DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

Quentin Tarantino’s tricked-up interracial buddy pic splits unevenly into two halves. First up is a neatly trimmed one-hour pre-Civil War fable about a ruthless, if cultivated bounty-hunter (Christopher Waltz) who frees black slave Jamie Foxx to help him track his latest quarry. And while the levels of violence & gore now hit modern ‘R-Rated’ limits, the b&w buddy/buddy Zeitgeist bar has seen little movement since the days of Burt Lancaster & Ossie Davis in THE SCALPHUNTERS/’68. And it’s still audience pleasing stuff. But once Leonardo DiCaprio shows up as a sadistic ‘mandingo’ plantation owner in Part Two, the fable curdles into pastiche Spaghetti Western. (It's also twice as long.) As Foxx & Waltz head South to rescue Foxx’s wife, splattery violence, circumlocutionary flurries of non-dazzling dialogue & badass behavior take the place of real story-telling, a big comedown from the narrative force Tarantino once flaunted in PULP FICTION/’94 and JACKIE BROWN/’97. (Or does more credit belong with Roger Avary & Elmore Leonard on those?) Samuel L. Jackson, as DiCaprio’s wicked house slavey, does himself proud in old-age make-up swiped from Woody Strode in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY/’62, but Waltz pretty much steals the pic. This must have come as quite a surprise to Foxx, usually the center of attention, but here unable to even get anything going with mate Kerry Washington. (So little, you wonder how Jackson figures out their backstory.) Maybe it’s time for Tarantino to stop working up his own stories magpie-style and try another adaptation.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: While many anachronisms are in here on purpose, surely someone could have told QT that ‘panache,’ as Waltz uses it, didn’t acquire its modern meaning of ‘dashing style’ & ‘pizzazz’ until Edmond Rostand recoined it for CYRANO DE BERGERAC in 1897.

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT (1944)

Anthony Mann spent his galley years helming a lot of low-budget noirs, but this early effort from his start at little Republic Pictures is more mini-California Gothic, with nods toward REBECCA/’40, SUSPICION and a premonition of LAURA/’44, out two months later. William Terry (one of those faceless leads who faded away once the war ended and the boys came home) plays a wounded vet on his way to meet his girl, a pen pal he’s never seen. On the train home, he meets-cute during a train derailment (!) with a very young, very pretty, very female doctor. Then, when he goes to meet his putative girlfriend at her cliff-side mansion, he only finds an over-possessive mother, a timid live-in companion, and a grand portrait of the girl he’d been dreaming of during his recovery. No doubt, you’ve guessed the rest. But while the structure is largely telegraphed in the first two reels, the triple denouement is considerably weirder then expected. Virginia Grey makes brisk work of the good doctor while Helene Thimig &, especially, Edith Barrett, as Mom & servile companion, work up a disturbing vibe of destructive co-dependency. The film is just a programmer, but lenser Reggie Lanning manages a plush look inside the big creepy house, and Mann gets us out in just under an hour. Too bad the music department keeps tossing in comic music cues that kill the mood.

DOUBLE-BILL: Mann’s great unheralded ‘B’ pic is THE TALL TARGET/’51 about a plot to kill Lincoln as he travels to Washington for his inauguration. Why no one has tried for an upgraded remake is a mystery.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: All you IMDb mavens beware!, the little story summary on this title is a big spoiler.

HARLAN: IN THE SHADOW OF JEW SUSS (2008)

Veit Harlan, one of top German directors during WWII, specialized in large-scale historicals with big patriotic themes. His final wartime spectacular, KOLBERG/’45, a Napoleonic-era drama of German sacrifice, was even given precedent over the military during production, with thousands of Nazi soldiers brought in from the front to fill in the ranks for Harlan’s film. (Clips seen here, in restored AGFA-Color, look damn impressive, in an impersonal way.) But this film, along with Harlan’s output before, during & after the war, is rarely shown because of his most (in)famous film, JUD SÜß/’40, a prime example of Nazi cinema anti-Semitism. (The story had actually been filmed in England a few years previously, with Conrad Veidt in a sympathetic portrayal.) Certainly, the clips shown in this documentary look appalling, but who knows how the film would play in hindsight. As it is, Felix Moeller’s documentary is as frustrating as it is fascinating. Harlan, married three times, has a lot of kids & grandkids with contradictory ideas on the man, many coming up with what you might call the Alec Guinness defense, in that Harlan, like Guinness in BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI/’57, may have been forced to make these films (well, that film), but couldn’t help but make a good job of it. The film goes over this idea in laborious detail, but it winds up holding your attention, often thanks to the film clips. And then, one of Harlan’s daughters turns out to be Stanley Kubrick’s widow! She tells us about the film Kubrick contemplated making about what it must have been like to work under the Third Reich.* But what we really need to see are the films. How else to understand the man, his era and his choices?

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *There’s always a strong emphasis on the patriotic & propagandistic films made in German during the Nazi-era, but sheer escapism was what the public clamored for. Why not a documentary on these films? Could anything be more naturally Brechtian, more clear on the ‘banality of evil,’ then detailing a hard day carrying out crimes against humanity before having a relaxing evening at the Bijou laughing at a silly/romantic operetta? Maybe that was the film idea Kubrick had in mind?

HITCHCOCK (2012) THE GIRL (2012)

2012 was a big year for Alfred Hitchcockiana with two behind-the-scenes pics and a new #1 ranking for VERTIGO/’58 as SIGHT AND SOUND’s all-time greatest pic. HITCHCOCK, the theatrical film, is loosy-goosy fluff, with Anthony Hopkins & Helen Mirren giving broad (and broadly inaccurate), but entertaining portraits of Hitch & wife Alma during the making of PSYCHO/’60. The film includes fantasy elements with Hitch talking things out with real-life Psycho inspiration Ed Gein. But even the non-fantasy side isn’t much concerned with factual integrity. And while it would be impossible to list all the gaffes, it’s hard to mind in this generally harmless, largely charming film. Some are just plain fun to spot, like a reference to big grosses for Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis 4 years after their split, wondering how actresses Janet Leigh & Vera Miles got so chummy when PSYCHO gave them no scenes together or shooting days in common, even why we’re on the Paramount lot when the film was shot @ Universal.

HBO’s cable pic, THE GIRL, is something else again. Fronted by dazzlingly believable perfs from Toby Jones & Imelda Staunton as Hitch & Alma, the film toes the line of fear & dread cultivated by professional Hitchcock ‘pathographer’ Donald Spoto. No doubt you’ll be shocked, shocked to hear about a Hollywood moviemaker who makes a pass at his lovely leading lady. How he treated her miserably on set just to get the shots he needed. Or, and here’s the real kicker, how he held her to that long term contract she’d signed. Oh, were you thinking of David O Selznick & Jennifer Jones? Or the entire list of contract players @ Howard Hughes’ R.K.O.? Face it, Hitch may have been something of a shit to Ms. Hedren, his new discovery for THE BIRDS/’63, but just how unusual was his creepy behavior? The real mystery is how he chose her in the first place. With her brittle look and chirping voice (she seems to have no vocal overtones), there was indeed a twittery quality to her that worked for THE BIRDS, plus, a manner suggestive of arrested psychological development (that voice, again) for MARNIE/’64, his most fascinating of failures. But, sadly, the girl couldn’t act. Right from the opening of THE BIRDS, where she has to play the sort of bantering comedy Grace Kelly nailed in the early scenes of her classic Hitchcock trio, Hedren is painfully amateurish. (Not at all the case with the talented Sienna Miller who plays her but looks more like another Hitchcock novitiate, Kim Novak.) Hitch certainly didn’t help himself when he moved his production deal from Paramount to Universal where the tech departments let him down again & again. For that, Hitch could thank his brilliant, but devious, artistically clueless master agent, Lew Wasserman who was taking over Universal. You’ll find him in HITCHCOCK, played by Michael Stuhlbarg behind a pair of thick black-framed glasses.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Patricia Hitchcock, daughter of Hitch & Alma, co-wrote a surprisingly lively & open book on her mother that unofficially informs both of these films.

LE AFFINITA ELETTIVE / ELECTIVE AFFINITIES (1996)

Everybody’s playing Werther in Paolo & Vittorio Taviani's film adaptation of this early Goethe novel, smooching at an unobtainable party while fully anticipating some predetermined tragic consequence. Isabelle Huppert & Jean-Hugues Anglade meet again after 20 years; quickly get married; then sabotage their newfound bliss by adding his architect pal (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) and her godchild (Marie Gillain) to their lives; making up a quartet at romantic cross-purposes. We can see where this is heading right from the start, and so do the players. Only those filmmaking Taviani brothers seem capable of surprise. A truly strange event unsettles the second act when husband & wife produce a love child who favors not them, but their guests. Then it’s back to swooning predestined fatalism. With three of the four leads dubbed into Italian, there’s an extra layer of distancing to fight thru, along with that slightly ‘off’ quality the Tavianis bring to the table, an artisanal quality with agogic editing rhythms all their own. (Note all the Tavianis listed in the credits.) It’s hardly a complete success, but loaded with strange, memorable things, like a little girl in red, screaming from afar as she runs thru a ripe field.

DOUBLE-BILL: The Taviani brothers never recaptured the Stateside audiences of PADRE PADRONE/’77 and NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS/’82. Even a well-received recent pic, CAESAR MUST DIE/’12, with prison inmates putting on Shakespeare, barely released over here.

THE MUMMY (1959)

Even those without the DNA strand for late ‘50s Hammer Studios Horror pics may respond like true believers on this one. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee take their usual roles as man-of-science and monster, while Terence Fisher, Jimmy Sangster & Jack Asher helm, script & lens with unusual refinement, everything seems more of a piece here than in the better known FRANKENSTEIN/’57 & DRACULA/’58 reboots. Better paced, too, perhaps because a Mummy need only be relentlessly implacable rather than speedy. Though, Lee gets a move on when needed, bringing up emotion with nothing but his eyes to show thru the dust & cloth. Nice supporting cast, too, with only Franz Reizenstein’s score not quite up to snuff. And if it lacks the haunting beauty & dreamlike logic of the old Boris Karloff ‘32 classic, offering little to compare with Karloff’s creepy crepe-like skin, it does have more Mummy screen time, more deadly action and a great EastmanColor look for its flashbacks to ancient Egypt.

DOUBLE-BILL: Neither the Karloff pic (a rare directing job by cinematographer Karl Freund) nor the zippy CGI spectacle from 1999 is strictly comparable, but they each work on their own terms.

CORIOLANUS (2011)

Revitalizing Shakespeare’s least favorite tragedy by shooting great hunks of it as a faux live-feed from CNN with shaky hand-held cameras now looks downright old-fashioned. These days, a period setting in ancient Rome (pre-Emperor Republic days), with togas and lots of road work would look positively refreshing, even radical. Ralph Fiennes stars & directs John Logan’s adaptation of the text, and his stylistic take does clarify issues as Caius Martius (later Coriolanus) wins military battles vs. his implacable foe Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler, game if occasionally tongue-tied). Alas, when he puts himself up to lead the Senate, Coriolanus has all the charm & political savvy of a General George Patton. What future for a man who’d rather be right than Consul? Fortunately, much of the film drops the CNN concept and plays in a sort of timeless no-man’s-land, very effectively, too. Brian Cox is a rock of support as the general’s front man and Vanessa Redgrave really gets something to chew on as a mother who definitely doesn’t know best. If only the modernization didn’t feel so old hat, this might have cracked one of Shakespeare's tougher nuts.

DOUBLE-BILL: To see how this might have come off, try Orson Welles’ much maligned, but highly effective budget abstraction of MACBETH/’48. (Of course, that also died at the turnstile.)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Oops! Wrote this up about a year back. It happens when I think I’ve seen something on the big screen rather than video. Well, an interesting comparison with only modest variations. Plus, for a change, the later squib is more succinct! (And a slightly cooler poster.)

NICK OF TIME (1995)

John Badham’s slick thriller tries to run too many gimmicks at once, like a cable series with a season’s worth of plot twists compressed into 90 minutes. In fact, that’s the first gimmick, it’s one of those ‘real time’ pics with Johnny Depp as a single dad who’s picked at random to assassinate Governor Marsha Mason in the next 90 minutes (tick-tick-tick) . . . or ‘Never see your little girl again.’ That’s gimmick #2. There’s little Badham can do to help us swallow this idea, why should Christopher Walken & his gang of baddies pluck some schmo they spot at the Amtrak terminal to play amateur gun man? Some of the gimmicks show promise, like having the hotel staff coming to Depp’s assistance, or a quick flash of alternate reality plucked from Ambrose Pierce’s AN OCCURENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE. But Patrick Sheane Duncan’s script is too lazy to properly work things out. Instead, clues are conveniently overheard as needed. (At one ludicrous point, Depp gets Walken to open up in front of Charles Dutton’s shoeshine guy simply by saying he’s deaf.) Still, the film is worth a look just as a reminder of how good Depp can be playing a normal guy. He’s fallen so deeply into playing outliers and working up crazy attention-getting character masks that you worry if he can still play (or be accepted playing) a Regular Joe. Especially since his last shot at it, in THE TOURIST/’10, made his normalcy into a bit of a freak show.

DOUBLE-BILL: Hitchcock’s THE 39 STEPS/’35 is the granddaddy of these innocent-guy-gets-mixed-up-in-assassination/espionage-plot pics. But the trick that lets the audience swallow the set-up, no matter how farfetched it turns, is that our rube isn’t chosen, but falls into danger.

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1916)

An antique, and a bit of mess, this early silent adaptation of Jules Verne’s oft-filmed story adds hunks of the sequel, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, but then uses a freshly minted set-piece to serve as climax & explanatory backstory, sort of an Ali Baba thing which a helpful Title Card tells us was ‘never told by Jules Verne!’ Indeed. Naturally, this ersatz addition is the best thing in here while Verne’s carefully interlaced plotlines are left a hopeless tangle in this confusing picturization. As a historical curiosity, it’s worth a look for some early underwater film work (as enervatingly slow then as it is nowadays) and for a rubbery giant squid attack. (How many rubber trees gave up their lives for this to happen?) Otherwise, feel free to skip to the non-Verne stuff at the end for some decent 1916 action filmmaking. And watch for a sassy overheard shot of war drums during the final build up. Props to Alexander Rannie & Brian Benison whose excellent score, found on the KINO edition, lifts up this scene and the rest of the film.*)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: There’s always Disney’s likable 1954 version, with James Mason’s commanding Captain Nemo. But a 1961 MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, less interested in Verne than in showing off some Ray Harryhausen pixilated monsters, has a Bernard Herrmann score* that rises far above its surroundings. Try the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4TKbiJa0n4