Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz; story by  George Lucas
Cinematographer: Douglas Slocombe
Producer: Robert Watts

by Jon Cvack

Spielberg would shift in a radical new direction after The Temple of Doom, making both The Color Purple ('85), Empire of the Sun ('87), and Always ('89) before returning to the series with The Last Crusade ('89), making me think this drift into drama might have inspired the more somber and profound story that The Last Crusade provides.

What I like about Temple of Doom and was failing to expect was the complete lack of exposition. I think most assume the usual formula is what The Last Crusade, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ('08) and Raiders of the Lost Ark ('81) follow, which is an action-packed intro, followed by Indy’s return to university, to then be recruited for another adventure. In Temple of Doom, we are with Indy on a journey that just so happens to lead to all the best parts we remember. There was no grand mission, it was all coincidence, and while that typically wouldn’t work anywhere else, so goes Spielberg’s amazing talents.

Honoring Indy’s desire for everything to belong in a museum, I think this introduction should belong in an art museum. There is so much that is suggested - from drinking the poison to using the Lazy-Susan to exchanging the items to the champagne popping as the gunshot goes off - all if it happens with perfect space and speed, culminating in a great use of a set piece, as Indy takes cover behind a Gong, knocking it down, to follow it and jump out the window, as the man sprays bullets and we see all the strikes and marks. Everything operates at the most exciting level of realism and practical effects. I could just see the same scene being made today, completely dependent on computer graphics. This cool because it all looked so genuine, limited to how elements within a scene would physically operate, rather than honoring dull imagination. If Spielberg abandoned as much CGI as possible, and returned to this formula it would be one of the most successful films to come out in a decade.

We get to meet Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan), who’s the film’s greatest character. And as much as I was thinking of all the films that have used this offensive trope, not having seen it in so long, I did see where someone might get offended. I just don’t agree. Short Round is never presented as stupid or attempting to mimic racist stereotypes, but is often courageous and intelligent with an incredible amount of heart.

We then get to meet the most annoying Indiana Jones Girl, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw), who while providing a few laughs, really made me see this film in a new light. I remembered a genuine love interest, but in this film their entire relationship is based upon pure lust and desire. Indiana clearly finds her annoying, she clearly finds him rude, but they’re both just so attracted to each other. It was quite lascivious for a Spielberg film. Yet Willie’s role as the dumb blonde actually is one of the film's weakest elements. While I could say I’ve met people like this, as many probably have, it doesn’t really make it any more interesting. What’s so good about Elsa Schneider and Marion is that they’re both smart, deliberate women. Doesn’t mean Willie had to be more of the same, but this became pretty grating by the end.

The bug scene always reminds me of my mother who would verbally react with the same exact “Oh my god” every single time this scene came on. I also began thinking here about whether or not it’s offensive to assume these exotic people would consume the most vile food possible, but point aside, it’s one of the most memorable moments in cinematic history.

When this movie is discussed it’s this scene and the bugs that first pop into people’s mind. Again, for Spielberg to create images that have continued to exist in popular culture, made over thirty years ago just goes to show how phenomenally talented the guy was. When I watched that cart racing scene, I imagined the vast amount of imagination and talent it must have required to pull off a sequence that looks so real and incredible which rivals any CGI-infused action sequence. People watch this and are blown away because of how real it looks, and boy am I at loss for how he pulled this off other than rigging up a rollercoaster to a mountain he carved out.

The entire concluding sequence also brings up ideas of modern day slavery through spiritual exploitation, as when piecing together how this whole operation worked, it was clear that Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) had somehow devised a religion that demanded the killing off of adults, leaving the children as slaves, who could only look forward to when they’re sacrificed in order to go and join their parents and live a better life in heaven. At least that’s what I got. It’s a pretty heavy idea; with religion able to control the masses into doing terrible things all to be motivated by a better life in the hereafter.

BELOW: One of the all time most memorable scenes from action-adventure cinema 

Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page

Director: Louis Malle
Producer: James Bruce 
Cinematographer: Louis Malle

by Jon Cvack

After Malle’s God Country (1985) I was very excited to see his next film. This one focused on immigrants throughout the United States in 1986, exploring Koreans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russians, Slovakians, Indians, Cubans, Mexicans, opening on a Romanian jogger, running through the woods, who explains that, like most, he came to the country for the freedom and pursuit of happiness, which it seems safe to surmise that he found.

With immigration’s recent return to the spotlight, it’s films like this that make me realize how long this has been a divisive political issue within America. Malle gives a quote by Thomas Jefferson, admonishing against open borders and the dangers of immigration saying:

“The present desire of America is to produce rapid population by as great importations of foreigners as possible.  But is this founded in good policy? The advantage proposed is the multiplication of numbers. Now let us suppose (for example only) that, in this state, we could double our numbers in one year by the importation of foreigners; and this is a greater accession than the most sanguine advocate for emigration has a right to expect.  Then I say, beginning with a double stock, we shall attain any given degree of population only 27 years and 3 months sooner than if we proceed on our single stock. If we propose four millions and a half as a competent population for this state, we should be 54 1/2 years attaining it, could we at once double our numbers; and 81 3/4 years, if we rely on natural propagation, as may be seen by the following table.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Viriginia

Sorry for the length, as Malle doesn’t recite the entire quote, but I think it’s important to read the whole thing; which to be honest, having a read a few books about Jefferson, I don’t remember hearing anything about this, and had to confirm its veracity, as given how liberal this guy is considered, hearing what would now be conservative far right wing rhetoric described in one of his most popular books is a great discovery toward enriching the debate in regards to which side of the spectrum he was actually on.

Some people don’t want immigrants here because they’ll take their jobs, others don’t want them because they fear some type of cultural change. Regarding the first, I actually just came across a Doug Stanhope bit shared by an old professor which sums up the basic illogic of the idea; that is, if you’re scared about losing your job to someone who very likely doesn’t speak any English, owning only the clothes on their back, you’re probably not in too great a position (not saying all, or even most immigrants fit this description).

The hate is as old as humanity, as it’s far easier to blame the poor person being helped or the colored person that doesn’t speak any English for why you're struggling rather than to understand the complex ideas and reasons why inequality actually exists. Many businesses rely on cheap immigrant labor, but you don’t hear people attack the businesses for hiring them; which, at the very least, seems to offer the best solution for reform. It’s supply and demand, in which if you limit the supply of jobs, then the demand will go down. If there were no jobs here for immigrants, then less of them would come here. But still people blame the immigrants. 

The point is to demonstrate that the lack of logical consistency shows the arbitrariness of their discrimination. None of the reasons people give, whether because immigrants steal jobs or some of type of cultural appropriation, make any sense. And in this day of facts and lies, it’s difficult to even have a debate at all.

In a fascinating sequence a Border Guardsmen processes a Latino immigrant who was sneaking across the border in the dead of night. The immigrant tells the guard that he will be back over within twenty-four hours, and basically until his money has all run out. Recently, on an episode of "This American Life" I learned that by simply declaring refugee status whether due to political or religious persecution, you can stay over here. While they attempt to investigate, the process takes weeks, and the individuals can often escape into the country. I hate to describe this because it implies that more people are willing to lie than otherwise might. But the episode did highlight how difficult it is to really do anything about the ones coming over, other than to send them back. The same went for the Border Guardsmen, who simply drove the man back, to drop the gentleman off, who promised to attempt crossing again as soon as possible. I’m not sure what the answer is in this case. Perhaps the laws are too lax, in which case why not attempt to speed up the legal process - lower the bureaucracy and increase the policing. Most importantly, congress could introduce an infrastructure bill to get Americans back to work, so they don’t feel like they are competing for those lower paid jobs. It’s when the economy is struggling that immigrants are often the first to get blamed. I always wonder what people will say when the economy still sucks and we have a Great Big Wall.

A contradiction that always fascinates me is knowing that everyone in this country is an ancestor of an immigrant. Malle allows us to see that most of these families simply wanted a better life. To think of how easy it once was to migrate to the states and that the country we have 100% based upon this migration is incredible to imagine in this modern debate.Thomas Jefferson has a point in that culture will shift, and before you call foul, think of how much we destroyed the Native American culture. We were immigrants who came in openly, and we wiped them to pieces.

I can’t help but roll my eyes when people say we have laws, when those laws were only put in place by people who demanded we tighten our borders. They ran into a castle, looking for safety, and demanded they close the portcullis. I honestly don’t even know where I lie on the spectrum anymore, except that we need some regulations, we should punish repeat offenders, we should continue to accept those in need of help, and do our best to accommodate everyone looking for a better life. The thing is that only could work with a healthy economy, and I think until we get back on track toward equalizing the field, doing something to resolve income inequality, we are going to have far larger problems on our hands.

I know I didn’t talk much about the film, but I think the point of Malle’s story is that demonstrating that these people are just like you - they want what’s best for their family, willing to leave everything and everyone they know behind to create a better life in America. I’ve always been proud of that. That people could journey from all over the world, escape the wildest of places, all to come create something of themselves here. Now that it’s getting more difficult, there seems a natural defense to look at what’s different. Malle’s great talent is to show what makes us all the same. We all have beliefs, some are successful, others aren’t, some have wives and children, others have generations beneath them, reinvented in ways once unimaginable.

We see how Miami’s Cuban identity was brought about the refugees, who soon comprised 60% of the city that we now consider one of the most luxurious. There’s a Vietnamese Doctor who’s one of the only Vietnamese Doctors in Nebraska, having gone there for an exchange program and never wishing to return, and he’s as boring and humorless as any other suburban upper middle class doctor. We meet a former El Salvadoran General who was a part of their fierce military - now living in a magnificent mansion, filled with expensive art and furniture, with his grandchildren running all around.

Malle shows that there truly is nothing different between us and them: some are boring, some are funny, some are annoying, some are wildly intelligent and fascinating - and yet so many Americans want to look at their skin color, or where they’re from and assume the worst intentions. If they only took a second to imagine if their own government fell into the hands of an opposition they disagreed with, they might too want to escape and hope a country like America would take them in. I think one of the largest problems in today’s politics, and probably existing forever, is viewing different people and their beliefs as monoliths.  It’s a film like this that you could show to the other side. Without diving too heavily into the politics, it simply shows that we’re all people with dreams.

BELOW: Doug Stanhope making a dang good point

Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer:Jeffrey Boam; Story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes
Cinematographer: Douglas Slocombe
Producer: Robert Watts

by Jon Cvack

Every year throughout my teens, all the way up through high school, I would kick off summer by watching the Indiana Jones trilogy on VHS. I didn’t really have a favorite film from the series, since as being a kid they all felt part of the same story. The Temple of Doom remains the film that I often first associate with the trilogy, as my mother and sister hated the bug scene, which etched itself into memory as one of the first scenes I recall anxiously expecting from a movie - in this case reaching your hand inside a bug infested hole in a wall - always hearing my mother’s voice say “Oh my god” when the scene began.  

The films epitomized summertime in youth, where alongside Back to the Future, they provided some of the greatest adventure stories a kid could ask for. Like most others, I found a jump rope to act as my whip, digging through my closet full of toy guns, and grabbing my revolver to battle the Nazis. Thinking back, it was films like this that must have planted the seed of my love for movies - offering exciting escape into a world that was both fantastical and unfamiliar, and yet which all felt so real. These films serve as one of the finest examples in demonstrating how the highest level of filmmaking craft can tap into anyone’s subconscious; where even young kids, who know nothing of how the films are technically achieved, agree that it’s an incredible film. It shows that craft of the highest magnitude is what creates widespread praise, allowing the piece to shift from an ephemeral moment and into becoming part of the culture.

While I’m not positive, I’m pretty sure I haven’t watched either this film or The Temple of Doom since high school, having possibly seen Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was in college. I recall wanting to wait until I bought or had the DVD set, which then changed to wanting the BluRay, always putting it off and waiting for the right summertime moment. Given that it’s January 30 (at the time of writing this), I’m not sure why I wanted to watch the film, other than that I’ve been working long hours on a few deadlines and needed some old fashioned escape.

I knew I hadn’t seen this movie in a long time when I thought I might have put on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for a second, as I didn’t recognize any of the intro. We’re following some type of Boy Scout club, as a young Indiana Jones and his bloviated friend follow a group of treasure hunters deep into a cavern, where the men dig up and steal the golden Cross of Coronado. Calmly and collectively, Indiana Jones pulls a snake off his friend’s lap and tells him to get the troupe. The friend leaves and Indiana Jones jumps down, grabs the cross and runs out, finding the troupe gone. He hops onto a horse and gallops toward a train pulling a bunch of circus cars, thus entering into one of the greatest action-adventure intros of all time.

As though straight out of a Buster Keaton movie - in wide we see a Indiana running from one of the men. Although the very real train is moving very fast, they’re held in center frame, running along the cars like a treadmill. It doesn’t cut until Indiana heads into the lizard car, where inside there’s a bunch of crocodiles and snakes. He hangs up on the rafters, and we know where this is going - and making us all the more anxious as we just saw that Indiana doesn’t yet have his snake fear. Of course he falls in, covered in the creatures, and then escapes. He then heads up to the train roof, and again looking all exceptionally real, not at all like it was done in some green screen, Indiana fights with a man while a rhino slams its horn through the train car. It all culminates in him heading to the magic car, where he makes a very obvious hiding choice in a magic box as the man comes inside, only to create one of the coolest shots of the movies, as in a single take, where again on a moving train - Indiana disappears through the magic box, the camera pans with the man and out the rear window where we see Indiana running off. It’s a scene like this where the moment, you realize you have launched off and are about to enter into a different world.

Scenes like this are most similar to the grand musical numbers that often open the genre (and strange that fans of one side typically don’t like the other). What makes the scene work is that we are constantly moving through a situation that makes perfect sense, no matter how ridiculous the situation is. From the grand desert to the cavern to chasing a train and then onto a train, but not just any train, but a circus train whose every car offers a different obstacle. All so often action scenes seem to throw away the logic of simple movement - let alone story - constructing how a character gets from one place to the other in order to accommodate the next big scene. We can laugh and they’re fun, but the world immediately feels fake in such cases. The opening of Indiana Jones shows Spielberg’s magnificent ability to show rather than tell information, as so much of the scene exists without words, and yet the amount of information and story we get is as full as any great dialogue.

This extends throughout the film, where Indiana Jones finally meets up with his father Henry Jones (Sean Connery) in one of the greatest father/son roles of all time. Meeting Henry for the first time, completely oblivious to Indiana’s safety or injury, he makes the boy count one through twenty in Latin. The Sheriff then shows up, demanding the cross back. After all we just experienced it didn’t matter. And in that moment of defeat, we receive the final piece that makes Indiana Jones who he is - the hat, received not from some great and noble man, but from a corrupt treasure hunter who inspired Indiana to do what he did. This could be watched as a short film and stopped right there.

Luckily it doesn’t, though, as just as the young Indiana puts on the hat and bows his head, we cut with the Spielberg touch to Harrison Ford, head bowed, hat toward us, fighting men on a ship that’s about to explode. This was another great touch, as the white-suited mustachioed man was seen in the background during the flashback, now battling modern Jones, aboard a ship that’s about explode. Jones is victorious and he finally retrieves the cross that inspired his entire career.

Check back for Part 2...

BELOW: One of the greatest action movie intros
​
Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page
​ 

Director: Marshall Brickman
Writer: Thomas Baum and Marshall Brickman
Cinematographer: Billy Williams
Producer:  Marshall Brickman and Jennifer Ogden

by Jon Cvack

Given that I was using my girlfriend’s streaming account, I couldn’t remember whether I’d seen this film before. Needing something lighter, I started it up and was excited to recall the storyline about a kid that builds a nuclear bomb in his bedroom. It had to have been about eight years since I’ve seen this thing, as I could hardly remember much beyond certain images - like the neon green goo and the frisbees tossed down the hallway. Although heavily influenced by War Games (1983), the movie stands strong on its own, and I was left wondering why I only gave this ⅗ starts back whenever I first saw.

The story starts with John Lithgow as Dr. John Mathewson, new Head Researcher at a government funded laser manufacturing lab Medatomic - where John and his team have just developed the most potent form of plutonium ever created, coming in the form of a neo green goo, controlled by a robot positioned inside a glass cage. Although clearly influenced by War Games’ [far superior] intro, The Manhattan Project hooks you right in, reminding me that this film wasn’t some goofy teen comedy, but a fairly serious and eerie story which treated all of its characters as mature and complex characters.

After the foreboding intro, we meet the precocious and highly intelligent high school student Paul Stephens (Christopher Collet) whose penchant for science rivals even his teachers. In the first scene, we see him using the lab equipment to concoct an explosive material which can explode upon the slightest impact. He places some on the door of his rival student - a square and dandy young man, who while knowing the answer to everything, has hardly any of the passion. The best part about Stephens is his ability to make big brains seem cool. He dresses in sneakers, old t-shirts and jeans, he’s funny with a smart ass attitude and thick sarcasm. We don’t always like the guy, as his ego often cause him to say or do things that make us want to slap him across the face.  

After school, an attractive and sweet girl Jenny Anderman (Cynthia Nixon) invites Paul to come over to “study” in as a direct a way as possible. Once again, I was impressed by the honesty of the scene - the movie isn’t laughing at the way kids talk about sex, taking it all that seriously, or attempting to talk around what couples often do when they study. As I say often say again and again, especially about such stories as Super 8 or Stranger Things, many modern films condescend toward the kid characters, having them all talk about serious things far too seriously, leaving out the more mature and nuanced conversations kids often have. Not everything needs to drift constantly between melodrama and humor as classic films like The Goonies, War Games, and E.T. demonstrated.

Dr. Mathewson meets Paul’s mom, realtor Elizabeth (Jill Eikenberry), while looking for an apartment. Now that I piece together the timeline I realize that either Dr. Mathewson was homeless for quite awhile, or he created that plutonium with lightning speed, as when he meets Elizabeth Stephens (Jill Eikenberry), he’s looking for a place to live; not caring what it looks like so long as it can provide enough room for him and his books. With the perfect touch of creepiness, Lithgow flirts with Elizabeth, suggesting a date, and getting turned down. Paul then enters the office, instantly suspicious. However, when John notices Paul’s interest in science, he proposes to take him to see his Medatomics’ new laser, so long as he can get a date with the mother. It’s weird, but they all agree.

At the lab, Paul notices the neon green goo, stored in its sophisticated robotic glass cage, then seeing the lasers, in which John lights up a cigar via the laser beam that leaves you wondering if the 80s allowed smoking in science labs. Outside, Paul discovers a five leaf clover, leading him to think that something’s just not right with the town’s Nuclear Production Facility. When he talks to Jenny, we see director Marshall Brickman accomplish a really cool and simple blocking exercise (see the entry on Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)), where Jenny and Paul make their way between the living room and kitchen.

Not to dwell too heavily on this, but for anyone wondering what television often misses that films don’t it’s this exact element. I’m not talking a "West Wing" walk-and-talk, so much as a clever and subtle way for the characters to interact with one another while utilizing the environment. Rather than a shot reverse shot between the two characters the couch, Brickman allows the takes to roll (and he’s not even known for being a director, but rather a screenwriter). The see culminates in Jenny asking for evidence of the lab’s nefarious activity, to which Paul pulls out the five leaf clover. Jenny asks what we’re all thinking - namely, what’s one clover really mean; to which Paul then pulls out an entire handful. The moment provided the film’s finest layer of suspense.

So follows an incredible heist sequence of Paul and Jenny sneaking into the laboratory in order to get some of the plutonium. By now you accept that Paul isn’t just smart for a high school student, but for a Stanford Phd candidate. And while some might find this distracting, I love these types of characters. Combined with a very real and developed personality, it’s characters like Paul that could inspire younger kids who might be turned off by how boring science can be. Paul makes it seem fun and badass, especially with the tricks he thinks of - such as during the frisbee scene. Having only a vague recollection of what occurred, Paul throws frisbees down two hallways to set off the laser alarms. I’m figuring, “Well, of course they’ll find the frisbees” to which Paul then races down one hallway to pick up the frisbee, then heads down the other hallway in order to grab the second frisbee and make his way down the lab. For anyone thinking this was obvious, sorry for wasting your time. I thought this was an clever moment.

And then Paul decides to make a nuclear bomb with the loot. It was here that I was kind of pulled out of the story, which really played as a plot-serving device in which the military comes into town in order to retrieve the device. The problem is that Paul has demonstrated his supreme intelligence so well at this point that his ego must have grasped the danger of building a bomb; not just to himself, but the entire community. And while maybe Brickman wanted to explore hubris, I just failed to buy it; especially when you learn the movie was influenced by the 1977 “A-Bomb Kid”; a student at Princeton who wrote on a paper how to just build a bomb. There’s no evidence the “A-Bomb Kid” ever built the device, probably because he grasped how stupid it was do even try such a thing. Unfortunately, a paper doesn’t make for as good a movie. I just felt that there was a far better way to get to the same conclusion - either because he found instructions for a mysterious device that happened to be a nuclear bomb, or contained a more unhinged personality. None of these ideas are good, but at least they make sense. Paul’s ability to sneak into the lab demonstrated his understanding of danger and how to manage it. Up until building the bomb, he was smart and strategic, fully aware of the dangers he’d have to overcome. If his character was a paranoid schizophrenic, whose scientific mind became overwhelmed with the imaginings of a nuclear holocaust, it might have made sense.

Just like War Games, Red Dawn, or Back to the Future - the film captures the 1980s Nuclear age paranoia and just like Back to the Future it involves plutonium, leaving me to wonder if Marshall Brickman pulled directly from Zemeckis, or they they just both so happened to find plutonium as an interesting plot device. Considering this was released just shy of a year later, I’m suspecting the latter. However, The Manhattan Project’s case, it was a far less successful, hardly making back even a quarter of its budget - leaving me kind of surprised.

Ebert had even given the film four stars, and I’d say while maybe not as good as War Games, it’s definitely a close second, containing an intelligence that extends all the way up and to the last scene. Perhaps it was both War Games and Back to the Future’s wild success that left little interest for additions to the genre. Unfortunately, Marshall Brickman would only go on to make one more movie after The Manhattan Project with the television movie “Sister Mary Explain It All” (which looks absolutely ridiculous) shot fifteen years later. Though he did write Eastwood’s Jersey Boys in 2014, it leaves me wondering what else he would have done if this film had proved to be a bit more successful. I think in a few years, as the 80s become all the more vintage, it might finally find a larger audience.

BELOW: Literally nothing on YouTube beyond the trailer, so here ya go
​
Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page

​

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa & Masato Ide
Cinematographer: Takao Saitō
Producer: Akira Kurosawa and Tomoyuki Tanaka

by Jon Cvack

Seeing Ran (1985) for the first time was as close to a religious experience as one gets. Kurosawa is one of those filmmakers that I deliberately took my time getting to, knowing that as my palate grew I would come to better appreciate his work. It was really about three years ago, during my Netflix “Director's Project” that I realized both how many incredible films this guy has made and how many I hadn’t seen (fifteen total above a 3.8, and that was after the three or four I’d already seen up until that point). Compared to his Golden Age between 1948 and 1965, Kurosawa would only make three films from 1965 to 1980; the year of Kagemusha’s release. He was widely regarded as washed up during this period, only to make his triumphant return that would extend for the rest of his life.

Having reread King Lear shortly before seeing Ran, I was excited to check out see Kurosawa’s version of the play. Reading about the background of the entire production - and Kurosawa’s Golden Era in particular - made the film all the more powerful, as it demonstrated that like any great work of art, you can often feel the amount of heart that went into the project. The film was not just exceptionally and flawlessly crafted and not just one of the greatest adaptations of all time - it was the culmination of an artist’s life; offering a profound reflection on who Kurosawa was, his successes and failures, and what it all mattered. Never has a film with such extravagant action felt so deeply personal.

With that in mind I was excited to get around to Kagemusha; another epic war film made five years prior to Ran. In many ways it all feels like a trial run to his magnum opus, as it contains a strikingly similar story and structure, particularly the focus on three feuding clans; Kurosawa’s unprecedented mega-epic scenes (featuring thousands of extras); and the concluding moment where Kagemusha (a Japanese term for political decoy), looks aged by years, gazing upon the slaughter that took place largely because of him. It’s easy to see how this would evolve, and how Shakespeare might have offered him the muse he needed to fully extend the story. It’s clear that Kagemusha contains many of the same demons Kurosawa would later explore in Ran; in this case the idea of impostership, unfit for the powerful responsibilities bestowed upon him.

Kagemusha focuses on Takeda Shingen (Tatsuya Nakadai), who meets his thieving brother Nobukado (Tsutomu Yamazaki) that happens to bear a striking resemblance. Shingen recruits Nobukado as his body double in the emergency case of requiring one, except when Shingen is shot and mortally wounded, demanding his commanders keep his death a secret for three years, Nobukado is forced to take his role. All the while, Shingen rivals -  Oda Nobunaga (Daisuke Ryu) , Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Uesugi Kenshin - have varying ideas about Shingen’s passing.

Nobuko is presented before his commanders, who agree to sell the idea to the community. All is fine except for Shingen’s grandson who refuses to buy the doubling, leading to the most fascinating relationship of the film, as Nobuko develops a genuine love for his grand nephew, who soon looks past the differing appearances. Nobuko isn’t to ride Shingen’s horse, though, as the untameable animal would never bow down to any man beyond his former master. When one of Shingen’s son, Katsuyori grows jealous that an impostor is playing the role of their father - a position he covets - Katsuyori tests Nobuko by asking for his military advice before the generals, to which he admonishes them with the facile advice to stand like mountains, impressing the council.


It leads to the great Battle of Takatenjin, where the rival Oda and Tokugawa clans all battle with one another, and due to the impostor’s extemporaneous strategy, they end up triumphant. Overconfident, the impostor attempts to ride Shingen’s horse, quickly falling off, revealing his identity to all, who then banish him from the kingdom.

Katsuyori finally takes over and leads his men to the epic Battle of Nagashino, where along with Takatenjin, were two scenes up there with the greatest war films - Saving Private Ryan ('98), Braveheart ('95), Paths of Glory ('57), Ran (of course), you name it. Katsuyori is butchered by the Oda Clan and his army of rifled men, as the exiled Nobuko watches from the weeds. The image almost eerily resembled Ichimonji and his defeated, hopeless and heartbroken. In a glorious moment, as great as any scene in Braveheart, Nobuko takes up a sword and charges toward Oda’s men, getting shot within seconds and falling into a river whose current drags him along, past his fūrinkazan (a Japanese Battle flag that derived its slogan from Sun Tzu’s Art of War) which translates as - “In raiding and plundering be like fire; be immovable like a mountain.”

Like all great films - and said time and time again - this is the type of movie that I assume gets better the more you watch it; allowing you peel layer after layer with each viewing. Thinking back, I never really grasped what was occurring between Katsuyori and Nobuko’s “Mountain Monologue” and that Nobuko might have mounted Shingen’s horse out of hubris. He confused chance with nature, believing that just like in the beginning, with luck leading to his meeting with Shingen, he could gamble once again. His failure to respect the horse led to his downfall. It left me wondering about chance and nature, and their relationship to the immovable mountain. We’re not sure if Nobuko would have won at Nagashino, but if he accepted his early fate rather than challenging nature he could have survived and maybe saved the kingdom. The State of Nature is not to be tampered with or pursued.

Returning to Kurosawa’s life and what Ran all meant regarding Kurosawa’s personal life, I can’t help piecing the prelude in this. In many ways, just as he was ostensibly Ichimonji, so he was Nobuko, in this case understanding the privileged position he had entered, unfortunately destroyed by making a wrong decision. I wonder if anyone knows what Kurosawa’s horse was?

While not my favorite of his, that’s simply because the bar’s so high. There are dozen more films that far outshine this story. But in terms of containing the most heart, and what Kurosawa explored within himself, I think this is a fascinating piece.

BELOW: The amount of actors, set design, wardrobe, and action in this scene is absolutely staggering 
​
Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page
​

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer:Paul Schrader  and Mardik Martin; Raging Bull: My Story by Jake LaMotta, Joseph Carter, and Peter Savage
Cinematographer: Michael Chapman
Producer: Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff

by Jon Cvack

Every time I think about this movie I picture the first Cinema Studies class I took in high school, in which our teacher Mr. Powers could only show us select scenes. When a student asked what it was rated, he looked at the box and said PG with a grin, leaving me furious over why we couldn’t watch the whole thing. Obviously, not seeing the movie, I didn’t really get the joke.

Like any great film it gets better with age, as the idea of this coming out in 1980 blows my mind more now than any other time I’ve watched it. After my love affair with Italian Neo-Realism, buying Rossellini's Criterion War Trilogy and working my way through each movie from some book my sister bought me about Italian Neo-Realism (Bitter Rice was one of my favorites), I admire the genre’s ability to capture and document the history of post-WWII Europe and the devastating effect it had upon towns and people. The classic story of Rossellini using short ends of film to finish filming Rome, Open City might have been one of the first examples of Rodriguez/Linklater inspiration to aspiring filmmakers everywhere. The stories are often simple, focused on the poor and working class, which had largely been ignored up until that point. The classic note that Scorsese had written to film students contains at least three of these films. I recall an interview with the guy saying how he’d always get excited to buy the latest tv guide to find the Italian films he could watch on the small 10” television his family owned. When people want to say they’re pissed that movie theaters are going away and it’ll hurt filmmakers, consider that this is the format where one of the greatest fell in love with cinema.

Seeing all his usual supporting performers - Joseph Bono, Frank Vincent, Frank Adonis - placed within a flawlessly recreated Italian Neo Realistic style left me in awe. And I know that that sounds like one of the most pretentious and uninspired things I could probably ever say in an essay about Scorsese, but to be able to understand what he accomplished is so fucking cool when you know where it stems from. It looks like you’re watching a European film from the early 1950s. And if that’s still pretentious, it looks like you’re watching a movie made in a completely different time period. A Christmas Story would accomplish the same thing three years later, looking like it was filmed in the 1950s. I actually think this is what a movie like Allied did so poorly, in that it didn’t try and make itself look like it was from its Hitchcock/Reed WWII spy thriller. It just took the storyline, but none of the style, when the equation needed to be flipped. Both A Christmas Story and Raging Bull are visual time machines. They brought in fresh stories and placed them within an older style. Thinking back, a few other films would accomplish this from then on: The Master, Buffalo ‘88, It Follows, and No are a handful I can name

It leaves you wondering how that conversation must have gone, saying you want to make a boxing movie with a classical style, shot in mostly black and white. It’s an easy joke, but it’s faith in this type of material that leaves me thinking those were better days. The risk of making something like this today would just be too high. It then leaves me kind of sad thinking that there is another Scorsese out there who wants to do an equally ambitious project, and are things so bad that he can’t? It makes me appreciate the movie all the more so - for being able to even exist at all.

Of course there’s the characters, and their fusillade of profanity and misogyny, which like Taxi Driver and Travis Bickle, leaves me wondering why so many people identify with this movie? It’s been so long since I’ve seen this that it provided that strange shift in perspective that some movies do, where once you related to one side of the story or characters and now the other. I always remembered a bunch of badass dialogue and incredible boxing scenes. I never really grasped how sad LaMotta’s character actually was. Contrary to all the discipline he has to train, Jake has an absolute inability to control his wandering thoughts about Vickie (Cathy Moriarty). He distrusts everyone, even Joey, where in that classic scene Jake accuses his brother of fucking his wife. Throughout all this, Vickie plays along, trying her hardest to be good to him, all while he continues to abuse her. I loved watching Moriarty explain herself truthfully, with a calm and objective tone, simply laying out the facts, which seemed to get under Jake’s skin even more.

It almost goes with mediocre books making great movies; the same goes for past celebrities (whether Raging Bull or Boogie Nights). The movie is far greater than the man, and yet it’s scenes with that man that we celebrate. What is it about De Niro's performance that draws us in to watch, no matter how far it goes? He is an impotent man, and we’re watching him implode, with each scene between him and Joey taking our breath away. There’s a truth that’s captured; honoring the spirit of Neo-Realism (had to refer to it one more time), along with the photography, score, performances, style that all add up, capturing that vision, to something that feels so real; on the precipice between humor and tragedy, gently tottering back and forth between the two.

Raging Bull is a movie that leaves you wondering if there’ll ever be another film like it. To hold such a strong place in culture - and for being built on such artistry and craftsmanship - deserve every bit of praise. It leaves me nostalgic. Not for a time, but for a possibility. Like the greatest films, it inspires you to want to make something.

BELOW:  Few filmmakers can combine such an obscure style with great performances and create a scene that ranks amongst the greatest of all time
​
Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page

​

Director: Nicolas Roeg
Writer: Terry Johnson
Cinematographer: Peter Hannan
Producer: Alexander Stuart and Jeremy Thomas

by Jon Cvack

I was looking through a list of the best chamber drama films (I can’t seem to find the link) and came across this one, which was ranked far higher in the subgenre's pantheon than is deserving. I’ve been working on a similar story setting and I was wondering how many films I’ve missed. Insignificance sounded weird - something about characters per the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Joe Dimaggio, Joe McCarthy, and Albert Einstein, who aren’t actually those characters, all meeting in a hotel room was enough to pique my interest.

The beginning starts out exciting, flashing across the many departments of a film set, clearly, but not specifically The Seven Year Itch, as Monroe is about to step above the train tunnel vent. This is edited against Einstein in his room doing math; Senator Joe McCarthy drinking in a bar before walking around town; Monroe later being driven around the city and buying toys; Joe Dimaggio at a different bar (or maybe the same as before), with some famous piece of Marilyn Monroe Art on the wall next to him. Soon they all end up at a hotel.

The first meeting involves McCarthy, who I didn’t even know was McCarthy until I paused the movie halfway through and looked it up on Wikipedia. I’m more embarrassed that I didn’t know it was Tony Curtis. He accuses Einstein of communistic ties, threatening to destroy the single copy of his work on the General Theory of Relativity, written in notes scattered across Einstein’s apartment. McCarthy then leaves, Monroe enters and explains his theories out loud, using the toys she purchased to demonstrate ideas on the speed of light and time travel. She’s about to sleep with Einstein for a reason I don’t understand and then Dimaggio comes to the motel and the two start fighting. The next day McCarthy wakes up Monroe, with Dimaggio gone and McCarthy thinking Monroe is a prostitute. He then punches her in the stomach and tosses Einstein’s papers out the window. Einstein returns and laughs about the papers, pulls out a watch, revealing it's 8:15; the time the Atom Bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and the entire hotel room explodes, as though straight out of Sarah's hallucination in Terminator 2, except a longer sequence.

Here was a film I couldn’t wait to return to Roger Ebert for, a bit nervous that maybe I completely lost the point and was due for some embarrassing insight. Sure enough Ebert sums it up perfectly, “I am not quite sure, however, what the point of the movie is.” Neither am I. Allowing myself to speculate, I think there’s clearly an idealization of the past. A fascinating bit of trivia involved Theresa Russell who was reluctant to take on the role on account of much the image had been hijacked with popular culture, with Madonna embracing the persona right around the time of release. Even with that fear in mind, and although doing a pretty good job, there’s something about the dress and high pitched ditzy voice that just don’t feel genuine (even Michelle Williams had a tough time pulling it off in My Week with Marilyn). Still, by placing Russell into the epitome of Monroe-vian stereotypes, embracing the sexuality as much as the personality, we see a time when a woman like this was worshipped that cannot exist today - or even in the year 1950, as television was starting to make its splash and the movie screen was beginning to deal with significant competition.

The same goes for Einstein, who leaves us wondering when the next great mathematician will come along to make discoveries that will inspire a generation. And yet we remember that his involvement led to splitting the atom, and given what he provided, it’s strange that McCarthy would accuse him of communistic affiliations, or that Joe Dimaggio was there at all, though I guess he too is a piece of the past that many want to return to - not that there haven’t been great or greater ball players since. Then the world blows up. The end of a generation or something, or maybe the end of those idealized 1950s when everything seemed easier and better, caught by Happy Days whose run would extend midway through the 80s. While before it was all about sex, math, and baseball, now it’s about weapons that can destroy the entire world, and the parodying of those figures we once held in such high esteem, who serve as no more than symbols now. I could keep going, stretching what I think it all meant, I just don’t think any of it is all that interesting or adding up to anything special. It was a film that you knew would be slow to finish within the first ten minutes. It was such a great set up - imagining these characters all together, talking. Instead it dove in the opposite direction, avoiding substance in favor of abstraction, getting lost in it’s own exploration, never really returning back to anything.

BELOW: A very long apocalyptic sequence

Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on our contact page
​