Month: November 2021

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Canyon Passage (1946)

Traveling businessman Dana Andrews is asked to escort his best friend’s fiancé Susan Hayward from Portland to Jacksonville, Oregon. Along the way, they visit his own girlfriend Patricia Roc who lives on the frontier with her adopted family. The best friend, played by Brian Donlevy, is a compulsive gambler, stealing from the miners who leave their gold in his safekeeping, and regularly propositioning the wife of a fellow gambler. There’s a lot going on in this film. Along with the love triangles that form, there’s an assailant stalking Andrews, a local love interest for Roc, Indian attacks, multiple killings, no canyon to be seen, and Hoagy Carmichael incessantly singing every time he appears on screen. It somehow manages to wrap it all up in a fairly short runtime through convenient coincidences. It offers pretty Technicolor vistas of Oregon forests, but I’m not sure I’ll remember much about this months from now.   Western

Oscar Nomination: Best Music, Original Song

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The Taking of Pelham 123 (1998)

I hadn’t felt particularly compelled to watch this, but saw that it would possibly be leaving Hoopla’s catalog in December and decided to check it out while I had the chance. It’s obviously a much lesser budget version than the other two versions I’ve seen, which isn’t surprising since it’s a made in Canada TV movie. Story-wise, it stays very close to the original film. Unfortunately visually, it is a relic of its era looking like it was filmed with a low quality camcorder, shaky and gritty. I appreciate that they changed genders with some of the mid-level characters to create some balance, though they lost some of that goodwill by having the sole moment of bonding between two of them by throwing in a motherhood sob story. While not an awful remake, it’s probably best to just stick with the original and ignore the later two.

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The Texas Rangers (1936)

As a tale of three friends and the dilemma that occurs when two of them change paths, this film offers interesting questions on morality and duty. Unfortunately what drives these three apart is that the two decide to join the Texas Rangers, casually killing Natives and robbers alike, while the third decides to continue his life as an outlaw. Fred MacMurray has the strongest performance of the three as the one most torn between his loyalty toward his friend and the duty he has taken to bring him in. Jack Oakie acts as if he were cast in a comedy with a huge grin on his face during the first robbery and every action after. I enjoyed the early scenes of camaraderie when the three of them were working together better than the aggregate of the film.  Western

Oscar Nomination: Best Sound, Recording

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Hercules in New York (1970)

There is almost nothing to recommend this film. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Hercules, an arrogant demigod who berates his father into sending him to Earth. It is a better fish out of water story than Crocodile Dundee where Hercules is completely baffled by human activities, but still manages to befriend a geeky little man named Pretzie and become a successful professional wrestler. It’s Schwarzenegger’s debut film and it’s obvious. Luckily the role doesn’t expect him to do much more than taking off his shirt and flexing his muscles. Arnold Stang’s Pretzie is the best part of the film as he plays up the sidekick tropes with aplomb.

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Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

For no good reason, I often get the title of this (and its remake) confused with The Taking of Pelham 123 and its remakes. Because of this, I had pushed watching this up in my queue after seeing the two versions of the latter. When six members of a street gang are killed in a police ambush, their leaders pledge a blood oath to enact revenge on the LAPD and the city at large. It’s like if the gangs in The Warriors went after everyone else in the city instead of terrorizing the Warriors and it’s wonderful. One of their first murders establishes very quickly that they’re not messing around and it only gets bloodier as they lay siege to the decommissioned precinct. I don’t remember a lot about the remake. Even though I’m sure it doesn’t hold a candle to the original, I’m going to try to get my hands on a copy. As an added note, I don’t have a lot of experience with his films to know if it’s standard Carpenter flair, but the intro music and credits seemed excellently imitated in Stranger Things.

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Sweethearts (1938)

After Naughty Marietta, I was apprehensive about watching additional Jeannette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy pairings. This was many times better than that film. The story is a relatively familiar one, a married couple has been starring in the musical Sweethearts for the last six years. To their producer’s (played by the talented Frank Morgan) chagrin, they become exhausted from the constant professional demands of being in a successful play and hear the siren’s song of Hollywood calling. You get the typical operatic songs from the duo, but also the years of developed chemistry. Additionally, there’s a delightful wooden shoe tap routine by Ray Bolger in the play within the movie. As MGM’s first feature-length color film, it’s cute and offers enough to be entertained by. Musical  Romance

Oscar Win: Cinematography (Honorary)

Oscar Nominations: Best Sound, Recording; Best Music, Scoring

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Legacy (2000)

This documentary follows the experiences of an extended Chicago family after one of their teenage members is shot and killed. The cameras follow four women for the next five years of their lives as the victim’s grandmother (who raised the teenager) is given a home through the kindness of a stranger, his cousin (the narrator of the documentary) graduates high school, her mother struggles with getting off welfare, and his mother recovers from her addiction to cocaine. While their stories are touching, the format doesn’t seem to do them justice in aggregate. The narrative jumps between the various stories and timelines with little focus. There isn’t an overlying theme to what is being presented and could simply have been a feature news story since the plot becomes ‘here is what happened to these people’. There is a somewhat throw away line at the end where the narrator states she will be raising children with her husband ‘the way it’s supposed to be done’ which comes across as a slap in the face to the strong women who came before her and raised her despite their own struggles.

Oscar Nomination: Best Documentary, Features

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What Sex Am I? (1985)

While undoubtedly dated, especially in some of the terminology used, there is also a lot in this documentary about trans individuals in the early 1980s that feels contemporary. The focus of the film is an intimate view through video footage and interviews of the various individuals’ lifelong experiences living trans and for most of them, happily living their authentic lives. I appreciated that a variety of experiences (for example, cross-dressing individuals and the poor gentleman who realized too late that he was fighting against his own sexuality) were included to provide context to how different expressions of gender and sexuality can be experienced and that even when there are similarities no one fits in a box. I also liked that, while not the focus, medical information was also presented in a frank and honest way for those in the pre-Internet age to learn from.

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Persepolis (2007)

This is a faithful adaptation, both visually and in story, of the Persepolis graphic novels, depicting the early life of its writer Marjane Satrapi, growing up in a rapidly changing Iran and later Austria. Other than the chance to see the story told in animated form, there wasn’t much new added to the story that could not be gotten from reading the books. I do recommend either option, especially for anyone interested in seeing one woman’s experiences growing up during and after the Islamic Revolution.

Oscar Nomination: Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

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Jinxed! (1982)

Bette Midler is a Vegas singer who is married to Rip Torn, a career gambler. Rip is currently on a winning streak that is dependent on playing at the blackjack table where Ken Wahl is dealer. Midler and Wahl meet, have an affair, and plot the murder of Torn. The tone in this thing is all over the place. There’s spousal abuse, infidelity, suicide, and then out of nowhere a scavenger hunt. The three leads all seem to be in a different film. Midler is her usual effervescent, somewhat manic self. Torn isn’t menacing, but still a cruel, evil bastard. Wahl seems almost stoned, or at least a mindless air head. There is absolutely no chemistry in any of the three possible pairings.

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