Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

#81 - Life is Beautiful
Roberto Begnini, 1997



In World War II Italy, an eccentric Jewish man attempts to build a life for himself even as the Nazis move in and start sending people to concentration camps.

I get the impression that this is actually one of those films that you love or you hate. The main pull of this film is the fact that Benigni's protagonist uses his capacity for impressive feats of imagination in order to defend his young son from the horrors of being in a concentration camp. Of course, it takes half the film to actually reach this point, with the first half being the introduction of a bunch of characters who do or do not play a part in the much more important second half. The first half is easy to write off as some whimsical period-piece farce as Benigni's character bumbles his way through a pre-WWII city and manages to befriend or anger a number of characters through his childish but supposedly endearing antics (such as faking his way through being a Nazi educator or winning over his love interest on the basis of the other townspeople's predictable habits). The tendency to rely on convenient coincidences as proof of some greater magic serves the narrative well but its execution isn't particularly entertaining.

The second half is where the film supposedly takes off as Benigni and his family end up in a concentration camp. The premise involving Benigni pretending that being in the camp is an elaborate game for the sake of his son's innocence has some potential but there's something about Benigni's desperately manic energy that ironically doesn't quite sell it. The idea seems to be to make the light-hearted tone of the film's first half translate in part to its much more serious second half but the end result is too tonally inconsistent to take seriously. Not even a certain event happening late in the film that required me to rewind the DVD just to make sure it actually happened was enough to make me reconsider how I wasn't particularly impressed with this film's progression. While technically decent, it doesn't always work as either a comedy or a drama.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I'm disappointed you didn't like The Grapes of Wrath more, but I suppose it isn't a film for everyone.

At least I recognise it's a classic and that there's something there that makes me think I'll give it another shot some other time.

#82 - The Yakuza
Sydney Pollack, 1974



A retired American ex-soldier returns to Japan after 25 years in order to help out a friend who is being harassed by the Yakuza crime syndicate.

A solid if not especially amazing thriller. This could have easily turned into some unfortunate white-saviour nonsense but fortunately Robert Mitchum's weary protagonist isn't that much of a hero - Ken Takakura's retired Yakuza member is probably the closest the film has to one. Though the first half of the film plods along in trying to set up its primary conflict and develop Mitchum's character and his relationships with the rest of the cast, the second half picks up thanks to its developing twists and well-executed action sequences. Screenwriters Paul Schrader and Robert Towne have written some classic films before and since, and while that same storytelling magic doesn't quite translate here, the effort that's been put into accurately depicting Yakuza culture and codes of honour is put to good narrative effect, especially in the film's rather shocking denouement. It hasn't aged all that well and the first half does drag a bit, but it's a decent enough film nonetheless.

#83 - Unbroken
Angelina Jolie, 2014



Based on the true story of Louie Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who joins the Air Force during World War II and is eventually taken prisoner by the Japanese army.

I'm just going to go ahead and say it - Unbroken is not a very good movie. I'll grant that Roger Deakins' cinematography is top-notch as always - striking contrasts and subtle camera movements abound as he shoots his way to his twelfth Oscar nomination (though if he did win for this, it really would feel like a sympathy vote more than anything). I mention the cinematography first up because it really is the best thing about this movie. The story is a fairly thin "against-all-odds" kind of deal that tries to mix things up by having Zamperini's backstory told in two separate flashbacks that both occur as he is having plane trouble (though I do question why there needed to be two separate flashbacks that both occurred in the first half of the film - the resulting pacing is more awkward than if it was just one flashback or even presented chronologically). Between the plane crashing and Zamperini being captured by the Japanese, there's a sequence where he and two other survivors are stuck in a lifeboat for several weeks. I figure this whole segment of the film could have done with some serious trimming - given how much the trailers emphasised Zamperini's time in the prison camp, the whole lifeboat section just feels like padding and is very lacking in suspense, the occasional shark attack notwithstanding.

The prison camp section that takes up the whole second half of the film isn't much better. Zamperini is the only character with any serious development and he still just comes across as naive yet determined to see the war through. His fellow prisoners aren't given much in the way of memorable definition, nor are his Japanese captors. The film's chief villain, "The Bird" (Miyavi), is supposed to be a menacing and unpredictable sadist in the vein of Amon Goeth, but he still comes across as an unfortunate one-dimensional "evil warden" stereotype with only the slightest hints of character development. From there the film just falls into a rut of Zamperini enduring all sorts of physical and mental hardships. It gets to the point where the most interesting thing that happens is Zamperini being offered the chance to avoid prison by co-operating with the Japanese army's propaganda department, but it's also pretty easy to guess the outcome of that little sub-plot. Aside from that, Unbroken is a pretty standard film that lacks decent plot and character development, instead seeking to present a lavishly produced dramatisation of real-life events. Unfortunately, it takes more than just an astounding true story to make a good film - there's next to no suspense, the characters lack depth and the film seems to be ticking off a bunch of seemingly necessary war movie clichés. Still, at least it's shot well.

#84 - Ordinary People
Robert Redford, 1980



Centres on an upper-class family that is still recovering from the death of its eldest son.

Another day, another Best Picture winner that managed to beat out a much more critically acclaimed classic and ended up having something of a backlash as a result. Instead of being a monochromatic examination of male violence like a certain other Best Picture nominee was, 1980's Best Picture winner is a low-key drama that examines the stilted life of the typical W.A.S.P.-filled American suburbia, especially when that community is thrown by the death of a beloved young person. It could just have easily been another mediocre attempt at manipulating an audience to tears, but to my surprise I actually liked Ordinary People.

Appropriately enough, Ordinary People is driven by its characters more so than any external developments (apart from the death that starts off the film, of course). Newcomer Timothy Hutton rightfully wins an Oscar as the youngest son, who manages to convey a wide range of emotions while still maintaining a consistently shy demeanour, which really helps to sell his inevitable outbursts and actions late in the film. His parents are also good characters - Donald Sutherland is predictably great as the caring but clueless father (and gets in one very gripping monologue at the end) while Mary Tyler Moore plays against type as the emotionally distant mother, with her disdainful attitude making her very easy to hate but she has more depth than you'd think. I also have to acknowledge Judd Hirsch as Hutton's new psychiatrist - while I'm more than a little inclined to see him as an early version of Robin Williams' character from Good Will Hunting, I don't consider that a slight against Hirsch at all, and it's his scenes with Hutton that rank among some of the film's best and most effective.

First-time director Redford doesn't try anything too ostentatious in terms of style - aside from some fairly attention-grabbing editing choices (both aural and visual), he's content to just rely on the strength of the script and the actors. It does lag from time to time and one may question the strength of the romantic sub-plot between Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern, but for the most part it's a solid drama and I was genuinely impressed with it.

#85 - Death Rides a Horse
Giulio Petroni, 1967



A pair of cowboys team up to take revenge on a gang of outlaws for their own personal reasons.

It should go without saying that just because a film is a Spaghetti Western doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be on par with anything Sergio Leone ever did. Death Rides a Horse isn't nearly that ambitious, but it still manages to serve as a decent little pot-boiler. The inimitable Lee Van Cleef definitely has more charisma than just about anyone else on screen, including his pretty blonde co-star (John Phillip Law). Their odd-couple chemistry and conflicting motives make for some interesting drama, especially when Law's thirst for bloody vengeance ends up complicating Van Cleef's plans to collect his debts. There isn't much in the way of action or drama - Law's good-hearted avenger is considerably bland compared to Van Cleef's morally grey ex-con, while the villains are definitely a vile bunch but generally lack definition. It takes until the end of the film for the action to get any good, and even then it feels like too little, too late.

Fortunately, the film is backed up by some appropriately gritty camerawork (and the notorious red-tinted flashbacks that Tarantino "appropriated" for Kill Bill), to say nothing of Ennio Morricone's repetitive yet iconic score (again "appropriated" by Tarantino in Kill Bill). It's definitely not a classic, but if you're looking for Spaghetti Westerns in particular then you definitely won't mind this film's shortcomings.

#86 - West Side Story
Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961



A musical retelling of Romeo and Juliet that substitutes feuding Italian families for New York street gangs in the present day.

With films that are considered all-time classics, I do have to wonder whether or not I can truly say something about it that hasn't already been said in the decades following its release. That's why I tend to favour these subjective reviews about what I thought, but I need something more than just a laundry list of reasons why I don't personally like it all that much. West Side Story is most definitely a classic, but I won't deny it had its flaws. Granted, it's a very crisp-looking and well-choreographed musical, but I kind of fault it over its two leads. Natalie Wood is generally a good actress, but she doesn't make for an especially convincing Puerto Rican (which becomes much more obvious when she's in a scene with the other Puerto Rican characters) and it's a bit too obvious that she's being dubbed over during songs where she performs. Even so, she still does alright, as does Richard Beymer as her opposite number. Indeed, the show is stolen by the supporting characters, especially George Chakiris and Rita Moreno as Wood's brother and best friend respectively who definitely steal every scene they appear in.

The songs themselves are a matter of dispute. The livelier numbers are great (case in point, "America", which is probably the best song here), but the softer love songs...not so much. I end up coming close to tuning them out completely even as I pay attention to them. A minor grievance against such a well-made film, but the inconsistency when it comes to engaging numbers is a significant problem when it comes to a musical, especially one that's about two-and-a-half hours long. Even so, it's generally entertaining in one way or another.

#87 - The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1947



A widow moves into a supposedly haunted house and ends up befriending the ghost of a sea captain.

An interesting little slice of paranormal romance. Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney provide decent performances as the titular characters, convincingly selling their slowly developing relationship that starts off with surprisingly candid banter (Mrs. Muir is strangely calm about meeting a ghost, after all). It has a bit of trouble padding out its premise - there's an almost inevitable love triangle involving George Sanders as a charming artist, plus a sub-plot involving the transcription of the captain's memoirs. Some of the third-act complications seem understandable yet disappointing, while the ending is probably a bit too predictable by modern standards (but it still works). Though it's not an amazing film, it's definitely weathered the test of time and several decades worth of imitators with considerable ease.

#88 - The Asphalt Jungle
John Huston, 1950



A bunch of criminals plan a bank heist but it doesn't go off as planned.

A solid effort on Huston's part that seems like the grandfather of all heist movies. I was impressed enough with Rififi (which feels like a French rip-off of this, now that I think about it) but even so, I merely found this one to be alright. Huston is in his prime here and balances a number of character arcs around the familiar "botched heist" narrative, but the end result leaves a bit to be desired. There are multiple well-acted characters but they don't have much in the way of development so it's a little hard to care about their predicaments. Not even Sterling Hayden's protagonist and his oddly noble goal of buying back his old family farm with the proceeds from the heist do much to endear us to him. Having an extended heist sequence play out in the middle of the film is a good choice (again ripped by Rififi) but once again it feels like a rough draft for things to come rather than impressive in its own right.

#89 - Mildred Pierce
Michael Curtiz, 1945



A divorced woman has to try to make ends meet so as to provide for her family but also has to contend with the pressures of running a business and handling her suitors.

Occupying a strange grey area between noir and melodrama, Mildred Pierce is nonetheless a good film. Joan Crawford delivers an award-winning performance as the incredibly driven title character, whose goal of achieving a stable home life makes for an incredible case of dramatic irony as her workaholic tendencies only serve to alienate her from her daughter and her suitors both past and present. Other performers are solid, but Crawford towers over all of them. The plot is a surprisingly non-violent noir narrative (barring the cold open that ends in murder) but it's mixed with enough familial tension to blur the line between noir and melodrama. It's full of enough twists and turns but (perhaps more importantly) the gaps between plot developments are packed out well enough. Master journeyman Curtiz makes sure the whole film is paced well and shot with monochromatic flair.

I read a bad review for Birdman from Rex Reed. That's not always a sign that the movie is truly awful, but then I read the whole plot summary of Birdman on Wikipedia... and I really don't think that movie sounds like... a good movie.

I know I haven't seen it, but I'm really very skeptical of its supposed greatness.

Yeah, I really, really, really don't trust anything you say about movies.

That's understandable. In my review I acknowledge that, despite all its strengths, I don't think it should be even remotely considered Best Picture material, yet in spite of its more obvious flaws I still like it.

I'd be interested in seeing an in-depth post about why you hate Evil Dead so much - if you already wrote one, post a link.

That's true. Some of them are good.... Though I can't think of one atm.

She didn't know she'd been dubbed until she went to the premire and saw the film for the first time. I think I'm right in saying she'd demanded that they record her versions of the songs to do the film. They agreed, but I doubt they ever had any intention of using them regardless of how good she was. You have to remember that nearly all those musicals are dubbed and sung by just a few singers, which is why they all sound the same and, probably, why if you don't really care for musicals, you tend to hate all those of the 50's/60's.

There's a good documentary called Secret Voices Of Hollywood which talks about all this.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

#90 - Oblivion
Joseph Kosinski, 2013



On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a two-person team are tasked with maintaining machines designed to provide energy but it soon turns out that all is not what it seems.

A film like Oblivion is, in its own weird way, a gift of sorts. It combines big-budget slickness with a narrative that's just riddled with incredible plot holes and various minor inconsistencies. A seasoned consumer of sci-fi both classic and modern can easily pick apart what pieces of work this particular film owes a debt to - even the fact that the trailers and TV spots end up spoiling major plot twists (often for the sake of revealing the film's second-most-famous actor, whose presence is in itself a plot twist) don't make much of a difference as the various shocking revelations end up being predictable from a considerable distance. Even the characters are only given the slightest of definition, which is a considerable problem given how there are only a handful in the whole film. That particular definition sometimes ends up being really bad to boot, as is the case with Andrea Riseborough's character, who serves as Tom Cruise's handler and, conveniently enough, his fake love interest. It's not Cruise fares much better - he puts in his usual amount of effort, but it's still a very flat character. That goes for all the other human characters, and even one not-so-human character (and if you ever watch the movie it's not hard to guess which one).

But hey, at least it looks good. At least director Kosinski, whose last feature was TRON: Legacy, knows how to construct some fairly decent visual effects spectacles (though you could pick apart the logic behind a lot of them as well - if Earth is so contaminated, why does the human base have an outdoors swimming pool? That's one of many questions that the film unintentionally poses). The existence of various gaps in the film's logic and the cavalcade of clichés does make for a bit of ironic fun (because even the action bits aren't much chop), and if nothing else the scenery is nice to look at, but as a genuinely interesting piece of science fiction it leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.

As someone who isn't all that familiar with classic Hollywood musicals, this is a good point to consider. No wonder they've changed up the game for better or worse.

#91 - Nightcrawler
Dan Gilroy, 2014



An aimless low-life decides to become a "nightcrawler", a person who drives around filming crimes and accidents in order to sell the footage to television networks.

Right from the moment that the first sharp night-time images appear on-screen, I knew Nightcrawler was going to be rather impressive. Jake Gyllenhaal manages to deliver an astonishingly great performance as Louis, a clearly disturbed individual whose messed-up nature makes him the perfect fit for an occupation as callous as that of a nightcrawler. The other characters of any significance are generally not much better than he is - there's Bill Paxton as Louis' much more experienced rival, Rene Russo as the TV executive that he sells his footage to and Riz Ahmed as his extremely earnest yet desperate "intern". There is a strong ensemble at work here, but it's Gyllenhaal who makes every scene his own as a gaunt-faced, dead-eyed, constantly smiling opportunist who will not hesitate to spout trite motivational soundbites as if they were incontrovertible gospel.

Outside of the core ensemble, the film moves along just fine. Even though you can probably guess how Gyllenhaal's obsession with his job will escalate out of control over the course of the movie, you don't particularly care as it plays out against some impressively shot night-time sequences (it helps that Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit is on hand to capture Los Angeles in all its neon-soaked and grime-laden glory) while a captivating score by James Newton Howard that features both sinister guitar work and haunting ambient noise plays in the background. Many scenes are fascinating, whether it's one-on-one dialogue in a dingy restaurant or a tense race-against-time for Louis to capture the perfect shot (especially in the film's unpredictably dangerous climax). The satirical angle here is just strong enough to stand up under scrutiny and it only helps to make the film's relatively surprising ending hold up despite it not being quite what the audience was expecting, but still...Nightcrawler is an extremely well-made debut that makes for a darkly comical journey into the depths of one man's soul (or lack thereof). Highly recommended.

Iro, I don't think I've ever seen anyone be so critical toward movies. By comparison, you make honeykid seem like the guy from The Lego Movie who runs around singing "Everything is awesome!"

Cynical viewing habits aside, this continues to be an excellent thread. I disagree with many of your assessments, but I still enjoy reading your intelligent and well-written responses. I haven't seen too many of your most recent viewings, but I definitely liked The Asphalt Jungle much more than you did. I agree with you on Oblivion and Death Rides a Horse. The latter is actually one of the first movies I ever watched and wrote about on this forum, back when I didn't even have enough posts to include links yet.

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I did occasionally wonder if I could end up being just as much of a contrarian as Honeykid, but there are some cinematic sacred cows that I like and he doesn't so I still consider him the (slightly) more critical one out of the both of us