Whoever said that talking about politics, religion or sex on a blind date was a bad idea could just have easily applied that rule to movies. Or maybe like Peter Venkman said, it’s more of a guideline than a rule. I caught two movies recently that were the flip side of the same coin: independently financed romantic dramas ripe with political intrigue, both written and directed by women under the age of 40. Let’s see Blockbuster Video devote a shelf to that genre.

Cairo Time (2009)
Directed by Ruba Nadda
Written by Ruba Nadda
Produced by Daniel Iron, David Collins
90 minutes

Ruba Nadda was born in Montréal, Canada to a Syrian father and a Palestinian mother. She first visited the city known as “The Mother of the World” at the age of 16 with her family. After graduating Tisch School of the Arts in New York, Nadda went on to write and direct 16 short films and one feature, Sabah, in 2005. Also that year, the filmmaker arrived on the idea for a new script. Determined to capture life in Cairo as she’d experienced it over the years, Cairo Time focused on a 50-year-old American named Juliette who arrives to visit her diplomat husband, who she learns has been detained working in a refugee camp across the border in Gaza. Passing time in an exotic but bewildering city, Juliette forms a relationship with her husband’s former security officer, an Arab named Tareq.

Nadda got her script to producer Daniel Iron of Toronto-based Foundry Films. Equally enthused by what they read were Christine Vachon and Charles Pugilese of New York indie stalwart Killer Films, whose stamp on movies from Party Monster to Mildred Pierce usually indicates something different. The filmmaker shielded her producers from the logistical challenges that awaited in Cairo, but in a preview of coming attractions, the production was barred because Canada did not have a co-production treaty with Egypt. Ireland did, so Nadda put Iron in contact with producer David Collins, whose Dublin-based Samson Films had helped the Oscar winning Once reach the screen. Within two years, the Canadian/Irish co-production raised financing.

Before I express my ardor for Cairo Time, I’ll admit to hitting pause on my MacBook three times during the 90 minute running time. I wandered away to YouTube for some southern rock and videos of a skateboarding bulldog named Tillman. If I haven’t completely squandered my credibility here, I’ll add that I finished Cairo Time in one sitting, which is like professional critics saying they gave a movie an 8 out of 10. Collaborating with cinematographer Luc Montpellier — who shot most of Nadda’s short films — and editor Teresa Hannigan, the major reason to see Cairo Time is its luscious texture. Deliberate and sensual without having much to do with sex, the picture immerses us in the clamor, the color and the cadences of Cairo without feeling like tourist bureau propaganda.

Cairo Time conveys so much more about its world with silence — Patricia Clarkson closing her eyes in weariness, or Alexander Sidding, in a career making performance, politely directing Clarkson’s character through the city — than most romances are able or willing to with pages of dialogue. The film is like a splash of water in the heat; refreshing and vivid. I got a better sense of what life in Cairo was like than I could short of hopping a flight there, particularly how similar it was to any other metropolis. The events of the Arab spring only make the picture more relevant now than when it was released October 2009 in Canada and August of the following year in the States. Ruba Nadda has a passionate, self assured voice I’m looking forward to hearing again.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 3,832 users: 59% for Cairo Time

Metacritic “Metascore” average among 26 leading critics: 67 for Cairo Time

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As days get shorter, nights get longer and All Hallow’s Eve beckons, I can say that I won’t be wandering the streets dressed as Chewbacca begging for candy. What I can’t say is whether or not at my age, horror movies still have any surprises left in them. In the search for originality, it’d be a good idea to start anywhere but Hollywood. For the month of October, I take a trip around the globe to see what’s scaring some of my favorite countries these days.

Let The Right One In (2008)
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his novel
Produced by John Nordling, Carl Molinder
115 minutes

The wonder of Let The Right One In is that you could remove the vampires, clean up the blood and what’s left would still rate as one of the most potent visions of young love in recent memory. John Ajvide Lindqvist transitioned from aspiring magician to comic to writer producing material for other performers in Sweden. Struggling with a “real” novel, in 2001 Lindqvist began writing about his youth in suburban Stockholm of the 1980s. Deciding that his young protagonist would befriend something terrible, a horror story took off. Drawing a title from the Morrissey tune “Let The Right One Slip In”, Lindqvist’s debut novel was rejected until Swedish publisher Ordfront distributed it in 2004. Appearing in U.S. bookstores three years later as Let Me In, the novel was such a success in Sweden that interest in a film version was avid.

John Nordling and Carl Molinder, co-owners of EFTI, secured film rights and hired Tomas Alfredson, a respected young Swedish director who’d never tried a horror film, to direct. The producers raised a budget of €2.2 million (roughly $2.9 million USD). Building strong word of mouth at film festivals, Let The Right One In opened October 2008 in Sweden, Norway and the U.S. to modest box office but instant cult acclaim. Despite confusion about certain elements in the film, its triumph is how deeply it affects the growing pains of two kids in the suburbs rather than throwing horror at the audience. Tomas Alfredson delivers the goods and then some for those in a vampire mood, while 12-year-old Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson cut right to the bone with film debuts sharp enough to detox anyone hung over on Twilight hype.

In a cheerless apartment complex behind the Iron Curtain, 12-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) passes evenings with his single mother, fantasizing about revenge while his days include regular torment at the hands of his sadistic classmate Conny (Patrik Rydmark). Withdrawing into puzzles, Oskar bonds with another solitary 12-year-old, Eli (Lina Leandersson) who appeared in the night to move in next door. Eli’s creepy guardian Håkan (Per Ragnar) wastes no time luring a local teenager to his death in the woods. Håkan’s attempt to drain the teen’s blood is interrupted and he has to flee. Enraged at Håkan’s ineptitude, Eli leaves the apartment for a bite to eat, ambushing a drunk wobbling home. After she sinks her fangs into her victim’s neck and drinks his blood, Håkan disposes of the body.

When Oskar brings home scars from his run-ins with Conny, Eli urges her friend to stand up to the bully. Oskar asks her to go steady with him and on the promise that nothing much will change between them, Eli agrees. Attempting an Indian blood ritual with his new girlfriend, Oskar slices open his palm and is met with a response he did not anticipate. With Håkan out of the picture, Eli is left to fend for her own sustenance and selects another barfly, Virginia (Ika Nord). Her meal is cut short when the victim’s boyfriend Lacke (Peter Carlberg) appears. Waking the next day adverse to sunlight and to cats, Virginia sends Lacke in search of her young attacker. Oskar appears to have gotten the upper hand over his tormentor at school, but protecting Eli while she sleeps during the day proves more dangerous.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 25,029 users: 89% for Let The Right One In

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 82 for Let The Right One In

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Roman Polanski was born August 18, 1933 in Paris. The sordid details of his flight from the United States in 1978 have often overshadowed discussion of the director’s work, which at the age of 77, includes one of the best films of 2010. Is he a world class filmmaker? In the month of August, I take a look at ten directed by Roman Polanski.

The Ninth Gate (1999)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Screenplay by Enrique Urbizu and John Brownjohn & Roman Polanski, based on the novel El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Produced by Roman Polanski
133 minutes

Every filmmaker can be excused for making a terrible movie or two. For Roman Polanski, one of those excuses is titled The Ninth Gate. Nine days before photography was set to begin in July 1996 on a black comedy titled The Double, John Travolta dropped out of the dual lead role over creative differences with Polanski. Steve Martin agreed to step in, but the project was scrubbed by Mandalay Pictures before shooting could start. Desperate to get his next film going, Polanski turned to a script adapted by Enrique Urbizu from Arturo Perez-Reverte’s intricately plotted supernatural mystery El Club Dumas. Working with John Brownjohn over the course of the next year, Polanski dumped Perez-Reverte’s subplot about a lost chapter of The Three Musketeers and focusing on more commercial elements, arrived on the title The Ninth Gate.

A Spanish-French co-production financed by Artisan Entertainment at $38 million, The Ninth Gate alternates between a nap and a kind of stupor. Resembling a detective mystery, what’s most mysterious is the lack of clarity over the most basic details, like whether the girl is real or a figment of the protagonist’s imagination. The effect is less artistic and seems more like sloppy filmmaking. Costumed in glasses, goatee and combed back hair in an effort to look adult, Johnny Depp is miscast as a slick book dealer. The talents of cinematographer Darius Khondji (City of Lost Children, Seven) are wasted on a film that looks flat and disinterested throughout. Polanski just never gets anything in tune, settling on bouncy musical cues that recall Elmer Bernstein’s score for Ghostbusters without anything remotely amusing happening on screen.

In present day New York, rare book dealer Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) swindles a four-volume set of Don Quixote printed in 1780 from the family of a dying collector. A wealthy client named Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) — whose collection is devoted to the subject of the devil — hires Corso to appraise his latest acquisition, Aristide Torchia’s 17^th century work The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, which contains engravings Torchia is said to have adapted from the Delomelanicon, a mythical book penned by Lucifer himself. Only two other copies of The Nine Gates exist and Balkan suspects his may be a forgery. After stashing the Torchia with his partner Bernie (James Russo), Corso is visited by Liana Tefler (Lena Olin), widow of the book’s previous owner. Seeking it back, she seduces and attacks Corso, then apparently ransacks his partner’s store and kills him.

Arriving in Toledo, Spain, Corso visits bookbinding Ceniza brothers (José López Rodero in a dual role) who reveal that three of the Torchia’s engravings bear the cryptic initials “LCF”. With a mystery girl (Emmanuelle Seigner) following him, Corso seeks out the owners of the other two books: Victor Fargas (Jack Taylor) in Sintra, Portugal and Baroness Kessler (Barbara Jefford) in Paris, both of whom are killed in rapid succession. Studying their copies of The Nine Gates, Corso notices variations in their “LCF” engravings, illustrations of castle keeps, gateways and keys. He concludes that all three books are genuine and Balkan believes that when the nine “LCF” engravings are reunited, the prince of darkness will be revealed to him. Liana Tefler and her bodyguard manage to steal one of the books, which Corso’s mystery girl appears eager to help him get back.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 52,840 users: 60% for The Ninth Gate

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 44 for The Ninth Gate

What do you say?

Roman Polanski was born August 18, 1933 in Paris. The sordid details of his flight from the United States in 1978 have often overshadowed discussion of the director’s work, which at the age of 77, includes one of the best films of 2010. Is he a world class filmmaker? In the month of August, I take a look at ten directed by Roman Polanski.

The Pianist (2002)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on the book The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 by Wladyslaw Szpilman
Produced by Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde
150 minutes

A tale of an urban castaway that’s as powerful as it is restrained, The Pianist was Roman Polanski’s finest work in two decades. Originally published in 1946 under the title Death of a City, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir of survival detailed the classical pianist’s six years under Nazi occupation in Warsaw. Seizing upon the book as his next film, Polanski selected South African born playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood — whose play Taking Sides also featured a composer caught in the maelstrom of World War II — to adapt a screenplay. France’s Le Studio Canal largely financed the €38 million (roughly $33 million) production in association with England’s Cadre Films and after Joseph Fiennes declined the role in order to remain on the British stage, Polanski arrived on Adrien Brody to portray Szpilman. The actor went from 160 to 130 pounds in six weeks to prepare for the part.

Filmed at Babelsburg Studios in Berlin, with additional shooting in the Braga district outside Warsaw, what sets The Pianist apart from WWII dramas like Saving Private Ryan or Enemy At the Gates is its simplicity and grace. Written immediately after the occupation, Szpilman’s story is resplendent in detail and confident enough in its truth not to employ artificiality or unearned sentiments. Turning genre conventions on their head, we meet Jews who are less than virtuous and at least one German who is more than pure evil, creating a landscape that provokes thought and feeling. A tale of genocide, the irony is that Polanski’s craftsmanship is so solid we wish the story kept going. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, Adrien Brody (Best Actor), Ronald Harwood (Best Adapted Screenplay) and Roman Polanski (Best Director) all won Oscars.

In Warsaw of September 1939, pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is performing Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp minor for Polish radio when German artillery shells hit the city. Szpilman’s violinist father (Frank Finlay), mother (Maureen Lipman), younger brother Henryk (Ed Stoppard) and two grown sisters (Julia Rayner, Jessica Kate Meyer) rejoice with the news that Britain and France have declared war on Germany, but Poland quickly falls under Nazi control. Szpilman has time to take an adoring cellist named Dorota (Emilia Fox) for coffee before the city’s 360,000 Jews are evicted from their homes and sealed inside a ghetto in October 1940. Szpilman finds employment as a piano player in an upper class Jewish café and along with Henryk, rejects an offer from a family friend named Heller (Roy Smiles) to join the Jewish Ghetto Police.

When Henryk is arrested, Szpilman appeals to Heller’s ego to secure his brother’s release. He keeps his family from being deported by obtaining employment certificates for them, but these prove worthless when in August 1942, the Szpilmans are herded onto trains bound for Treblinka. Heller pulls Szpilman off the line, sparing his life, but the pianist never sees his family again. He survives by joining a Jewish work detail and buys enough time to arrange for his escape. Harbored by friends, Szpilman is reunited with Dorota, now married and expecting a child. Once the Polish uprising begins in August 1944, he’s near the brink of famine. Scrounging for food in the deserted city, Szpilman comes to face to face with Captain Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann). Instead of being shot, the pianist is rewarded by an act of kindness after the German officer hears his music.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 107,318 users: 94% for The Pianist

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 85 for The Pianist

What do you say?

Roman Polanski was born August 18, 1933 in Paris. The sordid details of his flight from the United States in 1978 have often overshadowed discussion of the director’s work, which at the age of 77, includes one of the best films of 2010. Is he a world class filmmaker? In the month of August, I take a look at ten directed by Polanski.

Tess (1979)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Screenplay by Gérard Brach & Roman Polanski and John Brownjohn, based on the novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Produced by Claude Berri
172 minutes

As a sum of its dialogue, casting, photography, editing and music, Roman Polanski’s screen version of the 1891 novel by Thomas Hardy tantalizes with how thrift of imperfection it seems. Once a passion of producer David O. Selznick — who wanted wife Jennifer Jones to play Tess — actress Sharon Tate handed the book to her husband two decades later. Dedicating the finished film to his slain wife, Polanski adapted the novel with Gérard Brach and tasked John Brownjohn to translate their script from French to English, tuning an ear to the Dorset dialect. In this expensive co-production between France’s Renn Productions and England’s Burrill Productions, Polanski cast in the title role 17-year-old Nastassia Kinski, the West German ingénue who Francis Coppola would call “the most beautiful woman in films today” when he cast her in One From the Heart a few years later.

Tess is worth viewing as a visual feast alone. Shot extensively during the “magic hour” of dusk by Geoffrey Unsworth (who died during production to be relieved by Ghislain Cloquet), the splendor of the landscape and the way sunlight reveals character is present in every frame. Much of the film’s success lies in the casting of Nastassia Kinski, who is on-screen much of the running time and exhibits an unusual power mostly foreign to actresses her age. What’s striking about Tess is the tender loving care Polanski takes to let scenes breathe, neither overwhelming the audience in period detail or racing through the events of the book. A whole world materializes in which an outsider struggles to find her place. Nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, the playful yet majestic musical score by Philippe Sarde is a standout.

In rural Dorset of the late 19^th century, local girls assemble for their May dance. John Durbeyfield (John Collin) crosses paths with a new parson, who notifies the peasant that his research into local genealogy indicates the Durbeyfields descend from an old family, the d’Urbervilles. Though his ancestors have died off without any wealth, Durbeyfield and his wife (Rosemary Martin) dispatch their teenage daughter Tess (Nastassia Kinski) to call on a wealthy widow in the town of Trantridge who goes by the name d’Urberville. The farm girl encounters the widow’s playboy son Alec (Leigh Lawson) who takes a shine to Tess. Accepting a job on the property, she discovers the “d’Ubervilles” are not blood relatives at all but merely bought the name. Ultimately giving in to Alec’s salacious advances, she returns home bearing his illegitimate child.

When her child succumbs to illness and dies, Tess leaves home to take a job as a milkmaid. Just as her co-workers Izz (Suzanna Hamilton), Marian (Carolyn Pickles) and Retty (Caroline Embling) have, Tess falls in love with a young apprentice farmer named Angel Clare (Peter Firth). The son of a reverend, Angel is attracted to Tess’ earthy wisdom and announces to his family that he plans to marry the penniless girl. On their honeymoon, Tess reveals that she surrendered her maidenhood to a cousin and bore his child. Ruining her husband’s image of her, Tess is sent back to her destitute family while Angel leaves for Brazil to seek his fortune. Tess reunites with Izz to work on a farm owned by Alec d’Urberville. He offers to provide for Tess if she returns to him, but clinging to her pride, she chooses poverty instead. For a while.

Jeremy Richey’s ardor for Nastassja Kinski inspired him to name his blog Moon In the Gutter and in June 2009, he turned his attention to Tess.

This terrific behind the scenes article by Harlan Kennedy on the making of Tess appeared in the October 1979 issue of American Film.

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In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Jules et Jim (1962)
Directed by François Truffaut
Screenplay by François Truffaut & Jean Gruault, based on the novel by Henri-Pierre Roché
Produced by François Truffaut
105 minutes

Constructed on the novelty that a woman might choose the ardor of two men — best friends at that — instead of limiting herself to one or the other, it seems appropriate that Jules et Jim still thrives as a triumph of romance over reason. This jewel of the French New Wave probably shouldn’t continue to resonate as deeply as it does, but its sensual pleasures still intoxicate. Mixing a cinematic cocktail of wisdom and exuberance, a first novel by 73-year-old Henri-Pierre Roché was adapted to film by 28-year-old critic turned filmmaker François Truffaut, who’d been an admirer of the book’s stylish blend of refinement and simplicity. Shot on stolen locations with a small crew on a budget of $280,000, the film was a box office smash in France and critically adored in the U.S., where Janus Films handled distribution.

By 1977, Truffaut admitted that Jules et Jim had become overrated, feeling his adaptation with writing partner Jean Gruault was too decorative and perhaps not brutally honest enough. Shot by Raoul Coutard in black & white “Franscope” — which was essentially Fox’s CinemaScope process, cribbed by filmmakers in Europe and renamed to avoid litigation — the film balances a sad, yearning quality in its rural scenes while moving at locomotive speed through ideas, whims and revelations in Paris. Jeanne Moreau is not my idea of Helen of Troy, but the mystique of Jules et Jim is that she represents any woman whose desires are dictated by the wind, which makes her desirable. The French dialogue moves so rapidly that more than one viewing may be mandated before the full breadth of the film’s pleasures take effect.

In Paris of 1912, a German named Jules (Oscar Werner) meets a fellow writer, a Frenchman named Jim (Henri Serre). Exchanging language and culture and bonding over a shared indifference toward money, the men becomes inseparable. Despite his vast acquaintances with ladies about town, Jim is unable to set his friend up with a woman; a nocturnal encounter with a girl (Marie Dubois) they rescue on the street is over for Jules by morning. His luck changes when Jules arranges dinner with Jim and three women his cousin studied with in Munich: one German, one Dutch, one French. The latter is named Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) and her elegant features remind the men of a statue they were just marveling over. After dating for a month, Jules introduces Catherine to Jim and the trio frolics across Paris.

During a holiday to the beach, Jules asks Catherine to marry him. She contends that she’s known more men than he’s known women, but that a union might be amicable. Jim covets Catherine from afar and World War I divides the trio by even greater distances. After Germany’s defeat, Jim travels to a chalet that Jules and Catherine share on the Rhine with their young daughter Sabine (Sabine Haudepin). Jules reveals that despite bringing order and harmony to their household, Catherine is bored easily and has strayed in their marriage with at least three men, while a fourth suitor — a guitar player named Albert (Boris Bassiak) who is an old acquaintance of the friends — convalesces nearby. Unique in some way to each man but unable to satisfy herself with any one of them, Catherine enters into an affair with Jim with dire consequences for all involved.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5,805 users: 89% for Jules et Jim

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
Directed by David Miller
Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey
Produced by Edward Lewis
107 minutes

In contrast to the cotton candy being churned out by Universal Pictures in the 1960s featuring Rock Hudson or Doris Day, few movies then or now corral craftsmanship, social awareness and entertainment as magnificently as Lonely Are the Brave. Edward Abbey’s novel Brave Cowboy was published in 1954 and optioned by Kirk Douglas four years later. The theme of a man overcoming resistance to achieve his freedom had inspired Douglas to develop Spartacus. For a fable about modern day enslavement, the actor-producer turned again to Dalton Trumbo for an adaptation and put up the completion funds to sell Universal on the project. Dumped into theaters in May 1962, Lonely Are the Brave was ignored at the box office, but landing on the year-end top ten lists of several critics, it enjoyed a successful run in art houses like the Surf Theater in Chicago and the River Oaks Theater in Houston.

Journeyman director David Miller isn’t even a blip on the radar screens of most film scholars or movie geeks, but Lonely Are the Brave represents the Hollywood studio system at its best. The stuntwork involving Douglas and his horse is amazing, while a cantina brawl ranks as one of the most creative ever staged. Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, George Kennedy and Carol O’Connor all show the depth and humor they’d become renowned for, while the cinematography by Philip Lathrop and musical score by Jerry Goldsmith have no equal. As with The Great Escape or Cool Hand Luke, Lonely Are the Brave begins and ends with a hero whose spirit refuses to submit even as he appears whipped by The Man. Whether interpreted as a border drama or a morality play about man seeking to retain his individuality in a fast changing world, the film remains as vital to our national debate now as it was then.

Slumbering amid the sagebrush of New Mexico, cowhand John W. Burns (Kirk Douglas) is awakened by the scream of jet aircraft overhead. Saddling up his defiant appaloosa Whiskey and steering the horse across a highway that’s been put in his way, Burns reaches the town of “Duke City”, where he drops in on Jerry Bondi (Gena Rowlands), the wife of a childhood buddy. Burns discovers that his pal has been sentenced to two years in prison for rendering aid to “wetbacks” crossing the border. Defiant of rules like the ones dictating when he can visit a friend in jail, Burns strolls into a cantina and picks a fight with a WWII veteran (Bill Raisch) who has one arm and a bad attitude. When authorities offer to drop the charges, Burns hits a deputy, earning him time to catch up with Paul Bondi (Michael Kane) behind bars.

While Paul ignores the taunts of a brutal deputy (George Kennedy), Burns tells the cop exactly where he can go and later loses a wisdom tooth for his backtalk. Once the lights go down, Burns reveals to his friend two hacksaws he’s smuggled in his boot. The men cut through a bar in their cell, but Paul elects to pay his debt to society by serving out his sentence. Burns bids farewell to his friend and then to his friend’s wife, who Burn still harbors feelings for. As Burns heads up the foothills and seeks to climb a mountain ridge that will take him into Mexico, wry Sheriff Morey Johnson (Walter Matthau) engages in a pursuit. The cowboy and his horse are able to evade the hapless deputies sent up the mountain and a helicopter on loan from an army base, but progress and conformity finally catch up with John W. Burns.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 226 users: 82% for Lonely Are the Brave

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

In Cold Blood (1967)
Directed by Richard Brooks
Screenplay by Richard Brooks, based on the book by Truman Capote
Produced by Richard Brooks
134 minutes

Richard Brooks’ screen version of the “non-fiction novel” by Truman Capote opened the same year as The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, so if there’s a debate about which 1967 film had the greatest impact on future of motion pictures, In Cold Blood is not in that debate. The murder of the Clutter family never warrants the thousands of man hours that were dedicated to analyzing and recreating the crime, but the film illustrates how a gifted actor, composer and cinematographer can elevate material into something magnificent. Ignoring suggestions by Columbia Pictures that Steve McQueen & Paul Newman play Perry Smith & Dick Hickock, Brooks cast unknowns in Robert Blake & Scott Wilson and tried to inject as much realism as possible into this true crime story, shooting at some of the actual locations and casting participants in the 1959 murder trial as extras.

Playing a natural born killer itched by the occasional impulse to do good, Robert Blake is brilliant. Quincy Jones composed a jazz score that initially seems inappropriate for heavy drama, but the music keeps the viewer off-balance, unsure of how we’re supposed to feel about what’s happening. The best reason of all to revisit In Cold Blood is the cinematography by Conrad Hall, one of the most vivid examples of the harsh beauty he would become renowned for. In terms of precision, lighting a black & white movie is like being called up to pitch in the majors and Hall was one of the league’s superstars; few movies using monochrome film stock or widescreen framing utilize the medium as gorgeously as In Cold Blood. Largely forgotten in spite of the number of actors he directed to Oscars, Richard Brooks brings intelligence and a point of view to the examination of a motiveless crime.

Stepping off a Greyhound bus in Kansas City with a guitar and most of his possessions in a box, Perry Smith (Robert Blake) makes an urgent call to the Kansas State Penitentiary, hoping the pastor there can put him in touch with a friend whose guidance he desperately needs. Instead, smooth talking ex-con Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) picks him up, violating Perry’s parole by returning him to Kansas. Dick is eager for Perry’s help breaking into a home 400 miles west in the town of Holcomb, where according to a former cellmate of Dick’s, farmer Herbert Clutter has $10,000 or “maybe more” locked in a safe. Chewing Aspirin for chronic leg pain he’s suffered since a motorcycle accident, Perry resists going along with the robbery, but is talked into it by Dick, who has never killed anyone and covets Perry’s experience in that area.

When Clutter, his wife, 16-year-old daughter Nancy (Brenda Currin) and 15-year-old son are found shot to death, FBI agent Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe) begins pursuing leads. With no shotgun shells and no fingerprints to work from, the feds catch a break when Dick’s cellmate comes forward to offer information in exchange for a reward. Dreaming of sunken treasure, Perry drags Dick down to Mexico, a trip his partner finances by cutting phony checks along the way. Missing his gravely ill father (Jeff Corey), Dick compels Perry to return with him to Kansas. Arrested in Las Vegas for a stolen car, the men are interrogated by Agent Dewey and his men. Also hovering around the case is reporter Bill Jensen (Paul Stewart) who is obsessed by the senselessness of the crime and seeks answers of how something like this could happen.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 1,891 users: 83% for In Cold Blood

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Directed by Don Siegel
Screenplay by Daniel Mainwaring and Richard Collins (uncredited) and Sam Peckinpah (uncredited), based on the magazine serial by Jack Finney
Produced by Walter Wanger
80 minutes

One of the most beloved of the science fiction B-movies that attacked the 1950s, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a testament to how a powerful story and an appealing cast can elevate an otherwise awful mess into a classic. Originally published in Collier’s Magazine as a three-part serial beginning in November 1954, Jack Finney’s source material captured the imagination of producer Walter Wanger, who was coming off a personal scandal, prison term and even worse, a commercial calamity in 1948 with Joan of Arc starring Ingrid Bergman. Languishing in a deal at Allied Artists for Walter and Harold Mirisch, Wanger and director Don Siegel made box office lemonade with a prison reform picture titled Riot On Cell Block 11. When Wanger pitched the studio The Body Snatchers, AA purchased the screen rights.

Shot in 19 days on a $300,000 budget — $2 million in today money — Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a hit in spite of its studio, which hoping to sell more tickets, mangled Ellsworth Fredericks’ 1.33:1 compositions by cropping the frame to fit RKO’s “SuperScope” format of 2:1. They also inserted a prologue and epilogue that gave the film a resolution far more upbeat than what Siegel intended. The conceit of alien pods stripping human beings of their individuality while they sleep is seductive in how easily it can apply to any number of social or political paranioas, while Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter appear to have a blast as the doomed couple. A stiff voiceover narration kills the suspense and makes it difficult to stay on edge about anything in the film, but with so little money for special effects, the original Body Snatchers plays like a drum tight film noir as opposed to a silly sci-fi movie.

A psychiatrist (Whit Bissell) is summoned in the middle of the night to treat to a raving lunatic being held by police at a local hospital. The wild-eyed Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) insists that he is not insane and begging to be listened to, begins his story. Returning from a two-week conference to his practice in the idyllic town of “Santa Mira”, Dr. Bennell’s nurse Sally Withers (Jean Wiles) reports that several of his patients have demanded to see the doctor, only to later cancel their appointments as if everything was fine. On their way back from the train depot, Dr. Bennell almost mows down a boy running away from his mother; apparently, he’s scared to go to school. At his office, Dr. Bennell is reunited with a recently divorced college flame named Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter).

Becky is troubled by a cousin who claims Becky’s uncle is no longer her uncle. Santa Mira’s psychiatrist Dr. Kauffman (Larry Gates) reveals that he’s had a dozen patients suffering the same hysteria, which he theorizes is due to stress over world events. Dr. Bennell and Becky have their romantic evening cut short when his writer friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan) and wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones) summon them to their home, where the body of a strange being with a resemblance to Jack is laid out on a pool table. Dr. Bennell later discovers imitations of them hatching from seed pods in the Belicec greenhouse, where it becomes clear that aliens lacking emotion have replaced townsfolk while they sleep. With the phone company and police already fallen victim, the couples try to stay awake long enough to get help.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5,280 users: 81% for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 2 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

Blue Thunder (1983)
Directed by John Badham
Written by Dan O’Bannon & Don Jakoby and Dean Riesner (uncredited)
Produced by Gordon Carroll
109 minutes

There haven’t been many movies about the LAPD’s Air Support Division. That might be due to logistics, or maybe the best picture you could possibly make in that milieu has already been done: Blue Thunder. Screenwriter Dan O’Bannon was so incensed by the ghetto bird buzzing his L.A. abode that he was inspired to write a thriller — with USC Film School buddy Don Jakoby — about a Travis Bickle type going AWOL in a police helicopter above the City of Angels. Columbia Pictures loved the ballistic third act, the crazed lone nut in the first and second acts not so much, prompting rewrites in which the LAPD became good guys and government spooks were invented as bad guys. O’Bannon & Jakoby at the time lambasted the finished film, a box office hit that inspired two TV series in the ‘80s; Airwolf on CBS and the short lived Blue Thunder on ABC, one even cheesier than the other.

Blue Thunder is wound like a Swiss watch and designed with almost the same level of craftsmanship, briskly introducing us to Los Angeles, the rigmarole of the Air Support Division (dubbed “Astro Division” in the film to avoid hate mail flooding the LAPD) and issues of privacy on the approach to the year 1984. The action is set up gracefully and executed tenaciously, while a post-Watergate malaise gives the film an edge. John Alonzo’s lighting and Arthur Rubenstein’s electronic score were cutting edge for their time and hold up well, while the casting is superb. It’s easy to forget how strong a leading man Roy Scheider was, while the magnificent Warren Oates — in his final movie — chews up scenery like a buzzsaw. Director John Badham shot the film back-to-back with WarGames and was in a zone, fusing high concept, high tech, compelling characters and fun without crossing over into cartoon.

Maverick police helicopter pilot Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) breaks in a new partner, the baby faced Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) who’s transferred over for some supposed peace and quiet in the haze above Los Angeles. While the men spy on a yoga practitioner in Encino known to perform in the nude, a city commissioner is attacked outside her home in Brentwood and shot. Reprimanded for his flight patterns by the loquacious Captain Braddock (Warren Oates), Murphy contends that the attack on the city commissioner was no attempted rape but a stakeout. A Vietnam vet compressed with PTSD, Murphy makes up with his oddball girlfriend (Candy Clark) and returns to the crime scene, where a memo he retrieves from the commissioner’s lawn has the cryptic word THOR written on it.

Assigned a special detail, Murphy accompanies Braddock and two feds to the demonstration of a prototype helicopter designed for crowd control in the Los Angeles ’84 Summer Olympics. “Blue Thunder” is equipped with a 20mm gun turret, turbine boost, whisper mode and surveillance devices that see and hear through walls. The test pilot is Colonel Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), a nefarious operator Murphy knew in ‘Nam. In an attempt to rub out his competition, Cochrane sabotages Murphy’s chopper. Staying alive long enough to take Blue Thunder for a test spin, Murphy and Lymangood discover the feds have big plans for THOR (Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response), instigating social unrest in L.A. to justify military expenditures. Framed by Cochrane and the feds running the project, Murphy commandeers their toy and takes to the friendly skies.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 147 users: 65% for Blue Thunder

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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