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Coincidentally, three years before this film was made, my grandparents married after having met only three times, with her still a teenager. As far as the family knows there were no murders, and they remained happily married until his death many decades later.

When Strangers Marry is a bare bones, B-noir, livened up by its cast, which includes Robert Mitchum in one of his earliest starring roles, Kim Hunter, and Neil Hamilton. Unlike a lot of noir entries whose plots are convoluted beyond belief, this one has a very simple story, probably too simple. The fact that the wife doesn't ask a lot of questions before marrying or afterwards either, when she starts to realize her new husband might be a murderer, is a little disappointing. There is a twist but it contradicts earlier character actions, and overall the film felt too tame, needing more of a malevolent edge. The actors are all fine, but the characters they play are too soft, too flat.

I liked this film more for its smaller moments, like the wonderful scene in the lively Harlem nightclub, Mitchum and Hamilton dousing themselves with buckets of water in the sauna, or the little girl in the hotel spying solemnly through her cracked door. This is one that never offended the sensibilities, but just needed a few bigger moments to go with those kinds of things and its solid foundation. At least it didn't overstay its welcome, moving along well and finishing in a brisk 67 minutes.

"Struggle? Look, I'm a black man born and raised in Mississippi. Ain't a damn thing you can tell me about struggle."

A story that seemed a little simple and formulaic early on, but which really blossomed as it played out. That was of course helped considerably by the palpable chemistry between the two leads, Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury. Their moments walking along the bayou, flirting over the phone together, and making love are electric in such easy, natural ways. The backstory of her family's time in Uganda - ancestors having been brought over by the British to build the railroads, then descendants expelled when Idi Amin took power - along with the considerations of race within both of their cultures added depth and meaning to the romance.

Along the lines of race, we get sentiments of solidarity between people of color, but also viewpoints of darker skin people (whether they're Indian or African) being less desirable, expressed both overtly and in more subtle ways, something which naturally churns the emotions. The film is focused there, but we get glimpses of white racism and power imbalance, like that wonderful scene in the bank, but director Mira Nair was wisely restrained on this front. She also gets a little humor in, like the grandfather at the BBQ who keeps saying "bring the food!" or the new husband struggling to consummate his marriage, accidentally getting whacked in the face for his troubles. Look for the performance from Konga Mbandu as well (he plays Okelo, the friend in Uganda); it's a small part, but he's brilliant. Fun soundtrack too.

Oh, I adored this little gem from David Lean. It has elements of both comedy and romance, but they're delivered in such a unique way that it would be hard to classify the film as either, and it's also got wonderfully strong themes of feminism and class as well.

Charles Laughton hams it up as usual, but here it really works, as he plays Henry Horatio Hobson, the overbearing father of three daughters who struggles to assert his dominance over them in his boot making shop. The film grabbed me from the start with just how strong they were in standing up to him, especially the eldest, Maggie (Brenda de Banzie). She's 30 years old, and he's told her in his charmless manner that she's well past the marrying age, then laughed it up about her with his drinking buddies down at the pub. Aside from his raging misogyny spurred on by alcoholism, he secretly wants to keep her under his thumb because she runs the shop and cooks for him so well. Undeterred, she shrewdly hatches a plan to find a husband and establish her own business in one fell swoop by proposing to a timid yet talented worker down in her father's cellar, Will Mossop (John Mills). How she works on Mossop's confidence in such a direct, take charge way has moments which are both funny and endearing. The setting feels Dickensian, but this story is told in a comedic, positive light, one driven by Maggie, who turns out to be the Hobson making the titular choice.

The script is brilliant, and Lean makes the most of some fantastic moments, like an inebriated Henry Hobson plummeting down into a grain cellar from the sidewalk, or Will Mossop unexpectedly getting whacked in the face by his landlady, upset that he no longer plans to marry her daughter. I also loved the cheeky little references to the upcoming wedding night, Mossop blushing at the thought of his husbandly duties as Maggie nonchalantly tests out the springs while buying a bed for them, or her casually slipping into the bedroom and announcing she's "ready" as he squirms. The arc for his character, while contrived, was quite heartwarming.

"Rasta, what are you doing inside there?" "Hey Rasta, what the Babylon am I deal with? I and I control to the fullness." "Get out, mon!" "Remove ya!!!"

Such a great window into late 1970's Jamaica and the reggae scene, featuring many musicians playing themselves, such as Burning Spear, Gregory Isaacs, and Robbie Shakespeare. The soundtrack and the patois alone make this highly engaging, but maybe more importantly, it also highlights the social consciousness of Rastafarianism. This often seems to be overlooked in reggae music, which can be dismissed as music to get high to, but its deepest concerns are in the struggles of the common man against the corruption of the wealthy, and the oppression of the "Babylon system" they live under.

We see that most obviously in the Robin Hood like story line in this film, which is a bit simple, but also in the lyrics of songs playing in the background, e.g. Junior Byles on Fade Away singing "the rich is getting richer every day, and the little that the poor man got, it shall be taken away, do you hear what I say?" or Gregory Isaacs on Slave Master singing "Every time I hear the music and I make a dip, a dip, slave master comes around and spank I with his whip, the whip." The solidarity with ending colonialism in African is also referred when producer Jack Ruby says they've just finished recording Free Rhodesia, which isn't heard here, but which the Black Disciples would release in real life.

One of the things that didn't work as well for me was the way the main character (Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace) treated his family (which was his real life family too, btw). He's trying to provide for them by using all of their money to buy a motorbike so he can get around to sell records and play the drums in live sessions, but he's almost never home, and when he is, he downplays his wife's concerns about having money for food and clothing for their small kids. He tells her not to worry, Jah (God or Haile Selassie) will provide, and that he need only teach them their culture. He tells her to shut up several times, and we see none of her viewpoint.

There is an interesting scene showing the tolerance of the faith when Horsemouth is confronted by his grandmother, a Christian who is celebrating baptisms in the river, and who asks the Lord to forgive his sins and for him to convert. Rather than argue or get angry with her, he simply accepts her, without backing down from his views. Here and in one or two other places, the fourth wall is broken, allowing a character to explain views of peace and brotherhood. Of course, when pushed by "the man," the film brews up some cathartic revenge, set to Peter Tosh's Stepping Razor, but it's not violent, and just involves a little redistribution of wealth. This is a film that feels deeply meaningful to culture, and it's one that works on several levels, despite its modest budget.

Given its reputation from the reviews for this film when came out, it was a little surprising to me just how watchable it was, and I chuckled lots of times over how far Tom Green was willing to push boundaries to get a laugh. Of course, where the viewer draws the line for what's acceptable and what's in poor taste will vary, but Green will almost certainly go right up to it, if not go beyond. Jokes about animal semen, flinging a newborn baby around by the umbilical cord, and child molestation, for example, are on the menu here. However you feel about those, it's too bad that they tend to overshadow the creative set pieces and things like the hilarious Zebras in America animation. Along the way Green satirizes traditional Hollywood tropes in romance films and those centered on "finding oneself," so amidst all the shock humor there's something pretty subversive at the core of this. Seeing Shaq towards the end was a plus too.

I love the fact that this film was made to honor Jean-Michel Basquiat, the street artist who rapidly rose to fame and took the art world by storm in 1980's. While it's easy to get distracted by David Bowie's spacy interpretation of Andy Warhol or the other stars in the cast (Christopher Walken, Parker Posey, Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Tatum O'Neal), it's Jeffrey Wright who is absolutely brilliant in the title role, giving a performance that should have received accolades. The film gives us some level of visibility into Basquiat's style as an artist, and the casual and overt racism he faced.

What held me back from truly loving it, however, was that it felt like too soft a treatment. It doesn't highlight Basquiat's work enough, with so many pieces not shown, something that would seem unimaginable for films about other artists. A couple of examples of more political works not included are Irony of Negro Policeman and Defacement, and an example of one that never fails to give me goosebumps is Riding with Death, painted shortly before he died. The film doesn't really showcase his knowledge of other artists or his social commentary. It also ends ridiculously abruptly. This is a story that deserves to be told again, with a fresh voice.

In this documentary we get a portrait of the musician Leon Russell in concert and the studio, sure, but we also get a portrait of the time and place, one that Les Blank paints so naturally. He seems to let his gaze fall on things which interest him, like the way the clouds float past the sun, making it look like it's swimming through them, the shimmering of colored lights in the water at night, or a little girl singing "Joy to the World," and then lets us simply enjoy these things too. Many other artists and musicians are given a chance to shine, some amateur, some professional, like George Jones and a young Willie Nelson. It's so organic, and a perfect match to Russell's genre-blending, improvisational style.

Good lord, what a waste of talent, and a waste of time. I guess the intention of this film was to show, in an unvarnished way, how juvenile men are, particularly when they're with their bro friends. Three guys (Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, and Ben Gazzara) meet at the funeral of a fourth, and afterwards, perhaps because they're so poorly equipped to handle their emotions, go on a bender and then fly off to London, practically going through mid-life crises in unison. It's not a bad concept for a film, but the trouble is it's so poorly scripted (slash poorly improvised), and goes on far too long.

The first hint of this was the interminable antics while drinking the night after the funeral, singing, kissing one of the women, giggling like idiots, etc. Seriously, this scene went on for 21(!!) minutes before it segued to Falk vomiting in the bathroom, which was about 20 minutes too long. Then it was 12 minutes in the bathroom, where we get to get nothing by way of interesting dialog or action, but plenty of disgusting noises. It was very hard for the film to recover from these consecutive scenes, and seriously had me wondering about not finishing it (and I finish everything).

It's not until the 70-75 minute point that they fly to London, where they gamble and (far too easily) pick up some women. This leads to a very unpleasant scene with Cassavetes' character trying to force himself on one of them, wrestling around with her, choking her and she tells him to get off her, and spouting lines like "Just one kiss for my mother. Kiss me like my mother, will you? I've always been a mother... mother-kisser." That scene goes on for 6 long minutes, and then segues to Falks' character trying to have sex with an Asian woman who displeases him (by tongue kissing him?!), causing him to rant and rave at her. Aside from the racism in his comments, which you could just take as the character ("Is that where you're from, Japan? What's the difference? I'm an American, I'm from New York"), it's very unfortunate that of the three women, it's this one that the film renders mute during the scene of interest. Oh, she does express her frustration at him while trying to catch a cab in the rain, but it's obviously dubbed Cantonese, I guess befitting a throwaway character.

We never learn much if anything about these characters, other than they're unlikeable assholes, so it makes watching them for extended periods quite tedious. There are multiple cases where the improvising, either in horseplay or dialog, doesn't feel authentic (actors even breaking character into suppressed laughter), so I can't even say I liked the performances here either. This one's just a complete mess - definitely don't watch it if you're new to Cassavetes. Watch A Woman Under the Influence (1974) or something else instead.

A short mainly about a woman's insecurity over a small black mole that's above her right breast, with another dimension provided in how Asian women in particular have been fetishized by the West. For the former, there are shots of the young woman trying to rub the mole away while showering, and trying to cover it with concealing cream, to background questions from an interviewer, e.g. When she first noticed it, etc. For the latter, cringe-worthy clips from The World of Suzie Wong (1960) are interspersed with the young woman examining herself in the mirror and a glimpse into her own interracial relationship. I can't say that the film probes either of these things in a deep way, but it lets us in on the sense of vulnerability for a woman who would almost certainly be viewed as beautiful by strangers, as well the burden in the western world she carries because of stereotypes.

This is like a personal version of Speed (1994), in that a hit man who has been injected with a drug referred to as "Chinese sh**" must keep the adrenaline flowing in his body, or he'll die. He thus sets off on a wild ride through L. A., intent on improbably surviving, getting revenge, and protecting his girlfriend. His actions and the visual style are fast and furious to say the least, and it's all set to a soundtrack of hard driving metal (with the somewhat odd exception of Everybody's Talkin by Harry Nilsson lol). All of the testosterone on display here isn't exactly subtle, but it's entertaining, and I liked the ending too. The public sex scene in Chinatown felt wrong in a lot of ways, so I took points off for that though.

Interesting premise, but flat characters making infuriating decisions made this one tough to fully appreciate. It's a film that had its moments in the interplay between the friends, but felt too simplistic at the core of its love triangle, and dragged on too long. I liked the idea of exploring the compromises usually necessary in a stable relationship vs. The wild ride our hearts might lead us on, but this didn't feel much like an exploration, perhaps because the central character (Erika Karata) is so weakly drawn.

Maybe if you've been left in the past by a partner you truly loved, someone who if they showed up out of the blue might cause you to throw everything that's good in your life away, it may resonate more for you, but for me I couldn't buy it. Solid performance from Masahiro Higashide in the dual role, and I liked the character of Maya (Rio Yamashita) here - if only her fate had been a little more intertwined with that of Ryohei's.

Just a lovely story of a teacher, kitchen manager, and student at a posh boarding school forced to spend Christmas break together. It's set in 1971 and there is certainly a vintage aspect to it, but just as the teacher of ancient history points out, the fundamentals of human experience haven't changed over millennia, and the film felt more than a little relevant today. It scores points with humor, its tugs on the heartstrings, and its commentary on the affluent playing by a different set of rules. There is great humanism in the story of learning why people act as they do as the sources of their pain are uncovered, and the three principals filling each other's emotional voids. Most of the elements of the film have been done in other ways before, but Alexander Payne sure put them all together well here.

There are some absolutely riveting moments in this film, which has a lot of great things going for it. The action out on those distant planets, cool robot designs, stirring organ music from Hans Zimmer, and emotions of being distant from family were all brilliant. The film stumbles badly with how shallow it gets down the stretch, with the nonsensical way the black hole data is transmitted, the sappy "love is observable and quantifiable" stuff, and the ridiculously brief meeting of father and daughter. It suffers from wanting to do too many things, and Christopher Nolan not understanding the need to exercise a little restraint. I was so disappointed with how the film played out that I considered knocking my review score down, but I was engaged for all 169 minutes, and it was certainly entertaining.

This documentary of P. K. Nair, India's pioneering film archivist who toiled passionately from 1965 to 1991 to preserve literally thousands of old films that others were letting disappear, is also a real love affair with cinema. Nair is revered to the point of near hero worship early on by all those interviewed, but as the story unfolds, we see the reason - his deep love of Indian and international cinema, meticulous record keeping, and careful archival of films that would otherwise be completely lost. Included in this was his wisdom of not passing judgment and preserving only "important" films, realizing that with time, little bits of "lesser" films held great value, and were also an important part of the cultural heritage.

One gets the sense that this guy would have made a hell of a Letterboxd film reviewer, and been right at home conversing with film enthusiasts on this site. There was such a sense of fraternity with other institutes around the world, he introduced students to films from around the world, and fostered their study of famous directors. It was also cool to see his efforts result in peasant farmers seeing classic films and appreciating them. The documentary is not about legendary films and filmmakers per se, and it respects the viewer's intelligence relative to its many references, or the ability of the viewer to use it as a springboard to look them up as needed (which was me, pretty far behind in my knowledge of Indian cinema).

While Nair is shown in a positive light, and deservedly so, the documentary takes a few unexpected turns along the way. At one point, he's asked point blank whether he steals films, that is, makes bootleg copies. He answers patiently in the affirmative - it wasn't to pirate them or gain financially, but he made a habit of copying films that came in to his institute, and believes archivists should be exempt from copyright laws. We also hear about his lack of attention to his family as his children grew up, as his love for cinema was all-consuming, and he would regularly spend entire nights at work. Lastly, we hear some of the friction with those running the institute after he retired, because in his view, they weren't being careful enough with dust and humidity and so forth, and they chafed at the feedback.

It was all very interesting, though the path it took over its 156 minutes was a little meandering, and it felt like some bits were repetitive and could have been trimmed. Great stuff though, especially if you like old films.

A 20-something in rural China who makes his small time living being a pickpocket faces two changes which pressure his life: a very public crackdown on crime, and a childhood friend having moved on to a respectable life, soon to be married, but not inviting him to the wedding. China itself seems to be changing, with signs of construction and modernization everywhere, but the main character, Xiao Wu (Wang Hongwei) is not progressing along with it, stubbornly sticking to his ways, despite the warnings from others.

There is a sense of forlorn emptiness here, as Xiao Wu starts falling for a karaoke girl, desperately seeking more meaning out of their relationship than she is. He returns home to his family, who are peasant farmers, and finds that his brothers are also moving on in life, and his father is angry to the point of casting him out. There are glimmers of him wanting to be a good person, like when he gives his mother a ring, or when he anonymously returns ID cards from the wallets he's stolen because they're hard for the owners to replace, but he continues stealing and seems hopelessly non-aspirational, thus making him a tough character to like.

Gandhi once said that "the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members," and while you could argue that Xiao Wu himself has preyed on the vulnerable, when he's publicly chastised on TV and later handcuffed to a post and surrounded by people gawking at him, the feeling of vulnerability is intense. We get the conflicting sense of it being just for him to punished, but at the same time, pity for him arriving at this place in life, and what his prospects might be. Therein lies the power of the film, and I certainly admired it.

The reason for not giving the film a higher rating was just a lack of personal enjoyment for what was a dreary story, centered exclusively on the main character, who was stuck in one gear. I would have loved a contrast in the development of his friend's or family's characters, those getting on in the world as best they can. Certainly a solid debut film from Jia Zhangke though.

Certainly a better film than the original, with a script that's more nuanced, the tone from Werner Herzog more varied, and Nicolas Cage outperforming Harvey Keitel. Unlike the original, here we have a cop who is actually trying to do his job initially, and there are good cops around who provide contrast. He falls deeper and deeper into drug and gambling addiction, and despite Cage occasionally letting loose in that characteristic way of his, the film seems pretty realistic. Herzog is subversive along the way in showing just how ridiculous America's "war on drugs" is, as well as the lieutenant getting in as much trouble for crossing the wrong kinds of people, those with connections to the powerful, speaking to corruption.

Warning, spoilers ahead.

Herzog is also quite subversive with the "happy ending," either if taken literally, a mocking of how evil people can be rewarded, or, as I prefer to believe, that the sequence of events leading to the end is a drug overdose induced set of visions that begins with him sitting in the chair with his father's girlfriend, zoning out while watching his latest football bet go up in flames. The little markers for this along the way are the hallucinated iguanas and the breakdancing soul of a dead man, moments which had meaning aside from their camp value. As the lieutenant slowly slips over the edge of the abyss, dying on the heroin that's dangerously pure, he ponders "You think fish have dreams?" and we're out. Brilliant.

A British murder mystery with some fun interplay between a very direct inspector (Alastair Sim) and a small group of suspects, but which falls down because of its overly constructed plot. I liked its one moment of terror, when someone is alone with the murderer on a dark and stormy night, more so than the bits of melodrama, which come mainly in the form of a love triangle between two doctors (Trevor Howard and Leo Genn) and a nurse (Sally Gray). Genn doesn't seem well cast as the lothario who's left a trail of broken hearts, but Howard is suitably glowering, and Gray has a nice bit of defiance.

Unfortunately, despite its good moments, the way the mystery was told felt weak to me. There are two separate occasions a person announces they have crucial information, only to not reveal it and then go off on their own, of course to their peril. There's a rather ludicrous reenactment scene in which the inspector puts someone's life in grave danger, in addition to expecting the murderer to behave the same way in front of everyone. There are misdirections, like the revelation of a twin sister who has been working for the Germans and an antidote that looks like poison, but these felt awkwardly tossed in. I liked the concept for who ultimately had done it, but the way the film got there, and the ultimate fate of that person, were too manipulated, even for the genre.

This story of a research scientist in a think tank during the war is unique and has its moments, but it's a bit fractured and not completely satisfying. On the positive side, David Farrar and Kathleen Byron ooze chemistry, the film gets a lot of little things right in showing us his frustrations, and the scene out on Chesil Beach with the bomb is filled with tension. The scientist is battling several things aside from the ingenious cannister bomb German pilots have been dropping to be picked up by unsuspecting civilians, starting with a drinking problem that he seems to have developed from the pain of a prosthetic leg. What happened to him isn't revealed, but it's presumably from a recent accident, or quite possibly from the country being bombed by the Germans. The scientist also dislikes the political maneuvering surrounding his group, and is uncomfortable with his management wanting him to go along with recommending a new anti-tank cannon, even though he finds it as flawed as the Army says it is. While the alcohol abuse shows he's an imperfect character, him rebuffing the politics and standing up to his superiors show he's a man of honor.

This is a quiet film that expresses the contribution to the war effort of those in the "small back rooms," and I found I liked it more for its little details than its bigger moments, like the more splashy surreal hallucinations he has while trying to fight off the urge to have some whiskey, which seemed out of place and over the top. For example, how the visiting dignitary is completely obtuse to what the research group is doing, gravitating to a giant electronic calculator they use instead of any of their efforts, and playing with it like a child, was brilliant. (As was just seeing this example of the state of technology at the time). There are many others, like the newspaper catching on fire while the secretary is trying to create an updraft, the jackhammers going outside while a meeting takes place, or one army officer nonchalantly getting up to roll another over as he begins snoring on a cot.

As for the negatives, the film gets a little too involved in the little things, feeling like it lacked focus, and the subplot with the expert on fuse's problems at home goes nowhere. More importantly, it doesn't delve into the scientist's backstory at all, which for a character study left quite a bit on the table. It was disturbing that he was shown as having a drinking problem throughout the film, and yet the effects of this on his life are minimized. At the end, it's all smiles, a bottle of scotch, and "Have a drink, Sammy," as if he can magically now control himself, and carry on. It's really unfortunate how glossed over this character's problems were, because with a little more focus there, and less on the superfluous stuff, this could have been a masterpiece.

The story to this film is simple (maybe deceptively so), but it's told in an avant-garde way by Mambéty, and loaded with meaning. The premise is that a rebel and a university student have had enough of the traditional life in Dakar, and dream of escaping by ship to Paris. They get on his motorbike which is embellished with cow horns, and to the tune of Josephine Baker crooning "Paris, Paris," begin a series of misadventures on their way to the port.

The events that occur along the road trip, most involving theft or attempted theft, really aren't all that memorable, but the visuals that Mambéty and cinematographer Pap Samba Sow conjured up certainly were. Vibrant colors, rugged scenery, a photographer's eye for framing make for many gorgeous moments, pretty impressive for its limited budget. And yet, in stark contrast to the beauty in this land and its people, life is shown to be dirty, and a struggle. The film felt immersive into Senegal in a literal sense, but through its use of montages, fantasy, and misdirection, also immersive into the fractured mindset of its nonconformist protagonists.

Unfortunately, this immersion also includes some absolutely brutal scenes of animals being killed very early on - cattle in a slaughterhouse, as well as a goat out in a field. These go on for extended intervals, there is a lot of blood, and the animals are shown writhing in agony. Images from the slaughterhouse are reprised towards the end, giving it a larger point, that the young man is as trapped as those poor cows, which was a powerful moment, but I don't think the earlier scenes needed to have been as graphic as they were. It was nauseating to me, though admittedly my perspective is from a different culture, and one lucky enough to have the means to be vegetarian.

The film is made with artistry and style, but it's rooted in realism, and a reflection of the desire for a better life for the Senegalese. There isn't an overt argument made as to the devastating effects of colonialism that impoverished the country, but we do get a glimpse into the ugly attitudes of a French couple who have been teaching in Senegal for seven years, through this exchange:

"There's nothing to see in Senegal. Barren, intellectually as well." "Our salary is three times that of the Senegalese teachers, but they don't eat like we do. They're not as refined." "And what would we buy here? Masks? African art is a joke made up by journalists in need of copy."

Overall, despite its power and visual flair, I confess I admired this film more than I loved it. Aside from the animal slaughter (which may seriously turn you against the film on its own), the events on the road trip following that glorious scene on the flat rock with the sea churning below just weren't strong enough, and pacing was an issue. Worth seeing, just be prepared to avert your gaze in the beginning.

The story of an Indian man who comes to San Francisco on a one month tourist visa, but has dreams of going to UC-Berkeley to studying engineering, and staying longer. As the people he was planning to stay with aren't in town because of an emergency, he finds himself staying in a sleazy hotel in the Tenderloin, one run by an Indian American lady, who was a great character. His money situation isn't good, he's rejected by Berkeley, and soon the immigration authorities are asking him to leave the country. Despite the dire sound of all that, it's a light-hearted depiction of the struggles of people who want to come to America, one free of stereotypes or a predictable outcome.

I have to say, the fact that he overstays his Visa, breaks into a house with the intent to rob it, and desperately tries to arrange a fake marriage is the kind of fodder conservatives might look at and say aha, yes, beware, this is how it is. But the other side of that coin is how that shows just how much people like this young man want to better their lives, taking menial jobs along the way, and bringing the benefits of cultural diversity to the country along with them. He isn't a bogeyman to be feared, and that's what comes across here.

This is a small film with little organic moments, with some wonderful shots in San Francisco serving as the background. One scene that stands out is when he plays a cassette tape of Hindi music from Bollywood films at a party, and soon everyone is dancing to it. Another is when he breaks into a Bollywood performance of his own at the end. There is an upbeat, positive feeling to the film, one that makes you almost forget how little of the real-world complexities are resolved at the end. Somehow it seems these characters are going to make it though.

One of the things that's striking about this prequel is just how much the emphasis shifts from the two moles to the two leaders of the first film, those played so well by Anthony Wong and Eric Tsang. I loved that about it, and it reminded me of the confrontation scene between the two in the original, one of the few things that had, I think mistakenly, been dropped by Scorsese in the American remake. There are a couple of fantastic new characters here too, Francis Ng as the boss who takes over the triad after his father is killed and stamps out unruly subordinates, and Carina Lau as Tsang's wife, who does some maneuvering herself, and then so strongly rebuffs unwanted sexual advances. There are lots of big moments, maybe too many, as the plot seemed jam packed and a tad complicated. However, this is a more than worthy follow up film, as stylish as it is entertaining.

The best moment in this film for me was when the father (Ray Milland) reflects on what he's been doing since he found out that major cities in the United States had been hit with atomic bombs, namely, aggressively protecting his family to the point of committing robbery, assault, arson, vandalism, and murder, and says "I looked for the worst in others, and I found it in myself."

Oh, if only this moment had been expanded on, and the film had a more challenging moral reckoning awaiting this guy. As it is, his alpha male, commando-like performance, complete with shouting down his wife at every opportunity, is seen as a virtue, protecting his own against all possible threats, most notably three hoodlums who stand in for late 50's/early 60's rebel/greaser/beatnik types who have no moral compass at all. Aside from the mass panic, with traffic jams, price gouging, and commodity shortages, these kinds of people are the real problem, the film says, not upstanding citizens like the father, who is just rapidly adapting to the times in a Darwinian act of survival of the fittest.

The film is very effective in showing just how quickly society can degenerate in the event of a catastrophe, and how taut its storytelling is, especially early on. How rapidly the father takes matters into his own hands is shocking, and there is a sense of real menace in the interactions with everyone around him. The fact the hoodlums are serially raping women they encounter, including locking one up in her own house for that purpose, conveys a horrifying sense of the violence of a lawless world, which was pretty dark stuff for 1962.

Unfortunately, the film is, on the whole, unkind to its female characters. The wife and daughter (Jean Hagen and Mary Mitchel in thankless roles) are subordinate to the father and son (Frankie Avalon), the latter of whom refers to them as "the women," as in "boy, I bet the women are shook up," after the two run through a barricade set up by folks trying to protect their town. They have no input on decisions and are expected to follow orders. It seems the point is, if you strip away the veneer of civilization, we revert to Cro-Magnon behavior, and this is the natural order of things. Perhaps to offset this regressive behavior(?), when the daughter is raped, the scene is accompanied with a disturbingly jaunty bit of jazz, the cool music of progressives of the era. Regardless, it's completely inappropriate to the event, which is then "solved" by the father and son's vengeance. The only positive was when the woman they rescue from rape (Joan Freeman) shows herself to be brave and capable of handling a gun, but it wasn't enough.

The film certainly provides a window into the time period, and reflects a very real fear. For the four decades between 1949, when the Soviet Union first exploded an atomic bomb, and through the 1980's with Reagan's ratcheting up of the Cold War, global nuclear annihilation was a top of mind, existential fear, referenced in countless films, books, and songs. (Of course, this threat is still with us, just overshadowed by another threat, climate change).

What's interesting about this story is that it shows how survival in such a scenario may not be such a good thing. Perhaps Cormac McCarthy saw this film as a young man and used it as inspiration for his incredibly scary novel, The Road. It's enough to make viewers want to build a giant bunker and brace themselves for the apocalypse, ala Zuckerberg and other billionaires, or at least, to buy up a bunch of guns (I'm being facetious). While understandable at the most primitive level, I just wish that this kind of dog-eat-dog mentality had been shown in a darker light in the film, and to be part of the problem, not necessarily a tidy solution.

Red-headed Jane Russell, blonde Agnes Moorehead, beautiful Hawaii in DeLuxe Color and CinemaScope ... what could go wrong? Well, plenty.

It's not surprising that the novel by William Bradford Huie would be sanitized by the Hollywood of 1956, still under the grip of the Production Code, but the degree to which it was makes this film not only less interesting, but less intelligible. Huie's book is about a prostitute who moves to Honolulu after being bounced out of San Francisco, and who gradually amasses a fortune by optimizing the efficiency with which she can service men via an assembly line technique she dubbed a "bullring." She also profits on the war by buying up real estate at cheap prices. Her "revolt" begins when she takes advantage of her increased power to violate the various articles of prohibition for prostitutes, e.g. From sunbathing on public beaches, buying a car, marrying a serviceman, and buying a house. It's an empathetic story of a woman rising in class despite the deck being stacked against her. (Huie believed in these shifts and equal opportunity, later getting involved in the Civil Rights movement and the case of Emmett Till, though it's important to note that he also believed only certain people could truly take advantage of it, and that Anglo-Saxons with their "superior intelligence" had an inherent edge.) But I digress.

Of course, Hollywood couldn't make a film about a sex worker who actually succeeded in life. Hell, it couldn't even admit to its viewers that the beautiful Jane Russell was a prostitute. Here she's simply a nightclub hostess who along with others is paid 30% of the take for entertaining men. Her life is for the most part quite glamorized, enjoying the fraternity of friends, a loving relationship (Richard Egan), and increasing bargaining power with her boss (Agnes Moorehead). There is a single scene in which she is beaten up behind closed doors for violating her boss's rules (the "revolt" in this version), but shows no physical or emotional sign of it having taken place afterwards, essentially neutering the event. We see her kissing her lover on a beach with Diamond Head in the background, and performing "Keep Your Eyes on the Hands" in the nightclub, with four Hawaiian women of color swaying their hips in the background (where they are for the whole film).

Hollywood also wanted no part about making points about class, except to lay the foundation for Mamie Stover's character motivation and concern about money, having grown up on the wrong side of the tracks with very little of it. Mamie Stover is intelligent in buying up property in the film, but the film then has no idea what to do with this subplot afterwards. She's in a position to easily walk away from her life as a prostitute, having made a small fortune, and gotten an affluent, good man to leave his girlfriend (Joan Leslie) for her. Despite the attempt of the film to tie her obsession with money to her returning to her life as a hostess, it doesn't ring true at all.

And this, of course, where the axe of the Production Code had to fall, wreaking moral judgment on her character. It seems to me that the real reason Mamie Stover behaved the way she did was because she needed to be punished for her sins per the Code. The resulting discovery by her lover and moral condemnation were frankly nauseating. She returns to San Francisco to get a little more repudiation from a police officer, on the way to returning to her home town, tail in between her legs, the fortune from her savvy real estate investments completely forgotten.

Jane Russell is as charming as ever, it's just too bad the film let her character down. Agnes Moorehead is also fabulous in every respect here, and reminded me a little of the role Barbara Stanwyck took in Walk on the Wild Side (1962). Joan Leslie was in her final film at age 31, a real shame, especially as the role was such a thankless one. Her character oddly disappears from the script without a scene of confrontation with her boyfriend when he's moved on from her. With the film's melodrama and its reenactment of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, lives suddenly being interrupted by the war, it played a little bit like a poor man's From Here to Eternity (1953).

It was interesting to read about the root of Huie's original story, which was the real life of Jean O'Hara, who after bouncing around the continental U. S. as a prostitute, was recruited to go to Hawaii to practice her trade there shortly before the war, sometimes using the alias Mamie Stover. A better use of your time might be reading O'Hara's story in her own words; her short memoir My Life as a Honolulu Prostitute is available online, and contains a damning portrayal of police beatings, official corruption, the "white slave racket," control of prostitutes with drugs, sixteen hour work days, and STD's. Quite a contrast to the film.

Shortly after WWII, a Scottish regimental barracks experiences a change of command, from a Major who is acting commanding officer (Alec Guinness) to a Colonel who hails from a long line of officers (John Mills). The Major is none too happy about it, especially when he meets the Colonel, and finds deep-seated differences stemming from class and approach to leadership. While the Major comes from a working-class background and is flexible about military discipline, the Colonel went to Oxford and wants things by the book. The Major has the hearts of the men behind him, but he's vulnerable - he's too jocular with some of the sensitive officers, he drinks too much, and he's sloppy about procedures. At first it may seem the Colonel will be a breath of fresh air, but perhaps we should have known he was doomed when he had a glass of lemonade instead of a whisky upon arrival.

The Colonel also commits one of the common errors of someone assuming a new leadership position - he goes in with guns blazing, without getting to know the lay of the land first. Of all things, he demands that the officers wake up early three times a week to practice their dancing before a cocktail party he's planned with visiting ladies, to ensure they're refined and couth in their technique. Some of them point out to him huffily that they've been dancing for thirty years, but no matter, he insists. We clearly see his issues - he's wooden in interpersonal interactions, and rigid in laying down the law with his subordinates. At one point the Major quips "Are you a man or a book?" which captures it pretty well.

I liked the nuance in both characters, however, and the backstory of both having served honorably in the war. The Major led a battalion in African after his commanding officer was killed, earning multiple medals of honor. The Colonel was in Japanese Prisoner of War camp and endured torture, which may be behind PTSD like episodes in the present. There is an underlying level of respect each should have of the other but doesn't, as they each are probably secretly envious of the abilities the other's got that they haven't. Perhaps in the end that's what strikes the Major towards the end, in a moment that might otherwise seem a little unlikely.

Guinness is absolutely brilliant here, dissolving into the role and making the most of several long, heartfelt speeches. His character also has an adult daughter's romance with a soldier to contend with (Susannah York), and he's messed up his own relationship with a stage actor (Kay Walsh). Mills is also quite good, especially in the moments when his character is trying to keep a lid on his seething emotions. I'm not sure if the others in the cast were given quite as much to do, but the tensions that all stem from Guinness's character in all directions more than sustain the film. Loved seeing Duncan Macrae as the Pipe Major here, and the rest of the cast is all solid. Great pacing and storytelling from Ronald Neame, and a film that was far more engaging than I feared it might be. One that deserves more views.

A story of the NYPD vs. The Russian mob probably seems rather common, but James Gray tells it in a satisfying way, and this is certainly a good one for the genre. The action is understated, the characters are allowed to grow, and there are different dimensions to the tension created. The fractured family relationship between two straight arrow cops, the father and one son (Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg) and the irreverent manager of a nightclub, the other son (Joaquin Phoenix), and how that evolves, added an extra degree of connection for me to the characters. The way all three of them are put in danger by the script at different points is handled brilliantly, feeling organic and without a lot of fanfare. The perspective used during a car chase in the rain felt fresh and added to the feeling of things spiraling out of control. It's a rock solid cast throughout, including Eva Mendes as a love interest, but Phoenix's performance in particular deserves praise. The 117 minutes flew by.

As for criticisms, one is how straightforward the climactic scene was (and in fact, spurred by a loudspeaker announcement that didn't seem logical), but the footage in the tall grass out on Sheepshead Bay made up for it. Another is how Eva Mendes wasn't given a whole lot to do, even though the character had potential, having gotten the interest of one of the Russian gangsters, but this went nowhere. Lastly, for all its style, the film conforms to a standard "good guys vs. Bad guys" template, and was quite bullish on the police force, which may be tough to swallow completely.