J.D. Hansel

NR

Horse Feathers Review

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My main problem with Marx Brothers films, with the exception of Duck Soup, is that they are not Duck Soup.  When it comes to film comedy, that movie pretty much sets the bar for me.  I’m not sure why Duck Soup works – it feels like it shouldn’t – but it does.  Maybe it’s just one of those “lightning in a bottle” things.  Consequently, Horse Feathers isn’t everything I might hope for, but fortunately, it’s pretty darn close.

This is a good movie for college students to see.  It offers some catharsis in this crazy phase of life to think that maybe the reason why everyone at your university hates the administration is that the president is a bozo like Groucho.  With as many comedy films have taken on academia, it still hasn’t gotten as much spoofing as it deserves, so it’s nice to see the Marx Brothers take on the subject.  It’s also not one of those Marx Brothers films that tries to shove a serious romantic plot into the film alongside the Marx antics, so it’s light on the boring scenes.  It’s one of those films that I’d like to have on in the background at parties – it’s something fun that I could watch over and over again, but I don’t feel like I lose much if I don’t pay attention to the plot.  It’s more about the lunacy of the characters and the highly hilarious (albeit very stupid) jokes, which are all I need to have a really fun movie night.

Little Shop of Horrors (1960) Review

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Not a lot of people remember that this film was, for a while, a legend in Hollywood.  Countless directors told the tale of “The Movie Made in Two Days.”  The story goes that one filmmaker noticed that a set would be available on a studio lot for two days longer than it was needed, so he asked to have the set to shoot his own film on those two days.  He then wrote the script for a relatively short feature film, put together a cast, rehearsed it with them, and then shot all of the footage in just those two days.  One has to wonder, then, how does one make a feature in so short a time-span?

Easy: don’t worry about quality.  The film doesn’t mind at all that it’s stupid and ridiculous – in fact, it loves its own stupidity.  This was, after all, marketed as a comedy, which is only sensible since the idea of a low-budget horror movie about a talking plant is laughable.  I think because it appreciates its own “campiness,” I’m inclined to appreciate it as well.  The fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously makes for a movie that’s loads of fun, and that even has a few moments here and there that I wish could have been in its sacred remake (for example, I love the clever use of the cartoon drawing for the credits).

It may be stupid, but it’s also smart, and that’s why it’s more than deserving of its status as a cult classic.

Murder, My Sweet Review

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There’s a lot to like about this movie – the characters, the dialogue, the visuals, and many of the scenes.  A lot of the story, from what I can tell, is good too … but I can’t tell.  And therein lies the problem.

Film noirs (or “films noir” for more proper writers than I) are known for their convoluted plots that some film scholars have noted can be almost unintelligible.  I view this as such a film.  This is a detective story, so more information is being revealed throughout the story, and while the protagonist is able to put it all together, the audience is left in the dust.  What’s frustrating is that the ending, in which everything explained, doesn’t help much.

Even though I was paying attention to the part of the movie that lays out what happened in this movie, I still don’t know what happened in this movie.  I think I know who killed whom, but I can’t figure out why the murder was committed, how the murder was committed, or how any of the several other characters factor into this.  I couldn’t explain this film’s story to anyone if my life depended on it – not even the gist of it.  This is strange and frustrating since I am often able to predict where mystery movies are going well in advance (or at least where Sherlock episodes are going) so this shouldn’t be a problem for me.

Fortunately, it’s really not that big a problem for the movie either.  The film is quite fun and engaging without the details of the murder mystery.  It’s entertaining just by being the kind of film that it is, and I can appreciate that.  Its ending is one of the best in the history of film.  But in my book, that’s just not quite enough to make it one of the greats.

Notorious (1946) Review

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It took me a while to recognize the fact that this film is great.  Part of that’s a side effect from the fact that this film is one of Hitchcock’s somewhat lesser-known works – it’s hard to get a good copy of it on DVD with good sound quality, so I had a hard time hearing the dialogue.  When you have to replay scenes over and over again like I did (just to hear them), you lose a lot of what makes a Hitchcock film work.  You need to let yourself become completely and effortlessly lost in the mood of the scene – to let each scene wash over you.  Once I finally moved my DVD to a player that let me turn the subtitles on, I was finally able to stop trying to tell what was going on and just experience it.  Once I did that, it made all the difference, and I could see clearly that this film is quite brilliant.

Since some of the earlier scenes in the film are a little boring (the story takes a while to build) the first thing I noticed about Notorious that really impressed me was the cinematography.  As one would expect from a film noir by Alfred Hitchcock, it’s excellent, but not just because it’s visually pleasing – although it certainly is that.  What’s great about it is the way Hitchock shows us different kinds of shots that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, thus creating moods and feelings I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before.  Hitchcock uses the camera to tell his story, carefully revealing only what he wants us to see when he wants us to see it and creating a level of subjectivity from the characters’ perspective that puts us in the shoes of the characters all the more.

That being said, the story is compelling enough without the camera’s help.  While I’ve only seen about three or four of Hitchcock’s films previously, it feels like more attention was paid to the script this time than in most of his films.  You don’t watch this movie for the scary silhouette with the knife coming at you or for the birds attacking the children.  It’s not horror.  The viewer is simply so wrapped up in the characters’ mission that he/she cannot help but be scared, purely from the suspense of knowing they may get caught.  Right up until the movie’s end, the intensity of the drama is turned up to ten, making it impossible to look away from the screen.  As if that wasn’t enough, the dialogue is exquisitely clever, and it doesn’t hurt that story is being performed by many of the greatest actors of Classical Hollywood, who present some of their finest work here.

And did I mention that I adore Ingrid Bergman?  Because I adore Ingrid Bergman.

The Nutty Professor Review

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Wait a minute – isn’t this movie supposed to be … ya know, funny?  It’s amazing how, with one look at the DVD case, anyone would think this film surely was one of the worst ever made, yet a look online would reveal how highly regarded it is as one of the great comedies.  While I can easily understand why critics want to recognize Lewis for his talents, I just have to ask … really?  This counts as a good comedy?

The characters are insufferable.  The story is insufferable.  The hokey visual gags are insufferable.  Most of the other jokes are insufferable.  The ending is just plain stupid, and undercuts everything else in the movie.  The only thing about this movie that’s impressive is, much to my surprise, the filmmaking.  The way that it’s shot and edited impressed me, but even more impressive is the production design – the costumes, the props, and the sets.  Largely due to its brilliant use of gorgeous colors, this is a movie I would gladly show to anyone who wanted to see my idea of a pretty-looking movie, as long as I didn’t have to watch it with them.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

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When I was a kid, I remember feeling torn about old movies – and by that I mean Classical Hollywood-era movies.  I liked a fair amount of the musicals and family films, but for the most part, I just found old movies to be too boring.  When I tried watching Casablanca, I wasn’t just bored – I was terribly confused.  I couldn’t keep track of the politics, I didn’t understand the history, and I struggled to discern what the characters were really communicating through all their ’40s slang and discreet language.  It took me many years of watching many films from different time periods before I got to the point that I could easily follow the story of the average classic movie, but by now I really feel like I speak the language . . . and then there’s The Maltese Falcon.

When I watched this movie, I had to repeat certain parts of it (particularly in the early scenes) in order to make sure I was picking up on everything.  That’s unusual for me.  I can stay ahead of most other viewers when I watch an episode of Sherlock, but this movie is, for the first third or so, quite difficult to follow.  Even once it gets going, it’s a little bit boring, and it doesn’t help that the ending can be predicted from a mile away, taking away the dramatic suspense.  What makes up for all this is the characters.  Not only does Maltese Falcon offer a classic Bogart performance, but it features Peter Lorre in one of his funniest roles and Sydney Greenstreet as one of the most fun (and best written) antagonists I’ve seen in film.  Because none of the characters are all that likable or relatable in the sense one would expect from Hollywood, I’m not too inclined to root for anyone to “win,” which hurts this particular story, but there’s still plenty of intrigue to keep the viewer interested.  It’s not entirely my kind of thing, but I can always appreciate a movie that’s simply good at being film noir, and this film is just that.