46 - Before Hollywood, There Was Fort Lee, N.J. (1964)

Forget what you think you know about early American film history if you’ve never heard of Fort Lee, N.J. According to this 40 minute documentary using footage from films from 1893 to 1925, we learn how the early studios built their empire in what was called “The Bagdad on the Hudson.”

Edison invented film in 1889 and built the first studio, The Black Maria, in 1893 near his workplace near West Orange, NJ. The studio had a skylight and was built on a turntable so the crew could turn toward the sunlight.

The first film to use both studio and exterior locations is considered to be The Great Train Robbery (1903) which actually had exterior shots filmed from a moving train.

Some studios were built on the rooftops of Manhattan, but by 1904 Lincoln Studios was built in Fort Lee where buildings in the town and the mountainous New Jersey terrain (think the Palisades area near the entrance of the current George Washington Bridge) could substitute for the hills needed for Westerns.

D.W. Griffith began his career as a leading man in Rescued from the Eagle’s Nest (1908), shown in the documentary. Here again exterior shots were combined with studio shots.

Max Sennett stars in a short directed by Griffith and shown in full, The Curtain Pole (1909), which shows the beginnings of Sennett’s characteristic chases in which much of Fort Lee’s streets were used. The sequence shows Griffith’s use of cross-cutting to build tension and “the Griffith surprise ending.”

Other studios grew up in the same areas, including: 

• Champion Studios (1909)
• Éclair Studio (1911)
• World-Peerless Studio (made 380 short films and features from 1914 through 1921)
• Willatt Fox Studio (with its giant greenhouse appearing studio, home to Theda Bara) 1916 created a multi-acre Paris set for a production of Les Miserables with many of the Fort Lee people as extras. The same set was used the next year for a production of Tale of Two Cities. Many of the Broadway character actors worked in the early films.
• Solax Studio made a film 1916 with Ethel Barrymore
• Paragon Studio (1915-1925) had a 200 foot stage with sunlight and electric lights at night. It became Paramount. The 1917 Mary Pickford Poor Little Rich Girl made their fortune and saved the studio.
• Lincoln Studio
• Universal Studio (1914-1924)

As World War I hit and the coal was limited for heating the studios, many producers moved to the warmth of California.

The best thing about the documentary, which is rather staid, is seeing what is left of the studios and seeing what was created in them. If you like film history, you should see this film.

Before Hollywood, There Was Fort Lee, NJ (1964) ***

A further explanation of the film is found at http://fortleefilm.org/history.html, which includes a map of Fort Lee. Fascinating stuff.

45 - Days of Being Wild (1990)

I have been on a Wong Kar-Wai kick lately. This powerful film was voted No. 3 in 100 Best Hong Kong films. It continues pursuing two of Wong’s themes of searching for love and reacting to being rejected. If the main character Yuddy (or “York”), played with sensitivity by handsome Hong Kong actor Leslie Cheung, has elements of James Dean, it is well to remember that the film gets its name from the title given to Rebel Without a Cause when it was released in China.

Set in 1960-1961 Hong Kong and the Philipines, York picks up innocent Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) and promptly dumps her. York has issues stemming from being adopted and raised by an ex-prostitute Rebecca (Rebeca Pan) who refuses to reveal who his Philipino mother is. York picks up dance hall worker Leung Fung-ying aka ”Lulu” or “Mimi” (Carina Lau), Mimi moves in and intends to stay with him. York’s best friend Zeb (Jacky Cheung) quickly falls in loves Mimi and is rejected. Su returns for her things, but hopes to hook back up with York. After he rejects her again, she begins a tentative friendship with a caring policeman named Tide (Andy Lau).

The script by Jeffrey Lau and Wong Kar-Wai seems more interested in building moods and creating psychological moments than concentrating on substantial plot. When I think of the film, I tend to remember the brooding close-ups more than locations or actions.

The introduction at the end of a new character, Chow Mo-wan (played briefly by Tony Leung Chiu Wai), is explained by a note on IMDB which says that he was intended to be the main character in a second film which was never made.

Strong performances and an interesting mood piece.

Days of Being Wild (1990) ****

44 - Elysium (2013)

In the first few minutes of Director Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, we are introduced to the earth of 2154. The wealthy have moved off planet to a space station where all sickness is cured and life is idyllic--Elysium. On earth, the poor and lower class live in a world which Dante would recognize as one of the rings of the Inferno. Crime, overpopulation, poverty, depleted resources are all that earth’s inhabitants can expect. 

Max (played by Matt Damon in a heart-pumping action hero role) dreams of escaping from the earth and going to Elysium. An ex-con with little hope for the future, he is injured in a job related accident and exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. His only hope of surviving is getting to Elysium. Max’s love from his childhood, Frey (Alice Braga) has a child dying also. I won’t spoil how they end up at Elysium, but the journey is action packed. We learn early on what Homeland Security Head Delacourt (played with venom by Jody Foster) does to protect those on Elysium, so we know the stakes are high and lethal.

The effects are impressive and the character of Max, who only wants to survive, is Damon at the top of his form.

I had to laugh that one person criticized that there were several dialects using a combination language. He was particularly upset with Jodie Foster’s dialect. They obviously missed one of Blomkamp’s points—that in our future our words and languages will meld into class languages, so the upper classes may use French words while the lower classes will use German or Spanish.

I found the film quite rewarding and satisfying and felt it gave me a lot to think about in terms of what price we would pay for Elysium.

Elysium (2013) ****

43 - Boudou Saved From Drowning (1932)

I had wanted to see this film because I was intrigued to see the work of Jean Renoir, second son of the great Impressionist painter, who is a highly respected film director (and is portrayed in the film, Renoir). This film did little satisfy my expectations. In fact, I was constantly reminded of a statement from The Go-Between: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Directed by Renoir in 1932 France, the film attempts to be a light farce of the early thirties fashion. 

Boudou, played rather heavy handedly by Michel Simon, is supposed to be a free-spirit tramp who tries to commit suicide but is rescued by the owner of a bookstore, Ėdouard Lestingois (Charles Granval) who is unhappily married to Emma (Marcelle Hainia) and having an affair with his maid, Sévérine Lerczinska. The whole household is turned upside down when Lestingois tries to civilize the boorish, unkempt, and loutish Boudou.

The outlandish behavior of Boudou was, I’m sure, intended to be very funny to the 1930s audience. He at one point is told by Lestingois not to spit on the floor, so he chooses a first edition of Balzac to spit in. He is told to polish his shoes and he does a lengthy sequence involving a kitchen and a bedroom where he smears shoe polish on everything, knocking down everything in the process. For many in the modern audience, his behavior was far from comic.

In the end of the film, as we know it will, Boudou wins a fortune, makes love to the wife and the maid and ends up marrying. He is saved from his marriage, however, when he knocks the boat carrying the whole bridal party into the water and he floats away blissfully free. He exchanges his good clothes with those of a scarecrow and goes off for his free adventures.

The film has been restored to its clear 1930s black and white and looks beautiful. Of interest is the fascinating street scenes and depictions of a pre-war France. The general reaction of the audience with whom I saw the film was expressed by one elderly lady I walked out behind, “I feel like I should walk back to box office and demand my money back.”

Note: If the film plot sounds familiar, the plot was used for Paul Mazursky and Nick Nolte's Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).

Boudou Saved From Drowning (1932) **

42 - Blue Jasmine (2013)

When I feel Woody Allen is at his best, his movies are memorable (read here Annie Hall or Midnight in Paris); when they fail for me, they fail spectacularly (read To Rome With Love). Blue Jasmine is wonderfully on the mark and Cate Blanchett owns the title role.

From the beginning, as we watch Jasmine arrive in the airport talking to an older woman who we might mistakenly assume is her companion, we learn that Jasmine is a woman on the edge. She is Woody Allen’s modern incarnation of Tennessee Williams’ Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire, complete with dead husband, sister she can run to, sister's loutish boyfriend with his card-playing chronies, and a lost estate, coming pennilessly to seek refuge from the only person who will have her. New Orleans and Belle Reve become San Francisco and New York.

Blanchett is transcendent. Watching the subtleties of her performance, I regret never having seen her play Blanche onstage as she did in Australia and New York. 

A fine cast supports Blanchett, including Alec Baldwin as her unfaithful husband; Peter Sarsgaard, her only chance for a new life; Sally Hawkins as her step-sister Ginger; Andrew Dice Clay as Ginger’s ex-husband, Bobby Cannavale as Chili (the surrogate Stanley), and Louis C.K. as Ginger’s passion. While modernizing the plot twists, Allen plays on his oft-repeated theme of men being pond-scum, always unfaithful to women. He also stresses the idea of how lies only hurt us in the end.

The story is told in a nonlinear fashion, perhaps mimicking the fragile state of Jasmine’s mind, since she is a woman who talks to herself and lives closer and closer to a world of total mental breakdown. 

By the end of the film, as is true with Williams’ Blanche, we feel great pity for the tragedy of Blanche’s life.

Rush to see Allen and Blanchett at their best.

Blue Jasmine (2013) *****

This is a great interview by Cate on working with Woody Allen.

41 - Ashes of Time Redux (2008)

Ashes of Time (1994) is a Hong Kong film written and  directed by Wong Kar-wai, and loosely based on Jin Yong’s Wuxia (martial hero) novel, The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Rather than following Yong’s book’s plot, Wong has taken the names of four characters and created his own story.

Almost ten years after the release of the film, Wong had been informed by the people who were storing the film that it was in bad shape with no quality edition available. Eventually Wong re-edited and re-released a shorter version of the film, calling it Ashes of Time Redux, which is the film I watched.

Both films involved lengthy and arduous desert shoots for the crew. The plot is characterized by episodic story telling.

The film, set in an unspecified ancient time in a Chinese desert, revolves around Ouyang Feng, the Venomous West (Leslie Cheung) who lives alone in the desert and acts as a go-between when people want to hire professional killers. He narrates the film based on Tung Shu predictions. The first killer is Huang Yaoshi, the Malicious East (Tony Leung Ka-fai, not to be confused with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai who starred in Happy Together). He drinks a wine that makes one forget and when a young man, Murong Yang (Brigitte Lin) asks him to marry his twin sister Murong Yin (played also by Lin) he agrees and then forgets. Murong comes to Ouyang to hire a bounty-hunter. A Blind Swordsman (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) is hired and hopes to reach his home so he can see his wife before he is killed in battle. Hong Qigong (Jacky Cheung) is a barefoot swordsman who travels with his wife.

One of the motifs of the film is how each character has been rejected by others and become cold and heartless because of it. Often Wong uses slow motion in the martial arts sequences which sometimes makes it difficult to tell which actors we are watching. While I found Wong's Happy Together a stronger personal story, the visual images and the epic scope of this film makes it one to see.

Ashes of Time Redux (2008) ****

40 - The Red Shoes (1948) - Restoration DVD

The Red Shoes is one of the best dance films ever made.

Filmed in lush Technicolor of the late 1940s, the film has been gloriously restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Film Foundation. Get the Blue-Ray copy and be sure to watch the special features which describe the process.

I first saw this film when I was about eight and remember being enthralled by the world of theatre and dance that the film depicts. While the film essentially is about Victoria Page, a beautiful aristocratic red-haired dancer (Moira Shearer), the film equally centers on her discover and mentor, who owns his own dance company, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook).

Boris tells Victoria that he will make her a legendary dancer if she concentrates her life only on dance. She falls in love with the company's composer, Julian Craster (Marius Goring), and has to choose between her career and her love for him.

As Boris sets up Victoria's career, he has Craster write the score to a ballet based on Hans Christian Anderson's short story about The Red Shoes--one in which a girl is made a gift of red dancing shoes which once she has on refuse to allow her to rest until she dies from exhaustion.

The ballet sequence which makes Victoria famous is one of the magical film moments onscreen. Going into a dreamworld unhampered by a real world theatre production, directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger allow us to experience what the music and the dance wants us to feel by allowing such things as instantaneous cuts from scene to scene. At one point Shearer dances with a live dancer and that dancer becomes a large piece of newprint cut into the shape of the dancer. At another point, we look from the stage toward the audience and as they applaud, they become an ocean which Victoria hears. The dance sequence alone is a reason to see the film.

While the plot remains 1940s melodrama, the lush colors and theatrical world shown draw us deeply into its story. With everything that proceeds it, the ending seems totally fated.

As a side note, I find the characters and situations of the film remind me very much of the Russian Ballet owner Sergei Diaghilev and his relationship with ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Walbrook, with his moustache, even looks like a thin Diaghilev.

The Red Shoes (1948) ****

39 - Happy Together (1997)

The two leads dance a tango in a crucial scene of the movie.

I wasn’t aware of the scope Leslie Cheung’s acting, writing and musical career (he was once ranked as the favorite actor in the 100 years of Chinese cinema) when I saw a beautifully sculpted 1:6 scale action figure of him in a tuxedo. 

I was intrigued by this actor who was so popular and then threw himself off a hotel roof in 2003. 

I set out to see some of his films. The first I’ve seen is Kar Wai Wong’s Happy Together, in which he stars with Tony Leung Chiu Wai. I’ve seen the film twice and found it even more powerful the second time.

The irony of the title is established from the beginning of the film, which deals with the episodic love-hate relationship of Lai Yiu-Fai and Ho Po-Wing, a gay couple from Hong Kong who end up in Argentina. Po owns a light which shows Iguzau Falls and the two set off to find it. That quest becomes one of the motifs of the movie—the elusive place where they might just find the happiness they seek together.

Early on in the film, which appears to be only in black and white, Fai pictures the falls and they are a deep blue. Gradually, director-writer Wong establishes that Fai’s happiness is tied to the use of strong saturated color. Another motif of the movie is use of the Argentine tango music and the dance which often appears the metaphor to Fai and Po’s relationship. A third motif of the film is stated at the very beginning as the two of them break up and Po says to Fai, “Let’s start over.” Fai tells us that to Po that means many different things.

The film is through Fai’s eyes (with a subjective narration)--until a third character Chang arrives and then he occasionally gives commentary.

In a long black and white sequence, after their opening breakup, Fai ends up in Buenos Aires as a doorman to a tango bar. Po-wing comes to the club with rich guys he is dating. They end up fighting, Po gives Fai a watch and then gets beaten up. (Po tends to date guys who beat him up.) Po tries to seduce Fai in a scene where he asks for a cigarette, but it takes Po showing up badly injured (blood streaming from his forehead and his hands) before they start over and Fai moves him into his apartment. The film moves to highly saturated color.

Director-writer Wong takes scenes and long shorts to establish the growth and eventual breakup of the two lovers. In a beautiful sequence, the two finally appear truly happy as they tango in the apartment building’s communal kitchen.

Gradually each becomes jealous of the other and Fai tries too hard to keep Po to himself. When Fai changes jobs and develops a friendship with coworker Chang (Chen Chang) he finds a caring friend who offers more emotional support than the self-centered mercurial Po.

Tony Leung Chiu Wai is a strong actor and has an incredible scene where he merely sits with a pocket tape recorder in front of his face and begins to cry. His scene is matched with a later moment where we see Leslie Cheung sitting clutching a blanket and sobbing. Both actors/both characters feel strongly and make us feel the same.

Throughout the film is a pervasive melancholy mood which is only somewhat resolved at the end. Will the two start over again? Perhaps, or perhaps not. When the Turtles’ sing about being happy together, we know they may not find that.

The film reminds me of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005) in many ways, especially the unrestrained display of the gay world these three characters inhabit. Like Lee’s film, it is one which is difficult to forget.

Happy Together (1997), *****

38 - I'm So Excited - Los amantes pasajeros (2013)

Publicity shot including Almodóvar and cast

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar's I'm So Excited is a light comedy that I considered my sorbet following all the summer blockbusters. I loved it for what is was.

The film deals with the problems aboard a trans-Atlantic jet flight on a fictional airline, As the plane took off the landing wheels were damaged and now the pilots have to find somewhere to land safely. [The majority of those on the plane has no idea what is going on because they have all been fed sleeping pills to stop any sense of panic, thus the filmmaker can concentrate only on a group of 12 people.] The disaster film formula concentrates on the occupants of the cockpit, flight crew, and business class. In true disaster film fashion, we learn the secrets of the various people involved. 

For me, the highlights of the film included sight gags such as the portable altar one of the stewards brings onboard, the crew's lip-sinching of the Pointer Sister's title song, the passengers reaction to drugged drinks, mile-high sex and a 1980s flight orgy.

Almodóvar tends to be noted for his intense colors and outrageous comedy. Some critics criticized the film because it seemed so insubstantial, but I found the film just the thing for mid-summer viewing.

I'm So Excited (2013) ****

37 Pacific Rim (2013)

I saw Pacific Rim at a theatre complete with DX seats (they move with the noise of the film) and in 3D. I like the director Guillermo del Toro and his Pan's Labryinth so my expectations were pretty high. Unfortunately I was disappointed with the film.

Imagine Transformers mated with Godzilla and you have a pretty good idea of the premise of Pacific Rim. The script seems geared for pre-teen boys and there was not a lot of depth. IMDB states that Del Toro was "inspired by the anime and tokusatsu" of his youth. Maybe that was the problem. Lots of time was spent on effects and not as much care into a script.

After a long expository opening (an extended version of what you see in the trailer) where we are primarily give a history lesson of the world against the monsters from beneath the sea, the Kaiju. We finally learn that to fight them, gigantic mechanical Jaegers are created which are operated by two people who must become the right brain-left brain of the fighting beings. One of the best of the Jaeger pilots (Raleigh Becket) lost his brother to the Kaiju and is brought back to help man one of the last of the Jaegers in a final attempt to stop the Kaiju.

If you've seen any Godzilla or Transformers movie you have a pretty good idea where all this heads.

One of the scenes that did bring a smile to my face was a "St. Crispin's Day's" speech (Henry V) by the head of the Jaeger program, ending with a heart-felt: "Armagedden stops here."

The two main characters, Charlie Hunnam  (Becket) and Rinko Kikuhi as Mako Mori, are attractive actors but not given much depth. Charlie Day (from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Horrible Bosses) and Burn Gorman (of Torchwood) become the comic relief as scientists with opposing theories who become the savoirs in the end.

The film goes exactly where you expect it to go, but one of the surprises is that for a film where the fights between the mechanical Jaegers and the Kaiju monsters are of prime importance, the action is often unclear and in closeup.

Pacific Rim (2013) ** see the film on DVD.

36 - The Heat (2013)

The trailer tells us everything we need to know about The Heat.

Sandra Bullock plays Ashburn, a brilliant FBI agent who is socially inept, pitted against a loud, brash police officer, Melissa McCarthy. We know the formula and know that by the end of the film Bullock will become more like McCarthy and others will see what a great cop McCarthy is.

Everything follows the formula and although the humor is sometimes a little too slap-stick and somewhat negatively spirited, we can sit back and watch two enjoyable comedians react to each other.

McCarthy is the real gem here who, while I love her physical comedy and brash demeanor, makes me wish she would do more to expand her range.

The Heat (2013) ***

35 - White House Down (2013)

I find Channing Tatum has a lot of film charisma and makes a credible action hero. His name drew me to White House Down. Jamie Foxx plays a good companion character, so we quickly begin rooting for the two.

The premise is that single-dad John Cale (Tatum) takes Emily, his precocious teenage daughter (Joey Kiing) on a tour of the White House on a day that terrorists attempt to take down the symbol of state. Emily goes off to the bathroom just as all hell breaks loose and Cale spends much of the time trying to rescue the President (Foxx) and then Emily from the bad guys. There are plot twists (which I didn't find real surprises, but I also wasn't disappointed that they were rather obvious).

I expected the film to be a fun ride with great effects, which it was, but as the film played out, I became really mindful of how conceivably this might happen. Watching the Capital Building bombed and burning and the White House badly damaged (although not as completely as Independence Day), brought back some of the 9/11 feelings I thought I had gotten past.

I found it refreshing that the terrorists had nothing to do with the Middle East.

By the end of the film, I felt Tatum and Foxx made a good team and I had enjoyed the ride.

White House Down (2013) ****

34 - The Lone Ranger (2013)

I generally avoid reading the reviews before seeing a film, but I had seen a couple of scathing reviews of The Lone Ranger and realized they didn’t want me to see the film. Having seen the trailer, I decided I wanted to see the film when it came out and did. I definitely felt the negative critics were wrong.

I spent a lot of time after the film trying to analyze why critics disliked what I found enjoyable.

Was it because it was a Disney film, following in the footsteps of something like Pirates of the Caribbean series? Disney films make a lot of money and therefore become prime targets by those upset at how popular the merchandising becomes connected to the film.

Was it because Johnny Depp makes lots of money and creates another quirky character, complete with a crow he wears on his head? (Surprisingly that detail is one that research into native American history is based a painting by Kirby Sattler: I am Crow.)

Some were upset that Johnny Depp is playing a native American, although the publicity department stressed that Depp's genetic background has some native American blood.

One critic felt the film dealt with issues that were too adult for what should have been a child oriented film—it is Disney after all. Immediately Bambi pops into my mind where the fawn's mother is killed within the first reel. I do agree that the film is definitely not intended for a children audience--the humor is way over their heads and the horror more descriptive than seen. When the main character’s good-guy brother is killed, his heart is eaten by the villain and another character vomits in reaction; the film at that point definitely moves out of the child’s realm.  True, however, we only see the heart episode reflected in the Lone Ranger’s eyes.

Perhaps people were upset that in updating the film, the focus has shifted from The Lone Ranger’s viewpoint to Tonto’s. I liked the bookend device of having the old Tonto tell the story while in a sideshow carnival in 1930s San Francisco. 

I also enjoyed watching the Lone Ranger story that we know taking shape. Tonto in the film is the character who talks with Silver, the white horse who is loco and at one point ends up in a tree. When the great train chase begins which becomes the centerpiece of the last section of the film, I cheered along with many in the audience when the Lone Ranger rides silver to the “William Tell Overture” theme. The Lone Ranger’s mask and hat become running gags, as does the Lone Ranger’s relationship with Silver.

Depp makes his Tonto grumpy and wise and funny. Armie Hammer plays The Lone Ranger against the heroric mold of the original character, but we watch his transition through the film as he goes from city dude into epic hero. Tom Wilkinson plays a villain who has no qualms harming a lady and her child.

The film is long (2-1/2 hours) and in 3D, but held my interest throughout.Talking with friends on Facebook, we all agreed that the humor and the adventure of the film made for a fun movie—and we disagreed with the critics.

The Lone Ranger (2013) ****