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Martin Paule's Micro Movie Reviews: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z-

On The Waterfront

Elia Kazan’s ‘50s drama about union corruption on the Hoboken docks includes the powerful combination of Marlon Brando as a punch-drunk former fighter, Rod Steiger as his ambitious, corrupt brother and Lee J. Cobb as the union boss. Resembling an Italian neo-realist film, the story revolves around Brando’s growing distaste for the thuggish ways of the union and his burgeoning sense of guilt over having aided and abetted the death of a union dissident. Whether or not he will turn government witness has a parallel with Kazan’s real-life testimony against his Hollywood colleagues during the McCarthy era. The acting buoyed by believable, truthful dialogue and photography are first rate while Leonard Bernstein’s score comes across as bombastic. Another cavil is the upbeat ending which seems forced and is in contradiction to the actual events that inspired writer Bud Schulberg’s screenplay which otherwise avoids the preachy, artificial norms of the day.
 

One Hour Photo

As a follow up to his psychotic character in Insomnia, Robin Williams registers strongly once again here as Sy, a nowhere man who works in the photo processing booth at a Walmart-like super store. Sy has no life and lives vicariously through the lives depicted in the photos he processes. He fixates upon one particular family whom sees as the archetypal good family. When he discovers that the marriage is a troubled one and that things are not as glossy as they seem, Sy becomes an avenging angel with disastrous results. A misstep in the film’s finale glibly attempts to explain away Sy’s problems in a simplistic  way which slightly undermines what is otherwise a compelling portrait rendered with a daring production design.                   

On The Ropes

In New York's Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood a boxing gym stands as an asylum amidst the poverty, violence and crack, offering a chance at escape and redemption. Though it is somewhat more scattershot in approach than the estimable Hoop Dreams, this documentary's focus on a group of young boxers and their coach, Harry, all struggling to escape troubled pasts, shares much of that film's pathos. Especially poignant is the story of a young woman who shows great promise but who is unable to attend the Golden Gloves Tournament because she is sentenced to prison for crack dealing on the day of her scheduled bout. The film suggests that she is innocent—the victim of an addict uncle's transgressions. A second case involves a young Mike Tyson lookalike whose head is turned by sleazy managers and promoters into forsaking his relationship with Harry, the former crack addict and convict who is the linchpin in this portmanteau of tragedy. The film suffers from a lack of clarity—relationships between some of the protagonists are unclear. Or perhaps that is simply the reality of the lives of these people living in hellish surroundings.

Odd Man Out

From its opening that employs a swooping aerial sequence, this 1948 Carol Reed film serves notice of its thoroughly modern visual sensibility.  James Mason plays an operative for an unnamed organization in an unnamed city (it's clearly the IRA in Belfast) which conducts a holdup in order to raise money for its operations. In the robbery Mason is hurt and spends the rest of the film hiding out from the police, often in near-surreal situations. With startlingly creative dream sequences and a cast of yeoman British actors, this film has lost none of its punch over the years. Highly recommended.

Our Lady of The Assassins aka La Virgen de los Secarios

Fernando is a Colombian writer who returns to his hometown of Medellin after working abroad. He is initially shocked and later benumbed by the immense and violent changes that have been worked on the city due to the cocaine trade endemic there. He is a homosexual and soon enters into an affair with a teenage boy whose amoral stance and penchant for wanton street shootings render them an odd couple. Though Fernando claims to have come home to die, he manages to stay alive—something that can be challenging in Medellin. Shot in digital video by the eclectic director Barbet Schroeder (a Colombian native), the film was made largely guerilla-style on city streets without benefit of permits adding to its grittiness and power. The title is not apparently intended as a skewering of the church. Fernando, though he claims to be an atheist, visits a number of churches seeking peace and quiet unobtainable on Medellin’s streets. Although the digital video results in the visual flatness of that medium,  creative camera technique that exploits the locations for all they’re worth make Assassins visually arresting all the same.

Orphans (1997)

On the eve of their mother’s funeral, three Glasgow brothers and their wheelchair-bound sister, all adults, descend into a dark night of the soul. The oldest, a priggish devout man, stands vigil over his mother’s coffin at the church where a requiem will be held the next day. The middle brother is stabbed in a pub and spends the rest of the night seeping blood—he won’t go to the hospital as he’s planning to stage an industrial accident to get compensation. The youngest brother sets out to kill his brother’s assailant in the company of a nut case. The sister is rescued by a group of children when her motorized wheelchair breaks down. First time director and writer Peter Mullan who has worked as an actor with Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) and Ken Loach (Riff-Raff), seems to have been influenced by both directors invoking the crazed, comedic surrealism of the former and the grim naturalism of the latter. These diametrically opposite styles at times coexist uneasily—occasionally the humor seems forced and out of place. But as a whole, the film works, reminding me often of Scorcese’s comedic and nightmarish After Hours. In the end we realize that the title addresses far more than the siblings new circumstance. These people have become orphaned from their culture, their traditions, and from each other. The film is appropriately subtitled as the Glaswegian accents are probably incomprehensible to most American ears.

The Others

With few exceptions, gothic/horror films today depend on special effects and makeup artistry to generate goose pimples. This film, directed by the young Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar who created the imaginative if flawed Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), is one of those exceptions. Nicole Kidman plays the lonely mother of two children who have an intense allergy to sunlight and must remain behind curtains in the family’s creepy Victorian mansion situated on the fog shrouded French Channel island of Jersey. Set just after WWII, Kidman’s husband is missing in action and is probably dead—a fact that she seems to be in denial about. As the film opens we find that the previous household staff has left suddenly without notice. To say more plot-wise would be unfair to the clever scenario. Amenabar extracts wonderful performances from the entire cast and uses mood and setting, as opposed to gore and FX, to produce shivers. If you’re up for a creepy experience, this is a satisfying way to spend a rainy night. 

Owning Mahowny

Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays Dan Mahowney, a frumpy bank executive who has got the gambling jones big time. In fact, he has practically no life apart from gambling. He can’t live without it. Based on the true story of a man who during the early 1980s ripped off his Toronto bank for over $10 million to keep his ever-inflating habit fed, this is an unflinching look at addiction. Directed by Richard Knietkowski who made Love and Death on Long Island, another examination of obsession, the film details how casinos work gamblers such as Mahowney for all they’re worth, plying them with comped rooms, food, women —whatever they want as long as they keep playing. John Hurt is wonderful as a reptilian casino boss in Atlantic City who delights in stripping Mahowny of his last dime. 

Open City aka Roma Citta Aperta

Director Roberto Rossellini made this film during 1945 under extraordinarily difficult circumstances in war-ravaged Rome. One of the first neo-realist films to emerge from Italy, the narrative is set about a year before the film's actual production, when the Nazis ruthlessly searched out and killed resistance fighters. The story centers on a Communist resistance fighter, his fiery fiance and a priest who is sympathetic to the cause. The film operates as both a thriller and window into a desperate time illumination of the time at which were becoming ready to throw off fascism.

Oceans 11

Steven Soderberg's remake of the 1960s caper film starring Frank Sinatra's coterie known as the brat pack is as gaudy as its Las Vegas setting and far exceeds the original in its techno derring-do. The game cast has a lot of fun and there are certainly worse ways to consume a couple of hours.

Oliver Twist (1948)

David Lean's version of the Dickens novel is marked by two knockout performances: an unrecognizable Alec Guinness as Fagin and Robert Newton as the evil Sikes. Another fine job is turned in by Francis L. Sullivan as the harumphing Mr. Bumble and John Howard   is quite good in the title role. Lean and his co-screenwriter Stanley Haynes made some smart condensations and cuts to fit the eventful novel into the film's time limitations. The sets, lighting and camera work all conspire to produce a powerful sense of 19th-century London. Sadly, the film ends on a mawkish note, but what precedes it is largely brilliant.

Overnight

Troy Duffy is an insufferable egotist and all-around prick whose rise and fall are chronicled in this involving if also annoying documentary. In 1997 he sold his script for an ultra-violent gangster film called Boondock Saints to Harvey Weinstein of Miramax for a pile of loot and the promise that Troy can direct. Weinstein, confronted by his discovery's obnoxious behavior, quickly cools off on the project. Meanwhile Duffy sees his gang of buddies, some of whom are members of his rock band, The Brood, as a Rat Pack-like crew he calls The Syndicate and fills their heads with dreams of unimaginable fame, glory and fortune. When things start coming unglued, he quickly turns his back on his crew and becomes a bigger jerk than ever. Whether schadenfreude or irritation will win out among viewers is something you'll need to decide for yourself.

Once Upon a Time in America

When originally released in 1977, Sergio Leone's epic, dream-like gangster picture had an hour of its 220-minute running time hacked by the studio resulting in an incomprehensible narrative. In its subsequent home video release that excised footage has been restored and yet the film's storyline often is still murky. Great debate has raged about the movie's multiple-flashback structure and whether the entire story is nothing more than an opium-induced trance experienced by one of the principals.  There is an odd dichotomy between the ultra-realistic surface of the film with its weathered, scarred New York sets and the interior story composed of wraiths of memory. Essentially the story of four hoods who grow up together and whose lives are shattered by one pivotal  treachery, lapses in both the story and character development are balanced by knockout photography and fine performances all round.  

Taking Sides (2001)

Writer Ronald Harwood has adapted his own theatrical drama into the screenplay of this film set shortly after the close of WWII about a boorish American army major who investigates the relationship between famed Berlin Symphonic Orchestra conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and the Nazis. Major Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel in yet another risky performance) in his civilian life has been an insurance investigator known for his dogged determination. Furtwangler (played with courtly bearing by Stellan Skarsgard) was a favorite of Adolph Hitler who had many protectors among the Nazi hierarchy despite his failure to join the party. The film tracks the investigation that brings ambiguous and conflicting evidence to light. Was the conductor a toady for the Nazis or was he, as he maintains, a non-political artist entirely devoted to music and naive enough to believe that his art and the politics of the day could be kept separate? Like so many of his countrymen he disavows the Nazis and their policies, yet he seems to have been a willing and perhaps even enthusiastic collaborator. Over a series of badgering, bullying encounters Arnold breaks down the German's composure until the Major's German assistants accuse him of resorting to Gestapo-like tactics to make his case. When the film ends, nothing has been resolved. We are left with the ambivalence of the circumstances. And that is as it should be. Though the film at times seems a little stage-bound, the powerful performances by the antagonists and the troubling questions that are raised make it well worth seeing.   

The Object of My Affection

Jennifer Aniston shines in this story of a pregnant woman who becomes the friend of a gay guy, opening up what proves to be an engaging if hardly revolutionary comedy about the differences between platonic and erotic love.

DVDs To Your Doorstep!

Open Your Eyes
OK, this film is a bit of a mess. But it stars the transcendentally-lovely
Spanish actress Penelope Cruz (for whom I have a particular weakness) and a
strong co-star in Eduardo Noriega. The somewhat confused story line, told in
flashback,  concerns a handsome Spanish playboy who is disfigured in an
intentional auto wreck at the hands of a spurned lover. The film takes a turn
towards the sci-fi and horror genres as he looks into cryogenics as a way of
killing time until plastic surgery has evolved to the point that his face can
be properly reconstructed. Though there is a lot of hocus-pocus here, there is
also a provocative idea running through the film about inner and outer
beauty. With Cruz's exotic presence, along with director Alejandro
Amenebar's stylish camera work, this is a worthwhile selection for fans of
sci-fi thrillers. (The film wasremade in the U.S. in 2001 and stars Tom
Cruise who bought the rights. It also stars Cruz, Cruise's current main
squeeze, reprising her original role. I have not seen it, but the remake has
received generally unfriendly reviews.)

Out of Sight

Pulpmeister Elmore Leonard's novels offer fertile ground for screen
adaptations and this is no exception. George Clooney as an urbane bank
robber and Jennifer Lopez playing U.S. Marshal exude plenty of star power
as an unlikely but attractive couple thrown together when Clooney breaks
out of a federal prison. Very different from anything director Steven
Soderbergh has done before, the film bristles with energy, smart dialogue
and humor. As in "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown" (another Leonard
adaptation), the time line is twisty here though at first we don't quite
get the structure. Ultimately though, the story is less concerned with
criminal activities than it is with the messy ways in which life unfolds.
 

The Object of Beauty

What initially appears to be a fluffy story about two jet setters living
way beyond their means in London turns out to be a rather effective
character study. The object of the title is a Henry Moore statuette which
is the couple's only real asset. When it is stolen by a deaf mute hotel
maid, a series of intriguing events are set into motion. The leads are
handled adeptly by Andie Macdowell and John Malkovich.
 

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
 

Based on an eerie short story by Ambrose Bierce, this short subject was
made in France and first debuted in America as a special presentation on
TV's "Twilight Zone". A Confederate spy is captured by Union troops and is
about to be hanged above the title creek when the rope breaks dropping him
into the water below. Dreamlike and expressionistic in design, this 20-some
minute-long work leaves a durable impression.
 
 

Office Space

From the febrile mind of Mike Judge, creator of TV's "King of The Hill" and
"Beavis and Butthead", comes this likeable comedy about a guy trapped in a
mindnumbingly boring job for a megacorporation and its phalanx of idiotic
management. He and a couple of cohorts plot to swindle the company with
some pretty unpredictable results. But the most rewarding ingredient here
is Judge's keen ear and eye for the office-scape. Dilbert fans should revel
in this stuff. Judge paints a picture of corporate America that's both
pathetic and a scream. The plot mines well worn comedic veins but thanks to
the writer-director's off-kilter take on life in cubicles, it offers a
rewarding 90-minute sit.
 
 

The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea
 

Jeanne Moreau is fabulous as Madame M, a long past her prime beauty who has
accumulated a fortune by bilking lovers and other strangers. Her 20-year
partner in crime is Pompilius astutely played by Michel Serrault, an urbane
Frenchman who despite his professed hatred for Madame clearly loves her
deeply. The two engage in frequent ripping sessions in which they aim the
most vile (and funny) epithets at each other. The subtitling seems to do a
splendid job of keeping up with their slanderous ripostes and scatalogical
references. When Madame M, whose libido is still intact targets a young
beach boy, Lambert, to become their new partner in crime as well as her
lover, Pompilius objects mightily and initially walks out on the trio while
Lambert develops a genuine affection for the old lady. Moreau sports some
of the most lurid necrophiliac-inspired makeup since Betty Davis in "What
Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Here's the concept pitch for this charmer:
"Sunset Boulevard" meets "Harold and Maude" meets "The Sting" meets "Whose
Afraid of Virginia Woolf". Really.
 
 

Olivier Olivier
 

Agnieszka Holland the Polish director has a penchant for repetitive titles
and true stories. This one's about a couple whose young son disappears
under strange circumstances. Six years later he turns up, but is it the same
child? A chilling and involving mystery ensues.
 
 

One False Move
 

Another winning entry in the Film Noir Sweepstakes. An ultraviolent drug
ripoff in L.A. leads cops to rural Arkansas where they collaborate with the
local sheriff in running the bad guys to ground. A lot better than it might
sound, it has a nicely developed romance as a back story and plot element.
 

Once Upon a Time in America
 

Sergio Leone, following his career as an auteur of the spaghetti western,
crafted this lovingly made and grandiose homage to the gangster flick.
Robert De Niro and James Woods are Jewish kids who rise from the Lower East
Side of NY to become major crime figures in a story where dozens of lesser
characters flesh out this epic of their quest for wealth and power. With
superb cinematography and art direction that meticulously recreates each of
its settings, the total effect is nearly overwhelming-especially in its
original cut that runs 227 minutes.
 
 

Once Were Warriors
 

As long as we're Down Under, check out this powerful story of a dysfunctional modern-day Maori family in New Zealand. The two leads both
deliver utterly believable performances and seeing a Polynesian culture with its rich cultural heritage crunching up against modern urban realities
is fascinating. I liked the hard- bitten soundtrack too which is apparently largely drawn from New Zealand post-punk music.
 
 

The Opposite of Sex