A Better Life

A Better Life (2011) dir. Chris Weitz
Starring: Demián Bichir, José Julián, Joaquín Cosio

**

By Greg Klymkiw

The ads for A Better Life proudly proclaim: "From The Director of About a Boy". This is hardly a ringing endorsement. It's also misleading.

The latter picture is one of Working Title's cookie-cutter Hugh Grant comedies-with-heart that, in spite of a central relationship involving a man and boy, bears little resemblance to this somewhat better movie. In fact, I suspect that anyone who liked the insufferable Grant picture will not like this one and conversely, those who either hated or would never go to About a Boy, might genuinely find merit in A Better Life.

Such are the vagaries of contemporary movie marketing.

The reality then, is that none of Weitz's previous pictures (American Pie,Down to Earth and - bleeech! - Twilight: New Moon) resemble this one.

Its closest relative outside of the, uh, Weitz canon, is Vittorio DeSica's haunting 1948 classic of neo-realism The Bicycle Thief, and as such I trust the above mentioned tag line is probably best not replaced by the reality of this one: "Kind of like The Bicycle Thief, but not as good".

That said, A Better Life is a decent enough picture that it can go down the gullet with relative ease by those not seeking explosions, rapid cutting and a cacophonous soundtrack.

It's at least about something – not a boy, mind you, but something.

Working from a screenplay by Eric Eason and screen story by Roger L. Simon, Weitz tells the semi-moving story of Carlos (Demián Bichir), an illegal alien and single father working as a gardener in Los Angeles. His young teenage son, Luis (José Julián), whiles life away watching garbage on television, wandering the streets with friends, being mildly attracted to gang life and skipping school.

Carlos is desperate to make their situation better, as he's beginning to feel an even greater divide between himself and his son. Fearing his spawn will seek out the wrong crowd and become just another statistic, he buys a truck, garden equipment and a healthy client-base from his retiring boss and sets up his own business. On the first day of the rest of his life, Carlos hires Martinez (Joaquín Cosio), a destitute migrant labourer, treats the man with overwhelming kindness and is rewarded (NOT!) when the hired hand steals his truck.

Carlos begins a desperate search to find the stolen truck and is joined in his quest by Luis. Here, Father and Son bond – like they never have before!

Cue the violins, please!

In spite of the narrative's been-there-done-that quality, the movie is often compelling. There are, however, two major problems with the picture and they are thus:

1. The screenplay loads up hurdle upon hurdle for poor Carlos. Each one seems more insurmountable than the last, and the suspense on this front is considerable. However, a pattern sets in far too early where there always appears some deus ex machina device – usually in the form of a decent soul (because to be human is to be saintly) and Presto! – a solution to the problem offers itself up. More often than not, Carlos aggressively and actively places himself in situations where he then passively accepts bone-tosses in positive directions. This is all just a tad disappointing, especially since Carlos doesn't actively solve any problems until he finds and extricates the truck. (I'm not spoiling anything. It's very clear halfway in that he's going to find his truck – mostly because the script telegraphs it from miles away due to the above mentioned easy-way-out mechanics.)

2. The ending is a total crock of bull droppings. It's pure, feel-good fantasy land. In addition to the annoying and incessant above-named hand-of-God saves (which I was prepared to forgive), the final 10 or so minutes strains all credibility and goes completely out of its way to present – UGH! – hope.

Hope? Give me a break. It's not only a jaw-dropping stretch, but it works to scuttle a number of really fine elements – the most important being Weitz's surprisingly strong direction.

I was so impressed with the mise-en-scene. Every frame is packed with finely wrought kitchen sink details. The exterior shots are especially impressive. Every moment, every dramatic beat and virtually every exterior frame has a full life exploding behind and around the main action. The sense of place is extremely acute. It feels like Weitz is adhering strictly to a neo-realist approach by making us believe a whole world is pulsating, teeming with life and death.

The performances of all the leads are beyond reproach, but the true revelation – the one in which Weitz could/should be taken seriously as a filmmaker in spite of his less-than-stellar previous works – is just how good and real all the supporting, bit and background players are. When a filmmaker is as careful with background action as he is with that in the foreground and works to make it all seamless – creating a WHOLE WORLD, so to speak – he is no mere hack of the competent variety (as most of his previous work might suggest).

Weitz is totally on the ball in creating a world we want to believe in, and while he delivers the goods in terms of visual details and performance, he is saddled with middle-of-the-road writing (blessed with only infrequent blips of inspiration and far too many lazy touches). He didn't write the screenplay, but as a director he must still take responsibility for it. I am, however, now excited to see when he makes a picture where the writing is up to his directorial prowess – when the script stops yanking us back, as it does in A Better Life, to the very real problem inherent in too many movies these days – the overwhelming, unearned notion that everything is fine.

It's not.

A Better Life is currently in theatrical release via E-One Entertainment.

American Graffiti

American Graffiti (1973) dir. George Lucas
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith, Paul Le Mat, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark

****

By Alan Bacchus

What a remarkable trio of films directed by George Lucas in the 1970s. THX 1138, his first, though not commercially successful, is a magnificent low budget production in experimental science fiction. Star Wars, of course, was his third in 1977, and requires no explanation (yet). And in the middle stands American Graffiti, which was then one of the highest grossing and most profitable films ever made, as well as a multiple Academy Award nominee. These are three markedly different films in genre, subject matter and tone, but all still recognizable as Lucas’s unique vision. Sadly, he wouldn't direct a film of his own again until he started doing Star Wars prequels in the 2000s. But before 1977, Lucas was arguably the most exciting filmmaker of the 1970s.

In American Graffiti, George Lucas rewinds us to the early 1960s to an unnamed suburban town in Northern California where, under the warm dusk and night skies, teenagers cruised the streets as the primary form of socialization and courtship. Perhaps influenced by the seminal ensemble film by Federico Fellini, I Vitteloni (1951), Lucas follows four male friends over the course of one night on the last day of summer before everyone splits and goes away to college.

There’s Curt (Dreyfuss), a smart but conflicted young man torn between going to college to fulfill his parents’ dreams and prolonging this significant time of one’s youth. Ron Howard is Steve, the popular all-American kid who can’t wait to experience college life but needs to dump his girlfriend first. Terry (Martin Smith) is the meek nerd who still has one more year left in high school and gets the surprise of his life when Steve offers up his revered '58 Chevy Impala to use while he's away. John Milner (Paul Le Mat) has already graduated but never went to college. Instead, he stuck around to work as a mechanic riding the coattails of his former glory as a high school A-lister.

Each of the separate stories of these characters produces remarkably profound emotions of our own youth. Even today, which is much different than 1960 and 1973, the feeling that each of Lucas’s characters experiences about this moment between childhood and adulthood is so identifiable and strong.

While Lucas equally distributes his running time to the other characters, he seems to identify most with Richard Dreyfuss’s conflicted Curt. Dreyfuss’s quiet but powerful performance is magnificent, representing Lucas's window through which we can look back at our own youth. On numerous occasions he has to tell his friends that he’s questioning whether he’s actually going to leave the next day for college. And each time Dreyfuss looks away or hesitates in his dialogue it produces an emotional reaction for the audience.

Just as profound as the emotional journey for these characters is the look, sound and feel of Lucas’s vision. Watch carefully and notice the consistency in his compositions and his use of light across the three aforementioned films. Look at the magnificent reflections off his muscle cars cruising the night streets, an effective cue that reminds us of the play of light off Darth Vader’s black helmet in Star Wars or the faceless policemen in THX 1138. Ironically, the film doesn’t have a credited Director of Photography. Instead, Lucas used two separate cameramen under the guidance of ‘visual consultant’ Haskell Wexler.

It might be an overused term, but American Graffiti truly is a timeless film, invisible to age and impossible to forget. It’s one part of the remarkable legacy of influential and inspired films from George Lucas in the 1970s. Damn I miss him.

American Graffiti is available on Blu-ray from Universal Home Entertainment.

The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau (2011) dir. George Nolfi
Starring: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Terrence Stamp, Anthony Mackie, Michael Kelly

***

By Alan Bacchus

It’s probably the least ‘sci-fi’ of the Philip K. Dick adaptations, and though it’s no Blade Runner or Total Recall, The Adjustment Bureau is probably better than Minority Report, Paycheque, Next or any of the other unmemorable Dick stories brought to screen lately.

If it’s a Dick story, we know we’re in for a mind bending, near-future sci-fi high concept scenario. Here, it's the actual physical manifestation of God, or fate, or divine intervention in the form of the 'Adjustment Bureau', a group of hat-wearing suits who have the power to softly change our reality or change our thought processes in order to direct us toward where we are ‘meant to be’.

For David Norris (Damon), a NY politician looking to become a senator, his attraction to a gorgeous ballet dancer, Elise Sellas (Blunt), is cause for the Bureau to intervene. After a chance meeting with Sellas, which wasn’t supposed to happen, Norris’s protective agent/angel, Harry Mitchell (Mackie), is supposed to cause Norris’s coffee to spill, a minor event that is supposed to prevent him from running into Elise again. Somehow this doesn’t happen, which alarms the Bureau suits. When Norris actually catches the Bureau erasing the memory of one of his colleagues he becomes witness to this process of divine intervention. Now the chase is on – Norris fleeing from his apparent destiny.

The first act is difficult to get through. This is the heavy lifting, getting the audience through the high concept scenario and establishing the science fiction rules. There’s much information to get across, which is always a difficult task. Nolfi does his best to give us the ground rules, and even if Matt Damon is the recipient of this information, it’s still a slog to get through. But then Nolfi makes a surprisingly deft turn at the second act and sails his picture along at a quick clip.

Anchored by a genuine love story between David and Elise, we eventually forget we’re watching science fiction. Nolfi’s sci-fi rules are as minimal and real world based as possible. In this middle stretch, David finds himself figuring out ways to use these rules against those chasing him and beat the system that is preventing him from being with Elise. Nolfi even expands his timeframe by jumping months and years in time to show that David’s battle with the Bureau might just be a lifelong fight for love.

Dick was a master of using futuristic concepts to examine profoundly existential, religious and spiritual themes and concepts. In this case, he cleverly spins the idea of fate and free will. Dick and Nolfi celebrate our individuality and present our minds as powerful forces strong enough to oppose the almighty divine. This is the stuff myths, legends, bibles and Kirk Cameron movies are made of. The Adjustment Bureau rarely feels preachy. It’s just a fun romance cum action film with a semi-serious message.

The Adjustment Bureau is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Universal Home Entertainment.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch (2011) dir. Zack Snyder
Starring: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Scott Glenn, Oscar Isaac, Jon Hamm, Carla Gugino

**

By Alan Bacchus

Sucker Punch has Zack Snyder working for the first time from an original script of his own, not adapted from a comic book source or a previous film, as in Dawn of the Dead. That said, it fits into the same hyperstylized alternate universe world we saw in 300 and Watchmen. Unfortunately, it still feels like an under-realized adaptation of a more complex graphic novel – in this case his own comic book adaptation, which actually doesn’t exist.

In Sucker Punch Snyder crafts a glossy high production value version of what is essentially a ‘70s female revenge/prison flick with the same ultra-violent exploitation fetishness, but with carte blanche creative and production possibilities. It would be redundant to fault the film for its narrative deficiencies, as Snyder purposely takes us out of the conventional narrative box in order to stimulate us with his carefully crafted set pieces.

Babydoll (Browning) has been put into a ‘50s-style mental institution, the kind where malevolent, ill-informed ‘doctors’ perform lobotomies to cure patients of mental disorders. Just as the metal spike is about to be punctured into Babydoll’s brain, her mind disappears into a subconscious doppelganger world – a nightclub/brothel featuring similarly marginalized women. Curiously, this subconscious world is as misogynistic as the one from which she’s just escaped, a club run by a sadistic owner who sells his girls to high-rolling clients. When Babydoll demonstrates her seductiveness during a dance, her mind reverts again deeper into another level of consciousness. During these dance sequences we see Babydoll’s mind play out a series of SWAT team missions commanded by Scott Glenn. Babydoll and her gal pals fight off giant Samurais, giant robots in WWI battlefields and all sorts of oddball opponents that Mr. Snyder dreams up.

Narratively, this is all a dog’s breakfast, as it’s overly produced eye candy that portends to have profound insight into our deep subconscious. There’s no doubt this is a career misstep for Snyder, which everyone will soon forget as they move on to better things. Pretty much the entire critical world agrees, and for the most part the film has quickly fallen out of the public consciousness. Even with the unevenness of Watchmen, it still felt important and valuable to the pop culture zeitgeist at large. Not much resonates from Sucker Punch.

That said, I was never bored while watching it. No matter how ridiculous or nonsensical it is, Snyder can shoot a film with such panache, it’s often a beauty to behold. Sure, he may overuse his slow motion and speed ramping effects, but damn if it doesn’t consistently deliver a spectacular kind of action few filmmakers can deliver today.

If anything, the film can also be cherished for one scene alone. It’s a truly awesome fight sequence aboard a moving train, during which the girl SWAT team rappels into a moving train from a helicopter while fighting off a couple dozen badass robots with lightsabers and handguns. Snyder’s choreography and execution of this scene are superlative, but it really exists for its own sake and contributes little to the story and character development in the movie.

The whole film is a series of set pieces seemingly designed while Snyder was sleeping or listening to his iTunes library while stuck in LA traffic. The music choices are especially precious. Tracks like Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks and The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows are pretentious and imply that some grand art work is being constructed when really it’s as empty and lifeless as those meatheads in 300.

Sucker Punch is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Warner Home Entertainment.

The Makioka Sisters

The Makioka Sisters (1983) dir. Kon Ichikawa
Starring: Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Kasuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga, Yuko Kotegawa and Juzo Itami

**

By Greg Klymkiw

I wanted to love this movie for three reasons.

First of all, I must admit that even after having seen over 30,000 movies in my life, there are still so many more to see. Japanese director Kon Ichikawa, one of the foremost masters of his country's cinema, is - for example - a filmmaker who inexplicably fell below my radar. I knew he existed, but bad timing forced me to keep missing the handful of massive retrospectives of his work at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Cinematheque (now housed in the grand TIFF Lightbox complex in Toronto, Canada).

I had also been aware of Ichikawa's ongoing obsession with adapting the best of Japan's wealth of great literature and how this generally distinguished him amongst many of his contemporaries. Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa were particularly interested in original screenplays - good on them, but I never look a road map in the mouth, so to speak. For me, Japanese literature (save for Yukio Mishima) continues to be an unknown commodity and I have been chomping at the bit to dine at the Ichikawa Buffet (as it were) to use his movies as a barometer and/or guide to some of these great literary works. In essence, I have been preparing to use Ichikawa like the "Classics Illustrated" comics from my childhood. They always promoted the notion of "now you've read the comic, read the full length book" and for me, that used to work wonders. I mean, really! What the hell! I'm technically not a kid anymore, but even adults with a bit of book learnin' can use some help now and again.

The second reason I wanted to love The Makioka Sisters is that the first half hour is utterly spellbinding. Though we focus only on the four sisters of the title (Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Kasuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga, Yuko Kotegawa) and one husband (Juzo Itami, eventually a noted Japanese director in his own right), Ichikawa lays out an extremely complex backstory that forces us (not distractingly) to work overtime sorting out and digesting the relationships between the characters and the cultural/historical backdrop.

Add to the above, one of the most heart achingly beautiful visual set pieces imaginable - the sisters taking a lazy stroll to enjoy the cherry blossoms - and you feel like you're diving into what might be a life-changing masterwork (save for the intrusion of one execrable element I will mention much later in this piece).

The final reason I wanted to love this movie is that it's one of those potentially great Chekhovian stories I'm a sucker for - people looking desperately to make connections with each other (or ANYONE) against a major cusp period where it's easier to remain rooted in what's dying or dead than move forward and embrace or accept the new.

It's a world where the ghosts of the past - replete with all their sins and triumphs - want to be at peace, but the living will not let them go, much to the detriment of all concerned. Within this social/cultural/historical cusp period, some will make it, most will not - and out of this shift in the divide should come both tragedy and comedy - all the stuff of great drama.

Alas, The Makioka Sisters falls short of its goals. It is not even especially GOOD drama, let alone being great.

Its story is a simple one - as most great stories are. Four sisters in pre-war (1938) Osaka live a life of relative luxury. Buoyed as they are by the inheritance left to them by their late parents, all should be well. It isn't. Tradition dictates that the sisters marry in descending order of their age in order to qualify for their share of the loot - which is, essentially to be their dowries. This is all well and good for the two eldest sisters who are already hitched, but the third eldest is a major wallflower and the youngest is clearly a modern lass with a burning desire to get on with her life.

Tradition is holding her back, And ultimately, for the family as a whole to move "forward", marriage (and by extension, tradition) is seen as the only option - hence the central goal of the story being the marrying off of daughters three and four. Romance would be nice in the equation, but clearly low on the totem pole of what's seen as necessary for the preservation of the family. The needs of the individual are less than an afterthought. In fact, they're negligible.

What keeps the movie from soaring, even though it occasionally feels like it wants to, is Ichikawa's approach to rendering the narrative. He often hangs back in medium wide shots and lets long conversations play themselves out. God knows I'm happy to watch bearded warriors in lotus positions in Kurosawa pictures as they discuss WHY they're at war and HOW they will do battle. I'm especially happy to sit for hours on end while people talk to each other in tatami-level shots in Ozu. Their pictures are replete with emotion and narrative drive - unlike The Makioka Sisters.

For several reasons, Ichikawa's approach just doesn't cut it. Some will argue that his method is restraint - that he's avoiding the obvious pitfalls and clichés inherent in goosing every dramatic beat to the max. On the other hand, it could almost be argued that he's either lazy, incompetent or hampered by exigencies of production. Almost every single time he moves from his favourite (and I'd suggest rather dull) fixed camera position, so many of the cuts feel jarring and awkward (and not intentionally) while the variation of shots often seem to be from the wrong angle. Well, given the number of stunning set pieces in the movie, he's neither lazy nor incompetent, but I do think he was wrong to tell this story the way he chose to tell it.

This is a story that, while simple on the surface, is loaded with layer upon layer of complexity and yet, one is hardly compelled to even bother peeling back those layers as the director seems so disinterested in wrenching our guts for fear, I suspect, of being melodramatic.

Well, this is a bit of a problem when the story has all the hallmarks of great melodrama and none of the required execution. Ichikawa goes out of his way to mute every major melodramatic beat to the point where a handful of scenes compel you in a certain direction, then refuse to deliver up the goods. The movie has five major emotional set pieces (you'll discover those on your own) and they're exquisitely rendered on both visual levels and from the great cast (who are often wasted by Ichikawa's overall mise-en-scene).

Sorry, Kon. This is really annoying, bud. You need to loosen up a bit.

Ozu, for example, is able to wrench out drama from the smallest details and he is NEVER afraid of emotion. Some have suggested his approach is indeed restrained in order for the emotional core to open up and be real. I disagree. Ozu, like Kurosawa, is NOT afraid of being sentimental or even melodramatic. They are storytellers - first and foremost - and will use every trick up their sleeve to wrench emotion from an audience. As well, I'm not suggesting a measured, mannered approach can't work. It can. It just doesn't work in The Makioka Sisters due, at least based on this picture to Ichikawa either unwilling or incapable of achieving the heights his colleagues aimed for or worse, his inability to properly execute his own approach.

On a surface level, the movie's concluding moments come close to creating that heart breaking devastation that's as sad as it is soaring, but by then, it's too late. Ichikawa has spent most of the movie muting all the emotion, occasionally and sloppily tossing in a dollop of it here and there, then allowing it to all hang out at the end.

Great melodrama (or even straight-up drama) needs to build to such an explosion. Ichikawa seems so obsessed with his snobby attempts at restraint that he forgot he had an audience he needed to please.

I've thus far avoided any background on exigencies of production that might have lead to Ichikawa creating this supremely flawed work (wildly praised from people who really should know better). The above were my impressions knowing nothing about the making of the film (my preferred method of seeing anything for the first time). That said, upon discovering that Ichikawa was commissioned by Japan's Toho Company to make the feature as part of its 50th year celebrations and that he was subsequently and idiotically nickelled and dimed to death, is still not reason enough to change my mind. In fact, I watched the movie a second time and my conclusions stand - it's a movie with occasional beauty, tons of potential but finally, a mess.

I suspect this was probably not the best introduction to Ichikawa's work. I'll certainly see more and I'll eventually watch this again with the context of his fuller canon behind me. Maybe I'll change my mind., though I doubt highly I will - especially in light of the following:

The most bafflingly egregious element of The Makioka Sisters is the music. In spite of the fact that the movie was made in the '80s where the style of music chosen was popular for the RIGHT movies, it is completely, utterly and overwhelmingly incomprehensible to me why a movie that DEMANDED a full orchestral score is miserably fouled with synthesized music so god-awful it might as well have been crapped out by Harold Faltermeyer.

The problem with this is that The Makioka Sisters is not about a Detroit cop in Beverly Hills. Given the score, it might as well have been.

"The Makioka Sisters" has been lovingly restored and presented on a nice looking, but extras-lacking Criterion Collection Blu-ray.

Rose Marie (1954 version)

Rose Marie (1954) dir. Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas, Joan Taylor, Bert Lahr, Marjorie Main, Ray Collins and Chief Yowlachie

***

By Greg Klymkiw

Did you know that all Canadian watering holes in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta are populated with friendly mad trappers who raise their mugs of beer nightly and sing rousing a cappella renditions of "Alouette"?

Well, now you know.

God help me, I love operettas.

Glorious tenors and sopranos trilling through insanely romantic melodramatic plots with dollops of broad comic relief have always been my idea of a good time. Rose Marie, a magnificent chestnut (stuffed with loads of oozing cheese) was based on the Rudolph Friml, Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach operetta (light opera, for the uninitiated) and was made into a movie three times - a 1928 silent version with Joan Crawford in the title role, Woody Van Dyke's astonishing 1936 version with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy and the order of today's business, Mervyn LeRoy's ridiculous and stunningly creaky CinemaScope version (in glorious Technicolor no less) from 1954.

Though the 1936 version is a better movie in all respects, I'll always have a special place in my heart for the 1954 vintage. When I was a kid in the 1960s, MGM mounted several major retrospective play dates of their greatest (and even not-so-great) classics and played them in first-run theatres. This version was the first I saw in that series of major reissues - a gorgeous, newly minted print in the aforementioned CinemaScope, Technicolor and on a huge screen in an old picture palace (long since shuttered forever).

Seeing the blazing red uniforms of my country's illustrious Royal Canadian Mounted Police in this fashion has stayed with me well into my dotage.

Even though I eventually discovered and loved Woody Van Dyke's 30s trollop into backlot Canada, this version of Rose Marie is much closer to the original operetta - offering up plot machinations far more ludicrous and as such, deserving copious kudos for doing so.

Read this and weep:

Howard Keel plays square-jawed Captain Mike Malone, a happy horse riding, tune-belting Mountie who trots into the deep bush of Alberta in search of Rose Marie (Ann Blyth, sporting a weirdly delightful French Canadian accent by way of Hollywood voice coaches). Mountie Mike earlier promised an old friend that he'd raise the child as his own should said pal ever bite the bullet. Mountie Mike is the ultimate Canadian Scarlet Avenger - true to his word and always getting his man (or in this case, woman). His loyalty and resolve knowing no bounds, the Mike-ster collects this newly orphaned lass of the wilderness - a spunky wild child tomboy who has no desire or intention to ever leave the idyll of nature.

Rose Marie doth protest too much and does so in utter futility. One never says "no" to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and especially not Mike, for he does what any man of the law would do.

He takes her by force.

Before you can say "maple syrup" la belle femme, soon dons the garb of the Mounties and is raised at the outpost as such.

Yes, a Mountie!

With a bevy of hunky red-suited and red-blooded Canucks providing surrogate parentage, our shapely little Missy becomes even more curvy and delicious - vaguely hiding those supple curves just beneath her form-fitting RCMP adornments. In addition to Capt. Mike, Rose Marie is doted on by a surrogate grandfather figure, the charming irascible Barney McCorkle (marvellously played by Mr. Cowardly Lion himself, Bert Lahr).

Can this possibly get any better? Read on, dear reader.

When Mike's C.O. Inspector Appleby (Ray Collins - he of Boss Jim Gettys fame in Citizen Kane and Lt. Tragg in Perry Mason) pops by to survey the troops, he displays considerable disdain over the lack of close shaves adorning the gorgeous faces of Capt. Mike's men, until he caresses the cheek of Rose Marie.

(To this day, cheek-caressing is the preferred method of inspecting closeness of shaves amongst the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Canadians are indebted to Hollywood forever for revealing this fact to the world.)

At first, Appleby is mightily impressed with the smoothness of this slightly peach-fuzzed face, but one double take later, he realizes the delicate-skinned mountie is, in fact a woman. He orders Capt. Mike to take her into town so she may be trained in the ways of the weaker sex by Lady Jane Dunstock (Marjorie Main of "Ma and Pa Kettle" fame), a ballsy inn-and-brothel-keeper who adorns herself in bright purple-coloured satin dresses.

And presto! Rose Marie is tutored in the ways of woman and reveals looks so beguilingly gorgeous that Mike falls in love with her.

(To this day, whores and/or brothel-keepers are entrusted by Canadians to transform tomboys into ladies and again, Canadians are indebted to Hollywood forever for revealing yet another salient factoid of Canuck-hood to the world.)

Ah, but the plot (as it were) thickens when the dashing James Severn Duval (Fernando Lamas as a French Canadian trapper born in the Yukon and sporting a Spanish accent) is ordered by Chief Black Eagle (Chief Yowlachie, a Native American actor) to stop diddling his comely daughter Wanda (Joan Taylor).

Chief Black Eagle no want-um paleface to make-um daughter squaw. Bloodline must stay pure. Mixing white with red make-um heap mongrel papoose. This make-um Apple, eh? Red on outside, white on inside. Is heap extra bad if white is Quebecois of Spanish persuasion.

No matter, though. Once Duval gets a glimpse of Rose Marie, he's immediately smitten and our poor heroine is faced with having to choose between two hunky fellas.

What's a girl to do?

From here, the plot (as it were) becomes an even stickier Acadian gumbo of romantic intrigue when Wanda jealously decides to get her studly fur-trapping Hispanic back at any and all cost. This turning point happens during one of the most outrageous musical numbers ever committed to celluloid - the Busby Berkeley choreographed "Totem Tom-Tom", a mouth-wateringly sexy depiction of an ancient aboriginal fertility dance where Wanda writhes frenziedly amongst a bevy of beauties and a passel of bronze bucks. During her sensual manipulations, that would, no doubt, put most pole dancers in gentleman's clubs to shame, Wanda becomes distracted enough to notice the love of her life smooching with our lily white heroine.

No give-um birth to Apple papoose if this dalliance continues in earnest.

Hell breaks loose and our tale dips its toe into the dark side with non-aboriginals tied to stakes, murder, mistaken identity and last second reprieves from the gallows.

I was riveted.

That said, my 10-year-old daughter repeatedly chided me with, "But Dad, how can you like this? It's so predictable."

Well, as I said earlier, I'm a sucker for operettas.

It's not just the familiar plots, but that fact that they're used primarily as a coat hanger for the lead characters to burst into song. The ditties in this one are plenty ripe.

This version of Rose Marie is blessed with a rendition of "Indian Love Call" that rivals any I've heard or seen.

And, lest I forget, allow me to cite a great comic warble assigned to Bert Lahr entitled "I'm A Mountie Who Never Got His Man". This number, newly created by George Stoll and Herbert Baker is a genuine laugh riot, though you will need to seriously forget anything you've ever learned about cultural sensitivity to even sit through it, much less thoroughly enjoy it.

In fact, the movie is replete with all manner of stereotypes. Some might call them racist, but there's nothing especially hateful about the attitudes, but rather more ignorant - especially given the time period in which the film is set and when it was made. Though one shouldn't outright excuse the propagation of outmoded cultural representation from another age, it's still probably a good idea to try and appreciate the supremely oddball imaginations it took to come up with them, and in turn, allow yourself a fascinating window into a bygone perspective.

Another interesting aspect of the film is the bizarre portrait it paints of Canada. If you ever get a chance, please read Pierre Berton's magnificent book "Hollywood's Canada". It's an amazing catalogue and history of this strange period when Hollywood decided to prevent an indigenous film industry from blossoming in Canada with government support. Canada, as per much of its history, strapped on the kneepads before Uncle Sam and agreed only to allow taxpayer support of documentaries, and in return, the American government (through the Motion Picture Association of America) agreed to make as many movies as possible promoting Canada - its culture, history and natural beauty. This included shooting in Canada, but in the case of Rose Marie much of the stunning technicolor footage is of the second-unit variety. Of course, this policy of cultural "reciprocity" resulted in the stereotyping of Canada to such an extent I can still fool most anyone from America who has never ventured above the 49th parallel (including Rhodes Scholars) that we all wear fur hats and lumberjack shirts, live in igloos or teepees and bottle-feed the newly-born with Molson Canadian beer. My road trips through the Deep South (Mississippi in particular) are always a blast when I encounter gas jockeys, convenience store clerks and academicians who ask in their tell-tale drawl of white-trashery, "Y'all frumm Kenuh-duh?"

As to the portrayal of Canada's Aboriginal peoples, I must wholeheartedly reiterate that Rose Marie is best enjoyed if you gird your loins of cultural sensitivity and doff your caps of Political Correctness.

In essence, go Republican. Or go home.

"Rose Marie" is one of hundreds of movies from the Warner Brothers catalogue that will not receive an official release on DVD. In Toronto, Canada the only places that carry a wide selection of these titles are the flagship store of Sunrise Records at Yonge and Dundas and the newly resurrected Starstruck Video at Dundas and Tomken. They're simply colour balanced transfers from the best existing materials and available only in specialty shops or online - for a premium price, of course. Also, the transfers do vary in quality. So far, many are good, but I have to sadly admit that the "Rose Marie" transfer is not all it could be. Frankly, it's begging for proper clean-up and meticulous transfer to Blu-ray - not just DVD. That all said, I'm happy many of these pictures are finally available for home consumption, but it would be a lot better if the price point was, at the very least, lowered.

Unknown

Unknown (2011) dir. Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Bruno Ganz

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

It’s odd that Liam Neeson has turned into an international action star. Well thanks to the curious success of Taken, an awful movie, that somehow tapped into the audience’s healthy appetite for stories of ordinary men on rampages of revenge, kicking ass and taking names, Liam Neeson is experiencing a nice new career.

In Unknown, Neeson has considerably less fighting to do, but he’s still in the same scenario as in Taken – a regular American in a foreign place, with everyone conspiring around him fighting to find his wife and claim his identity. Two-thirds of the film is exciting, but the rest, the ending, fails us. But we still have Liam Neeson's commanding presence, his awesome nose and sideways profile to behold, and a few ass-kickings as well to satisfy our appetite for destruction.

Neeson is Dr. Martin Harris who arrives in Berlin with his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones) to speak at an international biomedical conference. At the customs desk, he realizes he’s forgotten his bag and thus goes back to retrieve it. But Martin’s cab gets into an accident, putting him in the hospital and in a coma for days. When he wakes up, somehow he’s not who he thought he was. Someone else (Aidan Quinn) has taken his place as Dr. Martin Harris. Even when he confronts his wife at the conference she claims not to know him.

It’s a beguiling setup. A great high concept tease. Is Martin hallucinating? Is he in some kind of psychedelic dream? Or is he just plain going crazy? As Martin pieces together his life, he ropes in the lovely female cab driver (Diane Kruger) for help as well as old Stasi retiree (Bruno Ganz) who now uses his investigative skills to do some good in his old age.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra's handsome visuals and elegantly-shot Berlin locales adds a wonderful Cold War spy thriller flavour. The Third Man is the benchmark to reach for the use of location as character in this type of film, and Unknown certainly does NOT reach these heights, but the coldness of the city, and the spectre of the clandestine spy games of old helps create a creepy mood.

Unfortunately with such a teasing set-up, the film needs to explain in a somewhat believeable manner how a sane man can have his identity erased. The writers, Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell working from Didier Van Cauwelaert’s novel, never really make the explaination as exciting or satisfactory as the lead up. The third act revelations twist us in new direction, something in the realm The Manchurian Candidate, linking all the other character involved in Harris’s journey, but it’s all forgettable maguffin-like plotting.

Liam Neeson does get to kick some Euro-ass, not a lot, and he also gets to engage in a decent car chase and hang around with hotter younger gals like January Jones and Diane Kruger, not to mention drink Guinness with his old buddy Aidan Quinn from Michael Collins. And with the decent box office success, not an althogether bad film to be involved with.

Unknown is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Warner Home Entertainment

The Cincinnati Kid

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Something Wild

Something Wild (1986) dir. Jonathan Demme
Starring: Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels, Ray Liotta

****

By Alan Bacchus

There’s not much to celebrate from ‘80s cinema. I posted an article about this topic a few years back (HERE), and I actually forgot to put Jonathan Demme on this list. Something Wild, new to Criterion Collection deification, stands up as one of the best films of the decade. It sits in a pile of unquantifiable quirky films of the ‘80s, which are distinct to the decade and represent the attempt of filmmakers to subvert the strong capitalist conservative values of that time. We could also include Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and a handful of Jim Jarmusch films (Down By Law, Stranger in Paradise, Mystery Train) in this bucket.

I can distinctly remember my reaction watching this film for the first time years ago, specifically the remarkable midpoint tonal switch from fun, fluffy romantic road movie to a dark and violent kidnapping and revenge tale. The moment occurs in a convenience store, where Charlie Driggs (Jeff Daniels), a meek suburban schmuck who, on the second day of his rambunctious, spur of the moment road trip with his flighty free spirit girlfriend Lulu, is caught in an armed robbery heist with a dangerous criminal. The scene is punctuated by a raucous punk song and features Ray Liotta losing his cool and throwing around and pistol whipping store patrons, as well as a mighty cool freeze frame in the middle of the action for good measure. It’s a Martin Scorsese-type scene all the way, and we can’t help but think Marty saw this and decided to cast Liotta in Goodfellas.

The scene is also famous for influencing Paul Thomas Andersons' famous midpoint tonal shift in Boogie Nights, when (spoiler alert) William H. Macy’s character, after witnessing his wife boning another dude for the umpteenth time, decides to blow his own head off in the middle of a party. As in Something Wild, this scene represented a distinct turn to the dark side for Anderson.

Liotta is indeed a revelation in this film, a pocket full of rage so dangerous and threatening we can feel it through the screen in our seats. Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith also give fabulous performances. It's one of Griffith’s signature roles, the high-pitch voiced cock-tease character she would hone over the next ten years or so. For Daniels, his “awe shucks” personality represents the conservativeness of Americana in the decade, which makes Lulu’s seduction and corruption as the skewer into the social and political values of the period so delightful.

Demme was a master of using real locations and real personalities from these settings to create authenticity and realism. Watch the scene in the second half, when Charlie, who, while stalking the reunited lovers Lulu and Ray, enters a convenience store to buy a disguise. It’s a comical scene with Charlie donning a garish t-shirt and ludicrously tacky sunglasses. But watch his interaction with the other actors, who seem to exist in the space instead of being ‘placed’ there for the purposes of the film. Same with the end credits when Lulu and Charlie walk away along the sidewalk. The camera pans to a street vendor singing a reggae ditty. Demme has no reason to point his camera at her other than the fact that it feels right for the scene. I doubt this was in the script or even the shot list at the beginning of the day. But it’s the mark of a great filmmaker running on all cylinders and unable to make a mistake.

Something Wild is a classic from a decade with very little classics.

Something Wild is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

The Island

The Island (2006) dir. Michael Bay
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, Sean Bean, Djimon Honsou

**

By Alan Bacchus

I’m one of the forgiving critics who can generally look past ridiculous plotting, overwrought hyperkinetic visual stimuli, the often objectionable depiction of women and the general immaturity of Michael Bay’s films and appreciate the pure spectacle of his filmmaking aesthetics. Michael Bay makes Michael Bay movies, and God bless him for it.

Back in 2005, fresh off the relative disappointments of Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys 2, Bay’s attempt to come back with The Island also failed. His brand of glossy eye candy just didn’t fit into the brainy ‘70s intellectual futurist sci-fi from which the concept of The Island stems.

In this film, we experience the point of view of Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor), one of hundreds of men and women living in a sterile futuristic boarding house of sorts, sequestered from an apparent viral outbreak in the outside world. They spend their days exercising, eating right and wearing identical white jumpsuits. Their one goal in life is to win the lottery, which takes them to ‘the Island’, a seemingly pristine world free of their forced confinement and the contamination of the rest of the world. But when Lincoln starts questioning the absurdity of his sterile lifestyle, it begins his journey of escape and the discovery of the heinous deception at play.

Eventually, Lincoln and his tagalong gal pal Jordan Two Echo (Johansson) escape and get chased by the cool looking police cum SWAT team led by the slick Djimon Honsou. Normally with this type of film, say George Lucas’s THX 1138, escape from containment occurs in the third act. But such timing just doesn’t pass for summer blockbuster entertainment. And so, by the 45 minute mark, Lincoln and Jordan are on the run, fish out of water trying to navigate their way in the real world with Bay attempting to extract humour from their wide-eyed naive reactions to the colloquialisms of our world.

The application of the Bay brand of dialogue, that hyperfast delivery of crude jokes and characters talking over each other in loud, shrill voices, is distinct to the director, but doesn’t fit the genre. Same with the overly lit music video lighting. Everything in the film is a bold colour, whether it’s the yellow sunlight that streams through every window like it’s blazing dusk blinding our eyes, or the overly greenish fluorescent lights showing us the grimy and dirty aspect of the conceptual world.

The most disappointing aspect of the film is the Bay action scenes, and action scenes are the main reason to watch these movies. The central set piece, another highway chase, is a near carbon copy of the Miami freeway chase in Bad Boys 2 (Bay would even try this a third time in Transformers). When the action scenes fail to stimulate us in a Michael Bay picture, the film is doomed.

The third act, which runs way too long, surprises us with the introduction of a doppelganger Ewan McGregor. Bay has some fun with the dual character banter, one a slimy disreputable race car driver and the regular Lincoln a sympathetic innocent to the world.

In the end, The Island is even more forgettable than his most brainless features. Bay should either just stick with the brawn, like in the Transformers franchise, or completely shift gears and exercise his brain for a change. I genuine like the guy and would love to see the latter.

The Island is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment.

Solaris

Solaris (1972) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, Nikolai Grinko

****

By Alan Bacchus

Cinema legend has it that Solaris was partly born from a healthy competition with Stanley Kubrick and a bit of Cold War competitiveness from the Soviet government and Mosfilm to trump the West. After seeing and hating the cold dehumanization of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it's been said that Tarkovsky sought to make a science fiction film about the emotions of the human condition. The result was Solaris, based on the book by Polish author Stanislaw Lem. And while 2001 was an outward expansion of the scope of our place in the universe, Solaris looks inward into the human soul and the mighty power of our ability to love.

As a movie-going experience, Tarkovsky does indeed infuse his story with a heaping of brooding internalized emotions. But despite the competitive intentions, the film produces the same feeling of an existential dissertation as beguiling as Kubrick’s film.

One central existential question fills the 2-hour mostly non-narrative drama. What is the moral implication of recreating another life from the dead? This is what has happened to the skeleton crew of a Russian space station orbiting Solaris, a planet seemingly without life, but one that has a distinct supernatural force emanating from its vast oceans. The first 45 minutes are spent on Earth with Kris Kelvin, a psychologist who is being coerced into investigating the phenomenon by one of the station’s former cosmonauts.

Once at the station, Kelvin experiences the psychological and physical hallucinations that have caused many of the crew to go insane and even resort to suicide. Kelvin soon discovers these hallucinations are not projections of the mind but physical manifestations of one’s own subconscious. For Kelvin, it’s the mind, body and spirit of his late wife.

The two other cosmonauts have already experienced this phenomenon, and while bringing back the dead seems like a miracle, everyone fears the worst. These new beings take their energy from the planet and cannot return to Earth. And even if they should die, Kelvin’s subconscious will always bring them back to life.

The ethical ramifications of this scenario are known to everyone on board and so most of the film is a lengthy spiritual discussion about right and wrong. While it’s Tarkovsky at his most deliberate and languid, the discussions are intellectually stimulating, thought-provoking and wholly accessible. There’s also a strong sting of emotional pain running through the entire film, mainly the dilemma that although Kelvin has revived his wife, he ultimately cannot be with her.

The film ends with a magnificent reveal reminiscent of the TV show Lost (actually, something few Losties had made connections to when that show was the water cooler topic of the day). Kelvin finds a new home using the planet's gift of life as a solution to his dilemma, a supreme sacrifice of love, tremendously powerful and profound.

Solaris is considerably less ambitious technically than Kubrick’s film, but Tarkovsky still manages to craft a stunningly beautiful science fiction film. Magnificent production design and liberal but effective special effects put us into this realistic near future world. Look closely though and there’s only 3 or 4 sets used. But with clever compositions, he manages to create the appearance of a fully formed derelict space station.

The scenes on Earth are just as important as those in space. There's a masterful traffic sequence early on, which initially seems like a brief transition image with the former cosmonaut Berton riding in his car through a highway. But then the sequence continues on and on for several minutes. As Burton rolls through the urban jungle, noises cascading on him and us, it becomes a surreal, abstract metaphor for the artificiality of our world and Berton’s desire to achieve transcendence like his brief time at Solaris.

The Criterion Collection disc is transferred from a low con print, not the original negative. It’s a shame, as it’s not quite as pristine as it could have been. But the film looks as fantastic and sharp as it’s ever been. I could never figure out the combination of B&W sequences interspersed with colour, but it’s part of Tarkovsky’s artistic vision, which is unexplainable. Nonetheless, it just ‘feels right’. Viewers have to bare garish zoom lenses, which don’t quite fit into the visual design. But it was the’ 70s, and many great films are burdened by this ugly visual device.

Solaris is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

The Long Riders

The Long Riders (1980) dir Walter Hill
Starring: James Keach, Stacey Keach, David Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine, Randy Quaid, Dennis Quaid,

****
 By Alan Bacchus

By 1980, we were just starting the long doldrums of the Western genre. So maybe we can consider Walter Hill's The Long Riders the last great western. The story of Jesse James has been the subject of a hundred films over the last century, and arguably Walter Hill's is the top bar.

Walter Hill, known mainly as one of the best action directors of the ‘80s, was once a protégé of Sam Peckinpah, having written his fine Steve McQueen/Ali McGraw heist film The Getaway. The Peckinpah influence on Hill and The Long Riders is palpable.

Hill was a master of writing and directing mean and nasty characters, and the conflict between the James/Younger Gang and the Pinkerton authorities is tough and bloody. The opening establishes the steely eyed toughness of Jesse James (James Keach), who is introduced robbing a bank with his brother Frank (Stacy Keach) and his cohorts, the Youngers (the Carradine brothers) and the Millers (the Quaid brothers). After the trigger-happy Ed Miller gets kicked out of the gang, seeds of internal dissent within the group are born.

As they move between train robberies, bank heists, visits to whorehouses and even time spent at home with families, we see the concurrent actions of the Federal Government officers, The Pinkertons, to apprehend the gang.

As the opening Ry Cooder bluegrass tune plays over the elegant slow-motion footage of the gang riding across the lush green Missouri landscape, the reverence of both the genre and the history of the period is established. This tone continues throughout the mix of gritty actions scenes and genuine heartfelt nostalgia. Hill paints his characters as real working class people, but also aggrandized criminals who have helped form the myths and legends of the emerging nation.

The numerous action set pieces are phenomenal. The knife fight between James Remar and David Carradine is terrific. The battle between two badass characters – Remar, the muscular half-breed and husband to Pamela Reed's character, and David Carradine, the quiet and Zen-like client of the whore – is an awesome macho standoff.

Hill saves his best scene for last. It’s not only the best of his career, it’s one of the greatest action set pieces ever filmed by anyone. Hill applies all the Peckinpah influence and knowledge he gleaned from the ‘70s into his mesmerizing Minnesota raid bloodbath. The multiple camera frame rates and the same montage rhythm is the finest and most famous Peckinpah homage we've seen.

The Long Riders is available on Blu-ray from MGM Home Entertainment.

RAGE

RAGE (1972) dir. George C. Scott
Starring: George C. Scott, Richard Basehart, Martin Sheen, Barnard Hughes, Nicolas Beauvy and Ed Lauter

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

In the movies, things often begin innocently enough with clouds, but as we all know, those billowing masses of stratospheric cumuli can also deliver iniquity of the most malicious kind. To my way of thinking, pictures from the 1930s, 50s and 70s had some of the more vile cloud droppings. In 1935, Hitler descended through the visible vapour to preside over the Nuremberg rallies in Leni Riefenstahl's masterwork of Nazi propaganda The Triumph of the Will. During the Cold War in 1957, similar meteorological puff balls brought an incurable condition to the character of Scott Carey (Grant Williams) in Jack Arnold's classic sci-fi thriller The Incredible Shrinking Man. Philip Kaufman's stunning 1978 remake of Don Siegel's hysteria-infused 50s chiller Invasion of the Body Snatchers, alien spores bent on replicating themselves in mankind drifted into Earth's atmosphere from space. Through brumous wisps over San Francisco, the podlike spire of corporate homogeneity, the Trans-America building, stood like a seeming and appropriate beacon for a life form bereft of emotion and bent on destruction.

Those are a few of my favourites. The list of clouds that bring nastiness in the movies could, however, go on.

RAGE was made in 1972 - a decade where paranoia ran rampant in both life and the movies and when belief in conspiracy became commonplace - especially in the sort of urban backdrops as portrayed in Kaufman's picture and the numerous political thrillers of the era.

In RAGE, we are far from the bustle of a metropolis. The town and the country are - in most matters - two solitudes and so it is that the opening of actor George C. Scott's feature directorial debut cascades us - not over a city, but through the lush, heaven-like clouds hovering gently over a rural Nevada landscape. We're in sheep country and Scott plays Dan Logan, a rugged herdsman who lives a quiet life with his pre-teen son Chris (Nicolas Beauvy). The two have a mutual respect and admiration for each other and nature. They go about their laconic business on the open rugged plains - the outside world far, far away.

Or so they believe.

With the exception of a military helicopter blasting over them and Lalo Schifrin's odd score - seeming more at home in an episode of The Waltons than the usual throbbing dischords he generated for films like Bullitt and Dirty Harry et al - father and son eventually bed down for the night under the stars. Dan and loyal pooch nestle comfortably within a canvas tent, whilst sonny-boy sleeps outside, keeping the sheep, crickets and stars company.

The next morning, Dan wakes up to find all his sheep splayed about the fields - barely alive. Chris is in the same condition. Dan attempts to wake his son, but to no avail and he bundles the boy into his pickup truck. Taking one last look at the carnage, Dan's POV reveals a sheep twitching in pain, its tongue hanging out and blood pouring from its nostrils. In bold, blazing red, the title treatment appears over the shuddering wooly ungulate. As the word RAGE smashes into our faces, so does the Lalo Schifrin score. We know for sure we're not in Kansas, Dorothy. Nor, for that matter are we in Waltons territory.

As the previous God-shots of the bucolic countryside return, cinematographer Fred (Patton, Billy Jack, Papillon, The Towering Inferno) Koenekamp captures the overhead fury of Dan's truck racing madly across the Nevada countryside. With Schifrin's trademark grating, grinding music pounding away and ace editor Michael (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist, Fatal Attraction, Saving Private Ryan) Kahn's expert cutting, we know for sure we're in the region of full-blown 70s paranoia.

What follows was, and still is, everyone's worst nightmare - the death of a child - compounded by feelings of helplessness when the death has been caused by the idiotic, senseless actions of a government that should serve and protect at all costs and then refuses to own up to its actions and illegally colludes with as many agencies as possible to cover up its incompetence, its callous disregard of the innocent and its inherent evil.

In reality, many of the South Western United States have hosted all manner of nefarious activities and it's no surprise when it is revealed to us very quickly in RAGE that the government has been developing a nerve gas to use in battle and that an accident has released a small, but deadly amount of the poison.

Soon, all of Dan's sheep die and so does his son. He has also been exposed, but to a lesser extent.

Lesser, but still lethal.

All of this information is, of course, withheld from him. Governments - any governments - are not there to tell the truth. Their reason for being is to uphold the status-quo, the war machine and the New World Order. The film believes it to such an extent that it is infused with a calm, matter-of-fact acceptance of this notion and is relentless in hammering it home. (I love the moment when a military scientist calmly explains - between bites, chews and swallows of his lunch - the devastating effects of nerve gas upon all living things.)

One of the best aspects of the screenplay by Philip Friedman and Dan Kleinman is the clinical manner in which we are delivered all the information that is kept from Dan, the character Scott plays. For us, there are no surprises. We hear everything and see everything - what the tests were for, how they screwed up, the need to contain the disaster, the insidious manner in which all will be covered up and most horrendously of all - the knowledge that anything that has come into contact with the deadly nerve gas will die and so, in the name of "science", Dan will not be told about his impending demise so he can be poked and prodded by doctors and the military to study the effects of this weapon of warfare, or, if you will, of mass destruction.

We watch these Mephistophelian machinations with horror and frustration. We know what our central character does not - the truth.

And what a great character! Dan Logan is a true everyman of a generation that believed in the status quo. He honoured country, authority and put considerable trust in professionals - like doctors. After all, he is, by his own admission, a simple sheep farmer who loves solitude, nature and his son - especially his son. Since being widowed, he lives for his flesh and blood. He is the epitome of decency and, as the central character, he is our way IN to this story. Knowing everything while he knows nothing puts us in his shoes. Though knowing and not knowing are opposite sides of the fence, the end emotional result is the same: mounting frustration, sorrow and finally, anger.

This is fine writing and even finer direction. George C. Scott creates a mise-en-scene of astounding power. Even when he uses slow motion to accentuate emotion tied to action or an action to deflect while, at the same time foreshadow a dramatic beat, he successfully uses a potentially cliched technique (especially in first-time feature directors) that it works almost every single time. Yes, he does overuse it and the film has a few dollops of clunkiness, but nothing that detracts from the whole.

Scott especially makes fine use of cinematographer Fred Koenekamp. The lighting in virtually every scene is spot-on - everything from the antiseptic fluorescence of the institutional interiors to the deep blacks of night punctuated (often with a moving camera) with flashes of light. Yes, there are definitely elements of film noir used to great effect in this harrowing conspiracy thriller, but the picture is also infused with a heavy sense of Aristotelian tragedy. (This, no doubt, appealed greatly to Scott.)

As an actor, he delivers - under his own esteemed direction - one of his best performances. Any movie called RAGE and starring George C. Scott is a flashing billboard of what to expect. And yes, rage comes - Oh Boy, does it come!

But it's a slow burn.

Scott the director wisely uses Scott the actor so we believe every turn of his character through the myriad of emotions he expresses (or holds back). Scott, of course, looks great with a stylish down home burr-cut and bushy eyebrows - in addition to his grizzled mug. He's also in terrific physical condition. He might be a tad paunchier than the days he slapped his rock-hard belly as General Buck in Dr. Strangelove, but he looks every bit the MAN who works with his hands. And Damn! As comfortable as Scott seems behind the wheel of a pickup truck, he also looks great on a motorcycle - cooler than cool.

Earlier, I made mention of Michael's Kahn's editing. Many of the cuts are seamless and "silent", but on occasion we are slammed with a cut that rips the breath out of us. One of the most stunning edits occurs on a closeup of George C. Scott's face as he looks - almost without emotion - upon the post-autopsy body of his child and then, in the sweetest spot imaginable we get a smash cut to black. The black holds silently until we hear Scott's off-camera sobs and we realize we are in an exterior black as the camera is moving until a square of light reveals Scott moving with psychotic determination in his gait and pain growling from his throat. This is an incredible sequence and a stunning marriage of every major craft discipline achieving a level of convergence that is exactly the sort of cinematic effect that evokes gooseflesh.

As a director, Scott wisely surrounded himself with a terrific cast. It's great seeing Richard Basehart of the long-running sci-fi TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (in addition to some great film noir pictures and very cool eclectic roles in the work of directors like Federico Fellini and John Huston) playing Scott's longtime family doctor - a country general practitioner of the old school who, like Scott's character, places his faith in authority and briefly, in the younger men of science. Martin Sheen, as one of those youthful medicine men, is positively chilling as the career bureaucrat wearing the Hippocratic Oath as if it were the same chain attached to the ghost of greedy old Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol.

The deliciously evil Ed Lauter makes a great appearance as a hospital orderly who'd be more at home as a strong-arm thug to Richard Conte in The Big Combo, while many of the smaller and bit roles feel like they're either played by non-actors or some amazing character actors who are so good they exude the odious whiffs of reality needed to contribute additional colour to the proceedings. In particular, the actresses playing nurses in the hospital laden with conspiracy are such foul cucumbers they give Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest a definite run for her money. Playing military officials, creepy scientists and department of public health officials, the likes of Barnard Hughes, Stephen Young, Paul Stevens, Kenneth Tobey and William Jordan are not only a who's who of 60s/70s character actors, but acquit themselves brilliantly - especially in a horrific boardroom scene where the conspiracy is hatched.

RAGE is one of the best conspiracy thrillers of the 70s and definitely one of the earliest on the scene. Other pictures are better known and revered, but George C. Scott set the stage and the bar very high for all of them. It's a movie that seems to have fallen through the cracks and anyone who enjoys this genre will no doubt enjoy the picture thoroughly. More importantly, though, it's a movie that resonates with our contemporary world and does its job with equal doses of subtlety and sledgehammers. It's perhaps that very dichotomy that makes it an important work in the canon of American cinema of the 70s.

And the rage? Oh yes, there's plenty of that. The carnage Scott inflicts is vicious. Each blow against "The Man" gives us immense pleasure, but the screenplay and by extension, Scott the director, won't give us the Smores in the McFlurry. The film delivers a devastating conclusion, like many of the great 70s classics. The end is on par with the final moments of Dirty Harry, Night Moves and, among many others, The Parallax View.

RAGE gives us the goods we so seldom get in contemporary cinema.

We can win an occasional battle with "The Man", but we'll never win the war.

Sadly, "RAGE" is only available through the Warners Archives label wherein it must be special ordered online (and will only be shipped to U.S. addresses) or secured at a premium from retailers who import the copies into countries outside of the U.S. In Toronto, Canada the only places that carry a wide selection of these titles are the flagship store of Sunrise Records at Yonge and Dundas and the newly resurrected Starstruck Video at Dundas and Tomken. Thankfully, it IS available, but it deserved better than this (as do many of the titles in this particular library).