mido505 Reviews

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Once a hack, always a hack.

[3/10 · 7 January 2013]

I switched off Paper Moon. I didn't laugh once during What's Up Doc?. I abandoned The Last Picture Show around the time Sam the Lion croaked. Why bother?

Has there ever been a more overrated director than Peter Bogdanovich? The above pictures are his acknowledged classics, films that swept both box office and Oscars in the early seventies, making Bogdanovich's name, and all three are tedious. Last Picture Show may be the most tedious all.

Take away the wide-screen and Robert Surtees's competent but inexpressive b&w photography and Last Picture Show exhibits all the style of an ABC Movie of the Week, circa 1968. John Ford, Howard Hawks, or Orson Welles this is not. Bogdanovich has no sense of camera placement, blocking, or spacial dynamics within a shot, and his cutting wouldn't pass muster in a Hal Roach short circa 1921. Horrible "big head of Pola" reaction shots are cut into every scene for no apparent reason, other than to get Bogdanovich out of the master. Cybill Shepard's big strip scene at the pool party is a prime example of directorial ineptitude: Bogdanovich seems to have had one or two shots of Shepard, a couple of badly posed reaction shots of the nude skinny-dippers watching her remove her clothing, and a medium-close shot of Shepard fumbling with her bra clasp. This paltry footage is then cut together with no sense of drama, suspense, anticipation, eroticism, or any thing else for that matter, and goes on forever. I ended up laughing far harder at this sequence than at anything in What's Up Doc?. Hitch and Ford could get away with shooting cleanly, simply, and with little coverage because they knew what they were doing, and how to get maximum expressiveness out of minimal footage; Bogdanovich, clearly, does not.

Most of the acting is good, and some of it is terrific: the Bottoms brothers, Ben Johnson, just about all of the women. Johnson, giving an excellent performance is, unfortunately, not helped by Bogdanovich and writer Larry McMurtry's penchant for hanging a figurative "vote for me" sign around his neck during his big dramatic "scenes", which had the effect of taking me right out of the movie.

Cybill Shepard is, of course, a stump.

There is lots of nudity and sex, but no eroticism; all the sex is bad sex, and bad bad sex at that. The sex scenes play like a virgin's idea of what bad teen sex would be like, if you understand my meaning.

Typically, once he found success, Bogdanovich dumped his incredibly talented wife, Polly Platt, who later worked successfully with Robert Altman, James Brooks, Louis Malle and others, for the sublimely untalented Shepard. Fittingly, his career then nosedived after a string of cinematic atrocities such as Daisy Miller and At Long Last Love.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

The Last Picture Show is proof that there never was much talent there to begin with.

The Terror (1963)

L'amour fou (Perhaps we're both mad!)

[8/10 · 21 December 2006]

Legend has it that Roger Corman filmed The Terror over a frantic four-day period; the truth is rather more interesting, as it undoubtedly contributed to the film's remarkable, incomparable, mesmerizing texture. After production wrapped on The Raven, Corman had Karloff, Nicholson, and the Raven's sets for four remaining days, so he hurriedly shot what he could before the walls came down and his stars departed. He then dispatched various acolytes, including Francis Coppola, Dennis Jakoub, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, and Nicholson himself to produce enough footage to make The Terror into a complete feature. The result is a unique, fascinating, intensely visual and cinematic experiment that makes Corman's previous Poe adaptations look overly literary, plot-laden, and dialog-bound. The Terror may not be very logical, and its story will not withstand much scrutiny, but the film succeeds as a feverish nightmare of obsession and mad love. The photography, especially of the Big Sur locations, and of the fog bound studio cemetery sets, has an intense eerie romantic beauty, and Ronald Stein's remarkable score underscores The Terror's uncanny equation of desire and death. Is it cheap? Yes. Are there mistakes and screw ups? Sure. Does the continuity falter? Absolutely. None of this matters. The Terror is extraordinary in its palpable dream-like intensity. Oh, and by the way: an elderly, sick, practically crippled Boris Karloff, who could have easily tossed this off as an imposition, is terrific as always and a wonder to behold.

Daimajin (1966)

What a movie should be...

[9/10 · 15 October 2006]

When the noble Hanabusa clan is decimated by the usurping Samanosuke clan, loyal retainer Kogenta (Jun Fujimaki) escapes with his lord's eight year old son, Tadafumi, and his daughter, Kozasa. They are sheltered by the priestess Shinobu (Otome Tsukimiya), who serves the Hanabusa clan's god, Majin, a vengeful spirit imprisoned in the giant stature carved into the side of a local mountain. Ten years later, Kogenta and Tadafumi (Yoshihiko Aoyama) seek vengeance against Lord Samanosuke (Yutaro Gomi), but are captured in the attempt, and sentenced to die. Priestess Shinobu, desperately attempting to save her master, threatens Samanosuke with the god's displeasure, only to be slashed to death for her efforts. Samanosuke, a vain, cruel, narrow man, orders Majin's statue to be destroyed, in order to crush any last vestiges of hope among the remaining Hanabusa loyalists. But the god Majin, who hitherto has been implacably silent, has other ideas...

Daimajin is an enthralling, timeless, deeply moving fairy tale. Lavishly produced on a respectable budget, it is a film about values: the values of nobility, of justice, of decency, of loyalty, of self sacrifice, and of love. It is about hierarchy, and rule, and of the consequences of failing to live up to the responsibility that rule entails. These are things that are not talked about much in our demotic times, except by scribbling toads like William Bennet, but are nonetheless relevant, and Daimajin shows us why.

Daimajin is a perfect example of why Japanese cinema is so glorious. The values listed above have palpable relevance for those involved in this film, as they do for many a Japanese filmmaker. There is no lip service, no condescension, no irony here. Instead, there is an authentic effort to conjure a world where these values can once again have life, and to show what happens when they fall into abeyance. Just compare Daimajin, or the Lone Wolf and Cub series, or any Kurosawa film to the egregious Tarantino's nihilistic Kill Bill b*llshit, to see what I mean.

In a film whose contributing talent is so uniformly excellent, I would merely like to point out master Akira Ifikuba's majestic score, the talent and beauty of actors Jun Fujimaki, Yoshihiko Aoyama, and Miwi Takada; and the stunning portrayal by Otome Tsukimiya. Her death scene is one of the most moving and meaningful that I have ever witnessed.

Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)

Well, it's better than Poseidon...

[7/10 · 27 August 2006]

Jess Franco's strangely sedate monster bash is not one of his indispensable efforts, but will hold your attention if you catch it in the right mood. Defiantly cinematic, Dracula contra Frankenstein contains very little dialog, forcing the viewer to actually pay attention to what is happening on the screen in order to follow the narrative. The problem is that the mise en scene is scrappy, poverty stricken, and erratic; dominated by pointless, jerky zooms; and offering none of the colorful wide angled delirium that makes Franco's follow up film, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, such a mesmerizing experience. Franco does manage to conjure up a somewhat dank, depressing atmosphere, and provide the occasional interesting image, such as Dracula being revived by slowly submerging a bat in a jar of blood, but Dracula contra Frankenstein plays for the most part like a trial run for his later masterpiece.

Of course, Dr. Frankenstein is really just Dr. Orloff under a different name; the ubiquitous amoral ubermensch is this time seeking to enslave humanity by reviving Dracula and the Frankenstein monster in order to create an army of the undead subject to his superior will. A sick and possibly drunk Dennis Price fails to make much of an impression as the good Doctor, but Howard Vernon gives an interesting performance as Dracula, playing him like Morpho from The Awful Dr. Orloff, slack jawed, bug eyed, and mute. The great Britt Nichols is also on hand as a very fetching Vampire Girl.

As I stated previously, this is lesser Franco, but like most Franco films, good and bad, it contains interesting, original elements that simply cannot be found elsewhere. Dracula contra Frankenstein is a film made by a man who loves the movies for people who love the movies. It shows. Sure, I drank most of a bottle of wine while I was watching it, which may have colored my judgment, but when I tried the same thing with Poseidon I fell asleep.

Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)

That's Entertainment!!!

[10/10 · 29 June 2006]

I wish that Hollywood today had more producers and directors of the caliber of Sam Sherman and Al Adamson. Frequently derided as hacks, or worse, their only sin was producing extremely entertaining drive-in exploitation movies for young people. Much fun has been made of the numerous permutations that Dracula vs. Frankenstein and other Independent International pictures went through before reaching the big screen; instead, Sherman and Adamson should be applauded for their dedication and persistence in sticking with these films and working on them until they got them right. Yeah, the budgets were tiny, the productions were unpolished, and the stories were ridiculous; nonetheless, all involved took the films very seriously, and produced something that is still being enjoyed 35 years later. I can bet you a chunk of change that no-one is going to be putting out a special edition DVD of Munich, or The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in 2041.

Dracula vs. Frankenstein is lots of fun. It was one of my favorites 30 years ago when I caught it on the tube, and I think it still holds up. Adamson's direction is rough and harried, but he keeps up the pace and never slides into condescension, irony, or parody, which is the easy way out for a director who thinks he is "above the material". J. Carrol Naish and Lon Chaney Jr., both old, sick, and at the end of their careers, and having every reason to walk through their parts, perform like troupers, and lend Dracula vs. Frankenstein their significant talent, and their tarnished but still formidable charisma. Zandor Vorkov looks ridiculous in his afro, goatee, and white greasepaint, but he gives a unique and interesting performance as Count Dracula, and one that is not to be ashamed of. Likewise Regina Carroll, Jim Davis, Angelo Rossito, Russ Tamblyn, and the rest of the cast, do their best to give this essentially silly patchwork a credible aura. Compare any of these actors with, say, the bored, listless Brad Pitt in the abominable Troy, for which he probably took home a 10 million dollar paycheck, to see what I mean.

Producer Sam Sherman, a witty, intelligent, and erudite man, provides one of the best audio commentaries that I have ever heard on the DVD of Dracula vs. Frankenstein. He readily admits that both he and Adamson did not make the kind of movies they would have preferred to make; but, given the budgets and conditions under which they were compelled to work, tried to give their audiences the biggest possible bang for their buck. There is no shame in that.

Rocco and His Brothers (1960)

Thank God for Italy...

[10/10 · 18 June 2006]

Although the French Nouvelle Vague gets all the press, it is the Italian neorealist movement that has had the greatest impact on American cinema. Let's face it, aside from some of Godard's editing tricks in Breathless, what kind of influence did the Nouvelle Vague really have? Godard. Truffaut. Chabrol. Rohmer. Rivette. Resnais. Decent filmmakers all, but, when one looks closely, more interesting for their influences than for their influence. But the Italians, oh, the Italians. Bava. Fellini. Rossellini. De Sica. Bertolucci. Visconti. I think it is safe to say that, without the films of these incredible innovators, American movies would have rotted away into nothing. It was the post WWII Italian neorealist movement, and its heady brew of Marxism and melodrama, that inflamed the imaginations of filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, and led them, especially in Coppola's case, to use many of the same personnel on their own productions. Vittorio Storaro. Giuseppe Rotunno. Nino Rota. Ferdinando Scarfiotti. Danilo Donati. Where would the great American films of the seventies be without the contributions of these astoundingly talented artists and technicians?

Rocco and His Brothers is a jaw-dropping work, so ferociously brilliant that it takes your breath away. As a Visconti fan, I have been waiting to watch it for years. Yet, despite my eagerness, the DVD sat on top of the television for two weeks before I finally popped it in. Curiously, I had the same reaction to The Leopard, another Visconti masterwork, a couple of years ago. As I get older, I find it harder and harder to abandon myself to a work of art. Great works of art force one to give oneself over to them completely, suspend judgment, accept them unconditionally. When one is young and unformed, the process is easy; as one gets older, and the carapace of personality hardens, the process becomes more difficult. There is a good reason for this; the effort is often not worth while; one comes out of the experience diminished, drained, let down.

Rocco and His Brothers holds no such disappointment. It is a vast, capacious work, complex, generous, passionate, and intensely moving. The talent on display here defies analysis: Alain Delon is luminous as the saintly Rocco; Katina Paxinou achieves Shakespearean grandeur as the Parondi family matriarch; Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography is starkly beautiful; and Nino Rota's music is heartbreaking. I do not want to give too much of this film away, but I must point out that, contrary to what some reviews on this site have to say, this film is not just about the corruption that big city life brings to a peasant family. Rocco may be a saint, but his all-forgiving nature drives much of the tragedy that unfolds. It is Ciro, the compassionate but just brother, and successful entrant into Milan's urban proletariat, who will lead the family into an uncertain but perhaps hopeful future.

Let me just finish by pointing out how wonderful it is to see a movie that ends with a meaningful and distinctive final shot. You don't see much of that anymore.

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

We're going to start again...

[9/10 · 7 June 2006]

The Quatermass Xperiment is the movie that, deservedly, put Hammer Studios on the map. 1955 was a bad year for film production in Great Britain, and Hammer's fate largely depended on the returns from the slate of pictures made in 1954, the last of which was Xperiment. Of course, The Quatermass Xperiment turned out to be something of a phenomenon, and the rest is history.

The Quatermass Xperiment benefits from a riveting, groundbreaking story by the hugely imaginative writer Nigel Kneale, which had been such a success when broadcast by the BBC in 1953; a taut screenplay by Richard Landau and Val Guest, which condensed Kneale's three hour teleplay into a more compact 82 minutes; and Guest's expressive, grittily newsreel-like direction. The sensitive, haunted, wordless performance of Richard Wordsworth, great-great-grandson of the poet William Wordsworth, as the stricken astronaut Victor Carroon, ranks among the greatest of this, or any other genre. Also, Brian Donlevy, legendarily drunk throughout the shoot, and whose performance Kneale famously hated, is, in my opinion, excellent as the brusque, blunt, belligerent scientist Bernard Quatermass. As Guest noted, Donlevy "gave it absolute reality".

The Quatermass Xperiment is the type of low budget, B-level, profoundly professional movie-making that, not long ago, was the glory of cinema. The level of skill and dedication on display here is extraordinary. Guest, a talented, no-nonsense director, who, sadly, passed away not long ago, is clearly influenced by American genre film-making, most obviously the Warner's crime dramas of the 30's, and 40's film noir. His photographic style is stark, simple, and moody; his dialog overlaps; and his mis-en-scene is documentary-like in its relentless intensity, which makes this essentially fantastic story that much more believable.

There is really no reason for The Quatermass Xperiment to be this good, other than the fact that a lot of very talented people, such as cinematographer Walter Harvey; art director J. Elder Wills; editor James Needs; make-up artist Phil Leakey; and special effects artist Les Bowie; not necessarily artists but, perhaps more importantly, superior craftsmen, did the best they could with what they had. After watching the endless parade of multi-million dollar digitized swill that is out in the theaters and on DVD these days, this is a movie to make you fall in love with the movies again. Hats off.

Saw (2004)

He helped me

[3/10 · 11 January 2006]

What do you say about a movie in which a serial killer is the moral center of the film? Here we have the cancer-ridden Jigsaw Killer, kidnapping weaklings and failures, and subjecting them to horrific mental and physical torture, in order to teach them the value of 'life'. Isn't that terrific? It's just like the story of Job, only better, because in Job we don't get to witness a pathetic drug addict carve open a live man's stomach and remove the key that will unlock the explosive device strapped to her head! And, like Job, she is now a better person! It's better than Sunday School! If only there were more Jigsaw Killers around, the world would be a better place and we would all be happy!

Saw is a mess. It's not particularly well shot, the acting is mediocre, and several jerky MTV-style camera moves and montages, accompanied by appropriately stupid speed-metal, strain one's patience to the breaking point. Almost every character is annoying, crazy, or selfish. Its one red herring makes no sense: the orderly initially has been shown to be empathetic, caring, and concerned, just the qualities that the Jigsaw Killer would likely appreciate in a person. So why does the Jigsaw Killer end up blackmailing him? Did he jaywalk? Bungee jump? Have unprotected sex? Give me a break.

In the terrifyingly brilliant Se7en, Saw's obvious model, the religious fanatic dealing out his own twisted brand of justice is obviously insane. Morgan Freeman, the decent cop, is the moral center of the film. In Se7en's shattering climax, Brad Pitt's choice of revenge over restraint is correctly seen as a moral failure, and the killer's posthumous triumph leaves the viewer feeling disgusted and defeated. On the other hand, in the stunning black comedy, Hannibal, the brilliant, cultured cannibal, Dr. Lector, who only eats "the rude", tempts the righteous, heroic Clarise Starling ("would you like me to...hurt them for you...Clarise?"), and fails. Again, the film's drama arises from the choice that a decent character is given between good and evil. Evil is appropriately seductive, because, if it were not, there would be no temptation, and no drama.

Saw has no such complexity. It appeals simplistically to the uninformed post-Christian self-righteousness of an audience that fails to see how complicit it is in its own degradation.

Pay attention, all you hipsters out there who are cheering this film on. More likely than not, you are the type of person that the Jigsaw Killer would like to chain up in his dank, green basement. You're next, and your cool tattoos and concern for the future of "the planet" won't save you...

Camp (2003)

It's never too late

[8/10 · 24 December 2005]

Camp is, for the most part, pretty crappy, but there is a fifteen-minutes-or-so sequence in the film that is so powerful, so truthful, and so captivating, despite its showbiz "excess", that it catapults the film into a realm where genuine dramatic truth triumphs mere technical "competetence". Bert, the drunken, failed musical director of the camp, who has descended into frustrated mediocrity after his one Broadway hit, attempts, after a few-too-many vodkas, to instill some "reality" into his adolescent charges. He berates them for their absurd, youthful romanticism, insulting each student, in turn, with a brutal, personal assault, in an attempt to prepare them for the "real" world. Vlad, the camp's "golden boy", confronts his erstwhile hero for his drunken faux-pas, only to be attacked in turn, and vomited upon, as he attempts to help Bert to the bathroom. As Vlad tries to cleanse himself with whatever is at hand, he discovers the terrific music that Bert has been writing for himself, over the years, unbeknownst to the world at large. In an attempt to shake Bert loose from his self-degradation, Vlad convinces his fellow students to perform his mentor's music during a benefit rehearsal. It is this sequence, operatic, grandiose, and tremendously moving, that pushes Camp into a rarefied sphere. As the students begin to sing the song, Century Plant, a genuinely beautiful composition by Victoria Anne Williams, a hungover Bert walks into the room, smoking and miserable. As Vlad looks on, expectantly, hoping that Bert will appreciate his gesture, Bert, filled with a self loathing that extends to his work, storms out, unable to listen to his own composition, as good as it may be, because it can only remind him of his own failure to connect with a popular audience. Vlad, after a moment's hesitation, refuses to acquiesce in this confirmation of victim-hood, and rejoins the song's chorus, which, in contradiction to his mentor, is hopeful, triumphant, and affirmative. As Bert pauses outside the rehearsal space, the words, and the music, of his own composition, overwhelm his pessimism, and triumphantly draw him back to his students, where he joins them in an amazing affirmation of the power of human hope. Here is demonstrated, unequivocally, that what is perceived as failure by those that age, is an inspiration to the young. Thus, progress is made, inch by inch.

Revenge in the House of Usher (1983)

You could sit through worse

[7/10 · 25 September 2005]

Let's look at two movies, both of which have as their subject matter a man haunted by images of his dead wife. Both films are photographed by their directors, and both star highly respected character actors. The first film is a remake of classic, and the second incorporates lengthy scenes from a classic. The first film cost around $47,000,000; the second, around $1.98. The first film is Steven Soderbergh's remake of Solaris; the second is Jess Franco's Revenge in the House of Usher. Guess which one is better?

Revenge in the House of Usher is director Franco's apology for, and commentary upon, his first breakthrough hit, the groundbreaking and highly influential The Awful Dr. Orloff. In that film Orloff was a Sadean Superman, perverse and transgressive, taking horrific delight in his bloodthirsty usurpation of traditional values. Here, transmogrified into Dr. Usher, he is reduced to a blithering and doddering old man, tormented by the images of the women that he has sacrificed to his appalling morality. Franco has often been accused of sharing Orloff's extreme misogyny, but anyone familiar with his work will know that Franco was alway's on the women's side. Franco makes clear that Orloff/Usher's 'project', his desire to resurrect his disfigured daughter, Melissa, is only a pretext, a trigger, a spur, to his grotesquely Sadean 'transvaluation of all values'. Appropriately, Melissa becomes just another anonymous tortured body; when revived by the blood of Orloff/Usher's victims, Melissa can only writhe in excruciating pain before lapsing back into blissful unconsciousness. Clearly, the tormenting spectre of Orloff/Usher's wife, whether real or merely Orloff/Usher's per fervid imagining, reproaching her husband for his dreadful treatment of women, is Franco's judgment upon the character that put him on the cinematic map.

Revenge in the House of Usher has taken a lot of abuse on this site, rather unfairly, in my opinion. Image Entertainment's DVD restores Franco's impressive, if somewhat erratic, visual style; and Howard Vernon, as Usher/Orloff, and Linay Romay, as his housekeeper, give excellent, committed performances. Yes, the film is slow, poverty stricken, and lacking in nudity and gore, but it is about something rather important, if only you, the viewer, will pay attention. There is a sensibility at work here, allied with considerable technical skill, that insists on persevering beyond all financial and other material limitations. It's a hell of a lot better than watching Ocean's 12 again.

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)

Give us more!

[8/10 · 25 September 2005]

The Castle of the Walking Dead is the first film that I have seen directed by Harold Reinl, the filmmaker who helmed numerous 'krimi' (German-made horror-thrillers based on the works of Edgar Wallace, precursors of the Italian 'giallo'), several entries in the 'Dr. Mabuse' series, and most of the 'Karl May' westerns. If this movie is any indication, Reinl is a major talent ripe for rediscovery by fans looking for a cinema that revels in flamboyant visual pyrotechnics, rather than in quotidian literacy and a politically correct 'sensibility'. Reinl may not be Mario Bava, but his extravagantly baroque camera style is nonetheless extremely impressive. The Castle of the Walking Dead is relentlessly designed; each shot has been carefully thought out and executed to its fullest illustrative potential. Set decoration, lighting, and camera movement are all carefully integrated; there is almost no shot that is arbitrary, accidental, or unnecessary. Reinl is an obvious practitioner of the great expressionist tradition in cinema, in which the significance of each shot is determined by the director's architectural and illuminative insight, in opposition to current film dogma, in which the subordinate elements of the shot (the acting, the script) dictates its formal structure. Significantly, only Christopher Lee, a performer who, like Lugosi, his predecessor, understands the physically revelatory importance of the actor to the overall impact of a film, is able to rise to the director's challenge. The Castle of the Walking Dead is ultimately derivative, badly acted, and pointless, but, for fans of cinema, can be a joy to behold. I should note that the DVD that I watched was faded and crappy; one can only hope that in the future the rest of Reinl's output will be rediscovered and restored with the loving care that it deserves. I can't wait.

The Return of the Vampire (1943)

Craft and professionalism can go a long way

[7/10 · 2 September 2005]

Lew Landers directed a lot of crap during his long, prolific career, but when he was on his game, as in The Raven (1934), and this film, he could produce a horror movie as good as any. The Return of the Vampire may be nothing more than a little Columbia B picture, but it exhibits more craft, care, and professionalism than 90 percent of what comes out of Hollywood today. The foggy, expressionistic photography and sets are fantastic, with excellent use of shadow and camera movement, and the early scenes of Lugosi prowling through mist and darkness, shot mostly from behind, or in silhouette, are striking in their spectral intensity. Lugosi once again shows why he ranks among the immortals; he is more commanding and magnetic walking from point A to point B in his top hat and tails than most actors are emoting through pages of dialog. Screenwriter Griffin Jay and director Landers go out of their way to showcase Lugosi's unique talents; he is given a great part with many substantial scenes to play, and Landers shoots him to his fullest advantage. Frieda Inescort, as Lugosi's nemesis, is sublimely up to the challenge, and their scenes together, especially their climactic confrontation at the pipe organ, are the best in the film. Sure, Return of the Vampire has its weak elements, such as Matt Willis's unfortunate talking werewolf, but let them pass. There are few moments in cinema as inspiring as watching Lugosi at full throttle, and Return of the Vampire has that in spades.

The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1973)

Jess still has a lot to teach us.

[8/10 · 21 August 2005]

To all of you out there who think that the likes of Steven Soderbergh and David O. Russell epitomize independent film-making: go rent this film and let the scales fall from your eyes. Made during director Jess Franco's amazing early 70's period, post Harry Alan Towers and pre-porno, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is a surrealist masterpiece, poetic, perverse, comic, and mesmerizing. Shot for next to nothing on location in Portugal, the film is full of evocative, wide-angle, hand held imagery that must have appeared jaw-droppingly innovative at the time, and still astounds today. Daniel White's atonal, experimental score skillfully enhances the film's nightmarish languor, and the roles, particularly Anne Libert's blind cannibalistic Bird Woman, and Howard Vernon's strangely sexy Cagliostro, are performed with aplomb and conviction. You won't soon forget the scenes of white-shrouded undead gliding through a mist-laden forest, the strange, red-lit shots of Cagliostro's acolytes blithely staring at cruel tableaux orchestrated for their perverse amusement, or a shrieking, silver-skinned Frankenstein's monster relentlessly whipping a man and a woman tied together over a bed of spikes. Anyone who doubts Jess Franco's talent should rent this DVD, and then ponder the pettifogging morass that independent cinema has become.

Night of the Blood Monster (1970)

Let the business of the court commence!

[8/10 · 20 August 2005]

O.K., it's no Witchfinder General (but then again, what is?), but Jess Franco's The Bloody Judge is a well-written, well-acted, well-made historical-horror hybrid in the tradition of it's obvious model, Rowland V. Lee's The Tower of London. Franco stalwart Howard Vernon delivers a delicious homage to Karloff's Mord the Executioner from that film, and Christopher Lee is excellent, if somewhat insecurely emphatic and earnest, as the cruel, narrow, and hypocritical Judge Jeffries. The score, by Bruno Nicolai, is majestic and memorable, and the film as a whole is vividly entertaining. Having seen this film over 25 years ago, on television, heavily edited, under the title Night of the Blood Monster, I was amazed at how much of it had lain dormant in my memory, ready to be jostled into consciousness. Whole scenes played out in my mind as I re-watched them on my wide screen TV.

There are a few people, including the otherwise estimable Glenn Erickson, of the hugely insightful and informative DVD Savant site, who have claimed, based on the evidence of this film, that Jess Franco could not have "directed" the legendary Battle of Shrewsbury in Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight. First, lets get a few facts straight. It is well documented that Franco shot the second unit on Chimes at Midnight, which included much of the battle scene. This means that Franco shot a lot of coverage of the battle, working from a general outline given by Welles. Later, Welles took the miles of footage into the editing room and, many months later, emerged with the shattering sequence that appears in his picture. Franco, obviously, had nothing to do with this editing process, and, as far as I can tell, has never claimed otherwise. To compare the battle scene in The Bloody Judge with Welles' magnificent achievement is grotesquely unfair, as I am sure that Franco was allowed minutes rather than months to assemble The Bloody Judge for exhibition. Given the strictures under which he was working, Franco, his cast, and his collaborators should be commended for having produced a film with such a high level of professionalism. Welles, that most populist of auteurs, who once stated that he would rather watch paint dry than sit through an Antonioni film, and who responded to energy, verve, iconoclasm, and enthusiasm, had seen and appreciated those qualities an early Franco effort, which eventually led to the offer to work on Chimes. If Franco was good enough for Welles, he should be good enough for us. The two are closer than you think...

The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962)

Franco gets his feet wet.

[7/10 · 14 July 2005]

After having waited years to see this film, I was surprised at how relatively tame it is, at least on the surface. Unlike, say, The Brain That Would Not Die, released the same year (1962), The Awful Dr. Orloff is free of any overt gore. Rather, this film disturbs on a more subtle level, in the attitude that director Jess Franco takes towards Dr. Orloff. Unlike its obvious role model, George Franju's extraordinary Eyes Without a Face, this film makes no excuse for its central character's sadism. Dr. Genessier in Eyes has forced himself to become immune to the sufferings of others through guilt at the role he played in the disfigurement of his beloved daughter. Like many a previous mad scientist, his base actions are a means to a noble end. Dr. Orloff, on the other hand, is something new. His actions are not reducible to traditional motivation; they are not explicable in the ordinary sense. Orloff is not doing evil for the greater good; he is not seeking revenge; he is not insane; he is not really conventionally evil. Orloff is operating under an entirely different moral system. Orloff genuinely enjoys himself, taking perverse pleasure in the horrible deeds that he perpetrates. This is most obvious during the film's one explicit moment, when Orloff begins operating on the nude body of his still living victim. As he starts making the incision, the lewd expression on his face as he fondles the girls exposed breast shows where his true interests lie. Orloff's daughter's disfigurement is only the catalyst that enables him to fulfill his unspeakable desires, and explains why she dies, for no apparent reason, when Orloff is killed. She has no further purpose.

Another odd touch in this very odd film is that the only vaguely sympathetic character is Morpho, Orloff's twisted, child-like assistant. Blind and seemingly dumb, with bulging eyes and odd, twitching mannerisms, Morpho is a genuinely unsettling creation, as he lurches and bites in the shadows at Orloff's murderous command. Incongruous shots of Morpho lying in his bed, staring, make him appear wretched, lonely, and pitiable. A killer from an early age, instinctively, impulsively bad, Morpho is an automaton, incapable of acting otherwise, in contrast to Orloff, who, we are told, was once a good man, and who is now something very different by choice.

The Awful Dr. Orloff is atmospherically photographed, with the occasional evocative image, but Franco is no Mario Bava, and the film has zero poetry, again unlike Eyes Without a Face. The plot is tedious, without drive, mystery, or tension; the dialog is dully expository; and Franco takes no interest in the block-headed police or in the shrill, sluttish victims. Typically, for a Franco film, the ending is rushed and abrupt, as if the director cannot bear to kill off his most interesting characters, although custom dictates that he must. This is the first true spatter movie, albeit without the splatter. Although it looks like a Universal Horror, The Awful Dr. Orloff points the way directly to Blood Feast, which came a year later, and beyond, to the modern horror film, in which the killers are the de facto heroes. Morpho is Jason Vorhees without the hockey mask, and Dr. Orloff is a dry run for Dr. Lector. In The Awful Dr. Orloff, the age old moral landscape of the horror film is altered for the first time. That, for what it is worth, is its dubious achievement.

The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968)

Tentative and dull, but worth seeing for Lee and Chin

[7/10 · 2 July 2005]

The Blood of Fu Manchu has very little going for it other than the fact that Sadean director Jess Franco seems to want to make the evil Chinese mastermind and his deliriously malevolent daughter, Lin Tang, the heroes of the film. Having been reduced to cameo status in the turgid previous entry in the series, The Vengeance of Fu Manchu, star Christopher Lee is now given plenty of screen time, numerous loving close-ups, and plenty of over-ripe dialog. He responds with a wonderfully spirited performance that is a joy to behold. Conversely, ostensible hero, Nayland Smith, played by a wooden Richard Green, is reduced to blind impotence, and sidekick Dr. Petrie comes across as a sputtering buffoon. The usually exciting climax is here rushed and perfunctory, as if Franco could not bear to kill off his villains. Franco never comes to grips with producer Harry Alan Towers' dreadfully wordy and convoluted screenplay, and the film bogs down for long periods of time in pointless sub plots and banal 'action' sequences. Fortunately, in the next and last film in the series, The Castle of Fu Manchu, a more confident Franco throws all caution to the wind and focuses almost entirely on Fu and Lin Tang, ironically, in the process, killing off the series forever.

The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969)

The world didn't hear from him again!

[8/10 · 1 July 2005]

What a difference a decent transfer makes. For ages only viewable in muddy, heavily cut, nearly unwatchable prints, The Castle of Fu Manchu is now available, thanks to Blue Underground, in all of its colorful, zoom-laden glory. The last of producer Harry Alan Towers' five-film Fu Manchu series, and generally considered to be the worst, The Castle of Fu Manchu is actually a fun, trashy time waster, and far better than the previous film in the series, The Blood of Fu Manchu, which was burdened by a tedious bandito sub plot that dragged the film to a grinding halt. Directed with a certain pulpy vitality by the highly erratic but occasionally brilliant Jess Franco, Castle has a tacky comic book verve that is hard to resist, and that is certainly more entertaining than many of the expensive, highly touted bombs that Hollywood has been dropping lately. Contrary to what others have reported on this site, Christopher Lee is in excellent form, delivering his lines with distinctive aplomb and offering a stunning, iconographic series of facial expressions as he attempts to overact under the restrictive 'Oriental' make-up. The great Tsai Chin (soon to be seen as 'Auntie' in Memoirs of a Geisha), as Fu's devoted, sadistic daughter, Lin Tang, is terrific as always, and looks particularly fetching in her white Hejab. Best of all, Rosalba Neri shows up as a tough, Fez-topped lesbian, of whom Fu says "Keep her alive. She might be useful to us. She fights like a man." Peter Welbeck's screenplay may be incomprehensible rubbish, but they don't write lines like that anymore.

The Machinist (2004)

I'm Still Waiting

[6/10 · 14 June 2005]

I really wanted to like The Machinist. As this film and his previous effort, Session 9, show, Brad Anderson is one of the best visual stylists working in film today, able to conjure up a dank, eerie, foreboding atmosphere from a budget that would not pay for David Fincher's lunch. He has a great compositional sense, is not afraid to be leisurely, and has a refreshingly uncluttered approach to mis-en-scene. Yet The Machinist, like Session 9, ultimately disappoints. I think there are two reasons for this.

The first is that, absent the conceit of Christian Bale's astonishing transformation, there is very little reason for this film to exist. The Machinist is a character study of a character who has, yes, very little weight. Despite Bale's best efforts, Trevor Reznick is a blank, a cypher, unpleasant and uninteresting. Although the film abounds in Hitchcock references, Anderson, screenwriter Scott Kosar, and Bale fail to assimilate the master's most important lesson: that the film's weirdo should be its most sympathetic and likable character. Anthony Perkins was cast as Norman Bates because of his image as the sweet, sensitive boy next door; Christian Bale, a prodigiously talented, but chilly and distant actor was, most assuredly, not.

As a character, Resnick lacks progression; because he is skeletal and bonkers from the beginning, there is no sense of horror as he is (quite literally) consumed by his own guilt. For this to work, some kind of contrast with normality is needed - the audience must witness a sensitive, precious soul slowly destroyed because of one small dreadful mistake. But Resnick is no Prince Myshkin. Rather, his guilt seems to be the only interesting thing in his otherwise dim, uncomprehending existence. The guilt gives his tedious life drama, meaning, and coherence. The film's final revelation should have been a shattering emotional climax; instead, it is the excuse for Resnick to take a much needed nap.

The second reason for The Machinist's failure is that Anderson seems to have trouble abandoning himself to his chosen genre. His direction of The Machinist, and of Session 9 as well, is detached, clinical, unengaged. There is no sense of love, or of passion, in what he is doing. Anderson seems drawn to horror, tempted by the opportunity it offers him to show what he can do with a camera, but he seems afraid to commit, to give himself over. It's as if he is too good, too cultured, too intelligent, too rational, for this kind of film. Yet he keeps coming back, as his next assignment, a remake of George Romero's The Crazies, shows.

There is no singular vision in Anderson's horror films, as there is in the work of Cronenberg, for example. There is no exuberant celebration of style, as there is in Argento's or DePalma's best works. Nor does there seem to be any political agenda, as there is in Romero's films. But despite the relative failure of Session 9 and The Machinist, I think there is something in Anderson, unformed and embryonic, waiting to burst forth, if only he can let go. He is a late talent, a grower not a shower. I don't think it will be seen in The Crazies, but I'm still waiting.

The Aviator (2004)

Love the colors, Marty!

[3/10 · 1 June 2005]

I suspect I am one of about 17 people who figured out that Martin Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson were attempting to mimic the palette of two-strip Technicolor during the first half of this film. Big deal. After the ugly visionary debacle of Gangs of New York, our 'greatest living film director' seems to have been reduced to spending 100 million dollars to score points with the film geeks. The Aviator is digital eye candy; stunningly shot, beautifully costumed, lavishly decorated, intricately edited, and nutritionally valueless. The Motion Picture Academy got it dead right: awards for all the technical categories, and a complete shut out for everything else. The Best Supporting Actress award for Cate Blanchette is the exception that proves this rule: her performance as Katherine Hepburn is an over-the-top technical marvel quite lacking in any dramatic substance whatsoever.

It is incomprehensible to me that a film about one of our most fascinating American legends could be this dull. As many posters to this site have pointed out, The Aviator is factually dubious; nevertheless, couldn't Scorsese and screenwriter John Logan at least have used lies that are fun? Why not adapt Charles Highham's scandalously lurid biography? That would have been a film to see, a film about an amoral colossus, at once so public and so secretive, whose enormous appetites, implacable will, and resolute daring propelled him to the peak of power and influence. Then, of course, we could witness the inevitable fall, when those same qualities turn against their bearer, leaving him shriveled, quivering, and helpless in a Mexican hotel room.

Instead we get Arnie Grape with money, some airplanes, and a nice suit. DiCaprio's performance is not bad; in fact, it is often rather good - it is just the wrong performance in the wrong film. He never once convinces as Howard Hughes, although, later in the film, DiCaprio sometimes looks uncannily like a young Orson Welles, circa The Stranger.

I doubt the resemblance is coincidental. Because, in truth, this film is not about Howard Hughes at all. It is about Welles, and Von Stroheim, and Coppola, and, yes, Martin Scorsese - Hollywood outsider visionaries who took on the establishment suits and who, in turn, were destroyed by them, because they threatened the establishment's power and prestige. It is the same story that Coppola told in his infinitely better film Tucker, The Man and His Dream. It is a consoling story for a man like Scorsese, who hasn't made an indispensable film in close to 25 years, but one that has an air of desperation about it, as if Scorsese realizes that, in his case, it just won't do. After all, no one was giving Welles or Von Stroheim $50-100 million dollar budgets during their fall from grace.

Look Marty, everyone knows that no one, including DePalma, can set up and shoot an intricate, lengthy, single-take tracking shot like you can. Everyone knows that your encyclopedic knowledge of film history makes Quentin Tarantino look like a wheezing punk. Everyone knows that you can get remarkable once-in-a-lifetime performances from your actors. You have nothing left to prove on these scores. So cut the sh*t. Stop wasting money on all this bloated, empty crap. For God's sake, Welles, in F for Fake, which cost peanuts, showed more insight into Howard Hughes in ten minutes than The Aviator showed in three hours. Start emulating those Italian Neo Realists whom you understand so astutely. Take a few million out of the bank, grab a couple of digital cameras, head downtown, and make something vital. I, and a lot of other people, think you still have it in you. Your strengths are intimate, not epic. Take a chance. Go for it. Be a real Hollywood outsider. Wave of the future, Marty. Wave of the future. Wave of the future...

Apocalypse Now (1979)

This is the end, indeed!

[2/10 · 12 May 2005]

I have just finished reading an interview with Vittorio Storaro, cinematographer for Apocalypse Now, and I am in a state of shock. Apparently, the plan, when preparing Apocalypse Now Redux, was to keep the original negative intact, and to edit the new material into a freshly struck inter positive. Unfortunately, the negative, 25 years old, was starting to fade, and Storaro was concerned that new prints would not be up to his, or the audience's, high standards. He suggested to Coppola that they re-edit directly into the original negative. This, of course, would eliminate the need for an inter positive, and allow for beautiful new prints to be struck. On the other hand, the original negative in its "classic" incarnation would be gone forever. Storaro asked Coppola, "Let me know one single thing, in the future, in 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now, which version would you want the audience to see?" And he said, "This one."

I remember asking myself why the additional footage couldn't have been relegated to the "Extras" section of a DVD. My guess had been that the entire affair was a cynical attempt stir up interest in a theatrical re-release in order to make a few more bucks for the perennially cash- hungry Coppola. Would that he had been so cynical. Now we will never have the chance to see a beautiful new Technicolor dye transfer print of the original Apocalypse, a genuine classic, because Coppola actually thinks that the god-awful Redux, a bloated, ponderous, amateurish mess, is the version for which he should be remembered.

I have seen the original Apocalypse dozens of times, and each time it has felt fresh, vital, visionary. I almost walked out of the theater during Redux. Like mold, the new footage had corrupted the old, making the whole film dank and dreary. Most of the new footage was hasty, improvised, and pointless, and integrated badly into the whole. The performances resembled juvenile acting class exercises. The legendary French Plantation scenes were so over the top and silly that I thought an unused sequence from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life had been dropped into the film.

As Paulette Goddard once said of Chaplin, "(Coppola) sometimes thinks he thinks." Despite his reputation as a rebellious visionary, Coppola has always done his best work for hire. When he has been allowed to go off the rails, he has produced crap fests like One From the Heart (which I actually saw in a theater) and Redux. Looks like it was only the pressure to deliver that prevented box office disaster and bankruptcy in 1979. I, like many others, have spent the last 25 years waiting for another Coppola masterpiece. From the evidence in the Storaro interview, we have all waited in vain. The man's judgment is faulty. Maybe if he can get back together with Bob Evans...

Gangs of New York (2002)

Scorcese's Satyricon

[3/10 · 2 January 2003]

Do the people who describe Martin Scorcese as our greatest living filmmaker ever actually watch his movies? Perhaps his fans are hoping that, since he has been making essentially the same movie for the last two decades, one of these days he is bound to get it right. Scorsese had 30 years, and 100 million dollars of Harvey Weinstein's money to show the world what he is really capable of, to produce his masterpiece, the one to cement his reputation and put him into the pantheon next to Griffith and Welles, et al., and what do we get - an overblown Freudian psychodrama that says more about Scorsese's Oedipal confusion than it does about New York City's so-called history. What shocks me about Gangs of New York is not that it is the same Scorcese crap, but that it is so technically inept. At least Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, Kundun, Last Temptation of Christ, and Casino (my favorite version of the never ending Scorcese project) had some stylistic razzed-dazzle to distract from the unpleasant characters, mind-numbing violence (did we really need to see those bones scraped in Gangs of Tibet; did Jesus really have to pull his heart out in Gangs of the Holy Land?), and cynical, mean-spirited world view that constitute the Scorcese universe. In Gangs, we get flabby, brownish cinematography from Michael Ballhaus; overbuilt, artificial-looking sets from Dante Ferretti; and clunky, choppy, inept editing from Thelma Schoonmaker. All the extras look Italian, the CGI stinks, and the costuming is ridiculous. Not for a second in this 3 hour clunker of a so-called docudrama did I believe that I was seeing real people in a real place enacting real events. This movie says nothing about the birth of a great city and everything about the death of a great director. At least Federico Fellini had the courage of his own florid romanticism when he made Satyricon, his eye-popping, defiantly ahistorical dream of history. Scorcese has been irrelevant as a director since The King of Comedy bombed. In Scorcese's best movies (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, King), the psychotic loser achieved some sort of redemption in the end. Now the redemption is gone and only the violence remains. This is the lesson that life has taught one of our most revered filmmakers? How sad.

This movie is about one thing and one thing only: Bill the Butcher. Despite what the reviews might say, despite what Scorsese might say, Bill the Butcher is not the villain of the piece; he is the hero. The movie is a celebration of his life, and a lament at his passing. He is huge, a titan, a warrior, a god, both feared and revered by the puny underlings who surround him. As the last of his kind, and a man who can only measure his worth in battle, he is saddened that, after the death of Villon, no other warrior is worthy of his mettle. (WARNING SPOILERS) One sees, in his treatment of Villon's son, Amsterdam, (which really makes no logical sense: he should kill the boy in order to prevent a future threat, and should have killed him at the theater), Bill's fervent hope that he will once again meet a great adversary. The fact that Scorsese's sympathies lie with Bill, and not with Amsterdam, is shown in the films strange, murky climax. Just as the two men are to meet in battle, the city explodes around them. Bill is finally brought down, not by Amsterdam, but by the forces of history that conspire to destroy his world. Bill lets Amsterdam finish him off, because he knows that he no longer has any place to go. The triumph of the weak has led to the substitution of politics for combat. The meek have inherited the earth.

This is Scorsese's proto-fascist vision, rooted in a longing for an all-powerful father/protector, which he has been promulgating since Taxi Driver, where the psychotic, Mohawk sporting Travis Bickle finds redemption when he defeats Harvey Keitel's Apache pimp. The inarticulate Travis, who is being driven slowly insane by the cesspool of modernity, and whose first target is, appropriately enough, a politician, becomes a man when he becomes a warrior, whose true worth is forged in purifying violence. So why is Taxi Driver a masterpiece and GONY an unparalleled stinker? After all, the animating vision is the same in both. Unfortunately, in GONY, Scorsese catastrophically misunderstands his talent. Scorsese's best films are intense, focused examinations of character. They are compact, tight, vivid portrayals of this monstrous vision that has haunted his psyche since he was a young asthmatic staring admiringly out the window at the neighborhood toughs. Scorsese has no real feeling for history or for narrative. His settings are dreamlike, symbolic spaces that externalize the main character's point of view. In short, he is the antithesis of the epic filmmaker. That is why GONY crumbles around the figure of Bill the Butcher. It's as if Tennessee Williams had tried to shoot Ben Hur.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

A Desecration

[1/10 · 6 August 2001]

Well, where do I start? When the five original Apes movies were remastered and re-released on DVD, I spent a week rewatching them. Not only were the films pleasing on an aesthetic level, but I was better able to appreciate the complex political subtext that had been inserted by Rod Serling and later screenwriters. These are angry, intelligent films, which in many ways, despite diminishing budgets, get better as the series progresses. The revolutionary implications of the fourth film, Conquest (its climax was modeled after the Watts riots), were so extreme that the studio forced a re-shoot of the ending, which originally had Caesar (played with amazing Shakespearean grandeur by Roddy McDowell) leading a final slaughter of the hopelessly debased human population.

How can a film over two hours long contain so little? There is not one good line, there is not one good SHOT in the entire remake. Given Tim Burton's track record, I expected at the very least a memorable visual experience. Instead we get a dim bluish murk, clunky editing, and shoddy, oppressive studio-bound sets. The oh-so-clever 'relevant' dialog wouldn't pass muster on a lackluster episode of Politically Incorrect, and the 'shock' ending is just completely incomprehensible. Also, why did they make Helena Bonham Carter's ape character look like Michael Jackson?

In 1968, Chuck Heston, as the misanthropic astronaut Taylor, ran around in a loin cloth, bared his ass, and roared bitter imprecations in his great, gravely voice. Now Mark Walberg (the new Cary Grant, according to Vanity Fair - go figure) keeps his bulky, restrictive space suit on for the entire film, and DOES NOT EVEN BOTHER TO ACT. His voice never rises above a whisper. His facial expression never changes. Well, that routine only works when you have charisma to spare. Had I been casting this film, it would have been Bruce Willis all the way. He would have known how to empathize with an ape.

How sad that the three-dimensional characters of the original series have been reduced to platitudinous stereotypes; or that the story is now nothing more than 'heroic astronaut liberates oppressed humans from evil monkeys'; or that, had I not read the reviews ahead of time, I would not have known who played the apes (in the old days they put distinctive voices under the make-up: McDowell, Kim hunter, Paul Williams, John Huston). THIS IS WHY I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO THE MOVIES ANYMORE! This is why I would rather stay at home and watch Kurosawa on DVD.

Thank God Roddy did not live to see this.

Pay It Forward (2000)

Worth viewing despite its weaknesses.

[7/10 · 16 July 2001]

I watched this film last night and I have to agree with nearly every criticism leveled at it. Pay It Forward is clunky, contrived, maudlin, shamelessly manipulative, and frequently incoherent. The scenes with the young black male seemed like outtakes from Bamboozled II, and the big revelation scenes (the reason for Kevin Spacey's character's burns, for example), were curiously flat and uninvolving. Helen Hunt is completely miscast - I giggled every time she told Spacey that she could not understand him; this coming from an actress who epitomizes class and intelligence (I kept seeing Cher, circa Mask, in the role). And yet, as the film progressed, I found myself increasingly engrossed, entranced, and moved. The basic premise of the film, that one can make a difference in the world by small acts of kindness, the consequences of which may be entirely different from our intentions, is both plausible and reasonable, and is made completely believable by a cast working at a level of excellence that I have not seen in some time. Hunt is so good that you eventually forget the fact that she is miscast, and the other leads are equally outstanding. Jim Caviezel's open, haunted, and haunting face is a revelation every time he appears on screen, and Angie Dickinson's performance as Hunt's mother is so good that it makes one lament that she was not given more to do, in this movie, and in life. It is Dickinson's reunion scene with Hunt, in which daughter forgives mother for the neglect and abuse she had to endure as a child, that is the true emotional climax of the film. I am not ashamed to say that I burst into tears. So forgive the film its many faults, and its disgusting cheat of an ending. Despite its problems, Pay It Forward is more worthy of your time than 99% of the stuff out there right now. After all, forgiveness is the key, and the only way to break the long chain of pain, ignorance, and suffering that determines so much of life.