J.D. Hansel

Essential Classics

Sunset Boulevard Review

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Every now and again, I’m quite surprised which members of my family decide to sit down by the TV and join me in watching a movie that I wouldn’t think is his/her kind of thing.  This happened most recently when I was spending a weekend at my parents’ house and I put Sunset Boulevard on the big screen.  This is a dark, dramatic satire of Hollywood mixed with Gothic chills and romantic comedy from 1950, yet my 12-year-old sister decided to watch it with me.  What made this so special is that Sunset Boulevard happens to be not only a great film by one of my favorite directors, but also a very useful teaching tool.

The first reason why this film is helpful for learning about film history is that it concerns icons of silent cinema, so it re-introduces its viewers to the era with a focus on Cecil B. DeMille, cameos by actors from the time, and an impression of Charlie Chaplin (a very good one, I might add).  Oddly, this actually makes it a very good example of 1950s cinema as well.  The films of the 1950s generally seem to show an awareness of the fact that Hollywood was in a state of crisis as its studio system was falling apart and its Code was weakening, and this film, much like 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, parallels this with the crisis actors from the silent era faced when they had to learn how to succeed in the sound era.  This film, then, offers the flip side to Singin’ in the Rain, showing how tragic it was for the stars (like Lena) who couldn’t keep shining through the 1930s.  The one thing that makes this a poor example of 1950s film is that it can be seen as a film noir (a relatively small genre) due to its uncommon traits and tropes – voice-over narration explaining the story of how a man died, chilling exploration of the psychology of madness, a narrative about choosing between the good girl and the intimidating woman, deep, jagged shadows and wild chiaroscuro lighting, and general sense that everything is spiraling down towards a gloomy, unsettling end.

Best of all, Sunset Boulevard is a good example of a great film.  This is Billy Wilder at his best, bringing together a great cast and working through serious psychological subjects with a a healthy dose of comedy.  The script is smart, carefully setting up its rather forced story in a way that somehow still feels natural and giving nearly every significant character some wonderful, clever dialogue.  Gloria Swanson, of course, steals the show as Norma Desmond – I could taste the scenery she was chewing – and the performance she gives is surely one of the finest (and one of the most over-the-top) in all of cinema’s history.  The film is made that much better by its stunning visuals, which could have simply been there for the heck of it, but Wilder puts them to good use aiding the story, defining the characters, and saturating the drama.  The film that results may be rather slow and boring at times, but it is still one of the best introductions to Classical Hollywood cinema I know, and I hope to watch it with the rest of my family someday.  If Norma Desmond ever needed proof that the pictures didn’t get small, this is it.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) Review

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Thanks to Tim Burton, this movie is sometimes called “the good Alice in Wonderland.”  I understand why – nostalgia goggles can do that to even the best of us.  The problem is that this movie just isn’t very good.  Sure, the 2010 film has problems and may be highly annoying to some, but at least its story is actually a story.  The original Lewis Carroll story isn’t a story.  It’s a drug trip.  And that’s what this movie is as well.

Now, I don’t want to fault the movie for problems it could not help but inherit from its source material, which is the only reason I’m giving this movie such a high rating – if Disney had come up with the story, I’d be giving it two and a half stars at best.  I’m still not even sure that the other elements of the movie merit this rating, because a lot of the film is just unbearable.  Surely Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum could have been done in a way that’s less excruciatingly irritating, and surely certain parts of the story could have been given a few more small splashed of humor.  The soundtrack is so-so, with some songs I really like a lot, others I think do the job just well enough, and others I find either forgettable or stupid.

So, I’m giving this a nice rating because of two redeeming qualities: first is the casting of a few of the main characters.  I really like the Cheshire Cat in this movie, and the Mad Hatter is one of the great Ed Winn performances.  The one who really steals the show, however, is Alice, voiced by Kathryn Beaumont.  Her voice is absolutely perfect for the part, and perhaps just perfect in general – I could easily listen to it all day.  The second redeeming quality is the visual style, as this might just be, in some respects at least, the most visually pleasing animated film I have ever seen.  It’s got all of the curves and colors one would want a trippy wonderland to have, and its style also serves to mark its particular moment in animation history.  The resulting film is one that I don’t enjoy watching very much – it was a struggle to finish it quite frankly – but I do enjoy looking at it and listening to it, so I’ll let it slide.

T

 

The Goonies Review

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From the Traveling Wilburys to Band Aid, the pop music industry has had its share of super groups, but for whatever reason, cinema hasn’t.  For whatever reason, while talented directors have worked together before, we very rarely see a group of different directors with different backgrounds coming together to work on a groups of films as a team.  I think this begs the question: what would a filmmaking super group look like?  Because I’m fond of ’80s cinema, I’d like to imagine something like a family adventure film with a story by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Chris Columbus (the writer of Gremlins, director of Home Alone), with music by Dave Grusin (composer for Tootsie), and someone like Richard Donner (director of Superman, Ladyhawke, Lethal Weapon, and Scrooged) at the helm.  Fortunately, this is exactly the team assembled for this movie, and what this team produced is just as great a film as one would hope.

I think part of why Goonies is considered to be such a great classic by so many people is that it is very emblematic of ’80s cinema.  Even with a cast of children, the intended age group is entirely unclear because of how dirty some of the humor is, making it a family film in the same category as Ghostbusters in that it’s not really a family film.  It’s also a very good example of Spielberg’s conception of fantasy, giving the viewer the sense that something sort of magical might be found at that old Chinese antique shop, or, in this case, up in the attic.  The most ’80s part, of course, is the theme song by Cyndi Lauper, and the music video that was made to accompany it.  Somehow, even though that video is entirely different from the film, the combination of the two sums up everything that made the ’80s the ’80s, and I think that’s just beautiful.

Once I started watching this movie, it was hard to pause it – and I can say that for very few films – so I think The Goonies, as dated as it may be in some respects, just might be pure entertainment cinema at its very best.

A Star Is Born (1954) Review

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This movie may have made a big splash in its day, but I don’t think it gets talked about much anymore.  I can understand why – in many respects it’s very generic.  It’s the kind of romantic epic/tragicomedy that feels like textbook Oscar-bait, just mixed together with show-tunes.  That  being said, it’s a pretty solid film.  It may start out boring, but as it goes on, the performances get more impressive, the drama gets more captivating, and the musical numbers get more enjoyable.  The look of some of these numbers alone is reason enough to watch the film, and I see this as one of the greatest examples of theatricality in cinema at its best.

But at the end of the day, as expected, the appeal is Judy Garland.  I’ve always known she was a great singer, but this is the movie that shows the full range of her acting abilities.  What’s amazing is how she takes a character that’s absurdly cliché and makes her distinct.  Along with her co-star, she made me really care about a story in which I thought I would have no interest, creating a level of sincere, beautiful drama I hardly ever see.

So yes, much of the movie is trite and forgettable, and the film starts off quite boring – I imagine it stays boring for those who don’t like musicals – but it redeems itself in spades.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High Review

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It’s very rare for a film with virtually no plot to make for a really good and captivating movie experience, but Fast Times is an exception.  It serves as a good example of what I’m currently calling a “layout piece,” which is a work of art or writing that seeks to offer as comprehensive of an overview of a certain subject as possible while remaining an understandable summary, usually by using the highlights of the subject as tent-poles.  Think of it as a “greatest hits” album – by the end of it, you should have a pretty good understanding of both the standard, recurring qualities of the work in question and the moments which stand out.  Some of my textbooks are good examples as well, but Fast Times is special because it’s a fictional, narrative layout piece, so it constructs situations that express (and critique) its subject matter.

So what is the subject matter?  The ’80s, of course!  By the end of the movie, the viewer has a feeling of having just lived through a year of high school in the 1980s – I feel like I’ve been there and can tell my family all about what it was like.  The film doesn’t focus on facts or statistics about the time period, and cares little for objectivity – it was only made in 1982, after all – but it captures the way the ’80s feel.  It feels as though all of these characters really existed in every high school, and all of the situations presented seem to be only slight exaggerations of the plausible.  I never had a teacher like Mr. Hand, but I sure feel like I did.  This kind of “emotional realism” is what makes the comedy work and the stories (if they can be called such) so enjoyable.  The combination of the soundtrack and the cast makes it work about as well as an emblem of the 1980s as Footloose, but its careful mix of comedy and drama makes it work well as a film, too.  It may not be a perfect movie, and it gets rather boring at times, but it’s still an experience everyone ought to have.

Laura Review

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MINOR SPOILER WARNING

While the exact list of what constitutes a “film noir” is always up for debate, I argue that one of the most under-recognized criteria is that weird and seemingly random moment that has the audience asking, “Where the heck did that come from?”  This film clearly checks that box.

Structurally, Laura is not too unconventional, essentially relying on the three-act structure of most films, but to me it feels like two acts.  This is because one twist in the story (which comes in around the 45-minute, placing it at the very middle of the film) is such a big game changer that it seems to suddenly turn the film in a totally different direction.  It almost becomes a different kind of film, because the way I think about what the point of this movie is is determined by this twist.  Perhaps more significantly, the first half of the film is just plain boring, whereas the second half is entirely captivating.  I almost didn’t finish the film because, in spite of some great performances from this great cast, it wasn’t grabbing me after a half hour.  Seeing as how this is now one of my favorite films in the mystery genre, I think it goes without saying that I’m awfully glad I stuck it out.  (It’s also great to have one of the most famous films in the genre checked off my list, and to know the origins of the great  David Raksin jazz song of the same name.)

What makes it an interesting movie, in my opinion, is the question of subjectivity.  At this aforementioned turning point in the movie, the film grammar suggests that we’ve gone into a dream sequence.  The problem is that we, the audience, don’t know for sure, so we’re spending the second half of the two movies trying to solve two mysteries at once: the murder mystery, and the question of whether or not the protagonist is dreaming.  This makes the film an absolute joy from then on, with more twists and turns to up the hype, and an ending that offers great satisfaction for anyone with the patience to make it this far.  Since this is one of the few famous films noir to have an almost permanent residence on Netflix (streaming), I highly suggest devoting 50 minutes to watching this movie – just 50 minutes – and anyone who isn’t hooked at that point can stop.  On the other hand, anyone who does stick through the whole film gets to experience a great example of what one of the bigger-budget Hollywood films noir looks like, and that alone is worth the wait.