Sunset Blvd.

Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson and Nancy Olson
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Rating: ****-1/2


After having been a fan of the noir style and emersing myself in neo-noir films like Blade Runner/The Matrix or noir-esque dark comedies like The Big Lebowski or Fight Club I thought I would take a crack at the classic noir films and slowly but surely I've been working my way through some of them... Carol Reed's The Third Man, Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and Roman Polanski's Chinatown is on my shelf ready to be watched... but now has the bar set pretty high after I have seen the masterpeice that is Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd.

Telling the story of mildly heralded B-movie writer named Joe Gillis (Holden) who is down on his luck and after some initial success can't sell a script to save his life (almost reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink character) and so while hopskotching across Hollywood trying to elude some repo men who have come for his car, he stumbles in to the dusty, old, and he thinks empty million dollar mansion of former silent movie star Norma Desmond (Swanson) who, in fact, still lives there. She mistakes Gillis for a delivery man who is dropping off a coffin for her recently desceased chimpanzee. Gillis admits his mistake and is in a hurry to get out of this insane woman's house, but when he mentions that he's a writer, Ms. Desmond ropes him in to writing the script for her big "don't call it a comeback" return to celluloid.

Both leads put on magnificent performances with Gillis as the subdued but cutthroat writer trying to make it in Hollywood, but it's Gloria Swanson, a former silent film actress herself, who goes so close to edge of parody in her portrail of a spurned actress that was tossed aside in the era of the "talkies" like many other actresses in Hollywood. What is so interesting about this character, who IS a character in the true sense of the word, is how sympathetic you are of her situation because everyone has that dream to be a Hollywood star and make it big. Swanson's over the top acting is also the perfect foil for the low-key Gillis who seemingly is in the same trappings as the woman who has trapped him in her home. There is a very Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in Misery performance where melancholy is too nice of a word.

What also makes Sunset Blvd. so captivating is how much personal baggage is brought in to the film through on location shooting and cameos from big-name players like Cecil B. DeMille, Buster Keaton and H.B. Warner to make it a truely scathing take on the Hollywood machine mindset. Even Max ,the well meaning but ultimately damning butler/former director/former husband of Norma Desmond, played by former director Eric von Stroheim (who actually directed Swanson in the film that killed her career) brings so much truth to the words he speaks both when trying to protect Desmond from rejection and from the facade that had been put on by Gillis in trying to take advantage of his vein and lonely employer.

There were just so many small touches, mainly in the set design of Desmond's mansion, that really impacted the final message of the film including the home movie theater, the numerous silent-era pictures of the 50-something Desmond and turn on a dime reactions of Norma Desmond when she hears something she doesn't like or doesn't want to believe create a suspenseful atmosphere that is ultimately just a very sad look at how brutal Hollywood can be. A message that is captured perfectly in the haunting ending sequence of Swanson descending the staircase of her mansion, putting on her actress charm which now reeks with delusions of grandeur, as she is being led to a police car with news crews shooting. Her final lines as the audience is treated (or subjected) to a first person shot of Desmond creeping toward the camera lense are true to the film's dark look at the optimism of the American dream: "Alright Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up."

This film left me more chilled to the bone and yet hopelessly captivated more than most horror or suspense films I have seen. Just, the Citizen Kane-like character of Norma Desmond is so sympathetic but at the same time horribly dangerous (as Gillis, our narrator explains throughout his encounters including one very creepy New Years Party scene) that it just terrifies you that you could understand what she's been through and what she is going through having to deal with rejection. In an era of idol worship where stars are on a constant make or break pedastal, this film is as impactful and unwaveringly revealing as it was over 50 years ago.

Acting: *****
Teriffic performances all around from the leading actor and actress to the supporting cast to the extras. Obviously the major props here go to Swanson and Holden which is why the won the Golden Globes that year. Enough has been said about the acting in this film by myself and countless others already though, so no need to go in to it further.

Plot: ****
The plot for Sunset Blvd. is very good... although I felt it could have been a bit tighter in some places. The direction was near perfection to get the message across alright in the end, and key scenes in the plot were neccessary to get the desired effect in the end... although I think the (poor) attempt to hide the otherwise shocking ending through the opening narration was handeled badly (although the opening scene itself was magnificently shot) and the scene where we find out how the opening came to be (in classic noir fashion) almost seemed too forced. I thought it could have been more subtle.

Cinematography: *****
Another perfect example of art direction/cinematography/set design in this film. Just absolutely fabulous from the home movie scene where Norma Desmond's nosferatu-style shadow is cast on the screen while she's grabbing at the projecton light as if to attempt to hold it in her hands all the way to the perfectly shot staircase sequence. There was nothing at all to nitpick about how the film unfolded visually.

Direction: ****-1/2
Billy Wilder is a great director as evidenced by his track record of films before and after Sunset Blvd. (Double Indemnity, Stalag 17, Sabrina, Some Like it Hot) and there is nothing to discredit that assessment in Sunset Blvd. his casting choices, his choice of scenes, his use of dissolves and camera shot changes were all planned to their full effect. I think some of the story appeard a bit muddled in places and could have been tightened which, considering he helped write the script, falls on his head which is why he doesn't get a five-star rating.

Entertainment Value: ****-1/2
Entertaining is a word that you really can't use when describing Sunset Blvd... because of how dark and cynical its world view is. However, through all of the peices that described above, Sunset Blvd. is certainly CAPTIVATING and not only is it captivating, but it is so very strongly held together through getting the audience to be lost in the mood, the characters, the plot, and the meaning behind the story. There are parts of the film however that had me nervous as to whether or not I could keep being involved... but I think upon a second viewing, this movie will captivate me fully for the enitre 1 hour and 50 minutes.

I highly reccomend this film not only for noir fans, or even enthusiasts about film... but anyone who has ever had the dream of going to Hollywood, or has wished for even a second to be like the movie stars on television, Sunset Blvd. will shatter that dream in to millions of little peices just like the shattered psyche of Norma Desmond. This is a much darker, must more scathing Citizen Kane and, in my opinion, more effective and rewarding as a film.

So with those explinations we get these final ratings:

Acting: *****
Plot: ****
Cinematography: *****
Direction: ****-1/2
Entertainment Value: ****-1/2

and the final total of ****-1/2 out of 5 for Sunset Blvd.

Movie Blurbs

Normally I do a full-length review of a film, and over time I hope to go back and try and do as many as I can when I get free time or a movie I see catches my interest... but I also feel like giving reviews of movies that I've seen that I just haven't gotten around to giving the full rundown yet...

So, here are about a half of a dozen films I've seen recently and my short take on them:

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang (2005)
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan
Directed by: Shane Black
Rating: **** out of 5

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a hilarious dark comedy that is top-notch on all cylinders. Downey plays the bumbling pathological liar playing a detective while Kilmer is so good as the self-afacing gay private investigator in this "whodoneit?" mystery that quickly spirals out of control in Go-like fashion where nothing is as it seems.



Blade Runner (1982)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Rating: **** out of 5

Blade Runner's vision of a futuristic distopia is the forerunner for pretty much every modern science fiction film since its release and what makes this classic all the more exciting is the awesome storyline and personalized characters. There are definate shades of the cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer" which was released 2 years after this Phillip K. Dick adaptation which shows just how ahead of its time Blade Runner really was.



Following (1998)
Starring: Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw and Lucy Russell
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Rating: ***-1/2 out of 5

In Christopher Nolan's (Memento, Batman Begins) first film which he wrote, directed, shot and edited on a $6,000 budget is a beautifully simplistic yet strangely psychologically dense take on the classic noir genre is near perfection given what Nolan had to work with. While the acting isn't the best, the story can be confusing and the characters are hard to care about in the 1-hour run-time, Nolan crafts a taught thriller that got him ready to tackle his masterpiece Memento two years later.


Capote (2005)
Starring: Phillip S. Hoffman, Cathrine Keener and Clifton Collins Jr.
Directed by: Bennett Miller
Rating: *** out of 5

Capote was the best of the Oscar-nominees for Best Picture film of 2005 but unfortunately that's less a praise of Capote and more of a criticism on the selection the Academy put up that year. Hoffman and Keener are just fantastic as Truman Capote and Harper Lee but the film, despite being a bio-pic about a fairly interesting man in Truman Capote, isn't that interesting to watch.



Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (2005)
Starring: Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Rating: *** out of 5

An adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's infamous novel about a drug binge in Las Vegas while writing a report on the search for the American dream. This is what Requiem for a Dream would be if it were a comedy which, I'm not so sure works on the same level. Depp and Del Toro put on FABULOUS performances in this film, but that and the dark LSD-laced humor aren't enough alone to make this the classic it's been made out to be.



Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea and Karl Hardman
Directed by: George A. Romero
Rating: ****-1/2 out of 5

Having watched this film several times over the span of the last 5 years... most recently for a paper I am writing on horror films, Night of the Living Dead continues to keep impressing me with how perfect this low-budget horror film is and how it stands the test of time. The acting and the special effects may have been cheesy but when it comes to suspense, Romero's mantra of K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Stupid) pays off in spades. Night of the Living Dead is about as close to perfect as a horror film can get.

The Descent

The Descent (2006)
Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza and Alex Reid
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Rating: ***1/2

The best horror films are ones that can effectively take a common fear that most, if not all, people have and not only use it, not only manipulate it, but exploit it to its fullest potential and The Descent, the most recent film from Neil Marshall (director/writer of cult favorite Dog Soldiers), is very close to reaching that perfect combination of suspense, violence and surprise that make films like The Exorcist, Alien and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre such staples of the horror genre... but because of a misuse of what seems to be a post-20th century "neo-horror" trend of 1/2 horror and 1/2 revenge, it falls short of its ultimate potential.

The story of The Descent is a simple enough one: Six girlfriends are meeting the mountains for their annual taste of summer thrill seeking... this meeting is taking place one year after an accident that claimed the life of one of the friends', Sarah (MacDonald), husband and daughter. Ever since the accident, Sarah has had problems coping with the loss and so, this summer's thrill seeking adventure, cave spelunking, was set up by Sarah's best friends Beth (Alex Reid) and Juno (Mendoza), to try and help ease the pain. Joining these three are a pair of sisters, Sam and Rebecca (Myanna Buring and Sasika Mulder), as well as a young and adventurous veteran spelunker named Holly (Nora-Jane Noone).

We are shown the individual personalities and compainionship of the six girls through a series of fire-side chats and binge drinking before the big day where Juno leads them offroad to what appears to be a beginners-level adventure but becomes much more complicated than they had atticipated... well, all of them except for Juno, who, after a tunnel collapse when the panicky Sarah gets stuck, explains to the group that they are in an unexplored cave that she thought they could explore and discover together. Needless to say that Juno friends are not happy with her but as they attempt to escape the cave with no sense of how deep it is or where the exits are, Sarah begins to see things in the darkness... things that look human but... also... not. The friends soon discover, as they begin fighting for their lives while they try and find an exit, that it isn't the creatures in the cave they should be worried about... but themselves and each other.

The film is very good at setting itself up, slightly hinting at the tensions between the six friends, namely Juno and Sarah who, it is hinted at early on in the film, left for home fairly quickly after Sarah's accident and may not have been as up front as she could be about her relationship with Sarah's husband... but seeing as how the audience is watching the film mostly through Sarah's point of view, we are never quite sure, even when the film ends, how much of the events are blown out of proportion because of Sarah's mental instability and that is really what makes this film stand out from the crop of current remakes and rehashings from overseas. It's a throw back to the classic paranoia/suspicion horror film that was perfected in films like Night of the Living Dead and The Thing, but with Neil Marshall's vision and willingness to force the audience to experience the violent veracity of the actions taking place, this film is certainly a more visceral take on its predecessors.

Unfortunately it is this same level of violence and the "revenge" on the "creatures" within the cave that make this film seem almost too... tacky for lack of a better word. We've seen this before in films like the remake of Dawn of the Dead, Hostel, Saw 2, the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, High Tension and 28 Days Later where the director, for whatever reason, decides that he's not satisfied enough with freaking out the audience, but wants to gross them out and get their adrenaline pumping too... which, okay, I can understand to an extent but, despite some of the awesome sequences Marshall shows us, The Descent takes a bit too much glee in disecting (literally) the characters one by one through the course of the about 50 minutes they are in the cave. I also think I would have given this aspect of the film more of a pass if the REAL ending was shown to American audiences rather than the bullshit (in comparison) one that I saw.

Here's how the film broke down ratings wise:

Acting: **1-2
I wasn't too impressed with the characters in this film because so many of them appeared to be stereotypes and other than maybe Sarah or Juno, you never got to delve too deeply in to their psyche which, for a film that's basing its fear factor in paranoia, distrust and suspicion, you need more than just cardboard characters who we are merely supposed to assume are friends that would so quickly turn on each other.

I would give the acting 2 stars if it weren't for the awesome scream-queen/Rambo-woman turn by Shauna MacDonald who really does a good job of being the disturbed best friend that really shouldn't be in a claustrophobic situation. To a lesser extent as well, I think that Mendoza does a very ammacable job as the well-meaning but stupid best friend who always needs to be in control. For a horror film, it's not bad, but this type of film is character driven and I've definately seen better acting in similar horror films.

Plot: ***
I have a hard time trying to come up w/ a proper rating for this part of the film because the premise has been done before and I thought there were very many more and better ways that the film could have been executed for a better effect... but at the same time, I think that unlike certain other films that took a good concept and shit on it (*cough* The Cave *cough*), The Descent did a very good job at creating tension and giving enough clues to keep the audience aware of the upcoming twists even though you weren't sure exactly how it was going to all play out. So, I'm giving this film the benefit of the doubt in this case because I really did enjoy it for all of my personal preferences on how it could have been handled better.

Cinematography: ****-1/2
If there is one thing that really just wowed me in this film, it was how beautiful it was. Thanks to creative use of glow-sticks and flares inside the cave to provide lighting, it created a very eeire scene and considering the only two colors used were red and green (quite possibly as foreshadowing for the characters that used them) I was pretty impressed. The other thing that really worked well and one of the things that Marshall improved upon from previous films, was the use of the nightvision aspect of the digital camera one of the girls brought to record their journey... in fact, many of the scariest and best executed in the film came with the audience viewing the cave through the night vision filter.

There is also a particularlly awesome scene near the end of the film that you'll notice as soon as you see it. It's an image I'd really like to has as my computer wallpaper actually... kudos to whomever designed and shot that.

Direction: ***-1/2
I thought the direction of Marshall in this film was actually very good considering the actresses he used and the willingness to put a horror film in the hands of an all-woman cast, something that I can't remember seeing except in movies like The Craft, Susperia or Black Christmas where... in reality, they may have been a female-heavy cast... but not to the extent that The Descent pushed it to. I also give a lot of credit to Marshall being the scriptwriter for The Descent... but as I mentioned earlier, I think that more care should have been taken in developing the characters and the ending should have been executed a bit better.

Entertainment Value: ***-1/2
I thoroughly enjoyed The Descent... it's definately one of the few horror films I've seen come out recently that is actually attempting to BE a horror film and not just some excuse to put blood and guts on the screen. That being said, I think that I would have given the film a full four, maybe even five stars if not for the hurried way the paranoia between the six girls was handeled and the cop-out ending which... I don't think was as effective as an expansion on the European ending could have been.

I also enjoyed how involved the audience I saw the film with got involved... it's something that I really haven't seen in recent movies that I've been to and something that horror audiences used to do a lot more of. I don't think I was every scared by the film... although it did have some pretty unique and effective jump-inducing scenes that made me leave my seat. At the end of the day it's all about whether or not the film was worth the price of admission and I think The Descent was worth not only the price of admission, but is going to be worth the price of a DVD purchase several months in the future.

So, here are how the totals add up:
Acting: **1-2
Plot: ***
Cinematography: ****-1/2
Direction: ***-1/2
Entertainment Value: ***-1/2

We get the final total of ***-1/2 out of 5 for The Descent.

Running Scared

Running Scared (2006)
Starring: Paul Walker, Cameron Bright and Vera Farmiga
Directed by: Wayne Kramer
Rating: **1/2

One of the many (self-described) talents that I pride myself on in my small group of friends is being able to dissern wehther or not a film is going to be one that is going to be fairly decent or even one that I will find myself enjoying based purely on the trailer. Such is the case of the 2006 film Running Scared which I thought looked very cool and sylized from the trailers but ultimately looked like something that would be thin on plot and hard to sit through... something very similar to Domino which I saw for free and really just couldn't stand.

Well, thanks to the wonderful invention that is Netflix, I figured that I would give Running Scared a shot because I had heard so many good things about it from reviewers, imdb.com, and some of my own friends whose opinions I take in to consideration for relation to what I would like or dislike. I thought that maybe I had misjudged Running Scared and it was going to be one of those gems that I let slip through my fingers when it was in theatres like The Matrix or American Beauty... sadly, as I found myself watching the 2 hour and 2 minute mess of a movie that is Running Scared, I couldn't help but ask myself "Why?"

For those who may have forgot Running Scared's short commerical run, it is a very stylized film starring Paul Walker as Joey Gazelle as a small-time gangster and faithful family man (aren't they all?) who gets caught up in a case of misunderstanding with shades of a power grab when a gun that has quickly dispensed of several would-be criminals who actually turn out to be undercover cops needs to be tossed. Gazelle prepairs the gun to be disposed of as he comes home to his smoking hot wife Teresa (Vera Farmiga), 10-year-old son Nicky (Alex Neuberger), and his son's friend Oleg Yugorsky (Cameron Bright) for dinner.

Joey doesn't like Oleg, or rather, Joey doesn't like his son hanging around Oleg mostly because of his parents (John Nobel and Elizabeth Mitchell) who we find out are your typical disfunctional family of Russian immigrants where the mother is beaten on a regular basis by the father who sits and watches old John Wayne movies alone on the couch. Don't we all? Don't we all? Maybe the real tension is because the kingpin of the mob operation he's supposed to be covering for is headed up by Mr. Yugorsky's brother Anzor? Hmmmm. Quite a perdicament.

Well, it seems that Joey had a good reason to distrust his son's friend who, after leaving the Gazelle household, pulls a gun on his abusive father and proceeds to take him down... unfortunately for Joey, the gun little Oleg used on his father was the one he was supposed to ditch for his mob friends and with the cops involved, it'll be an easy connection to be made between the shooting of Mr. Yugorsky and the downing of half a dozen undercover narcotics officers earlier that day. This is all very bad for Joey, who, for the rest of the movie is forced to chase down a frightened Oleg across New Jersey and get the gun back in his possession before the cops... or worse, his bosses come looking for him.

Sounds like a pretty decent plot right? Well... it would be, if the movie could decide what it wants to be. It tries to be a gangster action flick, a moral parable, an urban fairytale and a plot twisting splatter-fest all at the same time never really picking one and ultimately left me with a bad taste in my mouth. But the movie does have some redeaming values and so, here's how I came up with my rating for Running Scared:

Acting: **

It's going to seem like I'm trashing on this movie for the first two categories, but it's just the luck of the draw that acting and plot are on the short end of the "good" things I can say about this movie.

As far as acting goes... there are a few bright spots with the two child actors, Cameron Bright and Alex Neuberger actually putting in some good performances give the subject material. It's almost sad that these two young actors with so few projects under their belts (minus some of the more recent work of Bright) that they can outshine veteran actors like Paul Walker and Karel Roden (who plays the mob boss Anzor Yugorsky). Walker and Roden both overact their parts and considering the big 'twist' at the end of the film (why does every film need a twist?) it all seems even more over the top and cheesy.

Plot: *-1/2

It should be pretty simple to come up with plot devices for a simple mob/chase movie right? Well apparently for Kramer, who also wrote the screenplay, he spent so much time perfecting the cool graphics that the plot was apparently thrown together by those tank dolphins that help write Family Guy episodes. That's what it seems like anyways... that Walker through plot ideas in to a hat and just pulled them out randomly and peiced them together and said "Bam! There's my script."

It's really too bad too, because there were some interesting concepts explored in the film (like the idea of an urban fairytale through the eyes of a scared child) that could have made a film in and of itself if they spent more time fleshing out the idea. Instead what you're left with is a mess of conveneant events which have gun being handed off across Jersey as Joey (who while having his heart in the right place, seems dumb as a brick) continually finds ways to track it down. Meanwhile you have the story of Oleg who, after basically ditches the gun 1/3 of the way through the film, is caught up in trying to hide from the police, or even worse, his father who survived the attack.

What makes the bulk of this movie so frustrating isn't the constant unbelievable series of events (I can suspend my disbelief for a film like this) but how utterly useless they end up being to the end result of the film. I mean come on... at least make the conveneant plot points have some kind of POINT to them if you're going to use them so carlessly. The film acts like it respects its audience enough to handle the subject matter but then slaps them in the face when it comes to wrapping up all the lose ends.

Special Effects/Cinematography: ****

Here we see where Kraymer spent a lot of his time. From the opening sequence to the credits, there is so much fantastic artistry in this film it's hard to take it all in at once. From the gun battle between the mobsters and undercover cops in a very Max Payne style to the black light hockey rink showdown between the mob factions trying to recover the stolen gun it's all very stylized and in my opinion well done.

The only issue I have with it is that no it seems very experimental and unfocused. Things like the Nosferatu-style shadow against the shower curtain when Oleg is trapped in the pedophiles' bathroom (don't ask) aren't really explained very well and seem to occur too quickly for people to really pick up. I don't expect a "trick" to be used constantly through out the film, but if you're going to open with the Max Payne style gun fight sequence, you have to keep giving the audience little tastes of that vision throughout the film instead of shooting that wad 3 more times over the span of 120 minutes.

Direction: **-1/2

I have to give Kraymer some credit for being able to make Paul Walker seem atleast half-way decent... but it would really help if the director had some direction too. It just seems like Kraymer is all over the place and I think he had a lot of good ideas but none of them really ever seemed to be used to their full potential.

Also, Kraymer needs to decide if he's going to respect his audience enough to handle the violent and disturbing subject matter or if he's going to make fools out of them by force-feeding them convenient plot points to keep the story moving to some bullshit Hollywood ending. It just reeks of bad choices and bad direction... and when that comes from a director, you know your film is in trouble.

Entertainment Value: ***-1/2

All negatives aside, for what this film is... it's actually not so bad from an entertainment perspective. It was easy to follow (up until the end) and you could really relate to Walker's character (up until the end) as the mobster who does what he does just so his family can have a better life. And as much as I made a point about the stupid plot, the mini-plots throughout the film, on their own at least, were interesting and really showed the underbelly of society against an overall plot of redemption and salvation.

Good vs. Evil is very apparent in this film, i just wish that idea was fleshed out more and made as distinct as it should have been for a film like this. Kraymer may have been going for the whole "shades of gray" P.O.V. here, but rather than mixing good and evil and having people decide what side Joey stood on, he just ended up having seperate cases of black and white they became dilluted but unmixed.

I really wanted to like this film, I really did, because I wanted to believe my friends that it wasn't such a bad film, but the more I think about it, the more I really dislike Running Scared just like Domino for promising to be a film I had always hoped for to mix a dark storyline with pretty graphics but ultimately fell short of its potential.

The one silver lining to this dark cloud would be that Kraymer's "urban fairytale" concept was something that I really really did enjoy and think it should be expanded on... possibly by Kraymer himself, but definately someone needs to do a good dark fairytale in the real world story with the awesome graphic capabilities film has now... so far all the attempts I've seen (Brother's Grimm, Running Scared, Lady in the Water) have fallen way way too short.

So with a star count of

Acting: **
Plot: *-1/2
Cinematography: ****
Direction: **-1/2
Entertainment Value: ***

We get the final total of **-1/2 out of 5 for Running Scared.