Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

Starring: Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill

Director: Henry King

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041996/quotes

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_O'Clock_High

Based on the novel of the same name by Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay, Jr., the film (after two brief scenes in the "present day") starts out in 1942 England, where the American 918th Heavy Bombardment Group is suffering heavily losses against the Germans during World War II. It is determined by Brigadier General Fred Savage, played by Gregory Peck, that the unit's commanding officer, Colonel Keith Davenport (Gary Merrill) has become too emotionally attached to his men, making him reluctant to criticize or endanger them in anyway and thereby inadvertently hurting the 918th as a whole. Davenport is released from duty and Savage takes over in order to get the men to develop the mentality needed for war and to put in their "maximum effort". Despite intense resentment from the group at first, he wins them over as their performance begins to improve and their fatalities go down. He also receives a lot of help from the Group Adjutant, Major Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) and a few of the 918th's best combatants. As the war goes on, however, tragedy becomes inevitable, and even the tough and disciplined Savage starts to develop the same problems as his predecessor. To make matters worse, his psychological health begins to deteriorate as he find out for himself just what putting in your "maximum effort" really means.

I was looking for a word to describe this film, and I finally settled on an appropriate term: "honest". I say that because it does an impressive job of portraying the two unfortunate correlating aspects of war: the cold-hearted but necessary tactics that are needed to win and the horrific emotional costs that are inflicted on those who fight it. Savage does not believe that his men are like toys being carelessly tossed around in a sandbox, but he also knows that the only way that any of them are going to get out of this conflict alive is if they set aside their personal attachments and fears and focus on their importance to the unit. At the same time, the war takes its toll on Savage as more of his men are wounded or killed (he personally flies on a number of the missions and witnesses a number of their deaths first-hand). He puts up a brave front, but it becomes clear that no matter how well you plan your strategy and how determined you are to preserver, there is no denying the fact that war is, in fact, hell, and there is no way of getting around it.

Overall, it is a really solid and well-balanced story-line. It may not have as many action scenes as some other war movies (though the ones it does have use real footage from Word War II), but it excels in showing what goes on inside the minds of the fighters themselves. While this is pretty common place nowadays (it is almost required for movies about Vietnam), this is the first time I have seen this technique used for a WWII picture that was made when that conflict was still fresh in a lot of people's memories and I give the filmmakers a lot of credit for taking on such difficult subjects as mandatory sacrifices and post-traumatic stress disorder, which is not mentioned out loud but vividly shown onscreen. In addition, it has a great cast, particularly the always-enduring Peck and Jagger, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance (I admit that I mistook him for Karl Malden for almost the whole film, though to be fair they kind of look a lot alike).

This is truly a classic war film and I recommend it.

Happy Memorial Day.

I do not own the rights to the poster above; it is being used for entertainment purposes only. Please do not sue me.

Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) (2005)

Starring: Benno Furmann, Guillaume Canet, Daniel Bruhl

Director: Christian Carion

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_Noël

"Joyeux Noel" (or "Merry Christmas" in English) is a 2005 French film about the real-life World War I Christmas truce. It focuses on a number of German, French, and Scottish soldiers who in December of 1914 lay down their arms in order to put a stop to the fighting, if only briefly, and fraternize with each other.

This movie kind of has an unfair advantage. I say this because it was probably going to be good no matter what anyone did to it just because it is such an amazing story. Well, then again, anything is possible, especially in the realm of film making; I guess we should be thankful that this was a foreign film as opposed to one created by Hollywood. Anyway, whatever the case, it turned out very well. It did a fantastic job of showing the difficulties of fighting a war against those with such a similar culture and who under normal circumstances would be your friendly neighbors instead of the people who you are being ordered to kill. While there are strands of uneasiness and animosity, the troops genuinely want to be at peace with their counterparts, as they drink together, exchange information about themselves and their living conditions in the trenches, and even play soccer against one another (okay, they're European, so its technically football).

You know how when you are a little kid (or even as an adult) you get really depressed when Christmas comes to an end? Well...how do you think these guys must have felt? Almost needless to say, the soldiers on both sides find it very difficult to go back to the bloodshed after two days of harmony. They refuse to shoot the enemy, and even go so far as to hide them in their respective trenches during artillery bombings. Eventually, however, the military leaders intervene and the inevitable realities of war rear their ugly heads. Still, the extraordinary peace that these men experienced during those few days remains with them, if only in mind and spirit.

I know this review seems more like a summery than an actual critique, but that is mostly because the story itself does reveals most of the emotion and power involved in the movie. As I mentioned, there was the small possibility of that it would fail, but this was far from the case. The performances are excellent, there are a number of great lines exchanged between the characters and the music that is sung or played throughout the picture is fantastic. All of these factors make it a really wonderful and inspiring film to watch anytime of the year, but especially over the holidays, and I strongly recommend it.

This review, while a little short, seems like a fitting one to post on the site on Christmas Eve, though more reviews will be featured before the year comes to a close. Merry Christmas.

Network (1976)

Starring: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall

Directed by Sidney Lumet

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(film)

 

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!!!”

-Howard Beale (Peter Finch)

 

“Network” is an excellent movie. Pardon the cliché, but this is one of those films that get better with age. This is good news for itself, not so good news for our society. The great Sidney Lumet’s satire on the modern media predicted what was eventually going to come: a world dominated by a media that produces cheaply produced garbage where people can say or do anything they want with it having any sort of factual, artistic, or in anyway meaningful value. Many of the elements of the film have eerie similarities to “contemporary” cable-news programs and reality shows; this can also be extended to the content on the radio and Internet as well. In other words, it is so relevant that it is scary.

The film starts out with a brief to the struggling United Television Network, which is taken over by a major corporation. When the evening news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is fired, he announces that he will kill himself on his final broadcast, causing a sensation around the country. As events unfold, Beale not only finds himself keeping his job, but also becomes the centerpiece of a new programming schedule set up by Diana Christenson (Faye Dunaway), a new producer at the network. These new developments worry the UTN News president Max Schumacher (William Holden), who not only thinks that his friend is being taken advantage of, but that the fate of his entire profession is at sake.

Terrific acting and writing hold the intriguing plot of the film together. Holden and Dunaway play excellent as their respective contrasting characters, the old guard who wants to keep the dignity of broadcast news and the new up-and-comer who is only concerned with making a profit. At the same time, both of them admit to having flaws, which brings a certain human element to their roles. However, the best character of this whole thing is Beale himself, in what would be Finch’s last role in a feature film (he died not long after it was released in theaters and became the first posthumous Oscar winner for Best Actor, which he rightfully deserved). As he descends more and more into his own madness (he has a mental disorder which is never disclosed, though if I had to guess I would say he has schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) as well as the madness created by those around him, he makes the transition from anchorman, to prophesier, to corporate hack all within relatively short period of time. This is mostly thanks to a number of “well-crafted” rants, brought to the screen by Paddy Chayefsky (who also won a rightfully-deserved Oscar for his work on this movie, in his case for Best Screenplay). As a matter of fact, all of the dialogue that comes out of everyone’s mouths in this film is memorizing and really takes the picture to a whole new level of sophistication. Some of the speeches go on a long time, but it is all worth it.

So there you have it. “Network” is a film that remains vivid reminder of the dangerous path that a society can take when it starts to lose track of its ideals and humanity, a path that we may be lead down right now. In today’s hostile environment, it is a little hard not to watch Beale’s now-famous (or rather infamous) “Mad As Hell” speech without being a little disturbed by the idea that feelings held by those in the film are still being echoed almost thirty-five years later by many of us in real life who feel that we are losing control over our own lives and our whole world in general…and that we do not want to take it anymore. Nonetheless, this is one of my favorite movies of all time and I strongly recommend it.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Starring: Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, Gabriele Ferzeti

Directed by Sergio Leone

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064116/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_the_West

"Once Upon a Time in the West" is the kind of movie you fall in love with. It shows all the aspects that people have come to enjoy about the western genre, and through the eyes of complex characters as they struggle, fail, and prosper in a live-or-die environment.

It starts off with a group of robbers standing around at a train track. And that is it; they just stand there, drinking water and investigating the actions of a fly for about 5-10 minutes. And yet it is fascinating to watch. They are then confronted by Charles Bronson, who plays a role similar to the one played by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's other "Spaghetti westerns": he does not have a real name, is generally a loner, and does not talk very much. Unlike Eastwood's character, however, his is motivated by personal reasons rather than money. He is also different in the fact that he frequently plays what has to be one of the creepiest harmonica ever (and he is consequently refereed to as "Harmonica" as the film progresses). Its haunting sound does not always spell doom...but sometimes it does.

In the following scene, a family by the surname of McBain is about to welcome their matriarch, who is arriving from New Orleans at a nearby train station. However, they are brutally murdered on their farm by a gang of outlaws lead by Frank, portrayed by the legendary Henry Fonda in a role where he plays against type. His calm demeanor and soft blue eyes that brought a sense of humility to his other characters make this role even more sinister. Although his action show that he posses a certain level of intelligence, he is too cold-blooded to be anything more than a killer.

When Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) first arrives, she observes the town around her in what is one of the best shots of the whole film. It shows everyone just going about their daily lives before entering the outskirts, revealing the beautiful mountains of Monument Valley in Utah where it was filmed. It is set to the brilliant score by Ennio Morricone, who is basically to Leone what John Williams is to Spielberg. On a side note, the whole soundtrack to this film is brilliant, from the aforementioned harmonica tune, the main theme which I just mentioned and even the humorous "trotting" music that is played later on. It just really sets the tone for the movie and this scene is the perfect example of it.

Before arriving home, she goes into a shop where she meets Harmonica, as well as Cheyenne (Jason Robards), a crude outlaw who nonetheless has a heart and ends up. When she finds that her family is dead, her mourning is brief and her tough personality makes her decide to remain where she is in order to make a new life for herself, becoming a symbol of self-reliance and individualism that helped propel the West into a established part of American culture.

It turns out that her family was killed because her husband had refused to hand over his land to a railroad baron named Morton (Gabriele Ferzeti) who is in collaboration with Frank. Morton is a surprisingly sympathetic villain because, although he does posses a sense of monetary greed, his real goal is to have is railroad reach the Pacific Ocean before he succumbs to tuberculosis, which is slowly crippling him. It is interesting to see him and Frank interact with each other because even though they are technically partners, they have different goals and ways of getting things accomplished...and they do not get along very well. Frank thinks that he is physically and emotionally weak, while he believes that Frank is a wild man who is too dangerous to be associated with. As a result, the uneasy relationship slowly but surely deteriorates.

On the other side of the conflict, Jill, Cheyenne, and Harmonica, despite not always being on the best of terms themselves, manage to form an alliance in order to defend the farm. Meanwhile, Jill discovers her late husband's (Frank Wolff) plans and decides to pursue them. I will not say what they are, but they continue the whole theme of a new beginning for the people who live in the West.

In short, this film is a masterpiece. The great acting, fantastic music, and wonderful story all come together into this wonderful work of art. Almost needless to say, It is one of my personal favorite movies of all time. I definitely recommend it.

12 Angry Men (1957)

Staring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley

Directed by Sidney Lumet

"12 Angry Men" is a film, based upon the teleplay of the same name, in which a juror tries to convince his colleagues that the case that they are assigned is not as clear-cut as it appears.

This is simply a classic. Nearly all of it takes place in the same jury room with the same twelve angry (and not so angry) men discussing one issue: the guilt or innocence of a boy charged with murder. The fact that this movie can still keep you so interested, and with only a bare minimal amount of emotional cues (i.e., music) is an achievement in itself. However, the real reason the directorial debut of the great Sidney Lumet (who as of this writing is still alive at age 85 and to my knowledge is still technically active) remains a cinematic jewel after all these years is because it makes you think, not just about the story, but about the meaning of a fair trial, the imperfections of the legal system, and other eternally relevant and important issues in a way that is both artful and powerful.

The cast is lead by Henry Fonda (one of my personal favorite actors), who is perfect as Juror Number 8, the man who is very calm and appears harmless, but holds a strong belief in the principle of equal protection under the law, despite enormous peer pressure from those who say he is fighting a losing battle, at least at first. I also like the main antagonist Juror Number 3, played by Lee J Cobb. I found it amusing how he would go on these rants before realizing that he has contradicted himself. Despite being very one-sided, however, he makes some valid arguments and he is later humanized when it becomes clear that his judgment is based on legitimate emotional stress rather than ignorance.

The rest of the cast is also very strong and they are all shown to have very distinct personalities instead of just mirroring the personalities of the leaders of the two opposing sides. Despite the fact that we learn a little about each of them, they are never mentioned by name while they are in the room, only by their jury numbers, which emphasis the point that it is the issue at hand, not their personal lives, that is at stake. Incidentally, one of my few problems with the movie occurs at the very end when two of the jurors mention their real names; I know they were pointing out that it was amusing fact that they spent so much time arguing with people whose names they did not even know, but I would rather have not known who they were. Still, that is a pretty small, almost worthless, complaint when considering the rest of this great film.

I strongly recommend it.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Staring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains

Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley

"The Adventures of Robin Hood" is about the famous noble-turned heroic outlaw who fights for those who cannot defend themselves. He does battle with the traitorous Prince John (Claude Rains) and his right hand man Sir Guy (Basil Rathbone), courts the lovely Maid Marian (future "Gone With the Wind" actress Olivia de Havilland, who as of this writing is still alive at the age of 93), and saves the livelihoods of his fellow Saxons with the help of his many allies, which include the likes of Will Scarlet (Patric Knowles) and Little John (Alan Hale, Sr.).

 

This film is, simply put, a classic. It tells a straight-to-the-point yet eternally engaging story of the legendary figure. Errol Flynn does a fantastic job playing the title character that portrays him as an adventurer who is quick on his feet both feet both physically and intellectually. He brings forth the perfect example of a hero who, as mentioned in the summary, fights the bad guys, wins the lady, and saves the day, and he is aided by a very impressive supporting cast. The other star of this movie is the scenery; the costumes are so colorful and full of life you cannot help but admire them. Not surprisingly, given the fact that this film was made in 1938, there are a number of aspects that are a bit cheesy and silly by today's standards, both in terms of dialogue and action. However, the famous climatic battle between Robin Hood and Sir Guy is still fun to watch because of the amount of energy and effort that the actors put into the scene, which is also brilliantly choreographed. Overall, it is an enjoyable film to see and I recommend it.