552. FAT CITY (1972)

Running Time: 100 minutes
Directed By: John Huston
Written By: Leonard Gardner, from his novel
Main Cast: Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto
Click here to view the trailer

Note: I'm trying to make this "note" thing a daily occurrence where I put up what's currently running through my head, do plugs, etc. I didn't watch much Oscars last night, however, I did see the winners list. Hard to believe we're living in a world where not only is Jonah Hill an Oscar nominee, but Matthew McCounaughey is an Oscar WINNER! So let me get this straight, Matthew McCounaughey and Martin Scorsese have the same number of Academy Awards!? Wow! Anyway, I hadn't really seen anything except "Her" and it only walked away with the original screenplay trophy, so I can't really comment on anything else. Let's get down to business, shall we?

"JUST WHEN YOU GET ROLLING, YOUR LIFE MAKES A BEELINE FOR THE DRAIN"

I needed something that wasn't going to fall in the average zone and I had a hunch this one would be good, so I went with it. Luckily, this time around, my hunch was right on, as I enjoyed this one quite a bit and even found a new actor to like in Stacy Keach. Read on...

The film starts out with Kris Kristofferson belting out a fine rendition of his "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and a scene with main character Billy Tully (Keach) trying to find a match to light his cigarette. He doesn't happen upon one, so he walks downstairs, then back up to his apartment, packs his gym bag and heads to the local gym where he meets Ernie Munger (Bridges), a wannabe boxer who he finds pounding on the speed bag. The two do a little sparring, before Tully pulls a muscle. Billy then refers Ernie to his old trainer, Ruben (Colasanto - fans of "Cheers" may know Colasanto as "Coach" on the earlier seasons) - "mention my name" he tells Ernie, before heading off. Ernie takes the advice and goes to see Ruben, who loves the kids look and is even more excited to be training a white guy (up till then, all of his trainees were black). It doesn't take long for Ruben to set up a fight for Ernie, which he loses quickly. Meanwhile, Tully, despite talking about it, can't get up the moxie to get back in shape and get a match (seems he's always looking for a match of some sort), so he spends his days doing manual labor for very little money and burying his failures in the local watering holes. It's at the bars where he meets Oma (Tyrrell), a world weary woman, who's beau has gone to prison and who needs a shoulder to cry on. Tully assures her she can "count on him" and the two shack up together. At the same time, Ernie is having some female interaction of his own, as his girlfriend has just become pregnant and is insistent that the two get married.

Man, look at Stacy Keach in this one showing us that you didn't have to be good looking in the 70s to be a movie star. Trust me, if he or even someone like Jack Nicholson were coming up through the ranks today, they wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting work in Hollywood. That's a shame, because when you look at Keach in this film, you're really watching a master at work and it's also a shame that before last night, I barely knew the name Stacy Keach. But man, what a performance he laid out for us, am I wrong? Not just him either, but Susan Tyrrell (who was nominated for an Oscar for this) also did an outstanding job and it makes me wonder why this picture is so inaccessible. You've also got Jeff Bridges in there and if I've never mentioned it before, let me tell you that I am a HUGE Jeff Bridges fan. In fact, there was a time when I tried my best to own all of Bridges' films on DVD. Furthermore, I actually owned this one at one time, but sold it when I decided that buying all of these films blind was a bad idea and realizing that a lot of them weren't THAT good. Too bad I never watched this one before though, or else I wouldn't have sold it - now it's out of print and would probably cost me a mint to get back. Anyway, yeah, I love me some Jeff Bridges and it makes me wish they'd thrown "The Fabulous Baker Boys" or even "The Big Lebowski" into THE BOOK too.

SPOILER ALERT!

One man on the net referred to Keach's performance as earthy, when comparing it to Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" and that's very true. In fact, comparing this to "The Wrestler" is actually an interesting comparison, because the two are similar, with "Fat City" being far less pronounced and more subtle than Aronofsky's film. I loved that this film DID have a sad ending, showing us the two mains sitting on bar stools, sipping cups of coffee and realizing that the primes of their lives are probably over. You have Tully who's been thrown out on his ear by Oma and who is burning his bridge with Ruben and you realize that this guy ain't never gonna' make it to Fat City a.k.a. make it big. The line that I used in the subtitle is a great one and one that really sums up Keach's character. Big recommendation on this one! Seriously, if you can track it down, check it out and see what Stacy Keach is all about - an actor that a lot of us probably don't know and the ones who do probably forget about him. He was marvelous here and really made this movie. Oh and I absolutely LOVE Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" - a song that really works for this movie.

RATING: 7.5/10  Thank God I finally found something to give me a little boost. This was good, more please.

MOVIES WATCHED: 812
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 189

March 3, 2014  11:48am

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733. Prizzi's Honor (1985)

Running Time: 128 minutes
Directed By: John Huston
Written By: Richard Condon, Janet Roach, from novel by Richard Condon
Main Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Anjelica Huston, John Randolph, William Hickey
Click here to view the trailer

YOU NEVER GO AGAINST THE FAMILY!

This was one of the movies on the wait list from Netflix, but also one that I would've gotten to eventually before the end of this season anyway, as I back tracked through the 80s. The last time I saw "Prizzi's Honor", I gave it a '1/10'. Did my opinion change at all? Read on...

It would probably give me Excedrin headache #24 if I tried to detail all the ins and outs of the plot for you here, so I'll tell you what you need to know and we'll go on from there. The film begins with the birth of Charley Partanna, who is born into corruption as the son of mob boss Angelo Partanna (Randolph). From the time he is born, Don Corrado Prizzi (Hickey), boss of the entire Prizzi family - the biggest crime family in the country - vows to treat Charley as if he were his own son. Later in life, Charley (Nicholson) is a made man, slipping $10's and $20's into the pockets of anyone who does him a favor. Charley is working as an assassin for the Prizzi/Partanna clan and as an assassin he doesn't have much of a social life. Enter Irene Walker (Turner), who Charley swoons over at a wedding and pays a few guys to find out who she is. The two eventually meet, fall in love and vow to get married when the time is right. Meanwhile, some scammers con the Prizzi family out of a large chunk of dough, at one of the Vegas casinos that they own. The family sends Charley out to retrieve over 700,000 missing dollars and in the process, Charley finds out that Irene was in on the whole scam. Not only that, but Charley also finds out that Irene is a paid assassin, one that the Prizzi family has actually used in the past, due to her being the best. Now the stage is set for a lot of dark comedy, a lot of back biting and a lot of fun as John Huston presents his fortieth film.

I oughtta' have my head checked for giving this movie a '1/10'! Sure it has a few flaws, but nothing that can't be looked over and nothing that is deserving of such a lackluster rating - the most lackluster of all ratings, in fact. Oh well, I was young, stupid and probably didn't even understand what I was watching, to be honest with you. Back then, I had a comfort zone and if I dared stray from that, I usually made up my mind not to like whatever it was I was straying for. Anyway, this movie is incredibly fun, well thought out, clever, funny in the right places and has top notch acting from everyone involved. Well, maybe Turner wasn't that great, but I've never cared for her anyway. Honestly, how did she become so famous in the 80s? I guess it was because of her sex appeal, because I'll admit, she's definitely not hard to look at. Nowadays, however, she's kind of disappeared from the public eye and with a quick check of her recent filmography, I find that she hasn't done anything notable recently and has only been in six films since the year 2000. With even a little more research, I find that she apparently had a reputation for being hard to work with, probably because she knew she could get away with it at a time when she was red hot. Anyway, everyone else was great and that includes Nicholson, Hickey, Randolph, Robert Loggia and Anjelica Huston, who has never looked as good as she does here.

Final shot featuring the elegant Anjelica Huston, daughter of the director

Critic Pauline Kael wrote about the movie that "it's like The Godfather acted out by The Munsters" making me realize that perfect lines like that are why I'm not a professional film critic. It really is just like that though. The personalities are quite cartoonish, at times, however the subject matter is like anything that we'd watch in any other gangster movie, perhaps even more intricately crafted. I'm really not sure how the film will fare come TOP 20 time, but I'm glad I was able to reunite with the movie and reconcile any past misunderstandings.

RATING: 7/10  I just knew that a Nicholson film couldn't be THAT bad. I'm also starting to realize how big of a Nicholson fan I'm becoming. The man truly is one of the greats!

MOVIES WATCHED: 787
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 214

January 26, 2014  4:27pm

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212. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Running Time: 127 minutes
Directed By: John Huston
Written By: John Huston, B. Traven, from novel by B. Traven
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett, Barton MacLane
Click here to view the trailer

THERE'S GOLD IN THEM THERE HILLS!

With the watching of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", I can finally say farewell to the decade of the 1940s and the salmon colored information boxes that go along with them in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book. I've now officially watched the first 222 films form THE BOOK and am moving right along.

The plot of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is fairly simple and starts out with Fred C. Dobbs (Bogart), an American staying in Tampico, Mexico, who is flat broke and reduced to begging for pesos. After a little while, Dobbs meets up with Bob Curtin (Holt) and the two gents end up staying in a Salvation Army type place, where they meet Howard (Huston), an old prospector who tells stories of gold hunting. Eventually the two manage to make a few bucks, by working for and then beating their earned money out of a crooked foreman and decide to take their earnings back to Howard and put it toward prospecting supplies. Howard agrees and the three head into the Sierra Madre mountains, where Howard is certain they'll find gold, become rich and be able to live like fat cats. Well, turns out Howard wasn't wrong, as the trio do end up striking gold. However, paranoia and greed get the best of them, especially Dobbs, who can't sleep wondering if one of his comrades is going to rob him of his share of the loot. Later, the trio is joined by an intruder, James Cody (Bennett), who had been planning to prospect the hills himself and offers to make their trio a quartet, as long as they agree to split whatever they find from here on out into fourths. The gang decide to kill him instead, but before they can do the deed themselves, Cody is murdered by a gang of Mexican bandits, which also spells trouble for Howard, Dobbs and Curtin. All of that and there's still about an hour of screen time left and the adventure is far from over!

SPOILER ALERT!!

Much like the trio of prospectors who went deep into the mountains of the Sierra Madre to hunt for gold, I myself was on a mission to find something as well. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" was my eighth Humphrey Bogart movie from THE BOOK (in fact, I don't think I've seen any Bogart films that I haven't already watched for THE BOOK, so it was my eighth Bogart movie, period) and the first one (besides "Angels with Dirty Faces", in which he's not a main character) that I really took a liking to. You see, I'd been on a mission for quite sometime to find a good Humphrey Bogart film and finally, finally I've found one that didn't leave me hating the iconic actor even more. You know what did it? The fact that he didn't play his usual bad ass, cool cat, chain smoking, dame dazzling, suit wearing self. IN TOTSM Bogart plays the bad guy, believe it or not and what a job he does! I mean, I didn't just not hate him in this, I actually loved him in this and can confidently and honestly say that he had the best performance in the picture, with a cast that included Walter Huston EARNING an Oscar.

However, it's my blog and as per usual, I just can't write a review without a little griping. My gripes are somewhat minor though, so just bear with me and we'll get to the finish line as quick and as painless as possible. Honestly, I just wish they'd left us alone with Dobbs, Curtin and Howard for a while longer, without involving Cody, bandits and Indians. In a perfect world, the three would've gone mad from paranoia and greed and been left at the end, ready and willing to kill one another, imagining schemes and double crosses in their heads. To me, the paranoia & greed element was the core of the story and that should've been at the forefront, whereas it seemed Huston was much more occupied with just making an solid action-adventure story. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because as it is Huston DID make a really good action-adventure story. All I'm saying is that this one had high '10' potential and it just didn't get there.

Other than that, I thought this film was a ton of fun. You had a fantastic cast, which included a Bogart performance that I could not only tolerate, but actually really liked and is easily the best thing he's ever done. You had a great story, tied up tight at the end with a fantastic finale. It was neither a happy ending, nor a sad ending and it was all tied up nice & neat. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that if Howard and Curtin had wound up with the gold, that would've reduced the rating by quite a bit. I hate tacked on happy endings and that's the last thing I wanted to see here. As it is, they were able to make sense of a good, happy ending, without the heroes getting their gold back. I'll also say that as much as I didn't care for the inclusion of outsiders, I did love the reading of the letter from Cody's wife (now widow) - it was indeed a heart wrenching moment. All in all it was a super fun night at the movies and hell freezes over as Bogart gets a little love from yours truly.

RATING: 7/10  I can't go higher than that, in good conscience (for now anyway), but this is really good and well worth your time.

MOVIES WATCHED: 707
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 294

August 4, 2013  10:53pm

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174. The Battle of San Pietro (1945)

Running Time: 37 minutes
Directed By: John Huston
Written By: John Huston
Main Cast: (narrator): John Huston

600!

I really should've put forth a greater effort to watch something a little more poignant and, well, longer from THE BOOK, for my 600th movie. However, for some reason, I'm just really ready to wrap this season and get a look at my next TOP 20 - a TOP 20 of which I'm not sure how will play out.

In 1945 John Huston was commissioned by the U.S. Army to make a propaganda film about the soldiers fighting in World War II. Can I just stop for a second and point out how in love THE BOOK is with World War II pictures. I can't even begin to tell you how sick I am of war movies in general, let alone WWII films. Anyway, Huston accepted, because he's a patriot or something and put together a thirty some odd minute documentary about the brave men and women that fight for the U.S.

I've gotta' say after spending a day watching short films and documentaries, I'm not sure I'll ever find one that's for me. I just can't seem to get invested in movies that are over not long after they begin. The only short movie I've ever enjoyed (outside of some Buster Keaton and PIXAR shorts) is "The Red Balloon" and who knows if there are anymore. "The Battle of San Pietro" is filled with a lot of war/military jargon and you all know how I feel about that type of thing. THE BOOK has shown me very few war films that I've actually been able to label (or re-label) as favorites and I think the bottom line is that I'm apparently a lover, not a fighter. You know, make peace not war and that whole thing. Thumbs down!

RATING: 1/10  WOW!!! What a day! FOUR...Count them...FOUR movies rated either a '1' or a '2'. I really saved the worst for last out of this crop. I really should have made a better effort to spread some of these around, because watching this many failures in a day can't be good for my health.

MOVIES WATCHED: 600
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 401

December 1, 2012  10:09pm

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772. The Dead (1987)

Running Time: 83 minutes
Directed By: John Huston
Written By: Tony Huston, from story by James Joyce
Main Cast: Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann, Cathleen Delany, Helena Carroll, Rachael Dowling

HUSTON'S LAST HURRAH

To be honest, John Huston really got screwed out of having his own, special week dedicated to him, here on this blog. With a whopping eight John Huston pictures contained in THE BOOK, I could have easily paid tribute to the late director and got to know his work better. As it is, I'll be sprinkling around his filmography as I continue on.

"The Dead", however, wasn't his best work and in fact, I really didn't care for it much at all. The plot isn't much, so it won't take long to outline the story. It's Christmas time in Dublin, Ireland and the year is 1904. Family is gathering at the home of Aunt Julia (Delany) and Aunt Kate (Carroll) and an evening filled with dancing, feasting and togetherness is about to commence. The evening starts with a bit of dancing, a grand piano in a large room is being played by several guests trading off every song or two. One guest sings a song to the group and another reads a letter. The elephant in the room is the drunken state of Freddy Malins, who shows up late, looking disheveled. Aunt Julia's nephew, Gabriel Conroy (McCann) and his wife, Gretta (Huston) show up late as well, but everyone is so glad to see them that their lateness isn't an issue. From there, we head to the dining room, where a goose is carved and discussions are ignited. Gabriel carves and passes the feast around the table for everyone to enjoy and when dinner is concluded, he toasts his aunts. The evening grows later and cabs are hailed, as guests depart the home of the elder aunts, heading back to their own lives with full bellies. Gabriel and Gretta arrive home and Gretta reminisces about a dead lover, someone whom Gabriel has never heard mentioned before.

You don't need "spoiler alert" here because, truth be told, there's really nothing to spoil. I've basically outlined the entire plot, from beginning to end above and there's nothing I can tell you that would make your viewing have any less or any more impact. That's my biggest problem with this film and really my only problem; the fact that literally nothing of note happens in the 83 minute running time. Nothing is revealed, there's really no climax, there's no character development, there's just a plain film with nothing really going on. Guests arrive, they dance, they sing, they make speeches, they eat dinner, the quarrel, they rejoice, they reminisce, they go home, end of story. And when I say they quarrel, I don't mean that their quarreling actually leads to something. They have little disagreements and they debate them and then they finish their goose and pudding. I didn't hate it or anything, but I was left wondering what makes this movie so "must see". What happened here, that I missed, that warranted this film's inclusion into a book of must see movies? The actors and actresses were fine and when I say fine, I do mean fine in every sense of the word. They were seasoned and they were a great crew, but their talents were lost on a story that just left me wanting a whole lot more.

RATING: 4.5/10  We'll keep it short and sweet today, because that was really my one and only complaint. It's just that it was such a huge complaint that it lowered the rating clear down to below average.

MOVIES WATCHED: 543
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 458

October 4, 2012  3:56pm

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224. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Running Time: 112 minutes

Directed By: John Huston

Written By: W.R. Burnett, Ben Maddow, John Huston, from novel by W.R. Burnett

Main Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffe, Marc Lawrence, James Whitmore

Click here to view the trailer

SEVEN SHADOWS WEEK: DAY 7 - THE CONCLUSION

Well here we are; one week after it has began, “Seven Shadows Week” is prepared to come to a close and what a week in film it has been. I was hoping that when Karen and I first talked about this collaboration that I would come out of this week with a new appreciation and better understanding for film noir and I definitely have. By sheer coincidence, we have saved the best for last.

The film revolves around a jewelry heist and really takes shape when “Doc” Erwin Riedenschneider (Jaffe) is released from prison and makes one of his first stops a bookie joint, run by a seedy individual named Cobby (Lawrence). Doc makes his plans for the jewel heist known and fortunately his reputation precedes him and Doc doesn’t have to do much talking to convince Cobby to take part. Cobby suggests that the two go to see a wealthy lawyer named Alonzo Emmerich (Calhern) and try to convince him to back their caper. Emmerich is very interested, as he’s informed that he stands to walk away from the deal a half million dollars richer. Doc releases more of the plan, stating that he’ll only need a team of three men: a driver, a “boxman” (someone to pick the safe) and a “hooligan” (someone to handle the guards). That’s where our main character comes in, the top hooligan in the underground and a man who has a passion for playing the ponies, Dix Handley (Hayden). Dix has been in and out of jail countless times, but if he could only raise enough money to get back home to Kentucky and Hickorywood Ranch, then (and only then) he could be content. The heist is pulled off, but everything doesn’t go as planned, as usual in a heist film.

Before I started this journey through the “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” book, I didn’t watch a lot of old movies. In fact, my comfort zone used to be movies from the 90s or 2000s and absolutely no earlier than the 80s. Anyway, one thing that always used to really irk me about films (and still does sometimes) is the overuse of the happy ending. I hate when a film could end on a down note and make a lot of sense, but instead some plot twist is thrown in at the last minute and everything turns out rosey. With this week of film noir, I realized that the happy ending is almost nonexistent when it comes to film noir. They almost always end with dead main characters, characters in prison or characters that are worse off than when the film started. That is no truer than in “The Asphalt Jungle”. It’s amazing how this type of film conditions us to root for the bad guy. We want to see the heist pulled off successfully, we want to see the criminals off a copper or two, if one stand in their way and we want to see them prosper in the end. In “The Asphalt Jungle” the heist itself lasts approximately eleven minutes, but in reality showing the actual heist itself wasn’t even necessary. This film is not about a heist, but rather about the type of men that pull off a heist, their vices and what motivates them. It shows us the events leading up to the caper and it shows us the aftermath, but more importantly it takes the time to introduce the characters and let us get a chance to get used to them for a few minutes. Then the film plays out with characters we actually care about. As it is, however, I’m glad the actual heist was included, because it’s a pretty heavy eleven minutes and a great scene.

As I thought about this film throughout the day, I realized that there was nothing wrong with it. Initially it didn’t hit me as a perfect movie, but as I type this, I literally have nothing bad to say about “The Asphalt Jungle”. Having Sterling Hayden in a heist movie, I couldn’t help but remember “The Killing” – another favorite noir of mine – and this is nearly as good, if not just as good. The rest of the cast is great too. Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffe, James Whitmore and Marc Lawrence all great cast choices and even Marilyn Monroe is present (albeit not for long) and plays her part well. The cinematography is classic noir style and I couldn’t help, at times, to be reminded of the French New Wave and how this film had to be another inspiration to the director’s of that period.

RATING: 10/10  Like I said, there aren’t any faults here. It’s a fantastic film, one that I could see myself enjoying over and over again.

MOVIES WATCHED: 443
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 558

I’d like to take one last opportunity to send a big thank you to Karen Burroughs Hansberry for providing my blog with three fantastic articles this week. Also, for allowing three of my reviews to appear on her blog, Shadows and Satin. I hope my followers took the time to read her words. She is a woman who is very passionate about films, especially the ones she loves and I think that shines through in her writing. I had a lot of fun this week watching these movies and ultimately, this week was a success, with four candidates for my next TOP 20 rearing their heads this week.

April 10, 2012  6:59pm

PUBLISHED: May 7, 2012  12:00pm

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