Essential Classics

Sherlock Jr. Review

October 27, 2016 by JD Hansel

Well, I suppose I couldn’t avoid it forever. I always knew that I would eventually have to start reviewing silent films. Sure, I did review Metropolis, but that was the Giorgio Moroder version, so I was largely reviewing an audio storyteller’s work with re-interpreting older visual material, making it more similar to an ordinary sound film. The reason why that is the only silent film I have reviewed thus far is because it was a way of cheating – I just don’t know how to review a pure silent film. At the end of the day, sound cinema isn’t just a different kind of storytelling or a different stage of the history of the same medium – it’s a fundamentally different medium. Ever since Sergei Eisenstein penned his essay on “vertical montage,” cinema as we know it has been an art of both sight and sound, and I would even go so far as to say that the sound film is more like the television show than it is to the silent film. Because of the radical difference, I have been far too scared of reviewing a true silent film in my writings thus far, largely due to the fact that my attention is always, always, always drawn first to the contemporary soundtracks that have been added to the silent films I’ve seen, and the sound determines a huge percentage of my experience. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to focus this review on what it is I see that I find fascinating.

For his day, I think what Buster Keaton created here was a very good mix of spectacle (or “attraction”) and story. The story is interesting and clever, although it is structured strangely, and it does leave much of the most interesting actions in the story up to secondary characters, all while Buster is asleep. Keaton’s character in the film is exceptionally likable – the kind of daydreamer that the ideal “Walter Mitty” ought to be – and the way this character concludes the film is one of the greatest combinations of clever comedy and romantic charm I have ever seen. His playfulness with the medium is equally clever, resulting in some exceptional special effects that have truly stumped be. The silent slapstick may not be my cup of tea, but I think that the film works fairly well with audiences today on the whole, at least as far as its comedy goes, and I do consider it a very impressive achievement of the silent age.

Double Indemnity Review

October 23, 2016 by JD Hansel

MINOR SPOILER ALERT

Before watching this film, I was informed by a reliable source that this is the “perfect film noir,” and its screenplay by Raymond Chandler and cinema god Billy Wilder is commonly regarded as holy. Perhaps it was because of the hype that I did not find the film absolutely perfect, but I have been having a hard time thinking of anything that’s wrong with the film, and it’s been growing on me both in hindsight and as I’ve re-watched certain scenes. I do consider it brilliant, and I hail it as a great cinematic achievement, but maybe its simply not quite my style of film. Much of the visual style is more or less in the cinematographic territory that I most like, and there are good tracks on the soundtrack, and the story is interesting, and the performances are very good, and the pacing keeps me engaged, but I think I still have a hard time loving a story that doesn’t have the kinds of characters that really interest me in it. Duck Soup has one type of character that I like in Firefly, while Labyrinth has a protagonist that reminds me of my youth, and Little Shop of Horrors has a great villain, and Phantom of the Paradise has an even better villain, while Gremlins is a delightful, childlike collective of loony villainy – but Double Indemnity doesn’t have any of the usual character types that tickle my fancy. Still, that’s never stopped me from enjoying films like Mockingjay or Casablanca, and Edward G. Robinson’s character, Keyes, is probably one of my favorite characters in all of cinema at this point, so what’s the problem?

I think that the reason why I haven’t fallen head-over-heels in love with the film is that I’m not wrapped up in the goals of the characters – their motives don’t grab me. Phyllis gives the impression that she’s willing to attempt to kill off her husband simply because she’s grown bored with him, and Walter Neff is willing to attempt murder just for the fun of it – an attitude that comes out of nowhere from this otherwise charming, polite, likable every-man. The results of Walter’s efforts don’t seem to matter to him much, and neither does his life, so it’s very difficult for the audience to care too much about what happens to him. That being said, I still have both an intellectual appreciate and a special soft spot for this film noir classic, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good drama.

Sullivan’s Travels Review

October 21, 2016 by JD Hansel

While I’m not sure I would say that this is one of the funniest comedy films of all time, I do see why it is considered one of the greatest. After all, a quick Google of the film will list it in the genre(s) of “Drama/Romance,” so clearly there aren’t many particularly memorable belly laughs throughout the movie. In all fairness, I do get a good laugh out of some parts, and it features one of the best chase sequences I’ve ever seen (and I usually don’t go for chase sequences much). The character actors who were placed around Sullivan made for a very pleasant experience because of how much I enjoyed hanging around the fun cast, and Veronica Lake‘s character is much more charming than she might have been if the film had been made by (or cast with) the wrong people. I think the drama is very impressive and moving, but as much as it stirred up passion in me, I fear that it may have detracted from the overall feeling of joy from the comedy. What’s problematic about the drama is that the film can be viewed as an argument for why comedy is more important than drama – in which case the film’s reliance on drama to make its point seems to work against it – but film critics and historians have since argued that the protagonist’s conclusion regarding comedy’s significance is more a matter of plot than message. While I would hope that someday I’ll find a film that does attempt (and succeed) to make a great case for the superiority of comedy, I think that Sturges’ goal here is much simpler – to tell a good, fun, engaging story – and this goal is accomplished with finesse.

Paths of Glory Review

October 13, 2016 by JD Hansel

I don’t like war movies.

I have no interest in wars. It is an embarrassment to the species that we still have them. I generally have no interest in stories that attempt to glorify wars, even if they do balance it out to a degree by showing much bloodshed to display how horrible war can be. At the end of the day, war movies (and arguably anti-war movies) make their money by appealing to the disgusting, aggressive, barbaric element of the human soul that just wants to watch people beat the crap out of other people – an element of the soul that our culture has particularly nurtured and groomed in men.

I also don’t like Stanley Kubrick.

2001: A Space Odyssey was the first (and I think only) movie to literally bore me to tears. Kubrick’s obnoxious art style is frankly too “up in your face” for his work to feel mature enough for my tastes. His intense focus on what I consider “mindless mindfulness” for hours on end with his hypnotic visuals is about as pseudo-intellectual as it gets. I have given him a hard time before for being too boring, and even though I liked Dr. Strangelove, it too felt rather slow and boring at times (as did Killer’s Kiss). I think this is because Kubrick has a particular gift – and I do mean this sincerely – for making human characters as distant and inhuman as possible, which is honestly a challenge. Personally, however, I get bored too easily when a film doesn’t have any real “human” characters in it, and when I’m not being drawn in to a specific emotional experience because of the characters.

Enter Paths of Glory.

Here is a film that is extremely intense and intensely extreme, pulling the viewer into the deepest trenches of emotion and outrage. The hero (whom Kirk Douglas plays beautifully) is largely likable because he is the character who stands for that which is moral, but I would argue that the protagonist is not what makes the film so engaging. The emotional pull comes not from how much we like the protagonist, but how much we hate the people above him. He is surrounded by devils, and any notion the viewer may have had beforehand of the first World War being about “good guys vs. bad guys” is shattered – there are bad guys and worse guys. War is revealed to be a matter of politics, killing people to make a point and artificially form a narrative, making for an absolutely excellent anti-war movie.

Interestingly, I happened to follow my viewing of this film with the 1918 Charlie Chaplin comedy Shoulder Arms, which also takes place during World War I. It’s amazing to see how both a film that reduces the war to petty political games and a film that completely makes light of the war (both taking place in the French trenches specifically) could be very thoughtful, insightful, and entertaining films. It almost feels like practicing two separate religions, or supporting two opposing political candidates. What’s odd, however, is this: with how much of a comedy buff I am, I feel as though I ought to like the Chaplin comedy more – it is very, very clever, after all – but I am more drawn to Kubrick’s film.

What Kubrick captures here is not so much humanity as it is a different kind of inhumanity than I’m used to seeing from him: he offers us the chance to see the twisted monsters that lie in our souls, thus exposing how much of our humanity is actually made up of inhumanity. While Paths may have started off a little bit on the tedious side as I’d expected, I soon found myself on the edge of my seat as the cynic in me felt overwhelmed with orgasmic outrage and rapturous rage. I was far more invested in the political drama of this film than I get invested in most films in general, let alone dramas about war. I was sort of let down by the ending, but I eventually found that the ending was purposely underwhelming, giving the audience one final sting with the realization that no progress has been made, and everything will go on the same corrupt way until the war is over. It may not be a perfect film, but finally I see in Kubrick the cinematic master I’ve always heard he should be.

Detour (1945) Review

October 6, 2016 by JD Hansel

This film is an absolute mess. It looks as cheap as it is, constantly making it painfully obvious that the director’s been given less than $100,000 and less than a week to make a movie. The script is all over the place, with a story that the biggest of fans of this film concede makes little or no sense. The characters are clearly not meant to be likable, but I found them utterly detestable without reason. The whole experience is painful, and I think most film critics/historians recognize that, but they still review it well and consider it a classic because they justify its badness. I’m not going to do that, because this film doesn’t deserve my help.

I’ve heard a number of reasons why the story and characters are as bad as they are and explanations of what it’s supposed to mean. I’ve come up with a few similar explanations myself, which the professor of my film noir class found rather thoughtful. Some argue that the story is addressed directly to us, while I argue he’s mentally preparing his story for anyone – primarily the cops – who may question him, and some would say it’s all essentially a dream (which would explain why it seems to function in an over-dramatized fairy tale world of “dream logic” rather than in reality). The running theme throughout interpretations and justifications of the story is the unreliable narrator, but in the end, these are all mere excuses. I think the real reason why people make such excuses is that the film is so intellectually fascinating to critics, and these critics want to make their fascination with the film – which often transforms into love for the film – seem justified. In my view, however, this is not a matter of a film being so bad that it’s good, although I’ve reviewed such films positively in the past. This is a case of a very creative and fascinating (yet illogical) film that feels like it ought to have a logic to it, so it remains a memorable enigma, and for that it is a classic . . . it’s just not a good classic.

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life Review

October 3, 2016 by JD Hansel

This is it – the last film in the Monty Python “Holy Trinity” – and it’s certainly the weirdest.

Its “prologue” is the worst part, and it is very clearly directed by Terry Gilliam. I have mixed feelings about Gilliam, and I think this short is a good example of what bugs me about his work. Somewhere between the films of Terry Gilliam and the books of Roald Dahl is the land of “Semi-Horrific, Mildly Comedic, Awkward Whimsy,” or “SHMCAW” for short. Shmcaw is my least favorite thing in cinema, or at least it’s up there. This is that nauseating feeling I have when a film presents uncomfortable dehumanizing in a whimsical way, causing my face to scrunch up. It happens in Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry’s aunt inflates, and all throughout The Witches, and it happens in The Crimson Permanent Assurance when we’re supposed to laugh at random businessmen being forced to jump out of a building to their deaths by delighted elderly folks. The whole thing just feels wrong, but I will not detract any points from my rating, because this is the short feature that plays before the main feature, and Wikipedia gives it a separate article as its own short film, but I felt the need to mention it because it is (in some respects) inseparable from the film.

There is very little for me to say for the film itself. I think that it offers much of the kind of comedy I expected, but its main focus seems to be doing whatever any other directing, production company, writers, or group of performers would never, ever, ever be allowed to do in a film distributed by Hollywood. It breaks rules of cinema that no one ever invented – there was no concept of a rule against showing a man in an elephant suit for no reason, or devoting half the movie to unimportant fish for no reason, or giving an impossibly fat man who vomits profusely and eats until he explodes his own scene for no reason. Monty Python made up rules to break, all in the spirit of giddy, childlike (or perhaps childish) fun. There is, however, the question of purpose – Life of Brian has good reasoning behind its scenes, with an important message, but why does this film need to exist? Is it merely here to weird out the audience as much as possible?

Personally, I’d prefer to see more sense to the senselessness, more logic to the lunacy, and more method to the madness, but that is not what the film is for. Many have said before that it is essentially an extended episode of Flying Circus, and that’s what it feels like to me. It is not their best film, but it is pretty good, with several, several moments that continue to pop up in my head many weeks every watching the film, and they continue to give me a chuckle. The music is some of Python’s best, making for a very enjoyable soundtrack. This movie offers a fair mix of some of the best and the worst that Python has to offer, but by the 1980s, the Pythoners had learned how to ensure that their worst was still rather fun.