Reviews

As with THE SILENCE--and, really, most of Ingmar Bergman's best work--this is a film of quiet grace, a subtle film that takes patience but is ultimately deeply rewarding by the end. It's a love triangle of sorts between two friends, a bachelor Maxime and his quiet friend Stephane who are business partners running a violin repair shop. Maxime begins a relationship with the beautiful violinist Camille, who soon becomes attracted to Stefane, who does not overtly return her advances. Stefane is really a voyeur who belongs in the same group as Harry Caul, L.B. Jeffries and Damiel the angel, all people who are flawed or broken in some way on the inside and feel compelled to look at others only from a distance, refusing to become involved. They seem to understand from behaviorism the depths of other people but can barely conceal their own loneliness or broken relationships--Stefane correctly states that he can never give Camille, or any "normal" woman, what she deserves. He deliberately pushes her away when he feels pressured into intimacy. He loves music and handles his violins (which can be argued are shaped like an ideal female body, revealing Stephane's asexuality) the way Maxime and other "normal" men handle women. Director Claude Sautet has a gift with letting human drama unfold, and he carefully studies the behavior of his characters, who come alive without force or question, so much that the audience feels like a you're listening on close friends fighting. Then a real-life couple, Emmanuel Beart and Daniel Auteuil are stunning (such a great, unique romance for a real-life couple--you couldn't ever imagine Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ever tackling this together), hitting all the right notes (pun intended) with the precision and understanding of great actors, and even better human beings. Auteuil in particular is spectacular because of Stephane's deep introvert nature, and Auteuil has to allude to so many conflicting emotions that are barely visible beneath the surface, and he does so much just with his eyes, which flutter with happiness and fall with regret with perfect grace.

When the 1999 Best Picture winner American BEAUTY came out, its marketing campaign stressed for the audience to "look closer" at the typical American family; while I still enjoy Sam Mendes' debut film, I wish people had taken the film's famous tagline more to heart and sought out this obscure gem of a film, because it's both a time capsule of its time and it's one of the most ageless films of all time. James Mason delivers possibly his greatest performance under Nicholas Ray's trusted, fatherly direction (the master auteur also worked wonders exposing the surprising depth of Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in IN A LONELY PLACE (1950), Cyd Charisse and Robert Taylor in PARTY GIRL (1958), Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell in THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1948) and of course the trio in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE) as a man going insane from 1950s repression. It's one of the greatest American films ever made that few Americans have actually seen (as of this writing it's not on Region-1 DVD), though Jean-Luc Godard, who named it one of the greatest American films of the 1950s and briefly referenced it in his film CONTEMPT (1963), and Martin Scorsese, who has written of its power and included clips in his great documentary A PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH American MOVIES WITH MARTIN SCORSESE (1995), are big fans of this film.

Nicholas Ray's CinemaScope masterpiece was criticized and neglected upon its initial release after his smash hit REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955). What did they expect from a filmmaker whose titles of films, especially his previous one, defined his existence? BIGGER THAN LIFE is his subtle, scathing attack on the suffocating 1950s conformity and the empty promise of the American Dream--to the hip indie crowd, this is the 50s answer to HALF NELSON (2005). Like his Humbert Humbert of LOLITA (1962), Mason plays a British intellect who falls from grace in America. On the surface this film is an attack on Cortisone (and to the publicity department at 20th Century Fox, this film refused to place blame on the doctors, instead making the whole film look like Mason's fault with such captions of a doctor saying "I prescribed it--HE misused it!"), but what came first, the drug or the social claustrophobia? The Cortisone didn't create Ed Avery's psychosis, it only highlighted it, and it certainly won't cure it (Ray once wryly said that the film "is about a miracle drug. I don't believe in miracles"). Even as he eschews religion ("GOD WAS WRONG!") and the school system ("We're breeding a race of moral midgets!") during his bouts of heightened egomania, some balancing on horrifyingly awful and terrifyingly true, he's never free from his repression, which makes the film's seemingly Hallmark Happy Ending all the more disturbing.

It's a masterpiece of repression, innocence lost, and, more simply, amazing film-making. I cannot stress how badly this film begs to be seen and rediscovered by a newer audience, not unlike how Hitchcock's VERTIGO received the respect it deserved after its initial lukewarm reception. God was wrong. Nicholas Ray was right.

In the background in one shot of Sydney Pollack's great film, one can see the poster for MGM's all-star GRAND HOTEL. This places the film around 1932, when Busby Berkeley was beginning to put on his kaleidoscopic, dreamy dance numbers and Marlene Dietrich was gliding on the other side of the gauze-filtered camera. These are the films that were popular distractions, one which Jean Harlow lookalike Alice Leblanc (Susannah York) probably flocked to see. THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? (TSHDT) is closer in tone with the gritty noir films starring Paul Muni, I WAS A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG and SCARFACE, deeply black portraits of a world gone crazy--films which the strong-willed but brittle Gloria Beatty (Jane Fonda in one of her greatest performances) surely would've tipped her hat off to. TSHDT is closer to the latter, though the contestants are deceived by images of the former, with females hoping to be noticed by talent scouts or directors in the audience. This false sense of hope is what causes them to be put through an inhumane dance marathon (which includes dancing for 10+hour stretches and three-legged races) that really makes the contestants closer to cattle than humans, bet on for sport and by the end hoping for a way out. The marathon will eventually break the spirits or minds or bodies of almost everyone involved in one shape or form, leading to a finale that may be downbeat, but all the same I feel that there's really no other way this film could've ended.

There are flaws in the late Sydney Pollack's depressing Depression-era masterpiece, the first being the flash-forwards that take us out of the action and try to make it be a murder mystery that really doesn't matter (I feel Pollack was trying too hard to make Robert, Gloria's dance partner, likable), and the second is Michael Sarrazin's bland performance next to the ferocity of Jane Fonda's amazing performance as the brave but breaking spirit Gloria, the quiet explosion of Susannah York and Gig Young as the ringmaster who knows he's manipulating the contestants. But Pollack's film is tonally assured--one can almost feel the exhaustion of the parade of desperate people who become human race horses, agreeing to be part of a non-stop dance contest in the blind hope of getting a $1,500 prize money. And yet even before the downbeat and unresolved ending, we never really care about who wins the contest--not because we aren't fascinated by the characters, but because already we can sense that there will be no happy ending (trust me, this ain't Capra) for these survivors struggling not to lose themselves to their environment. Maybe the bigger reason for doing the contest isn't the money--maybe it's the need to have hope in something.

Did Andrzej Wajda predict the modern horror film? Or was he merely acting on--and manipulating--our fear of the big, scary monster? There are many shots in KANAL where the camera will simply stay on a passageway seconds after the survivors leave the shot. As a modern audience who has lived through horror films, we expect a Nazi or a monster to slip into the frame in the background, but it never does. KANAL truly is a horror film, but what's unbearable to us and the sturdy group of Resistance fighters isn't the Nazis above the sewers or the metaphorical monster, but it is the solitude and emptiness that drives them to insanity, death or a bitter end.

KANAL is Andrzej Wajda's dirty, bloody valentine to the heroes of the 1944 Warsaw Resistance as the film follows the last hours of a band of heroes in their ultimately futile attempt to escape the Nazis through the labyrinth of underground sewers. We are first introduced to them as strong, willful humans trying to survive in a world that's falling to ruins (One could also argue that Andrzej Wajda also created the first post-apocalypse film). They laugh, they love, they play music in the last happy moments of their lives. After they enter the sewers, we expect and want them to come out even more strong-willed than ever--how many people can face dead bodies floating in the water of a dirty sewer with the same calm defiance? But as time goes on and the group gets separated, it becomes more and more inevitable that these heroes are not meant for a Hollywood's movie's happy, redemptive ending.

Andrzej Wajda, like Roman Polanski, was a real survivor of the Nazi invasion of Poland during WWII, and both became filmmakers who brought their experiences to films, as Polanski did with Oscar-winning THE PIANIST. However, Polanski's film, though absolutely profound, doesn't have Wajda's eye for details--the scenes of ruined Warsaw, for example, seem almost CGI'ed and it's obvious that he's trying to go for more, while Wajda will focus solely on the dirty ground, the debris blowing in the wind, or the flames of a burning building in the background. With Wajda, less is much more effective. If there is a situation more dirty, awful, lonely, scary or haunting than these people making their way through the labyrinths, I have yet to see it.

George Cukor has made a film about inconsistent narrators. As Florence "Florrie" (Judy Holliday) and Chester "Chet" (Aldo Ray) are about to get a divorce, both bicker and biasedly argue over details of their time together, their memories of love and bittersweet loss. However, the audience is lucky to have George Cukor as a reliable tour guide into the 7-year marriage of Chet and Florrie, for along with A STAR IS BORN, this is his most emotionally raw and truthful film. Some have complained that Aldo Ray seemed better fit for a war movie, and both actors had very unique speaking voices that typecast them, but I like the fact that Holliday and Ray are both a bit off; Unlike the very similar-plotted PENNY SERENADE, neither really had the aura of a huge superstar like Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, and they feel like real people, which is essential to the roles and neither felt like they were two actors playing dress-up (or down), and their flaws and insecurities are so human and real. Their fights don't feel scripted, but rather the audience is interrupting their neighbor's loud argument. The tragedies are not manipulative or forced unlike PENNY SERENADE but instead infused with honesty and a painful eye for details of the way a married couple acts and reacts like Stanley Donen's TWO FOR THE ROAD. Cukor's two screenwriters, Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon brilliantly use flashbacks and voice-overs to show how memories can be biased and that people can be cruel to try to avoid getting hurt, but that the truth (the flashbacks that we do see) is more bittersweet in its objectivity. Florrie and Chet may argue constantly and bicker to cover up their own vulnerability, but that's what makes them so perfect for each other, and why Florrie believes so much in Chet's ambitions and how Chet knows that Florrie brings out the best in him. The best movie couples are the ones whose respective films acknowledge the frailties of human beings--and also realize the potential to grow and evolve with love and redemption, which is what THE MARRYING KIND does with a refreshing sense of candid accuracy; this is a marriage straight from real life, not the Hollywood version of it.

It's an unwritten rule that in superhero movies, the sequels rarely to never live up to the standards of the original--how many of us were spellbound by THE MATRIX only to be jilted by its disastrous sequels? THE DARK KNIGHT squashes any presumptions that nothing could ever surpass the original, whose wholesome darkness, originality and excitement made it possible for comic book adaptations/blockbusters to become more than the sum of its genre. Christopher Nolan has outdone himself in every way possible.

BATMAN BEGINS was about Bruce Wayne's roots and his journey to becoming Batman. Very interestingly, the emotional arc of THE DARK KNIGHT is not on Batman (though Christian Bale is still solid as both charming Bruce and his darker alter ego), but rather on Harvey Dent's (an excellent Aaron Eckhart) crusade against corruption and how own eventual dark journey that, by either chance or choice, will shape him into a hero or a villain. The love story between Dent and Rachel Dawes, who cannot wait for Bruce anymore, is also what supplies THE DARK KNIGHT with its human heart, and what makes the film's dark turns all the more poignant and suspenseful.

Everything about THE DARK KNIGHT is edgier, from the music (the screeching buildup is at times unbearable) to the violence (the Joker's disappearing pencil trick will shock you). A great deal of this is indebted to Heath Ledger. If Ledger hadn't died tragically young last January, the sold-out midnight/3 am/6 am showings probably wouldn't have been as momentous, but the kudos for his performance still would've been higher than the skies. To say that his performance is majestic isn't enough--it transcends Brando and Cagney and de Niro and Malcolm McDowell's astonishing performance as Alex de Large. A film critic for Entertainment Weekly once wrote about Christian Bale in RESCUE DAWN that "I've never seen the actor look more at home with his own taut charisma." That praise has to be passed on to Ledger, who seems so comfortable with his madness it's truly terrifying; When I was in the crowded theater I thought, "this must've been what it was like back in 1955, when REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE came out, just after James Dean died." Ledger will become a cult figure, there is no doubt. This will be his biggest hit, it is inevitable. But once you surrender yourself to his exquisite madness, you're able to forget the fact that Ledger is gone and that the ghost on-screen is the last of what will remain.

The only quibble I have about THE DARK KNIGHT is the recasting of the Rachel Dawes character. Katie Holmes got a lot of unfair publicity during BATMAN BEGINS because of the media firestorm around her relationship with Tom Cruise. She even got a Razzie nomination. She is not this generation's answer to Bette Davis, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is actually the better actress of the two. But having already set up this character who is very crucial to Bruce's life, it's awkward to have another actress cast in that role. It's like trying to imagine anyone else but Ingrid Bergman falling in love with Humphrey Bogart during the Paris flashbacks of CASABLANCA. However, the role, already small and somewhat insubstantial, is a more diminished in this film than its predecessor, and it's only a minor annoyance to a practically perfect movie.

This is the film we've all been waiting for, and it's the film we deserve. I hope you all take in the unforgettably exciting atmosphere of the crowded theater, and remember the greatness of Heath Ledger that is lost, but with this film, it'll never be forgotten.

Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder were so similar--both had a cynical sense of humor, both directors could master any genre, both occasionally worked with the same actors (including Bogart, Monroe, Stanwyck and Cooper). This is the two masters' only joint collaboration (Wilder wrote, Hawks directed), and though Wilder complained about his script being misinterpreted (as he usually did before breaking out as a director of his own scripts), the result is one of the most delightfully entertaining comedies ever made.

Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) and 7 other professors are working on the definitive encyclopedia that will most definitely give substantial space to the man who invented the electric toaster. Just when they believe they are on the home stretch, Potts realizes he knows little to noting about modern slang and sets out on a research expedition, where he runs into Sugarpuss O'Shea, a captivating burlesque dancer. When Sugarpuss's gangster boyfriend Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews) gets into a jam Sugarpuss must hide out to avoid a subpoena and finds refuge at the professors' house, where worlds collide to hilarious results.

If it's possible, this film is both childish and mature at the same time; it's based on a fairy tale and the professors' acting is animated, yet Wilder's script is wild with double entendres and innuendos. It's a brilliant combination that blends swimmingly. Likewise only Charlie Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS could more perfectly blend slapstick with sentiment. Humor from either Hawks or Wilder isn't the least bit surprising, but the moments of genuine tenderness between Sugarpuss and Potts is unexpected from the two directors who were known for their cynicism. Even more surprising is to find genuine suspense in some moments, such as a perfectly edited sequence in which the professors are taken hostage and must use their knowledge to get out (to go any further would be spoiling the scene). And I'll throw one last shock your way: while most comedies aren't usually raved for their photography, there's pretty amazing cinematography by Gregg Toland, who famously revolutionized deep focus with CITIZEN KANE. Using deep-focus and a noir-like sentimentality with shadows and light, there are moments that are disarmingly sensational.

Gary Cooper had worked with Howard Hawks just earlier with SERGEANT YORK. Cooper won Best Actor and Hawks received his only Oscar nomination in his long and brilliant career, but the film's fared badly over the decades and both should've received their accolades for this film. Cooper has more of a challenge in this film, and like Cary Grant's similar role in Hawks' BRINGING UP BABY, it could've been so easy for him to break character, but Cooper keeps a straight face even when it looks like he's having a blast. He's also very convincing as a socially awkward scholar who's constantly correcting other people's grammar. Before I saw Barbara Stanwyck in this film I found it incredible that the Oscar nomination she received in 1941 *wasn't* for her wickedly sexy turn as a con artist in Preston Sturges's comedic masterpiece THE LADY EVE, but when I saw this I understood. Both roles are similar, about a conniving woman who uses a dim-witted intellect and then falls in love to comedic results. I think she's a bit sharper in Sturges's film but her character is more likable in this film, because it's obvious that she becomes a better person when transformed by love. In fact, BALL OF FIRE is possibly the sweetest paean of falling for a nerd ("He looks like a giraffe-- and I love him!"), and both characters truly evolve with love for each other--Potts is rejuvenated by Sugarpuss's pizazz, and her hardened crust (Stanwyck herself was a born New Yorker with a rough childhood, which only adds to her perfect interpretation of Sugarpuss) is melted by Pott's brain, heart and eventual courage.

In other words, this is Yum-Yum stuff.

I quoted Andy Warhol in my review of Cukor's IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU!, who once said that everyone will be a superstar for 15 minutes. Cukor's earlier Judy Holliday vehicle scratched the surface of the pitfalls of celebrity, and here he is given a much bigger canvas to paint with, and he runs with it. His flawed masterpiece (it was a little too long, then savagely cut 30 minutes by the studio, some characters are overwhelming, and the famous centerpiece "Born in a Trunk" works better as a Judy Garland showcase than for plot reasons) nakedly displays the nightmare of the Dream Machine, which is almost terrifying in its honesty. But the film is as much about the mores of Hollywood as it is a tragic love story about the strengths and weaknesses of a couple living and loving on dangerous ground. Judy Garland and James Mason are phenomenal as Esther Blodgett and Norman Maine, a young up-and-coming singer who comes to the aide of his aging and fading star, and will continue to do so long after she achieves the status he once had. Their love is so selfless and so full of goodness in its potential it's truly painful to see the inevitable downfall that comes.

Hollywood isn't kind to its inhabitants, and Cukor doesn't hold back any punches in his portrayal. Using his widescreen cameras, every detail and every damning characteristic of the town is put in deep focus--the casualness of how Esther's name is changed to the more marquee-friendly Vicki Lester; the lies the publicity managers feed to the newspapers to pretend everything's smooth sailing; the hoards of crowds at times of mourning just to get a glimpse of the star attraction. This film is perhaps even more unsettling if you even know an iota of Judy Garland's life; one almost wonders if Norman Maine was written with Garland's life story for inspiration.

Even though it's really Garland's show, James Mason more than equals her vibrant intensity and naked vulnerability. Norman Maine may be sinking lower into self-pity, but he never loses his charm, his wit, his undying love and pride in his wife Esther. Mason's portrayal of a man who knows all too well that he's falling apart is at times painful to watch because of its truthfulness, which are both matched and contrasted with his romantic scenes with Garland--their love is so powerful because both Esther and Norman are so willing to make sacrifices for each other, and because Garland and Mason bring out the best parts in each other and their slightly self-deprecating but tender humor is so perfectly matched. Even the way Garland touches Mason's face with her hand says more words of honesty and love than any of the film's dialogue.

In the film Esther/Vicki wins an Oscar for Best Actress. It's a prediction that should've come true and Grace Kelly's Oscar win for THE COUNTRY GIRL over Garland remains controversial to this day. Both were playing essentially the same roles, as the long-suffering wives to a struggling, alcoholic entertainer. I never considered Grace Kelly a great actress by any means (she only came alive under Hitchcock's direction), but you have to give her credit for being ahead of her time--she won an Oscar for dolling down, wearing little make-up, sporting glasses and a frumpy wardrobe in 1955--all of which is the perfect recipe for winning an Oscar today. However, her role (and the film) is repetitively downbeat with no hints of life, and she only seemed to walk in Georgie's shoes. Judy Garland may have been falling apart off-screen but she was a stronger actress than Kelly any day because her poignant fragility and energetic smile were combined with such an amazing grace. It helped that she had an amazing voice, but she could've--and would've--made it on talent alone. She will be immortalized with "Over the Rainbow" from 1939's THE WIZARD OF OZ, and she showcases many memorable performances in A STAR IS BORN, from the famous 15-minute mini-epic (if slightly overrated) "Born in a Trunk" to the quietly piercing "It's A New World" to the whimsical "Someone at Last," but I think her finest is earlier in the film, with Norman hiding, listening from the shadows to the towering "The Man that Got Away," shot in a single long take of Judy and her soaring voice that quivers with fragility to the happy possibility of hope. One has a feeling that that was the essence of Judy Garland: smiling through the tears, putting on a smile even when her heart was breaking.

Oscars were never meant to be taken seriously, and since the greatest performances of each year are so often overlooked, it's almost a requirement for film buffs to take each award with a grain of salt. And yet, one wonders if Judy had won the golden guy, maybe she would've emerged triumphant from the film's disappointing box-office receipts and would've found both good work and the strength to continue making forceful performances. On the night of the awards ceremony, people were sure she was going to win that they build this tower outside Garland's hospital room window (she had just given birth to her son) so that she could still give a speech when her name was read. When to everyone's shock Grace Kelly's name was said, the cameramen cleared out before Kelly even reached the stage, without so much as a goodbye. Judy would later shrug it off with her usual self-deprecating humor saying that she left the hospital with something better (her newborn son), but it's clear that it was the end of the rainbow for one of the brightest stars who was in the sky for just a little too long.

The late critic Gene Siskel once had a test to see which movies were deserving of a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and it all boiled down to one simple question: Is this movie more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch? Well, even if Cecil B. DeMille had a made a documentary about either the Barnum and Bailey circus or the same actors having lunch, that wouldn't make this film redeeming enough to merit the Best Picture Oscar it won over "The Quiet Man," "High Noon" and the un-nominated "Singin' in the Rain."

I'll admit that the stunts are inspiring and it actually is pretty fascinating to see all the trouble that goes into putting that huge canvas tent up, but when DeMille tries to go for drama he's pretty clueless, for to call the acting by Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde hammy would be an insult to Christmas dinner; even the reliable Jimmy Stewart is covered in clown make-up for the whole. Entire. Movie. The all-too familiar love triangle only makes the audience feel jerked around, and it's trite ("He tried to save me! He loves me!" Twenty minutes later to suitor #2: "His arm is paralyzed and he didn't want to tell me! He loves me!" Lather, rinse, repeat for three hours). The only performer who's reliable for laughs and relief is the underrated Gloria Grahame, spunky as usual. De Mille thought he was making a circus movie. I think he made a train wreck.

It's almost unfair to lavish praise on CASABLANCA, for such universal praise comes the expectation of the masterwork of an auteur such as Welles or Hitchcock. The result could not be farther from that expectation, and indeed it is difficult to describe just how and why CASABLANCA remains such a beloved film. Here is a film that nobody wanted to make (especially the stars, who only bonded when trying to get out of the film), that was saddled with production problems from day one due to the incomplete script, and somehow has turned into the most brilliant accidental masterpiece in American cinema.

Humphrey Bogart stars as a cross between a Hemingway anti-hero and Jesus in a waiter's outfit. Richard Blaine, American, age 37 with questionably brown eyes and a sketchy past, runs a popular nightclub in Casablanca during the early days of WWII that attracts a rainbow of diverse characters from Italian thieves to bickering Frenchmen, from desperate refugees to German officers. Rick has all the right things to say (courtesy of the brilliant dialogue via the Epstein Twins, Howard Koch and Casey Robinson) but is deeply flawed, a cynical, selfish man with clearly no respect for himself or other people save the French officer Louis Renault and best friend, the piano-playing Sam. Just as the audience is wondering what made Rick such a complex character, the answer comes in the form of the beautiful Ilsa Lund (the ethereal Ingrid Bergman), who of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, walks into Rick's and turns his life upside down. As the woman he once loved and got away for unexplained reasons, it becomes clear that Rick still bears the scars of her leaving him--and that Ilsa still loves him. Now married to Czech resistance fighter Viktor Lazlo (Paul Henried), the couple try in vain to acquire exit visas and, believing that Rick has two letters of transit that would allow anyone to leave Casablanca without question, Ilsa and Viktor try to crack his outer crust, and Rick must choose between his love for Ilsa and his idealistic interior he only thinks he can hide.

When one looks objectively at CASABLANCA, there isn't a lot to rave about, and yet everything comes together so seamlessly. Michael Curtiz's fine knowledge of how the camera told a story was put to excellent use here, from the sweeping shots that pass through imaginary walls to the delicacy of Ingrid Bergman's face. The script, written by at least four different screenwriters while shooting was taking place, should've collapsed under the weight of its own multiple genres and chaotic preparation, but the actors say their lines with a conviction and believability it's difficult to realize that nobody wanted to be there in the first place.

Above all things, it's the characters and performances that make CASABLANCA what it is today. As Roger Ebert pointed out, all the characters are so good, and even the ones that are meant to be ambiguous (such as Renault) or crooks (such as Ugarte), they are so interesting and lively the audience feels compelled to follow them out of Rick's and see where fate takes them. At the center of all this is Rick and Ilsa's tortured love affair. Unlike almost all other love stories, the audience never knows how Rick and Ilsa first met. Unlike almost all other love stories, it doesn't matter; the audience doesn't need a meet-cute scene within the Paris flashback--we see it all in the way Bogart and Bergman look at each other with such love and understanding, and we feel their pain of witnessing their awkward encounter almost two years after Ilsa ran away from Rick. It is a testament to the actors yet again that makes a rather conventional love story so interesting and involving. The role of an anti-hero is one Humphrey Bogart could've sleepwalked through, but under Michael Curtiz's direction there's an understanding just beneath the surface that breaks through. And Ingrid Bergman more or less disowned the film that cemented her in film history (and objectively speaking Ilsa is a very underwritten character), but she was above all things a professional; she did her job and she did it so well she was never able to escape the praise that followed her to her death. Her most celebrated scene is perhaps when Curtiz lets the camera linger on her gorgeous face while Sam plays "it," and memories of love and pain come rushing back. Any other actress would've overplayed it, but Bergman is almost doing what another famous Swedish import had done 9 years earlier, when Greta Garbo made a blank face and let the audience interpret the final close-up of QUEEN Christina, even though the audience *does* know what Ilsa's thinking, and it's all the more poignant for Bergman's performance.

How CASABLANCA has survived for over 60 years is a miracle, and it'll continue to inspire for another 60 years, because it's still the same old story: a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die. All great literature and films are still relevant because of their universal themes; in this case, the world will always welcome a great love story, terrific acting and classic storytelling as time goes by.

It's oddly appropriate to be writing this only a few days after Mothers' Day, celebrating the woman who gave us life and love, along with the permanent insecurities and flaws to go with it. AUTUMN SONATA is one of the most piercingly emotional films ever made, with raw and unflinching honesty. The story of a worldly pianist (Ingrid Bergman in her final film role) who returns home to her two daughters upon the death of her partner, the owlish writer Eva and the handicapped Lena. Though overjoyed by the reunion at first, it's apparent that Eva still carries the scars of Charlotte's choosing her career over her family, and the night will re- open many wounds and create new injuries with each painful revelation. Before long the great divide between love and hate, repulsion and longing, will become deeply blurred. AUTUMN SONATA is to mothers and daughters as WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? is to husbands and wives.

This is what only two years later ORDINARY PEOPLE should've been and to its own credit Robert Redford got close, but Ingmar Bergman was a master at crafting characters with complexities and contradictions. Even though most of the film's time frame is the period of one night with flashbacks, these two characters go on such a journey of self-discovery. The film is framed like a sonata; the slow beginning, the climax 2/3 of the way through, and then a finale of re-examination. When the film begins, Eva is shaped as a mousy and reserved wife and Charlotte is a mildly self-absorbed pianist. As the film progresses on, the daughter experiences a surge of enough confidence brought on by wine to tell off her mother, and the battle for love, truth and power begins. Finally, as both mother and daughter are stripped down of their armor, we only see two humans desperately wanting love but impotent to do act upon it.

Ingmar Bergman's handle over his actors wasn't out of the norm, but it's still exhilarating to experience the performances he gets out of them. As the moral center of the film, Halvar Björk delivers quietly sensitive work as Eva's faithful husband. Lena Nyman is powerful as the handicapped daughter. Liv Ullmann delivers one of her greatest performances as the conflicted daughter Eva, her face registering so many emotions with the faintest of movements. Above all, Ingrid Bergman is amazing in perhaps the most layered character and performance of her career. Everyone loves Ingrid Bergman for her work in CASABLANCA and NOTORIOUS among the many classics she acted in. After decades of work, there's a newfound maturity and haunted worldliness that's so poignant and truthful it hurts. Ingrid Bergman was dying of breast cancer when she made this film, and her bravery for taking on at many times an unlikable character is what cements her as one of the all-time greatest actresses. Every pain, every triumph is piercingly registered on that gorgeously natural face of hers, which always remained so open and uncompromising that it was more than an actor's mask; it was a map of the human heart.

There's a scene towards the end where Charlotte attempts to atone for her daughter's pain, which is intercut with Lena crying for help. Three people, all so open and vulnerable, waiting for retribution or reparation. This is the end of the climax, and as the film begins its finale, Ingmar Bergman never once judges his characters, no matter how confused or insane they are. He recognizes that humans are flawed creatures always searching for love at whatever cost, and simultaneously rejecting it out of fear. AUTUMN SONATA is Bergman's most emotionally satisfying film, and his last great masterwork. It's a sonata hanging in air, with a perfect and delicate balance of loss and hope.

IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU! is perhaps the most ironic film title ever in cinema, since the film examines the downside of being famous. I suppose it makes a good marketing ploy, directly addressing the audience, but it's so false that the only way it could ever work is either 1. as a satire or 2. referring to having the amazing Jack Lemmon (in his film debut) as a boyfriend.

IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU! follows down-and-out model Gladys Glover who wants to be "somebody" at whatever cost, so she splurges her savings to rent a billboard just to put her name on it. After some entanglements over who gets the space, she becomes a celebrity over ludicrous circumstances. Her sweet documentary-filmmaker boyfriend Pete just wants her anonymous, wonderful self, and is understandably hurt when Gladys turns down dates in order to advance her "career." It is at the peak of her fame that she realizes that her celebrity is everything she's never wanted.

This is a film that could've fallen apart with so many other directors, but George Cukor was a master at that light comedic touch that keeps the movie sparkling, and also shows an early promise of the sharp look at celebrity that would be even more piercing with A STAR IS BORN only a year later. This was his third collaboration with Judy Holliday, and they seem to be among that elite group of a successful bonding between actor/director. The role of Gladys could so easily come off as unlikable (and she is at times in a naive way) during her determined rise to fame. The reason why the character is so endearing is because of Holliday's childishly wondrous performance, which captivates and enlightens. Her scenes with Jack Lemmon are magical, especially in that scene where they're both at the piano, he's talking, she's singing. It's marvelous and even exciting to see two actors with such an easy cadence interacting together, and those two had a very effortless chemistry.

One of the main characters that I'd doubt will stir up much is attention is the provincial village of New York City itself, which is so beautifully photographed by Charles Lang it's as though you've walked into a postcard. From the opening romantic scene in Central Park to even the second-unit shots of Columbus Circle, this is a great example of a city becoming so integrated with a film it's impossible to imagine one without the other.

Andy Warhol once predicted that "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU! deconstructs the mystique of celebrity and also accurately confirms Warhol's statement, which continues to be true with every new season of "American Idol." While many other films may have been sharper and harsher in their aim, few were this funny and warm-hearted with their characters.

A heavy-handed thing to say, but that's what Jean-Luc Godard proclaimed upon seeing this film at the Cannes Film Festival. The French knew it long before we did: Nicholas Ray was one of the most original and wisest directors to ever make films. He took a French anti-war book and he made it into a film that was so much more than that. Unlike his previous routine assignment to confirm his allegiance to Howard Hughes during the Red Scare FLYING LEATHERNECKS, there are more layers that stretch far beyond the sea of sand that cast Richard Burton and Curt Jurgens away from society. Unlike most war films of its time and like almost every film Ray ever made, the conflict lies not in the battles between the nations, but inside the hearts of the film's protagonists.

The brooding Richard Burton is given a great role as disillusioned soldier Captain James Leith, forced to carry out an assignment with Major Brand, a man he dislikes (the feeling is mutual--Leith had an affair with Brand's wife Jane a few years back, and the desire still lingers on, showing Leith's last trace of humanity). Their assignment is to travel behind enemy lines and take some German documents. The long journey through the desert becomes even more heated as Leith reminds Brand of his cowardice (Brand hesitated to kill a German soldier during an attack) and Brand tries in subtle ways to kill Leith to cover up his cowardice. But this isn't a black and white good-guy/bad-guy caricature; there are so many shades of gray in both characters. As Leith later says, the two are almost mirror images (although he is much wiser than Brand and accepts his futility, Leith is not as strong as some might make him to be; he admits to leaving Jane because he was scared to get close to someone else--like all of Ray's anti-heroes, the ones who reject love are the ones who need it the most), possibly explaining why Brand feels compelled to kill Leith.

BITTER VICTORY wasn't the first anti-war film, but it was one of the few to make its statement so eloquently (and it had the most profound title). Too subtle to connect with American audiences (the film flopped badly at the box-office and when the studio re-cut it several times, each time farther and farther away from Nicholas Ray's original vision, it didn't work) but revered by French audiences, BITTER VICTORY has grown more potent in the decades since its release. The futility of war isn't proclaimed by the horrible violence of battle like countless films, but through the impossible absurdity of a man's role in the war. After all, if Leith "kills the living and saves the dead," what difference does it make, other than that little matter of when and what for? By the end, how is Brand any different from the training dummies with hearts painted over them? The enlightenment that Brand finds by the film's end comes too late; he's already lost what's precious to him and all he has to show for it is a DSO. It truly is a bitter victory.

I wasn't expecting THEY LIVE BY NIGHT. I wasn't even expecting REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. But considering (or perhaps not even considering) the fact that the subject matter (juvenile delinquents, rebels, anti-conformity) was close to Nicholas Ray's heart, this is an unfortunately stale effort by one of the best and most important American film directors of the 20th century.

Pretty Boy (a.k.a. Nick Romano, played by the perpetually puppy-dog eyed John Derek) grows up hardened and tough in a bad neighborhood on the Columbia Studios backlot. After years of jail terms and a stretch in a reform school, he returns home and falls for Pretty Girl (a.k.a. Emma, played to almost intoxicating sweetness by Allene Roberts). When he can't quit the life of crime, his pregnant wife commits suicide and Romano is put on trial for killing (or perhaps not killing) a cop. Most of his hardship is overseen by attorney Andrew Morton (Humphrey Bogart, the only lead actor who gives his role at least some intrigue and is therefore the only one who doesn't get the nickname treatment from yours truly), also from the wrong side of the tracks. He doesn't always quite believe that Romano is telling the truth and doesn't approve of his self-pitying ways (neither do I), but nonetheless he takes Romano's case and the battle is fought in the courtroom.

I believe that films should stand on their own two feet and not be compared to previous works, but since Nicholas Ray was so clearly trying to recapture the magic of his astonishing debut THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, it's hard not to compare the two; after all the love story between Pretty Boy and Pretty Girl directly parallels Bowie and Keechie's relationship. Both stories involve two young adults from the wrong side of the tracks, a criminal hardened by his tough life and the angelic girl who he marries and briefly finds inner peace with. I never thought that anyone could give a bad performance under Ray's direction, but while Farley Granger was no Montgomery Clift, John Derek is a dime-store version of Granger; at least Granger was able to give a sensitive and genuinely compelling performance under Ray's fatherly direction. Derek goes through the motions but not the emotions that Granger did so effortlessly. And even the ethereal Cathy O'Donnell was smart enough to allude to the toughness earned from years of living in the wrong place; Allenne Roberts captures none of that, only the unbelievable angelic nature. These characters don't echo the complexity of Ray's debut; they are whiny caricatures of people we're supposed to feel sorry for.

It's admirable that Humphrey Bogart would want to make a film about social injustice for his first project as a producer (this film was financed by his independent production company Santana), and he even lets most of the light shine on Pretty Boy. However, given Derek's poor performance and Bogart's coy cynicism, his golden integrity just hidden beneath the surface, and his brooding on-screen presence (as preachy as his closing argument is, it is well acted by Bogart), I wished the movie had been more about him, I wished the script not been as black-and-white as Burnett Guffey's cinematography. In trying to cry out for justice, the film just annoyed me with its condescending attitude and simplified message my six-year-old cousin could've caught.

I recommend two Nicholas Ray films that are a much more stimulating and thought- provoking experience: the first is THEY LIVE BY NIGHT for reasons already stated. The second is his masterful IN A LONELY PLACE, his second film with Humphrey Bogart--and in this one he *is* in the center stage, featuring probably the most complex and darkest role of his career. I guess one good thing came out of KNOCK ON ANY DOOR: Bogart and Ray, who came from different ways of approaching their jobs, needed one film to get to know each other, how the other one worked. Ray once said that during this film he "took the gun away from Bogart's hands," and by the time they re-teamed for the second and last time, their professional relationship had ripened to friendship. Bogart trusted Ray enough to give a nakedly vulnerable performance in a film which you *SHOULD* look into.

Pauline Kael once famously described Last Tango as the most emotionally gratifying film she had ever seen in her 20 years as a film critic. I have not been a film critic for 20 years (I'm not even 19, the age Maria Schneider was when she played Jeanne). I have not seen more films than there are stars in the sky. But I can agree that this is a film that is groundbreaking in the ways most people don't expect: it so nakedly lays open the life of a broken man in all his flaws and his pain and self-loathing. The genius is that we'll never know if it was Marlon Brando exposing his own vulnerability or the greatest trick Houdini never pulled.

The plot is so simple it borders on preposterous: haunted American widower Paul meets young Parisian Jeanne by chance and together they rent an apartment where they engage in anonymous sex. Those who only know the film by this brief synopsis or its notorious reputation might believe the controversy and fail to look past it. Last Tango is not about sex and it's certainly not about butter. The sex scenes were not merely slapped on to make more money at the box office, for they show simultaneously Paul's release, his grief, his hunger, his rage, his last desperate attempt to reach out to another person. Marlon Brando inhabits this so greatly and personally it's impossible to imagine anyone else in this role with the same feeling of release. From the first frame you see Brando it's so unbearably evident that his face, scarred with age, tells a thousand stories of loneliness. Ironically, it's only through sex with a perfect stranger that he's able to find himself again.

That's essentially what this story is about: loneliness, identity (or loss of it), and, in a strange way, love. More than any director I was reminded of Nicholas Ray, whose own violently poignant film In a Lonely Place bears some resemblance: both films center on a middle-aged man whose troubled existence is briefly calmed when he falls in love and ultimately ends in doom. Like Ray, Bertolucci frames his film meticulously, with shots though mirrors, windows and doorways to convey a sense of loss and emptiness in the large and cheerless apartment, something of a haven from the outside world and the people who inhabit it. Only inside is where Paul and Jeanne can begin to comprehend the lonely places of their hearts.

So much praise has been lavished on Brando it seems unfair to exclude Maria Schneider, whose life was haunted after doing this movie. She's a child aware of her body and her affect on men, but unable to understand why she is in this situation and how she got herself there, and Schneider plays this with such a devastating honesty. But in the end, the film, the audience, and Bertolucci are all more interested in Paul than Jeanne, and for good reasons. Brando gives such ferocity with the simplest of gestures. Usually one can pick the most emotional scene of the film and mark it as the high point, proof of an actor's genius. I suppose that that one scene is when Paul visits the corpse of his deceased wife. First he rages at her, then he breaks down. Though a great scene, every single moment that Brando is on film is a great scene. At once he's insane (I mean that in the best way possible), he's humorous, he's angry, he's sad, he's broken. Paul goes through nearly every single emotion possible, and Brando somehow makes it seem like he was experiencing it himself. Brando told Bertolucci after filming had ended that he put so much of himself into the role that he couldn't imagine doing something as harrowing ever again.

He never did.

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT wasn't the first film to have sympathy for its outlaw protagonists, as Fritz Lang's YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE has a deep understanding for the love between Joan and Eddie, and HIGH SIERRA gave Bogie a chance to portray an aging ex-convict with a heart of gold, but nobody did it with the warmth and immense love like Nicholas Ray. Ray, who was respected in America and idolized in France, brought something almost unheard of during the American studio era: a sympathetic heart to loners and at times violent characters who had been typecast as one-dimensional villains. Maybe he was a stranger there himself. In his first movie, he directs with a confidence and energy that is on par or better than another great directorial debut of the 40s, Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE.

Bowie Bowers (Farley Granger) has just escaped, along with T-Dub and Chicamaw, from a prison where he was wrongly accused of murder. Hiding out in a cabin of Chicamaw's brother, an attraction blossoms between Bowie and Chicamaw's niece, sweet tomboy Keechie. One successful bank robbery later, Bowie and Keechie decide to run away--and eventually get married--together, hopeful of an uncertain future together. But the Depression-era South is a harsh territory for young love, and after Chicamaw finds the young couple and tempts Bowie to pull off just one more heist that goes horribly wrong, Bowie and Keechie are no longer running toward a hopeful future but running away from an unjust and unforgiving police hot on their trail.

Like all Nicholas Ray movies, it's impossible not to note the acting (and Ray learned from the best--he was a good friend and protégé of Elia Kazan). Farley Granger is best known for his nervous, tense performances in Hitchcock's ROPE and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, but here he gives a very assured and accomplished performance; it's no wonder he called both Hitchcock and Ray the best directors he ever worked with, but their approaches are very different; Hitch would let the actors find the characters themselves, while Ray would quietly take them aside and guide them through in a fatherly way. It's this tenderness and empathy that made Ray such a gift to his actors. Cathy O'Donnell, who resembles a young Sissy Spasek is luminous and brings such a radiant glow to her role, quietly affecting and never once overacting; there are few actresses who could allude to both glowing innocence and tough worldliness in the same frame. Together they are perfect, two naive and sweet souls hardened by their pasts and parental problems (though never made explicit, it is implied that they have never dated anyone, never really loved someone, which makes their romance all the sweeter). They would later re-team for Anthony Mann's crime drama SIDE STREET, which in some ways is a sequel, seeing what would've happened if they had lived like normal people in New York City. Although the magic was still there, it didn't shine as brightly as it does here.

The supporting work is also top-notch, especially Helen Craig, playing a woman who is envious of Keechie and Bowie's love affair because her own husband is in prison, and she has a great scene when she betrays the couple. While we pretty much hate her guts throughout the whole movie, each line across her face shows so much pain, and we feel her own regret; anyone who's seen the movie knows how powerful her line is: "I don't think that's going to help me sleep nights." Howard Da Silva was unfairly blacklisted when Robert Taylor named him as a potential communist during the HUAC era. Sadly, we'll never know what other great roles he could've played.

While many first-time directors today make amazing little indie movies, during the studio era, there was little room to be creative. Like Welles, Ray used amazing cinematography that holds up incredibly well today, along with unconventional editing, and an acute sense of space. For example, the opening helicopter shot: this was one of the first, if not the very first, films to feature action being shot that way (normally choppers were only used for pan shots of scenery). That was Ray's first day ever directing, and what a way to begin a brilliant career. He would follow his promise with the underrated classics IN A LONELY PLACE, ON DANGEROUS GROUND, JOHNNY GUITAR, BIGGER THAN LIFE, BITTER VICTORY, and, of course, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Unlike James Dean, Nicholas Ray faded out, but while he was on fire, he gave us some of the most heartfelt movies to ever be placed through a film projector.

When asked what her favorite film of her own was, Vivien Leigh brushed aside her Oscar winning roles as the southern belles Scarlet O'Hara and Blanche Dubois, settling on this little-known but much loved gem, Waterloo Bridge. This may come as a surprise to many whose favorite movie is Gone With the Wind or stage actresses who study every nuance of her Blanche, once you see this movie there is no doubt that this may be her loveliest performance--while her Oscars prove that she could deliver astoundingly good work under the notoriously difficult shoots on her famous two films, Waterloo Bridge is a testament to her grace, her subtlety, and her ability to never feel sorry for herself or beg the audience for pity--and therefore earns every inch of our attention.

Roy Cronin (Robert Taylor), an aging soldier on the eve of WWII, remembers years earlier during the First World War (it's better if you ignore the obviously "modern" clothing and just enjoy the damn movie). He met and ballerina Myra Lester (Leigh), and oh boy how the fell in love (I have yet to see a sweeter or more beautifully photographed love scene than the Candlelight Club). However, just before they can find a way to get married, Roy is called unexpectedly early to the front. Myra misses a performance to say goodbye to him and is fired from the dance company. Along with her faithful best friend Kitty, Myra sinks lower and lower into poverty, and her faith is lost when she believes Roy is dead. Hopeless, she falls into prostitution (this is where Leigh is at her best--there is not a shred of self-pity in her performance when Myra becomes a "fallen woman."). How will she cover up her past when Roy shows up alive and suggests that she meet his crusty, upper-class family?

The synopsis provided above has all the inklings of a sappy, forgotten melodramatic "woman's movie" that were popular in the 1940s. So why is it so good? Because in the hands of director Mervyn LeRoy and his stars Leigh and Taylor, they make you believe in these characters, hope for them and root for them. Myra is no Scarlet in the sense that she does not whine and wait for her love to come home. Even while delivering lines like, "I loved you, I've never loved anyone else. I never shall, that's the truth Roy, I never shall," Leigh is never flashy as her Scarlet may have been--when Leigh sinks into a role, she gets lost in it. Vivien Leigh gives a spirited and beautiful performance--she proved that her handling of Gone With the Wind was not mere luck but that she was talented and here to stay. Though Robert Taylor's role is not as complex as Leigh's--remember, this is a "chick flick"--they have wonderful chemistry together, obviously comfortable with each other's presence. While most romantic movies of today are simply composed of throwing two stars together without much chemistry, this is a movie that makes you ache for the old days and the old movies full of ambiguity, wry double-entendres and, above all, a sense of hope for real love.

Do you think you'll remember Waterloo Bridge now?

NOTE: Because of some cosmic fluke, this movie isn't available on (Region 1) DVD and a VHS copy is rare, but because of some cosmic fluke, this is one of the most popular movies of all time in China, resulting in many various imports. This is a movie worth seeking out, but double-check where you buy it.

Such is the mystery of movies; When this movie was released in 1950, it was both a critical and commercial flop. In desperation, the studio tried to rename the movie "The Big Carnival." Were they trying to trick the audience to going to a happy, "Greatest Show on Earth"-type movie? Or were they just taken over by Billy Wilder's trademark cynicism? It doesn't even matter; the movie was still a flop. Lost forever and never released on VHS or DVD in America until July 2007, Ace in the Hole, along with Vertigo and just about any Nicholas Ray movie, gathered a cult following and proved that time was all it needed to be recognized as the masterpiece it always was.

Kirk Douglas is hard-shelled reporter Chuck Tatum, fired from just about every big newspaper. Hoping to rebuild his reputation, he grudgingly takes a job at a small newspaper in Albuquerque, where nothing really happens...until a man gets trapped in a mine. Using his wit and cunning, Tatum takes this small-town emergency and transforms it into a media circus before the word was even coined. Part of his strategy includes manipulating the corrupt sheriff into delaying the rescue, which gives the story time to reach all over the country and become a media sensation, a la Baby Jessica, the real-life human interest story of the late 80s. And then, everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Billy Wilder, as noted above, was well-known for two things: for crafting as many classic movies as Spielberg, Ford, Scorsese, Hawks and Bergman, and his wit and undeniable cynicism. After his classic Sunset Blvd., a scathing tragedy disguised as a black comedy about the Hollywood machine, it didn't seem like Wilder could get any more cynical. That was proved wrong by this movie. Chuck Tatum makes Norma Desmond look like Mary Poppins--throughout the course of the movie, he never grows a heart, and his only mild redemption is realizing that the man's wife is even more acerbic than he is, and through her seeing the empty human being he himself has become. Like all dark Billy Wilder movies, there is absolutely no hope or shining light at the end of his characters' tunnels. All paths lead to death, madness or both. Ace in the Hole is absolutely no exception, and it's for that deep cynicism and pessimism that makes this movie so endearing, so timeless, so contemporary.

One only has to look at the movies section of the local paper (NOT during the winter Oscar months) to see the astonishingly high number of low-brow movies made specifically for 14-year-olds with Daddy's allowance. So seeing a comedy that is so fresh in its humor, so honest in its views on male romance, and so imperfect its lead protagonist, is about as rare as seeing Halley's comet. It's a moment to savor, for you know it'll be a generation before another like it comes along.

Rob (John Cusack), a thirty-something who owns a record store that "attracts the bare minimum of window shoppers," has just been dumped (yet again) by his current flame Laura (Iben Hjejle) because he hasn't changed or grown up. This sends our immature hero on a journey of self-discovery as to why he can't seem to sustain a relationship, which includes visiting (and re-visiting) all the other girls on his Top 5 list, including (in chronological order) Alison Ashmore, Penny Hardwick, Charlie Nicholson (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Sara Kendrew (Lili Taylor). All the while, he tries fruitlessly to win back Laura and to grasp why she prefers the company of hippie ex-neighbor Ian "Ray" Raymond (Tim Robbins), in addition to having long talks about music with his two employees, Barry (Jack Black)--imagine a human version of Cartman from "South Park" but with an impeccable taste in music--and quiet Dick (Tod Louiso). Through his journey towards self-discovery, Rob slowly grows up and realizes what relationships are all about.

Rob on page comes off as a self-pitying, adolescent jerk, a challenge for a character-driven comedy/drama. The casting of John Cusack immediately helps the problem, because 1. Cusack is becoming the most automatically charming and lovable star since Cary Grant and 2. as a co-writer of the script, he knows Rob inside, out and backwards. This role is his. And because slowly, we see a boy becoming a man, a common theme of Nick Hornby's books. First Rob wants Laura back simply because his pride is hurt by being dumped, but as time goes by we see that he did truly have affection and love for her, which results in Rob making a list of "Top 5 Things I miss about Luara." There isn't a moment we don't root for him, even when we question his maturity.

The supporting characters provide the movie with a great deal of needed laughs to help ease the at times brutal honesty. Jack Black is a scene-stealer as music snob Barry, a guy so self-righteous he doesn't even give service to a customer who wants to buy "I Just Called to Say I Love You" because it insults his own taste. He's the kind of guy that you would violently assault in reality...if you weren't laughing so hard your stomach feels sore. Had the movie not been saddled with an actor as strong as Cusack, Black would've stolen the show. Tod Louiso is also great as Tod, as quiet as Barry is loud. Tim Robbins must've had so much fun playing the rebound man with a ponytail who inadvertently makes Rob's life a living hell. Joan Cusack, as usual, brings larger-than-life energy to her role as Laura's friend Liz. The only weak link is Iben Hjejle. But it isn't entirely her fault; the movie spends so much time focusing on Rob's dilemma when it should've spent a little time explaining what made Rob fall in love with her in the first place. And against such a great supporting cast, anyone would pale in comparison to Mr. Black.

This movie is, quite simply, the ultimate male chick flick (a dick flick?), one that men can learn from while the women drool over Cusack and both can laugh at the numerous funny and truthful incidents (who HASN'T imagined killing the new flame of an ex?). A great movie if you've been married for 30 years or, more especially, if your relationship can't last longer than a tic-tac. An essential John Cusack role, whose exclusion at awards time is further proof that the 2000 Oscars were a joke. Not since "Say Anything" was Cusack more romantic or lovable. Never again will be more self-confessional. Movies like this don't come out every Friday. What are you waiting for?

1950 was famously a great year for women and a terrible year for Hollywood with the releases of "Sunset Blvd." and "All About Eve," long-remembered as brilliant satires on the pitfalls of celebrity. But one film that should be included (and was released the same year as well) is "In a Lonely Place," a film so ahead of its time and so unbearably sad it never received the audience and fanfare it deserved. Indeed, the heartbreak doesn't lie in likable people being tortured by fate but rather a violent man further torturing himself and those around him. It's the most painful film about self-destruction, and one of the best American films ever made.

Dixon Steele (Bogart), a washed-up screenwriter with a violent and self-destructing attitude is given the dull task of adapting a potboiler novel into a screenplay. Knowing that this is below him, he takes a hatcheck girl home to tell him the story rather than read it himself. The next morning she is found murdered and Dix is the prime suspect, given his violent past and his lack of an alibi. Luckily, his beautiful neighbor Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame, who was Nicholas Ray's wife at the time) gives him just that and more. In the process of giving his alibi, she lets it be known that she is attracted to Dix, and they begin a relationship. While most romances in film noirs are fueled by lust and physical attraction, Grahame and Bogart make you believe that the romance is tender and true, two bruised, damaged souls finally finding calm and stability in each other. Dix works hard on his screenplay, with fresh ideas and smart dialog, as Laurel has become his muse. But as the murder investigation goes on (surely an allegory for the Communist witch hunts) and Dix is still the prime suspect, the strain causes Dix's violent outbursts to occur more frequently, and even Laurel begins to doubt Dix's innocence, leading to a devastating climax brought upon by their own fears and insecurities.

Bogart was famously short, but what he lacked in height he made up for in presence. He didn't need a gun to show his toughness, though it certainly did help. Nicholas Ray took the gun away during their first collaboration, "Knock on Any Door," which prepared him for the role of a lifetime here. Bogart's persona was that of a tough, cynical, world-weary man with a bruised heart underneath. His Dix Steele expands on it as much as it deepens it; never before or after would Bogart be more bitter or romantic, yet Dix is Bogart's most violent role, a man so filled with self-loathing it's almost a surprise to see that he finds love at all. And yet, he never loses his charm, his wit, his intelligence, his heart, even when he's violently confused at the world and himself. Dixon is not a monster, and Bogart certainly doesn't treat him as one. It's as though someone took Sam's self-loathing, Rick's bruised romanticism, Marlowe's intelligence, Dobb's paranoia and blended them all together to create Dix Steele. Many fans think that Dobbs of "Treasure..." is Bogart's best and most psychologically complex role, but I think that Dix should not be overlooked--after all, Bogart had to convey a fine balance of both gentle romanticism and quick-tempered violence, and he succeeded masterfully. I can't even feign objectivity when talking about his performance; I think it's his greatest accomplishment as an actor and I'll even go as far to say that his Oscar win for "The African Queen" was a consolidation prize for not being nominated for this film.

Laurel Gray is a role clearly intended for someone like Lauren Bacall. Bogie naturally wanted his wife for the role but Warner Bros. refused to release her from her contract...so instead the director's wife got the role. But despite the questionable and usually wrong move of casting a spouse/family member, Gloria Grahame (best known as the town flirt in "It's a Wonderful Life" and the scarred moll of "The Big Heat") gives her most restrained performance as the cool but not cold, bruised and mysterious starlet. She brings a sense of maturity and an air of having been around the block a few times that Bacall couldn't have, given her off-screen marriage to Bogart and her blossoming career.

Nicholas Ray would go on to make bigger projects, including the ultimate teen angst drama "Rebel Without a Cause," and likewise Bogart and Grahame would go off to win Oscars, but this black gem stands out as a professional high-point for all three. Never again would Ray be more self-confessional, Grahame be more cool, or Bogart be more vulnerable, surrendering to the internal demons even he does not understand. IN A LONELY PLACE is among the most personal and wise studio films to look at adult love in all its insecurities and fears, capturing not only the feel of the Red Scare of the early 50s but the sad realization that nobody can come out a free man in a world where we are all victims of our own fate and powerless in our control over it.

The film's most iconic lines are of Dix in the car with Laurel driving, saying aloud lines he wants to put in his script but doesn't know quite where: "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me." These film lines not only sum up the speaker's desperate life of trapped loneliness and despair, being reborn in hope of a new relationship, thriving at the chance of love, then falling back into darkness at its failure; it is Dix's life in a single, poetic phrase.

In a world where film goers actually cough up $9.50 to see blood and guts for movies like "Hostel" and "Saw 4," the horror genre seems dead in the water by now. "Psycho" and "Jaws" seem like an urban legend, where imagination and true terror of the unknown reigned. People would rather watch basically a gruesome 90-minute episode of "Fear Factor" than to have a cold hand slowly massage your neck while breaking it at the same time, never really revealing the enemy and therefore making the (almost) loneliness unbearable. While "1408" will probably not become a classic like the Hitchcock or the Spielberg films and clearly invites comparison to the classic "The Shining," it does what very few horror films have done in years: given chills with the fewest of gore and blood. And then it goes where no horror film has gone before: it genuinely breaks your heart.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a paperback author who debunks "haunted" houses. When he receives a postcard warning him not to go in the eponymous room number, that only intrigues him even more. At the Dolphin Hotel, his interest is only raised when Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson in a small role but, as always, stealing every scene he graces) tries ANYTHING to get him from going into that room, including bribes and revealing information about the room even the newspapers have never reported. But Enslin is even more stubborn than Olin, and gets the key to the room. Though initially cynical (aren't all writers?) and pessimistic about finding anything haunting about that room, he is soon proved wrong. A clock radio blasts a Carpenters song without any button pushed. Then it starts counting down from 1 hour. Just when Mike's realized he wants out of the room, he's trapped in his own hell in a room that would make the saloon of Satre's "No Exit" look like a cocktail party in Holly Golightly's apartment.

To talk about the twists and spoilers would only ruin the effectiveness on-screen...and believe me, there are plenty, even if a handful are given away in the trailer for the film.

The amazing glory of "1408" is that the amount of thrills are more than made up for in emotion. Though the trailer and poster advertise the Gothic tone and hellish roller coaster ride of the movie, the film will surprise you with the tears as often as the screams. We see through flashbacks/torture devices that at one point, Enslin wasn't always alone in a room. He once had a family, a wife and a daughter. He had promise as a novelist, as we see at a book signing. But then his young beloved daughter died and shattered his existence. Separated from his wife, Enslin is an emotionally closed-off human being. Instead of slowing down the pace of the story, it enhances it, in the way that "Batman Begins" nearly LOST its momentum when Bruce Wayne put on his costume and became Batman. The character development is nearly as interesting as the action.

Everything I wrote above would mean nothing and produce no love or emotion had it not been in the hands of such an amazing actor as John Cusack, who has to carry the movie almost entirely on his back. Much as I adore Cusack ("Say Anything..." was my all-time favorite movie as a teenager), I haven't been impressed with his recent movies--I know he has to pay the water bills, but did we have to sit through a boring and clichéd 1/2 hour sitcom achingly stretched out to 90 minutes and then call it "Must Love Dogs"? But here he delivers far and away his best performance since "High Fidelity." Cusack literally screams and cries, but never once does it feel hammy or contrived. The nuances, subtleties and reactions of Enslin feel improvised and fresh. Cusack demands our attention, and boy does he earn it. He shows a versatility and a rainbow of emotions that he has never shown before, and finally is given a character with so many dimensions. There is a scene that I'm sure will be talked about, when he sees his daughter and has to re-experience her demise. Every angle of his face is full of pain, his body weak with longing and uncertainty. It's amazing to note that Cusack in real life is not a father. How could he have known?...

Mikael Hafstrom made some amazing movies in Europe before, inevitably, making English films. His American debut "Derailed" would be forgettable had Jennifer Aniston not floundered in her first dramatic role. But he's a director to watch--his tone and atmosphere is dark, and somewhere Edgar Allen Poe must be smiling. He keeps his story moving at a nice pace. There is never a dull or predictable moment in "1408."

You may walk into the theater and be expected to scream. You'll walk out scratching your head in confusion, with a screaming pulse, and just maybe a broken heart. That's something only an amazing movie can accomplish.

ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is not a perfect film, I will admit that. Rita Hayworth and Cary Grant don't always hit their dramatic marks, the special effects may seem dated to today's audience, and there are some contrived plot twists. But there is so much heart and emotion, such great cinematography, quotable lines and swift direction by Hawks that makes this film worth watching. If Scorsese had made 'The Aviator' in 1939, this might be what it would look like.

Bonnie Lee (the always wonderful Jean Arthur) is a piano-playing showgirl on her way back to New York, stopping between boats in Barranca. She quickly falls in with a band of tough-shelled pilots who fly mail over the dangerous mountains, rain or shine. The leader of this bunch is Geoff Carter (Cary Grant, in his first dramatic performance), with the toughest chip on his shoulder. Within the first 20 minutes we see, mostly through the eyes of Bonnie, the death of a pilot in a fascinating flight sequence. But the most important part is how everyone reacts after the death of a friend. While Bonnie is grief-ridden, she is more shocked at the lack of sympathy and refusal to acknowledge the death. She quickly learns that this is the only way for them to deal--if someone dies, they shrug it off, as if to say "he wasn't good enough, so he died. I'm better than him, so I live." After a few tears she becomes, like all great Hawksian women, "just one of the guys," joining them in a spirited rendition of "The Peanut Vendor," in one of the many memorable bonding scenes. Beneath the stoicism, there lies a web of friendship and heart that makes this film work.

Bonnie then decides to stay for a few more days, hoping to get to know Geoff. And in those few days, another surprise visitor appears: Bat Kilgallen/MacPherson, a pilot shunned for jumping out of a crashing plane, leaving his fellow engineer to die. The engineer just happened to be the brother of Kid Dabb (Thomas Mitchell), Geoff's best friend. Also along for the ride is Judy MacPherson (Rita Hayworth), Geoff's ex-love. Stress and sexual tension soon arise, and complications get even more complicated, from Bonnie falling for Geoff to Kidd dealing with his hatred for Bat as well as his physical problem that could compromise his career, and Judy's confusion as to why everybody hates her husband. Finally everything comes to a climax in a stunning flight scene.

As usual, Hawks assembled a great cast, even despite the problems. Jean Arthur makes a great Hawksian woman by giving her role the empathy that would otherwise be lacking. Thomas Mitchell, widely known for his work in supporting roles including GONE WITH THE WIND, gives a quiet and sorrowful performance as someone whose whole life is flying and isn't ready to give it up. It's very refreshing to see Cary Grant in something other than a screwball comedy. Geoff Carter is the kind of role that would be perfect for John Wayne (who later frequently collaborated with Hawks), but Grant gives the role a sensitivity that would've been lacking in Wayne's super stoic persona. Grant has a scene at the end that requires tears and emotion, the first we see from such a hard man, and he doesn't quite get there. But from other scenes, he is so commanding you can't help but surrender to him, just as Bonnie does. Their scenes are magical together. The same goes for Rita Hayworth; she was still early in her career, and her inexperience shows (not that the flat character does anything to help). However, Hawks hired her because she had a face the camera liked; her presence and radiant glow is so alive you almost forget her shortcomings. Almost.

With today's CGI-ridden "special" effects, the ones here may dull in comparison. But the cinematography, especially of the planes flying over the beautiful Andes, are stunning, and done without the help of a green screen. That's what I love about these old movies: you can always tell that the directors spent more time talking with the actors and writers than worrying about the special effects, which is what make the special effects truly special.

Many note that this was Howard Hawks' most personal film of his career--he frequently associated with pilots, and he knew the characters inside and out. This is what gives the film the heart that it needed. His trademark dialogue and speed becomes a necessity to not become too melodramatic and maudlin, with both wisecracking and wise results. Hawks was the Spielberg of his day. Like Spielberg, there is such an air of professionalism even during the outlandish situations and circumstances, a heart and a brain and courage to each shot. Under his wings, even the flawed WINGS soars.

Many fans of Audrey Hepburn believe that her best and most mature role was that of Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", the film which immortalized her in a diamond tiara and little black dress. But those fans will have a big surprise coming for them with this little-seen gem, her most free and spirited performance of her career.

The film chronicles the 12-year marriage of Joanna, a sweet chorus girl, and Mark Wallace, an architect. Out of chronological order--I want to mention that this film came 30 years before Memento and 21 Grams were even conceived--the film follows them from their first love-at-first-sight meeting to their bitter arguments and casual infidelities, all on road trips to the same beach where they fell in love. Through the highs and the lows, their love always shines through.

Audrey had to let go of many "safety nets" to make this movie. For one, she let go of her trademark Givenchey wardrobe, as it would be unsuitable for the wife of an architect. The plot and film-making was unlike her usual Cinderella-like romantic comedies. Off-screen, her marriage to Mel Ferrer was crumbling (they would divorce only a year later). This film was an escape, and she was never more vulnerable, free or real in her whole film career. The chemistry she has with Albert Finney is so wonderful, thanks mostly to the fact that for a rare time in her career she was given a male love interest who was close to her own age (Finney was actually 7 years YOUNGER than Hepburn). They just seem to click, like great film romances should. They deliver witty and bitter lines with precise timing, utterly in tune with each other.

This is a perfect romantic-comedy/drama, a film that rings true for anyone who is married or is just disillusioned with happily-ever-after films (such as me). It may not be one of Hepburn's better-known films, but it's certainly one of her best.

John "Scottie" Ferguson (Jimmy Stewart, never better) is a retired detective with a severe fear of heights after a botched chase to capture a criminal. Due to his newly acquired acrophobia, he retires and wanders around the beautiful streets of San Francisco. Out of the blue, an old college friend Gavin Elster asks him to follow his wife Madeleine, as he believes that Madeleine may be possessed by the spirit of her great-grandmother, drifting in and out of reality and into trance-like states of mind. So Scottie agrees to follow the mysterious blonde (Kim Novak) as Hitchock guides us throughout San Francisco and into his strange and dark mind. Little by little, Scottie begins to become infatuated with Madeleine, and after he saves her from suicide (she jumped into San Francisco Bay) and decides to help her, he falls madly in love with her. In finding pieces of the puzzle to Madeleine's mystery, their journey takes them to the San Juan Bautista where Madeleine meets her end by tumbling off the bell tower, presumably by suicide. Scottie tried to save his love but his fear of heights stopped him. For the next year Scottie falls into a deep depression, feeling guilty for his impotency to save his love. His depression is halted when he sees Judy Barton (Novak again). Judy isn't like Madeleine--she's plain, in touch with reality and even vulgar when compared. But her face looks so much like Madeleine. Scottie begins to court Judy first for herself but eventually he tries to mold her into the beauty he lost prematurely, unaware that Judy has a big secret up her sleeve.

When it was first released, Vertigo didn't get good reviews and it didn't make money at the box office. People didn't understand the bizarre dream sequences that were so ahead of their time, they didn't feel sympathy for the characters (at the end, even Scottie is unlikable), and the BIG TWIST is given away in the middle of the movie instead of at the end, a la Psycho. Even I had my complaints about that last one, yet after a second viewing I realized that this movie wasn't even about what really happened to what really happened to Madeleine; it's about men's psychological--and sexual--desire for the perfect woman, even if she's out of touch with reality. This movie is considered Hitchcock's most personal film, as he could be domineering with his actresses, trying to mold them into his own dream. After the "failure" of Vertigo, Hitchcock never worked with Jimmy Stewart again, unfairly blaming him for not being able to draw a crowd on account of his age. Luckily for everyone, Vertigo has gotten better with age and is no longer forgotten. In the late 80s Vertigo started popping up on Top 10 Films of All Time lists, and today it's considered Hitchock's best film, and most definitely one of the best ever made.

The biggest reason for Vertigo's late success is because it is Hitchcock's most analyzed film and because it works on a psychological level; The film points out that men would rather have an unavailable, beautiful woman who is out of touch with reality than a woman who understands her surroundings and is utterly available. This is pointed out twice, once with Midge, an ex-fiancée and good friend of Scottie and later with Judy, who tries to make Scottie love her for who she is and not because she reminds Scottie of Madeleine. The first hour is drawn out very slowly, and while it's not as fast-paced as other Hitchcock's films, he uses it wisely. He starts by first gaining--later testing--our sympathy for Scottie; when he's hanging for his dear life in the opening scene, we pray for him (even though we know that there would be no movie if Jimmy Stewart dies in the first 3 minutes). When he's chasing Madeleine up the bell tower, we hope that he can get there in time and kiss his lover. And when the romance turns dark in the second outing to the bell tower, you feel just as caught in the middle as Scottie does in that moment. Hitchcock blurred the lines between victim and villain, and he earns our creative respect for him.

The key element to why Vertigo works so well in the end is because of the actors. It's practically impossible to think of anyone other than James Stewart, who embodied the everyman, and for that reason is so convincing in testing our sympathies. It's all in the minimalistic ways he does it, with the slightest crinkle in the forehead or the movement in the eyes doing evoking more emotion than most actors do screaming and crying. This is his best performance next to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And Kim Novak is ravishing and haunting both as Madeleine and Judy, utterly convincing in both roles. With my respects to Grace Kelly, Novak just may be the most mysterious and convincing Hitchcock blonde to grace the screen. Their chemistry together, despite their age difference is explosive and natural.

Buy--don't rent--this DVD and you'll find yourself falling for every detail of this brilliant film.