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!!!