Filthy Lucre

Film: L’Argent (Money)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.

The primary function of films naturally enough is to involve us in the lives of the characters. When a film shows up that is in some ways about the life of an object, it’s often an intriguing change of pace. Winchester ‘73 was based in large part on the “life” as it were of a prized rifle and its various owners. L’Argent (Money) follows the course of a counterfeit 500-franc note, at least initially, and shows how it affects the lives of those who touch it.

Really, it’s only about the bill for the first few minutes of the film, and focuses on the one innocent person who touches it as well as a few of the more criminal-minded people with whom it comes in contact. We start with a student named Norbert (Marc Ernest Fourneau) who gets his allowance from his father but needs more. Both of his parents refuse to advance him anything. He goes to a friend who gives him the counterfeit bill. They use it at a store which has received several such bills in recent days. They in turn pass off the bills to the gas man, Yvon Targe (Christian Patey). He is our ultimate patsy in this film, a man who is unaware of the criminality of those around him.

Shrinky Dink

Film: The Incredible Shrinking Man
Format: DVD from NetFlix on big ol’ television.

A “high concept” film is one that essentially asks “what if?” and goes from there. A surprising number of classic B-movies have this basic idea at heart. The Incredible Shrinking Man is certainly one such film. The premise couldn’t be simpler: What if something happened to a man and he started shrinking? What if there was no way to stop the shrinking?

Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is out on a boat with his wife, Louise (Randy Stuart). When she goes in to get him a beer, the boat sails through a strange mist, covering Scott in a fine spray of strange liquid. He shrugs it off, not putting it up to much, but six months later, he notices that his pants don’t quite fit and that his shirts are loose. He’s concerned, naturally, and after a few check-ups with his family physician, he realizes that he is indeed shrinking. Exposure to some sort of insecticide followed by his exposure to the radioactive mist has caused this bizarre, almost comic book-like transformation.

When Eddie Murphy Ruled

Film: Beverly Hills Cop
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

If you’re younger than 35, I’m going to make a statement that you won’t believe: there was a time when Eddie Murphy could do no wrong. Even with the misstep of The Golden Child, Murphy’s string of great movies ran for a good six or seven years. Right smack in the middle of that run came Beverly Hills Cop, which may well be his best.

Detroit detective Axel Foley (Murphy) is the stereotypical loose cannon cop, operating outside police procedure to get the job done. As the film starts, Axel has hijacked a truck full of stolen cigarettes in an attempt to make a bust on smugglers. It goes haywire and he gets chewed out by his equally stereotypical angry boss (Gilbert R. Hill). Shortly thereafter, he meets up with his old best friend Mikey Tandino (James Russo). Mikey has been working out in Beverly Hills, and has shown up with a fistful of German bearer bonds. Shortly after he shows up, Mikey ends up dead.

Sword and Sandals

Film: Spartacus
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on big ol’ television.

You expect certain things from certain directors once you’ve seen enough of their work. It’s difficult once one has seen a great deal of Kubrick’s work to fit a film like Spartacus in with Dr. Strangelove and The Shining. And yet, Kubrick it is. I still find it difficult to reconcile this fact with what I expect to see from good old Stanley, and this is despite the fact that I’ve seen this film before.

Our hero, Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), is a Roman slave sent to work in mines at the tender age of 13. When a fellow slave collapses and he is commanded to essentially let the poor guy die, he fights back, and for his trouble is strapped to a rock and left to die as a lesson to the other slaves. Fate intervenes with the arrival of Batiatus (Peter Ustinov), a slave master and owner of a gladiatorial school. He arranges to purchase Spartacus, sending our hero off to life in the gladiatorial pits after a good six months of learning how to swing a sword.

Watching Oscar: Radio Days

Film: Radio Days
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

There’s a part of me that loves a nostalgia film. There are plenty of them, a filmmaker reliving his or her past through rose-colored glasses. There are plenty of great ones--Stand By Me comes to mind, as does A Christmas Story. One of my favorites is Woody Allen’s Radio Days, a sweet reminiscence of the time when radio was king, and everyone danced to the tunes that came out of the box in the living room.

That’s really all that Radio Days is, a series of memoirs about life during World War II and before the advent of television. We spend most of our time with Allen’s youthful personality, Joe (Seth Green), but we also meet his extended family, learning a bit about the lives and tribulations of his father (that-guy Michael Tucker), his mother (Julie Kavner), his uncle Abe and aunt Ceil (Josh Mostel and Renee Lippin), his cousin Ruthie (Joy Newman) and especially his aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest). Since the film is a memoir rather than a story, we get vignettes of their life and their attachment to the radio, and how these radio programs define them.

South American Way, Part III

Film: Gilda
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on big ol’ television.

Old school Hollywood glamour was a real thing. If you don’t believe me, you should get a load of Rita Hayworth’s entrance in Gilda, flipping back her hair and looking mildly innocent, coquettish, and sexy all at the same time. It’s a great moment, one of the great film moments from the era.

The film follows Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), a small-time gambler who finds himself in Buenos Aires. He makes some money on a craps game and is immediately mugged, but is rescued by a man named Ballin Mundson (George Macready). Mundson runs a high-class illegal casino in town, and warns him against trying to cheat there. Farrell doesn’t listen and goes anyway, gets himself in trouble, and manages to swing this as a job helping run the place. He soon becomes Mundson’s right hand.

Cheese(y) Danish

Film: Gertrud
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I think I have a pretty high threshold for certain things. I try very hard not to be frustrated by certain peculiarities of film. I don’t mind long shots, or films that sometimes seem to have no point. I don’t specifically bore easily. That’s worth noting, because I also have to admit that I was bored within the first 20 minutes of watching Dreyer’s Gertrud.

The problem with this film isn’t the story. Really, it’s not. Done in a different way, this could well be a fascinating tale of a woman so bent on finding a love worth keeping that it controls her entire life. It’s not, on its face, uninteresting. The problem comes with the way it is filmed, or in the direction given to our actors. Evidently, the direction that Dreyer gave everyone in this film is to imitate a mannequin as much as possible. Their roles are to stand still in one place, look in one direction, and speak lines at each other. Passion tends to be expressed by rubbing foreheads together and then gazing off into the distance instead of at the person in question.