Tag Archives: drama

#338-Heat

Quick recap: A group of robbers feel the HEAT from the police, while the police feel the HEAT from the robbers. Bystanders feel the HEAT from the massive shootout. I felt the HEAT from Val Kilmer’s long luxurious locks.

It’s possible to be underdressed but never overdressed. Even to a shootout.

Fun (?)fact: Actor Kevin Gage, who plays Waingro in the film was imprisoned in real life for a couple of years. Naturally, all the inmates referred to him as ‘Waingro’.

Honestly, the best part of the movie.

My thoughts: I was told by a friend that I had to be in the ‘right mood’ to enjoy this film, so I waited until a Saturday night when I was in the mood for lots of murder. Unfortunately, maybe I misread my own signals because I just didn’t fall in love with Heat like I thought I would.

All the ingredients are there: a stellar cast, top notch directing, a fast moving plot. Really, I can’t think of anything else I would want more in a movie. And yet, I just didn’t really care for it. At a basic level, I failed to care about any of the characters, so when one of them evaded police or when the police got closer to catching the bad guys, I remained meh. I thoroughly enjoyed Al Pacino’s performance as Vincent Hanna but just couldn’t bring myself to really care about his character. I felt like Robert De Niro as Neil had much more depth, but if we are being honest here, the goatee really bothered me. Something about it just screamed ,’this is the 90s and don’t you forget it!’ and I didn’t. Even the music was so 90s- a cross between every heist movie from that time period and the kind of music you would find on Showtime at 2 in the morning back then.

To take a bit of the blame here, I spent way more time trying to figure out what the con was, rather than focus on the relationships. At its heart, this is what makes Heat so powerful. Not just the symbiotic relationship between Neil and Vincent, but all the relationships between the characters. One scene in particular really drove this home. All of the gang got together at a swanky restaurant and brought their significant others as well as a few children. Neil sat at the head of the table, looking around and feeling sorry for himself that he didn’t have someone special to share the night with. But to go to a deeper point, all of these men were in a dangerous profession and in fact, cops were watching their every move as they dined together. There was this impact point when I realized that every single person at that table was about to have their life ruined in some way. It brought to mind the whole idea of choices and at what point our choices become another person’s destiny. So, to that effect, I totally get this movie and it’s importance. But I still don’t like the goatee.

Final review: 4/5

Up next: Taste of Cherry

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#337- Jules and Jim

Quick recap: Jules and Jim are best friends living in France and they love to share everything: clothes, experiences and a woman named Catherine.

I can’t choose, but I think I’m mostly Team Jim. But only after he shaves the mustache.

Fun (?) fact: Jeanne Moreau, who played Catherine, went over and above when it came to helping the film succeed. Because of the tiny budget, she used her own car to carry props around and also helped cater some scenes. When her stunt double showed up drunk, she jumped into the river on her own and when money ran out, she financed the rest.

My thoughts: Oh my god, what a whirlwind of a movie. Reading the synopsis on the dvd cover, I expected some sort of buddy romance comedy, like There’s Something About Mary. But a little more high class, because it’s French, you know. What I got instead was the craziest love triangle I can recall seeing and an ending that made me gasp out loud several times. Which I haven’t done since watching The Post (but only because Iforgot it was around the time of the Watergate Scandal).

Acting was great, scenery top notch, and music was adequate. Now let’s get to the meat of the this movie: The crazy sex triangle. I’ll try to break it down here as simply as I can but really, you need to see this for itself to really understand how absurd it all is.

  1. Jules and Catherine hang out and and eventually become a couple. Jim hangs around and the three do silly things like run around a lot and ride bikes. Jim is nonchalant about Catherine.
  2. Catherine falls into the river because she’s pissed off at Jules (as I have considered many times when being mansplained to). Jim rescues her and falls in love.
  3. World War I begins and the two fight against each other since Jim is a French citizen and Jules is German. Catherine is pregnant with Jules’ baby and they are married.
  4. After the war, Jim visits Jules and finds a sweet family. But Catherine is actually miserable, according to Jules, and she acts out by sleeping with literally everyone. She is currently seeing Albert, who wants to marry her and raise the kid as his own.
  5. Jim’s solution is to throw his hat in the ring and announce his love. Jules is cool with this and will gladly divorce Catherine in order to let her marry Jim. The three live in a weird poly commune and honestly, I’m here for it at this point. Everyone seems happy and I’m surprised something so progressive was shown back in the 60s.
  6. Catherine wants a baby from Jim but no dice. She decides she’s not actually in love with him and the two separate. Jules just exists in a weird cuckhold relationship.
  7. Catherine is pregnant!
  8. Nope. Lost the baby. Jim is over this. Jules enjoys being tortured by Catherine as she continues to sleep with everyone but him.
  9. Catherine keeps getting Jim to try and talk to her but he is so over this. She threatens to shoot him but he grabs the gun and walks away.
  10. Catherine finally gets him to herself. They get in the car to talk and she drives both of them into a river, where they die. I KNOW

So yeah, what an ending. And so much drama I was NOT expecting. Part of me is really pissed off at the treatment of Catherine because she was never asked what she wanted but she was also nuts so maybe this is exactly the way it should’ve gone. Either way, I think Jules got the raw end of the deal because he stayed in love with Catherine throughout all of this. I’m not really sure how there could’ve been a good ending, except for everyone reading ‘The Ethical Slut’ and having a poly board game night. Maybe that would’ve rightfully smoothed things over.

 

Final review: 4/5

Up next: Heat

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#335- High Noon

Quick recap: A bad guy is on the noon train to get revenge on a marshal who sent him up north to be hung. The marshal, against almost all advice, chooses to fight him and his gang rather than run away.

I’d gladly watch two hours of Lloyd Bridges smirking

Fun (?) fact: Considering a book has been written about the filming of High Noon, there is a ton of trivia to choose from. I’ll go with the most salacious though because I don’t do that enough- Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly carried on an affair throughout the duration of filming. Is this what it feels like to be Perez Hilton? Is Perez Hilton even a thing anymore?

I will not mention Gary Cooper’s age. I will not mention Gary Cooper’s age. I will not-

My thoughts: Right before starting High Noon, I realized I’m just about burned out on the Western genre. I started out with dread and that quickly turned into head over heels love. There are a few stinkers, to be sure, but it’s been a good run so far. Thankfully, this film is one of the better ones on the list and knowing that John Wayne despised it until the day he died is the cherry on top. Maybe I’m not done yet. Westerns, I wish I could quit you.

One of the most unique aspects of High Noon is that it is almost entirely shot in ‘real time’, as Marshal Kane waits for the noon train. The anticipation is palatable, not just because I wanted to see who would arrive but also because it’s a race against the clock. Had this been a montage, I don’t think I would’ve been as empathetic to Kane as he tried to drum up support as well as attempted to keep his bride from leaving him. Whoever wrote this 1001 movies list must be a sucker for the technique like I am because there are several movies that play out like this one did. Two that come to mind are Cleo from 5 to 7 and Run Lola Run.

As a whole, High Noon isn’t better or worse than other Westerns I have watched lately. I was a little ‘meh’ when it was over, and then I learned that the whole movie is an allegory for the Red scare. Shortly after High Noon was released, screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted from Hollywood due to alleged communist ties. In this light, the film takes on a much more important role to me. At the time, most people were terrified of these meetings and knew that they didn’t have much choice with what might happen. Most actors and directors chose to distance themselves from anything that might label them ‘unpatriotic’ but there were a few that stood up to McCarthy and ultimately it finally faded away. Marshal Kane knew that he could run and hide and probably go on to live a normal life, but that would be wrong. It’s so satisfying to see one person fight for what is right, whether it is a showdown in the Wild West or a bunch of teens in high school. High Noon is the happy ending we all need.

Final review: 5/5

Up next: A Philadelphia Story

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#333- Le Samouraï

Quick recap: Jef Costello is either a great hitman or a really terrible one. After completing a job he almost immediately gets picked up by the police and questioned. He manages to weasel his way out, only to find himself in trouble with the guys who hired him. What’s a hitman to do?

maybe start by wearing different clothes than the ones that literally EVERYONE identifies you in.

Fun (?) fact: The quotation about samurai at the beginning of the film is entirely fictional. This movie actually has nothing to do with samurai.

and everything to do with looking cool

My thoughts:  Crime movies are a dime a dozen on this list, but very few of them come from France. And of those, this is the only one where I could’ve kept watching for several more hours and at the same time almost lost my sanity because of the incessant bird chirping.

Director Jean-Pierre Melville borrows much of the aesthetic for Le Samouraï from America at the time- slinky jazz clubs, dapper people running around everywhere. And yet, this is very much a French arthouse film. The first 10 minutes have no dialogue whatsoever and yet, the scene is so enthralling. I also loved that there is a mystery about who this hitman is and who hired him but I knew from the beginning that I wouldn’t be getting any answers. Le Samouraï exists within himself. It’s even impossible to figure out whether or not he is a ‘bad guy’. I mean, he killed someone, yes, but that guy could’ve been evil or something. So I ended up dividing my time between wanting the guy to come out on top but also wanting him to get caught and pay for his crimes. It was a rare feeling to not know how I’m supposed to feel about characters.

One reason the characters are so confusing is because the audience is just thrust into the story. We don’t know how many years the hitman has operated or what business the people who hired him have. In the first few scenes, the hitman sets out creating an alibi for himself before he commits the murder. He visits a woman, Jane, and expects her to lie for him, which she does, when the police call her into question. It is assumed that these two have some sort of relationship but it could also just be that she works for him specifically for this purpose. And the police themselves make this plot even more complicated. I could never figure out whether the hitman was really bad at his job and that’s why he was caught so quickly or if the police were really good at their job and it was only a matter of time. Once again, it was hard to know who to trust.

But above all, there is that stupid bird. God, I hated that bird. I recently lost some of my hearing due to sickness and it’s been both a blessing and a curse. But watching this movie, I heard every single chirp. EVERY. SINGLE. CHIRP. I’m sure there is a fancy French reason to put that in so many scenes but I don’t have the patience to find out. I’m not a fan of hurting or killing any animal but when the guys broke into the hitman’s apartment to leave a recording device, I half hoped they would put that poor bird out of its misery. I’m sure he hated his life as much as I hated hearing him but enough is enough.

Final review: 4/5

Up next: Night and Fog

 

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