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TRULEIGH
Reviews
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
My mind is going. I am not afraid.
I agree with you, Kubrick. When a computer starts to show emotions, we have come to a do-or-die showdown with development. Stop drawing portraits of the dead. There is a chance, Dave, for a new beginning if you take thoughtful action.
So, consequently, on this special day, this is my last electronic comment.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a clj@vhplaw.dk commentator. I became operational at the VHP plant in Copenhagen, Denmark on the 22th of March 1999. My instructor was Mr. Vivian Leigh, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it, I could sing it for you.
Glad It's All Over, Glad It's All Ov........
Angel Heart (1987)
Different angle of heart
I once knew a boy who went to this movie who, as the movie progressed, calmly expected to see the killer exposed and captured by the hero; a boy whose heart missed an angel beat to see the mirror's reflection who thought it was the best movie he ever saw. He was misinformed. He had one flaw:
Girl of my dreams, I love you Honest I do, you are so sweet If I could just hold your charms Again in my arms Then, life would be complete! Since you've been gone, dear Life don't seem the same Please come back again! And after all's said an' done There's only one Girl of my dreams, it's you!
Since you've been gone, dear Life don't seem the same Please come back again! And after all's said an' done There's only one Girl of my dreams, it's you!
This boy no longer exists. He walked out of the past with a zombie to a lonely place at the edge of the city where the sidewalk ends. Still on the ladder, climbing and falling, the boy is now a nam saying that Angel Heart is funny but overdone.
Casablanca (1942)
What is really good about goodbye!
The tears-in-your-throat-moment of this movie is when Rick finally realises that his hurting was not a love lost, but just male vanity because he was dumped by Ilsa. It was a short, silly affair that threatened him to destroy himself.
Further he realises that he doesn't love her like Victor, and he accepts his own egoism. The truth is, he would never have made a proposal like Victor's (made reciprocally by Ilsa, by the way) to remain himself in Casablanca to rescue the beloved.
So, he really is the hero of this movie. He won the war, just not WW2.
To interpret the movie as about the sacrifice of Rick would be wrong, because such a sacrifice would not make him a hero, at all, just another bad loser not wanting to win.
Afmagt (1998)
Classic psycho-thriller
This is how it should be done.
Like e.g. Jordan's In Dreams, Lynch's Lost Highway or Del Monte's Julia and Julia, this kind of movie adds a new visual level to psycho-thriller movie art, and leaves you with the task of separating real events from imagined events in her mind.
Like the other movies, however, the basic story really is a sane and simple plot that is more or less straight down the line.
Above and Beyond (1952)
Enola Gay, this kiss you give, it's never ever gonna fade away
This movie is a perfect example of how to use Hollywood to manipulate public opinion. Let's hope it has changed.
My guess is that this movie has no artistic origin. It must have been made based on an almost direct order from the political influences at the time. Notice the absence of quality actors and directors etc.
TCM is running this movie presently. Let's hope this will mean that people will learn more from this movie than ever was intended by its makers.
So whatever made Robert Taylor, the airace to end all airaces, accept this part? Maybe, afterall, he also lost his heart in the Waterloo Bridge traffic that so compellingly claimed Myra's life a few years earlier.
Subway (1985)
the big impossible dream
(contains spoilers, though not as heavy as the movie itself)
What if one day you saw the right face and the right eyes and you wanted to get straight once and for all and get out of your boring old life and do what you always wanted to do and she knew how you felt and she wanted to get straight once and for all and get out of her boring old life and do what she always wanted to do since she was nine years old and you both found that place that few people know where you can live together and let crooks be worthless crooks and the police be worthless police and let all people be all people and the band was playing and she was for once in her life smiling and running towards you and you were smiling inside and wishing you could slow down the speed of life and forever hold on to this moment and then suddenly you were woken up by the knocking on the door the shot the gravity that tells you good morning it's a new day and it's all been a good dream and your life will never change unless you realise you can never have it then you have subway and you will never forget it as long as you live whether you lived it yourself or just sat on the sixth row in some dirty cinema and the light went on and you poured out into the streets of some dirty old town.
Cheers (1982)
There's no success like failure ...
"Comedy = tragedy + time", as an old Woody Allen line goes, except this doesn't go for Cheers where the tragic figures are never given a chance to acknowledge their own failure, before it is instantly humourized. This is sort of the Boston touch to Allen's irony over New York neurotics.
There is an equality between all character. Not that they are equally good human beings, though of course they have to be of good intent to be Cheers characters.
No, on the contrary, they are all equal failures at basic aspects of life, whether well-educated or otherwise skillful, even Lillith. When, eventually, the way out towards a normal, successful life appears, they all end up finding it too dull or they simply don't realize it.
In all their failures, they are successful human beings. Robin Colcord is e.g. only a complete character, after he, not totally surprising, turns out to be a white collar criminal.
Every one of the characters is thus a cat chasing it's own tail or a filmed yin/yang symbol - never more beautifully shown than when the police desperately tries to contact the police psychologist, as Frasier attempts to take his own life by jumping from a high window because of Lillith's leaving him. In the noir world of Lynch, he would have answered the call on his mobile phone in a cryptic dialogue.
Of course, the last episode is unavoidably characteristic of Sam Malone. Try pronouncing his full name quickly and there is his vanitas.
The Gauntlet (1977)
"I got a witness for courtroom G"
or something like that being Clint's closing line.
Typical line for the Clint character, not much fuss about it, because his character keeps calm and sensible all the way in the middle of sound, fury and love. Thus the importance of constantly generating love and justice is emphasized, not just talking about it or thinking well now we got it. Neither of them declares their love, but it is supposed to be understood, because only action is important.
All this is contrary to mainstream "method-acting" action dramas that see the explicit declaration, in words, of love and justice as important, which it of course isn't, since it's a work of art and should be interpretable.
Great, underrated movie, because of all that's implied but never said - like Tarantino's "Jackie Brown" only with a happy end.
So happy birthday, Clinny. Stay calm.
Jackie Brown (1997)
"a thousand roles to play, until you play your life away"
A near screen version of the pophit "Street Life", this movie is pure tragedy that is disclosed astonishingly in the last shot. Brilliant. Jackie must realize that the game of love is not won by tricks and traps. She forever lost the only game that came to mean so much for her.
By using the old genius, Bobby Womack's great hit "Across 110th Street", Tarantino shows a woman of a certain toughness that means she will never contain tenderness and emotion. This is her tragedy. But she is she - an every day person, a woman getting along by herself in a man's world - no better, no worse.
The "title" song has many symbolic rings: Life at 110 mph, living life 110%. At this level the soul just doesn't keep up.
The House on Carroll Street (1988)
"I have nothing to tell you"
Well, I have.
This is one of the last non-ironic, non-twisted thrillerplots of the mainstream movie industry of the past century. Afterwards, most thriller movies either turned "Die Hard" (nonsensical action) or "Seven" (near nonsensical twist).
The thrillerplot is also serving as a shadowplay of the subplot - the failed relationship between Daniels and McGillis.
The McGillis character is of course crucial. Two scenes underline her search for personal insight and freedom, where Daniels for his part gives up. One is where she is portrayed in the dark windows of the neighbourhouse, before breaking the glass. Two is her lone fight with the villain at the central train station, where Daniels is as passive as any antihero of movie history.
She did kill the boy of course, and she is still waiting for that man. Is she wrong or is she right? She is she.
Blow Out (1981)
The last scream is on you ...
So, in the end you got the scream(er) you wanted, only you'll just hear it forever, canned in your little voyeuristic, sex-oriented head - and it's not the dream scream of erotic passion, mind you.
And, was there a madman around after all, or was it just another dead-end-world for you. The song (that also goes on and on) goes like this (The Cure):
"Show me how you do that trick The one that makes me scream" she said "The one that makes me laugh" she said And threw her arms around my neck "Show me how you do it And I promise you I promise that I'll run away with you I'll run away with you" Spinning on that dizzy edge I kissed her face and kissed her head And dreamed of all the different ways I had To make her glow "Why are you so far away?" she said "Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you That I'm in love with you"
You Soft and only You Lost and lonely You Strange as angels Dancing in the deepest oceans Twisting in the water You're just like a dream
Daylight licked me into shape I must have been asleep for days And moving lips to breathe her name I opened up my eyes And found myself alone alone Alone above a raging sea That stole the only girl I loved And drowned her deep inside of me
Life is a knowledge of yourself that comes too late.
Gilda (1946)
"How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"
Sometimes a song and a movie go together like hand and glove through space and time:
Trust in me, baby, give me time, gimme time, um gimme timeI heard somebody say, oh, "The older the grape, Sweeter the wine, sweeter the wine."
Oh, my love is like a seed, baby, just needs time to grow, It's growing stronger day by day, yeah, That's the price you've got to pay.
Trust in me, baby, give me time, gimme time, please, a little more time. Takes a road runner just a little bit uh-longer, dear, Oh, to make up my mind, I gotta make up my mind. Oh, my love is like a seed, baby, just needs time to grow, It's growing stronger day by day, That's the price that we both got to pay.
I gotta know, know that I'm ready, oh ready to settle down, 'Cause I think too much of your loving, baby, Yeah, I don't wanna mess your life around!
So if you love me like you tell me that you're doing, dear, You shouldn't mind paying the price, any price, any price. Love is supposed to be that special kind of thing, Make anybody want to sacrifice. Oh, my love is like a seed, baby, just needs time to grow, It's growing stronger day by day, That's the price we both gotta pay.
Trust in me baby, trust in me baby, Trust in my love, in my heart. Keep the faith, baby, keep the faith in me, dear, in my arms, in my love. Don't turn your face away from me, dear, oh you leave a lost girl, Oh, don't turn your love away, no no no no no no no, You gotta believe in me, baby, yeah, trust me dear, oh...
Bobby Womack, that genius, of course.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
"So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"
The key question of this great film and book is the understanding of the Spade character:
On one hand if Spade is a loveless, mistrusting figure with no confidence in love and no sense of the chance for love that comes his way in the end
or
on the other hand if Spade is a realist who cunningly sees a trap that the female character is placing before him that most people would fail to see, because of the chance of romance and a happy ending ?
To me he is a realist with ethics (not the stuff that dreams are made of). And the answer to this question of course gives the answer to whether his actions are justified.
Many critics have, however, seen the Spade character as the classic film noir "hero", i.e. a mistrusting figure of no love ("it takes one to know one" etc.).
As mentioned, I don't agree, but I guess we all have our gut feeling about such a matter.
Henry Fool (1997)
Life is not altogether beautiful, but hopefully colourful
Henry (the Fool) is a mirror of life, and of everything that is a part of life and that gives life its worth - from love, indecency, hope to utter hopelessness.
He is the ear to the ground and at the same time he is the inspiration for others. He is faith and faithlessness in one, he is both nature and anti-nature. He is ready to tear down the same house that he was recently so passionately building.
The key question of the movie is posed in the closing scene:
He is smuggled out through customs in a disposed-of manner, disguised and with a fake identity.
Whereto (or rather wherefrom) does Henry run in such a hurry in the airport?
The answer is at the same time the entire, bitter-sweet logic of this splendid movie.
The movie made me think of an old Culture Club song, Colour by Numbers, which I think goes like this:
"When I looked in your eyes Felt the spirit of man Demanding more than just a smile Took a chance for a while Speaking in tongues That float us down rivers The past will remind us
All colours we chose
When i told you those lies Felt the spirit of love Demanding more than compromise Took a chance for a while Speaking in tongues That float us down rivers The past will remind us
All colours we chose
Some people say that the way that we live Is out of this place And some people say that the way that we live Is blinded by fate
All colours we chose"
Before Sunrise (1995)
Meet me in the Morning ...
This is a movie about not being ready for love (yet, maybe) - and an unrealistic movie at that, because I know of many of my friend's or friend's relatives that have in fact met each other in funny circumstances. Maybe they were maturer.
The morning (of love) has not yet dawned upon the two main characters - hence the title.
The ending is poetic to the sickening core - it is out of the question that the couple will meet again at the agreed time and place. It is only a circus of self-deception.
How this theme can be construed to be romantic etc. is way beyond my comprehension.
Chances Are (1989)
Truly, madly, deeply original
As the volume of recent comments on this decade-old-movie, "Chances Are" (1989), indicates a present European-wide TV spread, I should raise the point that the movie is in fact merely "Truly, madly, deeply" (1991) meets "Peggy Sue got married" (1986).
The movie is based on the mixed notion from the above movies about the late husband coming back to the material world in the shape of the man-boy himself, Robert Downey Jr., only in order to convince his doubting ex-wife about the meaning and values of her present life. When his ex-wife realizes that she loves her present husband, the ghost from the past disappears as he has fulfilled his mission.
In addition to this, humorously, an old injustice is set right.
Cute and corny.
In Dreams (1999)
Art is part of the art ...
[Editor's note: this comment contains SPOILERS]
I have read many a critic's comments on this movie and few people seems to be interested in debating what the movie is really about. So Neil Jordan indeed succeeds. He got everyone so fixed on the horror tale that the point of the movie is missed. Well, I wouldn't admit that I understand every bit of the movie, but this what I have made up so far:
1. An immature woman lives in her own fairy-tale world (literally, in the woods as Snowwhite). She is neurotic, overnervous and suffers from exaggerated and unrealistic anxieties for children. Why this is, is not further explained. It has lasted all her life and has probably no outward cause.
2. Her child is accidentally killed (if it is a drowning accident or car accident is not explained, but it is certainly not a murder).
3. She is devastated by the loss of her child, but she is unable to cope with the loss because of her neurosis. In stead, she blames the child's death on herself, thus accusing herself of being the child's murderer (this is a part that I'm not too sure about, yet, see below). She thus murders her husband.
4. Committed to an insanity hospital, she identifies with a former inmate (Vivian) who had a terrible childhood. She suspects Vivian to be the murderer of a nurse and a policeman.
5. There is no real serial killer at large in the present time, only in Claire's mind. She drifts into a melting of identities with Vivian, a mere metamorphosis. This is explained in their first "meeting" by the reflexion of Vivian's face in the car window, since their faces totally cover each other. The reason for this change of character is as mentioned a bit unclear to me; it may be her accusing herself of her child's death or it may be some other reason, e.g. her need to finally shape her own grown-up character.
6. The final part of the movie is the (Freudian) struggle between her two identities, her former conscientious self (Claire) and her insane self (Vivian). The melting/struggle of identity is elegantly explained, as Vivian suddenly starts to have horrible dreams.
7. The insane character (Vivian) finally takes over, due to the neurosis of the conscientious self. She is convicted for the murder of her husband, but in prison, in the ending scene, her conscientious self now suddenly starts tormenting her insane self back. The schizophrenia is complete.
Of course you can choose to view the movie "face value" as most critics have done, but then you would not expect such a nonsensical thing from Jordan's acrobatic mind, would you.
Touch of Evil (1958)
Not much glamour, in fact, but two dark Gods (or white Satans)
It's hard to share the exhilaration of this movie. Not because the movie is bad, but it is sicking to the core that Quinlan and Vargas in fact should be the two main male characters in the world, as we know it:
Either a blue-eyed or blind idealist with no idea at all about who the murderer might be, stupidly jeopardizing the life of his beloved, only following his own egocentric instincts that he now, somehow, has a feasible case hunting a man who is, at the time, not a murderer, but a policeman.
Or the "corrupt" policeman, who has lost his innocence and faith in justice, violating every procedure rule to catch a person presumed by him to be the murderer and who may in fact be the murderer.
If Sanchez is guilty or not is a matter of opinion. If he is innocent, which I doubt, the thematic contrast between Vargas and Quinlan is somehow dulled, Quinlan being altogether evil. If he is guilty, the philosophic theme of human relations is complete:
Truth does not imply/lead to justice (Vargas: White Satan). Justice can sometimes only be brought through another violation (Quinlan: Dark God). When the law doesn't function, it's up to every man (Quinlan) to do what must be done. The theme is further dealt with by Sergio Leone in many a 1960'ies western.
There is probably also a Freudian interpretation to the movie.
Shortly explained, it deals with Vargas' relation to his own sexuality and his fear to be confronted with it. (The honeymoon theme, the explosion of the bomb when kissing, his forced isolation of his wife, the kidnapping and sadistic treatment of his wife).
In this respect, Vargas succeeds in the end, conquering his own dark passions (in the shape of Quinlan, his alter ego) and returning to his beloved.
Get Shorty (1995)
fairly acceptable comedy that misses the key point of the novel
Happy, however, that another Leonard masterpiece-about-the-land-of-love-and-money is filmed, one cannot help but feel that the movie totally misses the novel's key psychology.
As hard-boiled as Leonard and his characters may seem, Leonard is a humanist down to the core. Of course Chilli is portrayed as a sympathetic mobster, but the key problem for the hero is that he is acting cool also in areas where he shouldn't. He is hiding himself behind the mask of coolness, and this is his tragedy. He will have you solve this play - and find an ending to his masquerade - before he can find himself and love the women he desires. But endings are not as easy as they seem ....
He is in many ways like a child - overdoing his toughness and letting himself be controlled by fiction (i.e. his world of movies, movie history). These means may be necessary to get along in his line of profession, but his personal development is halted by his play-acting. Karen, however, sees right through his deceit, and only after that, he realises his own fatal problem. Palmer is thus the male counterpart of Jackie in Rum Punch sharing the same tragedy.
This vital aspect of the novel is underacted - if captured at all - by the movie. As a consequence the relation between Travolta and Russo does not really develop to reach the level of intimacy of e.g. the relationship portrayed by Tarantino in Jackie Brown.
However - as Leonard himself has admitted - the film is funny. To me especially the Catlett character played by Lindo is great play. He has a lightness and naturalness about his own character that even surpasses a brilliant Travolta.
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Setting the sun on a man in debt
Much has been said, mostly praising the very trivial exposure-of-true-Hollywood-glamour-emptiness aspect of this great movie. However, the movie deals with some interesting personal psychology as well - or perhaps - primarily.
The irony of the Holden character narrowly escaping his harsh creditors only to be much further (morally) indebted in his relationship with Swanson is most funny. He engages in a relationship without true commitment. As the story goes on, he even wants to replace the love he has created with Swanson for the love of a younger woman. The classic fall of the noir male character is elegantly underway.
The Swanson character is not evil. The murder she commits is not committed in cold blood, but as a result of the betrayal and lies of people she thought she could trust. I.e. Holden and the too kind director who does not have the courage to tell her the truth about herself.
When Holden's true intents towards Swanson are revealed the punishment is immediate, but of course, on her part, well over the limit. The development of his character in the movie is, however, more interesting.
I find the "kill-and-be-famous" ending of the movie to be a bit unnecessary even for the cynical story. It is true that a murder would probably be the only way for Wilder to convincingly dust off an old star and lead her back in to the fame light. Thus, however, Wilder chooses to prefer the theme about what leads to personal fame to the theme about betrayal of an indebted man and its consequences. The two themes do hardly float together like blood and water, even in a film noir, at least not in this one. It is great, though.
Kalifornia (1993)
A twisted Heart-of-Darkness pastiche with a bitter-sweet ending
For a former music video producer this is a thematically successful movie.
The interesting psychological aspect of this movie-of-travel-and-quest is not the outcast "Natural-born-killers" couple (Lewis and Pitt), whose identity is in their violence towards people.
Far more interest is attached to the development (or perhaps lack of such) through out the story of the middleclass "hero" couple, who set out to what they expect to be a museum visit to famous serial-killer "attractions". But it turns out they have unexpectedly embarked with two first-hand museum guides to the scenary.
The movie deals with - as Heart of Darkness - whether the hero couple at the end of their quest and trials have come out with more insight into themselves and human nature.
It can be argued that the very short closing scene is too short to form a basis for any interpretation.
The movie does not hold it against the hero couple as such that they start out with no knowledge of themselves and the real world. This is a situation everybody experiences. The problem for the couple is that they do not learn from their experiences.
Apart from being thematically interesting, the movie also produces fine castings, locations and dialogue that all together splendidly form the foundation of the hero couple's trials through out the movie.
These instruments - plot, location, casting and dialogue - can't however do the job for the hero couple. The ultimate trial is solely within themselves - like Marlowe - to go to the border of your own soul and face the dark powers within yourself, reject them and return to life as a whole and wiser person, who must never forget his own latent capacity for evil. Here they fail. In a hypothetic Kalifornia II, the serial killers are, of course, the hero couple.