In the Heights (2021)

Tags

Drama, Musical, Romance

The longer a neighborhood has stood
The more of a store of tales to tell
It has, and in all likelihood,
The narrators who are the best
Are not the visitor or guest,
I suppose,
But those who chose
Or else were born to dwell
In that community,
Who share in native unity
And from the thorn
Of foreign scorn
Have natural immunity.

The brotherhood of neighborhoods
Appeals to me more than it should,
For I was introduced
And used
To lack of that camaraderie;
It doesn’t really bother me,
And yet I get and can’t forget
A sense of admiration for
The folks who know their neighbors’ names
Beyond the first or second door,
Where every high is aired and shared
And every low is bared but shared
And more than family have cared
For all the highs and lows before.

So storytellers, tell your tales
Of neighborhoods I’ll never know
But for the struggles, wins, and fails
You share, and never let them go.
__________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

As you might have guessed with my long stretches between posts this year, I have somewhat of a backlog that’s been building up, movies I’ve seen and just didn’t have the time to give a full review. Now that school is all done (and has paid off, by the way), I can start playing catch-up. One of the Hollywood trends that I welcome with the utmost glee is the resurgence of movie musicals, which have been becoming more and more frequent since La La Land and The Greatest Showman reminded the powers that be that musicals can be awesome.

I am a huge fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, the only musical I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live, but I admittedly have not paid much attention to In the Heights, his first hip hop-flavored musical to win Tony awards. In general, I have a very low opinion of rap music, but Hamilton changed my perceptions to appreciate its unique blending of complex lyrics and catchy rhythms. Thus, I can’t help but feel that Hamilton paved the way for my enjoyment of In the Heights, even if the latter predates the former. And Miranda’s musical powers are self-evident here, even if the setting is the modern-day neighborhood of Washington Heights rather than colonial America. (Plus, I couldn’t help but chuckle at a couple Hamilton cameos/Easter eggs.)

Bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos of Hamilton stepping into Miranda’s role) serves as narrator for the various stories playing out in his block before, during, and after a blackout, including his own goal of returning to the Dominican Republic, the fashion dreams of his crush Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), and the romance of his friend Benny (Corey Hawkins) and college student Nina (Leslie Grace). Also prominent are Nina’s father (Jimmy Smits), who tries to get her to return to college, and “Abuela” Claudia (Olga Merediz, reprising her Tony-nominated role), who has cared for Usnavi and his cousin Sonny and is beloved throughout the neighborhood.

It really breaks my heart that In the Heights ended up a commercial flop because I loved it, not only as an exuberant musical but as a story with clear fondness for its characters that effectively transmits that fondness to the audience. While every character is in pursuit of their personal American dream, they also revel in Hispanic cultural pride, particularly in the “Carnaval del Barrio” number. Considering how strong the Hispanic representation is throughout the movie, it’s ironic that it earned criticism for underrepresenting Afro-Latinos in the major roles, which seems like a nitpick of an otherwise landmark film for Hispanic Americans in media. I read a YouTube comment that summed up the film’s appeal better than I can, stating that they couldn’t “remember seeing this many black and brown people on screen for a solid two and a half hours where not a single storyline had to do with crime, prison, slavery, drug use, gangs, or segregation. No mention of any sort of criminal activity. No equating darker skin with malice or mischief. Just hardworking people of color trying to do their best to live their dreams.” Anyone can find something to complain about, but that seems pretty praiseworthy.

Speaking of complaints, I must reiterate that I had no prior experience with the In the Heights musical, but I understand that quite a few changes were made, from the shifting of motivations and story priorities to the addition of a Dreamer subplot to the deletion of a number of songs. Because of that, I can understand fans of the original musical being disappointed, but as a movie-only fan, I was blown away in the theater many times over. The bright direction of Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) is especially laudable, weaving seamlessly throughout expertly choreographed crowds and injecting spurts of fantasy and animation into the real world. While its profits and impact may have been diminished by controversy and a pandemic, In the Heights is an outstanding addition to the musical film genre, one that left me smiling and whose worth will hopefully become more recognized with time.

Best line: (Kevin Rosario, Nina’s father) “Ignore anyone who doubts you.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2021 S.G. Liput
737 Followers and Counting

Infinity Chamber (2017)

Tags

Drama, Mystery, Romance, Sci-fi

(For Day 29 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write about a scene seen through a window, so I went a bit philosophical based on this movie.)

My weak eyes caught the window
And peered into the glass
And saw my own reflection,
That transparent underclass,
Plus the view that lay behind it,
Mountains standing granite-nosed
With a forest in its orbit
And myself superimposed.
Nothing moved but my reflection,
And I wondered if I stared
Through a picture frame or window,
Something live or long since aired.
__________________________

MPA rating:  Not Rated (should be PG-13, for sporadic language)

Do you ever just pick a random movie you know nothing about from the TV on-demand list based on only its name? Such independent films typically have a 50-50 shot of being either a hidden gem or a pretentious stinker, and this was one case where the former option won out, thankfully. Infinity Chamber hasn’t received much fanfare, but it’s a top-notch reality-questioning sci-fi that deserves better than obscurity.

Apparent amnesiac Frank (Christopher Soren Kelly) wakes up in a futuristic cell, and his unseen caretaker Howard (Jesse D. Arrow) informs him that he will take care of him for the foreseeable future while providing no details on why Frank is there or even where he is. I’ll throw out a spoiler warning, but it was clear right away to me that Howard was a HAL-like AI designed to sound personable, and I feared that it would take the whole film for Frank to realize that too. Yet he figures it out fairly quickly, and the real mystery instead involves the visions of Frank’s past that the room induces as a sort of lucid dream, where he repeatedly meets a barista named Gabby (Cassandra Clark) and must deduce how he came to be in his predicament and how to escape it.

If I had to compare Infinity Chamber to another film, I would perhaps point to other minimalist human-robot pairings like Moon, I Am Mother, or Archive, but Infinity Chamber tends to leave itself open to different interpretations while still delivering a mostly satisfying end, which is not easy to pull off. The performances are good across the board, the low-budget effects are surprisingly realistic, and its themes of automated prisons and questionable memories provoke thought as all good sci-fi should. If you’re looking for something to randomly play one night, I would highly recommend it for any sci-fi fan.

Best line: (Frank, ruminating on Howard’s role for him) “My father died of heart disease. When he got sick, they put him on this machine. Kept him alive four years. Four years longer than he was supposed to live. You think that’s a gift? The man had made his peace; he was ready to go. A machine took that away from him. It trapped him in a life that wasn’t even living. Everybody’s so d*** excited: “Look what it can do!” No one stops to think, “Look what it doesn’t do.” He was the strongest man I ever met. And I’d never seen him broken. Sometimes life’s just supposed to be what it is.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
731 Followers and Counting

The Harvey Girls (1946)

Tags

Comedy, Musical, Romance, Western

(For Day 22 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to employ metonymy and represent a time period with a symbol of it. Thus, I use the once-famous Harvey Girls as the symbol of civilizing the West.)

When the West was won,
It was not by the train,
Not by the cowboy traversing the plain,
Not by the outlaws and not by the slain,
Not by the farmers with acres of grain,
Not by the rushes for land, gold, and gain.

No, ‘twere the girls
That made civil the West,
The Harvey House ladies so formally dressed,
Who treated the pioneer more like a guest:
By breakfast and coffee and steak on request,
America’s destiny made manifest.
_____________________________

MPA rating:  Not Rated (easily a G)

If you’re anything like me, you may have never heard of the Harvey Houses that sprouted up along the railroads in the late 1800s as the first American restaurant chain. Lately, I’ve been in a mood of gleeful discovery as I stumble upon bits of history I had never learned before, and this is one of them. My only knowledge of this film about the Harvey girls, who were hired and shipped west to work in these restaurants, was the famous Oscar-winning song “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” which was highlighted in the compilation film That’s Entertainment. All this to say that I was glad to finally see how this movie about forgotten history compared with other classics of the time.

The presence of Judy Garland in the lead role alone makes it a classic. She plays Susan Bradley, a would-be mail-order bride who becomes a Harvey waitress in the newly established location at Sandrock, Arizona, where the established saloon owner (John Hodiak) and his goons are less than pleased to have civilization threatening business. From the first moment where Garland and Hodiak verbally tussle, it’s obvious they will eventually fall for each other. The rest of the film is likewise predictable, albeit with a nuanced turn from Angela Lansbury as the jealous “other woman,” and the songs and choreography are rather uninspired, except for the one famous song that snagged an Oscar.

There is fun to be had, such as an all-woman bar brawl or the reunion of Garland and Ray Bolger (the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz), but The Harvey Girls is a lesser classic, to be sure. Still, I love that it spotlighted a slice of history when it was still part of the public’s common knowledge, and I wouldn’t mind perhaps a modern take on the Harvey Girls story one day. (If you like random history too, you might look up Bass Reeves, Dr. Wu Lien-teh, and the Goiania incident, all of which deserve their own movie as well.)

Best line: (Alma, one of the girls) “I sent my picture into one of those Lonely Hearts Clubs, and they sent it back, saying ‘We’re not that lonely!’”

Ranking:  Honorable Mention

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Runaway Bride (1999)

Tags

Comedy, Romance

(For Day 19 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a humorous rant, and I figure that a groom left at the altar would have plenty to rant about.)

You didn’t want to marry me.
I get that; I accept it.
It’s not a secret now, but I
Wish I knew why you kept it.

To wait until the chapel doors,
Complete with gown and veil,
And then to say “No way, Jose”
And just abruptly bail?

We’d paid the finest florist,
(That alone, I may not mind it),
But I’d reserved a limousine
With cans to trail behind it.

We paid the band and baker,
Had a cake of twenty tiers;
They said it was the biggest crowd
The church had seen in years.

Not once when we were dating
Did I think you were a phony.
So why was it so difficult
Embracing matrimony?

I’ve been humiliated
By your gamophobic smack.
I only have one thing to say…
Will you please take me back?!
_____________________

MPA rating:  PG

Runaway Bride could be seen as the less prestigious sibling of Pretty Woman, both being directed by Garry Marshall and teaming Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, as well as Héctor Elizondo. Yet Pretty Woman has an R-rated edge to it, while Runaway Bride is closer to Hallmark territory, a predictable but wholly likable romantic comedy set in an idyllic small town. In this one, Roberts plays Maggie Carpenter, who grows semi-famous for leaving men at the altar and becomes the story subject for Ike Graham, a disgraced columnist eager to cover how her engagement with her latest boyfriend (Christopher Meloni) will go.

Runaway Bride is the kind of comfortable rom-com that I tend to like, even if it’s completely by-the-numbers with the two leads initially despising each other and gradually increasing their chemistry. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, though, and this still has a much stronger script and acting compared with the average Hallmark movie. While I loved Julia Roberts’ effortless charm here, I found myself a little frustrated at times with Maggie’s cold-feet behavior, explained away with needing to “find herself,” and how she treats her ex-suitors, but ultimately her growth and eventual happy ending still make for a pleasant watch and welcome chuckles. Critics would disagree, but I think I’m more partial to this lighter follow-up than to Pretty Woman, but maybe that’s just me. I’m tempted to make it List-Worthy and perhaps will bump it up with future viewings, but it’s certainly close.

Best line: (Peggy Fleming, Maggie’s friend) “Have you heard my husband’s morning show, Wake Up With Flem?”
and
(Ike, in response to her friend’s mocking Maggie’s past) “A toast to, uh, to Maggie’s family and friends. May you find yourselves the bulls-eye of an easy target. May you be publicly flogged for all of your bad choices. And may your noses be rubbed in all of your mistakes.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Ocean Waves (1993)

Tags

Animation, Anime, Drama, Romance

(The prompt for Day 3 of NaPoWriMo was to create a “Personal Universal Deck” of self-descriptive words, so I tried to come up with some word impressions for the characters of a lesser Ghibli film.)

Waves on the beach,
Wisdom to teach,
Woman and leech,
Scorning my speech.

Waves on my mind,
Wicked and kind,
Who she maligned
Is no longer blind.
__________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13 (for thematic material, very little objectionable)

I love so many Studio Ghibli films, but there are a few gaps I’ve been trying to fill, lesser-known works that have slipped through the cracks. Ocean Waves is one of them, an early ‘90s TV film based on a novel that was meant to give the younger animators a chance to show their stuff. It’s one of those subdued high school stories with a melodramatic love triangle that isn’t bad but can’t escape an overall dullness.

Told largely in flashback, the tale follows Taku as a high schooler who learns his friend Yutaka has a crush on a new girl named Rikako, and Taku is soon pulled into her life and drama more than he expected or wanted. My mom initially didn’t like Forrest Gump because of the way Jenny treated Forrest, and Rikako is in a similar mold. She manipulates, lies, uses people, and barely shows any remorse, yet her actions are eventually viewed with fondness. A high school reunion near the end hits some excellent nostalgic poignancy, but the main two characters aren’t exactly typical romance material, to the point that some have said the two male friends have more chemistry than the central “couple.”

Again, Ocean Waves is well-animated and not terrible, but it’s low-tier Ghibli with very little personality of its own and many tropes that have been done much better elsewhere. In fact, my favorite Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart has a lot of the same ingredients (high school love triangle, boy and girl who dislike each other at first) and yet has so much more character and passion to it. Perhaps Ocean Waves was just the warm-up.

Rank: Honorable Mention

© 2021 S.G. Liput
722 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #6: Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Musical, Romance

They say not to judge a book by its cover:
A frontispiece hater could turn to a lover,
If only you got to the end.

You may still despise it a few chapters in,
But stopping too early is almost a sin,
For still you do not know the end.

You may get halfway and still loathe it intensely,
And yet sticking with it could pay off immensely,
If only you got to the end.

Not much more to go, but you’re tempted to quit?
That’s something that nobody wants to admit,
For still you do not know the end.

You finished! I see, and your hatred’s the same?
I thought you would like it, so that is a shame,
At least, though, you now know the end.
________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13 (for much sexual innuendo)

Oh, Baz Luhrmann, I don’t know what to make of you. I take pride in enjoying musicals, and I fully expected to like Moulin Rouge! if only for its status as a jukebox musical. I knew it incorporated more modern songs into its 1900 Parisian setting, so I was prepared for the requisite anachronisms. But my gosh, I haven’t watched a film that was this bipolar in tone since, well, Strictly Ballroom, also by Luhrmann.

I remember Strictly Ballroom as a wholly unique experience. It started out as an obnoxious mockumentary that I was certain I disliked after the first few minutes, but then it just kept getting better, from the romance to the dancing, until it actually won me over by the end. Moulin Rouge! attempts to do the same thing but not nearly as well. The story follows the tragic love story of young poet Christian (Ewan McGregor), who is hastily initiated into a troupe of Bohemian artists and introduced to the lovely Satine (Nicole Kidman), starlet of the Moulin Rouge cabaret and desire of a jealous duke (Richard Roxburgh). That short plot description sounds normal enough, but the in-your-face style is utterly insufferable for the first thirty minutes, with rushed character introductions, sudden tone shifts, cartoonish sound effects, lowbrow humor, choppy editing, and hard-to-decipher dialogue during the musical numbers. My VC decided to stop watching entirely, and I considered it too, though my Blindspot obligation made me stick with it. I read that Luhrmann was trying to channel the tonal rollercoaster of a Bollywood film he had seen, but all his extravagance does is make it difficult to take anything seriously.

And then, slowly but surely, the romance element grows more intense and more serious, managing to achieve the intended epic tragedy of the star-crossed lovers. Despite partaking in a few of the puerile scenes that made me wonder how this movie snagged eight Oscar nominations, McGregor and Kidman are the film’s greatest strength, sporting palpable chemistry and decent musical chops. Their bravura medley of love-themed songs was the first clue that Moulin Rouge! might have more to offer than the beginning indicated.

Yet even if the core romance works well, so much else does not. The musical numbers and the choice of who sings them are a mixed bag and brought to mind the why-not(?) silliness of Mamma Mia! Just as I didn’t really need to hear Julie Walters sing “Take a Chance on Me,” I could have happily gone through life without hearing Jim Broadbent croon “Like a Virgin.” I admired the sheer number of recognizable songs used, but how they were deployed was often cringe-inducing. And even if the tone gets more serious over time, the film still indulges in occasional sound effects that undermine the pathos.

Moulin Rouge! is a case where its substance is upstaged by its distracting style. Strictly Ballroom managed to even out its tone and become a serious feel-good romance, and I suppose that’s easier than transitioning from surreal comedy to heartbreaking tragedy. I am aware that some people are able to look past Moulin Rouge’s faults and enjoy its over-the-top stylings, such as the Oscar-winning art direction and costumes, and I’m glad they can. I’ll acknowledge it’s original and took a risk, but this is one style I can affirm is not for me.

Best line: (several characters, quoting the song “Nature Boy”) “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

Rank:  Semi-Dishonorable Mention (a rarely used ranking to reflect my mixed feelings)

© 2020 S.G. Liput
708 Followers and Counting

I Lost My Body (2019)

Tags

Animation, Drama, Fantasy, Foreign, Romance

A hand without a body or a man without a hand –
Which would be more piteous or prone to reprimand?
The hand is guiltless, lacking fault; its owner bears the blame
Of entering a situation liable to maim.
The hand is helpless, lacking mind; its owner bears the thought
That they may wish to clap and clasp two hands and yet cannot.
The hand is listless, lacking will; its owner bears the task
Of moving on and living life behind a fragile mask.

The former owner bears so much, yet his lot I’d prefer
Than that poor hand that cannot even know how things once were.
Pity the hand but love the stump and all to it attached.
At bouncing back from tragedy, we humans are unmatched.
____________________________

Rating: TV-MA (should be PG-13)

I take the Best Animated Feature Oscar perhaps more seriously than others do. After superb anime films like Your Name or Maquia have been spurned in recent years, I take notice when the Academy deems other foreign films worthy of the honor of nomination. The seventh French production to earn such a nomination was last year’s I Lost My Body, a strangely poetic meditation on loss that happens to involve a severed hand.

At first, we don’t know how the severed hand came to be, though; the film starts out with the appendage “waking up” in the macabre fridge of a hospital and figuring out how to walk and jump with its fingers, like a more mobile Thing from The Addams Family. Cut then to the past and sullen pizza delivery guy Naoufel (Dev Patel in the quite good English dub), whose childhood of joy and trauma is recounted in flashback throughout the film. In failing to deliver a pizza, he becomes acquainted with a librarian named Gabrielle (Alia Shawkat) and takes up a job as a woodworker to get closer to her. Edited into this more grounded story, Naoufel’s future hand (which is evident from a scar they both have) makes its way across Paris in search of its owner.

It’s hard to call any movie about an animate severed hand anything but strange and morbid, but I Lost My Body treats it as an extended metaphor, which, as I said before, grows surprisingly poetic, heightened by a memorably haunting score. The close calls of the hand’s travels across a dangerous urban landscape provide thrilling visuals, while Naoufel’s struggles offer bittersweet human drama. Naturally, the film’s ultimate lead-up is to how the hand and its owner were separated, which is both cringeworthy and deeply symbolic.As an art film that happens to be animated, I Lost My Body’s main drawback for me is how open-ended it is, not offering much closure beyond what viewers choose to interpret. What does the hand represent? It’s up to you, I suppose. At one point, Naoufel is criticized for not knowing another character is sick and accused of not truly caring; the film never mentions it again, so I guess the film doesn’t care much either. Despite this, I’ve often said that I enjoy animations that can delve into mature themes without wallowing in mature content, and I Lost My Body fits that laudable mold. Amid last year’s nominations, Missing Link was the weak link that should have been replaced last year, preferably with Weathering with You; while imperfect, I Lost My Body is a worthy nominee.

Best line: (Gabrielle) “Once you’ve dribbled past fate, what do you do?”
(Naoufel) “You try to keep away from it. You run blindly… and keep your fingers crossed.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
697 Followers and Counting

 

2020 Blindspot Pick #3: Annie Hall (1977)

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Love is hard to pin down –
What it is, where it’s from,
Why it makes you a clown
Or remarkably dumb,
Why it strokes you one minute with gentle caress
And pounds you the next with a cold callousness,
Why it fills you with joy at a memory made
That turns bittersweet as the joyful times fade,
Why it brings you to tears
At the thought of a laugh,
Why the grain is so worth
The abundance of chaff.
No, I can’t explain it, doubt anyone could.
You’ll know when you feel it, the bad and the good.
________________________

MPA rating: PG (should be PG-13 nowadays)

Have you ever watched a movie that you can appreciate for everything it does well but still just not connect with it? That was my reaction to Annie Hall. This Best Picture-winning rom com is among Woody Allen’s most iconic films, and I can see why. From innovative storytelling to an insightful script, it deserved acclaim, but I can only offer it so much.

Allen himself plays Alvy Singer, a neurotic Jewish comedian, who after a couple failed marriages, falls for the offbeat beauty Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), with whom he shares a rollercoaster of a romance. The longer I watched Annie Hall, the more a thought continued to grow in my mind: “This is just like (500) Days of Summer!” Sure, Alvy has little in common with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character in that much later film, but there were so many parallels: the non-linear storyline, the quirky girlfriend, the occasional use of split-screen, the digressions with unconventional styles (an animated sidebar here vs the musical number in the other), the ultimate depression as a once happy romance peters out. The 2009 film is practically a remake, though not exactly, sort of how I felt about the plot similarities between Hidden and A Quiet Place.

Annie Hall has so many creative choices that just feel unique and revolutionary even, such as Alvy repeatedly breaking the fourth wall, the visual representation of how a lover feels distant, characters’ inner thoughts being shown as subtitles to contrast with what they’re saying, or his discussions with random people on the street as if they were parts of his subconscious. And then there were the plethora of cameos, from Paul Simon and Carol Kane in larger roles to Christopher Walken used for a one-off gag, not to mention certain stars who had yet to become famous, like Jeff Goldblum, John Glover, and Sigourney Weaver.

And yet, for all those strengths that I enjoyed, I was left feeling oddly cold. For the film being considered the 4^th greatest comedy by AFI, I recall a chuckle here and there but no big laughs; it was full of lines where I didn’t laugh but instead thought, “That’s humorous,” which doesn’t seem like what a comedy should do. Perhaps it was the presence of Woody Allen himself. His overly neurotic Alvy, obsessed with death and Jewish discrimination, is quite a character, but I couldn’t stand to be around someone like him in real life. Plus, there’s the mental baggage of the real-life Allen and the scandalous allegations surrounding him. My VC says he makes her skin crawl and didn’t enjoy the film because of him; the only film with him she rather liked was The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, in which he’s constantly disparaged.

So, I guess I can count Annie Hall with so many other classics that just didn’t quite live up to expectations, right alongside the likes of The Third Man and The Philadelphia Story. I can appreciate it for its groundbreaking eccentricities, but when I consider that it won Best Picture over Star Wars, I just have to shake my head. Considering all the things I liked in Annie Hall, I just thought I would like the whole package more.

Best line: (Alvy Singer’s Therapist) “How often do you sleep together?”
(Annie Hall’s Therapist) “Do you have sex often?”
(Alvy, lamenting) “Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week.”
(Annie, annoyed) “Constantly. I’d say three times a week.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
692 Followers and Counting

 

2020 Blindspot Pick #2: Double Indemnity (1944)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Romance, Thriller

A murderer for money never thinks that he or she
Will be found out like all the rest who murdered foolishly.
“Those others never thought it through; they never planned it out;
They just weren’t careful to remove the slightest shred of doubt.
They acted on an impulse, failed to hide the fatal flaw,
But we would know exactly how to circumvent the law.
We’re smarter, right? More clever, right? When one of us commits,
No justice could contend in this, the coldest war of wits.”

Deep down within the killer’s mind, unconsciously or not,
They soothe themselves with thoughts like these to justify their plot.
And always they delude themselves, for justice, soon or late,
Will find out every criminal and lead them to their fate.
________________________

Rating: Passed/Approved (an easy PG)

Darn, I did not expect to post only one review in the whole month of May, but college is as college does. Nevertheless, I’m back to continue my long-delayed Blindspot series. (Now I’m only four behind this year!) I’ve heard of Double Indemnity for years, noticing its high placement on lists by AFI and other film organizations, yet I never really knew what the name even meant, not being versed in insurance terminology. As it turns out, I’ve seen versions of this plot plenty of times on true crime shows, but this influential film noir treatment brought it to a national audience way back in 1944.

Based on a James M. Cain novella, the script for Double Indemnity was the result of a tenuous collaboration between director Billy Wilder and famed detective novelist Raymond Chandler. As such, it utilizes a clever tool for narration; right from the beginning, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) admits into a dictaphone his role in the death of a man named Dietrichson, beginning an extended flashback of his plot. After meeting the man’s alluring wife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), Neff allows her to talk him into a murder conspiracy to get rid of her distant husband and collect on some ill-gotten life insurance, with Neff using his insurance experience to sweeten the pot with a double indemnity clause (which doubles the payment in the case of certain unlikely causes of death, such as a train accident). Yet, their “perfect crime” slowly unravels as Neff’s boss (Edward G. Robinson) becomes more and more suspicious during the investigation.

I haven’t seen many films of the film noir genre, but Double Indemnity certainly fits the bill with its shadowy angles and conspiratorial tension and indeed predates the widespread use of the term by a couple years. Plus, Barbara Stanwyck is a quintessential femme fatale figure, manipulating McMurray’s everyman character into taking charge of the plot she initiates. The film was apparently controversial for its portrayal of murder, which is tame by today’s standards, but the characters’ growing anxiety after the deed is done translates well to the audience. As Neff is forced to “assist” Robinson’s skeptical insurance man in following a trail that leads back to him, I happened to think of other similar plots that must have taken some inspiration from this one, such as 1987’s No Way Out.

Double Indemnity is a Grade-A film noir, but I can’t say it’s a new favorite since film noir is far from my favorite genre. Neff and Stanwyck do a fine job as the conspirators, but their cynically flowery dialogue, sometimes clever, is also sometimes a bit much, carrying on metaphors in ways people just don’t talk, though that’s mainly at the beginning. Robinson, though, is in top form here, stealing his scenes with a vocal panache that can’t be taught. I don’t always have to love a film to recognize it as a classic, and Double Indemnity is, another cinematic testament to the lesson “crime does not pay.”

Best line: (Neff) “Do I laugh now, or wait till it gets funny?”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
689 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #1: What a Way to Go! (1964)

Tags

Classics, Comedy, Musical, Romance

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write about a homemade gift, so I merged one I’ve given myself with the set-up of a classic ‘60s film.)

I asked a rich woman what she valued most
Of all the excess she possessed.
She told me of gems from the Ivory Coast,
But they were not what she loved best.

Her multiple husbands had filled her accounts
And heaped her with riches obscene.
But Fabergé eggs and saffron by the ounce
No longer enticed such a queen.

The canvas and carvings of classical pros,
Which every museum would covet,
Served only to gild both the lily and rose,
For only one thing made her love it.

A small piece of paper with “I Heart You” on it
From when her first love was dirt poor.
It quite overshadowed a jewel or a sonnet,
For less with nostalgia is more.
__________________________

MPA rating: Approved (due to some steamy romantic scenes, I’d say it straddles the line between PG and PG-13)

It’s a shameful embarrassment that it’s taken four months for me to finally review the first of my Blindspot picks. Life and work and a certain virus have just delayed my access to actually watching any of the twelve movies I selected at the beginning of the year, but here at last I have begun my catch-up. Before I chose my picks, my mom told me that 1964’s What a Way to Go was one of my late dad’s favorite movies, which surprised me because I never saw it with him or heard him talk about it. But he introduced it to her, and now she’s done the same for me.

Black comedies are a difficult balance of two contrasting genres, so what would such a balance look like in the comparative innocence of a 1964 film? What a Way to Go! is the answer. Shirley MacLaine plays a young widow trying to get rid of her vast amounts of wealth, her inheritance from multiple dead husbands, and after a psychiatrist (Bob Cummings) thinks she’s crazy, she recounts the varied tales of how she accidentally led her lovers to both wild success and early graves.

The best thing about What a Way to Go! is its cast: Dean Martin as a snooty playboy, Dick Van Dyke as an everyman-turned-busybody, Robert Mitchum as a suave millionaire, Gene Kelly as a talented performer, and Paul Newman (as I’ve never seen him before) playing a gruff expatriate. Some of the roles are tailor-made for the actor, such as Gene Kelly’s presence allowing for a song-and-dance number, while others seem designed to make them play against type. It seemed odd seeing Shirley MacLaine so young and attractive when I’ve mainly seen her as a grumpy older lady in Terms of Endearment or Steel Magnolias, but she does a great job as the unluckily lucky widow, even holding her own alongside Gene Kelly when dancing.Most of the goings-on are fairly silly, with the husbands’ unusual (non-graphic) deaths earning more laughs than grief, including a gag that’s crept up elsewhere about trying to milk a male cow. I especially liked how each marriage is compared with a different film genre, launching into a series of vignettes recalling silent comedies, foreign art films, musicals, or posh dramas with ridiculously extravagant costumes from the great Edith Head. All in all, What a Way to Go! was a delightful bit of lightweight absurdity, finding hilarity in repeated tragedy and managing to land a happy ending. It certainly looked like everyone involved had fun making it, as I did watching it.

Best lines: (announcer) “Tonight, in ‘Flaming Lips,’ Pinky Benson proved that a comedy can run five and a half hours. Earlier today, Pinky told us his next film will run seven and a half hours.”

and

(Larry Flint/Paul Newman) “Money corrupts. Art erupts.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
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