Film Review - Shutter Island

Film #36 of 2010 - Shutter Island

I don't think there's a lot of doubt that Martin Scorsese is a masterful filmmaker; even those who may not like his brand of films have to admit the guy has chops. Though I fear that a few of his recent works have been well-crafted, but somewhat vanilla (The Aviator, The Departed) I have always held the hope that he was going to come out with another film that was going to make me take a few deep breaths after seeing it. I think I finally got that with Shutter Island.

Adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island stars Scorsese's 21st century go-to guy, Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall who, with the help of his new partner, U.S. Marshall Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) is sent to Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane on remote, craggy Shutter Island on Boston Harbor in 1954 to investigate the disappearance of one of its prisoners. Hospital director Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) is quick to correct the term "prisoners" with "patients", as he believes that taking the time to cure them is more beneficial than merely housing them, and seems helpful to the investigation of the baffling disappearance. How could a woman disappear when the door is locked, the window is barred and escape from the treacherous terrain of the island is impossible? The more Teddy and Chuck dig into the mystery, the more they suspect the institution and its staff may be hiding insidious secrets and events, and the more Teddy, who has a challenging past himself, becomes unhinged.

When I first walked out of Shutter Island, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I knew that Scorsese had delivered a visually stunning film that really excited me, despite (and possibly because of) the dread and uneasiness I felt from start to finish. From the opening shot of the ferry gliding across the choppy waters in the fog with all of its shackles hanging from the ceiling to the well-lit and serene, yet disturbing closing scene, I know that I had a worried look on my face. Scorsese has never been afraid of violence, and in Shutter Island, he douses the film with disturbing imagery, from murdered children to botched suicide attempts. Like some of his other famously violent work, however, these scenes are not merely violent for violence sake; they are masterfully shot and creepy, but stunning. Check out the scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci is stabbing the hell out of the guy in the trunk of his car as Ray Liotta and Robert DeNiro look on, and now notice how the scene is lit. Shutter Island is rife with these sorts of scenes, where you're really disturbed by what you're seeing, but you can't look away because what you are seeing is breathtaking and so well done.

Non-violent scenes were extremely striking as well, of course. One particular moment in Shutter Island that immediately comes to mind is during one of Teddy's dreams; when he turns around talk to the missing Rachel, his body turns toward her in slow motion, but the cloud of smoke from his cigarette is in even slower motion and remains around him. The film geek in me went completely nuts over that shot, despite the fact that I was completely absorbed in the story. Which brings me to the story. I have extremely mixed feelings about it, and in kind, feel that is a positive aspect of the film. Though I guessed "the twist" about 1/4 of the way into the film, the remaining portion of the story was not pedestrian. But wait - did I truly guess correctly? (And no, I'm not putting spoilers in this review, so I'm intentionally being vague.) Though I think that a lot of people feel the ending was cut and dried, I'm not so sure, and I keep working scenes and dialogue through my head to support either theory, but a lot of them can be applied to both, which is actually kind of cool. The down side of it is that either way, there were definitely some elements that were far fetched and convenient. However, I kind of like it when things aren't wrapped up in a neat little package; even with the conveniences and potential eye-rolling once in a while, when you're still analyzing the movie pretty ferociously the next day, that's an accomplishment.

A special mention needs to be made for the music as well. It was deep, and really creepy; it was instrumental in giving the feeling of dread and terror to the movie. Unlike some "legendary" directors, (I'm looking primarily in the direction of George Lucas here) Scorsese not only coaxes great performances out of his actors, but uses top-notch talent as well. DiCaprio, (god love him, he's my age but still looks like a kid in adult clothing sometimes) like him or not, is one hell of a talent. No matter how much disdain I attempted to muster up for him when he was the object of idolatry after Titanic came out, he is one of the best actors working right now, and he does it without fanfare and with incredible ease. There is a scene in this film when he's looking at a man that is lying on the ground, bleeding, and it is as powerful a scene that it is because it's all non-verbal; he plays it with only the hard, cold expression on his face. I can't think of a film where he hasn't given an excellent performance. Mark Ruffalo, who I didn't recognize at first for some reason, but was struck by how much he looked like an actor from the 1950's before I realized it was him, was good, as was Ben Kingsley. The various smaller supporting actors were a character actor dream cast: Jackie Earle Haley, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer, Ted Levine and the amazing Max Von Sydow, who I wish had been in the film more because he looked so cool and truthfully, his voice is so great that I could listen to him read the phone book.

As I stated earlier, when I walked out of the film, I didn't know what to think of Shutter Island, beyond the outstanding visuals. But as I drove the familiar 20 minutes home, alone in my car, down really dark streets with very few cars, I realized how unsettled I felt. Then I pulled up to my house and watched, with suspicion, someone walking down the street, questioning, "Why would they do that at 10pm without a dog...?" Then I crawled into bed and thought about the movie before I went to sleep, and continued on my drive to work this morning; even my daily Starbucks fix couldn't shake the feeling. The true conclusion of the film isn't what matters, not in the slightest. It's the reality that Shutter Island really, really got to me, and that's a success in my book.

4 out of 5 stars

Pre-Code Cinema

The following is a piece I did for a classic film community about six years ago. I figured I would re post it here and hopefully get the time, motivation and inspiration to write more in the near future.

Pre-Code Hollywood: Film, Interrupted

When one considers the films of the late 1920’s – early 1930’s, it is hard to imagine that they could be anything but chaste. After all, look at most of the films of the fifties and early sixties: husbands and wives slept in separate beds, our favorite actresses were flirty but most of the time didn’t put out and the men were dashing cads who kept their indiscretions to themselves or at most, relegated this topic to their respective men’s clubs. Therefore, it is easy for one to assume that the early days of “talkie” films had the depth and sex appeal of a Styrofoam cup, which makes the discovery that these were some of the richest films of the first six decades of the 20th century a delightful one.

And Hollywood DID forget about it. The next four years proved to be fruitful and provocative. The first film approved by the SRC was its most “subversive” yet. Norma Shearer solidified her stardom by starring in The Divorcee, released in 1930. In this film, Shearer discovers that her husband cheated on her, so she promptly goes out and cheats on her husband; with his best friend. When her husband returns to their Manhattan apartment, she simply tells him, “I’ve balanced our accounts.” Greta Garbo, who became an icon with her pre-Code filmography, was usually cast as The Notorious Woman, who was both dangerously beautiful and vulnerable. She played prostitutes and spies, but always did the right thing by her men, even if they did become quite broken because of it. In Grand Hotel, she plays a washed up ballerina who falls in love with the dashing John Barrymore, a man who rescues her from suicide while breaking into her hotel room to steal her jewels. The two have an obvious, passionate affair during their stay at the hotel and they not only are not approaching the level of marriage, but they just met one another. There were many other actresses who began their careers at the cusp of the Silent/Talkie era, among them Miriam Hopkins, Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Jean Harlow, Claudette Colbert and Constance Bennett. All of these actresses went on to have successful careers in post-Code films, but could have arguably done their best in the unrestricted early 1930’s.

And then came July 1934. The newly formed Production Code Administration created an era of censorship that would continue until the Code’s end in 1968. The most integral figure in this entire enterprise was not Hays himself, it was Joseph Breen, a lay Catholic , public relations man, and blatant anti-Semite. It was clear that his agenda was to save America from the movies and movies from the Jews, as most of the studio heads were Jewish. Breen referred to the moguls as “lice” and “ignorant on all matters having to do with sound morals.” Surprisingly, rather than being concerned about “subversive” matters like nudity, the censors were more concerned about the message the films created. The hardest hit was the roles women played in film. Women got their virginity back, and the price for non-conjugal relations was death, or loneliness. If men stepped out on their wives, they not only had to grin and stoically bear it, but also wait and hope for them to return. One of the greatest (and worst) examples of this phenomenon is Norma Shearer. Nine years after exerting her independence and playing the same games as her husband, she is relegated to becoming a hand wringing, wronged wife who can only hope that her husband comes to his senses and leaves his mistress, played by Joan Crawford. Goodbye strong women, hello doormat.

In pre-Code films, women did not have to answer to men, they had careers (and *gasp* were sometimes the boss) and most importantly, exuded independence and free thought. When Will Hays, the former Postmaster General, realized that there was a need for a commission to oversee the products that Hollywood was churning out, he created the Studio Relations Committee, though they had little power. Then the Code was introduced. The Production Code was actually hammered out in February 1930, unanimously agreed upon by the studio heads, with declarations such as “No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it”. (Exchange “moral” with “intellectual” and we would have some serious problems today.) Take your pick as to what this entailed: Nudity and profanity was prohibited, as were comic representations of “revered” figures (clergymen, etc.) and criminals would be called to justice. Why would the studio heads agree to sign this document? Unfortunately they were under the threat of protest by various religious groups, and there were powerful men such as Orson Welles’ best friend William Randolph Hearst who, when he was not shacking up with his longtime mistress Marion Davies (another pre-Code actress) were threatening to call for government censorship. Therefore, the studio heads basically had no choice, and they knew that it was all for show; smile and nod, sign the paper and forget about it.

Ironically, there actually was a film medium that became prevalent as a result of the Code: Film noir. Film noir films could include as many dastardly deeds as they wanted, as long as the criminals got punished in the end, as evidenced by noir classics such as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. The 1940’s has also been categorized as one of the greatest decades for women in film, and certainly there were some great films that were made, but one can only imagine what they could have been without the blatant censorship that hovered over them.

On a personal level, I found that I began to really reexamine the films and actresses who I have historically found to be strong, with interesting results. I love the melodramas of the 1940’s starring pre-Code or early post-Code actors, like The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland, Mildred Pierce starring Joan Crawford and pretty much anything starring Katherine Hepburn or my favorite, Bette Davis. Now that I know the history of the Code, I find it intriguing that these actresses can still give off auras of great strength and savvy. I find that I am even more impressed with their performances. Conversely, I also find that I am almost ashamed of my love for certain post-Code films that, after examination, DO objectify women and knock them down several pegs, especially the aforementioned The Women.

So I suppose the question is, despite the obvious setback that films took due to the abject censorship during a 42-year period, how did films continue to thrive and how did we eventually develop a “Golden Age of Hollywood”, if there were so many factors stifling the industry? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that, when stifled or restricted, screenwriters and producers are forced to come up with something better than they could have if one of their options was to simply shock and titillate the audience. Instead of exciting the audience through physical means, they went for the mind. This could be one of the reasons that anyone who is a devotee to classic film could arguably extol the virtues of classic films with a good story on an exponential level to modern offerings. While censorship on any level is inherently bad, and the Production Code set back films and women in particular, back 40 years, perhaps the one good thing that a Pollyanna could derive from this debacle is the theory that films had to get more meaty because they had the challenge that their pre-Code ancestors did not; rigid parameters and senseless “guidelines” they were forced to adhere to. Misguided, the Code took an idealized vision of present day society and forcibly applied these morays to the big screen, disallowing the viewer the option of casting feelings upon what they are seeing. While some of us wouldn’t act upon our husband’s infidelity in the same way as Shearer did in The Divorcee, if this film had been made four years later, the audience would have been denied the opportunity to pass judgment, if they chose to do so. Prior to the Code, one had to develop their own judgments when viewing film. Between 1934 and 1968, this was included for free in the price of a movie ticket.

PRE CODE FILM RECOMMENDATIONS

• Night Nurse (1931)

• The Common Law (1931)

• The Divorcee (1930)

• Baby Face (1933)

• I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1933)

• Scarface (1932)

Film Review - The Lady From Shanghai

Film #35 of 2010 - The Lady From Shanghai

The Lady From Shanghai, directed by and starring Welles, co-stars his then-wife Rita Hayworth, who plays Elsa Bannister, your classic 1940's noir femme fatale whose vulnerability masks certain danger, though one isn't sure how it will manifest. Welles is Michael O'Hara, an Irish drifter with a checkered past who meets Elsa and is immediately attracted to her, until he finds out she is married to Arthur Bannister (the awesomely snively Everett Sloane), the most successful defense attorney alive. Despite his initial misgivings, he eventually agrees to take a job as the member of the crew on the Bannisters' yacht, which is about to set sail on one of the weirdest cruises known to man. O'Hara's needling feeling that these idle rich people were up to no good comes to fruition when he finds himself falling in love with Elsa and becoming the lead suspect in a murder. The kicker: He has to rely on Arthur to defend him.

It seems nearly impossible that I had never seen this iconic Welles film before now, considering what a Welles devotee I purport to be, but it's just one of the many films I hadn't gotten around to seeing until recently. The imagery in The Lady From Shanghai is well known, and I had seen scenes and movie stills before, but they didn't prepare me for the breathtaking composition and almost avant garde style of film making. I can't decide if I liked the choppy editing, because it toed the line between just plain jarring and odd, to almost guerilla-style film making. In comparison to Citizen Kane, which happens to be my favorite film of all-time, The Lady From Shanghai is risky and abstract. While I watched the film I kept thinking of the tight shot of the very dark skinned band member in the celebratory "Charlie Kane" musical number in Kane, a shot that could be thought of as awkward, but I loved because it was just so different from anything else produced in 1941. There were a lot of "awkward" moments in Shanghai, most of them involving Bannister's law partner George (Glenn Anders) but in retrospect, he was a really creepy and weird guy, so it kind of worked, actually. The shots that were kind of awkward without explanation were the ones of O'Hara in the courtroom where every time the camera was trained on Welles, he was giving the same look in the other direction and it looked like he was in another dimension or something. That was just kind of odd and kind of laughable, actually, and I'm not going to get all cinephile and dissect the scene as him being in solitude or anything, because some things don't warrant qualification.

There were a few moments during the film where I felt like I was watching experimental film, mainly because of the editing, and then other times when I saw a lot of similarities to the work of David Lynch and the European New Wave movement. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if this film served as an inspiration to a lot of late filmmakers, in particular, filmmakers whose work I admire. The celebrated ending sequence in the abandoned fun house was, quite literally, breathtaking. I actually plan to take my DVD of this film and watch it frame by frame at some point because it was spectacular, even for the scarily talented and visionary Welles.

When I finished watching The Lady From Shanghai, I knew that there were a couple of absolutes: while Rita Hayworth is beautiful, she's not one of the great actresses, and unfortunately, Shanghai didn't change that fact. For that matter, Welles, though a good actor, was at times completely unintelligible with that Irish brogue, which probably could have been handled differently. The imagery was fabulous and heart-thumpingly good. And the pacing was off, possibly due to the fact that Welles was once again edited by the studio itself, when he was envisioning a film that was nearly an hour longer than the eventual run time. What I was on the fence about was the actual story, because I couldn't decide if the story was actually really good in a subtle way, or not quite there. And after overnight reflection, I definitely think that, despite a couple of cheap conveniences scattered throughout the film, the story is truly a good one and holds up, meriting the film to not just merely be an eye candy piece.

I can understand the somewhat widespread reverence of this film from a historical perspective, but I wonder how it was received back in 1947, because it really is different from so much that was produced at that time, even within its own genre. I actually really like films that seem to grow on me with further reflection, and The Lady From Shanghai is one of those kinds of movies. I think if you would have asked me shortly after the film ended what I thought of it I would have had a lower opinion than the one I do now, but the cerebral film nerd in me that loves to over think movies relishes in absorbing the film, and now that I have finally seen it, I actually really liked this one.

4 out of 5 stars

Lady From Shanghai

Can I just say that I am so grateful for the fact that my brother happens to manage what has been my favorite theater my entire life, the Times Cinema? Not only has it been my neighborhood theater for years, (especially now that I live less than 3 minutes from it) but I am able to have the opportunity to experience personal screenings of any films we want, after hours.

Last night we had the second in a series of films hosted by my parents. The first was White Christmas in December, which, despite a horrible snowstorm, was still attended by at least 75 people. This time it was The Lady From Shanghai, and though it was held late on a Thursday night, in the middle of NCAA play (with Marquette playing even) it brought in an estimated 40-ish people. I'm completely exhausted from being up about three hours past my bedtime, but I had a great time watching a film that I had unbelievably never seen all the way through. I'm hoping to write my review today.

What a wonderful experience, and I am so thankful. From what I could tell, there was a lot of food collected for the Hunger Task Force as well (the suggested cost of admission) so it was a win-win. I can't wait until the next one.

Meanwhile, I'm going to take advantage of what is sure to be a cold and yucky weekend (after a beautiful week) and get caught up on a few Scorsese films. I think Chris is going to be continuing his work in his office so I'm hoping that won't be a problem.

Now to just keep my eyeballs propped open and I'll be all set.

A post about nothing. No really, it is.

Boy, did I completely misjudge this whole iTunes thing I decided to start at 8:30 pm tonight. Chris has been finally cleaning out his office and he's managed to find a few different things of mine in the process. Tonight he presented me with a stack of CDs that had apparently come out of my car at one point, so I started loading them onto my iTunes and snagging certain songs for my playlist (which keeps growing and growing and...) but man, each CD takes about 20 minutes.

For someone who is completely inept at technology, I'm really impatient when I actually deal with it, apparently.

Work was a little better today but I took the cheap way out and mostly worked on superficial tasks that had to get done but were quick n' dirty and made my desk look a whole lot better at 5pm than it did at 8am. However, now I have the meaty and mostly unpleasant stuff to tackle tomorrow, so that should be a challenge.

I'm starting to second guess having merely turtle cheesecake ice cream and a handful of pretzels for dinner tonight. Oh well, too late now.

And finishing up Lauryn Hill, on to Run-DMC.

And thus ends my post about nothing. Seinfeld, I'm not.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The good is that I had a great couple of days off. Chris and I went up north to Turtle Lake Wednesday through Saturday, getting back Saturday late afternoon. It's amazing how far away one can feel when you just head five hours in one direction, but it was enough to feel like we actually went somewhere. We spent some time at the casino there; I won a bunch of money and then lost some of it, but had a fun time doing it, which was all that mattered to me. Chris takes a much more scientific approach to it, calculating what his winning percentage was, etc. while playing a quarter at a time on the video poker machine, but as long as he had a good time doing it, that's all that matters.

The other "good" is that I can look forward to several days off for the Passover holiday at the end of March/beginning of April. If I take two additional days off in between the days the office is closed, I will have something like nine days off in a row. That could be super cool. I haven't decided if I want to do that or not; I think it's going to be a matter of what happens before those days and how much I have planned for myself so that I'm not just "wasting" days off. (If there is such a thing)

The bad is that I came back to work today with just a shit-ton of work to do. There are some positions at my employer where if you're gone, life goes on without you, to paraphrase the great Louis Prima, but unfortunately mine isn't one of them. Just because I wasn't there wasn't going to make articles become written, proofing to be done and everything else to be addressed. If it was just the articles and proofing, life would be great because I actually enjoy that aspect of my job. It's everything else that is wearing me down, the tasks I can't seem to shake no matter how much my position changes. That's what's going to bring me down the rest of the week, because I found it really important to work on the proofing first, and unfortunately, that's pretty much all that got done today. Tomorrow is going to be the official "crap work day" where everything is just completely task-oriented. The rest of the week isn't looking much easier, unfortunately, because even if I do pull myself out of this deep ditch of work, I still have the articles to write, and I've really been trying to get them right somewhat off the bat; not to mention I think I have a couple of interesting subjects for once. Then Thursday night is a late showing of Lady From Shanghai which is another of those private screenings my parents host at the theater. Considering it starts about a half hour before I normally go to bed, this is going to be a challenge.

Which brings me to the ugly. Despite my recent time off, I feel like I have zero time or motivation to explore any of my extracurricular interests. Honestly, they're not that much - movies, reading, culinary stuff, writing - but I'm either busy, not motivated to do it, or, like tonite, just plain too tired. I have a stack of Martin Scorsese films to watch and review for my Great Directors project next to the nice big plasma tv we have, yet I spent the first two hours at home sacked out in my chair falling asleep while watching reruns of "Bones" on TNT with Matisse equally sacked out on my feet. Maybe the change in the weather will help, or maybe I need to just kick myself in the ass to accomplish some of these things, because, let's face it, my interests aren't exactly strenuous. But let me tell you, I am even delighted that my leftovers from the other night are stretching out because I didn't have to cook dinner tonight and I still have enough for dinner tomorrow night.

I think I just need to feel a sense of accomplishment. I had a little of that on Sunday when my OCD kicked in in the middle of watching something on TV and I suddenly had to get up and organize the magazines that I had accumulated over the past several months (not an easy task based on the number of subscriptions I have) in order to catalogue the recipes in the myriad culinary ones I have, and separate out the actual "reading" magazines like The Atlantic that I've fallen behind on. After I organized all of those things I then went around organizing a couple of other things that had been bothering me, then went back to my TV show like nothing had happened. But, I felt accomplishment. I need that again, even if it's just completing a project I start or reading a book I've been meaning to read. (As I look at the "short list" pile sitting next to me that I've siphoned out as must-reads)

Anyway, I'm done whining. I just need to hunker down, stay active, and remember that my hobbies are actually enjoyable and things that I want to participate in.

I think fate is telling me to go to bed because "Be Italian" from Nine has now played twice since I sat down at my laptop, despite the fact that I have 425 songs on this play list and while I like that song I don't need to hear it AGAIN.

Film Review - In the Loop

Film #34 of 2010 - In the Loop

If In the Loop hadn't been nominated for an Oscar for its screenplay, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have heard about it, at least for quite some time, and that would have been a complete shame. Directed by Armando Iannucci and starring a bevy of random British, Scottish and American actors, In the Loop follows the behind-the-scenes frenzy that occurs among lobbyists, spin doctors and politicians when the U.S. President and British Prime Minister decide that they want a war in the Middle East, but the people who work for them and are more in the know are less convinced that this is a good idea and frantically try to convince the right people of this, sometimes with reason, sometimes with bribery and threats.

When I looked up Iannucci's filmography, it didn't surprise me that he is primarily a writer and director of television programs and not feature films. In the Loop has the dryly clever humor of a British sitcom, but is able to sustain the fast pace normally reserved for a 30 or 40 minute episode for the length of the entire film; an admirable feat. The actors are a Who's Who of "Hey, isn't that...?" ranging from a lead character like Tom Hollander (Mr. Collins from Pride & Prejudice) to supporting players like Anna Chlumsky (My Girl, but all grown up) and James Gandolfini. All of them were natural and funny, and there were many times where the film almost felt like a documentary or a behind-the-scenes look at what we normally aren't able to see. And something tells me that it's all probably spot on, which is terrifying and depressing all at once.

There are a lot of really hysterical moments during In the Loop, and the script is extremely edgy and heavily peppered with the F-bomb, so much so that after a while it just seemed natural to me. Again, there is no doubt in my mind that this isn't how people REALLY act in politics. In the Loop is a dry film, but it's funny and really good, and worth seeking out.

3.5 out of 5 stars