eunice-4

When this movie began, and Emil Jannings first appeared, I thought "Oh no! not another stagey old ham playing to the back row of the gallery." However, as the scene changed to Czarist Russia, so did Jannings performance. Instead of the twitchy old refugee living in a boarding house, we saw a upright, aristocratic soldier in control. From then on, the performance was impecable. Who could not feel sympathy for the General as he was betrayed by his country and his love and everything he stood for. Who also could not feel sympathy for the desparate revolutionaries trying to overthrow a decadent monarchy. The theatrical director who became a film director was also sympathetic as an artist caught up (like most participants of WWI) in a war that was not of his doing and that he really couldn't care less about. This film, made only 10 years after the revolution, said a lot about the plight of war refugees everywhere.

Tome Jones came out of the wonderful 60's when all the stuffy conventions of British theater, film and music were turned upside down. I first saw this film while stationed in Wiltshire in the Royal Air Force, and having grown up in the industrial West Riding of Yorkshire, my eyes had only recently been opened to the staggering beauty of the English countryside.

Tom Jones represented that unspoiled English countryside to me. I could smell the hay, the wildflowers and the livestock. Never mind that unless you were rich it was serf labor, I saw England through a wonderful fantasy of a film. The action never stopped. This movie was just hilarious from beginning to end. No glossing over the crude realities of country life - this was a period when the poor folk shared their hovels with the chickens and other small animals, when sex was raw, albeit punished on Sundays, and when the local gentry had their way with the wenches.

Rarely has there been such a belly laugh of a movie. Laugh until the tears roll down your face.

I can never understand why "The Devils", which was such a major film and caused such controversy, never became a cult classic being shown every other week on cable TV. This film totally annihilates all the trashy "straight-to-video" horror films. Based on true events in 17th century France, this film is one of the most horrifying tales of man's intolerance: religious and sexual.

The tale begins with an outbreak of the plague, which the folk of the middle ages, with typical misunderstanding of the real cause, rat fleas, believed that someone was to blame. Who more convenient a scapegoat than Father Grandier, played by the notorious Oliver Reed an actor who ended his rambunctious life by dropping dead in a bar. The sexual appeal of Fr. Grandier drives the supposedly celibate clergy into a frenzy of jealousy. A group of nuns, led by a noblewoman who has been forced into the convent due to her physical deformity and therefore, lack of marriageable options, joins in the hysteria which is not satisfied until Fr. Grandier is burned at the stake.

Although set in France in the middle ages, a lot of the hysteria can be seen today, in our more enlightened times. Just witness the periodic witch hunts in the United States, such as the furore over the alleged Satanic cults running day care centers, not to mention the reds under the beds hysteria of the 50's.

This was one of Ken Russell's most controversial films, and definitely very 70's in its style, after all, we had Mick Jagger and Twiggy perfectly cast as decadent French nobility, and it has taken 20+ years to see how right on the mark he was.

Although Russell was the hottest thing in cinema for a while, he faded like a discarded fashion as every wannabe copied his style, but without being able to understand what is was that set Ken Russell apart. Unfortunately Russell did not help his reputation by becoming more and more the icon of bad taste. Eventually he became a parody and the fickle who had formally worshipped his genius could not disassociate themselves quickly enough.

Like Orson Welles, Ken Russell's brilliance will not be realized until a new generation discovers his work. I recommend "The Devils" along with "The Music Lovers" as his best work.

It is so rare to see a film about the occult that rises above the drive-in level of oversexed teens getting chopped up, but here is a film with long "talky" scenes which hold one's interest.

Keanu Reeves plays a successful young lawyer from Gainesville, Florida, which is not in LA or NY. You know it is Florida as everyone wears white suits, sweats and cools themselves with those little fans they give out at funerals. Kevin's preacher mum has been thumping the bible so hard that she has knocked her brains out. Kevin's wife is a silly spoiled brat who seems to want nothing more than neverending sex in between bouts of hysterics.

When Kevin receives an offer he can't refuse from a senior partner in a New York law firm, John Milton (Al Pacino) who is the devil in disguise, he jumps at the opportunity to become a hot shot lawyer and get fabulously rich, no matter what the cost. And here lies the core of the film. Milton offers him the world if he will sell his own soul. Kevin is never pushed or threatened, the choice is his alone to make. He jumps into the shallow world of high-living movers and shakers who are rotten to the core, and literally hell bent on success, his wife goes insane and commits suicide, and his mother reveals that Milton is his father.

Not surprisingly, Kevin wakes up to what is going on and in a superb long debate with the devil argues the case for responsibility for his slide down the slippery slope before choosing salvation.

The film is a joy to watch, especially if you like to concentrate on what they are saying rather than just watching the action. Al Pacino goes way over the top and gets away with it. The only other actor I can think of who could have played this role successfully over the top is Albert Finney. It is rather like watching the old theatrical actor managers who always guaranteed to give a powerhouse performance that would wake them up at the back of the gallery, even on a wet Monday night. Sometimes we need waking up.

There is no mistaking a Fellini film, even when you only catch the last 30 minutes, as I did when channel surfing. I made an effort to catch the full film next time it was shown, and was rewarded with a stunning feast. Not one of Fellini's best (or worst excesses) depending on your opinion of Fellini, but images that will stay with me for many years. Like Ken Russell, Fellini can always be depended on to go way over the top and never do anything by halves.

The story of a group of rich aristocrats, opera singers, hangers on and just plain rich accompanying the body of a great opera singer to her cremation on the island of her birth in 1914, is shown in Fellini's stylised fashion as an allegory on the decline of Europe in WWI. The opulent excess of the doomed rich lifestyle, which no matter how hard they tried, was never regained, contrasts with the workers slaving in order to enable the rich to enjoy that elegant privileged lifestyle. The scene where the passengers tour the boiler rooms, standing on a cat walk to look down on the stokers shovelling coal into the boilers and trilling arias while the stokers took off their caps to show respect, made me hope the catwalk would collapse and plunge the passengers into the furnace.

The stylistic storytelling reminded me of "Oh what a lovely War" Joan Littlewood's depiction of WWI as a series of songs and dances by a seaside concert party. If you want reality, you can look out of the window every day and see reality. Sometimes a surrealist view puts a different window on things. The stupendous finale of the movie is enough to make the film worthwhile if nothing else.

At the beginning of this film I thought we were in for an awful long talky. Why had Kurasawa made this film? I should have waited. Just as I was ready to go and wash the dishes the film built up to one of the most gripping stories and held my attention throughout. The editing of the scene where the kidnapper buys the heroin took my breath away as I sat on the edge of the couch to watch closely. This scene ranks along with anything by Orson Welles and Sir Carol Reed. If you are partial to black and white masterpieces, see this film.

Madadayo is the kind of film for which I subscribe to a satellite TV system. Such films will never be shown within a thousand miles of where I live. Only Akira Kurasawa and Ingmar Bergman could make a film like this in which little happens, and yet a lot happens.

The plot device is that of telling a story by a series of scenes revolving around the same characters and place, separated by time. Orson Welles used it to depict the deteriorating marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Foster Kane. The story of Madadayo is depicted by a series of birthday parties for a beloved professor, beginning in the early 1940's. In the first scene we are shown why he is so loved. He comes into class and after the students have stood to attention and bowed, announces sternly that someone has been smoking. Silence follows, then he admits that the urge to smoke is very tempting and that he has long succumbed. He then announces that he will be retiring to make his living as a writer. Each year his students hold a birthday party for him, and each year we see how things have changed, but not the old professor's gentle spirit. The film moves slowly, which can b e rather daunting to Americans accustomed to "Action movies", but if one stays with it, the film unfolds to tell a wonderful story of love by the students for their venerated teacher. Dare I say it? A Japanese Goodbye Mr. Chips! Oh, if only American scholars could show that kind of respect for their teachers!.

This movie about some members of the overstudied Bloomsbury Group, should not have been made. What was avant guard and shocking in post WWI England is merely sick and perverse today, even though we have seen far more bizarre and permissive behaviour. The only character with any spark was played by Rufus Sewell, and it was never explained why he was so explosive and violent. Unrequited love perhaps?

The film begins when Britain was involved in a truly terrible war, the likes of which it had never seen before. The slaughter was appalling and senseless. After most of the able bodied men had been killed or maimed, boys of 17 and younger were sent off to the trenches in France to be killed. They were doing their duty dying for King and Country in a war that was hopelessly bound to the Victorian mentality. An entire generation of men of marriageable age was wiped out, leaving a lot of women behind who would never marry. These women had kept things running while the men were away at the war, and many continued to do so after the men did not come back, leading to an emancipation of women in the 20's.

The Bloomsbury Group attracted many intellectual thinkers of the day, including writers, artists, philosophers, pacifists, socialists, Fabians and others who defied and challenged the old order, determined to shake Britain out of its hypocritical Victorian smugness. They also seem to have led promiscuous sex lives which seems to be the only part that fascinates writers and film makers. Unfortunately this film does not concentrate on the many artistic achievements but on the bizarre sex lives of Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey. I think that I would prefer not to have known.

This is the kind of movie we used to go to see at the drive-in on weekends when they did not have a horror film. The story is the basic corny bad guy and his goons running the town. Good guy comes in, cleans it up, leaves. On the way he toys with the nice girl. The owner of the local honky tonk hires a man with a reputation to curb the nightly violence at his honky tonk, which seems to be more than the usual "boys lettin' off a bit of steam". Sho' nuff, he is being set up by a local businessman who wants to control the town. Everyone must buy from him see. No independents in his town. After couple of hours of fist fights, knife fights, pool cue fights, kick boxing, shootings and car crashes, the bad guy gets his and the police finally show up to spoil the fun.

Heck, what does the story matter as long as it doesn't get in the way of the action, which is mostly fist-fighting, and LOTS of fist-fights. Open a beer and enjoy it.

This is a movie that I put off seeing as I was afraid it would be a maudlin "disease of the week" film. Instead I found it very uplifting. The real-life characters were not living in Mayberry, they were a free spirited biker mother of no apparent means of support and her young severely deformed son. Although mom seemed to have a different "boy-friend" every night, and used drugs, the strong love and affection that she and her son had for each other came across more strongly than in any "weepie" movie. One of the funniest yet touching scenes was when Rocky started becoming interested in girls. Rather than saying that one day he would meet a girl who would love him for what he really was, his mother stole $40 from her boyfriend's pocket and headed off to a bar to hire a hooker, who was just as young and vulnerable as Rocky. In her own way, his mother was doing what she thought was best for him. I also loved the scene where the bikers showed up for the school meeting, scaring the bejabbers out of the other parents.

Cher is terrific in this film, and Sam Elliot plays her old flame who is back for the time being. The bikers come across as human beings who accept each other without flaws, and who also have family lives.

Rufus Sewell must be one of Britain's busiest actors and popular romantic lead. He must have appeared in some 10 films this year and the year is only half way through. Rufus is a throwback to the glory days of Gainsborough pictures when James Mason, Stewart Grainger, Michael Rennie et al caused hearts to throb in period dramas as they swirled their capes, drew their swords, fought duels, bedded wenches and in general acted like lusty MEN! Rufus Sewell saves this film from being a feminist sounding board by playing a young lover forced into an arranged marriage by the custom of the times without appearing weak and sappy. The medieaval Italians spent their time wheeling and dealing in a way that would put a Hollywood mogul to shame, and arranging marriages was part of the dealing.

Catherine McCormick does a wonderful job as Veronica and the film is helped by wonderful supporting players. I must confess that I felt sorry for the abandoned wife of Marco.

For my taste, the feminist revision of history is grating. People in those times knew the score: no one married for love and no one expected to. Veronica, being from a good, albeit impoverished, family could have married a noveau riche merchant wanting to move up by marrying into an old respected family. She became a courtesan by choice, it was in her blood, and had she not stuck her neck out and antagonised the church she would not have been hauled before the Inquisition.

The film looks handsome and is worth watching twice. I just wish I could have seen it on a cinema screen, but as there were no car chases, no teenagers, and it did not star Bruce, Arnold, or Sylvester, it was not shown in my area.

I first saw Cold Comfort Farm way back in the early 70's on TV, but this latest version is so much funnier. Kate Beckinsale makes a wonderful bossy "take charge" Flora, and everyone else in the cast is just hilarious. Eileen Atkins' scenery chewing when her son, played by Rufus Sewell, was leaving home to become a Hollywood film star, just about had me in hysterics. The dread menacing atmosphere, the dark hints about something seen in the woodshed, and the general squalor of a once prosperous family gone to ruin are all conveyed in a humourous but not slapstick or farcical way. The Starkadders mooch about muttering threateningly until Flora eventually sets them all on the right path to recovering prosperity. Flora is the kind of upbeat heroine who would take a hot cup of cocoa to Dracula "because he is probably cold after all that time in the tomb." A very enjoyable film for those who like something different.

Jane Eyre with full frontal nudity! I was not surprised to see that a woman had had a hand in this awful "woman's picture" and I mean that in the worst possible way. The trouble is, it could have been so good if they had only left out the Jane Eyre stuff and stuck with the vastly more interesting scenes involving the Spanish/Portuguese Jews in early 19th century London. When the sound track music is better than the film, you know you are in trouble. When you fast forward the video because you can't stand the film, just to make sure you don't miss anything, you are in even worse trouble. This film will end up on the romance TV channel where it rightly belongs.

I went to see Hilary and Jackie because I am so bedazzled by the wonderful Rachel Griffiths of "Muriel's Wedding." I enjoyed the film, which I felt was made with potential lawsuits in mind; but nevertheless, I realised that American audiences with their confrontational litigation mentality, could never understand the sharing of one sister's husband with another in a close family relationship. Ye gods! Better keep it in the family than have her going out to a bar and picking up a one night stand! I am British, I do understand.

My only gripe about the film was the casting of James Fraine as Daniel Barenbaum. James is this year's brunette, and a very good actor, but he simply did not fit the part. He did not look like the real Daniel Barenbaum. We are talking about people who are still alive

Having seen Jacqueline DuPre on the Dick Cavett show (oh how I miss that show) when she was in a wheelchair and bloated from medication, I really sympathised with the awful fate that befell her. It was the worst horror story, and in the movie, it did not appear that she had much support from her family. I have not read the book; whatever, this film served as a horror story of what if. What if I went down with a dreadful terminal illness that would take 20 years or so to run its course!

Robert Powell is wonderful as Mahler, but otherwise, as a straight biography of Gustave Mahler this would work if the more surrealist scenes of Mahler's conversion to Catholicism were cut. This might have worked better if the actress representing Cosima Wagner had resembled her even slightly (she had the most distinctive aquiline nose ever) as it is, she looks as if she was put in because she was someone's girl friend.

Ken Russell fans, looking for his plumbing the depths of bad taste, will be disappointed. The film exists as a 70's memory.

The minute that apparently nice respectable Al sees that trashy trailer park, and Ellie's mom, who is a cross between Marabelle Morgan and the Stepford wives, he should have run for his life, but being a dim bulb he sticks around. These people are just pathetic! What on earth is Anne Archer doing in this film? Putting her children through college or saving up for her retirement? I can't believe that this is supposed to be a comedy. Checking the washing and doing the dishes was more interesting. Don't even bother watching a free copy of this film. It is boring.

Why this movie is not being shown every year alternating with "It's a Wonderful Life" I do not know. This 66 year-old masterpiece is hilariously funny and amazingly fresh for such an old film. None of the usual overacting and bawling to the back of the gallery that is usually found in movies of that period. I liked it more than the remake, "Pocket Full of Miracles." Most interesting was the character of Maguire (of the sore feet). He was a predecessor of the almost obnoxious Captain Luther of the Barney Miller TV series.