Homework Movie - Night Moves (1975)

We've learned about double crosses and back stabbing moves in this class before now. Only thing that's different is that this week's movies were in color. Gene Hackman stars as Harry Moseby in Arthur Penn's Night Moves (1975). He plays a private detective much like Jack Nicholson from Chinatown from a few weeks ago. After some success with divorce cases that he's snooped and made a name for himself. Then he gets hired for a case of family discord.

            Also staring a very young Melanie Griffith in her first supporting role as the subject of the investigation and retrieval Moseby is assigned to. Her free-spirited Delly is the link to both sides of her very dysfunctional family. Going back home to her mother's place is the last thing she wants to do. When she is convinced to go, it is the last thing we see her doing. Days later, her character is not heard from again and this sends Moseby on a second trip to the family estates to figure out what happened to clear his conscience.

            What he finds is a trail that leads to everyone involved pointing fingers at everyone else until the climactic ending. There were some plot twists that I wasn't expecting and I was surprised to see Melanie Griffith so young that I really enjoyed this film.  This weeks films were really good, from the Mean Streets to Point Blank.  But my favorite film we watched this week was the original Get Carter.  I really liked seeing Michael Caine as Jack Carter on a rampage to find out who took out his younger brother.  Mike Hodges made the leap from television to movies with an amazing cast and story, which he wrote himself from a novel.

Homework Movies Saw Series (2004 - 2011)

"I want to play a game."

Sitting in a dark room, sometimes the lights flicker on and there are puzzles to solve on the walls with clues to the next puzzle. This is what it takes for me to get ready to watch this series of movies known as Saw. In 2004 Director James Wan and Writer/Actor Leigh Whannell began a journey with their franchise starting entry into the life and death of reported serial killer named Jigsaw, played by Tobin Bell in every film in the series. Over the next 7 years at Halloween you came to expect to see a Saw movie coming out depicting some sort of violence carried out by it's own victims.

Each of the subsequent movies connects victims and their killers to another "Game" or sequence of events in the previous movies until the Final Chapter, where after several months of investigation, the accomplice to Jigsaw's masterminded crimes of imprisonment and torture is put down, not by the law, but to the other "rehabilitated" persons under the tutelage of Jigsaw is complete.

From the drug users, adulterous doctors to the criminal judge that didn't give a criminal a worthy sentence for murder, no one that has a disregard for human life is without reprieve. By the time we get to the fourth installment of the series, we learn that on top of an inoperable cancer, Jigsaw and his wife lost their child due to one of the first victims in the puzzle that Jigsaw devised. With a death sentence like cancer, you get the impression that Jigsaw wants to see people living their lives with better intentions.

From a business standpoint, these movies made Lionsgate a very large amount of money. The 1st movie was made for only 1.2 Million dollars and grossed over 55 million in America alone. Built on a good business model, the series was made on a very limited budget and was released during a season where it was expected to do well and it didn't disappoint. From beginning to end the series gave just enough information to get the audience interested and left enough time between movies to keep them waiting, salivating for more.

"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance"

That statement describes the fans of this series as much as it is a quote from John BKA Jigsaw to one of his disciples of torture. From the first movie to the second, there was a huge following for each movie afterward. Audiences bought tickets and waited in lines for hours before the movies started during the Halloween season in costume some times. It wasn't hare to tell the victims from the mastermind. A lot less blood on the Jigsaw characters than the slashed up people waiting to see the films.

The movies we watched this week were mostly slick bigger budgeted Horror films that gave the studios that produced them an edge for the youth market. Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead takes the original Night of the Living Dead and the 70's movie of the same name and combined them for one big blockbuster. Even seeing the zombie that was pregnant give birth to a zombie baby was unpleasant, but not scary.

Homework Movie - Training Day (2001)

When the opportunity arose to change homework movies, I took it. Having missed the chance in class to watch Training Day directed by Antoine Fuqua, I asked to watch it at home, rather than The Departed for more than one reason. Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke star in this gritty urban Neo-Noir about the corruption in the police department that Jake Hoyt (Hawke) is trying to get into and Harris (Washington) is the lead Detective of. Watching this movie was like watching every gangsta movie from the 90's from the lens of the criminal because even some of those bad guys wouldn't do the things that Harris was having Hoyt commit.

From the beginning, Hawke was on the straight and narrow while Washington was giving lessons to his rookie to behave in a manner that the crooks they were supposed to be busting wouldn't suspect they were police, walking a very thin line between cops and criminals. As each lesson came up, they were quickly reviewed and dismissed by the Det. because he "Ran these streets". But every time there was a gray area, Hoyt would say no because of the book he learned from until his Det. partner busted his chops for it. The crimes got bigger, and the cover-ups came at a higher cost to their lives or their reputations on the streets, which is a big deal for police trying to infiltrate criminal activity undetected.

Choosing to utilize their past experience in filmmaking, Fuqua chose the cast and put them in very comfortable roles that each has played before. Hawke was in several movies including Lord of War, a firm hand of the law that went by the book. Washington has always been able to flow between characters that were good and bad very well, with believable justifications for each.

Because we missed The Departed, the movies we watched in class are on two very separate sides of the fence for me. I'm not a big fan of David Lynch's work, and therefore Blue Velvet drew little interest to me. I did observe it for it's story and I found it hard to follow because he was looking for something that had already been found by someone else. However, the Stephen Frears movie, Grifters held my interests well. John Jusack and Angelica Huston play son and mother thieves making their income on hapless victims until the mother tries to steal from her own son. The banter in that movie was well worth seeing it again after more than 20 years.

Homework Movie - Cure (1997)

            When I first saw the movie title, I thought the 1997 movie Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa was going to be a routine psychotic killer movie.  What I witnessed was anything but.  The beginning starts out a little bit comical with a dark twist, and it continues from there.  Most of the victims aren't suspecting their fate and the murderers are aware of their crimes, but can't seem to stop themselves.  And it seems that one person is able to travel between victim and murderer without being captured for almost the whole movie, that is until the Inspector played by Kôji Yakusho gets his man with good old-fashioned police work.  The only problem with that is, the pattern doesn't stop there.

             At the time of filming this movie, Kôji Yakusho had already been an accomplished actor for several decades in his home country, much like his director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is not related to Akira Kurosawa.  This movie marks the first time these two men worked together, and they have worked now on six films together since.  After this film, the two made the 2001 film Pulse, which later got an American version in 2006 starring Kristen Bell and several other up and comers in Hollywood.

            I found it interesting that some of the sets were very large spaces with perfectly placed props that people used.  After such a long time making movies, there should have been more planning involved to make more sense of things like perfectly placed seats and objects to use as weapons.  There were some clever bits when using light sources for triggers of the killings and then the Inspector's constantly finding need to look at similar light sources.

            Over the years in Japan as with any country, the storytelling has improved.  Cure takes a supernatural twist over movies such as Jigoku, which we watched in class.  The levels of Hell are depicted over a man's guilt for a crime he wanted to report, but didn't due to peer pressure not to.  In a twisted manner, the movie Suicide Club's beginning is similar to Cure's in which there is some serious moments and then a wide angle shot of something that strikes me as funny.  The way the students jumped into the oncoming train in their suicide pact was shot in a way that although horrifying, looked really strange and made me laugh, not shriek in horror.

Homework Movie - Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966)

The French Heist movie Le Deuxieme Souffle (Second Breath) has everything you can ask for in a film noir heist film. A criminal that has escaped prison, police following the moves of the major players with such a cool attitude, a femme fatale who's in love with the hardened criminal, and a score that's worth the risk. It's the way the Jean-Pierre Melville crafted this movie that makes it a must see for anyone that enjoys crime stories.

In beautiful black & white film, Melville composes wonderfully long scenes of flight from prison, sets the mood in both planning scenes with the gangsters and the romantic interlude with Gu (our main protagonist played by Lino Ventura) and Manouche (his love interest played by Christine Fabrega). The cool Inspector Blot doesn't skip a beat when in the room with criminals covering for their partners in crime nor does he break a sweat when interrogating them once he's got them in custody.

Melville cleverly goes between the criminals telling what they are going to do and the police showing where things might be happening to give a duel narrative for the audience to follow the story along without seeming to spoon feed the material. The whole time line for the story takes a little over a months time and the title cards tell us when everything's going down to keep track. The added time on the departure is worth the risk for Gu as he needs the money to travel, so he decides to do one last score for a large sum of money. However, he doesn't know all the players until it's too late.

We watched another Melville movie in class that had similar subject matter. In Le Doulos every character in it was two faced. Wages of Fear by Henri-Georges Clouzot showed the desperation of a man that was released from prison and couldn't find any other work but manual labor. The struggles he had to make ends meet were the least of his worries in the field. Every turn he had issues from the co-workers to the location itself being dangerous.

Homework Movie - Suspiria

I think the legend of Suspiria is much larger than the movie itself as a horror film. Looking at it today with more advanced FX technology and a wider perspective of the horror genre, there really isn't much to be terrified about in this movie. Directed by Dario Argento, it's rather campy nature makes it all the more entertaining and fun, more so than scary. A new student getting adjusted to dance school life and then the stories she's told perpetuate the myth of the school's infamy. As the story unfolds, Suzy Banyon, played by Jessica Harper finds out there's much more to her school than was in the brochure. Cat fights and gossip about other students is a pre-requisite and a tough head instructor a given. Creepy staff and the weird nephew are a different touch but don't hold much weight in scaring.

The atmospheric music by Goblin makes the movie suspenseful and moody, but the weird dubbing of the dialogue makes it a little choppy most of the time. Telling most of the story in exposition seems to be the norm from this generation of movie making, so this movie isn't alone in doing this. The staff and doctors outside of the school tell most of what is going to happen rather than showing the audience in a different cut that would have to be longer of this film.

Much to my dismay, this film doesn't live up to the reports of friends that have seen it before. I've given it more than one viewing before making this review. It has elements that would work in another film and it has things that I have seen in other movies, such as the students having something that ruins their rooms and then having to put up a makeshift living quarters in the Dance studio (Much like in Revenge of the Nerds) where all the girls are tossing and turning overnight and our subject/victim notices a strange visitor that plays a part later on in the story.

We watched several movies that had similar efforts for the time period they were filmed in. Cheesy dialogue, blood that was obvious it wasn't blood, and somewhat interesting soundtrack design. The stand out film from class was Dawn of the Dead, the sequel to Night of the Living Dead by horror master craftsman George A. Romero. He was given a place to stay with Suspiria's Argento to write the script for DoD, which he did in three weeks. Although not a masterpiece worthy of AFI top praises for best films ever, DoD does exemplify the genre and with it's comic book feel, doesn't diminish like Suspiria does, taking its story too seriously.

Homework Movie - Written on the Wind (1956)

"A whiskey bottle is about all you'd kill"

For our examination of the Suburbs Gone Haywire, we took a look at some movies that showed how house wives sleep with their bosses or husbands friends, guys that are stepping out on their wives, spending their family's inheritance before the parents are dead, and a lot of the mixed bag of other Noir topics. Written on the Wind is a family of wealthy siblings and their relationships with the parents, and themselves. We've got an alcoholic, a straying wife, a frisky sister and the best friend that has to endure it all with a strong sense of friendship.

Douglas Sirk directed Written on the Wind about half way through his career, and it shows. The whole movie is very well crafted from the story to the settings and the casting. This was done for Universal Studios, which might mean that he was able to have a larger budget. With the cast he had, Including Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall which both already had very successful movie careers before starting this picture, led this wonderful yet tragic look into people with more money than sense.

Movies like this one prove that even when times were supposed to be simpler, there was understandings that people didn’t all have it together. Along with movies like Crime of Passion, where a young woman leaves the family business to find love with a detective then to feel unsatisfied when he's not moving up in his career, Written on the wind shares a look into complacency or the lack thereof.

Be careful not to take a slug to the belly, be happy with what you