evanston_dad Reviews

The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)

Poorly Edited But Winning Anyway

[7/10 · 24 April 2024]

I loved the book "The Milagro Beanfield War," but I read it a long time ago and don't remember details very well. I can't speak to how faithful an adaptation Robert Redford's movie is, but I also don't really care because I think that's usually a boring conversation. Taken as its own thing, the movie "The Milagro Beanfield War" is in some ways actually poorly made, but it manages to be winning anyway.

I'm a sucker, as many people are, for an underdog-against-greedy-corporate-interests story, so that went a along way toward making me like this. It's also got a leisurely, meandering, lightly whimsical quality that I was in the mood for.

But it's also a terribly edited movie. There are a lot of characters and storylines to account for, and the film cuts frequently between them all, to disorienting effect. We will be watching two people have a conversation, and then the film cuts abruptly to two different people in the middle of a conversation somewhere else about a different topic, with little in the way of transition between. It makes for a choppy movie where no one actor really gets a chance to shine.

But I'm rounding up because I liked this movie anyway and I'm in a good mood today.

Dave Grusin won the Oscar for Best Original Score.

Grade: B.

The Hunger (1983)

Stylish But Baffling

[5/10 · 24 April 2024]

Taken shot for shot, "The Hunger" is one of the most gorgeous movies ever made. Meticulous attention was given to individual images. But unfortunately someone forgot that all of these pretty pictures need to add up to a coherent story. Instead, the end result is mostly baffling.

I don't understand the vampire rules in this one. Why do all of Catherine Deneuve's vampire husbands die, but she doesn't? And why does she then arbitrarily die at the end and leave Susan Sarandon to continue her legacy? Can there only be one hot, immortal, female vampire alive at a time? And what do the monkeys have to do with anything? And was anyone else surprised at how little David Bowie is actually in this movie?

Is it possible I'm overthinking this film? I'm not going to say "no." But this film is frustratingly opaque, partially I think by design, but also partially because it's not made well.

Grade: C.

Black Angel (1946)

Holy Plot Twist

[7/10 · 19 April 2024]

Holy plot twist!

"Black Angel" is a B noir from 1946, so it's little known now. But this movie has a plot twist on par with some of the biggest from much more prominent films.

It's a small miracle of misdirection, and the casting team made the brilliant choice of putting Peter Lorre in the role of what we assume is the villain. Peter Lorre in a film noir has to be the villain, right? The problem is, Dan Duryea is in this too, and he also frequently steps up as villain in films like these. What to do? You completely pull the rug out from under the audience, is what you do.

Not a major addition to the film noir canon, but a very satisfying one for lovers of the genre.

Grade: A-

Khartoum (1966)

Something's Missing

[6/10 · 12 April 2024]

"Khartoum" has some things going for it: an intelligent screenplay that's more "Lawrence of Arabia" than typical Hollywood historical hokum; a for once restrained and actually kind of good performance from Charlton Heston; a terrific and magisterial score; some exciting battle sequences. But somehow the parts never add up to a satisfying whole, and I was left not caring that much how this historic episode (which I knew nothing about) turned out, and toward the end even slightly confused by what was happening.

Laurence Olivier appears in one of the most egregiously terrible brown face performances ever. I couldn't decide which was worse, his makeup or his acting. I think my favorite performance was probably Ralph Richardson's as a beleaguered and reluctant British military strategist.

"Khartoum" was nominated for Best Original Story and Screenplay at the 1966 Academy Awards, losing the award to the French film "A Man and a Woman."

Grade: B.

Conquest (1937)

Dull Romance

[6/10 · 12 April 2024]

"Conquest" does what a lot of movies from the 1930s did: take a historical subject and turn it into a dreary romantic melodrama that feels like every other dreary romantic melodrama ever made.

I've really liked Greta Garbo in some things (hello "Ninotchka"), but roles like the one she plays in this movie were what she was most often given, and they're my least favorite. She yearns and sighs stoically like no one's business, but it's boring. Charles Boyer is another actor I've never really taken to. He gets the juicy role of Napoleon and won an Oscar nomination for it, but every other actor nominated with him that year (I've seen all of them) were more impressive.

"Conquest" won a second Oscar nomination for its art direction, courtesy of the billion times nominated Cedric Gibbons and his partner in this one, William Horning.

Grade: B-

Dream Scenario (2023)

Creative Exploration of Cancel Culture

[7/10 · 8 April 2024]

"Dream Scenario" is a creative exploration of cancel culture, and the way social media creates a mob rule where the herd decides who belongs and who doesn't and the victim doesn't get a say.

I would have given the film a higher rating if it hadn't gone on quite as long as it did. It starts to lose its way a bit in the last third, and it felt like the story was ready to be over before the movie was. It also became literally difficult for me to watch after a time, because I felt so bad and frustrated for Nicolas Cage's character.

But I mostly enjoyed the film's originality and its ability to articulate a beef I have myself with our current culture.

Grade: A-

Afire (2023)

Study in Artistic Insecurity

[8/10 · 8 April 2024]

The actor Thomas Schubert deserves much of the credit for making "Afire" work as well as it does.

He plays a self-absorbed, petty, insecure writer who's so myopically obsessed with the book he's writing that he's oblivious to the world around him. In other hands, it would be a big ask of the audience to spend two hours with such a tiring character, especially since he's in virtually every scene of the movie. But Schubert is able to make this character not only tolerable, but relatable. We're all guilty of missing the bigger picture because of our individual preoccupations.

The ending of "Afire" feels a bit overly dramatic. It's like something that would feel right at home in one of those Southern gothic plays by Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill. But I did enjoy the irony of its conclusion -- once our main character starts paying attention to the trauma around him, it's something he uses to write better books.

Grade: A.

The Last Voyage (1960)

Utterly Incompetent

[4/10 · 2 April 2024]

It's been a long time since I've seen a movie so incompetently made as "The Last Voyage."

It doesn't waste any time getting to the disaster, I'll give it that. The movie just starts with the cruise liner already on fire, and we see the crew trying to contain it over the opening credits. Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone are apparently the only people on the cruise ship affected by a big explosion that blows a hole right through the middle of the ship. Malone gets trapped under a big piece of metal, where she'll stay for the rest of the movie. Stack has to first save his daughter, who disturbingly looks like an adult Shirley Temple impersonator who's been shrunk back to child size. He then spends literally 45 minutes running around the ship with Woody Strode looking for a blow torch, because this cruise liner apparently has absolutely no emergency protocols other than propping giant pieces of timber (where those came from I have no idea) against the leaky hull in the inexplicable belief that that will stop water from coming in.

Late in the movie, we finally see some other people getting into lifeboats. Stack gives his daughter to Woody Strode to raise so he can die with his wife. Strode seems game. Speaking of him, thank god this particular ship has him on board, since he's the only person in the movie who does anything useful, and he does it all wearing only a neckerchief.

The less than spectacular special effects earned "The Last Voyage" an Oscar nomination.

This movie is really bad, but it's a hoot to make fun of.

Grade: D+

Broken Lance (1954)

Sluggishly Paced

[6/10 · 1 April 2024]

Despite having a typically terrific performance by Spencer Tracy (he could do this kind of grizzled character in his sleep), "Broken Lance" is a mixed bag of a movie. As long as Tracy is in it, I found myself pretty engaged. But when attention shifts to anyone else, I found my attention wandering away with it. Robert Wagner isn't an actor I like very much, so I always have inherent trouble rooting for him as a protagonist. Richard Widmark is an actor I like, but he's not enough to carry his parts of the film. Katy Jurado was inexplicably nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Tracy's wife. She's not in the movie much and doesn't do a whole lot when she is.

"Broken Lance" won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture Story, a category that would be dissolved three years later when it was merged into the category for Best Original Screenplay.

Grade: B.

Deep Valley (1947)

Workin' on the Chain Gang

[6/10 · 1 April 2024]

Though "Deep Valley" aired as part of TCM's Noir Alley, it's really more moody romantic melodrama than true noir for my taste.

Ida Lupino seems too old for the role she's playing, a young woman bored to sobs on her parents' run down farm who gets the hots for a chain gang fugitive (Dane Clark) who hides out in her barn. This movie goes about where you'd expect it to, but it does have the guts to go for the downer ending.

There's a sweet little side story about the parents who rediscover affection for each other when their daughter becomes too distracted to continue being their go-between.

Even if she's not the right age, Lupino is an appealing actress and makes pretty much anything she's in worth watching, and she and Clark have chemistry together.

Grade: B.

Billy Budd (1962)

Why Is No One Talking About Robert Ryan in This?

[8/10 · 1 April 2024]

Top notch sea-faring drama based on the Herman Melville story. Terence Stamp received an Oscar nomination for his performance as the title character, sweet natured crew mate who literally does not understand malice in the men around him but who nevertheless has a limit to how far he'll let himself be pushed around. Peter Ustinov is the well meaning but somewhat absentee captain who follows rules to the letter with no consideration of what's right or wrong in a given scenario. But it's Robert Ryan, who I never hear mentioned in connection with this movie, who gives the film's best performance as the sadistic master of arms, a man who enjoys the punishment he gets to dole out indiscriminately on the men under his charge.

Ustinov also directed the film, and he takes a low-key approach, devoid of melodrama or histrionics. It makes for an intelligent and complex character study of the way men with different temperaments respond to the same situation. And it also looks terrific in widescreen black and white.

Grade: A.

The Color of Money (1986)

Paul Newman's Oscar Winning Role

[8/10 · 1 April 2024]

Finally, FINALLY got around to seeing the movie that brought Paul Newman his only competitive Oscar. It's definitely Scorsese-lite, but it goes down awfully smoothly.

Is it Newman's best performance? Hardly. But when was the last time anyone won an Oscar for the best performance of their career? Let's face it, Newman won his gold in this film for pure charisma, which he has so much it almost feels like it should be illegal. But we have to give Tom Cruise his due, because he's got it too. I don't even like Cruise that much as an actor, but when he's in the right role even I have to concede that he's magnetic, and this movie gives him the right kind of role. The third principal part goes to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and that's where the movie makes its biggest stumble. She's a fine actress in her own right, and you can practically feel her chomping at the bit to tear into a juicy role, but the film lets her down by giving her a thankless character who exists almost exclusively to be a sexual object for the men around her. There's a reason Scorsese's movies most always been focused on male worlds.

The Academy apparently had the hots for Mastrantonio too, because they threw her a Best Supporting Actress nomination despite having a nothing character to play. The film also scored noms for Best Adapted Screenplay and for Best Art Direction, which I believe famed production designer Boris Leven received posthumously.

Grade: A-

El Conde (2023)

Dynamite Premise But Unenjoyable Film

[4/10 · 13 March 2024]

"El Conde" has a dynamite premise, one of the best of any movie released this year. It imagines Auguste Pinochet, one-time dictator of Chile, is alive and well as a vampire, still feasting on the blood of innocents. By extension, it suggests that fascism itself is a kind of monster that will never die.

But this is a one-joke film that goes nowhere once it's made its point, which it makes early on. It's a ravishing looking movie, filmed in beautiful and eerie black and white by Academy Award nominated cinematographer Edward Lachmann, and it's got atmospheric, gothic production design that makes a Chilean hideaway look like something out of "Dracula." But the style isn't enough to make up for the lack of coherent narrative to hold the thing together. It's also got many gross out moments that were way too gross for me. I can only see so many scenes of people slurping down blood smoothies before I'm completely turned off by the movie.

Grade: C.

Inside Moves (1980)

Low Key Indie Film

[7/10 · 13 March 2024]

"Inside Moves" is the kind of low key, slice of life indie that the movie world is full of these days, but that was a rarity back in 1980.

John Savage and David Morse give two terrific performances in this film about a bunch of people, many with disabilities, who form a kind of family from their shared feeling of being outcasts. It's a meandering film without any one central conflict. It's more like there are a bunch of small conflicts and the film bounces back and forth between characters as it resolves them. It's a bit raggedy, with abrupt editing that makes for a disorienting sense of time passing, but the raggedness somehow feels right for the film's setting (mostly a bar) and mood.

Diana Scarwid received an Oscar nomination as a waitress and love interest for Savage. She's watchable enough but I'm not sure I see anything very award-worthy in her performance, mostly because her character doesn't have a whole lot to do.

Grade: B+

Io Capitano (2023)

International Feature Film Nominee from Italy

[8/10 · 13 March 2024]

Can someone please explain to me the eligibility rules for how the Academy determines which country films will be representing in the International Feature Film category? As I write this, "Io Capitano" just competed for that award as an entry for Italy. I realize it was an Italian production, but it's set mostly in Africa, features a mostly African cast, and maybe three words in the entire film are spoken in Italian. Seems like they could have thrown Senegal a bone and let this be the first ever nominee from that country.

"Io Capitano" is the kind of film I watch and then feel completely guilty afterwards for being American. Seriously, not a single American has the right to complain about anything when you watch a movie like this and see what's happening elsewhere in the world.

This is an absorbing film that finds a nice balance between being harrowing and uplifting. Though many terrible things happen in it, it doesn't feel like misery porn the way so many other movies about exploited people do. It wasn't my favorite of the International Feature nominees -- in fact, out of the five it would probably be in fifth place. But that's more a testament to how strong that category was this year than a knock against this movie, because it's very very good.

Grade: A.

Storm Warning (1950)

Packs a Punch

[8/10 · 12 March 2024]

Good grief I was not ready for "Storm Warning" to pack the punch it did. This is strong stuff for a film from the 1950s.

Ginger Rogers visits a small town to spend time with her sister and her new husband, only to find that the town is run by a certain hooded mob and her new brother-in-law is one of its members. She witnesses the mob murdering a man, and the rest of the movie consists almost entirely of her being terrorized in one way or another to prevent her from telling what she knows to the authorities. The whole movie has a very dark and violent vibe, appropriate for a story about this particular group, and it includes things like sexual assault, spousal abuse, and the accidental killing of a pregnant woman by her own husband. The film ends on a real downer, Rogers finding the courage to stand up to the mob, but only after it's much too late.

Doris Day plays her sister, Ronald Reagan plays the town police officer, and the smoldering Steve Cochran plays Rogers' cowardly bully of an in-law.

Grade: A.

Shockproof (1949)

Entertaining Enough

[7/10 · 12 March 2024]

An entertaining enough noir about a parole officer who's smitten with one of his clients and allows himself to be dragged into some criminal dealings because of her.

Oh, those dames, always causing trouble for your average red-blooded American male. Cornel Wilde is said male and Patricia Knight, not an actress well known to me, is his charge. The film has the opportunity to go to some really dark and gritty places, but it cops out and resolves everything with a happy and ridiculously rushed ending. Even Eddie Muller, who introduced the film on TCM, couldn't defend the film's wimpiness to go for the throat.

But ending aside, this is still a pretty good flick, directed by Douglas Sirk, who wasn't exactly the go-to person for film noir.

Grade: B.

Ikiru (1952)

Very Moving

[8/10 · 12 March 2024]

"Ikiru" is a very moving film from Akira Kurosawa, but it's not one I think I'd ever want to watch again. I generally am very weirded out by stories about people dying of lingering illnesses, especially cancer, so this film made me quite uncomfortable, even if the conclusion it reaches is one I agree with, which is that we're all living on borrowed time and so we should be very frugal with it and selective about how we want to spend it.

The film "Living" with Bill Nighy was an updated version of this story, but needless to say it's a pale imitation of Kurosawa's original. The best part of the original version isn't even in the remake -- an extended scene set at the wake of the main character where everyone tries to justify their own lack of charity and selflessness in the face of someone who was an example of both.

Grade: A.

Eileen (2023)

Stupid and Unpleasant

[3/10 · 28 February 2024]

A really stupid and deeply unpleasant movie.

I give Thomasin McKenzie some credit for committing 100% to such an unsympathetic character, but man is she gross in this. One scene finds her waking up with vomit smeared all over her face, and leg and armpit shaving has never looked as grotesque as she makes it look in this movie.

There's a twist mid-way through the film that takes it into gothic thriller territory, but it's implausible and deeply dumb. I think the director was kind of going for a dark comedy vibe for a lot of the time, but it never lands.

Anne Hathaway isn't believable for one single second.

It occurred to me to wonder if this is one of those "did the other woman ever exist at all or was it all in her head?" kind of movies, though there's not much in the film to support that reading. And even if it were the case, that in itself is a lazy trope that's been done to death, though Hathaway's character would make a lot more sense as a figment of Eileen's imagination than as an actual human being, and I might have liked Hathaway's performance more.

I wanted to take a shower after watching this movie.

Grade: D+

Perfect Days (2023)

Choosing Contentment

[9/10 · 28 February 2024]

By the end of the first hour of "Perfect Days" I was starting to get a little restless. It chronicles the day to day routine of the main character, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, in minute detail, and I was like, are we really just going to see this guy relive the same day over and over again for two hours?

Then some things happen, but nothing major. We get a glimpse of this guy's family life and learn a little bit about him, but not much.

Then the second to last shot of this movie is a long closeup of the main character driving through Tokyo and crying, whether from happiness or sadness isn't entirely clear, and the answer is it's probably a little bit of both.

And then I was walking down the hallway of the movie theater after the film was over and was hit by a wave of emotion that almost made me burst into tears. You've done it to me again Wim Wenders.

This movie challenges the idea that to be alone is to be lonely. As someone who prefers to be by himself for much of the time, this movie resonated very much with me.

Grade: A.

Queen Bee (1955)

An Awful Lot of Fun

[8/10 · 20 February 2024]

If I lived with Joan Crawford, I would build a bomb shelter. And then, the second I saw one of her eyebrows start to twitch upward, I would hightail it to my shelter and stay there until I knew the coast was clear. Just one of her arched eyebrows could level civilizations.

It's not hard to guess who the queen bee of this film's title is. You can't have Joan Crawford in a movie called "Queen Bee" and not have her be it. If some other actress tried to take the title, Joan would literally rip her arms out of her sockets and bludgeon her with them, all the while pouring salt into her bloody stumps.

"Queen Bee" is an awful lot of fun. It's a 1950s melodrama with a twinge of noir, thanks mostly to the Oscar-nominated cinematography courtesy of Charles Lang. Lang has fun with shadows in this movie. Anytime Crawford is at her most duplicitous, he shoots her face in almost near dark. She's something else in this film, and god love her, she's so good and has so much screen presence that I ended up rooting for her. I think some other people were in this movie, but I can't really remember.

Sheila O'Brien received a random Oscar nomination for designing Crawford's gowns, looking pretty glorious in black and white.

Grade: A-

Sweetie (1989)

Accomplished and Offbeat

[8/10 · 14 February 2024]

Jane Campion's first feature is an accomplished and offbeat movie about a dysfunctional family. Like, a really dysfunctional family. Like, after this movie was over I thought back on it and was disturbed by how dysfunctional this family was. There's a brief scene that implies father/daughter incest that is never referred to again by the movie or any of the characters in it, and that one short scene colored my entire reading of everything else going on.

The thing is, it's easy to overlook how disturbed we should be while watching the movie because so much of it is so funny, like a more humorously perverse version of a Mike Leigh film. There are times when the antics of Sweetie, the impetuous and childish daughter who serves as a sort of sun around which all the other members of this dysfunctional family orbit, seem silly and charming and kooky. But then there are other moments when they seem just sad at best, and downright insane at worst. And then there's that ending, that incredibly disturbing ending that pulls the rug right out from under us and leaves us shaken.

Grade: A.

Berkeley Square (1933)

Modest But Charming

[7/10 · 14 February 2024]

A modest but charming little time travel fantasy story that stars Leslie Howard in an Oscar nominated performance. It was based on a play and never manages, or even tries really, to shake off its stage origins. But it's well acted, a bit haunting, and rather poignant.

Howard was up against Charles Laughton in "The Private Life of Henry VIII" and Paul Muni in "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" at the 1932-33 Oscars. Howard's performance is understated and effective, but the Oscar went to Laughton. Really it was Muni who should have won over both, giving one of the greatest performances in one of the greatest films to come out of the 1930s.

Grade: B+

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Something Kind of Cold About This Movie

[7/10 · 14 February 2024]

First of all, I love you Martin Scorsese, but if it's so important to you that people see movies in the theater, then why do you make them 3.5 hours long?

Secondly, for a movie about the ill treatment of indigenous people by white opportunists, it's a shame that more of this film couldn't have been told from the perspective of the indigenous people. Scorsese stays right in his comfort zone, giving us yet another variation on a mob story where the white mobsters are the focus. I guess there's nothing exactly wrong with that, except that if I want that I can just go watch other Scorsese movies that are better than this one. "Killers of the Flower Moon" is good. It's well made. There's nothing wrong with it. But there's something about it that left me cold. It never completely shook off the quality of history lesson enough to become a fully engaging story.

Lily Gladstone is in fierce competition with Emma Stone for this year's Best Actress Oscar as I write this comment, but I was again disappointed by how passively the movie treats her. She falls out of it for long stretches at a time, and very little of this story is told from her point of view.

This is far from being a miss, but it's also pretty far from joining the ranks of Scorsese's greatest hits.

Grade: A-

Nimona (2023)

Refreshing Break from PIxar

[7/10 · 12 February 2024]

I enjoyed the animation style of "Nimona," a bit edgier than the rounded, super-polished look of Pixar movies, with a healthy nod to Japanese anime thrown in for good measure. I also liked what it was about, a timely message about how quickly we jump to judgements and conclusions based on fear or programmed biases or only fragments of the story that reinforce what we already want to believe. But a certain sameness has settled over most animated films these days, and "Nimona" suffers from it. It's like they all start with the same template and tweak just enough here and there to be different from one another, but not too different. My family enjoyed this movie but I don't know that any of us were wowed by it, though my 12-year old has asked if he can watch it again, so there's that.

I will say it has one of the most attractive main characters I've seen in an animated movie for a long time, voiced well by Riz Ahmed.

Grade: A-