Review of a Wimpy Kid!!

I always have mixed feelings when a film like Diary of a Wimpy Kid comes out....I initially feel elation and immediately call over my tween daughter to exult over the fact that Hollywood has finally made a film version of a tremendously beloved book that we have shared... But then I feel anxiety that the film will not adequately capture the essence and feel of the book, or perhaps not bother at all, merely slapping the brand name on their crappy flick to sell it to a lot of know nothing goobs who love to flush their money down the....(Whoops, sorry I kind of lost it there!) At the end of viewing Diary, I came to the conclusion that my feelings about this film were....well, mixed.

In case you don't read much young adult or tween literature, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a journal (not a diary!) kept by a boy named Greg Heffley about his experiences of being a new six grader at his local junior high. Sprinkled among the hilarious text are cartoons of himself, his family, friends and enemies. The whole mix is really a quite hilarious meditation on standing out and fitting in, reminding me of Matt Groenig's Life in Hell or The Simpsons. It took me back to my own experience of Junior High...struggling to find a personal identity or noticing girls for the first time or exploring the depths of school popularity.

Animation and art were taken from the books to adorn the beginning and end credits along with being sprinkled liberally through the film at certain points and this was quite entertaining...but it underscored a problem I have with the film and that is the casting of at least of the hero character Greg Heffley and his family...they all seem too blow dried and good looking to fully inhabit the characters we see portrayed in the hilarious books. I understand that in the books, Greg and his family are rendered in the style that he sees them...goofy and sometimes silly or gross. Unfortunately the actors cast seem almost too attractive to live up to the book's characterizations. The film does a better job in the casting of Greg's friends and classmates, particularly Rowley, played by Robert Capron. Capron really steals the show and gets some of the film's best lines and most comic moments.

But to be fair, most of the time, Diary gets it right, picking up on the hilarious and yet heartbreaking moments of discovering yourself and how that self fits into the whole scheme of things.....Greg tries out for athletics, the school newspaper, crossing guards in an effort to realize popularity. This will cause him to question his most important relationships with his best friend Rowley and his family. Being a family film meant to draw in kids and amuse their parents who have been drug along, Diary does fall into some time honored (and sleep inducing) cliches...like being true to yourself and your friends and various instances of farting, belching, and other poopy humor techniques. But in the final estimation, I felt entertained, a little wiser, and not ready to run screaming from the room as I do from most live action Disney comedies! Diary of a Wimpy Kid is worth the effort of your family to view even with the PG rating for older children.

Rating of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: A reserved 3.5 stars!!

Return to "Away We Go"!

Seeing this again with my wife recently was a real treat...it was and is a lovely and sweet Independent Romantic Comedy-Drama...amazing that I wrote this almost exactly a year ago...a day before my anniversary with my own "Verona", the lovely and talented Shelly...it kind of echoes our own gypsy journey of the past twenty years, not to mention our nearly five year adventure as parents of our sweet Breianna! So enjoy and don't forget...lots of great Indy stuff out there:

Sweet and engaging, Away We Go is the kind of Indy comedy that entices me back again and again to Independent film. Goofy and kooky with lots of opportunity for its very good cast to stretch their chops, Away We Go is the off beat story of Burt and Verona who are having a baby and are searching for a place of emotional security and deepness to have that child, in short looking for community with either friends or family. This search makes the film essentially a road picture made up of separate but lightly connected episodes. Burt and Verona have the opportunity to sample the family communities of their various family and friends and come to a momentous but not necessarily surprising conclusion. The enduring grace and light of this film is the relationship of Burt and Verona who love each other deeply but wonder if they are truly doing a "good job" preparing their lives for another. Worthy of note are Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara as Burt's rather laid back parents. As with most independents, this film has a pace and plot that develops within a more gradual sense of time...so most main stream rom-com lovers may feel frustrated with this.

Really a 4.5 star film, Away We Go quietly earns it's A- grade. 10/05/09

Review of Underworld: Evolution....the cotton candy experience!

Ever gone to the county fair and ate a whole bunch of stuff that's not so good for you? Of course you have! One of those things was cotton candy, wasn't it? You know cotton candy....that whipped up sugar confection that looks so big before you eat it, but then you bite off a piece, and it immediately shrinks down to a tasty, but sort of gravely residue in your mouth. This is akin to the experience of watching Underworld: Evolution!

It starts out as its predecessor, Underworld begins...a tasty whipped up confection that nearly explodes your eyeballs with its incredible CGI and of course the most lovely Kate Beckinsale wearing her latex outfit like it was so much painted on her. But where the first film is a pretty lean and mean action flick/monster machine, Evolution feels torpid and top heavy, treating its light weight material as something of much more epic import than it deserved...as if Peter Jackson was doing the S&M version of The Lord of the Rings. Even the somewhat interesting race/class struggle of the lowly, blue collar lycans (werewolves) against the aristocratic, velvet collar vampires that enlivened the first film becomes a sort of vague afterthought here.

It does expand on the lycan-vampire struggle that was kind of thrown into the first film to explain why all these good looking and muscular folks in spandax, leather, and latex (Oh my!) were going after each other tooth and nail. This has been going on for generations upon generations since the first lycan and vampire (brothers of course!) decided to take a dislike to each other. Throw in Derek Jacobi as their immortal but brooding papa and you have something that threatens to back up on you, once you take a bite out of it. And really....Sir Derek must have poor relatives he's putting through night-school somewhere, because why would he need to be in this movie when just about any older male actor with a posh English accent could fill the bill with this kind of stuff.

And yet...Kate B. sails through this film like a leather jacketed dove through a hailstorm of blood and bullets, only touching lightly down to spout the predictable one liner as she mows down lycan and vampire alike. With all the massive explosions, gore, and weapons of unearthly qualities....enough to shame The Matrix, Evolution is like most guilty pleasures...at times fun and actually entertaining. I just wouldn't want to turn in my Film Appreciation Club card by admitting that I found parts of this cotton candy confection mildly interesting....and then there is that gravely residue left in your mouth!

TH Reviews rating: 2.5 mildly interesting stars out of 5!!!

Jaws and the meeting of men...a review!

Seeing the classic horror (more on this later!) film Jaws as an older man, I discovered a new truth...that sometimes in real life you encounter stuff that might be scarier than a soulless behemoth come from the depths to make soup and salad of you! I found it in the very quietly awesome and pivotal scene in which Quint(Robert Shaw) and Hooper(Richard Dreyfuss) compare the scars of their lives on and in and off the water while a bemused Chief Brody(Roy Scheider) looks on. Then Hooper points out a scar on Quint which Quint says had once been a tattoo identifying him as a survivor of the USS Indianapolis from World War II. Coming back from it's secret mission to deliver the H Bomb that would be dropped on Japan, the Indianapolis would be torpedoed with over eight hundred men left in the water. Eventually the men were rescued, but only 312 would survive. Several of the deaths were attributed to shark attacks.

There are indeed man-eating sharks of many kinds which this scene pays a solemn tribute to ...not just the organic ones...for the secretive mission of the USS Indy contributed to the great length of time it took to rescue the sailors not to mention the failure of the US Navy at different stages of the rescue. Another shark threatening the good folk of Amity are the town select men who resist Brody's attempts to close the beaches to the tourist trade which is Amity's lifeblood. Economic pressures brought to bear on the little town force this decision which results in the deaths of at least three people within the film. A wonderful, but chilling scene has the grieving mother of a shark slain child strike Brody on the face for allowing the beaches to remain open when they knew a shark was threatening.

How strong is the good in human beings when faced with difficult, dangerous choices...when you seem doomed no matter what you decide. Brody and the rest of the Amity folks are faced with impossible choices with consequences fated to destroy their idyllic lives. Peter Benchley's multi-faceted novel has more about this and I suggest that viewers check it out, but Steven Spielberg does a visual interpretation worthy of Benchley's vision of dread and doom. Which is about as much as anyone can claim of a film which at it's heart, is most assuredly a horror film. Aside from the usual suspects...lots of gore, horrendous monster, and lots of Hitchcockian foreboding...Jaws is also a magnificent and horrifying look at how sometimes sharks actually walk around on two legs in the inhumanity practiced against humanity.

TH Reviews rating of Jaws: 5 out of 5 glorious stars....Highly Recommended!!!

Stalag 17 Review!

While there are many comic moments in Stalag 17 (the spiritual father of TV's Hogan's Heroes), it does have, I am happy to say...a darker side to all of the street savvy antics of it's very American cast of Joes from different parts of the country...namely Brooklyn. William Holden is the soul heart of this film and reveals it's gritty underbelly heroically...while many of the POWs look rather well fed to be long term prisoners, there is a very authentic air about the film with the guys in patched up long johns and mud surrounding the barracks. Holden is the actor that keeps Billy Wilder's awesome POW film from falling into another mushy "Gee aren't they all a bunch of great guys" kind of American War film.

There are the usual suspects of stereotypical American archetypes: the tough guy with a heart of gold from Brooklyn, the Midwestern blue-collar guy from Cleveland, the blue-blood with a silver spoon from Boston, and of course the simple backwoods guy from the South...they are all here. But this story of POWs trying to serve their country by attempting escapes to keep the Nazis busy has the wonderfully dark character of Sgt. Sefton to keep everybody honest. Holden, the former Golden Boy of Hollywood was truly entering his "golden" period as Sefton, and of course would continue with very meaty roles afterward. Sefton stands apart from all the other Joes, an outcast and antihero, stating frankly that he merely wants to make himself comfortable, riding out the rest of the war. No cabbage on the chest for Sefton.

But Sefton is pulled into the hero business when he becomes accused of being a stool pigeon, alerting the Camp Guards of any escape attempts or banned items that might be in the possession of the prisoners. He must use his inherent sneakiness to root out the true spy. Sefton makes the very ironic remark that might have chilled many souls in the 1950's red scare era when he wonders aloud nastily why anyone should be suspected of spying for aren't they all "Americans"? It would be interesting to find out if Wilder was saying something of weight in those days when Americans were nervously watching the Russians and each other for Commies out to subvert the government. Later there is indeed a very chilling scene where Sefton's fellow inmates attack him in what clearly amounts to a lynching.

Billy Wilder is definitely on his game here, along with Holden's academy award winning performance, making Stalag 17 classic Hollywood material, not to mention a step ahead of some of it's War film brethren. A solid cast is in place including a young Peter Graves. Stalag 17, along with The Great Escape, remains among my most cherished favorites of this genre.

TH Review's rating of Stalag 17: 4.5 stars out of five! Highly recommended!

Public Enemies Review

Michael Mann is a mystery to me...while I will always esteem him for one of the best cop shows of all time, Miami Vice and one of my personal all time favorite movies, The Last of the Mohicans (You stay alive!), Public Enemies was somewhat of a disappointment for me. It seemed a no lose situation, the mythical John Dillinger story...Johnny Depp in the lead role...Mann as director, I was practically salivating at the prospect. But this film seemed leeched of any original message or theme, being a lot of flash pots and great camera work with ballyhoo but little substance.

Which was a shame, really. While Mann is one of the better technical directors working today, even he cannot uplift what seems rather stilted and predictable. Mann could have, with the right script and with Depp in hand, could have delivered us an outlaw/criminal story of the first order, perhaps another Bonnie and Clyde, The Untouchables, or The Wild Bunch all of which had something interesting to talk about in the midst of all the gun battles, explosions, and car or horse chases.

Why do we esteem and mythologize figures like Dillinger, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, or Butch Cassidy? These figures, who are little more than figures after being elaborated on for generations by an adoring public, have become folk icons....representative of that rowdy, creative American spirit to be different and to walk different paths. All of the best criminal movies weigh in on this very American way of regarding bad men and women...but you see little of this in Public Enemies. Public Enemies seems to want to just present the facts as much as that is possible with fine images artistically and technically presented, but are you left merely with gorgeous images, nothing to connect with as fellow human beings.

Sure, it has Johnny Depp, who seems to embody this unique, rebellious, creative persona not only in the movies but also in his personal life and career. But Depp is so very low key in this film as many of the actors are, as if they or Mann were simply not interested in commenting or elaborating on the legend of John Dillinger. Depp would sometimes look off in the distance longingly or even spare a wink for the camera and the audience behind it, perhaps to suggest some sort of self reflection or awareness about what was happening. And then the moment would be lost even as we lean forward to hear Depp's wisdom.

If all Public Enemies wanted to be was a slickly produced action flick using the 1930's as it's stage then Public Enemies might work very well ultimately. But I felt that when this film was first released the goal and shift was for an elaborate comment on outlawry, celebrity in America, the loss of some sense of the American frontier spirit or simply a man lost in his time with the World gathering swiftly to move on to the next big thing. In a society where people stage situations with lost children in balloons to create celebrity and the money that comes with it, we are in dire need of a film like Public Enemies to be on it's game. Public Enemies somehow just lost the high ground in all the hustle and bustle of it all. It could have been so much more.

TH Review's rating of Public Enemies: 3.5 stars out of five!

Iron Man 2 Review!

Once upon a time there was this little upstart comic book company called Marvel who arrived in the early sixties with a new crop of superheroes that were quite a bit different than the classic superheroes of DC comics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc). These heroes were different in the sense that they seemed more human, more accessible, more like us...so geeky little kids who were a bit overweight like me could actually dream about turning into a superhero like Spider-man. But Marvel was smart enough to steal some of DC's best ideas like teaming up their best heroes as a super team called The Avengers in one comic book. What Marvel did comic book wise, they are now doing in a cinematic fashion....with better than average results.

Iron Man 2 is just such a wink-wink kind of film that reveals small pieces of a greater and grander story arc that keeps us watching through the endless seeming end credits....gutting through all the assistants, costumers, and CGI artists to get one last scene with a little clue towards what lies ahead. And the rest of Iron Man 2 is worth the wait to get to these little juicy asides. Iron Man 2 happens to be a worthy successor to it's 2008 predecessor.

Once again the CGI is fairly eyepopping with all the fight scenes, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) changing into his Iron Man armor, chase scenes, hot women like Gwneyth Paltrow and Scarlet Johansson..... and the usual shenanigans you would expect from a very smart action flick. But Downey Jr. always makes the difference in these films....no matter how fantasy world it all might be...Downey Jr. grounds it all very well. Computer screens suspended before him magically, are crumbled up and thrown away like baseballs or paper wads all with a comic aplomb. And the scenes with Paltrow and Downey Jr have a comic tartness of writing and delivery that reminds me fondly of the best comic team ups in Hollywood, of Tracy and Hepburn or Powell and Loy.

There is also story here as well...Stark finding out new things about his father and Stark reacting to the continued degradation of his health. It is a fine mess of a comic book/action flick movie that centers itself around Downey Jr's sometimes manic performance. Well worth the time and money to see the next chapter towards The Avengers film that must come soon!

TH Reviews rating of Iron Man 2: Four stars out of Five!

Review of 9!

Once Hollywood sinks it's teeth into something, its kind of hard to make it let go, and so it goes with the huge number of dystopian, end of the world scenarios that have recently paraded down the Mad Max pike. Thanks so much to 2012 for the grim futures it has inspired...one wonders if actually good things might happen in the future... with humanity somehow avoiding destroying itself... or otherwise creating totalitarian regimes to enslave everybody.

Now that my rant is over, the film 9 presents us with an end of the world scenario that is at least somewhat more original than most of it's overtired brethren. In this dark but beautiful, used up world, imagined by director Shane Acker, humanity destroys itself a la Terminator with a war machine basically laying the boom down with the sole exception of a scientist who has created small doll sized robots made up of metal, burlap bags, and a spark of human soul. The dolls, each named by a number in the series, 1...2...3....you get the idea, find themselves in a battle to the death when the long dead head machine is inadvertently reawakened to once again wreak havoc on any creative life spark it might find. As you might expect, the irony here is almost biblical as these slightly human creations of a human find themselves at war with an inhuman creation of a human.

The true artistry of 9 and it's originality lie in the execution of the film's overused theme of technology without human ethics is bad....the animated world of 9 is lush in it's stark, Road Warriorish beauty while the action of the characters is seamless and yet stylized...like any good thinking man's action film. The dialogue while predictable, is above average as are the vocal performances of Elijah (Frodo) Wood, John C. Reilly, and a very good Christopher Plummer. The feeling here was that if this film was made in the way it is made, say ten years ago, this might have been considered somewhat of a classic. As some reviewers have mentioned, it seems to have just missed it's mark, becoming unique in the form but not in the function. 9 never adds anything new to the end of the world mythology, except in the form that presents the quickly becoming boring themes. While remarkable in it's beauty, 9 left me shrugging my shoulders and moving on to the next cinematic Armageddon.

TH Review's rating of 9: Three out of Five stars!

Easy Rider Review!!!!

Easy Rider was and is much more than your standard Youth-Biker-Drugs-Sex exploitation flick, even though Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper had plenty of experience with these kinds of fly by night on the cheap productions. And these themes do exist aplenty in Easy Rider, but not long into the film you begin to realize that Fonda and Hopper have deeper agendas than just titillating or shocking the film audience. Released in 1969, Easy Rider might just be the seminal cinematic epitaph of the counter culture 1960's.

Easy Rider begins in Mexico where Captain America, also known as Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) score some Coke from the natives and transport it to LA where they sell it for cash to bankroll their motorcycle trip to New Orleans where they plan to experience Mardi Gras. We might expect a pot soaked, sex romp with the beautiful people along the way and we get a little of that, but mostly what we get is a rather scathing look at main-stream society and a sorrowful, cynical epitaph of the Age of Aquarius. While Wyatt and Billy look the part of two trippy hippies, they do enjoy the feel of cold cash in their palms in the best tradition of robber baron America. The image of Wyatt stuffing a tube containing several Ben Franklins into the star-spangled tear drop gas tank of his hog is a satiric slap not to mention phallic in the face of main-stream corporate America...an image that still resonates with this modern viewer today.

Soon the boys pick up a hitchhiking stranger, who appears to be a prophetic, almost Christ-like figure that leads them to a nearby commune in which the hippies are trying to build a community in the middle of the desert. Pragmatic and impatient Billy thinks they all are nuts trying to sow crops and raise families in the desert, but thoughtful Wyatt is drawn to the simplicity of the life and perhaps to the emotional security that he as a drifter may crave. But there is an undercurrent of despair even within this hopeful band. The boys gather around a simple meal with the squatters, one of whom says grace for the meal thanking God for a chance "to make a last stand." This whole sequence is informing of the film and story relating the death of not only the peace loving counter-culture, but perhaps the American Dream itself as it devolves into money grubbing isolationism. The John Ford inspired, Western frontier spirit represented by the two main characters Wyatt(Earp) and Billy(the Kid) seems little more than a picked over, flyblown carcass found along a nameless highway.

The boys next encounter George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) in jail after the boys are jailed for "parading without a permit" which kind of echoes Arlo Guthrie getting busted in Alice's Restaurant for dumping garbage without a permit. George, almost lovingly played by Nicholson, is a drunk lawyer with his silver spoon of privilege currently choking him to death. He gets the boys out of jail and is drawn to their quest of liberation.... biking and smoking their way to Mardi Gras. George sort of throws off the shackles of his quiet middle class lifestyle to experience the chaos and freedom of the road. He unfortunately pays for his liberation when local rednecks beat him to death in an attack on the "hippies" he is hanging with. It as if the dream of America is being beat to death along with him.

After a trippy LSD experience of wandering about New Orleans with two hookers, the boys are reflecting on their adventures around a campfire. Billy is quite satisfied, looking forward to continuing the easy life down in Florida. But Wyatt broods over their campfire, simply stating, "We blew it". Billy, along perhaps with the mystified viewer, asks what he means. I believe that Wyatt is grieving for the lost America, dedicated to losers, outcasts, and the huddled masses who yearn for a life of opportunity and freedom. Perhaps he is also mourning the death of mid-sixties' idealism or his parents' dream of a better life in the suburbs.

Whatever he means, Easy Rider is a pop culture visit to the Conrad heart of darkness that has many comic moments (especially with Nicholson), incredible scenery, and a sound track of classic Rock-n-Roll to please the greatest fan. What appears on the surface as a cheapo exploitation flick is actually an independent masterpiece that speaks a lot of truth about a legendary era.

TH Review's Rating: Five out of Five Stars!!!

Gentleman's Agreement review!

Perhaps there was just enough We Can Do It! idealism left over from WWII that Gentleman's Agreement finally got made into a blockbuster film. The best selling book had bounced around Hollywood for some time before Darryl Zanuck and Fox decided to buck the safe studio system to film this expose' of Antisemitism in polite New York society. Interesting to note that while many of the grand old studios were actually run and owned by Jewish immigrants, none of them wanted to break with the patriotic, anti-Communism sentiment of the nation in the post war years. It was dangerous anyway to make a film so critical of American society with HUAC hearings just around the corner to nab any suspicious commie types, not to mention whether anyone would actually pay money to see it.

Make the film Zanuck did and brought in first time director Elia Kazan who was on the verge of a memorable career along with worthies Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and a personal favorite, John Garfield. The film is also in gloriously dark black and white to illustrate the shades of gray that Phil (Peck) finds as a magazine writer posing as a Jewish person to write an expose' on Antisemitism. He encounters differing levels of prejudice and outright bigotry among people in his building and among his co-workers. Even Kathy (McGuire), the liberal socialite that Phil falls in love with asks him to back off, fearing the retaliation of her social set and neighborhood. We, along with Phil, witness the more blatant bigotry of name calling and bullying, along with the more subtler kinds of exclusion such as a nearby hotel that quietly finds no vacancies for potential Jewish visitors.

While it is hard for the modern viewer to connect with these instances of bigotry and segregation against Jews in the late forties, perhaps we should substitute African Americans, Latino Americans, Asians or Gays within the category of the person different from us. Kazan's film can be as relevant to us today as we encounter the glass ceilings that are placed in the way of Americans based on race, religion, economic background or sexual preference. While at times Gentleman's Agreement can be a bit heavy handed and over dramatic in its presentation of social injustice, its message is still all too relevant and compelling for us today.

TH Reviews rating of Gentleman's Agreement: 4.5 stars out of 5!

Dead Snow Review!

Once you get about five minutes into the Norwegian Slasher/Zombie Flick, Dead Snow, you realize you have already seen five other Slasher/Zombie Flicks. This is not such a bad thing because Dead Snow culls from just about all of the best parts of the Horror films it plays tribute to. As the college age, basically good looking, sexy students trudge up a snowy hill to a remote cabin for a Spring break holiday (already sound familiar?), the geeky film buff among them starts a conversation about all the horror films that start out with the basic premise that they find themselves in...among the films are Friday the 13th and Evil Dead 1&2. And you can find very intentional traces of all those films within Dead Snow...particularly Evil Dead. What you end up with is a very gory, pretty darn scary, and awful dang hilarious Zombie Flick.

As the good looking young people pair off gradually to do what good looking young people like do with one another, namely party, they discover from an old hiker wandering by that the area they are enjoying played host to a bunch of evil Nazis who had occupied Norway during the last few years of WWII. Driven up into the mountains by the furious populace that they were basically raping, killing, and robbing, the Nazis are never heard from again. After the old hiker leaves, the kids begin to hear from the Nazis big time....this time in flesh eatin', super strong, super fast Zombie mode! The kids arm themselves with axes, chain saws, and even mount a WWII era machine gun to a snowmobile to combat the Nazi Zombie scourge.

A fun game to play while watching this film might be Spot All The Horror Film In-Jokes, because bits and pieces of many slasher and zombie horror films pop out at different times. The one liners and visual gags reminded me fondly of the second Evil Dead film with people cutting off limbs that have been zombie-bit and body parts of evil zombies flying everywhere. Dead Snow with all it's funny moments still takes time to scare the pants off you and inspire some lights being turned on and the scenery actually steals the show....breathtaking mountain and forest scenes that looked as if they were filmed on location in Norway. It would be a skier's paradise if it were not for all the Nazi Zombies out for lunch all the time.

Let the normal viewer beware and gore hounds take notice....Dead Snow is bloody gore piled upon bloody gore with particular attention given to the large intestines. But all of this simply serves the absurdity of it all. While not particularly original, Dead Snow still has a lot of fun with all the stuff it rips off!

TH Reviews rating of Dead Snow: 3.5 stars out of 5 stars!

The African Queen movie review!

If you have ever loved mid-life romances in film, like The Bridges of Madison County, you might have to thank a film like The African Queen, John Huston's wonderful adaptation of C.S. Forester's classic novel. Two of Hollywood's finest and most legendary stars, Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, are teamed up for the first.... and alas, the last time of their careers, and it is a shining moment for the fans of either of these great actors.

The African Queen begins with Rose, played by Hepburn and her brother, played chillingly by Robert Morley, as Methodist missionaries serving a native village in East Africa dominated by the Germans at the beginning of the First World War. While conditions are grim, the two seem to have found their place in life until the German army shows up to forcibly enlist the villagers and burn the village. Robert Morley makes a quick but memorable exit as he proceeds to have a nervous breakdown and dies. Virginal and innocent Hepburn is left to face the unknown dangers of the dark continent.

At this time, Bogart appears, a broken down riverboat captain with an even more broken down riverboat named The African Queen. He is named Charley and is the lifeline for Rose and her brother to the outside world. Now he represents her only hope of escape....and also revenge against the German Army. Charley tells her that the British would have a much easier time of invading East Africa if the Battleship Steamer Louisa in Lake Tanganyika at the mouth of the river could be removed. Charley reluctantly agrees to Rose's plan of shooting the rapids of the river, avoiding a German fort on the same river, and arming The African Queen with homemade torpedoes to destroy the German Steamer.

As they travel down river and face ever more serious peril, these two strong minded people begin to develop first respect for one another and then a very unlikely romance begins to spring up. No less a barrier than class distinctions is overcome, she an English blue-blood missionary and he a Canadian of a disreputable background and of course their differing moralistic outlooks. Perhaps the nadir of their relationship, if not the most hilarious is when Rose dumps Charley's supply of Gin overboard after the drunken captain refuses to go through with their plan. This is also a watershed moment of their relationship as Charley begins to realize his need for her acceptance and Rose understanding the depth of his courage and integrity.

And soon, these two lovable losers begin to find love for one another...almost desperately as each intuitively realizes this is their last shot at love. A sweet September-September romance blossoms between them that is bewitching and compelling to watch, particularly Rose who is discovering a sense of her own sexual awareness and desire. Hepburn is magnificent at this with her longing, yet trembling glances at Bogart. For Bogart's part, he too is never better....breaking out of his cool, world weary mercenary, to deliver a character who is unsure of himself, lonely, and perhaps questioning the choices he has made. Each of these flawed people cling to each other in desperation and become greater human beings for the experience.

Huston is at the apex and maturity of his direction, wringing the most grand performances from his actors and from the rich, colorful cinematography of filming on location. While on location, the entire cast and crew struggled mightily with conditions on the river, sickness, and encounters with dangerous wild life to produce a grand yet intimate epic of adventure and romance. Who says forty or fifty something folks can't be sexy....Hepburn and Bogart are almost magically sexy here!

TH Reviews rating: 5 stars out of 5...highly recommended!

Sweet Smell of Success Review!

Sweet Smell of Success is simply one of Burt Lancaster's greatest moments in a career filled with them....and oh yeah...Tony Curtis was also absolutely fabulous in this dark meditation on Celebrity and Entertainment journalism, along with the corruption inherent in absolute power. Lancaster plays J.J. Hunsecker, a powerful and influential entertainment/celebrity columnist for a New York newspaper that is the literal toast of the town with press agents like Sidney Falco, played by Tony Curtis, doing "favors" for Lancaster in order to win space in his column for the entertainers they represent. Curtis seems to have been a long time flunkie for Lancaster because it has been several days since Lancaster had mentioned any of Curtis' clients and so Curtis is upset and now ready to sink even lower to appease power mad Lancaster.

Eventually Curtis will stoop to placing false accusations and planting false evidence on an up and coming Jazz musician that has been dating Lancaster's sister. The soft side of Lancaster's character and perhaps the more darker side comes out in his almost incestuous relationship with his younger sister and his complete jealous rage at her dating someone beneath her. Very soon, both Lancaster and Curtis must face the consequences of their single minded pursuit of influence, power, and money.

This film is as dark as any detective noir thriller and uses its pacing and lighting to great affect. The film moves in an almost breakneck speed, never allowing the viewer to catch his breath before the next tragic consequence of Lancaster and Curtis' machinations come to light. I have also never heard better dialogue in a film...crisp and crackling like summer lightning and wickedly funny, spawning the wonderful Lancaster line, "Match me, Sidney" to Tony Curtis. On the one hand, this is a dismissal of Curtis as a mere henchman around only to light Lancaster's smokes, but also a challenge to beat Lancaster at the subtle game they are playing with people's lives and reputations.

Another film from Lancaster's own production company, Sweet Smell, was one of those films which signaled the end of the tightfisted control of the major Studios, at least artistically. Artists who wanted to do socially or politically relevant films often had to beg on hands and knees to Studios who were indifferent to such material, because of its difficulty to market and thus make their money back. Stars like James Cagney and Burt Lancaster were among the pioneers to break out of the studio system to make the films they wanted to make. Sweet Smell of Success helped usher in the modern age of the Independent Film and a new era of artistic freedom of comment.

TH Reviews rating: 5 stars out of 5....highly recommended!

Vera Cruz review!

Vera Cruz is not the greatest Western ever made, but it's sins are few to count and there are things here to enjoy. Vera Cruz is a pretty much by the numbers revisionist Western....and by revisionist I mean the white hats and the black hats are thrown out the window. Vera Cruz, like many of the Italian "Spaghetti Westerns" and the wonderful Anthony Mann Westerns, is a bit more complex with characters driven by something less inspiring than saving the pretty rancher's daughter or defending sod busters from ruthless cattle barons. Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper are motivated by money, taking care of themselves first and foremost or at least, in the case of plantation owner Cooper, their own.

Cooper and Lancaster, an interesting odd couple to say the least, encounter one another as they are heading down Mexico way to sell their gun-fighting expertise to the highest bidder during the Mexican Revolution against Maximillian, the French puppet emperor. While this premise may sound familiar, director Robert Aldrich throws in for spice a marquise played engagingly by Cesar Romero. He also adds Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Jack Elam as Lancaster's henchmen to keep the pot boiling. Things look pretty good on paper with this ragtag cowboy gang fresh from the just ended Civil War mixing it up with transplanted European nobility.

But then the characters open their mouths and you find yourself feeling a bit cheated. The dialogue which feels flat, forced, and deadly unoriginal, brings down what otherwise might have been a classic. The interactions between characters just wasn't that well conceived or delivered. This is a particular shame with Cooper and Lancaster, both fine actors representing two important eras of Hollywood....Cooper a living legend of the early studio days and Lancaster as the new young turk generation of the late forties who were forming their own production companies to stretch both their artistic chops and earning potential. What could have been an electric paring falls rather flat. Borgnine and Company are also shamefully little used....really little more than big bullies out for a good time.

Despite some good cinematography and interesting use of Aztec ruins, Vera Cruz just doesn't have much umpth in the end, when it seemed to have so much more potential. Lancaster's production company was a driving force for this film and it's hard to believe the same company would also helm classics like Sweet Smell of Success. TH Reviews rating: 3.5 out of five stars!

Review for The Shop Around the Corner

While I agree that James Stewart's most relevant period as an actor of depth and subtlety began after World War II, there is still much to love and esteem during his Hollywood salad days of the 1930's to the early 1940's. The Shop Around the Corner is just such a gem of a film that shows James Stewart at his best, even though it took the clout of his co-star Margaret Sullavan to get his foot in the door. Here is one of the early examples of Stewart's ability to cast himself as the Everyman Underdog and work his wonderful way into our hearts.

It took Hollywood a while to figure out just what do with Stewart who did not fit into the prototypical romantic leading man type....he was not Clark Gable, the big and ruggedly handsome hero man. Stewart was more of a Gary Cooper sort of guy....tall, slim, and sweet looking, the difference being that Stewart could say more than the occasional syllable. In the Frank Capra film, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, the persona of the little guy everyman is perfected for Stewart and it would see him through the years of a very successful and long lived career. The Shop Around the Corner picks up this type of character a year later and Stewart was off to the races.

Shop tells the now familiar story of two co-workers, Stewart and Sullivan, who hate each other while they work together in the shop by day, but are unknowing passionate lovers as they correspond as pen pals through the mail. Shop's basic premise would be worked over again and again over the years...most notably as a musical In the Good Old Summertime with Van Johnson and Judy Garland and most recently as You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan corresponding over the Internet.

Ernst Lubitsch' s wonderful first version also has a dark side along with all the romantic comedy chemistry of Stewart and Sullavan. The shop's owner, played by wonderful character actor Frank Morgan, suspects that his wife is fooling around on him and he suspects his favored clerk Stewart of being part of the triangle. In a fit of jealous rage, Morgan fires Stewart right before Christmas, putting the success of his shop at risk. Eventually Morgan learns that Stewart is innocent and consequently has a nervous breakdown, trying unsuccessfully to commit suicide. Eventually and predictably, all is forgiven and Stewart finally wins back his job and his lady love, Sullavan.

Although predicable in some respects, Shop with the Morgan subplot and fine character acting cast is sweet with just a tad bit of the sour to make it relevant and memorable. Stewart and his great acting mentor Margaret Sullavan strike all the good chords for a very entertaining, Classic Hollywood good time! TH Reviews rating: 4 1/2 stars of Five!

Fort Apache Review!

Arguably the best of John Ford's Calvary Trilogy, Fort Apache is actually darker and in some ways deeper than She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or Rio Grande. The film covers not only the sense of honor and service within the military but also covers class distinctions and the barriers built between classes...so the world of Fort Apache becomes a microcosm of society in general. Also included in this film is John Ford's sometimes out and loud sympathy for the plight of Native Americans deprived of their ancestral lands and literally starved to death by greedy government contractors for support of the reservations.

This is not John Wayne's film necessarily, but feels more like Henry Fonda's, as the driven Colonel who unwillingly accepts a demotion and the assignment to Fort Apache out on the American frontier. He is proud and ego driven....a tragic figure on the order of a Shakespearean MacBeth or Richard III...driven to destroy himself in a need to prove himself to the powers that be in Washington. Along with Fonda....there are of course Victor McLaglen and Ward Bond who turn in their best redoubtable Irish personas to accentuate the class differences between themselves and Fonda's Colonel Thursday. John Agar and a surprisingly deep Shirley Temple provide romantic interludes to the heady mix.

And of course, whether black and white or in color, Ford's artistic sense of scene building, the balance of human figures within the shot tell a visual story that almost needs no sound or music to communicate intimately with the audience. Ford is at his best in this which hearkens back to his silent film days where he first developed his art and his craft...a heartfelt A+!

A response to Netflix changes.

I am not a vengeful or I hope...a rude person, but I have become increasingly dissatisfied with Netflix's community oriented services. For the past year or so it has become very difficult to use many of the features of note sending to other members, list making, and communication within the main Netflix site. As a sometime apologist for Netflix, I understand the huge popularity of sharing notes and reviews within the site may make it hard to manage and maintain a consistently working site and still maintain the bottom line....and let's face it, we all like to eat and maybe send our kids to college some day.

But Netflix has proven itself to be rather high handed in making major changes, taking away beloved perks on the site, and then remains silent in the face of such a public outcry throughout the community. Instead of cursing the darkness, I would rather light a candle...shifting my movie reviews, notes, and discussions to this blog....and encouraging others to do so as well. So if you have enjoyed discussing film or reading my reviews in the past, please join and engage me here on my film blog site: http://threviews.blogspot.com/.

And here's to our common love, Film!!!
TH Reviews
Tom Hehenberger