Reviews

"Khartoum" plays all of the right notes, but so does an electronic keyboard. It's not about the right notes, it's about the space between the notes; that's where the heart and soul of anything lies. As Tarantino once wrote, "That's when you know you found somebody real special: when you can just shut the **** up for a minute and comfortably share silence."

In the film's second oddest casting choice, Charlton Heston stars as General Charles "Chinese" Gordon, a smooth, pious British soldier tasked with restoring peace to Sudan, due to his past ties and love of the region. He's the kind of guy who acknowledges the subtle contrasts between the words "kill" and "execute."

The peace has been shattered by Muhammad Ahmad (Laurence Olivier, apparently such a good actor, he can change the color of his skin), a self-proclaimed "chosen one"; a religious fanatic, whereas Heston's merely a fan--like Trekkies and Trekkers. The idea in sending Heston to confront him, I assume, is to fight a forest fire with a scented candle. The film plays like a middle-eastern version of the Alamo, with Heston as the Davy Crockett ("I wasn't born in the Sudan, but I got here as fast I could.")

A lot of people will point to the fact that Olivier plays a dark- skinned, middle-eastern guy and laugh. However, I'm willing to pardon it under the "Suspension of Disbelief" clause in the unwritten contract between consumer and producer. It does seem like a strange choice, though, considering the character's lack of screen time--any solid actor could have stared into the distance or menacingly whispered.

Heston, who is frequently given giant, exaggerated films to match his acting, is surprisingly low-key here, despite the bigness of the movie. And it's effective, as his character is meant to be the sensible religious man, as opposed to the flamboyant, intense alternative. For we all know religion is like a power-tool: you can build a gazebo with it, or you can use to hack your neighbor to pieces.

The film, shot in 70mm using the same anamorphic lenses as this year's "The Hateful Eight," is appropriately dazzling, but the images ultimately leave a hollow impression--a lot of establishing shots. And I couldn't help but feel like the person behind the camera didn't quite know what power he had, like a kid who uses a magic wand to poke at anthills.

"Khartoum" doesn't totally fail in its silences--there are a handful of contemplative, alluring moments--but ends up feeling more like spectacle for spectacle's sake. The theme of religion and extremism is mildly compelling, and the performances that carry those themes are equally so.

It's nowhere near good enough to replace "Khartoum" in my head as the name of the horse in "The Godfather."

"Avanti!" had me scared for a while. It presents itself as a "fish out of water" comedy, and, dare I say it, flounders. But, as the film advances, it grabs a zipper from the back of its neck and reveals itself to be a black, romantic-comedy--and a decent one, at that.

The film stars Jack Lemmon as a boorish American businessman, forced to visit Italy--a country where everyone's got a cousin for every job-- to pick up and return his recently deceased father. Not to give anything away, he meets a young woman with a self-prescribed weight- problem- -I don't see it--who may or may not have some relation to his father's death. The two proceed to develop a connection, in a curiously charming fashion.

Billy Wilder is, to me, the greatest screenwriter of them all, writing not only some of the greatest comedies of all time ("Some Like it Hot," "One, Two, Three"), but also the greatest dramas ("Ace in the Hole," "Sunset Boulevard"). If Shakespeare had been born some 400 years later, he would be a Wilder fan, or maybe even Wilder himself. It's crime against humanity that Wilder never adapted to the screen "Much Ado About Nothing."

"Avanti!" fails to reach the heights of Wilder's career, but it still contains moderate doses of that tigerish Wilder wit, which usually comes in fast-food supersized portions, making this film seem a bit cruel. While there are witticisms abound, hardly any of them land, and they feel like valiant efforts which should have been scrunched up and tossed.

Juliet Mills is absorbing as Pamela Piggot, a relatively optimistic woman with the self-esteem of a teenage girl with leprosy. It's a wonder she never found her place in the business. Lemmon is as fun to watch as ever, though he's not given much to work with, dialogue- wise, character-wise or otherwise-wise (Wilder reference).

A lame comedy that gets blacker, more romantic and generally better as it goes on, "Avanti!" is a side-step in the career of an all-time great already past his prime. Nonetheless, it's still charming, and more conceptually funny than actually funny.

Imagine "Bring Your Son to Work Day" in the Star Trek writer's room. While the adults are on lunch break after a fruitful morning of pounding out stories, their 14 year-old sons decide to make some changes. Poof: "Barbarella."

Jane Fonda stars as the titular heroine, some sort of intergalactic ambassador for Earth. She's given a mission by the President of Earth--who insists getting dressed is wholly unnecessary--to collect a man by the name of Durand Durand--sounds familiar--who has built some sort of superweapon. The plot isn't important.

The entire conception of the film seems to have been, "how many strange, creative outfits can we get Jane Fonda to wear, and how many strange, creative ways can we get those outfits off?" Her clothes are ripped to shreds by everything from metal-mouthed, porcelain dolls to an army of agitated parrots.

I can get behind weirdness, and this film has plenty of it. In fact, it's a visual Chinese buffet--in that there's a little bit of everything and it's dirty. However, as goofy and bizarre as the film gets, it's insufferably lifeless--easily the most boring film ever made to include the line, "De-crucify the angel or I'll melt your face!"

While not being the complete and total camp-fest I was hoping for, there's still a lot of smirk-inducing material. The interior of Barbarella's ship looks like the groovy inside of an inside-out buffalo. The climax to the film is, well, just that. And there's a blind angel who has the unique honor of delivering the most mundane last line in film history.

Even some of the intentional humor works, including--but not limited to--such as the fact that Barbarella, whenever faced with an alien language, always tries her native English first, then--for some inexplicable reason--French.

"Barbarella" isn't bad enough to be good or bad enough to be bad; it's trapped in the cinematic purgatory of "is that the one with the thing?" It does have one of the great opening credit sequences, I must say.

Robert Aldrich's "Attack" is a WWII film from 1956 that feels decidedly post-Vietnam in its cynicism, anarchism and flippancy. It feels somewhat akin, yet opposite, to the following year's "Paths of Glory," a film with its feet more firmly in the ground of defiance.

The heart--and guts, one might say--of the film is Lt. Joe Costa (Jack Palance), a man with a personal set of rules that may or may not match up with God's or man's. He butts heads with Captain Cooney (Eddie Albert), a cowardly--and not the smart kind, the whimpering kind-- drunk who only holds his high rank through personal connections. Their animosity towards one another begins at a card table, but soon escalates beyond nasty words between drinks.

One might be quick to label "Attack!" as an anti-war film, considering its disillusionment with top-down decision making; the problem with which is that it's like Christmas lights, in that if one goes out, it creates a chain-reaction of dysfunction. But, the film acknowledges chaos cannot reign as well, and the deals with that through Lt. Harry Woodruff (William Smithers). Nevertheless, the film could hardly be called reverent.

Palance, as he always does, milks every last second in front of the camera, turning the simplest motion or grunt into an attempted Shakespearean monologue--I'm surprised the man doesn't have bruises under his eyes from blinking. Albert, as Palance's foil, is effective, but almost goes too far into sniveling baby territory and becomes too much of a "movie villain," but that's more the writer's fault. The film's middle-ground, Smithers shines in a dim role, anchoring the outrageous events around him.

More than just philosophizing on the bureaucracy of war, "Attack!" brings the goods, and by "goods," I mean tense action sequences, thrilling "the horror, the horror" moments and shocking deaths. Chiefly, there's a moment where Jack Palance goes toe-to-toe with a tank, and, well, it's closer than you think.

Despite its sensationalist title, "Attack!" is far more than flying bullets and pumping fists--though in short supply, it's not. While its phasers are set to stun, the film points a finger at the things law and order can't fix--sometimes you just have to kick the television to make it work. It's not a political film, but it's a film about politics.

In 1957, "A Face in the Crowd" was conceived as a social satire, but in a modern context, it's a horror movie--horrifying for the simple fact that so much of it has become true. When parody melts off the screen and takes the shape of reality, reality should hop off a cliff and reassemble itself.

Patricia Neal is Marcia "short for marshmallow" Jefferies, a radio journalist with a program called "A Face in the Crowd," in which she goes to ordinary places, turns on the microphone and lets ordinary people speak, sing or do whatever--think Alan Lomax. She comes across Larry Rhodes--whom she dubs "Lonesome"--(Andy Griffth), ramblin' man in both the oratory and traveling sense--think Woody Guthrie with personality.

Lonesome is an instant media sensation, due to his fiery nature, brazen vernacular and woodsy charm. He spouts spittoon wisdom and pounds out half-baked folk songs; despite not doing anything perfect or proper, people sense his authenticity and eat it up. As happens when a bolt of lightening appears, businessmen everywhere hold up a jar in hopes of catching it. Before long, Lonesome is headlining television, having boats and mountains named after him and even becomes campaign advisory to the likely future president--thanks to Lonesome's help, of course.

The film is a scathing indictment of celebrity culture, the media and the growing reliance of politics not on policy, but reliability. The film is more relevant today than it ever was--reality T.V., the invasion of media out of our living room and into our pockets, candidates going on SNL--and will probably grow in relevance as time goes on. Also on display is the entertainment industry's tendency to take something real and raw and cook it to a charred, black shell of its formal self--milking every last cent before moving on to the next thing.

In a performance that could have been overplayed, Griffith takes the character to the furthest extreme without quite going over the edge. Like the audience inside the film, the audience outside the film's relationship with Lonesome is the same: he starts out charming and honest, but after power in introduced and his backwoods charm is perverted, he turns into a plastic version of himself, and both audiences turn against him. It's up to Griffith to pull off the subtle transformation without really changing the character; that he does.

As Griffith gets the showier performance, it's easy to lose sight of the supporting characters, or even the co-lead, Patricia Neal, who's great as the bookish, regretful inventor of Lonesome--she's almost Oppenheimer-like--who gets suckered in just like everyone else. One of my all-time favorite cinematic pinch-hitters, Walter Matthau plays a writer commissioned to Lonesome. He's not so much the conscience of the film, but rather its brain ("All mild men are vicious. They hate themselves for being mild, and they hate the windy extroverts whose violence seems to have a strange attraction for nice girls who should know better").

Among the upper-echelon of media mocking, "Ace in the Hole," "Network,"--both of which have become fact in one way or another-- sits comfortably "A Face in the Crowd." It shines a spotlight onto the dark side of entertainment, creating a "Scarface" for the media world, only more terrifying.

"The Little Foxes" is the tale of the Giddens family, who are less a family and more a conglomerate of biologically analogous individuals. They're the kind of people to whom love is merely the imperative fine-print to an otherwise sound negotiation between parties.

The film is an ensemble piece, but as the poster suggests, Bette Davis is the foundation. She is Regina Giddens, the most cunning of her family; whereas being a woman of her time period was usually a crummy deal, it actually allows her to creep in the shadows unnoticed by the equally greedy--but more visible--men.

Regina's husband, Horace (Herbert Marshall), a man of incredible wealth, is dying with no male heirs--a scent no fox can resist. Unfortunately for the foxes, Horace feels their hot breath, and repels; for, as is typical of the dying, life begins to become clearer the farther one is away from it. And seeing as how there's more than one family member interested in the money, the snakes get themselves all knotted up.

Davis is phenomenal in her cold, specter-like way. At moments, she's almost perceivable as a malevolent porcelain doll--or maybe it's my own fear of such things talking. She berates her helpless husband, firing insults from all cylinders into a downed man, and all with such ease, like one might say "good morning." Her venomous ways culminate in one hell of a scene, in which she doesn't say a word, but merely sits and says nothing, slowly tightening as if feeling a rope around her neck.

One would be remiss to fail to mention some of the side players. Marshall as Davis's husband is aptly empathetic and relates the character's realizations in a way that makes them feel grown and not instant. I could go through each and every featured actor in the film and bestow kind words, but I have only so many words myself, so I won't. Just know they deliver.

"The Little Foxes" is a dark, brooding look at greed, and its effect on something as seemingly sacred as family. The film even suggests broader implications, with lines from the foxes like "we'll own the country one day." Look into that what you will.

At no time did I laugh during "Bedazzled," other than a few abbreviated chuckles; but, regardless, I immensely enjoyed myself. My lack of laughter cannot be blamed on the film, as I rarely laugh during movies--I'm generally unemotive in all areas of life. But "Bedazzled" isn't the kind of comedy one laughs at; it's more the kind that one smiles at and thinks to himself "that's funny."

In the beginning, there's Stanley Moon (Dudley Moore), a fry cook who can't quite get the nerve to ask out a waitress, Margaret, whom he's developed a rather large crush on. He's so skittish around her, one doesn't know if he's sweating from nerves or from the stove. After a botched suicide attempt, Moon is visited by the Devil (Peter Cook)--dressed like Dracula from the neck down, and Roger McGuinn from the neck up. Satan offers Moon seven wishes, which Moon burns through attempting to land a reality where he and the waitress are happily ever after.

The film is split up into episodes, essentially, each being one of Moon's misguided wishes. Naturally, some are funnier than others. There are two that stand out as being above the rest: one in which Moon wishes to be a pop star--so Margaret will love him, flawless logic-- but is quickly brushed aside for the next big thing, which happens to be a psychedelic, pseudo-intellectual poetry reading. In the other, Moon is not specific enough in his request, yet again, and ends up a female nun who's attained the homosexual affection of Margaret, another nun.

Moore and Cook--also the film's two writers--are great in their respective roles and have a innate chemistry. A lot of actors have played the Devil, and in many different ways, but I'm partial to Cook's approach: a calm, flighty sociopath. And a lesser film would have made Moore's apprehensive Moon the butt of joke after joke, but rather, he's played and written with care and consideration--which makes the conclusion to the film work.

As funny as the film is, the concept runs out of steam after about an hour and begins repeating itself. Also, the philosophical babble about man, God and Satan wears thin, as the ideas don't go beyond anything you or I have though up in those twilight moments before falling asleep--assuming you're like me and ponder such things aimlessly.

A high-concept comedy, "Bedazzled" is charming, sometimes interesting and home to a combination of denser-than-usual humor and nuns bouncing on trampolines. However, it runs its joke into the ground, just managing to resurface slightly before the finish line. God is good, and so is this movie.

In theory, I should have loved "River of No Return." Otto Preminger is one of my favorite directors; I love Mitchum, and Monroe is often good; there's cowboys, violence, excitement and attractive women playing instruments. It was like biting into a shiny apple, only to find the worm equivalent of Times Square.

The premise is promising: an ex-convict (Robert Mitchum) rounds up his son--who he gave away before he went away--and heads off to a small piece of land to start anew as a farmer. The area is a hotspot for gold, but Mitchum doesn't care; he just wants to live quietly. But one thing leads to another, and Mitchum, his son and a dance hall singer (Marilyn Monroe) end up on a raft, going down rapids to get revenge on a man who stole Mitchum's gun and horse.

First thing's first, the film is gorgeous--shot in Cinemascope. The opening shot of the movie is a big "look I've got," as the camera pans around Mitchum, showing acres and acres of grassy, mountainous land. Likewise, Cinemascope is a naturally companion when shooting a river--where a large chunk of the film takes place. But the cinematography is so good, it makes the jumps to green screen incredibly jarring. Not to mention, the rafting sequences--the film's big set-pieces--aren't exciting in the least, as time after time, it's just a raft moving forward and two people pushing levers back and forth.

There's a lot of little things I love about this movie. The relationship between the three main characters--Mitchum, his son, Monroe--is deep and full of potential. This only exemplifies the weakness of the screenplay, as these characters are given nothing to do or say after being set-up in an auspicious manner. That said, there are several story beats that rang true with me, but not enough to add up to anything special. There's even one single moment--very brief--where the film made me remember why I love movies. That's worth something.

Despite the natural pleasure of watching a western starring Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe, directed by the great Otto Preminger, the film is less than the sum of its parts. It almost made me sad, as there's a great movie in there somewhere.

For a long time, I've always upheld the notion that there's only two kinds of people who like going to work: Willy Wonka and rapists. However, with Fritz Lang's "Man Hunt," I'm reminded that there's a third: the Nazi--or, at least, the film variety--who conduct their nefarious business with such smarm and ardor, that one can only expect them to skip to work in the morning, whistling "I've Got a Golden Ticket."

"Man Hunt" stars Walter Pidgeon as Alan Thorndike, an expert hunter- -that makes two of us. He's introduced to the audience in the act of hunting the most dangerous of the dangerous game: Adolf Hitler. In fact, he has Hitler in his cross-hairs, pulls the trigger, but the gun isn't loaded. He nonchalantly puts in a single bullet, rests his finger on the trigger, but is disrupted by a Nazi soldier on watch. He's captured, but eventually escapes, and thus begins the hunt.

There's a reason black and white has survived long past its due date. It creates a dreamy, stark atmosphere--especially when combined with London fog--and can aesthetically reflect the tone and themes of the film itself, as it does here. There is one particular scene, where Thorndike and Jerry Stokes (Joan Bennett)--a woman he's fallen in love with--must part ways; they kiss, Stokes pretends to be a hooker, in order to distract a cop away from Thorndike's face, and the two steadily go in opposite directions, until Stokes fades away into the fog. It's a beautifully sad moment.

As Fritz Lang, the director, emerges from the silent era--where he was already well known--"Man Hunt" is extremely visual, and home to more than its fair share of memorable frames. Other than the parting of the two lovers, there's a torture sequence, where the only character on frame is the Nazi officer (George Sanders), and everyone else is represented by their shadows; therefore, the often changing light in the room reveals characters' shadows as they become important. It's very cool, for lack of a more professional word.

Pidgeon is fantastic as Thorndike--determined at times, and at others, carefree and charming. But above the rest, Bennett sticks out as Stokes, who could have been just another empty love interest meant to broaden the appeal of a dark thriller, but is instead a character worthy of her own film. Her cockney, working-class manner and her simple needs act as a breather to the tense, dense series of events surrounding her; but more than that--from a story point of view--she gives the hero something to lose.

"Man Hunt" lives up to its name. In an era of "thrillers" where Liam Neeson waddles--I mean runs--from cliché to cliché, without any intellectually compelling reason, "Man Hunt" is a breath of fresh air, offering thrills and chills, but great dialogue, characters and visuals as well. However, living in a post-"Raiders of the Lost Ark" world, if I don't see a Nazi's face melt off, I'm slightly let down. Maybe next time.

The smart get smarter and the dumb get dumber. For the last 30 years, artists have ceased to be the heralds of culture. Where once Jack Kerouac, Elvis Presley and James Dean changed the way people acted and thought, now the Steve Jobs-types and the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world hold the influence. Instead of lines stretching across the street for the latest Beatles album, they're for the newest IPhone.

In an increasingly tech-heavy world, one might come to the conclusion that we're more sophisticated than generations past. Steve Jobs certainly was, maybe even Zuckerberg, whose inventions didn't come out of mere computer know-how, but rather imagination and creativity: the same things fueling cultural change in the past. The only difference, however, is that the IPhone or Facebook are not intellectually or emotionally stimulating things; they don't force one to see the world through another's eyes, or expand their knowledge, as a book, film or album would--the good ones, at least. In other words, there's no intellectual trickle-down. Therefore, the smartest people in the world get smarter--creating new devices, websites, apps--and as a result, the dumb people get dumber.

Seeing as how "The Fly" is a modern retelling of "Frankenstein," and thus ruminates on the double-edged sword of science, I found this particular review an apt catalyst for a small dose of my mad ranting on technology. I apologize.

"The Fly" stars Patricia Owens as the wife of a mad scientist (David Hedison). As often happens with scientists of the mad variety, an experiment goes horribly wrong, resulting in the hideous splicing of atoms between the scientist and a fly.The ambassador of horror himself, Vincent Price, plays the brother of the scientist, but is essentially the embodiment of the audience, expressing our groans and shock.

On the surface, this sounds like any other B-monster movie from the '50s, meant to horrify dimwitted teenagers with hollow thrills and grotesque imagery--we've come so far. On the contrary, the film deals with the growing cultural reliance on technology and the mad race to push science as far as possible, albeit coercively.

The ideas behind the scares wouldn't mean much if the scares weren't scary, but they are. Watching the film through modern eyes, I can't help but feel like I've seen this before--The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, etc.--but even a strained concept can continue to affect if done well enough, as it is here. Maybe it's my illogical fear of spiders, but there's one specific scene that will take my head some time to shake. And while this is totally meaningless, I adored the design of the laboratory, with all the swirly, neon lights and spinning doohickeys.

While "The Fly" isn't the scariest or smartest sci-fi horror film, its message holds up, and will continue to for some time. Beyond that, at a pure sensory level, the movie is tense and occasionally frightening, but more fun than anything. For those of us who like spinning doohickeys.

If this entire film was constructed solely for the sake of a single joke--a mime speaking the only word in a silent film--I would be okay with that. Luckily, there's a little more to it.

"Silent Movie," written, directed, and starring Mel Brooks as Mel Funn, a down-on-his-luck Hollywood director--dressed as a sea captain, for some reason--looking for his comeback, which he believes will come in the form of a silent movie. He's joined by two cohorts, Marty Feldman--dressed as an aviator; something tells me Feldman wouldn't be able to acquire a pilot's license--and Dom DeLuise--dressed relatively normal, though bordering on golf enthusiast. The three must recruit major Hollywood stars in order for the studio to greenlight their film.

The thorn in my side when it comes to this movie--and the same goes for 2011's "The Artist"--is that if this had come out prior to '29, nobody would care, and it would be seen as an imitation of greater artists. Many of the gags in the film simply lack the choreography and elegance of Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd. Take a scene in which the three buffoons disguise themselves as knights in order to draft Liza Minnelli; it merely involves the three falling over, getting back up and falling over again, and goes on way too long. This isn't to say, however, that the film doesn't its moments; it has several, actually.

Brooks is famous for having the world's most sophisticated fart joke--the coffee and bean diet of cowboys; it's only logical--and in this film, he performs the miracle of making an erection joke clever. Also, the running gag of bizarre California businesses is consistently funny, such as an acupuncture facility, in which customers walking out all look like hedgehogs. A frisky Coca-Cola machine nearly steals the show, and comes in handy later in a appropriately ridiculous manner. And who among us cannot crack a smile when witness to a high-speed wheelchair chase between Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise and Paul Newman.

One would be remiss not to mention the fact that Burt Reynolds has both his name and a portrait of his face across the front of his mansion; if he doesn't have such a thing in real life, I will be sorely disappointed.

While the film misses more than it hits, it's a pleasure to see it swing. The jokes that fall flat are quickly swept away by the charm of the movie and the childish optimism at the heart of it. I would rank it second-tier Brooks, along with "High Anxiety" and "History of the World, Part I." But second-tier Brooks is first-tier anyone else.

We see a charming community of buyers, sellers, on-lookers and otherwise pleasant folks conversing idly. The chirps and chatter of the crowd is not a busy kind, but a calm one, like the low roar of a ceiling fan. A record scratch to the communal bliss comes in the form of Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) unloading a revolver into a man until he's down on the ground, and then she shoots a little bit more. After the echoes of the bullets drift away into the ether, she turns, as if being watched, and it blinded by the light of the moon.

So begins William Wyler's "The Letter," a noirish yarn of murder, deceit and all things in-between. Naturally, Crosbie pleads innocent to the murder, claiming the man tried to rape her. However, the titular piece of paper is found, and then all bets are off. It's a simple enough premise, but where this movie shines is its mood and performances.

There is one fantastic scene in particular, when Crosbie's lawyer (Howard Joyce) breaks the news to Crosbie's husband (Herbert Marshall) that a letter's been found that might be detrimental to her case. The way her husband hesitantly defends her--and doesn't even inquire as to the contents of said letter--and the way in which the laywer avoids eye contact, due to a combination of embarrassment and doubt, is a testament to the talent of both actors.

One would be remiss to ignore Bette Davis, whose giant, made-for- the-movies eyes each seem to be telling a different story at all times. There's a lot of moving parts to her literary character--the torn allegiances, the all-seeing eye of the moon, the knitting, which grows more fervent as the film goes on--that a lesser actor might have folded and simply milked the melodrama inherent to the character.

A problem with a lot of these plot-heavy films, reliant on reveals and gasp inducements, is that a lot of the flair is lost, due to the duty to hit certain plot points at certain times, and repeat them over and over again so the audience doesn't feel stupid. However, "The Letter" succeeds mostly at avoiding such things, and feels more like a star vehicle for everyone involved--like a star bus.

While Wyler is more famous today for "Ben-Hur" the most epically epic of all film epics, his ability to hone in on a small, more personal story, and condense it to a point of pure potency, should not be forgotten. Also, the ending of the movie is a result of the Hays Code, but I think it still works.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

Wiser words were never spoken--or promoted from theory to application as well as in Mel Brooks' adaptation of Ilf and Petrov's Russian novel, "The Twelve Chairs."

The confession of a dying woman--that she's hidden jewels in one of twelve chairs--finds its way into the ears of three very different, but equally greedy, men. There's her son-in-law, Ippolit (Ron Moody), a man born with a silver spoon his mouth, which he proceeded to choke on. There's Ostap (Frank Langella, who, against all common wisdom, was once among the youth), a young con-artist whose first treachery is his fresh face. And lastly, there's Father Fyodor (Dom DeLuise), who seems less a product of seminary school than clown college.

As with many of Mel Brooks' films, there's the foreground comedy and the background comedy, working simultaneously to their mutual benefit. The background jokes always get me, because I least expect them. For instance, the signs plastered all over Soviet Russia all seem to end in an exclamation point, no matter how trivial the message. Also, there's a hilarious theater troupe advertisement which reads, "Hamlet and the October Revolution by William Shakespeare and Ivan Poppov," in reference to Communism's "everything belongs to everybody" philosophy.

While Langella is restricted to playing the straight man, both Moody and DeLuise are given total freedom to writhe, stretch their faces beyond the norm, and shout so much gibberish that by the end of the film, I think I began to understand. Moody's Ippolit, an otherwise timid character, is reduced to agitated mammal when possibly in the presence of the riches. DeLuise takes it farther, no better than in a tremendous scene where he finds himself in the home of a couple suspected of having the chairs. The physicality of his performance is top-notch, as he grovels and attacks, bouncing between affection and rage, unsure of which method is most likely to land him the chairs-- to the befuddlement of the couple, obviously.

Despite having more of a dramatic core than Brooks' other films, "The Twelve Chairs" feels completely at home in Brooks' filmography. However, it's less broad than his films went on to be--there's no fourth wall breaking or seeing the orchestra on screen. It might have my single favorite showcase for character development, as a character fakes a seizure early in the film in a pathetically, doggy-paddle fashion; whereas later in the film, his method evolves into a loose, childlike dance.

Bizarrely, this is only one of two satires of/by Russian literature done in the '70s by a Jewish comedian. The other is Woody Allen's "Love and Theft," which is better.

The relationship between censorship and creativity can be summed up no better than in "The Producers," when Gene Wilder is going insane and Zero Mostel throws the bucket of water on Wilder to calm him down, only to make Wilder more insane.

"These Three," based on a play by Lillian Hellman (who also wrote the screenplay), is the story of two debutantes, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, (Merle Oberon and Miriam Hopkins) fresh out of school who--almost immediately--inexplicably decide to start their own school (studies do say the public school system is built to churn out teachers). At the building where the two women wish to house their school, they meet Joe Cardin (Joel McCrea) who assists them in their endeavor. He makes three. They all become great friends, open the school to resounding success and everything is just hunky-dory.

As usually happens, children ruin everything--in this case, one child: Mary (Bonita Granville). To understand Mary, one must simply imagine Iago as a young girl--afraid? Mary, because she's spiteful, young and doesn't understand consequences, spreads a lie about her teachers in order to take the attention away from her own misbehavior. So what is initially a private, mild, unacted-on love triangle--that probably would never have amounted to anything and fizzled away with time--becomes the business of the entire town.

The original play had Mary's lie alluding to a lesbian relationship between the two friends; however, due to that pesky Hays Code, McCrea's character was conceived, and the lie turned into one of heterosexual deviance, though even that is tiptoed around. Despite the changes to the source material, the film never feels watered down, as the contents of the lie really aren't that important, at least not as much as the subsequent reverberations. Plus, by not mentioning specifics, it almost makes the whole thing more potent, as the viewer's imagination is given free rein. The example often referred to in is from "Shane," and the intense sexual tension between the titular character and the boy's mother, despite never showing anything. In this way, censorship becomes creativity's unlikely accomplice.

As weighty as the film is, it's surprisingly funny. In particular, Martha's aunt, Lily Mortar, (Catherine Doucet), who is a haughty, loquacious, former actress. She reminded me of one of Dickens' over- the-top aristocratic characters. When a taxi driver (played by Walter Brennan, who, I guess, got tired of driving stagecoaches) requests his pay, Mortar merely chides him on his obsession with money.

William Wyler's "These Three" is an excellent adult drama that hasn't aged a bit (well, maybe a little bit). Not a single performance fails to impress--particular Granville's as Mary, a tough part for a child actor--and the comedy--which is a gamble in a dramatic film, for it runs the risk of deflating the whole thing-- feels completely natural. Few films I've seen handle the concept of mob mentality better than this one.

My one gripe--and I had this with the recent "The Hunt"--is who are these adults that take everything a child says as indisputable fact? Use your brain.

Lastly, how cool is that poster?

Roger Ebert introduced "The Cole Rule," which is 'no movie made since 1977 containing a character with the first name "Cole" has been any good.' "The Westerner," starring Gary Cooper as Cole Harden, came out in 1940.

The film centers around Harden and Roy Bean (Walter Brennan), the barman and self-proclaimed judge of Vinegaroon, Texas. Bean has a tendency of serving capital punishment as easily as he serves whiskey. When Harden shows up on the scene--the classic drifter who comes from "no place in particular" and who's going "no place special"--telling tales of trysts with Lily Langtry, Bean's hanging ways are brought to a halt, at least for a little while. You see, Bean is madly in love with Langtry, a famous actress, despite not ever meeting or seeing her in the person; in fact, he has pictures of her plastered over nearly ever square-inch of his bar and bedroom.

As great as Cooper is as the reluctant hero of above-average intelligence, Brennan is the star, delivering one of--if not the best of--his performances. He inhabits a "judge" Roy Bean who's at both times dangerous and pitiful. In his initial intellectual face- off with Harden--which quickly devolves into empty feats of masculinity--Bean comes off as a fierce, no-nonsense sociopath, incapable of sentiment. However, at the mere mention of Langtry, his face melts into a picture of childish affection. He's so good, that despite being the antagonist, the ways in which the hero manipulates Bean's schoolboy crush are borderline heartbreaking. Brennan rightly won the Academy Award that year.

"The Westerner" is also home to one of the all-time great shootouts. It's comically realistic, as these aren't two sharpshooters, but they know how a gun works. So, naturally, they run around, shooting blindly and hiding behind things, as anybody in a shootout would. To boot, there's an orchestra between the two of them, so occasionally a bullet will graze an instrument, creating a natural, offbeat score to match the scene.

In 1972, John Huston released another film based on the legend of Bean entitled, "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," starring Paul Newman as the "judge," which is likewise an outstanding film. It's been a while since I've seen it, so I can't compare the two movies like I wish I could.

Given the eclectic personality of the real-life Bean, "The Westerner" is a refreshingly quirky western, and is worthy of its source material.

There's only one thing I remember from my twelve years in the public school system, and it's from kindergarten: one dot does a lot. This was, of course, in reference to gluing things, so as not to make a mess; but, it taught me a greater lesson: the strength of subtlety-- boy, that's a hard word to spell.

"Call Northside 777" is full of dots, and proceeds to connect them. It sounds boring, but if the dots are interesting ones, and if the road from dot to dot is full of zigzags and loopdeloops, it can almost make for a good movie. Unfortunately--for the film and for me--the dots are dull and the lines between them straight and solid.

The film stars Jimmy Stewart as P.J. McNeal, a journalist who responds to a peculiar ad in the paper asking for information on a murder from a decade ago. It turns out to be the mother of the convicted, and McNeal turns her into a story, which leads to another, and another after that, until he's in too deep. Stewart sheds his "aw, shucks, I just want everyone to be happy" persona in favor for a more cynical manner; the part's not difficult, as it's primarily just nodding and scrunching your eyebrows, but Stewart plays it straight. The man convicted for murder is played by Richard Conte, better known now as the Don of the Barzini family in "The Godfather"; he's good here, especially in one of the better lie detector bits I've seen on film.

Lee J. Cobb--or as I call him, dime-store George C. Scott--is in the film as the editor of the newspaper. He's such a great actor that it's a shame he's given nothing to do but grimace, which would be a greater injustice if he wasn't so damn good at grimacing.

Despite my dislike for the spine of the film, I am a sucker for film noir, which this film so daintily sticks its toe into. There's guys in suits and fedoras, walking around in the dark smoking cigarettes, so the movie has that going for it.

If you've seen any procedural drama on television or in the movies, you've seen "Call Northside 777." Obviously, the details are different, but the DNA's the same. It's like a Mr. Potato Head with different eyeballs. Or maybe it's nothing like that, I don't know. There are people out there, I know, who eat up regurgitated information and this film will very much appeal to them. Bon appetit.

It's been said of "The Howard Stern Show" that it appeals exclusively to the very stupid and the very smart. The same could be said of "Deadpool," albeit with a narrower spectrum, trimmed at the latter end.

Deadpool is unique among his superhero brethren, in that he's quite aware of his status as a fictional character--there's an existential crisis in that sentence somewhere. He is constantly playing to the audience, whether it be moving the camera to save his viewers from witnessing the coming violence, or shamelessly mocking his own genre--Hugh Jackman jokes aplenty; digs at the lack of financial support from Fox. As a character, Deadpool strips away all the respect and pretension that his compatriots have worked so long to receive.

Unfortunately, Deadpool's impish presence doesn't bleed over into the narrative itself, which is the usual superhero fare of initially horrid transformations, lost lovers and the sweet revenge that caps it all off. While these steps are taken with an abnormal--but welcome-- amount of sardonicism and waggishness, it wasn't enough to grab my interest--merely tapping it on the shoulder and inquiring whether or not it's free for the next couple of hours, to which my interest declines, having been burned before. However, the disjointed structure of the film works in its favor, turning the dull bits into fleeting detours. In other words, anytime Wade Wilson isn't in the suit, the movie suffers.

As far as the comedy goes, I respected the air of contempt more than the jokes themselves, which, more often than not, are foul balls. And Deadpool's "creative 15-year-old who doesn't apply himself" vocabulary becomes grating over time. There are a few winners however:

--Deadpool informs a blind woman that 150 kilos of cocaine are buried somewhere in her house, as well as the cure to blindness.

--When Colossus is going to take Deadpool to Professor Xavier and Deadpool replies: "McAvoy or Stewart?"

--The black knight scene--a tried and true gag.

--The baby hand.

The broadly talentless Ryan Reynolds--Deadpool said it, not me-- needs to hold on to this character like his career depends on it, because it does. Just as Downey Jr. has realized--failing financially and critically in anything where he doesn't where an iron suit--Reynolds needs Deadpool more than Deadpool needs him.

I'm looking forward to the sequel, in which Deadpool fights his greatest foil, Kirk Douglas.

In 1929, critics said of "Man With a Movie Camera" that the pictures cut away too fast and the mind doesn't have time to focus on any one particular thing. The film was revolutionary, as only spending two or three seconds on a shot is commonplace now, and has been for some time. However, with "The Big Short," I found myself in the mindset of those whom time passed up.

"The Big Short"--the latest film to be green-lit after the success of "The Wolf of Wall Street"--stars a gaggle of big names playing small names. These "small names" foresaw an incoming financial apocalypse and--some of them, at least--decided to profit from it, as one does. It's like if instead of building an ark, Noah had opened an umbrella shop.

This film has many quirks, and after a while--just like with a person--quirks become agitations and agitations become sources of deep, abiding hatred. For instance, the constantly speaking to the camera, which, I'm sure, seemed like a cute idea, comes off as unnecessary, as it's usually used for swing-and-a-miss humor. There's also a series of relentless cutaways to the pop culture events of the time that don't add a single thing. If they were meant to further establish a specific era, it's not needed; it's only been ten years, we remember! If the manic energy present in "The Wolf of Wall Street" was a lightning bolt, the same energy here is like a shoe bomb--aimless and messy.

Nonetheless, there is certain energy present in the film, and while not all of the comedy hits, enough does to make the film a modestly enjoyable romp. Christian Bale--while maybe not the best actor working today--is easily the most consistently entertaining, and I could watch him awkwardly maneuver the subtleties of conversation all day.

Adam McKay, known for making dumb movies for smart people and dumb movies for dumb people, has now make a smart movie for dumb people. That's worth something.

Joy is the kind of woman whose shirt is always sullied with the stains of others. She is the linchpin to a ball and chain family of has- beens, could-have-beens and never-will-bes. They firmly wrap their collective fingers around her ankles like a decaying hand from the grave, and hold her until she becomes the failure that will justify their own. For if Joy can't do it, who can?

David O. Russell takes what could have been another drab biopic about a person overcoming the odds, and makes a quirky fairy-tale of familial and business politics where Joy is Cinderella and Prince Charming is success. Ironically, halfway through, the movie lost me slightly as it gained focus, for its biopic DNA began to reveal itself. I preferred the freewheeling nature of the first half. And at times, "Joy" feels too chock-full of good ideas that don't give each other time to breathe, such as an interesting soap opera element present during the beginning of the film that doesn't go anywhere and then goes away. It reminded me of a similar tool used on this last season of "Fargo."

I've read others who find that Robert De Niro was miscast as Joy's man-child father, but I highly disagree--they said the same thing about "True Confessions," where I also disagree. He nails the comedic nuances in Russell's script that a lesser actor--or actor not as in tune to Russell's humor--might have missed, such as his bashful smile as he flirts with a widow over the phone. Isabella Rosellini also stands out, though her character has a jarring conversion from farcical to menacing. Jennifer Lawrence continues her upward trajectory as an actor, getting a chance to flex her non- crazy muscles.

While "Joy" isn't quite as good as it could have been, it's still a good time.

"Concussion" is the cinematic equivalent of a stand-up who laughs at his own jokes. Each revelation, each tragedy, each teary-eyed silence is followed by either a line or a musical cue referencing what's already been well enough established. This malady is not unique to "Concussion," but that doesn't make it okay.

King charisma himself, Will Smith, plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, a pious pathologist from Nigeria, blissfully ignorant to the side effects of uninvited goodwill. Due to his findings, Omalu's life is made a Job- like living hell; his faith--in God and in humanity--is tested, and there's our movie.

The film borders on Lifetime/Hallmark levels of heavy-handedness, and never really questions Omalu's conviction or will; you may as well have put a white hat on him, and a big, wide-brimmed black hat on his detractors. There are ways to get the audience on a character's side without forcing he or she's morality on us; it's like if you want to get someone to pick up an apple, you don't shove it in his hand and close his fist, for the first thing he'll do when you let go is drop the apple. You place the apple in front of him and a little to the side, talk it up a bit, then move on. Eventually, he will pick up the apple--he may put it back down, but at least he tried. Having the main character be so free of fault makes the movie just another humdrum "little guy vs. big guy" story. I realize this is a true story, but lie to me; I don't mind.

Smith is good, as he usually is. Albert Brooks reminds the audience of gravity's effect on testicles. Alec Baldwin has one of the more interesting characters in the movie, but is sidelined. Luke Wilson is Roger Goodell for two minutes of screen time, which would have taken me out of the movie if wasn't already. David Morse plays the incitement of the story; he's got one note to hit, but makes an impression nonetheless.

Like watching a bad comic, I just wanted it to end. I wanted the comically large walking cane to come out from the side of the frame and yank everyone off. To add insult to injury, the movie runs out of steam towards the end but keeps going, like a radio DJ who can't hit the post and talks over the whole song. I've run out of analogies.

In Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight," we're reminded that beyond charity work, holding hands and singing Kumbaya in a circle, nothing brings two people separated by culture, race or religion together like a common enemy.

The bulk of the film's action takes place in Minnie's Haberdashery, a refuge for every wide-brimmed, black hat wearing western supervillian. It's the kind of place where John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter affectionately referred to as "the hangman" because he always brings his man in alive to watch them hang, is the lesser of eight evils.

Russell plays Ruth like John Wayne's shadow--walking tall, talking slow, strong to his convictions, but wrapped in the nihilism of Eastwood's "man with no name." It's been said that Laurence Olivier could recite Shakespeare so well, it was as if he was coming up with the words himself; the same could be said of Tarantino's dialogue for Samuel L. Jackson, who delivers a monologue in this film so dastardly and wicked, that each breath should be captured and bottled up for risk of tarnishing the ozone. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Ruth's latest bounty, a cackling package of juvenile malevolence. Bruce Dern has earned his placed among the hateful eight through his prior work in westerns, as he's the first man--and one of few--to ever kill John Wayne on screen. "The Shield" alum, Walton Goggins, who reminds me of a young Bruce Dern, is terrific fun to watch as the proud, pisant son of a confederate soldier.

Whereas most Tarantino films are packed with violence from one end to the other, the violence here is more thoughtful and impactful, as dialogue becomes its wing-man, building it up until you're dying to meet it.

There is also an underlying theme of the elasticity of reality, as the film treats fiction and truth like blood and water: one drop of blood in a glass of water, and water's not water anymore; it's blood. But a drop of water in a glass of blood simply vanishes.

If "Mad Max: Fury Road" is roller coaster fun, "The Hateful Eight" is page-turner fun. As great and rollicking as the dialogue is--and this could probably work as a radio play--it's taken to another level with every crooked smile and sideways glance. And ironically, despite the heinous cast of characters, the ending to the film is somewhat sweet.

Not perfect, but all I want.

(I was fortunate enough to see the film in 70mm. It's impossible to comment on how much better it was than a digital screening, or if the film hadn't been shot with anamorphic lenses, unless I was able to see the film in that fashion. However, there was a scene when Jennifer Jason Leigh was having a Ricky Nelson from "Rio Bravo" moment, and characters were moving in the background from one side the screen to the other, back and forth. It was here the huge aspect ratio really hit me.)

Before the film started, I was subject to a series of trailers for films such as "The Boss" and "Neighbors 2," which are both R-rated comedies with PG humor. Either the studios are really stupid, making films that contradict themselves, or really smart and understand the limited intellectual capacity of their modern adult audiences (it's the latter). "Hail, Caesar!," rated PG-13, is what an adult comedy looks like, as it spotlights--as all Coen films do--the absurd whipping post of life, with which the cries of pain from every bloody crack of the whip turn steadily to laughter with time.

The heart behind the film's many flailing arms is Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin). Mannix is the night watchman in the flamboyant insane asylum of Hollywood, dusting deviance under the couch to maintain the innocent image of the stars. The other two big players are Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), an airheaded household-name, and Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), a simple-minded singing cowboy. Whitlock is kidnapped by a group of men of who talk a lot about book a called "Capital," only it's spelled with a "K," and Mannix must fetch him before the tabloids smell story.

The Coens are able to tap into the white noise of comedy, creating laughs from seemingly non-jokes. But at the same time, they don't forsake the classic "set-up, punchline" formula. For example, there's an incredible scene involving a meeting that Mannix has called, which involves a Protestant, a Catholic, an Eastern Orthodox and a Rabbi, all in order to get their blessing for a "Ben-Hur"- esque film. There's a clear joke that the scene ends on--the Jewish guy has an opinion for everything but the thing that matters--but more than that, there's a religious satire, in that nearly every question asked of the clergyman receives a "yes and no" response. The Coens are masters of gags within larger gags within larger gags. And of course, there's no shortage of prolonged awkward silences and dumb faces, trademarks of any Coen film.

Despite the film's marketing, Mannix is the focus and to a lesser extent, Whitlock and Doyle. For the most part, Clooney's restricted to funny faces, though he nails the scene where he's relating everything he's learned from the Communists to Mannix, like a child eagerly telling his father what he's learned at school that day. Ehrenreich stands out as the Roy Rogers-like Doyle, especially in a scene involving a spaghetti lasso, reminiscent of Chaplin's bread roll dance.

Each of the other headliners get a one-joke character, which would be worse if the jokes didn't work, or if more weight were put on them. Ralph Fiennes plays a pretentious, English director, Laurence Laurentz, a man of dual-pronunciations. Scarlett Johansson is DeeAnna Moran, a chain-smoking, man-eater in reality; a naive, angelic blonde on the silver screen. Channing Tatum is Burt Gerney, a player in a homoerotic musical, who just so happens to be--in a delightfully insane reveal--the realization of 'McCarthyism paranoia.

Mannix, however, doesn't seem to be in a zany comedy. He feels more like something out of "Barton Fink," "A Serious Man," or "Inside Llewyn Davis." Like the main characters of those films, Mannix is miserable, but--unlike those characters--he learns to love the misery, seeing it as a side-effect of doing something worthwhile, rather than unjustified punishment.

"Is it wrong to do the easy thing?" Mannix asks a priest. To Mannix, the answer is yes. To the priest, the answer is yes and no. To me, the answer is yes; keep making movies.

One has to respect Leonardo DiCaprio, whose career could have gone the way of Ryan Reynolds or Mathew McConaughey--since repented-- cashing in on his boyish looks with hollow romantic-comedies for half-wits. Instead, he chooses to work with Spielberg, Mann, Mendes, Nolan, Tarantino, and, of course, Scorsese--narrowing in on challenging, often unlikable characters.

In an astounding turn-around from last year's "Birdman," Alejandro Inarritu takes a by-the-numbers folk song about one man's thirst for revenge and strips it naked of all barroom romanticism. With "The Revenant," he holds up his thumb to unrelenting nature, sees the beauty within and begins the shaping process.

The film's first victory was the decision to shoot on-location, with natural light. While the concept might seem somewhat pretentious at first--considering the luxuries computers afford--it pays off, creating one of the more immersive film experiences in recent memory--and no 3D, what do you know? No matter how advanced computer generation becomes, you can't beat the real thing--that works with movies, Coca-Cola and nearly everything else.

I'm normally not a huge proponent for realism in films--I already know it's fake, so just have fun with it--but "The Revenant" is the rare case where I can't imagine the film any other way. Perhaps, it's because much of it isn't fake. Or perhaps, it's because the story is so naturally thin, and the realism puts a magnifying glass to the cinematic fine print--delicate human moments--that would otherwise go unnoticed. Yes, I think that's it.

The action sequences--and they are that--are leagues above anything seen in any superhero film, placing the audience amongst the gun- smoke, zipping arrows and the horses who move like heavy machinery. No better is this accomplishment signified than the already notorious "bear scene," in which Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is eviscerated by a grizzly. The scene is unrelenting in its brutality, the bear acting as the physical manifestation of cruel Nature, and Glass as helpless Man, always on the defensive. And unlike most blockbuster films, the action has purpose and repercussions; it doesn't feel like a child playing nonsensically with his toys--not that I don't occasionally enjoy such a thing.

One would be remiss to fail to mention DiCaprio's performance as Glass--if ever there was a man less suited to his name. He's the kind of actor who never goes for the admirable base hit, but spits in both hands and points to the rafters each and every time; here is no different. He's as raw and inexorable as the film itself. Same goes for Tom Hardy, the villain of the piece, a man so detestable, the Indian who scalped him changed his mind half-way through. The character had be worried for a bit, as he comes off a tad mustache- twirling, but he rounds out in the end.

"The Revenant," is a film that unfolds rather than unveils; that reveals rather than relates; a film of driving, raw emotion.

"In the Heart of the Sea" is a movie to a fault. The strings are so visible--and knotted and tangled--that the inherently compelling, tried-and-true theme of man vs. nature--played in its most heightened fashion--fails to make any impression whatsoever.

The events of the film center around the oil business of yore and the poor--in both the monetary and sympathetic uses of the word-- crew commissioned to fetch the said oil. The mission goes awry when the ship comes across a "demon" of a whale whose idea of an afterlife doesn't include lighting a schoolboy's homework.

Chris Hemsworth, the lead of the movie--who seems to have been patched together from the remains of past movie stars--plays a dull character dully; he loves his wife, he's good at his job and his always tries to do the right thing. The always reliable Brendan Gleeson is the catalyst for the story, and he stands there in his imposing, respectable way, and delivers his lines believably enough. The rest of the performances are all relatively on point, but nobody really stands out as being anything but working cogs in a second- rate machine.

The big set-piece of the movie--the whale attack--is home to a handful of harrowing shots, and is effectively frightening, particularly the first moment in which the animal's size becomes apparent. However, when it is over, the film fails to build on its foundation, and drifts off into the nether regions of apathy. There is one fun scene where Tom Holland has to enter a whale through its blowhole, but that's as far as it goes.

The movie has high, literary ambitions, and yet, other than a brief conversation between two characters, doesn't seem to be reaching for them at all. Its achievements in cinematography are short and sporadic. It can only be described as boring, and best enjoyed in short glances up from washing dishes.