz Rühmann) and the dwarf who also narrates the film (Michael Dunn) were among my favorites. Those two character added needed humanity and warmth. They felt alive, they felt real as opposed to some of the other characters who seemed like contrived archetypes. I did like Jose Ferrer's likable but loudmouth bigot. The funny thing is he doesn't even know he's a bigot and that is a bit of clever writing.

Strangely both Vivan Leigh who I adore and Lee Marvin who's just plain cool both disappointed me in this film. I don't blame the actors as I know they have the chops, I blame the script.

Despite the overly long runtime and the unevenness of the movie I am very glad to have watched this and find myself wanting to explore more of Stanley Kramer's filmography.