Category: Movie Dramas (Page 168 of 188)

The Small Back Room

October 28, 2008 /

Life during wartime is getting to English weapons researcher and bomb disposal expert Sammy Rice (David Farrar). He’s in constant pain from an artificial foot and his preferred method of medication, whiskey, is highly problematic. It gets worse because his struggle to avoid drinking is just one of a few thorny issues that’s giving Susan (Kathleen Byron), his very serious girlfriend, some equally serious doubts about their future. Oh, and those damned bloody Nazis have taken to leaving a new kind of tricky unexploded bomb laying around, and it’s killing local soldiers and Prof. Rice’s own colleagues.

Based on a famed wartime novel by Michael Balcon, 1951’s “The Small Back Room” is one of the less well known films from “the Archers,” the writing and directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Best known for ravishing and slightly insane Technicolor spectaculars like “A Matter of Life and Death,” “The Red Shoes,” and their masterpiece, “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” the influential pair also had a flair for creating genuinely captivating black and white thrillers and love stories. “The Small Back Room” is a bit of both and possesses a degree of complexity and implied sexuality unusual in its time, and also today. Still, the film maybe bites off a bit more than it can chew resulting in a relatively distancing second act, and one semi-dream sequence involving a giant whiskey bottle shows how Pressburger/Powell’s admirable creative risk-taking could sometimes lead to unintended laughs. Still, there is humor, fine drama, suspense in the climactic bomb disposal sequence, and an amazing cast of some of Britain’s best local talent. This may not be the Archers at their absolute best but, trust me, that’s no insult.

Click to buy “The Small Back Room”

Actors, Actresses, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, TV Action

Paranoid Park

October 16, 2008 /

Watching “Paranoid Park” and knowing that it’s made by Gus Van Sant, the
same man who gave us fare like “Good Will Hunting” and the carbon copy
remake of “Psycho,” is a disconcerting experience. It doesn’t look at all
like either of those films. Instead, it feels more like the work of a
gifted, first-time director who’s all of 20 years old. Van Sant is clearly
tuned in to the sort of malaise that can affect certain types of teenagers
in this day and age, which is a remarkable feat for a man in his mid-50s. In
this case, he uses skater subculture as the backdrop for a darker story told
as a disjointed series of journal entries written by skaterboy Alex (Gabe
Nevins), who may or may not be responsible for the tragic death of a
security guard. The kid is hounded by a detective (Daniel Liu) for
information, by his girlfriend (Taylor Momsen, “Gossip Girl”) for sex, and
by life in general. The film is structured like a sort of murder mystery,
but when the murder is “solved” about halfway through, you realize that it
was just a dramatic red herring; as a result, “Paranoid Park” is about
something else entirely, and I have to admit I’m not exactly sure what that
something is. This is the sort of fare that could probably hold different
meanings for different viewers. It’s strange and unsettling and will likely
stick with you long after the credits roll – far more so than Van Sant’s take
on “Psycho,” anyway.

Click to buy “Paranoid Park”

Actors, Actresses, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews, test

4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days

October 14, 2008 /

Sometimes simple, ordinary life can be more terrifying than any horror or suspense film – especially if you’re living under a dictatorship that seeks to manipulate the personal lives of its citizens. Christian Mungiu’s remarkable film won the top prize at Cannes and multiple critic’s prizes, wowed international audiences and created a small uproar when the Academy failed to shortlist it for the Foreign Language Oscar, and it’s obvious why. While “4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days” only alludes to the extreme Cold War-era anti-contraception and anti-abortion policies of ultra-Stalinist Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, the film details with bird’s eye view directness its destructive consequences on two college students (Anamaria Marinca and Laura Vasiliu), when one becomes pregnant and they circumnavigate the emotionally and physically dangerous road to an abortion before Ceauşescu’s bloody 1989 downfall.

Using very long takes and no music at all, Mungius’ film draws the viewer in with the simplest and most relatable of situations and the purest filmic minimalism, milking suspense and something like abject terror via convincing, seemingly banal dialogue, and remarkably low-key performances from its two young female stars alongside an astonishingly believable ensemble cast. Generating unbearable tension and suspense from a situation which feels utterly real, this is not necessarily a film for everyone and it’s not necessarily always easy to watch for any of us. Still, once you start watching it you’ll have a hard time stopping. Nothing here plays out as expected and few films in recent years have generated such tension from the mundane details of life in a political and social pressure cooker, which, it turns out, has more in common with life here in the mostly free world than any of us would like to think.

Click to buy “4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days”

Actors, Actresses, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

Brand Upon the Brain

September 16, 2008 /

It’s over-simplifying, but there’s no way around it: Winnipeg surrealist Guy Maddin works the same general territory as David Lynch. But while Lynch is still, in his unique way, a creature of Hollywood, Maddin has remained a Manitoba miniaturist whose films are both overtly psychological and proudly melodramatic. Oddly enough, Maddin’s movies are often more accessible than Lynch’s – at least partly because the filmmaker is an unabashed fan of the primal storytelling style of silent movies. “Brand Upon the Brain” builds upon the director’s fandom by being Maddin’s second actual silent film, and was originally presented as a theatrical event with a live orchestra, sound effects artists, and narrators. This typically lavish Criterion DVD includes both studio recordings and crisp live audio tracks with seven different narrators, including Isabella Rossellini (“Blue Velvet”), professional weirdo Crispin Glover, and the great nonagenarian character actor Eli Wallach (“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”).

The movie itself combines elaborate fantasy and confessional filmmaking, at least on the level of metaphor – the main character is named “Guy Maddin” and the director has described the film as “97% true.” It’s not a drag, though – there’s a pleasing and funny jumble of genre elements ranging from teen detective to grand guignol horror, some nudity (both the sexy kind and the not so sexy kind, in this case involving a male corpse) and Ms. Rossellini’s narration is literally a scream. Featuring a deliberately herky-jerky editorial approach (a new wrinkle for Maddin that I’m not wild about), “Brand Upon the Brain” works for the most part, but for me this doesn’t quite add up to Class A insanity. I would have happier with a bit more melodrama and a bit less psychosexual metaphor.

Click to buy “Brand Upon the Brain”

External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

Mandingo

September 14, 2008 /

When this deeply strange tale of cruelty and interracial sexual exploitation on a pre-Civil War Southern plantation directed by Richard Fleischer (“Soylent Green,” “20,000 Leagues Under the Seas”) was released in 1975, it was greeted with hoots of derision and ridiculed as cheaply sensational – and possibly racist – not only by critics, but on a raucous “Saturday Night Live” skit. More recently, writers like the outstanding cinephile blogger Dennis Cozzalio have been urging a critical reappraisal. While I admit this attempt at a sort of satirical tragedy has been misunderstood to a degree, “misunderstood” is not the same thing as “good.”

“Mandingo” stars aging screen legend James Mason as Warren Maxwell, a hateful Southern patriarch. His relatively sensitive son, Hammond (Perry King), runs into deep trouble when he takes on a new wife (Susan George) while practicing the prerogatives of a Southern “gentleman” and keeping a slave mistress (Brenda Sykes). Meanwhile, he finds himself feeling somewhat protective toward Mede (boxer Ken Norton), a fighter he has bought in much the same way a man of that time might have purchased a fighting cock. I almost wrote “fighting dog” but the double meaning here seems correct. It is the dehumanizing effects of slavery that is the laudable focus of “Mandingo,” but sensationalized 70s-style sex is the primary vehicle and selling point. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Unfortunately, Fleischer’s film is somewhat crude stylistically, but also too polite in telling its brutal story. Worse, it’s badly marred by some weak acting, not only from acting novice Norton, but also by a shockingly mannered and subpar performance from the usually superb, British-born Mason. Although the melodrama events make for a compelling final half-hour, it’s a long, long road getting there.

Click to buy “Mandingo”

Actors, Actresses, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Premium Hollywood

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑