Capote, based on the book by Gerald Clarke

Capote, based on the book by Gerald Clarke

                Capote is one of the best films in recent memory.

The stupendous, dazzling, radiant, ebullient, outstanding, phenomenal and alas no longer among us…

Philip Seymour Hoffman has won a well-deserved Oscar for his leading role in this chef d’oeuvre

In Cold Blood, the other book that has surely offered inspiration to this splendid film is a wonderful achievement

                You can find it on The Modern Library list of 100 Best Nonfiction Books:

                http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/

In some ways, Capote is the motion picture that explains how the wonderful book was written.

The famous Truman Capote reads the story of a vicious homicide that took place in November 1959.

The four members of the Clutter family living in the countryside in Kansas have been killed In Cold Blood.

Capote travels to Kansas with his assistant, the later famous Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mocking Bird that is only mentioned in passing in this movie, portrayed graciously by Catherine Keener.

The famous writer becomes ever more interested in this gruesome drama, learning the details of the deaf family, solid, honest, good citizens all.

Capote befriends the investigator, his family and other people involved in the inquiry or friends of the deceased.

When amiability does not work, as in the case of a prison warden, the author offers money to get access.

Perry Smith and his partner in crime are caught near the middle of the film and Truman Capote becomes interested and somewhat attracted by the killer, which dismays the writer’s partner.

This is a dual relationship, for the killer provides an important subject for the author, who also has some feelings.

The nature of those emotions is surely complicated; a mixture of compassion and fascination for the prisoner is probably involved.

Truman Capote talks about In Cold Blood as an absolute novelty, a new genre that he creates with his book.

In what looks like dialogue inspired by real life interviews with the novelist, he relates his learning about the story:

It has changed my life…nothing seems to be the same anymore

I trust that the reader may have the same extraordinary experience

Truman Capote is in the audience when the suspects are on trial and he watches with attention.

Perry Smith seems to be absent from the courtroom.

He is drawing while the prosecution, judge, lawyer discuss the substance of the otherwise clear-cut case.

Capote is wondering how the accused got his papers to draw on and remarks on his absent mindedness.

The writer will hire a lawyer and his partner talks about the solicitor Truman has hired for himself.

Truman Capote talks about this with Harper Lee, who is funny when she states that she might be a friend of the author just because of his partner.

Capote was gay.

Perhaps the most astonishing, terrifying aspect in the murder of four innocent people, two of them teenagers, is the absurdness, gratuity and extreme violence, which did not result in any gain.

The manner in which the murders were caught goes back to the stupid misunderstanding that caused the multiple homicide, with one criminal overhearing a cell mate talk about Clutter and having the misconception that there are a lot of money to get in a robbery.

In the end, the brutes only took a few dollars after they killed the father, mother, son and young daughter.

The Doctor, based on the book by Ed Rosenbaum

The Doctor, based on the book by Ed Rosenbaum

                The Doctor makes a few interesting points.

                However, this is not a breathtaking work.

In spite of the fact that the once effervescent, spectacular, ebullient, great William Hurt has the leading role.

The celebrated, Oscar nominated Peter Bogdanovich mentions in his classic book Who the Hell’s in It? The opinion of Orson Welles:

The performances of the actors are what is important in a film

That makes or breaks the picture

This may be so.

Nevertheless, the Doctor may contradict this idea, even if William Hurt, wonderful as he is, has not had his best work in The Doctor.

The point this film makes comes from another masterpiece, one that explains Hollywood and filmmaking:

Adventures in the Screen Trade by the winner of two Academy Awards for screenplay, William Goldman

There has been a trend, maybe a fashion to look at some directors and declare that they are paramount for their creations.

Indeed, they are.

However, to release and insist on the notion that the author films are all about their directors is definitely wrong.

This is what William Goldman explains with mastery and incredible inside knowledge of this Screen Trade.

He gives the example of the feted Alfred Hitchcock, who was so much admired and declared the ultimate author of films.

Once this status had been established however, the quality of the motion pictures helmed by the genius has gradually decreased.

A film needs an excellent director.

Nevertheless, the crew of actors, producers, screenwriters and others matter, with examples from Jaws to Chariots of Fire:

In Jaws, the special effects played a crucial role, which had been rarely the case until then, although today they are paramount.

For Chariots of Fire, the Academy Awards winning soundtrack, composed by the wondrous Vangelis was also fundamental.

In The Doctor, some of these ingredients are missing.

Alternatively, someone somewhere was not so inspired.

The end result feels artificial and forced.

Even if the story is not only credible, but also familiar.

The protagonist is a doctor with great skills, but an obnoxious manner that he wants to instill in his students.

He is sure that the only way to treat patients is by keeping the distance and feeling no empathy for them.

All this becomes anathema once he is diagnosed with cancer and he has to face indifferent medical personnel, humiliating rules and all the suffering that is part of everyday life of patients.

There are two opposite views to mention here, one would argue that the Doctor is actually right in keeping the distance- and not just from a #metoo perspective- but if a surgeon and other medical workers are imbued with all the pain of their patients they will only survive for a few weeks at best.

On the other hand, studies have been made in hospitals, the results show that janitors, who have a calling for their position, engage with patients, and co-workers are happier than cold doctors who see their profession only as a means to get a paycheck or just a career opportunity.

Perhaps as always, the path to take is that offered by Aristotle with his…

Golden Mean…you do not need to suffer all the pain of those in your care or around you, but you also need compassion

Phil Spector, written and directed by David Mamet

Phil Spector, written and directed by David Mamet

Phil Spector is written and directed by David Mamet and stars Al Pacino

However, this is no Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry is an Absolute Masterpiece

Phil Spector only the other hand, in spite of its nominations and wins is a much lesser achievement.

From this viewer’s perspective at least.

Al Pacino is a super star now, but his acting has suffered a lot over the past decades and gone are the days of

The Godfather I and II

One can read about those glory days in the entertaining and insightful book on Hollywood called:

The Kid Stays in the Picture

The author, Robert Evans, has been an actor, producer and head of the Paramount Studio, the ultimate insider.

When he initiated the project of The Godfather, it looked like another failed picture on the Italian mafia.

Important people have objected to most aspects concerning this film that is probably the best ever made.

One serious objection regarded the unknown Al Pacino.

Indeed, he was such an unfamiliar entity that, when Robert Evans talked to another executive, that one did not know the name and told Evans to spell it…Al who?

When the agent called another studio to release him from the project he was working on, the same thing happened again…

Who? Al…spell it for me, will you…

In another phenomenal book on the film industry, we learn about Al Pacino as an established artist.

Adventures in the Screen Trade by the winner of two Academy Awards, William Goldman reveals a darker side.

When filming in very cold temperatures, Pacino made the members of the large crew suffer just because he was a star now.

That is the feeling one may get from the reading of the passage dedicated to that incident, which is not an isolated one.

Other stars are misbehaving on a regular basis: Dustin Hoffman on the set of Marathon Man is another example.

Phil Spector is evidently the hero of the film called by his name.

In addition, he is a rather obnoxious, arrogant, self-indulgent, unlikeable character.

This is probably the main reason why this viewer did not engage with this motion picture that has a repellent “hero”.

On the other hand, though, Phil Spector may be a victim of this annoying personality and innocent of the murder he is charged with.

This is a reason for audiences to follow the thread of the narrative and eventually empathize with the accused.

In spite or because of his flamboyance, his many wigs- are they wigs or is it “natural” hair, as in the case of another infamous, loathsome Donald?

Spector has some outbursts that offend, one of them targeting the acclaimed Sydney Poitier, whom the antihero calls a “white guy who is scared by the color of his skin”…words to that effect, not a quote though.

A woman dies in the house of this Wig Man and all the circumstantial evidence points towards him.

His explanation though may carry some weight- he says she took the gun into her mouth, he shouted at her to stop and as she moved it, accidentally shot herself.

Is this the truth?

Maybe

C’est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous aka Man Bites Dog, based on story by Remy Belvaux

C’est Arrive Pres de Chez Vous aka Man Bites Dog, based on story by Remy Belvaux

                What astounding morbid humor!

In addition, Benoit Poelvoorde is one of the outstanding, charming, mesmerizing, smart, glorious heroes of cinema.

Le Tout Nouveau Testament, Coco Before Chanel, Dumas are just a few of his chef d’oeuvre performances

                The subject of this jewel of a film is awkward.

                Not in its core, for many motion pictures have explored the life of serial killers, but in the jocular manner it adopts.

A camera crew follows the “hero” as he moves along, kills people, dumps the bodies, drinks and socializes.

We get to see all his life, he explains his tastes in architecture, where he is unhappy with the social lodgings and other aspects of urban design, he laments on the tree planning idea and explains…colors.

Ben makes the association between the rouge used in painting the buildings he talks on and blood, wine…

He explains how he disposes of various bodies and the quantities of weight needed to sink them.

The crew follows him to his home, where the mother we meet appears to be the real life parent of Benoit Poelvoorde.

Mother, grandmother and most other protagonists have no idea about the criminal enterprise of their dear Ben.

Indeed, I think it was the mother who condemned in the most determined terms the death of a boy.

And that child was killed by…Ben.

He targets a house in the suburbs, although he has some qualms about this robbery and he kills mother and father.

When he murders the father the hero even refers to the Old Gun, a film with the wonderful Philippe Noiret.

You see, I did it like fat, old Noiret

But this is from me…he adds as he asks the sound man to approach the sink and he breaks the neck of his victim

Sick?

Not really

In fact, this viewer has to admit that when this peculiar character accidentally kills his boxing trainer, he laughed.

The crew has no more money to film this killer who evidently enjoys the show and the idea of being a film star.

The actor in the leading role, who is also one of the writers and producers of this film is phenomenal in the ease, complexity, relaxed, funny and morbid, sophisticated and dark attitude he has throughout.

It is all a lesson for anybody who wants to be an actor.

Ben offers to pay for the film, since he has the money and he had explained what the victims need to look like.

Old people have money so he attacks them and explains something about their bones and the disposing of this kind of corpse.

The criminal also attacks postal workers, in order to get the money they have for pensioners, but one escapes him.

He blames the crew for not helping him and this and other scenes raise the question of the role of the media:

Are they complacent or accomplices to such crimes? Not just here, but in other situations it can be argued that they favor the developing, the inception of criminal plans for people who are copycats or interested in the coverage they know they are going to get after they commit a particularly awful murder, or a series of killings.

On the other hand, members of this filming crew and another are killed and a viewer is invited to contemplate the dangers that journalists face in their activity and not just when they are crazy enough to join a lunatic on his shooting spree.

Ben gets a message from an Italian nemesis, which reminds one of The Godfather, and the fish sent to the Corleone family, just after the Don had been shot and one of his main henchmen had been sent to…

Sleep with the fish…

20th Century Women, written and directed Mike Mills

20^th Century Women, written and directed Mike Mills

20^th Century Women is an eccentric, often loveable, provocative, outlandish, outré comedy drama.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and two Golden Globes:

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

There are moments when Jamie aka Lucas Jade Zumann and his mother, Dorothea Fields aka Annette Bening, appear to live in paradise.

At other times, the family looks more like a dysfunctional team.

There are some very vexing, at least for some viewers, this one for instance, moments that may be or may not be justified.

Take the menstruation moment:

The character Abigail “Abbie” Porter portrayed by the feted and Oscar nominated for this year’s extraordinary Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig, has some peculiar, exasperating attitudes, one of which annoys people at the table…

She is a feminist and the point she is making during diner is that men have to respect and know women better

Hence the menstruation theme

And not just a theme, but a repetition and invitation that all those in attendance get the message.

Furthermore, they all have to repeat:

Menstruation

It is an odd sense of humor, or this viewer does not really get the new direction that jokes are moving to.

Julie is another personage who communicates with the hero, Jamie and tells him her experiences, from losing her virginity at fourteen to the challenge of having sex in a car, after some serious drinking and being shocked by her sex partner ejaculating inside her, while the protagonist suffers.

He is infatuated with Julie, who explains that they are too close to be physically intimate and make love.

Jamie wonders if he is a feminist, while his mother is worried that menstruating Abigail is pushing hard-core feminist books.

However, her son is among the few men, if not yet one technically, that are interested in women seriously

Meaning their orgasm…

Abigail thinks that men are not interested in this and probably most other aspects of female life…

There are many amusing scenes in this film, one of which has Billy Crudup aka William meditating on the bed.

He talks about some pure images, which make sense when meditating, noble thoughts and fresh air…

And Dorothea lights a cigarette…

These where days when people smoked all the time, but it still feels rather odd, maybe for the perspective of 2018.

By the way, since we are talking about 2018, which is the year when #Metoo might take off in the stratosphere…

Abbie asks William if he wants to have sex with her…with different words

He says yes.

However, this raises a comical question- maybe.

How will we see such scenes in the future?

I mean, after having established that men cannot simply ask women if they want to have intimate relations, what is next?

Women can ask that?

Or is it harassment?

Does it work both ways?

20^th Century Women are different from 21^st Century Feminist activists and we can ask Catherine Deneuve about that.

High and Low, based on the novel by Evan Hunter

High and Low, based on the novel by Evan Hunter

High and Low is a film directed by one of the geniuses of cinema, the celebrated filmmaker: Akira Kurosawa.

                It is not as well known as:

                Kagemusha, Ran, Stray Dog, Rashomon, Ikiru, Yojimbo or the Seven Samurai.

Nevertheless, High and Low was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film in 1964.

Furthermore, this work is on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, which you have here:

https://www.listchallenges.com/new-york-times-best-1000-movies-ever-made/checklist/10

The great Toshiro Mifune plays Kingo Gondo, a rather unconventional hero, for he has to change tune a few times.

To begin with, Kingo Gondo seems to be a strong, powerful man that is about to get control of the National Shoe Company.

He talks to other men who own shares in the company about the flawed products that he hates so much.

Gondo wants quality, but these other men are in this business for profit and they are not keen on other aspects.

A struggle to control the cash machine, as these villains see it, will ensue and the hero has a secret weapon.

He had started buying shares and his initial paltry share has increased to an impressive 48% or so.

With this, he has the votes to take over and lead the firm he obviously loves in the right, ethical direction.

Alas, in order to get the money to buy all those shares, Kingo Gondo is using all the collateral he has.

The house and everything else had been used in order to convince the banks to give him the funds.

In addition, a call comes as a thunderbolt and a man asks for thirty million yen to give Gondo is son back.

A strange twist has the son entering the room, after the panic had grabbed the parents and we realize he was not taken away.

The executive is pondering about this tasteless joke, when another phone call clears the issue of the blunder.

Moshi Moshi…

Isn’t this funny?

Regardless of the fact that I do not have your son, you still have to pay the money and you will.

After this message from the criminal, the hero has the moment when his frailty is in evidence, as well as his humanity.

He protests and says that he will not pay and it makes sense considering his destitution- if he pays the large sum, he will lose everything and will be finished, with the banks taking all he used to have.

It will not be just the company he was about to gain that will be gone, but the house and all other possessions.

Yet he decides to lose everything and try to save the boy’s life…

This exhilarating, if extremely painful, difficult decision makes Kingo Gondo a Superman and not a comic book one.

What follows is a very complex, intriguing payment of the ransom operation, followed by a difficult investigation by the police.

The criminal had accomplices that very soon die and bring the inquiry to a dead end and today’s viewer can smile at the rather primitive means that they had back then, but people have not always had smart phones that can be tracked, GPS systems and DNA testing, with so much more detective tools that are exhibited in 2018.

Even if fifty-four years old, this psychological, challenging drama is a meaningful work and it is a meaningful thriller.

Regarding Henry, written by J.J. Abrams

Regarding Henry, written by J.J. Abrams

                Let us try a poor joke:

Regarding Henry was produced in the days when the actor in the leading role was not “acting” like Henry.

These days, one has to be careful when approaching California airports for Henry aka Harrison Ford may crash-land somewhere near…

In some ways, the once brilliant actor portraying the protagonist of this film has been losing it recently.

Joking aside, it is a serious issue when one man is placing others in danger with his manner of flying a plane.

There is an uncanny coincidence here: there have been two films on television last night, with very similar stories.

                At least they were for this viewer.

                First, there is The New Life of Paul Sneijder, a film on which I have noted on here:

                http://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.ro/

Paul Sneijder has been through a terrible, if extremely unlikely accident, in which an elevator falls to the ground.

His daughter is killed and paradoxically, after experiencing a serious PTSD, he has a splendid chance for a New Life.

He becomes a dog walker and handler, after a lifetime of working in an important, managerial position.

This apparently loss of prestige and status brings joy, meaning, redemption, a moral and ethical new chapter.

The New Life of Paul Sneijder has alas attracted very little attention, much less than Regarding Henry.

Nevertheless, for a Harrison Ford vehicle, Regarding Henry is still less popular, anyway when compared with:

One of the Star Wars mega productions, Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Fugitive, Blade Runner and quite a few others

                Harrison Ford is Henry Turner.

He is married to Sarah Turner aka Annette Bening, excellent in spite of the fact that she has a more modest part to play here.

                After an incident during which Henry is shot, he loses his memory.

                In addition, he has trouble moving.

                This is the New Life of Henry Turner.

Like the hero of the aforementioned Canadian film, Henry has a chance to face the challenges and win.

And not just in terms of recovering memories, but also replacing the old, obnoxious, loathsome lawyer with a gentle, noble man.

A very interesting narrative involves an uphill struggle that makes the New Henry a superman.

We need to insist:

The protagonist is not only up against physical and mental challenges, facing humiliation and disdain, but also he becomes much better than the despicable, philandering, insensitive, ruthless solicitor he used to be.

In one relevant scene, Henry and Sarah are invited to a party and they happen upon a conversation that destroyed him.

The hosts were saying that he is an idiot now and life will be a nightmare for the wife who has to care and provide for a cretin.

Well…

“Jesters do oft prove prophets…” King Lear”

This simpleton uncovers dirty secrets at the law firm, understands he cannot stand being a lawyer and a myriad jokes would support that and the figures that show that this is the most depressing job, with the highest rates of suicide and depression.

Henry finds happiness!!