Film Review - Dragonwyck

Film #11 of 2010 - Dragonwyck

Starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price, Dragonwyck is a gothic melodrama about a young woman named Miranda Wells (Tierney) who lives with her family on a farm in Connecticut who is summoned to Dragonwyck, the estate on the Hudson River in New York where her distant cousin Nicholas Van Ryn (Price) lives in order for her to be a governess to his young daughter. Van Ryn, who is wealthy, embraces his power as a landowner and is generally a lunatic. Of course, he falls in love with Miranda, and therefore needs to do something about his current wife.

Honestly, there was nothing spectacular about this film, in fact, it was pretty average. I did like the mid-19th century gothic aspect of the film, and Price and Tierney always make a good team, but overall, the story was fairly weak and uninteresting, with characters that seemed to just disappear from the plot if they needed to. Dragonwyck was sufficiently creepy, especially when Price would go into his madman trances, but I think the most significant thing about the film was that it was the first film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who, 4 years later, would go on to write and direct one of my favorite films of all time, All About Eve.

In the words of my stepmom, a fellow classic film lover, who remarked when I asked her about Dragonwyck, "It's just okay, but it's a film you need to see once." I couldn't agree more.

2 1/2 out of 5 stars

Film Review - Sherlock Holmes

Film #10 of 2010 - Sherlock Holmes

Directed by Guy Ritchie, (Snatch, Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels) Sherlock Holmes is technically a reboot of the Sherlock Holmes film series, though in this era, the best known of them, the old Sherlock Holmes films of the 1940's starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, could be classified better as a slightly longer than one hour drama. Seriously, I got caught up in a marathon of them a few weekends ago on Turner Classic Movies and before I knew it, I had watched about 6 movies in 7 hours. Starring Robert Downey Jr. as the title character and co-starring Jude Law as Dr. Watson, the film focuses on a young, active and fairly depressed Holmes who, despite his general ennui, finds himself drawn to the mystery of a black magic artist named Lord Blackwood who appears to have risen from the dead after being executed for his crimes. Rachel McAdams is Irene Adler, a petty thief who happens to be Holmes' ex, who is working as a double agent for a mysterious patron.

I actually enjoyed Sherlock Holmes a little more than I expected to. I have to admit I had some trepidation after some of his missteps this decade (RocknRolla, marriage to Madonna, Swept Away...) but based on my deep appreciation for his "good" movies (the aforementioned Snatch and Lock, Stock) I was more than willing to give it a shot. Plus, one can't seem to go wrong anymore when Robert Downey Jr. stars in a picture. He definitely delivers in this film, giving us a vital, physical and incredibly flawed Holmes, and though Jude Law seems to be kind of a douche in real life, I have a lot of respect for him as an actor. I loved his dour, though not blundering take on Watson. One character that I considered to be superfluous and only there to drive the plot to the inevitable conclusion and transition to the sequel was McAdams' Irene. It wasn't egregious to the point of complete annoyance, but she did absolutely nothing for me.

As far as the film itself goes, Ritchie did a great job. The cinematography was great and the scenes that were obviously CGI didn't look fake; in fact, it was neat to see Victorian England in the state it was in. I really enjoyed seeing some of Ritchie's signature style pop in once in a while, namely when Holmes was engaged in a fight; the stylish super slow-mo is always an attention getter, when done right, and regardless of how bad the rest of one of his movies can be, Ritchie is able to deliver those kinds of scenes masterfully, in an age when that kind of style is so overdone. I have to give a special mention to the final credits of the film, which were like a work of art, almost like crude watercolor paintings. Title sequences, whether opening or closing credits, are so often overlooked, and sometimes they are as good, if not better than the rest of the film, or significantly add to the general production. (Off the top of my head, the opening and closing credits to Se7en come to mind.)

On a negative note, I think that, while the pacing was decent enough, the film was altogether too long and I think would have benefited from about 15 minutes being chopped from it. Overall, however, Sherlock Holmes turned out to be a good film that set up a franchise that I would definitely be interested to see in the future.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Film Review - Up in the Air

Film #9 of 2010 - Up in the Air

Jason Reitman, director of Up in the Air has made three films in a row that deal with different subject matters (relationships, politics) but all three have at least one thing in common: they are all really, really good.

I loved the premise of Up in the Air: corporate hatchet man Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a man who travels among thousands daily, yet lives a life of complete solitude. The 1/3 of the year he isn't traveling is spent in a sparsely furnished apartment in Omaha, NE, where he feels an oppressive weight every day he's not jetting off somewhere else. His life in the air is a science; it's his life on the ground that he can't cope with. Throwing a wrench into his well-tuned life is the entry of Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a fresh faced young dynamo with bright ideas to make the company she and Clooney work for more efficient and cost-effective - she wants to automate the firing process, which would involve the fired person sitting in front of a terminal getting fired remotely from Omaha. With his own job as it stands being threatened, Bingham is instructed to mentor Keener and show her the ropes of what he does, and the complexities of human interaction during the process. Along the way, Bingham meets and beds Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a fellow constant traveler whose no-strings-attached approach to a relationship appeals to Bingham's philosophy and lifestyle.

Up in the Air is an excellent film that does the nearly impossible: it is extremely entertaining, compelling and full of emotion, but at the same time, has a complexity that is refreshing. More than one person I know who have seen this film have mulled it over for days after they saw it, and even though they were favorable to the film initially, found that the more they thought about it, the more they liked it. The performances in the film weren't so much "performances" as "players", because they were incredibly natural. George Clooney, god love him, has somehow become one of my favorite contemporary actors, something I've fought tooth and nail for years, until I came to the realization that while I don't go to see a film because George Clooney is in it, I go to see all George Clooney films because they look really good. I couldn't help but think during the film how much he has become the modern Cary Grant. Anna Kendrick, who I know from nothing (I understand she's in the Twilight series which, thus far, I haven't touched with a ten foot pole) was awesome in her role as the young over-achiever, and Vera Farmiga, another one of those "oh her" type of actresses, was perfect and completely believable in her role.

This is a film about relationships; friendships, love, even the three main characters made up a makeshift family, and Up in the Air is a very "grown up" movie. Reitman and Sheldon Turner turned out an excellent script that wasn't full of hip jargon like his previous film, Juno, but more of a believable tale that I'm sure many people can and will relate to on some level. Jason Reitman has become a director that, until a few missteps occur, I will follow and look forward to his work. Somehow, based on his track record, I don't think those missteps will happen any time soon, however. This guy is the real deal, and I loved this movie.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

Film Review - Leave Her to Heaven

Film #8 Leave Her to Heaven

This was not the first time I've seen the film Leave Her to Heaven, but it is a film that stands up to multiple viewings. Starring Gene Tierney as Ellen Berent Harland, a woman with (putting it mildly) a few screws loose and an Electra complex with her late father, who meets and quickly marries Richard (Cornel Wilde), a writer who resembles her father. In order to have Richard all to herself, she blocks out (some, permanently) members of her family and his; scheming to keep Richard's love, at all costs. Leave Her to Heaven also co-stars Jeanne Crain as Tierney's adopted sister Ruth, whom Ellen views as a threat.

I've always considered Leave Her to Heaven to be a somewhat hidden gem, because so much Gene Tierney love goes to the film Laura (another great film). Tierney is really convincing as a seriously mentally ill person (I understand she struggled with mental illness in her "real" life later on) and the lengths she goes to are astounding and really creepy. Tierney is a beautiful actress, and though I think that she coasts on her presence in a few of her other films, she really shows some chops in this film. I've never understood the appeal of Cornel Wilde; he has a face that looks like he's perpetually whining, and it's really hard to get past that. Crain is really good; she has the ability to express strength and vulnerability at the same time, and was able to showcase her talents despite the tour de force performance by Tierney.

Filmed in vivid technicolor that always reminds me of a Douglas Sirk film, Leave Her to Heaven could have just as easily been filmed in black and white and labeled film noir, but I think it would have gotten further lost in film history had it not broken out of noir label and forged its own identity as a suspense-melodrama. Truthfully, when I watched this film, I was sick in bed and only put it on because I'd seen it before and thought I could probably just fall asleep to it. Instead, I found that I not only stayed up and watched the entire movie, but was completely riveted: in my opinion, the sign of a great film.

4 out of 5 stars

Film Weekend

With being sick for a while and then work completely monopolizing any part of my brain that has thinking ability, I have been terribly lax with my blog, and hope to catch up on my reviews, possibly as soon as tomorrow.

However, I will NOT be blogging this weekend, or at the very least, not on Saturday because Chris and I will be making our semi-annual drive to Madison to go to the Sundance theater to see a few movies that we can't see around here without jumping through significant hoops. On the menu for Saturday: Crazy Heart, Broken Embraces and A Single Man. I have to admit that I'm the least excited about Crazy Heart, but I've heard from several people that it's a good movie, so I plan to enjoy the experience.

Reviews to come are:

Leave Her to Heaven
Dragonwyck
Up in the Air
Sherlock Holmes

More 2010 Films

One of the rules of my personal 100 Movies challenge is that it can include films watched in 2010 that you've seen before. So far this week I watched 2 films with Chris that I've seen before, and while I normally would write a review (even if it's just a capsule review) they were both on my Top 10 list of 2009 so I'm not going to write another blurb about them:

Film #6 of 2010 - Up

Film #7 of 2010 - Night at the Museum 2

Film Review - And Then There Were None

Film #5 of 2010

Based on Agatha Christie's play "Ten Little Indians", And Then There Were None (1945) stars Barry Fitzgerald and Walter Huston as two of ten guests invited to an island by U.N. Owen (get it?) because they were involved in various crimes in the past, mostly murder. Owen doesn't show up, but the guests get murdered one by one according to the traditional "Ten Little Indians" rhyme. It's up to the quickly diminishing guest list to find out which among them is the murderer.

I've actually seen this film a couple of times in the past two decades because my Mom used to read Agatha Christie novels then pass them on to me. When I was 9 or 10, "Ten Little Indians" was one of my favorites, and when I had the opportunity to see the film I did. I've always thought that this was a really underrated movie: that perhaps under the Hitchcock moniker it would have been more popular. And Then There Were None is extremely suspenseful, well acted and clever. There have been at least eight years since I've last seen the film, and though I remembered who the culprit ultimately was, I forgot the circumstances leading up to it, so it was fun to follow the clues again.

I would highly recommend this film for it's cross-genre appeal; it's definitely a hidden gem.

4 out of 5 stars