The Two Faces of January 2014

     This film is based on a 1964 novel by Patricia Highsmith.  The setting is 1962 in Athens, Greece.  Chester MacFarland and his younger wife Colette are sightseeing.  They meet Rydal and he is a Greek-speaking American.  He offers to be their tour guide but what they don’t know is he is scamming tourists on the side.  Colette is beautiful and Chester is wealthy and charming.  Rydal is attracted to Colette and impressed by Chester.  What Rydal doesn’t know is everything is not what is seems.  Chester is lying about himself and Rydal is doing the same thing.  Chester becomes filled with jealousy and paranoia resulting in extreme tenseness over Rydal and Colette.

     There are three things I don’t like about this movie, the pretentiousness of the men, the lying of the men and the very slow plodding pace of the action.  I’m not sure I could call it ‘action?’  It requires intense patience to see this though to the end!!  I had been looking forward to seeing this film from watching the trailer but I found it to be a disappointment.  2 1/2* (This movie is so-so)

96 min, Thriller directed by Hossein Amini with Kirsten Dunst, Oscar Isaac, Viggo Mortensen, Daisy Bevan, David Warshofsky, Yigit Ozsener, Karayianni Margaux, Prometheus Aleifer, Socrates Alafouzos.

Note:  Imdb 6.2 out of 10, 82% critic 48% audience, Roger Ebert 3*.

Special Note:  Patricia Highsmith created Tom Ripley featured as a character in The Talented Mr. Ripley and she provided the source material for Strangers on the Train to Alfred Hitchcock.  

Ripley: Believe it or Not 2015

     During the Great Depression LeRoy Robert Ripley found a profitable job for himself.  He began as a cartoon illustrator for a newspaper sports section in San Francisco.  He changed jobs and moved to the same type of job in New York.  He began adding sports themed believe it or not cartoons and this started his travels to record more throughout the world.  He began a television program but he had trouble with being very stiff and not relaxed in the beginning.  A slug or two of alcohol started to relieve his nerves.  He also opened live exhibitions of the unusual people he encountered.  Doctors and nurses were on staff for any who fainted at the sights presented!!

     Some of the unusual people are shown at the end of this DVD.  I could very well see how people would faint if they saw these sights in person!!  Some of the things these people can do are quite different and amazing.  Shocking as well!!  

60 min, Doc, American Experience released by PBS Television.

Note:  Imdb 7.1 out of 10 , Amazon 5* out of 5* with 2 reviews.

Boyhood 2014

     This movie was filmed over a twelve-year period with the same cast.  The focus is on Mason and he grows up over the years on the screen.  His parents are Olivia and Mason, Sr.  The soundtrack also follows the years as they go by with the current music for each year.  There is a lot of drama in Mason’s life!  His parents are not together so he has an absentee-weekend Dad.  He also has an older sister, Samantha.  Mason and his family move many times and his mother is eventually married and divorced three times.

     The premise and the idea of this film are very good.  The character development isn’t.  I think more focus needed to be on Mason and not so much on his parents.  They are raising him and influence him but a lot is left out of his life.  There are events shown that don't seem as important as those left out?  Also, you need to pay close attention to the change in years, there isn’t any notice when the years move up in time?  3* (This movie is OK)

165 min, Drama directed by Richard Linklater with Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Elijah Smith, Lorelei Linklater, Steven Chester Prince, Bonnie Cross, Sydney Orta, Libby Villari, Ethan Hawke, Marco Perella, Jamie Howard.

Note:  Imdb 8.1 out of 10, 98% critic 82% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 4*.

Special Note:  Lorelei Linklater, the daughter of the director plays the sister Samantha.

Crossfire 1947

     This film is based on the novel The Brick Foxhole by ex-Marine Richard Brooks.  Brooks later became a film writer and the director of Elmer Gantry and In Cold Blood.  The story is told in a series of flashbacks from different points of view.  A group of recently returned but demobilized soldiers are hanging around New York after WWII.  They spend a lot of time at their hotel and in bars or coffee shops.  Homicide Captain Finlay is investigating the beating death of a Jewish man, Joseph Samuels.  He believes one of the soldiers met Samuels in one of these bars.  This man followed Samuels home and then beat him because of a hatred for Jews.

     I found it difficult to keep track of the soldiers.  Even the actors are three Robert’s?  There is also a lot of back and forth with the flashback scenes.  Captain Finlay is a completely different type of role for Robert Young who later starred in the television series Father Knows Best.  He played Jim Anderson, a General Insurance agent in the Midwest with a wife and three children.  3* (This movie is OK)

86 min, Crime directed by Edward Dmytryk with Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Paul Kelly, Sam Levene, Jacqueline White, Steve Brodie, George Cooper, Richard Benedict, Tom Keene, William Phipps.

Note:  Imdb 7.4 out of 10, 79% critic 75% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon 4.2* out of 5* with 52 reviews.

Special Note:  This film earned five Academy Award nominations despite its extremely low budget for this time period of $550,000.  It was also shot in only 20 day with 20 scenes filmed per day.  The director shot 140 scenes during a 6 ½ hour daily schedule.

Julie 1956

     Julie Benton was married before but unfortunately her husband committed suicide.  She doesn't understand why this happened since everything seemed to be going well in his life?  She is now remarried to Lyle Benton and she is very happy until Lyle starts to demonstrate intense jealousy.  All she needs to do is talk to another man to set Lyle off.  Julie is driving along the California coast and Lyle begins to press on the gas pedal until they are going very fast.  Julie tries to control the car until they reach two-way traffic.  She begins to panic and then Lyle takes the wheel and eases off the gas.  Julie talks to her friend Cliff Henderson and he tells Julie he believes Lyle killed Julie’s first husband in order to marry her.  Cliff helps Julie get away from Lyle but he seems to always know where she is?  Events begin to escalate.

     Even though this is 1956 and in black and white, it is a very taunt thriller. These events still happen today in different forms in relationships and marriages.  The concluding scenes are very tense!!  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

99 min, Mystery directed by Andrew L. Stone with Doris Day, Louis Jordan, Barry Sullivan, Frank Lovejoy, Jack Kelly, Ann Robinson, Barney Phillips, Jack Kruschen, John Gallaudet, Carleton Young, Hank Patterson, Ed Hinton.

Note:  Imdb 6.2 out of 10, 35% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Leonard Maltin 2* out of 4*, Amazon 4.4* out of 5*.

Fury 2014

     The Allies make their final assault on the Germans in April of 1945.  Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier is in charge of a Sherman tank crew.  The American tanks are at a disadvantage against the better German Tiger tanks plus they are outnumbered and outdone in weaponry.  Wardaddy has promised his five-man crew that he will take care of them during this war but the odds are heavily against them.  They have been fighting together as a team since their mission in North Africa.  Their second driver is killed and he is replaced with a ‘clerk typist?’  Norman Ellison is very green and he has been in the war just a few weeks.  Wardaddy will need to get him up to speed because their lives depend on each member of the crew.

     This film does seem realistic with many scenes showing the actual horrors of wartime combat.  Wardaddy is out to kill as many Nazi soldiers as possible in any way that is needed.  Some scenes show a battle between three Sherman tanks and one Tiger tank.  There is a lot of focus on the battles but not enough time spent on the men we are supposed to be rooting for?  3* (This movie is OK)

134 min, Action directed by David Ayer with Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jim Parrack, Brad William Henke, Kevin Vance, Xavier Samuel, Jason Isaacs, Anamaria Marinca.

Note:  Imdb 7.6 out of 10, 77% critic 85% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 2*.

Special Note:  David Ayer also directed Training Day, End of Watch and Sabotage.  Those films also have a roughness about them.  Brad Pitt had his Army haircut at the 2014 Oscar Awards.

Force Majeure 2014

     This is a Swedish movie filmed in Les Arcs, Savoie, France.  A family travels to the French Alps to ski and spend time as a family at a resort.  The dad has been working a lot and he needs a vacation.  They settle in at a rooftop restaurant for lunch with a view of the slopes but an avalanche suddenly forms and heads directly for the patio?  Ebba tries to protect their son and daughter, calls and looks for her husband during the confusion but he has run for his life?  The snow stopped short of the patio and there was only a dusting of powder.  This event shakes the family to their core.  The resort has trucks that go out to groom the ski runs every night and they also shoot off avalanche prevention shots every night.  

     I didn't enjoy this film or find it interesting.  There is just arguing and fighting between everyone after the restaurant event.  Ebba cannot stop telling everyone who will listen about what happened and how she feels Tomas was a coward?  Her memory of what happened differs from what Tomas remembers but her version is the accurate story.  Both children are also upset at their father.  2* (I didn't like this movie) 

 

120 Min, Drama directed by Ruben Ostlund with Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Vincent and Clara Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius, Karin Myrenberg, Brady Corbet, Johannes Moustos, Jorge Lattof. 

Note:  Imdb 7.4 out of 10, 92% critic 77% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 3 ½*.

Special Note:  Ruben Ostlund, the director of this film did research on couples that have survived disasters.  He found a high percentage of them end up in divorce.