The Good German "(Maguire's) adhering too much to the contemporary view of classic cinema - no subtlety, scenery chewing, melodrama."

They don't make 'em like they used to, but that sure doesn't stop them from trying. I am more a fan of contemporary cinema than any of the black and white Hollywood hey day movies. I've tried to branch out in recent years, even making a summer noir series of my own with Laura, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, and Casablanca. I mention Casablanca not because it's a great example of noir, but because The Good German wants to be like it so very, very much (only with more swearing). It's a lofty goal it cannot reach.

The Good German is really only an excellent imitation of those melodramatic, love torn, post- and pre-war film noirs. It offers nothing to set it apart from anything that has ever preceded it. Instead, it boldly goes where many, many films have gone before it. Normally, this would be a major detraction (and it still kind of is), but The Good German really wants to be those movies you saw before. It loves those movies. It hopes to Moses you love those movies, too.

I had problems from the start with Tobey Maguire. He must have been told to "explore the studio space" because he's adhering too much to the contemporary view of classic cinema - no subtlety, scenery chewing, melodrama. He plays an unsavory character with constant strain in his voice and face. He can't handle the dialogue or the character. It's outside the realm of his abilities. Hey, I love the guy (Go, James Leer!), but he's pretty awful in this movie. Luckily, he doesn't factor much into the major storyline later in the movie.

Thankfully, George Clooney and Cate Blanchett know what they're doing...most of the time. They handle the dialogue pretty well, save the normal difficulties you'd expect from actors trying to speak old timey/edgy/cool dialogue from a script emulating someone else's script. Clooney and Blanchett's scenes together are the best in the movie and I think everybody knows it because they get tossed in each others way a lot.

Clooney doesn't have to do anything he hasn't had to do before, and he appears to be the most comfortable in the world of the film. And the world of the film and the camera love him...a little too much. The camera almost fetishizes Clooney in that soldier uniform and hat - from behind, from afar, from above, from the ground, from the front (oh, it loves looking at ol' Clooney's dashing hero gaze). Clooney does have trouble in one scene in particular where he has to grab Blanchett by the arms and shake her and say, "Why won't you let me me help you!" in his best noir impression. That's the thing with The Good German - it's more than happy just to be an impression of anything real though its depict real moments in history.

Blanchett has a German accent throughout and it's really only a glaring bump because it's Cate Blanchett speaking in it. The same could be said for her Katherine Hepburn accent in The Aviator. I just think the accents are "so not her" that they remove me from the world of the movie. She does deliver the most consistent performance. She knows how to milk a scene for all it's simmering heat (milk the heat?). I never really think of females as brooding, but Blanchett certainly does brood.

Story stuff: Blanchett plays Lena, this German femme fatale that was so memorable and alluring in a pre-war affair with Jake (Clooney) that he purposefully heads back to Germany after the war to find her. The big problem for me is that she's not really all that great. I can't really imagine what's so great about her that all these men are wanting her so much. For Tully (Maguire), it's clear his thrill is in possessing her; but for Jake, it seems he's helping her out of some nostalgia for feelings that I can't imagine pretty much anyone having for her.
(edit: Perhaps this is the point the movie is trying to make - the woman Jake fell in love with has been ruined by the war.)

Also, Clooney gets involved in three skirmishes in his hunt for a mysterious man everyone's after. He gets beat up pretty bad by his assailants, but they just leave him there writhing in pain or knocked out or what have you. Nobody ever really gets the idea that "Hey, this guy's always turning up and gumming up the works...maybe we oughtta kill the jerk." He dusts himself off and goes back to the search.

Also, that ending! No! Don't do it! It involves a revelation that should have happened earlier, and not so awkwardly spoken or located. The movie should have ending in the crowd of all the people. Whenever I watch the movie again, I'm going to stop it there. That's a decent movie. It's still pretty decent anyways, but it would have been decenter (decenter?).

But, lo and behold, I am recommending this movie. I really enjoyed the entire second act and much of the third. Once Maguire faded into the background and the intrigue really started, I committed to the movie and was mostly satisfied despite all the words above to the contrary. It's a solid movie. I commend its ambition. It's hard to call a movie that emulates other movies ambitious, but it's really quite an undertaking in this day and age to evoke the atmosphere and spirit of another day and age.

Clooney's good. Blanchett's good. Maguire's bad, but the rest of the supporting cast is good in spite of him. I actually even liked the story for its simplistic storyline that masqueraded as a complicated web.

I LOVED the cinematography. If I loved the movie, I'd find a way to make a poster of some of the shots and put them up on my wall. Gorgeous black and white picture.

So...

***

Dead Man

Go Jarmusch, go Jarmusch, go!

Well, he finally won me over. Dead Man is an excellent, offbeat drama/western with occasional dry wit common in Jarmusch films. The film started off very strange and included a series of events that led me to think the film was going to be a kin to Scorcese's After Hours. Dead Man ended up being a little less out there (although it tip-toed on that fence the whole time) than Scorcese's film. Still, Dead Man includes an Indian named Nobody, a cannibal assassin, a gun happy lumber yard honcho, and Iggy Pop in a bonnet and dress.

Dead Man is simultaneously a trademark Jarmusch film and a huge leap forward in quality for the director. A bigger budget, a professional cast, wonderful cinematography, and a more plot-based script than any of the other Jarmusch films that I have seen make for a fantastic movie. None of these things necessarily makes a great film. But, in the case of Dead Man, all these things gel together to create a very, very good movie.

The story is about William Blake (Johnny Depp), an accountant from Cleveland traveling out West to start a new job at a lumber mill. After a series of misunderstandings, he's shot and running from the law and the wrath of Dickinson (Robert Mitchum), a strange businessman, who hires three gunslingers (Michael Wincott, Lance Henrikson, and Eugene Byrd) to bring Blake back dead or alive.

Blake is saved by an Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who speaks in mystical nonsense or plain common sense and believes that William Blake is the same man as the poet whose works he has read. "Did you kill the white man that killed you?" Nobody asks. "I'm not dead," Blake answers. "Am I?"

The film plays with that question. Nobody sees Blake as a skeleton after indulging in peyote. Blake continuously drifts in and out of consciousness for much of the movie. The question isn't exactly the meat and potatoes or sole source of meaning for the film, but does set up much of Nobody and Blake's interactions as well as a e ending.

The ending is anticlimactic, but in a very ironic way that fits the tone of the movie and left me mostly satisfied. Still, I somehow think the ending was not enough to finish the grand, strange journey there. I think the ending was saying something that lost me in translation. If you're listening Jim Jarmusch, what is your point? Or am I supposed to decide? Because that very well may be.

In Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, Jarmusch wasn't exactly trying to tell me anything other than people are strange. I think he's also saying that in Dead Man, but there's something else, something that I'm missing.

While Blake is on the lam, he has run-ins with unique characters. He happens upon a group of weirdos (Billy Bob Thorton, Iggy Pop, Jared Harris) at a campfire. He faces two marshalls out for the reward for Blake. And in a great scene, he meets a narrow-minded, bigoted, fire-and-brimstone priest running a trading post out in the middle of nowhere. By this point, Blake is a famous outlaw and has become an excellent shot and more hardened man. When he is challenged, he lays waste to the men around him. "I'm tired," he says. It's more informative and conversational than a voice of inner turmoil.

It's an example of Jarmusch's handling of the drama and wit of his western. It's not like any movie in the genre that I have ever seen. While it stands out amongst its peers, I never felt that it was crazy and strange just for the sake of being crazy and strange. Maybe this is because Jarmusch's zaniness is so relaxed and non-chalant that it's easy to look over unless you're tuned into his vision and tone.

Depp and Farmer are excellent. Their scenes together are some of the best in the film. Depp starts off bright eyed and soon can't seem to keep his eyes open. Blake becomes just the kind of man everybody mistakenly thought he was in the first place. Nobody explains the change matter-of-factly as though no change has occurred at all. This new Blake was expected by Nobody all along and it seems there are no real surprises in Blake's journey back to where he came from. And when he gets there, there is beauty in the strangeness of the moment unlike all the strangeness that Jarmusch has unleashed in all the other movies of his I has seen.

Depp's seamless transformation and quiet meditations are perfectly portrayed. I would have become endlessly bored by his constant drifting in and out of consciousness if he and Jarmusch didn't make every moment he was awake so priceless. It's a startling performance because of Depp's ease moving between strange, dry wit and gun-toting bad ass.

Farmer, whom I think I've only seen before in a minor role in The Score, is wonderful. In some ways, Nobody is a stereotypical Indian guide like we've seen before in film - the wisdom of the rustic. But in some ways, he also has the strangest wit of all the characters. He leads the journey, but in some ways he's unconcerned how Blake gets there.

All is I know is that I really enjoyed the trip.

****

Stranger than Paradise

Stranger than Paradise lives up to its title. It's strange all right. It's like an impenetrable, boring, morose, deadpan strange trip to Cleveland, New York City, and Florida. And that be exactly what writer/director Jim Jarmusch was going for. If so, Bravo! Still, the film left me wanting ol' Roberto Benigni from Down by Law to waltz in with his zaniness and liven up the joint.

Instead, I got the droll, monotone comedy and silence of John Lurie, Eszter Balint, Richard Edson. Lurie plays Willy, whose cousin Eva, played by Eszter Balint, from Hungary comes to visit during a stop on a trip to Cleveland, Ohio. When she leaves, a year passes before Willy and his pal Eddie, played by Richard Edson, drive out to Cleveland and rescue Eva from a cold winter and boring nights at home with Willy's aunt (a deadpan, monotone, very foreign, and funniest performance by Cecillia Stark). When they get to Flordia, they discover Florida isn't the Paradise they expected it to be. A series of comical miscommunication and misunderstandings follow.

John Lurie is an actor I'd prefer not to see in movies again. He is as bland as they come. Even when conveying emotion, he's lifeless. Any laughs from the film are hard to come by because the comical moments are so underplayed that it's hard to know if they're even supposed to be funny. So, instead of natural reactions of laughter, I did a lot of head scratching trying to figure out if things were funny or if I just needed to find something to laugh at to keep me going. Lurie is the chief culprit, but Jarmusch writes and directs moments engineered for this strange ambiguity of appropriate reaction.

Most of the time, my reaction was just looking at sometimes beautiful black and white cinematography and freeze framing shots in my mind (or literally with the pause button).

Like Down by Law, I don't really get the point or points if any that Jarmusch is trying to make. If his point is just to entertain, he failed me.

I can say that there is a big improvement from Stranger than Paradise (his first movie) to Down by Law (his next movie after that). I can only hope that if I see enough of his movies, his work might eventually improve to a completely enjoyable experience.

**

Down by Law

Down by Law is still walking around in my brain. I saw it last night. I'm still deciding how I feel about it, so this may end up being a stream of consciousness review when all is said and done.

I think I liked it. It definitely did not possess the usual attributes and qualities I look for in a film, especially independent film. It's atmosphere is pretty bare. Jarmusch creates a stale air speaking "Louisiana, Louisiana" and "jail, jail." I can't really put my finger on it more than that.

I felt distanced from the film and the characters for most of the film. There were times when they opened up or had a brief spell of interaction that was mildly amusing, but there was also a lot of bland waiting and silence. It can surely be said that silence can say a lot, but I don't think the silence in Down by Law said that much. More accurately, it said what it had to say and then kept repeating it over and over again.

Of course, whenever you add Roberto Benigni to the mix and you get more interest and excitement than whatever you had before. he adds life and mischief to the film. The best moments in the film - and there are several really, really good scenes - take place after Benigni joins the other two characters in their jail cell. I'm not particularly a fan of Benigni, but I am impressed by how his mere presence in Down by Law made the film and the other two main characters interesting.

Jarmusch employs a leisurely pace. He certainly doesn't rush things. At times, he tried my patience. Other times, especially when the three main characters were on the lam, he kept me engaged (for the most part).

Since this is only the second Jarmusch film I have watched all the way through (the other being Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which employed a similar leisurely pace), I can only really speculate here...but I think Jarmusch is still trying to find his voice in Down by Law. He doesn't really say that much in the film. And what he does say, he doesn't say well. I might be looking for meaning in all the wrong places, but it seems he was really just making a dark, bleak, sometimes zany comedy about casual friendships and the long arm of the law. It also moves along the lines of a tough-love letter to the seedy streets, back alleyways, back woods and swamps of Louisiana.

I had a love-hate with the cinematography. On the one hand, the black and white images on screen could be beautiful. Black and white lends itself to beauty. But the camera was stationary or static for many shots. This added to the stale air. It must be difficult to film a jail cell and make it interesting, but Jarmusch didn't even try. If his intention was to show the boredom of jail, he succeeded. As a setting for a film, I think that setting has to be visually interesting for the audience.

I'll give this movie a marginal recommendation, though I do want to see Down by Law to see if I missed the point along the way the first time. I also look forward to seeing what ol' Jarmusch has up his sleeve.

***

Ed Wood

I saw Plan 9 From Outer Space. I saw Glen or Glenda. They begged the question: how could someone be so stupid to make films such as these?

Ed Wood takes a different approach: Ed Wood was not stupid (at least not completely), but actually a man who was too confident in the fruits of his labors. He was a man so in love with his words, the people he made movies with, and the hope of making something someone could remember him for that he was blind to the futility of his pursuit of quality. I hate the man's movies, but I admire the man. He was in love with filmmaking and wouldn't let anything get in his way of making what he considered his art. A foolish man perhaps, but not the buffoon I assumed he must have been prior to seeing this movie.

To be fair, the reality of Ed Wood's life in the Tim Burton film that bears his name is heightened and exaggerated. I know the writers of Ed Wood are merely interpreting his life, but I never doubted the reality of the film. I believed it completely. The actors (Depp, Landau, Murray, Parker, Arquette, and others), Tim Burton, and the writers helped create characters that are somehow acutely absurd and utterly authentic at the same time.It's played for laughs. They're zany.

So zany...even more so because I have seen the director's films whose productions are depicted in the film. I recommend seeing Plan 9 and Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Atom before seeing Ed Wood. It's hilarious to see the film's writers' reasons for why Wood's films ended up as they did. Sometimes the reasons are oddly poignant, which is strange for such a zany film. When Ed puts his friend and father figure, Bela Lugosi, in his films with a speech about how the actor is still relevant (and making an atomic master race) or a simple moment of smelling a flower in a film where it makes no sense to smell a flower, my heart swelled a bit. The scenes in the context of their respective films are ludicrous. However, in the context of the film Ed Wood, they are priceless proclamations of the maligned director's love for his favorite actor and best friend.

I love this movie. I think anyone who loves movies, want to make movies, or likes to learn about interesting people (even people who make awful movies) should give this movie a watch.

*****

Fail Safe (2000)

I imagine that the LIVE factor of the broadcast was meant to add excitement and gain viewers who were eager to see if their favorite stars would mess up right before their eyes. It didn't work. Even with a premise that lends itself to great human drama and emotion, the film is lifeless. Exposition early in the film is necessary but dull and awkward. The film incorporates interesting camera work, providing a technical acheivement for a LIVE telecast. But remarkable technical achievements can't save the actors from muddling through their lines. Wonderful actors like Don Cheadle, Harvey Keitel, and James Cromwell among others don't seem to take well to the confines of LIVE television. Particularly Keitel has trouble making his lines feel alive and of the moment.

The story is interesting enough. I could use a little less of the right-on-the-nose dialogue explaining the situation over and over. Subtlety is thrown to the wolves. Emotion would have been welcome, but it is largely absent from the production. I must admit that I was bored for most of the film's duration.

*1/2

Casablanca

Casablanca is a classic for a reason. It is well written and well acted. It's fun and dramatic at the same time. Bogart basically plays the Bogart persona, but that's okay because Bogart is cool. The real thrill is the script. It is full of all these famous lines, but they are truly lines that deliver upon their promises. The film is truly satisfying as entertainment. But real skill is obviously involved in the staging of all this intrigue and character development.

My big complaint is the flashback of Elsa and Rick's romance in Paris. It's the worst acted scene of the film and only takes me out of the incredibly interesting present. I understand that the flashback sets up much of the background of both Rick and Elsa's current personalities, but the execution of the scene is just too much of a bump for me. This, along with the place in the present the flashback occurs, takes me out of the story too much.

But a classic is a classic and no amount of my nitpicking is really going to blemish a film deserving of that designation. Casablanca is just such a film.

****

Laura

I've been watching quite a few noir films lately. I've noticed a convention of the genre worth noting. There's usually a protagonist looking for something. What they actually find usually ends up to be much more than they had imagined. That's the case with Laura. I like the movie. I just wish I hadn't seen it right after I watched The Third Man because any movie after that would pale in comparison. Laura has some good performances and some wonderfully sharp dialogue, but it isn't as tight of a plot or production as The Maltese Falcon was. The hero and heroine's chemistry was obvious, which helped string me along, but the hero's love obsession never felt real. The guy kind of leaped head first without any real reason or motivation. None of what he (and we as the audience through his investigation) learned was enough to get anybody that hot and bothered about a “dame.”

***

The Third Man

The Third Man is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Unlike the initial over- admiration that eventually turns into general acceptance of a job well done that seems to plague my movie critiques, I foresee a long love affair with The Third Man. Style out the wazoo. Those camera angles. That lighting. Orson Welles underplaying it for a change. One of the best endings ever. I think it's all there, preserved for those of us waiting to see an old film that truly stands the test of time. The cinematography alone makes the film one of the best cinema has to offer.

*****

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon was a really fun movie to watch. The dialogue is quick and sharp, full of phrasings not used in everyday life, but ever present in the noir genre. The Maltese Falcon screams noir, but does so in a calm, cool manner. I am not personally one who subscribes to the Bogart is a god form of a parasocial relationship. He's always been a relic of the classic era that I have distanced from myself over recent years. But he is good, no, very good, in The Maltese Falcon. I never thought of the man as being capable of cool, but he is so cool that sheep count him (yo, Mamet).

The Femme Fatale, the gun heavy, and the mysterious man behind it all (in this case, “The Fat Man”) are all present. Twists and turns abound. Loyalties change as quickly as the words shoot out of Bogart's mouth. Truth be told, the film shows some age. It fits perfectly with the genre and the time of its release, but the slow pacing and long revelatory speeches don't generally happen or work well in modern films. Indeed, attention spans must have been longer 60 odd years ago. That having been said, I was interested in this film the whole way through, though the final payoff was not as big as I had anticipated or hoped for.

Side note: it was fun to see all the references Brick (2005) had made to The Maltese Falcon. There are several homages in Rian Johnson's film. The long-short-long-short horn signal was the same as a knocking signal in The Maltese Falcon. A conversation with the Principal in Brick held the same spirit as a conversation with the D.A. In The Maltese Falcon. There were others as well.

So, The Maltese Falcon was fun. I loved the script's crackling dialogue and Bogart's performance. I wish the payoff had been better. But it still gets a big recommendation from me. That's saying a lot because I don't usually tout the merits of older films. So, take heart, readers.

***1/2

Wings of Desire

This film is beautiful to look at. It is also boring as all get out. I tried very hard to give the film time to develop, to get better and bring my attention back. It barely happened during the film's final twenty minutes or so. All that preceded it was philosophical posing. The film would have made a better short or work of fictional literature. On screen, it merely is a chore. I had to make myself sit through it. Again, the cinematography is gorgeous, but the story (thin as it is, which can be okay, but wasn't) didn't earn my time. I did watch the making of doc on the DVD, and it allowed me to have some respect for what they were attempting to do. But the idea wasn't translated into a very good film. Shorter might have equaled better, but I'll never know. I sat on my bed watching, giving time limits for the film - "It's been a long time. Nothing's really happened. It'll end soon." "I was wrong last time. But it has to end soon. Nothing has changed." "Dear Lord, help me. Finish it."

Maybe one day I will give it another chance. Someday far off in the future. You can't even see it from here.

**