Clockers

Year of Release:  1995
Director:  Spike Lee
Screenplay:  Spike Lee and Richard Price, based on the novel Clockers by Richard Price
Starring:  Harvey Keitel, John Turturro, Delroy Lindo, Mekhi Phifer, Isaiah Washington, Keith David, Pee Wee Love
Running Time:  128 minutes
Genre:  Thriller, crime drama

Brooklyn, New York City:  Nineteen year old Strike (Phifer) is a "Clocker", a street level drug dealer, working for local drug dealer Rodney Little (Lindo).  When a rival dealer, who Little claims ripped him off, turns up dead, Strike's brother, Victor (Washington) confesses to the murder.  However, Victor is an honest, upstanding member of the community.  A hard-working family man who has never been in trouble with the law, and has no reason to commit murder.  Homicide detective Rocco Klein (Keitel) is convinced that Victor is innocent and taking the fall for Strike. 

Based on an acclaimed 1992 novel by Richard Price, which later served as inspiration for the TV series The Wire (2002-2008), this is an angry, stylish urban thriller.  It moves from gritty documentary-style realism, to stylish flamboyance, with Lee showcasing his trademark visual flair.  He also shows his skill with actors getting some great performances from a talented cast.  The characters are not just one dimensional, Klein is technically the hero, and does care about seeing justice done, but is also quite racist, at least in his language.  Strike is a dealer, but has moments of compassion and kindness.  Rodney Little is an avuncular father figure, and also a violent crime boss.  However the film is really about communities being ripped apart by drugs and violence, where casual murder is an everyday reality.  The film was not a success when it was first released, and seems to be an overlooked film in Lee's oeuvre, which is a real shame because it deserves a lot better and, sadly, is as relevant in  2020 as it was in 1995.

John Turturro, Mekhi Phifer and Harvey Keitel in Clockers   

1917

Year of Release:  2019
Director:  Sam Mendes
Screenplay:  Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns 
Starring:  George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Claire Duburcq, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch
Running Time:  119 minutes
Genre:  War

France, April 1917:  The Germans have pulled back from a sector in the Western Front.  However, they have not retreated, and have in fact made a strategic withdrawal to a new defensive line form where they plan to overwhelm attacking British forces with artillery.  With the field telephone lines cut, two soldiers, Schofield (MacKay) and Blake (Chapman) are ordered to undertake a perilous mission across No Man's Land to hand deliver a message ordering a battalion to call off their attack which is planned for the next morning, and which could potentially cost the lives of 1,600 men, including Blake's brother.

This film is made to look as if it has all been shot in one continuous take, which sometimes seems frustratingly gimmicky, but sometimes is really effective.  The soldiers trudge along seemingly endless stretches of blasted, desolate country, with sudden bursts of dynamic action.  There are moments of real teeth-grinding suspense, and some breath-taking images, particularly the nighttime trek across a burning ruined city, that looks like a journey across Hell, and the scenes in the trenches are extremely claustrophobic.  There are dull moments, and sometimes the real-time approach means that you never really see much about the character's past and personality, and this does have the problem that a lot of films have when they are sold on the back of one particular technical achievement, in that it becomes more about the technique than the story.  However, more often than not it succeeds as a powerful, harrowing war movie.

George MacKay in 1917

Lisa and the Devil

Year of Release:  1973
Director:  Mario Bava
Screenplay:  Mario Bava and Alfred Leone
Starring:  Elke Sommer, Telly Savalas, Sylva Koscina, Alessio Orano, Alida Valli
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Horror, fantasy

Lisa Reiner (Sommer), an American tourist visiting Spain, sees a fresco in a church depicting a bald Devil hauling away human souls.  Wandering away from the tour group she winds up in a little antique store where she encounters a man named Leandro (Savalas), who looks identical to the Devil in the fresco. Unable to find her way back to the tour group, Lisa finds herself at a palatial villa owned by a strange young man (Orano) and his mother, a blind countess (Valli) and where Leandro appears to work as a butler.

This is only the beginning of Lisa's descent into a surreal nightmare.  This is a film with only the vaguest plot, and is kind of what you might come up with in a nightmare after reading too much Gothic horror stories and eating  a lot of very strong cheese.  Following the success of Baron Blood (1972), director Mario Bava was given a free hand to do whatever he wanted with this film.  The movie features some striking images, and it really is a beautiful film, full of offbeat camera angles, and it works if you see it as working with a kind of dream logic.  Elke Sommer walks through the film in a kind of sleepwalking daze, which actually works for the material.  Telly Savalas has a lot of presence, and is often quite sardonically funny as the mysterious Devil, whose fondness for lollipops was carried over to Savalas' most famous role in the TV show Kojak (1973-1978).  Following a disastrous premiere screening at the Cannes Film Market in 1973, the film was drastically re-edited and was further edited for its US release, with some additional exorcism scenes as well as additional nudity and gore, and was released under the title House of Exorcism, to cash in on the success of The Exorcist (1973).

Elke Sommers, Telly Savalas and Alida Valli in Lisa and the Devil   

"The Martini Shot and Other Stories" by George Pelecanos

Year of Publication:  2016
Length:  295 pages
Genre:  Crime, thriller  

This entertaining book collects seven short stories and one novella.  George Pelecanos is a crime writer who specialises in tough, urban thrillers set in and around Washington DC, and subsequently found great success as a screenwriter, writing episodes of The Wire (2002-2008) and Treme (2010-2013) among others, and was the co-creator of The Deuce (2017-2019) with regular collaborator David Simon.

The stories in this book are very much in the typical Pelecanos style:  a police informant grapples with family problems and his own conscience; a family with several adopted children find the lives of their kids taking unexpected and sometimes dark paths; a young boy finds his skill at basketball makes him some bitter enemies; a seasoned private investigator finds more than he bargained for while investigating a case in Brazil; a young drug dealer tries to get out of the life but finds it's easier said than done; three college friends find their lives going in very different directions when a drug deal goes wrong; in 1930s New York a busboy seeks vengeance for the murder of his friend; and a TV crime writer finds himself embroiled in a real-life crime drama.  Incidentally, the book's title is film industry slang for the last shot of the day, referring to the fact that the next shot is liquor.

The stories are fast moving,  tense and sometimes surprisingly funny, they showcase Pelecanos' ear for dialogue and eye for detail.  However, many of them do cover very similar ground, and plot is not Pelecanos' strong point.  His books are usually more like character pieces with the plots almost playing out in the background.

Frances Ha

Year of Release:  2013
Director:  Noah Baumbach
Screenplay:  Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig
Starring:  Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Charlotte d'Amboise, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen
Running Time:  86 minutes
Genre:  Comedy drama

Frances (Gerwig) is a struggling 27 year old dancer living in New York City with her best friend Sophie (Summer).  Her life is upended when Sophie announces that she plans to move to a more upmarket neighbourhood, which Frances can't afford, forcing her to find somewhere else to live, while trying to make ends meet.

Photographed in shimmering monochrome, this virtually plotless film is more a glimpse into the life of Frances, an ambitious young woman, trying to make her own way in the Big Apple, albeit without much success.  Frances herself is frequently frustrating, impulsive and irritating, but is never unsympathetic or unlikeable.  She makes bad decisions and frequently gets herself into trouble.  Early in the film she breaks up with her boyfriend because she doesn't want to move in with him and she really shows very little interest in dating anyone, although one of her roommates does seem to be interested in her.  The big relationship in Frances' life is her friendship with Sophie, and this film portrays friendship in a beguiling and very relatable way.  The two share jokes, and tell each other pretty much everything from their deepest secrets and hopes and fears to something funny that one of them sees on the way to the grocery store.  They fight, they argue, they get on each other's nerves, but the bond is always there.  Even Sophie's fiance, and Frances' jealousy, doesn't destroy their bond.
While the loose, plotless nature of the film may put off some viewers, and some may find Frances deeply annoying, this is a smart and funny film, which has a lot to say about friendship and finding a place for yourself in the world.  Certainly the biggest asset to the film is Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the film with director Noah Baumbach and stars as Frances.  Charismatic and quirky, with a mix of exuberance, dorkishness and vulnerability, she owns the film, and is in virtually every scene.  Recently Greta Gerwig has spent more time behind the camera than in front of it, as the writer and director of acclaimed films Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019), and this is a reminder of what a great actress she is.

Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha