#90. The Wicked Lady (1945, Arliss) (UK)
Once again, societal expectations of a bygone British era sets the stage for transgression. And once again Margaret Lockwood has her emerald eyes set to the limits of wealth and power, as in The Man in Grey. Unlike The Man in Grey, which saw Hester always in control without ever quite attaining her desires, Barbara acquires status, wealth, and a husband very quickly. She spends the majority of the film fulfilling her own need for excitement, danger, and adrenaline no matter the cost (and it is costly, I assure you). Her motives come from a valid place of stifling and boring expectations for women of the time, explored in a heightened thieving fashion, and through such a heartless character. It’s a win-win for the Gainsborough Pictures, allowing the audience to live vicariously through the Barbara’s deviancy, while doubling back to give her an appropriately nasty end. That she yearns for a traditional life at the end is almost too cruel to her, adding to the film’s ultimately very outdated gender treatment. Margaret Lockwood is wildly great, next-level Hester. James Mason and the rest of the cast apparently held contempt for the corny material and dialogue, but it only adds to the hateful energy, serving the film well. Lots of cleavage and murder.
#91. Sanshiro Sugata (1943, Kurosawa) (Japan)
Akira Kurosawa shows some chops right off the bat, but I had a very difficult time engaging with this. Prototype for Red Beard, following the same journey of young stubborn man learning humility from older wiser figure who is at first misrepresented to the audience. The blooming lotus and travels of a lost shoe stand out as soft visual touches.
#92. Blue Ruin (2014, Saulnier) (US)
I’ve seen so many descriptions of Dwight (Macon Blair) that cite him as an incompetent idiot. Hmmm, that’s just not what I saw when I watched Blue Ruin, the anticipated much-talked about pared-down revenge noir. We mistake reality-based average competence, and being led by emotions but unprepared for the follow through, as idiocy. This is what works best about the film; seeing soft-spoken beach bum Dwight determined, but entirely out of his element. Everything in the narrative revolves around guns; their easy access, their power, and the implications of using one. Revels in its minimal story, allowing for an on/off structure of interactions and encompassing solitude. Blair is something else. Painfully ordinary; awkward and inward. But I’m not sure the film adds up to all that much besides a really solid genre exercise. It arrives at its destination and then just throws its hands up in the air.
#93. Innocent Blood (1992, Landis) (US)
An atrocious start to my 1992 watchlist. Unequivocally one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. It tries to be a never-before-seen genre hybrid; a self-conscious marriage between vampires and the mafia. Innocent Blood ends up botching both big time, wholly uncommitted with one toe half-heartedly on each side of the fence. Doesn’t attempt enough humor to be a comedy, nor scares to be horror, nor intimidation to be crime. Robert Loggia is aggressively over-the-top, and that’s before he rises from the dead. Anne Parillaud, in her first post-Nikita role, is woefully stilted. There’s a next-level category of bad films, and it’s the most offensive kind. When a film, somehow through its uselessness, manages to instill the impression of not even having watched anything when it ends. Innocent Blood is that kind of bad.
#94. Godzilla (2014, Edwards) (US)
Even though we are living in an age of unrelenting spectacle, most films of this ilk have no idea how to utilize the concept. Godzilla excels at spectacle, no small feat indeed. From the sense of build-up, and the consistently human perspective from which we see the monsters, it conveys the palpable feeling that the film’s events are bigger than ourselves. Instills a distinct awe punctuated with incredible visual moments, perhaps most memorably the red-streaked plane plummet. Now here’s the rub; the people. To put it mildly, people are clearly not the point; they are place-markers. But Godzilla still tries to hit story beats within its minimal approach, stopping the film dead in its tracks when its only meant to usher narrative along its merrily destructive way.
You’ve got Bryan Cranston (who is marvelous; the man brings instant gravitas), Ken Watanabe, Elisabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins, and Juliette Binoche in your film, and we get stuck with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, of all fucking people, for the majority of the running time? Whaaaaaa? Why are we stuck with young bland white males as audience surrogates every. damn. time. The way Watanabe and Hawkins are used works much better. They aren’t characters, and they aren’t supposed to be, but by casting compelling actors, their story-driven concern comes through effectively.
The monster-on-monster action is to-the-moon stellar; sprawling brawling. Things of beauty. Godzilla is far more engaging a being than anyone we see. The film starts small and goes big, a refreshing narrative trajectory lost on blockbuster films with setpiece-led structures. But in trying to blend humanity with the monstrous within the small-t0-big trajectory, it flatlines on the former. As impressive as Godzilla is on the spectacle front, and as much as I approve of how it sees the role of characters in theory, the screenplay insists on attempting to hit emotional beats that it can’t even begin to support. That it does this with a lead actor whose non-performance could put you to sleep is the tipping point.
– I just wanted to give Ken Watanabe a hug the entire time. Poor soul.
– A big fat kudos to the Taylor Nichols appearance
Cinema Enthusiast 