The Last Waltz (1978)

Martin Scorsese directs the Band's last concert and the result is pretty incredible.  It's understandable why this is considered by many the greatest concert film ever made.  It captures the magic of live rock-n-roll in such a beautiful way.  It's poetic in its ability to capture what made this crew click while also presenting a celebration and farewell to be remembered years later.  You don't even after to be a fan of the group to enjoy it to be told.  It doesn't matter if this was shot in the late '70s or today, it's a timeless document of a great group of musicians.  I could easily watch this one more than once.  Grade: A

Man With the Golden Arm, The (1955)

Frank Sinatra plays a drug addict and gets nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor.  Otto Preminger directs with style and his usual melodramatic flare.  Oh and there's gambling card sharks and manipulative girl friend who pretends to be unable to walk.  This '50s drama is more pulp than noir and with its jazz sound track and screen stealing secondary characters there's a lot to like.  Certainly check it out as an example of Hollywood attempting to get serious about drug abuse while also trying to craft an entertaining picture.  Grade: B

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (Novel)

Three complex characters are on the discovery to find out who they are after graduating college in one of the best modern day love triangles I've read in a long time.  Madeleine is a English major trying to become an expert on Jane Austen while dating Leonard, a scientist researcher.  Leonard is dealing with his own issues while Mitchell, another English major, pines for the one who got away while on a European backpacking trip, Madeleine.  Jeffrey Eugenides effortlessly blends various point of views in a clear and entertaining narrative. I highly recommend this book for those who enjoy reading relatable characters bumbling about in life. Grade: A- Spoiler Alert:   My one minor gripe with this book is the end.  It's not a bad ending it just didn't satisfy me completely because I'm always annoyed when a male character can only stop obsessing over a girl until he gets what he wants and that's to have sex with her.  It just seems so pitiful and cliché too.  Yes, men are shallow pigs but it would be so much more rewarding for me if Mitchell realized Madeleine wasn't for him without conquering her sexually.

My Dinner with Andre (1981)

Two guys talking.  That's it really.  Surprisingly it's a pretty entertaining film.  Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn write and star as acquaintances who meet up for dinner and talk about life.  Gregory tells old stories of his strange adventures and Shawn contributes with introspection.  I came away feeling I had just been involved in an enlightening event even though I just watched.  I might add to that director Louis Malle does a fine job in what is actually a complicated shoot.  It's not just film two people it's filming them while they eat dinner.  That's a more complex dance than one might think.  This is one of those movies anyone who likes the history of cinema should watch because this one left its mark.  Grade: B+

Cloud Atlas (2012)

I'm not sure how well Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings adapted David Mitchell's novel of the same name but as a cinematic experience they really crafted a fascinating film.  Time has no bounds as they tell multiple stories using the same group of actors.  Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess and Jim Broadbent share an acting experiment that allows them to push their talents to new heights. There's the American lawyer exploring New Zealand in the mid-1800s who becomes sick.  There's the English composer who becomes the assistant of an aging composer during the '30s.  There's the American Journalist trying to uncover corruption of a Nuclear power plant during the '70s.  There's a publisher and writer who becomes a prisoner of a retirement home in the present year.  And lastly two future stories, one about a clone-girl who escapes a life of service to trigger a great revolution and the most distant story of a time on Earth where human kind split into two, one group very technologically advanced and the other much more tribal.  There's a lot of variety and how they all come together thematically works like a song.  I celebrate this film mostly because it was made at all and that such an expensive art project turned out so beautiful.  Sadly it bombed at the box office meaning it might be awhile before another complex invention like this gets made again.  Grade: B+

Girl Can't Help It (1956)

Jayne Mansfield stars in a Born Yesterday knock-off, except it's not book smarts that her boyfriend wants for her, it's stardom.  In many ways this is a celebration of rock-n-roll with some wonderful performances (like Little Richard) instead of a film with a strong narrative.  It's pretty predictable and very much stuck in the time it was made.  Director Frank Tashlin can't help but throw in a bunch of jokes about Mansfield's well-endowed physique and emphasize in a sardonic way the traditional roll of a wife.  I can't say I loved this dated film.  It lacks any real charm or humor.  Grade: B-

Hamlet (2000)

This is a contemporary take on the Bard's most famous revenge play about the Danish Prince, this time around played by Ethan Hawk.  It also stars Kyle MacLachlanby, Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Bill Murphy, Steve Zahn, and Sam Shepard. It's always clever to see how one takes such an old work and updates it for new audiences.  Here we have a very cinematic experience with most of the story intact.   I especially loved how Hamlet is a lover of videography and crafts a film to confront his uncle instead of using a group of traveling thespians.  Unfortunately most of these actors do struggle with the language, but I think that's because they're trying to make it sound like contemporary speech.  Besides this obvious weakness, I must say I liked this adaptation very much.  It just proves how universal a storyteller Shakespeare was.  Grade: B+

Payday (1973)

Rip Torn is Maury Dann, a famous country western singer who tours the South in a Cadillac causing up trouble, drinking, womanizing, shooting, picking fights and being about the most manic guy in the room.  Rip is so good in this movie it's remarkable.  It's one of those performances so entertaining to watch, a character so fascinating on screen that you know while watching it you're seeing something special.  How is it this film is so forgotten?  This is about a perfect a dark comedy one could hope to ever make about such a flawed and egocentric character.  I really enjoyed this one and it shocks me to learn via Imdb.com that the director Daryl Duke never really made any other successful features after this and that this was screenwriter, Don Carpenter's only screenplay.  More people need to check this film out, it's a true pleasure.  Grade: A

La Terra trema (1947)

Luchino Visconti directs a story about a fisherman family who mortgage their home in the hope of independently going on their own and making more money instead of fishing for one of the big companies in town.  Cast with actual fisherman from a small Italian village for authenticity, this is a gut-wrenching film that shows how difficult it is for the little fish to go up against the big fish.  I will say I first thought it was too long (and it is) but it's surprisingly paced well enough to make the long running time durable.  Grade: A-    

Man of Steel (2013)

This superhero origin story to the first superhero in comics is like a really delicious feast that the chef keeps forcing you to devour even though you're full.  The result is that you enjoyed the meal but you leave the restaurant with a bit of a belly ache.  What makes this film ultimately so satisfying is the story.  David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan give us a Superman for our time.  It's darker in tone and is grounded in a reality that seems believable in a world that is completely void of any scientific credibility.   But that's okay because it's foundation is the stuff that makes Superman Superman which is great.  Henry Cavill is excellent along with the rest of the cast, including Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe as dueling dads.  The only thing that keeps this film from being truly great is the same problem all Superhero films are having lately and that's the Mayhem factor.   The repetitive action of superheroes blowing up skyscrapers and crashing into things is now just a cliché.  Modern audiences are no longer impressed and I personally find it tiresome watching such destruction.  I get it's somewhat necessary but at least make it as interesting as possible.  One example of this is with the World Engine, a device in the film that the villain Zod uses on planet Earth and really ruins Metropolis.  That was visually cool.  What's not visually cool is watching Superman fight other Kryptonians by pushing and shoving each other into buildings over and over again.  That's not fighting that's a poor excuse to show off how invincible these guys are.  In the sequel I really hope they show Superman actually fight it out with his fists.  Besides this overzealous desire to impressive us with action, I have to give director Zack Snyder a big thumbs up for a job well done.  Just watching Superman fly for the first time made me a believer in the future of this franchise.  Next time, I hope they bring on Lex Luthor and further the romantic connection with Lois Lane.   Grade: B+

Fringe (Season 4)

I won't say this season was a disappointment.  It's just after the last season there was really no way for the makers of this science-fiction romantic thriller to out do themselves.  It's a really good season with mostly excellent moments.  My main complain was how it unraveled at its conclusion, not so much what happened (which was great) but the why it was happening.  The villain felt like a stretch and his motivations way too fantastically for me to buy.  Is that cryptic enough?  Anyway I love these characters and it was joy to see their further development and to tease us of an unthinkable and brilliant change coming for season five.  Grade: A-

Spoiler Alert:  To explain my vagueness above: having William Bell turn out to be the villain and that he's trying to create a new universe of his own design . . . well, to put it simply that's was just too much for me to handle.  It's sort of cool if it was a different show but one of the things I love about this show is how the science feels possible.  That was until this season where the science is so out there it's like magic.  I love how our heroes fight back and save the world (the bullet scene was a beautiful and exciting surprise) but in the end it was just too weird for even me.  Also William Bell, while certainly suspicious, never seemed to be the kind of guy who would kill the entire world.  I would have rather have learned it was someone one pretending to be him or something but that's not what they did.  Still a great show but I guess even the best ones out there have a flaw or two. 

To Rome with Love (2012)

Back to Rome but this time instead of a harsh episodic WWII film, we have a surrealistic episodic comedy written and directed by Woody Allen.  There's the story of an older American architect played by Alec Baldwin who revisits his past by meeting up with his doppelgänger played by Jesse Eisenberg and relives his past as a spectator when he had an affair his girl friend's friend, an actress played by Ellen Paige.  Trust me when I say it makes sense.  Grade: A-.  Why?  Because it was funny and heartfelt and I loved how an afternoon can turn into a week of nostalgia.  Then there's the tale of a very common Italian man played by Roberto Benigni who becomes instantly famous for doing nothing at all.  Grade: A-  Why?  Because it's a brilliant commentary on celebrity written by someone who probably knows a thing or two about the subject.  Then there's Italian newly-weds, Antonia and Milly, from the country who visit the city to meet up with an Uncle for a possible job.  Yet they get separated when Milly gets lost in the city trying to get her hair done and Antonia is forced to have a prostitute played by Penelope Cruz play his wife for his family.  Grade: B+  Why?  It's a good story and I love how it turns out but a bit dishonest about love and sex.  Still it's an amusing fable.  And lastly the main storyline, the one with Woody Allen, deals with American parents come to Rome to meet their daughter's fiancée and his Italian parents.  The once American Opera director overhears his soon-to-be son-in-law's mortician father singing in the shower while cleaning up for a meal.  So blown away by the man's talent he becomes obsessed with helping the reluctant man break into the Opera business.  Grade: A  Why?  Because it' silly and hilarious.  It's just what you'd hope for in a Woody Allen comedy.    

Paisan (1946)

Roberto Rossellini directs a film comprising six Italian stories dealing with WWII.  This is the second war film of his, the first being Open City.  Like the first one, he again creates a dramatic event detailing the moral corruption of war and a nation's fight for survival.  It does feel hopeless a lot of the time but I could appreciate the importance of showing the truth instead of sugar-coating these stories to make the audience happy.  War is not happy and in crafting this film Rossellini presents an accurate and powerful perspective on a time where his country was almost ruined by the rise of Fascism.  It's a bleak but must-see film for those who enjoy Italian cinema.  One of the aspects that impressed me a lot s that each story, while different, is equally good.  I don't have a favorite because I liked each one quite a lot.  Because of that I don't feel the need to break down each stories' plot, just watch it and let them move you as much as they moved me.  Grade: A 

Gate of Hell (1954)

This Japanese Samurai film is about obsession and also about sacrifice for true love.   A samurai warrior rescues the fiancee of a lord and in doing so falls in love with her.  When he discovers that she is meant for another, he will go to great lengths to win her back, basically becoming a samurai stalker.  Shot in color with beautiful effect, it's an impressive film for 1954 so you can see why it won the seventh best foreign language film Academy award that year.  It's nowhere near as good as  Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (released months later) but I'm sure it being in color made it seem like the best choice (being that each country can only submit one film).  Too bad too because of the seven theme, that said you can't compare the two; this one is more dramatic and deals with a love triangle while the other is basically an action film.  For the longest time this one has been unavailable until recently.  As soon as Netflix had it available I ordered it and I'm glad to have seen it.  I love samurai movies and this one did not let me down.   Grade: A-

Othello (1952)

Orson Wells' adaptation of Shakespeare's tragic tale of jealousy is a quintessential work both as cinematic direction as well as editing.  The only problem for me was the copy of the DVD I had: it was such a bad transfer I almost wonder if I should write this review.  At times the audio was so scratchy that I couldn't understand the dialogue.  Yet visually it's so stunning I almost didn't need to hear Shakespeare's lines.  I'm uncertain if there's a better transfer of this one out there, but if there is I'd recommend this film.  I won't say it's the best Shakespeare film out there but it's pretty impressive. Grade: A-

Diva (1982)

This French film noir of the '80s is a stylized poem as well as a pulpy thriller.  A young man named Jules is a huge fan of a great opera singer named Cynthia Hawkins, a diva who refuses to record her voice.  He ends up recording a bootleg version which gets mixed up with another audio tape that's the centerpiece of a political scandal.  I have to say it's a pretty enjoyable yawn if a bit convoluted.  This is one of those unique experiences where design, performance, story and music come together in just the right way producing something better than you would expect.  Grade: B+

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5)

The fifth outing for the Next Generation crew really shines as an example of great science fiction.   Here you have a run of amazing episodes with my favorite and probably one of the best I've seen in "Inner Light" where Picard lives an entire life time on another planet.  But this season is just fantastic with other wonderful adventures like "Conundrum" where the crew's memory is altered, "I, Borg" where they capture a Borg and introduce him to individuality, "The Next Phase" where Geordi and a new character Ensign Ro get stuck on a different phase and "The Game" where Wesley must save the ship (again) from an alien invasion.  Speaking of Wesley Crusher (one of the fan's least favorite characters) he's give a great episode called "The First Duty" which is basically a trial episode and deals with telling the truth even if it means hurting your team.  Great ethical questions are challenged in many episodes, see "Ethics" dealing with assisted suicide, "Outcast" dealing with gender identity and "Silicon Avatar" dealing with revenge.  Yet what must be written about is the memorable two-parter with Spock: these two episodes for "Unification" make up one of my favorite Romulan themed stories so far.  Are there any duds?  Not really.  The only two weaker episodes are "Imaginary Friend" about an alien shape-shifter and the "Cost of Living", one of the less entertaining Lwaxana Troi stories.  Certainly watch this season if you like Star Trek.  It's one of the best seasons of the show. Grade: A  

Much Ado About Nothing (2013)

Joss Whedon and friends (from his days working in television) film a modern adaption of Shakespeare's play.  Shot digitally in Mr. Whedon's own home, the end result is magical and proof that even an old play can still be a blast to watch.   I know what some of you out there might be saying: "But Kenneth Branagh's version is the best, so why even make another one?"  The answer is, why not?  There's always room for two great adaptions of a classic.  Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker play the tongue-slashing lovers and light up the screen with comic charm and dramatic flare.   I hope after this film casting agents start calling them up; they both deserve busier careers.  I really don't have anything bad to say about this one.  Shot in black in white, wisely, and not that much of a stretch setting it in contemporary times, I would only skip this one if you dislike Shakespeare or lack a romantic spirit. Grade: A-

Lacombe Lucien (1974)

This exceptional character study is about a young teen who rebels against his family by assisting the French Gestapo work with the Nazis locate members of the French Resistance during WWII.  Louis Malle directs what seems like a true story.  It's unfortunate that the lead actor Pierre Blaise died in a car accident a year later because he was a special talent and I believe had a promising career.  We'll never know how great he could have become but this performance alone is superb.  A drama that shows how easily one can make the wrong choices when lured by the rebellious ego, I was greatly entranced.  Grade: A-  

Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (1997)

I don't even know how to explain this one to you.  Errol Morris, one of the great stylist documentary film makers ever, blends four seemingly different subjects into one thematic crescendo.   The film interviews a lion tamer, a gardener hedge sculptor, a hairless mole rat expert and a robot builder.  What do all of these people have in common?  They've all become masters of their domain.  I was surprised how moved I was by this film, to see these people speak with such passion really is inspiring.  If any other documentary film maker had made this, it would never had worked but Mr. Morris, as only he can, delivers a pitch-perfect piece of art.  Grade: A

Love in the Afternoon (1972)

Not to be confused with the Billy Wilder film staring Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn, this is the final film in Eric Rohner's Six Moral Tales Series.  I skipped watching the fifth one, Claire's Knee because I realized I had seen it many years ago before I knew anything about Rohmer.  It never really impressed me so I went ahead to this one also known as Chloe in the Afternoon (which is the title I prefer).  Simply put this one is wonderful.  It's just as good as My Night with Maud.  It follows a married lawyer who reconnects with a friend of his, a woman who used to be another friend's girlfriend.  They start up a friendship and it's clear he has some strong feelings of some kind toward this woman.  It strikes at the age old question for married men, do you wish you could be with other women again like when you were single?  While not a suspense film, it almost is as it moves a long: will he or won't he?  What a fitting way to end a wonderful series. Grade: A 

Stop Making Sense (1984)

No film better makes you a fan of their work than this one.  I've always loved the Talking Heads but this concert film turned me into a believer.  The film opens on an empty stage with David Bryne playing a guitar along side a boom box.  Then with each song a new member of the band appear on stage.  I'll go ahead and say it: this is the best concert film I've ever seen.  It's so good I almost want to own it on Blu-ray.  Sure if you dislike the band 's music you should probably skip it, but I say give it a second chance because watching these musicians do what they love and do best is a great pleasure. Grade: A

Petulia (1968)

Richard Lester directs Julie Christie and George C. Scott in a film about a chance relationship between a doctor going through a divorce and the wife of a rich, abusive husband.  The first time I watched this film (about two years ago) I couldn't get through the first thirty minutes.  It's not the scrambled time line either that threw me, I actually find the structure of this film to be a plus.  It's just badly paced.  This time I was able to finish it and while the actors are certainly doing fine work I must admit to disliking this one.  I just became more and more disinterested in two character's with zero chemistry.  Grade: C

Mon Oncle (1958)

Jacques Tati was a genius at using design to demonstrate a point of view.  Here the visuals tell of a conflict between the modern and the traditional.  With clever detail and a sarcastic wit he shows how the modern world is just silly.  Tati's character of the uncle is a man stuck in the past while his sister's family has embraced the modern world.  There's a hilarious bit with a fish fountain that had me rolling and another one on an automatic garage door that seems to make fun of our obsession gadgets.  I mean even the sets are amazing in their ability to make you laugh.   While there's not much of a plot going on you'd think this kind of film would run out of steam.  But it's consistently clever and inspiring in its humorous riff on consumerism and convenience.  Grade: A-

Pelle the Conqueror (1988)

In one of Max von Sydow's most memorable performances he plays an immigrant farmer from Sweden who brings his young son, Pelle, to Denmark in hope for a new start.   He gets a job caring for the cows on a large farm and together they learn to adapt.  There's no question that this is a great film, an emotional and gritty story that I personally will not forget.  It reminded me of The Tree of Wooden Clogs, so I'd say if you liked that film you will enjoy this one as well.  Grade: A  

Gimme Shelter (1970)

This is a combination of a great rock 'n roll film staring the Rolling Stones and an even better disaster documentary of the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Festival.  Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin (whom made the wonderful small documentary Salesman) capture the Rolling Stones in a honest and personal way that speaks volumes about them as people.  It shows the incidents surrounding the Altamont festival without judgment.  Great music and a back stage look at how uncontrollable the Hell's Angels were and the increasing mob mentally the crowd was becoming as things went wrong: I highly recommend this film for people who like music documentaries.  Grade: A-