Boxcar Bertha

Martin Scorsese’s second picture and the second in my Scorsese in Sequence feature is Boxcar Bertha. Bertha Thompson (Barbara Hershey) is a young woman whose father dies in an aircraft accident. With no money and no home she travels around the Depression hit South aboard railway boxcars. Along the way she meets ‘Big’ Bill Shelly (David Carradine), a Union Man and suspected Communist. The two of them begin a relationship and along with Yankee, Rake Brown (Barry Primus) and ‘negro’, Von Morton (Bernie Casey) take to robbing trains as a means of surviving.

This is unlike most other Scorsese films. It is the only one to feature a woman in the central role and one of only a handful set outside of the East Coast. As a result it feels amongst the least Scorsese-esque of his films. The direction is fairly straightforward. There are no trademark long tracking shots, very little popular music and cutting is slow and traditional. One area in which Scorsese does stick to type is with Bertha’s moral ambiguity. At the beginning she is a sweet young girl but towards the end she is a woman who will do anything it takes to survive and appears to enjoy the wilder side of life. The film also contains Scorsese’s trademark violence, especially in an unexpectedly brutal final scene.

American Pie 2

"This one time, at Band Camp..."

Coming two years after the successful American Pie, American Pie 2 finds friends Jim, Finch, Oz, Kevin and Stifler coming to the end of their first year of college. Little seems to have changed for the group as they’re still battling to get laid. Some have been successful with this but others have not. After returning home they find life strange. Kevin talks to his older brother who suggests that they rent a beach house by the lake for the summer and throw a huge party to attract women. Meanwhile, Jim finds out that ‘the one who got away’, Nadia is going to stop by at the end of summer and searches out band geek Michelle to teach him the art of seducing and satisfying a woman.

As I mentioned in my review of American Pie, I used to love these movies. In 2001 an even larger group of friends than for the first went to our local two screen cinema to enjoy a second slice of pie. We were howling with laughter at the events we saw in front of us. Eleven years and about 6-7 viewings later and the film has definitely lost its edge. I hadn’t realised how few laughs there were in the film. It isn’t even as funny as the recent Amercian Reunion.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Successful LA defence attorney Mickey Haller (Matthew ‘Mahogany’ McConaughey)  lands a career case, the defence of a young millionaire playboy Louis Roulet (Ryan Philippe) who has been accused of attacking and beating high class prostitute Regina Campo (Margarita Levieva). Roulet claims his innocence and argues that he’s being set up. The film follows the case as twist follows twist, right up to the very end.

I’ve never been that into courtroom dramas (unless Fangshaw Standon is presiding/providing) but this one kept me interested for most of the time although to be honest I was never invested enough in the characters to really care which way the film came down on. I mainly kept with it just so I could find out at the end. After the initial twist, it is fairly obvious how things are going to go and it’s just a matter of how and when. Various side stories intertwine to create a deeper more complex story and this generally works well but Haller’s ex wife and child were only really there for one reason late on and felt a bit ignored. Calling the film The Lincoln Lawyer seemed like a bit of a stretch. Unless I’m missing something it is because Haller owns a Lincoln and drives from one place to another in it. I think he works in it once but it seems a bit flimsy to name an entire film after the car that the protagonist drives. The car didn’t play that big a role in the film.

American Reunion

"Check it out, Vagina Shark!"

Thirteen years after graduating high school, friends Jim (Jason Biggs), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Oz (Chris Klein), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Stifler (Seann William Scott) all end up back in their home town of East Great Falls for their High School Reunion. The plot centres around Jim and Michelle’s (Alyson Hannigan) stuttering marriage and on Stifler’s inability to grow up. Apart from that there are numerous side stories regarding every main character including Jim’s Dad’s (Eugene Levy) loneliness after the death of his wife and various old feelings returning.

The whole cast of the original movie have returned and there are even cameos from the likes of The Sherminator and the Milf Guys. Most of the cameos are welcome and either bring closure to their story or a bit of humour but Shannon Elizabeth’s Nadia made a brief and unremarkable appearance. I especially enjoyed the Milf Guys small subplot and their closing dialogue.  The film has found a way to bring together all the pieces from the original trilogy and ties them off well. There are still some big surprises (“Milf! Milf!), some upsets and even a couple of new characters but the film is at its best when the guys are together being themselves and in particular one scene featuring Stifler and Jim’s Dad. It was also nice to see Stifler’s Mom (Jennifer Coolidge) and Jim’s Dad get some screen time together as they have been so successful in the past in many of Christopher Guest’s movies.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

"They're here! They're here! They've landed!"

It’s 1951 and an extraterrestrial flying saucer is tracked around the Earth before it lands in Washington. A spaceman, Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and a robot step out and are immediately shot by the US Army. After recovering very quickly, the spaceman asks a Presidential aid for permission to speak to all world leaders as he brings a vitally important message. His request is denied due to the political climate and he escapes and tries to study Earth’s inhabitants while staying at a Washington Guest House, becoming friendly with residents Helen (Patricia Neal) and her son Bobby (Billy Gray). The spaceman contacts a scientist (Sam Jaffe) and persuades him to gather the scientific community to listen to his warning. In order to get the attention of the world’s population, the Spaceman turns off all of the world’s electricity for thirty minutes.

This is very much a film of its time. Its overriding theme of Cold War tensions is now part of history and its religious themes have much less importance today. The fact that an alien has travelled millions of miles to warn humanity about its own as well as the Universe’s destruction must have been a major talking point back in 1951. The idea that the alien could also be viewed as Jesus takes the warning even further. The film delivers a stern but important message about what a threat we can be to ourselves. The fact that the film came just six years after the world’s most bloody war is no coincidence either.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil

A group of typical college students are on their way through the isolated West Virginian wilderness when they come across a couple of Red Necks. Afraid, they scarper and set up camp near a lake. The Red Necks, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) have recently bought an old cabin and are in the area to do some fishing and maintenance. That night the kids go skinny dipping and one of them (Katrina Bowden) falls in banging her head. Dale and Tucker come to her rescue and pull her aboard their boat. The other kids see this and believe she is being kidnapped and formulate a plan to get her back and enact their revenge.

The film is a nice twist and reverse of the classic kids in the woods surrounded by hillbillies film but is unfortunately usurped in its originality by The Cabin in the Woods. The idea itself is clever and interesting, it’s nice to have a look at the oftold story from the hillbilly perspective but after forty minutes I’d had enough. I laughed a couple of times in the opening minutes but overall found the film unfunny and boring. After the opening twist there is little else of interest and the plot becomes predictable and dull.

Iron Man

"Give me a scotch. I'm starving"

The first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Robert Downey Jr as billionaire playboy/weapons developer Tony Stark. Stark is presenting his latest weapon to the Military in Afghanistan when his convey comes under attack. Stark is critically wounded in the attack and while imprisoned by terrorists, fellow prisoner Yinsen (Shaun Toub) fits an electromagnet into his chest in order to keep shrapnel out of his heart. Ordered to build a sophisticated missile by their captors, instead the prisoners go about building an Iron suit which Stark uses to escape. Excited by the new technology Stark begins to develop the suit further but other parties are also interested in the idea.

Tony Stark is a character that Robert Downey Jr was born to play. After several years on the edges of Hollywood the role put him back front and centre and rejuvenated his flailing career. Stark and Downey have very similar traits and it feels as though Downey is enjoying the role. Paul Bettany is well cast as the voice of JARVIS, Stark’s computer. He comes across as robotic but with just a hint of humanity and emotion. Gwyneth Paltrow is also well cast as Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts. She is sexy enough when she needs to be but you can understand to some extent why Stark hasn’t noticed her in that way. Their relationship is also very fun to watch and somewhat like a toddler and mother. It’s entertaining to watch her attempt to keep Stark in line and out of trouble.

Another Earth

Rhonda (Brit Marling), a bright and ambitious seventeen year old who has recently been accepted into MIT is driving home one night from a party when she hears an announcement on the radio stating that a planet has been discovered close to our own. The DJ tells his listeners to look up into the sky in search of the pale blue dot. Rhonda is mesmerized by the sight and takes her eyes off the road causing a collision which kills a woman and her son and leaves the father, John (William Mapother) in a coma. Four years later Rhonda is released from prison and gets a cleaning job at a high school. She wants to contact the man whose family she killed and apologise but loses her nerve and instead says she can clean his house. The film charts their relationship as Another Earth draws slowly closer to their own.

The film cost just $200,000 and while being remarkably well made and cast for that amount does look a little rough and cheap. This is not to the film’s detriment though as I don’t think that a shiny or glossy looking film would have worked quite so well. The science behind the story is fairly credible and as someone who is fascinated by astronomy, it had me going along with it. Although problems such as tides and light were ignored by the film makers, I didn’t let them distract me. There will be obvious comparisons to Lars von Trier’s Melancholia but they are mostly misplaced. The film lacks the sense of impending doom and instead views the second Earth as a chance for redemption and opportunity.

The White Diamond

Werner Herzog once again goes back to the South American Rainforrest, the setting of his feature films Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde. This time Herzog is in Guyana, one of the less known countries of the continent. A small country, with just 700,000 inhabitants, Guyana shares more in common both historically and culturally with the Caribbean Islands than with its giant neighbours to the south. Herzog is in Guyana to meet Dr Graham Dorrington, an aeronautical engineer who is in the jungle to test his latest airship. The story is tinged with sadness though as in a previous test ten years earlier, Dorrington’s cinematographer Dieter Plage was killed.

The film begins with a brief history of aviation and in particular the history of the airship. Herzog discusses the rapid rise and fall of the popularity of airships before and after the Hindenburg disaster. Herzog first meets Dorrington in his lab in London. He is an excitable and intelligent man with grand ambitions of soaring above the jungle canopy, capturing its unspoiled beauty and collecting samples that could be used in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Dorrington is eccentric but focussed and it is obvious how much the expedition and test means to him. The tragedy of ten years earlier is only briefly mentioned and leaves the viewer hanging.

Who's That Knocking at My Door

The first in my Scorsese in Sequence feature and also Martin Scorsese’s debut feature film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door stars Harvey Keitel as J.R, a typical Italian American guy living in New York’s Little Italy neighbourhood. On the Staten Island Ferry J.R. meets a pretty, college educated woman played by Zina Bethune. After a long conversation about John Wayne, American movies and foreign magazines the two start dating. All is well until the girl announces that she has a horrible secret, something that J.R. has trouble dealing with.

The films opening two scenes show signs of some of Scorsese’s later work and feature an Italian mother cooking (Italianamerican, Goodfellas) and J.R. getting into a street brawl with his friends (Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York). An early scene which really stands out for me is the meeting of the two protagonists. The scene lasts several minutes as the two get to know each other. Both are noticeably nervous. Bethune is shy and reserved while Keitel fidgets and talks too quickly. The scene is shot using a single camera which slowly pans from one actor to the other, occasionally zooming in and out. It is a quite beautiful shot. After a few minutes Scorsese breaks with this and introduces some unusual camera angles including one from above and another that obscures both actors’ mouths with a bench. It’s an interesting and bold start to a debut feature.