Normal(ish) versus Weird

This match-up brings the director who created some of the most loved movies from my childhood (Ferris Bueler's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, etc.) up against the director of one of the most intriquing, strange television shows ever to appear on network tv, Twin Peaks (as far as I know...plus it depends on your definition of strange--most reality shows are weird as f**k). It's my old favorite, weirdness, versus the powerful force of nostalgia. Bring it.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I had seen a lot of John Hughes movies, but never Planes, Trains, and Automobiles starring John Candy and Steve Martin. My main impression of this film is that it is the progenitor of the now classic disaster comedy with heart that has brought us many of Ben Stiller's films, including the terrible Focker series. While some of this movie was funny, and I'm glad that the message about kindness and friendship came through at the end, Hughes had a surprisingly difficult time convincing me that these were real people with a real connection that I should care about. Candy was delightful and complicated, and he was the closest to creating a full person in his annoying, lovable schmuck character. I'm not sure why Hughes made this movie. It's like he thought to himself, Hey, why keep making hit comedies with teenagers that touch people and connect with them? Instead I'll make a shallow, glad-that-isn't-me everday adventure movie with adults that are stagnant and disconnected. Maybe he got dared to do a movie with adult characters or just got bored. But why not stick with what works, especially when it works so well?

I guess a lot of other people enjoyed this movie more than me because otherwise we wouldn't watch it for this showdown, but for me, it just falls flat. I'm not sure if it's the antics from Martin that feel stale or how much it reminds me of Meet the Fockers, but for some reason I'm not buying this movie from a director who usually delivers real emotional connections with characters that feel genuine.

Blue Velvet

Lynch goes beyond weird. He requires a new label, a new definition for this film. The reason this film is worth watching, though, is that the weirdness all pays off. It is there for a reason and Lynch thought it through, he didn't just throw random shit together, he thought about a consistent, interesting message and the most shocking, effective way to convey it.

There is a theme that begins with the first scene: an examination of the underground and the role it sometimes plays as a distraction from troubles and dangers that are closer to home. When the main character (played artfully by Kyle Maclachlan of Twin Peaks) comes home from college because of his father's potentially fatal and  mysterious accident, he embroils himself in the underground drama of a near-insane woman (Isabella Rossellini), seeking out danger and crisis that can distract from the possibility of his own life becoming too difficult to handle. The distance allows him to deal with the insanity of the world he has snuck into, but once it overwhelms him, the narrative moves back to his own family and life. Not only is the story Lynch creates iconic and visually shocking, but meaningful and deep. I really enjoyed this crazy movie and I'm interested to see more of what Lynch does with a full film.

The Breakfast Club

I have loved this movie from the first viewing, which was so long ago that I can't pinpoint the timing. I have identified during different periods of my life with most of the characters in the film (and interestingly enough, in this most recent time watching it, I thought about how pissed off I would be if students trashed my library that way). Is this movie realistic? Not really, but part of making and watching movies is suspending disbelief. There is enough truth in this film to make it important and worthwhile, and when the students begin to search deeper, beyond how they look, talk, or behave, they begin to connect on a purely human level, sharing secret, valuable parts of themselves, becoming vulnerable and real to each other. This is the type of movie that can help people recognize humanity in others. We love the characters which means we start to love the people they are meant to represent: the prom queens, jocks, criminals, brains, and freaks that we see every day, especially in high school.

This reminds me of a comic from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal that I absolutely love and that highlights a lot of what I think is wrong with our society:

We are so afraid as we get older about what other people think that we stifle our individuality and stifle ourselves. And then one day, it's too late and we've lost connection with that passionate child that will draw the way they want to draw because they have to be themselves, have to find themselves. I hope I never lose connection with that part of myself. I hope I'm always weird simply because it's who I am. Hughes reminds me of that wish through this movie and I recognize that there's a very good reason it holds a special place in my nostalgia-driven heart: it's really freaking' good.

The Elephant Man

This movie absolutely blew me away. I wasn't sure what to expect, but what I got was an emotionally wrenching, intelligent, suspenseful and impressive drama about how we treat those who are different and highly abnormal. What happens to the titular "elephant man" says a lot about society and about him as an individual. What he craves is to be normal, and normalcy is defined by the way others treat us. He never attains that dream, even when he spends time in "normal" activities like having tea with guests, those guests are not there for the pleasantness in his demeanor, his polite, gentle nature, or to engage him in discussion. They are there to become more notable, because it's fashionable, or because they want to see the infamous "elephant man." This brings up a very important question: when what is in vogue is something positive and good, does the efficacy and value of doing that good thing for the sake of popularity and others' regard still as impactful? It reminds me of the "Green" movement. Most of the time I say to myself, "The commodification of green living is a positive force because money is what moves in our society and if people are doing it because it's hip, they're still doing it." But the issue is more complicated than that, because if anyone can slap "Green" on a t-shirt just to sell it without actually taking into consideration how to produce it equitably, we run into the crux of the problem.

If a movie set in late 19th century England about a deformed man can take me on this kind of inquisitive journey, it has successfully communicated across time. It has also stirred things deeply connected to my passions, that are important for me to stew over and connect and everyone should take the time to wonder: "How would I treat John Merrick if I were to meet him?"

If it isn't apparent that David Lynch just won this contest, I haven't done my job. Planes, trains, and automobiles has sunk John Hughes battleship. And I am so pumped for Eraserhead.

Will Chaos Reign or Highschool Rule?

David Lynch vs. John Hughes may be one of those rare moments in life for me where the expected outcome is nearly 180 degrees opposite the direction that it seemed to be heading when this contest started. You probably can’t get more heartwarming that the director of Pretty in Pink and if you had to pick one director who could somehow complete a romantic comedy staring the character of Charles Manson you’d probably turn to David Lynch. And I would have said before we started this round that trying to compare these two should be near impossible because they have nothing in common...

But surprisingly enough that turned out not to be the case. A first I was grasping at any sort of common ground I could find “Well I guess The Elephant Man is kinda like Judd Nelson or Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club, rough on the outside but deep down want to be liked.” Then the comparisons started to grow “Wait! The Elephant is exactly like the burnouts in the break fast club! Same backgrounds, same motivations!” And pretty soon I had it “Holy crap!!! The Breakfast Club is just the Elephant Man goes to high school!” Both directors despite their widely differing techniques and genres delve into the effects of societal pressures on their characters. Both directors believe that love can push aside all obstacles. And both Directors build whole films in the difference between expectations and the deeper undercurrents of truth that connect us all.

In the end there is more common thematic ground that that pushes these guys together than the plot points, dialogue, and genre differences that pull them apart.

Planes Trains and Automobiles (1987)- I’ve never seen this before and since seeing this thing like a month ago I’ve discovered that I may be the only person in the world who doesn’t find this one of the most heartwarming and funniest films of their childhood. Firstly I will apologize in advance for this because he seems like he’d be hilarious but Steve Martin just isn’t funny. I don’t care how many times he scrunches up his face and throws his arms in the air and runs down the street.

He didn’t come across to me like an angry everyman but more like a jerk who sees himself like an everyman, which was the change that you weren’t supposed to see coming until the very end of the film. Candy on the other hand was far better and just like Uncle Buck and Cool Runnings is pretty much the only reason to watch it. But too much of his performance was lost when you saw exactly where he was going long before he got there. For example there was the scene when they are on their plane at the beginning when Candy starts talking to Martin about plane food and its pretty obvious early on that Martin is getting annoyed and Candy is going to end up eating all of his food. Then Hughes gives us a ten minute scene where each joke is only funny if you don’t get that Candy is going to ask to eat each and every thing on Martin’s plate. In fact the whole film is kinda like that. The humor only works when you can’t totally predict where its going even though its completely obvious.

It goes a bit like this:

Candy: Hey Martin we need to get back to Chicago.

Martin: Damn sure we do its almost Thanksgiving! I’m soooo mad.

Candy: Well how do you think we’ll get there?

Martin: Well we’ve tried a plane and that didn’t work and we tried a train and that didn’t work so I guess based on the title next up is automobiles?

Candy: Well good thing I know some guy with a car who lives around here and I already called him and he agreed to bring us part of the way (but not all the way cause the movie isn’t over) to Chicago.

Martin: Well since nothing so far has worked out and everyone we have met has been totally nuts I bet based on the odds nothing with this guy will go wrong and he will be completely normal.

(Guy show up and is a stereotype of a Okie Redneck and things go awry)

Martin: I’m sooo Mad!

By about a quarter of the way through felt like I could have finished everything but the ending myself.

Blue Velvet (1986) - So like Taurog, Rossen, and Fosse before him I had not seen a David Lynch film before Blue Velvet (other than Fire Walk With Me which shouldn’t count). All I knew going in was that Lynch is weird and on top of that he’s really weird. And man was I not disappointed.

So basically the plot is like this:

(Kyle Mclaughlin) returns to hometown after near death of his father falls in love with local head cheerleader (Laura Dern). On their first date (Dern) tells him about a mysterious woman in town who acts kinda weird (Isabella Rossellini) and McLaughlin decides he’s gonna sneak into her apartment. Of course things don’t really go according to plan and he ends up figuring out that Rossellini is being tormented by a small town gangster (Dennis Hopper). He decides he’s gonna help and ends up following the mystery down the rabbit hole to uncover the seedy underbelly of the small town.

The chaos is on display from about the 31^st minute on and things just keep getting weirder and weirder. Normally a movie that hardly gives away any information easily and constantly has you asking yourself what the hell is going on would piss me off. But maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been exposed to more and more films where they play with an unconventional narrative (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, anything by Darren Aranofsky) or the fact that I’m maturing as a movie goer but I could really follow the method of Lynch’s madness. Sure there were parts where I think that Lynch could have tightened up some of the themes and there were times where the acting was a little too melodramatic but I found the idea of exploring these two halves of this small town through characters that were slowly learning they themselves as well as life was a lot more messy than they originally thought really worked. Also Dennis Hopper’s crazy gas huffing megalomaniac Frank Booth may be one of the craziest and freshest characters to ever be on screen. I don’t know what it is about great actors going psycho crazy late in their career that really works…Silence of the Lambs.

The Breakfast Club (1985) - If John Hughes has a masterpiece this is it. Hold it! Everyone calm down Ferris Buhler is pretty damn good too. But here Hughes is at his best. He takes 10 minutes to set up 6 easy to understand characters then over the course of an hour complicates, contrasts, and compares their lives until they are nearly indistinguishable except for the expectations that the world has on them. I know that probably sounds boring but really unless your watching for it your not even going to realize that he is doing it. The writing is cross generationally superb and each of his iconic characters gets a full and complete story arc. And of course since its John Hughes he throws in just enough jokes and sentimental moments to keep it from being bogged down in drama but not so much that it gets sappy or slapstick like he tends to get later in his career.

If there is a down side to this film (and I’m really sure that there is) it might be that the darkest of these characters here are too relatable. As batgirl pointed out while we were watching it the worst thing Judd Nelson might do is punch a table and if he’s supposed to be the meanest guy at that school he could be way worse than that. But like I said I’m not really sure this is a down side if Hughes went any darker the whole thing might not have felt as internally real as it did.

But like I said I personally feel if you wanna try one John Hughes film to see if you enjoy him this is the one to try. You’ll get everything he’s great at (teen romance, heartwarming humor, societal insight) and nothing he’s not (realistic minority characters).

The Elephant Man (1980)- I think honestly if you watched this film and didn’t already know it was a David Lynch film there is no way in the world you could have played guess the director and gotten it right. Nothing about the standard Lynchian story narrative is here. There’s no guessing at whether or not this is really happening. None of the off the wall characters or plot points. It’s just hard hitting societal drama that is poignant and insightful. If I hadn’t already seen the film I would have been waiting the whole time for the trap door to drop out and a real Lynch film to start.

Basically (John Hurt the bad guy from V for Vendetta) is a deformed carnival attraction when he is come upon by (Hopkins yeah Hannibal Lecture from earlier) a medical doctor during turn of the century London. Initially drawn to him because of his deformities Hopkins vows to help him live a normal life and the two eventually become close friends as they attempt to acclimate him to modern society.

As you can see by the description it sounds kind of like an after school special or perhaps a dramatic Disney film. But its way way darker than that. Firstly Lynch made the great call of keeping the whole thing in black and white to accentuate the darkness of turn of the century London which makes it way more Schindler’s List than Oliver! Secondly John Hurt’s performance is every bit deserving of the Oscar he didn’t win (up against De Niro in Ranging Bull) as a massively deformed man who can barely walk or talk normally and the constant focus on The Elephant Man’s broken breathing is a constant reminder that even the most basic functions of life like eating or speaking for him is a marathon. And if your heart isn’t roused by the first speech given by Hurt when he’s auditioning in order to stay in the hospital then you might as well move to Dickensian London yourself and start going by the name scrooge.

But what makes this film the best of this round and one of the best of the entire showdown so far is the work Lynch does with Hopkin’s character. At first glance in the film you might blow off Hopkins’ performance as a simple good-natured character when compared to the grotesquesness of the carnival owner Bytes (Freddie Jones) with whom Hurt was staying with before he met Hopkins. But over the course of the film very subtly Lynch forces Hopkins and the audience to really question whether there is any differences between their characters. Hopkins assumes he is helping the Elephant man by giving him better living situation than he had before and introducing him to polite society. By in what may be the most critical scene in the film Jones comes to check on The Elephant Man and what transpires completely turns the film on its head. I don’t want to ruin it for you so I’ll leave it up to you to decide if there is really any difference between Hopkins and Jones.

In the end Hughes has a better than expected showing but David Lynch’s crazy chaos is moving on to face Clint Eastwood in round two.

Quirky Contest - Chaplin v Anderson

This was a very enjoyable match-up for me; I knew I would enjoy the Wes Anderson films because I've seen most of his movies and was interested in seeing more of Chaplin's work.

Gold Rush

This film was interesting and engaging, especially for the time it was made. We watched the newer version which Chaplin narrated himself in the 50s once the technology was available to do so. While I found the story and characters less compelling than the other Chaplin movie we watched, the technical prowess of this directer was so apparent in this adventure film about searching for gold in the winter. The sequence in the small cabin that the Tramp and his burly companion are sheltered in breaks boundaries in a lot of ways, and I noticed iconic shots and incredible film-making in this movie.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

This might be my new favorite kids movie of all time. It is so enjoyable to watch as an adult and I get submerged in the story, believing in it as if I were a child seeing animals come to life. The artful adaptation by Anderson and intricate, talented use of stop-motion animation makes me think that Anderson may be suited best for children's movies. The dialogue is pitch perfect and it's so fun to hear familiar actors delivering the lines of badgers, foxes, and angry farmers.

City Lights

I had seen this Chaplin film once before and was very impressed by the complexity of the story, engaging acting without any speech. The love interest has depth and I feel connected to her as a character, even in comparison to the highly animated Tramp. This movie manages to coax questions about whether wealth matters, what real worth is, and how relationships develop through simple misunderstandings. We see the parallel relationships between the Tramp and the flower girl as well as the Tramp and his drunken millionaire "friend." Chaplin makes us think about what makes a person someone worth connecting to and how honorable the Tramp is, the person in the middle willing to do anything to help the person he cares most about.

Rushmore

I enjoyed this film so much more with this viewing than I did the first time I saw it, mostly I think because of my higher level of maturity. I connected less with Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) and viewed him from the perspective of a teacher. I realized why he was both insufferable and compelling, saw the connections between him and Herman Blume (Bill Murray), and rejoiced when his crazy energy was channeled towards his play and positive connections with peers rather than infatuations with adults. Anderson's style is really established in this film, and the quirky, awkward youth that he creates in the character of Max and the equally awkward, out of place character of Herman are perfectly simple and complete individuals, illuminating who Anderson is as a director and what type of stories he wishes to tell.

So, for the first time in Director Showdown history, we have a difference of result! I have decided to go with Anderson as the winner of this match-up. While I am very impressed with Chaplin, especially his ability to communicate across time, which is ultimately the job of a filmmaker, I connect more with Anderson's style and characters. I leave the movies wanting to hear more of Anderson's stories, wanting to fall in love with his characters and embrace the weirdness, the quirkiness, that is Wes Anderson.

Power to the freaks.

It's Finally Happened Again

So two big bits of news. Firstly We've finished the next round of the director showdown Chaplin vs. Anderson. And Secondly I've given up on my rating system. Basically I've discovered that it basically ended up as a longer version of what Laura is doing and I got tired of wasting my time. So enjoy the future of my votes that involve 100% less math.

Charlie Chaplin- The Gold Rush - 1925 - As I had just watched and rated two Buster Keaton classics I felt I had a pretty good grasp on what the movie industry was like before sound. Off the wall crazy stunts, screwball comedy, and very little character development. But Chaplin just threw most of that out the window. Don't get me wrong Gold Rush has zany off the wall stunts and relies on screwball humor at times but this is a full and complete film masterpiece. Chaplin portrays his classic (and as far as I know only) character the nameless tramp. Who wanders around in Alaska during the gold rush of the late 1880s causing havoc and hilarity where ever he goes. The film breaks down into three distinct segments that work pretty much as self contained films in themselves with only a loose overall story. But trust me this doesn't in any way hurt the quality of the film. The first act involves the Tramp on his journey into the wilderness, the second the love story back in rural town, and the third act is the climax that stretches from town to wilderness again.

Basically nearly everything I found missing in the Keaton films is found here. There is a like able character with wants and dreams I can identify with (without strange Southern sympathies) and his buffoonery while on display is always played out in ways that make nearly complete identifiable sense. At no point in the film did I think wow that's something I never would have thought of doing in a million years like I kept thinking during the Keaton films. Instead whenever a bit of jokes started it felt like a humorous thing was revealing a greater truth about life, a character, or the plot. One quick example is when the love interest of the film decides to dance with the tramp in order to make one of the bud guys jealous. Initially the tramp is surprised then as the Tramp starts to dance he is lopsided as earlier in the film he had to eat his own shoe to prevent from starving, then his pants start to fall down because he is so poor his pants don't fit and he has no belt. Eventually he distracts the girl and grabs a nearby rope and ties is around himself to hold up his pants only to discover the rope is a leash to a dog that starts running around dragging him around the dance floor as the whole time he is trying to keep the girl from noticing. Each of these jokes are hilarious, subtly reveal the characters of the Tramp, bad guy, and romantic lead, and connect to moments that came before and later in the plot. This is pure structural genius.

And for classic movie moments Chaplin brings the sequence where he turns into a mirage Rooster, the wind blowing cabin sequence, and of course the dancing potato scene which was apparently soo popular in the Berlin premier that the audience forced the projectionist to stop the film and replay the sequence three times. Chaplin also has a few cinematic moments in the film where I still have no idea how he did them. The opening shot where a crowd of gold rushers are storming up the side of a mountain was simply just set down and shot which must have rivaled the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan in terms of difficulty. And the climax where the cabin is falling in an avalanche off the side of a mountain I stupefied by.

Wes Anderson -Fantastic Mr. Fox- 2009 - Mr. Fox is clearly a work of true passion for Anderson. I believe I read somewhere that he idolized the Ronald Dahl book growing up and spent the better part of a decade trying to get someone to fund the thing. In it we see Anderson's stable of returning actors, the Wilsons, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman who each turn in performances that would fit easily into any of the Anderson films and have a signature maudlin sense of humor. The story revolves around the a pack of Animals living human-like lives and one of these animals Mr. Fox is a reformed thief who can't leave his old life behind and decides to pull one final score which inevitably spirals out of control into a massive giant winner take all struggle that crosses the life of every animal in the forest and nearby town.

While the plot manages to be simplistic the strength of the film comes in Anderson's ability to infuse each part of the story with his classic sentimental humor. The character's get introduced, connect, and resolve their issues much in the way that a fine wine smells. Unfortunately for me though there isn't much else to say about the film. I doubt in 10 years if there will be any part of this that I remember neither good nor bad. I think the reason for this is throughout the film I keep sensing a lack of heart. And I don't mean lack of passion, like I said earlier its clear that there is a love of this material from Anderson but there it sure does feel after a while like your watching a film made by college hipsters who think that everything they say is just laugh out loud clever but don't really care about what is happening. The characters that are in love don't feel truly in love, the characters that hate each don't feel that they are really that angry. In the end its necessary for the characters to tell you everything because it's hard to really feel any of it. But then again that may be the nature of stop motion animation its pretty hard to convey nuance. One example of this is when Mr. Fox (Clooney) and his son (Shwartzman) after a falling out reconnect. Clooney's character explains that his son's feelings of inadequacy are really his failings as a father and his son discovers that he doesn't need to be the person he thought he needs to be all with a conversation that is near emotionless.

Chaplin - City Lights - 1931 - While The Gold Rush had moments of genius City Lights is probably one of the best comedies ever made. Chaplin again plays the Tramp who this time haplessly falls for a blind girl who do to circumstances beyond his control believes him to be rich. He accepts this and resolves to get her a operation that can cure her blindness. Along the way the Tramp befriends a rich man trying to kill himself who whenever he is sober forgets him completely and keeps trying to have him arrested.

The humor is similar to Gold Rush in that it constantly pushes the plot along while remaining relatable. In terms of classic moments there is a boxing scene that is hilarious and involves timing so perfect that there may not be a better example in cinema. The film continues along until the blind girl regains her sight and in possibly the best ending in film history she looks on the Tramp for the first time and the film simply ends without a resolution to the love story. After an initial shock it soon becomes clear that the film itself was about the Tramps journey to cure the blindness of the woman and that story ends with her being cured whether she loves him or not.

Wes Anderson - Rushmore- 1998 - When I first saw this film in the late 90's I had no clue what to make of it. Looking back on it a second time two things are clear. One this film was marketed terribly and two Anderson new exactly the kind of film he wanted make right from the beginning. This film is basically a love triangle between Schwartzman's character a love stuck teenager who is lives completely in feeling and emotion and Bill Murray's much older businessman who is stuck completely in his head. The character's develope a friendship that is torn apart due to their mutual attraction to the same woman a teacher a Schwartzman's school. There are some hilarious scenes where the characters try to out-duel each other with competing pranks and eventually the love story sorts itself out with each of the characters learning an important life altering truth.

Rushmore is really enjoyable and looking back on it one of Anderson's best achievements is his ability to take a standard story plot and make it feel new without really doing anything structurally different at all. I think the funniest stuff in here comes from Schwartzman's character's school plays which are totally ridiculous and I imagine have some deeper thing to say about the nature of film making. But I think in the end too much of the film again feels like a hipster college kid telling me a long funny joke.

In the end Wes Anderson's films are enjoyable, fun, well-made but Chaplin is simply a film genius. For me Chaplin moves on to face Woody Allen in round two.

Buster vs Robert

So, even though this is taking much longer than planned (understatement of the year), we are pushing forward trying to make this epic project something we can eventually tell people in 2050 that we've decided, once and for all, who our favorite director of all time (or from the early 1900's to 2010) is. And the post below will help to tell you who it definitely is not.

The General

To be completely honest, going into this film I was expecting to be unimpressed. It's a silent movie by the acrobatic Buster Keaton set during the Civil War. Keaton plays a train engineer who is turned away from signing up to fight for the South, which doesn't look so good to the Southern Belle that he fancies. To make a short story shorter, Keaton ends up saving the day--and the girl--using his train and his apparently bumbling self. The story isn't great, and everyone except Keaton doesn't really act, but I was absolutely blown away by the brilliance of his movement and facial expressions. I was laughing out loud during this 83-year-old film, loving the astounding stunts Keaton performs with the train. His physicality is magnetic and he uses his entire body to tell the story.

All the Kings Men

I was rather impressed by this biopic on a man who comes from meager beginnings and finds his inner politician, weaving a life story that moves and changes the man through different stages of politics: as a puppet, an empowered representative of the working man, a "justifiably" corrupt politician, and a lonely, fallen man with a tainted record and destroyed family. The acting was very good, except for the main character that the audience is meant to connect with and who narrates the film. I greatly enjoyed watching this movie and it reminded me of seeing Citizen Kane in the way that it gave birth to many film devices. 


Steamboat Bill Jr.

This movie was very similar to The General in the spectacular demonstration of Keaton's abilities as a slapstick, acrobatic performer and in the storyline of a down-and-out misunderstood loser trying desperately to impress and win the girl against the odds. Some of the key differences were in the props used by Keaton to perform his brilliant stunts and the apparent use of new technology. One of the most famous scenes of Buster Keaton's career takes place amidst a rather convincing storm. I wasn't as enraptured by this movie, possibly because after seeing The General my expectations were more appropriately set.



The Hustler

Oh, I loved this movie. I'm not sure if my adoration of the film is derived from Rossen's directing or if it comes from my instant affection for Paul Newman, but either way I drank up this wonderfully crafted film. Newman, as a pool hustler named Fast Eddie who is bouncing between a place of solid skill and living life as a "loser,"creates a character who is both spectacular and just like everyone else. The acting is very skillful, especially the performances of Fast Eddie's love interest played by Piper Laurie (who later shows up in Twin Peaks), his sly, evil manager played by George C. Scott, and his rival pool player Minnesota Fats played by Jackie Gleason (later of The Honeymooners fame). Gleason plays a cool, smooth character with consistency and accuracy, and Laurie is convincingly heartbroken and heartbreaking (the role landed her a nomination with the Academy). Anyhow, it was brilliant and you should just watch it now instead of reading this stupid summary. It's freakin' awesome.

So, after much, much much (3 months?) important deliberation, I've decided that I want to see more of Rossen, and as a movie watcher, that's the important part. I have seen much of what I believe Keaton has to offer, but I'd like to see more of Rossen's range. In the end it turns out that Keaton was beaten and Rossen is the boss...en.

Stay tuned for the next round in about six months!

Rossen V Keaton

It's been way, way, way, way too long. But here it is. Buster Keaton Vs. Robert Rossen...

Robert Rossen is an acclaimed film director of the late 40s to early 60's with surprisingly few titles to his name. We watched the Best Picture winning All the King's Men and Best picture nominated The Hustler. Buster Keaton is the fantastic Stunt man of the 1920's who apparently no one wanted to see again once they invented sound in films.


Robbert Rossen - All The King's Men -1949

This is the highly acclaimed period political drama loosely (but clearly) based on the life of Senator Huey Long. This film wowed me when I was a kid and the message in itself is clearly poignant if not completely prophetic towards everything that's happened since in American politics. The story is executed effortlessly and has become the blueprint for how to make a political drama in American films, which is not an easy thing to do. There's a lot of standing around and talking with people saying things they don't really mean and the audience has to understand key moments of the plot through intonation and emphasis. If you want to see how easily this can be screwed up watch the awful remake by Sean Penn, Jude Law, and Kate Winslet, who aren't exactly low-level actors.

But watching it again at a more mature age also reveals a lot of the movie's flaws. Firstly the characters, especially outside of the main role of Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford) and a compelling performance from Mercedes McCaimbridge, are pretty lacking in depth. They are mostly one-dimensional if not outright caricatures...I'm looking at you Joanne Dru. How many times do you need to be held by a man while you wail about uncontrollably before we realize you have no other way to convey you're upset?

And looking back at the politics of the time its hard to for me to fully accept a film that plays so well into the hands of HUAC. Apparently Robert Rossen, a former member of the communist party, had to prove to studio heads that he had no ulterior motives before he was allowed to direct... Look out everyone or the big bad Communists might control your brains!!!! I mean other than being ridiculously popular, having a political machine, and being a liberal politician there really wasn't much that Huey Long did to deserve this bleak portrayal. The man who ends up murdering him in cold blood was the son of a politician who was fired by Long after betraying him. You could have easily made Braveheart and been about as accurate on the man's life story. I mean the man wasn't Billy Hearst.

Genre- Political Drama 9/10
Characters - 4/10
Mood, Theme, Ambience - 6/10
Inventiveness - 5/10
Film Quality 6/10
Total 30/50


Buster Keaton - The General - 1926 

All props to Buster Keaton. This man has more talent in his worst performance than many modern day actors have in their best. Despite having no voice and short run times, this film is exciting, interesting, and compelling. Keaton does things on screen that one would insist had to be computer animated. Even the simplest gags in this movie are death defying, like the scene in which Keaton without noticing sits on axle of the train and gets picked up as it starts moving. Later in the movie Keaton stands on the front of the train engine and knocks debris off the tracks while the train is moving--which was done in real time!!! Real Time!!!! Like thirty people should have died in that scene alone.

But the film outside of Keaton himself has its flaws. Firstly, the story is weak. A train engineer (Keaton) has his girl stolen by some evil union soldiers during the Civil War and he steals her back, assisting the Southern soldiers in winning a battle along the way. To anyone watching, the story is unimportant and serves as an excuse for Keaton to play around with a train. Also, the second most interesting character in the film is probably The General itself which if you haven't seen this movie is not some war General but Keaton's train. Keaton seems way more interested in it than in the love interest, as well he should because the train out-acts her. Plus, as in any Keaton movie, Keaton dominates every scene. Whenever the camera is not on him your simply waiting for it to get back to him. There is no other reason you're watching the film. There are no great story arcs, no amazing acting performances, no real interesting romances--just Keaton. I'm not sure if it's because nobody could keep up with him or because film making didn't have the techniques available to tell amazing stories (I'm leaning towards the former) but Keaton films are always about the same.

Genre- Stunt Film 10/10
Characters - 3/10
Mood, Theme, Ambiance - 3/10
Inventiveness - 7/10
Film Quality 5/10
Total 29/50


Rossen - The Hustler - 1962 

We've both said it before, but apparently Paul Newman does not make bad movies. He's like a batter who walks to the plate and hits each pitch out of the stadium. The Hustler is built around his performance as a hot shot pool shark. The film opens with Fast Eddie (Newman) going up against the best in the biz: Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). The scene, which is shot amazingly by Rossen, turns the pool hall into a biblical battlefield and we watch as a David goes up against a Goliath and initially tears him apart only to have his character's flaws tear him and his bank roll apart. The nearly 25 minute scene is heart-wrenching and every pivotal theme throughout the film is set up in that scene. We later see Newman's character fall down and start to put his life somewhat back together with another down-and-out named Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie). She's a loser in love and he's a loser in life and the two feed off of each other until Newman is dragged back into his old life by Minnesota's manager Bert Gordon (George C. Scott). Each part is pivotal and played to perfection; the ending is inevitable but shocking. Everything in this film fits and shows just how lacking the other films in this Rossen-Keaton showdown have been.

Genre- Sports Drama 9/10
Characters - 9/10
Mood, Theme, Ambience - 10/10
Inventiveness - 7/10
Film Quality 9/10
Total 44/50

Keaton - Steamboat Bill Jr. - 1928 

Despite being far lower on the chain of Keaton films than The General, I found this to be the more enjoyable of the two films, but also less amazing at the same time. The story is about the same, but this time Keaton is a college grad back home for the summer and he has to work with a large boat rather than a train. Only with better side characters to help Keaton out, a more, but not significantly more, likable love interest, and some of the funny moments fall to other characters. This film also has just as impressive stunts. Keaton with the riverboat is predictably impressive, but truly shines during a wind sequence obviously created using some large fans off screen to blow him around. One of Keaton's most famous stunts appears in this film; a house wall falls down around him while he stands just in the right spot going through the window hole. I've probably seen this done by Wile E. Coyote a dozen times but never realized how much more impressive it is in real life.

Genre- Stunt Film 6/10
Characters - 3/10
Mood, Theme, Ambience - 3/10
Inventiveness - 9/10
Film Quality 5/10
Total 26/50

So with a average score of 37 to Keaton's 27.5 Robert Rossen will move on to round 2 to face Frank Capra.

Lord of the Dance

Peter Jackson Vs. Bob Fosse

This has got to be one of the strangest pairings we've had so far. Peter Jackson master of the big budget action packed epic vs. Bob Fosse the jazz hand musical god. But as they say in Highlander in the end there can be only one....

Cabaret -Bob Fosse - This film was one of the films that I was really dreading coming back to. Years ago I picked this film up off the classics rack at Blockbuster and had quite the horrible experience with it. The main characters are all extremely flawed and treat each other horrible, the whole film takes place in the early 1930's Germany with the Nazis very slowly coming to power, and the whole thing is narrated or rather lead around by the yellow teethed emaciated Joel Grey...very creepy. But as I'm a little older now I was less freaked by the bi-sexuality and appreciated the entirety of the film a lot more. Firstly this is a really ground breaking musical. The musical scenes rather than being built into the plot exist outside of it entirely with the film cutting back to a seedy underground theater in the heart of Berlin to introduce us to a song and dance that addresses the themes going on in the narrative. The musical numbers themselves are top notch. They have no flashy eye-catching movie stunts yet they were completely captivating. Especially the Joel Gray number with the gorilla or 'Goodbye Mein Heir' introduction to Ally Bowles (Liza Minelli). The story itself wasn't particularly memorable, pretty much a standard love story with a historical back drop and a non-traditional ending. The film really lacks a climax or a feeling of progression but perhaps it was aiming for a more realistic ending which I can appreciate. But one last thing that I want to point out before moving on was the one true moment of the film that I think stays with everyone that ever watches this movie the Aryan boy scene. Near the middle of the film Fosse introduces one of the major themes of the movie the rise a Nazism in Germany. The main characters who are taking a trip happen upon a small out of the way village restaurant to have a meal. There they watch a blond haired blue eyed boy singing a beautiful tune 'The Future Belongs to Me'. You watch as the audience initially not paying much attention all slowly turn and watch him then slowly one by one they take up the song until pretty much everyone in the restaurant is standing and singing at the top of their lungs. Eventually the camera pans back to reveal that the boy is wearing a Nazi uniform and that the song is some sort of Nazi propaganda tune. It truly is movie making at its best and in a single moment Fosse is able to completely capture the German takeover by the Nazi's.

Genre- musical 8/10
Characters - 6/10
Mood, Theme, Ambience - 6/10
Inventiveness - 6/10
Film Quality 6/10
Total 32/50

Fellowship of the Rings- Peter Jackson - This is probably the best book adaptation of all time. I'll say probably because obviously I haven't seen all of them but I really haven't seen anything that has really come close. The level of difficulty in what Jackson did here is really quite breathtaking and the result is nearly unbelievable. The story which takes place in a Fantasy world known as Middle Earth in which Hobbits, Dwarfs, Elfs, and Orcs battle over the magical powers held in rings is not typical Best Picture material but I think after seeing you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who claims that this is not some of the best films of the decade. The true Jackson skill shines brightest not in his story-telling ability but in how he brings this beyond this world material to the screen while filming a majority of the material without CGI. Sure quite a bit of the more mythical creatures require CGI support but its really quite remarkable how much Jackson is able to do without computer support. The story is beyond imagination and can really only be compared to other such epic Sci Fi and Fantasy films and with the exception of the original Star Wars Trilogy is clearly head and shoulders above them. If there is a downside to the trilogy it would be in the lack of character development in the film and the general woodiness of the acting but this does not really detract much from the amazing nature of the film.

Genre- Epic Fantasy - 9/10
Characters - 6/10
Mood Ambiance Theme - 8/10
Inventiveness - 9/10
Film Quality - 9/10
Total - 41/50

All that Jazz - Bob Fosse - It's clear from the opening sequence of this film that Bob Fosse can reinvent the musical with ease. The story is a behind the scenes look at Fosse's life and theater in general and is told from the perspective of Joe Gideon (Roy Schneider) a top notch musical director attempting to atone for his horrible family life by creating a hit musical for his ex-wife. We see Gideon struggle with perfectionism and an inferiority complex as he creates what he doesn't know will be the final show of his career. Schneider puts on an amazing performance, especially once you consider he has had no formal dance training prior to this role, and we watch him slowly careen out of control and into the hospital where he continues to drive himself into a frenzy until his heart finally gives out in one of the strangest musical numbers I have ever seen. One the whole the film has very good parts and some fantastic musical numbers and performances. Some of the musical numbers do go a ways over the top and there is a rather tedious section of the film that involves a movie that Gideon is working where for some reason Fosse decides we need to watch the same portion of film over and over again. In the end Fosse is clearly aiming for a heartfelt goodbye to the main character but for the most part its hard to feel sorry for someone with so little redeeming value. I mean the main character is pretty much a terrible father, boyfriend, husband, friend, also mean, pretentious, and pill addicted. So I feel while overall the film was of high quality failed to hit on that note.

Genre- Musical 8/10
Characters 7/10
Mood Theme Ambiance - 6/10
Inventiveness 7/10
Film Quality - 7/10
Total - 35/50

The Two Towers - Peter Jackson - This is the second in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and is probably where Jackson has the most trouble keeping the pace of the film up. The first film has all of the cool introduction to the characters and the final film gets the true feeling of finality to it. But here in the middle Jackson has a long drawn out battle sequence and a rainy maudlin set of scenery. But he still manages to pull it off. We get introduced to many more fantastical characters including large tall walking trees and Jackson does an amazing job bringing these characters to life. One CGI'd character that truly deserves all of the praise that he gets for this film is Gollum (Andy Serkis). his performance here is truly the first entirely CGI character that felt complete in any film that I have seen and could easily have won best actor of the year without any complaint from me. Also Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) and Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) do amazing jobs as well pushing through pretty heartfelt scenes with another actor whom they can't even see. The rest of the film is trilling in the battle sequences but to anyone who knows that there is a third book know that obviously none of the main characters are going to bite the big one and that tends to hurt the more complicated battle sequences in my opinion. So in many ways this is clearly the hardest of the three films to make and Jackson works his magic perfectly.

Genre - Epic Fantasy - 9/10
Characters - 6/10
Mood Theme Ambience - 7/10
Inventiveness - 9/10
Film Quality - 9/10
Total - 40/50

So in the end we have Bob Fosse with a strong showing but coming up short to the epicness of Jackson. Jackson moves on to face King Vidor in the second round.