Manhattan Murder Mystery

 Year of Release:  1993

Director:  Woody Allen

Screenplay:  Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman

Starring:  Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Adler

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Comedy, crime

Married couple Larry (Allen) and Carole (Keaton) befriend their elderly neighbours Paul (Adler) and Lillian (Lynn Cohen).  They are shocked when they learn that the seemingly perfectly healthy Lillian has suddenly died of an apparent attack, and are further disturbed by Paul's cheerful demeanour immediately afterwards.  Carole becomes convinced that Paul murdered Lillian, and begins to investigate with the help of her friend, playwright Ted (Alda).  Larry however is convinced that there is no mystery to solve, until it turns out that Lillian might not be dead after all.

This darkly comic mystery film was made at a very difficult time in Woody Allen's personal life as his relationship with Mia Farrow was collapsing among allegations which continue to dog Allen's reputation to this day.  This was an intentionally light, playful film which Allen made to take his mind off things, and reunites him with close friend and regular co-star Diane Keaton, and other Allen regulars Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston.  The film was originally conceived as a subplot in Annie Hall (1977), but was excised from the final script.  The film really hearkens back to Allen's "early funny ones", lacking the introspection and philosophical themes which dominated Allen's films throughout the 1980s and early 90s.  The film is overly long, and the murder plot is very convoluted, but it is funny and the chemistry between Allen and Keaton really sparkles.  The mystery plot is a welcome addition to the typical wisecracks and one-liners, and the climax is really quite exciting.  Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston provide reliable support.  The film also marks the screen debut of Zach Braff.  This is one of Allen's most purely enjoyable films, but there is an emotional core about Larry and Carole's marital difficulties.  Woody Allen fans will  certainly enjoy it, and it should appeal to newcomers as well.

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are embroiled in a Manhattan Murder Mystery

You Only Live Once

Year of Release:  1937

Director:  Fritz Lang

Screenplay:  Gene Towne and Charles Graham Baker

Starring:  Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane

Running Time:  86 minutes

Genre:  Crime, drama, romance

Eddie Taylor (Fonda) is a convicted bank robber who is released from prison and tries to go straight with his new wife, Joan (Sidney), secretary to the Public Defender who represented Eddie at his trial.  However hard he tries, Eddie comes to feel that he can't catch a break, and finds himself drawn back to his old life with violent and tragic consequences.

Director Fritz Lang had made his reputation in Germany with such classics as Metropolis (1926) and M (1931) before emigrating after the Nazis came to power and eventually ended up in America.  His first American film, Fury (1936), attracted praise from critics but was severely tampered with by the studio.  This film, loosely based on the exploits of legendary outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, is an early example of what would become known as "film noir", a bleak crime drama, with a doom-laden atmosphere, and desperate characters who, despite their best efforts, are destined for nothing but a bad end.   The film also has a still pertinent message about the difficulties of ex-prisoners to find a place in society even after serving their sentence.  The film features a powerful, haunted performance from Henry Fonda and a great performance from Sylvia Sidney as the one person who stands by Eddie, even after her world starts to crash down around her.  Lang was a consummate visual stylist who honed his craft during the German Expressionist movement, and the film features some startling images, notably a jailbreak sequence, shot with thick rolling smoke and stark, bright shafts of light, with minimal sets.  Despite concessions to the censors of the time (Lang was forced to cut fifteen minutes from the film before it could be released) this is still a shocking and troubling film.

Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda are on the run in You Only Live Once

The Death of Stalin

 Year of Release:  2017

Director:  Armando Iannucci

Screenplay:  Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin, from a screenplay by Fabian Nury and based on the graphic novel La Mort de Staline by Fabian Nury and Thierry Roin

Starring:  Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Whitehouse

Running Time;  105 minutes

Genre:  Satire, comedy

The Soviet Union, 1953:  The country is in the grip of Premier Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) and his Central Committee, who themselves constantly live in fear of getting on the wrong side of Stalin.  When Staline suffers a cerebral haemorrhage and dies, the Central Committee is thrown into turmoil, as each member plots, schemes and manipulates their way to the centre of power.

Scottish writer, director and satirist Armando Iannucci has made a name for himself poking fun at the dark absurdities of British and American politics with his TV shows such as The Day Today (1994), The Saturday Night Armistice (1995-1999), The Thick of It (2005-2012) and Veep (2012-2019).  Here he turns his satirical gaze on the much darker historical absurdity of the Stalinist-era Soviet Union.  It depicts a world of absurd paranoia.  The film opens with Stalin ordering a recording of a concert, which hadn't been recorded, and so the orchestra and audience have to be hurriedly pulled back and the whole thing remounted.  Every evening Vyacheslav Molotov (played by ex-Monty Python member Michael Palin) gets his wife to list down everything he has said in Stalin's presence and note down which got good reactions and which didn't.  Following Stalin's death, there's a vying for power, while his funeral is prepared.  The comedy comes from the resulting backbiting, alliances and treachery, as well as the fact that whenever there is a big event to be organised, whatever can go wrong will go wrong.  There is also the fact that these characters are constantly in danger for their lives, the wrong word could get you name on a list which would mean death.  The threat of prison, torture and execution is constant throughout the film, but it doesn't really go to much into the atrocities of the Stalin regime.  It's. clever film, which is consistently amusing, although more witty than laugh out loud funny, and often the darkness drowns out the humour.  It also features a great cast of familiar comedy faces at the top of their game, each one of which has their chance to shine,         

The Death of Stalin

Far from the Madding Crowd

 Year of Release:  2015

Director:  Thomas Vinterberg

Screenplay:  David Nicholls, based on the novel Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge, Juno Temple

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Period drama, romance

Set in the 1870s in rural England, the film tells the story of headstrong Bathsheba Everdene (Mulligan) who inherits her uncle's large farm, despite having no knowledge of farming.  As she works hard to make a success of her new life she attracts the attentions of three men:  Gabriel Oak (Schoenaerts) a shepherd who has fallen on hard times, wealthy landowner William Boldwood (Sheen), and dashing soldier Frank Troy (Sturridge).

I have never read the classic 1874 novel by Thomas Hardy, nor have I seen the 1967 adaptation starring Julie Christie and Terence Stamp, so I can't speak to how faithful or not this adaptation, scripted by novelist David Nicholls, is to it's source.  I am not normally a fan of period dramas, and I tuned into this one without holding out much hope for it, however in the end I really enjoyed it.  Director Thomas Vinterberg is possibly best known for his stripped-down, shot-on-video family drama Festen (1998) but here he embraces the period epic.  The rolling hillsides of the English countryside are beautifully shot.  The passage of time is marked by images of nature to mark each season.  At times the plot feels rushed, even with a two hour running time, and there are a few confusing plot holes, and there are very few surprises (it's pretty clear early on who Bathsheba is going to end up with), and the film is maybe too glossy (Carey Mulligan can come in from a day of working hard in the fields completely immaculate aside from a fetching smudge on the cheek).  However the performances are great.  Tom Sturridge in particular manages to make an otherwise pretty unlikeable character more than a one dimensional cad, and Michael Sheen brings real weight to his performance as the wealthy but lonely landowner, and Matthias Schoenaerts also manages to bring some depth to what could be quite a bland part.  However the film belongs to Carey Mulligan who gives a spirited performance in the lead.  She has a real captivating presence.

It is also surprisingly dark in places, and packs some real emotional heft.  

Matthias Schoenaerts and Carey Mulligan are Far from the Madding Crowd

  

Crash

Year of Release:  1996

Director:  David Cronenberg

Screenplay:  David Cronenberg, based on the novel Crash by J. G. Ballard

Starring:  James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette

Running Time:  100 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Film producer James G. Ballard (Spader) and his wife Catherine (Unger) lead very active but dull sex lives where they each indulge in numerous casual affairs which they recoup in detail to each other.  On his way back from the studio, James is involved in a violent car crash, in which the driver of the other car is killed.  The dead man's wife, Dr. Helen Remington (Hunter), was in the passenger seat and is badly hurt.  In the hospital, James encounters Helen and they begin an affair.  They encounter a strange man named Vaughn (Koteas) who leads them into a strange subculture of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes, and recreate famous crashes.

This is an adaptation of British author J. G. Ballard's cult 1973 novel Crash, and like. a lot of Cronenberg films deals with the complex relationship between humanity and technology.  The topic here is broken machinery and broken bodies and the connection between the two.  In an early scene we see Ballard in hospital, with his leg in a complex surgical splint, and we see a close up of his badly bruised, broken leg penetrated by the metal of the apparatus.  Rosanna Arquette plays a character who wears metal braces, designed almost like fetish wear.  Despite the frequent sex scenes it's a surprisingly dispassionate films, almost clinical, it often feels like a kind of strange scientific documentary, the characters are never judged but the film merely observed.  There is little to no chemistry between the actors, which is intentional.  They are all isolated, lonely people trying to find some kind of connection.  The imagery is cool, set largely around wintery Toronto motorways and anonymous high rise buildings, garages and parking lots.  Even the colours seem washed out, with greys, and pale blues predominating.  The film was hugely controversial even though, despite it's explicit content, it is in no way pornographic, more chilling than arousing.  The film won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for "Originality, Daring and Audacity".  In 1996 the notorious British tabloid press whipped itself up into a vehement campaign to get the film banned, although it was released uncut in the UK in June 1997.  In the USA the film was released in both an uncut NC-17 version and an R-rated version with ten minutes cut.

Needless to say, this won't be to everyone's taste, but if you're in the mood for something challenging and provocative, this is well worth a test drive. 

James Spader in Crash

   

Festen

Year of Release:  1998

Director:  Thomas Vinterberg

Screenplay:  Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov

Starring:  Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Paprika Steen, Birthe Neumann, Trine Dyrholm

Running Time:  105 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Wealthy patriarch Helge (Moritzen) celebrates his sixtieth birthday with a large gathering of family and friends at an isolated palatial hotel.  During Helge's birthday dinner, his eldest son Christian (Thomsen) makes a speech during which he reveals horrific family secrets.

This film is notable as being the first film made under the auspices of the "Dogme 95" movement which was started in 1995 by Thomas Vinterberg and fellow Danish director Lars von Trier.  Dogme 95 was intended to create films in a stripped down back to basics way abandoning special effects and technical gimmicks, in an attempt to concentrate on the story and the performances.  Festen (which translates to The Celebration) was shot on location with a handheld digital video camera which today makes it look like a found-footage film.  The film mixes tragedy and dark comedy in a way that becomes almost surreal, as the guests are trapped in the hotel when the staff steal their car keys, so they don't miss any of Christian's accusations, and during the long night they get progressively drunker, and laugh and dance between bouts of devastating emotional confrontations.  While the film does drag occasionally, and the style is sometimes distracting, it is a gripping and powerful film, with some great performances.  However I would say that it comes with a big trigger warning.

     Henning Moritzen in Festen

The Touch

Year of Release:  1971

Director:  Ingmar Bergman

Screenplay:  Ingmar Bergman

Starring:  Elliot Gould, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow, Sheila Reid

Running Time:  112 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Karin Vergerus (Andersson) lives in a small coastal town in Sweden with her surgeon husband Andreas (Sydow) and two children.  Karin's pleasant, ordered life is turned upside down when she starts an affair with visiting American archeologist David (Gould).

This marks two first for prolific Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.  It was the first film he made for an American studio with an established Hollywood star, and his first film with English dialogue.  Bergman's preferred version of the film has Swedish and English dialogue, but the American studio insisted that he prepare a version entirely in English.  The films tends to be dismissed and overlooked.  Bergman himself regarded it as a "failure".  However I found it a powerful and beautiful film.  The story is told entirely from Karin's perspective, and there are several mysteries which are never explained.  Karin's life with Andreas is solid and nice.  Andreas is a nice, steady, polite, gentle, dependable, handsome man, and they live in a. large, airy, bright house with a lot of sunlight and Karin goes through her steady daily routine with mechanical aplomb, in some playful, early scenes we see her go about her day accompanied by bland, repetitive, irritating pop music.  David is a glamorous foreigner, promising passion and excitement.  He is however volatile, childish, sullen, angry, selfish and sometimes violent.  His large apartment is dark and bare, with a constant noise of construction outside the window.  Karin is trapped between two worlds, unwilling to commit to either.  At one point she mentions fantasising about a world in which she can move seamlessly between her two lives without hurting anyone.  Her turning point comes when she is forced to make a decision one way or another.  Karin and Andreas seem to believe in keeping up appearances and letting sleeping dogs lie.  They are essentially passive.  David however believes in living for the moment, and to hell with the consequences.  He believes in freedom, however the freedom can be a double edged sword.  throughout the film he is renovating. medieval church and excavates a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, which has been immaculately preserved, however when David  uncovers it and puts it on display insects that were hibernating within the statue are revived and start eating it from the inside out.  Another interesting point with David that is only apparent in the bilingual version of the film is that although he has spent six months a year for two years living in Sweden, he never speaks any Swedish only English, and Karin and Andreas only talk to him in English.  It's never discussed whether he knows any Swedish or not.   Max von Sydow gives a typically dignified, restrained performance, conveying a lot while showing very little, Elliot Gould is effective as David although he seems a little uncomfortable with his visit to Bergmanland, but the film belongs to Bibi Andersson who is in almost every scene in the film, and she gives a powerful performance.  The film, which takes place in bleak autumn and winter, is beautifully shot by regular Bergman Cinematographer Sven Nykvist.

This may not be pone of Bergman's best outings, but it is powerful and deserves to be better known.    

Elliot Gould and Bibi Andersson in The Touch
         

Clash of the Titans

Year of Release:  1981

Director: Desmond Davis

Screenplay:  Beverley Cross

Starring:  Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier, Judi Bowker, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, Ursula Andress

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Fantasy

In Ancient Greece, Perseus (Hamlin), son of Zeus (Olivier), King of the Gods, must battle against. multitude of mythological monsters in his quest to rescue the Princess Andromeda (Bowker) from the dreaded Kraken.

This film is loosely based on the Greek myth of Perseus, and showcases special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen's stop motion creatures, which include, among others,  a two headed hellhound, the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa, giant scorpions, cursed monster Calibos, winged horse Pegasus, the giant sea-monster known as the Kraken (borrowed from Norse mythology) and a friendly mechanical owl called Bubo.  This is a hugely enjoyable fantasy adventure, which is thoroughly old-fashioned.  Pouty Jim Morrison look-alike Harry Hamlin is kind of bland but effective enough in the lead, while Judi Bowker isn't really given much to do as Andromeda.  As often happens with fantasy films, a supporting cast of acclaimed heavyweight actors gives the procedures some gravitas.  The story moves along at a good pace and is packed with incident, meaning it never gets dull.  Some modern viewers may roll their eyes at how dated the film looks now, particularly the special effects, which in all honesty were seen as dated when the film was released, but there is an innocent, naive charm to the whole thing.  The creature effects are still striking, and each creature is distinctive and has something like a personality.  The film has an appeal that the charmless 2010 remake lacks entirely.  This is fully escapist entertainment.

Release the Kraken:  Clash of the Titans
  

 

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

 Year of Release: 1953

Director:  Eugène Lourié

Screenplay:  Fred Freiberger, Eugène Lourié, Louis Morheim and Robert Smith, based on the short story "The Fog Horn" by Ray Bradbury

Starring:  Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, Kenneth Tobey

Running Time:  80 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction

A nuclear bomb test in the Arctic awakens a prehistoric monster called a Rhedosaur which begins making it's way down the coast of North America.  Professor Thomas Nesbitt (Christian) who witnesses the creature desperately tries to convince a sceptical world of the danger, before the creature can destroy New York City.

When the film was in pre-production, special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen brought the producer's attention to Ray Bradbury's short story "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (now more commonly published as "The Fog Horn") in an issue of The Saturday Evening Post, particularly an illustration of the creature attacking a lighthouse.  The finished film bears very little resemblance to Bradbury's story though.  The film has aged badly, filled with hoary old cliches, flat direction and some questionable performances, but it has a lot of retro charm, and was a smash hit in it's day.  The movie was the first of the "Giant Monster Created by Radiation" movies that were churned out in the fifties, most notably Godzilla (1954) which was strongly influenced by this film, and most of the cliches really started with this one.  The Beast of the title is a fictional dinosaur called a Rhedosaur and is brought to stop-motion life by Ray Harryhausen. While the special effects may not have aged well, but they have a strange life to them, and the film has some impressive images and scenes, such as the creature attacking the lighthouse silhouetted against the evening sky, the creatures rampage through New York (during which it gobbles up a cop), and the climax at the roller coaster is exciting.  The first hour or so of the film, which basically has the scientist trying to convince everyone that the monster is real is quite sedate, and then the pace picks up in the last twenty minutes, building to a very abrupt conclusion.  It's certainly worth watching, even if it's not a great film, it is a good one, and it does have a lot of innocent charm.

The Rhedosaur in New York, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms