Review: "De Tweeling" (Twin Sisters) a Powerful Sister Act

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 27 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

De Tweeling (2002)
Twin Sisters – English title
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Netherlands and Luxembourg; Language:  Dutch, German and English
Running time:  118 minutes (1 hour, 58 minutes)
MPAA – R for a brief sexuality and a scene of violence
DIRECTOR:  Ben Sombogaart
WRITER:  Marieke van der Pol (based upon the novel by Tessa de Loo)
PRODUCERS:  Hanneke Niens and Anton Smit
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Piotr Kukla
EDITOR:  Herman P. Koerts
COMPOSER:  Fons Merkies
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/ROMANCE/WAR

Starring:  Nadja Uhl, Thekla Reuten, Gudrun Okras, Ellen Vogel, Sina Richardt, Julia Koopmans, Jeroen Spitzenberger Betty Schuurman, Jaap Spijkers, Roman Knizka, Margarita Broich, and Hans Somers

The subject of this movie review is De Tweeling (Twin Sisters), a 2002 Dutch drama, romance, and war movie from director Ben Sombogaart.  The film is based on the 1993 novel, De Tweeling, by Tessa de Loo.  The film received a theatrical release in the United States in May 2005.

De Tweeling or Twin Sisters earned a 2004 Academy Award nomination for “Best Foreign Language Film” (Netherlands).  The film opens in 1925 and introduces us to German twin sisters, Anna (Sina Richardt) and Lotte (Julia Koopmans), who live with their well to do, widower father.  When he dies of consumption in 1926, competing relatives with different agendas separate the girls.  Anna remains in Germany on her uncle’s farm where he basically uses her as cheap labor.  A rich aunt and uncle take Lotte to Holland, where she lives a privileged life of culture, education, and opportunity.

The bulk of the story takes place between 1936 and 1947, when the sisters, now young women find themselves on opposite sides of World War II.  The young adult Anna (Nadja Uhl) marries a young Austrian soldier, Martin (Roman Knizka), who goes on to become an SS officer.  The young adult Lotte (Thekla Reuten) falls in love with a Jewish musician, David (Jeroen Spitzenberger), who ends up in a concentration camp.  The film later finds the sisters estranged from one another as old ladies, with Old Anne (Gudrun Okras) trying to reconcile her differences with Old Lotte (Ellen Vogel).

Twin Sisters is a compelling drama that is at its heart a bittersweet romance about two sisters who dearly love each other, but find that not only are their home countries at odds, but also their choice in lovers.  Indeed, the sisters’ lives during WWII are the center of this tale with the sequences involving Anne and Lotte as old women being nothing more than TV movie-of-the-week melodrama.  The opening segment with the sisters as six-year olds is sentimental and darkly sweet, while being something like a surreal and tragic fairy tale of kidnapped princes.

The film seems to jump around too much, but director Ben Sombogaart and writer Marieke van der Pol do their best work chronicling the sisters’ painfully desperate attempt to hold onto their lovers.  That’s the film right there, and although this adapts a novel, the movie should have focused exclusively, except for maybe a framing sequence, on the sisters as young women.  Here is the best acting both on the part of the actresses playing the sisters and the supporting cast portraying their family, friends, and acquaintances.  The horror the Holocaust creeps around the edges of the film here giving it a solid dramatic impact.  The tenuous relationship of the sisters at this point makes compelling drama – almost compelling enough to make you forget there aren’t enough of the best parts of Twin Sisters.

7 of 10
B+

Friday, February 03, 2006

NOTES:
2004 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Netherlands)

Updated:  Wednesday, February 19, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "The Keep" Plays Keep-Away with Audience

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 154 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Keep (1983)
Running time:  93 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Michael Mann
WRITER:  Michael Mann (from the novel by F. Paul Wilson)
PRODUCERS:  Gene Kirkwood and Howard W. Koch Jr.
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alex Thomson (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Dov Hoenig and Chris Kelly with Tony Palmer
COMPOSER:  Tangerine Dream

HORROR/FANTASY with elements of a thriller

Starring:  Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Jurgen Prochnow, Ian McKellan, Gabriel Byrne, and Robert Prosky

The subject of this movie review is The Keep, a 1983 horror-fantasy film from writer-director Michael Man.  The film is based on the 1981 novel, The Keep, by author F. Paul Wilson.  The Keep the movie focuses on a group of Nazis and the Jewish historian they turn to for help after they inadvertently free an ancient demon from its prison.

During World War II, the German army is sent to guard a Romanian mountain pass.  The soldiers take up residence in an old, mysterious and uninhabited fortress, The Keep.  They unwittingly unleash an ancient evil that begins killing them.  Thinking that the deaths are the result of rebellious locals, Nazi commandos arrive to deal with the trouble.

However, the Germans eventually summon an ailing Jewish historian, Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellan), from a concentration camp.  The professor arrives with his daughter, Eva Cuza (Alberta Watson), to solve the mystery.  Arriving right behind them is a stoic stranger (Scott Glenn) with mysterious powers and who obviously knows something about what’s going on in the Keep.

I imagine that the novel from which this film is adapted is lively and wildly fantastic, but the movie is short and dull.  Apparently, the original version of this movie ran nearly three hours in length.

Director Michael Mann would eventually produce the seminal television series, Miami Vice, and would direct well regarded films like Manhunter, Heat, and The Insider.  With The Keep, he gives us lots of smoke, glaring lights, and an extended laser show.  There is little story and no plot, and the cast, which is very talented, is lost in a maze of nothing.  This movie is, at best, a series of vaguely related scenes taped together into something coherent but really, really boring.  The saddest thing is that this film really has the basic material to make an entertaining horror and fantasy film.  What happened?

2 of 10
D

Updated: Friday, February 07, 2014


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Review: Jack Benny is Eternally Cool in "To Be or Not to Be" (Remembering Jack Benny)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 161 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

To Be or Not to Be (1942) – Black & White
Running time:  99 minutes (1 hour, 39 minutes)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:  Ernst Lubitsch
WRITERS:  Edwin Justus Mayer; from a story by Melchior Lengyel
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Rudolph Maté
EDITOR:  Dorothy Spencer
COMPOSER: Werner R. Heymann
Academy Award nominee

COMEDY/DRAMA/WAR

Starring:  Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, Sig Ruman, Tom Dugan, Charles Halton, George Lynn, Henry Victor, Maude Eburne, Halliwell Hobbes, and Miles Mander

The subject of this movie review is To Be or Not to Be, a 1942 film starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny.  The film was produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, who also wrote the film’s original story with Melchior Lengyel, although Lubitsch did not receive a screen credit.  Set during the Nazi occupation of Poland, the film focuses on an acting troupe involved in a Polish soldier’s efforts to track down a German spy.

If you’ve ever seen the 1983 Mel Brooks’ film, To Be or Not to Be and wondered how anyone could eke laughs out of the Nazi’s invading Poland, part of that most contentious time in recent history, World War II, then imagine how shocked many moviegoers must have been when they the original To Be or Not to Be, a 1942 directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

In occupied Poland, ham actor Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) leads a troupe of actors in a game of subterfuge against the Nazi’s.  It begins with the Nazi’s invasion of Poland.  At the same time, Tura’s wife, Maria (Carole Lombard, who was killed in a plane crash before this film was release), is returning the affections a young military pilot, Lt. Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack), who often visits the Turas’ theatre, the Polski, to woo Maria.  After the invasion, Sobinski escapes to England where he continues the fight against the Nazis.  However, he must sneak back into Poland to stop Prof. Alexander Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), a Nazi spy who has information on the efforts of the Resistance in Poland.  Upon discovering Maria and Sobinski’s playful “affair,” Tura is reluctant to help the young pilot, but his patriotism wins the day.  Tura and his ragtag troupe of actors don Nazi uniforms and march right into the heart of the Gestapo headquarters in Warsaw to take on Nazi Col. Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman), but his is a game not only to save the Resistance, but also save their own necks.

Ernst Lubitsch is perhaps one of Hollywood’s best directors of satire and subtle comedy, and his phrase, “The Lubitsch Touch,” became famous because his films reflected his sophisticated wit and style.  Taking nothing away from a novel concept and unconventional comic script or even denying the talents of the cast, a film like To Be or Not to Be could be a disaster without a master helmsman.  Lubitsch (who directed Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and Heaven Can Wait among other) gracefully mixes menace and comic in an erudite manner that manages to poke fun at the Nazi’s (essentially this movie is the filmmakers’ way of thumbing their noses at Nazi Germany), while satirizing the Nazis’ insatiable need to conquer and their arrogance in believing that they had all the right answers.  While Mel Brooks remake was broad slapstick presented as if it were a stage show (vaudeville?), Lubitsch film is a clever farce that treads broad comedy with highly understated sexual innuendo, cunning wordplay, and sly mischief.

Although they’re good, most of the cast comes across as either workman-like character actors and glorified extras, which is not an insult to them.  There are some standout performances.  Sig Ruman as Col. Ehrhardt personifies this film’s monsters/clowns approach to the Nazis, and Henry Victor is menacing as the machine-like Capt. Schulz, so much so that he is the victim of some of the film’s best humor.  Carole Lombard pretty much owns the first half of the film, and while the second half relegates her to a supporting player, it allows her breezy sexiness and comedic talents to shine through.  Whenever she dresses in an evening gown, the audience can see why she was one of those special actresses who personified the glamour of old Hollywood.

The second half of the film belongs to Jack Benny.  His gentle sarcasm, mock self-deprecating humor, and his clueless belief that he was more talented than he was – all part of his act – solidifies this film’s unusual mixture of farce, slapstick, patriotism, and idealism.  Benny is a sly fox and his Joseph Tura knows he’s smarter than the Nazi’s, even when he’s in mortal danger.  His performance mixes leading man as comic hero and comic hero as overconfident ringmaster.  The joke was supposed to be on Benny’s Joseph Tura, and it is for a long time.  Still, Tura will get the last laugh no matter how many times the joke’s on him.  It is that uncommon nature that makes To Be or Not to Be an inimitable comedy and drama.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1943 Academy Awards:  1 nomination: Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Werner R. Heymann)

1996 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  National Film Registry

Friday, July 28, 2006

Updated:  Thursday, December 26, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: 1983 Version of "To Be or Not to Be" Still a Favorite

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 119 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

To Be or Not to Be (1983)
Running time:  107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  Alan Johnson
WRITERS:  Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan (based upon the 1942 screenplay by Edwin Justus Mayer; from a story by Ernst Lubitsch and Melchior Lengyel)
PRODUCER:  Mel Brooks
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Gerald Hirschfeld
EDITOR:  Alan Balsam
COMPOSER:  John Morris
Academy Award nominee

COMEDY/DRAMA with elements of music and war

Starring:  Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Tim Matheson, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd, José Ferrer, Ronny Graham, Estelle Reiner, Zale Kessler, Jack Riley, Lewis J. Stradlen, George Gaynes, George Wyner, and James Haake

The subject of this movie review is To Be or Not to Be, a 1983 comedy-drama starring Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks, who also produced the film.  Directed by Alan Johnson, To Be or Not to Be is a remake of the 1942 film, To Be or Not to Be, which starred Carole Lombard and Jack Benny.  In the 1983 film, a bad Polish actor is depressed that World War II has complicated his professional life and that his wife has a habit of entertaining young Polish officers.  One of her young officers, however, is about to get the actor and his acting troupe involved in a complicated plot against the Nazis.

Frederick Bronski (Mel Brooks) and his wife, Anna (Anne Bancroft), are impresarios of a Polish acting troupe in Warsaw, Poland circa 1939.  Their Bronski Follies, performed of course in the Bronski Theatre, is the toast of the city.  However, Germany invades Poland, and, arriving in Warsaw, the Nazis take the Bronskis’ stately home as their headquarters and also close the theatre.

Later, the Bronskis and their acting ensemble get involved with Lt. Andre Sobinski (Tim Matheson), a young Polish fighter pilot (who is smitten with Anna), in a complex subterfuge to prevent the Germans from getting their hands on a list of Polish underground fighters.  Things get more complicated when Nazi Colonel Erhardt (Charles Durning, in a performance that earned him an Oscar nod) orders the Bronski Theatre open again to perform for the Furher himself when Adolf Hitler visits Warsaw.

Real-life husband and wife Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft made a great comic team in To Be or Not to Be, a zesty remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 film classic starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny.  This film is, of course, filled with delightful musical numbers and a splendid array of costumes, clothes, and uniforms.  But what would a Mel Brooks film be without comedy?

Although Brooks did not direct To Be or Not to Be (the honor went to Alan Johnson), this is clearly a “Mel Brooks movie.”  It isn’t a parody or send-up of anything (as Brooks films are want to be).  It is, however, a witty and often dark farce marked by suave comedy and droll dialogue.  The Nazis are played for fun (Christopher Lloyd and Charles Durning make a comical duo), but their awful menace is always present.  The filmmakers managed to be both respectful and funny with history.  While To Be or Not to Be isn’t as funny as Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein, it isn’t far behind those two comic classics, and it is a fine comedy-historical in the vein of Brooks’ History of the World, Part I.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1984 Academy Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Charles Durning)

1984 Golden Globes:  2 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical” (Anne Bancroft) and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Charles Durning)

Updated:  Thursday, December 26, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Flags of Our Fathers" a Haunting Look Back

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Running time:  132 minutes (2 hours, 12 minutes)
MPAA – R for sequences of graphic war violence and carnage and for language
COMPOSER/DIRECTOR:  Clint Eastwood
WRITERS:  William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis (based upon the book by James Bradley with Ron Powers)
PRODUCERS:  Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Lorenz
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Tom Stern (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Joel Cox, A.C.E.
Academy Award nominee

WAR/HISTORY/DRAMA

Starring:  Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Paul Walker, Jamie Bell, Barry Pepper, John Benjamin Hickey, Robert Patrick, Neal McDonough, and Tom McCarthy

The subject of this movie review is Flags of Our Fathers, a 2006 war film from director Clint Eastwood.  The film examines the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II and its aftermath from the point of view of American servicemen.  The film is based upon the non-fiction book, Flags of Our Fathers, from authors James Bradley and Ron Powers and first published in 2000.  Eastwood also composed the film’s score with assistance from his son, Kyle Eastwood, and Michael Stevens.

In Clint Eastwood’s film, Flags of Our Fathers, a son attempts to learn of his father’s World War II experiences by talking to the men who served with him and discovers that friendship and brotherhood meant more to the men than the war itself.

The son, James Bradley (Tom McCarthy), knows that his father, John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), was in the famous photograph, “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima,” which was taken by photographer Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945 and which became the most memorable photograph taking during WWII (as well as winning the Pulitzer Price for photography).  The photograph depicted five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on the tiny island of Iwo Jima, and “Doc” Bradley was that corpsman (medical personnel).  The battle for that tiny speck of black sand, which was barely eight square miles, would prove to be the tipping point in the Pacific campaign against the Japanese during the war.

Through the recollections of the WWII vets, the son hears harrowing tales of Iwo Jima, and for the first time learns what his father went through there.  The military later returns “Doc” Bradley and the two other surviving flag-raisers, Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) to the U.S. and where they trio becomes props in the governments’ Seventh War Bond Drive.  This particular bond drive is an attempt to raise desperately needed cash to finish fighting the war.  However, Bradley, Gagnon, and Hayes are uncomfortable with their celebrity and find themselves at odds with being America’s new heroes.

Flags of Our Fathers is the first of Clint Eastwood’s unique two-film take on the war movie.  The second film, Letters from Iwo Jima, depicts the Japanese side of the war.  Flags runs hot and cool – hot when Eastwood keeps the film on Iwo Jima and cool when the flag-raisers are back in America and dealing with public situations that make them uncomfortable.  The narrative, like Billy Pilgrim, the hero of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five, becomes unstuck in time, dancing back in forth in the wartime and post-war past, with an occasional foray into the present.

Flags of Our Fathers is at its best when Eastwood focuses on Iwo Jima and the veterans nightmarish flashbacks, in particularly “Doc” Bradley’s flashbacks while he’s on the bond drive tour.  He transforms the horrors of war into a taut thriller, in which the monster of violent death stalks the Marines on the battlefield.  Eastwood also makes his point at certain times with beautiful subtlety.  In one scene, Ira Hayes (played by Adam Beach who is, like Hayes, a Native American) is refused service at a restaurant because the owner “doesn’t serve Indians.”  After all of Hayes’ dedication, the routine bigotry he faces is stinging and heart-rending, and Eastwood captures that moment (and so many others where bigotry is as common as air) in an understated fashion that turns that quiet scene into a blunt object he slams into the viewer.

Flags is by no means perfect.  It lacks any great performances, and Jesse Bradford and Beach can only deliver soft performances since their characters are so thin.  “Doc” Bradley isn’t a stronger character, but Ryan Phillippe jumps between that haunted look or playing stoic, which gives Bradley more traction in the narrative.  Still, Flags of Our Fathers proves that Clint Eastwood is truly a great movie director, and that even his missteps here can’t hide this engaging look at brotherhood on the battlefield and surviving after war.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards:  2 nominations: “Best achievement in sound editing” (Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman) and “Best achievement in sound mixing” (John T. Reitz, David E. Campbell, Gregg Rudloff, and Walt Martin)

2007 Golden Globes:  1 nomination: “Best Director-Motion Picture” (Clint Eastwood)

Saturday, March 3, 2007

Updated:  Monday, November 11, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Veterans Day 2013

Negromancer says "Thank you!"

Also, thinking about the Red Tails and the men and women of color who fought and need to hear our praise.

Review: "Red Tails" Has Wings

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 52 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

Red Tails (2012)
Running time: 125 minutes (2 hours, 5 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some sequences of war violence
DIRECTOR: Anthony Hemingway
WRITERS: John Ridley and Aaron McGruder; from a story by John Ridley
PRODUCERS: Rick McCallum and Charles F. Johnson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John B. Aronson
EDITORS: Ben Burtt and Michael O'Halloran
COMPOSER: Terence Blanchard

WAR/DRAMA/HISTORICAL

Starring: Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Tristan Wilds, Elijah Kelley, Ne-Yo, Kevin Phillips, Bryan Cranston, Lee Tergensen, Gerald McRaney, Daniela Ruah, Marcus T. Paulk, Leslie Odom, Jr., Michael B. Jordan, Andre Royo, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, and Lars van Riesen

The subject of this movie review is Red Tails, a 2012 war film and historical drama produced by Lucasfilm and released by 20th Century Fox. Starring Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr., Red Tails is a fictionalized portrayal of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-American servicemen who served in the United States Air Force (USAAF) during World War II. George Lucas financed Red Tails (both production and distributions costs) and also directed re-shoots for the film.

Red Tails is set in Italy, 1944. The 332d Fighter Group of young African-American (called “Negroes”) USAAF pilots have already made it through recruitment and training in the Tuskegee training program. They have endured racism, and, now that they are in Europe, are still facing segregation from their white counterparts. In fact, they have not flown a single combat mission, but instead conduct strafing runs against German targets and also fly coastal patrols. Even their planes are secondhand, worn out Curtiss P-40 Warhawk aircraft.

Back in Washington, Colonel A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard) is fighting the white bureaucracy to get his black flyers treated as equals. Meanwhile, in Italy, Major Emanuel Stance (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is keeping his bored men in fighting shape. Opportunity comes when Bullard is asked to have his fighter pilots act as bomber escorts for the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. There is an unacceptably high casualty rate among bomber crews mainly because of the actions of their current escorts. Bullard accepts and also manages to get new planes, North American P-51 Mustangs, for the 332d. With the tails of their aircraft painted bright red, these African-American flyers become known as the “Red Tails.” Now, can they prove themselves to the doubters?

Apparently, the critical consensus on Red Tails is that the film has “one-dimensional characters, corny dialogue, and heaps of clichés.” With the exception of Platoon and a few others, war movies are inherently clichéd. As for the corny dialogue, which is another staple of war films (old and new), that is true, but it is so infrequent that it stands out when someone does utter something trite or contrived.

As for the characters, they are anything but one-dimensional. They are fairly complicated, especially in terms of their motivations, external and internal conflicts, hopes, dreams, and fears. The screenplay is a bit light on the characters’ past, but the most important thing that the audience needs to know about the characters’ past is known. What is that? Well, that is the fact that they are black and that bigots and racists have been trying to hold them back and hurt them all their lives. “Nuff said.

Red Tails isn’t as heavy and dramatic as a war movie like Saving Private Ryan; in fact, sometimes, Red Tails’ drama is a little soft, like a sentimental television movie. Red Tails’ most potent drama comes from the aviation sequences, especially the aerial battles. When the Tuskegee airmen are in the air, the film soars. The scenes of aerial combat are exciting and skillfully executed, but what else would we expect from Lucasfilm, the people who gave us the soaring spacecraft in the Star Wars films.

Some viewers may be put off that Red Tails is a dramatic retelling of a real group of men and their exploits during World War II. Red Tails is more historical fiction than history, but it is still a truly exceptional film. I am just happy that someone made a film to acknowledge the contribution black servicemen made during World War II, because African-American are generally absent when Hollywood visits World War II. I bet many of those same people complaining about Red Tails’ historical inaccuracies never previously gave a thought to the absence of Black men in WWII films.

George Lucas’ 93 million dollar investment in this project is not at all wasted. It is a lovely gift to African-American history and film, and it is a damn good film, also. By the time Red Tails’ end credits faded away, I still could have watched another two hours just like it.

8 of 10
A

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

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Review: "A GUY NAMED JOE" is Sweet and Sentimental

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 8 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

A Guy Named Joe (1943) – Black & White
Running time: 120 minutes (2 hours)
DIRECTOR: Victor Fleming
WRITERS: Dalton Trumbo, adapted by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan; from a story by David Boehm and Chandler Sprague
PRODUCER: Everett Riskin
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: George Folsey and Karl Freund
EDITOR: Frank Sullivan
Academy Award nominee

FANTASY/DRAMA/ROMANCE/WAR

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson, Ward Bond, Barry Nelson, James Gleason, Lionel Barrymore, and Don DeFore

In Victor Fleming’s sentimental and patriotic film, A Guy Named Joe, the spirit of a World War II bomber pilot who died in combat plays guardian angel to a younger pilot who also romances his old girlfriend. The film is hokey and even corny at times, but it’s a wonderful, gentle, and poignant film that plays romantic with the tragedy of World War II as the backdrop.

Major Peter Sandidge (Spencer Tracy) is a daredevil bomber pilot who has a knack for getting under his superiors’ skin with his reckless flying, and, while some may see his attitude and aggressiveness in combat as courageous, others see it as crazy. The latter might include Pete’s girlfriend, Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne), who is also a pilot and his wife-to be. However, Major Sandidge’s plane is shot down and crashes into the ocean during a reconnaissance mission. After death, he finds himself in heaven and under the command of The General in Heaven (Lionel Barrymore). The General directs the spirits of pilots killed in the air, to return to earth where they act as guardian angels and quasi-guidance counselors to young pilots-in-training.

Accompanied to earth by Captain Dick Rumney (Barry Nelson), another angel and the spirit of a pilot he knew that died before him, Pete begins to train new pilots. He becomes an angel to Ted Randall (Van Johnson), a young college grad and recent heir to an enormous fortune. Pete likes Ted enough, and follows him around giving him advice that Ted, who of course doesn’t know his guardian angel is near, receives the advice sort of like a gentle and prodding thought. However, Pete begins to dislike Ted when he falls madly in love with Pete’s old gal, Dorinda, who is still carrying a torch for Pete. When Pete asks Dorinda to marry him and she accepts, Pete becomes jealous and decides to give the newly commissioned Captain Ted Randall nothing but bad advice. Still, Pete has to reconsider his actions when Ted accepts a dangerous bombing mission from which is highly unlikely to return, and Dorinda risks own her life to protect Ted.

Although this film features several superbly staged battle scenes and air attacks, A Guy Named Joe is nevertheless sweet and sentimental. While the cast is mostly good, it is Spencer Tracy who keeps this movie from being sappy. He is far and away the star of the picture and everyone else, including Ms. Dunne and Van Johnson’s characters, is a supporting player. Tracy was a fine actor, even in a time when film personality was more important than acting prowess, and Tracy gave films (as he does so in this one) an artistic and weighty center. Ms. Dunne’s performance is good, but not outstanding, although it’s not her fault. Dorinda is conceptually a good and (for that time) groundbreaking female part, but the script mostly regulates her to being a stereotype. Barry Nelson and Lionel Barrymore give exemplary supporting performances as Pete’s heavenly colleagues, while Don DeFore and Ward Bond are excellent earthly supporting players.

Victor Fleming’s directorial effort is exceptional. He makes A Guy Named Joe a credible fantasy film, while holding onto the film’s war story elements without using a heavy hand. Though saddled with a punch-drunk script, Fleming clearly got the spirit of David Boehm and Chandler Sprague’s original story (for which they received an Oscar nomination in the category of “Best Writing, Original Story”), and that’s what makes A Guy Named Joe a swell romantic fable about a guy, his girl, and the rival who becomes “his boy.”

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1945 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Writing, Original Story” (David Boehm and Chandler Sprague)

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Review: "Days of Glory" Chronicles the Forgotten WWII Fighters, the "Indigenes"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 118 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Indigènes (2006)
Days of Glory (2006) – International English title
Running time: 124 minutes (2 hours, 4 minutes)
MPAA – R for war violence and brief language
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: FRANCE with Algeria, Morocco, and Belgium; Languages: French and Arabic
DIRECTOR: Rachid Bouchareb
WRITERS: Olivier Lorelle and Rachid Bouchareb
PRODUCER: Jean Bréhat
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Patrick Blossier
EDITOR: Yannick Kergoat
2007 Academy Award nominee

WAR/DRAMA/HISTORICAL

Starring: Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem, Roschdy Zem, Bernard Blancan, and Matthieu Simonet

Indigènes or Days of Glory (as the film is known by its English title) earned a 2007 Oscar nomination for “Best Foreign Language Film” as a representative of Algeria. Indigènes recreates a chapter largely erased from the pages of history and pays overdue tribute to the heroism of a particular group of forgotten soldiers who fought and died during World War II. Days of Glory chronicles the journey of four North African soldiers who join the French army to help liberate France from Nazi occupation during World War II.

Saïd Otmari (Jamel Debbouze), Yassir (Samy Naceri), Messaoud Souni (Roschdy Zem), and Abdelkader (Roschdy Zem) leave their country, Algeria, a French colony, to fight for France, which they call the “Motherland.” They chafe under the command of the Sergeant Roger Martinez (Bernard Blancan), a French Algerian. The men fight passionately for France, although they’ve never been to the country. Still, despite the North Africans’ bravery and loyalty as they travel fight from Italy to France, they face daily humiliation, inequality, and naked bigotry from the French. The four men eventually find themselves alone in a small French village defending it from a German battalion. This pedagogical or educational film is also a reminder that the controversies of French World War II history remain today, especially as the French government has denied the surviving North African soldiers their pensions.

Days of Glory is a good, but not great, historical film. Its strength is in the chronicling of the prejudice and bigotry these non-white or non-European soldiers faced while sacrificing their lives, limbs, and peace of mind for France, a country that many still believe largely did not fight for itself against the Nazis. For war movie buffs, the best combat sequence takes place in the movie’s closing act.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Algeria)

2006 Cannes Film Festival: 2 wins – “Best Actor” (Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila, Bernard Blancan – To the male ensemble cast) and “François Chalais Award (Rachid Bouchareb); 1 nomination: “Golden Palm” (Rachid Bouchareb)

2007 Image Awards: 1 nomination: “Outstanding Foreign or Independent Film”

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Review: "Inglourious Basterds" is One Crazy Bastard

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 (of 2009) by Leroy Douresseaux

Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Running time: 153 minutes (2 hour, 33 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong graphic violence, language, and brief sexuality
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino
PRODUCER: Lawrence Bender
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Richardson
EDITOR: Sally Menke
Academy Award winner

ACTION/DRAMA/WAR

Starring: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Gedeon Burkhard, Jacky Ido, B.J. Novak, Omar Doom, Martin Wuttke, Mike Myers, Julie Dreyfus, Rod Taylor, Samm Levine, and Samuel L. Jackson (uncredited voice)

Inglourious Basterds is the most recent film from Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction). While Inglourious Basterds is actually short on the titular Basterds in action, it isn’t short of Tarantino hallmarks.

Apparently inspired by the 1978 Italian war movie, The Inglorious Bastards, Tarantino’s film opens in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a “Jew hunter” or “Jew detective” (which is the term Landa prefers). Meanwhile, somewhere else in Europe, American 1st Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish-American soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as, The Basterds, their mission is cause havoc and panic within the Third Reich by savagely killing Nazis and German servicemen. Raine tells his Basterds that being in this squad means they owe him a debt, and to pay it off, each man owes him 100 Nazi scalps.

Shosanna, who narrowly escaped Landa, fled to Paris, where four years later she has forged a new identity as Emmanuelle Mimieux, the owner and operator of a small cinema named La Gamaar. She catches the eye of a German marksman turned war hero, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). In an attempt to impress her, Zoller convinces his superiors to hold a film premiere at La Gamaar. Meanwhile, Raine’s squad has joined German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich – during the film premiere at La Gamaar. It seems that fates have converged at the cinema, as Shosanna, with the help of her projectionist boyfriend, Marcel (Jacky Ido), is poised to carry out her own plan of revenge on the Nazis.

I consider Tarantino’s best feature-length films to be his first three: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Jackie Brown (1997), with Jackie Brown being his best work. His films since 1997 have been very good, but are mostly genre exercises and fanboy porn. Inglourious Basterds is the least of all of them, but compared to most American filmmaking, it is very good.

What else can be said about it? Basterds is not a World War II movie; in fact, it really isn’t a war movie. It’s just a Tarantino movie that may be, as the filmmaker himself described it, a spaghetti western dressed up as a WW II movie. Of course, the additives are gleefully executed violence and snappy banter passing as dialogue. Inglourious Basterds is a ferocious and sadistic fantasy that revels in a World War II that doesn’t even come close to existing.

This is also an ensemble movie. The film never depicts the entire Basterds squad in action together. Each scene focuses on a small group of characters chosen from the larger ensemble. In a way, Inglourious Basterds could have been called “Shosanna’s Last Picture Show” or “Landa the Basterd” because the film is as much about them as it is about Raine and his Basterds. Shosanna is one of the few truly high-quality characters in this film, and actor Christoph Waltz creates one of the year’s best villains in Hans Landa. Just about all the others are less characters and more like character types that Tarantino probably stole…err…borrowed from other films.

Inglourious Basterds is merely glorious Tarantino. He is a highly skilled filmmaker with an encyclopedic knowledge of film, but he desires to make bloody pastiches of the violent action/martial arts/war/western films he so clearly loves. Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino’s version of a summer movie – entertaining, but loud, violent, and empty.

6 of 10
B

Saturday, September 12, 2009

NOTES:
2010 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Christoph Waltz); 7 nominations: “Best Achievement in Cinematography” (Robert Richardson), “Best Achievement in Directing” (Quentin Tarantino), “Best Achievement in Editing” (Sally Menke), “Best Achievement in Sound” (Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti, and Mark Ulano), “Best Achievement in Sound Editing” (Wylie Stateman), “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Lawrence Bender), “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Quentin Tarantino)

2010 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Supporting Actor” (Christoph Waltz); 5 nominations: “Best Cinematography” (Robert Richardson), “Best Director” (Quentin Tarantino), “Best Editing” (Sally Menke), “Best Production Design” (David Wasco and Sandy Reynolds-Wasco), “Best Screenplay – Original” (Quentin Tarantino)

2010 Golden Globes: 1 win: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Christoph Waltz); 3 nominations: “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Quentin Tarantino), “Best Motion Picture – Drama” and “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Quentin Tarantino)