Searing, Stunning, Unforgettable "Fences"

Fences*
directed by Denzel Washington
starring Denzel Washington, Viola Davis

At the close of Denzel Washington’s powerful and brilliant film adaptation of August Wilson’s play Fences, my sister and I sat stunned in our reclining theater seats, letting the weight of it wash over us.

You must see it.

Fences is a masterful piece of theater, a portrait of an African American family in the 1950s, at the center of which is Troy Maxson, a force of nature, a fabulist and charmer as played by actor and director Denzel Washington, whose smooth veneer masks a man struggling with pain, bitterness, limited education, intractable opinions, questionable choices, and fraught relationships with his wife and sons. There is no other word for Denzel’s performance other than … Astounding.

You must see it.

The film finds Troy working the back of a garbage truck and fighting for his right to become the first Negro truck driver in Pittsburgh – a role he ultimately wins despite being unable to read and lacking a driver’s license. Once a star ball player in the Negro Leagues, Troy’s playing days were well before major league baseball was ready to integrate, and Troy now has nothing but contempt for groundbreaker Jackie Robinson or for his teenage son’s opportunity to earn a college scholarship by playing football. He swills gin with his friend Bono and talks shit with the air of an authority, but he must constantly be reminded that times are changing around him.

You must see it.

So often stage plays that reach the big screen are “opened up,” so that the locations and other characters become more fully realized than they were on the page; thus the emphasis and impact of the play can be altered or shifted in ways the playwright didn’t originally envision or intend. Denzel as director is wise enough not to open up the play too much. He gives us a view of a working class black Pittsburgh neighborhood, but keeps true to the play’s key scenes firmly set in the Maxsons’ backyard and kitchen. The smartest move of all is that he lets the camera stay close and still upon its incredibly capable actors, whose performances are sterling. Mykelti Williamson never drifts into excess as Gabriel, the brain damaged WWI veteran and brother of Troy; the actors portraying his sons, particularly Russell Hornsby as Lyons, each have moments that show us the character’s entire lives of struggle and defeat in just a few scenes. But none are more affecting than acting powerhouse Viola Davis as Rose, a loyal wife who is shattered by her husband’s self-serving choices, or by Denzel himself as Troy.

You must see it.

The film is full of wonderfully melodic and metaphoric language and visual symbolism. We have Gabriel and his horn, the Fool who speaks Truth. We have Rose, a symbol of beauty and grace, to whom Grabriel -- not Troy -- brings a single bloom. There are personal sacrifices and images of crosses. There is the continual building of the titular fence, which Troy successfully erects between himself and others. Troy speaks of wrestling Death in an early scene; in another, he tells a story of being beaten by his father with the reins of a mule. Denzel’s delivery of this monologue is nothing short of miraculous, as he is seen envisioning the moment with a sense of reminiscent humor that we know was entirely absent from the event itself but that allows us to see its horror clearly as though we were there ourselves. Viola Davis’s portrayal of Rose, the woman who seems to be the quiet strength of the film, the eye to Troy’s hurricane, is compelling. In what has to be the climax of Fences, the “I have to tell you something” moment, Viola’s realness will tear at your soul.

I don’t know how to fully express the impact of Fences. By giving actors room to infuse ferocious life into their roles, and creating very simple sets, the import of all that is said and all that is not said falls down on us like a heavy blanket. We feel these people, we know them, we are astounded by them. Our hearts break for them.

You must see it.

It is the best drama I have seen in a long while.

_______________________________________________________
"Fences" is part of the late African American playwright August Wilson's cycle of ten plays about the same Pittsburgh neighborhood. The play won both a Pulitzer and the Tony Award as Best Play in 1987. Other plays in the cycle include "The Piano Lesson," "King Hedley II," "The Gem of The Ocean," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," and "Radio Golf."

Photo credit: David Lee - © MMXVI Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Bless Its Heart: A Few Thoughts On 'La La Land'

La La Land (2016)
directed by Damien Chazelle
starring Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling
original music by Justin Hurwitz

Let's face the music and dance.

1. I was born and raised and spent years working in New York. Friends and family couldn’t envision this Big Apple, Bronx-bred chick out on The Coast with the Holly Would-ers when I made the move in 1994. “So you’re moving out to La La Land, huh?” La La Land was where the loopy, thirsty and deluded went, where wacky trends in health and beauty were taken seriously, where people sold their souls to make it in the entertainment business, whether they had the skills or not. La La Land was where I was certainly going to lose whatever good sense I may have had.

2. But who says that good sense and dreams are polar opposites? I was born and bred in a city that reveres its musical theater traditions. Where making it big on a stage or a club was nearly the only legitimate path to widespread success for many an African American performer through the 19th and 20th centuries. Where I was fed a steady diet of musical fantasies.

3. Some of us need La La Land. Some of us need our dreams in order to move forward. And some of us live in a La La Land of our own design, whether we have a California address or not. Some of us don’t know when to let go of the “La La.”


4. I love classic movie musicals. I’m talking Cabin In The Sky, An American In Paris, Carousel, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Oklahoma!, Mary Poppins, Funny Face, 42nd Street, Funny Girl, Sweet Charity, Gigi, Hello Dolly!, and the like -- big singing and dancing spectacles with old school Hollywood stars like Howard Keel, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Eleanor Powell, Leslie Caron, Ethel Waters, Danny Kaye, Lena Horne, Ann Miller, the Nicholas Brothers, Frank Sinatra, and many others. These performers could sing as well as dance, and they worked with some of the most innovative and demanding of choreographers. To me, That's Entertainment.

La La Land, the movie ...

La La Land is a new age "musical" that utilizes the tropes of those classic Hollywood productions to tell its story, with varying degrees of success.

We have characters – Gosling’s jazz-loving piano player Sebastian and Stone’s budding actress and erstwhile barista Mia – pass through the meet-cute stage, and progress to tandem song and dance to reveal their growing attraction. Their romantic commitment lifts them from the ground into a magical dance among the stars, to a beautiful envisioning of a what-could-have-been-love montage. Along the way, viewers are treated to a few travelogue moments of classic Los Angeles (though not enough for my taste); The Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, the Griffith Observatory, downtown LA, Santa Monica, and the Hollywood Hills.

However, to pull off a truly great musical, you need two leads in whose performance talents you’re already invested. Stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are highly appealing and capable actors. Gosling has earned his chops through such films as Drive, The Place Beyond The Pines, Blue Valentine, and Lars And The Real Girl, among other films. After a few smart-girl roles Stone impressed me most with her range as the bratty daughter in Birdman. However (and despite Goslings Mouseketeer background) these two have minimal song-and-dance credentials. And though they give it the Old College Try, La La Land left me underwhelmed by the musical's musical numbers.

Despite a wonderful musical score and sprightly songs (I am going to get my hands on the soundtrack posthaste because I love "City of Stars"), La La Land becomes an average musical because of the average talents of Gosling and Stone. While some viewers may feel that the charm of the film springs from their very average-ness, I found myself consistently bored and annoyed that such fantastic tunes and dance setpiece opportunities were squandered on the scratchy, whispery, karaoke vocals and Dance 101 high school hoofing of the leads. This pair would have been voted off of Dancing With The Stars in the early rounds. The film’s numbers don’t even approach the level of those teen Disney projects that were so popular a decade ago, High School Musical and the like.

But here’s the catch -- the thing has heart. Though it’s not a great musical, La La Land still manages to reel you in with its storytelling. An effective allegory about the struggle to set up a career in Hollywood, the trade-offs that one makes to stay afloat, and the effort to maintain a successful relationship, La La Land embodies a classic Hollywood story, one that endures because the struggle never gets easier. It’s a new age A Star Is Born, except no one succumbs to drink. It’s a wistful, honest, and ultimately heartrending story. Dreams come with a price tag, and sacrifices are part of the journey. And sometimes a great love is not forever.

Here is where the acting talents of Gosling and particularly Stone are most effective in conveying the emotional weight of what is mostly a weightless story. Extra credits given to Gosling, who actually appears to playing those keyboard riffs, even as he loses credits for white-splaining jazz to his beloved in the early part of their romance. And in her first scene auditioning for an acting role, Stone totally drew me in with her acting chops.

Furthermore, La La Land is beautiful to look at. It is sun-drenched and bright, and even in darkened settings such as the club where Gosling’s character Sebastian tickles the ivories, the sets and lighting are dreamlike, evocative, enthralling. The film is shot in CinemaScope, so its wide screen captures a broad swath of details. From the opening scenes, where the camera swoops between parked cars to capture the carefully choreographed singing, dancing, flipping, and skateboarding of motorists leaving their vehicles on a traffic-locked freeway overpass and then whirls through the rooms of Mia’s apartment to capture her roommates as they ready for a Hollywood party – we know that the film is an extraordinary feat of movie-making.

The movie seems destined to be translated into a Broadway musical in the coming years, and perhaps then the mediocre singing and dancing will be improved tenfold. There are so many screen-to-stage productions these days that it seems entirely likely.

As a classic movie musical,La La Land is a flop by my standards. There has been an ongoing trend of the last few years of having non-singing actors sing on screen, but I'm not with it -- particularly as there are so many musically talented performers available.

But as a film fantasy inspired by old Hollywood about new Hollywood, La La Land will touch you.

Can't Fight The Feeling: A Cynic's Valentine Flick List

Valentine's Day is almost here, and I thought that despite my usual disdain for the holiday, I could admit to having a few more romantic movie favorites (see previous post for the Black History Month edition). This is not a complete list, just more that came to mind.

1. Love Actually (2003)

Those who know my aversion to lovey-dovey film pablum may be surprised by my affection for this one. Somehow the film's anthology of romantic kerfuffles is improved by its British accent. A fat valentine of a movie, Love Actually weaves together several plotlines to demonstrate that love of all kinds is truly all around us. It zeroes in on guests at the wedding of Juliet (Keira Knightley) & Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), including four siblings: Emma Thompson, a stay-at-home mom who finds evidence that her ad exec husband, played by the late Alan Rickman, is having an affair with his sexy secretary, while his office mate, American Laura Linney, puts love with the art director on the back burner to care for her

mentally ill sibling; brother Hugh Grant, England's newly elected bachelor prime minister, finds himself attracted to his bubbly new household manager; brother Liam Neeson, still grieving his wife's death, helps his young stepson capture the heart of an American classmate and re-ignites his joie de vivre; brother Colin Firth, after discovering his girlfriend cheating, decamps to Provence to write his next book and falls for the Portuguese housekeeper who speaks no English.

Dad: Aren't you a little young to fall in love? (Hee hee hee...) Son: No. (Dummy.)

Meanwhile, a couple of young actor body doubles (including The Hobbit's Martin Freeman) meet on-set while simulating a graphic sex scene and proceed to have a conventional romance; a loveless dork heads to America with unrealistic dreams of finding sexual fulfillment abroad that miraculously come true the moment he lands; new bride Juliet (Knightley) is perplexed by the unfriendly behavior of her groom's best man until he reveals his own love for her; and an aging rock star on the comeback trail, played to the raucous hilt by Bill Nighy, realizes that his favorite person in the world is actually his long-suffering manager.

It's a sweet, comical, yet thoughtful film with numerous "that would never happen in real life" moments of coincidence, melodrama and wishful thinking, but somehow the film floats on a sea of its own charm and conviction. And there are some serious moments delivered expertly by the top-notch cast, with tear-inducing performances by the heartsick Thompson, the conflicted Rickman, the lovelorn Linney, and by young Thomas Sangster as Neeson's son. Being British, the script can't help but take swipes at arrogant, entitled America through scenes with Billy Bob Thornton as a sneering U.S. President, but Americans will just have to let the medicine go down amid all the sugar. Set at Christmastime with gorgeous shots of a wintry, holiday-spangled London, Love, Actually has become one of my faves for holiday viewing as well.

2. The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

I am ashamed of myself for this one, but if I see it anywhere on cable, I have to watch to the bitter end. It was a ridiculously sappy, self-indulgent book, and the film would be a snore-worthy slog if not for one thing: Meryl Streep's performance. She plays an Italian war bride in 1965 whose husband and teen children go to the Iowa state fair for a week, leaving her blissfully alone. By chance she meets a recently arrived National Geographic photographer, played by Clint Eastwood, assigned to shoot the local covered bridges. Fascinated by his freewheeling lifestyle and expansive philosophy, sheltered Francesca can't help but fall in love. After a whirlwind affair of evening walks, candlelit dinners, dancing, and lovemaking, Francesca must make a heart-rending decision: leave for a nomadic life of passion with Robert Kincaid, or stay on the farm for a life of duty with the husband and children who need her.

Eastwood is a bit wooden in this role, but perhaps he wasn't as concerned with acting as he was busy directing this lushly photographed, beautifully staged drama featuring an evocative soundtrack of composed music and classic jazz gems (the Johnny Hartman tunes alone are swoon-worthy). It's Meryl Streep's movie, and the Queen of All Accents gets it exactly right. With her hair dyed dark, aproned and barefooted, utilizing European hand gestures, faded Italian accent in place, Streep gives us a woman stoically living with decisions made a long time before with no expectation of change. The dialog doesn't delve into her character's background, but during World War II, living in a country occupied by the U.S. army, Francesca married an

American serviceman in exchange for what she believed would be a better life. She left her home, family, friends, and everything she knew to live in a brand new land to learn a new language and new customs, adjust to marriage to a foreign man, bear his children and work his farm. She was likely resigned to this life, and may have thrived in it, until boom! A beautiful stranger lands on the doorstep reeking of romance and excitement. All of this information lives within Streep's calibrated portrayal, which owes more than a bit to the mannerisms of Italian actress Anna Magnani, a towering inferno of '50s-'60s screen acting (see Wild Is The Wind, The Fugitive Kind, or The Rose Tattoo).

The moment I wait to see is when Francesca has packed a bag but still can't take the final step out the door. She clutches Robert in desperation and says, "You must decide for me." Well, she realizes that leaving would be folly and stays. But the next riveting moment comes in town when grocery shopping with her husband, and she sees Robert's truck about to leave forever. The pouring rain stands in for a torrent of inward tears -- hers and ours -- as Francesca has one last inward struggle. Still, she can't leave. But when Robert hangs the silver saint's medal she gave him from his rearview mirror before driving off, Francesca and the audience know that their love will never be forgotten.

The film has a framing device involving her grown children discovering the affair after her death that could easily have been jettisoned, and for some the movie is too long and slow. But for me, this leisurely stroll under the sun of an Iowa summer watching Meryl and Clint is sweet, indeed.

3. Moonrise Kingdom (2013)

And they called it puppy love, just because we're in our teens ...

I grew up fascinated by fairy tales, with their images of enchanted lands, mythological beings, and the impossible made possible through a glorious quest. Having once been a precocious, independent kid, I'm still partial to stories about precocious, independent kids. Thus my nostalgic fondness for Wes Anderson films: the highly stylized children's storybook sets, costumes, makeup, and shot framing; serious, quirky, wise-beyond-their-years youngsters facing off against ridiculous, childlike adults; and the whimsical, episodic adventures to attain love or liberty (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel). Moonrise Kingdom has all of these things. It's a coming of age love story along the lines of the delightful 1979 gem A Little Romance (in which 13-year-old Diane Lane falls in love and runs away from Paris with the 13-year-old son of a French taxi driver to kiss under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice), albeit with a serio-comic tone. Set in a 1965 that is worlds away from The Bridges Of Madison County, the film is like flipping through an album of faded Kodak vacation prints -- all smudged blues, browns, and greens, filmy corals and soft whites. The story concerns a smart but friendless orphan named Sam who meets Suzy, an introverted bookworm, at the annual summer pageant on the fictitious New England island of New Penzance.

After months of exchanging letters, the 12-year-olds meet the following summer on the island and run off together. The disappearance of the youngsters alarms the island's sherriff, played by Bruce Willis, as well as Sam's tightlipped social worker Tilda Swinton, his by-the-book scoutmaster Edward Norton, and his hooligan fellow scouts, not to mention Suzy's self-absorbed lawyer parents, played by Frances McDormand (who's been having an affair with the Willis character) and Anderson habitue Bill Murray. Sam, an expert outdoor survivalist, and Suzy, armed with sewing scissors, manage to evade a group of scouts and their dog after a violent run-in.

The eccentric pubescents then have a few idyllic days sharing first kisses, cavorting in their undies, and spooning in a tent by a lagoon in perfect domestic and spiritual harmony before they are discovered and pulled apart by the adults. But it isn't long before Sam escapes his scoutmaster to rescue Suzy and seal their love with a symbolic marriage ceremony performed by a supportive scout captain (Jason Schwartzman) just before a hurricane strikes the island, foiling their getaway plan.
The core of the film is the natural, earnest performances Anderson elicits from young actors Kayra Hayward and Jared Gilman; while the action around them grows increasingly cartoonish and frenetic, the film never mocks nor questions the veracity of Sam and Suzy's feelings, despite their tender age. And neither do Sam and Suzy engage in sugary sentiments or cute banter; they simply interact as kindred spirits who commit their entire beings to each other, come what may. In the end, all of the adults -- including the audience -- are forced to accept Sam and Suzy's forever love as an incontrovertible fact. Director Anderson's style has been criticized as too precious or "twee," but it's still an enchanting and deeply romantic romp.

Honorary mentions to:
1. About Last Night (the 1986 Demi Moore/Rob Lowe original)
2. The Getaway (the 1972 Ali McGraw/Steve McQueen love-on-the-run original)
3. Dr. Zhivago (1965 Russian Revolution-set epic with Julie Christie & Omar Sharif)
4. Annie Hall (1977 Woody Allen & Diane Keaton classic)
5. Out Of Sight (1993 crime caper with heat from Jennifer Lopez & George Clooney)
6. An Officer & A Gentleman (1982, Debra Winger/Richard Gere)
7. Roxanne (yes, the 1987 Steve Martin/Daryl Hannah comedy is highly romantic)
8. True Romance (1993, Tarantino's love-on-the-run fantasia with Patricia Arquette & Christian Slater)

10 Things I Observed Watching "Straight Outta Compton"

Waiting for the dust to clear in terms of media noise and the barrage of opinions regarding the film's dismissal of women, including the Dee Barnes incident, I finally went to see the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. Here's what I observed:

1. Theaters are checking purses and bags .. badly.
When first informed about a search, I thought the policy was racist as related to the film I had bought a ticket to see. Racially profiled at the movie theater, damn! Do I look like the type of gangsta chick who's going to wild out at a Sunday matinee in the suburbs? But then I thought, well, they did just have that mad shooter at the Louisiana theater a month ago, and the sentencing for the crazy-eyed fool who shot up everybody during Batman in Colorado just went down. So... who conducted this serious security screening in the wake of continued random cinema violence nationwide? The same pimply faced kid who had just torn my ticket, and he seemed embarrassed at having to dig deep into the two-gallon satchel I was carrying. At the bottom of my bag were the napkin-swaddled sandwich and chips I smuggled in from outside. For all he knew, it was a gun or a bomb. He barely looked. "You're fine," he said after a cursory peek.

2. The movie appears to serve as a teaching tool.
From the number of parents with their spawn at this R-rated flick, you would have thought it was the latest Disney or teen scream movie. But I saw a handful of father-son duos checking it out together. Looked like the dads -- who were either impressionable lads or hip-hop headed 20somethings when N.W.A. burst through the noise -- wanted to share with their progeny the experience of growing up black in the '80s and '90s in the age of pernicious police profiling, devastating gang warfare, joblessness, and the art of cutting and scratching on the 1s and 2s. The film offers a history lesson on the birth of gangster rap; the unscrupulous methods of the music industry; the cultural fallout of the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots; the legal parameters of free speech as applied to rap; and the far-reaching impact of the AIDS epidemic. Further, one could argue that the film also offers some evidence of the moral value of hard work and remaining true to oneself. Watch and learn, Grasshopper.

3. Some kids weren't there for those lessons.
A couple of families in the theater had kids younger than 10 with them. One of these families was of the Caucasian persuasion. WTH? The film had a plethora of sex, violence, drugs, semi nudity and raw language. I'm not a parent, but I don't think I would have been comfortable passing the popcorn with my grade schoolers as this unspooled.

4. Ice Cube Jr. looks so much like Ice Cube Sr. that it's uncanny.
At times I forgot that O'Shea Jackson, Jr., wasn't actually Ice Cube. And it appears that the kid can act. Or maybe he can just act like his father. Who hasn't done their Daddy impression at the holiday kids' table? We'll have to see what the future holds for Junior.

5. The casting was strong overall.
In fact, the young actors portraying Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre are stellar, and they need to be because they carry the action. O'Shea Jackson Jr. has all of his father's wit and braggadocio. Corey Hawkins brings an eye-on-the-prize gravity and humility to Dre, who seemed the sternest of the group. And Jason Mitchell, in his third film, gives Eazy the impish charm the raw rapper was occasionally known for in real life. Neil Brown Jr. provides comic relief as DJ Yella, and Aldis Hodge gives MC Ren a wiry intelligence. The earnest faces of the main trio, not to mention the scenes of high hilarity and raw human-ness, reminded me of how much great acting can elevate a film. And it also reminded me that N.W.A., for all their gang posturing and experience with the tough streets of Compton, were teens when they began the group.

6. Actor Paul Giamatti has a hard row to hoe here.
Giamatti is an incredibly versatile and skilled actor who can do comedy, drama, and everything in between. His sweet spot is playing the schlub, the nerd, or the official who is the smartest person in the room (Sideways, John Adams on HBO, The Illusionist). Here, he has the thankless task of playing impresario Jerry Heller, who arguably helped the band achieve success just so he could take a heaping helping for himself. In the scheme of this movie, Heller is smart but Eazy-E is (belatedly) smarter. Giamatti is an excellent actor, but the film never really gives us a clear glimpse of Heller's motivations or connections.

7. The film is mysogynistic, but necessarily so.
The members of N.W.A. were not choirboys. They had a mindset toward women that was prevalent in that age and time, heavily influenced by pimp culture as defined in the wildly popular books of Iceberg Slim (read more about the writer's influence and works here and here). Did I like the party scenes with half-clad females engaging in public sex? No. Did I enjoy the scene where "Felicia" gets pushed into the hotel hall with barely a stitch on? No. But it's probably true to what was really going on at the time, and probably represented only the tip of that particular behavioral iceberg. Dre's treatment of women, specifically his beatdown of hip-hop journalist Dee Barnes, is not alluded to in this film. Considered in the context of the overall story that the director was trying to tell, and remembering that its protagonists are also its producers, I can see why it was excluded. A lot of incidents and episodes were excluded. But it would be fascinating to see another film that tells "The Dee Barnes Story."

8. Suge Knight was and is a scary dude.
His reputation was rough before Death Row and it only grew larger afterward. While I was living in Los Angeles covering music and radio, I was loath to cover any awards shows where I thought he might show up. Death Row-sponsored parties at the music conventions were events where one looked over one's shoulder constantly. Suge is currently facing charges over the death of a onetime friend associated with this film; Eazy's son has asserted in print that he believes Suge had something to do with his father's 1995 death. For Straight Outta Compton, director F. Gary Gray found a scary looking dude -- R. Marcos Taylor -- to play Suge with just the right balance of astute calculation and simmering menace.

9. The soundscape for the film is perfect.
What really makes it work is that the film not only uses the music of N.W.A. throughout, it also utilizes the output of other rap and R&B artists whose music was also in the market during those times. Heck, there's even rock and pop tunes included in the flick. We're treated to the classic N.W.A. "Boyz In Tha Hood," but also tracks by Roy Ayers Ubiquity, Tears For Fears, George Clinton, Zapp, Cherrelle, Steve Arrington, and Run-DMC . Understanding where music was at the time -- with a heavy reliance on synthesized sounds like the Roland TR-808 drum machine, but before heavy use of Autotune and the resurgence of acoustic sounds -- does much to convey how important the development of vocal rhyming as a musical instrument in itself was to hip-hop's rising popularity.

10. OK, so Straight Outta Compton is a pretty damned good movie.

Now you might say, "Yes, Captain Obvious, the film made box office history and continues to rake in the shekels! You are 2 thousand and late!"(Number one for three weeks at the domestic box office, Number One in the U.K.; $134 million in North America and counting). But we all know that popular movies are not always good movies. Though the film becomes a bit loose thematically (and factually) in its second half, director F. Gary Gray does a great job at establishing the time, the place, and the realities of Compton in the late '80s, thus setting up the environment that spawned N.W.A. and the group's uniquely hardcore approach to what had up to then been mostly an East Coast-focused phenomenon. From the opening scene that catches Eazy-E in a compromising episode, the film hurtles along at top speed, acquainting us with the main players and depicting the talents they possessed to leverage the popularity of rap music into something entirely their own.

I'm glad I saw it. I was initially trepidatious because N.W.A. represented a turn in hip-hop music that I personally didn't happen to like. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the group made a profound and indelible impact on musical history, that Eazy-E and Ice Cube were among the most engaging rap stylists on the mike, and that Dr. Dre proved to be a production wizard who, in addition to turning rap music on its head, singlehandedly raised the originators of funk music back to the legendary status they deserved.

Postscript: Hollywood is buzzing about a forthcoming Welcome To Death Row film, which would cover the founding and ultimate demise of the legendary label that made household names of Dr. De, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and others. The film would be based on a same-named documentary and book from 2001. The project is currently seeking a distributor. More here.


Follow me on Twitter at @wordsonflicks

The Seventh Veil (1945)

I had never heard of this one before, just chose it at random on the Kindle. I am so glad I found it – I could watch it over and over. It's a psychological melodrama, somehow a mix in plot and tone of Humoresque (poor violinist struggles to become a concert performer and find happiness amid lots of classical music) and Jane Eyre (young orphaned girl comes into the employ of a mysterious and gruff older man who controls but ultimately romances her). I didn’t realize until the opening credits that fave James Mason is in it, all young and juicy. It is called The Seventh Veil. The film is British, from 1945, and stars Ann Todd (whom I had never heard of, but who apparently was able to convincingly fake playing the piano in several concert scenes when a stunt double wasn’t at the keys).

Hello, James Mason!

Todd plays Francesca, who at the start of the film is hospitalized for an undisclosed malady. She sneaks out of the hospital, slinks through the streets and jumps off the nearest bridge. She is rescued but seems catatonic until she is put under the care of a psychiatrist, played by Czech hottie Herbert Lom (those eyes! that voice!), who uses sodium pentothol and hypnosis to get the whole tale out of her. His theory is that there are seven veils of consciousness, and he must penetrate each one to find out why she tried to kill herself. She regresses to childhood and begins her story:

When 14-year-old Francesca loses her father she is sent to live with a distant rich cousin, played by Mason. He is a bitter, 30something bachelor with a limp and walking stick who treats her gruffly until he discovers that she plays music, and then he treat her only slightly less gruffly. A music scholar himself, Nicholas” pushes her into becoming a concert pianist. He alternately oversees grueling practice sessions and disappears for long stretches, leaving her alone with the servants. We never find out the mysterious reason Nicholas has been emotionally and physically crippled – it is mentioned that his mother ran off with a singer when he was a young boy.

Francesca goes on to a London music college, where she meets a brash American saxophone student and falls in love. Desperate to get away from Nicholas, she informs her guardian that she is engaged to be married. Nicholas is having none of it; he locks her in her room, and the next day drags her off to Paris to continue her musical training. Years pass. She ultimately makes a successful concert debut, but is haunted by memories of being caned on the hands by a teacher, making her fail a music fellowship exam (her hands were too swollen to play properly). She also longs for Peter, the fiancé she was forced to abandon. Still, she is resigned to her existence, every facet of which is controlled by Nicholas (mean and brooding, yes, but damn, Mason is fine!) Back in London, she makes her professional concert debut, but afterward shakes Nicholas and dashes around the city in search of Peter. She finds him leading a swing band at a supper club. When he sees her, he wordlessly sweeps her into his arms for a dance to their favorite song. But it is not to be: Peter married someone else. Francesca remains with Nicholas, who tells her which shows to perform, what to wear, and where to eat for dinner. Nicholas seems to anticipate her every need and want, but while she finds it satisfying she resents it too.

Keep practicing, Francesca, or you'll see the back side of my hand!

Nicholas engages a famous German painter to create her portrait. Max initially says he no longer does portraits, but Francesca, bored with having only Nicholas to talk to, taunts Max into taking on the job. The two spend hours together and soon the artist is head over heels. Francesca agrees to run away to Italy with Max, but when she coolly informs Nicholas of her plans, he goes ballistic and actually whacks her knuckles with his cane. Injured – and reminded of the awful moments as a child when her hands were caned so badly she couldn’t play -- she runs into Max’s arms, and they drive off toward Italy. But, wouldn’t ya know, the car veers off the road, crashes, and goes up in flames.

Francesca and Max are rescued and taken to the hospital. Francesca is convinced she will never play piano again and tells Max she no longer wants to live. It is later that night when she makes the suicide attempt we see at the top of the film and lands in Dr. Larsen’s care.

Max is no fan of psychotherapy. When one of Dr. Larsen’s attempts fails to snap Francesca out of her malaise, the artist spirits her from the hospital to his palatial home. (I guess there is no such thing as a starving artist in 1940s England.) Dr. Larsen tracks down former fiancé Peter -- now divorced -- to find out more about what happened between them. Next he visits Nicholas to ask for help in curing her – which sends Nicholas into a rage and gives the doc a clue as to the real nature of his feelings for his ward. Nicholas heads straight to Max’s to confront Francesca. He tells her that she can play again, and reminds her that they have a strong bond that they have built up over the years. Max busts in and demands that Nicholas leave, but too late, the Nicholas Svengali Effect is already working its magic.

Francesca agrees to submit to another therapy session. Dr. Larsen plays one of her recordings, compelling her to play along on the piano and see that she can indeed play. Max, Nicholas, and Peter are waiting to see her. When she descends the stairs her face lights up, and she runs into the arms of … Nicholas, who was there for her all along.

NOTES:
I found the story compelling, and the script is great. Ann Todd reminds me of Joan Fontaine: a mix of helplessness and grit. Herbert Lom’s psychiatrist is so good – so commanding, so soothing, so earnest and empathetic – he practically had ME hypnotized through the screen. If I were Francesca, I would have chosen the good doctor.

Herbert Lom as the good doctor, peeling away the "seventh veil" of consciousness.

The American boyfriend Peter also gets a lot of the great lines. Francesca berates him for his rudeness and lack of refinement, saying, “It must be how you were brought up,” and Peter, unfazed, quips, “I was dragged up – I know it!” He also has a sequence where he woos the shy rich girl by telling her what happens between men and women in the movies – very clever.

James Mason is pure ice for most of the movie. He's like Heathcliff plus Mr. Rochester plus Henry Higgins. When Francesca tries to tell Nicholas about her engagement, she is at his feet begging. “Nicholas, I’m engaged!” And he’s like, “Hmmm. Go to bed.” “Did you hear what I said?” “Yes. And pack a bag before bed because we’re going to Paris in the morning.” Of course Francesca has a snit fit and screams “I won’t go, I tell you!” and Nicholas cracks her one in the face. I was shocked, frankly. “How old are you?” Nicholas demands. “Seventeen,” she whimpers. “Exactly,” he says, in Mason’s rich and oily vocal cadence. “You are still my ward. Do you know what that means? It means that until you are 21, you are under my guidance and protection, and you live under my roof. Should you try to run away, I can have you brought back immediately -- by the police if necessary. Do you understand? Now go to bed.” And she does.

She also has Max spouting some flowery sentiments; when he tells her she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever painted, she counters saying that he’s painted the portraits of numerous beauties. “I say this not only because you’re beautiful, but because I love you,” he flutters. When he asks her to run away with him, she falls into his arms and muses, “How do we do this, Max? Should we get married?” Max pulls back, not in alarm, but just says, “I hadn’t thought of that.” “It doesn’t matter,” she says. Remember—this film was made in 1945! The heroine has chosen to go live in sin with her German lover in Italy – but of course, Nicholas puts the kibosh on it.

Finally – the music is incredible. As I mentioned, I chose the flick at random as it was related to some other older films I was looking at. If it had turned out to be corny or horrible, I just would have quit in the middle and watched something else. But The Seventh Veil had me spellbound from the opening credits because of the music – the soundtrack was wonderfully nuanced, carefully orchestrated, and dynamic. No wonder – the London Symphony Orchestra was playing it all, including the concert sequences, which included Chopin, Beethoven, Dvorak. Highly recommended.

"Maleficent" (2014)

Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley

I'm not sure when I first saw Disney's animated Sleeping Beauty, which was produced in 1959. It may well have been on television. By then, the exacting animation style of Bambi had given way to broader artistic strokes and goofier caricatures. This wasn't one of my favorite Disney animated outings, but I loved the goofiness of the three good fairies who were charged with caring for Aurora, even as I questioned whether this princess was indeed all that beautiful. Like Cinderella and Snow White, this was one of those fairy tales that cemented the anti-feminist myth that if you are beautiful by conventional standards, then One Day Your Prince Will Come and sweep you off your feet, magically transforming your life -- but I digress.

The nastiest shock of the entire picture is the evil witch Maleficent, who casts a vengeful spell on the princess to guarantee her death at 16. That was one scary-looking heffa (though the evil queen in Snow White is a close second).

And now comes the live-action picture Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie. I finally saw it this weekend, and it was better than I thought it would be -- since my expectations for it were not particularly high, especially after Snow White & the Huntsman, which was a showcase for Charlize Theron, but an overall mess otherwise. This picture takes the original story of Sleeping Beauty and twists it so that the motivations and psychology of the witch -- now a fairy gone rogue -- are laid bare (much as the revisionist tale Wicked explained the Wicked Witch of the West's reasons for her actions). In fact, the film struck a chord with me on a personal level. I'll explain shortly.

The picture begins with the titular anti-heroine's origin story, and that's where I have my first quibble. Too many things are left unexplained. For instance. we first see Maleficent as a girl, but she doesn't seem to have parents. She is described as a fairy, but she's a pretty gnarly looking one, because although she's got a pretty face she's got horns like a ram twirling out of her head and giant clawed wings as well. There don't seem to be any other fairies that look like her living in these Moors. She is regarded as the queen extant of this realm, but how did she get into that position?

And while she is initially depicted as a benevolent and good spirit, her very name suggests otherwise. Just as magnificent at its root means "characterized by largeness and grandeur," and beneficent means "doing or producing good," Maleficent means "doing or producing bad." It would have made more sense to me, if sense can be made out of these massive fictions, if the character was born with another name and became known as "Maleficent" later. Any good fiction writer (or maker of myth) knows how important the names of characters can be (J.K. Rowling was a wiz with bestowing appropriate names on her Harry Potter characters that encapsulated who they are) so this was a bit of a misstep.

This Maleficent is a story of redemption through love -- but not the love we've been taught to expect. It's about a woman deeply betrayed, a woman with a good heart whose chance at love and fulfillment was violently stolen from her by someone she trusted. After years of living in bitterness with elaborate plans of revenge, she is transformed through the love of a child. That it is a child she could never have had on her own is of no consequence. Love -- and family -- is what we make of it. Maleficent is ultimately restored to herself and who she was meant to be when she chooses good over evil and literally takes a human girl under her wing.

This story struck a chord with me. People who don't know me assume that being childless is a conscious choice or the consequence of letting my biological clock run out. Not so. In some ways I felt betrayed by my own body, and by the men in my life who didn't -- or wouldn't -- commit to co-parenting through assisted or adoptive means. Maleficent's story was one I related to on an organic level; her wailing upon discovering that she had been stripped of a precious part of her anatomy brought a rush of tears to my eyes, as it immediately reminded me of my own anguish when told that my only option to deliver me from pain was a hysterectomy. (Jolie herself underwent a double mastectomy to forestall breast cancer last year.)

Angelina Jolie is fantastic and entirely dominant as Maleficent. Her body swathed in voluminous black robes and her hair covered, with prosthetic cheekbones, black horns and elf ears, she does a lot with very little, letting her eyes communicate the entire spectrum from warmth to dismay, pity to thoughtfulness, wrath to resolve. The picture falters when she is not on screen.

As Princess Aurora, Elle Fanning -- not yet as riveting an actress as her big sister Dakota --is a cipher, forced by the script and the director to play the Sleeping Beauty role as Little Susie Sunshine -- often to the point of idiocy (in one scene, Maleficent uses magic to knock the Pollyanna princess into floating unconsciousness in the middle of a chirping sentence just to shut her up). We only care for Aurora vis a vis her relationship to Maleficent. And unlike in the original fairy tale, in which Sleeping Beauty slumbers for hundreds of years before being awakened, this little gal gets what appears to be a day's worth of shuteye before she is restored to wakefulness.

Another quibble: the three good fairies are once again played for laughs. But while their animated doppelgangers were good-natured but absent-minded aunties, this trio of winged "saviors" (played by Imelda Staunton, Leslie Manville, and Juno Temple) are just carping idiots. With a major part of the setting established with a war between humans and the non-human inhabitants of the Moors, it doesn't make sense that King Stefan would have allowed these three anywhere near his castle or his child.

The unusual creatures and landscapes created by CGI effects recall alternately the Tim Burton Alice In Wonderland reboot, OZ The Great And Powerful, Avatar, and the Ents of The Lord of the Rings (no wonder, the flick is directed by Robert Stromberg, the production designer on the first three films).

Overall, it's a dark movie and some may find the scene of Maleficent's betrayal extremely disturbing. The brightest single moment has to be when a very young Aurora heedlessly toddles over to the bad fairy and engulfs her in an unwanted hug. The sunny smile of Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, the last of Brad 'n' Angie's brood, is enough to melt the hardest heart at a thousand paces, and Jolie's maternal regard for her own makes the humanization of Maleficent very easy to believe.

Have You Seen These Black & White Films?

Not too many commercially released films are photographed in black and white anymore. Once color was introduced to filmmaking in the 1930s, the film stock fell out of favor. Directors still use b&w as an artistic statement, to evoke mood or era, or to focus viewers on characterizations and subtext. Generally, though, audiences have come to expect the exuberant, hyperreal colorized palette when it comes to the big screen. Too bad, because the gradations of gray can indeed intensify the plotline and draw our attention to texture and other small details by not overwhelming the senses with color. The canon of great films includes several black & white favorites, from Casablanca to All About Eve, to more contemporary choices like Manhattan and Raging Bull. Here's a couple more you may not know.

1. No Way Out (1950)

No, not the 1980s thriller with Sean Young and Kevin Costner -- which is a great flick about the continuation of espionage for a Cold War that was supposedly over.

No -- This "No Way Out" is a landmark 1950 Sidney Poiter melodrama that also features the luscious Ruby Dee as his wife and stately Ossie Davis as his brother. The theme is racism, and for the times, this film was groundbreaking in its portrayal of how hate affects both the hated and the hater. The villain is Richard Widmark, at his most vile as a rabidly racist thug, and Linda Darnell as the girl struggling with allegiances but who ultimately does the right thing.

Sidney is Dr. Luther Brooks, a standup medical professional who has earned the respect of his colleagues at the prison's medical ward. He is called in to treat the wounds of the Biddles, two white punks injured while nabbed for robbing a gas station. When one of the punks dies due to his already advanced brain tumor, his racist brother, Ray, swears vengeance and tries to pin a murder rap on the doctor. Widmark -- who in real life was friendly with Poitier -- is absolutely repugnant as Ray. The bigoted things he says to Brooks -- multiple uses of the n-word not to mention "Sambo" -- are so full of vitriol, it is often hard to watch. Brooks -- played by young Poitier at his most noble -- retains his composure.

As fate would have it, Ray escapes the police and with another brother, who is a deaf/mute, crashes uninvited with their dead brother's estranged wife (Darnell), who wants nothing to do with them. In the process of trying to discredit and harm the doc, Ray enflames the sensibilities of a group of like-minded whites and plans an ambush of the black neighborhood, but Darnell warns the good doctor and the whole thing turns into a race riot. The scene is fantastically filmed, with the African Americans shooting flares into the sky before pouncing from the rooftops to attack their would-be white attackers at the city junkyard. A full-fledged brawl ensues and it is gritty. Injured in the melee, Ray Biddle follows Darnell to the doctor's house with a gun. But he can barely stand, he's bleeding and weak. Though he'd rather die than be attended to by a black doctor, he's too weak to protest. Brooks treats him and saves his life; in these final scenes we see that Biddle is crazed with hatred due to his own insecurities and hardscrabble life. In the meantime, Darnell is able to run out to get the police, thus ending the standoff.

This is an edge-of-your-seat drama that doesn't turn all the whites into villains nor all the blacks into saints. The film is a snapshot of the glacial pace of integration in post WWII America. And sad to say, in many places in the country, race relations haven't advanced much further than this.

2. Lost Boundaries (1949)

This is not exactly a great example of gorgeous black and white cinematography, nor a flick featuring towering feats of great acting. But it is notable as an early attempt by Hollywood to portray the country's growing "Negro problem": the legacy of bigotry kept alive thanks to the "one drop rule" and the attendant issue of "passing." Introduced as a "Drama of Real Life from the pages of Reader's Digest," the title says it all -- implying that we should all stay on our own side of the line or there will be hell to pay. But the tone and point of view is mostly sympathetic to the main characters.

The story starts with a snooze-inducing voiceover about the "secrets" and "legends" of Keenham, New Hampshire. Milquetoast (and milk-white) thespian Mel Ferrer plays fair-skinned African American doctor Scott Carter, who graduates from an integrated Northern medical school and marries another fair-skinned African American woman -- at the campus Kappa Alpha Psi house, no less. Dr. Scott knows he is black and has no issues with living in a black world. But his skintone offers him unique challenges. After rushing to Georgia to intern at a Southern black hospital, he finds himself rejected by the hospital's black chief because his skin color would cause too much of a row.

Dr. Carter moves north but finds he cannot gain a position as a black doctor and his wife is now pregnant. The family moves to New England to be closer to his wife's relatives, who are already passing, and against his better judgment, Dr. Carter takes a position at a local hospital without divulging his race. He is assumed to be white, and no one is the wiser. He is a success at the hospital and well-regarded in the New Hampshire town, and he and his wife raise a son and daughter. It's hard to believe that the Carters wouldn't at least let their children in on the news, but they keep them in the dark for 20 years. (The daughter even has some racist epithets for her brother's black friend.) Shock of shocks, when Scott Jr. decides to become a Navy officer, a background investigation (his father's military records) reveals the truth. You too are a "Negro," kid.

Junior does not handle the news well. Not only is his career as a Navy commissioned officer scuttled, his entire future as he envisioned it is out the window, including the loss of the lily white girlfriend he planned to marry. And where does someone in the Northeast go when they have just discovered they are black? Stereotypically, right to Harlem. As if there will be any answers or a grand homecoming awaiting him there. Let the jazz saxophones wail and the temptation to crime, drugs, and alcohol do their worst -- because to Hollywood that's what being black is, isn't it? (As in Showboat and Imitation of Life, the tragic mulattos run to the bad side of town and take up drinking -- Hollywood standing firm in its view of African Americans as lowlifes.) Junior wallows in the streets, lost and confused, until he is picked up by the police and returned to the bosom of his family.

As the news spreads in their community, the neighbors attempt to close ranks against them, until their local preacher reminds them that we are all children of God and there is a "Kumbaya" moment.

3. La Belle et La Bete (1946)



OK, OK -- I know it's in French and it's all artsy fartsy. And possibly you are so cool that you're already hip to this. So many people fall into the "God, I hate reading subtitles" camp, or the "this is ancient foolishness" camp. Either way, put aside your preconceived notions and spend some time with this masterpiece of filmmaking, directed by French artist and poet Jean Cocteau. Because the film is 1. breathtakingly beautiful, 2. startlingly innovative, and 3. the original "beauty is only skindeep" parable for loving past surface appearance.

"La Belle et la Bete" is the basis for Disney's hella popular "Beauty & the Beast" franchise, which includes the animated film and stage musical (the concept has also inspired at least three live-action TV versions). Disney "borrowed" much of what Cocteau brilliantly presents in terms of characterizations, costuming, and special effects, but the animated version is nowhere as original, haunting, ironic, fantastic, and profound as this black and white masterpiece. Many of Cocteau's shots are copied exactly to the Disney work, but because the original is live action, Cocteau's special effects (fades and wipes for disappearing or morphing characters, flying, "living" statuary, smoke effects, other inanimate objects that move and "speak" by themselves) are astounding. This is especially so because it was filmed decades before there were the standard Hollywood crutches like computerized special effects, sophisticated makeup, camera dollies, and the like.

The basic story is the same: In 17th Century France, a beautiful peasant girl's family must sell everything for money. She spurns a marriage proposal from the local brawn-for-brains, Avenant, who is having money problems of his own, and endures the taunts of her awful sisters, who treat her like Cinderella. On the way back from a bad-news business trip, Belle's father stumbles onto the grounds of a mysterious castle. Amazingly, he finds his every need magically met. On the way out, he sees a rose and picks it for Belle. He is confronted by a well-dressed but hideous Beast (who is truly frightening looking -- like a Hellcat Creature from the Black Lagoon who stuck his finger in an electric socket for good measure), who tells him that the price of stealing his roses is death, but if he sends one of his daughters back to him in three days, he will spare his life. Frightened out of his mind, the father gallops home on the Beast's enchanted horse. Only Belle is brave enough to return to the castle on the horse.

And what a return! When not at the Beast's castle, the film is fairly conventional; inside, the fantasy elements run rampant and the eyes can scarcely register so much wonder. Belle runs in slow motion, cloak billowing, through an entryway lined with sconces made of human arms -- an image from a fever dream. She floats up a stone staircase and plunges down another hallway, her feet not touching the ground in an early (and far superior) version of the trolley shot much used, and reviled, in numerous Spike Lee flicks. Belle drifts past a series of open windows fluttering long white curtains -- another effect that has been copied in countless films because of its ethereal beauty. She pauses before a door, and as the arm-sconces lean in, a voice whispers "je suis le porte du votre chambre" (I am the door to your room). The door opens to reveal a fantastic bedroom, filled with plants, flowers, drapery and statuary. A full-sized nymph on a fountain turns and nods, the faces carved into the mantelpiece blink, even the mirror speaks to Belle. When the covers slide off the bed by themselves, Belle returns to the stable to flee. The Beast appears. "Where are you going?" he demands. The sight of him sends her into a faint. The Beast carries her back to the beautiful bedroom and when he lays her on the bed, her clothing magically changes to the elaborate gown and headdress of a princess.

We all know the rest. The Beast -- under a spell from a malevolent fairy -- asks her nightly to be his wife, and every night she refuses. Belle doesn't flinch from the Beast, but tells it like she sees it. Through their talks she becomes fond of him, and earns his trust. Embedded in this tale on one end of the spectrum are the countless "opposites attract" romances, and on the far end, the fascination with human/vampire love stories. Belle comes to understand that this Beast needs to kill and eat animals to survive. After he has killed, the Beast's body is literally smoking and his bloodlust is a danger to her as well. French actor Jean Marais (who also plays Avenant) is marvelous -- his physicality tells us how miserable and tortured it is to live under this spell, and how much Belle's presence means to him. When Belle begins to address him as "Ma Bete," or "My Beast," there is so much love in those words. In this film -- far more than in the Disney reboot -- we can see the soul of this beast, who is always courteous and considerate of Belle (apart from the fact that he is holding her hostage).

To experience this film is to be caught up in its fantastic details. The cinematography is very soft-focus, as if sketched in smudged charcoals, making the scenes in the castle particularly intimate in feel. Yes, it is a fairy tale. But it will weave its magic around you and remind you of the purity of promises, and that true love is not dependent on beauty or riches.

4. Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1957)

"Je t'aime. Je t'aime," coos a woman passionately from a phone booth on the street (remember those?).
"Je t'aime," affirms the man from a phone in his Paris office, moments before he dons a pair of gloves, grabs a rope, and slips out of the office window onto the ledge.
Thus, with murderous lovers swearing their allegiance, the plot of this stylish noir thriller glides into motion.

Yes, another French flick! Get over it. This early Louis Malle film is better known for its brilliant use of jazz giant Miles Davis' taut score. But it stands on its own as a tense depiction of the "perfect" crime gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Jeanne Moreau as Florence: "Where oh where is that murdering, two-timing sweetheart of mine?"

Elevator to the Gallows (sometimes "Elevator to the Scaffold") concerns Florence and Julien, who plot to kill Florence's husband, a wealthy industrialist, who is also Julien's boss. Julien enters the boss' office unseen, shoots him dead, arranges it to look like suicide, and escapes over the balcony. (Director Malle neatly shows us a black cat crouching on the railing outside to signal impending doom.) But as Julien is about to drive away, he realizes he left the rope dangling outside the window. Leaving his car running, he goes back to retrieve the rope and becomes trapped in the elevator as the building shuts down for the weekend, leaving Florence to agonize about what has gone wrong. Meanwhile, a young punk and his girl -- Louis and Veronique -- see the convertible coupe idling and steal it for a fun weekend in the country. Impersonating the car's owner and his wife, the pair commit a few ugly crimes of their own. The two couples' fates become entangled as they race to stay ahead of the police and each other. The cinematography captures the kinetic thought processes of two sets of loose cannons, and the busy trumpet solos by Miles underscore their desperation as well. The film also showcases a great performance by French acting treasure Jeanne Moreau, whose surface composure as the murdered businessman's wife slowly unravels. This was Malle's first directorial effort; he went on to direct Pretty Baby, Atlantic City, Damage, and My Dinner With Andre.

5. A Hatful of Rain (1957)

One of my favorite black and white films from this era is actually the well-known drama The Sweet Smell of Success, which in addition to the best Tony Curtis performance of his career, boasts a lot of night shots of midtown New York during the 1950s: the legendary luncheonettes and nightclubs (21, Birdland, Sardi's, Schrafft's, Nedick's) of the era. That story concerns the backbiting and underhanded wheeling and dealing of the well-heeled Broadway types, with a Clifford Odets script that snaps.

Meanwhile, down on the Lower East Side, is this other little story from the same year. The crisp black and white photography shows us what it's like to live in one of New York's housing projects, and gives a few angles on the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Broadway. While the story isn't quite as smart or witty as Sweet Smell, it boasts plenty of grit and a great cast.

Don Murray (the lunky cowboy who wins Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop) plays Johnny Pope, a soldier who returns to New York after being injured serving in Korea and released from a military hospital. He reunites with his wife Celia (Eva Marie Saint), and his brother Polo (Tony Franciosa), who all live in a housing project apartment at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Celia begins to despair as Johnny stays out to all hours of the night; she's pregnant and wonders what their future together will hold if he is having an affair. (The one hole in the plot: How did she become pregnant if her husband was gone?) To complicate matters, Johnny and Polo's dad (played by veteran Lloyd Nolan) has come to town for a visit expecting an all-American family scene, while Polo confesses to his sister-in-law that he's in love with her.

What Johnny is keeping from his family is a serious heroin addiction, developed when he was given morphine for pain in the hospital. Now he owes a goodly sum to the drug-dealing gangsters -- led by "Mother" (Howard da Silva, whose film resume includes playing Asians, Indians, Native Americans, and Italians) -- and they're not waiting any longer for their money.

This was an early portrayal of how soldiers were affected by drug addiction in trying to reacclimate themselves to civilian life.

"I'm gonna quit, I swear!" "That's what you said the other 15 times."

"Pitch Perfect" (2012)

Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Rebel Wilson

*written in August 2012*

This past summer I went to this film because I needed a break. Reality was sucking a bit more than usual, and I was mentally going down for the count. Sometimes a film intensifies the gloom for me, but I thought this piece of gossamer fluff could only refresh like a dip in a pool on a summer's day. In that sense, it did not disappoint. There's no mental heavy lifting here.

First disclosure -- I was an immediate fan of TV's "Glee" in its earliest days. (I cannot bear to watch it now because 1, I bore easily and 2, watching the young adults navigate their careers outside of high school bears too much resemblance to my own midlife career struggles). I've been a music and musical theater geek for a long time, singing Anita in church teen production of West Side Story and taking part in chorus and band during my own formative years. I went to Pitch Perfect expecting a bit of Glee Goes To College on the Big Screen. (Or Bring It On with Song.) And that's pretty much what it was. It's pablum, but it's harmless.

Wanna-be DJ/remixer Beca (Anna Kendrick)arrives at college against her wishes, but her Dad wants her to get her degree before launching a music career. She gets suckered into participating in the on-campus a cappella girl group, The Bellas, whose prissy leader is stuck in the past. (They keep singing Ace of Base's "I Saw The Sign," which unfortunately always reminds me of the uncomfortable 8 months I spent working for Arista Records, which was relentlessly promoting that song at the time.) After loads of character development, backstory, a flirtation with a fellow student, and some bad performances, Beca and her fellow Bellas must hunker down for the inevitable Big Competition, where it is Beca's talent for remixing and mashups that finally gets the girls their propers.

Thusly described, this sounds like a massive yawn. But the film struck all the right notes. It didn't take itself too seriously, it had a little romance built in, the lead character wasn't too cutesy-poo nor too goth in disposition. The characters and the music are fun. It had a simple plot, some obvious sit-com humor, and silly sight gags. The film has some twisted obsession with "The Breakfast Club." But I laughed, folks! Yes I did.

As a former urban music journalist, I am torn about the fact that urban music has become widely popular (yay!!); so much so, that young Caucasians have no compunction about co-opting it (ummmm...). I felt a pang of discomfort watching these pale suburbanites who were barely born when the song first hit break out into Blackstreet's 1996 "No Diggity" in a free-for-all facedown. But in the spirit of equal-opportunity archive-raiding, this was OK.

But the real fun of the flick can be embodied in two words: Rebel Wilson. I am in love with her.

Rebel Wilson is so wrong she's right. This Aussie comic actress with the near-albino look is unusual, awkward, lumpen, refreshingly unselfconscious yet deliciously self-aware. Her comic timing is spot on. (The few moments she is onscreen in Bridesmaids are brilliant.) As Fat Amy, she pokes fun at herself, while at the same time showing us how ridiculous and wrong we are for ever thinking that we should poke fun at her. She is unafraid -- and that is the most awesome thing about her. Rock on, Rebel.

(a year later, Rebel's schtick has worn out its welcome, thanks to the dull and tasteless sitcom "Super Fun Night")

Pitch Perfect is a bit of silliness. Anybody expecting it to be a serious examination of college life or a display of spectacular musical artistry are bound to be disappointed. If you need a smile, this could be your prescription.