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The Holy Fail (2019)
The latest Entry in a Long List of Gaelic Comedies...
Owen Dara's "Holy Fail" is the latest in a long tradition of hilarious, thought provoking and thoughtful Gaelic comedies, reminiscent of previous entries in this category: "Finding Ned Devine", "Coming up Roses" and "The Full Monty", Dara takes us on a comedic excursion that follows the least traveled logical road into the illogical world of the Irish comic mind. With his lovely partner, Jessica Lancaster, Dara has created an opus well worth the accolades of international cinematic award givers. We watch as this lovely, hard working couple try to bring back the lost romance of their marriage by embarking on an adventure that includes multiple attempts at duping the Irish Garda and the outright theft of an illicit stash of old Irish Pounds and the newer Euro. The delightfully flawed logic of this scheme is that they aren't caught by the long arm of the awful law, but by a group of nuns! At the end, all is well, the marriage is saved, and we return to reality thankful that creative, Irish comedy is a part of our universe!
Colombiana (2011)
Revenge is a dish best served cold!
And cold and cool is this crime action drama in which Zoe Saldana (Cateleya) relentlessly pursues the narco-trafficking thugs who killed her parents. Amid the explosive violence, the suspenseful chase scenes and a bittersweet love affair, Cateleya forces us to reconsider the primal loyalties of family and trust. Notable performances are given by Amandla Stenberg, a delightful child actor who portrays a very determined, single minded 10 year old Cateleya, who shows us the genesis of the huntress Cateleya becomes. The movie, however, is Zoe's as Ms Saldana epitomizes the hip, fast, cunning gunsel who always captures her prey, but loses everything she loves and cherishes in the process.
The Goonies (1985)
"The Goonies" (1985) Have Their Roots in "The Little Rascals" (1937)
On the eve of the 30th anniversary of this excellent entry in Spielberg's cinematic opus, it is wholly appropriate to explore the film's roots in the depression era antics of Hal Roach's "Our Gang" comedies. Those of us who, like Spielberg, grew up in the 50's with TV's version of "Our Gang" in the form of daily episodes of "The Little Rascals", quickly recognize in "The Goonies" Spanky McFarland's adventure as portrayed in the Little Rascal's "Night n' Gales" (1937). In that adventure, Spanky, Alfalfa and the gang are caught in a storm and must spend the night at Darla's house. There is much ado about the gang sharing a bed with Darla's father, skillfully played by Johnny Arthur, and after some comic bits, the boys fall asleep and dream about, what else but, pirates' treasure. The dream scene that follows with the Rascals finding a pirate ship and chests of gold and jewels and a giant pirate who protects it all lends itself beautifully to Spielberg's skillful rendering of the Goonies in discovering the treasure of John' Matuszak's Sloth. The squeals and screams of fear and the visual muggings of the Goonies as Sloth chases them are not just reminiscent, but rather they are identical to Hal Roach's scenes in which the Rascals are chased by the angry giant. Of course, this is where the similarities begin and end, as "The Goonies" grow beyond the fantasy dream world mischievousness of the Rascals and develop into a full-scale celluloid study of a group of prepubescent misfits growing up in an adult world that is seriously tainted with an inability to dream, to wonder, and to create the child's world of unlimited adventure.
El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1999)
The Colonel waits with patience and dignity for...
the government that he fought to establish to recognize his loyalty with a promised and much needed pension. Ripstein's lyrical work is a sweet ode to all those who, like the Colonel, suffer under the abuses of a cynical and hardened society that strengthens itself by denying its citizens the means to live with dignity and purpose. Unlike the absurdity of WAITING FOR GODOT, the Colonel's wait for the arrival of his pension gives hope and significance to his otherwise miserable life. Two things in the film drive the Colonel who is masterfully played by Fernando Lujan; the hope that his military pension will one day arrive and the knowledge that his son, Agustin, died for a noble cause, a reason other than a drunken fracas at a rigged cockfight. Unable to realize the former, and forced to prove to the world the latter, the Colonel does the only thing he can do, set about training his son's fighting cock. The cock is now the warrior who can bring fortune and justice to the Colonel and his asthmatic wife, but his fighting ring is that of the killer of his former owner, Agustin. In a tense scene of confrontation between the Colonel and Nogales, his son's killer, the Colonel is offered by Nogales, a paid government agent, money enough to equal the Colonel's full pension. But, this is blood money; hush money designed to hide the fact that those in power have turned their backs on one who fought for their political ideals, and to conceal to the world that the warrior colonel's son was assassinated because he wrote for an underground paper that favored the rights of labor unions and the common man. With maximum dignity, the Colonel rejects Nogales' offer, picks up his fighting rooster and walks away as nobly as his old legs can carry him. Once he is at home, Dona Lola, his scolding wife, wants to know why the Colonel refused the money when both of them are starving. In response to her continued question, "What are we going to eat until November (when the cockfighting season begins)", the Colonel responds, "Shit." Excrement is what the poor and disenfranchised have been eating all of their lives, and excrement is a meal that the Colonel willingly chooses to eat with dignity, knowing that he could never sell his soul to those who oppress him. The Colonel waits as the only man of honor and valor in a world without principles.
The High and the Mighty (1954)
Modern Day Frequent Flyers May Laugh at the Collective Neuroses
of a plane load of passengers en route from Honolulu to San Francisco, but this film has all of the ingredients of great high drama, pun intended. It may seem to us jet setters that a film based on the mechanical failures of a prop plane that flies 200 MPH at 9,000 feet above sea level is anything but a comedy a la "Airplane", but this classic with Wayne at the production helm and Wellman (WINGS) in the director's chair is 22 karat gold Hollywood. The passenger list reads like a "Who's Who" of the film industry, including Robert Newton, Jan Sterling, Claire Trevor, Phil Harris, Robert Stack and Larraine Day. Wellman effectively collects each passenger's story and through the process of well edited flashbacks, presents a slice of each character's life. Stack, as Sullivan the pilot, has lost his nerve until the Duke slaps him out of it. Phil Harris tries to help console a fellow passenger whose marriage is on the brink through the telling of an hysterical litany of "woe is me" misadventures. Robert Newton discovers himself in this crisis as a helpful, caring hero, calming the others and helping Wayne throw the cargo overboard. Sydney Blackmer's attempts to murder on board ship his wife's would be lover and John Quane's folksy immigrant on his first flight provide ample dramatic and comic relief from the plight of flight 4027 which has lost one engine, most of its fuel and is destined to plunge into the Pacific Ocean. There is romance of course in the abundant kissing and embracing of the newlyweds played by John Smith and Karen Sharpe. Jan Sterling provides a steamier, albeit more controlled sexuality as the "bad girl" on her way to meet her "good guy" mail order husband. Interestingly, Sterling switches places with Claire Trevor on this trip. Trevor played the bad girl in the Duke's first hit "Stagecoach", but she is the heroine stewardess, hiding her own fears of death while making sure everyone has a life vest. And then there's the Duke, himself! Tall and proud, he stands silently and unflinchingly as others throw barbs at him about his age, his shadowy past as the only pilot who did not go down with his plane, and his competence in the cockpit. When the chips are down, he proves once again that a man can feel fear, but act heroically at the same time. With measured emotions that are betrayed only by an infrequent facial reaction, he calms the passengers, shakes some guts into the pilot, and then glides the plane into a safe landing. All's well that ends well as the Cowboy cum pilot limps off whistling Dimitri Tiomkin's award winning score. Now that's high and mighty!
The Dungeon of Harrow (1962)
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is not the worst movie ever made.
That distinction has to go to THE DUNGEON OF HARROW. At least Ed Wood's misguided attempt at making a quality science fiction film had the dubious "star" power of Bela Lugusi, Vampira, Tor Johnson, Criswell and Lyle Talbot. THE DUNGEON OF HARROW has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. What could have been an interesting and suspenseful plot about a marooned aristocrat on a leper colony, perhaps in the style of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU or MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, is trashed by the heavy dialog and mono tonal acting of amateurs whose lines sink like lead weights into a sea of stupidity. The "special effects", which took place in someone's bathtub, further doom this film to the dung heap. Even the treatment of leprosy is something out of a Victorian interpretation of the Bible. The fact that leprosy can not be contracted from an individual in its last stages belies the plot line that the aristocrat Fallon and his lady, Cassandra contract the disease and end up as the original occupants of the Castle De Sade, doomed to insanity and inhuman cruelty. It is interesting to note that not one member of the cast made another film. No wonder, talent begets talent; lack of talent begets oblivion, which is where this film should find its deplorable end.
Tango (1998)
This film is more than just color and dance...
While so many have commented on the superlative dancing and the spectacular use of color, this film is not solely about dance. As he did in "Carmen", Carlos Saura invites us into a beautifully crafted melange of realism, impressionism, and surrealism to express the human emotions of love, betrayal, jealousy, fear and redemption. His melange results in a film that is an enigma wrapped in the sensuality, color and passion of a tensive tango that expresses his horror at the atrocities of Argentina's "Dirty War". This film is as much a political statement as it is a well-crafted masterpiece of cinematic art, color and music. In "Carmen" we never know when Antonio's real relationship with Carmen ends and the flamenco drama begins. So too, in "Tango", Saura sucks us into a reality carefully created to deceive us while at the same time it teaches us in colorful shades the subtle and sometimes unnoticeable differences between illusion and reality. Until the end of the film the viewer actually believes that Mario has lost Laura and found himself again in his love for Elena, who he suspects will be murdered by one of LaRocca's henchmen. Saura films the scenes with Elena and Mario at the restaurant and in the bedroom in a colorless reality that assures us that this is a real relationship. Thanks to set designer, Waldo Norman (Ricardo Mourelle), Mario is able to travel between time and space through color, particularly shades of red, giving the dream sequence in which he kills Laura a surreal affect. The devils of Mario's surrealistic subconscious are exorcised again in the graphic choreography of the torture and rape scenes depicting the "Dirty War" against liberals, students, artists, union workers, and intellectuals. In their acrobatic bends, twists and rolls, the dancers give us the impression of intense pain at the hands of their cruel torturers. Perhaps this surreal dance is the only way that Mario, and Saura, can deal with the horrific atrocities inflicted on the thousands of Argentine "desaparecidos" (the disappeared ones) from 1976 – 1983. Mario says as much in the bedroom scene with Elena. While holding her in his arms, Mario states that imagination is the only guardrail that keeps us from plummeting into the depths of horror and atrocity. It is after this scene that the "Repression Tango", Saura's balletic version of the horrors of the "Dirty War" takes place. Having experienced a choreographed impression of Hell, the viewer is jolted back to reality in the end, when Elena awakens from death to ask if she had played the scene of her murder well. The lights are on and the stage is bustling with actors and stage techs. Mario with his arms around Elena seemingly incredulous at her resurrection, realizes that he too for a moment was sucked into the artist's illusion, but now stands redeemed through art in a reality free of his inner-most demons.
Marnie (1964)
MARNIE is Hitchcock's greatest psychological thriller...
Much more so than VERTIGO, which,even though it deals with one man's neurosis, is a classic "whodunit". Jimmy Stewart's coming to grips with his fear of heights at the end of VERTIGO is merely an icing of suspense on an otherwise well baked murder mystery. In MARNIE, on the other hand, Hitchcock deals with the deeper, darker side of Marnie's psycho-sexual illness. Mark Rutland's (Sean Connery)constant probing into Marnie's (Tippi Hedren) persona takes on the role of psychotherapy complete with word association games and sound cues that shake Marnie's subconscious. In one scene Rutland is even seen reading "Psycho-sexual Behavior in the Criminal Mind." Strange night-time reading material for a handsome, newly married businessman of a certain wealth. In the end, there is a complete psycho-catharsis as Marnie remembers the traumatic night when as a child she killed the sailor (Bruce Dern), thus unleashing a lifetime of criminal psychosis.
Hitchcock's direction is masterful in its depth of portrayal of Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams." The scene in which Marnie experiences a nightmare at the Rutland manse is a perfect example. As the dream begins, the set is that of her mother's house during a stormy night when her mother's clients came rapping on the door. Marnie awakens, however, in the plush bedroom of the Rutland residence. Hitchcock's camera takes us into the criminal unconscious and then exits into an opulent, satin covered reality gone psychotic. This insight helps us to see the troubled Marnie in a sympathetic light. Hedren's awesome acting talent underscores this as at times she emotes a little lost child persona. This is very true to character since emotionally, Marnie's development stopped that night when, as a child, she attempted to save her mother.
From the beginning of the film, Hedren's portrayal of Marnie is pregnant with a little girl's search for maternal love and approval. At the end of the film, Rutland's explanation of Marnie's life of theft as the compensatory behavior of an unloved child is simplistic and amateurish from a psychiatric viewpoint. However, it works for the audience Hitchcock is trying to touch, and it is reminiscent of the doctor's pedantic and sophomoric review of Norman's psychosis in PSYCHO, a horror film rife with simplistic Freudian interpretation. On a deeper level, Hitchcock takes us on a journey through one woman's Electra Complex as Marnie's euthanasia of a horse with a broken leg symbolically foreshadows the final scene in which Marnie's new-found memory of the horrible night serves to "kill" her psychotic ties to her mother's past. Now in the paternal yet comforting arms of her husband, Mark, Marnie's life as a grown woman is sure to take a turn for the better. Her fears of going to prison are the only vestige to a child's traumatic past.
El amor brujo (1986)
Setting the record straight
Formalismo, that school of Hispanic literature that emphasizes form as function, or form over function, has little to do with Saura's EL AMOR BRUJO. This is Saura's final work in his flamenco trilogy that began with BODAS de SANGRE and includes CARMEN. As with those two films, Saura bases this cinematic ballet on a previous work, Manuel de Falla's EL AMOR BRUJO. The other two films in the trilogy were based on Lorca's BODAS de SANGRE and Merimee's and Bizet's novel and opera, CARMEN. These three classical works are not examples of formalismo. Rather, they are prime examples of both the realistic and impressionistic schools of literature which under the creative mastery of Saura become sensual re-creations of love, passion, betrayal, and death. The love stories here supercede form and attain a thematic content worthy of the great literary works they portray. The starkness of the set is for symbolic purposes and not for form nor for function. The dilapidated, dusty set represents the emptiness of the soul that has lost great love, or has been deceived by a bewitching love. The set takes on color when Candela dances the Fire Dance, and again at the end when Lucia sacrifices herself to be the eternal lover of the bewitching ghost of Jose, thus setting Candela free from his cursed memory. Saura never lets us forget the tension between reality and fiction as the dawn rises on a new day over a theatrical set free of obsessions with death and love that bewitches the lover.