Reviews

I first saw this as part of the Covenant House staff based in Los Angeles, California. Seeing this again six years later, it's easy to see why this independent film was a hard sell to the general public though at the time it was released, did garner some positive reviews. This was a dream project of Joey Delio who starred, wrote and even attracted some names to the project. It is possible that there may have been an intention for a sequel or even a series but as this fell off the radar fairly quickly, Delio hasn't really done a lot since.

He is introduced in the beginning as a gay hustler. Only his face is shown, grimacing as he's allowing his client service him in a car. Later, we find he's living with other young in some vacant building and even allows a new couple stay there. Everyone is trying to find one's self as they take drugs, eat out of trash cans and there's even a retarded Hispanic who stutters but somehow remains innocent.

Genevieve Bujold, still quite slim though her face lines show she's well past her seventies-mid eighties heyday, plays a very straight forward no nonsense approach social worker who strives to make sense of all the madness around her. Another name from the past, John Savage has a small part of being in a wheelchair and who eventually gets robbed by the street kids.

The scene that really stands out is when a lit fused white drug addict stabs his Cuban girlfriend with her own knife. Finding out that the girl of the visiting couple is pregnant is quite anti-climatic after that. The man doesn't want to face responsibility so Bujold takes her under his wing. Though I give the movie kudos for bringing really desperate people on the screen, it's main fault for me is that I don't really feel sympathetic to any of them.

And perhaps that's the point. How can one ask society, most who are afraid of their types anyway, to care about a population that has a hard time for themselves?

The soundtrack does have songs performed by Irene Cara and Petula Clark who had a big sixties hit called "Downtown". Six years later and the homeless problems still continue.

John Lennon is probably the most famous peace activist during the Vietnam War. But it took an inside man who actually had been over there who would not only shed light on the history of the United States's involvement with Vietnam but upon whose actions actually led to the resignation of a sitting American president.

Four years in the making, this got Ellsberg's participation as narrator and having the final word after publishing his best seller "Secrets" and subsequent book tour of "Secrets". Just like the book, it focuses on his career of being an outstanding Marine and researcher of nuclear energy that led to him being employed by Robert McNamara in 1961, then the Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy.

However, Ellsberg's story really starts getting interesting when he's assigned to uncover covert operations of the North Vietnamese against American troops stationed in South Vietnam in 1964. What had initiated this was the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which in itself later proved to be an American ship misfiring upon another but at the time blamed on the Vietcong.

Ellsberg said he could only find one, a minor one involving two servicemen that became an excuse for the most damaging one sided bombing of one nation towards another the world has ever seen. In 1965, he went on a fact finding tour in which he dressed in battle fatigues and came back disillusioned as to why the United States was doing there.

He worked in Rand, a military think tank in Santa Monica and because of his position, traveled to Washington, D.C. where he began to make friends and meet his future wife at non violent peace rallies. He realized he had access to documents that would later be called "The Pentagon Papers" that exposes the lies of presidents going back to Truman of the American involvement after France lost its colonies at Indochina.

However, 1968's peace candidate would prove he was nothing of the sort and would be Ellsberg's chief antagonist for most of the documentary, the infamous Richard M. Nixon.

I have seen negative comments about the cheesy animation, admittedly unnecessary because it's well known that Ellsberg's main role was to copy the documents and have been exposed to the New York Times to Nixon's chagrin. Ellsberg comes across quite heroically in this and even he was surprised that he played no small part in giving Nixon enough rope to hang himself that led to his resignation.

Very chilling is hearing Nixon considering dropping atomic bombs on Vietnam as if all to the other bombs including the infamous Christmas bombing of 1972 wasn't enough. Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State, comes across much better, giving words of caution and even heard early on of having a "Peace with Honor" exit strategy with Nixon within the first month Nixon was in office.

Present at the screening at Beverly Hills Music Hall was Ellsberg's wife, Patricia Marx Ellsberg and film maker Judith Ehrlich. Scheduled to appear but he passed away recently, Howard Zinn is among the talking heads of this important documentary. Paralels of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan were not mentioned but still very difficult to ignore.

This was echoed repeatedly during the q and a. Ehrlich did try to repeatedly to get Kissinger as this documentary does show him in a positive light but all attempts were futile. It is a quote from him that gives the title of this movie.

She was more successful in getting John Dean, Nixon's counsel who got fired during the Watergate trials and bestselling author of "Blind Ambition", that gave first hand accounts of Nixon's involvement of ordering the break in Ellberg's psychoanalyst's office.

Patricia gave a more personal side of her husband. He's now seventy-nine and probably has been arrested seventy-nine times as he still attends peace rallies and not pleased with the most current surge in Afghanistan.

If Ellsberg hadn't done what he done in 1971, it's really hard to imagine what the seventies would have looked like in the political arena. There would have been no Watergate. The Vietnam War would have been prolonged and many more innocent people would have died. However, Ellsberg sadly notes that it doesn't look like our government has really learned its lesson. 58,000 American and over 2,000,000 Vietnamese lives were lost during the Vietnam War. No matter how one looks at it, that remains a very disturbing fact in American history.

On November 15, 2009, I saw TELL IT TO THE THE MARINES at the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo with immense anticipation. According to biographer Michael F. Blake, A Thousand Faces, this was one of Lon Chaney's favorite roles. In 1926, this was MGM's second top grosser, after the Garbo-Gilbert FLESH AND THE DEVIL, and the first movie to have had complete participation of the United States Marines. However, this movie is not readily available not the present time and this movie is unique in that Chaney played a non villainous role without a single disguise other than the fact he's playing a U.S. Marine named Sergeant O'Hara.

However, in spite of top billing, O'Hara is actually the secondary role in this. The main character of George "Skeet" Burns (this was made before the success of Burns and Allen) is played by William Haines. This actor was successful in the late twenties and his screen persona was that of a wise cracking leading man. Though he would get the girl, here played by Eleanor Boardman (Nurse Nora), he acted more like the girl's buddy instead of having real romantic interest with the opposite sex. He's probably best remembered as Marion Davies's co-star in King Vidor's SHOW PEOPLE.

Eleanor Boardman was at this time King Vidor's wife and the female lead in her husband's masterpiece THE CROWD. For TELL IT TO THE MARINES, she's quite lovely but not really given much to do. The director was George Roy Hill, one of MGM's top directors at the time and not to be confused with the director with the same name who directed Paul Newman and Robert Redford in their two movies together, among others. According to Blake, very hands on production chief for this was Irving Thalberg.

Enough background for the principal players, the movie itself is very much a product of its time. A good part in the beginning showcases Haines's shenanigans of dodging Chaney to play at the race tracks in Tia Juana. Without saying so, he obviously lost his money and comes back. Chaney knew he would and with Corporal Madden (Eddie Gibbon), he does what he can to make this fresh upstart into a serious fighting marine.

There are some slapstick bits of Haines getting a hat to hide his Marine haircut and sneaking out to date Navy Nurse Boardman where he actually wrecks a car. She manages to get Chaney to take Haines out of the brig by giving him a kiss on the cheek. But he has already decided to let crazy Skeet join the rest of the boys to an expedition to Shanghai, China.

Along the way there, Haines incites Marine-Navy rivalry by unknowingly picking a fight with the Navy Middleweight Boxing Champion. But Chaney knows and even arranges a boxing match to watch Haines get clocked by the champ. As O'Hara, he mischievously smiles, perhaps getting even and he too has romantic interest in Nurse Nora.

In fact, once they get to China, Chaney pines away at Boardman's picture lamenting how ugly he is to his bulldog, giving the dog the odd compliment that he's the only one uglier than he is.

Meanwhile, Haines yups it up with Carmel Myers, a very white looking Native girl. The other sailors and soldiers make whoopee with the Native women. This allows a more convincing Warner Oland (the Scandinavian actor who would later play Charlie Chan) as a Chinese warlord to launch an attack.

Chaney gets alerted and rallies a lot of his troops for a counter attack and rescue of Haines and others. Haines finally mans up and fights along side Chaney. American planes fly in to ultimately save the day.

Haines and Chaney do reunite with Boardman and I'll leave it a mystery how it actually ends. Blake has compared Chaney's performance as a prototype to John Wayne in similar roles. Though there are some similarities including physical appearance, there are major differences as well. The main one I see is the tough sergeant getting mixed up in a romantic triangle with a subordinate. It just doesn't work.

It is fun to see Lon Chaney in a heroic role and able to smile and laugh a lot. For me that's good enough reason to see this.

This movie starts out with a real bang. Student protesters shout out anti war slogans behind barricades. They hold signs and shout in German their angry protest of the American involvement of Vietnam. Armed German policemen watch wearily as they ride up and down the street while on horseback. Suddenly, a group of short hair men dressed in suits approach the protesters from the other side of the barricades. They take out large wooden sticks and use them as lethal clubs. They aim at the protester's heads and blood gushes out of men's as well as women's heads. The police just look on until some of the protesters get the upper hand on some of the thugs. With guns drawn, they definitely take the thugs' side. The sequence dramatically with a student shot in the head dying in his girlfriend's arms. Shortly after that, leftist leader Rudi Dutschke played by Sebastian Blomberg gets shot point blank in the head. He actually gets up while his would be assassin gets hunted down and killed by the police. Tightly directed by Uli Edel. co-written by Uli Edel and Bernd Eichinger, produced by Bernd Eichinger, based on a book by Stefan Aust, this narrative briskly follows the main leaders of the Baader Meinhof Complex. On the whole, they are desperate young adults very much involved with hell raising along with making political statements. Interspersed with news footage, it's easy to see how very controversial they were at the time. However, American media never gave the Red Army Front (RAF) the attention they received in their own country. After all, a German group making anti-Semantic statements could not receive much sympathy and must have been very painful within its own borders. Nevertheless, the offspring of the Nazi generation accuse West Germany as being a puppet to American imperialism that had forced a Jewish state onto Arab lands. They bomb buildings, one whose warning was dismissed and no evacuation issued caused considerable loss of innocent lives. They rob a series of banks to support their cause and leave political slogans along with their ski masks and even make a trip to Egypt. The main leaders are Andreas Baader, played by Moritz Bliebtrau, Gudrun Ensslin played by Johanna Wokalek, and Ulrike Meinhoff played by Martina Gedeck. Images of Baader and Ensslin grace the movie's poster. Baader is very authoritative, quick to anger and quite reckless and more often than not, he gets his way. The very attractive Ensslin is very much the queen bee of the group and quite dangerous in her own right. Meinhoff is the writer of the group. In fact, she leaves her journalist position to join the group. But that decision does have its consequences as her husband leaves her with the children. Original music by Peter Hindethur and Florian Tessloff compliments the tense action very well and there's even the angst anthem the Who's "My Generation" played as members of the gang shoot off their guns while joyriding. The second half takes a different tone when the leaders are captured, masterminded by perhaps the best known German actor Bruno Ganz, who plays Horst Herald. The lawman is not entirely unsympathetic to the RAF but knows they are too dangerous to be at large. Recreations of the court scenes do provide some much needed levity to the drama. The courtroom is crowded and the onlookers applaud the disrespect the accused give to the judges. Meanwhile, a second generation of RAF emerges and more mischief happens as the proceedings go on, The conclusion is not a happy one but after all it is history being dramatized. I did find "The Baader Meinhoff Complex" quite entertaining, the main characters quite fleshed out and though it is 160 minutes, it flows quite quickly. I do recommend it.

I definitely have mixed feelings after seeing Buchowetski's SAPPHO that starred Pola Negri, made in 1921. I'll state the positive things first. First, UCLA made an excellent restoration of this film. It was color tinted and brief segments of color (really blue and red, good variations of both, any variation of yellow came out white). The piano player Stephen put on an imaginative score, last night, July 15, 2009.

The sets are very stylized and Buchowetski made some fascinating crowd sequences particularly when Alfred Abel's mad ravings as Georg de la Croix. There's even a problem with this as there are very brief and thereby rendering them pointless.

But then there are major problems with the acting and the story. The Silent Movie Theatre advertised this as the movie that singlehandedly brought forward the Hays Code. In fact, this is no more than a soapy melodrama in which the motives and actions of the male characters don't make much sense.

Pola Negri is actually more famous with her off screen associations with Chaplin and Valentino, actually making public displays at the latter's death though it's questionable if they had ever met. I did not see her at that photogenic, at least not in this movie. Her films are not readily available. She had crooked lips, wore eye mascara that made her look like a raccoon and a bit of a mannish figure.

She does do a grand entrance to take the men's attention always from a flapper dancing on a table. One, Johannes Riemann as Richard de la Croix, watches disdainfully, professing woman are evil as he drinks his wine. Albert Steinruck stands by amused as Negri wins over Riemann. He's older, overweight and has the most god awful teeth.

Steinruck later reveals to Rieman that she drove Abel crazy though Steinruck played a very active part in that. Abel swoons twice as much as Negri does so any suspense of belief is thrown out. Strange racing car scene has Abel driving but safely parks the car so that he can swoon again.

The best part does come at the end though the bad acting doesn't stop. Made five years before Chaney's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. it may have been an influence. The two tone color sequences are at the opera house's entrance that is very well attended. Negri is not one of the performers but wears a blond wig with another boyfriend. Also a non performer, Rieman gets Negri into a private room.

Abel, now stark raving mad, escapes the insane asylum, somehow knows that Negri is at the opera house and arrives to kill her. He does and the crowd kills him. Her body is carried downstairs from the opera house. This abrupt ending stuns the audience last night but kudos to the piano player.

Hopefully, there's better Negri films out there.

One classic studio director is Victor Fleming. If 1939 was Hollywood's greatest year, he directed most of the scenes for the two most famous motion pictures of that year: THE WIZARD OF OZ and GONE WITH THE WIND.

He was considered a man's director. It is ironic that the two previously mentioned essentially starred a female protagonist. Nevertheless, back in 1934, he was the one chosen to direct a film version of Robert Stevenson's 1883 novel, TREASURE ISLAND. It is available on DVD currently through Warner Brothers who owns the classic MGM film library.

The story has been remade several times since and there's even a popular Las Vegas hotel with the name of Treaure Island. Elements of the story can be found the most recent Disney trilogy PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN.

In this version, Wallace Beery stars as Long John Silver, then literature's most famous pirate. His co-star is Jackie Cooper as Jim Hawkins, the protagonist in Stevenson's novel. These two were teamed previously three years earlier in THE CHAMP. Berry shared the Best Actor Academy Award that year with Frederic March, who starred in another Stevenson story DR. JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, for his performance in CHAMP. It's generally conceded he would not have won without Cooper's strong performance. There two together again practically guaranteed a hit, which it was.

The movie' beginning actually doesn't have Berry at all. It is actually dominated by the great character actor Lionel Barrymore. As Billy Bones, he bullies people in the inn to drink rum with him and forcing them to sing. Unfortunately he dies before having any scenes with Silver but not before he reviews a treasure map to Hawkins. It is what launches the story.

Hawkins shares the map with Doctor Livesay (Otto Kruger) and Squire Trelawney (Nigel Bruce as his usual slightly goofy Englishman role). Through family connections, he lands a ship's mate position under Captain Smollett played no nonsense style by another familiar MGM character actor Lewis Stone. Silver connives his way through the boy's grace and gets a position as the ship's cook.

I found neither Beery or Cooper entirely convincing here though both are fun to watch when together. There's actually a Jerkyll/Hyde aspect with Silver's character. It's almost transparent and possibly unintentionally comical how Silver lies through his teeth with Hawkins, explaining misdeeds that after some resistance, Hawkins just takes in. At times, Beery is just too hammy and Cooper just too wooden.

It's revealed rather quickly what was a merciless thief and murdering mastermind Silver actually is. He takes advantage of everything that's afforded to him and it is these scenes that how what a great villain Beery could be.

I must add here and this problem is shared with other American movies made in this time period. Douglass Dumbrile and his crew make very unconvincing Spanish pirates. It's sad evidence showing how segregated Los Angeles was at time.

However, for the movie sake, they're great antagonists for Stone and his crew and allows Silver and his pirates escape the ship for the island. Fleming shows what a great action director he can be in the ultimate showdown where Silver gets outmaneuvered and captured.

Which goes to the ending. Does Hawkins wise up or does he let Silver go? You'll have to watch to find out.

I saw this documentary as the Sundance Film Festival last year. It had generated buzz as a great documentary of a Laotian family in a twenty year time spam.

Film maker Ellen Turas and main subject Thanisouk Phrasabath share directorial credit. They were present at the screening for q and a and I do believe this documentary works on many levels as does the title itself.

There's also several parts of this that are quite separate from each other. The first part is the history of Laos, particularly during the Vietnam crisis in the seventies. There's footage of President Kennedy, who gives the word Laos an interesting pronunciation, who stresses the importance of neutrality of the country. Nixon denies the bombing, which in fact, receives more bombs than the whole of Europe during the Second World War.

Phrasabeth's voice-over shows footage of his dad who was serving in the Royal Laotian Army, the "neutralist" force fighting the communists. The dad becomes a prisoner of war while the rest of family pull together to escape. When the United States pulled out of the conflict, there was abandonment of the Laotians who worked with and for the Americans. That was seen by many as a betrayal.

The next part of this documentary is the family living in America. Brooklyn, New York, to be exact. Here's where Karas begins to be put of the picture as the documentarian to this family. They are in a bad part where there's active gang life and much temptation for the siblings to be part of Asian gangs, the biggest being the Chinese, but they get by. The betrayal here, or more accurately, the betrayed ones, comes that the American Dream doesn't seem obtainable for this family.

The next part is the family learning that the father did get out of Laos, is alive and living with his own, new family in Florida. There is a bittersweet reunion of father and mother. Sweet because the father is well. Bitter because the father makes the decision to go back to Florida. There would have been family betrayal in whatever decision he would have made.

The documentary ends with a funeral. A step brother dies from gang violence. What's not lost here is that there are internal wars inside the United States. The irony is not lost on the film makers as they take us on this twenty-three year old journey. The betrayal is not just the racial conflicts, the territory conflicts or even the family conflicts. There are internal conflicts on how one has to deal with his own identity in terms with the rest of society.

Back in 1992, Coppola was having troubles with Zoetrope Studios and this picture put him into the black, no small part thanks to the then property name of Wyoma Rider.

There are great performances and even very atmospheric direction of Mr. Coppola. Gary Oldman made a great Dracula and Ryder played the heroine well. Just after his success in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, Anthony Hopkins actually plays the hero Van Helzing in a very astute acting style.

There are homages that actually quite recognizable in other, better known films. The vomiting of the blood in the THE EXORCIST, the immediate slayings similar to THE OMEN and even a nod to the 1930's Dracula.

All in all, a good work by Coppola and gang. It's a little distant and Keanu Reeves isn't given a lot to do but that's not unusual. Fourth billed, still not yet the major star he would become.

I have read the book and Bram Stoker has a very melodramatic style as was it was with the Victorians. This movie generally does follow the book's part though I believe some liberties were taken in the end to give Ryder a really good scene as well as being cinematic.

I'll start off by recalling my favorite moment on the screen. Cate Blanchett dances to a moon lit gazebo as the young dancer while the somewhat elderly Brad Pitt looks on. She's talking a mile a minute as the blossom just ready to be picked up. But Pitt decides not to pick, the time is not right. Very bittersweet.

There's lot of bittersweet moments in this movie and it does run too long. For too long, we see Pitt as the aged kid. Best moment here for me is getting his first drink and first lay on the same night.

The set of circumstances that accumulate to Cat getting hit by a car and he sees her in the hospital. The two of them about the same age making love in a sail boat and pausing to watch the Beatles on TV while setting up house.

For me, the Benjamin Button character could have waited a few years and foregone the backpacking in India which made me feel less sympathetic to him. By the way, Pitt as an actor is called upon to be passive throughout. With less screen time, Cate is able to to display a wider display of emotions.

Eric Roth came up with a very haunting screenplay. I just wish Fincher cut some of it to make a stronger movie. It's still quite good and a great date movie.

There's not a lot of special efforts here so a lot rests of Mickey Rouke's shoulders. Is he a bit pathetic? Yes. Is he a mess of a human being? Yes. But that's exactly what's part of the charm who goes out with the risk of having another heart attack.

After all, it's his own fault that his daughter can't stand him. It's his own fault he lands just about the most pathetic job at a supermarket he could find.

The one bright light he has is Marissa Tomei's character who's worried about crossing the line about making friends with customers. She works as a stripper in a low class strip joint. She does change her mind but is she too late?

This movie is not for the squeamish. We see Rouke to staple guns, self inflicted razor cuts, unexpected shots to the head as well as snorting coke, unprotected sex in the bathroom and going through a heart attack.

But for me, this doesn't completely ring true. There are moments of levity in this that's much needed. Problem I see here is where does Rouke go from here?

Before I did, I must admit the only Danny Boyle film I have seen before this is TRAINSPOTTING, desperate youths whose getting high is the thing. It's practically a slapstick comedy compared to what the slumdog kids aka the three musketeers go through. It doesn't matter that the happy ending is improbable. Dramatically it works.

The basic storytelling structure is a series of flashbacks. Jamal (Dev Patel) is about to be given the 20,000,000 Rupee question on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." The host Kumar (Anil Kappor) strongly suspects Jamal, this slumdog, India English slang for gutter trash, is cheating. He turns him over to the cops who torture him. In fact, it's this torture that launches this narrative.

However, when no confession comes out, the Police Inspectoer (Irfan Khan) listens to Jamal's story. It turns out that just about all events that has happened to Jamal's life has been key to all the questions being answered on the show. Also in these images is the smiling Latika (Freida Pinto) whose story gets revealed.

In fact, both Jamal's and Latika's characters get played by younger actors along with Jamal's older brother Salim (adult played by Madhal Pattal) who saves Jamal from blindness but who also takes Latika away from him. That these kids survived into adulthood is a miracle onto itself.

However, there is humor interspersed. Would you fall into a pile of human excrement just to get an autograph? But mostly, it's the underbelly of child predators, street gangs and even prostitution of barely legal virgins that gets exposed here.

I already gave too much away but will close what clinched my like of this movie for me. One of my favorite books growing up was "The Three Muskateers" by Alexandre Dumas. I'm glad the last question pertained to that.

Last night, October 29, 2008, I was one of the lucky ones who got in to see this movie that quickly followed with a q and a with Scott Foundas with the director/producer/composer Clint Eastwood, who gave quite an astute answers and even joked with the audience before making his undisturbed exit.

The movie itself plays with colors that has been seen before in Eastwood's pictures. The names of the crew are quite familiar to those who've seen other Eastwood' movies. The first shot is actually in black and white and very much in the period in terms of building and cars when the first caption reads out: 1928.

Slowly but surely, from an aerial shot to ground level, the black and white changes into color. We are introduced to Christine Collins who brilliantly played by Angelina Jolie. Collins is a single mom who's also a telephone operator supervisor required to use roller skates to fix little emergencies and handle supplies. Her first scene firmly establishes her as a loving mother.

After returning from work to take her son to the latest Chaplin movie, she finds her son is nowhere to be found. Captain J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) reassures her that the LAPD will find her son. A child is brought forth from Illinois and the press are present to record the mother child reunion. However, the first words out of Collin's mouth is "He is not my son." Pictures are taken anyway.

Later, she comes back to complain to Jones that the child is not hers, he actually gets angry as far that he's concerned, the LAPD did its job. Just prior to this, she meets with Rev. Gustave Brieleb, (John Malkovich) who has his own radio broadcast program denouncing the very corrupt LAPD, whose tie-ins with organized crime he knows about.

Jones actually has her committed. She's listed as a Code 12, one who has had trouble with the police and where electric shock therapy is used. Meanwhile, Detective Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) follows a tip and captures an illegal alien from Canada. This boy tells a shocking story of boys being hacked up to bits that he was forced to help and among the boy s identified is Michael Collins as among the dead.

Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Hamer) gets thrown in jail for committing those hideous acts. In one powerful screen, he calls Christine to give her closure which he never does. There's cross cutting between the police cover-up trail and Northcott's trial and both get the right verdicts with thunderous applause, one dramatic taken out of Capra, who has been criticized for same and the movie ends with Collins winning a bet that "It Happened One Night" would win at the Academy Awards.

When Eastwood came out, he was chewing on some popcorn. This took place two years before he was born. He recalled his years growing up in the Pacific Palisades and remembers the Red Car, electric rail trolleys that were replaced by diesel buses, not so bright idea in retrospect.

The script by J. Michael Straczynski was presented to him by Paul Glazer's company and he liked it very much. He offered the lead role to Jolie as both have expressed interest in working together. Clippings of transcripts were taped on the other side of the script pages really sold him.

He praised Anthony Mann, Howard Hawks and John Ford when pressed what was his favorite Western. He rarely uses playback because those old pros didn't and even gave a passable impersonation of John Wayne while acknowledging other great actors who played cowboy parts.

He even talked about making the Piano Blues doc for Scorsese when prompted. All in all, he was quite respectful in his responses to his audience who accorded him the respect when he left. A true living legend.

Living at Los Angeles, I missed an opportunity of see Danny Glover, probably most famous as being the co-star of the Lethal Weapon series and one of the leads of Steven Spielberg's THE COLOR PURPLE, I stayed to see what I thought to be a most intriguing documentary of eye witness accounts of Hurricane Katrina.

The day of this writing, August 29, 2008, another hurricane called Gustav threatens New Orleans again. This documentary won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance earlier this year. Interspersed with news programs, cars leaving the city and President Bush promising not to worry, help is on the way for all those in need, this shows a family being stranded right before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. For this family, there was not only not any help being on the way, photographic evidence that the government imposed obstacles to survivors who were too poor to evacuate.

However, the general tone of this movie is that of a personal will of survival. That tone is set by Katherine Roberts, then aspiring rap artist, who shot the footage of being trapped, the danger being very well. Images shot just prior to the storm include an alcoholic uncle who will perish. The streets become rivers and the house just below them submerged. It shows a strong neighbor Frank swimming in the water helping the women and children. It should be noted that most of the documentary subjects are African American.

Two weeks later, Katherine and her husband run into documentarians Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. With their help, the Roberts visually retell how they found a boat, loaded up grandma and the kids and were able to escape the very much underwater neighborhood. They recount how hundreds, actually thousands, were turned away from a near empty naval base. Turned away with the use of M-16 rifles.

It must be noted Lessin and Deal initially planned to shoot a documentary of the Louisiana Brigade going to Iraq. After the hurricane happened, instead of helping in their own state, the brigade were shipped off to Iraq.

The journey continues with the Roberts. They're able to get a truck and go up for refuge in South Memphis. They are amazed how a black community can be kept up and actually be in good neighborhoods partly due to the tourist trade Memphis gets. Speaking of the tourist trade, the French Quarter and Downtown where most of the tourists go are fixed right away. Almost comically to see a tourist commercial with the eighty per cent that still laid in ruins.

The Roberts have trouble getting FEMA relief. By the way, a great version of John Lee Hooker's "Money" is played to a series of unsmiling faces.

Katherine shows her chops as well. One of her hip hop songs is called "Amazing". The refrain roughly goes like this: "I don't need anyone else to tell me I'm amazing." Able to smile while endearing personal and financial loss was quite inspiring to see.

Maybe I'm a black man trapped by a white man's body. Actually, I believe what affects one group affects us all. And I didn't need Danny Glover to enjoy this film. I do admit that it would have been more fun.

Once upon a time, in fact, 1924, Marcus Loew teamed up with Louis B. Mayer to by the Goldwyn studios in Culver City. The entity became MGM. In 1925, a blockbuster would help MGM to the forefront where it would stay for many years. That blockbuster was THE BIG PARADE, brilliantly directed by King Vidor and elegantly played by John Gilbert and Renee Adoree. It was so successful that it still was in the theatres in 1931, when it almost disappeared. But that's another story and only included here to set the stage for this silent movie opera.

Reportedly wooed by Irving Thalberg whose letters addressed her as Mimi, the tragic heroine of La Boheme, Lillian Gish was a big box office draw in the early twenties. In fact, she was already quite the veteran, had script approval, choice of director of leading man and director. She was a star and was associated which most of D.W.Griffith's biggest hits. In fact, she had top billing in that very controversial film THE BIRTH OF A NATION and though shown only rocking the cradle in INTOLERANCE, was present for most of the shooting of that masterpiece. After ORPHANS OF THE STORM, her last movie with Griffith, she was very much sought and can be said, one of MGM's first stars.

For her first MGM movie, she was responsible for bringing Victor Seastrom, an outstanding director from Sweden, and Lars Hanson, also from Sweden as her leading man for THE SCARLET LETTER. Willing to remain silent about the identity of the father of her child, Gish was pretty much peerless as the tragic heroine of the silent era.

With Gish in the picture, a picture that Thalberg effectively cast Lillian first, Adoree had to settle for third billing and very much a supporting role when she reunited with Vidor and Gilbert for LA BOHEME. In fact, most of this movie seems intent of making Gilbert a major star with many scenes the iconic tragic Gish. What they may have lacked in physical chemistry, they make up with classic silent movie acting that neither could get away it just a few years later.

The movie starts out with Gilbert a frustrated writer with three room mates, one being a young Everett Horton. They can't pay the rent and neither can the waif down the hall, played by Gish. She makes hers by selling her belonging while the four men get their after getting a monkey, that they curiously want to get rid of once they made the rent. Adoree lives downstairs and invites her boyfriend who invites his two friends. Meanwhile, Gilbert is able to see Gish their each other's windows and acting very much like Douglas Fairbanks, defies death to talk to her at her window sill.

The most charming scene happens when Gish and Gilbert go on a picnic and do a dance together. She runs away, he catches up to her and she declares her undying love. Gish rarely showed such playfulness here. However, what lessens this movie are major plot holes. He forgets to write articles to focus on his play and she has a rich suitor who's unsuccessful bedding her. Instead, she stays up nights to make clothes and gives money to Gilbert who thinks he's getting money from the publisher. When he discovers he's actually been fired for over five weeks, he goes to Lillian's place and actually stops the rape that the wastrel suitor almost gave her.

He jumps to the wrong conclusions and as over the top as silent acting gets, especially on her part, they have a violent break up. He becomes a successful playwright while she works in some horrid manufacturing plant and succumbs to tuberculosis, ironically the disease that Adoree would die of just a few years later. Even more ironic, it is Adoree who is with Gish when she dies. As Gish remarked, though she would roll up her eyes and die many times on screen, in fact, she was the last major silent star to die and lived to be ninety-nine years old.

There is evidence of Vidor's talent in this one and if the script is bit nonsensical, it's really the opera's fault. Not given much to do here was Karl Dane, whose comic relief spitting routine helped make THE BIG PARADE a success. The director and leads all made better films but I did find this very watchable and should be better known than it is.

I had just seen Karie Bible perform an excellent Super Panel for Holly Shorts at the Sunset 5 in Hollywood.

I was going to go back and see some more shorts but as I walked back I passed FROZEN RIVER. This got a lot of attention and good word of mouth when I was in Sundance and knew there were native Americans in the cast. Being a fan of diversity, and have rarely seen people smuggling from Canada, Quebec to be more specific, to New York, United States, it got my curiosity. Writer-director Courtney Hunt gave not quite an anti-Christmas movie but it's not the kind of Christmas movie that makes one feel warm and fuzzy inside. In fact, the weather outside is downright hostile. Driving is extra dangerous and even the river that crosses into Mohawk country is frozen enough to drive on. Melissa Leo portrays a middle aged store clerk whose saddled with two sons. The husband, never seen, has left them for gambling debts. She's forced to work part time for an unsympathetic boss who's half her age. She is desperate as she's facing foreclosure and needs money fast.

While looking for her no good husband. an overweight Mohawk woman played by Misty Upham steals Leo's car, actually the extra one the husband had left with the keys inside. Leo tracks Upham and threatens to shoot her if she doesn't return the keys. However, the car is stuck and once Leo finds out how Upham makes money by human smuggling she's in. Now the main thrust of the adventure is for these unlikely women to team up with Leo as the driver and Upham doing the setups. It is revealed early on that Upham is badly nearsighted and has a son of her own that she can't get to. Mark Boone Jr. plays Leo's older son and gets involved in some money making schemes on his own. Some of those schemes almost backfires on him but he does get the toy for his younger brother.

I won't give much more of this away because I do recommend it. There is suspense, poignancy, the implied hostility that natives and whites have for each other without being preachy, and strong characterizations that occur when the script is well written. And actually, one does feel good at the end.

Joseph Manciewicz didn't really write or direct a strict film noir. There's a lot that reminds me that this came from the same man who gave ALL ABOUT EVE. That fact that Susan Hawyorth gets a lot of screen time without playing the femme fatale but more the love interest.

Third billed Richard Conte is the real protagonist and the movie opens with him coming back to the family after spending seven years in jail.

Edward G. Robinson is one of my favorite actors. Here, he plays an Italian banker that has Conte as his favorite son and treating the the other three sons like dogs.

However, when the three take over, it is through Conte. However, the major flaw I have with this film is how Conte takes the fall for the father's shady dealings.

However, it's good dialog and good acting. Hayworth does do very nicely and the framing of all the shots were all outstanding.

Joseph M was one of the top directors and generally enjoyed most of what he did.

I agree with another reviewer that the two male leads have more interesting characters than Joan Crawford. It seem odd today in 2008 that Dana Andrews was billed over Henry Fonda and it would have been interesting if the two had switched roles for this.

As for Crawford, in it has been mentioned that she was playing younger than she really was. However, she kept herself in better shape than most of her contemporaries and I do include rival Bette Davis. She still had those straight shoulders and that stride in her walk that spoke of the attractiveness that Joan Crawford had. She knows she's playing the other woman and even knows the cheating husband has two children.

Dana Andrews really had the best role as that husband whose actions cause his wife Ruth to beat one of their daughters, sorrowfully played by Peggy Ann Gardner. He loses a case representing a Japanese who lost his home. Today that would have been a slam dunk but then, no. Preminger doesn't even the Japanese in question but he is to be commended that bigotry and child abuse was even in there.

Henry Fonda could have played that role but instead played actually a creepy veteran and professes love to Crawford on their first date, then with no explanation stays away. He must have sensed she still has a thing for Dana but even steps aside when the three meet.

Hard to believe now, but his and John Ford's MY DARLING CLEMENTINE was not a commercial success when it first came up. Though he does end up with Joan at the end here, his role was somewhat confusing. Thank God, though, that Preminger gave him a nightmare instead of Joan to work out.

He and Preminger would work again in actually better films, ADVISE AND CONSENT and IN HARM'S WAY, the later in support but his character in that movie fares a better than Dana Andrews did.

And Fonda would return to Fox, but other different rules. The main reason to like this film is that for the only Joan Crawford-Otto Preminger collaboration, this really is not bad.

Elia Kazan directed this 1957 movie that was written by Bud Schulberg, who also wrote "What Makes Sammy Run?" and "The Harder They Fall", among others. Stories that dealt with dealing with the public and the fronts one puts up.

I saw this from a high recommendation. I couldn't help but think of the year 1957 and there was a singer who just about everyone remembers and that's Elvis Presley. Griffith does not match his charisma in my opinion and whose own self destruction more complete than Andy Griffith's Lonesome Roads ever was.

Still, Patricia Neal's A FACE IN THE CROWD's on the spot reporter gave a good set for Griffith, who's been sleeping off a drunk in a Memphis jail. He sings a Schulberg original "Free Man At Last" and becomes a big hit with the locals.

His singing is mainly shouting but it's his folksy humor that wins him over. Neal takes him where Memphis has a big talent show.where he's introduced to cynical writer Walter Matthau and opportunist Francis Graciosa. Griffith knows how to work the crowd with his own interests involved.

He shows the marketing department how to sell sugar pills and even helps a senator win more votes. He beds Neal and promises to marry her. But he's already married and the first wife shows up and actually blackmails Patricia.

He promises to go to Juarez, Mexico to get a divorce after judging a cheerleader contest. He picks one, Lee Remick who's been making eyes on him. He comes back with Remick as the new bride who was spectacularly pretty back then.

Neal gets her revenge when she reopens the mikes after a broadcast, in which Griffith spouts off how stupid he really thinks his public is.

Last scene has Neal going to Griffith who's being abandoned by everybody but Matthau rescues her and takes her away. Ironically, Walter predicts Andy will be on some TV show as a has been. They leave with Griffith shouting "Don't Leave Me".

Though somewhat dated, this is one of Kazan's best films. That good old country boy appeal helped get Bill Clinton and George W. Bush elected and is definitely worth seeing.

Saw this with my siblings, in laws, and nieces and nephew last night. If you don't take this seriously, it's a romp. Could have been better. Must have missed the part how the Control office got so completely ransacked and who did it but that scene was definitely odd.

Carell is the master of deadpan and Hathaway got to do some great stuff while looking great. The Rock as the double agent plays his role with a straight face. Arkin gets a lot of screen time which is good. Getting an Oscar for being a funny Gramps in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE has given him a bit of a comeback.

A lot of borrowings from other movies are in this. Besides some of the famous quotes of the TV show itself, which were used sparingly. there was a villain very much resembling "Jaws" of the Roger Moore as James Bond movies. Hathaway recalls Laura Croft and the stapling joke, to me not that funny, was done twice was also done by Arnold when he was the top action star.

Terrance Stamp plays bad quite good though his demise was a bit of a let down. Some jokes did work very well. The dancing competition where Carrell dances with a fat partner was quite some. There's a bathroom scene where Agent 86 stops what he's doing to hear what the Russians are saying and when they stop, he does what he has to do again. That was original and funny.

Good use of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. All in all, way too derivative to be a classic but a lot of fun.

I viewed this recently. I thought I had never seen this before but some scenes I did remember that I must have seen as a boy. I recalled I was hearing Peck speaking French as an English naval officer but there were no subtitles.

Raoul Walsh presented Peck as the stern but wise commander actually not too far different than the character Greg played in the then recent TWELE O'CLOCK HIGH. This was also a beautifully mounted color film that was not the normal case for this time period. Great scenery and action sequences.

However, there is a lack of depth in the characters. The tribal king who revolts against Spain is an one note character. Peck is cordial but barely hides his contempt for such a man. When he frees Virginia Mayo who was held captive with Spanish officers, he gives a loud clearing of his throat that becomes a running gag throughout.

He has two officers who wager on his exact words which make a bit one note as well. The joke just isn't that funny enough.

I'm really not spoiling anything by letting people know that he will be victorious and win Mayo's heart in the end in spite of the fact both are married to others when they first meet.

Peck also has an unusual sword fight that also retained in my memory as a boy. He wins only by sheer luck and hopes he will never use his sword for such purpose again.

Perhaps it is as a boy one should watch this. However, the implied superiority of the white man and more specific the English man I did find a bit insidious.

But generally, more pluses than minuses in this one.

Last night, May 17, 2008, at the Starlight Studio hosted by Mark Viera, someone had brought in a 16mn print of a 1938 film that actually starred Rita Hayworth a few years before she became a star. This hour long movie was very low budget, curiously filmed in Canada, but shot mainly indoors on sound stages.

The movie starts out with Hayworth billed as Jerry dancing up a storm in some nondescript night club. Though not a great actress, her acting ability actually beats just about anyone else in this. The only other familiar face for me was Marc Lawrence, who plays the nightclub owner and the villain of the piece. Her lovesick brother, Edgar Edwards, sees a blatant gold digger, Phyllis Clare, who shows she doesn't need him. She proudly shows a $10,0000 bracelet. Her maid comes to find the brother standing over the gold digger's body. The hero detective is played by Charles Quigley. a total non-actor.

The rest of the plot is quite nonsensical. Hayworth gets saved by William Irving, who played an obnoxious drunk who later transforms into a obnoxious policeman. However, if you are a Rita Hayworth fan, it's fun seeing her as bright eyed and bushy tailed as the ingénue. We are treated with her giving another amazing dance just prior to fade out.