THE DANMAN CAN

I had seen Giant (1956) once before, over 15 years ago, and I didn't remember much about it at all. In that sense, this viewing was like watching it for the first time. I have to say that it feels antiquated for a 2020 viewing. But I'm sure in its day it felt like a slap in the face to the old school "values" of Texas. Giant , based on Edna Ferber 's 1952 novel, is an epic film that contains a lot of big ideas about topics like racism, misogyny, modernization, and capitalism but it never quite explores any in a fully satisfactory manner. It still manages to feel intimate—despite its expansive Western landscapes—focusing on the life, family, and associates of cattle rancher Jordan "Bick" Benedict Jr. ( Rock Hudson ). Leslie ( Elizabeth Taylor ) becomes Bick's wife early on in the film and James Dean (who was tragically killed in a car accident before the film was released) plays the foil, Bick's neighbor Jett Rink (love that name), who throug...

Jean-Pierre Melville 's final film, Un Flic ( A Cop ) (1972), isn't so much a dud as it is a case of missed potential. It has all the elements one would expect from his work (crime, slow pace, short bursts of action/violence, detached/cool characters, style ), but it executes them in a haphazard manner. Where Le Samouraï  (1967) (my review here ) defined cool with its sparseness and design, Un Flic  feels like a half-hearted attempt at the same template. Where in the former film Alain Delon  oozed charisma, here he feels like he's sleepwalking through the movie. Sure, it's interesting to see his role reversed—where he was a criminal in  Le Samouraï  and Le Cercle Rouge   (1970) (my review here ), here he is the titular cop. But he's too thinly drawn, as are all the characters.  Richard Crenna is solid as the leader of multiple heists—the first one pretty unexciting, the second a bit more tense but hampered by some seriously cheesy low budget ...

I hadn't watched Mo' Better Blues (1990) since the 90s. I had remembered really liking the film and I'm not sure why it took me so long to revisit it—damn, it just turned 30! Though music performance makes up a great many scenes in MBB , it has engaging, charismatic characters at its core, brought vividly to life by Denzel Washington ,  Spike Lee , Wesly Snipes , Giancarlo Esposito , Joie Lee , and Cynda Williams . The music numbers call to mind Coppola 's  The Cotton Club   (1984), another wonderful film about jazz (my review  here ). The fascination with and portrayal of male ego, selfishness, self destruction, strained friendships/alliances, and career absorption in MBB remind one of films like  A Streetcar Named Desire   (1951) (my review  here ),  On The Waterfront   (1954), and Scorsese 's Raging Bull (1980) and  GoodFellas  (1990). But despite these similarities and obvious influences,  MBB  has the unmistaka...

Gemini ( Sôseiji ) (1999) found Shinya Tsukamoto  moving away from industrial-set sci-fi/horror to explore a dramatic period piece set in the late Meiji era  (1910 in this story). Gemini , loosely based on Edogawa Ranpo 's 1924 short story  Sôseiji ( The Twins ), involves successful doctor Yukio ( Masahiro Motoki ), his amnesiac wife Rin (the striking and expressive  Ryô )—whose past is unknown—and twin brother Sutekichi (also Motoki), who comes from the slums seeking revenge for rejection by his father and the unwitting betrayal of his brother. Tsukamoto mostly lets the pace draw out slowly with only the occasional trademark visceral, frenetic camerawork. There are horrific scenes to behold (shots that remind me of Evil Dead (1981) (my review here ) and Dead Ringers  (1988) is also a clear influence) and moments of freak-out acting, but it's mostly a restrained affair—focusing on the drama and duality at play. What's really impressive is that Tsu...

For his final film,  Fritz Lang (at the behest of producer Arthur Brauner ) came full circle to return to the Dr. Mabuse  character, created by Norbert Jacques  and popularized in two films by Lang decades earlier—1922's  Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (my review here ) and 1933's The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (my review here ). After this, many more Mabuse films were made by producer Brauner without Lang's involvement. The Thousand Eyes Of Dr. Mabuse (1960) makes a case for one of the strongest final movies by a director ever put to film. It's a thrilling, technically flawless drama with expertly staged set pieces, brilliant editing, and a consistently engaging plot. All of the director's trademarks utilized in earlier efforts like Ministry Of Fear   (1944) and Cloak And Dagger (1946) (neither of which wowed me) are here crystalized into an actioner to rival most James Bond films . The themes of surveillance (à la  Big Brother ), espionage, the effects of...

Schlock (1973) is just that—trashy, cheesy, and mediocre. You really can't fault a film that delivers what it advertises. John Landis ' feature debut stars himself as the titular "missing link," a prehistoric apeman (designed by the brilliant Rick Baker —one of his earliest screen credits) that terrorizes a small town. There's not much in the way of plot beyond that. The film was shot over 12 days in 1971 but not released until 1973, thanks in part to Johnny Carson seeing the film and having Landis on as a guest on The Tonight Show (1962-1992) in 1972, showing clips from it, which helped land a distributor. Landis himself calls the movie "terrible" but he has a good sense of humor about it. Schlock  is definitely a rough picture—not all the humor lands and the references to other films are heavy-handed, but it's silly fun, it's easy to spot scenes and gags that Landis would later revisit and improve upon, and I'm glad I finally got ar...

Though overall less whacky, in some ways  Nobuhiko Ôbayashi 's  Hanagatami  (2017) is just as bizarre and challenging as his most well-known film, his gonzo feature film debut, House   (1977). Admittedly, those are the only two films by the director that I have seen but that is largely down to the availability of his work in HD. A handful of other films by Ôbayashi are available on Blu-ray in Japan, but only the two aforementioned films in the States/UK. Hanagatami , based on Kazuo Dan's 1937 novel, tells the story of teens (many awkwardly portrayed by older actors) living in the island city of Karatsu  just prior to and during World War II. This touching but eccentric anti-war film features many Ôbayashi trademarks, such as weirdly go-lucky performances, high melodrama, and intentionally cheap-looking (yet oddly fascinating) f/x and garishly lit sets. Though it doesn't have the same handmade quality that House  does in that regard, t...

Vital (2004) does a valiant job of bridging the gap between director Shinya Tsukamoto 's weirdest/most abrasive work and his more introspective/gentler fare. Indeed, it seems to contain a little bit of everything that fans of the director gravitate toward—outré psychosexual behavior, a hodgepodge of cinematic/editing techniques (including some of his signature blue shots), deeply troubled characters, and meditations on existence. Vital is the story of a man ( Tadanobu Asano ) regaining his memory after a bout of amnesia following a tragic accident, then coming to terms with grief, while doubling down on his medical studies and entering an unhealthily dependent relationship with a classmate that perhaps mirrors a previous one. Much is left ambiguous and there is plenty of striking and varied imagery to absorb. While it's certainly not the mind-bending sci-fi experience that is  Tetsuo: The Iron Man   (1989), nor quite as slow or restrained as 2018's  Killing ...

The final film in John Carpenter 's self-described "Apocalypse Trilogy" (which includes  T he Thing (1982) (my review here ) and  Prince Of Darkness (1987) (my review here )), In The Mouth Of Madness (1994) (one of my Top 10 Horror Films (1990–Current) ) was a box office failure but, like many of the director's films, has gained cult status and appreciation over the years. For my money ITMOM is the best  Lovecraft -inspired story—with allusions to  King  and  Barker  as well—ever put to film (making it particularly fitting that one of the main characters is a horror novel writer). Of Carpenter's work, it bears the most similarity to  POD but with better acting— Sam Neill , capable of great range, is perfectly cast here.  Michael De Luca 's script is taut and suspenseful. Along with Edward A. Warschilka 's tight editing and Carpenter's expert direction, the story successfully conveys the psychological meta-horror faced by Neil...

Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (1992) undoubtedly feels like a work for hire job by director  John Carpenter  ( Ivan Reitman was the original director but left the project after disagreements with star Chevy Chase ). Indeed, to symbolize his lack of complete creative control, the customary "John Carpenter's" does not appear before the title in the opening credits. The film was a critical and box office failure. And yet age hasn't been so bad to it—while the film sits in the lower quarter of my Carpenter rankings, I find it enjoyable, and not devoid of merit. Chase does a commendable job in a more serious role,  Daryl Hannah , oozing charm, is easy to fall in love with (as Chase's Nick Halloway does on screen), and Sam Neill is tops at portraying a dirty CIA agent, keeping his performance measured but sinister. There are a good deal of gags that land fairly well, but they never derail the somber tone of this story of a man who simultaneously loses his identity a...

When it comes to "heartwarming" movies, there has to be something within that separates them from the endless vanilla releases that always seem to be around for me to be interested. And Jean-Pierre Jeunet 's visual stylings are just that thing. While The Young And Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013) is decidedly the "lightest" film that the director has made (every other one of his films is rated R), there is still some darkness throughout to keep it from being straight up family fare. It marks only the second time that Jeunet has adapted a book and the third time that he did not write a story himself (though he did write the screenplay). Sure, it could be labeled as "quirky" (like much of his work), particularly with Helena Bonham Carter as part of the cast, but there is something unmistakably recognizable and inviting about Jeunet's work, if you're a fan (the same could be said of Wes Anderson ), even in a more "straightforward" film...

It's difficult to write about Roman Polanski without mentioning his sexual abuse case , particularly since The Tenant (1976) was the last film he made before that came to light (plus look at the tagline on the poster—ew). But it's an excellent film (as is almost every film he made prior to his arrest) regardless and one I had been meaning to revisit since I last saw it in 2006 (I may have seen it before then as well, but I've only been logging my movie watching since 2005). The Tenant  was even better than I remembered (and I remembered more of the film than I expected to). Polanski successfully played the lead and impressively directed this Kafka esque psychological horror film, considered to be the last in his "Apartment Trilogy" (which includes 1965's Repulsion  and 1968's Rosemary's Baby   ( review )). Indeed, much of the imagery and themes are similar, but nothing feels repeated—all three films have a distinctive voice, yet work together cohe...

Flash Gordon  (1980) never gets old. It's so much damn fun. It's pure entertainment. It just works. Producer  Dino De Laurentiis  basically transports his earlier hit  Barbarella   (1968) into the ‘80s (with slightly less sensuality) while retaining some of the comic book style of the original  FG  ‘ 30s strips. The tone of the  FG  film is high camp and a lot of the f/x are laughable but the production design/sets are incredible and the costumes are fantastic and flamboyant. Not to mention the soundtrack by  Queen  kicks ass (and just you try not to respond with  "Ah-ahhh!"  when someone sings  "Flash!" ). Max Von Sydow  is super sinister and maniacal as Emperor Ming The Merciless. Though there is undoubtedly a negative "Yellow Peril" Chinese stereotype to his appearance, I personally find that it ends there, so I have less of a problem with the portrayal than some might. A pre- Bond   Timothy Da...

Like Martin McDonagh 's most recent film,  Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) (my review here ), his 2008 feature debut, In Bruges , is a dramatic crime film with very dark humor, complex characters, and challenging subject matter (the most obvious of which I can't really mention without spoiling both a key plot point, as well as its tie-in to the climax). Though I found In Bruges  fairly contrived, it still has fantastic performances from its three leads and certainly poses some difficult questions of the audience. I like films that dance around grey areas, sociopolitically, rather than force-feeding its politics to the viewer, so for that this is a strong film. But I wasn't as enamored with it as I was with Three Billboards …  and I'll need to revisit McDonagh's middle film, Seven Psychopaths (2013) (the first of his that I saw) before deciding if I like it more or less than this one—I seem to recall it being the most comedic (in a Guy Ritchie ...

For the third year in a row, on Bryan's birthday (and because it's the 16th day of the month, part of the D B Mix Series  custom), we've got two fresh new mixes for you! Read on to get the deets on  DB Mix Series 9 – Listen By Number . For those unfamiliar with these music challenges—my cousin Bryan and I alternately choose a concept, we each choose the appropriate number of songs, make a playlist, share with each other, then I mix the playlists, design the album art, and share with you! You can check out the previous  DB Mixes  here . The concept this time was chosen by Bryan—each of us was to make a 20-track mix of songs with numbers in the titles. The idea was to pay homage to the Paint By Number  kits from our childhood. The rules that Bryan set were: no using the same number twice, no orchestral movements (ex: “Piano Concerto #14”), no songs with parts (ex: “ Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5) ”); written (Six), numeric (6) or Roman numer...

Umberto Lenzi 's fourth and final collaboration with  Carroll Baker , Knife Of Ice (1972), is a solid thriller that plays more like a 60s Bava   giallo  than the more grisly efforts that flooded Italian cinemas the same year. It's reminiscent of Fulci 's Don't Torture A Duckling , which was released a few months later, albeit much tamer in terms of gore. KOI  begins with an actual bullfight that is brutal, difficult to watch, plays out far longer than it needs to, and is in fact not necessary at all, in this viewer's opinion. The film would work just fine without it—outside of flashing back to this opening very briefly later on, it serves no purpose to the story. It's a shame because the rest of the film is good and actually pretty old fashioned—virtually bloodless and bereft of sex. But that doesn't hurt the film, which features Baker as a mute woman with a tragic past living with her uncle in a Spanish villa. Despite the lack of dialogue, this might ju...

For Umberto Lenzi 's third giallo  (of four) with Carroll Baker , Paranoia   (1970), released in the US as A Quiet Place To Kill  (and not to be confused with their earlier pairing,  Orgasmo  (1969), released in the States as  Paranoia (my review here )), he tapped into the then popular trend in Italian thrillers of stories about jet-setters committing heinous acts. As with the duo's second film together (1969's So Sweet… So Perverse (my review here )), I liked this one slightly more than the pairing that preceded it (tonight's viewing of their final collaboration, Knife Of Ice (1972), will reveal whether that trend continues through to the end). Also like SSSP , Paranoia again taps into Diabolique (1955) (my review  here ) for inspiration. But Paranoia , while not a gory affair, has that touch more sleazy/salaciousness I'd been yearning for in the Lenzi gialli. Baker stars as Helen, a Formula One driver whose ex-husband Maurice's ( Jean Sorel...

Umberto Lenzi and Carroll Baker 's second pair-up and second giallo of 1969, So Sweet… So Perverse , is slightly better than their first,  Orgasmo (aka Paranoia ) (my review here ). Part of that is down to the Martino brothers being involved ( Luciano wrote the story and produced while  Sergio executive produced), part of it is down to giallo superscribe  Ernesto Gastaldi  writing the screenplay (although the ending is a tad convoluted even for Gastaldi), and part of it down to the plot essentially being an Italian update of Diabolique (1955) (my review here ). On that last note, I have to say—with that title and this being a giallo and all—that I actually find the film a little tame. Given the nature of the story, I was expecting it to be a touch more sleazy and salacious. I found Jean-Louis Trintignant pretty wooden as well (which sort of works for the part but detracts from the melodrama a bit). There's still a lot to appreciate though, including compet...

A year before Dario Argento 's The Bird With The Crystal Plumage ushered in the giallo boom, Umberto Lenzi made Orgasmo (1969) (released in the US as Paranoia —not to be confused with his 1970 film  Paranoia , released in the States as A Quiet Place To Kill ), his first giallo and first of four with star Carroll Baker ( Baby Doll (1956) ( review )). I enjoyed this psychosexual thriller a lot but despite the salacious elements (incest, orgies, hallucinogens, blackmail), it's kind of a slow burn. To be sure, there is some stylish—at times psychedelic—filmmaking on display and I found Colette Descombes particularly enticing. The Piero Umiliani  (the man who wrote " Mah Nà Mah Nà ") score is great, as is the Wess & The Airedales earworm " Just Tell Me " that the twincestuous   Lou Castel and Descombes play incessantly as part of their scheme to drive Baker mad). The ending is deliciously satisfying as well, even if it is tangential. You can find...

The Andromeda Strain (1971), based on Michael Crichton 's 1969 novel  (his first written under his own name), successfully blends realistic science with movie thrills to create a film that satisfies both nerds and laypeople alike (although some may actually find the pace too slow). There are exciting, tense scenes in the beginning and especially the ending—which includes a race against the clock—but the drawn-out, procedural hour(ish) in between may lose some viewers. I was personally invested throughout, largely due to Robert Wise 's expert direction. Wise was a director who never had a particular stamp but he was incredibly versatile throughout his career as a director. He did sci-fi ( The Andromeda Strain , The Day The Earth Stood Still  (1951), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)); horror ( The Curse Of The Cat People  (1944)—my review here , The Body Snatcher (1945)—my review here ,  The Haunting (1963)—listen to me discuss that film here ); musicals ( W...

Executive producer/star   Kirk Douglas famously fired director Anthony Mann from  Spartacus (1960) just a week after shooting began. Why he thought replacement  Stanley Kubrick would be a good match for this type of movie spectacle is beyond me (though I completely understand why Kubrick took the gig). Perhaps it's because from working with him on Paths Of Glory three years earlier he saw that Kubrick had vision and scope but perhaps too he didn't realize that the man was fiercely independent (to the extent that a director can be) and staunch in his stance of overseeing every aspect of and having final cut on his films. Originally intended to be written under a pseudonym by Dalton Trumbo (and later publicly announced by Douglas, helping to end the blacklist ), Spartacus  tells the story of the titular gladiator/leader's slave revolt which led to the Third Servile War . Featuring a star-studded cast, a grand score by Alex North , and many memorable momen...

Director  Philip Ridley self-described his 1990 debut feature film, The Reflecting Skin , as " Blue Velvet (1986) ( review ) with children." This is only partially true. Ridley's film certainly has some very Lynch ian encounters between characters but it's more than what his quote would lead you to believe. In fact, it's something of a bloody, unapologetic, mini masterpiece. TRS is the tale of a young boy coming of age in the Midwest whose childhood is fraught with constant tragedy, violence, cruelty, and fantasy. The landscapes in the film are very Malick ian (is that a phrase?), which makes sense, given that Days Of Heaven (1978) and this film were both very influenced by the work of realist painter Andrew Wyeth  (imagine endless golden fields). The cinematography in TRS  truly is gorgeous, taking full advantage of its locations. It's the type of film strongly driven by visuals, mood, and sound over dialogue. Ridley's background as a painter and vi...

Nearly seventy years on,  Elia Kazan 's 1951 film of  Tennessee Williams ' (who also wrote the screenplay) 1947 play  A Streetcar Named Desire   remains a powerful portrait of gender roles, toxic masculinity, mental health, and domestic violence. Though some of the cinematic techniques used are a bit dated, Streetcar  is a beautifully dark chiaroscuro affair to rival any film noir. Given Blanche's (an electric  Vivien Leigh ) elevated fantasy world lived within her head, her melodramatic performance and the way the camera captures her only make sense. Both she and Kim Hunter  ("Stella!") are attractive females but there is no mistaking that Brando is the film's sex symbol, smoldering on screen and driving both women wild with his perfect physique. In this—only his second film—reprising (along with Hunter and the always great Karl Malden ) his Broadway role, Brando became a superstar with his intense method acting. Stanley Kowalski is a comp...